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medium-rare-bimbo · 9 months

Text

Disappeared for almost a year, willing to answer questions about that thank you for all the concern :)) but really sorry for abandoning you all <3<3

♡masterlist♡

Stalker! Ghostface! eddie x bimbo! reader

-Steve is also mentioned <3<3

Eddie = stu

Steve = billy

!!!WARNINGS!!!

contains: dark! Eddie, noncon/ Dubcon, breeding kink, mentions of pregnancy (obvi <3), knife play, blood, murder, mentions of necrophilia, crying, kidnapping, mentions of suicide, mentions of self harm

MINORS DNI

♡ you're one of the most popular girls at school or maybe in the entirety of Hawkins, you were pretty, always best dressed and most importantly eye candy for those around you. It didn't help that you were the sweetest girl to exist, despite the difference between you and the losers of the world you didnt treat them any different humans were humans what they looked like or how they acted wasnt apart of your conscience.

♡ eddie was set on you being his first statement victim, his first chance to show hawkins that people who peak in highscool were nothing more than burnouts, his first time showing the world that popular people meant nothing in the big picture, the big ocean of the world were you're nothing more than a drop of water. You would make headlines, your name and reputation would let everyone know just what they would be dealing with. who they were messing with.

♡ he stalked you for hours, days, weeks, months, memorizing your habits, your friends, your daily routines, your class schedules, what you do when you get home, who you hang out with, your dates, your family, how you respond to calls, who you talk to, your house layouts, entrance and exit points. Every. Single. Detail. He had taken up a habit of stealing some of your belongings scrunchie, hair tie, pieces of paper you've doodled on, notes, strands of your hair, eddie wanted everything. when the small opportunity became available he would occasionally break into your home, convincing himself that this was to memorize the layout of your house but not stopping himself from taking what he pleases panties, bras, lip balm, shirts, skirts, anything old and useless or in a large quantity would go missing. You never seemed to notice things go missing anyway

♡ nothing was off limits for eddie, NOTHING. He watched you walk, talk, eat, shower, get dressed, EVERYTHING. maybe it was the pre murder adrenaline that made him overthink, the fear of getting caught, the risk he was taking, the orgasmic haze that flooded over him everytime he thought about your corpse laying infront of him, botched up, dismantled, butchered into nothing more than your own worth. perhaps this rush made him plan out every possible outcome. He couldnt waste a lifetime in prison over some dumb bimbo who didnt know what pythagoras was. He had no reason to feel guilt it wasnt as if he hadnt gotten rid of some nobodies before but this was you, this was different this, was more meaningful. a few dead people who no one knew the name of wasnt something people cared about because they werent popular. They were freaks and no one cares for freaks except the circus, a place where they can point and laugh.

♡As much as eddie feared the consequences of his actions he needed to do this, his entire life hes been treated as if he were a freak. This is what he was made to do picking off all of the useless nobodies who think they matter in a sea of carbon copies. No one should miss a model or an athlete when there were people out there becoming scientist, people out there saving lives while others make a living by simply existing.

♡ When steve had fallen from grace, dethroned by billy Hargrove, it was like something inside him snapped almost like something dark had taken control of him. he became this standoffish creature yet he still had charm and almost like ink to water the darkness naturally spread to eddie, somehow, someway the two became as thick as thieves overnight

♡ Eddie had always been dark, dark clothes, dark hair, dark eyes, dark music, dark life but Steve's influence made that darkness deepen, stories upon stories could come out about how disturbing eddie was yet they soon got swept under the rug when he was out with steve. creepy, charming, funny, manipulative, strange were all words you could describe eddie 'the freak' munson. Pherhaps he was already stained, perhaps steve reopening the wound letting the blood spill out was what caused this disaster, he needed to reignite the spark that made him, HIM and that spark seemed to be enough to cause an explosion.

♡ steve was the one to bring up the idea of murder, Nancy wheeler his ex girlfriend would be their (his) final girl every other victim a pawn and statement in his plan, his message to Hawkins, the world. although eddie had dabbled in the idea of killing someone almost obsessing, idolizing, romatizing dreaming of it he had never had the balls to pull it off, he knew there would accusations immediately pointed at him, soon losing the game he so desperately deserved to win at.

♡ eddie latched on to Steves reputation like a leech to flesh, he could get away with anything and no one would bat an eye. An alibi coming from steve 'the hair' harrington meant much more than cheerleaders who were known to torment eddie. The cops brushed off the suspicion with sympathy, poor eddie being targeted once again. Although that wasnt just the reason eddie became so attached to steve, him and Steve now shared the same ideology of the uselessness of popularity, billy hargrove was the best thing to come out of this school. Eddie now had a ride or die.

♡ when the topic of you being the first statement victim came up steve wasnt too pleased at the idea, you hadnt been mean to either of them and he was hoping the first assertion would be someone like billy, jason, chrissy or even Johnathan. He battled with eddie for days, weeks even, soon agreeing on the terms that it would be after he had used you, he wasn't about to slaughter a girl like you without trying you out first.

♡ a reluctant agree from eddie sealed the deal, steve sleeps with you, eddie ends you.

♡ they're outside your house steve in a tree eddie in a bush, their bodies unseen in the darkness as they watch their prey move about. Living room, hallway, kitchen, hallway, stairs, hallway, your room. Although they couldnt see into your room, this time you had remembered your curtains and as much as steve felt disappointment about not being able to witness your last moments he knew it was better this way. You wont see them and the nighbours wouldnt either

♡ as soon as your situated in your room he wait about 30 minutes before calling, going over the plan with eddie and hoping you're too warm to get out of bed and grab a knife. signalling to eddie that it was time to go He strategically moves around the perimeter of your house, making his way to the kitchen window that you never locked despite the fact there were murders, you never seemed to lock any of your windows almost as if you were inviting him in. the kitchen gave him the advantage to be unseen by cars possibly driving by and an easy way to grab an extra knife if needed.

♡ he crawled through the unlocked window, the black clothing blending into the night the only part of him visible is the white ghost mask covering his face. He could hear you talking to steve upstairs, answering his questions, asking questions and seemingly trying to get off the phone. He was excited almost, the thrill rushing over him as he heard your voice.

"Oh I dont really watch horror movies"

"....?"

"Yeah I get creeped out so much i usually watch them with someone, I dont like being alone watching monsters"

"....?"

"Yeah i just hate the suspense-"

So does he

"-it kills me-"

You have no idea

"- i just hate the music and the way you know you're obviously going to be scared but you just cant tell when"

"......?"

"Noo I'm not into cult things either, ever since the fire at melody lane I cant look at them the same"

".......?"

"Listen I'm just saying its really weird there was a fire and then the band blew up"

"......"

"I mean youd get suspicious too right? they're total cultists"

".... .....?

"T-they didnt sacrifice me I was just saying- listen is there a reason you called so late"

"......."

"If you're Jason or something I already said no leave me alone! I'm busy"

"..... ............. .......?"

"What do you mean where you are? I dont want to meet up for a quick fuck and I definitely dont want to know the name of someone who calls at god knows what hour"

"........"

".....what?"

"....."

"....The bathroom?"

"...."

".....The kitchen?"

"......"

"How close are you?"

"....."

"I'm not playing in to your stupid prank! I have things to do!!" You slam down the phone

♡ It was his go time, he waited and waited and waited hearing the phone ring and you quickly hanging up before the ringing stopped all together and he could hear the sound of your sheets moving. He waited some more, he wanted you to forget about the call, this time there would be no suspense youd think you're safe and sound until you're suddenly impaled by the knife in his grip.

♡ minutes ticked by he was sure steve thought he had pussied out. He reached his hand to the door knob and froze as he heard cries- moans. He couldn't believe this. You slut, you filthy, dirty, stupid slut you had just been threatened and told that there was someone in your house and you're touching yourself? Maybe eddie had been waiting so long that you had called Steve's the callers bluff.

♡ a shaking hand, one of delight not fear, twisted the door knob being silent however he doubted you could hear anything over you own moans to caught up in your world to acknowledge the murderer standing in your door way. The sight before eddie had been breathtaking and in any other circumstance he would have watched you until you came.

Hands down the front of your panties, head thrown back, eyes closed with nothing but a t shirt on, you clearly werent wearing a bra as he could perfectly see the outline of your nipples. He supposes adrenaline has different affects on everyone, yours just happens to be becoming horny. What a wonderful discovery

♡ he stalked towards you despite his heavy boots he made no sound, whines and gasps erupted from your throat as he neared closer truly getting the full show to it all. He leered above you like a hawk taking in the view before him until he strikes. He grabbed your mouth quickly shutting you up, muffling the scream that made it's way out of your throat, your hands immediately grabbing his own giving him a view of your sticky fingers all while shuffling up the bed to try and save your own dignity trying to block you body away from his sight.

♡ he climbed on top of you, pressing you into the bed and pinning your legs in place stopping the kicks from reaching him. He hung over you, his breathe heavy as he watched the horror in your eyes brighten as they caught glimpse of the weapon in his hand. You pleas and begs muffled into his glove as he stared at you giving you no indication of mercy

♡ He suddenly flips you over, your head forced into your pillows and stuffies silencing your protests with your ass raised, he pulled at you hips ragdoll-ing you into the position he wanted you in. He moved his hands down hour body towards your out of place panties reaching for the edge of them before you started yelling

"Get the fuck off of me-"

He roughly shoved your head back into the pillow once again silencing you

"Stay the down and shut the fuck up, I'll kill you now. I'll make you unrecognisable that the police will think you broke in do you want that?"

A sobbed out no and shake of the head came out, he once again shoved your head into your pillows as a warning

"Great now as you reminisce on your life, rethinking everything you've done and havent experienced you're gonna let me play with you until I'm bored got it?"

You once again nodded weeping into your pillow clutching the bears next to you, knowing the inevitable you accepted your fate. Atleast you'll be able to pray your family and friends knew you loved them

♡ eddie pulled your panties down slapping your leg indicating you to lift you knees up, he pocketed them keeping a souvenir for later. His hands found your thighs crawling their way up to your most intimate area he spread your holes with his thumbs, playing with the flesh revealing the sight of the juices leaking out of you no doubt from your little escapade. Eddie pondered while mindlessly playing with your anatomy, should he just kill you? Back out of this and get the job done? He shoudlnt be doing this, he was supposed to hunt food not play it. I mean it wasnt as if steve would mind right? He got his time to play and He wont cum in you probably, no dna behind the crime and he should atleast indulge. he is the one doing the dirty work. rationally he might as well have some fun before mutilating you right? Hes still going to kill you, has to. Maybe even kill you mid thrust and fuck your bleeding out corpse if hes up for it, going round after round until your body is cold.

♡ eddie, snapping out of his pondering thoughts, stopped playing with his now decided fleshlight shuffling his way up to you so his hips meet your ass, he hesitated slightly but barely before unbuckling his belt. Pulling down the tattered and worn out jeans (along with his boxers) to reveal his hard on. You sobbed harder as you felt him rub his cock on your cunt soaking in your juices, you were quickly shut up by a slap on your ass getting the memo you tried to bargain with him

"Please- please dont i- I can give you money or anything you want just please-"

He pressed his tip inside you, throwing his head back as you squealed and cried. A deep groan fell out of his mouth as your warmth wrapped around him. He brought his hands to the back of your neck gripping the hair harshly before leaning down

"I dont want money or clothes or food or a magic show I want your life and youre gonna give it to me you're gonna let me abuse this cunt and there's nothing you can do about it understood?"

"Mhm"

"Great now the only noise I want from your mouth are moans and cries because I dont want you to ruin this for me okay? I've waited so long to steal you away from the world this is only some self indulgence on my part you should be grateful"

♡ he began to slide in deep "Wait!"- you reached your arm back to push his hips away before his cock could enter "you need a condom I dont want to get pregn-" Before you could finish eddie pinned your arms against your back (forcing it to arch more than it already had) shoving his cock inside you to shut you up, you were being too loud as you actively ignored his order. You're such an idiot you wont be alive to carry a child, if he did cum inside, your body wouldnt be able to catch his seed youd be dead by then, hes about to murder you why would he leave behind obvious evidence?

♡ You squealed as his cock breached your hole barely giving you time to process the sheer size of it or the piercings that littered the underside. It wasnt long before he started thrusting in and out of you, he couldn't care less about your pleasure this isnt about you. You didnt deserve to adapt to the sudden abuse of your womb, you didnt deserve anything.

♡ although eddie was empty for your pleasure he did enjoy the moans and gasps coming out if you. If you had been a hook up at devils kettle after his band he would have took his time on you savouring the feeling of your walls as you took him, he would have tasted you until you couldnt breathe, came inside you until you couldnt walk, so many things he would have done differently. Nonetheless he doesnt regret what hes doing and what hes eventually going to do it's just a shame he couldnt relish in the tightness of your cunt regularly. Like poison you could only do have it once

"You know maybe I wont kill you think you can impress me enough for me to spare you? Huh? Or are you to dumb like the whore you are to even understand what I'm saying?"

"Mmm"

"Aww that's what I thought it's like you didnt want to live"

♡ his pounding picked up his grasp on your hip tightening almost squeezing immediate bruises into your skin. One of his gloved hands reached your headboard using it as leverage to fuck aswell as pulling it towards him to stop the repeated banging from it smashing into the wall. Your moans were a mixed with sobs and mumbles, you didnt even know what you were asking for, did you want him to stop? Or keep going? You're brain hazy and blinded by the violent treatment to your pretty puffy cunt

♡ Sweat from his brow dripped down into the mask soaking the fabric that covered the eyes and mouth. the mask in question did no job of muffling or hiding the noises that tumbled out of him, a mix of grunts, whines, groans and growls admitted from the man. He was unleashing all the pent up anger and insecurity into his thrusts. Stuttered breaths came from him although it sounded like snarls. His eyes couldnt focus on where to look, your face covered in your own sweat, tears and spit or the way your hole swallowed him in, practically sucking him back inside as soon as he left. It was a beautiful sight, your cunt now leaking down both his and your own thighs. red and raw from the ruining of his manhood and swollen balls repeatedly beating against your lips and clit.

♡ god he could keep you forever, locked in his rooms with nothing on, your only purpose is to be filled. Be his little housewife. Youd make such an amazing mommy you're so sweet to everyone youd be so good to him and his babies- what the fuck was he thinking?! Hes supposed to kill you not breed you like a cow and marry you what the fuck is wrong with him?? He picks up his forgetting knife tracing over your spine with it you squealed as he did, pressing yourself into your mattress to get away from the blade. He dragged the knife down to your thigh before making light marks upon them, maybe he could make it look like you were struggling mentally and was just some crazy bitch who cut herself to cope, if he stabs you correctly he could make it look like suicide.

♡ the pretty pearls of blood blossomed around the wounds he made, they were shallow but god did he love the sight of your blood as it trailed down your thigh similar to your own juices. Switching hands without pausing his momentum, swapping out the one holding your headboard. he began to do the same to your other thigh, relishing in the whimpers of either pain or confused pleasure although he guessed you enjoyed it from the way you clenched around him and started to try and move back against his thrusts. Knowing soon that if he didnt restrict with his mutilation he wouldnt be able to stop himself and it would no longer look self inflicted. He threw the knife next to him, leaning down to the crook of your neck breathing in your scent, his hand tip toed it's way to your throat pressing against your wind pipe as he watched your face, the face that was stuck in a pleading expression he knew you wanted mercy whether that be to cum or to live he knew you couldnt have one so he gave up on silencing the banging and reached his unoccupied hide down to yout clit pressing against the poor nub to gage your reaction immediately you moaned trying to turn you head into you pillow the hand on your throat disobeying you to even move. He rubbed the poor pearl in circles letting you cry out and your tears soak into his gloves

♡ his fun however was cut short by a person in the doorway, steve, dressed in his costume, head tilted with his arms crossed a disappointed stance as he watched the show infront of him 'really?' Was what steve was trying to say. In response eddie leaned up relocating his hand from your neck into the back of your head shoving you into the pillows before slapping your ass with the same hand staring directly at steve 'what are you gonna do about it'. You cried out at the sudden abuse which was met with another slap, steve having seen enough walked out probably raiding your fridge or something.

♡ you felt amazing hes kind of envious of steve for getting to you first, a slight wave of frustration washed over him as he couldnt have you again. His animalistic behaviour along with his feral treatment of you brought you close to the edge. Eddie's hands that now found their place back on your hips received urgent taps as you tried to communicate your end. He coudlnt care less though but he might aswell get the most he can out of his toy. Snaking on of his hands down to your clit, listening to your heightened wails as you drew closer the other hand leaving your hip and pressed against your stomach feeling the way he destroyed your insides. His body fell foward encapsulating your withering body that was too gone to hold itself up right.

"I- I'm gonna cum- I'm gonna cum- please let me cum please please please please-"

"Shshshhhh you can cum- you can cum im gonna make you cum and you're gonna thank me for doing such a nice thing before you die arent you?"

"yes yes yes yes- yes- oh please fuck- th-thank you thank you oh my god- please- thank you-"

♡ you tightened around him your back arching as your orgasm fell upon you, your fluids squirted along his cock as he continued his rampage, he was so close your pussy practically crushing him as he fucked your dead weight body

"Please- I'm s- sensitive I cant- s'too much- cant- cant take it"

"Y-you can take it. You can take all of it, you're taking me right now- you can take some more-"

♡ he felt his end near as he spoke, the urge to praise you and degrade you flooded through his brain desperately wanting to tell you how good you feel although nothing good ever last forever and he knew he couldnt mark you with his seed

"Didnt think youd be so tight- th-thought after all- all the dickheads you fuck wou- would loosen you out fucking slut, little bitch only good- for getting off"

"Nuh uh mmhmm'not- not a slut- dont sleep around- fuck please slow down please- they lie I dont-"

"They lie about it huh?- shit- they lie about fucking you? Just want to brag huh?"

"Mhmm"

♡ if heaven is real he it would definitely be inside you he didnt deserve heaven, not with the things hes done but he can spoil himself this one time right? Eddie pressed his head into the crook of your neck, the irritating fabric of his hoodie scratching your back, howls and groans spilled out of him he wanted to time it perfectly to pull out as soon as he cums, so much easier to wipe cum from skin then scrape it out of you. Though he doubts the cops would care if they found anything inside you a known minx filled with cum was not a surprise. He felt his hips buck into you stuttering as clawed his way to be closer to you, eddie isnt a strong man he couldnt pull out even if he wanted to, steve can go fuck himself they could find someone else, anyone.

♡ he spilled himself inside you wrapping his arms around your mid section to hold you against him, biting at any exposed flesh he could find, licking and sucking marks into your skin as he fell into greatness, He could feel his cum spill around his cock filling up your insides. Pants and heavy breaths came from the man above you maybe even whines but you couldnt be too sure, whispers of words you couldnt comprehend overflow from behind the mask as he slowly came down sloppy thrusts slowing down as he can to a halt. Over stimulated and hazy minded you barely acknowledge his peak, fuzzy and dumb you couldnt care less about what he does to you body. Your bedding was now soaked as you soon came to realize, he let go, forcing your body to fall flat on the bed. Carefully he pulled out of you watching his seed pool out of you, adding to the mess of your pretty little bed sheets, your poor pussy almost bruised and swollen from his attack, his cum highlighting the beauty of it

♡ he sat back and watched suddenly he didnt feel the urge to harm you, too caught up in post nut clarity. Instead of reaching for his knife he reached for your holes once again, spreading and playing with them, pushing his hard work back into it's new designated place listening to you let out sleepy whimpers and whines. He felt your combined juices melt into the fabric of his glove yet he couldnt care, hed do this every night for the rest if his life if it meant he could experience the warmth of your body.

♡ Eddie shifted off the bed catching a glimpse at your fucked out face barely able to keep your eyes open as your lashes fluttered, he knew you were fighting sleep a part of you aware of the danger you were currently in, however you werent aware of the change of plans. Eddie slipping his knife in the pocket of his jeans gave you one last look, strolling up to you and lifting his mask above his mouth, a small, short kiss pressed against your temple

"I'll be back baby"

♡ he made his way out of your room down the hallway, down the stairs and into he kitchen were he found steve sipping one of your dads beers.

"Did you do it?"

"...nope"

"Didnt think so.. wasnt any screams... jesus christ Eddie we've been planning this for months you were the one that suggested her"

"I mean... can you blame me?"

"Yes"

"That's fair... but you cant tell me her pussy didnt sway your mind about the whole murder thing"

"...."

"Steve lets be honest"

"I guess but that's not the point shes probably going to snitch on us you know that right"

"Please she's practically passed out on her bed, fucked dumb shes lucky she can even acknowledge where she is. She isnt gonna remember this"

"And what if she does"

"I can always go for round two"

"You're disgusting we are so dead"

"Well just have to wait and see wont we?"

♡ safe to say when monday came around there was no talk of your encounter with the infamous ghostface infact there was no indication that you had even had an interaction with a murderer, life went on as if nothing happened.

"Told you"

"You could've gotten us caught"

"But I didnt"

"So who next? I was thinking-"

♡ eddie zoned out as steve rambled one, his eyes travelling to your table as you chatted with friends, his marks were still there and he had no doubts your little girlfriends questioned you who did it. He liked the look of you wearing his claim. He'll visit you tonight, this time he'll fuck the way he truly wants.

#stranger things x reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #ghostface Eddie x reader #steve harrington x reader #dark eddie munson #tw: noncon #ghostface steve harrington #eddie x reader #eddie x reader x steve #eddie munson smut

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mouschiwrites · 1 month

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I think you might enjoy Stay by The People's Thieves for whoever you think best fits

Oof, this one came out pretty angsty.... be warned my loves </3

Word count: 1.1k

South Park - Stay (Stan) (400 follower event)

He was in a haze, a blurry state of confusion and nauseating images surging around him like a stormy sea. And like a sailor he was sick, gripping something he couldn’t quite register but feeling no more stabilized.

Then he was on the ground, and he stared up at the black sky with half-lidded eyes. Not even the stars seemed to stay still, and they crawled around like insects on the black fabric of space.

Stan took a deep breath, vague memories coming to him at last. The feeling of a bottle against his lips, one after the other, and the gradual loss of all sense. The taste of alcohol—the taste he hated but craved constantly. He could taste it on his own breath when he exhaled, sending a cloud of breath into the chilly air.

He closed his eyes, tired of the swaying images. Tired in general, really. Sleepy. The cold definitely wasn’t helping; the lethargy one feels in freezing weather was only exacerbating his helpless state on the ground.

There was a frown on his lips as he drifted away, and the last thing he was aware of was the deep regret in his gut that always managed to find him when he did this exact thing, time and time again:

Well, you’ve done it again, Stan. You useless animal.

When he opened his eyes again, he noticed that his head was angled as if something were under it. He reached a hand up to pull it out, but he found the thing to be a warm mass too large to budge. Not that he could’ve, anyway; there was little feeling in his limbs, let alone energy.

He opened his eyes expecting to see the black sky, but instead it was a blurry face that he struggled to focus on in the darkness. His vision was no longer swaying, but he was still quite confused and slow-witted.

“Stan!”

He furrowed his brow, staring at the face. “Wh…”

“Stan,” the voice said, wavering and anguished. “I thought you were..!” A sob cut the sentence short.

Stan squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his eyes with numb fingers. “Don’t cry,” he murmured, “Y/n.” The name seemed to come to him on its own.

“You…” The voice wavered as it continued, clearly suppressing more sobs. “Can you stand?”

“Don’t want to.”

“Please, Stan. You’re freezing.”

“Okay,” he said at last, heaving himself into a sitting position.

An arm hooked in his armpit helped him to his feet, and it shifted across his back to support him while he walked. He leaned heavily on his supporter, slowly coming to the realization of who this was.

“Y/n,” he said with sudden urgency. “Y/n, it’s you!”

“Yes, Stan, it’s me.”

“Oh. Guh… good…”

“Up the steps now. One, two, three. Just like that.”

The warmth of the indoors assaulted Stan like lava, burning his nose and fingers. He dropped down onto a couch heavily, draping his arm across his eyes to shield himself when a lamp turned on.

“Ow… the light,” he groaned.

“I’ll get you some water.”

Good, he thought to himself. I’m so thirsty. He hadn’t noticed before. He was overwhelmed with gratitude for this angel, though he didn’t think to voice these feelings. He just clenched his jaw while his fingers burned and his head throbbed and his tongue stuck to his icy teeth dryly.

He felt a warm hand on the back of his neck prompting him to sit up, and a cup of water was placed in his hands. Its coolness eased the assault of heat on his fingers, and he relished the feeling.

“Drink it, my love.”

He obeyed, quenching his thirst by downing the whole thing. He dropped the cup lazily into his lap, bringing his hands to his face and pressing hard as if he could squeeze the headache away.

“I feel like shit.”

“I would expect so. There was a twelve-pack of beer in the garage a few hours ago, and now it’s gone.”

“It’s not just the alcohol. I feel guilty.”

A gentle hand met his shoulder, and he could feel a sympathetic gaze on him. He didn’t dare meet those soft eyes, though. He couldn’t bring himself to face you, not as he was.

“I’m such a scumbag. Drinking all the time, wasting away in the cold. I don’t even know where I went. I don’t remember walking there, and I hardly remember walking back.”

“You were just on the front lawn,” you said helpfully, hoping to calm him a little.

“It doesn’t matter where I was,” Stan lamented bitterly. “I was drunk. Absolutely gone. Damn it, I’m just like my father, aren’t I?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that.”

“But you’re not like your father, Stan. You’re just not.”

“Then why do I do this? Why do I hurt myself and… and you?”

You didn’t have an answer to that. Instead you offered what you could in a meek voice: “You don’t hurt me. Not physically… you’re not violent.”

Stan finally looked at you, tears in his dry eyes. You were kneeling on the ground beside the couch, one hand resting reassuringly on his shoulder. You wrapped him in a hug, squeezing tight and pressing his head into your shoulder. You felt his chest start to heave as he cried.

“I love you,” he repeated between sobs. “I love you so, so much.”

“I know. I love you too.”

“No, you don’t—you don’t know. You can’t ever know how much I love you.” Stan took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I love you because… I know that you’ll always save me. When I’m gone like that, I always find my way back to your arms. And you… you pull me up. You save me. Every time.”

You listened to him speak, grateful that you were hugging so he couldn’t see the tears brimming your own eyes. “I’ll always be here for you, Stan.”

Stan finally wrapped his arms around you, too, returning the hug. He squeezed tight, as he always did when he was overwhelmed with love for you. “Thank you, Y/n. Thank you.”

You just nodded, rubbing his back and watching the ragged breathing smooth out.

His head was growing heavier on your shoulders. “Do you want to go back to sleep?” You asked, voice scarcely above a whisper.

“I want to stay with you.”

“You can do both, silly.”

Stan let out a sharp exhale in a half-hearted laugh. “You’re right.”

He tightened his grip on you and pulled you on top of him, burying his face in the crown of your head.

“I love you,” he said one last time, almost drifting off while he said it.

You were quite sure he was asleep when you said: “I love you, too.”

Last request for our 400 follower event!! Thank you for taking part!! And thanks for reading, love you all <33

(divider by saradika)

#south park #south park x reader #south park fanfiction #stan marsh #stan marsh x reader #stan x reader

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foxspritez · 7 months

Note

Would be super epic and cool if you ranted about that Sampard mermaid au, would love to hear more about it 👀 👀 👀 also you mentioned a fic in the tags for your recent post? Hope you don’t mind me asking if there is there one (and to please share maybe 👀)? If you don’t wanna on either it’s all goods 😋

OMG… THANK YOU FOR ASKING 🤭🤭🤭 i’ll literally kill for you thx for fueling my self indulgence xx anyway basically im picturing it like belobog’s overworld being a seaside kingdom (the landau family being royalty with gepard as prince) and the underworld being like boulder town ocean city idk. anyway. locals have recently reported “sea monster” sightings by the docks, that being sampo stealing valuables to bring back down either to sell at ten times it’s worth or give away to nat or the kids, normal sampo behavior and whatever. So gepard, being more of a silvermane guard and less of an active royal ruler at the moment, starts keeping a closer watch of the shore to keep the people feeling a bit safer, not thinking anything of it really, since “sea monsters aren’t real and can’t hurt anybody 🤓☝️” but whatever helps his people sleep at night. to his surprise, he spots an unusually large looking fish swim off with some cargo while he’s keeping watch, and starts to believe there really is something in the waters.

Being more prepared next shift, he sets up bait (expensive jewelry he stole from serval, she’ll thank him later) at the edge of one of the docks, with a sailboat ready to follow as soon as soon as it takes the bait. Unfortunately for him, the little pile of treasures isn’t taken until it’s already nighttime, so his tracking abilities are already sabotaged. But he is a Landau, and he’s too stubborn to wait any longer, so he sets off after it. late night light rain follows shortly, but he’s too far out to turn back now, and the harsh winds will help him to catch up faster. Rain turns to storms, and the winds and deep waters become too much for the little sailboat he took out. He tips over, and struggling to resurface from the crashing waves, gets pushed into that steering part of the sailboat (idfk what they’re called the ones at the bottom or whatever) and knocks himself out.

As for sampo, he’d been keeping a close eye on the boat once he realized he was being followed, and quickly swam up to keep the sailor above the waves. Awkwardly swimming half above water with the man in his arms, he takes him to the closest shoreline he can find as the storm dies down. Gepard wakes up hours later, with an unfamiliar pair of sea green eyes staring down at him. Insert my recent post here. When he wakes up again, it’s from the many guards sent out as a search party to find him, the man he met nowhere to be found. Had it not been for the pretty blue seashell placed carefully in his hands, he would have been convinced he was dreaming. It would be nice if he could have his sister’s jewelry back, but the seashell was cool too i guess.

Knowing no one’s gonna believe him, he claims he lost the creature early on, and sailed to the nearest island to wait out the storm. He just assumes he’ll never sea (:3) his savior again, but obviously im not gonna let that happen as there’s more plot to come.

I like the idea of mermaids having a human form to use at free will, so I’m thinking sampo has to get creative now that his regular boat stealing spot is swarming with guards after rescuing that pretty blonde days ago. Apparently, he’s a pretty important royal figure, so it’s not like he’ll see him around town if he starts doing his thieving on land. Now he can even scam humans too, it’s a win-win. Of course, he doesn’t know gepard is associated with the guards. I just want gepard to start chasing after the con man everyone’s been reporting, only to come face to face with those deep green eyes again, and the necklace of his beloved older sister around his neck.

I’m still thinking about what comes next, but I have a basic idea of what I want to happen. Nothings really set in stone since it’s all just ideas and brainrot atm but I’m having a great time coming up with every new thing 🤭

Unfortunately there is no fic for this since I just made it up for my own self indulgence, and the tags were referencing a different work from a fic i’ve been reading for awhile. I would write this au no hesitation if I could write, but I’m not the best writer and have to either ramble or draw the ideas/brainrot that pops in my mind. If anyone makes a fic like this/someone makes a sampard mermaid fic in general i’ll die for you though 😇

But yeah that’s about it! Thanks again for asking I appreciate it a lot 🥹🥹 getting to ramble about them always makes me !!! so this made my day!! Thank you for giving me this chance!!! 🤗🤗

#might update more plot if im feeling silly and goofy enough #i intend to draw more of this if i get the chance 😇#u haven’t seen the last of this…#sampard

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crymeariveronceagain · 2 years

Note

Saw u write some tips for aspiring writers and such! Do you have anymore that might make the writing better? U don't have to, just a thought because my writing needs a little work *sobs*

Hey! First off! Good for you for admitting that your writing needs work! And btw, that is a FINE place to be. Like, legit, I read stuff I wrote and want to die because ehe it needs so much workkkk. So, yeah! Don't worry about being perfect yet! You're a writer because you aren't perfect! If writing wasn't hard, everyone would do it like they're Alexander Hamilton, so. Good for you, Love!

Here are some tips!

I once took a creative writing seminar. The professor spent a whole hour and a half of our class time driving home his main point. He said, If you want to write, you need to read everything. So. This is going to sound ridiculous, because I assume your current projects are all unpublished or on ao3 or wattpad(if I'm wrong YOU GOOO YOURE A BETTER WRITER THAN ME HELLS YEAH). But stop just reading YA. Stop just reading BookTok books. Stop reading just fanfiction. Stop reading A Dance Of Thieves, stop reading Turtles All The Way Down, stop reading The Lunar Chronicles. Take a step back. Breathe for a minute. Now, I want you to go online and request one of the following three books either on Amazon, your library, or your favorite illegal book downloading website. 1) The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. 2) The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 3) The Old Man and The Sea, by Ernest Hemingway. These books are fairly short, as novels go, and they are pretty famous and decently fun. I want you to read it. Take your time, and enjoy it, or barrel straight through and swallow every word with vigor. Whatever strikes your fancy. Just read something you'd feel proud telling your grandma you read. And then I want you to find more books like it. Go read classics. Read books that shaped the world. I'm talking 1984, and Pride and Prejudice. I'm talking Anna Karenina and To Kill A Mockingbird. Don't read these for a class, read them because you want to learn how to write. Watch how the authors use words. You can still read YA and ao3 when you're bored or tired, just don't only read that. Read what professors and writers and readers have defined as "cream of the crop" writing for years and years, and just. Idk. Let it sink into your chest like you are a hot cup of water and the book is the tea bag.

Get good with grammar. It sounds really dumb, I know, but trust me. Grammar is the music of words, and to break the rules you need to know what they are, first. I'm not saying to go dig out your grade school grammar textbook and pour over it endlessly before you write anything, heck no. I'm saying that you should look up how to use a semicolon before you use it, or know where to put commas and line breaks. I'm saying you should be able to structure your sentences in a way that lets people easily read and move through your story like it's butter.

Write stupid crap. *points at over 7 Sokeefe soulmate aus* see this crap? Do it. You know you want to. Write something overdone, overused, just get words moving. Don't feel like you have to change the world with every word that comes out of your brain. You do not have to. The fate of the world does not rest on your shoulders, dearest writer, even if sometimes it seems to.

When you get stuck, keep going. One of my favorite writers, Jack London, has a quote. It says, "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." Truest thing I've ever heard in my 1010 years of being a writer on this planet. Don't stop when you're stuck. This is the advice that's gotten me through writer's block for years. A lie pushed by the media is that Writer's Block cripples you. No. It doesn't. Being busy/losing focus cripples you. So, just. Don't stop. Literally. Just make the plot go. If you can't, make a pinterest aesthetic/writing prompts board or look up "plot twist ideas" on tumblr. And, moreover, just try as hard as you can when you get bored, here's what you've gotta do. Don't pause your story when you're bored. Don't stop when it's dull and you naturally lose focus. Push through that first bout of wanting to quit. Wait until it's getting good, when you know exactly what's coming next and how you're gonna start making the story fun and exciting, and then stop, take a break, come back tomorrow. You'll open up your word doc, and be like AW YES THE GOOD PART and want to go at it again. Also, in a similar vein, avoid boring expose. Writing is partially entertaining yourself, as you write, so if you don't have fun writing the beginning of your protagonist's day, don't bother. Just begin at the beginning of the story, and weave the juicy background stuff in later.

Write what you want to read. Do you like short fiction? Write short fiction. Do you like cringe romance novels? Write a cringe romance novel. Do you like sci-fi? Write sci-fi. Like fanfic? WRITE IT! Write found family, write your own MCU movie into existence! Write whatever you want. It is your world, you have complete control over it. And use that control!!! You are the god and it is your creation!!! This is the one thing in life you can control! So enjoy it!!! You deserve to enjoy what you do!!! You deserve to have fun, writer, dearest! So do!

Hope these help! Send me another ask if you want!

#writing #writing quotes #thanks for the ask!#writing tips #writing advice #writing inspiration #writing inspo #writeblr #writer #fic writing #fanfic writing #writers #writing community #i am a writer i can say these things #creative writing #writers block #writer struggles

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callunavulgari · 1 year

Text

Scrapbook 2023 | Pt I

For anyone that’s new to this, this is how I keep track of all of the things that I enjoy and/or create throughout the year. I have literally been doing this since I had a livejournal.

It’s a nice little snippet of my life and helps to organize my brain.

A reminder:

Normal font - Indifferent/Neutral Italicized font - Enjoyed bold font - Loved with an asterisk* - All time favorite (bracketed titles) - Re-watches/Re-reads strikethough - Disliked

Goals are: read 65 books, finish 4 video games, write more than 20 fics or something larger than 20k, and expand on your original novel outline to the point that you START WRITING.

Past Years

MOVIES

January

(The Day After Tomorrow)

Jurassic World: Dominion

(Princess Mononoke)

Glass Onion

Do Revenge

(Star Wars: Rogue One)

(Ever After)

(Tarzan)

February

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

(Spirited Away)

(Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure)

(Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland)

(The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)

(The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)

(The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies)

March

(Howl’s Moving Castle)

(Lotr: The Two Towers)

(Hercules)

April

(Lotr: The Fellowship of the Ring)

(Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Suzume**

May

(Spirited Away)

TV SHOWS

January

Willow

Watcher: Top 5 Beatdown

That 90′s Show

Owl House, s3

Lockwood & Co, s1

1899

February

Watcher: Top 5 Beatdown

1899

The Witcher: Blood Origin

Fantastic Fungi

Miraculous Ladybug, s5

The White Lotus, s1

The Last of Us, s1

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Vox Machina, s2

Modern Marvels, Tea and Coffee Episodes

Watcher: Are You Scared

Watcher: Too Many Spirits

March

The Last of Us, s1

Watcher: Are You Scared

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

Miraculous Ladybug, s5

Russian Doll, s2

Shadow and Bone, s2

Watcher: Are You Scared

Watcher: Top 5 Beatdown

Case Study Vanitas

1899

Buzzfeed: Worth It

April

Buzzfeed: Worth It

Watcher: Survival Mode

Watcher: Weird Wonderful World

The Owl House, s3*****

The Mandalorian, s3

May

(She-Ra, s7)

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story

Sweet Tooth, s2

First Kill

BOOKS

January

Seasparrow | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

Ace of Shades | Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé [Fin]

A Restless Truth | Freya Marske [Fin]

The Kingdom of Copper | S.A. Chakraborty [Fin]

Bone Witch | Rin Chupeko [Fin]

Ocean’s Echo | Everina Maxwell [Fin]

(Lair of Dreams | Libba Bray) [Fin]

(Captive Prince | CS Pacat) [Fin]

This Is How You Lose the Time War | Aman El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone [Fin]

February

The Empire of Gold | S.A. Chakraborty [Fin]

Legend & Lattes | Travis Baldree [Fin]

The Bone Season | Samantha Shannon [Fin]

Juniper & Thorn | Ava Reid

(A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah Maas) [Fin]

Milk | Mark Kurlansky

The Burning God | R F Kuang [Fin]

The Shadow of Kyoshi | FC Yee

March

The Shadow of Kyoshi | FC Yee [Fin]

Juniper & Thorn | Ava Reid

Milk | Mark Kurlansky

A Mirror Mended | Alix Harrow

A Court of Mist and Fury | Sarah Maas [Fin]

Our Violent Ends | Chloe Gong [Fin]

The World We Make | N.K. Jemisin [Fin]

The Sun Down Motel | Simone St James [Fin]

Babel | RF Kuang [Fin]

The Hollow Ones | Guillermo Del Toro [Fin]

April

The Stolen Heir | Holly Black [Fin]

A Mirror Mended | Alix Harrow [Fin]

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi | SA Chakraborty [Fin]

Iron Widow | Xiran Jay Zhao [Fin]

Juniper & Thorn | Ava Reid [Fin]

Love & Gelato | Jenna Evans Welch [Fin]

The Dawn of Yangchen | FC Yee [Fin]

Hell Bent | Leigh Bardugo [Fin]

Tress of the Emerald Sea | Brandon Sanderson [Fin]

Milk | Mark Kurlansky

May

Milk | Mark Kurlansky

The Oleander Sword | Tasha Suri [Fin]

The Beautiful Ones | Silvia Morena-Garcia [Fin]

Happy Place | Emily Henry [Fin]

Foul Lady Fortune | Chloe Gong [Fin]

PODCASTS

January

(Zero Hours: A Matter of Time)

February

Critical Role, Campaign 2: Episodes 1-3

March

Critical Role, Campaign 2: Episode 4

April

N/A

May

N/A

VIDEO GAMES

January

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, 12 hours?

The Last of Us [Fin]

(Horizon: Forbidden West)

February

Persona 5 Royal, 220 hrs [Fin]

Assassin’s Creed: Origins, 20ish hours

Stardew Valley, 20 hours?

March

Stardew Valley, 56 hrs

(Kingdom Hearts 3)

April

Stardew Valley, 56 hrs

Assassin’s Creed: Origins

(Bioshock Infinite) [Fin]

May

Red Dead: Redemption

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, all the hours

POSTED FIC

January

N/A

February

N/A

March

N/A

April

N/A

May

N/A

WIPS | UNPUBLISHED | ORIGINAL

January

N/A

February

N/A

March

N/A

April

N/A

May

N/A

Fanmixes/Spotify Playlists/Graphics

January

2023

Kawaii desu desu bullsh*t

February

Favorites

March

N/A

April

Prelude Music

May

N/A

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January

Invitations by nbfutureboy | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | “Uh, Steve? How do you know my Dungeon Master?”

the sun in the west by misantlery | House of the Dragon | Rhaenyra/Daemon | 6k | Scenes from the reign of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, first of her name.

Halfway There by nbfutureboy | Stranger Things | 2k | Eddie wakes up to a thumping headache, a sweat under his collar, and a warm spot in the bed where Steve had previously been.

I Could Lift You Up by ouijaboy | Watcher | Shane/Ryan | 5k | Five times Shane made a big ol’ romantic gesture, and one time Ryan returned the sentiment.

whatever you want by Wildehack (tyleet) | Wolf 359 | Kepler/Jacobi | 5k | Kepler doesn't fuck him that first day, when Daniel swallows his pride like it's a hot coal he can feel boiling down to the pit of his stomach and dials the number left on the card.

turn our golden faces into the sun by liesmyth | The Locked Tomb | Harrow/Gideon | 5k | After Canaan House and Cytherea's death, Harrow wakes up on the Erebos as a newly-made Lyctor. She meets God. Then she meets God's daughter.

Two Pollens (Alike in Indignity) by rhysiana, ritualist | The Untamed | Nie Mingjue/Jin Guangyao | 12k | Meng Yao gets dosed with truth pollen. The cure has some side effects.

A Man of Honor by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Robb | 36k | Tyrion sighed. “He's nineteen, well-favored, and as far as I know, neither demented nor stupid. And not a hint of a betrothal. Sorry.”

in the garden of my heart by liesmyth | House of the Dragon | Alicent/Rhaenyra | 1k | It was a strange feeling. Alicent she found herself grasping Rhaenyra’s fingers, hard, filled with a possessiveness she couldn’t give a name to, a fierce love that threatened to burst out of her.

February

The Mistress Clause by sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive | Mistborn | Wax/Wayne, Wax/Steris | 51k | Wayne doesn’t poach, because poaching’s just a fancy word for stealing a heart, and he doesn’t steal (anymore). But he might trade for a heart, if he can find something of equal value to swap it with.

Here, After by spqr | 9-1-1 | Buck/Eddie | 12k | Buck’s not proud. Buck lives in a horror movie.

high water by spqr | Star Trek | Spock/Kirk | 7k | “Andorian wine is very potent,” Spock says. “How much did you consume?”

rhadamanthus by spqr | Star Trek | Spock/Kirk | 6k | Spock murmurs, “I cannot imagine a universe in which it is not my life’s duty to protect you. You are — “ he has to search for the right words, in Jim’s language. “You are — most dear to me, of all things.”

Necromantic Adventures in Bodyswapping! by liesmyth | The Locked Tomb | Augustine/Mercymorn | 4k | Mercymorn swallowed. Then she said, “I should’ve known you’d suck your own dick, you empty-headed egomaniac.”

That Old Forever by spqr | Star Wars | Din/Luke | 29k | Din had commed laughing to show him his ewok targets stacked three deep in carbonite, which would have made Luke laugh too if he weren’t too busy being sullen and sleep-deprived and generally unpleasant—and focused on concealing a giant, soul-crushing, absolutely mortifying pubescent crush on his adopted brother.

a warm spot in a cold snap by hygarden | Wolf 359 | Jacobi/Kepler | 4k | The thing is it’s not like Jacobi hasn’t thought about it.

a luxury few can afford by three-fingered (calciseptine) | Marvel | Spiderman/Deadpool | WIP | "And what's the going rate for swiss cheese?" Peter asks as casually as possible.

Roll To Charm Person by harriet_vane | Stranger Things | Will/Mike | 59k | Will needs a date to his mom's wedding. Mike volunteers.

it hurts at first (but it ain't that bad) by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 12k | Xue Yang might be dying, but he can at least make sure Xiao Xingchen knows who tricked him.

so little time and i'm way off track by defractum | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 25k | "Have you heard of Wei Wuxian?" someone bellows.

god was a dog-man by spqr | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 12k | “Do you have a secret teenage son?” Stiles demands, as soon as Derek opens the door.

March

Here's Not Here by theroguesgambit | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 10k | Stiles is different today.

It Can All But Break Your Heart by orbiting_saturn | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 7k | Turns out, Derek can’t go anywhere without getting hit on.

I Might Be A Fool by prettylittlementirosa | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 35k | The thing about Stiles, though, is that for him, turned on and angry are not mutually exclusive feelings.

The Price by theroguesgambit | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 18k | Stiles must surrender the most important thing in his life to protect the town… and no one can figure out what it was.

you were there and so was i by magneticwave | Teen Wolf | Sterek, Allison & Stiles | 8k | For their tenth birthday, Stiles had gotten Allison a mug from a kiosk at the mall with AREN’T YOU GLAD WE EVOLVED OUT OF NEIGHBORING CELLS on one side and a picture from their school trip to the zoo, the one where Allison was hitting a goat trying to eat Stiles’ shirt, on the other.

Same As It Ever Was by QuokkaFoxtrot | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 62k | "Deja-vu? Like you feel like you've done this before, because-"

In Bloom by Celia_and for BensCalligraphySet | Star Wars | Rey/Ben | 14k | He doesn’t love her. But when his hands are on her body, she can pretend.

April

straight at the sun by brawlite | Trigun Stampede | Vash/Wolfwood | 4k | Drunk as a skunk and feeling maudlin, Wolfwood finds a stranger in a saloon who reminds him of Vash. He lets hungry fantasies get the better of him.

night sounds by brawlite | Trigun Stampede | Knives/Wolfwood | 6k | While drunk, Wolfwood confesses his feelings to Vash. It goes surprisingly well -- until it really, really doesn’t.

fool in the moon by arahir | Trigun Stampede | Vash/Wolfwood | 8k | Wolfwood carries a body.

I just can’t wait for love to destroy us by FlowerCitti | Trigun Stampede | Vash/Wolfwood | 8k | There are small things to be noticed, if you know to look, that make Vash just a little less human.

come to conceal the confusion we feel by iodhadh | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen/Xue Chengmei | 7k | As far as Song Lan is concerned, Xue Yang is nothing more or less than the most irritating student taking lessons at the dance studio he co-owns with his boyfriend.

No Passing Fascination by madamerioulette | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen | 36k | “If no consensus can be made, and no act of justice agreed upon, then it falls to myself and my companion Song Zichen to take matters into our own hands.”

May

Hawkins Halfway House for Homeless Horrors by Trensu | Stranger Things | Eddie/Steve | 2k | Steve wanted to be a dad more than anything. Unfortunately, he was a single dude in his thirties which meant no adoption agency in the world was willing to give him a chance. Or at least no human adoption agency.

Please Hold by entanglednow | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 2k | Lesson of the day, no matter how busy you are, it's rarely a good idea to let your subconscious take the wheel.

pretty doctor by spqr | House | House/Chase | 5k | ROBBIE DOWN UNDER. LET ME GET UNDER YOU. “CRIKEY, THAT’S A BIG COCK!”

My Right Hand Man by entanglednow | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 4k | In which movie night takes an unexpected turn, and it's surprisingly easy to just let it happen.

then out of nowhere, somebody comes and hits you with an ooh la la la, ooh la la la, ooh la la la, ooh by @calciseptine | Marvel | Peter/Wade | 42k | A man with spider-themed superpowers accidentally breaks into Wade's apartment.

like a record, baby by jilliancares | Marvel | Peter/Wade | 8k | “I already have an escape plan,” Deadpool says. He grabs Peter’s wrist, raises it above his head, and then digs his thumb into Peter’s spinneret.

So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way by Jenetica | Marvel | Peter/Wade | 32k | Peter Parker's life doesn't need an influx of new, distinctly spidery Spider-Man powers.

let me explain by jilliancares | Marvel | Peter/Wade | 8k | Peter's starting to realize just how much Wade knows about him

Tiny Entanglements by MargaretKire | Marvel | Peter/Wade | 7k | Spider-Man has some hidden desires. So does Deadpool. Things get complicated when Morbius claims to have a cure for Peter’s ‘impure’ DNA.

Your Call Is Important To Us by entanglednow | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 2k | Steve needs a minute, and some moral support from a friend, after accidentally kissing Eddie goodbye.

Hard to be Soft by stereobone | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 2k | Eddie's had sex on a bed before. A lot, actually. Face down, usually, sheets dirty, barely able to breathe, someone holding him bruise-tight and pressing his face into the mattress.

A Breach In The Wall by entanglednow | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 1k | Steve is forced to wonder if it's still a rude awakening when you're just pretending to be asleep.

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January

2022 || Multifandom Mashup (Happy New Year)

2022 Movie Trailer Mashup

therefore i am [Wednesday]

Paint It Black || The Rolling Stones

February

MARVEL || Ode to Joy

House Targaryen | Fire & Blood

The Batman || Where is My MInd?

(The Witcher) Geralt Of Rivia | Home

The Batman || Where is My MInd?

Princess Cirilla of Cintra (+Geralt & Yennefer)

It's Alright - Percy de Rolo AMV (Legend of Vox Machina)

March

MARVEL || Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania - Rise

derek & stiles || on my way

call me by your name; stiles & derek

Ellie | The Last of Us

April

Multifandom || It's Going Down Tonight

Wednesday || Bad Guy

They will not control us

Joel & Ellie | Look for the light

Joel & Ellie || The Last of Us

Daemon & Rhaenyra || Play With Fire

Iron Man & Doctor Strange || Don't put your blame on me

sick thoughts

Doctor Strange || Enemy (Tommee Profitt)

The Last of Us | When Innocence Dies

loud | Wednesday

Derek x Stiles | the one to save me

The Last of Us | Fear

Time changes everything.

wednesday || utopia

May

N/A

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January

Meimuna - Meimuna

Colors - Black Pumas

Sho’s Song - Cecile Corbel

The Darker the Weather - MISSIO

Thumbs - Sabrina Carpenter

Dragonstea Din Tea - Feuerchwanz

Onwards We Row - Miracle of Sound

Edge of Midnight - Miley Cyrus

August - Vanisa Khamkhosy

Warrior of the Mind - Jorge Rivera-Herrans

Happier Than Ever - Billie Eilish

FU In My Head - Cloudy June

Villain - Bella Poarch

Kalyna - Go-A

I See You - Leona Lewis

Genesis - Otyken

Dimna Juda - Walkauz

See You Again - Miley Cyrus

Ohio Is For Lovers - Hawthorne Heights

Queen of Kings - Alessandra

Flowers - Miley Cyrus

Take A Hint - Victorious Cast

rapunzel - emlyn

Sorry Barbie - Todrick Hall

February

Six Soundtrack

Fairytale (Violin) - Joel Sunny

Tea, Milk and Honey - Oh Pep!

Middle of the Night - Elley Duhe

Tongues & Teeth | The Crane Wives

King | The Amazing Devil

A Little Bit Off | Five Finger Death Punch

Masterpiece | Motionless In White

Khamlu | Hubert von Goisern

Con La Brisa | Foudeqush

Interlude | Stormzy

Our Light | Lyn

Mountain at My Gates | Foals

Fuel to Fire | Agnes Obel

Arms Unfolding | dodie

Truly Madly Deeply - Yoke Lore

Step Into Darkness | Dubkiller

Main Theme | PurpleSchala

March

Hungry Heart | Steve Aoki

ceilings | Lizzy McAlpine

It’s Terror Time Again | Sesamoid

Tuning In To You | Wonstein

Lost | Linkin Park

Got You | GA Eun

Wake Up | Elaine

Watch the World Burn | Falling In Reverse

Eat Your Young | Hozier

Scars | Boy Epic

Cover Me | Black Math

Just a Man | Jorge Rivera-Herrans

April

labour | Paris Paloma

The Tornado | Owl City

Green Green Grass | George Ezra

Tombi | Kvi Baba

Suzume | Radwimps

May

Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You - Boys Town Gang

Linger a while - Jorge Rivera-Herrans

Mermaids - Florence & the Machine

Una Musica Brutal - Gotan Project

Francesca - Hozier

#heather says what #scrapbook #2023 #heather writes #recommendations

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dreamescapeswriting · 3 years

Text

The Stowaway ~ SCB [M] [Request]

WORD COUNT: 7.6K

PAIRING: Captain Changbin x Stowaway Reader

GENRE: smut, pirate au, first time, angst, speaks of drowning, oral F receiving, romantic smut.

A/N: Set between 1720 and 1750

Panting heavily as you raced down the boat docks you did your best to try and avoid being seen by the men that were chasing you. All of this because you had stolen some small apple and a loaf of bread from a food stand. Which they were going to throw away anyway since it was the end of the night.

What were they really going to do with it? It was almost midnight and you were starving, you hadn't eaten in almost four days, you needed something.

“Where did she go!?” One of them yelled in a rough voice as they lost sight of you in the darkness. Pressing your back against one of the wooden boats you held your hand over your chest as if they would find you just from the sound of how hard it was beating. If they found you there was no question about it you would be dead on the spot. No one liked thieves let alone female thief who had no family and no means of paying them back. They'd find you, kill your or worse cut your fingers off and leave you to deal with the gangrene or dying through blood loss.

"She must have gone through one of the houses. This way!" The smaller male said as he stared around, they'd been on your tail for almost twenty minutes not once letting up.

You let out a small breath staying completely still until you knew for sure that the men were gone and it was safe to come out from your hiding spot.

It wasn't as if you enjoyed stealing but it was the only way you could stay alive. Not many places except the brothel were willing to hire someone that was homeless. Being on the run for almost 3 years had no benefits besides the one where you got away from your family. You would rather spend your life on the run than one more minute with them.

The longer you stood on the docks the heavier your eyes began to get but you couldn't run into town now. The men would still be on the lookout for you and most of the pubs were overrunning with pirates. Pirates from all over the world had sailed all day and night before sleeping in a real bed before heading out the next day. As a kid, you used to dream of being a pirate, setting sail to see the whole entire world but of course, the dream would never come true. Females on ships were forbidden, it was a sign of bad luck and a sure sign that a ship would sink.

Staring up at the boat you had been leaning against you checked to see if there was any sign of someone on board. It would only be for one night, it wasn't as though you were going to be a stowaway and go on an adventure with them. One night of peaceful sleep was all you wanted.

It was highly unlikely anyone was on board the ship anyway, most of the men loved to drink at night and would stay in the hotels and brothels. There were no candles left burning that you could see and the whole place appeared to be empty so you threw your small bag through one of the portholes and waited.

Waited to see if someone heard it and came running or if there was someone on the docks that would hear you but there was nothing. Finally somewhere comfy and somewhat safe that you could sleep for at least one night.

Stepping onto the deck you looked around for any signs that someone could still potentially be there but it was clear. The whole ship was a mess, the deck was covered with a thick layer of filth, clothes were left everywhere it was a wonder the captain even let his crew live like this. Who were you to complain when it was a free bed for the night? Somewhere peaceful for you to eat your bread and apple and lay your head for one night.

"Disgusting," You mumbled climbing down into the base of the ship to find it even more of a mess than the top. There were more clothes thrown over barrels, there was dust that covered everything down there that the clothes didn't touch. It was a wonder how anyone lived on the boat without going insane but you grabbed some of the blankets and began trying to make a make-shift bed on the floor. No use complaining about the filth when it was one of the warmest places you'd gotten to sleep in for a while.

As you laid there to yourself staring out of the window at the moon you couldn't remember the last time you had slept in a real bed...The last time you had gone to sleep without a weapon in your hand. It was going to be the first time in years you could sleep without someone yelling at you to get of their yard or that you couldn't sleep under a pub table. It was peaceful.

Taking in a large breath of the sea air Changbin smiled to himself, it almost the middle of the day and he and his crew had been sailing for a few hours now.

"Jisung!" He cried out as he looked over the state of the ship. This was supposed to be one of the most terrifying ships known to all pirates and men and yet it looked like the most revolting.

"I'm sick of this place looking so bad, we need to look after it." He told his right-hand man, Chan, as they stood at the wheel of the ship looking out at the vast amounts of nothing that surrounded them. There was nothing to be seen for miles on end, just waves, birds and the off piece of wood left from wreckages.

"Yes, Captain?" Jisung asked as he rushed over to Changbin looking up at him as he waited for further instructions.

"Go below deck and fetch the mop bucket, I want this place cleaned up before we reach Midscape," Jisung nodded before disappearing towards the hatch and Changbin continued to stare at everything in front of him. Midscape was going to be their big break, the kingdom of Quinnar was about to hold a large festival which meant there were going to be plenty of opportunities for them. Plenty of ships to steal from, the seaside towns would be too busy focusing on the partying to notice food and drinks going missing.

"The usual job? Go in, steal and get out?" Chan questioned as he noticed how hard Changbin seemed to be concentrating.

"Yeah, we'll need one of the boys on pickpocketing, we could get some jewels while we're there." Chan nodding along about to say something when Jisung came speeding over to the wheel, out of breath and as white as a sheet.

"Girl...Below...Deck." He panted out as he looked up at Changbin anxiously,

"What?"

"There's a girl, asleep below deck." The whole ship came to a standstill as they stared at Jisung, all that could be heard were the waves crashing against the side of the boat.

"What do you mean a girl? A little girl? A teenager? A woman?" Changbin pressured to answer him but he was taking far too long,

"Move." He grunted locking the wheel into place before heading towards the hatch of the boat.

Laying there was a girl Changbin had noticed the night before running through one of the pubs. You'd been clutching a loaf of bread and an apple the last time he saw you.

"What shall we do? Females are bad luck on ships." Seungmin muttered as he watched you sleeping, clutching a blanket around your body as your shivered.

"Throw her overboard, we don't need bad luck," Jisung grumbled watching as you laid your head on one of his shirts.

"Don't be stupid," Changbin hissed never taking his eyes off you. He'd seen people like this before, forced to sleep in rough places because they had nowhere else to go. Just from the state of your clothes, he knew you'd not had a real home for a while,

"She's a stowaway-"

"She clearly had nowhere else to go. I doubt she meant to sail along with us," Chan cut Hyunjin off as he looked at his captain. Changbin had still yet to say anything on the matter as he continued to watch you sleep.

"Let her sleep. When she wakes you tell her to come and see me in my cabin." With that he left, leaving the boys stunned as he walked away as if nothing had happened.

Waking up to seven sets of eyes staring down at you wasn't your idea of a wake-up call. You flinched clutching the sheets around your body as you stared at each of them. All of them looked as though they were angry at you, all except for one who was just sitting and holding some food.

"I bought some food in case you were hungry," The blonde with freckles said as he pushed a small wooden tray towards you but you didn't move.

"Our Captain wants to see you." Another one with dark hair and a mole under his right air said to you as you nodded. Completely in shock that you had woken up to them standing there,

"I didn't mean to sleep so much...I-I just needed to crash for-"

"Don't explain it to us. Explain to Captain Changbin." Fear radiated through your entire body as the curly-haired boy spoke of his name. The most feared pirate in most of the kingdoms.

"Changbin?" You stuttered out as you looked at each of the men. You hadn't even bothered looking for a ship name last night, you were too tired to care.

"Welcome aboard the Fae Rouge." The curly-haired man announced as he watched you stand up a little shakily.

"Felix. Show her to Changbin's cabin." He ordered as he began cleaning up the clothes you had been using as a bed for the night. Staring at you as you and Felix began to leave, heading up the stairs, Felix allowing you to go first while he looked away. You were dressed in wenches dress covered in holes and dirt from all of the times you had slept in the streets.

"We're on the water?!" You panicked looking around you as you saw nothing but sea, you were only meant to sleep until daylight.

"Judging by the panic I guess you didn't mean to become a stowaway?" Felix questioned softly as he began to lead you over the main deck floor towards the Captains cabin below the quarter deck.

"I just needed somewhere safe to sleep." You admitted as you waited outside the door of the cabin. A huge wooden door with a dragon knocker on the front of it.

"Come in." A voice grunted from inside, your stomach began to do flips as you were ushered inside by Felix only to have him leave when you were standing in front of a desk. There was a chair behind it face out of the windows staring at the ocean. The chair turned and sitting there was someone you had grown to know through stories and wanted posters. His face was no different to the drawings you had seen, he was handsome and charming. There was a purple bandana wrapped around his head and a scar on his eyebrow that stopped hairs from growing.

There were stories that he'd gotten the scar from fighting with palace guards in Atlantia when he was last there but other stories claimed it was nothing more than a birthmark.

"I'm sorry Captain Changbin! I didn't mean to, I just needed someone safe to lay my head for the night! I never would have climbed on board if I had known it was your ship," You spoke so quickly you'd barely had time to register what it was that you were saying to him. Doing your best to not be killed or thrown overboard to die.

"But you would have climbed on board if it was someone else's?" He questioned as he stared at you, impressed that you were so out-spoken with him.

"No...Yes but-" He cut you off before you could continue,

"Did you or did you not climb onto my ship without permission?"

"Yes-"

"Did you or did you not set sail with us?" He stood up and rested his hands on the desk in front of him glancing at the map and then up to you.

"Yes, but I didn't mean to..." As you were about to explain your plan for waking up he cut you off once again.

"You're a stowaway, whether you meant it or not."

"I had nowhere else to go! I couldn't sleep in the streets for one more night," You finally cried out, raising your voice just a little as you stared at him. Changbin was taken back by it, not once had anyone ever spoken back to him but it impressed him.

"You have no home? No family?" It wasn't a way of being mean it was a way of finding out the truth. If you truly had nowhere to go he was going to take pity on you but never show it.

"No one, sir...I have no one." The room fell into silence and he sighed sitting back down in his chair.

"Felix!" He bellowed out watching the door as Felix came through it, looking directly at his captain.

"She's the new cleaner. Show her the ropes, for god sake get her some clean clothes." He grumbled before turning to look back out of the windows.

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" You yelled out as Felix pulled you from the room, shutting the door and looking at you.

"I'll find something in the cabins you can wear until we reach Quinnar. Then we'll have to buy you something suitable." You ignored the looks you were gaining from the six other men that were now on the deck.

"I won't lie, they wanted to throw you overboard,"

"I don't blame them...Females on pirate ships always mean bad luck." You grumbled following him into another cabin to find seven beds lining one wall of the room, chests on the other.

"Here." Felix began rooting through one of his chests to pull out some black breeches with eight buttons on the front.

"Then I'm sure Chan won't mind if you wear one of his linen shirts," He pulled out a white long-sleeved shirt with the front dipped down, laces to keep from exposing the chest.

"I'll let you change and then I'll introduce you to them all. You're going to be here for a while you might as well learn our names." He chuckled softly leaving you to change out of your dirty rags and into the new clothes.

"Changbin asked her to clean, he wants her on the ship." You hear Felix telling the boys as you came out onto the main deck. The shirt had to be tucked in with how long it was but it was comfortable and felt nice to be in fresh clothing.

"We never learnt your name," Chan said as he watched you walking towards Felix, you stood beside the freckled boy.

"I never learnt yours." You countered back making Felix smirk from beside you. He'd heard you inside the Captains cabin talking back to Changbin whenever you got.

"I'm Bang Chan," The curly-haired man said as he looked at you,

"Hwang Hyunjin," The boy with the mole under his eye said as he smiled at you, all of them going in a line until it got to Jisung who just stared at you.

"She's not going to bite you." Felix hissed but he said nothing,

"I'm Y/n." The boys stared at you,

"No last name?" Felix frowned as he heard you only say a first name. It was uncommon for a female to go by just a first name unless they had been disowned or family killed off.

"No. Not anymore." You looked over at Jisung hoping that he would now say something to you.

"Han Jisung." He grumbled as he looked at Felix before storming off towards the wheel.

"Don't mind him, he's new to the crew and you're replacing him as the new guy." You nodded along and followed the boys as they began telling you what you could and couldn't clean around the ship.

It was a few days into your time with them all and you'd grown to know each of them on a personal level. Except for Changbin who spent most of his time in his cabin or manning the wheel. The boys had arranged for you to continue sleeping below deck, making you a bed out of old blankets and a spare pillow. Although it wasn't one of the best situations it was better than anything you'd had in the many years leading up to this moment. You were being fed two meals a day, given a warm place to sleep and all for cleaning the ship which was no hassle for you.

The only problem there was on the ship was Changbin, he seemed to have a problem with you but you put that down to being a stowaway on his ship. Whenever you would do a simple thing wrong he would yell at you for it, causing a scene or just being rude in general. Changbin would give you all of the harder tasks if you had finished your cleaning for the day but the boys would try to help if and when they could.

"Jisung! Put it down! Y/n is perfectly capable!" Changbin squawked from the Helm of the ship. Even if Jisung had a disliking to you at first he let up in the end, doing his best to help with some of your chores.

"Go and join the boys," You whispered as you continued washing the main deck. It involved using a single scrub brush to scrub each and every small wooden panel of the boat with soapy water.

"If you could not do this job you should never have climbed aboard." Changbin bellowed as you ignored him, scrubbing as hard as you could at the floor. This was one job that took everything out of you that you had to do every other day, spending almost your entire day going over the entire boat.

"When you're done the windows in my cabin need washing." Changbin was now standing over you, watching as you scrubbed harder and harder. Changbin admired how hard you were willing to work for him but he wasn't going to say it out loud and risk being seen as soft.

"Yes, Captain." You spoke as you looked up at him, he moved away from you before disappearing back into his cabin leaving Chan in charge of the wheel.

The floors were clean and there were still a few more hours of daylight left, Felix had called you out onto the main deck.

"We'll be arriving in Quinnar in two days. You better sharpen your skills." He threw a sword in your direction making you laugh as you caught it by the handle.

"Am I allowed on shore with you?" You questioned as he began to come towards you, holding the sword up as though he was ready to attack.

"I can't see why not, I'll find you some clothes and then I'll show you around." You remembered Felix had said he had lived in Quinnar almost all of his life until he ran away to join Changbin.

Watching you and Felix pretending to fight on the deck was beginning to irritate Changbin so he barged out of his room.

"Since you don't know how to follow simple directions," He grunted as he took the swords away from you both, throwing them to Jeongin who scrambled to put them away.

"I asked you to clean my windows since you want to learn to be a pirate instead...Show me what you've got." Frowning as you turned to look at Changbin you waited for him to explain what it was that he meant.

"I saw you stealing the night you left, show me what you've got...We'll see if we can put you to good use." Standing up straight you looked at him wondering how this was going to work when he had set you up to the task.

"You'll know because you're watching," He hummed at you,

"So it continues for the rest of the night...You'll steal from us and we'll see what you come back with at dinner." Nodding along with him you glanced over at Seungmin who was smirking.

"Bet we catch you," Smirking back over at him you shook your head.

"Bet you don't."

The end of the night came faster than you had been expecting it to and now all nine of you were crowded around a large table below deck.

"Well...You failed, I'm not missing anything." Changbin said smugly as he poured himself a glass of ale, you hummed standing up from the table.

"I think you'll find, you're wrong, Captain." Taking out a large sack from under the table you poured the contents onto the table. Revealing everything that was inside from jewels, food, clothes, money and even the compass that Changbin kept on him at all times.

"Impressive work." He complimented a small smile playing on his lips as he took the compass from the pile and turned it around in his fingers.

"How did you manage to swipe this?" He questioned, truly curious to know when it never left his inside pocket.

"You asked me to clean your windows. While I was cleaning them this afternoon I asked you to move from your desk and bumped into you." Thinking back on it Changbin smirked as he thought about the way your hand ever so slight brushed against his chest.

"Even if you don't want to swipe on Quinnar she could perform for other sailors...Distract them." Minho chuckled as he remembered catching you singing one day while you were cleaning.

"She can sing, dance and maybe she can read to them." He finished as he stuffed food into his mouth. You had been helping the boys learn to read and write while you were spending your time on the ship at night.

"You read?" Changbin questioned as you sat back down at the table, nodding your head.

"My mother taught me as a little girl. I can also write and read a map." The more he learnt about you the more interested he began to grow.

There would have been a time when Changbin never would have allowed you onto his ship but hearing that you had no one back home made him want to take a chance on you. No one deserved to be alone in the world and that was something he lived by. Taking in sailors that had no wives, family or means of living. It was how he had met most of the boys besides Jeongin who simply joined because he wanted to.

"You're just full of surprises," He hummed pouring you a glass of ale before going back to his food.

Although he had been hard on you through most of your time with him you couldn't hold it against him. He'd taken you in and cared for you even though he could have just as easily thrown you overboard and fed you to the sharks.

"We should get an early night. We'll be sailing all day tomorrow with little rest at night." Changbin digressed as he rose from his chair, your eyes on him the entire time as he retreated to his cabin for the rest of the night.

Quinnar was bright and loud as soon as you reached the docks, people were partying everywhere you turned to look.

"I'll take her to go and get some clothes, then we'll start on the west side of town," Felix explained to the boys as you waited for him. Practically bouncing up and down with excitement as you looked around, it was your first time being anywhere this far from home and it was starting to set in that you had sailed there.

"Follow me." Felix chuckled as he began to walk with you off the ship and down the wooden docks. Your eyes immediately went to the water it was crystal clear with white sand at the edges.

"Can we go to the water after?" You questioned as you began to walk through crowded streets. People were dressed in top hats, suits and some women were out in the street topless.

"They get excited about the festivals," Felix whispered as he noticed your gaze lingering on some of the groups that were getting louder and louder.

"You should see them when they've been drinking," He laughed softly pulling you towards a small clothing stand and looking over everything before settling on something.

"We'll take the black Bustier dress." He paid for the dress in full and an elderly woman took you by the hand. Eyeing you up when she noticed you in men's breeches and a shirt.

"Ran away to play pirates did you?" She questioned as she led you into a small bathroom, you smiled weakly as she began measuring you.

Coming out from the changing room you smiled as you reached Felix, doing a small turn to show off the black Bustier and lace dress that you'd put a white shirt underneath.

"Looks great, now you really are a pirate." He whispered in your ear pushing you back through the crowds to begin your work. Everyone was already standing on top of one another, they would rarely notice something going missing from their pockets.

Later in the night as Changbin was heading back to the ship he saw you just sitting in the sand on the beach. Your feet were sitting by the edge of the water and you looked peaceful, a small smile on your lips.

"Do I pay you to sit around all day?" He snapped when he reached you, brushing off your hands you looked up at him.

"It's almost midnight, the boys are all drinking I thought we had time off-"

"You thought wrong." You nodded before getting yourself up from the sand, dusting off your dress to follow him back to the ship but Changbin was taken by the bag of loot by your side.

"Busy day?" You nodded handing him the bag as you began to walk back to the docks.

"Felix and I hit the west and then we got bored so we joined Jisung and Seungmin in the south." You smirked remembering everything you had done that day and now you were truly exhausted from everything.

"There's one more thing I want you to do for me tonight," Changbin told you as he walked by your side. The two of you out alone as you headed towards the ship. As much as Changbin wanted to tell you how good a job you were doing for him he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Sure."

"Go and get the boys, we need to sail now before anyone realises we're the ones that stole their goods." Nodding at him you headed off back in the direction of the town.

All of the boys had gone to the black pearl for a drink so it was going to be easy to find them but not so easy getting them back to the boat.

"Captain wants you back, he wants to sail home." You mumbled as Minho threw an arm around your shoulder, dropping almost his whole body weight onto you as you attempted to drag him out of the bar.

"But we want to drink! CELEBRATE!" He screamed out as Jisung joined your side, helping you carry him a little while the rest of the boys - who were moderately sober - began to leave.

"We can celebrate on board," You told Minho who began singing loudly in the street,

"Soon may the Wellerman come To bring us sugar and tea and rum One day, when the tonguing is done We'll take our leave and go!" When he realised no one was joining in with him he began to get louder and louder, jabbing your side telling you to sing along. You had sung on the boat for him a couple of times but never in front of anyone else.

"She'd not been two weeks from shire when down on her a right a whale bore. The captain called all hands and swore he'd take that whale in tow!" He screamed as you sat on the main deck, Changbin had begun sailing out of the docks the moment you arrived back with everyone. The rest of the boys had gone to sleep in their beds while you looked after Minho,

"SING!" He screamed at you making you laugh softly as he threw up down the side of the boat. Rubbing his back softly you began to sing sweetly to him, not wanting to be as aggressive as his singing had been.

"Soon may the Wellerman come To bring us sugar and tea and rum One day, when the tonguing is done We'll take our leave and go..." You rubbed his back and he got back up, patting your back roughly as he left you there to got bed.

"SHIT!" You screamed out as he hit you a little too hard, sending you into the freezing water. Head flooding with thoughts as you forgot how to swim, waves sending you down to the water as soon as you got some form of air.

The water sent your body into shock as you tried to come up for air, flailing your arms around as though you were trying to climb rocks. Waves were crashing into your body knocking your back down whenever you got close to getting a piece of the precious air.

"For fucks sake," Changbin cried out when he realised no one else was going to come after you.

Dropping the anchors he began storming over to the side you'd gone overboard on, stripping from his shirt. Staring over to see if he could see any sign of you but it was pitch black. Climbing onto the railing he dove in after you swimming under the water when he saw you limply trying to reach for the water.

"Don't you dare die on me!" Changbin roared as he laid you down on the main deck, pushing down on your chest repeatedly before breathing air into your mouth.

"You're not allowed to leave," He hissed as he continued pushing against your chest. Your eyes were half open as you looked around you,

"Leave me alone...You hate me," You coughed up the saltwater spitting it down beside him on the floor.

"Do you think I want you dead?" He scoffed as he sat you up carefully, handing you a cup of freshwater.

"Would be an easy way to get rid of a woman on your ship,"

"And lose one of the best pirates I've come to meet?" He blushed looked down at you as you continued to sip on the freshwater, shivering as you sat on the deck soaked in water on a cold night.

"Let's go and get you warmed up." He mumbled helping you up onto your feet, wrapping his shirt around you as he walked you towards his cabin.

"You can sit in front of the fire." Sitting you down in a chair he added some more wood to the small fireplace in his cabin and went to grab you some dry clothes to change into. Settling on some of his baggy breeches and a large white shirt.

"Why are you being nice? It's freaking me out." You mumbled as he gave you a blanket to change underneath, still turning his back on you so you would feel comfortable.

"I've always been nice, I let you stay didn't I?" He countered as he looked at the windows in front of him, smirking a little as you spoke back to him with a little attitude.

"Begrudgingly I bet," You grumbled folding your arms over your chest as you finished changing into the clothes he had given to you.

"I was the one that opted to stop them throwing you overboard," He raised his eyebrow at you truly not understanding why you thought he hated you or wanted you dead.

"I gave you a job, I gave you shelter. If I really wanted to I could have put you out," You cleared your throat when it was clear for him to turn back and he wrapped you in a blanket to keep you from getting colder.

"I could have let you drown," He scoffed as he looked at you knowing that he would never actually let you drown.

"But you didn't...what was it you said...Best pirate?" You smirked up at him remembering what he had said out on the deck.

"Shut up, you were hallucinating," You hummed as you stared at the fireplace, enjoying the warmth as it spread through your entire body enjoying it as you sat there.

"Thank you though...For taking me in...letting me work for you." Your eyes were beginning to get heavy as you sat there,

"Like I said. The best pirate just don't tell the boys," He chuckled looking at you as he saw you beginning to nod off in the chair. It was rather adorable how you got so tired just from sitting in front of a fireplace.

"You should get some rest, sea air and water can take it out of you sometimes." You hummed as you got up, ready to leave his chambers when his hand came to rest on your shoulder. Pulling you to come back into the room, there was no way he was going to make you stay below deck when he knew it was colder down there than anywhere else on the ship. Any other night would have been fine but not when you'd just taken a swan dive into the ocean and almost drowned.

"Take my bed, it's comfier than the sheets you're on." You remembered seeing the bed when you were cleaning once. It was a large double bed covered in pillows and blankets that looked to be hand-sewn, fit enough for some kind of king to lay on.

Shivering and teeth chattering as you laid in bed you couldn't warm up despite the mound of blankets covering you. All of the warmth from the fire gone now that you were curled up on a bed,

"Relax. You need to relax your body," It was easy for Changbin to say as he laid on the floor in front of the fire taking most of the heat from you,

"Come up here," You stuttered out through gritted teeth, not caring if you were going to share a bed with someone. All you cared about was getting warm.

"Why?"

"Warm me up," You hissed looking at him with a serious look to prove you meant it and he got up, bringing one of the extra blankets with him and crawling in behind you.

"Sweet mother of pearl, you are freezing," He hissed when he felt your feet grace over his leg, he threw the blanket he had been using over your both.

"Hold...Hold me." You looked over your shoulder at him and he nodded, inching closer to you as he wrapped his arm around your waist.

"Tell me why you took pity on me...Why keep me? You didn't know I was a good pirate then," You stuttered out body still shivering uncontrollably as he continued to hold you in his arms.

"I saw you stealing the night before so I knew you were hungry and most likely tired...Then when you told me that you had no one-"

"You felt sorry for me?" You cut him off as you listened to him speaking to you,

"No. I knew what you were going through. I ran away from my family home as a teenager and I knew what kind of place you were in. No job. No home. You needed somewhere." Your body began to relax as you listened to him speaking to you so calmly and openly about himself. It was the first time you'd heard him speak of any kind of life before he was a pirate, none of the boys spoke about him before you only knew their stories.

"You ran away?" Concern leaked from your tone and he smiled weakly, it was the first time he told anyone this story. Even the boys thought he had been born into the pirate world.

"From Atlantia when I was 18." He chuckled weakly at the distant memory of his time there, everything was a first for him to speak about.

"I was a naughty kid, got into trouble too much, stole from people and was just a troubled kid. My family decided it was time to send me to work in a factory...I knew for a fact I didn't want to do I ran." Frowning as you listened to him you couldn't help but think about how much you had in common with one another, both running away from a life neither of you wanted.

"I took nothing, I just headed for the sailors and asked for a ride to the next Kingdom. Then from there, I worked on different ships until I found Fae Rouge. Abandoned and left to rot in some random harbour. I stole her." Rolling over to look up at him you stared at him in the candlelight, just listening to him speak was enough to relax you in his arms.

"I was hard on you when you first got here because I needed to know if you had a thick skin. Pirates need a thick skin if they're going to make it." He looked down at you not realising how close you were to one another until he could feel your breath on his lips.

"How did you get the scar?" You whispered running your hand up to his face, cupping it in your hand as you ran one finger along the scar on his eyebrow.

"When I was a kid, it's not a good idea to go up to a horse from behind." He smirked as he remembered getting thrown back against the wall but he knew the rumours about the scar and why you must have asked. You went to brush your hands through his hair when he took your wrist into his hand.

"Sorry." You whispered going to move away when his grip around your waist tightened and he held you in place.

"I never said I didn't like it," He whispered as he leaned in, brushing his lips against yours until you pushed them together. Gasping a little as you felt a jolt rush through your body, something you had only heard in stories from old people.

Soon the kiss became heated and he moved his lips to your neck, kissing up and down your exposed skin as your hands worked their way into his hair tugging softly.

The shock still hadn't worn off as Changbin stripped you down bare, himself included as he looked at you. Admiring your body as he ran his hand over your breasts playing with your hardened nipples,

"Changbin," You breathed as he continued to massage them, leaning down to take your left nipple into his mouth. Sucking softly while his hand pinches the right nipple,

"You like that?" He questioned a little cockily as he looked up at you, you hummed back at him. You'd never experienced anything like this it was all new to you.

Changbin continued as he kissed down your body looking up at you as you whimpered. You could feel how wet you were beginning to grow between your thighs just from the small kisses and touches he was giving to you.

When his head delved between your legs and tongue graced your clit making you whimper.

"Sweet little noises, has no one made you feel good before?" You shook your head and he pressed a kiss against your swollen bud, licking and sucking softly as he watched you. Enjoying the way your face scrunched up and moans left your mouth. Changbin went slow with you, running his tongue up and down your folds occasionally dipping inside of you to see what you enjoyed. Each of your moans grew louder each time which only encouraged him as he slicked up a finger in your juices.

"You might feel a pinch," He whispered slowly easing his finger into you feeling you clench around him tightly.

"O-Oh fuck you're tight," He moaned despite it being his finger inside of you, there was no way he would last with you that tight.

"C-Changbin." You whined when you felt a small pain,

"I know..." He pressed kissing on your clit,

"I know but it'll pass." He whispered as he continued to lap up your clit.

The pain began to subside as he began to move one finger in and out of you. Your head spinning a little at the new sensations you were experiencing, each thrust of his fingers making you whimper and moan.

"Changbin....S-Something-" Changbin smirked as he could feel you clenching faster around his finger with each thrust,

"It;'s okay, just let it go," He breathed out as he continued to thrust his fingers, watching as your head rolls back against the sheets and you let out a sinful cry of his name. Something had tightened inside of you and finally snapped free as waves of pleasure rushes through your body making you see white.

"What...What was that?" You whimpered as he kissed back up to your lips, looking at you with loving eyes.

"An orgasm," He chuckled watching you as you bit down on your lip,

"I-I want more." He nodded kissing your lips softly going to kiss down your body when you pulled him back up. Running your hand down to his crotch,

"I-I want you." You pleaded with him, looking down into his eyes. He nodded as he looked at you, kissing you sweetly as he towered above you.

Your legs were spread as the tip of Changbin's cock brushed through your folds, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt you but he knew it was going to sting even for a little while.

"Please," You begged him as he lined the tip up with your entrance, sliding into you with a loud groan. His hand digging into your hips to still himself from moving too fast too soon but it felt good. You were so tight around him it was like nothing he'd ever experienced before.

"S-Shit," You hissed at the sudden sensation of fullness, biting down on your lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Are you okay?!" He asked, his voice filled with panic as he looked down at you. Nodding at him you run your fingers down his chest,

"You can move," You told him as you reached to grab his shoulder, wrapping your legs around his waist not wanting to lose the sensation of him inside of you. All that clouded your thoughts was how badly you wanted him moving in and out of you just as his finger had been.

Changbin sank all the way into you and your eyes widened moaning out his name loudly as you clenched around him with each thrust.

"F-Fuck you have no idea how good that feels Y/n." He purred in your ear as he continued to pushing and out of you at a steady pace, the head of his cock hitting that one sensitive spot that made your head spin.

"C-Changbin, don't stop." Your head rolled back as he moved a little faster inside of you, reaching one hand down between you both to rub your clit.

"So good!" You cried out as your back arched away from the mattress the tightening sensation beginning to build up once again.

"T-That feeling is back," You warned him as your eyes shot open to stare up at him, he nodded rubbing your clit faster.

"That's okay, you can let go...L-Lord knows I will." He grunted as he timed his thrusts in time with his hand on your clit.

The warm sensation from before turned into molten lava as you felt yourself cumming around him, dragging your nails into his skin as you cried out his name. Changbin's fingers dug into your hips as he grunted, letting go inside of you as you whimpered feeling something seep out of you.

Holding onto you for the rest of the night Changbin promised to wash you off in the tub in the morning, if he did it now you would only get cold again. All you wanted to do was sleep beside him with him holding onto you but the door burst open revealing Minho who had finally come to realise what he had done.

"Minho! Knock!" Changbin roared out as he covered you with the sheets so that Minho couldn't see your naked body.

"I thought-"

"You knocked her overboard? You did. I got her...Go back to bed." Minho nodded backing out of the room without another word about it with bright red cheeks.

"This will be fun to explain in the morning," Changbin chuckled as he laid back down beside you, looking at you as you took his face into your hand.

"Even more fun in the future...Taking the seas together." You whispered as you leaned up to kiss him once again, wincing as you felt a pain rush through your body at the sudden movement.

"Get some sleep," He whispered as he wrapped an arm around you, letting you get comfortable before he attempted to.

King and Queen of the seas were what you were named in every town, drawings of the two of you strewn across every posted you came into contact with for the rest of your lives. It only made the adventures you had with him and the boys all the more fun.

Tagline: @minholuvs @taestannie @sw33tnight @acciocriativity @mwitsmejk @taeechwitaa @justbangtanthingz @stillwithlix

#skz #skz x reader #skz smut #skz imagine #skz imagines #stray kids #stray kids x reader #stray kids smut #stray kids imagine #stray kids imagines #seo changbin #changbin x reader #changbin smut #changbin imagine #changbin imagines #seo changbin x reader #seo changbin smut #seo changbin imagine #seo changbin imagines

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penguinkinggames · 3 years

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“Cerebos: The Crystal City” Actual Play Part III: The End

This is the third and final entry in a series of posts recounting a session of actual play from Cerebos: the Crystal City, currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. The first two parts can be found here:

https://tumblr.penguinking.com/post/646498084013195264

https://tumblr.penguinking.com/post/646788426842128384

This session was conducted on March 20th, 2021, with Matthew Dorbin as GM, and Amelia Gorman, Ashley Flanagan, Will Mendoza, and Kevin Snow playing. The events of play were recorded by Zach Welhouse.

The First Leg of the journey has ended, and the Lady in Blue is the Seeker. She remembers her past: she was a small-time crook who left the City by the Sea to kill her murderous, thieving sister. Having pieced together her past, she has until arriving at Cerebos to decide if she still wants to kill the Lady in Red.

The Unqualified Robot, Tinderling, and the Lonesome Seafarer won’t find the answers they were looking for in Cerebos. However, they’ve ridden the rails with the Lady in Blue long enough they may have learned something else. Aiding her in her journey may clarify their own futures.

Tinderling and the Unqualified Robot hope the Lady in Blue will kill her sister. Actions have consequences and violence is sometimes necessary to restore balance. The Lonesome Seafarer has had enough pain. She hopes the Lady in Blue will be able to move on – or find common ground with the woman who did her wrong.

Sixth Round of Train Actions

Tinderling notices an enormous marble building in the distance. From its Greek pillars and statues of Justice, it’s probably a courthouse. None of the travellers are on especially great terms with the law, but the train stops anyway. This journey isn’t just about them. There are other passengers too! A trial is in session when the passengers arrive, and it requires four jurors. As outsiders, the travelers are unbiased. Wigged functionaries encourage them to attend the day’s arguments. It’s the trial of Hodur, Norse god of winter and accidental murderer of Baldr. Baldr is testifying when the jury enters: “My death was absolutely necessary! My death was all part of a larger plan!” He cites Romulus & Remus, Osiris & Set, and other famous examples of fratricide. Sometimes a death is necessary for the greater good.

Tinderling’s player spends 1 Momentum to create a Danger 2 Stop as a Saintly Revelation. She doesn’t want to make the journey to Cerebos more difficult for anybody, but she does present the Lady in Blue with an argument to stay the course.

As with the previous Stop, the other travelers should have received a Train Action before arriving at the courthouse. The GM had been keeping an eye on the clock and made an executive decision to ensure the trains kept running on time. The whole session, including several snack breaks, fit into a four-hour session with only fifteen minutes of overflow!

Stop Actions: The Trial of Hodur

The Unqualified Robot has decided to Seize the Opportunity to divest itself of its past wares. It is defined by actions now, not junky gadgets. It offers gadget after gadget from its backpack to passing barristers, seeking some way to communicate. It rolls a Success and scores a giant foam finger with “FRATRICIDE” written on it. The new jury is fitting in with the trial, so the Danger reduces to 1.

The Lonesome Seafarer waits for a lull in the trial and vaults out of the jury box to cross-examine Hodur: “Did you mean to kill Baldr?” She rolls 1 + 5 = 6, but spends a rank of Tunnel Vision to really focus on the heart of the matter and eliminate all obstacles. The rerolled 1 becomes a 5, netting the Lonesome Seafarer an Inspired Success -- and one Momentum to her authoritative hat for rolling doubles! Hodur begins to weep under the incisive questioning: “I could never have done it if I had known! Even if I had to for a better future, I couldn’t kill my brother!” The Stop Danger is reduced to 0. Had Tinderling paid an extra Momentum while setting up the Stop, the Unqualified Robot or the Lonesome Seafarer would have received a keepsake for their efforts.

Tinderling, disgusted by Hodur’s breakdown, starts carving something rude in the juror’s box with her bird bone sewing needle. She’s learning that she’s really into this justified violence thing. How come these people don’t understand progress is impossible without sacrifice? She rolls to Release the Touchstone – a symbol of peace – and succeeds. The needle snaps. She burns with clarity and gains one Contemplation.

The Lady in Blue isn’t in danger. She rests, shakes hands with a few visiting gods, and loads up on jury cookies. She removes one Momentum.

The court is in an uproar over Hodur’s outburst. The travelers aren’t interested in being further embroiled in someone else’s problems, so they sneak out back and return to the train.

Sixth Round of Train Actions (Continued)

The Lonesome Seafarer triggers a Revelation to counter Tinderling’s full-throated endorsement of fratricide. Two high-pitched voices begin shouting from the next car: “I hate you! I wish you weren’t my sister anymore!” The fight spills over into the travellers’ car as two six-year-old girls shove and cry into each other. It’s a Danger 2 Event demonstrating that just because siblings fight doesn’t mean they have to be enemies.

The Unqualified Robot triggers its Saintly Revelation. Since leaving the courtroom, it has been busy building an effigy – a new sibling – from its unsold junk and extraneous body parts. If it can’t communicate with people, maybe something closer to its temperament will do the trick. Calamity strikes! After a disagreement, the Robot and its twin begin to fight. Encouraged by the violence they’ve recently observed, it escalates. Presumably the twin was at fault. The Robot’s player explains, “I think the moral here is the danger siblings hold and how they must be destroyed.” The Robot Battle Event is Danger 5, threatening to strip the train to its bones. Luckily, Cerebos is in sight!

Since the Saints and Demons have introduced their Revelations, it’s time for the Endgame. Cerebos arrives! Its towering spires of crystal and neon illuminate the night. Squabbling siblings, a pair of robots engaged in an all-out hurly burly, and passengers who have begun to take sides pour from the train, attracting the attention of a number of station agents armed with stern frowns and truncheons.

Normally, the gates of Cerebos are a Danger 2 Stop, but the unresolved Events from the train boost it to a worrying Danger 4.

Stop Actions: The Gates of Cerebos

Tinderling stands on a barrel and fans the flames of animosity, pulling unrelated passers-by into the fight: “Hey! This is what happens when you have an evil twin. Monsters are monsters and they don’t change!” She Causes Trouble to boost the Stop to Danger 6 and extend the scene. Everyone receives an extra cycle of Stop Actions.

The Lonesome Seafarer also trusts her words to address the growing riot, arguing for peace. She draws on the harsh lessons she learned from Scurvy, her missing mate: “You have to give people a chance to change!” It’s like shouting into a storm. Fists and rocks fly as she takes Damage, her words unheeded.

The Unqualified Robot briefly breaks free from its apocalyptic struggle with its evil twin. These… emotions are just holding it back. It tries to Release its last remaining expression slide, a smiley face defaced by angry eyebrows. An Ugly Break. Communication is easy when it involves throwing things. It gains Momentum on its whiskey flask and gains Contemplation. It thanks Tinderling for introducing the path of rage.

The Lady in Blue lays into the fray with elbows and right hooks, clearing people away from the Unqualified Robot. They’ve shared whiskey. Everyone just needs to stand back. She takes Damage and reduces the Danger to 4.

Tinderling is taken aback at the chaos she has unleashed. It was all going so well, but the Unqualified Robot is taking a lot of hits. It’s burning too bright! She Seizes an Opportunity and starts laying into station police and onlookers alike. Even spending Burns at Both Ends to flare up like a hero, she takes Damage to reduce the Danger to 3.

The Lonesome Seafarer pushes through the thinning crowd of combatants to the main event: robot vs. robot. She engages the evil twin with watertight logic and the Coat of Thesus Trait: “That robot is made out of your same parts! Why would you fight yourself? That’s not fratricide. That’s suicide!” After a string of unlucky rerolls, she ekes out a Partial Success, taking Damage while wrestling the Evil Twin off the Unqualified Robot. Danger 2.

The Unqualified Robot scrambles back, throwing everything in reach at its evil twin: unsold junk, garbage, rocks. It’s not enough. The only way to end this is to carry its actions to their logical conclusion. The Unqualified Robot tears off its head and flings it at the effigy. The effigy, stunned by the extreme act of violence (and the high-velocity assault) explodes. Danger 1.

The Lady in Blue needs a moment. Watching her travel companion tear off its head to kill its sibling is a lot. Battered passengers and station police slink off. A siren wails in the distance. The Lady in Blue turns to the squabbling children from the train, who stayed focused on one another the whole time the battle raged around them. “Kids. Let’s talk. What happened?” she asks. The sisters explain a very long, very important story that involves teasing and boysenberry (or possibly poisonberry) tea. It is ridiculous. The Lady in Blue sighs long and deep. “It’s not like I’m not already headed to Hell. Try this, kids. This is what real poison tastes like.” She offers them each a sip of whiskey, transferring their animosity to her as they taste the rough, foul drink. Two-vs-one isn’t fair, but the Lady in Blue weathers their coughing and shin-kicking. Failure. The Lady in Blue takes stress Damage and the round ends: “I solved a fight between two children and I feel terrible about it.”

Epilogue

Tinderling, the Lonesome Seafarer, and the Lady in Blue walk the backstreets of Cerebos. They don’t glisten with empyrean light like the main thoroughfares, but neither are they patrolled by gendarmes searching for whoever it was who started the brawl at the train station.

The Lady in Blue takes out her revolver, spins the cylinder, and stares down the barrel. She pops out the last bullet, sheathes her gun, and leaves her fellow travelers. She has chosen the Devil’s Path, deviating from her initial goal thanks – in a strong part – to the tragic brutality of the Unqualified Robot.

Everybody looks at their goals, laughing at the fresh round of revelations. The only thing left to do now is tally up Momentum and Contemplation to make epilogue rolls.

The Unqualified Robot died doing what it loved: throwing something. The end. No moral.

Tinderling is a member of the Walking Wounded, unable to settle down in Cerebos, which seems just as bad for workers as the City by the Sea. Nevertheless, she’s gained a newfound appreciation for robot rights. Before leaving for Cerebos, robots were machines, jerks, and scabs to Tinderling. But the Unqualified Robot taught her that treating robots like tools would only lead to calamity. Maybe her redemption lies in solidarity with all workers...

The Lonesome Seafarer’s epilogue roll is similar to Tinderling’s. Scurvy isn’t in Cerebos, but she’s found moderating influences elsewhere: “That robot ripping its own head off has taught me some valuable things about myself.” She still hopes to find her missing mate someday, but it isn’t quite the obsession it once was. In the meantime, she’ll keep traveling.

The Lady in Blue rolls a 4: Self-Actualization! She acknowledges the wrong the Lady in Red did to her, but finds peace in putting aside revenge. She’ll live her own life, not one controlled by a further descent into bloodshed. Strolling the streets of Cerebos, she sees Tinderling passing out leaflets and the Lonesome Seafarer inspecting a ship-in-a-bottle in a shop window. She feels a fondness for the Lonesome Sea Captain, perhaps from the adventures they’ve had or perhaps because it was she who first directed the Lady in Blue to Cerebos. “Captain,” says the Lady in Blue, taking the captain’s arm. “How do you feel about having a whiskey with me?” “I’ve only had grog before,” the Lonesome Seafarer hazards. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

The Lady in Blue and the Lonesome Seafarer walk through the electric streets, arm-in-arm, in search of drinks.

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #cerebos #kickstarter #violence mention #food mention #alcohol mention #death mention

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medusinestories · 3 years

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Today is Two For One because these two eps pretty much follow onto each other in terms of storylines and themes etc.

Black Sails V and VI (s1 eps 05-06)

- A big plot point in these two episodes is Billy mistrusting and investigating Flint. It starts with Flint approaching Billy and claiming he wants an “honest” conversation with him (note that he’s had time to think about what he’ll say to Billy, coming back to my previous comment about how Flint does better at persuasion when he has time to script things). Flint explains that you can’t ever be entirely truthful to a crew because if you explain any risk of failure they’ll be demoralised. He also talks very briefly about Miranda, portraying her as a “nice Puritan woman” who likes books. When Billy asks if this is really true, Flint just gives him That Wink. Billy spends the episode wavering between trying to support both Flint and protect the crew, clearly conflicted. This feeling intensifies when Logan asks whether Flint will give up trying to get the guns even if the situation becomes extremely dangerous, and Billy can see that Flint is risking the lives of men to get at the guns and knows what he did on the Maria Aleyne. The last straw is the discovery of Miranda’s letter and the realisation that she didn’t prevent Guthrie from betraying them like she was supposed to. Gates dismisses Billy’s doubts and refuses to get into it, mostly in a stategic move, knowing that Flint is the only one who can get them through this battle, and that they all need to obey him in this moment.

- Speaking of battles, this is the first prolonged sea battle we get to see, and the first time that Flint is given a really worthy opponent in the character of Bryson. Bryson is extremely clever and uses both sailing and defense/siege/booby-trap strategies that make taking the Andromache practically impossible to take. Flint shows a lot of resourcefulness in response: he seems to know exactly how much his ship can take and how to handle it (in spite of DeGroot’s warnings, which end up being unfounded for once) and hammers out a good (if dangerous) strategy to board the ship. However, this isn’t enough to outwit Bryson, who’s extremely well prepared for a siege if he gets boarded and has the Scarborough already heading their way. In fact if the slaves in the hold hadn’t helped the pirates, I doubt Flint would have had to leave without the guns. Even when he’s dying, Bryson still attempts to blow his ship up. In fact, his explosive booby trap has a real impact on what happens in the end of episode 6.

- It’s interesting to watch Dufresne in his first battle. He’s clearly meant for us to identify with, as the “nerd” on the ship who’s never seen battle. Following him allows us to see the faces of a lot of crew members, to feel the tension and fear before boarding the other ship, the desperation of the battle, and... okay I’m not sure just anyone would go feral like Dufresne does and rip someone’s throat out. This is definitely a turning point in Dufresne’s character.

- Something new in Billy’s character that he is shown lying to Dufresne to reassure him before the battle, using exactly the technique Flint mentioned earlier. First he tried telling Dufresne that guns only go off half the time - not at all reassuring. Then he tells Dufresne that sailors on their crew never die in their first battle. Only after the battle, does Dufresne realise that what Billy told him isn’t true - and tells Billy that he appreciates the lie. Does this change Billy’s point of view on lying? Is lying all right, for a good cause?

- In the meantime, Eleanor is saddled with Silver. I absolutely love this plot line and wish these two had worked together some more, because they’re hilarious. Silver knows that Eleanor’s angry with him and finally gets to find out that it’s because he involved Max in his scheme, but he flatly refuses taking any responsibility for that, saying it was Max’s choice (which it was). Later, when the angry pirates are turning into a mob, Silver is clearly getting anxious and Eleanor pretending not to be, he says: "if you're pretending to remain unconcerned for my peace of mind, please don't", a line mirrored in S2, where Flint openly admits to Silver that he’s “appearing unconcerned” as a strategy (and thus establishing the Flint/Eleanor parallel). Finally, Silver confronts Eleanor about the danger of not appeasing the mob by letting Vane operate out of Nassau again; she asks him to convince her why she should - and he actually does. It takes two hours, but he actually gets through to her. In this conversation, he utters the classic line “guilt is natural; it also goes away, if you let it”. Clearly he’s had to make some nasty choices for his survival, and likely he has quite a personal experience of mobs, too.

- Richard Guthrie continues to be one of the biggest assholes of the show. In these two episodes he 1) betrayed Mr Scott by telling Bryson to kidnap him and sell him as a slave, 2) announcing that he’s liquidating his holdings in Nassau without warning Eleanor and saddling her with the angry mob, 3) shamelessly revealing to Eleanor how he betrayed her and why, disregarding the fact that she’s made Nassau what it is over the last few years, 4) is worming his way into Mr Underhill’s good books and got himself a cosy and very safe place to live while all hell breaks loose in Nassau.

- Speaking of Mr Scott, he ends up amongst the slaves in Bryson’s ship and appears somewhat disdainful towards them, mostly because he doesn’t want to knows the realities of what would happen to them if they joined the pirates (some would still be sold as slaves). Eme believes that they should still seize their chance for freedom, but Mr Scott won’t help the pirates get these weapons, which “are dangerous to someone I love". This of course is understood as being Eleanor, but it also easily be interpreted as the Maroon Queen/Madi in light of S3. In fact, it makes much more sense that he is resisting the Urca plan to protect them/his community than because he’s worried that Eleanor will be killed. Eme counters that he’ll never see this person again, which still isn’t quite enough to break his resolve. Finally, once Mr Scott has changed his mind and helped free the slaves and ended up helping Flint, he has a conversation with him. Flint decides not to tell the crew of Mr Scott's betrayal, because he’d rather prove Mr Scott wrong re: making Nassau into more than it currently is.

- Anne’s inability to bear the violence done to Max comes to a head in these episodes. First she dismisses Mrs Mapleton who’s not being all too gentle while “tending” to Max, and the brief talk between Max and Anne seems to reinforce Anne’s resolve to stop Hamund (looked him up) (but did they really need to bond while Anne pushes a phallic instrument into Max’s cervix after lubing it up? there’s clear sexual innuendo in the way it’s filmed and it’s pretty inappropriate). It’s only when Rackham sees Anne defending the entrance to Max’s tent and can’t believe that Anne would put herself in danger over “a fucking whore”, that it finally dawns on him that Anne is horrified with this situation (something he could have guessed considering the circumstances in which he met Anne). Once Max is freed and thanks Anne, Anne tells her that she didn’t do it for Max. Which is probably not completely true, but again what we know of Anne’s past also means that she didn’t want to see any woman treated that way.

- The theme of men siding together and not listening to women comes up several times in these two episodes. Guthrie says that he persuaded Mr Scott to betray Eleanor because “we talked like men and he saw reason”. The “like men” suggests that men support each other’s decisions, especially to resist a woman’s folly. The Consortium refuses to listen to Eleanor unless a respected captain, in this case Hornigold, also backs it. But of course Hornigold won’t back it unless Eleanor allows Vane to become a captain again; he considers how Vane’s men are treating the “thieving whore” to be of absolutely no relevance. Rackham opposes Anne’s attempt at stopping Hamund from visiting Max to protect her from Hamund, who he fears would harm Anne. And finally, Pastor Lambrick doesn’t believe Miranda when she tells him that doesn’t need to fear Flint’s anger.

- An answer to this is unlikely collaboration between women people in ep 6, aka, Eleanor and Anne who deeply despises her. Both of them share a sense of responsibility for what happened to Max, and believe that they’ll only feel better when Max is free and Hamund is dead. John “guilt will go away if you let it” Silver is roped into the plot, when Eleanor, reminds him that he’s a “loose end” to Flint, who will likely want to get rid of him, and promises to tell Flint not to kill Silver after he’s served his purpose if Silver helps them. Which he does, begrudgingly, and at the risk of getting murdered by Hamund at any moment. This puts Eleanor and Anne’s plan to kill Vane’s remaining crew into place, and ruffles Rackham’s feathers: he’s forced to help kill even the men who aren’t disgusting rapists like Hamund. He asks "do I not deserve say", to which Anne answers "you had your say, now I have mine". GOOD FOR HER.

- When the dust settles, we get a really interesting moment where Silver accurately analyses Eleanor, pointing out that she can’t stand to be wrong, feel weak or let anyone get away with fucking with her - which makes her in his opinion possibly more dangerous than Flint. Does this mean that Silver still thinks he had a genuine chance of winning Flint over and surviving him even without Eleanor’s help? (he’d be right, considering how his relationship with Flint evolves later on the show; perhaps the difference between Flint and Eleanor is that because she’s a woman, she can’t *afford* to show any weakness at all)

- Lambrick has his big moment in episode 6 when he rides chivalrously to Miranda in the middle of the night, hoping to save her from Flint’s retribution. Instead of really reassuring him, Miranda chooses to talk about Thomas instead. This is where we hear the most about Thomas in S1, and the way Miranda speaks about him is clearly loving and admiring. She compares Thomas to Lambrick, saying that he was also a sort of shepherd (the comparison stops here imo). Then she imagines how Thomas would have played devil’s advocate, left all of Lambrick’s beliefs in tatters, all for his own good, to free him from the yoke of shame. I can’t help but think, from her teasing tone and the way she smiles, that she believes that Thomas would have somehow debauched Lambrick. The fact that she decides to have sex with him moments later certainly supports that idea. The ghost of Thomas looms on this scene, and it could be that she briefly imagines being with him, which could explain her smile and the way she holds him afterwards. But Miranda had another reason for sleeping with him: it was a very good way to make him stop asking questions about Flint.

- And in the meantime, Flint knows that Billy has been asking questions about Miranda and overheard him talking angrily with Gates about the letter. It just so happens that Billy has to go cut off a piece of the Andromache’s sail that’s slowing the Walrus down, which puts him in a secluded and dangerous spot. The conversation between Flint and Billy is very brief: Flint asks about the letter Billy found, and Billy answers “I think you know what was in it”. Actually, no, Flint has NO CLUE what was in it. Whatever else passes between them is a mystery, and the next thing we know is Flint announcing that Billy went overboard. We see him hovering behind Gates, watching him intently, until Gates decides that they can’t turn back for Billy. The camera pans a lot on Flint’s face, and his expression is quite unreadable. At first I wasn’t convinced that he’d pushed Billy, but on this watch I’m not so sure, because of the way Flint’s face is filmed. There’s also a sort of clue where we see Flint throw Billy’s sword into the sea during the burial at sea ritual. Of course as Captain he was meant to do that... but the gesture is suggestive of him throwing Billy himself. It’s certainly true that Billy had become a thorn in his side for two reasons: 1) he was one of the rare crew members who could influence Gates and get him on his side; 2) he was much too interested in who Mrs Barlow was and what her motivations were - if Billy had alerted the crew of what she’d done, Miranda may have been in danger (a mob quickly turns against a witch who works against the crew).

- To finish on Flint and Miranda: season 1 has painted them as a unit, an inseparable pair, working as a team (in supernatural ways, sometimes). And to some extent they are. Even at this time where they are truly at odds, where Miranda has tried to take control of Flint’s fate behind his back, they are still protecting each other. Flint doesn’t reveal anything about Miranda and possibly attempts to kill Billy to protect her, while Miranda seduces Pastor Lambrick as a way to distract him from his questions about Flint. She can’t convince him to believe her, but she herself is clearly convinced that Flint is a good, decent person (as she tells the Boston judge in her letter) and she trusts that he knows that she only tried to stop him get the Urca because she wanted to save him - something he will come to accept by the end of S2 (unfortunately for them).

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lettheladylead · 3 years

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Not Your Aunt

Chapter 3: Gladstone [ao3 link]

It’d been a year since Scrooge started regularly babysitting his niece and nephew. Goldie had only had the misfortune of interacting with them a handful of times, though one of those handfuls was a week-long bedridden visit where they asked too many questions and got way too attached to her. So before leaving, she stole from their piggy banks to teach them an important lesson: Goldie O’Gilt is not their family and she’s certainly not their aunt.

The next time she visited after that, the kids seemed properly sour and uninterested in her, so clearly they got the message. Or they just had a bad day. Either way, she could focus on Scrooge and treasure and then move on with her plans. She was able to visit without interacting with children a good half a dozen times after that, which really made her days go faster. It was nice.

She was stopping by in early February to grab some items she’d left behind (for safekeeping, of course) when Goldie learned that Scrooge’s family was continuing to...expand. There were now twice as many children in the mansion and the two new kids were apparently not deterred by Donald and Della’s attempts to warn them about their uncle’s thieving ex.

The kid in green found her in the foyer and lifted up his sunglasses to wink at her. “Well hello there!”

She blinked down at him. “...hello.”

He shuffled closer and stuck out his tiny little hand. “Gladstone Gander! And you are…?”

Goldie pinched his hand between two fingers and gave it a single shake before letting go. She didn’t appreciate the tone she was getting from this child who couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. “You can call me Miss O’Gilt.”

Gladstone pouted at her response and then shrugged before putting the sunglasses back. “Suit yourself. I’m a real catch!”

“I’m sure,” Goldie groaned. “Where’s Scrooge? I need to talk to him.”

The kid pointed towards the stairs. “Uncle Scrooge is in his office, I think.”

“Uncle?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Did Hortense have another kid or...are you Matilda’s?” The concept of Matilda having a child had Goldie immediately confused. She was pretty sure she knew that woman’s goals and motherhood was never on her list. They’d bonded over the lack of interest once in the past.

“Huh?” Gladstone tilted his head. “No, Auntie Hortense is married to Uncle Quackmore, who’s my mom’s brother. Who’s Matilda?”

Goldie closed her eyes and put two fingers to her temple as she felt a headache forming. She supposed if they stretched the definition enough, then Scrooge could be literally anyone’s uncle even if they had some gigantic distant relation to him. It was kind of annoying. “I guess she’s...also your aunt. You’ll probably meet her someday.” With that, Goldie turned around and started towards the stairs.

The kid followed her and she resisted the urge to punt him into another room. “So you know Uncle Scrooge and Auntie Hortense? Are you Uncle Scrooge’s secret wife?”

“No.” She didn’t even give him a glance as she headed up the stairs.

“Does that mean you’re single?” he asked with a toothy grin.

Goldie looked down at him again and then rolled her eyes. “You’re a bit young to be at this level of annoying.”

“Annoying?” Gladstone put a shocked hand to his chest and frowned. “You must be unlucky like Donald and Della. Only unlucky people call me annoying!”

Alright, that was a curious enough statement to make Goldie pause and lean against the banister. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gladstone walked up another few steps so his head was about the same height as her’s. “I’m the luckiest goose in the world! Even luckier than my mom!”

Goldie quirked an eyebrow. “Luckiest in the world, huh? How would you know that?”

“I know that ‘cause...I’m Gladstone Gander!” He did a little spin and stuck his hands into his pockets before pulling out a dozen twenty dollar bills. “I found all of these just on my walk earlier!”

She stared at the money and, on reflex, plucked a few out of his hands. He didn’t even react as she pocketed them. “That’s pretty normal when you’re walking around Scrooge McDuck’s mansion, kid.”

He reached into his pockets again and pulled out another dozen bills. “No, no, these aren’t from Uncle Scrooge! I got these while walking around town!”

That caught her attention a bit more. Goldie pocketed a few more of the twenties before putting a hand against the bottom of her beak. “That does sound particularly lucky.”

He gave her a thumbs up, clearly happy that he’d convinced her of his gift, and Goldie thought about her plans for the weekend. She’d intended on grabbing a pair of earrings she’d left in Scrooge’s dresser and a mystical gem-finder he’d locked up in his Other Bin before heading to Macaw, but...perhaps she could use a partner. Well, more like a sidekick. Or a mascot.

“How would you like to go on a trip and really put your luck to the test?”

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

Despite him being a very, very annoying little kid, Goldie had to admit that bringing him along was worth the frustrations.

She’d never done this well at the Galaxy Macaw, especially not at the slot machines. She could cheat her way through any old card game, but playing with other people brought too much attention to her presence. And the owner would be very unhappy if he saw she’d returned after what happened last time.

Her disguise wasn’t particularly artful - just a short black wig and green-tinted sunglasses - but it was enough to keep security from noticing her striking blonde amongst the sea of dark-haired birds around them. Gladstone managed to win a new little outfit for himself within a few minutes of entering the casino, and Goldie was happy that no one questioned the child’s presence. After a few wins at the slot machines, earning herself and her little partner a significant bit of cash, Goldie let the kid wander off on his own and started casing the place, getting ready for the actual reason for her travels.

“Miss O’Gilt?” Gladstone asked as he reappeared, tugging at her hand to get her attention.

“I told you not to use my last name here,” she hissed in response, glancing around to make sure no one overheard.

“Oh, right!” He tapped a finger against his chin. “So, then...Aunt Goldie, why exactly are we here? Not that I’m not having fun, but…this all seems kind of random.”

She held back a growl at the name - why did these kids always lean into the “aunt” moniker first? - and plopped her hand on top of his head. “Don’t worry about it. You should just keep having fun while I cash out and take care of some business.”

He shrugged. “Alright, but I bet I could help you with whatever you’re really here for! Uncle Scrooge never lets me help him find stuff ‘cause he says it’s cheating, but this is just how I live, y’know?”

Goldie removed her hand from his head and laid it on her hip. “I appreciate the offer, but this is something I need to take care of alone.” She glanced around the room and paused at the sight of a line of phone booths. “If I’m not back in a half hour, call your uncle to pick you up, alright?”

Gladstone followed her line of sight, then turned back to look up at her. “Are you doing something dangerous?”

“Hopefully not, but you never know.”

The kid pouted and leaned back on his heels. “...are you sure I can’t come with?”

Goldie crossed her arms over her chest. “Just stay here,” she said sternly, and quickly disappeared before Gladstone could follow.

He frowned and looked around himself. He knew nothing bad would happen to him, but it was still weird for an adult to leave him alone in a place so filled with strangers. Goldie was certainly unlike any other adults he’d spent time with, and he wasn’t at all surprised that Donald and Della had such conflicting feelings about her.

That being said, he could see a snack stand not too far away, so he rushed over to grab some pretzels. As soon as he arrived, the man running the stand gave him a big toothy smile, said he was the one thousandth customer of the day, and then handed him a giant pretzel for free.

It was nice being Gladstone Gander.

As he chomped away, a big banner above some of the slot machines caught his attention. In bright, bold letters he saw the words THE MACAW RUBY and more information about it being some rare, potentially mystical artifact that would be on display starting at 5 o’clock sharp.

He thought about that for a moment. From what he knew about Goldie, which wasn’t much but he’d understood the gist of it, she liked to steal things. Really cool, expensive, fancy things. He didn’t have to be a genius to put two and two together and realize she was after that ruby.

Whether or not she wanted his help, Gladstone decided he was going to be a part of this. After all, maybe the ruby would just come into his possession thanks to his luck! No one would need to steal anything, it would simply belong to him. And then he could give it to her and she’d give him a hug as thanks and who wouldn’t want that?

By the time he arrived at the place where the ruby was going to be displayed, it was only a few minutes to five and Gladstone took note of the extremely heavy security detail in front of the curtain. If Goldie hadn’t already gotten the ruby, there was no way she was going to get past all of them.

So he walked up to one of the guards and locked his hands behind his back. “Hi there!”

The guard looked down at him and didn’t respond.

“I’m Gladstone!”

Still no response.

Gladstone pouted, but he was pretty sure he could charm this guy into showing him the gem. “Can I see the fancy ruby?”

The guard made a face at him before turning to look at another guard and then proceeded to speak in a language that Gladstone didn’t recognize. He realized after a moment that it was probably Mandarin, which would make a lot of sense, considering where they were.

The other guard walked over and grabbed Gladstone by the back of his shirt, holding him up in front of his face. “Where’re your parents, kid? You shouldn’t be walking around here by yourself,” he said in a rough, heavy accent.

Gladstone frowned and crossed his arms. “I’m no kid! I’m just really short for my age! And I’ve won, like, fifty thousand dollars today, so you can’t tell me what to do!”

The guard frowned and his grip on Gladstone’s shirt tightened. “What’d you just say to me? I’m not in the mood for some brat and his-”

“Excuse me, sir,” a new voice called out.

All three boys looked over to see Goldie standing there, arms crossed and looking certainly unhappy, and with a purse over her shoulder that Gladstone didn’t remember being there when they’d arrived at the casino.

“That’s my nephew you’re manhandling, you oversized hog,” Goldie growled, reaching out and grabbing Gladstone so she could properly plop him down next to her. “You treat all your guests like this?”

The guard stood up straight and glared at her, pointing angrily towards Gladstone. “You might wanna teach your kid some manners, lady! He won’t be so lucky next time he pisses me off.”

“I’m sure that’s very difficult to do,” Goldie said with an eyeroll. “Come on, Gladdy, it’s time for us to go.”

Gladstone just nodded and took her hand. As they were leaving, a bunch of rich-looking snobs were walking in the opposite direction, probably excited to see the fancy gemstone that was about to be unveiled. He was pretty sure Goldie had already taken it and it was sitting in her bag right by his face. Though he wondered if she replaced it with a fake or if things were about to go crazy in this casino.

A moment later and Gladstone turned his head at the sound of an announcer and some clapping and a stunned silence and then an audience-wide gasp. Goldie clutched his hand a little tighter at the sound of the gasp and he noticed she’d picked up a tiny bit of speed.

With her walking faster, he fell behind her and looked up to see a shocking and unfortunate sight: a few strands of long blonde hair had fallen out from under her wig and were completely visible to anyone who could see her back. He opened his mouth to say something when he was cut off by the loudest scream he’d ever heard from someone that wasn’t Donald.

“IT’S GOLDIE O’GILT! GET HER BEFORE SHE GETS AWAY!”

Suddenly Gladstone was picked up and being held in Goldie’s arms as she quickly exited the building and ran towards the nearest available taxi. He didn’t even have a second to breathe before she had the driver heading towards the airport as fast as he could go.

She tore off the wig and sunglasses and shoved them into her bag, which Gladstone noticed didn’t seem to get any bigger as she did. He looked into it and saw what seemed to be some sort of endless vortex. Neat!

Goldie laughed and patted his head. “Good job out there, kid. That was fun,” she said as she reached into the bag and pulled out another wig - this time it was brown and wavy. It seemed she was prepared for the possibility that someone might try following her.

“Thanks, Aunt Goldie,” he responded with a smirk, remembering how much that name annoyed her earlier. “So where’s my cut of the profits?”

She raised an eyebrow at him and clearly looked like she was about to laugh at his question. “Why don’t we focus on getting you home before we talk about that?”

Gladstone put a hand to his chin in thought. Really, money wasn’t an issue for him. He found money all the time, and even when he didn’t, his parents had plenty of money of their own. But he did feel like Goldie owed him for all his help. “Okay, sure.”

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

First their taxi driver gave them a free ride because he was in such a good mood, then their plane tickets ended up being free thanks to a clerical error, and they were given a free ride from the airport to Scrooge’s mansion because who the hell could keep track of all the reasons why things were free? Goldie was certainly enjoying the perks of carrying around Scrooge’s little luck magnet. If she didn’t have places to be, she’d stop by his office and yell at him for not telling her about the kid sooner.

That being said, he was starting to get a little too attached and it was bugging the hell out of her.

“So when are you gonna visit again? We could go to another casino!” Gladstone said excitedly, bouncing in his seat. “Or some other place you’d need my luck for. An underground poker game, maybe?”

Goldie chuckled and leaned back, recognizing the area the taxi turned into as only a few blocks from Scrooge’s place. “Look, kid -”

“Gladstone!”

“...right. Gladstone. This has been lots of fun, but you shouldn’t get confused. I’m not a part of your family, I’m not gonna just stop by and visit and take you on trips all the time. I just conveniently already had plans to go somewhere where I’d benefit from some luck.”

He frowned. “So this is it? You’re just done with me now?”

“Well…” She shrugged. “I don’t like to limit myself. Who knows what the future will hold? I just wouldn’t get your hopes up or plan for me coming back anytime soon.”

Gladstone pouted again and let out a quiet hmph! before turning to look out the window. They’d arrived at the front gate of Uncle Scrooge’s house and he’d decided he was just about ready to leave.

They came to a stop and Gladstone quickly opened up the door and stepped outside, stretching dramatically and yawning. He turned to say something to Goldie when he was cut off by a loud, familiar screech.

“THERE HE IS!”

Gladstone turned to see Donald and Uncle Scrooge running towards him from down the sidewalk. He was very confused to see that they’d gone for a walk instead of hanging around the house, since they never wanted to go for walks when he was in the mood.

“Hi, Uncle Scrooge-”

Scrooge ran over and swept Gladstone up in a giant hug. “We’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you, lad! Where’ve you been? What did you…” Scrooge’s words faded out as he noticed the familiar smirk staring at him from the inside of a taxi.

“Hey there, hun.”

“G-Goldie?!” Scrooge looked at her and then down at Gladstone and then back up at her. “Did you take him?!”

“Sure did,” she responded with a shrug. “I left you a note in your office. You should really pay more attention to these things.”

Donald just watched this conversation with a frown. He wanted to assume that Aunt Goldie was lying about leaving a note, but he also knew that Uncle Scrooge definitely didn’t check and just assumed the worst when they couldn’t find Gladstone all day. He’d been screaming about how Daphne was going to kill him for losing her son, but it seems he didn’t lose anyone at all.

Scrooge sputtered angrily at Goldie, holding Gladstone against his legs and trying to find his words. “You-! You...you kidnapped him!”

“I did no such thing, you old miser. He wanted to come along,” Goldie said, glaring angrily. She turned towards her cabby and said something that the boys couldn’t hear, then the car started to drive away.

Scrooge glared right back until Gladstone, a few moments later, shook himself out of Scrooge’s grip and ran towards the car. “Wait! But-! What about my profits?!” he shouted as it turned onto the next street over.

Gladstone sighed, realizing his luck wasn’t gonna bring his money back to him. Though he guessed he still had a really fun time and he didn’t exactly need the money, so maybe that was enough. He looked up to see Uncle Scrooge staring down at him. “What’s up?”

“Should I be concerned about this?” Scrooge asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gladstone shrugged. “Should I be concerned that a stranger came into your house and took me on a trip across the globe without you knowing about it?”

That one shut Scrooge up, and he huffed before turning around and heading back to the manor. Gladstone looked over at Donald who just seemed to be confused.

“What’s wrong, Donald-o?”

He frowned and shrugged. “I’m just surprised that Aunt Goldie took you on a trip, is all. She’s never taken me or Della anywhere.”

Gladstone slapped Donald on the back a little harder than he meant to, making the slightly younger duck quack. “Eh, I wouldn’t think too hard about it. Ladies can’t resist my charm, after all!”

Donald rolled his eyes. “You know she’s Uncle Scrooge’s girlfriend, right?”

“Huh?” Gladstone put a hand to his chin and thought about some things Goldie had said to him over the past twenty-four hours. He nodded slowly. “You know what? That makes a lot of sense. Yup, yup. That explains everything.”

“So happy for you,” Donald mumbled and started the long walk back to the manor.

Gladstone quickly caught up to him and smiled brightly. In fact, he just wouldn’t stop smiling at his cousin. He was smiling so much that it was making Donald even more irritated than he’d already been.

“What?”

“Don’t you wanna know about my trip?”

#ducktales #goldie o'gilt #gladstone gander #donald duck #scrooge mcduck #not your aunt #fic #fics

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shimanamii · 3 years

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schnee week (schneek!) day 3: weiss multiship

hey, everyone! so in between other fics, i’ve been chipping away at that HoM sequel — aka Schneekos Fic™ — and i’m superrr pumped to actually finish CH. 1 eventually and post it for real lmao, but for now!! please enjoy a preview :’))) <3

~ ~

PEARL OF ATLAS (Heart of Menagerie sequel) [preview]

ch. 1, “Thief from Thieves”

There were other, more pressing concerns, of course, but Weiss realized, collapsing into her seat and staring out at the crowded platform, that it was her first time on a train.

In Atlas, she’d always had her father’s airships to whisk her away from place to place. Well, granted she had the permission. Now, though, all of it, the etiquette, the approval (more often a lack thereof), that glittering birdcage of rules—it all seemed so unforgivably stupid. Like there’d never been a point to any of it. So, yes, it was her first time on a train. Her first time in Argus. Most surprising of all, her first time running away, though not, however, her first time telling a somewhat easy lie to her father’s face to do it.

She curled her hand around the cold, smooth object nestled deep in her coat pocket. It was her first official heist, too. And it wasn’t exactly petty theft.

Pyrrha’s long ponytail swung into view, and then the hint of a smile, quick and reassuring. “You should try to get some sleep on the way there,” she said, her knee softly knocking Weiss’s as she settled in the seat across from her. “Mistral is pretty far.”

Pyrrha was only looking out for her. She seemed to have taken up a bad habit of doing that. But Weiss couldn’t imagine being able to shut her eyes for a moment, not with something so precious—so dangerous—clinging to the palm of her hand. Not with the blur of unfamiliar faces around her.

Weiss sank into the oversized coat, the collar rising to her ears. “I’m not tired,” she mumbled, though admittedly, after the sleepless couple of days she’d had in Argus, she was starting to feel those first few tugs on her eyelids.

To be honest, Weiss still wasn’t quite sure what to make of her impromptu Mistralian guide. Slash bodyguard. Slash, she supposed, accomplice. Though they did make somewhat of a conspicuous pair—Pyrrha the hometown hero, Weiss the runaway heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. News like that traveled faster than smugglers’ airships, after all.

She counted herself lucky Pyrrha hadn’t dragged her off to the Atlesian base in Argus the moment she’d spied the Schnee family symbol on the inside of what Weiss had thought was her least eye-catching coat. The one she had on now was Pyrrha’s, almost comically too big on her. At least it was warm. It smelled like her, a firewood smell. It only made Weiss drowsier.

She tallied it silently, watching her companion out of the corner of her eye. That was five favors, more or less. A few days’ room and board, supplies, protection, an escort all the way to Mistral. And an ally—if that could really be counted on. All for next to nothing, or so Pyrrha claimed, that it was only her “duty as a huntress.” (Whatever that meant.) Weiss could pay her what was owed, but anyone else, huntress or not, would’ve seized on the opportunity right away to ship her back to Atlas, back to her father, for twenty times the reward.

So…Weiss thought she could be forgiven for her cynicism because, well, that wasn’t how the world worked, was it? Favors didn’t come freely. Everything had a price, even kindness. Or maybe it was especially kindness. But it wasn’t like she had a lot of options.

Soon, the glittering ocean and the city of Argus slipped completely behind them, and the cabin went dark as the train cut through the mountainside. Pyrrha’s eyes slid to hers in the dimness, the expression in them quietly curious, like she’d sensed she was being studied the entire time. For some reason, it made Weiss uneasy, being watched in return, being looked at in the closeness of the dark. She turned back to the window. The next moment, the mountain fell away, too, and only Anima’s steely winter landscape was left, stretching out toward the distant gray fringe of trees. Not exactly Mantle’s bitter tundra, but something about the scene reminded Weiss of it.

“I haven’t been home in a long time,” Pyrrha murmured, her voice almost startling in the quiet. “It feels…a little strange going back.”

Weiss chewed her lip. She wasn’t interested, exactly, but she felt the question leave her before she realized it was: “Why haven’t you?”

Pyrrha smiled. It wasn’t the open warmth Weiss had come to expect but something guarded, a little unreadable. Maybe Weiss was just slightly interested in that. “It’s so lonely in a big city like Mistral, don’t you think?” She leaned her chin into her hand. “Surrounded by people. Argus is quieter.”

Lonely… Weiss squeezed her rucksack to her chest. “I think I know what you mean.”

She thought about the view from the airship window when she was leaving Atlas, the Solitas Sea at night. Churning and endless, something completely unfathomable. The waves had gleamed under the moon like the shine of teeth from shadows.

She remembered looking out at that ocean and, despite all her best efforts, thinking about her father, his icebox of an office, the way he would tap his fingertips against his desk whenever he was annoyed. He used to sigh and lean back in his chair to look at her, used to rub his face with his hand like something pained him. You should be careful where you throw your sympathy, Weiss, he’d say. You know, the world just beneath you is crueler than you can imagine. Waiting to tear you apart. You understand? Here, he would lean forward again, stroke his pale mustache, his listless, beady eyes fixing to her. Like wolves.

Even someone like that, Weiss figured, her eyes returning to Pyrrha just for a moment before they slipped closed. Even someone who smiled gently at you could bare fangs when the time came. Weiss couldn’t quite remember the dream she had when she drifted off, but she recalled this, at least: her own ragged voice, the strange, wet pressure of teeth, powerful jaws closing shut around her throat. And then there was just silence.

By the time Weiss stirred awake again, the view outside the window was dark with dusk. “Sleep well?” Pyrrha folded her book over her thumb. “The train’s made a stop in Ajisai.”

Weiss lifted her head. She could feel the red mark the glass had left on her cheek. Actually, she could feel Pyrrha politely holding in a remark over it, as well. People pressed around each other down the aisle, milled around on the platform below.

“I slept fine. I guess.” She took a mug of something warm from Pyrrha—coffee, she realized, once she brought it to her nose. She pressed her palms around it. “Thanks. Um, and you? Did you sleep?”

Pyrrha set her book aside in the empty seat. Weiss was faintly surprised by its cover for a moment—fairytales. She had a vague memory of her mother reading stories like that to her once or twice as a child. That was a long time ago, of course, but the one she still remembered well was The Girl in the Tower. Which, admittedly, seemed a bit uninspired to her now.

“Hm…a little.”

“Is that the truth?”

Pyrrha paused and then chuckled, a little self-consciously. “Well, all things considered,”—she nodded her head to Weiss’s coat pocket, then up at the rifle hidden in the overhead—“I thought it best if there was someone to keep an eye out.”

Weiss frowned, dragging her knees up to her chest. She curled her hand around the vial in her pocket again. It’d become a small force of habit (or was it a nervous tick?) at some point without her realizing it. “That wasn’t necessary. You need your rest, too.”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry—”

“It’s not that I am,” she interrupted, drawing the heavy coat tighter around herself. “Worrying about you, I mean. You’re just no good to me exhausted.”

Pyrrha fell quiet, those shrewd eyes of hers, green as the jade you found all over Anima, softening for a reason Weiss couldn’t quite decipher. “Right,” she said. “I’ll try to get some hours in, then.”

Despite herself, Weiss squirmed slightly under that change in expression. “I can take care of myself just fine, you know.”

Well, in theory she could. Granted that fencing maneuvers were transferrable to, say, scrapes with Atlesian soldiers or Mistralian bounty hunters. Granted the gleaming rapier she’d stolen from her father’s study on her way out wasn’t just decoration, after all.

Pyrrha folded her arms, and for a moment, Weiss thought she’d make some remark, something doubtful—haven’t you lived your whole life being taken care of?

But then she nodded and murmured, “I can see that.”

#schnee week #schneek #rwby #schneekos #fic #pearl of atlas #PoA isn't as cool as HoM this is tragic 😭#day 3: weiss multiship #weiss schnee #pyrrha nikos #fic preview #snippet

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farplane · 3 years

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DAY 3: SCALE

The captain had agreed to meet him off the coast of the Jade Sea.

It might have been simpler to choose any old plain outside of Radz-at-Han, but he had long since understood his home was no longer a refuge and harboured no desire for his dealings to take place in its proximity. And besides—the one who had gone through the most trouble getting to the meet was him.

He didn’t have a bloody airship to fly him halfway across the Continents in a matter of hours. When he lamented such woes to Nairel, she snorted and said, in that delightfully flat tone she took to put him in his place: “You are the very spirit of penury.”

“I am horribly skint at present, I’ll remind you.”

“But skint isn’t poor, is it?” Nairel retorted effortlessly, as if it made much of a difference to a woman who lived in the bloody woods.

She had a way of easing his nerves.

Though he prided himself on his ability to be in command of most situations, there were two things wrong with that belief: the first being that it had only been hammered into his mind since tender youth by a man whose word he wished never again to live by; the second that, of late, his life had been a veritable unravelling of any control he might have ever had over himself and his own fate.

It was as though he’d constructed the very circumstances that were sure to make him nauseous with dread. This was not Radz-at-Han, but knowing his family’s reach, he may as well have been standing right at the heart of it. He could have picked any place—distant Kugane, some miserably dusty point in Thanalan, even drab freezing grey Coerthas—and instead he had wandered so close to home, like a lost little boy running to the last place he had seen his nursemaid.

He was halfway through regretting his choice of locale for, oh, the eighth time when the Merlose touched down at a careful distance. Nairel, bless her heart, caressed the hilts of her knives as the captain approached.

To her credit, the Merlose party only outnumbered his by one—and their third member didn’t seem a fighter at all. She was slender, slighter than the aging captain—still strong with corded muscle, and no doubt as deadly as her reputation made her out to be—and wore a complicated loupe on a threaded silver chain about her neck. Most likely the captain had preferred an appraiser to a killer for these particular dealings.

It was the long-limbed Elezen at the captain’s right hand who concerned him, but Nairel at his back lessened his fears. Even with a mess of Void churning inside him, he could still bash heads in without magic, and he had the most vicious five-fulm-and-then-some(-she-insists) forestborn in Eorzea at his side.

“Pavane Malichar,” said the captain, as though the name meant something to her.

“Captain. I trust your journey was—”

“You’ve brought the payment?” asked the Elezen, no-nonsense, eyeing the very conspicuous coin pouch at his belt. Then, evidently critical of its size: “All of it?”

Pavane untied the laces, but didn’t part with the purse just yet.

“I understand and empathize with your wariness—in fact, I very much share it. Mine is a difficult package to conceal without glamours, and I neither see it nor sense its aether.”

The aether part was a bluff, but normally, it wouldn’t have been. And that was the reason Pavane had been grinding his teeth enough to ensure they’d be worn down to nothing by the turning of the next era.

“I am not in the habit of robbing downtrodden nobles just standing on a beach,” the captain said with a dangerous smile, and paused long enough to give power to the sound of waves breaking onto shore. “Not much challenge in it.” She turned her head to the Elezen: “Bring it over, Madelaine.”

Madelaine cast him one last dark look—a pirate’s trade-tool, he supposed—then turned on her heel. Pavane tossed the captain his coin pouch, but she didn’t hand it to the appraiser until her right hand had returned with a long coffer under her arm.

Already Pavane could feel some whisper of power stir within him, stoked by a boyish excitement for the relic that was so close to becoming his.

“I understand my first mate’s apprehension, lord,” the captain said, keeping her eyes on him as she passed the pouch to the appraiser. “That purse seems quite light.”

“Yours was a steep price, Captain. I’d have broken my back carrying the full payment if it was only in coin.”

He was confident in what the appraiser would find when she opened the purse, nestled among the absurd amount of gil that was only a portion of the price. The medallion had been forged, it was said, in the stone-heart of Mhach in the last days before the Flood—the first of House Malichar had made herself, then, the inheritor of her city’s great legacy. And it had been passed down through the generations, from heir to deserving heir, to wear her two-headed serpent upon their chest and signify their birthright.

Never had it been lost. Pavane, as a student of history, knew that it had changed hands outside of his family a number of times—but any thieves that stole it had only ever met gruesome ends. That was House Malichar: his ancestors had set a horrifying precedent for the exercise of their own power, all to the singular end of its preservation.

And he was giving his birthright away for another piece of Mhachi power—to make, on his terms, his own legacy.

The appraiser fumbled her loupe twice in her haste to inspect the medallion. She took a moment, her expressive eyebrows shifting, then whispered something in the captain’s ear; and, finally, dropped Pavane’s whole life into her weathered palm.

“This is a precious thing you are treating as currency, lord,” said the captain of the Merlose, weighing the precious metal in her hand.

“It more than covers your price.”

“To be sure. Even melted down or hacked to pieces, which would be the safest way for me to dispose of it.” Her grave eyes met his. “Are you prepared for that?”

Pavane didn’t waver, though it seemed to him she spoke from some deep place of knowledge for precious, irreplaceable things. He put on his best, most charmingly twisted smile. “Not to worry. I’ve another,” he said, pulling back his sleeve.

The black scales of the snake wound in ink around his forearm shivered and writhed, a mirage of badly-rendered aether. Even when it was wrong, it was precious. It was his alone.

Nothing showed on the captain’s face; her dark brow furrowed no more than if she were merely trying to read something in a viciously small script. Surely a woman of her age—a pirate, a liberator of immeasurably rare weapons; an Ala Mhigan, by the newly-familiar shape of her words—had seen her share of strangeness. With a small gesture of her head, she ordered her first mate to lay the coffer at Pavane’s feet.

“A deal well-struck, then,” she concluded.

Pavane crouched down with wonder coursing up and down his hands, weighting them as he opened the coffer to reveal his prize: a long-bladed scythe, unadorned in the Mhachi style he had come to know from his family’s archives, brimming with power to harness the Void.

“Indeed,” Pavane said as he rose with the scythe in hand. In his breathless appreciation for the weapon, he felt a twist of envy for the captain and her crew—and the adventure they must have had finding it. He pictured ruins, ancient knowledge, a dark thrill of threat.

The captain nodded to him, satisfied with their business, and said little else before she turned back towards her ship with the appraiser in tow. But Madelaine, the first mate, lingered.

“Thinking of all the harvesting you’ll do, lord?” she asked with a smirk. “Grass? Wheat?”

Nairel, who until then had been so utterly quiet, said, “Or the one it will protect,” in a tone that gave nothing away. “Do Hearers’ daughters know much about harvesting, actually?”

A flash of irritation passed across her face, barely noticeable, before her expression settled into something else. Curiosity, perhaps.

“You’re Nairel?” she said, with an air like she was almost entirely sure of the answer.

“I am.”

A pause. Madelaine glanced over her shoulder at her retreating captain, then made half a step towards turning before stopping to look at Nairel again. “Is your brother well?”

“He’s alive. For now.”

“Aye,” said the first mate, nodding. She turned to walk away. “I knew he would be.”

Pavane blinked, trying to piece together the familiarity that had just passed between her and Nairel. Why had she asked about—

“Wait, what the fuck?”

Nairel stroked his arm. “Let’s go. I’ll tell you once we’re in the shade; my head’s bloody spinning in this heat.”

sigrid keane belongs to @onwesterlywinds; madelaine lachance belongs to @ink-long-dry

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2021 #c:pavane #f:xiv

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navigatrixnarrations · 3 years

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Sometimes Always, Chapter 1: Thieves Alley

The first chapter of a canon divergent kind-of fix-it set after Season 3 as encouraged by @whenimaunicorn. The beginning looks familiar because I posted it as a WIP, but it continues.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence and profanity

Words: 2034

Charles Vane once heard that a man can only truly possess that which he cannot lose in a shipwreck. For all the times he’s had to run with nothing but his life in his hands, and those times are many, this most recent is the hardest to bear.

The late autumn sleet beats against the drafty window of his rented room by the wharves. Nor'easters, he learned these storms are called, blowing in off the Atlantic, bringing traffic in the harbor to a standstill and turning the muddy streets into debris-strewn rivers.

Until recently, he spent his entire life in the heat of the West Indies. New York City is cold and unceasingly raw. Its damp chill seeps into his bones and makes old injuries ache damnably. Vane finds himself taking a liking to these storms anyway; they match his mood.

Perhaps he should head to the tavern where he works instead of huddling by the small fire trying to ignore the past. The tavern owner is a freedman, known to give a hand to other former slaves. All Vane had to do was show the brand on his chest and scowl a little, and he was given a job as a bouncer. The irony of it: Charles Vane, notorious scourge of the seas, reduced to breaking up drunken brawls and preventing grown men from pissing on the floor under an assumed name. Still, he’s alive and free, right under the noses of the fucking English…

He’s definitely being followed. He dislikes being followed. He turns to see that several of the tavern-goers are coming toward him, an assortment of weapons in hand. He dryly thinks that times must be hard indeed if they intend to rob him of his pay; split several ways it wouldn’t even be enough for a mug of ale each. A pistol goes off, grazing a leg just barely recovered from the last time he was shot, and Vane staggers. His attackers are nearly upon him when a slightly-built figure leaps between them. A low-pitched female voice, an oddly familiar voice, calls out something in what Vane recognizes as Dutch. There is laughter from the others, and they withdraw.

The woman approaches, her hands empty, reaching down to assist him. He gets the impression of large eyes in an angular face, a dark coat wrapped tight against the mist. Is it? Can it be?

She looks at him as if seeing a ghost, albeit a ghost with whom she is slightly cross. Then she remembers herself. “Charles.” Her expression turns wry. “Did I hear them refer to you as ‘Mr. Thatch’ back there at the tavern?”

He checks her face for any sign of fury, and sees none. “I can’t very well go by my own name now, can I, Miss Teach.”

“It’s Mrs. Sullivan now. And no, I suppose you can’t. I’m sure my father wouldn’t mind you using one of his last names; you’re more his child than I ever was.” Her tone is matter-of-fact, without bitterness.

He forces a levity to his voice that he does not feel. “So you married Sully? How is he, anyway?” At least she wedded a brave man and a kind one.

She shuts her eyes slowly, shakes her head, then reopens them. “He’s been dead three years. Took a bullet to the head in a raid.”

“Margaret, I’m…”

“Save the platitudes, Charles. They don’t suit you.” She looks tired, her eyes far away. “He was right beside me when it happened. He died free and he didn’t suffer.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. What can he possibly say to that. Memories of the three of them as teenagers, skylarking in the rigging of the Revenge. Vane was the strongest, Margaret was the fastest, and Sully, well, Sully was acrobatic and fearless. And Sully made her laugh, something she did far too seldom. Vane envied him that ability.

She turns her sharp gaze back to him. "If you’re wondering what I said to your new friends back there, I told them that while it is clear that the only thing you use your head for is growing hair, entering Thieves Alley alone as you did with a pocket full of coin, it would be cruel to deprive you of it."

In spite of himself, he huffs out a short laugh. She’s studying him, and he thinks she sees the question that he cannot bring himself to ask aloud. I missed you. Did you miss me?

“My last words to you were cruel.” She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “I regret them. I’m glad I have the opportunity to tell you so.” Why did I get you out of there if you’re going to go do her bidding, be her attack dog? She doesn’t love you, Charles, she’s incapable of loving anyone. And now you’re walking right back into another kind of slavery and it was all for nothing. If I never see you again, it will be too soon. She jumped into one of the longboats and never once looked back at him as the men rowed it out to the ship. He wanted to call out to her to stay, that he changed his mind, but youthful stupid pride made the words stick in his throat. In the end he watched her climb the rope ladder to the Revenge, watched her sail out of Nassau Harbor, watched her disappear over the horizon...

Vane holds her gaze because he’s certain that she would not welcome him holding her body. “Everything you said to me was true, though I couldn’t see that at the time. You had every reason to hate me.”

Margaret tilts her head to one side. “I never hated you, though I tried. Never even resented you, really.” She sighs. “I resented my father for wanting a son so badly that he all but ignored me once you arrived, and I resented the hell out of myself for trying so hard to win his approval.” She pauses. “You’re shivering.”

He starts to deny it but Margaret rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, I know, you’re tougher than the rain and wind and you’re made out of pain and hunger, but you’re not dressed for this climate. Let’s get you in front of a fire. I didn’t come to your aid yet again for you to catch consumption in fucking stinking Thieves Alley.” Vane knows better than to argue with her when she takes that tone.

He falls into step beside her and follows her through a series of alleyways, up some back stairs to a garret. It’s two rooms, sparse but clean, a fire burned down to embers in the small hearth. She drags two chairs and a small table closer to the fireplace and gestures for him to sit while she sets about stoking the fire. He finds himself admiring the quiet confidence with which she moves, the deft precision of her hands. That hasn’t changed. The wooden chair feels like heaven after a night on his feet, and the fire quickly warms the small room. He slouches back and stares into the flames while Margaret bustles around, hanging her coat on a peg, boiling the kettle. Unconsciously, the fingers of one hand worry at the scar on his neck left by the hangman’s noose. It’s slight, but it’s there. In most ways he’s recovered from his brief hempen jig. He can sometimes go hours without thinking of it, but there will always be reminders. Much, Vane muses, like his years sailing with Edward Teach and daughter.

Everything hurt. The latest flogging from the taskmaster tore his back open from shoulder to waist, and he could barely stand. His whole body was wracked with fever. He heard a girl’s voice, and a man’s voice, both unfamiliar, distorted-sounding, and then he was being carried. He must have lost consciousness; when he came to, the whole world was swaying and he heard the creaking of boards, waves lapping against the...hull? Why was he on a ship? Had he been sold again? And then a girl about his own age was looking down at him with a grave expression, her hair in a braid and her big eyes curious. “Where am I?” he asked her. “You’re on the Revenge,“ she said, and, seeming to intuit his next question, she added “you’re free now. We’re all free here. We’re pirates.” There was pride in her voice and her posture at that last. He later learned he was free because Margaret Teach talked her father into taking him with them.

In the silence that has fallen between them, his stomach growls. He tries to ignore it, but she’s heard. She fetches bread and cheese from a box on the windowsill, a bottle of rum, and a pair of dented tin mugs into which she pours tea, putting it all on the table between them.

That’s what seemed off. She’s wearing a dress, and it’s all wrong. It flatters her well, but it’s all wrong. A proper pirate like her, dressed like a merchant’s wife.

Margaret raises an eyebrow at the look on his face. “It isn't poisoned, Charles” she says dryly as she pours rum into her tea. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. I wouldn’t waste good rum.”

He takes the offered bottle and adds a heavy pour to his own tea, then takes a sip and lets it burn all the way down to his belly. “Thrown your lot in with civilization, have you?”

“No.” Her knuckles whiten on the edge of the table and she scowls. “I fucking hate it here.”

He reaches over and places a hand on hers, and is gratified when she doesn’t pull it away. “You’re like me, Magpie. We belong at sea.”

“We do.” Her voice is quiet, wistful. “Nobody’s called me that since Sully died.”

Sully grinned at the way Margaret's eyes tracked the doubloon that Vane set dancing back and forth across his knuckles. “You’re a magpie, that’s what you are.”

“ What’s a magpie?” she asked.

“Very clever little bird, a bit like a crow. They’ll steal anything that catches their eye, especially if it’s shiny, and they’ll have a go at birds of prey many times their size. They live in England.”

Margaret curled her lip. “Fuck England.”

“Fuck England,” Sully agreed. “Rest of it suits you, though.”

Vane thought it was apt for the clever dark-haired pirate girl. His fierce little Magpie.

She turns her hand over in his and gives it a brief squeeze. “I don’t mind you calling me that.” They finish their meal in silence, but it almost feels like the silence of old times. As in old times, it’s easy to fall back into task organizing without needing to discuss it much; he clears up the remnants of their meal while she makes up a cot for him near the hearth.

He hadn’t expected her to invite him to her bed, not really; she never did in the past, and the disastrous choices he made when he was a young man likely destroyed any chance of that in the future. They’re no longer children with a habit of falling asleep in a pile among coils of rope like a litter of alley cats between their watches. But now, all these years later, they’re reunited. It will have to be enough.

From the other room, he hears a sob, quickly stifled. Vane knows Margaret doesn’t want him to know she’s crying, perhaps wants it less even than he wants her to cry, yet how can he ignore the pain she’s in? He tries her door, only to find she’s bolted it from within. He returns to his cot. Eventually sleep takes him, and by some mercy, he does not dream.

#black sails fic #charles vane x ofc #charles vane x oc #sometimes always fic #charles vane fic

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #172

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making Rider of Resistance, a.k.a. a good reason as to why Type Moon should just... stop. Just stop, please, this is an intervention. As usual, expect spoilers below the cut, which is where you can find his build breakdown. Otherwise, check out his character sheet over here!

Next up: She’s a lumberjack, and she’s okay!

Christopher Columbus is a Gloom Stalker Ranger for a noble phantasm that lets him seek out whatever he desires as well as the smash and grab tactics the conquistadors are known for. He’s also a Swashbuckler Rogue to turn him into a high-seas swindler.

Race and Background

Cumulonimbus is a Human, but I want a feat so he’s a variant human instead. This gives him +1 Dexterity and Constitution, proficiency in Deception, and the Silver Tongued feat from unearthed arcana.This bumps your Charisma score up by 1, and you double your proficiency bonus when it comes to deception checks. You can also replace one of your weapon attacks with a contested skill check: your deception vs. their insight. If you succeed, you can move without provoking attacks from them, and your attacks have advantage against them until the end of your next turn. If you fail, they’re sick of your shit for an hour, and can’t be deceived in this way.

Unsurprisingly, Columbus is a Sailor, which gives him proficiency with Athletics and Persuasion. We’re changing things up a bit here, but you’ll need that silver tongue on longer voyages.

Ability Scores

Columbo’s highest stat is his Charisma; he’s a very clever leader, and an even more clever liar. Second is Wisdom, it’s like he can search things out using magic or something. If you’re going to survive a long ship voyage, your Constitution has to be solid as well. For your sealegs we’ll make your Dexterity better than average. That also helps with you running into fights wearing regular clothes. Your Strength isn’t that great, but we’re dumping Intelligence. We just don’t need it.

Class Levels

1. Ranger 1: Starting off as a ranger is cool, it gives you proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as three ranger skills; Investigation for up close “treasure hunting”, and Perception to spot land just that little bit faster. You should also grab Stealth proficiency, it’ll make surviving in Chaldea a lot easier.

You would have gotten more skills by starting as a rogue, but starting here gives you extra health as well as Favored Enemies. Grab the two kinds of humanoids most akin to natives in your setting for advantage on survival and intelligence checks about them.

You’re also a Deft Explorer, which at level 1 makes you Canny with Deception checks, doubling your proficiency bonus. Take a shot every time I double your deception proficiency. You’ll take 3 shots, but that’s exponential, so it adds up quick. It’s still level 1, and you’ve got a +11 to deception, that’s pretty damn good.

2. Ranger 2: Second level rangers can get the Mariner fighting style, adding 1 to your AC while out of heavy armor, and giving you a swimming speed so getting knocked overboard isn’t a game over.

You can also cast Spells now using your Wisdom to cast them. Hunter’s Mark is a gimme since we’re not taking Favored Foe, but we’re also dipping into a third Unearthed Arcana for Wild Cunning, a ritual spell that gives you one of several effects. There’s a lot, but they mostly boil down to finding stuff important to survival more easily.

3. Ranger 3: As a Gloom Stalker ranger, you know the benefits of getting the drop on people better than anyone. Your Dread Ambusher takes the chillage out of your pillage by adding your wisdom modifier to your initiative rolls. Also on your first turn you get an extra 10′ of movement, you get an extra weapon attack, and that extra attack deals more damage. The conquistadors weren’t called the conquistadors because they were bad at conquisting.

You also get Umbral Sight thanks to all those nights of watching for the shore, making your dumb human eyes less dumb thanks to Darkvision. On top of seeing in the dark, you also count as invisible to any other creatures that rely on darkvision while in the shadows. Chris doesn’t have his own evade to be fair, but honestly with all the races having darkvision humans get screwed over so much that I’m willing to overlook it this time.

For this level’s spells, Hail of Thorns will give you some light weapons fire from your trusty ship. You also get Disguise Self for free from being a gloom stalker. It’s not in character, but again it’s free, and god knows you’d put it to good use.

4. Ranger 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Piercer feat, rounding up your dexterity for a bigger modifier and the ability to re-roll one die of piercing damage per turn. Also, your piercing crits deal an extra die of damage when they hit now!

5. Ranger 5: Fifth level rangers get an Extra Attack each attack action. You can still only use a crossbow once per turn, but you’ve got a sword, I’m not worried.

You also get second level spells! Locate Object is what we’re here for, but you also learn Rope Trick for free. Camping equipment was nice, but it’s time we set out for real treasure.

6. Rogue 1: Bouncing over to rogue gives you proficiency with Sleight of Hand, so you can finally get those darn eggs to stand straight. I don’t know why they made a Portuguese man obsessed with a Chinese myth, but whatever.

You also get Expertise in two skills, Perception will help you spot land faster, and Deception is basically just a meme at this point. Both of them get their proficiency bonus doubled. If you really wanted a crazy modifier out the gate you could’ve done this at second level for a +19 to deception, but instead you get it here for a +27. At this point you could totally lead someone on for the entirety of a pseudosingularity and not break a sweat! Not that you would, obviously.

You can also Sneak Attack with ranged/finesse weapons (hey, look at your arsenal, what a coincidence) to deal an extra 1d6 damage to creatures that are next to allies or that you have advantage over. As the men of Agartha could say, you don’t fight fair.

Also: Thieves’ Cant. It’s a language.

7. Rogue 2: Second level rogues get Cunning Action, so now you can dash, disengage, or hide as an action. You’re always moving forward. And sometimes, “forward” means “as far away from the people you’ve conned as possible”.

8. Rogue 3: Is making a sailor a Swashbuckler stereotypical? Probably. Either way your Fancy Footwork means you can ignore attacks of opportunity from creatures you’ve made a melee attack against, and your Rakish Audacity adds your charisma modifier to your initiative rolls. So now your initiative can be added to your growing list of character traits with silly modifiers thanks to its +8. Also, you can sneak attack against creatures when you’re dueling them.

Also also, your sneak attack is 2d6 now.

9. Rogue 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for more accurate attacks and less accurate attacks against you.

10. Rogue 5: Use your Uncanny Dodge to get those sea legs working, dodging well enough as a reaction to avoid half the damage from an attack. And your attacks are scarier now, thanks to a 3d6 sneak attack!

11. Rogue 6: Use this round of Expertise to double up on Persuasion to figure how where people keep their valuables and Sleight of Hand to slip them into your pockets while no one’s looking.

12. Rogue 7: Admittedly, Chrissy Boy doesn’t have an evade skill, but he does get Evasion anyway, making his failed dexterity saves deal half damage and successes deal 0. I mean his guts arguably does the same thing at low health, but now we’re quibbling.

Also, 4d6 on sneak attack.

13. Rogue 8: We’ll go back to ranger soon, but first grab another ASI to bump up your Wisdom, speeding up your initiative and making your spells a bit stronger.

14. Ranger 6: It’s been a while, huh? You get another two humanoids to add to your Favored Enemies so you can terrorize a wider swath of natives, as well as Roving from the Deft Explorer goodiebag to speed yourself up and swim no matter what you’re wearing.

15. Ranger 7: Seventh level Gloom Stalkers have an Iron Mind, helping you keep your head on straight even during long voyages. Or against wisdom saves. Honestly the latter’s way more common, let’s go with wisdom saves. You have proficiency now, is what I’m saying.

We’ve also been seriously neglecting your magical damage, so pick up Magic Weapon so you aren’t mostly useless against a demon.

16. Ranger 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity one more time for better guns and AC. You can also use Martial Versatility to swap out your Mariner fighting style since it overlaps with roving, but I like it where it is. To be fair you could also make Columbus a Triton barbarian, but then he wouldn’t be Columbus.

You also learn Land’s Stride, which lets you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain, and you have advantage against magical difficult terrain like the one caused by Entangle.

17. Ranger 9: Ninth level rangers get third level spells like Conjure Barrage, which lets you conjure... a barrage. Like Hail of Thorns, this is basically your cannons firing off in the background. You also learn Fear for free. That smile is pretty creepy, after all.

18. Rogue 9: Ninth level swashbucklers get another feature, Panache, letting you make a persuasion check against a creature’s insight as an action. If they’re friendly, they become charmed. If they’re unfriendly, they have disadvantage on other creatures, and can’t make opportunity attacks against other creatures.

Personally I like Silver Tongued’s version better for combat, but the added utility is nice. Also, 5d6 sneak attack. That’s important.

19. Rogue 10: Grab the Tough feat with your last ASI for an extra 38 HP now and two more at level 20. You’ve survived at sea for over a month without getting mutinied, and you’ve got guts. Literally.

20. Rogue 11: Eleventh level rogues get 6d6 sneak attack as well as Reliable Talent, meaning you can’t roll lower than a 10 when using skills you’re proficient with. This means you’re guaranteed to roll at least a 16 on Athletics, a 25 on Persuasion, and a 61 on Deception.

Pros:

You are really good at deception. Like, ridiculously good. Like, literally can’t fail good. A minimum roll of over 60, in a game where DC 30 “nearly impossible”, is dumb. Especially since you can weaponize that check thanks to your UA feat.

Speaking of, if you’re willing to only make 1.5 attacks a turn instead of 2, you’ve basically got guaranteed advantage thanks to that feat. That’s really useful when it comes to setting up your sneak attacks.

You’re also pretty tanky, with almost 200 HP and most of the rogue’s abilities to avoid damage. You don’t have your own healing, but I’m sure you can talk Medea into helping out.

Cons:

Your casting modifier is only a +3, so your spells aren’t as strong as they could be. Most of them don’t use your modifier at all, but expect your cannons to be a bit lackluster.

You will never need to roll a 61 on deception. You could have used that Canny on another skill to make two skills busted, but when you gotta flex you gotta flex.

You are playing Christopher Columbus.

#fate grand order #FGO #dnd 5e #D&D #Rider of Resistance

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morkofday · 3 years

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thank you once again @yibobibo for tagging me ♥ even if, like I said, this is pure torture. I have so many sons that I’ve given up on counting them sigh but here goes.

favourite male fictional characters.

I took it that this meant ten so am going with that (tho am not gonna try and put them into order). am also sticking to all the characters I loved this year. and gonna ramble and add gifs so cutting it here.

1. Liu Sang

The Lost Tomb Reboot/Reunion: The Sound of The Providence

I have so much love for this boy it’s not even healthy. it’s a bit funny tho bc once I started tltr, I didn’t really like him and almost forgot about him as the first season ended. he just felt so annoying and bitter in what I saw him, even if I did get that he had a Tragic BackstoryTM (I felt for him but well. tltr really made him hard to like at first). but then they brought him back in the second season with his sad puppy eyes and inability to handle his thoughts on wu xie and being all touch-starved and pitiful and whatnot and baam, I had the adoption papers ready. he’s wonderful and so strong and so smart and amazing. and liu chang as his actor has been wonderful (and he’s so pretty my god, have you seen him??)

2. Shen Wei

Guardian

never did I expect to just. fall into this hole after a year? I remember what a mess I was when I first watched guardian over a year ago, right after finishing the untamed. I was in shambles even as I knew how it would end. and now I’ve done this all again while also reading the novel and. my love for shen wei, especially bc it’s zhu yilong acting as shen wei? astronomical. I want to write poetry about him and his stupid responsibilities that he chooses to carry silently and his devotion to zhao yunlan and his love for his ppl and his didi and. I hope that one day I manage to write weilan bc I have this one idea and you can come pry it from my cold, dead fingers if it doesn’t get out there (am also super happy about the edit I made bc my god does he deserve at least that)

3. Cloud Strife

Final Fantasy VII

ok so stepping into the video games territory now. I was waiting for the remake like crazy and it was everything to me once the quarantine hit during spring. the game is so beautiful and I felt like I looked at this gorgeous boy once and was ready to give him my heart (tbh am quite sure he owned my heart before I even learned to know him). he is tragic in so many ways (I’ve only scratched the surface of all of his pain I know) and I wish I could just. hug him a lot. he is kind and cares very deeply even if he hates to show it and I love it how remake showed him also just being a human disaster (some of his scenes are just. peak comedy). I would kill for his smile (I have already cried for it a dozen)

4. Geralt of Rivia

The Witcher (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)

if there’s one grumpy, brickwall of a man I love, it’s geralt. I affectionately call him “papa wolf” while playing witcher 3 and his voice in it does things to me (I am just so fond of him ok, begone you dirty fuckers). I got introduced to him through the books and adored him in them bc he is so prickly and sarcastic and still so full of love even if he will never admit to it. he is the father figure I wish I could have in real life. (and yes, I’ve seen the tv series (or at least a couple of the first episodes) and it looks stunning but. this is my version of geralt and that’s the hill I will die on)

5. Xiaoge

Zhang Qiling, Daomu Biji (The Lost Tomb 2)

(wow finding a gif for him was a pain, apparently I gotta learn how to gif or?) ah, my dear boy who I’ve ended up just calling xiaoge bc he seems to prefer it over his real name/title/whatever zhang qiling really is. I got introduced to him through tltr where we really didn’t get to know that much about him bc he was just... there. huang junjie was absolutely stunning tho and his soft smiles made me super fond, but only in the lost tomb 2 did I really fall in love with xiaoge as a character. I was surprised tbh bc I didn’t expect it to be this drama? I had so many doubts about the cast in tlt2 but they all delivered! and I think cheng yi’s xiaoge is now my favorite bc he somehow captured that softness and the pain of him? (and we do not talk about that buxun storyline tyvm) tho now that ultimate note is on the way, I gotta say that xiao yuliang does a wonderful job as xiaoge too!

6. Wu Xie

Daomu Biji (Ultimate Note)

(sorry we have to go with a pingxie gif now but maybe it’s only fitting) tbh it’s hard to choose my favorite version of wu xie. I think all of the actors for him have done amazing job showing wu xie in different parts of his life (all of them are very distinct but still feel like the same person) but currently zheng shunxi takes the lead. I really wanted to put the reboot version of him here (bc I love that mature, relaxed and somehow very soft version of him and the angst is phenomenal and the thoughts he has about death... yeah) but I already have zhu yilong’s face here once so :’D wu xie is just one of those characters you cannot not like. he is so strong, so kind, so stubborn, so wonderfully stupid sometimes and in need of careful protection. I also adore it how smart he is and I could listen to him spew history facts for 10 hours straight (even if it was in a tomb full of blood zombies) ♥

7. Jiang Cheng

Jiang Wanyin, The Untamed

my darling boy! my beautiful angry grape! I love him beyond words. I love him in all of his raging, misunderstood, stupid, sassy, constipated, abused, tragic, bitter, big hearted glory. I could write novels about him (and I did and am still writing oh boy) and his love for ppl and his inability to show that love and his loneliness and his issues. I could also write another novel for all of his outfits etc. bc damn, what a fashion king. he is just so great. he owns my soul. he deserves happiness and in this essay I will

8. Isana Yashiro

Adolf K. Weismann, K Project

I rewatched k project this spring bc a) it’s one of my favorite animes ever (it just looks stunning with all the colors) and b) I love yashiro to bits. I remember falling in love with him when I first watched k project many years ago bc he was just so kind and bright. this time though, I ended up seeing another side of him and my god did I cry. he is... so sweet. he cares for others so deeply and is ready to sacrifice so much for them and his love for his two clansmen... yeah. I think I finally saw the tragedy of him too, all the pain and loneliness and insecurity he decides to hide behind his smile and obnoxious personality. he reminded me a lot of myself and watching him made my heart bleed in a good way

9. Qi Tiezui

Ba Ye, The Mystic Nine

(wow am going to riot for the lack of all the gifs hhh) yes, we’re continuing with the dmbj universe that sucked me in big time this year. the drama of the mystic nine wasn’t probably that earth shattering for me as it somehow got boring more than once but I did love ba ye to bits. he was just... so nice? I got it that he was somehow this “comedic relief” in the drama with all of his funny scenes and ridiculous mannerisms but I could see the brilliance of him. he is warm and smart and kind of a romantic too and he cares for all of his friends so deeply? it was also sweet how protective of him his two zhangs were (does that run in the family? the tendency to imprint into one smart but disastrous man and keep him safe? maybe) and I really hope I knew more about him bc he seemed to have a lot of knowledge and a lot of impact to ppl’s lives (I yelled when they mentioned him in ultimate note, I miss him ;;)

10. Dorian Pavus

Dragon Age Inquisition

(yes I’ve been replaying DA:I this year, this counts!) another darling boy! my lovely sass master son! I have so much love for him and his story in DA:I. he is my favorite companion (and his romance is my favorite too, probably obvious in the way am currently romancing him for the third time) and he has given me a lot of strength. the way he stands up against his father, how he’s ready to reform his homeland instead of walking away, how he’s so caring for those he sees struggling... it’s very warming and I feel like I’m safe with him. it feels a bit silly to say that but he really is that comfort character I will seek out when I just want to know am doing fine :’) (and I am so excited to see him again in DA4! probably?)

+ 11. Li Cu

Tomb of the Sea

yes I cheated a bit (with my own rules lol) to fit li cu here. I didn’t really expect to like him or tomb of the sea as much as I did once I started it? I’ve seen leo wu elsewhere before this (battle through the heavens, nirvana in fire) and his face always makes me think about a sad puppy so maybe I just grew fond over li cu instantly bc he was... so hurt? the first episode really slaps you in the face with all of it, showing him being abused, wounded, kidnapped, tortured, used and then just very, very scared and broken. he continues being that throughout the whole drama and I feel like tomb of the sea (or sand sea or sha hai idk) is the darkest and angstiest story in the dmbj universe. I know it deserves to be bc this is a dark time for wu xie but... my darling li cu. I wish him only happiness ;; he was so strong and smart and wonderful in this and it was just so amazing to watch him grow and find his own place in the world just bc he did something himself (even when he got dragged into all of this bc of wu xie) also I support the wu xie adopts li cu -agenda

Honorary mentions:

Zhang Rishan, Xie Yuchen and Hei Xiazi from DMBJ universe. The Twin Jades of Gusu and Ouyang Zizhen from The Untamed. The Iron Bull and Fenris from Dragon Age games. Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko and Jaal from Mass Effect games. The whole lot of Assassin’s Creed protagonists (especially Ezio Auditore and Shay Cormac). Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle. Neil Josten from All For The Game. Eduon and March from The Smoke Thieves. Qiling from L.O.R.D. Critical World. Luo Fei from Detective L (played by Bai Yu).

well, with this I can really see that I have a thing for those who are tragic :’D I have a thing for grumpy, prickly and antisocial guys or those who hide their pain behind a smile. maybe it’s bc I am somehow both, even if I can’t show my anger or be mean to others and even if I feel like my smile never sticks either. I just find kinship in all of the characters who are on this list. and I feel like I aspire to be as strong and as kind and as loving despite all the pain I’ve been put through.

thank you, this was so much fun! and sorry I made this so long and so complicated ^^’ but well, there are just way too many male characters I love haha

at the end I want to tag @i-am-just-a-kiddo @ashenwren @kholran @tiesanjiao @lan-xichens @aheartfullofjolllly @manhasetardis and @lzswy ♥ feel free to do this in your own way or not at all! and thank you if you managed to read through my rambling :’D

#tag game #wow this was something #i've been waiting for one #bc there is so much love in me #and this year i've discovered so many #new characters to just gush over #about me #random #edit: added a few characters #and tagged some more ppl sorry #also mobile tumblr wouldnt let me edit so lol

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kareofbears · 4 years

Text

desperate as that sounds

Five times Ryuji ran for Akira (and one time he ran for himself.)

—

read on ao3 or below the cut :)

It’s 4:45 am with the weather sitting at a brutal -3 degrees when Ryuji really starts wishing that he brought another jacket.

People are lined around Akihabara by the hundreds outside of closed electronic stores, and the sun has yet to even rise. Some people are yawning, some are clutching their rapidly cooling coffee in a death grip, and most have dark, purple bags underneath their eyes—proof of the battle scars that they’ve acquired. Every person here had the same goal in mind: To get what they need and get out as quick as possible.

As it turns out, if everyone has that same mindset, it creates the violent, yearly November tradition that is Black Friday.

Glancing around, he notices that people came in packs, teams. Teenagers and pre-pubescent kids are all scuffling around, hyping themselves up and creating strategies for the war to come. The more seasoned veterans of the yearly massacre came in pairs—the smaller the group, the faster you move, the move land you cover.

At the biggest electronic store in a region that’s already been nicknamed ‘Electronic Town,’ he is fourth in line—an impressive feat, especially for a first-timer. But it came with a heavy toll: he is completely and utterly alone.

”Skull, do you read me?”

Well, physically alone, anyway.

“Loud and clear,” he replies, readjusting the mic in his ear. “Not that I mind, but what’s with the codenames?”

Futaba scoffs. “You think Black Friday is just about the physical aspect? Foolish boy—the psychological aspects are half the battle. If I get you into the mindset that we’re in a Palace, then you’ll get into infiltration mode, and you’ll be OP compared to the nerds out there.”

“Ooo, I like it! Your brain is effin’ galaxy sized!”

“I do what I can for my faithful pack mule.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally.”

His deal with Futaba had been a simple one. She helps Ryuji navigate the horrors of Akihabara during Black Friday in exchange that he acts as what is essentially a drug trafficker sans the drugs. Despite her rigorous societal training she’d undergone with the Thieves, something about entering a borderline stampede still seems somewhat unappealing to her. Besides, he doesn’t mind. He’d always wanted to do something nice for Futaba anyway, and the store that has her computer thing is the same store that holds what he needs.

”Five minutes to go,” her voice crackles into his ear. ”Infiltration route—go!”

Their deal had also come in with an intense tutorial session that ended up lasting until one in the morning. “Floor 4, down 3 aisles, 8 steps in, turn right, second shelf, grab a box that says ‘GTX graphics card.’ Pink, if possible.”

“A+, Skull! You know, if you can memorize that, I seriously don’t get why you’re failing English verbs.”

“Please, this is actually important.”

Futaba cackles. “Now you’re speaking my language. With your legs and my navigation, this’ll basically be a Tuesday afternoon in Leblanc.”

People around him are starting to straighten up, some going as far as to remove the extra layer of clothing and shoving it in backpacks for maximum speed and minimum restrictions. “Damn, people here look more intense than some dudes in my track meets.”

“If you’re throwing out portable chargers with 30-hour battery life for only 800 yen, you’d be a little intense too.”

Ryuji scoffs and begins to stretch, being extra sure to get his right thigh. “I’m plenty intense. Just last Saturday, I almost beat the Big Bang Burger challenge.”

“Pretty sure Akira beat that on his second week in Tokyo. You know, you still haven’t told me why you’re bothering with this whole Black Friday mess. I didn’t peg you for an electronics type of guy, and your phone is as crappy as your posture.”

“Rude! But I can’t argue with that.” He starts to run in place, and for a brief second, he wonders if he should’ve packed a protein shake.

“Well, too late now. If your thing sells out because you didn’t want to give your Navi information, that’s on you.”

“Gimme some credit, Futaba,” an employee who looks equal parts sleep-deprived and terrified approaches the glass doors. “Ain’t no way in hell I’m failing either of us this morning.”

The glass slides open, and as if sunlight was released from the captivity of the clouds, or perhaps a meteor just broke through the earth’s atmosphere, the people start pushing, shoving, and flooding inside. The crowd looked both impenetrable and unwavering; an unstoppable force and an immovable object rolled into one giant stream of desperate shoppers.

Ryuji spares a split-second to crack his neck. Mission Start.

The moment he breaks through the initial threshold, people who were only one step behind him suddenly became ten, twenty, thirty. Weaving through crowds and aisles with the precision of a seamstress, Ryuji evades it all with ease.

”Skull, status report.”

“Smooth sailing, Oracle!” He ducks as an overly buff businessman turns around with a 3-metre pole used for studio lighting threatens to bash his head in. “You’re totally right about the codenames, by the way. It’s almost like I’ve got Captain with me.”

“Right?” She laughs. “It’s all about the mindset.”

Ryuji turns, and finally gets to the stairs—the most brutal section and the biggest gamble. It’s the reason why it was essential that he’s one of the first in line. Once the stairs get jammed with people, it’s game over. Making a mad dash up four flights of stars, he thanks any God that may be that Palaces are fantastic for rehab.

He makes it to the top, panting. It’s empty, save for a few nervous-looking employees. He hopes the smile he throws their way came off as ‘pleasant and grateful for their service’ rather than ‘a delinquent asshole who might steal loads of shit.’

“Down 3 aisles, 8 steps,” he mutters to himself as he quickly scans the fourth floor. “Turn right, second shelf,” eyes landing on his target, he grins. “I effin’ rock.”

”You got it?”

“Of course I did!” He fist pumps before swiping the box. In his excitement, he nearly runs over to give a random employee a high-five. “Alright Oracle, you’re up.”

”I love you so much in a non-weird way. Okay,” he hears the clacking of keys on the other side of the mic. “What do you need?”

“Two words: game console.”

The clacking stops. “You’re joking.”

Ryuji snorts. “I ain’t waking up at 3 in the morning for a joke.”

”Those are hard enough to get as is, and on a day like this—”

“So you can’t do it?”

In the same way every one of the thieves know they could bait Ryuji with a few choice words, it’s a lesser-known fact that Futaba is quite nearly as bad when it comes to open defiance. “Jerk. Of course I can.”

“Then let’s do it!”

“Ugh, fine!” The clacking resumes, more vigorously. “Yikes, only 3 left. Make it quick!”

“Got it,” he replies. He turns around and his stomach drops as he sees people rushing in. “What floor?”

“Third.”

Ryuji groans. The stairs, with people packed in like sardines, are a circus. It would take at least two minutes to try and go down a single flight of stairs. The elevator is even worse, and he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it had already started to malfunction. Only one choice, then.

He takes a deep breath. “Pray for me.”

”Godspeed, soldier.”

Ryuji, like a wild animal on the loose in the streets of Tokyo, jumps on the handrails and begins his descent that way, begging to the skies that he doesn’t slip and create a domino effect that knocks down a dozen people.

In thirty seconds flat (with no small amount of cursing from both the customers and himself) he jumps off and lands (tumbles) onto the third floor, grinning triumphantly. Eat your heart out, Sumire.

“Oracle, I’m here. Almost broke my ankles. Where to?”

”Straight ahead,” she replies. ”Only one left, though. Better make it quick.”

His eyes land on the last game console, and he sees someone making their way towards it. “Not a problem.”

Ryuji sprints.

Throwing every societal rule and common courtesy into the air, he makes a mad dash and, somehow, miraculously does not bump into anyone or knock down any huge shelves.

In approximately 3 seconds, he grabs his treasure and yells a very loud but completely genuine “sorry!” over his shoulder as he half runs back to the stairs, face red for multiple reasons.

Delving back into the sea of the crowd, trying to navigate himself to the cash register, he sighs. “I’m going to hell.”

”Mission success, then?”

“I had to steal it from some guy! I feel so bad. What if he’s like, buying it for his long lost son or something?”

”Whatever! That’s just part of the Black Friday spirit. Congrats! At least you finally got a game console.”

“Huh? Oh, I already had one.”

Static crinkles in his ear, before, ”WHAT!?”

“Ow! Don’t yell!”

”You already had one and you still did this shopping run?”

“Yeah…?”

”Why?! Are you gonna sell it? Are you one of those sleazy men who take advantage of the good will of gamers, Sakamoto?”

“Hell no!”

”So—“

“Oops, almost at the front of the cash register. I’ll drop off the goods at Akira’s. Talk to you later, shortie.”

Click.

”Wha— Hey! Ryuji!” Silence. “Ugh!”

————

After a much-deserved nap, Futaba climbs up the stairs to Akira’s attic.

“The star has arrived!” she says in lieu of a greeting. “Where’s Ryuji?”

“He left,” Akira answers. He’s looking at something on his worktable. “Your stuff is on the bed.”

Futaba whoops and snatches up the little plastic bag. Peering inside, she sees an adorable GTX hot pink graphics card, and a note. In a horrific scrawl, it writes: dont tell him plz ;)))

She looks up quizzically when her eyes land on Akira’s desk: A shiny new game console.

“Um…”

“Hmm?” he looks up. “Oh, Ryuji dropped it off. Said his mom won it at work, and since he already had one, he gave it to me. Nice, right?”

She opens her mouth, before closing it with a clack. Just two weeks ago, Ryuji had asked Akira in the group chat if they could play video games at his place. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget about Akira’s situation: false accusation, an attic for a room, no definitive meals, not even a proper bathroom in the building, but Akira plays it off like it’s easy. He answered by making a joke that he’s too poor for something like that when you can buy faux battle axes and realistic shotguns instead. Everyone had forgotten about that interaction.

But apparently, Ryuji hadn’t.

He’s an idiot, Futaba thinks. To which boy she’s referring to, she’s not sure.

“Yeah,” is what she says instead. “It’s nice.”

====

The dust motes flying around the attic of Leblanc are lovely. Swirling in senseless formations, floating through the still air like snow. The way none of them collide with each other, as if they have some sort of motion detector that tells them to move out of the way. It’s pleasing to look at.

It’s a shame Ryuji doesn’t give a single shit about them at this moment.

He’s sitting on Akira’s bed, back pressed against the window sill with his hair tipped up, staring unfocused at the wooden beams, eyes glazed over. He’s been like this for the better part of the day, and now the evening is slipping by him. Time continues ticking on like a rigged bomb; an ongoing reminder of how many seconds he’s losing, and how much more he can lose.

He’s considered moving. To walk around the room, shift the dust that’s surely settled on him. Getting up, stretching his legs, outwardly expelling some of his trapped, balled up energy is a good idea. Healthy, even, if those shitty YouTube videos he’s watched on his phone about anger management were on to something. But he can’t. He shouldn’t.

Amidst all the uncertainty and the wound-up anxiety that has currently made permanent residence deep inside his core, he knows that if lets his joints unlock, he’s going to fucking lose it.

Slam a fist inside the dry wood, tear up a blanket, throw the adorable ramen bowl he gave Akira against the wall until it shatters into a hundred pieces. He’s so terrified of ruining this room that he won’t even give himself the option. And Ryuji would rather let hell freeze over than scare Futaba again in his fit of fucked-up rage that comes with the package that is Sakamoto Ryuji.

So he’s stuck on the bed for God knows how long.

Footsteps come up, and he doesn’t need to look down to know who’s going to chew him out. If it’s not Akira that’s going to chide him out of his stupor (which it isn’t, even though Ryuji would do anything if it means that Akira’s back here with them), then they’d send in someone who’d drag him out of it with her nails perfectly manicured.

“You look terrible.”

“Screw off,” Ryuji spits automatically, and he cringes inwardly. Ann doesn’t deserve the sharp end of his horrible mood. It’s not her fault that it feels like his insides feel like they’re trying to eat their way out.

She ignores him and moves to hop on top of the old work desk. The wood creaks underneath her. “You’ve been here all day.”

“I know.”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“Yes. No.” He feels Ann’s stare burn into the side of his face—a ghost of Carmen’s presence. “I don’t know.”

“He wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

Irritation swells in him. She’s never learned to take a hint in her life. “Really? Are you seriously saying that?”

“Are you saying he would?”

“I’m saying he’s too busy having the living shit beat out of him to see me like this.”

His body twitches, and that’s all he needed for his resolve to break down. He jumps from the bed, feet landing heavily enough that he’s sure they can all hear him from the floor below. Unconsciously, his feet pace around the small room; quick with agitation but heavy with dread. Anything to distract from doing something stupid.

“You’re worried about me, what, not sleeping? For lying down on this damn bed for too long? Screw that. Akira’s being grilled like cheap meat for the past couple of days and you’re expecting me to act normal about it? That’s bullshit.”

Bad. This is bad. His fingers are already curling in his fists, eager and all too willing to be used. He settles for balling the edge of his shirt instead.

“He isn’t here. That’s the fact, isn’t it? And what the fuck am I doing about it? Freaking out? Trying not to throw a tantrum about it like some kind of stupid kid? Am I really this messed in the head that everyone on the team is—-is hiding from me like I’m some kind of—” he cuts himself off.

Delinquent.

Ryuji takes a deep breath, fully inhaling and slowly exhaling. He focuses on the dust motes again. In and out. Countdown from ten. He can do this. He can get a grip on himself. Thank God it was Ann that came up—if it had been anyone else, he doesn’t think he can put his pride aside as easily. (Unless it was Futaba. God, he loves her so much.)

For a while, it was silent except for his breathing; it stuttered occasionally, but eventually it evens out. Ann only watches from her perch.

When he feels stable enough, Ryuji drops to sit on the hardwood.

“Okay?” she asks. Ann never babies him when he gets like this—she’s good that way.

“Okay.” And he really is. Not completely, of course not. His nerves weren’t strung as tight, but he still feels a heavy weight right in his stomach.

She hops off the desk and goes to sit in front of him on the floor. Crossing her legs, Ann waits. They regard each other for a long minute.

“He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever met,” he says. It feels weird saying this out loud, instead of repeating the mantra in his head like a broken record. “If anyone can handle this, it’s Akira.”

She rolls her eyes. “Duh.”

“He’s going to be okay.”

“I know that.”

“Sooner than later, his dumb ass is going to be walking through the door downstairs.”

“You bet he is.”

“And I get to yell at him as much as I want.”

“Get in line.”

“I’m not going to lose him tonight.”

Ann reaches over—slowly, giving him plenty of room to shift away—and places a hand on his knee. “You’re not going to lose him tonight.”

Ryuji laughs, a little breathy but still genuine. He prods at her hand. “When’d you get so good with me, Takamaki?”

“I do the Lord’s work around here, free of charge.” She grins, before her tone drops again. “Can you do something for me, though?”

“Lay it on me.”

Ann pulls back and leans on a propped hand, her blue eyes piercing. “When Akira comes back, and he will—”

“And he will. No doubt about it.”

“Obviously. He’s the best person for this. But when Akira comes back, he’s…” Ann gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “He’s not going to be okay, Ryuji.”

Somewhere in his mind, he already knew what she was going to say. While the biggest of his worries is that he’d never see Akira walk through the doors of Leblanc again, there was a quieter fear. A very specific fear, one that Ryuji knows all too well. Because stories don’t just end at the climax of a single event—they keep going. It’s the fear of what happens once he does see Akira.

The aftermath.

The bell chimes downstairs.

His heart lurches, and he makes the briefest of eye contact with Ann before he’s gone.

He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever met.

It’s like his feet have a mind of their own.

If anyone can handle this, it’s Akira.

In an instant, he’s scrambling towards the stairs on all fours before pushing himself up.

Sooner than later, his dumbass is going to be walking through the door downstairs.

His hand finds its hold on the old wooden railing as he sprints his way down. More than once, he almost trips and bangs his head into the wall.

And I get to yell at him as much as I want.

Rounding the corner, he jumps on the landing, ignoring the sharp pain that shoots up his thigh. He ignores the stares from everyone else. Looking up his breath catches in his throat. Gray eyes meet his brown ones. He takes one step forward, and then another. And then he sprints the rest.

He’s going to be okay.

Ryuji stops himself right in front of him, an arms-length away. Akira’s face looked like it’s been through hell and back. Split lip, black eye, bruised cheekbone. An intense fury flares up his spine when he sees the grime and dirt up along his temple.

He hesitates.

As much as he wants to reach forward, close the gap, to make sure that this boy that he can’t afford to lose is real… he can’t do it.

Because he knows what would happen if he tries to cross a boundary that isn’t ready to be crossed—he might not be ready. Ryuji could hurt him by touching any injuries he doesn’t know about (God, how much more is he hiding in there? He’s this close to either throwing up or throwing a punch). But what he’s most scared about, what he’s terrified of doing, is touching Akira in the state of mind he’s in right now. For someone to grip him, grab him, even just brush past him right now, it might be too much. Judging by how beat up he looks just from his face? That does shit to people. That changes you.

Ryuji would know. So he keeps his distance.

Akira’s eyes turn dark, and for a second, Ryuji is terrified that he must’ve overstepped a boundary.

Then he throws his arms around Ryuji, the force knocking them both back by a couple of steps.

“Akira?” he asks, bewildered. Never in their friendship has he seen Akira act like this. It sends alarm bells ringing through his head. “What—”

“Don’t,” Akira cuts off, voice hoarse and quiet, so quiet that even this close, Ryuji is straining to hear him. The arms around him tighten. “Don’t be like that. Please. I can’t. Not right now, Ryuji.”

It hits him all at once. And in his sixteen years of living, Ryuji doesn’t think he’s ever been stupider.

Akira’s been trapped in an interrogation room with nothing but a bunch of make-believe police officers. He got the shit beat out of him, had to stage his own suicide.

And Ryuji just tried to push him away.

He lets his arms wrap around Akira tightly; not too tight, but enough to make sure he won’t slip away from him again. (Never again. Not if he can help it.)

“I’m glad you’re back,” he whispers. Tilting his head up, he stares at the soft lighting of Leblanc, forcing his lungs to breathe evenly—not for fear of losing his temper, but for fear of exposing the tears silently streaming down his face. “So fucking glad.”

Akira doesn’t answer. He only buries his face deeper into Ryuji’s shoulder.

Ann was right—Akira isn’t okay. Not for now, not for awhile. It’s up to Ryuji and everyone else in their group of friends to fix that. That’s fine. They’ll all take as long as they need. He isn’t okay right now, but he will be. They can work on that.

But one thing was clear.

I’m not going to lose him tonight.

====

Summer in Mementos is pretty gross.

Granted, it’s always nasty in here—there’s a perpetual air of moisture, like the inside of a whale, if Ryuji had ever been in one (he’s basing that off of an American movie Ann showed them last week; he didn’t even know it was possible for a fish to get lost in the ocean). There’s also the ongoing sound of trains passing by them on loop, and to him, trains are just inherently cramped and humid and always too sticky for his liking.

Of course, there’s the disgusting, weird amalgamated Shadows that litter every level of Mementos. At least in Palaces they sort of resemble something from the real world, but he guesses they didn’t even bother with these ones. The worst part of all this is that right now, it’s hot, but not hot enough for the Shadows to process a heat wave.

So essentially, they’re fighting with additional bucket loads of sweat, but with none of the usual reward that comes with it.

Well, not that they needed it.

“Fox.”

“As you wish.”

Yusuke’s boots skid to a halt as he points his katana at the fast-moving Shadow, the tip perfectly still. “Your assistance, Goemon.”

They’re on their weekly Mementos grind, the list Mishima keeps updating finally too long to ignore. (Akira hates it when things pile up. It’s a big reason why Ryuji hastily cleaned up every time he wanted to come over. Now though, he doesn’t even bother.)

The current All-Star team includes Yusuke, Makoto, Ryuji, and Akira, with the rest of them keeping a close eye in case they need a quick shift in strategy.

From his katana, black ice crawls in the ground beneath rusted train tracks, the air suddenly chilly despite the humidity that was there a moment ago. Frost shoots forward, encasing the legs of the Shadow only to shatter with a strong jerk forward. It roars, the ear-piercing sound causing the scattered debris around them to vibrate. Akira clicks his tongue.

Strong against ice. Easy fix. Ryuji mouths the words along with Akira when he says, “Panther, you’re up.”

“Finally!”

Ann darts in, high-fiving Yusuke as he rushes out. Ryuji can see Makoto pat Yusuke on the back, sympathy etched on her expression and Futaba mussing his hair. He always took it the hardest when he had to be switched out.

Akira’s gloved fingers brush the edge of his monochrome mask. “Come, Principality.”

As if a human version of justice has been summoned down to earth, the winged statue floats for a moment, eyes filled with scorn as she casts a simple, yet effective memory loss spell. The Shadow shakes its head aggressively. It works, but it won’t hold for long.

“Skull.”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

He grins and sprints right, squeezing into the Shadow’s blindside. It tries to twist around to take a swipe at him, but Ryuji is too fast—he slides right between its legs to confuse and disorient it. Once it seems like it completely lost sight of him, he raises his hand to grip the edge of his black mask. “Come on out, Captain!”

It’s a classic tactic; make the enemy lose focus, stun it, and stop it.

A pirate straight out of the Caribbean materializes from the embers of his mask—Captain Kidd in all of his glory regards the Shadow with a look of disdain before sparks fly from the hull of his ship, and an intense streak of lightning bursts forth, shocking its target like something from a regrettable movie about torture, knocking it down to the ground, a buzz perceptible even from here. He might have overdone it.

Ann whistles. “You didn’t even let me get a chance with it.”

“You can have the next million Shadows we bump into, I promise.” He calls Captain back into his mask, fragmented pieces forming together impossibly quick. “We good, Leader?”

Akira nods. “Just let me get the loot,” he smiles at Ryuji. “Awesome voltage on that last one, Skull.”

A grin stretches over his face before he can stop himself. He won’t deny it—getting a compliment from Joker was always something he filed away for later.

He’s too busy feeling pride surge through him that he can’t even bother to get ticked off when he hears Morgana scoff. “It doesn’t matter how good that attack was; he got in the way of Lady Panther’s finishing blow. That’s a crime in my eyes.”

“But doesn’t that just mean he saved her from doing anything?” Makoto raises an eyebrow. “Technically, he prevented any danger from befalling her, right?”

“Queen, as a gentleman, I have an obligation to tell you that that is a sexist notion.”

“You did not just say that.”

Something makes Ryuji pause. Immediately, his eyes flicker around them automatically. He tunes their chattering out, and finds himself tapping his foot, a slight jitter overcoming him. His nerves are trying to tell him something. Or maybe he’s imagining it? Is it just an aftershock from the intense lightning he cast out? No. It’s been too long since he’s had any problem with electric moves, and he’s never had problems from ones that he threw out himself.

Something was wrong, and he can’t put his finger on it.

He rattles his brain trying to figure out what it is. No one’s hurt, everyone’s safe and together. Well, mostly together, since Akira’s still approaching the Shadow—

A cold sweat drapes the back of his neck. Akira is still approaching the Shadow.

The Shadow hasn’t disintegrated yet.

“Akira—!”

The name slips past his lips, codenames forgotten. In slow motion, Ryuji sees Shadow’s body tense, its mouth frothing with what looks like liquid magma made from pits of hell—specializes in curse, and a strong one at that; Ryuji can feel the potency of its malignancy from where he’s standing. He watches as Akira stiffens, fingers twitching towards his mask, ready to retaliate, or at the very least, defend. And like a domino effect of bad luck, Ryuji feels bile rise to his throat.

Akira is good at what he does. Infuriatingly good. Took the whole Metaverse bullshit like a fish to water. But even he can’t switch Personas the same moment he summons them.

Principality would crumple like tissue paper against the Shadow. And Akira along with it.

You’re too late, a voice whispers in his head. You wouldn’t make it.

A heartbeat passes. And then Ryuji is flying.

It’s never too late, screams back something stronger, something unshakeable. Not ever. Especially not for him.

His boots hit the ground like the first strike of lightning amidst a storm—impossibly fast and unexpected. Lungs wheezing and legs throbbing, he crossed the distance in the span of a breath.

The Shadow throws the curse at Akira, red and black and filled to the brim with intensity, and Akira’s eyes can only widen, pupils dilated wildly to the point where there’s only black—a mirror of what’s about to hit him if Ryuji isn’t fast enough.

He doesn’t hesitate.

Ryuji shoves Akira, hard enough that he crashes onto the ground and he can hear the breath forcefully leave his lungs, and suddenly Ryuji can’t hear anything at all. His fingertips are fire and ice, his sense of surroundings have completely dissipated. Any energy in his body is being drained, like a dam cracked into millions of pieces—and all he’s left with is air. Vaguely, he can hear a choking noise, a broken sort of sound.

The blow is not just a violent one—it never is, with curse attacks. Instead of just feeling his skin bruised or blood running down his temple, he also feels himself get weaker, his mind growing heavier. An attack on the mind and body; a perfect cocktail of fucked up.

The last thing he sees before he loses consciousness is the glint from Akira’s knife slicing through the Shadow’s throat.

====

Tokyo is currently at a wicked thirty two degrees.

The sun radiates scorching temperatures down from the sky, the concrete eagerly absorbing every bit of its heat, making something akin to walking across hot coals. It’s hot enough that a mirage is visible to the naked eye. It’s hot enough that every ice cream store has a forty-minute line-up. It’s hot enough that no birds were flying, in fear that they may truly be fried by the sun above them.

Basically, it’s hot as hell.

“Ryuji-chan, pick up the pace!”

But Haru is more vicious than any conceivable temperature.

Looking like a survivor who was lost in the desert for several days, Ryuji lets out a half-garbled battle cry and sprints the last dozen meters. Haru clicks her stopwatch.

Sitting on a lovely lilac blanket, she tsks from underneath the shade. “Three seconds slower.”

“Ugh!” he collapses beside her on the cool grass. If she looks at him from a certain angle, she can see the steam positively radiating off of him. “I’m going to beat the living shit out of the sun.”

“You know I’d support you in anything you do, Ryuji-chan, but I don’t think you’d be fast enough to catch it,” Haru says. She hands him a cold water bottle. “Drink slowly.”

He rolls over so that he can squint up at her. “You’re mean.”

“I’m harsh,” she corrects, shaking the bottle in her hand. “There’s a difference.”

He takes it. “Have you done this before?”

“Helped someone train in running? No. But,” she rummages through her pastel pink tote bag, and proudly shows him a handful of books. He squints at them. “Since I’m so new to the group and everyone has such broad interests, I decided to try reading up on them! Did you know that drinking cold water after running results in less dehydration than drinking warm water?”

Ryuji stares at her. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For saying you’re mean. You’re not mean. You’re real nice, Haru.”

She smiles at him and pats his head, despite the overflowing heat and moisture settled on top. “You’re very sweet Ryuji-chan, but that’s not going to make me go easy on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the tough-love kind of coach.” Ryuji sits up, cracking open the seal. Chugging down the water, he makes eye contact with Haru before slowing down substantially.

He dumps the rest of it on his head, sighing and shivering in relief. “That’s the good shit.”

“Why not wait for the sun to go down a bit?” she suggests. “The heat is really scorching, and there’s still plenty of time to keep training later.”

“Nah,” he stretches his arms behind his head before he stands again. “I gotta keep going while I still can.”

Haru frowns. “Overexertion isn’t going to help anyone.”

“Don’t you worry your fluffy head! I may be stupid, but I know when to stop when I gotta.”

“I really think you should rest for a bit.”

“I will when I’m done, I promise.”

“You looked rough in that last lap—”

“Haru,” Ryuji is grinning, but his tone leaves no room for argument. “I’m going to keep training.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, before Haru’s shoulder sags slightly. “Alright.” He’s about to say something when she cuts him off. “But only if you tell me why you’re so insistent.”

Ryuji shrugs. “If that’s what it’ll take to prove it to you, then sure. It’s kinda stupid, though.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“Oh, wait till you hear it,” he laughs, a little shy. “So you know how Mona and Futaba are, like, the Metaverse experts? And Makoto is the big brain? And Yusuke does the whole calling card part?” Haru nods, and he continues. “Well, I’m not really… anything. Ann already took the role of moral support and there’s no way in hell I’m the ‘brain’ in anything. Jeez, last time I picked up a paintbrush was in kindergarten. So I figured, I’d be the fast one, you know? The one that can get to someone fast enough to help them out.” Ryuji’s grin turns into something softer; less edge and more fond. It does something to her heart. “And if it’d help ‘Kira down the line, then it’d be worth it, right?”

Haru stays silent.

“Anyway! That’s enough of that cheesy shit.” He moves back to the track, running shoes scuffing at the concrete. “Wish me luck, maybe I can actually catch up to the sun this time. Teach it a lesson.”

“Ryuji.“

Looking back, he gives her a curious look. “Yeah?”

Haru hesitates.

I never once thought you were stupid. You’ve given so much more to the team than you can imagine. You have no idea how many times you’ve helped Akira without even lifting a finger.

“I have a cooler full of water behind me, so… please try your best out there.”

Ryuji gives her an enthusiastic salute. “Yes ma'am!”

He runs off, the sun continuing to beat down him relentlessly.

====

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ryuji knew they were all going to die someday. It’s inevitable. The circle of life, the winds of time, la vie en rose, etc.

He just didn’t expect it to happen at the age of 16, on the sinking cognitive ship of their next Prime Minister, wearing a wack-ass leather outfit surrounded by his panicking friends.

“We’re going to die!” Futaba wails, knees shaking uncontrollably to the point where she can hardly keep standing. “I don’t know how to swim!”

“It’ll be fine,” Akira spits through gritted teeth. He’s far tenser than anyone else, red gloves formed into fists and eyes constantly darting around to see what can save their lives. “We just need to focus.”

Makoto points to something on their right and shouts, “There! A lifeboat!”

Sprinting down the slowly escalating ramp, their eyes widen at the single lifeboat propped at the very top of the bow—which is slowly approaching a ninety degree angle. They all had one thought in their minds.

“We’re not going to make it in time,” Yusuke says, quietly.

Akira bangs his fist into a nearby column. “To hell with that. There’s no way I’m letting us die here.”

A heavy silence falls over them. The air is practically crackling with electricity and pure agitation, but there’s also a determination between all of that. Everyone’s overcome with a need to protect their friends and teammates, but they were at a loss of what to do. A quiet realization overcomes the group—there wasn’t going to be a miracle to save them.

Ryuji’s eyes land on Akira. He’s scanning the area, Third Eye activated but unable to pick up anything that isn’t the lifeboat. There’s no panic in his clear, gray eyes, but the terror in it is the most prevalent out of anyone present.

It hits Ryuji, all at once. The boy in front of him may be his age, and even younger than some members of their group, but he is undoubtedly the leader of the infamous Phantom Thieves. Every decision he made had led them here, in this moment, in their imminent death. And if he lets them all get taken, whether it’s through the ocean or the approaching explosions behind him, the truth of the matter is Akira feels that he would be responsible. That it’s his fault that a cognitive boat would take the lives of his friends.

Yeah. That’s not happening.

Ryuji clenches his eyes shut for a few seconds and slowly opens them. He begins to jump in place, hyping himself up.

“Skull…?” Haru asks, brows furrowing.

“Hang tight, guys,” he says, taking quick breaths. He can do this. “I’ll nab the boat.”

A chorus of gasps and heated objections rang through the air, and Akira steps forward, more shaken than Ryuji’s ever seen him. “No. Skull, please—”

Ryuji throws him a wobbly grin, more for Akira than himself. In one smooth motion, he jumps down and hits the ground running.

“No!”

Immediately, he feels his knees and thighs begin to protest, only intensifying the further he sprints up. For a minute, if Ryuji closes his eyes, he can imagine that he’s in a meet. A race. That the screams he hears behind him are his track mates, and not teammates, friends, best friends that would die if he failed to get to the boat fast enough.

He pushes himself even more.

It’s a miracle that he gets to the raft before his legs give out, and he feels a satisfying crank underneath his palms when he rotates the lever. As he throws a thumbs up at his friends, seeing them safe, healthy, alive, he feels relieved beyond words.

He makes eye contact with Akira, and he really should’ve expected the explosion that comes next.

====

His ceiling has seventy-nine plastic stars.

Ryuji stares up at it from his bed, arms crossed behind his head; they’d long since lost their cheap light. It was raining hard outside, enough to rattle against his window like pebbles calling for his attention. He ignores them.

It’s been years since he got those stars—dating all the way back in middle school. He got into a bad habit of sneaking out in the middle of the night to look at the sky from the roof of their apartment building. It scared the shit out of his ma when she finally caught him, scolded him to hell and back. By the end, they found a compromise: she’d buy him a crap ton from the hundred yen store, and they’d stick it up together. When they did, it kept falling down, so she went back and bought him a bottle of superglue. Now you can’t take them off, even if you tried to use a little scraper.

It bothered him, for a while. Young boys were cruel, and anyone who came to visit always poked fun of him for it. It wasn’t until he visited Akira’s room one day, saw how pleased he was that Yusuke bought them for him that he couldn’t help but revel at his own stars again, after all this time.

Ryuji twists his body sideways, ripping his eyes away from the plastic figures. Enough of that.

His eyes have long adjusted to the darkness that surrounds him, allowing a clear view of his room in the limited moonlight. Laundry splayed around his tatami mat from his sprints training today, gaming controllers scattered on the center table from when Akira came over a few days ago. That was a blast. He helped him beat a boss he’s been stuck on for weeks, and Akira beat it like it was nothing, it was the coolest shit ever—

Ryuji forces himself to flip over to glare at the wall. Sleep. That’s a better idea.

He takes a deep breath, forcing his breathing to go steady. There’s lots to do tomorrow—school is a drag, but they plan on meeting up at Leblanc afterwards. The thought allows his muscles to relax. Really, the atmosphere of Leblanc is just so pleasing to him. The warm lighting, the run-down booths, even the smell is a welcome presence. Well, that’s mostly because Akira drags it with him wherever he—

Slowly, his eyes open.

It always comes back to him, doesn’t it?

He rolls onto his back, in a position to stare at the stars again. The rain hammers on.

Ryuji’s a dumb kid.

It’s not a self jab, it wasn’t manifested by some sort of long-standing insecurity. It’s a fact. He’s never been good with a book, never done anything half-decent by picking up a pencil, his mind was never programmed to listen and retain information in long classes. It’s definitely not like he’s the brains of the Thieves, never a strategist of some kind. His ma encouraged him to take on a tutor in the past, and he’d rather bite a finger off than spend her money on wasted potential, so he found himself wandering the streets of Central Street as a way to pass time.

Ryuji’s a dumb kid, but even he knows he’s irrevocably, completely, stupidly in love with Kurusu Akira.

He sits up and ruffles his hair, frustrated. There are too many things wrong with that sentence, too many things that can go wrong because of that sentence. Of course, he finds the one thing that can mess up the unshakeable foundation that he and Akira built for each other. He must’ve really pissed off some God upstairs for him to have a hell-bent queer awakening with his best friend.

No, that’s wrong. It was the furthest thing from hell-bent—it was soft, it was gray, it was raining, and most importantly, it took its time.

They were halfway through Kamoshida’s Palace when Ryuji realized it; the sheer amount of power that hindsight gave him made him pause long enough to get clocked out by a Shadow.

Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter, because he would never, ever do anything to fuck up what he has. Not again.

Wait, no, that’s not true. Even before Kamoshida, he’s never had something like this. He’s never had someone like him. He’s never had someone who’s so entirely on the same wavelength as him, who’d have his back even when his was against a wall. Kurusu Akira is…ethereal. Out of this world. Cool as fuck. (Hot as fuck, too.) If you lined up the entirety of Tokyo and told him he could pick one. One person out of the whole lineup to be his friend, he’d have his answer in a heartbeat.

See, now that isn’t something that changed with hindsight—Ryuji’s known that he’s been in love with Akira since before they completed Kamoshida’s Palace. And when he figured it out, he didn’t feel shock. His eyes didn’t widen, his heart didn’t start thumping like crazy. It’s more like he just scratched his head in a huh kind of way. It felt like his life had been waiting for that day in April, like everything was at a standstill until he finally met Kurusu Akira. It made sense. Everything just makes sense when Akira’s involved.

Which just makes this all the more fucked up.

He knocks his head back against the wall, eyes stuck on the raindrops’ rapidly moving shadows on his bedroom floor. Karma. That’s probably what’s happening. The world still hasn’t forgiven him for losing his shit, so they decided to make him pine for the only person that he can’t afford to lose.

He can’t even stomach the idea of trying to get over it, to try and put distance between himself and Akira. He spent a lifetime waiting for a miracle, for someone who didn’t know existed. He’s not giving up a single second of time with him. That’s probably why the world relentlessly shits on him; he’s selfish enough to keep the feelings that he has. But he can’t bring himself to regret that decision. Not with the way his breath hitches in his throat whenever Akira walks into the room.

Ryuji’s in love with his best friend, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it. He’s accepted it. Just like how the sky is blue, or that he well and truly hates Calculus. It’s a factor of life.

The rain seemed to fall harder, droplets sounding like rigorous hail against the windowpane. He lets out a long yawn.

Ryuji’s in love with his best friend, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.

That’s not the reason why he can’t sleep at night.

Akira is a quiet guy. He gets his point across with as few words as possible, as if each letter costs him fifty yen to say out loud. So he speaks through his expression; a quirk of his brow, a tilt of his head, a certain smile is enough to carry half of the conversation.

And, every once in a while, Akira gets a look.

It comes up at the weirdest times—when the two of them baton pass in the Metaverse, when Ryuji eats ramen too fast and gets sick, when he helps an old lady cross the street. Plenty of times it’s because Ryuji is doing something incredibly stupid (like when he said that the square root of sixteen is six, because if you just get rid of the one, then that makes sense, right?), or when they’re laughing so hard neither of them can breathe. But sometimes it comes up in quieter moments, too. The two of them talking quietly in the attic at Leblanc, or when Akira confesses that he’s relieved Ryuji’s always there for him. (As if there would ever be a time where he won’t be.)

The look is subtle enough to miss but easy to find if someone knows what they’re looking for. The usual attentiveness that resides in Akira’s eyes disappears, in its place a softer gaze; his pupils get dilated, and the edge of his eyes get all crinkled like Valentine’s tissue paper. A half-smile rests on his lips, never quite turning into a full-blown grin, but that’s okay. For some reason, it all reminds Ryuji of the moon. Of soft moonlight. Of streetlamps on empty roads.

Ryuji’s in love with his best friend, and there’s a small, tiny, infinitesimal chance that his best friend might love him back.

His eyelids slide shut, though he knows that it won’t be enough to let him rest.

Realistically, he’s probably wrong. Akira isn’t in love with him, and he’s only seeing what he wants to see. With every eligible person seeming to fall in love with him at some point in time, how would it even be possible that Akira would love him?

He rubs his eyes, desperate to get rid of the unending fatigue that’s plagued him for months on end. It doesn’t work.

Bad excuse. Akira does love him, just like he loves everyone he encounters and befriends and ends up risking his life for. Ryuji’s surprised Akira hasn’t passed out yet, given his bleeding heart for the entire population of Tokyo.

Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles as he rubs his eyes harder.

But what if he wasn’t wrong? What if the signals he’s seeing aren’t based on misunderstood yearning?

When his eyes start to burn, his fingers move up to his hair.

There’s no way in hell he’d ever risk losing his best friend. His partner. His Akira. It’s not something he can gamble. It’s not worth it.

He begins to tug, hands shaking, and he can barely feel the sting of pain from nearly pulling his hair out his scalp.

It’s not worth it. He decided that in the very beginning.

Ryuji buries his face into his palms.

But he is so, so exhausted of being tired.

Lightning flashes, and for a split-second, his room is bright.

Fuck it.

By the time thunder rumbles through his apartment, he’s already out the front door.

His sneakers squelch against the wet concrete, soaking his unsocked feet. He’s sprinting fast enough that the street lights around him blur, and he can feel quick breaths getting pulled out of him. It takes him a few seconds to realize that he forgot to wear a raincoat, but he doesn’t care.

Akira is his best friend. Akira accepted him, flaws and all. Akira loves him, one way or another. That’s what held him back. He can’t risk losing that.

Ryuji quickly checks both sides before running across the street, wiping the rain off his brow, and keeps going.

But that’s what should’ve pushed him into confessing sooner. Because if that’s all true, then that can only ever mean that Akira would accept this part of him too, right?

He jerks out of the way as he almost barrels over a fire hydrant, making him step into a deep puddle. It doesn’t slow him down.

Maybe he would’ve realized it sooner if he wasn’t too fucking tired to think straight.

His lungs begin to complain, his breaths turning to wheezes, but he ignores it in favor of going faster.

Too late for that now. All the matters now is to talk to—

He skids to a halt.

In front of him—eyes wide, hair drenched, no shoes—stands Kurusu Akira.

Ryuji’s mouth falls open, and for a minute, he almost laughs. Of course. He should’ve known. Just as he’s willing to sprint to Akira at an unholy hour in the night…

He smiles sheepishly at him, and Ryuji feels his chest constrict in the loveliest way possible.

…Akira would do the exact same thing for him.

The rain slows, and the thunder ceases for a moment. The world pauses long enough for both of them to speak in the same breath, the same heartbeat:

“I’m in love with you.”

#fic tag #akiryu #pegoryu #fanfic #writing #ryuji sakamoto #akira kurusu #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #mine #desperate as that sounds #and yeah man thats a jon bellion song #fic

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