#The compliment he gave to Chaos about all the good qualities he sees in everyone reflected in Chaos | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

headcanontheshitoutofsoulsborne · 3 years

Text

Sekiro Chain 1

Original prompt: Kuro teaches Wolf how to play Shogi. Mun's note: I love how this chain turned out. Everyone did such an amazing job. Please show your apprecation for the characters by checking out their work and consider giving this chain a reblog.

@ghoulsteak

In Kuro’s tower, the summer air is warm and still. The sliding doors stand open to let what breeze there is pass through unimpeded. Sun streams in through the western door, painting a bright square across the tatami. Motes of dust spiral in the light.

Kuro can see Wolf from where he sits reading, a dim figure with only a foot caught in the sun, seated with his back to the opposite wall. It’s easy to forget he’s there, both because Wolf has been present in the corner of Kuro’s eye for a long time now and because being forgettable is a trait the shinobi has carefully cultivated.

He stands now and pads silently across the floor. Time for another inspection, Kuro supposes; another circuit around the tower’s perimeter (cliff side included), another quiet pass among the sun-streaked piles of books in the upper room. Wolf is always conscientious in his checking and rechecking, but today he seems to be wound even tighter than usual. On a day as beautiful as this one, that strikes Kuro as something of a shame.

As Wolf steps back inside from his patrol, Kuro sets down his book. “Wolf,” he calls. The shinobi’s head turns. “Would you like to play shogi with me?”

“I do not know how, my lord.”

“That’s no matter. I can teach you,” Kuro says.

Kuro himself learned from Owl. The old man taught him the game years ago while he lingered at the castle. He kept to himself whether was simply resting between outings or sniffing around amongst the servants and courtiers. Kuro has beaten him only once, and he suspects that the old man threw that game. He is as difficult for Kuro to read as his son is easy.

But still, he offers Wolf the same reason for learning as the Owl gave him. “They say shogi is good for the mind. It helps one practice strategy.” He knows Wolf struggles to justify doing things that don’t reap tangible results. The shinobi’s chief leisure activity, insofar as he can be said to have one, is sleeping. Wolf inclines his head in agreement.

Wolf seats himself across the table, and Kuro begins setting up the board. He explains the rules of the game to him; they’re a lot to take in, but he knows Wolf prides himself on only having to be told something once, and thus does not repeat himself. He listens in silence, nodding from time to time or interjecting with a murmured question, and they begin to play.

A minute and a half passes. Wolf loses.

“Hrm,” he says, brow furrowed. Kuro hides a smile with his sleeve.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to take it easy on you, Wolf,” he says.

A slight shake of the head. “Of course.”

“Again?”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Kuro offers him no advice. He doesn’t want to teach Wolf to play like him; even after three years’ worth of rainy days spent at the board, he suspects his own style is still too much like the Owl’s. He wants to see how Wolf plays shogi.

As they begin again, he watches the shinobi’s expression. Between turns, his gaze darts about the room, quicksilver eyes beneath a stone brow. His attention is divided a dozen different ways. This, rather than his inexperience, is why Kuro beats him again.

“Again?”

“Certainly.”

Perhaps, Kuro thinks, he should ask him to play next in a room with shuttered windows and a single, easily barred door. He can see the roots of Wolf’s technique, the shape of his quick, guarded mind beginning to describe itself upon the board, but he won’t let himself become immersed in the game. Wolf can’t let go of his awareness of the tower’s points of entry and escape, of the distance between the palm of his hand and the hilt of his sword.

Kuro begins to push Wolf’s slow offense back, intending to corner him on his own side of the board. Confident in his advance, he overreaches. Wolf capitalises on the chink revealed in his armour and cuts behind Kuro’s lines. As he finishes his move, he glances up at Kuro.

“Hah!” Kuro sits back in surprise, eyes alight. A hint of a smile runs along the furrows of Wolf’s face, and is gone just as quickly.

“I apologise, Wolf,” he says. “I underestimated you.”

Wolf inclines his head. “It is no matter.”

As the game continues to its close and the game after it begins, Kuro watches Wolf’s hold on his vigilance relax a little more. Perhaps there’s something comforting to him after all about a battle with no stakes, an enemy who wants nothing more than to pass a summer afternoon.

@dragonbasket

@fateoftheundead

“Are you ready, Wolf?”

Sekiro nodded and knelt before the low table across from the young lord, who busied himself shuffling a stack of papers. Kuro’s movements were not that of a studious priest, or a graceful shinobi, but guileless and clumsy like the youth he was.

“Why is this necessary for my mission?”

“Your sentiments are pure and honorable, but the pursuit of knowledge and understanding is just as pure, just as honorable.”

“As you insist. I do not know exactly what it is I do not know.”

***

The Wolf turned his head back and forth, flustered as he had ever been and rarely showed. “As I told the Heir, I do not know what it is I do not know. I… have heard that that is a good place to start. To start knowing.” A snort emerged from the background, amidst the wooden idols.

Emma, the mild doctor, approached, frowning in the direction of the snort. “That is true. Do not be so hard on yourself.” She took a seat. “Please continue.”

Sekiro handed the stack of Kuro’s scrolls to the man seated on the ground, who blinked with wide open eyes at the documents. Fujioka gave the smile of a man retreating from a tiger. “So whaddya need me for, anyway?”

“My letters are insufficient. You are the right choice, despite your grumbling.”

“Fine, fine, some compliment.” Spreading the papers out, he bent his head to the scroll he had selected. “So… I have heard it said, oh monks, that… hmm, I dunno that’s the best way to begin. You’ve got far more wisdom than you know, Wolf, but these doctrineses may be too big a breakfast. Tell me- what scriptures did you learn as a child?”

Sekiro sighed. “I remember very little from before I was orphaned, and once the Owl had adopted me I had very little time for scriptures or doctrines.”

Another scoffing laugh came, and this time it’s owner came closer. The Sculptor rose creakily and made his way over as well, though much less gracefully than the doctor.

“Ahh, these old bones need a stretch anyway. The Owl? Ukonzaemon Usui? One slip of the pen and he would have been a cloud-and-water man. Bah, you’re more a cloud-and-water man than the old fool ever could have been.” He bowed deeply to Fujioka, his wooden left arm almost scraping the floor. “Forgive me, scroll jumbler. Forgive me, Wolf. Please continue.”

“I suppose that I know as much as anyone. Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā?”

Seeing the lost look on his face, the others in the room repeated the simple sutra. “You all know it. I’m gald I knew it as well. Perhaps this is not the correct interpretation, but it has always struck me... gone, gone, everyone gone... What does it mean to be shinobi? If we become one with the shadows, then do we exist at all?”

Fujioka beamed. “Oh, that’s wisdom alright, Wolf! As direct as the 6th Patriarch’s famous verse, and maybe as good.” He looked around sheepishly. “What? I know stuff.”

“Do you know who else had something to say about the Heart of Wisdom?” The Sculptor’s grimace was unreadable. Emma turned to him, but cut him only with the gaze of her eyes. “Master Hakuin! Do you know what he said about our beautiful Heart? Scripture scrolls dug from piles of garbage!”

“Garbage?” Emma’s face at last betrayed a hint of anger.

“Easy, sweet doctor. I mean no offense. We may pare our nails at the foot of a burning lamp, we may polish a brick into a mirror, but these base things are not bad. Simply a glimpse of truth. These,” he said, flinging a gnarled finger past the Heir’s donated stack of scrolls. “are wonderful in their own way, but for a man of my inclinations, I prefer the schematics our Wolf brings back. To build wondrous things!”

“Not from piles of garbage.” Sekiro’s face grew dark as he thought back to where he had found many such scrolls and the like that he’d found, in pockets and pouches, in dark corners used as hiding places, and he thought of the secrets he’d found as well, the deep crimson secrets that lay at the heart of men. And monsters.

“Of course, Wolf. Now, of all the treasures you bring back to our little ryokan... I prefer the sake best.”

“Sake!” Fujioka theatrically covered his face, mimicking the voice of a mortified grandmother. “In the midst of our scripture study! Would that not violate the Fifth Precept?”

“Indeed, indeed, sir, but there is one sin that the Tathagatha held more grave than any violation of the precepts.”

“What is this sin, Sculptor?” Emma’s face had lost all anger and she seemed genuinely curious.

“The disruption of the Sangha! Chaos amongst friends and disciples! Vituperation!” He grinned. “I am an old man. I get cranky when I do not get my sake. And when I get cranky...”

“The next time I find any sake, I will bring it right back. For the Sangha, that is.”

“Make sure you do. My friends, is anyone else cold? Without a little something to warm my belly, I feel every draft.” Without waiting for a response he walked over to the hearth where a few embers struggled to produce rarefied strands of flame. “We’re out of firewood.”

The others ignored him and Fujioka produced another scroll from the pile. “The Hekiganroku... some of these things the Heir sent us are quite advanced. Don’t get me wrong, I find a quality koan to be pleasing on its own merits, but the solution of these... beyond me.” The information broker squinted down at another scroll. “Oooh, ooh. The Heir left a little note in the margin. ‘Master Dogen’s commentary is superb.’ Aha! Dogen.” Fujioka became suddenly excited and turned his squint towards Emma. “Waittaminute...”

“I was indeed apprenticed to Dogen.” A faint smile. “Not the original Dogen. He was centuries ago. How old do you think I am?”

Before the broker could reply, Sekiro piped up. “Doctor, you don’t look a day over 200.” She rewarded him with a widening smile at the quip. She rubbed her hands together.

“It is cold. My Master Dogen would sometimes pretend to be a Zen master and jump out of corners to frighten me. He made a crude kesa out of bandages and covered his hair with a sack to seem bald.” She paused in thought. “I am not sure why.”

“Students must sometimes go along with their master’s teaching, I am sure.” Sekiro nodded.

Fujioka continued. “No offense, Wolf, but I got something here from the Hekiganroku that reminded me of you, and our dear ol’ sculptor. Case 54...” He recited the koan and put the scroll down.

“Yunmen Extends His Hands. I see. But I have only one hand.”

“Between the two of us we have two, Wolf,” called the Sculptor from the background, still puttering noisily among the idols. “Yunmen would slap us well if that were the case.”

Sekiro stood momentarily from where he’d crouched across from Fujioka and stretched his back before sitting again. “I recall some dharma if you forgive my rough understanding.”

“Of course!” The broker smiled in anticipation despite himself.

“Yunmen’s koan reminded me of another great master fond of hitting his disciples. Rinzai! What a fearsome teacher. There are tales that I have heard of his striking pupils to teach a lesson, but his most impressive act was worthy of a shinobi. In the meditation hall, during the most serene meditation, he would appear out of nowhere beside any monks whose minds were wandering, and beat them with a stick!”

“That stick is called the kyosaku and the monks must raise their hands and ask to be struck. It is an efficacious remedy for a sluggish mind.” Emma nodded to Sekiro as she rose as well. “I think I prefer your version, though.” “Aha! A fine Buddha indeed.” The Sculptor appeared with one of his wooden idols, one of surpassing craftsmanship. Without any hesitation he flung the idol onto the fire. The others reacted with a combination of horror and disbelief that led into a general clamor. Sekiro himself adopted a blank expression, as there was certainly a finer point to this act that he did not understand. “Protest all you like, it’s only a statue.”

“Of the Tathagatha. Such shame you bring with your recklessness,” seethed Emma. The sculptor scoffed.

Having recovered from his initial shock, Fujioka looked into the Sculptor’s eyes. “This is something I heard about once. That old pervert Ikkyu once did the same. But...”

“A common error, sir. Not Ikkyu, but Tanka.” He turned to Emma. “Do you mean to say that I burned the Buddha himself? Some relic of the Shaka Nyorai?”

“No, it is simply a wooden statue, but-”

“Simply wood,” he interrupted. “Then you do not mind if I burn another as the night grows colder?”

No one spoke for a long moment.

Fujioka broke the silence. “Ya think maybe we studied enough for the young master? I’d like to know for next time... I mean, if there is a next time... who are the masters you’d wanna hear more from?”

“Let us decide which sage would win in a battle, then!” The Sculptor’s face creased with amusement. “Wolf, who do you think?”

“Rinzai, of course. His stealth and fearsome strikes would take the day.” He turned to Emma. “What would you say, doctor?”

“Eno, the patriarch. His touch could make even the most ephemeral things as immovable as mountains. They say in a distant temple he sits mummified, unmoving but still meditating. True strength.”

“I dunno if the Heir thinks this is appropriate. Says here the Buddha himself specified that this subject is not suitable for the path to enlightenment.” He leaned forward with a sly whisper. “I would be like Dorin. Simple, happy teachings, and could spring through the trees like a monkey. Or a shinobi.”

“My turn,” said the Sculptor. “I am sure of my preference for the toughest master. Eka, Damo’s disciple. A great general before that, a fearsome warrior. To prove his devotion to becoming a student of Damo, he cut off his own arm and presented it to the patriarch, and became a great teacher in his own right. Invincible.”

Sekiro’s intuition prickled at him. He tensed, sensing something akin to danger, but...

The sculptor removed his wooden arm and held it aloft. “Wolf, I’ve seen how well you adapted to my previous arm. Such clever uses of the humble mechanisms I installed. But this thing? What use is it? I carved one arm with the other arm. Eka did not even replace his. So perhaps...” He shivered. “Is it cold in here?”

The sculptor tossed his wooden arm onto the fire.

There was no outcry from the others. Only a shocked silence. The sculptor rubbed the bare spot where his shoulder terminated. “Now, Wolf, about that sake...”

A slight smile. “For the Sangha?”

“For the Sangha.” Another uncomfortable pause, then the Sculptor let loose with a cackle.

In the warmth and light of the fire, the others joined him in laughter as the arm lit the room with its flames. @thefatladysang

@poisonhemloc

The old route to Senpou Temple started in the silvergrass field. Genichiro had never been to the temple, but there was a first time for everything. He needed the Mortal Blade, now, that was held there. The crimson one. The black one was further but much easier to get to, and relatively unguarded- but he didn’t want to risk the black one, the one that would kill Grandfather if he used it too much. Grandfather staying alive was the only reason the Interior Ministry hadn’t fully attacked Ashina. And he didn’t dare hasten the illness’s work before he had the Dragon’s Heritage, true immortality, not the Sediment’s poor version. With the Dragon’s Heritage he could stand up to the Interior Ministry, and win.

Grandfather had obviously thought the Sediment was making him unstable, when he stopped to tell him where he was going. A little part of Genichiro still wondered why he had even taken the time to do that. And wondered why he had come out here, where he had lost against the shinobi for the first time by a hair’s breadth, when the more reliable route to Senpou now ran through the dungeons. He turned to leave-

-and a strange depression in the grass caught his eye.

There was an arm. There was the shinobi’s arm, laying here unrotting. It had been a month, something should have at least tried chewing on it, but it looked as though he had just cut it off.

Some part of him knew why. He waited for the knowledge to work its way to the front of his mind through hazes of red.

The Dragon’s Heritage. The same as Tomoe. And Genichiro remembered a spar between Grandfather and Tomoe, when he was younger, before Takeru had died and Kuro had been born.

Neither of them were trying to be careful, but Isshin was always better at swordplay than Tomoe; xe had shined with archery instead, and taught Genichiro. And Isshin had cut off Tomoe’s right arm, with the same lunge Genichiro had used for the shinobi. And had given Genichiro a look, as Tomoe collapsed, and held the arm next to the stump, and when Tomoe revived it had reattached. And it had been like Isshin had never cut it off.

It must have been due to the Dragon’s Heritage. And now…

The prosthetic Dogen had spent days, months, working on, had been given to the shinobi. Every shinobi trick conceivable could fit in it. It would be better, smarter, to leave this somewhere the man would find it, and have him reattach it and lose the prosthetic and the advantage it gave.

But the rational train of thought was being drowned out by the louder, much more insistent voice that had listened to Orangutan complain, sometimes loudly, every time he was at the castle, about the arm he had lost continuing to hurt. And several soldiers, and samurai, who had also lost limbs and complained about the same thing. He shouldn’t delay any longer though, he needed to be moving. Genichiro grabbed the arm and left for the dungeons.

There was a brazier not far from the entrance, next to the cave Doujun had been reduced to using. Genichiro knocked it over and dropped the arm on top of the coals, watched it smoulder, and then catch when he dumped fabric- Doujun probably brought it over to tend to the stab wounds but they were fine, the Sediment was healing everything- and watched as the arm caught and blazed. He had a lot of things he needed to do but… he could wait, for a few minutes, ignoring Doujun grumbling as he retreated to the little cave and watch the armor distort and melt and the arm reduce to blackened bones before he turned and left for Senpou.

Isshin watched the shinobi nod politely, and stand. He would be after the Crimson Mortal Blade, now, like Genichiro was. He half turned- and tensed up, and grimaced, just for a second, but Isshin saw it. The prosthetic definitely twitched, and his good arm looked like he was going to grab at it for a moment, before he went back to the blank face he always wore.

“Something wrong, Sekiro?” Another little hint of emotion, he did not like that Isshin had seen that and commented on it. Now, would he lie, or admit to it? And which would make that shadow in his eyes worse?

“...Just for a second, my… injury, hurt. More than it has. I… believe I need to talk to Lady Emma.”

“Go then! Emma knows what to do with severed limbs.” Isshin watched him leave, not using the prosthetic’s grappling hook like he had to get here. Not using the prosthetic at all, actually. He would have to ask Emma what had happened. He had not painstakingly arranged for this man to get to Kuro and helped him hone his talent for killing just for his arm to twinge a little and have him give everything up.

Wolf had opened the library window Kuro hadn’t been able to budge as soon as he was back, and talked to Kuro, and now was approaching Emma. He looked tenser than he had, had Isshin given him bad news? And he hesitated for a moment, before seemingly resigning himself.

“Something… happened, to the injury.” Emma fought to keep the shock off her face, Wolf was asking for medical help beyond the gourd? When she went to check in with Isshin would she find him cured, talking to a normal, sane Genichiro?

“Okay. We need to take the prosthetic off anyway, I need to check the bandages. What happened?” Wolf had been keeping his voice quiet; Kuro hopefully was too engrossed in reading to notice, and Emma stayed quiet as well.

“It felt like I touched metal held in a fire, with the cut part of my arm.” Emma frowned, helping him remove the prosthetic and the remainder of the kote, not touching the scarf he was overly protective of. Pain from the missing limb, that happened a lot, and he had said it felt like burning. And pain in the remaining limb, from being cut. Burning in the remaining limb was not normal.

Wolf tensed up when she started unwrapping bandages, too, but that was normal for him. There were clean bandages up here, at least, Emma didn’t want to reuse what she was unwrapping. She should have changed everything when he woke up, but there was no way he would have trusted her enough to let her. Nevermind that she had bandaged the arm in the first place and been changing it while he’d been unconscious, and worried that it never looked like it was healing, just not bleeding as much.

Now it did, it looked… like he had said, like someone had cauterized it. Which was normally what Emma would have done anyway, except the Dragon’s Heritage should have healed it completely.

“You were just talking with Isshin?”

“Yes.”

“...Well, it cauterized itself. I don’t know why. It’s still going to hurt- it might hurt more, for a while. I need you to stay here for a few hours, at least, in case something else happens.”

“I cannot. I have Lord Kuro’s orders to fulfil.” Like he hadn’t asked Emma to check his arm. “I will-”

“Not leave until tomorrow at earliest.” Loud enough Kuro heard, hopefully. “Give your arm some chance to heal, since it’s finally started to.” She ignored the dirty look that flashed across his face for a moment as she placed new bandages and helped replace the remains of the left kote that the prosthetic tied onto.

Kuro walked to the front of the library as Wolf pushed Emma’s hands away and finished tying on the prosthetic himself.

“Wolf, please, if you are in pain the ingredients can wait.” Kuro was frowning, one of his hands was fidgeting with the book he still held. “And you did just duel Genichiro. Everything can wait til tomorrow morning, Wolf.” Kuro was probably too far away to hear a bitten back sigh.

“Of course, my lord.”

Emma had her own quarters at night, and Kuro had blankets in this room and had insisted on giving Wolf one of them; he had insisted on giving Wolf several of them, actually, and it had taken a few minutes of careful discussion before Wolf convinced him not to, but he wouldn’t be budged on Wolf having at least one and continuing to refuse was inviting him to order Wolf to accept more. How much Kuro seemed to care for Wolf- Wolf, who had failed at Hirata, who had spent too long trying to find Kuro and get to Ashina, and then failed again immediately- was. Strange. It must have been because Wolf was the only person left from Hirata, this was not how masters treated their servants. At least Wolf would stay awake if he was here, stay on guard.

And he failed at that, too, jerking awake in the middle of the night, biting his tongue to stop a yell like he had with Isshin, feeling like his missing arm had been crushed. It was still gone. The pain persisted for a few minutes, before fading back to the burning pain he had been trying to tune out. Emma was not being told about this, if she came before he left in the morning; Wolf had a duty to his lord, and he did not want to be delayed again because she thought he couldn’t work through pain.

Genichiro, angrier already than he had been, stomped back down the passageway, snapping at the soldiers he had ordered to keep watch down here to pay attention. Senpou was a waste. The monks were easy enough to kill, not one of them could block a swing from him, but every bridge to the monastery was broken. What was he supposed to do, scale Mt Kongo itself just to get to the main hall?

So the black blade would have to do. Open Gate. The weaker of the blades, sure, but it was enough. It was closer too, easier to get to; why had he even bothered with Senpou Temple? He should have gone straight for it. Yes, Grandfather thought it was tied to his life, but no one really knew, just some shrine maiden twenty years ago wrote a lot of stuff on a scroll to justify keeping the sword. It was all speculation. And it was just in a shrine halfway to Hirata and north. And Dragon’s Heritage or not, it would kill the shinobi for good and Kuro wouldn’t have a choice, and with enough of the generals sharing immortality they would drive off the Interior Ministry.

...Here was the remains of the fire where he’d burned the arm. The bones looked blackened, but still recognizable. Genichiro stamped on them as he passed, splintering them into pieces, and continued out of the dungeons, back out of the castle, before it was light.

#sekiro shadows die twice #fanfiction #fanart #sekiro chain 1

24 notes · View notes

lillianofliterature · 4 years

Text

marvel preferences || 1/?

this is the first of many preferences I will start writing over time. if you have any preference requests, send them in via my inbox! i’m not writing full fics for anyone right now but I would love to take requests for preferences! check my masterlist for lists of fandoms/characters. happy reading!

DO NOT REPOST.

p.s. loki’s will probably always be the longest. he’s my comfort character and precious soul who deserves the MOST.

if gifs not sourced, they were found on google, lmk if they’re yours!

(more below the cut-off)

what made them fall in love with you

Steve Rogers

Your smile. Steve never thought he could find comfort in another person after he woke up in a brand new world. He had lost everyone he had ever known and everything he had been familiar with all of his life. But there was something in your smile that took him right back to 1942, to rich blackberry pie in his mother’s icebox, to the melodies that would play over the static of his old radio, and the alluring feeling of being at home again. He thrived off of your smile - so much so that he could scarcely go a day without seeing it.

Tony Stark

Your sass. Tony thought Pepper was the only one who could keep up with the quick-witted nonsense that rolled of his tongue until you came onto the scene. You were not only just as sharp as he was and kept pace with his attitudes and references, but totally ruthless in your quips which even left him speechless on occasion. Life was never dull around you and he didn’t feel like he needed to try and sensor his remarks or his frequent rudeness - he knew you could understand the reason or the emotion behind it and often even find his sense of humor in all of it. When he had seen you roll your eyes for the first time mid-conversation, Tony knew he was in too deep - especially when he realized your reaction was aimed at Steve.

Clint Barton

Your sense of humor. To anyone who really knew the famed archer, it was basic knowledge to know that Clint had an affinity for a good sense of humor - believing himself to have one of the best. When he had gotten to know you a little better, he was ecstatic to finally have someone to joke around with and not have to worry about poor timing or moody reactions. You were always willing to have a laugh, especially in the midst of a serious or daunting situation. You had your share of dad jokes, cheesy puns, borderline offensive nicknames for everyone on the team, and so many other quips that Clint thrived off of. He found himself eager to be around you whenever he could, ready to bounce his latest joke off of you and just enjoy your company.

Natasha Romanoff

Your leadership skills. Natasha had saught a sense of security all of her life, especially since she had turned her life around and joined S.H.I.E.L.D.’s forces. When you later joined the team, you were able to bring each Avenger together and help them through their many differences - even Tony and Steve. Even out in the chaos of a mission, you had the ability to wrangle the team and find a way through every unforeseen situation. You had established a strong definition of unity for the team, determined to keep everyone together, and she loved you for that.

Bruce Banner

Your intelligence. Bruce loved the fact that he could carry on an intellectual conversation with someone who could keep up with him when he was in his zone. Whether it was science, technology, or just the elaborate store of vocabulary you kept under your belt, he adored every bit of it. You didn’t even need to know all that much about his field of work to seem genuinely interested in his passions and he loved entertaining your interests as well.

Peter Parker

Your nerdiness. Peter couldn’t believe he had met a girl who was just as obsessed with Star Wars as he was. Sure, he wasn’t ignorant to the fact that girls could be nerds, but he had just never met one in person - at least not one as full of so many amazing qualities as you were. You were kind, funny, sharp-minded, and totally enthralled with anything to do with your fandoms, and never missed a beat when he used one of his many fandom-related references in day-to-day conversation. Not to mention you were downright beautiful. He enjoys nothing more than the hours he spends with you and Ned talking about movies, comics, and music, and especially the times you help them build their limited edition LEGO sets without a hint of judgement. You were something special.

Scott

Your laugh. Scott couldn’t get enough of it. Since the first moment he had heard your real laughter, unkempt and wild, he had been finding ways to bring it out of you - which he succeeded at more times than not. There was something about the way that expression of joy left you breathless for air with little crinkles at the corners of your sparkling eyes. It was adorable. Being able to have that effect on you was one of the few things he could truly take pride in, and he would happily spend the rest of his life doing just that.

Heimdall

Your eyes. He is always careful to study a person’s eyes upon meeting them, knowing them to be the window to a person’s very soul; their innate being. When he looked into yours, he saw a mix starlight and wonderment. He could see from the very start that you had an honest soul - you sought no ill will upon anyone around you. You were good, passionate, and pure. You had captivated him with just a single glance and he found himself relentlessly drawn to you.

Loki

The way you speak to him. Loki had spent a lifetime surrounded by voices fueled with negativity and condescension, apart from the voice of his mother. He had been the brunt of cruel jokes from the Warriors Three, blamed for his brother’s numerous misgivings as children, and forced to accept Odin’s distaste for him. When you came along, he had expected no different from you - but you proved him wrong. You spoke to him in a way no one, save his beloved mother, had ever spoken to him.

You regarded him with respect as a noble, which most people had try to strip from him all of his life. Your kindness, which overflowed in abundance around him, warmed his soul with pleasure. Your tone was never anything less than sincere. Even when you grew frustrated with him, you were mindful to respect his triggers and could express your anger truthfully in love, without malice or hatred. When you laughed, you laughed with him, and not at him. Your compliments and endless affirmations of his worth gave him a since of residual positivity about himself. He found himself eager to see you and speak with you - he knew you would never dismiss him or abandon him. Because of you, he had begun to like himself as he was, not for what anyone told him he could never be.

Thor

Your compassion. Thor had known a great many people in his lifetime, noble and ordinary, and had yet to meet anyone with a heart as big as yours. You had seen him as more than just a stuck-up prince from the very beginning and had helped him see past himself and shed his arrogant scales. You never asked for anything more than simple kindess and in return, you gave your heart so fully to every cause. In many ways, you had taught him how to see with his heart and not so much his power or his royalty. You’d shown him how to see through the eyes of his people, and not just as their ruler. He wishes he could be as compassionate and selfess as you are.

Brunnhilde

Your combat skills. To say Valkyrie was impressed the day you slayed three Sakaar Imperials with one clean swing of your blade was an understatement. They had been looming in the distance, their weapons aimed for her head, as she fought of a hoard of junk hunters. The imperials had been out for her for a few weeks, ever since she had gained the special favor of the Grandmaster for her delivery of new gladiators or scum. Your swift decision to aide her saved her life. She hadn’t trusted the sword of anyone other than herself since the massacre of her fellow Valkyrie until she met you. She admired your skill and determined demeanor in a fight, as well as your ability to sense a sour situation. You had grown on her.

Peter Quill

Your taste in music. Peter wasn’t used to having a receptive audience when it came to sharing his mix tapes with the Guardians. It took several weeks - for Drax, it took months - for them to begin to appreciate the songs he blasted through the sound system of the Milano. When you arrived on the scene, he was more than ecstatic to find your Zune hidden away in your things after Rocket, who had yet to trust you, had convinced him to search your bags for any incriminating evidence. It was loaded with many of the same songs he had spent his life memorizing and dancing to. From then on, after you got over the snooping through your things in secret, you and Peter would share your music. Whether it be oldies, new discoveries, or absurd alien songs that came through the radio frequencies, Peter couldn’t be happier to finally have someone who understood the power of music the way he did.

220 notes · View notes

ibijau · 3 years

Text

Xue Yang’s master pt 3 / on AO3

Xue Yang and his master leave the forest

They stayed a few more days in that little house, until Wen Chao’s wounds were healed enough he could think of travelling… and until their food supply became too low to stay any longer.

Wen Chao wasn’t a very good teacher, Xue Yang quickly figured out, but he wasn’t a very bad one either. He was really trying hard to explain things in a simple manner, rightly guessing that Xue Yang didn’t have the level of education he might have normally expected from a new disciple, but it was clear he struggled with some of those concepts himself.

It couldn’t be blamed on his amnesia, as that appeared to only affect personal matters, like his name, or his family, or his close ones. When it came to things that didn’t touch his emotions in any way, Wen Chao had a great memory… unless he deemed the topic boring, as seemed to be the case with cultivation.

He still was good enough to perform every necessary ritual to purify the house they had used, and to check that the soul of its previous owner hadn’t lingered on in spite of never getting a proper burial. Wen Chao even made Xue Yang dig a grave for the man, as if that really made any difference for someone who had been dead so long.

“You’d be surprised,” Wen Chao said, lazily fanning himself as he watched Xue Yang work. “Some people will linger on for years and years, if they feel they’ve got reason enough. Once you’ve learned the basics, I’ll show you how to get in touch with spirits and see what they want.”

“Can’t we just blow them apart or something?” Xue Yang asked, angrily planting his shovel in the ground. It was an old, rusty thing that did very little when going against the hard ground of the forest. “I thought cultivation was about fighting.”

Wen Chao rolled his eyes. “It’s not just that, even if some sects have gotten excessively martial in the last century. Mine more than most, I guess. But because we can get in contact with ghosts, we have a duty to attempt it. There’s a right way to do things, we have to… to…”

He grimaced and closed his eyes tightly, the way he did whenever he came a little too close to personal memories. At least, so Xue Yang assumed.

“There’s a way to do things,” Wen Chao repeated. “Liberate, suppress, and only if that fails, eliminate. You have to do things in the right order.”

“Sounds inefficient,” Xue Yang retorted.

“It’s about respecting others,” Wen Chao said. “If you died an unjust death, wouldn’t you want to have a chance to let others know, so they might try to right the wrongs done onto you?”

Xue Yang leaned on his shovel, giving the question some consideration. He’d very nearly been in that situation, after that encounter with Chang Ci’an and his hand had gotten infected for a while, so it was remarkably easy to make up his mind.

“I’d rather just destroy those who killed me,” Xue Yang said. “And then if I have to be destroyed I don’t care, as long as I get my revenge first.”

Wen Chao’s fan stilled, his eyes round as cherries, as if he'd never heard anything so horrifying in his life. “Oh. Well. We’re going to work on this too, I guess. The cultivation path I can teach you demands righteousness, and help given to the weak.”

“Sounds stupid,” Xue Yang grumbled, but he resumed digging that damn grave, so they could burry that damn man who’d been stupid enough to die all alone like that.

He wasn’t sure what that man had done to even deserve an actual grave, when most people Xue Yang knew had been lucky to get a mass grave, or had been incinerated because nobody gave a damn about preserving their body, and many damns about not wasting resourced on some teenage criminals nobody cared about. But he supposed he would consider it nice if someone had taken the time to dig a grave for him, and so maybe Wen Chao had a point.

They left the little house the next morning, and headed out of the forest. Xue Yang had feared it would be difficult to find their way back to the road, especially since it was a cloudy day, but Wen Chao appeared quite at ease. He looked at trees, at what little of the sky was visible, at the ground, and got them back to the road before noon. Xue Yang had to admit he was impressed.

Well, he privately admitted it. He wasn’t about to start complimenting his weird teacher until he could be sure this hadn’t just been a random stroke of luck.

Having rejoined the road, Xue Yang and Wen Chao picked one direction at random and started walking that way. They urgently needed some fresh food, now that they’d more or less gone through all of Xue Yang’s provisions, and figured that they would decide on a direction once they had taken care of that.

After walking the better part of the day, they reached a village, only to find that there was an unexpected problem to consider. Wen Chao, however exhausted he was by this long day of effort when he was still in recovery, absolutely refused to step into the village, terrified he might be recognised and denounced to the victors of the Sunshot Campaign. Irritating as that was, Xue Yang had to admit it wasn’t a stupid concern. He had to go into the village alone to trade one of Wen Chao’s gold rings for an immense quantity of food, which he then stored into a magic little pouch that his teacher had given him. Feeling magnanimous, and conscious that he wasn’t spending his own money, he also negotiated for another item to be thrown into the deal, one that he hoped would make things easier in the future.

“A mask?” Wen Chao remarked when Xue Yang returned to him with provisions and his present. “Isn’t that just going to make me more suspicious?”

“Everyone knows cultivators are weird,” Xue Yang countered. “Especially the ones that don’t even have a sect. They’re always saying they got to hide who they are, but they also need everyone to know they’re special. So they’ve got masks, or veils, or they wear make-up… it’s good for business to show you’re so powerful you can get away with being weird.”

Wen Chao looked unconvinced, but still put on the crude wooden mask that Xue Yang had bought for him. It only covered the top half of his face, the way rogue cultivators seemed to prefer in Xue Yang’s experience. But since it wasn’t very good quality, it really failed to give Wen Chao any sort of mysterious allure, and instead made him look a little stupid.

It made it even more efficient as a disguise, Xue Yang decided. After all the Wen sect were a bunch of proud assholes, so nobody would suspect one of their young masters would go around looking like this.

Speaking of young masters… as he handed a warm bun to his teacher, an idea hit Xue Yang.

“Hey, Shizun, your dad’s dead, right?”

Wen Chao, who had been about to bite into their dinner, froze.

“I think I’ve heard that. Someone… someone murdered him, right? Not even someone from a big sect even, right?”

“Yeah, some son of a whore who betrayed him to protect Nie Mingjue,” Xue Yang confirmed. “And your brother’s dead too, right?”

Wen Chao nodded grimly and shivered. “Wen Xu was killed by… by him. By Nie zongzhu.”

“Yeah, exactly. So wouldn’t that make you the new leader of the Wen sect, by default?”

Even with the mask, Wen Chao’s shock was obvious.

“I’m too young to be a sect leader!” he gasped, nearly dropping his bun. “And I’m not good enough at… at anything!” he complained. “There’s got to be someone else… can you imagine me, trying to avenge my family?”

“It’d be something,” snickered Xue Yang, who could imagine it indeed, and guessed it would end very, very badly for his teacher.

“Yes, yes, I wouldn't, I don't know how to... it really not come to that,” Wen Chao whined, before pitifully biting into his dinner.

This, as far as Xue Yang cared, was the end of that conversation. No Wen with any talent for cultivation would have been allowed to live, meaning anyone left around would be weak and useless, so reuniting Wen Chao with his people held no benefit for Xue Yang. And Wen Chao was obviously a selfish, talentless little coward who didn't give a damn about anything except himself, quite possibly the only trait the two of them had in common.

Wen Chao was Xue Yang’s now, his master, and he had no interest in sharing him with others.

#nie huaisang #xue yang #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #nhs is wc au #need to go back to writing on that bc that was the last of what I had lol #was keeping it for a rainy day and I'm honestly just so empty today lol

19 notes · View notes

sammysmaddy · 3 years

Text

You (Sam x Reader)*

Summary: Sam has been watching you for quite some time now and one night he gets his opportunity to have you.

Characters: Stalker!Sam x Reader, Dean x Reader (AU, Sam and Dean don't know each other)

Rating: 18+

Chapter Warnings: Angst, stalking, dub con at the very least, non con beginning, p in v, protected sex (kind of) :), crying, oral (fem. receiving), talk of rape, implied attempted date rape (not from Sam), hand job ish, blowjob ish, rough sex, breeding kink ish, hair pulling. I think that's it.

W/C: Well over 10,000 :) I got carried away in the story lol.

A/N: Inspired by 'You' because I love crazy psycho people and it makes me more than happy to pretend that Sam could be like that too. Let me know if you want this to be a series ;)

Masterlist

Sam's POV

You looked so pretty on your date tonight. Your date is an arrogant, cocky son of a bitch, and I know you see it. I don't know what you find attractive about him, he doesn't care about you or how you're feeling- he only cares what you look like. You're just arm candy for his selfish need to be seen by everyone and you seem to be paying no attention to that fact. He ignores you when you talk, he looks down your shirt at your cleavage every time you turn your head, and he only talks about himself. Yet, most likely knowing all of this, you find him fascinating. You stay quiet when he speaks, you laugh at his half-assed jokes, you let him talk about you like you're not even there. When his friend came to talk from a few tables over, you let him degrade you. You let him talk about how perfect your body is, how compliant you are, and you smiled as he did so. But, you still didn't seem to mind. You blushed and took his disgusting words as a compliment. Maybe you're hoping that he'll be able to satisfy you at the end of the night or maybe the only thing that's keeping you sane are his green eyes. He doesn't even truly recognize how beautiful you are.

But I do. You, Y/N, I knew it was you ever since the first time we met. It was that small coffee shop in the middle of the city, so far from your house that I had a hard time tracking you down. After watching you, I realized that you don't even like coffee. You only like it when it's pumped full of sugar and completely diluted into almost zero caffeine. I purposefully bumped into you to get your attention and you apologized to me. Too bad you were in a hurry that day, I would have loved to get to know you right off the bat. I could have drank my coffee and you could have drank your sugar concoction and we could have talked until the store closed. I would have found out what interests you, what your hobbies were, what your family was like, and maybe in a few months, you would have invited me to meet them.

You weren't like all of the other girls. You're shy and you're sweet and you're too scared to tell the waiter when your order comes out wrong, you are the definition of perfect. You don't like overstepping boundaries or oversharing details about yourself because you're too scared that people might find you annoying, but you are just the opposite. You're everything I've ever wanted. Your head holds beautiful locks of hair, your nose crinkles when you smile, your eyes shut when you laugh too hard, and the best part is that you don't even have to try. Even when you don't wear makeup or focus on your appearance, you are just as breathtaking. You are intoxicating, you are the essence of beauty, you are meant for me- and for the fucked up fact of the day, you don't even know who I am.

You don't even know that I've been protecting you for the past six months, watching over you at home to make sure you don't choke on your food or accidentally hurt yourself. You don't know that I follow you to the store and through the parking lot to make sure nobody takes advantage of you. You don't know that I watch you every time you choose a random douchebag from the bar to take home or how I see that you can make any man come undone in less than three minutes. You don't know how much I envy them or how much I wished that you made those faces for me.

But they always let you down, don't they? It's like you don't love yourself, it's like you want to be used by all of those men. You never choose the right one and every time you're close to release, they beat you to the punch. I know the face you make when you come undone around your fingers and they rarely ever get the pleasure of seeing it for themselves. Then they leave you a mess that you have to sort out for yourself. I would never do that to you, Y/N. I would never leave you unsatisfied, I would leave you begging for more- I know it. I would be as gentle or as rough as you'd like, I'd find every sweet spot that made your back arch, taste how sweet you are, I'd know just how long to fuck you before you wanted to stop, I would make sure that you came before I did, I'd fill you perfectly. But maybe you wouldn't want that. Maybe, you'd want to use me- and I'd let you. I'd let you use me however your big heart desired, I'd let you ride me until the sun came up, I'd let you leave marks all over my body and claim me to let everyone know that I'm yours, I would embrace whatever kinks or fantasies you'd be too scared to share with anybody else, Hell- I'd let you tie me up and blindfold me if it meant I could feel you cum around my cock.

And maybe it's not even the sex that would make you satisfied. Maybe it would be the way I treated you. I would value you more than anything, I already do, I would make sure you fed yourself properly, I would kiss you goodnight and make sure the thermostat was on the perfect temperature. I would go with you to the stores, help you cook dinner, schedule your doctor's appointments for you. I'd make sure your coffee had the perfect amount of sugar in it, I'd always let you choose where we ate if we chose to go out, I'd let you show me off to all of your friends- treat me how all of those other men treat you. When it comes to you, Y/N, it doesn't matter what I want. It's all about you. It's been all about you since the first time I saw you.

The only flaw I can seem to find is the men you choose, but you're too sweet to turn them down- maybe, it isn't your fault. Maybe you don't actually like them. Maybe you see one good quality in them and try your best to focus on it, maybe you hope that they can bend and shape into what you want them to be. If only you knew how willing I would be to change for you. And don't get me wrong, I have problems too, Y/N. I can't seem to talk to you. I can't even get you to notice me. At first, I tried almost every day. I'd get to your doorstep and my hand would raise itself to knock, but then I would get scared. I didn't think it through properly and even when I did- I still couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't just show up at your door like that, I had to make sure when we met again that it would be perfect. But the time never came and it never felt right. That and, the more time went on the more my anxieties rose, and that caused problems within itself. What if I wasn't your type? What if you didn't like my jokes or the way I laughed? What if you thought I was too tall or I didn't have enough muscles? But the truth is if I didn't get the courage to actually talk to you- I wouldn't ever get the answers to those questions.

So I watched. Waited for the perfect time that never seem to come. You were laughing at that asshole's jokes like he was some sort of comedian. He wasn't. He was just some low life from Lawrence, Kansas, he wasn't good enough for you. Dean Winchester, he happened to be the most mysterious one yet. It was hard for me to find information about him, but not impossible. His father was a drunk, meaning he still had some emotional trauma- he could easily hurt you. He drove a beat-up Chevrolet Impala that screamed I'm a dick, but you found it fascinating. You don't even know anything about cars, why did you lie to him? He's been on national headlines more than once, sometimes even for murder, but those cases mysteriously went away. You wouldn't know any of this. You don't do your research. You should know who you're really with. But, luckily, you have me. I'll do all the nitty-gritty dirty work just for you. I'll make sure he doesn't hurt you, I'll make sure you're safe.

The end of the night was imminent as you stood up from your table. Dean stood up with you, leaving his chair untucked while you tucked yours under the table. Classic dick move. He gave you a cocky smirk, placing his hand out for you to take- and you did. You followed him into the parking lot and got in his car. I love you, but sometimes I wish you knew better. I started my own car's engine, opting to leave the lights off, as I trailed a few cars behind you. He was a reckless driver, swerving like a drunk and causing chaos, but I bet you found it funny. I bet you found him wild and daring, maybe that's your type. I could easily be that.

I was beginning to lose you, I didn't want to get a ticket for speeding and having my headlights off, but the streets looked more and more familiar. He was taking you to your house. It hurt my heart how sporadically you allowed random men into your house, but I got my kicks with everlasting memories from those nights- the thought was almost enough to give me an erection. He didn't know the backroads to your house, but I did. I beat you, parking across the street and turning my car off- hopefully, you thought I lived there by now. Then I heard the low rumble of his shitty car pulling up to your house and then you kissed him in the front seat. Were you really going to take him right there? Nope. He opened his door, awkwardly shuffling to reach yours before you could do it yourself, and then he opened your car door- the only gentlemanly thing he's done all night. You thanked him, patting down your jeans as if they were dirty. You shyly swiped your hair behind your ear, you were nervous. Why were you nervous? This was a weekly thing for you. Did you realize how bad of a guy he was?

I quickly put my beanie on, hoping that I would be less noticeable- but I'm a giant, hopefully, you're too tipsy to notice me. I had to be on my guard if you were nervous, so I stepped out of my car. I walked around the back, making sure I had my knife in my pocket and tried to watch you as inconspicuously as possible. You led him up the front porch, turning around before you reached the door. You gave him a warm smile and he placed a hand on the wood just above your head. His head lowered, placing a kiss on your lips so harshly that you fell back into the door. I got worried about him hurting you, but then you placed a hand on his chest. You pushed against him, lightly, knowing you- you probably didn't want to let him down. You shook your head and his head lowered again, forcing himself onto you as you squirmed underneath him.

This is why I'm here for you. This is why I'll always protect you, even if you don't know I'm doing it. My fight or flight mode activated and I pretended to walk down the street. I tried my best not to look as he shook the locked doorknob with his hand, trying to force himself in. I knew he wasn't good for you, Y/N. You're lucky that I'm here to save you. I reached the bottom of your steps, still on the public sidewalk, and pretended to notice what was happening. I could hear you whimpering, suffocated by his kiss. He was disgusting.

"Hey, man. I think she said stop," I yelled at him, but he didn't stop. I frowned, looking at how he was attacking you with his mouth. Cautiously, I took three steps up- so close to you and him. "Back off," I said, reaching the top step and yanked his shoulder.

He turned around, chest puffed but he was small compared to me. Your eyes widened, your lips a beautiful color of rose, and I barely heard him talking to me as I looked at you. So close I could almost taste you. "Mind your fucking business," He said, pushing at my shoulders and snapping me out of my trance- God, you are so powerful.

"Are you okay?" I asked you, ignoring his small hands that were just pushing against my frame. Your eyes stayed widened as you nodded your head up and down, but I knew better. He was going to hurt you, you were not okay.

"She's fucking fine, man. Get the fuck out of here," He grit through white teeth- almost as white as mine.

I tilted my head towards him and he raised his eyebrows at me, then the anger took over. I couldn't stop myself even if I wanted to- and I didn't. My hand came up from lying lazily by my side and my fist collided with his cheek. I heard you gasp at the same time as the collision, it felt so good to hear you after all this time. He stumbled back, ready to full-on fight me, but you stepped in between us. You are so strong. He almost hit you, but he stopped himself just in time. He's lucky, if he would have laid his hands on you like that- he was going to be a dead man. Your hands smoothed down his chest, trying to calm him down. Why were you helping him? Your heart is just too big. Then, you turned around and faced me. You were breathtaking, even more so this close. I hadn't been this close to you since the coffee shop way back when. Your lips were perfectly plump and your eyes twinkled in the dim porch lighting. You were made for me.

"What's your name?" You asked me, nervously chewing on your bottom lip. Your eyes stayed wide and I fell in love with them on the spot.

"I- I'm Sam," I told you, stuttering just like I thought I would when I finally introduced myself to you, and you nodded your head cautiously.

"Well, Sam," You said and it was hard to pay attention to the rest of your sentence. My name sounded heavenly rolling off your tongue. "We are just, um, we're role-playing." You told me with question in your voice. I watched your throat as you swallowed anxiously. Huh, should have known you had those kinds of fantasies. "Right, Dean?" You asked, turning towards him and I watched as his eyebrows furrowed.

"What?" He asked in return, rubbing at the fresh fist mark on his face. "You know what? I've had a lovely night. Thank you, sweetheart, but I ought to get going." He gave you a fake smile, patting your shoulder in a friendly way, and shoving his way past me down the steps. I watched him as he got in his car and quickly drove away, then I turned to look at you. You were still nervous. He was gone, hopefully, you'd feel safe now.

"Thank you," You muttered quietly, giving me a soft smile. Your cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of crimson and I smiled back at you.

"I can stay around. You know, make sure he's gone for sure," I told you and you immediately shook your head 'no'. Oh, Y/N, I'm not the bad guy. Stop looking at me like you're so scared.

"I'm okay. Thank you anyways," You told me, reaching into your pocket and digging out your house key. Your eyes strayed away from mine, even before you turned around to unlock the front door.

"I, uh, I really don't mind. I just want to make sure you're safe," I pressed on as you unlocked the door. You didn't open it though, you turned around to look at me.

"Sam, really. I'm okay. You can go home now." You said with haste in your tone. I tilted my head and furrowed my eyebrows, what was so important that you couldn't talk to me for a few minutes? You turned around, opening your front door, and let yourself inside. You were getting away.

"Y/N, really, I can make sure he doesn't come back," I said, now haste was in my tone, as I stopped you from closing the door on me.

You pushed against my hand before you stopped, realizing that I was much stronger than you. It wasn't meant to scare you, but you looked like you had just seen a ghost. Your face grew pale as you looked at me, tears welling in your eyes as they stared into mine. Why were you so upset? Maybe you didn't find me attractive- I really hope that wasn't the case. I pushed the door open lightly and you stood there in all your glory, but you fiddled with your fingers nervously. I watched as the tears ran down your cheeks, wondering what the hell happened to you that made you so upset. But I was here to help. Like I said earlier, I'm always going to be here to help you. I slowly stepped into your house to show you that I'm not a threat and wrapped my arms around you. I felt you tremble in my grip and you didn't hug me back. Was I making you upset? I hadn't done anything to you, maybe it was Dean. Maybe you lied to me so that I didn't know what he was about to do to you. You can trust me, I hope you know that.

"Please, stop," You whimpered in a small voice and I pulled back immediately, your wish is my command Y/N. My hands smoothed down your arms, holding your hands as I looked down at you to see what was wrong. You jerked your hands out of mine and took a step back. I took a step forward. I had to make sure you were okay. "I need you to leave, please." You told me, sniffling your way through the sentence. I don't understand. I just saved you and you want me to leave? You took another step back and I took another one forward. "Please, Sam. You're scaring me." You told me, so vulnerable and honest, but you still used the word please.

"I'm sorry. I just- I needed to know you were going to be okay," I admitted to you, hoping that you would calm down- but you didn't. You chewed on your bottom lip anxiously, almost hard enough to draw blood. Did I do something wrong? Why were you being like this? "Why are you still scared?" I asked you, brushing the hair out of your face and you winced.

"I- I don't know," You told me, grabbing my hand lightly and pushing it down my side. You were so warm, I can't want to feel you everywhere. But I couldn't get past your last comment. You were lying. Why would you lie to me?

"Why are you lying?" I asked you and you shook your head in defiance.

"I- I'm not. I promise," You replied, your shaking breath told me otherwise.

"Y/N, you don't have to be scared of me," I said, realizing exactly where I fucked up. Your name. You never told me it and here I was acting like I knew you, I was getting ahead of myself. "I, uh, you're my neighbor. That's how I know your name." I tried to cover myself, chuckling nervously, but you shook your head again. Shit, I really fucked up.

"No, you're not," You told me, your voice almost cracking as fresh tears continued to spill down your face.

"Okay, but my grandparents-" I began to reexplain myself.

"No, they don't," You cut me off and I tilted my head at you, how would you know? "I- I know you've been following me." You bit your lip and my heart dropped into my stomach. Fuck, maybe you do pay attention to your surroundings.

"I can explain-" I told you, but you made a run for it. Your feet took you surprisingly fast up the stairs and I felt my heart beat out of my chest. I didn't know what else to do, you were going to call the cops on me- get me arrested, I couldn't let that happen. I ran after you, but you reached your bedroom door and slammed it in my face. I shook the door handle, knowing it was most likely already locked, and began to curse at myself. "Please, Y/N! Just let me in, I promise I can explain everything to you!" I yelled, desperately shaking the door as I heard you sobbing on the other side.

"Sam, just go. I- I won't call the cops if you leave. I promise, Sam. I promise." You told me in between choked sobs and my heart broke for you.

This was not how I imagined meeting you again would go. As much as you sounded like you believed the words coming out of your mouth, I couldn't take that chance. I didn't have any other plan but to speak to you and I was not going to go to jail for wanting to have a conversation. I dug in my pocket for my lock-pick, which I always kept in case someone was hurting you or you were in trouble. Little did I know I would be using it to let myself in your room. I wasn't really sure how to use it, so I fiddled it around a bit- knowing you could hear my desperation. Then the lock clicked and I silently applauded myself, opening the door to see you sitting on your window ledge. You looked back at me as I ran towards you and you jumped. You're lucky my long legs reached you before you fell and hurt yourself. I pulled you up, collapsing backward as I held you in my arms. You were silently crying, not bothering to break away from my grip and it felt good to feel your heart beating against my chest. It wasn't exactly ideal, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. You were perfect no matter how much you feared me.

"It's okay, Y/N. I just want to talk," I said in a quiet voice, stroking your wet hair strands out of your face. You shivered in my grip, turning your head away from my hand and I frowned. Why are you so difficult? Why can't you just let me love you?

"Are you going to hurt me?" You asked in a soft tone, still looking forward like you didn't want to look at me.

"No, of course not. Why would I hurt you?" I asked in return and you didn't reply for a good ten seconds.

"I'm sorry," You told me and I almost let myself fall for it. You attacked too quickly, shoving your elbow into my ribs as you scrambled to get up. You began to run towards the door, but I grabbed your ankle and you fell on the floor. It didn't have to be this way, Y/N, you just had to make it painful. "Please, Sam," You choked out as I sat on my knees, pulling you closer to me by your ankle. You turned yourself around, propping yourself on your elbows, and looked at me with glossy eyes. I used your thighs to pull you closer to my lap, letting them linger there when I got you where I wanted you. "Sam, let's just- let's talk, okay?" You asked me frantically and I didn't understand why your tone changed so drastically until I looked down.

"Oh, sorry," I told you as I realized how uncomfortable it might be for you to be so intimately close with me. You pulled your thighs off of mine and sat across from me, holding onto your knees for dear life. "Just promise you won't run from me, okay?" I asked you and you nodded your head slowly. Finally, now we can actually talk. "I- I have had a, um, a liking for you for-"

"Six months," You muttered, burying your head in your knees. Were you really that smart or was I really that dumb? Why didn't you do anything?

"You knew?" I asked in confusion and you nodded your head. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I did. They didn't believe me," You sniffled and I frowned. It made me upset that you went to the police before you decided to have a conversation with me. I hadn't even done anything to you and you tried to get me put in jail?

"You what?" I seethed through my teeth, feeling my blood boil. I didn't mean to get angry with you, but everything was falling apart too quick and it was the only way I could tell you I was upset. Your body shivered with my sharp words, but you didn't say anything. "Y/N, tell me exactly what you told the police," I told you, starting to panic. What if you told Dean and Dean was on his way to the station now? I needed to know. I reached across, meaning to be light-handed but it didn't exactly work out that way as I shook your arms so that you would look at me. "Tell me."

"I just- I was scared," You told me, finally looking up and showing me the fear I unintentionally instilled in you. "I didn't tell them anything, I just told them I was scared." You trembled, sounding like you were telling the truth for a change. Maybe you were just saying that so I would leave you alone. Not going to happen. You betrayed me. But still, I never meant to hurt you, that was my fault. We all have our faults, Y/N, and mine is growing in my boxers because of how close we are. You drive me crazy.

"It's okay, Y/N. It's going to be okay," I told you, pushing your hair behind your back and you stayed still. My thumbs wiped the tears off of your cheeks, only for your eyes to produce more. You're so sad, but you're still just as beautiful as ever. I couldn't help myself, holding your face in my hands brought an excitement in me that I couldn't contain as I smashed my lips onto yours. To my surprise, you didn't move. You didn't pull back or fight me, you just sat there and let me kiss you. Your lips were so soft, I just wished they kissed me back. "Just let me make you feel better."

"Please, Sam I-" You began to say, but I put my index finger over your lips. You were going to say everything I didn't hear and I want for the both of us to enjoy this as much as possible.

"It's okay, Y/N. You don't have to do anything, just let me love you." I told you, not waiting for your reply as I pressed my lips onto yours. Your mouth parted slowly, I suspect to protest, but it gave me the perfect access to shove my tongue inside of you. You tasted like sweet wine and chapstick as I explored every inch of your mouth, you were so much warmer than I expected. You didn't move your lips but that's okay, I'll do all the work for you. My hands travel from your cheeks and down to your neck, pulling you in closer to me. You were already close, but I couldn't help but feel like I needed you closer.

You whimpered into my mouth but I pretended that it was a moan as I trailed my lips down your cheek. They reached your neck, sucking in hard enough to leave a mark but not hard enough to hurt you, and I couldn't help but imagine- if your neck tasted this good, then how would your pussy taste? My erection was growing stronger, itching to get out of its confines as I continued to kiss your neck. I heard you choke yet again another sob, but I knew you wanted me- or else you wouldn't let me do this to you. You let me pull you closer, straddling your hips around my waist as I became drunk on the kisses that I was giving you. Your legs tightened around my waist and your arms lazily landed around my shoulders- surely you wouldn't do that if you didn't want me.

It gave me even more confidence, my hands reached up to cup your perfect breasts through your simple blue shirt. You always looked good in blue. Your breasts were the perfect handful for me, soft and warm skin that I couldn't wait to suck on. I couldn't help but groan into your neck as I imagined all of the things that I wanted to do to you. But, as I was kissing you, you pushed on my chest. You were light-handed, almost like you didn't want to hurt me, and you looked into my eyes.

"I thought you just wanted to talk," You said, lowering your head to look down at the predicament you got yourself in. My hands supported your lower back, making sure that you didn't fall backward and hurt yourself. It felt so good to have you this close to me, and maybe you knew I had been watching you, but you probably didn't know how much I dreamt this day would come. "Sam, are you listening?" You asked me and I realized that I wasn't. I was too busy looking at your body on top of mine, relishing the weight I felt as you sat on top of me, but maybe you know just what I like. Maybe you know I love it when you say my name, you seem to say it a lot.

"What's wrong?" I asked you as I continued to watch the tears stream down your face, but you shook your head as if nothing was wrong.

"I'm not sober. Don't you want me when I'm sober?" You asked me and I almost took a few seconds to think about it- but then I realized that you just didn't want to be with me. I worked too damn hard for too damn long for you to slip away from me, we're so close, you should just enjoy the time we have together.

"You only had two glasses of wine, Y/N," I told you, and you bit your bottom lip, knowing that I was right- you were definitely sober. I almost got angry again, it upsets me deeply when you lie to me, but then I looked at your lip. I always loved it when you would bite your lip, you're lucky you're so beautiful, or else I would be very unhappy that you weren't telling the truth. "What's wrong?" I asked again, why was I not good enough for you?

"Sam, I'm sure you're a great guy..." Here comes the 'but', "...but maybe I'm not the right girl for you. You deserve someone who loves you just the same, and I'm sorry, I just don't." You told me, trying your best to let me down easy. I'll admit, it hurt to hear those words come out of your mouth, it hurt to hear things that I didn't want to hear. Here comes my 'but'... but I still love you no matter what. I just wish I never gave you the opportunity to speak up in the first place. I won't make that mistake again.

"I don't want to hurt you, Y/N, but you know I can't just leave. You know how long I've been waiting to have you all to myself," I told you honestly, hoping that you would understand where I was coming from. You nodded your head, fresh tears spilling down your rosy cheeks, and I gave you a soft smile. I knew you didn't want this, Hell, I didn't want this- I never wanted it to be so one-sided, but I tried my best to get past that. You being so compliant just shows me how much you were made for me. You couldn't even let me down even after knowing that I've been watching you for quite some time. You're so sweet that it makes the butterflies in my stomach go crazy. "I want you to enjoy this too." I told you and you stayed silent, which is fine- I am going to lose it if you tell me that you don't want me again. "Can you walk over to your bed with me?" I asked and it took you a few seconds before you nodded your head.

I helped you stand up, holding tightly onto your hand to make sure you didn't escape- but not tight enough to the point where you might think it was to hurt you. You faced me at the edge of your beautifully made bed, another thing I loved about you was how nice you kept your room, and you looked up to me for instruction. Your eyes are wide and glossy, but they're not spilling tears anymore. I hope it's because you want this and not because your tear well is empty, but it doesn't really matter to me anymore because I am finally going to have you. I dipped down to kiss your cheek and you didn't even flinch, maybe I'm growing on you. My hands landed tightly on your waist, picking you up and setting you on the bed. Now you're eye level with me and I take this perfect opportunity to kiss you again. My fingers travel up your body and lock themselves into your hair, pulling your face closer to mine and I wrap my lips onto yours. Just as soft, a little less salty as earlier, and becoming plumper as I suck on them.

You surprise me when your hands land on my waist and it sends a jolt of electricity through my body before I realize you're trying to push me away. It's okay, Y/N, I'll push through to you. I grab your wrists, I'll admit a little too harshly for my liking, and push them to your sides while I continue to devour your lips. I push my hips closer to yours, pressing against your clothed core, and you whimper into my mouth. You sound just as divine as I thought you would. I pull at the bottom of your shirt and naturally you fight me, but sooner or later you will realize that I will get what I want. Lifting your shirt above your head, I try my best not to look up at your face because I don't want to see the hurt in your eyes. I'm not hurting you. I'm making you feel better. I am making up for all of those shitty guys who could never satisfy you the way that you deserve to be satisfied.

Your shirt hits the floor and my mouth waters at the sight of your slightly clothed chest. I reach around your back to unclasp the simple black bra that you always wear on the nights that you take men home, I wonder why you fought Dean tonight- but I push that to the back of my mind as the fabric falls down your arms and reveals your perfect breasts. You're sobbing again, I can hear it, but all my mind can focus on is the fact that- right here, right now, you are all mine and nobody can take that away from me, not even you. I tried to be nice, I tried the talking thing, you cried and cried, but then I realized that you'd never give yourself to me like that. I'm not your usual guy, I don't go to bars or try to charm you by getting you drunk, I don't try to charm you by talking about myself- I've barely even talked to you at all, maybe I'm not your type. That's okay, it's just one night, Y/N. You owe me that much.

My hands find your breasts, cupping them until I feel your nipples harden against my palms. They're almost rock solid when I go to pinch them and the surrounding skin is prickled with goosebumps, I can feel myself growing harder in my jeans.

"Wait, Sam," You told me just before I lowered my face into your chest. I pulled back to look at you and you bit your lip again- it's like you know exactly how to get me going. "You've been watching me for a long time now, right?" You asked me, nervousness in your shaking breath. I nodded my head, hoping that you were becoming more willing to share yourself with me- it is definitely the best way to have you, but not my only choice if I had to. "So, you know I use condoms, then. I, uh, I don't like birth control because it-"

"Because it makes you cry too much," I cut you off before you can fully explain it. You frown at me and I tilt my head in return, I was just saving you time because I knew it would have taken you a while to explain.

"Sam, you're a freak, I hope you know that," You mutter under your breath and it's almost enough to make me knock you out, but I'll give you another try. I'm not a freak... I just love you a little more than I should. "Condoms are in-"

"Bottom drawer, left side," I finish your sentence, see how well I know you? Don't you see how much I care for you? You nod your head and you get goosebumps all over your body again, your nipples like delicate flowers blooming in the springtime.

All right, we're definitely getting somewhere. By you telling me this- caring about how I take you, shows me that maybe just maybe you want me too. I leave you there, trusting you not to run anymore, and I make my way to your nightstand. The bottom drawer encases well over a hundred rubbers, all different sizes, even different flavors which is interesting because you don't let them in your mouth. I pick a random one up, hoping that maybe it will fit, but then again I don't really care. You're lying back on the bed, arms covering your chest, and looking back at me. You are so effortlessly beautiful, so pretty when you're not trying to fight me off. I walk back to the edge of the bed and you don't pick your head up to look at me, but it's okay. I'll take what I can get- at least you're not crying anymore.

I climb on, the weight of my body into the soft mattress making you fall a little bit closer to me. It's like you knew I was going to move your arms as you lay them at your side, fully exposing your bare chest to me. I give you a small smile and you roll your eyes at me in return, you're lucky I find it cute when you do that. As much as I want to stare at you like this for eternity, the twitching member in my pants tells me that I should get you even more undressed. You lay there, almost lifeless, as I thumb your jeans open. I undo the zipper, taking my time with it as I hook my fingers into the waistband. You don't help me or lift your hips when I start to pull down, which is fine, you're perfect just the way you are. Then, your jeans hit the floor and your panties are the only thing in the way from me seeing all of you. You look beautiful like this and I waste no time taking my own shirt off.

When I turn around to throw my shirt on the ground I feel your hands on my stomach. They're small and warm as they smooth along the dips of my muscles and I turn back to look at you. My eyebrows furrow in confusion and when you smile at me all of my concerns melt away. You move around, which makes my heart beat out of my chest, and you end up on your knees in front of me. For a change of pace, I don't know what to do when your hands pull my head closer to you and you place your lips on mine. When I kiss you back and rest my hands on the sides of your neck, your fingers leave my hair and land comfortably on my sides. It feels so good to have you kiss me back, you're nipping at my bottom lip with your teeth and swirling your tongue inside of me. Months I waited for this to happen and it's even more surreal than I thought it would be. You know what you're doing and it's evident by the way you lead my lips back and forth with your own. I knew you were perfect when I chose you. Then you pull back and my lips chase yours.

"Am I the freak now?" You ask me, your eyes soft. I shake my head 'no' and I feel your delicate fingers trail down my v-line to the top of my jeans. I look down as they unsecured the button, blinking a few times to make sure I wasn't having a hallucination, and I hear you giggle softly. "Why didn't you just ask for my number, Sam? I mean, I'm flattered, really- I just wish it didn't happen like this." You told me and I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out, and you continued to talk for me. "You're handsome, you're tall, you seem like you have a lot of problems. If you really knew me then you would realize that you're my exact type. Why didn't you just talk to me?" You asked, looking into my eyes as you roughly pushed my jeans down. I was stunned, was this real life? You were just crying, refusing to kiss me back, and now you're trying to tell me that I should have asked for your number? "I'm assuming you're the reason that the creepy cashier ended up on the five o'clock news? He was beaten up pretty badly, Sam. You didn't have to do that for me." You told me and I still couldn't find the right words, that was months ago. He was going to hurt you, I heard him talk about it with his friends, I saved you. But you knew it was me? I should be the one asking why you didn't come up to me when you figured that one out, why you didn't thank me as soon as it happened. "Would that have happened to me too?"

"No, of course not. I'd never hurt you, Y/N," I told you, cupping your cheek and you rolled your eyes again, swatting my hand away.

"You didn't think that raping me would be painful? Or leave me scarred for life?" You scoffed and I shook my head in protest.

"No, I didn't want to hurt you like that, but you kept fighting, and- No, I'm not like that," I sighed, trying my best to come up with a reasonable explanation for you.

"But, you are like that, Sam," You counteracted me and I frowned. I was hoping you'd never see me that way, all I wanted was to show you how much I loved you.

"But, I didn't have to be that way. I mean, look at where we are-" I began to reexplain myself again, but you shook your head immediately.

"Don't you dare act like I asked for this. Don't do it. I'm making this better for me, not for you." You cut me off and I felt my heart shatter into a million pieces. Is that really the way you see me? Is that the only reason you kissed me back and pushed my jeans down my thighs? "Don't look so sad. Take what you want and go." You told me, bitterness in your voice as you shoved your hand in my boxers. I couldn't help but let out a throaty groan when your soft hand wrapped around me, pumping me even though I was already fully hard for you. You never did this with anyone else, though. You always let them prepare themselves, I couldn't help but feel like I was special. I kissed you hard as you continued to twist me in all directions, masking my moans in your mouth as I could already feel myself getting close- but I wasn't going to cum, not yet. This was all about you.

I pushed you back lightly, following you with my mouth as your back hit the soft mattress. Your hand worked wonders as my lips trailed down your neck, sucking in your wonderful scent and even tasting the bitterness of your perfume. My hand reached your wrist, pulling you out of my boxers, and I rested it by your side. I kicked my jeans down my legs and onto the floor as I climbed off the bed. Pulling you by your thighs, I heard you gasp as I dragged you down to the edge of the bed. My hands worked hastily, guiding your black panties down your legs in one swift move and purposefully throwing them on top of my jeans- so I could keep them for memory's sake.

Then I looked back down at your naked body, your slick glistening in the dim lighting as I licked my lips. You were perfectly wet for me and I couldn't wait any longer to dive into your heat. My knees hit the carpet as I wrapped my hands around your thighs, holding you down and placing my tongue on you. Your back arched, your hands found their place in my hair, and small moans left your mouth as I drank all of the sweetness from your body. You tasted so much better than I could ever have imagined and your whimpers sounded heavenly, especially after knowing that I was causing them. Your clit was easy to find and I wrapped my lips around it, causing you to lift your thighs but I held them down for easier access. The sounds coming from your mouth combined with the noises coming from latching onto you was a deadly combination and motivated me even further to continue to try and burst the coil that I knew was growing in your stomach.

In all of my time watching those men take you, very few had the pleasure of tasting you- and when they did, they would go on for a minute or so before becoming selfish and getting ahead of themselves. Sex isn't a one-sided thing and I understand that, I want you to feel just as good as I will later on. I won't leave until I rip an orgasm from your body and I know you're getting close. I'm alternating from sucking and kitten licks on your sensitive sweet spot and you have yet to cease from moaning underneath me. Your moans are almost enough to make me come undone inside of my boxers, you sound so perfect. But maybe they just aren't as good as I am. Maybe I only need a minute to have you cumming in my mouth because your hands in my hair are gripping tighter, your thighs are getting harder to hold down, and you're screaming yes. You taste sweeter and more natural than honey and my mouth is making obscene noises as I try my best to coerce your first orgasm. I let go of your thighs, opting to hold onto your hips, and they wrap around my head. Your legs push me deeper into your core and it's getting harder to breathe but I don't care. My nose is just above your heat, my chin is deliciously soaked in you, and your legs are starting to shake against my ears.

Soon enough, you're screaming profanities and coming undone under my influence, but I won't stop until I work you through it. Your breathing is unsteady as you spill fresh juices onto my tongue and your hands attempt to push me away. Lapping up all of your climax and letting my taste buds soak in how good you taste, you begin to whine uncomfortably. I figure it's time to stop, so I flatten my tongue and start at your core- leading up until I feel you shudder underneath me when I hit your bundle of nerves. Your legs relax as I pull my face up, wiping my chin off on my forearm, and I smile- knowing that I'm going to smell like you by the time I leave.

"See, this isn't all about me, Y/N," I smirk, a little cockier than usual, and you give me a small and out-of-breath smile. "When was the last time you came because of a guy?" I asked you and you shrugged your shoulders.

"I- um, maybe a few months ago," You said breathlessly, your smile never fading from your lips.

"Four months ago. An asshole named Rich, but it was only because you were watching a sex scene on your TV, wasn't it?" I asked you, hovering over you and placing a kiss on your lips. You didn't care that you had just came in my mouth nor that I answered your question better than you did, you kissed me back hungrily and wrapped your hands around my neck. You even trailed my lips as I lifted up, whining when they disconnected, and I knew there was no way you didn't want me. You could put on a front and say that you didn't ask for it, and I might have believed you, but, ultimately, I would have known you were lying.

Your hands pushed against my chest and I stumbled a few feet back. I looked at you in confusion and you gave me an innocent smile as you climbed off of the bed. "You know I don't do this, right?" You asked, lowering onto your knees at my feet. I couldn't help but feel nervous when your hand wrapped around me, I've never seen you do this with anyone before. "Hm?" You asked again and I felt my breath hitch in my throat as you stroked my cock in your hands.

"I- I know," I told you, gulping eagerly, and watching as you wrapped your lips around me. A guttural moan escaped my throat at the sensation of your warm tongue circling around my tip, sucking lightly, and collecting all of the precum I produced just for you. I don't know what changed or made you decide to do this, but I didn't mind. I didn't even think about the possibility of feeling your lips wrapped around me- I never saw you do it with anyone else and I didn't get my hopes up. So, now, I'm here and you're sucking me down and I feel completely ill-prepared. It almost made me feel pathetic when I felt my climax bubbling too quickly and you had only been working me for thirty seconds, but with another fifteen I would be spilling into your mouth- I couldn't let that happen.

My hands entangled in your hair and pulled you off, your lips making a loud pop as they disconnect from my length. You gave me a shit-eating grin when I helped you stand up, knowing exactly how good you were. Maybe you never sucked their dicks because you didn't want them to cum before they got the chance to please you.

"You know what you didn't learn about me, Sammy?" You asked in a tone so close to a whisper as you grabbed me in your hand again. You gave me a nickname, don't think I take that lightly. My eyes looked down and back up into yours- which seemed so innocent and young it was hard to believe that your body count was so high. "I don't cum because they're not rough enough." You told me, hinting at your devious fantasies, making my urge to fuck your brains out ten times stronger. "Are you going to be able to help me with that or are you too eager already?" You asked with a cocky smirk, twisting your hand around me faster. The best part was knowing that you were taunting me on purpose- you wanted all of the power, you didn't want me to get the chance because you know the effects that you have on me. You wanted for me to cum in your hand, show you that I'm just like the rest of them. I know you, Y/N, and I'm not going to let you down no matter how low you think of me.

My head dipped down, ghosting your lips and taunting you like you were taunting me before I grabbed your arms and spun you around. You squealed when I pressed a firm hand on your back, keeping you down as I got prepared to make you wish you didn't ask for it rough. Then, I gave you no warning as I guided myself to your entrance, slamming myself fully into you.

"You forgot the condom," You whined as my legs hit the back of your thighs. If I ever wanted a chance to do this again, I knew I had to listen to you, so I pulled out. Reaching over you, I grabbed the foil on your bed and quickly ripped into the package. My big ass fingers had a hard time unrolling the lubricated rubber and putting it around my painfully hard cock. Just before I put it all the way on, I made sure to clip the end with my fingernails- leaving a small hole that you wouldn't be able to see me make anyways. "Thank you." You told me and I smiled, knowing you wouldn't be able to tell a difference anyway. If this one time happened to get you pregnant, it would be a blessing- there'd be no way for you to escape me.

Then, I decided to try again. I held myself in my hand, not particularly fond of the residue the condom left and nudged the tip of my cock at your entrance. I grabbed onto your hips and pulled you back on to me, only to slam into you which pushed you forward. You were so much tighter than I expected, so much warmer around me, and you sounded so good when you gasped. I took no time waiting to pull out and slam back into you again, the noise of the bed creaking mixing perfectly with your loud whimpers. Your cunt squeezed around my cock as I quickly found the perfect pace to fuck you at. I would be fully inside of you for less than a second before I would pull out and do it all again. One hand stayed on your hip while the other grabbed the back of your head, pulling your chest off of the bed and making your back arch. This position felt so much better and I knew that the new angle was sure to make the tip of my cock hit your g-spot with every thrust by the way you were moaning. You were whispering fuck under your breath every time my hips hit your ass, gripping the soft comforter under you for support.

I fucked into you fast and hard, just like you said you liked, and I silently thanked myself for jogging every day. My stamina was unmatched and I was able to keep the pace that had you screaming for more. I was surprised with myself for not cumming the second I entered you, but I needed for you to cum again before I did. The hand that rested on your hip moved to your clit, making your legs shake underneath me. You were close, you were screaming that you were close, and it all sounded like music to my ears. Your cunt dangerously clenched around me every time I pulled out like you were trying to milk me, but I knew it wasn't on purpose. I knew you were clenching around me because your climax was coming much faster than you could have imagined, it was just your body naturally responding to mine and I knew, now more than ever, that God made you for me.

Your palms grasped onto the blanket, making your knuckles turn white, as your body jolted forward with every thrust. "Fuck, Sam!" You screamed and I bent over to kiss at your neck, humming into you as I tried not to cum at the sound of my name leaving your lips. Your hand came down, pushing my fingers harder onto your clit and you moaned loudly as you came undone for the second time. Your legs were shaking erratically as you pulled my hand away from your core, squeezing my fingers tightly as you practically cried around me. You were holding my hand and it was sweaty, but it felt so good to hold you like this. I kept the pace up, fucking you hard throughout the entirety of your orgasm, using your sweet cries as inspiration for my own that was coming sooner than later. Pulling my lips away from your neck, I let go of your hair and grasped onto your hips again. I was grunting, moaning, and groaning as I fucked you faster than before. It wasn't hard to chase my release as your body collapsed onto the bed and I stilled in your cunt, fully inside of you as I felt my climax leave my body. Panting for breath, I stayed inside of you until my orgasm washed over me and I could barely see straight or hear your whimpers.

When I pulled out, I quickly took the condom off and got rid of the evidence, hoping to god that you wouldn't notice that my cum was slowly leaking out of your cunt- hopefully, you'd think it was your own. You rolled onto your back, panting, giving me a tired smile, and cupped your breasts because I assumed it was just comfortable. I hovered over you, placing one last kiss on your lips before I turned around and began to dress myself. Pulling my boxers up, I watched as you propped yourself on your elbows and you frowned at me.

"You're leaving?" You asked me and it made me stop in my tracks, isn't that what you wanted? You never let anyone else stay, even the guy that ended up making you cum, so why were you asking? "You decided you're going to stalk me for six months, give me the best sex of my life, and then leave?" You asked again, light laughter leaving your lips.

"You- you want me to stay?" I asked, uneasiness in my voice, as I prayed that you would say yes.

"If you promise not to murder me in my sleep, I'll even cook you breakfast," You said with a small smile plastered on your face.

#sam winchester #supernatural #fanfic #oneshot #jared padalecki

103 notes · View notes

sparrowwritings · 3 years

Text

Final Fantasy 14 Writing Challenge Day Six: Champagne taste, Beer budget

Day Five -- Masterpost -- Day Seven

“Lara.”

“I know, I know. I was stupid and just said the first thing that came to mind.”

“Lara.”

“But like, boy did that shut him up when I asked. Did you see his face?? Priceless.”

“Lara.”

“I shouldn’t be this satisfied about it but oh my gods I’m so pumped I could fight another Lightwarden.”

“Lara, you invited Emet-Selch--you know, the Ascian that’s been bugging us on the First this whole time--to have dinner with us. If we don’t get murdered by him, we’re definitely going to be murdered by Alisaie. After everyone else lectures us to death. The Exarch might even cry. I know he’s all mysterious and such but I get the feeling he definitely would if he found out we invited an enemy to dinner.”

“It should be...well not fine but it should be okay. He keeps saying he won’t work against us and this will prove if he’s even a little bit trustworthy. We just...don’t have to tell anyone about it.”

“HOW? Everyone in the Crystarium knows everyone else and they’ll definitely say something to our friends when they see the Warriors of Darkness having dinner with a tall guy with black clothes, white-and-brown hair and an extra eye on his forehead. It won’t even take a day.”

“And that’s why we have dinner with him in our room. He can teleport anywhere, we can have a very awkward meal, no one finds out and we’re solid.”

“...Our room.”

“Yes.”

“Where the shades of Ardbert and Gwyneth hang out waiting for us when they’re not wandering because no one can see them except us and they can’t even see each other.”

“......look, you’re as aware of our record for good plans as I am. This isn’t even the worst one I’ve ever come up with.”

“That’s...sadly true.”

“...It’s okay you can say it’s a bad idea and I can try to come up with a way to say that we changed our mind without insulting him--”

“No, don’t.”

“Huh?”

“You’re right. For sure Emet-Selch’s not telling us everything, but...it’d be nice to know if he means it when he says he wants us to understand his point of view.”

“...Yeah. Even if it didn’t work out so well when we tried that with Emperor Varis.”

“Mmhm. Although, that reminds me...what are we even going to feed him? He used to be an Emperor, he’s probably used to super expensive foods. We’re not exactly flush with gil.”

“I’ll...think of something. Improvisation is key to being a great Culinarian, as Chef Lyngsath says.”

-----

“This is a horrible mistake.” Ardbert leaned against the wooden countertop of the small kitchen of the room that Lara and Roger shared. He really didn’t need to, being intangible to all but Lara herself, but it was one of the few things that made him feel like more than just a shade. Besides which, he needed to showcase just how upset he was.

Lara rolled her eyes as she uncovered a pot and checked on the food inside. “It’s not going to be any less of a mistake the twelfth time you mention it. We just have to see it through.”

“And if Emet-Selch decides, as Ascians are wont to do, to forget about any promises he’s made and just kill you both while you’re at your most vulnerable?”

“Well then we’ll see that through, too.” She set the lid back down, apparently satisfied with how it looked. “For now, though, I’m just going to focus on getting through dinner without any incidents. How’s the table looking, Roger?”

“It’s fine.” Roger muttered as he poked a finger into one of his ears. “Gwyn’s, uh, letting me know her opinion on our guest but everything’s set.”

Not for the first time, Ardbert felt a flare of emotion burst in his chest. A mixture of fierce pride and overwhelming sadness. For all that he couldn’t touch anything in this state, it seemed like any sort of feelings within himself was all the more intense. Particularly when they involved his sister, Gwyneth. The one other shade that was similarly denied the ability to move onward when his friends had gone where the Oracle of Light had led them.

The one other shade he couldn’t see much less detect, even while they stood in the same room.

Truly fate was set to reject anything close to happiness for him.

Whether it was in response to his expression or something else, Lara snapped her fingers in front of Ardbert’s face a couple of times to get his attention. “Look, just pay attention to what Emet-Selch does and let me know if you notice anything--well, odd’s not the right word because he’s all odd, but anything that might look like he’s about to kill us.” She then directed her voice in the general direction of the dinner table. “Same goes for you and Roger, Gwyneth! If he looks like he’s about to try something, be sure to scream or something.”

“She’s sulking on the desk chair on the platform, actually, but Gwyn says she heard you the first time.” A snort left Ardbert’s nose before he could stop himself.

His good humor died with the rapping at the chamber door.

Roger and Lara gave each other a look before he went to answer it. Against the advice of Ardbert (and from context clues, Gywneth too), both of the Warriors of Darkness were dressed in more casual clothing. As if they had set a time to sup with one of their Scion friends and not a being that was directly responsible for the chaos and misery plaguing all fourteen parallel worlds. He stomped over to a better vantage point as the door opened and Emet-Selch entered.

The man’s pale yellow eyes scanned the room, taking in every detail even as they slid over where the shades were located. They lingered briefly on the platform where the two beds were positioned at opposite corners with the desk set up between them before settling on Roger. A slimy smirk tugged at his lips that made Ardbert want to smack him. “I see you’ve made do with what the Crystarium could afford to spare.” Every word that dripped out of his mouth had the tang of sarcasm. “There’s nothing quite like what you can find on the Source.”

Instead of taking the argument bait, Roger gave a one-shoulder shrug as he closed the door. “We take what we can get. It’s how adventurers work.” He walked back and offered Emet-Selch one of the actual chairs that had been provided to the Warriors of Darkness before making his way to a stool. The man sat and immediately slouched, crossing one leg over the other while folding his arms.

“So what you’re saying is that your invitation to dinner was more akin to asking if I’d enjoy whatever vaguely edible scraps you could whip together. Perhaps I should leave before you attempt to poison this body of mine.”

“Yes, please.” Ardbert called out. “And don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.” Lara bit her lip and hard to keep herself from inappropriately laughing as she carefully plated the meal. Roger suddenly coughed, indicating that Gwyn had a similar comment.

“The invitation was a genuine thing, Emet-Selch.” She said lightly while balancing three dishes in her hands. “You said you wanted us to see your perspective, right? Well,” Lara set a plate in front of the man first. “In my experience, one of the better ways to discuss topics is over food.” She made her way over to the other side of the table and set the far more vegetable-laden plate in front of Roger before sitting down with her own meal.

“So.” She smiled, but Ardbert could tell it was the kind that merchants used with customers. “We’ll start with pleasantries and see where it goes from there, just like any other person at dinner. And no, nothing is poisoned.”

A tense quiet fell over the table. Instinct more than necessity had Ardbert holding his breath. Eventually, Emet-Selch sat forward in his chair and took a couple of the utensils set out for him. With the ease and grace of one who had broken bread among nobles for decades, he carefully cut a small bite’s worth of the meal and ate it. After chewing for a moment and swallowing, he declared, “Not poisoned indeed. It seems you do have some skill in something other than murder.”

Lara let out the breath that she’d been holding in something like a relieved sigh and her smile was somewhat more genuine this time. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The rest of the dinner was just as awkward as expected. Emet-Selch spent far more time making verbal jabs at the lifestyle of the Warriors of Darkness and the quality of their friends than he did giving any useful information. He gestured quite a bit while he spoke, but nothing seemed to indicate that he planned to kill them with dark magics or summon sin eaters directly into the room to do it for him. Not that Ardbert ever stopped being alert to any potential danger.

When the meal was finished and he’d made to leave, Roger had the courage to ask why that was. He’d given a smirk and responded, “It’s far too much effort to explain a concept multiple times, particularly to those who wouldn’t understand it the first time.” He turned and gave a dramatic wave above his head as a violet portal opened ahead of him. “And for as novel as this dinner was, I’m afraid I must decline any future invitations. Until next we meet.”

Minutes later, the Crystal Exarch paid a visit and Ardbert had a much grander time watching the two stumble over themselves explaining what had happened as the older man chided them. They’d completely forgotten that he could see what Roger and Lara were up to through his mirror in the Crystal Tower.

8 notes · View notes

chemiste · 4 years

Text

Foresight ~ ch.4

a/n: heyooooo, it’s chapter 4! btw, if y’all have requests send them in!!

masterlist

Once at the tour bus, you were met with various sleepy stares from a couple crew and the band members.

Sarah came up to you and basically melted into your hug, “I’m so tired…” She mumbled. You agreed with her as a crew person came up to take your suitcase and store it under the bus.

You realized there was more than once bus and wondered where you were supposed to go, “Hey Sar, do you know which bus I’m supposed to go on?” She rubbed the sleep out of her eye, “You’re probably on ours cause you’re Harry Styles ‘best friend’ right?” You nodded at her prediction and started to wonder about the friend thing.

Are we just going to pretend? Or does he actually wanna be real friends…

You were interrupted from your thoughts by Jeff tapping on your shoulder. “Good morning sunshine.” “Hey, Jeff.” “There’s an extra bed in the band’s bus you can take that one.” You gave a smile to him, “Thanks.”

Everyone climbed into their respective buses so they could start the 5-hour drive right on the dot. The bus was a lot bigger than you expected.

In the front behind the driver's seat was a long couch that sat opposite its twin couch, it the left corner close to the bus door was a tv drilled into the wall that sat diagonally. Farther back was a booth and table and then a mini kitchen on the right side. You walked farther back and saw on the left the small slide door to the bathroom and then another sliding door in the middle of the hallway opened to show the 4 sets of bunk beds, two on each side.

Each bed was covered with a curtain you could pull back. All of the beds thankfully, had their curtains open so you could see which one would most like be yours. It was the last bottom bed on the left side, it was the only one that didn’t have any pictures stuck on the walls inside around the tiny windows. One bed had fairy lights taped to the ceiling and another had a poster of Fleetwood Mac.

Putting down your backpack, you sat down onto the teal duvet that was too soft to be real.

“Innit comfy? 100% Egyptian Cotton.” You looked up to find a very cozy looking boy. Harry was wearing grey sweatpants and a tour hoodie.

His hair was sticking out from different angles and you could see the faint shadow of a beard growing. “Hi Harry, how are you feeling?” You asked as he sat down on the bed across from yours and started to take off his shoes.

“I’ll be better once we’re on the road.” Something about this tone made you wonder if he had a rough night but you didn’t ask anything else as the engine started up and the rest of the band came into the sleeping area to try and sleep the whole trip to Amsterdam.

Someone hit the lights off as the bus started to move and everyone’s curtains closed sans yours and Harry’s. You pulled your noise-canceling headphones you’d gotten as a present from a friend the year before and connected it to your phone to play some tunes to drown out the hum of the engine.

Little streams of light flashed in from your tiny window every so often so you pulled the black-out blinds shut and climbed into the XL twin bed.

You gave a little wave to Harry who had set up with a book and closed your curtain to try and sleep.

At some point on the drive, one of the turns the tour bus had taken jostled you awake. You pulled your blinds up a tiny bit to see that the sun was just breaking over the horizon.

You pulled your headphones off and took your hair down to brush through with your fingers. You contemplated going back to sleep but decided not to so you could enjoy the sunrise as you rode through the lovely landscape of Europe. You closed your blinds again and pulled back your curtains to get out of bed.

What surprised you was the bed across from you was empty, the curtain pulled back all the way and the conformer kicked down towards the end of the bed. After glancing around to see all the others were closed, you tiptoed out of the corridor and slipped out the sliding door, softly closing it behind you.

“Wha ’re doin’ up so early?

A British voice asked as you turned around to see the man of the hour sprawled out on the left side couch with a bowl of oatmeal in hand.

You padded over to the opposite couch and sat down into it, admiring how it swallowed you up.

Sorta like the cat bus in Totoro…

“Just got jostled awake by a turn, I wanted to watch the sunrise.” He hummed at your response and took a scoop of oatmeal.

You glanced over your shoulder to see the horizon painted with rays of yellow, orange, and peach.

“Sorta looks like a Sunflower doesn’t it?” You said aloud to him, still watching the new bursts of light dance around on the land below it. You heard the tap in the kitchen run and looked to see Harry rinsing out his empty bowl.

“Why are you up so early?” You finally asked, after swaying between thinking it might overstep boundaries or not. He shrugged and sat down, this time sitting on your couch. He rested an arm on the backrest and watched the road.

“Not sleeping well I guess.” You didn’t say anything, just watched out the window with him, not wanting to scare him if he decided to elaborate.

After a few minutes, he finally did. “I had a phone call last night that I wasn’t expecting and it just, messed with my head. Didn’t sleep very well s’all.”

Frankly, you didn’t know what position you were in to give advice but he seemed pretty torn up so you decided to give it a go.

“When I get into an argument with someone, I try and think of the qualities of them that I love them for and try to see my side from their point of view. Sometimes it infuriates me to the core cause I can’t see a different version of the story than mine, but once I do its easier to work things out cause then I can address the points that, if I were in their shoes, would upset me.”

He didn’t say anything, so you continued. “But Harry,” you put a hand on his shoulder and he turned his face ever so slightly to look at you, “remember that sometimes the other side of the argument may not be true and you can’t do anything about it. So if you can’t do anything to change it, don’t let yourself be consumed by it.”

You cracked a small smile, “Plus lavender and chamomile tea always put my mind at ease and it’s easier to sleep after a cuppa I think.”

The conversation ended without his response because Mitch and Sarah came into the main space to make coffee and breakfast. While the three musicians chatted, you slipped back into the cabin to grab your toothbrush and went into the bathroom to brush your teeth and do other things. You curled your eyelashes again, just in case.

After putting your makeup bag back in your backpack, you pulled your laptop out and sat down on your bed after pulled the blinds up. You didn’t get under the covers because it started to get warm in the bus.

“Clare?” The woman in question looked down at you from the top bunk that sat diagonally opposite yours. “Is there wifi on the bus?” She smiled and answered. “Ya, connect to the router ‘only’ and type in for the password ‘angel’.”

You snorted at the namesake of both titles and gave her a thanks. You opened your email account and sent an email to both of your college profs to plead to ask to transfer your work online.

Hello prof!

So, a situation has occurred and I’m going now to be in Europe for the next month. Is there any way I would be able to transfer my classes online for the time being?

Let me know what actions I need to take.

Y/N L/N

After re-reading it a couple times, you sent it off just to get out there before class was supposed to start again.

For the next two hours, you went over the syllabus and tried to find things you’d be able to write about or take pictures of incase your teachers needed a bit more convincing.

You had pulled out your camera and were looking through some of the recent pictures of Europe you had taken for the extra credit assignment your photography teacher had given you when Harry walked back into the sleeping area.

He sat on his bed and pulled his feet into a crisscross applesauce position.

“You’re a photographer?” He inquired. You glanced up at him for a moment and then looked back down in concentration on the picture in front of you and the screen of your laptop.

“Yeah, for class.—Damn, I don’t think this photo qualifies.” “Huh?” Harry hopped off his bed and peaked down to what you were looking at.

“Scoot over.” “What?”

He rolled his eyes are you and squished onto the bed with you. “What are you working on?” He asked with what looked like, honest interest. It surprised you a bit, since why would he care?

He could be doing so many, probably more important things on the ride than sitting with me.

“Well, I’m taking a photography class in college, one of my last actually. I did dual credit classes in high school and only needed a few to technically graduate with my degree.”

“Wha’s your degree ’n?”

“Photography and Media Arts with a minor in Creative Writing.”

He blew a larger breath out and sat back against the pillows you propped up against the wall, “That’s a mouthful innit?”

You smiled and held the camera up a bit to zoom into the picture. “I love it, I actually take photos for a few companies in New York which is exciting. It’ll help that I already have clients leaving college.”

“Where do you go to college?” “NYU.” “Very cool aren’t yeh?” You pushed a strand of hair behind your ear and smiled at the compliment. “So what’s wrong with the picture?” He asked.

“I’m working on an assignment—” “during spring break?!” “—an extra credit assignment, and basically for each of these words I need a picture that correlates to it. The crossed off ones I’ve already completed.”

Harry leaned forward to read the words off your laptop.

Extra Credit Work

Please take photos over this month and relate at least one picture to each word below. Each picture is worth 10 points. You can add a caption about the picture to help it associate in need.

Joy

Sour

Chaos

Silly

Bright

Anguish

Erotic

Heavenly

Red

Enigma

Due May 1st.

“This is the photo I wanted to use for Joy but I don’t know if it's too generic or not.”

You gave him the camera, the photo was of Maggie on the first day in Paris. She was leaning backwards, looking at the Eiffel Tower.

“See, you can’t see her face, which is okay but the body isn’t giving that much expression either so I’m not sure if it will come off as stiff or not.”

He spent a few more moments looking at the picture and then the word. “I think it represents joy perfectly.”

You tilted your head and gave a quizzical expression.

“Look,” he started, “your definition of joy is different from someone else, right? But it’s easier to see that the focus of the photo is in a carefree state, leanin’ back, hair down. An’ I don’t think her body is stiff, ’t’s just relaxed. You can add a caption too if you want right? Maybe add somethin' like, the true feeling of joy ’s when you can finally throw your head back an’ not worry about hittin a wall or som’hin like that.”

He handed you the camera back and you looked at the picture again with a different view on it. “Wow—thank you, that’s honestly just what I needed to hear.” He looked down to his fingers, “can say the same fo’ this morin’, thank you fo’ that.”

Close it quickly Y/N….

Close them…huh?

“Blinds!”

Someone yelled from the main corridor. Harry jumped up from the bed and you pulled your blind shut as he pulled his shut and checked the others.

“Wha’ is it?!” He yelled into the other room, you trailed behind him after putting your things back into your backpack. Adam had a clicker in his hand that put down a black veil over both large windows in the main compartment.

“This bus has blacked-out windows, why the veils?” You asked.

“Cause if fans come up to the bus with a flash camera, it can still take a picture of the inside, this way the veil blocks it out.” The veils still allowed you to see through them sorta and you gasped at the sight before you. It seemed as though hundreds of people had mobbed the as the bus was trying to drive through.

“We’re in Amsterdam.” You stated.

“Yeah,” Mitch replied, “seems as though the fans were tipped off of which hotel we’re staying in or something.” After hearing that, the whole room filled with a slight tension that caused you back to ache.

Clare glanced at her phone, “Jeffery is telling us to brace ourselves cause the hotel doesn’t have a private entrance we could drive through, we’re gonna have to go through the crowd.” The band dispersed to get their stuff.

As you packed up, Harry’s phone started to ring.

“Yeh? Mhm, yeah—fuck you’r right.” The British heartthrob turned to look at you which made you wonder who he was talking to.

“Will do, bye.” He ended the call and took his black hoodie off.

“Give me your sweatshirt, Jeff says we’ve got to make sure you don’t draw too much attention to yourself cause we don’t want a riot since we don’t ‘ave security wit’ us.”

You nodded and shrugged off the pink long sleeve. Once you got the hoodie over your head, you noticed how it engulfed you slightly.

“Got any sunnies?”

You pulled some out from a case in your bag and slipped them on. “We’re as close to the door as we can get, it’s time to go!”

Sarah called out to the band. “Hold you’r backpack in your hand, don’t want them to grab the handle and yank you back.” You only nodded and tied your tennis shoes before following the rest of them out to the door.

“Ready? Open, open, open!”

masterlist

#harry styles x reader #harry styles #harry styles series #harry styles fluff #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles tour 2018 #harry styles concert #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic

70 notes · View notes

themuzzleofnemesis · 4 years

Text

3–Memory of the Four Seasons; Scene 8

The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 118-134

I hadn’t reported Shakuson’s true identity to the organization.

The only duty they had given to me was killing people.

They hadn’t said anything about searching for the targets myself.

Perhaps as a result of war breaking out, I would sometimes see soldiers in town.

Why were they fighting? And for what reason did they kill?

For their country, for their families, for justice—the reasons were endless.

Whatever the case, I thought it was splendid.

There were pacifists out in the town square shouting about opposing the war and for everyone to join hands and such, but such things were mere idealism—it sounded like little more than the excuses of cowards who didn’t have the courage to fight.

I was certain they were the privileged sort. They had probably never been in a situation where it was kill or be killed.

Even animals killed other animals, to sustain themselves and to protect their territory.

Those humans who couldn’t were lower than beasts.

It wasn’t like I didn’t have pangs of conscience about killing people.

But every time I would hesitate, the “other me” would whisper in my mind.

--It’s not my fault.

--Someone killing someone else is instinctual, natural, and destined.

--All the people in this world exist to be killed.

She would erase my doubts.

She would make me a cold assassin.

It would be Christmas soon.

This had become a topic of conversation while I was walking with Shakuson along the main street.

“Themis, what are you doing for Christmas?”

“What am I…doing?”

“Well, I had just thought you’d probably be spending it with your family.”

I silently shook my head.

“You’re not going home?”

“No…My mother’s probably away at work.”

Most of the Christmases in my childhood, I had spent with my mother. And when she wasn’t around, Nikolay.

There were benefits and drawbacks to either case.

My mother greatly understood what it was that I liked, so she always had excellent sense when selecting my Christmas presents. Come to think of it, Mr. Ziz had also been one of the presents she gave me for Christmas. On the other hand, her cooking when it came to the cake and turkey was…All the good will in the world couldn’t get me to compliment it. Though I would persevere to eat it even so.

Nikolay, who looked a lot like Santa Claus, would make superb dishes. They were always fairly eccentric in appearance, overflowing with his unique sensibilities, but they tasted good nonetheless. Thinking on it now I was curious as to how he made them, considering he didn’t have any decent cooking equipment at that camp of his. As for his presents…Well, there wasn’t much to say. It was all useless to me, so I’d thrown them out the day after I moved here.

--I would never spend Christmas with my mother or Nikolay again.

“What do you plan to do, Shakuson?”

I’d heard him say that his parents had already passed on. But he—had a younger brother.

I recalled that letter, but quickly put it out of my mind.

“I—can’t go back to my home country either. It’s just the state of the world.”

“Then your real family’s in—”

“Asmodean. The country that Lucifenia’s currently at war with. I can’t get across the border so easily.”

“I see…”

“…So. Would you like to spend Christmas together this year? You and me.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t want to?”

“That’s…not it.”

My face right then was probably as red as the uniform that Santa Claus wore.

“Well then, I’ll have to get a present for you,” Shakuson said happily.

“In that case, I’ll do the cooking.”

“Oh, sounds good.”

The two of us headed home, getting excited as the conversation went on.

After seeing Shakuson off as he went up the stairs, I entered my own room.

--Santa Claus was waiting for me there a little early.

"Postman…"

He had come, wearing his red coat.

There was—only one thing that could mean.

A killing assignment.

"…"

Wordlessly, Postman held out a small box.

I didn't want to accept it.

I didn't need this sort of Christmas present.

"…"

The other standing before me silently pressed me on.

I crumbled, and reluctantly accepted the box.

When I undid the string and opened it up, inside was a twice-folded piece of paper, a box of ammo, and—a revolver.

"This is--"

I had seen this gun before.

The "Naga Custom .44"--It was unmistakable.

Shiro's gun.

She told me she’d used it since she was young—it was a precious treasure to her.

From a quick look at its condition, all of its adjustments were complete. Shiro would frequently perform maintenance on this gun even if she didn’t actually use it.

This was, without a doubt, the highest quality gun I had ever held in my hand.

With this, I would never miss my target.

…Even Postman, right in front of me.

“…”

I pointed the muzzle at him.

Postman didn’t move an inch.

--That was only natural. He knew that the gun wasn’t loaded.

I lowered the gun.

…That left the paper.

I had a guess as to the orders that were written on it.

There was only one assassination target left.

Kill Nyoze Octo by the end of the year.

He is going by the name of Shakuson.

You need no further explanation.

That was it.

Unlike the others, there was no picture.

“…Understood,” I whispered.

After verifying that, Postman left the room.

--In no time at all it was Christmas.

It was cold.

Nikolay would have said it was “quite chilly today”.

Shakuson was away at work again.

But he told me he would try to wrap it up and head back as soon as possible.

On my end I…was putting together his Christmas present in my room.

“…”

I had decided.

I would bring it all to an end today.

“—Heey!”

I could hear Shakuson’s voice from outside.

I opened up the window—it must have been cold. It had started snowing.

Shakuson waved to me underneath the withered cherry blossom tree.

"Could you come over here?"

A request from the one I love.

I couldn't very well refuse.

…Ha ha ha.

I left the room and headed for Shakuson's side.

He was wearing his police uniform.

“Sorry. It lookd like…I’m gonna be coming home a lot later than I thought. I might not make it back while the sun’s still up.”

“Oh…Well, you can’t help work.”

"That’s why--I thought I'd give this to you first."

Shakuson took out a box.

It was small enough to fit into his palm.

"It's your Christmas present. …Open it."

I took the box from him, and looked inside.

Inside it was--

"…I don't believe it…"

A diamond ring.

When I looked to Shakuson I noticed that he was also wearing a ring.

On his left ring finger.

"It's an engagement ring. Though I didn’t have much choice in diamond size with my salary.”

"…"

"--Will you marry me, Themis?"

"…Thank you. You've made me very happy."

"--! Then--"

"I have a present for you too."

I pulled it out from my pocket where I had been keeping it hidden.

Santa gave to me a revolver.

Right now it was loaded with live rounds.

I aimed the muzzle at him, standing before my eyes.

--Goodbye, the one I love.

I had intended to fire it immediately.

But…I couldn't.

My vision grew blurred, and I couldn’t lock down my aim.

No matter how good the gun, it meant nothing if the person firing was like this.

“…So you’ve figured it out then. Themis—no, Nemesis,” Shakuson said with a calm demeanor. “How long have you known?”

“…I figured it out in fall. I found the letter from your brother you had in your room.”

“--That was careless of me, and Gammon for having written it. I should have disposed of it immediately after reading it.”

“You’re trying to combat the Dark Star Bureau. And so you got close to me to use me—I looked into when you moved into the apartment building we’re in now. …It was one week before I arrived.”

That was why the organization hadn’t known that there was a police officer living there.

“…It was a risky gamble. Deliberately getting into direct contact with the person who would be targeting me. But I figured it would be the perfect chance to get close to PN’s dark side.”

“I had always thought that you were in the side of justice, and I was evil—but…I was wrong.”

“It was actually the opposite?”

“No. You and I are both…evil.”

“…Maybe so.”

Despite having a gun pointed at him, Shakuson showed no sign of resistance.

He was still on duty, so he must have had a gun on him. But he made no move to pull it out, and there was no hint of him preparing to run away.

--Why didn't he run away?

If he ran away--

Run--

"…Hey, Shakuson."

"What is it?"

"What if we ran away? The two of us."

I knew it was crazy.

Still, right now the whole world was breaking out in war. If we took advantage of the chaos, maybe--

But Shakuson slowly shook his head.

"We can’t do that, Themis."

"…Why?"

"It isn't a matter of just us. We each have things we need to protect. In my case, I have my brother and my comrades in the Tasan Party. In yours--"

"I have nothing to protect."

"You don't have to hide it now. I've done my bit of research too. --About your relation to that man."

That man?

I didn’t know what Shakuson was getting at.

"You killing people--that's for your father, isn't it?"

“...I don't have a father."

"It's okay, I know. The head of the Dark Star Bureau, Gallerian--he is your father."

"…Huh?"

Gallerian--"Master" was my…father!?

"It can't be…That's a lie."

"--Did you really not know?"

How could I?

How could I know the one making me kill was my true father?

"Ha--Ha ha ha…Enough!" I screamed, unable to hold in my feelings. "Every last one of them, they're all garbage! Nikolay, Bruno, Gallerian--and you too!"

I once more pointed the gun I had lowered at Shakuson.

"Everyone…Everyone should die!"

That's exactly right.

Give over to it.

To the feelings inside you

And--destroy everything.

"Shut up!"

I had meant to scream that at the "other me" who had been speaking just then, but it seemed Shakuson thought it was directed at him.

"Please calm down, Themis."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

"--Calm down!"

Shakuson drew closer, and tightly embraced me.

--And with just that, I regained my composure so fast I could scarcely believe it.

"…Hey, Shakuson."

"What?"

"If I could do it over--"

I wanted to gaze at the cherry blossoms in full bloom with him again.

I wanted to go see the summer fireworks with him again.

And--

"…No, nevermind."

Sorry--'cause I know that such things are already impossible.

Because from the beginning everything between us was just too different.

But--

Even so, I came to like you.

I pushed away from Shakuson, and for a third time brought up my gun.

"…"

This wasn't my first time shooting someone.

But…I guess this would be the first time I'd shoot while crying.

"…"

Shakuson didn't say anything.

He just looked at me with a kind expression.

Please--stop making such a face.

I knew the truth.

He wasn't the one at fault, nor was anyone else.

…It was me.

If only I hadn’t sunk that ship back then. If only I hadn’t killed anyone.

I'm sure things wouldn't have turned out this way.

Though I might regret it, I couldn’t go back to that day.

Shakuson--

I met you in spring.

Thinking on it now, maybe at that time I had already fallen in love with you.

In summer we made a lot of memories, on an autumn night we were joined.

And in this winter--we marked the end of everything.

The hammer raises, my index finger drawing close to the trigger.

That finger trembled slightly, but I couldn’t tell.

"I'm sorry…"

Those were my last words to you.

And--

In the end, you--

A dry gunshot rang out from beneath the cherry blossom tree.

…

……

It's alright, Shakuson.

Don't worry.

Because I'm sure I'll be able to see you soon.

I’m not making you go alone.

Because--

"Let's always be together"--

That's something we always said to each other, right?

The gun that shot Shakuson.

I turned the muzzle on my own temple.

--Once I’m gone, it will all be over.

I squeezed the trigger.

<<prev------directory------next>>

26 notes · View notes

revchainsaw · 3 years

Text

Sonic: The Hedgehog (2020)

Greeting my flock of film freaks and welcome again to the Cult of Cult. Todays offering is a bit more of the mainstream blockbuster variety, but as films based on Video Games are still actually quite niche and vastly underestimated I think we should open our hearts to Sonic: The Hedgehog and hope that we find it a pleasing tithe to the cult. I am your beloved minster, The Reverend Chainsaw, and welcome to today’s service.

The Message

I must confess to the congregation that I was drinking mighty heavily of the lord’s Tennessee sour mash when I was taking in this movie. That said, I think that this is a great movie to have a drink with and I mean that in the best possible way.

Sonic: The Hedgehog is of course based on the Sega video game franchise and stars Ben Schwartz as the titular blue rat. Schwartz brings his brand of high energy enthusiastic comedy to the voice role. While Schwartz is particularly on brand for Schwartz, is he on brand for Sonic? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m also not entirely sure I was ever in love with the old ways. I am not an avid fan or consumer of Sonic media and perhaps that means I am in a poor position to say. I am most familiar with the Sega games and Sonic cartoons from the 90s, and from what I have grasped the more recent entries with their more anime centric and high lore plots still owe quite a bit to the attitude era of the 90s. Sonic was a hero but he was also a bit of a cross between Mickey Mouse, the Flash, and Bart Simpson. As an angsty 90s boy I wanted to eat chili dogs and go very fast that was very appealing to me, but I’m not so sure it would be appealing to a vast audience of older millennials, or even todays kids. And though I think it would be a fair criticism to say that Ben Schwartz is playing sonic as basically the superhero version of his Dewey Duck from the VERY VERY good DuckTales reboot, I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad thing.

Dewey Duck the Hedgehog is a small mammal (also not a rodent, I wanted to say rodent and apparently hedgehogs are not rodents, just googled it) from an alien planet where his adoptive mother, an owl named Long Claw, fears that he will be hunted for his special powers, which I think is just super speed but it might be other things. In line with these concerns after an attack by pursuers Longclaw gives Sonic the Moses treatment and floats the special blue boy down the metaphorical river. Unlike Moses, however, Sonic is not found by ultra rich ultra powerful extra special people but is instead alone. Sonic lives alone in exile outside a small American town as a sort of local cryptid.

Thus begins a charming adventure. Through a poor decision to use his powers while working out some personal issues, Sonic inadvertantly draws the attention of the U.S Government and their nasty big brain baddy Dr. Robotnik. Sonic recruits a small town police officer with big city dreams to assist him in finding his magic rings so that he might flee from earth to an uninhabited mushroom kingdom.

Now about these two human characters. Officer Everyman is played by cyclops from the X-men franchise. The actors name escapes me and so does the characters, and while, yes, I just looked up if hedgehogs were rodents, I will not be looking up this information. I like the review better this way. It makes me laugh. And while I don’t remember his name, I do remember that he used to live In Mt. Juliet, TN. Anyway, what you should know about Officer Goodguy is that he drives a Toyota Tacoma!

That Toyota Tacoma is also continuously abused by the mad machinations of our films biggest draw: Jim Carey as Dr. Robotnik. If we were to pitch a Sonic movie, I don’t think anyone would jump to Jim Carey as the must have for the role, but after seeing this film, boy was it the best choice. The way he chews the scenery and plays off the rest of the cast and situations is just so much fun to watch. It’s fantastic to see Jim Carey back in a larger than life role. The Decision to play Jim Carey as the kind of condescending nerd who has taken their lack of social skills and leaned in as opposed to working on themselves was a brilliant choice. We’ve all known that kind of guy who tries to play the misanthrope just because they are too egotistical to recognize their flaws. Here Dr. Robotnik has given up on human connection in favor of subordination. His intellect is his only value, and thus he demands everyone around him acknowledge intellect as the only quality that matters as he has. It was a great choice.

From the point the chase begins the film becomes a road trip flick, and despite the fact that Sonic could supposedly cover the distance required in the blink of an eye we watch the ins and outs of our heroes relationship as they learn what home, and being a hero mean to them. By the climax it is pretty by the numbers, Sonic has come to feel at home on Earth and now that he has friends who care for him they can begin to make a world from which neither will have to flee; and of course, they beat the bad guy. FOR NOW. we are treated to an even crazier Dr. Robotnik stranded in the Fungus Dimension bent on revenge.

The Benediction

Now for all things Holy and Profane in this film, please rise for the Benediction.

Best Scandal: Sonic the Cosmic Horror

The original look of this film was mired in dread when the early footage and trailers dropped revealing a hideously uncanny hedgehog monster in the form of sonic. The memes are amazing, the toys are unsettling, there’s still plenty of Quasimodo Sonic stuff out there floating on the web and I suggest that you search it out, the laughter is good for your heart. Also if anyone wants to send me any creepy sonic merch I’ll take it.

Thanks to the work of online fans and internet harassments, the studio felt it was going to lose money on the project and reeled back the release allowing for the design department to give us a more cartoony but less frightening alien monster. I mean he’s a cartoon, it’s okay for him to look like a cartoon.

Best Scene: Noodle Dance

It’s hard to choose, and it feels a bit biased, but there are a few scenes with Dr. Robotnik that are just what make the movie more than a forgettable IP adaptation. Not that Ben Schwartz wasn’t doing great as the character but I feel Sonic as a whole would be lost in the milieu of CG spectacles and Super Hero Origin stories that we are bombarded with every year if not for Jim Carey’s performances; and even with them Sonic: The Hedgehog is not completely out of those woods. That said, I think Dr. Robotnik’s Alone Time Dance Party has to be the stand out sequence in my memory. I can’t really speak to what makes it so enjoyable, but damn if it isn’t just the best scene in the movie.

Best Character: Silicon Valley Dr. Robotnik

Do I even need to say it? It’s Dr. Robotnik. I’m not a fan of this villain from any other media. I always found Dr. Robotniks look unappealing, I’m not a huge fan of his powers, or using robot henchman. it always struck me as pretty boring how Sonic didn’t have a cool rogues gallery (i’m talking about 90s sonic) the way Mario did. However, they did something with the design, characterization, and performance that just made him such a fun villain. Also, my friend Jacksons mom said I looked like him and it didn’t hurt my feelings so.

Best Actor: Jim Carey

Jim Carey. It really seems like he’s all I’m talking about in this movie. Once again, I think Ben Schwartz did great and Sonic IS basically Dewey Duck in this movie. Dewey Duck is my favorite part of the rebooted DuckTales series, BUT he is just outmaneuvered by Jim Carey in this role. I think it’s a compliment enough to say that Ben Schwartz was even able to keep up with his energy, let alone play his quicker perkier foil.

Worst Scene: Toyota Tacoma Commercial

Sonic: the Hedgehog’s worst scene would probably have to be the forced friend fight between Sonic and Officer Wachowski during the car chase. It’s an overproduced weightless car chase scene with a contrived buddy cop controversy meant to force apart our heroes so that they can ultimately grow a little and come back together later in the movie. Not that I mind a movie like this to be so by the numbers, but it just felt like two of the blandest things on this movies plate being forced into one scene. I do like the idea of giving me the crap part of the dish in one flavorless generic bite, but that still doesn’t save it from being the worst scene in the movie.

That Toyota Tacoma took a beating though.

Worst Feature: Nothing Ventured/ Nothing Earned

I’m sure many fans would feel that the worst feature of the film is that it isn’t loyal to any previous lore laden version of the character, (probably the one they like the most). In the portrayals of both Sonic and Dr. Robotnik there were decisions made that drastically differed from the ways they have been portrayed before. Sonic is naïve and idealistic, a bit childish, Dr. Robotnik is driven by a lot of insecurity. Where are the Chaos Crystals and my original character Grindy the Wolf Cub?

But I think that these are over all positive choices in a film that otherwise chose to play it incredibly safe. In their cautious approach to appeal to the widest possible audience the film makers gave us a pleasant and appealing cartoon romp but we are left with little to hold on to. The worst feature of Sonic: The Hedgehog is it’s safety.

Summary:

Sonic: The Hedgehog is often touted as “the first good video game movie”. A label that I disagree with wholeheartedly. It is certainly a good video game movie, but it’s not the first, and it is not by leaps and bounds better than other video game movies as a whole. It’s a sub genre that gets a ton of disrespect, and in a world where the biggest criticism levied against the Super Mario Bros is that it’s not a faithful adaptation, I don’t understand how Sonic the Buddy Cop/ Road Trip comedy is escaping that attitude.

All that said, I had a good time with this movie. But it felt like playing on the playground as a toddler. You have fun and then you leave and you don’t really remember what you played or who with. I’ll think about Jim Carey and Dewey Duck, but I had a hard time hating or loving anything this movie did in any strong way. I usually feel that a movie that is “bad” or “corny” or “shlocky” is always better than a movie that is generic, or pointless, or boring. Sonics pleasantness and cheerful energy just barely save it from being another Transformers franchise. I get that origin stories are hard, so I’m eagerly awaiting the next installment, and hopefully it’s going to do something that sets it apart. Probably not.

Overall Grade: C

James Marsden! I just remembered!

2 notes · View notes

blu-joons · 5 years

Text

He Asks You On A Date In College ~ Min Yoongi

Reluctant. The only word to describe how Yoongi felt when he was instructed to support the college play. Numbers were dwindling, but the crowd was needed to be filled, as students were gathered into the theatre to watch.

Unluckily for Yoongi, he found himself sat at the front row, in between two members of the cheerleaders who were far too enthusiastic for the performance. The lights went out, as the technical director stepped out, introducing the show.

At centre stage, you could be found. The lead of the show, the star in the performance, it was all on you. You could sing, you could act, you could dance, the college was counting on you to make the whole spectacle a success and rival the other colleges in the area.

To begin with, Yoongi struggled to keep his eyes open as the performance opened with a heavy, loud opening number which was overwhelming to anyone. But as you stepped onto the stage, his eyes were drawn to you. Suddenly, he was wide awake, watching your every move.

Throughout the whole show, he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Your voice enchanted him, your dance moves had him grooving, and your acting had him convinced. The thing that caught him the most however, was your smile. Seeing how much you enjoyed being on stage gave him a warm energy.

Perhaps the performance wouldn’t be so bad after all.

When it came to an end, you left him wanting more. As you took the curtain call, he was on his feet, applauding you. No one else, not a single other person on that stage. Only you.

Coming off the stage you were filled with adrenaline, the stage was where you belonged, it was all you’d ever known. You’d fought people’s judgements and negativities to get yourself into college to fulfil your dreams.

“Excuse me,” a voice spoke, as you headed down to your dressing room. “Sorry.”

You spun around to see a tall, skinny, dark-haired boy cowering beside you. He had a soft, gummy smile on his face, his hands holding a programme tightly. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry, I’m probably not supposed to be here,” he chuckled, looking around the room for the inevitable person to shoo him away. “I just wanted to introduce myself.”

“Of course. I won’t let anyone make you leave,” you smiled, sitting down on two of the equipment creates that had been left scattered around. “I’m Y/N.”

“I know, and you were incredible.”

If he thought you were amazing on stage, he thought you were even better in real life. You were funny, kind, talented, and the sweetest soul. The performers in the theatre society often had a reputation for being pompous, and snobby, but you were anything but. All his prejudgements had been wiped away.

“Thank you so much, let me guess though, you were one of the guys they forced to come to make us look good.” You could see right through him, he was transparent, even if genuine.

He nodded, trying to shield his nervous giggle. “Maybe so, but I’m glad I did go. Acting isn’t really what I like, but there was something about you on that stage that just made me smile. Easily, you were the best performer on the stage tonight.”

His compliment warmed your heart and relaxed you around him. At times you felt lonely, especially up on the stage, but he made you feel so special and loved.

“I’m Yoongi by the way, I should probably actually tell you my name rather than just talk about you,” he chuckled, “I don’t want you to think I’m strange. In fact, I’d love to get to know you more, rather than just the characters that you play.”

“Trust me, I’m not as miserable as my characters,” you chuckled, bringing your knees up, underneath your chin. “I can be funny, I promise.” “I’m sure you can,” he replied, “maybe you could show me how funny you are on a date sometimes, that’s only if you want to.”

His boldness and bravery were two qualities you admired. In all your performances, you’d never had someone acknowledge you in the way Yoongi had. To him, you were more than just the girl on the stage, you were an actual human who he wanted to get to know.

“No, I’d love to. It’s better than constantly being asked out by Sam the tech guy.” Sam was harmless, but he wasn’t exactly your cup of tea. He’d asked out every girl in the school at some point, anyone with a pulse had a strong chance of getting with Sam.

He had the perfect idea for you both, somewhere that you could be yourself, a place he knew he’d get to know the real you. There was the stereotype of actresses that he wanted to break, his own stereotypes of actresses that he wanted to break.

The two of you chatted backstage for a while, whilst around you, chaos emerged as everyone packed away from the show. Being the lead, you tended to leave it up to others to clear away, having already carried the weight of the whole production on your shoulders, to make it a success.

Yoongi noticed everyone working around you, spotting how nonchalant you were. “I guess you’re too good to be carrying boxes around and tidying up after others. All of the main work of it all is done by you anyway on the stage, no one compares to you at all Y/N, let me tell you.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I’m only as good as the people who work around me. The set, productions, everything comes together to ultimately create the mediocre performance we put on.”

He chuckled; your self-deprecating humour certainly reminded him of himself. “It might me mediocre, but there was definitely one star that shone brighter than anyone else.”

“You really are just charming aren’t you,” you giggled, feeling a comforting, warm feeling from Yoongi. “Maybe from now on I’ll be seeing you sat in the front row for all our performances, seeing as you’re such a big fan of the theatre now.”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” he teased, “I can appreciate your talents, but as for the rest of them, they were only there to fill the gaps. It could have been a one man show.”

The idea didn’t sound too bad, at times it did feel like a one man show. You were the only one who cared, who spent sleepless nights fretting as to whether things would go well or not.

“For how difficult this has all been, I wouldn’t mind just doing everything for myself from now on,” you informed him, leaning across with a laugh, resting a hand on his thigh.

“I could be your support, I rap a bit in my spare time,” he spoke, taking you by surprise. “Perhaps on our date I could show you, teach you a thing or two.” If the two of you hadn’t clicked before, you certainly had done now.

His sassy nature was like looking in a mirror at times. “How about you teach me to rap, and I’ll teach you to dance, and act. I’m sure together we could make quite the team if we put our two minds together to create something amazing.”

“I like the sound of that Y/ N. You can be the brains and the beauty, and I can be the moral support that just adds that extra spark.”

“Don’t say that, you’re smart and handsome too Yoongi.”

“Stop it,” he joked, “are you just acting?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

---

Masterlist

193 notes · View notes

axwalker · 4 years

Text

The Trade 6

Synopsis : Liam is running for Cordonia’s presidency. To assure his victory, Constantine makes an arraignment behind his back for him to marry the rich ambassador’s daughter: Alexis O’Brien. Due to her father’s threats she has no other option that seduce Liam and make him fall in love with her. But what does she really feel? (AU)

Pairings: DrakexMC LiamxMC

Warnings: I love drama and chaos so this will probably get a bit dark. Non for this chapter though

Please note that this is my first series and English is not my first language. I really love ALL kinds of feedback. Don’t hesitate to comment!

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Pixelberry except for Alexis O’Brien and her evil father George O’Brien JR.

To catch up: Masterlist

One thousand thanks to @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld for being my amazing beta reader , having infinite patience and creating THIS INCREDIBLE moodboard ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

I'm tagging those who asked, if you want to be added to the list just ask, I'll very be happy to do it :)

@pug-bitch @mskaneko @burnsoslow @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @msjr0119 @pedudley @texaskitten30 @desiree-0816 @kingliam2019 @yukinagato2012

Drake stood next to the window staring at Alexis who was visibly uncomfortable. After a few seconds of deafening silence, Drake moved to the desk and started looking angrily for some papers.

“Well, it looks like I’m stuck working with you.” He growled, “we might as well start.”

Alexis arched her eyebrows “Yes, we are both stuck. It’s not like I am jumping of joy to work with you either” She took a deep breath, after all, everything was her fault. “In any case, I would like to apologize, I kn-“

Drake shook his head interrupting her “There’s no need. You were just telling the truth last night. You have absolutely no feelings for me, isn’t that right Alexis?” He looked at her pointedly.

At the sight of those penetrating brown eyes directed at her, she felt her resolve to crumble. His manly presence had the amazing power of making her feel nervous and feverish.

“Yes, no. I mean ...” She ran her hand through her hair “I don’t know what I meant. I just know that I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry you didn’t.” He smirked at her wishing internally that it was true “Concerning Liam though, I can’t decide if you really like him or you’re just playing with him because of his position “

She looked away without saying a word.

“What? You’re not even going to defend yourself?” He asked angrily taking a step towards her.

“What for?” She answered her eyes lit with fury “No matter what I say, you won’t believe it” She added sadly, “you already decided what you think of me.” She couldn’t face him anymore, so she turned to the window.

“And whose fault is that Alexis?” He took another step closer, now standing only a few inches away from her. He could almost touch her and there it was, that electric tension between them again. His fingers ached to reach hers. Strangely enough, for a few seconds, he had the impression that she was feeling the same. He could’ve sworn that her fingers moved too, almost touching his hand. Suddenly, she moved to hug herself.

He watched her for a moment, trying to decipher her expression. She had a deeply sad look on her face, but he couldn’t stop himself from admiring her. She was breathtaking with the light of the sunset reflecting on her eyes and auburn hair. There was some sort of vulnerability in her that made him want to take her into his arms more than anything.

“It’s mine,” she finally answered regretfully. “I shouldn’t have lied that night” Or last night, she wanted to add but couldn’t.

Drake finally reached the spot where she was standing next to the window. He leaned against the wall crossing his arms on his chest without taking his eyes off of her. He spoke with a soft voice, trying not to sound as angry as before.

“No, you shouldn’t have. But it’s done. Let’s try to forget about it and work together.” He took a deep breath trying to hide the disappointment on his raspy voice. “For Liam’s sake.”

She answered with a sad smile of her own. “Yes, you’re right. Maybe you can brief me before the meeting in Lythikos tomorrow.”

Pointing to the seat next to the desk so she could sit, he started to tell her everything about Liam’s plans for Cordonia.

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

Olivia Nevrakis was ready to host the first meeting of Liam’s cabinet at her Lythiko’s estate. She wanted to make sure everything would be perfect for his first encounter with the team, so she and Drake had spent hours planning everything until the last detail. They didn’t always see eye to eye, and she loved to tease him, but he was one of the most capable people she had ever met, and God knows that was not a compliment she gave easily, definitely not to men. However, his most important quality at Olivia’s eyes was his loyalty, she was sure they were the only ones that actually had Liam’s best interests in mind. Not only because they had both grew up with him and loved him, but because they both believed in him.

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

Neville Vancoeur was the first to arrive at his suite at Lythikos. He hated to recognize that the rude redhead hadn’t spared in any luxurious detail and had even thought of buying his special brand of champagne. He was hoping he could convince the woman he loved to spend one more night with him but since the beginning of Liam’s campaign, she wasn’t being herself. His mind suddenly drifted to the money he had invested. At first, he had been torn between Liam and Godfrey but had finally decided that Rhys was a more secure investment than the old Fydelia’s governor. Today was the first cabinet meeting, he would be able to see if his money was being put to good use.

The ride to Lythikos gave Hana Lee an opportunity to improve her education proposal for the meeting. She was sure that amongst all the members of the cabinet she was the happiest to work with Liam in the construction of a new Cordonia. They shared the same ideals, the identic conviction that the only path to success was a good education and that the one imparted at Cordonia needed a desperate reform. Still, she was anxious to present her project to the rest of the cabinet. After all, she knew Rashad, Bertrand, and Neville only thought about rentability and a new educational program was costly. She only hoped Liam believe in her enough to fight for the budget that would fund the program. She was so lost on her thoughts that she didn’t see Kiara talking to her.

“Hey, Hana” Kiara grinned “Are you there?”

“Sorry, Kiara. Were you talking to me?”

“Yes, I was asking if you were ready for the meeting”

“Yes, I am. I’m a little nervous, but I have faith in the program”

“You do?” Kiara cocked an eyebrow “For what I heard is costly and you don’t have all the cabinet’s support, I know Rashad will vote against it and Bertrand too. You will need some friendly votes to get it through.”

Hana looked at her colleague inquisitively. “Like yours, Kiara?”

The brunette nodded “It would be a good start, we’re both women in a sea full of men and we should support each other.” Kiara didn’t add that she knew that helping Hana now could be fruitful in the future.

Hana was pondering Kiara’s words and was about to answer when she saw the young diplomat face lit up. Her entire demeanor changed, and she plastered a flirty smile in her face. Hana turned expecting to see Kiara’s fiancé Rashad coming their way. She was surprised to discover that the man capable of such a transformation on Kiara’s behavior was no other than Liam’s assistant, Drake Walker.

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

Rashad Domvallier had been conflicted for months. The stress of having to keep so many secrets was slowly killing him. The campaign wasn’t easy either. Kiara had been very clear of what she was expecting of him, and he knew it was best to play by the rules she had set for both of them. Rashad trusted her and was sure she wouldn’t stop before anything to get them to the top. He’d have to continue living a lie. Rashad didn’t like it but the truth would cost him everything, so he had to be careful that no one would never find out.

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

Drake thought about everything that had to be ready for the cabinet’s meeting in Lythikos. Everyone was supposed to sit down and discuss Liam’s program, but Drake knew some of them had their own agendas. They still didn’t know what Neville Vancoeur was going to ask them in return for his investment. Rashad Domvallier had a lot of ambitions and Drake knew he was going to try and take any possible advantage for his company. Bertrand’s well-known priority was to restore his family’s old glory. And Kiara Theron cared about her career more than anything. And now her. It was bad enough that he couldn’t shake her off his mind, now Alexis would be physically present during the whole campaign. They had spent the morning before together, and even if they both managed to stay professional after their discussion, a sort of tension that Drake couldn’t describe stayed with them. Drake sighed; it was going to be a long afternoon.

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

Constantine entered the office Olivia had set for Liam at her house.

“Good morning son. I came because I wanted to discuss some of the positions, you’re going to confirm this afternoon regarding the cabinet.”

Liam looked up from the papers he was reading. “My decisions are already taken, father. You know who I chose for every position.”

Constantine smiled at his son. “I do, Liam. I just don’t want any surprises.”

“If this is about Olivia, don’t worry. She’ll understand. She’s too young to be in charge of the Department of Defense. And she’s always been supportive of my decisions.” He stared at him. “I won’t change my mind concerning Drake though. He will be my chief of staff, father”.

“Oh, I know son. And I actually think he’s a good choice. He has a master’s degree in political studies, he’s intelligent, loyal as a dog, and lacks the ambition that would make him a threat to you.” He added the last part contemptuously.

Liam answered angrily. “He doesn’t lack ambition, he’s just not as passionate by politics as we are. You know Drake wanted to do something else with his life.”

Constantine raised his voice. “I wasn’t going to pay an expensive career so he could spend his life taking care of fucking animals when he could be useful to us. To you.”

Liam knew there was absolutely no point in discussing Drake with his father. “We agree then. Coronel Richards for the Ministry of Defense and Drake for Chief of staff.

Constantine looked pointedly at his younger son “And your brother as vice-president”.

The young candidate sighed “Right. My brother” the same one that didn’t even bother to show up at Lythikos to be at the meeting.

Constantine grinned at his youngest son. “You didn’t tell me what you thought of your new speechwriter”

“I was wondering when you were going to bring that up father. Subtlety has never been your strong suit. I know what you’re doing”

“I told you there were going to be some perfectly good suitors at the masquerade. I’m just happy that you found one, Liam.”

“To be honest, I didn’t think I would like anyone at that party. But Alexis is …” He paused pensively “so different, so beautiful and passionate. I actually think you could be right father; she could be it for me.”

“Well, the timing couldn’t be better, Liam.”

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

The cabinet meeting started at 4:00 p.m. Everyone gathered around the table at the business center of the Lythikos estate.

Liam started with a short speech trying to inspire them with the ideas and projects he had for his country. Then he proceeded to announce that they had a new addition to the campaign team. A trail of murmurs was heard across the room when Alexis entered.

“Good afternoon, everyone” She was standing before them. “I’m Alexis O’Brien. I’m very happy to be part of this campaign. I can’t wait to start working with you.”

Kiara saw Drake looking at her the same way he did at the masquerade ball. It made her dislike Alexis instantly. “Aren’t you the ambassador’s daughter?”

“Yes, I am” Alexis stated simply.

“Wow, easy way to get a job.” She smirked.

“I’m sorry, aren’t you Judge’s Theron daughter?” Alexis asked raising her eyebrows

“As a matter of fact, yes I am. I’m also fluent in six languages and have been preparing for this position for a long time” She turned her computer showing a Google page “You, on the other hand, have not. I mean after your degree, you just banished. You haven’t work in any campaign or written anything worthy of being mentioned anywhere”

Liam rose to speak on Alexis' behalf, but she beat him to it.

“I sure hope you’ll run the Department of Foreign Affairs better than you google. I don’t have anything to prove to you, but for transparency’s sake, let’s get this over with.” She stood in front of Kiara. “Lookup Elena Ortiz”

Drake’s heart skipped a beat when she said the name she had given him the day they met. Alexis avoided his gaze.

“As you can see,” she continued when Kiara typed and multiple results showed on the google main page, “I’ve worked in two different campaigns, one for the New York mayor’s office and one for the democrat primaries, both candidates won.” She paused and looked the brunette right into her eyes. “I’ve also written for the NY Times and the Washington Post, but I don’t know if that’s good enough for you.” She saw Kiara was about to speak, she lifted her hand to stop her “before you ask, I changed my name because I didn’t want my father’s name to influence anyone, I wanted to be hired for myself, miss Theron.” She emphasized Kiara’s last name.

Liam smiled proudly at her. “Well, if that’s all concerning Alexis, I have other announcements to make.” He saw his father nod at him from the other end of the table. “If I win, I’m naming General Richards as the Secretary of Defense.”

Olivia rose from her seat. “What? What are you talking about Liam? You promised me that position.”

Liam shook his head. “No, Liv, I said I would consider it.”

“Bullshit! It was done until you let yourself get influenced by him.” She pointed at Constantine “Is that how this is going to be if you win? You on the stage but he always behind you actually running everything?”

“Olivia, sit down.” Drake took her arm. “You’ll speak about this later, privately.” Drake was angry at Liam too, he knew how much Olivia wanted to be part of the cabinet, how hard she had worked for it.

Olivia sat visibly furious; Liam continued. “Everybody here saw this coming, but I’ll make it official. Drake, I’m naming you Chief of staff.”

Drake nodded.

It was Neville’s turn to get upset. “Him? Can’t you name someone who has more political power?”

“It will be Drake, and that’s final. Now the position everyone is wondering about: VP” He sighed knowing that his father wouldn’t be happy at his decision “It is true that I considered Leo for it, but he doesn’t care enough to even show up today.”

Constantine shot an angry look at him, but Liam ignored him.

“I decided to name someone that has always stood by my side, she’s an excellent tactician and I know she’ll defend this campaign with the same fire she just showed us. Olivia, do you want to be my vice-president?”

Olivia Nevrakis never cried, but if she did, she would’ve cried then. She answered visibly touched. “Of course, Liam. I’ll be honored.”

After discussing the rest of the cabinets’ positions and reviewing Hana’s educational proposal, Liam dismissed everyone for the rest of the afternoon. He was aware he would have to face his father’s rage, but he didn’t care. Liam knew he had taken the right decision.

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

Alexis decided to take a walk around Lythikos to think about everything that had happened at the meeting with the cabinet. Lost on her thoughts, she didn’t see the smiling man running towards her.

“Lexie, hi!” Maxwell was out of breath trying to catch up with her.

“Max!” She was genuinely happy to see him; he was one of the friendliest people she had met in Cordonia. Or anywhere else.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, Beaumont events are in charge of tomorrow’s fundraising. There will be another ball here in Lythikos, at Olivia’s mansion tomorrow night.”

“Olivia …” She paused thinking about her next question “She seems very close to Drake… and Liam. What’s the deal there?”

“Oh, they grew up together. Olivia’s parents died when she was 4 years old.” Alexis gasped, Max nodded and continued, “her father was Constantine’s chief of staff, so he adopted her. Drake’s mother moved to Texas and let him and Savanah, Drake’s sister, with Constantine and Regina.”

“Oh, why?”

“I don’t know much about the details. Maybe you could ask him.”

“Hum … so the four of them are like siblings” She seemed relieved.

“Uh, five. There’s Leo too. That’s Liam actual brother”

“Oh, yes. My father mentioned to him. He’s a senator too, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Valtoria’s. But he’s not like Liam. He doesn’t care about the people he represents or about anything really. Well, that’s not true. He cares about women. Like a lot. And I’m not talking about fighting for their rights” He winked at her

“Ha! Yeah, Max, I got that” She bites her lip unsure of how Max would interpret her next question “So, Olivia doesn’t have a relationship with Drake or any of them?”

Max snickered. “That’s hilarious. Drake and Olivia, he! If one day you get suicidal, I suggest you ask Liv that; you’ll be dead in less than 5 seconds.”

“Why? Do they hate each other?” It certainly hadn’t seemed so earlier. During the meeting, Drake had been the only one capable of calming her.

“The contrary, I think Drake is the only real friend she has. He’s like a true brother to her. I mean Leo is always away. My magnificent self, as unbelievable as it sounds, annoys the hell out of her and she’s in love with Li …” Max put his hand on his mouth realizing that he had talked too much. “Damn! I’m sorry!”

Olivia was in love with him. That explained, partly at least, her outburst at the meeting and then the tenderness on her eyes when she had accepted to be his VP.

“Don’t worry Max. It’s ok”

“But you and Liam are dating, right?”

She ran her hand through her hair, something she did when she was nervous. “Liam and I are getting to know each other. I don’t know what will happen”

“Well, Li is a great guy, really amazing. I grew up around politicians and I can tell you this, not a lot of them care about their country as much as Li does.” He looked at her carefully. “But, just so you know Drake is a pretty great guy too.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything, Max. I just told you I’m seeing Liam.”

“Yes, I know is just … Ok, I don’t know you that much, but I really like you Lexie, so I’m gonna give you a dose of my legendary honesty.” They both laughed. “I was there the night you two met, and as clueless as everyone thinks I am, I saw. I saw how he was looking at you, how he was smiling, how he was almost shy around you, believe me I know Drake since we were kids, I’ve seen him coming on to a lot, and I do mean a lot of women, but I’ve never seen him like that. And you seemed as smitten as he. What happened little blossom? “

Alexis smiled arching her eyebrows “Little blossom?”

Max shrugged “You smell like a cherry blossom.” He put his arm around Alexis’.

“To answer your question, nothing happened. It was a good date, but then I met Liam. That’s it.”

Maxwell shook his head. “It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me, Blossom. I know there’s something more, but I’ll leave you alone.”

She decided to change the subject “And you Max?” She smiled mischievously “Anyone special in your life?”

He blushed “Actually, yes. There’s someone special. I just don’t know where I stand. Is nothing official yet”

“Well, well, well look who’s being secretive now. Tell me more!”

“He! I will, just not here in the middle of the street. I know Cosmopolitans are completely out of fashion but I’m feeling vintage. Let’s hit a bar, Lexie”

Alexis snickered “I’d love to, but I have a diner with the whole cabinet. Raincheck for tomorrow?”

“It’s a date”

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

The diner had been better than Alexis had imagined. The Mediterranean food was delicious. Olivia had placed her next to Bertrand, and even if he had seemed a little rigid at first, they soon found a shared passion for art and literature and ended up having a nice conversation.

Liam was chatting with General Richards but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Alexis. He was in awe at the way she had of being comfortable in any situation. She would be a perfect first lady. The idea of Alexis on his arm, sharing everything with him, being his wife, made him smile. People would say it was too soon, but he was truly excited for the first time since he could remember. He wasn’t naïve, but he’d always believed in love at first sight. Something he definitely would never share with Drake or Leo, both being far too cynical to understand. His eyes drifted to Alexis again. She was poised and elegant but had the sweetest smile and he had loved every second he had spent with her. He couldn’t wait to take her out again.

After one hour of painful chat with Kiara, Drake had finally found a valid excuse and went to the bar. He needed something strong to help him through the night. He couldn’t help but think back at the last argument he had with his sister. He missed her deeply.

Suddenly, his gaze stopped at Alexis. She was wearing a loose white sweater that made her tanned skin glow. He was surprised to see that not only she was talking to Bertrand, but she was doing it happily, and the old Beaumont was actually grinning back at her. She had the power of making anyone feel important, and it wasn’t fake charm, it was genuine interest. Drake smiled to himself. He knew he could watch her for hours. Her hands moved rhythmically while she spoke, emphasizing everything she said. Her smile lit up her entire face and reached her eyes. Eyes that were as expressive as the rest of her and had a twinkle of life that he was starting to like way more than he should.

“Watching something you like, Walker?”

Neville startled him. “What do you want, Neville?”

The shorter man snorted “It’s Mr. Vancoeur for you Walker”

Drake laughed “Please Vancoeur, you know I’d rather stop drinking whiskey forever that call you Mister.”

“It is amazing how you managed to grow up with the Rhys and, still did not care to learn any manners or respect for your superiors.”

Drake smiled cockily, put his whiskey glass on the bar, and took a step towards Neville. “Care to tell me who my ‘superiors’ are, Neville?”

Suddenly the room went silent, everyone now staring at the scene at the bar.

“I was just joking Walker, you should not take everything so seriously,” Neville thought that with the whole room watching, Drake wouldn’t dare to touch him, so he added, “your sister was definitely much more fun than you are.”

Drake grabbed Neville by his jacket, ready to punch him.

Liam stood up to diffuse the tension. “That’s enough both of you. Neville, let me invite you to a drink.” He gave his friend an apologetic smile, Liam loathed Neville but he couldn’t ignore the fact that his family money was funding half of his campaign.

Drake stormed out the door without saying a word.

Alexis couldn’t believe the scene. Neville was clearly provoking Drake and Liam, instead of defending his best friend preferred to buy him a drink. She looked through the window, a storm was clearly coming, and there he was, alone and upset. She had to do something about it.

Taking her coat, she decided to follow him.

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

Drake was fuming, he had let Neville get the best of him. He knew that Neville was doing it on purpose, that he was trying to place one of his rich friends as Chief of Staff and that he wouldn’t stop until he discredited him. And even knowing all of that, Drake had fallen for it. Liam’s reaction pissed him as hell too. He understood that Neville was crucial for his campaign, but it would be great to feel that for once someone was on his corner.

Suddenly, he heard a noise. He turned and he froze on place when he saw Alexis staring at him.

“Hi!” She said with a soft voice

“What are you doing here?” He growled the question.

Her face fell. “Oh, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He didn’t understand. “Why?”

“Well, you were obviously upset after what that jerk told you. And I think there’s a storm coming.”

Drake couldn’t help it, he felt his heart swell at her words.“You shouldn’t be worrying about me, O’Brien”

“O’Brien?” She looked perplexed.

“That is your name, isn’t it?” He asked teasing her.

She smiled rolling her eyes “Yes, it is. So, what are you doing here?”

He sighed; he really wanted to share the moment with her but he also knew that doing it would only deepen whatever feeling he was starting to develop for her. Either way, he couldn’t stop himself.

“If you really want to know you’ll have to trust me.” He took a step towards her without breaking eye contact.

She stared back. “I trust you with my life.”

“Your choice O’Brien.” He gave her a crooked smile and shove her onto the soft snow.

“Hey!!” She snickered. “I suppose that one was my fault for trusting you!” She punched him playfully in the arm when he laid next to her.

“Stop complaining O’Brien, you’re missing it” He pointed at the most star-filled sky she had ever seen.

“Oh God, Drake, that’s…”

“Yes, milady?” He asked jokingly

“Gorgeous. I don’t think I ever have seen anything so beautiful before”

He turned to look at her eyes sparkling from the light of the shooting stars and at the expression of pure joy on her face. And he knew that it was the same for him. He had never seen anything so beautiful before either.

He blushed and turned back to look at the sky. “Nothing beats a clear view during a meteor shower.”

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t miss this,” she said softly.

“Really? I imagined you’d prefer to stay at the house discussing political tactics with Rashad or budget cuts with Hana.”

“Ha! Not really my scene.”

“Well, you clearly like politics, you worked on those campaigns and wrote in political journals”

She frowned “Yes, I love writing more than anything so I enjoy being a journalist, but I only participated in those campaigns because I believed the candidates could actually make a difference in the country, not because I love politics. Believe me, I know how despicable and disgusting they can be.” She said the last words fiercely, she had grown up seeing her father’s unethical tactics.

Some clouds started to creep across the stars “We really got here on time, looks like the storm will start any minute now”.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to miss it.” He smiled nostalgically. “I used to do this with my sister Savanah every year. We grew up around the Rhys’. My dad was Constantine’s bodyguard, and my sister and I were allowed to hang out with Li and Leo. Then shortly after he passed, we moved with them for good. So, we came here often. And then Sav left too”

“Where did she go?” She noticed the sad look in his eyes and would’ve given anything to comfort him, but she didn’t want to get any closer to him. They were already too close for their own good.

“She left to reconnect with my mother.” He sighed “It’s a long story, one that I won’t be boring you with.”

She spoke in a soft but firm voice, trying to convey how much it mattered to her. “Your story could never be boring to me Drake. If one day you want to talk, I’ll be here to listen.”

He turned to her, the desire to pull her body close to his and hold her was overwhelming. Alexis was there, laying at a few inches of him, her smell all around him. It was torture having her so close and being unable to touch her. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore, so he stood up.

“Is time to go, O’Brien.”

He gave her his hand so she could steady herself, but he pulled too strong causing her to lose her balance. She almost slipped, but he was quicker and took her into his arms to avoid her from falling. They stood like that for a few seconds, her head in his chest, his hand caressing her hair.

She didn’t seem to have the strength to pull apart from him and blamed his woody scent, it was addictive.

Reluctantly, she separated from him and took his hand desperate to keep some form of contact with him.

Drake looked at her questioningly.

Alexis blushed. “You know for safety.”

He nodded and walked her back to Olivia’s state.

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

Back in his room, Drake poured himself a glass of whiskey to calm himself. His heart was still racing after a moment with her. He would have to get whatever this was out of his system for his own sake. He knew that she would never choose him over Liam.

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

He had called her as soon as he saw the latest poll results. He couldn’t afford to lose and the way everything was going he was sure he would have to face a defeat. After his years in politics, he knew enough people in the right places, people that would be more than happy to help him in exchange for a favor or two. However, his most genius idea had been to recruit her. She was young and ambitious, and she wouldn’t stop at nothing to achieve her goal.

He was aware of how much he had changed. After all, he had been one of the first people to believe in democracy, to fight for it, but he had to admit that giving the power to the people hadn’t been a good idea. They weren’t always smart, and their vote often contradicted their bests interests. That’s why he had to step up one last time for the sake of his country and change the curse of elections.

#tw rape #tw noncon #axwalker writes #the trade

65 notes · View notes

secret-time-is-here · 4 years

Text

From memories to trees

Chapter 8: The evil in his eye

Previous - First - Original Oneshot - Next

“Boys?” Their dark and fearsome parental figure called, poking his head into the kitchen where Blue currently was, spending more time with the terrifying and goofy skeletons of Nightmare’s gang. Life had been, to put it simply, amazing!

It was, really, really awkward at first, but they all quickly put aside their differences. Before he knew it, he had been accepted into the family. It had been ages since he felt so loved. Like he had brothers that cared about him. A lifetime since he had a parent of any sort. Supposedly, Gaster was meant to be his and Papyrus’ father, but nothing linked the three of them aside from their species.

It was weird, different. New. Something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Life had felt like a daily reset with slight changes for years. His code altered and unaging. Broken off from UnderSwap. Officially an outcode.

Nightmare was kind and gentle, occasionally scolding, but meaning well. Error hadn’t changed, only seeming more comfortable in the fatherly role everyone saw him as. The gang, well, through calm chatter and many sleepovers in each of their rooms, they found qualities in common. Cooking, space, training, crafts.

Soon, even Fresh was comfortable with him. Even finding a common love for fashion.

“Sorry to interrupt all of you,” Nightmare spoke softly, walking over to where everyone was. The gang having decided to make some muffins and gathering in the kitchen. Those who were less skilled in the area of cooking sitting at the island, the table, or lazily standing around.

“No problem, what’s up, Dad?” Dust casually spoke, Blue still trying to get used to hearing what he once thought as the ever emotionless and merciless king of negativity as Dad.

“The balance is tipping, I need help spreading some negativity. If all goes well, it’ll take an hour or two at most.” Nodding at the trivial task, the original first four of the gang headed off, Blue going to join and help them--until Nightmare’s outstretched tendril caught him. Stopping him effectively, “While I appreciated your enthusiasm, Blue,”

Just Blue. No dumb nickname. No hint of underestimation in his voice. No assumption about him. Just caring respect.

“I want you to stay behind and watch the base,” Blue gave a small pout, “Trust me, your time will come… and it would be now, however, I’m also taking Error with me and I need someone to make sure Fresh isn’t aggravating his wounds and is actually getting the rest he needs.” Nightmare gave a nod to the colorful skeleton playing away at his GameBoy father into the room. Fresh being laid down on a decorative coach in the room so he could still be with everyone else but get his rest.

“Alright,” Blue said, saluting, “I understand, I’ll finish the muffins in the meantime!” He smiled happily, the dark king returning it as he ran over to the counter to finish filling the multitude of pans with the quickly thickening batter.

Disappearing just as quick as the lumps in the batter, Nightmare teleported himself away to the scene of the battle where Error had already helped his boys in starting the chaos and negativity. Adding an extra blaster for Cross, throwing extra bone attacks towards Horror’s and Killer’s victims, stealing Kills for Dust so he doesn’t melt from too much Determination.

Just as the balance began to fix itself, their sweet quick outing that had a promise of muffins as a reward turned sour. What was left of the Star Team, now Star duo, showed up. Bringing their firey fury with them. Dream’s wings flaring and threatening yellow-green magic bursting from his hands in a new promise of pain. One that would only be delicious to the giver, not the receiver.

Flying high and up to his enemy, Dream started the battle. Dancing in the air and around attacks. An attack barely missing him as the skeleton he was battling suddenly stopped. Body tied up in string and soul struggling. The blue string branching from everywhere. Floor to underground ceiling.

“Dec’...” He let out, breathless as his wings continued to flap. Keeping him midair.

“They’re both tied Boss!” Error yelled up to him as he looked sorrowly at Dream. “We’re good to go!”

As the last of the balance was fixed, Nightmare felt the goop covering his body neutralize. No longer thinning like it often did when Positivity started to rule the multiverse, and not overflowing like the darkness that threatens to envelop him and the rest of their outcode world. In small tugs, Dream’s body began to be pulled back down to the ground, and their eyes met. Nightmare doing his best to look sincere, and his enemy doing or saying nothing. Just glaring. Daring him to do anything while he was weak. While he had an open spot.

Looking back down, Error momentarily stopped pulling on his string, and he let the two guardians have a moment. Focusing on getting the gang back home and Dream’s accomplice Ink in a holding cell. Just to stay a few days and let the peace last a little longer. A simple routine that they recently began that the Star Sans’ were quick to catch onto.

A short week of isolation as the multiverse stabilized. Three meals a day in a well-kept room. A room repurposed as a holding place. Comfortable bed and bathroom attached. They were evil, but they weren’t that cruel. Even a minifridge full of snacks and water kept stocked. Just in case they needed the energy or got hungry. Compliments of Horror.

“I’m not going to hurt you… you know that I never wanted to.” Nightmare sighed, only getting the continued glare and a snarl back.

“Likely story… bastard.” His enemy barked out, muttering the last word.

“Really? Name-calling? You’ve resorted to such childish means to get under my dead skin?” The dark king deadpanned, “I know we’re stuck in child bodies, but geez.”

Dream only scoffed.

“Just take me already, I don’t want to talk with you.”

-----

“You did what?!” Blue asked, shocked, “They don’t know I’m here! I-If they found out--”

“Even if they did find out,” Nightmare quickly interrupted, “The only dead meat here is the animals in the fridge.” Horror gave a stifled chuckle at the pun, “Right now, it’s to calm them down and let the balance reinstate. Surprisingly, they’re being mostly civilized, feel free to talk to them all you need. There are still bars separating you from them in the room.”

“You could actually join us,” Error included, “We’re going to grab them so we can finally explain things. Like the balances and Fresh.” Blue gave a meek nod, gulping.

He needed to do this, but what if they took it wrong?

They’d already accused Error of brainwashing once, wouldn’t be too hard to point the finger again. Blame it on the scapegoats.

Would he be a scapegoat too now?

Before his mind could supply him an answer, the door to the holding room was opened, and his ex-teammates were throwing him questions left and right. Why this. When that. All four W’s and the single H.

“How did they brainwash you this time?!”

“There was no brainwashing!” Blue burst out, “There never was! I wish I didn’t have a heart for you two still otherwise I’d call you blabbering idiots that couldn’t see a giant red flag waving in front of their darn eyes!” He yelled, shutting up the Stars in an instant.

Error gave a short few pats to Blue’s head, proud. The kid was finally standing up for himself. On the other hand, Nightmare wrapped a tendril around the younger’s wrist, worried. Those feelings seemed to be bottled for so long. Near forgotten. The negative king couldn’t even feel the emotions hiding under all of the bright skeleton’s optimism.

Tangling the Star duo once again, they dragged them back into the living room, unraveling them and bringing them to a seat on one of the many couches, offering the muffins and water on the coffee table before cutting to the explanation.

Reminding Dream and Ink of the balances. Error even stitching a reminder into Ink’s scarf, knowing through Blue that the artist did wash it often and that included all the notes on it.

First, the structural balance, the one that Error was forced into and Ink was created for. The balance of the Au’s. The fact that the multiverse wasn’t limitless. That every Au was a glass ball in a wooden box. When too many were pushed together, they’d break, and in their situation, it could mean a domino effect.

Second, the emotional balance. The balance that Nightmare gently reminded they had promised to protect centuries ago, Dream protesting outright.

“You didn’t seem so keen on protecting and keeping the balance during the times of the tree.” Dream called out, making Nightmare sigh.

“There’s a lot more that happened then what it seems if you want to talk later-”

“NO!” Dream interrupted, standing up, “I’ll just tell my story out right! I know what happened back then.” He emphasized, pointing a finger right into Nightmare’s unfazed face. “When I’m done, then you can tell me, exactly what I missed.”

“Alright then...” Nightmare tried to stay calm, voice hissing with the effort. The negative emotions giving a power boost, and his anger boiling over, just wanting to punch his enemy face right then and there. “Start from the beginning.”

And the tale was told. How Dream’s life was very normal, many friends, the village loving him. Learning to fly as high as he could with his small pair of angel wings, back before the demon ones violently grew in.

Then Nightmare refusing to tell him why he was coming home in bruises, gashes. Just simply ignoring it.

“I admit, there could’ve been something there, but you were always climbing high up in the tree and flying above it. Wouldn’t be surprised if you kept falling down that old thing.”

“That ‘old thing’ was literally holding the body of our mentor--”

Dream got back to his story, making no other comment. Then, as Nightmare knew well, his night terror was recounted. The memory of all the carcasses. The blood and dust. Then seeing Nightmare hunched over with one of the dark apples, eating the last one to finish his corruption. Wings turning black and Dream blacking out before waking up a hundred years later. The pain from the new demon wings fresh. Limbs cramped. A new phobia of cramped spaces discovered.

Nightmare was slow to stand when the story finished, rather wanting to let Dream bask in this rare moment of genuine positivity. Add a little more to that ego before letting it crash down.

“Oh my,” He let out a small laugh, standing up from his seat as a tendril gently grabbed Dream, dragging him back into his seat. “So much left out. So, SO much. You did surprise me, I’ll have to say. Although that was only in how little you knew. You actually said less than I thought you would!”

The positive guardian’s confusion was visible, and it continued to feed Nightmare steadily. Everyone else in the room looked at him shocked.

“If we’re finally going to share this story, we might as well start from the very begging.” Nickolas’s voice rang out, near sing-song. “Afterall, I’m tired of this weight. It is only fair you, as well as everyone else knew what truly happened. Wouldn’t you agree, Declan?”

Dream began to visibly shake, refusing to remember back to that point.

“Let’s return to where it all started. You, me, and a dinky. Little. Hospital room.”

Nightmare and Dream belong to @jokublog

Error and Fresh belong to @loverofpiggies

Ink belongs to @comyet

Dust belongs to @ask-dusttale

Horror belongs to @sour-apple-studios

Cross belongs to @jakei95

Killer belongs to @rahafwabas

Blue belongs to the Undertale community

13 notes · View notes

princess-of-luxure · 4 years

Text

Masquerade [2]

<< Prev / Next >>

You moved to the capital city, Altadellys, in search of job opportunities. You had anticipated several significant changes in your life, but nothing could have prepared you for almost getting robbed in an alley, only to be saved by a mysterious masked vigilante. Their mysterious appearance throws your life into chaos, and you soon find yourself swept up in the high-stakes underground operations of a group of… supervillains?!

You didn’t ask for any of this, but there’s just as much excitement amongst the potentially lethal drama. As secrets hundreds of years olds begin to unfold before you, can you be the missing link in solving a dangerous mystery, or will you bring everything to ruin?

Fandom: Reigning Passions (Visual Novel) Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Relationships: Gen (so far) Characters: Lyris (Reigning Passions), Main Character (Reigning Passions), Sevastian (Reigning Passions), Piama (Reigning Passions), Hazel (Reigning Passions) Content Warnings: None

Thank you everyone for voting on the last chapter! I got more votes than expected and even now I'm still getting new fans. I'm pleased to announce that choice b (Stay to try and diffuse the situation with Lyris and Piama, and hopefully get some answers) has won the vote! Hoping you enjoy this chapter.

As per usual, you can cast your vote on the end-of-chapter choice in a comment on AO3 here, or by sending me a DM or ask here on tumblr! You can also cast your vote by replying to the appropriate chapter, or by putting it in the tags of a reblog.

Chapter below the read more.

Guilt ached in your gut as you nibbled on your lower lip. It didn’t exactly feel good to blow Hazel off, but she was your best friend. It couldn’t be that difficult to reschedule, and besides, you couldn’t imagine the anxiety that would weigh on your shoulders if you didn’t discuss the hey-I’m-pretty-sure-you’re-a-masked-vigilante thing with Lyris while you had the chance. Decision made, you tried to steady your shaking hands as you typed out a reply.

You: I’m so so sorry

You: Something came up

You: Can we reschedule?

You didn’t wait for Hazel’s reply before tucking your phone back into your pocket, taking a deep breath as you assessed the situation. Lyris had mostly managed to mask his shock by now, though the intensity of his gaze on you still sent shivers down your spine. Not that you minded having a gorgeous guy’s attention, this just wasn’t exactly what you had pictured. Add the fact that Piama was still looking between the two of you with raised eyebrows, evidently waiting for an explanation, and this was starting to look like a social nightmare.

Okay, focus. You can’t spill his secret—even if you don’t have confirmation of it yet. Mustering up all your courage, you gave Lyris your friendliest smile. “Wow, fancy meeting you here!” Please go with it, please go with it, please go with it.

You could see the exact moment he snapped into the role, his charming smile overtaking his features. If you weren’t so busy trying to play off the whole situation as nothing to Piama, you would’ve probably had a bi panic. “A lovely coincidence indeed, my lady. It seems as though fate wished for us to meet.”

You stole a glance at Piama out of the corner of your eye. She still seemed surprised, but for different reasons now. “You know her, Lyris?” she asked skeptically.

“I had the pleasure of running into her earlier,” he replied smoothly, and okay, that part was technically the truth. Still, his mismatched eyes didn’t leave yours, and you had to remind yourself that the way he looked at you, like you were a jewel more precious than any known to man, was just part of his act. “I’m afraid I never got to introduce myself, however. If the lady would allow, I shall now rectify this error.”

He stepped closer to you, and you desperately fought back the blush that threatened to crawl up your cheeks. Slowly, deliberately, he bowed to you, just as he had under the guise of Peacock. “I am Lyris Rosi.” He gently caught your hand in his, raising it to his lips and brushing a feather-light kiss there.

You were pretty sure that the kiss had completely killed your last few brain cells because you found yourself stammering out your name despite the fact he already knew it. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind, releasing your hand and rising, still with that brilliant smile on his face. Plus, I guess it’s believability points for Piama. “A beautiful name for a beautiful maiden,” he complimented, and despite having heard it from him before, it still sent a jolt of lightheadedness through you. “If you would permit, I would much like to resume our earlier conversation in the privacy of my apartment?”

You heard Piama scoff, shattering the moment. “Inviting a pretty girl to your apartment already, Lyris?” She fixed him with a critical stare. “You better not make this awkward for me.”

Lyris gasped, his expression twisting into a mockery of hurt as he placed a hand to his chest. At least, you were pretty sure he was just acting. Damn, this guy was good. “You wound me, dear Piama. I assure you, my intentions are nothing but pure.”

“And yet you knew exactly what I was referring to with my comment.” Piama huffed, shaking her head before turning her gaze to you. “Do yourself a favour and avoid getting swept up in his charm. Underneath the bravado, he’s a giant nuisance.”

“You must be fond of ‘giant nuisances’ then, to hang around me so much,” Lyris noted, and you could see the familiar glint of a best friend’s teasing in his eyes.

“Hardly. Don’t get a swelled head over it.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to make some more tea. You two better behave yourselves.”

She swept from the room, and as soon as you were sure she was out of earshot, you breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders slumping as you released tension you didn’t even know you were holding. “Sorry for putting you on the spot there,” you apologized, forcing yourself to look back at Lyris. “I had no idea you’d be here.” Obviously! You mentally chided yourself for the stupid comment.

Lyris chuckled, and you couldn’t help but notice his smile seemed a touch more genuine. “You handled that very well,” he offered, and you felt your heart skip a beat. “And pay Piama’s words no mind. She seems to have gotten quite the wrong impression about you and I.”

You tilted your head, trying to figure out how he felt about that, but he was completely unreadable. Right, well. If all else fails, resort to humour. “Well, have you given her a reason to believe that before?” you teased.

There it was—the real smile you’d gotten to glimpse earlier in the day. “I suppose there may have been an incident or two in the past,” he admitted lightly, and you found yourself drawn to the playful glimmer in his eyes. “But I believe my intentions with you should be transparent.”

“Yeaaaah.” You rubbed the back of your neck, a sudden sheepishness crawling up your spine. “Look, I’m really sorry about this. I know this must be far from an ideal situation, but—”

Lyris gently raised a hand. Startled, you froze mid sentence. “It isn’t your fault,” he reassured, the melodic tones of his voice compelling you to believe him. “If anything, I should have been more careful.”

The fact that he didn’t seem angry or upset with you washed away most of your lingering anxiety. You offered him a tentative smile, idly brushing your fingers through your hair. “You know, we probably should head to your apartment before Piama comes back.”

“She’d be quite surprised to see us still here after our previous conversation,” Lyris agreed, offering his arm out to you. Your heart leapt into your throat as you scrambled at this opportunity, rushing to link arms with him without tripping over your own two feet.

“So, do you do this with every girl, or am I special?” you attempted to joke as he led you up the stairs. In hindsight, you figured this may have been a mistake, but seeing the slight curve of his lips and almost fond look he gave you, maybe it wasn’t too bad.

“I am a gentleman to all the women I have the pleasure of meeting, but you are special in more ways than one.” You hoped he didn’t notice how you clung to him tighter so as to not fall over at his words. Your brain struggled to come up with a response, but thankfully you were saved by Lyris pausing in front of a door. “Here we are. I’m afraid it isn’t much, but I hope it will be satisfactory.”

He led you inside and your jaw dropped. ‘Not much’ was indisputably an understatement—you knew Spring Apartments was on the higher end of quality housing, but Lyris’s apartment was borderline a penthouse. “How do you afford this place?” you burst out, unable to help yourself, immediately clapping a hand to your mouth as embarrassment colored your cheeks.

Lyris regarded you with an amused look. “That’s for me to know and you to never find out,” he quipped, before gesturing to a couch that may as well have been a piece of cloud for how heavenly it looked. “Take a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

You shook your head, trying to push down your nerves as you sank into the cushions. You were right, it did feel like you were resting upon clouds. “No thanks. I already drank two cups of coffee recently, I wouldn’t want to be bouncing off your walls.” You chuckled at yourself, trying to appear more confident than you felt.

“Of course, I understand,” Lyris hummed, and you couldn’t help but feel disappointed as he settled onto the couch opposite you. “Now as to what brought you here—”

“Mrrrow?” Both you and Lyris turned to look at what was the fluffiest Persian cat you’d ever seen in your life. Their long white fur was immaculately groomed, and their collar was bedazzled with… pink rhinestones. Okay, at this point you were certain Lyris either came from money, or his profession paid extremely well.

“Madame Whiskers, so nice of you to join us,” Lyris greeted, and the cat turned her judgmental stare on him. “That’s right, it’s time for your dinner, isn’t it? How silly of me to forget.”

“Mrrrow!” You didn’t speak cat, but you were pretty sure Madame Whiskers was agreeing, her gaze seeming to pierce right into your host. You noticed she had heterochromia just like her owner, though hers was of the blue and green variety.

Lyris reached down to scratch Madame Whiskers behind the ears as he addressed you. “Forgive me, Madame Whiskers gets quite huffy if she isn’t fed on time.” He bent down, placing a kiss on top of her forehead, and she blinked back at him lazily. “Now play nice with our guest, my precious princess. I’ll be back in just a moment.”

Lyris vanished into one of the neighbouring rooms, leaving you alone with Madame Whiskers. You stared at her—she stared back.

You cleared your throat. Why the hell do I feel so judged by a cat? “Madame Whiskers, was it?”

She just kept on staring. Yeah, okay, that’s my fault for expecting a cat to talk back. “You seem to be a cat of high class,” you commented, awkwardly bowing to her as best you could while sitting down. “Lyris must treat you very well. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Madame Whiskers tilted her head to the side, studying you, before trotting over to jump up next to you on the couch. She then laid down in your lap, staring up at you with a look that could not have more obviously screamed pet me.

Hesitant but not wanting to risk offending her, you slowly began to rub your thumb in circles behind her ears. Soon enough, you began to notice a deep purring coming from Madame Whiskers, and more confident that you were doing the right thing, you began to rub a bit more firmly. Within moments, she was stretched out to her full length, looking completely blissed out.

“Apologies for the wait, I hope Madame Whiskers behaved—” Lyris paused mid sentence as he entered the room. He held a fancy dish of what was most likely expensive cat food in one hand, and a smirk curled across his lips as he took in the situation. “Well, would you look at that. She likes you.”

He placed the dish down. At its gentle clink, Madame Whiskers hopped off your lap and trotted over, daintily nibbling at her food. You, meanwhile, were left trying to process this new information. “She does? Does she not usually like people?”

Lyris chuckled, an amused gleam in his mismatched eyes as he sat back down. “That would be the understatement of the century. She nearly clawed poor Piama half to death when they met.”

You shuddered as you imagined what Madame Whiskers must be like when she’s upset. No wonder Piama had called her the most annoying creature on the planet. “Yeah, I think I can say I’m glad she likes me.”

“I suppose that’s just another way in which you are special.” Your name rolled smoothly off his tongue, and judging by the way he smirked at you when you went rigid with shock, he knew what he was doing to you. Has he known this entire time?!

You cleared your throat, trying desperately to save face. “As much as I’m sure we could chat about your cat for hours, we did come here for a reason.”

“Of course.” Just like that, Lyris’s flirty demeanour evaporated, a far more serious expression falling over him as he leaned forward slightly. It was a jarring change, and you fought not to squirm in place. “If I may ask, what is your understanding of the situation?”

You took a deep breath. Moment of truth. “You’re Peacock. You look exactly like him.” Not to mention acting exactly like him.

Lyris smiled. It wasn’t unkind, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It only took a second to decide you didn’t like it. “You have a good eye. Though as much as I intended to be recognized, you were not the one I was expecting.”

Your head snapped up. “You wanted to be recognized?”

“By a certain someone, yes.” Lyris crossed his arms, regarding you carefully. “Have you heard of Fox?”

One of Hazel’s statements from earlier in the day rung in your mind. After Fox disappeared, he took over as Altadellys’s protector of the night. “Just in passing,” you admitted. “My friend Hazel mentioned them. Were they like you?”

“Somewhat.” You were shocked to see his smile turn fond, real and bright. “He had his own way of going about things, but yes, we had the same ultimate goal.”

Your mind was reeling under the weight of what you’d just learned. Lyris was familiar enough with Fox to speak of him like an old and dear friend? He was hoping to be recognized by Fox? “But my friend said he disappeared,” you said eventually, your thoughts still spinning.

“That’s right. And that’s why I’m Peacock.” The explanation seemed to make perfect sense to Lyris, and yet it clarified absolutely nothing for you.

“I don’t follow,” you admitted, brows furrowing as you tried to put the pieces together. “How did Fox’s disappearance lead to you becoming Peacock?”

Lyris hummed, a thoughtful expression crossing his features. “For the sake of his privacy, let’s just say he’s someone important to me. We fell out of contact years ago, but I still think about him pretty often.” He chuckled. “Nothing could prepare me for seeing him debut in the news as a masked thief, but I was hardly surprised. He’d deny it to his dying breath, but he always had a flair for the dramatic.”

And you don’t? You bit back the comment, preferring to focus on the matter at hand. “I still don’t understand. I get you guys have history, but…”

Lyris raised an amused eyebrow. “Well, of course you’re confused. There’s more to the story.”

You sank back into the couch cushions, feeling your cheeks burn. “Sorry,” you mumbled.

Lyris chuckled, which only served to increase your embarrassment. At least he didn’t seem to think any less of you for it. “You’re cute when you’re flustered. In any case, Fox goes to much further lengths to conceal his identity than I do, but there’s no disguising his powers. I recognized them immediately, but I wasn’t concerned at first. He could take care of himself, and if he needed me, he’d find me. Or at least I hoped so.” There was a flash of sadness in his eyes, gone in an instant. “Then a few months later after his shine into the spotlight, he disappeared. No news about an arrest. Nothing.”

You tilted your head. “If there was no news of an arrest, then isn’t that a good thing?”

Lyris shook his head, giving you an almost pitying look. “You have a lot to learn about Altadellys. Someone disappearing without a trace like that is never a good thing.”

You got the idea he wasn’t trying to be condescending, so you tucked that nugget of information away for later and tried to focus on the matter before you. “So you became Peacock to… look for him?”

“Close.” His mismatched eyes glittered with mischief. “It’s hard to look for someone with no leads. So I thought…” He trailed off, standing and carefully removing his vest. Unobstructed, you were able to see that the clothing he wore had a slit in the back, the function of which immediately became obvious as there was a flash of brilliant green light, revealing his beautiful wings when it faded.

You giggled even as you found yourself taking him in in all his glory. Even without the suit and mask, he was so openly and unashamedly Peacock. “You planned to lure him out with drama?”

“Precisely.” He bowed deeply before perching on the arm of the couch, careful not to disturb anything with his wings. “I’ve had no luck yet, but assuming he isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere, he can’t avoid me forever.”

You chewed on your lip, fingers fussing in your hair as you tried to decide on a course of action. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Genuine surprise flitted across Lyris’s expression for a second before he smiled. “That’s sweet of you, but it’s best if you don’t get involved. Just knowing this much is dangerous. I have just as many enemies as admirers.”

You sighed. A part of you wanted to protest, but he had a point. Besides, how were you supposed to help? You didn’t have any powers. “Alright, but if there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all…”

To your surprise, Lyris stood and closed the distance between the two of you in a few strides, close enough that you were struck by the memory of meeting him earlier in the day. “I sincerely hope that you don’t have to get dragged into my mess,” he said quietly, “but thank you. I’ll let you know.”

He pulled back, the moment over far too soon. “It’s getting late,” he murmured, eyes only briefly flickering to the window before falling back on you. “And trust me, your room is something of a mess right now.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” you began to say, but Lyris was already shaking his head.

“You’d be surprised,” he replied, and you could see a mischievous glint in his eyes that was beginning to grow familiar to you. “But you know, since it’s my fault your room looks like an apocalypse hit it, the gracious thing to do would be to offer up my own.”

“What?!” Your eyes flew wide open. “I couldn’t accept that! It’s your room! Where would you sleep?”

Lyris raised his eyebrows, looking for all the world as if you’d just told a hilarious joke. “In my bed, of course. Where else?”

You choked on air, and you saw concern flicker over his face. “But— you— I—”

Lyris eased up immediately, his eyes bright as he chuckled. “I was only joking. I’ll take the couch. It’s only fair,” he explained lightly, before he paused, leaning in. “Unless, of course, you would prefer to share.”

Your brain screeched to a halt. Did he just say—?! You took a deep breath, closing your eyes as you tried to calm your racing thoughts. Yeah, okay, he did offer to share the bed with you. He seems serious about it, too. You’d never had an attractive guy offer to share his bed with you before. It would be madness to pass this opportunity up. Summoning all your courage, you looked Lyris in the eyes, your voice firm. “You know what? I think I would prefer that.”

If your response shocked him, he didn’t show it at all. In fact, he actually looked pleased. “Come with me, then.” He extended a hand to you. As you took it, he laced your fingers together, bringing your joined hands to his lips to place another kiss there. Once again, the action caused a stirring of butterflies in your stomach, but you did your best to conceal it. Two can play at his game. Don’t let him win.

Lyris’s bedroom was incredibly lavish, but your eyes landed on his bed and never left. The queen-sized bed had a mattress that looked heavenly to you right now, fancy pillows perfectly fluffed, pale green silk sheets neatly folded over the bed. Your exhaustion from the day’s events hit you all at once, and it was all you could do not to collapse on the bed then and there.

Lyris’s hand left yours, and you glanced over at him only to nearly choke again as he began to strip down without a care. He hummed a small tune under his breath as he removed his various pieces of jewellery, his shirt coming off next with practiced expertise. In a matter of moments, he stood almost completely naked before you, his underwear the only thing remaining. Jesus, is every person in Altadellys this ripped or have I just been getting lucky?

Lyris looked over at you, a smirk curling across his lips as he caught you staring. “Do you see something you like, my lady?”

“Uh—no! I mean, yes! I mean—gah!” You turned away from him, trying to ignore his satisfied laugh as you stripped down to your bra and underwear. Once you finished, you turned back to the bed, finding Lyris already relaxed on one side of it, though to your surprise (and gratitude) he had his eyes politely averted.

He evidently felt your weight settle into the mattress as you laid down, and he reached out to turn off the lights. “Rest well,” he offered up to the darkness, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“You as well.” There was no more talking. As you curled up beneath the blankets, you began to wonder if you could fall asleep, hyper aware of Lyris’s weight and warmth right beside you, but soon the events of the day began to wear at your consciousness and you drifted away. Your dreams were filled with hazy images of peacocks and foxes and masks.

You awoke the next morning to find Lyris’s side of the bed empty. You fought back the disappointment that tried to settle in your stomach, reaching for your pants (that had been neatly folded and placed next to the bed, you noted curiously) to fish your phone out of their pocket.

You swiped over to your messenger out of instinct, noting a couple texts from Hazel and… one from an unknown number. Blinking in surprise, you checked the timestamp, finding it was sent at 3:42AM—in other words, while you were fast asleep. Who in the world would be messaging me at quarter to four in the morning? Curiosity compelled you to open the message.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: Are you Amara’s friend?

You stared at the message, hands trembling slightly. Normally you would’ve blocked the number and paid it no mind, but this stranger had mentioned Amara. You were pretty sure that wasn’t the world’s most common name, which meant that whoever this was, you had a common acquaintance. Unless they were stalking you. Gods, you really hoped they weren’t stalking you.

You: Yes? Who are you?

Given their apparently abnormal sleeping schedule, you really weren’t expecting them to reply for a while, but immediately, the typing dots showed up, as though they had been waiting for your response.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: You may call me Owl.

Another animal themed alias? You couldn’t deny your suspicions were raised, narrowing your eyes at your phone. Just like Fox and Peacock… but I haven’t heard of an Owl. And what connection would they have to someone like Amara, anyway?

You: Okay, Owl. What do you want from me?

In the time it took them to reply, you quickly added them to your contacts, figuring ‘Owl’ would be a lot less unnerving than a string of numbers. When you looked back at your messages, they had already responded. Damn, they type quick.

Owl: Nothing. I simply needed to verify your identity. When are you planning on applying to Optimus?

A jolt of shock and even mild fear ran down your spine before you remembered that Amara had mentioned a friend yesterday who could help you with applying for an internship. It must be Owl. You were going to pray it was Owl, or you were probably fucked.

You: Uh, later today, I think.

Once again, Owl’s response was immediate.

Owl: Thank you. I will keep watch for your application.

Owl: I’ll erase any traces of this conversation now.

You nearly choked, fingers fumbling with the phone in your haste to type.

You: What why?!

Owl: It’s for your safety. Have a good day.

Before you had a chance to further protest, the messages disappeared from your screen, leaving you with a blank DM with the mysterious Owl. You were about to try sending them a new message, bewildered, when you remembered the texts from Hazel. Shoot, how did I forget that?!

You quickly opened them, finding that they were both from yesterday afternoon, before you’d headed to Lyris’s apartment.

Hazel: Np

Hazel: Amara and I were looking to hang out somewhere this weekend so we’ll let u know abt that if u want

You: That’d be great, Hazey

You: Sorry for the way late reply, I got distracted

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.~” You almost dropped your phone as Lyris walked into the room, looking up at him with wide eyes. He was thankfully(?) clothed, though still sans vest, that unbearably attractive smirk curled across his lips. “Did you have nice dreams?”

“Uh… weird dreams, more like,” you replied, running your fingers through your hair in an attempt to look presentable. “What about you?”

“With you here, my lady? Best I’ve ever had,” Lyris replied with a playful wink, before taking on a slightly more serious demeanor. “I went out to grab breakfast, and a certain flowery devil roommate of yours accosted me on the way back. Seems like she’s pretty insistent on taking you out shopping for some new clothes today.” Despite his seemingly uninterested words, you couldn’t help but notice an excited glint in his eyes. “Though if you ask me, she’s scoping out the competition.”

“Competition?” You raised your eyebrows, and Lyris chuckled, leaning forward as if to share some scandalous conspiracy.

“Piama’s a fashion designer,” he explained with a hum. “Her talents are almost unparalleled, but don’t tell her I said that.” His attitude shifted again, lips curving into a frown as his eyes darkened. “Unfortunately, talent doesn’t matter as much as influence in Altadellys.”

“But that’s not fair.” The words were spilling out before you could stop them. Lyris gave you another pitying look.

“It isn’t,” he agreed, “but that’s the way things are in Altadellys. If you’ve got money, you’ll succeed.” He sighed softly.

Your insides still burned red hot at the injustice of it, but you were also smart enough to realize that not only were you just one person, you were also a nobody in Altadellys. As much as you wanted to help Piama, you couldn’t think of a viable way to do so. Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath. Once you opened them again, you moved on. “Well, I’d definitely love to have a fashion designer’s help in picking a new outfit.”

“Hey, I know my way around high fashion too.” Lyris gave you a mock hurt look that was so convincing you almost felt bad. Almost. “Haven’t you seen me?”

You laughed, and were rewarded by seeing the fake frown immediately turn to his genuine, gentle smile. “Don’t worry, you silly peacock,” you chided, relishing in the way his eyes lit up at the subtle nod to his alter ego. “I couldn’t forget about seeing you even if I wanted to.”

The smile was replaced by a smirk. “Flattery will get you everywhere, darling,” he said smoothly, sending an electric jolt down your spine. Before you had a chance to react, he turned away from you, grabbing a hairbrush off the dresser. “I’ll give you some privacy. When you’re ready, I grabbed a blueberry muffin for you, it’s on the kitchen counter. Hope you’re not allergic.”

You giggled despite the heat still staining your cheeks red. You figured it would be a while until you got used to how Lyris could change between personas in a snap, flirty to serious to friendly in the blink of an eye. “No allergies here. And thanks.”

“Not a problem. I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” He swept from the room, and you wasted no time in getting ready for the day. You were in the middle of trying to tame your hair with a few hair ties when you felt your phone buzz in your pocket.

Hazel: Distracted huh? :p

You nearly choked, suddenly grateful you were alone as you fumbled to not drop your phone.

You: Hazel!!!

You: It is SO not like that!!!

Hazel: LOL

Hazel: Sorry Freckles I had to tease ya

You rolled your eyes at your phone. You loved Hazel, really, you did, but she was going to be the death of you.

You: You definitely didn’t.

Hazel: Definitely did

Hazel: Best friend duties and all that

You: So should I start teasing you about Amara?

Hazel: If u wanna

Hazel: I mean shes cute

Hazel: And have u SEEN her

You: Hazey! Do you mean to tell me that my best friend has a crush and I didn’t know about it?

Hazel: LOOOOL

Hazel: Nah just aesthetic attraction tbh

Hazel: We’ll see tho

There was a knock on the door. “You alright in there?” Lyris called. “Not to rush you if you have a very detailed morning routine because I get that, but Madame Whiskers can only hold off Piama for so long.”

“I’ll be right there!” you called back, quickly typing a goodbye to Hazel.

You: Okay you useless lesbian, I’ve gotta run though.

You: My roommate and a friend are taking me clothes shopping.

Hazel: uwu have fun I’ll lyk abt any plans w/ Amara

You slipped your phone into your pocket and finished getting ready, heading out to the living room, pausing to grab the muffin from the kitchen. You found Lyris relaxed on the couch, more or less the same as he was earlier except he had now donned his vest and his hair was done up in its usual braids. Madame Whiskers was curled up by the entrance to the apartment, eyeing the door with the intensity of a hawk watching its prey.

You cleared your throat, unsure of what to say, and Lyris looked up. He offered you a small smirk before softly clicking his tongue twice. Immediately, Madame Whiskers got up, trotting over to her owner’s side and laying back down.

“Piama, you can come in now,” Lyris called, and immediately the door opened, revealing a very huffy Piama.

“Why do you let the cat have more authority in your own home than you do?” Piama complained, before her eyes landed on you. A bright smile immediately lit up her face. “Oh, good morning! Did you sleep well?”

“Uh.” Your brain decided this was an excellent time to remind you that you had shared the bed with Lyris. “Yeah, I slept fine.”

You realized your embarrassment must’ve been showing on your face as Piama grinned. “You’re blushing,” she noted, her tone filled to bursting with thinly veiled excitement. “Did something happen that I should know about?~”

“Now now Piama, don’t you think it’s rather impolite to ask another lady to kiss and tell?” Lyris reprimanded, arching one eyebrow. You breathed a sigh of relief as Piama turned to him, mouthing ‘thank you.’ He gave you a short nod.

You could see that Piama was pouting, but she quickly relented under Lyris’s unimpressed stare. “Fiiiine,” she sighed. She looked back to you. “I’m sorry.”

You offered her your best reassuring smile. “It’s alright. But just for the record, nothing happened between Lyris and I last night.”

That gave Piama pause, blinking in shock. “Wait, seriously? I thought for sure that…”

“Assumptions are a dangerous thing, Piama,” Lyris noted, coming to stand by you. “But I am rather curious as to why you’re so invested in this. Are you perhaps jealous?”

“What? No!” Piama puffed out her cheeks. “Sure, she’s cute, but I—” She stopped, groaning as she realized what he’d just got her to admit. “Lyris, I hate you.”

Lyris hummed, smirking in satisfaction. “Love you too, Piama.” You, meanwhile, were currently trying to process the fact a pretty woman had called you cute.

If looks could kill, you were pretty sure the glare Piama gave Lyris would’ve made him keel over on the spot. “You think she’s cute too,” she accused.

Lyris shrugged, neither confirming nor denying it. “Perhaps. But she’d look cuter in some more updated fashions, don’t you think?”

That was apparently an acceptable distraction for Piama, and soon enough, you found yourself in the largest clothing store you’d ever seen. Your companions navigated it with practiced ease, playfully bantering and bickering back and forth the entire time.

They were debating what shade of green you’d look best in when your thoughts began to drift. You couldn’t really keep up with what the pair were discussing, so you decided that maybe it wouldn’t hurt to look around on your own for a bit. “Hey, guys? Is it okay if I wander off for a sec?”

Lyris’s gaze slid over to you for a second as he gave you a brief nod, before returning to animatedly arguing with Piama. Permission granted, you picked a random direction and started walking, not really minding where you ended up.

Your path eventually found you in the store’s jewellery section, and you surveyed the large array of glittering trinkets with awe. Wow. It was pretty much all you could think. All of this is at least ten times fancier than anything I ever saw back home. You frowned as you took note of their price tags. And at least ten times more expensive.

Even so, your eye was still drawn to a sparkling silver necklace. Pale green crystals decorated it with leaves and flowers, and despite the fact you had never been one for luxurious accessories such as this, you found yourself checking the price tag anyway. A hundred and fifty dollars. You sighed, feeling the weight of disappointment settle in your stomach. Oh well, not like I was expecting any different.

You turned to leave only to squawk as you nearly collided with someone, a slight chill shocking you at the point of contact. “Oh shoot, I’m so sor—!”

The sentence died on your tongue as you took a step back, flicking your eyes up to fully take in this dizzyingly handsome stranger. Long black hair streaked with a gorgeous dark blue fell neatly past his shoulders, his head cocked to one side as he surveyed you. You had to repress a shudder under the intensity of his gaze, light purple eyes seeming to pierce right through to your soul and pinning you in place. His deep, deep neckline (if it could even be called that!) did nothing to conceal most of his torso, allowing you a good look at just how powerfully built he was. Fuck. Why do I keep embarrassing myself in front of hot guys?!

You realized he was still staring down at you, expression expectant, and you quickly cleared your throat. “Oh, um. I’m sorry.”

The stranger raised an eyebrow, the absolute picture of arrogance. “You should be more careful where you step,” he reprimanded, catapulting you from bi mode into indignation. Well, mostly.

You put one hand on your hip, giving him an extremely cross look. “Hey, you were the one who snuck up on me without making a damn sound.”

The stranger huffed in amusement, which only made your irritation flare higher. “And yet you still felt it necessary to apologize to me.”

You refused to tell him that it was because you were too flustered to think straight. “That was before you started acting like a haughty princeling.”

A smirk twitched across his lips, and god damn it all, it was just as stupidly attractive as Lyris’s. “You aren’t from here, are you?”

“No, I’ve lived here all my life and I’m just really obsessed with out-of-town fashions, can’t you see?” you snarked back, already not in the mood for bullshit. You tried to be a nice person, you really did, but sometimes…

“My mistake.” His tone didn’t change at all, smirk unfaltering. “I wasn’t aware that any self-respecting Altadellian would take interest in such things.”

You rolled your eyes. “Did you need something or are you just going to stand around insulting me?”

“Perhaps, if it proves entertaining.” Holy shit was this guy a smug bastard. You kind of wanted to punch him in the jaw right now, but as you were in a public space, you refrained.

“Right, well.” You weren’t going to stand here and be some arrogant jerk’s plaything. “If you’ll excuse me, I have places to be.” You stepped around the stranger, though you had barely managed to take a few strides when you heard him call after you.

“Leaving so soon? And here I was considering helping you.”

You gritted your teeth, slowly turning to face him. At least he didn’t look as condescending as before, which was lucky—for him or for you, you didn’t know. “And what could you possibly help me with?”

He tilted his head towards the necklace you’d been admiring, smirk returning. It took all your willpower not to leave then and there. “I couldn’t help but notice you were ogling that necklace there.”

You pressed your lips together in a thin line. Patience. “What about it?”

He didn’t say anything, just giving you an amused, smug look. Before you had a chance to further press, the stranger reached into his pocket, withdrawing several crisp hundred dollar bills. He held them out to you, and in your shock, you took them without thinking.

After a moment, the action fully processed, and you narrowed your eyes. “Wait. Why are you giving me this?” you asked, tone laced with infinite skepticism.

The stranger shrugged one shoulder, looking for all the world as if he didn’t care about the large sum of money he’d just given away. “I have no use for it.”

A voice calling your name stole your attention. Turning to look for the source, you found Lyris nearby, evidently searching for you. You waved to him. “Over here!”

Lyris made his way over to you, a small smile on his face. His expression immediately became filled with curiosity as he noticed the bills in your hand, folding his arms as he nodded to them. “Well now, that’s quite the sum of money you’ve got there. Where’d you get it?”

“Oh! It was given to me by—” You turned to point out the stranger, only to find he was gone. Scanning the aisles, he appeared to have disappeared without a trace. “—this man here. Huh, that’s strange. He was just behind me.”

You looked back at Lyris, who was frowning. “What did he look like?”

Well, at least it wasn’t hard to remember that. You had been having a bi panic over him before he’d opened his mouth. “Long black hair, dark blue streaks. Light purple eyes. His neckline could barely even be considered that—” You stopped as you noticed something strange flit over Lyris’s expression. “Are you alright?”

Lyris shook his head slightly as if to clear it. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he replied, and you couldn’t help but feel as though his smile was fake as he surveyed the nearby area as well. “Whoever he was, he’s gone now.” He didn’t seem willing to dwell on the topic.

You sighed dejectedly. “That’s so weird. I have no idea how he could’ve slipped away in the second I turned my back.” You glanced down at the bills in your hand. “Well, I shouldn’t waste this. He gave me these for a reason, so…��

Your gaze slipped back to the necklace. Lyris followed your line of sight and grinned. “Are you sure you don’t have powers?” he asked teasingly, voice hushed. “You must be psychic to pick an accessory that will go so perfectly with the dress Piama wants you to try.”

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly. After dealing with such an enigma of a man, Lyris’s teasing was a familiar comfort. “I’ll be sure to let you know if I spontaneously develop powers,” you quipped. “Lead the way?”

The dress Piama had picked was a simple off-the-shoulder one, green and white with swirling silver trim. It fit you perfectly, and as you stared into the dressing room mirror, you couldn’t help but think, wow, Lyris was right. It’s like the necklace and this dress were made to be a set.

You stepped out and Piama gave a little squeal. “You look like a princess!” she complimented enthusiastically, beaming.

“She’s right,” Lyris confirmed, which might have been the first time you’d heard them agree this entire trip. “You look like an Altadellian, born and bred.”

You went to thank them both before remembering what Lyris had said last night to you about Altadellys. You hesitated. Do I really want to look like I belong in a city that’s apparently much darker than its glittery surface? The thought made your gut twist with unease, but you were pretty sure his statement was meant as a compliment. “Thank you?” Even so, you couldn’t keep the slight questioning tone out of your voice.

Piama turned to Lyris, eyes bright. “This has got to be the one. It’s like it was made for her!”

“You certainly aren’t wrong,” Lyris agreed. “Not to mention I doubt we could find something else we agree on. However…” His gaze flickered over to you. “I believe it should be her final decision.”

You weren’t exactly eager to spend another few hours waiting while your friends bickered about something you really didn’t understand, and the dress was surprisingly more comfortable than it looked. “I like it too,” you decided. “I’ll take it.”

Piama clapped her hands together with glee. “I knew you would! No one will be able to take their eyes off you.”

Looking between Lyris and Piama’s resplendent outfits, you were pretty sure you still looked plain by comparison, but you decided not to comment. “Well, I don’t know about that…”

“Don’t undersell yourself,” Lyris gently reprimanded, and you glanced up at him, surprised. “You were already prettier than half the girls in Altadellys. The outfit just makes it more obvious.”

“Lyris!” Piama pouted, placing her hands on her hips.

Lyris chuckled, shaking his head at her. “Did I not say half the girls in Altadellys? You are as beautiful as ever, Piama, do not worry.”

You didn’t really catch the rest of their banter as Lyris’s words finally sunk in. What?! Heat blossomed in your cheeks as you shook your head, trying desperately to retain your composure. This isn’t the first time he’s said something like this… is he… flirting with me?

“Hey, are you listening?” You jumped as Piama’s voice cut into your reverie.

“She seems a little flushed,” Lyris noted, smirking like the cat who got both the canary and the cream. “Are you feeling well?”

Damn you. Damn you damn you damn you. Well, two could play at that game. “Maybe I do feel a little sick,” you countered, looking him in the eyes. “I feel weak, and my heart rate is through the roof. Do you know what’s wrong with me, Doctor Rosi?”

Lyris’s eyes gleamed with pure, unfiltered delight as he leaned forward, tapping his chin in mock thought. “Those are quite the serious symptoms. I diagnose you with a case of… feelings.”

You let out a dramatic gasp, placing one hand to your forehead as if in terrible agony. “Feelings! Oh, woe is me. Doctor, tell me—will I survive this affliction?”

Lyris gave you a look of such forlorn pity you almost broke character to laugh. “Unfortunately, neither time nor medicine can heal this malady. There are ways to ease the symptoms though…” Mischief curled the corners of his lips.

“I beg of you, tell me what I can do to ease my pain—” You made to mock stumble, only to misjudge your footing and actually trip over your own two feet. You saw Lyris’s act drop as he immediately reached out to catch you, pulling you close to keep you steady. There was a fierce determination in his eyes as he glanced down at you, and you could practically see Peacock’s mask on him.

“Get a room, you two!” The moment was shattered by Piama’s exclamation, and you flushed an even deeper red, looking over to see her grinning widely and slightly conspiratorially. “I mean, tell me everything, but still, get a room.”

You disentangled yourself from Lyris’s arms, hiding your face in your hair as you determinedly looked anywhere but at the two of them. Lyris, meanwhile, seemed completely unfazed, as you heard him chuckle. “As wonderful as your suggestion sounds, Piama, I believe I’m booked for the rest of the day.”

That caught you by surprise, enough for you to temporarily break free of your embarrassment to glance over at him. He gave you a subtle wink, and you immediately understood that oh, he’s going to go do vigilante stuff as Peacock.

Piama, who was evidently not in on the secret, gave an incredulous huff. “Seriously? This has been happening way too often recently. I’m crossing out the partner theory because you’ve been soooo blatantly flirting with her, so what the heck have you been up to?”

Lyris gave her a mysterious smile. “It seems I’m more and more in demand these days. You know how it is—you can never get a moment of peace when you’re someone like me.” He gave an exaggerated sigh, before turning to you. “I’ll leave you in Piama’s hands, but if something does happen… call me.”

“I don’t have your number,” you pointed out, but this only caused him to smirk.

“My mistake. We’ll have to fix that then, won’t we?”

Oh. OH. Holy shit, he was asking for your number. A hot guy… was asking for your number. A hot guy you’d seen almost naked and shared a bed with was asking for your number. You nearly dropped your phone in your haste to pull it out. “Oh, right! Of course, just let me…” You opened up a blank contact, naming it ‘Lyris’ before handing it over to him.

He inputted his number with a smirk, and you quickly sent him a text so that he’d have yours. “I’ll be on my way then. Don’t be a stranger, darling.” He offered you one last wink before turning and striding away. You could only watch him disappear into the crowd, your mind still trying to process what had just happened.

“Didn’t I explicitly tell you not to fall for his charms?” Piama’s playful reprimand brought you back to reality. “Though I guess I can’t blame you.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Okay, one, it’s not what you think, and two… do you mean to imply you might’ve caught feelings for him too?”

“If I had, it would’ve made me no different to half the girls in Altadellys,” Piama replied, and you couldn’t help but note the deflection. She didn’t seem to want to linger on it either, giving you a smug smile. “But he’s definitely never flirted with me like that.”

“Piama…” You sighed, shaking your head, though you found yourself unable to be truly upset with her. “Let’s just go home. I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

Piama pouted, evidently not quite ready to give up this piece of juicy gossip, but she did relent easily enough. It was almost a relief to sprawl across your apartment’s couch with a cup of coffee and a packet of oreos, laptop balanced precariously on your knees as you idly clacked at the keys to fill out your application to Optimus.

You had half an oreo caught between your teeth as you finished, hitting the send button with a sigh as you shut your laptop and leaned back on the couch. Piama was holed up in her room working on a new design so you really weren’t sure what you could—

A loud chiming interrupted your thoughts and you jumped, barely managing to avoid spilling your drink everywhere. You quickly opened your messenger, expecting the text to be from Hazel or maybe even Lyris, only to stop and stare as you recognized the sender.

Owl: I’ve processed your application for you. They should be expecting you to start working tomorrow morning.

Shaking yourself out of your daze, you hastened to reply.

You: Already??? How did you do that so fast? I sent it in like, a second ago.

Wait.

You: TOMORROW MORNING???

Owl: I had assumed you’d want to start working as soon as possible. Altadellys is a treacherous city, after all. Hardly a place for someone with no money.

Lyris said the same thing, more or less… You sighed, chewing on your lip. Well, I guess I probably shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, huh?

You: Right, sorry. Well, thank you.

Owl: Don’t mention it.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation, and you waited for Owl to wipe your DMs like they had done earlier in the day. To your surprise, the messages remained. You were about to ask them about it when a thought occurred to you. Wait, this is my chance to get to know more about them! Besides, it’s not like I have anything better to—

A text from Hazel flashed onto your screen and you clicked on it out of instinct.

Hazel: Ok so I know I said this weekend 4 plans with Amara but we got 3 last minute tickets 4 a musical and it’s happening, like, now

...crap.

CHAPTER CHOICE

You've faced with a crossroads! You have the opportunity to gather some information on the mysterious friend of Amara's, Owl, but if you do, you won't be able to go see a last-minute musical with Amara and Hazel. Do you: A) Continue texting with Owl B) Go see the musical with Amara and Hazel

#reigning passions #lovestruck reigning passions #lovestruck voltage #voltage lovestruck #lyris reigning passions #lyris of the spring #piama reigning passions #piama of the spring #reigning passions sevastian #reigning passions lyris #reigning passions piama #reigning passions hazel #masquerade #villainous nights #lovestruck villainous nights #mal writes #villainous nights au

15 notes · View notes

tyrranux64 · 6 years

Text

Terry’s Favorite Playstation Games

I hate Sony. I have not made this secret, from much of my art to a good helping of Youtube comments reacting to blind praise, most who know me more than the usual internet passerby are acquainted enough with my hatred of the company and brand.

And it is not a biased band wagon kind of hate either, no this took time to fester into a most blackened bloom. Interactions with the biased rank and file, learning of the less than favorable business practices Sony has employed, the constant in your face propaganda from even third party publishers made against its two direct competitors, but most of all and most important my own experience with their premiere game system. No joke, the PS3 was effectively the worst console I have ever had the “pleasure” of owning, both with the initial 600 dollar 40 gig grill and the used slightly slimmer replacement I had to get just to keep my own sanity. I blacklisted the PS4 for a reason and even now I look at what the fourth generation of the console has to offer and feel assured my choice was correct.

Again my hatred of Sony is not pure bias fanboy raging, it is the culmination of less than favorable experiences and acquired knowledge that has forever soured my perceptions of the brand. And to further stress this point? I’ll go ahead and give you the Playstation Exclusives I absolutely loved in no particular order. Heavy emphasis on “exclusive”, all the titles listed will be ones you absolutely need a Sony console to play, no multi-platform titles, no games that were once exclusive then ported to other systems. Sony only.

And don’t expect Shadow of the Colossus on this list, of all the excellent titles one can point to that is the lowest of hanging fruit. Everyone loves that one, everyone, even its critics and detractors. My reasons for liking it are the same as everyone else’s...

____________________________________

INFAMOUS & INFAMOUS 2; Honestly I couldn’t decide which I liked more since both offer the same consistently excellent design and experience, I guess the second one for being more polished and having more interesting settings but trading one over the other is heresy. And honestly if I didn’t hate Sony so much I’d be all over the third one (though after seeing the story on Youtube I gotta say, Fetch is a complete unlikable asshole).

Ultimately this is a 3D platformer, one that more than belongs in the same breath as the likes of Super Mario Anything and Banjo Kazooie. Despite its otherwise “serious, realistic and edgy” tone and design this is the kind of delightful platforming romp that’ll satisfy even old school players pinning for the bygone era of platformers being the dominant genre in gaming. And it just makes the circumstances of its creation more fascinating. How Sucker Punch followed suit with Naughty Dog going from cartoony mascot games to so-called serious realistic games, yet unlike Naughty Dog puts out a product that still feels like a spiritual successor to their previous work.

Naturally the biggest negative is the morality system. Bad enough it is so arbitrary and safety helmet in its design that it tells you which choices are good and evil but said choices are so cartoonishly extreme on both spectrum that any sense of ambiguity and nuance are lost. But on the flip side, it does present one of the most fun bits of obsessive compulsive gameplay features I’ve ever experienced....

The Pulse Heal. Damn was this so much fun. The sheer rush of not only going to help someone but actually having the capacity to do so, the kind of humanity enriching wish fulfillment I didn’t get enough of. And I wasn’t just blowing smoke when I described it as a “obsessive compulsive” gameplay feature, I lost count of the number of times I slammed the breaks on what I was doing every time I saw some helpless citizen in desperate need of a jolt. It was nuts man, a game that lets you play as a superhero and actually let you feel like one....one helpless citizen at a time.... ______________________________________

GOD OF WAR III; But then there’s this fucking game that makes me feel like a complete villain, go figure. Then again that has been the real beauty of this franchise especially after the first game, there are no real heroes, no real champions of justice. There are only villains. What separates Kratos from all the other villains is that he was ultimately the culmination of their selfish and petty machinations to satisfy their own ends, he is the necessary evil meant to liberate the world from the cruelty of Olympus.....unfortunately, it entailed nearly destroying the world and sending it into a state of anarchy thereby making things worse. Oops.

Well either way the games are still just good ol’ hack n’ slash shenanigans. Technically I should give the nod to GoW 2 for having the more satisfying journey involving the Sisters of Fate....but it ends with a complete blue balling of an ending. Pretty arrogant to have such an ending when you’re not even sure you’re getting a sequel....well it did but still....

Plus the third one lets you actually fight more than one Olympian, hell it actually lets you fight Hercules, the proverbial OG Superman himself. AND HE’S VOICED BY KEVIN SORBO. But what really cements it is the overall combat which feels more satisfying. Not only are some of the core moves fantastic (especially the grab moves) but all the available weapons are chained weapons. It’s the kind of sameness and consistency that actually works to the game’s benefit, complimenting the gameplay and Kratos’ overall design as a range based fighter. Also nice how all the button prompts are regulated to the side of the screen to correspond to the button placement, a nice touch to mitigate any disorientation of the chaos on screen. __________________________________

CRASH BANDICOOT: WARPED; Yes yes I know the N’Sane Trilogy is now gonna be multi-platform (thank Primus) but as many who have played it will verify it’s such an extensive HD remake that it doesn’t quality as being the same game. And sadly I don’t see the original ported to any other system.

Not much that needs to be said here, when it comes to the original trilogy everyone has their first favorite. I might have played the first one once or twice but never haven owned the first PS (fun fact I actually wanted it over the N64 but my mom was convinced to get the later) it would be this one that I ended up playing the most and ultimately beat first during one particular visit to my out of state cousins. _______________________________________

RATCHET & CLANK FUTURE: A CRACK IN TIME; I never got into R&C during my initial PS2 era days, it wasn’t until a decade or so later that I played all three of the original trilogy and the future trilogy. And I played them all in chronological order, so to go from the utter lackluster flop of a plot that was Tools of Destruction to this one was an easy step up.

I’m not gonna argue this game’s quality against the original trilogy, after much retrospect and hearing other opinions there is just no contest as far as story, setting and personality. The original trilogy wins. But as far as the future trilogy? Yeah, this is easily the best one, the other two are just boring.

Crack in Time just had the best story overall and an overall journey that didn’t feel like my time was being wasted. Plus this was one of those games that gave me incentive to actually seek out the optional side objectives. Gameplay balance is an issue as things can skew a bit too easy but I was having too much fun overall to mind. Plus any game that gives me something like the Constructo Pistol and Shotgun easily gets the nod. ___________________________________

LITTLEBIGPLANET 2; There is some part of me that still loves this game....but these days it is more of a tragic love story of love lost. Ultimately my creativity and ambition overgrew my actual ability and the limitations forced on me with both the allotted level space and materials (I mean good lord have you tried to make levels with a lot of gold and complex shapes? The game just flat out tells you to fuck off). Perhaps what really soured the experience was trying to do exactly what the devs did with the story mode they made, but I realize now it was as impressive as it was because they had no arbitrary thermometer limiting what they could put in.....bastards....

These days I more respect this game for what it was made to do and what others were able to do with it. But as far as what I was able to do? Yeah, it’s too heartbreaking to think about..... __________________________________

JAK II; Remember not even a few paragraphs ago I said I never played Ratchet & Clank until recently? This is why. Because in an industry where brand new games cost up to a few tens short of a full Benjamin, well, choices have to be made.

And yeah I was easily drawn to the first game with it being a more direct 3D platformer, easily the kind of game I’d get into after my time with the N64. And then the second game came along and added guns and an edgy dark hero super mode.....without compromising the gameplay the series was established on. And for as edgy as it was now being with the story it never felt ridiculous or out of place, one of the few times I’ve even see it work out really.

Also it was a laugh riot to play what was extensively Crash Bandicoot meets Grand Theft Auto. __________________________________

KINGDOM HEARTS; I have already chronicled my thoughts on this franchise several times before so I won’t bore you with too many details. Bottom line I feel the first one is the only good one simply because it had a nice fun story that felt like both a parody and love letter to Japanese RPGs without a hint of Kojima grade arrogance or self indulgence, unlike later entries >:/

And not once did this ever feel like a mere commercial for the Disney films represented, each world was an adventure all its own and the interactions with your favorite Disney characters actually felt like characters interacting, instead of just actors in a studio voicing their lines. So ultimately I’m able to tolerate the rather archaic gameplay because the story is still a treat to enjoy.

But more relevant to this list, this was the game that got me to get a PS2 in the first place. I was rather content going only with Nintendo but then I played this game while at another cousin’s house and was immediately entranced. And really it was at this point I was kinda tired of missing out on third party games that were PS exclusive for reasons that sounded as arbitrary excuses back then as they do now.

I still can’t fathom how many games of the PS2′s third party library wouldn’t have worked just as fine on the Gamecube, thereby increasing the available consumer base and resulting in more sales. And if KH3 really is slated for release on Xbox One, why the hell are none of the HD compilations of past games also released on the console as a courtesy to those who might be interested in the series but don’t have reason to get a PS4? Sadly it’s a question I shouldn’t be asking because I know exactly what kind of answer I’ll be getting, excuses. ________________________________

So yeah, even though I have indeed enjoyed some of the titles available, not even these select games are not enough to sway my disdain for Sony. In fact the games listed that were developed and publish by Sony themselves only serve as a reminder of what the company is now all too willing to throw away in light of the current direction it is going for with its exclusives library.

And really it kind of makes sense that Sony just doesn’t give much of a shit these days, they were never a video game company to begin with, they are an electronics conglomerate. Movies, music, computers, headphones, that sort of jazz. Video games is just another department to satisfy their fiscal year quota, nothing more. People keep praising them for revolutionizing gaming but forget that they never needed to get into video games to begin with.....

Their only incentive to doing so was as a petty, vindictive, butt hurt reaction to Nintendo’s refusal to bend over the same way Michael Jackson did. Sony hates taking no for an answer so they acted like a jealous ex lover and produced a product based on a foundation of hate...and hatred only begets more hatred.... _________________________________

Also figured I give a few honorable mentions that can’t be on this list proper for one or two obvious reasons, but all of them I have experienced on Sony consoles...

CASTLEVANIA SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT; Truth be told I’m more partial to Harmony of Dissonance but I know someone will get on my ass for not bringing this up. But yeah this was also on the Saturn....in Japan. Who’s dumb idea was it to keep the majority of the Saturn’s library Japanese exclusive?

MEGA MAN X6 (But Only On Easy Mode); On anything higher this game is just as broken and near unplayable as people say it is, shit even on easy it’s still a mess. Anyway this was the only PS MMX game I actually played on the PSOne back when it was new, this time on a friend’s console. And I’m not gonna lie I still have kind of a soft spot for it even with the glaring flaws....

KINGDOM HEARTS II; Yes yes this is a far superior game to the first one, gameplay wise. But in a game genre that lives or dies on the story being told there is no question that this was a serious downgrade. Everything that endeared me to the first game’s story this sequel proceeds to fuck up royally, and thus seeing the skip cutscene option as an absolute godsend makes me die a little inside, first rule of good storytelling in games is to make sure no one will ever want to skip the cutscenes even if they have the option to.

DEVIL MAY CRY 3; It was of course the first DMC I ever played and beat, and when said first happens to be the best in gameplay, structure and story it’s pretty hard not to be biased.

TRANSFORMERS WAR/FALL OF CYBERTRON; I think you guys know by now that I am a big fan of Transformers, so my reasons for liking these games are a no brainer.

BAYONETTA; Yeah it’s weird thinking this game ever saw the light of day on the PS3 and 360, mostly because Platinum had the decent courtesy to port the first game to the Wii U in direct response to concerns about the sequel now being Nintendo exclusive. And what did they do when it was announced a third game was on the way? They ported the previous two titles to the Switch so that no one would be left out of the loop, not even those that passed on the Wii U. That’s what I call customer service, wouldn’t you agree SQUARE ENIX?

DEAD SPACE; Pretty much the last good EA game. The final gasp of air made by EA’s capacity for common human decency before tossing it away and effectively going all in on putting out a constant flow of bullshit on a yearly basis.

ASURA’S WRATH; Pretty much the only interactive movie game in all creation that still feels like a video game, with actual video game segments. Still bullshit that you had to pay additional money just to see the ending but hey at least said ending was actually worth the money, heaven help Capcom if it ended up being a shit ending...

BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM; Yeah yeah I should be giving the nod to Arkham City but that whole business involving Talia Al Ghul all but killed the second game’s story for me....seriously Bruce what the fuck do you even see in that cunt to make you so sycophantic for her?

DRAGONBALL XENOVERSE; Well it was fun while it lasted and even now I feel it’s a better “Kingdom Hearts” than any of the latter actual KH titles. But aside from also being on the 360 and such, well, it’s not exactly something I’m willing to play again.

GOD OF WAR: GHOST OF SPARTA; One of two reasons I even bothered picking up the PSP, and while I have since fallen out of love with Birth by Sleep, this is one I’m still able to go back to. Not only is it a decent adventure in its own right but somehow it makes God of War II better from a story perspective as now it gave Kratos even more reason for going against Olympus...

#sony #playstation #terry's lists

10 notes · View notes