#I’m trying to avoid a fight so it’s safer to do it in here

[writing-makes-me-human]

Trial By Water 🐚

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Pairing: Aonung X reader

Summary: Aonung is hiding his jealousy of your new courter and you have to track him down to find out why he’s suddenly become so hostile.

Word count: 3.9k

A/N: Hi,not dead. Let me know if you enjoy it and if you would like me to write part two( I have some ideas). My requests are always open if you want to request a character from ATWOW or if you want to talk. Anonymous is available if you’re shy :) 

P.S: I’m thinking about adding a tag list, let me know if you would consider being on it or what I could do to make that seem more appealing. 

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You emerged from the water and stumbled onto the shore, desperately fighting the waves as you brushed your hair back as smoothly as you could while scanning the beach. Sure enough, sitting between two dunes, working on something you couldn't quite make out from this distance, was Aonung.

Tsireya had come forward to you this morning before breakfast and asked you to talk to her brother. He had become even moodier than ever these last few days, and the worry on her face made you forget the petty boycotting you and Aonung were in the middle of and you forced yourself to agree to speak with him.

He had been avoiding you for the past week like you had a contagious disease, and even though you wanted to seek him out and demand he tell you what was wrong, he had skilfully been steering clear of his usual spots where you knew to find him.

With nowhere else to search, you decided to brave the waters and swim here in an effort to track him down and interrogate him.

His back faced the sandy knoll that broke up the shrubbery line from the sandy beach. He seemed pissed off even when he thought he was alone. Aonung, with nowhere in mind, had found his way to the back of the island where the mangroves didn't grow and the people didn't come. Nobody came to the deserted beach for leisure in fear of losing themselves against the waves that naturally pulled you against the rocks when one tried to swim anywhere on this side of the island.

Coming to the beach from the inland would have been safer. The venture through the wooded area was guarded by many people who would be out foraging or hunting. You didn't need to bring shame to Aonung by bringing more people into your dispute, as someone would have eventually asked why you were going to the most uninhabitable part of the island that was often reserved for lovers' long nights alone.

He had spotted you out of his peripheral vision, his only tell was the way his ears pressed back against his head, not at all by his warm greeting and friendly demeanor that was not offered to you.

You trudged up the uneven sand terrain with an eye roll; he was so dramatic, sitting up here all by himself.

You watched the boy as you clambered up to meet him. He did not acknowledge you as your shadow fell over him. The water you had just been swimming in dripped onto the dry white sand below you and onto his knee that was pointed towards you, his other leg lay flat while his head was bowed. He was eagerly working on something that he didn't care to present.

"So what's got your loincloth in a twist?" You asked, trying not to sound exhausted or patronizing, even though you were slightly irked at his recent suspicious behaviour.

He didn't concede to you and continued playing his own game of pretending you didn't exist while working, adding more force to his actions now that you had arrived to bug him.

You crouched down, peeking around his head to see what he was doing. You smiled softly to yourself as you saw he was carving a spearhead. You watched for a few seconds as he roughly scrapped away wood shavings, pulling his knife to the top and letting it make a satisfying slice before returning to start the motion again. The point was rather sharp, and from the outlines he had made, you could see he was going to add deep serrations onto the side of the blade.

"That looks a bit too lethal for any fish around here. Are you planning on killing me?" You asked, watching him ignore you. He kept the pace he had set for himself and continued whittling.

"If you are going to kill me, you have to grant me a last wish, it's the warrior code, and I wish for you to tell me why you are sitting here, by yourself in a pout, plotting my death", you smiled gently but he didn't even seem even to clock you had spoken.

"AH! Fine, you win! Just tell me what's wrong. Your sister and I are worried about you!" You hissed at him, getting enraged by his anger that he was not willing to do anything to rectify, which only furthered his attitude. It was becoming tedious to live with.

He finally broke the rules of his game and looked at you. Your face faltered as you saw the most heated hatred in the boy's eyes that you had ever seen in his entire life. He pulled his top lip up in an instinctual quiver to show off his fangs, his eye bore into your soul before he returned to his work, shaving the wood away.

You stood, glaring down at his hair which had been re-braided with looser locks that lead to his signature man-bun at the top of his head. He had hurt your feelings, but you persisted, he was your best friend and you wouldn't leave him like this.

"So, you go away for a hunting trip, come back a week later, and suddenly you don't want to be my friend anymore? If you're going to do that to me you must at least explain yourself!" Reasoning with him seemed to make it worse as his shoulders tensed more from your words. He took a particularly powerful dig into the wood that skinned back a large shaving.

"Careful", you muttered as you paced around him in a circle like a vulture, trying to ascertain what had changed over the past couple of weeks. He looked the same, with no new scars or injuries, the only perceivable difference was his perspective of you.

You paused behind him, leaning down on your knees into the sand that clung to your wet body. You gazed at his back, seeing his muscles tense up and his ears flicker as he listened out to try and identify what you were doing.

You suddenly pressed your hands flat against his lower back which caused him to take a sharp intake of breath. He straightened his posture, and his head clocked up to stare ahead, but still, he didn't speak. You felt his lugs draw in more and more air but he didn't talk, he just gazed over the water and glared at the spot where the water met the horizon and tried his best to ignore as your palms rubbed circles into his back to try and soothe him.

"What's wrong pretty boy?" You whispered, allowing yourself to lean slowly onto him. Your hands crept up to his shoulders and stayed there for a moment, rubbing them with a soft massage before your hands travelled lower, sliding down so you could rub at his pectorals from behind.

He didn't gauge a reaction except for a sharp exhale that sounded caught between annoyance and anger. You hummed in his ear quietly, pressing your stomach against his back, your hands sliding themselves under the sides of his ribs, forming an 'X' shape over his chest that let you cradle him.

His ears twitched for a second before changing directions and turning to a sad downturn. He allowed you to hold him like that for a few seconds before he muttered something under his breath.

"Huh?" You asked, eager to hear what he finally had to say.

"I said that's an ugly bracelet", he quipped, bringing his left hand to your right hand and holding it up for you to see the brown cord that had the small pearl weaved into it.

You focused on the feeling of his hand on yours more than inspecting the before-seen jewellery, gently smiling as his rough hands slipped away, knowing he had broken some more arbitrary rules he had set in place so he could ignore you. Allowing you to touch him made it much harder for him to think, let alone concentrate on being mad at you for so long.

"It was a gift from Ixa'Tey, I think he gave it to me while you were away", you didn't bother admiring it, returning to nestle in the crevice of his neck.

He scoffed at you and moved forward a great distance. He used his arms as oars to push himself off the sand and as far away from you as his long arms would allow him, not caring as you tipped from the balance. That was until you grabbed onto his queue by accident and tugged on it to try and stop yourself face-planting into the sand.

He froze, and you immediately dropped the long braid, falling onto your hand now that your reflexes could manage it. You were silent as you scooted back. He dared to turn and look at you and couldn't help the amusement he felt when he saw you were blushing hard, a hand pressed against your face to try and hide it.

His annoyance at the mention of his old friend from childhood, who he knew had started courting you, was gone as he looked up at your beautiful face.

"I'm sorry", was all you managed to whisper as you stood up, entirely embarrassed you had touched such a private part of his anatomy on accident.

His smile caught you off guard, and you pulled your hand away, gawking at his grin that perked his ears up.

"You're a skxawng", was all he could seem to mutter to you as he scooted back a little, a silent welcome to talk to him.

You smiled widely, feeling the urge to be mad at him for finding amusement in such a taboo thing fade along with the tinge of blush that had previously been on your face.You plopped down next to him, staring at his spearhead and knife that were placed beside him while he crossed his legs, putting aside the work until later.

"Why are you upset?" You asked, watching as his smile died suddenly and his scowl appeared again.

He eyed the carving beside him, but you quickly leaned over his lap, ignoring how his hands flew above his head so he didn't risk touching your skin. He knew if he felt you here with nobody around, the young future chief wouldn't be able to resist his wants, thus turning himself in when he would inevitably confess his most profound feelings to you at the mere touch of your more private skin. He was distracted, watching your waist stretch in front of him like a platter, ignoring how you grabbed the wood block and knife and tossed it to the side of you, watching where it landed while Aonung slapped you upside the head as he lost sight of it.

"That took me all week!" He yelled, but you hushed him with a finger. Placing it on his lips and gesturing for him to breathe.

He took a small breath, watching your ears flicker as you stared at his chest rising and falling. You finally pulled back your hand and tried desperately to record in your mind what the soft flesh of his lips felt like against your finger.

He evened his breathing and returned to your conversation while rolling his eyes as you looked at him expectantly. He didn't want to talk about the previous two weeks, which was why he had been so careful to keep you at more than arm's length.

He knew he was expected to be happy for your new future, but Aonung couldn't bring himself to be anything more than angry, so he tried desperately to stay away and keep from ruining your new life.

"When I got back, people told me things", he mustered from deep below his emotional walls.You settled, watching him with eyes full of readiness, eager to take on what he said, but he did not continue. He chose to turn instead and look at you, his ears pressed back against his head in anger once again.

You groaned loudly, allowing yourself to fall onto your back on the sand. It was always a great big dance with Aonung to figure out his true feelings, and with every step forward you thought you had taken, he was already leading you three steps back.

He watched you groan and mumble, feeling guilt entrap him as he thought about how he had been treating you. He had come to the furthest point of the island to ignore you, and you had followed him to try and cheer him up, yet he still couldn't seem to work up the courage to say what he was thinking.

"They said...that you had mated with someone", he spoke almost silently, hoping the words would be captured by the sea and carried out far away from here where the ugly emotions he felt boiling in his stomach would die.

You sat up, staring at him, a sign to go further, but he growled, not wanting to continue without your acknowledgment to see where your mind was going.

"So? I haven't mated with anyone, I've only just turned 19!" You huffed out a sarcastic laugh. He, however, did not join you in laughter and turned to look down at his hands.

"Aonung, you know how people rumour around the reefs, people place bets on who every young one will mate with, it doesn't mean it's what I have decided", you reasoned, slowly catching onto the reason he was so upset. You placed a caring hand on his knee, and much to your surprise, your heartthrob let one of his fists unfurl and lay on top of yours. Hand on hand.

Even though his jealousy had ended with such anger and unease spread through everyone and everything you couldn't help the giddy glow you had at the idea of Aonung being jealous of people trying to court you.

He nodded to himself, of course, he knew that! He had nearly died of asphyxiation from the laughter he let out when he heard about you and Ixa'Tey being mated. The boy was insufferable and had no rank to speak of, he would have been a terrible match as your mate.

You smiled, waving your hand in front of him in a silent order for him to continue. Seeing you eased every word out of him while a terrible battle fought in his heart, debating with himself if it was worth the risk of telling you he wanted you.

"Yeah, of course, I know that! But when I got back, Rotxo said you two had been courting--and don't deny it either, I've seen him hanging around you like a bug", he seethed.

The one time he had actually calmed down enough to track you down and talk to you about what he had heard and make his claim to you, there the little insect was, following you around with gifts in his hands destined for you and shells in his hair Aonung knew you had braided in. Watching you laugh at his jokes made him want to break the idiot's face, so he just left. He didn't want to face you.

You sighed, rubbing your face gently. Aonung watched you closely, trying to interpret every twitch your eyes made and every flex of your eyebrow.

"I won't lie, he has made a claim to me, and my parents approve", you spoke as strongly as you could, watching him hiss at nothing, muttering words under his breath you knew he meant but wouldn't repeat to you.

"But I haven't said yes to him", you gripped his knee tightly, begging him to believe you. He squeezed your hand back in answer.

"Is there someone else? Why haven't you said yes to him?" He had to know where he stood with you, even if it broke him down and turned him heartless.

It was your turn to become sheepish and standoffish towards displaying your emotions at the boy. You couldn't tell him, even if this was the perfect place and the crucial moment to do it, you couldn't bare the idea of him laughing at you or, worse, quietly rejecting you.

"I don't think I can say..." you whispered, feeling the palpation in your chest grow more frequent.His anger flickered, and his face fell to curiosity, he gawked at you with those powerful eyes you tried to ignore while he crept on you, his breath changed, his heart rate increased, and his hands felt sweaty.

"Why not?" He asked, feeling the words get caught in his throat.

"Ixa'Tey is just not the one I want", you mumbled, feeling your face heat up again as you didn't dare look at him.

The clueless boy felt his heart sink. You did have your eyes on someone, and by the way you weren't even meeting his eyes, ashamed to even look at him, he knew it wasn't him.

"Who is it?" His fists balled together, his aggression clear through his unintended tone that oozed infuriation at the idea of anyone being considered good enough for you.

You let out an exhale of disbelievement at his stupidity. If he were going to act so stupidly, you would at least get your payback at him for making you swim out here after a week of thinking you had done something wrong.

"You know him well, he is very handsome", a slight grin appearing on your lips as if in happy thought, imagining the boy sitting next to you in your head while Aonung rolled his eyes, trying to think of every boy he had ever interacted with.

"He is one of the best hunters in our tribes, so very skilled", he clenched his fist tightly, pulling the hand that had been holding yours away, not daring to look at you because Aonung knew he would explode if your face were matching the tone in which you spoke about this boy.

"Who is it?" He asked again, this time though his voice was worryingly even, meaning he was enraged beyond all shadow of a doubt.

"Sometimes I go swimming with him, and I picture us doing terrible things behind the rocks, it's so embarrassing because he has no idea what I'm thinking", this quickly drew his attention and he couldn't stop himself from glaring hot daggers at you while you dreamily imagined being intimate with anyone who wasn't him.

"I was hoping he would make a claim to me before anyone else, especially since we've known each other so long, but he didn't", as you spoke these new words, you felt your ears flicker in despair. You really had been hoping Aonung would have made a claim to you before he left but he didn't. Ixa'Tey had stolen you away, and your parents were thrilled to encourage it, but you knew every time you were with him that you secretly wished it was somebody else.

"He's a moron then if he doesn't claim you", his fists were an unnatural colour now as he tensed them. He hadn't thought of you dealing with unrequited love in the same way he was. He would do anything to protect you, and if that meant beating in the face of some guy who broke your heart, he couldn't even pretend the idea made him any less than smug.

"I agree!" You yelled, hands raised to the sky as if he had just said something groundbreaking.

"He's more than that, he's a skxawng!" you yelled. He pulled back, a bit confused about your total 180 on this mystery boy, who you had gone from melting at the mere idea of to firing up at without mercy.

"He is such a conniving brat! First, he makes no claim to me, gets upset when another does, then has the audacity to take off for a week, comes back mad at me, then makes me swim to the other side of the island just to get some sense out of him!" You had jumped up halfway through the speech, punching one hand into the other with a grin before you waited for him to catch up.

His eyes widened beyond control. He could only watch you while taking heavy breaths. The words and feelings you had both been trying to cover up now lay open in front of one another. Your smile faded as you watched him look at you. Had you misinterpreted him? Did he not like you? His mouth was open, but his eyebrows were pointed down in careful questioning.

"Me?" He asked softly, trying not to sound desperate, knowing your rejection would crumble him up and drown him.

You did confess that perhaps admitting it was him you wanted to mate with more than anybody else while making a joke was probably the best way to send the poor man mixed signals.

He stood slowly, head cocked to the side, as he walked to you in two short steps. He looked down at you with the most severe look on his face you had ever seen. He bumped into you lightly, chest touching yours as he tried to find what to say.

You nodded, leaning forward with your eyes never leaving his. His skin burnt a hole through you, and his face was so close you could smell the sweetness of the oils used in his hair.Staring into his eyes made you feel like nobody else, Aonung didn't just look up and down like a few others did, he looked into your soul.

When you were children, you used a childish bullying tactic on his sister that would always catch a reaction. The two of you used to pretend that you and Aonung were such close friends you could read each other's minds, it was a treasured memory. Right now, though, with his eyes peering past your body and into your very being, you swore he could pull anything he wanted from your mind with those eyes looking into every part of you that you wanted to keep private, just like you pretended to do when you were kids.

"Yes, it's you skxawng", you whispered, tilting your head up a bit to press your forehead against his, feeling his cool skin aline with yours making your heart beat like a drum and your breath tremble.

"Good, nobody else would have been good enough", he matched your volume, both of you allowing your hands to reach to the other's face in an affectionate embrace. Everything felt perfect to you as the sound of the water not far from where you were standing crashed against the beach with a roar.

"I see you", he mumbled, louder than his whisper but not quite in the usual volume he used that commanded respect.

You pulled away from his forehead, stroking his cheek with your thumb while you grinned from ear to ear.

"Does this mean you've made a claim to me, or should I go back to speak with Ixa'Tey", you grinned devilishly, finding that the teasing lightened up the air that was thick for your desires of what to do with one another. You were two young adults in love on a beach with nobody in sight, but you still had traditions that must be obeyed even though you knew nobody could lay a claim to you that would burn brighter than Aonung's.

He pulled back a little, hands coming up to smack you before they fell to rest on your hips, squeezing timidly at your sides while you laughed, taking no notice as the symphony squeezed his heart.

"I lay claim to you, and I intend to court you better than Ixa'Tey ever could", he rolled his eyes and spat out the boy's name while you absorbed in the fact that after so many years, he had finally got the guts to say he wanted you as his mate for life and he was going to claim you.

#aonung #aonung x reader #aonung x y/n #romance #avatar #way of water #avatar way of water #avatar way of water x reader #pandora #atwow x reader #atwow imagines #atwow spoilers #avatar x reader #avatar 2022 #ao'nung #ao'nung x you #ao'nung x reader

[muldermuse]

this is kind of a ramble so bear with me:

thinking about sending two sinners!gator into an absolute tailspin when he shows up to your house to see everything in boxes and your clothes packed up in a few suitcases by the door

he’s like ????? WHAT IS GOING ON WHERE ARE YOU GOING???? and just casually saying “skipping town” and going to kiss him and he’s like ??????

i can only imagine the catharsis of telling him that “there’s nothing in fargo for me, most of the town hates me and the ones who don’t just wanna fuck me, you’re probably gonna marry glenda which will only make everyone hate me even more if they find out i’m the other woman. So I want to live somewhere else. I’m not happy here.” and he obv freaks out

and maybe you’re just going to stay at a friends house while your place gets painted, but maybe leaving was on your mind (it’s easier to sell a house with fresh paint👀), and maybe you wanted to see how serious he was about coming with you…but none of that is any of his business…

i’m usually not an angst girlie but i’m on my period and it’s probably a safer bet to be melodramatic and pick a fight with a fictional man than one i actually know 😭😭

ok this ask made me feral, i felt so ANGSTY writing it

thank u so much for sending it through angel <3

18+ only!! Angst below the cut!! Gator is mean and reader is maybe meaner. They're both terrible people. He calls her a whore, she calls him a lot of mean names. Mentions of smut but no actual smut.

Maybe, this is super far in the future for the two sinners fic or maybe it is not canon. who knows!!! not me!!!

You’re not sure how he found out. You’ve quietly handed your notice in at work and said goodbye to the few in this shitty town you care about. Jenson, Jax and Steve have been ghosted (but you know that they’d all come back with a simple ‘you up?’ text). You weren’t going to tell Gator you were leaving- he didn’t deserve a goodbye. You’d planned to go for 3 months as your place was going to get renovated in that time (you’d been saving up for years to make it more of a home). So, you thought that the months away would be an opportunity to become a new person. A better person. Someone who didn’t fuck pathetic Sheriffs. If anyone looked in; they’d think you were going forever. You’d decided that as soon as you left, you’d block Gator and when (or if) you returned, you’d avoid him like the plague.

The U-HAUL parked in your drive probably gave it away. Or when Glenda saw you filling up your truck and made a snide comment about what you were doing. Or maybe it was when you fucked him 2 days ago he made a passing comment about how empty your home looked. Since then, the entire hall area is covered in boxes filled with your possessions. You try not to let it depress you that your whole life has been packed up in a matter of days. You need a fresh start, you’re moving in with a friend a few towns over and you can be whoever you want to be for a few months. No one there has to know that you’ve been fucking a loser in a relationship for the best part of 2 years. You know it’s him as soon as he knocks on the door, no one knocks as loud as him and other people wait to be invited in. Gator lets himself in as you’re checking your backpack one final time.

“The fuck is all this shit?” He kicks a box that’s in his way and you’re thankful you don’t hear a shatter. “Saw the U-Haul and uh- Glenda saw you fillin’ up. Plannin’ a trip or somethin’?”. He tries to sound unbothered but you know him better than that.

You don’t look at him when you tell him, “Yeah, I’m leaving”. You tell yourself that it’s because you’re checking your backpack but really it’s because you can feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins and you’re trying to compose yourself before you lose your shit.

“The fuck did you jus’ fuckin’ say?”

“Sorry, I’ll say it slower because you’re a fuckin’ idiot. I am leaving”. You draw out the last three words and stare at him. You can hear your heart thumping in your ears as you try to read the expression on his face. It’s a mix of anger, confusion, and sadness. A soft kiss his pressed to his cheek as you walk into the dining room to check your toiletries box. That’s the only pleasantry you’ll exchange with him today- or maybe ever again.

His boots stomp behind you as he follows you in. “Well, where are you goin’?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m there, Gator. Now you can fuck off back to Glenda and play fuckin’ happy families for the rest of your life”.

“Well- why are you leavin’? You’ve never mentioned this before”. His voice breaks as he speaks, either a sign he’s getting choked up or he’s getting really angry.

You can feel the anger rattling in your chest and the sound of your heartbeat in your ears becomes overwhelming. “Why am I going? Gator, everyone in this town fuckin’ hates me or thinks that I’m a total whore because of your fuckin’ bitch of a girlfriend. Who- by the way, you’re goin’ to marry because you’re too fuckin’ chickenshit to upset your crazy daddy…” You slam your hands on the table and take a quick breath, “Gator- I fuckin’ hate it here, I’m miserable and I can’t do it any longer- it’s killin’ me”.

He’s stood opposite you and fuck, does he look mad. He doesn’t move for a minute but then shoves your boxes off the table and kicks them when they hit the floor. After a few seconds, he kicks them again with more force and slams his hands on the table.

“Yeah, real fuckin’ mature Gator, breaking my shit beca-“

“What about this? What about us?” His voice is more muted than you’ve ever heard it. His breath is shuddering gasps. You’re unsure why it enrages you.

You laugh cruelly, “What us? What the fuck are you talking about? Gator, you have a fuckin’ girlfriend who you’re going to marry.”

“Yeah but when has that stopped you- huh? You can’t put this all on me. You’re jus’ as bad as me.”

He moves to stand in front of you. The energy in the room is charged, usually, when it feels like this between the pair of you, it would end in some angry sex where you’re both trying to dominate the other person but you both know that isn’t going to happen today. 

“You’re movin’ away to be a fuckin’ whore somewhere else... or because you’re jealous of Glenda. She gets all of me and you jus’ get the fuckin’ scraps”. His smile is wicked and his eyes look darker than you’ve ever seen them.

You take a step closer to him, “I couldn’t think of anything fucking worse than havin’ all of you. You’re a pathetic fuckin’ daddy’s boy who’s never won anythin’ in his life”. You get close enough to whisper in his ear, “you’re a fuckin’ loser, Gator.”

You hate how much you want to fuck him in this moment and by the red bloom that’s creeping up his neck; you know he feels the same.

He leaves your home silently. He kicks another box on his way out and you finally hear a shatter. His tyres spin as his car races off your front lawn. 

You should block his number and know that that is the end of this awful affair. 

But you both know that it isn’t.

#gator tillman fanfic #gator tillman #gator tillman smut #gator tillman angst #gator tillman fic #gator x reader #gator tillman x fem!reader #gator tillman x reader #gator tillman x you #gator tillman x f!reader #fargofx #fargo s5 #fargo season 5 #fargo fx #fargo #fargoedit #joe keery x reader #joe keery smut #joe keery #joe keery angst #two sinners works

[grippingbeskar]

request incoming!!- so I don’t know if you’ve seen the last of us specifically the second one. This scene (https://youtu.be/RHNohvRHd1M) where happy shows mercy for dinner. I was wondering if you could make that into a fic with din and the reader where the two are basically in the same exact situation, Reader tries to save mando. Whoever they’re fighting, almost kills the reader and then din says “she’s pregnant.” and whoever they’re fighting shows mercy or goes to kill the reader anyways but din saves the day. you can choose the ending!!!

thank u ❤️❤️

warnings: illusion to smut, mentions of child loss, pregnancy, early pregnancy, i have no idea how baby stuff works so i’m guessing the size of the baby but like it’s early on is what i was trying to get at 😭

a/n: okay i am a big tlou fan and i know this request has been here for a hot minute but it just took me a while to get in the mood but thank you so much for this! i love this scene in the game, it’s such a memorable moment. thank you so much for your request!

“Stay quiet. I’ll go around.” Din says in a whisper, his hand pressing you down flat onto the sandy ground. “Do you understand? Wait. Here.”

“Okay!” You whisper-yell back, rolling your eyes. You know Din’s face is under there, serious as ever, and though you know you can protect yourself, his new found obsessiveness over your safety has some primal heat shimmering through you. It makes you nod once more and tuck your legs in out of sight, and his thumb swipes softly over your cheek before he rolls out of cover and disappears.

Ever since you’d told Din you were pregnant, he was relentless. You thought he was protective before? Now, you couldn’t even take a step without him right beside you, making sure you didn’t fall off balance. He took care of everything— making sure you were safe, cared for, even avoiding collecting bounties and skirting the Outer Rim, refusing to let you near anything that is even remotely dangerous.

You were carrying his child. Something he never thought possible for himself. When he’d found you, a mud covered runaway looking for a quick escape off a backwater planet, he never could have foreseen what came next. Falling in love with you, showing his face, having a child… he had every right to want to protect this. Protect you.

You knew he hated bringing you here, but you were running low on supplies and needed to refuel. You wouldn’t make it to a safer planet before you’d be running on rations, and Din refused to feed you anything other than real food. It was your fault. You’d distracted him from taking any real stock. Being pregnant had also come with some other… consequences, that kept his mind occupied. And hands. And mouth.

The blaster fire in front of you knocked you back to reality, hearing the familiar sounds of Din’s grunts as he made his way through the gang of Imperials. The small supply store you’d hoped to be in and out of quickly had now turned in to a shootout, both your own and Dins faces attached to several bounties in the Inner and Outer Rims. You’d spent most of your first few years with him outrunning them.

The blaster fire continues, and every urge in you screams to help. Get your blaster out and fire at something. You know you can do it— you’d learnt from the best. Where Din has his attack dog senses on high alert, something has been awakened in you too. An urge to protect— and it’s on fire in your chest. You can’t sit here and do nothing. You know you aren’t Din, but you have to do something.

The blaster fire has thinned out, and just as you think it’s all over, Din shouts.

Loud. It’s nearly a scream, but through the modulator it’s lower. You hear two— no, three, maybe— three sets of footsteps rush in, and Din groans in answer to loud thud. It sounds like something hitting beskar, and the clatter of weapons on the ground confirm your suspicions. They are beating him.

He has time. You know, realistically, he does. It’s beskar they are kicking through. Their legs will break before they ever breach the armour— but he’s hurting. You can hear it. Every kick makes him wince, and you can imagine they are going for where he’s been shot. Hitting him over and over and over—

You roll out of cover before you can think, and there’s two men standing over Din’s crumpled body. You shoot, one dropping instantly over the top of him. It takes him a second, but before he can respond, you’ve shot the next guy and he topples over too.

“No!” Din shouts, still trapped under two dead bodies. He thrashes, and you can see the blood leaking out of his side. You take one step forward, but you’re yanked back by your hair before you reach him. “Don’t touch her!”

“You fucking bitch.” Someone seethes behind you, and slams their knee into your side. Something crunches, and blaring pain shoots through your chest, causing you to wail and crumple to the ground.

Whoever’s behind you doesn’t let you get far, still holding you by your hair with your neck bent up painfully. Their free hand smashes into your side again, and you feel yourself cough up blood as you try to scream out.

“Stop. Stop. You want me— let her go. You…” His voice is strained, and he’s finally got out from under the dead weight to stagger to his knees. His gloved hand is holding his side, and your eyes go fuzzy looking at the blood. “You don’t want to do this.”

“She’s wanted by the Empire just as much as you. Though maybe they won’t mind that I only take one in alive, considering the carnage.” Din is still panting, getting up on one leg, but falling back to his knees.

His helmet is locked on you, and you try your best to tell him not to offer himself. Your mouth opens and despite your best efforts, nothing comes out. Instead, just a tear falls, cutting through the dirt down your face. Images flash behind your fluttering eyes, of the life you might of had with… with the tiny little thing in your stomach, hardly bigger than a jellybean. The thought makes you choke up, blood dripping out the side of your mouth.

A hand still holds your head up, scalp feeling like it’s being wrung out.

“Just take me. I’ll go. She has nothing to do with this.” Din puts out his hand, and tries to stand again. The sound of him hitting the ground for a second time makes your eyes force open, and it’s then that you see what he’s doing. He’s not really staggering, but a discarded blaster is tucked next to the rock on the right of you.

Too out of sight for your enemy behind you, but you can see it. Din can too. He just needs to get closer.

A searing cold touches the highest point of your neck, and the light flashes off the edge of the blade. It’s sharp, already drawing blood.

“One alive is enough.” The enemy repeats behind you, and Din panics.

“Wait!” He shouts, his gloved hand shaking ever so slightly. There was genuine panic in his voice, a waiver you don’t think you’ve ever heard. “Wait. Please.”

“Why should I? This scum killed my men. You’re lucky I haven’t already slit her thro—“

“She’s pregnant. Please. She’s pregnant.” Din is breathless when he talks, and your stomach drops. You feel the blade drop slightly on your neck, instead the cold blunt side rests lower, closer to your collarbone.

The man behind you keeps his hold, and after a few seconds, he just scoffs.

“Bullshit. She… Fuck you, Mandalorian. You can’t trick me.” The blade doesn’t move, and Din shuffles in the sand. He’s close enough. He just needs a second. One second of hesitation.

“It’s… true. Please—“ Your voice is scratchy, but your hand manages to rest on your stomach. Din watches your movement, and you can see him straining with effort. To get to you. To save you. Both of you. “Please. We didn’t—“

“Shut up, bitch! Even if you are, it’s one less rebel scum to deal with.” He bends down to yell in your ear, and your eyes screw shut. If he’s this low to you, it means he took his eyes off Din.

Din wouldn’t miss his chance.

The weight drops off you before you can register the sound of the blaster shot, and blood sprays the side of your face. Your eyes are still screwed shut. You were shaking— fear creeping it’s way up your throat and all the way down to your toes. You weren’t usually afraid for anyone but Din, but now… you hadn’t even thought about what it meant to have someone else to think about. Someone who relies on you—

“Hey, hey… you’re okay, mesh’la. Look at me.” His hands— real, warm hands, press lightly on your face. His thumb strokes your cheeks, the sensation grounding you to him, but your breath was still heaving like you’d been winded. Your eyes open slightly at the sound of his soothing voice. “Look at me, baby. There you go. You’re okay.”

“Din. Din— I’m sorry… I thought he was… I thought that—“ You were crying, sobbing into his arms as he wraps you into him, timing your shuddering breaths with his own.

“You’re okay. Fuck— we’re okay. Shh. Shh, there you go.” Your head buried itself in the crook of his neck, one of the only soft places he has in full armour. It’s suffocating, but being surrounded by him like this calms your racing heart. “Udesiir, cyar’ika. You’re okay.”

You don’t remember how long he holds you, but it’s long enough that your breathing returns to something slow and controlled. When you shuffle out of his lap, dried blood is still caked on his side from where he was shot. Panic claws at you, eyes wide, but Din holds your face and shakes his head.

“It’s okay. I’m— I’ll be okay. We just need to leave, cyar’ika. Okay? You think you’re okay to fly?” When you nod in his hands, he scoops you up despite the pain he must be feeling, allowing you to bury yourself closer. He limps outside into the heat of the planet and takes off, his jetpack soaring you higher and higher.

The ship was docked… somewhere close, and Din’s low groans were getting more strained by the second. You could tell you had no truely serious injuries, more the shock and fear paralysing you, and the panic for your child. When Din flies you both into the Crest, he collapses on the main hull, and you’re on him in the next moment.

“I’m…okay. I just—“

“Let me take care of you Din.” You whisper, raising his shirt and moving his armour so you could see his wound. He shakes his head, but he’s too weak to push you off.

You wince when you reach for the med kit, but bring it back to him with a gentle efficiency. He was always so rough with himself, treating his own wounds with none of the care and kindness he does for you, so even though your head is fuzzy and every breath hurts, you make sure your fingers are soft on his skin, cleaning around the wound and sewing him up as quickly as possible.

You dress the wound, poorly at best, but it will hold until you are in a safer sector. You were lucky you fuelled up first, at least enough the get yourself out of here.

When you finish the last of the dressing, you look up to find Din already staring at you.

“Cyar’ika.” He rumbles, his hands free of the gloves cover your own. “You need to rest. Let me look at you.”

“I’m okay. Bruised ribs, but I would… I would know if something was… wrong.” Din growls, an almost animalistic sound of anger coming from him. He holds you tighter, one hand easily covering your two shaking ones. “I’m— we’re okay.”

“I knew I should never have stopped here. I’m sorry— I’m so sorry—“

“Stop, Din. It’s not you’re fault.” He groans, and you know under that helmet he’s grimacing. The guilt eats at him all the time, and you’d be damned if he let himself add this to the list. “This is the life we live. We need to… adjust. It will take time. But we’re okay, now. Right?”

“I’ll never let anything happen to you. Both of you. I will never let anything like that happen again. Ever.” He sits up with a grunt, pulling you close. “My cyar’ika.”

Your hands fall in sync to your stomach, both of your hands fluttering above the skin like you were afraid to push to hard. To wake what was growing beneath the surface. Disturb it, as if the two of you were not worthy of waking it.

“My ik’aad.” He pushes his helmet up enough to press a soft kiss to your shoulder, and sighs at the taste of your skin. “I love you.”

“I love you.” You repeat, and with his arms around you again, you know you are safe.

.

.

.

.

.

translations:

mesh’la - beautiful

udesiir - relax/calm down/take it easy

cyar’ika- darling/sweetheart

ik’aad - child (under three)

#the mandalorian x y/n #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #mando x you #mando x y/n #mando x reader #din dijarin x reader #din djaren x you #din djarin x y/n #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal

[deerlottie]

NAT ANGST I THOUGHT ABOUT

Tw-flashback about Nats shitty dad, safe word use, mention of abuse, and she gets very scared and the end is sort of hurt/comfort

Thought of it being one of the first times nat and R have sex and they’re still figuring out each others kinks and their dynamic(s). nat going into it like “willing to try almost anything” but then quickly realizing that verbal degradation takes a lot out of her and it can trigger a fight or flight response in her :((((

“uhh- fuck, RED! Sorry, fuck, i’m sorry, please stop, i can’t, please don’t touch me right now, i just need a minute, sorry”

her rushing to the bathroom with wide and frantic eyes gripping the sink trying to tell herself to get it together but she can’t get rid of the memories of her dad. The second her brain processed the words “little slut”, she felt the weight of the gun in her hands, the powerlessness of watching her dad hit her mom and then hitting her, the way she felt like her pain was limitless when he called her stupid and useless, she couldn’t get out of her head. As r approached the door wondering if it’d be helpful to go in with her or stay out here, nat quickly barges through, grabbing her clothes from around your room, avoiding eye contact the entire time.

“Listen, um, it’s been real and uh..i like you a lot, but i just remembered a thing i gotta do so i’ve gotta head out. I didn’t mean to give you blue balls or anything, but i’ll see you.”

She didn’t even believe the shit she was saying…tears were still coming down her face the whole time she was talking and she tried to give you a quick “smile” and kissed you on the cheek, but even someone without a working olfactory sense could smell the bullshit from miles away. Next time you see her, she goes out of her way to explain why she freaked out last time. Lottie had encouraged her to talk about her feelings instead of running away. Had it been up to her, she would’ve moved to another continent to avoid talking about her feelings. But she really wanted to make things work with you.

“I don’t know. I guess i had kind of a shitty life with my parents and everything and uh. I guess i just got.. scared? I was really, really scared. It like. Brought me back to somewhere i didnt wanna be.”

She doesn’t get into detail at all, but you get the gist of it well enough to understand. You apologize, thinking maybe if you had asked her in depth about what she was comfortable with, she wouldn’t have freaked out. You like her SO much. And you’d never knowingly do anything to hurt her.

Then the weeks after she talks to you, she turns into the biggest cuddlebug ever. She won’t admit it, of course, but she feels safe around you. That hasn’t happened for her in forever. A part of her is scared shitless by it, but she lets herself indulge in the simple pleasures of being held and holding people she cares about. You’re there to hold her when nat has a nightmare one night, shushing her cries and whispering to her that it’s just a bad dream and that she’s safe with you. Oh my god i love her.

oh mygod :(((((((((((( the second she says red, you stop immediately and your heart sinks. the last thing you ever wanted to do was hurt her and you feel SO guilty and ur minds racing a million miles a second while she's in the bathroom ☹️ you text her a few times after, asking if she's okay, but she never responds so you get the hint to just leave her alone but you feel sick and sosososo bad.

thinking about her sneaking into your window to come and apologize :((( you're so happy to see her again and relived to know that she doesnt actually hate you, and you give her all the time in the world to just sit in silence and figure out what to say. holding her while you two sleep that night and she's never felt safer and more secure ☹️☹️

sometimes she just needs to hold you for hours just to calm down too :((( her head gets to her sometimes and she just Needs you. ur always there to whisper reassurance in her ear and she feels like a fool for crying at the simple words but they help so much.

#natalie scatorccio thoughts 💭

[simlit]

Chosen of the Sun | | forest // eighteen

| @maladi777 | @catamano | @izayoichan | @mangopysims

next / previous / beginning

TALILA: Aster? ASTER: Oh, what do you know? There’s still good left in this godforsaken place. INDRYR: You’re injured. I’ve got a potion that can help. EIRA: Thank you. INDRYR: What happened to you two? ASTER: Had the unfortunate luck of running into a less friendly pair. Shame you missed the show. TALILA: You mean, another team did this to you? INDRYR: I can hazard a guess which one. ASTER: Best keep away from the dark elf and his idiot lackey. They’ve taken our banner already, I’m sure they won’t hesitate to come for yours. Though, I’m sure you’d fare a good shake better, Little Bloom. I’d rather you not have to. Just to be safe. TALILA: Before this trial, I would have said we’d never fight each other. I suppose, I don’t really know the kinds of people we’re dealing with. I guess you were right, Indy. INDRYR: Cynicism and reality often go hand in hand. I find it easier to have no faith in humanity so that I can never be disappointed. EIRA: I like this guy. INDRYR: Thank you, I quite like myself, too. TALILA:  Maybe the four of us should stick together? EIRA: Fine by me. I’m not particularly interested in winning in the first place. You, Bard? ASTER: At this rate, I think I’d rather not. I’ll just be happy not to come out of this forest as a full-cooked meal. TALILA: Then it’s settled. We’ll be safer if we travel as one. And these trials are starting to make me nervous. TALILA: You’re looking better than when last I saw you. Admittedly, hasn’t been much these past few days. I was worried. ASTER: I know, Little Bloom. I’m afraid I just haven’t been myself. It’s not you I was avoiding. Hell, I wasn’t trying to avoid anyone. I was just trying to work out a problem that doesn’t really have a solution. TALILA: What do you mean? If something’s the matter, you can always tell me. Even if I can’t fix it, I’d like to be there for you. ASTER: You’re a real genuine person. I’ve not known many of those. It’s refreshing. TALILA: Oh, thank you… ASTER: Problem is, I’m the same as I’ve always been. Reckless and self-serving. I do a lot of stupid things. And win even more stupid prizes. I don’t want to drag anyone else into that, willingly or otherwise. The Witcher was right. Even welcomed in, I’ll do my best to force myself out. TALILA: Aster. If you’re telling me to go, then I’ll go. But say as much and nothing less. If you need time, I’ll give it to you. If you need space, you can have that, too. Just as long as you’ll let me come back, eventually. I can be patient and I can be right here beside you. It doesn’t hurt me to help you. ASTER: I’m… just not used to having people want to stick around. TALILA: I’m not people. ASTER: That you’re not, Little Bloom. TALILA: Will you tell me what’s going on? ASTER: I… uh… might have taken a cursed skull from that treasured up cave we found. Apparently didn’t care for being displaced, and it sort of… stole my music. TALILA: Oh! Well… that’s horrible. Was it… a very nice looking skull? ASTER: Wh— Hahahaha! TALILA: Hmm, no? ASTER: It did look pretty… distinguished. TALILA: Perfectly understandable, then. ASTER: I certainly thought so… at the time. TALILA: Well, we all make mistakes.

#ts4 #ts4 screenshots #ts4 story #sims story #ts4 bachelor challenge #chosen of the sun #cc: aster songleaf #cc: eira #cc: talila #cc: indryr #blood tw

[cammie-morgan-goode]

Usually when a teenager thinks of summer vacation, they think of hanging out at the beach or going to the mall or hanging with their friends more than their families. They associate summer with freedom.

I never had that. I never had to worry about running off to the beach or going to see my grandparents or anything. Not that I still have any but that’s beside the point.

I don’t need to look up from the book I’m reading to know that Cam is basking in the sun, her face towards the sky. She’s listening to Bex prattle on about the next James Bond movie when a group of boys pass by, ultimately ending the conversation. Bex isn’t boy crazy just… boy distracted. And it always makes me laugh.

Cam doesn’t know I’m here and that’s just the way I prefer it. She doesn’t need to know that I check up on her. She doesn’t need to know that I feel she’s safer with me just out of reach. She doesn’t need to know that I worry.

Bex throws her arms out wide and I can practically hear her accent. I watch as the group of boys pivots, turning around. A boy with tanned skin and dark hair, saunters up to Bex, eyeing her up and down. Bex could definitely take him down with one punch but I know that would cause a scene.

“What’s a girl like you doing here?” The boy asks, and I have to fight to roll my eyes.

Bex tosses her hair over her shoulder and bats her eyes. Cammie’s never done that. She’s never flirted with me before. Not that she’s needed to. I was hooked the minute we were partnered up in Solomon’s class.

“Just visiting,” Bex answers. I can see the boy practically melt from her accent. I can’t help but chuckle.

I drop my book into the open black bag at my feet and pull my shirt over my head. I shake out my hair a little bit, giving it a wind blown look. Taking off my shoes, I drop my shirt on top of them. And then I jog over to where the girls are.

“They didn’t have that smoothie you wanted babe, so I wasn’t sure which kind you would like instead,” I say a few steps in front of them.

Cammie’s mouth drops open for five seconds before she clears her throat with a cough. Bex nudges her with her elbow, as if to say real smooth.

I come to a stop next to Cam, lean down and kiss her cheek, before I straighten and offer a hand to Beach Boy. “I’m Zach. And you are?”

Beach Boy laughs like he’s uncomfortable and tells Bex that she can join his game anytime she’d like before he disappears in the sea of people. I roll my shoulders and drop onto the towel beside Cammie. She turns to look at me.

“What are you doing here, Zach?” She asks, confused.

“Thought I’d pop in, say hi,” I shrug, stealing a grape from the food on her plate, resting on her lap.

“Well while you two have some catching up to do, I’m going to find a distraction,” Bex says, getting up and sauntering back over to the group of boys. I shake my head.

Cammie doesn’t even watch her go, her attention fixed on me. I can practically see the questions turning in her head. But she only stares at me. Waiting. Always waiting.

“I can’t drop in and see my girlfriend?” I ask.

But Cammie gives me the look. The look that says stop trying to avoid the question. The look that says I’m over your games Zachary.

I sigh and look out towards the water. “Townsend missed a call-in.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “And so did Rachel.”

Cammie stills. She stares at me. It seems like she can’t say anything. “Does Joe know?” She asks, her voice cracking.

“Yes. He’s with the Baxters at the safe house right now. I’m sure it’s okay, Gallagher Girl. I just didn’t want to ruin your summer,” I say quietly.

Cammie shakes her head. “No. No. I needed to know. I’m glad you told me. How many?” She asks.

I pause and chew on my bottom lip. “Four.”

Cammie sucks in a break and take her hands. “It’s going to be okay, Cam. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

And I don’t quite know if I’m saying that for her benefit or mine.

(Written by: @cammie-morgan-goode)

#gallagher girls series #gallagher girls #ally carter #cammie morgan goode writes #zach goode #zachary goode #cammie morgan #cameron morgan #I’m trying to get back into writing so here’s a blurb #gg fanfic #gg #rebecca baxter #bex baxter #zammie #Zach and Cammie #cammie and zach

[bucky-munson]

What's Hidden in the Shadows | 6

Summary: Bullies are everywhere. They manifest as a group of jocks at school who think you're fat and want to make sure you know. Sometimes they even manifest as your own father. But can they manifest as the love of your life? No probably not.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Words: 1.8k

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Plus Sized!GN!Reader ; Steve Harrington X Plus Sized!GN!Reader

Warnings: Bullying, abuse, swearing, mean ass Billy obv

a.n: Oh boy strap in for this one. I had a lot of fun, but I'm so sorry it took so long ;;

Taglist: @harringtonfan4 @jubilee40 @cevans-winchester

"So does Friday work for you?" 

The question stuns you for a moment and all eyes are on the two of you. You knew this was just supposed to be a fun outing between two friends, but with the stares from your friends around the lunch table there's a heavy pressure on your shoulders. It was like the others' thoughts were being broadcast directly to you.

Had The Steve Harrington just asked Y/N out?

The silence took more than a few seconds and quickly Steve was backtracking.

"I mean if not then it's perfectly okay, I just know there's a new scary movie playing at the drive in and we could go see it and–" 

"Friday's fine!" You reply quickly, trying to fight down the nerves threatening to spill over. If you had waited a single second longer, surely you would have panicked. Steve can't help but cheese happily, the warmth almost radiating off of him as he tells you he'll be there to get you at seven sharp so you guys can get the best spot. 

Sneaking around is infinitely harder than you first thought it would be. The thoughts plague you as you trudge down the side of the road, avoiding the busy after school traffic. 

"It's stupid I know, but trust me it'll just be easier if they dont see us together.." Billy assured you that he would find a way to keep the jocks off your back, so long as they didn't have to know about.. Whatever you could call the secret meetings between the two of you. Mostly consisting of him smoking like a freight train while you tried to work on your homework, but occasionally he managed to pry the books away from you.

That's how you found yourself now, books confiscated to force you to focus on him. 

"You're such a stick in the mud, y/n.. Leave the homework for home and have fun, it won't kill you. Do you need a drag?" He sighs, offering the half gone cigarette to you. 

"I don't smoke unless it's been a rough night.. Though I am stuck to this uncomfortable leather seat so.." 

He only rolls his eyes before shrugging, continuing to puff away then discarding the used butt out the window.

"Billy… Why are we doing this? We never hung out before and you hated me.. What changed other than.. well that.." You didn't mean to sour the mood, but you couldn't help it. It was so out of the realm of possibility that you'd be sitting here beside Billy Hargrove of all people. 

"Do I bore you?"

"That's not what I–"

"I know, dumbass.. But.. I don't know.. It's comfortable to me.. I don't have to.. Pretend or put on a show, I can just breathe,"

There's a moment of silence as you take in what Billy said to you. You, of all people, made him feel like he could just be even though you were here constantly waiting for a punchline. Tommy to pop out of one of the bushes surrounding the lake and the joke to be over. But Billy wouldn't say something like that if he truly wanted to hurt you would he?

"Get out of your head, y/n. I know that look too well," he huffs, mushing your face gently before continuing, "so I was thinking.. Let's go somewhere this weekend, since your dad is out of town and all. We can make a day trip of it, I'm not even watching the brat on Saturday." 

You know he means Max and you want to ask how he got so lucky but you figure it's safer to just err on the side of caution. 

"Depends, do I get to pick the place?" You quip back, looking out the windshield at the lake in front of you, almost ashamed of how excited you are at the idea of another moment like the last time you went out of Hawkins with Billy. He only laughs softly in return.

"Absolutely not, but you can pick the music." 

Friday couldn't come fast enough and now that it was here, you regretted ever saying yes to either boy. No matter what you did, you were absolutely preoccupied by the anticipation the weekend brought. You tried to calm your nerves, reminding yourself that it was just a horror movie with a friend, but a part of you couldn't stop putting a soft spin on every interaction you had ever had with Steve. Then when you opened the door to see him with a sweet smile, holding a bouquet of daisies, you knew you were too far gone. 

"If this is a date… Should I change into something nicer?" You mumble after thanking him for such beautiful flowers, but he adamantly refuses. 

"I don't want you wearing anything that makes you less than comfortable! You don't even have to think of it as a date if you don't wanna!" He assures you, resting a hand on your back as he leads you to his car. But when he opens the door for you and waits for you to get in before gently closing it, you realize how used to this you could be.

The comfortable silence made its return as Steve drove to the lot, and then you realized what Billy's words meant. I can just breathe.. There's no pressure to speak, no feeling of danger. Stealing a glance over at him, you take in his profile, hoping he doesn't notice your eyes tracing along the soft features. 

"Something on my face?" He chuckles softly, not bothering to face you. Giving a soft shake of your head, you focus back forward, a little embarrassed.

"Front or back?" Steve asks, rolling his head over to you as you both wait in line, the cars trickling along slowly. 

"Hmmm.. Back," you say with a soft smile and it seems to be the right answer as he smiles even more, nodding in agreement. Once the car is parked, he unbuckles his seat belt and settles a bit more comfortably into his chair. 

"Oh! I brought snacks!" He laughs as he reaches into the backseat, pulling up a couple of boxes of candy and offering them to you. "I like both of these so you pick one."

The movie becomes an afterthought before it even begins as Steve eases you into a casual conversation. You almost can't believe how easy it was to talk to him about anything, telling him about your mother leaving and your dreams of graduating and leaving Hawkins, and he even confides in you about his failed relationship with Nancy.

"God.. This is a really horrible first date conversation isn't it?" He laughs, hiding his face in his hands. 

"No, no.. I mean maybe if it was a normal first date but.. I don't think it's weird for me," you admit, ears burning hot at his obvious admission that he thought of this as a date. 

"So you are thinking of this as a date?" He asks brightly, not giving you a chance to refute it. 

"That's it Steve, I'm watching the movie, no more talking," you scoff, stuffing a handful of candy into your mouth as he laughs loudly. 

"The end was kind of shit wasn't it?" He groans as he's driving you back home, a dull beat playing over the radio.

"I mean maybe, but you can't expect the killer to get away clean, can you?" 

"Uhm have you seen any other horror movie? The killer always gets back up and is fine.." 

"Cut me some slack, I don't watch movies often.." You admit softly, Steve instantly shooting you a look as he quickly mutters,

"No shit? We gotta change that. When are you free next?" 

"Are you asking me on a second date already, Steve?" You ask as he parks by your trailer and the boldness seems to take him by surprise. He doesn't wait long however before grabbing your hand in his gently, his eyes quickly finding yours earnestly.

"If I am?.. Do you wanna pick the place?" 

Steve's words send a pang of pain through your heart for a moment as you think of Billy, but the feeling of his soft fingers brushing against the skin on the back of your hand is intoxicating to all of your senses.

"Y..yeah.. We can just.. Rent some movies? I wanna see your favorites."

He grins and nods excitedly, letting go of you to let you leave. He calls out a soft "I'll call you," before you shut the door and head inside, emotions still spinning. 

You weren't given a chance to breathe this time though, because as soon as you closed the door you're greeted by a pair of teary blue eyes. 

"Shhhh.. Don't get scared, it's just me.. I didn't have anywhere else to go," Billy mumbles as he rests a hand on your arm. He's disheveled, hair messy and his lip is bloodied, it's almost like a completely different person was standing in front of you. 

"Billy, Jesus Christ! What happ–" You stop yourself, already knowing the answer when his eyes tear up again, so you decide to just grab his hand instead, leading him to the bathroom. "Sit.." He doesn't put up any fight and sits on the closed toilet seat, uncharacteristically quiet as you dig for the first aid kit. Working quickly, you dab the alcohol pad on the cut, keeping the touch delicate as the sting would come anyway. He leans his head into the hand you have cupping his cheek, not caring that his tears are streaming into your palm. The blood has already dried so the cleaning is over easily, but you don't have the heart to move as Billy grips the sides of your shirt. 

Your hand stutters a bit but you slowly drag your fingers through his hair, causing him to lean forward and rest his forehead against you.

"Billy.." You start, unsure of how to continue so you caress his hair for a moment longer before deciding to avoid the obvious. "Did you eat today?" He shakes his head, still holding you tightly, but eventually looks up at you. Your eyes meet for a moment and he can't handle the soft and caring eyes looking down at him. He stands quickly, too quickly, but stops and hesitantly holds both of your cheeks in his rough hands. 

"You're too fucking good to me.." He mutters lowly, leaning down to press his lips against yours. Any thought is erased with the gentle pressure of his chest against yours as he presses you against the wall. "So soft and sweet.. never expecting anything from me," He's rambling between kisses and there's no urgency, just the light brushes of his lips on yours before he pulls away. 

"I wasn't lying though.. Can we eat?"

#billy hargrove #billy hargove x reader #stranger things #steve harrington #plus sized reader #steve harrington x reader

[mnoxsk]

Mute Gardener (Platonic!Anya x Male!Reader)

Genre: Fluff/Scenarios/Headcannons

Summary: Anya goes to a large biome garden for a field trip and gets lost. She keeps searching for help until she finds you. 

-When she saw you she really was desperate so when you didn’t try talking to her she was confused and kinda scared (that she may have done something to piss you off lol).

-By reading your thoughts though she thought you were an esper like her since you were signing to her and didn’t know what sign language is ‘:D So she kinda just accidentally revealed that she was one “too”. 

“Are you lost..?” She saw you sign to her. The only reason she was even able to understand was because you were also saying it in your head, peaking her interest. “Do you also have super powers like me?!” Her eyes beamed as you looked at her in slight confusion but going with it. “...Sure.” You signed back.

-After she realized that you weren't an esper but just a normal person who couldn’t talk she would be shocked and never want to see you again (she’s scared you’ll get her in trouble :’)! But then again she also realized that she would continuously go back to the garden for a school project which would also get her extra nervous! 

-Would avoid any employee or grownup in the garden. She’s scared that they know her secret until she would get lost again and see you! After seeing you and you waving to her she would run “far” away when she would just go back to where you were! Crazy right? She honestly thinks that you may not be a normal person since you can just bring her back to where you are!

After you had calmed her down you had signed to her, “What’s wrong? Did I do anything that may have scared you?” You looked at her with worry, letting her feel safe and vulnerable to have her respond. “About yesterday, about my superpower...” “That? I haven’t told anyone if that’s what’s worrying you. My superpower may be just sign language but I’m also good at keeping secrets!” When you signed that to her, smiling, it made her feel more confident and safer about staying with you. 

-Anya would honestly feel comfortable talking about her telepathy abilities to you without any worry! She already trusts you so much and the way you smile to her goodbye when leaving makes her feel happy and excited to see you tomorrow!

-Would honestly get the best grade in gardening and a test build from botanists! You would think in your mind about what the plant is called and what it does, without really knowing that she has telepathy! 

-Loid would obviously be concerned and think Anya was cheating until Anya said she was getting help from you (which he was more suspicous ‘:)). When he realized that Anya didn’t actually know your name he would immediately tell Anya to introduce him to you, WHICH MADE HER NERVOUS? 

-HE’S GOING TO MEET PAPA?! WHAT WILL HAPPEN?!?! She’s not scared you’ll rat her out, SHE’S SCARED LOID WILL TORTURE YOU!

-She’ll try to run faster than Loid to get him lost (but honestly the only time you’re ever found in the garden is being lost in the first place so it obviously doesn’t work lmao).

“Papa is coming, hide!” She tugs on your apron, trying to make you hide behind a plant until she sees Loid is already here, now hiding behind you. As you cover her with a hand, signifying that you’re trying to protect her, it makes Loid grow to having a misunderstanding, thinking you may be the secret police, trying to take Anya so his mission would fail.

-He would honestly ask you questions like “Are you the owner of the establishment? Why are you hiding my child from me?” (of course you didn’t respond which made him more suspicious). Those kinds of things at first however will try to throw hands on you once he sees you checking Anya, thinking more that you’re secret police.

-Honestly he would lowkey LOSE in this fight. Sure, I get he’s a spy trained in hand-to-hand combat, but you yourself are skilled in self defense and also skilled with showing those hands (this is a joke because you literally do sign language ‘:)).

-Anya would have to convince you both to stop fighting and making you both realize that it was just A BIG ASS MISUNDERSTANDING! LIKE LOID THOUGHT YOU WERE SECRET POLICE WHILE YOU THOUGHT HE WAS A BAD FATHER WHO ANYA WAS STAYING AWAY FROM! 

-After a nice tea party you of course started signing to him which honestly I KNOW FOR SURE. THAT HE KNOWS SIGN LANGUAGE :)) He was trained as a spy and even though there may be different coding and such for other spies to decipher they probably also do sign language. Once he learned that you were the owner of the garden (even when you’re mute) and apologized for having a misunderstanding with him he would apologize too for the same reason. 

-Would honestly let Anya visit you on weekends and would happily watch you and Anya, just silently stare at a plant when you both are watering or tending to one (which makes him honestly nervous like, HE HONESTLY THINKS YOU BOTH ARE CLOSE ENOUGH TO DO SOME TELEPATHIC CRAP TOGETHER (which he’s right but doesn’t want to come to terms with it :)).

#sxf #spy x family #spy x family x reader #spy x family x male reader #sxf x reader #sxf x male reader #anya x reader platonic #anya x male reader platonic

[blackleatherjacketz]

A Shot In The Dark

The Winter Soldier x Female Reader

Summary: A mission goes wrong and The Winter Soldier helps you forget about it in the most primal way possible.

Warnings: 18+ Only!, Explicit Smut, Kissing, Biting, Face Grabbing, Choking, Bucky’s Metal Arm, Breakdance Fighting, Weapons, Knife Play, Groping, Thigh Riding, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Unprotected Sex (But I’m hoping they gave my boy a vasectomy when he’s frozen, ya know?), Death, Angst, Fear and Mentions of Marc Spector

Word Count: 2.5K+

Notes: This was partially a request, partially my own musings.

Read more MARVEL stories HERE!

Tags: @letsby @genevievedarcygrangerreading @buckysbarnes​ @bullet-prooflove​

The smell of carbon hangs fresh in the air as you make your way up the stairs behind him, the smoke from the explosions a few miles back still burning its way into your lungs. You try not to cough, try not to make your trek up this steep concrete mountain inside this abandoned building any more difficult than it already is. Instead you decide to count the steps as you climb up, one at a time while he seems to fly over them in twos and threes, his mask sparing him from any damage the smoke might have caused him. He stops climbing as he finally reaches the top floor way ahead of you, kicking the door off its hinges as if it were made of nothing more than cardboard and duct tape.

He signals back to you before clearing the hallway, scanning the path before him with his super human eyes as they squint against his scope. You double check the path behind you, verifying that no one else had followed the two of you into the building since the last time you checked. Confirming that you’re still alone, you follow him into the hallway, a ghostly structure with pale sheets of plastic hanging down from the rafters as they sway to and fro. They crinkle against the heavy silence of the vacant floor, his footsteps and your heart rate a steady rhythm and beat to their hauntingly wind-blown chorus.

He takes his time to open the next few doors simply by twisting their knobs, clearing each room in seconds as you keep a close eye on the hallway. He finally settles for one with the most visibility of the entrance and the least amount of windows before relaxing his shoulders and removing cheek from stock. He starts to pace when you enter behind him, lowering his rifle to his side as he circles the breadth of the floor plan like a caged animal.

“This’ll do, I guess.” You shut the door behind you and lock it, a habit formed more out of muscle memory than anything else. If there was anyone left to come looking for you two, they weren’t exactly going to be deterred by a cheap lock, but the act alone still makes you feel safer somehow.

He nods in your direction, taking off his goggles and mask before looking out the window.

Oh no, he’s hot. How have you worked with him so many times without seeing his face before?

“My comms are still out,” you manage to keep your cool. You try in vain to adjust the settings on your ear piece as the dead silence continues to tell you more than you’d care to admit.

Time seems to move differently when you’re on a mission that goes awry; obstacle after obstacle finding their way onto your path no matter how hard you try to avoid them. No amount of planning on your part could have prevented this chain of events from happening, could have stopped your rendezvous point from getting compromised or your partner’s car from getting lit up only a few feet away from you. There was no time to mourn, no time to check and see if she was okay, no time to figure out who could have tipped them off before The Winter Soldier had pushed you out of the line of fire. Whoever managed to do all that seems to have taken out your main base of operations along with it.

“How about yours?” You choke down your nerves and try to change the subject.

He taps on his ear piece and shakes his head, collecting his goggles and mask before putting them into his pocket. You notice the color of his eyes as you approach him, a deep soulful blue that only seems to brighten as they carefully survey the entrance of the building.

“Jimenez once told me about a backup team that gets notified if something like this happens. It’s like a fail safe if certain people are eliminated where it trips a signal and they can come in and set everything back to the way it was, the way it should be.” You can hear yourself begin to ramble, to try and talk yourself out of all this fear and uncertainty that’s bubbling up inside your chest.

“I’ve had missions go wrong before, but nothing like this.” You take a deep breath, stepping in closer to him to take a better look at the street. Empty. “This one time I was in Cairo with this guy named Marc but I got pulled at the last minute to do a different job in Prague. He told me later that everyone got killed once they finally reached their destination, that he barely made it out of there alive. Kind of suspicious that he was the lone survivor, if you ask me, though.”

He turns away from the window and looks you over, his menacing stare freezing you in place as you continue to talk. You’ve heard stories from different people about who The Winter Soldier is and where he comes from, but all of them are just different enough for you not to trust a single one. You could ask him right now while he’s standing here in front of you, hours to kill in this empty building until you figure something else out, but you have a sneaking suspicion that he’s not really in a chatty mood.

“Have you ever been in a situation like this before?” Maybe he already has a secret team waiting to pick him up a few miles away, another identity to fall back on in another country, or something else entirely. “I’m sure that something like this isn’t a big deal for someone like you, just another day at the office. I mean, you don’t seem bothered in the slightest, so I guess I shouldn’t really be worrying, now should I? I bet you have a back up plan for all of your back up plans, huh? Maybe I should call Marc…”

He grabs your chin to silence you, lifting you up off your feet and pushing you backward up against the barely spackled drywall. “Do you ever shut the fuck up?”

You suck in your breath as you stare down at him, grabbing onto his mechanical wrist in a pitiful plea for him to let you go as his cold metal fingers tighten against your jaw. You watch a few strands of hair fall in front of his eyes as his lips begin to part, his tongue running quickly across them as he stares at you intently, opening his mouth as if to speak but nothing comes out.

“Why don’t you make me?” You raise your eyebrows and mutter through clenched teeth, taking a hopeful shot in the dark as he starts to lower you down against the wall.

You swing your legs up and wrap them around his waist in hopes to throw him off balance, only to have him push his hips deeper into yours, causing you to grunt as the flimsy wall behind you cracks beneath your compounded weight. He holds your gaze and halts his breath, the pale azure of his eyes darkening as his lips grow a more vibrant pink. He loosens his grip on your face and smooths that metal hand of his down the length of your throat down to the very base of your neck, squeezing it gently as if to test its strength against your flesh. He bites his bottom lip and stares at you, slowly bringing his face closer to yours as he watches the blood pump faster through your veins and into your chest before dropping his rifle onto the floor.

He kisses you as if it’s his first breath of fresh air after being submerged under water for far too long. It’s passionate at first, the ferocity of his neediness growing by the second as he wraps his tongue around yours, aggressively sucking on it before biting down. The sting is just painful enough to make you gasp as he scrapes his teeth across it, exciting each and every one of your taste buds with the salt of his skin as he pulls it into his own mouth with a breathy moan.

You kiss him back, sloppily gnashing your teeth against his as you run your hands through his long dark hair, tugging on his roots. You feel him smile against your lips, something you weren’t entirely sure he was capable of as his fingers take purchase over your hips and thighs, squeezing their way up to the pressure point just above your groin. You wince as he digs his thumb into it, painfully pinching your nerve as he forces your legs to lose their grip around his waist and fall to the floor.

In one fluid motion he releases his hold on your neck and grabs onto your belt loop, spinning you around and shoving your chest into the wall, further lengthening its original crack. He grabs onto your arm as you try to reach for his neck, bending it backward against the small of your back with another sharp twinge of pain.

“Stand still.” He whispers his order into your ear, forcefully sliding his knee between your legs.

“Doesn’t that ruin the fun?” You chide, rocking your hips backward over his thigh as he lifts it up just in time to make you moan.

That smile of his curls those moistened lips upward just enough for you to see his pearly whites before he grabs onto the base of your hair with his metal arm, twisting the length of your braid around his palm like a cord of rope. “I said ‘stand still’.”

He kisses you again as you continue to ride his thigh, rutting himself against your backside as his grown-out stubble scratches your face. He lets go of your arm and smooths his hand over your pelvis down the front of your pants. Groaning into your kiss, he rubs your swollen clit through the denim barrier that slowly permeates with your juices, begging for more as he teases you.

“You can be good and follow orders, right?” His voice begins to quake as he removes his fingers from your junction, following the holster on your leg to the handle of your knife.

“Mmmhmm!” You mumble into his mouth, licking his teeth.

“Good.” He grabs hold of your weapon and rips it out of its sheath, bringing it up to your face as he rotates his hand around your braid one more time, ripping some of the hair out of your scalp in the process.

Heart pounding in time with yours against the back of your chest, he makes you look at the silver blade, both of your faces reflecting off of it as he traces the curved tip over your cheek and jawline. Even without any weapons, you know that he could destroy you in a matter of seconds, but you’d be lying to yourself if that wasn’t part of the appeal. If this is actually your last moment here on earth, then at least you’ll be taken out by the great Winter Soldier. And if not? Well then, so be it.

He twists the knife away from your face, though, jabbing it into the drywall in front of you before starting his work on unfastening your belt. His dexterity is unmatched as he releases your buckle from your hips, kissing your neck before unbuttoning your pants and giving you that skin on skin contact that you’ve been craving. The tips of his fingers are rough and callused, brushing bursts of pleasure over your moistened bud as he sucks little bruises into the delicate skin of your throat. He lifts you up with his thigh, sliding his first two fingers into the warmth of your walls as his kiss deepens, still pressing onto your clit with his thumb. Up and down like a light switch, he rubs that spot to perfection as you gyrate against him, sending waves of heated bliss into your core.

You sigh as he unwinds his other hand from your hair, releasing the tension on your scalp before pulling his fingers out of you to push your pants and underwear halfway down your thighs.

“You gonna stay put?” He lets go of you entirely to start unbuckling his own belt.

“Yes sir,” you whisper, waiting for him to touch you again. You can hear the jangling of his belt buckle, the snap of a plastic clip, and then finally the zip of his pants zipper. Part of you is dying to look back at him, to see him in all his glory before he enters you, but that healthy dose of fear still holds you back.

“Good girl.” He slides his metal arm up your back between your shoulder blades, pushing your top half down so he can see you better between the cheeks. You think you can hear him laugh before he spits on his palm, no doubt spreading his saliva all over his shaft before the both of you finally share a collective sigh of relief.

You drop your head between your shoulders as he slowly enters you, your dripping wet folds eagerly enveloping him as he sheaths himself inside. He moans as he stretches you out, spreading you apart for a better view until he eventually pushes himself all the way in. Thrusting even deeper when you groan, you’re forced to grab hold of the knife still stuck in the wall for balance as he rocks into you, his balls now hitting your clit at just the right angle, shooting spark after spark of pure ecstasy up into your spine.

You close your eyes as he gives you what you need, fast and rough in this abandoned building as you only allow yourself to focus on what you’re feeling physically. You pretend for a second that you aren’t lost and completely abandoned as he chases his pleasure between your legs, grabbing hold of your braid one more time to further steady his pace. That euphoria only builds as he drills deeper into you, slowly melting away all the numbness throughout your body like red hot lava until it finally erupts. You cry out as the explosion of bliss showers every inch of your body with delight, clenching your muscles around him as he wraps his hand around your mouth to silence you.

“Shhh, baby.” He kisses into the back of your neck as he leans over you, grabbing onto the knife and dragging it down through the wall as he spasms inside your warmth. Deep, guttural moans leave his lips as the knife catches on a seam in the drywall, sending the blade clattering to the ground at your feet before he runs dry and eventually pulls out.

You catch your breath as he leaves you empty, your skin still tingling as he instantly deprives you of any more physical touch, stepping out of arm’s reach. You look back to catch a glimpse of him putting himself away, zipping up his pants and fastening his belt buckle before he squints and looks off in the distance, casually touching his ear piece.

You pull your pants up and bend over to grab your knife, quickly sliding it back into its holster. “Everything okay?” You wipe a few strands of hair away from your face and start to button up your pants.

“It’s time to go.”

#sebastian stan #Bucky Barnes #The Winter Soldier #james buchanan bucky barnes #Bucky Barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes smut

[silverstark]

A White Lie Extra

Surprise for 520, aka “Chinese Valentine’s Day”

Ficlet for A White Lie, a 2ha / The Husky and His White Cat Shizun au where Xia Sini claims to be Chu Wanning’s son. Read it on Ao3 (Registered Users Only). SPOILERS FOR FULL NOVEL.

Auuthor’s Note: This doesn’t necessarily fit into the “canon” of A White Lie because I didn’t think it over carefully enough to see if it messes anything up in my plot. However! I wanted to write something to celebrate 520.

x-x-x-x-x

Mo Ran woke up early so he could go check on his recovering shidi first thing in the morning. Having reassured himself that the child was looking well, he wrote a note of explanation for his absence.

‘I’ll be back soon to give you medicine! I will be with Shi Mei for a little while.’

It was just a precaution: Xia Sini was still fast asleep, and the medication would make him less likely to wake up early. Chu Wanning had always woken up very late when he was sick. Mo Ran expected that Xia Sini would take after his father, as he did in so many other regards.

Mo Ran laid the note upon Xia Sini’s latest boring book. This one was about rare poisons. Mo Ran could only approve of Xia Sini finding a safer way to pursue his ‘win at all costs’ drive than through sword-fighting, so he did not plan on asking about his interest in the subject. He then snuck quietly out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Shi Mei was surprised to see Mo Ran.

“Good morning, A-Ran.”

“Good morning, Shi Mei,” he replied brightly.

“Do we have early morning training today? I must have forgotten,” Shi Mei said apologetically.

“No, no,” Mo Ran said. “It’s nothing related to training.”

Shi Mei’s expression changed. He looked faintly awkward.

“Oh? Then…”

He stopped himself as he realized that he almost asked a rude question.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up early,” Mo Ran said hurriedly.

“No…”

Indeed, he was fully dressed with his hair in near order. It seemed he had been quietly studying in his room, as Mo Ran had expected.

Mo Ran sighed in relief. “I’m glad. I was just hoping to ask you something…”

Here Mo Ran hesitated and scratched his head a little diffidently. Shi Mei seemed unusually reserved. Mo Ran had never interrupted his morning studying before to avoid inconveniencing him. Now he had, and on top of that, he was going to ask him another favor. He wondered if he should check whether Shi Mei had the time before asking him for the favor, or else Shi Mei might agree purely out of politeness.

Shi Mei watched him and suddenly lowered his gaze.

“Want to come inside?” he asked quietly.

“Huh?”

Shi Mei rarely invited Mo Ran into his room. Mo Ran hadn’t been expected to be invited in today of all days.

“So we can speak privately,” Shi Mei said.

“Oh! Thank you, but I don’t really have time,” he said apologetically.

Shi Mei’s eyes widened slightly. Mo Ran couldn’t remember the last time he had declined an invitation to spend time with Shi Mei. Usually he wanted to stick to Shi Mei like sticky candy, as close as Shi Mei would permit, every moment he could get.

Mo Ran explained, “I have to— actually, that’s what I wanted to ask. If you have time.”

“What is it?” Shi Mei asked, puzzled.

“Will you teach me how you make wonton soup?”

Shi Mei blinked in surprise. Then he looked at Mo Ran with an expression like dismay. Mo Ran didn’t understand it until he remembered his poor timing.

“You don’t have to make it with me. If you tell me how you make it, I can just try it on my own.”

“…Why do you want to learn how to make wonton soup?”

“Little Shidi is hurt. I was thinking yesterday, that when I’m hurt, wonton soup always makes me feel better. I want to try to make Little Shidi wonton soup before he wakes up.”

Shi Mei frowned and seemed thoughtful, even a little uncomfortable. Mo Ran blinked at him in confusion. He didn’t understand why Shi Mei didn’t seem to want to want to share the recipe.

“I thought Shidi didn’t like spicy food.”

“I’ll make it without chili for him.”

Shi Mei hesitated another moment. Mo Ran gazed at him in befuddlement, trying to figure out what the problem was.

“Do you…want to keep the recipe a secret?” Mo Ran wondered.

Shi Mei held out another moment before sighing in resignation.

“Shizun will have to forgive me,” he said quietly.

“Um. What does Shizun have to do with this? It’s not like it’s his recipe,” Mo Ran said, laughing a little at the idea of Chu Wanning’s cooking skills.

“It is,” Shi Mei said.

“Hahahahaha!”

Shi Mei watched him laughing. Mo Ran waited for him to drop the serious expression, but as time went on and Shi Mei failed to crack a smile, Mo Ran faltered. Then he stopped laughing entirely.

There was a tired look in Shi Mei’s eyes. The joke had been out of character; perhaps it was his way of distracting Mo Ran from something that was troubling him. Perhaps he had invited Mo Ran in wishing to tell him and unburden himself.

“What’s wrong?” Mo Ran asked gently.

“…Nothing.”

Mo Ran tsk’d and took Shi Mei’s hand intending to lead him into the room so they could talk privately. Shi Mei allowed it.

“Tell me,” Mo Ran urged once the door was closed.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Shi Mei said. “It’s only that I can’t teach you that recipe.”

“That’s okay,” Mo Ran said. “I shouldn’t have asked you out of the blue like that. But that can’t be the only thing that’s wrong. It’s not like you to make jokes at Shizun’s expense.”

“…”

Shi Mei gazed at him with an unreadable expression. Mo Ran looked back at him sincerely, hoping that Shi Mei would see how much Mo Ran cared about him.

“That was not a joke,” Shi Mei said. “It really is Shizun’s recipe. He’s the one who has been making wonton soup for you. I didn’t tell you because he asked me to keep it a secret.”

Mo Ran stared first in disbelief, and then in horrified realization.

“Mo Ran?” Shi Mei asked.

His voice sounded far away. Mo Ran was far away.

Before, he couldn’t think of the wonton soup without feeling a warmth that seeped deep into his bones. And now, he was remembering those wontons rolling across the floor, thrown away by Mo Ran’s own uncaring blow. He remembered the expression on Chu Wanning’s face after. He remembered his own satisfaction in the vindictive cruelty.

“Mo Ran?” Shi Mei asked again.

He sounded concerned. Mo Ran gulped and tried to pull himself together. He couldn’t have a breakdown in front of Shi Mei without explaining.

“Ah, so it wasn’t a joke,” he said with an attempt at a smile. It crumpled into a grimace.

Shi Mei sighed. “Shizun feared that you would react like this. That’s why he didn’t want you to know…”

Mo Ran again remembered the look on Chu Wanning’s face after Mo Ran had strewn his wontons across the floor. Chu Wanning had feared his reaction. But he couldn’t have known…

Mo Ran sucked in a breath. He repeated to himself that he couldn’t have a breakdown in front of Shi Mei.

“Don’t worry,” Mo Ran said. “I won’t tell him.”

He didn’t have time for a breakdown right now. He had to go start making the soup if he wanted it to be ready before Xia Sini woke up. He muttered some polite farewell to Shi Mei and hurried to the kitchens.

x-x-x-x-x

Cooking always settled Mo Ran’s spirit somehow. Cooking for someone he loved was even better. He put special care into every step. He knew very well that he could not fix the mistakes he had made in his past life. What was done was done. But…perhaps he could do better in this lifetime. He wanted to do better by Xia Sini.

The soup was beautifully made. It was nothing compared to the soup Shi Mei had brought him just when he had desperately needed it. The soup that Chu Wanning had made for him and sent to him just when he had desperately needed it. Mo Ran remembered his overwhelming gratitude and the spark of love that had flared in the wreck of his heartache over the way Chu Wanning had treated him. He didn’t know what to make of this now. He didn’t know how to feel towards Shi Mei or Chu Wanning now.

The only thing that was clear was his feeling upon walking into Xia Sini’s room to offer him the wonton soup. Xia Sini was sitting up now seemingly reading the note Mo Ran had left. He startled at Mo Ran’s arrival and tossed the note like he was embarrassed to be caught reading it. Mo Ran grinned, feeling his heart light up with warmth and affection.

“You woke up early,” he noted.

Xia Sini looked at him warily. Mo Ran was a little surprised that he didn’t make some cranky comment.

“Does your wound hurt? Don’t worry, I’ll give you medicine soon, as I promised,” he said cheerily.

“It does not hurt,” Xia Sini quickly denied. “You can take that away.”

He gave the soup bowl a disgusted glare as he spoke. Mo Ran laughed.

“Won’t you even give it a taste? Your shixiong worked hard to make this!”

Mo Ran placed the tray close to Xia Sini and uncovered the bowl to reveal the soup. Xia Sini stared at the contents.

“What? Don’t you like wonton soup? I promise it’s not spicy.”

Xia Sini didn’t look up.

“You…you made me wonton soup?” he asked uncertainly.

“Of course! Little shidi needs good food to recover.”

“…”

Xia Sini said nothing and made no move to pick up his chopsticks. Mo Ran looked at him in concern, but his lashes were low over his eyes and Mo Ran couldn’t read his expression.

“Do you really not like it? I can go get you something else...”

Mo Ran was a little worried. He would have no time to make something good before Xia Sini got hungry. It would have to be some plain, boring congee.

“No, don’t take it away,” Xia Sini said. “I like it.”

“Oh,” Mo Ran said, relieved. “Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. It’s just that no one has ever taken care of me like this.”

Mo Ran’s heart ached to hear those words. He had suspected it, but now he knew it was true. He reached out and gently patted Xia Sini’s hair. He didn’t understand how it could be that no one had cared for this precious, clever, kind child.

Xia Sini looked up at his touch and finally met Mo Ran’s eyes.

“Thank you, shixiong,” he said sincerely.

Mo Ran smiled even has his heart broke open, overfilled with affection. Light spilled out through the cracks.

“I said I would take care of you, didn’t I?”

Xia Sini blinked and stared. He said nothing, but Mo Ran thought he saw something small and fragile lighting up in his eyes. Mo Ran tucked a strand of hair behind Xia Sini’s ear.

He cleared his throat before speaking to be sure that it wouldn’t break.

“If you want to show your gratitude, you better start eating before it gets cold,” he chided.

Xia Sini lowered his head and obeyed. There was a little smile on his face. Mo Ran couldn’t look away from it.

x-x-x-x-x

#2ha #Xia Sini #the husky and his white cat shizun #RanWan #husky and his white cat shizun #SPOILERS FOR FULL NOVEL #myfanfic #BTW THIS IS ANGSTY BEFORE IT GETS CUTE #I’M SORRY I TRIED TO WRITE SOMETHING PURELY CUTE AND FLUFFY IDK HOW THIS HAPPENED #I will post this extra to Ao3 eventually #first I need to let it marinate a little. i JUST wrote it today.

[th3-royalty]

Xiao my beloved

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵ ‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Let me start by saying that when I imagined that I would end up in a video game, I did not anticipate the horrors and wonders it comes with. Wait.. maybe I should start from the beginning I’m (y/n) and I fell into Genshin Impact. I know sounds insane but hear me out. A few weeks ago I was resting peacefully in my bed, playing some games, and watching Genshin videos to relax and get myself to sleep. Eventually, I look at the clock and see the time. UggghHHH I have work tomorrow I realized and it sadly was time to go to bed. Soon I fell into a dreamless slumber and peacefully turned and toss, as I tend to do. 

When I awake however I am not greeted by the sight of my bedroom with the adorable plushies of my sweet fictional love Xiao. No, I am instead on a random hill in the middle of nowhere. I obviously started panicking and looking around. I mean it’s not that often you get woken up in the middle of a hill. I start looking around and I see something in the distance. “Is that….. a slime?!?” I yelled with confusion and awe. “ OHHhhh I get it I’m dreaming. Yep gotta be that (y/n) nothing else makes sense” I told myself with confidence. As it was soooo obvious to me I was that I was dreaming I attempt to pick up the slime. It’s a smaller one, even for small slimes, and looks to be a geo slime. “ Awww aren’t you a cutie!!” in a cooing manner. As if it was a small baby, which it does look like. So in my haste to pick it up obviously the very may I repeat VERY! not docile slime decides to fight back. It proceeds to attack me bouncing and hitting me with rocks. “Ah Jesus that hurts” I look at my now bleeding arm as I dash to a safer place. Thankful that slime was very slow and decided to leave me alone. 

“Welp now what to do wait……in dreams you don't get hurt right?” thinking aloud, so then I decided to do a lucid dream check, by counting the number of fingers on my hand 5. “Okay, so not that” then I try to stick my finger through my hand, and it proceeds to not go through and just poke my other hand. “no no NOooo way!?!! I have to be dreaming but I didn’t poke my finger and…” I continue to ramble about nonsensical things. “Ok if I am in Teyvat then where am I?” I looked around me are tall mountain cliffs with clouds around them. “I’m in Liyue I think, that’s what it looks like” Thankfully I was not too high up and was able to get down the hill. “ Now to find which area I am in I must be in the adepti realm somewhere” I continue to wander about. “ Okay as long as I don’t bother an adepti or a certain yaksha I should be okay,” I say to console myself. Then I saw a large tree surrounded by water. I looked around to check ‘please don’t be here, please don’t be here!’ I thought to myself. I did not want to run into Xiao or Ganyu hopefully they are not training around here. Well more so Xiao, Ganyu at least would guide me away kindly. Xiao however would probably say something like “ Foolish mortal how dare you come to our land. You have no respect for the adepti” or something along those lines. Yeah, Xiao must be avoided for now at least. 

Do not get me wrong I love the yaksha to bits, however, he does not know me. I do not think he will take too kindly to a random mortal in pajamas who knows wayyy too much about him. Then I here a rustling of the leaves I check to look behind me, and see nothing. OH no OH no. This could be a monster or an adepti I don’t know which is worse. “ Paimon is hungry Aether can’t we just go get food now since we finished our commissions?” I hear in the distance yes! Aether and Paimon maybe can help! Oh oh no I am just a suspicious-looking person in the middle of the forest. Not a good look for a first introduction. However, while thinking and pacing I run into a small floating creature. “OW, why did you have to bump into Paimon like that?” “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to I just wasn’t looking, and ya know I am lost and all that,” I tell Paimon will fumbling through the words and rambling a tad too much. “It's fine Paimon has taken worse hits,” says a blonde-haired boy Aether! “ What I am more concerned about is how you ended up in the adepti forest wearing that. It’s slightly odd” Aether continues. Yeah, no kidding I think to myself while trying to come up with a response. Unable to think up a clever lie I tell the truth of what happened leaving out this being a game and me knowing who they are. That would just be even weirder. Welp hope this goes well.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

||A/N hii this is my first fanfic so apologies if it kinda feels rushed, or unpolished. I hope you enjoyed the first part of “ Xiao my beloved”||

#genshin impact xiao #genshin impact #genshin #xiao x reader #genshin x reader #x reader #reader insert #reader is gender neutral #genshin isekai #genshin impact x reader #genshin imagines #genshin fanfic

[hargrove-mayfields]

Day three of @harringroveweek!

I chose Hopper’s Locked Office at Hawkins Police Station for today’s prompt!

This might be the first time Steve’s been in this police station and not actually been the one in trouble. Not that he’s ever personally been in the Chief's office before, usually just getting a slap on the wrist at the front desk and sent on his way while whatever lousy friend he had by his side took the heat. The unwanted luxury of having well known parents.

But that’s where he is now, here on his own accord- well, not fully, his mother sent him down here to file a report, but at least he’s not been arrested -across from a seemingly disinterested Hopper.

It’s the Chief, slouched back in his oversized chair, who’s the first to speak after reading over the claim, in a tone that’s stiff with annoyance, “Why didn’t you come to me with this sooner?”

“You were busy. And I was in the hospital.” Steve doesn’t mention that he couldn’t give a damn less about pressing charges. His excuses are scripted and he’s just as bored with this as Hopper is. Just here to uphold the family name.

His comment still earns him a scoff, “For what, a few hours? It wasn’t even that bad.”

“He could’ve killed me.” Now, that is something Steve will stand by. He might be mostly over it, but for a few nights after the fight he was pretty sure he was going blind, the pain in his head lasting for weeks still after that.

But the Chief is unmoved, pointing out bluntly, “So could’ve a lot of things. Honestly, I think the least of your problems right now, or ever, is Billy Hargrove, alright?”

And whether or not Steve actually wants to see bullshit justice this long after the fact, he still thinks he has the right to be offended by the Chiefs blatant refusal to hear him out, “Whose side are you on, Hop?“

“Nobody’s. I’m a cop, kid. Legally, I don’t take sides.”

“So you can’t do anything?”

To prove his point, Hopper closes the file, which is really just a Manila folder with two pieces of paper in it put together by Steve’s mother, leaning over it on the desk in that overbearing honesty kind of way that cops seem to do when they think they’re right, “I could. But I’m not going to. I don’t care if that kid broke every bone in your goddamn face. It’s a four month old case. It’s not going to go anywhere if we bring it up now. Come back when you have something relevant.”

“Can’t you at least press charges on him for breaking into the Byers houses? And you know, assaulting me?” Now he just sounds like a brat, but he’s got to at least try to make his case. Being told no only seems to have reignited tucked away feelings he thought he’d forgotten about that night.

“You were also trespassing, technically.” The way he tears apart Steve’s argument, it’s like he’s done this before. Steve has to consider for a moment that maybe this wasn’t the first time Hop heard the story, and maybe Billy Hargrove had done this same thing in this very office. His defense is way up now, thinking about having something in common with the asshole getting him more worked up.

Hopper cuts him off before he can let those feelings fester into another poorly thought out appeal, “Besides, the story I heard says you lied to him about where his sister was. If that was one of my daughters in that house, and some punk like you was on the other side of the door, believe me kid, I would have beat your ass too. You might not have walked away though.”

Ouch. Steve didn’t think of it that way before, and the fact that Hopper is bringing it up has to just be bad faith, right? He argues, “I was just trying to protect her.”

“From what, exactly? Being taken back home to safety where her mother could look after her instead? Real good job of that you did by taking her into the poisonous underground to fight flesh-eating monsters, by the way. Because that was a much safer option than her brother driving her home at a decent hour and avoiding all that conflict.”

“I guess when you put it like that..” Steve trails off. It’s true the Chief isn’t wrong about that, and even more glaringly obvious that he isn’t going to change his mind about it.

Hopper reiterates the unspoken, “Yeah, it ain’t a good look. So cut Hargrove a little slack, because remember, he doesn’t know shit about any of our otherworldly problems, and that only makes that situation a thousand times worse.”

“But-“ Steve tries to argue, his mind racing too fast with this new information to come up with a solid defense, but it doesn’t really matter anyways, because Hopper starts again.

“From his perspective, what he did was to protect his family, just like you thought you were protecting yours. I won’t waste valuable police time pursuing Hargrove over nothing. That’s final.”

He’s right. Steve doesn’t know what else to say. But he doesn’t get up either. Now he’s got to fret about what he’s going to tell his mother about this disastrous attempt at making things right. The last thing he needs is for her to come in here and do it herself. She’d probably try to pay the Chief off, or fake some medical records, or maybe-

Someone knocks on the door to the office, interrupting Steve’s spiraling thoughts, and whoever it is doesn’t wait for an answer to open it. Hopper's face changes to an expression that’s some frustrating cross between smugness and interest, that’s got Steve looking over his shoulder to see who it is.

Instantly, he looks away, snapping back to staring at the desk. Steve wants to crawl out of his skin when he sees who it was.

“Well, speak of the devil.”

Of course, none other than Billy fucking Hargrove would step into this room at this exact moment. Steve doesn’t look back, but he can tell from the way his heavy, booted footfalls stop just short of the door, that Billy’s just as shocked to see him there, confirmed when the other asks sarcastically, “S’it a bad time, chief?”

Brighter than Steve’s ever seen the man, and obviously scheming something, Hopper encourages, “Nope. Come on in.”

“The hell’s Harrington doing here?” Billy remarks, pulling out the extra chair and lazing down into it, kicking his feet up onto the desk like he owns the place.

“I was just leaving, actually.“ Steve makes a move to stand, but the Chief holds up his hand, the universal signal of get your punk ass back in that chair. He sinks down further than before, feeling weirdly confronted just by being in the room with Hopper and Hargrove at the same time. He stays quiet.

“He wanted to press charges against you. Sure you know what for.” Hopper explains, earning Steve a harsh glare from Billy, that the Chief quickly explains away, “Don’t get like that, kid. I told him no.”

After that it's clear neither of them really want to talk about it, the room deathly silent other than the sound of the strain of old leather boots tapping anxiously against an old tweed carpet.

As per his strange demeanor since that knock, Hopper fills the silence, “Why’d you come here today, Hargrove?”

Looking appalled that he'd even ask that of him, Billy scoffs, “Not saying it in front of him.”

So in paralleled bluntness, Hopper counters, “Too bad, because I ain’t kicking him out yet. You two need to talk about your shit so I can stop hearing about it every other goddamned day.”

“Excuse me, what?” Steve interjects, confused by so many things, the familiarity between Hopper and Hargrove for starters. Like this is something they’ve done before, talking about Steve included. It’s an uneasy thought.

But he doesn’t get an answer. Hop stands, replaces his hat on his head, and walks to the door in lieu of an answer, “I’m takin’ a break. You two work this out before I get back. I don’t want to have to consider bringing those charges back up on the both of you, alright?”

“Wait, Hop-“ Steve tries to argue, apparently entirely unconvincing as the door slams in their faces. At the same time, Billy muttered an exasperated, “Yessir.”

Somehow, it’s not surprising to Steve that Billy is more accustomed to police station etiquette than himself.

Immediately that long, expansive silence returns, stretching for a good twenty minutes until it’s apparently too much for Hargrove, who sits upright and turns to fully face Steve, asking in a demeanor that reads entirely confusing, like a cross between aggressive and curious, “You really that hard pressed about the face?”

“Yeah, I am. I missed the end of the season over it. I have every right to be upset.” God, Steve just knows he sounds like such a stuck-up bitch saying that out loud.

“Sure.” It’s one word, but it’s dismissive and bitchy coming out of Billy’s mouth. Is that what he sounds like too?

He decides, if it wasn’t already though, he’ll make it his mission to, just to bother Hargrove back, “Don’t act like you’re better. Hop said there’s charges to be brought on both of us.”

“Yeah, ‘Cause you kidnapped Max. And I know the story she gave me about what happened is absolute bullshit. Figured, I can’t beat your sorry ass again, so I’ll take you down the legal way. But chief told me it was a misunderstanding so..” Billy lets the sentence die off, obviously unsatisfied with the conclusion. His reason sounds a lot more justified than Steve’s though.

To cover his ass, Steve tries to suggest a peace offering, “Then we’re even, aren’t we?”

Doesn’t land.

“That ain’t how it works, Harrington.”

“What else do you want from me? To say I’m sorry?“

“Apologizing doesn’t make up for holding little girls hostage.”

“That’s not what happened. But honestly, why does it even bother you so much? It’s not like you actually give a shit about Max.” Steve accuses, increasingly frustrated by Billy’s inability to just listen, with it his defense rising as well.

Billy grits his teeth, Steve’s accusation a gut-punch to an already tender spot, “You don’t know a damned thing about it, Harrington.”

“I know she told me you’d kill her if you saw her that night. Doesn’t sound like something a caring older brother would do.”

“Guess what happened, Harrington. I did catch her and the only ones who got their asses beat was you and me. Clearly she was being dramatic.”

“Maybe she learned that from you, since you’re the one throwing around accusations and shit. I didn’t do anything. I was just watching after those kids.”

“Even if that were true, I know she’s not stupid enough to just run off to hang out with a creep like you. So no amount of ‘but nothing even happened’ will ever make me trust your ass.” Billy starts and doesn’t stop, their petty, repetitive arguing coming to a culmination, a moment of real emotional appeal instead of just childish he-said, she said bullshit, “I needed answers and your dumbass lying to my face landed me in the fucking ER, so thanks for still being too fucking stubborn to admit what you did.”

It was a given that Billy would snap eventually, but it’s what he says that catches Steve way off guard, “Hold on, let’s backtrack here; you were hospitalized?”

“You heard me. Don’t tell me you really live in world where none of the fucked up shit you do has consequences?” Billy sneers, almost mocking him.

Equally defensive as he is just not sure what Hargrove is talking about, Steve exclaims, “I barely even touched you!”

“Who said you did?” Billy actually explains this time, pointing to a scar in his eyebrow that Steve hadn’t even noticed before, “Got this from my old man when I brought Max home after curfew, high off of whatever drugs you had laying around that house. -Which is, as I probably already mentioned, super fucking suspicious, Harrington.”

That doesn't really clarify everything, at least not in Steve’s mind, “I don’t get it.”

“Of course you don’t. Let me spell it out for you, since you’re so fucking dense.” Billy’s tone drops, and it’s like he’s talking to a child, overexplaining with way too much emphasis on every other word, “My thirteen year old step sister goes missing. My ex-mil dad comes home and knocks me one for not watching her. I go out and find her on the other side of town, with you. But instead of bringing her home then, I get sedated and don’t wake up for a few more hours. My car gets stolen and wrecked before then, so by the time I stumble home barely conscious at three in the fucking morning with a dented car and a crying sister who can’t exactly seem to put into words what she saw while she was missing, my dad who was already pissed, is even more endlessly pissed now. And I think you can infer what fucking happened next, Harrington.”

And yeah, he absolutely can. He honestly feels kind of stupid for not putting that together in the first place. Interested, but trying to change the subject to avoid some of that heat, Steve asks, “Is that why you’re here now?”

“Oh, this? Just knocked myself in the head with a door again, is all.” Billy’s words are absolutely oozing with sarcasm, which Steve might say is well deserved at this point, “No shit that’s why I’m here.”

“This is probably gonna be obvious again but I have to ask. If you’ve told the police your father.. you know.. hits you, then why don’t they do anything?”

“Worked out a deal with the chief. I don’t want them locking my old man away for a little old fashioned discipline. That’s just stupid.” Billy sounds serious about that, Steve can tell if not just because of how much of his bad attitude and lies have been thrown into his face lately. It really makes him feel for the other boy, as he explains the situation, “But I have to tell Hop whenever it happens, and he gets to decide if it’s bad enough he wants to do something about it.”

Whatever he’s going through is a lot more difficult than what’s going on on Steve’s end of things. Suddenly his mom forcing him to come down to the police station and give a half-hearted statement seems a lot more trivial. He wants to make things right.

“You don’t mind that they’re interfering in your personal shit? I mean, isn’t that why you’re so pissed at me?” That’s a genuine question, and it earns him a genuine answer from Billy, who sounds more upset than angry at this point, “It’s different, alright?”

“If shit hits the fan and somebody other than me gets hurt, I like having Hopper on speed dial. Then the second that fucker raises a finger to Max or Susan, he’s done. That happens to be a lot different from you kidnapping my sister and causing trouble for all of us in my book.”

“So you didn’t do it for yourself?”

“Hell no. I’ve been taking beatings since I was like, 10. I can handle another few months of it ‘til I’m out of Hawkins for good.” Seems a little overly optimistic considering the start of that sentence, but Steve doesn’t comment on it, just letting Billy keep explaining, “If it wasn’t for my dad and my stepmom starting to argue so much about that night, I wouldn’t have even had to say anything.”

The more open they are, the less tension there is. Maybe Hopper was right about needing to talk.

Though, hostility aside now, Steve is still intrigued by Billy’s circumstances now. Questions that aren’t really any of his business keep coming to mind, but as long as Billy keeps answering them, he’ll keep asking, “You think he’ll slip up eventually and do something bad enough for Hopper's standards?”

Billy just shrugs, “Probably. Don’t look forward to it though.”

Once the conversation reaches that dead spot, Steve decides to swallow some of his pride and truly try to make friends instead of begrudging acquaintances. Another argument doesn’t sound all that pleasant either, so he’ll take the friendship.

“Hey, you’re not half bad, Hargrove. Can we forget all the shit I said when you first walked in?” Because Steve’s been officially won over, his empathy maybe shooting him in the foot here, but as long as Billy isn’t mad at him, he can put this situation behind them.

Honestly he was ready to do that before he even came here, but this outcome might not be such a bad thing either.

Apparently, Billy agrees, “Whatever. As long as the same goes for me.”

Nothing left to argue about, an awkward silence settles over them for another few minutes until Hopper comes barging back in, with a question that confuses Steve somehow more than anything else that’s been discussed in this office today, “So? When’s the wedding?”

“C’mon, Chief-“ Billy complains, though he’s pretty much instantly cut off by Hopper, “You’ve been talking for a whole hour, and I know it was actually a conversation because I had Callahan sit right outside this door and make sure no fights broke out. So I figure, you gotta have it all sorted now, right? The venue, the date..”

“No, Hop. We’ve reached a truce. That’s it.” There’s a very specific implication here that Steve is missing. He looks between the two and doesn’t see it, doesn’t get what they’re talking about.

He’d ask, but Hopper declares first, seeming almost monotone and bored, “That’s disappointing. Be back in a few.”

And just like that, he leaves again, the lock clicking behind him once more, and the edge in the room is back to square one.

“Uh.. What was he talking about?” Steve asks, looking over to Billy for answers.

All he sees is a pale-faced, tight-shouldered Billy, who automatically explains away his question, “Who knows? The chief’s a total hack.”

Something’s going on here.

But an attempt at bringing back that short-lived moment of conviviality wins out in favor of asking more details about it, “He figured out how to make us friends despite everything. That’s not so bad.”

Billy only snaps harshly in response, “I forgave you. That doesn’t mean we’re friends all of the sudden.”

“Why not? What’s your problem with me?”

“It’s not you anymore. It’s a me problem. That also happens to be none of your business.”

“Not this again..”

“Look, Harrington. Some things are just better off kept secret. Even if I tolerate you.“

That irritates Steve, Billy's unwillingness to cooperate when not even five minutes ago they were making up. He tries to appeal to the reasonable kid that agreed to actually set aside their differences, “But wouldn’t you have said that about everything else you told me today?”

“The risk is different. Sorry I’m not kissing your ass the way you want, King Steve. I can forgive you, but I’m still my own person, and you still don’t know what kind of shit you’re dealing with here.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person.” He can tell what Billy is getting at, even if he doesn’t understand where it came from, and he tries to shut it down, but his assurances don’t work. Billy argues, “You were literally here to press charges on me.”

Now's as good a time as any to explain himself, “Because my mom found my team pictures and wanted to know why I had stitches in my face and never told her. She didn’t buy the story about a rogue basketball, and when she found out what actually happened she freaked, and then I freaked, and then before I knew it I was here.”

“Huh. What a touching way to act like you’re on my level.” That was taken the wrong way. Steve doesn’t even feel guilty about that one knowing how much his words are being twisted here. He’s honestly more confused than anything else.

“I’m tired of arguing.”

“That’s what happens when you associate with someone like me. Got too much to hide. You’ve probably never even heard me tell the truth.”

“Gonna reiterate here, you’re not a bad person for what happened. We’re over it, yeah?”

Like he’s talking to a brick wall, every attempt at soothing the situation backfires, Billy turning every word into ammunition that cuts deep into the both of them, “Alright, I’ll bite. Sure I’m not a full blown piece of shit just for fighting for my family, but what happens when you realize I’m a con? A lying, manipulative son of a bitch that would do anything to protect his own ass in the long run. Hell, I’d kick your ass again right now if you asked a question I didn’t like. I’ve got shit you don’t want involved in, Harrington, so stop being so goddamn nosy.”

“What, are you in some gang or something?” He’s being sarcastic, a better response not coming to him, and he gets an equally as biting defense back from Hargrove, “Depends. If you count the alphabet mafia, sure.”

The smugness in his face tells Steve he’s not supposed to know what that meant. But he does. He’s a certified member himself.

His own expression must give away that he understands, because Billy’s demeanor falls, and fast, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s fine, Billy.” He tries to assure, but the other boy is panicking, “I shouldn’t have said that.“

“Is that why Hopper made that joke?” He’s somewhere between genuinely trying to understand and trying to lighten Billy’s stress. The latter answers coldly, “Doesn’t take a genius, Harrington.”

Steve tries to redirect, “Do you.. have a crush on me?”

“Way to make it sound stupid. I’m eighteen years old in a month. I don’t get crushes.”

A flicker of hope in his chest he didn’t expect from himself, Steve presses on, almost wanting his assumption to be right, “But you didn’t deny it.”

“Do I have to? What’s there to like about you?” There’s so much spite and bitterness laced into his toned Steve can tell it’s just for show. A defense mechanism against a non-existent, but somehow omnipresent, threat.

Steve decides to make his intentions fully clear then, “That’s a shame. I was going to see if you were free this weekend?”

Billy sounds skeptical, “You’re fucking with me.”

“I know it’s a pretty big deal what you just said to me. I also know I’ve never been brave enough to say that sort of thing out loud and you didn’t even really say it, so I figured you were being honest, and I could, I dunno, take my chance.” When he’s met with silence, Steve starts to worry that maybe he’s the one who misinterpreted things, and just outed himself like an idiot, “Am I being stupid again?”

“Nah. I think I am this time.” They both exhale out some of the tension, relieved to be on common ground again, this time as more than just acquaintances hopefully, since Billy suggests, “Saturdays are good for me. Don’t be over a minute before eight though. That’s when my dad leaves for work.”

“I guess it’s a date then.”

“Yeah.”

Another stretch of silence. Steve plugs, “This got super awkward..”

“Yeah.”

And another beat. There’s nothing left to say.

“I think I’m going to leave now.” Steve blurts out, standing rather suddenly, desperate to escape the awkwardness before it can ruin a relationship that doesn’t even exist yet.

Billy gives him a little nod of acknowledgement, but stays quiet this time.

Steve doesn’t like the ambiguity of that, so he prompts, “Hey, I’ll um.. see you soon.”

All he gets is the same stock answer he’s been getting for everything, a muttered, “Yeah..”

It’s something, so it’s good enough. He leaves the office, passing the Chief on his way back. If Hopper had acknowledged him, Steve would never know, so many thoughts racing through his head all at once, mainly- What the actual fuck had just happened between him and Billy goddamn Hargrove?

Steve stops just outside the door after it closes again to catch his breath, get a hold back on his bearings, overwhelmed with the speed of what just happened. From where he is, he can overhear the rest of the conversation in the Chief’s office.

“So? That took care of a good handful of the things that have been getting you down, kid. Feel better to have that weight off?”

Billy speaks much softer than Hopper, much harder to hear through the closed door, “I.. think I will be.”

“Hey, sometimes that’s all we can ask for.” It sounds like Hopper pats him on the shoulder and takes a seat, “Now if you don’t need anything else, get outta my office, kid. Go on and live a little.”

Steve thinks of how they’ll both probably heed that advice from now on. He hopes so anyways, now that the stupid grudge he didn’t really ever care for, is out of the way.

Billy shoves past him in the now open door way, throwing a harsh, “Outta my way, Harrington,” over his shoulder as he storms straight out the front door of the station.

Watching him go, hearing tires burn out as Billy peels out of the parking lot before Steve can even make it to the door, he won’t forget the vulnerability he was trusted with behind that locked door. Probably ever. He’ll hold that image close to him every time Billy has to pretend in public that he wants nothing to do with him.

Steve could maybe get used to this.

#harringroveweek #billy x steve #harringrove #& hopper #as a passive aggresive wingman #an enemies to friends to lovers speedrun #ft some more arguing bc thats their dynamic to me #ps #i am aware of the glaring anachronism near the end and I don’t care #ej writer #story by ej! #my writing

[in-the-enemys-arms]

Child of Fire

Summary: Hero has a child who can’t control her powers and none of the people in her agency do much to help, so hero attacks villain who has similar powers to try to record her movements in the hope that it will help her daughter learn. The problem is that villain is much stronger than her.

Content: broken wing, blood, female whumper, whumper turned caretaker, female whumpee

“You are no match,” the villain barks, her fire so close to the winged hero that she must feel like roast chicken. “You were a fool, coming here in the middle of the day.” It was truly an attempt too dumb to be true. Again, villain checks her surroundings, but she can’t see any reinforcements. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything. Just because the little dove is dumb doesn’t mean the trap is. Villain surrounds hero with a wall of flames, slowly closing in on her, and leaves only one possible escape route. The hero must realize she’s headed exactly where villain wants her, but the alternative is to burn. Villain quickly changes the direction of the opening, causing hero to change hers just as fast, hungry flames licking her toes. Too fast to avoid crashing into the wall.

Hero cries out, twirling in the air as she falls, then crashes onto the pavement with a loud thud. Villain considers simply finishing it. The hero is a low-level nobody. Someone the agency would only send to get people out fast. Someone who’s useless in most fights. Someone expandable they would sacrifice to distract villain while the real heroes cause trouble.

Villain clenches her fist. The agency was wrong once before. Underestimated one of the most powerful fighters the world has ever seen. And she came back to bite them. Villain is smarter than them. She warily, but emphasized leisurely, approaches the rag doll whimpering on the ground. One of her wings twists backwards. No flying with that. As far as villain is aware, that’s hero’s only special ability. As far as she is aware. That doesn’t mean anything.

“Where are your shitty agency friends, dear? They wouldn’t leave you to die like this, would they?”

Hero groans as she pushes herself up into a sitting position. Her hair is drenched in blood.

“We’re not done here.”

Villain kicks her. Hero blocks it with her arms, but the force still sends her onto her back. She shields her head, expecting more blows. She must be aware that it won’t protect her from the fire.

“We are done. And I advise you to stay down if you value your life.”

A whimper. Villain presses her shin across hero’s pelvis, holding her down as she searches her for stolen items or a hidden camera or anything, really. There is no logical explanation for hero to be here. And the scheme must be elaborate if villain hasn’t gotten behind it yet.

“Talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You’ve been getting away with your crimes far too long. I came here to change that.”

“You came here to die, and you know that. The question is what for.”

“It’s my job to protect the people.”

“Yes. They are much safer now.” Villain grabs hero’s collar. “Give me an answer I like, and I’ll let you go.”

Hero pouts and shakes her head, grabbing villain’s arms weakly.

“Do you want your parents to stare at the door every day, waiting for you to return? For your friends to spam you with texts, never to receive an answer?”

Hero’s eyes water.

“There is no secret plan or anything.” She hesitates, swallows, her eyes dart to the side. Villain follows her gaze to the roof of a relatively small building but doesn’t see anything suspicious. “Please, let me go.”

Villain doubts hero will ever answer truthfully. She’s either dedicated to the cause or the agency has some kind of leverage. Whatever it is, is more important to her than her life. Villain huffs, forcing her fingers to unclench so she can throw hero over her shoulder. Hero screams in surprise, squirms, then groans in pain and stops squirming.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”

“To the agency. I’m not wasting my own resources on keeping you alive.”

“No, wait. They … Please, just let me go.”

“They what?”

“They probably don’t want me back.”

“Why?”

“I, um, wasn’t supposed to come here. Actually, they said they would fire me if I did.”

None of this makes any sense. Villain drops hero nonchalantly and levitates up to the roof hero was staring at earlier. If there was someone, they either hid or ran away, there’s no one there. But they left their equipment. A camera, trained at the street in front of Villain’s tower. With a click, she opens the cover of the camera. The SD-card is still there. Why would they record the fight? To spot weaknesses in her technique, maybe. But why send hero to die for this? And for whom, if hero doesn’t work with the agency?

Villain slowly descends back to where hero lies on the ground. She managed to turn around in the meantime, staring up in horror.

“No, please, don’t break it. I swear, it’s not harmful to you in any way.”

“Then tell me what the fuck this is about.”

“Promise me you won’t come for my family.”

Villain bites her cheek in surprise, the camera heavy and fragile in her hand. She has no personal business with hero or her family. She wouldn’t even know where to find them. Yet. Hero’s statement makes her think she should know more about her enemies.

“Why would I?”

“Just promise me.”

“Fine. I promise. Now, tell me what’s going on.”

“I have a daughter. She discovered she has powers very recently. I was recording this for her.”

“That doesn’t explain anything. Why does your daughter need this?”

“Her powers are similar to yours.”

Villain snorts, remembering her teenage years. She must’ve burned down a dozen buildings. Destroying one or two when discovering your powers is normal. Something the agency expects. But people learn to control it fast. No more destroyed buildings. But not villain. Villain was too dumb, a loser, a thief. Such a powerful ability should’ve been given to someone smart, strong, worthy enough to use it, they said. Powers mean nothing. It’s the person who makes them seem strong, not the other way around. Now, they fear her.

“She can’t control them,” Villain states matter-of-factly.

Hero shakes her head. Villain takes the SD-card from the camera. Her enemies don’t need footage of her to analyze. Hero follows the card with her eyes, one thought away from jumping villain over it. Villain doesn’t destroy it right away and stows it in her pocket instead.

“This won’t help. Control comes from inside, not visible to the eye.”

“Tell me. Please. How?”

Villain squats by hero’s side and gives her an ever so slight smile.

“Let’s make sure you don’t die, first. And then, you can bring your daughter. I will train her.”

Villain lifts her up bridal style. Hero’s head slumps against her chest, wet and sticky with blood.

“I won’t allow you to use her.”

“I know. And I’m sure, once we’ve talked, you will apply the same dedication to burn the agency to the ground.”

#hero x villain #whump #mywriting #female whumpee #whumper turned caretaker #female whumper #lost fight #enemy caretaker #enemies to allies #winged whumpee

[author-a-holmes]

number 11 for the kiss prompts? :D

Heya hun! Thanks for the ask. Despite tagging myself, Tumblr didn't actually give me a notification so I forgot it had posted today!

Kiss Prompt Post Found Here

Number 11: When one stops the kiss to whisper “I’m sorry, are you sure you-” and they answer by kissing them more.

I'm going to do this one for Booker and Cara, since you don't actually get to see their first kiss in the books.

Changeling Spoilers Beneath The Cut.

For all Cara's blushing, and all Booker's flirting, he hadn't actually planned on kissing Lizzy's vampire roomate.

But Lizzy was still being distant. Avoiding him. And the further away she pulled, the closer to Cara he found himself gravitating.

The more he found himself indulging in listening to the vampire talk about the classes he barely understood the purpose of.

The more he found himself enjoying the sight of her grinning as she told him about beating another vampire in her advanced kavian fighting classes. Of following the line of her fingers when she tucked bronze strands of hair behind her ears.

He was in danger of falling for Cara, but he'd convinced himself he had it under control. That Lizzy pulling away meant that this pull towards Cara was simply that he was trying to fill the void his almost-sister had left at his side.

That what he felt for Cara was attraction, with no deeper feelings involved.

And he'd believed it.

Booker had successfully lied to himself until the moment his lips connected with hers, and his throat tightened with emotions. Dangerous and familiar, and terrifying as his heart trembled.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, pulling back slightly but halting when he found himself caught in her wide, honey-brown eyes.

It would be safer for him to tell her it had been a mistake, but the tentative hope bleeding into her gaze strangled his excuses and he forced out something else instead.

"Are you sure—Mph"

The second time she kissed him, and Booker felt his heart shiver in his chest, trembling with fear at what this would mean. At the pain on his horizon if he let it continue.

But Cara's fingers sliding into his hair banished his fears and he sighed, melting into her touch instead with only a passing hope that if leaving her behind broke him, Lizzy would still be beside him to help pick up the pieces of his shattered heart.

#Prompt #Ask #Asks Answered #Changeling #Booker Reed #Cara Evelyn #Booker/Cara #Kissing Prompts #Writing #Original Writing #Writing Community #Writeblr #Writeblr Community #Vampires #Fey

[arachnesnest]

Dreamed Cafe - Glenwarrie

Usually, the faces of people who are not the dreamer are blurred slightly in the dream. We do not fully remember those within a crowd, only that they were a crowd. One or two may have sharp features, but the rest are often slightly unfocused, as if suggesting people rather than reproducing them. 

It is a village festival, for harvest or solstice or something along those lines. The people are dancing around the bonfire, celebrating together, getting into the kind of fights and frolics that this sort of night welcomes. Each of them is perfectly in focus; individual, unique, detailed. This dreamer knows and remembers every one of them. 

“You won’t remember me tomorrow,” Glenwarrie says from behind me.

I take a moment to put the right expression on my face: a vague, distracted smile, as if I can’t quite place his name and will move past him in a moment. It’s easy - all the rest of the villagers are doing the same. 

Once it’s in place, I turn and give him the amiable indifference he’s expecting.  “No?”  I speak almost past him, rather than to him. 

“No. I never stay in one place for long if I can help it. It’s safer for me and safer for those I help if I don't linger, and I don’t return. So far it seems to have worked. The ruined towns and ravaged lands in the newsreels are always the places I’m heading to, not the ones I left behind.” He takes a cup of something from a vendor who barely registers it, and I accompany his circuit of the festival square. 

“Where do you go, then?” 

“Not places where I think my friends might be or have been. It’s why I avoid the river routes that Ondine might be smuggling people along, and why I never set foot in Challaree’s capital, only the outlying lands. Can’t have anyone recognizing me and bringing word back to them.” 

“So what is it you do, really?” Keep it light, keep it indifferent, as if it was no more than the weather. For all his gentle calm, Glenwarrie will spook if I get too close…and I sense he’s ready to open up soon. 

“I try to help. They need it here, they need it wherever I go. It’s as familiar as my travel pack by now, the rhythm of picking up and moving on, of settling in again in a new place.” He shifts his weight and I see the pack over his shoulder, a worn leather bag that’s seen years of service.  “Finding the places that need a delivery of supplies, a well repaired, a shelter fixed. The places that need just that one thing to patch over the worst of it and prevent the hard times from being the end.”

He shrugs. “Everywhere needs help. Sometimes it takes a day or two of listening first to figure out where and what. It’s best if I stay shadow during that time. Better if nobody remembers a stranger standing around.” That explains the reactions of the others. He’s spent so much time shadow that it shapes his dreaming self. 

“Everywhere needs help, and the problems are all familiar. Familiar as my wooden bowl, the patches on my coat, the stitching on my pack. It’s the same routine each day. Set up the lares, say my morning devotions, clear the mind. Let the thoughts of Pol and Havrattan and the rest of them come, then set them aside. And then go to where people are, and listen. Listen for long enough that I know a bit of my help will do something lasting, something more than delay the inevitable.”

He’s expecting an objection, so I start one. “But if you’re really helping, why can’t you –”

“Stop the Hunt? Get rid of the Empire?” He looks at the ground and shakes his head, and I can see the gray streaking his hair. “We had that chance, and lost it. Now it’s too big for me to change. I can’t fix the Hunt. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid being in the villages where it stalks, so I’ve never had to confront them. I don't know what I’ll do the day I finally run out of luck.”

“Not that I’ve been lucky otherwise. Shadowed and fast-moving isn’t the same as invulnerable. I’ve been robbed, beaten, once nearly strung up so they could skin me. A couple times I contracted some illness on the road and was laid up for weeks or even a month or two in roadside towns.” He looks up and into the past. “I did try to give them something extra, for that. Even grudging help should be rewarded. More often than not people are willing to help me.”

“Then you keep moving, all the time…”

“Yes. Places like this. I’m not fond of cities and tend to avoid them. Maybe that’s protective - avoiding the eye of the Empire, avoiding the gangs - or if there’s something else behind that.”

“What would that be? What keeps drawing you to the outskirts?”

There’s a long silence, and I follow him around the square for two more circuits before he answers. When he does, it’s in a much smaller voice.  

“I miss her terribly. When I let myself think of it. Out of the city I can still imagine her, among the fields.  In roadside dreams, before I wake up wet with dew and footsore, I sometimes hear her calling at the edge of consciousness. As if she’s still out there, somewhere, and maybe I’ll run across her one day.”

“I know, I know it’s not possible. She’s gone. Even if she wasn’t gone she wouldn’t welcome me back. But…Out here I can remember the promises we made. Half a joke, half a dream. A quiet place. A well. A garden. A welcome home at the end of the day.” 

“Is that why you don’t stop?”

“Maybe.  Because if I can’t ever go home to her, I never will go home.”

It’s too much honesty, even for dreams. I feel him closing back down as he talks about the travel. 

“Instead there’s the roads to walk down, with all their side paths. An inn where the town widow might glance at me speculatively, then slide her attention off like water on oilpaper. A farm where no one remembers the season’s hand who built the bonfire and sat in the shadows when the dances started. A shepherd’s hut where silence is welcome, and a gentle hand with lambing even more so.”

“In my wake is a trail of stitched-up wounds, repaired roofs, healed animals, rescued children. There’s always more to do. Always more help needed.” The weariness enters his voice again. He starts to get dimmer, fading away even from his own dream. 

“I suspect I can’t keep this up for many more years. All my healing ability is fading, the longer it’s been since the Fall. I try not to think too much about it - and it’s easy, when there is a constant stream of new problems to solve - but if pinned down, I’d have to say that I expect to be dead in a ditch within the next ten years.”

“Maybe I even want that. A fit ending. I can’t imagine stopping in one place for long enough to get old. Even those few times I had to stay and recover for a month have been hard. People begin asking questions, or having conversations and expecting me to respond. It’s so hard to figure out how to speak with them again.” He’s little more than a shadow now, like an afterimage.

“If I’m somewhere long enough to like speaking to someone, to look forward to their approach, to dread another’s greeting, then I’m losing the impartiality I need to be able to do this. I have to be able to help the prickly and the foolish as much as the kind and wise.” 

“When it gets to the point where I like talking to one person more than another, it’s time to move on. To stay anywhere and develop preferences? Feels like a betrayal.” Faded away completely, and gone. The townsfolk linger a while, showing that somewhere he remains dreaming them into their joy. And then they, too, fade. 

#dreamed cafe #rough draft #after the loss #making random things #can't look for the helpers if they don't want to be found #leave no trace nor memory

[shrinkthisviolet]

1, 4, 14?

1. What led you to start writing fanfiction?

I've always loved "what-if" questions, which is why I started reading fanfic! And then writing it was, at first, a type of "hmm what if I put my OC in here" (back when I wrote Warrior Cats fanfics 😂 a thing of the past for me) and then evolved into fix-it fics.

What's funny is I stopped writing OCs for a while and thought I never would again...until I watched the Flash and got the idea for Morgan 😂 and no matter what, the idea just wouldn't let me go. So in a sense, although I still write fix-it fics, I've also come full-circle.

4. What themes/concepts in the canon do you most enjoy exploring in your fan works?

I love exploring friendship and trust in my fics...and betrayal. And also grief, mostly because the media I love that involves grief doesn't tend to explore it deeply (to be fair, I don't explore it super deeply either, but I always try to let my characters feel it). Same for trauma! Some media *glares at the Flash and CK* seems allergic to therapy for their characters.

I also love turning romantic tropes platonic 😂 but maybe that's just the spite in me who sees so many tropes labeled as romantic with "no platonic explanation!" 🤦‍♀️

And also also, I try to avoid the miscommunication trope whenever possible, since I’m not a fan of it (especially with superhero identities…since when is it safer to keep your identity secret from your known best friend, who your enemies will go after whether she knows about you or not, Barry??)

14. What aspects of your creative process do you enjoy most? Which are most challenging?

I love writing dialogue! Especially in a conversation that's going really fast, back and forth...I wouldn't say I write Sorkin dialogue, but sometimes that's the feeling I get while writing conversations (and arguments!).

Fight scenes are challenging, mostly because I'm not much of a fighter 😅 I did take karate, but I was kinda okay at it, and it was tae kwon do, which doesn't always translate (for CK, for instance, the characters use a different fighting style).

And oh boy, it’s so much harder with superpowers 😅 Morgan’s fight scenes are hard to write fr, which is why I tend to avoid them when I can.

fanfic ask game!

#fanfic ask game