#Wrathwrites

[wrathbites]

"What do you see?" Kaidan mumbles, face half-mashed into his pillow.

I see what I'm not supposed to - the pulse flutter in your throat - what I'd be killed for if most others knew. The throb at your temple, too, before you rub your forehead. A weakness I'll never exploit. I see the crease of pain in the corner of your left eye and the pinch around your mouth when you resolve to grin and bear it. I hate it. Fuck but I hate it.

I see the hunch of your shoulders loosen in sleep's hold, the tension of every muscle unspooling one drawn out breath at a time as one more migraine recedes. I see the rogue curls you've missed, coming loose with every twist and turn in the sheets.

I see the faintest of smiles, slow and lazy in sleep, in daze, the twitch of your fingers when they loosen from your pillow. The ache still lingering, but less than it was. You'll stay where you are, for another hour yet, weary and sore and heavy, eyes falling shut in too-long blinks and I don't have the heart to wake you proper.

I see my whole world in your life, every minute a gift.

"I see you," Rhys says instead.

#Rhys Shepard #Kaidan Alenko #mShenko #vampire!Shepard #Mass Effect fanfiction #wrathwrites #Sunlight and Stardust vampire verse

[silmist-art]

“I don't believe in cursed places or damned places or thin places or whatever the Hell else somebody thinks can get done to a place to make it evil.

But I'll tell you this, too: you would not catch me dead within ten miles of Sugartown.”

Welcome to weirdtober day 1: abandoned places!! This one was based off a story that you can check out over on wrathwrites.com or @mindfulwrathwrites

A couple of notes abt how im doin weirdtober, if anyone wants to kno: 

the prompt list is by @peppermintmonster, be sure to check her out her work is so so cool

I am absolutely determined to do all 30 days this year, but that does mean that i’m not actually drawing everyday, just posting it like that. For ex i concepted and thumbnailed every single day over the duration of september, and i finished the first three days’ actual artworks early today. I just think working like this will help me make pieces that dont take too much out of me but conceptually im still ok with. 

I’m also basing quite a few pieces on other media, like stories from wrathwrites, or The Magnus Archives. Those will probably have a quote or something in the desc, if it’s an original concept i’ll just say something stupid there. Some of my og concept pieces will be linked to each other, which will hopefully make more sense once u see it happen, but not all of them will be. 

not all pieces will be black and white but for simplicity’s sake most will be in this sort of style, im just having fun playing around with value n texture digitally, esp since i dont feel as tied to having to try this on trad ink n paper. 

#weirdtober #weirdtober2020 #my art

[wrathbites]

Nightmare reality

Rating: M

Characters/pairings: Astarion/Tav (Levi)

Wordcount: 2318

Summary: What better way to bait a runaway spawn, than to steal away one of his dear, sweet companions?

Notes: rating and warning in place for depictions of violence. I tag and rate on the side of caution, but keep it in mind. Please also note this contains spoilers of sorts to the final events in Astarion's personal quest, albeit an alternate take on them, so if you haven't completed that I'd suggest you don't read any further.

It's not real.  It's not her.  It's not real.  It's not her.

A denial on endless repeat in his head, screaming louder behind every door.  A plea, a prayer, a poor attempt to keep hold of his sanity in the face of such madness.

The eyes are too black, the nose unbroken, the freckles too patterned and perfect.  The heartbeat's too fast and then too slow, no match to her siren song.

There, on the body flayed raw and stone cold to the touch, her shoulders lacking the sturdy breadth of a life's work at sea.  There, on the lower jaw ripped off, the teeth too blunt, too neat, a landwalker's bite.  There, the broken figure lurching towards him, the shriek isn't right, all fury and no pain and only Karlach hoisting him backward saves his eyes from the claws swiping at his face when the illusion crumbles.

It's not real.  It's not her.  It's not real.  It's not her.

But it could be.  The manor's changed in his absence, death stalking its halls at the heel of every terror, no longer a lesson to be learned but something permanent to fear and... and luck does run out.  For everyone.  Eventually.

It's not real.  But it could be.  It's not her.  But it might be.  It's not —

The smell hits him all at once.  A crimson agony thick in the air, slamming him down on his knees, head swimming.  Blood.  Her blood, on restraints cracked open, on a table stained from years of abuse, on gleaming blades, droplets on the floor and there, a spatter on the wall.

No.  No!

"Astarion?"

"She was here," he croaks, crawling — crawling — to where she'd bled, chained and alone.  It's her blood, no mistaking it, liquid heat a phantom across his tongue, tacky now under the shaking press of his palm.  "She was here."

~

Read the rest on AO3

#Baldur's Gate 3 fanfiction #BG3 spoilers #Astarion #Tav #Astarion x Tav #Astarion/Tav #Tavstarion #wrathwrites

[wrathbites]

Chapters: 1/5 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Characters: Dick Grayson, Clark Kent Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, not beta'd we die like SOMEONE apparently, crack and laughs Summary:

It's not often Bruce has visitors. Rarer still for anyone to be a return visitor.

(They're not hiding it, really, it's just that no-one notices. Until they do)

#Wrathwrites #Batman fanfiction #yes I did just discover that share button L O L #listen my heart is permanently injured from Gotham Knights and I'm yeeting ALL canon out the window #all of it fuck it what is canon across so many media sources and verses and shit #give me Batfam shenanigans #give me them having moments for happiness and WTF moments #give me them smiling and relaxed or GIVE ME DEATH #actually no don't do that I encountered that literally at the start of the game AND I STILL HAVEN'T RECOVERED #afnuehfuhf god anyway each chapter for each of the (Gotham Knights) kids #also yes I ship Superbat did not expect it but y'know what I'll go down with this ship now

[wrathbites]

From the number/micro-story prompt list: May I request a #34 (bauble) for Baldur's Gate?

Send me a number and I'll write a micro story using the word or phrase

You certainly can! Ft Halsin and my sea elf storm sorcerer :)

~

"We call them life lures," Levi says, pooling the line of collected oddities into his hand. "They're supposed to remind us of who we are, our way back home."

"Supposed to?"

"Yeah, well. For some the sea is home, and they don't want to leave."

"And what of you? Where is home for you?"

It's a dangerous question to ask, the point of a blade, freely offered to her with the knowledge she can drive it through his chest with but a word, a moment of honesty.

A weighted question, one that brings Levi pause, stormcloud stare dropping to his palm and the baubles clasped there. She maps each one with a lifetime's familiarity, unspooling the line of her own making and — and winding it around his wrist instead, again and again until only the knot remains, trapped in the press of her palm to his, the curl of her fingers between his.

"Wherever my heart is," she says on a whisper, her smile a soft little secret for him alone when he dips to kiss her, when she meets him halfway.

#strongheartmaid #Halsin x Tav #Halsin/Tav #BG3 fanfiction #wrathwrites #think I'm gonna need to rework the Tavs I have for my ships because godDAMN Levi and Halsin are my jam now lol

[wrathbites]

i wanna see what you can do with #12 candles pls

Send me a number and I'll write a micro story using the word or phrase

They bury Bruce Wayne in broad daylight, sun shining and cameras flashing, the city's favourite spectacle denied his privacy even in death.

They bury their Bruce (father, son, partner, friend) under the cover of darkness, the quiet affair he'd have preferred. Free of his armour and mantle, the responsibility carried on his shoulders now passed to his children, shared between them.

And it's their choice to carry his legacy, never the burden he feared it would become, braced on all sides by the friends and allies made along the way.

Alfred steps out from under the span of Diana's umbrella, no candle in hand to shield from the rain. Just as before, so many years ago, but Bruce isn't in his arms this time, silent and shaking with his loss, no. He's silent and still in his coffin, an impossible thing Alfred never expected to see.

There are no speeches here, no people to please, not a single reputation to uphold, and so he allows himself a moment of weakness at last, waiting for a request that'll never come, for a voice he will never hear again.

"Goodnight, my boy. Rest well."

One by one the candles go out, each extinguished with a puff of breath, a murmured goodbye, the first step in many of an endless grief.

~

And all at once they flare to life on a scream that cracks earth and sky the following night, when there are none around to witness.

Ancient in power and terrifying in fury, Gotham calls her favourite son, her Batman, home.

#korblez #Batman fanfiction #Wrathwrites #listen this grabbed me by the spine and shook until I wrote it #because like look I like shit being WEIRD and OFF in cities as steeped in chaos as Gotham #with how much blood Bruce has literally spilled and spit all over bare bones earth on his home turf #with how long and hard and viciously he's fought to make Gotham a better place #I absolutely believe she'd answer in kind if he died on her soil #sure slap buildings on top of her and the city itself is young but GOTHAM is OLD and there's POWER to that #and nobody woulda fuckin guessed it when you've got regular humans in that city and Superman over yonder and Wonder Woman thataway #but here we are and they're in for a COUPLE SURPRISES I GUESSAKS FDSJAHBFUIJSHBUDHBUIGDSHB

[wrathbites]

20. alone, finally

Send me a number and I'll write a micro story using the word or phrase

He's alone, finally. Or as alone as he can be in the Belfry, Tim asleep on one of the inflatable mattresses, Babs parked in front of the screens and monitoring Dick's progress through a short patrol that's already stretching past four hours, Alfred's return flight due to land in another six, and Bruce —

(If you're watching this)

— Jason catches himself before his feet land on the table. There's nobody in the chair kicking his boots to the floor to spare him Alfred's wrath. There's no newspaper set aside in favour of the crossword book between them like a peace offering. There's no companionable silence settled around them, long sought after and cut so short.

There's no ghost waiting for him, no blame thrown at him, no disappointment or accusation or rage. Nothing at all. Just an absence where there should've been a presence, a sweater discarded where Bruce should be.

He's alone. They're all alone.

(I'm dead)

Bruce isn't coming back. Not this time.

#uraniumwriting #Batman fanfiction #Wrathwrites #I coulda gone a somewhat fluffy route with a different thing entirely #but no this ask slingshot me straight to thinking of Gotham Knights #sorry not sorry whoopsie

[wrathbites]

Dipping my toes into a new fandom because I just finished Gotham Knights tonight and I have A SERIOUSLY INJURED HEART holy fuck.

Gotham is loud in her loss for one but not the other. Bruce Wayne, her golden child, damn determined to gut her of rot and scrub her clean and leave the world a better place than it was when he entered it. The man, putting brain to business and pen to paper and making mountains move.

And Batman, the shadow, the spectre, the boogeyman mentioned in hushed tones. They don't realise he's gone, not for a number of weeks, months, voices echoing out in the night as they keep watch for him. They arm themselves with fists and blades and guns and explosives and any number of other cruel ways to die and every night, every fucking night, there's celebration and disappointment. Cut short and stomped down, but there. There. Taunts ringing in his ears, washing his vision red. If they only knew. If they only knew.

"Where's the Bat?" they mutter amongst themselves. "Is he on vacation?" when the shadows remain clear of the glare from his lenses. And then, when someone else, someone less, announces their presence in the silent takedown of half their number before the alarm goes up: "did someone finally put him down?"

And Dick can't say shit -

He died for you, you worthless sack of shit! He died so you could live!

- can't embolden them any further with the news Gotham's guardian is... he's...

There's no time for respite. No time for grief. Gotham doesn't wait for those who linger, two more assholes popping up for every one they smack down and toss behind bars and - and he's tired. So fucking tired. Hands balled into fists in his hair and there're no scarred and swollen knuckles on his telling him to quit it, take a breath, rest.

God, Bruce, how did you do this? How did you keep going?

There's no answer. Of course's there's no answer - he didn't voice it aloud and ghosts don't answer back.

#Gotham Knights fanfiction #Batman fanfiction #Wrathwrites #listen I am EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED OKAY #I will never recover and so I shall propel myself into fic and fix-its and stubbornly not cry but god #GOD I WAS WRECKED

[wrathbites]

"Does Bruce know you smoke?"

"What Bruce doesn't know can't hurt him."

"Does Alfred know you smoke?"

Dick swivels on his heel to glare at him. Really? Really? He's gonna invoke the manor's curse and summon The Judgement on him?

Jason shrugs, only for the grin to slide right off his face and Dick sighs, one long exhale as he stubs out his cigarette and resigns himself to his fate. Curse Alfred and his unconfirmed superhearing.

"Hi Alfred."

"Master Richard." Alfred says in his best entertaining guests voice, face a perfect mask of calm. The stare, though, that could strip flesh from bone and have Superman running for the hills.

"It's not what it looks like."

"Far be it from me to criticise a lifestyle choice that will kill you more slowly than your nightly antics across Gotham rooftops. Provided you survive for such a habit to become a problem, I will be long gone and cease to care of it."

And there it is. Dick winces.

"However, I must request you relocate if you entertain the notion of lighting another cigarette. Violet and Petunia are rather opposed to pungent odours."

Violet? Petunia? He glances at Jason but he looks just as confused. "Who -?"

"The rosebushes, sir. So named after the plants they smothered in their bid to claim the entire garden."

Dick eyes the bright pink blooms and the wicked thorns almost the length of his thumb and is just as quick as his brother to take a fair few steps to the side.

They've gotta be gifts from Poison Ivy, surely.

#wrathwrites #just a silly wee thing that's been bouncing around in my noggin #I'd like to polish it up someday but for now it exists as this barebones scene in my head for some laughs #I just want Batfam shenanigans and mishaps okay

[wrathbites]

Hindsight and hijinks

Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd, Tim Drake Wordcount: 2,408

The Batkids decide some birthday celebration is in order for Bruce. What could possibly go wrong? (Next year he's listening to Alfred)

~

In hindsight?  He should've known better.  He should've taken one look at Jason's face, locked them all in the cave, and run for the hills.  It's the smile, the smile, too wide and too innocent and always, always promising mayhem.

"I do believe they're plotting something.  You would be wise to tread carefully, Master Bruce."

He should've listened to Alfred.

But when his kids (adopted, acquired, or otherwise) go out of their way to organise a birthday outing of sorts, with no bickering or bad blood in the mix... how can he possibly say no?

(He should have, absolutely, 100% said no).  That's his third mistake.  The one prior to that, ignoring Jason's smile.  And before that, the equivalent of a neon pink sign stabbing warnings into his eyeballs?  Listening to Dick at all, when he flings an arm around his shoulders and drags him in close and drawls, "so we were thinking..."

Ah, hindsight.  It sure is a bitch.

~

It's not a place he'd have thought to pick — Bruce Wayne turning up at a pool hall is a recipe for disaster if ever he's heard one — but Pot Luck's a fresh establishment and well recommended.  According to Dick.

"Now you see why we insisted on casual?" Barbara murmurs, leaning in close.  Bruce grunts, head on an easy swivel.  To the untrained eye he's simply taking stock of the decor, the wide open space, the range of activities on offer (Tim's certain to have a field day with the arcade area), the menu neatly printed across the chalkboards above the bar, but that's not quite true.  There in every corner, and on opposite sides of the central pillar, dozens of pool cues waiting to be taken up and smashed over someone's head (Tim).  There, stashed behind the counter, countless balls begging to knock some teeth in (Jason).  The darts, too, dangerous in their own right if taken up by a practised hand (Dick).  Every glass they have, clean or not (Barbara), and if all else fails, well.  There're still fists (his own).

It's a disaster waiting to happen.  Danger lurking everywhere he looks, lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike.  He should've said no.

He tucks his hands into his jeans instead, heaving a sigh and rounding his shoulders as he does, slouching forward in the loose confines of his hoodie.  "I still maintain this is a bad idea."

~

Read the rest on AO3

#Gotham Knights fanfiction #Batman fanfiction #wrathwrites #listen I need all the fix-it fics after that game #I'm still emotionally compromised

[wrathbites]

Plan

“I have a plan,” Hawke had said.  And Fenris had taken him at his word, like a fool, like he didn’t have a laundry list of Hawke’s plans that’d gone sideways, upside down, back to front, and up in flames.  As if he didn’t know Hawke’s motto frequently defaulted to “YOLO”, as if he didn’t know Hawke would give his all in a fight and burn himself down to ash with a grim smile slashed red across his face.

“I have a plan,” Hawke had said, and Fenris dies a little inside every time he barely manages to dive around one of the central pillars before he’s decapitated or crushed, axe whining above his head, Arishok pivoting and charging again.

A plan, he’d said.  And that plan meant keeping just one scant step ahead of death.

#Garrett Hawke #Fenris #Fenhawke #Dragon Age 2 fanfiction #Wrathwrites

[wrathbites]

Anger

Rating: M Character: Astarion Minor mention: Tav (Levi), Gale, Wyll, Karlach Wordcount: 1125/???? Chapters: 1/26 Summary: the world as it is, through the eyes of a vampire spawn Notes: rating due to mention of the violence Astarion has suffered.

The first time it he expects a fireball to the face or a blade sliding between his ribs. Perhaps Karlach's weapon of choice turned on him at last, splitting a seam down his back. He expects Cazador, in truth, and the recognition of his tone as the anger he can't stifle, can't hide, can't afford.

But nothing happens. Levi simply looks at him, brows migrating towards her hairline in response to his waspish snap. And then she affords a quick glance to the dead pig at her feet, shrugs, and ushers them onward with an easy "let's go". Nothing... else.

Astarion should breathe a sigh of relief — punishment averted, sweet hells — but there's only space for dread, cold and clammy as the death lingering on his skin. Anger has never served him well, when will he suffer for it this time? Will they turn on him at the goblin camp? On the mountain pass? Will he see his city in the distance, only to be skewered before it? Will they pry the tadpole from his skull and watch him burn in the sun?

When will he fall from their good graces? When?

~

Gale provokes his ire next, staring at him too long and jotting notes in his pocket book too frequently and it sets Astarion's teeth to itching. The wizard is plotting something and holding his silence over it, and it's at his expense —

"Paint a picture, it'll last longer." There's no masking the bite in his words, a misstep that would have, should have, earned him a month's starvation and daily lashings to the bone, but Gale... just... blinks at him like a startled owl, quill poised for another stroke. Astarion swallows, prickling under that steady regards, and were his heart still beating it'd take off in a panic when a solitary drop of ink lands on the paper without Gale's guidance. An unforgivable splotch, a ruined word to be cut in the parchment of his own flesh, his blood Cazador's ink, but —

But there are no shackles clamping around his wrists, no taunting laughter in his ear, no wrath demanding bent knee and bowed head and a thousand useless pleas for mercy.

What is this?

~

Read the rest (of this chapter) on AO3

#Baldur's Gate 3 fanfiction #Astarion #Wrathwrites

[wrathbites]

micro prompts, 14 and/or 42? :3c

Send me a number and I'll write a micro story using the word or phrase. Let's go with 42 hehe.

~

Some call Rhys a saviour, hero, a beacon of hope in dark times. Others know him as a murderer, a scourge, a parasite to be killed on sight.

Kaidan calls him friend, partner, a lifetime's companion. Mate, to use the old ones' terminology. Someone to live for, die for, fight for.

His.

He eyes Rahna's barrier, samples the surface of it with phantom fingers. It's unstable, yielding ever so slightly to his touch, a vulnerability she thinks herself safe behind.

"That's where you're wrong," he says, rolling his shoulders, rocking back on his heels —

One breath. Two. Steady. You can do this.

— and slingshots forward, a biotic charge cleaving through the centre she's so sure of, going straight for her throat with his omni-blade.

"No!"

"You don't know me at all."

#sparatus #Mass Effect fanfiction #wrathwrites #Sunlight and Stardust vampire verse #in which the end of the Reaper war isn't the end of life threatening problems for my lads lol

[wrathbites]

Habit

It’s habit to wake up, roll over, and bid good morning to the ship who’s kept them alive another day, another night, through another firefight.

It’s habit to reach out and pat the interior of her hull, a cold shock to his fingers, but a welcome one.

It’s habit to pause at the edge of the bed, wait for the reply.  That “good morning, Jeff” laced with warm amusment.

But the ship is still, grounded where she’d fallen.  But she’s silent, little more than a shell to protect them from the weather and EDI —

EDI’s nowhere to be found.  Lost.

Gone.

#Sunlight and Stardust moments #Jeff Moreau #Joker #EDI #Normandy SR-2 #Wrathwrites

[wrathbites]

Pops

“What are you doing?”

It speaks of his familiarity with vampires (or rather one specific vampire) that he doesn’t launch himself over the banister as one might a cliff to avoid a Brute’s charge, but it’s a damn close thing and he still jumps, skeleton rattling under his skin.

Coats throws a scowl over his shoulder and there he is, the smug bastard, mischief in his smirk.  Rhys Shepard, bane of his existence, sworn enemy to what little sanity he has left.

“Hello to you, too, princess.”

“Piseag,” Shepard replies and joins him on the platform overlooking the south side of the Presidium’s main lake.

“I’m watching this krogan sign himself into jail for the next year,” he says in response to the initial query, pointing out the spectacle in question.  The krogan have parted ways with their hulking likeness and gone straight for property damage.  One against the many as the group jostle around the grey one, shoving him toward the skycar and shrugging off his every response in kind.  The C-Sec skycar.

“You know cells aren’t built to hold them for long, it’ll be fi— motherfucker that’s my krogan!”

Coats blinks just as the krogan charges, again when he knocks the skycar on its side, and a third time as it’s shoved right up to the edge.  His brain kicks into gear as it precariously tilts there.

“What the fuck d’you mean —?”

But Shepard’s already gone, off at a dead sprint only his kind can match.

And Coats really, truly, doesn’t want to know.  Really.

~

“So,” he says a few hours, three awkward elevator rides, and one hefty fine later.

“So?” Alenko parrots back, eyes on Shepard and Grunt — what an odd name, by any race’s standards — and brows lifting high.  Coats follows his stare to the friendly tussle collapsing over a sofa and spilling onto the floor, vampire sprawling across the troublesome krogan like a cat in prime spot for a sunbeam.  Laughing, delighted, in response to protesting bellows.

“When did he adopt the kid?”

“In my defence, I wasn’t around to supervise.”

“Who was?”

“Garrus.”

... Yeah, that explains it.  He claps a hand on Alenko’s shoulder —

“I did tell you to watch him like a hawk... Pops.”

— and gets an elbow in the gut for his trouble.

Worth it.

#Sunlight and Stardust moments #Rhys Shepard #Jack Coats #vampire Shepard #Mass Effect fanfiction #Wrathwrites

[wrathbites]

Mirror mirror on the wall...

Rating: M (for a teeny tiny bit at the end) Characters/pairings: Astarion/Charname (Levi) Wordcount: 1,222 Summary: There are some problems magic can fix. A papercut's child's play, a missing limb... well. That's a tad more complicated. But something unique to his kind? He never thought to ask. (He doesn't need to) Notes: Contains a minor spoiler for something pertaining to Astarion. If you haven't made it through about half of Act 1, caution's advised.

~

It occurs to him slowly, the... peculiar focus of the rain.  Pattering on his head.  And nowhere else.

There's no frantic dive for the bedrolls laid out under the stars, no hissing spit of angry flames.  No squawks of protest from Gale flapping around to save his scrolls from soggy demise.  No... droplets... on the page... Astarion flicks over.  Just a light smirl... dampening his hair.

His eyes flash to the culprit the second he realises, and there Levi's waiting for him, hidden within the shadows of her tent, beckoning him forward with a crook of her fingers and the curve of a smile.  A siren without song and he goes to her all the same.

Curiosity.  And he's been likened to a cat before.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, darling?"

"A surprise, maybe.  Hopefully." Levi replies in that seaborn rasp, hand offered palm up.

Link: AO3

#Baldur's Gate 3 fanfiction #BG3 spoilers #Astarion #Astarion/charname #Wrathwrites