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johnkrrasinski · 4 years

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𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐥𝐞

Chapter 5: Now I’m in Exile

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Pairings: Dark!Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 8,310

Summary: Steve Rogers; a Hollywood A-lister and your clandestine occasional hookup. Best friends since childhood, but people change and friendships fall out. Now you were merely strangers with benefits. What happens when one day you stopped being his doormat to be a better man’s queen? The selfish Steve Rogers would not like it. How far is he willing to go to get his favorite possession back?

Warnings: smut, non-con/dub-con, dark Steve (in later chapter), angst, Steve Rogers is an asshole in this one, no redeeming qualities. (MUST BE 18+)

A/N: this series is dedicated to the lovely @belovedcherry who commissioned this story and developed the concept. thank you for being a friend when i truly needed it. i’m really glad that you trusted me to write this story for you. with all my heart, i sincerely hope you like it. this series will be updated every day.

The calling tone reverberated in your hand as the beaming grin on your face mirrored on the screen. With every passing second, your anticipation grew. You couldn’t control your fidgeting so you took a deep breath and-

“Hey, boo!” Natasha’s voice modulated.

You lifted your right hand to the front camera’s level, revealing the rose golden Cartier wrapped finger as it glimmered under the light.

“Oh my God! Did he…?”

“Mhm,” you nodded. “I’m engaged, Nat!”

Natasha put a hand over her mouth, “holy shit! Girl, I’m so happy for you! Congratulations!” the gaiety on her face was palpable, you could feel it through the screen. There’s a reason why she and Wanda were the first people you passed the happy news to. After your parents of course.

“Thank you so much! I can’t believe it. Eight months ago, I thought I’d be single forever but here I am…”

“Yeah, things escalated quickly for you! Now you are someone’s fiancee and seven months pregnant. It’s mind-boggling,” she spoke like a proud sister. “I’m beyond happy for you. Really, I am.”

“I know this is probably too soon but, will you be my maid of honour, Nat?”

“You know damn well there’d be no wedding if you didn’t ask me to. Hell yeah, I will!”

“Ah, yes!” you hurrayed in excitement. “Alright, I’ll catch up to you later, okay? I gotta call Wanda too.”

“Do whatever you want boo, it’s your day.”

You hung up the phone and went through your contacts list, then clicked the phone number under Wanda’s name. The excitement bubbled up in your chest as you pictured the smile on her face when she sees the new lustrous thing on your finger.

Eight months earlier…

“Hey, y/n. It’s me, Adrian. It was a pleasure meeting you last night. How is the dress doing?”

“She is going for a dry cleaner. It was lovely to meet you too, except for the drink-spilling stain of course.”

“Sorry about that. But it got me your number and I would’ve done it again if that’s what it costs.”

You smiled down at your phone under the warm glow of the morning sunlight. “You showed me pictures of your dogs and cat so it’s a win-win situation for us both.” Wink emoji.

“Perhaps you and I could chat more about my dogs and my cat over a cup of coffee?”

“Will you promise you won’t spill the coffee on my shirt this time?”

“You have my word.”

“I’ll consider it, then.”

“Next Friday, at 7 PM. Write that down on your calendar.”

“I didn’t even say yes.”

He sent an adorable picture of his pomeranian dog looking up at him with pleading eyes. “How can you say no to this face?”

“Say no more. I’ll see you next Friday.”

Two weeks after the date.

You regurgitated your guts out in the toilet bowl and held up your hair, trying not to let the vomit splotch a strand of it. This was the third time you had to run to the loo to spew the queasiness in your body. You felt dizziness clouding your head. What the hell is wrong with your body? This had been a daily occurrence for the past one week.

You sat on the toilet lid after everything you swallowed earlier was out. You recollected every food that had made its way into your digestion the past couple of days… Did you eat something inedible? Perhaps that ice cream in your refrigerator had passed its expiration date, but you only bought it three days ago at the grocery store and you swore it could still last for two more months.

Maybe that shrimp that you ate at the Chinese restaurant with Adrian last night was stale. Ugh, you’re gonna need to talk to Adrian about this but you didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Perhaps, it was just another sickness caused by an unknown bad food.

But you also retrospected the shift in your body for the past couple of weeks. Your period was late this month… It should’ve started three days ago, what is happening? Could it be…? Oh no, there’s no way. You and Adrian hadn’t even moved it to the bedroom yet, so that means… If you are, then… It must be… Steve’s.

Oh hell no.

You recalled, the last time you and Steve met up for your weekly (sometimes more) hookup appointment was the day after you and Adrian met up for a coffee, which was your very first date with him. You didn’t know there would be plenty more to come so you went to what you had planted your soles so deep in, which was Steve Rogers’s penthouse in the upper east.

He had you on top with your arse facing him because he enjoyed the view better than your face. You struggled to bounce yourself up and down on his massive size. He could be such a sluggard sometimes but a man like him would always get his way, and if he needed to fuck out some tension, then he’d use you as a masturbation aid for as long as he wanted.

His grip on your hips was ruthless, you knew it was going to cause some bruises tomorrow but you couldn’t care any less. Not when he was pulling you down this deep that you could feel him penetrating your womb. His grunts filled your ears with eroticism and you picked up your pace to help him reach his climax. You shut your eyes with your mouth hanging open as soft moans escaped through your lips. You clenched around him and you felt his cock throbbed, you knew it was coming. Literally. Your coil shattered just a few seconds before he released his seed deep inside you. He pulled out and went to the bathroom to clean himself up and left you rumpled on the couch.

He left to Atlanta the next day to shoot a new movie. Something about an organization reinforced by the Nazi during World War II, and how the Captain leads an elite combat unit to the battle against an organization called Hydra. You didn’t know that until you looked it up on the internet.

You hadn’t received another booty call for him ever since. He was probably sleeping with twenty-something-year-olds models in Atlanta though.

And you had made peace with the tragic reality you were stuck in. You had accepted the reality that you and Steve were like riding down a dead-end street. There was no making love on Sunday mornings and have brunch together afterwards. There was no settling down in a countryside house where your kids could run around barefoot on the front yard. There was no marriage vows and walking down the aisle in white for you.

But all that changed when you decided to take a pregnancy test and the result revealed that you were indeed pregnant. You took three more and the results were all the same. Fucking hell. What the hell are you going to do now?

You had to call Steve, right? He was the father after all. You couldn’t tell Adrian because he would despise you for sleeping with another man and possibly carrying his child and he probably would never want to talk to you anymore. He’d probably regret knowing you at all. And you didn’t want to send him away. You liked him, he was good for your heart and the more you explored him, the more mesmerized you become by his magnetic force.

You were distraught. You didn’t know what to do, you didn’t know whom to call, so you just sat there in the tenebrosity of your room, out of options and out of clue.

Eventually, you collected your nerves and you dialled Steve’s number. He didn’t answer. He told you once that he didn’t like being called unless he called you first so you never did, but this time, you had to speak to him. “Please, pick up…” you prayed while on the verge of breaking down completely.

You were directed to his voice mailbox.

“This is Steve Rogers and if I’m not picking up that probably means you shouldn’t be calling me.”

Beep. “Hey Steve, I’m really sorry for calling you this late but I really need to talk to you. Please, it’s urgent.”

Three hours later and there were still no callbacks. You had sent him twenty-eight text messages and his voice mailbox was full. If you waited one more goddamn second, you’d lose your mind. So you picked up your phone and bit the bullet and typed the words; “I’m pregnant and you are the father. Please call me back so we can talk about it.”

It was around 4.30 AM when you checked the time on your lock screen. You were fatigued; both physically and emotionally. You had to unwind from every quandary that impinged you today. It was a lot and you were at a complete loss, but you’ll figure it out tomorrow.

You didn’t sleep well that night, you kept waking up whilst it was still dark out, and you had to wake up at 7.30 tomorrow for work. You kept looking at the sleek device that was left unmuted on your bedside table in case Steve called back. He didn’t though. You only slept for an hour and you really wanted to take a day off but you’d lose your mind if you were left alone with your thoughts and no distraction. So you got out of bed, took a shower and prepared for work, with your thoughts filled with the future of this baby growing inside you and Steve. Why hasn’t he called back or even text at all? Does he really think so little of you?

The impulse to check your phone and call and text him every five minutes was adamantine. You tried to control the itch of sending him another text and voicemail but it failed until you read the words ‘not delivered’ in red under the last text message that you just sent. You tried to resend it over and over again and even tried to write a new message but it was the same result.

You moved to your call feature but after a single ring, you were diverted to voicemail. It took you a few seconds to realize that Steve had blocked you. You went to the last media to reach out to him and it was through his Instagram account. You didn’t even follow each other and you were certain that he received thousands of DMs and notifications every day from his obsessive fans. He had 39 million followers for God’s sakes, the hell is one message from you going to mean anything?

But you were despondent and you needed someone to go through this with, especially the father himself. You did it anyway without thinking twice and told him that you were pregnant and you needed to talk to him. You even sent a picture of those three pregnancy tests and attached it on your message. You couldn’t stop biting your lip and tapping your foot throughout the entire way to your work in the train. Man, were you really going to raise this child alone?

Three days later and still no signs of him attempting to return your messages. You had slowly accepted your fate that you were going to carry and raise this child alone. You still hadn’t told Adrian despite talking to him every day and it crushed your heart whenever you heard his elated tone. You could tell that he was really into you and he wanted to take this relationship further but sorrowfully, one way or another, you were going to have to tell him the secret growing in your belly and you were going to have to slaughter this exquisite potential. You wondered if the circumstances were different or you had met at another time or in another universe, would Adrian be the one you were meant to be with?

You made a promise to yourself that you were going to meet him tomorrow and tell him the truth. Delaying it wouldn’t make it any easier and it wouldn’t prevent the doom from happening. If anything, it would only elongate the hurt. So you picked up your phone after you cerebrated it on your mind and clicked on Adrian’s chat room; “meet me at the Drive Brew Cafe tomorrow? Got something I’d like to talk about.”

“Is it something really urgent or you’re just looking for an excuse to see me?” Wink emoji.

“Oh, stop flattering yourself. We really need to talk.”

“Usually, I’d ask a person the matter before I’d decide that it’s important enough for me to meet them in person but I’m giving you a pass.”

“Very generous of you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, y/n.”

You arrived ten minutes earlier than the time you both agreed to meet at. The cafe wasn’t too crowded, thank God, so you immediately ordered a cup of Machiatto for Adrian and a cup of hot chocolate to calm your nerves. After the barista called your name, you walked to the corner booth before anyone could occupy it first. You were going to need some privacy. You sat as your hands trembled from edginess. You couldn’t stop fidgeting and tapping your foot as the second passed by on the clock.

Exactly on 6.30 PM, a dashing brunet in a dark grey vest and rolled-up sleeves entered and you stood up to greet him. He just came home from work and man, it was impossible for him to ever look bad even for once, you were so lucky but life just kept finding a way to eliminate the people you cared about.

“Hey, you look good.” his British accent was thick. He kissed your cheek and embraced you with a warm smile.

“So do you. How was work?” You both sat on the opposite chairs of the booth.

“The ordinary. We had a meeting with a director of this historical film to get us to fund the project. How was yours?” The genuinely curious look on his face nearly changed your mind. Oh, how you wish you could hold on to this moment where you could still have him a little longer.

“Nothing new, just another day at work. This one’s for you by the way.” You didn’t know what more to say when your mind was cluttered so you stalled by passing over his drink.

“So, what’s so important that you needed to see me?”

“Adrian, you know, I really like you, right?” you took his hand in yours as you stared into his striking eyes. “And I’ll always be grateful that you were foolish enough to ruin my dress that night.”

He was perplexed. His eyebrows were furrowed. “As much as I enjoy your companion, I’m sure that you didn’t call me to meet you only to thank me for wrecking your dress, right?”

“Yeah, but um… I just, it’s been wonderful knowing you. And… Oh God, this is going a lot harder than I thought.”

He nodded. A dejected look on his face that you wished you could wipe out. “Let me save you the trouble… You are breaking up with me.” He didn’t say it as if he was guessing, he said it as if it was a declaration that he’d figured out before you could even formulate the words.

“Adrian… I’m pregnant. And you’re not the father, so don’t worry. I know when you first asked me out, this isn’t what you signed up for. So I’m setting you free. I’m sorry.”

You expected him to get up and walk out of the door, leaving you with your alienation but none of that was detected on his expression or his body language. “Who is the father?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Adrian…”

“Don’t I at least deserve to know who my girlfriend is sleeping with before I even took her to my bed?”

Girlfriend. Huh. Well, that’s first.

“Steve Rogers.”

“Steve Rogers the actor?”

“Yes…”

He snickered. That drew a mystification out of you. “What’s so funny?”

“So you’re into the arsehole type.”

“…How do you know what kind of person he is?”

“The movie that we had a meeting about today? He’s going to star in it and I’ve met him a couple of times at some parties. Not the nicest guy, eh?”

“I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

He sipped a bit of his coffee. “How did you get involved with a bloke like him?”

So you told him everything; the beginning of your friendship, the fallout, the moment he took your V-card in your dorm, and how years later, he still had you on a chokehold. He didn’t seem to mind one bit that the woman that he had been seeing had a history with someone. He’d dealt with much worse scenarios in his former dating lives. He wasn’t going to let other man’s neglected baby stand in the way of what could be something beautiful.

“I’m not walking away.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m staying. I like you and I know you feel the same way too. We are going to raise this baby together. No child deserves to grow up fatherless. I’m going to be its father.”

“Adrian, but…”

“No buts, we’ll get through this together. Now, let’s enjoy these tasty drinks before they get cold, yeah?”

So you nodded, too dumbstruck by the man before you. You drank your hot chocolate that was cooling down and let his presence soothe you better than the sweet drink on your tongue.

Steve went back to New York after spending nearly four months in Atlanta, shooting his movie. Man, he’d lost count on how many extras he had fucked in his hotel room but nothing felt as good as your pussy. He thought about your last text before he blocked you. You had claimed that you were pregnant with his baby. You must’ve lost your mind to think that he’d buy that shit.

So he picked up his phone, unblocked your number and pressed the call button. Three dial tones and a familiar voice answered. “Hello?”

“Hey baby, meet me at my place tonight.”

“Who is this?”

“Hillarious, y/n. I’m too fucking tired for jokes okay? Come here and suck my cock then maybe I’ll listen to your jokes.”

“Is this Steve Rogers?”

“Fuck yeah, it’s me, y/n. Who else do you think I am?”

A pause jammed the line. “I’m done, Steve.”

“What? The fuck do you mean you’re done?”

“I sent you thousands of texts and calls five months ago and you couldn’t even lift your fingers to answer.”

“I was in the middle of shooting, y/n. You know better than to call me while I’m working.”

“Oh, screw you, Steve. I’m pregnant and you didn’t even care? How much of an asshole can you be?”

“You were actually serious about that?”

“Of course you think I was joking. But don’t worry, it’s none of your concern now. We’re done. Don’t call me anymore.”

“Wait, wait! Y/N!” you cut off the line. “Ah shit.”

He tried to call five more times and you neglected every single one of them. In fact, you instantly blocked his number after the last phone call with him. You didn’t want to be associated with him anymore. You thought that Steve had forgotten about you since he blocked your number first so you never had to do it yourself. But of course, an entitled scoundrel such as he is would never stop taking and taking until you had nothing more to give.

It took you years of anguish, an unforeseen mishap and a beautiful stranger that ended up being the stupendous love you’d been looking for to open your eyes to the rotten core of Steve Roger’s heart. He ever only lusted for your flesh, he never gave a shit about you as a person.

You lived for the hope of it all, you cancelled plans just in case he’d call, and you never once suspected the pitfall, but you were no longer that foolish girl anymore. You had met a real man now and he led you to the path of love and happiness and Steve was no longer the most intrinsic thing on your mind.

Steve was going apeshit. He had never been rejected or denied before, he always had it so effortlessly. Especially by you. He thought he’d always have you by the palm of his hand, he thought whenever he asked you to jump, you’d always say “how high?”, he thought whenever you’d think about walking near to the door, you’d always turn around with a few sensual touches and sugarcoated words, but the renunciation that came out of your mouth sting like a bitch and he didn’t like his ego being trampled over.

He went to sleep later that night, dreaming about caressing you and kissing you as a lover would. Never once did he ever have such a dream about anyone before. Maybe he belonged to you more than he had realized all this time.

It was his fourth time this week of standing on the street of your apartment building after you returned his plenteous gifts that you certainly never even asked for or needed. Why would you? You could easily buy that necklace jewellery, that overpriced velvet dress, and those designer shoes with your own money. And even if you couldn't, your boyfriend could easily afford all those things for you too. But that motherfucker used his money to buy you shoddy gifts such as poorly designed accessories and tacky books and yet you happily accepted them? What a closefisted fool.

But who are we kidding? The sole reason why you didn’t accept those gifts is that you no longer cared about him. Those inducements didn’t work on you anymore. You were much happier with a better man now. What do you have to lose?

Rather than dwelling in self-pity and resentment, he hid in Range Rover in a black baseball cap and Tom Ford shades from the paparazzi and waited. Waited for her to come out. He had been religiously stalking every social media you had from another private account to track your activities. The last photo you posted on your Instagram was a picture of you and the scary college roommate of yours that he’d forgotten the name of. It was last Saturday.

“Always a delight to catch up with this one. Love you @natasharomanoff.”

under 281 likes and 32 comments. He scrolled through every single one of them and searched for any clue that might indicate your next move. Found one.

Wandamaximoff: “Don’t forget about me!! :(” so they are still friends apparently.

Natasharomanoff: “Same time next week? 💕”

“Absolutely,” you replied to the red-head.

Gotcha. He’ll be there.

So here he was, waiting for you to come out of that building to grab an Uber because he knew you weren’t so into driving. Except for that late-night rendevous of course, because he told you once that he’d hate for a single soul to know there was something going on between you and him. You were a secret and he’d like to keep it that way. Sooner or later, people are gonna talk and headlines are going to break the internet.

Two minutes later, you stepped out wearing a beige coloured cable knit cardigan and a grey jersey maxi dress underneath with a necklace around your neck. He couldn’t see it from this distance but the item had made a few appearances in some of your recent Instagram posts, and he already knew that you wore it wherever you go. It was an initial necklace of the letter ‘A’ in silver.

He hated the arising thought but he couldn’t help but think how ethereal you looked in your casual, maternal clothes. Perhaps even more than when you wore those petite dresses that always made you look uncomfortable whenever you wore them. You walked with grace and there’s this elegance that you just exuded without trying too hard. You could be wearing the most boring clothes or doing the most mundane things like looking down at your phone to text your Uber driver and you’d still look enchanting.

Man, how could he had been so blind all this time?

It shredded his heart even worse knowing that the growing fetus in your belly was his, but when that baby borns, another man would hold it instead of him and the kid would grow to learn that another man was its father instead of him. That motherfucker. He didn’t have any right in raising that baby. You were bearing his child. Not Adrian’s. You belonged to him. You always did. Fate had interlaced your paths long before you were given birth to this world. No one knew you better than him and vice versa. Not even that former roommate of yours or Wanda. Only him. He had to have you back. Whatever it takes.

He was so inflamed with debt and feebleness of his childhood that he turned into someone he used to loathe when he was younger. He strayed so far away from the path that his mom had paved for him to walk in and he wasted the one good thing in his life that kept him going when he had nothing. But he couldn’t turn back now, couldn’t cross out the mistakes that he did. The best he could do is make use of what he is capable of now and utilize it cleverly.

A scheme was formed in his head… He’d have you back in no time. One way or another.

Months went by and his patience emaciated. He had it all drawn out in his head but he had to be very careful. If he rushed or stepped on the wrong stone, he’d end up being decapitated and his career would burn to ashes. Especially with how the paparazzi and the media were always busting up his ass, like hunters with foxes. He couldn’t have that. He had worked too hard to see it all crumble beneath his feet.

He rejected all film projects and public appearances offered by his agent slash good friend, Sam Wilson. Sam was getting a little frustrated by Steve for being unreasonable. He was his most ambitious client, never one to say no to a good script and occasions that could advance his career and generate more profit for both of them.

But after he returned from Atlanta for his last movie, he had been shutting most people out. Sam was always his most trusted confidant, he was his agent, after all, it was his responsibility to make sure the client that earned him the most income was well in health and aptitude. But he was scratching his head trying to get Steve to open up to him.

Sick of Steve’s shortcoming, he called Steve and told him to come to the office.

“Fuck off, Sam. Why can’t you just talk on the phone?”

“Get your ass down here or I will come to your house myself.”

He groaned and hauled himself to Sam’s office, not in the mood for Sam’s garrulous nagging.

Steve knocked on Sam’s door and he saw Sam sitting in his usual black and white attire in his ergonomic chair. He had a frown on his face instead of his usual conceited womanizer charm. “What’s with the long face?” Sam asked.

“Nothing. I’m just worn out.”

“Cut the bullshit. Last time you got your ass to work was six months ago. What the hell is happening with you?”

“I just haven’t found any good script that interests me, Sam. And I told you, I needed a short break. I’ve been travelling nonstop for the past few years to shoot films and press tours, and now I just need to hit the pause button.”

“The Steve Rogers I know isn’t one to rest. He was power-hungry and always craved for more. You also rejected an Oscar potential role. Something’s going on and it’s deeper than just needing a break. C’mon, talk to me man. As a friend, not as your agent. Let me help you.”

It took him a few seconds to brace himself. He didn’t need to tell him the entire truth, he just had to ask Sam fora favour and then the Steve Rogers that made him millions would come back. “You know anyone who’s good at editing photos?”

“…What?” Sam was perplexed.

“Just let me know, Sam. You got any connections to editing experts? Hook me up.”

“What is fueling this?” Sam was bewildered. He looked at Steve like he had just grown two heads out of nowhere.

“Just trust me on this one, alright? You link me to a good editor and business will back as usual.”

“I know a guy.”

Your bachelorette party was fun. You, Natasha, Wanda and a few of your fellow colleagues were invited to the tea party at the garden of The Berkeley in London, which is the hometown of your fiance. You loved London and you always had such a good time whenever you paid it a visit with Adrian.

Now that the weekend was over, it was time to pick up little Nathan from your parents’ house. A beautiful baby boy was born three months ago and he was your parents’ joy. You never told them that the real father was the scrawny kid who used to lounge around on their couch every Wednesday afternoon when there was nothing much to do. Your parents loved Adrian as their own and it was all that mattered.

This baby is going to grow up with so much love from his parents and grandparents. From your chosen family who will become his aunties and uncles. He is going to be raised right in gentleness, affection, and sincerity. And it would never matter how he was conceived into this world in the first place.

You refused to leave this baby for more than five minutes but Wanda and Nat kept insisting that you needed some time for your own. One bachelorette party wouldn’t hurt. It’s only one weekend. Besides, your grandparents were obsessed with baby Nathan and they were going to take such good care of him while you were away, celebrating your single life with your girlfriends before you spend the rest of it with someone.

Now you were back home, you couldn’t wait to see your baby. You had been thinking about him endlessly in London and you missed holding him close to your chest. So you put on your coat and took your keys to drive to your parents’ house but you were stopped by a text message before you could open the door of your car.

“Enjoyed your bachelorette party?” An unknown number wrote.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Who the hell is this?” your thumb typed and pressed the send button.

“You know me. Better than anyone, just like I know you too better than your fiance.”

Your heartbeat quickened. “Stop texting or I will call the police.”

But before you could hit the send button, a picture of your face popped on the screen. But what disarrayed your mind wasn’t your face, it was the body. You were stark naked with your knees on a mattress and your ears teared up, and your lips were wrapped around a shaft.

What. The. Fuck?

“Got plenty more.” the unknown number threatened.

Another picture of you lying on the same bed, except this time you were on your back so your tits were clear cut visible and your mouth was parted slightly like you were moaning. A hand was wrapped around your throat and yours were pinned above your head by another one.

You were frozen in place and the warm autumn air descended into zero degree celsius. Your breath hitched and tears started brimming in your eyes. Who could have these pictures of you?

“I’ve got many more if you’re curious just how much of a slut you can be.”

“Stop. What do you want?” your fingers trembled.

“Meet me at the New York State Pavillon tonight, at 11 PM. Alone. Bring your baby. If you dare to report this to the cops, I will send these pictures to your fiance and post them on every existing site on the internet.”

The words didn’t leave any room for argument or further questions. So you drove to your parents’ house to pick up Nathan for the last time ever.

Adrian was working late tonight. He told you over the phone that a big project was in the work and so he and his team had to stay a little longer in the office to get it done as soon as possible. You were a bit relieved because that means, you could save yourself from whatever was bound to happen when you arrive at the abandoned historical world fair.

“Don’t forget to drink water. I love you.” You reminded him.

You wrapped Nathan in a blanket to keep him warm and you placed him in the infant car seat next to you. Your mind couldn’t stop flashing back to those pictures. Who could you possibly have done so wrong that they thought exaction would be the most fitting comeuppance. It took about 35 minutes via Grand Central Parkway which was the fastest route so you took it. Your mind also couldn’t stop asking questions, so many questions… But most importantly, who could this person be? Could it be… No, no way. You knew him. That was the last thing he’d ever do. Not because he wasn’t a nefarious person but because the world was constantly throwing themselves at him, offering him dollars and women.

He had too much in his plate to look over to yours and wanted to steal what was in it too. After months of not a single contact made, he must’ve had forgotten about you right? C’mon. This is ridiculous. But if it’s not him, then who could it be?

You arrived at Flushing Meadows a half-hour later and then you texted the number. “I’m here. What do you want?” you kept Nathan inside, fearing that whoever the culprit is might hurt him. So you stayed inside as consternation overcame you.

A few minutes later he answered, “step out the car and bring the baby.”

“Don't hurt my baby, please. Take me, but let him return safely to his father.”

“He will. Now, do as I say or I will publish these pictures.”

You trembled. You unlocked the door of your car and stepped out of it deliberately holding Nathan to your chest. You were careful to keep him from crying. The crisp air sent shivers down your spine. You closed the door and waited. Your eyes roved to all over the desolated site. Until it landed on those familiar blue eyes that held more ice than the air.

“…Steve?”

The man you used to know was different now. His face that used to be clean-shaven was now covered in a glorious beard that made him indistinguishable. His dusty blonde hair was slightly longer and he dressed in dark clothes that amplified the sinister atmosphere circling him.

You held Nathan closer to you with one hand behind his head, trying to keep him quiet. “Don’t be like that, let me see my son.”

“No. He’s not yours.” You spat.

He scoffed. “Say whatever you want, sweetheart but it’s my blood running in his little veins. In fact, I think we can take a DNA test and send it to your fiance, how about that? Also, how is Mr and Mrs. Y/L/N?”

“Leave my parents alone, Steve.”

“Are you going to cut that attitude of yours or do we have to do this the hard way? Either way, I don’t mind.”

“I’ll be good. Just please, don’t involve my parents.”

“Good, I know the good girl I knew is still somewhere inside you. Now, drop your phone to the ground and smash it.”

“…What? No! How am I going to-”

He furrowed one eyebrow at you and you instantly understood the peril if you repudiated him once more.

You took out your phone from the pocket of your coat and dropped it to the ground. You stomped it with your foot until the screen was cracked, but Steve wasn’t satisfied enough with its damaged state so he stomped it harder than you did until it was smashed into two.

He led you to his Range Rover that he parked in an empty street and opened the backseat door and you slide into it with Nathan still tucked under your neck. Then he closed the door and walked to the driver’s seat and drove away to God knows where.

“Where are we going, Steve? Nathan needs to sleep. He can’t-”

“Quiet. He’ll be home soon.”

You didn’t dare to ask more questions. The vacancy in his eyes that were reflected on the rearview mirror was petrifying enough as it is. You sat and stared out the window and think about Adrian. Was he home yet? Did he try to call or text you? What would he do when he realizes you weren’t home? You couldn’t help but think that this morning was possibly the last time you’d ever see Adrian. God, you missed him already. You prayed to whatever God was listening that he would save you and your son soon.

Please Adrian, please do something. I love you.

The soft hum of the engine made your eyes feel droopy. You tried your best to stay awake but it was nearing midnight and the jet lag was still encompassing you so the fight in you to stay awake resolved. You gave in to the lethargy with Nathan dozing on your lap.

You were woken up by a shake on your shoulder and you found Steve standing on the open door. “Get up, we’re here.”

In your still languorous state, you got out of the car hugging Nathan close. “Where are?”

The sounds of crickets saturated the ambience as only the faint glow of the moon illuminated the trees around you. There was nobody around except you and Steve -and Nathan if a three months creature counts-. You put two and two together… Did Steve take you into the woods?

“Steve, what are we doing here?”

He didn’t meet your eye or answered you but instead, he walked toward what looked like a mid-century modern wooded oasis perched on a sloping site and set on stilts. The trees blended with the wood side exterior and wraparound decks. You had no idea whose house this belonged to but it was enchanting.

“Go ahead.”

You approached the resident that was incandescent with yellow lights, giving you a little peek to the furniture inside. You hoped whoever owned this property wasn’t sleeping yet, it was literally in the middle of the night, what the hell was Steve even doing taking you to a stranger’s house?

“Steve, I really don’t think this is a good idea…” as you stood freezing on the terrace. “Can we go back now? I really don’t want Adrian to worry.”

He fumbled with a key and unlocked the entrance. “Get in.”

Your eyes scanned the room to make sure there was no one around that might bust your ass tot he police for breaching before you stepped in. Your eyes peregrinated to every corner of the interior, relishing in the smell of oak and firewood.

He then took you for a quick tour to every section of the house without saying anything that would actually straighten your befuddlement. The decorations were full of vintage and antiques. “You like it?” Steve asked.

“I mean… it’s lovely for sure.”

“Good, then that means we won’t have to redecorate.”

“Wait, wait… What?”

“I bought this house for us, sweetheart. I knew you’d love the cozy design and it’s a perfect place for Nathan to grow up in.”

“Steve, what the hell are you talking about?”

“We’ll work things out. I’ll stay here with you for the rest of the weekend and I’ll only leave when I need to work. You won’t have to worry about anything else, I’ll take care of it.”

“God, you are crazier than I thought. I’m going home.”

He stopped you by blocking the entrance door and glared. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

“Steve, get out of my way.”

“You are mine. That baby is my son, you hear me? This is where you belong.”

“I’m gonna call the cops.”

“With what? Your phone?” He derided. “You don’t even know where the hell we are.”

“Adrian’s gonna come looking for me.”

“No, he won’t. Because I’ve sent those pictures of you to him and to your boss, who is it? Tony Stark? And you don’t have any life to get back to. This is your life now.”

Your heart sunk. No, no, he can’t be. He promised he won’t if you did what he said, right?

“You’re lying…”

“I did. I sent it while you were snoozing in the car. Shit, I’d pay a million bucks to see the look on that asshole’s face when he realized just how much of a dirty slut his fiancee is… Well, ex-fiancee now.”

“Why would you- you promised you wouldn’t if I did what you asked me to.”

“Well, that agreement has changed,” he said it so nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just pulverized the life you had built for yourself, the happiness you had stacked on a shelf that took you years to collect; a great job, a loving boyfriend, an adorable baby.

You wanted to lash out, you wanted to smack him in the face but you were too wounded by what you just heard. If you returned to Adrian and your work tomorrow, would you still even have them? Would they even accept you at all? You knew better than trying to report a powerful man such as Steve Rogers to the cops, he could bribe them, he could get a qualified lawyer. He could also make you lose the battle you never wanted to be a part of even if you were the victim, he could easily paint you as the mentally unstable woman that wanted to blackmail him for money.

The media had never captured pictures of you sneaking out of Steve’s apartment. Steve never took you for a stroll in the park or Sunday brunch because that’s all you were; a secret. Steve never wanted to be seen with you and Steve never wanted to share you with the world for whatever reason. Steve didn’t mind being photographed by models and other film stars, but not you. And now, he wanted to keep you in this little vault or calaboose so that you’d never escape and the traces of your history would be erased forever from the world’s memory.

Because Steve Rogers was no longer the man you used to ride around the bicycle with during the summer or the scrawny romancer you used to know, but he was a selfish man, a man with enough ego and ego to completely metamorphosed himself into whatever he wanted to be, no matter how ruthless and perilous that person he is. And now here you were, a mere object for him to assert his powers on, and you knew it wasn’t because of his love for his son or for you, but simply because he always got his way. Always.

“Now you can stay here, accept your new life with me and raise Nathan together, or you can face the disgrace that your fiance and your boss see you as. You think he’s gonna let you come back to his house? You think your boss is gonna shrug it off and let you come back as if nothing happened? No. You’re dispensable, and one way or another, you’re gonna come back to me. Even if you don’t, I’ll find a way to make you.”

“Why me? You could have every other woman in the world… Why me, Steve?”

“Because you think that you can repudiate me… You can’t. You think you can take away control from me… You can’t,” he gritted. “Not a single person in the world can.”

The tears in your eyes fell the floor as your legs wobbled. “Now, let’s not keep our son awake any longer yeah? Put him to bed. And then… You can be the good housewife you were meant to be and perform your duties.”

So he led you to the nursery room and you put Nathan in the crib. You wanted to fight, you wanted to reach that door and run… Even if you don’t know where you were going, as long as you could escape from this maniac. But you knew better than running away to in the middle of nowhere at midnight, in the cold with your son. You also knew better than thinking that Steve wouldn’t do whatever he could to get you back under his feet… so what was the point in countering anymore? Men like Steve Rogers always wins.

After you put Nathan to sleep, he led you to the master bedroom and ordered you to strip. The routine revokes old memory. “Get on your knees,” he commanded as he sat on the edge of the bed, like a king waiting to be served.

You did as he says and stood between his spread legs. “Take off my pants.”

You unzipped it and pulled it down along with his briefs. “Good girl, now, open.”

You parted your lips, wide enough to fit him and circled your tongue around the tip. Just like you used to because he liked the buildup and you knew it better than anyone. He grabbed a fistful of your hair and tugged on it harshly then inched himself back deeper into your mouth. You hollowed your cheeks to accommodate his girth as he hit the back of your throat each time he went back in.

“Ah fuck, I’ve missed that sweet mouth of yours…” He picked up the pace and you looked up to him. His face contorted in pleasure while you were feeling anything but. You feel repulsed, you wanted to push him away but you couldn’t. He closed his eyes, relishing in the feel of your mouth around him and threw his head back.

He moaned as he controlled your movement faster, trying to get himself off. Your eyes teared up as you looked up at him, and his cock throbbed. He climaxed deep inside your mouth as he kept your head down so every drop that he had was spilled down your throat. He kept you there until he had no more to offer and then he pulled himself out. “Get on the bed, ass up, face down.”

You followed his command and waited until you could feel him kneeling behind you. “Just like old times, huh?” He chuckled. You could feel the tip of his cock nudging your clit and then he invaded your body through your entrance. “Shit, you’re still so fucking tight. Did that asshole ever fuck you at all?”

You didn’t answer but moaned instead as you could feel him stretching you like he used to. And no matter how many times he had fucked you, you never truly got used to it. Adrian’s face came in flashes; you recalled how he made love to you, how gentle he would be with you and how intimate your lovemaking session was, a stark contrast to how Steve would treat you. You also compared their sizes, Adrian was average compared to Steve. Whenever Steve entered you, it always felt like an intrusion, an unforeseen attack, rather than your fleshes weaving into one.

He retracted himself and then pushed back in brutally and you whined. He held onto your hips in a bruising grip, as he pounded into you because he was never one for a tender start; he only had wanted to get himself off and that was it. “Does he fuck you this good? Bet you think of my dick when he fucks you.”

Your body jolted every time he jerked himself forward and he groaned and grunted. He hammered into you relentlessly and incessantly, causing you to clench around him. The wetness made squelching noises as you could feel your impending orgasm approaching, forming a dam inside you that was ready to break any second now. He sped up and he screamed in pleasure as the coil inside you broke, you reached your peak at the same time and he buried himself deep inside you, spilling every drop that he had deep in your womb.

“Bet that British asshole doesn’t even make you cum, huh? And I know you always fake it to get him off you.” He sneered as he detached himself from you and got off the bed to clean himself off to the bathroom.

You laid there in the same position, feeling voidness creeping up your heart like you once were; unwanted and alone. Steve had stripped you of your pride, dignity and honour once and even after you managed to climb out of that pit, he found a way to drag you back down once more and locked you under.

And there was nothing else that you could do except accepting your fate as his perpetual prisoner, living under the corruption and unforgiving authority of Steve Rogers. You could only hope that once Nathan is grown enough, you could somehow sneak him out of this confinement to live a much better life and eschew himself from turning into the monster that his father is.

#steve rogers #steve rogers au #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers series #steve rogers smut #steve rogers angst #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #dark!steve rogers au #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve rogers series #dark!steve rogers x reader #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans series #chris evans smut #chris evans angst

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coping-via-clint-eastwood · 3 years

Text

What Happens at a Lake - Philo Beddoe x Reader

Requested by @starryfallows

(A/N: THIS IS THE LONGEST FIC I HAVE EVER WRITTEN!!! FOUR AND A HALF THOUSAND WORDS!!!!!! I AM SO PROUD OF MYSELF!!!!!!

All are by @clinteastwood-blog

Yeah sooo I’m posting it here anyway, even though it’s REALLY long. Sorry I couldn’t put the two black and white set photos, because for SOME REASON, Tumblr is telling me that I’ve reached the ten image limit, when there’s ONLY half of that! Seven with those other two! Ugh! Anyway, this is indeed the longest fic I have ever written, and I am honoured and proud that it’s a Clint fic, requested by someone on Tumblr. I love you all.

Update: @believerindaydreams taught me how to put keep reading :D thank you very much 🙏)

It took three months for Philo's bones to heal and get back to full strength. Since his main job as a car repairman really depended on both his arms having their full strength, and his other job as a lorry driver did require some strength to pull the levers in the vehicle, you had been working for twelve hours everyday at the Palomino, where you were a pianist. It was a relief when Orville returned from his nurse one month in, so you could work for just nine hours. You returned to your usual eight hours only when Philo had fully healed. During those three months, Philo and Clyde remained in the audience for you mr twelve hours everyday anyway, and you gladly let them be there - better to listen to your playing than to staying at home and listen to ma pestering him about his idleness.

It was one evening two months after Philo was back in business. Philo, Orville and you were around the dinner table, having almost finished dining. Clyde was off monkeying around somewhere and ma had finished earlier and gone to another part of the house, where she was likely griping to herself again about something or other.

"You know, we haven't done anything to celebrate," you said, looking around at them.

The boys looked at each other in question, confused as to what you were talking about and surprised at this sudden and random vocalisation. They then turned back to you. "Celebrate...?" Philo trailed off, his voice sweet and adorable.

"Your retirement," you said lanconically.

"Only from brawling! I'm still a lorry driver and car repairman!" he argued, leaning towards you slightly.

"Yeah but still. It calls for some celebration." You were still calm, because you knew that Philo was not trying to pick a fight. This was just how he always was.

"Okay...what did you have in mind?" There. He was as relaxed as if nothing had happened.

"We could go to a lake again. One with a cabin that we can rent for an indefinite period of time."

A smile immediately formed on his face. "That sounds great." He turned his head to look back at Orville.

"Yeah," Orville said, nodding, "yeah, we can do that." Philo faced you again.

"Alright! So, when do you guys wanna leave?" you piped up cheerily.

"Well, you're the one who suggested it. You decide," Philo told you.

"Can we leave tomorrow?" Your eyes darted to and from theirs.

"Oh. Sure," Philo answered.

"Cool with me," Orville agreed. You grinned at them.

When Philo and you were alone in your shared bedroom that night, he backed you up against the wall, his hands on either side of your head, the rest of his body blocking any way of escape, almost pressing against yours, and his face very close to yours. You were hyperventilating, yet you could not avert your eyes and resist staring into those gorgeous green gazers. "That was a very good idea of yours." Oh hell - he was deliberately making his voice deeper and more gravelly, the way he knew you liked it. This was something he did when he wanted to be especially affectionate with you. He did not do it during his three months of healing because you always would be too tired for it.

"I-I thought we could use it," you panted, shaking.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against yours, feeling the heat radiating from you. "It's agreed," he breathed, and you could feel his breath on your face. You squeaked and squeezed your eyes shut, turning your head away. He chuckled when you squeaked. "What was that?" You whimpered and shook your head vigorously, indicating that you were not going to answer. He smiled and moved a hand to rest it on your warmed cheek, gently pushing your head to face him. His thumb stroked your eyelids until you opened them. When you did, he leant in and kissed you.

When ma saw the three of you loading the truck the next morning, she, as usual, waddled within hearing range and demanded to know where the four of you were going. "A lake, ma," Orville sighed over his shoulder as he threw a bag inside.

"A lake?! What on earth're you goin' ta a lake fo?!" she hollered.

"A vacation, ma," Orville grumbled out before he got inside the seating area and closed the door before he could hear anymore of ma's nagging. You were holding the back doors open while Philo helped Clyde inside.

"WHAT?! A VACATION?! AND LEAVING YOUR OLD MOTHER ALL BY HER LONESOME!!" And so on. Philo and you hurried up with shutting the back doors and getting in yourselves. Philo sped off as soon as he was seated.

"We need a vacation from her," you huffed, relieved, leaning against the window.

"You're telling me," Orville got out as he took off his cap and tiredly rested it on his lap.

"Well at least we're actually away from that now," you comforted him. Philo fiddled with the radio and stopped when he found a station he was happy with.

The ride passed in mutual joy and comfort. The three of you would occasionally crack jokes, and sometimes Clyde would give his input, especially when he was asked to pass a drink or food item in front. This lasted for several hours and a few pit stops on the way.

"All right, I think this is the nearest one," Philo said as he drove through some trees. A little further into them showed that there was a lake stretching in between them, dividing them into two. Philo drove on, and all three of you kept a watch out for a cabin.

There were two, one larger than the other. The larger one was obviously for if there was more than one guest to stay, and so the smaller one was for the lone landlord. Philo drove up to the guests' cabin and parked. The three of you got out then let the orangutan out as well. All four of you walked the rest of the way to the landlord's cabin. Since Philo was the nearest to it, he knocked on the door. "Yeah?" the landlord said when he opened the door.

"We'd uh, like to rent this place for a few days. Don't know how long. We'll let you know when we leave. There are three adults plus," he put a hand on Clyde's shoulder, "an ape."

"Oh..." he observed Clyde, "well, people are allowed to bring their pets here, so long as they clean up after 'em, and I do have a set fee for pets. So that's not gonna be a problem. I'll just come to you and collect rent everyday, so it don't matter how long you stay."

The three of you grinned at each other. "Perfect," Philo informed the landlord. The latter nodded his head politely and closed the door. "Alright!" Philo exclaimed, clasping his hands together, "let's unpack!" And the three humans proceeded to do so. Clyde was left outside to climb trees and do his thing.

Soon enough, all the luggage was unpacked and in your respective rooms. You three were now seated on the couches. There were three of these which surrounded a coffee table, save for one side which had the television against the wall. Philo and you were on one couch and Orville was on the one in the centre. "So, what do you guys wanna do now?" you asked.

"Is the water clean enough to swim in?" Philo mused, turning around and looking in the general direction of the lake.

"We can always find out," Orville suggested playfully.

You laughed, closing your eyes. "I suppose we can just ask the landlord."

It turned out that the water was indeed suitable for swimming. As far as swimwear went, yours was just a t-shirt and shorts. So it was for the boys too, minus the shirt. Since you were the shortest, you waded in first to determine how far out was safe for you. You kept hopping until the water reached just below your chin. The two taller men followed, with Philo going the farthest out and Orville in between you two. Since it was deep enough for you, you let your legs float up so that you were now lying on your back on the water's surface. You let the current carry you out, occasionally moving a limb to change directions. Orville had swum away, which left you a clear path to catch up to Philo, who was also swimming. Once you reached Philo, you moved your legs back down and started treading water. "Hi," you said.

"Hey," he smiled, showing his teeth. He made himself stand and grabbed you, situating your legs around his waist. You put your hands on his shoulders. Smiling at each other, he walked you about. It was a while of this before he started picking up the pace, hopping, and then pushing you away from him altogether. You giggled as you bobbed away, treading water to stay near him. After that, the two of you started swimming properly.

The three of you swam for two hours. Since Orville was all by his lonesome and not staring at a romantic partner, he was the one to notice that his fingers were wrinkled. "Alright, we gotta go," he called out, holding up hand, facing the palm towards you two. All three quickly paddled to shore. Philo's feet touched the bottom first, then Orville's, then yours. Clyde was hanging from the tree that you three would pass by on the way out, looking at you all.

"Hi Clyde," Orville said as he passed.

"Hi Clyde," you followed.

"Hi Clyde," Philo finished.

"Oo oo oo," he returned to all three of you at once.

Orville went into the bathroom in his room to shower. "You wanna go first, or shall I? Or you wanna go at the same time?" Philo asked.

"Same time," you smiled. So the both of you stripped and went into the bathroom in your shared room, impulsively filling up and climbing into the bathtub rather than actually stepping inside the shower. He sat with his back against the wall, so you sat in between his legs without your back to him. He wrapped an arm around your waist and rested his chin on your shoulder. "Thanks for being here with me," he murmured, turnings his head and kissing your cheek. He was always additionally affectionate when he was happy and content.

You smiled brightly and brought an arm up to cradle his head, running your hand through his coarse fluffy hair. "I love you."

"I love you too." His other arm joined the one that was already around you. When he felt that you were about to fall asleep - it happened everytime you were relaxed in his embrace - he hurried up with bathing the both of you.

"Nbuh!" you interjected as your head jerked up, having been shocked to the point of waking.

"Don't sleep in here. We can have dinner and then sleep," Philo lectured, poking your upper arm once for each sentence he spoke. You yawned and stretched, and then cleaned yourself.

The both of you got out. Philo drained the tub while you wrapped a towel around yourself. You passed another to him. You broke out into a toothy grin when you saw him vigorously rubbing it through his fluffy hair. He felt your gaze on him and looked up. "What?"

"Nothing," you kept grinning, "Your hair is amazing."

"O...kay?" He just went back to drying his hair.

You laughed softly before saying, "I love your hair."

"Thank you." You could hear the smile in his voice.

After drying off, you opened the door and headed out. Philo lay down on the bed and smiled at you, lifting the sheets for you to climb under. You laughed softly and crawled to him, and you two snuggled. "You sure we can do this? Orville and Clyde might be waiting on us for dinner."

"Mmf..." he grumbled. He begrudgingly reached his long arm to open the closet and pulled out a pair of boxers and then trousers. He pushed you a little distance away so that he had space to put them on and then threw his feet over the side of the bed onto the floor, the momentum allowing him to spring up. He walked out of the room, and you nestled under the covers and waited.

Orville was at the kitchen counter, preparing dinner. "Oh," he acknowledged with some surprise when he saw Philo walk to him. "I figured you'd be longer, so I got started on dinner. I was gonna call Clyde in when I was done."

"Yeah, I was, but (y/n) reminded me that you might be waitin' on us. So I came out ta check on ya."

"Well you can go on back in there and give her a thank you from me. You can do whatever with her until dinner's ready."

"You sure you don't need any help?" Philo offered.

Orville shook his head and said, "Nah. I can manage."

Philo nodded his head a few times in acknowledgement. "Thanks," he said before turning around and walking away.

"Sure," Orville returned.

You were lying with your fingers interlaced, your head resting on them as you stared up at the ceiling. Your eyes turned to look at Philo when he appeared in the doorway. "Orville says we can stay here till dinner's ready. He can manage," he said as he walked inside. As he walked, he undid his clothes. You scooted further in, so as soon as he put his clothes on the seat of the chair as he passed he could slide in. You took your place right by his side again. He had one arm under your waist. He turned onto his side so that he was a little way on top of you. He reached around and stroked the side of your head with his other hand. You smiled softly up at him. He moved to suspend himself above you on his hands and knees now, his limbs caging you safely. The both of you closed your eyes as he rested his forehead on yours. He pressed his lips forwards slightly, just touching your own and then withdrawing repeatedly, questioning whether he could kiss you. Your breathing became heavier at his teasing, and you put your hands on the back of his head and pushed it down the rest of the way. At the exact same time, you both closed your eyes and let out heavy exhales through your noses as you kissed. He lowered his full weight onto you, doing it slowly so that you had time to adjust and support his weight. "Mmf..." he let out when you kissed him a bit more aggressively. You kept at it, eager and needy, and he let himself take it all in. He withdrew when he needed to breathe, and rested his forehead on yours. Breaths heavy, chests heaving. He rolled back to lie down next to you again. "Was that enough, or do you want more?" he got out between breaths.

"Mmh..." you exhaled heavily, flipping to lie on your side facing away from him, "Too much for now..."

"Alright." You knew he was grinning at you with his teeth exposed. He scooted closer to you and wrapped his arm around your waist. You sighed and closed your eyes as he buried his nose in your hair.

And it was just...this. This sweet, unbroken peace, that the two of you shared, only interrupted when there was rapping at the door and Orville called, "You uh...are you guys...busy?"

"No, Orville. We'll be there soon," Philo called back, still staying as he was holding you.

"A'right." He walked away.

Philo turned you around and gave you one more peck on the lips, holding the sides of your face. "Come on," he smiled, "Let's go have dinner." Smiling as well, you gave a nod of your head, and the both of you got out on opposing sides of the bed and got dressed. Clyde was already sitting next to Orville, and they were eating. Like everytime, Philo sat next to Clyde, and you sat next to him. There was a fifth unoccupied chair between Orville and you. Again, the dining was accompanied by light chatter.

After the dishes were done, Philo opened the door to let Clyde out again, but Clyde clung onto his legs. "Oh...okay," his human acknowledged. He closed the doors and carried Clyde, seating him on one arm. Philo joined you on the couch that was in the middle this time. "What do you guys wanna do now?" he asked, looking past Clyde to the two of you.

You shrugged, "Wanna watch a movie?" Clyde immediately jumped off Philo's lap and onto the couch, banging his fists against his chest and going "Ooh ooh ooh!" The three of you threw your heads back with laughter.

"He wants to watch King Kong!" you laughed.

"I was only three years old when that came out," Philo grinned toothily.

"We- weren't even born yet," you pondered, looking at your lap.

"I'll go get it," Philo said, standing up. You each had brought a selection of movies that might be wanted at any time. King Kong did not conform to this, but there was always a friend to think about. Philo went into the room and came out not long after, holding the casing in his hand. He put the DVD in the reader and let it play. And in the end, it was online Clyde who actually watched the film. The three humans fell asleep early into the film. Philo and you fell asleep, your head on his shoulder and his head on yours, and his arm around your lower back. Orville, who had laid down so that he could prop his head up on the armrest and watch the television, just shifted backwards so that the armrest was comfortably under his neck, and he fell asleep like that, hands resting on his abdomen. Clyde considerately clambered onto the remaining couch to carry out his capers as he happily watched the movie. When it ended, he turned off the television and jumped back onto the third couch to sleep.

The next day saw no less in pleasantness. After a nice breakfast prepared by Philo, the process of which was carried out while Orville was allowed to sleep in, the three of you took to fishing for lunch and dinner. Clyde played in the branches above your heads. The mood was generally lazy and mellow.

And then, it happened. Several fish in, Philo just held up his most recent catch, staring at it. From the corner of his eye, he saw you turn your head to look at him. Before you could say anything, he swung the fish and slapped you square in the face.

"WAH!" was your cry as you slipped and fell into the water.

Orville was laughing so hard that no sound was emitted from him. Philo was just staring down at you, tittering to himself. He still had a hold on the fish. Your head broke the surface, along with your spluttering and spitting. In return, you spewed a steady stream of water at him, standing up so that you could reach his face. "Hey, wha-" he vocalised, turning his face away and putting his hands out to stop the water from reaching his face, dropping the fish in the process. You quickly picked up the fish, the poor thing which had died due to shock upon impact, and sent him down. Orville was wheezing by now. The two of you played like this for some time, with Orville, and Clyde, who came to join him, laughing away.

Philo had to bear the task of preparing dinner after he showered, because he was the one who was not tired. You were tired out from playing with him so energetically, and Orville was lying on his bed, making his belly ache worse as he kept on wheezing. Even as he was showering he had had difficulty breathing. As for Philo, he was as miraculously tireless as ever. You did not know how he did it. He was amazing. You yourself had taken the precaution of showering instead of bathing this time, so that you did not fall asleep with the warm water submerging you. After putting on warm clothing, you were facedown on your shared bed, spread eagle with your nose buried in the sheets. Now you could safely doze of. It was justified as well that you were not too deep asleep, for it seemed all too soon when you felt a loving hand on your shoulder shaking you awake. You got up and followed him to the table. You ate your food quickly so that you could go back to sleep as soon as possible. Philo had a loving hand stroking up and down your back the entire time you were within his arm's reach. When he saw you were almost finished, he murmured from behind a spoonful that you could leave your cutlery as it was and he would take care of it. As he was speaking, you had finished and sprung to your feet, wanting to use your last bit of energy to propel you to the place where you did not need to consciously use energy. But when you heard what he said, you stepped over to him and gave him a long hug, bending down and closing your eyes. He closed his eyes and held you too. You stood like that for a while, until you gently pushed him to look up at you. He looked at you with those searching eyes, his gaze gentle and yet held so much power over you.

But it only lasted for a moment, because you closed your eyes and kissed him. He reciprocated, sweetly and meaningfully. When oxygen was needed, you pulled back and rested your forehead against his, breathing deeply. "Go to sleep, sweetheart," he murmured, stroking your hair. You gave him one last smile and a peck on the nose before moving fully away. You went and brushed your teeth, and then just collapsed on the bed, not caring how you slept. But later on, you found out that Philo had moved you into a more comfortable position, because when you woke up the next morning, you found yourself securely held by him, right by his side like always.

That day itself was also to be one of perfect happiness. The three of you were fishing again. It was just the four you and the fish. Nobody was paying attention to anything that was going on in the world.

An unexpected, yet not unwelcome voice called out, "Room for one more?"

"JACK!" you exclaimed, dropping your fishing rod and running to him. He was about to say something, but you pounced on him and hugged him. You loved giving hugs, whether it was to Philo, Clyde, Orville, or any other good friend. And Philo encouraged the good sportsmanship.

Jack was laughing as he held onto you. "Hey. Didn't know you'd be that excited to see me."

"We missed you when we parted," you confessed, stepping back to look at him, your hands on his shoulders. You made way for Philo.

"Hey," your boyfriend greeted. The fighters clasped hands. "What're you doing here?" he asked.

"Am done fighting for a few weeks. Thought I'd look for you. Went to your place, ran into a senile old woman, barely understood that you were at a lake. Had to go on a bit of a hunt. But, here I am."

"Yeah...sorry about my mother..." Orville said forlornly.

"Oh, that's all right. I'm just glad to be here," Jack said as he and Orville shook hands.

"So, are you staying?" Philo asked him.

"Only if I'm permitted," he smiled. Before any of you could say anything, a hairy figure dropped down from the branch above Jack and hugged him. Jack held him up as easily as the rest of you did. "Okay. Now you can move in," Philo smiled.

"Great. I'll go get my stuff." He turned on his heel and walked off, presumably to his car.

"You two continue fishing. I'll give him a tour," Philo said, going to pick up his fishing rod and lean it against a tree.

"Okay," you acknowledged. So Orville and you picked up your fishing rods too, but you actually used them.

After Philo showed Jack his room among other things, they came back out. It seemed that the fighters had decided on something as they were talking, because they were indeed dressed for fighting. Philo was wearing a white shirt- not the one that had been torn, and a pair of jeans. Jack was in his light blue tank top and slacks. "Thought you said you were retired, Philo!" you teased.

"Yeah well," he smirked, looking at Jack and flexing his fist which he was already holding up, "nothing like catching up with a noble opponent."

"Thank you," Jack smiled, getting into a boxing stance and holding his fists up in front of him as well. They started bouncing on their feet, bobbing from side to side, and circling each other.

"Just don't break anything," you reminded them.

As always, Philo waited for his opponent to throw the first punch. He did, and that commenced the fighting. They fought without even coming close and accidentally harming Orville and you. You two caught more fish than usual, since Philo was. not fishing, and there was one more person to feed.

There was enough fish to last five people until dinner. Lunch for five had already been prepared. And the fighters were still going! The three other people stood in the doorway and watched. And finally, finally, Philo knocked Jack back against a vertical beam supporting the roof of the porch. They were drenched in sweat, heaving deep breaths. "You wanna..." Philo stopped to pant here, "stop here?"

Jack nodded, and caught his breath to give a, "Yeah." This was how it almost had been six months ago. The five of you went inside. Now the once unoccupied chair has a purpose. The tired gentlemen sank heavily onto the chairs. Orville and you got to setting the table, and Clyde opened the refrigerator and took out two cans of beer. He brought them over to Philo and Jack. "Thanks," Philo said as he took his. Jack petted his head.

After a slow, refreshing lunch, the five of you were just sprawled out on the couches. "So, you lift engine blocks," Jack spoke, "How'd you get the strength in the first place?"

"Well, I did start out by lifting lighter weights. I do do other strength work from time to time too."

"Like what?"

"Oh, pumping. I have (y/n) or Clyde on my back while I do it. Makes me push myself more."

"I gotta try that," Jack grinned. With that, he dropped down to his hands and toes. "Come on. Get down. And get Clyde or (y/n) on your back."

"Oh, I get my girl," Philo turned his head to grin at you from the floor. "Clyde." He used his head to motion to Jack. You each got on your respective sports man. You carefully lay on Philo's back, putting your hands on his shoulders and situating your toes on his calves. Orville just watched and but his lip, bemused at such a wholesome situation.

Later that night, you went into the kitchen to get yourself something light to eat and drink. Philo followed you. You were against the counter, and turned around only to come face-to chest with him. “Hey,” he said softly, smiling. You greeted him the exact same way. He leant in and kissed you, your arms wrapping around each other. He backed you up against the counter, so that you were halfway sitting on it. He lifted you up and seated you on the counter fully, then stepping forwards and pushing you to him so that your legs wrapped around his waist. You giggled into the kiss, making him do so too.

#Philo Beddoe #every which way but loose #any which way you can #clint eastwood #c-v-c-e fic

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louiserandom · 4 years

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madatobi where madara sees tobirama playing and being tender and soft with kids and is just /oh shit he's gorgeous/ (bonus: tobirama and the kids are making flower crowns) (bonus bonus: madara hasn't realized his feelings yet so cue Flailing!) fic

too cute for your own good

Rating: T

Summary: Madara is personally offended that Senju Tobirama, cold indifference incarnate, has the gall to look adorable while playing with children who’ve managed to equip him with a flower crown, of all things.

Surely, this should be considered a full-fledged crime.

A/N: FINALLY I FINISHED ANOTHER PROMPT HOPE YOU LIKE IT SLEEPY💙💙💙

read on AO3 or under the cut :3

It’s a perfectly peaceful evening when Madara leaves the Administration Tower to face Konoha drenched in a sunset palette. The fresh air is calming, his surroundings peaceful, making it the perfect walk before his hopefully quiet evening with a book and delicious tea before bed.

Perfect—at least until he runs into a bunch of kids, and, more importantly, Senju Tobirama huddled on the edge of a playground—and Madara has to stop in his tracks because the situation simply doesn’t make sense.

Hashirama’s little brother is still an enigma to him, and an annoying one, at that. He and Tobirama seem to disagree about everything, ranging from inconsequential things like which dessert should be served for dinner at Hashirama’s place to the exact nature of fine print in inter-village treaties and, presumably, their fundamental outlooks on life. Tobirama is practicality incarnate, with little care for the feelings of others and a mind set on clear-cut goals. Madara, admittedly, has never had a good grip on his own emotions and valued life, energy, passion, unlike the cold-eyed bastard he’s gotten used to always seeing at his best friend’s side.

The cold-eyed, emotionless bastard who is now laughing, joyful and carefree, while getting wrestled into the dirt by a group of children who look to be no more than eight years old.

Madara may have been caught in somebody’s genjutsu, all things considered, even the fact that he has yet to meet someone as skilled in the art as he is. He glances around to make sure no one notices him making a discreet ‘Kai!’ gesture and, as expected, finds himself remaining in this strange reality, however the hell it came to be.

“Do it, Koharu! Now!” a familiar squeaky voice shouts, and Madara’s brain does another somersault when he realizes one of the kids in the group is Uchiha Kagami.

Since when?..

“Hold him down, hold him down!” Another kid with a scar on his chin is restraining a still laughing Tobirama with another messy-haired boy in tow, while the only girl among them retrieves a blue flower crown and proudly sets it on Tobirama’s mess of white hair.

Madara feels like he’s short-circuiting, much like those experimental electricity grids Tobirama is working on in order to enhance the village’s infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Tobirama wriggles his hands free and raises them above his head in a show of defeat.

“You’ve got me. I surrender,” he says in mock disappointment as the kids whoop and high-five around him.

“Don’t forget, Sensei,” an Akimichi boy says, “you’ve gotta wear it the who-ole day tomorrow to work.”

“Yep,” Kagami says, pulling up another flower crown from the ground and donning it himself. “We’ll be checking!”

Madara almost chokes as he realizes two very, extremely unsettling things.

One, he’s going to have to be treated to the image of Senju Tobirama in a flower crown the whole bloody day tomorrow in their godsdamned shared office because Hashirama, the stupid tree, refuses to separate them.

And two, Madara finds Tobirama in a flower crown adorable.

Cute.

Pretty.

Madara tries to forcefully still his faltering heartbeat and honestly wishes for the gods to smite him right this second. There has never been a better time.

I cannot have a crush on that bastard, he thinks, just as Tobirama turns to face him once he finally notices him. There’s no surprise on his face though, and Madara remembers that, yes, this is the strongest sensor in probably all of the Five Countries who’s probably known Madara was here all along.

And Madara’s staring at him with what he’s sure is an idiotic expression.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You look stupid!” Madara blurts out before he can stop himself and immediately gives himself a mental beating, both for lying and his poor impulse control.

“You’re probably right,” Tobirama calls from the playground, still grinning widely. “Pass me that one, Saru?”

The kid he addressed glances at Madara, then at Tobirama, a dangerous gleam flashing through his eyes as he picks out one of the flower crowns—adorned with black and red rose petals, of all things. Tobirama takes it and crosses the playground in a matter of seconds to where Madara stands, frozen in shock and embarrassment.

“A flower crown would suit you better, I think,” Tobirama says, thoughtful, as he tries to put the flowery monstrosity onto Madara’s head.

Madara struggles, of course, because he’s not about to lose his dignity to this asshole, and swears creatively enough for the kids to gasp and mockingly chide him from where they’re eavesdropping. It’s a testament to Tobirama’s speed and reflexes how he latches onto Madara’s wrist before he can flee, restrains him and places the offending item on top of Madara’s hair.

I didn't brush it, Madara realizes, suddenly self-conscious. Why the fuck do I even care? he questions himself immediately after.

“Fuck you, Senju!” he shouts to block out the confusing thoughts, and turns around to glare at the white-haired bastard who’s shaking with poorly restrained laughter.

“I knew it,” Tobirama says, “fits you perfectly.”

“It does not!” Madara yanks the crown off his head and burns it to a crisp with fire hot enough to melt iron. “And stop mocking me!”

“I wasn’t,” Tobirama says, shrugging. “You really did look beautiful in that one,” he upends Madara’s composure, again, with a single sentence. “A shame.”

“What the fuck,” Madara whispers, “has gotten into you, Senju? Are you drunk?”

“No,” Tobirama chuckles, “just in a good mood. I’m feeling generous today.” He tilts his head to the side in an adorable gesture that makes Madara’s heart skip another beat. He should really get that under control; he read somewhere this arrhythmia thing is dangerous.

Madara forcefully keeps his mouth shut because the words that want to come out would be the final nail in the coffin of his pretense of lacking feelings for the white-haired bastard. Then, just as Tobirama turns to go back to the kids, Madara decides to simply go for it, since he seems to have already lost his dignity anyway.

“Wait,” he says, “I’m generous enough to offer a compliment in return.”

“Oh?” Tobirama turns back to him, surprised.

To his credit, Madara splutters only a little.

“Your smile looks—nice!” he says with a tad too much aggression, face feeling too hot for him to not be blushing.

“Why thank you, Madara,” Tobirama says, the smile in question growing wider. “And congratulations. I believe this is our first conversation that didn’t end in a fight.”

He gives Madara the slightest bow, which makes the blue petals nearly slide off his head. Madara reaches out on instinct to adjust it, then jerks his hand away as if from a fire when he realizes what he’s doing.

And Tobirama fucking winks at him, making Madara Sharingan light up before he can stop it, and suddenly he’s treated to the crystal clear sight of, admittedly, the prettiest smile he’d ever seen and striking red eyes Madara doesn’t want to look away from.

He has to, though, because with that, Tobirama shunshins back to the center of the playground where those hellspawn kids are laughing maniacally and humming traditional romantic music. Tobirama, gods damn him, starts assaulting them with tickles.

Madara huffs, offended at yet more of this excessive cuteness, and stalks off towards his house in the quickest pace he can manage before taking to the rooftops in his impatience.

He needs his quiet evening.

And tea.

And probably not a book, but instead a few hours—or a sleepless night—to ruminate on exactly how he’s going to attempt to ask the infuriating Senju out for a dinner date tomorrow.

Without spluttering and flailing this time.

—

spoiler: he totally flails the next time. And the next. AND THE NEXT. And Tobirama adores his idiot more with every time :D

thanks for the read! :3

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seven-oomen · 3 years

Photo

Hi, Ben! Hope you had a good day, and are finally getting some rest! So, did you know there are sites that let you design your own ugly Christmas sweaters? May I present the one that Peter’s husbands get him for a party? Except then the jokes on them because he won’t stop wearing it EVERYWHERE (at least I hope the image shows? It saved in a different format on the site I used for this.) Also, if you were ever to actually make a shirt of it, I would suggest an image from the reaction GIF you used for the alignment/meta anon. Because, my god, that smirk. XD (Also, they are totally right. And it is hilarious to me that the two officers of the law are firmly [and accurately] on the neutral side of that axis. XD )

And I’m still screaming over that latest preview. He just wants cuddles and ear scritches, Noah! The saliva will dry, he’s just showing his appreciation for your support. XD And oh, yeah I knew he would eventually get better, it was more me trying to decide how quickly I was hoping for it to happen. My “I want it asap because I hate seeing them in pain” side was warring with my “but nightmare creature cuddles would be adorbs, tho?” side (and they are). :D Also, terrible thought brought on by working at my job too long: since I don’t think that form has a tail like a wolf (I don’t really remember noticing one, at least?), do you think that since he can’t wag, he starts doing the wiggle-butt thing like boxers and pits tend to do? (sorry, the thought occurred to me and I couldn’t make it stop. XD )

Also, how dare you put the image of Noah and Chris cuddling in the window seat watching the snow fall while the listen to Peter singing ‘Hallelujah’ as he finishes the dishes, in my head? Or them sitting at the table having coffee and joining him for the choruses? Or Chris singing along with Tony Bennett or Harry Connick Jr on the local Christmas station? Or Noah singing along with Chris Cornell’s version of Ave Maria (or doing a damn good impression at least [song is available on Spotify, btw, if you’ve not heard it])? My body was not meant to hold this level of feral screaming, dude. XD

For the undecided alignment (that don’t involve spoilers), I would vote LN for Danny and CG for John. No specific reasons, that’s just what feels right at the moment. And I’m curious if Noah and the kids have been in the vault at all, because Malia would be able to access it.

And, yes, I am all for mutual body positivity support among the boys. I remember watching some BTS thing a few years back, and Linden said something about how everyone was “running around without their shirts on, and I just feel kinda old and jiggly”, and my very first thought was “Oh, please. You may not be I’ve-had-nothing-but-chicken-for-a-week-and-haven’t-had-liquids-in-three-days ripped like the other guys, but in no way will you ever convince me you are actually out of shape in the slightest." Also, I’m just picturing a scene where Noah accidentally(/on purpose…?) looms over Chris, who just has this moment of "oh, yeah, that’s right, you’re tall now” immediately followed by “well, I am learning a number of new things about myself right now" XD On a related note, how do you think he feels about dip kisses after realizing this? Although, I do hope Noah does not sweep Chris off his feet in quite the same way Chris keeps doing to him. XD

On an unrelated note, that post about Artoo and Luke about killed me dead. XD Artoo’s propensity for shenanigans and Luke’s pervading issues with impulse control is just a complete recipe for hilarious disaster and total ride-or-die besties. It also reminded me of the post about how Rogue One leads into New Hope and Leia straight up lying right to her dad’s face. Which, while hysterical, also makes me think about how many posts I see about how Leia is very much her father’s daughter, but almost never see any that point out how much Luke is his mother’s son. I just have a LOT OF FEELINGS about this, okay? But I will contain that rant. XD (Star Wars has been an on-again-off-again love for me since I was 9. It’s pretty much a guaranteed way to get an emotional response out of me. XD )

And I’m glad Mo doesn’t bother the tree or anything, though the box thing is pretty funny. But he does seem to have that very cat-like tendency to want to completely block you from accessing the keyboard or pin you in place because he’s laying on you and you don’t want to disturb him, so I think he’s catting just fine. XD I mean, I have some friends who one of their cats is immune to scruffing (the downside of this is that he’s also almost completely feral still [he was a stray that stayed], and at one point he got a UTI and needed antibiotics. I’m pretty sure my friend had to get like a falconing glove or something to get his pills in him. XD )

That America being huge vs Europe being old thing also made me laugh because there was the section about the "long bus ride” that was like two hours, and all I could think about was how often we drove four hours both ways to visit my grandparents, and how in high school we took a trip to Canada, and I don’t remember the exact length of the bus ride up, but I know it was between twenty-three and twenty-eight hours.

And I hope you’re enjoying the Spiderman game, or will when you get to it! As best I recall, everyone I know who has played it has had nothing but good things to say about it. And wow, I’m rambling again. Oh well. Anyway, hope you’re doing well, and sending lots of good energy for finishing the chapter to your satisfaction (I know the readers certainly don’t mind the longer chapters. :D ) Take care! *Hugs!*

Oh my god I am absolutely in love with that sweater. Why is this not a thing XD

And yeah, they definitely gift Peter a sweater like that, lbr. No other way about it. It definitely backfires when Peter wears it every single year and to everywhere. Including PT meetings and the parent/school board meetings? I forgot the American word for it, in Dutch we call it ouderraad. I know we talked about them before where Peter starts a war with the ‘Karen’ and completely wrecks her. And how all the other moms fall in love with the three DILFS.

But yeah, wears it everywhere and every year XD.

Noah’s deputies, including Jordan, have definitely snapped pictures and post them on every computer desktop in the station. Including pictures of Noah’s reaction faces of that sweater.

Because you cannot convince me, that a bunch of cops, would not be dicks about this.

Chris is infinitely grateful that he does not have coworkers like that.

And god that is rather good smirk to go with that line XD. And yeah I guess it is funny. But it’s also true and that’s wow... XD

I did a character alignment test for Peter and came out on CN so that is what I’m going to stick with in any itteration for him.

As for the wiggle butt thing, he does not have a tail and I already had a very lengthy inner discussion with myself before getting this ask and I can tell you, he does wiggle butt like a boxer in this form. Imagine a fucking beast like that just wiggle butting with happiness. The image is so bizarre that I had to include it in the full moon chapter.

Chris is definitely learning a number of things about himself when he figures out Noah can now loom over him and press him against walls. Also Chris has a thing for being bound or pressed against objects and when Noah figures that one out, well, let’s say Peter certainly doesn’t mind watching those moments.

There’s also a revelation when Chris says; I can easily get out of these handcuffs and Noah translates it too; Good, that means that as long as you don’t try to, you’re consenting to whatever I’m doing to you. Deal? To which Chris, enthusiastically agrees. It’s a very fun game. Peter disagrees because they tend to lock him out during the games with some ash, although he is invited back in after they’re done and then the attention of two Omegas is fully on him. So I suppose he doesn’t mind too much.

Something that is both funny and sweet though is that through Ben, Noah discovers how much he misses having little kids running around. And he has a few moments of; oh god I want another kid realizations in this chapter.

Of course, considering their situation this isn’t the time and Noah more than realizes that. But it gets conversations about the future going for all three of them.

Oh and to answer your question, Malia has not been to the vault, but she and her siblings will get to see it. If that’s with dad or with Derek I haven’t decided yet. But they will end up at the vault in this story. Gotta get Peter’s necklace back.

So far I’ve had a bit of a rough day but by answering this and focusing on headcanons, and that freaking sweater!!!!, I feel a bit better. So thank you my friend, this helped me a lot <3.

And I agree, Leia is just like her father but Luke is all Padme and people don’t talk about that enough. <3

Lots of Love from me and Mo!

#once upon a time comments #ben says stuff #my convos with anon #B #submission

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thecleverdame · 5 years

Text

The Assholes From Texas

Alpha!Werewolf!Sam x Omega!Werewolf!Reader, Dean, Harry & Ed.

Summary: On the cusp of a heat you find yourself trapped in close quarters with Sam, Dean and the Ghostfacers.

Warnings: voyeurism, smut, public shame

Words: 3800+

Beta: @ilikaicalie

This story was available now on Patreon on 2/17 . Subscribe for a pledge of $2.50 a month and get early access to all my stories and other Patreon exclusive content.

It was supposed to be a quick in and out. Sam didn’t even want to bring you but Dean kept saying they’d just check the place out and get the hell out of dodge before anything hinky went down.

The building is a dilapidated warehouse in the middle of nowhere that was abandoned two decades ago and sat vacant since. Over the years it’s become a Mecca for ghost hunters and supernatural enthusiasts. The only problem is that once a year the place goes from mild-mannered haunting to a lethal death trap. It locks down for forty-eight hours and whoever’s trapped inside turns into a bereaved-loved-one’s missing person’s case.

“I got nothing.” Dean hisses as his flashlight cuts through the grainy fog. “You two find anything?”

“No,” Sam confirms, reaching behind him to grab your hand. “But it’s not like I can really do a thorough search when I’ve got her to worry about.”

It’s true. He’s spent the last half hour wandering around the building more concerned about making sure you’re within arm’s reach than doing any actual ghost hunting.

“I told you to leave her in the car.” Rolling his eyes Dean shifts his attention to the worn blueprint of the building in his hands.

“I’m not leaving her in the car. We’re in the middle of nowhere and we don’t know what this is. Anything could happen to her.”

“I’m right here!” You wave, both men pay you no attention. “A grown woman who can speak for herself.”

“Well, what about the motel?”

“I’m not leaving her anywhere, not when she’s like this.”

“If you ask me you two really need work on your codependency. It’s not healthy to be up each others ass twenty-four hours a day.”

“No one asked you.”

“Considered it free advice.”

“Get fucked, Dean.”

“You know what Sam? You should really thank your lucky stars-”

There’s a crash from somewhere in the dark. Dean looks to Sam, giving a nod as he raises his guns. Sam steps in front of you, aiming his own pistol with two hands.

“Stay behind me. Put your hand on my back,” Sam whispers to you, looking over his shoulder. “I want to know where you are.”

“You two are sick.” Dean groans.

“Shut up.” Sam squares off his shoulders as you place an open palm against the middle of his back.

You’re not a hunter. You used to be a secretary at a trucking company and at the moment you’re just an Omega who’s trying to find her place in the world of the Winchesters. Sam claimed you five months ago and it’s been a...interesting transition.

There’s a series of voices, a muted conversation coming your way. This is the first time you’ve ever been in the middle of one of their hunts. You had this vision of hunting being somewhat exciting but in reality, you’re just terrified, curling your fingers into the back of Sam’s jacket and squeezing your eyes shut.

The voices spill into the room and there’s silence. After a beat, you open your eyes and peak around Sam. There are two men with headlamps and video cameras, staring at Sam and Dean who look just as confused.

“Hey.” One of them shines a flashlight at Dean’s face. “Aren’t these the assholes from Texas?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Dean snorts. “It’s the two idiots, from the ah, Hell House.”

“Fuck.” Sam relaxes, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans.

“What are you guys doing here?” The new guy with the beards asks, clearly annoyed.

“What do you think we’re doing here? Trying to keep people like you from getting killed.” Dean’s disgust is palpable.

“You know these guys?” You ask, inching around Sam.

The two unknown men look at you, the bearded one tipping his head to the side. “Who’s the babe?”

“Watch it,” Sam warns, reaching out to grab your wrist and pull you closer.

You were born a werewolf. A child of two parents who did their best to hide what they were and fit in with the rest of the world. You’ve always known how to control your impulses and keep your wild side at bay.

Sam and Dean are a different story. Sam was bitten by some a wolf in Louisiana and after a year of searching for a cure, Dean decided he wouldn’t let his brother suffer alone, and got himself a matching bite.

Sam had only presented as an Alpha a few weeks before he claimed you. Dean calls it poor impulse control and Sam says its fate. For better or worse you’re part of their lives for the long haul.

“That’s Y/N.” Dean flash his light toward you. “Don’t look at her the wrong way, Sam’ll kill you.”

“Dean,” Sam cocks his head. They’ve been at each other’s throats for a week now. Too many hormones, small motel rooms, and long car rides. “Can we focus on the matter at hand?”

“Hi.” You nod, looking at the two men, ignoring your Alpha and his brother.

“I’m Ed, this is Harry.” The rounder of two men speaks up.

“Nice to meet you.” While Sam and Dean might not like these two guys their nonverbals are telling you that they’re harmless.

“Enough with the small talk.” Dean starts toward Ed and Harry.

“Yeah.” Sam follows suit. “We all need to get out of here.”

“What? No way!” Ed looks aghast at the very idea. “Do you have any idea how long we’ve been preparing for this?”

“We can talk about it outside, let’s go.” Dean’s waving his hand like he’s trying to herd cattle but no one is moving.

“You guys can leave if you’re too scared but we’re not going anywhere-” Harry stops mid-sentence.

There is a gentle vibration that starts in the floor and moves upward until the walls as shaking. Sam pulls you to him, tucking you under his arm. There’s a loud tearing sound as if the walls are going to be ripped in two and then nothing.

“Oh no,” Sam looks up at his brother. “No, no, no!”

Sam and Dean both make a beeline for the door. The handle doesn’t turn, the door won’t budge.

You start to panic as Sam looks around, grabbing a chair and trying to put it through a boarded up window. The wood breaks into a million pieces and the look on your Alpha’s face tells you all you need to know. This isn’t good.

“I can’t believe this.” Sam runs a hand over his face. “Fuck!”

“What the hell is going on?” Harry asks, looking at both Winchesters like they’re sideshow freaks.

“Supernatural lockdown. You two idiots got us all locked in. No one is going anywhere for the next forty-eight hours unless we kill this thing.” Dean throws his hands up.

“We can’t stay here.” Sam looks from you to his brother. “I’ve gotta get her outta here, Dean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean confirms calmly. “But I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Dean, she’s…” Sam’s voice trails off as he looks up at Ed and Harry who are not only listening intently but filming the whole thing.

You’re in heat, well not a full on heat yet but in a few hours, you will be. It’s the reason Sam wouldn’t leave you back the motel, the reason Sam wanted to wait to search the place.

As if on cue you can feel the warmth spreading from your toes to the top of your head, cheeks burning hot. It’s the first wave of what will inevitably become uncontrollable lust. You’re trapped in a haunted, abandoned building, in a room, with strangers.

“Is she sick or something?” Harry asks, looking from Sam to you. “I’ve got water, you want some?”

“Sure.” You accept, taking the bottle from him. “I’ll be fine.”

“For now.” Sam grunts, tipping his head back in utter frustration. “We need to find a way out of here, now.”

“Alright.” Dean concedes. “We gotta find whatever is controlling this place and do our thing.”

Sam and Dean fall into a natural rhythm, while Ed and Harry continue to film, looking absolutely thrilled just to be there.

You, on the other hand, are trying to get yourself under control. The minutes tick away, becoming an hour, then two. You find a spot in the corner of the room and bring your knees up to your chest, curling into a ball and attempting and failing to ignore the building urge in your belly.

Sam’s on a chair, both arms outstretched as he tries to open a trap door in the ceiling. There’s a slice of his stomach showing, warm skin stretched over strong muscle. Your breath begins coming faster, sweat breaking out over your body.

Even before his claim, you thought Sam was near perfection, but now that he’s your Alpha you crave him in an all-consuming way. Especially when your heat sets in.

There’s throb between your legs, arousal that will quickly turn to pain if you fail to abate it.

“Sam.” You say his name as naturally as possible, but it comes out squeaky like you’re being squished in a vice grip. All four men instantly turn toward you. Sam immediately jumps down and walks over to you, crouching down.

“Shit.” He reaches out to cup the side of your face, thumbing through the sheen of sweat you’re covered in. He closes his eyes when he smells your pussy. At this rate, you’re going to soak through your jeans. “It’s bad?”

“It’s gonna be.” You force a smile, taking his hand from your face and pulling it down to cup the crotch of your pants. “Can you just-”

“What wrong with her?” Ed’s inching closer, trying to see past Sam.

“Stay back.” Sam’s on his feet in two seconds flat, growling at the idea of anyone coming close to his mate.

“Jeez!” Ed scowls. He looks at Sam’s face and freezes, backing up. “What’s wrong with your…” he gestures toward his own eyes with two fingers.

“Ho-ly fuck.” Harry is undaunted, stepping closer. There’s a mechanical whirl of his camera as he zooms in for a close-up. “What the hell is that?”

Sam’s eyes are glowing, a sparking orange that shimmers in the dark.

“What the hell are you?” Ed chimes in, his fear dissolving into interest.

“Motherfucker.” Dean mumbles. He looks at Sam who’s stuck in a protective stance, clearly on the edge of killing anyone who gets too close. There’s no point in sugar coating it. “He’s a werewolf. All three of us are. And if you don’t back up you’re going to find out the hard way.”

“Are you serious?” Ed balks, squinting at Sam in fascination.

“No fucking way.” Harry breathes. “This is so...awesome. Her too?”

“Her especially.” Dean purses his lips. “And you better get away from her before Sam rips your throat out. She’s his and he’s a little territorial right now.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Ed asks, stepping away.

“Nothing.” Sam snips. As soon as both men have backed off he’s on his knees, at your side.

“This is un-fucking-believable,” Harry whispers. Dean is trying to pry the door off its hinges and Sam is busy with you, hunched over in the corner of the room.

“I know.” Breathing heavily, Ed snaps a replacement battery into his camera and begins to film again. “This is the holy grail.”

“What do you think her deal is?”

“Who knows. Werewolf sickness? We’re gonna have to do some major research when we get out of here.” Ed hits zoom, using his night vision to get a close up on Sam who’s crouched down in the corner.

“Wait a minute.” Harry murmurs, pulling the camera toward him. “Is he…”

The black and white of the night vision is grainy but it’s clear enough to see the bottom half of your body and Sam’s hand jammed down the front of your jeans, his knuckles moving against the material as he fingers you.

“No…” Ed gulps.

“Sam,” you moan softly. There’s no mistaking that.

“Should we, you know, stop recording?”

Ed shrugs. “We can edit stuff out if we need to.”

You whimper, and both of your legs stiffen on the small screen, toes pointed and then you go limp. Sam pulls his hand out of your pants, wiping his fingers on your thigh before turning around and looking directly at the camera.

He doesn’t need night vision to see in the dark.

“Hey, perverts.” Sam stands up and you want to protest but your entire body feels like jelly, still coming down from your orgasm. “Give me the fucking camera.”

“No.” Harry yelps, scampering to the other side of the room, putting a table between him and Sam.

“Give it to me before I have to come and take it from you.”

“Look, let’s just talk about this.” Ed gets in front of Sam, both arms outstretched, knees bent like he’s a lion tamer.

“We’re not the ones giving each other jollies in the corner!” Harry snaps. He’s about to add to his insult when Dean swoops in behind him, grabs the camera and smashes it against the wall.

“What the fuck!” Ed squeals. “You just ruined a two thousand dollar piece of equipment.”

“I don’t give two shits.” Dean snarls, kicking the shattered plastic. “We’ve got bigger issues here.”

“Tell that to them!” Ed points at Sam. “He’s f - doing stuff to his girlfriend while we’re trapped in here and we’re the bad guys?”

“She’s in heat.” Dean state matter-of-factly. “Which means things are about to get a hell of a lot more uncomfortable if we don’t find a way out of here.”

“Heat?” Ed blinks, his entire face turning beat red. “Like - like a dog?”

“Like a werewolf, asshole.” Sam spits.

“You better watch it.” Dean shines his flashlight from Ed to Harry. “She’s gonna need more and Sam’s gonna have less and less patience with you two. So I suggest you either help me or you hunker down and mind your business. And stop recording.”

You’re vaguely aware of the argument happening across the room. There’s pain radiating up from between your legs. Your entire midsection is beginning to cramp and this is only the beginning.

Sam managed to give you a few minutes of relief fucking you with two thick fingers, but it’s not what you really need. All it did was momentarily take the edge off.

“Sam!” You call out again, crying in agony. There’s an exchange of voices and then Sam’s back at your side.

“I’m sorry, baby.” His hands are on you instantly, one sliding under your shirt over the skin of your stomach, the other curling around the back of your neck, bringing you up into a sitting position. His touch helps with the pain, somewhat alleviating the symptoms.

“I need you.” You whisper, doing everything within your power to keep your voice down. “Please, I need to cum again.”

“Do you want me to…” His hand moves down toward your pussy and you sob in protest.

“Please fuck me, I need your knot.” You beg, twisting his shirt in your fingers.

“I can’t knot you here.” He groans, leaning down to whisper into your ear. Dean will no doubt be able to hear him but at least the two humans don’t have superhuman hearing.

“I don’t care about them.” The truth is your mortified to be going through this in front of anyone other than Sam, but at the moment you don't have the luxury of being bashful.

“It’s not just them. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. I can’t be...stuck and have something happen.” He slides his fingers back inside your pants. “But I can do this.”

“No.” You protest. “I need your knot!”

That comes out louder than intended but neither of you care anymore.

“I can’t fuck you.” He insists.

“Then let me suck your cock.” You compromise, breathing faster and heavier at thought of having him in your mouth. It the next best thing to the feeling of him stretching your pussy.

Sam is silent, the room is silent.

“Please, Alpha.” You whisper, reaching for his belt.

He grabs your hands, stopping you as he clears his throat.

“Alright, Omega.” He grunts, standing up. Long fingers sliding leather through metal and unzipping his pants.

You rise up to your knees, impatiently pulling his swollen dick from his underwear and wasting no time taking him into your mouth. He’s thick, hard and salty and you take him into your throat until you’re gagging yourself on his shaft.

You’re aware that everyone else in the room can surely hear you. There’s no mistaking the wet, gurgling of him in the back of your throat and the squelching sound of your mouth as you begin to bob on his length, desperate to get a mouthful of his cum.

You moan and wedge your own hand into your jeans, rubbing your clit as you suck on his cock like it might save your life. Sam is huffing and puffing, doing his best to stay quiet and breathing in and out through his nose.

“Sam, you need to hurry up. We got problems.” Dean hollers.

“Y/N,” your Alpha stammers, fingers threading into your hair.

The only response you offer is to shove yourself forward until your nose is pressed against the skin on his groin and his cock is farther down your throat than he’s ever been before. You hold yourself there, sputtering around his length, letting him feel you fight to keep him deep, before finally pulling back.

You’re close, so close to orgasm that nothing else matters. The finger on your clit moves faster and Sam groans, pulling your hair as he cums, unloading over your tongue as you earnestly swallow. The taste of his spunk gets you to your peak, cumming right along with him, empty cunt clenching around nothing as he’s spurting thick and warm into your mouth. You whimper on his cock, sucking and swallowing until the frenzy finally wanes and there’s a sense of both clarity and relief.

“Shit.” He whispers, running his thumb down your cheek as you stare up at him. “You alright?”

“Better.” You nod, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

“I hated to ruin your romantic interlude, but we’ve got a fucking poltergeist over here!” Dean yells.

Sam snaps to attention, tucking himself back into his pants. “Ed, Harry, get over here with her.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Ed looks horrified. “You don’t want us to…”

Sam looks up from where he’s rifle through his duffle bag and rolls his eyes.

“What? No, here, take this.” He hands Harry a nondescript bag. “It’s salt. Make a circle. Get inside. Stay there.”

There’s a commotion coming from the other side of the room. Dean’s yelling for Sam and before you know it you’re sandwiched between two unfamiliar men.

Despite their chosen profession, Ed and Harry seem more frightened than you as the three of you huddle together, watching in horror as some invisible force picks up Sam and throws him halfway across the room.

“What do we do?” Ed asks, pulling a cellphone from his pocket. He holds a shaking flashlight up as Dean unloads a shotgun blast of rocksalt.

“We stay put.” You hiss, shifting uncomfortably. You’re far from satisfied and it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be in the throes of a spine curling heat. This was just the prelude. If this situation doesn’t resolve itself fast you’re doing to be doing a lot more than sucking Sam’s dick in front these two.

“Can’t you, you know, wolf out and kick some ass?” Harry looks at you expectantly.

“It doesn’t work like that.” You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself despite the complete chaos erupting around you. “I can’t shift on command.”

“She needs a full moon, you idiot.” Harry slaps him on the arm.

“Should we do something?” The three of you watch as Sam scrambles to draw a symbol on the ground. Dean’s holding onto a chair that’s suspended in mid-air, in the middle of tug-of-war with a poltergeist.

“I think they got it.” Harry nods, taking a seat on the cement floor.

“Yeah. They're in their element. We’d just get in the way.” Ed joins him.

You carefully sit down between them, pulling your knees to your chest as Sam uses a knife to cut across his palm and slaps the bloody hand down in the middle of the sigil. Light explodes through the room, blinding everyone as the force explodes outward.

And when the dust settles the overhead lights flicker on and the forgotten building hums back to life as if it’s always been in perfect working order. Sam’s standing up and Dean’s laid out flat on his back with the broken chair beside him.

“You alright?” Sam stalking toward you, wiping blood on his jeans.

“I’m good.” Dean calls from the ground, waving his hand at his brother. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m fine.” You carefully step out of the salt circle, legs wobbling as the Alpha takes your hand. “I need to get out of here though. I’m gonna need...”

You stop, turning to Ed and Harry who are getting their first clear look at you now that lights have come back on. They’re ogling you like a Frankenstein's monster, but you can’t blame them. You know you must look like a strung out mess. You’re sweating and flushed, and beyond humiliated.

“Come on.” Sam’s leads you outside as the others follow.

“Hand it over.” Dean cocks an eyebrow, holding out his hand. Harry rolls his eyes and begrudgingly gives him his phone. Dean turns to Ed. “Come on, I know you’ve got one too.”

“Oh come on man,” Ed whines but slaps his iPhone into Dean’s palm.

“I told you two to stop recording.” Dean cocks his head, dropping the phones to the ground stomping on both.

“Dean!” Sam calls with one foot in the Impala. “We gotta go!”

“I’m comin!’ I gotta get out of here before those two fuck in my backseat.” He grumbles. “And I don’t wanna see any blog posts about werewolves and Winchesters and blow jobs. All this, everything you saw in there, never happened. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Ed looks at Harry as he concedes.

“We got it.” Harry chimes in.

They watch Dean climb into the car with you and Sam in the back and peels out the driveway and onto the interstate.

“That was messed up.” Harry laughs, unable to hide his excitement.

“We gotta write a book.” Picking up the pieces of his phone Ed looks at his friend. “You uploaded the footage to the cloud right?”

Harry looks at him like he’s the biggest numskull on the planet. “As soon as I got a signal. We’re locked and loaded.”

#Alpha!Sam x Omega!Reader #sam winchester x reader #alpha!sam winchester

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jawnjendes · 5 years

Text

shawn meets... | aria

SUMMARY: in the life of a rockstar, shawn mendes comes across some unique people. sometimes, things stray from the norm. (AU, shawn x every one of my oc’s)(continuation of goth gf)

AN: time jump lmao. sry in advance.

***let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist

previous chapter

aria’s [abandonded] origin story | aria’s playlist | masterlist

Eight months later.

Shawn was beyond tired. Shawn was not allowed to be tired. Shawn, the sun has almost gone down and we still have so much to do today! Stop sleeping and pay attention!

Honestly, nobody was keeping track of how many interviews had been done today. Shawn should have kept track, that way he would know how many were left before he was done for the day. He was only half listening to what his manager Andrew was saying.

“A lot of Internet stars want you these days,” he said. “This girl was the only one who had something interesting to do with you. Good thing you stayed in your sweats today.”

Oh yeah. A majority of the interviews Shawn did today were done over the phone. For some goddamn reason, he and his whole team had to move from place to place for each one. This was annoying, and this was Hollywood, apparently. At least he didn’t have to change for this interview, whatever it was going to be.

Andrew was leading the team through a plaza somewhere in Los Angeles. Shawn was just on autopilot at this point. He took a dinner break a couple of hours ago, but he just wanted to be done already. He wanted to go to bed, even if he wasn’t planning on sleeping. He couldn’t really sleep these days, and it was by choice.

The team stopped in front of a door that said “DANCE STUDIO” in white letters. As usual, Andrew made Shawn wait outside with Jake the bodyguard while the rest of the team went inside. It was a moment to let things sink in and breathe while he was almost alone. Shawn had to put on his happy mask once again, even if it was the last thing he felt.

“How you holding up?” Jake asked, watching him carefully.

Shawn knew what he was asking, but shrugged it off. “Just a little tired.”

“Nightmare,” he said with a nod.

“What? No, I don’t have those anymore.”

“I wasn’t asking, I’m telling you.”

He stayed quiet. It’s not like anything could be done about it right now. There’s other things to worry about. Andrew always told Shawn just to not think about it. Think about happier things, like walking into this damn studio.

Andrew came out of the room after a few minutes, gesturing for them to enter. Here goes another round of answering the same questions he’s been asked all day.

There were two studio lights stood on either side of a camera set up in front of the mirrors that spanned across the wall. It wasn’t the huge Hollywood set up he had gotten used to. There were chairs lined up against the wall away from the camera, and there was no crew either, just two girls handling everything. The life of YouTubers.

A blonde girl in glasses was fixing the lens on the camera, but she looked up and smiled at Shawn when he entered the room. The other girl with curly brown hair was doing the splits in the middle of the hardwood floor. She looked up as well, and was quick to get up and greet him.

"Hi! I'm Aria Mercer, it's so nice to meet you!"

Aria was very short, given that her head was tilted up to look Shawn in the eyes. She was in red sweats and a One Direction tee, making him feel better about his drab appearance.

"And I'm Sophie Jensen!" said the blonde as she approached the group. "We've heard so much about you! We love your music!"

Shawn grinned. "Thank you, it's nice to meet you too."

"So, you showed up in the appropriate attire, that's good," Aria said. "You ready to dance?"

Shawn's eyes widened. "That's what we're doing?"

"Your people didn't tell you?" Aria shot a mock disappointed look to his team, who had all collectively went to sit in the chairs against the wall. "But yeah, I'll be teaching you a few simple moves. Nothing dangerous or strenuous."

Sophie went back to the camera, looking into the viewfinder and pressing a button. "It's recording. Whenever you guys are ready."

For once, Shawn was glad Brian wasn't here to witness this. Lucky bastard got to go back to the hotel early. Still, he was going to see this in the foreseeable future, and that was enough to make Shawn nervous.

"Gotta warn you," he said to Aria, "I'm a huge klutz."

"It's okay, we'll have fun!" she reassured, and she reached over to rub his arm.

Her tiny hand left so many tingles on his skin. Shawn resisted the urge to scratch it away as Aria greeted the camera.

She didn't obnoxiously project her voice like other YouTubers. She wasn't like the rich socialites who were running the platform these days. She was a dancer, and she was bubbly and full of energy.

"Have you ever danced before?" she asked Shawn.

"I literally fall over twenty times a day," he replied. "Dancing feels out of my element, but I'm down to learning."

Aria giggled. "And you've got me as your teacher, so everything will be okay."

The first thing she taught him was the formation for a simple ballet turn. Shawn learned very quickly that standing on one leg with your toes pointed was challenging, to say the least.

"Okay, stay like that," Aria said, stepping towards him. "Let me fix your posture."

Shawn wanted to laugh, but he would lose his balance. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, Aria circling his body.

"Okay, relax your shoulders," she said, patting the area, "but squeeze your back muscles, it'll keep you straight. And squeeze your butt muscles too, it'll keep your legs straight."

She didn't touch that area, but her tiny hands were low on his hips. "Hm, so broad. You definitely have a dancer's body."

"Thanks?" he strained out.

"Elongate your neck as well, chin up."

His muscles were starting to hurt, clearly not used to having them flexed this way. He quickly gave out and lost the position.

"You do all that just when you turn?" he asked Aria.

"Claro que sí! And that's just the surface. There's spotting so you don't lose balance. And then there's the art of making it looks graceful and effortless."

With that, she did the turn. No, she did a pirouette, maybe five turns in a row. Shawn had a new appreciation for dancers now.

Aria taught him more moves, like the five positions of ballet. They were simple enough, but Shawn felt like his ankle might pop off during fifth position. He felt quite goofy with his arms up in the air, but Aria looked, as she said, graceful.

"And back to fourth, and plie," she said, bending her knees.

It looked easy, Shawn never skipped leg day. But with the position his feet were in, he was far from elegant. He couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous he looked in the mirror.

"I take it you've danced your whole life?" he asked her.

"I have. And back to first."

"What's, like, the craziest move you can do?" he asked, now curious. He also wanted to see how flexible this girl was.

Aria tapped her finger to her chin as she thought about it. "Huh… good question. A fouette, I think. Either that, or an aerial."

"I have no idea what either of those things are, you have to show me."

An aerial, he quickly learned, is a no handed cartwheel. Aria took three large steps and practically did a front flip. Again, she was graceful as hell and made Shawn feel inadequate even though this wasn't a profession he planned to pursue.

A fouette was an incredibly complex turn that left Aria panting after she did ten in a row. She was a fucking champ.

When the video was done, the team was quick to rush Shawn, surround him, and get him to the next location. For once, he wasn't having it. He was quite taken with Aria after the short 30 minutes he spent with her.

"Wait!" he snapped, yanking his arm out of Jake's grasp. "Can't I thank our lovely host?"

Aria, who had quickly occupied herself by talking to Sophie, looked up in his direction.

"We have to go!" Andrew strictly told him.

"Just give me a minute!" Shawn said back.

With several stern looks, the team backed off. Shawn then approached Aria with more confidence than he should have had after being brutally humbled by the art of dance.

He put on his best smile. "Hey, just wanted to thank you for the experience."

"No problem." She smiled. "Showing people the way of dance is kinda my thing."

"Well, you're really good at it."

"Aw, thanks!"

Shawn looked at her, then at Sophie. Then, he gently took Aria's shoulder and led her away from the other girl. He cleared his throat before speaking again.

"Look, uh, tell me if this is too forward, but… I was wondering if you wanted to come by my hotel later tonight."

Her brown eyes widened, and then she looked down. "Dio mío. ¿En serio?"

Shawn blinked. "You just spoke Spanish."

"Sorry, I'm just a little thrown off. You're being serious?" She was blushing.

"Yeah. Kinda wanna see what else you can do with those legs." He smirked.

"Me va a dar algo," Aria mumbled. Then, she caught herself. "This is crazy."

He tilted his head. "How so?"

She chewed her lip as she looked at him. There was a look in her eyes that held the answer to his request. "You ever had like… a free pass? Like, you and your significant other talk about your crushes and which celebrity you'd go for. You're my free pass."

Shawn raised his eyebrows, flattered. "So that's a yes?"

Confliction spread on her features. "How long are you in town for?"

"I leave tomorrow." His heart started to race.

"I'll message you on Twitter later, okay? I, uh, need to see if I have something already planned."

"We have nothing planned!" called Sophie, obviously eavesdropping.

Aria's cheeks went even more pink as she looked at Shawn. "Okay, I guess I'm free!"

"Awesome. I'll send you the address." Shawn winked, even though he wasn't very good at it.

Still, Aria was beaming as she went back to her friend.

The only person who was supportive of this impulsive decision was Brian. It was a good thing Shawn brought him along on this weirdly wonderful journey. Shawn told him everything over dinner with the team, leaving out some details of the dancing part.

Brian high fived his friend. "It's about time you come back to your old self! Shawn the bachelor, revived!"

Shawn couldn't quite remember his old self. He hardly had any time to think about it. Brian sometimes reminded him of that old self, it was good to have him here.

"She was really hesitant," he said, "she might not even show up."

"But you took the initiative, and that's a good sign! Besides, if she ghosts you, it won't be hard to find someone else."

That was mildly comforting. More fish in the sea, and Shawn's sea recently expanded.

"Gotta get under someone to get over someone," Brian added.

Shawn couldn't argue with that. This Aria Mercer girl was a good place to start, given that she was completely different from the last girl he was with. This girl was smaller, and more bubbly. Flexible. Amazing curly hair. Shawn could definitely get down with someone who wears more than just one color.

If only he could find beauty in color again.

It wasn't until he was back in his hotel did Shawn start getting nervous. He sent Aria the address and his room number through a Twitter DM, forgetting to add a cheeky "can't wait to see you." After that, he jumped in the shower. Sure, it was just a measly hookup, but he wanted to be clean at least. He even made the effort to order a bottle of patrón to the room.

The bottle was delivered by the time Aria notified him of her arrival. Shawn thanked the room service person with a crisp twenty and quickly ushered them out. Shawn placed the patrón and two glasses on the table, and then checked his reflection in the mirror.

He took a deep breath to calm his nerves, but still jumped when there was a soft knock on the door. Maybe he should have waited an extra thirty seconds, because Aria still had her fist up when Shawn wandered.

She quickly put her arm down and grinned. "Hey."

"Hi. Come in," Shawn said.

His heart was pounding wildly when the two of them were officially shut inside the hotel room. Aria walked in front of him, making him get a look at her bare legs in tiny pink shorts. She placed her tiny backpack on one of chairs at the table.

Shawn noticed the golden lightning bolt and two clear circles on the pack, piquing his interest.

"You like Harry Potter?"

"Hm? Yeah!" Aria said. "I'm obsessed."

"What house are you?"

"Hufflepuff! You?"

Of course the first girl he hooks up with in months is the same Hogwarts house as-

"Gryffindor," he replied.

"Cool."

Silence fell between the two of them as they stood in front of the bed. Aria looked around the room, biting her nails. Shawn couldn't figure out how to step into the next part of this night. He wasn't typically nervous or awkward, but that was only because before this, he was getting intimate with the same person consistently. There was no reason to be nervous then.

"So, uh…" he trailed off.

"Do we just…?" Aria asked, taking a few steps closer.

Neither of them remembered hookups being this awkward.

"Do you want a drink?" Shawn asked, but Aria spoke over him.

"Come closer."

So he did, feeling his heart in his throat. Nervous energy radiated all over, it was almost suffocating. It wasn't the fun type of nervous.

"Closer," Aria said softly.

There was an inch of space left between them. Shawn was looking at her, but she wouldn't return the gaze. He gently placed his hands on her upper arms, slowly moving his head closer, bending more than usual given the height difference. This was like a bandaid that needed to be ripped off. Once that was done, then everything else could come naturally.

"I can't do this," Aria said when their noses were touching, her voice slicing through the silence like a knife.

He moved back, removing himself from her completely. His body suddenly felt much less tense, almost relieved. Before he could even think of anything to say, Aria kept talking.

"I thought I could do it because you're my free pass, and you're insanely gorgeous. But I need to be honest - I have a boyfriend."

Shawn felt his stomach drop. "You-"

"But he gave me his blessing!" Aria frantically interrupted. "I texted him, and he sent me a voice clip of his approval! You can listen if you don't believe me!"

She hurried to her Hogwarts bag, opening up the zipper and digging inside. Meanwhile, Shawn sat down on the bed, his mind spiraling.

He wouldn't have been able to do this either. Come to think of it, he wasn't even that attracted to Aria. He hardly knew her, apart from the fact that she posts dancing videos on YouTube. Hell, he didn't even think about what he wanted to do with her, he just went through the motions.

Aria turned back to Shawn, phone in hand. She stopped in her tracks, noticing his hunched shoulders. "Are you okay?"

Shawn didn't really speak of the ache in his heart to anyone. Again, there was just no time. Sometimes he was tempted to call Camila on the rare days off, but she was just as busy these days. He thought about texting Alessia, but she didn't speak to him anymore. Shawn didn't talk about it, but keeping it in wasn't doing it anymore.

"You were honest with me, so I owe you just the same," he began. "I only wanted to do this because I'm going through a breakup."

He expected her to scoff, or make some comment about how pathetic he is, but Aria simply sat down next to him. Her brown eyes were soft and sympathetic.

"Getting over someone by getting under someone." She echoed Brian's words. "I've been there."

"Hey, I'm sorry for putting you in this position-"

"It's okay," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, I did the same thing when I was twenty years old. Actually, the guy I'm dating now was one of my rebounds."

Shawn cleared his throat. "Is that how you ended up together?"

"Nah, that's a whole other story. But while we're being honest, I have to tell you. Sleeping around isn't gonna heal your broken heart. A wise man once said that numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it."

Ain't that the fucking truth. Shawn felt the ache deep in his bones. It hurt so much it knocked the wind out of him.

"Did you love that person?" Aria asked after a moment.

Shawn couldn't stop himself. "I was so in love with her. She was the first person I ever loved, and it was everything I could have asked for."

"And it feels like you'll never find that again," Aria continued, rubbing his back.

Shawn nodded and took a breath. "Look, I'm sorry I'm dumping this on you. This is probably the opposite of what you expected to happen."

To his surprise, she grinned. "You're lucky I'm nice and have a need to protect heartbroken individuals. If you had hit up my friend Sophie, she would have kicked you while you were down. Besides, sometimes it's just easier to vent to a stranger."

Well, she wasn't wrong about that. Shawn felt more ramblings bubbling up the longer he sat with her. So maybe he would end up spending the night with Aria Mercer.

"Tell me about you, though," he told her. "I don't want this whole thing to be depressing."

The two of them sat up against the headboard, chatting for a while. Shawn learned a little bit more about Aria. She's been dancing since she was a toddler, but she took a hiatus from it after graduating high school. Her favorite color is red, she's a Virgo, and she graduated from that fancy university for vloggers two years prior. That's where she met her first love.

"I got really lucky that the first guy I dated was my first real love," she explained.

"The guy you're with now?" Shawn asked.

"No. That's Joe. My first love was named Dan," she said. "I gotta say, it's been almost five years since we broke up - and I'm very happy with Joe - but a small part of me is still soft for my ex."

Shawn nodded his head as he listened. "Why did you guys break up?"

Aria opened her mouth to answer, but she gave him a look. "You first."

"Fine, but we're opening that patrón."

She giggled. "Okay. I'll pour the glasses, you start talking."

For a moment, Shawn thought about it, thought about Ann. He hasn't seen her since the breakup. He has been back to Toronto in the four months they've been apart, but he never went looking for her. Why would he?

"She… she's insanely private," he began as Aria returned to the bed with two glasses. "She didn't want me talking about her in interviews, or even to my friends. I mean, people in our circle knew about us, but she always thought I was going to tell everyone her secrets or something."

"So paranoia was the cause?"

"I wouldn't say paranoia. I know she wanted her privacy, and I tried very hard to respect it. But people still managed to find her social media and some went to the extent of following us around in public."

Aria made a face. "Oof. I know what that's like."

"Yeah. I kept waiting for her to ask me to stay before they flew me out here. Kept waiting for her to tell me to drop everything and stay with her. But she never did. She pushed me to pursue this, and she chose to stay behind."

"That shows that she really loved you. She wouldn't let you give up all of this for her. We all make sacrifices for our careers."

Those words sunk in as they both took a drink. Shawn screwed his eyes shut momentarily as the bitter taste consumed him.

"Isn't all of this supposed to be worth it?" he wondered. "I know she's not the only girl out there, and she was incredibly different from me. But I haven't gotten the studio time I was promised. I haven't written a song in weeks. All I've been doing are photoshoots and interviews!"

Aria shifted in her seat, kicking off her shoes. "Hey, it will be worth it! Look, me and my ex broke up for kinda the same thing. He's also a YouTuber, and he was gonna go on tour. He asked me to go with him, to drop out of uni, but we were already falling apart. I just knew there wouldn't be room for me in his world. So we broke up, and I stayed in school. In that time, I formed a dance group, I got to interview one of my favorite bands, and I protested the shutdown of our campus."

Shawn took another sip of his glass. "Have you talked to your ex since?"

"Nope! Actually, he came out as gay last year, and I sent him a congratulatory tweet. He didn't reply." She chuckled sheepishly before draining her glass.

The two of them looked at each other for a moment. Then, Aria made a face, screwing up her eyes.

“We’re not pretending that this is good, right?” She held up her glass.

“Hey, it cushions the blow,” Shawn replied.

She scoffed and began typing on her phone. “You like slushies? Tacos? I’m postmating Taco Bell.”

Soon enough, they were munching on a 12-pack of mediocre tacos and putting patrón in their large Mountain Dew slushies. The mood lightened a lot quicker, and soon they were talking about other things. Soon, Shawn was laughing and half the patrón was gone. Boundaries and walls were coming down.

“What band did you interview?” Shawn asked.

“Five sauce,” Aria said. “It wasn’t even an interview. I made a dance to one of their songs and taught it to them. It was a jokey-joke video, but I got to talk to them and thank them for making amazing music.”

She pulled up the video on her phone and showed it to him. It was pretty hilarious to see the members of 5 Seconds of Summer try to dance as well as Aria did. It was like the video she did with Shawn today.

“I wanna meet them,” he said wistfully. “And I wanna meet Niall Horan.”

Aria gasped. “I love One Direction! Is Niall your favorite?”

“Honey, you have no idea.”

They talked about celebrity crushes. Aria’s were Demi Lovato, Liam Payne, and, still, Shawn.

“And I still didn’t make the cut,” he joked.

Aria smacked him shoulder. “We got this far. But evidently, I love my mans too much.”

“More than your ex?”

“Oh yeah.” Aria grinned to herself.

“You said his name is Joe, right? Is he a YouTuber too?”

That was when they fell down a YouTube rabbit hole. Aria showed Shawn her boyfriend’s videos, the ones she was in prior to their relationship. Apparently, they were friends for five years before becoming an item last fall.

“I don’t wanna talk too much about my love life, though,” she said. “Y’know, knowing that yours is…”

Shawn waved it off. “Hey, I’m feeling a buzz. I love love, even if I don’t have it. Tell me, girl.”

Aria thought for a moment. “Okay, here’s a fun fact. Me and Joe saw Bella’s video that had you in it.”

He gasped softly. “Really?”

“Uh-huh! So Joe looked you up on Spotify and, and it was raining too! We had a cozy day with blankets and kissing and stuff and we listened to your music. And…” She paused, smiling softly. “When You’re Ready was playing the first time I told him that I love him.”

“Dude… that’s fucking beautiful.” Shawn placed a hand on his chest and sniffed. “I wrote that song about my ex.”

Aria scoffed. “Well, now it’s about me and Joe! It’s a Jaria song!”

Shawn was going to remember that. It’s a Jaria song.

“Why don’t you just go to him now?” he asked her.

“He lives in London,” she replied. “I want to live with him, but neither of us can agree on a place to live. He likes it hot, I like it cold. I don’t wanna be too far from family. We’ve still got our careers to think about.”

“But you were going to hook up with me?”

“Because he told me I can! Look!” She picked up her phone again and played a voice clip.

A male, British voice filled the room. “Well, how often do you get to say you fucked Shawn Mendes? Go on, love, have your fun. But if Dianne ever comes round again, I’m shooting my shot!”

“Who’s Dianne?” Shawn asked.

Aria waved it off. “No one. But do you see? I was telling you the truth. Joe and I fucked a lot in the past and fucked other people too! It’s kind of an open relationship, or… it was. I need to talk to him about that now.”

“Wow…” A memory came to mind. “My ex wanted to fuck one of the girls from Little Mix.”

Aria sat up on her knees. “I love Little Mix! I’ve choreographed so many dances to their songs!”

“Show me!”

If Aria was sober she might not have done it. She stood up in front of the bed and performed little snippets to four different Little Mix songs. She was so passionate and happy. If only she was single, and if only Shawn wasn’t hung up on some flowers…

They didn’t sleep together, but they shared a bed. They both woke up early the next morning to loud knocking on the door. Having been through this for a few months, Shawn didn’t have to guess what it was. He was probably running late to something, or the team was just in a hurry to get the day started.

“I’m sorry,” Shawn sleepily mumbled. “You’re gonna face my manager.”

“Fun,” she mumbled back.

She rolled out of bed quicker than he had anticipated. She grabbed her shoes and stumbled to her Harry Potter bag on the table. Then, she gave Shawn a salute.

“See ya round, rockstar.”

“Hey,” Shawn called as he sat up. “Thanks for sticking around. I know you didn’t have to, and I really appreciate it.”

She smiled. “Let me know when you’re in LA or London or something. Maybe you’ll get to meet Joe.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

“And listen, don’t let your people push you around all the time. They work for you. Demand more studio time if-”

More sharp knocks. Aria sighed.

“You have more power than you think,” she continued. “Demand more studio time. Demand counseling if you really need it. Don’t let them take advantage of you.”

Shawn nodded, feeling a pit in his stomach. “Thank you, Aria.” He stood up and went for a hug, his chin barely touching the top of her head. Who knew a girl that small could be so powerful?

Anyway, Aria made a quick but polite greeting to Andrew as she exited the hotel room. As soon as she was gone, the team filled her absence. Tiffany walked in pulling a clothing rack with today’s outfit choices. Anna came in with her bag of makeup and hair products, gesturing for Shawn to come sit in the chair by the table. Jake walked in looking strong and mighty as hell. Brian was the last one to enter, two coffees in hand.

He had an eager grin on his face as he approached his friend. “How was she?” he asked, handing him a coffee.

Before Shawn could answer, Andrew piped up.

“Speaking of women,” he said, “since you want to get over someone, we got someone else for you to theoretically get under. I talked to Justin on the phone last night, and he thinks it’s time everyone saw the romantic side of Shawn Mendes.”

“I don’t want a girlfriend,” Shawn said. “Actually, I have some stuff I wanna talk to you about.”

Andrew said nothing as he typed on his phone. When he finished that tasked, he disregarded everything his client had said. “You’ll like this girl. She’s a friend of yours, after all.”

next chapter

_______

taglist: @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @justordinaryjen @chillingbythesea @iloveshawnieboi @shawnsunflower @someoneunimportantxx

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes smut #shawn x oc #shawn meets fic #hehehehehehehehehehehehe #things are gonna get wweird after this

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breadcaaat · 5 years

Text

part five

Jeongguk x hybrid!reader

Words: 5.4k

Genre: action, fluff, angst, violence... eventual smut

Warnings: buckets o’ blood, more nudity, foul language, discussion of human trafficking

Jeongguk was on his knees, face mask and headband on, fat yellow sponge in hand, surrounded by rosy suds. He already knew he’d be throwing these clothes out at the end of the day. That was fine. He could buy new ones, especially now that he was financially set for the next few years.

Yes. You read that right.

On Y/N’s flight from the auction center, she’d crawled out a vent she had hid in to escape the guarddogs and dropped into an office, where a woman had been running cash through a money counter. One choke to unconsciousness later, and she’d packed away a full cargo of pure, fat, dirty cash from the sales that night into the backpack Jeongguk had spotted on the floor earlier.

“We can’t use this,” he’d said.

“Why not?”

“Because people were sold to make this money.”

“Not people; person, singular. About one moderately-priced hybrid.”

Jeongguk looked at her uneasily.

“Aish,” she muttered, “ - doesn’t matter. Think of it this way: we’re keeping their sellers from making profit and supporting one - ” she’d pointed at herself “ - of their products. Consider it ironic. And you can finally quit that job at the moving company.”

He still wasn’t sure where he stood on that topic, but for now his focus was simple. Leave no trace.

There was blood on the tile (thankfully no more than a few spots on the carpet) but it hadn't dried yet and so was relatively easy to mop up. His biggest concern wasn’t the staining, though. Y/N had told him that most all these hybrid crime centers had guarddogs: dog hybrids with sharp noses that made sure nothing unauthorized left any of the sites alive. His tiger girl had left a big, fat, smelly trail leading down the streets, up the walls of his building, and straight into his apartment through the balcony, so if they had any chance of remaining undiscovered they needed to blast any and all traces of smelliness to the fucking exosphere.

So, while he scrubbed away, she ran to a convenience store (clean, not covered in blood anymore, with her hood up and some sunglasses on) with a fresh wad of cash to buy four big jugs of bleach.

By the time she returned, he was already packing away all the towels and the sponge he’d used to mop everything up into a trash bag. They worked quietly, efficiently. Next, the bleach.

His most immediate concern was the apartment and any smelliness that lingered about it, so he as he bleached down their living space, she climbed down the piping she’d clambered up in the first place and bleached away all traces of blood and any previous scent-markings. (She’d pouted a little at this, knowing it was necessary but mourning the loss.) They decided to work on the alley together.

It was about five o’clock - an hour and a half later - when she deemed the apartment sufficiently un-smelly, so Jeongguk packed up the trash bag with all the unsalvageable, bloody materials and packed it down to the alley.

Halfway down the first flight of stairs, he sighed and noticed something not totally interesting, but notable. It was fucking late. He’d been up late before, of course, with long work hours and everything, but never this late. Walking down the echoey, concrete stairwell made him feel like the only man on earth and it wasn’t… a bad feeling. He was starting to understand the appeal of late night walks. Maybe he should join her on her next one.

When he got down there, he could already smell the bleach. She’d uncapped a jug and was currently splashing it along the apartment-side wall, getting rid of any blood-smells or previous scent marks. He caught her attention by setting the bag near the dumpster and scooping up a jug for himself.

“We’ll have to burn that. I can smell us both on it. Ever lit a trash-fire?” she asked, and he found himself chuckling despite everything.

“Sure, I’ve lit things on fire. Most boys do.”

“Good. Dump it on top of that drain instead.”

He did, and it landed with a thump and a squish, which made his stomach twist a little. “Ew,” he muttered. Y/N handed him a matchbook and pulled out a tube of firestarter.

“It’s going to rain in the morning.” She uncapped the tube and doused the garbage bag.

“When?

“I’d say in the next hour or so.”

He nodded. That saved them from hosing away the bleach. It’d also - presumably - wash away any obvious bleachy or burnt scents left behind by their cleaning.

Finished with the tube, she tossed it on the pile. “Before we light this, I’m gonna clean up my trail back a couple blocks. We still have two and a half jugs and that should be enough.”

“It’d be good to burn the jugs too, is what you’re saying?”

“Exactly. Be right back. Check for any details we missed. The bleach is stinging my nose and I can’t smell anything.”

He nodded, and she lugged off the remaining jugs of bleach to clean the rest of her mess.

🐯

Jeongguk got the honor of flicking the match onto their little trash fire, and it took quickly. Unbidden, a sense of relief flooded him. This should be the last of it. All we do now is wait for the rain.

Y/N sat next to him, stripped down to her skivvies once again. Her clothes were in the pile right now. “They smell like I just cleaned up a crime scene,” she’d told him when he’d asked why she was stripping again. He’d decided to just shrug it away this time. It was alarming how quickly he was becoming desensitized to nudity and blood.

“Have you ever done this before?” he asked. The sounds around them were almost ambient; like a campfire near a road. Except this was an alleyway and the trash fire was lit to destroy evidence. Potato, tomato.

“No. Why?”

“You’re good at it.”

She scoffed incredulously. “I just crawled into your apartment early in the morning covered in blood - which I know makes you nauseous - after having committed three gruesome murders in which I tore two victims open by the rib cage and used their entrails to kill the last one, then also a major robbery of an organized crime syndicate and - ” she tipped her head to look at him, eyes gleaming with the peacock sheen of her cat’s-eye night vision “ - you commend me on how good I am at concealing the evidence?”

He scratched his nose. It did sound a little ridiculous. I’m probably in shock, so. “... Just thought it was clever how you burnt it over the grate so it doesn’t leave any ashes. I wouldn’t have thought to do that.”

She giggled. “You’re the ride or die type, huh?” There was a shuffle as she shifted to lean on him, tucking her head between his shoulder and neck. “I know I’ve put you through a lot of shit - and I’m sorry - but I’m glad it was you in the restaurant, and I’m glad you fell in the river.” She nipped at the column of his neck and he had to remind himself that It’s platonic, she’s part animal, animals nip at each other platonically. “I’d probably be dead of fever in an alleyway had you not taken me in.”

She wrapped her arm around his, and they stared down at the trash fire as it died away, burning away quickly.

“Thank you,” she finished with a murmur.

He didn’t answer, but set his head on top of hers. She chuffed, and a little purr rumbled up through her chest.

🐯

“I’m sorry Mrs. Gim,” Jeongguk rasped “ - but I can’t come in today.” His voice sounded downright pitiful. It might’ve been the fake coughing or the toilet paper stuffed up his nose that had her convinced and already fussing, but that’s not important. Was he actually sick? Absolutely not. Tired? Absolutely.

In order to wake up early enough to make this call and skip on his morning shift he’d had to set NO MORE than eight alarms, each two minutes apart, and really they hadn’t been what’d woken him up; Y/N had by biting his ear with a growl that’d rumbled through his skull, just hard enough to make him yelp.

“ - Should I bring you some soup? You weren’t out in the rain last night, were you? Tell me you didn’t go outside with an umbrella or so help me - ”

Jeongguk latched onto that last bit and faked a nervous laugh.

“Jeongguk,” the woman hissed, and he almost felt sorry for himself.

“I can call in Jaesoo to cover?” he whimpered, and Sunghyun hissed again (Aish! Sure. Stay in bed and don’t leave it.)

A few goodbyes and reassurances to take care of himself later, Jeongguk hung up the phone call, picked out the toilet paper, and flopped back into bed.

“Is Gim’s your only shift today?” Y/N asked.

He grunted a negative, voice rough in the morning-time.

“What else then?”

“Night shift at Gloss. Then I gotta go deposit the money so it can rack up interest, pay off our rent - and that’ll take a couple different accounts, maybe banks.”

“Why not just one?”

“That much cash is suspicious.” He giggled then. “It’ll look like I robbed an organized crime syndicate or something.” She growled and jabbed at his ribs, and he giggled a bit more before quieting down again.

More than anything, he wanted to go back to sleep. The past few weeks compounded upon last night had exhaustion dripping off his every bone and pore, but realistically he knew there were errands he had to run today. Last night’s trash fire wasn’t the end of their clean-up, though it’d felt like it. His sense of caution still flared. There were loose ends that needed clipping.

The money was probably the biggest. With his situation, there was no way he could’ve acquired it in the eyes of the bank without having robbed a place, and revealing Y/N’s existence was out of the question completely. He needed a good excuse. And better clothes.

An idea flickered to life, but he rushed to tamper that flame before he did something impulsive.

It was no secret that Yoongi - his boss and friend - had connections underground. Though Jeongguk hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he knew his hyung had done plenty of gang tattoos, and he was many a kingpin’s go-to. Gloss was not only neutral ground in all the territory-mongering that went on, but also Yoongi’s pseudonym. None of his clients knew his real name and that was for safety. That was the type of crowd he’d been surrounded by since fourteen, when he’d done that first tattoo.

He must’ve learned something through by osmosis through all those - what - eleven years? If Jeongguk confided in him, he could learn how to go about this clean-up neatly.

On the flip-side, Yoongi might also fire him and cut ties. Another safety precaution. He wouldn’t - couldn’t - blame him for it. That was Gloss’s tried and true method for making sure his shop stayed neutral through all the crime and conflict of Seoul’s underground, and he’d kept it up for his whole career.

There was a shuffle in the sheets beside him as Y/N shifted to look at him. She was laying on top of the covers - too hot - and he’d zoned out on her tail as it had curled up and thumped idly on the duvet in a steady rhythm.

“You’re juggling something.” It was an observation, not a question.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

“Penny for your thoughts then?”

“I was just thinking about all I have to do today.” He stared up at the ceiling, hand on his chest and index finger tapping a quiet beat.

“We,” she murmured quietly, and he smiled.

“I don’t know if you can help me in what I have to do. It’s all legal and money stuff. I’m just trying to figure out where to start, I guess.” They were silent for a moment as he debated telling her about Yoongi.

Well, what’s the harm, huh? “I know someone that might be able to help us. Just, advice-wise.”

She hummed and fluffed her pillow. “Tell me about him then.”

“His name’s Yoongi, but at the shop he’s called Gloss.”

“You work there, right?”

“Yeah. He’s pretty much run the place since he was a kid. Dropped out of high school to do it. Since he wasn’t trained professionally his tattoo operation is underground and I mean, the guy’s been tattooing gangsters since forever. He must know something, you know?”

She nodded thoughtfully, and her eyes drifted shut after a moment. “I bet you he’ll still know something in a couple hours so… it won’t hurt if we sleep a bit more.”

“Yeah, good idea.” He yawned. “I’m exhausted. Gotta call Jaesoo first…”

🐯

It was about ten now. An hour ago, he’d written up a resignation letter and had just delivered it to the moving company, now meandering his way over to Yoongi’s shop to start up what would probably be a fucking monumental disaster. He was having Y/N meet him in the alley near there, both having decided their story would probably be more believable with her presence. He just hoped things would go well. Jeongguk knew he was putting a lot of trust in Yoongi telling him all this - he’d have to rely on Gloss’s neutral nature to not let on about him to anyone who came asking, which was a risk.

“There it is,” he murmured to himself as he spotted the storefront, and drew in a deep breath, adjusting the strap of the back pack on his shoulder. Shit, this is making me nervous. He let the breath out as a loud sigh, not too unlike a war cry. Let’s go. We got this! Yoongi’s my friend and he’ll handle it somehow. We’ll be fine.

The bell jingled as he marched in.

Yoongi was currently at one of the stations giving a client a trim, and he looked up at the kid with the usual greeting for customers on his lips, fading off the moment he saw his face. Curiosity replaced it.

“Jeongguk?”

“Can we talk?” His eyebrows were furrowed and he looked like he was hyperfocusing on something.

Didn’t even say hi. “Mm. Sure. Meet me in the back, I gotta finish up here first.” This’ll be interesting. He turned back to the client.

Jeongguk nodded, and briskly strode into the hall at the back of the shop, eyebrows furrowed cutely. Yoongi idly counted his footsteps, only to hear a little screech of rubber on tile as Jeongguk stopped and skidded back into the main area. “Hi hyung!” A little wave, and he disappeared again. Yoongi smiled faintly and shook his head.

Down the hallway, Jeongguk bypassed Yoongi’s office and scooted further down the hallway to an iron door. It provided access into the alley out back and could only be opened from the inside. He pushed it open and ducked his head out.

Y/N was nowhere to be seen. Good. She’s stayed hidden.

Jeongguk whistled a small tune.

A shadow dropped down from the fire escape, near-silent, and slid past him into the building. “Good to see you. On the left,” he murmured, and she disappeared into Yoongi’s office right as the man turned the corner, wiping his hands after a quick wash.

Seeing Jeongguk, he asked, “Why are you here so early?”

“I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh? Are you quitting?”

“What? No.” He shook his head, opening the door for Yoongi who moved past him to his liquor cabinet, not noticing the figure lounging on his couch. “You might understand better why it is I took on a fourth part-time, though.”

“Oh yeah? Shoot.” He pulled out a crystal decanter of bourbon and poured them both a glass. “Two pinkies or three?” He didn’t notice how tense it was Jeongguk got then, or if he did, decided not to comment.

Jeongguk’s hand tightened around the strap of his pack. This is it. Tell him everything. He decided to just act first before he chickened out.

He unzipped it and upended the contents on Yoongi’s desk. Actions do speak louder than words, right?

Yoongi paused his pour.

He may have had his back turned, but the sound of tumbling money is something he’s familiar with. He decided to knock back the glass before pouring another refill. “That better not be what I think it is Jeongguk. That better be you spilling a stack of flyers for a poetry slam or some shit.” He knocked back the second glass and poured another. “Two or three pinkies, you goddamned punk?”

“Two please.”Jeongguk murmured.

Yoongi kneels and pulls out a second glass from the liquor cabinet. Y/N chooses then to speak up.

“I’ll take two also.”

There’s a clatter as he bangs his head on the cabinet, spinning around with the widest eyes Jeongguk’s ever seen on him. “Who the hell - ?”

“I let her in,” Jeongguk murmured, shifting to stand in front of the door to block Yoongi from making a run for it. “She’s a friend of mine. Yoongi, meet Y/N.”

There’s silence for a moment. The tiger girl sits soundlessly on the couch, completely covered from head to toe in clothing - her face is even concealed by a dark pair of shades and a face mask. Besides her name and voice, there’s little to differentiate whether she’s a boy or girl. Yoongi recovers his composure quickly, standing up from the ground and picking up two cups as he does.

“Alright, two pinkies each and four for me. Why’s she here Jeongguk, and who is she?”

“Well, uh, her name’s Y/N - ”

“We covered that already. Who is she, Jeongguk?” Finished with his pours, he handed him their drinks and took his own, sitting down at his desk. Jeongguk sank into the cushions next to Y/N and handed her her drink. Surprisingly, she decided to take charge of the conversation.

“Do you know what hybrids are, Mr. Yoongi?” Idly, she took a sip of the alcohol and grimaced, thinking better of it and handing to Jeongguk.

Yoongi leaned back in his chair, crossing his ankle over one of his knees. He sipped at his drink. A tense moment passed.

“Sure. I heard of ‘em.”

Jeongguk blinked. “You have, hyung?”

“Yeah, people talk. I keep my nose out of it though, and that’s for safety.” He sipped at his drink again, then narrowed his eyes a bit. “Why are you asking?”

“Well - ” she started, taking off her shades, face mask, and hood. “I am one.”

Yoongi’s face remained impassive, masked, calculated. It was his business face, the one he used with customers. Neither removed or engaged. He nodded, but made no effort to continue the conversation.

Y/N took the lead.

“I’ve been… this, for about four years now. Started out as a pet whore then demoted to a cagedog. You know what cagedoggers are?”

Yoongi nodded again, and Jeongguk felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle.

“So, I did that for three years. In the last four months before I got out of it - the cagedogging, I mean - I purposely lost fights so I’d get resold and resold to the cheapest cagedoggers. The last deal took place at night in a restaurant Jeongguk was eating at, and he helped me escape.”

“That was the day I broke up with Bora,” Jeongguk interjected, and Yoongi nodded thoughtfully. He didn’t really know exactly when that was since his presence in the kid’s life was minimal outside of Gloss - but it gave him a rough timeline. A little less than six weeks ago.

“ - Right,” she continued. “So, after that night I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so I just kinda…” a little blush, and her ears fluttered back, “... followed him around for a day. Figured I’d return the favor somehow, and I wanted to thank him but he’s so goddamn busy all the time it’s hard to get a word in.”

Yoongi chuckled a little, tipping back the rest of his drink.

“So then he fell in a river, and - ”

Yoongi choked on his drink. “What did he do?”

Jeongguk grimaced, and picked at his bangs guiltily. “Uh.”

“When did it happen?”

“A day after I escaped.”

Yoongi narrowed his eyes at Jeongguk, who avoided making eye contact like the plague. Y/N rushed to move on with a heavy exhale before Yoongi started wasting time scolding him.

“Anyway,” she continued. “He fell in a river and I saved him. Brought him back to his apartment and ended up staying the night. We’ve been denning together since then.”

Jeongguk giggled a little. Denning. What a cute word choice.

“How’d you know where he lives again?” Yoongi asked, and Jeongguk perked up a little. He should’ve asked that question before and hadn’t, somehow. God, that’s such an important detail. I hope I haven’t skipped over anything else like that. He bit his lip in nervous thought, spaced out and distracted for a second.

“I’d been following him around, remember? The night at the restaurant, I circled back and made sure he got home safe. That’s how I learned where it was.”

Yoongi nodded a bit, satisfied.

“So,” he drawled, leaning forward to ruffle through the pile of cash on his desk. “Where the fuck did you get this?”

“I revisited an old auction site.”

“You’re talking abandoned storage auctions or slave auctions?”

“Slave auctions. Specifically hybrid.”

“Ah. Continue. Also, why?”

“I needed closure, I guess. It was the one place I solidly remember the location of.” She picked at the elastic strings on her facemask, uncomfortable showing any measure of vulnerability to someone not-Jeongguk. It’s okay, she assured herself despite wanting to swallow those words back up. He trusts him. I can trust him. Move on.

“So - ” she forced herself to look up, “ - there was a situation, and I hurt a few people and had to escape.”

“Y/N, you killed three people. They didn’t scrape their knees because you pushed them,” Jeongguk murmured, and Yoongi was surprised to hear the words come from his mouth more so than the fact Y/N had killed someone - he’d made a comment about murder so… casually.

“Right. Yeah. And, uh, on the way out I grabbed this. Now we’re here.”

There was silence for a moment as everyone digested the situation. Yoongi picked at the rubber band circling one of the cash bundles, evaluating the figures in front of him. Y/N sat still as a shadow, eyes on him. Jeongguk fidgeted with his bangs.

Yoongi took a deep breath.

“Why’d you come here?” he asked.

“... I’m in over my head, hyung.” Barely a whisper. Jeongguk wouldn’t meet his eyes, face flushed in shame. This isn’t going to work. I’m going to lose a friend today. “You’re the only person in Seoul I trust that can help us.”

Yoongi looked at him thoughtfully, poker face on in force. Jeongguk felt like he was being watched by a cat.

Finally, he let up with a sigh.

“Clean this up.”

Jeongguk’s heart sank.

Silently, and with a burning face, he scooped the cash back into the bag. Some of Yoongi’s sketches got pushed off with it and he scrambled to pick them up. “Ah - “ he put them back, disorganized, on the desk, “ - I, uh, sorry hyung. We’ll just… get going.” He zipped the last of it up.

“Alright,” Yoongi murmured. “Gimme that before you go.”

Unbidden, a small, suspicious growl crawled its way up from Y/N’s chest. Jeongguk, confused, asked, “Hyung?”

Yoongi sighed and took it from his hands, ignoring the snarl shot at him.

“I can tell you have no clue how to launder money, so I’m gonna do it for you. Can’t leave loose ends in business like this. Sloppiness’ll get you killed.”

She stopped snarling abruptly, and Jeongguk froze in surprise. “Hyung?”

Yoongi smirked, soft and a little bitter like he wanted to swat a younger sibling over the head for doing something troublesome. “I’m older than you, so it’s my job to take care of you. Pull some stupid shit like this again, though, and I’m tossing you in a closet or something.”

Wow. I honestly thought we were gonna get booted to the curb, Jeongguk thought. He was too speechless to say thank you, but Yoongi could see it in the way his eyes twinkled, watery at the edges.

Taking the bag, he made some space in his liquor cabinet and stashed it away. He’d deal with it after hours.

Still turned away, he said, “Go on, git. Don’t you have work, punk?”

“No. Off day.” Jeongguk paused, overcome with this immense sense of gratitude - he was so goddamn lucky to have the people in his life that he did. “Can… can I come in early?”

“Sure,” Yoongi grunted, with a soft smile. I hope this shit doesn’t get him killed.

“Now git.”

They gitted.

🐯

The police station was having a quiet day, which was honestly the worst in Hoseok’s opinion. It made him jumpy and restless. He sat at his desk, tapping his pen across a notepad and bouncing his knee. And - with a glance at the clock - he realized it wasn’t even lunch time yet. He had a whole two hours until he could - what, eat more and get more energy? Run a lap around the station? Offer the chief a lap dance, just for the exercise?

Hoseok tossed the pen away, buried his head in his hands and moaned, blowing a long sherbert into his palms. The office remained not-busy - probably out of spite.

“You know, Jung - “ his partner commented idly from where he sat across from him, feet propped up on the desk with his nose buried in a racy hentai - some shameless tentacle number; “ - usually, it’s a good thing when we’re not busy.”

Hoseok moaned into his hands again.

Officer Ri Doyeon’s thin eyes flicked up at him over the rim of the book in his hands, and Hoseok started to make little tooting noises. A piece of Doyeon’s soul leaked out and slithered away when he recognized the tune as Darude’s “Sandstorm.”

“Dude,” he whispered in exasperation.

The tooting morphed into what sounded like “Fur Elise,” reaching a grand, existential crisis-inducing crescendo before fading off into one positively grand finale of a sherbert.

Doyeon was overcome by the impulse to choke out his partner with the tie around his neck. “Are you done?” he asked.

Hoseok didn’t answer, head still in his hands. Doyeon returned to his manga.

“Ri-sunbae?” Hoseok murmured after a moment. Doyeon hummed.

“Do you think kazoos like getting blown?”

“Out,” Doyeon hissed. The book in his hands clapped shut with the finality of a man driven to the edge of sanity. “Get - get out. Go take a smoke or a run or jack off in the bathrooms - whatever the fuck men in their twenties do - I don’t fucking care just burn some of this goddamn energy you fucking middle-schooler.”

“So that’s a no?”

Doyeon belted the book at poor, bored little Hoseok who broke the silence of the office with a yelp, scrabbling out of his chair. “A smoke, Hoseok!” Doyeon barked.

“Got it, got it,” he placated, retreating from the office. His grumpy partner huffed and circled the desk to snatch his manga back up from the floor, returning to his earlier position.

Hoseok wandered through the station, looking for something to do. Lately, this is all work had been for him. Boring. Unsatisfying. Unrushed.

The KNP's (Korean National Police’s) Sex Crimes Division was not a good place to work for someone like Hoseok because it was - due to multiple factors, none of them good - not very busy. The situation was not nearly as optimistic as Doyeon made it sound. There are still plenty of sex crimes in South Korea. So many it’s downright shameful. But this is a culture where we don’t talk about those things. No one reports anything, he thought sadly.

His mind wandered back to a case he’d been forced to drop last week. A woman, at a company dinner on her second day at a new job, had been lured away by a supervisor, raped, and then subjected to revenge lawsuits on the charges of defamation when she’d spoken up, yelled and worn into dropping all charges. Yesterday, he’d learned that she’d lost that job. Life ruined in a week. And he couldn’t help. I don’t blame them, I guess. The law doesn’t exactly do much to help. The thought was a bitter one.

His wandering lead him to the roof, and he stepped out with a sigh. I thought I’d be able to help more with this job.

I feel more useless than ever.

He gazed over the balcony, propping his elbows up on the railing. Maybe a bit lonely, too.

All his friends were busy and his family was based back in Gwangju, so he didn’t really get to socialize much anymore. Most of his time was spent with grumpy, middle-aged Doyeon, who was so inclined to social reclusion and coping with all of his failed marriages through nasty hentais that he wasn’t that fun to hang out with.

When was the last time Jeongguk and I hung out? As thoughts turned to his best friend from college, he flushed a little in guilt. Five weeks ago, Jeongguk had broken up with his girlfriend of a year and called him at midnight to cry and babble for a bit, only to hang up a few minutes later because he “... Gotta go, wan’ ramen…” (Sniff.) “Gunna get ramen… bye Hobi-hyung.” Those had been the last words he’d heard from him since - not counting the odd text here and there. I should be a better friend, sheesh.

“Let’s call him,” he murmured to himself, and pulled out his phone.

Jeongguk picked up after three rings. “Hyung?”

“Hey Ggukie!”

“Oh, hey! Haven’t heard from you in awhile.”

“Yeah, sorry for checking out as long as I did. Thought I’d check up on you.”

“Ah hyung, no worries. Seoul’s a busy place to live. Where are you?”

“The station, as usual. You?”

“The station.”

Hoseok perked up. “Wait - really?”

“Yeah, the train one.”

“Oh, you little pest. I got excited there for a second.”

“Aw,” Jeongguk bit out cheekily, and Hoseok could picture so clearly that competitive and endearing little smirk. “Has hyung missed Jeonggukie? Lil’ ol’ me, tiny little Ggukie? Bunny-boy Guk?”

“Oh shut it - I miss kicking your ass in Smash Bros, that’s all.”

“Aish! Shut up hyung - you literally only ever play as Waluigi or Kirby and I always win.”

“I love Waluigi and Kirby more than I love you.”

“Well then I’m a slut for Link. Glad everything’s in the open.” A giggle. “Love me a man in a tunic.”

Hoseok laughed, and they both relaxed into a comfortable pause - softly tuning into private thoughts and the sounds of each others’ environment.

“We should have a tournament again, me an’ you. Waluigi and Kirby vs. Link,” Hoseok joked. Opposite to what he expected, Jeongguk sighed in response. “Hey,” Hoseok murmured, brows knitting. “What’s up?”

“I had to pawn off my PlayStation last month for rent.”

There was a pause again, not as comfortable as the last. Hoseok frowned watched the street down below. He was realizing how far they’d grown apart in this last year, as he’d invested his time in becoming a policeman and Jeongguk had dropped out of college to escape the relentless, malicious rumors targeting him. Touchy subject, that last one.

The world is full of injustices.

By the day, Hoseok’s starting to feel more and more powerless to fix any of it.

“Hobi-hyung…” Jeongguk started, soft voice drawing them both out of their melancholy daze before they sank any further. “We can grab drinks later? If you like?”

He’s such a sweetheart, Hoseok thought.

“Sounds great, Guk,” he hummed. “Usual place?”

“Usual place.”

“When are you free?”

“Tomorrow night?”

“Works for me; text me when. I’ll see ya, Guk.”

“See ya then, hyung.”

They hung up, and Hoseok put his phone away to gaze at the skyline for awhile.

A/N: i have three-ish weeks until i disappear into the wilderness of alaska, so either i finish it in that time or organize an adminship with someone to post my updates. we’ll see

also, thanks for all the support!! yall’re lovely 💞

Taglist: @feed-my-geek-soul @starryannaaa @not-novoa @astronomyturtle @anoushe01 @seokchella @dinorahrodriguez @mischiefmakerliesmith5

Taglist Glitches: @infiresssnct

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theswiftarmy · 4 years

Text

#17 – We Go Live In Five Hours!

Scene 17: The Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live - Downtown Los Angeles - Daytime, Interior – Twelve O’clock Noon exact on Sunday November Twenty-Fourth, Twenty-Nineteen.

FINAL DRESS REHERSAL FOR THE AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS

TAYLOR SWIFT, POINT OF VIEW: Watches as the show director for the American Music Awards, Jeffery, tells the show’s stars sitting in audience seats that they must run the entire show from the top as a full dress rehearsal, again.

CHANGE CAMERA SHOT, we ZOOM in on Taylor Swift, slowly, panning from a full shot of the stage.

WRITER: Oh yeah, this is good stuff. I really should start writing this as a screenplay from here on out, so that way after Taylor Swift finds it and reads it, and then sends it over to her friends that made that “Cats” movie—and I am in turn contacted by Taylor herself along with a big time studio in Hollywood to get this masterpiece made into a movie, the screenplay will already be ready! And THEN I can be all like, hey Steven Spielberg, you want in on this? And he’ll be all like… “Cut it, print it, ship it, sell it, baby!” Or whatever snazzy jazzy lingo it is they use out in Hollywood—

EDITOR: Uh, I hate to break it to you, but this is never going to be a movie. Can we talk about this? First off, you’re never going to get all these people to agree to be IN a movie together in real life, what with the bad blood and all. Plus, you do know that’s just not how it works… The process of getting a movie made is so much more complicated than posting awkwardly written fan fiction online for your idol to stumble upon it and fawn all over your wordplay—

WRITER: Just trample on my dreams why don’t you?

EDITOR: I’m just telling it like it is! Dude, I’m not trying to let you down… But that’s not at all how Hollywood works! Plus, I doubt Taylor is ever going to even see this story, she’s REALLY busy these days and you tend to ramble on and on in some sections, you should definitely be a little more concise instead of meandering around making your point, but keep dreaming… Keep telling yourself: “Oh, look, Taylor Swift is going to find some random Tumblr novel about her and sit there reading the ENTIRE thing post by post completely captivated by your every word…” Because THAT’s realistic! Let me let you in on a little secret though, I don’t know how I feel about Taylor, I mean, have you read some of the stuff online about her? The gossip against her… Maybe you’re better off not capturing her attention… She could bad news my friend.

WRITER: Why don’t you go edit something?

EDITOR: Oh, yeah, because that’s a come back. Why don’t you go right something?

WRITER: AH-HA! See… And you call yourself an editor… don’t you mean WRITE something!?

EDITOR: No. I mean what I said, ‘right’ something—right a ship that’s sinking fast—right something that’s going wrong…. Like this story, that’s going nowhere fast.

PRODUCER: Ohhhhhh… Sick burn! Sick. Burn.

WRITER: Just leave me alone and stop crushing my dreams. I know it’s never going to be a movie, I know Taylor is never going to read it—you don’t think I know that? I know that… Just let me at least dream while I write this scene and stop being so mean.

EDITOR: Look at you, Mr. Poetic. Alright… I’m gonna go play some Xbox, call me when you’re done. Come on producer, I’ll let you pick the game. We’ll leave the writer to his “dreams”.

EDITOR AND PRODUCER EXIT STAGE LEFT, THEY LAUGH AS THEY SLAM THE DOOR SHUT, WRITER STARES OUT WINDOW WATCHING SNOW FALL, SAPPY MUSIC PLAYS. ZOOM IN ON WRITER FOR SHORT MONOLOGUE.

WRITER: If only I could make the Editor understand. I just don’t see things the way he does. I don’t see how a girl that makes such wonderful things, could be bad. Look at this story! Isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think it’s cool and complete? About a girl, a girl who has… Everything. A trove, of treasures untold! How many wonders can her song catalogue hold… Looking at her, well you’d think, sure, she’s got everything! She’s got catchy songs a plenty! She’s got singles and albums galore. You want music videos? SHE’S GOT TWENTY! But who cares, no big deal, she wants more. I want to be where Taylor’s people are… I want to sing and be there dancing! Hanging out with all her, what do you call them? Oh, Swifties. Being a fan of hers is cool and all but I want to do more than just jumping and dancing. I want the cameras rolling along with a catchy musical… What’s that word again? Oh yeah, beat… Up where they talk, up where it’s fun, up where they sing all day in the sun… Swiftie and free… Wish I could be, part of that world. What would I give, if I could make movies with Taylor… What would I pay, to spend a day part of Taylor Swift’s band … Bet you she’s grand and understands and doesn’t reprimand someone’s daughters. Bright young women, Swiftie women, taking a stand! And I’m ready to join with her, ready to go! Ask her a question, and get some answers… What’s her favorite cover song and how long did it take her to, what’s the word… Learn? When’s it my turn, to make a movie about love, a lover for sure, she is she’s a lover in love… As everyone can see… Sigh. Wish I could be, part of that world… Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s silly to dream. But what if Taylor never dared to follow her own dreams! If she never picked up a guitar or played a single note on the piano. What if she never tried at all, how many Swifties would be Swiftieless! How many lives has she positively impacted with her music, with her kind words, with her retweets and reblogs on Tumblr, with her fan photo hearts, her genuine heart… and all her creative works of art…

WRITER SIGHS. Writer continues tay-ping into the night on the computer keyboard…

“Everyone! We’re going to do it again. Because, right now? I can’t. I just can’t… I can’t even handle it. I can’t even look at it, I can’t even think about it, I can’t even say I can’t about it…”

“Calm down Jeff. Okay? Just breathe. We’re gonna get it right.”

“Carol… It’s just… Everything is mess. We go live at eight! EIGHT! They’re acting like it’s still tech week! WE GO LIVE AT EIGHT!!! And that’s New York time, which means we go live at FIVE here in L.A.”

“It’s okay. You’re stressing yourself too much.” Carol King stood on the stage with the director of the American Music Awards, Jeffery, attempting to reassure him. A stage manager also stood nearby for backup should Carol’s efforts go in vain.

“Those two crack me up.” Selena sat in the audience seat to the left of Taylor.

“Well, it does need to be perfect, Selena.” Taylor reminded her.

“Speak for yourselves, I’m already perfect, did you see me during Tik Tok… NAILED IT. And my new song… Oh HELL to the yeah.” Kesha kicked her feet up and put them on an empty seat just to the left of Selena.

“Watch it!” Selena said turning her head slightly. “I just had my hair done!”

Kesha wiggled her barefoot toes close to Selena Gomez, just inches from the new hair-doo, egging her on, Selena made a grossed out face shifting over in her seat closer to Taylor. Kesha sat up. “WAIT! You guys, I just had an idea!!! I should make a TikTok video, during Tik Tok!” Kesha impulsively yelled her idea immediately up to the stage, “JEFFY! Can I record a TikTok while I perform Tik Tok during my set?!”

“NO KESHA!” He shouted back from the stage.

“Way to ruin my dreams.” She said sulking back into her seat. “It’s my creative expression, I should be able to do whatever I want.” Kesha made a pouty face. She went back to trying to pretend to touch Selena’s hair with her toes.

“Taylor, I know it needs to be perfect, but he’s stressing out so much. KESHA! Stop, that’s soo gross.” She turned around and stuck her tongue out at Kesha. Kesha laughed then let up and moved her feet away. “Ugh… Poor guy. He practically runs this whole thing.” Selena sighed. “I mean yes, there’s a ton of other people behind the scenes, but it all falls on his shoulders.”

“EVERYONE!!! WE GO LIVE IN…” He looked at his watch, “FIVE hours. It’s NOON! The show starts at EIGHT Eastern Standard Time, which means we pull the curtain at FIVE O’CLOCK PACIFIC TIME!”

“We know Jeffery. Just chill out man. Jeffy you’re gonna get your pants in a Jeffy jiffy twisty.” Ozzy yelled in his Ozzy Osbourne voice from his seat as he turned and high fived Post Malone.

“Right on.” Post laughed, and then sipped his beer. “Just take it as it comes and carry on.” He toasted to the stage with his bottle of beer and then clinked glasses with Ozzy.

“Post! It’s only noon. How are you already drinking?” Lizzo said looking over two seats. “Also, did they open the bar yet or what? This girl gotta get her drink on too.”

“Nah, B-Y-O-B, they won’t serve until after the red carpet… You want one?” He opened a cooler with a six-pack of beer.

“Ummm, I’ll wait.”

“Suit yourself.” He reached in and cracked open two more handing one to Ozzy.

“Ozzy! It’s only noon!” Sharon said slapping Ozzy on the hand.

“Sharon… Chill out… It’s non-alcoholic.”

“Oh, well in that case, give me one.”

“Sure thing Sharon…” Post Malone smiled and cracked open another beer handing it to Sharon Osbourne. He pulled out a bag of Trader Joe’s chips and passed the bag around for everyone to take a handful. Life is funny like that, one day you’re eating chips on your own solo, the whole bag to yourself—maybe with some dip, or salsa, or guacamole even, and maybe not—then suddenly the next thing you know, it’s a Post Malone party, you’re sharing the bag of chips together with Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, and Lizzo.

Taylor turned back from Taylurking the conversation happening several seats away from her between Post Malone, Lizzo, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Just wait until you try my Fizzy Lifting Lover drinks she thought to herself.

“At least Scooter won’t be here.” Sara said to Taylor in a low voice, leaning over in her seat.

“I know. But, I kind of wanted to roast him in front of everyone, watch him squirm a little. That would have been sooooo amazing!”

“Taylor, no. We talked about this. You need to wait until the time is right. We need to…” She quieted down and looked around. “Well you know.”

“Sara, I know. Okay?” Taylor whispered back.

“Hey Taaaaaay…” Shawn Mendes walked by Taylor and smiled over his shoulder.

Taylor awkwardly covered her mouth, hiding a smile waiting for it to subside, when it finally did, she waved back.

“What was that?” Sara asked noticing Taylor blushing ever so slightly.

“What was what?”

“Umm, between you and Shawn.” Sara pointed over at Shawn now standing beside Camila Cabello.

“Nothing. What?”

“Taylor—Is there something between the two of you? Because if there is, as your attorney, I NEED TO KNOW! YOU NEED TO TELL ME EVERYTHING!” Sara raised her voice—she was almost shouting. Billie Eilish looked up from her phone raising an eyebrow in Taylor and Sara’s direction, then turned her attention back to her phone.

“Whoa, Sara…” Taylor lowered her head sinking into her seat, “You’re making scene.”

“Sorry, I… I don’t know what came over me.” Sara’s voice returned to her normal calm and collected tone.

“It’s okay… It’s… It’s alright.” Taylor pushed her self slightly away from Sara in the seat; she’d never seen Sara act like that before. Almost like Sara was a different person for just a moment. Taylor reached down to check on the masters case and make sure it was still seated next to her, unable to make contact she looked down and noticed Sara had pulled it closer—Taylor pulled it back.

“I just need to know things, okay?” Sara said to Taylor, making direct eye contact. Taylor looked back up at Sara. “To… protect you. That’s all. And to advise you properly…. I care about you okay? I’m not just your lawyer, I’m a loyal Swiftie, and I’m your biggest fan.”

Taylor’s eyes drifted away from Sara and back to Shawn again. “Riiiiight. Okay Sara, yeah, sounds good.” She said distracted, ogling Shawn Mendes. She felt that same dang crooked smile forming on her face. What was that? Why could she not help but smile every time she looked at him, SHE almost felt like a different person—She needed a distraction. Taylor pulled out her phone and texted Joe.

Hey you… Just wanted to say I was thinking of you! Inset 50 heart emojis.

She clicked send.

There was a sudden commotion from one of the entranceways to the theater, “Billy Porter is in the house!” Someone yelled.

“Oh my God Billy is here! Sara, hold my phone.” Taylor got up from her seat and ran over to hug him.

Sara looked at the phone in her hand; the screen was unlocked… She began to tap through a few of Taylor’s apps, her social media accounts folder named ‘My Loves’, which included the Tumblr app, Twitter, Instagram, and various other ways to connect with Taylor’s fan base, her Swifties—The pulse of the Swifties’ synchronized heartbeats in one tiny little device, she felt a wave of power rush over her, one Tumblr post, one Tweet, an Instagram photo, all of it connected to millions of Swifties, around the world, an army ready to act on Taylor’s behalf at moment’s notice.

As Taylor returned to her seat, Sara placed the phone back on her lap pretending to have never looked at it, she handed the phone back to Taylor with a reassuring smile.

“HELLO!!! ARE WE GOING TO DO A SHOW OR NOT? You still have to go home, freshen up, red carpet, photos, AND WE HAVE NOT EVEN STARTED THE DRESS REHERSAL… Am I the only one who cares about this?”

“Jeff, they care, okay? It’s just that we’ve run through it 73 times. The show is already good.”

“Good is no good, you should know that CAROL!”

Carol rolled her eyes.

“Okay everyone, everyone, let’s take it from top! Places… PLACES!!!!” He paused. “Oh, Taylor, I have a note here that you had a change request to add a backing track during your performance of Lover?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She yelled back to the stage gleefully.

“Okay, well, make sure you get that track to the sound team as soon as we finish rehearsal!”

“Oh, I will.” Taylor’s eyes flashed Teen Wolf RED for the second time today.

@taylorswift

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somerandomwriter1234 · 5 years

Text

Just Add Magic Fanfiction: Life After Magic Chapter 5 (Just Add Marriage)

EIGHT YEARS LATER:

Hannah was sitting down on a couch in an apartment reading a book when the door opened and Darbie stepped in. Hannah then stood up and said, "Darbie! Sorry, I didn't come pick you up when your plane landed but I was lecturing and..." Darbie then ran up to Hannah, wrapped her arms around her and immediately kissed her. Hannah stood a little off balance for a quick moment, but then put her hands on Darbie's hips and kissed back. Once the kiss finished, Darbie said, "Hannah, we talked about this. No apologies are needed for things like that. I'll love you always." Hannah made a little smile as she said, "Yeah. I know." Darbie and Hannah then sat on a couch together as Darbie said, "So how did your meeting with the dean go?" With a big smile Hannah said, "I got the position. You are now looking at Lavender Heights University's youngest tenured professor ever." A smiling Darbie said, "Oh my gosh. Congratulations Hannah. I always knew you could do it." Darbie and Hannah then immediately hugged each other.

Once their hug was over Hannah said, "So tell me. How did your trip in California go?" Darbie then said, "Well... it's crazy. I mean it was already like living in a dream when my agent told me a studio wanted to turn my book into a TV pilot, but... Amazon is picking up the series. I'm the creator a brand new streaming TV series!" Hannah smiled as she hugged Darbie again and said, "Wow Darbie. This amazing!" Once Hannah finished hugging Darbie she noticed Darbie looked a little upset. A little concerned looking now, Hannah said, "Darbie, what? What's wrong?" Darbie then said, "The thing is... the producers like my style of writing, so... I'm also being brought on as a full time writer on the series so I need to regularly meet the show's other writers and staff... in California." A shocked looking Hannah said, "Whoa. So... whoa." Darbie then said, "Yeah. I know. This totally screws up our plans now. You were gonna become a full time professor, and then we would get married and I would be your stay at home artistic wife who writes new books from her living room but now..." Hannah cut Darbie off and said, "It's like life just pulled the rug out from under us." Darbie nodded her head as she looked down and said, "Yeah."

The two were silent for a moment. Hannah then touched Darbie's chin and lifted her head up a bit and said, "Hey. We'll figure things out. TV shows don't last forever. You can ride the new job out for a few years, get a ton of money, and then we can live a happy simpler life in our cozy single floor house out in the country." Darbie smiled as she said, "I'm glad you remembered I only want to live in a single floor home. Stairs are always annoying to vacuum." Hannah giggled as she leaned her head against Darbie's and said, "Hey. This doesn't change anything. I love you more than anyone else in the world. And we're going to get married and make this work one day, okay?" Darbie nodded and said, "Okay."

The sun light slowly began to shine into a bedroom. At the edge of the bed, Kelly Quinn laid on her stomach with her face turned on her pillow as she slowly began to open her eyes. Kelly was completely naked with only a blanket covering her body from her waist down. As Kelly opened her eyes she smiled as she looked at Jake who was sleeping next to her, also naked. As the sun from the outdoor window began to shine in more, it caused Jake to also open up his eyes. The first sight Jake saw was Kelly laying naked in front of him. He smiled as he said, "Hey." With a very big smile on her face, Kelly said, "Hey." Jake then said, "Wow. I can't believe we woke up at the crack of dawn without an alarm clock considering how long we had fun last night." Kelly giggled a bit as she got on top of Jake and laid her body on top of him as she wrapped her arms around her boyfriend and said, "I know. I couldn't believe we were able to do those moves we learned from that site. It's like our love making last night was..." Jake cut Kelly off as he rested his hands on Kelly's butt and said, "Magic." Kelly's smile got bigger as she nodded.

Suddenly Jake looked at a clock near him and say, "Shoot. It's daylight savings. I've lost time and have to get to the shop." Kelly then said, "But Jake, it's Sunday morning." Jake then quickly jumped out of the bed and began to get dressed as he said, "Yeah, well we're catering for that sports event today so we have to get the ovens going. And the new help doesn't have the key to the shop yet so I gotta go." Kelly who was sitting up with a blanket wrapped partially around her said, "But I thought we were gonna..." Jake then said, "Sorry Kelly. Gotta go." Jake then rushed out of the house quickly leaving Kelly alone in the bedroom and looking upset.

Hannah stood in her bathroom naked as she stepped into the shower and turned it on. Hannah closed her eyes as she began to feel the hot water go down her body. Suddenly Darbie sneaked into the bathroom quietly, took off all her clothes, and got into the shower with Hannah. Darbie then squeezed Hannah's butt cheeks with her two hands quickly as she said, "Hey beautiful." A scared Hannah jumped and crossed her arms as she put her hands on her shoulders. Hannah immediately calmed down when saw it was Darbie and said, "Darbie. I told you it scares me when you do that." Darbie then put her hands behind her back as she said, "I know. But then I remember doing it really turns me on so I repeat." Darbie then wrapped her arms around Hannah's stomach as she rested her head on Hannah's left shoulder and said, "Thank you for not being mad at me for getting my new TV job. I was a little worried you'd be upset about us not being able to finally settle down after spending the last four years in a long distance relationship." Hannah then said, "Darbie, we've been through this before. We love each other, but we can't stop the other from following their dreams. You have a gift Darbie that needs to be shared with the world."

Darbie then moved her arms up around Hannah's still crossed arms as she said, "Well I can't begin to tell you how much that means to me. But the thing is Hannah... you're my greatest dream. And I don't want to spend months apart from you. So I've already decided. I'll do my job Mondays through Fridays every week, and take a plane home to spend every weekend with you." A surprised looking Hannah then said, "But Darbie. I can't ask you come here every weekend just to cuddle with your girlfriend." Darbie then moved her hands near Hannah's face, both were clasped together, as Darbie said, "I know. But I won't be flying on a plane every week just to see my girlfriend. Instead, I'll be flying home to see... my wife." Darbie then opened up her hands to show she was holding a diamond ring. Hannah's mouth opened up and then she moved her hands to her mouth to cover it as her eyes widened in amazement. Darbie then nestled her head against Hannah's and said, "Hannah Parker-Kent... will you marry me?"

Hannah then turned her body around so she was looking right at Darbie and said, "Yes Darbie O'Brien. Yes, I will!" Hannah and Darbie then wrapped their arms around each other and kissed for a long solid minute. Once their kiss ended, Hannah then took the diamond ring from Darbie and put it on her ring finger. As Hannah looked at it she said, "It's beautiful. Wow. I... I'm sorry I didn't get you one or..." Darbie then suddenly held up another ring as she said, "I already got one for myself. Wanted to make sure we definitely had a matching pair." A confused looking Hannah then said, "What the? Darbie, where were you hiding that? You're naked." Darbie smirked as she said, "Between my butt cheeks. You can hide a lot there if you just clench them the right way." Hannah giggled as she said, "Oh my gosh. You know for the rest of our lives, people are gonna ask about how you proposed to me, and I'm never gonna be able to tell them the truth." Darbie giggled too as she and Hannah embraced the other and began to kiss again.

Hours later in the park, Kelly was sitting on one side of a picnic table as Hannah and Darbie sat on the other. Hannah and Darbie were both holding out their engagement rings as a wide eyed and surprised looking Kelly said, "Wow. I can't believe you two are really getting married." Darbie then said, "I know. It was just an impulse buy I did at the airport but once I said the words... I knew it was the right timing." Hannah then said, "Hey, it's not too off topic, so... I hope you don't mind me asking but... when are you and Jake gonna get married? I mean you two moved in as soon as you graduated from high school." Kelly made a little smile as she brushed some hair away from her face and said, "Oh, I don't mind you asking. Just like I don't mind my parents asking me... every time I see them. But to answer your question... it's... kind of complicated." Darbie then said, "What's complicated about it? Me and Hannah have spent years living in different states. You and Jake have been sharing the same bedroom for years now."

Kelly sighed and said, "It's the restaurant. Jake has been working really hard at trying to expand it, and perform all sorts of catering services. And it's going really well. It's just... taking a lot of his time." Hannah then said, "Well if it's going well, can't Jake just hire more staff to run things?" Kelly then said, "He did. And he said once he had more staff to run the shop, we'd get married. And he did train a whole lot of new staff. Then he became so good at training, that he now teaches cooking all week as well. People pay top dollar for his classes and it only helps the business." Darbie then said, "So when are you two getting married then?" Kelly then said, "When he gets some more free time." Hannah then with a concerned look said, "Which will be when?" Kelly then said, "When Jake stops teaching as much, or when these catering jobs die down a little maybe." Darbie then gently touched Kelly's hands as she said, "Kelly... are you happy with your life right now?" Kelly then suddenly made a little smile as she said, "Yeah. Of course. I love Jake and I love getting to support him. He's following his dreams and has one of the most successful businesses in town." Hannah then gently touched Kelly's hands too as she said, "And it's great Jake is doing so well. But... Kelly are you happy because you truly are? Or do you just think you're happy because Jake is." A few tears began to appear in Kelly's eyes as she said, "I don't know." Kelly then suddenly stood up and said, "I'm sorry. I need to take a quick bathroom break. My stomach has been feeling a bit weird for the last few days. We'll still meet tomorrow, right?" Hannah and Darbie nodded as Kelly quickly ran off. Hannah and Darbie then looked at each other with concerned looks as Darbie said, "Do you think..."

Hours later in the evening Jake walked into his apartment and saw Kelly sitting by herself on the couch in a dimly lit room. A surprised Jake said, "Oh, hey Kelly. I didn't think you'd still be up." With a calm voice, Kelly said, "I wanted to be here when you got home. Why'd you get home so late?" Jake then said, "Had to work on a big shipment we're sending out tomorrow." Kelly then took a deep breath and then said, "Jake... I need you to spend less time at the restaurant." A surprised Jake then said, "What? Where is this coming from?" Kelly then said, "Jake. You keep saying you'll do less there, but that never changes. You need to give yourself a little more space from that place because of your priorities." A still surprised sounding Jake said, "Priorities? But Kelly, I provide more than enough for us, and we still have our Saturday evenings together and..." Kelly then said, "Not your current priorities. But your soon to be priorities." Jake's eyes began to widen as he said, "Wait. Are you saying..." Tears began to come out of Kelly's eyes as she said, "Jake... I'm pregnant."

TO BE CONTINUED...

#just add magic #just add magic fanfiction

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seperis · 6 years

Text

The Once and Future King

For Down to Agincourt fans, an early Christmas present.

Notes: consider this something like an apology. To be fair, I didn’t see my mental health deciding to rapidly degrade over the summer and become a thing, but seriously, two chapters to edit, it’s gotta be frustrating, and I am so sorry for that.

So. I offer repentance in fictional form. Consider this a prequel to In the Hall of the Mountain King.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12931455

*****

The Pit argues every fucking hour of what passes for a day here and he's getting pretty goddamn tired of it. Especially since it shouldn't be able to argue.

"Not yet," he grates out, ignoring the seared landscape and occasional corrupted soul at the very edge of the Pit's domain, borderlands made of the tortured dead too crazy even for Hell, and he's one of them. He's been running forever, barely ahead of the shits sent to make him kneel for the fucker they call master. Not happening: in a straight fight, he knows right now he could win, but not yet.

He just wishes he could remember why. Why he's running, why he's waiting, why he can't take it all. Not yet. There's something else he's got to do first, and it would sure fucking help if he could remember what.

The Pit hides him. At least, he thinks it does, grinding its displeasure like the sound of gravel in a blender, but it's doing something, that much is clear. Not that he's risked it anywhere near the rack or where the fucker sits in state since he got away. The Pit's resentment of the fucker's becoming a problem, or would be if he noticed: not too bright. He could--not yet.

It's also not entirely happy about where he's going, but it's not fighting him, either, and that's enough. Enough to keep control of himself: he's got plans, and he can't afford to indulge the rage and betrayal yet for making him wait, but--but that's for after. After, he's gonna teach his recalcitrant buddy a lesson in loyalty, and he'll start by chopping it up and let it spend the next millennia with its pieces buried all over the goddamn Pit in solid--

Not yet

--stop. Plan. First, get it, fix it (at least enough to do its goddamn job), and go from there. The rest--it'll wait. He's patient. Fuck knows he's learned that much.

Coming around the curve of a shaved cliff he doesn't recognize, he stops short, fighting down the desire to rip apart the figure slumped against bare, rust-red rock, stone of the same color spread out beneath him. There's a long moment where he's not sure it noticed him yet, but the dark head turns, exhausted, red-rimmed blue eyes meeting his. There's a dangerous moment where he thinks it just might run--and no way can he control himself if it does that, fuck--before it slumps back against the cliff.

"Hey, sweetheart," he says pleasantly; this is gonna be done with a pair of pliers, shredding, barely enough to even bury, he can already feel them in his hand and hear it screaming. "Got lost?"

"Alistair," it says, and the Pit surges forward eagerly--no, not yet--though he can't remember why he's waiting, he knows he has to. It stares at him for a long time before it frowns, blue eyes widening. "Dean?"

He staggers, grabbing for the cliff: Dean. That'd be it. That's what he was waiting for.

Swallowing in a dry mouth, he feel the thrum spread through him and hopes the Pit's hiding him because no way would even that fucker could miss this. Breathing through the shock, he pulls himself together again piece by piece before he loses it again, what they took: Dean.

"It worked," he breathes. Dean: that's his name, and that's everything.

"Dean?" it--no, he says again, and Dean takes a deep breath and smiles at him, ignoring the flinch; it's fine, whatever, everything's back on track.

"Yeah," he agrees, looking Cas over: filthy and exhausted and hurt, his first impulse now is to track down everything that fucking touched him and introduce them to the once and future Master of the Pit. It's gonna happen, soon; he'll let Cas watch.

Crossing over to him, Dean drops in a crouch, relieved that Cas doesn't flinch again when he reaches out to tilt his head up, fighting back rage: soon, he tells himself and feels the Pit hum in anticipation. On a guess, whoever's been after him is in a lot worse shape; he'll have to ask about that.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" he asks, turning Cas's head carefully, reading his condition by touch and liking nothing he's picking up. Running on empty and even that's almost out: nowhere in Hell to hide and no one to protect him, with a price on his head the highest ever offered. He remembers laughing on the rack when he heard about it, choking on his own shredded lungs and unable to stop: best joke he ever heard, catch Cas? Tell the mountain to bow, shithead: tell the moon to fall and the sun to rise and end the universe with a big bang all your own, your chances are better doing all three. The only time anyone catches Cas is when he wants to be caught.

"Dean?" Cas breathes in disbelief, then shakes his head, belatedly trying to pull away. Dean tightens his grip but doesn't make the mistake of turning this into a competition. Cas may escape with a broken jaw, but he will escape, and he can't risk that, not now that he's here. "No. You're not--"

"I am," he says, testing it; pretty much, give or take, but that shit he didn't need anyway, not here. "It worked, Cas. I told you it would."

Cas shuts his eyes. "I'm sorry--"

"I'm not." Though he wouldn't say it was fun; he got someone who couldn't break a goddamn serial killer and it got assigned him? Bullshit: they're gonna learn about standards and soon. He'll get Cas to teach 'em. "Cas, look at me."

"Stop it!"

"You're being stupid," Dean says fondly; Cas doesn't get it, that's fine, he'll learn, they got time now. All of it, come to think. "Can't run forever, you know that. You came here, didn't you?"

He really wishes Cas would look at him. "I didn't know where I was going."

"Funny," Dean says, mouth quirking. "All of Hell, and you come to the one place in the Pit I'm hiding after I get off the rack." Cas's mouth tightens, and letting him go, Dean shifts to sit beside him. "It's hiding me, anyway. What a coincidence, huh?"

Drawing up his legs, Cas drops his head onto his knees, and Dean waits, easy; he planned for this, after all. Moving slowly--he doesn't pretend Cas can't do some serious damage to him even now--he reaches to tug up Cas's sleeve, hissing at the open sores, rings of bruises, scrapes marring all that skin; he's taking payment for all of it in full, soon. Cas doesn't lift his head but doesn't fight him either, shivering when Dean traces the binding cut that survived even death; his own shivers in sympathy, relieved not to be stretched so far anymore. That means something, and Cas knows it as well as he does.

"I'm tired." Dean holds himself perfectly still. "I felt you break. I wasn't--I couldn't get to you in time. Again."

Which might explain the incompetence of his particular torturer; everyone else was guarding the Pit and never coming back. Not an excuse, but he gives them credit for knowing how dangerous Cas was, at least. "How many did you take out?"

The blue eyes flicker up, and Dean catches the cold blue rage, unhealed, unhealing: he likes it. Can use it, too. "Not enough."

"It's okay--"

"How?" Cas looks at him, eyes wet, tears drawing pale lines down filthy his cheeks, and Dean reaches out without thinking, wiping them away with his thumb. "I don't understand, how can you be so much like Dean---"

"I am Dean," he interrupts; okay, he got this. "How long has it been?"

"One hundred and eight years, three months, one week, five days, sixteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, eighteen seconds." Cas's voice breaks. "Five years, one month, six days, twenty-eight hours, two minutes and forty-one seconds since you broke."

Felt like longer, but when you have to do half the work for your goddamn torturer, time gets weird. "It was supposed to be this way," he says, hushing Cas when he starts to protest. "It had to be, Cas."

"It's over," Cas says. "We failed."

Distantly, Dean feels his recruits circling closer and sends a warn-off with prejudice; from the agonized response, he thinks they got the 'not the fucking time'. "No we haven't," he says. "We haven't even started. We're gonna win, Cas. Here."

Cas stiffens, but the instant rejection is absent; he's tired, yeah, and probably stopped thinking around the time Dean broke on the rack. Which is pretty much what he hoped for; he couldn't plan this part, but sometimes, things just work out.

"Hey." Carefully, he draws a finger down Cas's arm, following the open wounds (can't wait to find out who did that and where to find them). "Gonna fix this up?"

Cas snorts softly. "You know I can't."

He can, he just doesn't know it yet; Dean's got so much to teach him. "I can." Cas stiffens belatedly and Dean adds another check to his side--their side--of the board. He was never gonna do this without Cas, that was a given, whatever happened; he told Cas they were in this together and that's never changed. "Come on, let me help. You wanna run, fine but at least let me fix you up so you can."

Cas turns his head against his knee, and the incredulous look almost makes Dean laugh; fuck, he missed him. "You'll let me leave?"

"I'll never let you go," he answers honestly. "But it'll give you a fighting chance, at least."

The cracked lips part in a soft laugh: check. "You sound like him--"

"I am him," Dean interrupts. "You can feel it, Cas, come on."

Watching Cas carefully, he calls in the knife, blade sharp enough to cut air, and lets go of Cas's arm to draw a short cut near the elbow of his left forearm. Cas's expression is a few novels, all contradictory--revulsion, rejection, horror, disgust, terror, and the only one that counts--hunger. Check.

"No," Cas says, but the blue eyes never leave that cut, blood welling suggestively. There's power in blood given freely, but here, at least, there's just as much in accepting it; he wonders if Cas realizes that. "I won't--"

"You want to run, you're gonna have to." Cas flickers a look at him, and he knows he won. "It's me, Cas. Come on, it doesn't have to be this hard."

He can make it easy, though; shifting closer, he holds out his arm and watches Cas bend closer as if drawn, waiting, and finally, the sweep of Cas's tongue against his skin before his lips part around the cut and he starts to suck.

He expected everything but the sheer rush; catching his breath, Dean just manages not to tumble over like an idiot, and he realizes he's got a hand in Cas's hair, holding him there with no memory of actually moving.

Fuck: here he thought Ruby was just getting off fucking up Sam. He just didn't know.

"That's it," he breathes as Cas fastens a dirty hand around his wrist before doing what Dean almost did; he's ready for it, though, bracing himself when Cas collapses against him. It takes a long moment to remember what else he's supposed to be doing, but check it out; he doesn't need to do anything but let it happen. Like it's supposed to: of course it is, what was he thinking, this is him and Cas, this is them. "There we go. Take all you want."

If he had the Pit behind him, this might be faster, but Alistair couldn't do this any more than Lucifer could or anyone else; the only one who can corrupt Castiel is Dean. That's why he needed his name first; names are powerful, wrong one and you just might become them. He may have to use Alistair's name, but he'll keep his own when he does.

Already, he can feel it working into Cas; all those subtle cracks everyone has, widening them slowly and carefully, but those wouldn't be enough, not with Cas. This is about him; him, working his way into Cas, lighting up all the places in Cas that are his, have been since this started. Infinite mind of an angel: might scare anyone else, but not Dean, never has, and he needs to know if he's right about how this is gonna work. No margin for error: this is Cas, and he's gotta get everything right the first try.

Then Cas jerks back--tries to jerk back, but he doesn't get any farther than leaning against Dean's chest, lips smeared red. That wasn't enough--not nearly enough--but Dean seals the cut for now; might be better this way, let it work in him, offer more. Cas won't ask this time, or the next, but he will after that, and then he won't need to ask ever again. He'll figure it out.

"I'm so tired," Cas whispers, and Dean gathers him closer, resting his chin in the dark hair and feeling Cas's body shake. "When you broke, I thought--nothing I did mattered."

Dean nods, but he's got to know. "What'd you do with the fucker's minions? None ever came back."

"I put them to good use," Cas says in a different voice, and Dean pulls back to look down and sees a faint smile. "It took time to decide on the shape, however. Their screaming was distracting, so I stopped it."

Now that he's thinking about it, it's quiet over here. The rest of Hell is a cacophony of noise, but here.... "Where are they?"

"Beneath and behind us." Cas looks up, and bewildered, Dean follows his gaze to the cliff, then the stone floor. "Ah, I forgot." Raising a hand, he snaps his fingers, and Dean gets a secondhand rush from Cas using his blood-borne power; they're doing that again like, yesterday. "What do you think?"

Like turning up the volume on the radio, the screaming starts, and it takes Dean a second to work out where it's coming from: everywhere. The cliff behind them, the rock beneath them--Dean presses a hand against the ground and the screaming intensifies; it's beautiful. He can feel the Pit hum approval--not a surprise, this is fucking art--and from the way Cas stills, he feels it, too: perfect. He's gonna be incredible when Dean's done with him; Cas'll be the best he's ever made, he know it.

"Amazing." He kisses Cas and tastes blood; with it comes the memories, a breathtaking flow of images of five years when nothing mattered: only Cas would create a monument to it. Five years.... He jerks back, startled by the edge of something else. "You were waiting for me. Here."

He waits for Cas to deny it, but he just looks back. "My death was not my own," he answers. "Like my life, it belongs to you."

A monument to his once and future death at Dean's hand. Christ. "That was never gonna happen," he says fiercely; how could Cas think he'd ever--

"Maybe I hoped it would." Before Dean feel anything but horror, he shrugs. "At least, I thought I did. As it turns out, that's not what I wanted after all."

Dean realizes he's clutching Cas hard enough to break bone and with an effort loosens his grip. It never occurred to him that Cas might not--that he.... "Do you even know what you want?"

"The only thing I ever wanted." The blue eyes meeting his. "You."

Dean breathes out, relief so strong it feels like pain. "You have me, Cas. Always."

There's a long moment of silence. "Convince me."

"What?"

"Convince me." Turning his face against Dean's chest, he makes a broken sound, and it's all Dean can do not to claim the Pit now so he can take care of everything that made Cas sound like that. "I don't care what it is, just convince me to do it."

That, he can do. "I have a plan."

Shifting them back so he can lean against the cliff, Dean gathers him closer and tells him everything.

*****

Just before they start, Cas says, "Don't stop until it's done."

Dean nods. It's not like he doesn't know the risks here; he just doesn't care. Cas is worth anything. "I know."

"If you can't break me--"

"I will," Dean says; he won't believe anything else. "Don't worry about it."

"--I don't leave this room," he continues like Dean didn't say anything. "Not ever."

"I can do this," he says, checking the restraints again; he designed this room a thousand times in his mind just for Cas, and it's everything he imagined. Smooth volcanic rock that reflects as clearly as a mirror, so he can see Cas from any angle, and just as importantly, Cas can always see him. He shaped the rack to Cas alone, everything in it everything that Dean knows about him, and Cas made the restraints himself, designed to bind an angel. Not really required here, though; nothing and no one can hold Cas when he doesn't want to be. It's gonna take both of them to do this; he doesn't doubt Cas at all and he can't, won't doubt himself. They can do this.

"One more thing," Cas says, and Dean looks up and drowns in blue eyes. "Promise me I won't hate you."

"You won't," he says, picking up the first knife. The only way to break Cas is to make him want it, and the only person that can make him want it is Dean. He can do this. Pressing the tip into the hollow of his throat, he kisses him one more time. They have forever now. "You'll love me. I promise."

#down to agincourt #destiel

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mst3kproject · 6 years

Photo

Serial: Radar Men from the Moon

Like the rest of you, I'd already seen most of Radar Men from the Moon, but the fact that I came to MST3K well after Season One means that before today I'd never actually watched it in order. Does it make any more sense that way? Not really. It's still a pretty scattershot and underfunded alien invasion.

As we begin, stock footage is blowing up all over the place. The government believes that the culprit is Moon Men, turning their powerful atomic ray against the Earth – they enlist Commando Cody (the title cards occasionally refer to him as simply 'Commando', leading me to wonder if Commando Cody is supposed to be his actual name), inventor of the ‘flying suit’, to go to the moon and check it out. Turns out it is Moon Men, led by the villanous Retik and Krog, and they're paying a couple of ex-cons on Earth to wreck our shit so we won't be able to defend ourselves from interplanetary attack! After returning from their moon mission, Cody and his sidekicks, scientists Ted and Joan, take on Retik's toadies on Earth in the hope of heading off the invasion before it begins.

Throughout all of this there's never any clue as to why they are Radar Men from the Moon. The Moon Men are never called 'Radar Men' by themselves or the Earthlings, and the source of their power is atomic, not RADAR-based. Surely they should be Atomic Men from the Moon, which sounds significantly more threatening. Maybe there already was something called Atomic Men and Republic Serials didn't want to step on anybody's copyright toes? I am mystified.

I am also slightly mystified by what we're supposed to think of Commando Cody's superhero career. The opening credits repeatedly call him 'a new character', but everybody in the shorts acts like he's been around doing this Rocketeer gig of his for ages and doesn’t bother with a secret identity. The government official who visits him in the first episode asks if he 'still has' his flying suit. Even Krog knows who he is. Does he have an origin story and prior adventures that we're not privy to? I suppose it doesn't matter, because his past is never important to the story we're watching, but I do wonder if somebody was hoping to make a franchise out of him.

Having now watched both, it's really quite striking how similar the overall plot of Radar Men from the Moon is to that of Panther Girl of the Kongo. In both we have a bad guy with two sidekicks who is waging a sort of guerilla campaign to soften up a target in preparation for a larger enterprise. Each episode includes abrupt reversals of fortune (as, for example, when right out of the gate Cody steals a ray gun from the bad guys only to have it immediately stolen back before he can examine it), furniture-smashing fights, and cliffhanger endings that are rather disappointingly resolved (as when Cody is revealed to have bailed out of the car before it went over the exploding bridge). Once again I get the impression that Republic had a basic formula in place, and would pick a genre out of a hat to tell them how to fill in the details. Radar Men from the Moon is a much less-successful version of this formula than Panther Girl of the Kongo.

There are movies that dither around a while before the actual story gets started – in Radar Men from the Moon there's no dithering at all. The plot is up and running from the opening shot, as we see the destruction Krog and his mercenaries are wreaking and then cut straight to Cody, Ted, and Joan discussing it. Mere moments later the government official arrives to tell them about the Moon Men. This at least means we don't waste any time on irrelevant rock climbing, but it also means we never get to know any of our main characters. In Panther Girl we got a taste of who Jean and Larry were as human beings: she was a competent and adventurous advocate for nature, he an impulsive man of action. In Radar Men, Ted, Joan, and even Cody himself are pretty much just cutouts. We learn more about the personalities and even the pasts of Krog's two underlings, Graber and Daly, who are former bank robbers with some misgivings about the job they've now taken on.

The first couple of episodes take us to the Moon (which looks, as Joel observed, an awful lot like Arizona and has surprisingly nice weather) and get us into the attempt to steal and reverse-engineer an atomic ray gun. After that, the plot starts to get distracted. Throughout Panther Girl of the Kongo we were watching Larry and Jean try to get proof of the existence of the claw monsters for the colonial authorities, who would be able to do something about the situation. In Radar Men from the Moon we wander off into kidnap plots, bar fights, and car chases (I have never seen so many car chases in what is ostensibly an alien invasion story) that all seem to belong more in a heist thriller than a sci-fi epic, and never really gets back on track until we return to the moon in episode eight. Panther Girl had jungles, rivers, and native villages to give us a taste of the exotic, even if all of them were obviously sets. Other than the Moon scenes, which are shot in a canyon full of cool rock formations, Radar Men is set mostly in laboratories and on country roads. These simply don't carry the same inherent interest and do less to distract us from the lack of focus in the story.

Another thing that detracts from Radar Men is the fact that the actors are so matter-of-fact about... well, everything. Nobody seems surprised that the government thinks Moon Men are behind the series of sabotage events. Cody and his friends are incredibly blasé about going to the moon, never mind the fact that they find a city there, with people who are planning an invasion! I mean, yes, they had advance warning to expect this stuff, but I'd expect just a little more oooh-ing and aaah-ing from the first people on the moon. This is a story full of cool things like ray guns and flying rocket suits, and yet everybody acts like they're just going to the office.

There is quite a bit of entertainment value to be found in Radar Men from the Moon, though, and that's mostly in the costuming and special effects. These are cheap and terrible, but often in very funny ways. For example, the rocket ship. Rather surprisingly, they don't use stock footage for its sequences: instead, they built a full-scale prop which rather oddly takes off and lands in a horizontal position rather than being stood on its tail. This is entertainingly impractical, especially the little bounce it does when it lands flat on its bottom, without any wheels or landing legs. Joan wears some kind of spacesuit for the trip despite the fact that her official job is ship's cook, but Cody and the other men go to the moon wearing shirts and ties. Cody's 'flying suit' looks like it belongs to Iron Man's less-talented cousin Cardboard Man. What appears to be a model of the Roman Forum stands in for the Moon City, and according to Wikipedia Cody's laboratory is just an office in the Republic Serials building. A piece of Krog's equipment in the cave appears to be made out of a garbage can.

The writing is also full of amusing nuggets of illogic, mostly on the part of the thoroughly incompetent villains. Krog is out of Moon Jewels to pay Graber and Daly in, so they are obliged to rob banks in order to fund the invasion. Why they agree to this is beyond me. They also keep wrecking their cars and have to call Krog for replacements. Retik and a flunky just stand around listening to a fight scene rather than intervening in it. When Graber and Daly realize that Cody's car is filling with smoke in a chase scene, they slow down to see what's wrong rather than taking advantage of the chance to escape. When they want to hold somebody for ransom, they unbelievably choose Cody himself, despite the fact that he's already kicked their asses... speaking of which, I gotta wonder whether Cody ever worries that his backpack full of rocket fuel will explode in the middle of a fistfight.

MST3K only ever got up to partway through episode nine before deciding enough was enough, so most MSTies never got to see how this story ends. Well, episode ten was a recap, intended to bring the audience up to speed before the finale.. Then, in episodes eleven and twelve, Cody finally thinks to follow Graber and Daly back to Krog's cave, and gets there in time to learn that Retik has arrived on Earth and is about to step up the campaign of sabotage. During a fight scene Krog gets fried by his own tesla coils, and Cody narrowly avoids the same fate. Graber and Daly flee, only to drive off a cliff and explode. Finally, Retik tries to escape in his rocket ship (which is just Cody’s rocket painted black), but Cody has a ray gun stolen from Krog's lair and blows him up. The entire Lunar invasion seems to have consisted of four people, only two of whom were actually from the moon, and the serial is over as it began – abruptly and without dithering.

Although Radar Men from the Moon makes for great MST3K fodder, when you try to watch it on its own it just seems dull and repetitive. I mostly had fun with Panther Girl of the Kongo, but during Radar Men I kept getting distracted and I ended up spending quite a bit of the two-and-a-half-hour run time doing crossword puzzles. Maybe I would feel differently about it if I'd watched it in its entirety before seeing Panther Girl, but I guess we'll never know.

#mst3k #reviews #radar men from the moon #50s

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dorkcresswxll · 6 years

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i went...... hard y’all this is so extra and embarrassing but i spent like,, over an hour writing this down so ur all gonna see it u better.

Why did you choose to play the character that you do at Crimson Revolt?

im gonna be honest like………………………………. i picked dirk bc i wanted to play ezra miller lmao. I KNOW HOW SHALLOW THAT IS DONT LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT OKAY I CAN EXPLAIN!!!!!!!! alright so before i apped for crt the first time i was at…… a pretty low place confidence-wise bc i’d just left the first rpg i ever joined (also the first rp thing i ever did) and it was a pretty,,,, messy departure lmaoo i gotta admit i could’ve handled that better orz. BUT ANYWAY so i went looking through the ezra miller fc tag bc i’d just discovered this fabulous person and had vague ideas about a character that could fit the fc (dramatic, cheeky, a lil flamboyant) and was also thinking “i will never fall in love with a character the way i did my previous ones again” and more dramatic bullshit along those line bc like i said,,, bad time. obviously i didn’t find any active rpgs that had him in use so i checked crt bc i’d seen it around before and liked the look of it, so i sent the main an ask like “do you see ezra miller working for any of your open characters?” the admin at the time pointed me to barty crouch, peter pettigrew and dirk cresswell.

i just want to take a moment to digest that i could literally have played any of these three, cause all i had at the time was a vague idea of a character and a fc to match. i remember i spent days trying to decide between barty and dirk cause neither skeleton fit my vision perfectly and they both seemed aimed more towards an angry jock-type character (especially dirk his fc was miles teller which…. should give u a good idea of what the admin at the time had in mind for him) ( i mean the first skeleton. the one on the main now is one i rewrote after the main crashed back in june.) (just to clarify: the original skeleton had just as much potential to evolve to a complex and intriguing character as any other skeleton here at crt. i just had my vaguely dramatic ezra miller bby and i wanted it. lmao.) but i liked challenging set characterizations and bringing unique perspectives to contrast against any expectations the admin/s might have about a character. which is why i tend to go for skeleton rps, you get more freedom with those. eventually i decided on dirk bc i liked the sound of aversio and grey moralities appeal to me greatly. i spent a long time delving into the character’s backstory and personality and all those deep-seated insecurities and compelling contradictions that make dirk up to be the person he is now. by the time i submitted the app i was thoroughly in love with the character and haven’t stopped since. he’s my most developed and my most beloved character to play thus far.

Do you have a favorite holiday?

NOPE. as long as im surrounded by people i love and a lot of snacks im good.

Do you prefer coffee or tea? Perhaps neither, or both?

coffee. coffee coffee coffee.

What is your personality type?

INFP-T. the mediator. 86% introverted lmaooo.

What is your Hogwarts House?

ahhh. when i first read the books a few years ago i was like ‘iM A SLYTHERIN DONT TOUCH ME!!!!!’ but i…………literally have the subtlety of a bulldozing stampede of rhinos im sure y’all noticed. i took the pottermore test and had the glaring red n gold show up on my face and i shut the laptop down so fast like liES I BELIEVE NONE OF THIS. then i took a fan-made test that put me in ravenclaw and i was like…………….. ok i accept this compromise i can work with that. lmao im such a gryffindor tho don’t look at me im just *flops* pottermore was right….. i accept my place now i have stopped running from the truth orz.

What is your Zodiac Sign?

Taurus.

Three most recently watched on Netflix?

SURPRISE! i don’t have netflix. most recent stuff i watched tho are Stranger Things 2, IT (2017) and…. i can’t remember orz. but im obsessed with stranger things taLK TO ME ABOUT STEVE HARRINGTON PLS I LOVE HIM SO MUCH *SOBS*

Describe your ride-or-die friend.

don’t call me out like this…………………………………. i don’t make friends in real life people are difficult and i am awkward orz.

If you could have any superpower, what would you choose?

the ability to focus whenever i want at whatever i want for however long i want and actually manage to be productive with my time. what do u mean this is not a superpower i need it to be one.

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

i have no sleep schedule to speak of. sometimes i sleep at five am and wake up at eight am to get to my classes, then have a six hour nap when i get home and stay up until four am again. sometimes i go to bed on eight pm and wake up at four in the morning and still sleep through my classes, take a small four hour nap when im home and spend obligatory time with the fam for a couple hours lmao. it’s like im just sleeping or waking up either way im always a step removed from a zombie. there is. no reason for any of this i just do it.

What is your favorite color?

YELLOW. it’s so bright and sunny and iouwodc. i love it.

What is the last book you read? What is your favorite?

ahhhh i can’t remember my memory is failing me. which is sad cause i used to pick up a new novel every other day but i just can’t be bothered anymore ugh. i think my favorite was the whole PJO & HoO series’ – i haven’t read the last book yet tho, so i’ll start rereading all ten books when i get the chance.

Where would you rather be right now?

on a bed. sleeping. alone. with a lot of blankets. solitude appeals to me on such a deep level guys u don’t even know.

Have you ever watched the sunrise?

the ones i remember are three – once when i was a kid with my mom, bc i wouldn’t go to sleep and it was approaching sunrise and i rambled about wanting to see the sun come up so my mom was like………………… ‘*throws hands up* ok u lil monster u win’ and took me to the roof to watch the sunrise lol. it was glorious. and cold. bc winter. the second time was with my cousins who were sleeping over (for the first time in a loooong tiiiimmmeeee) and we decided to spend the night up on the roof bc why not. the last time was with my brother i think he was up there fixing something or the other and i was just there….. to be annoying lmao.

Do you listen to music when you write? If yes, what kind of music?

oh no i can’t. i need everything and everyone to be quiet or i can’t write a thing.

What’s the one thing you especially love about roleplaying your muse/s?

what do i love about playing dirk…… his impulsive and his bright attitude and his endless optimism. he has such an uplifting presence and a cheeky sort of charm that makes it impossible for people not to love him, that makes his worming into other people’s hearts so entirely predictable and entertaining to play out. he is a myriad of contradictions – the difference between what he thinks everyone deserves and what he thinks he deserves is appalling, and with time it becomes clear that when he says things like “everyone needs someone to lean on” or “everyone could use some support” he is not referring to himself as a part of this ‘everyone’, if even on a subconscious level, does not find himself worthy of such kindness. he is a character so full of love he is spilling and overflowing with it, his raw emotions and his turbulent nature one of the dearest parts of him to me. the thin line he walks between being kind and violent, loyal and unforgiving, genuine and secretive. all the little details that make him up are reason for me to love him as dearly as i do.

What’s your favorite type of weather?

cold, but not too cold, y’know? just enough to wear a jacket but not so much you spend the night under five covers and a thermometer lmaoo.

What’s your best RP experience?

crt. no contest. and im not just saying that cause i’ve been in a bunch of rpgs by now and they all either a) lack dedicated admins/members b) are cliquey and non-inclusive at all or b) fall into inactivity a meager month or two after opening. crt is one of a kind.

Who inspires you?

this is actually a tough question cause i never really stop to think about it?? i draw inspiration from everything around me and it’s kinda like…. im constantly absorbing stuff from the environment im in and it’s like i’m always half-thinking about writing at any given moment, if that makes sense?? dunno.

Spread some love: mention someone you’ve met that has influenced you or your writing in a positive way and explain how!

ahhh okay so. before i tried roleplaying i stumbled upon this rpg in the fandom tag over a year ago and it’s basically been the catalyst for my time in the rpc. i was looking through the character’s blogs and found someone playing peter and i was like……….. not fond of peter at the time tbh but this person’s writing was so fucking incredible i checked their blog daily, just to see how this thread or that thread would go. their take on a character i’d only held distaste for before was so compelling and complex i was drawn in all the way, i’d even come to love the character so much and was constantly disarmed by the smallest to the biggest details in that person’s characterization – at least the details i could pick up on, some i’m sure went way over my head at the time. some details i still remember vividly and they’ve helped me shape my first character and have influenced my writing thereafter. i learned a lot about the duality of a character’s mind and how to express inner conflict by observing that person’s writing. (yes i sent them a nerdy af message gushing about all that bc they hadda know man…. they hadda know.)

#( ooc.)

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whipplefilter · 7 years

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fan fic: Baby Driver

This is for @holyporsche, who shared her UTTERLY ADORABLE HUMAN AU MCQUEEN BABY HEADCANON with me. I wanted to see if I could write the version of it where the cars are cars, and this is what I came up with! It ended up a tad more melancholy than I’d initially imagined, but I hope the cute balances it out. <3

Summary: Cruz--and the rest of the racing world--haven’t seen Lightning McQueen in five years, 183 races, and a lot of questions gone unanswered. Then one day, he shows up with a tiny plus one.

Cruz, these days, is a legend. It takes about three seconds for someone to find her and tell her she’s got visitors: McQueen and a plus one.

A tiny plus one.

The tiny plus one doesn't have a name yet, hasn't chosen one; for now, she’s just Baby. She's still nursing an automatic transmission and is just now learning how to school it out of neutral. But when Cruz charges toward her, Baby mirrors the motion.

They collide with a soft plastic clink, kissing nose to nose.

"200!" chirps Baby because no McQueen has ever learned to count 1, 2, 3, have they?

Baby sings 200, 400, 500, and Cruz shoots an impish, conspiratorial glance at Lightning.

And Cruz would never, ever tell him this, but she kinda misses the Fabulous blue. She's not used to seeing him in his new get-up, clean of sponsors and candied red, like it's the 60s all over again. He's not the 95 anymore.

Vitoline's racing the 95 this season: It's someone new and probably pleasant whom she hasn't yet met. She'll admit she hasn't tried that hard; it's been years now, but to Cruz, the 95 will always be Lightning.

The association might be even harder for Cruz to let go of than Lightning's acting like it is for him--but then, she'll probably never know how he actually feels about all this. Lightning McQueen hasn't touched tires to a Piston Cup track in half a decade. Not even to spectate.

Cruz hasn't seen him face-to-face since the end of her rookie year.

"How was Rio?" Cruz asks, because she did, at least, get that postcard last month.

Lightning makes a face, as though he's the baby and not, well, Baby. "She liked the water. A lot. She liked going very deep in the water."

"California girl, huh?"

"We live in Arizona!" Lightning objects. "But every time Sally picks our vacation, we always end up--"

"She has her mother's mouth," says Cruz, and his expression softens.

Cruz seizes the opportunity. "Which means she's gonna roast you once she learns more words."

"Nah, she's gonna know to respect her eld--" Lightning starts, as Baby coasts straight past Danny, and Storm, and takes up pole position in defiance of three forklifts, a flag car, and four formidable security SUVs who seem wholly ill-equipped to deal with this intrusion.

"Huh. And her daddy's attitude," Cruz notes. "Dangerous combination!"

But the flag car--Wesley Wheelie--he's a father of eight from a family of thirty-seven, counting all the halves and steps. So he whips out his green flag and waves it right in Baby's face. When he shoots it up over her head, she shoots forward--at a hot five miles an hour.

The actual quals aren't for another three or four hours, but Wesley keeps waving the flag in Storm's face, as though Storm's life depends on his winning this race.

"She's gonna lap you, buddy!" Wesley jibes.

Storm glares at him hard, but he's wholly at Wesley's mercy, because being made fun of is only the second to last thing on earth Storm wants in his life. The last thing he wants is to be the guy who ran over Lightning "Fabulous" McQueen's damn infant.

Danny, for his part, scratches the race almost immediately, laughing so hard he starts choking on his own exhaust fumes. Cruz hears him trying to crawl into the stands to get a better view of the field, but his hysterics win out over his handling, and he just ends up belly-down in the dirt.

"I hate you," Storm hisses at him. And Wesley. And Cruz. Lightning, he ignores.

"He says that a lot," Cruz tells Lightning, solemnly. "I think it's a term of endearment."

Baby's still making her way around the track--really flying now, eight miles an hour. She's making almost as much forward progress around the track as she is laterally.

Almost.

"She's good," Cruz says.

Lightning wheedles his LF tire through the dirt. "Well! She's seen every. single. race. of oh, some Dinoco racer. Even the ones you can only get on DVD. She's kind of obsessed."

"You've been watching?" Cruz asks.

"Obviously."

"I thought maybe--"

"Give me some credit!"

Cruz sees a glimmer of it, then. How hard it is for him to be here, how happy he is to be here, how much he wants to tear around this track, make it is again, make this world his again. How much he has now beyond this that he'd never, ever give up, that he loves more than what he loves most in the world. It's a delicate paradox, but hey, it's the language they all speak out here. Lightning wants to be here, and he absolutely doesn't. Yearning hurts.

"She wanted to meet you," Lightning says, in answer to Cruz's unspoken question. "I'm not gonna say no."

"She acts like she already has!" Cruz laughs.

Lightning laughs too, though it's more of a sheepish chuckle. "Uh, I'm not sure if she can tell the difference between you and stuffed-toy you."

"So are you--" Cruz is interrupted by a piercing wail.

Rather, she's interrupted by Lightning's reaction to a piercing wail, which she swears comes first. Lightning before thunder, he's launched himself a foot in the air before Cruz can begin to fathom why.

Baby's plowed face-first into the outer wall. Not hard, and not fast--just persistently. She doesn't know to reverse.

Lightning doesn't rush to help her, though clearly that's his base impulse. He stays corralled at the edge of the track, as though pinned there by invisible chocks, and he chants under his breath, Come on, baby. You got this! Take a breath and figure it out. There you go. Focus.

Focus.

Cruz closes her eyes and it's like she can hear it over her comm line. It's as though no time has passed at all. She thought she'd known how much she missed him. But she really hadn't--not until just now.

Come on, Cruz! You got this!

Baby don't got this. Baby's stopped crying, but she keeps prodding the wall with her nose. Maybe this time it will work. Or maybe this time. Or maybe--

"Definitely her daddy's attitude," quips Cruz.

"Haha. Ha!"

Storm catches up to her. He stares, says nothing. He's probably had his engine off since two turns ago, and he's still coasting too fast. Hits his brakes and waits. For ten seconds, Storm does absolutely nothing.

Then Baby reverses cleanly, and escapes the wall.

Danny shouts, so loud the walls of the stadium echo with his renewed laughter, "BABY WHISPERER!"

Danny departs, muttering something along the lines of, "Oh god, where's Tim? I gotta--"

Cruz snorts. "He's a dork, but he's my dork. What're you gonna do?"

Baby drives.

She overtakes Storm again.

Storm's expression is one of almost genuine agony, he's been holding still for so long. He jerks forward and ends up a full body-length ahead of her again. When again she catches up, Baby taps Storm on the rim and says, "Excuse me."

Storm says "Whuh--"

And Baby climbs. She mounts his tire, wedging her own under his fender and scrambling up to his hood. A moment of studied deliberation and she rolls, slow and lopsided, clear past Storm's bewildered eyes and plops down to the ground on his opposite side. Then she hits the gas and drives toward the Wesley's checkered flag.

"OH!" exclaims Cruz. "I GET IT. SHE DID THE--"

"Yes. We all get it," says Storm.

When Baby finally makes it past Wesley's waiting flag, Cruz extends a tire for a high-five. "You won! You won!"

Baby beams, and starstruck she accepts the high-five. Then she says, utterly nonchalant, "Cruz, next time I'll beat you."

It's Storm's turn to laugh. "You hear that, Ramirez? She's coming for you."

Before he disappears--likely to go put the fear of god in Danny--he awards Lightning with a sidelong glance, acknowledging him for the first time in six years.

"Cute baby," he says. Then he's gone.

"So are you gonna stay for the race?" Cruz asks Lightning, as they watch Wesley enchant Baby with his dancing flag. He's waving green and yellow and white all at once.

"Baby needs a nap," says Lightning. "Uh, that baby, not this baby," he clarifies quickly.

"Oh." Cruz tries not to look crestfallen.

"But uh-- Sally said she'd take her if I, if-- you know. Actually, Sally made me promise that I'd let her-- so that I'd-- Because you--" Lightning blurts out, fragmentary.

"Mr. McQueen! You were trying to get out of this, weren't you! If I hadn't asked, you were just gonna--"

"No!"

"You were gonna use your own child as an excuse!"

"Oh, please!"

"I'm telling Sally."

"Wait, no--"

"I'm really happy to see you again," Cruz says, abruptly ending the banter.

Lightning looks at her--guilty, yearning, happy. Mostly happy. "Right back atcha, Cruz."

"You don't have to stay if you don't to."

"Yeah I do, actually. And I do want to."

"Yeah, okay." Cruz smiles. "So... are we gonna be seeing more of you again, or is it back to Arizona after this?"

"Not for me to decide!" Lightning replies airily. He turns back to Wesley, and Baby, and the flags.

Then he looks Cruz straight in the eyes. Really looks. "I'll take her to all the races she wants, though.

“Gotta let her dream big, right?"

#cars fandom #pixar cars #Cruz Ramirez #Lightning McQueen #salqueen baby #jackson storm #danny swervez #wesley wheelie the flag car #cars fanfiction #holyporsche #whipple words

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writesandramblings · 6 years

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The Captain’s Secret - p.23

“The Smallest Gifts Mean the Most”

A/N: There is an X scene that takes place after this chapter which will be completed at a later point, because I’ll never hit my plot goals before Sunday if I take the time to write non-essential smut right now. :D Apologies for any who were interested in reading it! I promise I’ll swing back around to it once I’m out of “crap I was suppose to be twenty chapters further along before this Sunday’s episode” mode.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 22 - Umale 24 - The Lului’s Secret >>

As the Triton arrived in orbit around Luluan, three things happened.

First, the merchant ship in orbit noped the hell out of there, abandoning its shuttlecraft on the planet.

Second, Arzo reported scanners showed more Gentonians on the planet than in the escaping ship, and no sign of any humans.

Third, Commander Benford was forced to make a split second decision, much as Lorca had when he fell in the pond, with the chief difference that Benford managed to ace his and achieve both his goals rather than none.

"After that ship!" he ordered. "As safely as we can!"

The safety directive turned out to be crucial. While the Triton gave chase at low impulse with a mind towards not crashing into explosive pockets of gas or unstable spatial anomalies, the Gentonian cruiser did not, frantically departing at full impulse. Within eight minutes, it was totally disabled and drifting as its skeleton crew, convinced they had experienced a catastrophic hull breach by malfunctioning sensors, panicked and fought over who got to get into the escape pods, not realizing they had enough escape pods for all of them three times over because they were too terrified to open the doors to access the pods on the other side of the ship. (They still could have all fit into the two escape pods they were fighting over if push came to shove, which unfortunately it had.) The mission to apprehend them immediately became a rescue and the offenders were safely transported to the Triton's brig.

Once Billingsley was aboard the Gentonian ship, she had it up and running in fifteen minutes.

"Idiots," she said over the comms. "They didn't modulate their deflectors to account for the metaphasic radiation interference at that speed. Their circuits were completely unshielded. They didn't even blow them. They just got scrambled."

"And now?" asked Benford.

"Unscrambled. Give me a pilot and we're set."

"Like turning an omelet into a chicken," said Benford smoothly, congratulating himself on Billingsley's success.

"What?" she demanded, equally confused and annoyed. Eggs weren't a staple of her childhood and she had never personally seen a live chicken.

The Triton was back at Luluan half an hour later, where it picked up the shuttle trying to escape. "We surrender," were the first words out of Egarell's mouth when the Triton hailed. Benford happily accepted this surrender and congratulated himself again.

"Commander, picking up human life signs. Faint. I am detecting a cave system."

"Can we beam them up?"

"No. I cannot even confirm the number. They are too far underground."

Benford considered. "We got all the guys, right?" he asked, referring to the merchants.

"All that were present," confirmed Arzo. There was still the matter of Venel's side of the operation.

Benford itched to go down to the planet, but he had to send Arzo, and if they both went, the four most senior officers would be on the planet's surface. With Billingsley on the Gentonian ship, that would make Russo acting captain. It was hard to justify having the five most senior officers abandon their posts around an unfamiliar planet in the Briar Patch. Benford sighed and settled down into the captain's chair. "Take Larsson."

They beamed down in front of the mouth of the cave. The first thing Larsson did was start to remove his uniform jacket.

"Lieutenant, what are you doing?"

"It's hot!" said Larsson.

"Your uniform is well-ventilated."

"I don't like it."

Arzo rolled his eyes. He and Larsson had both been serving on the Triton for years and he knew a losing battle when he saw it. The old crew nickname for Larsson was "the steamroller" both because of the Swede's ability to physically manhandle just about anything and for his stubbornness. Small surprise Larsson was still stuck at the rank of lieutenant and unlikely to ever be promoted.

"Hey!" a voice called from inside the cave.

Arzo was genuinely relieved to hear the captain's voice. Lorca, Morita, and Lalana emerged from the darkness of the cave's interior. Apparently they had been on their way out while Arzo and Larsson were beaming down.

"You have got to get in there. It's a hot spring," said Lorca. He looked like he had been in a fight, but seemed perfectly happy.

"Unsurprising," said Arzo. "The planet contains a wealth of geothermal vents."

Lorca stopped short. Having spent the better part of two days on Luluan, it was off-putting to discover Arzo probably already knew more about the planet than he did thanks to the Triton's scanners. "Yes, well, did you know it glows?"

Secretly, Arzo had missed the captain's affection for one-upping everyone, but he did not let it show. Like Benford, he knew better than to stroke the captain's ego, because it could turn him absolutely insufferable when that ego was left unchecked. "It glows?" he said impassively.

"The rocks, the water, the air, even you if you go for a swim. Anyway!" Lorca rubbed his hands together. "Please tell me you brought food."

Larsson reached into the pocket of his jacket and offered Lorca a protein bar. Lorca decided he'd rather eat worms.

Lalana hopped forward twice, seemingly on alert. "What is it?" asked Lorca.

"Planetary gathering. Your presence is requested."

Arzo scanned the air. "Fascinating. I believe it is a type of pheromonal messaging system."

Lorca recalled a phrase Umale had used. Painted on the winds. Strange choice of words, he realized. Painted. Lului didn't paint. Maybe Umale did? "Guess our hosts are finally ready to talk."

Morita beamed back up to the Triton, freeing Benford to head down to the planet aboard the shuttle with Carver and Ek'Ez. While Lorca, Arzo, and Larsson could have beamed up and back down directly to the location of the gathering, that would have meant leaving Lalana behind, and Lorca wasn't prepared to do that yet. Not until this planetary gathering was complete, anyway.

As requested, Benford brought along an actual meal of ham, salad, gazpacho, and bread. Lorca sat on a rock and ate it overlooking the vast lului forest with its giant trees in the distance. He let Lalana taste everything on the plate, not caring if she licked his food, and caught sight of Larsson watching with disgust at the sight. Smirking, he doubled down on the offense and fed Lalana a piece of ham off his fork. Larsson looked away.

Ek'Ez insisted on performing at least a cursory exam aboard the shuttle. "I would prefer to take you back to sickbay, but, this will have to do for now," Ek'Ez said, injecting a painkiller. It was more than sufficient. Lorca felt immediately better. Moving was no longer an ongoing agony.

More importantly, Benford had also brought a fresh uniform. Lorca was glad to get rid of the civilian garb at last. He always felt more like himself when he had his uniform on.

Exiting the rear of the shuttle, he found Ek'Ez and Lalana deep in conversation and took a seat next to Lalana. It was the last seat available. Between Benford, Carver, Arzo, Larsson, Ek'Ez, Lalana, and Lorca, the shuttle was packed.

"...a state of unconsciousness, but not death?" Ek'Ez was asking.

"As long as there is still any sort of signal, the outer cells will not disintegrate."

Ek'Ez pondered this, putting it together with the earlier part of their conversation Lorca had missed. "Still. I do not see how Umale's plan will work. It's very unlikely the Shkef's cells are even remotely compatible. He will probably kill the Shkef."

"Yes, probably!" said Lalana, cheerful as ever. "But to think, if he can directly engineer a natural evolutionary process with foreign tissue, what a feat. And it is the only chance he will ever have to try, now that you have stopped the hunters."

"It does not seem very ethical," concluded Ek'Ez.

"I get the impression ethics aren't something Umale cares about," Lorca said.

Lalana leaned against Lorca's arm. "You are correct. He exists to remind us of our past follies. This is why everyone hates him."

Lorca squinted pensively. "I thought he was your leader."

"Oh, no, he is not even a member of our society."

Lorca noticed Larsson furiously scribbling notes across the shuttle. Apparently there were still subjects the historical survey had yet to cover. It was too bad they had so little time left.

"Captain!" called Benford. "You gotta see this."

Lorca jumped up and joined Carver and Benford in the front of the shuttle.

It was nowhere near half a billion lului, but there were thousands upon thousands of them, probably a quarter of a million. Possibly even more. The entire area was carpeted with a vast and chaotic patchwork of colors. It stretched on and on.

"Impressive, right?" said Lorca, as if this were old hat to him.

Carver pointed at something in the sky. "Look there!"

"That's Serot," said Lorca. The Shkef looked like a fleck of brown paper dancing on the wind.

The lului provided a space in the middle of the crowd for the shuttle to land. The din of incessant lului conversation was audible even before they opened the door. The shuttle seemed almost to vibrate with it.

Benford had a visual recorder with him transmitting to the Triton's archives. The whole ship watched live as the sea of multicolored lului revealed itself in detail.

There were lului of every color imaginable, with patterns ranging from geometric to impressionist. No two lului had the exact same pattern or even seemed to be the same shade. One lului had seemingly perfect vertical black and white stripes. Another, cherry red with vibrant whirls of yellow. There was a blue one with a purple star shape on its head, and a yellow one crisscrossed with brown and blue strokes like calligraphy.

Several visual elements recurred. A few of the lului in the front had a sort of diagonal slash of white across their right shoulders, a white circle on their heads, and bands of white around their tails. Another section had black lines encircling their heads and large black circles on their chest. A third group had red rectangles on their shoulders and matching shapes on their head, and a fourth green circles covering the top half of their heads, almost like a knit cap pulled halfway down their eyes. Aside from these matching elements, each of these lului had their own base color and pattern, and so remained differentiated from its fellows. Lorca guessed the repeating elements were indicative of some sort of tribe, achievement, or rank.

A lului stepped forward with a dual-tone green face and chest surrounded by streaks of black and white that were edged in intricate black and white dots continuing across its back. A larger arrangement of alternating black and white dots marked its forehead.

"I am Lului," it said. This lului, it would seem, was some sort of planetary representative or leader. At the very least, an appointed speaker for the whole.

Most of the dialogue that followed was not particularly notable. Introductions, greetings from the Federation, the terms of a protection agreement being offered by the Federation, and then the really hard sell: a translator and a communications relay in case anyone landed on the planet again.

"Look, you can't just go around smashing other races' technology," said Lorca. "You call us, and we'll come collect it for you, and in the meantime, you can use the translator and maybe they'll leave if you ask them nicely."

"Yes, but then we will be stuck with your technology on our world!" said one of the lului with red rectangles.

"Give it to Umale, then. Umale can put it with the other things you hate."

"We don't want more technology, we want less!" howled a lului in the crowd.

The lului designated as Lului lifted its tail straight up. "We will trade it. That way, there will be no increase in technology. Someone go and take two things from Umale."

If Umale didn't like Lorca before, he certainly wasn't going to like Lorca now. "One thing!" countered Lorca. "Our things are small. Umale can combine our two things into one." Even if Umale was an unabashed jerk, it seemed unwise to completely offend the lului who was probably going to be tasked with operating the translator and transponder. Hopefully this act of charity would mitigate the sting of the trade Umale was about to be forced into.

Then they had to wait while the lului fetched an object from Umale, which took half an hour.

The object turned out to be a metal block. It had no markings on it, was about the size of an eyeglass case, and the lului who presented it to Lorca almost threw it at him in obvious disgust for having to touch the thing. Lorca picked it up off the ground. It weighed as much as a brick. "What is it?"

"How should we know?" asked a dark grey lului with red bands around its eyes and tail. Lorca gave the block to Arzo and hoped something good came out of the exchange.

"There is also the matter of your food," said Lului.

Lorca stared, not following.

"She means the Gorn," whispered Lalana. "He will take the food with him and eat it on his ship. Humans need to do something called grilling because their primitive stomachs get wounded if they try to eat natural food. They have a grill with them on their ship, but it is too big to bring here, so they will bring the food up there."

Lorca bit his lip and managed to keep a straight face through her explanation, but only barely. It was a good thing none of the other lului seemed to have any idea of the meanings behind human facial expressions. "Yeah. We'll do that," agreed Lorca. "What else?"

"I have something," said Lalana. "Humans are greatly bothered when other humans die, and one of them died in order to stop the hunting, so I wish for his name to be gifted at the next Great Merge and maintained always."

"What does this matter now? Bring it up at the merge," said a yellow lului.

"Because, the humans will not be here then, and they should know that we are giving them this honor," said Lalana.

Lului spoke. "A name is an easy gift to give. What is the name?"

"Wallulen."

"...Lallulen?"

"Ululen?"

"Wah!" said Lalana, loudly and clearly. "WAL-lulen. Lului doesn't have enough letters in it anyway. Just give the Starfleet humans one letter in all the words in our language so that all lului always remember that Starfleet wishes us the best for our world and helped us when we would not help ourselves."

The lului immediately began to practice this letter, a chorus of "wuh-weh-wah" sounds creating a cacophony rather like a colony of barking seals.

"We did not need help," said Lului, "but we will agree to this recognition. Wallulen is entered into the list of names for our people, and there will always be a Wallulen on Luluan."

Lalana turned to Lorca. "That was for Reiko," she said gravely.

Aboard the Triton, Morita sat in the captain's chair and smiled, a tear in her eye.

They went to retrieve the Gorn corpse as promised. Lalaila and Linali were sitting together in a tree nearby and did not flee when the landing party approached.

"Finally, you've come to clean up your mess," said Linali.

Benford was no longer recording, so Lorca said, "You're welcome for saving your planet."

"Humans have a very high opinion of themselves," said Lalaila.

"We have that in common," Lorca replied. Linali's tongue began to click and Lorca decided the orange lului probably wasn't so bad after all.

Benford watched this exchange with interest. He thought Lorca had been a little harsh at the gathering with all the lului, but then Lalana had been equally forceful in her request to commemorate Walter Chen, and Benford was beginning to realize that this vague rudeness was, if not the most effective method, at least something the lului found engagingly familiar.

Or maybe they were all just responding to Lorca's style in kind. Was that giving Lorca too much credit? Regardless, Benford doubted this adventure was going into the first contact handbook.

Arriving at the scene of Lorca's great battle, they found the Gorn's corpse covered in worms. Parts of its skull were already visible. Ek'Ez gaped at it, rightly horrified. "Captain, surely you are not suggesting... "

"It's the terms of the treaty, doctor."

Ek'Ez's eyes blinked in a line. "I sincerely hope he has no family who were counting on having this body returned to them."

While Ek'Ez arranged what he considered to be a sufficient medical quarantine for a worm-ridden body, Lorca and Benford went for a walk. "It doesn't look like I expected," said Benford, touching the trunk of a tree. "Somehow I thought it'd look more alien. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's those giant trees off in the distance, but from here... It kind of reminds me of the Black Forest."

"It's what you can't see," said Lorca. "Take that moss over there. That whole section of ground has water underneath it. Step on it, you'll fall right through."

Benford looked around. "There's a lot of moss."

Lorca shrugged. "In a way, we're standing over an ocean. It just happens to have trees growing on top. And look up." Benford obliged. "What do you see?"

"Trees. Branches. Leaves? Sunlight."

"There's probably a dozen lului up there, watching us. You wouldn't even know they're there unless they want you to."

"You really think there's that many?"

"I'd bet you anything in the galaxy."

Benford laughed. "Fine, I believe you!"

They walked for a bit in silence. Then Benford said, "We should head back."

Lorca took a deep breath. The heady scent of sap meant nothing to him, but he knew to a lului, it might contain a message. He wondered what it said.

There was a whistling sound. Something swooped through the trees and landed in front of them. The Shkef. "The winds have brought me to you again," she said.

Benford blinked at the sight of the naked alien woman as her membranes slid back into her body. She stepped behind a tree in false modesty, her head poking around the trunk. "Jack, this is Serot. Or is it Shel-lif now?"

"It matters not. But I have a proposal for you, captain. May we speak alone?"

Lorca shrugged a shoulder at Benford. "Watch out for the ground moss," he advised as Benford headed back. "What can I do for you, Serot? Having second thoughts about Umale's plan to turn you into a lului? My doctor tells me it'll probably kill you. I don't imagine it'll be a nice way to go, your body melting while your brain remains intact. Probably feel every moment." He had not forgotten that she had likely been intending to kill him all of fifty yards away.

She stepped out from behind the tree. "If that is how I go, then, wind's will be done."

"So you're not here to beg me to take you back to the Triton?"

She began to move towards him, slowly but purposefully. "It occurs to me that once you leave this world, I will likely never see another humanoid ever again. The winds of this world are wonderful and inviting, but I would be lying if I said there were not things that I will miss. Things only humanoids can do together."

Her hips swayed with each step. She was almost arm's length from him now, her brown eyes fixed intently on his. "Things that perhaps you would do with the woman with whom you were not married." She was wrong there, in a big way, but also right in equal measure. Two more steps brought her close enough to feel the rush of his breath on her face, her head tilted longingly up at him.

"Will you give me something to remember the stars by?"

His face broke into a smile. "I think that can be arranged."

Part 24

#Star Trek Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Captain Lorca #Gabriel Lorca

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