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sasspiria · 5 years

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Twin Devils - Chapter 2

Fandom: Far Cry 3

Pairings: Jason Brody/Vaas Montenegro, Hoyt Volker/Jason Brody

Tags:Kidnapping,Isolation,Blackmail,Drug Use,Burnplay,Stockholm Syndrome,Dubious Consent,Canon-Typical Violence,Slavery,Power Imbalance,Sex for Favors,Captivity,Fingerfucking,Forced Orgasm,Forced Relationship,Threats of Violence,Dark

Summary: In which, instead of deciding to have Jason killed, Hoyt decides that he's worth more alive to him than he is dead. With a proverbial knife at his brother's throat as well as the throats of all of his friends, Jason agrees and he becomes little more than Vaas and Hoyts' pet killer.

READ IT ON AO3 HERE

Vaas hadn’t expected Snow White to be in peak physical condition, not after how long he had been isolated, starved and dehydrated. Still, he didn’t expect to need to float him over to the makeshift hospital they had set up on his island. It was more of a clinic than anything else, with spartan furnishings and medical equipment hanging on all of the walls and tables.

They had one doctor set up an Asian woman with her hair tied up in a bun that was so messy that it was basically just a rat’s nest on top of her head. When Vaas dumped Jason’s unconscious body down onto the cot, she didn’t miss a beat and quickly took to stripping the younger man out of his clothing and doing everything in her power to keep him in stable condition.

She had Jason hooked up to all of the machines and an IV running fluids through his system in little more than moments. “Should I have him strapped down?” She asked Vaas, tone all business like as she spoke for the first time since he had arrived. She looked back at Jason, who was laying dead still on the cot. “He might be confused or delirious when he wakes up and try to run away…”

The pirate lord nodded, “Yeah, strap him down.” He agreed and she was already coming towards Jason with thick leather belts to hold him down. “Whatever you do, you make sure that he doesn’t fucking run off.” Vaas didn’t stay for more than a few minutes after that – he needed to take something to chill him out and he didn’t want the medical equipment to blow up because he needed to light up a smoke.

***

Jason was walking through the jungle, unsure of where he was supposed to be going. All he could tell was that he needed to keep going forward – he needed to get away and he needed to get forward. He needed to get away. He needed to get away. That was all that he could thin k, that he needed to get away and that he needed to get away NOW.

He ran and ran – he kept running until he was standing in the middle of a circle, all of his friends looking at him with a far off kind of gaze like they were looking past him. Riley is looking at him like he hates him as he points the gun in his face, he’s shouting something at him that Jason’s ears are too plugged up to hear what he has to say. He took the path of least resistance and dropped down onto the floor, closing his eyes in acceptance of the inevitable.

Then Riley was gone and the floor dropped down from below him, leaving him to do nothing but scream helplessly as he fell down face first into an open lake. His body was swallowed by the water, until his knees were covered in seaweed and he could feel himself drowning.

Jason was desperate to claw himself back up to the surface but the water kept forcing him back down below the surface. By the time he managed to get himself back up to the surface he had almost blacked out entirely and he was left a coughing, retching mess on the floor. Someone pulled him up off of the ground, helping him to his feet. His eyes opened, closed and then opened once again before he was looking into predatory, amber eyes and being stripped down to his very essence.

He couldn’t see the figures – couldn’t discern between them, could only tell that there was more than one of them – as they pulled and pried at his skin and limbs. They were tearing him apart and they were going to eat him alive. He couldn’t do anything about it, he couldn’t stop them or even say no.

***

When Jason finally came to, he was immediately on the alert for some kind of danger. It made sense to panic, considering that he was almost naked other than what felt like a threadbare shirt and strapped down to some kind of cot, the sickly sweet scent of medicine pervading his senses.

He doesn’t even remember blacking out, all he could remember was being in the back of Vaas’ truck while the pirate lord babbled on about all the kinds of things he was going to do to Jason when they got back to his camp, filling him with a sense of dread for the future.

He looked wildly around the place, fighting against the bonds in a total fight or flight response to his confusion. He desperately tried to shake off the wires attached to him and the needles injected inside of him with little success. The only thing he managed to accomplish was to get the doctors attention.

“Hey!” She snapped, pushing him back down onto the cot. “Hey, hey, you’re alright. You’re in the… well, you’re being treated here and I’m a doctor.” Jason kept thrashing around for a few moments, screaming nonsense, but she kept soothing him patiently until he stopped moving.

“Wh-what the fuck…” Jason muttered as he looked around, still confused and delirious. “Who the fuck are you… where the fuck am I?” He babbled out questions in a lazy, slurring tone. He couldn’t feel a thing, so many drugs were running through his system, and he felt so out of sorts about everything.

“My name is Elaine. I’m the doctor here.” She spoke slowly and purposefully, like Jason was touched in the head and she needed to be gentle with him. “Your name is Jason, correct?” At Jason’s hesitant nod she smiled and continued on, taking a small flashlight out and shining it in his eyes. “Okay, you’ve been in and out for a few days now. I need you to answer a few questions for me, okay?”

“Oh… okay…”

“How old are you? Where do you think you are and what day is it? Just answer them the best you can, there are no wrong answers here.”

“I’m 25…I’m on the Rook islands? And it’s… daytime? I think?”

“Okay, good. That’s good enough. You’re brains not broken, at least not enough to hurt your cognitive functions. Vaas brought you here himself, so I’m guessing you’re important to him.” She spoke in a casual sort of way, like all of this had been completely normalized for her and it was just another day at the office. It probably was, now that he thought about it. “If you are, then it’s good for me that you could recover as well as you did.”

He let out a weak laugh at that, finding that he liked her presence – she was comforting to have around while he was helpless and hopeless like this. He had not wanted someone normal around him as much as he did in a long time. It grounded him a little and brought him back to a less hysterical place. Elaine smiled at him in a gentle way before walking off and returning with another tube, “I’m going to give you something else for pain, just to keep ahead of the pain.” She didn’t wait for Jason to consent or even for him to say another word before she was applying the medicine to a drip.

The drugs ran their way through his system quickly and left him feeling fuzzy and so high that he could barely keep his head up and his eyes open. He rested back against the cot, lowering his eyes until they were barely more than little slits topped by his lashes.

He was still droopy and out of it when Vaas came back into the room – making a bit of noise as he did so, so that both of them understood that his presence was known to them. Jason sluggishly shuffled himself back into the sheets – trying to hide himself from the pirate lord, even though he was entirely in plain sight.

Within moments, the pirate lord came over to him, sitting down on the cot where Jason was strapped down. “He looks like he’s getting better. Good job, Hermana.” Vaas complimented, looking at Jason in a way that had him feeling dressed down and insecure about himself. The pirates’ fingers slid over the fabric of Jason’s shirt, too exploratory for Jason not to have to think too much on what would happen to him when they were left alone. “Now get out. I need to have a word with Snow White and I want some fucking privacy.”

A look of understanding crossed her face and she nodded, “Do try to be gentle with him,” She directed in a sheepish tone, looking over at him purposefully with a strange sort of look – it was something close to pity, but not quite there. “He’s not going to keel over right now but he’s still very weak-”

Vaas interrupted her quickly and told her to get the fuck out. Elaine swallowed fearfully and hastily obeyed, happy to get the hell away from him as soon as she could. Jason couldn’t really blame her for it, he would be happy to run away and he would if he be running right now with her if he could.

The door slammed closed and Jason felt all of the air suck out of the room. Vaas laughed a little as Jason impotently squirmed around in his binds, watching him struggle for a few moments before he decided to untie him. “That doctor back there likes you.” The pirate told him in a conversational sort of way as his hands took to sliding over the younger mans’ bare thighs and up his hips. “She hooked you up too. Got you all kinds of fucked up, hermano, shit look at you…”

Jason cocked his head to the side in confusion, but he didn’t say a word in response – he couldn’t even think of what to say to that. Vaas snapped his fingers in Jason’s face, “Hey, hey! HEY! Jason, fucking pay attention when I talk to you.” He snapped, his mood going from friendly to entirely hostile in moments.

“What?” He exclaimed quietly, as Vaas growled at him about how rude it was to ignore someone when they speak – how he hated it when people did that to him. Suddenly Jason felt exhausted and he tried to distract the man however he could. “Okay, okay, you’re right…I, I’m sorry.” He said, just to get Vaas to stop spiraling into a rage if for no other reason.

Without thinking about it, Jason tried to pull himself off of the cot when a wave of dizziness came over him and fell down onto the cold, concrete floor. “Ugh… fucking great.” He muttered to himself, digging his fingers into his thighs in his frustration. He was so tired and drugged up that he didn’t even try to pick himself up off of the ground and instead opted to curl up on the floor in a show of defeat.

He could hear Vaas laughing above him and he groaned, the whole fucked up situation coming full circle for him. “You’re so fucking dramatic, Jason.” The pirate lord mocked him, manhandling him back up onto the cot. “No running, remember? You play nice and I don’t have to get one of my boys to take out your whole fucking family.” He tapped two of his fingers to his temple to enunciate the threat.

Jason’s blood went cold and his entire body went stiff at the threat, “I wasn’t trying to…” He started at a weak attempt of himself when he felt Vaas’ hand grip his cock, “Wait- no, you can’t-” He protested and desperately squirmed away from the pirate’s touch.

Vaas didn’t like that one bit and pushed Jason back down, hard enough to hurt him.“Shh, fucking relax.” He chastised, rough fingers digging into Jason’s hip hard enough to leave bruises. “I’m not gonna fuck you. Not yet. You’re not ready for me to fuck you yet, I get that.”

Jason shook his head – a part of him had expected something like this would happen, why wouldn’t it, when Vaas and Hoyt were using his family as a bludgeon against him. He just had hoped that it wouldn’t happen right as he woke up from some kind of delirious fever dream about his own death.

He had hoped that it just wouldn’t happen to him so soon and even though he knew that he was really in no place to resist the other man’s ministrations toward him, he couldn’t help but push at Vaas’ hands to try and get them off of him. It was like he had completely forgotten where he was and the situation that he was in, right up until he noticed the scathing and downright frightening look on Vaas’ face.

All he could do was go limp and stopped resisting, allowing the pleasurable – whether he wanted them to be or not – sensation of a firm, rough hand gently stroking over his shaft. He couldn’t detach entirely, not with the other man so close by – his presence keeping him as wide eyed and alert as he could manage in his fuzzy state – but it became more far off, more manageable for him to deal with.

He thinks that Vaas is just keeping a running commentary to fill up the silence in the room, “You went through some real shit back there, hermano.” The pirate hummed, his fingers twisting over the base of his cock, spreading his pre-cum up and down the shaft of it while his other hand pulled the hospital shirt up until it was bunched up at his shoulders.

He tells Jason that he wants to make this nice for him and the ridiculousness of the situation overtakes all of his thoughts. He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want this at all – but he certainly doesn’t want Vaas to make it nice for him, he doesn’t want to enjoy this. He wants it to hurt, make him tear and bleed. He can deal with pain and outright abuse, but he doesn’t think he could handle learning to like this.

The chill of the room had the hairs on his arm standing on end, like there was too much static electricity in the atmosphere and it was only affecting him. The pirate lords hand moved up over his stomach, appreciative fingers gently touching all over the many scars that Jason had accumulated on his body during his months long rampage through Rook.

Vaas’ hands move up his stomach and over his chest. Suddenly, they were pinching and pulling at Jason’s nipples until they were hard and raw from all of the abuse that he had taken to them. He whines, high and tight in his throat as Vaas picks up the abuse to his hard and leaking cock. He murmured things into Jasons’ ear – telling Jason just how pretty he is and how he had waited so long to fuck him– the whole time as he expertly stroked the younger mans’ cock until he came into Vaas’ hand with a soft, stuttering sob of a moan.

His breath came out in staccato huffs as he tried to regain his composure over everything. Vaas turned Jason’s head towards him, so that he was practically forcing the younger man to look him in the eye as he slid his cum soaked fingers in Jason’s slack mouth. He pulled a disgusted face as the bitter taste of his own semen spread over the length of his tongue.

“Get some rest, yeah?” Vaas said, moments after he pulled his fingers out of Jason’s mouth. “And when you get better, Jason, when you get better you can come with me to Citra’s fucking temple and we can have a fun fucking time taking them all out together.” He grinned in a predatory and excited sort of way.

Jason’s affect was blank as he took all that in, “Okay.” He responded in a dim and bland tone of voice, as though Vaas had just told them that it was going to rain soon, or something monotonous like that instead of the horror that the pirate told him. The truth was that he wanted to be angry about what he was going to have to do to Citra and the rest of the Rakyat but he couldn’t muster up the emotional energy to care all that much about it.

He only had so much room to care about people and his family was taking up all of that space right now. Who knows, he thought with a grim sort of optimism, maybe they would end up killing him first and he wouldn’t need to worry about keeping Vaas, Hoyt and whoever else was in control of him happy with him.

No, that would be too simple and easy – with his luck, there was no way that they would manage killing him – and he was sure that if he died, they might go after his family still and then there would be nothing that he could do about it.

Then Vaas left him alone in the room – not tied up, or even restricted, he doubted that the door had even been locked. Jason wanted to scream, to cry, to run around the room breaking everything, to just fucking do something, but he didn’t. He didn’t do anything, he just shifted onto his side and stared at the wall until exhaustion overtook him once again and he was finally able to fall into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

#vaason #jason/hoyt #dark au #fc3 #jason brody #hoyt volker #vaas montenegro #ongoing fic

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dumbledearme · 6 years

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chapter forty-two—death boy

read Child of Land and Sea here

Act V — Walking On Water

Part V — Through the mist, through the woods, through the darkness and the shadows. It's a nightmare but it's one exciting ride.

Andy sat on the cold stone floor wondering if Hades's dungeon was airtight. She felt completely miserable. She was going to die there. Alone. Andy closed her eyes and thought of Typhon and how it was her fault he was looming free. She also thought of Anthony, trying to focus on her good memories, but the only thing she could think of was the fact she hadn't even said goodbye.

Then a voice hissed, "Jackson!"

She lunged blindly and pinned Nico to the floor of the cell with the edge of her sword at his throat.

"Rescue..." he choked.

"I wouldn't need rescuing if you weren't a liar! Why should I trust you?"

"No... choice?" he gagged.

Andy sighed and let him go. Nico got to his feet, eyeing her sword warily. His own blade was sheathed. "We have to get out of here," he said.

"Why?" she sneered. "Your daddy wants another word with me?"

Nico winced like she'd just slapped him. Andy immediately felt bad. "I swear on the River Styx, I didn't know what he was planning. He tricked me. He promised-" Nico held up his hands. "Look... right now, we need to leave. I put the guards to sleep, but it won't last."

In part, Andy still wanted to strangle him, but unfortunately the boy was right. He pointed at the wall. A whole section vanished, revealing a corridor.

"Come on," Nico led the way. Every time they came to a skeleton guard, Nico just pointed at it, and its glowing eyes dimmed. But the more he did it, the more tiredhe got. They walked through a maze of corridors filled with guards. By the time they reached a kitchen staffed by skeletal cooks and servants, Andy was practically carrying Death Boy. He managed to put all the dead to sleep but nearly passed out himself.

Andy dragged him out of the servants's entrance and into the Fields of Asphodel. Then she heard the sound of bronze gongs high in the castle.

"Alarms," Nico murmured.

"What do we do?"

He frowned like he was trying to remember. "How about... run?"

Andy closed her eyes and concentrated. With a poof, Mrs O'Leary appeared before them. "Good girl," she yelled. "Can you give us a ride to the Styx?" Without waiting for an answer, Andy pushed Nico onto the dog's back. She climbed behind him, and Mrs O'Leary race toward the gates. Nico leaned back resting his head on Andy's shoulder and she fought the urge to push the traitor off Mrs O'Leary. His forehead was sweaty and he seemed about to fall asleep.

Mrs O'Leary leaped, sending guards sprawling and causing more alarms to blare. She didn't stop until they were far upriver and the fires of Erebos had disappeared in the murk.

Nico slid off Mrs O'Leary's back and collapsed on the floor. "Your powers drain you too much," Andy noted.

He nodded sleepily. "With great power... comes great need to take a nap."

Andy caught him before he could pass out again. "Whoa, Death Boy. I need you to walk me through this."

Nico took a deep breath and struggled to his feet. Andy looked at the black water. "Should I... jump in?"

"You have to prepare yourself," Nico said, "or the river will destroy you. It'll burn away your body and soul."

"Oh, joy."

"Don't worry. I have complete faith in you," he said softly and his tone was so honest Andy was left speechless. "There is only one way to stay anchored to your mortal life. You have to—" his eyes widened.

Andy looked behind her and found herself facing a Greek warrior. He was handsome and blond, like Anthony, but he had a brutal look in his pale green eyes. For a moment she didn't know who he was, then the bloody arrow stuck out of his left calf, just above the ankle, kind of gave him away.

"Achilles."

"I warned the other one not to follow my path," the warrior said. "Now I warn you."

"You spoke with Luke?"

"Do not do this," Achilles said. "It will make you powerful, sim. But it will also make you weak. Your prowess in combat will be beyond any mortal's, but your weaknesses, your failings will increase as well."

"You mean I'll have a bad heel?" Andy asked. "Couldn't I just... wear something besides sandals? No offense. I mean, your sandals are beautiful, just not very practical..."

"The heel is only my physical weakness, demigod. My mother, Thetis, held me there when she dipped me in the Styx. What really killed me was my own arrogance. Beware. Turn back!" And he meant it, she saw. Andy could hear the regret and the bitterness in his voice.

But Luke hadn't turned back. No one could defeat him because he'd actually done this.

"I have to," she said.

Achilles studied her. "Let the gods witness I tried. Heroin, if you must do this, concentrate on your mortal point. Imagine one spot of your body that will remain vulnerable. This is the point where your soul will anchor your body to the world. It will be your greatest weakness, but also your only hope. No man may be completely invulnerable. Nor woman," he added. "Lose sight of what keeps you mortal, and the Styx will burn you to ashes. You will cease to exist. Prepare yourself, girl. Whether you survive this or not, you have sealed your doom!" And with this, he disappeared.

"I think he's nice," Andy said.

Nico grabbed her wrist. "Perhaps he's right."

"This was your idea!"

"I know. But... I don't want anything to happen to-" his voice faltered.

Andy didn't listen to him. She was ready. She thought of Anthony was last time and then concentrated on the small of her back – a tiny point just opposite her navel, this little spot where her boyfriend would put his hand to pull her to him. She pictured a string, a bungee cord connecting her to the world from the small of her back.

Then she stepped into the river.

She submerged completely and the pain was unbelievable. Andy wanted to scream but, for the first time in the water, she couldn't even breathe. Panic filled her stomach. Every nerve in her body burned. The pain was so strong she was losing consciousness; she couldn't focus on the cord. Her soul was being ripped from her body.

But then she heard his voice, very faintly in her head. "Hold on, Seaweed Brain."

Andy couldn't remember her own name, but she knew exactly who he was. Wonder Boy. The cord strengthened. Memories came to her. Memories of him. Memories of Sally Jackson dancing in the kitchen. Grover playing his pipes. Tyson hugging a hippocampus.

She wasn't dissolving anymore. Her name was Andy Jackson. She was the child of land and sea. She was in love with the son of Athena. She would see him again. She would find him. She would always find him.

Suddenly, Andy burst out of the river. She collapsed on the sand gasping for air, and Nico knelt beside her. "Are you okay?" he stammered. He looked pretty shaken. "Your skin... Oh, gods. You're hurt."

Andy's arms were bright red. She felt like every inch of her body had been broiled over a slow flame. Andy looked around for Anthony, even though she knew he wasn't there. "I'm fine," she panted. The color of her skin turned back to normal. The pain subsided.

"Do you feel... stronger?" Nico asked.

Before Andy could answer, a voice boomed, "THERE!"

An army of the dead marched toward them. Behind them came Hades riding a black chariot pulled by nightmare horses. "You will not escape me this time, Andy Jackson!" he bellowed. "Destroy her!"

"Don't!" Nico shouted, but it was too late. The dead advanced.

Andy got up. She was done with Hades's bullshit. She let out a yell and the River Styx exploded. A black tidal wave smashed into the ghosts and they began to dissolve. Andy uncapped Riptide and charged at Hades. The god raised his staff and a bold of dark energy shot toward her, but she deflected it with her blade. Then she slammed into him and they both tumbled out of the chariot. Next thing she knew, her knee was planted on Hades's chest. She was holding the collar of his robes in one fist, and the tip of her sword was poised right over his face.

Hades swallowed. "Jackson... how did you..."

"You've reached the limit of my otherwise questionable patience," she told him. "So as soon as I let go, you will get out of my face. Got it?" Hades nodded. Andy let go of his robes and Hades disappeared in a black cloud. Andy glanced back at Nico. "Close your mouth, Death Boy."

"You just... with a sword... you just..."

"I think the river thing worked."

"You think?" he chuckled.

"Go back to your father," she said. "Tell him he owes me for letting him go. Find out what's going to happen to Mount Olympus and convince him to help."

Nico stared at her. "I... I can't. He'll hate me now. I mean... even more."

"You must have courage," Andy told him. "Besides, you owe me, too."

His ears turned red. "I told you I was sorry. Please... let me come with you. I want to fight."

"I need you to do this for me," she insisted. "You're the only one who can convince Hades to help."

"But-"

"Nico." Andy walked up to him. "I have complete faith in you."

A roller coaster of emotions crossed his face and Andy couldn't discern any of them. In the end, he just sighed. "Fine. I'll do my best. What are you going to do?"

"Oh," she gave him a wicked grin. "Imma get this war started."

On her way, Andy stopped at a phone booth and left a message to Anthony. He was furious and worried out of his mind, but mostly furious. Still, Andy hoped he'd do what she asked.

It was late afternoon when she reached the Empire State Building. Soon after, three white vans pulled up to the curb. The doors slid open and a bunch of campers climbed out followed by Chiron in his wheelchair. Only the Ares cabin wasn't there.

Anthony shook Andy by the shoulders when he managed to get a hold of her. "Where the hell were you? We were so worried! You can't just vanish like that! What were you thinking? Andy... Why are you looking at me like that?"

Andy didn't answer, 'cause they were being watched by everyone else, but she was so damn happy to see him. She turned to the rest of the group. "Thank you all for coming. Chiron, you go first."

Chiron shook his head. "I came only to wish you good luck, Andy."

"But... you're our leader!"

The centaur smiled. "You summoned the campers, Andy. You're the leader."

Andy wanted to protest, but everybody was looking at her expectantly, even Anthony. She took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm. "Alright. Like I said in my message, something bad is going to happen tonight. We need an audience with Zeus to convince him to defend the city. And we just won't take no for an answer."

No one was guarding the way to the throne room, but Hestia stood by the hearth. "Hello again, Andy Jackson," she said. "You and your friends are welcome."

"Thank you, my lady," Andy bowed and her friends did the same.

"I see you went through with your plan," the goddess said. "You bear the curse of Achilles." The other campers started muttering among themselves. "You must be careful," Hestia warned. "You gained much in your journey. But you are still blind to the most important truth. Perhaps a glimpse is in order."

Andy stared into the goddess's eyes. There, she saw Thalia and Luke crouched in the shadows. Luke carried a bronze knife; Thalia had her spear and Aegis.

"Are you sure?" Thalia was asking him.

He nodded. A curtain of corrugated tin quivered as if something were behind it. Luke ripped away the tin, and another boy flew at him with a hammer. "Whoa," Luke said. The boy had tangled blond hair and couldn't be more than nine years old, but Andy recognized him immediately. Luke grabbed his wrist and the hammer skittered across the cement. The boy breathed heavily.

"We're not going to hurt you," Thalia assured him. "I'm Thalia. This is Luke."

The boy hesitated. He studied Thalia and Luke with quick gray eyes. "Tony," he finally said.

Thalia smiled. "Are you alone, Tony?"

"I ran away," he said.

"Well, you can come with us then," Luke invited him. He turned his knife and offered Anthony the handle. Anthony gripped the hilt carefully. "Knives are for the bravest and quickest fighters, my brother," Luke told him. "They don't have the reach or power of a sword, but they're easy to conceal and they can find weak spots in your enemy's armor. It takes a clever warrior to use a knife. I have a feeling it's perfect for you."

Anthony stared at Luke the way he sometimes did at Andy.

"We need to go, boys," Thalia said. "We have a safe house near. We'll get you some clothes and food, Tony."

"You're not... You're not gonna take me back home?"

Luke put his hand on Anthony's shoulder. "You're part of our family now. Home is wherever we are. We keep each other safe. And we won't fail each other like our families did us."

The vision shut off. Andy's knees buckled, but Anthony, the real Anthony, held her. "What is it? What's the matter?"

Andy glanced back at Hestia, but the goddess's face was expressionless. Andy could feel everyone's eyes on her. She straightened up.

That's when Hermes showed up. Hestia nodded toward him and went away. Hermes's brow furrowed as though he was annoyed. He asked the others to take a walk around Olympus and only Andy and Anthony stayed behind.

"Hermes," Andy started. "We need to speak with Zeus."

"I'm his messenger. Leave a message."

"Sir," Anthony said. "Kronos is going to attack New York. My mother must have foreseen it."

"Don't get me started on your mother, boy," Hermes grumbled. "She's the reason I'm here at all. She insisted it was a trap and someone needed to be here. She wanted to come back herself but, of course, Zeus sent me."

"Did she give you any messages for us?" Anthony asked.

"Messages," Hermes muttered. "They said it would be an easy job. Not much work. Lost of worshipers. Hmph. Nobody cared what I have to say. It's always about other people's messages." He stared at Anthony. "Your mother said you are on your own. You must hold Manhattan without the help of the gods. As if you didn't know that, right? Why they pay her to be the wisdom goddess, I really don't know."

"Anything else?"

"She said you should try plan twenty-three." Anthony's face paled. "And she said to you," Hermes turned to Andy, "that you should remember the rivers. And to stay away from her son."

Andy grinned. "That does sound like something she'd say."

"Thank you, Hermes," Anthony said. "And I'm sorry. About everything. About Luke."

Hermes's eyes turned cold. "You should be. You were the only one who could've saved him. You and that Thalia girl. But she chose the Hunters and you chose this fishy demigod."

"Well, it's not his fault if-" Andy tried to say but Hermes cut her.

"Don't defend him, Jackson. He knows exactly what I'm talking about."

"You know, maybe you should stop pointing fingers, Hermes, and take a good long look at yourself," Andy said. "You were the one who left him. You left them. And his mom-" Hermes grabbed her by the neck and pulled her close.

"Hey!" Anthony tried to get between them, but the god gave him the death stare.

"Jackson," Hermes said, trying to control his voice, "because you have taken on the curse of Achilles, I must spare you. You are in the hands of the Fates now. But you will never speak to me like that again. You have no idea how much I have sacrificed, how much-" his voice broke and he let go of her neck. "My son. My greatest pride. My poor May..."

"What happened to her?" Andy asked carefully. "She said... And her eyes..."

Hermes glared at her. "You shouldn't have gone there," he said and then disappeared.

"Are you okay?" Anthony said.

"Yeah. And it's not your fault. He's just looking for somebody to blame. You saw the guilt in his face."

"Why did you went to see Ms Castellan?" he asked in a whisper.

"I... Nico and I... We had to ask her..."

"You..." his voice faltered. "Did you bathe in the River Styx?"

"Anthony-"

"Did you or not?" Knowing she had no other choice, Andy nodded. Anthony shook his head in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how dangerous-"

"I didn't have a choice," she rushed. "It's the only way I can stand up to Luke."

"He did that, too, right? That's why he didn't die when... He went to the Styx... What was he thinking? What were you thinking?"

"He didn't die and neither did I. That's what matters. Now I'll face him. And we'll defend Olympus. Together."

There seemed to be a war going on inside his eyes. "Plan twenty-three," he said, letting of the subject, which definitely wasn't like him. He rummaged in his pack and pulled out Daedalus's laptop. "We have a lot of work to do. If my mother wants me to use this plan, she must think things are very bad."

Just then, the Stoll brothers ran into the throne room. "You have got to see this," Connor said. "Now."

#andromeda #andy jackson #anthony chase #nico di angelo #genderbend #fanfic #dfcrosas #child of land and sea #walking on water #fem percy jackson #andony

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the-dam-daughter-of-hades · 6 years

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Percy Jackson AU told from Annabeth’s point of view—— The Musical

This is for the @demigodsecretsanta thing for the blog.... @guyshowdoimakeausername I hope you like it and Merry Christmas. 😊 also, I’m on mobile so I can’t do the read more function. Sorry!

Sometimes I wonder if it could have been different. Yeah, probably. Maybe I’d be dead, or running in the streets, or maybe still the most socially awkward nerd of the school. And then I wonder. How did I even get to this hellish heaven that I call home? I guess you could say it started with the musical.

Yeah, people call theater life changing, but this time it actually was. I was a weird nerd who most people didn’t know existed or if they did, it was only because of the incidents that always happened around me that I had nothing to do with. I definitely wasn’t your typical high school student. When I woke up in the morning, I scrunched my oddly curly blond hair in a ponytail and grabbed my backpack and left. I always made sure to carry an architecture book with me incase class got too boring and I needed something to do. Definitely not something you see everyday.

It all started when my architecture class told us we’d get extra credit if we helped with the spring musical. I didn't need the extra points. I had over a 101% in the class, but it was architecture class so I signed up before Christmas break for stage crew. The holidays were always an awkward time with my dad and stepmom. I know my dad loved me, but there was always an underlying tension between everyone, so I was happy to get out of the house for musical rehearsals.

The musical, which happened to be “The Little Mermaid” had a huge cast and elaborate sets to make and move so everyone had a lot of work to do. The musical had started off with a rocky beginning. The casting itself had caused so much drama that it had left half the cast in tears before the first rehearsal even stated. This was mostly due to the fact that new boy had gotten the male lead. This boy was already known around the school for breaking school records on the swim team. I knew him only because he’d answered every question wrong in biology class. Maybe he had dyslexia like me, but still that statistic wasn’t something to be proud of. Yeah, maybe you know who he is by now. He was Percy Jackson. Or Jackass as I called him sometimes when the swim team knocked me over spilling the contents of my backpack everywhere. His name just had that kind of ring to it.

So, anyway, despite the drama, everyone managed to work hard on their roles and the play was starting to take shape. I wasn’t really a drama person, but I was starting to enjoy making the props and the scenery. And you know, Percy Jackson wasn’t really too bad. He helped us with the props when he could and told jokes to settle everyone’s grumbling when the director added more rehearsals. So yeah, you get the idea. Life wasn’t too bad.

“Annabeth!”

I turned to see Grover, Percy’s friend, hurrying over. Rehearsal had finished and I was one of the last to leave.

“Hey, Grover, what are you doing here?”

He laughed.

“Haven’t you noticed? I’ve been to every rehearsal. I’m your moral support.”

I hadn’t noticed, and I blushed pink in embarrassment.

“Sorry”

“It’s fine. Hey have you seen Percy? Im supposed to go home with him.”

I looked around quickly, but Percy was nowhere to be found.

“do you want me to go look for him?” I asked reluctantly.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

I turned and headed back into the theater. It was pretty dark and everyone had already left. I was pretty sure no one was still there when I heard a muffled sigh and a sniff. I froze and then took a few hesitant steps forward until I reached the stage where a cluster of boxes was casting shadows in the grey darkness.

“Hello?” I asked softly.

The muffled sniffing paused, and a face came into view from behind the boxes. I jumped and then sighed.

“Oh, it’s you.”

I came closer. Percy was sitting dejectedly, his chin resting on his knees and his messy black hair was more disheveled than usual. Even in the darkness, I could see his eyes were red and puffy. Cautiously, I slid down the boxes and sat next to him.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course I am,” he said quickly, swiping at his eyes.

I gave him a look.

“What’s wrong?”

He let out a deep sigh and shook his head softly.

“It’s just family issues.”

I hesitated.

“Like you’re grounded or…?”

“No. Like I don’t want to go home and see my stepdad playing cards with his friends and ordering my mom around and she just...just taking it. We could leave. We could go, but no. We stay and he uses her and me, and we just have to sit and take it.”

My heart flipped. I could almost hear myself saying something very similar. He sighed.

“But, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

I scooted closer.

“No, you’re not fine, but you’re not alone. I have a stepmom too and he's horrible. It’s like I'm different and foreign and don’t even belong in my own house. And this play was the only thing that got me through break so I didn’t have to stay with them and listen to them and feel so much hared and anger like I’m walking on a rubber band that’s about to snap.”

I gasped softly at my own words. I’d never spoken them out loud before and here I was pouring out my soul to a stranger. I hid my face.

“I’m sorry. I should go.”

“No. Please don’t. I’ve never met anyone who knows how I feel. They just say they understand, but they don’t know what it’s like.”

I smiled at him softly.

“Maybe there's more to you than I thought, seaweed brain.” I said quietly

He laughed.

“And you’re just a nerd, wise girl.”

I punched him playfully.

“Hey, Grover wanted me to come in and get you.”

He groaned.

“That means I have to go home then.”

“I know you can make it through just one more day. You can do it.”

“Thanks”

He stood and helped me to my feet.

“Hey, do I look like I’ve been crying?”

It was hard to see much in the dark so I said no. He looked at me skeptically then shrugged and walked out of the theater with a bounce in his step like nothing in the world was wrong.

I didn’t see much of him the next few days. The musical was only a few weeks away from show time, and everyone was busy. It wasn’t until I opened the last of the boxed that I saw him again. I lifted the lid and a gigantic spider crawled out of the box. Well, maybe it wasn’t that big, but i was instantly paralyzed in its monstrous red eyes and I screamed. (quite naturally really) That was how Percy found me, scrambling on the table prop pointing hysterically at ta spider crawling across the floor. Percy laughed softly and quickly ground the spider beneath his shoe. He smiled up at me.

“I don't know you were afraid of spiders.”

I blushed red realizing that I must have looked like a frightened child screaming hysterically.

“I didn’t know you noticed people like me.”

It was a low blow, but what else was I supposed to say?

“Oh.” he said softly, “You were the girl they always picked on.”

“And you did too.”

He shook his head.

“I didn't know what they were doing and when I found out I didn’t want them to turn on me if I stopped them. I’m sorry.”

I tried to fume, but he was too sincere.

“It’s alright,” I said softly, “I’m just a nerd.”

“You’re not just a nerd, wise girl. Those buildings you drew in architecture class were amazing.”

“You saw them?”

“Yeah.”

“You can see?”

“Shut up.”

We grinned at each other for a moment before hurrying back to our duties.

After that, we saw each other a lot more often. Percy wasn’t someone I’d normally pay attention to, but there was something about him that drew me like a magnet. It wasn't long before I found myself smiling wistfully after him and staring at his brilliant green eyes. THe musical went on with many hysterics and mishaps but non where were extremely noticeable to the audience. Prom was in a few weeks, but of course I wasn’t going. That is until one spring day when Percy and I were walking home from school together.

“So, what color dress are you wearing to prom?”

It as a simple enough question, but it still hurt that I didn't have any friends to go with.

“Oh, well, I’m not going.”

“Really?” he looked crestfallen. Then he laughed as if at himself, “But would you like to go with me?”

I stopped dead.

“With you? To prom?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“No reason. I just…”

I shrugged as if it was perfectly normal to get asked to prom, but my heart was soaring. Little did I know there was a very good reason why not to go to prom with Percy Jackson.

I picked out a green dress to wear and Percy’s mom insisted that she pay. I wish she hadn’t but I had to consent eventually. When his mom picked us up to drive us to prom, I couldn’t help but stare at him. I don’t like saying sappy things, but he was beautiful that night. Grover was going to meet us at the dance, and we began our long journey. We had almost arrived at the dance when the car door suddenly flew open and Grover, or at least I thought it was grover, flew inside.

“Mrs. Jackson, you have to go. Get them to Camp Half-blood now.”

His voice was panicked but I couldn’t help but keep blinking at his legs which had turned all hairy and were those hooves? I felt nauseous. Mrs. Jackson and Grover were arguing in the front seat and I caught the word“Minotaur.” I had no idea what was going on, but Mrs. Jackson tuned the car with a screech and took off heading straight out of the city. The events of that night are still a blur to me. It was raining that night, and I remember Grover giving Percy a pen telling him to uncap it if he was in need. And then, there it was. The minotaur. And Percy uncapped the pen. It grew into something else. Something beautiful and frightening, a sword like I’d only seen in books. Someone kept telling me to run and I ran, pulling off my heels as I went, my heart thundering in my ears. Something alive jumped in front of me. I screamed and drove the end of my high heeled shoe into its chest, and it disintegrated into powder. I stared at it, but only for a moment before I began to run again, and I ran until I felt arms around me and heard the buzz of startled voices. I heard my own voice saying.

“He’s still out there. You have to help him. Percy. Help Percy.”

I’m not really sure what happened after that until I work up in the infirmary next to Percy who as drooling in his sleep.

I guess that how I got here. To my home, Camp Half-blood. A place where I could be be me, a daughter of Athena, with the rest of my siblings. Percy recovered just fine and lives by himself in the Poseidon cabin. There's so much more I could say, but I don’t really have the time. You see, Percy’s gone missing and I have to find him because even though he brought me into this mess, I love him and I won't rest until my heart is whole again.

The end.

#percy jackson #demigodsecretsanta #annabeth #au told from annabeths point of view #musicals #grover #camp half blood #i tried yalls #😊#i hope you like it

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icecubelotr44 · 7 years

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To Every Thing a Season (4/16)

Summary: After witnessing the tragic murder of his brother Liam, Killian Jones is more determined than ever to discover the secrets of time travel. Fast-tracking his education at Storybrooke University, Killian is assigned a lab assistant, one Emma Swan. Together, they find a way to break through the veil of time so Killian can set things right. But what will be the price for changing the past, and is it one they’re willing to pay?

Rated: T, for violence, some dark themes, angst, and whump

Art credit/link: The totally awesome @optomisticgirl made imagesets for all the chapters and @ab-normality made a video and a gifset for this fic. You can find the imageset for this chapter above and here on her blog. The video is linked here and on her blog here and the gifset is here!

Beta readers: The as-always wonderful @nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable, thanks so much for all of your help and cajoling and reassuring! And a huge thank you to the spectacular @spartanguard who stepped in to help beta read as well!

A/N: Written as part of the 2017 Captain Swan Big Bang Challenge. You can catch up with all the other fics that are complete by following @captainswanbigbang and/or subscribing to the Group Collection on AO3 and/or the C2 on FFN. This is complete in 16 parts and will be posted every Thursday from now until its completion. And yes, there is a happy ending after all this… just so you know.

Word count: ~ 5,350 (80K+ Total in 16 chapters)

From the beginning: ao3 | ffn

Current Chapter: AO3 | FFN

Chapter 4: To Break Down and to Build Up

Killian woke with a start, jolting up on the futon and clenching his fists until the sharp pain of fingernails digging into his palm grounded him to the present instead of the past. He wasn’t even sure which dream this was, which memory that tore him from sleep, but it didn’t matter. They all ended the same - with him bursting back into reality only to find that the dream wasn’t nearly as bad as the realization that it was another day when Liam was cold in the ground and Killian was no closer to going back to save him.

What are you doing, little brother? Why haven’t you come for me yet? You promised.

Logically, Killian knew that these were his own words. He knew that Liam would never have spoken that way, his words would have been encouragement and patience. He knew that the irritation and frustration came from his own perceived failures rather than any memory of Liam.

And even though the words sounded like Liam’s voice, even though the tone and the dialect and the accent were his brother’s, he still knew his brother would never have thought that, let alone said it. That was more their father’s way.

It didn’t change anything. He heard Liam berating him and his mind automatically latched onto how long he’d been failing his brother.

Nausea assaulted Killian, fiery tendrils of anger and shame warring for dominance as he levered himself off the couch and towards the common bathroom down the hall. The memory of the soldering iron burn left him with a bit of a phantom limp, but he’d been free of the crutches for a couple weeks and knew the scar would fade soon as well. The dream he’d woken from picked at him relentlessly even as he tried to ignore it. The memory prodded its way back to the forefront of his mind and made him gag a little with each step.

“All right there, Jones?” Will’s voice made him jump and swivel his head around. Scarlet was exiting the stairwell, a distinct swagger to his step and glazed eyes that tracked him slowly. It had been a while since he’d seen his roommate truly sober - Ana’s betrayal had left him reeling and Killian didn’t really know how to help other than to keep the young man away from their RA and campus police.

He was about to answer in the affirmative when Will lurched for the bathroom door and the sounds of retching echoed out into the hall. Killian’s own stomach turned, reminding him of what he was doing in the hallway but he steeled himself and waited for Scarlet to finish.

Focusing on someone he could help instead of how helpless he was to change Liam’s fate settled him just enough that he didn’t join Will in a stall.

It seemed like hours later when Killian had Scarlet sprawled across the futon, a blanket thrown over his passed-out form and a rubbish can near his head. Unable to stomach the idea of going back to sleep, Killian pulled on the worn leather jacket that hung off his wardrobe and tucked his keycard into a pocket.

The night was cool and quiet, stars above and a crescent moon just enough to light his way between the scattered streetlights on the campus paths. He wandered aimlessly, not sure of where he was headed or even what he was doing out on the quad this late. There was nothing for him out here - no responsibilities, no ghost of his brother, no dance of the numbers to assault him. He couldn’t get into the lab and the library was closed. All he had was the slight breeze in his hair and the scent of the ocean that was only a few miles from campus.

As if that had been his intended destination all along, rather than a subconscious one, Killian turned towards the main road and began the trek to the shore. His hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket, the sleeves no longer too big to sit comfortably at his wrists. The scent of his brother was no longer ingrained in the material, and there were holes in the lining that he’d dutifully stitched and stitched again. But none of that mattered - he wore it as a reminder, as a comfort, as a coat of armor against the world he’d been abandoned to.

The tide was on its way in when Killian finally made it to the tiny beach. It was still too cold to wade in the water, but he slipped off his shoes and socks just the same. He left them at the end of the boardwalk, curious to see another pair left haphazardly on a dilapidated piling just beyond his own shoes.

He walked above the seaweed line, letting the bite of cold sand and small rocks ground him as he went. The sound of waves rolling in and the clean scent of brine wrapped around him like a blanket, quieting the last of his thoughts.

There was nothing here but peace.

“Seriously, Jones?!” A voice rang out in the night and Killian practically jumped out of his skin. His hand came up to cover his heart as the other clenched in a fist before his brain could catch up. He couldn’t see her, but he would’ve known that voice anywhere.

Emma. Not someone looking to hurt him.

The scar on his thigh stung in protest, but he ignored it. There was a difference between that scar and others he wore.

Finally recovering his voice, Killian asked, “What are you doing out here alone, lass? It’s late.”

He looked around, trying to see in the darkness to figure out where she was hiding. He had turned in a complete circle before her quiet laughter reached his ears and the light from a cell phone caught his eye.

She was sitting on a large boulder, her knees drawn up to her chest and an oversized hoodie swamping her figure. She looked like a siren intent on dragging him to his death, but Killian found himself drawn to her side anyway.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered when he finally reached her side. Emma looked down at him from her perch and then slid over to the side.

Not pausing to think about it too much, Killian scrambled up the side of the rock and hunkered down beside her. They were pressed together from shoulder to hip, and he could feel her chill drawing on his warmth within moments. “How long have you been out here?”

Killian felt the shrug more than he saw it.

They sat quietly for a while, staring out at the endless ocean and trying to pick out the horizon in the inky blackness. The granite cliff behind them provided a backrest, and Killian settled down a bit further, fully relaxing for the first time since he’d woken in a cold sweat from his dream.

Emma sat rigidly next to him, still curled up in a tight ball.

He wasn’t sure what came over him, what gave him the shot of bravery he needed to reach out and tug on the ends of her hair. Emma looked over her shoulder, meeting his eyes, and he smiled softly at her.

Not giving himself time to question his motives, Killian slid his hand across her back until his fingers wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her gently backwards.

Emma resisted for a moment, but then sighed and leaned back until her head was pillowed on his shoulder, his arm trapped between her back and the rocks behind them.

“I was… am… an orphan,” she breathed out, tensing a bit as she waited for his reaction.

Killian rubbed his thumb back and forth over the fabric at the jut of her neck, his fingers tightening ever so slightly around her shoulder.

Whatever reproach she was expecting, Emma didn’t seem to find it, and continued. “I was left on the side of the road when I was an infant. Whoever my parents were, they couldn’t even be bothered to take me somewhere safe before they dumped me. I guess that they knew what they were doing, because no one else ever found something worth saving in me, either.”

Killian sucked in a breath, pulling her closer and tucking her head under his chin. He had no idea what was happening, no idea how to help or make it better, but he remembered the times when Liam would try and make him feel normal after a rough day at school or with their father’s issues, and tried to emulate that.

He didn’t speak, had a feeling that Emma didn’t even realize she was speaking out loud, and he didn’t want to break the spell that had settled over them.

All he knew was that he had no idea what he was doing.

“I think about that sometimes, when I can’t sleep. I wonder if maybe it wouldn’t have been better if…”

“No, Emma. It wouldn’t have been better.” He’d wanted to stay silent. He’d wanted her to forget he was even there so she could get whatever this was off her chest. But when he had an inkling over what she was going to say next, he spoke before he could think about it.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” she said in the same quiet, defeated tone of voice.

“Aye, I do. You’re somewhat of an open book, lass. And I’m good at reading.” He smiled into her hair, the scent of something flowery tickling his nose. “It’s not something I haven’t thought about myself in the past few years. If it wouldn’t have been better for everyone if we just weren’t here. If we’d never been. But it isn’t. It wouldn’t be.”

“Why not?” her words were choked.

Killian closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Because if you weren’t here, then I’d be all alone out here with nothing but the ghost of the brother I can’t save to keep me company.”

“Do you want to tell me about him?” she asked hesitantly, reaching up to tangle her fingers in his own against her shoulder.

Killian shook his head, biting back the sudden need to tell her everything he’d ever known about Liam. But that wasn’t why he’d come out here tonight, and it certainly wasn’t why she had come out here tonight.

“Sometime, yes. He’s important to what we’re doing. But not tonight,” he whispered.

Emma nodded, shuffling around a little bit until she was curled more fully against him.

“What are we doing, Jones?” she asked quietly, tensing as his arm came around her more securely.

What were they doing? He had no earthly idea. He’d never so much as bothered to think about Emma as anything other than his assistant before, but somehow she’d snuck past the numbers and the failures and the driving need to focus on nothing but his brother. They were friends, yes, but something felt different with her pressed against his side, tangled up in the darkness and the tranquility that the ocean provided.

“We’re existing,” Killian whispered, unsure how to put it into words more eloquent than that.

“Hmm,” she replied non-committally, tucking her head under his chin. Killian didn’t know if his response was enough, and he was caught up in the ridiculous notion that he wanted to be more for her. That he wanted to be enough for her.

God, he wanted his brother to tell him what to do next.

Without a concrete list of controls and variables, Killian didn’t know exactly what to do. There were no lab manuals for this, no constructs and instructions to base his hypothesis around.

And Emma shouldn’t be an experiment, anyway. She was far more precious than that, he could see it in the way she interacted with him. No, Emma was special. No matter what her idiot birth parents - or any of the foster families who had failed her - led her to believe.

Killian wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, the soft sounds of the waves remixing with the even breaths Emma made as she finally relaxed. He didn’t dream, a miracle in and of itself, and woke to the pinks and reds of the sun rising.

Emma was still tucked against his side, her fingers tangled in the ties of his hoodie and her mouth open as she snored softly. Killian smiled at the sight, his hand coming up to brush some of the stray hair away from her forehead.

Emma sat up like she’d been shocked, her fists coming to bear and her breathing stuttered.

“Whoa, whoa, easy Swan. It’s just me.” Killian froze with one hand in front of him placatingly, holding eye contact with her until she woke up fully.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, bright red spots staining her cheeks as she began to blush. “Old habits.”

Killian shook away the apology with a quick turn of his head and tugged on the back of her sweatshirt. “Lay back, lass. It’s still early. The sunrise is amazing out here.”

“I shouldn’t,” she said, tearing her eyes away and tensing. “I have class at nine.”

She was going to run. Killian didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Unless he did something. “It’s barely six am, Swan. You’ve plenty of time. Unless you’re afraid I’m going to sully your virtue.” He smirked and waggled his eyebrows the way he’d seen Liam do towards girls on the train sometimes.

Emma burst out laughing, but the tension eased out of her frame and she flopped back dramatically against his chest. “Oh yes, Jones. You’re a regular Don Juan. Watch out, world!”

Killian laughed along with her, trying to disguise the breath of relief when she didn’t move to slip away from him.

They sat in silence for awhile, watching the sun paint the horizon in a stunning array of colors. Emma’s hair tickled his nose, but Killian was terrified to move and brush it away lest he break the magical spell that had encapsulated them.

Here, there was no sordid past of foster homes and orphanages, no ghost of a lost brother or a disappointed sot of a father. There were no numbers, no experiments, no criminal justice papers, and no Candy Crush to interrupt them. There was no hesitance, no over thinking, no walls, and no worry over what would become of this.

There was just Emma and Killian, curled up on a boulder watching the magic of the day starting.

Killian could get used to this.

Emma kept expecting the need to run from Killian to overtake her. She kept thinking that the next time they met up at the beach in the middle of the night or the next time he tangled their fingers together under the cafeteria table would be the time that she’d balk. She thought that the day she’d shown up to the lab for their session and there was a carnation bloom waiting for her on the keyboard while Killian studiously worked on his model - complete with bright pink ears - that she’d panic.

She didn’t.

And that terrified her.

She needed this job. She needed Killian’s easy friendship. She needed to keep up her walls so that it wouldn’t hurt when someone else threw her away like garbage. She needed…

She needed exactly the laid-back relationship that Killian was offering her.

Emma wasn’t sure when Killian had snuck up on her defenses and sidled his way through her walls, but he had. He was there and he was comfortable and as long as she didn’t think about it too much, he was safe.

She left her last class for the afternoon in a rush, trying to make it across campus to the labs on time. The professor had waylaid her with comments about her most recent paper on the contrast of Supreme Court cases in history versus today. He had appreciated a point that she made and wanted to expound on it at length. Then, when she got out of that conversation, Ruby had caught her and wanted to complain about her newest boyfriend Graham’s tendency to follow her around like a lost puppy.

By the time she got to the lab, Killian was thoroughly engrossed in the circuits he’d been fiddling with for months now. It looked to Emma as though he had the workings of more than one computer spread across the table, and the soldering iron that had caused them such strife earlier in the semester was carefully perched on its stand and far away from Killian’s leg.

Emma glared at the tool for good measure.

“What’s on the agenda for today, Jones?” she asked, already slinging her backpack under the lab table and signing into the physics program.

Killian jumped off the stool like someone had set off a firework under his chair. The tiny screwdriver he’d been using clattered to the ground, making him jump again, and the telltale blush worked its way up to the tips of his ears.

He was embarrassed.

“Hey,” she called to him calmly. “It’s just us here. You okay?”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Instead, he dropped to his knees and started searching for the lost tool. Emma watched him miss it three times as he swept a hand under the shelf before she sighed exasperatedly and stalked over to him.

Without a word, Emma knelt down beside him, tugged the screwdriver out from its hiding spot with one hand, and tangled their fingers together with the other. “What’s going on?”

There was more than a hint of redness on his cheeks now, but the smile was more genuine as he tightened his grip under her own. “I wanted to… to ask you if…” He paused, took a deep breath, and tried again.

“Will you go out with me?”

Emma froze. All of the fears that she had been waiting for, that she had thought weren’t going to rear their ugly heads because it was just Killian and her, it all came to the forefront and she couldn’t hear over the buzzing in her ears.

What they had was simple. It wasn’t a thing, it was just them. If she agreed to go out with him, then that meant they were… they were what?

“Emma?” Christ, he sounded more nervous than she was.

She looked up when he sat back on his heels, loosening his fingers to pull away from her. He looked like she had kicked his puppy and smashed his prototype all rolled into one hangdog expression.

She wanted more than anything to erase that look from his face.

“All right,” she whispered, the words escaping her before she could think too hard about them. Going out with him didn’t have to be complicated, and it didn’t have to be anything more than just them.

“Aye?” he asked, the hope burning brightly in his too-blue eyes. There was a half-smile forming, and, God help her, dimples.

Emma didn’t think too much about it after that. “Yeah.”

Killian grinned so hard it made her face hurt.

That was when she realized she was grinning, too.

The date was simple - it wasn’t like either of them had a lot of money or transportation off campus to begin with. They took the shuttle into the main part of town, holding hands and crowding into half a bus seat so it felt like they were the only two people in the entire world. A simple dinner at Granny’s - complete with the woman herself sniffing around for potential gossip to share with Ruby - and a walk down to get ice cream at Any Given Sundae. It was easy, it was simple, it was just them.

“I wish I could give you more,” Killian whispered as they ended up at the beach again, the blanket they had hidden in an outcropping of rocks protecting them against the night air.

Emma shook her head, curling more fully into his warmth. “This was perfect,” she whispered back.

Killian grunted his disapproval of that, but tugged her in closer and tucked the edge of the blanket under her shoulder.

“Was it so bad? Going out on a date with me?” Emma could hear the tension in his voice, the uncertainty.

She was terrified of what this all meant, terrified that he would wake up one day and realize that she wasn’t worth it. But he was worth the risk, and Emma thought she might be able to put her fears aside for him.

“So bad, Killian, that I think we should try it again next weekend, and the weekend after that,” Emma teased, grinning at the way his breath caught in the chest under her ear.

It took him a moment, but Killian finally huffed out a laugh and relaxed under her. The sound of the waves crashing on the beach was the only soundtrack to their evening, the nightly path of the stars through the sky the movie that they fell asleep to.

Emma woke with a start, the booming echo of thunder causing her to sit straight up before her eyes were even open. Killian jolted up behind her, the warmth of his chest a balm against the wind that cut through her. They were scrambling off the rock before lightning could streak across the sky, illuminating the beach for an instant before shrouding everything in darkness once more.

She heard the rain before she felt it. Big, fat droplets of icy fire that pelted them as they ran off the sand and for the relative safety of the buildings. They were still a few miles from campus, the shuttles had long since stopped for the night. Killian crowded her against the side of the buildings as they walked, draping the blanket over her shoulders and taking the brunt of the rain.

“You’re going to get sick, idiot,” Emma complained as she tried to spread the cloth over both their backs.

Killian tugged on her shoulder, stopping Emma in her tracks and backing her up against the wall. He tucked the edges of the blanket over her shoulders and into her hands. Then, he stepped into her space so that their knees knocked together and his forehead rested on her own. He quirked half a smile, his nose brushing against hers as he stared into her eyes.

Emma slipped her hands over his shoulders, cocooning them both in the blanket once more and erasing any space that had remained between them. “Hi,” she whispered.

“Hello, luv,” Killian whispered back.

“What are you doing?” Emma snickered when his nose wrinkled up.

He stepped closer, nudging his foot between hers and dropping his face to her neck. Emma nearly squealed when his nose found the warm skin at her throat. He was freezing. “You’re warm,” he mumbled.

Emma scrunched up her nose, tightening her grip around his shoulders and trying to close the blanket around his back. She’d thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her, and she’d tensed. She didn’t know if Killian had felt it and had redirected his intentions, or if he had always planned on stealing her warmth for a moment, but the drop in her stomach when he hadn’t kissed her surprised her.

“All right, glacier-face, let’s get you inside somewhere.” Emma broke the moment, tucking them both into the blanket and tugging Killian down the street.

All too soon, they were standing outside Emma’s dorm room door. She reached up and wrapped the blanket around Killian until he was completely trapped. His nose wrinkled again and one of his eyebrows shot up as Emma secured the corner of the material at his chest.

“Emma,” he warned. “I’m stuck.”

She smirked back at him, watching as he shifted his hands to try and find the opening. “I know. It’s a good look on you, Jones.”

He sighed, pouting a little, but let it be. “I had a good time tonight,” he said quietly.

“I did, too,” Emma replied.

Killian shuffled his feet, and Emma knew that he would be scratching behind his ear if his arms were free. “Well, good night, luv.”

Emma heard the hesitance, the hint of insecurity that called to her. She didn’t think too much about what she did next, just acted.

The scruff covering his jaw scratched at her lips and the muscles in his cheek twitched in surprise as she let the chaste kiss just under his cheek last a second longer than she intended. “Good night, Jones,” Emma called as she slipped inside her dorm room door.

She leaned back against the heavy door, and could just hear Killian’s quiet and awed, “good night,” before his soft footsteps echoed down the hall.

And so it went. Emma continued to help out in the lab and Killian continued to forget to eat until he realized she hadn’t eaten. They met up between classes to study alongside one another in the library and they went to the Merry Men’s gigs. Killian left flower blooms on her keyboard and Emma kept a fully stocked drawer of notebooks and mechanical pencils for him.

He didn’t refer to her as his girlfriend, and she didn’t tell anyone she had a boyfriend, but the idea of it all wasn’t quite so frightening any more. Emma thought she might not mind if they did label what they had.

Will Scarlet, it seemed, hadn’t gotten the memo though.

“Look, I dunno what’s got into your boyfriend,” Scarlet’s accent carried heavily over the cell phone connection. “But he’s drunk as a skunk on the floor of our room and I’m on me way out the door. You wanna come get him, then I’ll leave a quarter in the latch, or just let him pass out on the rug. Up to you, sweetheart.”

Emma pulled the phone away from her ear to look at incredulously. Killian… her Killian… was drunk? She didn’t even think he’d ever touched anything stronger than Red Bull, never mind drinking enough to wind up on the floor of his dorm room. “I’m on my way. This better not be your idea of a prank, Will. If it is, I will get my revenge.”

Scarlet didn’t respond, but the next thing Emma heard were very slurred lyrics. “Did they play the fife lowly, did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?” echoed through the airwaves in Killian’s marked accent.

“Wow,” she breathed out, reaching for her keycard and sprinting out the door.

It was easy enough to get past the door monitor, throwing her ID on the desk and sprinting down the hall without so much as a, “by your leave.” Emma didn’t think the bored upperclassman even looked up from his tablet. Up the stairs and down another hallway, and she could hear Killian still singing the same tune. Emma thought she recognized it from the Merry Men’s setlist, a cover of a Dropkick Murphy’s cover. The name of the song escaped her at the moment, but she remembered how sad the lyrics had left her.

“Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame. The killing and dying it was all done in vain,” came through the door as Emma slipped inside, pulling the quarter off of the latch and letting it lock closed behind her.

“Killian?” she whispered into the darkness. Emma wanted to let her eyes adjust before she risked tripping through the room lest she fall over Killian.

“‘Mm-ma?” the singing cut out quickly and she followed the sound of his voice to the other side of the futon.

Scarlet had left Killian sprawled out on the old throw rug, his arms wrapped around a trash can and a blanket tossed haphazardly across his back. When Emma sat down on the couch near his head, Killian shoved his upper body off the floor so he could look towards her knees. “That you, luv?”

“Hey,” she whispered. “You wanna get up off the floor?”

Killian shook his head and then grimaced, a soft whimper escaping him as he hugged the bin closer. “The ship’s rocking too much.”

Emma laughed. “The ship, huh? Who’s captaining this boat?” She reached down to scratch her nails over his scalp.

“Morgan. I don’t think I like him much.”

“Mor… Captain Morgan?” Emma looked around and saw the handle of rum that had rolled under the TV cart. She was relieved to see that it was more than half-full.

She felt Killian nod before he levered himself up with a huff and rolled onto the futon. His head landed heavily in her lap, and he buried his nose in the crease of her hip. Emma settled the blanket over as much of his lanky frame that she could reach, and carded her fingers through his hair.

“What happened, Killian? Why the rum?” she asked mostly to herself, not sure he was cognizant enough to answer her.

“Miss m’ brother,” he slurred, a distinct hitch in his breathing. “Wan’ Liam back.”

Emma clenched her eyes shut against the sting that the pain in his voice brought about. She’d never felt as much attachment to anyone as Killian did to a ghost, and she wanted more than anything to fix it for him.

“Do you wanna talk about him?” she asked, settling more fully into the futon. She smiled softly when Killian’s hand snuck out from under the blanket and started scrabbling around until he knotted their fingers together.

“He was m’ big brother,” Killian mumbled with a sniffle. “He looked out for me, you know?”

Emma didn’t, but she had heard stories. This wasn’t the time for that, however. “I know, Killian. You miss him, huh?”

“He died.” Killian didn’t elaborate, but Emma had already figured that out for herself.

She tangled her fingers through his hair, snagging the wisps that curled around the back of his ear and tugging a bit.

“Was my fault,” he whispered brokenly, and he shifted further onto Emma’s lap.

That she hadn’t expected. “I don’t believe that,” she spit out vehemently. She knew better than to believe that.

But Killian shook his head violently against her thigh. “Was. He was takin’ me to a lecture. Wouldn’t’a been there otherwise. Wouldn’t’a got shot.”

She gasped in spite of herself. His brother had been murdered?

Killian bowled on and Emma felt like she was sprinting to catch up with him. “Don’t even know who it was. It was like he was a ghost. Just came outta nowhere and shot up the street. Didn’t even know who Liam was, didn’t care who m’ brother was. He just… just shot him for no reason. Liam wouldn’t’a hurt anyone, wouldn’t’a done anything wrong. But he didn’t care. Just killed m’ brother. Then he disappeared. But I’m gonna fix it. I’m gonna save ‘im. Gonna make m’ brother proud. You’ll see, Emma. Gonna make you proud of me, too.”

He sniffled a little, and Emma bent forward until she was cocooning his head with her body. She switched so that their combined hands were in his hair and her now-free hand was sliding up and down his back. “I’m already proud of you, Killian. Your brother is, too. I know it.”

She had him wrapped up so tightly that he couldn’t shake his head ‘no’, though he tried admirably. “I hear him sometimes, asking why I haven’t figured it out yet. Why I haven’t saved him yet.”

Emma didn’t know why it hadn’t sunk in earlier - the reason that Killian was so focused on time travel, the reason that he wanted to discover its secrets in the first place. He was just a lost boy whose only guiding star had been stolen from him. He just wanted his brother back.

“You’re gonna save him, Killian. I promise.” Emma’s voice was strained with the intensity that stole her breath. She was going to do whatever it took, and Emma Swan didn’t take her vows lightly.

“You’re going to get your brother back, and I’m going to help you.”

To everyone who has left a comment so far, I'm terribly sorry that I haven't responded yet. I've been in the process of moving for what feels like months now and have fallen woefully behind. I appreciate each and every like, reblog, and message, and will get back to you as soon as I can! Thank you all for reading and please, please, please, keep letting me know what you think!

Tagging: @gusenitsaa, @kiwistreetswan, @lenfazreads, @xhookswenchx, @killian-whump, @eala-captian, @kmomof4, @onceuponaprincessworld

#csbb #cs ff #cs fic #ouat ff #ouat fic

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fireandseaweed · 7 years

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Don’t Worry, Baby || Annabeth and Percy

Annabeth and Percy reconnect after the fire.

Thirty-six hours and counting since Annabeth had slept. One thing people didn’t mention when they told heroic stories was how little sleep one gets during the making of them. But when there was work still to be done, it was impossible for Annabeth to sleep. She’d just finished helping transport some of the injured when she saw Percy out of the corner of her eye, helping to clear some of the debris from the fire. Though he still looked sturdy and strong, she could tell that he was fading, and knew that he too hadn’t slept since their fight with the fire. Going to him, she laid a hand on his shoulder gently. “Come on. It’s time for you to go to bed.”

Percy bent water underneath a pile of rubble and shifted it away and onto the back of a truck that pulled out of the forum and exited the city. He felt the hand on his shoulder and slowly turned. A day ago the touch would’ve startled him but right now he didn’t have the energy to be startled. Yawning gently — which he regretted immensely as it just proved her point — he sighed. “I’ve got six more truck loads of rubble to move before I can get any sleep.” Bending more water he continued to shift the rubble, knowing that she was right. A minute of silence hung in the air before he sighed and nodded. “Okay okay, lets go.”

Annabeth narrowed her eyes slightly at Percy, as if to say that her saying he should go to bed wasn’t a suggestion. But soon enough he was coming along anyway. As he gave in to his tiredness, she simply said, “There we go.” Walking with him now, her mind was still stuck on the words Callum had said to her. Most of them hadn’t caused her worry, but the children— that was something that refused to stay silent in her mind. She looked deep in thought as her tired feet dragged slightly in the dirt on the way to their apartment. Slipping her hand down into Percy’s she took comfort in the jointness of them. “It’s way past your bedtime, Seaweed Brain.”

As they stumbled through New Rome together, they soon left the horror of the fire behind. Several blocks later and you could’ve all but forgotten what had happened. Percy couldn’t help but smile as he saw a young boy and girl duelling each other with wooden swords as a third, much younger girl sat on top of what looked like a giant bar stool and giggled. She caught sight of the pair of them and waved a pudgy hand at them, giggling as she watched her sister jab her brother's arm. Smiling gently to himself, Percy turned a corner and headed up the street that led to their tiny apartment. “Are you okay?” he finally asked. The night had been hard and despite the fact that Annabeth was the toughest person he knew, he wasn’t about to fail to check up on her. “You were amazing with that hose thing, really ingenious and very attractive. Have you ever considered giving up architecture for fire fighting? You’ve got a real knack for it.”

Honestly, did the world have to throw pictures of children at her when Annabeth was already hung up on this entire situation with Callum? It was as if the gods were taunting her. But it didn’t help that she could see Percy smiling their way and giving a friendly wave. He was so good with the kids. She was nearly certain he wanted some of their own, but the very thought of it made her stomach roll with indecision. “I’m fine,” she said a bit too stiffly for it to be entirely true. His compliment normally would have made her smile and joke back, most likely throwing in some form of flirting, but she was still watching the kids play about with a small frown on her face, and had only half heard his words. His mention of architecture only reminded her further of the son of Cupid’s words. “What about you?” It was a delayed question, for she’d been caught in her own thoughts.

Smiling at the kid, Percy waved one more time before continuing down the cobbled streets to their shared apartment. As he slid his keys into the lock and slipped up the stairs towards the apartment's front door, he couldn’t help but notice the tone in Annabeth’s voice. She was probably just tired. It was a feeling that Percy knew intimately at this point, too many nights had gone by without enough sleep and he could hardly blame Annabeth for being a little cranky. “I’m doing okay,” he replied with a nod. “Things could always be better but then again that is always going to be true.” Rounding the corner to their apartment he noticed their neighbour and her twin daughters. “Hey,” he said smiling politely.

Of course Annabeth was happy to hear that Percy was alright, but it was hard to stay focused on him when her brain was so preoccupied with the troublesome words floating around in it. And it didn’t help that it seemed as if the universe was determined to bring every single child out of their home and into her path. Walking past the neighbor without so much as a second glance in her irritation (she would have to apologize later), she was into the safe haven of their home within seconds. Almost instantly she was in their small kitchen, going to fix a couple cups of tea— a sure-tell sign of the stress that was weighing on her. Normally she at least waited for a few minutes, but her rush to the counter was immediate. “The usual for you?” Her tone was clipped and tight.

As they walked into their apartment, Percy set his keys on the table and watched Annabeth rush straight to the kitchen. It was a minor red flag, but all things considered he could use a hot drink. Tea was Annabeth’s regular go to and although he preferred coffee he wasn’t going to argue right now. “Uh no I’m good, that won’t help me sleep,” he said with a warm reassuring smile that he saved almost exclusively for her. “I’m good with tea though.” Striding over to the edge of the kitchen, he leaned on a wall and watched her prepare everything in the perfectly organised way that Annabeth managed to do everything. “Are you really okay?” he asked finally. “I know it was a long night, I know there is a lot going on, but if you wanted to talk, I’m here okay.”

Even if he had tried to ask for his regular coffee, Annabeth wouldn’t have given it to him. Caffeine wasn’t what Percy needed when she was going to be sending him to bed. Tea would do much more nicely. His smile made the smallest amount of tension leave her shoulders as she handed him his own mug. Should she mention the talk Callum had given her about children? It seemed silly to say it out loud. They were only twenty-four. But perhaps Percy was already thinking of such things. There was only one way to know. Normally she didn’t like talking about her innermost thoughts, but this was Percy— and this particular thought hadn’t let her alone ever since it had been lodged in her mind. She knew from experience that if she avoided it, it would only become worse. “I don’t know. It’s not even anything to do with the fire.”

As she silently got everything ready, Percy couldn’t help but enjoy the way that she worked so efficiently. He could almost see her measuring everything swiftly before adding it to the mugs. Sugar, milk, and the tea bags were all done perfectly. As she passed him his mug, he couldn’t help but wrap his fingers around the mug and enjoy the warmth that emanated off of it. At least for a second, before he decided to put it down because it was getting too hot. “Well …” he trailed off and paused for a second, “do you want to talk to me about it?” he asked gently. “I’m not promising that I can fix it, but I can at least listen and that might help.” He stood there waiting, the truth was that he didn’t want to pressure her either way. This was her problem and all that he could do to help was support her in whatever way she felt was best.

Annabeth’s nerves were bubbling slightly in her stomach, an unfamiliar feeling for her when Percy was around. Generally she was most at peace when he was near, but dangling over the precipice of shattering what may or may not have been a dream of his had her feeling otherwise. With a change of pace, she chuckled, trying to make light of the situation. “It was literally ridiculous. One of the Cupid kids had a booth at the festival, and he tried to tell me that it was a problem I loved architecture more than you. Which obviously, you already know,” she joked. “If it was a problem, we wouldn’t be standing here.” Percy knew that he was everything to Annabeth. She was confident enough in their relationship to joke about it. She kept her light tone intact as she continued on. “And then, he started saying things like— maybe I wouldn’t be suitable for having children like- he doesn’t even know if I want to have children.” A forced chuckle fell from her lips, as she tried to gauge Percy’s reaction.

Raising an eyebrow gently as Annabeth spoke, Percy sipped at his tea to keep himself busy. When someone talked he found that his mind wandered and this was clearly important to Annabeth. Repetitively blowing and taking a tiny sip of his tea, he waited until she had finished talking before he replied. “Whilst I’ve always accepted that I was second best to architecture, that hasn’t ever been a problem, I’m fine with being a side hoe as long as I am well provided for.” His attempt at humour was more for her sake than his, he truly wanted to make this as easy for her as he possibly could. After all, when you’d been with someone as long as he and Annabeth had been together, there truly was a foundation of love, care and mutual respect and trust. “Is this really what has been bothering you?” he asked gently. “I think, and this is just an initial thought, but we’re 24, we’ve never really talked about having kids so this is kind of jumping the gun if it is really worrying you. But, this child of cupid, he doesn’t know you like you know you, he doesn’t know what you want and what you don’t want, it doesn’t matter that he feels you might not want kids. What you feel is what matters.”

She didn’t bother focusing on the first half of the conversation anymore as she was too wrapped up in the second half, though the humor had been helping to set her more at ease. Annabeth became somewhat defensive at his question, though she was fairly certain he had been trying to phrase it in a way that was sensitive. “It’s just been on my mind.” Annabeth knew that Callum didn’t have any say in whether or not she should feel a certain way. That’s not what worried her. What worried her was that her uncertainty about having children might upset Percy, and though she was a relatively confident person, that didn’t mean she wanted to disappoint the most important person in her life. “I know that what I feel is what matters most. But he just said something like— what if it doesn’t match what you feel?” Percy was one of the things Annabeth was certain about her future holding, but what if the futures they were planning looked different in their heads? Perhaps it was different because as a girl, she’d been told almost from birth that she would one day have children. Percy was most likely right, 24 was too young to think about children, and she agreed. But how was she supposed to ignore the thought when the rest of the world seemed to want to shove it into her face and had been doing so for years?

Percy bit his lip. He’d always wanted to have children, ever since his mother had done everything for him, he knew that he one day wanted someone who he could do the same for. It hadn’t ever really been a decision, it had simply been a fact. But his life had been so busy of late, the last ten years had been taken up by prophecies and monsters, then wars and titans and giants, and then the worst beast of them all …. College. Even though Annabeth had been a part of his life throughout those ten years, first as a friend and then as more, the truth was that he hadn’t really thought this through. He had imagined a life at some point in the far future. Marriage, kids, everything else. But that was so far away. Now apparently it was much closer and as she talked he found himself considering everything that she was saying. “I understand,” he said not completely sure that he did, but he was trying to seem certain, “or I think I do.” He leaned against the side and gazed at her thoughtfully. “What we eventually do in the future isn’t what is important, I do want to have kids, I won’t lie to you, but I want to be with you more than that, and I think that as long as we have one another, as long as we’re together and dealing with everything together, then we’ll be fine. What happens after that fact doesn’t bother me.” Maybe it was time to start thinking about getting serious, he was coming close to the end of his masters and financially they were more stable than they’d ever been. Maybe now was the time?

As Percy continued to speak, the tight ball of anxiety that had formed in Annabeth’s chest slowly began to loosen. And though she still felt guilty knowing that Percy wanted kids, while she might not— it was more than relieving to hear that they were still on the same page in terms of together was how they would face the world. A small smile began to make its way across her features, and it was a smile that was much truer than the ones she had been trying to force on herself while making an attempt to joke about Callum and his words. “You better hope we’ll be fine together. Cause you’re stuck with me, Seaweed Brain. Whether you like it or not.” Annabeth knew they would be more than fine. She walked forward to give him a light kiss, the sweetness of it betraying the real emotion behind her words. More quietly she added, “Thanks for listening.” Percy was generally amazing at hearing what she had to say, but that didn’t mean she should take it for granted. “Now come on, like I said— it’s way past your bedtime.”

Despite the fact that Percy had previously been on the verge of falling asleep then and there, after his conversation with Annabeth his brain was reeling. The truth was that he had thought about marriage but it had never really seemed the right time. It had simply been something that the future would bring. But now he was starting to reconsider his position. Trying to put the thoughts out of his mind, he turned back to the matter at hand. Smiling gently Percy nodded. “Anytime you need anything then you know that I am always going to be here. Because you’re too precious for me to give up.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her for a second before returning her kiss. “You’re right, it is time for bed.” Although something told him that he wasn’t going to sleep.

#f&gwriting #para #p: annabeth #percabeth #chatzy para #don't worry baby

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dyde21 · 7 years

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Protocol: Athena

Okay. It’s official. I’m in too deep. @anxiouspineapples has wrecked me. I know so little about the ME universe and I’m still wrapped up in the AU. This is the best I could do with my little knowledge that I have. Pretty happy with how this turned out though! :D Enjoy!

XxXxXxXxX

“Percy. Don't. You. Dare.” Annabeth's words came out clipped. She quickly watched her rifle cool off as she leaned behind the crate next to Percy. There was a hail of bullets showering all around them, forcing them to huddle near each other in their make-shift protection to avoid the onslaught.

“I have no idea what you mean, Wise Girl.” He said, an amused smirk on his face.

“Why do we keep ending up in situations like this?” Annabeth lamented, unhooking a grenade as she tossed it over the crate, letting it travel a bit before she triggered it, hearing the sound of one of the Asari commandos falling. That just left five of them. Easy enough, right?

“Cause someone's grand plan involved traveling to this remote zone. Plus you just had to be the hero and respond to the distress signal, even with Hazel warning us about the dangers and rumors of false beacons.

Annabeth wanted to retort, but couldn't really. It was true, it was her fault they had ended up in this situation. Their past few missions had gone swimmingly. They had accomplished their objectives without much struggle, and it was getting to her. Always one to struggle with pride a bit, she had to admit the success had gotten to her head. She was confident that they would either rescue a crew that needed saving, or that she could lead them out of any trap they sprung.

What she hadn't expected though was to have them separate Percy and herself from her crew, and to be assaulted by a rogue Asari commando squad. Now they were pinned down, and were running out of supplies. Their armor and shields had taken quite a beating, and they were surrounded. Plus, there was the whole “Asari commando biotic warfare” thing going on.

Annabeth opened her mouth to speak, but a stray bullet slammed into her shoulder. The armor had held and blocked the shot, but she let out a brief shriek of pain.

Percy paused, looking at her shoulder before his eyes slid to her face.

Shaking her head violently, Annabeth knew the expression that had crept on her boyfriend's face. It was the same one he had whenever he was about to do something incredibly stupid and self sacrificing for another's sake. One that often resulted in a mess she had to clean up. The problem is, he was giving her that look. She wouldn't be there with him to help him if he was doing it for her sake.

Her hand shot out, grabbing his. “No. Jackson, this is an order. You can't do anything stupid. We'll sit tight, and Jason and the rest will get to us.”

Percy just offered her that usual, almost sad, smirk he got when he knew he was going to do something risky. “No time for that. Just be ready after I count to three.”

Annabeth punched his shoulder. “Shut up, Percy! Don't you dare!”

Shifting around, Percy grabbed a grenade off the side of his belt and crouched down facing forward, ready to spring up. “One.”

“Seaweed brain! Stop! It's too dangerous. I'll... I'll think of a plan. Something.”

“Two.” He said as he glanced up, noting where the Asari commandos were closing in from.

“Percy, stop! Please!” Annabeth pleaded, as she looked over at him, shifting her own weight.

“Three.” Percy said as the foot steps approached.

“Please, Percy I'm begging you. Don't do anything.” Annabeth's voice cracked as she pleaded with her boyfriend. She couldn't lose him. She just couldn't.

Her eyes met Percy's, and for the briefest moment everything seemed to stop. The bullets stopped, and it was just like they were staring at each other back at the academy, right when he had finally asked her out right before they graduated.

“I love you, Wise Girl.”

Before she could even scream in protest, Percy popped up. “Now!”

He lobbed the primed grenade, and exploded it in the center of the room. One Asari crumpled, and the smoke had provided momentary cover. A few rounds Annabeth's rifle had dropped another.

Percy's arm glowed as he sent one flying with his own biotics, wincing as they crashed into a wall and fell unconscious. Two left.

Turning, he saw one of the remaining ones with her arm outstretched. Percy knew what was going to happen as he turned to look at Annabeth.

Commander Chase stared up in horror as she saw him offer her her favorite smile before a familiar blue glow encompassed his body and he rocketed upwards.

“Percy!” The guttural scream tore from her body as she quickly shot the Asari, her eyes tracking her boyfriend's body flying upwards. He had flailed, trying to regain control but the momentum had been much faster than he had thrown the Asari earlier.

His hand reached downwards, uselessly gripping towards Annabeth, until he collided with a sickening crunch, two stories up.

Annabeth felt bile rise up in her throat as she heard the sound. She finally managed to get a clear shot on the last Asari, tearing into her legs as the alien dropped down.

All thoughts left her head as she saw her boyfriend beginning to fall from the ceiling. She knew she had to catch him or it would be over. Dashing forward with every ounce of strength she could muster, she held her hands out.

Please let her be fast enough. She couldn't... she wouldn't lose him. Not Percy. Not after everything they had been through. He was her last stronghold in the universe. She couldn't... she wouldn't make the journey without him. Just as she took the last step to reach him, she saw him just a few feet above her arms. She braced for impact, but it never came.

As he was about to crash into her arms, he glowed blue again.

Gray eyes widened in horror as she saw his body fly off to the side, barreling like a missile straight towards a wall.

“Per-” Her words were cut off by another sickening crunch. The boy's body dropped to the ground, motionless.

Annabeth dropped to her knees, her heart shattering in her chest. Her eyes snapped towards the Asari on the ground, who was holding themselves up after they had thrown Percy, reaching towards her rifle.

Before Annabeth could take aim, another shot rang out and the Asari went still.

Jason and the rest of her crew came running in, sweeping the area to make sure it was safe.

“Command Chase! You're safe! Where's Per-” Jason trailed off.

Annabeth sprinted over to him, the rest of the world fading from focus. Sound was dulled, she couldn't make out Jason's words. It sounded like she was leagues under the ocean. Percy was laying still on the ground as Annabeth reached out, hesitantly touching him. Her touch was gentle, as if he would shatter like glass when she touched him.

She pulled up his Vitals, her heart pausing. They were there. It was faint, and bad, but it was there. He was alive. He was alive. Sound rushed back to her as she finally recognized Jason's hand on her shoulder.

“I said we need to go! We can't stay here. We need to get back to our ship.”

Hazel was already leaning over Percy, applying the best healing she could on the spot with Medi-gel. But these wounds were too serious, he needed proper medical attention. Annabeth knew that.

Gently, Annabeth's hand reached out and brushed some hair from Percy's forehead. He knew what would happen. With a clear target, the Asari would have used their biotics. He had taken the hit, knowing Annabeth would clean up afterwards. He had sacrificed himself for her.

Something inside her shattered into pieces. She was the commander of the ship. She was there to ensure that everyone made it home in one piece. She was supposed to lead them. But here she was, with the most important person in her life dying in her arms. A mumble of words escaped Annabeth's lips as she tightened her grip on Percy ever so slightly.

“Excuse me?” Jason asked, leaning closer to try and hear better.

Annabeth snapped her eyes towards him. “Protocol: Athena.”

Everyone froze, slowly turning to look at Annabeth. Frank lowered his rifle as Leo nearly dropped a grenade in surprise.

“A... Are you sure? I know Percy is hurt but...” Piper said gently, resting an arm on her shoulder.

Annabeth turned to her, her stormy gray eyes with a dead serious glint in them. “That's an order. Activate Protocol: Athena.”

Annabeth gently rested both of Percy's hands on his chest, attempting to ignore the way one of his arms wasn't quite bending normally. Standing up, she readied her rifle.

“Jason, Hazel, Frank, Leo get Percy back to the ship. Leo, get the ship ready, have the canons primed.”

“Piper, you're with me.”

Everyone snapped to attention, offering confirmations.

Jason's stomach had dropped at the words, but orders were orders.

Protocol: Athena. It was their last resort, a plan, and weapon, Annabeth had devised herself.

During the protocol, any and all restrictions were lifted. Everything was fair game. No causalities were restricted, all arms were able to be used. They had her full permission to do what they deemed necessary to complete the mission, and to not worry about any possible fallout that could come from it. In addition, her orders were absolute. Normally Annabeth trusted her team. They could act how they saw fit, and she tried to avoid ordering them around needlessly. They were friends after all. But during the protocol, her word was law. In addition, the weapon system Annabeth had designed with Leo was called into play. It's firepower was... intense.

Normally the protocol was a last ditch resort. They had only used it once before when they had been chased by an enemy fleet.

Now the rest of her crew stood staring at Annabeth in awe. When you lived with someone on a ship, you tended to get pretty comfortable around them. They had seen her slightly more hidden dorky side, as well as her softer romantic side when she thought she was alone with Percy. But here, with her stormy gray eyes blazing as she readied her rifle, they were reminded just who their captain was. Why commander Chase had a reputation across the galaxies. Why she was heralded as a figure who could bring a world to ruin with a single plan, or save a galaxy. She radiated intensity, and her crew knew she was unstoppable at the moment.

Jason and Frank finished getting Percy into Jason's arms as they began to make their way back to the ship.

Piper was concerned, but knew there was no force that could stand in Annabeth's way. They had managed to do the one thing that should never be done. They had broken Annabeth's composure. They had nearly taken her boyfriend from her right in front of her eyes. They had busted through her composure and incurred her unadulterated wrath.

The remainder of the skirmish had been brief.

What few traps had left waiting for them had been crushed. Hard. They tried to retreat but Annabeth's planning had cut off all their routes and left them hopeless.

By the time Jason had managed to get Percy into the hospital wing on their ship, and had the on-board doctor begin to do what he could, explosions were rocking the the enemy ship. Piper had returned on board first, looking tired and a little worse for the wear. Immediately Jason had gone to her side, ensuring she was fine while they waited for Annabeth to return. A few moments later Annabeth boarded again, her expression still deathly serious as explosions rocked the corridors behind her as parts of the ship continued to collapse.

“Leo, fire Blackjack.”

“A... Are you sure?” He asked hesitantly. At this distance the other ship would be...

“There were no innocents on board. I checked. Fire it, now.” Annabeth ordered as she continued walking, dropping her helmet onto the ground as she made a B-line towards the hospital wing.

Leo pulled the ship away as Blackjack charged up and fired.

The initial impact had been small, then moments later the entire enemy ship had broken apart. The pieces disintegrated, and soon only small scraps of metal and dust were left floating where the ship had been previously.

As the rest of the crew stood around, they received a single message from Annabeth. “Protocol over. New destination: Station Gamma. As fast as possible.”

Jason just looked at the message as Leo quickly made his way to go navigate toward their destination. It wasn't exactly a secret why, it was the closest, and best medical facility.

Turning, Jason began to walk towards the hospital wing when Piper's hand caught him on the shoulder and held him in place. “Pipes?”

“Just... give her time. Percy is stable... but... I don't think she is right now. She needs to be alone with him.” She spoke gently, but knew it was the truth. She knew even Annabeth wouldn't be able to keep up her mask for much longer, and that she wanted to be alone when all her walls came crashing down. She would be there for her friend afterwards, but for now she would give the the privacy she wanted.

Over in the medical bay, Annabeth sat clutching Percy's hand. She had dismissed the doctor after she had confirmed that Percy was stable for the moment, and until they reached the station there was nothing more they could do than hope he was strong enough to get through it.

At first she just stared at him, an almost angry expression on her face. But slowly her resolve cracked. Tears built up, before they burst through and streamed down her face. She dropped her knees, burying her face into his chest as she sobbed.

She was the commander. What good was she? She was supposed to be the one to save everyone, and she couldn't even save her partner. Percy was straddling life and death, just because her arrogance had rushed them into danger. If... When Percy pulled through, she was never going to make that mistake again. She would never put her crew in danger because of her pride. She refused to see him like this ever again.

“Just wake up, seaweed brain.” she said gently.

But for weeks, he didn't. They had reached the station, and Annabeth had gotten him the best medical attention in existence. She had thrown the full weight of her name, title, position, and wealth into ensuring Percy got the care to survive. The rest was on him. No matter what she did, it was up to him to pull through it. The tosses had caused more damage internally than she had thought.

Taking care of their commander had become her crew's main job. Convincing her to leave Percy's side had been a battle every time, even if just to shower and eat. She slept at his side, refusing to be away from him when he woke up. Piper had needed to sit down and have a serious talk with her to convince her to take care of herself, explaining that if she let herself go to waste while waiting on Percy, when he woke up he would only be worried for her. That had gotten through to her, and at least help her take mild care of herself.

Annabeth had began to worry the crew. They had seen her at the top. The control and strength she showed when she had ordered Protocol: Athena. Now, here she was, broken and worried at a bedside. They had never seen the proud warrior so broken, never mind the fact her usually powerful boyfriend was actually broken in a bed.

An official had shown up, and suggested that they abandon Percy, saying they had other missions to go on. He could recovery here while she left.

The official was currently recovering in the room a few doors down, while Piper filled out the paper work to pay for the damages to the wall.

Eventually though, after another long desperate week, Percy woke up. A soft groan had heralded his return to consciousness, and a moment later a flash of blonde hair had entered his blurry vision.

“Percy? Percy it's me. Please. Please wake up.” Annabeth's voice was hoarse and desperate.

Blinking a few times, Percy struggled to sit up. “Anna... beth?” He asked weakly.

He felt warm arms wrap around him as Annabeth hugged him tightly, tears staining his shirt as she openly sobbed into him. “Thank God, you woke up. You woke up.” She repeated over and over.

“Miss me?” Percy asked weakly.

Normally Annabeth would have either laughed, or punched him in the arm, but at the moment she just nodded and continued to cry with relief into his shoulder. “I'm so mad at you.” She muttered out through her tears of joy.

A little while later the rest of the crew poured in, saying their greetings and expressing their relief Percy was back with them. Piper had explained the state Annabeth had been in while he was out, which only left Percy with a sense of guilt.

Eventually though, the rest of the crew left for dinner while Annabeth hung around, unwilling to be separated from him at the moment.

They sat in silence, holding hands.

“I'm mad at you, you know that?”

Percy let out a hoarse laugh. “I guessed.”

“You can't do that to me.” Annabeth said softly. “You almost died.” Her voice cracked in the second part.

“I'd do it again in a heartbeat.” He said, not missing a beat.

Annabeth glared at him, before it softened. “Don't say that. I can't... I can't go through almost losing you again.” She muttered.

Percy was disarmed by her tone. It was a far cry from her usual confident tone. All the playfulness was missing as she spoke somberly.

Reaching up with his good arm, he hugged her gently. “I'm sorry Wise Girl. I did what I had to do, you would have done the same.”

Annabeth nodded after a moment. It was true. “Then let's promise to stop doing that, okay?”

Percy nodded. “Deal.”

“I'm glad you're back Seaweed brain.”

XxXxXxXxX

A few weeks later, and Percy was completely released from the hospital. It had been a combination of a miracle, and the fact Annabeth had overdone it with the medical attention she had gotten him, but he was going to make a full recovery. Still, he had to take it easy and ease back into his routine. His body had gotten weak from weeks of rest, and had to work back up to his prime condition. A task Annabeth had decided to personally manage. Percy didn't have to worry about managing his condition, since Annabeth had perfectly planned out his daily routine to get him as healthy as soon as physically possible.

The crew had noticed another change in Annabeth since Percy had been released. Normally Commander Chase had always been shy about PDA. Despite everyone know she was happily in a relationship with Percy, she had always been a bit secretive with it, electing to be more professional most of the time. However, she had practically been glued to his side now.

They slept in the same room now. An occurrence that previously would have incited an endless amount of teasing, now happened unremarked on. It wasn't unusual to see Percy and Annabeth emerge together in the morning.

Annabeth also was constantly touching Percy in some way. Whether holding hands, a hand around his waist, or even just leaning into him, she was constantly in contact with him. As if to just assure herself that he was in fact alive and next to her. Even when they went out, she remained a bit more attached to him. It had drawn some curious gazes to see the proud Commander Chase hanging off the arm of her partner, even if it was the worst kept secret in the galaxy that Commander Chase was dating her crew member Percy Jackson.

Even now it was obvious she was still recovering from almost losing him. The pair had recently finished Percy's physical therapy for the day and were resting. Annabeth was resting on the couch, her book abandoned on the arm rest. Percy was laying across the couch, resting his head on her stomach, asleep. Annabeth was softly playing with his hair, smiling down at him. She knew they still had plenty missions left to go on. There was much to do in the galaxy, and that wasn't the last time they'd be shot at and find themselves in life-threatening situations. But she promised she wouldn't take it for granted anymore. She would enjoy every moment she could with both Percy and her friends.

That's why she was perfectly content laying on the couch with him. She had pointedly ignored the snickering and pictures being taken by Piper as she saw the pair.

Eventually Percy had woken up from his little nap, and apologized for drooling slightly on her hoodie. Annabeth had just smiled, reminding him that it was actually his that she had borrowed. Percy stood up and reached up, stretching his back before he gasped and winced. That motion was still a bit sore for him.

Annabeth stood up behind him, her arms wrapping around him as she hugged him tightly. She knew it wouldn't fix the injuries, but hopefully it would make him feel at least a little more at ease. Percy certainly enjoyed it. After a moment his stomach rumbled, and he felt Annabeth chuckle against his back. “Hungry?”

“A little.” He admitted.

Annabeth stepped from around him, grabbing his hand. “Let's get lunch then.” She chirped happily, leading her grinning boyfriend out. Her boyfriend was on the mend, and when he was back in shape they would set sail. But all that could wait, right now she had a date to go on after all.

#Pjo mass effect AU #percabeth #percy jackson #annabeth chase #my otp #These two man #This AU is also fun #WHEN I IGNORE ALL THE ANGST MEG THROWS INTO IT #ANGST DOESNT EXIST IN MY BLOG #SHHHH #ONLY HURT COMFORT

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jflashandclash · 7 years

Text

Attrition of Peace

WARNINGS: This novel will contain Swearing, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Death of a Main Character, Vulgar and Dark Humor, Adorable Weasels, and a healthy dose of Random Shirtless People.

Jack’s Note: Looky at who gets an early release on tumblr? ;P

One: Percy

The Triumvirate of Awesome is Back in Action… to Climb Some Stairs

After climbing the 360th step of a Mesoamerican temple, Percy decided something: if the Mayans were so smart, they should have invented the elevator. He may have been a demigod with super strength and endurance, but he figured he deserved a lift after saving the world a couple dozen times.

At least it was a beautiful day to die from exhaustion. There was a warm breeze drifting in from the San Francisco Bay, keeping the December air comfortable… unlike the freezing chill they left in his hometown, Manhattan. He had half a mind to travel to Canada to punch Boreas in the face and demand summer back. But the God of Winter probably wouldn’t take kindly to some surprise sock ‘em bop ‘em from a rogue demigod.

As they approached the boxlike top of the temple, Percy was impressed Annabeth wasn’t winded, especially since she hadn’t stopped talking since they got to Berkeley Hills. She was too giddy about the architecture.

The mortals walking by on their lunch breaks must have thought she was crazy, gesturing towards a supposed warehouse and talking about Mayan stelea. However, it was California. They might have just thought she was an art student.

Mortals had a hard time seeing through the Mist, a magical camouflage that kept them from panicking every time a wild minotaur grazed through their backyard. While those mortals might have thought his blonde, grey-eyed girlfriend was crazy, he thought she was wonderful.

Annabeth kept a few paces ahead of him the whole time, going on about the nine tiers in the temple, the jaws of Xibalba, and something about corn. He wasn’t sure he’d heard that last one right.

As much as Percy hated climbing this temple, he had to give it a fair chance. Anything that made Annabeth smile like that and made the sunlight sparkle along the curls of her ponytail was worth giving a fair chance. Except homework. Especially when she tricked him into thinking they were doing something fun outside and “fun” really meant “study session.”

At the last tier of the temple, they were greeted with a familiar face.

“You two are so slow,” Grover said. He had his hands on his hips. He tried to smile about getting to the top first, but his lips twitched with worry. His horns—oh yea, Grover was a satyr and had horns—peeked out of his curly brown hair, casting shadows on his goatee. He wore a Rastafarian hat and a shirt that said Pick Flowers, Not Fights, though Percy was pretty sure the nymphs said that was the same thing.

Annabeth gave Grover a half-grin. “We’re not exactly built for climbing mountains like you are.”

“Not without proper snacks,” Percy agreed. “Do you think you can magic us up some blueberries and a coke with your reed pipes?”

Grover sighed and touched the instrument in his pocket. “I wish. A tin can does sound delicious right now. But we shouldn’t relax here. That new grove is under our feet and Rosen was right—it feels weird.”

Some of the nature spirits in the area—or traveling to the area in Rosen’s case—had reported sensing a new grove. Normally, Percy might shrug it off, but he’d seen how dangerous trees could be. Both in the Battle of Manhattan and one of the times he ticked off a Camp Half-Blood nymph named Olive. She could throw a platter of brisket with precision.

Along with his dislike of getting whacked in the head with dinner trays, the nature spirits said there was another reason to investigate this grove. They sensed it sprouted up overnight about three weeks ago. Around the same time the seven new members from Camp Half-Blood had gone missing.

Chiron, their camp counselor, thought it must be connected. Plus, a friend of one of the missing campers, a child of Hephaestus named Mathias, put a tracker in their Donkeymobile—yea, Percy didn’t ask about that part of the story—and the last coordinates before it broke were located here.

Percy took a deep breath. He was going to have nightmares of climbing stairs for weeks. “Lead on Goat Boy.” He motioned Grover towards a rectangular window in this tier. It must have been some kind of dome that dropped into the room below.

“Ba!” Grover bleated. “I’m not going down first. What if there’s another jaguar? That girl bullied me!”

For being a Lord of the Wild, Grover was surprisingly startled by the animal they met by the caved-in front entrance. Percy thought he might have been acting overdramatic. Juana—the jaguar’s name according to Grover—had only tried to rip out Percy’s throat once before Grover gave her the satyrs sanctuary blessing and released her into Berkeley Hills.

Don’t worry. It wasn’t the first time they’d released a wild animal into the city. Last time it was a lion in Las Vegas and that seemed to work out okay for the locals.

Annabeth strode past Grover. She took off her backpack and fished a grappling hook out. After testing one of the rocks on the edge of the window, she hooked it on and tossed a rope into the opening.

“Are you two coming along or are you going to have a picnic up here?”

If Percy ever forgot he loved Annabeth—which he couldn’t, even with godly intervention—he’d remember after seconds of watching her. She looked awesome while disappearing into the void.

But after his moment of awe, he had a moment of panic. He scrambled to the edge to make sure her descent was steady, controlled, and had an end to it.

Annabeth gripped the rope to pause, glanced up, and gave him a gentle smile. “It’s okay, Seaweed Brain,” she said shakily.

He tapped his pen and nodded for her to continue. “Be safe, Wise Girl.”

They both hated falling now. Even the rock and lava wall at Camp Half-Blood sometimes made him hesitate, and he could forget any of Jason’s “free fall” tricks that the son of Zeus occasionally did if the younger campers begged him long enough.

That past summer, Percy and Annabeth had an unfortunate vacation to Tartarus, complete with complimentary monsters, a continental breakfast composed of fire river, and angry gods. The whole thing had started with a fall into darkness.

Let’s just say Percy was happy when he heard Annabeth’s feet hit the floor below and he calculated it to be the specific distance of not-very-far.

Percy slid down seconds after.

Weird is the word all the nature spirits used. Creepy is what Percy would call this place. But at least it was no Tartarus.

There wasn’t any light in the room, only the dim rays that crept down from the rectangular ceiling dome. The temperature dropped at least twenty degrees, way colder than it should have been, even with those openings. Other than his feet brushing against the stone floor, the room was unearthly silent, like the descent had shifted them out of a busy metropolitan town and into the middle of the woods. As a New Yorker, he found it a crime against nature if he couldn’t hear at least one car horn every ten minutes.

They’d landed on a fallen tree. Percy had always found the California decoration style a little hippie, but he’d have to ask the Romans about fallen foliage decor. Annabeth had already stepped off the tree, narrowly avoiding some kind of pit buried underneath the rotting branches.

There were a lot of other trees. Again with the new age décor. A dozen of them were clustered against the far wall, around a long oak table and a smaller one beside it. Those and the upturned chairs around them looked like they’d been abandoned for years, not weeks. The branches of the trees smashed up to the lower portion of the ceiling, seeming to support it more than the walls themselves.

On the other side of the room, there was a throne made from bones. Percy wanted to groan. He hated thrones made from bones. They usually entailed some jerk who thought those kind of thrones were the best way to pick up ladies and henchmen. Percy really needed to ask his friend Piper, a daughter of Aphrodite, to give seminars on The Myths of Being a Villain to dispel such nonsense.

Dust trickled through the little light they had. The corners were completely dark. He’d have to warn Grover that mean jaguars could be lurking anywhere.

As Percy went to check out the throne and Annabeth went to investigate the tables, Grover crashed from the roof opening into the fallen tree. Hooves: great for climbing temples, not for scaling ropes.

There was a single portrait on the wall to the side of the throne, in between some extinguished torches. Percy went to take a closer look as Grover clopped up behind him.

“Oooh! Percy! This isn’t good. These trees don’t feel natural,” he said.

Percy had been trying to calculate exactly how long it took Grover to eat furniture when he got nervous. Now would be a good time to start counting.

“Aren’t all trees natural?” Annabeth mused.

Grover whined, “You know what I mean!”

Percy wanted to tease him, but he knew what Grover meant. Maybe it was their empathy link, but Percy could tell these trees were more the Die Intruder! type.

Once Percy got close enough, he realized the picture on the wall was a family portrait: a father and five children. Percy couldn’t imagine that big a family. He only had one infant sister and he was still trying to figure out the big brother thing. Although anyone forced into a photography studio had a right to look unhappy, these smiles looked particularly fake. There was something else a little weird about the photo. All the children seemed to be different ethnicities from the Hispanic father, except one: Ajax Pax. One of the campers who went missing.

Percy had only seen the unclaimed kid a few times—mostly while Ajax… or did he go by Pax? But mostly while Pax was helping the Stoll brothers terrorize the Ares cabin. That earned him a gold star in Percy’s book.

Another missing camper was in the photo beside the Stoll minion: Axel Pax, Ajax’s older half-brother. Annabeth and he suspected they were ex-members of Kronos’s army. But their group had convened and decided: just because the Pax brothers tried to destroy all of Western culture, didn’t mean they didn’t deserve a second chance.

Percy didn’t recognize the other children or the father, but something felt off about the photo.

“I found something!” Annabeth called.

He and Grover stepped, and clopped (respectively,) back towards the oak table and whatever Annabeth had there.

As they passed the fallen tree, Percy felt something crunch under his shoe.

He withdrew his foot to find a human jaw bone. Great. Exactly what he needed. More bones. He’d stepped on bones before, but that didn’t mean he was excited about it.

“Di Immortalis!” Grover cried. “That looks like a satyr’s jawbone!”

Percy wanted to argue, but realized he didn’t actually know the difference between satyr and human dentistry and didn’t care to learn. After a quick scan of the room, he could tell there were bones littered around the grove, like the world’s most unnerving fallen leaves.

“Let’s stay away from the man eating trees?” Percy suggested, giving this one a wide birth the rest of the way to Annabeth. Yea, they’d landed on it, but maybe that meant it would have a taste for some demigod milkshake and a satyr salad, since satyrs were probably on the healthier side of things for monsters trying to watch their figure.

When Percy got to Annabeth’s side, she was flipping through a notebook with one hand and holding her iPhone up with the other. There was another smartphone on the table, though that one was an older model. The screen was locked, presenting a number pad for password entry.

“Did you find out this grove was into ancient technology?” Percy asked. “What model is this? The Clunky Brick 9,000? I’ll bet it can’t Snapchat.”

“I don’t think the trees are interested in Snapchatting, Percy,” Annabeth said as she flipped to the front of the notebook.

Percy gave Grover a grin. “I don’t know. I think some nymphs are pretty into it.”

Grover’s face went bright red. “Percy! You promised never to talk about that!”

And the Stoll brothers had promised never to steal anyone’s phone again, print out conversations and embarrassing images, and hang them all over the forest, but Percy could guarantee they would repeat the actions faster than you could cry, “For Hermes!”

Percy grinned and wrapped an arm around Annabeth’s shoulder. “So, what did you find?”

The journal in her hands was covered with vertical columns depicting birds, odd half-circles, and tiny people. With Percy’s dyslexia, he was lucky if he could read English, let alone other languages. He wasn’t well versed in Avian Script, but he recognized it from one of their friends.

“It’s a journal in Egyptian. I think this first page has the number code for this phone. I recognize them as numbers, but I can’t remember what they mean.” Her brow furrowed. She sighed and shrugged. “I sent a picture over to Sadie to see if she can give us a general idea what this is.”

“Is Sadie someone who works at your dad’s university?” Grover asked.

Both Annabeth and Percy bit back smiles. They’d promised to keep the Greeks half-bloods and Egyptian magicians separate, but they’d have to let Grover in on it at some point.

“No,” Annabeth said calmly. “She’s a friend.”

“Who… reads Egyptian?” Grover asked skeptically.

“Let’s just say she was born with it,” Annabeth said.

“If we’re going to be waiting for a translation, I guess that means we’ll be missing that tour group. Darn,” Percy said.

That was the real reason they went to Cali. Yea, Chiron needed someone to look into the missing campers, but—as soon as the child of Hephaestus pinpointed it to Berkeley—Annabeth and Percy were the natural pick.

They were supposed to be doing a tour of the University of New Rome. But you know how it is when you’re a demigod, Percy thought. One minute you’re on a bus to try some cafeteria cheese and wieners and the next minute you’re looking at an Egyptian journal in a Mayan temple, searching for Greek half-bloods. He was just shocked he hadn’t almost died yet. The jaguar didn’t count.

Normally, Percy would have been excited to visit his friends in New Rome. But Reyna had assured Annabeth that the University wouldn’t take Percy unless he actually passed his exams. No slack for saving the world or anything like that.

Fortunately, Rome did their test in Latin, to decrease dyslexia problems, but it didn’t come as naturally to him as Ancient Greek did. Strangely, a lot of Romans didn’t want their entrance exam translated into Camp Half-Blood’s home tongue. Something about not wanting “that Greek life” on their campus.

He wanted to study and do well. It made Annabeth and his mom happy. But it could also make a guy wanna scream when the excuse, “but monsters ate my homework” didn’t work.

Annabeth scowled at him. “Percy,” she snapped in a voice that said she wouldn’t bring him a surprise blue Slurpee after his next swim meet. She knew how to wait for it to hurt the most.

Fortunately, that’s when Annabeth’s phone pinged back.

In proper Sadie fashion, the girl had attached a picture of her brother, Carter Kane, with a shabti attacking his hair. Shabti were little people made out of clay… yea, Percy thought they were weird too. But Percy could totally see her using clay people for sibling warfare. If they ever found Leo, one of Percy’s good friends, he’d have to introduce the two. Leo would fall head over heels.

Percy tried not to frown at the thought of Leo as Annabeth punched in the number code. Leo had gone missing after the war against Gaea. Gone missing, Percy thought. Not dead.

“Sadie says it’s some kind of tracking journal on two people named Wheel and Peace,” Annabeth reported, a slight grin forming at the edge of her lips. The picture must have distracted her from her prior irritation. Percy would owe Sadie a stick of gum.

Annabeth punched in the numbers for the phone.

“Axel and Pax,” Percy said. He might not have been as smart as Annabeth, but he could figure out the basics.

“So, this grove does have to do with the missing campers,” Grover said. He nibbled nervously at the ends of his shirt. His eyes darted around the ominous trees. “That’s great, but can we learn more about them outside? These trees make me anxious.”

Normally, Percy might point out that everything made Grover anxious, but he did have a particular dislike for places that felt underground. And apparently for unfriendly foliage.

“Oh my gods! Percy!” Annabeth shouted and grabbed his arm.

Percy gripped the fountain pen in his pocket, scanning the room for what Annabeth saw. “What?!”

“The video—there’s two of them—this can’t be a fake—it looks like it’s—”

Percy glanced down at the old phone’s screen. His eyes widened. “That’s Leo! He’s alive!”

Sure enough, on the tiny, unlocked phone screen, Percy could make out the unmistakable elfish features of their Latino friend. As per usual, the son of Hephaestus was dusted with soot and in workman’s clothing. Unlike usual, his face was twisted in a grimace. He looked exhausted and worried in the freeze frame. There was some kind of sword half-slipping out of a beach towel in his hands.

“Where is he? Do you think—”

“Let’s see,” she cut him off.

Annabeth pressed play eagerly.

Leo took several steps diagonally away from the camera, towards a forge in the distance. He looked like he was shouting angrily over his shoulder, but there was no sound from the video. A person clad head to toe in a silver mesh suit rapidly approached him from behind. The scene felt bizarre and made Percy want to shout out, “Look out, Leo! You’re about to be attacked by the Tin Man!”

But the next part wasn’t funny. The silver figure wrapped an arm around Leo’s neck, picking him up in a chokehold. Although Percy wasn’t sure from the awkward angle, the figure seemed to break the hand Leo had on the sword.

The image went white as Leo erupted into flames. That part wasn’t the scary part. Leo had a tendency to explode into hot stuff. Really, Percy figured that would be the end of the video, with a so long to that sucker to the man in silver.

But as the flames died down, Leo wasn’t the one left standing.

The camera trembled and blurred. When it came back into focus, some other girl knelt beside Leo. The silvery figure appeared unmarred beside her and Leo. He’d taken off his jump suit, revealing the stoic face of Axel Pax.

Rage boiled inside Percy. He’d trusted that ex-Kronos jerk and his slimy little brother. He and Annabeth had defended their right to Camp Half-Blood. Hades, he’d even told Connor to sneak in some proper Coca-Cola for them and you never scorned fresh, outside Coca-Cola.

By this point, Grover had nibbled off the bottom corner of his shirt.

Annabeth’s lips were pressed in a firm line as the image froze on the three.

Over his time as hero, Percy had heard some pretty creative cusswords from Coach Hedge, various gods, and unsettled guidance counselors. He was about to combine them all. “That—”

“There’s another one,” Annabeth cut him off. She flicked the image away to pull up another video.

Leo wasn’t in this one. Neither was Axel, or if he was, he was intermixed with a party of people. At first glance, Percy thought it was some kind of celebration at a banquet hall. When Percy noticed the particular bone throne, he realized this was security surveillance footage from the room they were standing in, pre-killer grove. The camera must have been somewhere above the bone throne.

In the video, there was a fire pit—where the fallen tree was now—roaring with turquoise flames. Since that was the only lighting and the angle was awkward, Percy couldn’t make out much more than the dim figures of party guests at the tables, where he, Annabeth, and Grover were standing now.

Facing away from the camera, there was a man in a suit standing by the fire pit, leaning heavily on a cane. Before him were three figures. Without any motion from Annabeth, the image zoomed. Despite the pixilation, Percy could make out the faces of three of their missing campers: Kalypso Cassand, daughter of Apollo, Euna Song, daughter of Demeter, and the slimy dirt bag, Ajax Pax, who had yet to be claimed.

They were all armed, looking ready to attack the seemingly feeble man; though, Percy had learned that seemingly feeble men could be shockingly spry. Then he noticed the weapon in the daughter of Demeter’s hands. One of Percy’s old scars burned.

“That’s Backbiter!” he cried.

“They must have tricked Leo into reforging it,” Annabeth said.

“Oh! I don’t like this,” Grover moaned, halfway through eating his shirt now.

The image zoomed back out. As it did, the daughter of Demeter raised Kronos’s scythe and the room devolved into chaos. Sound kicked in, startling all three of them.

Screams. They were quiet in the recording, but at least a dozen people wailed in agony. Percy felt his mouth drop as tree saplings burst through the guests’ chests, shoulders, and heads.

The man with the cane was the worst. The others were out of focus and darkened in the background. The man was closer, in fancy HD that Percy didn’t want, so he could see the man tear leaves from his face.

When Euna Song slammed the scythe into the ground, a walnut tree exploded into existence, growing out from inside him and literally tearing the man limb from limb.

Once done, the video stopped and the smartphone shut down.

Annabeth, Percy, and Grover stared at the blank screen.

Annabeth tried to restart the phone. “I’ve never seen a child of Demeter do something like that before,” she whispered. Her voice shook.

The smartphone wouldn’t turn back on. Percy had a feeling it never would. He hoped not. Regardless of why Annabeth would want to rewatch that, he never wanted to see that extended version of Planet Earth again.

“They—they can’t,” Grover stuttered. “That was some expert level nature magic. She shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

Percy had to admit, he’d seen Grover do some amazing things, but he’d never seen him grow so many trees at once, out of people no less.

“They tricked Leo into reforging Kronos’s scythe, and attacked him,” Annabeth muttered to herself. She tapped her finger against the Egyptian notebook, probably mad each tap didn’t give her another clue.

Percy stared at the trees. They were once people. Not monsters. Probably not even demigods. “And recycled a bunch of people into compost for trees,” he finished summarizing.

“But why?” Annabeth said. She stood up and shook her head. “This doesn’t add up.”

He, Grover, and Annabeth exchanged a glance. Percy gripped his fountain pen. “I don’t know what they’re up to,” he said. “But we need to find the new Seven and stop them before they hurt anyone else.”

Thanks for reading the first chapter of Attrition of Peace, the third volume in the Traitors of Olympus series! For those of you who are new readers, welcome! To those of you that are my veterans and put up with all of my nonsense, welcome back! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will continue the adventure with me, the Heroes of Olympus, and the "traitorous" seven!

I normally only update once a week but there's going to be a double release this weekend with Leo's Chapter: Movie Night is On Me. I hope you stay tuned!

#Traitors of Olympus #fanfiction #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Percy Jackson #Percy #Heroes of Olympus #annabeth chase #Grover underwood #Annabeth #Grover #writing #HAHA! I'm bbbbaccckkk!!! XD #How you like that pov tho?

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storiesof2018 · 6 years

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Sea Dive

Bucky panted heavily, his lungs aching as they took in precious oxygen that his brain needed to keep him focused. The world was a blur of washed colors as the sun shifted closer to twilight. The cawing of seagulls echoed in the winds, while the raging tides roared against the shores of the beach he had taken himself to. The muddy relic in his arms was held tight against his chest, the prize and summation of his agonizing trip into the underwater cave beneath the island he stood on. He would always think twice now about ocean trenches whenever he took a swim in hopes of finding lost treasure. The greatest treasure in the world was in his grasp and now, all he had to do was deliver it to the sea mage that had bargained for it. Despite how tired he felt, how heavy his wet clothes made him feel, he slowly crawled his way onto the rocks on the beach. He was thankfully for the flat surface that made a bed for him to lie on.

“I did it…I really did it.” He chuckled heartily at his victory. There was a time when his thoughts would’ve been consumed with the idea of a lot of cash falling into his hands for such a discovery. Now, the only reward he could fathom and want was in the form of a elf-like beauty with mahogany colored locks and eyes, as brown as sweet chocolate, and a fin made of scaled sapphires. “Selina…” He whispered out to her, his tired gaze focusing in on the shores and watching as a shapely form began to swim its way towards him.

Propelling herself with deft grace in her fueled momentum against the undercurrents that rushed over the sleekness of her alabaster flesh; Selina advanced towards harboring shore that anchored her back to him, gleams of distant sunlight became captured in the roiling waves. Forthing eddies formed over the toned curves of her svelte waist as waves broke against her.

With every measured stroke of her arms, Selina reached closer, inexplicably drawn to the beckoning—visceral call of her name resonating achingly in the graveled huskiness of his deep timbre—desperation chased those rampant echoes. The lush swell of her crimson lips parted as salty water glazed over her tongue, as she arched her tail-fin beautifully high out of the fathoms, the incandescent scaled width eclipsed the delicate planes of her back, droplets cascading tantalizingly over feminine curves and the material of her light-blue sports bra in alluring contrast—truly a siren incarnate of the sea.

Standing impassively on the edge of the shore with steeled resilence, Bucky grounded his footing, his gray cargo shorts that fitted dangerously over thickened ridges and corded-muscles of the solid length of his thighs were drenched. His wary countenance was a stark variant of the daunting-wolfish menace of her beast machine; under the shadowing brim of his baseball cap, the hard-edge planes of his hawkish features were set into a telltale grimace, conveying infinite heartache he stubbornly leashed back. He appeared desirous-crestfallen to the potency of his unslaked desire of caging her into the passionate embrace of his shielding arms, holding her until the rise of daybreak. It was the inexorable division of their world-the cadence of their souls raged for closeness while the elements of the morphic curse towed her away from him.

Breaching the shallow end of the shore, her jeweled coffee irises clashed with his grayish-aquamarine as their gazes mirrored tellingly in flash of raw -irrepressible heat through his lengthy dark tresses webbed askew over the heaviness of his stubble jaw-they couldn’t wait any longer. Letting a seize of desire ride through her veins, Selina quickly braced her lithesome form against a rock’s smooth edge, temptingly challenging him to chase her in the shushing waves. “Are you coming to join me, handsome…” she purred sultrily, arching her back to expose the slight graven planes of her delectable, curvaceous waist that shimmered with a matrix of incandescent turquoise scales. “Come on, Barnes, don’t be shy…”

“Selina…” A joyous grin spread across Bucky’s lips and his eyes lit up like stars as he set his gaze on the radiant beauty he’d been searching for. Life had become much brighter since the day they first met. His love for discovering lost treasures had become second now that he’d found the one thing in life he thought would always elude him. It was a frightening thought, one he scarcely allowed himself to think over, but with the sea angel that wait for him by the shore, it was a risk he felt worth taking. “Its so good to see you,” he said as he brought himself to roll off the rock he’d been laying on. His body ached but he felt the short rest had abundantly refueled his strength as he pushed his way across the sandy path until he could feel the cool water sloshing against his n*** ankles.

The relic in his arms was set aside and he threaded loose strands from his temple. Slowly he sank to his knees beside the mermaid whose tail-fin rested in the waters. Silence hung in the air as they openly gazed at each other, warmth and wonder sparkling in their eyes, yet a small frown pinched Bucky’s brow as he remembered. “Where’ve you been? I called for you, I waited here for the past few days…You didn’t come.”

Guardingly her measures of restraint were balancing razor wire, as she quelled down a reactive throb knifing through her heart. The naked intensity of his grayish-aquamarine irises didn’t waver; raw heat of unshed tears was potent in throes of his anguished depths. The gravity of their harbored-unconquerable devotion seemed to be steeping with every new horizon-Bucky looked definitely vulnerable as he stood impassively on the shore’s porous edge, as the resurge of untamed hope feverishly seized his veins. With a deft stroke of her lithe palm, she grudgingly traced over the mass of scales that had melded into a tail-fin, repulsed by the physical absence of her alabaster toned legs.“Sorry for letting you down, handsome,” she finally returned, her gritted undertone hitching against a vehement seethe.“ I’m trying to figure all this out…” She lifted her hand out of water in a quick splash, gesturing to her cursive deformation. “I guess adapting to the damn water is all I have left and it’s not very thrilling…”

“Somehow I think I can imagine that,” he responded with a dry chuckle as she took in his soaked clothes and exhausted state. Inwardly, Bucky knew he couldn’t begin to understand what she was going through ever since this ordeal began to her—for both of them. What should’ve been a fun and generous vacation in Greece weeks ago had become a life-changing experience that saw them both forced to separate. The curse that enveloped her turned her into a creature that till now only existed in mythical texts and stories. Selina, his Selina, was a mermaid. A damn beautiful one at that, but unlike fairy tales, this wasn’t a happy outcome for either of them as he, her still very much human lover, could do nothing but stand on the sidelines and search hopelessly for a way to restore her.

Though they were divided by their place of habitat, their love kept them devoted and Bucky was determined to make it possible for them to be together again, as humans or merpeople.

“I know this hasn’t been easy for you, darlin’,” he said as he reached out to take her pale hand into his own. Oddly enough, her skin felt warm despite the fact she swam through the cold water more often than himself. He kissed the inside of her palm as she raised it to cup his face. He felt the warmth pouring off of her, calming his restless nerves so that he could continue. “It hasn’t been easy for me either, but you taught me that only the biggest score is worth fighting for.” Shifting on his knees, he reached over for the relic he’d recovered and brought it towards them. “Whether this works or not, I want you to know it won’t change a thing about how I feel about you.”

The last sconces of twilight gleamed over the steadiness of the water, captured in the fathoms as if liquid gold was being poured; with a shaky flex of her gliding thumb, she possessively traced over the full-bow of his sensuously wide lips, a phantom caress that seized his pulse, without a visage of hesitance stalling his restoked control, Bucky fiercely clasped his metallic fingers around her delicate wrist, as his arching lips bruised heady pressure over her knuckles, urgently tasting the saltiness of her pearlescent flesh, anchoring her to stay in his desperate reach. Within dueling seconds of lucidity, she became immobilized by the innate cadence of their nearing bodies, his supping lips slid feather-light over the edge of her curved palm while his teeth shivery grazed against ragged pants. “Buck-” She murmured breathlessly, closing her eyes to infinitely feel the aching reverence of his grounded devotion.

The huskiness of her voice delivered in a soothing whisper sent a pleasant shiver through Bucky’s body. His eyes closed slightly, taking in her unique scent of seaweed and jasmine that made everything feel fresh and savory. Her skin was like a warm blanket he was drawn to and he hopelessly wanted to be enveloped in her embrace. Time had stretched in the weeks since they had last been intimate, which made it seem more like months. The desperation and direness of their predicament made every moment restless and he couldn’t take the time to openly appreciate just how beautiful she was—as a woman, and a mermaid. His eyes opening, he caught her brown orbs glowing in the twilight of the setting sun. Enriched and enchanting, he was drawn towards her like a moth to the flame.

“You’re so beautiful, Selina Kyle. So much sometimes it scares me,” he smirked to convey a form of levity to his honest words. One of his free-hands held her hand in his while the other tender caressed her scaly hip. It was a mesmerizing experience as he felt the texture of her fin that reminded him of cool metal. The sapphire color blended with the water and yet somehow, appeared even more magical as the sun sank deeper into the horizon. Words failed him as he contemplated how to voice his approval of her new form, but the smoldering look in his eyes was enough of an indicator as he noted Selina looking at him with equal fervor. “You make one heckuva mermaid.” The distance between their lips slowly decreased, the tension of their intimate reunion was like a storm building and it would take only a slow tentative brush for lightning to crackle.

“Careful Barnes, don’t forget I can race with the sharks,” Selina quipped snarkily, her clashing senses raged to become abandoned at the space of heartbeat as she felt the virile softness of his edging lips increasingly ghost shivery heat over her angled jaw; she was blindingly falling back into the shushing waves, as he braced his bulked weight on his tauten forearms, aligning the length of his muscled calves with her tail-fin. A murmurous growl tantalizingly resonated from his depths-she was aware of his telltale surrender, feeling the extent of his unsated hunger readying to capture her lips with driving force of pure, unrepented heat. Nothing ebbed. She welcomed the delirious contrast of the cool water and the corded planes of his thickened chest shadowing fractionally over the ample swells of her garbed breasts. His metallic fingers drifted over the rigid scales, embracingly feeling the shifting mass that he would soon be weighed down with.

“Guess that makes me a lucky seal, huh,” he breathy quipped. And with that, his lips found hers at last, warm and fulfilling like entering a warm bed at home. It was soft and sweet at first, like two adolescents who were playfully exploring new territory, before it quickly grew heated. Breaths intermingled, minty and cool, lips feverishly hot as a dizzying passion overcame them. Their lips danced and overlapped in a familiar cadence that brought them closer together. Hands reached out and explored the planes of each other’s arms, shoulders and hair. Bucky smiled between their amorous exchange, boyish and full of life as he brought the mermaid into his lap. “C'mere.” He murmured. The added weight of her fin was oddly comfortable as he hugged her close and dipped her into another.

Shockingly the ardent urgency of his recapturing lips surged headier with every smooth thrust of his bristled jaw, there was no ease against warring tension between them, only a breakneck abandon that ignited a visceral beckoning as their swelled lips melded with throbbing paces challenge. The shifting glide of his robotic hand caressingly traced the sapphire-translucent fins-gracing the curvaceous mass, keeping her steady with intimate ease against the undercurrents stream-lining over them.

A breathless rush of pure heat solidified under the supplely cushioned pressure of his opened mouth as she intoxicatingly mirrored that heady pulse; starved desire was insatiably escalating with additive ferocity echoing with his throaty groans that chased her heartbeat.

Each rapturous tenor increasingly altered in unison, they became caught into the edge of the deepening kiss, through that unrelenting promise, unerringly Selina clung to his steeled embrace, registering the full heaviness of her tail-fin shifting against the rigid contours of his washboard abdomen underneath a soaked black shirt. Her lithe palm splayed over the broad curves of his shoulder, threading drenched-bladed tresses of his wolfish mane draped over his clenched jaw.

Aware of the bestial resilence in his flexing muscles on the verge of being unleashed, her widened tail-fin arced out of the water in reactive poise, Selina inherently braced her elbow into the seaweed coated sand as she arched into the heavy planes of his thickened chest, with blinding precision, his metallic fingers kneaded ravenously with spearing glide through drenched whorls of luscious mahogany, he palmed reverently over her graceful nape; that shivery caress induced evocative hunger beyond core restraint against bone-deep wanting.

Knowing the full extent- the sorcerous price of his heart, Bucky lifted his head fractionally, brunette tresses feathered the knife-edge curve of his bristled jaw, the aqueous depth of his glacial irises gleamed alight, a silver flame edged his dilated pupils-intense masculine ardor. “S'it’s been so damn long, kotenok…” The graveled rawness of his murmurous timbre had challengingly impelled her.“Hell, doesn’t matter now, we’re gonna strike this out, Lina…”

She didn’t want to deny that she craved for release from the sea-bound thralls. Evocatively, she urged the fusing-rhythmic variances of their joined bodies to implode, emitting a guttural snarl that stole her breath, his shapely lips slanted bruisingly over her lavish mouth, hungrily, Bucky changed the angle of the kiss with quenchless demand as the fervent duel ensued-raging through stowed heartache. She needed to live for one finite moment with him until dawn inescapably beckoned her back as he anchored her with invincible strength.

For Bucky, it was as if nothing had changed and everything was as right as it should be. Nothing mattered except this blissful familiarity, this closeness and bond with the woman he loved and there was nothing that would separate them. As their ravenous cadence continued with breathless enthusiasm, they were both dimly unaware of a presence in the sea. The normal lapping waves were disturbed by a fluctuating mass swooshing against the currents, sending a ripple effect across the shores. Bucky could sense nothing amiss, but he could sense Selina tense up in his arms and slowly cease her passionate exchange. “Lina? What’s wrong?” He asked her worriedly as he noticed a pensive look on her fair features. He brushed a curly strand from his face and caressed her cheek.

A portent suddenly rushed over them, shifting in the muscle strength of his arms with conscious reaction, Selina felt a cacophonous wake ascending, the rhythmic pulse of the bashing waves became turbulently violent as her dark coffee irises widened at the lucid ripples of ink teemingly jetting towards the shallow end of the vacant shore. Alarmingly, a deafening screech careened in spastic volume as she watched a shadowing mass of a colossal appendage-a writhing tentacle arcing to seize them into a choke-hold. The scarred width was unmistakably infused with suction cups ominously thrust out of the ocean depths and viperously coiled back above them; the intent to ensnare them was apparent. The rampant leakage of sludgy, odorous ink was making her tail-fin laden, she became arrested from mobility-cemented down.

“Buck-” She gasped in a breathless, gurgling pitch, blindingly forcing her lithe palms to deliver urgent momentum over the harden swell of his chest; pushing him away from her. The rancid miasma of decaying fish pervaded her nose, as she involuntarily quelled down the accelerated urge to vomit. “Get out of here…”

A creeping chill had ran down Bucky’s back the instant he detected the extent of Selina’s distress. It happened in the span of seconds, before the experienced soldier could react. He felt a violent force wrap itself around his neck; enormous and reeking of dead fish, it effortlessly yanked him off the ground and drag him across the sand. A choking gasp barely escaped him, his blue eyes wide with both shock and pain coursing through him. Selina remained on the shore, one of her hands reaching towards him while crying his name. He couldn’t find the breath nor strength to respond, his free hands struggled to pry the large unknown thing from his neck that sickeningly reminded him of an octopus tentacle. His instincts screamed at him to reach for his concealed knife tucked into his waist belt.

The roaring of waves deafened and large splashes of water crashed over him, obscuring his vision while an unearthly moan came from the seas. Bucky wrenched his knife from his holster and stabbed at the tentacle holding his neck. A roar bellowed and he suddenly found himself thrown violently against a rock. White hot pain crushed into his shoulder, his breath was robbed from his lungs and the world spun in a suffocating blur. “Se…lina…” He groaned searching for her with a dazed expression.

“I find it so amusing that mortals of the shore decide to penetrate domains that should not be left untouched by their gluttonous hands…” A malicious resonance of a discarnate feminine tone piercingly clashed over the disturbed shoreline; while jackknifing his torso off a heap of mushy sand to catch a resurge of breath, Bucky desperately punctured the snaking mass with a harsh traction of his brandishing knife gouging into the blackened scales. Geysers of ink spurted out, drenching his chestnut tresses hanging askew over his bruised temple, as he gnashed his teeth against unwavering ferocity invested in his reactive stabbing while he was being roped down to choke on his breath. “The price of that intrusion will demand your worthless blood to purge my treasure…”

“Claire?” Bucky said with a confused glare towards what appeared to be a feminine shape standing near the shore across from him. Though he was in an immense amount of pain, Bucky wasn’t disoriented enough that he didn’t recognize that familiar voice. Once the blur in his vision had sharpened into a clear focus, he could see the older everything much clearer now. Ever horrifying detail entered the forefront of his mind as he watched the older woman who he had thought to be a benign marine biologist and arcane enthusiast, reveal her true form. From the sea’s she emerged on a small tide-wave that never diminished in its force. It carried her as if she were commanding it. Her blonde hair glowed like fire in the twilight yet her once pale skin had become an unnatural cold blue.

And her eyes, her eyes were what unsettled him most. No longer the bright blue that would’ve charmed the hearts of even younger men, but now an amber hue that spelled danger for whoever she set her gaze upon. And currently, to Bucky’s chagrin, they were directed right at him. “What the hell is this?!” He demanded, feeling a surge of anger and confusion as he considered everything he’d been through today and what this woman…creature, had manipulated him into doing.

The stark measure of utter disdain was reflective in Bucky’s glacial aquamarine irises blazed gleamingly with unshed tears; the urgent extent of heartbreak was betrayed by her impeded tactics of deception. His shapely lips hung widely agape as he forced up heaves of breath, the constant eeling pressure of the swatching tentacle bruising his throat, he was temporarily a reluctant hostage to his damn vulnerability- the unbidden hope of being infinitely reunited with his enchanted kitten. The gravity of the extraction mission was a simple task; he recklessly followed her directions to an underwater cavern and snatched up the forbidden relic-he’d blindingly walked the wire of devotion, and now he was about to plunge into soul-deep thralls of a reckless defeat-the steepening price he couldn’t evade.

“You poor diluted fool,” She grinned sneeringly. “I needed mortal hands to retrieve Poseidon’s little treasure since you were so desirous to change for that beautiful siren over there,” she gestured a hand measuringly to Selina. “Well you didn’t disappoint me, and I am content for that, dear James, so beholden I will grant your wish…You desire to live forever in the sea with her, to surrender your humanity to the fathoms, then open your mouth wide and give it all to me…”

As Bucky listened to the sea-witch’s ramble, he had an inkling sense of peril. The way she spoke reminded him too much of an arrogant and cruel Trickster who believed humanity were nothing more than ants to be stepped on. The sting of her lies and betrayal was like a concealed knife going for the back. Every impulse inside of him told him to retrieve his knife, take Selina and get far away. But it wasn’t an option. Even if he could fend off this woman—this siren—he couldn’t get Selina away from the water without endangering her, and he wouldn’t leave her here either. That much he knew. Despite the aches in his body, he squared himself into a straight posture. He met Selina’s gaze not too far from him and did his utmost to reassure her with a tight smile.

“I’m not givin’ you anything’, lady.” He said up at her defiantly. “Whatever your name is. Something tells me you didn’t have me go through all this trouble to retrieve a rusted piece of junk unless it was for something worth lying over. If you were really willing to hold up your end of the deal, you could’ve just been up front instead of playin’ me.” He pointed out with grave tone. His metal hand lifted the relic into the air and contemplated his options.

“Buck-” Selina railed out, breath exploded from her lungs; a wet glide of errant tears dripped feverishly down the smoothness of her alabaster cheeks, the putrid ink was slathering over the scaled expanse of her laden tail-fin; with a desperate effort as she pinched her eyes, quickly, she flipped onto the taut planes of her bare abdomen; relenting against the sorcerous grip that was trying to immobilize her. The sliding momentum in the variants of her movements became sluggish, gravity was against her. Bracing her elbows over discarded kelp, she became crushingly aware of the sea-witch’s true intent—Bucky was being pinned down into the inevitable crosshairs. “Handsome, don’t you dare sell out yourself to her…”

“Arghhh…” Exploded from Bucky’s gaping throat in deafening volume as breath felt threaded; with bruising force, he was mercilessly pinned against sand, remnants of kelp flitted in the humid breeze as his drenched chestnut tresses messily webbed over his paling, bristled cheeks. The whirring pulse of his cybertronic arm faded out, a writhing tentacle plowed the shoreline, leaving a trail of blackish ink that spawned a parasitic odor.

A vicious flash of malevolence eerily illuminated over the hawkishly chiseled planes of her flawless ivory features, the hollowed lines of her jutting cheekbones etched into a ghoulish semblance that bespoke a devoid of mercy; the amber blaze of her glowering irises searchingly fixed on the disinterred relic Bucky heft up in the rigid clutch of his cybertronic hand. Sacrilege energy pulsated off the eroded casing, tendrils of rust sifted, revealing a golden shine beneath.

The wake of a dark conjuring had begun, Clarion felt the untapped power bestirring to become wielded. It was time to indulge a harvest of gorging mortal vitality, to eradicate the rapacious parasites that infected the ocean realm. The relic was one of the five beacons to open a cosmic gateway—to unleash a hellstorm of that would ravage the mortal world apart.

At the present moment, Clarion needed to remove her compliant, roguishly handsome thief from existence. She would use his heart’s desire against him—chasten him forever into the worthless throes of an undeserving curse. With a swift gesture of her scaled hand, the black tentacle lessened throbbing pressure over Bucky’s throat, giving him a chance to breathe.“It seems I have underestimated the price of your love towards your beloved mermaid, release my relic and I will stake my offer and make your pathetic wish become a reality to mirror a new existence with her… Isn’t that what you want, James, to trade off your strong legs for a useless fin?” she offered, tauntingly.

Once he had been released, Bucky had falling into a fit of choking coughs as his lungs struggled desperately grasp onto the much needed oxygen they’d been deprived of. His ears rang wildly and a pounding in his skull alerted him to an increase in blood-pressure and stress. Despite it all, his gaze never broke away from the sea-witch and towards Selina not too far from him who looked on with mild disbelief. He knew he should’ve told her the truth about what he had planned in that his mission wasn’t solely to find a means to reverse the curse placed on her, but to put it on himself as well. She would’ve never gone along with it, he knew. But now that she knew, he could only surmise that she knew who Claire really was all along and whatever it was he’d agreed to was bad news.

But he didn’t care about that. He had a mission, and that was to make sure they could have a life together, as humans or as merpeople. Once he felt able enough to speak, he stood tall and faced the sea-witch with conviction. “That was the deal. I got your treasure, and now give me mine. Either give Selina her humanity back, or make me like her.”

A terse growl tamped up her throat, with leashed poise not to blight him into oblivion, Clarion became repulsively aware of the rigged depth of his telltale heartache; he desired for his humanity to recede into her thralls-to become a wretched creature of the sea because of unabandoned love. Allowing vehemence to feed her decision of acceding his wish, her lips arced dauntingly. “Alright, I shall grant your pitiful wish, James, you want to share the fathoms with her, then be human no more…”

For a moment, Bucky stood puzzled by the suddenness of her acceptance. Time and again, he wondered if he was making the right decision in the face of a monumental choice. In his original time, having Steve beside him helped him to not only see a positive, but to also to keep himself from making rash decisions in the face of emotion. Deep down, he knew the decision he was about to make was one born not out of logic and intuition, but pure emotion. He loved Selina, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to be with her again, as a man or a merman. Clarion in front of him had all the makings of a sinister villain, but he knew that to refuse her wouldn’t just ruin his chance at being with Selina again, but also make her an enemy that he couldn’t fight. Not like this.

“All right, I’ll give you want you want.” Bucky took cautious steps towards the sea-witch with the old jewelry case in hand that contained a necklace for all he knew. He felt her penetrating stare on him the way until he set the relic down on a rock no more than a few feet from her. The instant he did, he felt a cold chill seize him from head to toe, permeating both flesh and bone.

Feeling the pulsating aura generating from the discarded golden case that Bucky had flung at the breadth of her grounded feet, with a contented semblance of indulgence, Clarion welcomed the gravitic assonance of the sea-the Eye of Kronos was finally in her scavenging grasp to wield. Her lurid azure eyes chillingly blaze intensity of amethyst, as her lithe hand viciously scythed the air, ensuing an implosion of white-hot energy in the beckoning wake of her convergence- the resurrection of power; blindingly stealing Bucky’s vision as he dizzily collapsed on his knees in stilted mobility, seething out a bitten-off curse raggedly.

Not betraying her vindictive resolve to deliver a conjuring tumult in alacrity, she would be generous on bestowing him with his heart’s urgent demand-force Bucky to recognize the prevalent cost of his failure once his defiant spirit was inexorably seized into a new vessel of worthless existence. Unnervingly, gazing at Bucky’s feral visage, chiseled, broad planes of his youthful features honed like a knife-edge, as he jutted his stubbled jaw aggressively. He definitely reeked of masculine vitality and warrior elegance, his mesmeric grayish-aquamarine irises alighted stormily like cold steel under disheveled, lengthy tresses draped over the heaviness of his cleft chin-he was on the hairbreadth of restraint.

It was time to strafe off that innate sensuous beauty -evict the bestial-tenacious strength he fiercely harnessed that infused the sculpted contours and sheathed tautness of his bulked mass. A merman form was too rewarding for him; Clarion wanted him to become conquered into a morphic onslaught of defeat-watching every corded expanse of resilient muscle exponentially dissolve into a blubbery slug of listless pudge-he would never embrace his gorgeously beloved lover-mermaid- with tempestuous intimacy.

Smirking wickedly, with smooth ease of her hand, she began uttering in a Greek resonance.“Απαλλάξτε την ανθρωπότητα του James Barnes, δώστε του μια φωνή της θάλασσας που μόνο η σειρήνα του θα ακούσει … Συσσωματώστε τη σάρκα σε γούνα, τον κάνει να φουσκώνει μέχρι να ξεθωριάσει ο προβληματισμός του …(Divest the humanity of James Barnes, give him a voice of the sea that only his siren will hear…Merge flesh into fur, make him bloat until his reflection fades…)”

“W-What’s going on…” Bucky shuddered, unable to shake the sudden onslaught of something cold and sickly permeating him from head-to-toe. Every fiber of his being felt invisibly tethered to the witch’s command. He knew to expect a change, but what he was feeling now was dread—a calm before the storm. Selina’s transformation was relatively benign and painless despite its shock, but what he was feeling was nothing short of encroaching agony. “W-What are you doing?” Bucky leveled a glare at Clarion who smirked down at him cruelly. It became increasingly harder to speak as a strangled groan escaped his lips. He felt as if his molars were being pulled from his jaws and his tongue was as dry as a desert, lacking the moisture to spew words. The pain was piercing and leveled his brain was a vicious migraine.

Static rang in his ears, deafening to the point he felt as if it were absorbing him totally with every sound that failed to escape him. His skin burned and the hair in his pores prickled like hot needles. He could only sink to his knees and cradle his face, feeling as if a weight on his cheeks was making him heavier. Through it all, Selina watched with open horror.

Bracing her palms into the damp trenches of sand with an urgent momentum of fluid grace, Selina keenly registered the squeaky gnarling that emitted against his clenched teeth; visible ribbons of crimson streaked down his expanding neck as he feverishly slayed his clutched palm over the bulging mass sagging underneath his stubbled chin. The nauseous stench of putrid fish grew in rancid potency against the harrowing wake of the spell cast. A helium-induced squeak disturbingly emitted out of his depths when his quivery lips stretched agape, revealing spiked incisor fangs. With a launching thrust of her arced tail-fin, while dragging her svelte weight in a rushing glide, she effectively gained enough unimpeded traction to reach his side only to alarmingly reel back when a nacreous tendril of bluish energy impaled through her core, arresting her breath as she gasped out his name. “Buck-”

A quake of anxiety shook Bucky’s body, bringing him onto his back while the world spun in a blurry maze of colors too fast to distinguish. Nausea followed, so demanding he felt his breathing constrict and the urge to vomit became unshakeable. He rolled onto his stomach, releasing a bellowing cry of agony once a throbbing pain in his gut protested the sudden move. His free-hand unconsciously cradled his aching waist which revealed a horrifying revelation by the swelled protrusion of an expanding belly. “W-What?” He panted in shock. What was happening to him? What was that witch doing to him? “S-S-Selina…” He groaned, tears gathering in his unblinking eyes that finally closed tightly as if they were being stitched shut. He could hear her cry out for him, so far away and unreachable.

The struggle to speak became an unwinnable battle as his throat closed up; a swelling forming on his larynx that made each sound he made come out in the form of a squeak. An inhuman noise that one would expect from an animal. His eyes snapped open immediately as he felt every nerve and bone in his body tremble uncontrollably with convulsions. He wanted to scream, he wanted to lash out in any way that could make the pain stop. Pain was an old friend, but his mind could only fathom the horror of what was happening to him as he watched his fingers and hands mold into a foreign shape. Along with his skin, the hot needling sensation turned into an insufferable itching as fur sprouted from his pores.

Contractive pressure in the width expanse of his protracting stomach evoked a frantic resonance of his guttural squeaks to increased with raw anguish torturously ushering unwarranted dread to arrow into her irate heart, Selina instinctively lurched back as her dark irises chased the evident deformation of his rigid fingers sickeningly melding into a furry glob of chestnut that unmistakably reshaped into a jutted flipper. Dewy hooked claws extracted out from Bucky’s flattened digits in sync as the curved expanse of his muscled forearm began to rapidly contract into the outstretched material of his tearing black shirt.

The corded length of Bucky’s powerful calves became stubbed under vaporous arcs of mythic energy; as dislocated bones in his feet liquefied into a sludgy ooze, melting flesh blackened into a finned appendix that was shockingly akin to seal’s tail-fin. He no longer had legs to bridge the heaviness of his fattened bulk up. He felt boneless like a glop of jelly; as he became atrophied on his back.

Clamorous panic racked through his rubbery folds of dark fur in rapid fruition. Reality crushed him with force of a sledgehammer, his unkempt wolfish tresses were being sheared off his skull-he felt powerless-immobilized against threads of sanity. His blearing gaze clashed with Selina’s teary coffee irises that disarmingly echoed stark agony that she couldn’t bridle down with a measure of restraint.“S'just make it stop…” he cried out with shuddery pants, despairingly feeling his pointed fangs gouge into the deformed swell of his puckering lip. “I don’t wanna be this…”

A sulfuric raze of odor wavered nauseously around him which evoked a slosh of bile to mount in his flabby throat. The defined edges of his graven features became sheathed with furry layers of chestnut. He felt the taut ridges of his abdomen swell disgustingly outwards in expanding mass; that only stemmed his banking alarm-he was inevitably morphing into a squeaky tub of unpalpable blubber. “Grah…”

Thunderous concussive echoes hammered in his ears, a rush of wet heat trekked down the pudgy thickness of his cheeks as his straining abdomen continued to balloon into a rounded-overlapped expanse of lumpy flab. Rearing his head up, grimacingly with a sluggish tilt of his bulgy jaw, his glacial aqueous depths enlarged in telltale reaction to hysteric intensity against the latent heaviness possessing over him. Nothing abated in those painstaking moments as Selina watched him thrash his obese mass erratically, his thickening back suddenly jackknifed off the ground, he feverishly released a shredded growl, underlying his morphic rebellion in high-pitched volume. “Hrghh…”

The pain and shock led him adrift on a sea of denial, making Bucky wonder and hope that he was caught in the midst of a nightmare that would soon wake up form. But deep down he knew that reality and the world they lived in could be cruel. The changes he was aware of confirmed his initial thought that Clarion had screwed him over and he wasn’t being turned into a merman. He wouldn’t be swimming on the high-seas with Selina beside him, starting a new beginning together where nothing and no one could drive them apart. Instead, he would be a burden, too fat and furry for his beautiful kitten to love. His growing mass made him feel like an immovable block of concrete on the sandy shore, so damn heavy not even the tides could pull him in.

His legs, like his hands, had melded together into a blob of wet fur. His clothes had long since tore from his increasing mass, leaving him as nothing more but a naked ball of furry fat. His facial muscles twisted into something he couldn’t see, but from his nose he could spot long whiskers sprouting from his snout. A snout…He was a seal. He didn’t need to look in the mirror to be aware of the horrifying fact. Slowly, the pain in his body diminished until he was left in a blimped heap of exhaustion and unbridled panic. “I-I'm…I'm…”

“You’re a mortal spirit is now entombed within a fatten slug that prowls the borders of your diseased surface world …” Clarion remarked mockingly, narrowing her raved gaze down at the overly plump male harp’s glacial orbs widened as unprecedented dread assailed over Bucky, feigning despondence; he ashamedly shadowed his pudgy, whiskered muzzle with a stubby flipper, incoherently emitting out a high-pitched squeak while his fanged mouth drooped agape into a bewildered gasp.

With errant glide of tears streaking his pudgy muzzle, Bucky didn’t want to gaze at his damned reflection captured in the cresting waves that bashed against his slacken pudge as dark currents of ink dissipated underneath his dormant weight. She had gunned him down with a calamitous scourge as if the curse was a warranted penance of his mortal sins.

Clumsily lurching back on his clawed-flippers, Bucky felt like deadweight, it took a forced effort to shift the flabbing mounds of his brunette-slivery fur as the last remnants of his torn clothing peeled off the expanse of his girth. His vision became detached against a blear of welling tears as Clarion registered a telltale whimpery sniff before the bloated harp dismally pinched his eyes shut, feeling speared by the azoic force of unbidden heartache-defeat beyond measure.

In that stalled moment of her sepic tolerance, as she proceeded to retake the arcane relic off the mortal border, Clarion raked her viperous azure depths repulsively over the pudgy rolls of chestnut shaping over his bulbous girth that indistinguishably morphed him into a hefty sea beast-he was another ravaged soul that she deceptively roped down into throes of a befallen-damnable curse. “I never give you wretched mortals what you desire from the sea,” she hissed in a scathing pitch, her eyes flashed luridly with demonic hunger. She extended her hand, commanding a worming tentacle to seize her disinterred relic.“Not to worry, dear James, you’ll have a plentiful life in fathoms…Soon you’ll only relish about chasing fish instead of your beautiful love…”

The condemnation of Clarion’s words crushed Bucky like a ton of bricks as he squeaked, tossed and turned on the wet sand. He tried to stand and face the evil witch down, but his body no longer possessed poseable legs for him to manage such a feat. The feeling was like phantom limbs that were no longer there. Inwardly, he screamed in both distress and fury. The sounds he emitted were torturous and inhumane. His hands lashed out and he was mortified by the sight of short dark fins. No longer were they the appendages of metal and flesh that pulsed with strength. He was a harp-seal, nothing more than an enormous tub of fat and wet fur, and most alarming was that he was completely vulnerable beneath the evil witch’s stare.

“This isn’t over.” He sneered at her once he managed to roll over onto his belly. His nerves were filled with panic and he could either cry in despair or yell in anger. The latter was more preferable. “I won’t quit…Can’t.” He watched as Clarion’s body morphed until her tentacles vanished and her blue flesh took on a more human-like tone. She walked across the sand towards the rock where the relic was left, ignoring him completely as she retrieved it.

“Oh really,” Clarion snickered tauntingly, glaring at the fattened harp arch sluggishly on his swollen girth for headlong traction in his dormant momentum; within a fringe of a second, his stubby flipper desperately stretched with reaching intent for the abandoned relic that was in the heap of his shredded clothing. Bucky wouldn’t give her the victorious luxury of shackling his hellbent spirit into an oversized blubbery slug. In a vehement reaction, she propelled her barefoot in dragging motion, and viciously forced a haze of sand towards his muzzle, half-blinding him as he feverishly squeaked against the piercing sting-obstructing his resolve.“You honestly think that you can subdue my curse, I divested your reckless humanity…Dare to cross me again, dear James, and I’ll strip away your voice…”

Bucky said nothing, his sight and mouth obscured by the sand that was kicked in his face. He felt weak and pummeled. It brought back memories of his childhood when he was still too young to stand up to bullies and fight back. The fight inside of him still burned like a hot flame. But his body was as numb as ice. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. He could do nothing but watch as Clarion turned her back and carried the relic with her towards the sea. Her prize and victory trophy. The silence that hung over the area like a smothering pillow, was lifted and the noise of waves crashing against the beach rang loudly in Bucky’s ears. Clarion had left him to his fate. A defeated soldier, a defeated man—twisted and morphed into a repugnant sea-mammal that could never hope to be loved.

Not by someone so beautiful as Selina Kyle.

“Selina…” He squeaked into the sand, immoveable and lifeless as he watched the waves. He could sense someone approaching until a small shadow hovered over him.

With a caustic slide against the roughened sand, bracing her elbows for measured traction, undeviatingly against gritted teeth, Selina utilized remnants of her core strength;closing distance between the crestfallen male harp. The heaviness of her tail-fin weighed her down, the sulphuric air felt compressive as her svelte form locked into a planking stance, feeling a telltale contrast infuse against the sleek-bare contours of her curvaceous abdomen as she effectively arched herself inches off the ground, dragging her mid-drift over a heap of his discarded clothes. “Hold on, James…” she heaved out, breathlessly, gazing down at slacken rolls cushioning his blubbery side as he remained sulkily impassive on his bloated girth. Her lithe palm reached fractionally to grace his flipper that curved over his jutted muzzle, caressingly as he subtly quaked under her tentative strokes, imploring him into a grounded wake of steadiness.

“No…No. Stay away!” A harsh squeal emitted from the seal’s muzzle. Somehow the mermaid was able to sense the pain and anguish in the sound. His voice wasn’t the soft baritone with a silky Brooklyn drawl that could calm her nerves. Not anymore. The scratchiness of his words was stifling and hard to grasp. Bucky shuddered beneath the chill of anxiety creeping through his veins. His mind, unable to comprehend and accept the changes, tried fruitlessly to will his body to its command. Nothing worked, he couldn’t sit-up like a normal human with a poseable spine, he couldn’t push-himself up with hands that were no longer there. He couldn’t even roll over to look at his surroundings! Agitation and creeping stress clawed at him and the seal couldn’t contain the cry of agony that ripped from his throat.

“GRAAAH!” He wailed, but the sound that pierced the airwaves was of a howling animal that startled the seagulls off the shore of the beach. He could feel Selina lingering beside him, unsure of what to do as she tried to calm him down.

The knifing volume of his aggressive, guttural squeaks felt deafeningly akin to a sub-machine gun firing a continuous fusillade of bullets that riddled through her heart, cutting her deep until breath was arrested out of her. Lurching back in deft reaction against the raging cadence that morphed into a raw gnarl that resonated like heartache, Selina felt a blearing rush of tears edging for release as her liquid coffee irises gazed down at the underswell of his furred girth disturbingly increasing in width-he was fattening up to a listless extent of immobilization. The sea-witch had slingshot his humanity out of existence; his grip on reality was dissected into splintering anguish.

Keeping her curved palm anchored on his palpitating side, her dainty fingers drifted over rubbery mounds of plump flab, until she eased a flipper off his scrunching muzzle, gleamingly staring into the glacial aquamarine orbs beginning to darken into a soulless pitch of black. She was losing him-she had to enkindle his stoked defiance. “Don’t think for a second that I’m leaving you to dance alone, handsome,” she fiercely murmured, her palm tensing under the nick of his whiskers. “The damn curse doesn’t own you…”

Selina’s words ghosted over him like a warm blanket, but he couldn’t bring himself to be enveloped in its comfort. His hands…fins, trailed down the expanse of his enormous stomach, feeling nothing but sickening fat and wet fur. He was a beast, a fat and pathetic tub of meat that people would find amusing if not repugnant. Anger and hate festered inside of him, towards Clarion for doing this to him, but most of all towards himself for falling for her tricks, and preying on his desperation to save the woman he loves. The same woman who was trying get him off his fat-ass and not sink into the depths of despair. Bucky grunted and tried to shift away from her touch, finding himself unworthy of it. He was hideous; neither a merman nor human. How could she love him?

“How can you even look at me, Lina?” He squeaked as his black eyes gazed up at her. Her elf-like beauty caused his heart to swell. With both longing and heartache as fear of being forever separated, forever different, occurred to him. “I’m not Bucky anymore…I’m nothing.”

It was too damn obvious that Clarion’s soul-ravaging witchery was riding him into a vacuum of unbidden hopelessness, Bucky was on the verge of accepting his blighted fate, instead of abandoning him to choke on his tears, with fluid grace, Selina aligned her lithesome body against the rotund expanse of his laden-cushy form, sensing his vulnerability through sobs racking through him-nothing could be quashed down.

The unevaded connection became intimately snug as if she was sinking into an overlarge marshmallow as roiling waves lapped over their tail-fins. She embraced her capturing arm over his girth, holding him with unshakeable control. The fusing variation of their damned aquatic forms felt viscerally natural to the limits of their devotion. Lifting her hand to his muzzle with unerring intent, her thumb glided shakily over the jutted curve of his fanged mouth, tracing the sensuous bow-shape that with unfeigned reverence. “We’re going to fight this together, Buck, ” she whispered, promisingly, securing the heaviness of his blubbery mass close. “…if there’s a relic out that can change you back, we’ll find it.”

“T-T-T-Together…” Blearily, Bucky fathomed the hopeful intent in her words. The longer he laid immobile, he felt as if he were sinking into an abyss of ignorance and confusion. The world was a blur and the suffocating plume of Clarion’s magic hung in the area surrounding him. He felt dry, burdened and vulnerable in a way a soldier would in an opened-space where anyone could take a shot at him. He needed to…He needed… “Can we?” He questioned, feeling a wet trail of emotion pour down his furry cheeks. He wanted to give in, allow the despair to fully engulf him until he forgot everything and everyone. But the moment he felt her hand lovingly caress his mouth, everything became so much more clear—so much more hopeful. “Lina…” He sniffed, nuzzling her hand affectionately.

“The sea…it…its calling me.” He squeaked. The hairs on his body rose on end as if he were being attracted by a magnet. His weary eyes gazed at the horizon and the calm waters that looked as welcoming as a warm-bed.

Tactilely Selina’s fingers kneaded over his sheathing mounds blubber as the amber sconces of the fading horizon became capture in the rapturous waves that clashed against them, beckoning for her to usher him into the ocean fathoms-an isolated sanctuary away from the undercurrents that she had recently discovered while venturing pass barrier reefs; the surging need to return couldn’t be evicted.

They were both conditioned-lethal fighters who dared to breach the shadows; instrumentally fashioned by traumatic depravity that chastised their souls into throes of unforgiving pasts-explosive validity ran bone-deep like acid poured in a keg of diesel waiting for a lilt match to fall. Maybe they were free of being masquerading phantoms-Bucky’s voluntarily choice to surrender his humanity revealed an unbreakable promise of undying love.

He gave everything up to be with her in the sea, even if he now existed in the visage menacingly chubby harp; he was still her handsomely suave beast-machine, that would never change. They were inextricably bound together in the elements of land and sea. Heartbreakingly, Bucky’s throated squeaks drew up gravelly low as he steered his reluctant gaze achingly towards the clear sea-a different plane of existence to cross over.

The pressure of the sloshing waves had increasingly shifted with sonic echoes of a nearing storm- the intensity of distant lightning forked through darkened clouds, as Bucky’s shaded orbs arrested the spastic flashes, piercing light of voltaic azure gleamed mesmerizing with bestial heat-shivery lancing through her as prevailing hope escalated. He didn’t fully morph-his fighting spirit was anchored to a harbor of their humanity. Banishing all wage of her uncertainty, Selina gave him a breathless, watery smile, as her finger ghosted over his muzzle.

“Let’s get out of here, shall we, seal-boy” she purred sultrily with a kittenish play of a coy quirk tugging effortlessly on her burgundy lips,“Sticking around might call some unpleasant company to appreciate your chubby ass, and handsome,” Her dark irises flashed teasingly down at the swelled-out mounds of blubbery flab.“You’ve got a big ass move…”

The playful familiarity of Selina’s words was like a warm balm that Bucky felt soothe his very soul as he wrinkled his nose and gently nuzzled her shoulder affectionately. It was strange, but somehow natural in the sense he no longer had poseable lips. The dread in his stomach ebbed as he noticed the tender smile on her face as she then lovingly caressed his cheek. “Can’t argue with that, darlin’. Can’t say I’m looking forward to being a fat beach-seal. But as long as you’re my swimming-partner, I’d say its worth the ride.” It was truth, no matter which way things turned out.

He had been willing to sacrifice his own humanity if it meant they could share a life together as the same life-forms, but instead a much different and punishing form had been forced onto him. Fate or whatever power was at work in the world continued to throw life-changing obstacles in their way and somehow, they would find themselves past them and come out stronger. They had to. Hope was an ideal that Bucky latched onto, despite all the pain and suffering he’d endured in his life-time. It wasn’t just something he chose to accept, it was gifted to him by those he relied on most. Selina was his hope, his anchor to the man he used to be—the man he still could be.

For that, he would follow her anywhere. Love could take them above and beyond, and as the harp seal and the mermaid slowly waddled their way into the gentle tides of the sea, they never felt alone nor lost.

Completed: {August 25th 2018}

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nicksstoryvault · 6 years

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"I did it...I really did it." He chuckled heartily at his victory. There was a time when his thoughts would've been consumed with the idea of a lot of cash falling into his hands for such a discovery. Now, the only reward he could fathom and want was in the form of a elf-like beauty with mahogany colored locks and eyes, as brown as sweet chocolate, and a fin made of scaled sapphires. "Selina..." He whispered out to her, his tired gaze focusing in on the shores and watching as a shapely form began to swim its way towards him.

Breaching the shallow end of the shore, her jeweled coffee irises clashed with his grayish-aquamarine as their gazes mirrored tellingly in flash of raw -irrepressible heat through his lengthy dark tresses webbed askew over the heaviness of his stubble jaw-they couldn't wait any longer. Letting a seize of desire ride through her veins, Selina quickly braced her lithesome form against a rock's smooth edge, temptingly challenging him to chase her in the shushing waves. "Are you coming to join me, handsome..." she purred sultrily, arching her back to expose the slight graven planes of her delectable, curvaceous waist that shimmered with a matrix of incandescent turquoise scales. "Come on, Barnes, don't be shy..."

"Selina…" A joyous grin spread across Bucky's lips and his eyes lit up like stars as he set his gaze on the radiant beauty he'd been searching for. Life had become much brighter since the day they first met. His love for discovering lost treasures had become second now that he'd found the one thing in life he thought would always elude him. It was a frightening thought, one he scarcely allowed himself to think over, but with the sea angel that wait for him by the shore, it was a risk he felt worth taking. "Its so good to see you," he said as he brought himself to roll off the rock he'd been laying on. His body ached but he felt the short rest had abundantly refueled his strength as he pushed his way across the sandy path until he could feel the cool water sloshing against his n*** ankles.

The relic in his arms was set aside and he threaded loose strands from his temple. Slowly he sank to his knees beside the mermaid whose tail-fin rested in the waters. Silence hung in the air as they openly gazed at each other, warmth and wonder sparkling in their eyes, yet a small frown pinched Bucky's brow as he remembered. "Where've you been? I called for you, I waited here for the past few days…You didn't come."

Guardingly her measures of restraint were balancing razor wire, as she quelled down a reactive throb knifing through her heart. The naked intensity of his grayish-aquamarine irises didn't waver; raw heat of unshed tears was potent in throes of his anguished depths. The gravity of their harbored-unconquerable devotion seemed to be steeping with every new horizon-Bucky looked definitely vulnerable as he stood impassively on the shore's porous edge, as the resurge of untamed hope feverishly seized his veins. With a deft stroke of her lithe palm, she grudgingly traced over the mass of scales that had melded into a tail-fin, repulsed by the physical absence of her alabaster toned legs."Sorry for letting you down, handsome," she finally returned, her gritted undertone hitching against a vehement seethe." I'm trying to figure all this out..." She lifted her hand out of water in a quick splash, gesturing to her cursive deformation. "I guess adapting to the damn water is all I have left and it's not very thrilling..."

"Somehow I think I can imagine that," he responded with a dry chuckle as she took in his soaked clothes and exhausted state. Inwardly, Bucky knew he couldn't begin to understand what she was going through ever since this ordeal began to her—for both of them. What should've been a fun and generous vacation in Greece weeks ago had become a life-changing experience that saw them both forced to separate. The curse that enveloped her turned her into a creature that till now only existed in mythical texts and stories. Selina, his Selina, was a mermaid. A damn beautiful one at that, but unlike fairy tales, this wasn't a happy outcome for either of them as he, her still very much human lover, could do nothing but stand on the sidelines and search hopelessly for a way to restore her.

Though they were divided by their place of habitat, their love kept them devoted and Bucky was determined to make it possible for them to be together again, as humans or merpeople.

"I know this hasn't been easy for you, darlin'," he said as he reached out to take her pale hand into his own. Oddly enough, her skin felt warm despite the fact she swam through the cold water more often than himself. He kissed the inside of her palm as she raised it to cup his face. He felt the warmth pouring off of her, calming his restless nerves so that he could continue. "It hasn't been easy for me either, but you taught me that only the biggest score is worth fighting for." Shifting on his knees, he reached over for the relic he'd recovered and brought it towards them. "Whether this works or not, I want you to know it won't change a thing about how I feel about you."

The last sconces of twilight gleamed over the steadiness of the water, captured in the fathoms as if liquid gold was being poured; with a shaky flex of her gliding thumb, she possessively traced over the full-bow of his sensuously wide lips, a phantom caress that seized his pulse, without a visage of hesitance stalling his restoked control, Bucky fiercely clasped his metallic fingers around her delicate wrist, as his arching lips bruised heady pressure over her knuckles, urgently tasting the saltiness of her pearlescent flesh, anchoring her to stay in his desperate reach. Within dueling seconds of lucidity, she became immobilized by the innate cadence of their nearing bodies, his supping lips slid feather-light over the edge of her curved palm while his teeth shivery grazed against ragged pants. "Buck-" She murmured breathlessly, closing her eyes to infinitely feel the aching reverence of his grounded devotion.

The huskiness of her voice delivered in a soothing whisper sent a pleasant shiver through Bucky's body. His eyes closed slightly, taking in her unique scent of seaweed and jasmine that made everything feel fresh and savory. Her skin was like a warm blanket he was drawn to and he hopelessly wanted to be enveloped in her embrace. Time had stretched in the weeks since they had last been intimate, which made it seem more like months. The desperation and direness of their predicament made every moment restless and he couldn't take the time to openly appreciate just how beautiful she was—as a woman, and a mermaid. His eyes opening, he caught her brown orbs glowing in the twilight of the setting sun. Enriched and enchanting, he was drawn towards her like a moth to the flame.

"You're so beautiful, Selina Kyle. So much sometimes it scares me," he smirked to convey a form of levity to his honest words. One of his free-hands held her hand in his while the other tender caressed her scaly hip. It was a mesmerizing experience as he felt the texture of her fin that reminded him of cool metal. The sapphire color blended with the water and yet somehow, appeared even more magical as the sun sank deeper into the horizon. Words failed him as he contemplated how to voice his approval of her new form, but the smoldering look in his eyes was enough of an indicator as he noted Selina looking at him with equal fervor. "You make one heckuva mermaid." The distance between their lips slowly decreased, the tension of their intimate reunion was like a storm building and it would take only a slow tentative brush for lightning to crackle.

"Careful Barnes, don't forget I can race with the sharks," Selina quipped snarkily, her clashing senses raged to become abandoned at the space of heartbeat as she felt the virile softness of his edging lips increasingly ghost shivery heat over her angled jaw; she was blindingly falling back into the shushing waves, as he braced his bulked weight on his tauten forearms, aligning the length of his muscled calves with her tail-fin. A murmurous growl tantalizingly resonated from his depths-she was aware of his telltale surrender, feeling the extent of his unsated hunger readying to capture her lips with driving force of pure, unrepented heat. Nothing ebbed. She welcomed the delirious contrast of the cool water and the corded planes of his thickened chest shadowing fractionally over the ample swells of her garbed breasts. His metallic fingers drifted over the rigid scales, embracingly feeling the shifting mass that he would soon be weighed down with.

"Guess that makes me a lucky seal, huh," he breathy quipped. And with that, his lips found hers at last, warm and fulfilling like entering a warm bed at home. It was soft and sweet at first, like two adolescents who were playfully exploring new territory, before it quickly grew heated. Breaths intermingled, minty and cool, lips feverishly hot as a dizzying passion overcame them. Their lips danced and overlapped in a familiar cadence that brought them closer together. Hands reached out and explored the planes of each other's arms, shoulders and hair. Bucky smiled between their amorous exchange, boyish and full of life as he brought the mermaid into his lap. "C'mere." He murmured. The added weight of her fin was oddly comfortable as he hugged her close and dipped her into another.

Knowing the full extent- the sorcerous price of his heart, Bucky lifted his head fractionally, brunette tresses feathered the knife-edge curve of his bristled jaw, the aqueous depth of his glacial irises gleamed alight, a silver flame edged his dilated pupils-intense masculine ardor. "S'it's been so damn long, kotenok..." The graveled rawness of his murmurous timbre had challengingly impelled her."Hell, doesn't matter now, we're gonna strike this out, Lina..."

She didn't want to deny that she craved for release from the sea-bound thralls. Evocatively, she urged the fusing-rhythmic variances of their joined bodies to implode, emitting a guttural snarl that stole her breath, his shapely lips slanted bruisingly over her lavish mouth, hungrily, Bucky changed the angle of the kiss with quenchless demand as the fervent duel ensued-raging through stowed heartache. She needed to live for one finite moment with him until dawn inescapably beckoned her back as he anchored her with invincible strength.

For Bucky, it was as if nothing had changed and everything was as right as it should be. Nothing mattered except this blissful familiarity, this closeness and bond with the woman he loved and there was nothing that would separate them. As their ravenous cadence continued with breathless enthusiasm, they were both dimly unaware of a presence in the sea. The normal lapping waves were disturbed by a fluctuating mass swooshing against the currents, sending a ripple effect across the shores. Bucky could sense nothing amiss, but he could sense Selina tense up in his arms and slowly cease her passionate exchange. "Lina? What's wrong?" He asked her worriedly as he noticed a pensive look on her fair features. He brushed a curly strand from his face and caressed her cheek.

"Buck-" She gasped in a breathless, gurgling pitch, blindingly forcing her lithe palms to deliver urgent momentum over the harden swell of his chest; pushing him away from her. The rancid miasma of decaying fish pervaded her nose, as she involuntarily quelled down the accelerated urge to vomit. "Get out of here..."

A creeping chill had ran down Bucky's back the instant he detected the extent of Selina's distress. It happened in the span of seconds, before the experienced soldier could react. He felt a violent force wrap itself around his neck; enormous and reeking of dead fish, it effortlessly yanked him off the ground and drag him across the sand. A choking gasp barely escaped him, his blue eyes wide with both shock and pain coursing through him. Selina remained on the shore, one of her hands reaching towards him while crying his name. He couldn't find the breath nor strength to respond, his free hands struggled to pry the large unknown thing from his neck that sickeningly reminded him of an octopus tentacle. His instincts screamed at him to reach for his concealed knife tucked into his waist belt.

The roaring of waves deafened and large splashes of water crashed over him, obscuring his vision while an unearthly moan came from the seas. Bucky wrenched his knife from his holster and stabbed at the tentacle holding his neck. A roar bellowed and he suddenly found himself thrown violently against a rock. White hot pain crushed into his shoulder, his breath was robbed from his lungs and the world spun in a suffocating blur. "Se…lina…" He groaned searching for her with a dazed expression.

"I find it so amusing that mortals of the shore decide to penetrate domains that should not be left untouched by their gluttonous hands..." A malicious resonance of a discarnate feminine tone piercingly clashed over the disturbed shoreline; while jackknifing his torso off a heap of mushy sand to catch a resurge of breath, Bucky desperately punctured the snaking mass with a harsh traction of his brandishing knife gouging into the blackened scales. Geysers of ink spurted out, drenching his chestnut tresses hanging askew over his bruised temple, as he gnashed his teeth against unwavering ferocity invested in his reactive stabbing while he was being roped down to choke on his breath. "The price of that intrusion will demand your worthless blood to purge my treasure..."

"Claire?" Bucky said with a confused glare towards what appeared to be a feminine shape standing near the shore across from him. Though he was in an immense amount of pain, Bucky wasn't disoriented enough that he didn't recognize that familiar voice. Once the blur in his vision had sharpened into a clear focus, he could see the older everything much clearer now. Ever horrifying detail entered the forefront of his mind as he watched the older woman who he had thought to be a benign marine biologist and arcane enthusiast, reveal her true form. From the sea's she emerged on a small tide-wave that never diminished in its force. It carried her as if she were commanding it. Her blonde hair glowed like fire in the twilight yet her once pale skin had become an unnatural cold blue.

And her eyes, her eyes were what unsettled him most. No longer the bright blue that would've charmed the hearts of even younger men, but now an amber hue that spelled danger for whoever she set her gaze upon. And currently, to Bucky's chagrin, they were directed right at him. "What the hell is this?!" He demanded, feeling a surge of anger and confusion as he considered everything he'd been through today and what this woman…creature, had manipulated him into doing.

The stark measure of utter disdain was reflective in Bucky's glacial aquamarine irises blazed gleamingly with unshed tears; the urgent extent of heartbreak was betrayed by her impeded tactics of deception. His shapely lips hung widely agape as he forced up heaves of breath, the constant eeling pressure of the swatching tentacle bruising his throat, he was temporarily a reluctant hostage to his damn vulnerability- the unbidden hope of being infinitely reunited with his enchanted kitten. The gravity of the extraction mission was a simple task; he recklessly followed her directions to an underwater cavern and snatched up the forbidden relic-he'd blindingly walked the wire of devotion, and now he was about to plunge into soul-deep thralls of a reckless defeat-the steepening price he couldn't evade.

"You poor diluted fool," She grinned sneeringly. "I needed mortal hands to retrieve Poseidon's little treasure since you were so desirous to change for that beautiful siren over there," she gestured a hand measuringly to Selina. "Well you didn't disappoint me, and I am content for that, dear James, so beholden I will grant your wish...You desire to live forever in the sea with her, to surrender your humanity to the fathoms, then open your mouth wide and give it all to me..."

As Bucky listened to the sea-witch's ramble, he had an inkling sense of peril. The way she spoke reminded him too much of an arrogant and cruel Trickster who believed humanity were nothing more than ants to be stepped on. The sting of her lies and betrayal was like a concealed knife going for the back. Every impulse inside of him told him to retrieve his knife, take Selina and get far away. But it wasn't an option. Even if he could fend off this woman—this siren—he couldn't get Selina away from the water without endangering her, and he wouldn't leave her here either. That much he knew. Despite the aches in his body, he squared himself into a straight posture. He met Selina's gaze not too far from him and did his utmost to reassure her with a tight smile.

"I'm not givin' you anything', lady." He said up at her defiantly. "Whatever your name is. Something tells me you didn't have me go through all this trouble to retrieve a rusted piece of junk unless it was for something worth lying over. If you were really willing to hold up your end of the deal, you could've just been up front instead of playin' me." He pointed out with grave tone. His metal hand lifted the relic into the air and contemplated his options.

"Buck-" Selina railed out, breath exploded from her lungs; a wet glide of errant tears dripped feverishly down the smoothness of her alabaster cheeks, the putrid ink was slathering over the scaled expanse of her laden tail-fin; with a desperate effort as she pinched her eyes, quickly, she flipped onto the taut planes of her bare abdomen; relenting against the sorcerous grip that was trying to immobilize her. The sliding momentum in the variants of her movements became sluggish, gravity was against her. Bracing her elbows over discarded kelp, she became crushingly aware of the sea-witch's true intent—Bucky was being pinned down into the inevitable crosshairs. "Handsome, don't you dare sell out yourself to her..."

"Arghhh..." Exploded from Bucky's gaping throat in deafening volume as breath felt threaded; with bruising force, he was mercilessly pinned against sand, remnants of kelp flitted in the humid breeze as his drenched chestnut tresses messily webbed over his paling, bristled cheeks. The whirring pulse of his cybertronic arm faded out, a writhing tentacle plowed the shoreline, leaving a trail of blackish ink that spawned a parasitic odor.

At the present moment, Clarion needed to remove her compliant, roguishly handsome thief from existence. She would use his heart's desire against him—chasten him forever into the worthless throes of an undeserving curse. With a swift gesture of her scaled hand, the black tentacle lessened throbbing pressure over Bucky's throat, giving him a chance to breathe."It seems I have underestimated the price of your love towards your beloved mermaid, release my relic and I will stake my offer and make your pathetic wish become a reality to mirror a new existence with her... Isn't that what you want, James, to trade off your strong legs for a useless fin?" she offered, tauntingly.

Once he had been released, Bucky had falling into a fit of choking coughs as his lungs struggled desperately grasp onto the much needed oxygen they'd been deprived of. His ears rang wildly and a pounding in his skull alerted him to an increase in blood-pressure and stress. Despite it all, his gaze never broke away from the sea-witch and towards Selina not too far from him who looked on with mild disbelief. He knew he should've told her the truth about what he had planned in that his mission wasn't solely to find a means to reverse the curse placed on her, but to put it on himself as well. She would've never gone along with it, he knew. But now that she knew, he could only surmise that she knew who Claire really was all along and whatever it was he'd agreed to was bad news.

But he didn't care about that. He had a mission, and that was to make sure they could have a life together, as humans or as merpeople. Once he felt able enough to speak, he stood tall and faced the sea-witch with conviction. "That was the deal. I got your treasure, and now give me mine. Either give Selina her humanity back, or make me like her."

A terse growl tamped up her throat, with leashed poise not to blight him into oblivion, Clarion became repulsively aware of the rigged depth of his telltale heartache; he desired for his humanity to recede into her thralls-to become a wretched creature of the sea because of unabandoned love. Allowing vehemence to feed her decision of acceding his wish, her lips arced dauntingly. "Alright, I shall grant your pitiful wish, James, you want to share the fathoms with her, then be human no more..."

For a moment, Bucky stood puzzled by the suddenness of her acceptance. Time and again, he wondered if he was making the right decision in the face of a monumental choice. In his original time, having Steve beside him helped him to not only see a positive, but to also to keep himself from making rash decisions in the face of emotion. Deep down, he knew the decision he was about to make was one born not out of logic and intuition, but pure emotion. He loved Selina, and there was nothing he wouldn't do to be with her again, as a man or a merman. Clarion in front of him had all the makings of a sinister villain, but he knew that to refuse her wouldn't just ruin his chance at being with Selina again, but also make her an enemy that he couldn't fight. Not like this.

"All right, I'll give you want you want." Bucky took cautious steps towards the sea-witch with the old jewelry case in hand that contained a necklace for all he knew. He felt her penetrating stare on him the way until he set the relic down on a rock no more than a few feet from her. The instant he did, he felt a cold chill seize him from head to toe, permeating both flesh and bone.

Feeling the pulsating aura generating from the discarded golden case that Bucky had flung at the breadth of her grounded feet, with a contented semblance of indulgence, Clarion welcomed the gravitic assonance of the sea-the Eye of Kronos was finally in her scavenging grasp to wield. Her lurid azure eyes chillingly blaze intensity of amethyst, as her lithe hand viciously scythed the air, ensuing an implosion of white-hot energy in the beckoning wake of her convergence- the resurrection of power; blindingly stealing Bucky's vision as he dizzily collapsed on his knees in stilted mobility, seething out a bitten-off curse raggedly.

Not betraying her vindictive resolve to deliver a conjuring tumult in alacrity, she would be generous on bestowing him with his heart's urgent demand-force Bucky to recognize the prevalent cost of his failure once his defiant spirit was inexorably seized into a new vessel of worthless existence. Unnervingly, gazing at Bucky's feral visage, chiseled, broad planes of his youthful features honed like a knife-edge, as he jutted his stubbled jaw aggressively. He definitely reeked of masculine vitality and warrior elegance, his mesmeric grayish-aquamarine irises alighted stormily like cold steel under disheveled, lengthy tresses draped over the heaviness of his cleft chin-he was on the hairbreadth of restraint.

Smirking wickedly, with smooth ease of her hand, she began uttering in a Greek resonance."Απαλλάξτε την ανθρωπότητα του James Barnes, δώστε του μια φωνή της θάλασσας που μόνο η σειρήνα του θα ακούσει ... Συσσωματώστε τη σάρκα σε γούνα, τον κάνει να φουσκώνει μέχρι να ξεθωριάσει ο προβληματισμός του ...(Divest the humanity of James Barnes, give him a voice of the sea that only his siren will hear...Merge flesh into fur, make him bloat until his reflection fades...)"

"W-What's going on…" Bucky shuddered, unable to shake the sudden onslaught of something cold and sickly permeating him from head-to-toe. Every fiber of his being felt invisibly tethered to the witch's command. He knew to expect a change, but what he was feeling now was dread—a calm before the storm. Selina's transformation was relatively benign and painless despite its shock, but what he was feeling was nothing short of encroaching agony. "W-What are you doing?" Bucky leveled a glare at Clarion who smirked down at him cruelly. It became increasingly harder to speak as a strangled groan escaped his lips. He felt as if his molars were being pulled from his jaws and his tongue was as dry as a desert, lacking the moisture to spew words. The pain was piercing and leveled his brain was a vicious migraine.

A quake of anxiety shook Bucky's body, bringing him onto his back while the world spun in a blurry maze of colors too fast to distinguish. Nausea followed, so demanding he felt his breathing constrict and the urge to vomit became unshakeable. He rolled onto his stomach, releasing a bellowing cry of agony once a throbbing pain in his gut protested the sudden move. His free-hand unconsciously cradled his aching waist which revealed a horrifying revelation by the swelled protrusion of an expanding belly. "W-What?" He panted in shock. What was happening to him? What was that witch doing to him? "S-S-Selina…" He groaned, tears gathering in his unblinking eyes that finally closed tightly as if they were being stitched shut. He could hear her cry out for him, so far away and unreachable.

Contractive pressure in the width expanse of his protracting stomach evoked a frantic resonance of his guttural squeaks to increased with raw anguish torturously ushering unwarranted dread to arrow into her irate heart, Selina instinctively lurched back as her dark irises chased the evident deformation of his rigid fingers sickeningly melding into a furry glob of chestnut that unmistakably reshaped into a jutted flipper. Dewy hooked claws extracted out from Bucky's flattened digits in sync as the curved expanse of his muscled forearm began to rapidly contract into the outstretched material of his tearing black shirt.

The corded length of Bucky's powerful calves became stubbed under vaporous arcs of mythic energy; as dislocated bones in his feet liquefied into a sludgy ooze, melting flesh blackened into a finned appendix that was shockingly akin to seal's tail-fin. He no longer had legs to bridge the heaviness of his fattened bulk up. He felt boneless like a glop of jelly; as he became atrophied on his back.

Clamorous panic racked through his rubbery folds of dark fur in rapid fruition. Reality crushed him with force of a sledgehammer, his unkempt wolfish tresses were being sheared off his skull-he felt powerless-immobilized against threads of sanity. His blearing gaze clashed with Selina's teary coffee irises that disarmingly echoed stark agony that she couldn't bridle down with a measure of restraint."S'just make it stop..." he cried out with shuddery pants, despairingly feeling his pointed fangs gouge into the deformed swell of his puckering lip. "I don't wanna be this..."

The pain and shock led him adrift on a sea of denial, making Bucky wonder and hope that he was caught in the midst of a nightmare that would soon wake up form. But deep down he knew that reality and the world they lived in could be cruel. The changes he was aware of confirmed his initial thought that Clarion had screwed him over and he wasn't being turned into a merman. He wouldn't be swimming on the high-seas with Selina beside him, starting a new beginning together where nothing and no one could drive them apart. Instead, he would be a burden, too fat and furry for his beautiful kitten to love. His growing mass made him feel like an immovable block of concrete on the sandy shore, so damn heavy not even the tides could pull him in.

His legs, like his hands, had melded together into a blob of wet fur. His clothes had long since tore from his increasing mass, leaving him as nothing more but a naked ball of furry fat. His facial muscles twisted into something he couldn't see, but from his nose he could spot long whiskers sprouting from his snout. A snout…He was a seal. He didn't need to look in the mirror to be aware of the horrifying fact. Slowly, the pain in his body diminished until he was left in a blimped heap of exhaustion and unbridled panic. "I-I'm…I'm…"

"You're a mortal spirit is now entombed within a fatten slug that prowls the borders of your diseased surface world ..." Clarion remarked mockingly, narrowing her raved gaze down at the overly plump male harp's glacial orbs widened as unprecedented dread assailed over Bucky, feigning despondence; he ashamedly shadowed his pudgy, whiskered muzzle with a stubby flipper, incoherently emitting out a high-pitched squeak while his fanged mouth drooped agape into a bewildered gasp.

With errant glide of tears streaking his pudgy muzzle, Bucky didn't want to gaze at his damned reflection captured in the cresting waves that bashed against his slacken pudge as dark currents of ink dissipated underneath his dormant weight. She had gunned him down with a calamitous scourge as if the curse was a warranted penance of his mortal sins.

In that stalled moment of her sepic tolerance, as she proceeded to retake the arcane relic off the mortal border, Clarion raked her viperous azure depths repulsively over the pudgy rolls of chestnut shaping over his bulbous girth that indistinguishably morphed him into a hefty sea beast-he was another ravaged soul that she deceptively roped down into throes of a befallen-damnable curse. "I never give you wretched mortals what you desire from the sea," she hissed in a scathing pitch, her eyes flashed luridly with demonic hunger. She extended her hand, commanding a worming tentacle to seize her disinterred relic."Not to worry, dear James, you'll have a plentiful life in fathoms...Soon you'll only relish about chasing fish instead of your beautiful love..."

The condemnation of Clarion's words crushed Bucky like a ton of bricks as he squeaked, tossed and turned on the wet sand. He tried to stand and face the evil witch down, but his body no longer possessed poseable legs for him to manage such a feat. The feeling was like phantom limbs that were no longer there. Inwardly, he screamed in both distress and fury. The sounds he emitted were torturous and inhumane. His hands lashed out and he was mortified by the sight of short dark fins. No longer were they the appendages of metal and flesh that pulsed with strength. He was a harp-seal, nothing more than an enormous tub of fat and wet fur, and most alarming was that he was completely vulnerable beneath the evil witch's stare.

"This isn't over." He sneered at her once he managed to roll over onto his belly. His nerves were filled with panic and he could either cry in despair or yell in anger. The latter was more preferable. "I won't quit...Can't." He watched as Clarion's body morphed until her tentacles vanished and her blue flesh took on a more human-like tone. She walked across the sand towards the rock where the relic was left, ignoring him completely as she retrieved it.

"Oh really," Clarion snickered tauntingly, glaring at the fattened harp arch sluggishly on his swollen girth for headlong traction in his dormant momentum; within a fringe of a second, his stubby flipper desperately stretched with reaching intent for the abandoned relic that was in the heap of his shredded clothing. Bucky wouldn't give her the victorious luxury of shackling his hellbent spirit into an oversized blubbery slug. In a vehement reaction, she propelled her barefoot in dragging motion, and viciously forced a haze of sand towards his muzzle, half-blinding him as he feverishly squeaked against the piercing sting-obstructing his resolve."You honestly think that you can subdue my curse, I divested your reckless humanity...Dare to cross me again, dear James, and I'll strip away your voice..."

Bucky said nothing, his sight and mouth obscured by the sand that was kicked in his face. He felt weak and pummeled. It brought back memories of his childhood when he was still too young to stand up to bullies and fight back. The fight inside of him still burned like a hot flame. But his body was as numb as ice. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. He could do nothing but watch as Clarion turned her back and carried the relic with her towards the sea. Her prize and victory trophy. The silence that hung over the area like a smothering pillow, was lifted and the noise of waves crashing against the beach rang loudly in Bucky's ears. Clarion had left him to his fate. A defeated soldier, a defeated man—twisted and morphed into a repugnant sea-mammal that could never hope to be loved.

Not by someone so beautiful as Selina Kyle.

"Selina…" He squeaked into the sand, immoveable and lifeless as he watched the waves. He could sense someone approaching until a small shadow hovered over him.

With a caustic slide against the roughened sand, bracing her elbows for measured traction, undeviatingly against gritted teeth, Selina utilized remnants of her core strength;closing distance between the crestfallen male harp. The heaviness of her tail-fin weighed her down, the sulphuric air felt compressive as her svelte form locked into a planking stance, feeling a telltale contrast infuse against the sleek-bare contours of her curvaceous abdomen as she effectively arched herself inches off the ground, dragging her mid-drift over a heap of his discarded clothes. "Hold on, James..." she heaved out, breathlessly, gazing down at slacken rolls cushioning his blubbery side as he remained sulkily impassive on his bloated girth. Her lithe palm reached fractionally to grace his flipper that curved over his jutted muzzle, caressingly as he subtly quaked under her tentative strokes, imploring him into a grounded wake of steadiness.

"No…No. Stay away!" A harsh squeal emitted from the seal's muzzle. Somehow the mermaid was able to sense the pain and anguish in the sound. His voice wasn't the soft baritone with a silky Brooklyn drawl that could calm her nerves. Not anymore. The scratchiness of his words was stifling and hard to grasp. Bucky shuddered beneath the chill of anxiety creeping through his veins. His mind, unable to comprehend and accept the changes, tried fruitlessly to will his body to its command. Nothing worked, he couldn't sit-up like a normal human with a poseable spine, he couldn't push-himself up with hands that were no longer there. He couldn't even roll over to look at his surroundings! Agitation and creeping stress clawed at him and the seal couldn't contain the cry of agony that ripped from his throat.

"GRAAAH!" He wailed, but the sound that pierced the airwaves was of a howling animal that startled the seagulls off the shore of the beach. He could feel Selina lingering beside him, unsure of what to do as she tried to calm him down.

Keeping her curved palm anchored on his palpitating side, her dainty fingers drifted over rubbery mounds of plump flab, until she eased a flipper off his scrunching muzzle, gleamingly staring into the glacial aquamarine orbs beginning to darken into a soulless pitch of black. She was losing him-she had to enkindle his stoked defiance. "Don't think for a second that I'm leaving you to dance alone, handsome," she fiercely murmured, her palm tensing under the nick of his whiskers. "The damn curse doesn't own you..."

Selina's words ghosted over him like a warm blanket, but he couldn't bring himself to be enveloped in its comfort. His hands…fins, trailed down the expanse of his enormous stomach, feeling nothing but sickening fat and wet fur. He was a beast, a fat and pathetic tub of meat that people would find amusing if not repugnant. Anger and hate festered inside of him, towards Clarion for doing this to him, but most of all towards himself for falling for her tricks, and preying on his desperation to save the woman he loves. The same woman who was trying get him off his fat-ass and not sink into the depths of despair. Bucky grunted and tried to shift away from her touch, finding himself unworthy of it. He was hideous; neither a merman nor human. How could she love him?

"How can you even look at me, Lina?" He squeaked as his black eyes gazed up at her. Her elf-like beauty caused his heart to swell. With both longing and heartache as fear of being forever separated, forever different, occurred to him. "I'm not Bucky anymore…I'm nothing."

It was too damn obvious that Clarion's soul-ravaging witchery was riding him into a vacuum of unbidden hopelessness, Bucky was on the verge of accepting his blighted fate, instead of abandoning him to choke on his tears, with fluid grace, Selina aligned her lithesome body against the rotund expanse of his laden-cushy form, sensing his vulnerability through sobs racking through him-nothing could be quashed down.

The unevaded connection became intimately snug as if she was sinking into an overlarge marshmallow as roiling waves lapped over their tail-fins. She embraced her capturing arm over his girth, holding him with unshakeable control. The fusing variation of their damned aquatic forms felt viscerally natural to the limits of their devotion. Lifting her hand to his muzzle with unerring intent, her thumb glided shakily over the jutted curve of his fanged mouth, tracing the sensuous bow-shape that with unfeigned reverence. "We're going to fight this together, Buck, " she whispered, promisingly, securing the heaviness of his blubbery mass close. "...if there's a relic out that can change you back, we'll find it."

"T-T-T-Together…" Blearily, Bucky fathomed the hopeful intent in her words. The longer he laid immobile, he felt as if he were sinking into an abyss of ignorance and confusion. The world was a blur and the suffocating plume of Clarion's magic hung in the area surrounding him. He felt dry, burdened and vulnerable in a way a soldier would in an opened-space where anyone could take a shot at him. He needed to…He needed… "Can we?" He questioned, feeling a wet trail of emotion pour down his furry cheeks. He wanted to give in, allow the despair to fully engulf him until he forgot everything and everyone. But the moment he felt her hand lovingly caress his mouth, everything became so much more clear—so much more hopeful. "Lina…" He sniffed, nuzzling her hand affectionately.

"The sea…it…its calling me." He squeaked. The hairs on his body rose on end as if he were being attracted by a magnet. His weary eyes gazed at the horizon and the calm waters that looked as welcoming as a warm-bed.

Tactilely Selina's fingers kneaded over his sheathing mounds blubber as the amber sconces of the fading horizon became capture in the rapturous waves that clashed against them, beckoning for her to usher him into the ocean fathoms-an isolated sanctuary away from the undercurrents that she had recently discovered while venturing pass barrier reefs; the surging need to return couldn't be evicted.

They were both conditioned-lethal fighters who dared to breach the shadows; instrumentally fashioned by traumatic depravity that chastised their souls into throes of unforgiving pasts-explosive validity ran bone-deep like acid poured in a keg of diesel waiting for a lilt match to fall. Maybe they were free of being masquerading phantoms-Bucky's voluntarily choice to surrender his humanity revealed an unbreakable promise of undying love.

He gave everything up to be with her in the sea, even if he now existed in the visage menacingly chubby harp; he was still her handsomely suave beast-machine, that would never change. They were inextricably bound together in the elements of land and sea. Heartbreakingly, Bucky's throated squeaks drew up gravelly low as he steered his reluctant gaze achingly towards the clear sea-a different plane of existence to cross over.

The pressure of the sloshing waves had increasingly shifted with sonic echoes of a nearing storm- the intensity of distant lightning forked through darkened clouds, as Bucky's shaded orbs arrested the spastic flashes, piercing light of voltaic azure gleamed mesmerizing with bestial heat-shivery lancing through her as prevailing hope escalated. He didn't fully morph-his fighting spirit was anchored to a harbor of their humanity. Banishing all wage of her uncertainty, Selina gave him a breathless, watery smile, as her finger ghosted over his muzzle.

"Let's get out of here, shall we, seal-boy" she purred sultrily with a kittenish play of a coy quirk tugging effortlessly on her burgundy lips,"Sticking around might call some unpleasant company to appreciate your chubby ass, and handsome," Her dark irises flashed teasingly down at the swelled-out mounds of blubbery flab."You've got a big ass move..."

The playful familiarity of Selina's words was like a warm balm that Bucky felt soothe his very soul as he wrinkled his nose and gently nuzzled her shoulder affectionately. It was strange, but somehow natural in the sense he no longer had poseable lips. The dread in his stomach ebbed as he noticed the tender smile on her face as she then lovingly caressed his cheek. "Can't argue with that, darlin'. Can't say I'm looking forward to being a fat beach-seal. But as long as you're my swimming-partner, I'd say its worth the ride." It was truth, no matter which way things turned out.

He had been willing to sacrifice his own humanity if it meant they could share a life together as the same life-forms, but instead a much different and punishing form had been forced onto him. Fate or whatever power was at work in the world continued to throw life-changing obstacles in their way and somehow, they would find themselves past them and come out stronger. They had to. Hope was an ideal that Bucky latched onto, despite all the pain and suffering he'd endured in his life-time. It wasn't just something he chose to accept, it was gifted to him by those he relied on most. Selina was his hope, his anchor to the man he used to be—the man he still could be.

Completed: {August 25th 2018}

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