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delldarling · 3 years

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the city is hoarding hearts | arroven

male dragon x gender/body neutral reader 9015 words lemon | mention of drinking alcohol, face riding, size difference, fairly submissive monster, penetrative sex, poetry, touch starved note: behold! my modern epic fantasy universe! this world first appeared back in August for my Patreon Story of the Month, and though I haven’t revisited Arroven again just yet, I did return to this universe for December’s Story of the Month as well. 👀

Magic, despite people's claim to the contrary, is beyond rare these days. No one really claims that it isn’t real, that it didn’t once run rampant with it’s existence. After all, it’s impossible to deny when people have things like the architecture of the North to reference. The towers built into their seaside cliffs, spiraling up like the serpents of old reaching for the sun? Without magic, without gravity spells, and an everlasting charm on those spells, thick enough to double as a coat of paint, the towers would have fallen into the sea by now, dashed against the dark stones jutting out from the deep green waters. Many people, though especially the elves, think that the towers will endure long after the cliffs have crumbled into the water. Floating relics, you’ve heard more than a few people murmur, wonder in their voices, wouldn’t that be something?

Even more common now, there are people the world over that claim they have a spark of magic left still, that they can feel the rhythms of the magical tide flooding back over the world.

She Wakes is written on street corners and thick posters, spray painted on the underside of the colossal Echo Bridge. No matter how often they have workers doing their best to clean the graffiti up, the giant letters are back in place a few days later.

Despite how much you’d like to believe them, as everyone dreams of the rumors, of magic returning, you’ve never put too much stock into the whispered words. Why would you? No matter how often you’ve spent watching wispy clouds streak by your window, no matter how often you’ve taken a moment to reflect on the thought, to nurse a seed of hope… Nothing has ever come of it.

It’s why you keep trying to ignore that heavy ache in the arch of your feet, or the way you keep noticing advertisements for Arroven.

History books and the elderly all say that this is how it starts when magic finally blooms in someone’s blood. There’s an itch. An ache. A constant irritant that starts in your extremities and wriggles into your veins, and then coincidences will start to pile up. Small things, like noticing whenever the clock strikes 11:11 on whatever clock you pass. Or maybe it’s having the luck to switch the radio station to your favorite song without fail, or—

“Stop it,” you mutter to yourself when you spot it. You breath puffs out into the chilly air, adding to the fog lingering in the streets. You kneel, brushing aside some of the fallen damask leaves, their velvety backs clinging to your touch even as you do your best to shake them off. Just barely hidden under their litter is a postcard. Without even glancing at it, you know what you’ll find on the back, but you’re drawn to pick it up anyway, turning it over. It depicts a sprawling city with green undertones, the word Arroven written in a sloping, beautiful script along the bottom of the image. The edges are creased, almost lovingly, and there’s a small puncture hole at the top left corner, as if someone had it pinned to a corkboard for no short amount of time.

Until this moment, you haven’t picked up any of the advertisements for Arroven. The stories all say that you can ignore it, that the magic will go away and fade from you like an ebbing tide if you only will it hard enough, but… You don’t know that you really want it to leave. Those seeds have hope might not have fully sprouted, but their roots have run deep, snaking through your veins. You swallow past the dryness in your throat and turn the postcard over, wonder if you’re going to get an address, or if there are words of encouragement intended for the last owner.

The postcard is faintly yellowed at the edges, but it’s otherwise blank.

You wilt, disappointed, but you don’t throw it back down onto the stones. If you check the railway listings, you’re more than certain that you’ll find a one way trip to Arroven suddenly dirt cheap. The pathway that will lead you there is probably paved with strangely good fortune, more invisible hooks ready to find a secure hold in your heart. You might as well find out if there’s anything to these claims of magic. You have far too much hope shored up in your bones and pumping through your chest not to at least try.

A month later, and you’re starting to believe that whatever magic that led you this far has all but fled. Of course, you’re more than content with where it’s left you, a word rattling around in the back of your brain and clamoring to spill from your lips: home. Arroven feels like home.

It’s not just the city though. It’s your place. It’s the stones that pave the streets and the people that fill them. It’s the smell of bakeries and the faint hint of exhaust. It’s the clean smell of paper and ink from the stationary shop you’d stumbled into on your first night in Arroven, and the proprietor’s barely-there smile. You’d made fast friends with her almost instantly, like it was fate.

Mora, despite her solemn stature, and the vast amount of spiraling tattoos disappearing under the neck of her cleanly pressed shirts, is beyond kind. She possesses a startling, sparkling wit that leaves a smile lingering on your lips whenever you think of her snappy little comments. She’d given you a job in her shop a few days after you’d first arrived, perking up as soon as you’d come back into her shop. She needed a cashier, so she could have more time to develop her own inks, and then a few days after that you literally stumbled onto a showing of a furnished apartment. It had fit all of your needs, and your shoes had sunk into the plush carpet of the bedroom, like a quiet voice in the place asking you to stay.

The ache in your feet had eased, that strange little irritant in the back of your mind fading with every passing day. You haven’t put too much thought into magic since then, as there hasn’t been a reason when you have a new job to keep you busy, and a city to explore on your days off. You love it here, the sea green patina on the copper statues, the swirling architecture that extends to every building in the city, no matter how large or small. Besides, you know if you go looking into magic again, at the message boards or if you go hunting down books, it’s likely that they’ll all say much the same thing: She Wakes, and her gift will blossom in you, but not Forever. She moves us like pawns, adjusting us Just So, no matter how small the slot She needs filled.

You’ve read it all before, have heard debates shouted in the streets or argued about in the back corner of classrooms. Magic moves through people as it wills, and no amount of pleading will keep it in you unless you’re a mage, and even then, that takes years of study. If the magic that led you here only existed long enough for you to make your home? Then you’ll have to be satisfied with that.

And you are, until that ache in your feet starts up again.

Late one evening, as you’re locking the back door of Rumoura’s, it floods through you fast enough to steal your breath. There’s no voice, no heavy hand on your shoulder, just a fierce pain that wells, threatening to bring tears to your eyes, until you turn to the right. You blink, surprise at the sudden and complete lack of pain, and take a ragged breath as you pocket the key to the door. When you feel steady enough, when your lungs no longer ache, you turn to the right and start walking.It takes you about ten minutes to realize you’re headed towards the main park, the one with ancient ruins of a half finished serpent tower peppered throughout its boundaries. You’ve walked through once, one golden afternoon with Mora, and you’ve been meaning to come back sometime on your lunch break. The past few days have been busy though, with a flood of students coming back to Arroven, stocking up on both casual and serious supplies from Mora’s shop.

Besides, there’s always been time to explore at your leisure now that you’re living here.

Two towering trees make a grand arch over the park entrance, and the slow swirl of damask leaves spiraling down from the branches make you laugh.

“Coincidence,” you murmur, a small smile curling your lips, and you walk into the park. The paths are well lit, even this late in the evening. This part of the city doesn’t boast about it’s lack of crime, but most people feel it. There always seems to be groups of people roaming: Elven tourists, hooking arms and laughing over cups of tea and coffee, Orcish artists and musicians, setting up on benches or street corners, busking for the simple sake of sharing their art with others. You wander through the park, expecting to simply take in the sights among the meandering attendees, but.. You haven’t seen anyone for the past few minutes. Your footsteps start to slow, wondering if you missed a sign somewhere and you have the nagging feeling that you just need to find someone.

Cautiously, you keep moving, the sudden bout of nervousness easing when you see someone up ahead. They’re sitting at the foot of one of the rather large blocks of toppled variscite, a dark hoodie hiding their face. Their shoulders are broad, and their clothes are a little more ragged than you see on people around here, but it gives off more of a well lived look than a dangerous one. They’re tapping the toes of their boots together, the tread of them worn smooth, and a low, masculine hum reaches your ears the closer you get. He stops as soon as you’re within speaking range though, crossing his legs and leaning his elbows on his knees. There’s a street lamp not too far behind him, and with the hood and the angle of the light, it casts most of his face in shadow. All you can spy is a pair of long, thorn-like ear gauges, curling out from the depths of his hood. They’re bigger around than a thimble and sharp looking from this far away.

“Nice evening, hm?” You say in greeting, hoping that if he doesn’t want to speak, he’ll just bob his head and let you move along. You haven’t run into any trouble in Arroven yet, but even with that strange ache, you don’t know that you can see your good luck lasting forever.

“A lovely one,” he mumbles and he leans back, hands grabbing at his knees and squeezing like he’s the nervous one.

That thought makes you stop, your eyes focusing a bit more intensely on what you can see of his skin. At first glance, his knuckles are bruised and paint splattered, nails split and a little too long, skin rough in texture. You blink, realizing that his knuckles aren’t bruised, his skin just mirrors the strange patterns of the variscite he’s sitting on, ink black and sea green, and the rough texture to his skin has pointy, scalloped edges.

The noise he makes isn’t a sigh, not quite, but he turns his face away, as if he expects you to ignore him, or run, and his hood edges back, just a sliver. The arch of his nose is straight as an arrow, and his nostrils are thin things, slashing upwards. His face has so many angles that it’s hard to tear your gaze away. You wish you could see his eyes, but he has them closed, like he’s still bracing himself for a blow.

“Are you.. Are you alright?” You ask, because it seems like the thing to say, with how tense he is, with how he’s waiting.

His eyes flash open, reflective in the depths of his hood. His mouth curls into a frown when he turns to look at you again. His eyes are still the eerie glam of a reflected light. “You’re not frightened?”

“Are you?” You ask, ignoring the thundering of your own heart. You’ve seen Trolls before, and even a few half-elves or half-orcs of varying descent, with skin that just barely reminds you of his, but.. You’re willing to bet he isn’t any of those.

“A bit?” He says, unsure, and the edge of a violet tongue flicks out to wet his lower lip. “It’s been a few centuries since any of you have made yourself so at home here that you stumbled across me.” He hunches his shoulders, looking away from you for the breadth of a second, before he can’t help himself. His eyes flick back to you, rove over you from head to toe, almost greedily. “You felt a call then, an itch?”

“An ache,” you correct, staring at him with wide eyes. Centuries? The long lived races don’t often mention the time they have over others. It’s rude at the best of times, and most of them are terrible sticklers for manners.

“At home here, you said?” You ask, knowing that something about him seems terribly familiar.

Your question makes him pause, brow lifting before he finally pushes himself to his feet. He unfolds, all long, heavy limbs, but doesn’t move from his spot on the variscite. “M-.. Arroven. You do think of the city as home?” He breathes in, hesitantly lifting his chin. “Not to be rude,” he says, a little awkwardly, “but you smell like Arroven.”

All at once, the old poem flickers back into your mind, the one about hearts and desires and winter. The oldest folktales of the first cities, those built around the serpent towers, all seemed to carry the poem with them. It was both a warning and a blessing to those that wished to stay. You’d have to hunt down the entirety of it, but the ending couplet?

The city promises, you’ll be most adored So can you, will you, join the hoard?

You bite down fiercely on the desire to blurt out dragon, but he must sense it, might even see the aborted twist of your lips.

“..you’ve figured it out, then?” He asks, and when his shoulders droop, you spy the barest edge of a wing, tucked in close to his back. “If being in my immediate vicinity is a problem, I quite understand, but please stay in the city. You-” He blows out a breath, large hands fussing about with his hoodie pocket. Everything about him reads awkward, almost shy. “You’re safe here, I promise.” He breathes in again, like he can’t resist, eyes falling closed when his violet tongue appears, there and gone before you can blink. “You belong,” he murmurs and tangles his fingers in the material of his hoodie, like he would reach out if he didn’t stop himself.

Inexplicably, you wonder if Mora knows about the city patron. If you should waltz into the shop tomorrow and announce: I’ve officially been welcomed to the hoard. ...Sort of. Before you lose your nerve, before you can bite your tongue, you ask. “An official welcome involves more drinks though, doesn’t it?”

-Arroven, the dragon, the founder of the city, is sitting across the table from you, slouching in a barstool that has a difficult time encompassing his enormous body. Despite his height, and the way his hood shadows his face in a frankly ominous way, no one is paying him any attention. One of the bartender’s had slid a drink list your way as soon as you’d claimed the seats, but she hadn’t even glanced at Arroven. In fact, you think her eyes might have skipped right over his seat. It’s a little disconcerting, seeing as he’d claimed that Wink was one of the best bars around, but if they ignore him, if they can’t see him?

“What’ll it be?” A different bartender asks, a tall elf, with his hair plaited back in a complicated braid. He has pleasant features, though he looks a little flustered, a lock or two of dark hair escaping his braid. You think he might be on the newer end when he fumbles a bit with the card you slide his way, olive skin flushing when his fingers nearly touch yours.

“Uh, the special,” you finally decide, expecting him to turn to Arroven so he can order as well. Your jaw drops when he whirls, not even bothering. “Ar- hey, wait!”

The elf turns back, smiling vaguely, looking even more tense now that he can’t leave straight off, but he doesn’t seem to see Arroven when you gesture towards him. His gaze zips right through the neckline of Arroven's hoodie, straight on through to the next customer.

Perturbed, you lean in close to Arroven, heart skipping a beat due to his proximity. He smells faintly of musty books, and stone, cooling in the early evening after baking in the sunshine of a warm day. "Didn’t you want something?” You force yourself to ask, unwilling to let the elf leave without at least checking with him first. He doesn’t have to get anything, but you’d hoped he would, if only so you can spend a while longer in his company. Maybe the flirtatious tone you’d struck had made him uncomfortable?

For a moment Arroven hunches further into his sweatshirt, and you think your fears might hold weight. You are a little close, and you still don’t know each other terribly well yet. You straighten, hoping you don’t look as embarrassed as you feel and Arroven heaves out a sigh. He finally tugs back his hood, though the elf behind the bar doesn’t even blink. “Just a.. a Beetle Wing," he mutters, large, sharp teeth catching the light. The elf nods, though his gaze is still on you when Arroven speaks, and turns away to go make the drinks.

Without the darkness of night, without his hood shadowing his face, you see that his eyes aren’t permanently reflective. In the dim lights of the bar, they’re a lovely shade of blue-green that matches well with his skin. What you thought were ear gauges were actually his horns, thick and curving, and trailing after the clean arch of his jaw. His ears are heavy with plugs though, and they clink against his horns when he turns, noticing that you’re staring. The scent of hot stone grows stronger when you smile at him, and then he huffs, looking away and running a hand through his already tousled, short dark hair. You catch sight of scales on his scalp and then blink. It’s not hair on his head, it’s feathers. His eyebrows are much the same, in miniature. Fine, thin feathers, as ink dark as the scalloped edges of his scales.

“So,” you tease, hoping your questions won’t come off as prying. “Can the rest of the people in here see you at all? You said that it’d been a while since anyone had felt at home enough here to stumble across you, but.. I don’t know exactly if that means Magicis is at work, or something else.”

Arroven breathes in, glancing up at the filigreed round sign hanging over the bar. There’s a single neon eye in the middle, opening and closing on loop under the word WINK. Even with the noise of people talking, and the music coming steadily from the small corner of a dance floor, you can still hear the faint buzz and click of the neon switching over. “Not many,” he finally confesses. “If the proprietor were here, she would see me, but she’s been here for a.. For a while.” She’s one of the long lived races then. Arroven turns, taking a quick look over the other patrons, tense, as if he expects one of them to approach. “The couple near the dance floor there,” he finally says, pointing out two women leaning into each other, stealing sips of each other’s drinks. “The orcish fellow on his phone. They can see me, though I doubt they’ll realize who I am. Just living here doesn’t make someone part of the hoard, though it’s always a step in the right direction.” For a second, he looks like he might let the subject drop, but then he cringes, glancing at your eyes before he looks away. “I don’t- I don’t steal from the people living here, whether they’re part of my hoard or not, even if they don’t realize I’m around. Even if they can’t see me.”

That’s reassuring, though you hadn’t planned on diving into that topic.

“What then,” you ask, leaning your chin in the palm of your hand, and your elbow on the bar, “makes someone part of your hoard?”

Arroven’s rough looking scales don’t shine, but the neon light over the both of you shifts again from blue, to pink, and back. It was already hard for you to take your eyes off of him, knowing who he is, attracted to the nervous quirk of his lips, but now? The magic that you’ve only ever felt the after effects of, the strange aches and coincidences, it feels like more in this moment. More than a soft nudge in the correct direction. Arroven is sitting at your side, winking neon sign a spotlight over both your heads.

Hesitant, like he’s waiting for you to stop him, Arroven lifts his hand, reaching out, and taps once, softly, against your sternum. “It sounds esoteric, but the only explanation I have is that all of you feels like you should be here. From the way you smell, to the echoes of your voice or your footsteps along the pavement...” Arroven swallows, and then inhales, letting his hand fall away from your chest as his eyes close. He doesn’t pull his hand back completely though, just lets his hand hover over your thigh. “It’s always the desires of the heart that bring my hoard home,” he murmurs and starts to sway towards you.

There’s a soft clink on the bar, your drinks being set carefully in front of you and Arroven. When you look, the bartender still hasn’t noticed the city patron, the dragon, but the drink is still clearly set aside for him. Your card is placed very quickly next to your glass, the elf flashing you a much more jovial smile than earlier.

“Your drink has been taken care of,” he explains, but doesn’t stay behind to point out who might have bought them. When you look, Arroven is sitting straight up in his seat, and his guilty expression is answer enough.

“I was supposed to be welcoming you to the city,” he murmurs, turning in his stool so he can take hold of his glass. The liquid inside is iridescent, shifting from what looks like violet, to a strange umber. You’re willing to bet that it’s more blue and green, but the neon light isn’t doing it too many favors. Arroven lifts his cup, patiently waiting for you to do the same and then quietly toasts your arrival. The clink of the glasses rings in your ears with the clarity of a bell, echoes lasting far longer than the noise itself.

“Goodness,” you say, coughing when you finish your swallow. Your drink is a little stronger than you thought it would be, heat already spiralling down into your chest and filling your belly. “So, uh, the city blessings seem to be true, I take it?” You don’t look at him as you speak, afraid he’ll cringe away from the mention of them.

“Blessings?” Arroven asks, and then you have to search up the poem. He sounds like he doesn't know, but they're supposed to be as old as the cities. Or near as.

“Sometimes they vary, from city to city. But most of the time they have almost the same structure. The same meaning,” you explain, pulling up the poem on your phone. “Hoarding hearts, keeping people safe in winter. The, uh-” You turn it his way, but he doesn’t take the phone from you, just reads the words out of the palm of your hand, brows raised by the time he gets to the end.

“‘Sinking talons into your thighs?’” Arroven’s slit pupils grow wide, nearly drowning his iris in darkness. He straightens, taking another hasty gulp of his drink. He laughs when he’s finished, nerves finally beginning to ease. “That’s how they’re translating it these days?” He asks, but you notice his eyes lingering on your hands, drifting down to your knees and the way you’re sitting.

You pass a good portion of the evening, teetering back and forth with conversation about the city now, and how it was when Arroven had first settled. For all that he’s wearing modern clothes and walking on two feet, you can see him in a larger, more draconic figure, delving into the variscite mines and overseeing the people that had decided to settle under his watch.

He’s just as enthralled with your stories though, hanging onto your every word, even though he’s still clearly a little anxious. He abandons his hunched and wary demeanor as soon as you start talking about the magic though. All the little aches and nudges and postcards that had led a clear path to his city. To him.

You insist on buying the next round when he makes to wave down the bartender, who is still completely oblivious to his presence, but Arroven stops you with a hand on your wrist.

"Another time," he says, just loud enough for you to hear. "A welcome isn't a single round, is it?" He asks, a tentative smile revealing a small glimpse of those sharp teeth.

You could argue. You have the feeling that he would let it go if you pushed, but the smile sways you. It's the first time he's spoken without lowering his eyes mid sentence. You accept the drink, and try not to stare when his smile grows, shy and small and all the more endearing for it.

You both pretend not to notice each other grinning after that.

It’s just past 1 AM by the time the both of you leave the bar, only slightly unsteady after a few drinks and a few plates of bar food. Warmth floods you when Arroven’s hand finds your elbow, just barely keeping you from stumbling off the edge of the sidewalk and into the street. All it takes is a single stroke of his thumb over your arm for you to throw aside any worries you might have about flirting.

He's reciprocated, in quiet ways, for the last hour or so. He’s leaned into you whenever you lowered your voice, had let his eyes linger on your hands and thighs after you brought up the poem.. The worst thing he can do is say no.

“Come to my place?” You blurt and Arroven stutters, hand spasming in his grip on your arm. For a heart wrenching moment, you think he might turn you down, but he finally bobs his head, gauges clicking against his horns with the motion. “...You said you’d been out of the loop with the people living here,” you start, mouth dry, wondering if he knows what you’re trying to ask, but still a little too sober to spell it out. “I’m asking, I’m not just asking you to come visit. I-”

Arroven stops your worried speech with a slightly awkward smile. “I know what you’re getting at,” he finally says with a gentle huff of a laugh, hand sliding down your arm until he can twine his fingers about yours. His breath hitches, and for a moment you think he might stop, might pull away. “I- I would love to,” he says quietly, and squeezes until his fingernails gently prick the back of your hand.

Wordless with triumph, you flash another smile his way, heart pounding as you keep hold of his hand, ventral scales dry, but slick against your palm.

“The walk back to my place is a bit of a long one from here,” you confess, glancing at the handful of cabs loitering along the street. “Seeing as you got the drinks, I can—” You nearly trip over your own feet when Arroven tugs you back, keeping you from approaching any of the cabs.

“I don’t.. Fit very well,” he says, apologetically. “If you would rather take one, I can, but if you aren’t opposed..” Arroven’s wings, still tucked in flat along his back, quirk and stretch, spreading wide enough that he nearly clips another leaving bar patron in the face. They don’t move, don’t see him, but they blink, as if a gust of wind just hit them, and shield their eyes until they’re well past you and Arroven.

His statement leaves you staring, jaw beginning to grow slack. “Are you saying you can fly us back to my place?” Your eyes trace his wings again, the fragile veins spider webbing across the membranes. It’s not that you thought they were ornamental, but it’s one thing to see them, and another to know you’ll get to witness their use first hand.

Arroven’s shoulders start to hunch, but his eyes flick down to your hand, fingers still curled around his. He smiles instead. “Yes?”

You glance at the cabs, and then back to Arroven’s tall figure and broad shoulders. As much as you’d like being pressed up against him, trapped in the backseat of an uncomfortable cab isn’t quite what you’d pictured, and he’s already nervous enough. That settles things. You nod, just the once and lift your chin to meet his eyes. “Flying it is then! We can’t have you getting stuck in one of those, can we?”

While Arroven walks you through how he’s going to pick you up, how he’s going to hold onto you, some of the people on the sidewalk start to watch you. You’re nodding readily at what they assume to be empty air. You spare a second to wonder if they’ll see you vanish, or if they’ll be able to see the equivalent of a magical wind carrying you away. That would cause quite a stir, wouldn't it? You forget to ask Arroven about it though when he holds out his arm, waiting patiently for you to step closer, fingers gentle in their continued grip on your hand.

He’s still giving you the chance to turn away.

You take a breath, thinking back to the nerves you’d felt, packing up a bag and deciding to visit somewhere based on coincidences and the hearsay of magic. You think of Mora, and the apartment that feels more like home to you than nearly anything else ever has. The way everything fits here, every piece of the city you've set foot in branded on your brain, clearer than any map. You step close, eagerly letting Arroven curl his arm around your back and then lift you up in a bridal carry. His forearms and biceps tense, bracing you as he prepares, and then the snap of his wings flaring open makes your heart jump before he leaps. His wings catch a sudden breeze swooping into the street, allowing it to lift the both of you well clear of the ground before he starts to flap. The slight dip in elevation as he finds his rhythm makes you clutch a little tighter, but Arroven doesn’t complain. In fact, when you glance at him, he seems to be holding back a smug little smile.

It’s cold when he finally crests over the top of the nearest buildings. Between the chill, and the fast growing height between you and the ground, you have no issues absolutely clinging to Arroven’s neck. You don't feel like you're going to fall, but it's still safer than sitting meekly in his arms, isn't it? You try to twist your head about to see everything below you, but another rush of cold wind makes you squint. It takes a moment before you realize Arroven isn't moving though, he's simply keeping the both of you suspended in midair.

“Your address?” Arroven asks as soon as you start to frown, his voice rumbling against your ear.

“Ah.” You give it to him, laughing when you meet his still-shy gaze. “I suppose that’s a little important.”

While the walk would have left you both a little tired, the flight is a fairly short one. You have just enough time to relish all the places you’re pressed in close, to enjoy what little warmth you’ve managed to keep with the wind seeping through your clothes, when Arroven lands in front of your quiet building. There are no witnesses but the dim streetlights, the sound of his flapping wings muffled by the mist beginning to roll through the city. Arroven lowers you almost reluctantly, fingers slow to uncurl so you can step down onto the pavement. He takes a step back as soon as you do, like he needs the space between you to think.

“Still up for coming inside?” You ask, giving him the same chance he’d given you earlier. You jerk a thumb at the locked door, searching for your keys with your other hand.

Arroven’s head jerks forward almost too fast, the dark feathers on his skull prickling upwards. His wings snap closed, tight against his back again as soon as you unlock your door. It’s only mildly nerve wracking, having him follow you up to your place, and you think it might be because of how nervous he’s acting. He flinches away from the wall when he barely brushes it, almost tripping over his own boots as he goes up the stairs. He’s been shy from the get-go, but this-

“Arroven,” you murmur, turning to look up at him, hand pausing on your door handle. “Is something wrong?”

He breathes out, turning his head so the plugs in his earlobes clack against his horns, blue-green eyes roving over the hall. “No,” he says slowly, forcing himself to stop hunching into his hoodie, to take his wringing hangs out of the front pocket. “I’ve just, it’s just that I keep-” He stays where he is, brow furrowing for all of five seconds before he’s huffing and stepping into your space. When Arroven leans down, his pupils are needle thin, that sunshine warm smell suffusing the air. He was summoning up courage, you realize, just in time to let your eyes fall closed as he cradles your jaw with both hands. They dwarf your human face, his fingertips easily reaching all the way to the back of your neck, but his touch may well be the softest thing you’ve ever known. His kiss is more the brush of his mouth over the shape of yours, a slip of a taste when his tongue follows the curve of your lower lip. He hums, softly, but when you kiss him back? When your tongue touches his and you try to stand on your tip-toes to deepen things, when you stumble a step closer—Arroven’s groan is gratifying. Achingly slowly, he draws his hands down the side of your neck, leaving you free to control the pace of the kiss. His thumbs trace your collarbone, slow, deep circles that make you wish you weren’t standing out here, fully clothed and too warm.

You pull away, licking your lips and glancing down the hall. There’s no one there, despite your pulse loud in your ears and your breath heaving, surely loud enough to wake even those in the very depths of sleep. Arroven’s breath hitches, and for a moment he sways, ready to chase you for another kiss. “Wait, wait,” you say softly, trying not to smile too wide when his eyes flicker open, dark pupils growing larger. He starts to straighten, embarrassment lifting his shoulders. “Maybe we should get in my house first?” You rush to say, not wanting to potentially scar one of your neighbors, but not wanting him to rush away either.

His mouth opens on reflex, and then closes, slipping into a gentle smile. “Yes,” he says, and then you have to swallow, watching his eyes slide down to your hands and then further down to your knees.

You get your door open before he touches you again, but you’re only a few steps inside when Arroven reaches for you. He strokes the back of his knuckles down your forearm, fingertips only barely grazing your hips. “I’ve missed this,” he whispers, one of his fingers catching two of yours. “Touching,” he explains, the edge of his thumbnail stroking over your wrist and the base of your thumb and back. “Being close to, well…” He breathes in when you step into him, and grows as still as a statue when you balance against him, reaching around his middle to swing the front door shut. This close, Arroven still smells of sunshine, but there’s a sweeter, crisper undertone that makes you want to close your eyes to savor it, to breathe it in. He’s nearly vibrating with you pressed close though, hands hovering somewhere over the middle of your back, trying to keep himself still. He’s waiting for you to give him the go ahead, still caught up in his nerves... Or maybe just manners?

You grin, gently pushing yourself back a step before you smooth out your expression. “Part of your hoard?” You wonder aloud, but then you can’t keep yourself straight faced any longer, wanting him to recognize the words for the gentle teasing they are. You smile. “How about you touch me then?”

Arroven huffs, pleased, and then you quickly discover how needy he can be. He kisses you all the way down the hall, his wings nearly catching on picture frames, hands trembling in their stroking over your back. He keeps pausing at the top of your hips, like he wants to let his hands drift lower, but focuses on his mouth instead, mouth and teeth moving from your lips, to your jaw and down to your neck. You don’t think he’s willing to risk going further though, knowing that it would likely end up with both of you unbalanced and on the floor instead of the bed.

“Distracted?” You ask, reaching blindly around your doorframe, searching for the lightswitch as Arroven’s tongue flickers over the pulse on the left side of your neck. Your own breathing stutters for a moment, heat building in your veins. “You keep-”

Arroven’s breath puffs over the damp patch he’s left on your skin as he lifts his head, violet tongue sliding along the sharp points of his teeth. “Hardly,” Arroven interrupts, and his wings tense when you hook your fingers into the neck of his hoodie, drawing him further into the room. Your fingers find the lightswitch, the soft ring of the bulb lighting strangely loud in the room. “You’re all I can see. All I can focus on. ..am I missing something? Cues?” He asks, voice gone lower when you give his hoodie a fierce tug. He follows, all too willingly, fingers flexing around your hips.

“Hardly,” you say back, teasing as you back up towards the bed. You pull when you lean back, expecting him to let you fall, to fall with you, but his wings flare again. He catches himself on the blankets, hands to either side of your body, the blue-green of his eyes swallowed by his pupils as he takes the sight of you in. “Still good?” You ask after a moment, because he’s staring, because he hasn’t moved a muscle.

“Tell me,” Arroven blurts, arms tensing as his fingers twist into the blankets. “Tell me what to do,” he pleads, gaze catching on every sliver of bared skin he can find. “I’m.. finding it a little difficult to think. All I want to do is make you happy, make you want to-” He stops, feathered brows drawing together as he considers his words.

You arch an eyebrow, your hands stilling just shy of his chest. The way he’d hesitated, his flighty touches? they all make a bit more sense now. He’d asked you to stay in the city, had mentioned your belonging here. If you wanted to leave, if you insisted on stopping, Arroven wouldn’t keep you. But he wants you to stay here.

“Little to no thinking,” you muse, unable to keep from smiling as he hangs onto your every word. “Undress me,” you finally decide, and his nostrils flare before he sets to work. He’s terribly careful, every brush of his scaled knuckles whisper-soft and cool against your skin, but his breathing is ragged by the time he’s finished and your heart has sped in response. You’re tempted to make him undress himself too. In fact, he would probably do just as you asked, but you’re too impatient to get your hands back on him. “Hoodie off,” you declare, half amazed that he’s obeying your whims, “and lay down on the bed.”

Arroven listens immediately, tucking his wings in close before he’s pulling off the hoodie, careful around the curl of his horns and the arch of his wings. He isn’t wearing a shirt, but with his wings, you understand why. Most of those with wings don’t favor mass produced clothes or modern fashion. He’s on the bed before you can finish pushing yourself back up, jeans low on his hips, pale belly and chest all the brighter compared to the black and teal pattern of his scales. His legs spread reflexively when you stand, jeans growing taut when you reach for him. Your hands are steady, even if your pulse isn’t, but Arroven doesn’t seem to care. He looks blissed out from this much touch alone, jaw gone slack, eyelids heavy as you unbutton and unzip his jeans. He exhales when you pull at his jeans, eyes zeroed in on your face.

He’s thicker than he is long, and as pale as his abdomen, save for a violet tinge that makes you think of his tongue. Nestled as he is in the ‘v’ of his unzipped jeans, it’s all you can do to keep yourself from stroking him straight away, or even leaning down to-

“Maybe I can think,” Arroven says hoarsely. He lifts one of his hands, gentleman-like, offering it to you palm up. “Let me?” He asks, though you’re not entirely sure what he wants you to let him do.

Mannerly, you can’t help but think, lips twitching as you place your hand in his. The older races are, generally. It’s something to fall back on if they’re nervous or unsure. Not that most of them would ever admit to it.

“Are you thinking I should leave your boots on?” You get one knee on the bed before you pause, glancing back at his legs still hanging over the edge.

Arroven hums, but his grip on your fingers tightens for a second, not wanting to let go. “I’ll worry about those later,” he says, and then inhales sharply when you straddle his lap, cock pulsing as you settle against him. If he wants to let his jeans tangle around his boots, you’re not going to complain. It’s a bit of a thrill, knowing that he’s too impatient to fuss with them.

“Boots on, then. Now, what am I supposed to let you do?” You lean forward, drawing an aimless, spiraling pattern from his abdomen up to his ribcage. He’s much warmer now, with you astride his thighs and his wings trapped beneath him on the bed. It looks uncomfortable, but he hasn’t mentioned them once.

Hesitant, Arroven’s hold on you loosens, and then his hand drops to your thigh, eyebrows furrowing when he finally speaks. “Sit on my face?”

The brevity of it, the tone of uncertainty, makes your mouth twitch. “Jumping right in there, aren’t we? And here I thought you were kind of shy.”

“I am!” Arroven blurts and then covers his face with one hand, laughing quietly at himself. “I am,” he says, a bit more composed when he lets his hand fall away. “Though shyness has hardly ever been a factor in my favor. What is it humans say? Better to rip off the bandage?”

You crawl halfway up his body, smiling wider when he forgets to breathe. “Had to get the anxiety out of the way?” You brush a kiss over his chin, eyes catching on the curl of his horns. He’s moved so carefully that you’ve yet to feel the sharp points of them catching your skin, but if you sit on his face… You ignore Arroven’s disappointed sigh as you turn away to stroke the pad of your thumb over his right horn, wondering whether he has any feeling in them. They’re as ink dark as some of his scales and twisted in a lovely spiral that perfectly circles his pointed, gauged ears. Arroven isn’t reacting like he has sensation in them, though he reacts to every other little touch of you against his scales. “You’re going to have to help me balance,” you confess, sitting back against his middle. “Because even though they aren’t terribly sharp, I rather think I’ll be risking my thighs. Don’t you?”

Arroven stares, blinking, and then he looks horrified, which makes you wonder how long it’s been since he’s been close to a human, if ever.

“I’m not against this,” you add, grinning, “just to be clear.”

For a moment, all he says in response is a strangled sounding “Ah,” before he blinks again, glancing up at the ceiling. “I can... I will help. I’ll be careful. More than careful.”

It takes a few moments, and some adjustment, before you’re finally able to settle over his face. Your heart starts to pound a little faster when Arroven opens his mouth, those dagger-like teeth flashing in the dim light. His hands are strong though, curling around your thigh and bracing your hip. He’s too tall for you to do more than help balance against his chest, though you can see that he’s still wonderfully hard, and his cock is starting to leak. You’d love nothing more than to take him in hand, to taste him, but then Arroven nips your inner thigh, and you stop paying attention to his cock and start focusing on sensation. Your fingers curl at the first hot swipe of his tongue, pressing a little hard into the ventral scales over his chest, and the next slow lick has your eyes falling closed.

It’s not easy to stay steady, to keep your arms and legs from quivering the longer he licks and slurps. Arroven sucks small kisses over your thighs and the left cheek of your ass, his teeth only ever the barest pressure on your skin. His horns graze you, but he’s true to his word in keeping you balanced. The texture of them against your skin is just something more to feel, to enjoy as he tilts his head this way and that. Pleasure builds, faster by far than the magic that built in your veins, that left you aching with the need to come to the city. If that ache had been anything close to what you’re feeling now, warm, and slick, with the heady pressure of Arroven’s fingers on your skin, you would have picked up on the breadcrumb trail a lot sooner.

“You’re go- going to push me over the edge,” you warn with a gasp, legs starting to tremble. He moves you in response, starts to rock your hips so all he has to do is stick out his tongue, but your hands are shaking now too, cluing him into your urgency. Arroven shakes his head from side to side, a little wild, the plugs in his earlobes clattering against his horns with every shift. You bite down on your lower lip, orgasm rolling swiftly over you and nearly choke on the curse that wants to leave your mouth. He keeps you there, aching and weak, until you pat awkwardly at his chest, releasing you reluctantly with one last obscene noise of satisfaction.

You sit next to him, still a little unsteady and grin down at his pleased, messy face. “Now, unless you have any other lovely thoughts to share - your turn?”

His rough sounding “Please,” has your libido jumping back into overdrive, but it’s safety that has you slipping off the bed to dig out a bottle of lube from your things. He’s half pushed himself back up when you come back to the bed, resting on his elbows, fingers twisted gently into the blankets. His wings are partially stretched out now too, one of them reaching all the way to the end of your bed.

“Are your wings alright?” You ask, wondering if you should throw away the idea of climbing back into his lap, lube already pooling in the palm of your hand.

Arroven smiles again though, waving away your worry. “Tense,” he offers, as explanation. “I was more focused on you, but they’re good. I promise.” His cock bobs as you approach, and then he lays back down, irises vanishing into the ether of his pupils.

“If you promise, I suppose I’ll let it go.” You close the lube, only a bit ungracefully, and toss it to the side, climbing back onto the bed and straddling his thighs.

Your first wet squeeze of his cock has him whimpering, your hand barely fitting around him at his thinnest point. When you stroke, he bucks nearly unseating you until he claps his hands onto your thighs, muttering a hasty apology. Despite being tempted to laugh, you narrow your eyes, squeezing him just a little harder. “You don’t have to be still, but move a little slower for now, hm?”

“Of course,” he rushes to say, and then his jaw goes slack when you press him against you. “Oh,” he breathes, nails pricking your skin as you hold him in place. You rub yourself against his cock, up and back down, a slow undulation that makes you tense, still sensitive from your earlier orgasm.

And then you straighten, pressing the head of his cock into you. The first slow stretch of him inside you echoes the steady ache of magic, has your breath rushing from your lungs in a gasp. “Fuck,” you breathe and then glance at Arroven’s face. His head is tilted back, mouth open to reveal all of those sharp teeth, and his eyes are closed tight. You think he might be keeping himself from looking at you, might be trying to stem the urge to buck again, to move at all. You tilt your hips and press yourself down though, wiggling, and then Arroven is cursing. You don’t recognize the language, but you understand the sentiment behind it, the pleading tone that softens the edges of the words. It’s hard to concentrate, to keep yourself from getting distracted when all you want to do is sink down every inch of him and then just lay on his chest, trying to catch your breath. “Too much?” You manage to ask, but all Arroven does is shake his head and then carefully ease his grip on your thighs, stroking down to your knees and back up. Your legs, among other things, are definitely going to ache after this.

You ride Arroven until he’s a shaking, breathless mess, until he can’t help but tense his thighs every time he bottoms out, and you can barely stay up. You reach up, fingers just barely brushing his chin to make him pay attention. “Fuck me,” you command and his wings stretch to either side with force. You nearly scream when he starts fucking into you with purpose, and as lovely as your neighbors have been, you have the feeling they’re going to complain at some point. Every thrust has you tightening up on reflex, still shaky from your earlier orgasm, and it’s all you can do to keep yourself upright. A few moments later and Arroven arches as he comes inside you, clutching tightly to you until he’s finished, breath deep and rasping. You don’t wait. Carefully you flop down next to him, smiling tiredly against the blankets. You’re not sure your legs will carry you for the next hour or so, but it’s hardly something to complain about.

“Do you give all newcomers to the hoard such a.. Vigorous welcome?” You ask, laughing, your voice rough, not really expecting him to answer. Even though he’s clearly a little more comfortable, even though he’s been clinging to your skin and he looks wrecked by all the activity. Arroven nearly chokes.

“No,” he says immediately. “Moments like this,” he murmurs, reaching out for you, ventral scales on his palm smooth over the apple of your cheek, “moments like this are few and far between.” There’s a low rumble of noise from him when you roll close to brush another kiss over his lips, eyes fluttering closed. It’s all you can do not to laugh again, not to quote the poem at him or interrupt the soft moment. It still sits in the back of your mind though, sweet and lilting.

the city is hoarding hearts

it draws them in, with coin, with art

reflects their dreams on mirrored glass

sings siren songs to catch them fast

the lights?

they gleam, they glitter, bright

it steals a piece, with every sight

roots get worn

they split, they splinter

'but i'll keep you warm, in the depth of winter'

the city whispers, it cajoles, it cries

it'll sink it's talons into your thighs

it tears, it scrapes, it batters the unwary

but oh, the love it gifts, to those who tarry

the city promises, you'll be most adored

so can you, will you, join the hoard?

#exophilia #dragon boyfriend #dragon x reader #monster fucker #monster lover #d.darling writes

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handy-dandy-monster-candy · 3 years

Text

Wade, part Four

Rating: NSFW Length: 2146 Pairing: Male Fishman/Gillman x GN Reader

The finale for the story written for @momolady

xxx

The next few weeks are pure pandemonium as nonhuman beings come out in full force in support of the gillfolk republics. Ancient entities crawl out of the forests and seas, werewolves and vampires and other creatures make their presence known, with the full support and protection of a healthy and growing population of human former hunters who have been operating their support networks for generations.

The transition is rocky at best, with many human politicians calling for their eradication while others make it clear that attempting to do so would be a terrible mistake—not just for humanity, but for the world at large. Many of these beings are magical in nature, and while humanity is not threatened in so many words, it is weightily implied that the wilful culling of the nonhuman population would have a great many varied and equally devastating consequences.

You don’t see Wade for the majority of your vacation as he recovers beneath the waves. Instead, you’re interviewed (and interrogated) by just about every news outlet and television network, along with many other humans who step forward to give their positive testimonials about their experiences with other nonhumans. It doesn’t go as smoothly as you hope. You wake to eggs on your house and your parents’ car windows broken, and more than once you’re called the first of many inventive slurs when you’re recognised in public. You get many nasty phone calls and you get harassed on the street, until your parents express a desire to move away from the coast for your protection.

You’ve just hung up on the third such caller of the day when your cell phone rings again, and you can’t help but heave a sigh before you swipe the green ‘accept’ button on your screen. “I don’t fuck fish,” is the first thing that springs out of your mouth, followed closely by, “they’re gillfolk.”

“Duly noted,” says a familiar voice from the other end of the line, and you fling your mercifully plastic cup clean off the dining table you’re sitting at with the way you spasm in place.

“Wade!”

“Hey, you,” Wade says around a laugh, but it doesn’t linger in his voice for long. “Where are you? We need to talk.”

Shit. “I’m at home,” you say. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“The usual place?”

“The usual place.” You can hardly get the words out before the line goes dead. You take your pepper spray and pocket knife just in case things get hairy before you can make it to the coast, but thankfully your hurried pedaling is uninterrupted and you make it to the beach in record time. You’re still catching your breath by the time you get to the cove, and you almost twist your ankle in your haste to get down to the sand where Wade is waiting, out of sight.

“That was quick,” he mutters as you approach, and you huff as you rest your bike against the rocks. You can’t help but look him over, focusing on the spot where you had last seen a goddamn harpoon sticking out of his side. There’s nothing but puckered white flesh there now, though his scales have yet to regrow over the scar. Still, you can’t help but frown.

“Are you sure you should be up and about? You were run through just a few weeks ago.”

“I’m fine,” says Wade, watching you unblinkingly. “Why? Don’t want me around?”

Your frown turns into a scowl. “I didn’t say that.”

“You left because of me.”

“I left because of me,” you reply, putting such force into the word that you shake with it. “I left because I love you and I couldn’t bear to be a creep and ruin it between us. I left because—”

“You’re damn stupid,” Wade cuts in, closing the distance between you and pressing his lips so hard against yours that it almost hurts. You reel back from the shock and he drags you back in, kissing you over and again until you’re whimpering for mercy against his mouth. “Idiot,” he whispers when he breaks the kiss, cupping your face between his soft, warm hands. “Fucking moron.”

“Keep being romantic. It’s working,” you snort, sniffling when you realise that you’ve started to cry. “So you—?”

“Yes.”

“And I—”

“Left me,” Wade all but gasps, words leaving him as though excised from his throat. “Don’t ever do that again. You can’t do that to me. You can’t.”

“I won’t,” you promise, stroking along the frills between his head fins with your fingertips. “I’ll transfer schools. I’ll—“

“Marry me.”

You choke on your own spit. Wade frets and tuts and pats at your back, though he grins his amusement with his needle sharp teeth when you look up at him like a deer in the headlights. “You’re serious.”

“Deadly.”

“We’re not even dating.”

“I think we just skipped to the good part, what with the kissing and all.”

“You said we needed to talk!”

“We did. I recall the conclusion to that talk being that you were a jackass.”

“You called me an idiot, not a jackass.”

“Semantics. The point is, some things need not be spoken to be understood.”

“That’s not how any of this works.”

“It works however we make it work. I think that’s the point of a relationship: you have to work at it to make it any good.”

“I’m not discussing the philosophy of this with you, Wade.”

“Spoilsport. You said you loved me.”

“Don’t use that against—”

“I’m not. I love you, too.”

You come up short. “You do?”

“I do,” murmurs Wade, shy in a way that you have never seen before. “I have for a very long time.”

“Since when?” you ask, and you can’t help but smile when Wade wraps his arms around your waist as though he’s always done so.

“Since you first let me take you diving,” he says, spreading his fingers and letting them wander up and down your back.

“That long? I had braces then!”

“You weren’t any less beautiful.” His eyes crease with mischief, and you know you’re going to be prickled like a child poking a bear. “I kind of miss them, actually. They were shiny.”

“Are you a gillman or a magpie?” you snort, though you can feel your face growing hot.

Wade only grins. “Your turn,” he says. “When did you know you loved me?”

You huff, having to look away from his self-satisfied expression. “During one of your business trips in sophomore year. I was so gross, writing you sappy text messages and never sending them.”

“That’s years after I fell in love with you,” says Wade, and you can hear his pout in his voice. “Was I that obnoxious?”

“Yes.”

“And you still love me?”

“Yes. Gods help me, I do.”

Wade laughs and kisses you again, gently this time, pressing his lips to yours in several soft smooches and pecks. You can’t help but sigh and coo at his attentions, melting against him and sighing when his tongue slips past your lips. You don’t dare return the favour, with all his sharp, pointed teeth, but he kisses you so thoroughly that it doesn’t matter, until it suddenly does. “Have you done this before?” you ask, and know the answer immediately when Wade ducks his head with guilt.

“A few times.”

“Wade.”

“A few dozen,” he corrects, wincing when you jab a finger in his uninjured side. “But never further. I wanted my first mating to be with you. Though that doesn’t mean I haven’t used my hand for relief whenever I thought about y—”

“Wade!” you squawk, elbowing him in the ribs.

He coughs and laughs, rubbing his side and grinning down at you. When had he gotten so tall and broad? You’re lamenting your own lack of muscle when Wade scoops you up into his arms, ignoring your various noises of shock and embarrassment as he carries you to a more secluded part of the cove. You can feel your face flaming when you realise that he’s aiming for privacy, but when he leans in to kiss you after setting your back against rocks worn smooth by waves, you wrap your arms around his neck to keep him close.

Wade makes quick work of the clothing you wear below the waist, and you briefly wonder where he’d gotten practice with that before your thoughts disappear in the wake of his fingers teasing you. He’s careful with his claws so that he doesn’t hurt you, but that just makes every twist of his wrist all the more maddening, until you’re squirming and writhing against the rocks with Wade standing between your legs.

“I knew you’d like that,” he whispers, almost a purr, and you have to fight the urge to swat him or hide.

“Shut up,” you beg, breathless and moaning as Wade teases you to dripping.

“No,” Wade cheekily replies, taking his hand from you to bring up between you both. You’re mortified to see strings of your fluids clinging to his fingers, and even further embarrassed to watch him slip his tongue out to lick them clean, bright pink eyes burning into yours.

“I’m gonna die,” you say, covering your burning face with your hands for some relief.

“You’re going to come close to it by the time I’m done with you,” Wade rumbles, kneeling in the sand and lifting you up so that both of your legs hook over his broad shoulders.

“Wade!” you meep, but he only chuckles, tongue snaking out of his mouth to tease your most sensitive places. You squeak when he finds your entrance and Wade splutters against you, earning himself a soft smack to the top of his head. “Don’t laugh during this!”

“I can’t help that you’re cute,” Wade protests, burying his face against the insides of your thighs and returning to his task with renewed enthusiasm. You whimper and mewl as he works you open, squirming on his tongue and shivering as his dangerous teeth brush tenderly against your skin. You almost choke when he draws away a sizzling eternity later, apparently satisfied with his work.

“Wade…”

“My pearl,” he murmurs, and you find yourself held aloft in his powerful grasp when he stands, thighs hooked over his muscular forearms. Between you is his prick, deep blue at the base and a vivid purple at the tip, with bumps and ribs that grind against you and make you shiver from head to curling toe. “I’ll make you weep for me around this cock.”

“Don’t say that,” you manage to whimper, feeling his slippery pre-cum slick up your entrance before he starts to push in. “Wade!”

“Say my name,” he rumbles back, voice straining at the edges. “Say my name forever, you precious, precious thing.”

“Stop talking,” you whine, embarrassed and aroused as warm butterflies flutter in your stomach.

Wade chuckles, burying his face against the side of your neck. “You picked the wrong man.”

You curse and writhe as he pushes inside of you with slow, steady thrusts, clinging to his shoulders and biceps whenever the sensations are too much. “I’m going to die,” you gasp, tears in your eyes. “It’s too much.”

“It’s not enough,” Wade growls, teeth grazing along your throat. “So many years I’ve hungered, so many years I’ve yearned.” He surges up into you at the word, and you’re mortified when you wail into the briny air. Wade rocks his hips up into you, hands splayed across your ass, thumbs spreading you open to take him deeper. You whimper and clutch him as tightly as you dare, feeling your breaths mingle as your nerves come alight like a pyrotechnic display.

He moves inside of you like you were made for each other, fitting inside you again and again as you cry out and shake apart. When you come, it’s with his name on your lips and his teeth around your neck, his fins rustling as he empties himself inside of you with a few final, reckless thrusts. “Don’t drop me,” you pant, blunt human nails digging into Wade’s scales. “I can’t feel my legs.”

“And you think I can?” Wade grunts, though he obligingly lowers you onto the sand with care as he kneels down. “Give me a minute and I’ll do it again.”

“You really do want to kill me,” you groan, resting your face against Wade’s shoulder with a sigh.

“No,” Wade rumbles in reply, gurgling softly with pleasure. “But I do really want to marry you. You can carry my eggs and we can have little bubblers nipping at our heels.”

“I can what?!”

“I was joking. Surrealist comedy. Have you ever heard of it?”

“I take it back. I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“I do,” you sigh, feeling Wade smile against the top of your head. “Gods help me, I do.”

#exophilia #exophlia fic #monster romance #monster boyfriend #monster lemon #fishman #fishman boyfriend #gillman #gillman boyfriend #Wade #my work

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flygefisk · 3 years

Photo

with the arrival of the map update, i thought it might be a good time to update my clanhome with an out of scale and poorly drawn map.

the cliffs are much taller than they look, clan flygefisk simply takes up quite a bit on land. situated on the very edge of wind territory, down the side of a huge cliff, the clan is ideally placed for trade. legend and more info under the cut!

Regions:

A. Redbrick Village, the heart and soul of Clan Flygefisk. The Village is made up of homes, shops, restaurants, gardens, and much more. About half of the clan's members live here, either in lofts above their place of business, or houses built of red clay and wood.

B. The Outskirts, a more sparsely populated area of mostly farms and ranches. Most of the clan's food is produced here via crops and livestock. The area between the Outskirts and the Orchard is mostly empty, as are the areas close to the cliff's edge.

C. The Wall, the sheer face of the cliff clan members call home. Folks often seperate the Wall into two sections, Upper and Lower, though both areas are populated. The outside is smooth from wind and sea spray, peppered with holes leading to the intricate tunnel systems beyond, known as the Twisting Turns, or just Twists. Most dragons who don't live in the Village live in these tunnels instead- folks from intense climates are often more comfortable in climate-controlled caves. The Twists also hold rooms which need protection from the elements, such as mushroom farms, laboratories, libraries, and icerooms.

D. The Walkways, a system of stairs and ramps leading up and down the Wall. They're a godsend for disabled or otherwise flightless folks, transporting goods and animals, and those who want a little excersise.

E. The Market. A convoluted system of stalls and shops, some permanent, some temporary, some dug into the cliffside. This area is full of sounds and scents, bright and colorful and loud. Folks come here to buy and sell crafts, food, art, and other goods and services.

F. The beaches, wide strips of sand leading into the ocean. There are a few places safe to swim in, but most areas dip quickly into deep water. There are a few shops and homes dug into the wall nearby. Mostly golden sand and tall rocks worn smooth by the sea.

G. The Fairgrounds, a small cliff at the center, usually left empty apart from rock piles where teens like to hand out. This is where festivals and holidays are celebrated, as well as traveling markets or carnivals. The clan often goes all out for any chance to celebrate.

H. The Orchard. A thick, diverse forest, purposely planted by the founders. It supplies the clan with wood, fruit, game, and protection from the world beyond. There is one road through the Orchard, closely watched. There are things in the Orchard, things seen only in glimpses.

Landmarks:

1. Clanhome, the town hall and capitol building. This is where most clan decisions are made, meetings are had, treaties are written. A political building, yes, but also a place of warmth and generosity.

2. Amberfell Museum. A place of history, art, and learning. Y'know, a museum. A relatively small but very beautiful building, its archives are deep and dangerous, full of strange items and stranger beings.

3. The Laughing Unicorn Inn, a warm and welcoming place. Visitors often stay here, but there are also several permanent residents. It is a small and cozy cottage-like inn, surrounded by a garden of flowers and fruit. Comfortable, but there are a few odd things here.

4. Leap of Faith. Mostly used for religious services or weddings, this stone is also a place of coming-of-age rites. Young dragons take a leap from this stone when they come of age- they are not allowed to flap their wings, merely hold them wide and trust that the wind will guide them.

5. The Sunlit Stage, a wooden stage covered in a rotating collection of lights and banners, just outside the Market. At the end of each week, the stageworkers host a performance, inviting the clan's dancers, musicians, and actors to entertain the audience.

6. The Flying Fish, the leader of the merchants. She's a beautiful ship, golden wood and colorful sails and banners. She spends most of her time away from home, travelling from seaside clan to seaside clan, buying and selling all kinds of wondrous items. The Fish is captained by one of the clan's founders, Bluebird.

7. The Docks. Just how it sounds, the Docks are where ships sleep and fishermen fish. Covered in rope and the smell of fish, burly sailors bringing in their haul, rowers singing shanties.

8. The Crystal Cavern, a massive underground bay. It's a huge, flooded cave, its walls glittering with exposed crystal. The Cavern is used for guarding ships during storms, but more often to meet with the local Maren pod. The clan has good relations with them, but they must update treaties every so often and they can hardly invite the Maren up to the Village.

#flight rising #woof #thats a lot of text there

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possiblyawesometmblr · 3 years

Text

Unus Annus: A Complete Ranked List

well, now that every single video has been released, i’ve compiled them all into a complete ranked list, from best video to worst! this took way longer than it had any right to. (also, please note this is just my opinion, and in all honesty, this list was really hard because so many of these videos are fantastic. you could tell me that you’d rearrange anything in the 50-250 range and i’d probably agree with you.)

And if you don’t feel like going through the whole list, here’s Unus Annus ranked by month!

If the video is in: Top 50: 5 points 51 - 100: 4 points 101 - 150: 3 points 151 - 200: 2 points 201 - 250: 1 point 251 - 300: 0 points 300 or below: -1 point (Any ties settled by which month had the highest ranking video overall.)

November: 93 October: 72 December:70 September: 66 February: 66 August: 63 June: 60 January: 59 July: 53 May: 43 March: 37 April: 1

The Truth of Unus Annus (Oct. 31st)

Ethan Finally Becomes a MAN (Jan. 10th)

Phasmophobia in Real Life (Oct. 25th)

Mark and Ethan Attempt an Escape Room (Dec. 6th)

Hunting HeeHoo (Aug. 29th)

DIY Geriatric Simulator (Jan. 18th)

Recreating Every Single Unus Annus Video (Nov. 4th)

Mark Teaches Ethan to Read with Hooked On Phonics (Jun 6th)

Ethan Gives Mark a Viking Funeral (Dec. 9th)

Cooking with Sex Toys (Nov. 15th)

Mark Reviews the Impossible Burger But There’s a Looming Sense of Impending Doom (Dec. 13th)

Helium Therapy (Nov. 29th)

2 Truths and 1 Lie -- Waxing Edition (Nov. 26th)

Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls (Nov. 22nd)

Being Brutally Honest With Each Other (Nov. 3rd)

Would Chica Save Us From Drowning? (Jul. 24th)

Mark and Ethan are Now Fathers (Mar. 22)

Ethan Kidnapped Mark (Oct. 30th)

Mark’s Outdoor Escape Room (Aug. 28th)

The Unus Annus Last Supper (Nov. 2nd)

Mark and Ethan Go Casket Shopping (Jan. 11th)

The Sensory Overload Tank (Jan. 7th)

Mark and Ethan Summon a Ghost (Nov. 25th)

Mark Knows What Ethan Did… (Sep. 22nd)

Pee Sauna (Jun 17th)

We Made Nude Paintings of Each Other (Dec. 14th)

All of Our Video Ideas that Never Happened (Nov. 5th)

Mark Teaches Ethan How to March in a Marching Band (Sep. 4th)

Hiding Our Sins From Amy’s Holy Peepers (Jan. 2nd)

Our Perfect (and last) Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14th)

The Barrel - Official Music Video (Mar. 9th)

Edward Pumpkin Hands (Oct. 26th)

This Video Is Completely Unedited (Oct. 17th)

Ethan Teaches Mark How to Swim (Jun. 28th)

The Unus Annus Annual Sleepover (Nov. 12th)

Everything’s Legal if You’re Dead (Nov. 10th)

Harnessing Our Dogs’ Unlimited Energy (Dec. 23rd)

2 Grown Men Attempt the Presidential Fitness Test (Dec. 31st)

Learning to Breathe Underwater (Jan. 13th)

Playing Children’s Games in Total Darkness (Aug. 17th)

The Unus Annus Annual Costume Contest (Oct. 28th)

Saying Goodbye to All Our Guests (Nov. 9th)

We Got Pepper Sprayed (Mar. 10th)

The Cryptid Olympics (Oct. 24th)

Mark and Ethan Get Into a Fight (Mar. 8th)

Mark Punishes Ethan (Jan. 27th)

Ethan Watches as Mark Achieves the Impossible (Sep. 29th)

Drunk College Party Simulator (Feb. 15th)

God’s Fitness Test (Nov. 8th)

3 Big Boys Attempt the King’s Royal Fitness Test (Feb. 18th)

The Beginning of the End (Jul. 26th)

Mark Cooks Blindfolded While Ethan Guides Him Through FaceTime (May 22nd)

Pitching a Tent in the Woods But There’s a Bear 15 Feet Away (Aug. 22nd)

We Forced James Charles to Run a Military Obstacle Course (Mar. 23rd)

We Tried a Labor Pain Simulator (Mar. 20th)

The Bad Kind of Cupping (Nov. 20th)

Ethan Destroys Mark’s Van with a Bat (Dec. 7th)

Duct Tape Crucifixion (Amy, Please Don’t Watch This Video) (Dec. 29th)

A Bear Attacked Us in the Middle of the Night (Aug. 24th)

Mark and Ethan Look at a Puppy for 10 Minutes (Jul 7th)

Building the World’s First IKEA Boat (Jun 27th)

Goat Yoga (Feb. 22nd)

10 Strange Amazon Products Ethan Bought Mark Because He Doesn’t Know How To Spend Money Responsibly (Feb. 16th)

Top 10 Worst Things Your Friend Could Possibly Spend Their Money On (Feb 29th)

Fixing Mark’s Hole with Ramen But Every Time We Add Glue We Get 5% Closer to God (Jan. 14th)

Being Attacked By a Fully Trained Bodyguard Dog (Feb. 19th)

Preserving Ourselves in Wax (Dec. 26th)

Santa’s Mukbang (Drinking 1 Gallon of Eggnog) (Dec. 24th)

The Unus Annus Space Program (Jul 11th)

Ethan Explores Mark’s Haunted Basement (Dec. 17th)

Dummy THICC for Dummies | A Tale of Two Butts | Pushing Our Butts Even Further Beyond (Jul. 4th)

DIY Bungee Jump (please don’t try this) (Jan. 4th)

Unregulated Axe Throwing (Feb. 7th)

Making the Ultimate Unus Annus Burger (Sep. 15th)

How to Rescue a Cat from a Tree (Aug. 23rd)

Beer Sauna: Turning a Portable Sauna Into a Portable Hell (Mar. 16th)

The End of Unus Annus Is Almost Here… (May 15th)

We Accidentally Made an SCP While Amy Was Away (Sep. 13th)

We Play The Newlywed Game While Consuming That Which Will Kill the Other (May 23rd)

Building IKEA’s Hardest Piece of Furniture Without Instructions (Jun 18th)

Recharging Our Phones Using Only Brute Strength (Jul. 30th)

Eating Only Onions for 24 Hours: How Many Onions Does It Take to Kill a Man? (May 8th)

The Candy Bra Challenge (Jul 6th)

We Bought Every Grinch Costume on Ebay (Oct. 13th)

Only UNUS-es/ANNUS-es May Watch This Video (May 28th)

Only Watch From 2:25-6:11 --- DO NOT WATCH ANY OTHER PART OF THIS VIDEO (May 29th)

We Force Mark to Swim in the Ocean (HIS GREATEST FEAR) (Oct. 22nd)

Recreating The Miracle of Childbirth (Mar. 21st)

Making Our Own Sensory Deprivation Tank (Nov. 18th)

Turning Mark into an E-Boy (Feb. 2nd)

The First Annual Unus Annus Roast (Nov. 7th)

Reacting to Your Hilarious Green Screen Memes (Jun 5th)

The Ultimate Trolley Problem (Feb. 21st)

We Looked at Unus Annus Memes (Apr. 30th)

Exploring the Unus Annus Subreddit for Your Delicious Memes (May 16th)

BLACK LIVES MATTER: Resources and How You Can Help In The Description (Jun 2nd)

The Chubby Gummy Challenge (Dec. 4th)

Who Can Teach Their Dog a Trick the Fastest? (Mar. 5th)

Taped and Afraid (Dec. 20th)

We Played Strip Poker (May 20th)

Consuming the World’s Hottest Chip (Sep. 30th)

Mark and Ethan Learn About the Human Body (Jan. 26th)

1 Man 100 Accents (Dec. 1st)

Mark Steals Ethan’s Face (Jan. 15th)

Chickens Teach Us About Life and Death (Feb. 17th)

We Lubed Our Floor for a Sliding Competition (Aug. 3rd)

Mark Conquers His Fear of Night Swimming (Oct. 11th)

The Ultimate Paper Airplane Showdown (Jun 20th)

We Pierced Each Other’s Ears (Sep. 11th)

Crushing Watermelons Betwixt Our Mighty Thighs (Jun 3rd)

7 Minutes in Heaven | 7 Minutes in Hell (Nov. 11th)

Two Men in a Trench Coat Teach You How to Save Money at the Movies (Jun 26th)

Having an Adventure in VRChat Because We Can’t Go Outside (Mar. 27th)

Preparing a 5-Star Meal for Our YouTube Famous Dogs (Jul. 16th)

Mark and Ethan Shave Chica (Aug. 8th)

The Wubble (Aug. 7th)

How to Start a Fire (except don’t…) (Aug. 27th)

Unus Annus (Nov. 15th)

This Is Goodbye (Aug. 5th)

Puberty Simulator (Aug. 13th)

This Video Went Completely Out of Control (Oct. 1st)

This Video Will Never Make Sense (Sep. 23rd)

Blowing Our Souls into Some Hot Glass (Feb. 28th)

We Attempted to Create THICC Water (May 10th)

Brick Soccer (Sep. 19th)

Accepting the Truth (Nov. 1st)

Drinking Real THICC Water...How Bad Does It Taste? (May 19th)

How Far Can We Chuck a 16lbs Rock? (Sep. 10th)

Recreating Ourselves as a Cursed Mannequin (Jan. 8th)

Recreating Childhood Photos (Jun 13th)

Nutball: The Most Dangerous Game (Feb. 10th)

Mark Teaches Ethan How to Play the Trumpet (Aug. 1st)

How to Safely Bury Your Friend (Aug. 25th)

Mark Breaks His Nose on an Aerial Hoop (Oct. 4th)

DIY Bed of Nails: OH GOD, PLEASE DON’T EVER TRY THIS (Jul. 20th)

Pee Soda (Sep. 17th)

We Had to Drink Each Other’s Pee (Dec. 16th)

Creating Mark FISHbach (Jun 21st)

Making Our Own Gravestones to Prepare for Our Inevitable Demise (May 11th)

We Made Fanart for Each Other (Jun 11th)

Bear Trapping 101: An Elegant Knot for an Elegant Beast (Jun 25th)

Pressure Washing Our Sins Away (Oct. 21st)

Literally Finding a Needle in a Haystack (Oct. 8th)

We Ate Dog Treats so You Don’t Have To (Sept. 12th)

Giving Away Our 1,000,000 Subscriber Gold Play Button (Dec. 18th)

2 Idiots Get Crushed By 18-Ft Giant Snakes (Mar. 15th)

We Cryogenically Freeze Ourselves (Jan. 20th)

DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2080 (May 27th)

Fighting Fish to the Death in the Deep Blue Sea (Oct. 23rd)

DIY Teeth (Jul. 17th)

We Attempt to Make UNHOLY Water (Sep. 24th)

We Attempt to Make Holy Water (Sep. 20th)

DIY Cheese (Jan. 29th)

Making an Indoor Tornado to Flex on Mother Nature (Feb. 9th)

Literally Eating Fire (Feb. 6th)

2 Absolute Beginners Experience the Dancing Glory that is Salsa (Jan. 17th)

Team Building for 2: Trust Fall, Tug-of-War, and More! (Aug. 26th)

The Great Ice Cream Cake Race (Sep. 27th)

The Unus Annus Confessional Booth (May 26th)

Blood Bath (Oct. 27th)

2 Dirty Boys Wash Their Filthy Mouths Out With Soap (Jun. 30th)

Who Can Make Themselves Taller? (Jan. 6th)

Mark and Ethan Share a Drink (Aug. 6th)

2 Adults Take a 4th Grade Math Test (Sep. 6th)

Bobbing for Literally Anything But Apples (Oct. 16th)

Momiplier Teaches Self Defense (Aug. 15th)

The Human Mop (Jul. 21st)

We Attempt Pottery Without Amy’s Help (Sep. 8th)

Becoming One With the Horse (Jun 19th)

Wikifeet: A Tale of Two Tootsies (Apr. 4th)

We Found Websites That the World Forgot About (Apr. 11th)

1 Gallon of Jello Nearly Broke Us (Aug. 20th)

We Finally Drank Our DIY Wine (Sep. 5th)

We Do It Better Than Icarus Ever Could (Jul. 25th)

We Turned Our Bodies Into Art (Jan. 25th)

You Blink, You Lose (Dec. 30th)

Can You Bake a Cookie from Cookie Dough Ice Cream? (Jul. 13th)

Mark Turns Ethan into a Mummy to Prepare Him for the Great Beyond (Dec. 3rd)

Ethan Turns Mark Into a Werewolf (Oct. 29th)

Making Soda with Literally Anything But Soda (Sep. 16th)

Dunking Oreos in Literally Anything But Milk (Jul. 15th)

Making Snow Cones With Literally Anything But Normal Flavors (Sep. 7th)

How Many Slaps Does it Take to Cook a Chicken? (Sep. 2nd)

Play Doh Thanksgiving (Nov. 28th)

Hot Dog’d to Death (Nov. 17th)

Mark and Ethan Build a Scarecrow (Oct. 20th)

Transforming Mark into the Eighth Wonder of the World (Aug. 16th)

Unus Annus Try Pole Dancing (Jul 8th)

Mark Teaches Ethan to Wrestle (Sep. 28th)

Ethan Teaches Mark Gymnastics (Sep. 26th)

Who’s Cutting Onions in Here? (Nov. 6th)

How to Escape from a Hostage Situation (Jul. 18th)

Are We Already Dead? (Feb. 13th)

Bored? Press This Button (Apr. 27th)

Judging Your Terrible Unus Annus Ideas (Aug. 10th)

This is for FUN and NOT a Fetish (Oct. 10th)

This is What Being Tased Feels Like (Jan. 21st)

Learning the Ancient Art of Chinese Archery (Feb. 20th)

Tearing a Phone Book in Half With Our Huge Manly Hands (May 31st)

Beating Inanimate Objects to Death (Dec. 27th)

Edible Slime was a Mistake. (Feb. 23rd)

We Eat Bugs (Jan. 3rd)

Amy Sent Us a Mystery Box (Sep. 21st)

Hydro Dipping a Baby (Aug. 11th)

The Egg Smashing Game (Jul. 12th)

BEYBLADE NUTBALL (Sep. 14th)

Discussing the Idea of Murdering Each Other But It’s Just a Joke and Definitely Not Serious Haha (Feb. 12th)

Mark is Guilty. Ethan Has the Proof. (Jul 1st)

Learning How to Lockpick (FBI Please Don’t Watch) (Jun 22nd)

Mark Needs to Rub Ethan and Only His Mom Can Help Him (Mar. 14th)

Learning to Use the Force (Sep. 18th)

The Secret Unus Annus No-Touchy-Touchy Hand Shake (Apr. 25th)

We Google Each Other to Find Our Darkest Forgotten Sins (Apr. 6th)

Shooting Archery ON A HORSE (Oct. 6th)

Ethan Redefines Male Beauty (Feb. 3rd)

Ethan Roasts Mark for 15 Minutes Straight (Jun 7th)

Playing Cards: The World’s Deadliest Weapon (Aug. 2nd)

Morphing Our Bodies Into Superhero Poses (Jun 4th)

Becoming a Master of Mime (Feb. 11th)

This is the Most Dangerous Children’s Toy Ever Made (Jul. 23rd)

A Serious Conversation Under the Stars (Jul. 29th)

Is Mark a Masochist? (May 1st)

Literally Laying On Literal Broken Glass (Feb. 8th)

Bad, Bad Beans (Jan. 23rd)

DIY Wine (May 30th)

2 Men 200 Accents (Apr. 18th)

DIY Boob (May 24th)

Mark and Ethan Go On a Drum Date (Feb. 27th)

10 Miracle Products to Give YOU the Thiccest Jaw On Planet Earth (Jun. 29th)

Ultimate Horseshoes (Jul. 28th)

Mark and Ethan Get a Full Body Scan to See What Secrets Lay Hidden Within (and learn their body fat) (Mar. 13th)

Acupuncture is NOT Painful (Dec. 11th)

What the Hell is a Pink Trombone? (May 2nd)

Donating Toys to Charity w/ Jacksepticeye (Dec. 22nd)

Poopsie Sparkly Critters (a slime surprise…) (Nov. 27th)

The Great Meat Mistake (Dec. 10th)

DIY Minesweeper (Oct. 7th)

Popping Popcorn with a High Powered Laser (Aug. 12th)

Bobbing for Apples but the Water Keeps Getting Thiccer (Oct. 3rd)

We Buy a Professional Hypnosis Video and React to It (Dec. 5th)

Long Hair, Do We Dare? (Feb. 25th)

Recreating Mark’s Childhood (Jul. 2nd)

Professional Fire Cupping (Going Even Further Beyond) (Feb. 4th)

An Extremely Sour, Not-at-All Sour Meal (Feb. 5th)

Purging Our Sins with a Neti Pot (Nov. 16th)

Attempting to Build IKEA Furniture Without Instructions (Jun 9th)

The Annual Unus Annus Dunk Contest (Jul. 27th)

Our Fans Try to Scare Us With Their Homemade Creepypasta (Jun 12th)

There’s Something Horribly Wrong With This Picture… (June 8th)

Too Many Pickles (Aug. 21st)

5 Products to Grow Your Patchy Beard (Jul. 31st)

What is the Least Viewed Video on YouTube? (Apr. 10th)

Baby Hands Operation (Nov. 24th)

Mark Builds a Pillow Fort for the Very First Time (Apr. 2nd)

Are Reptilian Humanoids Living Among Us? (May 6th)

Mark and Ethan Bet Everything on a Wikipedia Race (Apr. 15th)

We Will Churn Thy Butter (Sep. 25th)

We Take a Lie Detector Test to Uncover Our Darkest Sins (Jan. 12th)

Drawing on Each Other’s Backs in Total Darkness (Oct. 9th)

Drawing Memes from Memory (Nov. 30th)

We Made Every YouTuber Battle in the Hunger Games (Apr. 5th)

Ultimate YouTuber Boxing Showdown (Mar. 30th)

Tasting Weird Food Combos: Pickles and Chocolate? Ice Cream and Soy Sauce? (Jul 10th)

How to NOT be the Perfect Boyfriend (Apr. 13th)

Help Us Break a YouTube World Record (Apr. 17th)

Momiplier Tells Us True Scary Stories from Korea (Oct. 18th)

DO NOT TRY THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES (Aug. 9th)

The Most Dangerous Shave (Jun 23rd)

We Took the Polar Plunge (Jan. 1st)

2 Complete Amateurs Enter a Body Building Competition (Jun 1st)

Does This Magnetic Skincare Routine Really Work? (Jul. 19th)

Mark and Ethan Milk a Goat (Oct. 5th)

Pumpkin Spice “Challenge” (Oct. 19th)

Doing Each Other’s Makeup in the Dark (Nov. 23rd)

We’re Better Than Dogs (Aug. 18th)

We Have the Best Bellies on YouTube (May 25th)

The Good Kind of Cupping (Nov. 19th)

Hacking the Very Fabric of the Universe (Jan. 30th)

Where in the World is Unus Annus? (Apr. 1st)

Mark and Ethan Become United States Citizens (Jun 10th)

Mark and Ethan Desperately Attempt to Feel Something (May 4th)

We Took an IQ Test (Jan. 9th)

Mark Teaches Ethan Korean (May 13th)

Lost Omegle Video (Mar. 31st)

Finding the Most Cursed Image on the Internet (Jun 15th)

Amazon Shopping for the Apocalypse (Mar. 28th)

Desperately Trying Not to Touch Our Faces (Mar. 24th)

Going on an Internet Scavenger Hunt (Mar. 26th)

Reading YOUR Scariest True Stories (Apr. 21st)

The Scariest True Stories on the Internet (Apr. 12th)

REAL Ghost Hunting At An Abandoned Zoo (March 2nd)

Bleachus Annus (Jul. 14th)

Pumpkin Taste Tier List (Oct. 14th)

Floating in a Real Sensory Deprivation Tank (Dec. 12th)

Was 2020 a Bad Year for Unus Annus? (Aug. 30th)

Speed Reading 1000+ WPM to Gain a Complete Understanding of All Human Knowledge (Apr. 9th)

We Give Each Other Tattoos Blindfolded (Mar. 11th)

Mark’s 1 Weird Talent Leaves Ethan Absolutely Speechless (Apr. 3rd)

Learning to Jump Higher in 16 Minutes and 16 Seconds (Oct. 15th)

You Breathe You Die (Jan.16th)

Breaking Glasses With Our Screams (Aug. 4th)

The 1000 High-Five Challenge (Oct. 2nd)

Becoming the World’s Greatest DJs (Mar. 4th)

Grip Strength Test: Loser Becomes the Winner’s Butler for a Day (Aug. 14th)

Forcibly Turning Mark into Santa Claus Against His Will (Dec. 25th)

We Smell Every Smell (Sep. 1st)

We Wrote a Hit Pop Song in 30 Minutes (Feb. 26th)

Unus Annus Carves the Roast Beast (Mar. 18th)

The Painful World of Aerial Skills (Oct. 12th)

The Koala Challenge: TikTok’s Intimate Couples Trend (Aug. 19th)

Ethan Traps Mark’s Soul in the Palm of His Hand (Jun 24th)

Will We Break the Boards...Or Will They Break Us? (Jun 14th)

DIY Chiropractor (Mar. 7th)

Mark Gives Ethan a HOT (stone) Massage (Aug. 31st)

We Bought a Camera That Can Look Inside Us (Mar. 3rd)

Can Plants Feel Pain? (Sep. 9th)

This is Hiding on Your Body RIGHT NOW. (Jul 9th)

Strange (and legal) Things You Can Do With Your Body After Death (Jan. 28th)

Like It Or Not...This is What The New Human Looks Like (May 7th)

Looking at Long Lost Memes (Jan. 31st)

We Played Mad Libs and Ran It Through Google Translate (Apr. 7th)

Running Internet Drama Through Google Translate (Apr. 24th)

Mark and Ethan Desperately Try to Name a Single State in the USA (Apr. 8th)

Professional Fetish Scientists Rank the Best/Worst Fetishes of 2020 (May 3rd)

Reddit 50/50: Two Player Edition (Mar. 25th)

Mark and Ethan Find the Lost City of El Dorado (Apr. 14th)

Using Google Maps to Find the Lost City of Atlantis (Apr. 20th)

We Hired a Real Hypnotherapist to Analyze Our Darkest Dreams (Jan. 24th)

2 Boys 2 Poops (Sep. 3rd)

This is How We’ll Die... (Jan. 19th)

Nutball Extreme: Taser Edition (Mar. 1st)

You Made Beautiful Music for The Barrel...But Only One Could Win (Dec. 15th)

Can Sound Therapy Heal All Wounds? (Jul. 22nd)

Middle School Science Experiment Teaches Us About Life and Death (Mar. 6th)

Reverse Engineering a Kite to Steal the Idea of Electricity from Benjamin Franklin (Jul 5th)

Ethan’s Relaxing and Totally Normal Nail Salon (Dec. 19th)

Mark and Ethan Take a Personality Test (Apr. 22nd)

An AI Generates Our Worst Nightmare (May 5th)

Learning to Cry on Command to Increase Our YouTube Views (Jun 16th)

How Big Can a Nuke Get? (May 17th)

Granting Access Into Heaven’s Sweet Gates (Feb. 24th)

We Put an Apple Watch in a Rock Tumbler (Jul. 3rd)

Whom Would Eat Whomst First in a Zombie Apocalypse? (Mar. 29th)

Bigfoot is Real and It Ate My Friend (May 14th)

What is the Most Painful Thing We’ve Ever Endured? (Dec. 21st)

Don’t Go In The Ocean....Ever. (Apr. 28th)

An AI Predicts How We’re Going to Die (Dec. 2nd)

Harnessing Our Yodeling Power to End The World As We Know It (May 21st)

The Creepiest Videos on YouTube (Apr. 16th)

What Does Astrology Say About Our Friendship? (Mar. 12th)

Discovering the Secret to Eternal Life (Feb. 1st)

What Happens When a YouTube Channel Dies? (Jan. 22nd)

5 Weird Apps That Predicted Our Death (Mar. 19th)

Emotional Pain vs. Physical Pain...Which is Worse? (Dec. 28th)

How Tall Can a Human Get?: An Impartial Review By 2 Average Height Men (May 12th)

Will AI Soon Take Over Humanity As We Know It? (Apr. 23rd)

Mark and Ethan Hunt the World’s Most Wanted Criminals (Mar. 17th)

The Illuminati...Do They Really Exist? (Apr. 19th)

We Explore the Most MYSTERIOUS Mysteries of Our Wildly Mysterious Mystery Moon of Mystery (Apr. 29th)

Two Male Men Judge Female Women On Their Beauty (Apr. 26th)

We Have the BEST Thumbnails on YouTube and No One Can Tell Us Otherwise (Jan. 5th)

How Much Caffeine Does It Take to Kill a Man? (May 18th)

There’s Still Hope… (Dec. 8th)

Unus Annus ASMR (May 9th)

The Worst Kind of Cupping (Nov. 21st)

#unus annus #unus annus ranked #the og list took me three days to compile please appreciate this #markiplier #crankgameplays #unus #annus

32 notes · View notes

ditch-witches · 4 years

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No Catch: Dean Charles-Chapman x Reader

thank you, beautiful Ivanna, for your excellent work and continued support.

request: “I need me a fallen angel Dean au, complete with black wings and shit (insert that Matthew McConaughey smoking meme)”

warnings: slight cursing, mentions of mugging and cosplaying

word count: 3000+

The bell above the bar door rang overhead, breaking your focus on the cash register in front of you. Your eyes flashed up with an internal groan as you watched four more customers stroll in, the final minutes of your shift ticking by with no sign of emptying out the place. Your co-worker, a man in his late twenties with striking auburn hair and a customary beige jacket with a stain on one of the pockets whether he knew it or not, put a fresh toothpick between his teeth as he filled the glasses of a few regulars. The men occupying the stools glared at the TV screen over your co-worker’s shoulder, not paying much mind to him.

The drawer finally clicked open as a rush of relief washed over you. Taking the money from the people before you, you began to feel the hours of the day weighing on your shoulders. The thought of having to get up in a few hours to start your workday yet again made you feel almost sick. But anything for the financial stability you longed for. Who cares if you’re living in a mansion and driving a fast car? What you wanted was to have enough to get by after paying a major bill, or having the luxury to eat out every few days. Treating yourself to a new pair of shoes wouldn’t hurt either.

But here you were, clocking out of your third shift of the day, dead tired and wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and waste away for the few hours of sleep you could afford. You were grateful that your co-worker hadn’t batted an eyelash at the growing crowd and shooed you off for the night. The darkening night sky was almost a sea of black against the bright yellows of the street lamps illuminating the busy crosswalks and shop corners of the city block. You pulled your scarf further up around your nose to combat the dropping temperature as you cut down an alleyway. The biting barks of stray dogs fighting over a scrap of meat mixed with the various sirens echoing in the distance as you trudged along, attempting to remember if your uniform for tomorrow (or later) was clean.

You almost lost yourself deep enough in your thoughts to ignore the footsteps behind you. You willed your heart to mellow as you took a deep breath, your exhales curtaining around your face like smoke from a chimney on a winter day. Your fingers brushed against the metal canister of pepper spray hidden in your jacket pocket. You had been mugged before and swore to yourself you wouldn’t let it happen again. You threw a glance over your shoulder, finding an empty alleyway behind you. You shook your head, turning forward and gluing your eyes to the buildings at the other end of the alley. Count your steps! That’s it, keep calm. You scolded yourself.

The footsteps continued, slow and heavy, almost as if the owner were sauntering playfully towards you. Should I look again? No way, what if it’s just some kid. You pressed on, your palms growing sweaty as the footsteps began to gain on you. What if I let them get close and then whip around and startle them? What if they have a knife? A gun? You swallowed a lump in your throat, looking around to see if anyone would be able to hear you being murdered.

As if by instinct, you planted your feet and turned, eyes wild as you searched for the owner. The city seemed too quiet as you did this, the eerie silence only broken by your labored breaths. What happened to the dogs, the drunk women yelling for taxis? Where were the domestic disputes above you? You chewed the inside of your cheek, tugging your jacket tighter around you. Were you going crazy? Was the lack of sleep finally getting to you? You moved to head back in your original direction and smacked into a wall —- no, a hard chest.

Knocking you back a few steps, your eyes locked with a pair of nearly glowing blue ones. His sharp teeth peeked out from behind his lips as a small smirk drew a line on his face. “Boo!” He joked, sending you into action. You reached for your pepper spray and within a second he was doubled over screaming at you as you shoved past the mystery man and sprinted down the alleyway, ignoring his calls for you to wait. You ran as fast as your feet could carry you, your hair rustling into knots with your movements. Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck. Boo! Boo! What kind of a sicko-

“Stop running, you’re not going to get away,” he hummed as you turned a corner and nearly rammed into him again. You shrieked and took off in the opposite direction. How had he gotten there before you? The alleyway was quickly becoming a never-ending labyrinth of twists and turns with him at every stop. Your lungs felt as if they might burst and you decided to weigh your options. Could you take him? Depends. Were you carrying anything that had value? Did it matter? You stopped, your hands falling to your knees as you attempted to catch your breath. Your joints ached and your whole body screamed for rest. “I can do this all night if you wanna keep showing off how fast you run in those tennis shoes,” the man quipped. You straightened up as he came around your side to stand in front of you. The cold sweat running down your back sent an ick of goosebumps spreading across your body. You peered at him, your chest rising and falling in heavy breaths.

His blue eyes caught the glimmer of the street light as he moved, making the color almost icy. His dark hair curled around his ears ever so slightly, nearly masking the silver charm hanging from one of his ears. His dark suit sat squarely on his shoulders, no thanks to his posture. The more appalling part of him that you could shake from your mind was the pair of wings tucked close to his back. The dark glistening sheer of the feathers made them seem almost real, yet your mind searched for what they were truly connected to. Surely this man hadn’t ruined a suit so expensively tailored for a costume. They almost hung from him naturally, which almost made you question if they really were extensions of him. Just your luck: running into a cosplayer on a Thursday night.

He stepped to face you, your sights now picking up on the redness forming around his eyes as he squinted at you. “I can’t believe you pepper-sprayed me. Psycho,” he sneered, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

You scoffed, taking a step back from him. “I’m the psycho? What the fuck was that!” You threw your hand back in the direction which you had come, turning slightly to find the alleyway as it usually was. Where had the dips and turns gone that you had just sprinted through? You really needed a nap.

“Language! What if God hears you?” He nearly bit before snorting to himself like it was a preposterous idea to begin with. He raked a hand through his curls and sighed, looking you over as if he was seeing just what he had been dealt with. “What are we gonna do with you?” He asked, his accent almost husky as he spoke to himself.

You furrowed your brows, tilting your head as you stepped further away from him, making sure to hold your hands up in defense. “Look, buddy, I don’t know what you’re supposed to be but-”

He cut you off with a click of his tongue, his arms falling lazily as his sides as a defeated look settled into his posture. “Are you serious? You don’t know who I am?”

You shook your head slightly. “Uh… The dude from Legion?”

He smiled, his head tilting to match your angle in a soft and almost mocking manner. “No, silly! I’m your guardian angel. Always have been. I thought that was obvious.” He murmured the last part to himself as he searched your questioningly distrustful eyes. He took a few steps to close most of the gap between you and you stretched away from him.

“What do you mean guardian angel?” You bit, throwing your hands on your hips. The man wouldn’t let up his character. You squared up to him, despite his obvious height above yours. He seemed to play along as you did.

“I’m the one that looks out for you,” he grinned as if he were a proud child after finally accomplishing an art project for his mom. You returned his devious expression with a blank stare, wondering what number you should call to reach a mental institution quickest. He fell back on his heel, angling his face downwards slightly to get a better look at your eyes. “Don’t believe me?” You looked at him as if he were crazy. How could you! This man just chased you down an alley and is now claiming to be your guardian angel, as if that’s possible. Your mind wandered to your co-worker. Had he slipped something in your drink when you weren’t looking? Surely, not.

“Those eyes have never been good at hiding your true thoughts, you know?” He jeered, sending you a wink as he watched you search his face. A blush crept onto your face for a reason unbeknownst to you. Embarrassment maybe? His teeth sunk into his bottom lip as if he were biting back a smile as his dark wings began to expand behind him, stretching out to fill what space they could. You stumbled back slightly, tripping on your feet and landing on your butt as you stared up at the man in horror and maybe slight amazement. How had he engineered them to do that? Were they on a pulley system under his jacket? How did he make them do that without flexing a muscle?

You sat in silence, attempting to find words, a thought, anything to diffuse the situation. Finally, your mind clicked back into place and you pushed yourself up, brushing off your pants and sighing. You began to walk around him. “Okay, Metatron, I’m going home. This’s been fun but I have a shift in a few hours and I think I might have had something laced with PCP so-”

“Oh, come on, I’m not Metatron-”

“Fine, I’ll stop guessing. I just know I need sleep, and you’re some crazy dude in an alley I’ve been wasting too much time talking to.” He chuckled at your response. As you walked a few steps, you couldn’t help but turn back to him. “Plus, what kind of guardian angel looks like you. Aren’t you supposed to look like the Hitler youth with angel wings?”

He smirked, angling his chin up slightly as he ran his tongue over his white teeth. “Yeah, I am. Do you want a ride?”

“No, fuck off,” you quipped with a small laugh, heading in your destination’s direction.

The next morning, you woke up groggy and sore. As you pulled yourself together, you avoided looking at your schedule for the day, hoping that someone would need to switch for an earlier time slot so you could get home at a better time. The diner you worked at during the day was already buzzing with its usual customers coming and going. Families treating themselves to breakfast before heading off to work and school seemed to juxtapose those who were using the little spot as a truck stop. The out of state families were always the better tippers, unsurprising to you. Your routine of monotonously waiting tables and working the register seemed to fit you into your usual groove. That was until you spotted an all too familiar pair of blue eyes, making what you pegged as a dream last night come to life.

You stepped towards him cautiously, your mouth growing drier at the possibility that he had found you here, but by what means? Would he start showing up at your next jobs? Your apartment? The wings were gone, just as you had expected, yet that same sly look remained firmly planted on his lips. In place of the dark suit he wore last night was merely a white t-shirt and a leather jacket, which he had thrown lazily to the side of him in the booth. You straightened out the skirt of your uniform, tapping the end of your pen against the small pad of paper you gripped in your hand maybe a bit too tightly. “What can I get you today, sir?” You asked, making him turn his sights up to beam at you.

“Good morning, sunshine. How was your night?” He mocked, a devious sparkle in his eye. You rolled your eyes at his chipper smugness. He seemed less menacing than in the alleyway, but that wasn’t saying much, considering how dimly lit it had been last night. He now reminded you of someone’s AA sponsor rather than a sophisticated angel. “What do you recommend? I don’t eat-”

You leaned against his table slightly. “Would you drop the act already? You’re not an actual angel.”

His smile seemed to widen a touch. “I think that’s a conversation that we need to have actually. Which is partially the reason why I’m here. I know you get off around six-”

“Are you stalking me?”

“Sorry, did you miss the part where I’m your guardian angel? Or is that still lost on you?” His eyebrow perked up at your question. You couldn’t mask the look of disgust ripping through your body.

You wet your lips. “What do you want?”

He gave you a look suggesting it was obvious. “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you. I haven’t-”

“From me. Why are you here, now?”

He nodded. “Yeah, good question.” He grabbed his jacket from beside him and slid out of the booth, standing next to you. You furrowed your brows at him and he gave you a smug grin once again, heading towards the front of the diner with you scrambling after him. You reached for his arm to pull him back, only to get a spark of electricity singeing against your fingertips, making you groan. He stopped walking and turned to you, his eyes a darker shade. “Great, glad that’s over with. Now, relax,” he hissed, continuing straight towards your boss. What the fuck was happening? He started pulling his jacket on as he spoke to her, her eyes seemingly softening at him as she giggled at what he said. Was he charming her? He stepped out of the way so she could see you.

“It’s a wonderful day, why don’t you take some time off?” Your eyes flashed between the man and your boss, feeling like the world was spinning slightly as you attempted to piece together what was happening. You hadn’t realized you were holding the hand that had been shocked until the man grabbed it, pulling to behind him and out of the diner. He slung one of his legs over a motorcycle you assumed he owned and pushed up the kickstand. He nodded for you to climb on back.

“I need the tips from today. I’ll be behind on my rent-”

“I’ll take care of it,” he answered simply, handing you a helmet.

“No, way-”

“Yes, way. Come on,” he stated, kicking on the bike and pulling his own helmet on. You took a deep breath and compiled. Hell, you had the day off right? As you slunk onto the bike seat, the man pulled you closer to him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Try not to fall off. I don’t feel like trying to heal you up today.” As the bike began to move, you clung tighter to him, feeling him chuckle beneath your grasp. You pressed against his back, trying to figure out where his wings had gone and why the hell you were tazed when you touched him for the first time. Why were his eyes so radiant? Unnaturally radiant, that is. Who the fuck was he?

The ride flashed by rather quickly, your thoughts taking up most of the time you would have normally spent sight-seeing or wondering why in the hell you had gotten on the back of a stranger’s bike. To your surprise, you ended up at another restaurant, stationed in a booth opposite of this strange man as he ordered for you, in an attempt to lighten the shock of the situation. “I thought you didn’t know what food tasted good.”

“I was just playing cute. I thought it might make me more approachable for you.” You blinked at his words, feeling more unstable than when you were on the motorcycle. His demeanor had changed, he was almost tense now. “Where would you like me to start?”

You shrugged, your fear now becoming almost unmanageable. “Who are you?”

“My name is Dean. I was assigned to you when you were born.” You nodded slightly, unsure of what to ask next as you located all the exits in the restaurant. It was crowded, so you figured he wasn’t going to kill you at least. “You mentioned my appearance earlier. I don’t have that Aryan look you want because I’m not really an angel angel. I mean, I used to be.”

You narrowed your eyes. “So what you’re saying is…”

“I work for someone else now. If you get what I mean.” He smiled at the waiter as she brought out drinks for the two of you. He rubbed the back of his neck as he seemed to chew on other information in a way of deciding how to break what to you. “Besides, it’s better having my kind as your guardian than one of those halo pricks.”

You scoffed. “So why right now? Why not show up a few years ago or when I was a kid?”

He shrugged. “Your life is so shitty right now, you need me.” You narrowed your eyes. “Before you defend yourself and go all-mighty woman on me, I know you’re working hard and I know what you want. I can give that to you, and whatever else you desire.”

You put your chin in your hand. “For what? My soul?” You joked.

He rolled his eyes with a small chuckle, setting his arms on the table to lean towards you. “Only if you beg,” he winked. “Actually, there’s no catch. You just have to let me.”

…

Dean sat across the long dinner table from his superior, barely able to touch whatever gruel had been pushed his way. For how civilized it seemed they were, the demon appetite was next to animalistic. The cool air in the room was reflexive of the mood the opaque souls passing beside the large windows echoed: hollow and dead. The light in the room was only thanks to the moonlight shining through the barrier between the worlds. Dean let his mind travel to the day he had spent with you and how much you would hate to be dragged to hell beside him. Could he convince you it wouldn’t be so bad? Was it more just to end his own suffering by adding to yours?

His superior cleared his throat, brushing a napkin over his chin and standing. His chair made no noise as his figure looked almost wispy as he strolled toward the fireplace, breathing into the logs as if he were a dragon. Dean snickered slightly at the obscenity of the action. “It’s nearly time you know. For the Choosing, I mean.” Dean’s stomach tightened with anxiety at his words. The tall man took his place at the table again, his dark, pitted features unintentionally burning further into Dean’s memories. “I know what you’ve been doing in the mortal world. You think playing around with Gabriel’s daughter is a good idea when you should be looking for a mate you don’t have to kill when the time comes?”

Dean let out a sharp breath, the man’s words cutting deeper into Dean than he had expected them to. Dean looked down at his hands to regain his composure. He had almost had a terrible temper, especially when it came to you. “She doesn’t even know who she is. I can convince her-"

"No. You can’t. Besides, how would the Choosing play out with a demon-like you meddling in her life.” The man’s calm tone was almost more angering than the rules he was conveying. Dean stared blankly at the man, knowing full well he wouldn’t win this argument, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying. “I don’t care who’s son you are or how much you like her, I won’t let it happen.”

Dean swallowed. “She’s not like them.”

“I’ll arrange for the church to find you someone who could actually be a mate. Stay out of the mortal world, or at least hers,” the man stated firmly, nodding that Dean could leave finally. If only he could tell you the whole truth, would you believe him then? He shoved his fists into his pant pockets as he chewed his lip, strolling down the vast hallway from the room. Portraits of the underworld leaders lined the walls in different shapes and sizes. When he was younger, Dean had wanted to be among them, like his father. Now it only made him sick to think of the corruption and mass extinctions that got those men on the wall. Gabriel had been an ally of his father’s before the shit hit the fan.

When Dean found out the angels had been having affairs with mortals, he hadn’t blinked an eye; him having already been guilty of that sin himself. But as soon as he laid eyes on you, he wanted you. The Choosing had loomed over him like a rain cloud until that day. What was the worst that could happen if you were his victim for the Choosing? Well, fuck it right, he was already living in hell.

M A S T E R L I S T.

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littlemessyjessi · 4 years

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“Little Wife”: Part 2: Bjorn Ironside: Vikings Imagine

Bjorn Ironside Imagine Bjorn Ironside x Reader: Plus Size Reader, PS Reader , Non Viking Reader

Freezing cold sea spray hit me right in the face as I braced myself against the side of the ship.

Much to Bjorn's annoyance...seeing as he had told me to come away from it numerous times.

I ignored him...of course.

"You'll catch death before we arrive home." he said coming up behind me and wrapping another fur around me. "I wasn't planning on bringing a dead wife back, you little demon."

Some of the men chuckled at his exasperation.

They quickly labeled me as the thorn in their leader's side...much to their enjoyment and his displeasure.

Bjorn sighed as he stood behind me.

His firm chest pressed into the soft curves of my back.

I tolerated the furs and his bulky arms wrapping around me .... because it was actually cold...but I had never been so fascinated in my life.

I'd never left my village before and all I ever saw of the sea was from the shore.

This was a different and entirely mindblowing experience.

"You're mother seemed pleased that you're marrying into royalty." he commented and I whipped around to glare up at him.

"You just had to go and ruin my moment of happiness, didn't you?" I accused him with a withering look.

A few of his men chuckled and the smirk that coated his face made me want to attack him.

He was substantially bigger than me though and I was vastly outnumbered.

"You'll be a princess." one of them commented...though I felt it was more of a tease.

"Who said I wanted to be a princess?" I grumbled and savagely clutched the furs around me as I angrily stared out at the choppy waters.

"Don't all little girls want to be princesses at some point?" the same man asked teasingly.

I glared at him venomously, "No. Do all little Viking boys want to be filthy heathens?"

The men roared in laughter.

I shrugged as I turned back to the sea, "I'd rather be a heathen than a princess."

The men cheered at me and I laughed lightly.

"I thought I'd managed to marry a filthy heathen but turns out all I got is a useless prince. What rotten luck." I said teasing Bjorn who honestly took it in good stride.

He took my teasing fairly well....even if I was a hateful little badger at times.

"Well, this useless prince has no intentions of laying with a frozen corpse so.... good night lads." he said and with that he unceremoniously swung me over his shoulder and headed towards the back of the boat.

He placed me on my feet before settling down and pulling me down into him and basically hiding me completely with the furs.

"If you'll just stay there you'll be warm." he said.

"But I can't see." I whined. "And that was the whole point of coming along. I want to see."

He blew out an irritated breath at me.

"Alright, on your left there is water and ice. And on your right, more water and ice. Behind you, oh look more water and ice and up ahead.... wait a moment- oh no- more water and ice. You're not going to see anything for a while so just still before you fall in the water."

I was beyond irritated with this attitude he had.

Who the hell did he think he was telling me what to do and honestly did he expect me to listen to him?

To his credit, I had almost fell over on more than one occasion.

I felt that hulking chest of his deflate a bit underneath me as he sighed.

In reality I knew I was probably stomping on his last nerve and I'd deserve every bit of hostility but I was just excited.

The prospect of getting away from a place I never thought I'd leave was exciting for me.

I had mixed feelings on the whole situation, of course.

Leaving friends and family but at least it stopped the pillaging and I got to see the world.... or at the very least the sea.

I looked up at Bjorn, taking in his features.

He was a very rough man sort of man and in that there was such a beauty to him.

Not that I'd ever tell him such a thing.

I had no intentions of inflating his already enormous head on the situation.

"Hey." I said and he glanced down at me to acknowledge that he'd heard me.

"Tell me about your gods." I said and he lifted an eyebrow at me.

"What?" he asked, a tiny glint flickered in his eye.

"Your gods." I said. "I don't know anything about them and while I've honestly not been very interested in the customs of my village...I guess I should know if I'm supposed to marry a ..." I stopped to fake a gag. "prince."

He chuckled at me and swatted my bottom in jest.

"What is your distaste with the idea of being a princess?" he asked.

"You answer me first." I challenged.

"Honestly, it'll take much longer to explain the gods to you." he said. "And I'm not even sure that I should be the one to do such a thing."

"Is it only gods?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" he said.

"Is it only men? Are there women as well?" I asked laying my cheek upon his chest, relaxing a little into the warmth of him.

His arm pulled me closer so that his hands might lock around me.

"There are many goddesses." he said.

"It's not like that where I'm from." I remarked. "Women... women aren't looked at for much of anything in my village. To breed and bare children and if you don't...."

I didn't want to finish the tale to be honest because while I did have some fond memories of my village there were many that were not.

Bjorn seemed to notice my sudden drop in mood but I didn't really feel like elaborating on it.

He was silent for a moment.

"There is Freyja. She is a goddess of love and war." he said. "And her twin brother Freyr is a god of farming. They are both gods of fertility. We usually offer some form of swine to the twins."

"Offer?" I questioned.

"Slay it." he confirmed. "We slaughter the hog and have it in the form of feast in honor of them. Cats are sacred to Freyja as well."

"I like cats." I said. "Never had one. Tried to keep one once but it scratched me and ran off."

"That sounds like another hateful little creature I know." he teased and I lightly punched his side making him chuckle.

"Frigg is the wife of Odin. She is the goddess of wisdom and destiny. She can tug at the threads of fate. So if you stay in her favor she'll help you and if not she'll hinder you. Sound familiar?" he teased and I glared up at him.

"She's also linked with the sky, fertility, mothers and home." he said.

"Tell me more." I said sleepily snuggling into him.

His deep voice rumbled in his chest and lulled me right off to sleep.

I awoke a few hours later to the sound of laughter and the bright sun shining right in my face.

Bjorn had long since moved from beneath me and was standing near the front of the boat.

The men were merry as food and drink were passed around.

Apparently, the day was good and accordign to the talk amongst them....the gods had showed the voyage favor.

They'd pulled in many fish from the nets and there was a piece of land in the distance.

"Good morning, Princess to Be." said the same man from the night before with a glint in his eye and a smirk on his lips.

"Morning." I mumbled and narrowed my eyes but a smile on my lips none the less.

"Sten." he said and produced his hand to which I accepted and responded with my own.

"Eh, we might just call ye, Wee Demon." he teased and I shook my head at him. "Bjorn Ironside and his Wee Demon Bride."

"I'm not anyone's anything!" I snapped and he laughed.

I moved past the chuckling men and found Bjorn's hulking figure.

"Are there no women present here at all?" I asked him.

"Good morning to you too." he laughed looking out at the morning sun.

I blew a breath of frustration out through my nose.

"Good morning, dear husband to be. If it pleases you could you be so kind as to inform if any other creatures other than men inhabit this voyage?" I asked sarcastically.

He laughed at me, "Yes, there are many shieldmaidens with us. Most of which are on that boat there."

I squinted in the distance where I did in fact see many women inhabiting a particular boat.

Upon further inspection I discovered the were peppered amongst all the boats.

I guess I just didn't realize due to my excitement and exhaustion.

In fairness, they did bare many of the same hairstyles and armor.

At a glance, it wasn't that obvious.

"What's a shieldmaiden?" I asked.

"A warrior who happens to be a woman." he said.

"Can I meet them?" I asked.

"Are you interested in women?" he asked and I furrowed my brows at him.

"Excuse me?" I said. "How is that any of your business?"

"It's my business because I know those women and they'd love to get their hands on a soft, plump thing like you." he said.

"You don't own me, Bjorn." I said.

"So you keep reminding me." he said. "Even though you literally have no place to-"

"I will jump off this damn boat right now." I said staring up at him.

"Jump then." he countered.

"I would rather die than live wedded to a husband who thinks he can control me." I said. "So you let me know. Are you gonna be a tyrant or not? Because I'd rather die."

We stared each other down for the longest time.

The few moments of sweetness we had were fine but in reality.... this was not a fairy tale romance.

We'd struck a bargain but we hadn't fallen in love.

He stared at me for a moment longer before turning to the closest board and signaling them.

"Revna!" he called out and a tall woman with long black hair looked up.

In honestly, she was the most breathtaking woman I'd ever seen in my life.

The sheer power of her.

You just didn't see women like that were I came from.

The two boats came a bit closer together and he looked down at me.

"Go on then." he said. "If you're so determined to jump it shouldn't be a problem for you to swim the rest of the way."

"We can let the wee boat down for her." piped up a man from the back of the boat.

"No, let her go ahead." he said challenging me.

Mistake.

I glared at him momentarily before climbing over the side and diving into the water.

Yes, it was freezing.

Yes, it felt like a thousand knives were stabbing into me.

Yes, it felt like my lungs were about to explode as I broke the surface.

However, I'd drown before I'd let him see that.

I didn't even bother to look at him as I turned and swam towards the other boat.

The women there pulled me up and wrapped me in a fur.

I was enveloped into a ruckus of laughter, welcomes and congratulations.

I stared Bjorn down from across the water.

Truthfully, I was just as spiteful as he was but I'd be damned before I admitted that.

The woman known as Revna embraced me with a grin.

In person, she was much larger than I originally thought and quite intimidating.

"Welcome!" she said. "That was quite a move. We could've came and got you but I like a ballsy woman."

"Back off, Revna." one of the women laughed. "Apparently, she's supposed to be Bjorn's new wife."

"We'll see." I shrugged sassily and they roared in laughter.

"Fiery." Revna laughed. "I do like you."

I smiled, "He's not really so bad. He just likes to tell me what to do and I've never really reacted all that well to it."

She chuckled, "Bjorn is a decent man. He's had many a wife before but he's a decent man. He just falls in love too quick and likes to travel a lot. Sometimes this is hard on a relationship."

"I didn't know he'd been married before." I commented.

"Yeah." she chuckled passing me a bit of butter and bread. "Fair few times. A few have gotten themselves killed. Some just divorced."

"I told him I had no intentions of playing his little wife." I said before savagely cramming the bread in my mouth.

"We heard!" another woman said. "Everyone has been talking about how you might actually be the one to deal with him."

"Oh I'll deal with him alright." I grumbled.

"And so the honeymoon phase is over." Revna chuckled.

I glared at the side of his face.

If he wanted to be pissy then so did I.

Hello, darlings. Just a wee bit of a lover's quarrel, lol. They're both such tempermental brats.

I hope you enjoyed the next installment and that you have a lovely day.

Love, Kenny

@frankie2902

@pleasantdreamqueen @becrazy–beyou –beyou

@becrazy-beweird

@littledeadrottinghood @blackirisposts

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Love, Kenny

#bjorn ironside x plus size reader #bjorn ironside #vikings #vikings x reader #vikings x plus size reader #bjorn ironside imagine #ps reader #plus size reader

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peachyteabuck · 4 years

Text

treason against kingly youth, pt i of ii

summary: somehow, you survived the 2020 election. now, all you have to do is get a know-nothing white man into the senate. should be easy enough.

pairing: chris evans x reader

words: 3223

trigger warnings: rpf, white dudes doin White Dude Things

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

For a moment, just a moment, you allow yourself to breathe, really breathe. One, big breath in that clears the stress from your muscles, drops your shoulders, lets your whole body sag against the decade-old chair that you’re surprised hasn’t crumbled under the weight of your ever-tense body and its corresponding sins.

It’s a mere six feet away that everyone else you’ve worked with for the past three years with – the people you went through sleepless nights, long road trips, greasy food from mom and pop diners with the middle of assfuck nowhere, registering voters and writing up another plan for every fucking thing wrong with America (low teacher pay? Check. Electoral college ruining democracy? Check. Criminalization of homosexuality? Check. Private school sucking the life out of public schools? The monopoly artificially inflating prices on glasses up to 400%? The disparity between the number of men’s and women’s bathrooms in federal buildings? Check, check, check) – each and every person celebrates with wine and whiskey and any other alcoholic beverages they can get their underpaid hands on. It’s not even the cheap stuff, no, this is top shelf liquor. This is D-Day, “we’ve got an hour before the nuclear missile hits” liquor.

There are two times people go this all-out on their spirits – the end of the world, and the end of an election (though, to some, they’re the same thing).

But not you. Never pitiful little you. Pitiful little campaign manager you doesn’t rest, doesn’t get to stop pulling rabbits out of hats and money from single moms and votes out of college students.

There’s three TVs in front of your desk, each playing a different news station and each anchor drowning the others out. It’s a cacophony of white noise, and not because

The only voice, the only singular voice that has cemented itself into this far, previously blissfully unattended corner of your brain. You can hear her, feel her own on your shoulder – you can see her leaning against her old desk nestled in her home back in Massachusetts.

“I want you to be my chief of staff. You ran my campaign better than I could have asked for, and I would be incredibly lucky and blessed to have you run my White House.”

Your own voice rings next, always shakier than the time previous.

“I can’t do that,” your sigh gets deeper each time, too. “You know I can’t.”

Somehow, her voice always gets more confident. It’s one of those things about her, about the way she carries herself. If she’s faking that confidence you’d never know. “I know, but I’ll always tell you that there’s a place for you at the White House as long as I have something to say about it.”

In the sea of blue and red and white confetti and streamers and all the other shit people use to celebrate when their party wins an election, the thick, bleached white of your laptop screen stares back at you more menacingly than any Republican – winning or losing - you’ve ever met.

You’d like to think you are the kind professional that is never caught off guard, the kind of woman who can expect anything. But as the email that’s derailed your plan for the next four years stares back at you, the all-caps subject line feels more like the headlights of an 18-wheeler to a deer in the middle of a highway than an excellent career opportunity.

Still, with malt liquor in hand, you allow yourself a moment to breathe. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll make all of this just a little bit easier.

A little less than five hundred miles away, Christopher Robert Evans is the drunkest he’s ever been, surrounded by the same men he’s known since his freshman year of high school, yelling nonsensically as one of his current senators becomes the president-elect of the most power country on Earth.

The only coherent thing to leave the man’s mouth the entire night is oh so wonderfully caught on a friend’s iPhone and will – quite likely – be posted to some social media site by the next morning.

The video (which you will eventually be seeing at your first meeting with the Boston native) shows him in a Harvard sweatshirt (a university he did not attend), deep blue skinny jeans, and a Patriots hat balanced just enough to show his (possibly) thinning hairline. There, between his two best friends, he screams in his played-up Boston accent at the top of his lungs:

“I’M GOING TO BE A SENATOR, BITCHES!”

But you, back in D.C., are blissfully unaware of the long road ahead of you. So, you enjoy your malt liquor, and your small bit of quiet on election night – a sign of the muted calm before the political shitstorm ahead of you.

You end up not replying to said email the next morning (see: seven hours later after falling asleep in your chair for about five hours and then browsing angry GOP Twitter accounts while cackling into a cup of the blackest coffee you’ve ever tasted for the other two), confirming you’d be willing to work for Christopher Robert Evans’ campaign to run for the current president-elect’s soon-to-be open senate seat.

Or, at least confirming you’d speak to the Evans family to talk about running the campaign of the whitest man under the age of forty you’ve ever seen. Whether or not you ended up attempting to control what is likely another dumpster-fire campaign in a series of dumpster-fire campaigns. Harris is the one that comes to mind, but drawing any parallels between that woman and this man feels borderline offensive.

Plus, her senate run was successful. And she held elected office before that.

Why did you agree to do this again?

Right, you need money. So much money. All of the money. At least enough money that you can be bought from straight under the White House, which just so happens to be the amount the Evans estate offered you in exchange for your services.

Maybe that’s why you’ve found yourself in a conference room in an expensive office building, looking up at Chris Evans as his face turns red and your heart rate picks up.

“I’m Massachusetts’s best choice!” he screams, slamming his hands onto the table – a rich brown you sort of wish you could afford to have in your own home back at the capital. Your estate sale table, even with the coat of white paint you gave it after buying it, still can’t hold a candle to the beautiful grooves and smooth top.

But this isn’t time to yearn for better interior design prospects. Now is the time to put this moderate democrat man-child in his upper-middle-class place.

“Chris, you’re the best choice for an internship for the fucking EPA,” you nearly hiss. “You’re in the intern in Vice who watched Dick Cheney make deals with those fucking oil businessmen. You’re the shiny faced bastard who watched the world burn while listening to a Walkman. Do you understand me?”

His teeth are barred like he’s about to bite at your face; luckily that man comes with an electric collar and you’ve got the controller.

“Your biggest qualification is you got a five on the AP Gov exam. You have a single living family member who has held elected office in the last five years, and he was in the House of Representatives. The House! He wasn’t even in the chamber you’re gunning to be a part of. You were an econ major with a minor in, what? Poli sci? At a mid-tier university because your family doesn’t have Kushner money to bribe your acceptance letter out of a better one. Your main job after college was working as an accountant for old fraternity because they get audited so often the IRS had to release a public statement saying they were changing their processes for such matter on college campuses. You’re so moderate you’re in the aisle playing legislative mad-libs while everyone fawns over your B+ facial hair and C- chest tattoo. You’re a cute puppy at a for-profit rescue, you’re eye candy on a political television show.

“You’re the type of person who didn’t think that Gillibrand was done for before the second debate. That’s the problem with you. I mean there are lots of problems with you, but that’s the one I’m most annoyed with right now. It’s not that you can’t understand patterns or see what’s going on around you. It’s that you were never forced to. When you walk outside in the dark, I bet you don’t look behind you, you don’t clutch your keys like claws to protect yourself. You know how much pepper spray costs? Do you know what a noisemaker does? No, you’ve never had to. You’ve never had to shield yourself from danger because the rest of the world did that for you.”

It’s then that you realize you’re both standing, your finger jabbed into the Windsor knot of his tie. Still, you don’t stop.

“You are the shell of an actual politician; you represent a safe option for right-adjacent Democrats and moderate Republicans who hate the president’s coalition and women. Especially women of color. You’re the perfect option because you stand for nothing of substance, you do nothing on your own. You’re a cover for old racist white men and moderate white women who need something to attatch their lack of political knowledge to during dinner conversations. Either you shape up, or I’m leaving this campaign and watching your inevitable fall from my office in the White House. I will drink a martini in the West Wing the day you lose, I will release a glowing endorsement of the first liberal who so much as whispers about taking your ass down. Do you understand me?”

The longest few seconds of your life pass with bated breath as you two stand there, chests rising and falling in a synced rhythm with your jaws set. It’s a stand off, neither of you willing to look away from the other’s eyes.

“Do you understand me, Evans?” you bite, getting angrier at each passing Chris says nothing. It’s not the self-reflective kind of silence, it’s the generic peanut butter when you’re too broke to afford the real stuff. It’s pasta before a marathon. It’s ads the radio station plays when they’re out of loops of the latest rape-adjacent pop hit.

It’s a filler. And it’s a bad one.

“¿Te comprende?” You’re almost yelling now, screaming in his face louder than you’ve ever screamed before. “¿Me necesitas para decirlo de nuevo?”

Another heavy pause. Chris’ voice is rough as he speaks, like ten grit sandpaper. “Yeah, I get it. I fucking get it.”

And with that, he grabs his side bag and stomps out of the conference room, grumbling something about high school Spanish and Despacito. You ignore his tantrum – unlike his father, who moves to run after him. You shoot daggers into the silver-haired ca, and he sits back down.

You push the too-sweet aftertaste of canned fruit to the back of your mouth. The thick resume paper slides out of your laptop-case-slash-important papers-folder with ease, the heavy five-hundred word essay on why you hate your job detailed in 12-font Times New Roman, pristine black letters nearly shining in the low light.

“That’s my letter of resignation,” you say, looking your boss dead in the eyes. With his jaw set the way it is, you expect to hear his teeth cracking before you could leave the boardroom.

“You know we can’t accept this,” his father says with a tone that’s much too close to a laugh. A nervous laugh, but one that makes you feel like he’s treating you as if you were a joke nonetheless. “You’re our only hope for this race.”

The second sheet of paper - or, rather, the small stack with a staple in the top right corner perfectly perpendicular to the nearest corner - hits the table next. “Then, these are my demands. Let me know by midnight tonight if you can meet them or not so I know whether or not to accept a job somewhere else.”

With that, you pick up your coat and leave.

The driver, a single mom in her mid-forties who is helping put her only son through college, laughs when you enter the backseat of her vehicle. It’s not condescending, not something you feel offended by. Rather, shame paints your face.

“Did Mr. Evans-Junior snap?” She asks as she pulls away. Her tone is knowing, too knowing. How long has she worked for the Evans anyway?

You sigh, then scream into your hands. The woman in front of you doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move a muscle as she waits for your reply. “He’s an idiot.”

The woman laughs. “That’s not what I asked, and I know you know that.”

You’re tempted to scream again, only a little louder. You don’t. “He snapped. I snapped,” you sigh again as you watch out the window. It’s late, too late for traffic to be like this. Fuck Boston. “Now I want to go home and take off my bra and wash off my make up and ger super drunk and shave all my hair off and quit my job and become a sheep herder in Iceland.”

The woman doesn’t disagree, doesn’t negate. She gives you the wonderful gift of silence until she drops you off, waving you goodbye.

“You have a good night,” she calls.

“I’ll do my best,” you shout back.

You’re alone in your apartment, dressed in the most comfortable (and expensive) pair of pajamas you own with red wine and some playlist titled an artsy version of “my life is very sad and my world is falling apart so I bought a $200 bottle of alcohol and hope I cry off my name-brand make up before I have to reemerge into the eyes of polite society,” when you get the text you’ve been dreading. It’s Chris, with his perfect capitalization and punctation and lack of emoji use. You’ve seen the way he texts the rest of the team, his family, his friends. He only pulls that shit with you.

Fuck, you think as you open the message. That kid’s really gotta loosen up. Isn’t weed legal in Massachusetts? He’s a Democrat, there’s no excuse.

He’s asking if he can come over, because of course he is. You’re just lucky the message is something closer to “I feel bad and wish to speak about it with you in person” instead of the crass “u up” you expected. Still, when the three dots at the bottom of the screen appear once again, you assume it’s going to be a picture of his junk that loads.

“Please,” is all the text says.

You acquiesce, sending him something akin to a “Fine but if you step out of line again your ass is going to be explaining why you fucked up to the cold-as-fuck pavement outside.”

You hear the knock at your door thirty minutes later (you often forget how shitty Boston traffic is), opening it to reveal the saddest white boy you’ve ever seen in your short life.

His chestnut hair is disheveled enough to indicate he’d had half of a sleepless night. This is the most casual you’ve seen him – basketball shorts with another Godforsaken Harvard hoodie with Nike sneakers – bags under his eyes completing the “sad frat boy who probably just flunked a chem exam” kind of look.

“Can I come inside?” he asks.

You sigh, trying to figure out how your life came to this. A jerk of your chin allows him entry into your small apartment, every surface littered with physical copies of presentations and a map of Massachusetts covered in stickers and sticky notes and scribbles of poll numbers from past campaigns. To Chris’ untrained eye it all looks like the homestead of a serial killer, but to anyone else on his campaign it’s his ticket to the senate. Politics is a game, a game with very public winners and losers and those who fall between; anyone who doesn’t study all of those outcomes is destined to find themselves either a) in a vacation home in the hills of Vermont drunk as hell, or b) running for president.

(You’ve considered how likely both of those possibilities are, and part of you fears he’ll do both).

There’s a heavy, awkward silence that falls over the room as you both sit down, facing each other.

“So,” you ask awkwardly. “Do you want, uh, a beer…or something?”

Chris shakes his head. “No, I’m, uh, I’m alright. Thanks.”

You sigh a little, relieved. “Good, because all I have is very expensive red wine and judging by our past interactions it is not worth having it spilled all over my white carpet.”

For a moment it’s obvious he doesn’t realize that you’re kidding, but after a few seconds of a facial expression that’s a perfect blend of concerned, rejected, and confused – he lets a little smile get past his façade.

“Yeah, uh,” he laughs. “That sounds like a bitch to clean up.”

What follows is a few minutes of incredibly awkward silence as he looks around your house once more and you take the opportunity to look at him.

It’s weird to see him in this state – it’s weird to see him as something human.

Still, you want to snap at him when he breaks the quiet.

“I want to do better,” he says, voice small. He avoids meeting your eyes, wrings his hands while he looks at the floor. “I thought about what you said and I,” he sighs. “I’m sorry. I want to do better…for you.”

You sigh, placing your red wine on the side table next to you before clasping your hands together. “Look, if you’re winning this election for me-“

“I’m not,” Chris says way too defensively. You let it slide for your own sanity.

“If you’re doing this for me, you’re going to be disappointed. Mostly because what your father wants and what I want are two very different things,” Chris opens his mouth to speak again but you hold you hand up to silence him. “Listen, I have a few rules with my clients. The first one is don’t lie to me. We can talk around this all day outside the boundaries of this home, but if you can look me in the eye on my couch while I drink my wine and tell me you’re doing this for a love of the people or whatever, I’m going to need you to leave.”

Chris gives you a single silent nod.

“But, if you want to win this shitshow…” you drink the rest of the glass in a single gulp. “Then, yeah. Let’s fucking do this.”

Chris lights up.

“But, I have some rules.”

He nods silently, allowing you to continue.

You count off on your fingers. “Don’t lie to me. When I ask a question, answer it. If I don’t ask a question, answer it anyway. I want to know everything, got it?”

Chris nods.

“The only time I don’t want you to speak is when I tell you to shut the fuck up. You got that, too?”

Chris nods again.

“Good, then I have a sneaking suspicion this will work out just fine.”

#chris evans x reader #lukis writes stuff #senator evans #chris evans smut #chris evans imagine

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chimaeracabra · 4 years

Text

Cooking for Cap

Author’s Note: I’m Nigerian. Lately I’ve been cooking a lot of jollof rice, wanting something new to eat in quarantine times. It’s one of my favorite dishes. Lots of autobiographical info thrown in here.

Genre: Fluff/romance

Captain Steve Rogers leans attentively against the counter in the kitchen, watching Ada mete out a mess of seasonings he has never cooked with in his life. The centenarian usually ate whatever Sam, Bucky, Wanda, or Nat cooked. He isn’t very handy around the kitchen; he can make a good sandwich, a burger, the standard American diet, but he doesn’t know his way around cooking much where boiling isn’t involved. Ada’s umber gaze meets Steve’s and he blushes a little bit, returning her smile. Her teeth could have literally shined, they were so white in contrast to her rich espresso skin.

“I’ve heard of thyme,” he nods, as she holds the bottle up his way before dumping a large teaspoon of the herb into a saucer, where she had already collected sea salt, curry powder, and bay leaves.

“And this?” she asks, holding up a small clear bottle of something he hasn’t used before. The Captain’s wheat gold eyebrows arch as he reads the label.

“Cayenne…wait, isn’t that the stuff they put in pepper spray?” he asks a little nervously.

Ada laughs.

“I think so. But don’t worry, it’s still edible. And I never make it too spicy for…well…” Had it not been for the deepness of her complexion, Steve would have seen Ada blush, “when I cook it for other people,” she finishes, her eyes lingering a moment on his exposed forearms. They’re noticeably milky, in stark contrast to the black shirt he’s wearing, which hugs his shoulders such that Ada can see the bulge of his muscles when he shifts, standing up straight and gripping the counter. Measuring half a tea spoon of the lethal spice and adding it to the saucer, Ada’s heart throbs slightly as Steve smiles and starts around the counter until he’s standing next to her, seemingly mesmerized.

“The recipe actually calls for one and a half teaspoons of cayenne, plus a Scotch bonnet pepper, which I hardly ever use,” she explains, reaching for garlic and plucking about four cloves to peel.

“And I always like to do my garlic and ginger fresh,” she explains, sparing him a glance. As she peels the garlic, Steve’s white hand gracefully reaches for the plate of seasonings she’s compiling and he lifts it slowly to his nose. He closes his icy eyes and sniffs it gently.

“Mmmm,” he hums. Ada can just about feel this expression of satisfaction rumbling deep within his chest. He places the saucer back where it was gently.

“I can’t wait to try it, Ada,” he admits, “Aside from Thai food, I haven’t really had much of anything with all these powerful flavors,” Steve explains.

“Oh, yes, it’s—”

“ACHOOO!”

Steve had abruptly turned away from her in time to catch his sneeze, which causes Ada to laugh.

“Yeah. You never want to straight up sniff pepper,” she says, “Especially not cayenne.”

“Noted,” Steve sniffles, turning back to her, “Burns a little,” he says with an awkward smile, scratching the back of his neck. His nose has pinkened now and Ada knows that another sneeze is coming. The Captain makes it to the roll of paper towels and catches his sneeze, his ears met with the pleasant ring of Ada’s laughs. She wonders, had she had the actual pepper, whether the star-spangled hero would have been able to handle her jollof. Steve is so overtly strong that it was rather amusing to Ada that a bit of spice could pretty much take him out.

“Wow, that’s powerful,” he notes, before sneezing again, walking around the counter and returning to his safe distance from Ada’s preparation.

“It smelled good, though,” he admits, his eyes fixed on what she’s doing with genuine interest. Ada opens the food processor and drops the cloves of garlic in before finally peeling some fresh ginger and adding a smaller amount of the herb to the food processor. It’s loud for about thirty seconds before the device yields the desired result. She adds the minced garlic and ginger to the saucer with everything else. To Steve’s relief, Ada had purchased pre-chopped onions. She had admitted to hating cutting them herself. She often had to use goggles, they made her eyes so sensitive. The red of the bell pepper pops against Ada’s espresso fingers, and the sight is oddly satisfying to Steve’s sapphire gaze. He watches her chop and de-seed all three bell peppers before chopping two plump tomatoes, and adding the onions, peppers, and tomatoes to the Ninja Blender Natasha had bought for the kitchen not too long ago.

It doesn’t take long for the mixture to be like a soup, which Steve observes, having moved around the counter again to stand closer to Ada.

“This you can safely sniff,” she grins, opening the blender. Steve’s hands brush hers lightly as he reaches for it, and his heart skips a beat. Her laugh chimes in his ears again as he closes his frosty eyes and takes a sniff of the blended vegetables.

�� “Smells kinda like…salsa?” he says.

“It pretty much is, at the moment,” Ada beams. He places the blender on the counter again.

“Now, will you mix the herbs in?” she asks, handing Steve a wooden spoon. He’s honored she’s allowing him to do anything at this point. He had asked several times before she even started whether he could lend a hand, and Natasha had passed through at one point to tell him to “let the woman cook. He wasn’t Nigerian and didn’t know his way around their food,” which had caused the Captain to roll his eyes genuinely, but it made Ada laugh. And he loved when Ada laughed because her perfect teeth would show and just be so bright against her skin. It made his stomach do summersaults. Steve mixes the herbs into the blended vegetables as thoroughly as he can after removing the blender’s blades.

He watches Ada pour a half cup of vegetable oil into a large pan and cover it with a lid. At some point between preparing the herbs and chopping the vegetables, she had measured one and a half cups of water and poured it into a separate pot on the stove with the heat medium. She now dumps two and a half cups of brown rice into the pot to parboil it.

“And then all you do is heat the oil, simmer the vegetable mix, and add in the rice,” she explains, throwing away the peels from the garlic and ginger, the pieces of the bell peppers she omitted.

“I bet it’s going to smell delicious.” Steve mixes until the herbs are evenly dispersed, “Can I pour it?” he asks.

“In about ten minutes. Just need the rice to finish parboiling.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Normally, we use medium-grain rice in jollof. But I love brown rice,” Ada smiles. Steve loved brown rice, too. It was heartier, more satisfying than white rice. In fact, he thought it more visually appealing, as far as meal preparation went. It was just so earthy and healthy.

“If my dad saw what kind of rice I use, he would probably roll over in his grave.”

At this, Steve laughs genuinely, Ada following suit. He liked that she shared things like this with him. It wasn’t very hard to get to know Ada. From the moment he’d begun to train her, Ada had stood out among the other recruits in a way that Steve couldn’t really put his finger on. Maybe it was something in the way that her laugh made his heart race, or her cheekbones which could have cut diamonds, or the perfect way her hips were wide and swung when she walked, Steve blushing now as Ada traipses to the trash to throw away pieces of unused vegetable. He swallows hard. He has never really seen an ass like that.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t sniff that cayenne again, did you?”

“What?”

“Your face is so red, Steve,” Ada explains.

Steve glances out the window, and Ada senses the faintest bit of nervousness emanating off of him.

“Guess that pepper got into the air a bit,” he says.

And he turns away in time to catch another sneeze in his elbow. Little does Ada know that this sneeze was in fact fake. Steve pulls himself together, hearing the sound of the refrigerator dispensing filtered water behind him. When he turns around, Ada is already approaching him with a glass of water.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks,” he says, and he blushes like a cherry for a moment. Ada begins to wonder if it was really the cayenne that had gotten to him again.

“How long does it cook for?”

“Maybe forty minutes. I usually lose count after thirty. I just like it to cook long enough that the rice is neither squishy, nor too al dente.”

He nods.

“And the other key ingredient, which I don’t personally use, is a bouillon cube.”

“Hmmm, I’ve never heard of a b…bou,” Steve struggles with the word, which makes Ada hold back a laugh, “B...booollon cube.” Ada starts laughing and Steve pulls his phone out of his pocket and Googles it. The phone says it and he repeats it correctly with finality, looking rather satisfied with himself.

“Yes. It’s a—”

“Stock cube. A type of broth, formed into a small cube about thirteen millimeters wide, typically made from dehydrated vegetables, meat stock, a small portion of fat, MSG, salt, and seasonings, shaped into a small cube,” Steve finishes, flashing her a smile, and pocketing his iPhone. Ada nods.

“Well, I think what you already used will be more than enough seasonings for me,” he adds, “Plus, I swear I’ve heard some bad news about MSG.”

“Yeah, that’s part of why I don’t use it,” Ada explains.

“Did your dad use bouillon cubes?”

“He did, actually. But I can’t remember him ever making jollof. I do remember him making rice and stew, and when I was in fourth grade, he’d make a lot of it, and my mom would come into the classroom and read about Kwanzaa to my class, hand out the food, and everybody loved it,” Ada continues, this faraway, nostalgic expression surfacing on her face as she leans back against the sink, her arms crossed as she nods into the gustatory memory.

“Yes, and my mum would bring in these kente cloth scarves and give one to everybody. My classmates really liked the way my mom would read the Kwanzaa book.”

“It’s like Hanukkah, sort of,” Steve chimes excitedly, “Well, I mean you still have that candle stand, which looks kind of like a menorah. But it’s like a celebration of the harvest, isn’t it?”

When Ada’s umber gaze meets Steve’s again, his pulse quickens.

“I spent a little bit of time in Wakanda and I was there during some of it,” Steve adds. He’s cultured, curious, open, and eager to learn, something which Ada finds rather delightful.

“Hmmm, let’s see…” Steve’s frosty gaze is cast skywards momentarily, “There are seven principles. Umoja, for unity in the family and community. Ujima, collective work and responsibility…boy, there’s a bunch I won’t even try to pronounce or I’ll butcher it,” he grins. Ada finds herself very impressed suddenly, especially considering how much trouble he’d had pronouncing bouillon, a French word. The principles just sort of rolled off Steve’s tongue as though he’d said the words regularly.

“You know a lot more than most people.”

Steve shrugs.

“Well, that’s a shame. African history is American history.”

“Very true.”

Ada’s heart swells. There’s a moment of silence between the two, where they’re just looking at each other. Steve shifts slightly, his brawny arms traveling from across his chest, his hands landing on the counter on either side of him. There’s a noticeable vibe or tension between them, so thick that the pair is almost certain they could cut it with a knife.

“Do you actively celebrate?” Steve asks.

“Me? Oh, my family did. Sometimes, one of my aunts would invite everyone over and one of my uncles would lead a libation in Igbo,” Ada smiles, lost in memory again, “And in my immediate family, we did it when I was growing up. But over the years, we just kinda got lazy and kept forgetting to light the kinara—the candle holder. So, eventually, we stopped.”

Steve looking rather sad to hear so makes Ada feel the same way.

“That’s too bad,” he says, “People don’t really observe holidays like they did when I was coming up. We used to actually go to church and mass for Christmas. I never really got that many gifts growing up poor, and now it’s all the kids ever care about. They don’t really understand the significance of the holiday anymore. Same applies to a number of other holidays.”

“I agree. It’s gotten very…secular.”

Steve sighs wistfully, shakes his head in disappointment.

“Ada, I tell you, if I had kids, they’d understand their roots and the history behind that. It really teaches values that people don’t exactly bother to pass down in quite the same way in this day and age.” His gaze makes her uncomfortable suddenly, but not in a bad way. Just the way he was talking made it feel like it was about her specifically. Sometimes she forgets just how old Steve is. It’s very clear to her that his life experiences have taught him things in a similar, yet vastly different way. He could appreciate things like this in ways many people were simply not open to in her experience.

“That makes sense. I mean, I couldn’t really tell you everything about Kwanzaa, if I’m honest. But the food is just so vivid to me.”

“Food is something everybody likes, right?” Steve beams, “It’s a great way to experience culture.”

Ada nods, “I’ve never made it myself, but my dad used to make fufu—”

Steve snaps his fingers, “I’ve had that. With the spicy soup? Burnt the mouth off me when T’Challa had me try it,” Steve reminisces. Ada laughs.

“Very tasty, though.”

“Yes, that’s why it’s called pepper soup,” she giggles, “You’re brave, Steve.”

“He warned me, too,” the Captain grins, “But I liked the flavors.”

“So, then my jollof will be less than mild for you.”

The timer goes off and Steve checks the rice with an oven mitt.

“This ready?” he asks, gazing into the steaming pot. Ada hurries over to dip her spoon in the side and check that the water is gone. When she finds that it has all evaporated, she nods and turns on the pot inside which she had poured the vegetable oil.

“Now, we just heat this oil up, and you can add in the vegetable mix.”

Steve reaches for the blender full of blended onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, and herbs, removing the lid and closing his bright eyes to inhale a few more times. There’s something almost erotic about the way his chiseled face develops such a satisfied look. And he gazes down at her, the corner of his full, pink lips curling. Ada melts for a handful of seconds, beginning to sweat a little bit. She suddenly tears her gaze away and uses the same oven mitt with which Steve had checked the rice to lift the lid off the pan of oil and find that it is beginning to bubble and pop.

“Shit,” she mumbles, “go ahead, before the oil splashes.” She moves clear out of Steve’s way and he pours the vegetable mix into the pan, her ears perking up to the sizzling noise that it makes.

“Wow,” Steve states, turning the heat down, something Ada was about to do when he beat her to it. He reaches for the wooden spoon and stirs the mix into the oil, as if he has cooked this hundreds of times before.

“Is this good?” he asks.

“Yes. You’ve definitely gotta turn the heat down so it doesn’t burn.”

Steve nods. Shortly, he places the lid back on the pot to get it to heat up the vegetable mix faster.

“And once that’s hot enough, add the rice?”

“You’re a natural,” Ada shrugs, impressed with his eagerness to cook. Steve has been wanting to get better at cooking, and his hands-on approach allows her to relax a little bit.

“In the meantime, I’m gonna go ahead and wash these.”

Ada retrieves the blender and the food processor.

“You’ve already worked so hard. Don’t add in extra work for yourself,” Steve explains, taking the blender out of her hands before she can put it in the sink and opening the dishwasher, which still has dirty dishes from breakfast in it, and the pan on which Wanda had made some sort of Sokovian pancakes for everyone. Ada loves this about being on the team. Everyone is so warm and inviting to her so far, sharing their homelands in the kitchen. She finds herself looking forward to some Asgardian dish Thor had decided to cook for dinner.

Steve’s milky hand brushes Ada’s as he takes the food processor, disassembling it, and placing the parts strategically in the dishwasher. He then reaches into the cupboard for a clean dishtowel, soaking it under hot water, and adding a little dish liquid before rubbing it to get suds and approaching the counter where she’d prepared ingredients. Ada lifts the cutting board out of his way and pauses at the sink to watch Steve wipe the counter clean. She had seen him clean up before, but something about it is very appealing and she turns away to finally wash the cutting board, glad he can’t see her blush. By the time she turns around, she finds Steve spooning the rice into the pan. She leans against the counter to watch him stir until everything is evenly dispersed. He places the lid on again, turning to look at her.

“Thirty minutes? Forty?” he asks.

“Just do thirty for now.”

His fingers punch in the numbers and he looks rather satisfied with himself. His stomach growls audibly and he blushes.

“The stomach doesn’t lie!”

Ada giggles.

“Can you wait that long?” she asks.

“Of course. How about some coffee in the meantime?”

Before Ada can answer, Steve is already pulling the French press and his favourite brand of coffee out of his area in the cupboards. Steve loves coffee. It’s his favorite part of the day, and everyone knows never to borrow Steve’s coffee without asking first. He just wasn’t himself in the morning without it. He preps it all so quickly, producing two large mugs by the time Ada answers him.

“Sure, I’ll have a little.”

“A little? Come on,” he says, that New Yorker accent making its way out of his mouth. He winks, causing Ada’s heart to race again. The scooper looks comically small in Steve’s large hand as he scoops a generous amount of the ground beans into the French press. Ada helps him by filling the kettle and placing it on the stove. Steve turns it up high, eager for his coffee.

“It’s starting to smell good.” Steve hovers near the cooking rice and inspires deeply.

“It’s my favorite west African dish.”

“I can always tell by the smell that I’m gonna like something,” Steve explains.

Shortly, the kettle whistles and Steve wastes no time in pouring the boiling water into the French press.

“You take cream and sugar?” Steve asks, stepping towards the fridge.

“Uh, I can’t do dairy.”

“Oh, right. I forgot, sorry,” he explains, glancing back at her before finding her almond milk. He shakes the bottle, something he has seen Ada do several times in the morning before adding some of it to her cereal. He glances at the bottle.

“You, uh, like vanilla?” he asks. Again, she’s glad he can’t see her blushing.

“I don’t know what kind of psychopath uses plain almond milk in their cereal,” Ada explains, cocking an eyebrow. This causes Steve to laugh heartily as he places the milk on the counter beside the French press. Ada’s humor is very unique, he has learned, and it always leaves his gut aching, especially when she doesn’t laugh nearly as hard as something she’s said causes others to laugh.

“Well, you’re in luck, doll,” he says. Doll. Ada has heard him call only his closest female acquaintances this nickname, but something about the way he says it to her is just unique, “‘Cause I only do French vanilla for coffee. I’ll do hazelnut every now and then, but something about vanilla…”

Many times, Ada had passed by Steve in the kitchen and he’d been caught off guard by something he’d smell. It took a while, but he had begun to realize that it was Ada’s skin or hair. He never got quite close enough to distinguish which part of her it was, but it always smelled very pleasant to him. As she turns on her heel to bring the saucer she had put the herbs on to the dishwasher, her braids whip slightly in their pony tail, and Steve catches the scent again. He closes his eyes in the moment, not wanting the aroma to dissipate. He turns away towards the counter again, unable to fight the fire beneath his cheeks. He keeps his back turned as he presses the plunger down slowly, forcing the coffee beans under pressure, releasing their oils and scent.

She hasn’t had the pleasure of Steve making her a coffee yet, but he always would if anyone asked. His nisus to get her a cup fascinates her as she watches him lift the lid of the French press. Carefully, he brings it to her nose and she takes a whiff.

“Wow, that’s powerful,” she says, closing her eyes. Steve smiles.

“Trust me, you won’t find a brand as good as this one anywhere else,” he promises, handing her the bag so that she can read the label.

She watches Steve pour and mix some vanilla almond milk into her cup, stirring it gently.

“You may not even need sugar,” he says, pouring his own cup next. He adds one spoon of sugar to his cup before taking her almond milk back to the fridge. He makes his way back to the counter without the milk.

“You don’t use creamer?” Ada asks.

“No. I like my coffee black,” he explains, looking her full in the eyes as he continues to stir his cup. A lump develops in Ada’s throat, and she can’t tear her eyes away from the Captain’s, but her hand reaches shakily with his bag of coffee and places it back on the counter top. There’s not much space between them now, and Steve looking down at her creates that tension again. It’s rather swift when he ducks his head to compensate for her height at last. Her hands already knew where they wanted to land, and she finds herself clutching Steve’s shoulders as his mouth makes full contact with hers.

Steve’s lips are as kissable as Ada had imagined. They aren’t thin, like some of the white men she’d kissed before. But hers are as juicy as he thought they would feel. His hands rest gently at the small of Ada’s back, and she’s a little surprised when his tongue makes contact with hers. He’s not shy at all. A satisfied mmm emanates from Steve’s mouth, traveling through Ada’s whole being, causing her to shiver, despite the heat of his hands, one of which is drifting towards her rear. He seems to be enjoying a taste, a smell, similarly to how he had sniffed the blended vegetables. She starts to wonder how long Steve has been wanting to do this. The thought had crossed her mind several times.

“It smells amazing in—!”

Natasha stops dead in her tracks, Steve releasing Ada’s left butt cheek almost as quickly as he had grabbed it.

“Here,” Natasha finishes, cocking a flaming brow and smiling, Sam beside her looking away as if he hadn’t seen anything, but the two of them know that he did. Steve scratches the back of his head a moment, looking rather disappointed to be interrupted.

“Ada is making us jollof rice for lunch,” Steve explains, crossing his arms.

“Uhuh,” Natasha nods, walking towards the cupboards and pulling out one of her bags of popcorn before popping it in the microwave.

“Call me when it’s ready.” Sam’s voice fades as he makes his way casually out of the kitchen.

“Well, I’ve been wanting to ask you out on a proper date,” Steve explains, looking hypnotized as he speaks quietly to Ada, knowing that Natasha can still hear him. Ada gazes past him at Natasha, who is grinning knowingly. The redhead gestures to her encouragingly.

“Ya know, at like a restaurant, where we can eat…in private.”

Ada laughs. For a moment, Steve looks crushed.

“I’d love to, Steve.”

He exhales in what seems like relief, and they reach for their coffee at the same time, unaware of the buttery aroma filling the kitchen, mingling with the jollof’s savory scent, the popping noises in the background, that same tension resurfacing.

“It’s about time, Rogers. I knew you liked her!”

Steve nearly chokes on his coffee.

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hallowed-be-thy-username · 4 years

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If You’re Good At Something, Never Do It For Free Chapter One: In Need Of Some Assistance

I figured I’d post the first chapter of my WIP on here! TDK Joker x Original Female Character. It is currently at 17 out of ? (Where it stops, nobody knows!) chapters on AO3!

**Warnings for full fic include: Graphic violence, explicit language, blood and gore, smut smut smut, graphic depiction of corpses, murder, aaaand recreational drug use!**

Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! I might eventually put all of the chapters up on here or check it out on AO3!

Meet Nora Hawthorne. She spent her time like most Gotham residents. Go to work, go home, keep up with the news. That changed one night. Her life becomes even more interesting after Gotham's own Clown Prince of Crime comes crashing in with a life-threatening injury, leaving her questioning her morals as well as her romantic desires

Jesus, it’s been a long day. A woman with brunette hair above her shoulders, wearing a pair of loose teal green scrubs stands from her desk chair to twist her torso until a satisfying *crack* is heard, followed by a deep sigh. The noise of her tired spine popping into alignment is heard only by her as she stands alone in the treatment area of the now empty veterinary hospital. The brick structure sits between an apartment building and a law firm in West Harlow, the Gotham City neighborhood west of downtown, adjacent to The Narrows. This location makes Dr. Nora Hawthorne one busy veterinarian. On a daily basis she tends to anything from impatient businessmen toting in their wives’ teacup Yorkies with a little cough to large Rottweilers with deep neck wounds. To say she’s gained a variety of experience is an understatement.

She doesn’t own the place, though. Two years out of school and 30 years old means she has some hefty bills to pay. Dr. Moore owns the clinic. Taking this job meant long hours and a busy schedule with not much sympathy from David Moore. “Your generation expects everything handed to them, don’t you? I had to work harder than this to get where I am,” as he just loved to remind her of every time she requested time off for a little… what is it called again? Oh right, work-life balance. Sure, Moore. Enjoy your mini mansion in Uptown since it seems you have no problem balancing the weight of your business on a pair of younger shoulders. Even if it means those shoulders are constantly wound up in to deep knots that no amount of morning yoga can seem to unravel. But she can’t quit. Those bills to pay threaten to pile higher and she’s afraid of heights. Plus, job security in Gotham is hard to come by. Especially since the Joker escaped from Arkham two months ago.

That was in May. Everyone in the city has been on edge since then and the Summer heat is not helping. The days go by but not a peep has been heard in regard to the Clown Prince of Crime’s whereabouts. Same for the Batman. The eerie silence has only been making it worse. The traffic congesting the city streets increases in intensity every evening as Gotham’s citizens rush home in an effort to avoid getting caught up in whatever devastating scheme the Joker has been cooking up during his involuntary vacation. But the threat never comes, leaving the city’s inhabitants to nervously watch and wait. Maybe it won’t come. Maybe he left Gotham for good. Left to terrorize a new city. Wishful thinking is what gets us all through the day. But the tension still weighs on everyone’s nerves, making Nora’s day that much harder when she gets an earful from her clients on a regular basis for things that are out of her control. “Sir, you don’t need to speak to me like that. I did not give your cat a urinary tract infection,” is not something she thought she’d ever find herself saying.

It is what it is. All she can do is keep her head on her shoulders and do her job, care for Gotham’s only truly innocent citizens. Animals don’t dwell in the past, they only live in the present. In that regard, they’re smarter than the majority of Gotham’s inhabitants. She made it her job to advocate for their health and well-being, since they can’t do it themselves. Nora was staying late to finish medical records for the sea of patients the clinic took in that day and she wanted it all recorded while it was fresh in her brain. If you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen. She told her assistant, “You go on home, I’ll just be here finishing notes. Get some rest.” The heavy set women expressed her concern for Dr. Hawthorne being here by herself but the job has gotten her used to being out well after dark. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep the door locked,” was the response her assistant, Jen, would always get in return. She didn’t want to argue so she would leave Nora to her work within the off-white walls of the dimly lit hospital in silence.

Nora stretched once more and shifted a glance to the clock on the wall. 9:58pm. Had it been fourteen hours already? Her stomach responded with a growl as if to answer in the affirmative. The hard-working staff finished cleaning the treatment room a couple of hours ago leaving the two metal tables in the center of the room shiny and ready for whatever tomorrow brings. The room wasn’t very large but the open design left ample room for patient care. The treatment tables against the walls opposite from each other extended toward the center of the room, leaving a four foot space between them, and had ceiling-mounted exam lights above them. Along the walls there were shelves of neatly organized equipment and tools. Essentials. White medical tape, boxes of gloves, bandage scissors, IV catheters in a variety of sizes, thermometers, bottles of isopropyl alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, jars with gauze soaked in chlorhexidine scrub, sterile lubricant, needles and syringes, and bandage material being among the most heavily utilized items. Along the back wall is a bank of cages and kennels for patients spending the day in the clinic (any patients in need of continued care were transferred to a nearby twenty four-hour hospital) flanked by drawers full of IV fluids and sterilized tools. The back right corner of the room opened into a short hallway leading to the area that housed a small surgical suite, devoid of any light this time of night, where a cart with monitors and a gas anesthesia circuit sat in wait for its next use. Just beyond this suite is a small door marked “Radiology” indicating the digital X-ray equipment kept inside, keeping radiation exposure to the rest of the place at a minimum. Nora’s desk is in the back left corner of the treatment room, a shelf full of medical reference books sitting above her head. Also that “World’s Greatest Dog-tor” certificate Jen gave her last Spring. Nora didn’t have the heart to tell her she found it kind of insulting.

With the last medical record completed, details of the day’s procedures noted in succinct but thorough language, it was time for the doctor to make her way back to her nearby apartment for some much needed rest. She left her seldom-worn long white lab coat on the back of her chair where it always was and removed the black stethoscope from around her neck to place it on her desk. Walking toward the red-lit exit sign above the side door leading to the alley, she flicked the switch to turn the remaining lights off. She usually had a small can of pepper spray readied in her hand when she left alone at a late hour. But Nora had been practically beaten into the ground with exhaustion at this point and her thoughts were instead centered around a hot shower and her soft bed.

She opened the door to receive a gust of warm night air to her face, intensifying her sleepy feelings. Letting out a rather large yawn, she turned to put her keys in the door to lock it. As she removed the key from the lock, she felt a strange sensation on the back her neck. Like a crawling of her skin, a feeling of dread. Before she could turn around in search of the source of her body’s sudden danger signal, a purple glove slammed onto the door next to her head. Her eyes snapped to the glove and she froze, unable to breathe, while her heart jumped into her throat.

“Evening, doc,” a nasally, raspy voice said. She slowly turned her head to find herself face to face with the Joker himself, leaning with his gloved hand against the door. His makeup was smudged wildly and he was wearing his signature purple overcoat and suit. All color drained from Nora’s face as her breathing quickened to a practically panting rate, the idea of sleep drowned in a surge of adrenaline. Before she could make a sound his other gloved hand clapped over her mouth, a knife tucked between his thumb and index finger, the blade laying flat across the top of his hand.

“Ahh tah tah, no screamin’, doc. Wouldn’t want to wake the neighbors, would we?” he said, his dark eyes staring straight into hers. Nora struggled to regain her composure, it did her no good to panic. She knew begging and crying would get her nowhere with the Joker. Better to have as clear a head as possible. She took a sharp inhale through her nose. The wave of gasoline and extinguished matches that met her nostrils was overwhelming. It almost made her dizzy. But she slowly let the breath back out through her nose. Their gaze into each other’s eyes, hers wide with fear, his black and hooded, had not been broken since his zeroed in on hers. It was like magnets were keeping her eyes on his, no matter how hard she tried to look away, she couldn’t do it.

“Now. I’m going to move my hand and youuu are not gonna scream. Got it?” his voice getting slightly higher as he spoke. Without thinking Nora nodded slowly, still not breaking their stare, as he slid his hand from over her mouth.

She allowed herself to blink. Then, trying not to let her voice crack, she quietly said, “H-How did you know I’m a doctor?” Stupid stupid stupid. You are an idiot Nora Hawthorne.

Joker let out a breathy giggle and Nora’s gaze then fixated on his mouth. His scars. They were even more striking up close. Nora was no stranger to stitching up wounds and these must have been awful. She didn’t want him to see her eyeing them so she shifted her eyes back up to his.

“Who else would be here this la-te, hm?” Nora couldn’t do anything but open her mouth and shake her head, her eyebrows knitted together with anxiety.

Still bracing himself against the building on his left hand planted on top of the door he said, “Enough with the formalities doc. I am in need for some, uh, assistance, you see.” It was then that the doctor noticed the Joker’s breathing. It was shallow and rather fast. Like he couldn’t catch his breath but was trying to. Oh shit, what does he mean by that. She wasn’t sure how she didn’t notice his labored breathing until now. She supposed being paralyzed with fear would do that to a person. Nora watched as the Joker then lifted the flap of his coat from his right side, revealing a two inch wide piece of glass sticking out from between his ribs. There was blood trailing from it, down his green vest. She gasped. He dropped the fabric and grabbed her by the chin, jerking her head so her eyes met his yet again.

“So, my little doctor, youuu are going to provide said assistance-ah,” he growled. Nora’s eyes grew even wider.

“Wait wait, what? No no I’m a veterinarian, I’m not a human doctor,” she said in a panicked voice. Yeah, nice one, Hawthorne.

“I can read, doc,” the Joker said, gesturing to the painted door that read Gotham City Veterinary Urgent Care. “I know you’ve got what I need in that pretty little head of yours.” He tried to stifle a gasping sound from his throat as he attempted to inhale before speaking again. “I am an animal after all aren’t I, hm?” he said, leaning his head forward and bouncing his eyebrows suggestively. Nora was stunned.

“Why me? Why did you come here for help?”

“Can’t quite go to the emergency room, can I doc? Besides, you take care of little doggies and kitties all day. Just think of meee as a lost little, uh, puppy,” he said, shifting his weight to put his knife-wielding right hand against the door on the other side of her head so Nora was trapped beneath him, their noses inches apart.

Fear bubbled its way up into her head again. She couldn’t think straight. How did Gotham’s most notorious criminal end up here, in front of her, with a life-threatening injury? It didn’t matter how, it only mattered that now it was happening. But, how could she justify helping the Joker? He caused so much death and destruction to this city, her city. She could do her best to fight, she might stand a chance against him in this weakened state. But he was the Joker. He’d probably still be able to slit her throat faster than she could get out from under him. He was the Joker but he also was a person. A person in what she was sure was a significant amount of pain. Another gasping sound made its way out of Joker’s mouth.

“Haven’t got all night, doc.”

Nora’s expression softened. What the fuck am I getting myself into?

“Ok,” she said, lifting her keys and turning to unlock the door.

#joker fanfiction #tdk joker #heath ledger joker #joker x oc #fanfiction

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jeonggukkiepabo · 5 years

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WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT? 01

Summary: You are one of Call your Babes most popular escort ladies, most of your weekdays were booked out by different businessmen. Usually, your Mondays were reserved for Kim Taehyung, your Tuesdays were always spent with Park Jimin, Wednesdays were your days off and Thursday was one of your favorite days, because Min Yoongi was by far the man with the best taste when it came to restaurants and bars. But then, Jeon Jungkook asked you out for a real date, which you haven’t had since you started your job. Would you take the offer?

Warnings: kind of poly relationship in upcoming parts, this one is just fluff tho, not really smutty besides a bit of making out with yoongi

Word Count: 4.5K

Most of your friends hated their jobs. Well, most people on earth hated their jobs. Almost as if it’s normal to hate whatever you’re doing to earn your coin. You could understand that, though. After and during school, you’ve worked in retail for some years and hated it as well: being nice to costumers, always smiling and not being able to let out any kind of anger. But that was ages ago, when you were still in your teenage years and didn’t bother to look out for a real, well paid job. Until you met one of your – by now - closest friends, Mi-Sun, at the Time Square Mall in Seoul four years ago. You were wandering through the mall, looking for cute outfits, when she approached you, asking you if you were currently looking for a well paid and fun job that didn’t take a lot of work – who were you to say no to that?

Days later, you first signed into Call-Your-Babes.kr, uploading some pictures of yourself and filling in any required information about yourself. Once you looked through some of your new colleagues, you couldn’t help but gasp at their beauty. All those women looked like goddesses, you were sure your ordinary self wouldn’t get booked as easily as those more professional and better-known women. To your surprise, it didn’t even take Kim Taehyung more than three days to find your profile, already booking you for a business dinner with his coworkers without even getting to know you first. He just wrote one simple message:

I’d love to see you in blue, it’d suit your eyes well.

I can’t wait to see you in person, I hope you like Lobster.

Kim Taehyung

That’s it. He didn’t even tell you anything about himself, about this meeting or gave a hint about what behavior he was expecting from you. Were you just going to eat with him and all the other men? Were you supposed to touch him, laugh about his jokes and call him Babe in front of those people you didn’t know? What would be the best outfit to wear? Of course, he suggested you to wear blue, but would a blue dress top be enough? Probably not. Sighing, you decided that this was the perfect time to go for an online shopping hunt, ordering different dresses, but also some more casual outfits that consisted of jeans and blouses, some shirts and cardigans. Hopefully, not every one of your dates would be this formal.

Once the day of your first date came by, you were more than just nervous. It wasn’t like you were on a lot of dates, your male encounters were usually just some quick fucks you found in some night clubs or bars, but none of them ever took you out on a date, especially not for fancy sea food. Hell, you weren’t even sure if you liked lobster or not. It was one of those foods you never tried because it looked disturbing to you, just like every other kind of seafood.

You’ve been talking to Mi-Sun about the etiquette, about how you were supposed to act and talk towards Kim Taehyung, how touchy you should be and that your smile was the most important thing.

Luckily, Kim Taehyung picked you up by himself, leaving you at least a few minutes to get to know him a bit. You were just about to finish your hair, already dressed in an ocean blue dressed that hugged your body perfectly fine, combined with some black platform heels that made your legs look even longer, as your doorbell rang. You quickly applied a thin layer of peachy gloss onto your lips before grabbing your purse – in which you kept some pepper spray, just for safety reasons -, before walking towards the door, opening it for the handsome man that was waiting outside.

When you read Kim Taehyung’s name, you were thinking about some man in his mid-forties, not that unbelievably attractive man that didn’t seem older than 25. Heat rushed through your face and you were sure that your foundation couldn’t even hide your blush as you held out your hand for him to shake. “Mister Kim, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir.” You bowed down slightly, a smile still plastered on your face as he started talking as well, his deep voice leaving tingles running through your stomach. “Just call me Taehyung, Y/N. I’m glad you accepted my request, I’m new to this Escort business, but this meeting is full of old, rich men that want to brag with his ladies – which are probably just booked, too”, he sighed with a frown before shrugging it off. “Anyways, I’m sure this evening will be boring as fuck, but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyways. I don’t need you to act like a stupid girl, laugh about all my jokes or anything, just be yourself, that’s why I chose you. You don’t seem as fake as all those other women did.” Then, he smiled at you, teeth on display. It was one of that smiles, that you just felt the urge to return. It was a smile that made you feel safe.

It turned out that Taehyung even drove to you by himself, not wanting a chauffeur to drive him around. “Why else did I spent months on my license?” was all he said about that. The drive was a little more than twenty minutes, allowing the two of you to have a relaxed talk, getting to know each other a bit better. Allowing you to calm down, relaxing your tense shoulders as you grew quite… comfortable?

Taehyung just recently took over his father’s company, lead by him and his cousin Kim Namjoon, but Namjoon wasn’t the one to attend business meetings, he enjoyed paperwork, planning anything and taking over financial tasks, but meetings were part of Taehyung’s job. Taehyung was 19 to that time, even younger than you expected him to be, and didn’t even plan to take over this business – but his father didn’t give him a chance to say no, he didn’t even need to go through years and years of university. Studying wasn’t necessary for Kim Taehyung, he grew up inside a business empire, he was born to take over the world.

He even asked you little things about yourself, where you came from, why you chose this kind of job and it seemed like he was really interested in you, not just your body and your attendance. Even after that short little drive, you were sure Kim Taehyung was the best start you could’ve had in that business – and you really started to like him.

Oh, and how right he was when he said that most of those other “dates” were probably booked as well – you’ve seen some faces on the same website you were registered. Chuckling to yourself, you leant over to whisper into Taehyung’s ear. “Mikaela, Betty and Kyra are from Call your Babes. Betty is kinda cheap though, only 180.000 Won per night.” Giggling, you pulled away and smiled at him with a challenging grin. “At least you know your worth, love”, Taehyung answered and grabbed your hand into his much larger one, rubbing your palm with his thumb as he scooted closer to your side. “But, how did you make up your price? You know, 430.000 Won is quite a price for a simple dinner date.” His breath tickled your neck, leaving you shivering under gaze. You simply shrugged your shoulders, answering truthfully. “I just typed in whatever price was just a bit higher than average. I didn’t want cheap, disgusting guys by my side for an entire evening. And don’t worry, maybe the second evening will be cheaper once you fulfill my requirements, Oppa.” Now it was Taehyung’s turn to let out a tiny gasp, eyes turning a bit darker as he tried to concentrate on his actual meeting.

Once everyone finished their food, the meeting came to a rather abrupt ending, leaving Taehyung and yourself in his sportscar, actually talking about the good deal he just made. “I can’t believe that they want to sell me parts of their company”, he shakes his head in disbelief, shooting his precious boxy smile at you, “That’s all thanks to you, Y/N! You were so charming and wrapped them around your finger. But not only them, me too.” You laughed it off, complimenting him on his strategic conversations and charming personality that had absolutely nothing to do with yourself being there as well. “You could’ve done that without me too, Taehyung. Your father picked the right one for this company.”

You were kind of sad once he parked his car in front of your house, even helping you out of the car, but not following you inside as you would have wished. Instead, he hugged you tightly, placing a soft peck on top of your hair, thanking you again for the evening. “I’m sure I’ll leave a good rating on your site, but would you mind keeping me company on future meetings too?”, Taehyungs eyes glistered in anticipation, his smile and blushing cheeks making it impossible for you to decline that offer. “Sure, Taehyung. I really enjoyed the evening! Thank you, really.” You bowed slightly before pressing a kiss on the left side of his cheek before walking towards your apartment complex, waving him one last goodbye.

That was how you met Taehyung, who was now, 4 years later, still one of your favorite costumers. You usually met every Monday, sometimes because of business meetings, sometimes just to hang out together – sometimes paid, sometimes for fun and games.

The week after your first date with Taehyung, another young man, Park Jimin, asked you to accompany him to some nightclub opening. Other than Taehyung, he called you by himself instead of leaving a message on your profile. You end up talking to him for almost an hour, loving the way your name rolled off his tongue whenever he asked you something. His voice was soft and calming, which you welcomed this evening as you laid down in your bed, the phone placed between your cheek and shoulder as you scrolled through Netflix, trying to find a show to watch.

“What kind of music to you like, Y/N?”, Jimin asked you as he was scrolling through his Spotify account, always trying to find new music for his club, something that wasn’t in the normal Top 50 Hip Hop charts. You smiled at his question but felt like your answer wouldn’t fully satisfy him. “I like… a lot of music, I guess. I don’t want to specify on one genre. I mean, I could dance to anything, but whenever I listen something in the car, it’s mostly something that lifts me up. As long as I can sing along, I really don’t mind.” Jimin laughed at your answer, chuckling softly into the phone. “Okay, well then, name the song you just listened to before I called you.” Giggling, you checked your own Spotify account, clicking onto the paused song to play it for him.

Oh, it’s such a strange and unforgiving life, and no matter what no one makes it out alive,

So, we should spend more time wondering why we fight, instead of hiding love on the edge of all our knives.

I wish I had the answers, I wish I had the time, to give you all the reasons why it’s worth it down the line.

Well maybe I don’t have the answers, maybe we could find the time, because there’s people crying, people crying every night.

Jimin listened quietly, enjoying the soft beats and relaxing voice of the singer, but kept wondering about one thing. “Didn’t you say you like uplifting music? I feel like that would pull me down instead of lifting my mood bright for the day.” You pressed the pause button again, nodding at his statement. “I guess I just was in the mood for something calm. I like listening to A R I Z O N A whenever I come home, it ends my workday perfectly fine. But, Jimin, what do you like listening to? As a night club owner, you must have had a rough time deciding which music should be played in your clubs. Is it the stereotypical chart music? Or do you go for EDM? Hip Hop? I can’t really think of a genre right now that would suit you”, you teased him, even though you were really interested in his answer.

“It’s hard to explain, I feel like it’s a good mixture of rap, but I also enjoy alternative rock. Some days, our DJ goes in for some Indie too, especially during the summer nights where people usually don’t dance that much but prefer enjoying cocktails and deep talks. But for this week’s opening, our motto will be music icons – everything from huge artists will be played, so everyone will have at least a few songs to dance to.” You were surprised by his answer, probably thinking that he’d rather be a K-Pop fan. “That sounds great, Jimin! I can’t wait, I haven’t been to a club in a while. Is there anything special you want me to wear?” You shifted in your bed, grabbing a random piece of paper to scribble down his answer – which, to your surprise, was simple enough for you to not having to write it down. “No, I’ll be fine with anything you’re comfortable in. There’s no specific dress code, choose something you could dance in, it’s probably going to be a long night so think of that too. To be honest, I love girls in casual outfits, but like I said, wear something you feel good in. I’m not in the position to tell you what to wear, Y/N. I don’t want to be in that position. Listen, I need to go, but I’d love to pick you up next Tuesday, okay? Be ready at around 4 PM, I’ll take you out for dinner first. See you!” You smiled, mumbling a soft “Can’t wait”, before Jimin ended the call.

Even before Tuesday came around, you got booked spontaneously for the next day, some musician, Min Yoongi, asked you to be part in his music video. He fortuitously found your profile as he was searching for some women to play the role but found you perfect and decided that he needed you for it. This was something you would’ve never thought could happen – dancing in front of a camera. Of course, acting took some part of your job, as you’ve had to act as the perfect little girlfriend for your dates, but playing that role in front of a camera? In a music video that will be ending up on youTube and maybe even on TV? You weren’t too sure if that was your cup of tea, but Min Yoongi seemed to nice that you decided to give it a shot – and you didn’t regret it.

Min Yoongi was something that you would probably call a spirit animal, because the longer you’ve been talking to him, you felt like you were soulmates. He took his music serious, even though you didn’t like rap you couldn’t deny that he was a master at what he did. His lyrics made you tear up the first time you listened to the song you were about to shoot. Unlike you’d imagined, he wasn’t as cold hearted as people might be thinking. He cared about his employees, made sure they took breaks during the shoot, he even forced you to eat because you confessed that you forgot to grab some breakfast on your way to the location. You didn’t shoot a scene together yet, sadly, but he made sure to keep you company whenever neither of you was busy.

“You’re dancing quite well, Y/N”, Yoongi complimented you, giving you one of his rare smiles. “I took some classes a while ago, nothing special though.” You shrugged, yawning a bit during your exhaustion. The last time you checked your phone it was almost 7 PM, you’ve been working for solid 9 hours by now. “But when did you learn to rap like that? Eminem for sure isn’t the Rap God anymore.” Yoongi gasped, pressing his palm against your mouth. “Don’t say that! Eminem. Is. The. King. Of. Rap.” Your eyes widened at the sudden body contact, giggling at his reaction. Then, you licked his hand, causing him to scream out very unmanly. “Ew, Y/N!” He rubbed his now wet hand against your cheek, trying to get rid of your saliva, not caring that your thin layer of makeup smudged because of that. “That is very unhygienic.” Scoffing, you roll your eyes and mumble “As if you’ve never had your tongue down someone’s throat” before getting up to shoot the next scene – Yoongi following you. “Baby, of course I have. And in a few minutes, it’ll be your throat.” Your breath hitched as you turned around to look at him, a proud smirk plastered onto his plump lips. “Last scene is a make out scene”, he bit his lip as he pointed towards the grey couch innocently. “Hope you don’t have a problem with that.”

You shook your head with a confident smile. Yoongi was attractive, you were absolutely not declining this opportunity. “Come on then, show me if your tongue can to other things than just rap fast.” With a deep growl, Yoongi pulled you flat against his chest, lowering his head to be next to yours, the following sentence causing goosebumps to cover your entire body. “I will show you, but my tongue usually prefers other lips. But don’t worry, I’m a quite decent kisser too.”

As soon as the video director gave you his go, the track started to play again in the background. You tried to get back into your role, but Yoongi’s confession made it hard for you to even concentrate on breathing, how were you supposed to act by now? To your luck, he helped you with the situation, taking the lead and after some sort of erotic dance, he turned you around and pressed his lips against yours, allowing you to taste him as your tongues gently touched each other’s. Ignoring the cameras and bright lights around you, you pressed yourself even more against the handsome man in front of you, grabbing his mint green hair to deepen the kiss. Quiet mewls left your mouth without you being able to stop them, but you already felt that Yoongi couldn’t contain himself as well. His breathing got faster, almost as if he just ran a marathon and as the kiss ended with the direction screaming “Cut!”, the two of you just stared at each other in awe.

Well, ever since that night, Yoongi was one of your favorite friends with benefits whenever he wasn’t on tour, you could hang out with him, watching movie and doing all those things you’d do with your best friend, but most nights ended in a rough fuck without breakfast. It always depended on his mood. He could be loving, gentle and cuddly – but most of the time, Min Yoongi was radiating such dominant vibes that you didn’t even mind to ask him for back scratches or omelets in the morning.

Your first date with Jimin was something different, though. Just like Taehyung and Yoongi, you were surprised at how handsome Park Jimin was. His face was bright like the sun, a wide smile plastered onto his, definitely kissable, lips. It was a smile that actually reached his eyes, a smile that made you turn shy and smile as well. “Hello, Park Jimin.” You held your hand out for him to shake, but Jimin reached out to pull you into a tight hug. “Hello, beautiful. Jimin is fine with me, Y/N. I’m not that much older than you, no need to get formal here. You look great!” He stepped back to take a look at your outfit, some black ripped jeans with an oversized band shirt that you simply tied right above your belly button, exposing a little skin, but not as much as other women would in a club. You thanked him, twirling around once. “When a man buys me for a night, telling me I could wear something comfortable? I’m already in love with you, Jimin.” Jimin gasped, placing a hand above his heart. “That’s why you love me? Not because I’m a rich night club owner with a charming look? I’m disappointed in you, Y/N.” Then the both of you burst out in a fit of laughter while Jimin guided you towards his car, even opening the door for you before driving off to the restaurant’s location.

You weren’t even surprised that, instead of an overpriced restaurant, Jimin chose a burger place. “Fuck, I’m so hungry”, you groan as you read through the menu, looking for the biggest burger. Once the waitress took on your order, Jimin raised an eyebrow at your decision. “I’ve never been on a date with a woman that preferred burger and fries with iced tea over a salad and diet coke. Now it’s my turn to confess my love for you.” You grinned, poking out your tongue as you took a large gulp of your coke. “If you keep on complimenting me, I might even share a milkshake with you afterwards, Jimin.”

In the end, you didn’t just share a milkshake, Jimin ordered the biggest piece of cheesecake available, topped with peanut butter and Oreos, sprinkled with chocolate chips and, much to your liking, he asked for extra chocolate syrup on top. By now, your stomach felt more than just bloated, jeans tighter than before, but you were incredibly happy. “Thank you, Jimin. Really. I’m glad you didn’t take me out for seafood.” Jimin shook his head, guiding you back to his car. “Seafood doesn’t mix well with alcohol, the burger though, it will soak up most of it during the night.”

Jimin’s club was completely different from what you thought – this guy seemed to surprise you more and more the longer you know him. Most clubs you’ve went to were crowded and filled with smoke, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, drunk ass people grinding against each other to weird R’n’B beats that you just didn’t like dancing to. But Jimin’s club? It wasn’t as dark, didn’t stink of disgusting smells that blocked your senses, instead soft lights were dancing through the room, incense sticks and humidifier slightly enveloping the room with the lovely scent of vanilla and coffee. As for music, Nirvana’s ‘Where did you sleep last night’ was blasting through the speakers, men and women dancing through it on the dance floor, causing you to whip to the beat as well. “Do you want to dance, Y/N?”, Jimin smiled at you, watching you in satisfaction, glad you liked the ambience. “Yes, please! I love Nirvana – it just doesn’t happen to be played in a club that much. Would you dance with me, though?” You pouted slightly, grabbing Jimin’s hand and pulling him with you, away from business contacts and right into the fun. His soft, light pink hair became a mess really quick, sweat glistered on his forehead and lip and his cheeks were flushed as you danced through 4 songs in a row.

“I’m already out of breath”, Jimin gasped as you walked to the bartender, ordering some alcoholic drinks along with some water for your dry throats. “That’s a shame. A night club owner that doesn’t last longer than 4 songs? Park Jimin, I’m disappointed.” You loved teasing him and you quickly found out that Jimin enjoyed it too, smiling with a dangerous spark in his eyes. “Usually, I last much longer than 4 rounds, you’re the first woman ever to complain, Y/N. And to be honest, I don’t really like to dance to Amy Winehouse”, he points towards the dance floor, couples hugging each other as they slowly danced to ‘Back to Black’, “I prefer drinking to her songs. Bottoms up, Y/N!” And with that, the two of you quickly downed shot after shot, the more shots you drank, Jimin became a party animal, showing off his fantastic dance moves as he ‘woo’-ed to almost every song that was playing. For a night club owner in his opening night, he didn’t do much of his job this day. But Jimin? He loved it, loved getting loose, loved forgetting about all the past couple days that left him more than just a little bit anxious. He was tense, but all the tension slowly faded as you embraced him in a tight hug, your sweaty face pressed against his firm chest as you slowly swayed to ‘Bed of Roses’ by Bon Jovi.

“I’m really enjoying your company, Y/N”, Jimi slurred as he moved your bodies back and forth. “I do too, Jimin”, you mumbled, lips pressed against his chest as you closed your eyes, “But I’m really wasted, how late is it?” “Probably somewhat around 5 AM, I guess. People are already leaving, the DJ plays songs like this to get the last ones out as well.” Jimin’s voice was deep, rough and just as tired as yours was, not wanting to speak any more than necessary. “Do you want to head home too?”, he asks politely, cupping your face as he looks at you. “Yeah, would you mind? Or do you want to keep on celebrating?” Jimin laughs, shaking his head as he guided you towards the exit, calling a cab for the two of you. “Only if we celebrate in your bed whilst watching Lilo & Stitch as we cuddle”, he suggested, making your eyes sparkle in excitement. “Lilo & Stitch? That’s a yes from me, suddenly I’m wide awake!”, you squeak once you’re in the cab, giving your address to the driver that was probably sick enough of drunk people for this night.

Well, Park Jimin crashed over at your apartment this night, but instead of wild, kinky sex, all you did was cuddle, eat cereals and watched Lilo & Stitch.

Your three boys quickly became the most important people in your life, they weren’t just costumers anymore, all of them grew to be close friends of yours. But not only friends, each of them was some sort of lover to you, fulfilling different needs you had in bed, but neither of them could be called your boyfriend. You weren’t into labeling things, not until that one day, were you accidentally bumped into that cute guy whilst you were out for burgers with Jimin.

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itskimtaehyung · 4 years

Text

Blindspot

Who is he? Who is the man with no eyes?

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader (non romantic)

Genre: Supernatural Horror, Drama

Word Count: 3.9k

Summary: Everywhere you turn, he’s there, just barely on the edge of your vision. No one else seems to see him. He outside on the street, in your house, in your room. Yet, no matter how hard you try, you’re unable to look at him directly.

Warnings: mentions of death and blood

A/N: if y’all dont already think i’m the worst procrastinator ever i’ll have you know that i started this fic in august of 2018 and meant to finish it for halloween of 2018 but i couldn’t even finish it in time for halloween of 2019 bc im trash

Two children, a boy and a girl, played along the rocks at the waterfront. It was overcast today, as it usually was, and a dense fog rolled over the bay toward the shore. They scuttled along, chasing crabs, attempting to grab the tiny, orange critters as they disappeared into the water. Their mother watched from a bench a few feet away.

“Be careful, loves. We can’t afford to lose anymore people here.”

The children nodded understandingly and proceeded with their activity. That is, when the eldest, the sister, spotted something strange amongst the jagged rocks that jutted out from the mellow tides.

“Mommy! What’s that?”

The mother stood up from the bench and calmly strolled over to her daughter. She peered down at the rocks, and saw the strange figure that was jammed between them.

The mother let out a sigh. “That’s Stephanie. Do you remember her? She baked brownies for the bake sale last month.”

The son nodded. “I thought she went missing last week.”

“She did. This is where the people who go missing sometimes end up. Come on, children.” She held out both her hands and each child took one. “You two walk on home while I go tell Sheriff Strazzeri.”

Emerald Bay was too small for a proper sheriff’s department, or a crime scene investigation unit. It was just Sheriff Strazzeri, passionate about the law, and his son, Will, who attended the town’s subpar, probably not accredited by any other town’s standards, medical school. Together they investigated all the weird things that happen in this tiny town.

People always say there’s nothing to do in Emerald Bay. They’re pretty much right. It’s a small coastal town, with a population of about four hundred and declining. On the east side of Emerald Bay is the Marina, lined with abandoned boats that smell of rotting fish and are covered with ancient, dried-up barnacles. On the west side is your ticket out: a dirt road that leads into the forest, a thick, dense barrier of emerald painted evergreens. That’s where the town gets its name. And past the forest is the farmland, and past the farmland is the big city. So why don’t people leave Emerald Bay? Why don’t they abandon it completely?

The answer? No one ever makes it out of the forest alive.

Everytime someone packs their bags and tries to leave Emerald Bay, something prevents them from truly leaving. You remember when you were young, maybe three or four years old, your neighbor, Ben, decided he had enough of the monotony of this town, and got in his car and started driving. You thought he was off to a bigger and better life, somewhere out in the big city, but three days later, they found his car broken down on the road in the forest, with his dead body rotting inside.

A few years before that, a woman who had been widowed, thought it was too difficult living in the house she had shared with her husband. She didn’t even take her things. She just started walking. She wandered into the forest, and a few days later, her body was found floating in between the boats at the Marina. In the pocket of her yellow raincoat was a piece of paper, surprisingly undamaged. On it was a drawing, done in what appeared to be blood. It looked like it was drawn by a toddler, simple and cartoonish. It was of a man, or rather a stick figure, with something over his eyes. Below the drawing were two words: SAVE ME.

This has been going on for as long as anyone can remember. Residents have tried to explain this strange phenomenon, sometimes with outlandish theories. But the most common theory, and what you think is the most plausible one, sprang from the drawing found in the widow’s pocket.

Many think that she was trying to warn us. That she drew it in a haste before she died. Many think that there is a man in the forest. One that wears a piece of cloth over his eyes. One that takes the lives of anyone who wanders into his home.

Supposedly he lives in the forest alone. Deep into the dark woods, making himself known only at night. His skin and his hair are an ashy gray, and he is said to glow under a full moon. But the most distinguishing thing about him is he always wears a black blindfold. Why? Because he is blind. Because he is the man with no eyes.

You have always been interested in this kind of stuff. The spooky, the scary, the unsettling. Slenderman theories completely consumed you in grade school. So did werewolves, ghosts, and all things supernatural. You’ve always managed to prove them all as myths. Except this one.

You had almost forgotten about the man in the forest until last week.

Mark was a well beloved citizen of Emerald Bay. You had been in school with him your whole life. He was so incredibly smart and gifted. Everyone thought he would become mayor one day or something. That is, until a couple of weeks ago, when he went missing.

His family said he went to buy milk from the grocery store and he never returned. All of Emerald Bay were on the lookout, although there aren’t very many places to hide in such a small town. He had no reason to run away either. His parents were very loving, and his friends were supportive. No one ever imagined that he would do such a thing.

A week after Mark went missing, his body is found at the edge of the forest. There’s no sign of injury, and he wasn’t gone long enough to die from thirst or starvation. Will can’t find anything wrong with him. He can’t even determine when Mark had died.

As an ordinary citizen, you don’t have access to many of the details surrounding Mark’s death. All the information you get is from what they print in the local newspaper, and you know those things never tell the whole story. You began volunteering at the local library a few months back, hoping to gain more access to the towns archives, but there are so many newspapers and journals that it quickly became overwhelming, and you put a pause on poring through them. However, being the urban legend enthusiast you are, you want to know more, and the only way to get information is to dig it up yourself.

That’s why you waited until tonight, the night of the first full moon since they discovered Mark’s body. You equip yourself with a flashlight, pepper spray, and a sledge hammer (you know, just in case). You’ve never hunted this kind of creature before, so you don’t know what kind of equipment you would need. It’s stupid to go out into the forest alone, especially on the night of a full moon, but you don’t know anyone stupid enough to agree to go with you.

The streets are dead, as they are every night, when you pull your car up to the edge of the forest. You can see the full moon peeking through the branches of the trees, round and luminous.

You must go on foot from here. The roads in the forest are bumpy and jagged from the tree roots breaking through the asphalt. You would bust a tire within seconds of entering.

The chilly sea breeze nips at your skin when you exit your car. You pop open your trunk and grab your hunting supplies: An EMF meter you built yourself, your sledge hammer for defense, holy water blessed by Reverend Kang, some dried sage, and a wooden stake because vampires aren’t real but you never know, right?

You close the trunk and step away from your car. The breeze seems to get stronger as you walk toward the forest, almost as if it’s pulling you into it. You let it lure you in amongst the trees. You follow it until you can’t see your car behind you anymore, and still you continue on. You make your way around a large tree and then stop dead in your tracks. In front of you is a figure, glowing so brightly that you can’t discern any actual shapes. You just know that it is vaguely human.

“Y/N.” The sound echoes in your ears. The voice is melodic, calming, unlike anything you’ve heard before.

You struggle to catch your breath. “H-how do you know my name?”

“I know everything.” The figure lifts its hand up and beckons you. “Come closer.”

You can feel your limbs wanting to move on their own. You try to resist it and stand your ground. You don’t want to go near him. You want to stay a safe distance away, but he’s too strong, and he pulls you closer to him. Soon, the two of you are face to face, and you can make out his features. His hair glows silver, and his icy white skin contrasts starkly with the black blindfold that covers his eyes. He radiates a strange energy, one that you’ve never experienced before. It’s cold, yet warm at the same time. Goosebumps prickle on your skin, yet your body feels feverish. Your chest feels tight as you struggle to fill your lungs with air.

“W-what are you?”

He doesn’t hesitate to answer. “I am ancient. I am the only one of my kind, therefore I don’t have a name. But you may call me Jimin.”

“Jimin,” you mutter in awe. You have so many questions for this strange creature. You never thought you’d actually find him, and now that you have, you must make the most of it. “There are so many things I want to know. Why do you take people? Why do you kill the residents of Emerald Bay?”

“I simply call to them. It is their choice whether they answer or not.”

“Are you calling me to right now?”

“Yes.” Jimin furrows his brows in confusion. “But you seem to be resisting my charm.”

“I’m not here to be your next victim.”

“Then why are you here?”

“LIke I said before. To find out why you take people, why you kill them.”

“But that’s not the only reason. The people who come here are unhappy. They want more from Emerald Bay. No one wanders into the forest, no matter how curious, unless they don’t mind being taken.”

“That’s not true,” you refute.

“Isn’t it? Think about everyone who has wandered in here. Think about your own self.”

You open your mouth to speak, to tell him he’s wrong. But with the blink of an eye he’s gone.

You drive home dejectedly. Yes, you found Jimin, but now you have more questions than answers. What is he? Why does he kill people? How does he do it?

You get farther and farther away from the forest. It’s nearly morning and the AM fog is starting to roll in from the ocean, coating the town in a thick blanket of gray. It’s so thick, you can barely see the block ahead of you. Your eyes momentarily wander away from the road to check your mirrors. Your tires screech as you suddenly slam on the brakes. You rub your eyes and blink. You could have sworn you just saw something in your back seat. And you’re almost positive that something was Jimin. But as you glance back up at your rear view, there’s no one there. It’s just your empty back seat and the eerie fog behind you.

You tell yourself that you’re just seeing things. You didn’t get any sleep last night and you’re starting to hallucinate.

When you get home, you’re so exhausted that you immediately collapse onto your bed and fall asleep. If you dream that night, you don’t remember any of them.

You sleep until you can’t anymore, and you lay in bed until your body aches. It screams at you to get up, and so you do, making your way to the bathroom to wash your face.

You splash the cool water over your skin, rinsing off the cleanser that still clings to the area around your eyes. Afterward, you use a towel to pat your skin dry and take a look in the mirror. You freeze and nearly drop the towel. Over your shoulder, you can see Jimin standing, watching but not watching.

You whip around but there’s nothing there. When you look back in the mirror, he’s nowhere to be seen. You got plenty of sleep this morning, so there’s no reason for you to be seeing things. But what else could possibly explain this?

Something doesn’t feel right.

As hard as you try, you can’t bring your eyes to open. You can sense it. You can feel something in your room. You sense an unmistakable presence at the foot of your bed. It feels, evil, demonic, malevolent.

You gasp for air, but the blankets seem to suffocate you. You want to push them off so you can breathe, but you’re paralyzed. Your heart races as you try to will yourself to open your eyes, to take a deep breath, anything.

As quick as it comes, the feeling is gone. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You wiggle your toes to see if you can move again, but you’re too scared to open your eyes. Instead, you bury yourself deeper beneath your covers and try to fall asleep, but you can’t shake the feeling that something truly evil was just in your room.

When you finally succumb to slumber, you dream of the forest that night.

You’re running. The brisk air and the smell of pine nip at your nostrils. Your lungs burn, and no matter how hard you push yourself, you can’t seem to move faster than a crawl. You feel something chasing you, and you’re trying to get away. You’re trying to get back to the main road where you’ve parked your car, but the only thing around you is endless forest. Your heart feels as if it’s going to explode.

Faster, faster, you tell yourself. But it’s no use. You can’t go any faster.

You run and run. You don’t see the fallen branch on the ground until your foot catches on it, and you hurdle forward, putting your hands out to break the fall.

But you never hit the ground, because the panic jolts you awake.

This time you’re able to open your eyes, and it’s daylight out. Your clock says 7:03, twelve minutes before the alarm is supposed to go off and you have to get ready for school.

When you sit up your brain pounds with a massive migraine that leaves you a bit nauseous. You wash your face in the sink like you do every morning, but today, you don’t see Jimin in the reflection with you. You bend over to rinse the cleanser off your face, and when you stand back up straight, you’re hit with a sudden wave a dizziness. Bile makes its way up your throat and you heave violently into the sink until it’s filled with thick, dark blood.

When you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, you see your mouth covered in red. You stumble back as a high pitched scream rings through your ears.

Your mom rushes up the stairs and sticks her head in to the bathroom. “Is everything alright? Why did you scream?”

You turn to face her. Can’t she see that your mouth is covered in blood? She’s not looking at you in horror, her concerned expression does not waver. When you glance back in the mirror, there’s no blood to be seen, and the sink is spotless as well.

“Ye-yeah, Mom. I just…” you wrack your brain for an excuse, “thought I saw a spider. That’s all. Everything is fine.” But you can still taste the metallic tang on your tongue.

When she leaves you look back in the mirror and Jimin stands in her place. You can feel his gaze piercing through the cloth over his eyes.

With the blink of an eye he’s gone.

Your life goes on like this for days, weeks. Everywhere you turn, he’s there, just barely on the edge of your vision. No one else seems to see him. He outside on the street, in your house, in your room. Yet, no matter how hard you try, you’re unable to look at him directly. You can’t sleep. You can barely eat. You can’t focus.

You can’t stand it anymore. You need answers.

The Emerald Bay Library is old, much like all the other buildings in Emerald Bay. It’s been here for longer than even the oldest residents of the town can remember. Its shelves are filled mostly with novels from the previous century. No one knows where they came from. They seemingly just manifested one day. It’s part of the mystery of how this town came into existence.

After your volunteer shift, you tell Head Librarian Kim that you’re going to stay behind to do some research for a class project. He hands you the keys and tells you to lock up when you’re done without questioning you any further. The second he leaves, you head a computer to search the town archives. You look for journals, newspaper articles, anything that documents strange and inexplicable happenings. You write down some promising pieces along with their call number and set off to find them.

When you turn the corner to head down one of the aisles, you can feel him. You look around you, seeing if you can find him lurking in the shadows. You don’t see anything, but his presence, the heaviness in the air, this thick, eerie feeling, is unmistakable.

Shrugging it off, you scan the bookshelf for what you’re looking for. You trace your fingers over it’s spine, almost as old as the town itself.

The Mystery and Lore of Emerald Bay

You pluck the book from the shelf. It’s dusty, like it hadn't been touched in years.

You wander over to the tables that sit in between the shelves and take a seat. The book’s leathery cover feels dry beneath your fingers. Stiff and crusty. Dust flies up toward your face as you open the book and flip through its yellowed pages, filled with handwritten and hand drawn accounts of unexplained phenomena that once sent the town into panic.

The first is the chupacabra, from the time the town’s cattle were disappearing. Turns out it was just a resident who didn’t want to pay for beef at the local butcher shop and decided to take and slaughter them for himself.

Then the Emerald Bay Monster, which was quickly determined to merely be driftwood.

Along with a few other things that have since been solved by modern science. Things like poisonous mushrooms, lightning bugs, and fairy rings.

Finally, at the end of the book, you find what you’re looking for.

The Man with No Eyes

You skim through the introduction and description of Jimin, then some eye witness accounts written by former residents of Emerald Bay, long dead from old age or maybe even something more sinister. Then you find what you’re looking for.

Not much is known about this mysterious man, only that he kills. Some say that he is both immortal and invulnerable, making him impervious to any harm one might attempt to inflict upon him. However, there are rumors from the ancient times about this man. There have been no records of whether anyone has actually attempted these methods, however, the creature still stands, which is a testament to something. If one truly wants to know, legend has it that the only way to kill him is–

You’re about to turn the page only to find that the subsequent pages have been ripped out, and on the back cover, written in what appears to be blood, are the words:

YOU CAN’T KILL ME

You drop the book as soon as you see it.

You want to yell at him, to scream. But it’s hard to talk to something you can’t face directly. “What do you want? Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“I will be here until you give into me.”

You whip your head around, only to be met with dusty bookshelves and darkness.

“Is this how you got the others to do it? By messing with their heads? Come out where I can see you!”

That’s when the bright, glowing figure steps out from the shadows and stands in front of you. His face is expressionless as he stares at you through the pitch black blindfold.

“Do you think they just happened to go to the forest, just because you wanted to?” Jimin asks. “No, that was me, calling to them. And now I am calling to you. I have come to claim you. It is your time.”

You shake your head and stand your ground.

“Come to me,” he beckons.

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then I will choose someone else,” he answers plainly.

“I don’t want someone else to die but I don’t want to die either!”

”Then don’t. You don’t have to die. Just come to me.”

“Why don’t you just leave me alone? Why don’t you leave all of us alone?”

“It’s not in my nature. My species feeds off of your energy, your sadness.”

“And if we don’t give it to you, you die?”

Jimin chuckles. “No, you can’t kill me that easily. I simply get angrier, more violent until I get what I want.”

When he smiles, you can see his teeth. Sharp, jagged. There are rows of them, like shark teeth. Your heart pounds in your chest. You take a step back, but Jimin is quick to step toward you. You take another step, but the backs of your legs hit the table. You quickly dart your eyes around the room, searching for an exit route. There are tables, chairs, and shelves in the way. The main entrance is on the other side of the library, and Jimin stands in the way of the emergency door.

“There’s nowhere for you to run, Y/N. Because as fast as you run, I will always be faster.”

“What happens when I give in?”

“You’ll find out.”

He removes his blindfold to reveal the brightest, most blinding light you have ever seen.

The same woman watches as her children play along the shore. a light breeze blows a crumpled piece of paper to her feet. she picks it up and reads it, sighing.

MISSING PERSON Y/N Along with a photo your mom took of you two years ago.

You’ve been missing for over two months now. Usually the bodies turn up within a couple of weeks. No one was brave enough to go into the forest to look for you. Not even Officer Strazzeri. Not even your mother.

Maybe you weren’t taken. Maybe you were a lucky one. Maybe you were actually able to escape Emerald Bay onto bigger and better things.

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