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#and I completely dove in the attempt to mimick her
zensations35 · 5 months
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King of Madness
Soooo, I knocked this thing out in like 48 hours. Because when inspiration strikes, nothing makes sense. This is an Orestes fic based on Greek mythology retellings. It's a different style than I normally write, but I did it this way to keep it loyal to the source material. I also wrote it specifically to be read as an audio fic, so, enjoy that! A little background: The furies are causing Orestes to hallucinate and Menelaus is trying to catch him acting mad so he can take over Orestes’ kingdom. It’s all very political and petty. Ok! Enjoy!
Pylades sweeps into the room, cloak whirling around his feet as he dips so quickly he cracks his knee on the smooth floor of the bedchamber.
“My King,” his voice is firm, respectful. Only slightly pitched with worry.
Orestes reclines--slumps really--against the headboard of the carved wooden cradle of the bed. He looks much worse than Pylades last saw him. Dark curls damp his brow, his visible flesh shiny and scented with the gleam of oils and sweat from his mental decline.
“Did…” Orestes chokes on the word, his lips dry, breaths hot like baked earth. “Did you bring it?”
Pylades pulls out a wooden box, gold filigree carved in the sides and woven in floral patterns.
“Yes, My King, but I know not why.”
Orestes shifts to sit upright and winces. His head spins and he swears he catches the sight of a sinister shadow just out of his field of vision.
“Open the box,” he says. “Dab the oil on your wrist.”
Pylades is dying to ask more, but he obeys. Even he concedes to Mycenae’s ruler.
The bottle of oil in the box is a voluptuous glass with amber liquid inside. He does what he is told and spreads a dollop around his wrist. 
The odor is pungent, the sweet earthy scent of flowers permeating the air. 
Orestes drinks in a liquid sniff. “Yes--that is the one.”
Pylades’s brow furrows. “Is this…the scent you react to?”
“It is.” 
“My King, my Lord…why?” 
Another sniff, this one punctured by a swift intake of breath. Orestes nose tips skyward and his lower lip quivers. Then his chest deflates with a sigh. He brings up a hand to whisk under his twitching nose. 
“Menelaus comes for me. We must convince him my fevers are illness, not madness.”
“And you wish me to…”
Orestes presses the circle of his fingers into Pylades’ wrist. “You must aggravate my symptoms from the oil. But do not let my Uncle know what causes it. We must be--”
Orestes shivers, his breaths slick with panic. His eyes catch the sight of something above him, but he dares not look. “I-I'm not…” he cinches his lids, curling into himself and shuddering. He can hear them--the furies--cackling in the rafters, screeching.  
Orestes smothers his face in his palms, muffling his mania. “I c-can't! I…I see them! I see--!” His voice pitches into hysteria and Pylades moves closer. 
“My Lord, Orestes,” he breathes, steadying his voice, guiding his King back to the realm of reality. “You are here. You are safe. You are in Ithaca. You are safe!” 
Orestes blinks shadows from his eyes and seals his lips. A beat of his heart, and then he sighs. “I…yes. I am…” 
A bull of a knock makes both men flick eyes to the door. 
“Nephew?”
Heart thudding in his neck, Orestes’ grip tightens on Pylades’ arm and he wrenches his wrist close, dipping his nose into the heartbeat of his skin. He inhales. 
“Nephew? I--”
Orestes doesn’t hear the rest. His lungs crackle with force as he guzzles a breath. “HfSH-Mnn-!” 
That silenced Menelaus. But his footsteps do not retreat. Orestes knew he wouldn’t. But now he knows this plan should work--as long as Pylades reads the cues as well as he does in battle. 
Pylades helps Orestes stand and hobble to the door. His normally bouncy curls stick flat and limp against his slick brow. 
The door creaks open and Orestes stands in the hollow arch. Menelaus is there, bold and ready to enter. 
“Nephew, kin of my kin,” his shoulders bob--barely a bow but no one, no one, would insult the great Menelaus by questioning his prowess at bowing. 
“I have come to escort you to the feast.”
“Uncle,” Orestes offers a respectful nod. He ambles forward, detaching himself from Pylades. 
Menelaus watches them, a spark in his eyes that is close to malice. And then, gone. Replaced by a Kingly smile. “We have not started without you. I told them, I said, ‘We must wait. We mustn’t start without the King! Not without the Lord of Mycenae.’” 
Menelaus is so close now, Orestes can smell the sour wine upon his breath and Menelaus can see Orestes’ sweat bathed forehead. The King of Sparta licks his teeth, eyes narrow and clever. 
Orestes turns away to sniffle politely and cough. 
“Your illness seems not to have improved.” Menelaus scans the room. “Where might Elektra be?”
“She helps the women prepare the feast, of course.”
A raised brow in mock surprise. “Who cares for you, then, nephew? Your noble hand,” he gestures to Pylades. “I thought him capable in battle, no? Such a good man. A good soldier.”
“Pylades does just as well with other tasks.”
“Sickness is inherent in your family, is it not?”
A muscle feathers in Orestes’ cheek. “Are you implying, Uncle, that Agamemnon--your brother, greatest of Greeks--has a tainted bloodline?”
Menelaus chuffs, “Of course not. Obviously I meant in the matters of caring for ailments and illnesses, Elektra has experience with these. Wiping brows and blowing noses is women’s work.”
Orestes stiffens. “I find it distasteful to assume men cannot perform such simple tasks.” He twitches his head to the side to hide a silky curve of his lips. “But perhaps it is more Kingly to see women as superior in some aspects.” 
Menelaus’ eyes flash, a peevishness hooding his eyes. He blinks it away. “How silly of me, very silly. I know not enough about your condition to say.” He tilts his head to the side, shifting his bulk from one foot to the other. “What exactly ails you, my nephew?”
Orestes opens his mouth to speak but instead of words escaping, air flows in. 
Pylades, taking the subtle cue, places his oiled hand on Orestes’ shoulder. 
Orestes turns his head as if to look at Pylades, nose pinking from the cloying scent a mere hairsbreadth away. 
“My King…” 
Orestes dips in a small sigh, brushing his nose against Pylades’ perfumed skin. “Hih-ieh!” his chin juts upward, nostrils jumping to life, “Hnk-ZZHeu!” His body warps and coils, avoiding Pylades’ skin with the spray. 
A thick sniffle follows and he knuckles the itch still lingering behind. 
Pylades notices the dizzying intensity of the sneeze. Notices every muscle Orestes must use to keep himself standing and stoic. He notices the slight tremor in Orestes’ legs, though the robe shades it from Menelaus’ notice. 
“My sickness is from Thebes, come about when merchants came into the city for trade. It is quite Hie-TZHhhh-! Hn…” a thick swallow. “It is quite contagious. This is why Pylades cares for me. He has already been through the ailment.”
Menelaus rocks back on his heels, feeling the weight of his body rolling up and down his joints, his muscles. “Contagion is a myth.”
Orestes plasters on a smile. “I am glad to hear you say that, Uncle. I would hate to miss tonight’s festivities beca--” his eyes widen. The furies are there. Just above, in his field of vision. They giggle and cackle and caw. 
One of them reaches down with a long, blackened finger, and curls it upward in an arcing motion.
“Hhh-ih!” Orestes feels the pull of his sinuses, as if his breaths were on a puppet string attached to the finger of the furies. The others giggle, glee replacing anger. Torment amuses them. 
The finger lifts higher and his nose follows the motion.”Hhh-hh…”
Menelaus stares at him. Pylades stares at him. For the other men, it seems a normal, if highly exaggerated sneeze. 
But it is not. It is well controlled by the furies. A monument of torturous prickles, like hanging partially off a cliff. “--ieh-HHh-Hhhihh!”  Orestes’ nose stands poised, nostrils glistening, eyes wet, blurring their shadowy forms. 
His chest swells, hitches coming like a songbird in his throat. And then, with a skip of his heart, “Hieh-TSZHSHH-! EGK’TNNKSHEU!” 
The sounds ripping from his throat casts Orestes forward, stumbling so hard that Pylades wraps warm hands around his King’s shoulders to steady him. 
Menelaus, eyes wide, teeters back. Takes a small step in retreat, before catching himself, anger hardening his features. Menelaus, King of Sparta, recognizes when to withdraw. 
“Perhaps, nephew, you should pray to the gods for recovery first,” he says, sweeping back through the door. “I shall send my best priest to your chamber.” He peeks over his shoulder, lips curling. “After all, we want the best care for the King of Kings, do we not?”
The door bangs shut. Footsteps retreat. And then, unable to hold himself up any longer, Orestes falters, collapsing to the marbled floor. 
Pylades dives for him, heartbeat threading through his throat. “My Lord, my Lord--” he holds Orestes in his arms. The King of Mycenae, son of Agamemnon, weak like liquid in his embrace. 
“Pylades,” Orestes pants, hand fumbling, searching. “I…I…” he speaks with the ashes of fatigue, his energy burned away from the mere act of standing too long.
Pylades touches the back of his hand to his King’s brow. The closeness of his wrist lights a fire in his nose. 
 “Hih-EXTSHue! HihTSHHoo!” His neck bends, moisture painting Pylades’ hands. He can’t suppress his shudders, lips trembling as he speaks. “Apologies. Apologies--I--”
“My Lord, all is well. Menelaus has gone. You are safe, you are safe…I will care for you.”
Orestes slumps further into Pylades and sighs. “It is rotten work.”
Pylades’ finger drifts over his thumb, “Not to me.” He uses the folded cloth of his robe to dab at Orestes’ cheek. “Not if it’s you.”
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the-widow-sisters · 3 years
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Just Wanna Stay
Summary: When Natasha and Yelena are invited to go to an Avengers party with all of the most richest and most powerful men in the country, Yelena is determined to stay home. Natasha does not really want to go either, but she feels like she should. Luckily, Yelena has a way of getting what she wants.
Word Count: 2035
  “I’m quitting life,” Yelena dramatically declared out of the blue, still dressed in her usual cargo pants, combat boots, and tank top combo with her hair pulled back in a ponytail despite the fact that Natasha had already told her to change at least five times already. It was a stark contrast to Natasha’s apparel which was currently a sleek black dress that stopped just above her knees and dipped down in a heart-shaped neck cut.
  Natasha rolled her eyes fondly, only slightly irritated with Yelena’s lack of cooperation. By now, she was mostly used to it, but it still could be terribly inconvenient sometimes.
  Yelena’s largest contributor to her belligerence was that she did not want to go to the party that the Avengers were hosting tonight. While Yelena wanted to talk to the team and keep making a good impression, she most certainly did not ever want to go to a hoity toity party with the richest, most influential people in the country.
  Personally, Natasha did not really want to go either, but she was much more accustomed to such things despite her discomfort. She always went despite her own dislike for them even though Clint, Steve, and the others assured her that it would be fine if she didn’t come a few times and took some time for herself.
  She especially did not want to go because of the way that creepy older men drooled over her every time she walked by them. It made her terribly uncomfortable and reminded her far too much of her younger years.
  It also reminded her of Dreykov and his disgusting ways.
  “Hey, does my breath smell bad to you?” Yelena questioned before just moving directly into Natasha’s face and exhaling deeply out of her mouth. Natasha quickly moved away from the blonde, choking a bit as she narrowed her eyes at the blonde. Yelena grinned widely and wickedly, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and Natasha coughed hard.
  “Oh, my— what did you eat?!”
  “Tuna fish,” Yelena told her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and Natasha swallowed hard, trying to keep the contents of her stomach in its proper place.
  “Is it that bad?” Yelena questioned innocently before covering her mouth and nose with a hand and breathing out. She quickly withdrew her hand from her face and wrinkled her nose a bit.
  “Oh, wow… That is pretty bad,” Yelena admitted sincerely, but Natasha could see the easily evident smirk on the girl’s face that the blonde was trying diligently to hide. Natasha just raised an eyebrow, completely unimpressed.
  “Get in there and brush your teeth. We’re supposed to be leaving in fifteen minutes and you aren’t even dressed!” Natasha told her, trying to force some semblance of sternness in her voice to make Yelena listen to her. Yelena just sighed dramatically and deeply before heading off in the direction of her bathroom.
  “Do I use the mouthwash after or before?!” Yelena called loudly after a few moments, and Natasha raised her eyebrows a bit as she looked through her things and ensured they had everything they needed to leave.
  “Do it both times! You’re going to need a double dose if you’re not going to smell like that crap that you for some reason voluntarily eat,” Natasha immediately replied to her, raising her voice so that the blonde could hear her.
  “You know what they say to little kids about trying new foods?! It applies to adults, too!” Yelena yelled from her place in the bathroom, a playfully condescending tone to her voice. Natasha just huffed, a smile tugging at her lips as she chose not to grace Yelena’s smart comment with a response.
  “Ey, whaddya fink Ah should wear?” Yelena questioned, her words barely articulated. Natasha looked over her shoulder, taking in the sight of the blonde with a toothbrush in her mouth and foam threatening to dribble down her chin as she held up two different pantsuits. Natasha sighed deeply, looking down at her own dress before looking over at Yelena’s options. Natasha finally pointed at the white pantsuit.
  “That one matches mine,” Natasha pointed at the one of her choice, and Yelena’s eyes softened for a moment before she quickly masked it with her typical impishness.
  “Too ba’, Ah did’n wanta mat’ wif you,” Yelena told her defiantly, her words even more difficult to understand as she worked diligently to keep the spit and foam in her mouth, and then she spun on her heel, heading back to the bathroom. Natasha rolled her eyes, easily seeing through her sister’s bluster.
  Natasha checked the time, and she quickly noted that Yelena would need to hurry if the both of them were going to leave on time.
  “Hurry it up!” Natasha called. “We’ve got to leave in about five minutes!”
  “I’m hurrying!” Yelena responded, her words more discernable despite her distance from the redhead. Natasha with slight irritation noted the fact that the girl’s tone was very much unhurried.
  After a few more minutes and a dangerously close deadline to leave approaching, Yelena came ambling out of the room before plopping down on the couch, a pair of shoes in her hand that she dropped on the floor near the furniture.
  Natasha hurried over to her quickly, aggravation starting to rise within her.
  “Yelena, come on, we’re going to be late if we don’t leave now!”
  “You know, that would be a true tragedy… Almost as bad as not going at all,” Yelena informed her, completely unbothered as she sunk down further in the cushions with a big grin on her face. Natasha sighed deeply before grabbing her sister’s arm and attempting to drag her to her feet.
  “Get up,” Natasha insisted, and Yelena groaned, letting her full weight rest on the couch as she fought her sister.
  “I know you don’t want to go, but—"
  “You don’t either. So let’s just not go,” Yelena proclaimed, and Natasha just stared at her, her light green gaze piercing Yelena’s. Yelena held her stare, maintaining the challenge and firmly refusing to move.
  After a long moment of staring at each other, Natasha quickly yanked her sister’s arm, trying to take her off guard and force her up. However, as soon as she tried it, Yelena repositioned her arm and threw Natasha on the couch, the blonde now standing up over the redhead.
  Natasha quickly started to get up, and Yelena dove for her, landing on top of the other woman full-force and trying her best to hold her down as she grabbed her with her legs. The two grappled with each other, Yelena trying to get a good grasp on Natasha’s arms so she could hold her in place.
  “Come on, you can do better than that,” Yelena taunted, her voice strained and Natasha found that the girl was starting to get the upper-hand on her.
  “I can. I just don’t want to break the coffee table,” Natasha pointed out, moving her head slightly in the direction of the table next to the couch where they were wrestling. Yelena breathlessly laughed in response to the older woman, still fighting her with all the strength she had.
  “You might want to consider wearing a pantsuit, too. It allows for significantly increased mobility,” Yelena said, her honey-green eyes locked onto Natasha’s. Natasha grinned a bit in spite of herself, finding that this was quite fun. It was very enjoyable to just wrestle someone that she trusted so much and knew would not hurt her.
  “Dresses are hotter,” Natasha easily shot back, and Yelena shook her head, a wicked smile coming onto her face.
  “Have you seen me in a pantsuit? People are like, ‘Is there something burning in here? No, don’t worry, it is just Yelena and her pantsuit,’” the blonde cockily proclaimed, poorly mimicking an American accent and deepening her voice, and Natasha laughed at Yelena, her grip weakening on her little sister.
  Yelena took advantage of the opening and pinned Natasha’s arms to the couch cushions. Natasha could not even really be angry as she just looked up at Yelena who had a wild grin on her face.
  “Ha! Pinned you!” Yelena victoriously proclaimed and Natasha just smiled softly up at her, feeling her chest warm with fondness and pride as she just gazed at her little sister. The both of them sat there for a long moment, their chests heaving from the struggle.
  Yelena seemed to sense the mood shift, and her victorious smirk faded just a little into something much softer and more adoring. Yelena loosened up a bit and carefully allowed herself to just lay her torso down on top of Natasha’s, releasing her hold on Natasha’s arms in favor of just relaxing on the redhead. Natasha brought a hand up, stroking Yelena’s back gently before bringing her other arm up to bring her closer.
  Suddenly, to Natasha’s surprise, her phone suddenly buzzed. Natasha moved her hand from Yelena’s back down to the pocket of her dress and withdrew her phone, tapping the screen lightly with her thumb.
  It was then that she was reminded of the party that the both of them had to get to. The fun they just had was plenty enough to distract her from going. After all, she would much rather hang around the house with her best friend than go out and spend time with a bunch of high society snobs.
  There on her phone was a text from Clint asking her if she was coming tonight or not. However, to her surprise, despite her insistence that she was going to come and bring Yelena, he had even added below it that he was perfectly willing to cover for her if she did not feel like going that night.
  Natasha just gazed at the text for a long moment, and Yelena turned her head to see what her older sister was looking at. Natasha activated the keyboard function but did not type as she just quietly considered what she was going to write and what would be her choice. Yelena carefully watched the redhead’s finger and Natasha could feel the hope radiating off of the Yelena.
  Natasha finally sighed a bit in resignation, typing on the phone with her thumb and informing Clint that they would indeed not be coming, and it would be greatly appreciated if he could cover for her. She could feel the smile spreading across Yelena’s face, and Natasha groaned as she repositioned underneath her sister’s weight and moved up further. Yelena’s chin was now laying on Natasha’s chest and Natasha could look her in the eyes.
  It made Natasha’s heart squeeze as she took in the pure adoration, idolization, and devotion in Yelena’s eyes. Natasha was almost sure that Yelena was not aware that her eyes were giving away that much emotion, but it was really nice to just see exactly what Yelena was feeling.
  “Well, are you happy now?” Natasha asked even though she knew the answer to her own question. Yelena smirked a little, narrowing her eyes, but all of the emotion was still within them as she adoringly stared at the redhead.
  “Very,” Yelena replied simply, and Natasha huffed a bit with laughter, shaking her head and looking away for a moment before gazing back down at the lovable little urchin sprawled out on top of her.
  “C’mon, let’s get up and change into something more comfortable if we’re staying,” Natasha started trying to make a move to get up, but Yelena latched herself around her more tightly. Natasha raised an eyebrow, staring at Yelena quizzically.
  “It’s too comfy to move, and if we go change, the spot will get cold,” Yelena protested, and she had that sweet pout that she had always been able to pull off so well. As soon as Natasha saw it, she knew that the blonde now had her wrapped around her finger. Natasha sighed deeply but she just chose to lay her head back and wrap her arms around the girl, enjoying the comforting pressure of Yelena’s weight.
  “Okay… But when your pants start riding up, you’re going to be stuck here.”
  “Eh, a small price.”
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danger-xylophones · 4 years
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The Magic of Sleep Deprivation and Tea (Fives x reader)
{masterlist}
Warnings: Allusions to sex and a role-playing kink, swearing, brothers being annoying. 
Notes: It’s loving Fives hours
Words: 2.2k
…………………………
You were in the mess hall when he walked in, hurriedly eating your meal so you could sooner go to sleep. After spending approximately 40 hours attending to critical condition patients you were eager to return to your room for some much needed shut-eye. In an effort to keep yourself from falling asleep in your food, you were keeping yourself occupied by tuning your ears into the chatter of the clones all around you. The animated discussions that permeated the mess hall were enough distraction from the unending beeping of heart monitors, the clatter of medical equipment being hastily moved around, the barking of the doctors as they ordered things from the nurses, and, most haunting of all, the pained groans of the men wounded in combat who were still clinging to life. 
You shook your head to bring you out of the sudden darkness that clouded your already foggy head. A peal of laughter sounded from a table close to the door and you snapped your head up to examine the intermingling 501st and 205th soldiers. You allowed a small smile to sneak across your face at the happiness the men were displaying. One of them, Codex you think, clad in his freshly painted teal armor caught your stare and sent you an enthusiastic wave. You returned it with a quiet laugh and toned down two-finger salute. It was then that the door slid open and the already noisy mess hall was deafened by the thunderous roar of laughter coming from the entering cloned men. It was a group of oh-so familiar 501st soldiers and the sight of them had the weariness from the excruciating work-life balance  you had melting away. 
Jesse was the one to spot you and he paused mid-joke to elbow Kix who was closest to him. The man bearing the republic gear on his head pointed to you which caused you to sit up a little straighter to wave the group down. They started heading towards you. As they drew closer, you were able to identify who was who; Jesse and Kix, of course, Rex, Echo, and Fives. Each one was still in their armor and they all looked better than the last time you’d seen them. Except for Fives. Although to be fair the last time you’d seen him had been 5 hours ago when he snuck into the med bay to quietly inform you that he and the rest of the 501st (those that hadn’t been sent to you on gurneys) had returned to Coruscant. 
“Hey, Doc!” Jesse yelled as he plopped down in front of you. You cringed at his loud volume by found a small laugh tittering from you all the same. Kix, with an eye roll that would make Commander Wolffe proud, settled next Jesse tiredly-it appeared as though he’d had a rough go out there and was in a state similar to your own. Rex took his seat on Jesse’s other side and Echo and Fives came round to sit on the same bench as you. Fives may or may not have ‘accidentally’ brushed his hand down your arm as he settled on your right. 
“Hey, boys.” You greeted with a smile. “How goes it?” You received a myriad responses ranging from a tired shrug from Rex, a so-so from Kix, an ‘alright’ from Echo, and a ‘good’ from Jesse. But the most dynamic response came from none other than the arc trooper on your right. 
“Better now that you’re here.” Fives simpered exaggeratedly, propping his elbow on the table so he could drop his chin atop his fist. A puff of air slipped from your nose as you rolled your eyes. 
“Gods, you’re a ham.” You bit back. With a dazzling grin, Fives embraced the challenge you’d accidentally presented him with. 
“Only for you, doc.” Fives slid closer to crowd into your personal space. 
You moved back enough to keep eye contact with him and raised an eyebrow. “I bet you say that to all the doctors.”
“Only the pretty ones.” The arc countered with a wide (and rather goofy) smile. 
“C’mon, Fives, leave Doctor L/n alone.” Echo’s condemnation of his brother’s dogged attempts at wooing you broke the moment and returned you to the mess hall. “I’m sure she’s got enough on her plate without your flirting to add to it.” 
“C’mon, Echo,” Fives mimicked his twin’s tone expertly, “I’m sure Y/n doesn’t mind. Right?” The arc turned to you with a comical wiggle of his eyebrows that had you trying to hide your smile behind your near-empty mug of tea. With a shrug, you downed the flavored water while Echo continued to rebuke his brother-much to the amusement of Jesse and Kix and the irritation of Rex. Fives didn’t listen to a word of it. 
“So, how have things been with you, Y/n?” Jesse eventually asked, having gotten bored with Echo’s lecturing. You took a second to finish chewing the bite of food you’d just put in your mouth which afforded you some time to think about your response. 
“Good,” you began when your mouth was clear of food, “well as good as you can be working back to back shifts.” A dry chuckle slipped from you that was mimicked by Kix who understood what you meant all too well. “If you guys could do me a favor and stop getting injured, that’d be great.” 
“We’ll stop getting injured when the clankers stop shooting at us, cyar’ika.” Jesse quipped immediately. You chuckled lowly before noticing the way Fives’s hand had clenched into a fist while it was still on top of the table. Thinking quickly, you dropped your own hand under the table to gently place it on top of his thigh-a silent reassurance that Jesse had meant nothing by the term of endearment Fives so often used for you and that his usage of it had no effect on you. Fives’s hand relaxed and you allowed your lips to quirk up in the briefest of grins. You didn’t remove your hand though and instead opted to go about eating without the usage of your right hand. With a low mutter of ‘that’ll be the day’ you downed the last of your tea as the other four men dove into their own conversation-something about Commander Cody punching a droid in the face, you weren’t really invested. You were far too focused on Fives whose hand had dropped over your own. His head was tilted downwards so he could watch as his finger dragged imaginary lines over the back of your hand. But the clink of your empty mug on the table caused his head to lift once more. 
“Here, I’ll get you some more tea.” Fives whispered and snatched your mug up before you could protest. You sent a soft thank you after his retreating figure and he spun around to send you a wink that immediately caused your cheeks to warm. 
The other guys said nothing regarding the interactions between you and Fives as they had all been distracted by the prospect of food as Jesse had gotten to his feet. As the trooper wandered off to complete his task, you dove into conversation with Kix, Echo, and Rex who were eager to tell you about their latest successes. You’d gotten so invested in the discussion that Fives returning to the table caused you to jump which elicited several laughs from the cloned men. You dismissed them with an eye roll and focused on the arc trooper. “Here you go, doc.” He chirped, gesturing to the mug in his hand with his head. “Just the way you like it-black tea steeped for three minutes with a splash of milk and a tablespoon of sugar.” As he explained your preferred preparations for tea, Fives leaned around you to set the mug on the table which brought his head close enough to your own for your cheeks to almost touch. 
You smiled softly, touched by his attention to detail and for just a moment you forgot about his brothers who were seated at the table as well. “You’re too sweet, Fives.” You sighed and took his chin in your left hand to turn his face towards you. His warm eyes that reminded you of pools of liquid bronze met yours and you felt yourself swooning again-although maybe it was an effect of the sleep deprivation. “What did I do to deserve you?” You didn’t catch yourself in time and, before you knew it, your lips were on his. It was a soft kiss-just barely longer than a peck but the effect it had was undeniable. Fives froze completely as you tore yourself away, hands coming up to cover your mouth as you stared back at the startled arc trooper. 
“Holy shit.” Kix breathed out in shock but it did little to distract the rest of the table from what they’d just witnessed. 
“Uhhhh…” You began, willing your mind to conjure up something. Nothing, nada, zilch. Your own mind had abandoned you. “Errr-I…”
A loud metallic slam on the edge of the table saved you (or damned you depending on how you look at it) and made everyone flinch. Jesse stood at the head of the table, a finger jabbed at both of you, a triumphant smirk on his face, and the metal tray he’d been using to carry his brothers’ food precariously balanced on the edge of the table. “I kriffing knew it!” He looked away from your horror struck face and turned to your equally startled boyfriend. “Fives, you lucky bastard.” Jesse’s complete acceptance of the shocking revelation was what finally kickstarted not just you but his brothers as well. 
“Congrats, you two.” Echo chirped as soon as he got a hold of his tongue. It was a little shaky but you were grateful that he refrained from condemning your relationship for being against regulations. Although, you might as well not have heard it considering you had already retreated into your own mind in an attempt to escape the situation. 
“Yeah!” Kix was next to accept it. “Although, I never thought Fives would be the one to finally get in your pants, Y/n.” And he was the first to begin the unavoidable teasing. 
You groaned pathetically and dropped your head onto the table with a loud thunk. The exaggerated reaction from you only served to spur the brothers on. “It was the goatee, wasn’t it?” Jesse queried in a mock sympathetic voice; like an older sibling that had just learned about their younger sibling’s crush, he was determined to tease the hell out of them. “You struck me as the facial hair type.” 
“Stop.” You whined, bringing your arms up over your head. 
“Maybe she’s got a thing for ARC’s?” Rex joined in and there went any hope that you and Fives would escape with any dignity. You whined again and thumped your forehead on the table. A chuckle slipped from Fives as he slowly regained his functions. The arc trooper reached over to rub his hand on your shoulder blade and you carefully peaked out under your arm. Fives’s face was steadily darkening and he had a small, bashful smile on his face that encouraged you to come out of the impromptu shell you’d constructed. 
“Or maybe Fives’s got a thing for doctors?” Jesse snorted and both of your faces fell at the blunt reminder that you were still with company. An awkward moment of silence passed until your boyfriend nervously cleared his throat and the table burst into laughter at the nonverbal confirmation. “Oh, kriff, does she keep the labcoat on?” Echo made an indignant squeak of warning on behalf of you and his twin  but Jesse stared his brother down unabashedly and you finally crossed into mortified territory. 
“And the stethoscope too?” Rex chimed in again, relying on his vague knowledge of the lab wear he’d seen you in. 
“She got a checklist of your kinks, vod?” Kix snickered. Fives chuckled at that one, apparently amused at the idea that hit a little too close to home. There was certainly a list, it just wasn’t a checklist. 
“No,” Fives tried to gain control of the situation as he tossed an arm around your shoulders, “None of that.” You sighed in relief, thankful that he was trying to keep the teasing to a minimum for once. “Although, I’ve certainly got some more ideas now.” 
“Fives!” You exploded away from him, crashing into Echo, with a shrill cry that launched Jesse and Kix into hysterics and pulled a chuckle from Rex. Your face was so warm that it felt like you’d decided to stick it in a furnace as embarrassment coursed through your system. Echo wasn’t much help as he was currently the only thing preventing you from bolting out of the mess. 
While this may not have been the way you planned to inform his brothers of your relationship, you couldn’t deny the relief at their acceptance of it. And if you had to put up with their teasing at least that would serve as proof that they’d already accepted you into their family with open arms. And you supposed that deep down-way past the mortification you still felt as you and Fives slipped away from his brothers followed by cat calls, whoops, and hollers-you were grateful for the chance to provide Fives’s vode with hope for their own futures. 
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samwilsonsbabymama · 4 years
Text
Bucky Boo Bear pt. 2
Pairing: Sam Wilson x Reader x Bucky Barnes
Summary: Continuation of this prompt and the discussion that happened in the notes lol
Warnings: Smut and some fluff... but mostly smut 
A/N:  Yall can thank @wawakanda-btch​ and @bluestarego​ for this lol
Word Count: 1,600ish
18+
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You hadn’t seen Bucky all week and you were beginning to wonder if you had pushed him too far with the teasing. You could honestly say that you missed him and his bickering.
After the whole staring incident, you had wondered what Sam meant about the two of you ‘pulling your heads out of your asses’. You were 100% certain that Bucky didn’t find you attractive at all. He had all but made that clear, but you weren’t one to dwell on the past for too long.
“You’re pouting again,” Sam said from your lap. The two of you were having a movie night, but your mind kept wandering back to Bucky.
“Sorry, Sam,” you groaned as you rubbed your hands over your face. “It’s just, Bucky hasn’t been home in over a week and I think that maybe I pushed him too far, ya know?”
Sam sighed before he sat up and looked at you. “I have an idea to help take your mind off him.” Sam hopped off the couch before he pulled you up beside him. “Since I haven’t been able to go get my hair cut, would you line me up?”
“You trust me to cut your hair?” you were shocked. This wasn’t the first time that Sam had asked you to cut his hair, but it had been so long since he last asked.
“Yeah,” Sam replied before he pulled you towards his room. “I mean, you did a really good job last time, and it’s not like I can go get it cut now.”
You bounced as you walked to his room. You loved playing in Sam’s hair, and the fact that he trusted you warmed your heart. When the two of you entered his room, you watched as he rummaged around for his clippers and a towel and you waited until he was ready. As soon as he sat down, you went over and began prepping him. You steadied your hand as the clippers began to vibrate in your hand and you began to line him up.
You two were silent as you worked. You moved his head this way and that way and popped him whenever he moved. “Yo line up gon be crooked if you keep moving, Samuel,” you said causing him to laugh. He knew you were only joking but he wasn’t going to take any chances so he sat still.
When you were finished, you moved around him and handed him a small mirror so that he could see. You cleaned up as he studied himself in the mirror.
“Damn, y/n,” he praised from his seat.
“What?” you said with a smirk. You rubbed alcohol on the blades of the clippers and left them on the counter to let them dry.
“You’re one of a kind.” 
You turned and looked him in the eye for the first time and smiled. Sam placed the mirror on the counter and held your gaze. “Why have we never gotten together?” he asked, his hands grabbing your hips and pulling you between his thighs.
“What? Sam we-”
“Yeah, I know we slept together once,” he amended. “But, why haven’t we gotten together ever since?” 
You shrugged and braced your hands on his shoulders and closed your eyes as his hands began rubbing up and down your sides.
“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop, y/n,” Sam mumbled against your soft stomach. “Tell me that you don’t want this and I’ll drop it.”
“I do, Sam, but- but what about Bucky?” you moved your hands to make Sam look up at you once again and searched his eyes.
“Y/n, we know,” he responded after a few silent moments.
You quirked an eyebrow in question.
“We know that you want us,” he whispered. “Both of us. At the same time.”
You shivered at his voice and stepped closer to him.
“But what you don’t know,” a new voice said from behind you, causing you to jump and turn around. “Is that we want you too. At the same time. Alone. You name it, we want it.”
Bucky fully entered the room and stood about an arm’s length away from you.
“But you were gone for a week,” you said in a weak voice. “I thought I had pushed you too far and that I had lost my chance.”
Bucky laughed. “You can blame Sam for that, doll. He was supposed to make the next move, and it took him a week to finally do it.”
You looed between the two men, “Wait. you both want me and I want you both, so why the fuck are we still standing here fully clothed?” you asked as you began stripping your clothes off. You began walking towards your room and handed Bucky your shirt as you passed.
“But, y/n?” Bucky asked as he held your shirt. “Who’s going first?”
You giggled and shrugged, “Doesn’t matter to me, hell, you can ‘rock, paper, scissors’ for all I care.” and you continued to your room, leaving the door cracked.
The two men were silent for a few seconds before you heard them both clambering to get to your room. You were completely naked and sprawled across your bed. You looked up as they both entered, their shirts were off and they were working on their pants.
“Do you know how many nights I’ve dreamed of this, y/n,” Sam asked as he hooked your legs over his shoulder and dove right in. “Fuck, I’ve missed this,” he mumbled between licks, the vibrations from his words sent shivers up your spine.
Bucky watched from the door, and not to be one outdone, he climbed up on the bed and pulled you into a kiss. His lips were softer than you had imagined, and you couldn’t wait to feel those lips elsewhere.
You moaned when Sam slipped two fingers into you and Bucky pulled back. He watched for a moment as your eyes rolled back while Sam devoured you. His hand absentmindedly stroked his dick as he watched Sam eat you out. You reached out and covered his hand with yours, drawing his attention back to your face. You licked your lips and his dick jumped.
“You want a taste?” he asked as he moved closer to you. 
You nodded and moaned from Sam’s ministrations. “Use your words,” he chided, his vibrations against your pussy lips surprised you and you attempted to close your legs.
“Yes, Bucky. Please let me tase you,” you were past begging. It was more of a need now. 
Bucky moved closer to you and tapped your lips with his dick. You wrapped your lips around the tip and he groaned.
“Fuck!” Bucky was gasping for air as you sucked his dick. 
You mimicked Sam’s tongue, sucking on Bucky as Sam slid his tongue inside of you. You used one hand to grip the base of Buckys dick and the other held Sam at your core. Bucky kept his hands on his hips as he gently thrust inside of your mouth. You moved your hand to pull him closer and swallowed around his tip and he growled. His eyes flashed and he slapped your hand away and pulled out.
“Tap my thigh when you want me to stop,” he said before he straddled your chest and listed your head. You opened your mouth without hesitation and he slid right in. You relaxed your throat as he continued to face fuck you. Sam chuckled from below; every time he had felt you come close to cumming, he would stop and let you calm down before he resumed. He knew that Bucky wouldn’t last long, you had made Sam cum embarrassingly quick from head alone that one night, so he knew Bucky was going to meet the same fate.
Your hands gripped Buck’ys thighs as he continued to fuck your face. You watched him, his head was thrown back, hair falling from his bun, mouth wide open as he used you and you loved it.
“Sam, you better make her cum soon,” Bucky ordered from above. Sam chuckled and doubled his efforts. You felt your orgasm approaching once again as Sam played with your clit. Your eyes were burning and you were digging your nails into Bucky’s thighs, but BUcky continued.
Sam sank three fingers inside of you and rubbed your g-spot and you were seeing stars. Your body froze and your toes curled as you felt your orgasm release from your body.
“Holy shit!” you heard Sam’s muffled exclamation, but you were too far gone to care what happened.
Bucky continued to fuck your face as you came, his orgasm only seconds away. You managed to hollow your cheeks, and that sent him completely over. He spasmed and released his seed down your throat and held his dick in your mouth as he felt you swallow him down. He panted above you, then removed himself from your mouth and flopped down next to you.
“Holy shit,” Bucky said.
“You got that right,” Sam responded.
You opened your mouth to respond but nothing came out.
“Damn, guess we should wait until your voice comes back for the next round,” Sam said. He looked at you over Bucky and his face was wet. You quirked an eyebrow.
“I take it that you’ve never squirted before?” Sam waggled his eyebrows and you covered your face and flopped back down against the bed.
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prettyflyshyguy · 3 years
Text
Teehee what if I was to drop most of the C Virus AU Fanfic CH3 right now at 12:28AM... Unless.
Unedited/draft Ch1, Ch2 first half, Ch2 second half, for your perusal, and here’s a very unedited first chunk of CH3 that isn’t quite finished because I have work tomorrow but it involves interaction with Ada and I’m sitting here all :)))))))))) while writing so I hope you enjoy!
Perched atop a building, he scanned the area below. As he was making his way towards the area where Simmons should be, he had heard gunfire. Despite his grizzly appearance, if someone was in trouble he could still find a way to help, surely. A street facing door was suddenly kicked open and a figure stumbled out, with a crossbow of all things in their hands. 
‘No. Way.’ he thought as he carefully descended from the roof, wanting to get a clearer look. 
The survivor fired a shot at something inside the building, before ducking back. A small explosion occurred and a BOW, screaming and flailing stumbled out. It was more grotesque than the other C-Virus monstrosities he’d seen so far, and it looked like it had a chainsaw for an arm. It screamed in agony while the survivor readied another shot. Carefully maneuvering himself behind some rubble, the light from another small explosion from the crossbow’s bolt illuminated the survivors face for a brief moment, fully confirming his suspicions. 
It was Ada, for sure. At least he thought so. She was wearing the same clothes as when he and Helena saw her in the catacombs. The mystery was still there however; which one was the real Ada Wong? Was there even a singular one? Was she just switching outfits and motives in some twisted game?
Flicking a glance back in her direction, she was staring down at the body of the BOW lying smoking on the floor, inert. He shuffled, ever so carefully, avoiding making any noise so he could tactically reposition to try and make contact. He stiffened as he felt the vibration of rubble shift under his foot, a small amount of dirt and rocks crumbling. 
“Now what do we have here.”
Hoping if he kept still enough, she’d think no one was there, he held his breath. His heart rate increased as he heard the soft clack of her boots on the concrete approaching at a gentle pace, a bolt being loaded. No time to think.
Placing his hands on the ground, crouching back, he launched himself over the rubble, ignoring the sound of a bolt  whizzing just past his ear. Spotting a broken window one floor up a building, he leapt into it and backed up against the wall panting, just as another bolt narrowly missed its mark.
“Honey I didn’t have the time to deal with this overly enthusiastic fellow,”
He heard the sound of another bolt being loaded.
“So how about you help a girl out and make this quick and easy for both of us.”
The ‘thwip’ of a bolt pierced the air and one landed on the other side of the room. It bounced off the wall, fell to the floor and rolled slowly towards him. The head of the bolt looked large and blunt and had a small blinking red LED. He didn’t need to guess what it meant as the rate increased, and the bolt exploded in a flash of light and smoke. 
Ada stared at the cloud billowing out of the window, preparing another round for good measure. Her eyes narrowed as a few seconds passed, with no movement. She raised her weapon and aimed at where the window was, but it was barely visible now as the smoke had spread. 
Suddenly the creature leapt through the smoke with frightening speed, grabbing her arm and pushing it away as she shot the loaded bolt in a random direction. It ripped the crossbow out of her arm and backed up as she spun around to face it, reaching for her holster. 
Feeling nothing, her eyes widened as she noticed it was holding her handgun and crossbow. It tossed the bow aside gently, and with elegance she’d never seen from a BOW removed the magazine from the gun and dropped both parts either side of it. It maintained eye contact with her the entire time, its eyes were piercing and displayed a terrifying degree of human intelligence.
Covering up the fear in her head, she smiled.
“I can’t say I’ve ever met a man who’s tried this hard to get my attention.”
She started to pace slowly around as she drew a knife from her belt, the creature mimicked her pace as they circled. 
It began to raise its arms, she dove in with the knife and test jabbed to check its reflexes. It was fast, faster than her. 
Her expression turned stern. It backed up a few paces, eyes focused on her as she furiously walked closer brandishing the knife.
“I’m a very, busy, woman.” she grunted while slashing. “And I don’t, have the time, for stalkers.”
Whatever the hell she was dealing with, it clearly knew the basics of CQC. Dancing and ducking around her every swing and jab, although it made no attempt to hit her back. Suddenly its eyes flicked to something behind her, a distraction and an opening. She thrusted the knife forward but something grabbed her by the ankle and almost toppled her, one hand slamming into the ground, the other with the knife at the ready. Flicking her head to the source, the charred and burnt BOW with the chainsaw arm simply refused to die, it and had a vice grip around her right ankle. The sound of bone and flesh grinding louder and louder as it lifted its twisted machination of a chainsaw arm up as the teeth and bone started spinning again. 
She looked back to the creature in front of her only to find it gone, suddenly turning back to the one grabbing her ankle, her eyes widened as she saw the second creature holding the chainsaw-arm back, with one foot on the BOW’s back. The charred living corpse let out a chilling howl as the creature pinning it down pulled its arm further back, dislocating the mutated tendons and bone, ripping muscle. The bone-tooth blade stopped spinning and the vice grip loosened. Ada sprung back up and turned around to face the creature that by all intends, spared her. It was panting while staring at the charred corpse, seemingly ensuring it was truly dead this time. She took the opportunity and sprung towards it, holding the knife in both hands.
At almost the last second before the knife hit its chest it flung one arm up to push hers back, and grabbed one of her wrists with its other, stopping her completely in her tracks. She grimaced and stared up at its face, meeting its eyes. There was almost a pleading look to them. Its grip on her wrist was firm, but not painful, she kept the knife pointed at its chest but shifted her weight so not as much force was pushing her into its arms. Despite the overcast sky, a small break in the clouds shifted and moonlight illuminated the scene and the creature's face. That’s when she noticed its unmistakable hair, the soft blue eyes. The fact it didn’t even lay a scratch on her. 
“...Leon?”
His face softened and the concern was replaced with the beginnings of a warm smile, he loosened his grip on her arms and started to relax-
Her knee struck his stomach with frightening force, he stumbled back with a grunt.
“That’s for almost breaking my crossbow.”
He smiled slightly as he cocked his head to one side, probably deserved that. He gently collected her sidearm and magazine, grateful to find out despite his hands shifting he was still able to comfortably reload the gun with ease. She collected her crossbow, a pleased smile graced her face as she examined it and found it was not damaged.
“So, cat got your tongue?” her playful tone hid a mixture of contradicting emotions. 
She turned back to Leon who had a hand extended, holding her sidearm out. Taking it back, she took a moment to actually look at him. He always ‘stood tall’ around her, she noted he was even taller now and actually towered over her with an air of confidence after managing to disarm her so carefully. It was hard to maintain a certain level of composure, he had hardly changed and the thought was warm but looking at what had happened was painful. His eyes were exactly the same but she could barely return his gaze without her composure breaking. 
He shuffled slightly, then opened his mouth. Hoping something normal sounding would come out. 
“Aa…” 
The more he tried to force it, the more it hurt his throat. His shoulders shrunk inwards slightly as he turned his head to face away from her, the embarrassment and shame of the situation returning. He didn’t want to face her like this, he was regretting even trying to talk to h-
“Did Simmons do this?”
Giving up the vocal option, he shook his head. He shifted towards a wall, leaning comfortably facing her, with a flick of the wrist he pointed a finger briefly towards her, then folded his arms.
“... It was the bitch in the blue dress, wasn’t it.”
He tilted his head to one side slightly, his expression stern. 
“After everything I’ve seen, it’d be pretty cold of me to just say ‘it’s complicated’ don’t you think?” she joked with a forced smile.
No one was laughing. Leon had a very high level of tolerance for her usual manner of speaking, cryptic and tangential, not today however. His entire life changed the day they met in Racoon City but this blows that experience well out of the water.
“I don’t know who she is, but Simmons made her using the C-Virus. Starting off as a bootleg version of me but it seems like she’s got big plans of her own now.”
His stare was piercing. 
“I’m sorry.” 
His face softened as he raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Simmons became… A little too attached to me. I wasn’t interested in playing by his rules, let’s just say he took it a little personally when I didn’t reciprocate his feelings.”
She paced around the courtyard as she spoke.
“I don’t know how he did it, but his obsession resulted in him using the C-Virus to create a very imperfect clone of me. A bootleg Ada Wong if you will.”
Leon snorted in amusement, but he maintained his stance. Closely watching as she stood still and looked back at him.
“I’m not working for Simmons. We’re on the same side, I promise.”
Then who do you work for?
The question echoed in his mind. The one time Ada talks with him at length, he can barely say her name. He looked away, frustrated and ashamed of the circumstance. Hearing her walk closer he turned slightly only to feel the warmth of her hand brush up against his cheek, his eyes flicking towards it and back to her as they widened slightly. His arms fell to his side as her other hand gently rested on his arm. Despite the transformation he still felt the temperature of his face increase, not expecting anyone he knew would even be able to accept what happened to him and be so gentle, especially not Ada. 
“I came here to clean up the mess Simmons started but now… Now it’s personal.”
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quilloftheclouds · 4 years
Text
I feel like I should treat the romantics among my followers to a lil’ something.
Have an excerpt from the One Siren’s Soul AU titled Violet Lightning, in which our main character Celestine has an adult appearance and a British accent, but aside from that, is much the same as in canon.
That sameness includes her inability to understand feelings of ~looooOOOoove~. Otherwise known as a giant heckin’ crush.
-----
The pirate captain's smirk was despicably wide as she turned to me. I glared in return, but didn't verbally reply. She chuckled.
"Ye'd best be enjoying yer new cell--yer gettin' the special treatment, cloudlin'." I groaned, rolling my eye.
"If I give you my name, will you stop referring to me with the annoying 'cloudling'?"
She snorted, beaming.
"In that case--" She mimicked removing a hat, swirling her other hand before her in an exaggerated bow. The wink was even more aggravating. "Captain Phoenix Solarin, legendary pirate warrior an' fire starter a' the seas, at yer service~"
I scoffed, "'Legendary?' Never heard of you."
Phoenix returned to her full height, expression unchanged, head barely below brushing the ceiling. The cabin must have been heavily modified to attain even that--the woman was tall. It would be lying to say I wasn’t slightly intimidated. I curled my lip.
"Celestine Sørenson. Magic-user, Navy-trained fencer, and not someone you want to trifle with," I growled, emphasizing the latter part. She raised an eyebrow.
"An' yet..." She waved her hand towards me, finishing the gesture with her chin set on her fist, the smugness in her expression to an idiotic level.
Especially in this situation.
There was a length of rough ship's rope in one of the pockets hidden among the inside folds of my cloak. Usually a versatile conduit for spells, it would serve well improvised for what I intended.
In a flash I was up and behind her, opened shackles clattering to the floor from my wrists, now freed hands whirling the cord around her throat and yanking back with my full strength behind it.
Her hands didn't go to her neck like I had expected they would. The pirate spun round to face me, pulling herself back to rip the rope from my grasp. I fell backwards, off balance.
With a half-lidded smirk, Phoenix caught my waist in a dip, the tip of her saber beneath my chin. My cheeks blazed.
"Nice try darlin'."
My thoughts spluttered like sparks from a fire, words following suit.
"I--Y-you--H-how DARE you! I-I--"
"So..." she purred, drawing me closer. The warmth of her skin melded with the heat flushing my own, her scent of gunpowder and woodsmoke and an edge of sweet rum completely overwhelming to the senses. Dizzying, distracting, dulling the sharpness to my tongue. Despite my internal protests, I sunk into her grip, surrendered to her spell. Her lips slipped wide, her voice soft as silk, now. "The sea witch can pick locks, too...?"
She lowered her sword to her sheath, leaning closer. I gasped when her forehead touched mine. The sunlight caught in her eyes. Black to pools of umber honey. Oh, stars help me.
"Yer real pretty, ye know that? Almost not worth the reward t' turn you in."
Her words snapped me back to reality. I shoved her away, falling back against the wall, hissing, teeth bared, my thoughts screaming, Shit, shit, SHIT, CELESTINE YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT.
Phoenix--no, no, the pirate, the vile criminal, the manipulating, abhorrent monster, simply chuckled, ignoring the near tangible murderous intent in my glare.
"Ye've go fangs, now? Yer full 'a all sorts 'a surprises, ain'tcha?"
"Shut up!" Shut up! Shut UP! Why couldn't she just shut up?!
Her voice held some kind of magic. Warm, smoldering, deep as the sea. Enchanting. Entrancing. Enthralling. Like a siren's, but sirens' songs didn't work on me.
So why did hers?!
------
Phoenix Solarin, disarming her attempting killers through the power of flirting since 1716.
Reminder that I’m posting up ALL of Violet Lightning on my Patreon for my $10 patrons!
Forever taglist; @livvywrites . @dove-actually . @peepos-prose . @waterfallwritings . @abalonetea . @piyawrites
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bluezey · 4 years
Text
Inside Onward - Pit Stop
Still a lot of talking, but other than that I think I’m getting better at this.  Disgust has his moments to shine.  And, of course, Joy’s obvious reaction to a tiny Barley.
Next chapter is going to be a long one, and I have a busy weekend coming up.  So while I want to say next weekend, I have a feeling it might take a little longer than that.  But, I will try not to have you guys wait too long for it.
They’ve only been back on the interstate for about ten or twenty minutes.  Barley was at the wheel, Ian was in the back, attempting a conversation with a dad who was only half there.  Like, literally half there.  Even the emotions seemed to have moved on to take a break.  Joy and Sadness were at the controls, while Disgust and Anger were looking over the maps in the atlas.
The only one not cool was Fear.  He was hiding behind a couch, curled up with his knees in his chest.  Things were going good so far for Ian, he didn’t want to jinx it by having the other emotions see how fragile the purple emotion was at the moment.  But, he felt he had a reason to be.  Who else was going to worry for Ian?  They lost the map, they’re following a clue, granted it was a good clue.  And they only have twenty two hours left before they lose Dad forever.  Wait, is that right?
Fear looked down at his watch.  Twenty hours left.  And every second was counting down.
“Hey,” the melancholy voice of Sadness peeped from behind the couch.
“Ah!”  Fear clasped his hands over his mouth, making him drop his notebook.
Curiously, Sadness crawled closer to the notebook.  “What’s that?”
“Wha? N-n-no-nothing.”  Fear fumbled to grab his notebook back, but only managed to grab his pen as Sadness picked up the notebook.
The page Sadness saw was Fear’s copy of Ian’s list of things he wished to do with his dad.  However, the first two on the list, ‘play catch’ and ‘take a walk,’ they were recently crossed out.
“Oh, that’s sad.” Sadness looked up at Fear with his glossy eyes.  Sadness’s eyes seemed to have a shine to them when he’s about to tear up.  “Are you afraid we won’t have enough time with dad?”
Fear’s lip quivered as he was about to lie, but it hurt too much to try.  Instead, he tucked his hands under his arms and leaned forward into his knees, as if he was curling into a ball.  “Yes?” he whimpered.
Sadness placed a gentle hand on Fear’s knee.  “It’s okay.”
Fear began to rock a little in his seat.  “It’s really not,” his quiet voice cracked.
Sadness nodded.  He stood up from behind the couch and approached the console.
Fear popped up from his hiding place, trying to bury his worries under his confusion of what Sadness is up to.  “What are you doing?”
On screen, Ian’s vision was looking down at the list in his notebook.  His list, however, had nothing crossed out… yet.  Sadness placed his hand on a button or two, and Ian crossed out ‘play catch’ and ‘take a walk’ off his list.
In a frenzy, Fear darted straight over to Sadness.  “Ah! Sadness, why did you do that?  I-I only crossed them off because-“  Fear stopped mid rant when he heard Ian speak.
“I guess we won’t get to do everything, dad” Ian said quietly, a little melancholy in his tone. He took a brief pause, looking at the head of the dummy upper half of the disguise.  He then looked down at the legs, the only real part of Dad he had at the moment.  He softly moved his foot against one of the brown loafers.  Dad’s other leg brushed his shin against Ian’s shin, the best they could do for a hug.  “But that’s okay,” Ian told Dad, “I just want to meet you.”
The only sound in Headquarters was the nearby hum of Dad Island.  Joy, Disgust and Anger were silently staring at Fear and Sadness, wonder what has gotten into Fear now.  Fear’s eyes darted around frantically for a moment before he closed his eyes, let go of Sadness’s collar and collected himself.
“Oh, uhm, heh… good job, Sadness,” Fear told Sadness calmly.
“Uh… thanks?” Sadness replied.
Ian looked down at his watch to check the time.  “Don’t worry, dad.  We’ll have you all here and home in time to see…” Ian looked up as a realization struck him.  “Oh no, mom. Barley, we won’t be back home in time to see mom.”
Barley’s face fell. “Oh.  Well, dad, at least you won’t get to meet the new guy,” Barley commented, referring to Colt as he added on a little silly impression of him. “’So, you guys working hard or hardly working?’” Barley topped it off with a mimicking version of Colt’s braying laugh.
Ian laughed, then joined in on the fun.  “’Barley, Barley, Barley.  Every time there’s a problem I’ve got to deal with you.’”
“Is that your Colt?” Barley asked.
“Yeah,” Ian replied.
“You need to work on that,” Barley commented.
“No way,” Disgust crossed his arms, then grinned at Joy at the controls.  “That was a very good Colt.”
“Why, thank you,” Joy playfully bowed.
The emotions stopped their momentary merriment when they heard a loud bang.  “What was that?”  Fear looked up at the screen and began to panic.  “We’re slowing down.  Why are we slowing down?”
“Breathe, breathe,” Joy attempted to calm Fear.  “Barley’s on it.”
“No he’s not,” Anger said as he pointed at the screen.  “He just pulled over.”
“What??  We stopped??” Fear dove onto the console.
“I thought you said you fixed the van,” Ian told Barley.
“Relax,” Barley replied. “Guinevere’s fine.  Her stomach is just a little empty.”
“But it says we have a full tank.”  Ian pointed to the gas gage on the dash.
Barley chuckled as he climbed out of the van.   “No, that doesn’t work.”
Anger was about to storm up to the console, wanting to make Ian smack Barley for him, but Joy caught him by the back of his shirt.
Ian hopped out of the van and joined Barley behind it, just as Barley opened up the back of the van and pulled out a gas can.  “Few drops left,” Barley commented, shaking the empty can to verify what little gas was inside.  Not enough to get the van revving, let alone moving.
Fear gradually let go of the console and rested his hands under his arms.  “This is terrible.”
“We’re stuck with no way to move,” Sadness sighed.
“There must be a gas station,” Joy told the others, trying to think positive.  “We’re on a freeway exit.  Every freeway exit has at least one gas station.  Right?”
Fear whimpered, feeling like there was no way out.  Their journey ended when it just got started, and they’re going to waste so much time that there won’t be any left to see Dad.
That’s when Joy caught sight of the wizard staff lying in the van.  “What about magic?”
Fear lifted his head. “Huh?”
“Joy, there’s no such thing as a gas spell,” Disgust scoffed.
“We don’t know that,” Joy said, “but maybe Barley does.  He has the book, he knows this stuff.”
“He got us stuck here!” Anger snapped.
Feeling at a loss, Fear glanced over to Sadness.  Sadness caught his sideways glance, and gave a simple little nod.  With a much smaller nod fueled by uncertainty, Fear took control.
Ian picked up the staff and held it close to his body.  “Is there a magic way to get gas?”
Barley’s face lit up with the very thought of using magic.  “I like the way you think, mage!”  Barley immediately pulled out the Quests of Yore book and flipped to the exact page he was thinking of.  “Growth Spell!  We grow the can, and the gas inside grows with it.”
The emotions were left flabbergasted at the very idea.  “I’d rather find a smelly gas station,” Disgust said flatly.
“That’s a very weird idea,” Ian commented.
“I know!  I like it too!” Barley exclaimed.
“Fear, you do it,” Joy told Fear.
“What?  Do what?” Fear stammered.
“Do the thing,” Joy repeated.  “The magic thing.”
“Oh, uh… okay.”  Fear tried to still his shaking hands before taking the controls.
Ian gripped the staff in one hand and took the guide book in the other.  “Okay… heart’s fire… here we go…”
Barley stopped him.  “Wait, it’s not that easy.”
The emotions groaned at Barley’s comment.  “NO!!” Fear shrieked, as Joy exclaimed, “Are you kidding me?”
“A spell this advanced, you not only need your heart’s fire,” Barley explained, “you also need to follow a magic decree.”
“A magic what?” Ian asked, starting to show doubt in this guide book.
“A magic decree is an extra rule you must follow.” Barley points at the decree in the book.  “It says here, to magnify an object, one must magnify their attention upon it.  So, when performing the spell, you must not let anything distract you.”
Fear let his shivering fingers slip off the controls.  “Focus…?”
“Yeah, focus,” Joy encouraged Fear.  “Like in the tavern.”
“At the tavern?  I was just panicking!” Fear replied.
“But you got it to work,” Disgust argued.
“I don’t know what I’m doing!  I-I mean the spell!” Fear quickly clarified. “I don’t know how the spell works!”
Anger eyed Fear suspiciously at his own comment.
“Fear?  Fear?  Fear?” Joy repeated his name louder and louder until he got Fear’s attention.  He looked Fear straight in the eye.  “You can do this.”
Fear could still feel the shivering sensation of his anxieties creeping up his spine, but Joy’s soft, calm encouragement seemed to soothe them down.  “Okay… okay, just… okay…”
“Okay, I can do this,” Ian whispered to himself, slowly gripping the staff nervously.  Suddenly, Ian pulled his hands back.  “Ow!”
Fear screamed in shock. Joy tried to keep him standing while watching the screen.  “Wha?” Joy thought aloud.
“What happened?” Sadness asked, eyeing the screen.
“Uhm, what is that?” Disgust gasped sourly.
“What?” Barley called out concerned, concerned.
“Splinter,” Ian replied, shaking his stung hand, complete with a tiny snag of wood tucked into his palm.
Joy sighed, while Disgust gave an overactive gasp.  “Not his soft powder blue palms,” the green emotion said dramatically
“Can’t we sand this thing down?” Ian asked, trying to grip the staff through the discomfort of his splinter.
Barley scoffed, “No! It’s an ancient staff with magic in ever fiber, you can’t just sand it down.” He glared.
Ian waved the thought off. “Alright, alright.”
“Okay, now that that’s done,” Joy commented, letting go of the shivering Fear, “time to do some magic.”
Fear was trembling from his head down to his legs.  He’s trying to concentrate, like the decree said, but everything keeps distracting him before he could even try!  Taking a deep exhale and forcing himself still, he reached for the controls.  “Okay, let’s try this again…”
“Uhm…” Barley barely hummed.
“NOW WHAT??” Fear yelped, throwing his hands in the air as the tremors returned throughout his whole body.
Disgust groaned, “Let me try dealing with him.”
Ian gave a sideways glare towards Barley.  “Problem?”
Barley explained sheepishly. “It’s just… your stance…. Hold on.” Barley stepped up, grabbing onto Ian and helping him adjust his position.  “Chin up. Elbows out. Feet apart. Back slightly arched.  Okay, how’s that feel?” Barley asked as he stepped back.
Ian grimaced through the uncomfortableness.  “Great.”
“Oh, wait, I-“
“Barley.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Finally,” Disgust sighed. He then noticed Barley stepping forward and adjusting Ian’s elbow.  “Oh, no he did not just touch Ian.”
Ian gave a warning stare as Barley finally stepped back for the last time.
Once he knew Barley was going to give Ian space, Disgust stepped back from the console.  “He’s all yours Fear.  Do the growth spell thingy.”
Fear had just finally calmed his breath as he approached the console, while ignoring the tingling of his nerves.  He reached for the controls, caught his hands trembling, forced them still, and began inputting the correct commands.
Ian aimed the staff at the gas can.  “Magnora gantuan!” With a flash, a bolt of magic shot out from the end of the staff and engulfed the gas can in a powerful aura.  Ian was pushed back a bit, but tried to keep his balance.  This spell was much more powerful, so much it felt like it was fighting Ian.
Fear gripped the lever tightly as he could feel it push back.  He pressed a few more buttons on the glowing console, trying to maintain Ian’s balance.  Fear grit his teeth, fighting through his fears, feeling the strength of the magic as he could almost feel it pulsate through the console.
“Don’t let the magic spook you,” Barley said.
“I’m trying!” Fear replied, as if Barley was talking to him.
“You’re doing fine, Fear,” Joy told Fear.  “Just keep your focus on Ian.”
“Elbows,” Barley commented. “Elbows up.”
Ian tried to adjust his elbows, his eyes squinting as the magic grew brighter and more chaotic.
“No, no that’s too high,” Barley corrected.
“Trying to focus here,” Ian called out.
“Oh, right.  Focus.”
While Ian tried to keep focused, Fear was beginning to lose control.  He was scrambling over the brightly lit controls, eyes squinting to see, trying to think.  “Chin up… or was it elbows out… feet apart… what was that about the back?”
“Forget the stance,” Disgust snapped.  “Keep your focus on Ian.”
“Something’s not right,” Sadness thought aloud, watching the can begin to shrink instead of grow.
“Sadness, shush,” Joy whispered to Sadness.
“Focus…”
“Why is everybody talking all at once?” Fear exclaimed.
“Ignore it!” Anger shouted.
“Focus…” Barley told Ian.
“Barley!  Ah, forget it!” Ian gave up and pulled the staff away, unaware of where the magic shot off to.
The emotions huddled around Fear lying on the floor, after watching the purple emotion collapse and slide off the console.  “Fear!” Joy exclaimed. “Fear, what happened?”
Fear was curled up into a ball, knees against his chest, arms wrapped around himself, tightening his whole body into himself.  He was a mess of whimpers and tremors before he finally began to make words… “… too much… it was too much… too much noise… too much light… too much to filter out…”
“I can’t believe this!” Anger spat.
Disgust grumbled, “I should have done the spell.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” Sadness sighed.
Joy knelt down to Fear’s level and helped him up onto his feet.  Fear went from cradling his knees to tucking his hands under his arms.  His nerve was wrapped tightly behind his head, his eyes were shut tight, not wanting to see the look on the other emotions’ faces.  He failed to focus, he failed the spell.  What else could go wrong?
Fear’s eyes then flung open when he heard a tiny voice.  “Was that a mouse?”
“It worked!” Barley cheered. “The can is huge!  The van is huge!  And you’re…” Barley looked down at himself, realizing that everything was huge, because he’s now small.  “Oh no…”
“Barley??” Fear shrieked as he ran up to the console.  “What did I do to Barley??”
“You made him adorable!!” Joy squealed with delight while the other emotions were lost in shock.
Ian knelt down to get a good look at Barley, both because he was so small and because he couldn’t believe he was so small to begin with.  His older brother, who’s usually six feet tall, is now barley below six inches! “What happened?”
“Looks like you shrunk me,” Barley replied.
“How did this happen?” Ian asked.
Barley explained, “Well, when you fail a spell, there are consequences.”
“I only failed because you wouldn’t let me focus,” Ian explained back.
“I was only trying to help,” Barley replied.
“I don’t need your help!” Ian exclaimed.
“Oh,” Barley argued back. “Alright.  I won’t.”
Fear slowly backed away and hugged his sides tight, watching as Barley tapped his tiny hands on Dad’s feet to show he’s still there.  “No… no no no no no this is worse!  Now we have half a dad and barely a brother!”  Panicking, Fear began pacing the floor, his steps quickening.
Joy raced up to catch Fear, keeping up with his pacing.  “Hey, hey, hey.  It’s not so bad.  We can work with this.  We’ve been through worse.”
“Worse?” Fear stopped pacing and looked straight at Joy.  “We never half-ressurected our dad and shrunk our brother before, Joy!  Ian didn’t have magic until about four hours ago!  And- Shantar’s Talon, it’s only been four hours??” Fear sighed, exhausted and exasperated.
Joy tried once again to spin this into a positive.  “You’re… right, it has been a long four hours.  Tell you what, why don’t you take a break, relax.  Let the other emotions handle it.”
Fear was being led to sit down on the couch thanks to Joy’s encouraging words, but then stood back up. “Other emo- but Ian- but what if something worse-“
“If we need you, we’ll get you.”  Joy pushed Fear down on the couch and pulled his feet up onto an ottoman.  “Collect yourself, be calm.  You don’t want to be a wreck when we finally see dad, do you?”
Fear sighed, “No.”
“Good!”  Joy raced back to the console just as Disgust took over and led Ian to the van.  Ian tucked the gas can under his arm, tossed the staff into the van and shut the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Barley asked in his tiny voice.
“To find a gas station,” Ian replied, trying to hide his frustration at this whole situation.
“I’m coming too,” Barley said.
“Okay.” Ian knelt down and held his hand out for Barley to step into, making Joy give out an adorable giggle.
Barley held his hands up defiantly.  “Hey, I don’t need your help.”
Ian held his hand up right back.  “Fine with me.”  Ian grabbed the retractable leash so dad can follow as they walked down the sidewalk.
Fear was trying his best to slow his breath and maintain his focus, but he couldn’t help but watch as Ian led the way into the dark streets of the city.  The only lights were the street lights, the age of their luminous glow merely highlighting the area in an eerie green hue.  Every building seemed to be abandoned, even the roads and sidewalks seemed to be neglected and forgotten.  How could the emotions keep focus with Ian in such a scary, foreign place, without as much as a plan?
Disgust scoffed as he heard that little voice again.  Ian finally stopped to let tiny Barley catch up.  “Wait up,” Barley gasped, catching his breath.  “Tiny legs… can’t go that fast.”
“Can we just step on him?” Anger spat.
Disgust huffed, “I wish,” before pressing a button.
Ian knelt down and pinched the back of Barley’s shirt collar between his fingers and pulled him up in the air.  Just as he was hoisted up, Barley’s pointed and exclaimed, “Look!  A gas station!”  Barley then added in arrogance, “Oh, right.  I forgot.  You don’t need my help.”  Ian simply tucked the little Barley into his shirt pocket and headed towards the gas station.
Disgust and Anger chuckled to themselves.  “Nice one, Joy,” Anger told Joy at the controls.
Fear straightened up in his seat as he watched the emotions.  They do seem to have everything under control.  They’re not doing what he would do, but… okay, he would have tucked Barley in Ian’s pocket.
Ian tugged Dad along by the leash, leading him across the lot of the gas station.  “Barley’s with me, dad.”
“Yeah, dad, I’m fine,” Barley added.  “The spell is supposed to wear off eventually.  Do I look any bigger yet?”
Fear jumped and the emotions winced as they heard a loud growl from behind Ian.  Half a dozen motorcycles, emblazoned in shining chrome and sparkling pink, drove in circles around the lot before parking by the gas station mini mart.  Amazingly, the motorcycles looked like they had no riders at all.  That is, until one hopped up on one of the bike’s seat.  It was a little pixie, and the menacing biker appearance she had managed to eclipse her cutesy pink skin and gossamer wings.  She gave a whistle, and out of nowhere, fifteen or so pixies popped out from each one of the motorcycles, also dressed in the garb and attitude of threatening bikers. On their way into the mini mart, one managed to scare off an innocent elf exiting the mart just for accidentally bumping into her.
Fear rose to his feet, worry building.  “Oh no, we gotta go in there?”
“We can do this,” Joy nodded to Fear before turning back to focus on Ian.
Ian entered, just as a pixie exited while calling him a bean stalk.  The tiny mart looked like chaos with the dozens of tiny pixies swarming the place.  They weren’t flying, not many pixies fly these days.  Instead they were climbing and running around like little animals, grabbing and feasting on snacks from the few small aisles, or drowning themselves in drinks from the soda station.
“Let’s get this over with.” Disgust pushed a lever forward.
Ian approached the counter, a large troll with little sleep or care was manning the till.  “Ten on pump one please?” he sheepishly asked. He caught Barley hopping out of his shirt pocket and landing on a small stand of cheese curls, knocking the snack bags over.  “What are you doing?” he whispered to Barley.
Barley was floundering inside the small pile of snack food.  “Getting us some food.”
Ian placed Barley back in his pocket and pushed two small bags towards the cashier.  “And two of these please,” he quietly added.  Ian looked down as he felt a small hand tug on his flannel collar.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Barley whispered.
“Can it wait?” Ian asked back quietly.
Barley shrugged.  “Hey it’s your pocket.”
Fear gave a yelp, but Disgust was quick with his “Ew!” followed by placing his hand flat on a button.
“Can we have the bathroom key, please?” Ian asked.  The cashier handed Ian a small key hanging on an old license plate.  Ian knelt down and placed Barley on the tile floor.  “Be quick,” he told his brother, passing him the key.
Barley held the license plate above his head and scurried off.  “I’m going, I’m going.”
Fear watched as Ian reached for his wallet in order to pay for the gas and snacks.  He glanced back down at the emotions, they seemed to have things under control.  He shrugged to himself, his body losing his tension as he took a calming breath.
Ian turned to find an angry pixie biker glaring at the head of the dad disguise.  “You got a problem, shades?” the pixie growled into the mannequin’s sunglasses.  “Answer me when I’m talking to you.”
Faster than he can scream, Fear bolted towards the console, shoved the emotions out of his way, and started slamming and smacking at the controls.
“Sorry!  I don’t know where his head is right now.”  Ian quickly escorted Dad out of the mini mart, whimpering to himself, “How could this night get any worse?”
Fear pulled away from the console, he held his hands up innocently as Anger, Disgust and Sadness stared at him.
“To be fair,” Joy spoke up, “that was a good time to have Fear.”
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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years
Text
Paint (Tales From The Heart)
Fandom: One Piece Rating: Gen Warnings: None Characters: Shachi, Law, Penguin, Bepo
Shachi picked at his new boiler suit, admiring the way it was tailored to actually fit him at long last, after years of self-tailoring attempts that never quite rested on his shoulders properly. The greatest point of pride was, of course, the yellow depiction of their jolly roger emblazoned over his heart, and if he craned his neck, he could see some of its large counterpart on his back.
Beside him, Penguin was similarly fascinated with his new attire, running his fingers over the flawless stitches comprising the emblem with a smile on his face. Bepo, too, was delighted with his, a vibrant orange because the pale shades would blend in with his fur too much, or so he'd argued. Law had shrugged and let him do as he pleased.
The captain himself had found himself a gaudy yellow hoodie, which he'd insisted the tailor add the emblem to as well. Their jolly roger grinned at them from where it was plastered all over his front. Now that Doflamingo was gone from North Blue, safely entrenched in the Grand Line and clearly uninterested in returning to his roots, the time for hiding was over. Shachi found it amusing how blatant Law was willing to be as soon as he had the chance, not that he didn't understand it. Hiding who he was for the past six years had no doubt been exhausting, and while they had no intention of gaining bounties quite so early in their lives, bounties weren't dependant on their appearance. As long as their criminal acts couldn't be traced to them, they'd be just fine.
His line of sight drifted over to their faithful submarine, still the same nondescript grey she had been when they'd acquired her three years earlier, and his smile slipped into a thoughtful frown.
"Something wrong?" Law asked him immediately. Shachi hadn't realised he'd been watching him and jumped.
"N-no," he stuttered, caught by surprise. Law looked utterly unconvinced. "I was just thinking, if we're all getting new clothes now we're not in hiding, doesn't the Tang look a little left out?"
Law turned to eye the submarine instead, resting a curled finger on his lower lip thoughtfully. Shachi followed his gaze to look at the Polar Tang once again, the only clue she was a pirate vessel the small black flag hanging limply from the mast in the still air.
"You're right," he said after a few moments, his mouth curling back into the smirk Shachi knew all too well. Law had an idea. Part of him almost regretted speaking up, wondering what sort of makeover he'd condemned the poor ship to, but looking at her forlorn grey again, he couldn't quite bring himself too. Like them, the Polar Tang no longer needed to hide, so why should they keep her that overcast colour?
"Get her into a dry dock," Law ordered, turning to walk back into the town. "Bepo, you're with me." Shachi shared a look with Penguin, who shrugged. Well, it was a peaceful enough port town. No-one had called the Marines on them yet, and as long as they kept their head down and paid their way legally, no-one should.
Bartering with the dockyard for the use of a dry dock for long enough to first paint the Tang, then keep her until she was dry enough to return to the sea, was a painful chunk of their savings, but it would be worth it in the long run. They'd need to tread the dubious side of the law in a few islands' time to stock their funds up again, but that was a concern for the future.
Law and Bepo joined them an hour after they got her settled, the poor Mink carrying more barrels of paint than Shachi thought possible for one person. Law himself was carrying a large black fabric, and some smaller pots. They'd also enlisted the help of what Shachi presumed was the merchant himself to bring the rest of the paint, and some weird contraption that was probably supposed to help them apply it.
"That's a ship you don't see every day," the merchant said appreciatively. Law merely waved him away with some extra coins. Payment, or a bribe of silence. Shachi didn't care enough to ask which. Even if he had, he was quickly distracted when he saw the paint.
Bright yellow. Well, it matched Law's new gaudy hoodie, he supposed. The younger teen was definitely taking the fact that they weren't in hiding any more as a challenge to see how obnoxiously obvious they could be instead. It was a clear overcompensation, but Shachi wasn't going to call him out on it. Besides, yellow was a happy colour. It matched the grin on their jolly roger just fine.
"Let's get started," Law declared, picking up the weird contraption and pointing it at the Polar Tang. It had already been loaded with the first batch of paint, as the first swathes of yellow cut through the grey. "We'll leave the area below the sailing waterline grey, so we can leave sooner." It made sense, and Shachi dove for one of the other nozzles to join in the redecorating.
It was a total mess. Somehow the Tang herself looked neat even as her colour changed, but the same could not be said for the four teenagers wielding the paint. It didn't show up that well on Law's hoodie, being a matching colour, but he'd removed his hat after the first spray had caught it, a mistake on Penguin's behalf that had been revenged by an accidental spray of his own hat. Shachi had jumped the gun and preemptively removed his own before he too gained a yellow hat.
The result was that all four of them now looked like they'd had bad dye jobs, with the yellow paint sticking to and completely overpowering their original hair colours. Their uniforms had suffered a similar fate, and Shachi could only see out of one lens of his shades. The other had been entirely blotted out by paint flicked his way by Penguin in retaliation after he'd dumped the remains of an almost-empty pot over his head.
Bepo hadn't escaped the carnage either, although he'd made a good attempt by working on the other side of the Polar Tang to his human nakama (Law could pretend to be as serious as he wanted, he was still flinging just as much paint around as the other two with that self-satisfied smirk on his face). As a result, he was only half-yellow, rather than mostly.
The Polar Tang was a fair-sized vessel, and with two coats required before they were satisfied she was completely transformed it took the better part of a week for the four of them to finish the base colour. Shachi and Penguin had been eyeing the black and red paint suspiciously during refills, wondering what it was for, but they'd never been used.
"You'll see," was Law's cryptic answer when they asked, and they huffed before returning to their work.
Finally, while they were waiting for the Tang to dry enough to paint over again, Law brought out the huge black fabric he'd bought alongside the paint. Unfurling it, he revealed that it was a sail, the exact size and style of their current white one. The mystery of the red paint was partially solved when he mimicked their flag, painting on a large version of their jolly roger.
It transpired that he'd had a similar plan for the sides of the Polar Tang, and no-one had any complaints as he finally deemed the paint dry enough to overlay it with the black outline and red fill for their jolly roger, similar barring colour to the designs on their new boiler suits, which were definitely in need of a deep clean by the time they were finally done.
"Much better," Law admired, two weeks after they'd started their project. They'd just lowered her back into the water, and as she bobbed on the slight waves, the flag flying boldly in the slight breeze present, Shachi couldn't help but agree.
The Polar Tang looked much happier now; their proud fifth nakama.
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paellaplease · 4 years
Text
Firebird | Chap.6
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 7
Apologies for the long wait, everyone!
Chapter 6: Of Monsters and Metals Part 1. 
Strength is not measured by your willingness to meet fear’s gaze...
*
Revali dove, slowed, and eventually landed, talons gracefully touching down on the rocky ground below them like a falling leaf to water.
Maiya lifted her head from his shoulder, the smell and sounds of waves crashing into stone washing over her as she opened her eyes. Looking around, she saw that they were standing on a long slab of rock, hovering above the tumultuous waters of Lake Totori.
Another departure deck, her mind supplied for her.
The hylian quickly clambered off the rito’s back, the freshwater spray chilling her to the bone. She realised just how much warmth Revali’s feathers had provided her, feeling the full brunt of the elements as she pulled away. Maiya shivered, regretting her earlier decision in leaving her thicker coat at the inn.
As her feet touched the earth, her legs immediately gave way.
“Holy— ”
Revali caught her arm, steadying her moments before she smacked into the ground.
“Give it a moment.”
“No, it’s alright.”
Stubbornly, Maiya took another step forward. The rito warrior clicked his tongue as he caught her again. “You are unaccustomed to flight. Stand still and move your feet slowly, let the normal flow of blood return to your legs. Unless of course you’re extremely keen on acquainting yourself with the floor.”
Embarrassment colouring her cheeks, Maiya closed her mouth and turned her head away, allowing herself to lean on him but refusing to look him in the eye. She stared forward into the distance, surveying their surroundings as she waited for the tingling feeling in her legs to disappear. As her eyes adjusted, all she could see was a looming cliff before her and a thick wall of evening fog. Night had set in around them, making visibility difficult in the dying light.
“So...where is that cave we saw earlier?”
Revali’s free wing pointed down to the empty space in front of them, following along the platform until the point where she guessed it would connect to the cliff a few metres away. “On the other side of this departure deck, beyond the fog.”
The Enchanter pulled her jacket closer as another strong gust of wind blew past, mussing up her dark hair again and cooling the sweat on her brow. Small waves continued to crash against the platform, powerful enough at times she swore she could feel the ground shudder. Quietly, she marvelled at how different the scenery appeared in comparison to what she saw in the sky earlier. From afar, the cave seemed so...removed— detached in its stillness. Now up close it felt like she was in the midst of a storm.
What an odd place to have a smithy. “So your forge is cut into the rock holding your village aloft in the sky?”
The rito warrior’s jade eyes were still trained at the distance in front of them as he regarded her evenly. “We are still within village grounds, enchanter.” His expression turned thoughtful. “And that is more than just a rock in the middle of the lake. The cliff face you see in front of you is Wayrakuchuyna, or simply Wayra. She is ancient, older than Chief Kamori and many of those before him, and is the foundation from which Valoo’s Spire was carved.”
“Thats,” Maiya paused, mulling over her words. “That’s actually very interesting. I thought the Spire was carved by your people?”
“Carved by the wind.” The rito corrected her, the rarest hint of a smile in his voice. “Technically speaking, we are underneath the main village structure. Valoo’s Spire is the epicentre of our way of life. However, Wayra had been a part of my people for as long as rito could fly.”
“As such, according to Chief’s Law, so long as we are connected to her, we are always home.” He looked up, gazing at the cliff-face for a quiet moment.
Maiya tilted her head, mimicking his stance. Due to the angle from where they stood, she found it difficult to spot the Spire amongst the rocks and fog. She only managed to catch the faint details of the bridge she’d crossed a day ago, hanging far away in the air above them, illuminated by the waning gibbous moon.
Feeling that enough time had passed, she gave her leg an experimental shake, relieved that the pins and needles had finally subsided. “Hey...I think my legs are back to normal.”
“Continue forward if you must then. You are capable of making your own decisions.”
“I would but,” despite her irritation at his previous comment, she allowed a laugh to slip through. She cleared her throat and pointed to her shoulder. “You can let go now.”
Feathers rising, Revali quickly withdrew his wing, stepping to the side. “Take caution where you tread,” he groused, suddenly very interested in readjusting his pauldrons. “I won’t be responsible if your clumsiness results in you cracking a few eggs.”
The Enchanter shrugged, too tired to deal with the rito’s changing moods, and started walking.
Both hylian and rito made haste across the departure deck, the gaping maw of the forge’s main entrance slowly coming into view. The cave-like opening was tall as it was wide, and Maiya estimated it would easily fit about three of her across. Enshrouded in fog; dark and foreboding, it looked to suck all life into it until there was nothing but open emptiness.
Except it wasn’t empty.
“Someone's there.” She murmured.
Smoke escaped from the mysterious figure's pipe, making them appear like a shadow in the creeping darkness. They were leaning against a tall and looming object. Upon closer inspection it revealed itself to be a heavy metal door, several locks lining its side.
Their face flickered by the flame of a rusty sconce, wavering in the midst of blistering winds. They had feathers of mottled black and white, and a jet black scraggly beard which was pulled into two hanging braids. They stood as if dragged down by the weight of the world — a hunch curving their back and an elderly face dominated by two white-feathered brows pinched together in a scowl. Whilst unable to see their eyes, she still had a feeling that they were watching them closely, eyeing them like a hawk as they drew closer.
Above them, a sign swung and creaked in the whistling wind. Jackdaw Metalworks and Weaponry it read, complete with a carving of two rito's and an anvil resting between them.
“Yieni,” Revali said from behind her, voice unusually careful and diplomatic. He bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Allin tuta, it has been a while.”
Maiya’s eyes widened in alarm. Yieni? Then that means—
The Blacksmith lifted his head, revealing a pair of fierce, cloudy eyes. He threw Revali a questioning look, before zeroing in on the Enchanter and the dagger that hung innocently at her hip. Maiya felt frozen in place, the rito’s glare piercing in its quiet fury. It was as if he was surveying a defective sword, seeking what was left of its worth.
Revali gently nudged her with his wing, pulling her from her thoughts. "Courage now," he whispered.
Maiya grimaced, straightening her back and ignoring the rope of anxiety knotting in her chest. She cleared her throat. “Good evening, Yieni." She didn't think it was possible, but his scowl deepend. Don't panic, just continue. "I am Maiya from the land of Akkala and I’m hoping you can answer some questions regarding— ”
“Get out.”
She blinked. “Pardon me but wha—”
“I said get out! Leave this place." He rasped, smoke escaping his mouth. His eyes narrowed as he glared daggers at the blue rito. “What in the void possessed you to bring an Enchanter to my doorstep, Revali?”
The warrior raised his wings up as if in surrender. “I mean no offense, Yieni.”
“Hah!” The elderly rito hunched over as a dry cough racked through him. "I cannot imagine what inane quest has sent you here but we’ve had enough trouble brought upon by your kind, Enchanter. Now run back to your teacher and never show your face on my property again.”
Maiya’s felt her enthusiasm drain, her gloved hand warming alongside the bubbling of her unease. "You don’t understand. So much of my people’s knowledge has been lost. I know you have a level understanding of our craft. Please.” Fucking listen!
The rito shook his head. “I’ve been bitten more than once by feeding the rabid dog. I refuse to extend my arm out once more as it bears its teeth."
“That makes no sense!”
"I make no deals with Enchanters,” he spat. “Make sense of that, child.” Putting his cigar out, Yieni wrenched the heavy door behind him open, stepping through.
Maiya raced forward. “Wait, hold on!”
The door was slammed shut, cold metal inches from bruising her nose. She took a step back, bumping into the warrior behind her.
Maiya looked at him, the locked door, and slumped. “Okay, perhaps I need to rethink my strategy here." Or perhaps he really hates Enchanters and I'm just wasting my time.
Revali crossed his wings. “Perhaps?” he said, beak curving. “A welcome like that and you honestly still think you have a wing in the door?"
The Enchanter looked to the open lake, feeling cold droplets hit her face as the rain above began to fall. "This would have been a waste of time if I decide to give up now." She rolled her shoulders, ignoring Revali's muttered “Evidently” and bunched up her sleeves. “I’m not leaving til that door opens.”
The blue rito moved to the side, gesturing her forward with an exaggerated wave of his feathers. “The floor is yours.”
Maiya clenched her jaw and moved to knock again.
Knock, knock. Her first attempt garnerd no response.
Knock, knock, bang! As did her second.
“Stubborn old bird.”
She felt the veins in her left hand begin to burn again, the rune no doubt responding to the shock and stress of the day’s events. Taking the glove off, she shook her hand vigorously in the air, trying to cool down the scar which had heated up considerably in the past few minutes. The edges glowed a light blue. She hissed.
“Are you well?” Revali asked.
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Good going, he thinks you're going to burn the place down now. “Nothing, ignore me. Stinging as always.”
Gritting her teeth, she raised her left hand again. She was inches away from slamming it into the door when the metal surface shuddered.
Reflexively, Revali reached for his bow. Maiya held a hand up, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “Wait—”
She took a cautious step back as the clicks of several locks were heard, the unusual symphony joined by a cacophony of keys turning, latches being pulled, and bars sliding to the side. Smoke left hidden pockets located at the hinges, making a hissing noise as billowing clouds escaped from the cracks, dissipating into the surrounding darkness.
A creak and screech echoed, the sound ricocheting off the rock and making small pebbles fall from their perches. Metal scraped against metal, joining the activity as the noise reached a crescendo, building up until suddenly— there was silence.
Maiya released the breath she was holding, clutching her gloved hand to her chest. "Did I do that?"
"No,” Revali said. He pointed to a rounded mirror-like object which hung above the burning sconce, something Maiya thought was merely for decoration. "That glass is not reflecting our images…”
At that moment, the flame went out.
“Someone’s watching us.”
And the door swung open with a bang.
Lying before them was a dark corridor. It was cold and eerie, a void tunneling into the rock. Maiya was surprised to find that no one was on the other side to greet them, and wondered briefly how the door could have opened by itself. “There’s something mysterious at work here,” she whispered.
It was completely barren except for a small hanging lantern at the furthest part of the hall. The quivering flame marked the beginning of a spiral staircase, its flickering light illuminating the start of stone steps leading down.
The Enchanter stared into the darkness, fear of the unknown making her hesitate. As she retreated into herself, she took a step back, her hand brushing the hilt of her dagger. The latent energy within it sent a small spark up her fingers, and for a moment she remembered the way it spluttered and burned within the confines of the Blacksmith’s clamp.
Her mentor’s words reverberated in her mind. ‘Do not let fear dictate your freedom.’
Maiya groaned, stepping foot into the dark corridor and began walking with renewed purpose. “Into the unknown, let’s go.” She grumbled. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
She was surprised to hear Revali following close behind her, the sound of talons against stone echoing throughout the passageway. Pausing abruptly, she swivelled around to face him, taken aback by how close he suddenly was.
She backpedalled and crossed her arms, ignoring how he was only a step away. “Hold on. You’re coming with me?”
Revali mirrored her stance, folding his wings. He looked at her pointedly. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s no stairway to the Spire from here.”
“So you’re sticking around to fly me back up, huh?”
“Precisely.”
Maiya huffed, lifting her head higher to glare at him. “Chief Kamori told you to watch me, didn’t he?”
He wasn’t even looking at her, choosing this moment to inspect the feathers on one of his wings. He flexed it in front of him as a hylian would when checking their nails. “You wound me, enchanter,” he said, voice bored. “Do you really believe I’d make you scale the cliff in the dark?”
“Oh.” She laughed humorlessly, turning around to continue her brisk walk to the end of the hall. “Absolutely.”
 Maiya kept a steady palm on the smooth stone column beside her as they continued deeper into the cave. In their descent, she traced the lines of the column, feeling it grow colder the further they travelled into the cavern in almost full darkness. It was one of the few times she was grateful for the dull glow of her hand, leading the way and stopping her from taking a bone-breaking tumble to the bottom floor. At least the stress did something good for once.
The spiral staircase seemed to wind forever, eventually unfurling and flattening, lantern light appearing in the distance as they reached the very last step. They eventually found themselves in an open room, under a high ceiling full of vents.
The Enchanter marvelled at the flow of the air as she watched smoke leave like ribbons through hidden pockets in the room, seemingly replaced by a fresh batch almost instantaneously with the lift of a vent in the ceiling.
It appeared that most of the heat in the room was originating from the giant metal structure sitting at its centre. Blackened and spluttering soot, its presence dominated most of the space; a metal monster with a belly reddened by flames.
The forge’s oven.
The familiar clang of hammer on iron reached her ears, followed by the hiss of steam as it was dipped in the slack tub. The hylian was immediately transported back in time, remembering the workshop in Akkala and the days she spent as a young girl observing Teacher in her workspace.
Maiya was but a novice then, but the silver-haired woman was always in her element. She could recall watching her mentor hammer out a swordsman’s blade, forgetting her notes and daydreaming instead of the moment she would finally decipher the secrets of the anvil and impress the Sheikah Enchanter with her first proper weapon.
Except you failed her, she thought bitterly. No matter how hard you try to make amends, your dagger has rejected its master. And in that, you have failed your purpose.
Maiya blinked back into reality, the figure she saw standing in the middle of the forge no longer her mentor. No, Maiya realised. The person holding a cooling blade in the air wasn't even rito.
Seeing her step into the room, the smith rested the blade on the edges of a clay bath. As they lifted the protective mask obscuring their face, Maiya's eyes caught a teal fin peeking from behind it. A fish? Her mind stuttered.
The mask was lifted further, revealing a lean face and sharp smiling teeth. They stood with a straight back, posture impeccable as they smoothed their leather apron over.
A zora!
“Good evening, Traveler,” they said, voice soft and polite as small bells. They looked at her calmly, golden eyes serene. Maiya’s eyes caught the intricate silver ornaments decorating the side of their face, hearing them clink as they removed the mask entirely.
The zora angled their head higher, finally seeing the person behind her. “What a surprise, Master Revali.”
“Uleh.” The rito nodded curtly.
Maiya looked between the two of them. She noticed some soot staining the Zora's arms and cheeks, painting their shining scales a smoky grey.
Coughing into a closed fist, they cleared their throat. “Apologies for earlier. I’m not sure what’s gotten into Mister Yieni this evening. He is usually more accommodating, but I theorise that the wine might have been more potent than usual."
"You're his assistant?" Maiya asked.
"An Artificer." They corrected. “You could say I’m on...an extended industrial study tour.” The zora smiled to themself, enjoying their own inside joke, before bowing low. “I welcome you, Enchanter. It has been many years since someone of your vocation has stepped foot in ‘Jackdaw’s. I would offer my palm for the greeting but,” they raised both their gloved hands, “I must keep these on for the time being. There is much work that needs to be done.”
Maiya blinked, still bracing herself for the anger that ultimately never materialized. “Hold on. You know I’m an Enchanter? Why then...why haven’t you yet—”
“Kicked you out as Mister Yieni had?”
“Yes.”
“I hold no quarrel against you or your people.” They said, beginning to coat the blade in clay, expertly avoiding its edges. “In fact, I want to help you.”
The Enchanter did not immediately celebrate, silent for a moment and lost to her own thoughts. As much as she was happily surprised by this stranger’s willingness to assist her, she was once again hit by a gut-punching suspicion that had been plaguing her mind since she left the village’s library.
She was slowly learning that there’s always some sort of catch.
"And what exactly does this help entail?" Revali asked, reading into her discomfort.
"Simple,” Uleh said, gently painting the finishing touches of the clay coating with a brush. "I need you to extract a rare ingredient the forge has been lacking in for awhile. After you’ve done that, I can arrange a meeting.”
Maiya shifted her weight from one foot to the other, unconvinced. “How can you be sure he would want to converse with me in the first place?”
Uleh chuckled, clipping the blade into a wooden holder to dry. "Mister Yieni can be ill-tempered, prejudiced and especially cantankerous, but he will always honour a good deal." The zora looked up at her, golden eyes gleaming. "Find him that ingredient, offer it in exchange for information, and he will answer whatever you ask him."
Maiya eyed the silver jewellery framing Uleh’s face, thin and long sheets twisted like intermingling spirals. Ultimately, it would be within her best interest to trust them. She’d just have to roll with the punches and accept the consequences of what was to come after that. She could compare her situation to skipping stones. Nothing left but to cast the rock and count the ripples from the sidelines.
Your willingness to trust will get you trouble one day, my dear. Her mentor’s ever serious voice echoed warningly.
The hylian rubbed her eyes, too tired to argue with herself anymore. Grab the ingredient and strike a deal. Easy. She thought to herself. It's okay. It will be okay. That just leaves me with...
Gazing up, she flashed Revali a tentative grin. The sharp lines of the rito’s face softened a fraction, then fell back into its default haughty glare as he looked away. "What is it?" He asked sourly.
"...are you going to help me?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Well, I'm going regardless."
Revali sent her a knowing look. "And you will probably encounter trouble along the way.
The hylian shrugged, unbothered. "It's not a given but with the increase of monster activity out there, coupled with some Yiga sightings, I probably will—"
"Then the answer is obvious."
"You don't have to be rude about it."
"You shouldn't ask moronic questions you know the answer to."
"Fine!"
"Fine."
Maiya shook her head, turning back to the zora who was still patiently waiting for her answer. She cleared her throat, trying to regain whatever professional dignity she'd shed in the past minute. “If it will grant me an audience with the Blacksmith, then I'll do it."
Uleh's face broke out into a smile. “Fantastic.”
Rising from their sitting position, the zora picked the blade up with their iron tongs, carrying it back to the oven. As they plunged it back into the red hot embers, the fire casted dancing lights and shadows against their teeth, drawing Maiya’s attention as they spoke their next words.
“Now onto business. Have you ever heard of a Frost Talus, Enchanter?”
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art-g0blin-draws · 4 years
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Age: 19
Favored types: Steel, Dragon, Fairy
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Dove is an energetic person with a fiery personality, firm in her beliefs, always willing to stand behind what's right. Serving as a self-proclaimed "knight of pokemon", she often takes in pokemon rescues, offering them a home, caring for them, and transforming them Into formidable opponents for challengers.
A rambunctious trainer, who in her beginning years as a trainer tended to act without thinking. Gifted with a shiny charmander at the age of eleven by her father, the fire-type gym leader Kabu, dove served as a gym trainer for 2 years in her fathers gym before setting out on her journey to become a self-proclaimed "knight of pokemon", against her father's wishes.
Although having great potential, she suffered from a large case of overconfidence. Specializing in fire types at the time, she breezed through the first gym, bolstering her confidence. However, the second gym proved to be much more difficult.
The true test, however, came when she went to face her father in the fire the gym.
Despite giving it her all, dove lost in spectacular fashion on her first attempt. The experience left her humbled; the match wasn't close, and kabu hadn't even utilized his gigantamax centiskorch.
The ordeal forced her to briefly reconsider her aspirations, before deciding that this would not be the end of her journey.
Drawing inspiration from the fantasy novels she had read, she began training other types of pokemon, chief among them at the time, a young squirtle she named galahad, who was unable to utilize special attacks. through an intense trip through the galar wilds with galahad and her charmander, cinder, she was able to unlock squirrel's potential, locking down a strategy revolving around shell smash that proved to turn galahad from a shy rescue pokemon into a hyper offensive sweeper.
With this newfound strategy, dove challenged her father a second time, and although the match was close, this time she met with success.
Having earned the her third badge, and her father's blessing, she continued onward in her journey to become a knight of pokemon.
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Throughout her journey, dove learned a great deal about many different pokemon, capturing any she didnt already have, and paying special attention to the steel, dragon, and fairy types that reminded her of the stories she would often read. Two years were spent traveling the galar region, taking wild pokemon and expanding her knowledge of battles and strategies.
Badge after badge was earned, and finally, she stood in the stadium that held the championship matches.
With her potential assumed unlocked, she pushed through to the final round, where stood waiting the current champion, leon.
While her battle instincts were fierce, she once again met with a monstrous defeat, though the sight of the two charizard locked together in mid-flight combat was a scene to behold.
Dove was devastated. Briefly. Leon approached her after their match, with an offer to meet his former master, at a place called the isle of armer.
It was there that dove would complete the next step of her journey.
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Once at the island, dove made her way to the dojo, where she met with mustard, a former league champion, and owner of the entire island.
The training was fierce, and though she found a new ally in kubfu, the ordeals were no less grueling.
Dove spent four years on the island, honing her fighting instinct and trainer's mind, deepening her bond with many of her pokemon, as well as kubfu.
Only once she had mastered her craft did she challenge sensei mustard to a battle in earnest. And though the two appeared evenly matched, it was dove's unorthodox strategies that won the day, her dark-type usrhifu landing the final blow on her opponents defending water-type urshifu.
Exhausted, but having a reinvigorated love for the sport of pokemon battles, dove remained at the dojo for a week or two more, going over the basics and recuperating, before deciding to head back out to the galar championships once again.
This time, the challenges were different. It wasn't that her opponents were any weaker, but she and her team were so much more in sync, it felt as if they could read each others minds. Dove had often found herself mimicking her pokemon's movements on the field, but now it seemed as if their lock-step dances were commands in and of themselves.
Finally, it came time for her rematch against leon, and this time, the battle was much more evenly matched.
The battle came to ahead when once again the charizard pair faced off. However, dove had surprised everyone by removing the gigantamax potential from her own charizard.
Though Leon's was much more intimidating with his gigantamaxed behemoth, it was dove's own dynamaxed charizard that eventually stole the show in a short-lived but intense burst of passion and determination.
Utilizing her knowledge of the max flare, dove forced the sun to shine ever brighter, kicking her charizard's "solar power" into high gear. Combining that with a life orb, dove unleashed a short but absolutely ruthless onslaught of fire upon her opponent. And although leon's managed to defend, eventually the attack proved too much, and the opponents charizard fell, a large explosion signaling the fall of a dyanamaxed pokemon ringing through the stadium.
The stadium went stark silent. Not a sound was made until the judge declared dove the winner.
Leon walked up to her silently, and then, looking to dove with the widest grin on his face, held her hand into the air for the whole stadium to see. All at once, the crowd erupted into cheers and whistles, and dove almost succumbed to a panic attack due to the influx of emotions.
-----------------------------
As current champion of the galar region, dove has made several significant changes to the league. Her largest change is holding exhibition matches with other champions from other regions near and far.
Eager to expand her own knowledge, she seeks to fight ever stronger trainers.
She is a firm believer that she can change the world for the better, and will do everything in her power as champion to make sure that the lives of both people and pokemon are elevated.
‐------------------------------
Dove is an avid reader of midievil fantasy novels, and while team roster is always shifting, elements of her affinity for these books always seem to leak into her team somehow. A fairy, steel, or dragon type can always be expected in her roster, and her starter, a shiny charizard named Cinder, os almost ALWAYS sure to be on her team.
Other common pokemon appearances include:
Gardevoir (zelda)
Corviknight (segfried)
Aegislash (excalibur)
Gothitelle (hilda)
Hatterene (blair)
Escavalier (lancelot)
Blastoise (galahad)
Venusaur (snakevine)
Gyarados (wrath)
Steelix (ironwill)
Hydreigon (basilisk)
Dracovish (jaws)
Noivern (smaug)
Haxorus (axe)
Zekrom (zeus)
Galarian weezing (toppomhat)
Sylveon (siren)
Whimsicott (cottonball)
Rhyperior (rampage)
Druddigon (thorn)
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Spent an hour writing this short story. Spent 2 hours on the body and outfit. SPENT THREE FRIGGIN HOURS TRYING TO GET THE HAIR RIGHT.
Newfound respect for people who make drawing curly hair look easy, cuz goddamn that shit's hard.
Ah well. At the end of the day I'm super happy with the final product.
So happy in fact that I'm getting a 16" × 20" print of it and am putting it in my house because I did a good job, and you should always appreciate your own work.
I hope you guys enjoy the picture, and if you read my little head-canon, I hope you enjoyed that too!
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writings-of-dumpy · 4 years
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Bloodshot - Stiles Song Imagine
A/N: I love Dove Cameron, mmkay? So yeah. Here’s this 2k pile of blah.
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Being friends with Stiles was so easy, right from the first day you met in kindergarten and ever since, your friendship with Stiles was a constant and wonderful thing. As you got older, things changed as they often do. You started to notice butterflies in your stomach and a small ache in your chest when he was around. You couldn’t explain it away, so you chose to ignore it. Stiles was easily your best friend and the person you go to the most with all of your problems or anxieties, and you were his go-to when he was going through a rough time. You were the first to know about Scott’s new lycanthropy as Stiles had called you to come over and help him research the topic. When you asked why, Stiles told you everything—his fears, his hopes for a cure, and his worry for the guy he considered a brother. You calmed him down and assured him that everything would be fine, and hugged him close as you often had. Butterflies and a twinging sensation spread throughout your whole body at how close he was. It had never happened before and the two of you had embraced plenty of times. And now you know why—you were in love with him.
You had fallen deeply for Stiles, but had done nothing to act on those feelings because you didn’t want to admit that they were real. When he and Malia had shown that they were together, your heart sank to the depths of the Earth. The moment they kissed at a get-together Lydia was throwing had served to both confirm your feelings and make you painfully aware of them. You felt sick, embarrassed and hurt all at once and excused yourself from the room with Lydia close behind.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked you.
“Um, yeah, I’m fine. I just needed some fresh air… it’s a little stuffy in the basement,” you said with a laugh.
“Oh, okay… Well come back in when you’re ready,” Lydia said with a small smile and a comforting pat on the arm.
You took a deep breath and gathered yourself back together and went back inside before anyone else would notice your absence.
Stiles had been dating Malia for a while now, and things seemed to be sticking. You were happy for them, honestly, because Stiles was happy. They were a good match, you thought. Malia needed someone down-to-earth enough to help her with daily life, but also someone who understood her unique situation, and the perfect person for the job was Stiles. Stiles enjoyed being with her, too. He often told you about something she did that day that he found endearing or something similar he found in her that he knows in himself, most notably the color coding. You smiled and cheered him on and hoped for his happiness, even if it meant you weren’t in the picture the way you wanted.
One day you were walking in the halls and you heard Kira call your name from behind you. You turned around and saw the hallway was empty except for her and you. The lights flickered slightly and shone on the tile floors in different shades of yellow.
Yellow? I thought the floor was blue. I guess they painted it… you thought.
Kira walked toward you and you could swear her footsteps changed the color of the lights to varying degrees of purple and green. It was a beautiful sight, and you felt yourself smile at her neat trick.
“Are you alright..?” Kira asked gently. “You’re supposed to be in physics with us, remember?”
You looked at her quizzically. “Physics..? Oh! Oh, right…”
Kira’s brow furrowed and she walked you back to class and you sat in your seat next to Lydia. You didn’t pay attention to the snide comment your teacher undoubtedly made (seriously, why are all of the teachers total dicks at this school? How have they not been fired yet?) and opened your book.
“Um, it’s upside down,” Lydia whispered. You looked at the book then turned it to where you thought was right-side up. The words on the page were blurry and your eyes burned even more when you looked at them. After a few minutes, Lydia passed you a note. You could barely read it as it seemed to have been written on a blue sheet of paper that shone in your eyes. It was a beautiful and foreign color, but not quite good for reading off of. You managed to make out the small message: “Are you okay?!”
You wrote back: “Maybe a little tired.”
It was true—you were exhausted. You hadn’t slept in nearly seven days and you had done your best to try and act normal, but your attempts had clearly been failing today. You dreaded the thought that you’ll soon fall asleep whether you wanted to or not because all you could dream about was Stiles. There were good dreams and bad ones, but they both left you with an ache in your chest when you woke up, so you elected to not sleep for as long as you could.
“Hey, you don’t look so good… Maybe you should go home and sleep?” Lydia suggested after the class had ended.
“Hm, maybe,” you said and started to walk with them out of the building.
“Hey, guys!” you heard Stiles say from beside the three of you in the hallway. He and Malia were walking side by side as they approached your group. You weren’t sure if you were dreaming or not, but decided to play it cool anyway.
“We were thinking about going bowling tonight. Wanna come?” Malia asked. You felt like you were on fire and a black hole had taken up residence in your chest, and you were so fatigued and exhausted that nothing looked real, so you assumed it must be a dream. Why else would the sky be a dull peach color? But you knew you’d eventually wake up, so you nodded your head and smiled.
“Are you alright..?” Stiles asked you.
“I’m fantastic, Stiles Stilinski,” you declared with a grin and walked away.
“I think she’s losing her mind,” Lydia commented with a sigh. You chuckled to yourself and thought that she was probably right.
You managed to walk home and realize that you weren’t dreaming, which was a relief. You didn’t want to wake up with a pain in your heart and tears to follow. What you should do was go to bed, but you couldn’t stand the thought of a dream so lovely it broke your heart, so you decided to push forward until your body didn’t give you the option anymore.
A few hours passed and the line between dreams and reality began to blur. You felt your phone vibrate periodically but couldn’t quite make it to answer. You felt completely out of your head; it was like nothing could hurt you because you weren’t real. You could hear white noise in your head and your ears rang off and on, but you weren’t paying it any mind. You lost track of all time and before you knew it, the sky was black and full of gold and white stars. You looked out the window at them and saw them dance and form shapes that you never thought possible.
You were pulled from your trance by a knocking at your door that seemed to come from miles away. Reality seemed like a distant concept and you felt it only polite to allow the hallucination to continue. You opened your door that looked like it had been warped (maybe by the yellow dancing stars?) and saw a sight that both devastated and elated you.
“Oh, hello there, Stiles,” you said. He was surrounded by stars of all shapes and colors and you had to focus hard to see him in front of you. His expression was one of deep concern and he spoke slowly.
“Hey… are you okay?” he said lowly. You smiled sadly and let what you assumed to be a dream inside. Even though you knew it was all in your head, any time with Stiles is time you cherished.
“I’m peachy,” you replied once he was inside.
“Why didn’t you come to bowling with us? And why didn’t you answer your phone?” he asked in quick succession.
You felt your mouth open, but nothing came out. You repeated the movement a few times and Stiles’ expression grew even more concerned.
“Y/N, how much sleep have you had?” he asked. You shrugged and sat down, but didn’t quite make it to the couch, so you fell onto the floor.
“Fitting,” you chuckled to yourself with your face against the carpet.
You felt Stiles pick you up and he placed you on the couch. You felt dizzy and your vision was starting to blur again, so you rubbed your eyes vigorously.
“Y/N, why aren’t you sleeping enough..?” Stiles asked again. You pulled your hands away from your eyes and were satisfied to see that your vision had cleared and so had most of the floaties. Your head was still hazy, so you figured this must still be a dream. You looked at his eyes and he frowned. “Your eyes are so bloodshot, bug…”
Your heart pounded at the pet name he often used for you, and you smiled slightly, then said, “Well I suppose this is better than staring at the fan all night waiting until morning.”
“How long has that been going on..?” Stiles asked. His hand gently rubbed your arm and you felt like you were going to break down in front of him, but held strong. You could cry when you woke up, but not in the dream.
“Like a week, bro,” you mused with a smile.
Stiles shook his head in disbelief. “Why?”
“It’s harder to see you’re not mine with my bloodshot eyes,” you professed.
Stiles sat there for a moment with a blank stare and you hoped to wake up very soon. Stiles let out a breath and pulled your face to his, then kissed your lips with a ferocity that mimicked the fire you felt when he was around. You smiled and kissed him back and thanked whoever was looking out for you for this dream feeling so real.
“Come on, you need sleep, darling,” Stiles said after the two of you separated and scooped you into his arms.
“I don’t want to wake up,” you mumbled to yourself and felt your vision fade to black.
You woke up to your hair being gently petted and the smell of a familiar cologne that you couldn’t mistake. You looked up and sure enough, Stiles’ soft eyes met yours.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty… Well, afternoon,” he said with a small chuckle.
“How did you get here..?” you asked after propping yourself up off of his chest.
Stiles’ hand gently smoothed a piece of hair from your face and he held your cheek gently. “When you weren’t picking up your phone, I got worried, so I came over… And then you fell asleep on the way to your room.”
“And you stayed..?” you asked with a raised brow.
“Of course I did. Especially after… well, how bold I was,” Stiles said and shifted to sit up more and face you.
Your eyes went wide and your heart pounded in your ears. “That was real..?”
Stiles smiled sheepishly and nodded. “I hope you’re not mad… I just hated how sad you looked and I had to let you know that I am yours.”
You felt as though your insides sunk you your feet at his words. Not only were you embarrassed at the exhaustion-induced confession but also confused and hopeful about Stiles’ feelings towards you.
“What do you mean?” you asked him cautiously. “You’re with Malia.”
Stiles nodded slightly. “Right… We broke up. It was like a week ago, and I didn’t tell anyone because I guess I wasn’t that upset by it. When I saw you last night I realized… I realized that it’s always been you. You’re the one I’ve been wanting all this time.”
You felt your eyes well up with tears and it took everything to keep them from flowing down your cheeks. You looked at him and smiled softly. “I want you too.”
Stiles smiled and pulled you against him in a warm hug. You wrapped your arms around him and let out a breath as you felt everything fall into place.
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deathbyvalentine · 5 years
Text
A Peter Pan Story
Once there was a boy called Peter who was brave and clever and quick. He lived on an island he ruled over called Neverland. He was beloved by children, fairies and mermaids and despised by adults and parents. He never grew up and he was never sad and he never died, though the latter was more from luck than anything else. He liked fighting and flying and hated love and families. He also liked himself, perhaps most of all.  
One day he was walking along the cliff line, putting one bare foot in front of the other like a circus performer. His tongue stuck out between his teeth from effort, his noble brow furrowed in concentration. Beneath, the sea raged and reached up for him with claws of foam, but always came up short. He didn’t even notice it’s efforts. From here, you could see the whole of Neverland, from the forest to the jungle to the desert to everything inbetween. There were some hidden bits, but for the most part, he knew the place by heart because it was his heart. He could see the clearing by the big old tree where the Lost Boys were currently, plumes of smoke tumbling upwards from their fire. He kept a careful eye on them - the smoke could lead the pirates straight to them, if they were feeling particularly foolhardy. But apparently today the rough sea kept them occupied enough, the Jolly Roger tossing on the waves with no sign of making ground.
It wasn’t just the sea that was unhappy. The sky above grew a darker grey by the moment and the leaves of the trees twitched in the anxious wind, gusts sending fairies tumbling as easily as petals. It took Peter a long while to notice. Usually storms came when he raged and rain came when he sorrowed. This was neither of those things and he was neither of the others.
He sat down with a thump, resting a foot on his knee. He checked the sole for thorns, his elbows and knees for grazes. He felt no aches, no shivers or fevers. As always, he was the very picture of bright vitality. But yet the wind blew and the sea clattered against the rocks. Though he hated to do it, he risked a glance inside himself. His mind was messy, as it always was. He was a disorganised being, feelings and thoughts and memories and dreams all tumbling over themselves to be at the forefront of his mind. Everything was fleeting and everything was as solemn and frivolous as the next. 
Something was different this time though. Underneath the piles and piles, there was something off. Something rotting. Peter had seen an infected wound before, seen the way the skin swelled up around the cut, became red and hot and smelling sickly sweet, the opposite sweet of medicine. That sweetness was here now. Frightened, he slammed the door shut. That was quite enough of that. He’d never had an infection in his life, let alone one you couldn’t see. But the weather’s anxiety seeped through into his bones and he decided to fly home to the Nevertree, just in case of sudden downpour. 
The Lost Boys were huddled in a small group, peering intently at the sky. They all stood to attention when their leader landed in their midst (or at least, what they thought of as attention which wasn’t the same thing at all). Kitty, a slight and fierce girl who had earned her name by riding a tiger for a whole ten seconds before it threw her off, even attempted at a salute. Kitty’s younger sister, Squirt, for once did not copy her sibling.  Instead she looked at the sky and then at Peter, her mouth pressing down into a hard line. Peter shook his head in a silent warning. One she wisely heeded. For his orders, they waited. Peter let them, letting the tension build until the children were practically vibrating with it.
“There is a monster in our mists.” Possibly, he meant ‘midst’ but nobody dare correct him, and anyway, there were mists on some corners of Neverland, especially if Peter had a cold. He looked thoughtfully above him, and all of them mimicked him, though they could make neither head nor tail of the shifting clouds like he could. “What type of monster Peter?” Saint James queried, only just managing to keep the tremble out of his voice.  Saint James was so named for the golden pendant around his neck, which Peter had declared to be a name tag for he had seen dozens before. He was not a particularly bold boy, often relying on Kitty and Tin to check under his bed for haunting shadows. He preferred days spent by the lagoon rather than hunting or playing at war. He was fascinated by the mermaids (a mystifying trait considering the merpeople were a great deal more dangerous than most of the pirates) and enjoyed the languid pace. He did not enjoy blood or mud or facepaint. 
Peter considered the question. He caught a whiff of that rot again, almost enough to make him gag. Something dark and tangled shifted in his chest.  “A big one. Probably as big as a house.” Saint James paled. Tin stood forward, chest puffed up, the feathers tangled into her wild curls dancing in the wind. 
“I ain’t afraid Peter. When do we go get it?”
“Dusk.” It was stronger in the dark. This much he knew for certain. He didn’t want to try and get through a night without doing something about it. It was midafternoon now, and so the children threw themselves into preparations. Tin got to making new arrowheads out of sharp pieces of flint, frowning as she chipped the rock away into a more lethal shape. Doodle (a child who had left gender at home along with adulthood) started designing the warpaint they would wear. They said it was bad luck to go into battle without war paint but really they enjoyed the sense of authority they got from daubing inks and juices onto their friends’ faces. Kitty and Squirt got into a spirited fight about who got to use the better rapier, one that Kitty predictably won. It was in this small way that several hours passed without consequence.
It was when the bits of sky that weren’t clouded turned a deep and violent orange that Peter stirred himself. He had sequestered himself in the boughs of a tree, whispering furiously with several fairies. Angry bells could occasionally be heard and the pitch of Peter’s voice rising in indignity, but apparently a concord was eventually reached. He floated down to the ground, brows furrowed, ignoring the dark aching in his chest.  “Are you ready?” A chorus of affirmations and one less than enthusiastic agreement greeted him. Good enough. He beckoned and dove deep into the brush surrounding the clearing.
The fairies had told him where to go. They hadn’t wanted to. The place they were going was the monster territory and generally, Pan knew to leave well enough alone. The monsters would come out when they were ready to be defeated, a great story would be told and the Lost Boys would return to their beds, exhausted by their victory. But Peter needed to stop this monster before it became a story. At the moment it sat in the part of the map he didn’t broach, growing fatter and fatter on the fear of storms, of the nightmares Peter had late at night, of the future. It had no reason to leave when it could feed so well. So Peter had to take the fight to it.
It was a long hike, longer still for the Boys that had to pick their way over fallen trees and crops of rocks, unlike their leader that drifted above the tree tops, diving down occasionally to crow about some sight he had seen before disappearing again. They bore this well enough, telling stories to pass the distance when they had the breath to do so. Neverland seemed to stretch out dusk for them, until it was a tight and taunt thing, pregnant with possibility.
Finally, finally, they reached their destination. Out of breath and more than a little grubby with greenery and mud, they stood in front of Peter who had been waiting for them. For once, he didn’t seem impatient to charge in. He stood, surveying the entrance with his hands on his hips.
Unsurprisingly, the place where monsters came from was a cave. It went deep beneath Cloud Mountain, perhaps even to the center of it. The caves around the other side, they had explored to completeness, but they had never entered this network. It somehow seemed much darker, the blackness inside gobbling up any light that tumbled in. The darkness was big. It dwarfed all of them. Saint James thought that it looked like it could spill out, and keep spilling, until all of Neverland was coated in it, as filthy as an oil slick. The thought made him shiver.
Peter had made them torches, chunky unwieldy things made of wood and old clothes. He didn’t carry one himself. Instead two fairies sat on his shoulders, casting a small but certain glow. He didn’t ask them if they were ready this time. He just plunged into the caves without a second glance. He would be going in if they followed or not.
The cave was narrow for about fifty yards before it loosed up, allowing them to walk in a jumbled mix rather than single file. The corridor sloped downwards, not dramatically but certainly. Every few steps seemed to bring the temperature down a few degrees until Doodle was thankful for the warmth the torches gave, not just the light. Another fifty yards and there began to be rival tunnels, branching off this way and that. Squirt, surprisingly sharp for her age, began to drop crumbs as they walked.
Every time the path branched, Peter would stop stock still and tilt his head, as though listening to some far off song. After a moment of silence, he would start forward with absolute surety. Squirt hoped it was actual knowledge rather than Peter’s usual assumed correctness. There was never any way to tell which it was.
They had been walking for what could have been minutes or hours when something changed. It was almost imperceptible. But the air, that had thus far been dry and arid, became damp. Kitty wondered if they were getting close to the sea coves, if they had walked far enough they had crossed the island completely. But the air didn’t have the taste of sea salt or seaweed. The dampness smelt more like something rotting, body heat or the breath of a bear. A moment later, she realised that it was getting lighter too - she could start to see outlines of those in front of her and the edges of rocks. But they were still deep within the earth. Where could the light be coming from?
She got her answer and immediately wished she hadn’t.
Peter had stopped very suddenly and Kitty collided with his back, almost catching him with the torch. She was about to curse when she realised why he had stopped. The tunnel had opened up, split like a fruit to reveal a towering cavern. You couldn’t see the top it soared so high. That wasn’t the exceptional thing. The exceptional thing was the creature waiting in the centre of the cavern. 
The first thing you noticed was its size. It was hulking in a way that not only dominated sight, but dominated the mind as well. Doodle’s mind stuttered as he tried to take it in, some part of his mind shrieking ‘too big! too big!’. The second thing you noticed was that the light that illuminated the cavern was coming from it’s eyes. It was a deep yellow, like the gas lamps that illuminated London Town. There was a fierce intelligence in it’s eyes. This was no dumb animal, disturbed in slumber. It had been waiting.
Kitty thought it looked a little like a huge mutated lion, a rough mane framing it’s face, four paws, teeth as sharp as razors - or sharper even. Black blood matted it’s thick fur, making her stomach turn. There were curious things about it though, things that didn’t fit - it seemed to be clothed in skeleton leaves. Not just covered in them, but deliberately dressed. All the way down it’s thick limbs, stopping just short of the massive paws (the paws which were home to some claws that made the bottom drop out of the brave girl’s stomach). Around it’s neck was an odd sort of pendent. It looked like a street sign. Kitty didn’t know how to read but she knew it began with a K, because that is how she signed her name. 
Nobody moved as though somehow they could go back to being unnoticed, unseen. Saint James had taken a few steps back as if he hoped he could slip back into the tunnels. Peter, for his part, didn’t notice. His blue eyes were fixed solidly on the creature in front of him, his lip curled as though it personally offended him. Doodle was about to open their mouth, perhaps to ask what they should do, but there was no need. With a cry of rage, Peter had charged forward.
The Not-Lion charged forward to meet him and for a heart stopping moment Tin thought Peter was a goner. The Not-Lion had swept out a paw with a strength that could shatter bones, but Peter had rolled underneath it, scraping a bare shoulder across the cavern floor. He regained his feet and charged again, managing this time to get in a slash at the thing’s thigh. Blood spilt from this wound too, sticky and steaming. It reminded Saint James of the tar-pits, where you could find skeletons from centuries, maybe even millennia ago, perfectly preserved in black. The Not-Lion howled in a voice that was not dissimilar to the sound of a wolf, turning back to it’s prey. Tin felt she should do something, anything, but all she could think to do was stoop and retrieve some shards of slate and flint, hurling them at the creature. It bounced off it without so much as a wince. It didn’t even look at the other children. It knew it’s quarry. 
They circled each other, eyes fixed. Peter, for his part, did not seem scared. There was a steely determination in the way he held his sword and his gaze, unflinching. He meant to finish this and he could not envision losing. And why should he? He had never lost before and did not intend to start now. The creature bared it’s teeth and Peter noticed something stuck between the lower canines.
Quick as a whip, he flashed forward and plunged his hand into the sweltering mouth, siezing upon whatever it was and pulling back, beating a hasty retreat. He looked down at what he had in his hands, confused to see a dress. A ragged and stained dress, but a dress all the same, with frills and ribbon. He only had a moment to contemplate this before he realised the Not-Lion had taken advantage of his distraction. He didn’t quite manage to skirt the blow this time, and tumbled in his flight into the nearby cavern wall. 
The smack gave the signal the Boys needed to snap out of their awe. With a mighty war cry, Kitty ran forward, bopping the creature squarely on the nose with the hilt of her sword. It reared back, more confused than it was hurt, only to have Doodle attempt valiantly to trip it up with the rope they had brought (in case of rock climbing). By the time this had happened, Peter was back on his feet. When it reared up, he dashed forward to bring his sword right down it’s middle.
It was not just blood and guts that gushed forward. Objects came out too. A hand mirror, a compact, a baby’s rattle - all of the Boys (except Squirt), stepped forward to search through the viscera. Peter’s eyes were still fixed on the dress. Kitty had found a pair of ladies stockings which she discarded with disgust. Tin found a wooden toy gun, much loved and much mourned once lost. Saint James found a prayer book, pages stained pink with blood. Doodle looked up from the pallet, about to show it around when they caught sight of Squirt. Squirt was crouching by the monster’s head, crooning to it and brushing it’s mane as it perished. Slowly, it’s eyes went out, leaving only the torches as light. Doodle felt a some flash of something unsettling in the pit of their stomach - something that didn’t feel like victory or adventure. Something that felt bad and wrong. But then Peter was speaking and it washed away, the way all bad feelings did in Neverland.
“We defeated the Memory Monster.” He crowed, doing a flying lap of the cavern (which was large enough it took him several moments to reappear out of the dark). “We should have a mighty feast to celebrate. Down by the beach, so the pirates can know we’re braver than they ever wear!” And so they did. Once they found their way out the cavern, following Squirt’s crumbs, they made their way to the beach. The sea had calmed now and the sky was so cloudless Saint James declared he could see every star there ever was. They built a bonfire, taller than even Tin (who was the tallest amongst them, even taller than Peter). It started crackling with very little encouragement and Kitty went off to empty the various traps in the forest so they could eat. While they waited, they danced around the fire, Doodle entranced by the way their shadows jumped and flickered and grew. At the climax of the whooping, Peter hurled the dress into the flames. Being a little damp from monster spit, it took a while to get going and he watched with flames dancing in his eyes until it did.
He was calmed, the darkness in his chest quelled and forced back to sleep, into the box where he didn’t have to think about it. Neverland was safe again and more importantly, it was just his.
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pkmntrainergreyze · 5 years
Text
I Am Up To No Good Pt. 1 (Pete Wentz x Reader)
a/n: Sorry I didn't updated so quickly, I had tons of drafts I want to finish all at the same time! I learned that I can do things one at a time.
I noticed I've been leaning more on First Person POV, I'll try to make this in 2nd. Also, I couldn't think of the character names so I used my friends' OCs. I hope you'd like this modern HP!Au
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Pete had always been the friend you love to hate. Whether the circumstances involve the Hogsmeade games or not, in the end he'll always be the man you'll call for help when pranking Brendon or bricking Joe's Samsung.
Yeah, usually the "hate" intensifies when it's the infamous decking halls season. Especially when old Mrs Minerva initiates the Hogsmeade field trip, which she also did this year. The duels in form of curses— whether work of magic or foul mouths— it's what made the Hogsmeade games so popular.
The magic of your friendship had been slipping lately, a shame really. He rarely ever joins your party, putting your letters back to the rejected-Pete-invites mailbox.
Now's the 27th invite, and you prayed prank wars will spark your friendship once more.
So here's to the fifth anniversary of the Hogsmeade games
You created a group
Nicole Row What's this group for?
You named the group Genius Ravenclaws
Andy Hurley I'm honored
Dallon Weekes I failed divinations why am I here?
Ray Toro Good evening everyone
You  Hey genuises
Nicole Row set his name to Nic
Dallon Weekes set his name to DJazzy
You Where do you find trolls?
Nic ?
Ray Toro What for?
You Pete
Dallon Why do you insist on participating.
Nic Forbidden forest. Saw one near Hagrid's place, almost made an unbreakable vow
Ray Toro Maybe it's about time you stop? Let me remind you last time you got the all of us in detention
You Thanks guys
Nic Don't tell Hagrid I said that
Andy Hurley Are you sure you're not a slytherin??? @Nic?? Seen by Nic, Dallon and Ray Toro
You went offline.
You dove back to your azure blue bed.  The bedsheet engulfed you in a light hug in seconds. The more you sunk, the more you can sniff the 4th year's "love potion" project, like yesterday, it reeks of wood, mint and... vinegar?
You hooked your hand to the edge of the mattress and kicked high enough for you to reach the faraway lamp. Before you could complain about the smell you heard a distinct cough, a very gutteral one. Almost intended.
You turned to look, only to see a disappointed Hufflepuff in a riddle secured Ravenclaw dorm.
The dandelion haired boy lingered beside your nightstand. He pulled his hand back as he saw the lights flicker on. When your eyes met he immediately fixed his tie and took a deep breath.
"I heard the game's still on" He's soaked in what seemed to be his house's trap. The acid slid into your nostrils. Your immediate action was to grab your wand. You waved it and like magic— no, with magic, the awful stench was gone and his cloak's dried.
Patrick muttered "thank you"
He rubbed his shirt and smiled a bit "I was absent when Miss Quills taught that" Thankfully he went for one of the brightest witch of the year, but the gleam in your eyes told him no excuses.
"Were you also absent when Sir Ford taught us the hot-air charm?"
"Um, yeah.... that seemed to be the case" He chuckled. He ruffled his hair and avoided your eyes. No, I didn't understand a word Mr Ford said.
You chuckled.
"Understood" You chirped "but why are you here? How did you got here?"
Patrick looked at you as if he was expecting for you to know the answer to life's toughest questions, then cleared his throat. His eyes balled around, reluctant to answer
"Pete"
When the name rolled off his tongue you dashed and dug your wand in his neck. He yelped, taking large steps backward, nearly tumbling down. His terrified eyes had no effect on your daunted aura. His lips wobbled and nose scrunched. You directed your malice at him. Eyes twitching in anger.
"Talk."
"HetoldmethepasswordfortheHufflepuffdormchangedandsaidIshouldaskMikeybutthenitturnsoutitwasn'ttherealMikeyitwasBrendonUrieandhetoldmethepasswordwasSherbertLemonsbutitwasn'tandoneofthebarrelsspiltvinegaralloverme—
"Um" You stopped kneading his cloak "Say what?"
Once you held back he scurried two feet apart from you. He took a Marina's Trench deep breath, before he attempted to rap.
"PetewillneverstopteasingmeandIneedreveng—
"Are you trying to copy Eminem, the Rap God or Ryan Ross?" You furrowed your eyebrows. "Cause honestly, no one knows what Ryan tells his girlfriend"
He raised both his hands, and bended his spine down. He bowed down for seven times till his chanting morphed into something audible
"please let me help you in the Hogsmeade games..."
With that, you clapped both hands to his shoulder. You turned your head up, and greeted him with sun bright eyes with zigzag smile crooked enough to scare him.
"Permission granted"
You both entered a dim room at seven pm.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" You asked. The blonde nodded and swiped the curtains up.
"Yeah, from what I've heard, Miss Clovette stores it in her chest"
You gave him one last stare before you scurried to find said chest. The Hufflepuff said the box is supposed to look give a luxurious and ancient vibe. You checked under the table, around the bookshelves, stumped the floorboards for a secret passage— alas, nothing.
You turned back to Patrick, defeated and skeptical.
"You said this was the place?"
"I'm sure it's here somewhere," He bit his bottom lip "I saw the third years practicing the riddiko-what-lous charm in it"
You can faintly remember that Bogarts were part of your brother's lesson, and he's a third year. If your recollection is correct then Patrick's statement wouldn't be so far fetched. He grinded his teeth, fingers subconsciously sneaking up his mouth. You sighed. What's his motif anyways?
While you turn books and scraps around, you asked questions.
"What did you say your reason to help me was again?" You paused for a bit. You levitated another pile with your wand and Patrick mimicked your movements, before he gave up and had to use labor instead.
Patrick groaned as he dispatched another pile aside. The weight lifted from his chest set him eased him. He wiped his brow.
"Payback"
Shame, for a Ravenclaw you find yourself completely puzzled. You opened your mouth but shut it. You tried to think about an image of Patrick and Pete arguing but none were valid in your standards. Besides, the only moments you see the two together is in Quidditch.
But the word does compliment a hot ass like Pete's, so you let your experiences talk for itself.
"As much as I want to believe me, cause everyone knows Pete can be a dick" Patrick chuckled slightly, which made you huff a laugh too "—Aren't you two the bestest of friends?"
Patrick frozed
"Y-you" He gawked "You don't get it do you?"
You shook your head "No, why?"
"He forces himself that he's my quote on quote" He drew an air quotation mark
"—Best friend, treats me like his personal entertainment at reunions, finds a way to push my buttons, makes a scene, next thing I know I had him covered in purple paint and have detention!"
"Wait" You poked his chest "Good boy Patrick is in detention?!"
You refused to believe such thing. Maybe Patrick is in Pete's side of the war on this one.
He squalled "What's more disappointing is that you actually thought Pete and I are close!"
You scowled "well it's not that farfetched, you're cousins and Quidditch fanatics"
"Yeah, but it gets annoying how Slytherin wins all the time"
"Cause Hufflepuffs are weak"
He squeaked. The voice was dark but it cheeped like a bird. It didn't felt natural.
You made sure you focused on Patrick, and only him, even when his crooked finger pointed behind.
"Patrick...." You cooed "take out your wand"
He whimpered "W-why?!"
"Just do it"
"Aww Patrick's quivering, look at his eyes (Y/n)! Look at him!"
You tried eyeing the man behind you but your eyes reached it's peak. You don't need to look to know what it was, the cold shivers down your spine spiked a wave to your left brain.
"You know the spell"
Patrick gulped and with shaking hands, he reached for his pockets. It took him a while to feel the edge of his wand, before he slowly aimed above your shoulder.
He took a deep breath
"Riddikulus!"
You turned around quick and tried to contain the Bogart. However, when you did, you saw nothing. You looked from left to right, then found the answer down below.
An egg wearing eyeliner.
"Didn't thought it would work" He gasped in disbelief
"So... is turning Pete into a hard boiled egg one of your wildest dreams?" You smirked, in which he returned with a shrug and toothy grin.
"You could say that" He chuckled "last Christmas he told the entire Stumph and Wentz family when making eggnogs that he usually scrambles eggs but would fertilize them for some quote on quote crazy superfine lasses—"
"Alright! Alright!" You covered your ears, feigning innocence "I don't need to know that!"
Patrick grabbed the egg and pursed it to his abyss-like bag. You avoided gazing at it. Everyone would prefer not to look directly at their fear, unless paid with a million galleons perhaps.
"Is it in?"
"That sounds awfully dirty" Patrick shivered. With the amount of time he must've spent with Pete his quotes rubbed off him. You smacked him directly at the head without looking. You felt sorta proud of your achievement and guilty at the same time.
"Merlin's beard, just tell me!"
"Yes, it's in the bag"
This is going to be a long week, ain't it?
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a/n: Sorry Pete's barely in here. He appears more on the next parts, I just wanna cut things off so it wouldn't last 5k like last imagines. Promise I'll try to make up for it.
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kallura-icedcoffee · 6 years
Text
golden hour: enchantment
A/N: This fic is based on this artwork/post by @iacediai which was too interesting to pass up!
Deep in the Wood
“Bring me the witch and I will save him…”
The room is silent save for the echoing click clack of Keith’s boots against the cold marble. The guards at the door don’t bother to question him anymore, they just get out of the way. Move or be moved. Once at the center of the room he loomed over the large coffin-like glass case. The vines and flowers had almost completely overtaken it by this time and all he could see was a face, pale and unmoving, frozen in time. A mighty champion trapped in eternal slumber.
Keith inhaled deeply, looking upon it one final time before storming out.
“You don’t think it odd that they’ve sent us on such a mission?” Hunk pulled his hood up cautiously, weary of his surroundings.
“Why odd? We’re the best. Emperor Zarkon clearly recognizes our talents. We’ll be rewarded handsomely.” Lance smirked as he used his dagger to clean his teeth before running his tongue over the smooth pearly surface.
“Given our skill set it does seem overkill to send all four of us after a simple witch.” Pidge stated as she walked, simultaneously flipping through the pages of the small hardbound spellbook she normally kept tucked in her belt.
“No simple witch could cast the spell that was put on Shiro. Even you said you couldn’t touch it Pidge.” Keith remarked as he cut through the foliage with his blade.
“Don’t remind me.” She snarled.
“Jealous?” Lance attempted to muss her hair and she slapped his hand away.
“Not jealous, just highly intrigued. I anticipate meeting this sorceress.”
“Don’t you think it also odd that the emperor refused to give us a name as well?” Hunk chimed in.
“She’s the White Witch, what more do we need?” Lance rolled his eyes.
“He seemed to know her more personally than that. We don’t know anything about this woman or why she cursed Shiro in the first place. It would be easier to capture our bounty with additional information.” Hunk stroked his chin.
“We will make do with what we’re given” Keith snapped, growing tired of the chatter.
His mind was elsewhere, on the mission, on his friend, on his growing suspicions of Zarkon. Nothing about this felt right.
“Don’t you think we should split up?” Lance finally suggested. He had stopped walking and placed his hands on his hips.
“Do you ever not say foolish things?” Pidge snapped the book shut and put it back in its holster.
“What’s so foolish about that? We have so much ground to cover!” Lance shrugged.
“This is the Olkari Wood. It’s enchanted. Many a man have ventured into these woods and never returned.” Hunk warned.
“We’re not regular men.” Lance retorted.
“It still would not be wise. This place can turn into a maze if one is not careful.” Pidge adjusted her glasses.
“Our intel has informed us she’s holed up in these woods somewhere and it could take days to find her hideout. We split up and whomever finds her sends the flare.”
“Or we could stick together and save what limited flares we have” Hunk insisted.
Keith continued to trudge forward to distance himself while the remaining three stayed to squabble. He trusted his team with his life but his temperament was most different than theirs and when they got in these little arguments he knew it best to tune them out. They would eventually realize he was going on without them and catch up.
When their voices finally quieted down he sighed with relief that the bickering had ended and turned to face them only when he did so they were not there and not only where they nowhere to be seen the forest appeared different from before.
“Shit” he hissed before calling them out one by one. “PIDGE! LANCE! HUNK!”
Keith turned in every which direction before realizing he was good and lost and separated from his crew. The Olkari Woods did indeed do what Pidge had promised. Now he had a decision to make: find the others or complete the mission. He huffed in exasperation considering his next course of action when the snap of a twig in the distance broke his concentration.
His head snapped in that direction just in time to see a cloaked figure disappear behind some trees, a wisp of white hair caught on the breeze.
“Couldn’t be…” he muttered to himself as his legs pulled him forward.
He walked briskly, not wanting to make too much noise, until he caught up to where he’d seen them. He looked around, prepared to be disappointed, when he saw them again just as they began to descend down a slope.
Keith crept and scurried to the top of the hill, peering over to discover a clearing and a small cottage next to a large oak. The figure pushed open the front door and stepped inside. He decided to go around the side, out of the view of the windows and climb down. Just as he was about to approach, the door creaked open and he quickly dove behind a tree.
The figure exited again and took off hurriedly in the opposite direction until they were out of sight. Keith considered following but determined it would be smarter to stay behind, get inside the cabin and ambush them when they returned. He snuck forward and tested the knob. Door opened right up and he stepped inside.
The cottage appeared to have been erected around the oak as parts of it were inside, large thick branches stretching across the ceiling. The walls were lined with shelves of bottles, canisters, trinkets and books. Stained glass mobiles hung in front of the window filling the room with colored light.
As he explored, vines began to creep along the floor, following him, rising up parallel to his legs. Before he’d even known what hit him they wrapped around his body and yanked him back with so much force he dropped his sword. It clattered to the ground as he was pulled into a wooden chair, the vines wrapping and twirling and winding around him, securing him in place. He struggled and snarled.
“The more you struggle the tighter they’ll get. Therefore I would remain calm if I were you” a female voice sounded from the doorway of the bedroom. The figure stood there, face hidden by the large hood pulled down over her face. Her long wavy white hair flowed over her shoulders.
Keith looked up in surprise. He was sure she had left. He watched her walk away.
“You’re the White Witch I take it?”
“That I am.”
She sauntered to the fireplace and spat in its direction. Her saliva hit the hearth and erupted into flames, casting them both in a soft orange glow. She removed the hood of her cloak and his heart seized. Not what he was expecting in the slightest. The rumors had spoken of an old frightening hag, not the beautiful young witch who stood before him.
“Why do you follow me hunter?” She asked as she glared down at him, arms crossed.
Keith returned her menacing stare as he remained tight lipped. She smirked.
“I have ways of making you talk hunter. I’ll give you one last chance to speak of your own free will.”
Keith had been interrogated before. He could take a punch. He could take much worse. He remained silent. She approached his chair and leaned down, tilting his head up with a finger to the chin.
He noted her breath smelled sweet as she whispered something incomprehensible before her lips met his, soft and warm, sending a tingle throughout his body. An involuntary moan left his mouth as she pulled back, her fingers brushing his cheek as she stepped away.
“Now, why do you follow me hunter?” she asked again.
“For Shiro.” The answer left his lips on its own, he was unable to control himself.
“Shiro?”
“The emperor’s champion, don’t act like you don’t know. What did you do to m-”
“Who sent you?” She cut him off with another question.
“Z-Z-arkon.” He tried to hold the words back but it was fruitless.
“Of course…” she hissed. “What did he promise you?”
“If I bring you to him he’ll save Shiro by forcing you to break the spell you put on him.”
She erupted into laughter then which caused Keith’s blood to simmer.
“This isn’t a game witch!” he snapped.
“It’s certainly is not and yet you’re so easily played!” she retorted. “He simply used something dear to you to get you run his errands. He cares not for your precious champion.”
She spat out the words with contempt as she paced the room.
“You know nothing!” he yelled at her.
She quickly approached and snatched him by the face, digging her nails into his cheeks as she leaned down to meet him face to face.
“I know you’re being manipulated. I did not put that spell on your champion. That is a lie your emperor wants you to believe. Magic mimicked to look like mine.”
“Then who did it?” he uttered with her squeezing his face.
She let go of him and strolled over to a chair across from him. She sat and crossed her arms and legs.
“Take a guess.”
“He doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“But his empress does…”
He stared her down, looking for lies in her eyes. He shouldn’t trust her, but there was much about all of this that hadn’t added up that he wanted to overlook because saving Shiro meant everything. Zarkon’s refusal to give any further information about this White Witch, his refusal to explain the exact nature as to how Shiro became cursed in the first place, the empress who barely talked but seemed to hold so much influence over her husband and the fact that Shiro was champion for the emperor in the first place. He’d known Shiro his whole life and it always felt out of place that his friend was so willing to do Zarkon’s bidding.
“I think we have much to talk about” he finally said solemnly.
The witch waved her hand and the vines on his body loosened and slithered back from whence they came.
“We do.”
Keith rubbed his wrists.
“Allura. Princess Allura of Altea” she introduced herself.
His face shot up as his eyes went wide.
“Altea? That kingdom fell centuries ago. It’s a fable now. The stories say the entire royal family was slain except for the daughter who was never found.”
“As you said,” a knowing smirk spread across her face, “we have a lot to discuss.”
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irisstory2021 · 3 years
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Chapter 1: Adaptation
2035 -- Present Day
The plants were alive when I last saw them. 
I walked into the testing lab, half-heartedly tossing a coat over my civilian clothing. I wasn’t supposed to be here outside of my shift -- my father’s way of trying to pull me out of my career and brush me against something resembling a personal life -- but I couldn’t get the image of that infant out of my mind. In the footage, she’d been as pink and full of life as a fresh peach, the first baby born on New Year’s Day in 2011. Then, in what felt like a flash, the color had been sucked out of her, she’d turned white as frost and her veins could be seen pulsating, even past the grain of the frames. I couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly she had shifted; her veins sprouted out like the pigment from a brush dipped in clear water. 
I shut my locker, catching a glimpse of the plants again. There was a pot for peace lilies, which stood tall, their white petals mimicking the white walls. A pot for fastia, which my immature coworker always thought resembled marijuana leaves with their pointy ends. Then, a pot for monstera, a plant native to tropical regions that reminded me of the roundness of fat lobster claws. They were sitting in a row against a ledge on the wall that must have been left over when the windows were removed and built over when they first built the lab. They were the plants that needed the least amount of sunlight. I didn’t know why my father bothered to set them out -- their greenness and inert otherness looked stupid in such a white, clean room -- but he insisted. They honored something, or stood for something, he said -- “A reminder that nature can still exist and persist, despite man.” 
I rolled my eyes at the irony. Someone needed to be taking care of the plants, watering them at the very least. In a sunless, rainless environment like the lab, nature could only exist if it was created by and coddled by the likes of us. And the person in charge of watering them -- presumably, my father -- couldn’t even do the bare minimum.
Turning to step inside the separate room where samples of the serum were kept, I suddenly gasped at the sight of my father. The clock behind him read far too late for either of us to be here, and yet he looked at me as if I was the only one in the wrong. 
“Iris,” he said, with a raised brow, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re not supposed to come in for a few more hours.”
I shrugged my shoulders and gave him somewhat of a petulant look. Though I was almost 30, he still treated me like a teenager, and at this very moment, it was as if I was sneaking back into the house after a rambunctious night out. “I’m getting an early start.”
“4:30 in the morning early?”
“You’re here too, you know,” I said, brushing past him to perform my retina scan on the wall. The doors to the separate room swished open, letting both of us into a room where the temperature easily dropped 10 degrees. “Besides… I’m usually up this early. You know how I like my routines.” 
“Yes, you’re just like your mother, you two could never get a full night’s sleep, always restless.” He shook his head and pulled out the day’s sample for me.
We kept two versions of the serum in the lab: The original version, alpha, which was currently in commission, and the experimental version, beta, which was a copy of the original that we could test on and improve upon. Only when we made any sort of notable improvement to the beta could we eventually replicate the same improvements to the alphas we had on hand, and even then, it would take months of approval and months more of the changes to be made for the completed version to actually begin being used. 
Nothing excited me more than a fresh beta. Of course, in the petri dish, it looked clear as water -- yet, the next 10 hours I would spend working on it meant endless possibilities to bring it to life. It almost brought a smile to my face if my father hadn’t been there. 
I put on a surgical mask and a pair of gloves, wiped down the counter with some bleach, and retrieved the sample in the petri dish from my father before setting it down on the counter. “I’ll see you at lunch, dad,” I dismissed him, lowering myself to be at level with the sample as I thought about what I could do to it today. “And water those plants.”
“I will. Don’t forget these,” he said, dangling a pair of goggles in my peripherals. I sighed, snatching them with a sarcastic smile and putting them on. Satisfied, he finally left me in the lab. In the small, square window of the sliding doors I could see him pouring cups of water into the pots. 
My father and I were biologists for Plethora, a pharmaceutical company that worked on cures for human diseases. My father has been working for Plethora ever since he earned his master’s degree; the company paid for his education so long as he remained an employee. In my eyes, Plethora was a good company -- it didn’t seek to reinvent the wheel, and instead sought for ways it could keep the wheel spinning. What stopped it, of course, were terminal illnesses like cancer, heart disease. Plethora looked for cures by exploring what proteins to introduce to invasive cells rather than what could be done to eradicate them, hoping to recreate the way a tree grows its leaves back every spring despite the way it seems to die in the winter, or the way its branches grow around telephone poles instead of stop growing altogether. Adaptation.
I agreed with almost everything that Plethora did. 
As I looked at my fresh sample, I wondered what I always did whenever I started the day. What could I do that any of the other scientists -- especially my father -- hadn’t thought of yet? What could I contribute to change this seemingly perfect, sterile sample into an alpha candidate? It hadn’t killed anyone yet -- was I smart enough to keep it that way with whatever new thing I’d conjured up? I began to think about what the alpha was before it became the alpha; who was the scientist in this very same room and what were they thinking? 
Most mornings, I dove deep into this slump, and my wonderings became intrusive thoughts of whether I was good enough or just following in the footsteps of my father after losing my mother. I could never really focus until somehow pulling myself over this slump. But today, my mind drifted back to footage of that infant again -- and gone were those self-absorbed thoughts. What replaced them dared to be more sinister. 
My father showed me the footage a couple of days ago over dinner. In a strange way of connecting with me, he often told me stories of when he first began working for Plethora. For dual-method purposes, he might have also been trying to convince me to stay at the company long enough, knowing I was slowly but steadily losing interest in it. I always felt indifferent about his stories, but this one has since stuck with me.
“I’m not supposed to be showing this to you, Iris,” he said. He had found an old, cathode ray television that had a disc player built in it -- it was forward-thinking, except for the fact that it had weighed 50 pounds and its screen was only a little over a foot wide. He brought this out in the middle of dinner, while I had been uninterested in my carrots, forking them into mush. I furrowed my brows, of course intrigued by my father’s antics -- and yet something hung over him, something quite serious, and it reeled me in enough to absentmindedly taste my carrot mush for the sake of closing my slacked jaw. 
He slid the disc in and it went straight to footage of New Year’s Day in 2011. Watching diligently, I saw a mother -- her name was Terry -- giving birth in a hospital room while her husband, whose name I didn’t know, filmed the whole thing. 
“Ugh, dad, what the hell are we--” I dropped my fork in disgust, fully resigned from his clear attempt at just grossing me out. He knew I was afraid to have children and didn’t really like them in the first place. 
“Shh, just watch.”
Terry was wailing, her blonde hair stuck to her forehead and her cheeks cherry red and glistening in tears. You couldn’t really see the childbirth, since the doctor had obviously been covering between her legs, but her expression was enough to churn my stomach. Watching on, it was presented like what I expected of any record of childbirth -- the crying from the mom, then the child, then the dad. Footage of them holding the child in their arms, and then later, footage of them cooing over the child as it slept in its crib. 
I was an only child and my parents were estranged from their family, so I had never had an experience of visiting a newborn at the hospital. It didn’t strike me as peculiar when the father filmed his child -- whom they called Susie -- suddenly 
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sad-trash-writing · 6 years
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i’m somewhere past drunk and decidedly lost and you’re a kindly local on a nighttime outing AU skimmons AU
AO3 Link 
“Okay, I’ll go but I’m only having one drink. Maybe two,” Daisy told herself and her friends five hours ago. She was still at the bar and had long surpassed ‘one drink, maybe two.’ The only one who was roughly the same level of drunk as her was the birthday boy himself. He hadn’t left the stage for the last five rounds of karaoke, because each person that went up after him wanted him to stay with them and sing another song. Inevitably, it turned into the other person staring and serenading him while he obliviously belted out the song. 
Stupid Trip and his pretty face. 
Daisy rolled her eyes and sipped on her final cocktail. Sure, she said that about the last three, but this was really the last one. 
Mostly because the bartender had rung out the last-call bell already, but she was going to pretend it was her self-control. 
Trip finally extracted himself from the bachelorette party on stage and stumbled over to the table Daisy was leaning against. 
“Hey, girl. Where’d everyone else go?” he asked. 
“Home. I heard something about 'work tomorrow’ and something about feeding the dog, but I don’t know who said which,” Daisy slurred.
“Aw, damn. I was hoping to say goodbye to everyone,” Trip grumbled. “But, I’m gonna head out, too. There’s a particular bridesmaid that could not keep her hands off me. You good to get home?”
“Totally fine.” Daisy covered up the fact that she lost her balance while standing completely still by pretending she was shifting her weight to her other foot. “I’m like, two blocks away, and I have the Lyft app on my phone. I’m good.”
Trip looked skeptical. “Alright, if you’re sure.”
“I am.” Daisy spotted a girl in a pink 'Bridesmaid’ sash hovering by the door staring at Trip. “Have fun and use protection!”
“Come on, girl. You know I always do,” he called over his shoulder. 
Daisy chuckled and then finished up her drink. The bar was starting to empty out, so she should probably head home herself. She gathered up her things and unsteadily made her way to the door. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two blocks seemed a lot longer on the way home. Daisy squinted at the street signs she passed, trying to make out the words in the dark. So far, she didn’t recognize any of the street names. She tried turning around and heading back to the bar, but apparently she made a turn somewhere she didn’t remember and couldn’t find it again. 
After about 10 minutes of wandering, she tried to call a ride and her phone died.
  “Shit,” she cursed. She was still in that bubbly stage of drunk, where she kept muttering the last karaoke song Trip did under her breath, while pacing around the same block and trying to figure out where she was, so she wasn’t too bothered. A tiny voice in the back of her head said that she should probably start to be worried. 
More urgent was the fact that her feet were killing her. Damn whoever suggested that she 'dress nice’ for tonight and made her wear a dress and heels. She yanked her shoes off, hooked her pinky through the straps, and prayed that there was no broken glass on the sidewalk. 
She was slowly sobering up and was finally starting to worry. The streets were well-lit, but completely abandoned except for herself. Last she checked, it was about 1:30 in the morning. 
Daisy paused at an intersection and scanned the street signs again. One of them had to be near her street, right?
Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming from behind her and froze. She was in no state to be caving in skulls right now. 
She dove into her purse and rooted around for her keys. When her fingers wrapped around them, she tore them out, sending the contents of her purse exploding all over the sidewalk, and whirled on the person behind her. 
But of course, her coordination wasn’t what it should be and she started to topple backwards. Soft hands caught her shoulders and helped her upright. 
“Whoa, whoa. It’s okay, I got you.” A gentle voice said. 
Daisy caught her breath and regained her balance, before finally looking at her savior.
She was cute. First off, she was a girl, not the burly man in a trench coat Daisy had been expecting. She kept her arms wrapped around Daisy’s shoulders until she was sure Daisy wasn’t going to start flailing again and end up on the ground. 
Second, she had definitely not come from the same place Daisy had. The woman was dressed like she had just left an office, in a smart blazer and button up shirt. 
Finally, she didn’t look like much of a threat. 
“I’m sorry if I snuck up on you. I just thought you looked like you needed help,” the woman apologized, finally letting go of Daisy’s shoulder. Not that Daisy really wanted her to. And was that an accent?
“Sorry I nearly stabbed you while falling on my butt. I, um, kinda got lost on the way home from a party,” Daisy admitted sheepishly. 
“Oh, that’s no big deal. It happens to everyone sometime,” the woman said, obviously trying to make Daisy feel less dumb. 
Doubt it’s ever happened to you, Daisy thought. The woman looked far too posh to engage in over drinking.
“You’d be surprised,” she replied. If Daisy’s face wasn’t already flushed from the alcohol, she was sure it would be burning. Apparently, she had not just thought that comment. “Let’s get your things together and get you home.”
The woman crouched down and picked up all of Daisy’s things that she had flung out of her purse. She gathered up credit cards, ID, a few stray receipts, phone. Daisy bent down to help, but the world spun around her and she leaned on a nearby building to keep herself from face planting into the sidewalk. 
Once the girl was sure she had everything, she tucked it into Daisy’s purse and snapped it closed for her. “So, what’s your address? Is it near here or do you need a ride?”
“What’s your name?” Daisy blurted. 
The woman smiled. “Right, I guess I should have introduced myself before asking where you live. It’s Jemma.”
Jemma. Pretty, Daisy thought. 
Of course, judging by the slight flush on Jemma’s face, Daisy had said it out loud again. Wow. 
“Thank you. Now, address? I’m sure you want to get home and go to bed,” Jemma prodded. 
“Oh my god bed sounds amazing,” Daisy all but moaned. “It 547 North 13th Street. Or 574. I don’t know, I just moved in like a month ago.”
“Is that the big, brick apartment complex?” Jemma asked.
“Yes! How’d you know?”
“It’s right next door to my place. Come on, it’s pretty close.”
Jemma gestured which road to head down and Daisy started toddling down it. She didn’t realize how much she was drifting back and forth on the sidewalk until Jemma’s arm wrapped around her waist. “It’s no wonder you got lost. You are quite intoxicated,” Jemma teased. 
“I am quite intoxicated, aren’t I?” Daisy replied, mimicking Jemma’s accent and intonation. 
“I don’t sound like that! If you’re going to make fun, I might just leave you where I found you,” Jemma threatened, but had a smirk on her face. 
“I’m not making fun. Your accent’s cute,” Daisy defended, leaning on Jemma a little more than she had to. Despite her threat, Jemma showed no intention of letting her go. 
Jemma guided her down the street, supporting Daisy’s weight. Daisy spent the whole walk parroting back what Jemma said to her in a terrible British accent and giggling to herself. Jemma thankfully seemed amused by her antics, rather than offended, and started offering Daisy pointers on how to improve her accent. 
Jemma finally turned them down a road that Daisy recognized. Daisy cheered when she saw the distant shape of her building and Jemma just chuckled. 
“Do you think you can get the rest of the way home on your own?” Jemma asked. 
Theoretically, yes. The cool night air had sobered Daisy up enough that she was pretty sure she could walk in a straight line. But that meant Jemma would leave her. 
“I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll be able to get my key in the hole,” Daisy lied. She stumbled a bit when Jemma started to move away for dramatic effect. 
“Alright then,” Jemma muttered. 
Jemma let Daisy lead the way to the front door of her building, where she punched in the code and shoved open the door. 
“You should come up with me. Make sure I get into bed okay,” Daisy said flirtatiously. At least she hoped it was flirtatious and not just slurred drunken babble. 
She couldn’t tell by Jemma’s face how the request came out, but Daisy had a feeling Jemma caught on to her ploy. 
“I should really be getting home,” Jemma said. She started to sidle down the steps and back onto the sidewalk. 
Drunk Daisy was unfortunately also a ballsy Daisy and, before she could stop herself, shot out a hand, caught Jemma’s wrist, and pulled her in close. Very close. 
“But what if I can’t get off my clothes by myself?” Daisy muttered. 
Even in the dim light, Daisy could see Jemma’s face flush bright red. Her eyes flicked down to Daisy’s lips and Daisy waited for her to close the distance. Which she never did. 
“I’m sure you’ll manage just fine,” Jemma said. She gently pulled Daisy’s hands off her and placed them at her sides. Daisy pouted and didn’t notice Jemma digging into her purse and pulling out a pen. 
“But, if you need anything in the future, maybe after you sober up, feel free to call me,” Jemma finished. She gently wrote a series of numbers down Daisy’s arm and then turned her around and pushed her towards the elevator. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daisy was never drinking again. Her stomach rolled anytime she moved, so Daisy just elected not to move. Except the sun streaming through her window was blazing directly into her eyeballs and exacerbating the pounding in her head. 
Thankfully, Drunk Daisy had the forethought to put a giant glass of water on her nightstand and a bottle of painkillers. She downed a few pills and then slowly sipped on the water until it was gone. 
She was just about to flop down and go back to sleep when she heard a knock at her door. 
“Who in the hell…” she grumbled. She ran her fingers through her hair in a half-assed attempt to make herself presentable and shuffled to the door. 
On the other side of it was Jemma. Daisy blinked at her silently. She was half convinced that she imagined the British guardian angel who showed up and guided her home last night. Apparently not. 
“I…How did you find my apartment?” Daisy asked. 
Jemma pushed up her sleeve, where Daisy’s apartment number and door code were scrawled across in what must have been Daisy’s handwriting. “After I declined to come up and undress you last night, you wrote this on me in case I changed my mind. I figured I would use it to come make sure you survived the night.”
Daisy’s eyes went wide and she felt the blood run out of her face. “Oh my god. Oooooh my god. I am literally the worst. I—I’m so sorry.”
Thankfully, Jemma chuckled. “In your words, 'I’m not making fun. It’s cute.'“
Daisy leaned her head on the back of the door, desperately trying to hide her face while she groaned in embarrassment. “With Jemma as my witness, I am never drinking again,” she grumbled. 
Jemma laughed again, which, despite the pounding in Daisy’s skull, was a pleasant soothing sound. “How about coffee and pancakes?”
Daisy chanced a small smile in Jemma’s direction, “That sounds amazing. Just let me get some real clothes on.”
“Of course.”
Daisy held the door open and let Jemma into her living room while she ran and changed. Okay, she knew she literally just swore she was never drinking again, but if her drunken shenanigans got her a breakfast date with a pretty girl, she was probably going to  end up breaking that promise.
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