#chapter one hundred and ninety nine | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamwritesimagines · 3 months

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The Eye of the Hurricane [11] - Arrogance

A.N: Here’s the new chapter my loves! ❤️ Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback, you made my day! ❤️I hope you’ll like this chapter as well and please don’t forget to tell me what you think! ❤️

Summary: Engagement period is supposed to be romantic.

Word Count: 3300

Pairing: MobBoss!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Violence, death, guns, crime, blood, explicit language, drinking. This is an AU, friendly reminder that I don’t condone any of the actions depicted on this story and please read with care.

Series Masterlist

For the next couple of days, you barely had any time for yourself. It wasn’t as if you were naive enough to believe planning a wedding would be relaxing, but this?

This was something else.

“Can I just let you handle the whole thing?” you asked your wedding planner on the phone, leaning back on your seat while you kept your eyes on the people in the café and she let out a laugh.

“I mean don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your trust in me,” she said. “But you still need to choose among the things I send you, otherwise it’ll be like it's my wedding.”

“I don’t know, you strike me as a person who has good taste,” you said. “I might not be completely opposed to that idea.”

“Thanks but I already planned and had my wedding.”

“Right!” you said, snapping your fingers. “You said you were married to a professor, right?”

“Mm hm.”

“Was there like an open floor for discussions on your wedding?”

“Nah, more like an open bar,” she said. “And don’t try to distract me, my assistant sent you like one hundred emails.”

“I know, I know…” you muttered. “At least I decided on the place.”

“Yeah one down, ninety-nine to go,” she said. “Barnes weekend residence. We’re going there tomorrow right?”

“Yeah at 2 o’clock, it’s already on my calendar.”

“Great,” she said. “Answer my emails by then, please?”

“I will, talk to you later!” you said as you saw Ethan walk into the café and you waved at him after hanging up.

“Hey!” he said, coming to hug you when you stood up from your seat. “It’s been a while!”

“Hey yourself,” you said and pulled back from the hug to smile at him, then sat down when he did. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve been busy.”

“So I figured,” he said after ordering a coffee to the waiter who approached your table to take his order and you sat up straighter.

“How about you?” you said. “How is everything at the company?”

“Also pretty chaotic,” he said with a small smile. “I’ve been working overtime, a lot.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah!” he said. “Yeah it’s just…it’s a really big company that wants things done in a certain way.”

“Do you want me to send someone around so that they can talk to your boss?”

His eyes widened.

“I—you—” he stammered. “I’m— I’m honored but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” you asked, tilting your head. “If they’re giving you a hard time, it’s only fair if they have a hard time as well.”

He stared at you as the waiter put the cup of coffee in front of him, and then he cleared his throat.

“I’ll never get used to your lifestyle I think.”

“That’s a good thing,” you said with a small smile. “Please don’t.”

“So how about you?” he asked. “What have you been up to?”

You blinked a couple of times, nervousness churning your stomach before you took a sip of your coffee.

“That’s actually why I asked you here,” you muttered. “And I—I know it’s going to sound a bit rushed, but um…”

He pulled his brows together, his whole attention on you.

“What is it?” he asked and you swallowed thickly, then tried to smile.

“I’m getting married.”

He gawked at you for a couple of seconds in complete silence as if he wasn’t sure if he had heard you right while you just sat there, nibbling on your lip.

“You…you what?” he asked when he could pull himself together and you shrugged your shoulders.

“Getting married,” you said. “In a month, actually.”

“I wasn’t aware you were in a relationship—”

“I wasn’t,” you cut him off and a look of realization dawned on his face, making him pull back slightly.

“This is what we talked about all those years ago, isn’t it?” he asked. “Back at college. I asked you numerous times and you said no but in your world—”

“Don’t,” you interrupted him again. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You can say no,” he insisted and you sipped your coffee, reminding yourself to not let anything show on your face.

“What makes you think I want to say no?”

“You want to get married?” he asked with a dry laugh. “And to whom, if you don’t mind me ask?”

“Bucky Barnes.”

Ethan blinked a couple of times.

“…Bucky Barnes as in the guy you hate?”

“Things change,” you said calmly and he scoffed.

“Do they?” he asked. “So it’s a love marriage? Nothing to do with your family business?”

“To repeat, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your world—”

“Ethan, I don’t mean to be rude,” you said through your teeth. ��But if you genuinely believe that you know anything about my world, you’re fooling yourself.”

He pressed his lips together, then took a deep breath and pushed his chair back, your bodyguards sitting up straighter as if on cue but you held up a hand, gesturing at them to sit still. Ethan looked between you and the bodyguards, then let out a somber chuckle and put some cash on the table.

“For the coffee,” he said and you rolled your eyes at him.

“Ethan…”

“If they’re forcing you to do this—”

“Nobody is forcing me,” you told him, looking him in the eye and he nodded his head slowly.

“Then I guess congratulations on the wedding,” he said with a sad smile. “I’m not going to pretend I know anything about your world Y/N, I’m just…I’m just wondering what happened to the girl who told me she’d only marry for love, that’s all.”

With that, he walked out of the café and you gritted your teeth, then pressed your palms on your eyes, slouching in your chair.

“I killed her I guess,” you muttered to yourself and lowered your hands. “Occupational hazard and all.”

As you knocked on the door to Becca’s apartment, you could swear your head was about to explode from the headache pounding in your temples. You heaved a sigh and rubbed at your eyes, then heard the footsteps before the door opened.

“Oh hi Y/N!” Leila said. “It's great to see you, I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Sorry to bother you,” you said, offering her a smile. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all, come in!”

“Is Becca here?”

“Yeah!” she said as she stepped aside so that you could go in. “We were just watching—um, are you okay?”

“Not exactly,” you grumbled and made your way to the living room to see Becca sitting on the couch with the remote in her hand.

“Hey, I didn’t know—” she started but stopped talking when you flung yourself on the other couch across from hers, letting out a groan. You could hear Leila entering the living room as well and you raised your head from the pillow with a sigh.

“Do either of you have a painkiller?”

“Oh yeah, let me get it for you,” Leila said and rushed to the kitchen while you pulled yourself up into a sitting position, then hugged a pillow over your stomach.

“What’s going on?” Becca asked and you huffed out.

“Terrible day. Do you want to go out for drinks?”

“I’d love to but I have plans,” she said apologetically. “I’ll go out in like an hour.”

“What plans?”

“Uh…therapy,” she answered as Leila came back to the living room holding a glass of water and a pill.

“Thank you so much,” you said as you took them from her and she smiled at you, then went to sit beside Becca after you swallowed the pill and put the glass on the small coffee table.

“So?” Becca said. “What happened? Is it Bucky?”

“For once, nope.”

“Congratulations on the engagement by the way!” Leila said. “To be honest, I could kind of tell something was there even when you two kept arguing that night.”

You raised your brows and stole a look at Becca who shrugged her shoulders subtly. It wasn’t that you thought she would say anything to anyone about the real reason why you and Bucky were getting married, but she had fallen so head over heels in love with Leila that it took you by surprise that she hadn’t told her either.

But on a second thought, you knew you shouldn’t have been surprised. Not only would you trust Becca with your life, but Becca was also raised with the same rules as you and Bucky were, and secrets were almost sacred in your world.

“Thanks,” you said with a small smile. “It’s a bit rushed but when you know you know.”

“That’s so true,” Leila said, holding Becca’s hand and a cute blush spread over Becca’s cheeks, making you smile despite the headache.

“So it’s not Bucky then?” Becca asked and you massaged your temples.

“Ethan.”

“Oh I liked Ethan—” Leila started, but stopped when she saw the look on your face. “Or you know, I could also hate him if we hate him now, I don’t mind.”

“No no,” you said. “He’s sweet but um…I told him the news about the wedding and he understandably did not like it.”

“You two weren’t together though?”

“Eh, there was still something,” Becca said. “He likes you, a lot.”

“He thinks I’m being forced into this,” you said and Becca shot you a smile.

“As if anyone could force you into marrying my brother.”

“I mean it’s not the nineteenth century,” Leila pointed out and Becca let out a laugh.

“So, how heartbroken was he?”

“I wouldn’t say he was heartbroken,” you muttered. “Just angry I guess. And I get it, I haven’t been completely honest with him—” You were cut off when your phone started vibrating and you took a look at the screen, then pushed yourself off the couch.

“I’ll be right back,” you said and walked to Becca’s bedroom, then took the phone to your ear.

“Yeah?”

“Hey beautiful,” Bucky’s voice reached you and you sat down on Becca’s bed, fully aware that you were pouting your lips.

“Hey.”

“How’s your day going?”

“Meh,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. “What is it?”

“I just called to let you know we have a dinner reservation tonight,” he said. “I’ll pick you up from the hotel around 8?”

You made a face. “Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like your presence any more than you like mine,” you stated. “And it’ll be harder for me to ignore you in a restaurant if it’s just the two of us having dinner.”

“I mean, you do realize you don’t have to ignore me—”

“I know I don’t have to, it’s more of a hobby,” you said. “So? Why are you taking me out to dinner?”

“Because if we want people to believe it’s a love marriage rather than what it actually is, we need to be seen outside as a couple,” he said and you heaved a sigh, then ran a hand over your face.

“Right.”

“So then—”

“Yeah you can pick me up at 8,” you said and he paused for a second.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “You sound a bit…”

“Yeah I’m fine,” you said in a rush. “It’s just you know, this whole marriage thing—I’m fine. I’m great.”

“Very convincing,” he deadpanned and you scoffed a laugh.

“Just pick a nice restaurant, will you?” you asked and hung up before he could retort, then huffed out and got up from the bed to walk back to the living room to see Leila walking to the kitchen.

“So Becca has stuff to do but I figured we could drink and watch trash TV if you’d like?” she asked as soon as she saw you. “I can make mimosas.”

You blinked a couple of times and nodded fervently.

“That’d be great!” you said and she gave you a happy smile, then entered the kitchen. You smiled to yourself, then flung yourself next to Becca.

“I’ve changed my mind,” you said and Becca tilted her head.

“About what?”

“About what I said earlier,” you said. “You totally should propose and marry her, she’s amazing.”

Even you had to admit, the restaurants in Bucky’s territory were better than the ones in your father’s territory.

It was rather annoying but considering your house with him would of course be in his territory, at least you already knew you would get good food whenever you two went out for dinner. Bucky’s palm was warm on the small of your back and if it were any other time you would have slipped out of his grasp but you let him guide you to the restaurant.

“Mr. Barnes, it’s an honor,” A man greeted you two by the entrance. “Your table is ready, please follow me.”

You looked around the luxurious interior as you and Bucky made your way to your table, and a waiter pulled your chair for you to sit down. You took a quick look at the menu before ordering and Bucky just asked for his usual, and you watched the waiter walk away with the man.

“I don’t think I’ve been here before,” you told Bucky. “When did it open?”

“Around a year ago,” he said. “I like it here, it’s…private, mostly.”

You hummed while the waiter filled your glass with wine and you took a sip, enjoying the nice taste.

“So my dad called while I was getting ready,” you said. “Apparently he will talk to Stark sometime this week.”

“I have a pretty good guess about how that will go,” Bucky muttered and you bit inside your cheek.

“You think Stark will make things difficult?”

“I mean he’s not going to like it because two families uniting means a tremendous power in the city,” Bucky stated. “Let’s see how he reacts and plan accordingly.”

“Might have to sweettalk him,” you said. “Gift him a shipment or two. And Romanoff?”

“I’m meeting her tomorrow,” he said. “Steve will be there too, they’re old friends. Any stupid comments from Ian lately?”

“Nope. By the way I was going to ask you but I forgot—that night, when you and Ian were talking,” you said. “What did he tell you?”

Bucky scoffed before taking a sip of his wine.

“He was saying that you wanted to be an active player in the business,” he said with a small smile. “Just in case I didn’t know.”

You rolled your eyes. “Idiot.”

“But I don’t think he suspects anything.”

“No, he thinks the same as my dad,” you said with a dry laugh. “I get married and pop out a few babies and become a fucking Stepford Wife.”

Bucky shot you a grin, then his head shot up.

“Oh I almost forgot,” he said and took out a small velvet box out of his pocket, then put it on the table. You arched a brow.

“Is that the ring?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah you can take it back,” you said after sipping your wine. “I’ll go and check some jewelers tomorrow and get something pretty, they can send you the bill.”

He pulled his brows together. “You didn’t even look at it.”

“I don’t need to, I’ve seen the women you dated,” you pointed out. “Something tells me they didn’t educate you well about jewelry so there’s no need for—”

You stopped talking when he reached out to open the small box for you and your eyes fell upon the ring, the rest of your sentence getting stuck in your throat. The pear-shaped diamond on the delicate rose gold band was so pretty that for a couple of seconds you could only stare at it while it glimmered under the dim light of the restaurant, almost hypnotizing you before you remembered to pull yourself together.

It was definitely to your taste, as if…

“Becca helped you,” you managed to say as you reached out to take it into your hand and he nodded.

“Mm hm. Today.”

“Well played.”

Bucky gave you a proud smile, his piercing blue gaze almost too hot on your skin and you slipped the ring onto your finger, then held up your hand so that you could look at it better.

“It’s pretty,” you said. “I’m keeping it in the divorce by the way.”

He clutched as his chest. “Don’t be so romantic Charm, I’m going to get emotional.”

That made a laugh spill from your lips while the waiter brought your food, and you thanked him while Bucky leaned forward on his elbows as if he wasn’t even aware of anything else but you.

“Can I ask you something?”

“No.”

“How did you use to imagine it?”

You looked at him. “Imagine what?”

“Your engagement period, your wedding, you name it,” he said and you hummed, then leaned back.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Maybe we can make the wedding the way you pictured it,” he said and you scoffed a laugh.

“I doubt it,” you said. “When I pictured my wedding, I always pictured myself in love. There was this fairytale wedding, gorgeous wedding gown, we’d go to Paris for the honeymoon and he’d be reciting poetry about how much he was in love with me in bed.”

Bucky blinked a couple of times and cleared his throat.

“I’m not good with poetry.”

“Never thought you were,” you said. “Eh, maybe my second marriage will go the way I pictured it.”

That caused a shadow to cross his eyes but he recovered fast, sipping his drink.

“How about you?” you asked. “How did you use to imagine your second marriage?”

He tilted his head. “What happened to my first marriage?”

“I’m glad you asked,” you said, pointing at him with your fork. “Funny story. You knocked her up and you guys decided to keep it because you got emotional and it would be your first heir, so you two ended up getting married in a rush and named that baby your actual heir.”

An amused smile curled his lips. “Interesting. Go on.”

“But after the baby, that marriage turned into one full of resentment and then you decided it was a good idea to fuck your secretary.”

“So I live in a porn scenario?” he asked and you nodded.

“Pretty much. Then your wife left you, took away all your things—”

“I don’t have a prenup?”

You shook your head. “Nope.”

“Impossible.”

“You don’t exactly have a prenup with me.”

He winked at you. “Maybe I trust you.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” you retorted, making him chuckle. “But yeah, your first wife divorced you. Sorry you had to find out this way.”

“It was good while it lasted, I’m sure.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure, she hates you,” you said airily. “Rightfully, that is. Then you meet your second wife who definitely deserves better than you, but by some miracle she stays with you.”

“Thanks a lot, she sounds amazing.”

“Right?” you said. “There you go. Your two marriages.”

“Very creative,” he pointed out. “Do I recite poetry to her in this scenario?”

“Yes but you also have performance problems so romance makes up for it, in a way,” you stated and he smirked.

“You seem to put a lot of thought into my performance, pillow princess.”

Your jaw dropped as you gasped. “Wh—how dare—you don’t even—”

“Please,” he said. “You dream of a guy reciting poetry to you on your honeymoon.”

You could feel your cheeks burning as you glared daggers at him.

“Shut up,” you grumbled, making him smirk.

“That being said, you have nothing to worry about my performance.”

You rolled your eyes at him while you chewed on your bite, then swallowed it.

“See Bucky, this is exactly why when I divorce you, I’m keeping the ring and the weekend house,” you pointed at him with your fork, coaxing a chuckle out of him. “You’re too arrogant for your own good.”

Chapter 12

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #mob!bucky barnes #mob! bucky #mob!bucky x reader #mob!bucky #mafia!bucky barnes #mafia bucky barnes #mafia!bucky barnes x reader #mafia bucky x reader #mafia!bucky #mob bucky barnes #mob bucky #mob boss!bucky #mob bucky x reader #mob boss bucky barnes #mob!au #mob au

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noonaishere · 7 months

Text

Online/Offline [Choi San] - Masterlist

By: noonaishere (main blog: symphonyofmars)

Fic type: social media au / traditional

Pairing: San x fem!reader

Genre: cafe setting, streamer, strangers to lovers, mutual pining, male lead secrets

Warnings: stalking, verbal abuse, online harassment, attempted kidnapping, “honey trap”, drinking

Status: Currently updating

Updates: Mondays and Tuesdays at 12pm EST

Synchronously posted with Music of the Heart (any asterisked (*) chapters means they’re shared between both fics)

[intro post explaining y/n and t/n]

SYNOPSIS:

Y/n has been a faceless streamer since she was 17 or 18 and - even though she’s friends with an idol from a popular group - no one knows who she is. Things start to go wrong when someone posts a picture in front of her old job and she makes the move from her hometown to Seoul. What will happen when she makes a whole bunch of new friends at the nearby cafe?

Also, how does y/n’s existence connect to t/n, someone she’s never met?

🧋 main cast

Chapters:

🧋 Prologue | the inciting incident

🧋 one | The Unofficial JGG Steam Rundown

🧋 two | fried chicken and baby pictures

🧋 three | one week later

🧋 four | what’s the wifi?

🧋 five | a job would be nice

🧋 six | students, please pay attention in class

🧋 seven | above minimum wage. like, *way* above

🧋 eight | trimming the fat

🧋 nine | screep screep goddamn!

🧋 ten | F, senpai

🧋 eleven | QUITE the face journey

🧋 twelve | welcome to AtoZ café

🧋 thirteen | she definitely used to be a barista

🧋 fourteen | commit to the bit

🧋 fifteen | *heartlessly*

🧋 sixteen | our beautiful boy

🧋 seventeen | bean boyz / shadow beanz

🧋 eighteen | were they in a drama or something?

🧋 nineteen | how are the fields this year?

🧋 twenty | the devil was an angel too, before he fell

🧋 twenty-one | busy bees send emails

🧋 twenty-two | leroyyyyy jenkins!

🧋 twenty-three | bean babez

🧋 twenty-four | a car? in this economy?

🧋 twenty-five | can I pick her up? can I tell her I love her? will she get mad?

🧋 twenty-six | get thee to a nunnery, wench

🧋 twenty-seven | like a dumbass

🧋 twenty-eight | double high five

🧋 twenty-nine | “just mix them up”

🧋 thirty | a loudmouth with no sense of self preservation

🧋 thirty-one | stephen from canada

🧋 thirty-two | because…

🧋 thirty-three | i think he’s just nice, that’s all

🧋 thirty-four | you’re both Too Nice

🧋 thirty-five | you really do need a vacation

🧋 thirty-six | petition to have cat kicked from the discord

🧋 thirty-seven | stream CALLiSTO everyone

🧋 thirty-eight | what’s your channel name?

🧋 thirty-nine | she’s the streamer

🧋 forty | we can’t keep meeting like this

🧋 forty-one | “family drama”

🧋 forty-two | meet the morn

🧋 forty-three | feline photoshoot

🧋 forty-four | caturday

🧋 forty-five | 1-800-CALL-A-BITCH

🧋 forty-six | intelligent pants

🧋 forty-seven | one cheeks, two cheeks…

🧋 forty-eight | today’s prize is: Cash!

🧋 forty-nine | can someone please come to the counter?

🧋 fifty | matching socks

🧋 fifty-one | the byeol of ones and zeros

🧋 fifty-two | explaining ninja warrior

🧋 fifty-three | halfway there

🧋 fifty-four | stalkerly actions

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🧋 ninety-seven* |

🧋 ninety-eight* |

🧋 ninety-nine* |

🧋 one hundred* |

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🧋 one hundred and two |

🧋 one hundred and three | I

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🧋 one hundred and eleven* |

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🧋 one hundred and fourteen* |

🧋 one hundred and fifteen* |

🧋 one hundred and sixteen |

🧋 one hundred and seventeen* |

Epilogue 1

Epilogue 2

Epilogue 3

Epilogue 4

Epilogue 5

Send an ask or leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list! 🧋

#San #Choi San #Ateez #Ateez smau #Ateez fic #Ateez au #cafe au #streamer au #fake dating #reader fic #ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ/ᴏғғʟɪɴᴇ

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narrans · 20 days

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My Borrowed Son | 20 | Crush(ed)

Chapter Twenty | Crush(ed)

“No! It’s because you’re a nerd and know way too much about space,” teased Selina. Both she and Parker were howling with laughter after an in-depth conversation about space and the different elements of it.

Space. Stars. Comets. Black holes. Meteors and meteorites.

Everything Selina had a question about, Parker had an answer for, which naturally led to her teasing him. They had spent the past few hours going back and forth in discussion, playfully talking and teasing one another the entire time.

And this wasn’t the first time they’d spent most of a Saturday morning talking well into the afternoon and sometimes evening. For the past few months, the two of them could be found talking to one another either on discord or through messaging apps.

For Parker, it was a good distraction from the past few weeks during his relative obsession with the mysterious drill bit and the odd shadow he thought he saw when his eyes were playing tricks on him. Just last week, he even dared to venture into the walls and explore that mysterious space between the drywall and the supporting beams that made up his home.

He didn’t find anything, not that he thought he would, but there was still some odd sensation lingering in his chest that there was something that he was missing.

“I mean, seriously!” grinned Selina as she leaned forward toward her webcam. Parker snapped back to the conversation and kept his mind from wandering any further into the unknown. “Why do you know that there are almost ten thousand satellites orbiting Earth right now?”

“Nine thousand, four hundred, ninety-four active satellites. Let’s be precise,” grinned Parker.

“Oh what-ev-er!” Selina giggled. “What I want to know is how you managed to steer the conversation into space when we were talking about our upcoming Mario Kart tournament.”

Parker, grinning from ear to ear, felt his cheeks pinken as he looked up into the camera, imagining looking into Selina’s eyes instead of the cold lens that was in front of him.

“Well, you know there are a lot of different themes and arenas to choose from when playing Mario Kart and we were trying to decide which one would be the best. I think that the space themed one would be best,” pointed out Parker.

Somehow, the room was feeling a tad warm, and Parker was feeling nervous and giddy. It was like butterflies were swirling around in his chest. What was this feeling?

“I know, but there are a dozen other designs we could go with. There’s the original and the rainbow road. I love the rainbow road!” moaned Selina playfully. Parker chuckled and shook his head.

“We always do rainbow road. We need to mix things up a bit. Come on! We need to make a decision to send out in the group text today,” said Parker. He reached up and ruffled his hair, noticing that the length was starting to get a tad long and that his mom was probably going to notice any day now.

“Oh, don’t be a spoil sport,” Selina teased. “Why don’t you come on! We need to celebrate! We just finished finals. You, as usual, were in the top three – ya’ nerd – but I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

Parker’s cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. It was true. The finals went off without a hitch and Parker found his scores near the top of his peers, which was significant considering he was in the advanced classes with kids who were a little bit older than himself. The scores, for Parker, were a tad bittersweet.

On one hand, being part of the top meant that Parker was on a lot of honors emails and celebrations and shout-outs. It looked really good for his transcripts, especially since he was already considering specialized high schools and college programs that accepted students who were much younger than the average student.

Parker considered himself fortunate enough that his mother wasn’t pressuring him into any particular program. She wanted him to be happy, but the one thing that would really make Parker happy came with the bitter part of the bittersweet.

A lot of those accolades and awards came with get-togethers and parties – none of which Parker could attend except virtually.

It wasn’t the same.

Parker wanted to be able to go to these parties. He wanted to see his friends in person. He had known a lot of these people for three years and he had never met them face to face. Even the upcoming Mario Kart tournament was going to be in-person at his friend Bailey’s house, but everyone but Parker would be able to show up.

“Parker?”

“Hm?... oh… yeah,” stammered Parker as he found focus back on the conversation. He remembered Selina calling him a nerd after talking about finishing finals and not expecting anything less from him. “I am a bit of a nerd.”

Selina eyed Parker through the camera and leaned forward, those hypnotic eyes capturing Parker’s attention. He squirmed under her gaze. It was like she could see straight through him. If he wasn’t sure she didn’t know about his size, he would say that she guessed it simply because of this one look.

“Parker? Are you okay?” asked Selina. It was a question Parker didn’t care for recently. He wanted to answer honestly – which was no. No, he didn’t feel okay. Everything in his body was hurting and aching randomly. He didn’t feel comfortable in his own frame, and that was coming from him and his proud nearly four inches. His dreams had been odd recently. He was so spooked because he thought he saw a shadow that he literally ventured into the walls to find out if he was crazy.

But how could he articulate it? How could he get Selina to understand?

“Bummed about not coming to the party?” Selina’s prompting question brought a whole new level to Parker’s mental scramble, so he decided to go with that being the main reason.

“Yeah, a bit,” mumbled Parker. “But it’s okay. I’ll be able to call in through Discord.”

Selina rolled her eyes, which was a classic Selina move, and shook her head.

“I still can’t believe you put up with that,” she grumbled. This comment took Parker aback just a bit, and it wasn’t like him to just leave it alone. He decided to ask for clarification.

“Put up with that?” Parker asked. Selina gave an animated shrug and flared her fingers as if to say “duh.”

“Yeah, constantly being on lockdown. You talk about you having some weird condition that makes you fragile, but you don’t seem all that fragile to me. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Can’t you ask your mom to let you come just this once?” said Selina. Her tone took on a weird combination of whining and pleading.

The familiar disappointing sensation crept over Parker, making his chest feel tight, as he solemnly shook his head.

“Selina, I can’t. I mean, I could ask my mom, but… my condition… I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Parker.

“But why?” insisted Selina.

“Selina…”

“What? You’ve never really given a straight answer.”

“Because not everyone would be careful with me,” said Parker, for the first time raising his voice in frustration. He hoped Selina would drop the issue, but the determined look in her eye said otherwise. In fact, she looked terse and frustrated.

“Well… I’d be careful with you….” Selina grumbled. “And what does that even mean? Careful with you? Parker, I hope you know I’d never hurt you. I… I really like you…”

Parker’s world came to a complete stop hearing Selina’s words.

Like? Like him?

As in… she had a crush on him?

It would absolutely make sense. It would explain Selina’s behavior recently. She was very complementary. She was giddy and giggling most of the time. It reminded Parker of the romantic comedies that his mom liked to watch from time to time.

Parker remembered his mom talking to him about how things would be changing and the odd question of whether or not he liked any of his classmates. Only now did the teen realize this is what she meant.

Taken aback, Parker felt himself stammer, “L-like? Me?” before he could even stop himself. Selina, now blushing a bright pink, nodded bashfully.

“Yeah. I really like you, and I was hoping you would go with me to the party as my boyfriend.”

Parker’s head swirled. His heart was going to burst out of his chest. Everything was tingling inside of him. His insides actually felt like they were filled with butterflies now.

“I… you mean it?” asked Parker. Selina glanced up at the camera and bit her lower lip, which made Parker feel his heart begin to race, as she nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean it. So? Will you be my boyfriend?” asked Selina. Parker took in a couple nervous breaths. He thought about how Selina made him feel and how he felt excited and jittery when they were talking.

Was this love?

Parker wasn’t sure, but he knew he did like Selina.

“Well… yeah. Let’s do it,” grinned Parker. Both of them couldn’t stop smiling as they continued to glance nervously at one another through the camera. The young teen felt at a loss for words, but less than a minute had passed when Selina broke the silence.

“Great! Now, as my boyfriend, you have to tell me everything about you. Do I even know your favorite color? Oh, that’s right! It’s green. Like dark green. Okay. Got that. Um… yeah! So, tell me more about your mom. No. Wait. I can ask her when I meet her. Um… let’s see… Oh! I’ve got it!

“Since you’re my boyfriend and you always have to tell the truth to whatever question I ask, tell me more about your condition. Like, what makes you fragile? And you have to ask your mom – no, tell your mom that you’re going to the party.” Selina spouted off everything so fast that Parker’s head was starting to spin.

Some of what Selina said made a bit of sense. Honesty was a good policy, according to his mom, but he had never opened up to anyone about the specifics of his condition. Parker had always been secretive simply because he knew his condition was rare and that things were odd surrounding it.

It was now that the same sensation crept over him that kept him guarded. It was the same sensation that made Parker shy away from his mom’s hand and the feeling that led him into the walls.

For one reason or another, Parker’s instinct was to keep his condition a secret – and that’s what he did.

“Um… well… I… don’t know what else there is to say about it other than what I’ve told you,” said Parker, realizing how lame he sounded after the words came out of him. The look Selina gave him only confirmed that he was in trouble.

“Parker, we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. You can trust me with this. Don’t you trust me?” Selina bristled.

Parker felt taken aback and defensive all of a sudden. He’d never come across something like this before. He felt hollow and nervous, but also a bit angry.

Why was this an issue now? She’d never wanted to know before, so why was there additional pressure now?

“Selina, I do trust you. It’s just… there’s nothing else to tell,” urged Parker. He felt the same sensation creep over him as he kept his condition a secret – and it was one of reassurance. For whatever reason, Parker knew he was doing the right thing not saying anything else other than what his mom trained him to say.

Selina tossed her hair and folded her arms before retorting, “I don’t believe you. I don’t think you’re telling me the truth. If I were Bailey, I’d bet you’d tell. You two are sooo close.”

“Bailey? What does Bailey have to do with this? And of course we’re close. We’re best friends. Why are you bringing her into this? We were just talking about the get-together,” asked Parker, meaning to ask this to himself instead of out loud, but there was no retracting his words now.

“Oh, I don’t know. What does she have to do with this? Does she know? Would you tell her more if she asked,” accused Selina.

Disbelievingly, Parker shook his head as it began to swirl. “Selina, Bailey doesn’t have anything to do with this. She knows just as much as you do, which is what all of my friends know about me. I’m just a bit fragile and different. That’s all.”

What is happening? Where is this coming from?

“Parker, I can’t accept this. If you don’t tell me, I’m breaking up with you,” threatened Selina.

Parker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Breaking up? They were barely together? Was this how all girls were?

He knew he liked Selina, but he wasn’t sure if he liked her in the same way. Sure, he enjoyed their time together, but all of this was really sudden.

Not only that, but Parker inevitably knew that his condition was something that Selina would have to deal with. He knew the lengths his mom went to in order to help him. Was that something Selina would be up to? Did he dare disclose his condition in full to save this five minute long relationship?

A million things hit him all at once, both for the immediate situation in front of him and for a future he felt like he was too young to comprehend.

He bit his lip as he felt himself crushed under the weight of what Selina just said. It was a lot – possibly too much – for right now. As much as he liked Selina, Parker wasn’t sure if he was ready to tell her everything.

Parker made his decision.

Between his instinct of keeping his height and condition close to his chest and Selina’s sudden erratic behavior, he knew what needed to happen.

“I… I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else to tell,” said Parker. Selina rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of that. Goodbye Parker. Have fun telling your girlfriend Bailey the same thing and see how she reacts. Next time a girl wants you to open up, maybe you should listen.” With that, the call was cut.

Parker, dazed and confused, felt like he had been punched in the gut repeatedly. He hoped he didn’t just lose his friend, and he hoped that none of his other friends were feeling the same way Selina was. If they were just as frustrated with Parker’s lack of additional explanation about his condition as Selina was, he would be friendless by the start of the party.

Chest heavy and sad, Parker closed down his computer, slunk over to his bed, and flopped down on the squashy mattress. He stared at the ceiling for several minutes as he contemplated everything that just happened.

Curses…

Yet another thing he would never be able to do face to face…

Why?

Why him?

Why was he so different?

And would he ever find that true sense of belonging?

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

Continue

Beginning

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todaysdocument · 6 days

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American Red Cross - Groups - Colored Auxiliary of Bakersfield Chapter, Bakersfield, California

Record Group 165: Records of the War Department General and Special StaffsSeries: American Unofficial Collection of World War I PhotographsFile Unit: American Red Cross - Groups

Original caption: NUMBER AU American Red Cross PHOTOGRAPHER 165-WW 58 A 43 REC'D 5-23-19 DESCRIPTION: COLORED AUXILIARY OF BAKERSFIELD CHAPTER,BAKERSFIELD,CALIFORNIA. ISSUED: S February the Twelfth One thousand Seven hundred and ninety three" and as in duty bound, &c. Margaret S. Gittings Witness John Hanan

This black and white photograph is mounted on a card. It shows nine people standing in a chevron formation on steps. Six are nurses, in long dresses and long veils of early 20th century nurses. Two men stand in the back in suits and hats, with Red Cross armbands on their sleeves. A woman in a dark ladies suit with a large brimmed hat stands on the top step. Behind them you can see a large stone building.

#archivesgov #may 23 #1919 #red cross #nurses #bakersfield #world war i #wwi

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mlbigbang · 1 year

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2022 Marichat Fic Rec List

It's the end of the year which means it's finally time for the ML Big Bang's yearly fic rec lists! We're really excited to bring you our contributors' favourite fics from this year to supply you with plenty of reading material while you're waiting for the Big Bang fics' publication in January.

Asking the important questions by @ultrakart 1,397 words, General, 1/1 chapter

After having returned home from Shanghai, Marinette and Chat Noir have some important questions for each other.

"Platonic Marichat shenanigans, resoundingly reminiscent of canon in the absolute best way."

final girl by @picayunearts 41,310 words, Teen, 10/10 chapters

Marinette has ninety-nine problems, and the superhero trio of Paris counts for a hundred. [AU where Marinette follows through on giving up her earrings after Stoneheart, but becomes the Guardian to protect her replacement.]

"This one floored me. Characterization is on point. I love the premise of Marinette giving up the miraculous and being guardian. Wonderfully executed in my opinion. And the writing. THE WRITING. :chefskiss:"

"Another amazing au. I love the take on "Marinette gives up on being Ladybug" and teh way it's written is chef's kiss."

Everything's Not Fine by @flightfoot 976 words, Teen, 1/1 chapter

"Why’s mother down here? What- what is this?” “Still committing to the bit?” Gabriel snorted. “Really now, I thought you were smarter than that. Adrien was compelled to obey the order Nathalie gave via his amok - you would not have been.” “My WHAT?!” -------------- After the events of Risk, Adrien makes his way down to his father's secret lair. Gabriel catches him. Unfortunately, he cares even less about Felix than he does about Adrien.

"An alternative follow-up to 'Strike Back' that packs twist after twist after twist into a very short space, leaving you a little breathless as you read it and sorry that it didn't happen this way in the show."

The Dating App by leadernovaandthemacabre 14,960 words, Teen, 1/1 chapter

Chat Noir and Marinette cross paths on Paris’ newest dating app and keep crossing paths until secrets slip. - [MDC]: why are you here [OfficialChatNoir]: we matched! shall we go out for sweethearts ice cream? [MDC]: i’m blocking you [OfficialChatNoir]: wait wait marinette wait *[MDC] has blocked you*

"I loved the bonding between these too and how naturally everything flowed and how open they became with each other and aaaaa"

NSFW works

Patient is the night by @mostlymoony 72,243 words, Mature, 31/31 chapters

Beware the Cat Knight, he demands a price For this fallen prince, gold shall not suffice Fear the Cat Knight, as he trades life for life Cry pretty girls, for the cat needs a wife. When Marinette's small farming town is attacked by Hawkmoth's army of night creatures, Marinette rides for the dread Butterfly Castle, seeking aid from the mysterious Black Cat Knight and his band of masked fighters. She's determined to save her town, even if that means handing herself over to a strange man with wild, green eyes and a penchant for cat-related puns. There will be smut, and this is my first time writing smut. I'm so sorry.

"Such a good gothic romance/fairy tale vibe to it and I just found the plot/progression very enjoyable. The magic and world building is unique and vague enough to make it important but not overwhelming. They also made some great artwork for it!"

Pink Really is Your Color by @inkmousey 2,811 words, Explicit, 1/1 chapter

Marinette really hates that dumb Cat. Until he's pressing her against a wall and making her forget Adrien Agreste ever existed.

"It's amazing!!! So very amazing and it has a great dynamic that's great for Marichat!"

I’d Never Forget About You by @inkmousey 3,400 words, Explicit, 1/1 chapter

Adrien thinks everyone forgot about him on his birthday, and by everyone— he means the only person who ever remembers it anyway, Marinette.

"MariBlanc is such an interesting pairing and the fic handles them so amazingly!!!"

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #marichat #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chat noir #ml fic recs #fic recs #ml big bang #ml big bang 2022

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batfam-fanfics · 28 days

Text

The Sunset Left You Feeling Colder by GoldfishForHire

1 Chapter - 4994 words

Attempt Ninety Eight Unsuccessful Attempt Ninety Nine Unsuccessful

Tim promised to stop the cloning attempts.

Attempt One Hundred Twenty Unsuccessful Attempt One Hundred Twenty One Unsuccessful

Well, he never actually said 'Promise'.

Attempt One Hundred Twenty Three Unsuccessful Attempt One Hundred Twenty Four Successful

Well. Damn.

#tim drake #timkon #clone baby au #cassie sandsmark #kon el #conner kent #dick grayson #bruce wayne #fic rec #batfam fic rec #fanfiction recommendation #batfamily fic rec #oneshot

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maccreadysbaby · 7 months

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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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tirkdi · 19 days

Note

For the DVD commentary:

A century in, she began to worry.

It had been some time now since anyone but the two of them had a personal memory of the Black Heretic. She had hoped that the distance would allow him to regain some of his interest, some of his intensity, but if anything, it was the opposite.

"Still no Ilya." He made the observation sound tired, rehearsed. He spoke Suli, because he knew the oprichniki did not. "I made the Shadow Fold a hundred years ago, and there’s still no Ilya. Do you think he figured out how to die?"

"I know why you’re asking."

"Are you going to answer?"

A fish jumped in the lake beside them, shattering the reflection of light on the pond. "Are you still scared of me?" he asked.

Damn her mouth and his memory. She sighed. "I’m scared for you. You’re waiting for something we may never find."

"Never is a very long time."

"I don’t need a lecture on eternity, boy."

A hint of a smile played on his lips. "It’s a long while since I’ve been a boy, Madraya."

"Then maybe you need the reminder."

He didn’t respond, and they walked the path together in silence, the scrape of pebbles beneath their feet the only sounds. Even the oprichniki moved quietly, conserving energy in the midday heat.

She looked in the direction her son indicated, the leaves on the trees unmoving without a hint of breeze. "Still working on your penance," she observed.

"My what?"

"Penance," she repeated. "For the Fold." Baghra had long since realized that life was cyclical for a reason – the straight line of immortality broke too many tethers to the world, made it impossible to keep one’s center. Without the threat of death, a practice of repair was the only thing that could bring one back into alignment with others, with nature. Wasn’t that repair why she was at the Little Palace in the first place?

"Penance." He rolled the word in his mouth as if he’d never heard it before. "That’s one idea, I suppose."

I briefly futzed around with the idea of this chapter being from Aleksander's point of view, and then I realized it would be so, so boring. I did not want to write 400 years of the type of depression going on in his head and you did not want to read it. It's not like Baghra is doing great at this point, either, but at least she's got coping mechanisms (shitty ones, but still!) So here we are. Bold is my commentary. *

A century in, she began to worry. Another one for 'mom of the millennium' award. She waited a century before she started worrying. "It's just a phase," she told herself, years one through ninety-nine.

She walked the lake beside him, the noon sun hot above. The grass was summer-green and unmoving – no natural wind to stir it, no Squallers to disrupt the stillness. The Grisha who would normally be training or playing around by the water were inside the Little Palace, avoiding the heat, but heat had never bothered either her or her son. Not after spending so many, many cold years. I don't go deep into this headcanon but I definitely believe that Baghra & Aleksander are sensitive to cold but not heat. There's a reason that Baghra keeps the fire going all the time, and though I think it's partly religious/superstition, I think a lot of it is just straight up trauma.

The two of them walked the gravel path by the lake, the Little Palace behind them, rolling hills in front. The oprichniki the Tsar had given him for protection – spies, more like – kept the perimeter at a healthy distance. I deeply, genuinely believe that the oprichniki were the Tsars' attempts at spies post-Shadowfold. Why on earth would the most powerful Grisha need protection -- and why would he need otkazats'ya protection? Genya was not the first spy between the palaces!! Aleksander was just better at getting his spies to be loyal to and side with him than the Lantsovs were.

"Still no Ilya." He made the observation sound tired, rehearsed. He spoke Suli, because he knew the oprichniki did not. Spiesssssssss. "I made the Shadow Fold a hundred years ago, and there’s still no Ilya. This is the sort of thing that should bring Saints out of the woodwork, don't you think? Every disaster is an opportunity, etc. Do you think he figured out how to die?"

"I know why you’re asking." Because he wants to die, too.

"Are you going to answer?" This is almost a 'do you love me enough to help me die' question.

She chanced a glance up at his face, the clench of his jaw. She wouldn’t push him on this farther now. "Do I think he figured out how to die? Perhaps," she admitted. Perhaps he had been too Grisha to die, or perhaps he had been just Grisha enough. Not unnatural they way she was. The way he was. Here we have the beginnings of Baghra acknowledging that maybe she and her son are not Grisha at all, or were Grisha of a different type. Her powerful father might not have had the same immortality. And then, because she remembered the decades when her son had asked question after question about her life, about her wants, she added: "I like to think he would have found me hadn’t." She thinks he'll snap out of his century-long depression if she shares one (1) personal fact.

A fish jumped in the lake beside them, shattering the reflection of light on the pond. "Are you still scared of me?" he asked.

Damn her mouth and his memory. She sighed. So annoying when your son remembers that you almost said you loved him. "I’m scared for you. You’re waiting for something we may never find."

"Never is a very long time." A line he uses with both his mom and Alina.

"I don’t need a lecture on eternity, boy."

A hint of a smile played on his lips. "It’s a long while since I’ve been a boy, Madraya." Legit, can you imagine being four hundred and your mom calls you boy. You are three hundred years older than everyone else other than her and she's all "You'll always be my baby (derogatory)"

"Then maybe you need the reminder." I don't think he's forgotten what his childhood was like, Baghra, but thanks.

He didn’t respond, and they walked the path together in silence, the scrape of pebbles beneath their feet the only sounds. Even the oprichniki moved quietly, conserving energy in the midday heat.

"We’ll be expanding the grounds of the Little Palace," he said, gesturing to a hill beside them. "Our expeditions to find Grisha children in other countries and bring them to safety have been increasingly fruitful. We’re going to need more space." There's so little about the intervening years! I assume he had parties going into other countries and getting Grisha out of there on the reg.

She looked in the direction her son indicated, the leaves on the trees unmoving without a hint of breeze. "Still working on your penance," she observed.

"My what?" Penance? I don't know her.

"Penance," she repeated. "For the Fold." I was so curious in the trilogy when he says "Redemption. Salvation. Penance. My mother's quaint ideas." what their conversations about those must have been like. So here's one.

Baghra had long since realized that life was cyclical for a reason – the straight line of immortality broke too many tethers to the world, made it impossible to keep one’s center. Without the threat of death, a practice of repair was the only thing that could bring one back into alignment with others, with nature. Wasn’t that repair why she was at the Little Palace in the first place? There's a lot made of Baghra's shift in perspective from DiTW to TGT, and also what her religious beliefs really are. This is my attempt at a quick explanation for that – it's more pragmatic than religious, though it's not dissimilar to some religious practices. Here she's really trying to help her son.

"Penance." He rolled the word in his mouth as if he’d never heard it before. This guy, man. "That’s one idea, I suppose."

#thank you this was a fun one!#dvd commentary #a hundred lifetimes ago #an ask #jammerific

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istumpysk · 1 year

Text

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: The Iron Suitor (Victarion I) [Chapter 56]

My little dumbbell! 🥰

Nine-and-ninety ships had left the Stepstones in three proud fleets, with orders to join up again off the southern tip of the Isle of Cedars. Forty-five had now arrived on the far side of the world. Twenty-two of Victarion's own had straggled in, by threes and fours, sometimes alone; fourteen of Ralf the Limper's; only nine of those that had sailed with Red Ralf Stonehouse. Red Ralf himself was amongst the missing. To their number the fleet had added nine new prizes taken on the seas, so the sum was fifty-four … but the captured ships were cogs and fishing boats, merchantmen and slavers, not warships. In battle, they would be poor substitutes for the lost ships of the Iron Fleet.

So we can all be on the same page, our champion with the missing fleet is here:

So close! You're doing amazing, sweetie.

+.+.+

"Storms," Ralf the Limper had muttered when he came crawling to Victarion. "Three big storms, and foul winds between. Red winds out of Valyria that smelled of ash and brimstone, and black winds that drove us toward that blighted shore. This voyage was cursed from the first. The Crow's Eye fears you, my lord, why else send you so far away? He does not mean for us to return."

It's always three storms.

Not sure I agree with Ralf the Limper's conclusion, but I do question why Euron has sent Victarion to do this. Gave up that fancy horn and everything.

+.+.+

Victarion had thought the same when he met the first storm a day out of Old Volantis. The gods hate kinslayers, he brooded, elsewise Euron Crow's Eye would have died a dozen deaths by my hand.

Here we go again.

Wait until Vicky hears R'hllor loves kinslayers.

+.+.+

"More ships will come. The storms are done for now. I will have my fleet."

A monkey on the mast above howled derision, almost as if it could taste his frustration. Filthy, noisy beast. He could send a man up after it, but the monkeys seemed to like that game and had proved themselves more agile than his crew. The howls rang in his ears, though, and made the throbbing in his hand seem worse.

The monkeys remind me of Statler and Waldorf.

+.+.+

Would that we had the Damphair with us, or some other priest. Victarion had made sacrifice before setting sail, and again in the Stepstones when he split the fleet in three, but perhaps he had said the wrong prayers. That, or the Drowned God has no power here. More and more, he had come to fear that they had sailed too far, into strange seas where even the gods were queer … but such doubts he confided only to his dusky woman, who had no tongue to repeat them.

+.+.+

"Aye. And ten days might mean ten ships, or none at all. We have squandered too many days waiting on the sight of sails. Our victory will be that much the sweeter if we win it with a smaller fleet." And I must needs reach the dragon queen before the Volantenes.

Do you see how heroic he is?

+.+.+

In Volantis he had seen the galleys taking on provisions. The whole city had seemed drunk. Sailors and soldiers and tinkers had been observed dancing in the streets with nobles and fat merchants, and in every inn and winesink cups were being raised to the new triarchs. All the talk had been of the gold and gems and slaves that would flood into Volantis once the dragon queen was dead. One day of such reports was all that Victarion Greyjoy could stomach; he paid the gold price for food and water, though it shamed him, and took his ships back out to sea.

Do you see what a feminist ally he is?

+.+.+

If the Storm God spared them, by now they could be in the Gulf of Grief. Three hundred ships, perhaps as many as five hundred. Their allies were already off Meereen: Yunkishmen and Astapors, men from New Ghis and Qarth and Tolos and the Storm God knew where else, even Meereen's own warships, the ones that fled the city before its fall. Against all that, Victarion had four-and-fifty. Three-and-fifty, less the Shark.

Do you see how fearless he is?

+.+.+

The Crow's Eye had sailed halfway across the world, reaving and plundering from Qarth to Tall Trees Town, calling at unholy ports beyond where only madmen went. Euron had even braved the Smoking Sea and lived to tell of it. And that with only one ship. If he can mock the gods, so can I.

*cough* bullshit *cough*

A smile played across Euron's blue lips. "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria."

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. It was said that any sailor who so much as glimpsed the fiery mountains of Valyria rising above the waves would soon die a dreadful death, yet the Crow's Eye had been there, and returned.

"Have you?" the Reader asked, so softly.

Euron's blue smile vanished. "Reader," he said into the quiet, "you would do well to keep your nose in your books." - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

"Is it still to be Meereen?"

"Where else? The dragon queen awaits me in Meereen." The fairest woman in the world if my brother could be believed. Her hair is silver-gold, her eyes are amethysts.

Was it too much to hope that for once Euron had told it true? Perhaps. Like as not, the girl would prove to be some pock-faced slattern with teats slapping against her knees, her "dragons" no more than tattooed lizards from the swamps of Sothoryos.

Correction. Her hair was silver-gold.

I hope Vicky likes the buzzcut look.

+.+.+

The Isle of Cedars. Where were these cedars? Drowned four hundred years ago, it seemed. Victarion had gone ashore a dozen times, hunting fresh meat, and had yet to see a cedar.

Even in the midst of their own doom, Valyria found a way to kill all the trees.

+.+.+

The Isle of Monkeys, that's what they should call it. There were pigs as well: the biggest, blackest boars that any of the ironborn had ever seen and plenty of squealing piglets in the brush, bold creatures that had no fear of man. They were learning, though. The larders of the Iron Fleet were filling up with smoked hams, salted pork, and bacon.

You know who loves boar? Drogon.

Look at all the treats his new step-dad is bringing him!

+.+.+

The monkeys, though … the monkeys were a plague. Victarion had forbidden his men to bring any of the demonic creatures aboard ship, yet somehow half his fleet was now infested with them, even his own Iron Victory. He could see some now, swinging from spar to spar and ship to ship. Would that I had a crossbow.

Crossbow? I'd love to believe these monkeys represent Tyrion.

+.+.+

The last time Victarion had spent a night ashore, his dreams had been dark and disturbing and when he woke his mouth was full of blood. The maester said he had bitten his own tongue in his sleep, but he took it for a sign from the Drowned God, a warning that if he lingered here too long, he would choke on his own blood.

Was it a wolf dream?

I don't think it will be blood that you choke on.

+.+.+

On the day the Doom came to Valyria, it was said, a wall of water three hundred feet high had descended on the island, drowning hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, leaving none to tell the tale but some fisherfolk who had been at sea and a handful of Velosi spearmen posted in a stout stone tower on the island's highest hill, who had seen the hills and valleys beneath them turn into a raging sea.

Volcanoes and a tsunamis?

Mother Earth had enough of Valyrians.

+.+.+

So many drowned men, the Drowned God will be strong there, Victarion had thought when he chose the island for the three parts of his fleet to join up again. He was no priest, though. What if he had gotten it backwards? Perhaps the Drowned God had destroyed the island in his wroth. His brother Aeron might have known, but the Damphair was back on the Iron Islands, preaching against the Crow's Eye and his rule.

+.+.+

As he eased himself into his chair, she took a soft damp cloth from the basin and laid it across his brow. "Good," he said. "Good. And now the hand."

The dusky woman made no reply. Euron had sliced her tongue out before giving her to him. Victarion did not doubt that the Crow's Eye had bedded her as well. That was his brother's way. Euron's gifts are poisoned, the captain had reminded himself the day the dusky woman came aboard. I want none of his leavings. He had decided then that he would slit her throat and toss her in the sea, a blood sacrifice to the Drowned God. Somehow, though, he had never quite gotten around to it.

Do you see how merciful he is?

+.+.+

Victarion could talk to the dusky woman. She never attempted to talk back.

Ser Ilyn made no reply. The perfect companion for a long ride. I will enjoy his conversation. - Jaime III, AFFC

Lol.

+.+.+

The larger, heavier, slower ships made for Lys, to sell the captives taken on the Shields, the women and children of Lord Hewett's Town and other islands, along with such men who decided they would sooner yield than die. Victarion had only contempt for such weaklings. Even so, the selling left a foul taste in his mouth. Taking a man as thrall or a woman as a salt wife, that was right and proper, but men were not goats or fowl to be bought and sold for gold. He was glad to leave the selling to Ralf the Limper, who would use the coin to load his big ships with provisions for the long slow middle passage east.

It's like they're soulmates! ❤️

There's a lot of minor characters in Lys right now. Lynesse Hightower is in Lys, Humfrey Hightower is going to Lys to hire sellsails, Edric Storm is hiding in Lys, and I'm probably forgetting others.

+.+.+

"the only way to do this is to take the slavers unawares, as once I did at Lannisport. Sweep in from the sea and smash them, then take the girl and race for home before the Volantenes descend upon us." Victarion was no craven, but no more was he a fool; he could not defeat three hundred ships with fifty-four. "She'll be my wife, and you will be her maid." A maid without a tongue could never let slip any secrets.

Damn, it's like he already knows Daenerys. It's fate. ❤️

Of course the little birds would say otherwise (if they could).

+.+.+

Maesters had their uses, but Victarion had nothing but contempt for this Kerwin. With his smooth pink cheeks, soft hands, and brown curls, he looked more girlish than most girls. When first he came aboard the Iron Victory, he had a smirky little smile too, but one night off the Stepstones he had smiled at the wrong man, and Burton Humble had knocked out four of his teeth. Not long after that Kerwin had come creeping to the captain to complain that four of the crew had dragged him belowdecks and used him as a woman. "Here is how you put an end to that," Victarion had told him, slamming a dagger down on the table between them. Kerwin took the blade—too afraid to refuse it, the captain judged—but he had never used it.

Do you see how he empowers people to stand up to their bullies?

+.+.+

They had talked of this before. "If you take my hand, I will kill you. But first I will tie you over the rail and make the crew a gift of your arse. Get on with it."

"There will be pain."

"Always." Life is pain, you fool. There is no joy but in the Drowned God's watery halls. "Do it."

Soon, Vicky. Soon.

+.+.+

The boy—it was hard to think of one so soft and pink as a man—laid the edge of the dagger across the captain's palm and slashed. The pus that burst forth was thick and yellow as sour milk. The dusky woman wrinkled her nose at the smell, the maester gagged, and even Victarion himself felt his stomach churn. "Cut deeper. Get it all. Show me the blood."

Maester Kerwin pressed the dagger deep. This time it hurt, but blood welled up as well as pus, blood so dark that it looked black in the lantern light.

Eerily similar to something else.

A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogo's breast black and glistening with corruption.

"No," Dany whispered as tears ran down her cheeks. "No, please, gods hear me, no."

Khal Drogo thrashed, fighting some unseen enemy. Black blood ran slow and thick from his open wound.

"Your khal is good as dead, Princess." - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

+.+.+

By the time he finished, the clean water in his basin had become a scummy soup. The sight alone would sicken any man. "Take that filth and go." Victarion nodded at the dusky woman. "She can bind me up."

[...]

Victarion remembered the fight as if it had been yesterday. His shield had been in shards, hanging useless from his arm, so when Serry's longsword came flashing down he had reached up and caught it. The stripling had been stronger than he looked; his blade bit through the lobstered steel of the captain's gauntlet and the padded glove beneath into the meat of his palm. A scratch from a little kitten, Victarion told himself afterward. He had washed the cut, poured some boiled vinegar over it, bound it up, and thought little more of it, trusting that the pain would fade and the hand heal itself in time.

Instead the wound had festered, until Victarion began to wonder whether Serry's blade had been poisoned. Why else would the cut refuse to heal? The thought made him rage. No true man killed with poison. At Moat Cailin the bog devils had loosed poisoned arrows at his men, but that was to be expected from such degraded creatures. Serry had been a knight, highborn. Poison was for cravens, women, and Dornishmen.

"If not Serry, who?" he asked the dusky woman. "Could that mouse of a maester be doing this? Maesters know spells and other tricks. He might be using one to poison me, hoping I will let him cut my hand off." The more he thought on it, the more likely it seemed. "The Crow's Eye gave him to me, wretched creature that he is."

He's paranoid like her too! ❤️

Many people believe the dusky woman is sabotaging his recovery. I don't think anyone poisoned him, I prefer the author illustrate men like Victarion and Khal Drogo aren't as invincible as they think.

I apologize for calling her dusky woman, I don't know how to work around this.

+.+.+

"If this is his revenge, he wrongs me. It was Euron who insisted he be taken, to keep him from making mischief with his birds." His brother had given him three cages of ravens too, so Kerwin could send back word of their voyaging, but Victarion had forbidden him to loose them. Let the Crow's Eye stew and wonder.

A flight from Slaver's Bay to the Shield Islands? Can a raven even do that?

People assume Euron is watching him some other way. How exactly? The fandom seriously overpowers Euron Greyjoy.

+.+.+

Longwater Pyke came pounding at the cabin door to tell him that the captain of Grief had come aboard with a prisoner. "Says he's brought us a wizard, Captain. Says he fished him from the sea."

"A wizard?" Could the Drowned God have sent a gift to him, here on the far side of the world?

Wrong god.

+.+.+

His brother Aeron would have known, but Aeron had seen the majesty of the Drowned God's watery halls below the sea before being returned to life. Victarion had a healthy fear of his god, as all men should, but put his faith in steel.

He says this like he isn't one of the most god-fearing men in the story.

+.+.+

"Lord Captain," he said when Victarion appeared, "this is Moqorro. A gift to us from the Drowned God."

The wizard was a monster of a man, as tall as Victarion himself and twice as wide, with a belly like a boulder and a tangle of bone-white hair that grew about his face like a lion's mane. His skin was black. Not the nut brown of the Summer Islanders on their swan ships, nor the red-brown of the Dothraki horselords, nor the charcoal-and-earth color of the dusky woman's skin, but black. Blacker than coal, blacker than jet, blacker than a raven's wing. Burned, Victarion thought, like a man who has been roasted in the flames until his flesh chars and crisps and falls smoking from his bones. The fires that had charred him still danced across his cheeks and forehead, where his eyes peered out from amongst a mask of frozen flames. Slave tattoos, the captain knew. Marks of evil.

Making Victarion Greyjoy vehemently opposed to slavery is maybe the funniest thing George R. R. Martin has ever done.

What's so beautiful about it is that only a minor group of people get the joke.

+.+.+

"A demon priest," said Wulfe One-Ear. He spat.

"Might be his robes caught fire, so he jumped overboard to put them out," suggested Longwater Pyke, to general laughter. Even the monkeys were amused. They chattered overhead, and one flung down a handful of his own shit to spatter on the boards.

Victarion Greyjoy mistrusted laughter. The sound of it always left him with the uneasy feeling that he was the butt of some jape he did not understand. Euron Crow's Eye had oft made mock of him when they were boys. So had Aeron, before he had become the Damphair. Their mockery oft came disguised as praise, and sometimes Victarion had not even realized he was being mocked. Not until he heard the laughter.

+.+.+

"A storm." Moqorro crossed his arms against his chest. He did not appear frightened, though all around him men were calling for his death. Even the monkeys did not seem to like this wizard. They leapt from line to line overhead, screaming.

A bunch of monkeys are smarter than Stannis Baratheon.

+.+.+

Victarion was uncertain. He came out of the sea. Why would the Drowned God cast him up unless he meant for us to find him? His brother Euron had his pet wizards. Perhaps the Drowned God meant for Victarion to have one too.

Do you see how analytical he is?

+.+.+

"Why do you say this man is a wizard?" he asked the Vole. "I see only a ragged red priest."

"I thought the same, lord Captain … but he knows things. He knew that we made for Slaver's Bay before any man could tell him, and he knew you would be here, off this island." The small man hesitated. "Lord Captain, he told me … he told me you would surely die unless we brought him to you."

"That I would die?" Victarion snorted. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, he was about to say, until a throb of pain in his bad hand went stabbing up his arm almost to the elbow, the agony so intense that his words turned to bile in his throat. He stumbled and seized the rail to keep from falling.

Surely die? Meaning ... death is inevitable?

+.+.+

"The sorcerer's cursed the captain," a voice said.

Other men took up the cry. "Cut his throat! Kill him before he calls his demons down on us!" Longwater Pyke was the first to draw his dirk. "NO!" Victarion bellowed. "Stand back! All of you. Pyke, put up your steel. Vole, back to your ship. Humble, take the wizard to my cabin. The rest of you, about your duties." For half a heartbeat he was not certain they would obey. They stood about muttering, half with blades to hand, each looking to the others for resolve. Monkey shit rained down around them all, splat splat splat.

This is perfect.

+.+.+

As he opened the door to the captain's cabin, the dusky woman turned toward him, silent and smiling … but when she saw the red priest at his side her lips drew back from her teeth, and she hisssssed in sudden fury, like a snake.

How much do I love the thought of Moqorro serving Daenerys? Please author, I don't ask for much.

+.+.+

Victarion gave her the back of his good hand and knocked her to the deck. "Be quiet, woman. Wine for both of us."

Do you see how he doesn't allow religious intolerance?

(This is how a Daenerys Targaryen fan interprets the text.)

+.+.+

He turned to the black man. "Did the Vole speak true? You saw my death?"

"That, and more."

"Where? When? Will I die in battle?" His good hand opened and closed. "If you lie to me, I will split your head open like a melon and let the monkeys eat your brains."

"Your death is with us now, my lord. Give me your hand."

With us now? Meaning ... death is in motion?

+.+.+

"I have seen you in the nightfires, Victarion Greyjoy. You come striding through the flames stern and fierce, your great axe dripping blood, blind to the tentacles that grasp you at wrist and neck and ankle, the black strings that make you dance."

"Dance?" Victarion bristled. "Your nightfires lie. I was not made for dancing, and I am no man's puppet."

Striding through flames stern and fierce might be literal.

Moqorro insinuating Euron is still in control of Vicky.

+.+.+

"Even the smallest scratch can prove mortal, lord Captain, but if you will allow me, I will heal this. I will need a blade. Silver would be best, but iron will serve. A brazier as well. I must needs light a fire. There will be pain. Terrible pain, such as you have never known. But when we are done, your hand will be returned to you."

They are all the same, these magic men. The mouse warned me of pain as well. "I am ironborn, priest. I laugh at pain. You will have what you require … but if you fail, and my hand is not healed, I will cut your throat myself and give you to the sea."

Moqorro bowed, his dark eyes shining. "So be it."

Aww Daenerys sacrificed Mirri after she failed too! ❤️

+.+.+

The iron captain was not seen again that day, but as the hours passed the crew of his Iron Victory reported hearing the sound of wild laughter coming from the captain's cabin, laughter deep and dark and mad, and when Longwater Pyke and Wulfe One-Eye tried the cabin door they found it barred. Later singing was heard, a strange high wailing song in a tongue the maester said was High Valyrian. That was when the monkeys left the ship, screeching as they leapt into the water.

The monkeys have seen enough.

Question of the day:

Did Victarion just die, and come back to life through the power of R'hllor?

Welcome to the unVictarion theory!

He wondered if this was how his brother Aeron felt when the Drowned God spoke to him. He could almost hear the god's voice welling up from the depths of the sea. You shall serve me well, my captain, the waves seemed to say. It was for this I made you.

But he would feed the red god too, Moqorro's fire god. The arm the priest had healed was hideous to look upon, pork crackling from elbow to fingertips. Sometimes when Victarion closed his hand the skin would split and smoke, yet the arm was stronger than it had ever been. "Two gods are with me now," he told the dusky woman. "No foe can stand before two gods." Then he rolled her on her back and took her once again. - Victarion I, ADWD

The first thing that stands out is for a brief moment we no longer experience the story from Victarion's point of view. The text switches from third person limited to third person omniscient. I don't believe that's ever happened before.

Also strange, after this event Victarion's name will finally be used as his chapter head.

Something has shifted.

The Iron Captain

The Reaver

The Iron Suitor

Victarion

How about that horn?

Moqorro turned the hellhorn, examining the queer letters that crawled across a second of the golden bands. "Here it says, 'No mortal man shall sound me and live.'"

Bitterly Victarion brooded on the treachery of brothers. Euron's gifts are always poisoned. "The Crow's Eye swore this horn would bind dragons to my will. But how will that serve me if the price is death?"

"Your brother did not sound the horn himself. Nor must you." Moqorro pointed to the band of steel. "Here. 'Blood for fire, fire for blood.' Who blows the hellhorn matters not. The dragons will come to the horn's master. You must claim the horn. With blood." - Victarion I, ADWD

No mortal man shall sound the horn and live. Did Victarion uncover a cheat code?

Moqorro gives no indication that Victarion might already be dead, but Moqorro is not the most forthcoming individual.

How about that vision?

A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

I thought that was Aeron Dam-phair binded to the prow of Euron's ship. Could it actually be Victarion?

How about those parallels?

Mirri wasn't a servant of the red god, but like we saw above there are a few notable similarities between Khal Drogo's "revival" and whatever happened to Victarion.

the crew of his Iron Victory reported hearing the sound of wild laughter coming from the captain's cabin, laughter deep and dark and mad [...] Later singing was heard, a strange high wailing song in a tongue the maester said was High Valyrian.

The firelight made his black skin shine like polished onyx, and sometimes Victarion could swear that the flames tattooed on his face were dancing too, twisting and bending, melting into one another, their colors changing with every turn of the priest's head. - Victarion I, ADWD

↓

Once I begin to sing, no one must enter this tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

Mirri Maz Duur's voice rose to a high, ululating wail that sent a shiver down Dany's back. Some of the Dothraki began to mutter and back away. The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.

Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

How about the obvious?

Normal, mortal human beings don't walk around with charred godhands that smoke.

This is the type of sorcery we associate with Robert Strong, Coldhands, Lady Stoneheart, and Beric Dondarrion. They're all dead.

And lastly, we can't forget those amusing words.

What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!

Is Vicky Godhand dead? Has he become a thrall of the red god?

I can't answer that question, but it's an amazing (hilarious) theory.

+.+.+

Come sunset, as the sea turned black as ink and the swollen sun tinted the sky a deep and bloody red, Victarion came back on deck. He was naked from the waist up, his left arm blood to the elbow. As his crew gathered, whispering and trading glances, he raised a charred and blackened hand. Wisps of dark smoke rose from his fingers as he pointed at the maester. "That one. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, and the winds will favor us all the way to Meereen." Moqorro had seen that in his fires. He had seen the wench wed too, but what of it? She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow.

VICKY GODHAND RISE UP!

Go get your girl!

Final thoughts:

Have you ever noticed this is Vicky and Euron?

-> return to menu <-

#operation stumpy re-read #adwd #the iron suitor #victarion i

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yukipri · 1 year

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The Prime Override - Chapter 48 is up!

Jango - Clone Force 99

Another late night update! The finale (?) of the Experimental Batches mini arc!

Also a heads up that this will be my last public update for this fic for at least a few weeks! March is gonna be a busy month for me irl, and I'm not sure how much I'll be able to write (especially with both TBB S2 and Mando airing simultaneously, which'll likely make me use a lot of time on art!).

I'll do my best to keep writing when I can, but I just wanted to give you due warning in case it takes a while!

This chapter: Into the age acceleration pods.

He’s standing in the corner of a cold white room filled with solid durasteel tubes. Unlike the stasis or decanting tubes, there is no transparency, no illumination from within—no, they look like vertical coffins, the doors lined with various slowly blinking lights and control panels but nothing to indicate that anything living should be inside.

Jango doesn’t need to count to know that there are exactly one hundred tubes in the room. A long chamber, with four rows of twenty-five tubes each.

Jango could never forget—and he knows Ninety-Nine can’t either.

> > Read Ch 48 on AO3

#ThePrimeOverride #YukiPri writes #Jango Fett #Clone 99 #The Bad Batch #TBB #Clone Force 99 #Commander Cody #Ashe CC-2222 #Hunter Bad Batch #Tech Bad Batch #Crosshair Bad Batch #Wrecker Bad Batch #AO3 #fic

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heyifinallyhaveablog · 7 months

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The Defeated

Ah! Yes! I'm borderline proud of myself for finally not being lazier than I already am, and coming down to post this, and keeping my adherence to the schedule.

AND!

HAPPY DIWALI! <3

The taglist remains :D

@chaanv @vidhurvrika @bleedinknight @ambidextrousarcher @melancholicmonody @demonkidpliz @stxrrynxghts @sambhavami @alwaysthesideofwonder, and anyone else here. Lord knows how much I've forgotten, and trying to remember.

_______________________________

Fandom: Mahabharar | Star Plus Mahabharat

Pairings: Bheema/Draupadi

Warnings: Mentions of War | PTSD | Trauma | Bloodshed

Summary: The Second Pandava deals with ghosts of the War. Alone.

Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction, based on an idea I had while reading C. Rajagopalachari’s version of the Mahabharata. But I do have to say this, this has a lot to offer that is different from the Mahabharata that is actually popular. I just hope that this resonates with the readers, and you read this, and find this worth your time and your feedback. Please leave a short comment or a like, whatever you may deem fit. And as always!

THANK YOU!

Note: Whatever the character says here, comes from a deep place of depression, trauma, anxiety, and a LOT of PTSD. As someone who has been through that, it might as well bring the worst, darkest, and the angstiest parts out of someone. And this guy has been through one of the bloodiest wars of all time, so there are some things that might be a little unsettling, and even illogical, considering they've literally lost everything, and are contemplating a world without war, where they might not have lost EVERYthing.

Also, please drop in with any thoughts you may have. XX

Links: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2

_________________________________

Chapter 3

The Darkness

“I bear no remorse for the deaths of ninety-nine of the Kauravas,” the anger in his voice is palpable, and tangible to the point where she could feel it bodily.

“Nor do I feel any compassion for Karna,” this time, it is her breath that hitches in her chest, as she tries not to remember the acerbic vitriol of insults he had hurled and triggered at her, “unlike The Emperor.”

“But Vikarna, Panchaali,” she feels him breaking down, “what of him?”

He isn’t the only one who breaks into smaller pieces, with every breath he took.

“What of those young boys? What of those soldiers? What of Uncle Salya? What of those blameless people who fought with and against us?”

This is the longest that he has spoken in what seems like an eternity.

“Did Madhusudana tell you how Abhimanyu was slain? Did he recount how Ghatotkacha had fallen? Has he ever confided in you, of The Grandsire’s pain? His remorse?”

“Five villages, Panchaali! Five villages! Five villages! Five hamlets! And we would have forgotten, perchance, if time allowed, we would even have forgiven all!”

“When have we ever been averse to a life of hardship, Krishne?” he rallies on, thunder rumbling in his voice with every syllable.

“We would have lived on as ascetics in those villages for all I care!” Bheemasena’s voice gives in, with a note of finality, “Varanavata, The Jatugriha, probably even The Dyuta, all those years of exile, Jayadratha, Keechaka! All of it! All of them!”

“I’d have ensured full well that Dushyasana would serve me for the rest of his life! The life that I’d deign him, with his entrails intact!”

Draupadi feels her long, lustrous hair, for the first time since the War. It didn’t reek of that fiend anymore.

“We wouldn’t have had the blood of those hordes of people on our hands,” he fell heavily in her lap, “Hundreds of thousands of them!”

“Oh Panchaali!” he sobbed helplessly, “I feel as if I’ve killed my sons! My Ghatotkacha! My Abhimanyu!”

“I’d atleast have the luxury of having some of us survive the onslaught,” she felt warm tears grace her lap, “and then-”

- “I’d felt the strength leaving my body the day Sutasoma left us, with his brothers.”

#mahabharat #Bheema #Draupadi #hindu mythology #desiblr #foreverfave #inskplotch #well this is a very different perspective #and I am yet to see how this turns out #Ah! God! This is actually too much angst and I don't know where to go from here

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noonaishere · 7 months

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Music of the Heart [Jeong Yunho] - Masterlist

By: noonaishere (main blog: symphonyofmars)

Fic type: social media au / traditional

Pairing: Yunho x fem!reader

Genre: music industry setting, musician/producer, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, running from the past

Warnings: overbearing parents, verbal abuse, sexual harassment

Status: Currently updating

Updates: Thursdays and Fridays at 12pm EST

Synchronously posted with Online/Offline (any asterisked (*) chapters means they’re shared between both fics)

[intro post explaining y/n and t/n]

SYNOPSIS:

T/n has always loved music, though her experience of it wasn’t always the greatest. Forced by her parents to learn the violin - almost purely to climb the socio-economic ladder - she’s since forged her own path. She auditions at Wonderland Entertainment and becomes one of their studio musicians, but how will she deal with seeing her ex-best friend who also happens to be contracted under the company?

Also, how does t/n’s existence connect to y/n, someone she’s never met?

🎵 main cast

Chapters:

🎵 Prologue | a long time ago… in a town far, far away…

🎵 one | “local celebrity”

🎵 two | mahler

🎵 three | emperor nero

🎵 four | come meet the kids

🎵 five | duck and cover

🎵 six | his feefees were a little hurt

🎵 seven | homework

🎵 eight | give her my number

🎵 nine | canard et couverture parte deux

🎵 ten | a date?

🎵 eleven | the fight scene at the end of the count of monte cristo

🎵 twelve | we never talk

🎵 thirteen | youtube recommendations

🎵 fourteen | calendar man

🎵 fifteen | a ✨godsend✨

🎵 sixteen | no ducking nor covering

🎵 seventeen | he’s got pipes

🎵 eighteen | thinking about hats

🎵 nineteen | it is still apples

🎵 twenty | i know exactly who you are

🎵 twenty-one | busking

🎵 twenty-two | he got an audition or something

🎵 twenty-three | best friend

🎵 twenty-four | garage band

🎵 twenty-five | it’ll be worth it

🎵 twenty-six | more like “drone strike parenting”

🎵 twenty-seven | interrogation

🎵 twenty-eight | it’s over

🎵 twenty-nine | more like constipated

🎵 thirty | maybe

🎵 thirty-one | JUPiTER

🎵 thirty-two | no horses in space

🎵 thirty-three | Crom3r

🎵 thirty-four | punk rock

🎵 thirty-five | what a feeling

🎵 thirty-six | do we need a hot air balloon?

🎵 thirty-seven | gotta let the fans know

🎵 thirty-eight | i’ll bring the wine

🎵 thirty-nine | girl’s night

🎵 forty | that’s a no on the hot air balloon

🎵 forty-one | new kids

🎵 forty-two | splash fight

🎵 forty-three | a recluse and a traitor

🎵 forty-four | merch drop

🎵 forty-five | lol i’m screencapping

🎵 forty-six | do you know how to do cubes?

🎵 forty-seven | surprise modu girip baksu

🎵 forty-eight | sometimes the kickball inspires music

🎵 forty-nine | but what can you do

🎵 fifty | no need for sunglasses

🎵 fifty-one | need for sunglasses

🎵 fifty-two | D-Day

🎵 fifty-three | best friends forever

🎵 fifty-four | mission update

🎵 fifty-five |

🎵 fifty-six |

🎵 fifty-seven |

🎵 fifty-eight |

🎵 fifty-nine |

🎵 sixty |

🎵 sixty-one |

🎵 sixty-two |

🎵 sixty-three |

🎵 sixty-four |

🎵 sixty-five |

🎵 sixty-six |

🎵 sixty-seven |

🎵 sixty-eight |

🎵 sixty-nine |

🎵 seventy |

🎵 seventy-one |

🎵 seventy-two |

🎵 seventy-three |

🎵 seventy-four |

🎵 seventy-five |

🎵 seventy-six |

🎵 seventy-seven* |

🎵 seventy-eight |

🎵 seventy-nine |

🎵 eighty |

🎵 eighty-one |

🎵 eighty-two |

🎵 eighty-three |

🎵 eighty-four |

🎵 eighty-five |

🎵 eighty-six |

🎵 eighty-seven |

🎵 eighty-eight |

🎵 eighty-nine |

🎵 ninety |

🎵 ninety-one |

🎵 ninety-two |

🎵 ninety-three |

🎵 ninety-four |

🎵 ninety-five |

🎵 ninety-six |

🎵 ninety-seven* |

🎵 ninety-eight* |

🎵 ninety-nine* |

🎵 one hundred* |

🎵 one hundred and one* |

🎵 one hundred and two |

🎵 one hundred and three |

🎵 one hundred and four |

🎵 one hundred and five |

🎵 one hundred and six |

🎵 one hundred and seven |

🎵 one hundred and eight |

🎵 one hundred and nine |

🎵 one hundred and ten |

🎵 one hundred and eleven* |

🎵 one hundred and twelve* |

🎵 one hundred and thirteen |

🎵 one hundred and fourteen* |

🎵 one hundred and fifteen* |

🎵 one hundred and sixteen |

🎵 one hundred and seventeen* |

Epilogue 1

Epilogue 2

Epilogue 3

Epilogue 4

Epilogue 5

Send an ask or leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list! 🎵

#Yunho #Jeong Yunho #Ateez #Ateez smau #Ateez fic #Ateez au #music industry au #enemies to lovers #childhood friends to lovers #reader fic #ᴍᴜsɪᴄ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ

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n0-way-0ut · 2 years

Text

- MINE ⋆☆ 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐱𝐨𝐧

PAIRINGS— pre-apocalypse!daryl dixon x fem!reader

SUMMARY— after finishing your shift at the local bar you head back to the dixon home for merles coming home party

WARNINGS— mentions of drugs and alcohol, slight(?) nsfw content

MORE CHAPTERS— chapter one | chapter two | chapter three

after the main rush hour had passed, daryl, merle and couple of their buddies piled into the bar, taking a seat around one of the larger tables. merle had just been accepted into the military and was set to depart in a few days time. you still had a while left of your shift and the group of people merle had brought in definitely didn’t make your life any easier. so, in hopes to get them out of your hair a little sooner, you began to prepare a shot of whiskey for each of the boys. picking up the small shot glasses, you began to wander over to their table, their chatter beginning to quiet as you approached them.

“hey boys.” you smiled, bending over in front of daryl and merle to place the shot glasses down in the centre of the table. “these are for you.” you announced, noticing daryl as he couldn’t help but stare at your slightly exposed chest.

“well thanks sugar.” merle sang, scooping up one of the shot into his hand.

“got anythin’ else for us?” one of merle friend teased, wrapping their arm around your waist causing you to stand up straight.

“not for you theres not.” you mumbled, gritting your teeth together as you tried to force a smile.

“get yer hands off her.” daryl grumbled, his eyes angrily locked on merles friend.

“alright.” the man laughed, his hands flicking up into the air to show he was backing off. “don’t get your panties in a twist.” he joked, earning a laugh from the others around the table.

“thats little brothers woman.” merle announce, daryl instantly shutting down as all eyes turned to him before looking over to you. “show some respect.” he spat.

you looked at daryl and smiled as you noticed how embarrassed he had become by his brothers statement. “okay!” you smiled, looking around the table brewing. “let me know if i can get you guys anythin’ else.” you grinned before making your way back to the bar.

daryl didn’t come up to the bar for the rest of that shift. you knew it would take him a while to warm back up to you after such a bold comment from his brother but you were used to it at this point. merle had made similar comments in the past resulting in daryl avoiding you for a few days before coming back around to pretend like nothing ever happened.

an hour or so until you had to close up the bar, merle and his buddies stood up and made their way over to the bar to settle their bill for the night. they were all loud and rowdy, making crude comments about everything they came across, all of them except for daryl who stood at the back of the group staying quiet.

“finally headin’ home?” you smiled, watching merle as he rested his elbows on the sticky surface of the bar.

“we’re only gettin’ starter!” one of his friends cheered, creating a waterfall effect as they all began to cheer.

“you lot gonna give me a good tip?” you asked, carefully watching merle as he fiddled around with his wallet.

“only the best for you sugar.” he smirked, once again earning a few laughs from his friends. “whats the total sweetheart?”

“eighty-nine ninety for the lot of ya.” you smiled.

merle gave you a stern nod before counting the notes he had in his wallet before finding a hundred dollar bill. he plucked it out of his leather wallet, momentarily waving it around in the air before slamming it down onto the sticky surface, finishing off the whole ordeal with a flirtatious wink.

“keep the change sugar.” he smiled before turning around to face the rest of his friends. “come on bogs!” merle cheered, marching towards the front door causing you to let out a breathy laugh.

as the others followed him, daryl made his way up to the bar, his hands resting on the bar as you closed merles tab and placed the bill in the till.

“yer get off soon?” daryl asked just loud enough to hear over the music playing throughout the bar.

“bout an hour.” you shrugged, putting the change left over from the bill into the top of your bra, making sure your boss couldn’t find it.

“need me to wait around?” he asked, avoiding all eye contact with you as you began to clean around the bar.

“i’ll be alright.” you smiled softly. “don’t you need to drive those idiots back anyways?” you asked, a soft chuckle escaping your lips.

“yeah.” he scoffed. “give me a call if yer need a right alright?” daryl asked, his voice was genuine and laced with concern at the idea of you walking all the way home.

“sure.” you smiled, trying to reassure him that you could be alright.

“you comin’ little brotha?” merle shouted, sticking his head through the main door.

“comin!” daryl turned his head to merle before looking back at you. “see yer later.”

you flashed him one last smile before he left, making the bar completely silent. most of the regulars had gone home by this point giving you some time to clean up the bar and hopefully head home early.

you had finished your shift a little before midnight. you chose to walk home, not wanting to bother daryl. you managed to get home in a record time of thirty minutes, the loud music coming from the dixon property could be heard from your house. after quickly checking in on your mother, you made your way to your bedroom where you swapped out your work boots for a pairs of old mary-jane heels that once belonged to your mother before changing into a cleaner shirt, swapping the black singlet out for a dark pink halter top that tied up at the back of your neck. after ruffing up your hair a little with your hands before fixing your smudged mascara you were on your way over to the dixon’s property.

the house reeked of weed and alcohol mixed with the sweat of just about everyone cramped into the small cabin. your body already beginning to move alone to the beat of the music as you made your way through to the kitchen where the dining table was covered in dozens of bottles of cheap liquor. quickly, you found yourself a bottle of whiskey, gripping the neck of the bottle with your hand as you spun around, now tasked with trying to find someone you knew.

“y/n!” you heard a voice called from the seat of people.

pushing his way through the crowd was daryl, with a look of relief as he stood less then a foot away from you.

“hey.” you smiled as he scanned your body before meeting your eyes. he had always loved that top on you. “didn’t think this many people were comin’?” you giggled.

“i didn’t either.” he spoke over the music. “didn’t think yer finished for another hour?” he asked, his eyebrows pinching together.

“got off early.” you grinned, tipping your head back as you took a swig of the alcohol, the liquid burning as it ran down your throat. “where’s yer brother?” you asked.

“smokin’ out the back.” daryl answered.

“want some?” you asked, waving the half empty bottle up by your cheeks as you grinned.

daryl hummed, although you couldn’t hear it and shortly took the bottle from your hand before taking a decent sip of the whiskey. after a few more shared drinks between the two of you, you both made your way to the living room where small groups of people where either dancing or spread out across the couch. you and daryl had almost finished off the bottle of whiskey within an hour.

you found yourself dancing in the middle of the living room alone, having little luck convincing daryl to dance with you. in front of you sat daryl, closely watching you as you freely dance along to the music. although it didn’t feel like it you were there for hours, daryl only ever leaving to grab the pair of you another drink.

“how are you not tired?” daryl asked, a breathy laugh escaping his lips as he watched your hips move along to the music.

“why?” you teased. “yer want me to stop?” you asked in a sarcastic tone as you began to slow your movements, you eyes never drifting from daryl.

“don’t listen to him baby.” the same drunk idiot that felt you up at the bar called out. “keep on dancin’!” he cheered.

“who asked you dickhead?” you snapped, frowning as you looked over at him.

“that time of the much huh sweetheart?” he smirked.

“go fuck yourself asshole.” you spat, the man standing up as he grew bitter towards you.

“hey, come on.” daryl mumbled, holding onto your hand to pull you away from the drunk man. “he’s not worth it.” daryl mumbled, pulling you away from the loud party.

“he’s an ass!” you pouted as daryl pulled you into his bedroom, closing the door behind him as you sat down on his bed.

“think yer should lie down.” he instructed, admittedly a little drunk himself.

you scoffed at his comment, standing up to watch over to daryl. “hey! hey!” you urged, grabbing onto daryl’s hands. “when you told that guy to back off at the bar,” you began to slur, slowly pulling daryl back towards his bed. “that was hot.” you gushed causing daryl’s eyes to widen.

“you’re jus’ sayin’ that ‘cause you’re drunk.” he muttered.

“nah-uh.” you mocked, a smirk still plastered on your lips as your hands parted from his before they attached to the waistband of daryl’s jeans. “i need you daryl.” you breathed, your voice sounding desperate and needy.

“yer don’t want… me o-or that…” he stuttered breathless. he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to be with you. he had been wanting this for years now. “you’re drun-“

“shhh.” you hushed, your fingers moving along the waistband before you began to unbutton the jeans, daryl letting out a shaky breath in response. “i’ve wanted you for so long daryl.” you practically sobbed as you looked up into his eyes. your fingers made their way down to the zipper, slowly pulling it down. “don’t you want me?” you asked.

“course i do.” he breathed as his hands instinctively attached themselves to your hips.

you rested your forehead against his as your fingers left his pants, making their way up to his shirt where you began to undo every single button.

“then i’m all yours.” you spoke, those words alone igniting something within daryl as you undid his last button. “all yours.” you repeated.

daryl leant down to close the gap between you, his lips hungrily meeting yours. you had both been waiting for this moment for so long and it did not disappoint. daryl was so soft with you, his fingers gently digging into your skin as he tried to control himself not wanting things to happen too quickly while your hands were busying themselves by peeling away the layers of clothing daryl had on.

everything was so messy and heated, you both just needed each other. what felt like seconds later, you found yourselves on daryl’s unmade bed. your hands cupped his cheeks as he kissed you with every fibre in his body as he hovered over you, keeping himself supported with one hand while the other stayed firmly on your side.

waking up the following morning to the sound of voices a few rooms over, you pulled yourself up from daryl’s empty bed. you were in an old shirt of his and nothing else as you swung your feet over the edge of the bed, your toes touching the carpet as your rubbed your head. last night remained a blurry memory to you, only able to remember snippets throughout the mix that all seemingly blended together the more you tried to think about it. quickly scanning the room you found your skirt, quickly pulling it up to give yourself some sort of coverage before finding your shoes. after having little luck finding your bra and underwear you made your way over to his bedroom door, peaking through the small gap to find an empty room.

as you crept out into the main living space of the house, the floors littered with bottles and cans with the occasional cigarette butt. just as you were about to reach the kitchen one of the bedroom doors swung open.

“little over dress for breakfast ain’t ya?” merle smirker, following you out into the living room as he looked at the mini skirt and oversized shirt combination.

“mornin’ to you too.” you smiled weakly, spinning around on the balls of your feet to face him.

merle walked a little closer to you, his gaze wandering over your body to find a few hickeys peppered over your neck and the top of your chest.

“pretty good night huh?” he teased, the smug smirk never leaving his lips.

“i guess.” you frowned, not entirely sure what he was trying to point out, only warranting a bellowing laugh from merle.

“sure sounded like it.” he grinned, his eyes looking you up and down once again. “to me n’ the others it sounded like you had a good old time.” he chuckled. “i mean, from the moaning alone!” he announced. “faster! faster! faster!” he moaned, laughing at his own impression.

just before you could say anything, daryl walked through the front door holding a bag full of greasy food from the bakery in town.

“oh and here he is!” merle cheered. “our man of the night.”

daryl just stayed quiet, navigating his way through the trashed floor. merle gave you a wink before walking over to his brother, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he let out another laugh. daryl was most definitely embarrassed.

“how was your night little brother?” merle asked, snatching the bag from daryl before taking a bite of the pastry.

daryl looked overwhelming uncomfortable has he stood a few feet away from you, avoiding all eye contact as merle continued to mock and tease the pair of you. merle noticed the awkwardness between you, causing him to let out another belly laugh.

“i’ll give yer some privacy.” he spoke, his voice still laced with sarcastic tones as he walked back towards his bedroom door. “but hey,” he began to laugh. “no fuckin’ on the table, you’ll probably break the legs!” he teased, shortly disappearing into his room.

although he desperately wanted to say something, ask you how you felt or if last night was just something he should forget about but he was far too nervous to say anything. but you knee daryl well enough that he’d speak to you when he was ready.

“i couldn’t find my shirt.” you spoke quietly, causing daryl to look up from his fingers. “so i hope you don’t mind.” you laughed nervously.

“nah it’s alright.” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck as he continued to avoid eye contact.

you briefly looked past him to see the time, you had another shift in an hour causing you to let out a weak sigh as you turned your attention back to daryl.

“i’ve got a shift in an hour.” you spoke quietly. “but i’ll see ya later.” you smiled weakly, daryl finally looking up into your eyes for the first time that morning.

“need me to give yer a ride?”

#daryl dixon x original female character #norman reedus #daryl dixon #twd daryl #twd #the walking dead #the walkind dead fan fic #pre apocalypse #pre apocalypse daryl #ao3 #ao3fic

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journeythroughjourneytothewest · 3 months

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Chapter 29 Recap: Free of his peril, River Float arrives at the kingdom; Receiving favor, Eight Rules invades the forest.

This chapter begins with a reminder that though Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing fought with Yellow Robe for over thirty rounds, neither one had emerged the victor. They were, in fact, able to withstand Yellow Robe’s assault “only because of the fact that the Tang Monk was not yet fated to die [and so] his followers could count on the help of certain deities,” i.e. the Six Gods of Light and Six Gods of Darkness, the Guardians of Five Quarters, the Four Sentinels, and the Eighteen Guardian-Spirits of monasteries. While this collection of gods and yaoguai are battling each other, Tang Sanzang is left “weeping piteously in the cave and thinking about his disciples,” primarily about when or if they’ve realized that he’s been captured. Yet even as he’s lamenting his lot, a woman suddenly walks over to him and asks why he’s here. Tang Sanzang assumes that she’s another yaoguai, and tells her that if “you want to devour me, go ahead.” Yet this woman reveals that she’s as human as him, that her name is Hundred Flowers’ Shame, and that she’s from the Precious Image Kingdom, some three hundred miles west of the cave. She goes on to tell Tripitaka that thirteen years ago the Yellow Robe Demon had kidnapped her and forced her “to become his wife for all these thirteen years and to bear his children.” Tang Sanzang in turn tells this princess about his journey to the west and how the Yellow Robe Demon wants to eat him and his disciples. Hundred Flowers’ Shame assures the monk that she’ll be able to save them all, and that all she asks in return is for him to deliver a letter from herself to her parents. Tripitaka agrees.

The princess writes her letter and unties the monk before telling him to leave through the back while she herself goes to the front of the cave to intercede on the pilgrims’ behalf. Tang Sanzang thanks her and, after leaving the cave’s back entrance, he hides in some bushes to wait. For her own part, Hundred Flowers’ Shame calls Yellow Robe over from his fight, and tells him that she just had a dream where a golden-armored deity demanded that she fulfill an oath she had apparently took as a young women to feed monks if life granted her a good husband. She further takes this as a sign to let Tang Sanzang go, and Yellow Robe agrees to do so, stating that if he “wanted to eat humans, I can catch a few anywhere.” He also tells Zhu Bajie that for the sake of his wife he won’t fight with them anymore, but if they trespass again he won’t spare them. Sha Wujing and Zhu Bajie, hearing this, “felt as if they had been released from the gate of Hell!” Now sufficiently terrified of Yellow Robe’s power, they “darted like rodents past the Current-Moon Cave” on their way to its back, where the sand monk picks up Tang Sanzang and puts him on Bai Longma. As a group the pilgrims hurriedly leave the area, all while Sha Wujing and Zhu Bajie are “trying to put the blame on each other, and Tripitaka had to spend all the time attempting to pacify them.”

A bit at a time the pilgrims travel two hundred and ninety-nine miles, and finally reach the Precious Image Kingdom. Tripitaka soon gets an audience with the king, who gladly certifies Tang Sanzang’s travel rescript. The monk also hands over the letter Hundred Flowers’ Shame gave him. The king starts crying, and reveals that after the princess’s kidnapping, as he had no idea what had happened to his daughter, he had “banished countless officials, both civil and military, and we did not know how many ladies-in-waiting and eunuchs we had caned to death throughout the palace,” along with having “interrogated countless households in the city.” The king’s hands are shaking too badly for him to open the letter himself, so the Grand Secretary of the Hanlin Academy does so in the king’s stead. It is through this letter than the king and court learn of what happened to Hundred Flowers’ Shame; how Yellow Robe had forced her to become his wife, forced her to “suffer such ignominy for these thirteen years,” and how two “monster children were born to me, all seeds of this fiend.” The princess ends her letter by begging her father to “send his noble generals quickly to capture the Yellow Robe Fiend…and bring your daughter back to the court.”

The king bursts into tears as soon as the letter is finished. After he weeps for a long time, he asks if any of his civil and military officials will lead his troops to go rescue Hundred Flowers’ Shame. None of them dare to step forward. The king starts weeping again, and a few of his officials try to offer what advice they can. They note in particular that the king’s subjects are “merely mortal creatures,” not the kind of beings who can face an entity which “comes by the fog and goes with the clouds” like a powerful yaoguai. They then suggest that Tang Sanzang, as a “holy monk from a noble nation…must know the art of subduing monsters.” Tripitaka, however, hurriedly assures everyone that while he “knows a little of chanting the name of Buddha…he does not know how to subdue monsters.” When pressed as to how he made it as far as he did without that power, Tang Sanzang reveals that he has “two disciples, most capable of opening up a pathway” in his journey. The king chides him for not bringing them into the palace, with Tripitaka protesting that they are “rather ugly in their appearances…I fear that they might cause too great a shock to your Majesty.” The king proclaims that he isn’t afraid of seeing them, even after Tang Sanzang gives a detailed description of their monstrous appearances, but after he invites them in he was left “shaking so hard that he fell down from his dragon couch.”

Despite this shock to his system, the king soon calms down and asks Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing if they’re any good at subduing yaoguai. Zhu Wuneng gives a lengthy account on how he was once a celestial warrior, nothing less than the Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds, and that on earth he has become “the one most capable of subduing monsters.” To demonstrate his power he also grows up to a height of eighty or ninety feet. Delighted with this demonstration of Zhu Bajie’s magical might, the king sends the pig yaoguai off to try and save his daughter with a cup of special wine and the promise that getting the princess her freedom comes with the reward of a huge banquet and a thousand pieces of gold. We are also informed that while Zhu Bajie is “a rude and rowdy person, he could act courteously when he wanted to.” Draining his cup in one gulp, the former marshal then rides the clouds back to confront the Yellow Robe Demon. Sha Wujing follows afterwards, noting that in their last confrontation they were only able to battle Yellow Robe to a draw, so his assistance will be needed. Tang Sanzang is left behind to chat with the king.

Zhu Bajie is glad to have Sha Wujing’s help, and notes that their efforts to catch Yellow Robe will likely “spread our fame a little in this kingdom.” They soon reach the Current-Moon Cave, and Zhu Bajie hits its door with his rake, gouging a huge hole in it. Yellow Robe is quick to storm out. He grows even more enraged when confronted with kidnapping and rape charges (he tells the pilgrims that “It’s none of your business, so stop meddling!), and proceeds to battle with the former marshal and sand monk. Yet this time the fight goes much more swiftly, and in Yellow Robe’s favor. In but nine rounds Zhu Bajie is at the end of his strength. This is because with Tang Sanzang gone, the dharma-protecting deities that had been secretly assisting the pilgrims in the first fight with Yellow Robe aren’t present. And so Zhu Bajie tells Sha Wujing to “come up and fight with [Yellow Robe] for awhile. Let old Hog go shit first!” And then, “not showing the slightest care for Sha Monk,” he dives through a thicket of bramble bushes and lies still, only poking one ear up so he can hear how the battle is going. Sha Wujing is left “completely flustered” and is quickly captured by the Yellow Robe Demon. And it is here that the chapter ends.

#jttw chapter recap #xiyouji #journey to the west #jttw #tripitaka #tang sanzang #sha wujing #zhu bajie #jttw reading group #jttw book club

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maccreadysbaby · 7 months

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A Hundred Days to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

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

welcome to bentley’s shop of irrational, dangerous, and stupid ideas! there’s only a sixty percent chance you’ll break both your legs :)

did you spy two chapters in a day? yes. yes you did.

part twenty-four

❝ THE GREAT ESCAPE ❞

SUNDAY — 5:44PM — DAY 99

BENTLEY VAGUELY REMEMBERED BEING WOKEN UP A MULTITUDE OF TIMES FOR MEDICINE, WATER, CRACKERS, AND THE LIKE. But he never really woke up until the golden evening sun was shining into his bedroom, and he was blissfully unaware of what time or day it was.

He felt better. His head wasn’t stuffed with cotton anymore. His stomach wasn’t hurting or spinning, but it was extremely, extremely empty. He wasn’t burning hot or freezing cold. He didn’t feel bad, per se, but he did feel like he could sleep for a couple thousand years and still wake up tired.

“Bentley,”

He flinched at the voice that quickly let him know he wasn’t alone in the room. Bruce was sitting near the right side of his bed with a book in one hand. The chair he was sitting in hadn’t been there before, and had probably been dragged in from someone else’s room. There was an empty one on the other side. Bruce smiled, and it looked like he hadn’t slept in a while.

He sat up straighter and put the book on Bentley’s nightstand. “Hey there, bud. How are you feeling?”

Bentley took a mental note of his whole body. Overall, he… felt like he really needed a shower. With a power washer. “Okay. Tired. Gross.”

Bruce chuckled. “That’s good. Your fever broke a while ago, and as of now you’re at a normal temperature with no meds.”

Bentley nodded slightly. “What time is it?”

“Five-forty-five on Sunday,”

Oh crap. Last thing he remembered, Damian found him before school on Friday. So his brain and body had been MIA for two full days?

And if Friday was day ninety-seven, then…

It was day ninety-nine.

Bentley had never wanted to curse so bad.

“Dick stayed in here the whole time, I just sent him off to get some sleep about an hour ago. The others were in and out as well,” Bruce smiled lightly. “And don’t tell anyone I told you, but Damian asked if he could stay home from school the morning he found you. He pouted the whole drive when I said no.”

Bentley smiled a little, and so did Bruce. Although one of them was a bit faker than the other.

“I’ll go have Alfred make you some soup, I’m sure you’re hungry. Is there anything else you need while I’m up?”

A miracle, maybe?

“No, thank you,” Is what Bentley said. Bruce stood up and stretched. The child smiled at him reassuringly, and Bruce continued out of the room and clicked the door shut behind him with a distant you're welcome.

Bentley’s smile promptly went away.

What was he supposed to do now? His father would come to get him from the Manor tomorrow and probably run over a bunch of Waynes while he was at it. And then it would be back to life at the Estate. The closet. The dark. The constant fear.

He didn’t want the Waynes to hate him. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want anything to happen, and he didn’t want his father to win.

He just wanted everything to stop.

He felt the familiar buzz and tingle of anxiety brewing inside of him, but he pushed it down. He couldn’t waste anymore time. He needed to do something, he needed to make a plan, because he, Bentley, was the only one that could change how this went.

Catch them off-guard, his father had said during training. Throw them off. Confuse them. Use your weaknesses as strengths.

Throw them off. What was the one thing his father had that he could use as leverage against the Waynes? They weren’t divided, that was Bentley’s abandoned job — they were a united family of superheroes. His father surely had to have a backup plan incase Bentley failed. But what was it? What was something that could get them all kneeling to him in one fatal blow?

Damian asked if he could stay home from school the morning he found you.

I did not think about how my behavior would affect you. I’m sorry.

Kid’s mine, go get your own.

While I do not require any help, your presence would be… agreeable.

Bruce ordered the one that matched Dick’s because he’s, like, your best friend.

I would never hate you. None of us would ever hate you.

You’re more important all of that, Bentley.

Oh, God.

It was him.

Bentley should have seen it before — he wasn’t just sent to live with the Wayne’s to do his father’s job. He was sent on purpose… so they’d care about him, so they’d call him one of their own, so his father could rip him away in exchange for whatever it was he wanted from the family. This had never been about Bentley being a good little sidekick. It had always been about manipulation, and Bentley was just the tool from the beginning. He’d been playing right into his father’s hand even while defying his orders.

Even though he failed, his father was going to use him to get to them.

Bentley snapped back into reality when the door opened, and Alfred came in with a little tray with soup, toast, and water. Bruce came in behind him.

He was going to be the reason the Waynes fell no matter what.

He chatted with Bruce as he ate, and his body was really happy for it the food, but subconsciously, he was a wreck. He was spiraling in every direction he could think of trying to fix this, to get around it, to avoid it, to ignore it, to stop it, anything. Every time it ended in chaos and hate, and every time it made his heart hurt worse than before.

“I think I’m going to take a shower,” He decided when he was finished with his food and hadn’t had any eel issues. Bruce’s blue eyes twinkled as he nodded.

“Alright. Would you like me to stay close by?”

“No, it’s okay,” Bentley replied, pulling the covers off of his legs, trying to make sure his hands weren’t shaking. “I’ll come downstairs when I’m done.”

“Okay. I’m sure the others will be excited to see you up and well. Just… don’t push yourself, okay? If you want to come down that’s great, but if you want to rest, you should,”

Bentley smiled and nodded and tried to make it not look strained.

Bruce stood up and retreated out of the room, clicking the door shut behind him for the second time, and Bentley’s smile fell. Ninety-nine days later and it was crunch-time, time for him to make some kind of game plan.

How do you foil a supervillain’s evil plot? How do you destroy their plans when you’re the tool they’re working with? When you’re being used as leverage?

Bentley had to imagine it. If someone was cutting the wires to an elevator with a pair of scissors, you’d just…

Take the tool away. Then they’re left with nothing. Bentley’s father couldn’t hold anything over the Wayne’s heads if he didn’t have anything to hold. If he didn’t have Bentley.

His father could get to him in the manor. Bentley didn’t doubt that. Going back to Whittaker Estate wasn’t an option. He needed to be away from his father. Out of his reach, his sway, his influence, gone.

He needed…

He needed to run away.

He’d been thinking about ways to get out of the Manor since day one, incase Damian ever decided he wanted to kill him. He already had a plan for this.

Step One: Make It Seem Like He Was Home.

He stood up on his (somewhat wobbly) legs and half staggered into his bathroom. He looked pretty much normal in the mirror, despite being a bit pale and having a red rats nest instead of hair. His legs felt a bit like noodles after laying for two days straight. He flipped the shower on and turned it all the way to scalding hot so it would steam up the glass, and brushed his hair a bit. The shower water would keep them from investigating — at least for a few minutes.

Step Two: Escape the Manor

Which was way, way easier said than done. He left his bathroom and made sure to lock it before he closed it; so no one could walk in and see the empty shower unless they jimmied it first — it bought time. Everything bought him time. And he needed time. Because as soon as someone realized he was gone, the Gotham streets would crawling with vigilantes on the lookout for a certain little redhead.

He walked over to the left window of the two that straddled his bed. At the bottom of the two story fall was a bush — the other window had nothing but grass. There was a screen but it didn’t seem like it would be very hard to break through.

He knew the Waynes weren’t stupid. They had security measures, but he didn’t know when they were on or off. The moment he opened a window it could set off an alarm, or notify Bruce directly, which would be disastrous. But he’d still have time before they figured out what room it was in. Unless it told them that, too — then he was kind of screwed.

He needed a way to close the window from the outside so it wouldn’t be wide open when they came to check on him, which posed a problem. All that sat outside the window was a two story fall. There wasn’t exactly a Bentley sized close-the-window-behind-you balcony for him to use. He’d come back to that later.

For now, he changed into a hoodie, jeans, and a big jacket, and locked his bedroom door just for good measure. To give himself more time.

Maybe if he could hold onto the windowsill while he jumped out, it would fall closed. Or if he could find a way to tie something on it, he could close it from the outside. Or he could attempt a Dick Grayson-class circus act and balance on the lip of the window and close it with his nose or something. God, this was so complicated. How did anyone ever sneak out of a house?

He’d already chewed through too much precious time. It was inevitable that someone would check on him in the next fifteen or twenty minutes. He zipped up Jason’s old red jacket and walked over to the window.

He was on the right side of the Manor. To get to the front, he had to go right when he got outside. Then across the extensive grounds and over the massive gate, all without getting seen by any ten or eleven detective inhabitants of the house. Or getting barked at by a dog. Easy peasy.

The windowsill did have a handle, though. A little hole for your fingers, to make it easy to pull down. Maybe his whole tie something to it idea wasn’t so terrible after all.

He’s got this.

He shook hands out by his sides. The more time he wasted, the less he had before someone realized he was gone, the less distance he could cover before they started looking.

He quietly shuffled to his wardrobe and pulled the bottom drawer open, which was full of shoes — all tennis shoes and one pair of rain boots. Old and new ones that had appeared. He grabbed all of the tennis shoes, one by one, and started jerking the laces out.

That took him five minutes. He anxiously watched the clock as he started tying them together, end to end, to make one, massive shoelace. That took him about five minutes, too.

Then he tested each of the knots by jerking on each one. They seemed to hold, at least enough to close an open window.

With heavy breaths and a small anxious shake to his hands, he tied it to the handle of the window with a double knot. Then turned it into a triple knot. Than a quadruple knot.

Time was ticking, almost fifteen minutes had been used since Bruce left.

Bentley sighed heavily and reached up toward the window latches. And he flicked them, suddenly and quickly like ripping a bandaid off, and waited. Nothing happened.

He took a deep breath, steadied his hands, asked himself if he really wanted to do it or if he just wanted to take a shower.

He needed to do it. For them.

He slid the window open, and 6:34pm marked the minute Bruce Wayne may have received a security breach text.

Bentley kicked it into high-gear, assuming that, in the worst case scenario, he had about five minutes to get his butt out the window before someone came knocking. Probably… a minute or two of buffer time for them to pick the doors he locked. Or less. They were detectives.

He shook his head to clear his brain and focused on the task at hand — going out a two story window without breaking any bones. He pressed his hands against the screen and the panel popped out, falling into the bushes below.

He swung his legs over the windowsill and dropped the rope of shoelaces out the window. It stopped about two feet from the ground, but that was fine, he could reach it. If he didn’t break his legs.

What was the best way to land a fall from a second story window? Obviously not his head. Probably not his back. Feet it was, then.

Time was ticking, so he held his breath…

And pushed himself out of the window.

For a split second, all he felt was air, and then he hit the ground. He tried his best to land in some semblance of a crouch, but the impact shot pain through both of his ankles and he had to bite his tongue to stop from making a noise.

Two minutes gone.

He pushed himself onto his feet with a pained wince and glanced around. No one seemed to be outside, at least on this side of the house, and the dogs weren’t out. The sky was growing dimmer and the sun would be setting soon. He needed to be long gone by then.

He grabbed the shoelace rope and jerked on it a few times to no avail. Then he kept jerking on it and kept jerking on it with growing desperation until he was practically using all his body weight, and the window shut with a loud bang.

Success. Even though it didn’t take a Sherlock-level detective to see a long rope of shoelaces hanging from the side of the manor, they’d be hard to see from the inside. At least for a moment.

So, ignoring the dull pain in his ankles, he pushed himself toward the front of the manor, sticking close to the walls and ducking under windows.

Oh my God, he was actually, really doing this right now.

He could see the massive gate. He could see the street beyond. If he could just get on the other side, he’d be home free.

No one was in the front yard. The cars were parked but none were inhabited. The dogs weren’t out. The fading sunlight gave him a slightly better chance of not being seen.

So he sucked it up, took a breath, and ran. Like his life depended on it. Like the Wayne’s lives depended on it, because they did.

He thudded to a stop when he made it to the gate and realized he was too small to climb it. Panic shot through him like a poison arrow, because he was standing right in front if the manor, where anyone could see him.

What the heck was he supposed to do now?

Just get over it, just get out.

He stuck his arm between two of the metal bars, then his head. Than a leg. Then he pushed with as much force as he could to get the rest of him through, and the thudded on the pavement.

On the other side of the gate.

Time was ticking. No, it was gone. He knew the route to the inner city of Gotham good enough, he’d seen it over and over in the car.

So, to save the Waynes, his friends, his new family…

He stood up, brushed himself off, and started running.

—

Dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💛

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