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#and sometimes i draw you pictures on the glass with my blood
heather-garland · 2 years
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i am so sorry but it is [redacted] in the morning and this is the funniest thing in the world to me rn
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beggingforxavier · 1 year
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Your Good Boy
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This is an alt! Follow my main blog: @beggingforxavierthorpe
About: After a friend sends you a picture of Xavier and another girl, jealousy fuels you. He'll know who he belongs to after tonight.
Word Count: 2.6k
Warnings: P in V, no condom, dirty talk, oral (f recieving), masturbation (m), edging, overstimulation, use of toys, crying, super!sub!Xavier.
It had been two hours since Yoko had texted you a picture of Bianca and Xavier from a Nightshades gathering. Her hand was resting on his right thigh, him laughing at something she said, eyes closed. Ever since you saw it, it made your blood boil. Was this why he didn’t want you joining the Nightshades?
You’ve been ignoring his texts, him probably drunk and needy from Yoko’s mixed drinks. The buzzing wouldn’t seem to stop, but it eventually dies down.
“Well, he can just go see Bianca.” You grumble to yourself, shutting your eyes tightly to try to will sleep to take over. Even though it was late, you couldn’t sleep, all you were doing was tossing and turning in your bed. With a frustrated sigh, you sit up and run a hand through your hair. “Fuck it.”
Fueled with jealousy and rage, you sneak out your window, scaling balconies until you land at your boyfriend’s.
You’re about to knock on the glass pane when you see movement inside. You rub your hand against the dusty glass to try to get a better look. Xavier is sitting in his desk chair, hand wrapped around his cock, pumping desperately. His sketchbook is open on the desk, and his other hand is held above it, making the image move. Squinting your eyes, you realize that it’s a drawing of you riding his cock roughly, your hips slamming together, your mouth open and chest heaving. How he got so much detail into that one drawing surprises you, and the fact that he’s jacking off to you melts the edges of your heart. But as soon as you remember why you’re there in the first place, your jaw sets and you pound on the glass.
Xavier jumps from where he’s sitting, cursing, and tucking himself into his pants. He turns around and tucks himself into his waistband, and then shuts his sketchbook before coming to the glass.
“Babe?” He asks, confusion marring his features, his brows coming together. “What’re you doing here?”
Regardless, he backs up so you can climb inside, and you do.
“Did you have a nice night?” You ask, crossing your arms over your chest.
“Uh, yeah. I tried texting you.” A small blush rises to his cheeks, and he rubs the back of his neck. “It was just a small party….I-did you see me just now?”
“Of course I saw you jacking off.” You set your jaw again and Xavier takes in your features, becoming even more puzzled. “You’re bad.”
“Why are you angry? Your body language is so off.” He shakes his head, reaching his arms out towards you, still a little tipsy and needy.
“Get on the bed. Now.” You order, kicking off your shoes.
Xavier doesn’t move at first, concern flooding his brain, but eventually he sits on the edge of the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“How dare you fucking let her touch you like that.” You spit, cheeks flaming. Xavier cocks his head to the side, his eyes widening.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you not want me in the Nightshades because you want to fuck around behind my back?” You counter, arms crossing.
“What the fuck? No! I don’t want you to join the Nightshades because they can be a bunch of assholes sometimes. We do dumb stuff and you’re too good for us.”
“And apparently you’re the biggest asshole of them all.” Xavier’s eyes widen at your hurtful words. You drag your phone out of your pocket, opening the picture and dropping it in his lap. “If her hand was any higher, she’d be touching your dick.”
“Baby-“
“Strip.”
“What?”
“God, I said fucking strip, Xavier. And don’t you dare touch yourself.”
Gazing up at you in a mix of fear and excitement, he obliges, pulling his shirt over his head and tugging his sweatpants down, leaving him bare against his comforter.
Your eyes harden as you look down at your boyfriend, pushing down your hurt feelings until all you feel is a need to make him pay. You walk over to his bedside table and open the drawer, pulling out his vibrating cock ring. You toss it at his chest.
“Put it on. On high.” You tell him, starting to tug your shirt up and over your head.
You kick off your leggings and then pick them up off the floor, watching him slide the ring down to the base of his cock and he presses the button three times, turning it to its highest setting. He groans immediately, his hips pushing up into the air as the vibrations are overwhelming.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh FUCK.” Xavier whimpers, the vibrations making his toes curl. “Baby, please.”
“No. You don’t have control over this.” You put your leggings on the end of the bed and climb up, straddling his thighs, sitting back on his firm legs. “You want to let other girls touch you? Then come home and jerk off to the thought of me? For that, you get punished. You can’t cum without my permission. Do you understand?”
Xavier nods wordlessly and brings his hands down to grip your hips, his eyes wide. You grab them and remove them immediately, pinning them above his head. His cock is hard still, his tip red and leaking. His chest is flushed, his stomach sucking in at the vibrations shooting up his length.
“Are you going to be able to be a good boy and not touch me?” You ask him, and Xavier groans, enjoying having you so close to him. He struggles against your hold a little, and you sigh. “That’s a no.”
“No, I’ll be good.” He says quickly, but you’re already moving to grab your discarded leggings.
He watches you as you wrap the material around his wrists and tie them tightly to the iron headboard. Xavier whines and struggles against the hold, just tightening them on his wrists.
“You couldn’t be good. Not a surprise.” You spit into your hand and bring it down to his cock.
“I’m your good boy.” He whimpers, eyes bulging as you collect his precum and start to stroke him quickly. “Holy shit!”
“Prove it.” You almost growl, your hand eager against his cock, stroking him without mercy. “Who do you belong to?”
“Y-You, I belong to you. I’m your good boy.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours.” His hips stutter, pushing up against your hand. “Please, please, wanna cum for you.”
Your hand is relentless on him, and he’s squirming, the vibrations and the pull of your hand too much. His chest is deep red now, and he has a look of desperation on his face.
“I-I….can I cum?” He whimpers, thrusting up into your hand. “Please, baby.”
You continue wordlessly, and he drags in a deep breath, trying desperately to hold it. You watch him carefully, and when you think it’s about to become too much, you pull off your hand and press the button to turn off the vibrations of the cock ring. Xavier lifts his butt off the bed, chasing your hand, frustration clear on his face as his impending orgasm dies instantly.
“Oh, my poor baby.” You climb up to straddle his stomach now, leaving his cock, weeping and solid. Reaching forward you grip his chin. “Open.”
Xavier opens his mouth, and you spit, letting a glob slowly slide past your lips down into his mouth.
“You want to cum, don’t you? Do you think you deserve to cum?” You ask, your voice softer now, stroking the side of his face.
“I’m sorry. Didn’t realize, I pushed her away...” He looks up at you, feeling small and shy. “I only want you.”
Satisfied with his answer, you lean over to his bedside drawer again and pull out the wand he bought you on a whim the year prior. The one you were too afraid to keep in your shared bedroom and forced him to keep here where no one will ever find it.
You slide down his body once more, leaving a little wetness in the center of his stomach, turned on by seeing him helpless beneath you. Settling between his legs now, your hand moves down, turning on the vibrating cock ring again, and he grunts. Xavier’s toes curl again, and he throws his head back, his eyes closing. Though, when you turn on the wand and press it right underneath his tip, his head shoots back forward, a moan ripping from his throat.
“Holy shit!” He cries, and you continue to hold it there. “T-Too strong.”
“You can take it. I know you can. Be my good boy.” You coo, running your hand up and down his sucked-in stomach and down his thighs, just caressing him.
Xavier curses, bucking a little against the jolts of oversensitivity that run through him, but you just hold the wand there firmer. It doesn’t take much before he’s a begging mess beneath you.
“Gonna cum…can I? Please, oh my fucking God, I can’t hold it-“ He wails beneath you, louder than he normally is.
“Cum, Xavier.” You answer quickly, and he does.
Ropes of hot cum land on his lower stomach, and some on your hand as well, sliding down the sides of his shaft. The groans leaving his throat are filthy, and when your hand comes down on his thigh roughly, the slap echoes against the lofty ceilings.
But you don’t remove the wand, and soon Xavier’s sobbing, pulling desperately against his binds, the vibrations too much for him. Tears roll down his cheeks, staining his pale skin.
“Ah-baby, stop. I can’t-“
“Do you need your safe word?” You ask calmly, and he shakes his head indignantly. “Does it feel good?”
“Hurts…fuck, don’t stop.” Xavier pushes past the tears, his mouth falling open, pain mingling with pleasure at some moments, and he tries desperately to keep his hips against the mattress.
“Can you give me one more, baby?” Your words are soft and soothing, reaching up to rub under his eye and collect his tears.
You bring your thumb down to suck on the salty tears, moaning softly. Xavier’s eyes are still brimming, but he watches you. His cock keeps twitching now, and he starts to splutter as he gets closer. A sheen of sweat dons his skin, and you think he almost looks angelic.
“C-Can I?” He manages, and you bite your lip to hold back a self-satisfied smirk.
“Mhm. Go ahead, baby.” You tell him.
It only takes another minute before his cock is dribbling again, a sad, low flow down the sides of his cock and pooling at the base.
You immediately turn off the vibrations on both toys, pulling him carefully out of the cock ring and tossing them to the side.
“You were so good for me. I’m so proud of you. ‘M gonna take care of you now. You want my pussy?” You question, and he nods as you reach up to untie his hands.
When they’re finally free, Xavier rubs his wrists and then brings his hand to your hair, stroking softly.
“I’m sorry.” His voice breaks and you climb up, straddling his waist now, and lean down to kiss him softly.
“I know.” You reach between you and stroke him slowly, trying not to make it painful for him, but he’s overstimulated so he hisses. Despite the pain, you can feel him hardening against your palm. “I’m gonna ride you.”
Xavier nods again, and soon you’re sinking down onto his cock. Your wet cunt swallows him easily, inner thighs wet from watching him fall apart so many times and beg to cum. You slide down until he’s as deep inside you as he can be – and you rock your hips. The cum from his prior orgasms sticks messily to your core and butt now, making you even slicker. His hands grip your hips, helping you move with sloppy rolls. Moans spill from your lips, and you press your hands to his chest to get more support. Oversensitive, he’s still a mess beneath you, gasping, his eyes wide but mind empty as he fucks up into you. His eyes shut tightly as he tries desperately to keep his orgasm at bay.
“B-babe…sweetheart, not gonna last.” He manages to get out, but you don’t stop, chasing your own orgasm now.
Xavier’s fingers grip your hips tighter, enough to bruise and he bucks up into you as he cums a third time, barely anything dripping out of him at this point. His face is screwed up and he moans high in his throat, almost a whine. He pants and your hips still now on him, Xavier being fully fucked dumb, gazing up at you in adoration.
You pull off him, knowing he’s too oversensitive to continue, settling back on his stomach. His eyes trail over your chest and back up to your face, his eyes widening as through his foggy brain he realizes that you didn’t cum. Embarrassment floods through him, and he reaches up and cups your cheek. His eyes fill with tears again, feeling guilty and so, so spent.
“I’m so fucking sorry. Come up here, ride my face.” He offers, and you finally smile that self-satisfied smirk down at him, able to tell how spent he is, but he’s so desperate to please you that he’d do anything.
You climb up his body, hovering over his face. Xavier immediately sinks two of his long fingers inside of you, and his tongue seeks out your clit. He sucks lazily, and you slowly grind your hips against his mouth. His tongue flattens against your clit so you can get the most friction possible.
He groans against your pussy as you roll your hips faster. Gripping onto his hair by the root, you use his mouth. His fingers drag in and out of you, your juices dripping down his wrist. Xavier slurps at your messy cunt, until you fall apart above him, legs shaking, and head thrown back as you moan his name.
Rolling off him, you take his fingers into your mouth and suck on your juices, before leaning down and pressing your cum-covered tongue into his tired mouth. He groans and sucks on your tongue, tearing another moan from your throat. After a moment, you pull away and smooth his sweaty hair back away from his face.
“I love you so much, Xavier. You did so good. Made me so proud tonight.” You murmur, leaning down and peppering his face with kisses. Xavier takes in a shaky breath, and slowly starts to weep against your shoulder. “I know, baby. I know. Let it out.”
“I-I love you too. I t-tried to be good for you. I’m sorry.”
“You are my good boy. I promise.” You nuzzle against him. “I was just showing you who you belong to. Was it too much?”
Xavier shakes his head, rubbing at his tears. You kiss them away and press your forehead to his.
“I know who I belong to. I deserved to be punished.” He sighs and looks up at you, tears starting to dry up. “I won’t let something like that happen again. I don’t want you to feel like you aren’t the most important girl in the world to me. If you really want to join the Nightshades, I’ll make it happen.”
You make a face, and he chuckles a little.
“How about we clean you up, baby? You’re covered…” You grin smugly as you look down at his cum-covered body.
Xavier nods, shutting his eyes for a minute and letting you get up to grab a damp cloth. Turning back, you take your time studying him. You’d never been prouder of him before. You can tell he’s starting to drift off, the night too much for him.
You start to clean him up, very gently rubbing the cool washcloth against his tired, warm skin.
“I love you.” He mutters, half asleep.
“I love you too, baby. Sleep now. I’ve got you.”
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theloveliestembrace · 4 months
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Let it happen. | CL
Charles Leclerc/Reader
f1 masterlist
crossposted to ao3
Summary: The five times you meet Charles Leclerc. (The four times it doesn’t work out, the one time it might,)
Warnings: Non-explicit (but definitely inappropriate) teacher-student relationship
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Reincarnation au
W/C: 2.7k
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A/N: What’s good people, I’m back again. This fic was very cinematic in my head (it still is), so I hope the writing captures that. Enjoy~
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The first time you meet Charles Leclerc, he’s a barista at the coffeehouse down the road from your interning job. It’s a brief stint in the industry as you wait for a university acceptance letter, so you don’t expect to stay for long. 
He’s sweet, beaming at you from over the counter nearly everyday, remembering your order before you’ve even asked for his name. 
“Charles,” he says, sweetly accented, “my name is Charles Leclerc.” 
That day, the flowing script of your name on the takeaway cup is accompanied with a ‘have dinner with me?’ and a smiley face. You picture him, eyebrows scrunched and eyes squinted in concentration, trying to write neatly on the curved surface, and smile. 
As it turns out, Charles Leclerc is also waiting for a university acceptance letter, to a prestigious place in the United Kingdom for the study of Liberal Arts. He laughs awkwardly as he confesses, “My English is not so good yet, so I am worried they won’t find me so elegant.” 
You bat it off as nonsense, pulling him in for a chaste kiss, whispering sincerely against his lips. “They’ll be foolish not to accept you, cheri.”
He’s a sweet relief from the bustle of your internship, where you’re surrounded by presumptuous old men and women who expect their coffee orders and bottles of perrier on their desk before eight. Your work in the fashion industry is not as glamorous a job as made out in the novels. The twelve centimeter heels you’re forced into daily pinch at your toes, and all your coworkers are size-zero hyenas, vying for a position. It takes all your energy to keep up. 
Just the sight of him, though, waving cheerily in the morning as you run in for coffee pickup, hands in his pockets as he waits for you to get off work, the soft kisses when he walks you home. It’s easy to get lost in this, lost in him , fingers slotted between yours and a glass of wine shared between interlocked fingers.  It’s a romance out of a metropolitan chick flick, something about finding love in the middle of modern day bustle, finding quiet in the loud city. 
Everything falls apart when you get your acceptance letter. You haven’t talked about the inexorability of the end, not really. Sometimes Charles will bring it up half-heartedly, and so will you, but the inertia to dealing with your very real future is too great, and you both end up kissing on Charles’ sofa instead of facing the truth. 
It culminates in one big fight, your fingernails pressed to draw blood, Charles bracing himself against the wall to prevent himself from losing his temper. 
And it goes like every other fight in the movies, things like i was always going to go anyway and why don’t you just fucking go then, if you have nothing to stay for , and don’t hold me back just because you don’t have the certainty of getting into your course, Charles spinning around and saying i already got in, i’m hesitating because of you and the pressure in your chest growing so large it’s all you can do to stop your tears from running. 
The movies lied to you. This is the part where Charles apologises and you hug and make up and you stay for each other. That’s the love story. 
Instead, you say, go then, if staying for me burdens you so . And he goes, your apartment door slamming behind him. 
You spend days wallowing in self-pity, avoiding the coffeehouse, running through the motions, thinking about the last ten months of your life, and make the decision when your hand reaches for a coffee cup that isn’t there. 
You’ll stay, for Charles, because you love him, even if it isn’t like the movies. Because it isn’t like the movies, and you’ll love him even when the post-credits have rolled. 
It is this that makes you run to the coffeehouse the next morning, forgoing an umbrella in your haste, soaking your blouse straight through. You yank the door open, waiting for the head of curls at the counter to look up so you can beg for a chance. Just one.
Instead, the older lady who owns the place, looks up and smiles sadly at you. “I’m sorry, kid. He flew off to the UK yesterday, he said you never called.” 
And again, this doesn’t happen in the movies. The main character doesn’t step back out into the rain alone, heels soaked against the pavement, nor do they spend the next week waiting for the love of their life to call. 
You hit reply on the acceptance email, and change your number to a local one when you land in America. 
Somewhere on another continent, a call doesn’t get connected.
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On the sixteenth of October, the people of Monaco are blessed with an announcement. A prince is born, the news reports. 
Charles, they named him. Charles Leclerc. 
In another ward down the hallway, another woman gives birth to a girl. The royal family hasn’t realised it yet, but down the hallway, is their future pr manager. 
Your first day on the job is fraught with just about every roadblock you could face. 
At four in the morning, one of your neighbour’s ridiculous scented candles tips over and sets enough things on fire to trip the fire alarm. Management ushers every single person in the vicinity out of the apartment building, where you stand shivering in your bathrobe. 
A few hours later, your coffee machine breaks down before your espresso even finishes running. 
Then, five minutes after you leave the apartment to catch your Uber, your heel breaks, so you’re forced to change your shoes and foot the late arrival fee on your car. 
When you finally find the meeting room fifteen minutes after you were supposed to reach, you're very much on the verge of tears. 
You’re met with a frowning Charles Leclerc, whose expression instantly evaporates into fondness when he recognises who’s at the door. He stands to bring you into a hug, as if you’d been friends since you were children. (You had been, of course, but you didn’t forget that he was a literal prince. Hugs are not commonplace.)
It’s an odd feeling, standing in front of the boy you’d known from birth, tasked with covering up his scandals and manufacturing relationships to keep him in the public eye.
It’s even odder to fall in love with him all over again, especially while you’re both poring over staged Instagram posts of him and Monaco’s richest bachelorettes. But Charles is so— good, easy to fall in love with, like those princes from storybooks. He laughs at exactly the right moments, cracks jokes that have you gasping for breath, charms you so thoroughly it’s almost embarrassing. 
It falls into place like poetry, too many moments without supervision, secret smiles over the table, quiet mornings in the palace, hidden in his room. You pick up the closeness of your youth near flawlessly. Falling in love has never been this easy. 
(It’ll never be this easy again.)
The end comes knocking in the form of his mother. Marriage. You almost choke on the enormity of it, caught in the noose of your own stupidity. Because that is your job, isn’t it? The prince is almost thirty, you are almost thirty, and this has always been the final point, of your job, of his scripted relationships. 
You don’t even fight, which is kind of the worst part. A choice is presented to Charles, and he chooses.
It’s a special kind of cruelty, to stay. To sit with the photographers and videographers and event crew and wedding planner, poring over fabrics and angles, as if it’s your fucking honour to plan what’s set to be the greatest union in Monaco for the next decade. 
You were wrong. The worst part is standing at the fringes, in your blue dress, watching the love of your life slide a ring onto another finger and speak the vows that were meant for youyouyou . The worst part is knowing the photos will be beautiful, because you planned them yourself. 
The worst part is knowing there is no universe where he chooses you.  
-
Your new French Literature professor is… really fucking hot. You’re not just saying this because he’s a decade older than you, or because he’s at least three decades younger than the guy who used to teach the class. He’s just, objectively of course, a really attractive man. 
The way his accent rolls off his tongue when he says “Charles, my name is Charles Leclerc.” definitely doesn’t help. In your periphery, you see the girl seated next to you furiously typing on her phone, with caps and exclamation marks and sweating emojis. You can’t even blame her. 
And it’s almost criminally obvious, the way he looks at you, eyes darting to your open polo, the way he lingers on the syllables of your name when he calls on you to answer in class. 
It’s subtle enough to not warrant any accusations of misconduct, but not subtle enough to avoid the envious stares of the girls (and boys) in your class. You’re unbothered, of course, given that he hasn’t actually made a move, but also the fact that he wears his wedding ring all the time.
And if you start wearing tighter shirts and shorter skirts to class, just to see his breath hitch when you uncross your legs just so, well that’s nobody’s business but your own. 
It’s almost cliche, the way your little game unfolds. You make sure to book the latest possible consultation slots with him, in a cute ensemble and flawless makeup, toting a copy of Les Miserables as if you’re actually struggling with the material. 
It’s fun, to rile him up, watch his tongue slide against his lower lip as he looks at you from across the desk. You don’t typically make a habit of seducing professors, especially the married ones, but you figure it’ll probably make a great story for your grandkids, or something. He holds out much longer than you thought, so much so that the illusion of needing aid in your best subject starts to grate on you. Still, the sight of his forearms when he rolls up his sleeves, or the line of his throat when he sips water during lectures keeps you hooked. 
When he finally bends you over his desk, you’re almost disappointed that the game has ended. The imprint of his wedding ring stays on your waist for days. Your friend tuts nervously when you return back late, murmurs something about morals and regretting your decisions and something else you tune out. 
Un brin de folie egaye la vie, right? Some madness will brighten your life. You continue ignoring her.
It’s only after months of your routine that you can form the all-important question, perched on his lap in his (locked) office, “Why cheat on your wife?” And the room is instantly suffused with silence. You expect him to tell you to get out or something of the sort, but instead he hums thoughtfully, shifting you further onto his thighs. 
He’s silent for a few seconds, running fingers through your hair, “Why do we do anything?” You snort at the obvious deflection, raising an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. 
“On n’aime que ce qu’on possède pas tout entier. Proust says we love only what we do not have entirely.” You giggle a little at that, “you love me because you cannot have me?” He sighs against your cheek, “something like that, yes.”
In the end, it ends much cleaner than affairs like this tend to. You graduate top of the class, watch Charles and his beautiful wife at the ceremony, and laugh a little meanly at how oblivious her smile is. How he watches you, still, as you give the valedictorian speech, the smirk on his face as you thank your professors with false fervour. 
And then, one last time for the road, in the handicap bathroom where the bustle of the hall isn’t quite muted, breaths mingling hot in the stale air. A kiss, almost chaste, and you leave. 
Your grandkids howl with laughter at the story, nearly seventy years down the road. You smile, think about green eyes and rolled up sleeves. Another life, maybe. 
-
You’re still not used to the wag lifestyle. It’s one thing to be recognised in Monaco, another to be Il Predestinato’s girlfriend. It’s almost obscene, the red that greets you down every hallway, the way you bite your tongue and watch the team fuck him over every weekend. The way the crowds chant his name; Charles, they scream, Charles Leclerc. 
It’s not like you haven’t earned a place in the paddock. You’ve done the work, the pr activities, the carefully curated soft launches, the jet lag, the helmet kisses and the careful, careful styling. You’ll always be silent and pretty, always smiling and skinny and happy for him, existing to prove something. 
The point is, it isn’t that you don’t love Charles anymore. It isn’t that he’s neglectful and distant (he is), or that you’re unhappy with the constant scrutiny and ever changing time zones (you are). You can swallow these things, breathe deep and let it settle. 
Mangia questa minestra o saltar questa finestra; eat the soup or jump out of the window. Accept things for what they are, don’t hurt over things that cannot be changed. 
And it really does feel like nothing will ever change, watching the man you love turn into a beating husk, consumed with his want. A championship, a victory, draped in enough red to drown you both, a hundred years of history. Nothing will change, you will always be the girlfriend, the girl in-the-pictures. You can feel the shadow of Charles’ name as heavily as he feels Ferrari’s. That will never change.    
The championship is a hollow victory, when it comes. You and Charles have devolved across the year into a state of a perpetual tense silence, intercut only with the curl of his fingers around your waist when the cameras come flashing, and drawn out, passive aggressive conversations.
You begin to fly out less and less, blame it on the job you pretend to hate for Charles’ sake. Slowly, you learn to be on your own, find your way around loneliness, spaces within yourself previously occupied with your boyfriend. You toss about the idea of him cheating on you while you miss his races, and find the thought less impossible and less painful each time. 
By the time you see him again in Abu Dhabi, the Monacan flag wrapped around his shoulders, fingers pointed to the sky, you only feel affection for the man you would’ve given everything up for a year ago. The knowledge squeezes painfully in your chest. 
You reach for him in the cooldown room, wince at how unfamiliar his hands are to you now, look him in the eyes, “It’s been over for a long time, hasn’t it, cheri?” Tears rise unbidden within you when he nods, eyes wet. You clasp his hands tighter, relish the feeling of his fingers against yours one more time, “I want you to remember the best parts of us,” you sniffle lightly, attempt a smile, “not the end. I want you to remember that I am always proud of you.”
The room is quiet. He leans against your shoulder, for a moment you are both twenty-one again, guileless. The enormity of what you are losing has settled in your bones. 
The soup is unassuming on the table. You choose the free fall from the window. 
-
The new doctor is cute, in a puppyish sort of way. Charles watches the way you interact with all your new coworkers, smiling and shaking hands, the way you laugh at a joke Max just made. 
You come up in front of him, and falter, tilting your head like a startled animal. “Have we met?” The deja vu hits him so hard his head spins, shaking his head at your question anyway. 
He kisses your outstretched hand, soft under his lips, revels briefly in your furious blushing. His mother likes to tell him; doctors only date other doctors. He intends to test the theory.
“My name is Charles,” he says, “Charles Leclerc.”
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hamster-on-fire · 2 months
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New fic!! (lost fic with some x files sprinkled in there) 👽🏝️
i keep losing my tag list so if anyone wants to be on it let me know i guess :)). anyway, this is my x files/lost kate-centric oneshot crossover 💗🤓 hopefully if you have my brain this will bring you entertainment.
@today-in-fic
THE ACTOR OF SAM AUSTEN APPEARED ONE (1!) TIME ON THE X FILES, IN RED MUSEUM (txf s2 ep10), AS A GOVERNMENT/ALIEN-ENABLER ASSASSIN GUY, SO THIS IS WHERE THAT COMES FROM. it won't make any sense if you don't know that going in 😂🤓
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When she is eight, her daddy comes home with blood down his shirt.
Not Wayne. The good one. But he slams the door like Wayne, half-scarlet and stunned.
She is sitting straight up in the ash-dark of her bedroom, flush of eight-year-old, dinner-table fury wilting on her soft cheeks. Diane had yelled at her, eyes smudged and heavy, over muddied clothes; over knee-grazes, and tonight’s clammy meatloaf - the precise hue of Katherine’s pinkish, peeling skin, rage-kissed through the fresh rip in her jeans - cooling in a slab on her plate.
She’s started calling her ‘Diane’, how Wayne does, when her anger doesn’t fit right inside her. She got hit for that. But not tonight.
She had waited up the first ten minutes in anticipation. That her Mama would snap back into the room with sharper words and clearer eyes. And when she didn’t, she let soft hope keep her awake, lingering like an old smell: hope that she’d slip inside and mutter an apology against her hair. Like she sometimes did.
But she doesn’t.
The dark is so still she can make out the graze of Diane’s bare feet roaming the hall.
So still, she hears the blood before she sees it.
It’s his own, and makes ‘pat-pat-pat’ sounds on the lino. It looks like tiny ruby footsteps, through the crack in her bedroom door - fairy footsteps - something little girls are not to hear, creeping their way around the house when all are tucked in.
It’s the first in a trail of things she should not see, or want, or be, that tangles at her ankle. And when she is weary and story-worn, and a second-time-tragedy drops her in the water like a fallen star, she wants to let it drown her. She will see things she should not, run hand-cuff-less hands down the mane of a horse where it cannot be. Horses in the jungle.
Horsies on her walls, eyes wild, paint-glossed, watch her watch the bloodied stranger, her father’s shadow stuffed with flesh, all wrong and pale. Alien with sweat. Frightened eyes all round. Steps in stasis, they forever run the circuit of her ceiling. Legs bent. Forever running.
He’s been away, promising he’d be back in the country for her next birthday. In the vicinity of, anyway. But that’s still months away.
Through the split in her bedroom door, she watches him, like a wild animal, his inflamed face studded with busted eyes. They scrape over their mantlepiece like a ghost, like it’s hurting him to do so, with a mournful 6-months-gone gaze. As if trailing them through the picture-frame dust could twist him back, to an 8th-birthday-visit, house freshly-dusted, to a bloodless-lino lounge.
He lifts one of them - she’s frozen on his arm in her best dress and grinning, inside it. He holds it like a puppet with snipped strings: with heavy arms, loose grip. The plastic frame seems to dance on the edge of his open hand, the most beautiful thing in the room. Katie smells sweat, crouched in the dark.
‘Sam?’
The voice is full of strange edges; wavy lines and sparks - not enough to be mostly joy. The half of Diane's face exposed through the door is pale.
He doesn’t turn; but he rattles like silver in a storm.
The crash has Katie’s heart thudding in her gut, photo-frame glass in blades on the floor. Her mum comes in barefoot. Draws in. To where her dad has started to cry.
The photo lies staring at the ceiling, shining with glass and blood. Katie watches, from her distance, how it trickles down the curve of her face, staining her freckles, her favourite cardigan.
Her mum touches his shoulder. He shakes.
She doesn’t understand that feeling, yet - of watching bloodstains chase your fingertips. Of ruin in your wake. Not until she’s in Tom’s kitchen, too far gone, and he looks at her, over fresh coffee at her chin, in a mug plastered with his son’s tiny stop-sign handprint, like he loves her. And she lets him.
Like father, like daughter, she supposes. Or whatever.
Sam sinks his head down, against Diane’s shirt, which Katie knows smells like diner grease and cigarettes. The radio rumbles through her wall like ocean-static. They shiver, in a strange, shaky waltz - her mother’s wrist in his hand, rough like the grip of a pistol. He holds it close to his lips, leans his aching head against it. Like she’s seen Wayne do on thick-smelling late-nights, Diane with an ice-pack on angry, bar-beaten skin.
Her father has his eyes closed, like she is the cool stone of faithful, ancient sanctuary to a fever pitch. She will not look at him with her wide-open stare.
Behind the door, Katie thinks of her Mama as frail for the first time. With bird’s bones, hollow, to be stuffed with love, and cotton, and deeds and deeds, needing to be held just so - like air - against her Daddy’s face, spit shining on his shaking lower lip like a cobweb dressed in dew as it streaks down his chin, glinting like an eye-twinkle at her and her gap-in-the-door.
He cups her face - barely, like he might break it - on the side Kate can’t see. But she could pick out with her cheapest crayon set the shot shade of purple it’s been all day; had tried not to meet the bloom of it by her eye at the breakfast table, or look at it when she talked back… something like sympathy nudging her head down.
Katie watches their soft swaying where the kitchen and lounge bleed together, bruised and quiet.
‘Diane, Diane, Diane…’, he says, like a song. Like lullabies Katie knows from Saturday afternoon cartoons. Her Mama’s bare feet squeak, soft like the catch of a breath, along the floor.
At breakfast the next morning, Katie holds her breath, for him to come padding out the bedroom to smile at her, and explain. When her cereal is mush in the bottom of her bowl, and her mum is still silent, she asks when he might come back, when could she see him?
Diane frowns. ‘Not for a while, don’t think - you heard him, he’ll see you for your birthday. Like last year.’
The bloodied shirt and the picture frame disappear with that week’s trash.
She doesn't see him till June, when she pretends she has forgotten.
It’s 1994 and she’s 17. He clatters through the door so loud her keys tremble on the counter where she’s been staring at them the past hour.
He moves like Wayne in a temper; a sharp tug, and he has her head pressed tight against him, wrapped up in the crook of his elbow. She sips small frightened breaths against the cave of his ribcage - like the crack in a bedroom door - and feels his lungs shake. When he lets go, he peels something like a shell off his chest, black and dented, second-skin-shedding.
Half of Scully’s bullet rattles on their kitchen floor, the only sound as sharp as Wayne’s motorbike at midnight. She flinches.
‘Lights! Lights in the sky! That’s what they want. No appetite for truth. Let me tell ‘ya, folks, there’s more out there than I could possibly -’
The man on the radio, she realises, is rambling - aliens, and governments, working together to do impossible things. She hadn’t thought to turn it off. But now she wants to. Desperately. Just to not have to look at him.
There’s stubble on the curve of his jaw, like she’s never seen. He must have been moving for days. Or maybe hiding.
‘There is no doubt in my mind - no doubt! - that these things cannot! Cannot! Belong in a “natural” world, and you people-’
‘You believe in that stuff, Katie?’
And she goes to laugh at him, but he looks strange; only half-there. Like he’s looking through her skull. Amusement slumps and dies on her lips. Like a doctor against an airbag, with kind eyes and pocket aeroplanes, half-warm when it first sits in her un-held hand.
Her dad scrapes his breath back in, heaves out an almost death, sighs away the feel of the bullet at his chest. An escape. Death paws at their door, snarling. Too big to slink down the chimney. 
She will see this again. Or want to, anyway. The warm glow of a face half-back from the dead. She yearns for it, in Australia, on her first sleepless nights, when she starts to forget how it sounds, to be called by her real name in the dark, dreaming of another impossible getaway: that he gets out the car - that he listens , and runs. Runs home to his gleaming wife; a baby, with dark eyes, no freckles. A life so wholly without her, that he’s whole. Wholly whole, no bullet holes in the windshield. No blood down his uniform. No plane in her pocket. And she never sees him again and that is fine . He’s fine.
And she will wonder, if she could've traded the two - this and that - if she'd feel less alone. If he’d call her once in a while. If he’d look.
Her dad is too close, too real, breath hot on her hair, revelling in the spooked life clutched to his ribcage again; revelling in the familiarity of her unblinking, frantic eyes.
‘God, good god- HA! I thought I was dead. I thought I was- I saw a man whose kid died. I saw his eyes, Katie. I don’t ever wanna look at anyone like that. Hear? So you-’, There’s something in his eyes that makes her need to cry, sudden and strange, like backwards drowning, rising up her throat. ‘-Be safe, ok? Promise it.’
She went to answer; couldn’t make more than a sharp exhale against his shoulder.
‘Promise me Katie. I know y- ha , I know you’re… angry, I know how you’re. Burning to get out.’
She feels half her size, stock-still, trying to catch a whiff of the bar on his rattled breath. But he’s not Wayne.
‘These things are not friendly, folks - no sir, if you think-’
He knocks it where it stands on the counter and it’s finally quiet.
‘Come ‘ere, baby. Come.’
He gets blood on her slippers, clawing through his own hands as they lock around her back. She doesn’t ask if it’s all his. But it’s not. The slippers are pink and matted, clammy round her feet as she feels her veins shake inside of them. Stains like an ellipses trailing down her ankle - more to come, there’s more to come .
When she crashes on an island that cannot exist, she has forgotten it all. All but the moment she couldn’t breathe past his terror.
When she sits on her bed that night, she sees how the horses watch her, with that old stare. She bolts her door, quiet as she can, and swears the stars are all wrong. Swears she can feel them drawing in, slipping their gaze in through the gap in her curtains.
‘Turn that off, Mulder’
They are running, and Scully’s milk has been dried up for 2 whole years, before flight 815 crashes, a million miles away, with that 8-year-old onboard. Not that they say such things. A black car streaks down the road by the motel at 4am, when Scully is pacing with a pillow at her chest, feeling insane. She almost hears it mewling against her. Her head is cluttered and weary. Mulder bleeds in and out of sleep till 6, half an eye watching grey-tint images of planes and boats and “mysterious” sightings of fog flick across the crummy TV.
Then there is the news. A lottery winner and a murderer on a missing plane.
Scully catches the blur of the car when it comes again at 8, without headlights this time, and sighs.
They couldn’t see the face behind the tinted glass if they tried; the face that cannot know that as they clatter out the motel back door, restless, half-dead, the blare of the TV left running paints his daughter’s tired face in black-and-white, among the missing, among the dead. She looks just like her father.
If it plays in Diane’s hospital room - if she sees it - she does not call him.
Sam Austen circles the block again. They’ve almost certainly left already. Ah well. He shoots twice through the window just to be sure, scatters glass on their empty bed, the pillow slipped under their arms, into their car. Scully holds it all the way to wherever is next. Like a long-gone baby. Like a longer-gone little girl, who they would’ve strapped in behind them and driven away from it all, if they could. They couldn’t. Doomed to leave their best behind.
Kate will, too, one day, when she has a child to lose. It is the way of things. When she stands at Sam’s desk and asks him for a goodbye - when she leaves - he does not look for her. When she has a child to lose, she will lose him. She does.
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thanks for reading!! 💗❤️
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theextendedzodiacas · 29 days
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Would it be weird to ask how you pick images for your moodboards?
not at all! here is my process:
-color-coding: obviously, at least some images in the board must be the blood color of the sign caste
-lunar sway "mood": prospit signs are lighter/happier, derse signs are darker/angstier. very rarely derse/prospit color coding will creep in
-visual reference to the aspect of the sign: this is a little more abstract, but: sky/birds/lungs for breath, clockwork for time, frogs or space for . space . bones/graves for doom, empty space or fog for void, angels for hope, lightning/shattered glass/broken objects for rage, blood or blood-like imagery for blood (or images of holding hands, physical connection to other people), brains/webs/computers for mind, plants for life, hearts for heart, and "light" (sun, gold things, northern lights, reflections, celestial phenomena) as well as dice or books for light. sometimes color-coded woth the aspect color
-relevant additional themes: here i look for images with text relevant to the request, animals, fashion, pictures of couples for relationship boards (if necessary), any image which could give the "feel" of my understandings of each class or internal state meant to be reflected in the board, or images pertaining to a specific aesthetic vibe/theme like whimsigoth or what have you
-texture images: these support the color-coding, provide associative transitions from one image to the next, and generally serve to make the disparate elements of a given request cohere into an aesthetically unified whole.
then, of course, arrangement. once i have selected the images, i spend time laying them out in a way that is pleasing to the eye and draws the focus to other images in the board. this means flipping images so that their focus points "inward" or "outward," shifting them around so that images that are cut off in certain areas are on the edges or corners, and occasionally editing the images to, again, assert color-coding in cases where the additional themes leave little room to affirm a given unique sign. many requests are so heavy with additional themes that the only reference i can devote to the sign itself is color-coding, with maybe one or two visual nods to the aspect.
i prioritize photographs over drawings and graphics---if my board includes a pride flag, it's a photograph of a physical flag, meaning that i have to get creative for labels which do not have photos of physical flags. i also never include a graphic of the sign itself, to devote more space to the symbolism of the board i'm working on. i do not use anime screencaps or images from cartoons, though i do use movie stills.
i know for most people, moodboards are just "a vibe." some people don't seem to understand that while yes, i am working towards the depiction of an emotional vibe, i am doing so using a specific visual language in a limited amount of space, and straight up . . . it's extremely difficult to find usable photos of non-physical, temporally bounded things like ambivalence towards a relationship or nuanced inner feelings. ("unusable photos" being things like shutterstock images of "couples quarreling" or "woman thinking over salad".) if a requester wants an abstract state represented visually, it's helpful if they provide their own symbols for the theme they're trying to actualize . . . but if every single one of the nine images is dictated to me in the form of symbol-themes, it's like . . . where is the room for the actual sign in all this, and why are you coming to me if your vision is strong enough for you to just make your own board? (i do put a decent amount of time and effort into each board and rely on a large stockpile of saved photos, but . . . even just starting out, it did not take me long to make a decent board.)
i use pixlr to arrange and edit my moodboards and gather my images from tumblr, google images, unsplash, pexels, and when i was starting out i did use pinterest (but i don't have an account lol)
i hope this was understandable & enlightening!
-mod 8ean
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simpingforlookism · 11 months
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*Salsa dances my way into your inbox*
Not me looking at baby Jake and wanting to pinch his tiny cheeks and also hold him and protect him from the world🥺🥺🥺🥺
Also rereading the Big Deal Golden era arc agai has me like 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭💜💜💜💔💔💔
LET THEM BE HAPPYNPLEASEEEE
Anyways, more childhood au
Being friends with Jake and Jerry and playing hide and seek at Jake’s house and having to hold in your laughter when Jake is it and keeps passing by our hiding spot and saying stuff like “Where is (Our Name)? They must be hiding very well” (he knows we’re there but wants to play more)
Also us having to suffer wearing fancy clothes on holidays and lots of people we dont know are around and we hide under the table with the table cloths and play games and draw and sometimes give people heart attacks cause they didn’t know we were there (Based on my own experiences at gatherings where me and my cousins and siblings would hang out under the tables and talk and play card games and have some plates of food for us to snack on and almost gave people heart attacks)
Also friendship bracelets!! Cause they are cute and we’re kids and kids love them
Also one of us getting hurt and the other two panicking cause we’re crying loudly and our knee is bleeding a lot (Maybe Jake gives us a piggyback ride to the house and holds our hand while we’re getting the wound cleaned)
Also sleepovers!!
Staying up all night and watching movies and eating snacks and those fun conversations you have when everyone’s trying to fall asleep and also blanket forts!
Just cute childhood things and of course we’re there for Jake when his father dies, and is there for if he wants to talk about it and of course your arms are open to hold him anytime
And maybe also we were there with Jake when things started to change for Big Deal and watch him go down the path he swore he’d never go down, and it hurt to see it happen and you could talk to Jerry about it kinda since, the three of you were childhood friends
And also it hurt a lot to see Jake after his first Jake vs Gun fight where he got his teeth mcyoinked out and tried to carry him away to safety while Jerry protected us
And of course visit him at juvie and it hurts your heart and tell him your honest thoughts because you could be honest with him and Jerry, you always could be
And if you want to add, ✨mutual pining✨
Jerry sees it and says nothing because we can solve it ourselves of course
-Lipstick Anon💄
Baby Jake makes me want to bundle him up in a blanket and tell him that everything's going to be alright.
Big Deal golden era, my beloved- I just want them all to be happy-
Jake, Jerry and you being childhood friends- playing hide and seek- that's so sweet and precious, lipstick anon- Jake pretending to not hear/find you bc he likes hearing your low, breathless giggles- Stopping Jerry from finding you because he wants to spend more time playing-
Some guests see you, Jake, and Jerry under the table and they're either fond of that (these people would be the ones who are used to your shenanigans) or they're dropping wine glasses and screaming bc they did not expect three kids squirming about under the tablecloth-
FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS- The three of you have them even after the baby years of childhood, and sometimes you all wear them, but most times in somewhere safe- bc Jerry and Jake get their hands dirty half the time, and they don't want to get blood on the bracelets-
You trip one time and your knee's scraped because you fell, and you start to cry but you soon stop bc the other two are making more of a fuss than you are- Jerry's carrying you on his back, and Jake's holding your hand-
Blanket forts! Sleeping separately, but somehow moving in your sleep so that you're all cuddling- Some adult takes a picture and you have that framed in your room- gossiping slightly under the blankets-
After Jake's dad's death, your by his side literally 24/7. You know the mixed feelings he has about his dad, but you're always there for him- Especially when he eventually breaks down. Letting him cry into your shoulder, holding him and shushing him as he grips on you tighter-
Maybe you, without knowing the things with Sinu, just tell him that you can't see him like this and leaving for a bit until Jerry tells you (bc he probably knew about the whole situation that Jake wanted to keep secret) but you don't get there until Jake's fight with Gun-
Mutual pining <3 Beloved <3
When everything gets resolved though, you and Jake would be such a power couple-
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galacticwildfire · 6 months
Text
Found.
Twenty Six
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Pairing: Kenobi!oc x Din Djarin, former Kenobi!oc x Boba Fett.
Summary: Satine and Obi-wan’s daughter fought in the war against the Empire and lost her faith when she lost Mandalore. Until she found him. A lone Mandalorian searching for a Jedi.
Warnings/tags: Trigger warnings for flashbacks: choking, intimate partner violence, explicit consent given but mentions of painful sex and dubcon, mentions of abortion/miscarriage. For the rest of the story: angst and more angst, a little bit of fluff and non-explicit sad smut at the end but mostly angst and violence. Discussions about domestic violence and overall violent and toxic relationships, depictions of ptsd and mentions of torture. It's an emotionally heavy chapter.
Content Warning: This chapter may be confronting for those who have experienced domestic violence. STRICTLY 18+ FOR MATURE THEMES.
Word Count: 9.5k
A/N: Her relationship with Boba has been one of the most interesting ones I've written, and I want to return to the prequel to flesh it out more and I will give him another pov sometime soon as well. It's certainly the darkest relationships I've written, the definition of enemies and lovers. Also as an apology for not updating for like six months it's nearly 10k.
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I feel Din gently pulling wet hair out of my face as one part of me shuts down and another awakens. Compartmentalisation I'd called it during the war, but in truth it was shutting down the part of me that was raised by a Jedi in favour of something far more violent. I can almost hear my father pleading with me. 
"Kyra, cyar'ika," Din says, trying to bring me back to him by jumping straight into a plan of action. "Solo's coming here to help, now you're awake we'll go to Navarro and-"
"Excuse me," I say quietly in a voice I don't quite recognise, needing to end this and get the truth before we can even think about anything else. "I have some business to take care of."
"Kyra, no," I immediately hear Lando say in recognition of whatever look must be in my eyes but I'm stumbling out of the room and blindly marching down the hallway, disassociation turning to something else with primal rage consuming me body, mind and soul the moment I lay eyes on him and then everything comes rushing back.
"Ah, you're alive," Boba says, standing there without his helmet despite already knowing how this ends.
"You betrayed me," I say numbly before I bodyslam him into the wall with a knife in hand only for him to push me into the opposite one, wrestling the blade from my hand and restraining my wrists to the wall, finding myself jarringly weak after the impact but not that weak.
"Listen here princess-"
"No!" My knee comes up hard between his legs, him having neglected to put on that piece of armour, the shock of the attack leaves me able to break his grip and strike him across the face. My hand reaches for the nearest thing next to me which happens to be a decorative lamp, smashing it over his head before grasping a shard in my hand and bringing it into his neck as I pin him to the wall. "You fucking listen to me!"
"Kyra-" he hisses as I press the edge of the glass into his neck with a shaking hand, hard enough to draw blood. "I had nothing to do with it!"
Even as blood runs down my hand it still does not feel real. "And I'm supposed to believe that?"
"Yes," I hear a voice say and look to see Din of all people with his hands out trying to calm me. "I know you don't remember what happened, I know you want him dead and if you want to kill him then kill him, but he didn't take the child. He got us off the planet and away from the Empire."
"Listen to your boyfriend," Boba says but my mind is too far gone from whatever injuries I sustained to comprehend what I'm being told let alone believe it. "All I wanted was my armour, not this."
"All you wanted was your armour?" I repeat, fueled by madness alone as the broken pieces of my mind put a picture together no matter how ill fitting. "All you wanted was your armour and to keep us there until the Empire arrived?"
"You did that, not me-" he curses again as I dig the glass deeper. "Kyra!"
"Oh, does that hurt?" I ask him and look him in the eye as I begin to twist his mind as Vader once twisted mine. "You know nothing of pain."
"Kyra!" Lando yells once he realises what I'm doing. "Put the glass down."
"Kill him and be done with it," Din says with an edge in his voice I've never heard directed towards me as Boba yells out weakly in pain. "We need to find the child."
"Where is he?" I ask Boba, ignoring Din and Lando's attempts to intervene as I invade the walls of Boba's mind and watch him wince as I dig deeper. "Tell me."
"I don't-"
I slam him against the wall again as Han and Chewie come in running only to quickly come to a halt at seeing me with a shard of glass at Boba Fett's neck. "Where is he!"
"I didn't have anything to do with it!"
The truth does not matter to me, not anymore, not when his blood is staining my hands.
What's another drop?
"Okay," I say calmly, withdrawing my mental attacks along with the glass from his neck. Din cautiously steps closer and I look at Han and Chewie who stand there with blasters in hand and know Han has been waiting for this since the last time we all stood in this city together. "Chewie grab him."
Chewie roars as he grabs Boba who elects not to fight and Han has a blaster at his back as I drag him through the halls with my fist in his clothes, pulling him by the fabric around his throat until we reach that damned room Lando sealed off before I ever agreed to step foot in this city again. The room where I listened to Han being tortured before Vader threw me in there.
The room where my mind was broken for the last time, where Vader finished what he began after the purge. I tried to kill myself on Mandalore so it wouldn't happen, but it did. I begged Boba to kill me so Vader could never harm me again. But he didn't.
And now he can suffer the consequences.
"Kyra you are not what Vader tried to make you in that room," Lando calls from down the hall, him and Din chasing after us with blasters in hand. "Luke-"
"Isn't here," I say as I use my saber to cut open the sealed room and Chewie throws Boba inside. He and Han block the exit as I come to stand over him, Din and Lando running now in pure panic as I look at the saber in my hand with no inhibition left.
Boba looks up at me and truly realises for the first time I am not the same girl who walked into this room. I can see it in his eyes, the trauma, his father falling to the same weapon, his head rolling on the ground.
Perhaps I am cruel enough to do the same to him, but not yet. Not until he is begging me to kill him as I once begged him to do to me. Only then will he know what true pain is.
"I am going to show you exactly what happened in this room," I tell him, Han holding a hand out to stop Lando from intervening while Din stands there silent. "But first you will tell me where my child is."
"You can torture me all you want, but I didn't have a hand in this," he swears to me. "Search your feelings or whatever the fuck you Jedi do, you know I didn't."
"Kyra," Lando warns me, choosing to be the insufferable voice of reason in Luke's absence and I realise Luke had prepared him for this very situation because the words he speaks are not his own. "This isn't you. You swore you would never become what Vader wanted to make you, only the weak give in to the darkness. You don't use the force to make people suffer."
"I don't need to use the force to make him suffer," I answer and bend down in front of Boba, brandishing my saber and bringing it close to his face, ignoring my father's voice trying to break through the veil separating his ghost from this world. "I don't believe a word you say."
"I loved you," Boba says to me as if that matters now but it's enough to make something burn inside of me. "I came to you on Tatooine to protect you against the Empire, why would I fucking send them after you!"
"Because that is who you are!" I yell, knowing only one thing. He comes and my child is taken. Nothing else matters. "A traitor. To me, to Mandalore-"
"That might be true," he says, sacrificing his dignity for the sake of his life. "But I still loved you."
Four years I'd known him. Four years I'd loved him for better and for worse. From after the first Death Star was destroyed until that day at Jabba's palace. Never once had he spoke those words to be. 
"I don't have time for this," I scoff in exasperation, wielding my saber too freely for Lando's liking. "My child is gone."
"I loved you right from the start Kyra," he tells me, trying to provoke me into giving him a quick death but Jedi do not kill in anger and so I put my saber away. I will not use a Jedi's weapon to strike in anger, and so I pull free a blade instead. "But you know that."
I laugh now, shaking my head in utter disbelief at that claim. "You ruined me right from the start-"
But it's his next words that make me lose control of my emotions. "You were the one who wanted it."
"I was barely nineteen!" I scream at him, remembering it all too well. "I was a kid!"
"So tell me," I asked him during that very first fight after he'd brought me to Mandalore. "Are you the same as the bounty hunters who gave me over to the Inquisitors for some extra credits, the same as the men who stood by while a ten year old girl screamed for help?"
He was quiet and put his helmet on the table, taking a step forward toward me. "The Jedi took children screaming from their parents all the time, killed my father in front of me. They were no different from the Empire. Evil exists everywhere-"
"Oh shut up," I breathed, not taking that excuse. "You are blind if you don't see what the Empire does."
"Oh I know what the Empire does, better than you," he replied, looking me in the eye. "I never claimed to be a good man. If I'm given a job I finish it. Honour doesn't do anybody good unless they're looking to get killed."
And so I asked "Then why didn't you give me to Vader? I have the highest bounty in the galaxy."
He spoke but did not answer the question, not willing to admit he'd been deceived.
"A young woman who hides her face comes to me asking for passage to Mandalore who can pay me in beskar. I knew damn well there was only one woman in the galaxy who can pay that price," he told me, but if that was true I would have been in Vader's hands. "I was curious to see how long you would keep up the act."
"And now?"
"Now," he said and brought his hand up, his thumb running over my bottom lip. "Now I'm curious about this so-called Mand'alor."
He shook his head as if he hadn't enticed me first, a girl who was barely a woman. Han was the same age when he met Leia but he spent years fighting alongside her, loving her, before he ever touched her. He never used her, he respected her despite their fights, he would have died for her and he would have never betrayed her. 
Han loved her unconditionally through those same years I hid my affair with Boba with the understanding that Leia's devotion belonged first and foremost to the Rebellion. He loved her enough he was willing to walk away at the end of the war if it was Luke she'd loved and not him. He loved her selflessly while Boba would at every turn try to convince me to abandon all I loved for someone who could not even say those words to me. 
I'm still younger now than he was when we met, old enough to know that no man like him sees a young girl in pain and chooses to do what he did. Even now he can dare to look at me and say "And you would have thrown me out of that palace if I called you one."
I look at him now, body as deformed and horrid as his heart is. "You were the one who started this. You were a grown man who knew exactly what he was doing."
I grabbed his wrist, raising a cautious eyebrow. "You are a bold man Boba Fett."
His eyes traced my silhouette, skimming over the skin bared by the dress I'd worn just for him. "Then what does that make you?"
The corner of my lip turned upwards. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"I would," he said, backing me up against the table until it pressed into my tailbone. "Because I think you and I aren't that different."
That made me let out a dangerous laugh. "If you believe that you aren't just bold, but blind."
He moved his hand down along the bare skin of my arm, my body reacted as if his touch was electric. "You can claim you're better than me, doing what you do for the greater good, except you're lying. You don't care about the greater good or honour, you do what you do because you want revenge. You kill because you like it. You have a cruel streak in you, princess. Deep down you are just as ruthless as I am."
He nudged my leg open with his knee enough that the slit of my dress opened and revealed the small knife tucked into my garter.
"You can call yourself a Jedi all you want," he told me, hand coming to brush the skin of my thigh until it reached the cold metal of the blade. "But you're a Mandalorian, you can't change that, so stop pretending you aren't."
With that he stepped away from me and I couldn't help the small gasp that left me at the absence of his touch. He didn't say another word as he reached for his helmet, putting it back on before leaving the room, as if he was never there.
"You were the instigator, not me," he argues while I'm the one shaking my head now. "You're the one that gave me a bar of beskar to smuggle you back to Mandalore, you were the one who gave me another to stay and fuck you when I tried to do the right thing and leave."
"Don't-" I warn but he is past listening.
"Call me a traitor but don't accuse me of manipulating you into anything," he says and I'm shocked by the genuine offence in his voice that I could almost call hurt. "Curse me for handing you over to Vader and all the rest, but don't pretend you didn't want it. I asked you if you would regret it before I ever touched you, so don't pretend you didn't know what you were doing."
The beskar on the table along with my offer to make him my commander was not enough to make him stay, but that days war council had proven to me the need for loyalty, even bought loyalty. 
But we both knew that wasn't the reason I wanted him to stay. He'd set something inside of me alight and I wanted more. I wanted to feel what the Jedi Order forbade, not just passion, but something deeper. 
Which is why I kissed him when he'd asked me why I wanted him to stay, a brief kiss that no doubt showcased how purely inexperienced and unfortunately desperate I was, but it got my point across.
He remained standing still with a self control that left me embarrassed by the lack of my own, that left me doubting if I had somehow misinterpreted his actions before, and suddenly he was hesitant the moment I returned what he began.
Little did I know he liked the chase and this disrupted it.
"How old are you little one?"
For a moment I debated lying but answered honestly. "Nineteen."
His eyebrows shot up and I realised he was indeed hoping for a different answer. "Nineteen?"
"I am not a child," I said quickly. How could I be a child when I had blood on my hands and the weight of a planet on my shoulders? How could I be a child when I'd given the orders not to take any prisoners when retaking territory from the Empire?
And yet I found myself having never even kissed a man until then.
"Oh I wouldn't go that far," he assured me. "I knew you were young but-"
His hesitance was enough I felt stupid for being so forward but countered "That didn't stop you before."
Little did I realise it wasn't my age he cared about, but the fact in a simple kiss I'd shown him I'd never felt a touch like his before. That despite my bloodshed I was an innocent in his eyes. The very thing he didn't want to see me as, but still there was a glimmer of interest at that prospect. A sick enjoyment following the initial hesitation, a newfound fetish for corruption. 
"That was before I saw you throw a man twice your size to the ground and realised you aren't just a spoiled princess, before I actually respected you," he said and left me speechless as well as frustrated. "Do you want me to fight for you or fuck you, because business and pleasure are two very different things."
With those simple words I found myself stammering for an answer, my eyes falling to the floor "I-" I knew what I was supposed to say, business and nothing more, but it wouldn't have been the truth. "Both." 
He tilted his head, his silence and imposing presence suddenly left me backtracking.
"I shouldn't have-" 
But I fell silent as he placed a knuckle beneath my chin and lifted it up to look him in the eye. "I never said no."
He must have felt me swallow for just a hint of a smile played at his lips, one that was no good.
"I am not a good man," he said, fingers toying at the shoulders of my flimsy dress.
"I know," I said, that fact having been horribly clear to me but did little to deter the ache I felt at his touch. "But maybe I like that."
Or maybe I believed there was more to him than that.
"I think you do," he said, watching what the mere trail of his knuckle along my skin did to me. "Do you want me to fuck you princess?"
My body flushed with heat and I opened my mouth to answer but he stopped me with a thumb over my lips.
"Think before you speak."
I swallowed hard before giving a simple answer. "Yes."
He raised a warning eyebrow as his hand came to my waist ."You won't regret this?"
I paused again before answering but the answer was the same. "No."
His other hand moved down from my chin to gently hold my throat and I had to bite back a whimper as he found my pulse point with deadly precision.
"Tell me you want it," he said, leaving no room for misinterpretation, and for the very first time I felt in control to take what I wanted. Even if I was sorely mistaken in believing I held the power in that moment as his hand tightened around my throat. An action that had my heart pounding with fear as the memories of Vader's torture prior to the Death Star's destruction came to mind, but I refused to back down. "Say it."
"I want you."
I look at him now, barely recognising his face but still remembering how it felt when I had him that first time. The pain and pleasure it brought, as well as the tears that came once I was finally alone. His hand wrapped around my throat as he split me open with little mercy, when I cried out telling me that surely the Mand'alor could handle a little pain. A degrading reminder that I ruled Mandalore and yet he had me at his mercy. A metaphor that told me I had no true power unless I took it.
 Eventually I did, the second time I had him I ensured that, but in that moment I'd never felt more vulnerable. There was no love, no affection, but any gentleness he showed in taking me was more than I'd ever felt. In time the rest came perhaps, or maybe I fooled myself into believing it was there. I'd never known any different after all. 
Not until now.
"You're right," I admit to him for the sake of my pride if nothing else. "I took what I wanted until-"
"Until you ran away," he finishes, choosing to be just as cruel. "From Mandalore, from me, all for your rebellion. You ran like you always do. Like you always will."
"Until you ruined me," I correct, trembling now with the anger I try to restrain, realising that not even my pride can come above the pain. "Until you brought me to this room."
Every fight I ever had in those early days with Bo-Katan comes to mind, every single time she warned me against trusting Boba in the name of protecting me. I'd thought she was trying to control me, even when she actually struck me when she found him in my room one night, telling me that I'd only learn the hard way if I didn't wake up and listen to her.
And she was right.
"You're the pretty little idiot who trusted a bounty hunter, seems you haven't learned your lesson yet," he says looking past me at Din. "And if you keep believing righteousness can save you you're never getting that kid back."
My words to Lando turn into a lie as his head slams back hard into the wall and Lando and Han both try to hold me back from killing him as I find one of the many hidden blades within my armour and grab him by the throat, raising the blade to drive it down into him, only for it to slip from my hand when Boba twists it violently and finally I see it in his eyes, the realisation that this time I could really kill him.
And I will.
He sees the decision in my own eyes and reaches for me as I move for the blade, throwing me back by the waist and slamming me facedown into the ground as I reach for it, only for the idiot to forget I'm a Jedi after all. It flies into my hand as I twist out of his grip and the men rush forward only to jump back as Boba's kicked across the face in his attempt to pin me down. No one, not even Din, dares to interfere as I throw him onto his back and pin him down with my knee, the bone pushing straight down into his lungs I raise the blade only for him to catch my wrist when I drive it down and the tip hovers just over his neck. I'm screaming as I try to overpower him, to finish it.
To finally bring this never ending nightmare to a close.
"Kyra!" Boba barks out as I strain against his iron grip and he says the words I never expected to hear from his mouth. "I'm sorry."
For just a moment I falter but refuse to let his words break my resolve as grief overcomes me.
"Sorry?" I repeat, feeling fear flooding the room and none of it my own. "Do you know what they did to me here?" I whisper, the blade tight in my violently shaking hand as I quake "Do you know!" Even now I can still feel it, my mind being unmade. "They put me in a mind flayer," I tell Boba and watch what little colour is left drain from his face. "And that was just the beginning."
"Lando get Leia here now!" I hear Han yelling as Boba stares up at me and for the very first time I see fear in his eyes as he truly realises what Vader made me, what he twisted me into that final time all because he wouldn't kill me. The ruin my mind became because of his weakness. Then behind that fear there is only pure remorse. "Mando will you grab her already before I do!"
Finally Din moves, forcefully pulling me off him and it's all I need to break free of Boba's iron grip. The blade cuts across his throat as my hand slips, but not deep enough to kill, and I'm fighting as Din hauls me out of that room with a strength he's never used on me before. I'm thrashing as he drags me down the hall until finally I go limp in his arms and he pries the blade from my hand as I collapse, he's all that's holding me up as something in me that's long been broken finally shatters completely.
"I-" I quake as suddenly everything becomes horribly real.
"I know," he tells me and for just a moment I feel him grasped by the same madness as he pulls me to him, the madness of having watched a child be taken. "I know cyar'ika."
He's terrified and I'm crying, the monster inside me Vader created not dead as I'd been led to believe, but merely tamed, now loose.
And yet it does not scare me anywhere near as deeply as the Empire does in this very moment.
Din holds me as Han comes and bends down in front of me, having been the one who'd stopped me from killing Mon Mothma in the same fit of rage after Mandalore. Having always seen just what I tried to hide from Luke, always the big brother I never had, or at least thought I never had.
"Leia's coming," he tells me and promises "We're going to get your kid back, whatever's out there no doubt wants your boy and mine both, we aren't letting that happen."
My throat is tight as I nod, needing to pull myself together for the kid's sake. I made a promise. I can't let my emotions get in the way of saving him. If Dad could save Leia and I from them at their height then I can save the kid from them now. 
"Her room's this way, come on," Han says to Din who helps me back to my feet, all but keeping me standing as I'm guided down the hall into a room I haven't visited in over a year but is still intact. 
He sits me down on the edge of the bed and the noise inside my head drowns out whatever words the two exchange but it ends in Din nodding his head and Han leaving, closing the door behind himself.
Din sighs as he comes over to me, there are many things he could say right now but instead he just takes me in his arms, holding me tight and cradling my head so gently the touch feels wrong while I have blood on my hands. 
"Why did you stop me?" I ask and he slowly pulls away as I ramble in confusion. "You said you'd be by my side as I took whatever vengeance I wanted so why did you stop me?"
"Because vengeance is one thing," he says, his demeanour suddenly changing. "Losing your mind is another."
"What difference does it make what state my mind is in?" I ask defensively and he slowly steps away, that simple action filling me with a fear I've never had before with him. "Din?"
"You need to rest."
His words go utterly ignored as I repeat. "Why did you stop me?"
"Because you weren't going to go through with it and we don't have time for this," he says roughly, unable to even look at me. "If you aren't up for this stay here, I'll go get the kid back."
"Excuse me?" I breathe, taken completely aback. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"Rest," he says before he goes to leave. "We'll talk in the morning."
He opens the door but jumps as I use the force to slam it shut and get to my feet. "No, we won't talk in the morning, we'll talk now."
He shakes his head at me. "We aren't doing this now."
"Do what now?" I repeat, not understanding what's going on, and exclaim "Why are you acting like this?"
The words that leave his mouth next shock me "Do you still love him?"
Never before has silence been so heavy as I look at him, unable to believe the question he's asking, but he's deadly serious as I look at the blood on my hands and back to him.
"I just cut his throat and that's the question you're asking me?"
I expect him to backtrack, to clarify, to do anything but double down. "He told me love and hate are the same for you."
I scoff now, not backing down as I size up to him. "So while I was dying he chose to give some grand speech about what we were?"
His answer is short with no elaboration. "Yes."
I look at him now in utter disbelief. "Are you truly asking me if I still love him?"
His voice is thick with pain. "Do you?"
My moment of hesitation is all it takes for him to walk to the door. "Din!" He only stops when I run forward and grab his wrist to keep him from leaving. "If you think I love him why didn't you just let me kill him?"
"If I didn't stop you the others would have tried, and I was the only one wearing beskar," he answers coldly. "Besides, you were taking too long."
"Taking too long?" I repeat, my composure already long gone. "What part of that show convinced you I'm somehow still in love with him!"
"Because I knew it from the moment I met you on Tatooine," he reveals. "You were there with unfinished business after all."
"I was there to kill him," I slowly remind him.
"And would you have gone through with it?" he asks me, but he already knows the answer, and unfortunately so do I. "I knew then that no matter how much you hated him, you still loved him. I knew it all along, I just refused to believe it."
Tears fill my eyes now as I look at him, the man I love more than I ever loved Boba. "Din-"
"If you love him I won't stand in your way," he says as if he's resigned himself to that before I can even open my mouth. "If you leave I won't hate you for it."
Standing here now only one of us is prepared to leave with grace and my heart is breaking at the realisation I found the selfless love I spent my life searching for, and that I've ruined it. 
"What did he tell you?" I demand to know, except I'm nowhere near prepared for his answer.
"Nothing that wasn't true."
My chest tightens knowing every awful accusation Boba could ever hold against me, knowing there is truth in all of them. That I'm a hypocrite, that I ruin the people I love, that all I've ever done is run. That Mandalore was destroyed because of me. 
Despite those words, I love Din too much to let my bloody hands stain his own, no matter how much blood they already may be dripping in. My father would be disappointed if he lived to see what his little girl became, and my mother... she would be horrified. 
"Alright," I say, challenging him as much as myself. "If you believe whatever he told you then go."
But he doesn't.
"He told me that the first thing you would do was try to kill him, but that you wouldn't go through with it, among other things," he says and I open my mouth but find no counter argument. "But that doesn't mean I'm walking away." He leaves me stunned into silence as he removes his gloves to take my bloody hands in his own. "He told me to run, that no man escapes from you unscathed."
"It's the truth," I state, unable to hide from it now. Not with every man I've ever been with in the same cursed city. "You should run."
He just tilts his helmet down and shakes his head. "When have you ever known me to run?"
I swallow hard, finding his feelings still resolute but only find myself confused. "Then why are you-"
"Because he was wrong about one thing," he continues, looking down at our joined hands, both trembling. "I know you, and since the moment I met you on Tatooine you have been the light of my life. You and Grogu." His voice breaks slightly. "I never knew it was possible to love like this, to want to be more than a clan of two, not until you."
Tears blur my vision as I begin again "Din-"
"But it's not my heart in question," he says and at those words I'm slowly pulling away, not knowing how I can make him see what he refuses to. "Kyra."
"I love you Din, you know that," I say, and he gives a slight tilt of his helmet at my attempted deflections. "Nothing else matters."
"It does matter," he insists, gravel in his voice and for the first time asks for information, not out safety, but for his own assurance. "How long were you with him?"
"Four years," I answer stiffly, having downplayed it in our previous conversations but I can hardly do that now. "On and off from after the destruction of the first Death Star to just before the destruction of the second."
There's silence before he says "You were pregnant with his child?"
I find myself blinking away tears, feeling the tip of Boba's blaster pressing into my stomach the night Jabba gave me to him on Tatooine. The night he confronted me over the supposed crime he selfishly believed I'd committed against him. Knowing if I'd been given a choice in the matter the result would have been the same I let him believe it was my choice to end the pregnancy instead of the nightmare I'd lived. It was the first time I thought he might actually kill me. I wanted him to, but he still couldn't do it. 
But for a moment... 
I look at Din now, realising this doubt is coming from somewhere. That more was said while I was unconscious than I can begin to theorise, but I have inklings. Although I know only one man would have told him the truth whilst still respecting my name.
"Lando told you what he saw didn't he?" I ask, vaguely remembering Lando having been with Leia when she found me in that cell. Lando tried to mention it once and only once to me after we'd begun sleeping together, he never tried again.
Din gives a single nod. "He told me you kept saying that you didn't know."
I was raised to hold my mother's moderate beliefs in contrast to those held by Mandalorians such as Din and realise neither of us have spoken about such sensitive matters. Neither did Boba and I but it seems he's made his thoughts on it hypocritically clear despite the blood on his hands. Although I suppose the blood of innocents would only begin to matter to him when it's own. 
However, I sense only pain from Din rather than judgement. My memories of what happened at the seeing stone and up to now blurred, but the memories of that final night with Boba when I discovered he knew... those are crystal clear. I'd told Din bits and pieces when it was important, but not the worst of them. 
"In Boba's grand speech did he ever tell you about that night at Jabba's palace?" I ask him. He gives no answer but there's enough recognition that something must have been mentioned. "Let me guess, I was sadistic nymphomaniac who decided to sleep with him one last time after trying to kill him because I was so sickeningly in love with him?" 
He still doesn't speak, I'd almost forgotten how silent he could be, but still I continue. 
"Jabba stripped me down and put me in chains before giving me to Boba as a reward." I find myself hesitating, telling him what I could never bring myself to ever willingly recall let alone speak of. I'd told Din Boba let me scream and beat him until I grew weak, but it wasn't the whole truth. "He put a blaster to my stomach and told me I'd robbed him of his chance to be a good man and a father. I was half convinced he was going to kill me, I wanted him to kill me, so I let him believe whatever hurt him the most as he choked me until I could barely breathe, but the coward still couldn't go through with it."
I'd reached for his blaster only for him to grab me, chained and almost naked, and the pure hate in his voice was worse than anything he could do to me as he pinned my wrists to the wall. "You took my chance to be a good man from me, to be a father-"
Tears burned in my eyes and I realised the greatest cruelty I could inflict upon him was to let him believe whatever Vader told him and I stopped fighting then as I looked him in the eye. "And I would do it again."
He held me by the throat and I watched seething as he dragged his blaster along my exposed body, the same blaster he'd used countless times to do such degrading things to me, and I didn't look away as he pressed it into my stomach.
He was deadly silent, finger over the trigger as I searched his cold eyes and felt the things he never learned to hide from a person like me. But something in them drove fear into my heart, the same obsessive hate that had consumed me for so long... it had consumed him as well.
"I know you Boba Fett," I told him, I might have been the only person in the galaxy who did, which is why I knew that even if he couldn't kill me he'd just as easily make me wish for death. "I know you love me." 
His hand around my throat was a familiar feeling, a hold of dominance but never of pain. Never until then. Finally his fist closed around my throat but I hardly blinked as he held it tight to the point I strained for air, but not enough to bring me to the brink of unconsciousness. The cold metal of the blaster dug further into my lower stomach but I refused to remove either hand as my airways closed beneath his grip. As I searched his eyes I knew he still couldn't bring himself  to stoop so low to have the woman he loves dead at his own hand, and somehow that made it worse. "Don't be a coward now, you could choke me to death and still would never come close to inflicting the pain Vader did."
"You were my target," he told me, digging the knife deeper with his words since he couldn't bring himself to do it physically. "From the moment you returned to the rebellion. You were my target when I dug you out of the rubble on Mandalore, every night together was all to get the information I was paid to bring to Vader, but you knew that didn't you?" I didn't give him an answer, I couldn't even give myself one as he tapped his blaster against my cheek as finally panic began to take over with every breath I struggled to take. "And you let me do it because you loved me."
I could have used the force to pull the trigger, to end this as I begged him to do half a year before. For my blood to be on his hands, the blood of the woman he loved. I would haunt him for the rest of his life as I knew he would haunt me for the rest of mine. It would have been cruelly poetic, but I was too bitter to die before seeing the end of the empire.
"How?" I finally asked him as I searched his heart and mind, finding such strong love twisted with darkness, finding the same in mine own heart and that darkness was what I could not forgive. The darkness that corrupted me came not from Vader, but from the man I loved. "How could you do this to someone you love?"
"This was never love," he told me, seeing what I couldn't but his heart- he could not hide it from me, not from a Jedi and I reached for his hand around my neck, my mind as sick as his when I believed it to be a loving touch. 
"Liar," I breathed, smiling at the hate in his eyes, his lips hovering just above mine. "If it wasn't we would have killed each other a hundred times over by now."
He shook his head, and for the first time I saw remorse in his eyes. "You're insane."
"I'm only what you made me," I'd said, my mind still in pieces from the mindflayer and Vader's torture. Not even the medications that Leia shoved down my throat could even begin to repair the connections in my brain that had been destroyed. "This is what you wanted isn't it?"
He finally released me and stepped away before taking his cloak and wrapping it around my shoulders as he told me "All I ever wanted was to make you strong, to help you lead Mandalore into a new age." His hand was gentle on my face, barely able to comprehend the depth of what had been done to tear my mind apart. "You're a broken woman Kyra. A shell of the Mand'alor who'd liberated Mandalore from the Empire."
"Yes," I said, anger replacing the grief at what had been taken from me. "I am."
I feel Din's hand on my face now, his touch just as gentle, just as concerned, and his voice turns to something dangerous. "You told me he never laid a hand on you." 
"He never truly hurt me that way," I still insist, the kinder memories I'd blocked out resurfacing. "He could never bring himself to do it."
"You just said he choked you," Din states, leaving no room for me to try to excuse it as anything else. "You'd said he wasn't that type of man."
My throat's tight as I try to rationalise "He wanted to make me strong, to teach me to fight back. He always thought I was weak, certainly too weak to rule Mandalore, and he was right."
"Kyra," Din immediately begins to argue and I raise a hand to quieten him. 
"You never even knew other Mandalorians existed, you can't speak to my competency as a ruler," I mean to state factually, but the bite is there, the unintended insult to him and his creed. 
"You're right," he throws back curtly as he removes his hand from my cheek, voice thick with frustration. "It seems all I've done is learn how little I know."
And again I find myself wondering what the hell Boba said to him to leave him like this. Boba is the one person who has seen the absolute worst of me so there is no limit to the truth's he can use against me. But, the worst of me is only a fraction of the worst of him. If I told Din everything Boba had done he would be going to kill him without a second thought. If I asked him to I know he would, and yet the thought pains me. 
"Alright then," I say, seeing as we have enough time to air whatever this is out before Leia arrives for us to formulate a plan and decide to spit it all out if Din truly believes what he does. "What do you want to know Din? Because if you think I have any warmth left in my heart for that man how about I tell you how the first time I'd ever kissed a man was mere minutes before he wrapped his hand around my throat and fucked me while telling me the Mand'alor could handle a little pain when I cried out?"
Din's head snaps back towards me and I certainly have his attention, along with a cold, violent, anger that I've rarely felt from him, remnants of the man he was before Grogu. 
 "But as you heard him say, I wanted it, or at least I thought I did until it ended and realised I was never in control," I continue, knowing he's likely heard some reiteration of me being a heartless sex addict from Boba's recollections. "Or how about I tell you about when I decided to take a battalion of Mandalorians to fight for the Rebellion and my second in command shot him because she thought he was going to kill me for being a 'stupid fucking little girl who would make her mothers mistakes.' Although unfortunately not fatally." Even now I remember Sabine's face when she walked into my office at the wrong moment and saw him grab me by the throat as he spat that along with other insults in my face. "Or how about when Darth Vader even showed disgust for the way his brother's daughter had been treated despite torturing me at that very same moment." That holds the greatest irony in my mind even now. "If I were to tell you everything that had transpired over those years that brought me to the scene you just witnessed we'd be here for days."
"And you still love him?" Din says, not an accusation as before, but now of statement of pure concern and just like that I'm seeing those final days in my relationship with Lando beginning to unfold again when I thought that would never happen with Din.
And so I finally confess the truth I've refused to accept. "Maybe when I met you I still loved him." I force myself to be brutally honest because that is what I owe him. "Maybe I still do." 
I could stop there, I could be merciful and let him believe that I love Boba more than I could ever love him. When I walked away from Lando it was the cold hard truth that I loved Boba more than anything we'd built, but that isn't true for Din. He and everything we've built is worth more to me than whatever sick attachment I forged with Boba in those painful years. Din showed me what love is meant to be, what it can be, and I refuse to let that go. 
"For each time he betrayed me he's also saved me, even now as much as I hate it, and you're right, I never could bring myself to kill him as much as I want to. I never thought I could ever love anyone like that again, and I won't and I'd never want to," I tell him, feeling the blood sticking to my hands as I take his in mine once again. "Because I never knew I could love anyone how I love you."
Still he refuses to believe it, that he is the one I love truly and I anticipate his words. "Then why act like-"
"Because he brought the Empire to us!" I exclaim in pure exasperation. "For every crime he can be acquitted of he's guilty of a thousand others and I know he had a part in this!"
He sighs deeply and grits out "You aren't thinking clearly in this state of mind."
"And what state of mind would that be?"
He pauses at the challenge in my voice and hesitates before reluctantly answering "You're hysterical."
"Hysterical?" I repeat, having heard my mother been called that a thousand times and snatch my hands away. "Of course I'm hysterical, the kid is gone! I'm surprised you're not hysterical, maybe if you were you'd understand-"
"Understand what?" he argues. "Our child is taken and the first thing you do upon waking up, upon seeing my face, is to go chase him down-"
"I wake up after getting hit by a fucking missile, not knowing where I am or what's happened and I still don't!" I yell, pleading for him to understand. "The kid is gone and he's there, that's all I need for my head to tell me he was responsible so call me hysterical for torturing him to find where they've taken him!"
"We don't have time for this!" he yells, raising his voice more than he ever has towards me and the rawness of his voice quickly reels me back in and he immediately lowers it to a desperate plea. "We need to find him." 
"Leia is on her way and when she comes I'll use her resources to locate Gideon," I promise him, trying to put my emotions aside to think clearly, to diffuse this before it escalates further. "She heads the defence council, she has access to intel we don't. I'm close to another General who had a son with a Jedi. Gideon's targeting force sensitive for his experiments, her and Leia both have sons with those abilities and they won't let Gideon live long enough to touch theirs."
That seems to calm him enough and he asks "How long-"
"Twelve hours, she should arrive tomorrow morning," I estimate, knowing Leia will come as soon as possible and that Din works best with parameters. "I have the resources to find him, but in the meantime-" Against my better judgement I reach for his hands again, knowing we cannot find Grogu if we're at each other's throats like this, forcing myself to put aside my own frustration and pain and to try to compose myself. "I know I'm out of my mind right now okay but I love you and I need you to trust me so we can get through this," I whisper but he doesn't say anything, nor does he move away, and I'm too out of it to read him so I just plead "Please Din."
He looks down at our hands, squeezing mine tight and I hear the tears in the shaky breath he takes before saying " "I- I thought you were dead Kyra, I- do you think I wasn't begging you to wake up the entire flight here? Do you think I wasn't scared out of my mind for the first time since I lost my parents?" My throat tightens and I look down with cold tears wetting my cheeks. "I thought my entire world had been destroyed in a second, I- I felt like I was losing my mind with very second that passed when I didn't know if you'd live or die."
"Din," I whisper, aching to take him in my arms but something keeps me frozen in place knowing that I'm the source of his pain. Something I've never wanted to be. 
"I know I've been harsh and I'm sorry, I just-" he's quiet for a moment, treating carefully. "The mind flayer," he quakes, having held me through the nightmares that have come of that. "You never told me."
"I spent five years putting my mind back together," I say hoarsely, for a short while having thought I had if such a thing is possible. "It seems I still have some work to do."
"I know you're in pain, and I love you- more than almost anything," he says, his voice as gentle as he can make it with the fear pounding through our chests. "Which means one of us has to keep it together for the sake of the kid and if you aren't up to this I'll find him myself."
"You're right," I quickly agree, forcing myself to bring myself back from that edge, to be better than this. To be more than the mess I was years ago and think strategy. "You're right and I'm sorry and when Leia gets here we will use her contacts to find out where Gideon is." 
"Thank you," he says, and we could leave it there, but it feels as if I let go of his hand and watch him walk out that door I'll never be able to salvage this and so while choking on tears I can't fight back I make one final plea to him. "You can believe me or not when I say I love you, but I will not walk away from the child I've sworn to protect. Our child."
"Kyra," he says quietly, voice filled with pain.
 "I need you to trust me when I tell you that I'm in love with you," I breathe through the tears. "That I will do whatever it takes to get him back."
"I trust you," he tells me but still it does little to ease his heart. If I was calmer, if I had my composure I'd leave it there for the sake of peace but I can't and so I take his helmet in between my hands. "Cyar'ika"
I don't go to remove it, but I need him to look at me as I tell him in no uncertain words "If you think I love Boba Fett more than you then I will go kill him without hesitation, or if you want to do it yourself you can go ahead and do it. I won't stop you."
"I might be a bounty hunter," he begins. "I might want to tear him apart after the things he'd said and done, but I wouldn't hurt anyone you loved."
I blink through the tears, because it wasn't love, I can see that now.
"And Din Djarin that is why I will always love you more than I ever loved him. Love and hate were always the same to me but not anymore. You taught me it's not." He pulls me in closer now as I bare my heart to him. "I never planned to fall in love with you Din, I tried not to but I couldn't stop it." I bring his forehead down to mine as I tell him "When they- when they put me through that mindflayer it scrambled all the wires in my head to make me believe this could never be possible, but it is. You showed me that and I made a choice not just to love you, but to choose you over fear, over anything else so please believe me when I tell you you are the only person I want, the only person I need, and if you let me I will choose you every day for the rest of our lives."
He gently pulls my hands away from his helmet and I shut my eyes in pain, only to hear it being placed aside and feel his lips on my forehead as he holds me to him. "I believe you." Tears spill down my cheeks and he tells me "Open your eyes cyar'ika."
I do, and this time I look upon him how I should have before and again find tears in his beautiful dark eyes, equal pain and adoration etched across the handsome and worn face of a hardworking man who possesses a rare heart. Wiping a tear from the corner of his eye I hold his face, looking into those brown eyes as I tell him in no uncertain words "I love you Din Djarin and I swear to you that we will take our son back and when we do we will say our vows to him and adopt him, and then we will say our vows to each other."
His emotions are written so clearly across his face, having never learned or had need to control them, and yet I can't help but gasp as his lips meet mine. It's a mixture of pure pain and desperation, of love and the fear of loss. Everything a Jedi should never feel.
But as we slowly remove the beskar from one another nothing else matters to me, not when I'm safe in the hands of the man who has never wronged me, who would sooner cut his hand off before laying it on me or betraying me. The man I trust completely, love completely. 
As I search his eyes I know with no doubts that he shares that love just as deeply, and he tells me so as he lays me down and takes me in his arms. Making love as if that could heal our pain, but our fight has only just begun. 
And I know as Din captures my lips and grasps my bloody hand in his that he will be by my side as we unleash hell upon Moff Gideon and in whatever may come.
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wordsandrobots · 8 months
Text
The Wishing on Space Hardware playlist (story edition) v1.0
Hmm. A touch premature, perhaps, but while my grand finale plans include a stupidly ambitious attempt to compose a playlist of songs fitted to each character I’m using as a point of view (30+!), I have collected enough IBO-feeling songs to do that for fics in the series too. Well, I did after committing to the bit and hunting down ones to fit the stragglers. We are 18 posted out of 20, so there’s a possibility I’ll revise this later. But hey! For the moment, I’m quite happy with how this came out. And if you like mixes of British folk, indie rock, Country-adjacent stuff, and Leonard Cohen, maybe you will be as well. (Special achievement: it’s not wall-to-wall Thea Gilmore songs.)
For those of you just tuning in, my post-canon Iron-Blooded Orphans series Wishing on Space Hardware can be found at Ao3 via all good web browsers (probably the bad ones too). Full spoilers for both seasons of the anime come as standard.
Arc #1: Moving on or standing still
A Handful of Rusted Petals – Embers [Skinny Lister]
Long is the distance, hard is the mile / That drags me away from our innocent smile / Where wild is the welcome, the company right / Far from the rattle and roar of the fight
I like Skinny Lister a lot and thought this fit the bittersweet themes of these vignettes rather well.
The Grandmaster – The Game [The Levellers]
The clock ticked past the final hour / Which of the men had lost? and what was the cost? / The glasses now were empty and gone / To wash away the shame, and take away the pain
While not 100% on the money, this song seems to capture the feel of the Elion vs McGillis conflict, from Elion’s side at least.
To Catch a Falling Star – Get Better [Frank Turner]
So try and get better and don't ever accept less / Take a plain black marker and write this on your chest / Draw a line underneath all of this unhappiness / Come on now, let's fix this mess / We could get better because we're not dead yet
Gender flip the lyrics and this is basically Yamagi and Shino in this fic to a T.
Fragments of You/Pieces of Me – Injuries [Skinny Lister]
On the advice of my heart I flew / Into the burning sun / And for the life of me I can’t / Find me a way to return
Because sometimes life is at once fundamentally difficult and nevertheless glorious.
Arc #2: Monsters out of the past
Let Sleeping Angels Lie – Call You Friend [Oysterband]
So many times we’ve disagreed / Don’t count the cost there’s a greater need / We sit and watch each other bleed / That’s why I call you friend
Eugene and Shino’s relationship in a nutshell.
Between Family – The Power of Unity [Masaru Yokoyama]
(With full apologies to Mr Yokoyama. I tried to come up with an actual song but using this track is much funnier. Plus, you know. Smut. I don’t tend to spend much time putting lyrics to that.)
I can picture the polyamorous numpties to this far, far too well.
The Ares Affair – Everybody Knows [Leonard Cohen]
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded / Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed / Everybody knows the war is over / Everybody knows the good guys lost
The point where WoSH swerves hard from ‘fix-it’ to ‘consequences of fixing it’.
The Haunting of Takaki Uno – Don’t Dim Your Light For Anyone [Thea Gilmore]
The world is fierce, it's hard as nails / When you do good but goodness fails / You crawl the road that others run / Don't dim your light for anyone
I find Takaki tricky to write because his voice isn’t quite as distinct as Yamagi or Ride, but I know exactly what I want to capture through him.
Arc #3: The pressure of ghosts
Frozen Sunlight – Apparition #12 [Thea Gilmore]
And I smelled the ghosts of the ashes and the orchids / I've got promises tattooed to the insides of my eyelids / And I'll be watching when the Richter reaches ten / I bled by these weapons, babe, and now I'm one of them
Two Thea Gilmore songs in a row, I know, but they have very different tones and this is on point for my interpretation of Azee.
Of Obsessions and Erotemes – A Good Song Never Dies [Saint Motel]
There was a moment, a hole opened in the sky / A chance to join their pantheon / For all the times they never heard your battle cry / Now even angels sing along
I only encountered this song recently but I can see Iverson to it, so now it’s their villain theme.
Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses – Modern Way [The Kaiser Chiefs]
Hold on to the basics / But we can't change all our tactics / There's no point sitting / Going crazy on your own
Had originally penciled in ‘Truth Is’ by the Levellers for this, but I think ‘Modern Way’ is more applicable to the whole.
Under a Crescent Moon – Son of the Left Hand [Duke Special]
In dying light my shadow calls / I watch his fingers stalk the walls / And now in hollow down I stumble on / The rubble of my babylon
Goes harder than perhaps the tone of the fic strictly requires, but honestly? I think that’s probably earned by the situation.
Arc #4: Schemes and daydreams
Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure – Plans [Devil and the Deep Blue Sea]
And I should find / A better way to spend my time / Than spinning grand designs / Every day with you
The story dealing with coincidence and anticlimax felt like it needed something soothing as a soundtrack.
Hope Against Hope – All This And Heaven Too [Florence + The Machine]
And I would give all this and heaven too / I would give it all if only for a moment / That I could just understand the meaning of the word you see / 'Cause I've been scrawling it forever, but it never makes sense to me at all
I listened to this a lot while writing the next story in the series, but it fits Kudelia too well not to use here.
Love, Death and Cannoli – Fire and Water [The Wandering Hearts]
All love's like fire and water / I ask myself, "Should I bother?" / When you look at me with those big brown eyes / And I know what I'll do / I've tried but it's impossible / Can't keep myself away from you
The Yamagi/Shino song as far as I’m concerned.
Fata Morgana – Belgrade [Battle Tapes]
We pretend in the darkness / We pretend the night won’t steal our youth / Singing me the sweet songs of seduction / Let me be the fool, fool, fool / Who will live and die for you
There are many ways to be seduced and become a fool for others. Also I needed a banging tune for what is, broadly, a long action sequence of a fic.
Arc #5: The end of the world
We Three Kings – Bullet [Saint Motel]
You don't stop a bullet that you set into motion / You don't stop a fire when you light an explosion / So then, why would we fight it? Already ignited / Counting down, down, down, down
This story is inevitable. Or if it isn’t, the major events are underway long before our protagonists arrive. And then there’s that one-in-a-million shot...
History of a Catastrophe – Who By Fire? [Leonard Cohen, live version]
And who by brave assent, who by accident / Who in solitude, who in this mirror / Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand / Who in mortal chains, who in power / And who shall I say is calling?
More Leonard Cohen, with this particularly beautiful version of the song, for an exploration of how terrible systems warp people’s lives.
Ragnarök in G Minor – Battlegrounds [Coco and the Butterfields]
Hey, hey, what do you say when you fall down / Hey, hey, go away from battlegrounds / And I, I feel like I'm living just to stop you winning / So carry on, carry on, carry on ‘til I'm gone
It’s that third line in the chorus. That’s the fic. (Or it will be once I’ve written this monster; the document passed 1MB a couple of weeks back, ye gods.)
A Day in the Light – Something for the Pain [She Drew the Gun]
Walls for the wind / Shelter from the rain / Something for the hunger / And something for the pain
This will be the coda to the series. And I feel this song works well for the history of IBO’s setting. A summing up, if you will.
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lumine-no-hikari · 16 days
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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #84
Today, J, Br, and I went to the library for a work date. Br had homework, J had his remote work, and I was cutting wires to weave new trees while listening to that playlist that I spoke on recently.
I cut A LOT of wire for trees; at least 7 trees worth. I'll show you:
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Although I already had a few coils of wire, I decided to spend the time cutting more. Truth be told, I don't really like working with the gold or silver wire; it's stiffer, harder to twist, and more brittle than other kinds of wire of the same gauge, for whatever reason. Sharper, too; trying to move some of the gold coils around, I ended up poking my fingers enough to draw a little bit of blood, which is really no big deal, but it's still kind of annoying.
Each coil of wire has 27 strands, the length of each being approximately the distance between the tip of my left index finger to the bend of my left elbow. There are so many strands because it takes three strands to weave a branch, three branches to weave a section of a tree, and three sections to make a whole tree.
I got really into the groove of it, though, and before I knew it, 4 hours passed and it felt only like 20 minutes; I really dropped the ball on my hydration game today because of it. I'm sorry about that; I can't exactly implore you to take good care of yourself if I'm not being attentive to the maintenance of my own body, right? So I'll do better tomorrow.
Oh right - speaking of pokey things, though I got the first dose of an HPV vaccine yesterday, and to my surprise, I feel pretty much unaffected by it today. I had heard that this one can sometimes knock people on their ass, and I'm glad that my DNA seems to be such that this isn't the case. Or maybe it's just that this one isn't as bad as I had heard. Either way, I'm not sad about the fact that I don't feel like hot garbage today! Gotta appreciate the little things, right?
After we did a decent amount of work, J, Br, and I left the library to take a walk in its general vicinity. It was almost 60 degrees F in my area today (or 15.5 degrees C if metric is your thing); the walk was lovely. But my brain was still "extended-tendrils-esque" from cutting wire for such a long time, so I was quiet (but not in bad spirits!) for most of it; I'm glad that I get to spend time in the company of folks who don't mind when I'm not animated. The fact that I don't have to mask my autistic traits with Br and J takes a lot of the pressure off of existing in general.
Oh, um! Maybe you don't know what Tendril Theory is. Here's something that can explain it; I didn't make this:
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I wished you could come on the walk with us. I passed some interesting-looking houses that I didn't take pictures of, because it seems maybe a little rude to take a picture of a specific person's house without their permission. But one of the houses had a lot of bits and baubles hanging from their trees and shrubs and trellises; it was a marvelous sight to witness. I think my favorite decoration was the glass grapes hanging from a cute-looking trellis. I wish you could have seen them; they were VERY sparkly. I wonder if you would have liked to look at them, too.
We have since returned home, and M continues to go through the second portion of your story. He's finishing up the quests around Cosmo Canyon. It's a beautiful area, and it's wonderful to get a glimpse of the architecture and the handicrafts and the local flora and fauna. I love that there are descriptions of the wild creatures (it makes me sad to hear them be called "fiends") and their dispositions, diets, life cycles, and whatever else. It's like reading through one of those old Wildlife Fact File binders - we had one of these things when I was a little girl; if you've been reading my letters, I imagine you won't be surprised to learn that this was one of my favorite things to read when I was young, haha!
Oh. Right. You… probably have no idea what that looks like. Here:
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They're super thick binders filled with folding pages all about some of the animals in my world:
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I kinda wish I could send along one of these to you, somehow. I know from watching M wander around that your world has a lot of the same animals that mine does, but we don't have things like chocobos or dragons or cockatrices or basilisks, so I wonder if there are animals in my world that you don't have.
Oh! You know. It occurs to me that you don't have horses in your world. I think maybe you might like horses, so maybe sometime I'll write to you about them. But not today, because I'm tired. Though you can probably tell I'm tired, since I'm rambling. Haha...
Hey, Sephiroth? I wonder if you have a favorite animal. I know you can't tell me what it is (because obviously), but still I'll ask. I'll ask because everyone deserves to have someone care enough about them to ask what their favorite animal is. As for me… it's kind of a toss-up between orcas and barn owls. If you don't have those, maybe I'll tell you about those, too, in some other letter.
Please stay safe out there in the meantime. There are lots of people in my world who are counting on you to turn yourself around and come back in one piece, so try really hard, okay? I'll be cheering for your healing and recovery, because these things are possible, no matter how far we fall down.
I'll write again soon.
Your friend, Lumine
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yetanotherwells · 2 years
Text
Protective Part 2
Eowells x Female Reader
Summary: Eobard is taking care of some business.
Word count: 1,404
Warning: Mentions blood, guns, slight abuse, cursing, death, eobard being a protective mother f-er, semi-happy ending(?)
A/N: I didn’t mean for this part to be so long. Thank you to @wellsaddict for beta reading it.
Part 1 | Masterlist
**Do not edit and/or repost my stories anywhere**
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A flash of lightning lit up the sky as thunder crack loudly outside of the apartment building. Window shaking with the rumble with rain pounding hard against the glass windows.
Sam held his phone up to his ear as he was tapping his fingers on the counter top trying to reach (Y/N). His patience was running thin. He told her to not to leave the apartment. 20 text messages and 15 miss calls, nothing. “Fucking shit.” He threw his phone down on top of the counter as he rubs his eyes, “She is fucking dead when I see her.”
Another flash fills the whole apartment causing the power to go out.
“Just fucking great.” Sam slide his arm across the counter knocking everything off of it and onto the floor. With his hands on his hips and his other hand on his face, he slowly paces around. Stopping short with his back to the window, he could sense he wasn’t alone.
Turning on the balls of his hells, he carefully scanning the room, “Whose there?” His eyes darts around catching a shadow of something moving around.
A flash of light lit up the room again and standing in front of the picture window was someone with red glowing eyes, body cloaked in yellow, vibrates before him. The air all around filled with electricity. Sam could almost feel a shock wave running up his spine.
“Who the fuck are you?” Sam took a few steps towards the person, “how the fuck did you get into my place?” His voice raised a bit.
“You have no ideas how worthless you made her feel.” The person voices vibrates as they spoke.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“As a man who has lots of anger inside, I love her more then you ever will because if red colour indicates anger then it indicates love too.” Red sparks dance across his body, red lightning gather in the palm of both of his hands.
Sam reach behind him, pulling a gun from his waist band. “You need to get out of here before I mess you up.” He points the gun the man.
In a flash, the man in yellow disappears. A laugh rings out, “if only you had that same love that you have for your life to show to her, then maybe I won’t be needed. But seeing you love no other, I must do everything to set her free from the terror that plagues her mind.”
A whirlwind formed out of now where engulfing Sam. Yelling out, he starts to fire at the wind, hoping to hit the intruder.
But, that plan failed when he felt a sharp electrical pain running through Sam’s body as a gasp of air left his mouth. The whirlwind subsided as a voice spoke next to Sam’s right ear, “and sometimes you have to give people a taste of their own medicine.”
With drawing his hand from Sam’s body, the man collapse to the ground, blood pouring out of him. Sam withering on the floor as he starts to cough. Slowing down the vibration, the man bends down to look at Sam. Pulling back his cowl, Sam let out a weak gasp, “I don’t-” he stare up into those haunting blue eyes of Central City’s so called saviour, “You should of treated (Y/N) better.” Harrison Wells spoke to him. With one punch, Harrison knocked out Sam.
Running around the apartment, Eobard cleans the place up from the bullets and mess Sam had made. To cause less suspicion on to (Y/N), Eobard took Sam’s body out of the place and decided to place him somewhere else.
~Early the next morning~
Sitting at the dining room table, (Y/N) slowly pushes her food around her plate, not really hungry, as Harrison was eating a way as he reads the news paper. Every so often he would peak out of the corner of his eye to see how she was. He could tell she hasn’t been sleeping lately; even last night she wasn’t sleeping. Every hour he would walk past the guest bedroom that she was staying in. He could hear the tv playing and a soft muffle of crying. It took everything in his powers to not burst in there to comfort her.
He took her phone the moment she step foot in her house to prevent her from talking to Sam or to raise any suspicion. Last thing he wanted was for Sam to come over and having to kill him in front of her.
A phone started to vibrate and the two exchanged looks with each other. Harrison reach down to the bag on the side of his chair and pulls out both of their phones. Seeing that it was (Y/N)’s phone that was going off, he raised an eyebrow when he saw Joe West name popping up. Handing over the phone, (Y/N) was just as confuse as Harrison. Why would Joe be calling her?
“Detective West.” She looks over to Harrison with confusion in her face as he share the same feeling.
“Wait, what?” Her jaw drops as he delivers the news that Sam was found murdered in an alley way a few blocks from their shared apartment.
“I been with Dr. Wells all night. Yes, we can be down at the precinct. Okay, good-bye detective.” Hanging up the phone, her hands drop to her lap as her mind swirl with relief and confusion.
“(Y/N), is everything alright?” He eyes her up seeing she was trying to hold back tears.
“It’s Sam… his dead.” Her voice cracked a little bit as she spoke. A tear drop fall down her cheek; quickly wiping it away. She didn’t want to have a break down in front of Harrison.
Harrison took his glasses off, holding them up to his mouth. He gaze over to (Y/N) to gauge her reaction to the news. He could tell she was conflicted with her emotions, “how are you feeling?”
Wiping the tears away, “I, uhh… I’m not sure.”
Harrison rubs his lips, “what did Detective West want?”
Clearing her throat, “he wants us to come down to the station to make a statement.”
“Okay. We will get cleaned up and head down, okay?”
(Y/N) nods her head in agreement. Looking down to her hand, she twist the ring around finger a bit before taking it off. Clutching it in her hand, she rest her hand on top of the table top, letting of the ring. She flatten her hand on top of the ring. Closing her eyes, she took in a shaky breath, she pulls back her hand leaving the ring behind. Getting up from her seat, she made her way to guest bedroom.
Harrison watch as she retreats back into the guest bedroom. Once she disappeared, Harrison reached over grabbing the ring. Leaning back in his chair, resting his chin on his hand as he twirls the ring around his fingers with a smirk grace his face. His plan worked. He finally got her away from that man. His eyes snap up to the sound of foot steps. Grasping the ring, he wheels his way over to the hallway seeing (Y/N) walking down putting a cardigan on.
“You ready to go, (Y/N)?”
Pulling the cardigan tight against herself, “yeah. Let’s get this over with.”
Getting off the elevator they were greeted by Joe and a female officer, “(Y/N), Dr. Wells, thank you for coming down.”
“Of course Detective. Anything to help.” Harrison answered.
“How are you doing, (Y/N)?” Joe look over to her to see her with her arms wrapped around her body.
“I just want to get this over with.”
“I understand. This is Julie Baker, she will be taking your statement. Doctor, you will be with me.” Joe gestures for Harrison to follow him to is deck.
Julie guides (Y/N) over to her desk. As Julie was getting all the paper work all set up, (Y/N) glance over her shoulder to see Joe and Harrison both start to talk about the situation. The words Harrison spoke to her echoes in her mind, ‘I will take care of it.’
“I’m not one to take revenge. If someone does something wrong to me I leave it in the hands of the universe to take of that person.” - Lana Parrilla
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foxgloveprincess · 2 years
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Seem Like Someone Else
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Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff x GN!Shapeshifter Reader [First Person Narrator]
Word Count: 3,060
Summary: Pain has been the only thing you’ve felt for so long. Until Bucky and Natasha teach you to feel something different.
Warnings: Emotionally Constipated Reader, Plus-Size Reader, Body Horror (shapeshifting that backfires—disfigurement, no blood, inability to talk, pain), Undefined/Poorly Defined Relationship, Mentions of Abusive/Traumatic Past, Inconsiderate Behavior, Pet Names (sweetheart). Minors do not interact (18+).
A/N: This just sorta started spilling out of me one day while I was eating breakfast. Based on quite a few uQuizzes I’ve taken which have told me I change myself for other people. It’s an experiment in a way. And I don’t really know how to define it. All I know is that I want to share it with all of you. Bucky edit in the banner by nixakimbo (on Instagram). The picture in the banner is not indicative of the reader’s skin color (there is no description of appearance in the fic, except to allude to plus size).
I love feedback, so go ahead and reblog/comment if you want. No permission given to copy, translate, rewrite or post my work, at all. I cross-post to my own AO3 account.
I don’t do tag lists, so follow @foxglovefics to sign up for notifications on my fics.
This is not Beta’d, so all mistakes are my own.
Please DO NOT click ‘Keep Reading’ if you are not 18+ years of age or if you are uncomfortable with the pairing themes/dynamics/warnings, thank you!
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I go through about 25 transformations a day. Comes with the territory of being a shapeshifter. But it’s bled into my personality, too. Changing the smallest aspects of myself in everyday interactions, hoping to smooth the conversations into something palatable for whoever I’m talking to. 
Sometimes I wonder if the face I return to at the end of the day is really even my face at all—if the person I am is truly myself. 
It’s stopped being a strain—practically organic at this point. Just like the shifting of bones, cartilage, and flesh to form me into a different look. Easy as breathing. 
The transformations used to hurt. I remember that. When it started in middle school, I would scream out in my room at night when my flesh turned against me and morphed me into some other person. Lady B always cradled me to her chest and hummed a solemn tune until I calmed and made the painful transition back to myself. 
Now I change like water flowing from the pitcher to the glass. Know the exact angles. Contorting myself until the change mutes to a small pop. No longer a cacophony of crackles and popping joints. I’ve perfected the art form, transforming in a singular moment from one person to the next.
For most people, it’s a party trick. Entertainment. For my job, it’s a clever evolution of espionage. It’s helped me go far, climbing my way into the Avengers organization and solidifying my skills as indispensable. A way I can support and protect myself. Not everyone accepts a freak in their neighborhoods. 
“Make me into a woman,” Tony requests, lounging back on his sofa with a tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. 
Like I said, entertainment. 
My body bends and twists—rather, the body I’m wearing—until I picture it clearly in my head. Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, woman. A deep breath fills my lungs and—Pop! 
It takes a moment to orient myself before my audience. Party goers still milling about the Tower, lingering until the very last moment. I breathe once, ensuring the use of lungs in my body and the beat of my heart—learning from experience to never underestimate the importance of internal organs. 
But there I am, Tony Stark’s spitting image in female form. 
I wait for the next request as comments circle about the voyeurs. Words of intrigue and disbelief whispered from ear to ear. I can’t let them know I’m tired. Most missions do not exhaust me as much as this. Face after face for people to peer at and dissect. I touch my nose, drawing back my hand to check for blood—none yet, a good sign.
“That’s enough,” a voice calls out. “Leave them alone.”
Turning over my shoulder, Bucky glares at the group surrounding me. Perched on the sofa with Natasha at his side, they make the most threatening couple in the room. Lovely, by all means, but deadly—like twining sprigs of belladonna. 
“Come here,” Natasha beckons from her place under her partner’s arm. She gestures to an empty seat beside them. 
Unable to resist the call, I follow and sit. My favorite drink sits upon a coaster, ready and waiting. Though I refuse to let surprise color my expression.
The group disperses, off to look for the next spectacle. I sigh in relief and let my body sink into the cushions, cells buzzing from exertion.
“You were at your limit,” Bucky comments, a hint of disappointment in his tone, “you should have told them to fuck off.”
“I know my limit,” I reply, releasing the tension keeping me in Tony’s face. No longer intent on performance, I let my body shift in gradual motions. My bones clicking back into place, figure softening and rounding, until I sit before them as myself.
“You’re not here for their amusement,” Bucky insists, fists clenching together as he leans toward me. “Why do you let them do that to you?”
“Why not?” I answer, tilting my head to the side. “They like it.”
“But do you?” Natasha gazes at me with her piercing green eyes. 
And I cannot meet them. Because I know the answer, so does she. It doesn’t need to be said, but to meet her gaze would be to admit it. 
“You don’t need to—”
“I know,” I interrupt, face scrunching at the force of my statement. 
They say no more on the subject, keeping me company throughout the rest of the evening. Their presence surrounding me in a protective barrier that no one dare penetrate. Even when curious gazes drift in my direction, the assassins at my side dissuade them of any notions to approach.
“Thank you,” I relent when the party comes to its full close, the remaining attendees escorted out of the building. “It was nice to be myself for most of the night, as disappointing as it may be.”
“Who said you were disappointing?” Natasha asks, her fingers tipping my chin down to see her curious expression.
My shoulders shrug and I step away from her touch. “Thanks again, anyway.” A hasty retreat proves wise as final rounds of farewell take place, whispers following after me toward the elevator. 
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“You know,” Natasha says a few weeks later, approaching me at the table while I eat my lunch, “it’s in our blood.”
At the cryptic comment, I raise a brow, pausing with my sandwich halfway to my lips.
“They forced it into us so hard that we can hardly tell how long it’s been there, melding with us, shaping us.” She sits across from me, arms folded on the wooden tabletop and leaning closer to me. “That involuntary notion to always fit. To break yourself a thousand different ways until you can be whoever they want you to be.”
I swallow and push away my plate, no longer feeling the pang of hunger when my stomach turns. “Why are you saying this?” My mouth dries, bile climbing up my throat.
“Because I see you,” she replies, simple as that. As if there can’t be any other explanation in the world. Her hand reaches out to my arm, squeezing the flesh in a comforting grip. “I know what it’s like.”
My eyes meet hers, emotion swelling deep within me and threatening tears. I grit my teeth, fighting against them to say, “What difference does that make?”
“Maybe not a big one. We’re spies, it’s what we do,” she says with a shrug, hand still resting on my arm. “But it doesn’t mean it’s who we have to be.” She pats my arm, standing from the seat. She steps closer, standing over me until I look up. “Or that we have to be alone.”
She walks off and I watch her leave. Each step she takes flaming the desire to rush after her and feel whatever it was that she inspired within me. That swelling rush of clarity that struck me at her concern. Something that felt strikingly like peace. 
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Bucky doesn’t approach me as directly. He doesn’t say as much either. He simply finds me after a mission one day and hands me a bottle of my favorite juice. No comments or inquiries about how the mission went. Scaring off anyone who even thinks to approach.
He stays nearby—not hovering, but close and quiet, like a shadow.
He sits beside me while I write up my report. Trying to recall every detail of the mission. Every face I had to don and how many files I was able to copy and scrub. And he doesn’t leave until I drift asleep on my couch, watching my favorite movie and wrapped in a warm blanket. 
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The next morning, I wake to him preparing me breakfast in my kitchen. Surprise doesn’t cover the jolt that spikes through my blood, body changing on instinct for an attack. 
“Hey,” he says, turning with his hands held up in placation, “you’re alright. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Then why are you here?” I ask, incredulous at his presence. Surely Natasha would need him more. Or at least expect him so early in the morning.
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” 
My mouth gapes open, his reasons incomprehensible. Am I some sort of pet project to them? Another amusement to occupy their time? A new way to treat the freak, to toy with me until I’m left shattered by their true intentions.
“You need to leave,” I utter, not understanding the words I say until they’re already hanging in the air between us. “Now.”
Bucky’s brow pinches in concern. He walks forward, skirting around my table and reaches out. I step back. 
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he confesses, fidgeting with his metal arm and pulling his sleeve over the vibranium. 
“I’m always alone,” I reply with a shrug. “Don’t worry about it.”
He doesn’t move a muscle, staring at me. 
Shoulders tense, that nigh impossible to sense strain on my cells plucks in discomfort. Still wearing someone else’s face, then. Casting a glance to the mirror across the room, I swallow hard. Never worn a team member’s face before—especially not one like Natasha’s. Entranced by her features, I can’t bear to look away for a moment, wondering what it’s like to live in this skin. Everyday, a masterpiece. Fingers touch her cheek, feeling the softness and bone structure beneath.
“Friday?” Bucky calls out, the A.I. replying immediately. “Could you get Natasha in here, please?”
“No,” I cough in alarm, mind unfocused and flickering with images of people. Only one misplaced thought and—Pop!
It takes a moment to realize that the voice screaming in agony is my own. Body an indiscernible monstrosity of misshapen limbs and skin. I choke on air, ill-formed inside as I am out.
“Shit, sweetheart,” Bucky curses, hands hovering over this body I’ve created. “You gotta calm down, shift back.”
A gurgle is the only reply this throat can make, pain lancing through each cell of my being. Yet tears still form in my eyes, dripping down contorted cheeks, hands unable to wipe them away. So much pain, it blinds and burns. Legs unable to collapse from the intensity of it all, the bones fused at awkward angles and supporting me with nothing more than the inability to bend.
“What happened?” Natasha exclaims, rushing into the room in a panic. 
Bucky explains, hands raking through his long hair, pulling at the strands, fear rolling off him in waves. “What do we do?” he asks, looking between the two of us.
Natasha says my name softly, approaching on cautious feet. “Can you shift back?”
An almost imperceptible shake moves my head back and forth, unsure I can focus on anything with this pain consuming every thought. 
Her eyes dart around the room, getting closer and closer. Inhaling deeply, she begins to hum a song. Familiar and melancholy. Her arms wrap around me—as best they can with the disfigurement of my body. Her hands stroke over my twisted spine, a tilt of her head beckoning Bucky to join us.
His warmth ensconces me from behind, surrounding me. My eyes close, fighting back against the onslaught of pain and concentrating. The tension releases slowly, organs shifting and reforming properly before my bones crack and I collapse for the rest of the transformation. 
A gasp punches from my chest, body flooded with endorphins. 
“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, kneeling beside me and wiping the sweat from my brow.
I nod, delirious. 
Natasha settles beside her partner, resting a hand on his shoulder. They both look to each other, concern flashing in their eyes. They begin to rise, a slow trepidatious movement.
“Stay,” I whimper, reaching blindly to clutch at their legs, “Please.”
“Of course,” Bucky soothes, the tension in the air easing. He bends low and with the gentlest touch he can manage, lifts me from the floor. “We’re not leaving you.”
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It happens on the next mission. My arm taking a life of its own. Refusing to turn back to my true form once the quinjet takes off from its landing pad. I stare at the foreign limb—veiny and grizzled. The tension of my transformation melts away. But it does not leave. 
“What’s wrong?” Natasha asks, taking the seat beside me. 
Without words to convey my confusion, I raise the unfamiliar digits of this hand for her to see. She takes it in her own, the touch light and careful.
“How do we fix this?”
“Lady B used to break it when I was younger,” I reply with a furrowed brow. “Something about the pain kickstarted the transformation back.”
“We’re not doing that,” she refuses, sitting back but keeping my hand in hers. “We’ll figure out another way.”
But nothing comes to mind on the journey back to the Tower. I’m left with the strange limb as I grab my gear and exit the jet, disturbed by this turn of events. My feet tread a curious path, seeking the one person I can think of to help.
“Bucky,” I greet, hiding my arm behind me. 
He smiles, standing from the couch and setting aside a thick book scrawled with some foreign language along the spine.
Still in my combat suit and not in the slightest prepared to change until my body gets back to normal—or at least the same figure all over—my attention settles upon the place where his metal arm should hang. It’s missing. 
He fidgets under my scrutiny, reaching up to his shoulder as if trying to conceal the sight of his empty sleeve. A faint thought tickles at the back of my mind, but I shake it away. No time for innocuous matters. 
“I need you to break my arm,” I announce, meeting his eye. “Please.”
His veneer cracks at my nonchalance, smile dropping from his lips. “Come again?”
I sigh, bringing the unsightly limb out from behind my back. “It won’t turn back.” The fist clenches.  “I need you to break it, so I can make it.”
Bucky’s lips open, wide eyes shining in confusion and the barest hint of betrayal. But I can think of no other way and—
“He’s not doing that,” Natasha bites from behind, shouldering past to wrap her arms around her partner and peck a kiss to his lips before turning back to me. “Why would you suggest something like that? After everything?” Hurt shines in her eyes, too, and I swallow around the lump that forms in my throat. 
We stand in silence for a long moment. I know the reason why I’m asking him. Why I told her on the jet. Why I’m coming to them out of every person inhabiting the Tower.
“I trust you more than anyone,” I reply in a wavering whisper. “There’s no one else.” My eyes squeeze shut, head turning away at the confession. Vulnerability more foreign and unsettling than the limb that refuses to reform to my true shape.
A soft sound of realization echoes from the pair. They stand still for a moment before approaching on wary, hopeful steps. 
It takes all night, but we find another way.
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“You’re certainly quiet tonight,” Tony says, sidling up beside me and nudging his elbow into my side. “Don’t want to be center spotlight?”
“No,” I reply. A sip of my drink burns and tickles at the back of my throat. Scanning the crowd, I turn away from the man, but he’s not done with me quite yet. 
“Your besties not here yet?” he asks, leaning a smidge too far into my personal space. 
I sigh and move away, hoping he’ll get the hint. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Another sip burns, but satisfies the ire bubbling in my belly. Keeping it from climbing up my throat. 
He hums and drinks from his own glass, stepping aside to give me some space. His brow quirks, examining me like a specimen in a petrie dish. A sensation to which I’ve grown accustomed—with my upbringing and all. 
At least his eyes don’t sparkle with the expectation for amusement tonight, like I’m the main attraction. 
“Can I help you with something?” I inquire with the tilt of my head. 
“Maybe,” he says, smacking his lips. “I’ve been trying to puzzle it out, but can’t quite get the big picture.”
My teeth clench, jaw ticking, waiting for the deep dive into my past that always seems to come hand-in-hand with a scientific mind like his.
“Are you, Nat, and Bucky a thing?” He sets his empty glass down and gestures to me. “And if you are, what kind of thing are you?”
I remain silent, taken aback by his thought, but unable to answer. I couldn’t define it if given the chance. Natasha and Bucky might be able to, though. Yet none of it reveals itself upon my face, a mask of indifference holding strong.
“She’s our partner,” Bucky responds walking up with Natasha on his arm. Looking as elegant and deadly as they are. 
“Partner?” Tony looks between the couple and I, running a hand over his mouth.
“Yes,” Natasha replies.
The billionaire keeps looking, as if the truth will reveal itself without another word spoken. But in the end, he asks, “Romantic or vocational?”
“Yes,” she purrs, wrapping her arm through mine and leading me away without another glance back. When the temptation to gauge Tony’s reaction creeps up my spine, she senses it and soothes, “Don’t worry about him.” Her path guides us over toward a bench and sits us down, taking her place to my side and setting the super soldier on my other. “He means well, but always tries to place labels on things he doesn’t understand.”
Bucky’s fingers weave through mine on the bench, pressing his warm palm to my knuckles. Distracting me from Natasha.
“You look lovely,” he whispers in my ear. 
“Perfect, even,” Natasha adds, resting her head on my shoulder. Though I don’t know how she hears him. 
I don’t question it. Don’t need to. It just makes sense. In this loud and chaotic world, where everyone tries to drag me in every direction, where I must reform myself again and again for the pleasure of others, where they ask only for me—they just make sense. 
And I feel at peace.
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katyspersonal · 11 months
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*kicks in the door*
KATY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I COME TO GIVE YOU ASKS ABOUT YURIE!!!
1) What would their social media page/activity be like
4) Physical headcanons (sleeping habits, favourite food, all that)
8) Made-up connections with other characters that weren't in the canon (friends, enemies, whatever)
9) Headcanons about their past
Have a good one!!!
YOOOOOOO! I didn't expect this!! Finally, a chance to talk about her! (Also, a small bit ahead - I tend to call her Julie instead (Czech variant of Julia), as it is a more proper translation of her name, and I use Yurie sometimes for ease of a communication. There used to be a post by Saintmic about names but TLDR; the エ (ye) in her name ユリエ (yu-ri-ye) is not silent, and it is a different name than the existing Japanese name Yuri (ユリ or sometimes ゆり).. Besides, Soulsborne games always have a character with a variant of this name (such as Zullie, Yulia or Yuria/Julia))
(Asks from this ( x ) meme)
1) What would their social media page/activity be like
Hahaha... I imagine her as being someone whose page is mostly reblogs. 90% of them are from Willem x) But really, though. She would often not find what to say by herself, but would share some based takes - criticisms of modern culture, spreading awareness of some interesting statistics, journal articles that are based on cold and hard facts without any propaganda (good OR bad)... Her personal posts are rare and are either pictures + texts about something from her ordinary life, or vents. However, she'd constantly get the "DELETE THIS" DMs from Laurence (for reblogging some statistic about "effectiveness" of the Healing Church's procedures). Surprisingly, Willem himself never gets any flack despite being the OP of the posts she reblogs to begin with xD
4) Physical headcanons (sleeping habits, favourite food, all that)
Julie normally prepares her breakfast, lunch and dinner in advance, just so she would not have to get distracted from routine work (that tends to occupy her strongly). She cannot care less about her food being cold or even getting stale for that matter. But she behaves differently during her time of caring about Rom as a human; Rom tends to forget to eat as well, and for HER Julie is willing to make sure the food is fresh from the oven and is in its best quality.
She ends up chugging too much blue elixirs later in her story, exactly for the side-effect they are giving - to numb her brain. Julie never had a drinking problem prior - be it the holy blood, the sedatives, the blue elixirs or even actual alcohol, but she got a chance to drink with Fauxsefka a little too often and developed the habit very soon.
All her character sliders have the number at 0 except for arms that has 130 (middle), soooo. Her strongest part is her arms - not too muscular, but strong. If she ever must fight without weapon, she will exclusively fist-fight (or hit one's vulnerable spots, should they lack enough armour). Her punches are not strong (her STR is only 13), but she knows where and how to punch for maximally damaging effect (SKL is 33).
I used to think that she was bald for the same reason as Willem and Slime Scholars (so, Arcane?), but hair falling out from Arcane would not explain her notably bushy EYEBROWS, so I ended up deciding she does have hair tucked under that cap. I also decided to bridge the gap with learning about her NPC data colors too late by having her dye her hair brown or black-ish sometimes. Even prior that, I've had a running gag with drawing her with different hairstyle every single time, but by now she developed more tomboyish look in my interpretation!
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She has an eagle sharp eyesight, is able to effortlessly read the tiniest letters without magnifying glass, or even looking in too close, for that matter. Others joke that she developed it by working with literal eyes too much; most of the jars with eyeballs were prepared and preserved by her!
8) Made-up connections with other characters that weren't in the canon (friends, enemies, whatever)
Damian: Fun fact, him and Julie were my next ship after Micorom (before I made Rom Mico's sister instead)! I've noticed that both her and Damian qualify as "failed" members of their respective factions and it snowballed... xD Since then a lot of headcanons were rearranged, but I still enjoy the idea of them as a ship! However, by now them just being close friends works better; Julie is Rom's caretaker, no dissimilar to how Damian basically became Micolash's "butler" before he noticed, so the two are a bit too attached to their (slightly crazy) blorbos to devote to significant romantic relationship otherwise. But, Damian and Julie always had a lot to talk about, and always were the most responsible people in Byrgenwerth (the type to always volunteer to clean the classroom after lessons, to decorate everything for the holidays, etc etc...).
Towards the game events they do become enemies though, as Damian has to face it that Rom has to die for at least a chance of stopping Mensis ritual, and Julie won't have that. It would further wreck him, of course, as he just keeps losing the scholars that were close to him.. but let's hope that the good ol' 'nobody REALLY can die in Bloodborne' works hahaha. ALSO! When I explored the idea of lucky charms to block out the 'evil' telepathy, I had Damian to wear a silver bell tied with Julie's trademark blue ribbon; she gifted it to him upon their parting!
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Fauxsefka: They have had a lot of tension between each other ever since being Byrgenwerth scholars, and frequent disagreements. Not really enemies, but their personalities do not mesh well at all; Julie is level-headed despite her grumpiness and Fauxsefka is easily deluded although 'friendly', Julie is open-minded but Fauxsefka is prone to fanatism and black-white thinking, Julie often chooses passive ways (such as preferring to not touch Mensis ritual and slowly 'evolve' people) but Fausxefka will take active, decisive actions (such as running off and forcibly evolving people into Kin so they can't become beasts instead). They are opposites that not complete each other, but tend to argue. Fauxsefka called Julie callous and vile on multiple occasions, Julie called her crazy and deranged in return. Even the last time they've interacted, they were fighting exactly over Fauxsefka's idea to return to her experiments, and she told Julie that she should have known better than to believe she'd understand her. Granted, they were trying their best to get along for years, but some people are just not compatible.
Iosefka: She is Fauxsefka's twin. Despite sharing more in common with Julie, Iosefka is a more tender and malleable pushover than her, so she'd tend to go along with Fauxsefka most of the time rather than argueing.
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However, that made Julie a little bit of a 'therapist' friend for Iosefka, and she knew more about her than even her sister. Iosefka entrusted Julie about supporting Micolash's ideas more (at the time), and Julie was the best to hear her out, as someone both critical but not controlling. (Besides, she already used to it, as Rom outright idealized Micolash...) Their friendship was a bit one-sided, but Julie appreciated the trust, and Iosefka appreciated being given space and perspective.
Edgar: Julie liked him more than she'd want to admit, it is as if the guy embodies exactly the kind of a person Julie wishes she was but simply can't be. Not because she is 'bad' but because she is Julie, not Edgar! xd In fact, she envied him, both in good and bad ways. She also had slight fear that he'd 'steal' Rom from her that she'd repress. Most of all traits, she appreciated his independent, non-conforming thinking! Although Julie, likewise, didn't fit into Choir, but her reason was to side with Willem's approach much more. Edgar though? That guy was an unhinged, unbreakable individualist, questioning anything (including even the most sacred and dogmatic things) and anyone (regardless of their age and experience). Yet, this also ended up the trait she resents him by now, since Edgar, sent to spy on Micolash, ended up "thinking that Micolash's ideas make more logical sense". Funny enough, fuming mad at Edgar for being a 'traitor' was the most sincere moment of bonding and agreement Julie ever had with Fauxsefka in her entire life.
White Church Hunter (yes, the one in Research Hall): Vasylissa was Willem's Julie before Julie was Willem's Julie x) Julie tends to develop bonds that are either tense or unequal, but these two had a rather warm bond. The only reason they didn't become girlfriends is because Julie already was too attached to Rom and Vasylissa was always busy with something. But as a very responsible scholar, Julie would get praise from Vasylissa often, down to receiving headpats (that made her blush). Vasylissa would also often find herself pleasantly surprised by Julie having already completed some tasks she thought she'd have to do! They repeated the dynamic in the Research Hall a lot, except now they'd occasionally have cup of tea to bitch about Laurence xd I think it could've been a cute ship in an AU though!
Micolash: Had it not been for LAWS OF THIS LAND- errr, Damian and Rom, Julie would have probably hated him! It doesn't change the fact that he is completely lost on her after going completely batshit (even on his own faction), but being close with two people that loved the guy for years made Julie well aware of his tragic past and sympathetic traits. She simply could not feel hostile towards him, he basically became a friend-in-law, but could very well see Micolash was a dangerous person. She'd attempt to sneak on him without Rom knowing to check whether he was up to something, but either Micolash would be aware and tangle his traces... or Damian would catch her and carry her away like a puppy sdhfgds Rom's love towards Micolash had rubbed onto Julie so much that even if the siblings were to fall apart or one hurt another, she'd try to reconcile them and be a mediator between the two.
Laurence: Unlike what was going on with Fauxsefka, her tension with Laurence was more similar to animosity. Less heated but more 'genuine' conflicts, that stemmed from clashing ideologies rather than clashing temperaments. None of them wanted to become an "enemy" to each other, but it just so happened that Julie OFTEN had something to say against him. She, like Willem and Vasylissa, resented him wasting himself to the ambitions and the plan that was not promising much success in the long run; Laurence pretentiously expressed sadness about her being a very responsible and hard-working asset yet 'having' to always go against him... all that. The difference is that when Laurence would cringe and fail, Julie would feel genuinely concerned about his future, but should Julie make a mistake, Laurence would be gleeful.
9) Headcanons about their past
My impression about her is that if she'd always been the goodie-two-shoes A+ responsible pupil, she'd likely burn out by the time she enrolls in Byrgenwerth! So I'd say she used to be more mediocre kind of kid and teen, only developing the hard-working and respectful attitude over age. You know, as if to compensate for "missed" opportunities in the past!
She'd had a bit of a hard character since childhood, and unfortunately no help or guidance for it. Grown-ups would either not give her much mind as the "no fun" kid or try to make her smile by giving her candy or small gifts. Julie ended up even more aloof and sulky child, feeling like nobody could like her the way she was. It did not help that when she DID try to connect with her peers, they'd make light-hearted jokes about her deigning them with presence at last.. that only made her feel MORE reclusive.
But she'd find a productive outlet for her pent-up aggression in defending the bullied kids with her fists and winning! Along with that, she'd often do boring voluntary job for school all alone, just as long as she could be busy with something. Over time, that formed a circle of thankful, well-meaning people around her that remembered her kindness and other good traits even into young adulthood. None were quite close friends, but under sense of having 'contributed' to the society despite a rocky start in life, Julie started to grow softer.
Julie was one of the people who joined Byrgenwerth only 'after it became cool' (ie not for archeology, but for weird ancient arcane secrets)! She got an impression that over there, people had finally re-discovered something humanity needed but had lost and forgotten. It was a struggle though, as her parents tried to argue that she was on her way to 'simply study something interesting', that did not seem to promise much career opportunities. She felt very guilt and uneasy about her decision, that only had faded when she met Rom and formed a bond with her.
Thank you for asking me! <:3
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quibbs126 · 1 year
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After drawing that last page, I decided to just draw more of Eileen
First it just started with me drawing her full body ref, since I realized that I should probably do that, but then after drawing it and looking at another drawing I did of her I realized I ended up giving them the same exact expression, despite not looking at that other drawing until after I finished. So I realized I should probably shake up her expressions a bit more and did those other drawings up at the top (fun fact, that’s how I adjust my glasses)
I swear, her glasses are so much easier to draw when I’m not having to draw her eyes as well, I really need to get better at those
So you may be wondering what the drawing of her with a bloody katana and blood splattered across her face is about, and to be honest…it kind of doesn’t mean anything. This is just what I see when listening to “Shinigami” by Kenshi Yonezu (well to an extent, the picture in my head is a little more detailed, may make the full thing one day) and I just wanted to draw it
Yeah honestly the problem I have with Eileen is that I just…don’t know what to do with her, or more accurately, I can’t figure out what to do with her. Like, I have ideas that she’s a doctor (though I’m not sure what in because while I could say archaeology, one if that’s the case why didn’t Targent offer her a position too because she’s just as if not more capable in the subject as Desmond (because in my interpretation she really did die (though I suppose that could be changed)) two I feel like there’s too many archaeologists already, we don’t need to add more, and three it makes her too similar to Desmond; but while I’m not sure if I want her to be an archaeologist, I don’t know what else to give her other than psychology), she is very chaotic and basically the instigator of Descole’s crime life, she might have been the one to teach Des sword fighting, she wore his glasses, Eileen is not her real name, she has done plenty of bad things and starts out with relatively low empathy, she’s potentially at least partially Japanese, and she doesn’t know how to deal with small children, but I don’t have anything solid for her, just ideas that float around with little connective tissue. I don’t know her backstory or why she is the way she is, I don’t know her real name, heck I can’t even get a real grip on her personality and it’s all really frustrating.
Oh yeah, and that last drawing? I just like to think she sleepwalks. She has this odd look in her eyes when she does so, so you can tell when she’s doing it. The scene depicted would be Des finding out she does this, or at least that in the middle of the night she goes out and eats biscuits from the pantry. He walks in to the kitchen to get some water in the middle of the night, and he just sees Eileen standing there. And she sees him, and she just stares, all while still eating the biscuit, not even stopping what she’s doing, just keeps eating, all the while just staring at him with her glazed over eyes. He eventually leaves
She gets into all sorts of shenanigans because of her sleepwalking. Sometimes she’ll wake up somewhere completely different with no clue how she got there, and she’ll have to try and call the Bostonius for someone to pick her up. She was not drunk, she just sleepwalked. Fun fact, did you know sleepwalkers can get up to all sorts of things, including getting dressed, holding conversations, and driving cars? At least that’s what I’ve been told, someone verify if that’s true if you can
But yeah
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black-is-iconic · 5 months
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My Time At Akademi University
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A heavy sigh falls from your lips as pink petals fall gracefully from the heavens like a thousand delicate butterflies. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes and breath the scent of cherry blossoms.
The sweet scent of blooming cherries fills you with a sense of calm as the sakura trees sway gently in the wind, there was almost an air of superiority surrounding the prestigious school everyone walked with pride and a sense of purpose when they entered the premises.
The sounds of a thousand steps like roaring thunder in your ear as you slowly made your way to the foot of Akademi High, almost intimidated by it's elegance.
Akademi was know for taking taking Japan's youth and molding them into blue blooded Ivy league students that would someday become Japan's most influential and pristine citizens, perfect students for a perfect school...quite the reputation to live up to....another sigh falls from your lips as you take that first step toward your future with confidence.
As you enter, you notice the sea of students splitting off into their own respective cliques you'd done your research prior to applying for this school, just so you knew whose toes to avoid stepping on and what clique you should join.
For example Musume Ronshaku and her brainless carbon copies, the bullies or mean girls of Akademi High. Like a tight knit group of pestilent pariah picking on anyone below them who didn't fit in either with their class, or lack thereof.
Then there were the theater kids....with their flamboyant and overly dramatized movements, colorful glamorous outfits, flashy accessories and overblown attitudes; it kinda screamed closet gays. Then there were the emos who made their entire personalities...black, black hair, black clothes, black eyeliner, black bags...
Being part of the brainless bimbos would be nice. You would instantly gain status and influence within the inner circle of the student body, but they were also hated by the people they picked on being associated with them would instantly earn you a negative reputation as well.
And you really wanted to stay neutral this time around so that was a big ol nope, it was a no for the drama kids and the emos too.
You were almost sure that joining the emo's would result in bullying, and the theater kids....well they typically sat in a gray zone which sometimes dipped into bullied territory.
Yet another sigh fell from your lips as you made your way to your lockers and swapped your shoes following the slow moving kids through the plain white halls. Taking in all you're new school had to offer, colorful posters promoting the various clubs sat plastered across the walls accompanied by a slew of trophies , pictures, medals and awards encased in a glass case.
As you continued to traverse the halls your phone vibrated in your pocket, pulling out your phone you noticed a little notification pop up and open a text message.
Curious at the message you open up the message and read the message which simply said: Welcome to Akademi High....the text came from an unknown number which you swiftly blocked and kept on walking.
But then your phone vibrated in your hand drawing your attention back to the screen where the same number texted you again :My name is Info-chan I'd advise against blocking my number you may need my services in the future...the text reach and you pursed your lips looking around the with an arched brow at the text before typing a response.
: Thanks Infochan, but I'm good no need but how did you unblock yourself from my phone? There was a long pause before a reply came in :that's just one of my many talents..I assure you you'll need my services sooner then you think everyone does, and with that you slide your phone in your pocket.
Red flags, red flags everywhere your mind echoed at you trying to figure out why you felt something off about Infochan but you shoved it aside for now and vowed to have your phone swept for bugs, viruses, or secret malware later.
As you turned a corner you ran smack dab into a brick wall, or at least something that very similar and fell on your butt.
A boisterous laugh filled your ears "sorry about that I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and was kinda rushing see I'm late for my martial arts club let me help you up" his voice was deep smooth and soothing like a velvet soft caress to your senses.
Puberty did him well he was tall and handsome with short black hair, that feathered out around his hair framing his creamy face in beautiful dark wisps.
Two stormy gray eyes peered down at you like two swirling clouds in a winter storm, his lips curved slightly into a kind smile. "Sorry about that" he said offering his hand which you took, his hands were warm rough and calloused as he pulled you to your feet, "it's alright" you managed a nervous chuckle falling from your lips as you took in the school uniform that seemed rather tight along his toned body.
His eyes did a quick sweep of you and you could practically hear the gears turning inside of him, suddenly he snapped and smiled and it was rather.....cute "you must be new here" he beamed in a charmingly manner. "Wow brawns and brains..." your mouth ran faster than your brain could process and he laughed once more as you flushed in embarrassment.
"New girls got jokes" he grinned and you giggled a bit nervously rubbing the back of your neck "I'm Budo Masuta"
"Y/N L/N" you responded he squinted for a moment "huh that sounds foreign you're not from here are you?" He asked tilting his head in curiosity "wow two for two you're really observant aren't ya?"
You mused rubbing your arm and he laughed again "I think I might like you new girl you're kinda funny" he commented with a grin.
"Don't get too comfortable I don't usually make a habit of hanging around meatheads" you quipped and he snickered before dramatically acting hurt "aww come on now I'm not that bad, I'm genuinely a nice guy", you roll your eyes walking past him "well if you excuse me mister nice guy I have places to be" you called over your shoulder as you made your way to your way further down the halls.
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louis-arssets · 1 year
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25 Days of Drarry - Day 6
Day 6 of 25 Days of Drarry
Prompt F -- Cake and Gingerbread Village
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Image Description: A tall cake sits on a silver plate. The cake is roughly iced with white buttercream, decorations of rosemary sprigs, and deep red cherries form a border on top of the cake. Various gingerbread cookies decorated with plain white icing to look like houses and shop-fronts sit around the sides of the cake, while two more cookies are at the center-top of the cake. Three books are pictured to the top left of the scene, their covers deep red, gilded gold and silver. A single coupe glass filled with a light-pink coloured liquid is partially visible to the top right, and some loose rosemary leaves are on the table to the bottom left.
Tags: Established Relationship, Fluff, soft, Nervous!Draco
Read more under the cut or here on AO3.
Draco is a perfectionist. It’s a part of his character. On bad days he blames his parents, his bigoted pure-blood upbringing. The narrowmindedness he defended throughout his childhood.
On other days he acknowledges that he puts too much pressure on himself, trying to remedy his wrongdoings in the past. He’s talked about it with his mind healer. She told him that it’s okay to be a bit of a perfectionist as long as he did it for himself and not to prove to someone else that Draco is good. That he does his best. It’s not his responsibility to change someone else's mind about him. He should just try to be himself and let other people choose if they want to be his friend or not.
And Draco gets that. Still, it’s hard, sometimes.
It’s impossible when it comes to his maybe future mother-in-law. Not that Draco really thinks that Harry will be with him forever. That he will ask Draco to marry him. That would be… perfect. Heaven. All Draco could ever wish for. Utopian thinking on his side.
So, not really mother-in-law. Draco still wants to impress Molly Weasley. If his father could hear him he would probably scream the walls of Azkaban into their grounds. Luckily, Lucious can not hear him and won’t ever hear Draco again for the rest of his miserable life, if Draco’s concerned.
It’s Tuesday, December sixth. Harry and Draco are invited to the Burrow on Sunday, December eleventh. And Draco is highly motivated to make a good impression on Molly Weasley. Which, considering his past and the feud between their families is not the easiest task.
Soft lips press a kiss on his cheek and pull Draco out of his thoughts. “Stop brooding,” Harry whispers against his skin and kisses him again.
“I am not, Potter,” Draco grumbles but still offers his neck for further kisses which Harry accepts with a hum, whispering soft kisses on his skin. A shiver races down Draco’s body. He will never get used to this and he has to enjoy it as long as he can. Until Harry realizes that he can do so much better…
“Back to ‘Potter’, are we?” Harry chuckles and draws back. “So what are your plans?”
“What makes you think that I am planning anything?” Draco says innocently and puts his mobile on the table, display down. Harry has gotten him the mobile device a few weeks ago, claiming that it would make his life easier. He was right, of course. ‘Google’ has become one of Draco’s favourite things. The muggle world was so much more than Draco could have ever thought it would be. Google was also the place Draco was just lurking on when Harry came back home five minutes ago. He was searching for nice presents you could bring your in-laws when meeting them for the first time. Christmas-themed, of course. Not that the Weasleys would be Draco’s in-laws and not that they would see each other for the first time, but - well you get the point. Harry doesn’t need to know about Draco’s perfectionist tendencies when it comes to the Weasleys though. If he knew about the fact that Draco thought of Molly as his maybe-mother-in-law he would probably run and rightfully so. Alas, Draco is keeping it a secret. And he is playing it cool.
“You’re not as cool as you think you are, my love,” Harry laughs. Okay, maybe Draco’s not really playing it cool.
“Whatever,” he says and rolls his eyes. “How was your day?”
“I realize that you’re trying to distract me, but I love you enough to ignore it,” Harry says as if the words ‘I love you’ in context with Draco were the most normal thing in the world. Draco still forgets to breathe for a good minute whenever Harry drops the three-word sentence. “My day was surprisingly good,” he continues and marches over to the fridge to get a bottle of wine. He grabs two glasses from the cabinet and sits down at the kitchen table, across from Draco.
“Yeah?” Draco smiles and nods in thanks when Harry pushes one of the glasses to him.
“Yes, that meeting that I was supposed to have with Kingsley was postponed because he apparently has the flu, so I spend the whole morning doing paperwork.”
Draco scoffs. “You hate paperwork.”
“Usually, that’s right,” Harry concedes. “But while I was doing paperwork I was so bored that I actually cracked that stupid Smith case in my head. Went over to tell Ron, we apparated to Smith’s house and arrested him. He’s talking to his lawyer right now. Oh, by the way, Ron says Molly’s really looking forward to Sunday.”
White wine is suddenly where air should be and Draco violently starts coughing. Harry, the charming idiot, immediately jumps up and heartily slaps his back.
“Are you okay, love?”
“Sure,” Draco wheezes. “Is Mrs. Weasly aware that I will be attending Sunday?”
Harry, who has sat back down in his chair, raises his eyebrows. “Of course, you know I told her. She’s been wanting you to come for months, you know that.”
Draco swallows heavily. Harry’s right. Draco’s been pushing away the meeting for months now, but he promised Harry. He’s just not sure if Mrs. Weasley really wants him to come because she is happy that Harry’s got a boyfriend, or because she wants to hex him to the north pole. He really needs to work on his present for Sunday.
**
His present is shit. He had mulled over what to get for the remainder of the week with no positive outcome. So he panicked. He thought, well if I am a trained potions master then I will be able to bake a cake. Mrs. Weasley loves to cook so she would probably appreciate some fine dessert. In that whole process of him looking up a recipe on Google, going shopping at Tesda (or was it Asco? Something muggle, anyways), and tying an actual apron around his waist, did he forget that he had no clue how to cook or bake. Harry always did the cooking, claiming that it was his way of relaxing after a tough day at the DMLE. And whenever a case demanded from him that he worked late or had no time to prepare something, Draco either went out with Pansy and Blaise or ordered in.
So the cake had ended in disaster. The only thing that turned out remotely decent were the little gingerbread houses. (He bought the houses and decorated them with white glaze). So on Sunday morning, two hours before the brunch, he ran to Tascos and bought a cake, raced back home, and decorated the cake with his stupid gingerbread houses, some twigs, and cherries (of all things in winter, whatever). It did look festive, at least.
Now he’s standing in front of the Burrow crushing Harry’s hand in his and he feels the sweat roll down his neck.
“Relax, babe. They will love you before you know it you will be adopted into the family,” Harry smiles next to him and bends down to press a quick kiss onto Draco’s cheek.
Before Draco is able to answer, the door in front of them is opened by nonother than the Weasley matriarch.
“Hello loves,” she smiles, little crinkles forming at her eyes. She’s wearing a soft-looking jumper and, of course, a yellow apron. Because Draco realizes, she actually knows how to cook. He’s a fraud.
Next to him, Harry takes a step forward and opens his mouth to greet his adoptive mum but before he can say a word Draco crumbles.
“I baked you a cake,” he says and thrusts the cake into Mrs. Weasley’s arms. “I didn’t bake it, actually. I couldn’t. I can’t cook and I can’t bake but I wanted to pretend in front of you so I bought a cake and I decorated it with shit and this is it. I’m in no shape or form worth being in your beautiful house or being with your amazing son. I am a fraud so I’m gonna go. It was really nice seeing you again, Mrs. Weasley, I will never bother you again.” Draco nods and turns to Harry who is looking at him with big eyes and a little frown on his face.
“Potter, thank you for the good time. I will immediately move out, thank you,” he repeats and disapparates on the spot.
As soon as he lands in their, no Harry’s flat, he starts opening cupboards and pulling out random stuff he probably won’t need in his near future. He already plans to go to Pansy’s. At least she’ll have wine to drown in. He feels tears prickling in his eyes. He can’t believe that he ruined his entire future with Harry in just one minute. It fits, though. To the disaster, he calls life.
Draco takes a deep breath, lets himself fall onto one of the kitchen chairs, and burrows his face in his hands. He just needs one minute to control himself, then he will continue to get his stuff and go.
Before he can do that he hears the telltale sound of someone apparating.
“I will be gone in a minute,” he chokes out. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”
“Oh love,” a female voice answers and suddenly Draco finds himself in the strong embrace of the Weasley matriarch. If he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to free himself from the tight hug. He doesn’t want to leave, though.
“You’re alright, sweetheart,” Mrs. Weasley continues and softly strokes his back. “I know that everything is a bit much, but you don’t have to worry about a thing. The past is in the past and we already love you very much.”
“Re- really?” Draco sobs into her shoulder.
“Of course, sweetheart. And I appreciate that you wanted to prepare something for me, but you don’t have to impress me. I see how happy you make our Harry and I see how much he loves you whenever he talks about you, which is constantly.” She chuckles and rustles Draco in their embrace. He feels so loved right now, he doesn’t know what to do. “I know that we can be a bit much. We just want to get to know you a little better, is that alright?”
Draco swallows heavily and rights himself. It is amazing how the small Molly Weasly was able to completely engulf him in a hug, although he’s two heads taller.
“I would like to know you, too. I just wish that you will still want me as Harry’s partner when you know me.”
Mrs Weasley smiles at him and places a warm hand on his cheek. “Come on, love. I will place you right next to me on the table. We put Harry on your other side and Ron and Hermione opposite. Then you have all the people that already love you very much around you. And you know that none of my children are brave enough to say something against you if I have a say in it.” Her smile turns into a cheeky grin and she grabs his hand. “How’s that sound?”
Draco sniffles a little but smiles back. “It sounds wonderful, Mrs. Weasley.”
“Call me Molly, dear. Or mum. I will be your mother-in-law, so we can start with that now, don’t you think?”
**
Draco’s a perfectionist. It’s part of his character. The first meeting was far from perfect but that doesn’t matter as long as you have loving people around that don’t care about perfection. They only care about you, they only want to love you. It’s something Draco realizes on that day and continues to learn throughout his life with Harry and his in-laws whom he loves very, very much.
Day 5 -- Day 7
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fanficwriter284 · 2 years
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Chuck's Got SO MANY MUGS! XD
Ok, so it's currently 11 at night, my eyes are twitching. Anyway.... wrote an Ask the Rays Fanfic a few days ago and a lightbulb went off in my head, so I had to write this before losing this idea! I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!
@asktherays
Ever since Tiffany was pregnant with Lottie, she needed a lot of attention or zero. Regardless Chucky had to stay awake longer than he should. Chuck tended to the twins and the household, he also has insomnia on top of it, so he never slept much despite Tiffany's protest. One time she sat on him and made sure he went to sleep (Just try and picture that LMAO). So, he began to drink A LOT of coffee to get him by. Until his smart-mouthed daughter who he adored started talking smack. Since Chucky had drunk coffee out of glass cups or the twin's plastic cups. It got even to the point where Glen chimed in on his sister's remarks. Chucky eventually grew annoyed with their little rants and just went online and bought some coffee mugs on a website called...
CUSTOMME.ORG.
He put little custom phrases on them just to spite his children and used a little clipart button it inserts drawings of knives, blood, or anything to his liking. The mugs were good quality, and he was pleased he got his money's worth of mugs. Even after Tiffany gave birth and there would no longer be a need for him to be staying up super late, he continued to purchase custom mugs. To the point where he became OBSESSED! He even has his own cupboard of mugs filled with custom inscriptions. Sometimes for the holidays, the kids would get him a mug with all their mischievous faces on them and gift it to him as a gag gift.
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