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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Beautifully Spent

aka Five Times Lan Qiren Left The Lan Sect Behind

- Chapter 5 -

It didn’t matter how many years it had been, or that he had died and returned in a different body, or even that he was now a married man, an adult, well-respected by the whole cultivation world – being summoned to have tea with Lan Qiren still had a way of making Wei Wuxian feel like a disobedient schoolboy all over again.

He thought that they were on better terms now than they had been before, at least. At some point after he’d finally settled into the Cloud Recesses for good, Wei Wuxian had started assisting Lan Qiren with his classes, or perhaps more accurately, Lan Wangji had made a request with an eye towards his uncle’s uncertain health, Lan Qiren had refused, and Wei Wuxian had bullied his way in to act as an aide anyway by simply showing up and refusing to leave.

At first, he’d thought Lan Wangji’s idea was a terrible one, thinking that after all he was on bad terms with Lan Qiren, who disapproved of him as a general matter and of Lan Wangji’s relationship with him in specific, and therefore that they were on such bad terms that his presence would only make things worse. Only…one day, he had seen Lan Qiren coughing into his sleeve after they’d all had a brief scare as a result of a badly phrased letter from Lan Sizhui and spotted blood, and then suddenly been assaulted by the memory of Lan Qiren bleeding from all his qiqiao, crying out half-unconscious for Wei Wuxian to stop butchering his flute playing as if that was the only thing he remembered how to condemn.

It was not a memory that Wei Wuxian particularly enjoyed – the man had been his teacher, after all.

So despite his misgivings, he’d gone ahead and done it, and brazened it out the way he always did. They’d fought like cats and dogs at the start, Lan Qiren tetchy and querulous, Wei Wuxian too often inclined to argue just for the sake of arguing, but just as he’d been on the verge of giving it all up as a bad idea, Lan Wangji had, in his oh-so-serious way, told Wei Wuxian that he did not need to assist his uncle if he thought he couldn’t handle it and that, of course, had only lit a fire under his ass to actually manage it.

(Yes, he knew that Lan Wangji had done it on purpose, but it wasn’t like he didn’t use his own sexy wiles to convince Lan Wangji of all sorts of important things, like having a drink with him once in a while.)

At any rate, Wei Wuxian had gritted his teeth and forced himself to play along a bit better with Lan Qiren’s monotone lecturing, and after a while he found to his surprise that assisting with the classes actually wasn’t anywhere near as boring as he thought it would be. In turn, Lan Qiren had eased up a little on him, explaining the reasons behind what he was doing upon request, and things started to work better, little by little.

And now – now they were having tea.

Weird.

“You’ve adjusted well to the Cloud Recesses,” Lan Qiren said, accepting the tea Wei Wuxian poured for him. His voice was neutral and monotone, but Lan Wangji had assured Wei Wuxian that his uncle’s voice always sounded like that, and sure enough all the classes they shared together seemed to bear it out. Even when he was horribly upset and coughing up blood, his voice stayed as toneless and dull as ever; the only thing he really adjusted was the volume.

“Ah, I’ll never quite get the hang of when you wake up,” Wei Wuxian said, automatically deflecting, but Lan Qiren shook his head.

“Ancillary rule,” he said, and a few months of sitting in on Lan Qiren’s classes made Wei Wuxian ponderously put his hands together and say, using his own best monotone, “Ancillary rules support the fundamental rules. Even the keystone in an arch doesn’t stand alone.”

Lan Qiren nodded, serious despite Wei Wuxian’s attempt at teasing (clearly unsuccessful). “And yet you have adjusted to the underlying purpose of the rule regarding when to wake, which is to fill as much of your day with meaning as possible. Your relationship with Wangji is going well?”

Wei Wuxian choked a little. “Uh, yes.” He hoped Lan Qiren wasn’t thinking of dissuading him now – they were already married! Lan Qiren had even participated, accepting Wei Wuxian’s respect in the place of Lan Wangji’s parents. “Did you have any…questions…?”

Lan Qiren shook his head. “You’ve also repaired your relationship with Jiang Cheng, have you not?” he said instead, changing the subject, and – on firmer ground – Wei Wuxian nodded. “Good. He’s an excellent sect leader.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Wei Wuxian said, feeling fond as always when he thought of Jiang Cheng. “He grew up so well.”

It would have been better, of course, if Wei Wuxian had been able to be by his side – but it hadn’t been meant to be, and now they were getting over that.

Lan Qiren nodded.

There was a few moments of silence, and just as Wei Wuxian was wondering if it was his turn to come up with a conversational subject, Lan Qiren put down his cup.

“Xichen has been out of seclusion for over a year,” he said. “Wangji helps him with the work of sect leader, but the bulk has returned to his hands, and he is doing well with it.”

“Yes, definitely,” Wei Wuxian said, but he had to admit he was a little puzzled as to where this conversation was going. It seemed clear that Lan Qiren was leading somewhere, but with all these subject changes, he couldn’t keep up. “Teacher Lan, what’s your point?” he asked, taking a sip of his own tea.

“I want you to take over my classes.”

Wei Wuxian choked.

Lan Qiren politely waited for him to catch his breath. “I’m serious.”

Wei Wuxian had just been about to ask if he was joking. “Why?” he asked. “You love teaching classes.”

It was true, too. He hadn’t appreciated it as a child, seeing only the old man hiding in Lan Qiren��s bones, but Lan Qiren truly loved teaching students – and he was good at it, too. It was impossible to teach those that didn’t want to be taught, so for a reckless idiot like Wei Wuxian who hadn’t been willing to listen, he’d ordered him to copy the rules as a punishment; as a result, to this day, Wei Wuxian could still recite each and every one of them. If Wei Wuxian hadn’t gotten into that fight with Jin Zixuan and been pulled out of the classes so recklessly back then, he might’ve had the chance to learn what he was learning now – not just the basic foundation of what the rules were, but why each rule existed, the history and background of it, the debates and complexity about its meaning, the way each rule intersected with all the others. How the rules, even when seemingly meaningless, had a life and background of their own; how they could be associated with various points of good conduct, of righteousness and ethical behavior.

When they could be broken, and why.

Lan Qiren might be an old man from the bottom of his soul, he might speak in a monotone and be stiff and unyielding and stubborn, slow to change his fixed views on things and even slower to pick up on sarcasm or undue cleverness, but he worked with each student on how to understand what he was trying to convey, teaching them not only the content of his lectures but how to learn. He wasn’t especially patient, wasn’t especially gentle, was overly strict, but his students learned – sometimes despite themselves.

And now…he wanted to give up on his classes?

“Is something the matter?” Wei Wuxian asked, distressed despite himself, thinking of bad blood welling up in Lan Qiren’s chest – thinking of all the stupid things he’d done to aggravate him, whether now or in the past. Had the old man’s health really gotten that bad?

“Nothing is the matter,” Lan Qiren said. “And my health is fine, no matter what Wangji might have you think. It is merely a matter of time. Of time, and of dreams.”

“Of…dreams?”

“Mm,” Lan Qiren said, and for a moment he sounded exactly like Lan Wangji. “When I was a child, I once dreamed of being a traveling musician. I thought I’d roam the world, playing for anyone who would listen, and when I had my fill of wanderlust, return home – retire – teach.”

Wei Wuxian had had no idea. He could scarcely imagine Lan Qiren as a child – no, he couldn’t imagine it at all. Much less wanting to leave the Cloud Recesses as something as daringly bold as being a traveling musician! Not even a rogue cultivator, but a traveling musician!

The brief moment of glee that the image inspired got snuffed out a moment later when he recalled why, exactly, Lan Qiren had never gone out to fulfill his childhood dream. He knew the story well by now, the story of Lan Wangji’s father and mother, their mutual disaster. Wei Wuxian was intimately familiar with sacrificing everything for his loved ones, but he couldn’t even imagine how it must have been to be Lan Qiren – his dreams destroyed by his brother’s selfish actions, another person’s love affair leaving him chained to his sect and raising two children as if they were his own.

Even Jiang Cheng had the comfort of knowing that his life had been destroyed by an enemy.

“I became a teacher prematurely,” Lan Qiren said, nodding when he saw the light of recognition in Wei Wuxian’s eyes. “I have enjoyed it, as I always expected I would. But it is not enough. It is time.”

“Time?” Wei Wuxian echoed, and then realized: “You want to be a traveling musician? Now?”

Surely it was impossible.

Lan Qiren was – not old, no, not really, but his health was bad; he had never recovered from the attack on the Cloud Recesses, from Wen Xu’s vicious attacks that had nearly crippled him. Moreover, he wasn’t just some nobody who could go around unnoticed – he was the only sect leader left from his generation, even if he had technically only played an interim role, and more than that, he was the honorable teacher Lan Qiren, who could turn any waste into a gentleman. He’d taught hundreds of students over the years – Wei Wuxian had seen the records – and he counted among his students some of the most influential people in the cultivation world.

Even Wei Wuxian, who’d been in his class only a month or so and spent most of it in punishment, felt distress at the thought of Lan Qiren trudging through the mud of the mortal world with a guqin on his back, playing for his supper. How would those who had actually done well in his class feel?!

“It will not be as I originally imagined,” Lan Qiren said, entirely calm. “I plan to visit my former students, if they would have me there, and travel only between their homes – it will not be as stressful as the life of a rogue cultivator. I will have the sect’s resources available to assist me. It will be fine.”

“But -!”

“Xichen is sect leader, and recovering well from what he lost. Wangji is your husband, and happy. The only thing binding me to the sect now is my students – and you have helped me with my classes for months now. You are charming and thoughtful, charismatic; the students listen to you. You will do well with it.”

“I don’t know all the rules!”

“You know enough.”

“But – but –”

“If you say no, I cannot go,” Lan Qiren said, and he didn’t even sound angry about it, merely accepting. “I have a duty to see to the juniors’ education. I would entrust you with it, but I will not force it upon you. But I would very much appreciate it if you would agree. Will you do it?”

If I say no, I’d be the one locking you here, Wei Wuxian thought, and swallowed. That didn’t seem right.

“…all right,” he said, and was rewarded by one of Lan Qiren’s rare smiles. “But you have to get me up to speed first!”

“Of course,” Lan Qiren agreed. “I will plan to go only after the New Year, in the spring. I will tell Xichen and Wangji of my decision this evening.”

Wei Wuxian felt his heart freeze at the thought of their reaction at discovering their beloved uncle’s plans – and finding out that he had played a critical role in enabling it.

“Uh,” he said. “I…may need to go out tonight. For a – thing. Important thing! Very…Lotus Pier! I’m going to the Lotus Pier! Urgently!”

Lan Qiren looked at him, unimpressed.

“It will not be that bad,” he said. “They will understand, and there is no reason for them to be concerned.”

“Oh yeah?” Wei Wuxian said, and crossed his arms. “Want to bet on that?”

#mdzs #wei wuxian #lan qiren #my fic #my fics #beautifully spent

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stillness-in-green · 3 years

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MVA In Memoriam (4/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia) (Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party) (Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade)

Part Four, Episode 111: Origin: Shimura Tenko

Chapter 233 – Bright Future

• Twice clearly having arranged a Skeptic puppet to where its arm can be used as a pillow for Toga’s neck. A cute little character detail while also being kind of disturbing? Very on-brand for the League! A not-immediately-plot-crucial visual of a member of the League demonstrating obvious care for another member? The guillotine awaits!

• A little explanation about how clones’ physicality and memories work relative to the last time Twice saw the people the clones are based on. This is a very useful little nod of explanation to something that remained unclear from the dialogue of Mr. Clone-press last chapter. Twice’s quirk is pretty arcane in its ins and outs, frankly, and the clearer those details are, the fewer plot holes you’re leaving for later.

• The scene of Skeptic being right on the verge of confronting Twice. Skeptic has, oh, about five moments where he’s obviously a big tense neurotic who’s unpleasant to be around if things aren’t going his way, and the anime deleted or downplayed all but two of them. As ever, it’s obscenely damaging to the characterization of the MLA cast, who we have little enough time with as it is. Further, it was a particularly weird choice to make with Skeptic, who is as of this writing the only major MLA character who’ll emerge still free and active from the War Arc. Why shaft the characterization of the one of new characters who’s going to be getting the most attention out of any of them in the next arc, with yet more scenes yet to come after?[1]

• A full page’s-worth of Spinner’s rationalizations on targeting Trumpet and ordering the Twice doubles to do the same. This lays out the details on why targeting Trumpet stands to relieve some of the load on Shigaraki. It isn’t because Trumpet’s quirk makes the crowds more dangerous, though that is true. Spinner targets Trumpet because he’s seen enough to know that attacking the MLA’s leaders gets them crazy riled up; he knows that if he makes himself a threat to Trumpet, then all Trumpet’s followers’ attention will shift focus to Spinner, leaving Shigaraki with less to deal with. Spinner also knows that that is ludicrously dangerous to him personally, given his weak quirk, but he actively makes that choice anyway, because that’s how much he’s devoted himself to Shigaraki without (yet) quite articulating the nature and reasons for that devotion. Targeting Trumpet without any of that reasoning made for a perfectly sound tactical decision, but it missed the regard Spinner shows the unnamed mobs of the MLA, and it really missed the probable savage beatdown and even possible death that Spinner consciously chooses to risk for Shigaraki’s sake. Of course, a chunk of what the episode deleted is flashbacks to scenes the anime also cut, so they couldn’t figure into Anime!Spinner’s reasoning. This does not excuse yet more cuts to Spinner’s arc and characterization; it only adds to how badly the anime maimed him. Also, on a less salty but still confused note, deleting all the Twice clones from the beginning of the scene and just having Spinner running along a wall past mobs of people instead of laboriously fighting his way through the street to the van was really dumb. Why did all those MLA people just stand there and let him run by? Where did all the Twice clones that just helped save Spinner from a huge flurry of long-distance attacks disappear to? Come on.

• Trumpet’s thought that using Sevens Loud will draw every bit of strength from their warriors, but that it’s necessary. Setting aside that it looks far less necessary when there hasn’t been a crowd of Twice clones fighting Trumpet’s people this whole time, just Spinner by his lonesome, we still lost quite a bit to this cut. Firstly, a nuance on the trade-off Incite gives—that its stat-boost is temporary, and that it’s borrowing from the future to pay for the present, a stock that is limited and a bill that will come due when the effect wears off. Secondly, it’s another demonstration that the MLA leaders aren’t just thoughtlessly wasting their followers’ lives; they’re very consciously doing cost/benefit analysis on how much danger their people are in versus what stands to be gained by the potential exertion or outright deaths those people will suffer. It’s cold reasoning, yes, but that’s how the Liberation Army operates: not for the personal gain or lackadaisical ease of the people on top—Trumpet would just have been in the tower speaking through city-wide loudspeakers, if that were the case—but for the advancement of the group’s ideals. It also just grants Trumpet some interiority, but of course the anime can’t have that.

• The note in Trumpet’s meta-ability explanation that the more his voice causes the air to vibrate, the stronger Incite’s effect. This is—good god, it is literally the entire design mentality behind Sevens Loud! Sevens Loud purpose isn't to make his voice louder so more people can hear him (which I would think is the most logical assumption an anime-only person would make as to why he puts it on); it’s to make himself louder because being louder enhances the boost. It’s about the quality of the effect, not the quantity of targets. This is why Trumpet has the thought about how using Sevens Loud will drain the strength reserves of his people. There’d be no correlation there if Sevens Loud were only about boosting his range.

• When Spinner got porcupined in the anime, they did a close-up on his face, possibly to avoid the gore of showing the spines piercing through his forearm. That’s fine, but they also emphasized the reaction by having him lose his grip on the huge fuck-off knife he had clutched in his teeth. In the manga, sure, he yells in pain, but he doesn’t lose the knife. Indeed, he gets the guy off him by slashing at him with it—a shot the anime dropped. So Spinner doesn’t even get to keep displays of his pain tolerance, a trait he doubtless improved during those six weeks against Machia. Why does the anime hate Spinner so much, you guys? Why did it go out of its way to make him look lamer, when Dabi and Toga were out there getting anime-original flourishes to make them look cooler?

• Spinner’s thoughts, “When I get inspired to act, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing! I’m just a loser jumping on a bandwagon. Or at least that’s what it looks like.” A humorous bit of self-awareness from Spinner here. The anime got at the self-awareness. The humor, as we’ll see, not so much.

• Spinner’s thoughts, “Look at me. Look at me!! With all that prejudice in your eyes!” Hah hah, laughed BNHA the anime nervously, what prejudice are you talking about, Spinner? No idea what you could possibly be referring to there! This one’s particularly annoying because, while one might think that the anime was just dodging the heteromorphobia angle it eradicated all references to back at the beginning of the arc, the prejudice line isn’t even about heteromorphobia, not really. See, the Japanese line there literally translates to, “With those colored glasses!”—to see with colored glasses being a Japanese idiom for seeing something from a biased viewpoint. So aside from being a wordplay jab at Trumpet’s choice in eyewear, it’s also about Trumpet’s expressed view that Spinner, having been a shut-in with a weak quirk who decided to take his resentment out on the world, can’t possibly amount to anything much. So, what, did the people in charge of making those cuts think Trumpet was right? Why even keep the line where he disparages Spinner if you’re not going to let Spinner call it what it is? He’s not calling out fantasy racism there, anime! He’s calling out the bias against weak quirks that even the good guys in this world sometimes partake in! Possibly it’s because non-villains in the world[2] sometimes use reasoning that leads logically to quirk supremacism that the anime got gunshy with it, or it was more reluctance to give the villains—and the Too-Real Iguchi Shuuichi especially—moral ground for accusations against their society that get too close to real life. Whatever the motivation, it’s a bullshit cut.

• Shigaraki calling RD “Detnerat,” presumably because he neither knows RD’s real name nor cares to dignify him by using his code name. The anime, again, made neither the connection nor Shigaraki’s recognition explicit, so it lost the specificity and pettiness of that little snub.

• A little exchange between Giran and a Twice clone as they flee. It doesn’t give you much you wouldn’t assume just from seeing them flee, but it always feels more immediate and empathetic when the characters talk and you can see their expressions, instead of just a quick shot of them from behind as they run away in complete silence. Heck, running away in complete silence is actively out of character for Twice!

• Because the anime has some kind of aversion/restriction on showing hand-related violence, it radically changed how Shigaraki lost his fingers,[3] resulting in the loss of several important shots. To the best of my parsing, in the manga, when Re-Destro makes that first big jump to avoid Shigaraki’s decay wave, he comes back down specifically aiming for Shigaraki’s outstretched left hand, spread wide and flat on the ground. Shigaraki tries to evade (you can see the blur of his left arm in the panel where RD lands), but either RD does manage to clip the hand or he simply hits the ground with so much force that the sheer explosive burst of rock shreds Shigaraki’s hand and part of his coat sleeve. Being so much larger, RD then simply snags Shigaraki by the wrist before he can get out of range. It’s very fast, a burst of speed and violence, and very different (read: cooler) from Shigaraki flipping end over end in slow motion in a way that seemed to imply visually that he was thrown well out of RD’s grabbing range. As to the shots we lost? I counted three. First, Hana’s hand crumpling amidst all the flying debris. Second, that big dramatic panel of Shigaraki’s maimed hand ribboning blood into the air as the narration box finally drops Re-Destro’s identity and code name. Third, the shot of him catching Shigaraki, almost delicately, between one thumb and forefinger and delivering the, “Was it this hand that committed such evil acts?” line—a clear threat to what of that hand Shigaraki has remaining—as we find out what his meta-ability is. This is all hugely dramatic in the manga, because, of course, readers always assumed Shigaraki needed all five fingers to activate his quirk, and here Re-Destro nigh-effortlessly robs him of fully half his capacity to use it. It’s a shocking turn-around and instantly ups RD’s threat level by allowing him to permanently maim Shigaraki in a way that no one, hero or villain, has done before or since. Robbing Re-Destro of the immediacy of that seemingly devastating blow—inflicted within moments of meeting the real Shigaraki—did immeasurable damage to his credibility as an arc boss. The shot in the manga is also just arresting visually, with RD finally getting to properly loom over Shigaraki. Most of the shots up to this point have been framed such that, while RD is obviously bigger, he and Shigaraki have still been moving and fighting in a pretty level way. This is the first place where the viewer is situated so squarely behind Shigaraki that they can really feel how massive RD is in comparison. It’s certainly a more impressive visual than this mess—thanks, anime; thanks, whatever broadcasting standards forced overworked and uninspired animators to undertake a redraw of RD’s quirk reveal panel when every other member of the MLA brass had theirs carried over directly from the manga.

• A chapter-ending cliffhanger of Slidin’ Go helping direct traffic on the outskirts of Deika and the warning rumble as Gigantomachia approaches. Aside from being a nice little tension boost—Will Gigantomachia roll up just in time to see Re-Destro making a mess of Shigaraki? Who will he target? Will Shigaraki ever be able to win him over if he sees a scene like that?—it’s good foreshadowing for what the news reports will eventually be saying. Remember, the claim is that a bunch of villains lured Deika’s heroes away and then attacked the city while it was defenseless; that’s why we never see any of the MLA’s heroes involved with the fight once it starts. And now, here, we find out where they’ve been the whole time: making sure no outsiders get in who might be able to undermine that narrative.

Framing Shifts

• Once again had an MLA member using their Detnerat item say its name out loud, when it’s clear in the manga that they’re just thinking the names internally. Once again, it was kind of silly.

• When Spinner flashes back to watching Stain on TV and being inspired, the manga uses a shot of Stain’s face, snarling and defiant. The anime used—a shot of Stain from behind, only visible from the shoulders to the knees, hunched so that his lower back and ass were towards the camera. Bones… What exactly were you implying lit Spinner’s fire there? Or did you just not have the time or budget to go pull Stain’s reference sheets for drawing his face?

• A tone issue, but a major one: Spinner should be grinning, face alight with accusatory challenge, as he hurls his accusations of the MLA/Trumpet being the same bandwagon-jumping nobodies that he is. This is the moment in the manga where we see Spinner truly throw his hesitations and his doubts to the wind and embrace Shigaraki’s nihilistic fervor and the beauty, value and profundity of emptiness. So what if I’m empty? So what if he wants emptiness? Who cares about other peoples’ ideals if their ideals leave no room for me? It’s not a heroic triumph, but it’s a triumph all the same, and losing Spinner’s smile made the moment far too bitter.

• Meanwhile, in exactly the opposite problem, Shigaraki by this point is not smiling. In fact, he’s barely on his feet, swaying violently in place with accompanying sound effects. While his words are openly mocking, he seems to wholly lack the energy to back them up with his usual verve. The anime didn’t have him smiling, admittedly, but the whole time the ‘camera’ wasn’t directly on his face, his voice actor was reading the lines with an uneven, chuckling cadence that suggested Shigaraki was seconds away from breaking into howls of laughter. He was also, of course, impossibly clean, at a point at which his manga counterpart is muddy, bloody and tattered from the horrifically extended combat he’s been living for six weeks. It’s stuff like this that made it so impossible to take the Army or even Machia as much of a threat in the anime, when, other than the red cords on his hands being broken, Shigaraki looked absolutely no different than usual.

Additions

• Gave Spinner a tiny bit of new animation when he got mobbed by people hopped up on Incite. It was nice, but if they were going to give him a flourish, I’d rather it have come when he swipes Porcupine Dude off him with a combat knife. Or, you know, just kept the bit of him telling the Twices to attack and his reasoning on why.

• Cut inside briefly to show a ballerina girl dancing through a darkened apartment right before she sliced a neat circle out of the wall. I love it, A+, exactly the kind of expansion on the action of the manga I wanted to see. My only complaint is that her manga self looked more like Pearl from Steven Universe.[4] XD

• A quick new shot of RD when Shigaraki was hounding him about his feelings. His teeth were visibly gritted, the corners of his mouth pulled down. It stands out because there’s only one shot of RD there in the manga, and in it, he’s smiling, close-mouthed and calm. The anime copied said shot, smile and all, then cut away, and when it cut back, Re-Destro had a totally different expression on his face. Baffling. Anime!RD having a dour scowl everywhere manga!RD is smiling in a tight, controlled way was all over the fight scene, and it detracted from the sense of RD’s menace every time.

Chapter 234 – Destruction Sense

• The illustration(s) accompanying Re-Destro’s, “Let’s not judge people by their quirks,” line. The pictures are cute, but the real loss there was the note informing us that they’re excerpts from a children’s book published by Shoowaysha—Curious’s outfit—called Quirks and Us. That’s a very concrete illustration of the kinds of things the MLA is getting up to in the world, and an equally concrete thing an anime-only viewer lost. Of course, that viewer never even found out Curious was in publishing, so it wouldn’t have meant anything on that front, but there is one other thing I think is notable: the way that book implies that the only people explicitly pushing a “don’t judge other people by their quirks” message are the radical Liberationists. See, the rest of the story touches on the virtues of a nonjudgmental attitude here and there, but actually finding people willing to say it out loud is—unprecedented, I think. Deku comes across situations where he could say something like that multiple times and he never, ever does—not to Shouto, nor to Shinsou, nor to Eri, nor to the giant fox lady. And that’s not even touching on Shouji’s mask, or the discrimination Spinner faced, or the CRC “losing support” without being declared illegal. I think the manga itself is against judging people by their quirks, but it’s interesting that it doesn’t make its characters into mouthpieces to say as much. This is because its characters are thoroughly enmeshed in a society that very much does judge people by their quirks, regardless of whether or not it will say that doing so is bad or rude or prejudiced. Re-Destro and the MLA aren’t immune, of course—Re-Destro himself says that quirks are linked to personality—but they adhere to a different set of values than the larger society does. While Hero Society talks about quirks in terms of being heroic and/or useful versus villainous and/or useless, the MLA spectrums instead emphasize how capable a person’s quirk is of helping them exert their will and how ambitious the quirk’s bearer is in that exertion. That is, their ethics are less about morality and utility-to-society than they are about aspiration and utility-to-self.[5] Both worldviews have their pros and cons, but that, I think, is what the children’s book is getting at when it says not to “judge”—don’t assign an arbitrary moral value to a quirk; judge a person by their actions. And isn’t it interesting, that the only explicit verbal statement of that value comes from the leader of a radical cult descended from a famous insurrectionist quoting a children’s book published by a member of selfsame radical cult? The value is not ever stated by a member of the heroic cast, so are we to assume that the heroes don't actually believe it? Do people profess to believe it but everyone knows it’s only for courtesy’s sake, with only the MLA willing to breach that wall of “things we don’t talk about in polite society” to actually talk about it in anything other than platitudes? Obviously, you lose this entire line of discussion when the "don't judge people by their quirks" value is just never mentioned at all.

• The phrase, “In that case,” from RD’s, “You will never measure up to me.” It establishes continuity to what RD was saying before. He’s not taking breaks from talking while Shigaraki has flashbacks; the two are happening concurrently.

• RD’s, “Cracking apart…?” reaction to his Decayed fingertip, and the dripping blood from the injury. I’m not hugely fussed about the former, but I like the latter as indicative of what Re-Destro’s Stress powers actually do. That is to say, he isn’t covering himself in a thick shell of Stress power or something; his Stress powers make him physically larger, infusing his body and swelling his size. That’s why he bleeds when Shigaraki touches his fingertip. Admittedly, the size distinction was more obvious in the anime, where the audience watched RD’s shoulders inflate like balloons last episode, compared to the manga, where you don’t get in-between animation. Still, given that RD still has that wound even when he goes back down to normal size, and is still wearing bandages for his speech a week later,[6] it’d be nice to mark the severity of the wound with a bit of blood. Oddly, the anime did keep the wound for the crater scene, visible red slices opened in the flesh along the length of his finger, very obviously the sort of injury that would have bled upon being first sustained. Maybe RD ran afoul of whatever the studio mandate is on when Decay has a dust effect and when it leaves gore? (More of that later.)

• Shigaraki’s, “Mother!” for the first panel we see of her. It’s obvious enough who she probably is, but odd that we got a whole bunch of narration for Hana, and likewise an acknowledgment of his grandparents, but not even a single word for Nao.

• Very significantly drops the grandfather’s, “Eating yummy things helps make the sadness go away.” Grandpa’s not just randomly handing Tenko his favorite snack in that memory—he’s trying to treat some kind of grief or wrong without actually addressing the wrong, opting to just put a flavorful band-aid on it. That could be fine if it were something outside Grandpa’s control, but we’ve already gotten some early hints from Hana’s phrasing that things are not okay in the household, and thus the grandfather’s attempt to bribe Tenko with sweets is just as ominous a sign of what’s to come as the grandmother’s attempt to guilt him into not crying lest he make her cry too.

• A little shot of Shigaraki stirring in the rubble when RD answers the phone. It’s a nice demonstration of their size difference, especially comparing both of them to Machia, who we just saw tearing through buildings like the kaiju his theme music declares him to be.

Framing Shifts

• When Shigaraki narrates that Hana always took him by the hand when he got weepy, she actually does take his hand in the manga, her fingers wrapped around his, his clasped over hers. It emphasizes that this is what he can’t do anymore, simply hold hands with people, the innocence lost aspect, and it suggests the closeness he once had with his sister. In the anime, she reached out a hand but wound up taking him by the wrist instead, his hand splayed open beneath hers. This suggested, albeit very implicitly, that maybe that innocence was something he never had from the beginning; it also suggested less reciprocity in his relationship with Hana. Even though Tomura said in narration that their hands were joined, what we saw was that Hana just pulled him where she wanted him and he didn’t fight her on it, not that he held her hand in return. Alternatively, the anime could have been drawing a parallel to how her hand would eventually be gripping his wrist in a much different context (a more necrotic one, for starters) later in life, though if that's what they were going for, they could have stood to tweak the dialogue so it actually matched the onscreen action. (Credit to @robotlesbianjavert and @aysall respectively for these two theories!)

• Shigaraki still having his fingers when Re-Destro squeezed his hand made RD look like a real moron. I assume the intention was that he assumed he’d done enough damage—broken bones, torn ligaments, etc—to prevent Shigaraki from being able to move his hand in more than spastic twitches, but like, if all it takes is a hard enough spasmodic clench to dust you, you are playing much riskier games than the MLA is generally portrayed as favoring. (Not that the anime kept many of the scenes that demonstrated all the planning and prep that the MLA did as groundwork for their attack, as I have complained about at length.) In the same sequence, Anime!RD turned and bodily hurled Shigaraki away from him, while Manga!RD threw him a similar distance with nothing more than a flick of a finger. Anime, why you gotta make Re-Destro look so lame all the time?

Additions

• Just one episode prior, the anime managed to turn in an entirely reasonable assemblage of swiping and dodging between Shigaraki and Re-Destro while RD was rambling on about the Mother of Quirks. What the hell was the excuse for this episode’s ridiculous shot of Shigaraki literally running circles—big, broad circles—around RD multiple times in the time it took RD to finish one (1) thought? For heaven’s sake, if you don’t have the budget for flashy, just use slow motion or more flashback animation or something. I know there’s more leeway for long thoughts in manga, where the reader understands that thoughts are moving far faster than action, and that it can be hard to bridge that gap for anime, where motion is motion but voice acting still has to rattle its way to the end of a sentence. I understand that measures have to be taken to account for that. Still, I promise, something that just looks a bit padded is much preferable to something that looks outright dumb.

• I admit to having found huge Stress monster RD pulling out a teeeeeny-tiny cellphone very funny—even more so the distinct cracking sound it made when Skeptic reported in bad news and RD’s fingers tightened infinitesimally—but the manga suggests fairly strongly that RD’s just answering on some kind of earpiece or micro-receiver, the same kind of thing Ujiko hands out and that Skeptic is associated with on multiple occasions. It’d be nice if RD could have kept more of the jokes he actually makes, the ones that stem from his native good humor, rather than the anime making up new ones based entirely in the contrast of Re-Destro and the viewer’s expectations of Re-Destro.

Chapter 235 – Shimura Tenko: Origin

• The man at the door, whom Nao is apologizing to at the beginning of the Tenko flashback and the apparent reason Tenko got busted for playing hero. I don’t love the way deleting this obscured that Tenko, in some fashion, troubled someone to lead to Kotarou dragging him down the hall (the anime also dropped Kotarou’s subsequent line, “Causing trouble?!” that’s supposed to supplement his, “Playing hero again?”), but it’s not like the manga doesn’t imply that the same thing would happen for any hero-based rules infraction, regardless of whether it troubled strangers or not. No, the much, much funnier thing to me is how it just fuckin’ torpedoed the most obvious thing people point to when they posit that All For One gave Tenko Decay, kicking off the entire tragedy: the man at the door with the conspicuously shadowed face and the even more conspicuously AFO-like suit and dress shirt with the top button unfastened. Listen, I hate that theory and what it would do to the narrative of Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko as Hero Society’s long-overdue reckoning, the villain they can’t put down and the victim they can’t silence, so watching the anime summarily cut out the scene that really kicked the theory into overdrive was very validating! Conversely, I still can't deny that it's a plausible theory, so if it does turn out to be true, that means the anime shot itself in the foot on the most obvious bit of foreshadowing this side of AFO addressing Tenko by name when he finds him in the alley. The schadenfreude of that would also be very funny. Really, unlike every other cut this season, I regard this one as win-win for my personal experience with the anime. Incidentally, I was very prepared to complain about the anime dropping all the changes of clothes the Shimura family goes through over the course of the flashback—I regard the timelapse as one of the major points against the AFO Gave Tenko Decay theory, since it’s never taken a quirk bestowed by AFO multiple days, maybe even multiple weeks, to kick in before—but it turns out I’m a lot less bothered about them not taking the time to change the side characters’ clothes when the anime also deletes the dude at the door who is the only reason I care about clarity re: how much time the flashback covers! But just for the record, while they had more outfits than I was expecting them to, the family did go through fewer changes of clothes in the anime than in the manga.

• The full echo of the line about kids being sneaky and simple in favor of Narrator!Shigaraki just letting out this exhausted, rueful, “Ahhh, kids are…” I actually rather like it. It’s a clear reference back to the earlier line without having to restate the whole thing, and Uchiyama Kouki’s delivery is really excellent.

• Kotaro’s first slap of Tenko, the only one directly portrayed on-panel, and Mon-chan’s barking in response. On the one hand, I think there’s an argument to be made for the scene flowing a bit better like this—why wouldn’t Grandpa try to stop him from going for that second slap; why wouldn’t Nao pass Hana off to Grandma and do something instead of just standing there yelling for the entire scene? It makes a bit more sense if they’re hesitant to intervene because Kotarou has “only” grabbed at Tenko’s collar and they don’t yet know how that it’s going to escalate to naked physical violence in a way that it never has before. On the other hand, that first slap is so visceral and shocking. Nowhere else in the manga is domestic violence portrayed more sharply and directly, in greater detail or more cruelly generous panel space than in this moment. It’s in the difference in size between Kotarou and Tenko, the force behind the hit that’s enough to knock Tenko clear off his feet, the pages upon pages of gut-churning lead-up to this moment and what we know will be following soon after. Also too, it makes the family’s failure to help Tenko much worse that no one else acts when Kotarou pulls back for a second hit. The first one, you could almost excuse because no one saw it coming; the second throws those justifications out the window and spits on them afterward. Two hits are important—not only for what they tell Tenko in the moment about his family's inaction, but because two hits speak in ways one hit doesn't to how wildly uneven the power balance is in the house, that Nao and her parents could witness something like that and not only fail to intercede, but then take who knows how long to work up the courage to confront Kotarou afterwards. I understand very well the fear of showing this in a family TV timeslot—the violence is so much more real than any big fantasy beat-‘em-up could ever be—but it’s the kind of thing that really drives home what Tenko needed to be saved from even back then, a social issue that heroes as they currently exist were in no position to address. Far from demonstrating that heroes aren't at fault for what happened to Tenko, though, what this scene truly does is vividly illustrate the flaws in All Might's social contract, in which his power and smile seem to promise that he can save absolutely everyone, only to leave children like Tenko out in the cold with no explanation as to why. It's brutal because it has to be, and the anime shying away from depicting Kotarou's physical abuse undercut that.

Framing Shifts

• There was a bizarre, nonsensical change to the scene at the beginning of the chapter where RD is figuring out how Shigaraki survived/got back up after taking a Burden attack head-on. The manga’s explanation is that Shigaraki didn’t actually take a full force hit because he was Decaying it even as it was blowing him back. This is somewhat silly, given that even a reduced-strength Burden is still strong enough to put him through multiple buildings. It is, however, less silly than the anime’s take, in which Shigaraki touched Re-Destro rather than the corporealized Stress of Burden. How Re-Destro survived a full-fingered touch from Shigaraki’s completely uninjured right hand[7] went totally unexplained; the problem was then compounded by Re-Destro delivering manga-accurate lines about Burden not being an evadable attack despite “evasion” having nothing to do with Shigaraki’s actions. Anime!Shigaraki didn’t dodge the Burden attack any more than Manga!Shigaraki did; unlike Manga!Shigaraki, however, Anime!Shigaraki also did nothing to reduce the impact of the attack. So not only was how Shigaraki survived the Burden attack not explained, the change to the material also opened up the plot hole of how Re-Destro survived a direct touch attack that Shigaraki in the manga never lands.

• There was also an extremely weird decision made to give Tenko dark, gray-blue eyes, obviously reminiscent of Nana’s, and suggest that they became red at the same time as his hair was changing to white. But in the manga, other than the size, there’s no difference between young Tenko’s eyes and how Shigaraki’s eyes have always been drawn—an unshaded iris with a visible pupil and a relatively thick line delineating the iris from the white of the sclera. Tenko’s eyes never matched those of anyone else in his family, least of all his dark-eyed grandmother. His hair changed color because of a trauma response,[8] but his eyes were always red.

• Relocated Shigaraki’s first, “Little kids…are sneakier than you’d expect. And simpler,” to underscore Hana showing him Nana’s picture in the study, squarely centering the line on her. And like, yes, that line does get its bitter echo later when Hana panics in the face of her father’s fury and throws the blame onto Tenko—but that line isn’t just about her; it’s also about what Tenko wanted to hear from the other adults in his life. It didn’t matter that his father didn’t approve; if he could get at least one adult to say he could be a hero, to take his side, then he could feel vindicated. It’s a child’s sneaky, simple reasoning: if an adult’s words are absolute, you just have to get one (1) adult to agree with you. It’s asking Dad if you can do something you don’t think Mom will agree to, and then going to Mom with Dad’s permission held defensively in-hand. Laying the line over Hana obscures that it’s as much about Tenko’s craving for external validation as it is Hana’s (entirely understandable) deceitful streak.

• After half a season full of internal monologue being voiced aloud even when it made little sense to do so, the anime decided to render clearly talk-bubbled dialogue—Tenko’s chatting at Mon about how he feels like he could take on the world—as internal monologue instead. Who talks to their animals in their heads when they could be talking at them directly like pet owners the world over?

Additions

• Added a few extra stills of Kotarou rebuking Tenko and dragging him around. I don’t think they’re inaccurate to the situation, though I wonder if it really needed to be underlined two more times than the manga did. Maybe they were trying to make up in advance for deleting the first slap?

• Added a few new stills of Nana and child!Kotarou. They hurt my soul and I love them without reservation.

Chapter 236 – Shimura Tenko: Origin, Part 2

• Hana’s second apology. What needs to get across was communicated with her first apology, but I do think the second one adds some naturalism to the dialogue. It feels very normal for a child feeling extremely guilty to apologize multiple times, like the more times they say it, the more true/convincing it will become.

• A bit of Tenko’s internal monologue—thinking Hana’s name, and Mon’s, and that he can’t talk. The anime slipped some attempts at verbalizing “Mon” into the dialogue, and it was painfully obvious just from listening to him gag and choke that he was too horror-struck to get words out, in ways that would be a little harder to convey on the page. Also, he thinks again that he can’t talk just as Hana runs away, so it gets across regardless. No real complaints here.

• Some thoughts about how he’s itchy, which, given what his itch represents (or at least what he thinks it does), they probably should have kept for continuity’s sake.

• Tenko’s last, “Hana-chan!” just as he grabs for her. I can imagine it having just that little bit more desperate impact, especially given Sekine Arisa’s great delivery of the first “Hana-chan!” but his delivery of the first one was great—weeks later, I can still remember it clearly—so it’s not a snip I’m inclined to doomsay about.

• Hana’s verbalization as the Decay hits her. Given that they kept Mon-chan’s last whimper, it’s kind of inconsistent not to keep this. It’s grueling, sure, but no more so than the rest of the horror show shortly to follow.

• An echo of Nao’s defense of Kotarou’s anti-hero stance. Frankly, I think anime already over-indulges in echoing dialogue we’ve heard not ten minutes prior, so I don’t mind losing this—in the manga, the moments would have fallen in different chapters, so it makes more sense to squeeze in the little reminder, but that wasn’t necessary for the anime, in which the original moment and the callback happened barely more than five minutes apart. It was obvious what the mental image was meant to draw attention to, since Tomura was narrating about exactly what his grievance was, and the image was followed by the two equivalent moments with the grandparents. (Admittedly, it hurt that correlation a bit that Grandpa’s line about the ohagi being intended to make the sadness go away got cut, but the sentiment was pretty clear from the man’s expression of nervy, abashed guilt regardless.)

• The line of Decay that splits Nao’s eye, one of the more vividly horrific little grace notes in the chapter. It undercut the grotesquerie just the tiniest bit, but the scene’s grotesque as-is, so I can understand that slight edit for TV standards. The discrepancy between Decay-to-dust and Decay-to-gore, discussed below in Framing Shifts, was much more damaging.

• A shot of Kotarou just after he hits Tenko with the tree pruning shears in which he looks, briefly, incredibly distraught, like he’s just realized what a monster he’s become. The anime didn’t make the slightest of attempts to keep that spasm of horror, grief, and regret, and thus lost that last moment of sympathy for a man deeply traumatized by a heroic character’s actions. It’s my only complaint about Anime!Kotarou, who I was otherwise far more pleased with than I was afraid might be the case, but it’s a complaint I must register nonetheless.

• A bit of inarticulate yelling before Tenko screams, “You... Die!!” It helps get across Tenko’s rage overflowing, to have that wordless garble before he can actually wrap words around it. He was still having trouble talking, too, so it makes sense that his first vocalization would just be a long, incomprehensible screech. That said, with the music there to supplement the mood in a way the manga would lack, I don’t think the anime’s rendition of the scene suffered overmuch from its absence.

Framing Shifts

• The anime, of course, has always gone the dust route for Decay because Decay is a little too gruesome for family hour TV, and anyway, when Tomura gets as fast with Decay as he is in Deika, he really is just insta-dusting people, such that not even blood remains. But he wasn’t that fast or that thorough as a child, hence why it’s all so much gorier—and it needs to be, because it’s hard to imagine Hana freaking out like she does if all she sees is a pile of dust instead of, well, dog gobbets. (Also, if his family had gone the dust route, it would have been very hard to convince the audience that Tomura’s hands are his family hands and not fakes provided to AFO by Ujiko.) This obviously put the anime in a difficult spot, but apparently the decision they settled on was—to not decide? Everyone we saw in the active process of decaying decayed into dust as usual, but then once they were done decaying, once that transition from person to ruin was complete, there were all these heaps of gore everywhere. It was a very strange and distracting inconsistency that hurt the scene much more than any of the nearly invisible cuts, and I hope the blu-rays will change it.

• Added Grandpa catching Grandma as she staggered at the sight of things in the yard. Since his body language in the manga (the only non-Decayed shot of him in the sequence) has him leaned more forward, like he’s still halfway through running towards the kids, I thought this was a nice little touch on why he stopped, for reasons other than just the obvious.

---

Episode 111 was about half of a really strong episode. Most of my complaints about the Shimura Family flashback are very minor, and most of the ones that are less minor are still easy to overlook when the rest of the presentation was so strong. Unfortunately, the non-flashback half of the episode had as many problems as ever, and those aren't over yet.

Come back next time for Part Five, Episode 112: Origin: Shigaraki Tomura. Assuming my complaining about the finalized gutting of Spinner's arc doesn't get too out of hand—which it may; if so, I'll tack on one final part to wrap things up—I'll also be running down a quick overview of the Paranormal Liberation Front scenes in the Endeavor Agency arc and some various odds & ends.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Yes, I know the Skeptic Confronts Twice scene goes nowhere, but maybe, instead of deleting it, they could have patched it up by showing Skeptic turning away from the confrontation when the tower went down? You know, actually made an effort to improve on the material?

[2] Bakugou, of course, but also Inko, Kotarou, and, very prominently, even All Might. Deku circa MVA has an entire arc lying in wait for him about how much he’s internalized All Might’s paternalism re: having the strongest quirk.

[3] Indeed, as of the scene in the crater, he still hadn’t lost them at all! He had his prosthetic by the time of the speech, so I guess we’re meant to assume that Ujiko or some MLA doctor declared them past saving and amputated them. I hope I don’t need to tell you how unbelievably lame it is to have a shounen manga character sustain a permanent injury like that off-panel.

[4] It’s the pointy nose.

[5] That, at least, is the best way I’ve found to reconcile all the related-but-distinct values professed by the various members of the MLA brass, from Re-Destro’s focus on liberation and purpose, what exactly Trumpet chooses to cite when he’s talking about Spinner not “amounting” to anything much, Geten’s open extolling of quirk supremacy, and so on.

[6] In the first big double-page spread. Oddly, no bandaging is visible in the other panel that has a good shot of that hand, possibly because Horikoshi was more focused on drawing RD’s empty pant leg. The anime kept the obvious wound during the crater scene, but not the bandages during the speech.

[7] I assume, anyway, that Re-Destro only survives Shigaraki’s first touch because it’s a weaker Decay, coming as it does from only from two fingers rather than five.

[8] The fabled Marie Antoinette Syndrome. Never been scientifically documented as such (hair can whiten because of extreme stress, but not overnight) but it endures in fiction because it’s pleasingly dramatic. Trauma-based eye-color changes, not so much.

#my villain academia #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha meta #my writing #stillness has salt

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enkelimagnus · 3 years

Text

Mezuzah

Bucky Barnes Gen, 1886 words, rated T for Hydra shit

Jewish Bucky Barnes, pre TFATWS, post Endgame

A month after his trial, Bucky Barnes gets a house and starts a slow process of reclaiming his identity and home from Hydra, more or less literally.

Read on AO3

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The house is quiet and empty when he opens the door. It’s eerie. He isn’t used to this kind of quiet. No one lives here. No one has lived here in a really long time. Perhaps since… he was a teenager.

It’s clean, it’s relatively well-equipped. It’s made for people who come in and out, almost like a hotel room. Everything is perfectly nondescript. Everything is calculated to be unremarkable.

The corridor ahead is painted off-white, the floor is hardwood. It’s simple. There is a stock photo of a bee and a flower hung on the wall. Bucky immediately hates it.

He can see some doors further forward, a staircase. All off-white paint, hardwood floor, ridiculously innocuous and impersonal frames on the walls.

He stands there for a long moment, with the keys in his right hand, staring inside at the empty corridor and the empty rooms and the emptiness. He doesn’t move. If anyone’s watching him, they probably think he’s crazy. They’re not wrong.

He exhales deeply.

This is his house now.

Up until and including three hours ago, it was a Hydra safehouse. It fell into the hands of the American government the day before, thanks to his activity as… Hydra-sniffing dog for the Secretary of Defense?

And now it’s… officially his house. He signed a paper he barely read to gain ownership of this place, because the Shiny in charge of him whom he can’t remember the fucking name of got orders to find him accomodation that wasn’t an army housing unit. His head is swimming.

The house was empty when they got there, earlier. Still filled with basic amenities, sheets on the beds in the three bedrooms, cans of food in the pantry, bodywash and shampoo and a first aid kit looking more like an ER’s supply cupboard than something used for everyday household nicks and cuts.

Oh, and two corpses in the basement, still chained to the chairs they’d been tortured on.

They’re gone now. Or at least Bucky hopes they are, because if someone decided to play this kind of joke on him… Who is he kidding? He’s not gonna hurt anyone, that would be… all shades of bad.

He thought they would try and put the house on the market. It’s nice, after all, a row house with red bricks and white paint, tall windows and a small staircase. He takes a step back and lets himself trace the edge of the door, the parts of the façade he can see. It doesn’t wear the marks of Hydra.

It wears… other marks.

His eyes catch on two marks on the right side of the doorpost, at about the height of his shoulder. Two holes, the kind of holes left by nails. One above the other, but not parallel. In diagonal. Tilting towards the inside of the house.

There was a mezuzah there.

Bucky walks into the house, towards the closest doorpost he can find. In the wall, on the right side, at about the height of his shoulder, there are two holes that confirm it. There were mezuzot.

There were Jews.

He feels everything go cold as ice inside of his chest. A pit opens in his stomach. This was a Jewish home. This was a Hydra safehouse.

He runs the fingers of his right hand over the holes. How long… Too long.

The last time he touched a mezuzah was on June 14th, 1943, when he walked out of his parents’ house for the very, very last time. It’s a few miles away now, or at least what’s left of it. He hasn’t visited. He doesn’t know the state of it. He doesn’t want to know.

Bucky takes a hard, hurt breath. This house was a Jewish home, and then a Hydra safehouse, and briefly, for a few minutes, it was a US government property. And now… now it’s his.

What the fuck is he supposed to do with this?

He has a house now. An empty house, with no one in it, and phantoms of inexcusable horrors and pains, echoes of the ones he saw in his community back in the day. Echoes of the ones he was around for the past… seventy fucking years.

What is he supposed to do with that?

Perhaps not leave the door open and your shit outside, Barnes.

Yeah. That would be a good start.

He walks back to the doorway and grabs his bag, pulling in his belongings. Some clothes, some toiletries, some meds, shit to take care of his arm. And one stupid postcard from that awful Smithsonian exhibit about Steve.

He shuts the door behind him, the noise echoes down the empty corridor and he sighs heavily. This… is going to be annoying.

The house seems to have been cleared of everything: the caches of money and weapons hidden behind walls, files and paperwork… Bodies. He’s never going into that fucking basement.

All he has to do now is… get settled, and wait for his next call. Perhaps the files will lead them to more safehouses, more Hydra cells waiting in the corners of the world.

It’s been ten years since Hydra revealed itself, a little less since its last leaders fell. But they’re still somehow… there. Acting on no one’s orders, following their own ideologies, usually nothing more than small white supremacist groups. Neo nazis.

Because the nazis, like Hydra, don’t seem to ever want to fucking die.

It’s 2023, and Bucky was really hoping he wouldn’t be still fighting the same fucking assholes.

Perhaps he’s stuck forever fighting the same enemy. Perhaps that’s his punishment for what he did. It feels almost mythological. Like Sisyphus pushing up that boulder, except it’s him punching Nazis into the ground with a metal arm.

Except he lives in a Hydra safehouse that used to be a Jewish home, and isn’t that fucking poetic? It’s not like he’s trying to reclaim his own identity from Hydra’s claws or anything.

Putting his things into cabinets doesn’t take long, and he ends up standing in the middle of the living room after a moment. There’s only one armchair and one chair, no table, a tv… And the open kitchen.

The outside of the house is nice, but the inside isn’t supposed to be the most pleasant, he guesses.

So… what next? Putting on tv and trying to get some shut-eye before his next call? It’s not late, only just past noon. There’s so much time ahead before he’s supposed to try to rest.

He sits down in the armchair, surveilling his surroundings. He needs weapons. He assumes the army took every single one they found. He has a couple of knives, but perhaps he should try and hide some guns around. Just in case.

He’d only just gotten used to the motel rooms they had him stay in. His trial was a month ago. And it’s been a month of back to back Hydra shit, interspersed with therapy sessions, and those motel rooms…

How is he supposed to know what a home is supposed to feel like? His place in Romania, when he was trying to piece his mind back together, had also been a safehouse, and he’d been a fugitive. That didn’t leave much space for interior design. The last home he had was his parents’ house. With the radio always on -- because Deborah would never turn it off -- with the smell of food, and his mother’s voice… With the bookcase filled with everyone’s siddurim and the chumashim, and the haggadot and all these beautiful, beautiful books. With the mezuzot on the doorposts.

Perhaps… perhaps it’s time this house gets to be a home again.

He’s not a good enough Jew for it. He’s barely a Jew at all. His dog tags are carved with P and not H, his magen david is long lost in the Italian mud, he’s spent the last seventy years scrubbed off anything Jewish about himself and acting as a Nazi gun.

But perhaps… this house has been desecrated too. It’s been robbed and sundered. And perhaps, he’s just the right Jew for this? Probably not. What he’s done can never be forgiven. What he’s done… who he is…

He closes his eyes for a moment. It can’t hurt, right?

He pulls himself up from the armchair, grabs his wallet and walks out. His left hand is hidden under his glove. No one will know.

He walks out of that house with the quiet promise that he’s coming back.

Bucky’s steps take him towards 13th Avenue, towards where the old shops used to be, back when he was a smart-mouthed kid.

Borough Park is even more Orthodox now, it seems. Hasidim, perhaps. He doesn’t know. His Hebrew school days are so fucking far from him, and trying to think about those kinds of details make headaches bloom under his skull.

He makes it to a store that looks small and mostly empty and takes a deep, deep shuddering breath.

It goes… fine. The cashier seems a little surprised, but he gets what he’s coming for. Six mezuzot cases and the scrolls to go with them. He has to buy the nails and the hammer to affix them, but… they rest heavy in the plastic bag he carries in his hand. They feel… heavier than they actually are.

The cashier slid him an extra piece of paper on the way out, with words in Hebrew on it. Except it’s been… seventy years and he can’t read Hebrew anymore.

He remembers there should be a specific blessing for affixing mezuzot, but again, his memories of the words are blurry and aching and he ends up googling it on his phone on the way home, once he has the nails and the hammer.

Once he’s standing at the doorpost with his hammer, nails and mezuzah, he stops.

One of his hands is metal and he… he doesn’t know how to feel about holding those precious objects with that hand. That hand of destruction and pain. So it’s either… he holds the case with the metal hand and hammers with the flesh one, or the other way around and he doesn’t know which one is right.

Probably neither.

This is never going to be perfect. His tongue will butcher the words of the blessing no matter how many times he repeats them. But he’s promised he would make this house a home again and this.. This is the way to do it.

So he does it. Metal hand holding the case and flesh one hammering.

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu likboa m’zuzah.

He butchers that language and those words, but it feels.. It feels better than a lot of the things he’s done lately.

He’s precise with his strikes, and it doesn’t take long for all the doorposts of the house, except the bathrooms ones and the basement one, have a mezuzah affixed to them.

The cases themselves are a far cry from the ones he remembers, but it’s… it’s fine. It’s good. It’s enough .

Something settles inside of him. He’s going to have so many nightmares while sleeping under this roof, he’s going to struggle and hate everything, but he’s going to be safe. And the house is going to be a home again.

#bucky barnes #tfatws #jewish bucky barnes #fic #mine

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inkandpen22 · 3 years

Text

Beautiful Angel of Darkness (5/?)

Pairing: Spike x Female!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of cheating

Word Count: 2.2k

Part Summary: Since Angel implemented the seed of doubt in Y/N’s mind, she’s been struggling with trusting Spike again.

A/N: sorry it took me forever to post this part today. It was was my first day of classes. I hope you like it!

“I don’t like it when things are okay,” I confess to Angel vulnerably. “It means something bad is just around the corner. An impending doom...”

He shakes his head slowly. "Not with me, Y/N I’ll protect you.”

The words fall from his lips softly in a promise.

"And why should I trust you?" I mutter.

I mean, why should I trust someone who comes at the beck and call of the Slayer? He could be lying for all I know.

"Because I'm not the one who made you choose death to be with me," he reasons, his eyes flickering to Spike behind me.

I glance back at Spike and his attention leaves Angel to be directed at me. It’s ironic, I’m undead and surrounded by two vampires yet, I’ve never felt more human. I'm utterly torn. A piece of me screaming to stop acting foolish and trust in Angel. There was a time when I exited through my humanity. When I had better judgment. Then, I met Spike, and my entire center of gravity shifted.

He became the sun and the moon to me, my entire world. I made a vow to him. I swore my love and life to him forever, and in return, he swore his to me.

I feel more myself than I have in several days. I allowed myself to slip into the darkness that comes with being soulless. Angel's ultimatum pulled me out of it. He offers me the chance to be with my family and a second chance at a somewhat normal life. Yet, I would have to give up the life I have now, Spike. My humanity or Spike.

I turn back to Angel.

His gaze is sharp, determined, and righteous. They're perceptions I don't feel when I look into Spike's eyes. When I look at Angel, I feel as though I'm in the presence of a guardian or mentor. As if I'm under a microscope of judgment.

When I look at Spike, an immense peace blesses my entirety. Many feel that way when they're faced with Angel ironically. The same people overlook the good in Spike. They accept the overt humility of Angel and ignore the Angelus that lives within him still. Then, declare him the more gracious of the two. I see beneath the superficial and see the humanity in Spike. The humility he claims doesn't exist. Spike has the ability to love soullessly. If I were to ask Angel, can he honestly tell me that he can do the same? Because at the end of the day isn't that the core of humanity, love?

I've made my decision.

"I choose him," I inform Angel.

"Y/N, you can't-"

"I will always choose him," I emphasize.

Angel clenches his jaw. "He isn't who he says he is, I can guarantee you! He seems great now, but someday and someday soon, he's going to hurt you! He's going to destroy everything you care about until there's nothing left and then he's going to desert you! You may choose him, but he'll never choose you!"

Spike interjects, wrapping his hand around mine. "Y/N, Love, let's just-"

"He does choose me, every day!" I defend.

"Love," Spike voices pleadingly, trying to get me to go.

"However," I tell Angel. "If you're right and one day he decides he's had enough, I'll accept it. I will hold no resentment or regret because even then, I will still choose him."

The older vampire sighs, "you don't know what kind of mistake you're making."

"Best of luck to you, Angel," I offer him a weak smile before turning around to walk away.

I pass Spike, not acknowledging him as I walk toward the ledge of the building and hop off the side. Strolling down the dimly lit alley, I head home.

"Y/N wait," Spike jogs after me. He runs ahead of me and blocks my path.

"Did you mean it? Everything you said back there, did you mean it?"

"Every word," I answer softly.

Calmly, I step around Spike and continue on my way. He grabs my wrist and makes me stop in my tracks. With a sigh, I glance over my shoulder at the bleached hair vamp. His eyes are narrow as they gaze at me with a crossed expression.

"I love you, you know that don't you? I'll never leave you,"

A weak smile forms on my lips again. "I know you love me right now, yes."

He shakes his head frantically, using his other hand to reach up and caress my face. "No, I'll love you forever! I'll never desert you."

"Oh, Sweetheart," I brush my palm over his cheek gently. "I know you mean that, but I also know you. Perhaps, better than you know yourself," I laugh breathlessly, suspecting I'm right.

He stares into my eyes with hurt, yet there's something else beneath them, guilt?

I nod, almost to tell him it's okay. "I look into your eyes and I see you, all of you. You mean everything you say wholeheartedly, but none of us can be certain of what might happen. We love each other today, that's all that matters."

______________________________

As the moon shines over the cemetery, I stroll home from the butcher after picking up some blood bags. Spike prefers his blood fresh, of course. Yet, after the other night with Angel, I find myself feeling guilty after feeding. Since then, I've been buying blood bags.

It's strange, the humanity that I thought had left me after I was turned has returned in specks. I haven't mentioned my change of heart to Spike, he'd be furious and claim that it's all in my head. He wants me to be who I was before Angel got in my head. He wants me to be this vengeful, cruel, entity. He wants me to give up every part of me that holds onto remorse and sanity. Is it possible to have humility when I'm soulless?

"Y/N," a familiar voice interrupts my thoughts.

A figure appears from within the shadows, Angel.

I huff, marching along. "Go away, Angel."

Much to my annoyance, the vampire walks with me on the way back to the crypt. "I've come to tell you something."

"What?" I snicker. "That you have the martyr thing going? Yeah, kinda figured."

"No, I'm serious," he wraps his fingers around my arm aggressively. "There's something you have to know about Spike!"

"Believe me, I know quite a bit about him," I dismiss, yanking my arm free of him.

I'm mere yards from the crypt. The sooner I get there, the sooner I can get away from this self-righteous demon.

"Not this," Angel growls.

I whip around to address him sharply. "Can you truly tell me you know everything about him or would I have you beat?"

"He wouldn't tell you this," he states with immense certainty.

His tone nearly makes me waver, nearly, but I trust that Spike has my best interest at heart... for the time being.

"Whatever, I don't believe you," I rush out and start marching off.

"Fine, don't believe me! But, I would ask Spike where he is when he's not with you," he shouts his warning.

I stop and my chest falls. What does he by that? Where could Spike be right now? He told me he was going to go feed and would be home after.

Slowly, I turn over my shoulder. I'm certain I'm going to regret this, but I'll ask. "Where is he?"

Angel raises a brow, amused by my curiosity. "Oh, so now you're interested?"

Geez, he's so self-satisfied. Honestly, some vampires are so egotistical. They're worse than human men.

"I'm curious about what you think I should be looking out for," I specifically.

"Oh interesting," Angel glides up to me with a smug. He circles me as I did to him on the roof. I can't ignore the change in roles. "You don't trust him."

"I don't trust myself. Now, stop playing therapist and just tell me," I hiss between my teeth.

"He's with Buffy," he whispers over my shoulder.

I swallow hard, if I had a heart it would be sinking. No, he's lying.

I snap my head to the side. "Why would he be with the Slayer?"

"He helps her," he informs me lowly.

He's enjoying this too much.

"No, he wouldn't," I reason. "He hates her."

Angel appears in front of me again, his expression troubled again. I recognize this emotion on him, it's the only one he ever holds.

"She's changing him. I've seen it," he tells me.

"How...How could she ever-"

"Spike..." he hesitates. "Spike has a thing for her."

"A thing?" I repeat, my brows scrunching together in confusion. "What are we in middle school? Just say what you mean!"

I wish everyone would stop beating around the damn bush! We may have forever to live, but I'm growing tired of not just saying what we mean!

"He's in love with her!" Angel snaps.

I stare at him, processing his words silently for several seconds. Spike in love with the Slayer?

"Ha!" I laugh in Angel's face. "Yeah okay, sure," I dismiss, starting toward the crypt again. "If Spike loves the Slayer then I love the Slayer's friend. What's his name again? Xander?"

"I know it doesn't make any sense," Angel huffs as he continues to follow me. "Believe me, I didn't think it was true at first either, but then..." he pauses, visibly struggling to say it.

I frown, slowing to a stop right in front of the entrance to the crypt. "Then what?"

Angel avoids my gaze, focusing on the cement steps beneath our feet. I tuck my finger under his chin and make him face me. His dark eyes meet mine with surprise.

"What Angel?!" I bark.

"I saw him kiss her," he confesses with a sympathetic expression.

The grocery bag full of blood falls to the ground and scatter over the steps of the crypt. I shake my head repeatedly, stepping back to get away from him. He creeps up the stairs after me with sorrowful eyes.

"No..." I whisper, unable to speak any louder.

I stumble back into the crypt as I feel as though the world is crumbling around me. He's lying. Yes, that's just it, he's lying. He's lying, that's what he does, he lies.

Out of the peripheral vision, I see Angel enter the crypt and shut the doors behind him.

"Y/N, it's going to be okay," he tries to comfort me.

"You're lying!" I scream. "Stop lying to me!"

"Why would I lie?!" He hollers in defense.

"To get me to betray him!" I reason.

The voices in my head are yelling at me to believe him. I've felt it in my gut, the indecisiveness in Spike. I love him, I do, but does he love the same? To the same depth? He promised me forever, but does he really mean it?

I comb my fingers through my hair and tug at the roots. This is too much, it's all too much!

Angel tries to reason with me. "You made it pretty clear the other night that I wouldn't be able to change your mind unless there was a valid reason to leave Spike," he fires back. "so why would I waste my time conjuring up a scheme?!"

It's not true. It's not true. Please don't let it be true!

"You're a liar!" I repeat.

I wish he would just shut up! I have enough voices in my head, I don't need another one in real life yelling at me.

Angel grips my arms, shaking me slightly. "You're just a game, a toy, to him Y/N!"

His words hit home as they're the words I've repeated to myself over the last few days. Angel planted the seed of doubt in me and since then it's been festering.

"Ask him yourself!" He instructs, dropping his grip from me. "If he's who he says he is and he honestly loves you, he won't lie to you!"

Angel drops the bomb on me and disappears through the doors leading out to the cemetery. That's his whole deal, isn't it? He shows up, drops a bomb, and disappears. Except this deed doesn't save the day, it's making me question everything I thought I knew about this life.

I fall to my knees, distraught as everything comes to head. Tears fall from my eyes as a million questions race through my mind.

What if the man I thought I loved isn't who I thought he was? The crystal blue eyes I thought were filled with wonder are truly ice cold. I believed I saw an essence of humility and love in his body, but what if there's really emptiness? He only turned me to make me burn with him. I was tempted by the devil.

My tears cease as my breathing subsides. Blankly, my focus wonders to the wide open doors of the crypt.

This may be karma for feeding into evil, but Spike was the one who created me and he should know I wouldn’t go down without a fight. If what Angel's saying is true, I have to see it for myself. I have to go find him.

________________________________

Masterlist

Tags: @shy-ginger-in-the-graveyard @mx-pibbles @currently-obsesed-with-spike

#spike imagine #Spike x Buffy #spike fanfic #spuffy #spike #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy summers #buffy #btvs #btvs imagine #btvs imgaine #btvs fanfic

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masieofthevalley · 3 years

Text

All I Really Want is You (Spideypool) - Chapter Thirteen

Find the Masterlist for this fic here! Read this fic on AO3! Check out my Ko-Fi if you would like a commission!

Summary: “Who are you, the big bad wolf?” She snarked. She mentally congratulated herself that her voice hadn’t betrayed the fluttering in her gut.

“Why don’t you come a little closer and find out?”

Peter Parker is an exhausted and overworked student in her senior year of college. Sleep-deprived and running on coffee and fumes, Peter really just wants to get through this semester. On a rare coffee run to ensure that she doesn't fall asleep on patrol or in her textbooks again, she quite literally stumbles upon Deadpool. Try as she might, she just can't stay away from him, and along the way, she finds herself in the middle of a nefarious plot between HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D.

A/N: Hello, everyone! Today’s chapter is Chapter Thirteen: Accidentally in Love. This chapter is named after the song Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows.

I tried to look up a page of phrases you should say to order in Italian, but it didn’t go very well, so I’m very sorry about that. I used Google Translate when Wade was speaking with Italian, so please forgive me for that!

As always, there is a playlist for this fic, and you can find it on YouTube and Spotify. Spotify won’t play in order unless you have Spotify Premium. You don’t need to listen to it in order, but each chapter has a specific song associated with it. There is also a song associated with the entire fic, which is She Looks So Perfect by 5 Seconds of Summer.

This chapter does include NSFW content, and it’s toward the end of the chapter!

If you liked this chapter, like, share, and reblog, and please leave comments! They make my day, and I will gladly respond. You can also head over to my AO3 and comment there, and I will also respond there! Enjoy!

Chapter Thirteen: Accidentally in Love

Chapter Summary: Peter and Wade’s date ends in a surprise visit to a skatepark, and Peter makes a startling revelation.

“Right this way, Bambi. Best seats in the house,” Wade proclaimed with a sweep of his arm, indicating that Peter should climb into the booth. They were at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant; Peter wasn’t sure how far away they were from Sister Margaret’s because she had been distracted during their walk by the chatter coming out of Wade’s mouth, but it couldn’t have been that far from the bar. There were two tiny windows on either side of the restaurant’s door, but they were blacked out, creating a suspicious-looking building, at least from the outside. Until the moment they had walked in the door, Peter was worried that Wade had taken them to the wrong place. But, no, they were in the smallest restaurant that Peter had ever been in, and it was very warm and smelled like garlic and parmesan cheese.

Peter climbed into the booth and put her coat down beside her. Compared to the frigid temperatures outside, the restaurant was a tropical paradise. Wade showed no sign of discomfort from the heat, however, as he sat down opposite her on the other side of the table. Peter noted that not only had he chosen the only table in a corner, but he had also sat on the side of the table that would grant him the view of the entire restaurant. She wondered if that was leftover ingrained training from his time in the Special Forces, or maybe it was a part of his mercenary training instead? Knowing the layout of a room seemed like an essential skill for someone with Wade’s job. Bad Peter, focus on Wade, not his job.

And like that, she was zeroing in on Wade, who was squirming around in his seat while looking at a handwritten menu made out of cardstock. Peter picked hers up, and after realizing that she couldn’t read any of it but the names of a few types of noodles since it was written in Italian, she quickly set it back down. Wade perked his head up, and his mask raised an eyebrow.

“Need some help there, Bambi?” Peter shook her head and played with one of the napkins that were on the table. Her cheeks still had yet to recover from their almost kiss back at Sister Margaret’s, and the heat in the restaurant was doing nothing to calm the redness in her face.

“Order anything you want, Baby Girl. Tonight’s on me,” Wade cheerfully announced, setting his menu down too.

“I have money, Wade. I can pay for me if not both of us,” Peter argued, frowning at him. Irritatingly, Wade just laughed in response.

“No can do, Baby Girl. If I let you pay, you’d be bankrupt into next year. You don’t know how much pasta I can put away yet, but you will pretty soon,” Wade chuckled, mimicking wiping a tear away from his eye lenses. Peter scowled; it seemed that Wade didn’t know exactly how much pasta she could put away either.

“I mean it, I just got paid. I’m good!” Peter promised, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Wade stopped laughing and tilted his head. Not for the first time, Peter wondered what he was thinking.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Honey, or offend you,” Wade said softly, one hand coming up and across the table to cup Peter’s cheek. She desperately wanted to lean into it, to feel his fingers tangle in her hair, but she also wanted to stand her ground.

“I’ve just got a lot of money laying around that I never spend, and I’d rather you spend your paycheck on things you actually need like groceries or something. And I eat a lot, Sweetheart, I’m afraid I’d put you out on the street,” Wade continued, his thumb running back and forth over Peter’s cheek. It was so close to her bottom lip, she could almost taste the leather.

“I know you make a lot of money, it’s just, I can take care of myself too,” Peter muttered, wholly distracted by Wade’s hand. He pulled it away, setting it down on the table between them, and Peter had to restrain herself from letting loose the most desperate whimper known to man. However, she must have done a horrible job at disguising her desires because Wade barked out a laugh.

“Fine, you brat, here, take it back,” Wade conceded quietly, settling his hand back on Peter’s cheek. Peter allowed herself one sigh, and she held onto Wade’s hand for a few seconds with her own before she put both of them down on the table. Sheepishly, she looked back up at Wade. The smile stretching his mask was blinding.

“I’m not denying you can take care of yourself, Peter,” Wade finally said, rapping the knuckles of his free hand on the table. “But I did pick the restaurant after all, and I’d just like to spoil you a little. Let me? Next time, you can pay, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!”

“M’not sure that’s how that goes,” Peter shook her head with a small smile before straightening as she realized what Wade had said. “Next time?”

“Well, if tonight goes well, which so far, it is,” Wade smirks with a pointed look at their clasped hands. Peter’s blush burned brighter. “I’d like there to be a ‘next time,’ Bambi.”

“Me too,” Peter confessed, her voice barely audible. Their quiet moment was interrupted by a waitress coming up to their table. They had been talking while they waited for at least half an hour, but the restaurant was completely full.

“Cosa vorrebbe ordinare?” she asked, leaning her hip against the table. Peter, now feeling self-conscious, hastily tried to let go of Wade’s hand, but his grip was steel tight, and he refused to let her go.

“Una grande ciotola di spaghetti per favore,” Wade said confidently, and Peter was pretty sure he butchered every word of that sentence. It sounded like Wade had just spoken directly from Google Translate. Like she agreed with Peter’s thoughts, the waitress rolled her eyes and turned to Peter, raising an eyebrow as she waited for him to speak.

“Grande lasagna,” Peter said with a straight face, knowing good, damn, and well that she sounded like an American tourist. It looked like the waitress was fighting a grin, but she just nodded with another roll of her eyes and left. She came back almost immediately with two cups of water and plopped those on the table.

“Where’d you learn Italian?” Peter asked Wade as she drained half of her glass, suddenly nervous that she was left alone with him again. What the fuck was wrong with her?

“Google Translate,” Wade deadpanned, and Peter nearly choked on her drink. She coughed a few times and took one more sip before putting her cup down.

“No wonder it sounded so bad,” Peter snarked. “I never said Italian was my specialty, you brat,” Wade squawked, “I took Spanish in high school, if you must know.”

“Oh, so what can you say in Spanish?” Peter played along, eyebrows raised in questioning.

“¿Donde esta la biblioteca?” Deadpool asked with a shit-eating grin on his mask. Peter burst into laughter, snatching her hand back so she could clutch at her stomach with both hands. Her face hurt from the smile stretched across her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she laughed this much.

“Holy shit, Petey-Pie, keep on smiling. Baby Girl, it’s gotta be the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Wade marveled, his own smile gentle and warm. Peter continued to giggle softly until her amusement was gone, leaving her with a pleasant and tender feeling in her chest.

“Oh, please teach me your ways, Professor Wilson,” Peter teased, batting her eyelashes coquettishly. Even though she wasn’t looking at Wade, Peter could feel that the air between them was stretched thin with tension.

“Oh, Baby Girl,” Wade growled, and Peter immediately felt her insides twist together in a knot. “There are so many things I’ll teach you, just you wait.”

Peter swallowed, and against her wishes, the smallest of whines left her throat. Wade closed his eyes in what looked like restraint and groaned quietly, shifting in his seat. Before either one of them could say another word, their waitress was back, sliding large pasta bowls in front of each of them. The smell of fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella broke through the fog covering Peter’s brain, and her stomach gurgled.

“Grazie!” Wade chirped, tucking a napkin into the neck of his suit. The waitress rolled her eyes with a laugh and a smile in Peter’s direction before walking off again.

Peter grabbed her fork and dug into her plate. She moaned at the first bite; it was the first proper meal that she’d had in weeks. Her paychecks had been small the last few months; Triple J hadn’t been giving her nearly as many assignments as usual, and that meant ramen noodles for every meal except breakfast. Breakfast was always one cup of - usually, instant - scalding hot coffee with entirely too much sugar. God, she hadn’t even had Starbucks since that first week after she met Wade. What she wouldn’t give for another cappuccino.

Peter looked up, trying to distance herself from her longing thoughts of Starbucks, and noticed that Wade hadn’t started eating yet. His mask still covered his entire face, and he appeared to be making no effort to remove it.

“Wade? Aren’t you hungry?” Peter asked, wiping away the sauce that was probably all over her mouth. She tilted her head to the side as the expression on Wade’s mask remained the same.

“No, you go ahead, Baby Girl, I’m fine,” Wade said, his voice almost sounding authentic, but Peter knew better. She could hear the false notes in his tone, and his posture was too stiff to be relaxed.

“Look, if it’s the mask, it’s no big deal, it’s fine, really!” Peter promised, her hands gripping onto the edge of the table. Wade shook his head.

“No, Honey, honest, just go ahead and eat-”

“Look, I’ll put on my beanie.” Peter stuck her hand in her coat pocket, grateful that she had brought her hat after all. “And I’ll just keep my eyes down, and you can just eat like normal, it’ll be fine!”

“God, I do not deserve any of this, don’t deserve you,” Wade whispered, and if Peter hadn’t had gotten enhanced hearing from the Spider Bite™, she never would have heard it.

“Keep your hat off, Sweetheart. You shouldn’t have to cover up your lovely face just so my ugly mug can eat. Just don’t want you to lose your appetite is all,” Wade insisted, putting a hand over Peter’s. She cautiously dropped it onto the table with a raised eyebrow and looked down at her food anyway when Wade started to roll up his mask.

“You can look. Just make sure you lean over when you blow chunks,” Wade muttered, and he picked up his fork and started to poke around at his spaghetti. Peter looked up in a cursory glance, and her next bite of lasagna never made it into her mouth. Instead, her hand stopped dead in its tracks and just kind of dangled there in front of her face.

Wade had only rolled his mask up to the bridge of his nose, but Peter could still tell that he was gorgeous. His jawline was sharper than it looked through his mask, and Peter wanted to cut herself on it and watch the blood drip down his neck. Wade’s skin was pale pink and covered and crisscrossed with scars that were just slightly darker in color, and each of them appeared to be different. There wasn’t any pattern or rhythm in them that Peter could make out. Wade’s nose was slim, and Peter’s eyes were finally drawn to his lips. They were full and flesh-colored, covered in the same scars that made up the rest of Wade’s skin, but Peter didn’t care. Peter’s mind went blank with want, the urge to kiss Wade so strong and present, and she had to restrain herself from crawling across the table and plopping herself down in his lap.

“Well, you don’t look like you’re going to projective vomit everywhere,” Wade commented, shoving another bite of spaghetti in his mouth. He was eating at a pace that rivaled Peter’s, and the only thing that made Peter even slightly squeamish was the fact that he had talked with his mouth full.

“Huh?” Peter asked, still looking at Wade’s lips.

“Earth to Petey-Pie, I”m up here,” Wade said, chuckling a little at the end. He waved his hand a few times in front of Peter’s face, and she shook her head as she broke herself from her trance.

“M’sorry, didn’t mean to stare,” Peter muttered as she picked up her fork again. When had she dropped it? She managed to eat two more bites before the thoughts floating around in her head left her mouth.

“Just really pretty,” Peter whispered, cheeks burning hot. “Your lips are like wow, and your jaw is like woah, and your chin is really pretty and your dimples, s’nice.” God, she wished she could stop talking. Why couldn’t she stop talking? She used to do this shit with Gwen too, and she would just laugh and kiss Peter to shut her up. Would Wade do that? She wanted him to do that.

“You are just a dream come true, Baby Girl. Never gonna let you go,” Wade murmured, a soft look coming over his face. His face was so much more expressive - how was that even possible? - without his mask, and Peter nearly swooned. She bit back her response, hiding it under her tongue. Even though his comment had been a little extreme, especially for a first date, Peter had a feeling that “Yes, please,” wasn’t the right response. At least, not yet.

They made idle chit-chat through the rest of their meal, and Peter was extremely pleased that Wade didn’t roll his mask back down when they finished. While getting ready to leave, Wade asked what was wrong, and Peter was forced to own up to the grumpy expression on her face.

“Don’t wanna go home yet,” Peter confessed, tugging on the ends of her coat. A big smile coated with mischief crossed Wade’s face.

“I know just the place, Sweetheart,” he said, scooping up her skateboard from the floor. He offered it to her, and she carried it out of the restaurant in her freehand.

Full and content, Peter left the restaurant, happy to let Wade guide them to wherever he had decided they needed to go. They walked for about fifteen minutes, going up one street, across another, and then making a left onto one final street. Their destination appeared to be a skatepark, and at almost 11 PM at the end of October, it was entirely empty.

“Figured you could skate off dinner if you wanted,” Wade said with a shrug, nodding his head to Peter’s board. “Y’know, ‘he was a skater boy, she said see you later boy,’ and all that shit.”

Peter laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s cool with me. You want me to show you a few tricks?”

“If you want,” Wade agreed, leading them into the abandoned skatepark. Once inside, he fell back, so Peter took the reigns to guide them further into the park. She’d been here once or twice before, so she took him over to one of the half-pipes and gestured that he should sit. Peter shrugged out of her coat, much to Wade’s protests, and she threw it at him with a grin over her shoulder.

“Keep it warm for me!” She shouted as she took off down the half-pipe. The coat was too thick to skate with comfortably, and she’d get too hot too quickly to have any kind of fun. When she looked back at Wade, he was snuggled up beneath the fabric, and she laughed. It looked like doll clothes spread out over his lap like that.

“Yeah, keep laughing, Short-Stuff! I’ve got the best view in the house right here lookin’ at you, Honey-Buns!” She was wondering when Wade was going to make his first ass comment of the night.

Peter spent a few moments getting her momentum, just going up and down on the half-pipe. She hadn’t been to a skatepark in a while, and she was a little rusty as far as tricks went. She did a few basic ones for Wade, pausing between each one to smile at his clapping and cheering before moving on to some of the more complicated ones. She skated around the park a few times before making her way back to Wade. She set her board down gently in front of her.

“How’d I do?” she asked, shaking her fringe out of her face. Wade stood up with a leer, and Peter gulped. Wade moved toward her, and she backed up, matching him step for step. He moved gracefully, like a predator, and Peter’s blood started to race as she realized that this was the first time since she became Spider-Woman that she was the hunted instead of the hunter. She liked it, liked feeling like prey when it was Wade who was the predator.

“It’s a 10 from me, Sweetheart,” Wade crooned, stepping even closer. Peter looked from side to side, trying to figure out if there was somewhere for her to go. She took a few steps to the right, and Wade matched her pace, pushing himself even closer. She had a thought of making a break for it, Wade chasing after her, his hot breath panting down her neck. That made her insides warm even further. She’d save that for another day.

“Did you like performing for me, Bambi?” Wade asked, pressing himself flush against Peter. Her back was pushed up against the chain-link fence, and Peter tangled her fingers in the links on either side of her, trying to resist from reaching out and touching Wade.

“Asked you a question,” he reminded, gently, his voice firm but still warm. Peter opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out. She just nodded, her body on fire from Wade’s touch.

“Saw you looking to the side, looking around like you were gonna run, Petey-Pie,” Wade continued, running his nose down the side of Peter’s face. She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed at the feeling of his skin just barely brushing against hers.

“You wanna run, Baby? Want me to chase after you?” Wade’s lips were at Peter’s ear, and she shivered, the metal from the fence digging into her fingers. One of Wade’s hands reached out and gently grasped onto her hands one at a time, freeing them from the cold fence. He gathered them both in his hand and held them against his chest, letting go when Peter tangled her fingers in the straps of his suit.

“You’d like it, running around with nowhere to go,” Wade whispered, licking a wet, hot stripe up Peter’s neck. It contrasted with the biting cold of the wind, and the whimper that left Peter’s throat was strangled and torn apart. She couldn’t remember ever making a noise that sounded like that.

“You might be fast, Bunny, but I’m faster,” Wade suddenly growled, biting down at the junction between Peter’s neck and shoulder. She cried out, head falling back against the fence. It bent beneath her weight, but she didn’t care.

“Please, Wade, please, please,” she begged, but she didn’t know what she was begging for. She wanted to kiss him, she wanted to bite him, she wanted to touch him.

“M’here, Sweetheart, I have you,” Wade assured her, his lips caressing her jaw. She whined. His mouth was so close and yet so far from where she wanted it.

“Mm, please? Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Peter gasped when Wade’s kisses turned sharp and biting on her neck, sucking so hard it was bound to bruise. Good, she wanted the marks, wanted the reminder when she looked in the mirror.

“Gotcha, Honey, I gotcha, don’t worry,” Wade murmured, bringing his lips up to Peter’s. Much to her displeasure, he didn’t immediately kiss her. Peter whined as he brushed their lips together. He was tall, Wade was so tall, so when Peter tried to rise up on her toes to chase after him, he easily broke apart from her. He waited until she settled back against the fence, and then he was on her again, body pressed against hers as close as possible. Peter arched her back and whimpered, trying to press closer, trying to get his mouth back on hers.

“Spoiled, spoiled, little Petey-Pie,” Wade chuckled, taking his lips away again. Peter growled in irritation; he was just being mean now, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

“You’re being mean!” she snarled, pulling down on the straps of his suit so that he was leaning over her again. Wade smirked and held himself just a few inches out of reach, and Peter stretched up on the balls of her feet while simultaneously pulling Wade toward her. Finally, he was within reach, and she bit down on the free, beautiful skin of his neck. It wasn’t gentle.

“Fuck! That hurt, you brat!” Wade growled playfully, caging Peter in against the fence. She bared her teeth at him right back, and even though she couldn’t see something in his eyes, she swore she could see something change in them. Before she could try to think about what that something could be, Wade finally kissed her.

Peter had only kissed approximately three people in her entire life: Mary Jane, Harry Osbon, and Gwen. She and Mary Jane had ended long ago, as had her and Harry, so her last experiences with anyone had been with Gwen. Gwen had been sweet and gentle, and the furthest they had gone was the furthest Peter had ever gone with anyone: exploring each other’s tonsils and playing footsie under the table. Gwen was sweet and warm and gentle, and Peter would never, ever forget her.

But this, Wade, was hot and harsh and unyielding. It was everything that Peter had ever wanted but had never been able to have. Wade’s mouth was rough, skin uneven from the scars that she had longed to taste, but he tasted of marinara sauce and home. He tasted like hope and electricity.

Peter didn’t have a good track record with relationships, with keeping people, but her heart whispered Wade’s name over and over again as they kissed, and she thought maybe this time, maybe she could keep this one, this time.

Peter wrenched her head back with a gasp, unhappy to part from Wade but needing to breathe. He seemed inclined to agree as his mouth just moved to her jaw, sucking what she was sure was going to be another bruise in a few hours. Peter fell into a fit of soft whimpers, trying to get him to suck, bite, harder. Any marks that Wade made would just disappear before tomorrow, and she wanted them to remain as long as possible, so she could remind herself tomorrow that this was real, that Wade was real.

“Have you ever done this kind of thing before, Baby Girl?” Wade murmured against her skin, lips moving back up to her own. She caught his hand before it could tangle in her hair, and she tapped on his glove in a questioning manner, hoping he would get the memo and take them off. She wanted to feel his hands on her skin, needed the relief that skin-to-skin contact would bring.

“N-not really, no,” Peter whispered, surging upwards to kiss Wade again. “Want this, want you.”

“Are you sure, Sweetheart? You tell me to stop, we stop. Push me away now, tell me red, tell me anything but yes, and I’ll stop right now. We can just go home, and it’ll be fine,” Wade said firmly, lips gently resting against hers. Peter nodded and whined.

“Yes, I want you, Wade. Yes, please, yes-” Peter’s cries were cut off as Wade took her lips in another kiss. She didn’t think she was a very good kisser, and she didn’t really know what she was doing, but she mostly just tried to copy what Wade was doing. Tentatively, she slid her tongue along his, darting back into the safety of her own mouth when he chased after her. Peter whimpered at the taste of Wade, sharp, salty, almost metallic, and Wade growled in response, pressing her back against the fence. It bent further, but neither of them seemed to care.

“Gonna take care of you, Sweetheart, don’t you worry,” Wade promised, sliding one hand up her stomach and under her shirt toward her breasts. Peter groaned as he reached her bra, hand slipping underneath to stroke and gently pinch her nipples. Her body was on fire, and she was on edge, suddenly rocking forward against Wade’s thigh. He moaned, his voice muffled from where his head was pressed against her shoulder, and shoved his thick leg between hers, tensing as she squeezed her thighs on either side of his leg. Wade was so much, shoulders so wide and muscles so big, that Peter felt dainty and small in his arms even though she knew that they probably weighed around the same amount. Her legs would dwarf a normal person’s, but Wade’s, full of thick, corded muscle, gave her a run for her money. She arched her back again and ground against Wade’s thigh, letting him know just how much she appreciated his size.

“So big,” Peter gasped out, head falling back as Wade continued to toy with her nipples. It was like he knew exactly where to touch her, exactly where to pull and push. He pinched one of nipples and flicked the other one, earning himself a high-pitched whine of his name. His other hand tangled in Peter’s hair, pulling her toward him, and Peter bit his lip when he kissed her again. That earned her a growl.

“S’good, fuck, right there, Wade! So right, want you, more, please?” Peter begged. Wade obliged her, and Peter lost all of the air in her lungs when his hand slipped in her pants. Peter cried out as Wade’s fingers swiped against her, warm, thick fingers moving quickly over her underwear.

“Christ, you’re fucking soaking wet, Baby Girl,” Wade groaned, nosing at her temple. Peter cried out as his fingers moved faster, circling her clit. “This all for me, Honey?”

“Just you, Wade.” Peter could barely breathe. “More, more, please, fuck, right there.”

“The mouth on you, little Bunny,” Wade growled, his voice sounding more animalistic than before. His body was tense and firm against hers, and Peter couldn’t help humping against his leg and fingers. It felt good, too good, she never wanted this to stop, oh why hadn’t they done this sooner, it was so good.

“Almost there, Petey-Pie? Gonna be a good girl and come for me, hmm?” Wade’s voice was feral, and Peter could feel his interest, hot and hard against her hip. He ground his hips against her, moving his fingers across her clit and nipples in a rhythm that Peter couldn’t follow.

“Please, please, can I, Wade, more, please,” Peter begged, catching Wade’s lips. “Please, let me, c’mon, wanna come, wanna come on your fingers, please, please.”

“Be good and come for me, Sweetheart, c’mon, c’mon, Baby Girl. Come for me,” Wade urged, fingers moving at the same pace, and Peter had no choice but to obey.

Peter’s body shivered and locked up as she fell over the edge. As she came and collapsed against Wade’s chest, she felt like she was laying outside on the grass on a summer day. She could feel the warm, comforting rays of the sun on her skin, and her whole body tingled from the pleasure coursing through her veins. She vaguely realized that Wade’s fingers hadn’t stopped moving on her body, and she shivered as the direct stimulation on her clit became too much. Usually, when she used either her hands or the toys in her bedside drawer, she stopped touching herself almost immediately after her orgasm. She was almost always too sensitive for another orgasm immediately, and her hands would fly away from herself as she fell over the peak. Wade, however, continued to touch her until she squirmed and whined and begged him not to.

“Too much, too much, Wade,” Peter panted, even as she continued to rock her hips against him. Wade, she realized, was panting too, and he slowly stopped moving his hands over her body, slipping them from beneath her clothes. Peter tried to straighten up, but her knees were weak, so she continued to slump against Wade as she righted her clothing. Wade chuckled and kissed her, lips moving almost lazily against hers now.

“So good, Baby Girl, so sweet, absolutely perfect,” Wade said, his voice almost a purr from how low it was.

“Was it good for you? It was, oh my god, it was absolutely perfect for me, but, you, was it good for you?” she asked, suddenly worried because she hadn’t touched him at all. God, she still wanted to touch him. “Did you, ya know.” God, the gesture she was making toward his dick was so stupid. “Oh, did I,” Wade laughed, pulling Peter against him with a soft groan. “I came when you did, Sweetheart. That look on your face when you came will haunt all of my wet dreams for eternity. It’s enough spank bank material to last me until I’m old and gray.”

“Wade!” Peter laughed, hitting his chest playfully. Wade joined in her laughter, and they rested against each other and the fence, a soft smile on Peter’s lips as she waited for her heart rate to calm back down.

And right there in a vacant skatepark, just a few minutes past midnight, Peter realized she was in love. Oh, fuck.

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dignityneeded · 4 years

Text

young forever

not-summary: eight dollar pineapple beers and an empty bar with benny.

pairing: benny miller x reader

warnings: uhhhhh, heavy sexual references??? and maybe some language?? so yeah, 18+

(GIF IS NOT MINE!!!! please let me know if it’s yours! it’s been on my laptop for far too long and i don’t know where it comes from.)

Small, drunken giggles erupted out of the corner booth in the quaint bar. The two of you were pretty much the only ones left, as normal people don’t stay in sports bars for hours after the late game ends. You fumbled with one of the coasters that rested on the glossy, wooden table, the coaster soaked from the sheer number of drinks that you’ve had since you arrived. Ben attempted to tell you some half-thought-out joke he thought of while he was training earlier that week, only for him to slur the punchline together and burst out laughing. Of course, you followed suit, and you both almost knocked over your drinks in your drunken laughter.

“You know how pretty you look when you’re laughing?” Ben managed to get out in between laughs.

“How pretty, Ben?” you said, taking one more swig of your beer.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he started while he leaned towards your face with a shit-eating grin, “That’s why I asked you, baby.”

You couldn’t even laugh at your drunk boyfriend before he started endlessly pecking at your lips. One of Benny’s friends from high school owned the bar you had chosen for the night, so he had no problem getting handsy in the corner booth with him. Not like he usually had a problem with marking you up in public, anyways. Ben would never tell his friend, but as far as he could remember, he’s fingered you in this same booth twice before tonight.

“Benny, no!” you muttered into his lips. You placed a gentle hand on his jaw with both hands to give him a playfully push him away from you. Normally would’ve gone along with anything Ben would’ve asked you, but soreness in a specific spot cleared your head for a few moments.

“Aw, baby. Why not?” he groaned, opting to place sloppy, wet kisses on your neck instead. By now, your neck was covered in hints of his saliva and bruises that probably won’t form for a few more minutes.

“‘Cause you know how hard it is to get you into a cab when your lips are attached to me.”

“Didn’t stop you last time.”

“I- Benny!” you started giggling once his teeth started nipping at your bra strap. “Benny, I’m...serious.”

“Is that the best excuse you could come up with?” he said, giving you a not-so-healthy mixture of kisses and bites in between every word. “I’ve watched you wince every time you sat down today.”

“And that’s exactly why I can’t do this today.”

His blue eyes met yours, making a silent plead once you locked eyes. After seeing the serious look in your eyes, and feeling your head tilt, he pecked your sweet spot and retreated back to his side of the booth. Ben hummed along to the song that was softly playing from the speaking that was mounted directly over his head. Ben could be an absolutely clueless ass sometimes, but he always listened and backed off when you asked him to.

Not a minute later, Ben reached out for his beer, only to discover it was empty. He looked at you, and grabbed your beer, also empty, after you nodded.

“Thank you!” you called out to him, mindlessly referencing both of his actions in the last thirty seconds.

Honestly, you had no idea why you ended up here. Your entire relationship with Ben was an adventure, almost like being dragged through Disney World by a small child. You wouldn’t trade it for the world, though, which is probably why you ended up getting into the car with him after he barrelled through your front door saying something about six dollar pineapple beers.

Ben walked back over, setting your new beers on the coasters you had been using since you sat down. He leaned over, his large hands finding your knees, and pressed his lips to yours. His hands didn’t move from their position, giving you ample time to focus on the taste of pineapple, alcohol, and bubblegum on his lips. You both pulled away from the kiss, breathless, and sat there, eyes closed.

“Let me do somethin’ for you,” Ben said, stretching his long arms over his head, exposing his belt buckle and a thin strip of his toned stomach.

“Something? Like what?” you asked him, cocking an eyebrow at his sudden insistence.

“Now, now, I already know my baby’s sore. I’m talkin’ about somethin’ else.” he placed one of his hands underneath your chin, gently tilting your head to look up at him. You rolled your eyes and nodded, letting out a giggle when he smiled and shuffled his feet at your answer. He turned around and raced toward the bar, only popping his head out and beckoning for you after he realized you weren’t following him. You grabbed your beers and coaster, before finding the table the Ben was excitedly pointing at.

As you watched your boyfriend fumble with some contraption behind the bar, the best and worst case scenarios raced through your head. You didn’t entertain them, though, as you knew a drunk Benny couldn’t pull off either. The soft music playing from the speakers stopped, and Ben looked up at you with a microphone in one of his hands and the biggest smile you’ve ever seen plastered across his face. A familiar beat began playing as he vaulted over the bartop.

You think I'm pretty

Without any make-up on

You think I'm funny

When I tell the punchline wrong

I know you get me

So I'll let my walls come down, down

Ben took slow steps toward you, trying and succeeding to use his smooth voice to woo you. His gorgeous voice was much too deep for the song, but that didn’t stop him from hitting every note he possibly could, somehow still sounding good. Even alcohol and a song that was way out of his vocal range couldn’t stop him from sounding good.

Before you met me

I was alright

But things were kinda heavy

You brought me to life

Now every February

You'll be my valentine, valentine

Too bad his dance moves didn’t match his velvety voice. The man could sing, but whatever he was doing with his body could never be classified as dancing in any region. Still, he continued to “dance” around you, stopping periodically to reach out and caress your face with the hand that wasn’t holding his microphone. He continued to move his limbs somewhat rhythmically, never taking his eyes off of you. A clear look of adoration filled his eyes as he sang to you. Never in your life had you thought you’d end up here: your boyfriend drunkenly singing along to a Katy Perry song for you. But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Let's go all the way tonight

No regrets, just love

We can dance until we die

You and I

We'll be young forever

Your boyfriend grabbed your hand for this part, the smile never leaving his face as he sang. He started to take a few steps backward, his butt eventually landing on the bar. Without skipping a beat, he jumped to sit on the bartop, and leaned back to reveal a second microphone. Your eyes widened, shaking your head furiously.

“No, no. I’m not doing that, Benny,” you said, eyes looking up at the ceiling to try to distract your mind from what he was suggesting. He still continued to beckon you over to him while he sang, shamelessly using his puppy-dog pleading eyes to his advantage. You could swear his smile got even larger as you finished the last few drops of your beer, and stood up. Even your most annoyed face couldn’t hide the grin that tugged on your lips as you walked over and took the mic from his hand. Suddenly, he swung his legs so he could stand up on top of the bar, offering you his hand.

“I’m definitely not doing that.”

You stood your ground until he flashed those eyes at you once more, huffing as you grabbed his hand and let him pull you up with him. Once you were standing on top of the bar with him, he used your interlocked fingers to spin you around and pull you close to him. Ben was a man of many talents, but drunk, meaningful karaoke on top of bar was a new one for him.

I'ma get your heart racing

In my skin-tight jeans

Be your teenage dream tonight

Let you put your hands on me

In my skin-tight jeans

Be your teenage dream tonight

Ben was making it very hard to sing along with him. Not only because he sounded so amazing, but also because his dancing gestures made you laugh endlessly. Still, you tried to get the first word of every line before you gave into the laughing fit that had been threatening to erupt since the song started.

You, make, me feel like I'm living a, teenage, dream

The way you turn me on

I, can't, sleep

Let's runaway

And don't ever look back

Don't ever look back

Finally, something reminded you that you were drunk and no one else was present as you began to let loose. You sang at the top of your lungs, not even bothering to worry about how many notes you missed or butchered. It was like your body had a mind of its own as you began to move in ways that only Benny would describe as dancing. You couldn’t see yourself, but you knew that the size of your smile rivaled Ben's, and that he was smiling back.

The last note of the song left your lips as Ben pulled you close to him. You instinctually wrapped your arms around the back of his neck, giving him the access he needed to rest his forehead against yours. And in that moment, that single, glorious moment, everything around you fizzled away into the corners of your mind. You were in Ben’s arms. You were home.

#definitely felt like a prophet when this came to me #yes i listen to this song on the regular now #don't look at me like that #ben miller #benny miller #benny miller imagine #ben miller imagine #ben miller x reader #benny miller x reader #benny baby #triple frontier imagine #triple frontier

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the-mandalorian-clone-lover · 3 years

Text

Aces in Spaces Chapter 18

*runs in* Mom’s on the phone so here ya go!

Warning for a little angst at the beginning but they work it out!!! Takes place after the last chapter

Also, warning for allusion to past trauma, nothing is strictly mentioned but I don't want to have it be an unexpected thing--

The song they sing is the Elephant Medley from Moulin Rouge!!

Tags: @sunshinepascal @rentskenobi @princessxkenobi @agent-450 @maybege @obaby-wan

Masterlist

It’s not that he insists that she follow any set course of behavior per se. It’s just that, well, if she was happy with their current situation together, it certainly wasn’t showing.

It’s not that he doesn’t understand, not at all, in fact he thought it might have moved a little too fast too, but its been two months since that first sleepover and instead of getting closer, more open, and being around more often; its like she’s further away than ever. The first few sleepovers had been about a week apart, always fun, not awkward even at the beginning and then, Roman wasn’t sure when exactly but, something had changed. She’d cancelled two in a row and that was ok, he understood being busy, understood having things to do, they were both adults but, then she started cancelling dates, almost like she was avoiding him. He’d tried to bring it up over a phone call, ask if she was ok but she seemed to get off in a hurry once he did. Everything seemed to be at the beginning of a spiral, creating a moment that Roman knew might be the one he looked at as the beginning of the end of everything if he didn’t play his cards right.

Which led him to where he was now. Prepping himself to call her and ask to meet somewhere for dinner, calm, casual, like he did at the beginning when she was still skittish around him.

She picks up after four rings, probably debating letting it go to voicemail his brain reminds him cruelly.

“Hello?”

She sounds, off. Not in immediate danger off, but not like her normal self either.

“Hello love.”

He pauses when she doesn’t respond, trying to steady himself, because somehow everything is coming down on him at this moment and it’s all cutting about as deep as the time she said she wanted to leave him, but he goes on.

“I, um” He fights off another wave of heartbreak because he’s trying to fix this, neither one of them has done anything drastic there’s no need to panic. Yet.

“I was wondering if you were free for dinner tonight? Maybe at the Italian place you like? The weather is supposed to be nice tonight and they have a, outside, balcony, thing.” He stutters out the last part, praying to whoever is listening that a) she doesn’t already hate him, and b) the nauseous feeling in his stomach goes away soon.

“That sounds nice.”

Her voice still sounds slightly strained but, she agreed, which is better than things had been going.

“Do you want me to send Butch for you?”

“No” Comes the hurried answer, “No, I can meet you there.”

Roman frowns quietly, to object to him was normal, a lot of people did but, Butcher and Erica had always gotten along. He thinks sometimes she trusted Butcher before she trusted him.

“Ok. Um. I love you?” He hadn’t meant for it to be a question. Damn it.

“I love you too” Comes the response before he can correct himself, voice tight but not in an angry way like she didn’t want to say it. It sounds sad, there’s a finality to it. That didn’t seem to add up.

“I’ll see you, around six then?” Questioning, hopeful.

A small huff that may have been a laugh if it had been allowed to grow comes from her end, “Six is good” her voice is still strained, almost as if, had she been crying?

“Ok. Love, I love you. Please don’t ever forget. I know—I know I haven’t said it as often but—”

“I know, Roman, I know.”

It isn’t meant to silence him, or if it is it does so gently. Gently enough he doesn’t really want to heed it.

“I know but—”

“Roman I have to get back to work, I’ll” her voice breaks slightly but she disguises it as an ‘um’ and he knows now that she’s been crying and he wants to help her. Reach out and cradle her to his chest and let her brush her fingers along the nape of his neck the way she loves, kiss the top of her head and dance with her in the living room like they used to.

“I’ll see you tonight. Bye” The ‘bye’ is barely above a whisper and he hears the click before he can even respond, heart shattering at the small sound.

He collapses into the chair, mouth resting against his knuckles to keep his own composure before moving to plant his forehead against it. Where had he gone wrong? Surely there were always ways he could be more accommodating, he thought he had been. He plants both elbows on the table now, holding his own head before gripping his hair and wishing he could rip it out. A sight that would be.

Some amount of time passes while he sits in agony and eventually he hears a tentative knock at the door.

He turns his head toward the sound but can’t remember who he’s expecting.

Erica. His brain suddenly supplies.

What if it’s her?

He nearly runs to the door, jerking it open, face wide in reception—

But its only Butch. He’s just as glad to see him, throwing himself into the other man who hasn’t quite recovered from the shock of the door being thrown open, let alone the (possibly crying) man who is now firmly wrapped around his torso.

Calling to mind the phone call he’d left him alone to make Butch wraps his arms around Roman.

“Tell me what happened?”

Roman nods, pulling away to walk back into the house and towards the living room, leaving Butch to shut the door.

“Did she break it off?” He calls through the hallway.

“No” Comes the meager response from the other room and Butch makes his way towards it, knowing Roman has more to say. “Probably will tonight. And this time I probably won’t be able to talk her out of it. I barely got in by the skin of my teeth last time and, and this time I don’t even know what I did!”

Butch doesn’t think he knew last time either but he takes a seat in the chair across from Roman and listens anyway.

Roman’s been pacing but he falls to the couch in a heap after all of two laps. “I don’t want to loose her Butch, not over something silly, or even something huge. What did I do that is so terrible she can’t even stomach looking at me?”

Butch leans back. “You didn’t—” He gestures vaguely downward, “did you?”

Roman looks confused then horrified. “OF Course Not! I wouldn’t dream of a thing like that!!! I’m not a monster! Not like the horrible people she’s known before, I’d never do something she didn’t want me to---”

He stops abruptly in his gesturing (and near shouting), blinking at the ground. A few moments pass. “She only told me about all that lately. Do you think she’s afraid?” It comes out in a whisper. As if he were afraid of the answer.

Butch regards him gently, leaning across the distance to hold out a hand. “Maybe it isn’t you she’s afraid of.” Roman takes his hand. “Maybe its just, puttin herself out there like that, knowin you know somethin really, y’know, personal about her.” He stops to take a deep breath before continuing softly. “Movin in together is a big step. I don’t blame anybody for gettin cold feet.”

Roman nods, swallowing hard. “She agreed to dinner” He manages hoarsely. “Six o’clock.”

Butch retrieves his hand to check his watch. “The Italian place?”

“yeah”

“Gives us an hour and a half to whip you in to shape. Allowing that you want to be 30 minutes early like you do when you’re nervous.”

“yeah.”

“Alright then.”

Somehow, Butch does it. Roman’s been at the table 15 minutes now and he hasn’t cried so it’s a win. They offer him wine but he declines. As much as he’d like to be drunk for a rejection, if Erica really isn’t afraid of him specifically, he might still have a chance, and he’d rather be sober for that.

He scans the restaurant and entryway every few minutes (seconds if he’s honest with himself) but he’s come up empty every time. He checks again anyway.

Short woman, strange looking man, that nice waiter that offered him mints, random teacher looking person, a tall and beautiful woman with very short hair, another waitress, hostess--- wait.

His eyes snap back to the tall woman who currently has her back to him, seemingly scanning the restaurant as well. He half stands, those shoulders, the curve of her neck—that looks like—

She turns.

“Erica” He gasps before managing to catch his own breath. He doesn’t think she managed to hear him over the background noise (that should be there but has completely faded since he saw her) but her eyes find his shortly after anyway. She’s, wonderful.

Erica looks around a moment longer before she thinks she hears someone gasp, she turns her head (it feels like she overdoes it, compensating for the hair that’s now missing, which is ridiculous because its hair but somehow, its true) to look for the disturbance only to find—Roman. Beautiful, Wonderful, Roman. Half out of his chair and looking like he’s seen a ghost. Great. So it really was that bad. It’s what she did it for she supposes, unable to suppress the hurt that flashes across her face before making her way to him. He fully unfolds himself, arms beginning to reach for her before they still at his side, and that hurts a little more.

“Is, is this why you were staying away?” He does lift a hand now, holding it about two inches from the side of her face—just like before. Like nothing had changed. Like she hadn’t changed.

She blinks at his hand, trying to swallow around the cotton that seems to have made it into her mouth, taking a breath before answering. “I um, I got it done a few days ago.”

“oh” Roman falters. She takes a shuddering breath (and all her strength) and lifts his hand up to her hair. His fingers barely graze her ear and she steps away from the contact, dropping his hand immediately, hating herself. She frowns at the floor, willing the tears away and hating. Why did she have to be this way? Why couldn’t she just be normal? Enjoy human contact like everyone else? Have a healthy relationship she wasn’t actively trying to destroy in an effort to punish herself? Roman’s stepped back when she opens her eyes again.

“I do like it. You wear it well. It—” he bites his lip “Frames your face nicely.” He smiles at her when she finally looks at him, and she looks over at the table before responding.

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

When she looks up again his mouth is slightly open. “Why would I--?”

The waitress walking up disrupts them both.

“Do you want to move to the patio now Mr. Stanton? I held the table if you’d still like it.”

Roman looks to the woman before looking back at Erica and raising his eyebrows in question. Erica barely holds his gaze before smiling at the woman. “Outside would be lovely.”

Roman’s heart breaks a little. He remembers when she used to use that word to describe him.

She pauses next to him for barely a second as she moves to follow the quickly retreating waitress and he offers his arm just before she steps away. He bites his tongue. She turns the slightest bit back toward him, reaching an arm to curl it around his and he steps forward hurriedly to allow it. He notices her eyes are glassy before they turn to admire the ceiling. She mumbles out a ‘thank you’.

He hesitantly places his hand over hers.

She moves her fingers just enough to tangle with his.

They make it to the table, its off to the side so they have some privacy but not far enough that Erica’s worried. It, well, if there’s a full moon and she magically transforms into someone who isn’t a coward, it has enough privacy she could tell Roman she does actually love him and she’s only been pushing him away because she’s scared. But that’s not very likely. Not unless there’s some kind of magic involved.

Roman reaches to pull a chair out for her. She lets him, sitting down slowly and catching his hand where it rests on the chair before he can walk away. Normally, he rests his hands on her shoulders after he does this. Sometimes leans down to give her a kiss of some kind before moving but today he’d begun to withdraw with nothing. She doesn’t know why she stops him but she looks up and her heart is in her throat.

“I thought—” his eyes search hers before he continues, “Sometimes you don’t like contact so I didn’t want to push”

Right. The halter top. Her shoulders are completely exposed. Now she wants to cry.

“Roman I—”

She squeezes her eyes shut and looks at the table. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry.

Romans excusing the waitress and kneeling down, hand never leaving hers.

“Love, what’s wrong?”

It’s so soft, so gentle and kind, steady but tender. Lenient in the sense she knows she doesn’t have to answer, but devoted in the sense that if she does he’ll listen. He’ll help.

She breaks. A sob that manages to be a gasp as she pulls him into her, uncaring of smudging makeup on his coat, uncaring of all the people around them that will undoubtedly worry, not caring about any of it. All she can think about is him, how much she loves him, wants him close, and how much that desire is outweighing the terrible fear that’s demanding she push him away.

He just holds her. Hand brushing along her lower back where she’s covered (God bless him) and then someone is gently laying a (blanket?) jacket across her shoulders. It feels enormous and she can’t begin to process so she just grips Roman tighter, trusting him.

Then she hears it. The soft rumble of Butcher’s ‘I’m the bodyguard and I’m in charge here’ voice and she realizes, it must be his. She relaxes a fraction. She stops the crying best she can, and reaches up to wipe under her eyes, mumbling out an apology that Roman quickly affirms there’s no need for. She’d pulled him up toward her otherwise they’d both be sitting on the floor, which, considering the setting probably wouldn’t be appropriate. Roman leans down to whisper to her tentatively.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

She nods, eyes watery. “Yes”

He nods back, already pulling away to spring into action before she grips his jacket again. “Our home”

He freezes before leaning down and squeezing her to him a little tighter. “Alright love, home for both of us”

Butch has already cleared the way and they leave with little fuss, Erica attempting an apologetic smile at the hostess but the woman doesn’t pay her any mind, Roman keeping her close to his chest. She slides into the car with him, immediately moving to slip off her shoes before cuddling herself into his side, turning toward him and laying her head on his chest.

Butch passes a box into the back seat before shutting the door and moving up front.

Roman reaches for it, putting his arm around her as he opens it, grabbing a fork and holding a bite out to her before she even processes what it is.

“Cake?”

“It’s the chocolate one you like, I thought it might help.”

She nuzzles his chest briefly, words leaving in favor of soaking up his comforting presence, then leans forward to take the offering. It is her favorite, after all.

She chews thoughtfully. She opens her mouth again and he reaches for the box without a second thought before her hand goes out to stop him.

“I, I need to tell you things, first.”

Her lip wobbles as he looks to her in confusion. Then his face clears and he smiles soothingly.

“I’ll listen as long as you need love.”

She nods. “I, I cut it because I wanted you to hate me.” She looks down at his shirt but plunges ahead. “I sometimes, I punish myself when things feel too nice and, and—” she looks up to his eyes “And you are nice Roman, wonderful and kind and so much more than I could ever deserve.” She gives a small fond smile as she watches him struggle between telling her how wrong she is about deserving things and staying quiet until she finishes. He settles on the latter, gesturing for her to continue with a nod.

“I, it all felt too good to be true all the sudden and, after I told you all those things, I thought you would” She looks down again, in shame this time. “Feel differently about me.”

He puts hand over hers where it rests on his chest, eyeing Butch in the mirror and communicating that they can drive awhile (at least he hopes that’s what he communicated). She starts again, but much quieter.

“I pushed you away because, I got scared. I thought you would, I don’t know, shun me, or try to fix me like they did and I just- I just reverted back to how I used to be. Cold. So I figured I would make it easier. For myself and you. If you hated my hair you could make it about that and it would be painless. Or if you made it about something else then I could pretend it was my hair whenever I wanted to cry about loosing you. Convince myself you were shallow and that’s why it didn’t work.”

Roman’s been quiet this whole time and she chances a look up at him.

“Do you like it?”

“Like… My hair?”

He nods.

“Well” It’s an abrupt change of subject but she takes it in stride, “I suppose so, I didn’t do it for that though.”

“Can I touch you? Your face?”

The rest of her is still shielded by the jacket but she concedes willfully with a nod. His knuckles brush her cheek slowly, before he checks again.

“Can I touch your hair?”

She nods.

His fingers, long and slender, brush through the cropped hair on the side of her head (carefully avoiding her ear) and his head tilts just slightly so his eye line can follow them. He tilts the other way then, eyeing the opposite side before his hand comes up to brush against the top hesitantly,

“Can I--?”

She hums.

His fingers sink into the tuft at the edge of her hairline, brushing back slowly, catching slightly on the product she’d used to muss it up. He increases the pressure the slightest bit so his hand brushes against her scalp with the motion and her eyelids flutter shut, pushing gently against the sensation and humming like a cat would purr. His hand continues its course, sliding down the back of her head and to her neck before he brings his knuckles to drag along her face again.

“I think its lovely.”

She opens her eyes to gaze at him and smiles softly. “I thought I’d need magic to get all that out but, it was easy. You made it easy.” She tilts her head at him, “I guess loving someone is like magic sometimes.” She says it with a far away look in her eyes as they drift to his chest, pondering her own words.

“All you need is love”

The smile crawls across her face even before her eyes meet his. “A girl has got to eat”

“All you need is love” This time it comes out a little slower, more like the song.

“Or she’ll end up on the street!” It’s said without any real belief

“All you need is, love” he hangs on to the last word, flitting his gaze over her face.

“Love is just a game”

“I was made for loving you baby, you were made for loving me” Roman adds the slight shimmy just for her and she laughs a little before answering.

Butch glances in the rearview mirror one last time before telling the driver to make for the penthouse and pulling out his phone. Hannah picks up after one ring.

“Yeah they’re singing, I think they’re gonna be ok.”

“Oh thank goodness.”

******************************

Erica's new haircut that I imagine--

#asexual #ewan mcgregor #aces in spaces #ace character #original characters #original fic #original story #new chapter #this is a really emotional one #so I'm sorry for that but #I think its something a lot of ppl (not just aces)#struggle with #and its good to know there are ppl out there that understand that and are willing to help us

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

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Silver for Monsters... (Geralt x fem!Witcher, Part 1.)

Description: The Butcher of Blaviken has a long and famous past, thanks to his friend Jaskier. Yet, neither of those dies easily and it still lurks behind Geralt like a shadow after all those years. History, neither unfriendly relationships, doesn't die easily.

Part summary: A lonely witchress in the woods can mean only one thing - a monster is lurking through the woods and a contract has been pinned up on a local village's board.

Warnings: A bit of gore, magic, Witchress, a werewolf being a bich, Sigimund Dijkstra appeareaing in a mention (if you do not know who Dijkstra is, look him up, he honestly is one of my fav Witcher game characters).

A/N: This one is purely based on my wish to see at least one female witcher, but knowing that the trial of grass doesn't allow that. Because boy? They would tear Geralt’s ass in half.

Word count: 4.4 K

Tagging: (tell me and I will add you :)) @osgon-azure @davnwillcome

Master list: H E R E

Many of you know me. You’ve seen my face, heard my name, or my tales - maybe you even threw your rotten vegetables at me for what I know. It doesn’t matter to me. Such details aren't important in my stories. But no matter how you might hate me - the poet, the bard, the most beautiful man you'd ever seen -, you love my tales.

Indeed, my name is Julian Alfred Pankratz. But when you'd meet me, I would introduce myself as Jaskier or Dandelion. And my most famous tales are going hand in hand with my friend, the legend, Geralt of Rivia. He is the man coming from Kaedwen, the coldest Northern Kingdom, born and raised at Kaer Morhen, the notorious School of the Wolf. And I have already written tales, ballads, and books about him.

You heard many stories and legends about this man - about the romance of his with the mightiest sorceress Yennefer of Vengenberg, the story of how he was bound to the Cintran princess Cirilla by destiny, about how he had outwitted the Wild Hunt itself. Yet I have one more for you. Sit down, have a pint of ale or a cup of wine, and hear my telling of how... Not one, but two witchers traveled day and night to reach the Redenian mountains and how they discovered a horrifying monster there. But have in mind that one of them was a woman.

Our story begins on one stormy night in the Mire West amidst the rampage of the Nightmare...

The place around you was completely dark and lifeless, only sounds of wind howling and grass dancing in it along with heavy rain could be heard. The moon just started slowly rising in the sky, but it was too cloudy up there. That could be a slight problem in your perfect plan. How were you supposed to lure a werewolf out of its lair if there won't be a full moon? These bitches came out of the lair only under those specific circumstances - moon shining on the ground, nonstop.

The lamb meat filled with cursed oil was neatly prepared in the middle of a road and your silver sword was ready as well, laying on your thighs as you were meditating to pass the time somehow - you let the potions in your vascular system starting to work, making an extremely dangerous weapon out of your very own body. You used Cat potion, so your eyes could perfectly see in the night and a Blizzard potion, shorting the time of reactions and sharpening reflexes to the monster's attacks.

A low chuckle came out of your lips. Meditations were never your strength - Vesemir was always bitching you down for whispering to the others while they sat on their knees, and tried to completely leave their body with their minds. You learned how to pretend to meditate, just to shut Vesemir up, but you accomplished the state only a few times. More than meditating, you were in a light sleep while you still could bring your body to sit at least a bit straight.

You had the suspicion that Vesemir knew that the whole time, but he never said anything since you at least shut up and didn't disturb the other kids who were brought to the School of the Wolf in Kaedwen to become witchers and witchresses.

The memories you had bonding to that place weren't all happy, but not all of them were bad. There was a lot of pain you had to endure, yes, but you had some fun in the process. And you still had a witcher family you could always count on - your best pal Lambert and a grumpy brother Eskel, there was Leo, your baby boy, and Vesemir, who was something like your father. There was Coën too, but unfortunately, he was far gone. And then, there was... Well... There was also him.

The greatest fucker... You meant to say the greatest of your kind - the legendary White Wolf, a man called Geralt of Rivia. It wasn't that you exactly hated him, no, you could count on him and his help when you met him on the road just as he could count on you, but you two never really got along in the first place. You never gave him a chance to start a friendship. And to say the least, he was outshining all of you, always getting the best contracts and money. And you weren't even talking about the fame he got in the process.

On the bright side, Geralt was a source of your motivation to become better and better - you both passed the trail of grasses, finishing it in better shape than all of the other kids that were trained on Kaer Morhen. You were already special - while three males out of ten survived, only one female out of fifty survived the trial. But that just wasn't enough of you, was it? You had better reflexes, reactions, senses, and you could cast the signs better than the other two girls who passed the trial. Even though that, it was too risky to send you on additional trials and Vesemir told you a million times.

For an unknown reason, there was a high rivalry between you and Geralt since the day you met for the first time. And when you heard that he's going to endure some more experiments, you demanded them as well, no matter the costs. You didn't care if it costs you your life, you wanted to be the best.

Vesemir and Lambert tried to change your mind for months, but you weren't planning on letting Geralt win the game. You went through another five mutations under the supervision of druids residing in Kaer Morhen, the fourth almost killing you in the process.

For the first time during a trial, you screamed in pain the whole time as you felt the serums and potions crawling through your skin and veins. When you got up, your skin tone almost matched alabaster, melanin almost completely disappearing out of your body, your hair was completely white and your eyes were no longer only golden - they were glowing. When Geralt walked out of the second chamber, he looked the same. But he has done something you would never expect - he asked you about your well-being and if you want to stop the trials. But you just chuckled and left him in the hall.

Lambert was enough of a friend to you. He was quite a normal witcher with a good sense of humor. You could drink and laugh evenings away with your witcher brother and never be bothered with thoughts about the incoming morning. He saved your life many times before and you knew, that the last time wasn't exactly the last. To repay him, you saved his ass from the revenge of former lust subjects, pretending to be his girlfriend and being extremely mad at him.

With Eskel, you had a more reserved relationship, since he was more of a reserved person - he didn't exactly make friendships, he was just a person you could count on any time you needed to. But you got along at the end of the day.

A sharp howling threw you out of your thoughts about your witcher brothers. Both your eyelids flew open, showing the golden, glowing eyes with a cat-like iris shape underneath. The werewolf was set to go on a hunt - and so were you. You opened up the last bottle with your teeth, drinking the potion in one swing, making your blood hazardous for the monster.

After that, you slowly walked to the path where your trap was laid, finding the creature sniffing it. It was rather cautious with it, wanting to eat it, but not quite trusting it. Werewolves were huge beasts with fur, every one of them growing to the height of two meters and more after the transformation.

They might be looking skinny, but their strength was almost overshadowing yours for good. Hunting a werewolf all alone? What were you thinking? That was exactly what was happening since Geralt wielded the tiara of the best witcher in the world. Shitty contracts for a laughable amount of coin. But work was work - humans, monsters, animals, it didn't exactly mean anything to you. You came, did the job and left, always repeating and never breaking the circle. Although to stay true to the codex of Kaer Morhen, you never killed an innocent being - monster, neither a human. If they proved their innocence, you let them go, taking the money anyway.

But this werewolf, boy, wasn't he something different? This bitch was off the chains, suffocating, hunting, and eating alive at least thirteen girls just this year alone. And you couldn't wait to get your dirty little hands on its throat and chop his fucking head off. You hated motherfuckers. And he sure was one.

"This is a nice, cute attempt to poison me, witcher!" - The werewolf rose his head and looked around, showing you its ugly face, which was half-wolf and half-human. Its claws were strong, which could cause trouble as well - he could scratch you without hurting himself, not tasting your blood. God damn it. - "But I ain't no idiot! I know ya poisoned it! Come out! Face the mighty Nightmare of Mire West!"

So it was an intelligent one. That was a bonus point - you knew that murdering him will cause you way more enjoyment than killing a normal beast would. It was probably only a human when there wasn't a full moon, living in their small, stinky cage, all alone in the wilderness. But if the man changed into such a beast which was able to stalk and murder young gals in such gruesome ways, you knew that your sword was the right thing to put end to his ruling over Mire West.

"I like me an intelligent foe." - You growled in a cruel voice, adding a burst of short, dark laughter at the end. You confused the werewolf a bit - he wasn't able to track where you were at the moment. There was no visible movement in the bushes, your voice seemed to come out of a few different directions at one time and your footsteps didn't break a single branch on the ground, making you almost impossible to track based on sounds in the slowly ending heavy rain. - "Feels better when I slice their throats. They beg like little girls to let them live - but you know something about that, don't you? You enjoy murdering girls and letting them beg, don't you?"

The beast was moving its muzzle quickly as he tried to sniff you. The wet air made it almost impossible. The time was ticking too fast - soon, you knew that the air will clean up and starts to transmit your scent. This needed to be done quickly.

"Are ya a woman, witcher? Ye a witchress? I like women, did ya hear that?" - Werewolf tested the waters, seeing a bush next to his right move. He didn't know that it was an animal coming through here, thinking it was you hiding in the bushes. In the next moment, the monster roared with a raw, animalish growl as it attacked the bush. - “I like to snap their necks and taste their meat, I like their voices begging me to stop, the scent of their hair and the skin. Come here, to my claws, don't try to play with me.”

The werewolf then turned around, his completely darkened eyes were scanning the surroundings in search of you. He kneeled a bit, grunting like a pig as spit was dripping out of his mouth full of sharp teeth.

“You atone to all of those murders? You don't even try to clean your name, try to tell me that you are innocent? I might let you go.” - You knew that this fucker isn't innocent but you needed more time to look around the meadow, now seeing every small detail in it thanks to the Cat potion. You planned various attacks, different scenarios, trying to imagine him overpowering you. What would you do then?

“I know that ya been sniffing around Velen for a while now, crawling through sewers like a rat, looking at every shit I made. I know ya heard stories about the Nightmare of Mire West. Ya a witchress, ya know how to recognize a werewolf in comparison to a different monster.” - The werewolf laughed and crawled on all fours, bearing more similarity to a wolf than a human at the moment. His laughter was similar to a hyena.

Then you jumped out of your hideout and cut him with your sword smeared with a cursed oil. The werewolf wasn't expecting you, so you hit your spot, but not in the range you planned on. The beast roared, sounding like a swine, catching its leg as it watched the blood dripping from the cut.

“Look at ya!” - It laughed, its teeth showing again. Your eyes were jumping on various spots on its body - from its lower paws dugs into the muddy ground as he was charging for a jump. - “Ya look like a cat, ya hair white, ya smug arrogant. Come to me.”

You jumped at the same time the werewolf did, but you turned around and swung your sword towards it, hitting it into its ribs. Sword fights were always like a dancing lesson - male witchers preferred different fighting styles, sometimes heavier and more aggressive than you could ever archive. You could move quicker than them, yet your hits were lighter. You danced on the toes of your feet, the top of your sword carefully drawing eight again and again. Your hits were maybe lighter than male witchers’, but you were able to hit the spot more often with clean cuts.

“Ya can move, I need to say. A second cut on my body.” - The beast growled, suddenly spinning the other way, its claws hitting your stomach. The hit made you fall, he hit exactly the liver and stomach, which could hurt like hell. Yet it was not a hit that would stop a witchress.

You made a rollover your shoulders, stopping on your feet. While you stood up, the werewolf almost scratched your face. That was a no-no. Witchers and witchresses maybe were known for long, dark pink cuts and huge scars over their faces, but you knew that a pretty face always means a half of the deal sealed. Thanking all the Gods and angels out there, Blizzard made you able to get out of its way.

Again, you swung your sword to meet its stomach, but again, it jumped at you in a matter of seconds, aiming for your neck. Its claws tore apart your chainmail armor, cutting your skin. But you didn't move a single inch away, no, you held its arm with a firm grip, looking the beast in the eyes.

First, it didn't know why are you looking at it the way you did, pressing the arm on your stomach, letting the blood drip directly on it. Soon, it felt how the skin is burning as the acid was slowly decomposing it. It was looking you in your cat eyes and saw your lips slowly turning to a violent smile.

Next second, it pushed you away, whining like a little puppy, licking the acid off. But it didn't know that it will only make the matters worse.

“What now? Don't you want to taste my blood and meat? Don't you want to sniff me and hear me beg for my life? Are you backing off?” - You rolled the sword in your palm and prepared into the fighting position again. - “The fun has just started, you pussy.”

With a quick move, you made the gesture of Igni sign, sending fire its way, then throwing a Moon Dust bomb at it. The bomb blew up, springling small pieces of silver everywhere its range was. The werewolf was now screaming like a child - it was burned by the Igni sign, silver was burning its skin alive, he was cut - so the silver got into its vascular system and that was perfect torture in your opinion. It tried to run away into the safety of its cave, but it was just to try to lure you in - in the small space of a cavern could be its brutal strength fatal for you.

It was time to use the Aard sign. You were quick, almost violent with it, pushing the werewolf next to the cave entrance. It bumped its head onto a sharp rock, blood was dripping out of that bruise pretty quickly. That was a moment he might start to believe that you were there to truly kill him like a swine. Indeed, you were there for that.

When it laid on its back, it started howling at the moon - that was a tactic used by a werewolf when the things got out of their control. They tried to call for help from wolves living in the woods. But you only laughed as you walked to him, preparing for one last final blow, still holding the place on your stomach where it hit you.

"Ye going to die, Witchress, why is ya laughing?" - The beast growled out with visible and hearable problems, which made your smile bigger.

"Because I killed every pack in the radius of ten kilometers, you dumb shit. I sold the furs and meat for a fair coin, even got something to brew potions from. A valuable deal." - You laughed and swung your sword one last time - piercing its chest with it. After that, as you heard it choking on its blood and scream awfully, you sat next to it into the mud.

It was maybe just a short fight, but it made you cast two signs and to move at an incredibly fast pace. And the hit into your stomach was almost precise, hurting like a living fuck. The fight took its cost in the form of incredible tiredness. Also, the potions were still circling through your body, drawing energy out of it. You thanked Gods that you had the idea to track down and eliminate all the packs in the area. The contract could've turned out much differently than it did in the end.

You waited a while, the rain started to fall from the sky again, before cutting the beast's head off. You used an old dwarven axe for that since it was durable and almost unbreakable.

Not an hour after that, your camp was packed up and you were ready to leave the woods, riding horseback to the city again. The werewolf's head was pinned on your saddle to be seen by any bandit. You weren't in a mood for jokes, you didn't want to mess around with some lousy bandit just to be dirty from their blood.

You changed into a fresh shirt and made a hairstyle so tight that not even the smallest baby hair had the chance to fly in front of your face.

It was a while after three o'clock in the early morning when you knocked on the contractor's door - his name was Stjepan, male about thirty years old with a wife and two small daughters. That was the main reason why he wanted the werewolf dead. He was also a local innkeeper, so you at least had a hope that you will sleep in an actual bed instead of the woodland full of bugs and branches poking your ass and back.

"Who the hell is knocking my damn door at night?!" - You heard his angry yell just seconds before he opened up the door. You stood there, soaked from the rain, only in trousers and shirt, holding the head in the level of his eyes. He yelled and threw up just centimeters from your shoes, but you kept the straight face.

"Monster's dead. I want my money." - You growled, throwing the head in. You could hear the small girls and woman yelling, but you didn't care at all. Stjepan disappeared for a small moment, appearing after a while with a small sack of gold.

"Now leave and never come back, ya filthy creature. I can see the devil in ya eyes. I will pray for ya soul." - Stjepan hissed at you, trying to close the door, but your arm stopped it. Stjepan tried to shut it one more time, but your arm didn't even move out of the wood.

Geralt would've most likely just shook his head and leave the man - but you were a lot of things, pussy not being on your list.

Witchers, since they were males, had enhanced strength of the strongest human men. Since you were a woman, you were as strong as a really strong man - those who had almost two meters, one hundred kilograms, and muscles all over their body. When Stjepan realized that he isn't able to close the door, he opened it once again, your hand finally leaving it.

"This is less than we agreed on. I want my money." - You hissed back at the man, stepping into his house. Oh, you would give anything just to see him spraying holy water on the spot where you were standing.

"I don't have more, now fuck off!" - Stjepan yelled and tried to push you out of his door, but he was pushed back as soon as his palm touched your shoulder. Some wall pushed him back so hard, that he stumbled and fell right on his ass.

"Stjepan, Stjepan, Stjepan... Do you remember when your sweet little girls asked me why I have two swords?" - Your eyes slowly looked through the opened door, last drops of Cat potions still making your night vision sharp. These two girls were sitting on the bed and hugged their dolls extremely tight, both of them shaking, hoping you can't see them.

But you could. And Stjepan's wife was standing next to the stove, holding a pan as if it could do any harm to you. With your stare still on the children, you slowly walked through their lovely, little house.

"Ya told them that the long, elegant, silver one with the runes is for monsters." - Stjepan stuttered out and covered the door with his laying body so you would have a harder time getting to the room.

"And that the other one is for even worse monsters." - You told him and kneeled in front of him, tugging the sword from the leather strap on your back. The steel was making cold notice as you tugged it even slower. - "Monsters called humans. The worst of them all."

"Ye a witchress!" - Stjepan's wife yelled at you, raising the pan to her hip, ready to hit you. - "Ya meant to help and protect folk! Not to kill 'em!"

You would never hurt these children. They were just children, for fuck's sake - their life hasn't even started and anyone, let alone a monster hunter like, had the right to hurt them and end their life. No witcher nor witchress had the right to take an innocent person's life.

But you weren't playing clean games, oh boy, you weren't. When you had to be dirty, you planned to be dirty as hell. You needed to keep your face straight if you wanted to scare that dick off.

"You better give me my money or I swear that I will kidnap your children and make them witchresses. After all, that's what witchers do when people refuse to pay their debts." - You hissed, walking over Stjepan directly to the bed, almost dragging the two girls out.

Just seconds before you touched them, Stjepan threw another sack to your feet, crawling in front of his small girls. - "Now go! Leave the fucking town and never come back! Fuck off!"

You straightened up and looked at the two small girls which slowly disappeared in the darkness as Cat finally stopped working. Only after that, you finally left their room. - "Pleasure doing businesses with you, Stjepan." - You added with a sour, ironic tone and walked off into the night.

Well, your plan with sleeping at his inn didn't exactly work out. At least you had the money he promised, even if you had to scare a few little kids. You walked to your horse, gently smoothing its forehead. Well, the only thing you could do was to ride to another city so you could find another job.

Well, that was the plan, until a man came across you. He was dressed up in a long cloak, covered in the darkness, almost sneaking up on you. You chuckled from shoving the money into on me of the bags on the saddle, not looking at the person. They must've known that you know about them the whole time.

"I won't give you a single coin, don't even bother asking me." - Your mumbling could be heard in the cold, silent night.

"Oh, I don't need your money, witchress. I want to speak to ya." - The person said, putting an envelope into the saddle looking you in the eyes. First, you checked the person to see if they mean any harm - it was a short man, pretty underweight, his arms looked very weak. He couldn't attack you if his mind was bright - he would die after one of your blows. - "Not me, pretty lady, but a friend of mine. Told me to say hi once I find ye."

With that, the caped person turned on their heels and disappeared into the darkness again. You watched him quietly for a second before you couldn't see him - then you looked at the envelope and grinned when you recognized the seal. That old, ugly bastard, Sigi Reuven.

Or, as the others knew, Sigismund Dijkstra. One of the most dangerous spies on the whole Continent. And that old son of a bitch wanted to talk to you.

#the witcher #no geralt here #for now #gimme a few parts #but here #have a werewolf #sigismund dijkstra #the witcher netflix #geralt of rivia #geralt z rivie #geralt z rivii #a witchress #the continent #the world of the witcher #andrzej sapkowski

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prettylittlebrownskingyal · 5 years

Text

🎂☆ Jason Todd Birthday Week ☆ Aug 16th - JASON’S BIRTHDAY

Dickface Grayson: what do u want for ur bday baby bro?

RedNerd: a big booty hoe

Spawn: same

Wiffle: sksks DAMIAN

The family group chat is usually rather annoying. No one sleeps and no one has boundaries or tact so there’s always three hundred messages and long ass tangents (courtesy of Tim, Damian and sometimes Duke) for Jason to read over his morning coffee.

It’s a big thorn in his ass.

But it’s routine. He’s grown to expect it like he anticipates sunrise, it’s become one of those things on his mental checklist that he can never forget. Those morons keep finding more and more opportunities to weasel their way into his life and it’s so goddamn irritating that he loves it.

Which is why the lack of notifications he wakes up to makes his skin itch in an unscratchable way. His first instinct is to assume something’s wrong because there’s nothing beside that one question from Dick. But as he replies, Damian and Stephanie’s responses follow immediately— he finds relief in knowing their fine but his confusion grows.

He realizes he’s bored.

He has a three day stretch of no plans and he’s so freaking bored he kind of wants to claw his eyes out.

Dickface Grayson: i told y’all asking him wouldn’t work

Dickface Grayson: i. told. y’all.

Timbits: stop with the y’alls

Wiffle: y? cuz it reminds u of connor?

Timbits: fuck off

Wiffle: bite me

Babs: I say, we go with the original plan

Duke☀️: but how are we going to get him to go willingly go to a party?

Spawn: we could knock him out

Timbits: NO

Spawn: and just carry him there

Timbits: Damian I swear to GOD

Dickface Grayson: why can’t we do the surprise party

Wiffle: cuz he’d hate it

Wiffle: and he’d kill us

🐥Cass: let’s just get him a cupcake and call it a day

Spawn: i second that

Spawn: or we could get him an escort

Babs: DAMIAN

Spawn: put it on father’s card

Timbits: as much as I would LOVE to see that

Timbits: we can’t

🐥Cass: add it to the list for next yr dames

Babs: I have work to do, you guys plzzz come up with something.

Dickface Grayson: good luck babs

Dickface Grayson: I say party

Wiffle: i’m going with Cass and the cupcake

🐥Cass: ^^

Dickface Grayson: Damian I see you typing. Don’t say it.

Timbits: he’s Jason guys. he doesn’t want the attention of having to blow out a candle and listen to us butcher happy bday

Timbits: we need something he’d like

Wiffle: let’s just give him his presents

Wiffle: they’re all books anyway

🐥Cass: books and cupcakes

Spawn: no that’s stupid

🐥Cass: ur stupid

Spawn: ur stupider

Wiffle: Tim’s stupidest

Timbits: blocked

Dickface Grayson: CHILDREN

Dickface Grayson: babs will murder us if we don’t come up with something

Timbits: I mean…. she’ll muder you

Spawn: muder

🐥Cass: muder

Wiffle: STUPIDEST

Jason calls Alfred, texts Bruce and leaves a long winded voicemail for Barbra. She replies with three smiley face emojis and then a voice note of her reminding him that his has three days off for his birthday specifically for resting, to stop worrying about everybody else. She’s stern and sure and he knows it’s pointless to argue.

Alfred had been vague too and Bruce hadn’t replied— with all his sources dry, Jason’s left pouting in his apartment, bored out of his mind. He keeps opening and closing his apps to see if there’s been updates.

There isn’t.

RedNerd: why are you guys so AWOL

Timbits: we’re giving u a break hbd loser

RedNerd: shady

Timbits:🙃

Timbits: i’m disowning Steph

RedNerd: i’m on her side whatever it is

Timbits: traitor

RedNerd: 🙃

Jason sighs languidly. He flicks his phone to the side and watches it bounce off the couch. There’s a full five seconds in which he allows himself to release his boredom in a long, guttural groan and then he’s diving after it to check the screen. It’s not broken. He resolutes himself to reading as all else fails.

Timbits: Jay’s getting antsy

Dickface Grayson: ughh

Wiffle: what r we gonna do?

Spawn: yk

Wiffle: Damian

Spawn: shut up Brown, I was going to say that Duke had an idea.

Wiffle: oh

Wiffle: what’s ur idea sunshine?

Duke☀️: I never volunteered

Wiffle: I’m starting to like the escort thing so plz

Duke☀️: fine

Duke☀️: I’ll invite him to the manor to play PUBG

Duke☀️: no party

Duke☀️: and then we do family dinner and have Alfred make a cake

Dickface Grayson: that’s simple enough

Wiffle: and Alfie makes the cake he’ll have no choice but to accept it

Babs: good work team

Duke☀️: team?

Babs: Good Work Sunshine ☀️💛💛

He’s cleaning his kitchen for the third time when his phone vibrates. A plate is almost dropped in his haste to get to it.

Duke☀️: PUBG. Pizza. Manor?

RedNerd: yessss

The manor’s dead silent when he steps into the threshold. Alfred slips out of the kitchen to bid him a quick hello, hands him two boxes of pizza (one extra cheese and the other sausage and peppers) and shoos him up the stairs.

“You look like shit,” is what Duke says in greeting. He already has the controllers and television set up. Jason feels a little like he’s found bliss.

“I’m losing it, man. No patrol and shit for three days? I’m going to die. Again.”

“Yeah cuz I’m about to kick your ass. Hand me my pizza and sit down.”

“It’s on, sunshine.”

Dickface Grayson: Duke has him in the den. we’re jist gonna ease in one by one. Alfred’ll bring the cake, we’ll do presents and then it’s done

Wiffle: sounds good chief

Timbits: is my pizza here?

Spawn: no one ordered for you

Duke☀️: yh it’s in the kitchen.

Timbits: right, expect me first.

They play four rounds until Jason’s spent most of his pent up energy on killing opponents. Duke gets better every time he plays and he works well with Jason’s style. It reminds him that they should team up more for patrol.

Damian slinks in on his toes right as they start the fifth. He’s got a box of pizza balanced in one hand and Alfred the cat tucked under the other.

“Todd,” is all he says before plopping down on the opposing sofa.

Tim wanders in after, barefooted and rumpled. He opens his mouth to say something, spots Damian and snaps it shut. He makes a noise that reminds Jason of a busted engine. He doesn’t know what that’s about, he doesn’t want to know either.

“Timbo, take this.” He passes him the controller and yanks his skinny frame down with one arm. “Play for me so I can eat.”

“Cheating,” Duke intones.

“It’s my birthday, I can do what I want to.” They all visibly stiffen at the words. He continues, speaking quickly around a mouthful of pizza. “And also. You guys have been really weird all day. What have you been up to?”

The response is a three tiered chorus of, “Nothing.”

“The group chat was dead quiet.”

Tim is stuttering something out when Damian drops a “I wish it was,” under his breath.

Nobody says anything. He chews, swallows and waits for them to fill the silence.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you guys have another group chat?”

“No.”

“Why would we?”

“Yes.”

Jason’s braces himself to be as offended as he possibly can when three things happen in the space of a minute.

Tim throws a slice of pizza at Damian while Duke ducks between the cushions. The ensuing fight is so loud Jason can’t hear himself think.

Dick and Cass come stumbling through the doors with Stephanie tailing behind them— their all singing “happy birthday.” Alfred— bless him— is following along with a small sponge cake adorned with lit candles. He makes it one foot into the room before there’s a loud splatter, a scream and shouted curse.

There’s a controller in the cake.

Dick and Steph are on the ground trying to pull a shocked Damian and Tim apart while Duke sinks further between the upholstery.

“Jason,” Cass crosses around the disaster zone. She offers him a hand and gives him a firm shake. “Happy Birthday.”

“Thank you.” He’s still stunned, gaping down at her like a confused goldfish.

“These are for you.”

It’s a pile of hard copy classics secured by a gold ribbon. A tiny bite size cupcake sits on top.

“Thanks Cass. I really appreciate it.”

She hums, casts a glare at Damian and sways out of the room.

“Well,” Alfred snaps. “I’m going to clean this buttercream off of me while you all fix this ...mess. Master Jason, it appears I owe you a cake.”

“It’s fine, Alfie.”

Dick slams his fist to the floor, fuming. “ It’s not.”

“It’s ok—“

“Jay we’ve been trying to plan something special for you all day. This was the best we could do— just us, just a cake and some presents— and we found a way to screw it up.”

“That’s what the other group chat was for.”

Tim chimes in, rolling out of the chokehold Damian has him in.

He sees the guilt hanging around the dropped corners of their mouths like anchors. So that’s why they were so unattached, they were just being annoying amongst themselves.

“This is….it’s great actually. That,” he points to Damian on the ground. “Was quality entertainment. Duke is still a PUBG genius, which it was nice to be reminded of and this—,” he raises the books and cupcake. “—is really all I need.”

He and Dick split half of Damian’s pizza out of sheer spite. Bruce comes in at some point to let them know Alfred’s making another cake and then he somehow gets sucked into a game of Super Mario. Later, they’ll all gather around in the kitchen to force feed Jason cake and watch him open presents. It’ll be quiet and intimate and just right for him.

He’s not bored to death anymore.

Tomorrow, he’ll wake up to four hundred messages in the group chat and the world will right itself.

Wiffle: We’re all going to remember what we’re getting Damian for his bday next yr, right?

Duke☀️: lessons in decorum

Timbits: tickets to the Crayola Experience?

Timbits: tickets to Sesame Street live?

Wiffle: no

Wiffle: a trip to Home Depot to get him a big ass hoe

#no editing we die like mne #jtbdayweek #jtbw19 #lilbrowngyal writes #not an imagine #fic #i kinda hate this #but i did it last night so i was a difference person down #jason todd #duke thomas #dick grayson #damian wayne #stephanie brown #barbara gordon #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne #tim drake #cass cain #haha i hate myself

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angst-fairygodmother · 4 years

Text

Sing Once Again With Me: Masquerade/Why So Silent (The Witcher; A Phantom of the Opera AU)

A/N: This chapter contains the culmination of something I hit on back in “Music of the Night” because word association is fun. Also dictionary definitions/examples used in a sentence. Word Count: 2372 Content Warning: None Taglist: @ficsandcatsandficsandcats @joz-stankovich @sennextheassasinkingoflight Previous Chapter: All I Ask of You Cross-posted to AO3: here

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The right whispers in the right ears, the right stories told, and the problem would soon go away.

Over the weeks that followed, Valdo withdrew to the shadows to wait for his trap to spring. As he watched his flower grow closer to the loathsome witcher, he seethed. But he took comfort in the fact that it would all soon come crashing down, and then Jaskier would have no one to turn to but him. He would be the one to win in the long run.

“It’s obviously the witcher who did it,” the Countess snapped. “Everything only started happening when he showed up, and he’s not called the Butcher of Blaviken for nothing.”

She scoffed at the stunned and rapt audience she had gathered as she ranted.

“Strangulation. Real subtle. I appreciate the poetic nod though. ‘Gorgeous garrotter’ indeed.”

“What?” Jaskier frowned, glaring at her.

“Isn’t that what you called him in your little diddy about his lust affair with the Vengerberg bitch? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s helping him get away with it. Never trust a mage after all.”

“No.”

“What’s that minstrel? Don’t want to believe your precious wolf is just another rabid cur?”

It took all of Jaskier’s willpower, and Y/N’s white-knuckled grip on his arm, to keep from launching at the woman as she spewed her filth.

“We’ll prove it,” Y/N said, voice far firmer than she felt. “Jaskier will bring Geralt to the Masque as his guest and while he’s out of his rooms, the guard can search it. When there’s no evidence to connect him, you’ll drop your ridiculous theory.”

“Fine.”

As the Countess stormed off Y/N leaned in to hiss in Jaskier’s ear. “You are sure he didn’t do it, right?”

“Geralt would never.”

“Good. Now let’s go. We have a party to prepare for.”

“There’s a masquerade tonight,” Jaskier said, nervously twisting his fingers as he paced. “I’m expected to attend, as the hall’s rising star, but…I don’t want to go alone.”

Geralt stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Now I know what you’re thinking Geralt, that you hardly have a costume for it, but it would not be difficult to go and find you one, or have Yennefer magic something up…or you could go in your armor and we would just need something to cover your face. That is the beauty of it being a costumed party, no one will know who you are and you can do whatever you like.”

“Actually I was thinking that we’ve never attended a formal event together that hasn’t ended in disaster.”

“But we’ve also never attended one together.”

Geralt hummed, hands reaching out to pull Jaskier closer until the bard stumbled onto his lap, an arm thrown around his neck as Geralt’s ensnared his waist.

Jaskier giggled, burying his face in soft silver hair. “Please Geralt? This is the first grand event the hall has put on since…well it’s been weeks since anyone’s heard a peep from Valdo and I think it might be…”

“A trap. That makes sense.”

“I was going to say fun. Maybe even a new beginning. A beginning I’d like you to embark on with me.”

Geralt sighed. “This is one of those things I’m not getting out of, isn’t it?”

“Well…”

“Fine. Unless you have some idea, and clothes that would fit me, I should go see Yennefer then I suppose.”

“Oh Geralt thank you! This will be great fun, you’ll see.” Jaskier kissed his cheek as he stood excitedly.

“Also, the Countess may have been spreading rumors that you were the murderer, and Y/N tried to defend you by offering to let the guard search your room while you were at the party with me,” he muttered quickly as Geralt was leaving.

Geralt whipped around to stare at him incredulously. “What?”

“Everything will be fine. I was going to ask you to come anyway. Trust me?”

The glare he was given could have cut glass. Jaskier smiled what he hoped was his most convincing grin. Geralt sighed.

“You had better know what you’re doing.”

“Thank you Geralt,” Jaskier clasped his hands over his heart. “Now I will meet you at the music hall, under the third lamppost from the left, at exactly eight.”

Geralt nodded and, with another sigh, went to see a witch about his wardrobe.

It wasn’t hard to find the witcher’s room or get inside. The harp string stolen from the orchestra’s stock was wrapped around a fist and pulled tight between his hands. If his rival died today, all the easier. He would see Jaskier through his grief, as he had before.

But the room was empty when he slipped through the window. He rummaged about the clothing and armor, fondling the swords for a moment, but they would be too noticeable to take. Besides, the irritating stagehand had been strangled. Any proper artist would tell you that consistency was key to a good story.

Content in his inspection of the room, Valdo carefully coiled the thin wire around his fingers, twisting the end in on itself to keep it in place. Then he laid it gently in among the strange potions the witcher kept around, knowing they would be personal enough only he would have access.

He settled the stylized ram’s head over his face and slipped back out. Invite or no, there was a party to attend.

Jaskier smiled as he saw Yennefer and Y/N walk in, hand in hand. It was not often that the wives were able to be together, the couple kept apart by the day-to-day realities of their respective positions within the company, so it brought his heart joy to see them taking the opportunity they had. It was almost enough, in fact, to distract himself from the apprehension in his heart at the prospect of stepping out, quite publicly, with Geralt for the first time. Geralt, who rumors were beginning to spread about, who more than one had suggested might be the murderer, the Phantom. His stomach roiled with nerves.

And then Geralt appeared at his side and the twisting became for an entirely different reason. He had always admired Geralt’s looks, but this…this was something special. His broad shoulders perfectly filled out the black doublet with silver embroidery, the sheen and style making it ripple and sway like a shadow mirage. Rich plum purple lace peaked out over the collar, the barest hint of a colored undershirt hiding beneath. His stunning locks were braided back from his face in a pair of thin, complex braids which flowed into the gentle waves down the back of his neck. His filigreed mask, silver with black detailing in counter to his doublet, finished out the look, a breathtaking enigma. Jaskier compared it to his own costume of reds and golds, more sultry and playful than this stylized elegance. Day and night, sun and moon. Oh Yennefer was good.

Jaskier mingled, and Geralt hovered, occasionally pulled onto the dance floor for a song or two, both of them getting handsier and more creative in their dance steps as the evening wore on and the drinks continued to flow. At one point, the witcher found himself nuzzling into the bard’s neck, no longer caring so much about discretion or carefulness nearly as much as he did about having Jaskier so close and looking so beautiful.

Shortly after, a familiar scent of lilac and gooseberries floated over the couple as another couple approached to cut in, the two women claiming their partners for a chat as they looped about the floor.

“You look happy Geralt,” Yennefer purred, blood red lips curled in a smirk.

“I am,” he admitted, looking at her earnestly from behind his mask. “You do too, you know. Marital bliss is a good look on you.”

“I owe you that. I would never have become the woman that deserved Y/N, or been lucky enough to meet her, without you.” She smiled, glancing over his shoulder to watch Y/N and Jaskier as the ever-graceful pair claimed the center of attention. “I’m happy for you.”

“Really?” his lip curled up in a teasing smile. “The way you’re keeping me from him right now, I thought you might be jealous.”

“My beloved wife wanted a moment with her friend.” She quirked an eyebrow. “And you looked about ready to strip him down and devour him right here. I do have an interest in maintaining a degree of…decorum around here.”

Geralt stammered, flustered and unable to find a reply before Jaskier was swept back over and gracefully deposited into his arms and Yennefer stolen away, a partner trade made into a dance move. Y/N smiled smugly and murmured something in Yennefer’s ear, too low for even his witcher senses to pick up, and Yennefer laughed again.

Suddenly someone screamed, and from seemingly nowhere, a figure appeared. Great curling black horns rose back from a skeletal face; shadows cast and lights danced on the beading of the caped black costume, creating the illusion that flames licked up around him. Standing where he was at the top of the stairs, he towered over the crowd which fell hushed and still with fear.

“Terribly sorry that I’m late,” the figure drawled, arms thrown wide, a performer before a captive audience. “My invitation appears to have been lost.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through the listeners. “Do not fear. I have…missed you all.”

Yennefer moved to stand in front of Y/N, arm curled protectively to keep her back as the figure leaned over the banister to cast his eye over the crowd.

“I have written a performance.” He held something up in his gloved hand before casting it down to the ground below where it, a folio made of pale leather (a few close by noted that it looked sickeningly close to the color of flesh) spilled open at the managers’ feet.

“For it to be quite right, there are of course a few specifics to take care of.” From his sleeve he drew a long, thin knife and he began to make his way down the stairs, speaking as he went.

Geralt squeezed a hand on Jaskier’s hip reassuringly before slipping away into the crowd and shadow, hoping to reach his swords, checked at the door, in time.

“The Countess, first. She has her use but must be reined in, not allowed to undeservedly dominate the stage.” Valdo gestured at the woman in question with the tip of the dagger in a motion that less than subtly suggested the slitting of her throat. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly before he waved dismissively and turned to the next on his list.

“Her counterpart, Piangi,” he thrust forward, not quite making contact with the large man, who made a weak attempt to stand his ground defensively. “A romantic lead needs gravitas, not buffoonery.”

“And my managers. You have been given several chances to do what’s right and stay out of my way. Do as you’re told, count your coins, and let those with proper knowledge run the show.” This time the dagger was swift and came close enough to graze the tip from Firman’s mustache and the two men cowered.

“And our star. Sweet songbird. Jaskier.” Valdo stepped down slowly toward where Jaskier stood, frozen as he always felt when he appeared. The dagger remained pointed at the ground, and his free hand came up as if to caress Jaskier’s face. “His talent is good, but he knows what he must do if he truly wants to succeed. Come back to me, his beloved tutor.”

Valdo’s eyes fell to the medallion which Geralt had given to him, normally worn tucked under his shirt for protection but now slipped through the loose laces of his collar to sit openly, almost a challenge. He snatched at it, breaking chain and jerking Jaskier forward.

“You belong to me.” Valdo hissed, face close enough that Jaskier could feel the air that passed between clenched teeth and count the flecks of gold in those haunting green eyes.

Then, as suddenly as he appeared, Valdo had dashed back up the central stairs and was gone in a puff of smoke.

Geralt and Yennefer both ran to inspect where he had gone, reaching it just in time to catch the edge of a trapdoor settling into place, invisible in the pattern of the floor.

He looked up at her, eyes full of confusion and rage. She returned his glance with sorrow. Partygoers began to scatter, and Geralt went to Jaskier’s side as the bard bent to pick up the now damaged token.

“Why is this happening Geralt?” Jaskier’s voice was so small and an icy hand of fear, and of shame that he hadn’t been there to when Jaskier needed him (again), clenched over the witcher’s heart.

Before he could answer, a number of the city guard burst through the entrance, shouting for everyone to remain calm and stay where they were. They approached Geralt.

“Witcher,” the captain of them said. “You are under arrest for the murder of Master Joseph Boquet. Please come with us peacefully or we will resort to deadly force.”

Geralt frowned in puzzlement but knelt to place his sword on the ground and stood quietly, hands raised in a show of peace.

“On what evidence?” Y/N snapped, stepping forward before Yennefer could catch her.

“This wire, covered in old blood, found among the witcher’s personal belongings. He is a known killer, so the presence of what is obviously the murder weapon raises no question.”

Geralt frowned. He had never seen such a wire before in his life, but he knew better than to try and argue once someone had decided he was responsible. And so he surrendered to the guard and was marched out, to the jeers and murmurs of the remaining crowd, head hung low and heart sunk even further. Yennefer stood silently beside Jaskier who watched him go and waited until he could no longer catch even the slightest glimpse of silver before he let himself collapse, sobbing, into the mage’s arms.

“We’ll fix this,” Y/N said, “Right?” She glanced at her wife, but she remained silent, unwilling to make false promises.

#Sing Once Again With Me #The Witcher #Phantom of the Opera AU #Act 2 #Jaskier x Geralt #Jaskier x Valdo Marx #Yennefer x Reader #Jaskier #Valdo Marx #reader insert #Geralt of Rivia #Yennefer of Vengerberg #*cue ominous organs*#*cue malicious laughter*#it wasn't the piano...

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tomeandflickcorner · 4 years

Text

Umbrella Academy Rewatch 1x06

1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05

Well, it’s time to buckle your seatbelts, as we’re over halfway through. And there’s now only three days left to stop the apocalypse.

This episode starts off with the explanation of what went on during Klaus’ accidental trip to 1968. When he unwittingly used the time traveling briefcase at the end of episode 4, he was whisked back to Vietnam, right in the middle of the Vietnam War. Specifically an army encampment’s sleeping quarters located in A Shau Valley. Seconds after his arrival, he gets thrown right into things, being dragged along with a squadron getting shipped off to the front lines. One of the soldiers, a young man named Dave, takes notice of Klaus’ dumbfoundedness and reaches out to him, assuring him that he’ll adjust to how crazy things are. We then get a montage of Klaus and Dave getting closer, culminating in them forming a romantic relationship. (Which was a risky endeavor in itself. Unless I’m mistaken, back in the 1960s, Klaus and Dave would have faced being discharged or even court-marshaled if their relationship was found out.)

Back in the present day, Klaus is seen discarding his pills in the toilet, indicating that he’s going to try to stay sober. It’s possible he’s taken what Diego said last episode to heart and figured that, if he stops using drugs to stay high, he might be able to see Dave’s ghost. But as Klaus tries to settle in for his withdrawal to start, Luther pokes his head into the bathroom, just about ordering him to come downstairs for an emergency family meeting. When Klaus complies, joining Allison, Luther and Diego downstairs, they start discussing the approaching apocalypse, which is scheduled to occur in three days, and how Hazel and Cha-Cha had been after Number 5 because he was trying to prevent it. Luther also admits that, according to Number 5, they all died in their attempt to stop the apocalypse the first time around.

At Hazel and Cha-Cha’s motel room, they receive word that the termination against Number 5 has been lifted, meaning he’s cleared things up with The Commission. Cha-Cha is not pleased that Number 5 seemingly got off so easily. She starts venting that they need to do better on their next job, so The Commission will still see them as valuable. This leads to an argument between her and Hazel, as Hazel is getting tired of the constant flow of assignment after assignment. The argument ends with Hazel walking out, stating he’s heading for the vending machines. After he leaves, Cha-Cha receives another message from The Commission. Upon reading it, she sees she’s been ordered to terminate Hazel.

Meanwhile, Number 5 and The Handler have arrived back at The Commission's headquarters. Number 5 is eager to discuss the details about how his siblings will be kept safe, and how he can get restored to his actual age, but The Handler insists he be patient. Instead, she shows him to his new office. In the process, we get to see a bit more of how The Commission operates. Basically, each major event in history is assigned to a case manager. Field agents on the ground are tasked with making sure the event will happen as it should. Whenever an individual seems to be making a decision that could prevent that event from happening as it should, the field agent sends a report to the case manager, who decides what must be done to remove the problem individual from the equations, with orders being sent to temporal assassins like Hazel and Cha-Cha. Number 5 asks which case manager was assigned to the apocalypse, so The Handler introduces him to Dot. As his first task as a case manager for The Commission, Number 5 is assigned to the Hindenburg Disaster.

Back at the Umbrella Academy mansion, Vanya stops by with Leonard, with the intention of inviting her siblings to her first concert as first chair. However, Vanya is not too happy when she finds Luther, Diego, Allison and Klaus discussing the apocalypse, angry that they’re having a family meeting without her. Allison assures her that she’ll fill her in later, but to no avail, as Vanya is convinced that her siblings are jerks for always leaving her out, and she storms off. Leonard follows after her, but then states he forgot his jacket and goes back for it. But it turns out this was just a ploy for him to steal a figurine of Reginald Hargreeves from a display case containing action figures of the Umbrella Academy Siblings.

Back with the other Haegreeves Siblings, Allison tries to go after Vanya to either explain or apologize. But Luther stops her, saying there’s no time for that as they need to determine what exactly will cause the apocalypse. He theorizes it might have something to do with the moon, since Reginald must have sent him up there for a reason, so he intends to try and find out where Reginald stored all the research he’d been sent from Luther’s mission on the moon. Diego and Klaus, however, are not on board. Klaus points out that they apparently failed at stopping the apocalypse the first time, so why would they have any more luck this time? What’s the point of even trying? And Diego insists on going after Hazel and Cha-Cha, announcing that if he’s going to die anyway in three days time, he wants to make sure that Detective Patch is avenged before then. Allison also elects to not even try, since they have no hope if they don’t have the full force of the the Umbrella Academy Siblings on board. So, if there’s no hope left, she just wants to take advantage of the time she has left to be with her daughter, Claire, regardless of whatever custody restrictions there are.

Elsewhere, Vanya and Leonard are heading down the street, with Vanya venting angrily about her frustrations towards her siblings. After a few moments of this, Leonard interrupts her rant to direct her attention to the section of street they’ve just walked down. All the streetlamps they passed have been bent, and the parked cars’ alarms are going off. Leonard suggests that Vanya might have been responsible for the damage, but Vanya insists that’s impossible. After all, she’s just the ordinary one. She doesn’t have any special powers.

We then briefly cut back to the Umbrella Academy mansion, with Diego getting ready to head out after Hazel and Cha-Cha. He asks Klaus to help him with his bootlaces, as Diego’s arm is still up in a sling, having been injured in the last episode. Klaus agrees, as long as Diego agrees to tie him up afterwards, as Klaus is trying to sober up and wants to make sure he keeps up his resolve when the withdrawals hit.

Back with Number 5, he’s hard at work at The Commission. But it turns out he’s got ulterior motives, as he attempts to send a message through the pneumatic chutes. But The Handler stops him, announcing that’s not part of the procedure. Only Gloria is permitted to operate the pneumatic chutes. The Handler then looks at the scroll Number 5 was trying to send out, which ordered a hit on a man named Karl Weber, the owner of a butcher shop. Through a long, complected explanation, Number 5 explains that, with Karl’s death, the butcher shop will be passed on to his son, Otto. And since Otto doesn’t follow proper hand-washing procedures, the Hindenburg's captain, upon ordering his usual roast from the butcher shop in question, will develop food poisoning. Which will make him late for work and, in an effort to make up for lost time, he’d sail the Hindenburg right into a weather front, ensuring its inevitable explosion.

Of course, this is all just a clever ploy on Number 5′s part, as he manages to steal Dot’s case file on the apocalypse when the lunch bell rings. He tries to duck into the bathroom to read it in secret, but he’s once again interrupted by The Handler, who also steps into the bathroom. (Guessing its a unisex bathroom?). She goes on a long spiel about how one faulty cog can disrupt the whole system. And then, for some reason, she looks in at Number 5 over the door of his bathroom stall, inviting him to join her for lunch in her office. (Sheesh, lady! Ever hear of a thing called privacy?)

Hazel and Cha-Cha drive out into the middle of the woods. It seems that Cha-Cha told Hazel that The Commission sent word that their briefcase had been located out there. Of course, we can surmise this was all a ploy, as Cha-Cha plans on executing Hazel out here, so she can dispose of his body in the woods without breaking a sweat. After they’ve entered the woods, Hazel, seemingly oblivious to Cha-Cha’s secret orders to kill him, asks her if it would really be so bad if they didn’t find the briefcase. He suggests they should just try and settle down where they are and try and forge a new life for themselves. Cha-Cha reminds him that the world will essentially end in three days, but Hazel is not phased, suggesting they try and stop it. However, Cha-Cha is not swayed, stating they can only do what The Commission tells them to do, as there’s no way around it. She then raises her gun to shoot, with the screen fading to black. But then it’s revealed that Cha-Cha didn’t go through with it, simply driving them both back to their motel room, with Hazel offering to go get them some dinner from a Chinese restaurant.

Elsewhere, Luther is ransacking Reginald's old office, looking for the reports and samples he’d sent down from the moon. As he’s searching, Pogo enters the room, enabling Luther to question him about their whereabouts. Pogo initially seems reluctant, but upon Luther’s urging, he directs Luther to a hidden compartment beneath the floorboards. When Luther opens up the trapdoor, he finds, to his dismay, that Reginald had never even opened any of the reports he’d received. This leads to Luther having an emotional breakdown, believing that Reginald sent him up to the moon just to get him out of the way, and had believed he hadn’t been good enough to be Number 1 after all. Pogo tries to comfort him and offer him reassurance, but Luther turns him away, stating he just wants to be left alone.

On the other side of the mansion, Allison is packing her bags, getting ready to leave. As she packs, she comes across a locket that’s been engraved with the inscription ‘A+L.’ This leads to a flashback, where Young Luther and Young Allison had a secret late-night picnic in a secluded room in the mansion, where Luther had given her the locket as a present. They then begin to dance to a record player, only to be interrupted by Reginald, who forbids them from ever coming up there again.

While all this is going on, Diego is tying Klaus up, as he requested. Klaus admits that he’s trying to get sober enough to see the dead again, so he can see Dave. This leads to another bonding moment between the brothers, as Diego can relate to Klaus’ loss, having both lost Detective Patch and their mother, Grace. (Because Diego isn’t aware Pogo reactivated her yet.) But then, in a humorous moment, the moment Diego finishes tying up Klaus, he realizes that he needs to pee.

Back at Leonard’s place, he and Vanya discuss the possibility that Vanya had powers of her own that have been lying dormant all this time. Vanya is highly skeptical of the notion, stating that she would have been an active member of the Umbrella Academy if she had been special.

At The Commission, The Handler informs Number 5 that they’re already hard at work at constructing a new body for him. She then shows him her collection of items she’s secretly collected from various eras, such as a grenade from the Vietnam War and the very pistol Hitler used to kill himself. Number 5 takes a moment to admire the weapons before suggesting a change of protocol for The Commission, asking if it would be easier if case managers got to send their own messages instead of leaving it to Gloria. The Handler replies that Gloria had been with The Commission for years and is on the verge of making pension, so it would be a horrible thing to let her go. Besides, Gloria is well liked and people would not respond well to her dismissal Before more could be said, they are interrupted by Dot, who wants to discuss something with The Handler in private.

Allison checks up on Luther, stating she couldn’t get a flight to L.A. until later and plans on waiting at the airport for the next available seat, but couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Luther informs her of his discovery of how Reginald never bothered to look at any of his moon research, indicating that their father didn’t care about what he was doing up on the moon. Luther now feels that he doesn’t have what it takes to stop the apocalypse, as it’s clear he doesn’t deserve to be the leader of the Umbrella Academy Siblings. To try and cheer him up, Allison brings Luther up to the room where they’d tried to have their late-night picnic, with them finding their makeshift tent is still standing. They then try to drink the sodas they never got to drink, which have naturally gone bad. However, Luther notices Allison is now wearing the locket he’d given her. They decide to spend a little more time together before Allison leaves for her flight.

Back at the motel, Cha-Cha is burning the order she’d received to kill Hazel, having decided to not go through with it. She then heads over to Griddy’s Donuts, where she catches Hazel visiting Agnes. It’s clear this discovery doesn’t sit well with her.

Klaus, meanwhile, has finished his bathroom break. But when Diego is preparing to tie him up again, Klaus begins to have second thoughts, saying he’d like one last hit before getting tied up. But Diego is not having it, forcing Klaus into the chair and proceeding to tie up the struggling Klaus. In desperation, Klaus offers to help conjure up Detective Patch for him, but Diego insists he doesn’t want to see her until he can tell her he took out the people who killed her. Before departing, Diego gives Klaus a bucket, saying that if he needs to pee again, he can just use that. When Klaus is left alone, he has a flashback to his final moments in the Vietnam War. During a fierce battle, Dave was hit by enemy gunfire and mortally wounded. In desperation, Klaus called out for a medic, but no help arrived, and Dave died in his arms.

Before Diego steps out, he is shocked to see Grace walking around. Only she doesn’t seem to remember anything that happened throughout the week, although, she also notices Pogo lurking in the background, so it’s possible she was only pretending to throw him off the scent. Grace then states it seems like a perfect day to go to the park. Diego reminds her that Reginald never let her off the grounds, but Grace retorts that Reginald isn’t around anymore. So Diego agrees to take her to the park. When they reach the park, Diego states that Reginald was wrong to keep her cooped up in the mansion. Grace then admits that Pogo and her have been lying to them all about something.

As for Luther and Allison, they are still spending their time together, until Allison decides it’s time she left to catch her plane. But as she starts to walk off, Luther runs after her, asking her to dance with him. They then begin to dance, with the scene giving them an imaginary dress change. As their dance ends, they end up kissing and confessing their true feelings for one another (icky, icky, ewwy WEIRD!!!!). Allison then suggests they fly out to L.A. to see Claire together.

Klaus, in turn, starts coming out of his drug withdrawal, achieving sobriety at last. As such, he is able to see Dave’s smiling ghost standing over him, a sight that visibly elates him.

Leonard and Vanya are about to head off to bed together. But when Leonard steps out of the room to takes some clothes down to the laundry room, Vanya leans over to pick up a stray sock up off the floor. In the process, she finds Reginald’s journal under Leonard’s bed. When she starts to read it, she discovers that Reginald actually knew she had an unfathomably powerful ability, but had decided that it must be kept a secret, and had started giving her her medication in order to keep her sedated and her powers under lock and key.

As the episode comes to a close, Number 5 overhears Dot telling Gloria that The Handler knows he’s up to something, and that she has to get a message to Hazel and Cha-Cha immediately. Before Gloria can reach the pneumatic chutes, however, Number 5 jumps her,knocking her out and stealing the message she was about to send off, which turn out to be instructions to protect a man called Harold Jenkins. Taking this information as a new lead in his ultimate mission to stop the apocalypse, Number 5 beings to execute an escape attempt. First, we get the revelation that Number 5 was the one who sent Cha-Cha the order to kill Hazel, which she appears to have gone through with after seeing him with Agnes, as she sneaks up on him in the shower and fires off a few bullets through the shower curtain. But it’s then revealed that Number 5 also sent a separate order to Hazel, which he’d received when he visited the motel vending machine. Hazel’s order was to kill Cha-Cha. But Hazel was planning to ignore it, until he saw Cha-Cha’s attempt to kill him. He wasn’t actually in the shower, but had set things up to look that way to trick Cha-Cha. When he catches her trying to kill him, Hazel comes up behind her and knocks her out.

After Number 5 sent out those orders, The Handler confronts him, and a gun battle begins between them, with Number 5 managing to dodge out of the way of her bullets with his teleport ability. Before long, The Handler runs out of bullets. Taking advantage of this, Number 5 takes her out with one of her own grenades. He then steals a briefcase from the storage room, destroying the others in the proceeds. Number 5 uses the stolen briefcase to travel back in time to the start of the episode, arriving at the Umbrella Academy mansion right after Vanya stormed out in annoyance over being excluded from the family meeting. He announces to Luther, Allison, Diego and Klaus that they have a new lead. To prevent the apocalypse, they have to find and stop Harold Jenkins.

Final Observations/Questions:

Who is Harold Jenkins?

So everything that happened in this episode, with Klaus becoming sober enough to see Dave again, Diego being reunited with Grace and helping her be able to set foot outside the mansion for the first time and Luther and Allison being able to get together, not to mention Vanya finding her father’s journal that revealed she actually had powers this whole time, never happened because Number 5 essentially hit the reset button on the entire day. Well, that stinks. (Though I’m not exactly comfortable with Luther and Allison being romantically entwined, seeing as they’re adopted siblings. That’s still a bit too incestuous for my taste.)

I guess the secret Pogo wanted Grace to maintain is out- Vanya also has powers of her own. Although, that leaves the question as to why Reginald didn’t want anyone to know about it.

While I don’t entirely fault Vanya for being angry about not being included in the family meeting, a part of me still feels she was a bit unreasonable. Wasn’t she staying at Leonard’s place? Do her siblings even have his number? Besides, Allison did say she’d fill her in, and it seemed like her implication was that she’d fill her in once Leonard wasn’t around. Especially considering Allison has already made it clear she doesn’t trust him. (A mistrust that clearly is warranted, given he clearly murdered Helen and also stole that figurine for unknown reasons.) In any event, Allison does seem to be trying to be there for Vanya, but every time she tries to be a sister, Vanya practically bites her head off. Talk about a vicious cycle.

What’s Hazel and Cha-Cha going to do, now that the trust between them is broken?

#umbrella acedmy #umbrella academy 1x06

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verai-marcel · 5 years

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Trapper Keeper (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur x Fem!Reader, 18+, Part 1 of 3)

Summary: You’re a pretty good trapper, knowing where and how to get the best pelts around. Because of this, you have gotten really good at figuring out when someone is following you, because you don’t want to give up your good hunting spots. So when you literally catch a man stalking you, you debate what to do with him.

Author’s Notes: The fic title is 100% a joke title. LOLOLOLOL. For my pardner in crime, @r0xy-w0lf, here’s your two-sided fic, with a low and a high honor stalker Arthur. Since this is a very specific request, to all my other readers, please imagine that you are a tall blonde woman for the duration of this story.

Tags: low honor Arthur: rough sex, seduction, possessiveness; high honor Arthur: light possessiveness, flustered Arthur, adrenaline fueled smut

AO3 Link is right here, kiddo.

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Chapter 1: A Meeting

"Stay in bed. I'll take care of the stall for ya."

Your adopted brother coughed and waved his hand. "M'fine."

"The hell you are."

"You hate staying in town."

"And I hate it when you work yourself sick."

He sighed, and then coughed, as if God was proving him wrong. "Alright, alright, you win."

"Damn right I do," you muttered as you left a mug of soup and a bread roll on the table. "Food's here when you get hungry. Make sure you eat somethin'."

You ignored his grumbling as you left the house and mounted Eclipse, your trusty Friesian stallion. His black coat shone in the sun, and his mane was combed and clean. Patting his side, you rode towards your adopted brother's butcher stall at the edge of town.

As your went, you waved to the general store manager, who was sweeping his porch.

"Any furs today?"

"Not today, probably not for a week. Gotta wait until Matthew is healthy again."

The manager nodded. "Send my best."

You tipped your hat and rode on.

You were one of the best trappers this side of Ambarino. Some of the merchants in the surrounding area had gotten to know your quality of work, and pay top dollar for what you bring. But on occasion, you'd bring some of your furs to sell to the general store here while you visited Matthew and your parents.

You had been abandoned in a churchyard, so you’d been told. Your parents had adopted you after Matthew had found you in the garden outside, crying in a basket, no note, no name. You grew up following in your father's footsteps, tracking and hunting game using stealthier means. The bow and knife were your weapons of choice, black your preferred color for your hunting clothes.

Matthew had listened to Mother, and had chosen a steady profession, less dangerous, more practical. The two of you both moved out to live on your own, Matthew with his own little cabin and you hoofing it with just a tent and the open road, but it was nice to know your folks were still living nearby, just enjoying life and each other.

You reached the stall and sighed. You hated being stuck in town, and you hated dealing with people. But you always helped out family.

***

Late in the afternoon, a man on a white Arabian cantered up to the stall. You eyed the wolf carcass and the furs underneath it.

"Where's Matthew?"

"Out sick. I'm filling in for him. Whaddya got?"

The man raised an eyebrow but said nothing more as he dumped the carcass on the ground. You inspected the kill; it was sloppy with multiple gun holes.

"I can give ya a dollar for this one. Lotta holes."

"Well, it was either me or him."

You laughed. He was a funny man, with a gravelly voice and a short beard. You watched as he took the furs from the back of his horse and brought them over to you, laying them on the ground next to the wolf.

You walked out from around the stall to take a look. Squatting down to pick one up, you examined all of them in turn. These furs were in much better condition. But still, the bullet holes were in prime spots.

"I'll give ya three dollars for the lot."

"Only three?" He took a step closer to you, glaring.

You stood up, and watched his eyes follow you as you rose to your full height. He was only 4” taller than you, but not many men were as big as him. Still, you had never let anyone’s size intimidate you.

"I said three. Take it or leave it. I can get better furs in my sleep. Whaddya usin', a shotgun?"

He pursed his lips, a little annoyed with your sass. "I used a rifle."

You shook your head. "A bow is the way to go. Less damage to the skin."

"That's what Charles always tells me," he muttered. "Fine, fine, I'll take the three."

You paid him for his furs and the wolf carcass and started to put them away.

"So. You Matthew's wife?"

You gagged. "What? No! He's my brother!"

He laughed. "What's yer name? Don't think he ever mentioned havin' a sister."

You told him your name. "I'm not around much. I usually hunt in the mountains." You cocked your head at him. “What should I call you?”

He smiled, a little upturn of the lip to one side. “Arthur.” He paused, debating something, then continued. “So where do you hunt?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you.”

He raised an eyebrow at your response, but then nodded. “Fair ‘nuff. I wouldn’t give away my prized spots either.”

Mounting his horse, he tipped his hat to you. “Been a pleasure meetin’ ya. Will I see ya again tomorra’?”

You shrugged. “Probably. I ain’t lettin’ Matthew work again until his cough lets up.”

Arthur grinned. “Then I’ll bring ya more furs.”

“I look forward to judging you. I mean, them. The furs,” you replied, your joking tone matching your teasing smile.

He laughed as he rode off, amused by your response.

***

Every day, Arthur came by, even if he only had a small rabbit or two. If there was no one else around, he’d lean against the stall and exchange stories. The two of you would chat about hunting, crazy wildlife encounters, and sometimes, he’d just hang out and brush his horse while you worked. After the second night, he got into the habit of coming by when you were closing up for the day and accompanying you to get a drink at the saloon.

On the fourth day, he brought you some wild carrots for your horse, and the two of you talked about horses for an hour. If you didn’t know that Boadicea was his horse a long time ago, you’d think he was talking about a past lady love, with the way he spoke about her.

Time passed like a spring breeze, and you had never enjoyed your time in town more than this week.

But finally, you deemed Matthew healthy enough to work again. So you took your horse, packed up some rations, and hit the road again.

“Where you off to?” Matthew asked at the crack of dawn while you were checking your saddle bags one last time.

“Back up to Ambarino. Good beaver pelts this time of year.”

“Alright. Take care o’ yerself.”

You smiled. “Worry about yourself first.” Hopping into the saddle, you galloped out of the city and back into the wilderness, where you felt truly at home. But you did look back, just for a moment, wistfully thinking about a certain man who had kept you entertained for the week.

Hope I see you again, cowboy.

***

“You’re back.”

“You don’t seem too pleased.”

“It ain’t that, just…”

“She left this morning.”

“Where?”

“She said Ambarino.”

“That’s pretty vague.”

“She doesn’t like giving away her location, even to me.” Matthew leaned in closer to Arthur. “You ain’t sweet on her, are ya?”

“What? No. She was just interestin’ to talk to, s’all.”

Matthew raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “I don’t care if you are or not. She’s just a hard cookie. If you go after her, she’ll probably kick ya in the balls and spit on yer face.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

Matthew laughed. “Well, good luck. No man has ever been able to find her once she’s in her element. At least, none that came back alive.”

Arthur chuckled. A woman like that made his blood burn with desire. Now he absolutely had to find her.

***

Three days in Ambarino near Lake Isabella, and you had found only two beavers. But you had found plenty of rabbits.

You also had the distinct feeling that someone was following you. Not closely, but they were close enough that you noticed their presence. Since you were hunting, you weren’t exactly going in a straight line through the forest, so when you had circled back around the lake, you saw the signs of a small camp, and they were recent. Tracking them through the forest was no easy task; they knew how to use the creeks and streams to hide their trail.

It was a day of cat and mouse; you and your mysterious stalker were just circling each other, trying to catch the other off guard. So instead, you decided to let them come to you.

Setting up a simple rope trap near your camping spot, you went about your business, resting until well past sunset before heading out in your black hunting gear for your nightly hunts. You went to find a couple more rabbits for your pile of furs, cooked a meal, and turned in for the rest of the night.

At the break of dawn, you heard a snap and a manly grunt of surprise. You crawled out of your tent and went back to the rope trap to see who you had caught. When you saw him, you grinned like a fox.

Dangling by one leg upside down was Arthur. He was attempting to cut himself free from the rope around his foot, but the constant sway of the branch was making it difficult. You leaned against a tree and just watched as he finally cut the rope and landed with a heavy thud onto the ground. He got up and grumbled, dusting his clothes off, and then turned around when he heard you clear your throat.

“Fancy meeting you out here,” you said as you casually pointed your revolver at him.

Arthur slowly put his hands up in the air. “Fancy that,” he mumbled.

“I gotta say, you’re pretty good at tracking, if you found me all the way out here,” you said softly, taking better aim at his chest to show him that you were serious. “So tell me. Why did you follow me?”

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And now, do you wish to go with:

High Honor Arthur

Low Honor Arthur

#rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 #writing #fanfic #tumblr request #arthur x reader #arthur morgan #nsft #lemon fanfic

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oliverarditi · 5 years

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The truths between instants

‘The camera cannot lie’ is a phrase that has had currency since the last years of the nineteenth century, although it may well struggle to retain any utility in our present era of the digitally constructed image. It was always founded on a stark misunderstanding of visual experience. The camera, rather, can never speak truthfully, because the truth is never that people and objects are frozen rigidly between moments. Any facial expression presented in a photograph is a fugitive state, stolen from the transition between one movement and another: there was never a time when ‘that was the expression on their face’, because no observer ever read the meaning of a face from outwith the geometry of events that we perceive as the sequential flow of time. The truth is a moving target, which every still photograph is fated to miss. The camera presents us with images from which two of the four physical dimensions have been excised, and attempts to convince us that they can be readily reconstructed from the two that remain.

This is not to say that photographs cannot be truthful, simply that their defining characteristic of optical verisimilitude does not give them a greater claim on veracity than paintings, poems, pebbles, peaches, or parkour. Truth is not quantum, not a matter of discrete immutable facts, visual or otherwise; it is not digital, but analogue. Truth was abundantly present in Journey, Story, Memory, a career retrospective of the Sicilian photographer Ferdinando Scianna, into which we stepped, as though through a portal between worlds, from the demoralised, sun-bleached quadrangle of the former Franciscan friary that houses Palermo’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna Sant’Anna. Initially, a truth of Sicily; or beneath that even, a truth of Bagheria, a small town ten miles to the east of Palermo in which Scianna grew up. In these black and white images (as far as I know, all of Scianna’s work is monochrome) the contingency of a motionless optical impression is clear: a man balances on a pole over water, with rowing boats in front of him; a child runs along a street; a child is upside down, springing over a railing and down a terrace, one hand on each; two men are diving from a high rock, with no water visible beneath them. In none of these images is there a complete physical context, or sufficient narrative clues for the viewer to be certain of their prosaic ‘truth’; instead they must imagine, that the men are diving into water, that the end of the pole that is out of shot is anchored to the land or to a boat, that the child has risen early from bed and will later devour a bowl of pasta alla Norma provided by a weathered grandmother who has seen his like before and knows his tricks.

Truth arises in what the photographs direct us to outside themselves, and it arises between the images, in the connections that appear when they are viewed as a body of work. Scianna is both visually insightful and theoretically informed, and so he responds to the fleeting truths of visual experience neither with the heavy-handed objectivism of documentary photography, nor with self-expressive subjectivist formalism. In this show he chooses to group his work thematically, and it is only in the first exhibition space that the theme is geographically defined - and there it is also defined by the youth of the photographer, who did not leave his native town until he was twenty-three. In that context it is easy for him to let us know what truths have concerned him, but the individual works also read very clearly in that interzone between subject and object: Scianna aims to let the images speak for themselves, but he has clearly chosen carefully what kinds of image to construct, and knows very well what they are likely to say.

The subjects and genres that Scianna chooses are extremely varied, ranging from the intimate to the detached, the domestic to the public, the local to the cosmopolitan, the social to the aesthetic. There are still-lives, street scenes, portraits, fashion shots, landscapes and objets trouves. It would clearly be difficult to take one image in isolation, an aerial photograph of an island, say, or a piece of bent wire on a beach, and say ‘this is by Ferdinando Scianna’, but group enough of them together and his eye emerges unmistakably. He is an accomplished technician, manipulating depth of field and sharpness of focus in ways that emerge as characteristic once the viewer has taken in enough of his work, but what left the most striking after-images on my retina was his dramatic and geometric deployment of chiaroscuro, which reminded me at times of the work of the great American comic artist Jaime Hernandez. The two creators share some insights about visual grammar, and both marshal the affective power of geometric and graphic elements to comment on pictorial and narrative denotations.

Scianna’s fashion work, to which he came later in his career, is represented here by a series of photos he took for Dolce e Gabbana of the Dutch model Marpessa Hennink. In these, he engages critically with the absurdities and artificiality of the genre, often attempting to subvert its dominant tropes. At the same time he is clearly infatuated with the image of Hennink herself, which is extremely striking, but when that image is permitted to ‘speak for itself’ all of its specificities are swamped by the morphologically prescriptive fetish-commodity that images of women’s bodies become in contemporary visual culture. Huge prints of her face and her naked torso can only be read in the same way as any other hyperreal image of a beautiful, slender young woman. Much better is the image that positions her next to a homely, dirty butcher’s boy with a huge side of pork over his shoulders. In a way these pictures define the limit condition of Scianna’s critical insight, which usually leads him to endow his portraits with some context, but which also permits him to frame Hennink’s image as an autonomous aesthetic object.

The portraits in the show include images of some cultural figures of personal significance to me, such as Martin Scorsese, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Roland Barthes, and most interestingly Jorge Luis Borges. Each portrait, most of which position their subject alongside some significant object, or in some meaningful place, is accompanied by an essay by Scianna on his relationship with them, or on the circumstances of the shoot. Borges was apparently amused, in a very Borgesian way, as Scianna notes, ‘to become the object of images he would never see’. This seems an interesting commentary on the observation that photographs preserve an optical impression that has no counterpart in visual experience, other than the experience of looking at a photograph. Nobody else ever saw those images of Borges, except in the photographs that Scianna took; the visual truth of Borges was and remains unavailable, to him and to us, except in the moment of seeing him.

The broad sweep of this extensive and almost overwhelmingly varied exhibition enables the entire oeuvre of more than fifty years’ work to emerge as geographically situated in relation to the artist’s roots in Sicily. I haven’t mentioned Scianna’s travelling, or the images he captured in far-flung places, but they are a significant part of his body of work, and in the short, insightful essays with which he introduces each section of the show, he demonstrates unequivocally how grounded he is in his native soil. This awareness of a relationship with his point of origin enables Scianna to grasp truths about other places, about the world, that can be elusive in the absence of a solid frame of reference. Like the exact rectilinear boundaries of his photographs, Sicily provides Scianna with such a frame. I forget who it was that said in something I recently read, that to be a citizen of the world it is necessary to know where you come from; I would struggle to justify such a claim with any evidence relating to the island’s aesthetics, or artistic or photographic traditions, but I am left by the exhibition with a very powerful impression that this is definitively Sicilian photography. This is the mutable, emergent truth that seeps out between these transient monochrome flashes of the imagery that Scianna traversed on his journey away from and towards his home.

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bus-trash · 6 years

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Veronica Revisited: Normality vs. Violence

I’ve had a few thoughts since I wrote that long blogpost. One was, “Do I really have enough free time to obsess this much about Peathers Veronica?” Others included, “I can’t believe people on tumblr read that,” and, “Is the idea behind Veronica really that fucking complicated?”

I questioned that when I watched Peathers creator Jason Micallef in this promo talk about the basis of Heathers 2018’s philosophy: It’s a story about American violence.

https://youtu.be/Zjnd-oUOwdw

Under that lens, Veronica’s characterization becomes a lot clearer. While I think it’s true that she wants to transcend labels through love but is unable to do so due to the damaging system of labeling surrounding everyone in Westerburg, Veronica makes more sense when thought of not according to her emotional arc but when you consider the character herself as a criticism of America.

Veronica is indecisive. Heather Duke’s analysis of the three remaining characters in Hellscape episode 9, while comedic, says it all:

Veronica Sawyer… “Question mark?” What can I say? Rich and pretty can only get you so far when you don’t have anything in your heart. At least J.D. and Heather pretend to have depth. Veronica can’t even decide between cold-hearted psycho or basic bitch! … She’s “Leave it blank.” … Remember, Veronica, everyone’s gotta be something. Have fun being nothing. Thanks for fixing my casket angle though. Love you.

There’s no better way to put it. Veronica practically has no personality, but what she does have is contradicting: Is she someone normal, boring, ordinary, or is she an individualistic, psychotic killer? And exactly why is the answer both?

If Jason’s blueprint when creating Heathers 2018 was the issue of American violence, doesn’t it make sense that he would examine this most closely through the main character? J.D. is the most outwardly violent, and the Heathers are certainly emotionally violent. But it’s Veronica at the end who reconnects that bomb—even though she’s the only one really concerned with being a good and normal person. If she’s the most violent, what is that saying?

I’ve heard it said that America is a country that has an overly idealistic view about its own morality—that it feels it’s wholly good in a way that no other country is. Yet it’s also true that American philosophy (and I don’t say this as a jab) is in some ways the most selfish and individualistic. We care less about society than what you as a person are saying with your existence. Are you happy, rich, successful? And with a high value in capitalism we encourage people to compete for these titles. And it’s no secret America started with a hefty dose of violence. To be independent, we took land from the natives and conquered them to do it. (Consider the graffiti’d “ESKIMO!” in the episode six intro, harkening back to the Moby Dick story, as well as tales of General Westerburg’s morality even as we see him behead a Native American and hear of him raping one at Butcher’s Bridge. Heathers wants us to remember America’s bloody beginning.) It’s part of our history and that influences who we are. A large number of recent shootings today is certainly part of the American violence Heathers wishes to examine. So America is a country that considers itself wholly “good,” while also always wanting to be individualistic and different, at times (according to the show’s worldview) resulting in extreme violence. Sounding a little like someone you know?

But Veronica’s character being criticism in part isn’t a reason to dissociate from her. She’s the protagonist, and at the times the show’s philosophy really seems to see things from her side. Regardless of what people on here will tell you, Heathers 2018 isn’t didactic. It examines issues in a satirical way and doesn’t tell you what to think. I think somewhere in the girl who blew up Westerburg there still is that “good person” she hopes exists.

Compared to the other characters, she’s not. The most “good people” of Peathers are the victims, the stereotypes like Trailer Parker and Dylan who don’t try to fight back against the system but still resign themselves to its violence. Even Heather Duke and MacNamara make the cut for prom heaven. Veronica to the show is perhaps the worst person, ending in a horrific afterlife. But I argue in some ways that she’s still “a good person.”

In a very specific way, she is more of a good person than anyone else on the show.

When we first meet Veronica, she’s friends with the Heathers because it beats being at the bottom, but she clearly hates the way they abuse their power and hurt others. Heather Chandler’s character assassination of Ram is what causes Veronica to finally lash out at her after fantasizing about burying her in the ground. J.D. convinces her to get revenge with the helpful assurance, “Don’t think of it like we’re hurting Heather Chandler. Think of it like we’re helping everyone else.” I would argue Veronica goes after Heather C. in part because she longs for a Westerburg where everyone can be free. And she’s clearly disgusted when Betty Finn continues the cycle of abuse after Heather Chandler is gone. When Betty offers her a seat on the council of the “new Heathers,” Veronica wants no part in it.

While the show moves on from Heather MacNamara’s death rather quickly, it’s clear that it remains in Veronica’s head more than in any other character’s (Heather Duke comes second in this regard). Heather M. haunts Veronica in a daydream, and Veronica gets pissed when J.D. skips out on her funeral. Moreover, in episode 4, she murmurs in the car, “I was thinking about Heather, Heather M. Like if there was more I could have done. … Like if I had sent a text at the right moment or something.” The show also makes a point of referencing Heather M. both in Heather Chandler’s finale speech and Veronica’s whirlwind epiphany after, as if to say Heather MacNamara falling victim to Westerburg’s vicious cycle plays a big part in why Veronica did what she did at the end. We’ll cover Veronica’s crazier episode 4-6 antics in a minute, but Heather MacNamara’s memory also plays a huge role in episode 7. Until the finale, the only time Veronica herself knowingly kills someone is to avenge Heather M.’s death and make sure Mr. Waters can’t take advantage of any more girls. And it’s after this she tells J.D., “No more.” For her, the nightmare involving Heather M. is largely over, and she feels free and normal in that moment. She’s free, until more trouble with J.D. arises.

In episodes 9 and early 10 we can also see how her ideals of goodness totally counteract whatever feelings she might have had for J.D. But she does give us a surprising move in episode 8 when she recommits to the Heathers—obviously stressed over the possibility of the Heathers finding out her violent past but seemingly more frustrated by J.D.’s nonchalance about prom.

So you can argue that Veronica is in some ways a good person. While J.D. distributes vigilante suicides and the Heathers fight to remain on top, Veronica when she’s not busy gaslighting her boyfriend is actually trying very hard to be good. So where does she go wrong, and how does she end up the most violent?

The way I view Veronica, at her core she is an ordinary, carefree girl. She wants to live a normal teenage life, happy and average. She wants to fall in love with a boy who adores her completely. She wants to do well in school. She wants to grow up and have a decent future. She wants to be unremarkable.

But she lives in a culture where to be unremarkable is to be nothing. The world of Heathers is one that labels relentlessly, and exposes youths to the psychological violence of perfectionism and constant judgment. Even as a young girl she as frustrated. As a teenager, she is totally miserable. In a world where everybody’s gotta be something, it is impossible for a person who wants to be ordinary to be happy. They will always feel the pressure of a violent society.

In my interpretation, it’s this knowledge that causes Veronica to fall in love with violence—in herself and in her boyfriend, J.D. Her kind and normal heart is what draws her so much to Ram. But her knowledge of how the world really works is what makes her lust after J.D. A life with Ram would never really work. But J.D., J.D. represents individuality and enacting change. Combining an ordinary soul with the sort of cutthroat psychological environment Heathers seems to be depicting is America, you get someone who needs to express their individuality and enact violence just to be normal. There’s no hope in normalcy—but Veronica doesn’t give up. By shaking things up—killing Lucy, killing Heather, killing Westerburg—maybe Veronica will find another life where she can just be herself. She doesn’t. But, she tries.

Veronica’s love for violence blooms in the society that celebrates it. When she expresses her “real self,” she is “nothing” in their eyes. And when she finally gives in to the realm of violence, she finally has society’s approval as they hail her the engineer of the mass suicide. Yet paradoxically, she commits the act of violence for herself, as an individual. She does it because she can’t see any other way to be happy.

When I don’t keep this in mind, Veronica’s love for violence becomes puzzling. Her erratic actions against J.D. in episodes 4-6 seem illogical—doesn’t she see that J.D. represents violence, a way out? But for her it’s not as simple as that. She doesn’t only want a way out—such a fundamental part of her wants to be normal, to have a faithful boyfriend, to have fun with her best friend Heather Duke, to go to prom with J.D. But it mixes with how fucking pissed off she is at the whole damn world for its bullshit—she ends up lashing out at anybody to express herself. She wants to be a good, happy person and she will cut up anyone who stands in her way. Her psychopathic tendencies always serve the underlying motive of her wanting to be normal and happy in a society where no one else wants that—everyone’s busy with their plotting and power plays. Even when Veronica discusses wanting to be different “from all of them” and how J.D. and she have something unique and special, I still think that’s mostly because that’s how it feels to deep down want such basic desires at a school where everyone’s so backwards and self-obsessed. Veronica’s bloodthirst, her need to be an individual, it’s all because this school doesn’t recognize her. People need to impose their will most when they’ve been erased, and there’s no room at Westerburg for Veronica’s innocence.

Veronica is no saint. In fact, she’s the worst person on the show, singlehandedly pulling the trigger on a high school full of innocent students. But also, when you really think about it, Veronica is the only character on Heathers who’s entirely focused on being a good and happy person, even though she does insane things in the name of that. When I watch her in that way, when I stop trying to figure out what’s going on in her head and realize she’s the most straightforward person on screen, her emotions are entirely evident. She’s not trying to create some big change or even to become number one. In a country that says it isn’t enough to be human, Veronica is trying not to be nothing, to break away from violence through violence. Her trademark color blue, unnatural and tightly clung to, yet even somewhat cliché, represents this fixed hope: that she’ll move beyond the chaos and aberrant conformity around her, somehow find peace without compromising for anybody. Everyone is ready to answer the question, Who is Veronica Sawyer? But if you shut up, Veronica would tell you. She’s just her.

Bus Trash

#peathers #heathers #veronica sawyer #grace victoria cox #jason micallef #american violence #you always had to be blue

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