#'who is the monster?' is just. . . .it's just the slowed and quieter version of the beyond evil opening theme and it makes me sob

[munson-master]

At the Château | Steve Harrington x Reader

Chapter one: So I turn back the time

Summary: You haven’t heard from your family in over two weeks. Worried you return to Hawkins to find your sister dating Billy Hargrove and your family acting…well Strange. Something was wrong and you find yourself needing the help of the monster slayers that you had grown so close to.

Tags: Slow burn, angst, hurt/comfort, Holloway!Reader, spoilers canon divergence, AU, takes place some point in season three

Edit: I realized I didn’t post the newer version I had typed out so there are a few new paragraphs 😬

☙❀✿❀❁ ⚰︎ ❁❀✿❀❧

Stress was a difficult thing to deal with, the effects stress can have on a specific individual can have horrible outcomes.

For you, being home was stressful. Between your emotionally abusive father, your apathetic mother, and your ‘perfect’ sister, it was safe to say some time away was much needed. You had left Hawkins just a couple months prior to help your grandma who was moving to Colorado. You having to stay there for a couple months had your mother in the “my baby’s left the nest” phase even though it was only temporary. If you were being honest, you didn’t really want to go but your grandmother really needed help moving and you were the only one available since you just graduated high school and had no plans for college. You were thankful your parents weren’t pushing you to go to college, the very thought gave you anxiety. You couldn’t imagine knowing what you want for the future enough to move away and go to school for it. Right now, you are just happy to be out of high school and enjoy your time without having to worry about summer projects or high school drama

Or you know the fucking face opening nightmare fuel that killed your best friend.

☙❀✿❀❁ ⚰︎ ❁❀✿❀❧

Hawkins was always a little off but in recent years with the disappearance and then reappearance of the Byers boy, Hawkins became something more ominous. You remember being distraught at the disappearance of Barb, she was one of the only girls in school that didn’t go out partying every night and you had bonded over the dislike of drinking and socializing. You were pretty close with her, there was this unspoken camaraderie being two of the quieter “nerd” types in your class. You were there to listen to her worries when Nancy started dating Steve Harrington, agreeing with her when she complained that Nancy wasn’t acting the way she used to. You remember turning her down the night she went missing, saying that you would rather eat glass than spend the night “partying” at Steve Harrington’s house with Tommy and Carol. You remember the stab of guilt at the look of disappointment on Barb’s face.

That guilt grew exponentially when she didn’t turn up for school the following day. When she went missing you felt like no one cared except for Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. Eventually Nancy started to avoid not just you but Steve as well, spending a lot of her time with Jonathan which stung a little but wasn’t completely surprising. Barb had always been the middle woman between the two of you.

When Will Byers turned back up after they found the body in the lake questions began to run through your mind. Who was in the lake then if the Byers kid was alive? Why wasn’t anyone talking about this weird shit that kept happening?

So when you finally decided to confront Nancy and Jonathan you were immensely surprised to see Steve Harrington already at the Byers Household knocking on the door. You held back and listened a bit while they tried to get Steve to leave, only moving forward when Steve forced his way in. You stood at the doorway completely floored at the sight of Nancy pointing a gun at Steve.

“Nancy what the fuck?!” You shouted from the doorway causing both Nancy and Jonathan to whip their heads towards you. Using their surprise you quickly stepped in front of Steve, not really caring about protecting him but just wanting to defuse the situation. Steve took a smal step closer to you, his eyes never leaving the gun. Which soon went from him to being pointed at you. Your hands immediately flew up as you took a step back bumping into Steve slightly.

“Again Nancy WHAT THE FUCK?!?” You were sweating now, your hands trembling just slightly.

“Y/N you and Steve have to leave. NOW.” She was nervously shifting her eyes between the two of you.

“N-Nanc-“

“NOW!!” She took a threatening step forward just as Jonathan shouted about something being here and the lights in the room began to flicker.

Then your world fell apart.

Well, the Byers ceiling did, but with the plaster falling to the floor this monstrosity along with it you felt like you had walked into a horror movie. Steve was screaming and Nancy was shooting and you stood there frozen. You felt Steve’s hand grab yours as he dragged you with him following the other two teens down the hall. You hadn’t screamed. You hadn’t even muttered a sound. You just stared at the abomination that’s face opened with a terrifying screech. You hadn’t said a word as Nancy pushed both you and Steve out. Your feet feeling like you were trapped in cement as you watched Steve run to his car fumbling.

Steve on the other hand took one look at you and got out of his car and sprinted back. He grabbed your shoulders and gave you a shake.

“Hey hey we gotta go we gotta-“ he was stammering and you finally snapped out of the shock that overtook you.

“Steve…we can’t just leave.”

And that decision left your life changed forever.

You had become part of something much bigger than high school drama or popularity differences. You were there when Steve asked you to come find some demodog in the woods and when Will was possessed by the mind flayer. You had become closer with Nancy both of you finding comfort in each other over the loss of Barb. You spent nights talking about your future plans and current relationship troubles and life seemed to get a little more normal. The monsters in the shadows and the upside down seemed to have passed and the following year when you finally graduated and was asked to help your grandma you felt it would be a pleasant little break from the crazy that was Hawkins. It would be nice to get away from all the strange things happening in your hometown for a bit even if it was only for a little while. You had to admit you would miss the group of friends you had trauma bonded with but it was only a short while.

☙❀✿❀❁ ⚰︎ ❁❀✿❀❧

The two months had passed relatively quietly. You spoke on the phone with Nancy every other night, with Steve on the weekends. When a month had passed you found yourself looking forward to those weekend calls more than you were willing to admit. Talking to Steve was always easy, he had changed so much from the King Steve you knew in high school. He had grown as a person and when that jerk persona fell away you found yourself considering him as one of your closest friends. You talked about how neither of you felt college was in the cards for your future, how his parents were pressuring him while yours didn’t even seem to know you existed. You talked about his job at Scoops Ahoy, about his coworker Robin, how he thought the two of you would get along despite him hating the idea. How he missed Dustin, how you missed Nancy. But then there were some nights where you talked about nothing at all, telling stories or debating which soda was better, talking about who came into scoops or who you thought would be better in a fight. Talking with Steve became so simple, so easy, it felt as effortless as breathing. You didn’t have to worry about what he thought constantly, didn’t have to pretend to be happy or ok. If you had taken the time to think about it you would find it really all came back to the moment he grabbed your hand and pulled you down Jonathan Byers hallway. The moment he stopped being Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington and became just a scared kid along with you.

You were still really close with Nancy, you could just tell by her phone calls she was having a rough time with the internship and Jonathan. You could hear the exhaustion on her voice, the wariness at not knowing what would be ok to share with you or not. Bless her heart really truly for always thinking of making you feel comfortable but the phone calls were coming less and less and by the time it was supposed to be your last two weeks in Colorado you hadn’t received a call in days.

You had about two weeks left of moving furniture and unpacking before heading home. The two weeks couldn’t come fast enough as you found yourself worrying over not hearing from your mom or dad or sister. That coupled with the fact that Nancy hadn’t been answering your calls either immediately lit a spark of fear deep in your chest. You knew her internship was really draining her, hell you knew exactly how she felt. She and Jonathan had gotten a job at your dad's news company as journalist interns, which you were already worried about. Your dad was kind of a dick when it came to women in the workplace. So when Nancy said she was going to apply, you warned her that he wouldn’t be nice to her just because she was your friend. That he treated you like trash so she should be ready.

Now coming up on almost 14 days of no contact your anxiety was skyrocketing. You couldn’t get in contact with those you were closest too in Hawkins and despite being there when Hopper told them it was over, that the gate was closed, dread began to creep in.

Eventually getting fed up you asked your grandma if she would be ok with you leaving early which she of course agreed to thanking you for all you had done for her. You didn’t want to admit that anxiety was overpowering any other possible reason for the lack of communication. You didn’t think of other possible reasons for Nancy to not answer or your parents. Didn’t think about how the summer came with busier days for your parents and sisters jobs. Didn’t assume it was harmless missed chances and phone calls, maybe if they lived in any other city in the world but no this was Hawkins. Even though you reminded yourself that everything was back to normal, despite yourself you knew deep down something strange was starting back up.

That unwavering trepidation that filled you, the daunting feeling of unease that had your palms sweaty and heart beating, that is what brought you back to Hawkins.

It brought you to now, where you were just pulling up to your home as you spot your sister getting out of the passenger’s side of a car you didn’t recognize. You couldn’t stop the exhale of relief that slipped past your lips at the sight of her. A bit of your concern melting away from the ice that filled your veins as you watched her for a brief moment. Before shutting your car off and pushing the door open with a little too much force. You quickly stepped towards Heather completely disregarding the man getting out of the drivers side of the car.

“Heather!! What the hell?!? I’ve been calling you guys for two weeks why the hell haven’t you answered or called back?” You question her, aggressively poking her in the chest. She slowly blinks at you, expression blank as if she doesn’t recognize you. You can’t read her expression at all and you start to worry.

“Hellooo? Your sister gets back after being gone for two months and you just stand there?? Seriously, what is wrong with you?” You wave your hand in front of her face and immediately a smile begins to form and she opens her arms for a hug.

“Y/N!! Omg you’re home early!” She pulls you into a hug acting as if the weird interaction just now never happened. Your brow furrowed as you awkwardly patted her back.

“Y-yeah you guys weren’t answering and I was worried…” you trailed off as you pulled from the uncomfortable embrace. Just as you took a step back you felt a presence behind you and a hand fell heavily to your shoulder making you jump.

“And who do we have here??” A male voice asks right behind you causing you to tense up as you turn. You come face to face with Billy Hargrove making you tense even more. What the hell was this hotheaded douche doing with your sister?

“Oh I’m so sorry babe this is y/n my little sister! Y/N this is Billy!” Heather cheerfully introduced the two of you and you can’t help but clench your teeth at the nickname she calls the taller man. Since when was she seeing Billy? And she still didn’t say why no one was answering your calls.

Before you can say anything Heather is talking again grabbing your hand and pulling you to the house. “I’m so glad you’re here, we were just about to have dinner with mom and dad.” You don’t even have time to grab your things from the car before Heather is ushering you in with Billy close behind you.

Had you been given the chance to look you would have seen the the house was in a disarray. You would have seen the blood stain on the carpet that was wrinkled, a wine bottle lying on the floor next to it.

But Heather doesn’t give you the chance to look around the home, she pulls you forcefully into the dining room and plops you down in a chair. Your mother walking in from the kitchen catching your attention before your can spot the wine stain on the table cloth, the stale food still left out from the night things went so wrong.

Your mother reacted the same way Heather did when she first sees you. That slow blink before a huge smile and exaggerated welcome homes.

“I..I thought you said mom and dad were waiting?? Where’s dad?” You look around but only see your mother, who joins you at the table just as the other two pull out their own chairs.

“Oh he had to follow up a story at the hospital so he’s running late dear. It must have slipped your dear sisters mind. It’s so good to have you home your father will be so surprised!” Your mother quickly offers up an excuse for his absence. The way they all were acting was weird. Everything in general was weird. It left a sour taste in your mouth and your stomach in knots the way Billy stared at you sending chills down your spine. You didn’t even bother asking them about lack of communication, something was wrong and you knew it.

You waited with baited breath, your eyes dropping to the table which was a disaster. Food rotting and wine spilled everything out of place and your mother just sitting there back straight smiling a huge smile sent alarms blaring in your mind. A lump formed in your throat and you felt the tell tale pinch in your nose as tears welled up.

“M-mom? What’s going on?” You slowly began to push your chair back just as your mother rose from hers, a smile still in place.

“Nothing dear, I just missed you so much! I want a hug. Please baby.” She stepped towards you as you stood quickly, shoulders tense as she wrapped her arms around you from behind. Your one hand went to cautiously pat her on the arm while your other hand gripped a fork you grabbed from the table.

Her grip on you tightened and suddenly you were being dragged backwards her arms going to hold you in a choke hold. You looked around wildly, panicked as both your sister and Billy remained seated not moving an inch to help. You saw a needle in your peripheral and realized your mom was trying to drug you.

‘What the fuck???’It took you a moment to get over the shock before you felt your self stabbing the fork into your moms arm causing her to shriek and throw you away. Your foot slipped on the carpet and you felt yourself fall forward, head colliding with the corner of the table. It didn’t slow you down as you rolled into a crouch adrenaline pumping and took off towards the front door. You hear the sound of the dinner chairs scraping against the floor behind you as both Billy and Heather lurch toward you.

There was blood dripping into your eye as you ripped the door open, having it slam into the wall with a resounding WHAM!

Once outside you ran to your car, started it and peeled out of the driveway. Billy and Heather could both be seen standing menacingly in the doorway through your rear view mirror.

☙❀✿❀❁ ⚰︎ ❁❀✿❀❧

What the fuck was going on?

You had no idea what it was but something deep down in your gut was telling you that something had gotten to your family. You don’t know why but your mind recalled Will, sweating and screaming in that cabin as Joyce turned the heaters up. God you hoped you were wrong, your knuckles turning white as you gripped the steering wheel blinking back tears, your one eyes stinging at the blood you blinked through. You drove to Nancy’s, then Jonathan’s both not being home. Joyce wasn’t home either and that had your nerves spiking all over again. The last place you want to try was Steve’s but again you were met with silence when you knocked on the door.

You didn’t know what to do…who to ask.

Sitting back in your car you felt a sense of hysterical panic bubble up as your vision swam with unshed tears.

Nancy, Johnathan and Steve weren’t home, Did you call the police? And say what? that your mom, sister, and her shitty boyfriend were acting weird? That your mom had tried to drug you and you were pretty sure they were possessed but a giant shadow demon?

They’d laugh and hang up if not have you committed. You didn’t want to go to your dad's work just in case whatever got your mom and sister got him too. That left you with one option, you had to go to star court and find Steve. You assumed he was at scoops, really more like praying he was working today. Hating the fact that you had to bring him into this mess, but knowing he wouldn’t think you were crazy and would believe you one hundred percent. That you could trust him, that he would help anyway he could.

A plan finally formed: you turned out of Steve’s driveway and made your way to the mall, one hand on the wheel while the other began to wipe the blood that was drying on your face with some wet wipes you had tucked in your glove box. Your heart was still beating five thousand beats per minute, as you pleaded to whatever higher power there was that Steve would be at work, that he wasn’t possessed or whatever the hell was going on in this cursed fucking town.

You needed help.

❀❧

A/N: I’m really excited for this story and I plan to make it a long one. I definitely want to work the Russian base scene into it somewhere and it will go all the way into season 4. This will be a slow burn and I haven’t planned everything out but I was excited to start it! I hope it’s well received since I’m still so knew to writing. Any advice or thoughts are greatly appreciated. I still haven’t decided if I wanted to make this a thruple fic with Steve x Reader x Eddie or not we will see.

#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #Holloway!reader #stranger things spoilers #stranger things fic #stranger things Steve #steve stranger things #steve angst #Steve Harrington angst #Steve slow burn #slow burn #cute but angsty 💕 #nancy wheeler #barb and Nancy #jonathan byers #season three #stranger things season three #mind flayer #steve harrington fic #Steve #y/n #reader insert #friends fight monsters together #at the château #steddie #eventually probably #steve x y/n #Steve Harrington x y/n #Steve Harrington x you

[katierosefun]

the beyond evil ost, very much like the show, goes from sexy + mysterious + jazzy to sexy + sad in the way that it tricks audiences into thinking “ohoooo murder murder murder small creepy hometown and ambiguous characters and MURDER” and then you end the show realizing that this is first and foremost a love story about how two people can find each other and how all roads, in the end, lead you to the ones you love and the ones who love you and how you’ve suffered enough, come out and see the light is bright as ever and i’m walking toward the reason i hoped for and at the end...i’ll hold out  my hands or something like that and you expected me to be okay after watching this show you expected me to be okay after watching this show you--

#caroline talks #beyond evil #i am relistening to the beyond evil ost again. #me: oh i think i can be normal now #me listening to the ost: oh no. . . . . #similarly. . . .the beyond evil opening theme + 'who is the monster?' . . . . #the fact that 'who is the monster' is just the slowed + piano version of the beyond evil opening theme.... #because the way the opening theme is kinda frightening + suspenseful and dark and you think 'OHOOO MURDER SHOW' #but then you listen to 'who is the monster?' and you wind up bawling your eyes out because you realize underneath that creepiness #there's just an infinite amount of sadness and grief and longing and loneliness and that's dong sik's character #'who is the monster?' is just. . . .it's just the slowed and quieter version of the beyond evil opening theme and it makes me sob #i think every goddamn time about the rain scene. . . .i think every goddamn time about joo won kneeling and crying #no i can't quite get over them. #what a love story. what a love story. god.

[saintchaser]

"i'm not coming back!" sirius shouted, running down the stairs with the trunk, thudding behind him. "please, it's not like you need me anyway and i'm sick of playing your twisted little games!"

"sirius orion black, don't you dare!" walburga screamed sharply.

regulus tripped down the stairs as he made his way to the kitchen where his mother and brother were glaring at each other, sirius overpowering the woman by a few inches.

"i'm sick of being your little puppet, walburga black!" sirius could be heard clearly from regulus' spot, hidden behind the ajar door.

"i'm leaving" he said bluntly, turning on the heel, stomping to the door and then pressing the handle.

the two black brothers were facing each other. regulus knew this day was going to come, but it left a bitter feeling in his throat.

sirius slipped one of the rings he was wearing off his index finger. he placed it in regulus' opened palm and balled it into a fist, a fist too young to know what all of this really meant. regulus quickly slipped the silver ring on his finger and looked at it, shocked to see how well it fitted.

"take care" sirius whispered and regulus nodded, and only he knew how many hidden promises that nod kept as a secret.

and sirius slammed the door shut behind him, leaving regulus inside, in the warmth of the house.

walburga ran down the corridor and, as she only saw regulus staring blankly at the door she groaned in frustration. the woman ran to the tapestry room, her heels clicking as she walked.

regulus followed her close behind, as he entered the room, he noticed his mother lit a cigarette, stepping towards the tapestry of the noble and most ancient house of black.

"mother!" regulus cried out. "mother, please! he'll come back, you'll see!" regulus put himself in front of the tapestry, shielding it from the woman. "don't do it yet, please mother!" regulus begged her, tears welling up in his eyes.

"regulus, get out of the way." walburga snapped and pushed regulus aside, who fell to his knees next to his mother's legs, and had a bit of time to wipe his eyes. and she pressed the cigarette to sirius' face from the family tree.

the face of the disowned heir was burning awfully slow, the mother and son watching, one of them with a determined frown and the other one with an expressionless face.

"the noble and most ancient house of black doesn't care about people like him, regulus." walburga said coldly, pointing her wand at the tapestry, which stopped burning. "get up." she said, leaving the room.

regulus picked himself up, trembling slightly and stepped up to the hanging on the wall. he touched the place where sirius' face was for sixteen, almost seventeen years and it burnt regulus' fingers in the way sirius leaving made regulus' heart ache. regulus looked at his fingers, now filled with ash, and put them together.

he rubbed his eyes with the back of his palm and looked in the mirror. he saw a quieter, younger, seemingly better version of sirius looking back at him.

"the noble and most ancient house of black doesn't care" the heir repeated his mother's words, trying to convince the person looking back at him that that was the truth. but it wasn't.

regulus sighed. he had to move on, because he wasn't supposed to feel sorry for the people who betrayed his family's values. he wasn't supposed to miss the ones who never believed in toujours pur.

with a dull ache in his chest, regulus black left the tapestry room and closed the door behind him, ending a story, and never opening it again.

*taglist: @keepawaythenargles @rrrrap-monster @justadreamyhufflepuff @naviation-xx @enbysiriusblack @chaoticalexx @elmarrymepls-deactivated2021071 @just--another--bean @elpleasemarryme-deactivated2021 @dandelionxgal @aaronrbradley @noahdrinkstea @crazy-beautiful @raspberry-flower

#phew and i'm done #angst??? #sirius running away from that family yay #this thing took me one hour to write. it has 3500 letters #i suffered :(( #regulus black #walburga black #sirius black #the black family #noble and most ancient house of black #eli writes

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

and then I don’t feel so bad

thanks again to @thecomfortofoldstorries for coming through when I whined at her about needing ideas

also shout-out to my older sister for being the coolest and getting this song stuck in my head today (happy birthday, sis. wish we’d been raised together)

---

Geralt holds the package tightly with both hands and glares down at it with icy anxiety building at the center of his chest. The cloak he’d special ordered two weeks ago is wrapped in brown paper, tied closed with a length of dark blue woolen string. The Witcher, who has faced countless monsters and angry villagers and vengeful nobles alike, takes a deep breath in through his nose and shudders at the thought of his next self-chosen contract: giving Jaskier a Solstice present. He hopes the cloak is good enough. He hopes that he chose a fashionable color, one that Jaskier will enjoy wearing no matter where he chooses to go this winter. Geralt hopes that the heavy wool he’d painstakingly decided on is the right kind of material for Jaskier’s tastes. He hopes… he hopes that everything he’s about to say and do goes well and that he doesn’t fuck this all up.

“Jaskier,” he calls, keeping his tone light as he knocks on the door of their shared room. “Are you decent?”

“Never!” Jaskier laughs from within. Geralt hears a series of quick, light-soled footsteps crossing the floor before the door is flung open to reveal Jaskier in all his evening glory. The bard is, as usual, painfully correct. He’s not very decent at all; his hair is a mess of brown waves that tumble down to cover his smooth, pale forehead. The apples of his cheeks are flushed fuchsia with a combination of wine and the high of a good show. His frilly white shirt is unlaced at the throat and loosened all the way down to reveal the sharp angles of his collarbones. Geralt gulps air like a man near to drowning and pushes his way inside. Has it gotten hotter, all of a sudden? Jaskier’s eyebrows furrow with worry and he closes the door behind his Witcher. “What’s got you even quieter than usual? Are you sick? Injured? Cursed?”

“Witchers can’t get sick,” Geralt answers, almost automatically. Jaskier rolls his eyes. 

“Your version of sick, then?” 

Geralt doesn’t know what his version of sick means so he ignores the comment entirely. Instead he shoves the package in his hands towards the bard and huffs. “I got something for you. I thought you might like to wear it to keep you warm, especially since I wanted… I was wondering if you’d like…”

Geralt growls and spins on his heel, running one shaking hand through his hair as if that might calm him down. It doesn’t.

“Fuck! Why can’t I be like you? Why can’t I just… say all the things I’m thinking? I’m no good with words, Jaskier.”

“I actually don’t say most of the things I think,” Jaskier shrugs. He bites the inside of his lip to keep from talking any more and ruining the moment. This is clearly something the Witcher needs to do on his own, whatever it is. He smiles softly and holds the paper-wrapped lump against his chest. “But I’m happy to wait for as long as you need, dear heart. Figuring out the right thing to say is hard.”

Geralt’s heart is pounding in his chest. Each beat rings out like one of Roach’s shoes against unforgiving cobblestone. He can practically see the sparks flying from it, igniting something in his chest that flares and wavers like a candle flame in the high breeze. He wants to protect the wavering warmth with every ounce of strength he has.

“I… I got you this,” he gestures towards the gift Jaskier has yet to open, “Because it’s cold at Kaer Morhen. The pass is treacherous, difficult for a human who isn’t prepared, so I wanted you to- I mean if you wanted to come with me, I would-”

His fumbling proposal is interrupted by a dull thwump as the package Jaskier was just holding suddenly hits the wooden floorboards. When Geralt looks up, terrified of the incoming rejection, he’s met with two watery blue eyes. Every one of his worst fears is being actualized in front of him and there’s nothing he can do to stop it now. 

“Fuck. Shit, I- I’m sorry for asking. I didn’t know if you would eve-”

Geralt is interrupted again, this time by Jaskier throwing his arms around the Witcher’s shoulders and starting to sob. Geralt panics and instinctively reaches to pull Jaskier closer against his chest. He tucks the bard’s face against the side of his neck and cups the back of his neck with one broad palm; his fingers scratch up the base of Jaskier’s scalp and into his soft, tousled locks. With his other arm Geralt holds the bard tightly around the waist, rubbing small circles into the meat of his hip as he waits for Jaskier’s breathing to return to normal.

“Do you not want to come with me to the keep?” he asks, voice low and gravelly but somehow smaller and more frightened than Jaskier has ever heard it sound before. His heart cracks wide open and his love for his grumpy White Wolf comes spilling out like water from a burst dam. 

“Of course I want to come to Kaer Morhen,” Jaskier chuckles wetly. Sadly. “I just never thought… I thought you didn’t want me there.”

Geralt considers the words for a moment. He really hasn’t been the most welcoming friend, all things considered. He can understand why Jaskier feels a bit lost and a bit confused. Overwhelmed, his brain supplies. Jaskier is overwhelmed. 

He slowly releases Jaskier and steps away.

“Here,” he grins, kneeling and offering the package back up to the bard, who accepts it slowly. Now those bright blue eyes are shining with a different emotion, and Geralt envies the mages who can read other peoples’ minds. “Open it.”

Jaskier slowly unties the blue string and pulls two or three layers of plain brown paper aside to reveal a cardinal-red woolen cloak. A cloak that Geralt has bought for him. The hood and the hem are just the right size and shape for the season. The shade of red Geralt has chosen really brings out the pink undertones of Jaskier’s skin and the darker flecks of blue in his eyes. Jaskier knows that this cloak’s design is haute couture and probably cost the Witcher a great deal of coin. “Oh… Oh, my sweet, darling Geralt.”

Hearing his name said like that, with such affection and gentle reverence, throws the Witcher into another frenzy of emotion. He can barely stand it. His fists clench at his sides. It takes Herculean effort not to sweep the bard off his feet and spin him through the air, peppering him with excited, happy kisses. Jaskier is coming to Kaer Morhen with him! Jaskier is coming home with him!

“Geralt?” 

“Jaskier,” the Witcher whispers, taking one slow step and closing the distance between them. The bard does not flinch. He does not move away. He does not step back. “Jaskier, if you don’t mind, I’d like to kiss you very badly.”

“Of course,” the bard breathes, his hand floating up to rest against the warm, stubbled skin of Geralt’s cheek, “I’ve been waiting so long…”

When their lips finally meet, time stops. There is only the warmth of their skin where it’s touching and the soft, gentle desperation of two people trying to prove, for once and for all, that they love each other. When they pause for air Jaskier pulls away a fraction. “Let’s go sit by the fire and chat, shall we?”

“Hmm.”

Geralt settles himself before the fire and pulls Jaskier down onto his lap, arranging him until they’re both comfortable. “Will your family mind my coming with you?”

“They’re expecting you. Actually, they demanded your presence this year. Lambert actually threatened me with bodily harm.”

“Did they, now?”

“Aye. Eskel said he’d find you and bring you back himself if I was too cowardly to buck up like a real Witcher and tell you that I-”

He cut himself off with a blush.

“That you what?”

“That I love you.”

“Well that’s good news,” Jaskier giggles, “And quite the relief considering I’ve been head over heels in love with you for years, now. A decade at least!”

“Y-you…?”

“Me, indeed.”

“I’m glad we’ll all get to hear your wonderful stories this winter,” Geralt nuzzles down against the side of his neck and sends Jaskier into another fit of giggles. “And songs.”

“Do you like it when I sing?”

“I like it best when you make up little songs as we travel,” Geralt admits. “They’re sweet... and I feel like- like they’re just for me.”

Jaskier lights up brighter than a well-cast Igni and settles himself into the Witcher’s tender embrace entirely. He begins to hum to himself and then slowly, in a way that always leaves Geralt impressed and entranced, words begin to form into verse:

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Big grumpy Witchers that have me quite smitten, Brown paper packages tied up with strings; These are a few of my favorite things.”

Geralt presses a kiss to Jaskier’s temple and hides his blush in the bard’s warm neck.

“Hair soft as silk that went white in the Trials, Arms that can hold me and heft me for miles, Eyes of warm amber I search for in Spring, These are a few of my favorite things.”

The Witcher swears he can’t fall any more in love. It has to be impossible; but then Jaskier’s voice gets even softer and the words are sung so close to his ear that it makes him shiver. 

“When the wolf bites, When the bee stings, When I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, And then I don't feel so bad!”

#geraskier #winter geraskier #presents #winter solstice #gerskier ficlet #geraskier fluff #comfy's corner #geraskier winter fluff #first kiss #getting together #snuggling #love confessions #kaer morhen #winter at kaer morhen #red riding hood #sound of music reference #winter themed fics #bouncey's holiday fics #emotionally inept geralt #soft jaskier #vulnerable geralt

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 55- Hell’s Chosen

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

The hermits discover a dark past to their paladin knight, does this change their perspective of him, or will it save their unlikely ally? 

Warning: Some description of wounds (i think)

________________________________

All eyes were on Wels. Very few had a look of knowledge. TFC, for one. But Tango’s visible confusion gives way to a much softer, quieter version of the hellfire wizard. “Helsknight? You mean the marauder from years ago? But he died.” 

“You’re right, he did. And I killed him. I buried him so deep inside me, and vowed to do whatever I could to be a better man. When Helsknight died, Welsknight was born.” Wels’s fingers are tight in the bloodstained fabric, knuckles turned white as he’s forced to relive, to speak of his dark past. 

“No no no no. You’re joking, right?” Doc shakes his head. Even he feared Hell’s chosen knight. Wels can’t possibly be that same person. Wels, a quiet, collected paladin with the heart of gold and courage of a lion. “I mean...no one ever told the story of Helsknight with a tail.” 

“Less limbs to get cut off if it’s protected by armor.” Wels points out, flicking the lionesque tail. “You want proof? What was the last time anyone ever saw Helsknight?”

Doc cocks an eyebrow, then waves his hand. “Hels and his band of bad guys attacked one of Ventus’s- the God of Judgement- temples. But the attempt was failed, and Helsknight himself was left behind as he bled out...from his neck…”

The entire group stares as the scar that Wels reveals, running from his collar to his clavicle. TFC doesn’t stare like the others. He’s known all of this the whole time. Tango shakes his head. “But you’re nothing like Helsknight. He murdered and killed for fun, to cause chaos and bring hell onto Lairyon. Wels, you’re…” 

“A changed man. Just like Apatia can be- if you give him the chance. Like the woman who healed me did, like X and TFC. Tango, if you don’t let Apatia give his chance to change and rectify what he can, then you can’t let me be any different. You can’t be a hypocrite and pick and choose.” From between Wels and Tango, Apatia groans. The blood has stopped, Ren’s work healing leaving a sloppy open wound behind. 

Apatia was pale, paler than he already was. Almost the same color as Grian, as the latter continues to recuperate from the torture he faced. But unlike Grian’s shallow, soft breaths, Apatia’s runs ragged and harsh. His jaws are clenched, fighting off the pain. With the remaining bandages and healing salve, Wels wraps up the stump of Apatia’s tail fin. 

Tango and Doc are still quiet, trying to comprehend the news that’s been delivered to them. It all makes sense, but their eads still struggle to put the two completely different personas together. As if they’re different people all together. 

Everyone knows who Helsknight is- was. He appeared as if from nowhere, like a demon spawned straight from hell. And immediately, he began reeking havoc. His band of villains attacked and raided. They were more than just some lowly bandits, or even a mafia. Helsknight was a villain, killing without mercy, without remorse, and without discretion. It wasn’t until their botched attack on that temple that ended the reign of terror that Hell’s chosen knight left on Lairyon. Just as quickly as Helsknight appeared, he faded into nightmares and horror story. Kids were told to watch out for the knight with one eye, because he’d pluck out their own to replace his. 

But Welsknight? He’s calm and collected, if a bit snarky. Even when battling even the husks, he always hesitates to strike a killing blow if there’s a potential to save the life instead. Wels is jovial, and a great baker, and tells great stories. Sure, he’s a great knight, but Tango once saw Wels cry over a dead fish he found at the beach. He’s a paladin, not a barbarian. 

Helsknight supposedly died years ago. Welsknight joined the hermits a few years back. Though there’s a span of time in between the day Lairyon celebrated the defeat of Hels and Wels following TFC back to Eremita, it begins to all make sense. There's a reason why Wels never talks about his past. Never visits home. Never explains how he got many of his scars.

Like puzzle pieces, it all falls together and paints a picture. Doc’s jaw clenches. As much as he hates to say it, or even think it, Wels is right. If a monster like Hels can become the man before Doc today, then maybe, just maybe , theres hope for Apatia. 

So long as he lives. The hermits are so focused on Apatia, their argument on whether he should live or die, no one notices Grian rouse from the darkness that still grips him. No one noticed the sky open up, both in Grian’s eyes and the sky beyond the windows. No one notices him weakly clamber out of bed, nearly falling flat on his face, and walking over to join them in the group. 

“What are we on about?” Even when he speaks up, the other hermits are so used to his voice that it hardly registers. 

“Welsknight was once helsknight, and whether we should save Apatia’s life or not.” Tango shrugs, his red eyes glaring down at Apatia with distaste. He still hates the man, but at the same time… they’re supposed to be the heroes. 

“As your resident healer, I think we should. But...I’m not sure why he’s here in the first place.” Ren looks up, realizing who is speaking, and scoops Grian into his arms. His tail wags loud and heavy, banging against the other hermits with every oscillation. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, my dude!” Ren only sets Grian down when TFC reminds him that Grian is still working towards regaining his life, his color. He’s still slightly unsaturated, his skin missing the tint of pink, the red of his robest boarding the color of dried blood. Ren sets Grian back on the bed, trying to force the angel to rest. But now that Grian’s awake, he’s ready to cause trouble and start his day- even though he has no clue what time it is. 

“What’s going on? I...I don’t remember much. When did you guys save me? Why is Apatia here? How did you find me?” The questions fall like rain in a storm, impossible for the hermits to catch every last drop. 

It’s TFC that manages to slow the downpour. “Hold on, hold on Grian. Why don’t we start from the beginning? We’ll fill you in on everything, in time.”

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

All the hermits, once again under the safe canopy of the massive oak tree in their guild hall. Grian is wrapped in a warm, soft blanket- knitted by Stress- and a mug of warm apple cider rests in between his pale hands. “I can’t believe you guys came for me.” 

“Of course we were gonna save you, Grian.” Scar practically laughs at the mere idea of leaving him behind. But for Grian, who’s been kicked out of so many guilds for his troublemaking, it really shows how much they care. 

A rumble of agreements follow, and after a few more minutes of quiet comforting, it’s Grian himself that changes the subject. “Dolios is getting more powerful by the minute. I could feel all the energy flowing through those leylines, into him and that monster, Eurynomos. We can’t delay this any longer. Dolios has to go down.” 

“But we don’t even know how. We can destroy as many crystals as we want, but he’ll just keep making more. He has more power than a bunch of lowly mercenaries. He even beat Apatia, one of his own Councilmembers. One of the strongest guildmasters in all of Lairyon.” BDubs points out. Everyone goes silent as they remember the man in their infirmary. The stranger- he’s not a hermit, yet he’s among them. 

Grian looks up, pale face and hollowed eyes alarming for the hermits. He hardly looks to be among the living, but less like a dead man walking like he was before. “Xisuma, your brother mentioned something about the ancient ones. DO you think there could be a clue for us there? In the past?” 

X sighs, leaning back in his chair as he considers the question. “If the answer to ending Dolios’s dark reign truly lies in the past, then we’d have better luck finding the answer ourselves. Thousands of years, eroded by time, by kingdoms and cultures rising and falling, not to mention the disappearance of the ancient ones. There’s a reason ancient magic is dead- because none of the books teaching it survived.” 

“There’s one person we know who has studied the ancient ones for years.” Joe’s voice cuts through the crowd, looking around. Every other hermit is lost and confused, but Joe can see the mixed emotions raging in Xisuma’s eyes. “Besides Ex can take care of the island, of Apatia while we’re searching.” 

“Ex chose to leave Eremita. Why in gods’s names would he want to come back, to help us?” X growls. 

“Because he’s your brother. He helped us save Doc. He’s been helping us, helping all of Lairyon- in his own weird, Ex way. He’s not the villain here, he’s your brother.” 

X clenches his jaw. The scar over his eye burns at the memory of their fight. The words he said to his brother, and the worst responded in kind. Xisuma still received letters from Ex, but he only opened them when Cleo’s cider had clouded his better judgement. And he never responded. 

But he also remembers the moment, after years estranged, he laid eyes upon his twin brother, crammed into the bookstore he was running. The moment of relief, of happiness to see Ex alive and well. Their identical faces, like mirror images of one another. His hair pure white, like the bright sun in the sky. Even now Xisuma remembers how often he’d complain he could always find Ex hairs on his clothes. 

And that Ex helped them save Doc. All these years fighting, Xisuma can’t believe he’s going to be the one to concede defeat. But for the fate of Lairyon, he guesses he has to. He pulls off his mask, turning it over in his hands, running a thumb over the scratched out symbol. He swallows his pride, and stands. “I’ll get the letter to Phoebe. What’s one more stranger to the island?”

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #wizard hermits #light of lairyon #hermitcraft fanfic #wizard au #lol #wizard wels #welsknight #wizard Tango #tangotek #wizard doc #docm77 #wizard xisuma #xisumavoid

[helaintoloki]

Of Monsters and Men

(collab piece with @obitwo !)

pairing: Dan Torrance x reader

warnings: language, nsfw content, smut, possessed Dan, some fluff sprinkled in throughout, 4k word count

notes: @obitwo and I are so excited to finally be able to share this with you all! This is my first time collaborating with another writer and it’s been such an honor to work with someone as talented as Claire! I wrote out the story/plot elements and Claire wrote out the smut sequence and together we made a piece we’re both very proud of. We sincerely hope you guys enjoy it!

summary: after narrowly escaping the clutches of the True Knot and the Overlook, Dan now has the chance to live a normal life with you at his side. But the hotel isn’t through with you just yet, and it’s up to you to satiate the hungry spirits.

It’s been exactly one month since the Overlook burned to the ground, and though the absence of Rose and the True Knot has made the world a much quieter place it definitely hasn’t rid your husband of the trials and tribulations that come with the shining. The ghosts of Dan’s past did not abate their torment despite having their home destroyed, and the task of locking them away in a box grew increasingly difficult with each new visitor. He was struggling, losing sleep, constantly worried about your safety as well as Abra’s, and despite how much you tried you weren’t sure how to help him. What could you possibly do to chase his monsters away?

It’s a tranquil evening in Frazier, leaves falling from the trees in the cool breeze outside as you get started on dinner for the night. You hope his mother’s old homemade chicken casserole recipe will be enough to provide some sense of comfort for your troubled husband. The Grady sisters had made a surprise appearance the night before and Dan was still recovering from the mental toll their visit had taken upon him; he had called in sick from work and stayed home for the day to nurse the splitting headache that had come with locking them away.

Tender kisses grace the skin of your shoulder as Dan wraps his arms around your waist and brings you into his chest. He’s exhausted, but he craves the solace your presence brings him and is willing to suffer through the ache at his temples if it means he gets to have you near. Your smile is a sight for sore eyes, and he takes pride in the fact that you are his wife.

“Feeling any better?” You muse whilst Dan presses a kiss to your cheek.

“No, but I’m not feeling any worse either so I guess that’s a good thing,” he chuckles softly. “What are you making?”

“Oh, well I know how much you loved your mom’s casserole as a kid so I thought I’d try and make it for you. Just a little something to raise your spirits a bit.”

A soft smile graces his features at your thoughtfulness, arms winding even tighter around your waist as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck.

“How’d a guy like me ever manage to end up with someone as wonderful as you?” He hums against your skin, prompting a cluster of butterflies to form in your stomach.

“Oh, stop,” you giggle, lightly pushing him away. “You’re distracting me, I have to make dinner. Can you hand me the measuring cup? The glass one please.”

Dan’s head begins to throb as he goes to the cupboard, yet he thinks nothing of it as he retrieves the glassware. But then the room begins to spin and your voice sounds so far away as you start to talk about your day. There’s a rumbling from the darkest corners of his mind as the boxes begin to rattle, panic settling deep in his bones as both the measuring cup and Dan go crashing onto the floor.

“Dan!” You gasp, quickly falling to your knees beside him and resting your hands upon his taut shoulders. “Danny, are you alright?!”

A whine escapes him as he shuts his eyes and grips tightly at your thighs in an attempt to ground himself, hoping to fight the spirits off long enough so he can lock the boxes up tight and throw away the key forever before the spirits have the chance to escape. But they’re coming, and he’s too weak to stop them now.

“I can’t,” Dan pants heavily, a groan tumbling past his lips as he doubles over on the ground. He can feel the ghosts suffocating him, his breaths growing shallow with each box that unlatches.

“Dan, look at me. Danny,” you plead desperately. You don’t know how to help him, you don’t know how to make it better, you don’t know how fix it, and the helplessness you feel leaves you feeling sick with worry.

“You have to... You have to run.”

“Danny...”

“Run!” He bellows, startling you into getting up off the floor and back onto your feet. Your vision is blurry with tears as you slowly begin to back away from your husband whose shoulders are heaving with every strangled grunt that leaves his lips.

“Danny,” you weep softly from your spot in the kitchen doorway. He told you to run, but how can you leave him when he’s in so much pain?

Your quiet sniffles are the only sound in the kitchen when he finally stills. Dan is bent over on his hands and knees in a way that prevents you from seeing his face, and you take a single cautious step forward.

“Dan?” You call gently. “Honey, a-are you alright?”

Your husband raises his head slowly to meet your gaze, smirking at the horrified look that flashes across your features at the sight of him.

“Hi sweetheart,” he grins, and the sight of his milky white eye is enough to send you bolting towards the bedroom.

You can hear his thundering footsteps following close behind you, all kinds of threats and warnings accompanying them, but you urge yourself to run faster. This isn’t Dan, you have to remind yourself, this isn’t Danny.

“Come here, little pup!” He coos hoarsely with false tenderness, but his demeanor changes in an instant the moment you slam the bedroom door shut and lock it from behind you. One of his fists slams on the wood while the other hand violently twists and turns the doorknob. The frustrated growl that leaves him sends chills down your spine as you slowly back away towards the far corner of the room, eyes never once leaving the door.

“Open the door, little girl,” Dan says gruffly. “Open the door and I won’t hurt you. Let me in and I’ll forget the whole god damn thing.”

“I-I can’t,” you whimper, frantically scanning the room for your phone. As guilty as it makes you feel to do so, you know you have to call Abra. She’s the only one who knows how to bring Dan back, and you can’t afford to lose him to the Overlook. You’d almost lost him once, and you’d be damned if you’d let them win this time. Another bang on the door has you in hysterics- where’s the phone?!

“Y/n, darling, light of my life, open the fucking door,” he warns lowly. One more good strike to the wood will break it down, but Dan is willing to give you one more chance to behave yourself, to be the good girl he knows you are.

“Danny, please!” you sob, and with your denial of his request he slams his whole body against the door so that it breaks off its hinges and comes crashing to the floor.

“There you are,” he leers maliciously from the doorway, shoulders hunched and hungry gaze settled upon your trembling form in the corner. He staggers forward slow and calculated like a predator stalking his prey. The tears that fall down your face make you look all the more appetizing, and the fear that radiates off of you is almost enough to feed the hungry spirits festering inside of him.

“Stay away,” you warn fruitlessly, “get away.”

“Is that any way to treat your husband?”

“You’re not my husband,” you avow emphatically in an attempt to put on a brave face despite how terrified you are. “I know what you are, and I know that you’re not really my Danny. You’re just... You’re just a false face.”

The man that stands before you ponders your profession with amusement before striking in an instant. Your wrist is grabbed swiftly in a tight grip, allowing him to raise your left hand in front of your face.

“What a pretty diamond on your finger,” he mocks before raising his own left hand. The golden wedding band on his ring finger glints in the light, his deriding gaze ticking back and forth between the jewelry. “Are these not a symbol of your undying devotion to me? Does this not mean that you are mine to have?”

You have no counterargument to give because he’s right; you had vowed to be there for Dan through sickness and in health, and this was a time of sickness. You were his wife, you had taken on the Torrance family name and promised to surpass any challenges that followed the title, so you’d just have to overcome whatever obstacle came next.

“What are you going to do to me?” You murmur, gaze nervously following the hand that slowly creeps up your chest and wraps itself around your neck. You can’t help the shivers that prickle at your spine as his hot breath fans against your skin, tongue darting out to lick an agonizingly slow stripe along the column of your throat.

“You’ve been very, very bad,” he says gruffly, “and now you’re going to take your medicine.”

Dan watches you, ultimately sinister as he rushes you towards the wall by the hand on your throat, slamming your back into it. He hungrily mouths at your neck, hands planted beside your head while his wet lips leave marks across your skin. He's eager, voice husky, breathing fervently across your shoulder. Hips jut into yours as Dan presses his hardness against you, trying to satiate himself with the sheer intensity of his movements. He growls at the contact, nothing short of animalistic.

“Are you going to hurt me?” You’re still apprehensive and afraid of what this twisted version of your lover could do, but there’s no denying the heat that rises off your cheeks and emanates from between your legs.

“Hurt you? Poor, pretty little thing, I’m not gonna hurt you.” He’s still rocking his hips against yours, friction between his jeans and your clothes. “Do as I say and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

His dark and sensual stare does little to calm your nerves and you decide to give into him for your own sake. Hands lay upon your breasts, and Dan tilts his head back in satisfaction, groping and palming them.

“Touch me,” he croons and gasps when your hand reaches between his legs to palm his concealed length. He’s enjoying you, growing more and more primal with every passing moment. The sensation goads him and he forces his thigh between your own, harshly shoving it against your growing wetness. You pant as he further presses you into the wall, trying to rub yourself on his leg.

His thumb and forefinger catch your chin to tilt it upward, urging you to look at his blue eye and the ghostly white one.

“So desperate for me… and you were just trying to lock me out,” he mocks you, withdrawing his leg and letting your feet fully touch the floor again. In his trance, it’s what he wants; to feed off of the arousal, to release himself and be taken by his own desires. You want to fight it, but your involuntary whine betrays you.

Dan brings his face to yours, masculine features clouding your view.

“Do that again,” he snarls, hand returning to your throat and clamping down on it, earning himself another heavenly moan from your lips in return. He closes his eyes at the sound, leaning back and relishing in it, completely obsessed with having you at his mercy.

“Please, Dan,” you beg him for some type of relief to which he simpers cruelly. He needs to hear no more, bending down and wrapping his arms underneath you to toss you over his shoulder. Your arms dangle upside down, and you don’t bother to squirm. He walks purposefully towards the bed, hands gripping onto your ass before he lets you off, crashing on the mattress.

You huff at the drop, clearly appreciative of the manhandling. Dan is kneeling at the edge of the bed, yanking you towards him by your ankles and holding them firmly, his lips inches from your aching core.

All Dan is focused on is pleasure and power as he rips your clothes from your trembling body, careless of any tears he might have made. He sighs when he looks at you in your panties, a sight he usually compliments - but not now, he’s greedy, teeth grazing your hip to bite down on the fabric and pull it down your legs with the movement of his head. You feel yourself melting at the action, trying not to like this Dan too much - it’s not truly him, but the way he’s looking at you like he’s starving is entirely captivating, clouding you from your common sense.

He keeps his eyes on yours as he advances his mouth closer, then letting his gaze follow the curve of your thighs, spreading them neatly for his tongue and admiring them. He adorns them with harsh kisses, sucking to leave bruises on them, pleased with himself for marking you as his. His trail leads up to your wetness and he swipes a finger up your folds, gathering some of it and pressing it to his tongue. He likes the taste.

“Filthy girl.”

It’s then that his arms hook under your thighs to lock them over his shoulders. You’re unable to move, caught in him, and he knows that he’s going to torture you.

A slow lick up your clit sends you trembling at which Dan groans, vibrations coursing through your body. He’s deliberately tentative, providing unhurried laps at your clit, waiting for you to break. After several tormenting moments, Dan is kind enough to give you a full circle of his tongue, and you writhe under his clutch, legs begging for freedom and hips rising against his face. It’s enough for him.

“Sit. Still.” He’s ordering you now, and you know better than to be a brat and do it intentionally.

His stubble meets your soft skin in a rush, his tongue swiping madly at your clit and you’re back to trembling pathetically. He’s fulfilled with your response, his sexual prowess sending moans from your throat that fill the room with urgency. An arm releases one of your legs to let a finger prod at your entrance, under the tongue that flits across you. It dips in teasingly, merely deep as his first knuckle and you take the opportunity to squeeze his head with your free leg.

At your sudden defiance by not sitting still, he reaches up to run a palm across your naked breast which makes you falter. His hand stays there, massaging as he continues to eat you out with exhilarating competence.

“Dan…” You choke, fingers tangling in his hair and tugging it to release the rising tension of your body. He snaps at the pulling, evidently stimulated by it. Making no mistake, he consciously groans into you again, except it’s primal and electrifying, making you yelp.

“Good… Keep making those pretty noises or I won’t be so generous,” Dan nearly barks at you, mean, his voice hoarse and drunk on his urges. Finally letting his finger slide all the way in, he withdraws it at the same speed, pumping it and drowning in the sounds that you make for him.

The tension continues to rise, your body shaking violently. Dan knows what he’s doing; just enough to keep you teetering on the edge. You know he’s saving it.

“More,” you whisper boldly, weak from his delightful touch.

“Do you deserve more?” He moves his face away, but adds a finger to the first one, roughly thrusting them both in and out of you and biting his lip. He sneers, “I’ll decide what you get.”

You pause simply to keep shuddering, unable to speak with the sensation of his fingers hitting the right spot. He stops and leaves you a blubbering mess of moans and whimpers, leading Dan to decide on your next sentence for locking him out.

He rises, looming over you supported by his hands, hair falling handsomely. Your own hair is gathered from beneath you into a ponytail and yanked down to give him plenty of access to your neck, biting down softly into the juncture of it and your shoulder. Your legs instinctively wrap around him, trying to keep him touching you.

“So impatient.” His lips graze your ear and he nips at the lobe. “Get over my knee.” Dan disembarks from you, sitting tall and spreading his knees apart on the edge of the mattress, feet set firmly on the floor.

You mistakenly hesitate for a moment and find a rough hand pulling your hair again, and an expression on his face that warns you I won’t ask again.

Pitifully crawling over, you splay your body over his knees, your stomach against one of his thighs and your ass right where he can hurt it.

Dan briefly lounges with you on his lap, his weight leaned back onto his palms, admiring the beauty before him. His hand travels up the back of your thighs, crossing up to your waist, dipping under to feel up your chest. He smirks wickedly, raising his hand up into the air and sending it crashing down to give a sharp and loud slap to your ass.

A high moan leaves your throat and he repeats the action, faster than the first time, little pieces of hair slipping into his face from the power he’s exerting. You feel it deep within you, the painful but delicious sensations of his calloused hands roughing you up, slapping you hard as all hell.

“Don’t you go locking me out again, pup. You got that?”

“Mhmm!” You groan frantically, waiting to feel his red-hot palms strike you again. They don’t.

He instead reaches under to grab your windpipe, lazily turning you over and getting you to straddle him.

“Words.” He has no tolerance left.

“I got it.” You blurt out quickly as you can, not trusting yourself to carry a sentence any longer than that.

Dan guides your hips to grind you against his hard length, back and forth. Your head tilts with the movements, idly lolling. Another quiet noise and Dan can’t take it anymore. He’s finishes with his teasing of you; he needs to unleash.

He assumes his full, intrinsic and feral state, pushing you back onto the bed, and you rebound with force. He keeps you down, wrists pinned above your head and his lips are searching your entire body, biting, sucking, bruising - hungry for anything he can get. You don’t dare move, knowing he wants your full compliance.

His jeans are long gone, underwear too, forgotten somewhere on the floor. His skin feels smooth but hot against you, a gorgeous and soft feeling when his chest collides with yours. Strong arms are positioned on either side of your body, Dan lining himself up with your entrance. Your raising hips cause him to prod, whining as the head of his cock teases you.

“Does my dirty girl want my cock?” He gives a low groan to your ear and you’re losing yourself in him. The word “yes” is hardly loud enough, an inaudible whisper.

This time he doesn’t care for precision to your obedience. He doesn’t ask for a clearer answer, content with your submission to him.

He steadily presses himself into you the rest of the way, guttural moans seeping through his mouth that latches on to yours. Your thighs squeeze him closer and he stays a moment, fully immersed and gasping.

“So. Fucking. Tight.” The words almost can’t make it out of him and he leisurely pulls back, re-entering you with full, lusty force. You cry out his name and he basks in it, pumping himself faster, reaching so deep inside you that you can feel it reaching your stomach, your body quivering with the stimulation.

“Oh… Dan!” Tears are forming in the corners of your eyes with the sheer strength of him, and a thumb reaches to rub tight circles on your clit that still glistens with the wetness of his tongue. His mouth is agape, bottom lip curling onto his teeth from the pure effort he’s giving, and effort is about the only thing he’s giving. Otherwise, all he knows is to take.

Your jaw is swiftly and skillfully pried open, and Dan, possessed and sickeningly tempting, spits into your mouth, no regard left in him. It’s something he’s never done, especially not when he’s your proper Dan, and you like it. You swallow firmly and draw him in.

His head falls into your shoulder, biting it at the pleasure you’re giving him. You sigh, spent, and he bites again. He doesn’t flounder, maintaining steady and thrilling strokes that make your body stiffen and shake. Dan’s hankering grows and he plunges in a last time, reveling inside you before flipping you onto your elbows and knees and taking you immediately back onto his cock. His hands grace the curve of your hips to push and pull you over his length, and he yells out in his rapture.

His fingers trail up your back to wrap around the back of your neck, bringing your back flush to his chest, ruining you from behind. You sit atop his thighs as he stretches you out so good and not a single coherent thought passes through your mind. Thin sheets of sweat are the only thing between you.

His repeated hitting into the right spot has you wailing, your hands covering his own as he’s surely sending you over. Tingles sweep through your limbs and you come undone around him, clenching him harder and getting his cock all the more wet, trying to fall forward onto the bed and catch your breath. You’re given no such freedom, and he continues pounding into you, whispering dirty things into your ears as your orgasm is drawn out impossibly long.

“Nasty thing, you’re gonna make me cum.”

And so he does, warm inside you and it starts to leak out with his last excessive thrusts. He keeps you to his chest, panting, but his grip loosens ever so slightly.

A dull blissfulness clouds your senses and hazes your surroundings, eyes fluttering shut in an attempt to savor the warmth you’ve been encompassed in. The experience was new and terrifying, but it had satiated a craving deep within you that you hadn’t even been aware of in the first place. From behind you, Dan pulls out of you with a deep groan and allows his head to fall against your shoulder.

“Danny?” You call hesitantly, unsure as to which Dan you’re speaking to. It’s silent for what feels like a long time before he speaks again.

“Y/n?”

“Oh, honey,” you sigh in relief before shifting in bed to face him. He looks absolutely spent, but the white film over his eye is gone and with it the spirits of the Overlook.

“What happened?” Dan asks tiredly, eyes widening at the various marks that little your body. “D-Did I do that?”

“Technically, yes. But um, you had a little help,” you explain meekly. “They came back.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” he’s quick to apologize, the hands that had just choked and spanked you not too long ago now coming to rub soothing circles into your bruises. A content sigh leaves your lips at the feeling.

“Don’t apologize. I umm.. I was able to handle it.”

“Did... Did you like it?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” you nod with a sheepish smile. “You were terrifying, but you were also really, really good. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“I’m happy to hear that?” Dan says questioningly, prompting both of you to laugh. He smiles then, adoringly and full of love. “Oh, my brave, sweet girl.”

“I love you,” you sigh happily, taking his face in your hands and pressing a sweet kiss to his lips. “In sickness and in health.”

“In sickness and in health,” he repeats with a gentle smile, wrapping his arms around your waist before pulling you into another passionate kiss.

#dan torrance #dan torrance x reader #dan x reader #danny torrance x reader #dan torrance imagine #dan torrance smut #danny torrance #doctor sleep #obitwo & helaintoloki #collab

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: The New Mutants (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the week following the movie first airing in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen The New Mutants do not read on until you have.

General Reaction:

A three year delay for the final instalment of a twenty-year franchise, was it ultimately worth it? Well as an X-Men fanatic I am always going to say yes, it wasn’t a swan song or a wrap up to the X-Men Cinematic Universe, far from as it was originally pitched as the start of a trilogy and does sew the seeds for that. However, while Dark Phoenix did feel like a sombre instalment not only for that “First Class” timeline but also the team movies as a whole, this had an air of sadness to it because this is the last time I will see anything X-Men related on the big screen for who knows how long.

In that sense, this was an emotional movie for me, more than just the fact that the emotion of fear is a running theme through the movie. However, in terms of my actual enjoyment of the movie, it was a very good movie for what it was.

When your very final movie is effectively an origin movie then there’s always going to be that sense of incompleteness, and what this movie teases both for these characters and who is the big bad behind all of this, it’s really frustrating to know it’s over before it truly starts.

With that in mind, The New Mutants is very slow to get started as there’s a lot of exposition and because it feels like it’s own branch of the X-Men Cinematic Franchise, similar to Deadpool, there is a level of “Beginner’s Guide to Mutants 101″ at play here with the explanation of what a Mutant is and when a young or “New Mutant” first discovers their powers that, to give this movie credit, I have never truly seen explored properly outside of the comics other than a quick explanation from Storm to Jubilee in the first episode of X-Men: The Animated Series.

It’s also disappointing to know that unlike X-Men: The Last Stand or Dark Phoenix, there isn’t a sense of finality for these characters as we have just been introduced to them. Outside of Sunspot who has briefly appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, this is the first cinematic appearance for all of these characters. The X-Men are briefly mentioned and Professor X is alluded to quite cleverly but every character outside of Sunspot is debuting here and to know they’re never going to be seen in this continuity again with a chance to develop is very sad.

In terms of the “horror” aspects of this movie I have to say this is very comic-book horror as in how Blade in the late 90s was horror. If you know the jump scares in this movie are coming then there are no jump scares, so basically if you’ve seen the trailers you know the jump scares.

As a horror movie, it felt very much like It-lite in terms of the theme of bringing nightmares into reality, only without the hard R-rating of the blood and gore because outside of one maybe two scenes there is nothing truly horrific to look at here.

There’s also a great parallel to the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer shown from their episode in this movie and the Smiley Men who are Illyana’s nightmare brought to life. They’re creepy like them but they’re not as sinister as them...and that is a great choice of wording considering who the big bad behind the scenes of this movie is.

As an X-Men movie, which is what this is as the New Mutants in the comics are basically younger versions of the X-Men, as I say the first half of this movie isn’t that power heavy but is about introducing and establishing this team, the second half/last third on the other hand is power heavy. Not exactly Days of Future Past or Apocalypse heavy but still heavy for the powers this group of Mutants have.

Overall generally as both an X-Men movie and a comic-book movie, this was really a great movie particularly for the first new movie I have seen since lockdown.

Characters:

So this breakdown will be easy as there’s only really six characters to talk about but I’m going to make it a seven-character breakdown as the looming presence in the shadows of this movie deserves their own section.

Illyana Rasputin:

Alright so it is somewhat difficult to say if Illyana is my favourite or if Rahne is my favourite but I ultimately landed on Illyana for first as Anya Taylor-Joy is really in the spotlight the entire way through this movie. Every time she’s in a scene she commands the attention, and all five of the New Mutants have solo scenes so for Illyana to stand out the most, this is why she is #1 for me.

I’m not entirely sure where this movie takes place in terms of the overall X-Men timeline...but considering it’s supposedly in the revised timeline and Colossus is a member of the X-Men in the late noughties/early 2010s, I imagine this is either around the same time or can even be modern day (2017 or 2020).

Anya Taylor-Joy is as suited to the role of Magik as Channing Tatum would have been as Gambit in my opinion. Not only does she have a reasonable Russian accent but she just simply looks like how Magik looks in the comics.

I loved the rebel teen angst she had all the way through from when we first meet her to the very end, not only is it fitting for the movie but in my opinion it’s fitting for the character. This is a girl that literally goes through some resemblance of hell and is effectively a serial killer so of course she is going to have this icy dark exterior.

In terms of powers, I am slightly disappointed she never fully armoured up, it was always just her left arm that she had armoured complete with Soulsword, whereas in the comics her main look is her entire body. I guess the argument could be made the majority of it is simply a uniform and her arm is the only part armoured but I would have liked to have at least seen her crown.

But Magik’s powers for me here are an interesting combination of Zatanna and Nightcrawler which is a very good combination. The scene where she first appears through limbo fighting the Smiley Men was very impressive.

I would have also enjoyed it if we had spent more time in Limbo, given that we always saw cameo flashes of it whenever she manifested a portal, but we never actually had a full scene of her in her “special place”.

Not being too familiar with the comics however, I am almost completely unaware of Lockheed as a character. My only prior knowledge is his appearance in Pryde of the X-Men as a pest and I have to say I much prefer him here. The animation of both Lockheed and the Demon Bear were stellar.

As I say, I feel we have only just scratched the surface with where this version of Magik could go. I doubt very much Kevin Feige would bring Anya Taylor-Joy back if/when he does bring the character into the MCU because he doesn’t like playing with used toys but if ever there was an exception I would hope it would be her.

Rahne Sinclair:

It is slightly obvious to think of when Maisie Williams was filming for this movie as her hair, unless it’s a wig, is in that “Arry” phase of her Game of Thrones tenure.

Because of the current entertainment climate and the non-starting stance this movie finds itself released in, I think the lesbian romance between Rahne and Dani is going to go unnoticed. But considering this is the first major LGBT romance in a comic-book property I feel this movie will be cheated out of that representation in favour of what is to eventually come from Marvel.

Outside of the romance, I feel Rahne’s story rooted in her religion and mutation was fantastic. I love me some werewolf action and I feel I saw enough actual wolf to satisfy Rahne spending most of her time in “halfway form” as the character has been known to do in the comics.

The fact her nightmare was that religious leader branding her as a werewolf and thereby a monster, not only was it believable given her character but also the parallels to devout religious views on homosexuality were subtle but there.

I do feel the character spent way too much time screaming towards the end of the movie. This girl is a werewolf but spent most of the final battle as the screaming protector of her unconscious lover, I mean she was I guess helpful in waking Dani back up but never truly let rip like I feel the character could have.

I’m not entirely sure if Williams has any Scottish heritage about her but the slipping in and out of the accent was slightly distracting at times. When she was able to be loud the accent was often broken but in her quieter moments or longer dialogue scenes you could hear it.

I do appreciate keeping the nationality of the character from the comics, considering the mess they made of Banshee and Moira MacTaggert, and I do understand having an at the time name talent like Maisie Williams in the role, but there are surely Scottish actresses out there and the casting pool wasn’t exactly high for this movie.

Dani:

The main character in this movie, or focal character I guess as it’s an ensemble movie, is either Illyana or Dani, but because we start with Dani and are introduced to the other characters through Dani I guess she is the focal character.

Again, I give credit to the movie for keeping the nationality of the characters from the comics, but while Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams border on appropriation as they are not Russian or Scottish themselves, although Anya is of Scottish Argentine descent, Blu Hunt is at least Native-American as Dani is. I think they come from different tribes but I don’t think people are going to focus too much on that technicality.

Similarly to all these characters I don’t really know much about Dani so have no frame of reference to compare her to. I remember she appeared in one episode of X-Men: Evolution and I know her powers involve dreams, which similarly to the majority of the characters in this movie lends itself beautifully to a horror movie, but that’s about it.

I felt her relationship with Rahne was genuine and her own “survivors guilt” over being the only member of her family still alive after the Demon Bear attack was well explained.

I just didn’t understand why it was decided that Reyes had to kill Dani because of the severity of her powers, maybe it was the unpredictability of her powers because their limitations are literally the power of imagination, but I thought Reyes was responsible for sorting out those capable of being killers...surely the power to bring nightmares to life as many times as it takes to kill the person qualifies?

With the Demon Bear being tamed at the end of the movie, I kind of don’t see anywhere for Dani to go if they did continue, she still has the power to solidify nightmares, and I guess she can always call on the Demon Bear, but unlike Rahne or Magik I do not see any further development for her.

Sam:

Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball was an interesting one for me as I knew the character and I knew the actor, but hadn’t properly seen either one fully explored before. I have not watched Stranger Things so do not really know Charlie Heaton’s acting potential...but what I do know is he is from Yorkshire and cannot really do a Kentucky accent.

As for the character of Cannonball, I thought that early scene of him strapping himself to that weight while zooming through the air to either test himself or hurt himself was really well realised. There wasn’t enough of him going full cannonball throughout the movie, mostly it just came across as a sort of super speed which in a way I guess it is but projecting that force-field while he is zooming about is what makes the power set unique.

Similarly to Dani he had guilt over his nightmare which was him causing a mining accident which killed his co-workers and dad, but unlike Dani who never really developed the thought of it being her fault for her family’s death because of her conjuring the Demon Bear, Sam did at least hold a lot of guilt over what had happened...despite his nightmare being probably the weakest as the main effect it had was totalling a washing machine.

I also didn’t understand the back-to-back scenes of Sam suggesting he was meant to be in the hospital and felt he had to be there, but then in the next scene him trying to walk out saying he doesn’t belong there. Maybe it was the editing but it just seemed like a complete 180 from scenes that were literally back-to-back.

Roberto:

As I said this is Sunspot’s second cinematic appearance and I guess in the revised timeline he has gone from being portrayed by Mexican actor Adan Canto to now Brazilian actor Henry Zaga.

I didn’t feel the boys in this movie had that much to do, with both Sam and Berto it did feel like them simply coming to terms with their powers. I did like how both had that fear of hurting people and both had to learn I guess to push past that fear.

With Berto’s fear though, I do feel his power first manifesting in conjunction to him reaching sexual maturity was very well explored, because of course the combination of testosterone and becoming a living solar flare are not exactly two things anyone wants to mix. So when the result is burning your girlfriend to a crisp it is going to shake you.

Outside of his powers though there wasn’t a lot to the character and it is hard to remember a good line that he or Sam had that weren’t douchey, but for what we got he was a good character.

Reyes:

Wow this woman deserved to be eaten by the Demon Bear, which by the way I found almost as humorous as Katie McGrath being carried away by a pterodactyl in Jurassic World.

But yes, this doctor was the “villain” of the movie as she was the agent of the big bad Essex Corporation in charge of determining the new mutants’ powers and whether or not they’re worth progressing to their facility.

Outside of that I didn’t really think much of her as a character, she wasn’t a sympathetic character, she wasn’t believing to be doing this for the benefit of these young mutants, she was simply following orders.

It’s a deviance from the comics where Reyes is a hero and member of the X-Men, whereas here she is far from it.

Alice Braga is also regionally appropriately cast as she is Brazilian whereas the character is Puerto Rican, although whenever she spoke I kept thinking about Gal Gadot a lot, even looks wise there are similarities.

Sinister:

Now let’s talk about the looming big bad who I imagine would have been the major big bad of this supposed trilogy. Despite the new mutants believing the facility to be owned and run by the X-Men, it is in fact run by the Essex Corporation...Essex as in Dr. Nathaniel Essex, a biologist obsessed with evolution who became the Mutate supervillain Mister Sinister.

I want to see Mister Sinister in a live-action movie so badly it’s unreal, they’ve done Apocalypse so why they can’t do Sinister I don’t know.

This isn’t the first time Sinister has been alluded to as the Essex Corporation was in an end credits scene of X-Men: Apocalypse that acquired samples of Wolverine’s blood presumably to create X-23, but because those events took place in the 80s and these events take place in somewhat modern day it’s hard to correlate the two.

Obviously we are no longer going to get X-Men movies in this universe and continuity, but with the seeds being sown for Sinister more than once now, the baton has been laid down for Feige to finally bring this villain to life.

Reccomendation:

If like me you are more or less interested in just completing the twenty-year franchise because you love these characters and any interpretation of them then this is the movie for you. However, don’t expect wall to wall action, and I would recommend not getting too attached to these characters. It’s too late for me with Illyana I already love her and already feel Anya Taylor-Joy has set a high bar for whoever plays Magik next.

But for me personally, this franchise has been my favourite movie franchise and my favourite property. Even the bad movies I can at least find something good about them regardless of if the overall movies have been good or not. But just to reiterate, I do feel this is one of the good movies.

In a ranking of the 13 movies (not counting Once Upon a Deadpool), this ranks somewhere between #6-8 for me.

Overall I rate the movie a solid 8/10, by no means the best or a perfect X-Men movie but by no means one of the worst. The movie benefits from new characters (aside from Sunspot) but suffers due to the inevitability of this being the definitive end for the current franchise.

So what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

#the new mutants #new mutants #x-men #x-universe #magik #wolfsbane #danielle moonstar #sunspot #cannonball #cecelia reyes #mister sinister #illyana rasputin #rahne sinclair #dani moonstar #roberto da costa #sam guthrie #nathaniel essex #anya taylor joy #maisie williams #charlie heaton #blu hunt #alice braga #henry zaga

[getreadytosmash]

EGG previews 1 (far, FAR off previews)

Okay!! this contains scenes I am planning to write and/or want within my series, Ever Growing Green, aka EGG! I am. a slow writer so i decided that putting previews would help!! This....was very and MUCH longer than I intended so I plan to write up a part two! Stay tuned!! And pls feel free to share your thoughts!! or ask questions!!

“Woah.” Rick couldn’t help but gape at the sight of the hollowness of this “Shadow base” place. It looked like it was some sort of sunken in cave. Walking inside of it hadn’t been any better and when Hulk muttered a low “Be careful”, Rick had certainly taken it to heart.

Even with a healing factor and armour, this place made him feel like he could catch tetanus at any opportunity. 

They had started to make their way into the base, Red getting out one of his guns in case something came out, with him and Rick at the front of the party. Both of them had better night vision than either Hulk or Skaar, even if being at the front of what seemed to be some sort of horror movie wasn’t Rick’s idea of a good night. 

Ugh, he hoped that nothing like a vampire or a werewolf ran out to get them. It would be such a cliché and yet-

He paused when something came to view in the dark corridor. There was something on the floor, almost like someone had discarded it or dropped off without anyone noticing. When Rick lifted a hand, the other Agents came to a halt, Hulk stepping further and squinting into the dark while Red moved to kneel down and pick the object up.

“Rick? What is it?” 

“It’s...a feather.” He replied, tilting his head in confusion over it. 

And there was good reason to be confused too. Shadow base had a large gamma presence emitting from it. One that had suddenly increased in the last hour before the Agents had a chance to arrive. They had all been hoping that this was where Jen had been kept in the time she was missing, but obviously they had been too late. It made guilt squirm in Rick’s stomach, an itching and rotting feeling that he hated and yet needed badly. 

He would do better. 

The feather that Red held, matched his shade almost exactly from what Rick could make out. It was large and smelt....odd. Familiar but different. This place had trapped Jen, stolen her away. So why was there a red feather?

“What else has this place been doing to people?”

~~~~~

Walking through the bad base had been awful. Every step echoed through the dark halls and when they went deep enough, Skaar winced at the heavier smell of blood came and they saw the smears off it across the walls.

It had taken them a moment to realise that these walls used to be white instead of red and when they did, Rick covered his mouth with horror and Skaar hoped that he wouldn’t be sick. It would make the smell even worse. 

Eventually they had found some sort of screen room. They had to go past rows and rows of cells; some had scratches in the walls, some had beds with straps connected and some...some of them had kid toys inside. It made Skaar turn away quickly when he saw those, reminded too much of his own cages in Sakaar, even if rusting metal had been replaced with smoother and cleaner metal.

Spears and knives had been his toys back then, but the feeling of being trapped had stayed the same. 

The screen room was...empty but full. Full of bodies hunched over but empty of life. 

“Oh god.” Red had uttered and even though Skaar was used to death, he still looked around with a wince. Blood pooled around these bodies and odd tubes went from the ceiling and into every person’s back, connecting to the large tv in the front. A single chair was in the middle of the room, a few feet in front of the screen-

He stopped. Smelled. Growled. 

He smelt the Leader. The same scent of machine and faint hints of chemicals mixing together. The only new thing with that scent was a heavy metallic of blood that had never been with the villain before. Did he take Jen? To hurt her? It seemed like something Leader would do and Skaar already found a surge of anger growing in his chest. 

But...Leader liked rubbing it in their faces. Hulk always said and pointed out that he tried to show his power and act like he was powerful, taking Jen away and not saying anything over the past few months didn’t make any sense. 

Nothing made sense. Especially with the grey woman and grey person Skaar had been seeing in his dreams. 

Rick walked further, the dim lighting of the room showing his unhappy face as he rested a hand against the control panel. Taking a deep breath, his eyes met Skaar’s with a small and pained smile. “Guess we better see what the heck’s been happening, right?”

~~~~~

Jen was smashed against the wall and bricks dug into her back, cutting her skin before healing up already. The green-skinned woman still let out a grunt of pain as she rolled, barely being able to twist her body up in order to skid across the floor. 

“Give up, Jen Walters.” The voice calls out and when she looks up, Jen’s met with the sight of someone just like her. Green skin in a slightly different hue, lighter, with bright red hair that’s fallen out of her braided bun from where Jen pulled a dirty move and tugged at her hair. The uniform she wore was odd. Red and yellow pants with a odd crop top that covered one whole arm and left the other one bare. The new woman - Lyra, she said her name was Lyra - occasionally pulled at her clothes, like it was something she hadn’t wanted to wear originally. 

“You can’t escape me forever, give up now and let your death be peaceful, hero.” The way Lyra said this word, a sneer grew onto her face and her fists clenched before she took a deep breath and with that, her eyes took on a brighter green. Glowing. 

“Oh please, as if Jenny is ever gonna go down easy for us.” Another voice joined and- no, there were only her and Lyra, who?-

A new woman stepped forward. She was red, the same shade as Red from back home. Red with long black hair joined with two streaks of red running through it and the same white on black eyes to match the general she knew. This woman even has the same smirk he often wore, a black version of the same outfit Lyra wore, although this newcomer seemed to be more comfortable in it than her partner did.

It took Jen a moment to spot the ugly grey and mint green collar around this Red she-hulk’s neck. 

“After all, it wouldn’t be any fun for us, right?” As she said this, the new woman cracked her knuckles, skin lighting up in the same way Red’s did. Lyra seemed to share a frown with Jen as she noticed that the collar didn’t seem to melt away. 

The Red she-hulk stepped closer and when she spoke, when she tilted her head and smiled, Jen couldn’t help but notice the warble in her voice, or the way Red she-hulk’s hands trembled when they rose into a fighting position. 

Those hands snapped towards her and Jen barely had a moment to flip back, but it was no use when Lyra’s foot slammed into the back of her skull, sending Jen slamming into the ground with a yell. She felt her hair get grabbed roughly before being yanked up to meet white on red eyes and a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. 

“Don’t do this.” Jen glared up, tensing up her muscles for one rough fight. “C’mon, there has to be other options, you don’t need to listen to them!” If they did listen, then she wouldn’t be able to contact the team, wouldn’t be able to figure out what was wrong with these new hulks and why they were so set on fighting her. 

God, the first women hulks she had ever seen and they wanted to beat her up. This preview sucked.

Red she-hulk seemed to pause then, a flicker of something on her face before it pulled back into a snarl. “You don’t know what I need to do. You don’t know me!”

With that, her fist came down onto Jen’s face. 

~~~~~

“You don’t need to do this.” Betty’s voice rang out into the room, catching Hulk’s attention as well as Daydream’s from where she floated above him. 

Daydream scowled, her dark green cloak and dress swirled menacingly from above them all, energy sucking and pulling from the other bodies of the Agents around her. A sneer pulled at her face as she took in the sight of Betty, the collar around both of their necks sparked but neither of them paid it any mind.

“I don’t? I don’t need to do this?” Her voice raised higher as Daydream let go of Hulk, who fell to the ground with a groan. “You know who I am! What I was made for. I was built to hurt people, built to be angry and now someone wants to tell me that I don’t have to do it?” 

Energy pulled and pulled from around the room and Betty watched with a odd expression before Betty stepped forward and hands came to the collar around her red neck. 

“You don’t.” Her voice was stronger now and Daydream regarded her source with surprise. “You don’t deserve to be told what you are or what you’re good for by nameless people who hurt and hurt. People who use you and only formed you because you were useful. Not because you were a person who had formed with thoughts and feelings.” 

Betty stepped closer, unflinching in the face of Daydream snarling at her. “I was angry. Angry over what had been done to me and the fact that Shadow base - Fortean - used me against the people I love and made me into a monster.” Her hands pulled more at the collar now, gripping it firmly. 

“Betty-” Hulk made a noise of pain, but neither her or Daydream paid him any mind.

“I know, that you are scared.” Betty said and when Daydream stared, when she floated down, Betty smiled sadly. “Because I was scared and I was so angry, but they shouldn’t have been allowed to make you from those emotions. I’m- I’m sorry, Daydream.” 

Her voice was quieter now and when she reached, the entity placed her hand in Betty’s, her face scrunching up with the shine of tears.  

“I didn’t-” Daydream looked away, her glow darkening. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just did what I was told ah-and what I felt. I just wanted...I wanted a name, my own clothes, friends and- and a mother! Like he had!” She gestured towards Hulk, hands clenching as tears began to slide down her face. 

Something shifted in Betty and the roaring of Daydream’s power only made he eyebrows furrow as she tugged harder at the collar. “Then I’ll give it to you! I’ll give you a name, you’ll have the other experiments for friends and I’ll be the one who takes care of you, I’ll do what my own mother did for me!” She yelled. “You aren’t what they made you to be and neither, am, I!” 

With a final scream, Betty tore the collar off her neck and with it, a snapping noise occurred her back. She hunched over and screamed, red hands snapping and angling into claws, her ears becoming longer and pointed as her form has started to change. 

“Betty!” Hulk screamed.

“Re-” Daydream started before she reached for the older woman. “Mother!”

“Hulk, I’m sorry!” Betty cried out and the power surrounding Daydream grew stronger and brighter as Betty twisted over, sending a watery smile towards Hulk. “For hurting you and the others and my father...tell him I’m sorry.”

Wings exploded from Betty’s back and in one brighter flash, the two of them were suddenly gone, pulled from the nightmare realm and leaving Hulk in an empty hanger, calling her name. 

Hours later, when Red had recovered more and finally woke up, Hulk was standing at the end of the bed and looked towards him, a red feather in his hands. 

“I know who the Harpy is.”

~~~~~

The lightning and thunder shouldn’t have been possible in such a place, but Hulk knew that the Green Place, the Down Below, the Green Door of Death, worked to no exact rules. 

Everything shifted and bended and Brian’s laugh filled the sky and Hulk’s ears.

Madman - Phil Sterns - laughed right alongside him. energy swirling under his feet as he reached up to the sky and if Hulk listened close enough, he could hear screaming under that laughter. 

The door was starting to close and only so many people were at risk here and he needed to make sure that they stayed safe. 

“Hulk!” But there was a problem, one that he couldn’t exactly ignore for long.

“Hulk!” Jen cried out, her hands gripping the edge of the door. “Come on! We don’t have long, you need to hurry up!”

She expected him to come with her, to take her hands and leave and never come back through the door. Leave Madman behind with Brian in this, the most awful of places. 

But Leader, his old enemy, had stared at all of this with a horrible sense of familiarity and had turned back to look at Hulk and he had asked something, his back hallowed out and bleeding. 

“Save him, please, I know Phil isn’t good, but, please, save him!”

He had asked, begged, and Hulk was a hero and the only one with the kind of power to do this. Leader had asked and he was going to do his best to do what was right. 

**

It didn’t mean that Jen had to like it, or let it happen though. She watched as Samuel was shoved past her through the Door, but Hulk never reached to take her hand back and the Door was bound to close soon, so what was he-

“Jen, I have to do something. He asked-”

“You don’t have to do anything!” She snapped back and gripped the edges of the door harder. “Come on, he hurt us, he isn’t worth it-”

Her cousin laughed and it wasn’t a good laugh, it sounded like Hulk was resigning himself to something horrible and no, it couldn’t happen, he wouldn’t stay here, he would get out and Jen would tell him off and then she would finally be able to give her brother a hug. 

He wouldn’t stay in the death realm or whatever bullshit name people used for it. 

But Hulk wasn’t coming and when he looked up at her, tears had begun to gather in his eyes, the distant swirl of hatred and a large green mass already beginning to gather as Brian brought about his energy. 

He would kill Hulk. He would kill Bruce. Just like he did with Aunt Rebecca and exactly what Brian had always wanted to do.

“If it’ll help someone? It’ll always be worth it.” The energy was surging towards him now and the door was definitely closing. “Keep safe Jen, I’ll do my best and take care of the team-”

“Hulk, I said no!”

“-and help out those new hulks, they’ll need an expert like you.” Hulk’s eyes glowed and hands, forming from the ground and clawed, were reaching to grip him as the green started to slide out of his body. It wasn’t right to watch, that couldn’t happen, he couldn’t leave her-

“I love you, Kid.” 

The Door slammed shut and against orange sand and perfect night sky, Jennifer screamed, the sounds of concerned yelling fading to muffled water as her world turned green with grief and grey creped along her body. Hulk was gone, dead to the living world and trapped the person who would hurt him the most. 

Behind her, Rick sat up, groaning before a sight caused him to choke. Before him was...himself? Except his own body was sitting up and looking around the desert, calling out “Phil” before he tired to get up, but ended up tripping from where he wasn’t used to the weight. 

Rick blinked and looked down at green hands, felt a horrible ache in his back. 

“Oh no.”

~~~~~

“Mutate-SS/L00.1 is ready for sugary now sir.”

“Bit of a long name for me,” Samuel laughed from where he was strapped down on the table. His face was pressed into a gap and despite the fact that he was naked in front of so many people, he made sure to keep his breathing even. “Really, the Leader is fine.”

He was ignored, which shouldn’t have been too shocking, but it certainly made a point when every comment he had made so far had often resulted in Samuel being electrocuted or cut or being beaten. Clearly what he had to say had no meaning for anyone and the idea of “sugary” was already making Samuel quite tense. 

They kept him drugged here. Made sure that Samuel wasn’t able to observe or take advantage of anything and the green-skinned man was already going mad with it all. 

He needed to be free and he would be, soon, preferably when this shitty play at nurses and doctors were over. 

Footsteps came closer and from the table, Samuel could make out large and heavy boots. Almost hulk-sized. He narrowed his eyebrows, squirming slightly when he felt a gloved hand run across his bare back. 

They always made sure to cover themselves up whenever they touched Samuel. They knew enough about him to know how his skin secreted a type of toxin that induced infection that took over people’s minds, made them follow and connect to his own brainwaves. He hadn’t been able to reach any form of skin and a part of Samuel wanted to hiss when he felt gloved hands touch him. 

He had screamed and fought, biting and scratching and even hitting when they took him to this room and had first started to strip him down, cutting someone with his nails hard enough to surely cause an infection, biting down and feeling bone snap under his teeth before he had been overwhelmed. They took away layers of his clothing, staring at what he tried to keep hidden and pressed him down onto this cold metal slab where he couldn’t move and his chest was pressed onto the table uncomfortably. It didn’t feel nice, to have that form of control ripped away like everything else was. 

It was a torture method, to take away Samuel’s control and he knew it shouldn’t work on someone who was better than all of this, but...it did. He wanted to scream, even wanted to hope that the Agents would free them all. 

Instead, that gloved hand rubbed his back and it took a moment for Samuel to realise that it was rubbing some sort of solution onto his back, making him shiver. His skin began to tingle and when the body above him chuckled, Samuel immediately tensed up. He knew that voice.

“Sir, should we use-”

Phil waved a hand, already grabbing his needed tools and moving the holder into place, for when the skin needed to be kept open and stopping it from naturally healing over. “It’s fine, it doesn’t need to worry about the pain, not when I’m here. Right Sam?” 

Samuel couldn’t say anything. His mouth felt dry and tingly and he was laid out and vulnerable for anything. The hand on his back had only just stopped rubbing and Samuel could hear something being moved - angled above the spot Phil had been touching.

“Nothing to say?” Phil’s voice was light and happy and Samuel wanted to be sick. “That’s alright, you’ll be screaming enough it to not matter, baby brother. Rikki, you can sit and watch.” His voice became more clipped then, a large shift from the sticky sweetness just a moment ago. “This could happen to you after all.” 

Rikki nodded, her green skin so much paler as her collar flickered and she took a seat neatly. Aesthetic sat next to her, far too full than she originally planned and when the sugary began and Samuel began to scream, a horrible crunching noise came from his spine. The sugary was due to last fifteen hours by her constant calculations and Rikki was thankful that her obedience prevented her from being able to throw up by her own choice. 

~~~~~

“You need to wear the belt.”

“I am not wearing the belt, Rick.”

Samuel scowled up at Rick and tried to ignore the fact that Red and Jen were watching with amusement, Hulk shaking his head and sighing. 

“You need to though!” Rick said. “Otherwise no one will know that you’re a Agent too!”

Ugh. Samuel scowled harder and didn’t appreciate the fact that Rick had snuck two more of those ridiculous belts into his room. He didn’t know what the obsession was with them. Why did they need to match? They weren’t the Hex girls. 

“Hex girls?” Rick frowned and jutted his neck back in disgust. “You make a mean comment where I can hear it and you pick the Hex girls?”

“They match! They match styles!”

“Yeah, if they were emo.”

“Emo, oh my god they were in Scooby doo, you made me watch it with you-” Samuel squeezed his eyes shut and waved a hand, pointedly ignoring the way Red snorted. “The point is, I’m not going to wear the stupid belt for as long as I live.”

Jen frowned. “Didn’t you die yesterday when Hulk stepped on you?” Beside her, Hulk groaned and covered his face. 

“Well, yes, but I’m speaking metaphorically here, Jennifer.” He rolled his eyes and waved a hand, utterly certain that he would never wear the belt. Too many times he had made fun of the Agents (in his head) for wearing a group garment and Samuel was fully set on not being a part of that. 

Hours later and one adventure with giant birds left Samuel standing, surrounded by cruel brutes and wishing that he had died once more.

“You’re wearing it! The belt!” Rick is delighted, even without the link, Samuel would easily be able to feel his utter glee bleeding into everything. Worse was the fact that even the others were smiling at the matching white and black belt Samuel now wore. 

“Yes, I know,” He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms while glaring, but nothing he did seemed to wipe away the smile that was being seared into his skull, like a thousand solar rays. “But it was needed to trick the Balaflums and it’s certainly not a big deal-”

He gets interrupted by blue hands tugging him into a hug, Samuel yelps and only then do they suddenly become more gentle, being careful to not apply pressure to his back.

“It’s a big deal! The biggest deal! And it’s being totally made and sold! Oh man, we’re gonna have to celebrate you fully joining us tonight!” Rick made a weird high noise that...sounded a lot like a squeal and suddenly Samuel was being pressed in gently from all sides.

It took him a moment to realise that he had been pulled into a group hug and when he did, Samuel groaned loudly. 

If he purred and someone brought it up, he was going to stab them. 

~~~~~

Watching Betty fly was quite the spectacle. It reminded Red of his old days, flying planes in shows before he had crashed and ended up breaking his back. 

Now he was the Red hulk and any time he was caught in an explosion, he survived it, even if the feeling in his chest told him differently.

His daughter flew higher into the sky and Red felt something in his chest clench at the sight, but he stayed still, standing against a boulder and watching with interest. 

Betty had only shifted into this new look for a few weeks now and yet she took to the sky like a - well, a bird. 

She flew high up, swirling around in the sky before looping and dropping down, lower and lower before she pulled herself up at the last minute. Against the blue of the sky, Betty looked large and striking with her red hues. 

It made her a monster in the worst regards, a brand that Red had trusted someone once and Fortean betrayed Red by going ahead and hurting Betty, all because Red shared blood with her. His daughter had what it took to make monsters, all from Red himself.

Betty flew higher and higher and suddenly she gave a flick and she had lit up with flames, standing out in the sky like a star, like a plane that rushed home on early summer’s day, coming too close with flames and burning flesh-

Red’s daughter twirled in the air, a graceful arc that he would have admired, if the memories hadn’t swarmed forward and left him stepping back, bile rushing up into his throat and leaving Red to cover his mouth. He couldn’t breathe or move - 

Everything he did came back to haunt him eventually. Betty was just another casualty. 

~~~~~

“Sooo, you just...break into aquariums whenever you’re sad?” Rick raised an eyebrow as he said this. 

“Yes.” Samuel says and turns back to the tank he was interested in before Rick had interrupted him.

“....And no one knows?”

Samuel sighs and shrugs. “No Rick, no one knows I come here because in all of my years of villainy, no one often stops to wonder if the villain enjoys going to aquariums or about my other hobbies.” Really, it wasn’t like he dedicated his entire life to fawning over the Hulk. 

Silence came then and it was such a relief for Samuel, to be able to breathe properly and stare and reach down into the water in order to collect what he wanted. 

“...You’re picking up a jellyfish.” 

“I am.”

Rick gestured, like there was some sort of point that Samuel should have been following some sort of logic, after all, it was Samuel’s thing to be clear cut and logical. “Doesn’t it, oh I dunno, sting?” 

“It does!” Almost to contradict his last statement, Samuel holds up the jellyfish and grins, showing pointed fangs in the dim lighting. “The pain is quite something, I can feel the toxins radiating already, fascinating...” Samuel breathed before he turned to Rick with a grin. 

“Take some notes down about it for me?” 

But Rick wasn’t taking notes sadly, instead he lunged forward, rushing to take the beautiful creature from Samuel’s hands in order to keep it away from him. Instead the blue hulk had been a bit too rough and with a yell, Samuel and Rick fell into the water, fell into the pool of jellyfish where only one of the two of them were protected from the stings.

~~~~~

In the thundering world, where Hulk had been trapped for far too long, Lyra turns to the man who played a part in her creation and straighten her shoulders.

“Hulk, I’m sorry.”

Her words made her fa-donor blink, turning to look at her with some confusion. Hulk was tired looking, and he was thinner than Lyra would have liked. It reminded her of when she was a young cadet, still training when Mother was still around. 

The other cadets had been cruel, always pulling her hair and pushing her around with their boots and fists all over her body until her cursed hero skin turned a darker shade of greens and purples, but Mother had just said that such marks would make her stronger one day if she could overcome it. Seeing Hulk look even remotely similar made something twist in her stomach.

“What for?” His eyes narrowed in confusion, startling when Lyra reached to take his hands in hers. “You didn’t do anything.”

“But I did.” It was evident in all of her actions and the way she had treated people like her. “I didn’t have the same collars as any of the exp- people at Shadow base. I chose to do what I did because...” This was the harder part. Admitting what and why she did terrible things, but Jen Walters had proved to be the greatest warrior of all times, like in the books. A hero born from her choices being taken from her, much like Lyra hadn’t gotten a choice in being born. 

“Because I hated you Hulk.” She says and a part of her feels terrible for the flinch he gave, but she needed to carry on and work on removing those ingrained habits. “I hated you for the fact that you are my father and I never wanted a father because none of the other soldiers had fathers, let alone fathers who were heroes.” 

The word left a sour taste in her mouth, but Lyra was pleased when she got everything she wanted to say out. Hulk seemed to be just as surprised and a part of her worried for a moment.

What if this was the wrong time to say it? What if Hulk got angry and Jen Walters had been wrong about apologising and making things right?

She blinked in surprise though when Hulk reached out to hold both of her hands in his. It was odd, to see someone like her after so long of being the only good green person. Anyone else back home with green skin was far too long corrupted by the power of heroes and she had been shunned for long enough over it. Coming to a world where there was another woman and her fath- a man with the same skin as Lyra stood out so much. 

Hulk stared at her for a few moments and what he said next surprised her more than anything, even more than finding out that she was to be banished back in time by the Cradle Mother. 

“You don’t need to be sorry for not wanting a father.” 

When Lyra didn't answer, her face scrunching in confusion, Hulk sighed and continued. “I know how you feel. Not in the same way, I’ll never know how your life was bad, but I know that having a father and wanting a father isn’t the same thing. I...” He looks away, taking a deep breath before he sets his shoulders straight and glances at the roaring green sky, where Lyra’s grandfather pooled in power. 

“I never wanted my own father. He ruined Bruce, made him pool into fragments and he hurt everyone around him. I would have given anything to not have Brian Banner as my father and when I got older and my alter developed more, I realised that I didn’t have to have him as my father if I didn’t want to. We were related but we weren’t family.” Hulk says and Lyra...feels odd. You didn’t have to keep the people who raised you and were raised with you as your family?

There seemed to be a point to all of this and in a rush, Hulk gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “What I’m saying is, you don’t have to take me as your father, Lyra. No matter what people told you, you never have to accept someone as your family and while I’m fine with not being your father, I’d-” Hulk frowns and Lyra feels like suns are busting in her with this revelation. “I’d like to still be chosen for your family at least. Is...that alright?”

She didn’t need to choose her family and who was who in her life. 

Her father didn’t need to be a father, he could simply be in her life with the rest of the hulks.

Lyra could be a better person. She could do something good with Hulk and not have to take her Mother or Cradle Mother or any of the other soldiers back. 

“Okay.” She says and Hulk beams at her and suddenly Lyra does feel what Jen talked about before she left to save her donor. 

“Great, now let’s get ready to go home.” Rebe- Cradle- Grandmother is standing some distance away, with Karen Ross who holds her hands and seems to be saying something, a smile on her face. They would return home, all of them. 

#Found in body but lost in mind (Skaar) #movie star (Rick) #green goddess (Jen) #one man army (Red) #The loneliest there is (Hulk) #one woman war (Lyra) #hate and love are both red (betty) #he swims in a sea of regret (samuel) #phasing the mind (Daydream) #there will be more!! #what do y'all think?? #they're not all in chronological order btw!! #i really wanted to share this and i can't wait to do more #I spent three days on this already sjsjsjsjs #Gamma rambles (Drabbles) #im using that tag now #cause spammers always appear when i use my writ/ing

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1977

Under the cut.

Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr. – “You Don’t Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show)” -- January 8, 1977

They will be happy with each other as they are, not needing a "star." It sounds literal, like they think most people only want to have relationships with celebrities. It's got some bounce and a beat, but it's very light and not poetic at all. Meh.

Leo Sayer – “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” -- January 15, 1977

Shouty falsetto. It might be disco if it were faster. I am not listening to this whole thing, because it will give me a headache.

Stevie Wonder – “I Wish” -- January 22, 1977

One of the greatest musical intros. It's a funk song about nostalgia, wishing for childhood again, and I normally hate that. But the music is amazing.

Rose Royce – “Car Wash” -- January 29, 1977

This was an intro song for a movie of the same name. I had no idea. I just thought someone decided to sing about working at a car wash randomly. The song is a little bit Motown, a little bit disco. It's fun.

Mary MacGregor – “Torn Between Two Lovers” -- February 5, 1977

It's slow, it's soppy, and it's about how she's cheating on "you" with someone else. She truly loves you, but she's not gonna stop seeing the other guy, whom she loves too. It sounds like she wants to try this whole poly thing she's heard about. But is the guy she's singing to gonna be okay with that? Probably not. Most people aren't. Maybe though. I don't care. For being about a subject that should be heartrending, this song sure is boring.

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – “Blinded By The Light” -- February 19, 1977

This version made it to #1. Bruce Springsteen's original didn't even make it to the charts. This version is really bad -- it sounds like a recitation surrounded by goop, not a song. Bruce Springsteen's version is one of my favorite songs. I am going to sulk now.

Eagles – “New Kid In Town” -- February 26, 1977

Huh, an Eagles hit I've never heard before. This is about fame, how everyone loves you at first, then forgets you when the next big thing comes along. They try to shoehorn some stuff about romance in -- "Will she still love you when you're not around?" -- but it doesn't really flow. Also the song sounds like it should be playing in the background of a cabana. Fittingly for a song worried people will forget them, I have already forgotten this song.

Barbra Streisand – “Love Theme From A Star Is Born (Evergreen)” -- March 5, 1977

I listened to this song for 30 seconds. No more. I cannot stand Barbra Streisand. I don't think I'd like this song anyway, as it's glop, but maybe a different singer could have made it tolerable.

Daryl Hall & John Oates – “Rich Girl” -- March 26, 1977

Rich girls get picked on while rich boys are the ones who usually get away with everything. This song was actually originally about a rich guy, too. It would have been better. It's still good musically, but it misses the mark. Not that rich girls don't also get away with plenty, but compare and contrast what happened to Paris Hilton for her venial sins, versus the entire existence of Donald Trump.

ABBA – “Dancing Queen” -- April 9, 1977

ABBA was a good group. They were hated on, and now they're more likely to be exalted. They didn't deserve the hate (save it for the Bee Gees), but they're not the second coming or anything either. They were just a good, fun group. This song can be danced to, but it's a song more about dance than a dancing song. It's a rare song observing a young woman dancing while identifying with her, rather than lusting after her. "You can dance/ You can jive/ Having the time of your life." It's good.

David Soul – “Don’t Give Up On Us” -- April 16, 1977

The narrator did something really bad last night. Cheating? Worse? Now he's telling his lover not to "give up on us." As soft as the song is, "tell" is the word, not "ask." And he doesn't apologize once. Also, David Soul was a professional actor, but there's no worry in his voice; he's nothing but smooth and assured here. Blech.

Thelma Houston – “Don’t Leave Me This Way” -- April 23, 1977

It's disco with a large dose of Motown, or Motown with a large dose of disco. Either way, it works. Everything lines up with precision, and then Thelma Houston comes in over all of it with huge emotion. The contrast is sort of fascinating. Oh, and her huge emotion is that she wants sex. "Then come on, satisfy the need in me/ 'Cause only your good loving can set me free." She's not begging, but she's not exactly commanding either. It's really good.

Glen Campbell – “Southern Nights” -- April 30, 1977

It's Kidz Bop honky tonk. That's probably not fair; Glen Campbell grew up in a family of poor sharecroppers in Arkansas. But it's what I hear. It's happy clappy, and scrubbed clean of anything real.

Eagles – “Hotel California” -- May 7, 1977

Whatever you think this song is about, it's not about that. The Eagles wrote it with a mish-mash of stuff in mind, but mostly trying to be ambiguous. What that means is that whatever you think this song is about, it is about that. It's a choose your own adventure psychological horror song. I love it. It makes me happy in that way that good poetry and good music do -- and this is both.

Leo Sayer – “When I Need You” -- May 14, 1977

This song is cheese. Absolute, unadulterated cheese. But it's not bad cheese. It's a good solid cheddar. It's slow but not too slow, soft but not too soft, and it manages some interesting percussion. And Sayer sings like he means it. It's about missing his lover while he's on the road, and he imagines she's with him to get by. "When I need you/ I just close my eyes and I'm with you." It sounds kind of like a Broadway ballad. It's enjoyable.

Stevie Wonder – “Sir Duke” -- May 21, 1977

A song about Duke Ellington, which is a subject I approve of. Stevie Wonder also lists a few more legends, including one of my favorites: "And with a voice like Ella's ringing out/ There's no way the band can lose." It's a love song to music itself. It's sort of big band, sort of funk, and sort of Motown, and it works. The lyrics do get too repetitive for me near the end, though.

KC & The Sunshine Band – “I’m Your Boogie Man” -- June 11, 1977

It's a wordplay on the "bogie man" monster. But the boogie man wants to show up and give you whatever you want whenever you want however you want. Sexually. The song actually has more lyrics than most KC & The Sunshine Band songs, but it's still a song to dance to. Not to have sex to. But for dancing? Yep, it's good.

Fleetwood Mac – “Dreams” -- June 18, 1977

YAY! Okay so I have no interest in Fleetwood Mac without Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. But when they joined in 1975, Fleetwood Mac became truly great. And this song is from Rumours, which is their best album (forged out of a hell of a lot of intragroup pain), and written and sung by Stevie Nicks, who was their best artist. My parents played this record and their previous self-titled one all the time. I didn't fully understand the songs when I was a kid, but I loved them. As I grew old enough to understand them, I loved them more. And now I love them more than that. I can't analyze this song. I love it too much.

Marvin Gaye – “Got To Give It Up (Part 1)” -- June 25, 1977

At first, he was uncomfortable at parties and didn't want to dance. But then he loosened up enough to dance, pretty obviously as a way to pick up chicks. There's the horrible line "Let me step into your erotic zone." The music is experimental. Marvin Gaye's falsetto is fine, but it's still a falsetto the whole damn song. And there are people making party noises in the background the whole time. I find this song painful.

Bill Conti – “Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky) -- July 2, 1977

You know this instrumental, you've heard it tons. It's a good movie theme -- I think. It's hard to say, when it's something that's been so often present in so many different contexts in my life.

Alan O’Day – “Undercover Angel” -- July 9, 1977

The undercover angel is a make believe woman from a sex dream. At the end of the song, he's telling "you" that you remind him of the undercover angel, so you must be meant to be with him. It's an extended "I've seen you in my dreams" pickup line. It's so dumb.

Shaun Cassidy – “Da Doo Ron Ron” -- July 16, 1977

This is an excruciatingly boring cover of The Crystals' classic 60s girl group song.

Barry Manilow – “Looks Like We Made It” -- July 23, 1977

He's singing to an ex. They both "made it" because they found other people. Until "Looks like we made it/ Or I thought so till today/ Until you were there everywhere." If they get back together it's not going to be easy, because they'll be leaving relationships that seem happy. I don't think they'll get back together -- besides, she may not feel anything for him any more. It's a more complex song than it sounds. And Barry Manilow sure can sing. I wish he'd gone with the jazz songs he preferred, but then he wouldn't have been hugely successful. He decided to pull the rhinestone cowboy trick, and I can't blame him. He did make the soppy 70s charts more tolerable than they would have otherwise been.

Andy Gibb – “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” -- July 30, 1977

For instance, without Barry Manilow, Andy Gibb would probably have had more hits. Gibb's voice is thin. If you're going to sing a line like "Oh, if I, if I stay here without you darlin' I will die," you need some power and drama behind it. This guy sounds like he's trying to sell kitchen tile. It's a relatively fast song, but the beat is somehow irritating too. Blech.

The Emotions – “Best Of My Love” -- August 20, 1977

It starts with a blast of horns, and then a blast of singing. Then the chorus is quieter than the rest, which is weird to me. I can't put my finger on why this song bores me, but it does.

Meco – “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band” -- October 1, 1977

A disco mashup of the Star Wars theme with the cantina band theme. That happened. I love John Williams' music and I think he deserves credit for at least half of Star Wars' success. But I think this remix sounds extremely dumb. Someone slowed down the cantina band theme a couple years ago and that sounds very noir and cool. This doesn't.

Debby Boone – “You Light Up My Life” -- October 15, 1977

The person who wrote this song was completely and absolutely terrible. But Debby Boone isn't. She's a Christian singer, but seems to be one of the nice ones, not the wingnut fundie ones. Anyway, she wasn't a Christian singer in 1977 (though she was Christian). And she had a good voice. But she sings this song painfully slowly. It sounds like she comes in after where she's supposed to come in and then draws out the notes longer than she's supposed to. I don't know if that's her or the song itself. I sped up the song to 1.25 and it's a little more palatable, but it's still bad. It's a trudge. I don't feel lit up after this.

The Bee Gees – “How Deep Is Your Love” -- December 24, 1977

It's not falsetto, though Barry Gibb does go uncomfortably high some. But it's still very bad. It's a string of bland cliches over bland music. And the weird 70s male romance song entitlement: "And it's me you need to show/ How deep is your love?" Shut up.

BEST OF 1977 -- "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac  WORST OF 1977 -- "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" by Meco. People really would disco to anything, huh?

#billboard number ones

[aces-to-apples]

DVD commentary meme! Whatever part of Family Before Honor you'd like to talk about, please!!

Alrighty, since there isn’t much of it posted and chapter two isn’t very long to start with, I’ll just do that then. Author’s commentary on chapter two of “Family Before Honor” beneath the cut:

Two Months

Domestic: 1) of or relating to the home, the household, household affairs, or the family. 2) no longer wild; tame.

I suppose the first thing to note is the pattern of the chapters and summaries—each chapter, and there’s only going to be three, is titled based on how long it’s been in the fic since Cut’s death and each summary is the theme on which the chapter is built. “Two Months” is more meant to bridge the gap between “Two Hours” and “Two Years” and is based around Rex making the transition from military life to civilian life. Settling into a rhythm with Suu and the kids that works for everyone.

Rebuilding the La’Cuane farm is an undertaking both larger and smaller than Rex had first estimated.

Ah, yes, “La’Cuane”. Because fuck Dave Filoni. Before I watched The Deserter, I was under the impression that Lawquane was most likely pronounced more like “lah-kayn” but, as is my custom, when I learned the “official” version I said “nah, fuck that” and came up with my own. So, “Lawquane” is a mistranslation as so many Basic Twi’lek names are. Because fuck you, Dave.

The first few days are an unending game of hurry-up-and-wait: for Republic forces to finish routing the Seps, for Jesse and the boys to come back to retrieve him when he didn’t answer their comms, for Suu to sniffle and stutter her way through the story they’d cooked up to explain his ‘death.’

I just don’t like “Seppies”, okay? I just don’t. “Covies” I’ll accept from Halo, because Marines, but “Seppies”, “tinnies”, and “shinies”? Mmm, how ‘bout the fuck not?

Then waiting for various scans of the remains to come up positive for Fett’s genetic material, for ‘his’ chip to come up too damaged to ping as more than simply present, for Kenobi—well, it turns out that Kenobi had a softer heart than Rex had ever thought. From what Rex spies, he looks damn near devastated for a few heartbeats after Suu tells him the news.

Departing from @norcumii’s version, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, I decided that it’s too early in the war for Rex and Obi-Wan to have actually started a romantic relationship and kept it as more of a “what if” kind of thing for them to regret. More pining, that way ;)

Then the children march up to him and Jesse, carrying Rex’s armor in their undersized little arms, and Jek loudly proclaims that they want to keep Rex’s bucket. “He was like a, a superhero,” Jek says earnestly, and next to him Shaeeah nods vigorously. “He was so brave and he saved us from the monsters and we’ll take really good care of it.”

Listen, the La’Cuane kids are just insanely cute, okay? And according to Legends (I think?) they were aware enough that they had several million uncles out there in the universe that Shaeeah wrote a book about it, so they absolutely grew up with stars in their eyes about their extended family.

Suu makes a little scene of chastising them, calling it disrespectful, saying that his brothers should have his helmet, it was only right. Rex is dazed by the layers of manipulation they all go to just for him to keep his face; he’s even more dazed by how well it works.

Kenobi clearly melts at the display but looks to Jesse, Kix, and Hardcase for the final decision. Rex can read the silent conversation between them as clear as day. When Jesse crouches down to gaze intently into the visor of Rex’s helmet, he knows the children have won.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Jesse says decisively, and it’s settled. Quieter, he adds, “I think he’d like that…”

If Rex wasn’t so traumatized right now, he’d be absolutely indignant that Jess just blatantly lied like that. How dare you slander the good name of Captain Rex, good Lieutenant, by implying this small child whom he only knew for a few hours and “died” to protect should keep his face when Kenobi is standing over there trying not to cry. Come say that to his helmet, coward!

Rex doesn’t think about where Cut’s bucket had ended up.

I like throwing out lines that if you think about them for longer than it takes to read them then they might become incredibly depressing. What did happen to his helmet? What happened to his armor?

Jek clutches the helmet to his chest in victory and Shaeeah smiles sweetly and Suu has this fond, exasperated look on her face that Rex assumes comes standard with being eyn buir. The children magnanimously offer the rest of his armor to the men, stacked as neatly as they could manage. Rex stares as Kenobi helps pack it away with the supplies for safekeeping, subtly pocketing his left vambrace as he does.

I’m gonna be honest, at this point canon and fanon have merged so much for me that I don’t even know what’s true and what’s not. Just go with it.

Rex doesn’t think about maybes and what-ifs.

Then Kenobi turns back to Suu and his gaze goes past her to the ruined farmhouse and Rex gets the feeling that Kenobi’s about to do one of those terribly un-Jedi-like things he had never, ever admitted to sometimes doing. He pulls out a credit chip and Rex knows.

He has to turn away from the scene and take careful breaths. Kenobi wasn’t perfect—Cody has spent hours venting to Rex and Wolffe and whoever else managed to meet up at once about his hypocritical, sanctimonious Jedi—but just like Skywalker, just like Tano, just like Windu and Yoda and Secura and every other Jedi, he had his moments of breath-stealing goodness.

Listen, I love some Jedi characters to death, but I have—had, now that Tumblr filters out posts with words like “fuck” and “wank” in the tags when you search for them and pretends they don’t exist—a #fuck the jedi order tag for a reason. The narrative tends to frame both the Jedi Order and most Jedi characters as Righteous and Good, while also having them commit pretty heinous acts and tossing the audience horrific implications/pieces of information at the same time. I’ve said it somewhere before, but The Clone Wars wants to have its “deep, edgy, grimdark exploration of war” and eat its “fun, wacky space adventures” too and while we’ve all noticed the tonal whiplash that the show gives us, it plays hell with the narrative itself. Unspeakably bad shit happens in one arc, and nobody ever mentions it again. The Jedi control a slave army, and that’s Bad, but we’re told that they care about their troops and want to help them Later, which cancels out the Bad and keeps them Good Guys. In universe, it absolutely doesn’t work. We all know the Jedi pull some fuckshit every two weeks, so you bet your ass the clones know it too and routinely get sauced and rant about it to each other where no one can hear them. But they also can be extremely helpful and empathetic between three to five every other Thursday. Sorry, just mentioning #fuck the jedi order sends me off into a rant and I actually deleted a lot of other stuff from this part because Not Important.

Rex should’ve known his last act as a captain, and his first act as a free man, would be finally witnessing one of those moments.

And then Kenobi is gone, his brothers are gone, and the work begins.

- - -

It’s slow-going, and at times back-breaking, and it quickly becomes apparent that the nerve-damage Kix had warned about has set in good and proper. After the children have gone to bed, Rex and Suu go outside to have a rousing argument about what to do—the first of many on the horizon.

I know, I know, it’s common wisdom that disagreeing with your partner are normal but knockdown drag-out arguments Are Not and while I absolutely understand that, I come from a family with an absurdly large number of siblings that subscribe to the Taika Waititi School of Siblings and therefore it’s perfectly reasonable to shout yourself hoarse about some nonsense or other and get mad and stomp off and then two hours later throw a pillow at the other person’s head and say “hey dickhead come look at this funny post what’s for dinner later”. And as such that’s how every sibling relationship I ever write will function because I genuinely don’t understand siblings who don’t drag each other at every opportunity and then pop up around a corner like an awful gremlin to scare them at 2:30 in the morning just to fuck with them.

Suu demands they use part of Kenobi’s credits to pay for surgery to remove and replace the dead arm; Rex counters that he can function with only one arm, but none of them can function without a roof over their heads and walls to shield them from the elements. Suu says that they will contact a doctor she knows on the other side of the planet tomorrow and that’s final; Rex blinks, says understood, sir, and stands down.

The next morning, between frying eggs and waking the little ones, Suu apologizes for 'pulling rank’ on him. Rex can tell the words sit strangely in her civilian mouth. He accepts her apology and says nothing about how he hadn’t even noticed his own automatic reaction to her tone the night before, but. That was exactly how he’d reacted, wasn’t it?

When next they argue, about him ‘overdoing it’ and ‘exerting himself too much’, he’s ready for the gut-punching Commanding Officer Voice and shouts back when it’s his turn to talk. It works for them.

Listen, I don’t know about you, but when I hear certain tones of voice I automatically respond in certain ways. Like the vocal version of being full-named.

- - -

“White is death,” Rex explains once the final layer of base paint has settled on the plastoid. He runs his hand firmly down the prosthesis in its finalized form, from the ball of the synthetic shoulder to the tips of each finger. It’s as much to test that the molecules of paint bind properly as it is to get himself used to the difference. “White is the bones of those long gone. White is the snow that covers the fields in winter. It… stifles, and kills, but it’s also. Possibility, I suppose. White armor is shiny and new, but that just means it has yet to prove itself. You never know what you’re gonna get when you scratch beneath the surface.”

I had a lot more of @izzyovercoffee’s Mandalorian color theory stuff that I ended up cutting just because it didn’t really fit, but you should check them out because they’re suuuuuuper interesting. I love cultural worldbuiding shit like that.

Hanging on his every word, Jek and Shaeeah nod breathlessly. They watch as he picks up a foam brush and dips it into a small pot of 501st blue. He sets it to the very top of the arm and brings it down in a smooth, careful, practiced motion.

“Blue is reliability,” he continues. The unbroken line he draws down to the wrist is thinner than it was on his armor, but copying his armor isn’t the point; the point is to create something new out of its loss. “It’s faithfulness, and consistency. It’s the sky—the very air—and you can always in trust that.”

Listen, if you want subtlety, go read deadcat’s stuff. If you want to get bashed over the head with this shit, you’ve come to the right place.

Lastly, he picks up a fine detail brush and dips it into a second pot.

“This one is different,” he says eventually, gauging his little cadets’ avid expressions. “You use red to honor a parent and the word for ‘red’ in Mando’a is ge’tal—literally, ‘almost blood.’ It’s a complicated word, because to Mando’ade, your family isn’t always going to have the same blood as you. It might not be red at all—it might be green, or blue, or something else entirely. But with family, you’re always ready to spill others’ or your own in order to protect them; it’s about honor… and love.”

“Mom,” Shaeeah deduces, her voice quiet as a mouse as they all gaze at the sharp, cutting magenta that coats the brush.

Rex nods.

“Just so.” He twirls the brush around and offers it to them. “Now, what should we do with it?”

Listen, it’s very important to me that we cut that toxic masculinity shit out of Star Wars, stop linking pink to femininity, more important stop linking femininity to weakness, and ultimately I want to see more clones wearing pink. Pink flowers and curlicues mixed in with 501st blue on Rex’s sick robot arm? Sign me the fuck up.

—

Aaaaand that’s the Author’s Commentary on Chapter Two of Family Before Dishonor, hope you enjoyed!

#ask meme #dvd commentary meme #answered asks #by apples #norcumii #family before honor #star wars #the clone wars #captain rex #suu lawquane #sw fic

[lokikingofasgardslover713]

Inktober Day 26: Stretch

Masterlist

Inktober 2018 Masterlist

Bucky Barnes x Plus!Size Reader VALRAVN

Warnings: SMUT! It's a quickie but it's there! Angst, a cliffhanger!

A/N: If anyone has any questions fill free to ask! In Danish folklore, a valravn (Danish "raven of the slain") is a supernatural raven. The ravens appear in traditional Danish folk songs, where they are described as originating from ravens who consume the bodies of the dead on the battlefield, as capable of turning into the form of a knight after consuming the heart of a child, and, alternately, as half-wolf and half-raven creatures.

Words: 2,000

It was muggy feeling, even for the fall as the two slid out of the muddy jeep, but this was the bayou after all. One of the men blonde, muscular & a brunet man that looked to be sporting a metal hand from a distance. Taking a few steps forward out of the cypress while watching them look over the cabin that was hung with moss & looked old, which it was. Trudging out of the mud, eyeing the blonde that looked to be growing his hair out, finally turn to look at the one stepping out of the swamp, a black horse following behind.

“Thor! What has brought you out here,” the thick framed woman began, both noting the red glow to the horses eyes, as well as the armored sleeves, that looked old to say the least, covered in ruins.

Y/H/C hair tied up in a messy bun that stuck out all over the place, speckled with mud, but giving the two a smile, as she stopped to pull a glove free to shake hands, the horse getting close, but she shooed it away.

“Go on, I’ve already fed you,” Y/N scolded the stallion as it snorted fire before returning back to the swamp to disappear into the muck, Thor looking unfazed, but the brunet was in shock.

“He’s a hybrid of kelpie & gods know what else, Y/N by the way,” she spoke kindly to Bucky offering her hand which he shook.

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky smiled, turning his attention back to Y/N who took her hand back to step way from the two holding a gloved hand up to give her a second, holding armored arm up to the sky.

“Ah, hear he comes, we need to step back…,” Thor began, stepping back & pulling Bucky with him, both men hearing wings, a harpy eagle looking creature perching on Y/N’ arm, swearing the creature brought thunder with it.

“That would be Unole, he’s a thunder-bird,” Thor explained finally stepping forward to look over the massive creature that kept it's wings outstretched around Y/N looking over Thor & the other.

“Bucky this is Unole, he’s just a baby, he will be as big as a pterodactyl in no time though,” Y/N introduced the bird, looking back to the creature with a smile as it rubbed under her chin like a cat.

“Where is Agana,” Y/N asked the bird that chattered under her chin before straitening to fold the massive wings.

The creature looking up at the sky, a quieter sound of wings sounding as Y/N lifted the other arm to catch the smaller version that landed, the two birds beginning to chatter at each other, the two men looking to Y/N who rolled her eyes.

“Look, I don’t care who did what, it's bed time, go,” Y/N directed the birds who quieted, the smaller taking off followed by the larger, both swooping into the house.

“Brother & sister. So, what can I help you boys with,” Y/N began, stepping past the two who she hinted to follow, pulling the buckles on the armor free everyone stepping past the massive snow-white wolf that rested on the porch, the creature just swiveling it's ears to listen.

“Suppers ready Burke, why don’t you get up & come in,” Y/N directed to the lazy creature that followed the three in, Y/N pausing to allow the werewolf to pass, heading to the kitchen on hind feet, the creature towering over even Thor who was still unfazed, unlike Bucky who gawked around them.

Attention turning back to Y/N who was pulling the armor free in the brightly lit room, the left arm normal, but the right was littered in what looked like stretched skin, but on closer inspection the stretches where scars. Ugly, surprised she hadn’t lost the limb. Noting it ran over her shoulder & touched the crook of her neck.

“Phoenix,” Y/N spoke to Bucky, watching Thor walk into the kitchen with the werewolf, that returned a man with pointed ears, a thin covering around his waist, looking at Y/N with bright chartreuse eyes, holding a sandwich.

“You have to leave,” Burke asked, hinting to Thor who was apparently making himself at home having made himself one as well to come stand with Burke.

“I don’t know, no one has told me yet,” Y/N admitted, looking to Thor who paused to speak, watching Y/N take a step around Bucky with the armor in hand to toss it into the dark closet.

“We need your help with a valravn…,” Thor began, all three watching Y/N pause in the closet, reaching up to click the light on, hanging it on a hook in the back.

“A valravn,” Y/N spoke quietly to the closet, “of course.”

Turing back to look at Thor who smiled at her, hinting that he knew something & Bucky stepping back as Y/N finally turned to face the two.

“Not all monsters are bad you know,” Y/N began, eyeing the two Avengers, Burke unfazed, but of course it was his house so why should he leave.

“No, they’re not,” Thor began, taking a step closer, finishing the sandwich to stand in front of the woman who looked at him worriedly.

“& why are you trying to find this valravn,” she asked cautiously, making sure that the god didn’t get to close.

“Because it is wreaking havoc on a small village in Norway & we have no way of defeating it,” Thor began, looking her over, Bucky noting something that he hadn’t before, sharp fangs.

“They are easy to show their selves if one knows the right words to speak in their presence,” Thor spoke watching Y/N close, Y/E/C orbs raking over the god in fear that subsided for a moment.

“But the ones that are born a valravn are a little trickier, especially if they are a knight,” Thor admitted, Y/N looking quick to Bucky when she heard metal shifting as he kept her in his sight.

“I have done no wrong, have taken no lives but that of my kin for the wrong they have done to the mortals, you know that, I helped you & Loki centuries ago,” Y/N spoke, admitting, but not admitting at the same time, as she swallowed hard taking a step back.

“No, you haven’t, it took me after the first battle you helped us to win centuries ago to realize that you aren’t the shield maiden that you pretend to be,” Thor spoke.

“I think you have your head screwed on wrong Alfather,” Y/N began, moving to step around the Avengers, looking at Burke who knew better than to tangle with Thor & stood back as the god grabbed scared arm, thunder sounding overhead, the god reaching for Stormbreaker.

“Show me Y/N, we need your help, don’t lie to me any longer,” Thor spoke, Stormbreaker coming to hand & holding to Y/N.

“Thor, man come on, don’t….,” Bucky got out before the room was clouded in darkness.

The sound of a long blade making contact with the blade of Stormbreaker echoed through the room as it brightened once more to reveal a black knight. Bucky thinking it's cloak was made of feathers until it folded out into large raven wings, the head of a wolf adorned her head like a hood, eyes glittering with fire opals to let the sword fall to her side & backed away.

“Well, now you see me for me, lets get this over with,” Y/N spoke out, pushing the headdress back to show defeat, hinting to them to leave as she followed them out sending the wings & armor away as they headed to the jeep.

“This is a bad idea,” Y/N blurted out the moment Bucky slammed her into the wall with bare thick thighs wrapped around toned hips, plump hips bucking at tinted pants as he took a break from attacking bare ample breast to speak.

“Yeah it is,” he gasped out, leveraging large frame against the wall to free leaking cock, rough hands going to stubbled cheeks to stress their lips together in a clash of tongues & fangs before he slammed into dripping cunt without warning.

The thick framed woman gasping out at the burn & stretch as she pulled away.

“Fuck,” she drawled out, bucking at his hips to rub throbbing clit to chase the high as she looked down into lust blown azure eyes, smiling down devilishly.

“Like that do you doll,” he drawled out, thrusting hard into needy cunt, swearing that the sheet rock cracked when he did, unable to stop his devilish smile, looking up to drink in Y/N’ look of ecstasy as she laid sweaty head to the wall, speaking praises to him.

It was sloppy, needy sex that the two didn’t regret, the soldier pounding up into the begging creature above him, having the room to themselves for the time being & unable to stop primal urges from taking over. Chasing a high that they were going to catch regardless if it was right or wrong, sloppy kisses trailing between ample breast as sweat trickled between them. They knew that the chase was coming to a close when cock twitched & cunt clenched. A pleading begging mess of limbs that clung tightly to each other as they fell from the rocky ledge into bliss.

Bucky sinking to his knees with a panting Y/N in his arms, the woman rutting at still twitching cock that spilled into her womb, filling her with warmth she hadn’t felt in years. Wrapping smooth & scorching arms around his neck to hold tightly, slowing her bucking to lay her head to his, kissing sweat slicked hair because this battle felt like it wouldn’t end well. Fate telling Y/N this soldier needed to know raw love before meeting up with the valravn. Rocking him gently as metal & flesh wrapped around thick midriff so he could bury his face into ample breast to place gentle kisses between them.

No, she thought, holding tighter to the loving soldier, tomorrow want be ending well, eyes fluttering closed as a tear fell into auburn hair.

“Bucky! STOP,” Y/N yelled out as the soldier approached the fallen valravn.

The creature wasn’t dead, watching it spring forward, a blade singing thorough the air, it's head separated from body, while her stomach began to fill with blood. Turning to Bucky to shoot him a bloody, fangy smile before collapsing to her knees, long sword sticking out of her ribs.

Hand going to the wound to hold to the sword, blood pouring around the wound & through her fingers, now Bucky’ as he pressed a hand to the wound. The soldier locking gazes with Y/E/C orbs that were losing their light, she seen the heartbreak & tears in his eyes as he clung to her, knowing better than to remove the sword as he cradled the dying body.

“It's ok,” Y/N breathed out with a smile, bloody hand going to a stubbled cheek, catching the tear that fell.

“The valravn line is finally dead,” Y/N croaked out, hand falling limp to armored chest , breathing coming harder as she continued to look into stormy blue eyes that burned her soul.

“No, not yet,” he croaked, pulling something out of his pocket before pulling the sword free, Y/N letting out a primal scream of pain, looking down to watch as he….. 

Tags: @dark-night-sky-99  @prettybubblesintheair  @gramaeryebard  @reallyheckinggay  @jovanna-shewolf  @andiyholly  @katstablook   @nickyl316h  @beets1bears1battlestargalactica @aslandia726 @moonfaery @furstinnajoelle   @itsbqueenthings

@whovianwookie86-captainxev@jazzieomega

#inktober #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky marvel #bucky x oc #bucky x plus size reader #bucky x you #bucky smut

[vex-bittys]

Bittyswap (part 21)

My version of Bittyswap involves full-sized bittybones (and other monsters) living in the Underground and getting miniature humans as pets.

When Brassy woke me up far too early the next morning with the less than appealing offer to join him at his Snowdin Forest sentry station for the day, I politely declined by way of disgruntled groaning to express exactly how much I did not want anything to do with that idea. As much as I enjoy the prospect of slowing freezing to death while simultaneously succumbing to SOUL-crushing boredom, I could put aside my own selfish desires in favor of lazing about in the comfort of my bed, faithfully awaiting my owner’s return.

I only hope that someday my sacrifices will be recognized and rewarded.

I rolled over and resumed my oh-so-attractive signature combination of snoring and drooling, ignoring Brassy as he shuffled around his room getting dressed and stalling to give me plenty of opportunities to decide that I really love frostbite and completely despise comfort. With a pointed sigh, he left. I could hear the heavy thumps of his boots on the stairs and the muffled rumble of his voice as he bade our housemates farewell.

I wondered if YanYan would stop by, but I doubted he’d come within 100 feet of the disaster area that was Brassberry’s room. YanYan had lofty standards. Fortunately for me, nobody else in the house had standards or respect for privacy.

Brassy’s side of the bed hadn’t even cooled down before Cap and Cherry burst through the door to invite me downstairs to watch TV with them. I admired their ability to muster that kind of enthusiasm before noon, so I agreed. Cherry hurried to pick me up before Cap had a chance. I gave the timid skeleton a grateful smile. While Cap seemed to understand how fragile and squishy I am, he still struggled to control his immense strength when it came to handling me.

Cherry carried me in his cupped hands like a captured firefly that he didn’t want to injure. As our procession of two and a half passed YanYan’s room, the house diva made an appearance. He informed me that he planned to go dancing at an exclusive club and invited me along, but the thought of pulse-pounding house music rattling my tiny body to pieces did not sound like my idea of a good time either. I stuck with the original plan, much to YanYan’s poorly disguised disappointment.

I didn’t let the guilt swallow me because I’m just not that into vore, but any lingering misgivings about my choice of activity evaporated completely when Cherry showed me his collection of designer sugar cereals. Bright colors, cartoon mascots, and breakfast marshmallows abounded as the usually timid skeleton extolled the virtues of each individual cereal. After a heated debate, we opted for fruit rings and marshmallows. Cap poured himself some cinnamon squares, and I gloated, the true winner because they both offered me bites of their food which I happily dipped into the cold milk in their bowls.

The three of us piled onto the living room sofa, displacing the resident couch lump who teleported off to quieter pastures.

I snacked through several monster cartoons spanning the duration of a fruit ring, a marshmallow, and a cinnamon square, which left a patina of sugary sparkle on me. The characters and musical numbers were appealing, but I missed some of the humor. I suspected the shows contained lots of inside jokes. I may be fashion forward, but I am way behind on current monster memes, though I did get a laugh from some scenes involving ridiculous Temmies.

At first, I lost track of how much time passed in front of the television. The empty cereal bowls sat on the coffee table as episode after episode of monster cartoons melted together into a mess of colors and sound effects. I noticed Cherry and Cap shooting surreptitious glances at the wall clock during each commercial break, and soon I joined them, anxiously watching the numbers climb past the time when Brassberry usually returned home from work.

The cartoons on the TV screen played on, forgotten, as Cap, Cherry, and I divided our attention between watching the clock and staring at the door. It wasn’t uncommon for Brassberry to be late, but he’d only gone to his Snowdin sentry station and no amount of dawdling could possibly explain his lateness.

Three concerned faces lit up when the door finally swung open only to fall again when a rapidly texting YanYan strolled in. We couldn’t help our reactions, but I know we hurt YanYan’s feelings even if he would never admit it. Nothing ruins a sense of self-importance quite like housemates who greet your return with dismayed scowls.

YanYan huffed and stomped up the stairs, fingers tapping his phone screen furiously as he gossiped about the monsters he’d encountered at the club. Or maybe he was looking for a new apartment with more enthusiastic roommates. My heart went out to YanYan, but we had a much more pressing matter to focus on.

Grim thoughts of Brassberry’s single HP occupied all of our thoughts. Nobody voiced the concern, but we all wondered if some accident had befallen him. What else would prevent him from returning home? We kept coming back to the same unanswered question:

Where was Brassberry?

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#vexy writes #bittyswap #bittybones but big #bitty!vex #human!bitty #brassberry bitty #yanyan bitty #lil bro bitty #yancap bitty #cherry bitty

[buckymcbuttfacebarnes]

Calamity (1/?)

pairing: erik killmonger x reader (mythology/modern au)

summary:  Metamorphose, one of the many parts of this story, encompasses the beginnings of Erik’s changes. 

word count: 1.5k

warnings: none!

a/n: alright you guys, so a couple of y’all liked the little preview that i gave for this fic idea, so i think it would be a good idea if i sort of explained how i plan on writing this. i think the plot is going to be nonlinear/chronological, there’s going to be a lot of flashbacks and stuff like that. also later on it’ll start to flip perspectives quite a bit, just to give you background on the main characters, but for these first couple parts they’re gonna focus more on erik, just so i can establish his dilemma, character flaws, etc.!! also, in the summary section of each part i write, i’ll come up with a sub-heading (for example, this one is called Metamorphose, which is written with the purpose of getting to know erik’s changes and the exposition of the story) that i’ll use for future parts that are within the same period or serve the same purpose!! lmao i hope that make sense, i think it will, once im able to get more parts out!!!!!! sorry this is so long omg but thank yall for taking the time to read<333

Her breath hitched in her throat as he stared deep into her eyes. She felt exposed, as if those blazing eyes were looking into her soul. She averted her gaze, but she could still feel his fiery gaze setting her skin aflame. He looked her up and down, she could feel those eyes pricking at her skin like needles, a sensation that raked up and down her body once, twice, three times before his eyes made their way, slowly, back up to her face. They both knew she wanted to cry out. They both knew no one would hear.  

“Look at me.” His own voice sounded foreign to him. Gruff and venomous.

A pause. Her gaze averted downward. In her peripheral she could see a slow traveling pool of blood. Flood of panic. She didn’t look to find the source.

“Look at me!” He boomed.

Suddenly her head snapped upward, unwillingly. There was twenty feet of empty space between them, but she saw the fire in his eyes as if he were standing directly in front of her. His upper body rose and fell vehemently with his heavy breathing, nostrils flaring. With one outstretched hand he pulled her closer, her bare feet slipped and slid across the floor as she tried to stop herself.

His dark chuckle echoed loudly, bouncing around the bare walls, reverberating through her skull, sending cold shivers down her spine. She looked around frantically, her arms bound by invisible chains, her feet skimming across the cool floor in her struggle. He felt her fear, but instead of deterring him he felt fueled by it. He wanted to see her squirm. His outstretched hand rose an inch, he fist slowly closing. Her eyes grew wide with panic, her body writhing in the invisible chains. “Erik!” she choked out in between her gasps for air.

“Getting hard to breathe?” his brow lifted, fingers curling into a tight fist for a flash of a moment before he released completely. As his hand dropped to his side, her body dropped to the ground in a crumpled, defeated heap,  unmoving aside from the rise and fall of each breath. He looked at her stonily, his expression unchanging.“Get up,” he ordered.

Her head lifted, her head turning slowly from one side to the next, surveying the room. Death saturated the air, contaminating the large space with its metallic scent. “You’re a monster,” she spat.

Erik awoke with a gasp, sitting upwards abruptly, a wave of nausea passing through him. He hadn’t even realized how tightly clenched his fists were until he reached up to run his hands over his face. Pain in the shape of half moons dissolved in his palms. His eyes burned from the sunlight flooding in through the blinds.

Instinctively he reached for notepad and pen that he had strategically placed on his nightstand and began to scribble down everything he could recollect of the dream: pain, fear, death, anger, empty, crazed. His pen was itching to write more, his hand shook, his mind was racing - searching for words, phrases, letters, symbols... He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to recreate the dream in his mind. He blanked. His futile attempts to conjure up the images that had filled his head not even ten minutes before left his mind a blank canvas. An empty white space. The heat of frustration rushed through him, made his fingers twitch. The involuntary motion resulted in a whoosh of air and the subsequent sharp slaps of his pad of paper and pen flying across the room and striking the wall, then the hardwood floor.

This wasn’t the first time this has happened. Four times already this week. Today’s incident made twenty-seven in the past month and a half. The strange dream plagued his sleep, he cannot be sure if it’s the same one each night because he can’t ever remember it fully in the morning. It’s always fragmented and foggy. It ends at the same point. The woman calls him a monster and though he’s had the dream so many times, he wakes up the same way: disoriented, anxious, afraid. The dream itself wasn’t frightening. The vividness and the familiarity of it all is what he found most terrifying. He could feel himself losing control, he could feel himself hurting this woman (whose appearance is completely unknown to him, he only knows she is a woman because of the sound of her voice). He could feel her pain, both physically and emotionally, yet he couldn’t stop himself from hurting her every single time.

The first few times he longed to see the ending, so he would try to fall back asleep upon waking up, in hopes of continuing the nightmare. Perhaps if he got to the end, it would leave him alone. That never worked. After about the sixth time, he had noticed how much the dream had affected him. He had become an anxiety-ridden mess, fearing that perhaps the rage he experienced in the dream was living inside him currently, dormant and waiting to be awakened. It was impossible for him to live with himself.

The fifteenth time occurred in the break room at work.

Seated at a table with a coworker, who would not stop badgering him about going golfing “or something” together, the dream pulled yanked him into the large room with the marble floors. He was gone and didn’t know how to get back. He was paralyzed, only able to listen and feel as his body and mouth moved without his consent.

With a sharp intake of breath he had woken up on his back, staring up at the foggy fluorescent lights of the breakroom.

“Oh—holy shit!” Someone gasped.

He sat up, supported by the hand of one of his coworkers on this middle of his back. Erik winced, a sharp pain striking him behind the eyes.

“Erik? Hey? Are you okay?”

He grunted in response, heaving breath after breath to calm the ache in his head. “What happened?”

“You froze up on me and you fell out of your chair. I thought you had passed out. Your eyes were open.”

“You weren’t breathing, you had no pulse!” A female voice frantically exclaimed, her shrill tone made him wince again.

“You should be dead!”

He refused to go to the hospital with the EMTs that arrived two minutes later.

After that incident he’d felt unsafe in his own body, he questioned whether he should see a specialist of some kind. Out of fear of being told he was losing his mind, he refrained.

He rose from his bed, inhaling and exhaling deeply to settle his abundance of thoughts. He stood in his bathroom. Though he knew he was looking at himself in the mirror, the face that stared back at him was unrecognizable. The man in the mirror, though he shared the same muscular build and same facial features as Erik, looked alarmingly crazed. His eyes were that of a wild animal, darting around every few seconds as if he were living in a constant state of paranoia. Who is this man? Erik asks himself. He’s not me. They stared at one another for a long time, Erik and this unknown man. In his mind, he knew it was him (it had to be, right? they shared the same features...who else could it be?), but there was something deep inside the man’s eyes that told him otherwise.

He washed his face with cold water, it cooled his flushed skin and helped to soothe his frayed nerves. He met his own gaze once again in the mirror, and was very surprised to see the unknown man smiling back at him. Was he smiling? His expression shifted into one of bewilderment, his felt his shoulders sag with worry—cowering at the sight of this ominous alternate version of himself. Suddenly he felt small, and afraid. His reflection remained the same, a secretive smile perched upon its lips. Panicked, Erik’s hand flew up to touch his own face. An anxious cloud settled over him when his reflection did not mime his movements. Instead it stood tall, back erect, brown eyes glazed over with a familiar haze. The reflection was not his own. As he stared into those vacant eyes, he felt a small tug. It was like someone was trying to undo the knot that had formed in his stomach. Gently the force tugged. He didn’t try to fight it. He didn’t want to. Perhaps it was curiosity...perhaps it was out of sheer exhaustion, but Erik felt himself slipping away and he didn’t try to stop. Those eyes were tempting him with something…

But what? Almost immediately after the inquiry had formulated in Erik’s mind, he felt a surge of invigoration. New life had been breathed into him and coursed through his veins. This unknown force bloomed within his chest and for a moment he swore he had the world at his fingertips. His heart raced and grew light in his chest as his sorrow and fear dissolved, replaced with feelings of enlightenment and shocking omnipotence. This lasted a mere few seconds. As his breathing subsided and his pounding heartbeats grew a little slower and a little quieter, he knew what he had just experienced could only be the feeling of pure, unrestrained power. He wanted all of it.

let me know what yall think!! all criticism/comments r very much appreciated!

y’all asked to be tagged so here u go<3333 

@gucci-zjm @groovybbyyy @mykingdomismyheaven

#erik killmonger #killmonger imagine #erik killmonger imagine #erik killmonger fanfic #erik killmonger fanfiction #erik killmonger x reader #erik x reader #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #black panther imagine #black panther fanfiction #marvel imagine #killmonger x reader #erik killmonger x you

[amplesalty]

Christmas 2021: Day 1 - Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

A demon trapped by Sámi!

It’s Christmas time and there’s no need to be afraid, unless you’re scared of a series of blog posts about seasonal films and TV specials, in which case are you ever in the wrong place. That’s right, it’s that special time of year when we watch an indeterminate amount of Christmas and/or other denominational media in order to get that special tingly feeling inside that can only come from a muscular Austrian man punch a reindeer or a small child defend himself from two mean criminals who are very dumb.

We kick things off as ever by dipping in to the world of festive horror and with a foreign film no less, all the way from Finland. That’s certainly another obscure one off the list. We might be a little light on the old screengrabs on this one since I actually bought it on blu ray because...I’m not quite sure actually. In a rare moment of forward planning I actually bought this about a month ago for about £4. Looking at it now, what copies there are seem to be going on Amazon and Ebay for about £20. Did this just become super rare within the last few weeks or is it the Christmas premium? Anyway, it might be for the best that we don’t have too many pictures on show here given one particular stretch of the movie. Our old friend Tor Johnson would have gotten quite the work out there but we’ll get on to that...

This is one of those movies like Santa’s Slay that tries to delve into the ‘real’ story of Christmas. No, not all that phoney baloney Jesus nonsense, we’re talking the real story of Santa. And no, we’re not talking about Saint Nicholas of Myra cracking the skulls of non believers as Kirk Cameron explained to us. We’re talking about evil Santa eating the souls of children instead of bringing them a new iPhone or PS5. Though, I think even Santa and his elves would be hard pressed to get hold of a PS5 right now.

This is all about some sort of evil goat version of Santa that instead of giving to kids, he just straight up takes them instead, leaving some form of crude carved figure with straw hair in their place. One of the kids here starts reading up on him and we see all these drawings of Santa cooking kids in giant boiling cauldrons. I dread to think what else the folklore of this Santa says about him considering this kid gets dressed up in all sort of padding, helmet and even tells his friend to strap some cardboard to his bum for protection...

We learn that high atop Korvatunturi, a mountain on the border of Finland and Russia, a team of workers are ‘collecting samples’ for some sort of wild eye old man who believes that the mountain is one giant burial site for a being trapped in ice centuries ago and kept deep within.

Side note, the Sámi people who are said to be the ones who encased this being have a pretty kickass flag.

Just as we saw in Tremors back in October and Reptelicus before that, sometimes digging too deep can awaken something in the darkness but here it seems to be by design.

Not that we ever really get to see what lurks in the darkness, which is fair enough for any good monster movie, you have to build up your suspense. This movie certainly does that and it builds some intrigue for what is lurking in the shadows but it really does come across as a drastic change of pace compared to some of the previous Christmas horror movies I’ve watched. I don’t know if the words ‘tension’ or ‘subtlety’ even exist within the dictionary of something like Silent Night, Deadly Night which doesn’t waste anyone’s time in getting right down to the bloody action. Here, it’s more of a slow build, getting a feel for this quieter rural lifestyle and slowly coming to learn of the creepy goings on as we discover a field full of hundreds upon hundreds of reindeer corpses. Having seen their livestock slaughtered, their food source ruined and putting them out of pocket to the tune of an estimated $85,000 (plus 22% VAT apparently), the locals point the figure at those on the mountain and threaten to cause some sort of international incident as they break down the gate and storm the place on their skidoos.

Not that they find much there save for a giant crater and some living quarters that seem to be hastily abandoned. What they do find waiting for them back home though is a seemingly catatonic old man with a long, silvery beard that only seemst to stir at the smell of gingerbread and small children. It is kind of amusing to see the locals try and extort this old geezer and threaten to hold him hostage until someone pays them back for the $85 grand they’re out for all the dead reindeer. Need to be careful around him though as at one point he goes all Mike Tyson and bites someone’s ear off.

And there’s a lot more where he came from too as we find that this is one of Santa’s elves, not the little titchy fellows in his workshop making toys, these are all naked Grandpas running around with pickaxes. Seriously, Santa Tor would have had his work cut out censoring all this old man schlong.

I’d question how scary this movie is on the whole but props to the guy playing the one main elf that these guys have to deal with, that guy looks creepy as all hell.

I must say though, the resolution of them rehabilitating these elves and turning into mall Santas that they can ship around the world for great profit seems a little off. Especially when they estimate that each one is worth $85 grand so they stand to make about $16m (again, plus 22% VAT. Mustn’t forget the VAT...). Who’s buying a mall santa for $85k?! Sure you might have to train someone and there’s costs for vetting and what not but I’m sure you could throw some fat guy a suit, fake beard and £10 an hour and you’ve got yourself a perfectly adequate Santa Claus. Maybe they’re pitching these as really premium and cost effective Santa replacements. Since they seem to be semi-mythical beings, maybe it’s a long term investment. Rather than just pay that fat guy £10 ph and then have to find his replacement next year, you just buy this one Santa once and that’s it.

This certainly an interesting one, no where near as over the top and bloody as some of the Christmas horrors that have come before it but it has a charm from the slightly bumbiling characters trying the piece together all this madness and the coming of age tale of young Pietari is cute. He’s kinda like Kevin McAllister in his own way, initially thought of as this inept young boy that needs to have his hand held through life, only to become this independent force who becomes the hero of the day.

Plus there is a certain novelty to this being a Finnish film and seeing a different take on the whole Santa story with this whole Joulupukki thing. Any other cultural Christmas movies for me to watch? What about that racist fellow in the Netherlands, Zwarte Piet?!

#Christmas 2021 #Rare Exports #Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale #Joulupukki

[iamashamedofmyfanfics]

Hunters, Lies, And Leaders (27)

Hunters, Lies, And Leaders (by iamashamedofmyfanfics)

Pairing: None, S.Coups, Woozi, and Hoshi centric (platonic ot13 and unit specific friendships) Genre: Friendship, Fantasy Universe: Other AU Rating: PG13 Length: Chaptered (ongoing) Warnings: Violence Chapters: [Start] [26/Previous] [28/Next]

Notes: . If you’d rather read the whole thing there, the AO3 Version is {here}. Also the lovely @jeonkwons beta read this for me, once again. (thank you!)

Summary: Hunters are trained warriors meant to fight monsters. They’re here to learn how to do deal with monsters, after learning how to fight. Why it seemed like most of the students don’t know what their doing, is beyond them.

It’s not as if Seungcheol has to think about the decision much. Mingyu is the logical choice to have his Aura unlocked next. Yet Mingyu seems genuinely surprised when Seungcheol says as much.

“Me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Mingyu pauses, realization dawning upon him. Then he grins and throws his hands into the air. “I’m next!”

“Yes,” Seungcheol repeats, laughing.

“I’ll finally be able to catch up,” Mingyu says quieter and probably to himself, though Seungcheol is able to hear him. The statement gets a frown from Seungcheol. There’s a realization setting in that he never actually talked to Mingyu about the possibility of falling behind, despite having planned to.

“Mingyu.”

“Yes?”

“You know you’re not falling behind, right?” Seungcheol watches confusion fill the other's face before sighing. “You’re only as far behind as any of our teammates are, Hansol included. You’re not falling behind just because I didn’t unlock your Aura first. In fact, you’re more prepared than some of the first years were when they got here; just look at Wonwoo. Don’t tell him I said that.”

“I- I know that.”

“You do?’

“Logically, I do. It’s hard not to feel like I am, though. Especially since Hansol’s Aura was unlocked.”

“I understand.” Seungcheol offers Mingyu a smile. “That just means I have to remind you of it more.”

“Please don’t.” Mingyu bites his teeth together in a forced smile, but ends up laughing because Seungcheol begins to laugh at how ridiculous his expression is.

Jihoon stares at Seungkwan. It would be unsettling had Seungkwan actually noticed, but he was preoccupied tying the Crystals he bought for his arrows, in place of arrowheads. It’s strangely satisfying to watch, and Jihoon finds it easy to think about other things while he observes.

Once again, he has to choose a teammate to have their Aura unlocked, but unlike the first time, it’s a less obvious choice. Seungkwan probably makes the least sense, based on weapon alone. Jeonghan and Jisoo, though, both have equal reason to need their Aura, so it stands that he’s having a hard time figuring out which to go with.

“You’re staring.” Seungkwan’s voice draws him out of this thoughts, and Jihoon blinks, realizing he had stopped paying attention, though, he couldn’t use that as an excuse for his intense gaze in the first place.

“You’re good at that.”

“Can’t buy arrows so far out in the kingdom, so.” Seungkwan says, shrugging instead of finishing his sentence. Jihoon assumes Seungkwan means he had to learn to make them. “Something up?” Seungkwan asks, eyes still on his weapon.

“Thinking about whose Aura is next.”

“Jeonghan’s?”

“Why Jeonghan?” Jihoon tilts his head, Seungkwan shrugs.

“During our first hunt Jisoo lost his weapon twice, so…” Seungkwan shrugs, as if unsure how he wants to end the sentence. “I guess because of that I thought you’d reassess what you’d be having him doing, and he wouldn’t face monsters as directly as Jeonghan.”

“That’s… really well thought out.” Jihoon leans back on his bed, humming in thought. “You make good points, I think that is what I’ll do.”

“Wait, really!?” Seungkwan drops his Crystals onto his bed and looks up with wide, excited eyes.

“Yes.” Jihoon is surprised by just how shocked Seungkwan sounds. Seungkwan grins, looking proud, and returns to his task. Jihoon can’t help but smile. He’d thought it before, but seeing the reaction, he realizes he should give Seungkwan more credit. Not just within his own thoughts, but aloud as well.

Soonyoung goes first. The teams gather in his team’s dorm, crowding it, while he unlocks Minghao’s Aura. While Minghao is only prepared as he can be without knowing how it will feel, Soonyoung is more prepared this time, having done this once already. Minghao takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, then nods. Soonyoung reaches for him, hands resting on his shoulder and head, then focuses his Aura out at Minghao.

While Soonyoung has felt himself being pushed back by Chan’s Aura, he’s wholly unprepared for just how forcefully his Aura bounces back at him when Minghao’s unlocks. Soonyoung finds himself not only on the ground, but a few steps further than if he had just fallen to the ground from where he was. As if they’re all processing the situation, no one moves except Minghao. Minghao stumbles back, falling onto his own bed with a shaky breath.

“I didn’t expect that,” Soonyoung says, finally, breaking the silence of shock that had fallen over the room. Then he’s being helped up by Junhui and Chan, set on Junhui’s bed, and there are questions of “Are you alright?” being thrown at him too quickly to process. “Guys, please, I’m fine just… shut up a minute. Minghao?”

“I feel horrible.”

“See? We’re both fine.” Soonyoung nods, mostly to himself, and lays down. “Just need to rest.”

Seungcheol dreads unlocking Mingyu’s Aura, despite knowing it’s necessary. Though it has nothing to do with Mingyu himself, and instead, has everything to do with the memory of unlocking Hansol’s Aura. He tries to push aside any of his worries about the inevitable pain it will cause him when he reaches to unlock Mingyu’s Aura.

It burns and his arms feel sore, but Seungcheol continues to push his Aura at Mingyu until it works. His lungs burn. It’s similar to the feeling of catching a breath of fresh air after accidentally breathing in water. He clutches his chest. Mingyu seems to be in similar distress, coughing and thumping his own chest with his fist.

“Are you both okay?” Wonwoo asks, as he and Hansol help Seungcheol and Mingyu sit down.

“I think so,” Mingyu answers, before coughing again.

“We will be.” Seungcheol tries to give a reassuring smile, though they don’t seem assured by it.

“I expected this to be more like last time,” Hansol muses, looking between Mingyu and Seungcheol, “but it seems really different.”

“A result of different people and different Auras.”

With how the other teams fared, Jihoon finds himself doubting if this will be any easier than last time. When he calls Jeonghan over, the other raises an eyebrow at him, and he realizes he’d never actually told Jeonghan that he is next. “You’re up, come here.”

Even with Jeonghan in front of him, Jihoon doesn’t feel any less nervous about the situation. Still, he doesn’t hesitate to reach out and close his eyes. At the very least, it’s easier to push his Aura out in the right way, and he has a less difficult time keeping his Aura from taking shape.

Jeonghan stumbles back, shivering, while Jihoon feels like he can’t breath. It takes a moment for him to register that it has worked, hence his current state, and another for him to realize he’s being led to sit down by his teammates.

“How do you feel?” Seokmin asks, expression concerned.

“I’m okay.”

“Jeonghan?” Jisoo helps his aforementioned teammate sit, and Jeonghan shrugs in response before finding his voice.

“Cold.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m fine.”

“If you say so.”

When the sickness wears off, everyone fills the largest team’s dorm again. For those who didn’t have their Auras unlocked, it somehow doesn’t feel like it’s as big of a deal as it was the first time. For Jeonghan, Mingyu, and Minghao, it feels like a much bigger deal. For everyone, it starts to seem like a bigger deal when all of their Auras come up with the same colour on the Aura tester: red. Harming Auras.

“Why am I not surprised Jeonghan has a harming Aura?” Seokmin asks. Jeonghan kicks him, and the others laugh.

“Why is my team full of harming types?” Soonyoung sighs, shaking his head. Minghao pauses, opens his mouth to respond, then decides to just glare instead.

“How do you feel about it, Mingyu?” Seungcheol asks, glancing at the other. Mingyu, for his part, is silent. After a moment’s pause, he looks up from the floor.

“I don’t know.”

“I know they just got up,” Jisoo starts, “but maybe we- and they- should all get some rest? They only have another couple weeks to get used to their Auras.”

Agreement fills the room, and everyone retires to bed after yet another long day.

Seungcheol isn’t very happy when he wakes up to water dripping on his face. Nor is he happy to realize its source if from above him, also known as Mingyu’s bunk. Seungcheol rolls out of his own bed, tries to ignore any worries about what it is, and climbs up so he can see Mingyu. The sight he’s greeted with is Mingyu sitting up, staring at his hands, as water drips from them and onto his bed. It’s a slow drip- a small amount- so Seungcheol guesses it has been going on for a while by now.

“Mingyu?”

“Yeah?” Mingyu looks up, concern covering his features. Seungcheol smiles, patting Mingyu’s arm.

“You okay there?”

“It won’t stop.”

“It’s your Aura.”

“I figured that much.” Mingyu frowns, glancing back down at his hands. He looks just the slightest bit miserable.

“So you can make it stop.” Seungcheol climbs up so he can sit on the bed, careful to avoid the wet spot on it.

“I don’t know how.”

“You remember how the Aura tester worked, right? That feeling you had to focus on, the one you felt when your Aura was unlocked? Picture that.” Seungcheol waits, watches Mingyu close his eyes and take a few deep breaths before he speaks again. “Now…”

“Now?”

“Picture…” Seungcheol trails off, trying to think of something that will help. “A drop of water.”

“Okay.”

“Surround the water with whatever image you can think of for how your Aura felt. Hold it together.”

“I… don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” Mingyu sighs. His face scrunches up in concentration despite his words. The water stops.

“It stopped.” Seungcheol tells him.

“It did?” Mingyu opens his eyes, looks down at his hands, then grins. “It did!”

The water starts again. The disappointed noise Mingyu gives in response to the water almost makes Seungcheol laugh. “Hey, it’ll take awhile to get a hang of.”

“Can water actually help me fight monsters?”

“Huh?”

“My Aura. It’s not going to help me any, is it?”

“It could. We don’t know exactly how you can use it, yet. We know it’s water, obviously, but the details of it are unclear. Have you ever seen something cut by water?”

“Like, jet streams of water?’

“Yeah, think of what that would do to a monster!”

“You think I could manage that?” Mingyu doesn’t look convinced, even when Seungcheol nods.

“Of course. This is its smallest form, the one you can’t control yet. When you get control, you’ll be able to do so much more. Trust me.”

“Okay.” Mingyu nods. Seungcheol smiles. Mingyu closes his eyes again, takes a deep breath, and goes back to trying to control his Aura. Deciding to leave him to that, Seungcheol climbs down from Mingyu’s bunk. He’s not getting back to sleep, especially since his bed is wet. Instead, Seungcheol leaves the dorm, muttering to himself about food.

Now that he’s sure Mingyu is fine, exhaustion and hunger catch up with him, so he’s not really paying attention to his surroundings. He moves based on the muscle memory he’s built from the buildings in the past few weeks. That’s his excuse when, upon leaving his dorm, he nearly runs directly into Soonyoung.

“Oh, hey.” Soonyoung raises a hand, slow and sluggish. Seungcheol guesses he’s just as tired as Seungcheol is.

“You’re up.”

“You too.”

“Mingyu’s Aura manifested.”

“Ah,” Soonyoung nods, “I see.”

“Why are you up?”

“Food.” A yawn. “Is that where you’re going?”

“Yep.”

“Together, then?”

“Sure.” Seungcheol nods, and they begin their slow walk to the building where they can get food. It’s not until they have food in front of them Seungcheol speaks again. “How’d you deal with Chan?”

“Hm?”

“His Aura, it’s Harming, too.”

“Ah. Jihoon gave me notes about harming Auras to work off of. It’s mostly a lot of the basic Aura stuff, for getting used to it. You know what I’m talking about? There’s just some things that Harming Auras deal with that ours don’t.”

“Like spontaneously having it activate.”

“Yeah, like that.” Soonyoung laughs. “I’ve pretty much memorized what I was given, though, and come up with plans for Chan- and now Minghao- so if you want my notes, you can have them.”

“Thanks, Soonyoung.”

“No problem.”

When Seungcheol returns to his dorm, bringing food and notes with him, Mingyu is gathering up their sheets and looking proud of himself. He looks up and Seungcheol with a grin.

“Look! No water.”

“Good job!”

“I can only make it stop for like a minute though.”

“Still, that’s really quick progress. Now put that down. I’ll deal with our bedding, you eat.”

Seungcheol hands over the containers of food he’s carrying once Mingyu has dropped their blankets on the ground. Seungcheol glances down at the papers in his hands, the notes Soonyoung has given to him, before putting them down and going to pick up their blankets.

If Mingyu is already making such quick progress, he wonders if he’ll need Seungcheol’s help at all.

#s.coups centric #woozi centric #hoshi centric #all of seventeen #friendship #fantasy #other au #pg13 rating #chaptered #violence #marylynnwrites #ongoing