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sunspray-peak · 8 months

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Ch. 43: Into the Mines Pt. 3

FLOOR 110.

“Excellent.”

Abigail hopped down the last few rungs, and dusted off her blood and dirt-caked hands with a new surge of energy. “Just what I was hoping for. Was scared the pattern wouldn’t hold—it’s a clear floor ever 10 floors. We should be safe here. Take a, uhh, bit of a break, eh? Now let’s get those sandwiches!”

He had to admire her optimistic attitude.

Sandwiches from Pierre’s, some protein bars, some bananas. It was remarkable how quickly exhaustion could melt away with a full belly. Breakfast had felt like hours ago.

It had, actually, been several hours ago. Six hours, in fact. Checking Alex’s watch—how light it felt on his wrist—it was a few hours before noon.

“I can’t believe you’ve been doing this all year,” Achilles said, pouring some water into a small bowl for Voltaire. “100 fucking floors… all by yourself… Ow!” He had accidentally scratched a cut on his forearm, causing it to well with a fresh line of blood. “Shit, that hurt.”

“Aw, poor wittle baby!” Abigail pranced over to take a closer look at the wound. “Want me to kiss it? Make it feel all better, Baby McBaby face?”

“Ha ha, very funny… my grandma used to say that to us all the time. Well. Not the Baby McBaby face part…” Achilles dribbled his water over his arm. Hmm. Likely wouldn’t need a bandage. Abigail on the other hand… “No, but seriously. I don’t know how you’ve been doing it, it’s remarkable.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Abigail said with a small bow from her seat on a flat rock. But her blue eyes darkened. “Let me tell you though… these past 5 floors… they’re worse. They were way, way worse… I haven’t ever seen this many spirits on one floor…”

“Think that means we’re close?”

“It better mean we’re close. Shit!” Abigail sighed, setting a half-eaten bologna sandwich on the ground, and buried her head in her hands. “This is… this is kinda bad, Achilles. Maybe even… real bad.”

“Should we head back?”

“No!” She leapt from the rock and took an aggressive bite from her sandwich, pointing the second half at him. “We’re close. We are close. I can feel it.”

Achilles shook his head, reaching into his backpack for some more gauze and antibiotics. He had escaped relatively unscathed so far, apart from those minor cuts. But Abigail, who had borne the brunt of the battle, was bleeding from a fresh wound on her forehead (just surface level, she insisted, though Achilles patched it up anyway).

“Should probably take care of that burn…” Achilles poured his water, still cold in the canteen, over a compress and pressed it against her forearm. “Fuck, we should bandage that cut on your neck, too…”

The more he looked at her, the more wounds he saw. Guilt began to stream through his veins, swirl among his stomach in nauseating loops.

All your fault, too, really. Had to spend the whole time defending you, isn’t that right?

And here you are. Fine. Totally fine.

He shook his head, collapsing back onto the floor and grabbing a sandwich of his own.

Close your mind, bitch…

But he was already so tired…

Tired? Yeah? Imagine how Abigail must feel…

Close your mind.

Your name is Achilles Oleander Robinson. You’re 26 years old. Wait, no I’m 27 years old. Fuck, I’m almost 28 aren’t I…

*****

FLOOR 111.

Down they went…

The shadow spirits continued to be relentless—if anything, there were even more of them now, and Abigail and Achilles’ short respite on the floor above hadn’t been enough to bring either of them back to full strength.

Even so, they powered on, Abigail striking and slicing, dodging and diving, as Achilles and Voltaire scoured the scene. Together, they scaled the mines’ jagged rocks, scrabbling amongst the nooks and crannies in desperate search for trap doors, all while doubt did some delving of its own…

Why are you here?

Who were you to even think that you could actually be useful? That you could be important?

*****

FLOOR 112.

It was now clear their break on the 110th floor hadn’t been nearly enough. Even the rope ladders were no longer a safe haven. Though the spirits were unable to fly, bats and snakes were now quick to strike the moment the trio stepped one foot on the rungs.

Abigail was faltering, her swings wilder and sloppier, Achilles forced to stop his search multiple times to fend off spirits and monsters alike.

A sharp, blinding pain arced across his back—a shadow shaman behind him.

Achilles staggered forward, nearly collapsing against an outcrop of iron ore. His hand reached for his shoulder, but from the corner of his eye—more shadow shamans.

“Meow!”

Voltaire gave him a quick nip, bringing him back to his senses, before racing towards Abigail. “Meow!”

They turned from their respective fights and followed the cat—one stumbling foot after the other…

“Achilles!”

A piercing yelp—Abigail had fallen. Tripped, likely, from exhaustion or the uneven ground or both. One arm reaching out. Her ankle weak. Twisted, no doubt.

Achilles sprinted back. The shadow spirits were only a few feet away.

“Come on, come on, come on—”

A dry, rasp. A shadow shaman had neared—its razor sharp claws shooting out faster than his eyes could keep up to tightly grip Achilles’ throat. Raise him from the ground.

Deep laughter reverberated through the greenhouse walls within his head.

With a screech, Abigail raised herself from the ground and plunged her sword into its chest.

Achilles fell to the ground, but he wasn’t given a chance to even take a breath—Abigail had pulled him up. “Time to go, time to go!”Their uneven, half-dragging footsteps pounded against the ground.

What will happen if she falls again?

What will you do?

What can you do?

Voltaire—yes, the trapdoor—

It’s time to go, don’t you think?

*****

FLOOR 113.

The cavern was, mercifully, small. No larger than the town square, which made their harried, wasted search for a nonexistent trapdoor easier.

They would have to clear the floor.

They stood in the center of the space back to back, swords drawn, as spirits and monsters seethed, approaching with razor sharp claws and venomous fangs.

On they fought. Thick sprays of green monster blood mingling with the smoking streams of purple and black, the only residue that remained once spirits had been struck down. Abigail especially looked fearsome, the dirt and blood caking her boots mixing with the gore from the sludges and snakes she slayed, their corpses a pile two feet deep on the ground around them.

It became almost meditative—the rhythm of the lunges, the parries, dodges and swipes. And yet, each twist and turn further ripped the throbbing wound below his shoulders. Beads of blood dripped down his back, running side by side with sweat.

Uncountable minutes passed, perhaps even hours, it was hard to tell tell time these days, for Achilles had nary a second to spare to even glance at Alex’s watch.

Lunge. Parry. Jab. Duck. Over and over again, the muscles in his body joining the voices outside his mind in their screams. But finally—when Achilles felt like he could scarcely raise his arms another inch, that unsettling chord of chimes rang through the cavern, and to their right, a trapdoor emerged from the ground.

He collapsed atop a rock smeared in the gooey remains of a red sludge. Abigail was quick to follow, awkwardly kicking aside the tangled masses of dead bats and lava crabs to sit on the ground, her head resting back against the rock beside Achilles’ leg.

My name is Achilles Oleander Robinson. I’m 27 years old. I live in Stardew Valley. I was born in Monstera. I have five cousins. Camille. Chloe. Elise. Nick. Benji. I have a cat.

Words that had been ringing in his head nonstop during his fight with the spirits—like a chant, a mantra pulsing steadily, as if on autopilot, within the greenhouse of his mind. Like a heartbeat. Or maybe more like a headache. Yoba, a headache of his own making…

How long can this last?

How long can you last?

With a groan, he buried his face in his left hand, while the fingers of his right just barely clung to the gunmetal hilt of his sword.

“We should go, Abby.”

“Just one more minute—”

“—no. I mean… we should go back up.”

“What? Like… give up?”

The sword slipped through Achilles’ fingers and clattered to the floor, the sound echoing among the gloomy tomb. He left it there. It hurt too much to bend.

“Not give up, just… maybe come back. Tomorrow.” With a ragged fingernail, he weakly scraped dried blood from the face of Alex’s watch. “We’ve been out here nearly 14 hours—”

Abigail shook her head slowly, her neck sore and strained. “No.”

“Abigail…”

“No, Achilles.”

“Abby, there’s two days left, we can regroup—”

“There’s no time to regroup! It’s only going to get worse the closer we get to Spirit’s Eve— more monsters. Even more spirits.

“But we can rest—”

“Achilles, there’s no time. But… but if you want to go back, fine. Go.”

Hmm.

There was an idea.

Nausea immediately swept his stomach—selfish. Selfish.

He shook his head in an attempt to clear the thought. “Abigail, I’m not going to leave—”

“I said no.” With neither a groan nor a grimace, she stood firmly to her feet. “I’m not going to just give up, Achilles. I’m close. I know I’m close, I can feel it—and I’m not just going to give up now.”

She stalked slowly towards the trapdoor. Voltaire followed her to the edge of the hall where he sat and licked a sludge-stained paw, gazing at Achilles expectantly.

“I’ve spent this whole year fighting my way down the mines without you.” Her voice rang clear, though her back was turned from him. “If you want to go, go. But I’m staying.”

Leave her.

Again, his stomach fought his mind, twisting sharply with a deep set shame that his brain seemed unable to acknowledge.

“No.”

Abigail was strong, but Achilles was still naturally stronger, not to mention over half a foot taller. She was a tiny girl. He swept her from behind, holding her scrambling form against his chest. “We’ll come back tomorrow, I promise—”

Sure, you promise… don’t lie to yourself.

Abigail fought back, even going so far as to try to jab him with her sword, but her position was awkward, and Achilles managed to wrestle the blade from her grip.

“Achilles,” she cried. “We can’t do this. We have to finish this, we have to finish this now.”

She slipped herself out below from his grasp and collapsed onto the crimson soil. Tears flooded the dried smears of blood on her cheeks.

“You don’t understand. We’re so close. I can feel it. And if we leave… we’re going to miss our chance. We can’t start over, we can’t afford to wait another day, let alone another year. Everybody knows about our mission. I can’t fail, people are going to think I’m a coward, that I couldn’t handle it—”

“Abby that’s— what? No. No one is going to think less of you—people already think you’re brave—”

The glory. The pride—so was this what it was all about then? Failure. How emerging from the mines, their sole task unfinished, would reflect on one so desperate to be seen as something more than ordinary.

At this realization, he paused.

Well, well, well. Just looking in a mirror, isn’t it.

But surely… surely he wasn’t this insane; he would never be so determined to do something so high-risk, so incredibly high-stakes, just for others’ approval. Even his pride had its limit.

Well maybe that’s why you’re a failure. Maybe you’ve always played it too safe…

Recognizing the surrender in his face, Abigail reached for her sword, still in Achilles’ hand.

Her fingertips, callused as they were, felt soft against his fingers. She leaned into his chest, though for emotional or physical support, Achilles wasn’t quite sure. “Please. If it— if it gets bad, we can go. I promise. But right now—I can still fight. I can still do this.”

She stared determinedly into his eyes, her hands vice like around his arms, as unshakable as her resolve.

Voltaire eyed them from the edge of the trap door as they slowly made their way over. The cat, eager as ever, was the first to jump down, followed closely by Abigail.

Achilles paused briefly at the top of the ladder, taking a second to roll his shoulders back—a move that once again split open the gash the shadow shaman had dealt him on the floor above.

He bit the inside of his cheek—didn’t need Abigail hearing him cry out, not when she was probably pushing aside the pain of a thousand of these sort of cuts…

Come, let’s go, let’s go… Yoba, what was he doing…

You’re making a big mistake.

#llnks #stardew valley fanfic #sdv fic #stardew valley fanfiction #stardew valley oc #stardew valley abigail

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o5-the-daughter · 2 years

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Warnings: nightmare; manipulation, repetition, death, unreality, repeated gun violence, gore?/mention of multiple severe injuries, blood, drowning, panic attack, brief mentions of unintentional self harm

Word count: 1.557

Only visible to Experimenter (@o5-blackbird).

"It is okay to be afraid", Mikhail speaks, his deep, accent-heavy voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"But you will need to learn to control it."

He nods, shifting in his spot ever so slightly.

"Fear will stop you, sooner or later. Get in your way at important moment. So you have to turn it into something more.. useful. Turn the pain around, make it a tool, make it strength."

Heavy hands grab his wrists, guiding him on how to hold the gun previously resting loosely in his right.

"There is a small line between fear and anger - flight or fight. I want you to step over the line. I want you to ignore every instinct to flee, and I want you to remember that you are a monster too. They should be scared of you."

He tenses up, though only slightly so.

A monster..

"You see, anger is better than those tears of yours,"

He doesn't turn to look. Only another nod.

"Anger is better than grief,"

A deep breath. His hands are steady this time, much too steady for his own comfort.

"And anger is better than guilt, too."

He takes aim, carefully, precisely.

"And guilt will come. But if you want to survive in this business, you need to deal with it. Taking a few lives is nothing if it means saving thousands - even if the lives are dear to us."

A short pause, just a heartbeat's time of silence.

"You understand that, kid, don't you?"

His finger rests on the trigger now. Under his breath, a barely audible "yes". He hates how easy it comes to him.

He can hear the old man smile, and the uncomfortably tight touch disappears.

The faceless something a few meters from him tilts its head. It is tall, taller than him, with no distinct features to tell who - or what - it is. It seems normal in the moment.

Inhale. Two, three, four..

Exhale.

The gunshot is deafeningly loud, but he doesn't flinch at the noise; instead, he stares in silence as bright red blood starts to drip out of the figure's head, pouring down its paper-white face in a slow, steady stream like a melting river in spring.

A perfect ten.

He turns around now, hands numb from the recoil of the gun, waiting for that poison-sweet praise he had grown so accustomed to.

Yet, he finds himself alone, no matter how many times he turns around himself with growing confusion.

Suddenly, behind him, as if coming from the something he had just shot, "Prove it", in that deep, disembodied voice.

He turns again, brows furrowed in confusion, though he doesn't have the time to question it; the creature is still standing, still bleeding, more than it possibly should have been able to. The pool of blood around it is growing quickly, steadily, seeming to reach for him with liquid fingers, sharp as talons.

The figure itself, the monster, changes meanwhile, changes into her, who had been killed, murdered, for bearing his name so long ago already, blood gushing still from the deep cut clean across her throat. She opens her mouth, attempting to speak through the gurgling sound it makes; he doesn't let her, pulling the trigger once, then a second time, just to be sure.

He steps back when she doesn't fall, cringing at the faint sound of his boot stepping into something wet. He glances down, just for a second, at the growing sea of red that has swallowed the ground below, with more and more of it coming from her anyway.

Though, when he looks back up, she is not herself anymore, she has become a much taller woman with golden hair and cold eyes. When she takes a step in his direction, he pulls the trigger again, giving himself no time to stare at the blood red flower blooming from her chest - an awfully familiar sight.

Another step back, his feet move slower now, held back by the ever-growing amount of liquid that reaches up to his ankles. With the blink of an eye, it's higher yet again, high enough to pour into his boots, seeming to lock him in place with the extra weight. He hates the feeling, he hates it, hates it so much, he wants to scream.

But he can't.

He can't.

Grey eyes stare at him, a child's face, blood dripping from her blue lips. She reaches out, a plea for help, one he can't answer. Not this time.

Why not..?

He whispers a soft "I'm sorry", thanking whatever God there may be for returning his voice after all. Gunshot number five leaves an awful ringing in his ears.

More blood. He doesn't know how there can be so much by now, where it even comes from, but everything in him is screaming to run finally. Yet, the ghost of Mikhail's fingers lingers on his wrist.

They should be scared.

They should be.

He's a monster too, after all.

But why do these words sting so much-?

Another step back, then he freezes.

He doesn't know why this one hurts so much, their oddly fragile-looking frame drenched in sweat, auburn hair sticking to their face, eyes dull from fever - but he hesitates, stepping back and back and back until his shoulders hit a wall he wasn't even aware of before. They follow suit, paying little mind to the still-raised weapon, to the slight trembling of his once so calm hands.

"You're not my mistake", he mumbles slowly, his voice barely above a whisper, then, a bit louder, "You're not my fucking mistake."

Finger back on the trigger, he stares a moment longer, at this awfully familiar figure barely a meter or two away. His eyes are closed before the bullet leaves the barrel, a desperate attempt at self-preservation.

The effort doesn't last; it never does.

Sticky fingers, or what remains of them, grab his throat, not yet tight enough to cause real damage, but an unspoken threat no matter what. The sickly sweet smell of burned flesh threatens to drown him then and there, wrapping itself tightly around every fiber of his being, claws digging into his flesh and the fabric of his clothes.

The thing leans closer, even without opening his eyes, he can feel its cold breath on his skin, even without opening his eyes, he knows of the death-blinded sapphires staring into his very soul.

A voice disrupts the increasingly loud heartbeat echoing in his ears, one hissing of death and ashes;

"Your sins will catch up to you sooner or later. Don't you see?"

Then, he is pulled under, burning red filling his lungs as he tries, again, to scream.

It doesn't work.

Why won't it work?

Why won't it stop-?

Make it stop.

Please-

The first thing you feel when you regain control of your body is a boney hand tightly gripping your wrists, holding them together somewhere away from you; for a moment, it feels like the dream is not yet over, as if this terrible thing is still trying to drown you. Then, you're pulled close against a thin fabric, a warm chest underneath, and your desperate struggle for air slows a little as you notice a vague, rhythmic tap against your skin, one drawing your attention away from the suffocating panic.

Okay.

It's okay.

You know this game, you know it well, just count, just count and try to breathe along-

It takes a while until you finally manage to open your eyes and even after you do, your sight is blurred by burning tears, another thing that won't fucking stop, no matter how much you want it to.

Just now, as your sight slowly clears, you realize that you're sitting up - more or less, at least, half-collapsed still against the other person's chest. You don't have the energy to complain. You can feel his heart beating, vaguely, hidden away, but so clearly, undeniably alive that you almost want to start crying again.

He pulls his hand from yours after a while, allowing you a glimpse at the bit of red underneath your nails. You know it's yours, this time at least, and it makes it a little better; it's a certain kind of relief that tastes sweet in just the same manner a hauntingly deep voice still speaks in your mind some days does. Sweet as poison.

Another shaky breath.

He runs his fingers through your hair with a gentleness that numbs the burning of your throat and the aching of your fingers still cramping slightly from the previous lack of oxygen. You lean into him almost by reflex, it's a second nature to you at this point. He doesn't comment or laugh, he just keeps taking slow, steady breaths, and you keep listening, feeling the rise of his chest, the beating of his heart.

Alive.

He's alive.

He's so painfully alive, right there, right next to you, you somehow wish time would stop for you just this once, grant you a minute, an hour, a day longer, to stay right there and do nothing at all.

Didn't you deserve that, too, after everything?

A moment to relax, a moment to breathe, to forget, to live?..

#a story told #vivamus; moriendum est.#comfort in the chaos #tw nightmare #tw manipulation #tw repetition #tw unreality #tw death #tw gun violence #tw injury #tw drowning #tw panic attack #tw implied self harm #[Figures in order: O5-8-B ‘Green’; Seven; London; Experimenter (GS011); Two]#[throwback to Alexander's wrist thing! ;>]

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ezm-imagines · 3 years

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I know we don’t like j*hn w*lker... but I need bucky x reader with a side of bucky and walmart cap drama — like fake cap just constantly hitting on reader and bucky (or reader honesty) putting him in his place?

feel free to ignore this if it doesn’t spark inspiration!!

jealousy, jealousy (bb imagine)

Summary: John Walker being gross to you and Bucky being pisses about it.

Word Count: 1.6k

“He makes me sick,” Bucky gritted through his teeth, watching as Walker took your wrist and led you across the bar.

The team had needed more information from Madripoor, but since Bucky and Sam had already blown their covers quite recently, they had sent in you and Walker.

You two were pretending to be a well-known mafia couple: you had on a tight, revealing red dress and John had his gross hands all over you. He was clearly loving it. You were clearly not.

Bucky and Sam sat undercover in the corner of the bar as back-up if anything happened, meaning Bucky had a front row seat of watching Walker be more disgusting than usual.

You said something to the bartender with a laugh and Walker joined in with a short comment and more laughter, slinking his hand around your waist.

Even from across the room, Bucky knew you well enough to tell how you tensed the second his hand contacted your skin. Ever the actor, he was sure no one else could recognize it. But he did.

He balled his hands into fists, trying to use the pain and the pressure of its tightness to calm himself down.

“You need to chill,” Sam muttered beside him, “I know you like Y/N but if you blow up, you’re going to get her killed. Walker’s just doing his job.”

“Hah,” Bucky barked out a bitter laugh, “Yeah, and he’s loving it just a little too much.”

“Look, you think I like this anymore than you? I hate watching this shit, man. Y/N’s like a sister to me. But suffering Walker’s touch is better than a bullet wound from each gun in the building. Here,” he pushed his drink over to Bucky, “You need this more than me.”

Bucky slid it back. He was not in the mood to drink. Even if alcohol had little effect on him anyway, he wanted to be stone cold sober as he watched Walker.

Walker took a casual look around the bar as he continued to make conversation with the bartender. His eyes fell on Bucky’s glare and he smirked.

As he continued speaking, his hand traveled down your backside to rest on your butt. The bartender couldn’t see it, and even if they could, it would just be in line with your covers. But Walker knew what he was doing. When the bartender began responding, Walker gave a little wink back to Bucky as he squeezed your butt.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Bucky grit out, his Winter Soldier side coming fully alive.

Sam clamped a hand on Bucky’s arm, “Don’t. You. Dare.”

“But you see what he’s fucking doing! He’s taking advantage of her!” “And he’s trying to piss off you! Anyone who comes within a mile of you and Y/N can tell you’re head over heels for her. It’s a power move. He’s trying to assert a position over us. And her.”

“Oh, I’m going to assert something…”

“Like hell you are. You’re going to sit here and wait for them to give the signal and then we leave.”

“And we leave Walker behind, bleeding to death in some alleyway.”

“Barnes—“

But Sam’s words were interrupted, as you leaned down to readjust the straps of your heels: the signal that you had gotten the information you needed.

Walker grinned broadly with your ass on full display as you bent over. He gave it a little slap and made some joking remark to the bartender, who heartily agreed with him.

Bucky was seething. Thank fuck you guys were about to leave, because he was about to make another Winter Soldier scene in Madripor and kill everyone in eyesight.

You stood back up, gave Walker an intense look, and began strutting towards the door of the bar.

Walker took the last swig of his drink and set down cash on the bar before running off after you.

“We should wait a while before we leave,” Sam instructed.

“And give Walker alone time with her? No fucking way.” Bucky stood up immediately and stalked out of the bar.

Sam sighed and finished his drink before following to make sure Bucky wasn’t about to do something stupid.

By the time the boys had come outside and found you in the alleyway around the corner, Walker already had blood streaming down his cheek.

“— if you EVER pull ANYTHING like that again I will leave you in a dumpster to rot, you fucking hear me?”

“Come on, baby, I know you have a crush on me. You’re just scared of admitting it in front of Barnes, but I can tell with the looks you give me.” “The looks of pure hatred? God, you’re fucking delusional.”

“Says the bitch who’s pretending she doesn’t like me.”

You opened your mouth to reply, but found Bucky’s metal hand wrapped around Walker’s throat within a blink of an eye, “Do I need to shut you up or can I cut off your fucking hands first so you never touch a lady like that again?”

He landed a sharp punch to Walker’s nose, “If you even breathe in her direction again—“

“What?” Walker laughed through his bleeding nose, “You’ll kill me? Fuck, you’re angrier than she is. Gee, I wonder why that could be…?”

Bucky grabbed Walker by his button up and threw him across the alleyway, slamming him against the brick wall.

“You’re gonna make a scene,” Sam warned.

“It’s fucking worth it if I never see him again,” Bucky replied, stalking over to where Walker’s body had fallen.

Walker groaned, but quickly picked himself up. Stupid super soldier serum.

He swung punches at Bucky but missed each one until Bucky grabbed one arm from the air and twisted it around him, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Bucky hissed in his ear.

“Oh, I don’t?” Walker smirked, “It’s pretty obvious, Buck. I mean, it’s one thing to find out that the Winter Soldier has feelings, it’s another to find out he’s a little puppy bitch for the girls he likes.”

This distraction allowed Walker to get a hit on Bucky, square in his jaw.

The shouting and the fighting was beginning to draw a crowd. Shit. Shit shit shit.

You ran in between the two men, prying them from each other.

“Knock it off!” You shouted, before muttering out of earshot of the spectators, “You’re gonna fucking get us all killed. Let’s get back to the quinjet and you guys can kill each other there.”

The boys separated, but not without a few last hits each.

***

Bucky was wrapping his hand on his bed in the Tower when he heard a knock at the door.

“Enter,” he called, not looking up from his wounds.

When you said they could fight later, they hadn’t taken that lightly. They had fought even harder than when he and Sam had taken the shield away from Walker the other week.

“Hey,” you stepped inside.

Bucky immediately forgot about what he was doing, all attention on you, “Hey.”

“How ya holdin’ up?” You motioned to his first aid kit.

“I’ll be fine in a day. It’s really nothing.” You quirked an eyebrow, “Your forehead is split open.”

He let his fingers slide across the large gash that slid down his forehead and toward his temple. The bleeding had stopped at least.

“Like I said,” he continued with a calm smile, “I’ll be fine.”

You shook your head and made your way over to sit beside him. You took the alcohol and a few cotton pads from the first aid kit, wetting them, “You know, you didn’t need to beat him up for me. I could do that on my own.”

You dabbed the cotton on his forehead cut, but he barely flinched at the pain. Guess he was used to pain, huh? “I know,” he replied truthfully. He clearly had no doubt of that, “It wasn’t about defending you.” Your eyes slid from his cut down to meet his, “Then what was it about?”

Suddenly, you couldn’t remember how to breathe normally anymore. You were so close to him, and he was looking up at you from under his lashes with those bright blue eyes…

Until he wasn’t. He looked down. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” You questioned, “Because it sounded like Walker did.”

Bucky’s voice was hoarse as he spoke up, “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth would be nice,” you teased lightly. But when he looked at you again, his gaze was anything but light.

You swallowed thickly.

“I mean, obviously I care about you, Y/N. You’ve been here for me for years. I don’t like seeing someone take advantage of you. Especially like that.”

“Is that it?”

He hung his head, “I know what you’re trying to do here, doll, but don’t make me say it. You deserve better than me. Someone like Sam or Steve. It’s better like this.”

“For who? Because it isn’t for me.” You took his rough, flesh hand in yours, “Buck. Come on. Please.”

He closed his eyes and sighed, before just saying what he’d wanted to say for years now, “I love you, doll. Always have. I don’t like seein’—“

But you interrupted him with a kiss. He melted into it desperately, afraid this was the only one he’d ever get. The moment you started pulling away, he stopped, accepting the inevitable.

“I love you, too, dummy. You don’t get to get away from me that easy.”

He blushed slightly, before speaking up, “Then can we do that again?”

You grinned and nodded, leaning back in to kiss him again. This time, he threaded a hand through your hair and pulled your jaw into him.

Okay. So maybe Walker was good for one thing…

#possessive!bucky #posessive!bucky #avengers imagine #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #marvel imagine #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes drabble #bucky barnes fanfic #my writing

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kiribaku-queen · 3 years

Text

The Blood King and his Queen [6]

Pairing: Bakugou x reader

Romance, Angst, Drama

Word count: 2.2K

Summary: From being a mere servant girl to marrying the scariest prince in existence, your world changed right before your eyes. Exchanging places with the princess, you knew, wasn’t going to be easy. But could you have found love on the way? Or was it never meant to be?

A/N: I really need to stop writing so late at night... I finish writing sometimes at 2 or 3 in the morning but I have to wake up at 5:30!! God, why do I do that to myself?! But its all worth it because I love reading your comments and seeing your likes and shares <3

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You waved your arms in the air, signaling to his men where you were. How worried and concerned they looked couldn’t be explained with words. It was like they didn’t even look at him as their prince. They viewed him more as a close family member than their future king.

Everyone crowded around Bakugou wanting to be the one to help him up. But ultimately, it was Kirishima and Sero who supported him, one on each side as they helped sling his arms over their shoulders. Bakugou growled in pain every time he moved or took a step. Your eyebrows furrowed in concern and you couldn’t take your eyes off him. You deeply wanted to help him, but what more could you do? Sure, you helped stop the bleeding a little bit but surely there was something else you could do. You wanted to be the one he leaned on. You didn’t want to feel useless. And it was frustrating because you knew you could be of more help. You didn’t want to look like a princess who didn’t know how to do anything.

Mina happened to glance over at you while you mentally criticized yourself. Your hands were balled up in fists in front of you, your pouty lips were quivering, and you couldn’t take your eyes off the wounded prince. Mina’s eyes softened. She came up to you, took your hands in hers, and gave you a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry about that drama queen. He’s going to be fine. He can handle a small cut like that. He’s not called the infamous Blood Prince for nothing,” Mina assured you, making you feel a little bit better but no doubt, still worried.

You all stopped to rest about that ambush. No one else was hurt and nothing had been taken, just a few broken carriages but that’s all. One soldier was setting up a fire to heat up some drinks, two of them were looking at a map and depicting which route was safest to cross, and another was tending to Bakugou’s wounds. Thankfully, there was a whole cart of medicine. They applied medicine skillfully to his cut. This must happen a lot that they know exactly what to do without a doctor. You could only watch as you sit next to him, your eyes never leaving his cut. As his soldier was about to cover his wound back up, you held your hand out to stop him.

“May I?” you offered. The soldier was taken aback at the request, not expecting you to offer your assistance but gladly let you after seeing your determined face.

“As you wish, princess,” he backed off to leave the rest to you. You took hold of the bandages and began to wrap them around his torso.

“You let me know if it starts to hurt again,” you demanded as you finished wrapping him up.

“I’ll be fine,” he grumbled. You didn’t like his answer so you tightened your knot a little too tight for his liking and he winced in pain.

“I’m serious,” you pouted. Bakugou could laugh at your reaction but decided against it.

“Is her highness upset with me?” he questioned and you couldn’t hold back your thoughts.

“How could you get hurt like that?” you exploded. “You had me so worried. What if you had gotten killed? What would I have done then? You shouldn’t let yourself get distracted, especially not because of me.” You were scolding him but Bakugou’s lips turned into a deep frown. He grabbed you by the wrists, making you face him.

“Surely her highness isn’t saying that she is not of importance?” his deep voice whispered, raising one eyebrow in curiosity. Having his face so close to yours made you flustered.

“Well…” you tried to say but couldn’t finish.

“To me, you are the most important person here. I would battle a hundred swordmen and lose all my limbs if it means that you are safe,” he said, seriously. Your lips parted in surprise by his sudden confession. When Bakugou snapped back to his senses, he was the one to become flustered this time.

“B-Because you are the future queen… o-of course,” he tried brushing off, looking away like it was nothing. Any feeling of happiness that you had slowly turned into disappointment. Of course, he was only protecting you because he thinks you are the princess, his future bride. If it was you, you were sure he wouldn’t be saying these things. But you tried to not let it get to you.

“Bakugou, princess!” you heard Sero’s voice behind you. You both turned to see Sero running towards you with two cups in his hands, careful not to spill its contents. “Freshly made. Drink it before it gets too cold.” He squatted, carefully giving you both a cup.

“Thank you,” you gave Sero a smile.

“Ah, also,” Sero stopped to pull out a map from his back pocket. “Kirishima was looking at the map again and if we go through this route, we can probably avoid any more bandits.” He said while showing Bakugou the new route.

“Can we still make it there in two days time?” Bakugou asked.

“Yes sir,” Sero said confidently.

“Good man. We’ll leave in 10,” Bakugou gave Sero a nod of approval. When he left, Bakugou attempted to get up from his position. He held onto the tree for support and grunted in pain as he started to stand.

“What are you doing?” you questioned, puzzled on what he was doing. Instinctively, you grabbed hold onto his arm to help support him.

“Leaving. I have to make sure everything is intact,” he said and still tried to stand tall. You pushed him back down and shoved the cup back in his hands.

“At least finish this. I’ll go do it for you,” you say. Before Bakugou had the chance to refuse your offer, you were already on your feet, running to the group of soldiers. Bakugou watched while you were frantically making sure that you had all the supplies and checking everything like he would. Although, being a rookie, you were bad at your job. The soldiers laughed, making you feel embarrassed yet welcomed by them. They told you everything you needed to check so that next time, you could do it yourself. With a smirk, Bakugou watched in amusement.

You traveled on the new route Kirishima had set for you all. But because it wasn’t the normal road they took, it was a bumpy ride with the ground being uneven. You thought you would be fine continuing on, but you became a little jumpy due to the recent events that just happened. Every snap of a twig or rustle of the bushes, you turned your head to make sure that no other bandits were sneaking up on you.

“Scared, princess?” Bakugou whispered in your ear. You huffed and crossed your arms.

“No,” you denied.

“Like I said, I’ll protect you no matter the cost,” he reminded you. He was loud enough for his other soldiers to hear. Mina gushed over his comment while the others had their mouths wide open. Bakugou? The Blood Prince? Saying these romantic remarks to a woman? Now this was a new sight to see. Kirishima, on the other hand, was smiling softly at the new couple. He couldn’t wait to see your relationship bloom into something beautiful.

Being that the road you were on was so uneven, you had to hold on tight so that you didn’t fall off the horse. At one point, the horse became scared, lifting on his hind legs. You gasped out loud and closed your eyes to brace yourself for a fall. But Bakugou had swooped his arm around your waist and stabilized both of you to stay on the horse.

“See, gotcha,” the prince teased. You covered your face so he couldn’t see how flushed your face was. Bakugou chuckled because he knew. He could tell you were flustered and that’s the exact reaction he wanted to get out of you.

As promised, in two days time, you made it to your next destination. What you saw wasn’t a lively town, filled with vibrant colors and a chorus of people. There were no food stands that sold a variety of foods and desserts. No whiff of saliva-inducing smells. No entertainment on the street for you to enjoy.

You saw a poor village; with run-down houses and starving people all over the streets. The atmosphere turned sad, like a gray cloud was constantly over this place. The life out of this town was completely sucked out. The image was so heartbreaking that you could break down in tears this very instant.

“Bakugou,” your voice cracked.

“I know,” he said, just as sad and disappointed you were, probably even more. “This is the other side of the kingdom that no one gets to see. Most of this kingdom is living in poverty. Everyone knows of the more lavish side, but in reality, what you are currently seeing is most of my kingdom. There are two completely different worlds here but no one, not my brothers not the kind, is doing anything about it. I don’t even know how to fix it.” He explained. You reached a certain, open area and Bakugou got off, so did every soldier. They began unloading all their supplies. You could see a line starting to form not far from you guys.

“And this is the only way I can think of to help,” he said, offering his hand to you. You took it, hoping off the horse.

“How often do you do this?” you ask, still in shock with what you were seeing.

“Every month or so? I try as often as I can,” he replied as he also started unpacking the crates from the cart. Food, medicine, spare clothes, they had it all. The realization hit you. So that’s why they packed so many things in the beginning. It was for his people. His men were almost done setting up, getting ready to pass out rations to his people. But you were standing to the side awkwardly.

No. There was no doubt in your mind that you wanted to help him. You moved to stand next to Bakugou, proactively helping to pass out food rations.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. Aren’t you embarrassed as a princess?” Bakugou asked without sparing you a glance.

“Never. I want to help,” you said as confidently as you could, giving him eyes of determination. Bakugou finally looked at you, his heart skipping a beat again. He coughed, beating on his chest a few times.

You smiled at everyone who came in line, welcoming them without a single judgment. You looked down the line and all his soldiers were doing the same thing. They do this so often that the people recognize them and are laughing and having a good time. For living in such poor conditions, their spirits weren’t down.

After every single person had gotten their rations, you thought the work was over. Oh, how you were wrong. Once that was over with, his men started carrying out more things from the crates. This time, it was wood. They were going to help repair some homes. You were going to find Bakugou but immediately turned around when he took his cape and you saw him completely shirtless.

“You can sit this one out princess. This’ll get a little messy,” he advised. But you shook your head, still facing away from him.

“No, I want to help!” you were still determined. He chuckled at you.

“If you want to help, you’re gonna have to face the other way,” he pointed out. You took a deep breath and had the courage to face him. But only, your stare was straight down at the floor instead of him. How could you? With him being shirtless and all. Was that even necessary?

Bakugou took an axe and started chopping some wood. Your job was to bring the chopped wood to his soldiers who were the ones building the houses.

You eventually got tired bringing the wood back and forth, so you took a seat next to Bakugou who was nonstop chopping wood. The sweat was glistening his body in a godly matter. You couldn’t take your eyes away from his chest, that was heaving up and down. And then add some sweat? Phew, it made you feel hot.

“How long as this been going on?” you started a conversation.

“Ha?” he turned to you, not expecting you say anything so he was a tad out of it. “Ah, all my life.” He said. He decided that he’ll take a break too. He put down the axe and sat down next to you.

“If my father didn’t lie, these people probably wouldn’t be living like this,” he commented.

“Your father lied?” you asked curiously. Bakugou couldn’t believe that he was actually saying this, but he felt comfortable enough with you that he did.

“When he became King, he promised that he would protect every life in his kingdom. But look at all these people. They are suffering and dying because they are not getting the help that they need. And my father is neglecting them! He is a liar who couldn’t commit to a promise!” Bakugou started getting heated up. “That’s why I hate liars. I’ll ruin anyone who lies to me.”

And when he said that, your heart physically dropped.

A/N: Can I just say, you're gonna LOVE the next chapter. I literally just know it because I LOVE IT!

Also, does anyone else just read these chapters and think of it as an anime? No? Just me? Honestly, if I'm the only one that does this I'm gonna feel like such an idiot.

If you want to be added to the taglist, please comment or DM me and I'll gladly add you!!!

Tagged: @superblyspeedydragon @melasnchz-things @animexholic @bkgwrites @sam-i-am-1025 @apexqueenie @katsukibabe @germfart3 @tspice283 @angie-1306 @bakugous-trauma @bakugousmrs @random-fandom-girl-24 @monetfatalia @triviajeongin @readingslumpfanfic @softredrobin

#bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bnha bakugou #bakugou imagine #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha imagine #bakugou angst #bakugou romance #bakugou fluff #bnha art #bakugou drama

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unlucky-qiqi · 3 years

Note

Hey! Can I ask for a scenario with Dazai with s/o (she) is struggling to stay alive, and even have a suicide attempt (by cutting herself too deep or something), but Dazai saved her in time and trying to comfort her. He being so scared to lose her, promise to himself to never trying to kill himself. And promising her to protect her from another attempt.

(I'm feeling a little too down, and I'm struggling to stay alive. I hope you're ok and comfortable writing this. If not, it's ok.)

Mon Beau Papillon

A/n: Hi anon, thank you for requesting. I do hope everything will be better soon. Sending love ❤️ And, this is the first time I wrote angst so it was one hell of a ride.

Tw: Angst, Self-harm, blood, suicide attempts.

—————

One cut, two cuts, three cuts.

You slowly crafted your skin with wounds as the crimson liquid of your body slowly dripped down on your wrist. Oh such a beautiful sight to be seen, red lines on that flesh of yours was as elegant to the lines on the wings of the butterflies.

But sadly, none of those mattered. You were ready to free yourself from this hell. To be free like a butterfly that flutters its wings in the middle of the meadows.

You raised the silver wedge and slit the surface of your soft skin, deep enough to let great amounts of blood gush out from the cut.

Slowly, your vision became blurry, your breathing became erratic and your mind was going blank. Holding on to the last threads of your life, you heard a sound, the screaming of your name from the voice of your beloved. “I’m tired…” was all you could mutter as everything finally went black.

—————

When Dazai opened the door, he was in shock. You were there, blood all over your body. He screamed your name but what did it do? Nothing. He heard you mumble the last words that rolled off your tongue and now, he was in panic.

He already knew the situation you were going through so, as much as possible, he tried to go home earlier. Every second he’s with you is important to him and every second he is away from you, was hell for him.

For him, you are fragile, like a butterfly. He was scared that if he let you go, you would break. But, just like the insect he compared you to, to his eyes you’re beautiful.

Immediately, he called Yosano. With your current condition he knew that even the greatest doctors might not be able to save you.

He took off his own bandages from his arm and applied it to your wound to stop the bleeding. He holds your other hand, very tightly yet so gentle.

“L/n-san, hold on a little bit more, my beloved belladonna, Yosano-san will be arriving here to save you. ”

—————

Luckily, Yosano arrived immediately.

Now, you were laying down on the bed with Dazai sitting beside the bed. He watched your chest go up and down with every breath you take. ‘Not again’ he said to himself. He was once a second late and because of that, he lost someone and he is not letting that happen again.

You opened your eyes, the ceiling was the first thing that came to your sight. You take a minute to observe your surroundings. Dazai held your hand, worried about you.

“Love, are you alright? Tell me, how are you? ”

The voice of the brunette made you flinch. Then suddenly, all of the memories from last night rushed through your mind like the waves in a stormy sea.

One drop, two drops, three drops

Tears slowly ran down your cheeks. You covered your face with your palms, not wanting to let your significant other see your face in such a state. 'Pathetic.’ you thought.

You could have told him, you could have asked for help. But no, you decided to take matters into your own hands. If only you had the courage to do so none of these would have happened.

You were distracted from your distress when suddenly, warmth engulfed you. His big hand rubbing your back to soothe you down. His free one, he used it to pat your head, playing with the strands of your hair.

“Y/n, you know, when I first saw you, I had a thought. That, you would join me in a double suicide. Such an act is very romantic to me and I am vowed to do it with you…”

He let out a small chuckle and smiled. He cupped one of your cheeks and looked at you. Your eyes had bags underneath but that didn’t stop him to see the deep abyss of your orbs.

“But, the more I have spent my time with you, the more I see that such an act isn’t as romantic as waking up with you in the morning. It isn’t as romantic as seeing you smile nor the times I see you laugh whenever we visit the agency.”

He gave you a kiss. A small yet the sweetest among the kisses you received from him. You see him smile. A smile, not a smirk nor a sad smile, a happy and genuine smile that he only shows with you and the people he truly cares the most.

“Ever since what happened last night, I have promised myself and you, that I will never commit suicide, with or without the physical pain. Because, I am your lover and I should be the one that will protect you.”

He said with a smile, a sad one. As you look into his eyes, you see sincerity in his words. Your lips twitched in a curve. It was always hard to find a reason to live. In fact you were searching for it for a long time. But here it is, rather, here he is, in front of you, holding you like you are the most precious thing in the world.

“I love you y/n-san. I really do.”

“I love you too… Thank you… for saving me …”

—————

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nevervalentines · 3 years

Text

(went looking for) a creation myth [read on ao3 here]

With the Vytal Festival just weeks away, Yang is left looking for answers to questions she is too scared to ask.

***

Yang and Blake, before.

[7k words of a speed run enemies-to-lovers, roughhousing with bladed weapons, and sexually charged hair washing]

Blood is seeping through the fabric of her top, and her tan jacket is gritty with dust. It’s enough to staunch the tacky, rust-colored stain, but only just, and the cut stings with sweat and friction as Yang raises her forearm to run it across her brow.

She slicks her bangs out of her eyes, and reloads her gauntlets with a tight punch at her side, bracing her arms for the recoil as the shells drop into their chambers. Ember Celica is overloud in the sudden quiet of the clearing. Moss-dampened and studded with new spring growth, Emerald Forest is surprisingly silent, as if Yang hadn’t been booking it for her fucking life thirty seconds before.

Then, just there, through the trees – she sees it. Yang’s heart drops, and she risks a step forward, eyes scanning the mulchy cover of dead leaves and underbrush for a trip wire. There’s the potential for anything, from a steel-jawed bear trap to a cartoon-esque snare and net. She really wouldn’t put it past them.

She sees nothing and raises her eyes to scan the trees, finds only the pale underside of the arcing canopy and the gnarl of tangled vines. Grinning, she feels an early flush of victory, a rush of satisfaction that pounds like a second heartbeat. She might actually win this thing; the others be damned.

Bleeding side forgotten, fists held loosely at the ready, she is about to take the final steps toward her target when the metallic click of a safety releasing freezes her in place. Yang winces her eyes closed, breathes out shakily. She feels the mouth of a pistol nuzzle in between her shoulder blades.

Yang knows who it is without turning around. Which is to say: the worst-case scenario. She swallows, hard.

“You don’t want to do this,” she says. At a firmer nudge of the gun against her back, she raises her hands, obedient. “You can just pretend like I was never here.”

“And why would I do that?”

She turns slowly in place, arms still raised above her head, and finds herself face to face with her captor, finds narrowed, golden eyes, Gambol Shroud pointed squarely at her chest. Blake is wrinkling her nose in the way that means she’s biting back a laugh.

“Because you love me?”

Blake bites at her lip, considers. Shrugs. “Maybe. But not enough to let you take our flag.”

“I was so close,” Yang whines. She pivots her head over her shoulder, pouts in the direction of the blue fabric hanging from a flagpole just a few yards away.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Blake says, stepping closer, until the heat of her thigh presses against Yang’s, “you really weren’t. Pyrrha’s had you in her sights since you crossed the creek.”

“Have you considered,” Yang says, flattening her hands against the back of her head in a way that she knows pushes her chest out, in a way that, without fail, means Blake’s eyes will flick down to her cleavage, “that I was just a distraction?”

Blake hesitates for just a second, but it’s a beat too long, and Yang lashes out her leg, timing the strike perfectly with Weiss’s rush from the trees on the far side of the clearing, darting from glyph to glyph, a lightning-crackling Nora close on her heels.

Yang and Blake go down in an undignified heap, and Pyrrha’s shot spears the space she was in just moments before.

The scramble at the base of the flagpole dissolves into an all-out brawl. A petal-blurred Ruby drops from a tree and gamely tackles Weiss, and her subsequent shrill scream makes an entire flock of birds flee their roost from the above canopy.

More players from both teams race into the clearing, skidding through dead leaves and debris, pant legs flecked with creek water and mud, more roughed up than a 50-minute long, single class period game of capture the flag has any right to make them.

From her spot on the ground, the sky wheeling overhead, Yang distantly hopes some people stayed behind to guard their own flag, but the odds aren’t looking good.

At the edge of the tree line, Juane trips one of the exact traps Yang had been wary of, something rigged so quickly and neatly it has to be Ruby’s handiwork, and it hoists him overhead by his ankle. He dangles, looking resigned, sword sliding out of its scabbard and thunking Cardin squarely on the top of his head.

Cardin goes down like a brick.

Juane cheers.

They’re on the same team, but no one seems to remember the red/blue delineations at this point. The flag all but forgotten, Weiss and Nora are facing off against an odd match-up of Ruby and Ren, and Yang tries to clamber off the ground, ready to provide back-up.

But in the split seconds it had taken the feverish mob to descend, Blake has twisted on top of her, and is driving the hilt of Gambol Shroud down towards Yang’s face. Breathing hard, knees hugged tightly at Yang’s waist, she’s all lithe and muscle – completely unlike close quarter sparring with Ruby.

Yang catches her wrists and squeezes, and Blake drops the blade and scabbard, until the two of them are grappling like teenagers, pressed too tight for Yang to feasibly use her gauntlets, just adrenaline-flushed and tangled limbs, Blake’s eyes flashing, mouth open in an unexpected grin.

“If you wanted to wrestle,” Yang says, twisting on her back in the dirt. “We’ve got beds back at the dorm.”

Blake cuts her off with a forearm to her windpipe, presses down. “I want to do it here.”

Yang knows Blake can be playful – has seen her gloat after a long-fought evening of board games, or loopy with lack of sleep after a few too many all-nighters, pulling dry jokes that make Weiss cringe.

But this – the full weight of her levered onto Yang’s chest, bursting into a laugh as Yang’s hips jump, hands and legs meeting in a mishap of strikes and punches that would make Glynda weep – feels so young. It’s like the tether that tugs at Blake, forces her eyes over her shoulder, knots her brow with worry, has been cut free. Like just for a moment, just for now, it’s only the two of them tangled in the sun-dappled clearing.

They manage to roll to their feet, and Yang shakes her hair out of her face, cocks her fists loosely in front of her chin. Gestures Blake forward.

“Let’s see how nicely you play without your toys, Belladonna.”

Blake’s mouth pulls tight, and she drops into a crouch, leaving Gambol Shroud half-buried in the leaves.

Despite the weight of it, Yang barely remembers Ember Celica exists. It’s been an extension of her own body since her first years at Signal, but suddenly she’s much more preoccupied with how to best get both of Blake’s hands back on her.

“Yang,” Blake says. She flashes teeth. “Stop stalling.”

Behind them, Ruby and Ren are gamely losing, and Pyrrha melts out of the trees, cutting Juane down from the branch with a smile and a well-placed spear throw, catching him before he can hit the ground. All the partners had been split onto opposing teams, but Pyrrha leverages him gently to his feet anyway, backing up a few steps before gesturing for him to challenge.

Cheek smushed into the forest floor, Cardin has begun to drool.

With the full weight of Blake’s attention on her, Yang feels that same second-heartbeat-flush, better than any almost-victory. It’s a feeling she has been careful not to examine too closely for fear of what she will find.

They’ve been partners now for almost two full semesters, and she’s spent too much of it avoiding stating the obvious – avoiding the thing building in between them as if averted eyes will stop the pot from boiling over.

The few slip ups she chalks up to chance, to hormones, to a laundry list of excuses that Blake’s own silence seems to affirm.

It’s working, she tells herself. It’s working, it’s working.

Hair a tousled ripple down her back, Blake’s black cravat had dislodged at some point during the game, leaving her neck bare, skin shining with sweat, glistening in the hollow of her throat. She flicks her bangs out of her eyes and tenses under Yang’s gaze, firming her jaw until the muscle pops, half-smiles.

If Yang didn’t know any better, she would think Blake is enjoying this.

Blake moves on the offensive first, and it catches Yang off-guard, forcing her to step back to dodge a flurry of quick jabs before taking a fist squarely to the jaw. Blake flinches harder than Yang when she lands the hit, immediately backing off.

“It’s okay,” Yang murmurs. Her aura absorbs the punch, and she can feel her semblance simmer, heat lighting under her skin like the kiss of a match against a gas burner. “You can even go harder next time.”

Blake rolls her eyes, but acquiesces.

Even sparring, Blake is careful not to touch her hair – and part of Yang wants to tell her to stop taking it easy, to grab it, pull it. She wants to know what it feels like when Blake plays dirty.

Inevitably, always, Yang comes out on top, breathing hard, the both of them breathless with laughter – unsure what to do with her victory. She knows both of their aura levels are sinking, and Ruby – all but fleeing from Weiss across the clearing – has dropped dangerously low.

When a shrill whistle interrupts the scramble – the flag still dangling untouched, she and Blake immediately deflate, the fight going out of them as easy as it came. Yang heaves a noise of exasperation, drops her forehead onto Blake’s chest. When she lifts her head, Blake’s arms have wrapped loosely around her back.

“Call it a draw?” Yang says, digs her chin hard into Blake’s sternum. “I pretty much had you.”

“Nice try,” Blake says. Her words reverberate in her chest, and Yang feels every moment of their conception, the slight intake of breath into her lungs, the buzz of them as they carry through her throat.

Professor Port’s voice is like a bucket of cold water. He’s standing at the edge of the wood, brandishing a silver whistle, looking at them with ill-disguised exasperation.

“Class,” he says, “I believe the directive was to steal the other team’s flag, not to scrap like children on a playground.”

“Who won?” Weiss pipes up. She’s scraping her hair back into a neat ponytail, standing over a prone Ruby who must have fallen, and has wisely chosen to stay down.

“Everyone lost,” Port says, cheerily. “Back to the school. After that display, I don’t trust you all out here after dark.”

Despite the game’s failure, he seems in good spirits, clapping Juane on the back, and chiding Pyrrha about helping the opposing team mid competition. As punishment, Juane is saddled with Cardin, likely concussed, and directed to help him back to the infirmary.

Hauling herself off the ground, brushing clinging soil off of elbows, picking leaves out of her hair, Yang reaches for Gambol Shroud without thinking. It’s half-submerged in the close-knit groundcover, and she untangles it from curling tendrils of green, robotically sheathing the blade back into the blunt scabbard.

Only after, does she freeze, halfway to her feet. It’s an unspoken taboo to handle other huntresses’ weapons, certainly not without express permission, and here she had done it so casually, tactless.

But Blake, one arm stretched over her head, shoulder muscles rippling, doesn’t bat an eye. She accepts it from Yang gratefully, fingers brushing as it passes between them. She slings it over her back, and reaches toward Yang, pulls a twig free of her hair.

Wordless, they head toward the group, Yang trying to gauge if she’s going to have to piggy-back Ruby to the dorm room. Still lying prone, Weiss is poking at her with the toe of a boot.

It’s only then, so brief she almost misses it, that Blake reaches between them, brushes her fingers over the cuff of Ember Celica. It feels like the answer to a question Yang hadn’t known how to ask, and the last of the fight, the tension she didn’t know she was carrying, coiling at the top of her spine, ebbs entirely.

They fall into step easily, automatically, and together reach down to help Ruby off the ground. Like a top-heavy punching bag, Ruby lists once she’s on her feet, limbs weighted with exhaustion.

Though Yang reaches out, it’s Blake who steadies her, one hand brushing Ruby’s bangs out of her eyes.

“Reunited at last,” Yang says, laughs at Weiss’s pinched expression. “Can’t believe that game had the audacity to tear us in two.”

“Shut up,” Weiss grumbles, but she’s smiling, and half-heartedly accepts Yang’s high-five. Yang bullies them into a bear hug before they join the others, an eight-legged jumble of girl-sweat and protesting laughter, leaning so hard on one another that when they begin to fall, they topple in turn, like dominoes.

***

After Port’s dismissal, they troop back to the Beacon dorms leisurely. They have an hour of free period before dinner, and no one in seems to be in any rush to get to the dining hall, content to nurse bruises and grievances, ribbing each other good naturedly, flags forgotten.

Ren is quietly chastising Nora about what looks suspiciously like a human bite mark wetting the sleeve of his tunic, and Juane brings up the rear of the group, quietly sulking, a blessedly out-of-it Cardin’s arm slung over his shoulder.

The wooded forest bleeds into a scrubby grassland, and they wade through waist-high wheatgrass as the spires of Beacon come into view, dodging prickly burs and seedpods that cling stubbornly to their socks and hemlines.

Yang presses her palm to her side. It comes away tacky with old blood, and she grimaces. Her aura had strained to heal it, skin stitching together to staunch the flow, but the last of the fight had drained her reserves, and it reopened easily in the struggle. Catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, Blake grabs for Yang’s hand, frowns down at her skin like a disgruntled palm reader.

“How did that happen?”

What she doesn’t say, plainly written on the landscape of her face in a language Yang is just learning to read is: is that from me?

“My own fault, actually,” Yang says. “We really don’t need to get into it.”

She ignores the stinging pain in favor of Blake’s fingers, stroking carefully over the dips of her knuckles.

“She fell out of a tree early in the strategizing process,” Weiss says. She’s snuck up on them, appearing at Yang’s elbow, face drawn with disdain. Her voice lilts, obviously mocking. “Oh, don’t worry about it, Weiss. I’m just getting the lay of the land, Weiss. Those branches aren’t too thin, Weiss.” She sniffs. “You could have broken your neck.”

“See,” Yang says, slinging an arm around Weiss’s shoulder, pulling her against her side, “she does care.”

“I didn’t say it would be a bad thing,” she says. But Yang doesn’t miss the way she turns her face into her casual embrace, her hand coming up to tug at the back of Yang’s jacket affectionately, clumsy, like it’s an action she’s unfamiliar with.

Blake smiles, ducks her chin. “Don’t say that. I like having her around.”

Yang quiets her internal rejoicing to a silent cheer. She feels, helplessly, like a child picking petals from a wilting stem. She loves me. She loves me not.

She beams, bumping her shoulder against Blake’s. “From Blake, that’s practically a marriage proposal.”

Cheeks flushing, Blake tucks a strand of hair behind one ear, looks away. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Who’s getting married?” This from Ruby, fending off an assault from Weiss who is trying to pat down a stubborn cowlick in the tangled mess of her hair.

“No one,” says Weiss. “You need a haircut.”

“Me and Blake,” Yang says, cheerfully. “She was the one to propose and everything, it was super embarrassing.”

“Congrats,” Ruby says, batting at Weiss’s hands.

“Long time coming, really,” Yang says. She smiles at Blake. “I’m picturing a summer wedding.”

Blake rolls her eyes, but smiles. A rare one, with teeth. Yang almost stops walking, just to take it in.

Clearly over their antics, Weiss lengthens her stride to catch up with Pyrrha, Ruby trailing behind.

It leaves Blake and Yang alone, shoulder to shoulder, picking their away along the muddy, tire-rutted path that meanders toward the eastern portion of the Beacon grounds. In the distance, the colorful, striped tents of the Vytal Festival fairgrounds are just visible, the encampment half-pitched in preparation for the festival, mere weeks away.

The skeleton of a mostly-assembled Ferris Wheel crests over the treetops, like the pale, bleached bones of a Goliath, its mechanical frame at odds with the verdant landscape.

“Excited?” Yang asks. She bumps her shoulder against Blake’s, jerks her chin toward the pennants lethargically drooping in the stagnant spring heat.

“Hardly,” Blake says. She peeks at Yang out of the corner of her eye. “The tournament might be interesting, at least.”

“All the people, the spectacle, the fried festival food,” Yang reels off, ticking up her fingers, “it sounds like your –”

“—worst nightmare,” Blake says.

Yang laughs. “Maybe so, but,” she shrugs, “meeting new people, smashing their faces in, it’s the huntress way.”

“Now that,” Blake says, “I can get behind.”

Ahead of them, Weiss seems to be trying to engage Pyrrha in an in-depth analysis of the capture of flag bout, looking seconds away from pulling out a notebook and taking notes on every one of Pyrrha’s absentminded observations.

“This is painful to watch,” Yang says, gleefully. “If Pyrrha touches her, she’s going to –”

Pyrrha sets a hand at the small of Weiss’s back, guides her around a rock pitting the dirt path.

“Oh, there it is,” Blake says. She’s actually biting her lower lip to hold in laughter, eyes squinting with mirth. “Someone check the girl’s pulse.”

Like this, sun-lit and flushed, wearing her in-on-the-joke smile, Blake is radiant. She’s a little roughed up from the fight, ribbon a dark, striped wreath around her forearms, her top mud-streaked, the single button of her vest undone.

Yang is enamored. She offers her an arm to use as a crutch, and Blake leans into, buries a laugh in her shoulder.

Ahead of them, Weiss seems to be staggering her way through a conversation about semblances, ponytail swishing. She only comes up to Pyrrha’s shoulder, and when Pyrrha pauses, blithely rubbing at a scrape of dirt on Weiss’s cheeks. Yang can see Weiss’s face blush and burn, even from ten feet away.

Ruby, lagging a few steps behind, looks chuffed to be the most intelligible person in the vicinity.

“Why don’t you look at me like that?” Yang murmurs. They’re winding their way through a spindly grove of peach trees, the last surviving vestiges of the orchards that used to grow on Beacon’s loamy, river-rich soil.

Unkept, the trunks fork and spur, rough bark splitting like over-risen bread, papering off in grey-brown patches. This early in the season, the fruit is small and green, but Blake pauses under the heavy boughs anyway, tilts her face upward.

“What?” she says, studying the waxy, canoe-shaped leaves, veins bleeding from the midrib in furrows. “Like I’m going into cardiac arrest?”

“No,” Yang says, teeth parting around a laugh, “like you adore me.”

Blake gestures Yang forward, touches a palm to her cheek, guides Yang to look up to the branches above where, inexplicably, Blake has spotted a single ripe peach.

Without needing to be asked, Yang knits her fingers at her belt buckle like a basket, offers it to Blake who leverages herself up to grasp a branch, just high enough to pluck the peach from the stem. She lands lightly on her feet, offers it first to Yang, who cups the fuzzed, sunrise-bodied fruit in her palms.

“Maybe you’re not looking hard enough,” Blake says.

Reaching out, she lifts Yang’s hands, brings the peach to her own mouth, and takes a bite. Juice dribbles from her lips, wets Yang’s knuckles, the vessel of her palm. Blake does not meet her eyes.

A world away, the dinner bell clangs on campus, and the sound reaches them across the grounds. From just ahead, Ruby yells for them to catch up.

Yang’s sweating again by the time they enter the Beacon courtyard, the sun creeping west across the sky. Already, the moon, in fragments, hangs low over the horizon like a coin toss, illusory and half-spun. Heat shimmers off the gray cobblestones, a sun-stoked haze that blurs the geometry of fountains to a mirage, and she wriggles out of her jacket, stripping down to her orange tank, hissing when the rotation of her shoulder pulls at her side.

Blake looks at her, and immediately cuts her eyes away. Looks back, lingers. She has an affinity for Yang’s freckled shoulders, has said as much, and Yang exposes them around her as much as possible.

Between them, Blake’s fingers brush the back of Yang’s hand. She thinks, for a moment, that Blake might take her hand in her own, and the idea alone leaves her with a wanting so keen it embarrasses her.

It’s compulsive, chemical, that Blake’s presence pulls her attention like gravity.

A touch curls at the inside of her elbow, and Blake tugs Yang gently toward her, sidestepping a water feature that looms, overlarge and obvious.

“You were about to walk into a fountain,” Blake murmurs. One of the loops of her bow flicks, a smile ghosts the corner of her lips.

Yang jerks her chin up, begins to apologize, and Blake shakes her head. “As fun as that might have been, I don’t want to miss dinner because I’m drying you off.”

“I think I could have handled it on my own,” Yang says, leans into Blake’s touch.

“What kind of betrothed would I be,” Blake says, releasing her elbow and moving toward the mouth of the dining hall, “if I left you wet and alone in your time of need?” She only spares Yang a glance before stepping out of the final slash of the sunlight, into the shadow of the doorway.

Frozen, Yang roots herself into the flagstone – tries to parse apart if Blake could have possibly intended that as – if she would have ever said something so – and no, right? No.

“Blake – ” she says, helpless. But Blake is already disappearing inside with a light laugh, leaving Yang to flounder in her wake.

In the early evening sun, buffered by classmates on either side, Yang stares after her, desperately trying to do the math, imagines petals shedding like snowfall.

It’s Blake who offers, which surprises each of them, but most of all Yang.

They’re scattered around the dorm room after dinner and a short stint in the library, Weiss pulling her pajama top over her head, Ruby dangling upside down from the top bunk, while Blake smooths a bandage over Yang’s ribs.

In just a sports bra, sitting on the edge of her desk, Blake’s hands trailing over her side, Yang feels like she’s lost control of the situation. Blake mistakes her shuddering breath for pain, and winces in sympathy.

“I’m sorry.” She presses down the adhesive of the bandage with her finger gingerly, nails skirting the rungs of Yang’s ribs, prodding the skin as she checks for inflammation. “I’m almost done, I promise.”

“All good,” Yang says, strained. She’s trying to decide if flexing her arms, like, only a little bit, is going to be a dead giveaway. “Take your time, really.”

Across the room, Weiss scoffs. Yang tries to pin her with a glare, but Weiss evades, busies herself tidying her discarded clothes from the day. Weiss must be the only person in the world who folds her shirts before she puts them in the dirty clothes hamper. It causes Ruby endless amusement, and she swivels her head to watch.

Blake’s hands are cool, and Yang can smell the citrus-perfume of her soap, the soft cotton of her t-shirt rubbing against Yang’s bare shoulder as she leans closer to survey her handiwork.

“I think you’re going to live,” she says. She meets Yang’s eyes glancingly before her gaze drops down, hovers somewhere around Yang’s mouth.

Ruby clambers from the top bunk and comes up on her feet, shaking her hair out of her eyes. Weightless with static from the thick, wool blankets, it frizzes and wisps, too short for a ponytail, and too long to do anything but make her look like a disgruntled miniature pony.

Pulling away from Yang’s side, Blake turns to Ruby thoughtfully. Yang, immediately missing the warmth of her, falls back onto the desk, her muscles popping gratefully with the pull of the stretch. She examines the pulpy, drop-tile ceiling studiously, trying to calm her heartrate, embarrassed at the rush of longing Blake always seems to leave in her wake.

“You know, I could cut it for you, if you wanted,” Blake says. This to Ruby, whose eyes go wide, a little shy, a little pleased.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Yang turns her head, grinning again, shrugging the melancholy off like shedding a second skin. “Now this, I’ve got to see.”

***

Blake drags a desk chair from the bedroom, positions it in front of the sink. She’s spinning a small pair of silver scissors on her pointer finger when she ushers Ruby into the bathroom, and Yang and Weiss troop in as well, like it’s a given.

With the four of them crammed in the tiny bathroom, it’s a tight fit, and Yang leans with her back against the door, Weiss perched on the edge of the tub.

“I didn’t realize I would actually have an audience,” Blake says, quietly, but she isn’t successful in hiding her smile, mouth turning up at the corners.

The sink is running, and she dips two fingers under the flow, waits for it to warm, flicks water in Ruby’s face just to tease.

Shoulders relaxing, Ruby barely grumbles as Blake pushes her gently down into the chair, tilting her head back until her hair wets under the faucet’s flow.

“Too hot?” Blake asks. She cups water in her palms, diverting it until it wets Ruby’s hair to its roots, slicking her bangs out of her face with careful fingers.

Ruby shakes her head, bare feet swinging over the tiles. “S’nice,” she slurs, lashes fluttering against her cheek. “Mom used to do this, remember?” This to Yang, one eye cracking to look at her before closing again.

Arms crossed, Yang nods. “I do.”

Her voice sounds strange, swollen, even to her. She clears her throat, looks to Blake who is looking back at her, gaze soft and steady. The mirror over the sink is fogging with heat, and Yang is stupidly glad not to see her own expression reflected in the glass.

The memory is blurry with overuse, and she feels selfish for hoarding it, something she and Ruby talk about so rarely – the short window of domesticity, the four of them, together.

Blake must sense her discomfort and leans over Ruby, carding through her hair gently, warm water swirling down the drain.

“We’ll just do a trim, okay?” She tilts her head, considering. “Just enough to get your bangs out of your eyes.”

From her spot on the lip of the tub, Weiss is watching the them with open interest, dressed in her slouchiest pajamas, hair loose around her shoulders.

Blake looks back at her. “What do you think?”

Weiss looks surprised to have been asked to weigh in, and shifts unsteadily, pinning her hands under the backs of her thighs, lips tucked into her mouth.

“It will look nice,” Weiss ventures. Then, unsteadily, like she’s unsure if that’s the right answer: “Fine, I mean. It will look fine.”

“Weiss thinks I look nice,” Ruby says, dreamily, eyes still closed.

Yang laughs. “Anything to stop you from going into fights blind should do the trick.”

Blake is methodical and careful, her movements practiced, and Yang watches her hands closely, fascinated by the routine of her gestures. Her long fingers are sure as she brushes out Ruby’s hair, fixing the lengths of hair between two fingers, snipping, tendrils of dyed red spiraling to the bathroom tile.

“You’re good at that,” Yang says, careful not to pose it as a question, even if her curiosity is clear.

“After I left home,” Blake says, tilting her head to frown at Ruby’s hair, thoughtful, “there weren’t places where – well, there weren’t many places that would be willing to serve Faunus, let alone cut our hair.”

Focused on her task, Blake fits two fingers under Ruby’s chin, lifts until she’s staring straight ahead. She hums, approving. When she began to talk, Yang, Blake and Weiss each stilled, incremental, like curious children unwilling to startle a flighty bird.

It’s rare for Blake to offer much from before, even after all these months, and Yang squirrels away every piece of information she manages to glean, coveted closely in a well-hidden corridor in her chest.

“It was a necessity at first, we were moving around a lot, but I like it now,” Blake says. “It’s soothing.” She scrubs her hand under the fall of Ruby’s hair, appraising her work. “I wish we had some clippers, you would look really good with a, like, undercut.”

Tilting her head to look back at Blake, Ruby grins. “Yeah?’

“Oh, yeah,” Blake says. “Very edgy.”

Ruby’s eyes flutter closed again and she leans back into Blake’s hands, accepting the easy touch, pleased.

Watching her like this, the baby round of Ruby’s cheeks, her deep-set eyes, so like Summer, Yang’s heart pangs and pulls. She looks so young, and it’s been so long since she’s seen Ruby find comfort and closeness in groups like this. At Signal, she was always worlds apart.

Too young to hang out with Yang and her friends, and too buried in her comics and starry-eyed dreams of far-flung heroism to mesh easily with the other kids her age. Weiss is watching, too, almost hungry. She is starved, Yang has come to realize, in similar ways – for family, for acceptance, for the way Blake look back to ask her opinion, listening intently when Weiss ventures an answer.

“Okay,” Blake says, steps back. “All set, I think.”

Ruby pops up out of her seat, swipes a hand through the mirror’s condensation to look at her reflection, tilting her head this way and that, before grinning, bright.

“It’s perfect.” Then, shyly, “thank you, Blake.”

“Anytime,” Blake says. “We can pick up dye next time we’re in Vale, recolor the ends.”

Yang groans. “Don’t get her started, she’s been threatening more drastic dye jobs since grade school. I’ve had to talk her out of lime green more times than I can count.”

“The red suits you,” Weiss says, pushing off of her perch to more closely examine Ruby’s bangs. Ruby obediently stops fidgeting, submits to Weiss’s hands, but not before shaking her wet head like a dog, sending water droplets flying.

Aghast, Weiss hisses a chastisement, but cards her hands through her hair, all the same.

“I could cut yours,” Blake says to Weiss. Appraises her, head tilted. “It’s getting long.”

Weiss looks shocked at the sudden kindness, turning a gradient of shades, from a light pink to a dark red the longer Blake looks at her.

“Oh, no,” she says, haltingly. “I have a standing appointment at an Atlas salon but,” she trails off.

Blake nods, that tiny smile still evident on the puzzle-box mystery of her mouth.

Ruby looks on with interest, pokes at Weiss’s cheek, but knows better than to comment.

With a final thanks, the two of them troop out of the bathroom in a snippy caravan, Weiss already haranguing Ruby about an assignment due in the morning, Ruby loudly asking Weiss if she’ll brush her hair before homework, anyhow.

Their departure leaves a vacuum, a pocket of silence, just Yang and Blake, who both seem to realize how close they are standing at the same time, all excuses having fled the room on the heels the others.

“Thank you for doing that,” Yang says, quietly, she reaches out hesitantly and takes Blake’s hand, rubs her thumb across her knuckles. “It’s nice not to do all the mothering, for once.” She shakes her head. “I tried to cut her hair once, must have been about 13. Dad almost had to shave her whole head.”

“She would have loved it though,” Blake says. She doesn’t pull her hand away.

Yang laughs. “Yeah, probably.” She steps closer, emboldened by their hands clasped between them, by the way Blake tilts her whole body toward her, magnetic.

“It was really nothing,” Blake says. “Ruby restitched, like, four pairs of my leggings last week, anyway.”

“It was sweet of you to offer a trim to Weiss, too.” Yang lowers her voice, though the other two are well out of earshot, having closed the bathroom door behind them. “I don’t think she was ready for you to send her into a full-fledged sexual identity crisis.”

Blake throws her head back in a laugh, exposing the long line of her throat, cheeks dimpling. “Oh, no. That’s what Pyrrha is for.” A beat. “I don’t think I’m her type anyway.”

“How?” Yang blurts, clumsy and unthinking, tries to amend it with – “I think you’re everyone’s type,” which really just digs the hole deeper.

Blake looks at her steadily, in that awful way she does, and shoves a little bit at Yang’s shoulder, bullies her toward the chair.

“You should let me do you next,” she says. She must misinterpret Yang’s expression – which flatlines at an alarming speed, elevator music starting to play behind her eyes – and hurries to correct herself. “I mean, not a cut. I know how you feel about your hair, but I could wash it?”

“Wash it?” Yang looks at the sink, back to Blake. The air in the bathroom seems to be getting thinner, and she can’t stop looking at Blake’s forearms, the flex of them as she toys with the scissors, running her thumb lightly over the tapered point.

“You’ve still got leaves in it from earlier,” Blake says, words taut with amusement, “and if you lift your arms over your head, you’re going to undo all my hard work anyway.”

The cut is mostly healed, barely a pale scar at this point, and they both know it. Yang wonders how long they will continue to run round these excuses.

It’s working, it’s working, it’s – “Let me touch you,” Blake says. She presses down on Yang shoulder, guides her toward the chair. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

The chair creaks under Yang’s weight, and her outstretched legs butt up against the opposite bathroom wall. To maneuver around her, Blake has to step between her legs, her hips pressed tight against the inside of Yang’s bare thighs.

Unsure, Yang leans her head back, feels the porcelain cold against the back of her neck. “Like this?”

“Just like that.”

Blake turns on the faucet, and the lull of running water, the warmth of it, is enough to make Yang drowsy and pliant, hands clasped obediently on her lap.

“I love your hair,” Blake says, quiet, confessional. She runs her hands through it, pulls gently, the sensation sending tingles to Yang’s scalp. Yang’s eyes close, and she breathes out through her nose, shifting unsteadily in the chair.

She hears the plastic click of a shampoo bottle, and lavender perfumes the air. Yang thinks of gardens, of soft-petaled flowers, of sunlight and checkered blankets.

“We should have a picnic,” she murmurs. Her muscles feel putty-soft, and Blake’s hands, slick with water and suds, are drawing tiny circles under the fall of her hair, thumbs pressing ecstatically into the corded muscle at the base of her neck.

There’s laughter, barely hidden, in Blake’s voice. “Come again?”

“A picnic.” Yang doesn’t open her eyes. “Just you and me.”

“Did I knock you too hard in the head today?” Blake asks. “Give you a concussion?” Her fingers slip up to prod at Yang’s temples before her fingers firm, massaging there. Yang groans. For her sake, Blake pretends not to hear it.

“I’m not concussed,” Yang says. Against the back of her eyelids, there’s a constellation of color. Blake sluices warm water through her hair, washing out the last of the shampoo. Yang’s hand ventures from her lap, hooks her fingers in the soft cotton pocket of Blake’s shorts. “I just like you.”

She still doesn’t open her eyes, worried that if she does, reality will solidify, transport her away from the dreamy-liminal of this unspoken space, Blake’s hands in her hair, Blake’s body warm against her thighs.

“I like you, too.”

“Actually, I think you said you loved me earlier.”

Blake laughs. “I didn’t. You said I loved you.”

Yang does open her eyes now, finds Blake startlingly close, her gold-flecked eyes, the laugh lines that crease the corners of her mouth like the seams of a love letter, folded over, then folded over again. She steps out of the bracket of Yang’s legs to fetch a towel. Yang reaches to take it, but Blake pushes her hands away, preferring to towel at Yang’s wet hair herself, leaning across her body, her chest pressing against Yang’s shoulder.

Embarrassed now, Yang squirms, but submits to the attention, lets Blake dab away beaded water at her hairline, droplets dripping into her ears, wetting the shoulders of her t-shirt.

“But you were right,” Blake says, so matter a fact, Yang almost doesn’t understand her meaning. Comprehension pales in comparison to the sheen of water on Blake’s hands, her wrists, as she wipes them dry, her hair spilling long and dark around her shoulders, the ends wet where she had leaned over the sink. Blake tosses the towel underhand toward the hamper behind the door, reinserts herself between Yang’s legs. “I do love you. I really do. And yes.”

“Yes?” Yang asks, dazed, still stuck halfway inside the feeling of Blake’s body, pressed up firmly against her own.

“Yes to the picnic,” Blake says. “Just the two of us.”

She loves me.

Yang shifts to prop herself upright against the body of the sink and frames Blake’s hips in her hands, guiding her firmly into the V of her legs. Blake concedes, arms wrapping around Yang’s neck, petting through damp hair. The hem of her shirt scrunches under Yang’s fingertips, slipping up to reveal the unblemished hollow of her hip, the skin of her sides, goosepimpling under the duress of Yang’s touch.

“We should do that thing again,” Yang says, a wish, a confession. Said aloud, she’s worried, like memory, she’ll bleed away the magic of unspoken things, but it only seems to strengthen the energy between them, the accumulated weight of all that they never talk about.

Blake plays dumb, but she’s smiling, ducking close even as she asks, “what thing?”

Her breath is warm against Yang’s ear, and she presses her mouth just there, against the round of Yang’s cheek.

“Close,” Yang says. She exhales, grip tightening.

Blake drags her lips to Yang’s jaw. Then to the dimple of her chin.

“Closer.”

Blake kisses her, proper, all it takes is a tilt of her head, nose nudging into the plush-round of Yang’s cheek. They both breath twin sighs of relief, like the pressure of playing coy has been alleviated in a single moment. Blake’s hands knot in Yang’s hair, fingers threading.

Yang smiles, murmurs: “just like that.”

It isn’t their first kiss, but it’s close. New enough that Yang still isn’t used to the shape of Blake’s mouth, the rhythm of her kisses, or the taste of her breath. New enough that this alone is enough to alight a heady, perfect rush, the thrill of two whole, perfect things slotting into place.

Her hands slide to the small of Blake’s back, splaying wide across the ridge of her spine, and Blake whines low in her throat, tilting her head until their mouths catch in full, her teeth scraping against Yang’s bottom lip.

Blake swings her leg over Yang’s hip, then the other, settles on her lap. The warmth of her body like a weighted blanket, her chest pushed flush to Yang’s. Pulling back, breaths ragged, they survey each other, eyes bright.

Blake drops a kiss on the bridge of Yang’s nose. Again, on her mouth. Yang tilts her chin up, submits. Nods lazily into another kiss, rolls her tongue into Blake’s mouth.

They don’t talk about it, but they never do.

In the crowded, humid heat of the bathroom, the silence is enough, both smelling like the same shampoo, like lavender, trading kisses until their mouths are slick and pink, until Blake has a strawberry bite under the collar of her t-shirt, and there is no excuse they can make to Ruby and Weiss to explain the lost time.

Exiting the bathroom feels like stepping through a portal – the air of the bedroom is stale and cold, and tastes like the bitter-metallic spit of the cranky window unit that churns, futile and constant.

They shouldn’t have worried. Ruby and Weiss are passed out on Weiss’s bottom bunk, tilted into each other, Weiss’s head leaned up into Ruby’s chest, a textbook open on her lap.

Blake smiles at them, soft, and Yang presses a finger to her lips. Sound asleep, neither stirs when Yang removes the book or when she shifts both of Weiss’s legs to the bed, pulls the lip of the comforter up over their bodies.

Weiss does move then, but only to turn her face into Ruby’s throat, fingers curling into the sleeve of her shirt.

Across the room, Yang watches Blake walk through the final stages of her night time routine. Removing her rings, one-by-one, setting them into a china bowl at her bedside. Toeing off her socks – because anyone who sleeps in socks is a serial killer, yang – and turning back the cool underside of her covers.

Yang, suddenly shy, mythical, waits for an invitation.

“It’s only fair,” Blake whispers. She shifts over to make space against the hollow of her body. “Turn off the light.”

Yang does, the room plunged to darkness, and she feels that little-kid thrill in the few steps it takes her to cross to the bed. By the time she reaches it, she fears Blake will already be gone, leaving her only with under-the-bed monsters and grasping hands.

She shivers into the sheets, and it’s Blake’s warmth that accepts her, slinging a long, bare leg over her hip, claiming her cheek with a warm palm, stroking her bangs out of her eyes.

“We need to talk about it,” Yang whispers.

She can see Blake’s eyes gleam in the darkness, a flat sheen. Yang swallows, wriggles closer until she can insinuate her thigh between Blake’s legs, suddenly desperate to be close. She would swallow her whole if she could, sink themselves inside of one another, like nesting dolls, like palms cupped in prayer.

Yang’s eyes adjust in the half-dark in the time it takes Blake to answer, moonlight shredding through the parted curtains. When Blake opens her mouth, the wet of her mouth refracts light, the uncurling of her tongue.

“I know,” Blake says, voice small.

Their hips-stomach-breasts bully into one another, until every breath is a part of a cycle.

“If we don’t, we’re just going to keep colliding until something breaks.”

“I know,” Blake says, again. “There’s just so much I haven’t told you yet.”

Yang runs her hands up and down Blake’s side, slips her palm under the hem of her shirt to feel the blanket-heat of her bare skin.

“We have time,” she hushes. She tilts in, her lips find the corner of Blake’s mouth, press there. Retreat. “After the Vytal festival, then. We can have our picnic. We’ll talk about all of it.”

Blake nods, nose pressing into Yang’s. She giggles, readjusts, turns her mouth into Yang’s cheek. “Okay. After the festival.”

Pinkies twined under the covers, they seal it with a kiss. Blake nods more kisses against her mouth, slips a tongue behind her teeth, until the taste of her lingers well into Yang’s dreams.

Yang won’t remember falling asleep.

#janurwby #bumbleby #my beacon days prompt fill got a little out of hand #my writing #rwby #here's to overtly intimate hair washing

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pollyrepents · 3 years

Text

skin to skin

Warnings: Descriptions of OCD-like tendencies including food and aftermath and miscarriage.

Summary: Michael’s wife is dodging him and fretting over more than one loss.

Word Count: 2k (I got a little carried away)

A/N: There’s no real moment in time this is set. Michael’s just old enough to be married to the reader and having a child wouldn’t have completely ruined their plans.

He had seen it in Polly first. The rituals, the lighting and blowing out candles, the tablets and the drinking to slow it all down. He was young when it happened the first time, right after his father passed. She was coping, he supposed now as he thought back, with the loss and the idea of two kids on her own added to her brother’s litter as extra being her responsibility. It had scared her and she needed control and peace any way she could get it. John and Arthur would take him out onto the lane when her fits would become worrisome, they would kick a ball around with him and the other neighborhood kids until Tommy came to get them, their Uncle Charlie having helped settle his mother with strong whiskey and a shouting match the kids were better off not hearing.

He understood the want of control, the craving for power over something too big for the palms of his hands.

He had no reason to think you’d be the same.

That night in the bar, your dress hugging your curves and glittering in the poor lighting of the pub, he had fallen head over heels. He hadn’t shown it—Isiah assumed it was lust and he was bringing you back to his apartment for stress relief that never failed him and would bring you back with a little blue glass vial of snow in your purse—but he had fallen swiftly and freely and wanted just you in that bar and everyone else out on the street.

It was a game of cat and mouse. You knew he was a Shelby although he introduced himself as a Gray, and you knew any wrong move or sharp words could have you cut. You strung him along but Michael refused to relent, countering every one of your wise cracks with quick retorts of his own. Only when he took you out for a smoke, did you notice his freckles in the shining street light and his self assured smirk slipped into a boyish smile without his permission. You fell faster than you would have liked, in honesty.

Now, as he stood at the doorway of your shared bathroom, he listened to you whimper as you worked the soap in your hands up into a lather. He could smell the lavender and peppermint in the air the same way he smelt it on you when he would lift your hand to kiss your knuckles.

“Are you nearly done?”

You started at the sound of his voice, turning your head back for a brief moment before rinsing off your hands.

“I didn’t know you were home.” You tugged the towel off the rack, rubbing the soft cotton over your painted fingernails first. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

Michael nodded, blowing a breath out through his nose slowly. “I thought you were in the bath.”

“I had one earlier.”

“A soak to relax?” He hummed as you passed him by, your path to the vanity quick and with intention. “One of your lavish baths with hot water and bubbles like a child?”

“After all you put me through today I deserve one.” He watched your two fingers unscrew the cap to the small lotion bottle, capping the glass with your thumb before twisting your wrist, swirling the lotion. Four turns around and you pull your manicured thumb away, turning your hand over to spill out a thin line of product onto the back of it to the tip of your middle finger, a small line crossing over the back from right to left.

“Let me,”He offered abruptly, a hand reaching out for yours. “After all I put you through today, I could help you relax.” The way you only glanced up at him before shaking your head and rubbing your hands together stuck with him.

“You’ll only smell like me. What businessman should smell like lavender?” You scolded quietly as you worked the lotion into your skin with your hands low close to your lap, paying special care to your knuckles. They had become tender with the heat of the water, the small splits over your knuckles and the sides of your palms surely burned with the product and the added attention from Michael.

“One that loves his wife.” He placed his hands on your shoulders as you worked the lotion in, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles, “A kept man.”

You laughed lightly and Michael felt the corner of his lips turn upward. “A kept man?”

“I’ve come back here night after night, I think that’s qualified me as kept if all else hasn’t.”

“A ring qualifies me as kept.”

He stopped himself from rolling his eyes at your reminder, placing his hands on the vanity on each side of you, caging you in. The way your shoulders regained the tension he thought he pushed away made him want to question you, break apart every fear or stressor you had and throw them into the Cut, never to be seen again.

“I’ve told you I’ll replace the ring as soon as I can find a jeweler who knows what he��s doing.” He tilted his head down slightly to rest his forehead against yours. “I won’t have you wearing a shit ring. Not from me, not my love. Even if you lost the first one like a teenager.”

You closed your eyes—to avoid his gaze, he was sure of it, and took a deep breath. “I’m starting to think you don’t want me wearing a ring of yours again—”

“We took vows.” Michael’s voice was soft when he cut you off, his words were certain. “Every morning too. I love you, I tell you every morning, don’t I?”

“I’m never sure you’ll come home at night.” You muttered, turning your head away from him. “So you-”

“I promise you every morning.”He spoke softly as you did, moving to press his lips to yours. His lips met your cheek when you turned your head again but he took it in stride, placing delicate kisses from your cheek to your ear. “I will get you the ring. I just hope you don’t let this one slip off.”

Michael leaned back again, testing the waters and leaning forward to kiss you. He stopped as he felt your hip bump against his hand, lifting his hand from the wood of your vanity to let you slip away. Your hands stayed planted on your chest, your palms flat against your collar bones as you walked over to the window. He turned his head only slightly, pushing one of your perfume bottles out of the neat line they were arranged in. From the corner of his vision in the reflection of the mirror he watched you tilt your head to the side, wiping where he had placed kisses onto your skin away as if it soiled your skin.

The pretending stopped in that moment. “What was that?”

“What was what?” You sounded oblivious to his question, he noted the ways your fingers twitched against your skin, imagining you craved the water washing the little bit of him off of you as soon as he had touched you.

“You react to your own lies, my love.” His gaze did not waver, trying to persuade you to meet his eyes. “Don’t ever play cards with Isiah. It won’t end in your favor.”

Your eyes shifted from the window to his for a brief second and he quirked an eyebrow when you looked past him to analyze the perfumes again. “Don’t move my things, Michael. I’ve asked you a hundred times to leave them alone.”

“It’s just a bottle.” He pushed it back to its almost rightful position, although still slightly off from where you had it.

“It was mine, I had it in the right place.” The sharpness to your tone made Michael brace himself, waiting to be pushed aside.

Michael stood his ground as you marched over, your fingers etched with narrow slits where your skin had broken twisting the bottle back to its rightful place. “It shouldn’t bother you that terribly.”

“It was in its place, Michael.” Your fingers curled and uncurled around nothing and you brought your hands in front of you, making a steeple of your fingers and holding your wrists against your stomach, pressing into the softness there.

Tentative, Michael reached his hands toward yours. He saw the beginnings of an objection, your eyebrows raising and your lips parting, he refused to hear it. He linked your fingers, pulling you close in front of him until your fronts were pressed together. He knew you wanted to squirm the way you always did when he looked at you closely “too fucking close to be normal” in your words, your toes wriggling against your stockings and jaw tensing as you stared at his eyebrows.

“I know every part of you.”

“Michael-”

“Every part. You think you’re still hiding things. Keep thinking that if it helps you, Y/N.” Michael’s hands came up to gently cup your face, holding you with the care he would use for Polly’s china. “But all of this, the constant washing, and the straightening and the picking at food only comes after big stuff. You never let me touch you after the big stuff. You haven’t let me kiss you in ages.”

“Talk to me, my love.” You bit your lips together and Michael’s thumb came down softly to push against your chin. “Talk to your husband, please.”

You cleared your throat once, twice, three times, and your voice still broke as you whispered to him. “I bled last week, Michael. It was heavy.”

Michael nodded once in almost understanding, knowing how your aversion then strong desire for his touch towards the beginning and end of your bleeding, especially the particularly bad ones. You tore your eyes from his and Michael ducked his head slightly to pull your gaze back to him. “That’s not it. What’s got you like this? What is it?”

“No.” You looked at him again and your eyes were wet with tears. “Polly-- your mum-”

“My mum caused this?” His eyebrows pulled together and he looked toward the ground, a thousand things running through his head at what Polly could have snapped at you with in a moment of misplaced rage. “What did she say?”

Your hands came up to hold his face this time, Michael’s dropping to your waist. Instinctively, he began to rub gentle lines down the marks he knew decorated your skin under the fabric of your slip.

“My bleed wasn’t-” You choked on your words and Michael let you tuck yourself into his chest, his arms coming around to hold you to him. “It was a child, Michael. Polly told me I was with child.” Your words began to rush out as the blood in his veins ran cold.

“I was with child, and then I wasn’t, and I couldn’t find a moment to tell you that I was or wasn’t and now-”

“It’s alright,” His hands stroked down your hair, stopping to play with the tight curls at the nape of your neck. “It’s alright, my love.”

“She said it was-”

“It’s not.” He forced the words out, bile stinging the back of his throat. “It’s gone now. It’s alright, just us. We’re alright, Y/N.”

“I just-I feel like I’m still dirty from it.” You whimpered, twisting your fingers at the knuckle with your thumb and forefinger. “I can’t get clean from it. If I can’t get clean from it, you might find another woman.”

“You weren’t dirty from anything.” He pressed his lips against the crown of your head as he spoke, doing his best to take in your scent. “You’ll never be dirty, my love.”

“She-she sai-”A hiccup cut you off and his hold tightened, bringing one of his hands down to find yours and bring it up to his chest while you stammered. “She said it was-was a b-boy. A son, M-Mi-Michael.”

He took a deep breath, squeezing your trembling hand as he did so. “We’ll have a son. We’ll have another son.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying his best to blink back tears.

You pulled back, placing your trembling hands on either side of his face. He cupped the back of your head, pulling your forehead to his and shutting his eyes as the tears began to fall. His voice trembled as your hands did against his skin, “We’re alright, my love. We’re alright.”

#michael gray #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fic #michael gray angst #angst #written by me #polly gray #michael gray x reader #michael gray x you #michael gray x y/n #michael grey x reader #hey look its not a hozier inspired fic #this is partly me coping partly me having gotten carried away

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holycatsandrabbits · 3 years

Text

Tollense, an original serial romance by Dannye Chase, Chapter 6

A history professor falls in love with his best friend, a 3000-year-old vampire.

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

Chapter 6

CW: blood, injury

2003 (Four years later)

When Liam brought in his mail that afternoon, he didn’t realize what a dangerous act it was. He should have, he supposed. He’d been getting threatening letters now for over ten years, since before he’d met Kurt. Their postmarks varied and there were no fingerprints. The police couldn’t figure out who was sending them, and neither could Kurt, who’d started investigating as soon as he’d learned of them.

Liam assumed that either he’d done something in his past to offend someone, or that he was a random victim of someone targeting a university with anti-academic talk. The letters said clearly, I will kill you, but Liam had long since stopped believing that it was an actual threat.

But it wasn’t that the letters didn’t upset Liam, and ironically, it was good that they did, because Liam’s reaction to the letter in the mail that day alerted Kurt. Four years ago, on a beautiful night in Germany, Kurt had drunk blood from Liam’s wrist. They’d been close before that, but sharing blood had given Kurt an even greater insight into Liam’s feelings. Kurt knew when Liam was unhappy or frightened, so when Liam found the letter with the typed address, knowing what it likely was, Kurt abruptly appeared beside him, in time to pluck the envelope from Liam’s hand.

“I’ve told you to let me open these,” Kurt scolded mildly.

Liam leaned back against his kitchen counter, and waved a hand in unsolicited permission. “By all means.”

Kurt was frowning, but otherwise he wasn’t too upset. Liam could tell because despite the fact that Kurt had just teleported into Liam’s kitchen, he looked more or less human. He must have been outside somewhere because his dark hair was a bit wind-blown. Liam wished that they had the kind of relationship where Liam could run his fingers through it to settle it down.

Kurt read the letter quietly and then tossed it onto the table in disgust. “The usual,” he said. “When I figure out who’s sending these—”

“They’re harmless,” Liam said, which on that particular day was highly ironic, but they didn’t know it yet.

“They scare you. That’s harm enough.” Kurt reached for the rest of the mail that Liam had set on his table, sorting through it quickly, apparently approving of it. He came to the package last. “What’s this?”

“I ordered some books.”

Kurt shot him a look of amused exasperation. “You have no room for more books. You’re going to have to buy a second house.”

“I’ll find a place for them. Maybe I could take out a wall— what is it?”

Kurt held the package in his hands. “This is awfully light for books.”

That was the last thing Liam remembered until he felt Kurt’s hand on his cheek. Kurt’s fingers were always cold, and the feeling drew Liam back toward consciousness. Kurt had one hand cradling his face, while another finger traced a slow line down from the top of Liam’s forehead to a spot between his eyes.

Liam realized that Kurt was saying something. “That’s right. Focus on me.”

Kurt’s finger traced its downward path again, and Liam felt himself growing more aware of his surroundings, but mostly more aware of Kurt, who was holding his gaze in an inescapable, hypnotic way. Liam could smell smoke and something charred, but he felt no fear, not even of Kurt, who seemed something entirely other than human at the moment. Something very large, because he’d have to be large to hold all the emotions that Liam could feel filling the room, wafting around like clouds. Some were dark and some very light, and they were all Kurt and Liam, mixed up together.

“There you are, my love,” Kurt said softly. “Just like that. Focus on me.”

Liam moved a little, shifting on the kitchen floor, but Kurt put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay still. Let me look at you.” His finger retraced its path down Liam’s forehead, which had the effect of recentering Liam’s attention on Kurt’s bright green eyes.

After another minute, Kurt moved back and released him. “You’re all right,” he said heavily. “No internal injuries. No concussion. Just three fairly minor lacerations to the left leg, and I’ve taken away the pain from those. I shouldn’t have let you stand so close.”

Liam blinked a couple of times as he realized that now that he could see past Kurt’s eyes, Kurt looked very different, but not at all in a mesmerizing, inhuman way. “You’re hurt,” Liam gasped.

Kurt stepped out of reach before Liam could grab him. “You have to be careful with my blood,” he warned. “Don’t get it in your mouth or the cuts on your leg. You don’t— you don’t need it right now.”

Kurt appeared to have taken the brunt of what must have been a package bomb. Liam’s kitchen table had a blast mark on it, and the chairs had all been knocked over. Bits of paper drifted lazily through the hazy air. Kurt was actually far more damaged than the kitchen, with a large wound on his shoulder. But the wound was not bleeding, and Liam realized that though Kurt’s clothing was shot through with holes, some of them bloodstained, the skin underneath was unmarked.

Kurt turned a chair right side up, and dropped into it wearily. “Ow,” he said, sounding as if he might be irritated by a paper cut.

“Are you okay?” Liam demanded.

Kurt waved a dismissive hand. “Been blown up before. There was a grenade at the Somme, for one. Not a pleasant afternoon.”

“But you— you won’t—”

“I’m fine,” Kurt assured him. “But if I’m going to convince the police that I wasn’t injured, I’ll need to eat something. I’m not quite strong enough for group mind control right now.”

“Well, I’m right here,” Liam said hastily, starting to climb to his feet. “Already bleeding too.”

“Sit down,” Kurt instructed in a sharp voice, and Liam was so startled that he obeyed. “You’re injured.”

“Only mildly. You said.”

“Still no.”

Liam tried not to be too disappointed. “Well— Fern then.” Fern was Kurt’s new love interest, and, as usual, was one of Liam’s history graduate students. She was doing her dissertation on World War Two. Kurt always showed enough of his non-human nature to his romantic interests for them to guess what he was before they became his lovers (and a source of blood). So Fern now had the advantage of dating a man who had fought in World War Two and many wars before that.

“Yeah. I called her,” Kurt said. And it wasn’t long before Liam heard someone come in his front door and make their way toward the kitchen.

“Oh my god,” Fern exclaimed, her eyes wide. “What happened? I had the weirdest feeling that I needed to get here right away.” Apparently, Liam realized, when Kurt said he’d called her, he hadn’t meant on the phone.

“Package bomb,” Kurt said.

Liam nearly spoke over him. “Kurt’s injured. He needs blood.”

Fern’s eyes widened even more. “All right. I’ll call 911.”

Liam gave Kurt a confused look. “Oh. I thought you always told them about you before you became lovers.” He realized his misstep when Fern froze on her way to the telephone.

Kurt pressed his lips together, and Liam couldn’t tell if he was fighting a smile or a frown. “You’re getting a little ahead of me there.”

“Oh,” Liam said. “Sorry. How embarrassing.” He looked up at Fern. “It’s okay, Kurt can’t be killed. Or he might actually be already dead.”

Kurt had opened his mouth to say something but now it just hung open.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said. “I’m not good at this.”

Fern did look like she was a little more concerned about Liam than Kurt, but she turned to Kurt, taking in his appearance. The wound on his shoulder was now nothing more than a dark purple bruise. Liam wondered how bad the injuries had been before Liam had seen them.

“Are you a vampire, then?” Fern asked. “That was number two on my list.”

“What was number one?” Kurt asked.

“Street magician who desperately wanted to look like a vampire.”

Kurt laughed, sounding delighted. “I don’t know that I’ve had that one before.”

“You need blood?” Fern asked. She put a hand on Kurt’s uninjured shoulder.

He focused his green eyes on her, with no hint of hypnosis now. “I do. But you’re not my only option. I will be fine even if you say no.”

Fern shook her head. “I’m happy to.”

Kurt nodded. “Liam, we’ll be right back. You just rest. Then we’ll get the police here and figure out who did this to you.”

Liam let his head fall back against his cupboard as Kurt and Fern disappeared. He felt oddly calm, and wondered if that was still Kurt’s influence. Even knowing that Kurt was off with someone else, drinking blood from them instead of Liam, didn’t bother him as much as it usually did. Kurt cared for him. Liam had known it, but right now he could feel it, and he thought Kurt could probably feel it back.

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

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

Updates Fridays on Ao3 and DannyeChase.com (rated E), and Tumblr (rated T)

Want to create fic, art, or other works based on this series? Please do! Just dm or tag me.

My previous serials are for Good Omens: Mr. Fell's Bookshop and Love's Endless Light

My Carrd

#Dannye writes #original fiction #serial fiction #tollense #vampires #romance

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theravencawsatmidnight · 3 years

Text

Rabbit

Chapter Two. Pt One

After two years in Azkaban for how he treated you he was finally free. The only thing keeping him going was you. Now finally reunited with his Rabbit he thinks things will go easier for him. But Draco is struggling mentally and refusing to ask for help.

W! Heavy Ptsd, mental freak outs. Hearing voices, blood, bruises, cuts. Draco trying to convince himself he’s fine. Refusing to ask for help. Mental instability. The voices are the Dementors

Tags. @khemz1312 @squeaky-ducky @goofygobber @dracoslittlesunflower @trashyvicks @rosiehufflepuff @dracmalf0y-dm

It was him.. He found your shop , hes out .. hes.. He looks so broken, hurt, tired.

“Draco!” you ran over wrapping your arms around him crying hard into his chest trying to talk but nothing was making any sense. He was really here, after so long you could finally feel him against you , hear his heartbeat and feel his breathing on your head… but.. His heartbeat was slower than it should be and his breathing seemed to be staggered, was he trying to hide it ? Draco pulled you in closing his eyes just taking it in. He made it, alive.

She doesn't love you

We love you Draco

Come baaack...

“Draco?”

His breathing started to hitch.

Shes second guessing this whole thing.

“Draco?” you rubbed his chest so he would look at you. “You okay?”

The man shook his head getting rid of the voices and cupped your cheeks in his palms. “Is it really you, Rabbit?”

You giggled leaning into him. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Can we sit down?” he asked you looking around the shop not seeing anyone.

“Yes, wait here just gotta close up” gently you let go of him to go flip the OPEN sign over.

She hates this

Draco leaned on the counter holding his head. “Sshhut up….” he whispered.

You are not welcome here…

“Yes i am….”

Biscuit hopped over to the mans shaking hand to lay its head on it and the voices started to fade away. The man looked down to see the brown rabbit staring at him wiggling its nose. “I..” he flipped his hand over to scratch at the rabbits chin. “I cant tell her...this happens.”

You returned with a big smile on your face. “Aw he likes you already ! “ you picked up the rabbit holding him with one hand.

“Where did .. you get him..” Draco took your other hand following you up the stairs of your shop.

“The twins, graduation gift.cheeky bastards” you giggled nuzzling your cheek on the rabbit. “I love him though, hes helped a lot.”

“Rabbit..”

“Huh? Yes?” you sat Draco down in the living room and put Biscuit on his pillow.

Are you going to show her?

It might scare her.

He shook his head and started to unbutton his dress jacket. “I need to .. show you something.”

“Okay, whats wrong?” you joined Draco on the couch watching him pull his dress jacket off with shaky hands. “ Draco..?”

“Yes..?” his undershirt was pulled over his head .

“Your really shaky -..”

The bruises were a deep purple; they were all over his chest as if someone had been kicking him repeatedly in all the same spots. The middle of his chest, the lower half by his stomach and his arms around his shoulders.. All purple. Around his elbows had scratches from elbows to wrists that did not look good at all; they were sporadic red lines in all directions. His nails were short with red under them that seemed to not go away. His neck was full of cuts and his hands had cuts on them as well. You picked up one of Dracos hands to see his knuckles. Deep purple with fresh blood.

Told you the cuts would open…

Shes scared….

“Draco?”

He wasn't looking at you, just breathing hard and whimpering. “M’fine..”

“Stay right here okay?” you got up hurrying off into your restroom.

See?

She ran away from you

Your not the same person you once were

You cant fit in

Come back….

He shook his head but they just got louder.

Come back…

“Shut up…” Draco leaned on his knee holding his head up with his hand staring at the sleeping rabbit. “..b-b--biscuit…”

The rabbit opened an eye to see Draco on the verge of a breakdown. He got up hopping over cautiously so Draco could pick him up and set him on his lap.

Come…...ba.aa..ck..

He exhaled heavily once the voices left…

You had returned as well with some medicine and health potions. “Here, these will help, i made them” you held up the purple potion to him . “just drink this..”

Draco took the flask in a shaky hand drinking the sweet tasting liquid, he felt his body aches fade away and saw you wrapping up his knuckles. “I cant heal the bruises but.. “

“Do you still want me……”

“Huh?”

His hand cupped your cheek after putting the flask down. “Even if i look like this..”

“Draco id want you no matter what.” you kissed him. “Promise.”

He leaned into you heaving heavily. “Of course you would rabbit.”

Your arms wrapped around him to rub his back, his breathing was still off to you.. “Draco..what happened in..”

“I dont want to talk about it… not yet.” he cut you off fast. Dropping the conversation.

“Alright alright.. Lets go to bed instead.” you got up taking hsi wrapped hands in yours leading him up to the bed, Biscuit had hopped off Dracos lap to go back to his pillow to sleep.

It was a small room but you liked it, Draco ditched his pants, socks realizing he would need clothes . He looked at the bed staring at it for a long time. This would be the first night not in a cell…. In two years..

Its not the same

Don't you miss the cell?

Draco dug his hands in his hair, closing his eyes. “Shut up.. Leave me alone.”

We are a part of you now Draco.

We will never leave..

You came over moving the blanket down for him and pulling him over , your eyes down.

“Rabbit? Whats wrong?” he tipped your chin up seeing your sad face staring at him.

“The-the last time we … shared.”

He pressed you to him squeezing very tight. That night, that awful night , he was his worst.

Even she remembers that….

Awful…

Draco shook his head and leaned down to press his forehead to yours looking in your eyes. “Rabbit, I promise. I will never do that again.”

You waved your hand around ”i know.. Im just.. I want to “ you could not help but laugh. “ i want to snuggle.”

Draco hitched out a chuckle and kissed your forehead. “Oh Rabbit, of course.” you followed Draco into the bed and he pulled the covers up and laid your head on his chest. Soft.. comfortable.. Warm. it had been so long for him.

“Draco.. The light”

“Oh.” reaching out he grabbed the long string , his arm around you squeezed your shoulder as he pulled it making the room very dark. You snuggled into Draco and he did the same, running his fingers up and down your shoulder staring into the pitch black ceiling. This was not like the first night.. You were so scared of him.. Would not even face him in bed or look at him. Hes still amazed you stayed all night.

…

….

…..

A couple hours later. Draco was still awake holding your sleeping body.

Its dark isn't it ?

Draco shut his eyes, breathing slightly hard.

Remindssss us of the cell

Do you miss the dark..?

We miss the dark

“Leave me alone…”

But why? Dont you want to see us?

“ i want you to get out of my head..” his hands found his hair.

Do you think you can get rid of us on your own…?

His breathing was picking up, when he opened his eyes all he saw was darkness staring back at him, the room was starting to spin.

At least in the cell you had the moon…

The one light …

“Go … aa a- away…”

He got up in bed carefully laying you back down on his pillow.

She does not love you.

“Yes she does..” he got out of bed stumbling in the dark hitting the wall. “She does.. She loves me” he stammered out to the hallway feeling around for the light switch flipping it on. “Dammit Draco.. Your fine.. Pull it together…”

Are you sure…?

You can hardly walk..

“I just need some water… ignore them..” he shook his head, getting a small moment's peace. Draco found the kitchen slamming a cabinet open grabbing a glass. His wrist hit the sink turning on the water, he held the glass under getting the water more on his wrist then the cup.

You cant do things on your own anymore

The water was turned off and draco lifted the very shaky glass up to his lips while drinking .

Shes going to tell you to leave………

The glass shattered in Draco's hand waking you up to see the bed empty and the light on. “Draco?” quickly you got out of bed getting to the hallway just to stop when you heard him.

“I'm fine! Just needed some water…” his hands were bleeding . “go back to sleep Rabbit..”

“But.. I heard something.. Are you sure?” he heard your footsteps .

“Yes, Rabbit. Go to bed.” he tried to sound like he used to , when he had you under his finger in school. It must have worked because he heard you turn around and go back to bed. Draco leaned over the sink watching his tears hit the broken glass . “i … i cant tell her….”

#.RabbitFic #tw:ptsd #draco x hufflepuff reader #draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #😤draco

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jawabear · 3 years

Note

If you are doing requests right now can I request either 15. “It’s just a scratch” “you got stabbed” “it didn’t go that deep though” or 16. “Oh well! Thank god they missed anything vital! It’s not as if you lost a ton of blood or anything” with either Javi or Frankie? Only if you have a chance to get to it. Thank you so much! I love your writing!

Germany 2012 (Frankie Morales x Reader)

Not my GIF

A/N: Once again, I’m so sorry that this took so long Anon! But I hope you like it! I went with Frankie because I had this idea for a while and I haven’t written for him in a bit. I hope that’s okay. I have no idea how the army works so it’s probably in correct and notice how I didn’t really used a lot of Tom because F that guy. Readers code name is “Wolfgang” don’t ask me why, I just like it. But it doesn’t play a massive part so you can read it as something else if you want :) hope you enjoy! Sorry for any mistakes. Stay safe.

Genre: angst, fluff, smut

Warnings: fem!reader, injury detail, stabbing, violence, guns, usual army things, mentions of a fear of heights, body self doubt, smutty things, but it’s Frankie so it’s soft

Summary: a mission in Germany back in 2012 set the beginning for their relationship after an unfortunate event

Bullets were flying everywhere from both sides. The men they were after greatly outnumbered, six against what they gather to be 15 or maybe more. All heavily armoured and holding machine-guns that seems to have infinite ammo.

The mission had started out normal for them. An easy recon mission. All they had to do was check the area to find the guy that was dealing in Illegal weapons trading, only to enter if it was clear. As if they were going to follow that, regardless of if it were clear or not they would still go in to look for the guys, find out the information about who he is selling to and then proceed to kill him. But things quickly turned south when one of the guards spotted Santiago as he got into position. The guard had run inside the house yelling that there were intruders and then the shoot out started.

“Fuck, we’ve got to get to higher ground to take these guys down! From this cover we can’t shoot them, we’re to low down” Redfly said down the radio.

“Any one see an vantage point?” Santiago asked.

(Y/N) looked around and spotted a sturdy looking tree to her left, if she could climb it and find a good branch she could take them out easily with her sniper to allow them in. “I’ve found a tree” she reported through her radio “I can get up there and take them out”

“Do it Wolfgang” Ironhead said, she knew that he had nodded but obviously she couldn’t see it.

“Wolfie, you sure?” Catfish asked as he grabbed her arm, stopping her from leaving.

She smiled at him and nodded “I’ll be fine Cat” she assured him “cover me”

“You got it” he nodded, releasing her. He continued his shooting and she ran over to the tree he had spotted. She examined it for a moment and began climbing it to perch on the thickest branch she could spot. She lost her footing a few times which strained her wrists as she gripped at its rough bark. She ignored the scratches on her hands and aching in her wrists as she pulled herself up into the branch.

She pulled her sniper from her back and held it in position looking down the scope and lining it up with each member of the gang they were after. Bullet after bullet she shot and they dropped like flies to the ground. “Nice shooting Wolfgang” Pope complimented. She could hear the branch below her crack the longer she stayed there, she tried to pick up her pace but the cracking was starting to worry her.

“The front is clear” (Y/N) spoke down the radio “Redfly, Benny, you’re good to make your approach” she said.

“Making our approach” Redfly told them.

“Cat, Pope, you’ve still got a few ahead, I’ll try and take them out but-“ before she could finish the brach broke out from under her. She was quick to grab the smaller brach above her, her legs gripping the thick truck of the tree “shit” she muttered.

“Shit? Wolfgang what happened?” Catfish asked frantically down the radio.

“The branch snapped” she looked down, she was quite the way up. Her heart pounded against her chest. In all the action she hadn’t realised how far up she really was. She was scared of heights. “Fuck” she panted, her voice shaky as she tried to pulled herself up. She suddenly felt faint, her hands sweating. She managed to pull her self up into the other branch, she grabbed another one above her and tried to steady her breathing as she scoped the men who were still blocking the path for Pope, Catfish and Ironhead. But she couldn’t help but think of how large the distance from the ground to her was. Her hands shaking, she struggled to get a clear shot. “G-guys, I can’t get a clean shot” she said, her voice still shaking “I’m-I’m to h-high up”

“Don’t worry Wolfgang, we got it” Benny cut in. Multiple gun shots were heard and she guessed that the last of the guards on the outside had been taken down.

“Pathway clear, heading into the house” Pope confirmed.

“(Y/N), stay where you are” Cat’s soft voice came through her ear.

“O-okay” she stuttered with a nod she knew he couldn’t see.

He was soon standing at the bottom of the tree “(Y/N), jump” he ordered as he held out his arms.

“Are you crazy?” She questioned him.

“Trust me (Y/N), I’ll catch you, I promise” he assured her. She swallowed thickly and looked down at him. It was such a long way down. She regretted climbing up that damned tree. She gripped the branch tighter in her hand “(Y/N), I swear to you. I’ll catch you”

She took in a deep breath and tried to drop her self down a little bit so the jump wasn’t as high but as she made her decent her foot sleep as she lost grip of the tree and fell. She let out a soft scream as she fell, but she fell against something soft, something that definitely wasn’t the ground.

(Y/N) opened her eyes that she didn’t realise were closed in the first place. Her face pretty much pressed against Frankie’s who lay below her, his arms securely round her waist “I told you I’d catch you” he smiled to her.

“Are you okay?” She asked him softly, her hand brushing a few leaves out of his hair.

“Yeah, are you?” He asked in the same tone, his eyes flicking between hers.

“Mhm” She hummed as she nodded.

“Alright guys, enough playing around, get in here” Pope’s stern voice came in their ears.

The two laughed softly and she rolled off him. They both stood and made their way into the large house. They all regrouped in the large living room that was completely empty, they made sure she was okay and she assured them that she was.

“No cars have left since we got here and we knew he was here. He’s not among the dead so he has to be in here somewhere. He’s clearly hiding” Ironhead summarised the game plan “find him, secure him, we get the information and we take him out”

“Right” everyone nodded and went their separate ways throughout the house being careful not to make a sound.

The floors seemed to creak loudly due to the silence through out the large house, one small noise seemed to echo in every room. She gripped her pistol tightly in her hand as she scanned every room she passed, making sure to check for any off looking areas or enclosed spaces that he could be hiding in.

She made her way into what appeared to be one of the many bedrooms. She looked under the bed and between the sheets, and he wasn’t there. She looked inside the walk in wardrobe and he wasn’t there either. There was another freestanding wardrobe on the other side of the room. She thought it was strange and cautiously walked over to it, but he wasn’t there either. She let out a huff and turned to walk out of the room but then see heard wood scraping across the floor. She turned sharply and saw their target emerge from behind the wardrobe.

Before she could reach for her gun she head the flicking of a knife and the target charged at her. (Y/N) was a master in hand-to-hand combat but she was too caught of guard to gain her composure and fight back. The knife went straight through her side making her groaned.

As he charged at her, his shoulder rammed right into her chest knocking her back wards but she instinctively grabbed hold of him pulling with words to her and she stumbled backwards into the landings barrier. Breaking through the weak wooden beams, the two tumbled down to the floor below them, she landed on an awkward angle, her arm was definitely out of place but she tried to ignore it.

She managed to flip them over and climb on top of him. (Y/N) held him to the floor her hands wrapped around his neck and her knees trapping his arms, the knife long forgotten back upstairs.

“Guys, I got him” she spoke through the radio “by the door”

“Coming to you” Pope said.

She heard footsteps racing towards her and they all appeared, guns at the ready “nice job Wolfgang” Redfly complimented.

She got off him and pulled him up to his knees, Benny got behind him and tied his hands being his back. (Y/N) stepped away for a moment, she placed her hand on her side where the knife had cut into her, she knew it wasn’t going to kill her but it certainly wouldn’t do her any good if she left it bleeding out. She grabbed a bandage from her belt and lifted her shirt slightly, the others were too busy with the interrogation to notice her injury. She hissed in pain slightly as she wrapped the bandage around herself. It was at this point that she began to realise the pain in her arm. As well her wrists from climbing the tree. She grit her teeth and jumped slightly at the gun shot. A body hit the ground.

She looked at saw the Redfly had put a bullet in their targets head, none of them seemed bothered so she guessed they had got everything they needed. She pushed herself off the wall and stumbled a little bit.

“I think we’re good to go” Pope announced with a nod. Everyone else agreed and they soon left the house and made their way back to the large car they had arrived in.

She tried to hide her pain on the drive back but she could feel her blood seeping into the bandage and spreading. Her head fell back against the car and her hand went to her hip “You okay there Wolfgang?” Benny asked, Frankie snapped his head in her direction.

She lifted her head and gave him a soft smile “Yeah, I’m fine” she assured softly. She lifted her hand seeing it was stained red with her blood “just a scratch”

“That’s more then just a fucking scratch (Y/N)” Frankie stated firmly. He carefully lifted her shirt seeing it was almost black with blood, most of it drying already “Santiago, we need to hurry. (Y/N)’s hurt” he spoke down the radio to the driver.

“Right, on it” Santiago agreed.

“I’m fine Frankie” she strained, she jolted back slightly when his finger traced over her wound “I’m pretty sure it missed anything vital. It didn’t go that deep”

“Oh well! Thank god they missed anything vital! It’s not like you’ve lost a ton of blood or anything. Not like you’re going to bleed out here is it” he retorted sharply making her feel more guilty then she already did. He grabbed her hand and held it firmly against her side in hopes to slow the bleeding.

It didn’t take them long to get back to the safe house they had been assigned to. Frankie lifted her into his arms bridal style and brought her into the house, placing her on the sofa and lifting her shirt up further.

Ironhead took his place, taking over with cleaning her wound. All the others could do was watch. “Why didn’t you fucking say anything?” Benny asked angrily.

“By the time I realised we were already fucking leaving” she said back to him. A lie of course.

“But you had enough time to bandage yourself up!” Santiago yelled “you should’ve fucking said something”

She didn’t respond to them, she pressed her lips together and looked away from the to Will who had finished up with bandaging her now clean wound “luckily, you’re right. It did miss anything vital. You’re going to be fine Wolfie” he assured her.

“Thanks Will” she thanked him with a soft smile. She went to push herself up but used her damaged arm and it sent her right back down to her back. She whimpered and hissed at the strange pain that shot through her arm.

“What is it (Y/N)?” Frankie panicked as he came to her side next to Ironhead.

“I landed on my arm when I caught the bastard. Fell from the second floor to the first” she explained through gritted teeth.

They carefully pulled her up to a sitting position and Frankie ran his hand over her shoulder lightly feeling that it was dislocated. “We got to push it back in place” he said.

“Oh fuck” she sighed. The two boys swapped sides. Will put his hand onto her shoulder and Frankie grabbed her hand giving her something to squeeze when Ironhead popped her shoulder back into place.

“You ready?” Will asked her.

“Just do it” she said, her grip tightening on Frankie’s hand.

“Alright. 3...2...-“

“Shit!” She groaned out as he popped her arm back into place.

“There” Will said “should be back to normal now, just try not to move it to much for now”

“Thanks Will” She thanked him again. Always thanking him for something. She looked to Frankie and gave him a soft smile and released his hand. She stood, she looked to Pope and Benny who stood looking away from her, “I’m going to take a shower” she announced quietly as she left the room. She held her side as she walked down the hall into the bedroom she had been staying in the past two nights.

It was dark by the time she had showered, taking her time due to her injured arm and side. She hand re-wrapped the bandage around her side and began putting her clothes on when the door opened and Frankie walked in. He quickly backed out when he saw she was just in nothing but a pair of shorts. Luckily, her back was too him. His face was bright red. She let out a soft giggle and pulled on a loose fitting shirt before walking to her door and opening it.

“Hey Cat” she smiled. He jumped slightly and turned to face her.

“Sorry (Y/N), I should’ve knocked” he apologised.

“It’s okay” she chuckled and waved off his apology. She stepped to the side and allowed him into her room, closing the door behind him.

“How you feeling?” He asked her as he sat on the foot of her bed.

“Alright” she shrugged as she sat beside him “as good as one can feel after they’ve been stabbed” she laughed.

“I’m sorry for the way Santiago and Benny spoke to you earlier. And...I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you. We were just...scared. Scared that it could’ve turned out a lot worse then it did”

“It’s okay Frankie. I know they didn’t mean anything by it. I know you didn’t mean anything by it either. All of you were just looking out for me, and I greatly appreciate that. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, but I thought I had it sorted..”

He rested his hand on her bare knee. “You shouldn’t have gone up that tree, you know you’re scared of heights”

She nodded “I know” she admitted “I guess...I was just so caught up in everything that...I just didn’t think. And I feel like I fucked everything up. Getting stabbed, dislocating my arm...falling out a fucking tree...”

“You didn’t fuck anything up” he told her “you got him. No mission is perfect, no one leaves without injury. Remember last time? Santiago crushed his ankle, we had to carry him back, but we got through it”

“Right” (Y/N) managed a small smiled “still, I’m sorry...” she rested her hand on top of his. He flipped his hand over and interlaced his fingers with hers “thanks for catching me” she looked at him, their eyes meeting.

“Of course, I’ll always be here to catch you” he whispered to her.

“Frankie...” she whispered back to him. They slowly leaned closer to each other and soon their lips were touching. She squeezed his hand and lifted her free hand to his cheek.

The kiss was sweet but it didn’t last long. They both pulled away from each other but their foreheads still touching. “(Y/N), I think we’ve been doing this silent dance for a while now”

She smiled at him and giggled “I’m glad we both acknowledge how terrible we are at hiding our feelings” He laughed at this. She bit her bottom lip and looked at him through her lashes “could we..maybe...” she ran her hand down his chest.

“Yes” He said all to quickly “but..I don’t want you to think-“

“I won’t think anything Frankie” she assured him with a soft kiss “we both acknowledged our feelings. And we both want this...right?”

“Yes (Y/N)” he nodded. She smiled and kissed him again. He removed his hand from hers and began working himself out of his jeans, sliding them down his legs and kicking them off. She pulled back from him and moved onto the bed. He stood and pulled off his shirt, dropping it to the ground. She bit her lip again as her eyes raked over his body. He was perfect.

She noticed how his chest was dotted with scars, reminded of missions. Most of them she could also remember, one of them was when he decided to be a human shield for her, jumping in front of a bullet that could’ve killed him.

He crawled onto the bed above her and kissed her again. Her hands found their way into his hair and gently tugged on the strands keeping his head against hers. She hummed against his lips and his tongue dragged across her bottom one. She opened her mouth and their tongues danced together. He ultimately won over her and his wet muscle explored her entire mouth, claiming it as his own. He then pulled back from her lips and trailed his kisses down to her neck. But she didn’t want that, she wanted to taste him more.

She pulled at his hair, his head leaving her neck and he smirked at her before pressing his lips to hers again. His rough hands slipped under her shirt and ran up her body, behind careful to miss her injury. He gently grabbed her breasts in his hands and she moaned softly into his mouth. His thumbs ran over her nipples and she whimpered. He was then quick in pulling of the shirt and tossing it to the floor.

She prevented him from leaving her lips, her eyes squeezing shut, she didn’t want him to see her. She wasn’t exactly proud of her body. She couldn’t see any beauty of it. “Baby,” he whispered against her lips “why won’t you let me see you?” He asked.

“It’s nothing nice to look at” she mumbled.

“Please...” he whispered, barely audible. She swallowed and released him from her arms. He pushed himself up to his knees. Now it was his turn to gaze on her body. He ran his fingers lightly over the few scars she had picked up in her career. Given time, he could probably recall how she got each and everyone. “You’re beautiful (Y/N)” he whispered down to her “so beautiful...”

He placed a gentle kiss to her lips and then moved his mouth to her nipples, bringing her left into his mouth while he rolled the other between his thumb and index finger. “Fuck Frankie” she whimpered “god, it feels so good to be touched again”

“When was the last time someone touch you like this (Y/N)?” He asked her, his lips trailing down her body, placing warm kisses over her stomach.

“M-maybe, about five years ago?” She guessed, she couldn’t really think straight. She had dreamed of having Frankie like this with her, and it was so much better then she ever imagined, she didn’t want to think about any of her past lovers, none of them mattered to her, the only person that mattered to her in that moment was the man above her who was loving every inch of her body.

“Well,” he muttered as he brought his lips back to hers, his fingers hooked under her panties and toyed with them for a moment “we can both end our five year streak” he smirked.

She nodded quickly and he slid back down her body, pulling her panties with him. He held her legs open before she could even try to close them from embarrassment. “You’re already wet” he commented with a smirk. She covered her face with her hands and let out a soft groan “baby,” he said softly as he pulled her hands from her face “let me see that pretty face. I want to hear every noise that comes from that pretty mouth” he placed her hands in his hair again and hooked his arms around her thighs.

He brought his mouth down to her wetness and nudged his nose against her a few times before dragging his tongue between her folds. She let out a moan as her head fell backwards “fuck” she whispered. He licked her slowly again and again. Each time she would have the same reaction but her eyes slid shut as she sunk into the feeling.

“You taste so good baby” he complimented “so delicious” she loved the way he looked between her legs. Licking her wetness as if she were his favourite flavour ice cream or something. As if he hadn’t eaten anything in years, five years.

“You feel so good baby...” she hummed as she dragged her fingers through his hair “making me feel so good...”

“Let me make you come” he mumbled.

“Yes...please” she whispered. He pushed his mouth against her and sucked harshly on her clit, his tongue throwing it side to side. She moaned and panted with every flick of his tongue, his hips rolling against his mouth. He removed one of his arms from her thigh, she whimpered when she felt one of his thick fingers press against her hole “F-Frankie” she stuttered, he hummed and slipped his finger inside her “fuck Frankie” she moaned and gripped his hair. He began pumping his finger in and out of her “wh-What fuck what if the g-guys h-hear?” She panted.

“They won’t baby, they’re drinking outside” he assured her, as if on cue a loud laugh erupted from outside. He slipped another finger into her and curled them inside her.

She groaned loudly and rolled her head back biting her bottom lip “oh baby” she moaned “I’m so close..”

“Hmm...come for me, Mi amor” he enticed her, his tongue attacking her clit. Her grip tightened in his hair, holding his mouth closer against her.

“Fuck fuck fuck” she cursed, her walls clenching around his fingers, his hips stuttering against him as she let out a shaky moan.

“So good...” he mumbled “so fucking good baby” her chest was heaving slightly as he pulled his fingers out of her, he lapped his tongue up her a few times. He moved his face from between her legs and trailed his lips up her body, this time only kissing her scars, his lips lingering on each mark. Frankie moved his face back to hers. He slipped his wet fingers into her mouth and she happily sucked on them while holding his wrist. “You’re so beautiful...you look so good after you come...”

“You made me feel so good..” she mumbled against his fingers. He pulled them out of her mouth and replaced them with his lips. Her hands came to rest on his cheeks “I want to feel you inside me baby...”

He nodded and she rolled him onto his back, climbing on top of him. She moved down his body and pulled down his boxers and threw them to the floor. She almost drooled at the sight of his length and how it was already dripping with pre-come. “Oh baby...” she whispered. Her tongue slid out of her mouth and licked over the tip of his length.

“Fuck...(Y/N)” he gasped. She took his length into her hand and began stroking him while sucking on his tip. “Baby, fuck, baby please...I just want to be in you” he begged softly.

She released him and straddled his waist. She positioned his length at her hole and slowly sunk down onto him. They both groaned at the feeling. Her hands were flat on his chest as she began to steadily bounce on him. “You feel so good Frankie...” she whimpered. He gripped her sides, just above her hips as he was weary of her injury.

“Shit, so do you baby” he groaned “so fucking tight”

She rolled her hips against him and he let out a loud groan. Her pace began to pick up and her nails dug slightly into his chest. Her breath came out in heavy pants, she took one of his hands and pulled it up to her throat. He slightly tightened his hand around her and a smile formed on her lips “so dirty” he growled “you like having my hand wrapped around your perfect neck baby?”

“Yes” she whispered, she groaned and gripped at him. He could feel her walls clenching around him, the squeeze made his head spin. “I’m going to come again...”

He flipped her so she was back on her back and he began to pound into her. She grabbed his wrist and choked out a moan of his name. He grunted with every thrust into her. “Make me come again...make me come around you” she panted breathlessly.

“I will baby, I’ll make you scream” she shivered at the deepness of his voice.

“Yes..” she whimpered. He slipped his free hand between their bodies and began to rub harsh circles on her clit “fuck!” She yelped, her back arching up, her chest hitting against his. “Fuck, fuck Frankie!” Her walls were pulsing around him, her face flushed red and her eyes beginning to water. “Fuck-I’m coming!”

“Yes baby, come for me” he grunted to her. Her nails dug into his wrist as she came, her head being thrown backwards. But his relentless pace didn’t stop, if anything he went faster. Tears began to slip from her eyes at the overstimulation and the lack of air in her lungs.

“Come Frankie, please come inside me” she whimpered. He thrust into her a few more times and released inside her, his hot come shooting into her.

“Fuck” he grunted. His hips stilled and he removed his hand from her neck and she drew in a sharp breath. His face fell into her neck.

She hummed, a smile on her face, her fingers gliding through his hair as he breathed heavily into her neck “a great way to end a five year streak” she giggled he just nodded to her “worth the wait...”

“Definitely” he mumble. He lifted his head from her next and placed a heavy kiss to her lips that slowly got softer as his breath came back. “Do you think..” he began, running his hand up and down her side “we could make this a thing?”

“Having sex?” She asked

“Well yes, but like...us...together”

“Together?” She smiled “you want to be with me?”

“Yeah..I really like you (Y/N). I think you’re amazing. You’re so beautiful and strong and you hold us all together. And I know that maybe it’s not a great time to get into a relationship but..I’m willing to try if you are”

She pulled him back down for a kiss and rolled him over so she was back on top. His arms wrapped around her waist and gently held her on top of his chest “I really like you too Frankie” she said as she stroked his cheek “I think we can make this work...I want to make this work...”

“I want to work too...but...we’ve been friends for years, I don’t want this to ruin it. Like, if something happened between us, I don’t want it to ruin our friendship”

She nodded and kissed him again “I can understand what you mean. Hopefully, nothing does happen to us, but if it does, I don’t think I could live without you in my life regardless of if we’re together or not. You’re my best friend Frankie, I think we can do this”

“I hope so. I’ve wanted to be with you for ages baby. I’ve wanted to hold you like this, feel you like this, I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first day we met”

“Please kiss me” he smiled and laced his fingers into her hair to hold her lips against his. Both of their hand now rested on his cheeks. She shifted slightly and felt his length move inside her. She giggled “I forgot you were still inside me baby”

“Me too, I was wondering why I felt so warm” she sat up but he desperate chased her lips by sitting up as well, his hands flattening on her back and kissing her again. “I never want to stop kissing you”

“Can you at least pull out of me?” She laughed. He groaned and shifted under her and pulled his length out of her letting out a harsh breath as he did. “Do you think we should tell the others?” She asked him, she rolled off him and led in her side, he too rolled over on his side, propping his head up on his hand.

“We probably should...” his eyes looked down her body and his hand grabbed lightly at her side, running his thumb over her skin. “But..I don’t know how they’ll take it. There are rules against this right? About dating within the army...”

(Y/N) hummed in agreement knowing he was probably right “How do you want to play this?” She asked quietly.

Frankie looked to the door of the room and thought for a moment. “Which ever way allows us to be together” he began before looking back to her “that’s the way I want to play”

04/02/21

Taglist: @linkpk88 @phoenixhalliwell @lunaserenade @harrys-stan (let me know if you wanted to be added to or removed from the list)

#frankie 'catfish' morales #frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #francisco catfish morales fanfic #triple frontier #pedro pascal #fluff #angst #smut #fanfic

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respectablesentiment · 3 years

Link

Her arm itches, a deep graze stretching from her elbow to her wrist and smarting in a way that makes Ellie examine it closely, as though she may be bitten. She wasn’t though. Riley had saved her and she didn’t save Riley. It was a blur after that. -- prompt: family, day 4 of elliedina week Ellie's mother doesn't die but Ellie still grows up alone. Ellie was never bitten but she still goes on a journey. Alternative Universe where I ignore two specific parts of canon.

(day 1: ache) | (day 2: dawn) | (day 3: trouble)

or you can read it here:

Warmth

Family is a complicated word until it isn’t.

She’s never known it until she does.

Marlene is the one who finds her after Riley.

Ellie is a bundle of raw nerves, cheeks stained with tears and speckled with blood. She doesn’t think she has anything left to give.

It was meant to be a special night and for a blissful moment it was.

And then it wasn’t.

Riley had been bitten. She saved Ellie’s life and Ellie wasn’t able to save hers.

Riley was her best friend, her person, her something. Her someone with one foot out the door who just agreed to stay.

And now it would be Ellie clinging to Marlene, considering pledging to the Fireflies in her place because one more moment in Boston would make her heart hurt too much.

There must be something extra special in the air, perhaps a shared sense of mourning or grief, maybe Marlene had been more attached to Riley or Ellie than she let on, but she shares something new with Ellie. She knows her mother, a Firefly who was stationed in a lab out west. Still alive.

Ellie isn’t sure if its rage or tears building inside of her, too exhausted to form words or find her way through her emotions.

Mothers were meant to protect and hers clearly hadn’t.

Abandonment was hard to rationalise, but it felt very much like her grief was due to her mother and if she’d never known Riley then Riley would’ve never known her. They’d both be fine and Riley would be alive and her chest wouldn’t hurt like this.

The realisation couldn’t have been recent, it didn’t make sense that Marlene hadn’t told her before. She admits to keeping tabs on Ellie but doesn’t specify why she stayed away.

The offer to journey west with Marlene feels like a form of salvation. She had considered returning to the military school but couldn’t go through with it.

She had cycled rapidly through the first four stages of grief without ever touching acceptance, pacing and screaming and crying for hours. Riley sat resigned in a corner, staring at the gun in her lap as sweat began to build on her brow.

She gave Ellie the gun for protection, kissed her one last time and asked her to walk away.

It was a blur after that.

Marlene gets hurt, Ellie gets lumped with two smugglers and the Capitol building is full of dead Fireflies.

Ellie is fairly certain that either Joel or Tess used to a be parent. Potentially both. Potentially together? She isn’t sure. She overhears bits and pieces of hushed conversations, arguments about how far they are taking her and whether its worth finding the Fireflies and her mother.

Ellie isn’t entirely sure to be honest, the road is gruelling but she’s moving somewhere. Forward, onwards. It’s not like she can move back, and its not like she can stay with Joel or Tess. So onwards it is.

Bill’s town is a shit hole, Pittsburgh is a nightmare, and the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh sends her spiralling. Did Riley turn that way? Fall asleep and wake into oblivion? Was Riley still in there?

Her last conversation with Sam loops over and over in her brain, interrupted occasionally by Tess checking in. Asking and caring in a way that Ellie doesn’t deserve.

“Joel doesn’t handle grief well,” Tess says openly.

Ellie’s eyes flick over to watch Joel ahead of them.

“He pushes it down and refuses to speak about it, but you don’t have to do that,” Tess says, squeezing Ellie in a side hug as they walk. “I’m here whenever you need to speak, or whenever you wanna be silent.”

Ellie nods along but keeps it inside.

Joel shows care differently. He’s gruff and matter of fact and if there’s nothing that needs to be said then he says nothing. It takes Ellie a while to pick up on it because he’s Joel but he always makes sure she eats enough, that she’s between him and Tess, and he makes her put on a jacket when the weather changes.

The first time they meet Tommy is a turning point. They have power and a town and its nothing like the Boston QZ. Or Bill’s town. Or Pittsburgh.

It’s tempting.

Why rush after an unknown entity? A mother in the distance who abandoned her? Who she’d never known? Would their shared blood just make things click? The destination, the conclusion, the end. And what then? Would they get along?

Would Tess and Joel leave?

They wouldn’t stay.

Would Ellie stay?

Ellie’s lost in thought when the attack happens. Tess is immediately on her, making her crouch down under a table as Maria guards the door.

It happens and then it’s over.

They stay one night in Jackson and then they continue.

Ellie tries to call things off. It seems like a safe place to stay, Tommy and Maria said they could come back if the university labs in Eastern Colorado didn’t pan out.

“We’ve come this far, Ellie,” Joel says resolutely.

“You should be with your family, Ellie,” Tess affirms. “It’s rare to have that in this world.”

Ellie clenches her jaw. She’s never known family, never felt it… so how would she know?

“We should at least go to this university.”

And so they do.

It’s another bust.

In a long string of bad luck, nothing changes.

The buildings are deserted, there’s some fucked up infected monkeys, a dead scientist and another location to trek to.

And then there’s FEDRA soldiers.

She’s never been more thankful for Tess in her life.

“There’s three in the building across from us, they’ll head this way soon,” Tess says curtly. “Let’s head two rooms back, wait for them in the hallway. Gunfire will bring more so we’ll hold our positions. Agreed?” Her voice is gruff, almost an imitation of Joel’s and despite the adrenaline rushing through Ellie’s veins, Ellie smiles.

Times moves slowly, the gun is Ellie’s hand is solid and she’s got five bullets which is more than normal so she feels confident.

The soldiers slowly drop.

They wait five minutes at each floor, slowly advancing forward.

Joel bounces his knee as they hide, and Tess divides her time between scanning the entryways and windows and glaring at Joel to ensure he plays by her rules.

They escape relatively unscathed. Joel is bleeding from the temple, his face a mess of red that Tess reassures Ellie is fine. Tess has a bullet graze on her upper arm, a worn grey bandage tied haphazardly over it to stop the blood flow but Ellie thinks it might just make the wound infected. Ellie’s tired, shallow cuts and grazes line her right side from falling onto shattered glass, her head is pounding and she’s over it.

She cries that night. Feeling alone and scared and stupid.

Family is dumb and overrated.

It’s clearly not for her.

Her mother had decided long again.

If her mother didn’t want her then she didn’t want her mother.

She curls into a ball in her sleeping bag, safe elsewhere but feeling unsafe. She presses her fists to her eyes as though it’ll stop her tears and she just shakes, her body wracked with sobs.

A warm hand falls on her back. It’s large and solid and just resting there.

She knows its Joel but can’t bear to look at him.

Tess strokes her hair where it meets the nape of her neck, and Ellie wants to sink into the ground just as much as she doesn’t want them to stop.

She doesn’t speak and neither do they.

From where they are in eastern Colorado, Jackson is northwest, and Salt Lake City is west. Its only a few days travel from Salt Lake City to Jackson on horseback. Tess takes the time the following morning to show Ellie on a map.

“If we’re heading back that way anyway, then it’s worth it to check,” Tess tells Ellie, tracing the route they’d take and informing her of their decision more than anything else.

“It’s not worth anything,” Ellie replies, scuffing her shoes on the ground.

“It’s your mum,” Joel says simply.

“Has someone told her that?” Ellie mutters.

Joel and Tess both grimace, sharing a look. Ellie knows family is complicated, she’s been told this and now she’s experiencing it.

“Ellie, she’s your-”

The rage bubbles up inside her before she can stop it. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has either died or left me,” Ellie says with a raised voice, her hands shaking jerkily in front of her. She’s tense and full of energy and she wants to punch something. She can feel tears coming and her throat is dry and it’s too much.

“Ellie-”

“So why should I run after someone who’s already left me?” Ellie yells. “Why should it be this hard? Why do we have to risk this much? Why do you have to risk anything at all?”

They say nothing. Ellie can see pity in their eyes, and before she can stop herself, she punches a tree.

It doesn’t make her feel better.

Joel bandages her hand, three of her knuckles split. He’s gentler than she’s ever seen him and it makes her feel small for some reason.

“Kiddo, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Joel says in a low tone. “You can- You can choose, it should be your choice.”

“It can’t be for nothing,” Ellie says bitterly, emotions swirling inside of her.

“If it doesn’t work,” Tess says, patting Ellie’s knee. “Then you don’t have to stay.”

“Where else can I go?” Ellie asks, squeezing her eyes shut, cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“There’s always Jackson,” Tess offers.

“But- I-”

“With us,” Joel says awkwardly. “If- if you wanted.”

Ellie’s throat is tight.

“I could teach you how to play guitar,” he offers. “I reckon you’d like that.”

“Maybe,” Ellie says softly.

And they continue on.

The journey from Colorado to Salt Lake City isn’t an easy one. Nothing was ever easy.

The weather gets colder which makes it harder to navigate, harder to find food, and harder to sleep.

She feels more as they get closer. More scared, more nervous, more anxious.

Just more.

She struggles to make sense of it, not sure what she’s looking for or what they’ll find. What she’s already found.

They’re on form. Heading through a bus depot, exiting the last highway and clearing through an underground tunnel.

They’re almost there and then there’s rushing water and straining lungs and darkness.

Ellie wakes in a hospital with a stranger beside her bed.

The woman’s eyes are green, her expression is soft, and she tuts over Ellie sitting up too early.

“Easy, easy,” the strangers says, hands reaching out to help Ellie sits up.

Ellie’s body freezes, jerking away from her. “Where are Joel and Tess?”

“I asked them to give us some time alone,” the woman says. “I’m your- I’m Anna.”

Ellie takes her in with wide eyes, waking into an anticipated moment was hard to process. “Can- where’s- I don’t-”

Anna hushes her and draws Ellie into a tight hug that she doesn’t relax into.

Meeting Anna doesn’t make things easier for Ellie.

There’s a sense of warmth there, honey in Anna’s voice, a soft touch and an excited expression.

Anna rushes through excuses, building a narrative of a complicated birth, a missing father and a sense of duty to the Firefly cause. She didn’t want Ellie to come out here, she was safer in a QZ until her mother had figured out the cure she’d devoted her life to. Her words are sure and well-spoken, she pauses in places like she anticipates Ellie reassuring her, and then she continues painting her picture of abandoning Ellie for noble reasons.

Ellie nods along.

It ticks so many boxes, but something is off and Ellie cannot place it. There’s a hardness behind Anna’s eyes, something she’s sometimes seen in her own, and it feels off.

“Do you have any questions, my love?” Anna asks, tone saccharine.

“Where’s- where’s Joel and Tess?” Ellie asks awkwardly.

Anna’s smile turns a little bitter at her words but she takes Ellie to them nonetheless.

“We’ve got it from here,” Marlene says, her voice is muffled but Ellie picks up the words as they approach. “You can take the guns as agreed.”

“We’re not leaving without checking on her,” Tess’s voice says firmly.

Anna’s steps turn heavy, as though to announce her approach.

Marlene changes the conversation quickly as they enter.

“Ellie!”

Ellie throws herself at Tess, initiating a hug for the first time in their long journey. She clings to her, relaxing in the safety of her arms.

“It’s good to see you up, kiddo,” Joel says, a protective hand on Ellie’s shoulder.

She hugs him as well, relieved to be reunited and to see Joel in one piece after the tunnels.

“You’re welcome to stay for a couple of days,” Marlene says curtly.

It’s clear she doesn’t mean it.

Joel and Tess stay anyway.

Anna is involved in testing to find a ‘cure’ for the infection. She works with some doctor. Talks about how she used to be a nurse and had diversified her skills over the last 14 years in immunology, pathology and mycology.

Anna seems to want to share everything, tell Ellie everything and nothing, unable to sit in the silence that Ellie offers.

Ellie doesn’t particularly care, too focused on the way that the Fireflies hover over Joel and Tess like they aren’t allowed to go to certain parts of their hospital or their base. The way that whispers cease when she turns a corner, the blood splatter on doctor’s coats, and the weird feeling that Infected are nearby.

It feels off.

There’s something out of place.

It doesn’t take long to click.

Or at least, it doesn’t take Ellie long to venture where she’s not allowed to go. She uses every trick Joel and Tess taught her about being stealthy, sneaking passed Fireflies to reach the upper floors of the hospital in the middle of the night.

There’s Infected in cages. Dozens of them.

She supposes it makes sense if you’re studying immunology to find a vaccine.

Cages are marked with numbers and dates.

#259, vaccine 23, injected: 20/04/34, infected: 21/04/34, turned: 22/04/34

#260, vaccine 23, injected: 20/04/34, infected: 21/04/34, turned: 23/04/34

Her eyes linger on the dates, only days prior, comparing those around her.

Someone passes the room she’s in, footsteps audible between the groaning of the Infected and Ellie is terrified.

She hides under a desk, flashlight off, in the total darkness of a room filled with nightmares.

Once she’s certain they are gone, she gets up, hands shaky as she searches through paperwork.

It confirms what she thinks.

She drops the notebook in shock, the sound alerting several of the runners. Within seconds they are snarling, baring their teeth, and pounding on the doors of their cages.

They’re locked away and yet she’s never been more terrified, stuck in place and trembling.

She hears guards shouting, footsteps rushing closer.

The room is flooded with light when they arrive, and Ellie finally moves. She rushes forward, ducking passed them in the doorway.

She runs and she doesn’t stop.

They don’t shoot and they don’t chase her.

She finds comfort when she finds Joel and Tess. Too overwhelmed and too worked up to be able to explain what she saw and what she now knows.

Her mother is experimenting on humans to find a cure.

Injecting them with a trial vaccine, infecting them with the virus, studying them as they turn, and then dissecting them.

Hundreds.

#260.

The knock at the door that goes ignored so Marlene and Anna enter anyway.

Joel stands in front of them, partially shielding Ellie and Tess from view.

“What can I help you with?” Joel asks, crossing his arms. His tone is serious and its impossible to tell that Ellie has shared nothing with him.

“I just wanted to explain what Ellie saw,” Anna says, holding her hands up. “Sometimes sacrifice is needed for the greater good, I’m sure you understand that.”

Tess stiffens against Ellie, holding her tighter. “Are you okay?” She whispers in Ellie’s ear.

Ellie nods but she’s uncertain, she pulls away to watch, eyes studying Anna.

“In order to create a vaccine,” Anna continues. “There’s a need for trials. There are- we’ve had-” She falters, clenching her hands into fists by her sides. “Immunology is complex and working tirelessly in order to create a vaccine for animals which do not ordinarily get Infected does not necessarily help to create a vaccine for animals that do.”

Ellie narrows her eyes. “So you test on humans instead?” She offers plainly. “You make up a vaccine, you give it to someone and you infect them and you just take notes as they suffer.”

Anna’s nostrils flare.

“We’re learning a lot,” Marlene says. “We don’t like it either but it needs to be done.”

“Two hundred and sixty times?” Ellie asks.

Tess swears.

“Where are you finding two hundred and sixty people to experiment on?” Joel says threateningly.

“We have to think about the future,” Anna says coldly.

“You’re monsters,” Ellie snarls.

Anna’s jaw tightens, she shakes her head as though she’s deciding the argument isn’t worth it and she walks away.

“They’re not good people, Joel,” Marlene says, rubbing her eyes. “Most of them are hunters and- and think of how many people we could save if we get this right.”

“We’re leaving in the morning,” Joel tells her. “Please go.”

And Marlene does.

Ellie sits stiffly on the bed, fidgeting with her hands as Joel and Tess talk circles around her.

“Human testing?”

“Hundreds of people.”

“What if they never find a vaccine? How many more will they go through?”

“I always knew the Fireflies were misguided but fuck.”

She zones out, disassociating more than anything else as she thinks about Riley and Sam, about hundreds of Rileys and Sams, about being cold and feverish and knowing what’s coming and not knowing how it would come.

She must fall asleep at some point because she wakes up to Tess stroking her hair and smiling sadly.

Joel and Tess have packed and they’re ready to leave.

It takes Ellie several sluggish moments, heartbroken and half asleep, to register than they mean to take her too.

“Really?” Ellie asks.

“Of course,” Tess says, like its nothing.

“We’re family,” Joel says, like its everything.

Ellie leaves with them.

Anna doesn’t really say goodbye and neither does Ellie.

It had felt like Anna was trying to build something between them, but she was really pretending something was already there. But there was nothing. No spark, no connection, no meaning. The journey had been worthless.

Ellie shouldn’t have run after someone who already left her.

Family was both complicated and simple.

Out of reach and sneaking up on her.

Her mother was nothing and no one, and the smugglers were now something and someone.

“It’s kinda pretty, ain’t it?” Joel says, gesturing to the snow-capped mountains surrounding them.

“Yeah, it’s gorgeous in Spring, Texas,” Tess grins, helping Ellie over a fence. “This whole area is covered in wildflowers.”

They’re on the outskirts of Jackson, almost back to where they were months previously. Months of danger and sleeplessness and darkness.

Risks and close calls.

For nothing.

“Sarah and I used to take hikes like this all the time,” Joel says easily. “I reckon the two of you would’ve been friends.”

Ellie nods along, thoughts elsewhere.

“Just a little bit further now,” Tess says eagerly, giving Ellie a boost onto a higher bit of ground.

Joel lends a hand to stabilise her and then pulls up Tess.

“Hey, wait,” Ellie says, looking out toward Jackson and then down at her hands. She sighs as she tries to find her words. “I’ve been meaning to tell you but, back in Boston… before I left, I was- I was somewhere I shouldn’t be with my friend. My best friend. She got bit and we didn’t know what to do so we tried to wait it out and she made me leave before she turned.”

“I’m sorry, Ellie,” Tess says quietly. “I know how hard that can be.”

“Do you think they-” Ellie rubs the back of her neck. “Do you think they’re still inside? Like they’re stuck?”

“No. No, Ellie I don’t,” Tess says. “I think they’ve moved on. They’re at peace.”

Joel is silent and awkward, but his eyes are kind.

“I’m sorry we went all that way for nothing, I-” Ellie falters, biting her lip. “You both risked so much and I don’t think I could have handled someone else dying or- or turning because of me.”

“Your friend’s death wasn’t your fault,” Tess says.

“I feel like it should have been me and not her,” Ellie admits.

“Ellie, I’ve struggled a long time with surviving,” Joel says. “But no matter what, you keep finding something to fight for.”

Ellie fidgets with her fingers, scratching at her arm. “I just-” She huffs. “I just feel like we fought through all of that for nothing. We came all this way and for what?”

“For you,” Joel says plainly.

Ellie tears up, nodding and sniffing and doing her best to keep it together.

Family is a complicated word until it isn’t, she’s never known it until she does, and she feels it constantly in Jackson.

In their meals together, in learning how to play guitar, in movie nights, in sharing books, learning how to swim, and to grow and move forward.

She tells them she loves them on her sixteenth birthday in an abandoned museum.

She tells Tess and Joel she likes girls the day that she decks someone for taunting her about Cat.

She goes hiking with Joel when she and Cat inevitably break up, finding peace in the open air.

She cries on Tess’s shoulder when Dina and Jesse get back together for the third time. A mess of complicated feelings loud in her chest.

Joel helps her practice playing her song for the end of harvest bonfire and Tess helps her pick out a shirt to wear to the town’s winter dance.

“I’m just a girl, not a threat,” Ellie says softly.

“Oh, Ellie, I think they should be terrified of you,” Dina murmurs. Her eyes are bright, she feels warm and perfect in Ellie’s arms, and she steals Ellie’s breath long before she kisses her.

She distantly hears someone calling out, too lost in the tenderness of the moment to register it properly.

“God, I-” Ellie laughs at herself and her breathlessness, eyes lingering on Dina’s affectionate smile before she kisses Dina again.

Once. Twice. Soundly and enthusiastically.

When she pulls back the second time, she notices Joel and Tess having words with Seth. They look angry and Maria seems to have put herself in the middle, mediating and ushering Seth outside.

Dina’s hand on her cheek makes her refocus.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” Dina whispers playfully.

Ellie’s cheeks flush pink, smiling in disbelief, her fingers flexing on Dina’s lower back. “Me too,” Ellie admits shyly.

Dina leans her forehead against Ellie’s again, swaying them together slowly under the twinkling lights.

#i'm kinda both proud and self-conscious about this one #it was both a challenging and fascinating idea #my next fic is a continuation in the same world #don't think about that too hard #tlou2 fanfic #elliedina week #my writing

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hale-13 · 3 years

Text

Five Stages

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 22 Prompt - Grief

Peter made a promise to May that he would let her know if it got bad again. That he would never hurt himself again.

Words: 1707, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Teen+

Relationships: Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Ned Leeds

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Tony Stark, Ned Leeds

TW: Depression, Self-Harm

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“I’m good Ned,” Peter promised, forcing a smile on his face that he knew was wholly unconvincing. Ned confirmed this with his frown and furrowed brow that told Peter that his best friend knew he was absolutely full of shit. It didn’t matter though – this was the hill that Peter would die on. He tried to force more life into his smile.

“Why don’t you come over tonight?” Ned asked hopefully. ‘I know you love my mom’s cooking and we still haven’t finished the Lego Star Destroyer.”

“Sorry Ned,” Peter says, already feeling guilty about the lie he was about to tell. “Movie night with May tonight.”

Ned still looked a little dubious but relaxed a bit. He doesn’t think Peter would lie to him about this. It makes Peter feel even worse – he detests lying and it feels like that’s all his life has become recently between Spider-Man and… this. Why can’t he just be honest? “Okay Peter,” Ned agreed, a little uneasy. “You can always stop by later if you want.” He offered and Peter felt his stomach twist into a knot.

“Sure man,” he said, offering his hand to initiate their handshake before departing to head home.

The apartment is dark and quiet and empty when he gets there. Peter snaps the rubber band on his wrist a few times but the sting isn’t enough. Neither is the piece of ice he takes from the freezer and holds into the delicate skin of his forearm.

The safety pin he stabs through the meat of his thumb takes enough of the edge off for Peter to get his homework done though. When May sneaks in later, tired and stumbling after her shift but still trying to not wake Peter up, he feigns sleep. How’s he supposed to tell her he hasn’t slept well in weeks? How’s he supposed to say its getting bad again?

It’s okay, he’ll figure it out. He always does.

———————————————

“How are you doing sweetie?” May asked carefully, trying to look nonchalant as she sips at her tea. It’s one of her rare days off and dark circles ring her eyes. It’s been a rough few months money wise and, even though she doesn’t talk to Peter about it, he’s seen the bills marked ‘overdue’ on the counter before she’s able to hide them.

“I’m good,” Peter said as he swirled his spoon through his bowl of disintegrating cereal. He wasn’t really that hungry but May had put the bowl in front of him before he could protest. So now he’s stuck eating it.

May gave him a look that clearly said she didn’t believe any of the shit he was spewing and reached across the table to grab his hand in hers. “You can talk to me if its getting bad again,” she said, ducking her head so that she could make eye contact with him. Peter kept his face blank. “Is it?” She asked. “Getting bad again?”

“No,” Peter said, forcing a smile onto his face and making eye contact. “I’m just tired – school’s been really busy lately, lots of projects and stuff.” Peter winced internally, that was not his best work. He really sucked at lying.

“Peter,” May admonished gently, her eyes soft and a little wet. “You know its okay to ask for help. I’m right here for you.”

“I know May,” Peter promised, a genuine soft smile taking the place of his fake one as love swelled up inside of him for his aunt. “I’m okay, I promise.”

“Alright honey,” May sighed, letting go of his hand and going back to her tea. Maybe this could be a good day. Just him and May and some old movies and gossip. He had so many things to tell her about school and he really wanted to get an update on Tammy and Ryan, two of the nurses in May’s department, and their passive-aggressive fight for a promotion.

It could be a good day.

May’s phone ringing made both of them stop and glance over to where it was resting, previously innocuously, on its charger in the kitchen. Peter’s heart sank further at the frustrated look on May’s face after she answered and the apologetic way she looked at him. He still smiled and told her it was fine that she had to cover a shift last minute. He knew that she couldn’t turn down the extra money when they so desperately needed it.

Later when he used the blade of his scissors to cut open his wrist he felt even more guilty. He promised May he would never do this again. He hadn’t broken this promise since he made it just after Ben died. He made another slice.

But he just couldn’t help it – some promises were always going to be broken.

—————————————

So there was a loophole.

It had been a rough day already when Peter got stuck in a fight with Shocker. He wasn’t feeling his best that day and he really needed to release some tension. Shocker was the blockade preventing Peter from doing that so he prioritized speed over precision and, in the process, got his arm broken.

The pain was so clarifying and he reveled in it for just a moment before he hastily finished the fight and webbed Shocker up to be picked up by the police.

“You require medical attention,” Karen’s bright voice chirped at him when he landed, out of breath and pain drunk, on a nearby building.

“I don’t think its displaced,” Peter told her, rotating his wrist and hissing. Some more fog cleared from his addled and useless brain.

“Peter,” Karen admonished, sounding disapproving. “You should call Mr. Stark.”

“I’m good,” Peter said instead, squeezing his arm. “I’m great actually.”

He had promised May that he would never hurt himself again but if his enemies did it for him…

Well.

—————————————

“What the hell Peter?” Mr. Stark sounded worried and scared and Peter blinked tired eyes open. It was hard to see since the blood had dripped down into his vision – he would wipe it off but he was just too exhausted to make the effort to pull of his mask. “What happened?”

Peter let out a wet laugh that ended with a cough. His mouth tasted metallic but he wasn’t sure if that was from his bitten tongue or if he was actually coughing up blood.

Didn’t matter. He’d heal.

He felt Mr. Stark pull his mask carefully off his head, barely getting it caught on his broken nose but Peter still hissed at the bright spots of pain. Maybe he overdid it this time. “I’m good,” he slurred, listing a little to the side.

“You aren’t ‘good’,” Tony told him angrily as he pressed a wad of gauze into Peter’s bleeding side. It made his vision grey and spin. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Peter let out a humorless laugh, choking on it a little and spitting out a globule of blood onto the ground. “I was thinking this is the better option.” Tony’s eyes were like daggers as they bore into him and Peter realized in his delirium that he maybe said too much. Tony Stark was a genius after all. “Never mind,” he said hurriedly, trying but knowing there wasn’t anything he could say right then to fix the situation.

“We’ll talk about that later,” Tony assured him in a way that made Peter’s stomach sink. “You’re stable enough to fly so just don’t pass out okay?” The man asked as he stepped back into his armor and picked Peter up. Peter’s vision winked in and out from the change in altitude but he stayed awake.

He didn’t remember the flight to the Tower. He did remember being handed over to Dr. Cho and her team. He remembered the feeling of Tony’s hand in his hair and the smell of anesthesia and then…

Nothing.

———————————————

“You’re healing is pretty amazing,” Tony said and Peter groaned, squinting his eyes open against the dimmed light of his MedBay room. It was dark outside the window and, in the soft light from the lamp in the corner of the room he could see May passed out on the couch under a light blanket.

“Thanks,” Peter croaked, throat dry. Tony held a straw up to his lips and Peter sipped at the tepid water gratefully. His throat felt raw and the water was soothing.

“It’s so good in fact,” Tony continued, setting the water down on the nightstand a little forcefully and crossing his arms to stare at Peter, unwavering, “that it almost healed up your scars from before you were bitten by the spider.” His eyes were locked on Peter’s damaged forearms and the nearly invisible scars hidden there.

Peter wanted to balk at the claim, deny it, but he was tired of lying so he just shrugged instead. Tony’s eyes narrowed further before he let out a sigh and pulled up the sleeves of his sweater to show Peter his own arm where, faintly, horizontal scars shown white against his tan.

Peter’s mind ground to a halt.

“I think we’ll skip most of the sordid tales of my youth,” Tony said sardonically as he rolled his sleeve back down to cover his arm, “but I get it. I didn’t go out and get a bunch of criminal low-lives to kick the shit out of me since my dad was all to willing to offer his services but I get it.”

Peter sniffed a little and gave a tight nod. “What did you do?”

Tony snorted. “Well I was super self-destructive well in my thirties but after… after the Chitauri and the Mandarin… well I started talking to someone. It took a lot of work and it didn’t get better quick but, well it helped.” Tony reached out and gripped Peter’s hand tightly in his. “We can work on it okay? Will you let me help?”

Would he let Tony help? He glanced over at May, still sleeping on the couch. He didn’t want to feel like this anymore. He didn’t want to hurt the people closest to him. He was so tired of being tired all the time.

Would he let Tony help?

“Yes,” Peter said with finality.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump22 #Prompt: Grief #irondad #spider man #Summer of Whump 2021

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thedeathdeelers · 3 years

Note

Trevor doesn’t remember when he first starts thinking of his bandmates again. His dead bandmates, that is, and just thinking the word dead makes him want to curl into the fetal position all over again like when he was seventeen. He thinks he starts remembering them when a decade has passed and Carrie is born. He was twenty-seven and there was this little baby with big eyes and small pink fingernails in his arms, when he thinks ‘She’ll never get to meet her uncles.’ He doesn’t cry then, but it’s almost as if his baby girl can feel his sadness because she starts screaming in his arms and it's enough of a distraction that he rocks her to sleep without thinking of the boys again that day.

He keeps them locked away in the back of his mind for the better part of five years until kindergarten rolls around and little Carrie with her curly pigtails and glittery Hello Kitty backpack comes home excitedly talking about her new best friends.

“Daddy, they are so cool! Flynn has dinosaur stickers and she gave me one. See!” She points to the top of her right hand where there’s a green pterodactyl cartoon sticker firmly slapped on. “And Julie has this huge purple crayon and she let me use it to write my name!”

At first, he’s beyond excited. His little girl made friends on her first day, which shouldn’t have been such a surprise now that he thinks about it since she has always been a little go-getter. Still, he ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ahh’s’ at the right moments as she talks his ear off about her new friends. By the end of the first week, Carrie has decided she wants to invite her best friends over for a small back to school party with just them and lots of pizza. She reminds Trevor three times Friday night not to forget that Flynn likes Hawaiian pizza and Julie likes orange Fanta best, and that he should become best friends with their parents because she’s decided they are all going to grow up and live together.

He laughs and a twinge of ache in his chest reminds him for a moment of a time when he was younger, not as young as Carrie maybe but just as naive. He remembers for a second flashes of running around playing tag at the park and scrapping the top of his thumb’s skin off. He still has the scar.

He can still remember Alex pulling a Batman sticker out of his pocket and taking him to the public restrooms to clean the cut. Alex the worrier, even at twelve, rambling about getting the cut infected and the proper way to tie his shoes and doesn’t he ever think about where he’s walking.

“Bobby! Oh my god, please tell me you don’t need stitches!” He can remember floppy blonde hair and blue eyes and gasping breaths. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt, you idiot, your eyes are watering.”

“Maybe I’m just mesmerized by your beauty, dude,” he can hear himself replying to try and ease the rigid shoulders and deep frown on his friend’s face. “Really, man, I’m fine. Just a little blood.”

“Let’s just get you to a bathroom and wash it off, okay?” But Alex had been hiding his eye roll and curling lips and his shoulders no longer made him look like an awkwardly hanging scarecrow. It was enough to make him forget his thumb was throbbing and dripping blood.

The scrape is deep enough that it bleeds for a while into the sink, he can still picture the reddish water as it goes down the drain. He and Alex had met in the back of their sixth grade English class, Alex was shy and constantly biting his nails while he was just trying to catch a nap without getting in trouble. They’d bonded over a mutual silent agreement: Bobby held Alex’s hand under the desk when he had to read aloud in class and Alex would nudge him with the right answer when the teacher would call him in the middle of a power nap.

“Gatsby is gay,” he can remember Alex whispering to him when Miss Augustine had called him one time in class. He remembers repeating it without a second thought and realizing only seconds later what the fuck he had just said. He remembers wanting to turn to Alex because he knows there’s something important in the interpretation for his friend. He knows it by how Alex sometimes stares at that soccer player, Gabriel, who sits two rows in front of them. He knows by how Alex turns red when the guy notices him staring and the anxious way he strums a beat with his fingers. He wishes he could turn to him and say he accepts him no matter who he loves without saying it because he knows Alex isn’t ready for that discussion yet. But they’re in class so instead he turns to his best friend and gives him an overly exasperated look, hoping it conveys how he has no idea how he’s going to dig himself out of this one but Miss Augustine had smiled and just went about her lesson.

They never talk about it but a few days later, when he plops his copy of the book onto Alex’s desk before class he smiled and says, “You were right. Daisy was totally a beard. Nick and Gatsby were totally in love.” And reading shitty Fitzgerald - who stole more than half of the amazing work written and attributed to him from his wife Zelda, and as a feminist Bobby knows that’s just some misogynistic bullshit he cannot tolerate even for a school grade - is all worth it. Because Alex looks at him with a look of pure joy that makes him feel like he just scored an extra carton of strawberry milk at lunch (and that’s immense happiness because everyone loves that’s pink milk.)

He’s thinking about the park with a bloody thumb when he hears the doorbell and goes to answer it. And suddenly all the excitement of meeting his daughter’s new friends leaves his body as a chill kisses his spine. Nothing prepares him for seeing the girl from the Orpheum staring at him with a taller, blue-eyed man who must be her husband. His eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open, What are you doing here? He wants to ask. Are you a ghost? But before he can, he feels Carrie wiggle her way past him and leap into two pairs of arms. He can just make out black, thick boxer braids, deep brown skin, and a bright mint feather boa above Carrie’s head and he knows he’s just met Flynn. The other arm wrapped around his daughter is attached to a girl slightly smaller than both of them, a huge mass of curls making her appear their height with light brown skin and a wrist covered in macaroni jewelry. And that must be Julie, which means, he looks up to see the parents in front of him - the girl from the Orpheum is her mother and he’s never going to be able to forget that night again.

“Flynn’s parents asked us to take her because they were running late for a dinner reservation they had scheduled months in advance. I hope you don’t mind just us,” the man says with a friendly smile as he reaches his hand out. “I’m Ray Molina and this is my wife, Rose.”

Rose, Trevor thinks as he briefly thinks back on that fateful night. Size beautiful, he can practically see Reggie handing her their band’s t-shirt. He can almost feel Luke leaning his arm against his shoulder and telling her that he’d had a burger for lunch. He didn’t even have to look to know Alex was rolling his eyes at how bad his flirting game was. It was like losing them all over again, only he couldn’t; this was his daughter’s day and he couldn’t wallow in pity. He has to host, so he reaches his trembling hand out and offers the best smile he could offer.

“Hi Ray,” he turns to his wife. “Rose,” he nods and watches as her polite smile fades into a softer one, a genuine one, “I’m Trevor.”

She doesn’t correct him on his name. She doesn’t even look to be affected to be honest, until Trevor leads them inside and she sees some of his awards on the walls. Ray is busy helping to serve the pizza and soda for the girls and it leaves him alone with Rose. She doesn’t mention the award for ‘Now or Never’ new hit single on the Billboard 100 or its being #1 on VH1. Rose doesn’t have to, all she has to do is look at him and Trevor feels himself turning back into the scared kid who showed up at the hospital screaming about his friends. Screaming to the nurses who told him he wasn’t looking for a hospital room, he was looking for the ID numbers of bodies at the morgue. He gives her a slight head shake, as if to plead with her not to bring it up. She nods, but he feels his guilt grow heavier as she leans up to gently smear a line across his name TREVOR WILSON next to the title for up-and-coming artist.

It’s Carrie with her signature giggle and yell that makes them head for the kitchen. “Daddy, can you come sit down! Before we eat we have a surprise!”

They walk in to find Ray sitting amusedly at the dinner table. He beckons them to sit down with him and Trevor can’t help but laugh at the scene in front of him. The girls have obviously gotten into his stage makeup and Carrie, Julie, and Flynn are wearing matching bright red lipstick and glitter on their cheeks. Flynn is sashaying with her boa as Julie holds Carrie’s pink one, and Carrie has her hand on her hip as she strikes a pose before snapping her fingers and triggering the sound system. ‘Barbie Girl’ by Aqua starts blaring in through the speakers and the three adults share a look. Should they turn off the song? It is highly inappropriate. But to do that would mean having to explain why it’s inappropriate and do they really want to ruin a song that as far as their kids are concerned is about Barbie living in her Barbie world?

“Hey!” Carrie yelps and their heads all snap back to the girls pouting at them, “We are trying to give you a concert! Don’t make us waste all of Flynn’s cool moves!”

“Okay okay,” he shakes his head, “Don’t you have more cool moves to show us, Care?”

“No,” his daughter gives him a dead serious face, “we have limited choreography.” She says it with such a puff of dismay and sass that Trevor can’t help but let out the loudest laugh he has in a while. There’s no way Carrie even knows what she’s saying but she must have heard it when he was on the phone with his agent who was arranging his next music video.

The thought pops up before he can squash it, Alex would’ve loved her sass, he would’ve loved to dance with her. But it doesn’t hurt as much, to think of Alex smiling and dancing with glitter everywhere.

It’s not long until Rose and Ray are laughing along too and the three watch the girls spin, twirl, improvise lyrics, and throw their feather boas around long after the pizza has grown cold. - 🌙 (so this is the first bit and each bit shows how I decided to headcanon bobby met the boys in school and remembering them and leads you to rose confronting him and learning about the boys before her death ahhh ok let me know if it’s ok 🙈)

excuse me this is

really good????

more please 😌

#no seriously moonon it’s really well written and i love the attention to detail and the way you’re introducing us to trevor - to bobby #and how he met alex and it’s just :(#so cute and sad?? and i want to know the rest!!#you should know i’m usually like. really meh about bobby like i just don’t really care enough about him? because we really don’t know #anything about him or his relationship with the boys #but this made me feel things #so ya #♥️#i hope this is encouragement enough for you to post the rest moonon🥰♥️#ask #anon🌙#jatp #julie and the phantoms

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sarah-writes-marvel · 3 years

Text

After-Party Showdown: MCU Cast x Fem!Reader (platonic)

S.S.” Ive literally had this fic finsihed since like Febuary so its a little rough but let me know how you like it!

Warnings: Blood, predetor male (Sorry to anyone named Eric... im sure your very kind), rudness..., sexual talk (kinda)

Word Count:1,710

MASTERLIST

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

We had finished watching the premiere of the newest Avenger movie and the set, cast and a few selected friends returned to the reserved reception room at the hotel that many were staying at.

RDJ, Tom Holland, Hiddelston and Gwenth were talking with a few friends of theirs and some of the set members. Chris Evans, Hemsworth, Elizabeth and Scarlett were also in their own separate group that was somewhat merged with Sebastian, Anthony, Don and Paul.

I was new blood to the crew, and although I was immediately accepted by the cast, I watched them mingle from the bar.

Eventually people began to disperse, mainly people that worked the cameras and the background actions. Basically leaving the actors and actresses and their few friends they brought with.

I continued to sit at the bar talking with various people that came to refill drinks, even had a lovely conversation with the bartender, who seemed slightly star stucken. Nearing the end of the night a charming gentleman came to my side and struck up a conversation with me as we sipped away at our drinks.

“Hello beautiful. I’ve got to say you’re way too pretty to be over here on your own.” he said with a pearly white smile.

“Oh well thank you.” I blushed at his compliment.

“So why aren’t you mingling with everyone? I've seen you sitting over here all night.” he replied, studying my face.

“I’m more of a people watcher. Introverted and all that jazz.” I reply taking a sip of my drink looking at the cast laughing and talking.

“Alright I can understand that. Do you want to be less introverted and hang out with me?” He replied with a sly tone in his voice.

“Well you sitting next to me talking aren’t you?” I stated. “In my book that’s considered hanging out.”

“Well I meant more along the lines of a nice walk and maybe heading back to my place.” His statement was blunt and outgoing.

“Oh well, I appreciate the invitation but I have to decline.” I replied as kindly as possible.

“Oh come on sweetheart. Why not?” His voice whined.

“First I don’t know your name. Second, I'm not a one night stand kinda girl, I'm assuming that’s what you had in mind.” I looked at him pointedly and annoyed.

“I’m sure I could change your mind. I’m Eric. It’s wonderful to meet you.” He held his hand out and finally introduced himself.

“I wish you would’ve led with your name.”

“Duly noted.” he retracted his hand before he kept talking. “So what’s your name?”

“Y/n.”

“Very hot.” his comment caused me to roll my eyes just slightly.

“If you are going to try and complement my clothes off you should stop now.”

“Why? Because it’s going to work.” He leaned in, the brandy apparent on his breath, his hand sneaking around my waist.

“No,it won’t work. I would also appreciate you not touching me.” I said scooting a few inches away.

“Oh come on. You know you want to have a good time.”

“I was having a good time.” Even I could recognize the annoyance in my voice. I continued to watch my friends talk amongst themselves, saying goodbye to others.

“I can make it so much better though. I mean the dress is just begging to come off. It would be a great addition to my floor.”

“Excuse me?” I set my drink down on the bar, standing up and crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“Oh please. You wore that so you could get compliments didn’t you?” His eyes looked at the dress that hung on my body. It was a decently modest midnight blue dress. It hugged my waist, the skirt ended just above the knee, it even had long sleeves. The only suggestive thing about it was the vneck and the open back.

“Yes. Compliments. That was not a compliment. That was a shitty way to try and pick up someone.” I replied.

“Oh please. You should be happy that I asked you.” His face turned to anger almost as if he was annoyed.

“I’m perfectly happy turning down your request. I hope that you have a good night.” I turned heading towards the group to leave behind the creep at the bar but a hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me back.

“What the hell do you think you are doing.” My voice was stern yet quiet doing my best not to create a scene.

“I’m going to ask again until you say yes.” he’s hand tightened around my wrist.

“Let go of my wrist.” I demanded a little louder wishing that the bartender hadn’t left to retrieve more ice and alcohol.

“Not till you say yes.” He seethed. I tugged against the resistance on my wrist trying to pull away. “Quit being such a bitch and take the compliment that I actually want to sleep with you.” His voice was hot against my neck when he leaned in to whisper that into my ear. I snapped.

I twisted my arm causing his hand to turn with it allowing me to break free, gripping his wrist pulling him from his seat wrapping his hand behind his back and shoving his face into the bar. Suddenly all eyes are on the interaction.

“First of all, I don’t need to feel grateful for you telling me that I look beautiful, I’ve heard it many times, and that my clothes would look better on your floor.” I let go of my hold, Evans and RDJ approached the two of us. Eric stood up, raising his hand, almost in an attempt to hit me.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Evans said before Eric moved.

“Don't tell me what to do with my girlfriend.We we’re just having a nice conversation.” Eric smirked, his hand placed on my waist.

“Seriously. You seriously just did that?” RDJ laughed.

“What? Did you come to save her or something?”

“Oh no. We aren’t saving her. She can easily take you on her own. We’re just suggesting that you don’t do that because it’ll come with an asswhopping from a young woman in heels and many lawsuits.” RDJ started with a smug tone.

“There is no way in hell that she'll be able to take me. Plus I've got amazing lawyers.” Eric spat back with a smirk.

“Oh ya, no. You really don’t want to challenge her.” Hemsworth commented. Eric looked at him with anger in his eyes. I picked up my glass from the counter, taking a sip and holding onto it so I wouldn’t punch his face.

“Whatever.” he turned towards me. “Good luck ever getting laid with your attitude.You’re nothing without a man's approval you know. Even had to have these people come to your rescue.”

His voice was quiet and annoyed trying to dig under my skin. And it did a little bit, but it just fueled my anger toward him. I looked at him and the glass shattered in my hand as I tightened my grip. The glass fell to my feet the remaining liquid splashing onto my dress and onto his outfit.

“You can go.” I even scared myself with the tone of my voice as I spoke. The look of fear in the man's eyes gave me a sense of pleasure that I put him in his place. He pushed his way through the group that had surrounded us and rushed through the exit.

“Well then. What a dick.” I started watching the door close. My hand was still in a fist and I held my other hand underneath, feeling the blood from the cuts drip into a puddle in my palm.

Everyone looked at me shocked.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to involve anybody. Is everyone ok?” I looked at the astonished faces of my friends.

“Are you seriously asking if we're ok?” RDJ questioned.

“Well ya.” I shrugged my shoulders looking at everyone who all seemed very concerned.

“You just crushed a glass with your bare hand. You are bleeding. We should be asking you that!” He exclaimed.

“Oh ya. I’m fine. I really hate guys like that though.” I looked down at my dripping hand and turned around to face the bar. I reached behind grabbing one of the clean white towels, dipping it into the cup of water that I had at the spot I was sitting. I began cleaning the affected wounds when Evans took over.

“You know I knew that you could take Hemsworth and I but I never knew you could do this! You gotta be careful. Someone might think you've got some super soldier serum flowing in your blood.” He smiled as he wiped away the blood and examined the cut in the center of my palm for glass. “Alright this may hurt just a bit.” He began tightly wrapping the cloth around my hand, tucking the end into itself.

“You should go to a doctor to get that properly taken care of.” Scarlett added.

“That's a good idea.” I agreed, standing from the seat that I had been pushed down on. “Well I had a great night with y’all! I hope I didn't ruin it with that little fiasco.” I smiled grabbing my clutch from the bar and walking through the group.

“Well where the hell are you going?” RDJ questioned.

“The hospital to get stitches, you know like Scar suggested.” I was confused at his question.

“Well someone’s gotta go with ya.” Evans stated.

“Ya. We’ll go with you. The night is still young!” RDJ exclaimed standing up and meeting me.

“You don't all have to come, it'll just be a couple of stitches.” I laughed.

“Too late I called the limo already. We're taking a trip to the hospital!” RDJ celebrated. Soon the rest of the crew was chiming in on a “To the hospital” chant as we made our way out the door, earning confused and concerned looks from the staff of the hotel.

To say the hospital staff was surprised to see the cast of the marvel movies enter the emergency was an understatement, but I was glad to have the best people around me, even if it was for a few stitches.

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Like I said it was one of the first fics I had written a while ago... But I hope you liked it! thanks for reading!

#mcu #mcucast #chrisevans #rdj #scarlettjohanson #chrishemsworth #avengers #captianamerica #ironman #thor #marvel #marvelfanfic #readerinsert

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