#fuck me I literally want to crawl into a hole and be covered in dirt and slowly be compressed by the ground and soil encompassing me

[unsurebisexualcore]

y’all when I tell you I am this close to scooping my uterus out with a spork right now

#period shit #fuck me I literally want to crawl into a hole and be covered in dirt and slowly be compressed by the ground and soil encompassing me #personal #dear reporductive system of mine why won’t you find some lovely trans woman who wants u and leave me tf alone

[pinkoptics]

AU-gust 2021 Prompts

3. Hipsters / 16. Hippies

Erik detests hipsters and hippies and, to be honest, isn’t even sure what the difference is, nor does he particularly care. The things he will do for Charles…

Modern AU. Still have powers. Grumpy Erik. Adorable Charles. Meet Cute. Silliness.

3392 Words

*

Erik hated everything about this place.

Absolutely everything.

He could write a dissertation on its failings, which were abundant.

Its first sin was being directly across from his apartment building. When he looked out his window, he saw it. When he stepped out of the lobby doors, he saw it. When he pulled his car out of the parking garage, he saw it. It was an unavoidable part of every single day of his life.

Its second sin was what it had replaced. Previously, there had been a diner. A kosher diner. A diner that had tasted like his childhood. It had been a hole in the wall, never looked quite clean, but the coffee had been strong enough to caffeinate an elephant and the food almost as good as his mama’s. Most people had passed it by. Just another slightly dingy New York eatery that you didn’t give a second thought. Quiet. A refuge for those in the know. Then came the hipster gentrification, ruining not only his precious diner, but the neighbourhood in general.

Its third sin was its name. Plant. In and of itself the name ‘Plant’ was harmless, inoffensive. Just a word. It conjured images of a vegan eatery, bistro, restaurant, or maybe if taken 100% literally, a store that sold plants. All of which would have been fine. He had nothing against plants and, sure, he ate meat (kosher meat), but happily ate vegetarian dishes as well. But no, it was not a plant store or even a vegan eatery, it was a vegan coffeehouse. Coffee came from plants, Erik knew this, so the name passed on that technicality, but it did not scream ‘coffee.’ Why not ‘Bean’ if it needed to conform to the trendy one-word-naming that had for reasons unknown come with the gentrification. It was couched between ‘Table’ (a restaurant) and ‘Sweat’ (a boutique gym). Plant did not equal coffee, and that knowledge crawled under his skin every time he saw the stylized lettering.

Its fourth sin was the coffee. Erik wasn’t particularly picky about his brew, whether at home or out. Cheap diner swill, the finest Italian espresso, the Keurig at the office, the ridiculously expensive machine that produced the perfect cappuccino at Emma’s apartment, whatever. Plant’s beans were fine as beans went, the roast satisfactory, but then ruined with its accompaniments. They carried a variety of ‘mylks.’ Yes, with a ‘y’. He preferred lattes, and would have been fine with oat or almond— if only it was spelled with a fucking ‘i’. Every time he saw the pretentious letter, he felt the urge to take a sharpie and commit as many acts of misdemeanour graffiti as necessary until all the ‘y’s were gone.

Its fifth sin was its staff. He could have tolerated their always sunny dispositions (even if it were literally impossible for any customer service employee to be that happy all the time). He could have tolerated their ridiculous hipster (or was it hippy?) apparel, moustaches, beards and hairstyles (what was even the difference between the two?). What he could not handle was the way they called him ‘friend.’ Every. Single. Time. He could count his friends on one hand and none of them worked at Plant. Their ‘peace, love and joy’ vibe made him grind his teeth and wish he had a mutation that would allow him to send them back to the 1960s.

And yet…

“Good morning friend! Amazing day, right?” It was, in fact, pouring so hard the streets were borderline flooding. “Usual? Or do you want to try—”

Erik had long ago learned to immediately tune out the suggestions, but was sure he caught the word ‘sage.’ Who in their right fucking mind wanted sage in their coffee? Yes, he was inside the loathed establishment wasting precious brain cells wondering why anyone felt the need to mess with the simple perfection that was coffee and milk. Yes, he was there often enough that the employees knew him on sight. Yes, he had a usual order.

It wasn’t his fault.

It really wasn’t.

It was the fault of a pair of the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

This shouldn’t have been the case. The whole thing was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. The entire story more at home on the W Network or Hallmark, than in his very real, not-a-rom-com, life. And yet, here he was, having his 24th latte with mylk in a row and questioning his very sanity.

It had all started, just over a month ago, directly in front of Plant. To this day, Erik wasn’t sure whose fault it had been. He’d been on his phone, eviscerating a junior partner for a monstrous fuck up, and so livid that he was not at all paying attention to his surroundings. The blue-eyed man he’d run into, however, had claimed equal distraction, so perhaps the blame rested on both of their shoulders.

They had crashed into each other— papers flew, his phone flipped through the air and they ended up in a heap on the sidewalk, Erik atop the smaller frame beneath him. Already late for work, already pissed off with the junior partner beyond reason, Erik had been ready to re-direct his anger and tear whoever it was a new one, when the aforementioned blue eyes had arrested the words in his throat. He had admitted this to no one. Hell, he barely admitted it in the sanctity of his own mind because he was not a 12 year old girl, but a senior partner in one of the most prestigious architecture firms in New York. He did not go soft over a pair of gorgeous eyes (except, apparently, that he did), particularly when he hadn’t even seen the face that went with the eyes, which could have been grotesquely unattractive (it wasn’t).

The mouth that went with the eyes was absurdly red and absurdly kissable. The face angelic. To his eternal, internal embarrassment he had thought that exact word— angelic. He wished he could have blamed his temporary insanity on hitting his head, but having fallen on top, he couldn’t. If anyone had a concussion it was the ocean-eyed, ruby-lipped angel man. The ruby lips had spluttered apologies in a gorgeous British accent (not something Erik had until now found to be a turn on) as they scrambled off each other, righting clothes and belongings.

“Your phone!” the man had moaned. “Is it all right?”

The screen did appear to have a crack, but in another moment of lunacy, Erik pocketed it before the Angel could see and muttered something about it being fine. Instead, Erik helped him to collect the papers that had fluttered every which way, including the road, where they were already being demolished by a steady stream of vehicles.

“I hope those weren’t important.”

The man laughed, it was a very nice sound. “Not as such, no. I’m sure my students will be delighted to hear that their papers were torn asunder. They already mock me for printing them at all. I could mark them on my laptop like a proper 21st century individual, but there’s something about the feel of paper and pen that I just cannot let go of. It’s— and, as I go on and see your expression, I realize a simple ‘no’ likely would have sufficed.”

What did he see in Erik’s expression? A man besotted? Enamoured? Smitten? Any other number of words he had never used in regard to himself or anyone else in his entire life? Fuck. Erik tried to school has face into its usual disdain for the world and ninety-nine percent of the people in it, but if he was as in control of his facial muscles as he was of his thoughts, he knew he was failing miserably.

Erik handed him the last of the papers they could possibly retrieve. “I agree— about the pen and paper, I mean.” He did. As incredible as design software was these days, he always started on paper. The precision needed to draw the perfect straight lines and angles of a new building gave him a feeling of immense satisfaction in a way little else did.

“Oh, well, glad I’m not the only one who hasn’t forsaken the old ways.”

His smile.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Erik cleared his throat. “Let me buy you a coffee.”

Had he just said that?

Traitorous voice.

Was he gesturing at Plant?

Traitorous body.

He’d never been inside. On principle. Apparently, principle flew out the window for charming British men with cornflower (cornflower?!) blue eyes. The man blinked those eyes, as though not expecting the kindness.

Erik gestured at the papers. “I’ve clearly set your work back and I’ve ruined your—” cardigan. Erik blinked as his clothes came into focus. The man he was suddenly, desperately, attracted to was wearing a baggy, grandpa cardigan. Erik began to wonder if he had never woken up that morning. Maybe he was still in bed, across the street. Maybe this was a fever dream.

“Oh! I’ve dozens more just like it. It’s nothing.” He swatted ineffectually at the dirt covering one sleeve.

“Please.”

The man cocked his head. “Well… all right.”

So Erik had. In the end it had been a tea, not coffee. Earl grey with mylk. The interaction had ended there, awkwardly. Most likely his own fault. He didn’t do flirting with random strangers he’d just plowed into on the street. He didn’t generally do flirting at all. Moreover, he was now very late and had the junior partner’s fuck ups to fix before this afternoon’s meeting with their client. So, he’d left, stumbling over his goodbyes.

The day that followed hadn’t afforded much opportunity to think on the chance encounter. Not with employees to castrate and clients to placate. It wasn’t until he was home, looking out the bank of front windows at Plant that his thoughts drifted back to Blue Eyes. Which was, unfortunately, what he had christened him in his head because he’d never gotten the man’s name. Erik had gone to bed, mind clouded with thoughts, dreamt of him, and woken up with those same thoughts. Emma had always said his was one of the most disciplined minds she had ever encountered.

So much for that.

It was only a complete loss of that discipline that could possibly explain why he’d unnecessarily crossed the street the next morning and entered the obnoxious establishment for a second time, without even a moment’s hesitation. His eyes had immediately scanned for a mop of just overlong brown hair (yes, he’d noted that too, as well as just how much he wanted to run his hands through it). When they’d landed upon said hair, curling delightfully upon Blue Eyes’ forehead, Erik had been genuinely surprised. This clearly made the man a Plant regular, which should have been a point against him — a massive point — yet here Erik was, seeking him out regardless. Blue Eyes had looked up at him then, gifting him with a smile and acknowledging him with a nod, before returning to a set of what Erik had to guess were re-printed term papers.

Such was the story of how Erik had become a regular customer with a regular order.

Most days Blue Eyes was there before he came in, sometimes working on laptop or in a notebook, other times reading a book or a journal. Erik had caught a title once — The Oxford Journal of Genetics — which led him to conclude, that along with clearly being a professor, this proved the man must have a brain to back up the looks. Another point in his favour, as Erik had no patience for stupidity, no matter how pretty a package it came in.

Erik’s day was such that he usually needed to take his order to go. The few days where he could scrape together a few extra minutes, he grabbed his own table. He hadn’t once attempted to kid himself that it was because he enjoyed the ambience— that level of denial would have been absurd. No, it was clearly so he could spend a few extra minutes trying to stare, in a way that wasn’t blatantly obvious, at his… crush. Crush. He might as well think the word because that’s what it was. Only days after meeting him, Erik had caught himself, pen poised, about to doodle hearts on his notepad at a meeting. The mental pinch and knowing look Emma had sent his way had made him extra testy for the rest of the day. The wide berth everyone but Emma had given him was a testament to that.

And yet…

He never approached Blue Eyes. They exchanged nods, occasional hellos, but never anything more. Out of all of his out of character behaviour — and there was a lot of it at this point — this rattled him most. Erik had a reputation in professional and personal circles. He was confident, forbidding, occasionally arrogant, and brazen in pursuing designs no one else thought possible to execute. Erik went after what he wanted in life with borderline fanaticism.

He did not sit and observe from afar, mentally warring with himself, while also berating himself, for not having the balls to ask to join him, or buy him another tea, or inquire as to what he was reading. There were any number of conversational openings, but 24th latte in, he still hadn’t taken any of them. With each passing day the side of him that decided against it (or ‘chickened out’ as the nastier part of his mind supplied) became stronger and stronger. Blue Eyes hadn’t engaged with him either. Maybe he wasn’t gay. Maybe Erik wasn’t his type. Maybe he was already in a relationship. The chances that he was being just as melodramatic as Erik was being in his own head seemed slim. So, Erik continued to act foolish — alternately wondering how long he would continue to do so and how good a kisser Blue Eyes might be with lips like that.

It was on latte #26 that everything changed— no thanks to Erik.

He had decided to sit at a table that day and engage in his usual ‘I’m staring but I’m not staring’ routine. He was in the ‘not-staring’ portion, scrolling through his emails without really paying attention to any of them, when he was startled out of it by the chair across from him suddenly becoming occupied.

Blue Eyes.

“I can’t take it anymore.”

“Wha—”

“You come in here every day. Every day. Sometimes you stay, sometimes you don’t. It’s baffling because there is one thing I know for certain— you hate it here. No, you loathe it. And, there are literally dozens of other coffee houses within walking distance. You clearly don’t belong—” Blue Eyes gestured up and down at what was likely Erik’s three piece suit, then at Plant in general, where there wasn’t a single person so much as sporting dress pants. Erik counted at least two man buns, one head of dreadlocks and a form of baggy pants Erik didn’t even have a name for. “—and I am fascinated by things that don’t belong. Things that don’t make sense. Puzzles. You don’t make sense. There is no way the coffee is that good. And yet, here you are. Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Charles.”

Blue Eyes — no, Charles — extended his hand across the table and, reflexively, Erik took it, shaking it gingerly.

Charles laughed. “I don’t bite. I entirely talk too much, ask anyone, but I don’t bite.”

Erik rather wished that he did.

“How did you— my suit?”

Thankfully, Charles seemed to follow his meaning. “Oh no, the suit is only corroborating evidence. As is the way you look down your nose at everything in here. It’s your mind.” Charles tapped his temple. “Telepath. I swear to you I haven’t dug any deeper than the surface swirl of utter distaste for this establishment. Then I’d know, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t be here asking.”

Telepath. Blue E— Charles was a mutant. Erik was fairly certain his knees went a little weak. Good thing they were sitting. However… what on earth could he say? ‘I’ve essentially been stalking you’ hardly seemed like an opener that was going to get him where he wanted to be. Erik cleared his throat, buying time, as those keen eyes continued to look at him expectantly. While Erik wasn’t verbose, he also never found himself at a loss for words, except for here and now, where the truth was exceptionally embarrassing.

His pause, it seemed, went on too long because Charles jumped back into the fray. “Good lord, I’ve ambushed you, haven’t I? Clearly, you don’t have to answer the mad man who mowed you down on the sidewalk and then ambushed the peaceful solitude of your morning coffee. I apologize and will bugger right off if you tell me to. However, if it helps any, I don’t like it here either. It’s trying too bloody hard to be ‘on trend,’ isn’t it? For a cultural subset who pride themselves on not being pretentious they’ve entirely failed, haven’t they? And, I’m English, I know pretentious.” He laughed self-depreciatingly at that.

A beat for his mind to catch up to the second verbal barrage and Erik finally had a response. “If you like it as little as I do, then why are you here?”

Charles’ mouth formed a perfect little ‘o’ of surprise. He scratched the back of his neck and, for a moment, looked everywhere but Erik. “Blast. I’m caught, aren’t I?”

His cheeks reddened adorably. Since when did Erik find anything adorable? Since now, apparently. This man broke all of his rules.

Charles gave an adorable (christ) little shrug of his shoulders. “I suppose I best come clean.” He looked Erik squarely in the eye. “You’re gorgeous. You bought me tea. I came back thinking I’d ask you out. But you’re so… I lost my nerve. Have been doing the same daily ever since.”

“I’m so… ?”

The cheeks reddened further.

“Entirely too gorgeous for me.” Charles gestured at today’s grandfatherly cardigan. “Besides that—”

“You’re perfect.”

Fucking hell. When had his mind decided to say things without his permission?

It produced another, adorable, surprised little ‘o’. “I’m sorry— What?”

In for a penny…

“I had never set foot in Plant before we crashed into each other. Never would have because I do hate everything about it. Everything except you, who I thought were a regular—”

“I thought you were a regular.”

“— and wanted to ask you out.”

“I’d never been here before ei— you wanted to ask me out?”

They stopped, collective words sinking into respective minds.

Charles threw his head back, laughing. “If I didn’t know better—“ He tapped his temple again. “— I’d think you’re having me on.”

His laughter was infectious and Erik found he was smiling despite himself. He gave his own little shrug. “I don’t lie.”

“No, you don’t, do you? I can’t believe we both—”

“Me either.”

“This is too much. Wait… Why are we still here?”

“I’m sorry?”

Charles leaned forward and plucked Erik’s latte with oat mylk from his hand. “Can I buy you a coffee? A real coffee? Where they know how to spell the word milk? At the cafe I actually frequented before I began co-starring with you in a romcom so terrible my sister wouldn’t even watch it?”

He was already standing up, as if assured Erik would say yes, which every single bone in his body was blaring loudly for him to do. It didn’t seem to matter to any part of him that he would be blowing off work, a thought he discarded as quickly as it appeared. Just another out of character thing to add to the list. He followed. “I’m Erik, by the way.”

Charles looked back, as he collected his belongings, and grinned sheepishly. “I know.”

That was the last time Erik set foot in Plant until exactly a year later. He ordered latte #27 with Blue-Eyed Charles on his arm, after having crossed the street from their apartment, to celebrate their first anniversary. As Charles smiled at him over his Earl Gray with mylk, Erik found he couldn’t quite hate the damned coffee shop as much as he had before.

#cherik #cherik fanfic #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #pinkoptics fic #au_gust #augustwritingchallenge

[astringofmadhousefloozies]

Ghost Wedding: The Remix

So, uh, here’s the first actual fanfic I’ve written, and the first full length piece I’ve written in literal years. I wrote it for my own amusement, after weeks of eating up various bits of TWST lore and scenes and going “But, how would the whole Ghost marriage story have gone with a Yuu who was more like me a goth bisexual disaster?

What follows is a series of vignnetes, starring a Yuu who’s the only girl in NRC, with deeply questionable taste, told in the second person. Please let me know if you enjoyed it, I crave positive feedback and like when other people enjoy the things I like.

Contend warnings for blood, body horror, emeto, coarse language and pretentious word choices.

You've been here a while. En-Arr-See wasn't precisely a safe place, what with your dorm being a condemned hellpit of tetanus and black mold, and powerful magicians having mutagenic psychotic breaks only curable by kicking their ass so hard it flies out their mouth. But certainly, it wasn't boring, and you'd made friends. You had your scrappy ginger Ace in the hole; your serious mamas-boy Deuce; your funny little not-a-cat Grim. Hell, you even have your Horned Boy, he of the poison-coloured eyes that never seem to leave your face when you talk about fun things like books and music and the moral imperative of dissolving the monarchy. And, you were on speaking terms with a good chunk of others. So, when your favourite little robot came up to Crowley, yelling something about ghosts kidnapping his brother, you took his hand and said, "Ortho, show me what's going on." After all, you won't let anything happen to Idia. You have plans for him yet.

~*~*~*~

Some beauties might launch a thousand ships, and in your (objectively correct) opinion, while Idia's beauty wouldn't lead to a ten year siege of Troy, he'd certainly convince everyone attending Whitby Goth Weekend to haul off into the sea with a beat of his lashes. The first time you'd seen him, you'd simply stared in slack-jawed awe. He was luminescent; even leaving behind the fiery hair that flashed and swelled behind him, his eyes were a bright clear amber, and his skin translucent, with his own blue veins serving as the detailing in the marble. Add in the deeply circled eyes and the bluish discolouration of the lips, and the figure he presented was arresting, astounding, more beautiful and unreal than anything you'd conjured up after staying up all night reading ghost stories. "Magnificent," you'd said to yourself, and if your friends gave you a strange look, well, fuck 'em. They have no sense of beauty or taste.

Unfortunately, the intensity of your gaze proved too much for him, and he'd fled. You'd had no time to pursue the object of your infatuation either, class would soon begin, and Grim was yelling. Later, then. There's all the time in the world to ask after the fine young man with the lamplight eyes.

~*~*~*~ "Oh no," you said when Ortho showed you the video. "She's really hot."

Grim gawked and Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Is that what you take from this?"

"You're the one with an all-boys school. What's a girl like me to do when a pretty girl pops up?"

"She's a ghost, Yuu."

"That's the best part."

"My brother-"

"I'll help you, dear." You set a hand on Ortho's shoulder. "He must be so frightened, right? I'll do what you need." 

Before anyone could say anything else, a racket started up outside, and things got a little busy.

~*~*~*~ "Do you mind if I sit?"

Idia looked up at you. starting at the intrusion. His face was awash in blue from the conjured screens around him, his lips gone black. "...Why?"

"Tables are full. I'd rather not eat standing." He didn't explicitly say no, so you settled across the table, a few chairs down. He made a fascinating tableau as you picked at your lunch, flicking through and typing at the screen. Lines of code, schematics for all sorts of tech, occasional comics all flit across the pane of light in a million shades of blue. Until...

"Could you pretend I'm a bug?"

You squinted. "What." What the actual hell did he mean by that.

"Pretend I'm not here. I'm beneath notice."

You stop for a moment and smile, faint enough that he can't see the devil in it. "You want me to treat you like an insect."

"Yes." Hard to see in the light, there was a small twitch by his temple, a barely perceptible shake in his long fingered hands.

"Alright." With that, you slide down the table to directly across from him, settle you chin in your hands, and stare at him unblinkingly.

"?!?!?" The squawk he made was undignified and deeply, deeply endearing. "What are you doing?"

"You asked me to treat you like an insect." You smile at him, full of mischief and good cheer. "So I'm looking at you very closely. I'm taking in every sweet action, and delighting that the day has conspired to put something so wonderful in front of me."

Oh, who would have thought that this blue boy could turn so pink! As he pulled his hood up, you chuckle and move back to your tray. "I'll let you be," you say, and did indeed, for the amount of time it took him to close up shop and flee back to the depths of Ignihyde. When you waved at him as he went by, he nearly tripped in his haste.

~*~*~*~ "Stop laughing."

The boys did not listen.

"May others show you the kindness you've shown Idia if you're in a bind."

"You're just mad because she's gonna kill your-"

"Grim? Shut the fuck up. Now; who's helping."

After a chorus of 'no's, you drag your fingers through your hair. "I hate all of you so fucking much right now... Ortho, your ideas?"

Ortho's idea was deeply enticing but Crowley would not have the school leveled, and thankfully, the two of them threatened and guilted the others into helping. You'd have to say thank you later, but god, then Crowley might think you actually liked him instead of just finding him funny, and who needed that in their life?

"Alright, so... A plan?"

~*~*~*~ As badly as he might've liked to have escaped, there was only one empty seat in the class, and it was by him. So, Idia threw his hood up, along with his headphones, and started blatantly ignoring you.

"Idia." Silence.

"Idia." A faint grunt and he turned away from you.

"Shroud," you intoned in the most sepulchral tone you could, setting you hand in his field of vision. He whipped his head at you, the fire in his eyes nothing compared to the changing colours on his head.

"WHAT."

You raise your hands in supplication, trying to still your racing heart. "I'm sorry dude. I wanted to ask where you got your screens?"

"My screens?" His eyes flicked back to his schoolwork, hovering in the air. "I made them myself."

Your face lit up in awe. "That's amazing dude, holy shit. How'd you do that? It's a damn miracle."

"Ah... well..." Two sides warred within him - pride that someone recognized his tech genius, and his deep seated anxiety that anyone trying to be nice was just fucking with him. Fortunately for both of you, pride won out. "It's certainly something complicated for a magicless normie like you to understand." He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Do you really want to hear?"

You fixed him with a level look. "Never call me that again. Now, start like I'm five and go from there."

He stared back at you, and you stared right back. "Indulge me, Idia."

He gave you a smile full of sharp, crooked teeth, and while you tried to still the palpitations the sight of them gave you, he started with very basic theory, and went from there.

~*~*~*~ "You are not going to seduce the ghost bride, Yuu."

"Why the hell not?"

"You're a girl?"

"You're kinda plain."

"You're fat."

"She's probably straight?"

You point in turn at Leona, Azul, Vil, and Kalim. "So?, no I'm plenty hot actually, get fucked, and... Okay, That is a good point. But Kal, you have no idea how many straight girls I've managed to kiss."

"I think you'd die, Shrimpie," Floyd said as he flopped heavily over your shoulders, giggling as you attempted to untangle yourself. "And you're short."

"Yeah, but you have no idea how hot I am when I'm actually try- Shut up, Vil - Like, I clean up so good you guys. I even made a suit a couple weeks ago -"

"That's convenient? Weirdly so?"

"I found suiting that wasn't moth eaten and decided to have fun, at least-" You finally escape from the noodly arms of Leech the Wild One. "Let me suit up and show you? I can be so sexy, you guys. Come on."

In answer to the confused silence, you took your keys out of your pocket and chucked them at Deuce's confused face. "Adeuce! Grim! It's on the vanity in my room!"

"But ghosts?"

"Say you're clearing out things so that we won't bother... No, actually just go the balcony way."

"You can't unlock the balcony from the outside without a lockpick, it only locks from the inside."

A moment of silence. "Lilia, what the fuck?"

He shrugged. "I moved everything two inches to the left once to see if you noticed."

"I wasn't imagining things?!?"

This'll take a moment to sort out, and the clock is ticking...

~*~*~*~ You truly liked the woods! Green and quiet. Full of things that crawled and scurried, little friends that squeaked and croaked and hissed. The occasional precious treasure of a small bone or edible mushroom. So, you were quite surprised when you found Idia, miserable, crouched beside a fallen log.

"... Skipping gym?" Going by the uniform, the most likely answer. "Or did you finally realize that outside doesn't always bite?"

He scowled at you, and you stifled a giggle when you realized that yes, he was actually covered in bug bites. "They should replace this with a mall."

"You hate malls. Too many people." You reached out a hand, and pulled him to his feet. Idly, you wondered if he'd let you try and fit your hands around his waist, but thought better of asking.

"Game stores are alright. No one bothers you in one, or in arcades. And." He stopped, as he brushed the dirt from his legs, before continuing in a mumble you only got the gist of.

"Me and Ortho will be your big, scary guard dogs?"

"... Who'll notice me with both of you?"

"Everyone." Because he's the most beautiful person in the room, and they'd be mad not to look. "Because you show up so rarely. It makes it all the more noticeable when you are out, so everyone pays attention." You held out a hand. "I'll take you out the back way so you don't get in trouble."

No dice. He held his hands in close. "I'll just follow."

"Alright. Why'd you go out this far in the woods with no map, anyways?"

"There's no cell service..."

"Clearly, we need to turn your blood into a wi-fi signal, instead of liquid sugar."

He huffed, but he did follow you, and was actually approaching a good mood once you escorted him through the Ramshackle gates.

~*~*~*~ "Hey, what did I miss?" It took entirely too long to get a single lock of hair to to a perfect insouciant flip over your forehead, even with the eternally stylish Sam's help.

"She's slapped everyone who went to propose, and when she does you're paralyzed for 500 years."

"Christ," You say as you adjust a pin on your lapel. "We have to get Idia back, he'll get what? A week before he gets the hand."

"She's so fussy!" yelled Grim. "You have to sing and have a dog and she hates poison flowers."

"Clearly, she has no taste." Honestly,you thought her taste was just fine, what with thinking Idia was the finest of the bunch. He was very princely, if your tastes ran to exquisite corpses with the personality of a neurotic goblin. "Who wouldn't want poison blossoms?" Tie? No tie? Tie? No tie? No tie. And unbutton. Leona wishes he had this chest.

"We know she has no taste because she chose Idia."

You chose to ignore that, and clapped. "Okay, Round Two!"

~*~*~*~ The truest tragedy of this school was that it was all boys. Not that boys were bad by any means, you certainly enjoyed them, but... girls. Tall girls! Short girls! Busty girls! Petite girls! Butch girls! Femme girls! Fat girls! Girls!

So many kinds of girls, and you, in all of your plump and handsome glory, were the only girl in an entire high school. Welcome to hell.

You accepted no gifts that came unvetted. You had friends ward the everloving bajeezus out of your dorm room. Grim was more than happy to test your food and drink for tampering, but it was exhausting. You at least knew that any food you ate at the Mostro Lounge was clear, but that was only because everyone was too damn scared of the eternally hovering Floyd to try anything while there.

 So, you eat a lot of vending machine snacks.

You've been standing there for fifteen minutes, trying to figure out the best combo with your limited funds, when someone coughed behind you.

"??? Oh, hey Idia." You stepped aside while he shuffled up to the glass and peered in. "Anything to recommend? I got this." You waved your bill in the air.

He only looked at you a moment before looking back at the machine. "That won't get you much."

"Ah, don't I know it. But it's all I got."

He still wasn't looking directly at you, but a smile started to creep across his face. "Get your bag."

"Wha-" He was already tapping out a beat with the keypad, blue sparks flying from his fingertips, the machine starting to groan and shiver. With a final note, the snack machine gave a final heaving shudder - and every single snack fell to the bottom of the machine.

He was so proud as he smiled at you, reaching down and pulling a single bag of gummies from the spilled mess. "You first."

And, as you stuffed your schoolbag and pockets full of thieved goods, praising his genius, his cleverness, his skills, he just glowed.

~*~*~*~ "I guess you were ahead of the game, Yuu. She hates that no one's dressed up properly. And..."

"And? You raised an eyebrow at Ace.

"You do look stylish. But you need backup."

"Of course. You'll all rescue people while I distract her!”

"But what if she slaps you?"

"You'll step in if that happens. But we have to dress you all up."

"Did you makes spares?"

"No." Tragic, everyone would look so cute in summerweight green wool. "Let's ask Sam, he's got everything."

~*~*~*~ "Okay, Ortho, you see?" You held his back to your chest, and raised your hand in front of his face, palm away from him. As you wiggled your fingers, you could see movement on the back of your hand. "Those are tendons. Those, and the muscles, are what move the bones, make your hands move. If you put your fingers here," you say as you place his fingertips over the moving lines, "you should be able to feel it."

"I do! They go up and down. What's the popping?"

"That's my faulty joints, we'll cover those another day. Now," you flipped your hand over, and moved his fingers to your wrist. "You feel that?"

"That is your pulse! It's not as string as it should be."

"I'm not always in the best of health. So, Ortho. My hand moves by muscles and tendons when I think of it. My blood moves through my body, one beat at a time, and you can feel it. Right?"

"Right."

"You," you say, as you take Ortho's other hand. "Your hand moves by motors and servos, when you think about it. Electricity and magic moves through your body, in beats so fast we can't perceive it, and it's as measurable as my pulse."

"... Because I am a robot."

"Because you are a bit different. But we're both alive, we're both real, just in different ways." You turn to look at Ortho directly, and he looks back at you with yellow eyes that are actual, real lamps. "Don't let anyone ever say you're not real, or alive, or good enough, just because you're different."

And though you can't see it, you can feel Idia smiling from the corner of his room.

~*~*~*~ Alright. No more time for memories, only the here and now. You've got a heart full of love, a pocket full of ring, and a head full of stupid. You're as prepared as anyone else who went in. Start on your left foot, and...

"Hello? Excuse me?" You make a cursory knock at the doorframe before stepping in. "I heard there was a wedding."

The bride - Eliza - whirled on you, and stopped. She was even more of a vision in person, airy translucence and fine, sweet features currently arranged in confusion. "Ah- Yes! I'm getting married to my darling Prince Idia! Right away, so-"

Not if I have my way about it, you thought to yourself as you arranged yourself in a perfect bow, one hand behind your back. You pretended not to notice Idia trussed up with rope, but you filed the sight away for later. "How wonderful. I wish you only happiness. But it must wait."

Before she could get her hand ready, you straightened and fixed her with your best smile. "My dearest princess, I cannot let this happen until I dance with the most beautiful person in this room. It would be improper to do so with a newlywed, and I cannot know peace until I dance. Would you be so kind, my fair princess?"

She was still baffled. "Aren't you a girl?"

You keyed up the brightness. "I am, and I dance very well. Would you indulge me, my dear?"

You could see her considering it. "You... are rather princely. Can you lead?"

"Of course. May I?" Again with the bow, and to your delight, she returned with a flawless curtsy. Hand in hand, you began.

~*~*~*~ It was delightful, to dance with this silly ghost girl. Everywhere your bodies touched, from her hand in yours to what would have been a fine chest, but was instead a clean and elegant ribcage festooned with pearls, heat seeped away and left only a chill as cold as clay. Her footwork was flawless, considering she no longer had feet, and she was so easy to chat with. She asked you about your dog (none currently, but you'd love to have one, and there was Grim in the meantime), your singing, (little voice to speak of, but that was what vocal coaches were for), and why you wanted to dance with her (because when would the chance ever come again? Unless fairest Eliza considered her for forever and a day.)

"But what of dear Idia?" She'd almost looked towards where Idia no longer was, having been unknotted long ago, but you drew her back in before she could notice the chaos around her.

" 'Dear Idia', though as beautiful as the moon in the sky, has cold feet, my love. He's afraid of dying. But I? I'd cherish you for all of eternity." You leaned in closer. "I am not afraid of dying, beloved. To journey with you through realms beyond mortal reach. I can think of nothing more exciting than to cross the barrier to the other side, hand in hand with you. In the words of a fine sir from my home, 'to die by your side/the pleasure, the privilege is mine'. Please, please consider me, please..."

Here's how it should have gone: She said yes, and you put the ring on her finger, and all was well. But you'd awakened such a sweet hunger in her, she could not wait for propriety. Instead, she grasped your face and kissed you with the passion of five hundred years search, found.

~*~*~*~ It was so pleasant at first, that you couldn't help but return it. When had anyone ever kissed you with such passion? But quickly, the chill began to overtake you. It could have been bearable, but after that was pain. You started to shake, uncontrollably, as every nerve in your body was scraped away with a rusty blade, and as you weakly tried to push away, as blood began to flow from your eyes, your mouth, every pore and orifice, she still would not let go. All you could think was it hurts it hurts it hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts and, as you slipped to a grey place beyond where pain could touch you, you barely noticed the cacophony around you, or something hurtling towards the two of you from the corner of your eye.

Something blue.

~*~*~*~ When you finally woke up, through a drugged and painful haze, you couldn't tell where you were. When you jolted up, the pain of it sending you into a nauseated fit of blood-flecked coughing, a familiar yelp sounded, and you turned to see Idia, little the worse for wear.

"You're up, uh..." He fumbled something onto the table, behind his back. "I."

You just looked. At him, at the surroundings. A hospital bed, with gifts and flowers (most filched from the wedding venue, but someone had stuck Jade's poison blossom into a vase and set it in the far corner). Idia was the only one present, seeing as it was the middle of the night.

"Ortho's getting things you might need. I... I hate hospital scenes..."

"Hurt's over.” You tried to settle yourself more comfortably, failing miserably. “Here comes the comfort." You reached out a hand, as he looked anywhere in the room but you.

"Idia." Silence.

"Idia." More silence.

"Shroud." He hesitantly placed his hand in yours, tinting pink as you pulled the sleeve up. The sight of it made you gasp. His fine wrist, so small even you could put your fingers around it, was mottled with deep bruising, blacks and purples set so deep into the skin that there was crusted blood on the surface, despite being unbroken. It was so, deeply, incredibly...

Beautiful. It was all you could do, not to press your lips to his wrist and taste his pulse as it flitted under his skin. To clean the blood away with your own tongue and cover the marks that your hungry ghost princess had made with your own teeth. Not hers. Yours.

Really, no wonder you'd been so enchanted with Eliza. You're cut of the same cloth.

"It must hurt."

He jerked his hand away, making you both wince. "What the hell is wrong with you? They only reason you're not dead is everyone pouring so much healing magic into you that it exhausted almost everyone. I." You could see flickers and flashes of orange sparking along the full length of his hair. "I'm not worth dying for. Why?"

What do you tell him? That it was the right thing to do? That you wanted to prove that you could woo a pretty girl? That you didn't want him dead? That you were a possessive bitch that couldn't stand the idea of someone else having him, even if unwilling on his part? All were true, but what do you say?

It proved a moot point, as when you opened your mouth to say something, anything, something shifted within you, and the only thing Idia received was a gout of blood square in his face.

~*~*~*~ After you'd slept, you reached for your phone in the thin morning light. Your friends where texting well wishes and condolences, and explanations of what happened after you went down (It seemed Idia had tackled Eliza clean off of you, and after some chaos she ran off with her retainer, rending this entire day moot). Even more interestingly, you found a text from an unknown number:

- I'm still mad at you.

You huffed to yourself, and after a bit of thought, start to text back.

- Dude I'm so sorry about the uh. blood puke. - I'll pay for cleaning - Also you know, you could have just asked for my number a long time ago? - Like a normal person? - Who doesn't break into phones to steal said numbers while I was unconscious next to you, what the fuck dude - That's not what this is about though. - You've got every right to be mad - That whole day was traumatizing, and you didn't deserve any of it - I'd rather sort this out in person but if text is easier for you right now we can do that - One last thing though

You stopped, and thought Do I actually do this? and went what the hell.

- I still need that dance I went in to get from you

#twisted wonderland #twst fic #twisted wonderland fanfiction #ghost wedding #my writing

[stayextrafrosty]

I am Your Future, I am Your Past: Chapter 8

A Roswell New Mexico Soulmate AU

Note: Please don’t be mad at me at the end of this. Also, two weeks into classes and my free time for writing has gone down considerably.

Read On AO3 // Chapter 1

-

Michael sat with Isabel at a red light. The information they got was useful but still only surface level. What was that work he was still doing for the military? Something about it felt wrong and he wasn’t sure he wanted to learn the answer. For Alex’s sake.

“Hey cowboy, back to earth.” He jumped when Isabel poked him. Zoning out had become a regular part of his day.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. She shook her head.

“I swear you’re like a lovestruck teenager. I was just saying that we should go pick up your truck and clear out that bunker.” He shot a glare at her that she didn’t see. She tapped her fingers along to whatever was on the radio and he turned back to look out the window.

Everyone they talked to seemed to have nothing but good things to say about Forrest. How could Michael even begin to measure up? He used to be known as the town drunk. He sold old parts from the auto shop for extra money. Not to mention literally pushing Alex away on the first day he told him about the curse.

He glanced down at his scarred and busted hand. All that history and it was almost nothing but pain. And even now that’s all their relationship was about. Pain. He wished it could be different. He wanted to touch him gently. Say everything was going to be fine and mean it.

Images of the two lovers from the journal flashed through his mind. The two of them running. Holding each other. Touching…

Michael shook his head. He couldn’t get lost in that world. There were too many other things he needed to take care of.

Isabel pulled into the Evans’ drive. He hopped out before waiting for her to stop completely triggering a worried yelp that made him grin. He’d been doing that ever since she started driving. Waiting just long enough so he wouldn’t get hurt but still enough to startle her.

“One day you’re going to misjudge and I’m going to run you over,” she scolded. Michael laughed as he shut her door.

Hopping into his own truck he pulled out and followed Isabel back to Sanders Auto. His radio refused to play anything clearly. Certain sounds came through but nothing for very long. He tried changing the station but it was all the same.

Coming… this time… need help… the last… chance…

He shook his head and settled for just turning it off. He’d have to take a look at it later. The sun beat down on the steering wheel, making it difficult to hold. It seemed brighter than usual. Michael picked up his sunglasses that he almost never wore. Could this day get any weirder?

The houses spread out until they were nonexistent at the edge of town. Tumbleweeds blew about the cactus, dust kicking up behind cars. They turned off the main road onto the dirt and gravel path up to the junkyard.

Michael could see Sanders sitting in a lawn chair, watching over the place. Or maybe watching him pull in. He hadn’t exactly been the best worker the last week. He couldn’t even explain why. There were other mechanics he could call but part of his deal was that he could park there as long as he worked regularly. He pulled up next to his Airstream. Sanders stood from the chair slowly.

“Been missin’ ya boy. You wanna hang around, you gotta fix some’a these guys for me,” He said. Michael had heard the threats before but Sanders rarely followed through. Didn’t mean he wanted to test how far he could push him.

“I’ll get on it as soon as I finish cleaning some stuff up in the bunker, promise.” He narrowed his one eyebrow that was visible. He scratched his nose then turned to go inside his office trailer.

“It’s wonderful to see you Mr. Sanders,” Isabel called after him in her sweetest voice. He waved as he tried to hide the small smile that always snuck out when she was around. Michael didn’t understand why she made a better impression than he did but at least the old guy might be in a good mood.

Isabel followed him over to the lever on the back of his trailer. It groaned as it moved to uncover the top of the bunker. He pulled the lid open.

“Watch your step. Probably should have told you to wear more sensible shoes,” he said, gesturing to her boots with the four-inch heel. He moved down the ladder first. Figuring he’d be more help if she slipped. She just rolled her eyes at him.

“I think you forget who you’re talking to, Michael. I could probably kick your ass in shoes higher than this,” she taunted. Isabel followed him quickly. He sighed heavily, not knowing how to respond.

He left her to handle the rest of it by herself. He felt around for the light. He hadn’t spent much time here since he had shown it to Alex. Sure, he came to water the plants but the experiment seemed to have failed.

Michael found the switch that was farther in than it probably should have been and he flipped it on. The lights flickered a few times before dimly lighting the space. He walked over to his planters, examining the wilted leaves. He cursed under his breath. He would need to experiment with the dirt and fertilizer again.

“What are you even doing in here,” Isabel asked skeptically.

“Trying to make plants grow in harsh conditions. Make it easier to grow crops.” Isabel exhaled softly as she stared in awe.

Michael picked up the dying plants on one of the far tables, moving the planters to a different table on the other side of the bunker. He didn’t have anywhere to keep this stuff for now. Maybe he’d ask Liz if there was any extra lab space she knew about. The best he could do was move his experiments to one side of the room.

“Didn’t your mother used to work with this kind of stuff?” He paused in his movements. He hadn’t thought about her in a while.

“Yea. Found some of her old notes. That’s what I’m working off of,” he said, pretending like it didn’t hurt to think about. He couldn’t remember her in detail anymore. He had a picture of his parents but their voices were lost to time. Neither of them had been the recording type so there weren’t any videos.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said gently. Her hand rested on his shoulder.

“It was a long time ago now.” He shook her hand off and continued moving the planters around. She didn’t push the topic further.

The silence stretched as one side of the bunker began to look like... well... a bunker again. The light coming through the hole where the door was dimmed, sun setting. The summer was at its end and there wasn’t nearly enough light in the day anymore. He glanced at his phone. Not even seven thirty.

“Hey Iz, wanna pick up some food?” He looked over at her and watched as she made a face at some bug that she stomped on with her heel. Michael tried not to laugh as she did it again.

“Don’t laugh! Why don’t these things fucking die?” Michael raised an eyebrow and walked over to where she was standing. A scorpion ran around the leg of the table, surviving another assault from Isabel’s shoe.

Michael shook his head and grabbed her arm gently, pulling her away. These things would only die if you burned them. Or at least crushed them with a steel weight. Maria was never a fan of how many of them popped up around here either.

He grabbed an empty planter cup and set it in front of the bug. He waited patiently for it to crawl in before trapping it with a second one. It would be pissed when he let it go but he should be able to toss it somewhere it wouldn’t come back for revenge.

“Grab that tape, would you? Keep it sealed until I get outside.” Isabel hurried over to the table where they had moved a handful of things and pulled a long piece of tape from the dispenser.

“I will never understand why you always saved these things. There’s more than enough in the world,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself after handing him the tape.

He never really understood it either. And it wasn’t consistent. He’d kill certain spiders but save scorpions. Save snakes but kill mice. Maybe he should start just saving them all? As a child he always thought that maybe they were just misunderstood.

Michael wrapped the tape around the seam of the two cups. He could feel the thing moving around, probably looking for a way out.

“Alright, alright, just chill,” he mumbled to the scorpion. Weirdly enough, it stopped moving. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Isabel.

Climbing up the ladder was harder with only one hand. The extra strain on his arm made him flinch. The bullet wound had actually closed much faster than normal, though it still hurt.

Michael pulled himself out of the hole and stood slowly, wiping the dirt from his hands on his pants. He walked to a space behind the trailer, looking out at the expanse of desert. He just needed a rock or something this thing could dig under.

“You know. I’d really like to climb under a rock sometimes, too. Maybe we aren’t so different,” he said to the bug that had begun to crawl again.

He laughed at himself and walked out to a cactus about fifty feet away from the trailer. He pulled the tape off and opened the two cups slowly, trying to figure out which one it was in. He crouched down and dumped it as close to the plant as possible without poking himself.

The black scorpion hit the ground and curled into a ball. Once it was sure nothing was going to touch it, it opened up and buried its way under the edge of the plant. He stood and wandered back to the trailer.

He was about to start the climb back down when a strong wind whipped through the yard. He stumbled back and grabbed his hat, holding it in place. They hadn’t called for dust storms. So what was going on?

Michael looked around. The dust continued to spin and cover everything. He struggled just to stay standing. He needed to get back inside.

He crouched down but the wind picked up more, knocking him to the ground. He stayed curled up, waiting for the gusts to pass. He thought he heard Isabel call for him but he couldn’t open his mouth to speak.

Unsecured chairs blew across the yard like tumbleweeds. Papers were ripped off the bulletin boards. Michael squeezed his eyes shut. Dust storms were common. But there’s usually some kind of warning.

He nearly jumped out of his skin as lightning cracked. It could have been right next to him. Had there even been clouds? His ears rang.

If this was the apocalypse then he had a few choice words for whoever he met when he died. Most of them probably about how they screwed him out of the best thing he couldn’t have.

Then it stopped.

Dust fell back to the ground.

Wind slowing to a gentle breeze.

“Michael!” Isabel called to him from the bunker. He could hear her scrambling up the ladder.

Cracking his eyes open, a blurry figure stood in front of him. He coughed and brushed dirt and dust from his face. A pair of hands landed on his shoulder.

“Oh my god, are you ok? I heard the wind and the lightning and—” Whatever she was saying cut off. Michael pulled himself up, shaking his head to get some of the dust out of it. He looked up at her but she just looked over him. He turned slowly, heart racing.

A girl stood there. A plain t-shirt and black jeans. Black hair not as long as the picture he had seen. She just stood there and watched the two of them. That bad omen. The angel of death.

It was Tessa.

His heart pounded as she turned toward the sun. It was slowly dipping closer to the horizon. A smile found its way onto her face as she closed her eyes.

“The thing I always miss the most is the warmth of the sun. My celestial body doesn’t let me feel much of anything.”

This couldn’t be her. Everything in his body screamed to deny it. She wasn’t real. That was his first thought.

His second was Alex. She had saved him once, but he figured that wouldn’t happen again. Should he even tell him she appeared? He needed to keep her away from him but he also deserved to know that she was alive.

“Michael… she’s…” Isabel couldn’t finish her thought. He had shown the picture to both her and Max, making them promise to warn him if she ever showed up.

Tessa turned back toward them taking lazy steps closer until she stood an arm’s length away. She offered her hand to him. He flinched at the sudden movement.

“Sorry, was the wind and lightning too much? I’d always wanted to make a dramatic entrance like that but the others always said ‘no.’ But fuck ‘em right?” Was she really trying to pretend that this was somehow a regular occurrence? Her hand was still extended.

Michael shook his head and jumped up, recovering from the shock of her being in front of him. Isabel held onto his arm, fingers digging into the muscle.

“What are you doing here,” he demanded. She tilted her head and frowned.

“Really? No ‘who are you’ first?” She shrugged and scratched her head. When Michael didn’t say anything more, she sighed. “Fine. Guess I have to do everything myself. I’m Tessa, short for Theresa. I was there when the original curse was cast.”

Michael balled his hands into fists. What was the point of her telling them this? He knew she brought death with her so why would she bother trying to be friends?

“You’re an angel of death. Excuse me for being a bit hostile,” he snapped. Her nose scrunched and she crossed her arms, pouting.

“Why is it always ‘angel of death’ and not ‘well-meaning Nephilim who gets screwed over by her parent’s whims?’ I know how it looks but seriously, I’m here to help.” She looked around the yard, confusion settling on her face. “Where’s Alex? I missed him.”

“So it’s true. That was you in his platoon.” She smiled fondly and nodded.

“Told me all about this guy he could come home to,” she said, looking him up and down. “I only want him to be happy. Both of you actually.” Her face turned serious as she looked back at the setting sun. “This has gone on long enough.”

Alex talked about him? Why? He had pushed him away so much Alex didn’t even say goodbye. He supposed he didn’t exactly go find him either. They had seen each other a couple times after he left. But Michael had figured that second time would have been the last.

-

Banging on the door of his airstream forced Michael awake. He groaned and pulled himself up just enough to check his phone for the time. Almost noon. It was probably Sanders ready to scold him about how he needed to pull his weight.

His head pounded and he willed the banging on the door to stop. It did for a second but then it started back up again. Whoever it was, was going to get an earful. He pulled on a wrinkled white shirt he had on yesterday and stumbled over to the door.

He pulled it open, squinting at the sun that poured in through the opening. He blinked a few times and ran a hand over his face. He took in the green and tan camo uniform and followed it up to the face with the brown eyes he hadn’t seen in over a year.

“Alex.” He held himself back from pulling him close, not sure if that was what he wanted.

“Hey, Michael.” His heart flipped in his chest. Looking around, he didn’t see anyone else but this hardly seemed like a casual visit.

“When’d you get back?” Michael stepped out of the trailer, forcing Alex to take a few steps backward to maintain a professional distance.

“A few hours ago.” An awkward silence stretched between them. Michael sighed and opened the trailer door again. He signaled with his hand, inviting him inside.

“It’s too hot to just be standing out here,” Michael said. “If you need to talk to me, we can do it inside.” Alex finally met his gaze and nodded following him through the door. Michael leaned against the counter and watch as Alex looked around, fiddling with his hands.

“I um… just wanted to make sure you were doing ok,” Alex mumbled. He tried not to laugh but a small chuckle escaped him. This boy was going to be the death of him.

“Manes, when have I ever not been ok?” His eyes flickered down to his hand. It had been nearly three years and he still blamed himself. Michael shook his head and stepped up to him. “If you don’t want to go home, you can stay here,” he said quietly.

Alex sucked in a breath. Michael leaned forward slowly. He wanted it to be Alex who kissed him. Give him some confirmation that he still wanted this.

“Stay,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against his. Alex’s hands came to rest on his face. They stood like that, breathing in time with each other, for who knows how long.

Then Alex was kissing him. Or maybe he was kissing Alex. He couldn’t be sure. Michael grabbed at his waist, pulling him closer. Alex pushed him back against the counter, trapping him there.

Michael nipped at him, pulling a soft moan from his lips. He threaded his fingers in his curls, tugging gently. Michael ran his hands all over him, wishing he could just toss his uniform to the floor and have him all to himself.

Alex pulled away sooner than he wanted. Both of them trying to catch their breath but still brushing lips against each other.

“Michael… I… I want to stay. But I can’t. I’m leaving and… I don’t think I’m coming back.” He froze, the weight of the words setting in. It was as though a ball of lead had been dropped in his gut.

He lifted his hands to his chest, pushing Alex back gently. Why would he even bother coming? Giving him this hope that maybe they wouldn’t have to say goodbye anymore, then just ripping it away.

“Michael—”

“Just stop Alex. If you’re going to leave, then leave.” He turned away from him, hiding the tears that had built in his eyes.

“Please listen to me,” Alex pleaded, voice cracking.

“No. I’m not going to listen to you say goodbye anymore. Don’t bother coming to see me if you just want to be cruel.” Michael dug his nails into his palms, stopping himself from grabbing Alex and holding onto him so he couldn’t go anywhere ever again. “Just go!” He knew Alex would jump from the yelling.

Michael’s throat burned. He didn’t deserve that. Playing on his trauma.

Before he could apologize, the door to the airstream opened and slammed shut. And he never saw him again.

-

“So how exactly do you plan to be of any help,” Isabel asked? Michael blinked out of the memory, surprised to hear Isabel’s voice. Tessa straitened her shoulders and smiled.

“You must be from a side branch. Well, I can’t get in the way of the trials but I can give you a heads up. Tip one: they usually happen in pairs. One happens and within a week the second will happen.” Michael and Isabel shared a skeptical look.

Neither of them had time to respond as a car skidded to a stop next to his. Alex jumped out of the car, fear covering his face.

“Michael,” he called to him, voice breaking. His heart skipped a beat at his name. He shook himself free of Isabel and ran over to him. Alex pulled him into a tight hug. He stumbled forward a bit in surprise. They hadn’t hugged since that last time seven years ago.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you ok,” he asked gently? What was scary enough to send Alex running into his arms like this?

“Me? It was you, damnit. I could feel everything. The fear and then the pain… Fuck, I thought you were dying!” Alex pushed him back and looked over him, running his fingers gently over the injury on his arm.

“Not quite,” he said. Having Alex’s full attention made his heart race. He knew he would feel it too but he didn’t care. The concern on his face ignited the spark of hope that Michael had shoved away for the last seven years.

Alex sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He looked at Michael and raised his eyebrows.

“So what happened to basically give me a heart attack,” he asked.

“Alex? That you?” Every emotion drained from his face as his eyes shifted over Michael’s shoulder. He kept his eyes trained on his face, making sure he was ok.

“Tessa?”

-

It was as though his brain couldn’t pick an emotion. Should he be happy? She was his best friend. Should he be relived? At least she wasn’t dead. Should he be scared? Because she may very well be an angel of death sent to destroy him and Michael.

“I’m sorry about the vague note. I was being watched.” Alex opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. He glanced over at Michael, watching his eyebrows draw together.

“What note? You didn’t tell me about anything like that.” Alex shook his head.

“I didn’t think it was important.” Michael snorted.

“There you go lying to me. Jesus Manes, you have to come to me with shit like that,” he scolded.

“This is not the time, Guerin,” he snapped back, refocusing on Tessa. She just watched them with amusement. She shook her head, chuckling.

“Just like them…” she muttered to herself. Isabel appeared next to Michael, grabbing his arm gently. She leaned in to whisper something he couldn’t hear. He thought she glanced over at him but with the sky getting darker, it was hard to tell.

Alex took a cautious step towards Tessa. Was this really the person he had come to know in Iraq? She seemed so different now. Physically she seemed taller? And there was this glow. Maybe it was because she wasn’t covered in dirt and blood anymore. But it felt like it was more than that.

He had known she had heterochromia, but it was so much more obvious now. One eye a deep brown while the other a pale blue. She smiled sweetly at him. He wanted nothing more than to hug her. Fall into her arms and thank her for what she’s done for him.

He wanted to trust her.

“So if it’s really you, why’d you disappear? I thought you had died.” His voice shook, unsure if it was from fear or anger. She sighed.

“I’m sorry. When that bomb went off, I needed to save the others too. I couldn’t do that with you there because you would have been able to see it. And after that, I visited you while you were asleep. Acted as your guardian angel. Until that mark showed up.” He touched the spot over his heart, feeling an echo of Michael’s heartbeat.

“See what? How did you save the rest of the platoon,” he asked?

“Remember the barn?” Alex’s eyes shot over to Michael’s. Of course he did.

“So you’re saying that weird slowing of time was you?” Michael sounded almost amazed. Alex’s mouth hung open slightly. She had that much power?

“Why can Michael and I see it?” She raised an eyebrow, looking between the three of them. Was the answer supposed to be obvious?

“You seriously don’t know,” she asked incredulously? Alex shook his head slowly and glanced over at Michael again. Had he left something out of their little history lessons? But he and Isabel seemed to be just as lost as he was. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Well this is going to be annoying. I don’t have the energy to reteach your history right now. Let’s pick this up tomorrow yea?”

None of them had time to argue. A gust of wind and quick flash of light disoriented them and she was gone. As though she had never been there. The three of them stood in silence for a moment, staring at the place she had been standing.

“So tell me you guys saw that, too,” Isabel said. Alex and Michael both nodded. What did she mean ‘reteach history?’

The last of the orange faded from the sky. Stars suddenly appearing as the dark blue slowly took over. Alex stared at the sky, looking for some cosmic sign to tell him what to do.

He searched the starts for Pisces, just like Rosa used to make him do when he, Liz, Maria, and her all hung out. ‘It looks like an arrow’ is what she always said. Maybe one day it’d point him in the direction of the rest of his life.

He followed the path down, mostly out of curiosity. He never really took that astrology stuff seriously. He jumped when he looked down and found Michael standing in front of him, arms crossed. Guess the stars had a weird sense of humor.

“Whatcha looking for, captain?” He shook his head, letting out a soft chuckle.

“Waiting for the stars to tell me what to do,” he half joked. A small grin snuck onto Michael’s face.

“They seem to enjoy shoving us together from what I can tell. We’re cosmic, Manes,” he said, laughing. His heart skipped a beat and his stomach flipped. Damn him for saying stuff like that. Alex couldn’t deny it though. Isabel materialized next to them.

“Well I’m going to head out. I’ll update Max on the situation.” Michael nodded and saluted her. She looked over at Alex and smiled, resting a hand on his arm as she walked past.

They watched as she climbed into her car after complaining about how she had just gotten it washed. He chuckled at her annoyance. Keeping cars clean in the middle of a desert was an impossible task. She pulled away, a cloud of dust following her.

“Help me make a fire before it gets too dark,” Michael said. He turned to follow him but didn’t realized he hadn’t moved yet. Alex ran into him, hands shooting out to grab his arms for support. Michael’s arms wrapped around his waist, steadying him.

Alex felt the heat rush to his face. He was thankful the sun had set, hiding his embarrassment. He was close enough to watch a lazy smile settle on Michael’s face. The smell of rain was assaulting his senses. And his hands on his waist was not helping.

“At least buy me a drink first,” he teased. Alex looked away, stepping out of his arms. The warmth of him vanished. He felt cold even though it was probably still ninety degrees.

“Sorry. You said something about a fire,” he asked? Michael nodded, turning away from him.

“Yea. Otherwise we won’t be able to see.” He followed him to the pile of wood on the rack near his trailer. They carried a few pieces to get started. Michael offered him the one chair that had gotten caught on the fire pit. He jogged away to grab one of the others. Alex sat, watching the small twigs at the bottom catch fire.

He watched it slowly lick up the sides of the logs, growing brighter with every inch. Shadows played on the side of the trailer and walls of the workshop. When was the last time he was here at night?

Michael returned with a plastic folding chair and set it down, just out of arms reach from where Alex was sitting.

“How was your date,” he asked quietly? He hardly registered the question. He hadn’t even thought about Forrest since he came rushing over here. Where Michael was involved, it was the only thing he could think about.

“Fine,” he said, not really wanting to go into detail. He didn’t ask more about it.

“Listen Manes, we need to talk about some things.” Alex looked over at him. He expected him to be watching the fire but no, his eyes looked right at him. They didn’t even waver. Heat that wasn’t from the fire burned on his cheeks again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about the note. It was a weird day and I was exhausted and I didn’t think you wanted to see me after I walked out.” Michael stayed silent. The things that had been said that day stuck with him. The dream they shared refused to leave him alone.

“So I found a journal,” he began. Completely ignoring what happened at the hospital. “I think it’s from one of the early incarnations of the curse.” Alex’s eyebrows drew together.

“Didn’t you say there were a handful of them?”

“Yea but this one’s different. The couple is a pair named Samuel and Thomas.” The two names made him sit up, resting his arms on his legs. The same names from the vision he had. “The journal belonged to Thomas. And I don’t know how but—”

“Wait,” Alex cut him off. “I thought all the incarnations had been guy/girl pairings? That we were the weird ones in all this?” Michael shrugged.

“I don’t know. But that was the only explanation I could come up with.” Michael ran a hand through his hair. “Also, I think the journal triggered a vision.” So he had one too.

“Let me guess. Really old timey. Candles? Log cabin like? Forest surrounding the grounds?” It was his turn to look confused.

“Exactly… but how did you know that?” He took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous about telling him these things. Probably because of the nature of the feelings he felt while in the vision.

“I had a vision, too. The day I got the note. Came out of nowhere really. And Samuel looked just like you,” he said. Michael looked away from him, running a hand over his jaw.

“We gotta tell each other everything, Alex. That’s the only way we’re going to figure this out. It’s the only way I can protect you.” His heart fluttered again. It was tugging him toward Michael.

He was the one that needed to protect him. He wasn’t the one who was going to be hurt if he got into a car accident or kidnapped and tortured. He clenched his fists and stood from his chair, ignoring the complaint from his leg with the prosthetic.

“You keep saying that. But maybe it’s supposed to be the other way around.” He stood slowly, watching him with curiosity. Alex stepped forward and lifted a hand to rest on his chest gently. “I know you feel me, Guerin. You know that if anything were to happen to you because of me, I would be destroyed.” Michael lifted his hand to cover his, holding it against his chest.

They stood there. Alex stared at their entwined fingers over Michael’s t-shirt. As much as he hated to admit it, Michael had become his whole life too.

He cursed himself. He shouldn’t be here anymore. It was too much. Everything he was feeling was getting mixed up with Michael. His head was so full of him that even as he tried to think of Forrest, he just didn’t care.

He mumbled that he should leave but couldn’t bring himself to pull away. In fact he only found himself closer. Breathing the same air. His eyes traced his face, hesitating on his mouth.

No!

He scolded himself. He couldn’t do that to Maria. He couldn’t do that to Forrest. Everything about them was wrong but so was everything else. The world only made sense when they were together.

He pulled his hand away from Michael, turning to leave. He didn’t get very far. Michael grabbed him, pulling him against him. His hands found their place on Alex’s face, forcing him to look in his eyes.

“Stay.”

#malex fanfiction #soulmates au #malex soulmate au #malex fic #malex #roswell new mexico fic #michael guerin #alex manes #michael guerin/alex manes #feedback always appreciated

[mothers-little-pistols]

Incorrect Quote Dump (1/?)

Warning, this post is so fucking long.

Thrill, writing in his diary: February twenty-eighth, 2020. Today I watched a crewmate fall and eat shit.

[][][][][]

Widow: GO TO BED! Kit: NO! Widow: JUST GO TO BED! IT'S TWO AM AND YOU CAN'T BE AWAKE THIS LATE IN THE ZONES! Kit: WATCH ME!

[][][][][]

Ghoul: So you all fucked up pretty badly. Good luck finding new tires for this thing. Kit: *scoff* I think the ones we have are fine for at least another fourty miles. Ghoul: *pointing to the blown-out tires that have all but shredded off the rims* You fucking fubar'd the tires on this and you think it can go for another fourty miles!? Toxin: *cackles* Kit: You both shut up.

[][][][][]

Jet: Wait a minute. Jet: Share...skill... Jet: *inhales* AA-

[][][][][]

Poison: So what exactly do you and your little band of assholes do? Kit: *looking at the chaos that is the Pistols* Tss...ooh...hard question...auh...?

[][][][][]

*after they find the Zone Four motel* Kit: *enjoying a cold shower for the first time in a while* Poison: *opens the door and walks in* Kit: Who the fuck's there? Poison: It's me, I have to piss. Kit: Ok, you do that. Try anything and I'll shoot you though. Poison: Whatever. *silence* Kit: Flush that toilet and I'll shoot you. *silence* *toilet flushes* Kit: *is sprayed with boiling hot water* POISON-

[][][][][]

Thrill: I am your God now! Bring me your virgins! Ghoul: What virgins? We're all sluts here. Jet: Who's 'we'? Ghoul: *points at Poison* Poison: Hey!

[][][][][]

Kobra: So what are we doing out here exactly? Poison: Kit wanted us to find something called the... Poison: *takes off glove and looks at smudged writing on hand* Poison: ‘ Hellements of Armony’.

[][][][][]

Toxin: *scurrying through The Zones* Squeedly-dee, stay out of the desert!

[][][][][]

Widow: So, ok, I go over to Poison's room. Here I was expecting their PC to have burned down because of all the decomposing moth carcasses in their CPU fan. But no. I was not that lucky.

[][][][][]

Kit: *drunk and draping herself into Kobra's arms* Oh doctor! What's the diagnosis? Kobra: *sighing and playing along* You're horny for Poison... Kit: Oh my! Horny for Poison, you say? Well, do you have a cure? Kobra: *dropping her and walking away* Yeah, leaving me the fuck out of this.

[][][][][]

Poison: *obviously drunk* BATTERY CITY! CAN SUCK! MY! D- Kobra: *slaps his hand over their mouth* And that's enough tequila for you. Poison: *muffled* LET ME SPEAK!

[][][][][]

Widow: Thots on Val Velocity? Poison: So Val has thots now. Kit: Crawling all over him like weevils. Jet: I think they're the Ultra Vs, actually.

[][][][][]

Widow: Why don't you listen to Cherri Cola's Poetry Corner and maybe you'll calm down.

[][][][][]

Poison: *is fucking dead* Thrill: Thrill: Wake up, piss boy.

[][][][][]

Toxin: Are you fucking stupid? Kit: How long have you been friends with me? Toxin: Three years? Kit: Am I stupid, Tox? Toxin: Maybe a little bit. Kit: It's ok, you can call me an idiot. Toxin: Yeah, you're a fucking dumbass.

[][][][][]

Widow: *after settling an argument* Court dismissed, bring in the dancing lobsters.

[][][][][]

Poison: Hold on. Poison: *leaves the motel and stands outside* Poison: *SCREAMS* Kit: Kit: I'm fucking that.

[][][][][]

Poison: FOR THE LAST TIME! Poison: STOP CALLING ME 'PISS JACKET'! Ghoul: IT SMELLS LIKE PISS! Poison: IT'S COLOGNE! Jet: Are you sure though? Poison: Ghoul: Jet: Poison: Fuck yourself.

[][][][][]

Kobra: Hey, Poison, check this out. Poison: *fiddling with their raygun* Hang on, I'm busy. Kobra: Hey, look at me. Poison: Give me a second. Kobra: I'm more important, give me attention. Poison: I said give me a God damn second. Kobra: I'm getting very upset. Poison: I don't give a fuck how upset you are. I said give me a second. Poison: *puts their raygun down* Hello, what is it? Kobra: *points to his helmet upside down on top of his head* I can balance a helmet on my head.

[][][][][]

Poison: *standing in Kit's doorway* I'm sad, can I lay on your floor for a sec?

[][][][][]

Jet: *standing outside* Don't you come in this room, Korse, I will dust your ass.

[][][][][]

Thrill: Party Piss Jacket Peepee Pants Penishead Poison, will you please come here? Poison: *>:(*

[][][][][]

Widow: Can I ask you something? Kit: What's good? Widow: Why are you such a whore? Kit: Drive sidestreet and get dusted.

[][][][][]

Kit: *yelling into the other room* Jet! Jet Star! Jet: *doesn't respond*  Kit: Destroya damnit. Thrill: JETTY! Jet: *looks up* What? Kit: You wanna get food? Jet: Huh? Kit: Do you wanna obtain edible substances? Jet: What? Thrill: YOU WANT FOOD!? Jet: Oh, yeah, I do! Kit: Then come outside, there's an angel cake in the next Zone over! Jet: Make me. Thrill: SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET FOOD! Jet: Alright.

[][][][][]

Thrill: *flipping Kit off with both hands* Kit: Thanks, Thrill! *:D* Thrill: Fuck you! *:D*

[][][][][]

Ghoul: They broke it, they blew up the school, they own a trenchcoat, they have a gun- Poison: This started about Diamond accidentally stepping on my headphones.

[][][][][]

Kobra: I overheard Poison yelling at Toxin about banana bread and something about 'I've made a shitload of banana bread, don't you dare put that much sugar in it, it'll be grainy as shit-' Thrill: I think we should regulate humans...with guns...

[][][][][]

Toxin: Skibidefuck!

[][][][][]

Kobra: *takes off his helmet* Toxin: He looks like a baby. He looks like a literal infant. I wanna caress his cheek and put him in a crib and sing him lullabies. FF and MLP: Toxin, what the f u c k?

[][][][][]

Kobra: No one here is gonna make fun of you. Except he might. Ghoul: Yeah, I might.

[][][][][]

Pony: *tries to create a sense of calm by lighting incense only to discover that the sticks were sparklers* Widow: That's painfully on-brand, actually.

[][][][][]

The Girl: *whispering into walkie talkie* Poison, the Pistols are drinking beer, I need you to come pick me up-

[][][][][]

Ghoul: Hey Poison, do you think I can get this egg into that jar without it cracking? Poison: No. Ghoul: *throws it at Kobra* Guess you were right.

[][][][][]

Toxin: Dude, I thought you could do a kickflip. Ghoul: I can! I can! I did one this morning!

[][][][][]

Val: Hey Vaya, do you have any gum? Vaya: *spits their gum out at him* Val: *blinks* Ok then- Vamos, do you have any gum? Vamos: *spits their gum out at him*

[][][][][]

Kit: *walking into Ghoul's room* Hey Toxin, Ghoul- Oh, you guys are doing dress rehearsal. Shiny. Auh, I'm gonna go to Tommy Chow Mein's shop real quick, you guys need anything? Hair dye, Power Pup?

[][][][][]

Widow: *holding up a jack-o-lantern* I made a goblin, what'd you guys make? Toxin: *holding her pumpkin turned into a bong* I made a kick-ass bong. Widow: ...creative! Diamond: *cutting a hole in theirs* I'm gonna fuck this pumpkin.

[][][][][]

Ghoul: *looking through a telescope* I love this Zone! Widow and Kit: *play wrestling in the dirt* Poison: Lemme see- *looks through telescope in the other direction* Kobra and Toxin: *fucking on the hood of the M240* Poison: Gorgeous.

[][][][][]

Diamond: *has been staring at the same ray gun for the past thirty minutes* Tommy Chow Mein: Buy something or fuck off.

[][][][][]

Val: Hey guys. Good alternative recycling; when you're done with a glass bottle, eat it. Fucking eat the bottle.

[][][][][]

Kobra: *reading sign outside the shower* No shoes, no shirt, no pants, no socks, no underwear. Kobra: Ok, I think I'm good. *gets in*

[][][][][]

Widow: Look at the buns on that guy. Jet: *laying on the ground covered in burger buns* Korse: This is the comedy police, the joke's too funny! Widow: *holding her ray gun* I'M NOT GOING BACK TO THE ICEBOX-

[][][][][]

Jet: *while he's in tears* It's a mental break down... Jet: *plays kazoo to the tune of Final Countdown*

[][][][][]

Dr. Death Defying: What'cha doing on the roof, Tommy? Tommy Chow Mein: *on the roof of his shop* I lost a frisbee. Dr. Death Defying: Are you smoking battery acid up there? Tommy Chow Mein: ...yeah.

[][][][][]

Pony: Keep drinking, Val, don't be boring! God! Pony: *to Diamond* I want him to fucking pass out so someone finally notices me.

[][][][][]

Poison: *wearing the Mousekat head while they’re standing in the empty hotel pool* Thrill: What the fuck? There's a furry in the pool. Poison: *raises their ray gun* Thrill: AA-

[][][][][]

Ghoul: *sliding into the trans-AM* What's up, pussy? Poison: How do you know what I ate yesterday? Ghoul: Poison: Ghoul: Yeah, you right. Poison: *starts the car* Mhm.

[][][][][]

Poison: *driving* Diamond: *in the backseat* POISON! Poison: Yep-? Yeah-?? Diamond: *pointing out the back window* LOOK! *there's a car full of Draculoids on their tail* Poison: OH! OH FUCK! floors it NO, NO, NO, NO! NO-

[][][][][]

Val: *lays on the floor* Ooh, I'm exhausted. Thrill: Yeah, you're really sweaty. Val: You should've seen the other guy- Girl- Your mom- What? Thrill: What? Val: What?

[][][][][]

Dr. Death Defying: *coming in at three AM over the radio* Stop it. Get some help.

[][][][][]

Jet: I'm gonna tell you what I don't do. I don't know shit, I don't get stuff, and I don't understand things.

[][][][][]

Thrill: So you'll do it? Kit: Yeah, man, I'll dust him. Thrill: For how much? Kit: How about thirty? Thrill: Thirty thousand carbons? Kit: *spits out drink*

[][][][][]

Widow: Can you sing the song? Dr. Death Defying: *singing* Shut the fuck and go to sleep- Widow: Thanks *:>*

[][][][][]

Toxin: *wielding a water gun* Put the carbons in the bag, right now- Tommy Chow Mein: That's a water gun. Toxin: *throws it at him* Tommy Chow Mein: Ow! Fine, asshole, just take it-

[][][][][]

Val: *walking out of the V's hideout* Last one out is a stupid idiot! The V's: *have been standing outside for the past hour*

[][][][][]

*before they got with the Pistols* Tommy Chow Mein: *over the loudspeaker* Would the owner of the lime green Honda please come to the front desk. Diamond: *walking over* Are my lights on? Tommy Chow Mein: No, I just wanted to see what you looked like. Your car's fucking ugly.

[][][][][]

Poison: You ready for the best night ever? Widow: You mean sleepy time tea and a good night's sleep? Poison: ...we're going to a Mad Gear concert. Widow: ...I already made the tea.

[][][][][]

Dr. Death Defying: *over the loudspeaker* Attention shoppers, our store closes in ten fucking minutes. Get your shit and let's fucking go. Tommy Chow Mein: *distantly* Hey, you don't fucking work here-

[][][][][]

Diamond: Pony is so annoying. Pony: *outside the window of their room* I heard you were talking shit about me- Diamond: WE ARE ON THE THIRD FLOOR-

[][][][][]

Toxin: 'Tommy Chow Mein' is short for 'Thomas Chowder Mainstreet'. Tommy Chow Mein: Get the fuck out.

[][][][][]

Diamond: *a sand pup* What up? I'm Diamond, I'm nineteen, and I never fuckin' learned how to read.

[][][][][]

Ghoul: *looms over Diamond* Diamond: *looks up from writing in a notebook* Ghoul: Diamond: Ghoul: Diamond: Diamond: I'm writing porn, what the fuck do you want? Ghoul: *loses it and fucks off*

[][][][][]

*at dinner* Jet: Short-ass. Poison: Cuck. Jet: Fuck you. Poison: No, fuck you. Jet: Eat shit and live. Poison: You look like you bite deodorant sticks. Jet: *holds up bowl* I will cut your hair to look like this. Poison: GHOUL, HE THREATENED ME-

[][][][][]

Val: *wild cackling* I GOT ANOTHER HEADSHOT! *cackling continues*

[][][][][]

Toxin: Oh Destroya. You don't think- Ghoul: By the way it's looking, Tox, I'd say Val's a dirty... Toxin: Oh Destroya- Ghoul: Collectivizing... Toxin: No- Ghoul: Gemini. Toxin: GEMINI! GEMINI! Ghoul: Yeah, go get him, Toxin! Toxin: REEEE- *runs in Val's direction* *screaming*

[][][][][]

Toxin: *holding her pet possum* Yeah, and spray him down with that shit in the bottle there. Kobra: *reading the label* For fleas and ticks, huh? Ghoul: *starts laughing in the distance* I'm sorry, for a sec I thought you said 'fleas and piss'! *laughter continues*  Thrill: We could get some of that for Poison then! *laughs* Toxin: *quietly* Party 'Piss Jacket' Poison.

[][][][][]

Diamond: *walking down to the kitchen* Fuck it, I'm hungry enough that I'll eat the stale cereal. Jet: It's five AM, also that cereal is beyond fucking stale. Diamond: *disappearing into the kitchen* I'll probably hate myself afterwards but, eh, am hungy.

[][][][][]

Widow: Kit, I think your dress rehearsal partner is gonna slap me. Kit: ...I'm sorry? I can't really stop 'em. Poison: *raises hand* Widow: AA-

[][][][][]

Kobra: It's almost six in the morning. What the fuck? Jet: Hi, almost six in the morning. I'm dead. Kobra: *-_-* Kobra: *0_0*

[][][][][]

*in the Nest* Val: *sits down with a can of Power Pup* Toxin: You happy? Val: Mhm. Toxin: Good. Your happiness distracts from the fact that I poisoned that Power Pup. Val: Good. I don't like my foods unpoisoned.

[][][][][]

Vaya: *eating a piece of bread* This bread is, like, on the precipice of being stale. Vamos: That sucks. Vaya: Yeah. Vamos: I wouldn't be too happy. Vaya: Yeah, it's the worst snack I've had the misfortune of eating. Vamos: Then stop? Vaya: No, I hate myself and therefore I'm gonna finish it. Also Val would kick my ass if I wasted food. Val: *from the next room* I would! Vaya: See? Vamos: Fine, finish your fuckin' bread.

[][][][][]

Thrill: You- You've been- Been- You've been- You've been hit with a distraction spell. Thrill: *punches Val in the thigh* Val: OW, YOU FUCKER- Thrill: *gets up and runs*

[][][][][]

Val: *opens pack of fruit snacks with teeth* Poison: *intense stare* Val: ...what? Poison: *points at fruit snacks* Val: No. Mine. Poison: I will fucking dismember you, give them to me.

[][][][][]

Ghoul: I don't see how you can sleep with that fucking blanket. I tried to once and it was so fucking hot. It also weighs more than me, probably. Poison: *curled up in a blanket* It's not my fault you're cold-blooded. Ghoul: *hisses* Jet: What'd you say about the cold-blooded? Poison: I was talking about Ghoul. Jet: Ah. Ghoul: Yeah, Jetty, you're friends with a reptilian. Kobra: *quietly* You're not Leafy. *the other three lose it*

[][][][][]

Poison: *slaps Kit's ass* Night! Poison: *goes to their room*

[][][][][]

Kobra: *walking up to his room* Widow: Why is it that whenever he walks on stairs, it sounds like the stairs are trying to eat him? Kobra: *turns around and squints*

[][][][][]

Diamond: Eugh, this off-brand ramen tastes like ass. Widow: Yeah, it really does. Diamond: If it's not Better Living brand, it's not ramen. Widow: That's what I told Thrill. Of course, I was ignored. Kit: Thrill has small pea brain.

[][][][][]

Val: Fight me. Ghoul: No. Val: Fight me. Ghoul: Diamond already tried to fight me in the kitchen, I don't wanna fight anybody else. Val: Beat my ass. Ghoul: I cannot. Val: Why? Ghoul: Ghoul: I'm small.

[][][][][]

Toxin: Hey, I said Kobra was cute, I didn't say he was smart. Kit: That...applies to me... Kit: Why does that apply to me??

[][][][][]

Toxin: *licks Kobra's cheek* Diamond: Don't lick that, you don't know where it's been! Kobra: *>:(*

[][][][][]

Poison: I'm too sober to be having this conversation! Toxin: No, we're having this conversation! What the fuck do you mean!?

[][][][][]

Val: I suck? I suck?? You died! You died! You just died and you’re saying I suck???

#blazing fire ;; party poison #ghostly lad ;; fun ghoul #sweet venom ;; kobra kid #neon nasa ;; jet star #fabulous four #little clementine ;; the girl #dramatically fabulous ;; show pony #shoplifter shooter ;; tommy chow mein #sup doc ;; dr. death defying #foxy sharpshooter ;; gun kit #spidery darlin' ;; widow bite #battery acid ;; toxin dealer #zapped carbon ;; electric diamond #heartthrob flatline ;; thrill killer #mother's little pistols #fucking rat ;; val velocity #hashtag twinning ;; vaya and vamos #kitpoison (gun kit/party poison) #kobratoxin (kobra kid/toxin dealer) #ghoultoxin (fun ghoul/toxin dealer) #tlotfk au #incorrect tlotfk au #incorrect danger days quotes #incorrect killjoy quotes #incorrect tlotfk quotes #incorrect killjoys #incorrect danger days #incorrect tlotfk #radio frequency #// there are probably more tags that i should add to this but i'm tired

[projectsoleil]

NOW STREAMING... MOON ROVER ADVENTURES S5EP18: THE SUNRISE FINALE | GABRIELLE MORNINGSTAR | CHAPTER 3 EXECUTION

Gabi finds himself in the arms of a couple people as the votes finish being counted, as his fate is decided. The hugs are returned as tightly as possible, clutching with every ounce of strength left in him, until the other person is shaking with him. When they pull away, he whispers thanks. 

(Being held is only reminding him of the arms of the few he wants nothing more than to be in right now—face buried in Abe's shoulder, hidden against his chest with his lips pressed to the crown of his head; the soothing touch of Pheo's damaged hands through his curls, soft whispers of assurance; the swirling heat of a hearth and the unwavering, unshaking, protective embrace of Gale. Gabi rubs the heel of his hand over the tears burning down his cheeks instead, head down, and casts his gaze to—)

(—Hawk?)

Hawk crashes to the floor in an awful thump, convulsing on the ground while Tyr’s expression remains one that wasn’t joy at the situation, rather, dread at what was coming next. From Hawk, their attention went to Gabi, who's pupils were shrunk, trembling.

[Mr. Morningstar...it’s time...]

Tyr approaches Gabi slowly and offers their nub to him, though instead of taking it, the young man scoops Tyr up into his arms, holding him like one would a toddler or cat. For another hug, or in hopes to keep him from shooting at anyone else? From AI-T's podium, Rover suddenly goes rigid, and looking more robot-like than he ever has, turns and starts walking stiffly towards them. The redheaded bot stops once they get to the usual spot by the wall, and Gabi turns to look at him momentarily. A hand is lifted, and albeit shaky, presses against the center of the star on Rover's chest. The door in the wall pulls open, and as they turn back to give the room one last look, Fenrir, who has been silently waiting, shoves his phone against Maxwell's chest, then along with Galehaut, jumps to attention—bolting towards them.

"Fuck all that! Fuck all this!" Galehaut shouts. "When I said on our own terms, I meant it! Moon, I'm not gonna let them—!"

As they quickly approach, Tyr offers a small apology to the one that held them in his arms...

[I am sorry, Mr. Morningstar.]

They raise their nub, and like with Hawk, out launches a small pod shaped object that latches onto both of them and sends a powerful shock through their bodies. 

Ah—Gabi grips Tyr tightly to his chest and makes a terrible, strangled sound as the two join Hawk on the floor. His gaze rips from them to stare wide-eyed and glossy at the rest of the room. He shakes his head a few times, backing up, backing up. Lips parted, like he's trying to say something, but his voice never reaches them—Rover steps between Gabi and the rest of you, obscuring the smaller body from view. The bot looks over his shoulder and gives the room an empty, dark, protective look, before the door slams shut, taking them away. 

A minute passes...two...three...until finally the screen lights up with the single message:

PLEASE ENJOY THE PRESENTATION WE HAVE PREPARED

before fading back to black.

[TW: DESCRIPTIONS OF BEING BEATEN, GORE] 

…

The lights dim, casting your cohort into a spill of long stretching shadows. There's a brief silence that follows, until a familiar, cheery theme song begins to chime through the room, growing in volume as the television screen flickers to life.

♫♪ i can reach all the stars in the sky with you by my side! ♪♫

The obnoxious tune of children singing is accompanied with a cartoon music video of what looks like a television show—shooting stars fall across the screen in a sparkly transition effect, opening up to the robot you’ve all grown familiar with over the course of the last month, cartoonified and walking around the moon to the beat of the song. 

♫♪ and if we don't make it today, we'll try, try, try again another day! ♪♫

He's decked out in his hero suit, grinning ear to ear at the audience, and begins leaping from the moon to another planet. It plays in this sort of loop, with Moon Rover marching on rotating planets, waving at passing cartoon versions of.. well, you! He passes by Fenrir and gives him two high-fives, Snapshot he hip-checks, waving at Zero Sum and Oleander on a water-themed planet, Angel they clang a wine glass with...

♫♪ so let's shoot for the stars, and hang out on the moon, and together we'll be anything, anything, anything we've ever wanted to be! ♪♫

It ends with Moon Rover landing on the Earth, joining the rest of the show's cast. Heroes and villains in dramatic poses, making up your full group, including Collin and Ivo hovering by the sides of the screen. 

Well... it includes everyone but one.

We zoom in on the cartoon Rover, who winks at the audience and gestures to follow him, before turning around into a transition. When the scene returns, we're joined with the real Rover, standing in what looks like the middle of the foyer of a massive house. He grins bright, wide, and opens his arms up to the viewers. 

“HEYY, STAR TROOP! ‘m so glad y’were able to tune in today!" 

He places his hands on his hips, leaning forward into the camera. 

“Y’ready for today’s mission? T’day we got somethin’ a little different — we’re takin’ a trip back t’my childhood home! Keheh—betcha thought I lived in a rocket, yeah? Nope! I came from a house, just like yours!” 

The hero beams at the audience and takes a step back, allowing the camera to sweep over the area better: yeah, he is in a foyer—the main entrance of a mansion—except, it’s as if someone has destroyed the place. Pictures are ripped from the wall, furniture toppled over--there’s areas that are just straight up blown up, holes broken through walls, the chandelier hanging slanted, too covered in char to glisten anymore, parts of the staircases caved in. Tire marks are burnt into the floor, the walls, the ceiling.   

There’s a 360 degree pan of the entrance, before it stops on Rover, where he’s gesturing to follow him again. He walks over broken wood and ash, until he gets to a form laying on the floor behind a fallen loveseat: bound at the wrists and ankles, Moon is trying to wiggle himself free.  

“Today we’ve got a suuuuper special guest!” He squats down next to Moon, grabbing a fistfull of his hair and pulling his head up off the floor. The boy winces, pieces of glass and dirt stuck into his cheeks. “The villain who hurt poor, poor Venus! An' subsequently hurt loads more through his choices! I already went ahead an' caught him, so, of course, all what's left is teachin' this no-good hooligan a lesson! Will you help me, Star Troop??"

There’s a blur of movement, and the binds on Moon’s hands and feet are cut—he immediately goes to scramble away, but with a simple step on the corner of his hoodie, he slams back to the ground. Nonchalantly, without hesitation or warning, Rover kicks Moon in the stomach—knocking him backwards in a cry.

Despite being kicked aside like a limp doll, Moon pushes himself up onto his elbows, grimacing, and begins crawling. Rover strolls slowly after him, easy and with a bounce to his step. When he reaches him, he bends down to grab the collar of his shirt, pick him up, and punch him directly in the jaw. It isn't pretty, the next seconds—if this were cinematic in any definition of the word, the moment would be done through silhouettes, the shadow of Rover pulling his arm back and bringing it down mercilessly into the smaller man's form, the ugly sounds of flesh being beaten being the only sense of how awful it is.

You don't get that pleasure. You see it all: no pretty cuts or dramatic angles to censor the boy's face splitting open, blood spilling up from fractured ribs into wet coughs, red splattering across Rover's hero costume. If anyone else was in his place, literally anyone else in the courtroom, this would be solved in an instant — a magma punch, a swipe of a sword, the crack of lightning, and this wouldn’t even be a fight. But Moon isn’t a hero. Not in the super-deep, metaphoric sort of way, but just that: Moon was a civilian. 

He’s dropped to the ground in a gross crack, whining, but moving regardless. He scrambles to his feet this time, using the help of a chair thrown on its side. He runs. He isn’t fast, especially now with his hand clutched to his chest, wheezing, but he runs… not to the front door like you’d expect, but deeper into the mansion. Rover walks behind him, chatting to the audience, you suppose, but now you’re following Moon. 

A door is flug open, and he staggers into a huge workshop. For someone who is frequently found scrawling on his arms to organize roaring thoughts and ideas, the place is surprisingly spotless, orgazined: filled with tools and kilns and forges and anvils. Computer software you know costs millions just by the sight. The young man’s eyes dart desperately around the room, and he makes a bee-line for the back wall full of displayed gear. A weapon? Is he looking for something to use? He grabs a pair of gauntlets first, something similar to Galehaut’s color scheme, before throwing them on the ground. A pair of yellow lense goggles—no. A botched looking race car—no. A pair of motorized wheelies—no. Equipment, equipment, equipment! He didn’t make weapons! He didn’t— 

“Found ya!” 

—whack!— 

Something whizzes past Moon’s head, smacking his hand away from the wall in the process. He turns around, and a small, helicopter-like birdbot is hovering in the air in front of him. Moon blinks, and then the bird shoots forward, whacking him a few more times in the head. It looks less like it hurts, and more like it’s just a distraction. The boy stumbles to the side, tripping over a small dogbot waddling by his feet. He crashes into the wall, and an array of different gear topples over.

It’s more pathetic than tragic, watching his own work fall on his head. He collapses under the weight, but ever-stubborn, ever-determined, ever-unbreakable, Moon whines and pushes his way out, tries to get to his feet once, fails, twice, fails again, and on the third—

—on the third, a red hand snaps forward and grips his throat, pulls him free, and dangles him up into the air, grinning widely. 

“Didn’t think y’could run, didja? Y’know, people want y’blood! They voted for it! Y’think I could let down the Star Troop now?? After how badly ya did?? They need someone they can trust, afterall!”

Moon grips Rover’s forearm with both his hands, clawing weakly at his gloves. The tips of his toes can just barely reach the pile of gear beneath him, so he’s at the very least got a bit of footing. Not that it matters—it’s no use, of course it’s no use—Moon reaches out to push at his bot’s face, push him away, do anything, anything— ah, wait? No.. he’s.. 

With a trembling hand, Moon sinks three of his fingers into the back of Rover’s head, prompting a hatch to pull away and open up in his chest, exposing a variety of wires and a pinpad. Rover doesn’t seem concerned, just keeps on holding Moon by the neck, even as the blonde starts fumbling a code in the pad.

He's dying. A small red button opens up between all the switches and buttons in Rover’s chest, and Moon's frantic, desperate reaching for the button slows down considerably. Really, it's kind of anti-climatic for a death, nevermind a supposed fantastical execution. Maybe that was what Moon deserved, though — something quiet, uneventful, alone. 

Click! 

...Just kidding! He presses the button. Rover’s grip falls away immediately, dropping Moon in a heap on the floor and leaving him doubled over, gasping and coughing, gulping down air like he'd been drowning. In front of him, Rover’s expression seems frozen, and his body begins… going limp? No, no.. it almost looks like he’s.. shutting down? A second later, Rover has joined Moon on his knees in front of him, his smile frozen, his shoulders slumping, his right eye flashing red. His right eye flashing red.. slowly. 

“...keh..” 

There is hardly any distance between the two, but when Moon pushes himself up and wraps his arms around his robot, hooking his chin on his shoulder, the effort looks akin to dragging your hands down a wall of glass shards. 

“...’bout.. time we wrapped this up, huh?” His voice would’ve been impossible to hear had this not been meant for entertainment — hoarse, whisper-quiet.

The sentence seems to, somehow, despite the red light increasing in speed, prompt a corrupt, laggy voice to start speaking: “..S-S-SHOOT FOR THE STARS—!” 

“—even.. if y’miss..” 

Moon grabs fistfulls of the back of Rover’s suit, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“..you’ll land on the—!”

…

…

[♫♪♫♪♫♪] 

The screen blacks out, rattling — the sound from the speakers blowing out from sheer force of the explosion. You… you feel like you should feel it in the courtroom—the floor shaking and rumbling beneath you, but you don’t. Somehow, it makes it feel more empty. More far away. 

As the scene settles, the dust and smoke beginning to clear, you notice blood splattered on the lense of the camera—blurred and out of focus, but unmistakably blood. Debris and metal parts are scattered everywhere, wires twisted and still burning like lit fuses. Something drips from the ceiling, and you're unsure if it's blood or a combination of that and flesh. But more importantly, you see the remains of a human body — the parts you'd never want to see; splintered bone, limbs still stuck in clothes, a head in the corner of the scene, blonde hair smoking, lulling on the slanted floor, and what you catch sight of his face is burnt through to the inside of his mouth, burnt through to his skull.

He looks like he was screaming, and though you know he wasn't in his last moments, this image will likely be the thing you remember when you think of him.

...

Life is continuous. 

Tonight, the sky will finish clearing the storm and the moon will glow across the horizon like it has every other night, and how it will continue to shine for every other night after this. For nothing has really changed—and that's the bonus of playing a stage hero robot that could be replicated, right? Built on? Upgraded? For years and years and years to come, beyond your short life, he can still do something amazing without you. 

Yeah, the world will keep going on without you. 

You wanted that.

(Didn't you?) 

[Gabrielle & Rover Morningstar have been executed.] 

(thank you han for the art!)

[horribella-monster]

A Walk in the Woods

“Look, if you draw a two thousand-mile-long line across the United States at any angle, it’s going to pass through nine murder victims.”

― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Cautions: Language/Gore

Rating Adultish

Do not copy to other sites without permission.

 Branch and bramble tugged at her body as she plowed through the undergrowth of the forest. Hands frantic with terror pulled away at the gnarled vines as she continued her desperate race to find safety.  She crashed through another dark wall of twisted twig and bough then fell forward on to the detritus of forest floor.  Thorns, leaves, and decaying matter adhered to her skinned hands and knees.

 For a moment, she dropped her chin to her chest and fought to slow her panicked gasps.  Her disheveled hair pulled loose from her sagging ponytail and plastered to the smudged dirt and in her mouth. She grabbed the hair and spat it out.  The strong desire to just collapse there and surrender to whatever fate the forest decided warred with her simmering anger fueled will to survive and kill her therapist.

 The crashing sound of her nearing pursuer startled her into action.  She crawled to the nearest tree and pulled herself up on the twisted moss-covered trunk.  She took a deep breath and inhaled the moist earth tinted air.  For an alarming minute, her vision tunneled, and the sounds of the forest took on the muted quality foreshadowing an imminent collapse.  Her world stretched and then snapped back into terrifying focus as she gritted her teeth and willed herself forward.  

 Pushing herself back into motion, a mantra reverberating through her head. “I will not die here. This will not beat me.  I am going to kill my fucking therapist. Face your fucking fear. What a stupid fucking idea! I will NOT die here.  This will not beat me-“

 Her foot met air and her arms flailed wildly as she sought to recover her lost balance. Momentarily, her foot found a purchase as she tried to slow her fall and began to slide down the steep ravine. Her slide quickly became a tumble. She pinballed down the hillside, bouncing over the bumps and into obstacles. Her perception a blurry whirl of leaves, rocks, pebbles, and the decomposing stuffs of trees and weeds.

 Thud into Rock. Tree. Rock. Rock. Bump. Branch. Log. Then air, as she flew over a ridge.  The following impact with the ground drove the air from her lung as she bounced finally into a weathered tree.  

 The last jolt left her huddled trying to catch her breath.  She curled around her throbbing ribs and felt the symphony of discordant body aches and pain swelling into a crescendo threatening to overwhelm her senses.  

 The ever-present heavy thudding footfalls and splintering forestscape in the wake of the thing of tooth and claw that had chased her, focused her senses.  She had no idea what the thing was.  Maybe a bear. In her encounter with it, she had the sense of something huge.  It lumbered up and stood in the shadows behind her.  With a roar the thing had swept out a massive claw slashing her backpack off.  She tumbled and rolled up, sprinting away into this awful, awful forest. This thicket with its tall dark trees reaching upward to smother out the sky, the looming branches dipping, swaying and grabbing to rend and tear her away. The dark foliage hiding monsters and terrifying animals – Stop.  She had to not think about anything but running.  

 She wobbled to her feet. Swaying dangerously, she took a step and focused just on moving. One foot in front of the other.  One foot in front-

 Her one foot in front slid into a hole and her arms cartwheeled again trying to regain her precarious balance. The moment froze in time as she felt her balance give way and prepared for another bone jarring slam into the ground.  Instead it was cold, scummy water rushing into her mouth and swallowing her whole. The taste of algae filled her mouth as she came up sputtering, coughing in a slow-moving pooling stream. Really, more of a water filled ditch. A ditch just in the place to soak her head to toe.

 If she could have summoned the extra breath, she would have screamed.  All she could do was grind her teeth and shiver as she clambered up the bank. When she pulled herself from the water, she smacked her fist down on the packed dirt with an inarticulate cry. That bitch of a therapist was so dead, she was going to take an ice pick and shove it so far-

 Her tirade came to screeching halt when, she really looked at the packed dirt.  Holy shit!  She was on a trail.  It was well worn and easy to see even in the dim light.  Any sign of civilization was like a neon sign from God, finally her luck was turning for the better. She began a running limp along the trail putting distance between her and the menacing thing looking to make her a snack.

 If she hadn’t had a fear of the forest before, she sure as shit had one now.  Especially this dark, cold, and phobia inducing forest complete with a terrifying carnivorous predator. Supposedly, seeing what was in the forest was not supposed to be as bad as what she imagined.  Well that was bullshit, because this forest was hiding that… whatever it was with too many teeth and huge claws.  Not in one of her fear induced anxiety had she ever imagined that.

 Her therapist said she should read Thoreau, and that like her other advice was bullshit.  He was too in love with his own words and the tamed woods.  The Bill Bryson guy had it more correct. Woods were creepy and full of death inducing insects, diseases, and animals.  Her therapist was not amused by her choice of reading and pointed out that Bryson comes down firmly on the side of nature. She told her therapist; he was a sell out to big wood and then giggled helplessly through the rest of the session. Looking back, it made sense that her therapist sent her out to the woods, she was a terrible patient.

 Her pace slowed and she leaned against a misshapen trunk to rest and listen. She hadn’t heard the thing since she climbed out of the thick water of the ditch and needed to catch her breath.  Her heart pounding loudly in her ears, only the creepy sound of falling branches and whispering wind seeped past it.  With deep calming breaths, her heart slowed, and she really listened. There weren’t any animal sounds and only a few insects.  It was like the forest ate everything that came within it.  She shook the thought out of her head.  Seriously, not helping yourself here.  As her heart slowed, a far-off sound caught her attention. The tinny sound of music.  A radio! Fuck yes!

 She took off down the trail toward the sound.  Visions of warmth, safety, and alcohol danced in her head adding buoyance and speed to her steps.   Still wet, bleeding from various scratches and the pain her ribs pounded in time to her steps, she literally wasn’t out of the woods yet, but there was light at the end of the tunnel as the music grew louder and a generator’s chugging joined the chorus. Then there was smoke.  She hoped they were burning this rotten place to the ground.  Screw you, trees.  

 Shouting as she burst into the clearing, she immediately stopped.  There was a fire, a tent, and the tell-tale smell of ammonia. Two men armed with rifles stepped out of the large tent and the smell of ammonia became overwhelming.

 Her heart sank.  Here were some of Bryson’s “armed, genetically challenged fellows” maybe even as he put it, “loony hillbillies destabilized by gross quantities of impure corn liquor and generations of profoundly unbiblical sex” except they weren’t brewing alcohol, but cooking meth in the middle of Snow White’s fucking haunted woods.  She just knew she was going to be on a podcast about missing people or to support the adage of “don’t go into the forest”.

 The cocking of the rifles pinpointed her focus on the Walter White wannabes and she tried to summon a friendly face.  Considering the state of her clothes, hair, and bleeding, she supposed that she looked more like the after picture for noob goes to the woods, which was remarkable accurate.  She raised her hands.  “Hi.”

 One of the men spit a glob of black-brown goo at the fire and stepped forward. “What are you doing here?”

 “I’m lost.  I mean I have no idea where I am except in an awful forest. I just want to leave. Can you-“ She stopped as the other man stepped forward and leered.

 “You look lost.” Meth cook number one, the spitter, said.

 “I am.”

 “I’ll help ya.” Meth cook number two, the leerer, laughed as he grabbed his crotch.

 “How’d ya find us?” Meth number one asked.

 “I just told you, I didn’t. I’m lost.”

 “How’d you get lost?” Meth number two asked. “Were ya lookin’ fer love in all the wrong places?”

 First Meth guy glared at second Meth guy, “Shut it. Go back to work.  I’ll handle this.”

 “But Cletus-“

 “Bubba, now or I will shoot ya.  Ya know I will.”

 Bubba, and didn’t that just totally fit, huffed and sulked as he shuffled back to the tent, scratching his ass as he walked. Leaving just Meth guy number one, aka Cletus.

 “I don’t believe you. How’d ya get lost?”

 She tried hard not to roll her eyes. “I guess the usual way.  I knew where I was then I didn’t. Lost.” She said trying to give sincere smile, but from Cletus’ reaction it came off as a smirk.  This is exactly why her therapist hated her.  No one likes a smartass.

 “You think this is some joke girlie? You think I won’t shoot yer ass and drop it back in that stream? Cuz I will.  Yer in a world of trouble here.”

 “Yeah. Yeah, I am.  Kind of the story of the day. You know?”

 “Ain’t nuthin personal. Yer jus’ real unlucky.  We can’t have ya going back and telling them where we are.” He put the rifle up to his shoulder.

 Fear made her words breathlessly and spill out with ever increasing speed and volume, “I’m lost! I literally have no idea where I am much less you! For fuck sake, what about lost do you not understand!”

 Cletus frowned. “Ya ought’n ta curse. I think ya ain’t lost. Ya came up that path,” he gestured behind the tent, “from the road.”

 “I came from that way.” She pointed behind her.  “Do you think I used my obviously awesome forest skills to stealthily come up here and oh by the way jump into the disgusting stream and threw myself down a hill before that to complete the look?”

 Cletus chewed on something as he lowered the rifle.  He looked like he was trying to work out what was just said to him for a minute.  The hamster that ran the wheel in his brain must be out of shape because he gave up and shrugged. “Yep.”

 So not so much Walter White wannabes, but Jed Clampett’s much stupider inbred cousins. Inbred insane cousins armed and ready to shoot. “Please, come on.  I lost my backpack, I don’t have money or a mobile – but … if you take me to a phone and I can get some money.  Please!”

 Cletus placed the rifle butt against his shoulder again. “Sorry, can’t take a chance. ‘Sides I’m doin’ you a favor.  Bubba, he ain’t right.”

 “Wait-Wait… don’t!” She started to move back when she noticed Cletus’ mouth dropped open. Then the fetid breath from behind her, blew her loose hair and the smell hit her.  The overpowering stench of rot and filth wafted over her as a guttural growl vibrated her back.  She closed her eyes and turned slowly.

 When she opened them, she saw it.  Its massive maw opened, and thick saliva sluiced through huge yellow teeth.  It was almost on top of her.  Its heavy breath blew her hair again and then Bubba walked out of the tent.  

 “I don’t know why I have- What the hell is that!” He yelled and the stilled tableau burst into motion.

 The creature roared. She dropped to her knees.  Cletus fired.  Bubba fired. The creature charged over her into Cletus, its bite taking off the right side of Cletus’ upper torso.  He screamed. Bubba screamed as the geyser of Cletus’ blood covered him and dripped from the creature’s jaw.  Bubba literally lost his shit and fired until the rifle just clicked.  She rolled to her feet and took off running for the back of the tent and the path. She heard Bubba scream and fade into incoherent whimpering interrupted by the nauseating sound of chewing.

 It was not a bear.  She had no idea what it was, but some crazy cryptozoologist could figure that shit out.  All she knew was she didn’t want to end up in its gut and she had to run. She was sure that it had expended a lot of energy chasing her and didn’t think that the meth boy appetizers were going to sate it.  

 She ran for about a minute and then heard the muffled sound of an explosion as the volatile chemicals in the meth lab blew up.  She stopped and look back at the fireball rising from the forest.  Good. Burn baby, burn. Then turned and ran.  Her luck was nowhere good enough to suppose that the thing was dead.  

 The forest was darker after the bright explosion of light and the imminent setting of the sun.  But the deep dark forest didn’t bother her now. The crashing of branches and the heavy footfall behind her was her real concern. Where was that fucking road!

 The path narrowed and meandered between huge trees and small saplings.  She hoped that the narrow path would slow it down some but knew just like all prey does that it wouldn’t make that much difference.  She had to get to the road.  Cletus and Bubba were too overweight for it to be too far.  

 Then it appeared in front of her.  A two-lane black top.  An empty two-lane black top.  A dilapidated pick up truck, rusted through in several parts of the body was on the side of the road.  She didn’t pause to try and get in.  

 She sprinted up the middle of the road away from the path.  She was running uphill and already down into the valley of the next when she realized she could have hid in the truck.  Too late, she was committed to running and she was so close.  If only one car would show up.  Please just one damn car.  She nearly tripped over roadkill going up the next hill. and looked over her shoulder. She didn’t see it, but she didn’t pause. It was somewhere close.  She knew it like she knew that she couldn’t stop running.

 As she topped the next hill, she put on a burst of speed.  The road flattened and curved off to the right.  She made the curve and froze.  There were bright headlights and the screeching of tires as an eighteen-wheeler bore down on here.  She understood the deer’s point of view as her brain screamed move and her body just wouldn’t. It was almost on top of her when she moved.  The upside, it was committed to stopping, the downside this was going to hurt.

 The impact drove her breath out her body and added road rash to the list of her body’s grievances. She curled in on herself for a moment as the acrid smoke from the tires billowed around her.  

 She heard the semi’s door opened and footsteps headed her direction. She started moving slowly crawling up to her hands and knees, her head dropped to her chest, as the truck driver spoke, “Shit, shit! Are you okay? What were you – Good God All Mighty what the hell is that?”

 Adrenalin jerked her head and her body into motion, “Get in the truck.  Hurry up, go!”  She ran to him and pushed him toward the door.  “Stop staring and move! Jackass MOVE!”

 The trucker jerked at her profanity and ran away from the lumbering figure moving out of the woods.

 She sprang inside the truck and urged him on. “Please come on, come on!”

 He climbed in with the speed that only terror can instill in someone. He shoved her over to the other side and slammed the door as claws raked the metal.

 There was a bang as the creature rammed its body into the door and then there was a roar and a crack. The window was cracking as the cab of the truck shook.  

 The driver needed no more prompting and threw the truck into gear.  He gave it gas and the tires screeched again as he accelerated.  There was another bump and an accompanying roar as the tires ran over part of the creature and she smiled.

 “D-Did you see that? What was it?”

 She shook her head slowly, “I don’t know.  Something with lots of teeth and a never give up attitude. So, you might want to floor it.”

 Nodding, he pressed harder on the accelerate and shifted up. “We got to call someone.”

 She nodded, “Sure. Tell them about the bear.”

 “Bear? Ma-am that weren’t no bear. It was.. was-“

 “A bear.  Unless you want to tell them that some pebbly hided creature that was a cross between razorback feral hog, bear, and Creature from the Black Lagoon took a bite out of your truck.  Then I hope you have real good insurance, because you’ll be drug tested and psych ward bound.”

 “Right, bear. What about that smoke there?”

 She looked at the smoke rising above the forest as they passed the meth cooker’s pick-up truck. “It tried to eat a Meth Lab after eating the Meth guys.”

 He shot a disbelieving look and she shrugged, “It’s been a day.”

Patty, 10/16/2020

#fiction #original characters #Rated R #language #gore #fandom: Original #do not copy

[bapyess1r]

Sunny Daze

WARNINGS: violence, cursing

Pairings: Team Drake x OC, Sam x OC

Tags: @desertvvitch , @unchartedterritoria, @peakymarvels, @marshmallow--3

Author’s Note: I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far 🥰

Chapter 13

Sunny’s POV

We climbed the massive steps to the tower and I was absolutely in shock. I had only ever seen buildings this tall in New York. And the fact that it was this old made it all the more magical to me. I stood at its rocky, caved in base, shielding my eyes from the sun as I looked up at it. “Fuck I hope I don’t have to climb that…” I said aloud. I didn’t notice I had until a trill of laughter exploded from Sam’s mouth behind me. He thought I was kidding but I was oh so serious about that. “I’m deadass, Sam. I’m not climbin’ that.” I smiled as I listened to Sam continue to laugh at my lack of trust in heights, shaking my head.

“Sam! Come gimme a hand with this.” Nathan called from a little shack with weak wooden doors. Sully and I approached them cautiously as they drove their masses into the doors until they broke open, revealing a dark hallway leading into a staircase. They both take a flashlight off their belts and shine them on the underground darkness. Sam looked back at me, suppressing a smile as I threw my head back. Sully chuckled and patted my back as he entered the dark hall.

“Let’s hope there’s no skeletons in there, sweetheart.” He said as another laugh spilled out. I stalked over to punch him in his arm, snatching the flashlight from his hands and powering down the stairs with the rest. “Ow!” He exclaimed, massaging the spot where he’d been hit and following close behind me.

I walked very carefully to make sure a step wouldn’t break beneath me and shrieked when Nathan fell before me suddenly. Sully put an arm out to stop us from falling too. There was a large chunk of stairs missing halfway through. “Shit- Nathan!” Sam shouted, worriedly.

“I’m good!” We heard him say and I sighed in relief. Sully and I shined a light down below us and it actually happened to be a decent little drop. The old man jumped first. Then Sam insisted on jumping next so that he could catch me. He stared up at me with a small smile as he stretched his arms out to me. I chuckled before letting myself fall into his arms. It wasn’t a big jump and I could’ve done it myself but I just couldn’t bring myself to take away his moment. He set me down as we walked into a dark and dirty room full of empty shelving. Sully and I hung back while the brothers scouted the room and we held a conversation amongst ourselves.

“So uh…. you and Sam, huh?” He asked me as he lit himself a cigar. My heart skipped and I turned to look at him with widened eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, Sunny. As old as they may be, I do have eyes.” He spoke in a fatherly tone. Though my lips parted, words just couldn’t come out. “All…I have to say is what I’m always tellin’ ya, kid. Be careful. Sam’s been away a long time and he’s not the same man I used to know. Things could get kinda hinky.”

“First of all, there is no Sam and I… It was just a kiss… One we didn’t even talk about. We trust each other and so far he hasn’t given me a reason not to.” I told him, crossing my arms as a mosquito bite began to itch on my shoulder as I watched the boys move a shelf over to reveal a bricked over opening. Sully groaned and rubbed his temples as if he were conversing with a hard headed teenager.

“Sunny, I-” Sully began but he was cut off by the sight of the boys taking cover.

“HEADS UP!” Nathan shouted before tossing a grenade at the partially eroded brickwork; a loud bang sounded through the small quarters, sending Sully and I flying back into the wall a bit from the pressure.

“Are you alright?” I asked Sully with worry.

“I’m alright, kid.” He told me, coughing for the harsh smoke and dust that had kicked up in the room. I shot Nathan a raised brow and he shrugged.

“I told you ‘heads up’.” He said simply before entering yet another dark hallway. I made a face before reluctantly following him in. I look over at Sam and he’s quite literally shaking with excitement. This could possibly be it and we were so close. ‘Thank god. I could use a real shower.’ I thought as we approached a gate. As soon as Nathan cranked it even just a little bit open, Sam was racing to crawl under. He ran up ahead of us with an anxious smile.

“And he’s off…” Sully commented as Sam started off into the next room.

“C’mon! Keep up slow pokes!” He shouted before dipping behind a corner. Something was off to me. The deeper we got, the more I began to get those bad vibes.

“Sam, slow down!” I said, running after him like an idiot. It was now occurring to me that one day he might get me killed, running off like this and me going after him.

Almost like it was too good to be true, there was a stairwell spiraling into the floor with Avery’s sigil near it. Sam flew down the flight before we could even step in the room. I hesitated a moment before going down the steps as well. “Sam! Sam, wait up!” Nathan called out to his brother.

“Guys! This way!” We heard Sam shout back, clearly miles ahead of us. We found ourselves going down a stoney, dark flight of stairs and up a mound of dirt that left very little space between it and the caved-in ceiling. We crouched through the opening and slid down a dirt slide. Just as we landed, Sam had dipped around another corner.

“Jesus H…” I wheezed, running forward trying my best to keep up with him.

“He seems excited.” Sully mentioned.

“He’s got a lot riding on this. Just let him be.” Nathan chortled.

“How is it that he can be this big and that fast? That shit defies the laws of nature.” I grumbled to Nathan.

“He was always this fast. I mean always.” He replied as we caught up to him. His lanky limbs slipping through a crack in the wall, a bright light on the other side.

“C’mon!” Sam exclaimed excitedly. And with that, we were slipping into the bright sunlight room. I shook my head with a laugh as I entered the room behind them, looking up at the ceiling that seemed to loom over us greatly with a hole blown through it. Likely some old battle damage. I realized suddenly that we were inside that tower.

‘And I didn’t have to climb a damn thing…’ I thought with a smile, resting my fists on my hips triumphantly as I watched Sam and Nathan gravitate towards what looked like a large stone map. Although I don’t think the boys got that right away.

“Magnificent…” Sully said, marveling at the insides of the largest watchtower on the volcano.

“I’m not seein’ any treasure though.” I sighed. That meant we were far from done with this expedition.

“Nathan! Come check this out!” Sam called out as he looked at the elaborate stone carving. “There’s gotta be a way through here.” He said anxiously.

“Alright, just hold your horses. Let’s take a look… There’s Avery, Thomas Tew…” Nathan’s voice trailed off when he couldn’t remember the other pirates. Obviously Sam picked it up.

“Adam Baldridge, that’s Joseph Farrell, and there’s Richard Want…” He said. Nathan grinned and tapped his brother on the shoulder.

“Pirate captains! I told you-” he gloated.

“Alright, alright. So maybe your little pirate pool theory wasn’t so crazy after all.” Sam smirked as he ran his eyes over the carvings before him.

“So what do you think the trick here is… press a button? Pull somethin’ maybe…” Nathan asked as he examined the statue before him.

“Check the arms.” Sam said, pulling on the stoney likeness of the ancient penitent thief. Sully and I stood back to watch as the two men fondled poor St. Dismas with an amused grin. I coughed to interrupt their moment and they both turned to look at us.

“When you boys are done feeling up the poor man, why don’t you step back and actually look at this thing.” Sully chuckled.

“Can’t always be the brains…” I smirked as the boys took a few steps back to where we stood.

“The trapezoid is obviously the volcano.” Sully began. “The crown, that’s King’s Bay…. We got ourselves a map, gentlemen… and Sunny.” I snorted as I, too, marveled at the stoney depiction of the land. Sam gave a chuckle and stared in wonder.

“Victor, you’re a goddamn genius.” He said. Sully seemed to perk up and patted Nathan on the back.

“Ha! You hear that, Nate?! Genius.” Sully chuckled, pleased by the compliment. I watched the men work out where we needed to go next, using a coin that we’d found from a trial in Scotland when we found the map of King’s Bay. They narrowed it down to two towers but the image on the coin was kind of faded so it was hard to tell which one actually contained the treasure. As I listened, I walked around the room, admiring the handy work of these pirates. They were so ahead of their time. That’s when a familiar smell crossed my nostrils. Cigarette smoke. I looked back at Sam and he wasn’t smoking at the moment. I obviously wasn’t smoking…

“Sully,” I called out as I picked up the filter, still burning just a tad. The group turned to look at me a moment. “You didn’t happen to… start smoking cigarettes by any chance?” I asked cautiously.

“No….” Sully answered. And at the moment all of us knew exactly what was about to happen. I tossed the filter and ran to the group, pulling on my gun and my knife.

“Ah shit.” I grumbled, taking a good look at my surroundings.

“Looks like we’re not the first ones here…” he said in a low tone as they began to draw their weapons as well.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” I heard from above us. And just like that, the ceiling came crashing down with a massive explosion and a shootout ensued.

We cleared at least two waves of mercenaries before the fight stopped. I leaned against a slab of stone to catch my breath. My arm stinging a bit from a graze I’d gotten in battle, my ears ringing from the gunfire in close range. “Y’know… Even though she’s hot, this Nadine chick and her people are seriously getting on my last nerves.” I grunted as I glanced at my bleeding arm. This fight was much harder than the last few. They had armored men this time; much harder to kill. I sighed as I slipped my weapons back into their holsters and picked the fallen bodies for ammo as the men went back to the map to figure out what to do. “Are you guys okay?!” I shouted from across the massive room as I straddled a dead man and took his bullets.

“All good here!” I heard from Nathan and Sully.

“Sam?!” I shouted looking around.

“Yeah! I’m over here.” He said and I saw him wandering towards the map again. I crossed the room as I watched him pat down a body that had fallen in front of the map.

“Whatcha doin’?” I asked as Nathan and Sully approached as well.

“Just confirming a suspicion…” he mumbled before pulling a piece of paper from the man’s vest pocket. “Shit. Take a look at this.” He held out the paper to Nathan and the group drew closer a bit together. It was a digital map with twelve locations circled along King’s Bay. ‘Shit…’ I thought to myself with a huff. “They’ve figured it all out already. The sigils, the locations, the works…” Sam said shaking his head and walking about as if he’d been defeated. I could feel the anger and disappointment radiating off of him as he gripped the sheet in his hands.

“So now what?” Sully asked.

“‘Now what’? Now we’re screwed. Okay, and you know why? Because there’s four of us and god knows how many of them. And they have a head start-” Sam snapped and I rushed to him to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Okay, sure, but they don’t know where to go.” I said gently. Expecting him to snap back, he turned to me and spoke in the same tone as I, only more disappointed.

“Neither do we, doll. We narrowed it to two locations and we still don’t know which is what.” He sighed, hanging his head. I dashed in front of him and picked his head up, staring into his saddened hazel eyes.

“So then, we’ll do the obvious. We split up. We’ve come too far to just…. quit.” I said simply. He lifted his head with a nod as if it was the best idea he’d ever heard. For a smart man, he could be really stupid sometimes as I’d come to realize.

“Alright then. That might just work.” He turned to face the other two men and held out the paper to them. “You guys check out this tower and I’ll get the other.” He said pointing to the locations on the map. “It’s not too far from here. I can make it.” I could see that twinkle sparking up in his eyes again. But worry started to fill my chest at the mention of him with no back up.

“No, no, no-” Nathan began.

“Like hell you're goin’ by yourself!” I snapped and Sam looked at me incredulously. “I’m comin’ with you. Rafe and Nadine’s gotta have guys all over these towers by now-” I suggested rather forcefully but he stopped me.

“Exactly. So if we wanna catch them, then we need to split- sweetheart, this was your idea…” he argued.

“Yeah, ‘split!’ As in ‘evenly!’” I emphasized. He gave an annoyed huff and pulled me aside from the group by my arm like I was a spoiled child. I was fuming.

“Sunny-”

“What?” I snapped. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before he started again.

“Sunny… If you can’t already tell… I care, alright. And if I’m stuck with those feelings then you gotta deal with the consequences, sweetheart- which means…. listening to me when I’m trying to keep you safe.” He told me, staring into my eyes with what seemed like good intent. But I wasn’t having it. I lowered my voice, mocking him with my arms crossed; accent and all.

“‘Uh, if you wanted safe, then you’re in the wrong line of work, sweetheart-’” I said, furrowing my brows, using his own words against him. He stared quietly for a moment before shaking his head.

“Sunny, please!” He snapped before returning to his hushed tone, placing his hands on my shoulders as he towered over me. “Please… I’d feel better knowing you were with Nathan and Victor.” I looked at him with narrowed eyes as I fixed my mouth to speak again but he ran his fingers through my hair quickly and held my face in his hands. “Please.” My nostrils flared as my eyes locked with his. I puffed, tearing my gaze from his as I chewed the inside of my cheek, shaking my head and tapping my foot. I stomped before turning away to join the other men. “Thank you…” I heard him say.

“Mhm.” I mumbled passive aggressively in response.

We left the tower the same way we entered. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad to be above ground again. We walked Sam over to one of the spare Shoreline Jeeps and I shook my head as he climbed inside. Nathan put a hand on the door as we all stood by. “If you run into any of those Shoreline guys, you call me immediately.” He said.

“Will do.” Sam nodded.

“You be careful out there, Sam.” Sully said to him.

“Always am.” Sam replied. Then he brought his gaze to me. “Sunny…” I only looked at him for a second, my arms crossed with an annoyed pout playing on my face. He didn’t say anything though. He just glanced over my face. I snorted and looked away. The dirt seemed more interesting than him going off by himself at the moment. He just chuckled and smiled before putting the car in drive. “See you soon.” He told us all before speeding off. I watched go until he was out of sight, my arms crossed and my brows knitted together. In my peripheral, I could see Nathan and Sully heading for our 4x4. I walked over slowly, passing the extra Shoreline Jeep just lost in thought. He was going to get himself killed. There was just no way I could let him go out there like that by himself. His dumb ass didn’t even take another gun with him. It was when I put a hand on the car that I had made my decision.

“Let’s go Sun-” I heard Nathan say but I had already made up plans of my own.

“I’m not goin’ with you.” I said as I glanced at the pile of artillery in the trunk, trying to decide what I’d take.

“Sunny, now goddammit-” Sully started. He already knew what I was gonna say.

“Sully, I’m goin’ after him and that’s that, dammit! He is gonna get himself killed and he’s too damn stupid to see that! Nathan, I’m goin’ and you can’t stop me.” I said, grabbing a .9mm and spare deserter bullets. Nathan opened his mouth to speak but the older man cut him off.

“You’ll get yourself killed goin’ after him, Sunny!” Sully shouted at me. He never said it to me out loud but I knew he thought of me as one of his own kids. And because of that he had a tendency to be a bit overbearing. I loved him a lot for it though. He cared more about me than my own father. I could die today and he would never know; probably wouldn’t even care.

“Sully, c’mon…. it’s Sunny. I don’t like it any more than you do but if anyone is good at self perseveration, it’s her. She can keep herself safe until she meets up with Sam.” Nathan said in a calming voice. Sully just stared at me.

“I’ll be fine.” I said, looking at him with a nod. He just shook his head and lit himself a cigar.

“That boy is gonna be the death of you, Sunny Spurrs…” he mumbled. I smirked as I started off for the other car.

“Trust me. I’m aware.” I said shaking my head.

“You let me know when you reach the tower. I’m so serious, Sunny.” Nathan shouted to me.

“Of course.” I said. I hopped into the 4x4 and turned the key that was left in the ignition. I drove up next to Nathan and Sully’s car and sighed.

“If you stay on his tracks, you might just be able to catch up with him. Be safe. Steer clear of the big trucks-”

“Nate, I got it.” I replied.

“Ok. Go. Hurry up.” He said, finally backing off. And with that, I floored it, watching out for the tracks to Sam’s car. He was gonna be pissed but I didn’t care. With his life on the line, he couldn’t afford to be stupid right now.

I followed his tracks to a tower just like the one I had left. Parked right out front was the Shoreline Jeep he’d taken. ‘Well….good… This is good.’ I thought as I released my seatbelt and climbed out of my vehicle. When I arrived at the door, it had already been riddled with bullet holes and kicked in. He definitely wasn’t the cleanest executor of the two brothers but at least it was efficient. I turned on my flashlight with a squeal and shined its glow on the darkness before me. Lined along the walls were skeletons tied to the wooden beams that supported the structure. I suddenly wished I had stayed with Nathan and Sully. ‘God dammit….’ I thought as I descended the stairway with haste. ‘Please Jesus, if you love me, don’t lemme die…. Like for real…’ I shook my head as I stared into the darkness before me, trying my best to keep as far away from the wrapped skeletons as possible.

So far, I hadn’t had to do much. I had gone down a full flight of stairs, doorways had already been opened, all of which practically lined floor to ceiling with the bare-bones of old pirates. The more bodies I saw, the more disturbed I became. This Henry Avery guy was not somebody to mess with. I walked by a slew of caged skeletons all with the sign “thief” hanging around their necks. ‘Fuck that’s horrible….’ I thought with a shiver. As I walked into a room, I detected a faint scent of cigarettes. ‘Please let that be you.’ I thought as I noticed a bright orange filter still burning a bit. I came across a massive hole in the wall that led into another tunnel of darkness and sighed. That’s when I heard a loud bang.

I jumped, digging my nails into my palms nervously. I walked down the tunnel, the smell of cigarettes getting more intense by the second when I heard another loud bang. “Shit!” I heard a panicked voice say. It sounded like Sam. He could be in trouble. I began to sprint towards the rapid bangs, running through several rooms filled with singular skeletal parts; jaws, rib cages, hands. Although with Sam possibly being in danger, I couldn’t think about that. As I passed through a room with more tied up bodies, I collided into something hard and with a scream I was snatched up several feet in the air trapped in a roped net. I found my cheek squished against a warm chest, the scent thick with smoke and sweat. When I looked up, I was met with the familiar set of hazel eyes and furrowed brows. He grunted in frustration as he looked upon my face. I smiled awkwardly with a shaky laugh.

“Heeeyyyy….” I said showing my gums. He wasn’t amused in the slightest. He just raised a thick brow at me and growled a little. “I- I can uh….. I can get us out of this!” I stuttered reaching for my knife. His nostrils flared as his lips curled into something sassy. That’s when the bodies around us began to spark up, the embers running up a string slowly, like a timer. These weren’t just some dead bodies… These were bombs. “Oh shit…” I mumbled as I began to quickly cut the ropes, racing against the clock. He shook his head and forced a brief but fake laugh as I reached up to cut the thick ropes that bound us.

“Didn’t I tell you to go with Victor and Nath- because I specifically remember telling you to stay with Victor and Nathan- why don’t you listen?!” He grumbled in annoyance. I huffed, rolling my eyes as a few pieces of rope snapped at the slice of my blade.

“Sam, now is really not the time to have this argument-” I began but he just couldn’t hold it in.

“Why don’t you listen?!” He shouted dramatically.

“You’re gonna find out real fast that I never listen. To anybody. Ever-”

“I’m tryin’ to keep you from getting yourself killed-” he snapped frustratingly, interrupting me.

“I can take care of myself, dammit!” I hissed. “You’re the dummy who ran off by himself.”

“I didn’t need you here-” he retorted. I scoffed as a few more ropes snapped.

“And if I hadn’t been here, what in the everloving fuck would you be doing right now, huh? Tell me that, Sam-” I was beginning to lose my patience with him. I scrunched up my nose as he stuttered a moment, the weight of our bodies dropping us a bit as we hung by four more ropes.

“I would’ve… I would’ve um…” he didn’t have any damn idea what he’d do. I snickered as I cut us free and our bodies fell to the dusty ground with a loud thud. Quickly, we jumped into the hallway before the room could explode. Our bodies landed in the gravel just as more skeletons lit up.

“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me-”

“We gotta go, Sunny!” Sam sang as he rose to his feet quickly, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me with him as he started to bolt down the tunnel. We ran quite a distance from the onslaught of exploding mummies until we reached the entrance of the tower. The both of us threw ourselves onto the hot red dirt, just as the last mummy had blown up, the doorway caving in on itself.

I turned over to lay on my back, catching my breath as the sun beat down on us. I couldn’t believe I had just done that. My nervousness turned into some kind of dissociative laugh. I was going to be insane by the end of this trip. I looked over at Sam as he sat up to stare at the now blocked entrance, a look of annoyance still playing on his features. We had to cut the bullshit now before we went any further or else we weren’t going to get anything done. ‘Let’s hash it out now, big boy…’ I thought with smirk.

“You have a lighter. You could burn the ropes, idiot.” I said poking his chest with a small finger to break the silence. He rolled his eyes as he stood and lit himself a cigarette. I scoffed, shaking my head as I rose to my feet as well. “Let’s hope all that noise didn’t attract Shoreline.” I commented but he still refused to answer me. I forced out a quick breath before speaking. “So this is the thanks I get for saving your ass?”

“I didn’t need to be saved-” he snapped. I opened my arms to him and flexed my lip.

“Holy shit- welcome to my world-”

“Sunny, you’re not getting it!” He shouted, rubbing his thick fingers on his temple and wiping away a thin sheen of sweat. I set back on my heel and crossed my arms.

“What am I not getting, Sam?” I asked.

“I can’t lose you!” He snapped. And there it was. The crux of the problem. “I am… fully aware that you can hold your own but I’ll be damned if you died on account of me. Because of my mistakes. Okay, then I have to live with that and I don’t wanna.” He told me, his fingers nervously tapping on his cigarette. I knitted my brows together and held his face in my hands.

“Samuel Drake. I’m only gonna say this once so you better listen up and listen real good.” I began, staring him deep in his eyes. “I am a grown ass woman. And I will do whatever the hell I please. If that means risking my life to save you, then goddammit that’s what I’m gonna do. Not because I have to, not because of Nate- because of me. Because I want to.” I told him.

“Sun-” he started but I placed a finger on his plush chapped lips.

“Don’t interrupt me. I’m not done.” I said authoritatively, and he shut his mouth with a deep sigh. “Unfortunately for you, I care, too. Which means…. if you’re in trouble… I’m gonna come runnin’.” I said with a gentle smile. A slow grin threatened to pull on his lips as his shoulders seemed to relax and he inched closer to me.

“Y’know… there were an awful lot of skeletons in that tower… and it was pretty dark, too…” he said letting his hand rest on my hip to pull them to his, a rough thumb stroking the exposed skin under my tank top. My heart started to speed up as his nose brushed against mine.

“What about it?” I asked in a breathy tone.

“You braved all that for little ol’ me, sweetheart?” He smirked, hooking a finger under my chin and pressing his lips over mine slow and sweet. I betrayed myself with a soft moan into his mouth as his tongue darted across my lower lip. “Thank you…” he mumbled against my lips. That surge of euphoria coursed through my body as his thick arms wrapped around my waist.

Suddenly, he’d lifted me up in his arms and sat me on the hood of the Jeep, his hands roaming my body as he deepened the kiss. The fact that I was absolutely soiled with sweat and covered in dirt didn’t seem to matter to him when he kissed along my neck and collarbone. I ran my hands through his damp hair as he rolled his hips into mine. I most certainly wasn’t against screwing on the hood of a car in the middle of nowhere. Just as I had tugged on his shirt, suddenly Sam’s smartphone rang. He ignored it the first time but as it continued to ring, he groaned into my mouth and rested his forehead on mine. He pulled out his phone and sighed with a smile. “It’s Nate. I should probably take it, huh?” He chuckled before kissing me again. We broke the kiss, heaving in a needy fashion as he answered his phone. “Hey, little brother. You find somethin’?” He asked. I could hear my best friend’s muffled voice panicking on the other end and suddenly I grew concerned. “Woah, woah, slow down- he what?!.... Shit. Alright, hang tight we’ll be right-” he was cut off by the sound of bullets flying by us. He pushed me down on the hood quickly, ducking his head and covering my body with his own as he hung up the phone immediately. I could hear the sounds of multiple engines approaching and gunshots firing off towards us. The beat of my heart sped up from arousal and adrenaline as he pulled me off of the car and ducked down in front of the car grill. “Rain check?” He asked me with a smirk. I just smiled and pulled my gun and knife from their holders, ready to take some people down.

A truck had come, full of ten mercenaries. “Did they really need that many? Jesus lord…” I mumbled as I watched the men begin to surround us. Sam just shrugged with a chuckle. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’re feelin’ a little threatened.” I smirked. It genuinely pleased me to know that Rafe Adler couldn’t get what he wanted just because he threw his money around.

“Wanna piss him off some more?” He asked me as he tugged on the pistol wedged in its holder on the back of his dirty jeans. I grinned and wiggled my eyebrows.

“Absolutely. You take five, I take five?” I smirked.

“Let’s do this, sweetheart.” He said with a shit eating grin. He stood to fire two headshots and I ran from cover to slice a man’s throat and use his body as a shield when I fired shots at the other four. And we were off….

#uncharted 4 #uncharted #sam drake #samuel drake #samuel drake x reader #uncharted x reader #sam drake fanfiction #sam drake x reader smut #sam drake smut #uncharted smut #uncharted 4: a thief’s end #poc oc #poc #nathan drake #victor sullivan #nadine ross #rafe adler #elena fisher

[pietromaxi]

you’re a bad guy 2

warnings: violence (not really), cursing, ANGST (holy FUCK i cried writing this)

ahh here she is! you’re a bad guy is my baby to say the least. writing the first part, i wasn’t sure if it would get to people, i wasn’t sure if they were going to enjoy it. but literally not even a day after i posted it i had 15+ inboxes asking me if i was writing a second! i just want to thank you guys! also probably gonna do a third part because i couldn’t fit everything i wanted into this. it’s long and it’s sad. and there’s so much more i want to do with this story so i would say probably expect another part sometime if you guys want one!

**i wasn’t completely sure about the exact timeline between the two movies (ca:cw and endgame) but ca:cw and iw were roughly two years apart according to the russos and adding the five years between iw and endgame, so roughly, its been 7 years!**

----

white surrounded you on all planes.

the floor was white. the sky was white. is this what heaven looked like?

you’d just woke up. you were laying on the soft floor until your eyes jolted open, “dad?”

you stood up on week knees, blood seeped from deep cuts on your arms and thighs, “hello? is anyone here?”

surely this wasn’t heaven, no one was around. you were completely alone.

but you were dead. you remembered dying. the funny feeling in your stomach as you crumbled to nothing right in front of him. but you didn’t reach for him, “hey, nat? what- what’s going on?”

you remember watching bucky fizzle out into nothing more than ash and flakes of black. you knew it was coming, and you were ready.

you remember both him and nat turing around at the sound of your voice. you and him had been on bad terms the entire fight, you’d shot him in the arm, he thinks you did it on purpose.

you laughed thinking about it, the sound echoing across the flat planes of white. you’d definitely shot him on purpose.

he tried running to you, but you looked him dead in the face, uttering the words, “don’t touch me.”

“hey!” the word echoed in your ears and you whipped around quickly, it gave you whiplash.

peter parker was standing a few feet behind you, “y/n? what’s going on?” his voice sounded pained, he’d been crying.

little trails made by his tears cut straight through dirt caked onto his face. your heart broke at the sight of the small boy standing before you. his spidey suit now torn up with stains of dark crimson covering it.

“we’re dead, kiddo.”

his face fell, “how are all of us dead?”

you raised an eyebrow and cocked your head to the side, “all of us? you’re the only other person i’ve seen, bud.”

he said nothing as he grabbed your hand and dragged you across the planes of white. the ground seemed to slope under your feet, as if you were walking around the side of the earth. but your feet stayed flat on the ground.

sounds of shouting and crying drew your eyes up from the shimmering, white floor. standing before you were millions of people you’d never seen before. a sea of sobbing women, children, and men laid out before you.

and right at the front was none other than james buchanan barnes.

peter let go of your hand and nodded his head at you, walking towards a shaken wanda.

bucky smiled sadly when he saw you, “you too, huh?”

you stayed silent as you stared in shock. thoughts swarmed your mind, a tornado of good and evil spun wildly, round and round. until it dwindled down to one single word.

“hi.”

he laughed lightly and jutted his head lightly to the left, silently asking if you’d follow him.

bucky led you a little away from the group to where the two of you could talk without shouting, but you could still keep peter in your eyesight.

you stared blankly at the floor, deciding to sit down. you sat indian-style and bucky followed. tucking his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

“i led you over here to apologize. for what happened a few years back.”

you laughed dryly and looked into his cloudy eyes, “i forgave you a long time ago, buck.”

bucky’s eyes lit up, all the clouds seemed to immediately move from his eyes. they shined like they did in the 40s when he went on a date with that pretty blonde girl. when he first went in for the kiss and she kissed him back. he was over the moon.

the girl he loved more than anything forgave him. but he wouldn’t tell her that part.

“what about him? he misses you, y’know.”

he watched y/n take a sharp intake of air, she picked at a piece of string on her shiny black suit before she spoke, “the difference, bucky. the difference is that you didn’t know what you were doing. he did.”

bucky stayed quiet.

“he knew he was breaking me the entire time and he didn’t care.”

“y/n, you know he cared.”

you dropped it and stared at bucky.

his beard had grown quite thick, his hair was long and some pieces stuck up in weird angles. his eyes sparkled, but she knew something was still missing.

he was dirty. blood and dirt clung to him in all places. he had scrapes and bruises all over, and, yet, he still looked ethereal.

you’d been staring at him for a while and he just stared back, neither of you realized what you’d been doing until he was leaning in.

he was leaning in, and in, and in.

you leaned in too.

his hand rested on yours that was sitting on the soft ground next to your leg, his fingers tickled the skin on the top of your hand, and for the first time in what felt like years, you laughed.

a genuine laugh, not a hard chuckle, or a laugh-so-hard-you-can’t-breathe-laugh, but a soft giggle.

and it was enough for bucky to place his medal hand behind your neck and pull you into him.

your lips slotted together and you tangled one hand into his slightly greasy hair, the other held his flesh hand tight in yours.

you couldn’t tell if this was a rebound kiss, or a pity kiss. but you liked it. and you didn’t want it to stop.

bucky’s hand traveled down your neck to your waist and he pulled your body to face his, no longer sitting side by side. you untangled your hand from his and placed both hands behind his neck, interlocking all your fingers to keep him where you want him.

you stood on your knees and leaned your face down, mashing hard against his. bucky growled in the back of his throat and squeezed your hips, pressing his lips equally hard into yours.

his hands started trailing downwards when you heard shouting, screaming.

you broke apart and stood up quickly, bucky looked starstruck and you looked bewildered. the two of you stared at eachother until peter caught your attention, “guys! we have to go!”

you saw holes burn their way into your mini paradise and for a moment you wished you didn’t have to go. you wanted to stay.

as the holes turned fiery and burned bright orange, your suit began to repair itself. your cuts faded and your heart began racing with adrenaline.

bucky watched in awe as the skin surrounding the deep cut on his arm crawled back together. the skin was left an angry red, but it was healed. his suit sewed back up and he felt good.

more and more holes opened right before your eyes. the larger the burning holes became, the louder the outside was.

your ears were immediately filled with the sound of screaming and fighting. metal clanging onto metal, bombs went off, avengers were flying left and right, and you were shocked.

large groups of avengers piled out of the enlarging holes, screaming in anguish to avenge the already fallen.

you’d lost bucky by then, but peter stayed close to you. fire seeped from your palms and your surroundings became windy, you blew off a few of thanos minions before you were in a gigantic group of your closest family and friends.

he was front and center.

blood dripped from his nose and lip, his face was caked in dirt and blood. yet somehow, he still managed to look good.

and you’d just kissed his best friend.

you worked your way to the front, standing beside bucky, who was next to him.

you heard doctor strange and wong to your left, “is that everyone?”

“what? you wanted more?”

and then you heard him, steve. he held his hand out and mjolnir came flying straight into the palm of his hand. you remembered the time back at the tower when he’d laughed about not being worthy. but you always had a hunch.

“avengers... assemble.”

all hell broke loose. avengers were flying left and right trying their hardest to take down thanos and his hordes.

clint was running on your left as you heard him talking on the comms, “cap, what’d’you want me to do with this damn thing?”

steve spoke up, stopping slightly beside you, nodding his head at you, “get those stones as far away as possible!”

it was your turn to speak up, “no! we need them to get them back where they came from!”

“no way to get them back, my beloved daughter that i missed oh-so-much, thanos destroyed the quantum tunnel.” your dad spoke up on the comms and you smiled ear to ear, “i missed you too daddio.”

you drowned out the rest of the conversation and focused on the hordes of space-aliens coming towards you, you burnt them, blew them away, crushed them with tree roots, and washed them away with water. but every time one was dead, another came straight at you.

you were getting tired before the man himself showed up. no, not thanos. worse.

steve showed up behind you and helped fight off the baddies getting too close to you, “it’s good to see you.” he shouted in between dodge and attack with his current opponent.

you nodded your head at him and continued to blow back the impending enemies.

you fought back to back with steve, then helped wanda hold back thanos. then got the gauntlet from peter, then gave the gauntlet to captain marvel.

and then you heard thanos speak behind you, “i am... inevitable.”

avengers fell to their knees in agony, you turned around and ran to them all as fast as you could, bucky not far behind you.

you saw your dad, standing in front of thanos. he was raising his hand up to his face. he looked straight at you as he spoke, “and ... i am ... iron man.”

he snapped. his hand held all of the stones.

“daddy, no!”

you’d been blown back by the snap, your eyes were closed and you were so scared to open them.

you felt bucky bump you with his foot and your eyes shot open, “daddy, oh no, daddy no. please no.”

you crawled to where your dad lay, almost lifeless, on the harsh rock.

“oh no, here-here lay on this.” you slipped the top part of your suit off, now just in your sports bra. you bunched up the material and softly lifted your dads head up and placed the top behind his head. placing his head gingerly down onto the shirt, you wept into his chest.

“it should’ve been me, daddy. please don’t die on me, please. i need you more than anything, you’re my best friend and i can’t do this without you. please, daddy. i can’t lose you. not like this.”

he inched his hand downwards and rested it over yours. you cried harder, pressing a soft kiss onto his forehead.

pepper kneeled next to you and placed a hand on your back, the other one resting on tony’s shoulder.

softly, you pressed your forehead into his and cried, “i love you so much, daddy. you’re my best friend and i will always look up to you. you’re my everything.”

you leaned down and curled up next to your dad, softly laying your head on his chest and keeping his hand in yours, he breathed out slowly, “i... love... you...3-“

“i love you more. i love you 5000. you can rest now, daddy. it’s okay, i’m right here.” you sobbed as you watched his arc reactor power down, pepper rubbing your back and hiccuping lightly.

you screamed as loud as you could when he’d finally let go, his hand slipping off the top of yours, “fuck! god! fuck, why! why not me? why did you take him? i cant live without him!”

both steve and bucky moved forward towards you, arms reaching for you. steve looked at bucky like he had two heads, “what’re you doing?”

bucky said nothing. he just looked at steve and then hung his head real low.

and in that moment, steve knew what bucky had done.

and when bucky looked back up he knew that steve wasn’t just crying about his lost friend, but now the love he’d lost to his best friend, to him.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #tony stark #tony stark x daughter!reader #avengers #avengers x reader #marvel #marvels the avengers #thanos #endgame #stucky x reader

[solastia]

Break My Stride | 2

Pairing: Yoongi x Jungkook

Word Count: 3,000

Summary: Yoongi is an Omega that has managed to escape the annual mating run without an Alpha for seven years in a row. He has no plans for that to change, but he’s unaware of his latest opponent: the newly presented Alpha Jeon Jungkook, his very determined childhood friend.

Genre & Warnings: A bit of everything. Smut won’t happen until a later chapter and I will, of course, post warnings for that.

The starting line was already bustling; everyone desperate to catch a scent they liked and latch onto it like...well, dogs with a bone. He hadn’t bothered to check the numbers this year, but it had to be a record breaking turnout. He’d guess upwards of ten thousand or more, just by how many bodies he had to try to squeeze through to get here. The annoying thing was that half of them probably weren’t even running. They were just family and friends of people that were, here to show their support as the races started. Most would go home for the night and come back tomorrow. Still, they could stop acting like this was some god damn county fair, at least. There were even booth setups for merchandise and food. 

Yoongi sighs morosely and follows the sounds of Taehyung and Jimin hollering like monkeys and calling his name. Most of the group - minus Jungkook again - have all claimed their spot on a set of park benches. They made it look like they were just going to a damn picnic with tablecloths and cushions for the wooden benches. Most of them were working through some of the food the vendors were selling and Taehyung slung an arm around his shoulders as he tore into a corndog. 

“So, you excited for today? You look well prepared, hyung,” Taehyung grinned slyly since he knew full well Yoongi was certainly not excited for today. 

Yoongi ignored him and instead asked whoever would answer, “Where’s Kook? Already sniffing out his mate?” 

“No, he said that would be pointless because his mate’s a cheating cheater that plays dirty. He said the chances of them covering their scent were high. He’s making sure his den is ready,” Seokjin scoffed. 

Yoongi accepted the drink Jimin handed him and chuckled. “Sounds like I might actually like them.” 

“You have no idea,” Jin said with a snort, glancing up and down at Yoongi in a way he couldn’t decipher. But then again, he didn’t really want to since Jin thought being vague made him mysterious and therefore more attractive. 

Hint: it didn’t. 

“So where’s his den?” 

Although, calling it a “den” in this day and age wasn’t really accurate. No longer did the big bad Alpha cart you off to a hole in a mountain or a shack in the woods (unless that’s what they wanted - who was he to judge?). It was simply a place that the Alpha had bought prior to their first run so they’d have a home ready for their mate. It could be anything from a shitty apartment like Yoongi’s to some fancy house in the city. No matter what kind of place it was, as soon as an Alpha presented, they usually began working on their den. Jungkook must have known his future mate for quite a while for them to already have a den together. Jungkook usually isn’t that sly - it’s amazing he was able to keep something like this from the whole group. 

“You know that place on Rural? That monstrosity that I thought was Victorian but you said it wasn’t? That it was...Italian?” 

Yoongi’s whole world came to screeching halt as he stared at Jin, his heart pounding so hard he was sure everyone else could hear it. 

“Italianate,” he whispered, praying to whatever powers that be that Jin didn’t mean that house. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. Everyone in the family was so excited and happy for Jungkook that they basically threw money at him. He had enough to pay for the house in cash. I told him he should bulldoze it and rebuild since it’s in a great part of town, but he said his mate would want to fix it up.” 

Yoongi suddenly felt like crying, but he settled for collapsing onto the bench and clenching his fist. 

“I’ve been saving up for that house since I was sixteen. I’m going to kill him.” 

Seokjin was sporting the most annoying smirk of all time, clearly enjoying Yoongi’s misery for some reason.

“Focus on the run. You can kill my little brother later.” 

Suddenly, Namjoon growled menacingly, startling everyone. Hoseok looked over to the spot where Namjoon was steadily staring, curiosity in his gaze before it too hardened and he started glaring with bared teeth. A random city Alpha that had been approaching them instantly halted, hands out in surrender. 

“Sorry man. Didn’t know he was spoken for.” 

When the Alpha left, Yoongi looked around curiously. 

“He wasn’t coming for me, was he?” 

Namjoon blushed and squeezed the still scowling Hoseok to him, avoiding everyone’s eyes. Seokjin’s eyes were wide with shock as he stared at the pair. 

“No, he was coming for - it doesn’t matter. So...you’re looking well supplied over there hyung.” 

He decided to put the house from his mind for now and focus on the event of the day. If he didn’t and let his unhappiness cloud his decisions, he could end up with some Alpha dickwad who lived in a trailer and expected twelve kids. Yoongi patted the bulging pockets of his black jacket and matching cargo pants with pride instead, thankful that the tradition of running nude was no longer a rule. Pockets were a fucking godsend and no one wanted twigs and leaves poking their ass when some Alpha tackled them to the ground. That was also why his clothes had built in elbow and knee pads, just in case. He was prepared for anything. 

“Yup. I don’t need too much, because I might have cheated quite a bit this year, but I brought enough crap with me to wait this out for a week if I had to.” 

Namjoon studied him with narrowed eyes for a few moments before his shoulders shake as he silently laughs. 

“You totally came out and stocked up your little cave, didn’t you?” He asked, his voice shaky with laughter. 

“Hell yeah. I’m getting too old to just camp out on dirt. Fixed it up real nice so I can wait out the whole day. There’s a huge plush rug and plenty of blankets, big fluffy pillows, a little stash of food and entertainment. I even put scent blockers around so no one would smell anything coming from inside,” Yoongi preened as he thought of his perfect hideaway. 

Yoongi found it about six years ago when he’d been running from a particularly persistent Alpha. He’d stumbled across it quite literally when he’d tripped over a giant tree branch and landed facing a dirt mound against a hillside with a hole big enough for him to crawl through. He hadn’t expected much, just enough space for his small body to curl up and hide in, but the tunnel kept going until it opened up into a decent sized rock cave. Judging by the smell and some of the remnants, it used to be an actual wolf den, but it hadn’t been touched in some time. He could still remember how he’d huddled in there the first time, jumping at every sound from outside, sure he’d been found out. 

Now here he was several years later and thankfully the preserve was massive enough that no one else ever got to close to his sanctuary. This year he’d decided to experiment and see if he could sneak into the preserve to pimp it out without anyone discovering him, since being in the forest except for during the run was outlawed and came with huge fines. Of course he’d been successful since he was Min Fucking Yoongi. Maybe next year he’d try to camp out before the run even started, then he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone even trying to snatch him. 

A woman in a red pantsuit carrying a clipboard yelled into her headmic, “OMEGAS! Come sign in and get your collars!” 

The boys whooped behind him as he sighed and waved goodbye, joining the rest of the Omegas lining in front of a large set of tables. The packet of paperwork containing his information and liability forms had already been sent in weeks ago, so the sign in sheet was merely used to track your participation (and therefore following the stupid law). When you came back from the run, there was a whole different packet of paperwork to take home to fill in about your partners. 

When his turn came, he signed the clipboard and accepted the black leather collar, clasping it firmly closed as he joined the starting line. The collar was only to come off if you consented to an Alpha. Otherwise, it was there for protection. Many Alphas went a little nuts during the run and let their instincts take over, often going for a bite whether you wanted it or not. Thankfully, they were too stupid to remember the collars were made to be Alpha-proof and their teeth couldn’t get through them. Dumbasses. 

Yoongi lines up near the front, wanting to be one of the first to run as soon as the horn sounded. They always gave the Omegas and more submissive Beta’s a five minute head start, giving them a fair chance considering an Alpha’s naturally high stamina and speed. Yoongi just needed those first five minutes to get out of sight long enough to pull off his first trick. 

He scans the crowd around him trying to get an eye on Jungkook, but the lineup is so huge he can’t see anything. He was almost certain that Jungkook was an Omega - someone as sensitive as him couldn’t possibly be an Alpha. Hell, the boy used to cry if you looked at him too long. 

He glances towards the Alpha side, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. He just wanted to try to subtly figure out if there was any that were eyeing him for too long or trying to sniff him out so he’d be prepared. There were a couple of city Alphas that tried to catch his eye, it seemed, but no one looked like they were zeroed in and focused on him too heavily yet. Good, this should be an easy run. 

Yoongi frowned when he swore he saw a flash of a familiar side profile before it disappeared into the rest of the Alpha crowd, but that wasn’t possible. He was just nervous, and the fact that he’d been looking for Jungkook in the first place made him see things. He was sure there were plenty of Alphas running around with those piercings and Kook’s ginormous honker of a nose. 

The countdown began and forced his attention away and back to his own predicament. He inhaled and exhaled slowly to calm himself and got into a ready position, eyes focused on the clump of trees to the left where he planned to escape into. 

The horn blared as the mating run officially began and everyone in the starting line rushed forward. Many of the Omegas around him were smiling and giggling like this was all just a fun game instead of something that could drastically change your life, and for the worse if you weren’t careful. The waiting crowd and excited Alphas behind them cheered and howled as the Omegas wove into the forest ahead. 

Yoongi quickly veered off into the more densely packed left side of the preserve, needing to get to a certain clearing before the five minutes were up. He ran without a thought besides getting there, knowing his next step is crucial to his success. 

Finally, he comes across the small stream he’d been looking for, wading right into it with the waterproof boots that he bought just for this occasion, and traveling the rest of the way through the water so his scent and tracks would be harder to catch. 

Finally, he reaches the clearing that marked the halfway point to his cave and stopped, breathing heavily as he dropped onto a boulder. He takes just a couple of seconds to catch his breath, then pulls a container out of his jacket pocket. He grins as he opens it and scoops out the contents with a finger. It has all the appearance of white slime but smells like pine trees. He spreads the goop onto his scent glands, adding a bit behind his ears and across his wrists for good measure. He takes a heavy sniff of the air around him after, smirking with pleasure as his nose picks up nothing but pine. Instead of his usual citrus scent heavily tinged with Omega pheromones, he now blended into the forest.

Cheating, yes. Brilliant, also yes. 

Confident that any Alphas that had considered chasing him would now move on to an easier target, he ran towards the direction of his cave. He was tired as hell already and couldn’t wait to get there and take a nap. Maybe he should take up Jungkook on his offer to exercise with him more, so running wouldn’t be so damn painful next year. 

He had maybe ten minutes of running left to do when he smelled it. Lavender and clove, a scent that might belong to an Omega if it weren’t for the obvious Alpha musk lending the unusual combination a mouthwatering essence. 

He couldn’t believe it. An Alpha had actually tracked him all the way here? 

Unless the Alpha was after someone else and just happened to be going this way. However, Yoongi was certain that he’d seen most of the others head away from this area. He doubted many of them would even go too far into the forest as most of them wanted to be caught. 

He heard a twig snap and the Alpha’s scent thickened in the air, like he wanted Yoongi to know he was there. He was letting Yoongi know he was there for him and he wanted to chase. His inner Omega was preening that such an amazing smelling Alpha chased him this far out, and he really wished he could physically slap some sense into it. He didn’t even acknowledge that he was thoroughly impressed that the Alpha had even tracked him with his scent covered. 

He took off, running his heart out, but away from his cave. He didn’t want this jackass to know where his hiding place was. So he ran east, trying to get back towards the stream. 

Only the crunch of leaves and twigs switched sides almost immediately, sending him back the way he came. How was this Alpha so fast? Yoongi had been chased quite a few times in the past, but it was like this one was teleporting behind him. 

Yoongi ran a little more before trying again to head towards another side of the forest. They were getting a little too close to his cave for comfort and Yoongi was starting to panic. He had to find some way to lead this Alpha away from here. 

He knew there was a lake in the northernmost part of the preserve, and near that a small mountain. He hated the water, but surely if swam towards the mountain he’d find a good hiding spot. 

Only, as soon as the Alpha realized he’d changed direction again, the pounding steps behind him changed their own path to block his way. A warning growl traveled the air, making him shiver with the need to obey and letting Yoongi know that the Alpha didn’t want him changing his course. 

He was herding Yoongi towards the western part of the preserve, like he knew that was where Yoongi had been going. Did this fucker know about his cave? 

He didn’t take the time to puzzle through that, instead heading towards his sanctuary as he didn’t see a way out of it. His lungs were burning and his legs felt like they were going to fall off, but he pushed forward. The Alpha seemed content finally, simply following along behind him at a much slower pace than he could have, out of sight but heavily scenting the air with happiness.

He wasn’t going to be so happy in a few moments. 

Yoongi could have cried he was so pleased when his little burrow came into view. He finally stopped, putting a palm against the giant pine near it to hold himself up as he gulped in much needed air. The heavy steps came closer and he knew the Alpha was about to reveal himself. Yoongi was about to show this guy that he wasn’t someone to be messed with and he wouldn’t be dragged off to be someone’s good little Omega bitch. 

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the taser he’d packed just in case. The blue light crackled ominously as he whirled around to face his opponent. 

A soft chuckle floated through the air as the Alpha walked through the trees.

“Stand down, hyung,” the voice urged gently, though filled with amusement. 

Yoongi’s jaw dropped as he watched the Alpha finally stride through the trees towards him because he knew that voice. He knew that face. He knew this person almost as well as he knew himself. 

“Jungkook?” 

#bts #bts fanfic #yoongi fanfic #jungkook fanfic #yoonkook #yoonkook fanfic #sugakookies #bts scenario #abo #abo!bts #alpha!jungkook #omega!yoongi #break my stride #solasta

[pantstomatch]

untitled winterhawk mess for lissa!

SO HERE’S THE THING. It’s creeping up on midnight (my time) and I promised @lissadiane I would write her whatever she wanted for her birthday (today) because she’s amazing and, listen, I’ve been extremely dependent on her, she’s all I’ve ever wanted in a writing buddy and just, like, A FRIEND, and it doesn’t matter that we live so far apart, I feel like I get to see her every single day. She is literally the only reason I ever write and share anything. So anyway, BECAUSE IT IS HER BIRTHDAY, and because she asked me to write Winterhawk on SGA, I have... done this.  I have no actual idea how to write anyone in the marvel universe, so this is just... you know... hopefully not terrible. (the second half is rushed for time, shhhhh, just pretend this is balanced and maybe someday it’ll be magically fixed). HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISSA!! I HOPE YOU HAD AN AMAZING DAY DESPITE THE CAR THING.

The only reason Bucky tolerates diplomatic missions is because Steve's simultaneously the best at them and the worst. It's both a Steve thing and a Stark thing. Steve's got a sixty percent probability of becoming indignant on someone's behalf, and Stark's got a much higher likelihood of blowing things up. And that's only if he hasn't already accidentally insulted someone important on purpose. When things go well, they go great—one planet has a god damn statue of Steve, which Bucky finds hilarious and Steve hates with passion—which is the only reason they're still getting sent on these milk runs.

Bucky's got his palm along the outside of his P-90, pointed at the ground as he stands fifteen paces behind Steve, Stark, and Wilson.

The planet's delegation consists of two old pale guys in robes—par for the course—and a haggard nutbar that Bucky's pretty sure they're trying to sell as a wizard.

He notes Wilson watching all their hands, and scans the perimeter for threats.

The settlement is mostly a tent city built on the ruins of a more prosperous time. Half-crumbled brick and mortar, dull canvas tarps staked down over top.

For all the technology of the Ancients, the Pegasus Galaxy has basically been beaten back into the dark ages. He fucking hates the Wraith.

He's got his eyes on the sparse woods to their left when he hears a soft scraping sound. He barely tenses, forces a natural sweep of the tree line, back over the other three members of his team, and then lazily focuses on a narrow, dirt alley that snakes down behind a line of crumbling buildings. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches a thick stone slowly lift and shift. Grubby fingers appear, palms wrapped in worn cloth, gripping the edge.

Bucky forces himself to keep still, stance open.

A tuft of matted, brown-blonde hair pokes up, Bucky catches a fast look of blue eyes, busted nose and a split lip.

Graceful and quick, the kid—youngish, slim, rag-covered, barefoot—gracefully climbs out of the hole, and then promptly trips over his own feet. He catches himself on nothing, arms spread out with an almost silent whoosh of air.

Bucky spots what looks like a quiver of arrows on his back and a motherfucking bow, and rolls onto the balls of his feet, wondering if this is some kind of ambush. He slips his fingers down to lightly cover the trigger of his gun.

The kid just crouches down to heft the stone cover back over the hole, though, and when he lifts his head again, their eyes catch.

Panic moves fast over the kid's face before disappearing into a cocky quirk of lips. He winks at Bucky, lifts his finger in a 'keep quiet' gesture, and then flees around the turn of a tent before Bucky can even snap his mouth shut.

Huh.

"Buck?"

Bucky blinks once and says, "Yeah, Stevie," without looking away from the alley.

"Everything okay?"

A hand lands on his arm, the one attached to the hand still caressing his P-90, and Bucky looks up to see Steve's face schooled into Earnest Concern.

"Peachy," Bucky says. "Hey," he gestures to the hole the goddamn street urchin just popped out of, "where do you think those stone covers lead to?"

Steve shrugs. "Old sewer? Sophisticated Ancient underground bunker? Weapons store?"

Bucky feels his lips twist into a frown. Steve's eyes are twinkling.

"I know you're joking, Rogers," Stark says, swanning over, "but just because there hasn't been another Genii infestation, doesn't mean there won't be."

"I think calling them an infestation is offensive," Steve says.

"Are we done here?" Bucky asks. His skin is crawling. They're being watched.

"Nope." Stark claps Bucky on the arm and Bucky growls at him.

Stark tells him to, "Chill out, tiger," because he's a raging asshole, and the only reason Bucky doesn't punch him in the face is because Steve ducks his head to hide a smile.

Jesus.

Wilson moseys over, thumbs looped into his belt and gun draped across his back, even though he must notice Bucky's still on high fucking alert. "I don't know about you guys," he says, "but I can't wait to get off this weird-ass planet. I am not letting that grand high poopah dude read my chakra or whatever the hell he was twitching about."

Stark's face is practically plastered to a tablet but he waves a hand and says, "I believe the appropriate term, Wilson, is probe."

Over Steve's shoulder, Bucky sees the kid again, this time rapidly skirting the edge of the woods. He rolls his lips and doesn’t say anything and hopes it isn't a mistake.

*

Two days later, Bucky's cursing at the general motherfucking shittyness of their luck with his hands tied behind his back.

The 'jail' is one of the few buildings mostly still standing; dim light filters in from the single high window, and also weakly beams through the gaps in the stone walls. A solid push would probably take them down, Bucky's got enough rage to really put his back into it, but he'd prefer to have his hands free.

Fucking diplomats.

"How's it going, Stark?" Bucky asks through gritted teeth. He's hot, he's sweaty, his hair's all over his face and all he can do is scrape at the ends with his shoulder.

The only good thing is that Steve and Wilson weren't served the same fate. Steve's probably still in the 'talking them around' stage of negotiations, where he tries to explain that Stark didn't really mean it, and Bucky wasn't trying to assassinate anyone by accident, and it's sweet the way Steve always alwaysthinks that's going to work, even when it never does.

"It's going," Stark says absently. "Can't you bludgeon your way free with your robo-arm?"

"It's off," Bucky says.

At that, Stark lifts his head and an eyebrow, gaze slipping down the metal of his arm twisted behind his back.

"No," Bucky says, manfully resisting rolling his eyes. "They fucking turned it off. Nutbar wizard has the ATA gene."

"You mean old Turkey Face? Yeah, that guy's a treat," Stark says, and then his arms loosen and drop with a sigh and tiny robot with a saw climbs up over his shoulder to say hi.

Just as the little gizmo starts in on the ropes binding Bucky, the door slams open and street urchin kid gets tossed in with a yelp, and a shouted, "Sure! Be that way! See if he doesn't eat you, now!"

A guard kicks him in the leg, but he bounces up almost immediately and clings to the small slotted hole in the wood. He says, "Kidding! I'm kidding, please don't hurt him," and curses under his breath.

"Hello," Stark says, like he's real interested.

The kid's tall, but probably not as tall as he will be. He swings his arms when he turns and then leans up against the door, watching them warily. His mouth quirks up in a smile, though, and he says, "Hi. What are you in for?"

"Treason, apparently," Stark says dryly. "And failure to acknowledge the royal 'we.'"

Street urchin nods a lot, says, "Sure, sure," and paces to the small window and back to the door again. His lip's crusted over and his busted nose has radiated out into a black eye.

The tiny robot finishes Bucky's ties and he shakes out his hand in relief while the street urchin keeps one eye on him, and the other on the door. He's backed himself into a corner, arms crossed.

Bucky silently moves toward Stark and shifts so he can still see the kid.

Stark says, "Did you forget how to use your words, Barnes?" but reaches out for the latch underneath his arm, the Ancient tech lighting up in response to his own ATA gene.

Bucky doesn’t have one, the synthetic never stuck, and he's never considered it a liability before.

Stark, frowning, says, "We need to get you better non-Ancient tech attached to this thing. Give me a week after we get back. You can be a little lopsided in between missions."

"Gee, thanks," Bucky says.

His arm powers up with a whirl and a few clicks of the plates shifting. He's highly aware of the kid gawking at him as he lifts his arm and folds his fingers into a fist.

Stark waves him forward and says, "After you."

Bucky grins at him, feral around the edges, and punches straight through the wall.

Shouting from the guards kicks up as soon as they crawl through the rubble.

The kid says, "What the fuck was that?" blue eyes big.

Bucky only feels a little guilty when the awe and hesitation are what get the kid caught.

"Aw, man, no," he hears faintly as he takes off down the dirt path, conscious of Stark keeping pace beside him, because that's his job. Not saving some raggedy teenager who doesn't even have enough sense to wear shoes.

He's gonna see those big blue eyes in his nightmares. Jesus Christ.

He slows to a jog and then skids to a stop.

This sucks.

Stark says, "Hustle up, Barnes," and Bucky shakes his head.

"I'm going back."

"You want me to tell Rogers I lost his best friend to a sad-eyed alien that looks like a half-grown man-child?"

"Steve would go back," Bucky says, because it's true. Mostly true. He's pretty sure if it were between Bucky and a stranger, Steve would unhesitatingly go for him.

But Bucky's always been the only exception that feeds his martyr complex, so whatever.

Stark sighs like Bucky's a heavy burden. He says, "You don't have any weapons."

Bucky wiggles his metal fingers.

Stark pinches the bridge of his nose and says, "Take Tiny with you."

*

Tiny shoots tiny missiles. Tiny is Bucky's new best friend. Stark is never getting Tiny back.

Bucky goes for mass chaos over finesse, and has just enough time to grab the kid by the scruff of his neck and haul him backward before a wall falls on two of the three guards that were holding him down.

The shouts and explosions have brought out half the town and most of the diplomatic delegation, and Bucky sees Steve book it sideways in all the confusion, Wilson bringing up his rear.

This mission is officially fubar, unsalvageable, and Bucky just wants to get back to his tiny bunk in his tiny room with his own private tiny bath. Halfway down the street, he lets the kid go and hopes he just keeps running. It's not his problem anymore.

The Stargate is in an open field almost two clicks out of town. Bucky and Steve are the only ones not panting by the time they reach the dial.

"You came through the ring," the kid says, staring up at it with his mouth hanging open. "You came through the ring."

"Yep," Stark says, rapidly dialing out, sending his ID code through as it whooshes open. "What's your name, kid?"

"Clint." He rubs a hand over his mouth, staring at the rippling portal like he's never seen it open before.

"You going to be okay, son?" Steve says. He drops a meaty palm on join of his neck, squeezing once and then letting go.

"Oh yeah, sure," Clint nods, "but, uh," he drags his gaze away from the 'gate and up at Steve, "this planet is really small, and they were gonna cut my hand off, so, you know, anyway you can see yourselves letting me tag along?"

Steve's face goes dark. "What." Oh no.

"And Lucky and me don't take up much room, swear, except for the fact that Lucky actually does, but, uh—what?" Clint seems to finally notice how Steve's gone expressionless.

Stark whistles through his teeth and says, "Are we in Aladdin?" and Wilson snorts a laugh even though he says, "Not funny, man."

Steve says, "They're going to what?"

"Uh." Clint darts his gaze from Bucky to Steve and back again, like Bucky can somehow stop this clusterfuck of a situation.

Luckily, Bucky speaks fluent Steve. He hitches a shoulder and says, "He means you're coming with us."

"Oh, but. I mean, that's great," Clint says, but he doesn't look like he thinks that's great. He looks wary. He looks like a kid who was hoping for the best but clearly expecting the worst, and doesn't trust an inch of it—or them. "Don't you want to know why?"

"It doesn't matter why," Steve says—it totally matters why, Bucky thinks darkly, but keeps his mouth shut—and claps Clint on the shoulder, urging him forward.

Clint staggers and stops, digging his bare heels into the dirt, and blurts out, "I was stealing food."

Steve's eyes go soft. "That's okay, Clint."

"No, but. I was stealing food for him." He jerks his chin to something behind them, and Bucky whirls around to see….

It looks like how a dog would look like, if no one had ever seen a dog. If someone had just said describe a dog to me, and then drew it with their eyes closed.  It's… an approximation of a dog. Floppy ears, lolling tongue, tail that wags like a flag. Big, four-footed, furry all over, but with too many teeth for its mouth and eyes too wide-set on its pointed skull.

It is, quite frankly, disturbing as hell to someone who emphatically knows what a dog should and should not look like.

Clint's shoulders slump. They're ridiculously sharp under his threadbare shirt, and he's woefully underfed. This beast looks sort of fat.

"It's okay," Clint says.  He's sad. Hell, Bucky's sad. But, like, that thing can't come to Atlantis. It might eat everyone.

Which is why he's actually too stunned to protest when Steve says with deliberate, forceful calm that Bucky knows is absolute bullshit, "He can come too."

Wilson squawks. He says, "Steve."

Bucky tries to murder Steve with a glare, but Steve doesn't take an order he doesn't believe in, and doesn't offer anything he isn't prepared to back up with his whole soul. It's one of the things Bucky both loves and hates about him.

"Sheppard's gonna have a field day," Stark says gleefully, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "C'mon, blue eyes, the first step's a doozy."

*

Clint throws up all over the 'gate room to absolutely no one's surprise.

Also to no one's surprise, a bunch of guns get immediately pointed in the not-dog's direction until it bounds over and licks Bucky in the back of the neck. Christ.

"I have to go debrief," Steve says. "Buck, can you take Clint and, uh…"

"Lucky," Clint says, swiping at his mouth while gazing narrowed-eyed around them. Bucky doesn’t want to say he's casing the place, but he's a self-admitted thief.

"Can you take Clint and Lucky down to medical?" Steve gives him puppy eyes behind Clint's back, which is the only reason Bucky says yes.

Stark says, "I'll be in my lab." He jabs a finger at Bucky. "Barnes, arm. Tomorrow or Wednesday, whenever you're feeling it."

Bucky's tempted to not feel it at all, but on the other hand it's his arm, and he'd like it to work better.

Wilson mutters something about taking a, "Goddamn bubble bath."

Steve lifts his fingers like a boy scout but says, "Two hours. Full reports or I'll make you go talk to Sheppard. He'll hate it just as much as you will."

Clint follows Bucky out of the 'gate room, and Lucky follows Clint until they're stopped by an over-excited scientist from the xenobiologist lab. Bucky has no idea what her name is, but she's really insistent on quarantine and scans and people not accidentally dying, so he lets them herd Lucky down a split in the hallway.

Clint says, "What are they—" before cutting himself off with a sharp clack of teeth.

"He's going to the animal med bay," Bucky says. "We're going to the people-shaped one." Can't say human, he guesses, but Bucky actually knows fuck-all about the genetics of the Pegasus Galaxy. Supposedly they were all cut from the same Ancient cloth, so who the fuck knows.

In the infirmary, Dr. Biro tuts over Clint's clothes, his dirty hands, his crud-encrusted feet, and shoves a pair of scrubs in his hands before flipping the curtain around him closed.

She says, "Well," to Bucky with her hands on her hips.

"I guess… call Captain Rogers when he's done?" Bucky says.

Her eyebrows deepen into a V. "You don't want to wait."

Did he want to? Kind of. He's just not sure he should. He didn't make the decision to bring Clint back to Atlantis. He's definitely not his responsibility. At all.

Bucky sits down on the edge of an empty bed with a sigh. He needs a shower, and he needs to write up his report, and apparently he needs to make sure a too-thin alien street urchin isn’t going to die on them, too.

A half hour later, Bucky's half asleep sitting up. But Clint's got a mostly clean bill of health—dehydrated, half-starved, lacking nutrients, but in great spirits!—and is eighty percent dirt-free. He needs a shower, but his nose is taped, a butterfly bandage on his lip that definitely won't last, and the scrubs show-off his lean build and the bruises on the back of his arms, like fingerprints. He looks older and taller, even though Biro says, "He's eighteen or nineteen, he can't remember, and age in years is an Earth construct I still haven't figured out how to apply to multiple planets outside our solar system."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Clint wiggles his toes in the fuzzy socks Biro had given him. He grins, "Hey, look."

"Real fancy, Clint," Bucky says. He quirks an eyebrow at Biro. "So he's good?"

"For certain definitions of good, sure," Biro says. "I want him hooked up to a IV for an hour and then someone can come collect him."

"What's an IV?" Clint asks, watching curiously as Biro takes hold of his arm and starts tapping along the veins.

Bucky wants no parts of that. He nods at Biro, says, "Good luck," and then slips out the door.

*

Bucky has a routine in between off-world missions. Breakfast at 530AM, followed by a two hour sparring session, followed by a second breakfast of whatever fruit they have on hand, preferably sitting on the highest balcony he has access to.

After that, it's a toss-up between a nap and a run around the serpentine corridors on third floor. Lunch, usually with Steve, and then he reports for duty wherever he's being rotated in for the day—control desk, lab security, clearing out and constructions. He winds up the time before dinner swimming laps off the southeast pier, if it isn't crowded. Very infrequently, he's bullied into team movie nights by Wilson. It's nice. Structured, but not too structured.

His first job after the bullshit mission where they found Clint is to… find Clint.

"What do you mean he's gone?" Bucky asks Steve, falling in step next to him as they walk down the corridors toward the living quarters. "Can't you just have Atlantis pinpoint his vitals?"

Steve's mouth tightens. "Apparently his biometrics haven't been entered into her systems yet. No one's seen him since I dropped him off after medical."

Bucky stops. "That was two days ago, Steve."

"Yeah, I know." Steve swings on him, visibly irritated. "But Corporal Jamison didn't see him leave his room, and when he finally went in to check—"

"Finally?" Jesus, did they not think Clint was eating? Or his... not-dog thing?

"Yeah." Steve looks real pissed about that, and it's only slightly mollifying. And then he looks hangdog and guilty, because of course Clint's their—Steve's—responsibility, and the thing Steve's gonna focus on most is that Clint hasn't been coddled enough to his satisfaction, and not the fact that he's a unknown variable in what is, technically, a hybrid civilian-military war zone.

Frankly, Bucky's more worried about that too. Not that he'd eversay anything about that out loud.

Steve says, "When he finally went in to check, there was zero signs of Clint anywhere. So that's where we're going to check first."

"The place where he isn’t," Bucky says, but follows Steve when he starts moving again anyhow.

"The place Clint somehow got out of without using the door."

Clint's assigned room is small, located on a less used corridor in the living section. It's sparsely furnished. There's a narrow bed, and round table with two chairs, and a postage stamp bathroom. The bed doesn't even look slept in. There's a pair of boots shoved into a corner. A folded pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt on a chair.

Bucky idly picks up the gray Air Force shirt and says, "So he's in sock-feet and the scrubs Biro gave him," hopefully, "and no one has fucking seen this guy for two days?"

One of the chairs is at a weird angle, spun around from the table and halfway into the cramped 'living space' that boasts a skinny tower bookshelf.

Steve places his hands on his hips and goes, "Huh."

Bucky skims fingers over a light dusting of debris on the shelf and then glances up at a roughly 12x24 vent in the ceiling.  "D'you think his collarbones unhinge like a cat's?"

Steve says, "Well. Shit."

*

Clint could basically be anywhere on Atlantis. The main problem, though, as Bucky sees it, is that so could Lucky.

"So how can he hide a hundred and fifty pound… dog," Bucky generously allows, "in our recycled air system?”

The duct work threads all over the city, spilling out into every room, and god knows he's probably sleeping in there too.

Steve says, "Good question," and radios Colonel Sheppard, who lets out the longest, loudest sigh Bucky has ever heard in his life.

Steve and Bucky are unsuccessful in their mission that day, because a) the damn not-dog is still quarantined in the xenobiology lab, and b) Bucky almost punches Colonel Jamison in the face when he says he told Clint no when he asked for him.

"Now we know why he bolted," Steve says, looking like he wants to punch Jamison, too, "and we know where he was going. But we don't know why he didn't get there."

"Well," Dr. Simmons pushes her glasses up her nose. "The xeno labs are routed through a different ventilation system, since everyone was complaining about the smell."

Lucky is licking at the glass partition, staring longingly at Bucky, and he still looks like half a horror. An incomplete sketch. What comes for you in the dark and lives under your bed. Christ.

"So he's lost," Bucky says, which is why they had to end up gathering all two hundred and fifty three inhabitants of Atlantis in the 'gate room and commissary and then run a full scale vitals search on the rest of the compound.

No one is happy about it, even when Sheppard says everyone can get an extra jello.

Lost for two fucking days stuck in the vents without anyone knowing, and, god, Bucky just really hopes he got to sneak out to go to the bathroom.

An hour in, Bucky's lounging along the wall of the commissary, dreaming about all the ways he's gonna take Jamison apart in the gym, when Stark shouts, "Got 'em. Unless another bird got stuck in the tower again." He looks up at Steve. "The spire overlooking the west end."

Bucky swears under his breath. He's out on his Second Breakfast balcony. "Let me go," he says without really meaning to.

Steve looks as surprised as he feels. "You sure?"

Bucky nods. "Hold everyone from another twenty minutes, just in case he disappears."

"I'll let you know if he moves," Stark says, tapping at the tablet. He flicks his fingers over the screen and then spins it to show Bucky. "The transporter at the end of the hall only goes up to three, but it'll still be faster than going all the way around to the 'gate room. You might want to take the stairs the rest of the way."

If he thought he had the time for it, he'd stop and bring Lucky, too. He's only a little relieved that he doesn't.

He doesn't bother with stealth. He figures if Clint hasn't moved in the ten minutes it's taken Bucky to advance on his position, making noise isn't going to make a difference. When the door whooshes open, the high winds hit Bucky like a smack in the face. A storm must be heading in.

Clint's sitting on the ground with his legs dangling out under the railing.

Bucky drops down next to him and nudges him back a little, just for his own peace of mind. Clint doesn't react other than shifting further away, bringing his legs up to hug his knees.

"So," Bucky says after a long, quiet moment, "Jamison refused to bring you your dog and you go off and sulk, making the entire fucking city of Atlantis waste hours searching for you."

Clint glares at him. "What." He scoffs. "If I asked you, you woulda just let me have him?"

Bucky opens his mouth to say yeah, except who the fuck knows what he would have done. He would have at least asked the xenobologists if he was safe.

Clint snorts like a punk.

Bucky wants to wring his skinny neck and also, inexplicably, make him eat an entire plate of mashed potatoes.

He says, "Have you eaten anything?"

Petulance melts into a smirk. He says, "Maybe," which Bucky is taking for yes, and also the high probability that he’s been breaking into their stores.

Bucky sighs. This is going to be a full time fucking job. "Come back to your room," he says, "and I'll see what I can do about Lucky."

*

Clint makes Bucky feel old.

"You're not old," Steve says, determinedly sawing into his too-dense waffles. "We're not even thirty yet."

"Steve," Bucky says seriously, reaching across the table to cover his hand with his. "Steve, you're thirty-two."

Steve's mouth drops open, then snaps closed again. "No, I'm…. am I?"

"Stark's forty-one."

"No," Steve says, scandalized.

Clint befriended Romanov five days after he stopped hiding in the vents and they haven't stopped running rings around every single other person in the city since.

Clint can shoot an arrow at a bullseye two hundred feet away with his eyes closed.

He's bendy. He does handstands and walks across tables. He swings up into the rafters of the ‘gate room because using stairs takes too long.

Bucky's knees crack when he crouches down to pick up a dropped fork.

He's in shape, he's in great shape, and he's more active now than he ever was on base back on earth, but he also wears a brace on his left knee, and has to use reading glasses and if he were at home he has a sneaking, depressing suspicion that he'd have trouble driving at night.

Clint makes him feel old, and the only fucking reason that it matters at all is because he's definitely, maybe gotten a little crush.

It's been two months and Clint's filled out considerably and apparently has the arm strength to climb up the outside of Atlantis all the way up the second breakfast balcony—on a dare, because he's reckless and young—and it's fucking with Bucky's head.

Competency is hot. The fact that Clint trips over Lucky whenever he goes to open his room door and routinely falls off chairs like it's his job—he tilts them back way too far and can't seem to help himself—sadly doesn't detract from this at all.

Bucky wishes it did. In fact, it should.  There's nothing sexy about a lap full of tough chicken, gravy and rehydrated rice, and yet…

So Bucky feels beat and old, even though he's twenty-nine and lied like a rug to Steve about it—Steve's hilariously susceptible at 5:30 AM—and Clint’s probably a good ten years younger than him and also an alien.

It's never going to work.

*

Romanov has been on permanent team rotation ever since she justifiably shot Rumlow and sent him hurling into space out the back of a puddlejumper.  She subs for people stuck in the infirmary or if teams need an extra assassin on hand.

She teaches Clint how to fight dirty and gives him a gun and not even Sheppard has the balls to complain about it.

Bucky turns down every single request to spar with him because he's not a masochist, but he still manages to claim the seat next to him on the movie nights Wilson guilts him into going to.

He knocks their shoulders together and watches Clint's eyes light up when he says, "Hey."

Clint sits like an acrobat, knees and elbows in weird places, and Bucky feels all the points that press against him like fire.

They're watching Jaws and Clint's breath is fast, but Bucky can't tell if that's a Clint thing or a something is wrong thing, and he nudges his fist into the side of Clint's thigh.

"Okay?"

Clint turns to look at him, pupils blown in the half-light. "What?" he asks with a lick of his lips.

"Um." Bucky wants to reach out and curl a hand up under the hinge of his jaw. Without the tape and bruises and swelling, he's got smooth cheeks and a slightly crooked nose. "Are you okay?"

Clint's grin blooms across his mouth in honest, open affection and Bucky feels like he's been donkey kicked in the chest.

Bucky scrambles to his feet and ignores half the room staring at him like he’s lost his mind and books it out of there.

*

The next time Bucky sees Clint, he’s sitting on a table in Stark’s lab, swinging his feet and humming what sounds like Chariots of Fire.

“Bucky!”

Bucky winces at the volume, and Stark puts a hand on Clint’s knee to get his attention and mimes dialing it down.

Clint points at Stark and says, “Tony’s fixing my ears.”

“I didn’t know anything was wrong with ‘em,” Bucky says, watching the way Clint carefully watches his lips.

“He’s got truly horrendous tech in them that someone cobbled together out of what looks like twigs and bubble gum,” Stark says.

Bucky peers over his shoulder. It looks like regular wires and doodads to him, but he knows fuck all about that kind of stuff.  “Those were in his ears?”

Tony hmms absently, but then he pins Bucky down with a look and says, “I haven’t forgotten about your arm either. Who made that crap, anyway? Hammer? Ancient tech is good, but mine is better.”

Clint stares curiously at his arm, but doesn’t say anything.

Bucky was down here for a reason, but now he can’t remember why.  He’s losing it, mind and body. This is the worst.

Suddenly Clint waves his hands and says, “Oh! Guess what?”

“Uh… what?” He swears he’s usually more suave than this. He used to have game. He used to charm the pants off of ladies and men alike. His mouth feels too big.

“I’m 22 earth years,” Clint says proudly. “Tony figured it out.”

“Clint,” Bucky says, throat dry. “You weren’t even sure how many of your years you were.”

Clint shrugs. “Eh.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “Okay, so…”

“Barnes,” Stark says, clacking what looks like a pair of tweezers together, “take the kid to lunch and a slow bone before I choke and throw up on all this tension.”

Bucky freezes. “Did you just. Did you just say slow bone?”

“What’s a… slow bone?” Clint says, head cocked, and this is when Bucky realizes that Stark hadn’t been facing Clint but Bucky is, and now he has to kill himself.

Stark arches an eyebrow at him. “That is not my fault.”

Bucky ignores him and rolls his shoulders and bites out, “Lunch.” He jerks his head toward the door and mans up. “Coming?”

*

There is a single glorious planet in the Pegasus Galaxy that boasts no less than fifteen different kinds of dinosaurs, and the fact that they have to keep going back to it to get a certain herb that both the botanists and medical doctors go gaga over is a source of unending joy to Bucky.

He fucking loves Dinosaur Planet.

He keeps trying to convince Steve to let him bring back an egg.

He knows the only reason Steve volunteers their team for these missions is because of Bucky. Stark usually insists on sitting them out, which is why they have Romanov with them this time instead. He has absolutely no idea what military organization she’s a part of, but she’s definitely not a scientist. No one’s willing to fuck with her after the Rumlow situation.

She’s got a cold, calm eye that gives Bucky the willies, but he doesn’t have a problem with her. They don’t have problems with each other.  

Except, apparently, for right now.

“Uh.”

Romanov has her arms crossed. “Well?”

“You realize you’re ruining Dinosaur Planet for me, right?” Bucky could be getting run down by a T-Rex right now.

“Answer the question, Barnes.”

Bucky could have lived his whole life happily never having heard Romanov ask him if he was interested in boning Clint, Jesus, and he knows this entire clusterfuck is Stark’s fault.

“What answer is the one least likely to get me stabbed?” He’s not above lying to Romanov if he has to.

Luckily or unluckily, Romanov seems to take that as whatever she actually wanted to hear, so she nods smartly and then gestures over his shoulder with a lazy, “Incoming,” and that is how they spend the rest of the day dodging pterodactyls.

Bucky can’t wait to come back.

*

Clint doesn’t hesitate. Whether it’s shooting an arrow, sparring, eating, swimming, talking—Clint just goes for it, all in, even if he ends up making a fool of himself.

Bucky admires that.

He’s also extremely tired, hot off the Dinosaur Planet, and three minutes ago he was dead to the world face down on his bunk.

He scrubs a hand over his face until the blurry shape in his doorway in front of him resolves into Clint’s grinning face. “Huh?” He’s almost entirely sure it’s the middle of the night, but the city does weird things to his circadian rhythm.

“Sam told me what bone means.”

All Bucky’s body parts wake up and freeze at once. “I’m going to murder him.”

Clint says, “I hope it can wait,” and then lunges forward and kisses him. Kind of. It’s aggressive enough that Bucky thinks maybe it’s his first kiss, which is goddamn charming and almost irresistible. He’s just so enthusiastic.

Bucky slides his hand up to cup Clint’s cheek, rests his metal one on the small of his back, settling him into slowing down. He eases out of the kiss with, “It’s the middle of the night, Clint, and Stark’s probably watching us through his peephole.”

Clint’s mouth is red and his eyes are wide. “Oh,” he says, but looks out of it enough that Bucky’s ninety percent certain he hasn’t understood a word Bucky’s said.

Bucky says, “Go to bed, Clint.” His legs hurt from running from dinosaurs all day and he needs at least another four hours of sleep before figuring out how to handle… this.

“Right,” Clint says, but doesn’t move.

Bucky reaches out and squeezes his hand. “G’night,” he says, and the steps back and slides the door closed behind him.

*

The only thing that Clint loves more than Lucky is pizza, and the only thing Lucky loves more than Clint is also pizza, so Bucky sweet talks Corporal Lovett into making him a pie in exchange for three chocolate bars he’d been saving. It’s an approximation of an earth pizza, and it’s only 9 in the morning, but he’s due for second breakfast anyway.

Bucky rings the bell on Clint’s quarters and tries not to be skeeved out by the echoing wooffrom Lucky, like he swallowed an actual dog and that dog is making that sound from the bottom of his throat. Lucky’s cool. Bucky gets along great with Lucky if he doesn’t think too hard about him.

Clint’s normally open face is wary when he sees him. He’s wearing shorts and an old t-shirt that has ‘Barnes’ across the right breast that Bucky’s been missing for over a month. He’s still wearing the fuzzy, slouchy socks from that first day in medical.

Bucky says, “Pizza?” holding up the tray, and Clint’s grin finally reaches his eyes.

Clint takes the pizza with a too-subdued, “Uh, thanks?” and Bucky swoops in oh so suavely and slides a hand onto the nape of his neck, tugging him into a swift kiss.

If they’re doing this, Bucky’s gonna do this right—they’re gonna date first, second breakfast, lunch, dinner—and then they’re gonna bone.

#winterhawk #for lissadiane #writing buddies! #oh god

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4307 Chapter: 16/? Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn’t happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 16

They were tired and hungry, their bodies sore, both of them bleeding sluggishly from at least three places each, but Tobirama took a mild sort of satisfaction from the fact that Izuna looked utterly ridiculous with his long ponytail drying in to a stiff cast of mud. He tried not to imagine what his own head looked like but, still, no matter how stupid he looked it could not possibly compare with the hard little tail hanging from the back of his partner’s head.

Chakra flared in the distance and Tobirama struggled up from where his body had almost entirely merged with the thick mud cradling them. Loud, wet suction noises announced his movement and Izuna groaned but did not look up to watch him crawl his way over to the entrance of their hiding spot. He’d told his mission partner they were taking shelter in a cave but in reality he had shoved their battered bodies down in to a hollow area he’d found underneath one of the massive redwoods that made up the forest surrounding the capital city. Their dirty little cavern had only one entrance, easily disguised by stuffing it full of branches and leaves, but in the fog of exhaustion and pain Tobirama realized he’d forgotten to conceal their chakra.

“Abandoner,” Izuna mumbled, barely enough energy left to speak let alone work himself up for a proper accusation.

“I’m not leaving,” Tobirama said. “I’m just- do we have anything sharp left?”

“Your needle?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

A minute of digging brought out the needle he’d used to sew Izuna’s wounds shut. Now he turned it around and dug it in to the wood of the tree, carving a chakra dampening seal in to the root closest to the blocked entrance. Honestly he wasn’t sure either of them even had enough chakra left for someone to sense them without standing on their heads but it was better to be safe than sorry.

When his carving was done he let his body slump back down in to the mud again. Dirty and cold it might be but it was also surprisingly comfortable, something that should probably worry him a lot more than it did. If he had more energy for such thoughts he was sure this situation would seem a lot more serious but right at that moment the only pressing matter on his mind was whether or not he could fall asleep yet and whether Izuna would still be alive when he woke up again.

“How much blood do you think you’ve lost?” he asked. Izuna grunted.

“Dunno. Lots. Probably more than a liter.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine. So long as the bleeding is at least slowing down then we should be able to get some rest before we get the fuck out of here.” Tobirama let his eyes fall closed with a heavy sigh.

Squelching noises accompanied by a few irritable grunts almost convinced him to open his eyes again but Izuna fell still again quickly, clearly giving up on whatever he’d been trying to do. Probably roll over. In the silence that followed it was all too easy to let the dim lighting and the heaviness of his limbs work together to pull him down under the veil of consciousness. Tobirama didn’t so much fall asleep as he did pass out with an utter lack of dignity.

He woke again an undetermined amount of time later. By the solid darkness in their hole he supposed it must be night, although he couldn’t have said whether it was that same night or if they had slept for more than twenty-four hours. Either option seemed as likely as the other. A quick internal scan told him that his body hadn’t recovered quite as much as one might hope but he felt a few steps farther away from death’s door and that was a victory at the very least. It did take a bit of extra effort to free his head from the mud cast that had dried around him as he slept but eventually he was able to haul himself up in to a sitting position and look around for Izuna, forming a weak tongue of flame with a single hand sign.

Covered in dirt as they had both been when they crawled in here, he almost thought Izuna had disappeared so well did the man blend in. It was seeing the faintest reflection on the necklace he always wore that differentiated Izuna from the rest of the lumpy mud. Tobirama fought to free the rest of himself from the dried mess and crawled over to shake his brother in law gently.

No response. Whether that was because he was just too tired or too unconscious Tobirama couldn’t say without a medical diagnosis. Too tired himself to think of a better plan, he figured the best thing to do was for them both to get out of here and at least get some fresh air, maybe dunk themselves in a river if he could find one. Surely all the rain that churned up so much mud would have collected in a few pools here and there. For once the heavy fall rains were good for something other than keeping him awake at night. Breaking Izuna out of his earthen cast took a while with so little strength in his arms and Tobirama had to give himself a few minutes rest before dragging the man’s unresponsive body up out of their hole.

If he hadn’t been monitoring Izuna’s chakra for fluctuations with what little he had gained back himself Tobirama would have suspected it was deliberate that the man chose to finally wake up just as he got them both out in to the open air. After all that hard work he couldn’t decide if he was thankful or irritated to see dark eyes fluttering open and cracking the brown film of dirt that had dried over top of them.

“What in all the bloody hells did I drink last night?” was his first question. Tobirama paused.

“Nothing. Which is bad. Dehydration. We need to find water.” Ironic when last night it had dripped from every surface around them. Autumn was such a garbage season.

“Can I go back to sleep?”

Squinting in the darkness, his light gone out since he needed both hands for all that manual labor, Tobirama wondered if his partner had a concussion after yesterday’s battle. “No sleeping. We already slept. We’re going to find water and I’m dunking you in it.”

Amazingly, Izuna failed to argue with him for the first time since they set off on this god-forsaken mission nearly a week before. If he hadn’t been worried about a concussion before he certainly was now. Up until their track and observation mission ended up in an ambush they barely escaped with their lives Izuna had been questioning his every word and choice, sometimes for no viable reason other than that he seemed determined to fan the flames of his own hatred. It was honestly quite tiring to deal with and if Tobirama hadn’t promised himself he would try to make nice they would have come to blows with each other days ago.

Now there was nothing but silence as he sluggishly worked Izuna’s deadweight on to his own back like a meaty knapsack and staggered forward with lumbering steps. Soft breathing ruffled the few strands of hair that weren’t plastered and dried to base of his neck. For the first little while his only clue that Izuna hadn’t fallen unconscious again was the miniscule fluctuations in his barely-there chakra whenever something caught his interest or a misstep caused pain to flare through both of their bodies. Eventually Tobirama realized his own eyes were drooping as well and if he didn’t find something to distract him he might pass out himself, probably sending them both crashing against a tree.

He didn’t really want to talk about this disaster of a mission, though. The less time spent thinking about yesterday’s ambush the better. Which, of course, left him with very few conversation options so it was no surprise that he turned first to the only thing they seemed to have in common.

“What was he like as a child?”

“Nn?”

“Madara. What was he like when you two were young?”

Silence dragged on after his question to the point when he began to wonder if Izuna were simply ignoring him. Then finally there came a quiet huff of amusement from beside his ear. “He was a dick. Liked to throw me in the koi pond behind our house whenever I was winning an argument.”

Tobirama smiled, almost surprised he still remembered how to.

“A bully, then?”

“No, not really. He just didn’t like it when I was right because he was older and he thought that made him right all the time. I think…he wanted me to know that he would always protect me but he tried to show that by always knowing more, always being stronger, and as a kid that was just really annoying.” Izuna shifted against his back. Tobirama wondered what he was doing for a moment before he realized the man was laughing quietly.

Eager to know more, he prompted his companion to keep going. “Sounds like he was pretty protective of you.”

“He still is,” Izuna mumbled. “He worries over the smallest papercut, he asks if I’m eating right all the time, he’s always reminding me that I can come talk to him if I ever need to. Yeah he can be grumpy and his social skills could definitely use a bit of polish but I’ve never doubted that he loves me. Not once.”

“That sounds nice,” Tobirama admitted wistfully.

“It is. He is.” After pausing for a minute to think he added in a tone that suggested he had almost forgotten who he was talking to for a minute, “You don’t deserve him.”

Whatever reaction he was waiting for, he didn’t get it. Tobirama had hoped they could stretch out the good will for a little longer but he hadn’t bothered to let his hopes get too high. The half-hearted attack was more than anticipated.

“I think I deserve to be happy just like everyone else, although I would agree with you that I haven’t done as much as I should to earn his good will.”

“Damn straight,” Izuna said. He sounded irritated that he hadn’t been able to start a fight.

“You know he would be much happier if we didn’t scream at each other quite so much.” Although he knew the other couldn’t see him, lifting one of his eyebrows in a pointed expression was like a natural instinct.

“Go fuck yourself,” Izuna retorted almost cheerfully. “He would be happier if he wasn’t trapped with you for the rest of his life. Don’t talk about deserving happiness with me. You want him happy? Then let him go. Let him find someone that he actually wants to be with; then he’ll be happy.”

Tobirama didn’t answer at first. He forced his legs to continue stumbling on while he let his thoughts settle, unsteady beneath their combined weight yet refusing to give in so easily. There had to be some water around here somewhere, his instincts told him that he was close and his instincts had never lied about water, not once in his life. It was easier to think about how nice it would be to finally rid his body of all the dirt crusting his skin rather than what Izuna had said to him, especially so since it was something he had already spent a great deal of time thinking about and he had come to his own conclusions a long time ago.

“It is the tradition of my clan to allow an arranged partnership to seek divorce after five years. If, when that time arrives, Madara still wishes to be free of me then I will not stand in the way of him seeking his own path.” He wondered if he should make that more clear to his husband or if bringing it up would only remind the man of how trapped he was for the time being.

“Wait, seriously? Just like that?”

“Much as you seem to enjoy painting me as the villain, yes. Just like that. This match was made originally to cement our clans together but I don’t think either of our fathers could have anticipated just how well the Senju and the Uchiha would integrate. Give our people less than a year and I don’t think anyone will even remember what it was that kept them together in the first place. Certainly none of them would turn their heads if Madara and I…ended our marriage.” Just saying it made all the deepest parts of his insides ache but he refused to allow his voice to waver.

“Ha! See! I knew you didn’t care about him at all! You just married him because you were told to!”

“Of course I only married him because I was told to! We’d never met!” Tobirama scowled down the forest path ahead of them. “It’s what I grew up expecting to do. That is how things are done in the Senju clan. We’re told who to marry and then we make it work.”

Izuna scoffed. “Disgusting.”

“Just because it’s different doesn’t make it disgusting,” Tobirama snapped back.

Then he snapped his head to the left and barely held in a whine of longing. Water. He could feel the water in that direction. He changed course without even thinking about it.

“Doesn’t matter what you say, I think the whole practice is gross. But whatever. As long as Madara has a way out of this garbage then I guess I can put up with you for a few years.” Izuna sniffed delicately. He sure had a lot of attitude for someone entirely reliant on the person they were sassing.

“How generous of you,” Tobirama ground out.

A few steps later they closed their eyes to let a few low hanging boughs brush over them and then there it was, the most glorious sight either of them had ever set their eyes upon even in such low lighting. It wasn’t a very large stream, not even deep enough to go over their heads if they sat down, but the burbling water was crystal clear and it was perfect for two exhausted men who could barely stand the thought of keeping themselves upright for a second longer.

Tobirama staggered drunkenly as he splashed in to the center and a few new bruises blossomed on his knees when they folded to send him crashing down with Izuna still heavy across his back. A sigh of near ecstasy parted his lips as cool water rushed over him. It was almost more than he could process just to keep them both from lying flat out and drowning themselves in blissful relief. Behind him Izuna groaned and rolled away, the first movement he’d made for himself since waking up. The two of them splashed and rolled and rubbed at all the most important spots until finally they felt less like they were wearing an itchy second skin, more like they were human again.

“I’m alive!” Izuna declared with his usual dramatic flair.

“And I’m thirsty,” Tobirama mumbled. Blithely ignoring the screaming protests of his muscles, he dragged himself a few inches upstream to where their filth hadn’t polluted the water and dunked his head for a long drink, just barely holding in a moan as his parched throat finally received the hydration it had been crying out for.

He wasn’t surprised to see Izuna follow suit, dunking his face for a few long droughts of water. Then the two of them were left sitting upright in the center of a small stream without the energy to pull themselves back out.

“Well now what?” Izuna demanded. Tobirama blinked at their surrounds.

“Think you can shuffle over to the bank? Looks like the angle would make a decent backrest.”

“Hn. I can try. But if I slip under the water and don’t come up I will haunt you for a decade if you let me drown.”

Tobirama snorted even as he began his own awkward shuffling. “Noted.”

After a bit of uncomfortable maneuvering they were able to plant themselves in to semi-reclined positions on opposite sides, facing each other across the burbling stream. Their gazes locked and Tobirama tilted his head to contemplate the similarities between Izuna’s bitchy face and Madara's bitchy face. He was pleased to note that, while there was indeed a resemblance, there was enough details different that he wouldn’t be seeing echoes of Izuna every time he had a disagreement with his own husband.

“What do you even want from him?”

“Hm?” The question didn’t seem to have a connection to anything they’d been talking about but, then again, Tobirama’s mind felt pleasantly emptied by the bath and the drink.

“My brother. What do you want from him? Why can’t you just leave him alone?”

“It’s strange to me that you assume I must have some sort of alternate agenda in my own marriage.”

Rolling his eyes, Izuna scoffed. “Don’t act like this is a real marriage to you.”

“How is it not real?”

“You don’t love each other!”

“But we could,” Tobirama pointed out softly. “And that opportunity is what interests me. We could love each other.” Speaking so openly about this sort of thing with Izuna of all people was about as painful as he would have expected it to be but he forced himself not to flinch away from the subject at hand. Clearly these were things that the man needed to hear.

And just as clearly they were things he didn’t want to hear. His already taught expression tightened even more until he turned his head to mime gagging in to the river. “That’s bullshit. As if my brother could ever love you.”

It took every scrap of self-control Tobirama had in his arsenal not to react in any visible way to one of his greatest fears given voice. He had barely even given himself much time to come to terms with that fear, that he might have made himself a failure of a husband, that he might be so unlovable that a man like Madara could turn him away even after they had come so far and he had put in so much effort. With every day that passed he grew more and more attached in the way he knew a husband was meant to but without the power to crawl inside Madara's mind there was no way for him to tell if those sentiments were returned.

“He won’t love you,” Izuna declared in an icy voice. “I know my brother. He could never fall in love with someone like you.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Tobirama snapped.

“Someone cold! Someone who doesn’t know him like I do! Someone who doesn’t care about him! Or care about anything!” He opened his mouth to keep going but Tobirama had taken about as much abuse as he thought anyone could be expected to take several days ago and now he finally decided that enough was enough.

“I dragged your sorry ass to safety, didn’t I? You talk about me not caring but I’m the only one between us thinking about how our fighting affects the one we’re fighting over! If you had listened to a word I’ve said for the past week you might have noticed that I am trying damn hard to learn about him – but no! How am I supposed to ‘know him like you do’ if you won’t tell me anything? Do you know what I think, you spoiled fucking child? I think you’ve gotten too used to being the most special person in Madara's life and you feel threatened that someone else might come along and dethrone you!” Turning his head, Tobirama spit downstream to show his derision. “Well let me tell you something, princess. That’s stupid. If Madara falls in love with anyone that doesn’t mean he’ll stop loving you. You’re his brother. So get over whatever dumbass complex you have and let him decide what makes him happy!”

Exhaustion settled over him anew in the wake of his outburst. He could hardly remember the last time he’d said so much at one time outside of the meetings when he gave presentations. Even Izuna seemed shocked in to silence, completely still and staring back at him with both eyes open wide, jaw hanging loose. It was a hilarious and fitting look for his stupid face.

Tobirama lifted both hands out of the water to drag them down his own face. Despite how satisfying it had been to vent all the frustration that had been building over the course of their time together he was more than aware that he had probably just driven an even bigger wedge between them than ever before. Yelling at the brother in law he’d been looking for a way to schmooze definitely wasn’t the way to win himself any forgiveness.

And yet there was something contemplative in Izuna’s silence, a fragile note of tremulous realization. The silence lasted for a long time after Tobirama’s impassioned speech. Neither of them spoke for so long that he actually felt like his body had begun to recover and the current of the river they were still sitting chest deep in had time to work like a gentle massage, rejuvenating him the way falling unconscious for several hours hadn’t. He’d just started thinking about the possibility of moving to find actual shelter where he could bandage both of their wounds properly when Izuna finally spoke again.

“Madara can fall in love with whoever he likes,” he began slowly, “and I won’t try to stop him. It’s my opinion that I don’t think he will ever love you but if I’m wrong then I’m wrong. Just as long as he’s happy.”

“That is all that I hope for as well,” Tobirama said.

“Fine. So here’s the deal. I don’t like you. The way you guys were forced together feels immoral to me and there’s just something about you that always rubs me wrong. But if it’s really stressing him out so much then I guess I’ll just try to visit when you’re not there.”

While that did sort of undermine the point Tobirama was trying to work his way around to he was smart enough not to point that out. Just getting Izuna this far was a greater accomplishment than he’d started to believe was possible and he was no stranger to the concept of quitting while he was still ahead.

“I can live with that much,” he agreed. “We should get out of here. My chakra isn’t quite at the level I need it to be yet so we should probably get some clean bandages on your leg until a medic can see it.”

“Chakra? What are you gonna do, body flicker halfway across the continent?” Izuna snorted.

Smiling to himself as he forced his legs to stand up and wade across the flowing stream, Tobirama hummed agreeably and thought of the new seal he’d been so proud of himself for finally completing. “You would be amazed how far I can reach.”

“Believe it when I see it,” Izuna said.

There wasn’t much he could think of to say in response that wouldn’t cause a fight so instead Tobirama grunted before leaning down to haul Izuna up to his feet. “Carried or walking?”

“Carry me.”

“Lazy.”

“And yet you are going to carry me anyway.”

Tobirama made them both stand face to face so he could say, “My other option is letting you expire here alone in a stream because you are too stubborn to get up and follow.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, quickly turning and ducking down so he could fit the shorter man’s arms over his shoulders and get a solid grip under both knees. Then he stood up and waited for his new burden to shift in to a comfortable position before wading back out of the stream and heading back in to the quiet forest. If not for the distant sounds of wildlife he might actually be a little suspicious of how quiet the woods around them were and how long they had gone without sensing anyone even sort of close by.

Whatever had become of the squad that quite literally ran them in to the ground yesterday, that would have to be a problem for later. For now Tobirama set a course for the brilliant spot on his senses that had to be the capital city and headed out at an easy pace.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Izuna demanded.

“Do you always need something to be complaining about?” he retorted. “Yes. I can feel where the closest dense population is and it’s straight ahead in this direction.”

“Freak. How the hell can you sense that far when you don’t even have enough chakra back yet for a jutsu or something?”

“I was born with my inner eye open, as Hashirama likes to say.” He would have shrugged if not for the weight on his back. Izuna grunted and fell blessedly silent with no more arguments.

Although he had very little trust in the longevity of that silence Tobirama figured he might as well get as far as he could before the bickering started up again. With his gaze set dead ahead and his senses spread out to watch for anyone approaching he let the rest of his mind wander back to Konoha where a warm bed awaited him along with a husband who he could only hope missed him even half as much as he missed Madara.

#rae writes #madatobi #tobirama #izuna #fanfiction

[demonsofhunting]

"Hunter Husbands" #2 ( A Destiel One Shot, feat. Sam )

Summary: So, this is literally Dean and Cas acting married during a case and Sam being the one who has to deal with it. XD

Warnings: fluff, very light angst if you squint, a creepy ghost, hunter husbands level 4000

Words: about 1200 ( both parts have the same word count *mindblow* XD )

A/N: Sooo, this is the second and final part of this one shot! It was funny to write, especially the ending...XD The #married acting continues...

{ I decided to split this one shot into two parts, because it's easier to post that way. Here is part 1 ♡ }

Have fun! I hope you'll like it! Enjoy! <3

It's around midnight as they reach the back of the building. Dean drives the Impala, lightly nodding along to the sound of his favourite bands. Sam pats on his shoulder, and the elder Winchester turns around, rolls his eyes and stops the music. Cas sighs in the backseat.

They're stepping out of the car, and Dean opens the trunk. He looks over his weapons, picking an old gun and a shovel to dig up the bones.

He hands the shovel to his little brother, smirking: "Have fun, Sammy."

Sam takes it, tilting his head.

"I will. Sure," he says, "Just watch out. I don't want to be killed by an average ghost during a hunt, 'cause you can't leave your hands from each other."

Cas nods: "I will be professional this time, I promise."

Dean rolls his eyes, tugging on the angel's arm: "C'mon Cas, let's walk a little around, looking for our dead chick."

After they got away, Sam walks over the big area of grass that's in the back of the building, his eyes scanning the environment.

There it is.

It's an old, ugly tree in the middle of the field. The hunter runs to it, starting to dig, quickly.

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

"Hello? Anybody in there?" Dean asks into the darkness behind a random door he pushed open a few moments ago. It seems like it leads to one of the floors for the current exhibition.

Silence.

And darkness, of course.

Dean makes a pout, turning around to his boyfriend. "Doesn't seem like it," he tells him, shrugging.

Cas cocks his head, squinting his eyes in disbelief.

"It hides from us," he says, "Maybe we should go inside?"

"No! We can't let Sammy be alone out here!"

"You can't see him right now anyway," Cas notices.

"No, but if something happens I at least hear his screams, okay?" Dean growls, already getting angry. Again.

"And what if he can't scream, because the ghost has already ripped his lungs out? It could be!" the angel determines, until Dean bursts out: "Fine! Okay, let's...let's just split up, okay? You watch Sam and I...I'll go in."

"No, you won't. I'll do it."

With these words Cas disappears with a 'whoosh.'

Dean looks around, panicking.

"Cas?" he blurts out, holding his flashlight in his face, accidently, "Son of a bitch! This isn't funny!"

He shakes his head, giving up.

I hate it when he does that. Stupid angel powers!

Dean turns around, and leaves the open door behind him as he decides to walk over to Sam. Maybe his little brother needs a hand.

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

Sam is kinda surprised as he sees Dean. The younger Winchester already finished digging, and is throwing salt over the bones.

He tilts his head: "Where's Cas?" he asks.

Dean shrugs: "I have no idea. He used his angelic powers to escape our 'discussion'." He makes a face in played disgust.

Sam chuckles.

"Shut up!" his brother growls, sitting down on the grass near the grave.

"It's a pretty relaxing hunt, don't ya think?" he notices, looking up the stars for a few seconds.

"It is," Sam mutters, "Things can change, though."

And as if Sam called for it, it suddenly gets colder. Much colder.

Dean shivers, and tries to get up.

But he can't.

There is something that presses him to the ground, making him almost unable to breath.

"Sammy!" he rasps, trying to reach his gun that's laying next to him. He fingers just don't want to move. Damn it!

Sam steps out of the grave, pure horror on his face. He trips and falls on the ground, backwards.

"What the f - ," he shouts.

There is something crawling out of the hole. A pale, thin hand clutches around the dirt, pulling a broken, disfigured body after it.

What the hell? The...BONES?! REALLY?!

"Jeez!" Sam coughs, longing for any weapons in near distance. He struggles to move too, but at least he is able to do something.

Meanwhile Dean tries to hold back a scream. The creepy monster, it's crawling in his fucking direction!

SAM!

He sweats, his gaze captured in the dead, hollow things that were the girl's eyes. There's much dirt on the bones, falling to the ground as it moves closer.

CAS! ANYONE?!

The hunter closed his eyes in desperation.

He prepares himself for a last, powerful try to get free. He counts to three, silently, then he pushes as strong against the ghost's hold as he can.

Son of a -

Suddenly, there are hands that are grabbing him under his arms, pulling him up to his feet, resolutely. He opens his eyes, looking right into Cas'.

"Hello, Dean," the angel says, "I found the ghost."

"Same here," Dean rasps, looking around. The strange monster is crawling over the ground, trying to reach his feet.

"That's new," the elder Winchester mutters, grabbing his gun, "Normally, they can't go into their damn bones!"

He shoots, two times, the bullets are hitting he body with loud, crashing noises.

Cas narrows his eyes: "Dean, I don't think we should make it more angry than it already is..."

His boyfriend steps backwards, shooting him an angry look. "Who's the hunter here, huh?" he scoffs, exactly as the disfigured creature manages to grab one of his feet. He falls to the ground with a hiss, shooting like an idiot.

Yeah. Very relaxing, this hunt.

Cas tries to pull on the bones to get the claws away from Dean, but messes up, horribly. Suddenly, he holds some dirty bones in his hands, eyes wide in surprise.

The rock salt doesn't bother the monster at all. Long, cold fingers are longing to touch Dean's face, a disgusting smell of mud and death flows in his direction.

Nononononono -

In this moment, the creature winces with a loud scream. Dean covers his eyes with his hands, quickly, as the dead girl's living body goes up in flames. After a couple of heartbeats there's nothing left apart from some lonely piles of ashes.

"You're welcome," Sam yells from a couple of meters away, holding two thumbs up. To his feet, there's an open bag, from which he grabbed a lighter to set the moving bones on fire.

Dean's mouth falls open.

"You threw a lighter at me?! Are you fucking kidding me?! You really want to lose your brother, don't you?" he rants, grabbing Cas hand to pull himself up.

"I needed to burn the bones," the younger Winchester shrugs.

"Yeah, sure. But they were on my damn chest!"

Dean is stunned, and Cas pulls him into a hug. Sam chuckles at his brother's face, as Cas adds, conciliatory: "I would have saved you, if he acciddently set you on fire, Dean."

Sam nods: "See?"

"Oh my god, you're an idiot, Sammy," Dean blurts out, but can't hold back a laugh, "And you, you're too cute, damn it!" With these words he turns around and gives his angel a kiss, softly. Cas buries his hand in the other's hair, kissing back.

Sam clears his throat, and they hesitate.

"Guys," he begins, "I would really appreciate if you would wait until we got to our motel. It's the best if we hurry a little bit, 'cause I bet that the gunshots could be heard in the town nearby. I promise, that I'll go for another walk then, okay?"

Dean growls: "Wise choice, Winchester."

Then he curls one arm around Cas, and they take their bags as they walk back to the Impala.

{ A/N: The End♡ }

Aaaand that's it! Thank you so much for reading and if you would like to leave a comment or reblog this shit, I will love you forever! <3

Destiel/Forever Tags: @adoptdontshoppets @rebeloftheseas @ablavalba @smodernlife @ignis-glaciesque @certaindeanwinchesterforcastiel @xsghn @trenchcoatsandfreckles @helpmeluci @legendary-destiel @leahslovelylibrary

#supernatural #spn #spnfamily #supernatural fandom #dean winchester #spn fandom #supernatural family #spn supernatural #castiel #destiel #destiel fanfic #destiel fanfiction #destiel fic #destiel ficlet #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #spn fic #spn fluff #spn angst #destiel fluff #destiel angst #destiel funny #dean winchester x castiel #dean x cas #dean x castiel #hunter husbands

[langstwhynot]

The cave

Warnings: blood, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween (that’s my Halloween fic), death¿

~~~

“There’s no way in hell I’m stepping one foot into this cave!”

Lance whined, falling to the ground and letting go of Hunk’s hand which he tried to drag his best friend with. “Oh come on, Hunk!”

“Yeah hunk,” Keith scoffed, taking out his flashlight and moving deeper into the cave. “Don’t be such a baby.” He said, his voice echoing through the tunnel.

“It’s going to be alright, big guy.” Pidge punched his arm with her little hand, even if she knew it didn’t do any pain to him. “Shiro will protect you.”

“I only came because I want to make sure you won’t be doing anything stupid, like getting eaten.” Hunk flinched from Shiro’s comment and imagined the worst. “Plus, if anybody wants to eat someone, I sacrifice Pidge.”

“First, rude.” She took out her own flashlight from the bag, and turned it on. “Second, Lance will be easier to eat. He’s only bones and skin.”

Lance got up from the ground and cleaned his clothes from dirt. “Because I don’t sit at home all day and type nerdy stuff on my laptop.” He made circles with each of his hands and put it on his eyes to copy Pidge’s glasses.

“Anyways-!” Keith popped his head through the cave again and looked at Hunk suspiciously. “Are you coming or what?”

“Or what?” Hunk teased, but terrified of the answer.

“Or, else.” Pidge glared up to him, making Hunk gulp.

“Fine.”

They all cheered.

“Last in the cave is a dead moth!” Lance shouted and ran into the cave, the flashlight in his hand. “Unfair! You could’ve given an alert first!” Pidge yelled after him, trying to keep up.

After a few seconds, they all stood deep inside of the dark cave.

Lance was the first to enter a dark long cold hallway of the cave. Keith came after, Hunk, then pidge, panting. Lance raised his eyebrow at her.

“I don’t do sports!” She yelled.

From where the group entered, a ball of light on the wall kept growing bigger and bigger, until Shiro stepped into the hallway with a curious expression, studying the cave.

“Oof, Shiro died.” Lance sighed disappointedly.

The man scoffed. “I’m not dead, Lance. But I will be if I‘d run into a cave and trip over rocks on my way here.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “No, it just means you’re boring.”

Shiro glared at him.

“Soooo... what exactly are we looking for?” Hunk asked, looking around the stone walls of the cave using his flashlight.

“Anything that can get Keith spooked.” The little girl smirked, and pulled the flashlight under her chin to make her look “scary”.

“Oh please, I’ve seen a lot of shit in my life.”

“Huh? Like what?” Lance asked, arms crossed.

“Like Shiro- ow!” Keith rubbed the back of his head where he was hit by the angry man.

“Asshole.” Shiro hissed, taking his flashlight and stepping away from the scene to look for something interesting around the cave.

“I’m just saying the truth, you gay mess.” Keith yelled back at him, his voice echoing throughout the cave.

“Yeah Shiro, you gay mess.” Pidge repeated.

“Yeah Shiro.” Hunk laughed. Shiro just rolled his eyes.

They all stayed quiet for some time until a new conversation began by Pidge’s question.

“Hey, do you guys think Bigfoot can fit in this cave? I mean Hunk almost reaches the top of it, and he isn’t that tall.”

“No, and you are.” Hunk said, sarcastically.

Keith stared laughing.

Their voices faded in Lance’s ears as he furthered into the cave, his flashlight on. He was looking around, watching his step, dragging the beam of light slowly on the dark gray walls of the cave, when he thought he saw something.

He took a few steps back and pulled the light on it.

“Hmmm.” He studied the cravings in the wall. “Hey guys? I think I found something!” He finally focused on their voices, realizing they’re deep in conversation. “Guys??” He called again, brushing his hand along the craving.

Suddenly, the cave lit up. The craving turned blue and the light from the flashlight did no use anymore. Lance gasped and stepped back.

“What the fuck.” Keith murmured.

“Who- who did that??” Pidge turned in circles, trying to find answers.

“I- I think I did.” Lance shuttered, and the cave shook. Parts from the ceiling falling on the ground, and the floor of the cold cave going up and down from shaking.

“W-what did you do?!” Hunk yelled in panic.

“I don’t know! I found cravings and brushed my hand over them!!” Lance tried to explain, though he didn’t really know either.

Pidge fell backward, her little legs weren’t able to keep her stable for so long. Hunk hugged the walls of the cave, whispering prayers under his breath. Shiro crouched to ground level and covered his head, as Keith took out his knife dramatically and scanned around the cave for any enemies. Lance couldn’t take his eyes off the blue, glowing, markings.

Then, a roar was heard.

Everything froze, the screaming, the yelling. The Little rocks on the floor who jumped as the ground shook, the pieces that fell from the ceiling froze in mid-air. Everything stopped.

“Wh-“ Lance looked down at the floating rocks. There was nothing underneath or above, just air. He wanted to try and touch the rock, see what’ll happen, but when he tried to move forward he noticed his legs were stuck inside the dirt.

“When did that happen?” He tried to pull his legs out, lifting one after another, with no success.

“Guys! Imma need some help! My legs are stuck!” He shouted while still trying to get his feet free. “Somehow!”

A sigh escaped his lips when he stopped fighting.

“...guys.” His voice was serious and straight to the point (not really), and when he didn’t get an answer again, he turned around as much as he could to look for his silenced friends.

There was no one behind him.

He blinked a few times and then scoffed. “Ok, that’s funny, you got me for a second. Now can you please help a buddy out?” He shook his head, how could he not figure it was just a prank?

Like someone flipped the light off, the cave got completely dark and Lance couldn’t see. Slowly, approaching his ears, the sound of an old tv static.

It got louder and louder, until Lance had to cover his ears because it was too much. He closed his eyes in pain and ground his teeth.

“STOP! IT HURTS!!” He yelled, hoping someone would hear him.

And the noise stopped as the commend said.

Lance uncovered his ears and opened his eyes to find out he was in a different place.

He was standing in the middle of a white grassed field, wind blowing through his hair and playing with his clothes. Not a building or a person seems to be in sight of the vast, lonely, area.

A laugh was heard.

It was a silly, innocent, light and playful laugh, the one a little happy girl can have. But it also held pain, as it echoed and faded in Lance’s ears.

“Who are you?”

Lance peaked from his shoulder and turned around to face a little girl crossing her arms. He looked down at her, she wore a white, short fluffy, dress and had a white bow tie on her head. Though her long hair was colored orange as the freckles on her pale skin.

“W-What’s going on? Where am I?” Lance asked, realization finally hitting him and pulling him out of the awe of the place.

“Father told me not to talk to strangers.” The little girl admitted for breaking the law, totally ignoring Lance’s question.

Lance shook his head. Of course she’ll be afraid, a stranger just entered her property and he yells and freaks out like crazy. Are the years of being an uncle all gone to waste?

He crouched to her level and smiled softly. “Hi there, I’m Lance. What’s your name?”

She uncrossed her arms and stared at him. “I don’t like you.” She finally said.

Lance was taken by surprise. Has he done something wrong? Probably, now he has to make it up for her.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Am I scaring you? What can I do for the fear to go away?” He sat on the grass, now being shorter than her.

The girl took a step back, terrified. “Help!! Help me!! Someone!!” She stumbled back and fell, tears sharp as glass sliding on her cheeks.

“Wha- no! Please, I mean no harm!” Lance got up, running forward to reach the girl and ask for forgiveness.

“Leave me alone!! No!!” The girl crawled away, shaking her head violently and the tears spray from her cheeks like she’s a water sprinkler.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Lance yelled with panic, finally catching the girl’s shoulders. She looked at him with her wet before her eyeballs rolled back into her head and she melted in Lance’s hands into a white puddle of liquid.

Lance jumped back. “Wh-what-“ His eyes wide and his breaths are short. He didn’t mean to do that, he definitely didn’t mean to do that.

“You, MONSTER.”

He turned around to the voice. The white field was not there anymore, instead, it was a dead ground that wasn’t used in the last 30 years for his say, on fire.

The sky was red and buildings that weren’t there before were too on flames in the background, adding more horror to the scene.

But there was not a living soul in front of him.

“DEATH, BLOOD, DARKNESS AND PAIN. THEY ALL CAME WITH YOU.”

The voice was so loud, it shook the ground. The flames grew bigger, surrounding Lance in a cage where he had no way out of.

“YOU MURDERED AND SLEW, KILLED AND SHOT, AND THEIR BLOOD IS ON YOUR FILTHY HANDS!!!”

Lance looked down at his hands, or where they were supposed to be. In fact, he had no hands. Just a left-over of blood dripping from the holes in his arms where his hands should’ve been at.

He was going to vomit. He can literally see his bone.

“YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR ACTIONS.”

A pain in his stomach was growing, bigger and stronger. He hissed and hugged himself, then gave up to fall on his knees.

He opened his eyes slowly when noticing he hasn’t reached the ground yet. He was falling and falling and falling, the ground getting farther and farther and farther.

It was a hole he was falling in, he could see the ground, but couldn’t touch it.

“...help...” he sobbed quietly. The pain in his stomach was aching so bad and he didn’t know if it’s even possible to survive something like that.

Maybe it wasn’t, and someone was just trying to make him suffer.

Warm.

It became warmer as he kept falling... wherever he was falling to. He opened one eye to take a tiny little look at the source feeding him from underneath.

It was a white blank, blinding hole. Like the sun, but colder. If it was the sun Lance wouldn't be able to get that close to it. That... close...

Then it stopped. The pain, the warm feeling left his skin, being replaced with a colder one. He opened his tired eyes, trying to figure the things in front of him with his blurry vision.

He was back on the floor of the cave again, lying on annoying rocks that hurt his back and the cold, dark, hallway he began at.

He sat up slowly and rubbed the back of his head. What just happened? Where is everyone? Are they alright? Are his visions mean something?

“Lance?”

#death #death tw #nightmares tw #halloween #:3 #blood #blood tw #langst #lance #lance vld #lance mcclain #lance voltron #voltron lance #lance angst #langstwhynot #voltron legendary defender #voltron #voltron: legendary defender #halloween fic

[dancingskys]

Hii lovely! I seen you’re taking requests and I’m so happy! Can you do one where yoongi gets lost in the woods looking for Jungkook bc they were playing a game and he gets really scared then Jungkook ends up finding him and comforts him an says he didn’t mean to scare him?

Pairing: YoonKook

Word Count: around 1,800

Thank you for sending in a request, I hope you like it~

You can find all Mini Stories I’ve written here

In the middle of the summer you didn’t go out during the day, you went out when it was around 8pm with a ton of insect spray covering your skin and making it sticky and gross even after showering three times. You went when out the sun was slowly starting to fall like a ball in slow motion, when the sky was still a strikingly shade of clear blue and would slowly fade to an peachy orange color.

The sound of crickets would make you go wild after a while but those were still better than being roasted under the blazing sun like the last steak left on the grill to sizzle for hours because no one was hungry anymore.

Yoongi right out refused to leave the house before 7pm and then only when someone was in a really sticky situation like that one time Namjoon had gotten his pants stuck trying to jump over a trash can - don’t ask - and Hoseok had refused to leave him alone, maybe afraid of having the younger kidnapped in his helpless state so Yoongi has had to go out at 5:57pm (!) with a pair of scissors and a small pocket knife and cut Kim Namjoon a hole into the back of his pants to set him free. The tiny scrap of cloth left behind was still stuck on the trash can even a year later and none of the friends would ever let him forget that moment.

So when Jungkook asked Yoongi to come out and play at 7:36pm the older stared at his alarm clock for a full minute before staring outside and sighing loudly like the weight of teh world was resting on his shoulders, already knowing they he would miss his aircon the second he stepped outside.

Fine he typed back and five minutes later he was waiting at the corner of the street, wearing a white shirt and a pair of jeans shorts because in this weather even he wasn’t crazy enough to go for long sleeved hoodies.

He was grumpy though because Jungkook was late and he was therefore left to sweat in the sun because of course there was no shade at this corner.

Just as he thought he was about to melt into the ground in a Yoongi-shaped puddle arms wrapped around him and something warm pressed against his back which made him growl. “Get your paws off of me,” he hissed and Jungkook laughed. “But you’re so good for cuddling.”

“We’re closed for cuddles when it’s over 27°C and currently we have 34°C so fuck off you octopus.”

Jungkook didn’t mind the gruffness that came with the heat and just laughed again, stepping back and taking the elder’s hand into his, pulling him along. “Come on then, you grumpy cat, we’ll go somewhere cooler.”

“Your hand is all sweaty,” Yoongi whined but let himself be pulled along. “So is yours~” was the answer he got and decided to just stay quiet after sighing yet again.

“Really? You want to play in the woods?” Yoongi asked a while later and looked around, not recognizing the small path Jungkook lead him along.

“Mhm, we found this really cool spot a few weeks ago and it’s great for hide and seek,” the younger said happily, his smile just adorable so Yoongi didn’t have it in him to say that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. “Fine,” he said reluctantly. “But we’re not playing until it gets dark.”

“Scared of a squirrel sneaking up on you?” Jungkook teased but let it be when the older glared at him. “Okay, okay, only for a bit and then we’ll leave again.”

Half an hour later and Yoongi was squatting behind a tree that had fallen over, probably during the last storm, counting the rocks at his feet and asking himself how the younger could always talk him into doing these things, this was so not like him at all. He did accompany the others when they went out to play more often than not but playing hide and seek in the woods with mosquitos swarming around him and plotting his downfall, a bug certainly crawling over his skin somewhere and the air almost flimmering the the lingering heat that just didn’t want to go away.

“Gotcha!”

Yoongi might or might not have screeched as those words were whispered right next to his ear, stumbling forward and needing to steady himself with his hands on the ground, whipping his head around to Jungkook who smiled at him innocently. “Your blond hair kinda gives you away,” he sang and Yoongi huffed. “Next time I’ll come back with a leaf-hat, yeah?”

“Fashionable,” the younger snickered. “Watch out so no squirrels attack you though.”

“You little-”

“Count to sixty!” Jungkook called as he dashed away and the older huffed, covering his eyes, saying the first few numbers out loud before mumbling them quietly. When he uncovered them a minute later there was no trace of Jungkook in his white shirt and basketball shorts. They were bright red so you’d think it would be easy to spot them but apparently not.

Yoongi looked around but started wandering when he didn’t see a flash of red anywhere. He looked behind trees and rocks, eyeing the bushes suspiciously but there was no pair of shoes peeking out so he brushed off the idea.

“Say peep!” he called, waiting for Jungkook to make a sound to let him at least know the general direction but of course the younger stayed silent. “Figures,” Yoongi grumbled and continued looking, getting further away from his original spot.

“Say peep!” he tried again but nothing. “Jungkook!” he called, looking around and feeling a little uneasy. No, no, the younger had to be somewhere.

“Jungkook!” he called again, more serious this time. “Come on, you won.”

Nothing.

Yoongi started biting on his finger nails nervously, glancing around and hoping to spot something red but there was nothing.

He turned around and stared at the many trees a little lost. Which way had he come from again?

Something akin to panic settled in his chest and he tried to swallow it down.

“JUNGKOOK!”

…

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Yoongi chanted under his breath, his thoughts racing. His mind started coming up with the worst scenarios; Jungkook lying somewhere unconscious, the younger being kidnapped by some crazy person, him hitting his head on a rock, falling down and breaking his leg.

What if Yoongi couldn’t find him? Where was he?!

The blond tried to swallow past the lump in his throat but the panic in his chest didn’t allow him. Instead his eyes started stinging.

No, no, no, fuck, stay calm!

“JUNGKOOK!” his voice broke in the middle and he took some shaky breaths, looking around.

He was fucking lost and he had fucking lost Jungkook! How could he go back?! How could he tell his family?! He’d have to go to the police and tell them he’s missing and what if they never found him again?!

Yoongi started pacing aimlessly, looking everywhere almost frantically, calling the younger’s name again in a choked up way.

He had lost of fucking child in the woods and Yoongi was the worst person ever, he couldn’t even watch out for the younger during hide and seek, what kind of person would even-

“Hyung!”

Yoongi jumped and whipped his head around, blinking a few times with his heart up in his throat. He stared at the sheepish-looking younger and his brain needed a few moments to process what he was seeing before he launched himself at Jungkook, the latter stumbling backwards and landing on his back after tripping, grunting under Yoongi’s weight.

“YOU LITTLE FUCK!” the older screeched. “This isn’t funny! Do you know how fucking scared I was you little piece of sh-” he choked on his words and tried to breathe somewhat normally while tears blurred his vision and his sobs made him hiccup.

Jungkook looked up at him like a kicked puppy. “Sorry,” he said quietly, no trace of his usual goofiness to be seen. “M’ sorry, hyung…” he sat up, Yoongi scooting back a little so he wasn’t sitting on his stomach and using his hand to wipe at his face messily and sniffle. “M’ sorry,” the younger said again. “I wasn’t trying to… I was just… I was stuck in a tree,” he admitted quietly, Yoongi looking at him weirdly which made him rub the back of his neck in an embarrassed manner.

“Getting up was easy but I took a little to get down and you had already wandered off so I was trying to catch up.”

“You could have said fucking peep!” Yoongi growled, some stray tears still escaping his eyes and pushing at Jungkook’s chest. “I did,” the younger whined. “But you didn’t heard and then you were going somewhere else so I was trying to catch up. I really didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry.”

Yoongi took a deep breath to calm his nervous before wiping over his cheeks one more time. “Fine,” he muttered, still a little choked up. “I’m not playing hide and seek with you again.”

“In the woods.”

“No, not ever if you can’t say peep.”

“I did!” the younger whined but Yoongi just hmpfed and stood up, trying to get the dirt off his knees. “Let’s just leave. That tree over there looks strange and I have the feeling it’s staring at us,” the blond muttered and Jungkook snorted but took the other’s hand anyway, leading him back to the part even Yoongi recognized again.

“Where are you going?” the older asked later when they were back on the streets, Jungkook sending him a sweet smile. “Ice cream, as an apology gift.”

Yoongi sighed somewhat fondly and agreed, letting the younger buy him a cone with three scoops of ice cream that they ate on the opposite side of the street where they could sit on a small wall.

“By the way, you’re really bad at the seeking part, hyung. I was literally above you and you didn’t even notice.”

“I didn’t expect you to connect with your inner monkey and climb a tree, idiot.”

“I could have leaned down and we could have reenacted the kiss from Spiderman.”

“Or I could have ignored you.”

“You’re so charming.”

“I know.”

Jungkook chuckled and shook his head. “Okay, fine, no Spiderman-kiss then.”

“Good,” Yoongi mumbled and tried to safe his hand from a trail of ice cream that ran down the side of his cone when Jungkook suddenly leaned over a pressed a smooch onto his cheek, his lips cold and a little sticky because of the ice cream which caused the older to scrunch up his nose.

“There, an ice-cream-cheek-kiss,” Jungkook said proudly and Yoongi didn’t have it in him to argue.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and the younger smiled happily.

“That’ll ward off the squirrels.”

“I’m gonna murder you one day.”

#yoonkook #sugakookie #sugakookiefics #sky's fanfics #mini stories #baby turtle #yoongi #suga #super bunny #jungkook #fanfiction #fanfic #I'm not used to writing shorter stories so I hope this is okay T.T

[paintedbutton]

The Most Interesting Kind

Remember how I said I actually wrote something (and it’s boring as hell)? This is that thing. I’ve mentioned before that Sam pretty much weaseled her way into Russell’s life by virtue of shared alcohol and a lot of persistence. This is that scene. At least half of Russell’s dialogue comes directly from the mod, so credits for that goes to Someguy (as for my boy himself, ofc).

Boulder City hadn't always been mostly comprised of rubble. At least that was what she'd been told. As it was, it was a ruin of a town, filled with NCR and skeletons, and not generally a place Sam liked very much. Add a small group of Great Khans with a rather personal connection to her to the mix and you had a very bad day. By the time she'd stumbled her way out of the ruins of Boulder City, the sun was sinking below the horizon. Half a day wasted for some stupid stand-off she wouldn't have stuck her nose in under normal circumstances. Sam shrugged in response to one of the former hostages thanking her and crushed the remainder of her cigarette under her boot, looking towards the outline of tents not far in the distance, dark against the sinking sun. Least she didn't have to stay where the NCR was crawling all over. The 188 wasn't the best place to shore up but it had food and alcohol, more than enough in her book. "I need a damn drink." Boone grunted in acknowledgement and little else. At least the eyebot floating above them beeped in a way to could be construed as vaguely enthusiastic. Drinking alone it was, then.

"Sorry, I just sold the last one." Samuel gave an apologetic shrug while at the same time pouring a drink out for another costumer. "The entire goddamn bottle?" "'Fraid so. Guy's been hanging around and drinking me dry for a while now. Take it up with him if you're that desperate." Desperate might be an overstatement but she had just let the assholes who buried her alive walk off without a damn scratch and she would've liked a fucking Scotch, thank you very much. Just an old favorite, a little pick-me-up. The man Samuel had indicated was sitting at the end of the bar, slightly apart from the buzz. She watched as he put the bottle to his lips, taking a deep swig. He looked just like any other drifter washed up somewhere in this desert, clothes dusty and ripped, hair mostly hidden by the stetson on his head. The eye patch and the scars covering half his face were a little out of the ordinary but that might've happened a million different ways. The scar tissue on her temple itched like a reminder. He wasn't looking at anyone else, just staring out at the desert slowly sinking into darkness. Probably not looking for a drinking partner then. She considered turning back to the bar, ordering literally anything else, but ... ah fuck, she might as well try. Long as he shared they could just as well drink in silence for all she cared. She walked over and plopped herself down on the stool across from his. "Share that drink?" she asked, giving her best smile. He set the bottle down and eyed her, frowning. Somebody obviously wasn't a fan of company. "Don't drink with strangers." The words had finality to them, like he expected her to take him at face value. She'd never been anything but persistent though. Instead of standing she offered her hand, brows raised. "Sam."He didn't take her up on it. His fingers absently swiped at the condensation running down the side of the bottle while the eye not hidden by the eye patch bored holes into her skull. The stare might have been enough to send her away, she wasn't in the business of forcing herself on people, but she really wanted that damn drink. "Come on, I'll make it worth your while." His gaze casually roamed over her body before he shrugged, leaning back. "You're not my type." Really not what she'd meant to offer, so just as well he was refusing it. Sam grinned, just slightly, and shrugged. "Great, I don't care," she said. "Look, you bought the last damn bottle of Scotch and it's been a long day. I just want one drink and I'll be on my way." Now he looked amused. "There's other shit to drink, y'know?" "Oh, I know, I just have a hankering." Absently she rubbed at the scar tissue on her forehead. Damn thing still itched when it got too hot. So most of the time. His eye followed the gesture but he didn't say anything. "Hell, I ain't even looking for conversation. We can just sit here and empty that bottle." He stared her down for another moment before the bottle slid over to her side of the table. She stopped it before it tumbled to the ground, grabbed the neck and took a long, satisfying pull. It wasn't particularly good and probably watered down to all hell, but it went down smooth as anything. Good enough for her, for right now. When the bottle clanked back onto the table it was him, who offered a hand. "Russell," he said, with a half-smile playing around his lips, "and you owe me half of what I paid for that swill.""Done." She shoved a bunch of caps his way, took his hand and shook it, before taking another sip from the bottle and handing it back over.

For a while, they drank in silence. Sam lit up a cigarette, pushed the pack towards him when she saw him eye it. Ignoring the people around them, it might have almost been peaceful. A few tables over, someone was sobbing into a glass; somewhere else, off-key singing harmonized with that hiccuping sound and the conversation drifting in from all sides. At their little table tucked almost behind the bar only quiet reined. Quiet didn't really seem to work for either of them though. Finally, she leaned back in her seat, cocking her head at him in interest. "So, what brings you here?" Something about his smirk told her he'd been waiting for her to say something. "So much for quiet drinking." "Quiet only works for so long." "You know I could ask you the same thing, right?" The way his fingers drummed on the table suggested boredom. The way he leaned in, meeting her eyes directly, suggested otherwise. "How I got here?" "Yeah." Sam shrugged. Fair was fair, she supposed. "Guy shot me in the head for some stupid fucking package I was supposed to deliver. I'd like to pay him back. Been more or less chasing after him. He's a Vegas type, so to Vegas I go. And this place is on the way." "Huh." "So?" "Might as well." He took another gulp of Scotch. At this point, they were halfway through the bottle. "I followed a bounty here not long ago but ... the trail ran cold. Been getting by as a caravan guard but it's not the same." She couldn't quite help a small chuckle. "Yeah, I bet." Her last job getting by had been this damn courier gig and that had obviously been a fucking disaster. In all honesty, much as she hated to admit it, having a goal again was kind of refreshing. Across from her, Russell sighed, staring out at the dust devils dancing in the dark. "I should get back on the hunt," he continued, " but ... I just don't know. I used to pride myself with finding every mark I was after but ... I lost him." He looked resigned. Maybe a little wounded pride in there, too. "And now you're hangin' around here, buying the alcohol out from under my nose." That got a chuckle out of him. "Now I'm hangin' around here," he agreed easily. "Guess you're not really from this piece of dirt then, huh?" It was more of a rhetorical question at this point. Even if he was Mojave born and bred, something about him told her he'd been anywhere but here for a while. Sam could relate. She hadn't managed to keep herself in one place for longer than a week since '73 now. He shrugged in response. "Everywhere and nowhere, partner," he agreed easily and took another swig from the bottle. She grabbed for it as soon as he set it down. "Yeah." Everywhere and nowhere indeed. "So, what about that bounty?" It was as much of a distraction for her as it was for him. Down that road lay depressing thoughts and they'd been too damn close to the surface again ever since Goodsprings. "Might as well, he's  long gone," he said, more to himself, before meeting her eyes again. "Fellow by the name of Glanton. Used to work as a scalp hunter for the NCR. See, back when the republic was brushing up against some nasty tribals and raiders down south they hired Glanton to clean 'em out." Absently, she noted the way his mouth twisted when mentioning the NCR. She was maybe a little familiar with that twist, had seen it in the mirror before a time or two. "Glanton and his gang were making so much money that pretty soon they stopped caring about who's scalp they took - be it women or children. Brass tried to put a lid on it, declared him an outlaw, but it didn't matter. Settlers loved Glanton, made him into a hero. If settlers or miners run into trouble with tribals, they hire Glanton. Wasn't until recently that the government got serious about him. A few months back the NCR finally put a bounty of 10,000 caps on his head. I decided it'd be worth my while to go after him." The number made her swallow just a little too much Scotch. She coughed around the burn in her throat, setting the bottle down hard. Sure as hell was a pretty bounty. Russell seemed slightly amused at that reaction. Of course all the pretty numbers in the world weren't gonna do him any good if the trail was cold, she supposed. Which did give her an idea. "Y'know, if it's all the same to you ... we could work together, split those caps." This time, when he looked her up and down, it was a lot less dismissive than the first time around. Sam met his gaze like it was a challenge, leaning back in her chair. "Could have its advantages," he conceded, "but, I need to make sure you can handle yourself." "Planning on fightin' me?" Of course he was doubting. A lot of people did that, just looking at her. And like it or not, being unconscious for days hadn't really added to her healthy disposition. But he only grinned in response. "Nah. You got any qualifications?" For a moment, she thought. They were in the middle of a desert that was half civil, half mess most of the time. She could probably shoot his head off at 50 yards but she doubted he'd count that as special. "For one, I've been all over this damn place," she finally said, "I'm a good shot. And I just recently walked out of my own grave." That last bit got him to snort. "That's supposed to be an argument for you?" he asked, amused. Sam shrugged, giving him her best smile. "In my experience, a little luck never hurt nobody. And I got more than a little." She grabbed for the bottle again, toasting him. "Besides, you've given me enough to go after it by myself, if you really don't want me in." "Courtesy offer?" "More like pooling of resources. And fond memories of a good drinking buddy." The last of the Scotch swished in the bottle in response. He shook his head but she could see something like a smile on his face. "Fine." "To good huntin' then." She was nice enough the leave one final swig in there for him. He took it like he wasn't sure if he'd made a stupid decision just then. Of course, in her experience, those were the most interesting kind.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #courier six #Russell #writing:mine #c: dusty boots and broken wings #x: silver linings