#expect him to crawl up onto the highest surface and hide

[mercurydancer]

So...how many drawings has Maul gotten from his fanclub yet? And how’s he taking the attention?

#darth maul #maul #tiny ahsoka tano #lol #i don’t know man this made me laugh #twin sons #ask healer tiq #maul reacts to attention in the way you would expect #the moment he actually winds up being around this fan club #expect him to crawl up onto the highest surface and hide #maul sees a gaggle of younglings #and his life flashes before his eyes #run away from the children #someone help this boy

[mst3kproject]

The Phantom from 10 000 Leagues

I found this movie online while looking for From Hell It Came (which I haven’t yet found – someday I will and then you’ll all be sorry) and it looked bad, so I checked out the details.  Turns out it stars Kent Taylor from The Crawling Hand, Cathy Downs from The Amazing Colossal Man, and was written by Lou Rusoff, who was behind It Conquered the World, The She-Creature, and… oh god, he also wrote Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.  This is gonna suck goat nads.  I must watch it right away.

You shouldn’t picture me groaning when I write stuff like that, by the way.  You should picture me giggling like a maniac and rubbing my hands together with glee.

A monster is killing people at sea near an incredibly bleak and depressing California college town, and the bodies and wrecked boats it leaves in its wake are scorched by radioactivity! Washington sends Agent Grant to find out what’s going on, and he soon discovers that the Pacific College of Oceanography is positively overflowing with suspicious characters.  There’s the reclusive and paranoid Professor King, who is working on weird experiments in his locked laboratory.  There’s King’s assistant George, who follows him around and hides in the bushes to watch what he’s doing.  King’s secretary Ethel blames the professor for the death of her son and wants revenge, and George’s girlfriend Wanda is a foreign agent.  Not to mention the visiting Dr. Stevens, a radiation expert with an unsettling habit of turning up just in time to discover the bodies.  Someone among this motley crew has created a sea monster… and someone else is planning to sell it to the highest bidder!

You know how some movies save their monsters until the last minute, in order to build suspense?  Or because what we imagine is always scarier than what we actually see?  Or because the monster sucks and they’re ashamed of it?  Or some combination of the above?

Phantom from 10 000 Leagues is not one of those movies.  Before we’re even a full minute into it, the monster has appeared on screen in all its ridiculous glory.  Stevens calls it a hideous beast that defies description but I think I can make an attempt.  It looks sort of like the lovechild of a saber-toothed tiger and the Horror of Party Beach.  There’s a ridge down its head and back like an iguana and a poorly-camouflaged window in its neck so the dude inside can see what he’s doing.  The whole costume is also rather buoyant, and the actor is having to work hard to stay underwater.  Sadly, this beast remains lurking in the depths and never shambles out onto the beach to menace sunbathers, which is the only thing it would have needed to make it a perfect bad movie monster.

The creature is not the only nuclear threat in this movie… or even the silliest one!  During an investigatory dive, Stevens discovers a glowing patch on the seafloor which he says represents an ‘activated’ uranium deposit with the potential to form a naturally-occurring death ray!  We finally get to see this in action when stock footage of a ship passes over it – and turns into a different ship that immediately blows up! I’m just sad this only happens once. The glowing stone itself is represented by a mirror with a light shining on it in underwater shots, and by the reflection of the sun when seen from the surface.

So the effects are not special and make an already silly threat even more hilarious.  What about the story?  Like all cheap monster movies, the focus of The Phantom from 10 000 Leagues is not the creature killing people but the investigation into it.  There’s a large number of potential monster-makers here, which could have made the movie a bit messy – but by the time the words The End appear, we know who all these people are, how they’re involved, and what they hope to accomplish.  Even the women are given distinct motivations and personalities, although those fall neatly into the ‘maiden, mother and whore’ tropes I’ve discussed in the past. The dialogue is not exactly subtle, but it seems like I can’t wholly blame Lou Rousoff for Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.

It’s also nice that, despite the preponderance of White Men In Suits (Stevens and Grant both walk along the beach in suits and ties at all hours of the day and night), the characters all look different enough that I can tell them apart!  None of the cast are great actors, with a lot of stilted or awkward line deliveries, but then, a lot of the things they’re saying are completely ridiculous, so I probably can’t lay that entirely at their feet.

Unfortunately, the plot of Phantom From 10 000 Leagues is rather unfocused, and like so many of these films it’s not sure who its main character is.  It seems like either Agent Grant or Dr. Stevens, who are each conducting some kind of investigation into the goings-on, ought to be the protagonist… but both are introduced in contexts that make them seem potentially suspicious.  Dr. Stevens is actually significantly more suspicious than Grant, because when he first turns up he gives a fake name, and later proves to have actually performed experiments with mutating sea life in the past.  Yet for much of the movie, it’s Stevens we’re watching, as he cozies up to Professor King and flirts with King’s daughter Lois.  He actually gets far more screen time than Grant, with the latter sometimes being out of the movie for long enough that the audience kind of forgets he’s there.

Stevens and Lois’ love story is, as is probably inevitable for a movie of this kind, completely bland.  Kent Taylor and Cathy Downs have no appreciable spark between them, and one gets the uncomfortable impression that he’s about twice her age. The movie never offers even an approximate age for either character, but Lois is still unmarried and living with her father, which in the 1950s suggests she’s in her early twenties.  King describes Stevens as a ‘young man’ but between his appearance and his impressive academic credentials he’s obviously not, and when I looked up the actors I learned that Taylor was forty-eight when The Phantom from 10 000 Leagues was made, while Downs was twenty-nine.  That’s… well, they’re both adults, but he’s still old enough to be her father, and the younger we assume they both are, the worse the two decade gap gets.

Once we actually get to know the characters, the solution to the mysteries is fairly obvious, but this lets us spend some actual time with these men and find out what they think about the situation.  Stevens, who’s been down this road before, wants these terrible experiments to stop before any more people get hurt.  King, hearing about it for the first time, is more excited about what he might be able to learn by building on Stevens’ work. This represents an interesting inversion because if you’ll recall, King is supposed to be significantly older than Stevens (though actor Michael Whelan was actually born only five years before Taylor).

Usually knowledge and wisdom are both associated with age.  This is a very old trope and has some fairly sound logic behind it: the elderly have had longer to learn and to experience.  In Phantom from 10 000 Leagues, however, we have the older Professor King excited by the ground-breaking discoveries made by a younger scientist and wanting to learn more about them, even when the (supposedly) younger Stevens warns him about Tampering in God’s Domain.  Each assumes the role their ages might make us expect of the other.

This is reflected in their respective fields: depending on how you define it, oceanography is as old as mankind.  Humanity has been mapping the seas for as long as we’ve known how to sail across them, and marveling at the monsters we pull from its depths for as long as we’ve been catching fish.  That is the Professor King’s domain. Stevens, on the other hand, is a specifically nuclear scientist. Nuclear physics technically begins with the discovery of radioactivity in the 1890’s, but it seemed like a new and scary field in the 1950s, as the development of atomic weapons forced scientists to take a closer look at the phenomenon’s effect on living tissues. To King, who is an expert in another field, the possibilities of this relatively new work outweigh the potential consequences.

As sloppy and poorly-made as Phantom from 10 000 Leagues can be, this contrast between Stevens and King does make it a movie with something to say.  It of course has the standard moral for a fifties atomic monster piece, about paths science is not meant to tread, but it also wants us to think about that connection between age and wisdom.  On the one hand, King’s interest in Stevens’ work tells us that you’re never too old to learn something new.  On the other, just because somebody is young doesn’t mean they have nothing to teach. If King had taken in Stevens’ wisdom along with his knowledge, a lot of suffering need not have happened.

Even if you’re not into that, the crappy monster, the bad acting, the ridiculous science, and all the sneaking around and backstabbing that goes on makes Phantom from 10 000 Leagues plenty of fun watch.  It’s much like Beginning of the End in that it ticks all the MST3K boxes, while remaining coherent enough that you can enjoy the actual story along with the badness.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #phantom from 10000 leagues #it's beginning to look a lot like fishmen #50s

[ericsonclan]

An Unwavering Path

Summary: Hermes decides to reach out to Violet in order to change her path.

Word Count: 2883

Read on A03:

Notes:  While humans retain their regular names, gods are referred to by their deity names. For reference:

Iris = Brody, Hypnos = Aasim, Hermes = Louis, Zeus = Carver, Thanatos = Jesse

Iris landed gracefully upon the ledge of the cave, looking back to see the waterfall hiding it from the outside world. The cave itself was too high for humans to reach, but the falling water had its source in the river Lethe, the source of forgetfulness, and provided an added protection. It was the perfect home for Hypnos. Ruffling her feathers lightly, she sighed in annoyance as a single one fell to the floor, its lavender hue shining against the dull grey of the cave floor. She was molting again. The stress of delivering so many messages these past few days was getting to her. Things were always busy for the messenger gods, but even more so when a war was brewing in the human world.

“Iris?” Hypnos’ voice came from deeper inside the cave. He emerged with a scroll in his hand, looking at the goddess in confusion. “I wasn’t expecting you today. Come in, come in,” He guided her further inside the cave, passing another magical barrier to enter his true abode. Couches, beds and pillows were comfortably spread out throughout the room, providing a myriad of places to lay down one’s head. Fitting décor for the god of sleep.  

Iris looked up at her friend who was scratching his goatee in thought, clearly studying something upon the scroll he held. “Am I interrupting?”

“I have some time to spare. Sit, tell me your news,” Guiding her to a chaise lounge, Hypnos took a seat upon an ottoman. His grey wings shone softly in the room’s light as he waited for her to speak.

A sigh escaped Iris’ lips. “I bring news from Zeus. We’ll both be needed these next few days to monitor the battlefield and deliver messages to him personally of how it progresses. Hermes will have his hands full guiding the dead to the underworld. I know this will throw a wrench into your schedule, but Zeus made it clear that his orders were non-negotiable,”

“They always are,” Hypnos replied, his lips forming a tight line. His eyes softened when he noted how Iris’ hands were fidgeting in her lap. “There’s no need to worry. I won’t put up a fight,”

“Thank you,” Iris’ face perked up a bit at his assurance. “I knew I could count on you. I’ve been such a nervous wreck these past few days I haven’t been able to think straight,”

“If you’d like, you could rest here for a few hours,” Hypnos raised a hand, its form drifting in and out of perception. If needed, Iris knew he could grant her sleep, a rare but occasionally necessary blessing.

She shook her head though. “There’s too much to be done. It’s nothing unusual being this busy when a war rolls around, but there’s something different this time. The lines of communication seem to be getting cut within the human realm and that messes with my own messages amongst the gods. It’s common for death to go hand in hand with war, but not before the battles have even started!”

Hypnos nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been noticing that as well,” He motioned to the scroll in his hand. “Thanatos gave me this list of generals and commanders that have died these past few weeks. It’s taken some backtracking, but I believe I’ve found their commonality: all were present at the massacre of the Amazons in Lycia a few moons ago,”

The battle was still fresh in Iris’ memory. It had been a tragic day for the Amazons. So many lost at the hands of men simply for their coffers to be raided. It hadn’t been of great concern to Zeus who said it was the way of the strong to take what they desired, but it had still brought an ache to her heart as she flew over the burnt remains of Lycia. “So it’s a counterattack by the Amazons then. They’ve regrouped that quickly?”

“Not the Amazons. One lone Amazon,”

“What? You’re sure?” Iris looked at the list in disbelief. “But that’s so many names!”

“I’ve spent several nights examining the dreams and thoughts of the remaining Amazons. Their feelings are many: pain, confusion, despair, but one has been filled with a deep, irrevocable rage unlike anything I have seen for quite some time,” Circling a finger, Hypnos opened a portal to the girl’s dreams, portraying them for himself and Iris to examine.

The dream seemed to be happy at first. Two girls, one with the hair the color of grain, the others a fiery red, walked hand in hand through a meadow field, their arms swaying back and forth as they spoke. But everything changed within a moment. The sky grew dark and cracks formed in the earth, blood seeping up from the bowels of the underworld. The yellow-haired girl screamed as the other girl’s flesh melted before her, dripping from her bones till her bare skeleton was all that was left, washed away in moments by the river of blood. The living girl was swept away in its tide, blood covering her form as she struggled to remain above it, fighting for her life.

Then all blood was gone. The girl lay upon the barren, scorched earth. The land was burned to cinders, utterly black and desolate. The girl was silent, drenched in blood from head to toe. The only sound came from the rising and falling of her chest, a rasping echo in her throat. The girl looked lost, frail, broken. Then her eyes suddenly hardened, a cold steel forming within them. With a mighty cry, she thrust her hands inside her chest, pushing them into her heart. Slowly she pulled something from her torso. A long dagger, slick with blood. With a final wail, she removed the knife from her chest, gazing at the blade in awe. A single bloodied fist raised the weapon to the sky. There was a resounding clap of thunder and the dream ended, snuffed out in an instant.

Iris looked up at Hypnos with wide eyes. “Are all of her dreams like that?”

“More or less. I’ve received confirmation from other sources that she was behind these murders. If her dreams are any indication, she’s nowhere close to stopping,”

“Who’s stopping what now?” A voice came from behind them. They turned to see Hermes entering the room. His wings shimmered as he ruffled them luxuriously, stretching before collapsing dramatically onto one of the nearby beds. “Hypnos, have you been peeping on people’s dreams again?”

“I’ll have you know that that is my job!” Hypnos sputtered angrily, glaring at the other god. “And it’s not peeping! It’s my prerogative as the god of sleep!”

“Whatever you say, buddy,” Hermes shrugged before rising to his feet. “What’s that?”

Iris and Hypnos turned back to see that the dream portal had returned; the girl must have fallen asleep again. This time she was in a cave, crawling desperately. But instead of moving toward the light of the exit she was descending further and further into darkness as though striving to reach something far below the surface.

Hermes’ eyes widened in surprise. “Wait a minute. I know that girl!” He took another step forward, eyeing the dream with concern. “Why are you watching her?”

“I was just explaining to Iris that this girl is the cause behind the peculiar series of murders these past few moons,” Hypnos replied. “How do you know her?”

“I met her on the battlefield, after it was done. I was the one who guided her lover to Hades and the Elysian fields,”

“The highest fate for a mortal,” Hypnos observed. “Her love must have been quite the warrior,”

“She was. She possessed a spirit of determination that still shone forth as I separated the psyche from its shell. This one, Violet,” he gestured towards the dream, “wouldn’t accept her lover’s fate though. She wanted her back,”

Hypnos scoffed. “A foolish dream of mortals to think they can cheat death,”

Hermes raised an eyebrow. “Those are harsh words coming from the guardian of dreams,”

“I simply meant there is a wisdom in accepting fate, one many humans seem to lack,”

“Perhaps,” Hermes looked to the dream where Violet still struggled to go deeper underground. “I think if our roles were reversed though and it were we gods who stood mortal, we may hear the humans say the same thing while we cursed our fate,”

Iris looked thoughtful. “This girl, she seems to have left an impression on you, Hermes,”

Hermes considered his response, eyes lost in thought. “I felt her pain that day or at least a piece of it. I hoped to lessen it, but I don’t think my words reached her,”

“Some mortals are a lost cause,” Hypnos said dismissively. “No matter how you guide them they refuse to listen,”

“Or maybe they’re unable to hear,” Hermes’ fingers danced along the edges of the dream. “Humans aren’t like us. They’re bound to time and with that comes change. As time flows they become different people. Perhaps their new form would be one that listens,” Hermes turned to Hypnos, determination within his eyes. “I want to speak with her. Let me enter her dream,”

“What? That’s ridiculous! It’s only been a matter of months since you saw her. That’s not enough time for change!”

“There’s no harm in trying is there?”

“There could be,” Iris’ voice was soft. “This girl’s mind is frail, vulnerable. And from her actions these past few months I see no signs of time giving her a more positive outlook,”

“All the more reason for me to help her! Look, you must have been observing her dream for a reason and the only one I can imagine Hypnos having is that Violet’s murders are disrupting efficiency. If that’s the case, let me try to fix your problem for you,” A cheeky smile crossed Hermes’ face. “Also, I won’t leave until you let me,”

Hypnos glared at him in annoyance before letting out a world-weary sigh. “Fine. If it will get you out of my home, I’ll allow your silly endeavor,” The portal containing Violet’s dream took on a translucent, shimmering glow. “Touch it. Your presence will immerse her dream,”

Hermes looked to Iris for confirmation. She gave a shrug. It wasn’t as if she’d ever tried something like this before. With nothing to go on but Hypnos’ word, Hermes took a breath, closed his eyes, and reached out his fingers to enter the portal. Immediately his mind was transported within the cave, the very one of Violet’s dream.

Hermes glanced down, seeing his body before him, yet he felt weightless. He wasn’t fully here. Only a form of him, transported to this place to meet the wayward human. He was standing within a cavern. Along the far wall he could see a tunnel. That must be where Violet was. At any moment she would emerge. He stood silent, waiting for that moment.

A short sound of scuffling, a rush of dirt and pebbles, and the young Amazon emerged. She blinked in confusion at the light cast by the god’s wings, her own eyes used to the darkness of this dream cave. When she could see more clearly, she looked to Hermes with a scowl.

“I’m not who you’re looking for,” The god’s voice was soft. “I know that,”

“You don’t belong here,” Violet got to her feet and looked round the room, groaning in frustration when she saw there was no way to go further down, only up through the very tunnel she’d descended. “You’re fucking things up!”

“I didn’t know my presence would alter the dream,” Hermes noted. His aura cast shadows upon the walls, strange shapes that wiggled and squirmed as he stepped forward. “But you already know it’s a dream, don’t you?”

Violet refused to look up, her arms crossed in front of her and shoulders hunched. “It could have been a nice dream,”

“Was it before I came?”

“It had hope before you were here. Hope of… seeing her,” Violet’s eyes suddenly rose, burning with anger. “But here you are keeping me from her, just like you tore me away!” The walls came alive with her words, flames licking out from above and below and dancing around them. Violet’s face contorted in pain as the heat rose round her.

Hermes couldn’t feel it. He was witness to this dream, not participant. Violet was the one guiding the dream even though her turbulent emotions prevented her from controlling it. That must mean that she’d been wrong about him altering the dream too. The one who’d led her to this dead end was herself. Did that mean she knew how futile her efforts were? Even if she did, her anger prevented her from accepting the truth just as it had that day on the battlefield. Hypnos was right. She hadn’t changed.

“What are you doing here?” Violet screamed in anger. Her voice reverberated through the cave, causing it to shatter and break and sending both of them tumbling into an abyss.

Hermes opened his wings, righting himself and stopping his fall. He looked down to find Violet in order to catch her. But when he spotted her, he realized she wasn’t falling through the darkness. She was sinking deeper and deeper as though through water. Lowering his wings, Hermes allowed himself to drift down towards her.

Her eyes were dull as they met his, as if all the fight had drained out of her body. Her voice was low as she spoke again. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help,”

Violet shook her head. “You can’t,”

“I’m here to try,” Gently, Hermes reached out, touching the place just behind Violet’s ear. A golden light shone back in response. The feather he’d given her. It was still there.

“I won’t stop,” Violet’s voice was cold as she looked upon Hermes. The abyss around them took on a lurid red tone.

“I know,” Hermes’ eyes were downcast, introspective.

“Then why did you come?”

Why did he come? If it had been to stop her, he knew she had not changed as soon as their eyes met. He should have left at that moment. The real question then was why did he stay? Looking down at Violet as the pair continued their descent through the inky void, he couldn’t find a clear purpose behind his actions. But he felt a truth. He cared for this girl. He wanted her safe. And he hoped somehow after her journey of bloodshed had ended she could return home.

Slowly, Hermes extended a finger. Violet watched as it approached her, flinching as it touched her skin just above her collarbone. The skin began to glow as though coming forth from deep inside. “For luck,” the god whispered, a small smile upon his face. Violet’s eyes returned to the god. She was silent though she looked as though there was something she wished to say. Before she could, her back fell hard against the cold, hard sand. In an instant, Hermes was pulled up from the abyss. His eyes shot open and he was standing once more between Iris and Hypnos.

“Well,” Hypnos looked upon Hermes with disdain. “From what we witnessed it appears you weren’t able to convince the Amazon of the error of her ways after all, were you?”

“No,” Hermes looked back towards the portal, but it was gone. Violet must have awoken.

“Do you think it helped?” Iris asked softly.

“I’m not sure,”

“Useless,” Hypnos scoffed, stepping away. “Now keep your word and get out of my home,”

Hermes was silent as he turned to exit the cave. He hadn’t stopped her. If anything, he’d aided her journey. A wry smile crossed his lips. For all the talk we gods give of humans’ weakness and our strength, how often do we bend to the mortals’ will?

---

Violet woke with a start. Her eyes shot back and forth, searching for signs of potential danger. There was nothing. It was the dream that had awoken her and nothing more. Another dream where her goal slipped out of her reach. Violet closed her eyes, feeling a tear roll down her face as she took a shaky breath. She shivered as she felt the tear strike something cold and metallic upon her neck.

Sitting up, Violet reached for her neck to find a golden band there.  Following it to the base, her fingers met with some sort of pendant. Violet lifted it up, straining her eyes to see within the darkness. It was a golden caduceus. A pair of snakes twirled round a winged staff, intricate and beautiful. Faint memories of the dream danced within Violet’s mind. Hermes had been there, not just a figment of her imagination but really there. And he’d given her this. For luck. What was she to do with it?

She hadn’t the faintest clue. She let the talisman drop, tucked safely underneath her tunic. Looking around, she could tell it was still a few hours away from dawn. She wouldn’t get any more sleep. Best to move on and use this time to further her goals. Collecting her sparse belongings, Violet rose and continued her journey. On to the next kill. Twice blessed by a god she’d renounced.

#olympus has fallen au #fanfic #twdg #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg brody #twdg aasim #louis violet brotp

[the--highlanders]

About Tricking Villains

No’ very well-mannered, those children of yours.”

“When they’re biting, they’re your children.”

The Doctor and Jamie find a gaggle of children.

birthday present for @keatulie!!

on ao3.

“Oh, dear.” The Doctor fumbled with the lock, turning it over as if expecting it to come apart in his hands on its own. “Oh, fiddlesticks. Pass me your knife, would you, Jamie?”

“What’re ye messin’ around with this for?” Jamie drew his knife and handed it to the Doctor, but his voice was sceptical. “I thought ye said we only had a few minutes until they caught us.”

“Well – yes, I did, but if I’m right -” The knife skidded over the metal of the lock, its edge slicing against the Doctor’s finger, and he yelped in alarm. “Fiddlesticks – here.” He shoved the knife back towards Jamie, putting his cut finger in his mouth. “We ought to get this door open,” he mumbled.

“Would this help?” Stepping past him, Jamie took a key from a hook on the wall and handed it to the Doctor, grinning.

The Doctor glared at him, but took the key and shoved it into the lock. When the door clicked open, it revealed only a small room, empty of any furniture. Its walls were painted with a scene of rolling hills and blue sky, peppered at regular intervals with unnaturally symmetrical clouds and trees. In the centre sat a round, plastic dish, filled with water and a cluster of odd, fuzzy creatures.

“Yes, I thought so.” Stepping inside, the Doctor picked up one of the creatures, holding it up to his eye level. Water streamed from its fur onto his sleeves, but he did not seem to notice. “Myz’aikk are a funny species, you know, Jamie. They undergo partial metamorphosis when they reach adulthood. I did wonder if Bennett was keeping some of the children here.”

“Ye mean he kidnapped them?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. They think he’s their saviour, remember? And I – ah – I think these are quite important children.” The Doctor reached up to touch a pendant strung around the child’s neck. They hissed, snapping at his fingers until he withdrew his hand, and the Doctor placed them back down amongst their fellows. “Symbols of the most important Myz’aikk families. I suspect they think he’s just babysitting.”

“Oh.” Jamie studied the creatures more closely. They looked a little like the adult Myz’aikk he had met, he supposed – without the wings, and their fur rougher and longer, but the vague resemblance was there. “Why would Bennett want tae keep them here? He didnae seem the type to look after a bunch of kids willingly -” Jamie nodded towards the bare room. “An’ he’s not doing a good job of it, either.”

“Well, I’m not quite sure.” The Doctor ushered the cluster of children out of the room. They stared up at him with wide, almost luminescent eyes, seeming equally nervous and fascinated. “Perhaps he felt he needed some form of insurance, if any of the Myz’aikk discovered what he was up to.” He tapped Jamie’s arm. “Come along, we ought to get to the laboratory.”

“Aye.” Jamie broke into a jog to keep up with him. “Hey, do ye think Ben and Polly managed tae stop them from lettin’ off that poison stuff?”

“Well, I certainly hope so. But it could still kill everyone on the surface if we don’t find out what it’s made from -” The Doctor stopped, turning around slowly to look at the gaggle of children trailing after him. “Oh, dear.”

Jamie snorted, muffling his laughter with one hand. “They really like ye.”

“Oh dear, oh dear – run along to your parents now.” The Doctor ushered the children back down the corridor, flapping his arms to shepherd them along. One had latched onto his ankle, and he paused to shake his leg gently, trying to prise their grip off. “There. The exit is...” He pursed his lips, waving his hand vaguely. “Over that way, somewhere.” As one, the children turned to look in the direction he had pointed, then back up at him again. “Don’t you want to go and find your parents?”

“I think they want tae go with you, Doctor,” Jamie said, still struggling to hide his laughter.

The expression his comment earned only made him laugh harder. The Doctor was perfectly calm when faced with a madman about to poison the sky for the sake of selling an empty planet, but a handful of toddlers defeated him. “But I can’t take care of children!” he exclaimed. “Not now, when we’re trying to stop Bennett from killing everyone! I wouldn’t even know how to look after them.” The children were clutching at his trousers and coattails, and his resolve was visibly crumbling. “Jamie, tell them – tell them they can’t come!”

“Here.” Scooping up the smallest child and depositing them in the Doctor’s arms, Jamie simply grinned at him. “They can help us figure out what Bennett’s done.” Picking up two more children, he tucked one under each arm and set off down the corridor, leaving the Doctor helpless and stranded in a sea of children. “I can babysit while ye work, if ye like.”

“There’ll be no need for babysitting,” the Doctor said, his voice low and dangerous. “They’re not my children.”

“Oh, aye, I was forgetting. I cannae be babysitting if they’re our children.”

“How convenient.”

The Doctor and Jamie wheeled around, searching for the source of the third voice. “Bennett,” the Doctor said wearily. “I wondered when you’d show up.”

The very sight of Bennett made Jamie’s skin crawl with an inexplicable, instinctive distaste. “I hardly wanted to miss out on meeting the people who have caused me such trouble.”

Setting down the children in his arms, Jamie stepped forwards to shield the Doctor, reaching for his knife. “How did ye find us?”

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” Opening his jacket, Bennett gestured to his own knife. Despite his mild expression and neat, businesslike appearance, there was a steeliness in his eyes that told Jamie he would not hesitate to strike. “In fact, I think it would be better if you made your way out. I think you’ll find the authorities waiting for you.” The Doctor clutched the child he was holding closer to his chest, and Bennett’s mouth quirked into an infuriatingly smug smile. “Quickly.”

The Doctor shuffled his feet, considering, but stood his ground. “Not unless you tell us why you’ve been keeping the children down here.”

Bennett shrugged, still smiling in a way that set Jamie’s teeth on edge. “They’ll be the generation of Myz’aikk that inherits the place once my work is done,” he said smoothly. “Sacrifices must be made, of course, and most of the surface population will die during the terraforming, but I never intended for the Myz’aikk to be entirely wiped out.”

The Doctor let out a hollow, humourless laugh. “You’re not that charitable, Bennett.”

“An’ we’ve seen your sales records,” Jamie put in. “We know you’re just going tae sell the planet off tae the highest bidder. Ye never meant for the Myz’aikk to survive.”

“It’s something to do with these, isn’t it?” The Doctor indicated the pendant hanging around the neck of the child he was holding. “Yes, I thought so. A child from every prominent Myz’aikk family. They were your insurance policy, in case anyone dared stand up to you.”

For a brief moment, Bennett’s calm facade flickered, his eyes flashing yellow and slitted before turning blue again. Jamie took a step back, startled. The revelation that Bennett was not human should hardly have been surprising, and yet somehow it made him seem more threatening. He could be hiding anything about himself. “I think we’d better do as he says, Doctor.”

“Ah – yes, you’re right.” Turning back towards the entrance, the Doctor ushered the children along before him. “Come along, everyone, it’s time we were gone.” He was still holding the smallest child, and busied himself with murmuring to them insistently, as if comforting them. They stared back at him, their dark eyes wide and serious, occasionally nodding at something he said.

When Jamie leant over, the pair fell quiet. “We could take him,” he hissed. “I’ve got my knife, an’ he cannae fight off both of us.”

“That would be rather ill-advised, I think,” the Doctor whispered back. “Better to let him take us outside.”

“So he can poison the world while we try an’ get back in?”

“Now, Jamie -”

“Quiet!” The hilt of Bennett’s knife slammed into Jamie’s back, sending him stumbling forwards, almost tripping over the cluster of children.

The Doctor stared at the corridor ahead of them for a moment, not reacting to either Bennett’s words or Jamie’s yelp of surprise and pain. At length, he set down the child he was holding, letting them scurry over to join the others. “I – I refuse to be treated like this,” he blustered. “You can’t just push us around, you know.”

“I can do whatever I like,” Bennett replied, cold and calm as ever. “You forfeited your legal rights when you broke into my bunker.”

Jamie watched incredulously as the Doctor turned to nudge the closest child towards Bennett with his foot. “Ah – yes, but – we haven’t been accused of anything yet, have we?”

“Aye, who put ye in charge?” Jamie added when the Doctor winked at him. “Surely what happens tae us is for the Myz’aikk to decide.”

Before Bennett could reply, the children surged forwards, pushing past the Doctor and Jamie to swarm up his limbs and drag him down. Bennett struggled to throw them off, but they only clutched at him more tightly, digging their tiny, needle-sharp claws into him. When he yelped in pain, a few of them laughed, and Jamie swore that one or two bit Bennett to make him cry out again.

“No’ very well-mannered, those children of yours,” he said to the Doctor, grinning.

“When they’re biting, they’re your children,” the Doctor shot back. Stumbling forwards under the weight of the children, Bennett made a break for the end of the corridor. Jamie made as if to go after him, but the Doctor laid a hand on his arm, holding him back. “I don’t think he’ll get very far.”

“He’s gettin’ away!” Jamie argued. “An’ what if he hurts the children?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that.” Leading Jamie after Bennett, the Doctor pointed up a ramp leading out into the daylight.

Rounding the corner and catching sight of a cluster of Myz’aikk in uniform, Jamie sighed, his heart sinking. Bennett wasn’t lying about the authorities, he thought. They’ve got us now, and the planet will die… But when he glanced back up, he saw that they were standing behind Ben and Polly, who held the still-struggling Bennett between them. The children were clustered around his legs, darting to and fro to avoid Bennett’s kicks.

“There you are, you see?” the Doctor said, sounding a little too satisfied with himself.

“Doctor!” Ben called down to him. “What do you want us to do with him?”

“Lock him up somewhere,” the Doctor replied. “Have you taken care of the poison?”

“Yes, it’s all gone,” Polly said. She winced as Bennett tugged away from her, but only tightened her grip on his collar. “It was lucky you told us to come back here, or we wouldn’t have caught him.”

“Ye couldn’t have planned all that,” Jamie protested. “Ye had no idea the children were down here. An’ ye couldn’t have predicted that they’d imprint on ye like ducklings, either.”

The Doctor gave him a knowing look, but broke down into laughter a moment later. “It was quite the stroke of luck,” he admitted. “Ah – Ben, Polly?” They turned back towards him as he shouted. “You will look after the children, won’t you?”

Ben snorted. “Hauling around a criminal and a bunch of children. I don’t know if I feel like a copper or a nanny.”

“Splendid.” The Doctor dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief surreptitiously, then waved it towards the children. “Goodbye, all our little children!”

“Thanks for all your help!” Jamie put in, grinning. As they turned to hurry back into the depths of the bunker, he nudged the Doctor’s side. “All ourlittle children?”

The Doctor huffed. “Hush, you.”

#second doctor #fanfic archive #my writing #keatulie #yes this is a shameless adaptation of a moomins scene. no i will not be stopped

[ovmatt-blog]

Chapter 1-2. Telephone Interview

One extremely hot afternoon in July, when the cottage-dwellers didn’t venture to poke their noses out to the sultry dusty streets of a little town, a milky-white Butterfly was hiding in the shadow of green tangles.

When the sun reached its highest point the Butterfly suddenly flushed and hovered high under the blazing sun over the line of ancient oaks, still remembering the former glory of a small town old school and towering majestically along the carved fence of a football stadium. She landed on an oak leaf, spread out her wings and glued down to the green surface, stock-still, as not a leaf was stirring.

If you could come nearer and get a closer look at her, my dear reader, you could see that this lovely Butterfly herself looked much like a leaf, with golden streaks imbuing her wings, silky-smooth and sleek. Having been almost lulled, the Butterfly suddenly twitched and glanced upwards. Tiny mosaic patches of dazzlingly blue sky sparkled through the canopy of emerald leaves, luring to the eternal sky depth and calling up childhood dreams…

A teenage boy sprinted to the centre of the empty football stadium from the near-by house and hurled himself down on the ground. He lay sprawled on the grass for a few seconds. Then he rolled over onto his back, his hands beneath his head and his knees crossed. Lying in the very blaze of the sun, he sucked on a blade of grass and talked to himself, waving his right leg in a sneaker in the air.

Under summer's scorching glow the air resembled в transparent jelly, slightly rippling in the absence of the wind, blurring the shapes of the objects. The Butterfly squinted her eye to the boy and then attracted by his voice, left the tranquil emerald coolness and flittered to him to perch on the waving sneaker as at the swing. And that is what she had heard:

I have just sat the exams and consider not to proceed with A-levels. At least this year… And to find a job. I live in my grandaunt’s tiny house. She has no her own children. Grandauntie agrees that extra money would help, as her pension is the only source of money for us to live on. Five years ago my parents went missing in the mountains. The police told they must had been lost under the rock avalanche. But grandaunt says they fell in the battle with the Stone Men at the Orkney Islands. The first time I have heard about the Stone Men I got realized that all what has happened, and this newly-obtained responsibility to grow me up… in short, all this was altogether too hard for her and she went a bit “mental”.

She usually minces along, mumbling something to herself under her breath and waving her arms like the wings of a windmill. She talks to me only to call me for meals and to allocate household duties. And, as we both don’t bother cleaning the house, we live in perfect harmony – I would have even forgotten English if I wasn’t attending school. 

She has lived all her life alone and she used to talk to herself, her second important interlocutor being “the box”. She is passionate about watching soap operas during the night as a means of soporific. I adore them either. Oh, I almost forgot – she has the remarkable ability to turn the house into ruins while I am at school. So when I come home in the evening and see ghost-blue shadows flickering through the curtains, I halt and look at the stars, grateful for the fact that this day we would have a fascinating dreamless night with TV zombies instead of having to restore the walls, which had got damaged from sheer touch, and having to clean away the crushed stone. While still expecting the unexpected, I come in with a smile glued to my lips.

My grandaunt loves to sleep, clutching at the TV remote. But with the lapse of time, I have got the hang of crawling stealthily to her bed and pressing the power button without unclutching the tenacious grip of her forepaws. When she awakes during the night with the remote in her hands and the TV switched off, she considers this to be the dirty tricks of zombies and starts switching the lights on throughout the house and checking whether the windows are tightly shut and doors securely locked. The windows turn out to be opened as I can’t stand the stuffiness from the radiators, working at full capacity and seething with heat. Then she has to choose between zombies and me, being the reason of the windows openness, and definitely preferring it being me, she stretches in a sugary voice, “Are you suffoca-a-a-ting, dear?”She's got a thing about this. Like a bird of prey, she hovers over me, looking out for the slightest signs of any illness. But I cough only if I choke on the water. Though as a child I could not scramble out of colds, during last five years I have neither fallen ill, nor even scratched my knees, playing football. Contagion simply does not stick to me!

At that place the boy halted as his eyes flitted to the sky where a cat-shaped fluffy cloud was pursuing in great leaps the mouse, skedaddling pell-mell along the blue sky. The boy sat up in the grass, staring at the trail of clouds, rushing with great speed across the windless sky. Three pig-shaped clouds galloped, hopping and hipping, to the horizon followed by little bears, somersaulting in the raspberry tangles, replaced then by a fox, turning wildly on the spot, pursuing its tail.

The boy rubbed his eyes to shake off illusion. Obviously, it was a mirage, roused by abnormal heat, the haze blurring the shimmering sky. With closed eyes the boy went on with his story.

In early childhood I had some friends, but after they had also heard about the “Stone Men of the Orkney”, they never showed up again…

When the boy opened his eyes and raised his head and looked at the sky again, he saw seven little milky-white cloud goatlings, butting each other. Stunned, he stared open-mouthed at the fairytale play performed above his head, when –

“Robin, come get your lunch! It’s served!” an old woman's voice called from out the house behind the football stadium. The boy jumped to his feet and rushed home, while the Butterfly flushed and hovered to the north, to London…

On the 55th floor of the glass office tower there was an open floor-to-ceiling window. A man about thirty years of age was sitting on the floor with his back turned against the open space, swinging his legs which were dangling above the abyss. He was dressed in denim shorts, red T-shirt and sneakers… and a huge ruby hung down from his neck on a massive silver chain. And this was not the only weird thing about him, my dear reader, as the eyes in his face were of incredible amber colour!

He was snapping his fingers to the regular beat of some self-invented melody, which he was humming under his breath, while observing the clouds, crossing the brightest blue sky. With every snap of his fingers one of the clouds swelled and stretched to a fluffy shape to stand still for an instant, as if gaining consciousness, and then sprinted on all its paws across the sky. Snap… A hare, pinned under the weight of a backpack, stuffed with carrots so tightly that they protruded from under the clasp, was running his file, trying to foil the dogs… Snap… A flying squirrel glided on a parachute… Snap… A snowy owl hooted, flapping her fluffy wings in the flight…

The milky-white Butterfly with golden streaks sat on his knee and started observing the clouds with the same curiosity as the amber-eyed man did…

A low velvet voice, strangely drawling the words in some unknown accent, belonging to a man in a dark blue tubatay, stitched with silver almonds, and dark blue cashmere kaftan, embroidered in silk archers, said to the amber-eyed man’s back, “Robin Orion has successfully passed the first test today and he will be interviewed by Love tomorrow. Do you want to talk to him yourself?”

There followed long silence. Shoulder-length black hair was getting in the eyes of the amber-eyed man as he lowered his head. When he raised it again, his bright eyes flashed, “I suppose there is no doubt that he would pass the interview…”

“I’m sure, he would.”

“Then you know my answer.”

“Okay,” answered his vis-à-vis and retired silently.

The amber-eyed man “pulled” her legs into the room, stood up and turned the handle closing the window and when he turned his back to it, the handle melted in the air, leaving a solid glass wall, the outward side of which the Butterfly remained glued to.

Chapter 1

Transparent beads of torn water necklaces were clinking against the pane, shattering into crystal splashes. I was eating ice-cream and contemplating the wet world beyond the rain-lashed windows. The torrents of rain were gushing down, tattering the iridium-green foliage, all the scene backed by the steady rumble of water. A boom of thunder made me startle and then the telephone rang.

When I thought it over afterwards, it occurred to me that the whole story began at that instant, when thinking it was one of my Grandauntie’s friends-gossip calling, I picked up and said in a voice, hoarse of cold ice-cream, “Hello.”

Silence, only broken by faint clicking and the echoes of ghost voices. Then an icy sweet voice asked very near to my ear, "May I speak with Mr. Robert Orion, please?"

Flattered with a courtesy title, I swelled with self-importance, squared my shoulders and answered, “Robin speaking.”

The icy soda voice continued, “I am Cassandra Lime, HR manager of M.. (click-click, static, hissing) Consulting,” and before I could ask her to repeat the company’s name, she went on, “We have thoroughly scrutinized your CV and consider you for the position of an intern in our … (scratching, indistinct noise, cracklings) company.”

Indeed, I have sent my CV to all the companies listed in the Yellow Pages but what have they been scrutinizing? Two lines – the one in “Education” about GCSE exams and the second in “Work experience” about my summer employment as a cleaner at Sandy’s? And what is the company’s name?

I cleared my throat to ask these questions when Cassandra said, “So if you are interested in the position, then you won’t mind if I ask you a couple of questions as a quiz?”

My ice cream started melting and being busy licking it up, I unconsciously said, “I don’t mind,” and regretted it immediately as the first question followed.

“What is two hundred and fifty six squared?”

Trying feverishly to do the computation in my head, I repeated slowly, “Two hundred and fifty six times two hundred and fifty six…”

“Right! Next, is it true that time passes slower at sea level than it does in the mountains?” Unconsciously I bit a large piece of ice-cream and burnt my tongue with the cold, which must have cleared my brains as I answered, “Do you mean Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity? Time moves relatively slower where gravity is stronger. Gravitational time dilation phenomenon?”

“Yeap, I do! You are tough! And what’s ten plus ten?”

Suspecting a trick here, I gasped, “A hundred.” Wait, what did she mean by saying “right” in the previous question, as I didn’t even answer it?

“Correct! What has a golden number to do with the stars?

“They pulsate according to the Golden Rule?” the quiz was turning into the theatre of the absurd and my answers were equally absurd.

“No! What is the colour of a quark – red, green or blue?”

“You mean curds? But it’s milky white���”

“Have you ever cooked snacks for snakes or snakes for snacks?”

“Oh, I don’t think…”

“Okay! What is the cause of laughter without a cause?”

“Pardon?”

“What is inside a dew drop?”

“Reflection!”

“Correct! What piece of art would remain in the end?”

“Mona Lisa’s smile!” I always loved to read and maybe this helped me…

“Okay, Robin, you have passed the test and the next stage of the selection process would be a telephone interview with one of our company’s Managers. The interviewer will ask you several questions and I suppose the whole procedure would take less than half an hour. I will arrange the interview in a couple of weeks and will inform you about the precise date a bit later.”

“And what will the questions be about?” I asked and immediately rushed to smoothen the question’s straightforwardness and curred, “At least give me a hint…”    

But Cassandra seemed to have not noticed my diplomacy, “Oh, I think, these would be standard questions. What are your career aspirations, your strengths and weaknesses, ambitions, plans for the future…”

Getting a taste for asking questions, I piped, “And what would the work be like?” It seemed like a good idea at the time to get some information about a job I had to pass crazy tests to apply for.

Soda fizzed in Cassandra’s voice as she said, “For sure you’ve heard about our Company –”

“Nope,” I cut in and took a bite of a waffle cone.

“Really, haven’t heard about our company?” she sounded disconcerted, “Ranked Number 1 in the UK Top 100 Employers listing; named UK Best Diversity Employer, UK Greenest Employer, UK Top Employee for Young People; recognized as an UK Employer of Choice and an Indeed Best Place for Work! Or just Dream Job I would say!”

“Nope, I haven’t heard about it,” waffles crunched between my teeth. In fact, I didn’t know whether I had heard or not as I hadn’t caught the name of the company in the very beginning but it was embarrassing to tell this to Cassandra.

“Humph,” the rustling of papers sounded in the handset and then Cassandra mumbled indistinctly, “where have I put it? These cleaning fairies must have been straightening things again at my desk… No — here it is.” And then her sparkling soda voice fizzed into my ear, “Behind almost each fortune of the Forbes 100 List stands a treasure found by a future entrepreneur. A story of business success or the turnaround of an almost bankrupt company begins when a treasure hunter at last hits the jackpot. We consult our clients on pots-of-gold quests, assist in communication with Djinns, who guard charmed treasures –”

“Hic!” my diaphragm involuntary spasmed with cold ice cream while I stood there with my jaw dropped.

“Once you’ve obtained cash, we would offer you several broad investment strategies. All the details – such as the choice of the specific assets to invest in – are handled by our investment experts. We recommend to our clients not to put all their eggs in the one basket and diversify their investments –”

“Hic –”

“Oops!" Cassandra choked and whispered something like, “they had messed up everything at my desk – it’s a booklet for experienced professionals! And where is the one for the undergraduates?” Some more rustling of papers and she exclaimed, “Oh, here it is!”

And she started reading in a more calm voice, “There are few bad businesses, but many bad strategies. We offer to our clients creative solutions that make their competitors lock themselves in their boardrooms and start hot discussions. The kind of projects the firm works on are hugely varied, from building new products and services to advising on management structures. We work closely with our clients, providing a team of consultants at the client site and arranging business travel in the way to maximize the workday –”

“Er, so there would be business trips? And what are the destinations?” all this strange stuff was starting to sound attractive and my curiosity awakened again.

“Oh, yeah, we have a separate booklet on business trips,” she puffed, searching for the paper and then voiced, “As an employee of our company, you would explore the world while doing a job you love. You would visit the largest and most prominent cities of the world, from Rome and Los Angeles to Singapore and Tokyo, applying deep industry knowledge to the world’s largest industry players. You would discover distant island resorts, looking for treasures ships sunken off their coasts. And you would spend months, often years, in the farthest flung cities seeking the end of the rainbow…”

“Bang!” the end of a waffle cone fell from my hand as I mumbled, “But a rainbow doesn’t have a fixed spot or a real end!”

“Yeah! That’s why it’s so difficult to find a pot with gold that a leprechaun had hidden…”

But here the creak of the front gate distracted me from Cassandra’s mumbling. I looked out of the window. My auntie, loaded with packages, parcels, little packets, paper bags and boxes was trotting up the garden path.

“ – at the place where a rainbow ends!”

The key started to turn in the keyhole. I barely cried into the receiver, “OK, I will be waiting for your next call!” and dropped the receiver onto its cradle, as the door swung open.

I whirled around and nearly stumbled into the sharp gaze of my auntie’s ferrety eyes. I grinned at her. Her slit eyes scanned the gleaming-clean walls and got hooked on the floor. Sounding as though not believing herself she squeaked, “Kid, haven’t you vacuumed the carpet while I was out?”

“Nope, auntie, I didn’t have time to vacuum. But I have cooked cabbage soup. It’s on the stove,” With these words I turned around, scuttled inside the door of my room and shut it as quickly as I could.

 Chapter 2. The Second Telephone Interview

“Auntie,” I said and prodded moodily at the remains of my corn flakes, floating in the milk puddle on my plate. Today was the day of the second interview with a Manager. Cassandra’s call was less than two hours away and I wanted to get my Auntie out of the house for a few hours so she wouldn’t eavesdrop on my conversation. In fact, I was afraid I wouldn’t pass the interview and I didn’t want her to know about the interview at all.

I crossed my fingers under the table – if I didn’t say anything stupid, I might get rid of her till noon – and went on, “have you heard the Indian Food Festival will take place today at Central Square?”

No reply. She was staring open-mouthed at the telly as she did every day after having served our breakfast. Her favourite soap opera “Wild Orchid” was just on:

“You are getting married tomorrow,” semi-affirmatively, semi-inquiringly said Orchid, looking deep into Jack’s eyes.

“Yes, I am,” Jack was hiding his eyes.

“I wish you every happiness, Jack. I hope you find it,” tears were trickling down Orchid’s cheeks.

I shook my head and averted my eyes from the telly. A morning newspaper lay on the kitchen table beside me. The headline on the first page read:

Taste of India served at Central Square

I sighed, and trying to sound louder than the shrill voice of Orchid, started to read:

The Indian Food Festival will be held on August 21st at Central Square. The event is completely free to enter and will be open from 10 am to 10 pm.

There will be 12 stalls presenting different sorts of Indian tea and different kinds of Indian spices – “warm and earthy” cumin for curries, “nutty” and “fruity” coriander, sweet cinnamon, the staples of Indian cooking, similar to the way that herbs de Provence function in French cuisine.

My auntie was crazy about spices and cooking and it was a good idea to use the festival to get her out of the house for a while. Still, Orchid’s hysterical sobs broke through my speech:

“Why are you crying, Orchid?”

“Jack is getting married tomorrow!”

Auntie seemed to be snoring softly in front of the telly, her glasses askew. But was she really sleeping? The lenses of her glasses shone in the light and couldn’t make out whether her eyes were shut or not.

 Meanwhile the voices in the telly whispered:

“But why did you refuse to marry him, if you love him?”

“Because he is my brother!”

“Your brother? What are you talking about?"

There was only one way to check whether Auntie was sleeping. I waited for an ad in the telly and then clapped my hands as hard as I could. And, indeed, it worked! Auntie started, closed her mouth and fixed her glasses. Then she sat straight in the arm-chair and asked, “What has fallen, kid?”

I said nothing and turned the page where I came across another headline – Three places IN the Town where you can enjoy THE Solar Eclipse

I raised my voice, reading the headline, but still couldn’t shout Jack’s Mum down:

“Today is my son's wedding! This is a very special moment for me, which I would like to share with all those present. I’d like to take this opportunity to inform you that I’m also going to get married!”

I shouldn’t give up! May be to throw a cushion at her?

The Total Solar Eclipse will occur on August 21st, when the Moon will move directly in front of the Sun and will cast a shadow over the southern part of the country. It's been nearly 100 years since the last total solar eclipse in the UK and our town is luckily on the path of the eclipse!

I was contemplating thoughtfully the collection of glass vases, one piece of which I considered this morning to pee in, if Auntie won’t let me use the bathroom (usually she takes a shower for two hours roughly). Meanwhile, the telly was roaring:

“And the person who would marry me… is the father of my son!”

“What?”

“Jack, forgive me for not being able to tell you before, but you need to know the truth – Gabriel is not your farther!”

Orchid fainted. “What rubbish!” I sighed and read:

The observation deck at the Town Hall, the Town Hill and the Town Park will be hosting special viewing events and giving out viewing glasses to visitors on the day of the eclipse.

It would be great to witness the total solar eclipse by myself. Just think, once in 100 years! If it wasn’t for the interview… Meanwhile, the fuss on the telly was reaching a climax. Jack was tearing himself from his bride’s embrace. Gabriel was shouting something incomprehensible.

And I was drawing patterns on the plate with my fork and considering the situation. At last, I decided to check whether my Auntie really didn’t hear me or if she was only pretending and spoke the news I had invented at that precise moment:

Aliens have landed at Rosegreen school stadium

Today, at seven a.m. at the stadium at Rosegreen Primary School, 10 children – members of Rosewood Aeromodelling Club – were testing a new radio-controlled model aircraft that they recently constructed when they spotted a fast moving object on the eastern horizon. Its shape shifted from a straight line to a triangle and then to a 50 ft-diameter silver-coloured disc, hovering above their heads.

The series in the telly was approaching its end:

“Jack, you can’t leave me standing at the altar!”

“Vanessa, release me!”

I went on talking nonsense:

The disk emitted a bright light forming a halo and radiated a range of colours. Running to the cries of the children, a crowd gathered. People witnessed as the object landed in the stadium. Then a door opened on the side of the craft and two humanoid beings in seamless metallic costumes emerged out of it, greeting the earthmen in unearthly language…

All my efforts were in vain. Auntie cared neither about spices nor about the aliens. With nothing better to do, I stared out of the window. And then the higher power in the face of my Auntie’s dear friend – a famous local gossip called Maggie Grace – intervened in my communication with Auntie. “Magpie”, as she was called by her inner circle of friends, was strolling past our fence straight to the house of our neighbour Gale Nighting, commonly referred to as “Nightingale”. And she was carrying a pink and white pie-dish, covered with a cloth, keeping it in front of her with both hands.

“What stuffing could be inside the pie that ‘Magpie’ is carrying to “Nightingale” – veal, ham or bacon?” I mumbled under my breath and in less than the blink of my eye the telly was switched off and Auntie rocketed out of the armchair. The next second I was helping her on with her shawl and bonnet and ultimately sighed with relief when the door closed behind her wide behind.

In five minutes I was sitting cross-legged on the sofa near the telephone. Opened books were lying all round me in piles. Broad bars of golden light stretched across the room, burning my shoulders, but the forthcoming talk with the Manager made me shudder. What would be at the interview? What if I say something wrong or will find no answer at all? Seconds passed, counting minutes, making me more and more anxious…

The ring of the telephone broke the silence. And suddenly, it turned out that I simply could not pick it up. My palms were sweating and I was sitting and staring at it and listening to it ringing. I can later apologize to Cassandra for missing the call… I can say that something has held me over… But would they give me another chance?

The telephone rang for the fifth time when I finally forced myself to pick it up.

“Hello, Robin,” Cassandra’s fizzy voice streamed into the receiver, “Are you all right?”

I could only make myself mutter something incomprehensible, so she went on, “Your interviewer is Love Violinne. Hold the line, please. I’m going to switch you over to her.”

Click. Click. Buzz. Silence. Buzz. Silence.

“Hello,” said a glassy woman’s voice. “Robin Orion?”

“Yeap, speaking.”

“My name is Love Violinne. We are searching for candidates for the position of intern at our company. So, Robin, I have a couple of questions for you. Let's not waste time and get to the point. The first question is – do you believe in omens?”

I surveyed the opened books with my perplexed gaze and asked, “What do you mean? Magpie and broken mirrors and all like that?”

“I mean whether anything unusual has ever happened to you? Any strange events or just anything out of the ordinary going on around you?”

“Oh, in this sense…,” I hesitated for a second. There were things I hadn’t told anybody about, but Love was so winsome that I decided I could be innocent with her without any fear, “Well, yeap! Once I quarrelled with my best friend. And when I was sitting in my bedroom, raging at him and thinking that I would never ever speak to him again, the wardrobe standing near the wall collapsed with a deafening ‘Crash!’ Astounded, I decided that the Heavens themselves sent me a sign to make up with him. That was it. Then another case…”

“Well, enough. And could you please describe what I look like? I mean how do you imagine me to be judging by my voice?”

This was a strange question. She seemed to divine my thoughts, as, indeed, I imagined her so clearly as if she was standing in front of me.

“Why, I suppose you are a blue-eyed blonde… And you are dressed in a beige gown of transparent multilayer chiffon, embroidered with silver reeds. Wide silver bracelets of sophisticated carving, something like fantastic curlicues alternating with gaps cover your arms from wrists to elbows…”

After a prolonged pause she said, “Robin, my last question to you is the following. Could you please complete the rest of the verse – ‘Every day holds away, raising obstacles…’?”

“’… on the way to the dream,’” I whispered, but I wasn’t listening to her anymore. Time slowed down, stretching, growing limitless… I was inside an elastic soundproof balloon, submerged into cool divine silence… A train of recollections passed through my mind, reviving the images, buried deep in sub-consciousness…. Mum’s long black hair… She sang me that song, rocking me to sleep in the night… Her dear voice… I remembered the first two lines of the verse, but the rest of it was lost in the darkness, trying to surface, tearing my mind, and still slipping away…

A buzy signal on the line. Love must have hung up and I hadn’t even heard her say goodbye. But I didn’t care. Was it a famous verse? Why had Love asked about it? I felt shaken up, embarrassed, completely unhinged. I was staring at the wall with unseeing eyes when the phone rang again.

“Robin?” Cassandra’s voice was tense, “I’ve spoken to Love about the results of your interview.”

My heart sank to my stomach. They rejected me. I didn’t shown my worth during the conversation or maybe I simply didn’t fit them. Cassandra was still silent and then…

“Congrats!!! You have passed!”

I was absolutely amazed. It was a great load off my mind. I was so exhausted that I could not even rejoice at my good fortune.

“Now you will need to take the last interview with one of our Partners in our headquarters in London! Only after that will we make you an official job offer and sign the contract with you. But don’t worry! Love says you are a really prominent candidate and she is a hundred percent confident you will pass the last interview.” Cassandra slowed down her patter a bit, “Robin, we are seriously considering you for the job. So I should inquire, are you ready to relocate to London?”

I gabbled something affirmative in reply and she went on, “I suggest that you arrive the day of the interview and we would start onboarding you to the projects the next day. The third selection stage is already arranged for the penultimate week of September. I will enter you into the list of the last group. The Partner will interview all of you on Tuesday, September 22nd, at noon. If you pass the interview… well, after you pass the interview, I will make an appointment for you with HR at 8:00 a.m., on Wednesday, September 23rd. You will be asked to sign the contract with MAGI and after you sign it, you will be paid a relocation allowance. You still have plenty of time to pack your things for the relocation. Write down the address of our office, please… Wight Tower, 15 Harbour Quay, Canary Wharf, London, E14. The Jubilee Line train stops at Canary Wharf tube station, and this is a few minutes’ walk from our office.”

I somehow guessed her smile and she said, “Robin, Love asked me to tell you that she wishes you good luck. So I do wish you the best of luck! See you in the office in September!”

[hcfhhgg]

Hi @pixiesandink , I hope better late than never...Here your Secret Santa gift. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and all that. I hope you are having a good time with your snow :-)

By the time Iida and Midoriya returned with their umbrellas, Uraraka was sitting in a garbage container and refused to leave. “It’s my home now.” she puffed, sitting cross-legged, arms folded above her chest while slowly sinking into the mass of thrown away class assignments and shredded meeting minutes: “I live here.”

“It’s a garbage container.”, Iida argued, having faced to many pointless discussions to care much whether his reasons mattered to her.

“Its paper.” She explained: “Soft and comfy. And I don’t have to walk to school at all.”

“That’s inappropriate and probably illegal,” he continued, chopping the air, as he was wont to: “And dangerous on top.”

“It’s a single room flat in a good area,” she shook her head in overplayed disappointment: “People murder for this kind of place. And it comes fully furnished,” she gestured at the paper surrounding her.

“This is the school yard.”

The UA towers stood high to their right, looking foreboding against the grey afternoon sky, the tinted windows reflecting the fading light in deep blue, seeming eternal and calm against the wind beaten branches of near standing trees, shrill signing birds flitting between their branches, hiding from the oncoming storm. It smelled of rain, and the promise of an evening spent huddling in the common room, hoping the electricity would hold while fighting over blankets, their voices drowning out the sound of rain beating against the windows.

Uraraka shifted again, sinking even deeper into her new home, as she aimlessly pulled pieces of paper from the mess. With her head at about Iidas height, she huffed lazily, shaking her head: “What did you think of the essay questions today?”

The other one leaned forwards, setting his forearms against the side of the garbage container, carefully avoiding all dirt and eying his friends new home suspiciously: “I definitively have to study when we return. They are putting significantly more empathies on their humanities program now than they did when my brother went here.”

She nodded her agreement, through she knew nothing about the schools humanities program several years ago: “That last question really got me confused. Did we cover that in class.”

“It was on one of the hand-outs, actually.” Midoriya chimed in from below, having sat himself down on the dirty asphalt besides the containers, his painfully yellow umbrella opened above him, as if to create a small cave consisting only of it, him and the worn out sweater he had thrown over his Uniform: “I hardly understood it through, anyway.” He yawned.

It was the week of test preparation, with teachers drilling theoretical information into them, even putting off part of their physical regime in favour of endless repetition and practise tests.

“I didn’t read those.” Uraraka signed, leaving Iida torn between reprimanding her for not fully following the lessons or scolding himself for forgetting valuable class material.

“I doubt it matter through.” Midoriya went on: “Hardly anyone who is not amongst the top five solved that one. I heard Yaoyorozu say she struggled with it, even.”

“History isn’t her thing huh?” his friend asked past a struggling Iida, still undecided: “But she is so brilliant at Chemistry. Think they will keep a question even the best student can’t answer?”  

This made Iida snap. Taking a deep breath and completing a few forceful chops against the unsuspecting air he made his decision known, launching into a lengthy monologue on work ethics, which, to the readers convenience, shall here be reduced to its essence: “Of course they should keep it. As students and future hero we have a duty to meet the highest expectations of not only this school, but society also. It would do you two good to remember…” he started, pushing himself of the garbage container to flathandendly point at Uraraka: “…that even the history of a pre quirk society can be relevant to your work one day.”

“Hm. You think so? But how?” his friend wondered, leaning forwards to look over the side of the container downwards: “He does have a point through.”

Midoriya shrugged, the motion hardly visible through his oversized yellow sweater: “We still have two more weeks to learn, so they might just…expect us to forget everything else.”  

“Who needs a hero when you could have someone who understands a gold-standard.” Uraraka laughed, throwing her head back and glancing up at the sky, which was cloudy and unusually dark for a summer day.

“The gold-standard”, it sounded from below, the words torn away from the boy’s mouth, hardly audible against her disinterest. With one hand she took hold of some discharged papers, making them float before pushing them up into the wind. Iida huffed disapprovingly as they where ripped towards the east gate.

“How long can you keep that up?”

“Long enough.” She grinned, watching the paper disappear in the distance: “With something that light till the next shopping district maybe.” A smile broke across her face: “Have you ever drunk like an astronaut?”

Iida huffed, recognizing the abrupt change of topic as what it was, but Midoriya, who knew that the evening would be filled with relentless studying and quiet discomfort, laughed: “With a straw?”

“Yes,” she bobbled her head up and down, her knees sinking in deeper from the sudden movement: “Or like Pacman,” she looks almost proud saying it, snapping her mouth shut trying to imitate the video game character and both boys where struck by the sudden realisation that they would probably soon find out how the dirty brown spots appeared on the common room celling over the weekend.  

“Yes”, the smaller boy perked up, his head bumping against the umbrella: “Like an obstacle run, weightless in the air,” he smiled up to them, waving off Iida, whose face softened at the look of excitement on his friends face: “You could train body awareness and agility. Stamina too. With all the - Is it more straining to float liquids?”

“Huh?” Uraraka tilted her head, trying to compare the effort to the lifting of a solid object and coming up empty: “It’s different I think. I can’t actually touch all of it.”

“Oh! So it is all about the surface tension?” her friend asked from below.

“I guess.” She sounded uncertain, twirling a strand of hair around her finger: “Its weird. I was not paying that much attention.” A slight blush crossed her face, remembering the last Saturday night when the common room had been to quiet, with only her and Kaminari sitting on the plush couches, trying to scare the night away with pointless chatter and bad ideas. To throw some drinks into the air had been his suggestion, the kind of drinks as well and she had agreed because she was fifteen and these here the kind of trills she should experience. Nothing more than a slight taste of danger laced with stupidity and laughter. The kind of things that made time pass quicker.  

A single drop of rain landed on her face and stopped her in her thoughts, running down her nose and dropping on her lips. Laughing she licked it up, wondering about water pollution and the sense of inner tension floating liquids gave her: “Deku,” she said, reaching backwards for the lid of the garbage container: “ Iida, I think it’s starting.”

Iida looked upwards, at the grey clouds looking just a shade darker than before as he blinked away a raindrop in the corner of his eye. Ignoring the sound of the lid being closed he reached for his umbrella, feeling more drops falling on his thin hair and smiling at Midoriyas quiet mumble: “…he wont like that, he’ll…”

Alarmed his head shot up, starring at Uraraka who smiled at him softly beneath the half closed lid of the container, fitting comfortably and looking cosy lying amongst the thrash, shoulders angled slightly towards him, her legs almost entirely covered by the paper. He blinked as she burst out in laughter, her body convoluting as the scandalised look on his face deepened.

“What are you thinking? We are…” he started, frowning and jerking his head as more raindrops soaked through his hair, the sudden movement letting them drop into his face as he hit the containers side repeatedly.

“Wait, what is she doing?” Midoriya shouted from below, giggling along his friend at the taller boys attics.

“Aw, come on,” despite her apologetic smile, wide and open and not regretful at all, the girls voice was teasing as she tried to wards of the punishing lecture that was sure to follow: “I’m the one without an umbrella.”

“Something any of your friends,” Iida waved at the space behind him, indicating nothing but empty asphalt and rain: “… could have helped you with! Here,” he opened his umbrella, which was wide and dark, looking sturdy and expensive, with light brown studs at the end of its rips, just the kind of model his friends would have expected him to own and held it over the container, leaving his own back uncovered: “… we can share.”

Uraraka laughed again, pushing her head out from below the lid and under the umbrella: “You know that this is exactly the kind of umbrella I thought you had.”

It took her some wriggling and crawling to push herself from the paper, hands folded to activate her quirk a moment before she threw her arms around Iida and, with a forceful jump, let herself float almost vertically upwards, rain and dirt staining her clothing while the taller boy tried desperately to hold onto her and keep them both covered. They must have made for a ridicules picture, because when Midoriya, still seated on the ground in a small circle of dryness, peered at them from below his shelter, he began to giggle, starting with a small, swallowed sound, that soon turned into cut-off pleas to stop, please, of not for Iidas, then for his hearts sake.

It took a few minutes for the two to sort themselves out, like an overworked machine trying to pull a hot-air balloon down to earth, both moving unsuccessfully to avoid each others flailing limps, like two dancers attempting to push each other off balance, as if they where not sure if they should be fighting or help each other to float off into space to never be seen again.

“I am getting good at this.” Uraraka said, after her feet had again found the ground, her friend holding onto her shoulders as if trying to keep her grounded. Her face was slightly pale; looking sickly against her dropping wet hair she spent some time trying to push back. Still she was smiling, proud and exhausted as if she would do this again, in a day maybe, after she had gotten to spent some quality time with her bed: “Who is up for some hot chocolate?”

“I am certainly not ‘up’ anything.” The grip around her shoulders tightened, but she could hear something like happy displeasure in the boys’ voice: “But I would not mind something warm to drink. Are you coming Midoriya?” he asked, already turning towards the dorm, relived about the end of a chaos he had enjoyed all the more for knowing that it would end.

“No”, the boy chimed from the ball of yellow below: “I will not abandon this small heaven of dryness.”

“Huh?” came from above: “You too.”

“I think,” said Uraraka, a slight frown marring her face: “You broke him Deku. Congratulations. No hot chocolate for you.”, she sung, looking smug, sickly and happy at the continuation of their attics.

“But,” the teen whined: “All the dedication and patience that went into staying dry! If I get up now, I will be wet too. And I haven’t done the laundry.”

“You can wear…No.” The girl shook her head, remembering, with glee, giddily excitement and slight remorse the last time her friend had tried on any of her clothes and stretched her fourth best tight fitting shirt to a pyjama: “Your can wear Iidas clothes. Right?”

“Wha-? Yes, I am, of course, always happy to help a friend, even if it would not be necessary if said friend had done his chores.” Despite trying to sound accusatory, waving his hands through the air, the dark haired boy seemed to smile, even through he was shivering in the cold, as he tried to pull Uraraka closer to his body, using her as personal source of warmth.

“Oh really?” she muttered: “I bet…” With a slight tap to the shelve of his sweater Midoriya felt himself lifted off the ground, struggling and trying to maintain contact with the small, round patch of asphalt he had sat one, the ground darkening as the first drops of rain fell on it belatedly.

With a drawn out ‘NO’ the teen gave up his fight, stretching his hand comically towards the disappearing dry asphalt, as he was drabbed along on his right foot, trying and failing to keep at least his upper body dry as he wined along his friends cheerful chants of ‘one of us’, preparing to soon be dropped unexpectedly. He had seen Uraraka before, after all.

 They made it halfway to the dorms before she dropped him, letting herself fall dramatically into his arms as soon as he had stood up and she brought her stomach under control, fainting sudden weakness and screaming as he tried to lift her over his head.

“Waaaarm.”, she groaned after he had successfully lowered her and hugged him. He hugged back until Iida threw himself over the two, slinging his arms around both their shoulders and throwing them of balance, seeming perfectly content as they all tumbled onto the ground, just a few meters from their destination.

“Now,” Uraraka chided: “Now I really need to shower.”

“You sat in a garbage container.” He replied as he rolled off them: “You should anyway.”

#pixiesandink #rainyweather #bnha #bnhagenexchange #midoriya izuku #iida tenya #uraraka ochako #writing #my fic

[no-birdstofly]

12?

12. We were pretending to be lovers but I’m not pretending anymore and I have to know if you feel the same way

[very loose James Bond/Casino Royale AU]“Mr. Vietor, so glad to have you join us!” The old man who speaks with a wide smile is the definition of a gentleman, as far as Jon knows at least. His bowtie is perfectly knotted, his posture impeccable, his shoes so shined they reflect the lights.

Next to Tommy, he looks like a commoner. Tommy holds himself better, less like he’s trying and more like he’s never known another way. His casual half-windsor looks sleeker, his perfectly fitted dinner jacket looks richer, and the way it flows like liquid with the movement of his shoulders when he reaches out to shake the man’s hand, yet doesn’t expose his shoulder holster, makes it seem almost bespoke.

Tommy looks every inch the born and bred gentleman. The kind who could walk into a Swiss bank and surprise them with the number of digits before the decimal that his account number pulls up, the kind who has a penthouse in every major city, the kind who’s of the highest caliber, and who’s never had a rough day in his life. He looks perfectly at home in this room full of absurd wealth, all the custom suits and designer gowns.

Jon’s glad the calluses on Tommy’s hands aren’t noticeable in a handshake, that the healing bruises from his last mission are hidden under his crisp oxford shirt, and that his fake smile is convincing and warm so long as you don’t know him.

The old man introducing himself is the one who runs the game, and he’s saying something about it, how many rounds there’ll be, the breaks in between, the buy-in and all the ante amounts. Jon tunes him out in favor of taking in their surrounding and the other players, keeping an eye out for the target.

Tommy’s arm wraps suddenly around his waist, hand on his hip under his jacket. Jon tunes back in enough to hear Tommy say, “–my, um, friend, yes.”

Jon knows that slip up is purposeful, meant to make Tommy seem like he’s off guard, or embarrassed. So is his use of friend, instead of boyfriend or partner. Tommy’s playing up to the old money expectation, and this idiot is eating out of the palm of his hand. The euphemism is useless when he’s holding onto Jon like this, yet it sets the man at ease.

“A pleasure to meet you,” the man says, and offers his hand to Jon easily. His handshake is light, nondeclarative. He either doesn’t take Jon seriously, or he’s got a weak handshake. Or both, frankly.

“The pleasure is mine, sir,” Jon says performatively in perfect French, batting his eyelashes a little in the way that Lovett says looks ridiculous but everyone else seems to fall for.

“Oh, he’s a good one,” the man says, winking at Tommy.

“He is indeed,” Tommy responds, pulling Jon closer. Jon hopes the hitch in his breath isn’t noticeable.

When Tommy steers them away, still with a firm hand on his hip, Jon hisses, “Thought they weren’t supposed to know your real name, what the fuck.”

“And I thought I told you they already did,” Tommy says smoothly.

“Yeah, after you announced it to the entire hotel staff.”

“Calm down, dearest, and have some champagne,” Tommy says, grabbing a flute from a passing server’s tray and pushing it into Jon’s hand, stopping his angry gesturing. “You know I can’t bear it when we fight.”

In Jon’s ear, and presumably in Tommy’s, Lovett snorts. “He’s right, they already knew,” Lovett says. “Have a drink, Jon. You’re much more charming when you’ve had a few.”

Jon pouts, a little offended, and Tommy’s hand tightens briefly. Jon sighs and downs his champagne in a few gulps. Tommy laughs brightly and procures another from somewhere, releasing Jon from his grasp. Jon doesn’t feel any way about that at all.

“Can’t believe you’re encouraging me to drink on the job,” he mutters.

“Long as you don’t get too drunk, we’re set,” Lovett says in the earpiece. “Feel free to get as blushy and giggly as you want, it’ll make Tommy seem like less of a threat.”

“Besides,” Tommy says into Jon’s ear, putting his arm back around Jon as their target approaches, “even if you do, don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

Jon suppresses a shiver at that, and makes sure there’s a charming smile on his face as the French man he recognizes from the (extensive) file steps up to them. The man is terrifying, all sharp, controlled smiles, like a monster is hiding just below the surface, clawing to get out. Jon knows there actually is a monster, that this man is a war profiteer, that he works with terrorist organizations and has indirectly caused hundreds–if not thousands–of deaths.

Jon is thankful for Tommy’s arm around him, especially since it’s gotten tighter. They’re supposed to bring the target in for questioning, but they’re both not-so-secretly hoping he gives them a reason to shoot him first.

Well, gives Tommy a reason. Jon can shoot just fine, but he’s not armed, and that’s not his job. The only reason he’s along for this mission is because he speaks French and can provide a distraction (eye candy, according to Lovett). He goes on missions and all, he’s not a total desk jockey like Lovett sitting down in R&D, but he doesn’t have the allowances Tommy gets. He doesn’t have a blanket license to kill.

The target gives him an obvious up-and-down, and all Jon wants is to hide behind Tommy, or at the very least shudder. Instead, he forces himself to duck his head and look up at the man through his eyelashes, tapping his half-full champagne flute against his bottom lip. If they need him to play the tipsy flirt, he’s got that down pat.

“Welcome, Mr. Beach,” Le Chiffre says, refocusing on Tommy. “Or, should I say, Mr. Vietor? Apologies, I’m a little confused.”

“It’s fine,” Tommy says gregariously, shaking his hand, like Le Chiffre actually messed up and doesn’t already know his secret. Like everything’s fine. Jon’s skin crawls as Le Chiffre smiles.

“And this lovely creature is…?” he asks, the smile stretching the unsettling scar around his eye a little as he looks back at Jon.

Jon obediently reaches out a hand, with what he knows is a winning smile. He pushes for using real first names whenever possible, so there’s no slip-ups during the stress of fieldwork, and the department backed him this time. “Jonathan Cote.”

Le Chiffre’s eyebrows shoot up, and he asks Jon in French if he speaks the language. He’s pleased when Jon responds in the affirmative, and they have a brief conversation that Jon’s positive is meant to exclude Tommy and put him on the wrong foot all at once.

Tommy doesn’t walk away, though. He smiles blandly and looks unperturbed, and he keeps a claiming arm securely around Jon. Jon wonders if Lovett is feeding him a rough translation through the earpiece, running their talk through a program back at the office.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, mon cher,” Le Chiffre murmurs, switching back to (mostly) English and giving Jon another once over before briefly glancing at Tommy. “And you, Mr. Vietor. I look forward to meeting you at the table.”

Jon makes himself smile, open mouthed and easy, as if he’s not sickened by Le Chiffre’s cold grin. Tommy lets go of Jon to shake Le Chiffre’s hand, and Jon feels suddenly cold. Like there’s a draft in the ostentatiously decorated game room.

“Drink?” Tommy asks, his hand low on Jon’s back as Le Chiffre finally walks away.

“God, yes,” Jon says in a rush, almost a groan, and it shakes a low laugh loose from Tommy’s chest. Jon joins in, glad to have something else to focus on.

Tommy orders some ridiculous martini for himself, something with too many fussy details in Jon’s opinion, and he hands Jon another glass of champagne. Or it might be cava. Jon’s not positive, but it’s pretty dry.

“What did he say?” Tommy asks, fixing his laser focus on Jon.

Jon looks around them for discretion’s sake, but of course Tommy’s already checked the area. “He, uh.” Jon laughs, looking down. “He invited me out on his yacht.”

Tommy snorts and takes a large swallow of his drink. “What’d you say?”

Jon looks up and meets his eye. “I told him I was here with the best sailor I know.”

Tommy’s expression softens a little. He leans in closer, so Jon can feel his breath on his cheek. In the middle of the room, the game handlers are calling for everyone’s attention. Tommy needs to join the other players. Jon can only think of how close he is.

He brushes a kiss against Jon’s temple and says, “I’ll see you soon,” before he downs his drink and heads off to the table.

“Good luck,” Jon croaks, and he didn’t think Tommy would hear him, but he turns his head and winks at Jon as he strolls up to enter his personalized password for the winnings.

Jon feels a little lightheaded, watching the tight, tight fit of Tommy’s pants, and he decides to switch to club soda after this drink.

“That was really smooth,” Lovett’s voice comes suddenly in his ear. “Get him all hot and bothered by speaking en francais, then swoon over his gross New England WASPy swag.”

Jon has to keep his voice down, but, “Swag?”

“You know what I mean,” Lovett grumbles.

“Uh huh,” Jon says, watching Tomy settle at the table with the other players.

“God I wish I had a video feed so I could watch you be an idiot, too.”

“Oh, is that why? Not because you want to watch him in that suit?”

Lovett’s quiet for a suspiciously long time. “It is a nice suit,” he finally concedes, and he sounds annoyed by it.

Jon buries a laugh in his champagne and watches the stretch of wool over Tommy’s biceps as he pushes chips into the pot. “Yeah, it is.”

At the first break in the game, Tommy beelines directly to where Jon’s perched on a barstool. He orders a drink and leans in close to Jon, laying a hand on his thigh. Jon swallows and tries not to make a noise.

“Come on,” Tommy murmurs, drinking his martini in a few long gulps. “I dropped the tracker, we need to go.”

There’s only thirty minutes before play resumes, so Tommy hustles him into the stairwell as Jon takes out his phone and asks, “You got him, Lovett?”

“Yup, should be pulling up… now!”

A 3D grid of the hotel’s many, many floors pops up on the screen, and they watch as the program narrows in on the blinking red light of the tracker. It rises in an elevator before it stops moving vertically and slides horizontally to what must be Le Chiffre’s room.

“Twenty-second floor,” Tommy says, pulling out his gun and chambering a round before flicking the safety back on and re-holstering it. “Let’s go.”

When they’re a few doors away from Le Chiffre, they hear shouting. “Go up to the room, now,” Tommy tells him. Jon turns to run to the elevator as Tommy strides to the room door. Just then, the elevator dings.

“Stairs!” Tommy hisses, but the voices are getting closer. Someone is about to walk out of Le Chiffre’s room.

Jon freezes, staring helplessly at Tommy. They’re going to be surrounded. Tommy rushes him just as the elevator doors are opening, pushing him back into the little alcove surrounding the nearest room door.

“Wha–?”

“Go with it,” Tommy says, and that’s all the warning Jon gets before he feels Tommy’s warm breath on his lips.

It takes him a minute to come to terms with that and realize that Tommy’s pressing his mouth to Jon’s now. He brings up his big hands to hold Jon’s face, tilting his jaw slightly to get a better angle, taking advantage of Jon’s gasp to push his tongue inside. Jon moans and clutches at his lapels, hoping the silk won’t wrinkle too badly.

“Oh,” he hears Lovett say in his ear, low and a little throaty. Lovett must be able to hear the sounds he’s making, he realizes with a jolt.

Tommy kisses down to his neck, and Jon can hear the footsteps of whoever came off the elevator getting closer. Jon knows he moved so he could look away easier, keep an eye out for their target and any danger, but Jon’s not complaining. It sounds like just one person, thankfully, and Jon rests his head back against the wall, both because then he can look out through his eyelashes at the man approaching, and because he’s a little overwhelmed.

The man is obviously armed, Jon can see the bulge of something below his jacket, not nearly as well tailored as Tommy’s. Jon moves his hands to clutch at Tommy’s neck, and Tommy meets his eyes briefly and nods the slightest amount. He dips his head to mouth at Jon’s throat.

“Get out of here,” the man says gruffly, his hand hovering near his lapel. Jon can’t place the accent, but he’d put money on Ugandan based off Le Chiffre’s recent involvement with the LRA.

“Sorry,” Jon says, and he has to put very little effort into making his voice sound breathy. The shouting from Le Chiffre’s room has quieted.

“Yeah, sorry,” Tommy says, pulling away from Jon’s neck and not sounding sorry at all. “Just got carried away, you know how it is.”

The man’s scowl deepens, and he pulls out a gun, pointing it at their heads. Tommy moves the slightest amount, like he’s just nervously shifting his weight, but he effectively shields Jon with his own body. Even as it puts Jon slightly at ease, it’s frustrating. Tommy doesn’t have body armor on, either. They’re both sitting ducks here.

Well, technically they’re better off, seeing as they’re both secret agents.

Jon slips his hand into Tommy’s coat, moving carefully so the fabric won’t rustle. He’s very thankful in the moment that they’re both left handed, so the gun is conveniently close in its holster. He’s not a terrible shot with his right, but they don’t have time for anything less than precision.

He sees Tommy’s eyebrows raise as Jon slips the gun out, still hidden by Tommy’s body. He ignores him, keeping his eyes on the man, watching for any movement. It feels like everyone in the hallway is holding their breath, and he’s glad to feel Tommy’s hand at his ribs, warm through the fine cotton of his dress shirt.

Tommy kisses him, soft and quick, both of them keeping their eyes open.

“I said go!” the man yells, taking a step closer.

Jon tenses, but then the door to Le Chiffre’s room flies open. The man looks away, his gun hand instinctively moving toward the action. Jon takes the opportunity and shoots, dropping him with a single shot.

He hears Tommy hiss in a breath, and then two more men come out, screaming about their dead comrade who’s falling to the ground. Jon barely manages to get off two more shots before they’re returning fire. He definitely hits one of them, but he’s not sure if it’s fatal. Le Chiffre’s door slams closed, trapping the other men in the hall with Jon and Tommy.

If these men are the LRA goons Jon assumes they are, they’re pissed at Le Chiffre for losing their money. Which, to be fair, was Tommy’s doing. It makes sense Le Chiffre would leave them to their own devices.

Tommy moves, quick and sure, to disarm the injured one, and then shoot him with his own gun. Jon drops into a crouch and fires back at the other guy, but he makes a run for the stairs. Tommy reaches out at a hand, and Jon instinctively hands over the gun. Jon’s a good shot, he’s required to be, but Tommy is amazing.

The survivor, who Jon IDs as the ringleader from their briefing, is just opening the stairwell door when Tommy shoots. It grazes the side of his head, causing him to duck and fall through the doorway. Tommy’s off, sprinting after him, leaving Jon to follow.

Tommy tackles the man on the steps, and they crash together down two flights and onto a landing, both their guns out of reach. Jon races down, trying to get past them to the fallen weapons. Before he can make it, Tommy has the man in a chokehold, and Jon watches as the life drains from the warlord’s eyes.

He stands, mouth agape, watching as Tommy checks the man’s pulse, shoves him away, and stands. He shakes out his arms and then straightens his jacket, like nothing’s happened. “Lovett,” he says, voice crisp, “get clean up to the stairwell between the twentieth and twenty-first floors.”

Lovett sighs loud in their ears, and Jon knows it’s because he’s relieved. “Aye aye,” he says. “Change of plans, by the way.”

“What’s that?” Tommy asks, slowly walking up to Jon. He puts his hands on Jon’s shoulders and runs them deliberately up and down his arms.

Jon is shaking from the leftover adrenaline. He’s killed before, of course he has, but it’s been awhile. He meets Tommy’s eye and nods. He’s okay, he can do this. Frankly, he doesn’t mind watching Tommy at work. Not even in the slightest. Not that he’ll ever tell Tommy that. Or Lovett.

“He doesn’t seem to have seen you based on the chatter, but new orders are to bring the asshole in alive,” Lovett says. “No matter what.”

Tommy makes a sound that’s not far from a growl. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Why, Agent Vietor, I wouldn’t dare,” Lovett says, completely deadpan.

In spite of everything, Jon laughs, the sound echoing in the stairwell. Tommy looks at him and grins, squeezing tight to his elbows.

“Clean up in twenty,” Lovett says. “I’m taking this lull as an opportunity to finally eat my fucking burrito. This time difference is insane. Do you know I missed lunch already?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy says, smiling fondly. “Talk to you soon.”

Lovett goes quiet in their ears, and Tommy still hasn’t moved away. Jon doesn’t know what to do. This has been a part of their cover all night, but no one’s around to see it now. At least, no one who’s still breathing.

“You okay?” Tommy asks, and Jon wonders if he’s purposely blocking the view of a dead body behind him.

Jon nods, and Tommy tilts his head down to kiss him again. Jon loses himself in it for a moment, forgetting where they are and what they’re here for. One of the lights in the stairwell flickers and it brings him back.

He pushes at Tommy’s chest. “You have to get back, the game’ll be starting back up any minute.”

“You’ll wait for the clean up crew?”

“Of course,” Jon says. “Try not to lose all our money.”

Tommy smiles, bright and sharp, and disappears through the door. Jon sags against the railing and stares at the strangled guy at his feet.

“Rough day, huh?” he says to him, and then laughs a little hysterically.

The clean up crew is early, thank god, giving Jon plenty of time to go back to their suite, shower, and change his sweat-soaked shirt before he goes back down to the game room. Tommy’s up, and he and Le Chiffre seem to be going for each other’s throats. It’s no surprise, and it’s satisfying to see Tommy’s stack of chips get higher than their target’s with every hand.

When the next break is called, Jon is nicely tipsy. Lovett’s fed him information on the LRA goons they killed, and reassured him that one of Le Chiffre’s men will be framed for the crime. Now they’re trying to think of ways to pass the time, Jon whispering answers to Lovett’s wild guesses for Twenty Questions.

“Ugh this is so much easier when you’re in the office,” Lovett says, because Jon knows he’d never say, I miss you. “We should’ve played Fuck, Marry, Kill instead.”

Jon chokes on his drink, laughing, when a warm hand slides under his jacket. He jumps, but it’s just Tommy, grinning slyly at him.

“You good?” he asks.

“Just Lovett,” Jon answers, so he gets to hear Lovett scoff indignantly in his ear.

“Let’s go,” Tommy says, taking the glass out of Jon’s hand so he can finish it himself. He steers Jon to the elevators and all the way to their room, hand hot and heavy on Jon’s lower back.

By the time Tommy twists the deadbolt, Jon is incapable of thinking about anything other than how his mouth had felt on Jon’s skin earlier.

Tommy bends to whisper into his ear. “I’ve got two hours until the next hand. You should take off your clothes.”

Jon moans lightly, and immediately starts to shrug out of his jacket.

“Huh,” says Lovett, startling a laugh out of Tommy. “Feel free to, uh, leave the earpieces in. I mean, if you want.”  

“Maybe next time, Lovett,” Tommy says dryly, removing his and holding out a hand for Jon’s.

Jon hands his over, but he can’t stop his shiver at the idea of next time.prompts are over here

#ask #anon #favs is a total bond girl fight me #fic

[parttimepadawan]

Overtaken (Hux x General!Reader)

A/N: Why did I write smut? Why do birds sing? Why do Adelie penguins go rock-hunting? The answer to all these questions is simple. It’s because we’re fucking horny.

This was supposed to be pure hatesex, but I’ve a heart full of fluff and it shows.

Warnings: Smut, swearing

Word count: 4306

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

You hoped that someone out there found your circumstances funny, because you sure as hell did not. If this was one big joke set up by the Supreme Leader, you hoped he laughed until he cried and wheezed, because you were quite unamused. One of your commanders was nearly running to keep up with you on your way to your meeting.

You paused at the door and took a deep breath to calm yourself as well as to give Commander Khiral a chance to catch her breath. Muttering under your breath, you gave yourself a pep talk. You would put your feelings for Hux behind you until further notice and do your part for the First Order. With victory just over the horizon, you’d be damned if you let yourself lose focus now.

Try as you did, even with the pep talk, you couldn’t help the slight downturn of the corner of your mouth at the flash of orange in your vision upon your entrance. It didn’t help that all officers’ uniforms were pure black, making his hair stand out even more. You stepped inside, counting down in your head. 3, 2…

“Late to the party as always, General L/N.” There it was. You wanted to slap the smug little smirk right off his face.

“Apologies, General Hux, everyone. There was a bit of trouble during transport to the Supremacy,” you said, taking your seat, Khiral taking her place next to you. You’d have argued further if the room weren’t full of some of the highest ranking First Order officers from all stretches of the galaxy. You guessed Hux had the same thought process when he let it be as well.

“Now, to make sure all of us are on the same page,” said another general. You were sure that you would be able to recall his name if you put your mind to it, but Khiral spared you the trouble, flashing her datapad in your direction long enough for you to read his name off of it. General Tarkin. Right, the son of the former Imperial Navy Admiral, how could you have forgotten?

“We have all been assembled to execute the final plan to crush the Resistance permanently. This will require more fleets to move to this section of the Outer Rim,” he continued, as a holomap projected itself into the air above the table. The section of the Outer Rim Tarkin was referring to was highlighted in red. You quickly identified the surrounding stars and planets, trying to find your own fleet in relation to the highlighted area. You found it and inwardly groaned at the thought of the cost of fuel it would take to make the jump all the way there.

“General L/N, General Hux, and myself will be the only ones to bring the entirety of our fleet to this section. All other generals are to bring a tenth of their fleets. All fleets will surround the planet Crait and the adjacent planets in the system.” By this point, you were only half listening. The meeting continued on, dragging itself along as time crawled by. You tried to shift your position discreetly to ease your discomfort, and spoke less frequently than you normally did.

Much of your time in the meeting was spent giving hand signals to your commander under the table to assure her that you were alright. You may not have been at 100% physically but your mind was unharmed enough for you to question why anyone would choose to hide in the middle of nowhere, among other things that were left unvoiced. After what felt like hours of hammering out the finer details, the meeting was adjourned and you lifted yourself out of your chair with a grunt. Khiral rushed to help you, but you shook your head.

“I’m fine,” you said. “This is nothing.” She backed off, but you could still see the look of concern on her face. You wondered how she ever got to her position wearing her heart on her sleeve like that. With the number of people milling about and heading in the same direction, you were left waiting by the door for those in front of you to make their way out of the room before you could leave. As you waited, someone called your name.

“Something wrong, L/N?” asked Hux. In no mood to argue, you shook your head.

“I’m fine. Had a bit of a run-in with some rebels on the way here, but this is by no means the worst injury I’ve ever had,” you said. You didn’t turn to look at him fully, but you could see him shift his weight on his feet out of the corner of your eye.

“Good. It’d be a shame if you were unable to work, as unsatisfactory as it already is,” he said as casually as he would a comment on the weather. You grit your teeth. The man was a vulture, leaping to insult you as soon as the room cleared, the only witnesses to the exchange Khiral and Hux’s own commander.

“Come, commander,” you called to Khiral. You would stay and listen to his insufferable babble no longer. You took steps away from the meeting room even more hurried than the ones taken to get to the meeting, Khiral at your heels, voice small as she advised you against agitating your injuries.

You knew you should have listened to her, especially now as you lay on the couch in your chambers, wincing as she changed the bandages you couldn’t change yourself. She made no special effort to be gentle, and you didn’t blame her after she tried so hard to warn you. A small cry was ripped from you as the bandaging on your arm was torn off, dried blood coming off with it.

You grabbed the cushion from under your head and smushed it over your face as she readied to disinfect the cuts on your arm. The cushion muffled your loud whines and shouts as the wounds burned and stung. Your other arm let up on pressing the cushion into your face and you left it there as you panted, little pulses of pain going through your arm as fresh bandages were wrapped.

“That’s the last of them,” Khiral said, and the both of you breathed a sigh of relief at once. You sat up slowly, letting the cushion slip off of you and fall to the floor. As your feet touched the floor, Khiral tossed it back onto the couch and you heard a knock at your door. You looked frantically for your shirt, having taken it off to change your bandages as your commander went to ask who had come to visit. Before she could press the button on the intercom, the door opened with a hiss and you covered yourself with the cushion as Hux walked in.

“You know, Hux, the polite thing to do would be to wait until you are invited in,” you said with a bitter tone. Three conversations with this man in a day was three too many. He sniffed, his mouth twisted in a sneer.

“I’ll take it from here, Commander,” he said to Khiral, clearly dismissing her from the room. You glowered at him.

“Stay, Khiral,” you said. Khiral paused, one foot off the ground on her way out the door. Hux repeated himself, more forcefully this time, and your words did nothing to keep her in the room with you. After she was gone, you threw the cushion to the side, modesty be damned.

“She’s my officer, Hux! You have no right to push her around–”

“This is my ship, General,” he said, sneer still in place. You hated that look on his face more than anything. You stood and walked up to him, each step echoing in your sparse rooms.

“Where the hell do you get off–”

“Careful, L/N, you don’t want to–”

“Stop interrupting me!” You’d reached your boiling point and if he didn’t think you’d fight him with your one good arm, he was sorely mistaken. Even then, you calmed your voice as best you could, though it came out a little stiff. “And your threats won’t work on me, Armitage,” you said, and reveled in the clench of his jaw at the sound of his given name. At this he stepped up to you as well, your noses nearly touching. Instead of backing away, you looked up defiantly and couldn’t help a sneer of your own when he only grew angrier.

“The day I feel intimidated by a man who clawed his way to power over the the backs of the innocent and their deaths–” A gloved hand clapped itself over your mouth at the same time as another wrapped itself around your bandaged arm. You grunted as pain ran itself up and down that arm, your words cut off completely.

Just as quickly as he took hold of you, he let you go. Your arm continued to pulse, but you kept a straight face. “Well?” you asked. “You obviously stopped me for a reason. What is it?” You stared him down as he panted, trying to calm his own frustration. Evidently, counting to ten in his head didn’t work as he bared his teeth and you heard the air rush past them as he exhaled.

“You insufferable–” Looks who’s talking. “Disrespectful–” He had you there. You didn’t have an ounce of respect for him. “Little bitch!” Now that was just unkind. You took a step forward until your chests touched and took hold of his chin, tilting his head down to make eye contact. You expected him to wrech himself away, but he stayed, staring intensely, awaiting your next move. It made you wonder, but it served your purpose, so you let it go.

“Every word of what you just said describes the both of us,” you said, “so you can get off your high horse–” Yet again, you were interrupted, but this time with a kiss. It wasn’t at all soft like you would imagine your first kiss with a man would be. It was all clashing teeth and biting lips. In your mind, you knew that this shouldn’t have been happening, that you hated this man. But you found him attractive, and he’d made it clear that he felt the same. So you found no harm in allowing the forbidden just once, and you kissed back.

He pulled you closer, pressing as much of himself into you as he could. You could feel the bandages around your waist stretch a bit, but you didn’t let it bother you. You walked backward, looking for a soft surface with your eyes closed, and let yourself drop when the back of your knees hit the edge of your bed. Your mouth didn’t separate from Hux’s until you fell onto your back, panting heavily.

“I hate you and think you’re the most pretentious man I’ve ever met.” The words were but a breath when they passed your lips. The man above you huffed as he stripped himself of his greatcoat and the shirt underneath it.

“The word ‘pretentious,’ my dear, implies that I can’t make good on my word when I tell you,” he leaned closer, his lips brushing against your ear. “I could ruin you.” These last words were but a hiss, his breath warm on your skin, and they sent a shiver through you. A cool puff of air blew at your ear and you turned to kiss him again. You ran your hands through his hair and he reached down to unfasten the button on your pants, tugging them down roughly. You couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to make it hurt. In retaliation, you dug your heels into the bed and forcefully pushed your hips against his.

He grunted and you broke the kiss to say, “I may be opening my legs for you, but it would do you well to remember who I am.” Your hands left his hair, having sufficiently mussed it up, to reach for his trousers. Your hands were batted away and held above your head as he removed them with his free hand. You opened your mouth to speak again after undergarments were removed, but the words caught in your throat when cold leather met with the bud where your thighs met.

You wriggled out of his hold on your wrists and drew him into another kiss to keep him from making any snide comments. His gloved hands rubbed you in slow circles as you ground your hips into his hand. He kept a steady pace, fast enough to build you up and just slow enough that you couldn’t find your release. Tired of the seemingly endless teasing, you dug in your heels again and flipped you both so that you straddled his hips.

You saw no point in talking any more and sank down onto him. You choked back a moan as well as you could, but it escaped you, sounding strangled and a little frustrated, making it clear that you’d been trying to keep quiet. It wasn’t as if this was a brand new experience, but it had been some time since you had done this last. Your potential embarrassment was staved off only by a near identical sound drawn from Hux’s throat.

You wasted no time in waiting for any adjustments and moved above him, another sound slipping out of you as Hux dug in his heels to meet you halfway. With your hands on his chest for support, you could feel the racing of his heart beneath your palm. It gave you a rush, the feeling of finally having some power over this man. This man, who’d always been one step ahead of you, from the academy to being just a gust of wind away from being Grand Marshall. And you had him at your mercy.

As if he’d heard your thought process, he grabbed you by the waist and threw you onto your side, standing from the bed. Before you could demand answers as to why, he faced you and grabbed your legs, laying them over his shoulders. He bent forward, touching your thighs to your chest and teasing you with the head of his cock. Your noses touched and you frowned at your pleasure getting cut off.

“I think you’ll like this position just as much as I do,” he said softly, and rubbed the tip of his nose against yours almost lovingly. You scoffed and shifted, trying to ease the pressure on your bandaged waist. Seeing this, he backed off a little, but stayed close enough that you could feel his breath on your body.

“You may be going soft on me, ‘Tidge,” you said. “Since when do you care about what I–” You gasped as he cut you off with a sharp thrust of his hips against yours. Back straightened, he moved faster than you ever did when you were on top of him. You threw a hand over your mouth to quiet yourself but couldn’t help the sharp cry that left you when you felt his teeth pinch the skin on your legs.

You looked up in time to see him lick the bite mark on your calf, and he met your gaze. “You don’t get to hide from me, Y/N,” he said. “Not now.” You couldn’t describe the look in his eyes, but before you knew it, you had both hands fisted in your sheets, waiting for him to move again. At your signal, he let himself move again, thrusting harder now to hear your unobstructed moans, your cries for him, the song only you could sing.

“Hux!” You couldn’t believe how easily he’d taken your control from you. You felt a heat build up in your chest as you watched his face, sweat starting to drip down his temples and eyes locked on yours in a way that made you feel caged. For the first time in your life, you weren’t sure the heat was from anger or frustration for this man, and so you closed your eyes and focused on yourself.

He looked down at you, your hair a mess and just a hint of tears building in the corner of your eyes. And not a single mark on you apart from the one on your calf.

You opened your eyes at the sharp pinches of his teeth on your skin. He moved quickly, biting down and letting the bruises color in before moving on to repeat. Each bite mark warmed as they colored in and you slid your legs down his arms, reaching up and pulling him to you. You repaid the favor by biting at his collarbone, working the same area. You alternated between biting and sucking, not satisfied until there was a dark purple blotch on his pale skin, a small imperfection on the man who had always held himself together.

He started to speak but you weren’t particularly listening. “You’ve always been too perfect,” you mumbled, diving in for more. You stayed below his neck, etching patterns into his skin in varying shades of red and purple. His skin was so pale, such a ready canvas for your mouth. It made you wonder what else you could paint on him, had you been wearing lipstick. He mumbled something that you couldn’t quite decipher into your hair and moved his hips against yours, at a pace to match the movement of the seconds ticking by on the wall clock.

“Move faster,” you said, pushing at his shoulders to admire your work. Each bruise reminded you of a blooming flower, and you traced them with your fingers. He complied, speeding up, and you watched as he moved. The sway of his body and the blooms scattered across his skin reminded you of a meadow you’d seen a long time ago on a planet that probably no longer existed, and in your mind’s eye, you were taken back. The bloom of red and purple on his skin was soon surrounded by tall green grass, swaying easily in the breeze. It was beautiful, and you closed your eyes, not wanting to face its association with Armitage Hux.

“For as long as you look me in the eyes, I’ll do whatever you please,” Hux said above you. You kept your eyes shut. “Look at me, Y/N.” He lightly shook you and you opened your eyes to meet his. They looked different, maybe a little greener. You couldn’t explain it, but they drew you in all the same. “Now, tell me what you want.” He didn’t speak with an especially strong tone, nor was he loud, but you felt compelled to obey.

“I want a good fuck,” you said, skimming the back of your knuckles over his cheek. “I want to see if you can ruin me like you said you could.”

“Just watch.” Then his hips were pistoning against yours, and you pulled his mouth to yours again, teeth clicking together as you tried to muffle your moans. You kept your eyes open like he’d asked, and found that his eyes were even greener up close. Your breath mingled with his as you panted, breathing each other’s air.

When you realized that your voice couldn’t be stifled no matter how much you tried, you let yourself lie back and let go of everything that wasn’t you, Hux, or the way he was making you feel. You could hear his grunts above you and feel little droplets of sweat land on your chest after falling from his face. Ordinarily, you’d have been disgusted, but right now you just wanted to make him sweat even more. Peppering kisses on as much of him as you could reach, pinned down as you were, you whimpered and whined unabashedly. You’d let yourself fall under him just this once, you told yourself.

You could feel yourself approaching your climax as lightning coursed through you and flashes of heat licked at your body as if he’d taken a knife to you. You gave him his warning and he only leaned closer to you in response, still keeping his pace. Up until now, your voice had raised in pitch gradually. Now it rose higher in leaps and bounds as you let yourself fall over the edge, your mouth opening in a silent scream.

As your back arched into him, Hux turned his head to kiss at your jaw. Not a moment later, you felt him pull out and finish onto your sheets, some of it touching your skin. He rolled to the side and landed on his back beside you, panting.

As the two of you caught your breath, neither of you looked at each other. Neither of you would know what to do if your gazes met. Neither of you wanted to know what you would do if you made eye contact. Breath now calm, but still feeling awkward, you sat up straight without thinking. A decidedly embarrassing whimper passed your lips when you sat directly on the pool he’d left behind. With a sigh, you got up and walked into your fresher to clean yourself up, your original plan on the backburner for now.

When you got out, you found Hux sitting at the foot of your bed, trousers back on, leaning his elbows onto his knees. You picked your shirt up off the floor, pulling it on purely for modesty’s sake. You kept an eye on Hux as you moved, but he didn’t look up once, not until he heard you rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards.

“Want a glass?” you asked, holding up a bottle of wine you’d pulled from the conservator. For a few moments he said nothing, did nothing, and you assumed that was a no. Popping the cork off the bottle, you almost didn’t hear him take you up on your offer.

Walking back and sitting with him at the foot of your bed, the physical evidence of your coupling between you, you stretched out your arm to offer him his glass. The first few sips were taken in silence, then it was accompanied by the tapping of a bare foot against the floor. Hux cleared his throat while you took another sip and you turned to look at him.

“Do you regret it? This?” he asked. You turned away and looked straight ahead as you thought your answer over.

“Hard to say,” you finally said. It wouldn’t be right to say that you were in love with him after what you just did. Life wasn’t a fairy tale. At least, yours wasn’t. You had hoped that fucking him once would be enough to satiate your physical attraction to him, but now you were just confused. He had not changed from the insufferable prick you knew not a few hours ago, but he was now more attractive in your eyes. “Do you?”

“I’m somewhere in between,” he confessed. “Kind of confused.” You nodded, admitting you knew what he meant.

You finished off your glasses in silence, and you poured yourself a second while Hux declined and dressed himself again. He looked toward your wall clock and sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“Well, Y/N, it’s been fun,” he said. You almost wished he wouldn’t try to awkwardly say goodbye and just walk out the door to save you both the embarrassment. “But I should be going. It’s almost time for Millicent to be fed.”

You froze, nearly overpouring your glass. Stars above, did he have a child? You were suddenly feeling sick. “Millicent?” you asked, one step away from a stutter.

“My cat.” And suddenly, the nausea left. You sighed deeply and took a gulp out of your glass, feeling silly. What were you thinking? Hux having a child onboard. As cold as he was, you were sure even he knew the Supremacy was no place for a child.

You bid him goodbye quietly and as the door hissed shut behind him, you were left feeling rather strange, equal parts awkward and empty and lost. What were you supposed to do now? You didn’t know what the protocol was for sexing up a coworker on your boss’s ship.

You caught a glimpse of white on your black sheets out of the corner of your eye and went to a keypad in your wall to summon your cleaning droid. It was your own personal droid; a bit of an older model, but it got the job done, and with discretion. As it spread new sheets onto your bed, you walked about your room, wondering why it felt so different when Hux had only been here a short time. Everything was still in its place, the rest of your clothing that had been left on the floor cleared away by your droid. Nothing was crooked, save for your bed which had moved during your little escapade, and you toed it back into place without a second thought.

Why did it still feel off? What had he done to leave his mark in your quarters? Or perhaps you were just oversensitive in the wake of what had just happened. Either way, you were exhausted, wanting nothing more to do with anything. You took your hair out of the updo it was normally in for work, ruined at Hux’s hands, and left the fasteners on your bedside table, bumping into a pair of leather gloves. You stared at them, wondering when he had even taken them off.

You shrugged it off. No matter. You hoped he had a spare pair, otherwise he’d have to come back and get them himself. You were no errand boy. You laid back on your bed and closed your eyes for the night.

#armitage hux x reader #general hux x reader #hux x reader #armitage hux #general hux #armitage hux imagine #general hux imagine #hux imagine #armitage hux fanfic #general hux fanfic #hux fanfic #star wars x reader #star wars imagine #star wars reader insert #reader insert #fanfic #star wars fanfic #my writing #overtaken

[peacekeeperangel]

Flamethrower Part 7

UUUUGH Sorry guys. Flagging inspiration is a demon. But Hey I’m back right? I’m afraid my gung-ho for this fic is slowly dying out and really it’s mostly me being stubborn and wanting to finish the project I started that’s keeping me going. Any support will be fabulous but I don’t blame if y’all abandon ship at my turnout rate in the future.(low turtle is slooooow) Summary: Not much is known about Sans the Skeleton. He owns a bar in Snowdin. He has a younger brother Named Papyrus. And recently something’s been raiding his trash for food. Reversing the Roles of the Baby Blaster AU originally created by @spacegate

Part 7 of (?) Notice: this Piece is mostly self-edited and may contain typos, grammar errors and run on sentences. if you spot a mistake, please report kindly

A piercing buzz startled Orange awake, causing his flames to flicker wildly before he could regulate his breathing into something resembling normal. Not for the last time he wished he wasn’t such a heavy sleeper but he doubted it would help, especially if White considered doing something other than playing a loud noise at random intervals.

“All agents, assemble in Main Room in ten minutes.” White’s voice came through the hidden speakers with such intensity that made it sound like the monster was in the room with the tiny fire elemental. Of course he wasn’t though, the room was only large enough for Orange in his “Feline” form as White called it, and even then he had to crawl along on his belly to get through the small iron door that vanished into the wall when it was open.

“About time runt.” Blue was already there, the brawny older flame standing in a corner looking fairly broody and mean-spirited as usual. “Was sure you’d get us inta trouble with White again.”

There were others in the room besides the Blue flame, at least four other flames, like them, all different colours and all striving very hard to ignore the obvious confrontation between the youngest of their number and the strongest.

Orange did his best to be as non-confrontational as he could be, hunching up into a ball and keeping his eyes averted from Blue’s angry gaze. “I dun even know why White puts up with you anyway, he should have ground you down for EXP months ago-”

“That’s enough Blue!” a bright yellow flame, almost as big as the burly bully stepped between Orange and Blue.

“Out of my way Yellow! I’m going to raise my LOVE like White wants us to do!” “Not at the expense of our own!” Yellow snarled back, his “mouth” exposed, fangs of yellow flame bared at his peer. “We need to look out for each other, remember?”

“That was before-” Blue was cut off as the large door slid open and in stepped White, his skinny frame ramrod-straight, white lights ghosting along the youngsters as they rushed to form neat rows in bipedal form, as they had long ago been instructed to do. “Very good. All present and accounted for.” White stated to no one in particular as he peered from one child to the other, marking something down on a notepad he carried with him. “the rate of your progression for EXP is down overall.”

Orange flinched as he glanced at the others out of the corner of his eye.  Red looked defeated, Indigo was obviously terrified, Green and Violet were holding back lava-like tears while they reached out to each other desperately for comfort but unable to break White’s rules for “attention” which mostly consisted of staying very still and looking at him while he talked. Blue and Yellow were probably the worst off with the former looking murderously angry as one hand dug into his arm while Yellow looked...empty.

“While this was expected, considering you’ve been grinding out EXP from specially-bred surface animals, you’ve plateaued far sooner than I’ve expected.” it sounded like what White was saying was something positive, the gleam in his eye was unmistakably angry. “I shall be altering your training program to compensate for this failure in growth.”  he pointed a long narrow finger at Orange.

No no no nononono... a welling terror sent him breaking formation, he didn’t know where he could run but anything was better than what White was going to do.

DING! Orange felt his bare feet lift off the floor. “Come with me Orange.” White commanded as he hoisted Grillby in his powerful magic.

“No! Please I don’t wanna!” Grillby thrashed, his flames spouting off like minature solar flares. “Help me Yellow! I don’t wanna burn anymore!” But Yellow wasn’t there. None of them were, just Six piles of Ashy soot in a rapidly darkening room until Grillby couldn’t see them anymore. “Enough of this ridiculous behaviour Orange.” White scolded pulling him further into the dark. “You are a fire elemental, burning is how you exist in this world.” a dim orange cut a door out of the void, “It’s time you used that existence to actually benefit Monsterkind for once.”

White reached out and opened the door. “Now go out there and grind out some EXP.” he proclaimed before throwing Grillby into the writhing, screaming maw of hell.

“I gotcha kid.”

Grillby jolted awake in time to watch a glob of half-melted metal get thrown out the open window in a field of blue magic. The heat of the room was so intense that Grillby was barely able to feel the familiar chill of Snowdin’s “Night” cycle. He was amazed that Sans was able to remain so composed in the intense heat.

“Feel like talking about it?” Sans asked, closing the window. Somehow the short skeleton always knew when Grillby was having nightmares. He never said anything about the nightmares, only asked if the flame elemental wanted to talk about it.

He never wanted to talk about it. “No...” Grillby mumbled. “Want me to stay?”  Sans asked pulling a new Fire Talisman from a pocket, hanging it once more from a small nail on the wall. Once Sans had sat down and explained the purpose of the little metal plates Grillby had felt utterly relieved to have them. Actually he had wanted to put up more than one but Sans told him that they had to make them last, since they were difficult to make.

“...” Grillby hugged his pillow and tried very hard to avoid Sans’ gaze. This was the third time tonight he had melted a talisman.

“Just let me know kid. I’ll be right outside.”  

______

“Sans this cannae go on!” Caedmon barked.

“Says the monster with the highest Home-repair bill in Waterfall.” Sans yawned as he poured himself something strong from the bar into a shot glass. “How’s Undyne’s cooking lessons by the way?”

“That’s different and ye know it ye bony bugger!” Caedmon growled from his stool at the bar. “You’re barely getting enough rest standin’ sentry and the Boy’s managing to blow out nearly half a dozen talismans a night. Ye need to do something!” “I am doing something.” Sans replied before throwing the glass back and downing the beverage in one solid gulp. “I’m making sure the kid’s safe and getting a full night’s sleep without worrying that the Fire Elemental’s version of wetting the bed doesn’t burn the house down.”

“The kid still won’t say what’s givin’ him terrors is he?” “Nope. And I know he’s uncomfortable sleeping on the bed.” Sans sighed, “Or maybe he’s just uncomfortable sleeping with me there but it’s way too risky in case a talisman blows out.”

“Can’t ye ‘read’ him like all yer other clientele?” Caedmon asked dryly.

“I’m not freaking telepathic Ironbutt.” Sans replied dryly, “My shtick is just good observation and really good intuition.”

“Really now? Just that?” Caedmon leaned forward. “Okay then can you gue-”

Before the living armour could finish his sentence Sans had a shot glass full of the same liquid he had just drank himself. 

“It’s harder with some but....”  Sans grin grew to Cheshire levels without moving an inch.

“Oh shush.” Caedmon said with disgust. ______

“What do you want to do today Grillby?” the elemental stared at Papyrus like he was cracked. “I...don’t understand?” Since he had recovered enough from his illness to get out of bed, Papyrus had dedicated himself to the care of their new housemate with all the gusto he put into pretty much anything he did. Papyrus was to be a great hero after all! You couldn’t be a great anything without putting everything into it! The only problem was that Grillby appeared to be just about uncomfortable with everything. Sans suggested that something had happened to Grillby that was so terrible that it made the little elemental frightened of the world- Which meant it was up to Papyrus to show Grillby that the world was wonderful! “Come now Grillby!” Papyrus crowed, pointing at Grillby. “There must be something you like to do, that makes you feel happy?” the little elemental shrunk back and looked away from the finger. “Y-y’ello hided with me a lot. That was nice.” “Nyeh?” this was new information. “Who is this Yello monster?” Papyrus asked curiously, turning his head to look Grillby in the eye. The elemental only responded by squeezing his eyes shut, looking more like a tiny pillar with clothes on a kitchen chair instead of s child. It was clear that this was one of those things Sans told him about. A bad thing that Grillby wouldn’t want to talk about. Fair enough, Papyrus concluded. He would simply have to work with the information given. “So you enjoy hiding then? Well I don’t know if there are very many places to hide in this house...” he looked around. “But let it never be said that the Great Hero Papyrus let a challenge best him!” and before Grillby could ask the skeleton dashed out of the kitchen with a cackle of glee. Grillby carefully slipped off the chair to follow Papyrus only for the Skeleton to burst into the room with a handful of small objects. “While the Great Hero Papyrus is constructing your fun for today, he thought that you might enjoy the use of his Battle Strategy models. Feel free to call on the Great Hero should you need him for anything!” the teenage skeleton unceremoniously dumped the items onto the table before once more dashing into the living room.

The items were, in fact little male and female monsters, mostly dressed in fancy armour and holding fancy weapons. Most appeared like animals, others appeared to look like random items. There was even a turtle-monster that reminded Grillby of the old Turtle that had visited them awhile ago.

Then at the bottom of the pile, he spotted it. A bright yellow doll shaped like Grillby in green armour, grinning fearlessly, their mouth fully exposed to the world.

Grillby stared....

“You have to Orange...” he gasped, lava leaking from blackened wounds as he held the sword to his chest. Grillby dropped the doll, kicking at it and sending it skittering across the kitchen floor. Gasping and panting he held out his hands, watching as tiny licks of flame expelled off his body, the heat of the room rising.

No No nononono... he tried to calm down, to get his fire to calm, but nothing was working! He was going to burn down the house and kill everyone and then White would be mad at him and-

“Here you are.” A fire talisman was pressed into Grillby’s hands and with it a force seemed to press his flames down until they were back to their normal consistency. “Feel better now?” Papyrus asked kneeling to look the elemental straight in the face.

The tears began to well up into Grillby’s solid white eyes. “Sorry...” he murmured fiddling with the little metal disk in his hands. “Do you need anything else?” Papyrus asked, his voice surprisingly soft. “It’s okay to tell me, It’s a Great Hero’s job to help people in distress!” Grillby blinked and wiped at his face. “... Wuz a Hee-row?” He mumbled. “Want me to show you?” Papyrus asked holding out a hand. ____

“I’m home.” Sans called out... to find Papyrus sitting cross-legged on the couch with a large pile of comic books stacked next to him. “Hello brother!” Papyrus called out cheerfully. “Grillby asked an important question, so I have been reading him all the finest quality examples of Heroism I have collected from the Trash!” Sans quirked a brow. “Izzat so? Where is the little dude?” Papyrus tilted his head. “Grillby? Please ring once if you would like Sans to know where you are, twice if you do not.” Ding

before Sans could ask, Papyrus hopped off the sofa and motioned quietly to Sans before moving towards the back of the sofa. Sans followed his brother’s silent instructions only noticing the throw blanket that had been ever-so carefully poised to make a little tent in-behind the sofa, under that tent was a nest of blankets and pillows scoured from every inch of the house with currently housed a ball of fiery fuzz curled around a small silver call bell. “The Great Hero Papyrus has been training his new sidekick on the important lore of Heroism!” Papyrus declared primly. “Grillby and I have been going over lore while he makes his secret hideout extra comfy!” Grillby in his feline form peeked over a pillow to look up at the elder skeleton. Sans grinned. Once again Papyrus to the rescue, it was obvious that Grillby was the most relaxed he had ever been since entering the house. “I’ll have to commission you Papyrus. It looks super comfortable in there. I might need one.” “It’s for Heroes only Sans! Nyeh heh heh!” despite his protest Papyrus chuckled in pride.

“Riiight. I bet there’s a few around the house I don’t know about too?” “Well there was going to be more...” Papyrus replied sheepishly, “But good Heroes need lots of rest to be at their best when they are needed!”

“Well no rush, You’ll be only one ring away it seems!” Papyrus groaned.

It was later that night that Sans personally added the curtains and extra blankets and pillows to Grillby’s bed. The little elemental managed to sleep fairly soundly... But Sans had to telekinetically pull a Fire-tailsman from it’s hook on the wall to keep the cherry-red metal from scorching the drywall. “Baby steps.” he murmured over the hiss of the melting snow on the windowsill.

#Flamethrower #Peacestorykeeper #Anxious #Nightmares #Heavy suggestions #Sans needs to bond with this guy

[lunaraen]

“I don’t want to romantically cuddle with you, this is a necessary evil, there is no romance involved.” Ellegaard and Magnus?

A cave isn’t usually a goodplace, or really any place at all, to try and warm up.

Caves aren’t known for beingwarm.

(Or safe. Or anything other than densfor lurking monsters and being stripped of their ores and anything worthentering in the first place. No one wants to use a cave for shelter when evendigging and hiding in a hole seems safer.)

A cave, cool, dark, and oftendamp, tends to be a good place to be to be colder, really. Unless, of course,it’s so wet and cold everywhere else, the wind strong enough to make treesconstantly sway and bend, said wind howling past and through everything it canas the rain continues to pound in thick and unrelenting sheets.

When the ground becomes mush, asloppy, muddy mix of grasses and thick blankets of leaves, too runny to standon and too thick to really run through, when it gets dark and rains hard enoughto make a sea of monsters and a flash flood itself seem not only possible, butinevitable, when a rain forest lives up to its name and becomes more bitinglycold water than actual forest…

Well, then a cave becomes a muchbetter place to warm up.

Especially because, while it maynot be the coldest weather, it’s not particularly warm and Magnus is soakingwet.

Ellegaard had seen it comingfirst, a rush of water down the center of the winding valley they’d beentrekking through, and while she knows her warning was as loud as it could be,that didn’t keep it from narrowly missing her at the same time it hit Magnus.Of their packs, Ellegaard had only been holding onto one when she’d all butlunged out of the way, and the other two had quickly been swept away.

Which means they lost most oftheir rations, building materials, and pretty much all of their basic tools.Their spare clothes had luckily been in the pack she held onto, along with ahandful of torches and a flint and steel.

All of which they’d used upalmost immediately. Warming up, and drying off their drenched clothes, meantmaking a fire, and not letting monsters spawn in their shelter is a good idea.

Said fire is a roaring blaze, amess of orange and golden flames dancing around each other and fighting to eatup the limited fuel as fast as they can while they struggle to stretch towardsthe ceiling. It’s bright but weak, and a perfect opposite for the weatherraging outside.

With the firewood, keptmiraculously dry by the thick leather pack, they have left, Ellegaard knows theywon’t be able to keep the fire going past dawn. 

With any luck, they won’tneed to, but she curses herself for not thinking to pack heavier backup clothes.

Their current outfits aren’t muchmore than a simple shirt and pair of pants each, and neither are anywhere nearas useful as a jacket or even a blanket would be. The socks she packed arereplacing the ones he forgot to, but she knows it’s not enough to keep Magnusas warm as he should be.

In her defense, they had preparedfor a small exploration, meant to take a few hours at most, not for anovernight exercise in survival.

The sun was hidden behind cloudshours ago, harmless looking clouds that weren’t supposed to turn into aterrifying behemoth of a storm, and it’s far too late now for it to have anychance of coming out and warming things up now, when they need it.

She supposes they could’ve builttheir own shelter, but the shift in weather didn’t give them much time andshe’s not going to pretend either of them are more than decent builders ontheir best days.

And today has not been one oftheir best days. Calling it a good day is a stretch.

They had almost nothing to workwith when the weather started to take a turn for the worst, sky churning as theclouds went from a light grey to an almost inky black in a matter of minutes.

When they’d found this cave, theydidn’t even have enough supplies to fully block the entrance. On the brighterside of things, they’d barely been able to make it in themselves as it was,having to crawl through the low but wide gap in the stone.

At the time, she’d expected it tobe some sort of den, and as much as she didn’t want a fight, they weren’t goingto have many options if somebody was taking up their temporary shelter.

It was a relief to find it cold butempty.

Looking at it now, Ellegaard getsmore of the impression that it could, one day, become a den for some kind ofcreature. Right now, however, it looks more like an underground pool of waterthat dried up, the floor almost entirely flat and most of the cave’s edges rounded.There’s a steep dip from the opening, which means that, while the roof isn’tmuch higher than the one they had to deal with while crawling, there’s enoughspace between it and the floor that Ellegaard has no trouble comfortablystanding, and at eye level with the entrance.

The ceiling is like the rest ofthe cave, made of what has to be thick stone, meaning that water would have amuch harder time draining in than it would if it were made of mud and clay,something Ellegaard especially appreciates with the storm they’re currentlydealing with.

The roof collapsing on them wouldbe another unneeded, unnecessary, and unwanted nail in the coffin.

What keeps them from beingflooded now or affected by the flash flood and raging storm that chased themhere in the first place is the same thing that seems to have kept it fromfilling back up over time: the odd angle of the entrance.

While the floor of the cave itself is almostentirely flat, like it was carved out of the inside of the hill, the opening istilted in a way that made them climb up to get in instead of down, and islocated on the side of said hill, with a bit of dirt and moss covered stonereaching past the actual entrance and making it almost impossible for any ofthe water to flow back in.

It keeps them dry, or as dry as they can hope to be, and lets Ellegaard safely watch the water drain down the hill.

Roots, muddied and drenched, hangover the edge of the top, dripping ever so slowly onto the slanted ground, thetrickle of dirtied water mixing in with the mulch and the muck as it steadilydrains downhill and disappears into the constant tiny splashes made by the rainand much faster water still tearing its way through the dip between the hills.

Ellegaard’s fingers absentlytrace the edge of the stone, still wet from all the water Ellegaard and Magnushad managed to drag in.

Thunder rumbles in thebackground, shifting but never stopping, at its quietest a steady grumbleunderlying the storm and at its loudest a series of sharp booms that takescenter stage.

The torches they have set uparound the cave are immensely comforting, flames smaller and far less intensethan the roaring fire but just as appreciated as their light stretches fromsmoothed corners to jagged grooves in the wall, even if having them lit meanseven more light tries its hardest to pour through the cave opening and out intothe monster filled night.

She’s heard the occasional, faroff clicking of a skeleton and the groans of zombies she can’t see and may ormay not be imagining. The shrieks,croaks, and chirps of frogs that seem to be utterly delighted by the weathermake it hard to tell what she’s hearing, as does the pounding of the rain.

The good news is that both monstersare far too uncoordinated and, frankly, stupid to be able to crawl uphillthrough the partly blocked off entrance with the weather like it is now, andeven if any of them tries, the telltale scratching would be impossible to miss.A spider would be too big to do more than awkwardly scuttle up the low entrance before getting stuck, and cave spiders don’t go anywherenear the surface when the weather’s like this.

If anything, they go deeper, andshe and Magnus are lucky enough that their shelter isn’t connected to otherunderground pockets or winding tunnels.

From what little she can see inthe blurry and rain streaked dark, the water rushes strong and hard, but evenat its highest it only went halfway up to the start of their shelter, and nowit seems to have dipped again, the rain still harsh and fierce but not asbrutal or fierce as it was.

That being said, it’s late enoughthat leaving now is suicide, even if the weather does eventually settle down.At this rate, it won’t really calm down for several more hours, maybe even notuntil the sun’s come back up and the next day’s begun.

At least it looks nothing from theoutside will get them, not without giving them enough warning and getting aproper fight, if they stay here.

But it’s not what’s on the outsidethe worries her.

Not anymore than it usually does,anyways.

Ellegaard turns from the opening,tearing her gaze from the soaked world outside to the body lying beside thefire.

Out of all of them, Magnus has alwayshad the most trouble staying warm. Ellegaard might have been caught in therain, which can be unforgiving as it is, but at least she hadn’t been knockedoff her feet by a wall of rushing water. She doesn’t even want to think abouthow lucky they are that he didn’t hit his head, and even luckier still that he was able to all but claw his way back onto higher and, comparatively, drier ground.

Having no hair means there’s no drenched or dripping hair to keep his head damp and cold, but it also means there’s nothing to keepit warm.

Ellegaard would gladly give him her helmet if it wasn’t drying out beside the rest of their clothes and armor, warmer and better than it had been but still damp and cold.

That being said, she can do better to keep him warm, and fully intends to as she walks away from the opening, sitting down beside him as soon as she reaches his side. A warm body is a better way to warm him up than a helmet, dry or not, would ever be.

“Move over.” Shedoesn’t wait for him to shift before wrapping her arms around him, wincing andpausing for only a moment as her fingers curl around his arms, stopping rightbelow where the sleeves begin.

Notch, he’s freezing.

He’s dry, but that doesn’t meanshe doesn’t need to warm him up, and quickly.

“Ellie?” The cracklingfire manages to be louder than his voice, little more than a slurred mumble,but she hears him all the same. His eyes are closed, neither bothering to openas he frowns, arms wrapping around her anyway.

“I don’t want to romanticallycuddle with you, this is a necessary evil; there is no romance involved.”

She likes nothing about how coldhe is, how sleepy, how tired and worn out both of them are and should be, butshe tries to give the words some sort of warmth to match her smile.

That seems to get his attention.

“Nobody said anythin aboutit being romantic.” He looks up at her now, squinting in the firelight ashis frown twists into a smirk. “Good to know I’m freezing to death andyou’re more worried about smooching, though.”

“Like I said, it’snecessary. I know you.” Ellegaard gives a softer smile before pressing alight kiss to his forehead. “Shut up and start cuddling.”

“Being awful pushy ‘bout itfor somebody who doesn’t want to touch me.” Her shoulders shouldn’t relaxthe way they do, but she can hear the grin in his voice and it’s more relievingthan it has any right to be.

She huffs, an empty sound that theyboth know means nothing, as she rolls her eyes.

“Do you want to be warm ornot?”

She doesn’t get a word out of himafter that, but Magnus’s much tighter grip as his chin digs into the back ofher shoulder is as good an answer as any.

#My Stuff #fanfiction #mcsm #minecraft story mode #ellagnus #anon