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baradorable · 1 year

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Name: Rift (Raymond Cruz) Age: Thirties Gender: Male Species: Human (Mutant) Occupation: Freelancer/Mercenary Allegiance: Krakoa (Former), Orchis (Former)

Art done by GeckoBara

This is my X-Men OC. Rift, AKA Raymond Cruz, is a mutant with the power to create portals. His abilities have made him a top asset for many groups.

Personality

Rift is the "love 'em and leave 'em" type. Since he can always just use portals to leave any situation he wants, he's quick to ditch relationships and situations when things hit a rough patch. He does that with most situations, really. He's a mercenary, though he won't do anything he deems too evil, like kidnapping or murder. He's still willing to commit other crimes if they pay well. And given how useful his powers are, he makes sure to charge a lot for his services.

He's smart, charismatic, and able to analyze situations well. He's strategic. Which makes him dangerous. He has a competitive side, which can sometimes slip out on the field. If you're able to get him in the right mindset, you can get him to forget his carefully-crafted plans and possibly mess up.

Because he invested a lot of time in developing his powers, he's come up with a lot of strategies to fully exploit them. He knows his limits and potential well. He takes pride in his abilities and the need people have for them. So he gets jealous interacting with someone more powerful than him. His worst trait is that he'll try to one-up these people. In extreme cases, he might even try to sabotage them to bring them down. He's backstabbed some of his fellow mercs to ensure he comes out on top.

Part of this is a desire to be liked. He grew up in a very anti-mutant world, so he's used to being disliked for who he is. He secretly craves validation. Since he abandons people quickly, he struggles to form strong bonds. On the rare occasions he finds a serious relationship with someone, his jealousy and competitive often lead him to sabotaging anyone he sees as a threat to the relationship.

When he’s off-duty and walking around in his normal life, he takes on the persona of a shallow himbo. He speaks in a flighty tone, seemingly misses big social cues, and freely speaks his mind in a way that can inadvertently hurt someone's feelings. He's cultivated the image of a in idiot for his own gain. It's a persona that allows him to have fun and avoid showing his true self; someone who strives to be perfect and beloved. After all, it hurts when people reject the real you. But if they reject the mask you put on - the act that doesn't represent the real you - then there's no harm done.

TL;DR: He's smart and hot. He's flaky and possessive. But he's hot, so it's okay. He's a good guy. He's just not a nice guy.

Backstory

Rift is American. His mother immigrated from Ireland in the mid or late '80's. His dad was born in America, but I haven't decided where his family is from. I'm thinking Portuguese, just for some self-indulgence. But also because Marvel doesn't have any Portuguese heroes at the moment.

His powers activated when he was 14, and he would spend the next several years working on developing his powers. He'd frequently ditch school or home, due to anti-mutant sentiment held by the people around him. He ended up developing some prejudices towards humans.

He ended up making a business out of transporting people around. Think Uber, but faster and with more range. Once word of his powers got around, various organizations began to seek him out. Rift would eventually parlay into full freelance mercenary and spy work.

Here's my idea of how he fits into the Marvel universe. You can ignore this if you don’t follow X-Men continuity.

He was one of the mutants depowered by M-Day, but came to Krakoa and got resurrected to get this powers back. His natural prejudice towards humans made him predisposed to liking the nation, and he was willing to lend his services to X-Force in order to help mutants.

However, the Five were very hesitant to remove his secondary, eye-based mutation; one he always kept hidden out of resentment and disgust. Many other mutants insisted the should keep his extra eyes and take pride in being different. Empty platitudes that he found patronizing. So he left and continued his work as a freelancer.

He ended up coming across Orchis, who would hire him on to spy on Krakoans and allow them to move around the world without notice. Orchis is an organization made up of people from several groups (S.H.I.E.L.D., A.I.M., HYDRA, etc.) to deal with the threat of humans becoming extinct and supplanted by mutants.

While he knew they were anti-mutant, He was unaware just how anti-mutant they actually are. They paid well, so he could stand to put up with them if he got something out of it. And it put him in conflict with other mutants, so he'd always have the opportunity to test his powers.

Of course, come Fall of X, they inevitably betrayed him and every other mutant. He was on a mission to Arakko during the third Hellfire Gala, thus avoiding most of the chaos. Once he heard about how Orchis attacked Krakoa, he fled to deep space and stayed there for a few months.

After Fall of X, he returned to Earth. He hated humans even more after they supported Orchis’ anti-mutant tactics. But he also hated the X-Men, since they and the leaders of Krakoa let the only sanctuary for mutants fall.

Job

He's a "freelancer" (read: mercenary) who works with various groups. His official codename is Rift, but for various business-related reasons, he's also known by several aliases: Bluebird, Luscinia, Luzon, Cardinal, Ripple, and Thrush.

He'll use a different name to obscure his identity, or know what kind of group is hiring him. For example, one criminal organization calls him Cardinal. Anyone who calls him by that name is likely associated with that organization. The NYPD know him as Luscinia.

He has different ways for people to contact him, and the type of name they use for him tells him what kind of work they have in mind, or who's hiring him. The goal is to keep everything separate, & being able to filter what kind of job he chooses to accept. (It's actually a lot more complex than having different phone numbers, but I'm giving you the simplified take.)

He doesn't kill, and he avoids directly harming innocent people. Spying, stealing information and theft are okay though.

Portal Power

Rift’s main power is to create portals, which he uses to spy on others, transport people, smuggle things, or create diversions. He rarely fights people directly; instead, he uses his powers to mess with the field. When creating a portal, one will open up close to him, and will connect to a portal that will appear at his desired location. His range is about 15,000 km. He can't access other dimensions through his power, but he can teleport around a dimension he's currently in.

His powers require him to see a location in front of him, or to have been there before. Otherwise, his powers "guess" the location, and open a portal to a completely random location on the planet, usually within two thousand miles of his current location. His power is also location-based, not person-based; he can't specifically try to find a person unless he knows their exact location. So no thinking of Spider-Man and trying to catch him at home.

These portals, once opened, can exist independently of Rift. He usually wills them to close instantly after he uses them, and can choose for how long they remain open Otherwise, they close after about two minutes, regardless if they're used. The portals can be any size, as long as they fall under 24 feet in diameter; they can't grow beyond that to accommodate travel for larger opens or things. There are no limits as to how many people can go through.

The number of portals active depend on their size. So he can create a lot of small, hand-sized portals at once, but only two 12 foot portals. Distance has no affect on his ability to make portals, though firing off too many portals in rapid succession will tire him out.

A cool side-effect of his portals is they won't bring anyone to a place that's impossible to visit. You can't be brought to the inside of a solid object, or in an area too small for one to logically fit. The powers can drop you into the ocean, but they won't place you inside a whale or trap you halfway through a statue. Because of this limitation, Rift can't open up a portal inside your guts, or force you through a portal into a chest at the bottom of the sea.

Other Notable Techniques

Moo-neuver: He opens a portal and lets stampeding cattle run over his opponents.

Torrent: Opens a portal to somewhere in the ocean, shooting forth a torrent of water at a target.

Smokescreen: By opening a portal above a factory chimney, he blasts his opponent with smoke.

Perfect Aim: If he has a firearm, he can open up one portal at the top of his gun, and and another in front of the target. By sending the projectile through the portal, he’s almost guaranteed to hit his target and avoid anything getting in the crossfire.

Black Hole: A theory, one he hasn’t tested out. What happens if you open a portal inside another portal? Or if two portals open into each other? Can two locations exist in the same place, at the same time? This results in neutron degeneracy pressure, where the rifts collapse in on each other to create a black hole.

Scatter Slap: A secret technique he hasn’t discovered yet. He can touch something and open up countless tiny portals on a molecular level, getting in-between a person’s molecules/atoms/whatever the hell. This would let him instantly scatter someone or something across the world with his powers. Instant vaporization.

Secondary Mutation

He has another mutation: red eyes that grow on his arms. They're basically like tattoos, but become actual eyes when exposed to enough direct sunlight. The more sunlight his body gets, the more eyes appear. His skin will also turn red, and the eyes on his face will turn red, and gain black sclera. They can blink and look around independently, but he currently has no control over them, nor can he see through them. Without sunlight, he begins to revert to his usual state.

He's ashamed of this mutation, so he always covers up.

He doesn't know it, but should he let his second mutation run its course, he'll be able to see from all of these eyes at once. If someone makes eye contact with them, the eyes can temporarily "steal" their sight, giving Rift the ability to see through that person's eyes. Meanwhile, that person now sees from one of the eyes on Rift's body. It's a very disorienting power.

His primary power is about escaping and providing his own personal freedom. His secondary power is about trapping others and taking things away from them. I feel like it's a good metaphor for his personality: he's flexible and living his best life, but has a sinister, controlling side that even he isn't fully aware of.

Trivia

Time for some fun

He’s bisexual. He leans more towards women, romantically. He leans towards men, sexually.

Claims to be a top, since one-upping and dominating others is his thing. But he’s actually verse top.

Has used his powers during sex.

He’s definitely a dom in bed. Very kinky, very in control. But sometimes, with the right partner, he’s can turn into the biggest sub you can imagine.

He used to have casual sex with a human friend who admired his eye-based mutation. That something Rift hated about himself was beautiful to him. This friend took Mothervine to try and force a mutation in himself, but would end up dying from the result. As he was dying, Rift broke him out of the hospital so they could spend their final moments at their favorite beach.

Expert frotter.

He’s a quarter fairy. He has the potential to learn magic, but doesn’t know it. I like to imagine this magic would let him access Otherworld, or other dimensions.

#barannoying

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kingstylesdaily · 3 years

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What the 2021 Grammy Awards Will Look Like

Artists including Billie Eilish, BTS, and Taylor Swift will perform in a circle of five stages with masked crew at the center — in a ceremony that first-time showrunner Ben Winston calls “part Grammys, part Abbey Road studio session”

Ben Winston is exhausted. The television producer, who moved from the U.K. to Los Angeles six years ago to start The Late Late Show With James Corden, is a week away from executive-producing his first Grammys telecast. “I literally had two hours of sleep last night,” he tells Rolling Stone via Zoom.

On Sunday, March 7th, the Recording Academy revealed a slate of performing artists for March 14th’s 63rd Annual Grammy Awards that includes Billie Eilish, BTS, Taylor Swift, Cardi B, and Harry Styles. But while those names are on the lineup, Winston knows nothing about live TV is ever set in stone — especially in the time of a pandemic —so he’s been spending his days double- and triple-checking plans, waking up at 4:30 a.m. dry-eyed and restless. He’s worked to make a show “with heart,” he says — one that “doesn’t feel isolated, quiet, or alone.” He also had to take extra steps to ensure the three-and-a-half hour show, which will not take place at the Grammys’ usual home of the Staples Center, is Covid-safe for performers and attendees. Despite all that, he appears remarkably enthusiastic and alert.

Here’s what viewers next Sunday can expect from music’s biggest night, according to Winston: a multi-stage, audience-free show that highlights the year’s creative triumphs, social justice movements, as well as Covid-19’s impact on the arts. Winston hints at several “unbelievably powerful” performances on the slate, adding that the Grammys “absolutely are acknowledging what’s happened” in the country in the last year.

Winston, who in 2018 co-produced Bruno Mars’ well-received live show at the Apollo for CBS, also wanted to highlight independent venues, which are the “lifeblood of this industry” and a launchpad for emerging musicians — so the Grammys will feature guest spots from owners and workers of iconic American venues, including L.A.’s Troubadour and Hotel Café, N.Y.’s Apollo, and Nashville’s Station Inn. “I drive past the Troubadour on my way home from work every night,” Winston says. “It’s a significant thing for me when I look at it all boarded up. I always think, ‘When those boards come down, this will be over.’ That will be the sign. That will be the day where it’s like, ‘We got through this.'” Winston realized from his conversations with venues that many of them put on their last shows on March 14th, 2020, meaning the Grammys will mark the one-year anniversary of the shutdown.

Employees will come on camera to “tell us a little bit about their venue” and present some of the awards. “So, you’ve got, like, a bartender at a beautiful, independent venue — and she’s giving out Album of the Year to these megastars,” he explains. His goal is to acknowledge the people who work tirelessly to keep these stomping grounds afloat and have recently lost their jobs. “Those venues are made up by the bartender and the security guard, the manager, the box office person, and the cleaner at the end of the night.” He hopes to remind people of the importance of supporting local venues again when it’s safe to do so.

Originally, the Grammys were scheduled for January 31st, but organizers announced a move to March right after the new year. Winston says he felt American morale was at a low point in January — between political insurrection, an impeachment trial, and Covid-19 running rampant in Los Angeles — and it “didn’t feel right” to put the show on in the middle of that. The Recording Academy and CBS, which exclusively airs the annual show, both supported his decision to postpone. “I can now do everything that I wanted to do in my best-case scenario for this year,” he says of Sunday’s show.

Sunday’s location is an undisclosed building in Los Angeles, but Winston teases that the new venue is “massive,” “magical,” and “the biggest building I’ve ever been in indoors.” “I don’t want it to look like I’m criticizing Staples, because it’s the most amazing venue,” he emphasizes, sharing that he’s open to bringing the Grammys back to the arena in the future if they ask him to. While he does believe that Staples is a safe place, he says he wanted to go above and beyond to make even the most-skeptical participants feel undoubtedly safe.

A team of Covid safety officers oversaw the production set-up, and artists will enter the stage from different directions to minimize contact. Each artist also has their own backstage area. The space “allowed us to build an entire world,” he says.

The show will involve five stages of the same size and shape, four of which are for performances and one of which is for presenters. Stages are organized in a circle, facing one another, and crew members will work from the middle of the set. “People will perform while the other three or four artists on their stages watch, applaud, and enjoy. As soon as that one finishes, the next one goes, the next one goes, and the next one goes. Every 45 minutes, you change out those stages, and you bring another four megastars into the room,” says Winston, who was partly inspired for the “part-Grammys, part-Abbey Road studio session” setup by British shows he watched as a child, including Jools Holland and TFI Friday.

It’s going to be a “bespoke night of music that I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to repeat,” Winston says. “It’s about taking a camera into a room, and making an amazing musical moment by filming it quite simply and elegantly.” Performances, which started being planned in April 2020, will be a mix of live and pre-recorded — a fully live show would involve too many crew members moving sets and risking close contact — but the whole thing is intended to feel completely live. (Winston challenges viewers to try and guess which sets are pre-recorded; he designed them to be difficult to tell.)

To help plan the sprawling, immersive show, Winston brought in a suite of collaborators including co-executive producer Jesse Collins, who produced The Weeknd’s Super Bowl halftime show; co-executive producer Raj Kapoor, who handled creative direction for various artists on the last seven Grammys and produced Vegas residencies for the likes of the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey; producer Fatima Robinson, whose expansive background in creative direction and choreography landed her the Black Eyed Peas’ 2011 halftime show and Kendrick Lamar’s 2016 Grammy performance; producer Misty Buckley, who handled production design for Kacey Musgraves’ 2020 Christmas show; talent executive Patrick Menton from Dick Clark Productions; Corden collaborator Josie Cliff; and Super Bowl halftime, Olympic ceremony, Oscars, and Emmys director Hamish Hamilton, who Winston describes as a “legend” he’s admired since he was 14 years old. (David Wild, who has written for the Grammys since 2001 and became a producer in 2016, is the only person returning to his role.) Winston also points out that artists were heavily involved in designing their own performances.

Rather than have cameras pan over empty seats and an awkwardly small stage, the production team decided to reinvent the visual format with the five-stage setup. The pandemic’s limitations, coupled with the advantages of new faces coming in with fresh perspectives, helped them refrain from thinking in terms of what the Grammys had done before, he said.

For the most part, Covid-19 didn’t force too many changes. It did give Winston a lot of anxiety.

“There’s been so much uncertainty with what you’re allowed to do,” he says. Changing international quarantine rules made him question whether certain performers could fly in, while health guidance keeps fluctuating: “Every time my computer or phone dings, my first instinct is, ‘Oh, God, what’s gone wrong?’ I don’t know if that’s ever been my mentality before.”

While all the performers are confirmed and currently Covid-free, ��you never know, one of their girlfriends could have Covid and have to quarantine, it’s all just bonkers,” Winston says. “There’s one artist that may, in the end, not be able to make it here due to rules of the country they’re currently in. There’s one immigration issue that we’ve got left.”

The show does not have replacements on hand if anyone pulls out — it’ll just cut that performance out.

Above all, Winston wants the 2021 Grammys to focus attention off of dire times. “I want people to be able to watch the 2021 Grammys in 2040 and go, ‘Wow, what an amazing show that was,’ and not go, ‘Oh, that was the Covid year, that’s why they had to do that,'” he says. “I think that’s what we could achieve if we get it right on Sunday.”

via RollingStone.com

#kingstylesdaily #Harry Styles #hs: grammys 2021 #March 2021

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whump-town · 3 years

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In With The New, Out With The Old

Hotch packing Jack up for college

None of it feels real.

For two years after he and Haley divorced he lived in an apartment of boxes. It was some sort of punishment he created for himself while also creating a dissonance he could be lost in -- that he didn’t need to unpack just in case. He had his suits in the closet, his work would not take the fall for his personal life’s failings. The coffee maker sat on the counter, one of the only appliances hooked into a light socket. The necessities followed -- two mugs for coffee, a glass tumbler for the whiskey sitting on the counter, and one plate for when he ordered take-out he couldn’t just eat out of the box.

It had taken him months to buy a mattress, he was perfectly miserable sleeping on the couch. He had only taken Jack to the apartment once, needing to switch into more park-appropriate clothing. Between them, he and Haley agreed that the best thing for Jack was consistency so he would spend all day with Hotch but he would always go home to Haley. He knew this could be used against him in court, Haley could take Jack from his so easily it terrified him but he also knew he’d let her. He was more powerful, he had more strings to pull and more people on his side but the thought of getting on the stand and having his friends call her a bad mother made him feel even worse. So he knew that if it came down to it, he would let Haley have Jack rather put either of them that sort of grueling case.

This was a shared thought between them. Both are aware of the other’s power over the other. Neither will act on their own.

He had only bought a mattress because of New York. Limping home he’d sunk down into his old faithful couch only to wake up the next morning with achingly stiff sutures in his leg and his face stuck to a throw pillow, the blood drying like glue. He had to call Emily and Derek that afternoon. Unable to drive himself with his concussion and consequential blurred vision Emily had come over to pick him up, never said a word about what he’d been sleeping on in the months before. Neither did Derek when Hotch got too dizzy coming up the stairs, the stitches in his leg bleeding through his jeans and so pale Emily had to hold him upright to get him to the bench in the lobby. He was left there, listening to Derek and Emily bicker their way into forcing the mattress into the apartment through the pounding sound of blood rushing in his ears.

That was years ago and yet they’ve created its mirror image once again in his living room.

All of Jack’s belongings in boxes spread out in every room of the house. Packing up to leave.

“Art?” Emily mumbles disapprovingly. She’s knelt down in front of Jack’s bookshelf, dismantling the organized shelves to pack them into boxes. It’s a different method than the one that Hotch uses. Jack has them categorized by author and general theme and as Emily takes down all the books she’s gotten him about cults and psychology and crime she can’t help but feel a little cheated. Jack knows all about crime. He’s had Macdonald’s Triad memorized since he was five -- could give that method of thought its critical analysis as not a precursor to antisocial or serial killer behavior but more as a demonstration of a child’s poor coping skills or as the indicator of a dysfunctional home environment. He’s a well of information about cults, knows the “B.I.T.E.” system.

And he’s throwing all that away because Hotch took him to too many museums as a child?

Jack doesn’t say anything when he hears her grumble about art again, he’s had this conversation so many times. He knows she’s not really mad and she’s not even that irked but she needs to do something with the feelings she has about him leaving and this is just the best way she’s come up with. Better than crying -- which she’s also done far too much of.

“I think art is a great idea, kid.” Derek teases his hair as he passes, sweaty and hot from dragging Jack’s belongings around the place.

Hotch works slowly where he’s been assigned. They all work around him. He’s more freelance than the others. His job is to do what he can and leave the rest for someone else. Today his physical capabilities are not in the way. Derek does all the heavy lifting that Hotch knows is supposed to be assigned to him, it’s his duty as the father of the freshman moving away. He finds himself in the living room, one of Haley’s old photo albums on his lap. Thumbing pictures he can remember going with Haley to print. Pictures he can remember being in. Ones that he took.

He’s crying again.

Emily comes out with a box of books on her hip, having figured out the perfect ratio of books to box to prevent them from falling out the bottom. She sees Hotch wiping his face with a tissue, hiding away but unable to fully pull away right now. The hurt raw. The fear is too much.

The second that Hotch got the chance he left home and never came back. Over the years he returned to his hometown only when he had to -- when Haley’s parents couldn’t be convinced to come to see them. It didn’t matter how down bad he was, Hotch did it on his own. When his mother died when he was thirty he’d talked to her only once since moving out. Then it had only been for the benefit of Sean, who he had driven all the back to Virginia to collect and drove to college.

He fears Jack will do the same and it terrifies him in so many ways.

His own death will come quickly, he knows he’s only made it this long because he’s not alone. Without Jack, there’s no reason to keep going on, not with the way his body aches from years of abuse and neglect. More than that, he knows what growing up that fast did to him. As a child, the things that happen to you are out of your control. Children are sponges, not yet able to take control and mold themselves. So their reactions to abuse and neglect and even just trivial everyday things are but a reaction they are taught to form or never corrected on. But Hotch never corrected his behaviors as a young adult. He couldn’t bring himself to trust anyone, not at twenty, or thirty, and still at forty.

He spent his twentieth birthday on the side of the highway in a broken down car freezing his ass off with negative twenty-three cents in his bank account. No one to call because he couldn’t bring himself to believe anyone would come -- but Haley would have, or Jessica, or the sociology professor who gave him his number for emergencies or “just anything you can think of, just in case you need me”.

He doesn’t wish anything like that on Jack.

The cycle of self-destruction and fear and loathing.

But Jack knows how to form healthy relationships with people. He’s more worried about Hotch.

The car ride is nearly silent.

Jack cranks his window down and lays his head on the seal, lets the wind blow his hair back from his skin, and closes his eyes. There’s no air conditioning but it’s not that bad. The air has cooled off, the thunderstorms taking over the area sucking the humidity from the air as the wind picks up. It’ll get bad again in a day or so but today is nice and Jack wants to enjoy it. To sit contently with his dad and just try to soak it in before he’s thrown into the world of college.

Emily had promised him several times she’d make sure that Hotch didn’t turn himself into a hermit. Jack has grown up watching those two spar off so he knows she’s perfectly capable of getting Hotch out of the house. More than that, Jack knows he’s just going to miss his dad.

“Please--” Jack’s in the middle of trying to reorganize his stuff when he sees Hotch come in with one of the big boxes, one of the heavy ones. “Dad!” Jack takes it from him, not listening to Hotch’s complaint about being able to carry a few boxes. That he won’t break that easily. “Please, just leave the heavy stuff to Emily and Derek. Help me put my clothes away? Please?”

He nearly cries again folding Jack’s t-shirts away. Once upon a time, Jack’s shirts were about the size of his hand. Tiny delicate little things about the size of rags. Now he’s wearing the same size as Hotch, a grown man standing there racing to beat Emily to the heavy stuff because he doesn’t want her lifting it all either.

“Well,” Derek announces, setting the minifridge down, “that’s the last of it.”

Emily offers Hotch her hand and he takes it, grunting as he moves his body back upright.

“Well,” he declares, looking around the room. “We’ll leave you to it. Let you get everything sorted out how you like.” Hotch smiles and Emily and Derek step in to take their hugs, imparting half-wise ideas and a no-questions-asked ride home from anywhere.

“I love you,” Hotch says, he’s quick because he knows he can’t keep his composure if he stays here for too much longer. “I’ll send you care packages, you’ll just have to text me if you think of something I don’t send.”

Jack nods, pretending to make himself busy putting away the rest of his clothes. Trying to downplay his own feelings.

“Ok.”

Hotch nods and they leave, he doesn’t want to make a scene. They’ve hugged and Jack needs to unpack. He’s done. He’s only two doors away when he hears Jack’s door gets thrown open.

“Dad!” Hotch turns and stumbles, an armful of the little boy who was once the size of his forearm. He squeezes Jack tight, laughing through his tears when Jack holds on. “I love you too.”

Hotch holds him for a solid minute, just balanced there with his hand on the back of Jack’s head. “Alright,” he whispers. He sniffles a little, smiling as he cups Jack’s cheek wiping away a tear with his thumb. “I’m just a phone call away, okay? Any time of the night, you know where I am. You’ll be fine. You’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to fail tests and cry over boys and drink too much but you’ll be okay. And-- And if you’re not…”

Jack nods, smiling as he says, “I’ll call Emily.”

Hotch smirks, “well.. After a certain hour, yeah I suppose you’ll have to but yeah. Just call, okay?”

“I’ll call.”

Hotch nods and he has to force himself to let go and walk away. To let Jack do this.

They’re halfway down the hall, far enough away now that Jack won’t see or hear when Hotch starts to cry. He forces himself to keep going. Not to look back. Emily takes his hand, squeezes his fingers and he looks over at her tears in his eyes, and tries to smile.

Emily drives his truck home, she plans on feeding him chocolate and ice cream, and wine this afternoon to improve his mood. He gets a text and he smirks, he actually laughs.

“Let me know when you get home, old man. Tell Emily not to keep you out too late.”

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #jack hotchner #emily prentiss #derek morgan #criminal minds fanfiction

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pangtasias-atelier · 3 years

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Taking it Natural

Well I can never fully stick to an outline lmao. But, I did manage a lil fic involving just some simple stuff between Cormag and Artur.

Kink stuff is more on the lesser end, cause I wanted to focus a bit more on dialogue and also wanted to write something on the smaller scale of sizes. Also was just fun to write a shorter, simpler story and also one not set in Askr which I need to do more lol

"I am perfectly fine doing the dishes," Artur lightly hums to himself. He scrubs away at the bits and remnants of the day's finished meal. A few pots and pans already on the drying rack alongside the ladles, said dishes preemptively cleaned before dinner had even been eaten, he washes the clutter of used dinnerware. His back facing Cormag, his partner currently sits at the couch.

"I'll go check on Genarog then," His voice comes out strained. Completely leaning against the couch, Cormag's stomach continues its prolonged harassment towards its owner. His stomach is a cacophony of churning and gurgling noises, the overworked, stuffed gut letting it's discomfort be known. Despite his declaration of performing a chore, he simply remains seated with his head leaning back. His lips are parted as he languidly recovers enough energy to catch his breath.

"I already fed him and made sure he's comfortable in his stable," Arthur places a plate on the drying rack beside the just washed cutlery and glassware. His still soapy hands reach for the next plate to scrub at.

"Ah," Cormag's strenuous breathing remains the same. He keeps his eyes closed as a way to block out any possible external discomfort besides his tumultuous tummy. "Then I'll…" Cormag trails off with a groan. A few extra pants and wheezes come out as his gut seems to give him an extra angry complaint. "Then I'll-"

"You can wait on the couch. I am fine, Cormag," The last plate cleaned and set aside to dry, he dries his hands on a dish towel, the damp cloth adorned with miniature wyverns. Turning around, he smiles as he gets an eyeful of Cormag's sorry stuffed state.

Cormag retiring from being a soldier, he had instead taken up woodworking once he and Artur decided to live together. His new line of work requiring a different, less intensive set of skills, the sudden change of constant routines and fighting to meticulous, long periods of time sitting while carving was a sudden change for his metabolism and appetite. The lack of much activity affecting his physique was only compounded by Artur's task of taking care of the house's chores. Cormag had already been aware of Artur's proficiency in the culinary arts through their occasional picnics back when the two had first begun a relationship, yet the latter's constant practice through cooking everyday left his prowess in the kitchen to something to truly be proud of. Cormag having a generous fill of food every meal of the day, his indulgence of Artur's cooking hadn't moved quite past an extra helping or two every go around. Although, even those generous extra helpings helped plump and widen his waistline to a body type rather past stocky and into fat guy territory.

Clothes upsized just as his body upsized, his maroon t-shirt does a sufficient job in covering Cormag’s sun kissed skin. His compact yet soft pile of squishy fat for a stomach curves outwards as it ever so gently slots itself on top of his doughy thighs. Pressed up against his shirt, the malleable tummy barely covers any of Cormag’s lap, enough space for Artur to be comfortably seated atop him still. The two fleshy legs seem even wider as he sits, the bunched up fat splaying a slightly extra amount from resting on the couch. Cormag’s pants do their best in perfectly covering the two, the waistband even widened as well to not uncomfortably squish against Cormag’s hips. The center of his gut juts out more than his squeezable love handles, Cormag’s rotundness more pronounced. The stuffed mass seems to taunt Artur, his eyes finding themselves often drifting back towards the perfectly rubbably surface. Cormag’s sizable chest makes itself comfortable on top of his stomach, the handful of breasts splaying a bit to the side from the accumulation of fat. His pronounced chest only helps make Cormag seem extra wide, Artur always feeling rather twiggish next to his plump teddy bear of a husband. Though the lightly tanned moobs are offered enough room from Cormag’s spacious shirt to not be so confined and pressed up against the fabric. Cormag’s biceps are no more, the somewhat, albeit nicely, defined biceps coated in a plush, warm layer of fat. The plump appendaged perfect for a nice, crushing yet comforting hug, Cormag’s arms had always been a secret favorite of Artur’s. Cormag rests his arms on the cushiony back pillows, the bottom heft of his arms squishing ever so slightly against the surface. His face at the very center of his arm span, Artur can only see the fleshy double chin connected to Cormag’s lovably wonderful kissable face. Though he can very much hear his love’s taxed breathing even over the angered grumbling coming from his gut.

“Oh, Artur,” Cormag’s arms wobble for a few moments; the two doughy appendages struggle as he tries to push himself up despite his body’s protests. “Give me, hah, a minute,” His rotund body expands with each great, deep breath he takes.

“No worries,” Artur sits himself beside Cormag. His lap calling to him, he’d feel like a monster causing him anymore discomfort. “I’ll wait beside you,” Artur pats Cormag’s thigh.

“Heh,” Cormag lets out a small chuckle, the only response he can give before he has to take a few more breaths to help relieve the heavy pit of pain resting in his gut. “I really ate like a pig,”

The faint warm onset of a blush on Artur’s face blossoms on his face, the healer always getting a tinge of embarrassment whenever Cormag even offhandedly mentions his size or eating habits. “Perhaps. But, I should learn to stop cooking so much. I just think of something nice for us to share and so I kinda just make it,” Artur tosses a noncommittal shrug at the end, a few awkward laughs thrown in as well as if he hadn’t confessed his unique admiration in the way Cormag’s body plumped out. A few extra pounds looking rather dashing on his tall figure which would only look more handsome if those few extra pounds swelled into a dozen or perhaps even a hundred before Cormag was resting at a sizable 300 pounder of a man.

“Maybe. Guess we both should learn some restraint,”

“Perhaps,,,” Artur nearly reaches for Cormag’s aching gut to soothe the beast before thinking better of it. “I have a salve that should help,” Without waiting for any confirmation, Artur goes to the closet full of his supplies. Herbs able to help cure maladies unlike staves, he rummages through the several jars and boxes he has. Though only Artur would consider his neat, organized setup a mess requiring rummaging, Lute always interested in his tidy organizational skill. Having fetched the ointment, he stands in front of the seated Cormag. “This has to go directly on your skin,” He tosses the lower hem of Cormag’s shirt up. Applying a dollop of the ointment on his hands, he wastes no time in getting them all over Cormag’s stomach.

“You’ve never needed an excuse to do this stuff before,” The salve immediately begins to work its magic on Cormag. His labored breathing slowly begins to take on a more natural pace and the evident discomfort on his face washes away. “You sure do know your way around there,” Cormag even shifts around on the couch, his stomach no longer threatening to self-destruct from the slightest jostle.

Artur drops his head in mirthful laughter, Cormag’s surprising silly teasing always getting to him. “I have rubbed your stomach how many times, Cormag?” His hands drift on over to Cormag’s love handles. Standing above Cormag, he grabs on to the chunky handles as he leans down for a kiss.

“Not enough, knowing you,” Cormag whispers as they part.

“Then you truly do know me,” Artur retorts. Cormag’s stomach is no longer a ticking time bomb, so he figures it’d be fine to sit in his favorite spot. He gently lowers himself down onto Cormag’s lap. His soft squishy, tummy rests comfortably against his back.

“If you had this kind of stuff laying around, why use it only now?”

“Well- I,,,” Artur considers his next words for a moment. “I felt bad with how much I stuffed you tonight. I may have gone overboard so-”

Cormag promptly cuts him off with a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t force me to do anything. You’re cooking is great. I tell all my clients about your cooking. They kept hounding me about your recipe for those cookies you always make to butter them up,”

“Ah,” Artur turns bright red as he recalls the high praises from all of Cormag’s clients, a few even inadvertently referring to Cormag’s weight upon said praises. “Well, I also didn’t use this because I didn’t want you to feel like I only cared about stuffing you and getting you fatter,”

“I’m gonna have to get up for this one,” Rising up, Cormag makes sure to help Artur up first. “Look at me,” He grabs Artur’s shoulders. Artur shorter by a few inches, he feels miniscule right now. “If I ever have any problems with my weight, you are going to be the first person I tell. We’ve known each other for years before I started gaining weight,” Cormag brings Artur to him, wrapping him in a bear hug. Artur’s arms are ensnared by Cormag’s own doughy arms. Though he knows his arms wouldn’t be able to wrap around him regardless. His feet rise off a few inches from the ground as Cormag holds on to him. Cormag begins to chuckle, his heart always aflutter with Artur in his arms. The ring of laughter catches onto Artur, the two laughing together. They remain like so for a few minutes, neither speaking.

Eventually, Cormag lets Arthur back down. A hefty sigh escapes his lips from the minimal amount of activity. “And if you ever have any problems with my weight, then let me know,” Cormag holds onto Artur’s hands, rubbing the palm of them with his thumb.

“Of course. But I don’t think I could ever have a problem having such a handsome husband.”

“Unfortunately for you, my husband is more handsome than yours,” Artur snorts from Cormag’s reply. His hands find their way to Cormag’s arm for a light slap.

“I guess you win then. But, thank you. Neither of us have done this, so I wanted to make sure we’re going at a natural pace for the both of us,”

“Taking it nice and slow is my preference. Enjoying the travel is just as important as the destination or however you say it,” An idea sparking in his brain, Cormag devilishly grins, his plump cheeks dimpling. “Let’s enjoy the scenic route some more,” Cormag leans slightly down. He gently whispers in Artur’s ears before resting his lips on his partner’s.

Artur grinning, he merely murmurs in hushed agreement as Cormag kisses him, the crackle of joy feeling just as natural as their first kiss, the two ready to indeed enjoy Cormag’s current size and take things naturally, wherever it might lead.

#Cormag is kinda hard to write but I hope this is somewhat close #I just imagine him eing actually kinda dorkish with someone he's comfortable lol #my writing #fat fiction #fat!Cormag #fat!Sacred Stones #maleweightgain #male weight gain

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willowbird · 3 years

Note

3! 4! 7! (for the prompts yo) .... oh. and. kandreil. (duh)

Be GAY do CRIME, on a violently orange yacht. Oh, and they kiss for the FIRST TIME 😘 For Kandreil!

This is my first Intentional Kandreil y'all (as opposed to like.. the three Accidental Kandreil I've done so far), I hope I don't fuck it up for you XD

----

"Kevin I swear if you peak I am going to go leak those photos of you from last Halloween."

Kevin snorted at Neil's empty threat, though he dutifully kept his eyes closed, letting Andrew tug him out of the car and lead him down what felt like a wooden walkway. A deck, maybe. Or a pier, Kevin thought as he registered the smell and sound of water, the squawking of gulls above and around them.

"Even if you did, no one would believe they were real."

"I'd leak them right to the Trojans." The laughter in Neil's voice warmed something right in the center of Kevin's chest. It wasn't so long ago that Neil was so... terrifyingly cold. He'd joined them as a rebellion against his father, the bogeyman of the east coast and loyal lapdog to the Ravens - who were the direct rivals to Kevin's much smaller, much wilder group of Foxes. But whereas the Ravens were a legit syndicate that dealt with such things like human trafficking and heavy drugs, the Foxes were a group of barely-organized criminals that mostly just liked to say 'fuck you' to the laws they didn't agree with.

The problem? The laws the Foxes didn't agree with tended to be the ones that directly benefitted the Ravens' front businesses. After all, the Ravens controlled several of the biggest corporations in the country, and they were regularly stepping all over average folks, ruining their lives.

Every member of the Foxes had, in some way, been hurt by the Ravens. They were all determined to get back at them in whatever ways possible. Sometimes that meant framing their executives for fraud. Sometimes that meant blowing up a few buildings. They were a multi-talented group.

The Trojans were a similar group of not-quite-but-still-criminals based on the west coast, and they'd combined forces a few times by now. They also were pros at anything that had to do with the internet. If Neil wanted to make something go viral, the Trojans were definitely the place to go to.

"Jeremy would never help you soil my good name."

"Jeremy would think it is hilarious, do not fool yourself, Day." Andrew's tone was dry and deceptively uninterested, but Kevin knew him well enough by now to hear the amusement hidden between the carefully articulated syllables.

Kevin rolled his eyes while still keeping them dutifully closed. He didn't bother to hide his smile though, knowing the other two would see it and not really caring that they would. It was kind of strange to think of, honestly - that he was here, comfortable being led around with his eyes closed, smiling without care. It was because of these two men, and that... that warmed something inside him. Made it glow. Made it blossom. Made it live.

"Okay, alright. Kevin, you may open your eyes." Neil's grin was audible in his voice, and it was the first thing that Kevin saw when he opened his eyes.

The second thing he saw, though, was the absolutely impossible-to-ignore explosion of orange directly behind him.

"What the actual fuck?" Kevin half-spluttered, but he was grinning, too. He could feel it. One did not look at a violently orange yacht and not grin. He laughed. "This is my surprise? You saw an orange yacht in the marina and had to show... me..." His voice drifted off, distracted and confused as he saw the name of the boat in sharp white script along the side.

The Brightest Day

"Neil?" Kevin blinked, and something giddy bubbled up right below his throat, catching and fizzing. He had to swallow it down, and it took effort to do so, especially as he saw the warm, pleased look on Neil's face, then turned to see a similar expression on Andrew's.

To see a similar expression on Andrew's face.

Kevin stared, because Andrew... Andrew wasn't one to emote. Even when it was just two of them, or the three of them. Even after all they'd been through. Kevin and Neil had learned to find the truths hidden behind his sturdy walls, to accept what Andrew was willing to give them when and however that may be.

And here was Andrew, in the open, looking at him with an almost-smile on his face and an expression in those natures-gold eyes that was unmistakably fond.

Kevin had to take a breath, and he wasn't at all surprised to feel it shake. Rough, strong fingers slipped between his own and Kevin looked over to see Neil's expression had shifted to understanding. If anyone would ever know what Kevin was feeling, how he was feeling it, at any given time, it was Neil. They were so similar in the way they processed the world, and how they appreciated the small gifts they were granted in a life that had been too dark and too unforgiving for far too long.

Andrew's smile was one of those gifts. Arguably, it was the grandest of all.

"Come on you idiots," Andrew sighed as he turned to walk up the short ramp already positioned to bring them onto the boat.

Without further word, and without unlacing their fingers from each other, Kevin and Neil followed Andrew up the ramp and onto the yacht. Something struck Kevin as inexplicably right about that. After all - no matter where any one of them went, the other two were sure to follow, hand in hand.

And when they needed to face a challenge they would face it hand in hand in hand.

"I don't understand," Kevin finally said as Andrew lead them across the deck. "The Foxes don't have the resource to --"

"It did not come out of the Foxes' coffers," Andrew cut him off. He nodded to the menace still holding Kevin's hand. "It came out of Neil's."

Kevin turned to Neil, staring at him in open shock. "You bought the Foxes a boat?"

Neil snorted. "No. I bought you a boat." He paused, then looked from Kevin to Andrew and something passed between them. Some kind of understanding, or agreement. Andrew stepped away from where he'd been about to lead them to the interior of the boat, instead joining the two of them. Once he had, Neil looked back at Kevin and said, "I bought us a boat."

It took a moment. Kevin wasn't stupid, but he also had never expected... This thing, this connection or relationship or whatever that was between the three of them - Kevin wasn't sure it would ever be defined and he had come to terms with that months ago. If they went on forever just being Kevin and Andrew and Neil, just as they were right now with no changes - he would be okay with that. As long as he always had these two men in his life, everything else, he decided, would work itself out.

"Us," Kevin said slowly, testing the word, making sure it really meant what he thought it meant.

"Yes," Andrew said. "Us."

And that... that was really all that needed to be said, wasn't it? At least he thought so, up until Neil tugged on his hand, bringing him a bit closer to the both of them, and said, "Kevin, can I kiss you?"

"Yes!" The word burst out before Kevin really made the decision to answer or even necessarily registered the question. A soft huff came from Andrew that might have been a laugh, but Kevin wasn't able to fully catch it when Neil was already pulling him down.

Neil smiled into the kiss. He kissed him slowly, with a graze of teeth and a hum of adventure. He kissed him like it was just the beginning. He kissed him like he knew it was a first kissed but by far would not be the last. Confident, pleased, satisfied.

Blood was pounding in Kevin's ears so hard he could taste the tremble of his own heart on the tip of his tongue, and when the kiss broke he gasped, already leaning in for more. This time, Neil was not the only one smiling.

By the time the kiss ended, they were no longer holding hands. Instead, Kevin had an arm wrapped around Neil's shoulders, keeping him tugged as close as possible, the other hand resting on the side of his neck. Neil was similarly wrapped around his waist and he was still smiling. Kevin rested his forehead against Neil's, then turned to look at Andrew to find the other man was watching them with heat and affection burning in his eyes.

"Andrew," Kevin said, and his voice rasped. He didn't say the words, but only because he was too high on Neil's fire to put the syllables together right now.

Andrew answered anyway, because he knew Kevin well enough to know exactly what question he was trying to ask.

"Yes," he said. And if Neil's kiss was fire and satisfaction, Andrew's was the ocean and determination. Andrew kissed him like he was going to carve his intentions on his bones. He kissed like he was going to take Kevin apart one sigh and tough at a time and Kevin melted into it, more than happy to yield to the power of that kiss. Anyone who lives near the sea would tell you the same - you don't fight the waves, you let them carry you - and that was exactly what Kevin did.

Neil's hand was stroking up and down his spine. Andrew's was cupped around the back of his neck. When the kiss broke, that hand squeezed firmly, then pulled him just a bit further down so Andrew could place one more kiss on his forehead before he turned to Neil.

Something perfect and delicate and yet, at the same time, positively indestructible filled Kevin up to the brim as he watched the way Andrew cupped Neil's face, the way Neil leaning into that touch, the way fire and ocean wave met in a promise while still in the circle of Kevin's arms. And finally, finally, Kevin had a word for it - for the feeling he got when he was with these two beautiful, thrilling, amazing men.

And it was, quite simply, home.

#asks #aftg #aftg prompts #kandreil #kevin day #neil josten #andrew minyard #first kiss #they are IN LOVE #zan my dear this is for you #i hope you like it <3

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joezworld · 3 years

Note

What is the status of vehicle rights in places like China or Russia, with rather patchy (at best) human rights records? What was it like in the USSR, Nazi Germany, or the Empire of Japan? And did Mussolini ever get his locomotives to run completely on time?

Strangely enough, it was a lot better in those countries for at least a while.

To start, check out this post that goes into a little detail.

So, this post is going to not mention the United States or Canada - I’ve done posts on them before.

Interestingly, three of the greatest proponents of locomotive rights in Europe came from people with some of the worst human rights records in modern history: Hitler, Stalin, and King Leopold II.

Belgium has a long history of locomotive rights, stretching back to within 20 years of the introduction of the railway in the country. During the first days of the reign of Leopold II, the king declared that locomotives and other railway equipment were to be considered “on the same level as any Belgian citizen”. Official government histories say that this was because of the king’s desire not allow slavery to happen on Belgian soil, but the existence of the very inappropriately named Congo Free State puts this answer in a very bad light. The generally accepted unofficial answer is much, much funnier - Leopold II was born after the first railways were laid in the country, and as the future king, he was kept well appraised of any new technologies in the country. He also had many, many, many, mistresses. In case you can’t tell where this is going, it is entirely likely that several of his more private extramarital affairs were with locomotives owned by the Belgian state rail company. Locomotives were at the time viewed as little more than beasts of burden, and while Leopold was more than willing to commit heinous atrocities upon the Africans, he was not about to stand here in his own country and get called an enjoyer of bestiality - so he made locomotives people in order to get ahead of his critics should an affair be made public. This had the interesting side effect of making Belgium one of the more progressive countries in Europe as far as locomotive rights went, and Belgian locomotives were very dedicated citizens often serving in civil and military leadership positions around the country. During the first world war, Belgian locomotives actively resisted the Germans for the entirety of the invasion, and a not-insignificant percentage of German locomotives brought in to manage the chaos were brought over to the Belgian side by promises of citizenship.

-----------

This did not go unnoticed by other, much worse European leaders such as Adolf Hitler, who understood the value of a functioning rail network as far as war logistics went, and made significant strides in offering French/Dutch/Polish/Russian/Norwegian/Italian/Etc. engines Nazi citizenship if they served the Reich. Unfortunately for Hitler, Nazis are terrible people who lead out fear, and many of the locomotives who did sign up for this did so because they wanted to Not Die, not because they supported the cause. As a result, large portions of the Reichsbahn rolling stock fleet just ran away or defected as soon as the Allies started getting near, causing serious supply issues that hastened the downfall of the German war effort.

Also, because I know someone is going to ask about it, yes, those trains still ran. Please don’t ask me to elaborate beyond what’s here.

Because locomotives would see what was going on and objected, the Reichsbahn very quickly began staffing those trains with engines that were True Believers, or (even worse) Jewish engines. (Those usually made one way trips, and it’s just as bad as you might think.)

Following the war, many locomotives who had been cleared of any collaboration charges still possessed their Nazi-Era citizenship, and tried to get them turned into citizenship of their home countries. Most places said no (except Belgium) and were promptly glared at by the American service-engines who were rebuilding their countries from the ground up, and then agreed.

The impact on European Locomotive Rights by the Americans cannot be understated. Most European governments were totally prepared to resume the status quo if it wasn’t for the Americans rolling around with their US Citizen status on full display. This is also another reason why England is such a laggard in Locomotive Rights - the country was not as heavily destroyed as continental Europe, and was able to rebuild itself without US "interference".

----------------

Stalin also was a firm believer in Locomotive Rights, for many of the same reasons as Hitler was - locomotives have the ability to bring your country to a halt, so you’d better have them on your side. He’d made attempts to make locomotives citizens before the war, but the Soviet efforts really came into their own during the 1950s - Stalin’s purges had removed a lot of humans from existence, and most locomotives at that point had been built by the USSR in the USSR, and therefore had no concept of ‘Disloyalty to The State", so they were natural fits for many roles within the Soviet government. At one point in 1982, the USSR’s Ministry of Transport was staffed only by vehicles, with no humans present whatsoever. The total integration of vehicles into the USSR reached its zenith in the late 70s, when new buildings were required to have elevators capable of lifting locomotives and other extremely heavy vehicles to at least the third floor - this requirement has remained even to this day, and most eastern European residential structures have the structural strength of a nuclear bomb shelter as a result.

It should be pointed out that while the USSR might have treated locomotives well, it was still an authoritarian dystopia, and nothing here is an endorsement for the country or its actions/politics.

Following the dissolution of the USSR, the hypercapitalist state of the former Eastern Bloc meant that anything and everything was up for sale, including people and machines. One enterprising locomotive used his newfound wealth to create a formidable trade union/gang that covers most of the former USSR to this day. This organization is the primary driver of locomotive rights laws in the former Soviet Bloc, but it should be noted that a lot of the pushback against locomotive rights comes from politicians trying to shut them down specifically.

---------------

Japan is... weird. Locomotives have been fully adopted into their society for generations, and there was no loss or gain of rights during the Second World War, as they were already in place. Let me explain why:

Due to Japan's Shinto influence, locomotives were considered to be basically human from their inception on the island - the first law specifically related to locomotives in the world was an edict issued by the Emperor in regards to the three locomotives imported by English and European engineers for use on the upcoming Shimbashi-Yokohama railway - they were to be given the same rights as those locomotives built domestically. Since then, most Japanese laws have included locomotives by default, often making no mention of them unless specifically including them because of physical differences. [For example, locomotives are not required to partake in mandatory military service, as their service to the railways is often more valuable, especially during peacetime.] However, while locomotives in the West were free to work as they pleased, even off of the rail network, Japanese trains do so in remarkably smaller numbers, with over 98% of locomotives remaining in railway service until their retirement. Those that do not do so typically enter railway-related fields like locomotive construction, upper management in railway companies, or working in the Japanese Ministry of Transport.

In this sense, locomotives in Japan can be considered to be less free than their western colleagues, as the nation culture of "work until you die" meant that no attempt was made to allow trains to enter human society, forcing them to essentially be segregated from humans when not directly pulling trains, as land is too scarce to use for western-style 'locomotive cities' except in extremely rural areas and Nagasaki*.

*Following the atomic bombing of the city in 1945, Nagasaki was rebuilt by the American occupying forces - many of whom were USRA locomotives. The city’s bombed-out industrial areas were already layered with train tracks, making it easy to create a locomotive sized living area. Hiroshima, which suffered damage to its human-oriented urban core, was not rebuilt with trains in mind.

As such, locomotives are considered full Japanese citizens, but most Japanese humans have never interacted with them. Exceptions do exist, mostly in rural towns and villages, where a locomotive is usually considered to be the town's 'honored elder', as most locomotives on small branches have lived in the area for many decades, making them the oldest member of the town in many cases. This has lead to many culture clashes in larger cities, where residents may be apathetic to the desires their locomotive neighbors, much to the dismay and shock of a 'country bumpkin' who lives nearby.

Of particular issue to locomotive freedoms are multiple units. Since the 1960s, Japanese railways have put more focus into EMUs/DMUs rather than standard locomotive hauled trains. This has caused even more segregation amongst Japan's rail population, as permanently coupled multiple units cannot access the few existing locomotive/human developments, as they were designed for standalone locomotives. Urban sprawl and high land prices have made enlarging these developments is impossible. To date, the only MU focused 'loco-city' (other than one-track sheds in rural farming communities) is in the Fukushima Daiichi exclusion area. However, as the line accessing it is in the traditional Japanese 3'6" gauge, the community remains inaccessible to the 4'8.5" gauge Shinkansen trains, many of whom are almost totally isolated from anyone else - despite living in Japan's largest cities - as a result of their loading gauge restrictions.

Similar social isolation occurs to ships and aircraft, but as they are able to receive emotional support from friends and relatives across the planet, they do not suffer from this isolation nearly as much.

-------

At no point in Italian history has anyone been able to make the right decision in regards to locomotive rights. This is not to say that Locomotive rights (and vehicular rights in general) don’t exist in Italy - they do, rather thoroughly - but rather, the Italians have never once done so intentionally, instead implementing locomotive rights by having multiple laws, written on multiple occasions over multiple decades, that are so badly written that a train could and likely was driven through the loopholes that exist in them!

#ask response #long #locomotive rights headcanon #sentient vehicle headcanon #sentient trains #sentient vehicles #italy #japan #ussr #ww2 #belgium

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bonesaldente · 3 years

Text

Ferocious I Darth Maul x Reader

Chapter 10: Trust

last chapter

all chapters

ao3

warnings: nudity, mildly suggestive language

words: 4000+

_____

note: For… reasons, this is an alternate universe in which space ships have actual showers with water, not just sonic showers. Also, Maul’s cybernetics are waterproof. I don’t make the rules... wait- I do. Also, make sure to read the end notes today :)

_____

Stars, you hate it here.

Everything, from the endless nights to the lack of clean water and the ever-looming prospect of going to prison increases your motivation to somehow fix the communicator yourself and run off before Kenobi can take you with him, leaving him stranded on the planet.

For exactly a decade, just to be even.

“It should work,” Kenobi remarks with very apparent annoyance. “Everything is connected and the power source is on.”

“Well, it’s obviously not working.”

“Thank you for your observation.” He drops his hands into his lap, looking quite defeated. And tired.

While you’ve been keeping some structure in your days, he’s been working tirelessly on repairing that communicator. Until he did tire out, occasionally.

Now was one of these occasions.

“I’m losing focus and I can hardly see anything. It’ll be best to continue when the sun comes back up again.”

Which is precisely what you were hoping he’d say, but you still force yourself to make another snide comment. “Maybe it’ll fix itself while you’re resting and we are magically transported off this planet.”

He pays you no mind and heads to what’s become his sleeping spot over the past days - or has it been over a week already?

“I trust you’ll keep watch?”

You just huff, but don’t refuse his request. It is an agreement you’ve come to quite early on when you both realized that the death of one would make the other’s survival significantly less likely. So while he sleeps, you make sure no animals sneak up and attack him, which, apart from the “dinner” incident a few days ago, only happened once, but still rattled him enough to make him remind you of your duty evry time he went to sleep.

Except tonight, you plan on shifting your attention to something completely different.

You have not, in fact, come to terms with the probable reality that you’ll spend the rest of your days in a prison of the Republic. Instead, you’ve been observing what exactly Kenobi is doing to repair the life-saving device and despite your lack of aptitude in such things, you, too, see that the communicator should - in theory - work. Kenobi is overworked and agitated; it would only be natural for him to miss something.

Something you might be able to catch and use to your advantage.

You remain still where you are until you hear his quiet breaths evening out, indicating he has fallen asleep.

“Kenobi?” You whisper into the silence, a last test to check if he is still conscious.

No response.

Your heart beats fast in your chest, all too aware of how pressing time is. For some reason, this man rarely sleeps more than two hours at a time, which could be partially blamed on you for always nagging at him when he isn’t trying to fix the communicator. But then again, you have the feeling that he usually doesn’t have very different habits.

With the kind of stealth only someone who has been trained in these arts could bring up, you sneak across the clearing to where the source of all your troubles and hope lies on the ground.

The device has been taken out of the starfighters cockpit and thus looks pretty out of place and… unfinished. But you know better, having watched the Jedi dismantle and reassemble every little piece.

The metal glints in the shine of your flashlight as you crouch to be on eye-level with the device. At first glance everything seems to be in order, just like the Jedi remarked, but that is not acceptable. Fixing the cursed thing before Kenobi is your only way to freedom and you will not allow your own incompetence to stand in your way.

So you look again. And again.

You shine light into every little corner, every port, under every wire and in between each panel. Time is passing too quickly, you are aware, and your chances are dwindling.

But then you see it.

Tiny and inconspicuous, something organic - a seed maybe - is blocking one of the loose wires from connecting with its respective port.

You bite your lip to suppress a victorious exclamation, looking over your shoulder to check if Kenobi is still fast asleep.

Heart thrumming in your ears, you take a deep breath to calm your nerves and steady your hand for the task ahead. Cautiously, you lift some of the metal paneling to give you access to the section, fingers weaving through the wires with extra care since many of them are not firmly in place due to the crash and were only pinned to their receptors by Kenobi.

At last, your fingertips graze the disruptive piece of forest that has made it so far into the technology. Slowly, you remove it from its spot, moving the wire back to where it was supposed to connect.

Now let’s try this.

You turn the power on, holding your breath and praying to whatever force there is out there that it won’t make any noise.

A quiet whir is the only indication that the power is flowing, causing a small smile to creep over your hidden features. The display comes to life, faintly glowing blue. You throw looks over your shoulder every few seconds, hastily pressing the buttons to type in the private comm information Maul and all his commanding warriors kept as a backup for emergencies. You have no idea how many emergencies must have occurred in these past weeks, but you hope your message won’t be drowned out by others. This is the only shot you get.

You pick some coordinates that, if your knowledge of space navigation isn’t misleading you, should be a few miles north of your current location, then sign the message with ‘ -S ’ .

You stare at the numbers, forcing your mind to absorb them, then you hit send and a series of green lights tells you it at least went out successfully, meaning all you can do now is to hope that it will be received the same way.

Kenobi is still fast asleep, chest rising and falling steadily. You almost feel sorry for what you’re about to do, but there really aren’t many alternatives.

You take out a small vial from a pocket in your belt, filling a syringe with it. It’s been a while since you last used it, but you made sure you always have some tranquilizers on you, and now you’re thankful for that.

On your tiptoes, you sneak to Kenobi’s sleeping form, narrowing your eyes to make out the exposed skin on his neck.

The needle is buried in his neck in a matter of seconds and his eyes shoot open in shock and confusion while his hands fly to his neck.

“Why-”

“Nothing personal,” you assure him when his eyelids droop and his words lose coherence.

Normally, this should knock a person out for at least three hours, but you don’t know how a force sensitivity might influence that. One way or another, you should take off now and get as big a headstart as you can. But first, one more thing.

You give the heap of beige robes that is the Jedi knight one more almost regretful look, then you crush the communicator beneath your heel. Can’t risk him calling for Republic forces while you’re still in the area after all, and you’d have no way of taking the device with you, since it’s hooked up to the ship wreckage.

Why you spare his life, you don’t know, and you’d rather not spend too much time thinking about it. Perhaps you should kill him, after all he’s done to Maul, and why your conscience decides to pipe up now of all times will remain a mystery. You have killed people in less honorable ways, but…

“Ugh,” you grunt, finally turning your back on the Jedi and starting your journey north.

“Maul! Maul, come here!”

He jerks up, briefly having fallen asleep leaned against the wall. For a second, he fully expects to see your gleaming eyes staring back at him, that’s how familiar the voice is. It takes him a moment to understand that it’s not you, but Loa calling him.

Which is supremely peculiar, because the young woman rarely ever addresses him, let alone command him.

He is out of the room, your room, in a flash, looking over Loa’s shoulder at the message displayed a second later.

Both of his hearts seem to skip a beat.

The message consists of nothing but a set of coordinates, the only indication of its origin the ‘ -S ’ with which it is signed.

S as in… Spectress?

It must be you. There is no one else with access to this line of communication who would send this kind of message.

Loa gapes at the writing.

“It’s… It’s her, isn’t it? It’s gotta be her, I’m…”

“Set course,” is his only response, sitting down in the copilot’s seat, several scenarios already running through his mind.

“Looks like some type of… forest moon,” She remarks, readying the ship for hyperspace with outstanding speed and routine. You weren’t exaggerating at all when you said she had become a good pilot.

He ponders for a minute. If you are somehow stranded there, they won’t need reinforcement, with their forces stretched thin as it is. But if any threats lurk nearby and he puts your little sister in danger…

He will die by your hand, then. Or his own.

“How long?”

“Estimate of four hours.”

“Very well. I will try to find out what to expect when we arrive there.”

According to his sources, there has been no Republic activity in the system in question over the past month - that’s what he found out after two hours of vehement research. Really, he already knew that after thirty minutes, but you being so close yet so far from him drove him to bury himself in databanks and records by his spies.

His thoughts travel to a darker place.

He doesn’t know what state you’ll be in when he finds you - if he finds you. And even if you’re fine, everything else is far from fine. Mandalore, the crime syndicate and most of all, Savage…

Something on the dresser that takes up most of the cramped space clatters to the floor when he loses control of the chaotic force inside him and he flinches, immediately worrying he broke something of importance to you. After all, he has taken up residence in what used to be your small quarters on your ship, before everything happened, before you joined the Death Watch, before you saw him again.

When you were still living relatively safe, off the Republic’s radars.

Out of Master’s reach.

It’s been torturing him every waking moment to think that you might meet the same end that Savage did. The speculation of what could have been if he hadn’t reentered your life has become a constant in his mind. Because if he ever has to see the life fade out of your eyes, the way he saw the nightsister magick leave Savage when he exhaled his last breath, he isn’t sure he could forgive the galaxy. He vows to himself, already vowed to himself few days after he first laid eyes on you, that he will do anything to keep that fiery soul safe.

His fingers run over the cold piece of metal that has fallen, curiously examining it. No, not normal metal, beskar . There are letters forged into it, but they look like traditional Mando’a scripture, which he is still unpracticed in reading.

He contemplates putting it into the uppermost drawer, lest it get lost during more daring flight maneuvers, but he hesitates. He’s never opened any of the drawers, despite the very persistent curiosity he felt. The last he’d want is to invade your privacy; you hadn’t even consented to him sleeping in your private space (although he doubts you would mind after he has literally slept with you).

Maul makes up his mind and pulls the drawer open, not intending to even look, but his gaze still gets caught.

He expected to find clothes, maybe, or, knowing you, weapons. What he finds instead is a collection of… trinkets.

It’s not new to him that you have a tendency to collect items, sometimes out of sentiment, sometimes as a trophy. He didn’t realize you kept them so meticulously stored.

It’s quite endearing, he thinks.

Some of the items he recalls you talking about, but others seem entirely random. His eyes linger on a piece of flimsiplast that looks like a child has drawn on it.

He is tempted to take it out and hold it into the light, but quickly realizes that it would go against his original decision not to pry.

There is so much personal history collected in that small space. Dozens of untold stories, so many parts of your life that he missed.

He won’t rest until he knows you’ll still be able to tell them.

Oddly enough, you miss Kenobi. More precisely, you miss his ability to sense danger before it has reached you.

Every little noise startles you, every swish of wind making your heart stop and you increase your speed a little.

By now, you’re nearly running through the woods, less than half a mile away from the coordinates you chose.

Chances are, he has woken up by now. And you’re not stupid; you know it’ll be easy for him to track you down when there is no civilization around. From what your understanding of the force is, he should be able to sense your force signature from a larger distance when there is nothing else to disrupt it. That also means that he will be hot on your tail, so whoever shows up to rescue you better hurry .

With a heavy heart, you turn off your flashlight and lean against a tree while you remove your mask for better air supply and allow your eyes to adjust. It still takes so kriffing long, you wonder if that’ll ever change.

If Kenobi finds you first, it won’t make much of a difference.

You get moving again, slower but also less of a beacon in the dark.

The trees start coming in more sparsely now, until you can actually see farther than twenty feet without trees blocking your view. This allows you to pick up speed again and thus make up for the darkness that is slowing you down, until the landscape is so open that you’re actually running now.

And that’s when you hear them.

Branches cracking somewhere behind you.

Probably just the wind. Keep going.

The dull thud of feet hitting the ground makes your breath catch in your throat.

So maybe he did wake up earlier than anticipated.

You whirl around, seeing nothing but his black silhouette and desperately wishing for a lightsaber, which you - unwisely - have sworn off after the Naboo incident. That, and running around wielding a lightsaber wasn’t exactly the level of subtlety you were going for at the time.

But now, you could really use it.

“I spared your life!” You yell.

“And destroyed my only way away from here,” he responds, sounding almost hurt as he makes slow steps towards you. You take just as many backwards.

Something in the sky beyond him catches your eye and suddenly, the situation looks different.

“I’ve got to look out for myself first,” you argue. “Surely, you understand that.”

“You know I can’t let you go.”

“I do,” you say serenely, taking a deep breath, then whirling around to make a run for it.

You don’t need to look over your shoulder to know he is following you and, even worse, gaining on you.

The small headstart you got, combined with the distance between you two in the first place isn’t nearly enough, even though you are in great shape and a truly fast runner.

The ship you spotted earlier now flies over your head, approaching the ground and you could laugh and cry at the same time. It’s not just any ship, it’s your ship. Your home, and aboard, you hope, your family.

It doesn’t touch the ground, but it flies low enough to be accessible from the ground while slowing to a speed that should allow for you to jump on, if you could only run a little faster.

Damn, ten years ago this would have been easier.

The blast door in the back, only about twenty feet away from you, slides open, revealing a figure that even in the dark you can make out to be…

Maul.

He extends his hand and you instantly know what he wants you to do.

So, you take a deep breath and jump .

The moment your feet leave the ground you feel the tug of the force pulling you to the zabrak while your own hand reaches forward and you fly through the air, until your hand finally reaches Maul’s.

You are not safe yet, still hanging from the edge of the ship when you suddenly feel a different pull on one of your ankles. Your eyes widen in shock and you try to tell Maul that it’s Kenobi, he is pulling you back, but all that you manage is a terrified shriek when your hand almost slips out of his at a particularly strong pull backwards.

Not this time, Kenobi.

Your determination sets in and you look down to see Kenobi standing still, arms extended to manipulate the force. With your one free hand, you reach for your blaster, aiming and-

The hold on your ankle abruptly loosens and you are yanked on board at once, the blast door sliding shut immediately, drowning out the deafening sound of wind.

You are panting, sprawled out on the floor, not even realizing that you did it .

“Hyperspace, as soon as possible,” you distantly hear Maul say, but the thrumming of your heart is too loud to properly hear his voice, until he somehow sits you up and…

Embraces you.

Warm fingers run through your messy hair, soft murmurs that you can’t quite understand coming from right next to your ear.

“I’m filthy,” you protest weakly, half-heartedly trying to free yourself from his hold but he only holds on tighter and at last you melt into the affection, burying your face in his neck.

“Is Loa…?”

“In the cockpit,” he instantly calms your worries and you sigh happily. For a moment, everything is alright.

“What did I miss?” You eventually muster up the courage to ask.

His grip tightens so much you can feel his fingertips dig into your hip and you immediately know something bad happened.

“It was… Master. He killed Savage.”

Your heart sinks, the previous relief replaced by a dark type of sadness. There is anger and, most dominantly, fear.

The Sith lord doesn’t intend on letting Maul off, which by extension also means there is a target on everyone he surrounds himself with.

You can’t even find words to console him, only taking in a shaky breath against his skin and whispering, "I'm sorry."

"He's free now."

Eventually, you find the strength to get up, tiredly patting over to the cockpit.

“Hey.” Loa presses a few last buttons, then jumps up and crushes you in a tight hug.

“I thought I would never see you again.”

“You know me better than that,” you retort mildly.

“I suppose so,” she sighs, holding you at an arm’s length. “You need a shower,” she assesses, plucking a leaf from your hair.

Self-consciously you run a hand through the tangles, then look down at your muddy clothes.

“I agree.”

Maul waits for you when you leave the cockpit, immediately taking your hand as if to reassure himself that you are truly there.

“Missed me?” You joke half-heartedly, doing nothing to hide the way the tension seems to melt from your body at the touch.

“Every minute,” he answers earnestly, not a hint of a joke in his voice.

“Come with me, then,” you offer, making your way to the refresher and pulling him along. As expected, he follows you all too willingly, thumb rubbing circles on the back of your hand.

You don’t even bother undressing all the way before getting under the water stream, suddenly realizing how much you’ve been longing for it. While your clothes soak, the water pooling around your feet turns a muddy brown as the dirt from the forest is finally washed off.

Maul steps in the small shower behind you, holding a hand into the falling water.

“That’s cold,” he states.

“Not for me, it’s not.” You eye his frown. “But we can turn the temperature up.”

The heat does feel good, and not much later you finally attempt to peel off the remaining layers of clothing. Red tattooed hands come to your aid fast and within seconds, your skin is completely exposed, the stress of the past weeks running down the drain along with the dirt and… blood?

You bring a hand up to touch your forehead at the same time that a scowl makes its way on Maul’s face.

“Kenobi,” he growls, but you shake your head.

“That’s from when I crashed the starfighter.” You examine your bloodied fingers with moderate interest. “I think it’s healed already, that’s just dried blood coming off.”

He huffs, lightly running a finger over the area on your face.

“Any other injuries?” His eyes roam your body, not in a sexual, but in a concerned manner.

“None I can think of,” you sigh as he gathers soap in his hands, closing your eyes for a moment as the warm water runs over your face. When you don’t hear another noise from Maul, you open your eyes again, only to find him staring at you with something like bewilderment in his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

He responds by crashing his lips into yours, expressing so many emotions through his actions that he otherwise can’t find the words for. You very nearly fall at the suddenness of it, but his arms are wrapped around you in a heartbeat, pressing you into his chest and giving you the skin-to-skin contact you’ve been missing so terribly.

Your eyes water as emotions overcome you, the relief, the sorrow, the uncertainty and… guilt.

When you break apart, his are shining in a similar way.

You lean against the weapons locker, facing the ceiling while you let the details of your situation soak in. The havoc that was wreaked on Mandalore by the resistant Mandalorians, the coming and going of the crime families, and the looming threat of Sidious’ grand plan finally coming together.

“I have a suggestion,” you begin slowly. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“Go on.”

“The Jedi are not our main enemy anymore, if what you foresee comes true.” You recall him talking about the envisioned destruction of the Jedi order, something that Sidious has been plotting for a long time. “If we give them the right tools to do so, it’ll be them who need to fight him, not you. Not any of us.” Your eyes dart to the cockpit where your sister is holed up.

“Tools, such as… knowledge?” He touches his chin the way he always does when he mulls over an idea.

“Sidious is but one man. He only thrives on secrecy, so if we-”

“A Jedi will never cooperate with a Sith .” He snarls. “Their self-righteousness wouldn’t allow it.”

“Maybe not.” You sigh with exhaustion. “All I know is that the better equipped the Jedi, the higher the chance of them actually defeating Sidious before it’s too late. And that’s why I have another proposition.”

“What is it?”

“We make a small transmission to the Republic fleet, sending them the same coordinates I sent you.”

“You’re trying to save Kenobi?” He doesn’t sound angered, he sounds… surprised.

“As much as I dislike him, he is one of their more capable knights, and it’s become pretty obvious he and his padawan are quite invested in uncovering Sidious’ identity.”

You are astounded he even considers the idea.

“Also, helping him could be interpreted as a show of good faith. Might get them off our back for some time, until we figure out who to fight,” you add.

For a minute, he remains silent. Then, his arm is wrapped around your waist and his lips brush over your temple.

“I trust your judgment,” he mumbles. “Do what you believe is right.”

___

SOOO, after a two week delay, I have elected to post once more... my bad. In the next 2-4 weeks I’d like to edit and improve the older chapters because I’m not 100% happy with the writing in them anymore, so because of that there won’t be another update during that time. Don’t worry though, I’m not done yet, the story will go on - just after a short break :,)

@princessayveke @spaghetti-666 @noiralei @larawl @secretnerd00 @bagpipes606 @zabrak-show @brilliantbutbatty @eleine-t1d

#darth maul #maul #darth maul x reader #maul x reader #darth maul x you

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elenamiria · 4 years

Text

Better Have My Money

Pairing: Maul x Reader Darth Maul comes to you, a syndicate leader, to join the Crimson Dawn. You offer him a deal that he can’t refuse and one that benefits both of you greatly.

Word Count: 3.8k Warnings: Smuttt, fingering, exhibitionism, fem reader, Switch reader, and Maul is a switch (i don’t make the rules), cannon typical violence, reader is not nice (but neither is maul but they aren’t mean to each other)

Thank you so much to @hxldmxdxwn who not only beta read this for me but also so many of her fics inspired my interpretation of Maul! If you haven’t read her stuff go do it, everything she writes is amazing!

I’m starting a collection of song inspired fics and this is the first one. The song it’s based off of is Bitch Better Have My Money (obviously) by queen Rihanna! If you like this and have any requests for songs and/or SW characters just let me know! (also if you wanna read my other fic it’s here - it’s Obi-Wan x Reader)

You didn’t get to your position by being kind. Running a crime syndicate was a difficult task, running one as a woman - near impossible. Others consistently underestimated you but that was to your advantage, the amount of people you conned into horrible deals simply because they didn’t think you would deliver must be in the hundreds. When they couldn’t flow through on their end you let them know that you would give them time, but you would collect one way or another. You relied not on brute strength like some groups but instead you had a vast network of spies. You consistently gave yourself the upper hand with the most up to date information, using it to leverage the best deals and stay one step ahead of the competition. That’s how you learned about Crimson Dawn and their leader, Darth Maul.

When Maul himself had come to your base to ‘recruit’ your group for Crimson Dawn he was unprepared to be welcomed in. He was so used to fighting his way to the leaders and killing them to assume power not whatever was happening here. So, when he was brought straight to you he was honestly speechless. You were lounging at the end of a large room on an elegant black and gold chaise. You had smiled when you saw him and put down the data pad you had been reading from. Greeting him like an esteemed guest, you told him you would be more than happy to share all of your resources with him. There was only one condition. You explained you had very few employees that were skilled warriors and you could use someone of his skill set for difficult situations. Confused he had inquired how you had made it as high up as you did without fighting and you laughed, a sound he found himself enjoying greatly, before telling him there are ways of persuasion other than violence; but also that it didn’t take a warrior to poison someone.

He was shocked to find himself agreeing to your terms and when you beckoned him towards you with a smirk and he was even more shocked to find himself complying. Perhaps he listened to you because he could see no ill will in your eyes, which you kept trained on him in a way that heated his body. Maybe it was because when he used the force to sense your intentions the only thoughts present in your mind were of bringing him and yourself pleasure. And maybe it was because everyone in the past who had wanted to dominate him had only done so for themselves, never even thinking about what he wanted. So as he found his mouth buried in between your legs and praises streaming from your mouth he expected to be shocked, angry even, but instead only found satisfaction.

When you had learned about his past, how ruthlessly he was used then tossed aside, you tried to end your half of the deal telling him you wouldn’t use him like that and you also tried to end your extracurricular activities feeling guilty in your domination of him. He was eager to reassure you that you were nothing like his former master, that you made him feel loved and that some small part of him deeply enjoyed handing the reins to someone who he could place his trust in but that he would appreciate you submitting to him too, something you were more than happy to do. He didn’t tell you at the time but he had grown fond of you and he actually preferred going with you to these collection calls in order to protect you from any harm.

You were currently heading to collect on a debt that a smaller syndicate boss owed you. He was a stupid man and had continually put off his repayment, you had warned him that the next time you came you would either be collecting or you would be assuming leadership of his measly organization. When you let him know of your impending arrival the slimeball, Willem Brasi, actually tried to charm his way out of his dire situation. All that his flirting had done was anger the Zabrak at your side. When you turned to him and saw how tense he was you ran a gentle hand over his arm quietly reassuring him that the sleepover would get what was coming to him.

Your heels rang out every step you took followed by the metal clink of Darth Maul following behind you. The two of you were quite a sight. He was completely shrouded in darkness, his black robe encasing his whole body and his hood pulled fully over his head casting dark shadows over his red and black face. Barely noticeable was a long delicate silver chain that led from a clasp on his large black collar and led to a ring situated on your finger over a sheer black glove. While he was fully covered your skin was on display with a black satin dress that clung to your hips and split in two on the top leaving your back and sternum bare, covering your chest loosely. Your legs appeared every step you took thanks to the large slits on either side, dark red shoes covered your feet. You wore a delicate necklace of precious crystals that held a clasp for you to attach the chain to if you chose and your lips were painted black. You wore a gold mask that covered majority of your upper face including your eyes, there were small slits permitting vision, this created a sense of regality as well as helping disguise your identity, you did love putting on a show for your lover.

When you reached Willem’s throne room you walked to the center. He hastily rose, clearly realizing the severity of the situation, before sputtering out what he thought would be a charming greeting. You said nothing, letting the room sit in silence until he and his men were shifting uncomfortably. When you spoke your voice rang clear “Do you have the credits you owe me Willem?”

He had the audacity to laugh before strutting towards you “ah love, how much was it again? I didn’t realize you would be gracing me with your beautiful presence so soon”. As he approached you could feel Darth Maul’s entire being tensing next to you. You tilted your head towards him a little, in a calming gesture, before turning your face back towards your current problem.

A false smile quickly painted your lips “Don’t tell me you forgot Willem. You will pay me what you owe me.”

The man faltered in his pace, clearing his throat nervously. “Perhaps I can pay you in another way? I’m sure I can bring you great pleasure”. His pale hands approached your waist and Maul audibly growled. Willem falter again but the idiotic man continued, his hands nudged your gloved arms away from your body before laying his hands on your waist. He was more confident now and started to say something filthy to you before freezing as he felt cold blades press against his wrists. You had knives strapped to your thighs that you unsheathed now to press lightly against the veins of the man touching you.

“I think you’re forgetting who is calling the shots here. I told you your options, there are only two, either you pay me or I take control of your operations. Now, remove your disgusting hands from me before I remove them for you.” As you spoke you pressed the knives in more firmly, a thin trail of blood appearing. Willem immediately backed down with a nasty sneer covering his face.

He laughed again before backing away. “you’re a little bitch you know that. You’re outnumbered here, I think you should leave before I have my men kill you” He snarled at you and this time a genuine smile came over your lips, this was going exactly as you planned. You strolled forward, a small hand motion telling Maul to stay where he was. Shaking your head you spoke “I’ll ask you one last time to pay me, otherwise I will seize control whether you like it or not”.

He had been busy pouring himself a drink and took a heavy swig before laughing for the last time “You? Seize control? It’s just you and your-” he paused trying to think of an insult “your fucking dog against my whole organization, I think you’re the one who’s going to lose control”

Your head tilted and your right hand rose, the chain dangling from your finger gleaming in the light, “C’mere puppy”.

Darth Maul obediently approached you and you turned to face him. Your hands slipped under his robe and met his defined stomach, slowly you trailed your hands up to the clasp that held the robe on. Undoing it deftly you then continued your path up his body cupping his face affectionately. You rubbed your thumbs against his cheekbones gently, small smiles forming on both of your faces, before you gently removed the hood letting the robe fall away from him completely. At his grand reveal quiet noise rang around the room from Willem’s men worriedly whispering as they recognized the Sith. Though Maul couldn’t see your eyes he knew they were looking up at him with pride. Your hands slid down the back of his head and to his large collar, running delicate fingers over the metal you came to the front. You gently rubbed the chain connecting the two of you before unclasping it. You backed away from him and faced Willem, who had gone paler if possible. You tilted your head before sweetly muttering “Puppy, why don’t you show them what you’re capable of?”

The telltale noise of a lightsaber igniting filled the room and you were bathed in a red glow. Pleas started spilling from your preys mouth, and his men drew their weapons in a futile attempt to protect themselves. You turned your head back to the beautiful red and black man, slowly you trailed your hand up your body, just how he would if the two of you were in private, before clipping the chain to the collar at your own neck. At this Maul sprang into action, he moved beautifully saber slicing in an intricate dance of death. Through the whole affair you simply stood there, Maul had taught you how to take care of yourself with dual knifes strapped to your thighs, you were confident with the odds that nothing would happen to you. In his defense, Willem had made a valiant effort - he realized it was no use to go after Maul and so he had turned to you blaster raised with two shaking hands. A cruel smile crossed your face as he tried to rush you. However, he was stopped by a red lightsaber cleanly swiping up severing his hands at the wrists. He screamed out in pain and fell to the floor writhing in pain. Maul kicked him towards you and the sobbing man slid violently to you. You stopped his body’s movement with a well placed heel to his chest. Tutting at him you dug your heel in harder, “You should’ve given me my fucking money. Now, I’m going to take everything you’ve built, too bad you won’t be here to see it.”

You pulled one your knives out but noticed Maul shifting next to you, glancing at him you recalled his anger at Willem earlier and gave him a small nod before backing away. Maul let out a feral snarl that sent pleasant shivers through your body before ending the Willem’s life.

You both sat in silence for a minute before Maul moved to sprawl on the large chair at the head of the room. A smirk covered his mouth and he beckoned you to him, your visits to opposing syndicates usually ended with Maul’s thorough domination of the opposition and then you. Sauntering over to him you added an extra sway to your hips causing a low growl to build in his chest. You slid in between his parted legs and his large hands grasped the back of your thighs. He slowly worked his way up your body, squeezing your waist and slipping his hands under the fabric of your dress to run his thumbs over your nipples, which elicited a gasp from you, before sliding up to your face and tearing your mask off. When your eyes finally met uninhibited after what felt like hours a moan left his mouth, he loved nothing more than being able to stare into your eyes. Your hands rose and you gently pulled off the ring that held the end of the chain placing it in Maul’s outstretched hand. He wrapped the long chain tight around his hand, giving it a test pull to ensure he could control your movement and using it to yank you hard into a passionate kiss. You moaned softly into his mouth responding passionately, your hands ran up his body to gently grab onto two of his horns. A small whimper left his mouth as you tugged on him. You broke apart and he nipped at the parts of your neck not covered by your necklace in between kisses he murmured out “what would you like, my Starlight?”

A breathy sigh fluttered out of you lips and you pulled back just enough to look into his eyes again “My lord, I want anything and everything you will give me”

Maul’s yellow eyes darkened to a rich gold at your words and he spun you around just before he pulled you down onto his lap, gently he took the time to turn your necklace around so the chain attached now ran down your back. His hands slid down your body grasping behind each knee and he roughly tore your legs open and over his mechanical legs, the slits on either side of your dress allowed for this -the silky material rippled then settled in between your thighs the only barrier preventing your exposure to anyone who may wander into the room. You let out a whimper as his hot breath hit your neck, fingers trailing up the inside of your thighs and then dancing over where you craved him most. Slowly he began to run two of his fingers over your pussy, an involuntary cry flew out of your mouth and Maul paused. His head tilted curiously as his other hand slipped under the fabric of the dress feeling around your hips for a moment before a deep chuckle reverberated through his chest, causing a pleasant vibration against your back which was firmly pressed to him.

“Such a naught little princess, not wearing anything underneath this dress. You wanted this didn’t you?”

You nodded desperately but Maul growled lightly, the hand that was under your dress reappearing and he pulled on the chain harshly pulling you impossibly closer to him and your head tilted back.

“Words princess” he whispered into your ear.

A small whine left your throat as you stuttered out an answer “Yes, yes I wanted you to take me here, I-I wanted to....” you trailed off as his fingers resumed stroking you over your dress, Maul loosened his grip on the chain as he prompted you to continue with a nip to your jaw and a seductive “Tell me what you wanted and I’ll give you what you need, my sweet girl”

Taking a moment to try to catch your breath as his fingers switched to swirling around your clit you moaned before continuing “I wanted everyone to know. I wanted them to know that I’m yours, only yours and that you’re mine”

At your words a deep purr vibrated against your back and his hand finally slipped under your dress, two fingers easily slipping inside with how thoroughly soaked you were and your walls fluttered around them. A feral grin covered Maul’s face and he began a slow teasing pace, his thumb ghosting over your most sensitive spot. You let out an impatient whine and attempted to buck your hips against his hand but found you couldn’t move them, you tilted your head back so you could glare at the man who had you spread open so deliciously. A coo left Maul’s mouth, though he didn’t look the least bit remorseful, and he adopted an innocent look .

“What is it my love? Hmm, is there something you need?” His teasing words had you clenching around his fingers as you whimpered and nodded. His other hand trailed up your body to grasp at your throat tightly and you gasped softly, his thumb and pointer raising to tightly grasp your jaw. He was holding you tight enough that it caused a satisfying ache and he shook you a little before speaking again, his words sharp with faux anger “what did I say about using your words, Princess?” Before you had a chance to say anything his pace rapidly increased. A startled noise tore from your throat as his fingers moved at an inhuman pace, pausing only to add a third finger, his thumb pressed hard onto your clit. It was all so much, it verged on overstimulation and small tears filled your eyes as desperate moans and cries poured from your lips. Maul let go of your jaw to let you speak but kept a firm hold on your throat.

“Is this what you wanted? You should thank me princess, I didn’t even make you beg for it. Though maybe I should” He growled out. Desperately praises started falling from your lips telling him how good he made you feel, how desperately you needed this, that only he could make you feel this way. As you continued Maul moved his hand from your neck to your chest, groping harshly. He rolled your nipple in between his fingers and played with you just how he knew you liked it before switching to the other side.

As you approached your peak you continued babbling on “Please my king, I’m so close, so close. Please don’t stop, oh yes,” you cried out as his picked up his pace “thank you, thank you my lord!”

Maul’s hand came up to curl in your hair and his pace slowed slightly as he began to speak slowly “My love, Starlight, will you let me in? Please, I-I want to be one with you, I need to feel you, all of you.”

You turned your glossy gaze to him, you knew he was hesitant about asking this of you - he had brought up using the force to meld your minds before but had never followed through before - though you were prepared to give him everything. Your own hand cupped the back of his head pulling him forward so your foreheads rested together. A blissful smile covered your mouth “Of course puppy, my mind is always open to you. Please love, I want you to feel the pleasure I’m feeling, I want you to feel when I fall apart at your touch”

Maul let out a pleased sigh and inhaled deeply, “Just relax, Princess, just let me in”

His fingers began a sensual pace, enough to keep you on the edge just on the brink of falling over into your climax. It started as a slight pressure against your head that kept growing, your mind automatically rebelling against the intrusion but with Maul’s gentle encouragement to open yourself to him you found yourself relaxing and, again with encouragement, focusing on how you were feeling. The pace of his fingers pumping into you increased until you were blinded by the pleasure and then you felt him - present in your mind, the two of you becoming one. Your foreheads stayed pressed together intimately, your hand on the back of his head rising to rub at his horns. The Zabrak behind you let out a long, slow moan now able to feel all the pleasure you were feeling, every little spark was amplified bouncing between your minds and increasing in intensity. Maul picked up the pace his fingers sinking as deep into you as possible, thumb rapidly circling your clit. You started to whine and whimper begging for release, Maul was just as desperate as you letting out deep moans and there was a content purr insistently tickling your back. His free hand came up to wrap in the hair at the back of your head, pulling hard and pulling away to nuzzle at your neck.

“Yes, that’s it princess, you feel incredible. Why don’t you cum for me little one, let go. Let me have all of you my love” he spoke pressing kisses to your neck in between his words. His tone grew into a commanding rasp of “Submit to me, cum for me” before biting hard at the junction of your neck and shoulder. The pain pushed you over the edge and you cried out as your climax blinded you. Maul let out a loud snarl as your pleasure washed over him white hot, his hips bucking in time with yours.

You weren’t sure how long the two of you sat there not moving, just basking in pleasure, but you slowly came down. Gently your lover pulled his fingers from inside you, raising his hand to his mouth he sensually licked any remains of you off making sure to hold eye contact with your blissed out eyes. Maul then untangled his hand from your hair to wrap around your waist, his other hand following shortly, holding you to him. As you pulled your head off his shoulder you tensed realizing you had an audience. A man stood at the entrance to the room, mouth gaping and eyes darting all over taken in both you and the carnage around the room. Maul looked up from where he had been nibbling at the bite mark he left and a growl harshly left his throat. The man started to back up, clearing intending on running, and with a quick nod of your head Maul’s hand rose to freeze the man in his tracks.

You let out a content sigh pressing back into Maul’s warm chest as a smirk covered your face.

“Is that any way to greet your new queen?” You cooed a small laugh leaving your lips at his terrified expression, “why don’t you go tell anyone you can find that there’s been a change in leadership and if anyone has a problem with that they can come take it up with us” with that you waved him off and Maul released the force hold he had on him.

You weren’t worried, at this point your enforcers should be arriving to ensure compliance. For now you were content to sit with Maul, you adjusted to a more comfortable position (your legs were aching from being spread for so long) and pressed a soft kiss to his jawline. A warm smile rose on your face and you couldn’t help cupping the side of Maul’s face, gently tracing his tattoos.

“I love you puppy”

A deep chuckle reached your ears, red and black lips pressed softly to yours before he replied.

“I love you too my starlight, more than you know.”

#darth maul x reader #maul x reader #star wars fanfiction #darth maul #darth maul smut #reader smut #the clone wars #song inspired fic

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savethelastdan · 3 years

Note

Sesskagu

As the taste strokes my tongue

Thawed is the frozen past

Sweeping over me

Your scars a memory of my affection

The deeper the wound

The fonder my love

The “modern” time, Kagura decides, is boring as hell.

All the same sins exist in this world - the suffering, the greed, and most of all that desperate clawing for power that paves the streets in blood - and yet, it’s as though someone’s wrung all the color out of it. A life of gray.

It’s a life, at least, she sighs to herself, jumping from circle to circle of light that the streetlamps paint along the corridor. One that’s more my own than the last.

Because though there’s a pocket-knife and taser in her purse instead of a fan, and she’s alone this time, having been abandoned by her parents at a temple; and there’s black ink shrouding every inch of skin that her past self would have worn the spider-mark on -

With every thud of a new heart in her chest, Kagura knows that she’s the same as she ever was.

She pauses to rest, wincing at the pinch of the too-small shoes against her heels. Her body in this round of living is weaker than the last, and she’s lost the power of flight. But even that is not as painful as the grief that sings within her when the wind runs itself through her hair, and she knows it is not her place to wield it anymore; still, she is not alone in that loss. With the variety of weapons at the humans’ disposal in these times, demons have all but been destroyed or chased away. Perhaps it is a blessing that she cannot locate demonic power inside this version of herself, or else Kagura would suffer again - simply through different means.

With a sharp swear that echoes throughout the street, she starts walking again. Another figure on the opposite side of the road, just far enough that she can’t make out any of their features, slows as she approaches. Kagura’s hands fold into fists automatically, and she lifts her chin in a clear signal. Don’t fuck with me, pal. I’m not the girl to mess with.

As they get closer to one another, a burst of cold air rushes past her. It twists her dress to send chills up both legs. She comes to a sharp stop, as the wind’s message rings in her ears. Clear as the lamp’s glow in the night:

Look.

The other figure stops too, both hands in their pockets, and twists to face her. Kagura’s heart shudders; for the first time in her new life, she is startled to be reminded of the organ’s presence.

What on earth...

Night’s shadows pull away from the man’s face, and the rest of the world melts away with them. Kagura has the faint sense of her purse slipping from her shoulder, landing on the concrete with a solid thud. On the other side of the street, Sesshomaru stares back with no less surprise.

He’s too far away for her to hear, but she sees his lips form her name. The shadows shift, and a pain rips through her chest at the splotches of purple and maroon on his face.

It takes him only a second to fully turn in her direction. By that time, Kagura’s scooped her purse from the ground and taken off down the street, the heels of her shoes cutting deep into her ankles.

It’s no surprise that he finds her; after all, she had no reason to think this life would be fair to her, either.

That doesn’t mean that Kagura makes it easy for him. Leaping out the second-story window of the hostel and skinning both knees (and all of the screaming her stupid coworkers do over it) is worth the few days it gives her to mentally process the whole thing. By the time Sesshomaru finally hunts her down again (at the overhang in her favorite park, where she likes to go and people-watch some evenings) Kagura has any of those inconsequential feelings left over from before locked up nice and tight.

Although, she’d only been able to prepare on the pretense that Sesshomaru is also the exact same as he always was. So, when he sits on the bench next to her and breathes her name in a tone that she never would have imagined was possible, it does catch Kagura a bit off guard.

“I did not expect to see you again,” he states plainly.

"Trust me, the feeling’s mutual.” Crossing both arms over her chest, she bites her tongue hard to hold back the litany of questions on her mind - does he still have the sword? Is he alone, and if so, how long has it been? What does he mean, that he didn’t expect it - in the obvious way, or in the way that means he’s wondered?

Gold eyes shift in her direction. “I never would have thought you’d run.”

Pain - the ghost of a killing blow, one that time patched up but couldn’t undo - heats the skin beneath her blouse. “I didn’t know there were any demons in this time.”

His jaw softens, and she’s horrifically confused because of course he had to have noticed - the body holding her soul is nothing like his own, her blood sapped of all power. She thought it was a bearable fate, but now...sitting here with someone whose aura still burns with an energy that Kagura recognizes a hundred years after the first time...

She hunches, feeling sick with jealousy.

At her obvious discomfort, Sesshomaru leans away an inch. After an excruciating few moments of silence, he speaks again.

“Are you happier this time?”

Sheer force of will prevents her from falling off the bench into the grass. “Why do you care?”

He frowns, and the familiarity of it is a slight comfort, though his next words quickly send her heart back into fierce palpitations.

“Because I have always wondered.”

“Oh.” She pretends to scratch one ear, trying to hide the stupid blush that this stupid human face wears much too easily. “Well, it’s okay, I guess. Some parts, anyway.”

The response is a loosening of his shoulders so sharp that it makes her own back ache.

“It’s a bit lonely, though,” she finds herself saying. “It’d be nice to catch up with someone from the old days.” Idiot, idiot, idiot -

But Sesshomaru doesn’t look disgusted at the idea, not even when Kagura starts coughing in a manner that only poison could have wrought in her former demon self. Instead, he is almost too quick to agree to her suggestion that they go get something to drink.

And, after several hours in a coffee shop filling in the gaps of between the past and the present, it’s his idea for him to walk her back to the shitty apartment where she’s staying.

It’s him who grips her arms before they reach her door, with a balance of firmness and gentleness that should make her suspicious that he’s done this kind of thing before and yet she’s not really all that interested in hearing about it.

“I am glad,” he says, as seriously as she can remember him saying anything, “that time has given you another chance.”

And it’s so ridiculous, because Kagura knows that he’s wrong - she should be angry with time! Furious that it separated her from the wind, that it didn’t give her riches and endless comforts, that it sapped her power while allowing Sesshomaru to keep his even though it’s not like he even deserves it -

"I don’t know,” she retorts, gripping his jacket collar with both hands to keep him there. “I think I deserve more.”

Crashing their mouths together hurts; not just because she maybe could have used a bit more finesse, but also because it brings everything rushing back. Just like when she first noticed him on the other side of the street, all of the past’s feelings reverberate through her in a breath-taking echo, reminding Kagura of centuries worth of yearning.

Perhaps she’s been running from it. Perhaps he brought it here. Regardless, as Sesshomaru’s hands grip her waist and pull her closer, Kagura swears to herself that, human or not, she won’t accept less than she deserves ever again.

#kagura #sesskagu #inuyasha #song lyric game #savethelastdan #shespitsfire

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donaidk · 3 years

Text

Rhythm of Time - Part II

Happy New Years everyone! Wanted to get at least one more part out before the end of the year 🤪 so here it is, before I get back to the other two in the works. Next one will probably be a bit more action filled, but I just wanted to let you guys into the background story behind the main character, for now 😉

As always, every kind of feedback is appreciated ❤️ Thanks for reading!

Part I | You’re here | Part III | ...

Getting back from the winter break was a lot more exciting this time. Knowing that I will have a bigger role in the team’s life meant I couldn’t wait to finally get back to them. For example pre-season testing was usually not the most interesting part of the season, I still felt like it was the biggest event of the year. I knew it would just get better with the races, but at that second it was everything I was hoping for. I couldn’t even care less about having to work with Mick, as it felt like I was floating over cloud nine because of the few days I got to work in a position that gave me so much control. The only thing I hoped for was it not getting into my head too much. No one really needed me acting like a bitch who knew she could easily break someone’s online character before getting kicked off the team. Mick was a tad bit lucky that I wasn’t truly angry at him.

Travelling to Australia made everything seem even more real as I had to manage all the press day activities even before we got to the country. I knew it won’t be easy work, but I was still looking forward to it and was able to do everything with a smile staying on my face as I actually enjoyed planning everything and not just looking at the plans someone else put together. That was fun too, and the only way you can learn, but after experiencing what it’s like to manage everything myself I would have never changed it back to the original setup. Only if it was the only way to fix a horrible situation.

Arriving at the hotel I knew it would be a night full of turning and tossing as my excitement over the top for the whole flight and car ride to the hotel. I tried having a shower so I could calm down my mind, but as soon as I met up with the team again it just started racing all around the space in my head. We had a little meeting about the next few days in Mick’s room, before everyone called it a night and returned to their rooms. As I wanted to still ask about some of his preferences I stayed with him, as he was packing out a little from his suitcases. I was now just watching him after noting down his answers for my probably dumb questions.

„ Do you usually pack out even for just a few days? ” I asked curiously and saw as his movements stopped for a moment. Thinking about it he probably didn’t expect a question that wasn’t about something professional after what we just went through.

„ Yeah, usually. It feels more organized. ” He shrugged a little, getting out some more t-shirts as I realised I should probably leave. It wasn’t something that strangers should watch you do. At least that’s how I felt like. Just as I was about to stand up and leave he spoke up again. „ Are you comfortable with working next to me? Working with me? ” He asked, still looking only at his clothes.

„ Why wouldn’t I be? ” I asked back immediately before I could have thought about it. If I had waited just a second longer I would have realised what he’s talking about. Or more like implying. „ When I told you I’m over it, I meant it. I would never say something like that without it being the truth. ” I shook my head gently, still standing up from the chair because I felt like it would be better if I leave after this is over.

„ I know, or more like I hoped so. It just feels shitty to know that I acted that way and now you’re almost forced into working with me. ” He sighed, finally turning to me, although his fingers were still fiddling with one of his sweaters. „ I just know that this is still fun and games but will be a lot harder as the season goes on. I just want to make sure that we’re okay and that you know I can be trusted, even if I fucked up in the past. ” He let go of the cotton, coming closer to me but just as my breathing would have stopped from his proximity, he sat down on his bed.

„ Quite literally, yeah? ” I tried joking with him, but as soon as his expression changed I knew it wasn’t the best decision. „ Hey, I was just joking, we’re okay. I have never thought of you as someone who’s irresponsible just because you did something most teenagers do at least once in their life. ” I shook my head, still smiling so he could be sure that I meant what I said.

„ I know most people take part in it at least once, but I have never been like them. I can’t really be like them ever. Still I don’t want to be treated better than how they would be. ” He sounded anxious and I felt like he wanted me to be mad at him, because he thought he wouldn’t deserve how I treated him.

„ I don’t give a shit about who you are. ” I blatantly told him, probably stopping his rambling. „ I’m not mad at you, because you did nothing wrong. If you would do something stupid and would have treated me wrng while we were together, you wouldn’t like to be in the same room as me. Your name couldn’t have saved you from my fury. ” I shrugged looking him straight in the eyes so he would finally understand and accept the situation. „ The only thing I want you to do is to forget about it finally. The quicker we stop talking about it, the less awkward situations we’re gonna have in the future. '' I added as a last thing, so we could fully close this chapter of our life.

„ Understood. Never bringing it back up again. ” He let out a sigh but was finally accompanied by a smile on his face. I was about to stand up and leave finally, when his expressions changed again and I knew he will speak up. „ When did you change your name? ” He asked, making my eyebrows furrow as for a second I didn’t understand his question.

„ Oh… a little after we met. After my birthday. ” I answered, but felt like it was the perfect moment to leave, before we would go too far with this topic. „ It’s my mum’s. Felt more comfortable living with this one. ” I shrugged a little, as I got to his door and opened it so I could finally leave. I quickly wished him a goodnight before turning towards my own room and crossed the hallway to get to it in just seconds.

The next few days still felt awkward, even more because of him bringing up my dad in a way, but I tried to get over it and hoped he wouldn’t ask a lot more about the person I always tried to close off from my life. Even if I could never fully accomplish my plan as he would still be my father and he will be connected to me in a way forever. Luckily with the race weekends time seemed to fly by at 5 times speed and forgetting was a lot easier when you had to focus on your job and tasks. We were already at the fifth circuit when I realised that we finally got over our past and could have conversations without even touching onto it.

As for racing, Mick was doing quite well. He was still deemed new to the F1 cars and the other drivers, but he took on the challenges and did his best. We all knew he won’t be winning the championship this year, also with a Haas car, although we never really talked about this in front of Günther, but he still pushed it to the limit and got everything out of it. Sometimes he asked for more than what it had, but he always caught it in time and got it under control, before anything could have happened. I was mostly just happy that my job only involved the outside world, and not the one inside the cockpit. My nerves could barely handle watching the races now that I knew someone quite personally from the grid. I knew most of the drivers and had talked to them on several occasions, but I never really got close to them. Mick was really something else compared to them, as I spent almost everyday following him, and we never really stayed silent as we attended interviews one by one before and also after practices, qualis and races too. I could say that I did not feel regret when I thought about my decision I took just a couple of months ago.

Even when we arrived in Spain at the beginning of the week, and realised how hot it will be on the weekend, I did not regret having to walk around the paddock almost 24/7 for three days in a row. I wasn’t the only one affected by the heat wave as everyone in the garage moved around slower than usual. They mostly got themselves together for Sunday, as I was quite surprised to see the speed at which everyone was running around when we entered after all the interviews were done. While Mick had to go get ready I took a seat next to the engineers and let everyone else work around us while I took one of the headsets so I wouldn’t lose my hearing this soon.

„ Everything good? ” Pete, Mick’s engineer asked from next to me, as he turned towards me with the headset pushed off of one of his ears.

„ Yeah, he’s doing well. Composed but still confident, whatever they ask him. ” I nodded a little, while I almost blindly got the team profile open so I could make sure it was up to date. „ Is she already here? ” I asked back, knowing that Corinna wanted to attend today’s GP to support Mick.

„ Yes, I saw her talking to Günther but she tried to stay away from the garage. She probably wants Mick to focus on the job and not her. ” He shrugged a little, looking back at the screens in front of him when someone from the mechanic crew came up to him with a question.

Mick was already in the car, seconds away from leaving the garage when his mum showed up. She still stayed in the background until they were given the sign and both cars could enter the pitlane. I sent her a small smile when she passed me, giving up my seat gladly, so she could watch the race and be close to the radio, as I was completely fine with watching it on the screens that were set up for the mechanics. I didn’t really get to talk to her yet since the start of the season, but she seemed kind and I looked up to her for coming to races, even after everything that happened to their family. It meant a lot to her son, every time she came out to support him. Even I could tell, seeing it from the outside.

Both of the Haas cars took the start perfectly, taking up better positions for most of the lap before they all started fighting each other. After the first few laps I went to get myself a coffee, before sitting back down in the garage out of the way as I didn’t really want to block the mechanics if there was going to be a pit-stop or anything. They were just about to call both of them in when we saw Mick spin at turn 10, sliding off the track into the gravel trap, right until the tyre barrier caught the car. My hand stopped in the middle of lifting the mug to my lips, as I watched him crash and hoped that they would show him getting out of the car as soon as possible. I let out the breath that was stuck inside my lungs when I heard Pete talking to him as it meant he was fine enough to communicate. I immediately felt pathetic about my reaction and tried to just slip into the background before someone would spot the worry on my face I was experiencing inside.

Turning towards the engineers I saw Corinna shift in her seat uncomfortably, probably listening to Mick explaining what happened. It wasn’t a horrible crash but there was always a possibility for injuries whenever they hit each other or the barriers. We watched relieved as he finally climbed out and left the car with the marshals, and got onto a golf cart that brought him back to the garage. He was checked out by the team doctor as soon as he got back and was fortunately cleared by him for any serious injury. I let Corinna talk to him before I would bring up having to talk to the reporters.

I only went into his room when the race ended and I knew we would have to leave for the media pen if we wanted to be on time. He was already changed back to team clothing with a little ice pack on his left wrist while holding his phone in his other hand. I cleared my throat to get his attention and he immediately looked up at me, before pushing himself off the bed. I let him leave the garage hallway first, following him as we aimed for the people already standing around the cameras.

„ You only have two. If you feel dizzy or anything just let me know and we can leave immediately. Everyone will understand. ” I told him when I caught up to him. I always hated how I was almost running next to everyone if they were walking at their normal speed, thanks to my shorter legs.

„ I’m fine. ” He answered shortly, looking mostly at the ground in embarrassment. He didn’t seem happy, and I knew that his mood probably won’t change for the day.

He still forced a small smile onto his face when we got to the pen and he held it right until he answered the last question. I was proud of him for how he held himself together even though I knew inside he was angry at himself and how the day went. I followed him back to the garage, being the first one to enter so I could get my things from inside. I waited for him to get his backpack and we left together.

„ What a shitshow of a race it was. ” He let out a sigh as we were walking through the paddocks, towards the parking lot. „ And in front of my mum… ” He added with a sigh, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

„ Everyone crashes once in a while. Corinna was probably just happy to see you get out of there. ” I shook my head a little looking up at him. „ There’s always next week when you can try again. ” I added, trying to lift his spirits even though I knew it probably won’t help.

We were just about to get into the car when someone called my name from behind us, and I knew from just the voice who it was. Stepping away from the door I motioned for Mick to get in so they could leave before my dad caught up to us. I let out a sigh as I watched the car leave and I turned back to see my dad just seconds away from reaching me. I really wasn’t in the mood to talk to him, although I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like talking to him for longer than exchanging a quick ’hi’. Somehow I felt like this won’t be a simple conversation about me getting a real job or about how my siblings are. It was never that straightforward with him.

#mick schumacher #haas #f1 #formula one #mick schumacher fanfic #mick schumacher oneshot #mick schumacher imagine #formula 1 fanfiction #formula 1 #rhythm of time #bydonaidk

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silvokrent · 3 years

Text

RWBY Character Analysis: Pietro and Penny Polendina

Up until now I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinions on the newest volume, in no small part because my personal life has been one absurd setback after another, and I haven’t had the energy to engage in fandom meta. If you do want to know what my current opinion of RWBY is, go over to @itsclydebitches blog, search through her #rwby-recaps tag, and read every single one. At this point, her metas are basically an itemized list of all my grievances with the show. I highly recommend you check ’em out.

Or, if you don’t feel like reading several hours’ worth of recaps, then go find a sheet of paper, give yourself a papercut, and then squeeze a lemon into it. That should give you an accurate impression of my feelings.

In truth, I have a lot to say about the show, particularly how I think CRWBY has mishandled the plot, characters, tone, and intended message of their series. And while I enjoy dissecting RWBY with what amounts to mad scientist levels of glee, I think plenty of other folks have already discussed V7′s and V8′s various issues in greater depth and with far more eloquence. Any contribution I could theoretically make at this point would be somewhat redundant.

That being said, I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me for a while, which (to my knowledge) no one else in the fandom has brought up. (And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Today’s topic of concern is Pietro Polendina, and his relationship with Penny.

And because I’m absolutely certain this post is going to be controversial and summon anonymous armchair critics to fill my inbox with sweary claptrap, I may as well just come out and say it:

Pietro Polendina, as he’s currently portrayed in the show, is an inherently abusive parental figure.

Let me take a second to clarify that I don’t think it was RWBY’s intention to portray Pietro that way. Much like other aspects of the show, a lot of nuance is often lost when discussing the difference between intention versus implementation, or telling versus showing. It’s what happens when a writer tries to characterize a person one way, but in execution portrays them in an entirely different light. Compounding this problem is what feels like a series of rather myopic writing decisions that started as early as Volume 2, concerning Penny’s sense of agency, and how the canon would bear out the implications of an autonomous being grappling with her identity. It’s infuriating that the show has spent seven seasons staunchly refusing to ask any sort of ethical questions surrounding her existence, only to then—with minimal setup—give us Pietro’s “heartfelt” emotional breakdown when he has to choose between “saving” Penny or “sacrificing” her for the greater good.

Yeah, no thanks.

If we want to talk about why this moment read as hollow and insincere, we need to first make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Spoilers for V8.E5 - “Amity.” Let’s not waste any time.

In light of the newest episode and its—shall we say—questionable implications, I figured now was the best time to bring it up while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind. (Because nothing generates momentum quite like frothing-at-the-mouth rage.)

The first time we’re told anything about Pietro, it comes from an exchange between Penny and Ruby. From V2.E2 - “A Minor Hiccup.”

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot.

Ruby: Believe me, I know the feeling. But why not let us know you were okay?

Penny: I…was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn’t my father.

The scene immediately diverts our attention to a public unveiling of the AK-200. A hologram of James Ironwood is presenting this newest model of Atlesian Knight to a crowd of enthusiastic spectators, along with the Atlesian Paladin, a piloted mech. During the demonstration, James informs his audience that Atlas’ military created them with the intent of removing people from the battlefield and mitigating casualties (presumably against Grimm).

Penny is quickly spotted by several soldiers, and flees. Ruby follows, and in the process the two are nearly hit by a truck. Penny’s display of strength draws a crowd and prompts her to retreat into an alley, where Ruby learns that Penny isn’t “a real girl.”

This scene continues in the next episode, “Painting the Town…”

Penny: Most girls are born, but I was made. I’m the world’s first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura. [Averts her gaze.] I’m not real…

After Ruby assures her that no, you don’t have to be organic in order to have personhood, Penny proceeds to hug her with slightly more force than necessary.

Ruby: [Muffled noise of pain.] I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower!

Penny: [Releases Ruby.] Oh, he’s very sweet! My father’s the one that built me! I’m sure you would love him.

Ruby: Wow. He built you all by himself?

Penny: Well, almost! He had some help from Mr. Ironwood.

Ruby: The general? Wait, is that why those soldiers were after you?

Penny: They like to protect me, too!

Ruby: They don't think you can protect yourself?

Penny: They're not sure if I'm ready yet. One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the Tournament.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the approaching soldiers from earlier. Despite Ruby’s protests, Penny proceeds to yeet her into the nearby dumpster, all while reassuring her that it’s to keep Ruby out of trouble, not her. When the soldiers arrive, they ask her if she’s okay, then proceed to lightly scold her for causing a scene. Penny’s told that her father “isn’t going to be happy about this,” and is then politely asked (not ordered; asked) to let them escort her back.

Let’s take a second to break down these events.

When these two episodes first aired, the wording and visuals (“No, it wasn’t my father,” followed by the cutaway to James unveiling the automatons) implied that James was the one forbidding her from interacting with other people. It’s supposed to make you think that James is being restrictive and harsh, while Pietro is meant as a foil—the sweet, but cautious father figure. But here’s the thing: both of these depictions are inaccurate, and frankly, Penny’s the one at fault here. Penny blew her cover within minutes of interacting with Ruby—a scenario that Penny was responsible for because she was sneaking off without permission. Penny is a classified, top-secret military project, as made clear by the fact that she begs Ruby to not say anything to anyone. Penny is in full acknowledgement that her existence, if made public, could cause massive issues for her (something that she’s clearly experienced before, if her line, “You’re taking this extraordinarily well,” is anything to go by).

But here’s the thing—keeping Penny on a short leash wasn’t a unilateral decision made by James. That was Pietro’s choice as well. “My father asked me not to venture out too far,” “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this”—as much as this scene is desperately trying to put the onus on James for Penny’s truant behavior, Pietro canonically shares that blame. And Penny (to some extent) is in recognition of the fact that she did something wrong.

Back in Volumes 1 – 3, before the series butchered James’ characterization, these moments were meant as pretty clever examples of foreshadowing and subverting the controlling-military-general trope. This scene is meant to illustrate that yes, Penny is craving social interaction outside of military personnel as a consequence of being hidden, but that hiding her is also a necessity. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answer, but it’s also something of a necessary evil (as Penny’s close call with the truck and her disclosing that intel to Ruby are anything to go by).

Let’s skip ahead to Volume 7, shortly after Watts tampered with the drone footage and framed her for several deaths. In V7.E7 - “Worst Case Scenario,” a newscaster informs us that people in Atlas and Mantle want Penny to be deactivated, despite James’ insistence that the footage was doctored and Penny didn’t go on a killing spree. The public’s unfavorable opinion of Penny—a sentiment that Jacques of all people embodies when he brings it up in V7.E8—reinforces V2’s assessment of why keeping her secret was necessary. Not only is her existence controversial because Aura research is still taboo, but people are afraid that a mechanical person with military-grade hardware could be hacked and weaponized against them. (Something which Volume 8 actually validates when James has Watts take control of her in the most recent episode.)

But I digress.

We’re taken to Pietro’s lab, where Penny is hooked up to some sort of recharge/docking station. Ruby, Weiss, and Maria look on in concern while the machine is uploading the visual data from her systems. There’s one part of their conversation I want to focus on in particular:

Pietro: When the general first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Allow me to break down their conversation so we can fully appreciate what he’s actually saying.

The Penny Project was picked as the candidate for the next breakthrough in defense technology.

Pietro wanted a protector with a SOUL.

In RWBY, Aura and souls are one of the defining characteristics of personhood. Personhood is central to Penny’s identity and internal conflict (particularly when we consider that she’s based on Pinocchio). That’s why Penny accepts Ruby’s reassurances that she’s a real person. That’s why she wants to have emotional connections with others.

What makes that revelation disturbing is when you realize that Pietro knowingly created a child soldier.

Look, there’s no getting around this. Pietro fully admits that he wanted to create a person—a human being—a fucking child—as a "defense technology” to throw at the Grimm (and by extension, Salem). Everything, from the language he uses, to the mere fact that he entered Penny in the Vytal Tournament as a proving ground where she could “test [her]self,” tells us that he either didn’t consider or didn’t care about the implications behind his proposal.

When you break it all down, this is what we end up with:

“Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t we make a person, cram as many weapons as we can fit into that person, and then inform her every day for the rest of her life that she was built for the sole purpose of fighting monsters, just so we don’t have to risk the lives of others. Let’s then take away anything remotely resembling autonomy, minimize her interactions with people, and basically indoctrinate her into thinking that this is something she wants for herself. Oh, and in case she starts to raise objections, remind her that I donated part of my soul to her. If we make her feel guilty about this generous sacrifice I made so she could have the privilege of existing, she won’t question our motives. Next, let’s give her a taste of freedom by having her fight in a gladiatorial blood sport so that we can prove our child soldier is an effective killer. And then, after she’s brutally murdered on international television, we can rebuild her and assign her to protecting an entire city that’s inherently prejudiced against her, all while I brood in my lab about how sad I am.”

Holy fuck. Watts might be a morally bankrupt asshole, but at least his proposal didn’t hinge on manufacturing state-of-the-art living weapons. They should have just gone with his idea.

(Which, hilariously enough, they did. Watts is the inventor of the Paladins—Paladins which, I’ll remind you, were invented so the army could remove people from the battlefield. You know, people. Kind of like what Penny is.)

Do you see why this entire scene might have pissed me off? Even if the show didn’t intend for any of this to be the case, when you think critically about the circumstances there’s no denying the tacit implications.

To reiterate, V8.E5 is the episode where Pietro says, and I quote:

“I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.”

Oh, yeah? And what life is that? The one where she’s supposed to kill Grimm and literally nothing else? You do realize that she died specifically because you made her for the purpose of fighting, right?

No one, literally no one, was holding a gun to Pietro’s head and telling him that he had to build a living weapon. That was his idea. He chose to do that.

Remember when Cinder said, “I don’t serve anyone! And you wouldn’t either, if you weren’t built that way.” She…basically has a point. Penny has never been given the option to explore the world in a capacity where she wasn’t charged with defending it by her father. We know she doesn’t have many friends, courtesy of Ironwood dissuading her against it in V7. But I’m left with the troubling realization that the show (and the fandom), in their crusade to vilify James, are ignoring the fact that Pietro is also complicit in this behavior by virtue of being her creator. If we condemn the man that prevents Penny from having relationships, then what will we do to the man who forced her into that existence in the first place?

Being her “father” has given him a free pass to overlook the ethics of having a child who was created with a pre-planned purpose. How the hell did the show intend for Pietro to reconcile “I want you to live your life” with “I created you so you’d spend your life defending the world”? It viscerally reminds me of the sort of narcissistic parents who have kids because they want to pass on the family name, or continue their bloodline, or have live-in caregivers when they get older, only on a larger and much more horrific scale. And that’s fucked up.

Now, I’m not saying I’m against having a conflict like this in the show. In fact, I’d love to have a character who has to grapple with her own humanity while questioning the environment she grew up in. Penny is a character who is extremely fascinating because of all the potential she represents—a young woman who through a chance encounter befriends a group of strangers, and over time, is exposed to freedoms and friendships she was previously denied. Slowly, she begins to unlearn the mindset she was indoctrinated with, and starts to petition for agency and autonomy. Pietro is forced to confront the fact that what he did was traumatic and cruel, and that his love for her doesn’t erase the harm he unintentionally subjected her to, nor does it change the fact that he knowingly burdened a person with a responsibility she never consented to. There’s a wealth of character growth and narrative payoff buried here, but like most things in RWBY, it was either underdeveloped or not thought through all the way.

The wholesome father-daughter relationship the show wants Pietro and Penny to have is fundamentally contradicted by the nature of her existence, and the fact that no one (besides the villains) calls attention to it. I’d love for them to have that sort of dynamic, but the show had to do more to earn it. Instead, it’ll forever be another item on RWBY’s ever-growing list of disappointments—

Because Pietro’s remorse is more artificial than Penny could ever hope to be.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby spoilers #rwby thought dump #my posts #i speak #rwby meta #pietro polendina #penny polendina #james ironwood #arthur watts #ruby rose #rwby worldbuilding #rwde

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libsterslobsters · 3 years

Text

I'm Gonna Crawl: Post 1

(Divided because of length)

Post 2

Summary: Five years. That's how long the reader and Bucky have been apart (although for him, it was only five minutes) Now with Thanos defeated and both of them taking up the mantle of Avengers, can their relationship return to what it was? Or will they have to discover a new normal?

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem! enhanced! super-soldier! Reader (Reader can see pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language

Author's note: Tumblr is being a poo-poo head and won't let me post the whole fic because it's too long, so this is a two parter.

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

The text comes when she’s in the middle of teaching English feminine and masculine pronouns. Immediately, she knows it’s something important. There’s a very limited amount of people she’s allowed to filter through the “do not disturb” status she sets her phone in while she’s in the classroom. Her first though is Barnes, but at this point, he’s memorized her schedule even more thoroughly than she has, so it’s unlikely he’s responsible for the disturbance. Pepper, maybe? But no, she’s a powerful enough woman that if she needed anything, she could simply ask and it would be hers. Peter? It’s within normal high school hours, so if he’s messaging her, she’ll give him a lecture next time she sees him for texting in class. That only leaves one person, or rather, organization. As she instructs her students to come up with a few examples of common words which can be said different ways to demonstrate masculine and feminine, then takes a moment to check her phone, her suspicions are confirmed. Rhodes. The Avengers.

“You guys keep working. That’s an example of an English masculine. Now what would the feminine be?” A chorus of ‘gals’ follows her out the door. Once she’s rounded the corner, she dials the number, completely skipping the texting process. The line only rings once before Rhodey answers.

“Hello?”

“Soothsayer. What is it?”

“You need to come in. We’ve got a mission, and it has to be you.” She lets out a silent groan before asking,

“How much time have I got to square things away at work?”

“Wheel’s up in ninety minutes. You need to be here at least fifteen before to read over your orders.” Her boss isn’t going to be happy, but it’s doable.

“Right. I think I just got a crippling migraine. I’ll call you back later.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You’re damn right.” She mutters it as the line goes dead.

Thirty minutes later, she’s on her way after giving the sub her notes and her boss a bullshit excuse. So far, no one’s worked out that she’s one of the people who fought in the battle against Thanos, and she hopes to keep it that way.

She speeds across the city, driving a little faster than is responsible, but her reflexes are fast enough to cover for it. If this is going to be the sort of mission where they need her brawn as well as her brains, she’d like a few minutes to warm up before she has to hop on a quinjet. Grabbing her go-bag (complete with weapons, her suit, and a set of spare cosmetics), she jumps out of the car as soon as it’s parked in front of the newly rebuilt Avengers compound. Warm up, and make a call to-

“Well, look who the cat dragged in.” She turns her head towards the voice, catching sight of Sam and-

“What’d you tell them? Stomach flu?” Barnes. Okay, maybe she won’t have to call him after all, but that brings up more questions than answers.

“Migraine.” She falls into step next to him while Sam rushes on ahead. “They called you too, huh?”

He nods, grimacing. “Looks like it’s something big.” Obviously. If they’ve called in both him and Sam, not just one or the other, then it’s a guarantee the situation is FUBAR. Plus her? She’s usually in the background. If she’s being pulled then-

“You alright?” She nods, smiling with more confidence than she feels.

“Yeah. Just wish I knew what we were getting into. If they want both unstable super soldiers-” It’s a joke, which thankfully, he gets.

“Then the situation must be pretty hairy.” That’s putting it lightly. They’ve never been called up together before. Never.

If the mounting evidence weren’t enough to clue her in that this is going to be major, the final factor would be, after Rhodes explains to all three of them that with the return of so many people to Earth, a former dictator who disappeared in the snap has gathered up his forces and is attempting to usurp a now-peaceful democracy in hopes of using the territory to levy compliance from surrounding nations. Usually that wouldn’t be their thing, but when the words “dirty bomb” and “gamma radiation” are brought into play, it’s no mystery as to why they’re being called in.

It’s about what she expected. Falcon is running point, Winter Soldier is the man on the grassy knoll (she shudders when Rhodey goes with that particular descriptor because of a confession several years back just after he woke up in Wakanda; “I really hope I’m remembering this wrong and it was just a dream, but I think I was behind what happened to the president.”), and she’s on evac and rescue, making sure there’s as few civilian casualties as possible. However, when the briefing is called to a close, it’s a total shock that Sam is let go while she and Barnes are told to stay back.

Rhodes sits at the edge of his desk, arms crossed, wearing his most serious expression. “You two have completed the appropriate training hours together, correct?”

“Yes.” They say it at the same time, and she has to bite her cheek to keep from yelling out, “Jinx!” It was a requirement after the defeat of Thanos that the two of them specifically learn how to work together as a team, play off of each other’s strengths, just in case something truly catastrophic happened. She also trained with Bucky and Sam as their third. What she’s wondering is, why ask a question Rhodes clearly knows the answer to? He’s the one who set up the training, after all.

“And you’re comfortable working as a squad?” She catches Bucky’s eye, and it’s clear that he’s come to the same conclusion as her: this isn’t what Rhodey is really after.

“We’re fully capable, yes.” He’s the one that answers, while she reaches out into the unknown, hoping for a vision. No dice.

With a sigh, Rhodey stands.

“What I mean is, can you be objective out there on the battlefield? Can you work together like anyone else?” This time, she’s the one to speak up.

“Can we be objective? Yes. Can we work together like anyone else? No, but that was your goal with the training program.”

“You wouldn’t have called the two of us up if you didn’t need what we can do together.”

For a moment, she feels sympathy for Rhodes. The poor man is clearly struggling to make a point. That’s when it hits her, a vision of what he’s prepared for them to do. As soon as it passes, she kicks Barnes’ chair leg lightly, which is enough that he gets the message.

“Just say it, because she’s already seen it.” She wouldn’t want to be in Rhodes’ position for the world right now with the news he’s about to deliver.

“Fine.” Rhodey nods. “If we get in a tight spot, someone is going to have to draw fire. It can’t be Barnes for obvious reasons.” Part of their mission is to obtain stolen scientific data located deep inside enemy lines. She’s smaller and therefore faster, can fit into tight places more easily, but he’s been trained to go unnoticed, and what’s more, to incapacitate anyone who sees more than they should. It’s an obvious choice. She’s in essence the diversion, the boy crying wolf while the real thief makes off with the shepherds’ wallets. Her size and speed will work to her advantage, as well as the fact that they won’t recognize her, so they won’t know right away that she’s the decoy, whereas the second they have eyes on him or Sam, they’ll know to batten down the hatches.

She doesn’t have to look beside her to know what he thinks of that idea. She can practically feel him seething. But, it’s a scenario that, along with Sam, they’ve trained for.

“What I need to know is that, once the bullets start flying, you won’t fall back on instinct and run to protect each other. Out there, you are not a couple. You’re teammates, fellow soldiers, nothing more. Got it?”

She keeps her eyes focused on Rhodey’s face as she nods, otherwise hers will show what she’s feeling. “Agreed.”

“Barnes?” There’s a pause, so long she’s about to kick his chair leg again just to get a reaction.

“Understood.”

“Good.” Rhodes’ posture immediately changes. “Now, suit up. Quinjet is leaving at 1300 hours.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

“Oh!” Bucky looks up from the building schematics he’s studying at the surprised noise from the woman next to him. “This one’s actually not bad.”

“Which one?” He leans towards her, scanning the house listing on her phone. “Nah. I don’t like the look of that roof.”

“True, but it says here they’re willing to knock some off the asking price if we’re willing to do our own repairs-”

A groan issues from the other side of the jet.

“Are you two really searching realtor.com while we’re on our way to save the world?” Sam asks, scowling.

“No, of course not.” She shakes her head, smirking. “It’s zillow.” That reminds him-

“Scroll down. Let’s see when it was built.” It looks like… ah. “Hard no. That thing’s older than me.”

“And like you, it has character.” It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. He sees an opening, and he’s going for it.

“Did you just compare me to a house?” She snickers.

“Now that you mention it, there are some similarities. Good bones, had some renovations done, could use some landscaping-”

“You know, you could’ve just said ditch the beard.”

She gasps, clutching a hand to her chest. “I would never!”

“Alright, I’m gonna stop you there.” Sam holds up a hand. “If you’re gonna talk about his hair anywhere below the neck, I’m gonna open up the hatch and jump out.” It would be a more effective threat if he wasn’t already wearing his wings.

“Mind out of the gutter, Sam.” She half-heartedly scolds before returning to examine her phone. “The market is just shit right now but there’s got to be something listed that’s less expensive than renting an apartment in the middle of Brooklyn…�� That’s what all of this is about, really. After the snap (at least from what he’s read) the price of renting was lower than it had been since the fifties. Now that everything is back to normal, everyone and their mother is looking for a place to rent. Not that he can blame them. He’s one of the returned, after all.

“I guess we could move into the complex once it’s repaired. Just for a little while-”

“Nope.” Sam cuts them off. “Hell no. It’s enough that I gotta deal with you and Judge Dredd here being all domestic on missions. If I have to hear you two going at it, I’m gonna lose my shit.”

He may not understand the pop culture reference, but he caught the sexual one. The truth is, they haven’t slept together since he returned. It’s not like things have been platonic; they shower together, cuddle, and make out like teenagers walking down lovers’ lane. However, five years is a long time (even if for him, it was barely more than an instant), and while he’s ready to resume their sex life, he’s not going to push in case she’s not there yet.

Before he can go too far down that rabbit hole, the intercom crackles to life and their pilot announces that it’s time for the drop. He’s not a huge fan of parachuting (falling to his near death and losing an arm sort of took the magic out for him), but he calls on what remains of his training now that HYDRA’s brainwashing has been deactivated and puts on an emotionless front.

“Com links on.” As Sam speaks, he activates his own com. “Everyone getting a signal?” He is, and if the face she just made is anything to judge from so is she. “Okay. I drop first, then on my mark, Winter Soldier drops; five seconds later, Soothsayer follows. Copy?”

“Copy.”

Sam shoots them a grin that doesn’t completely hide his nerves. “Good luck.”

As soon as his partner’s exited the plane, he catches her eye. “Love you. See you on the other side.”

“Love you. Come back in one piece.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

Even before Sam hits the ground, he knows it’s going to be a shit show. Even though he doesn’t activate his com to tell them as much, it’s obvious as the super soldier plummets past him that his chute didn’t open. Sam might worry about this if it weren’t for the fact he saw Steve jump out of many a plane without anything to keep him from free falling. Their tag-along, however? She has activated her coms (either that or she forgot to deactivate them) and she lets out a gasp. That’s all, a gasp, but it’s enough to put Sam on edge. This is why coupling up is dangerous in this line of work. Your affection can work to your disadvantage.

Because he can’t have his team scattered, worrying about each other, he asks, “Barnes, do you copy?”

“Copy, Falcon. Don’t think I’ll be doing that again.”

“Oh, you are so getting shit for that when we get home.” He rolls his eyes.

“Let’s cut the chitchat. We have a mission. On my mark, Soothsayer heads into the encampment to lead any P.O.W.s and civilians away. Copy?”

“Copy.”

He lands just before she does, and as soon as she’s detached her shoot, he gives her the go ahead.

Any thought that they might have succeeded in having the element of surprise on their side goes out the window when a shot whizzes past his head.

“Barnes, cover me.”

“Copy.”

Even with the rain of bullets from his own personal sniper, he barely gets past the first defensive line in one piece. He takes out at least a dozen hostiles, incapacitating when he can, eliminating where he must. Just outside the main fortress, he asks,

“Come in, Winter Soldier. How many hostiles between you and my position?”

“Eighteen.” A muffled shot follows the statement. “Seventeen.”

“Alright. Clear a path. Let’s show these sons of bitches what they get when they threaten innocent lives.”

He thinks that maybe they’ll be able to turn it around when they find their human target fairly easily and are able to capture and incapacitate. The orders, however, were not just to bring him in alive but also to seize the assets they’ve lost before a bomb squad and team of radiation specialists comes in and sweep the place. The only way he’ll be able to get their target back to the jet unharmed (not to mention survive himself) is if they do the one thing he was hoping it wouldn’t come to.

“Soothsayer, this is Falcon. Come in. Over.”

“Copy, Falcon.”

“Winter Soldier is going in. Deploy “big bad wolf” initiative.” In other words, go get shot at while at the same time covering me.

“Copy. Be advised, there are hostages in the building. I repeat, hostages in the building. Over.” For a moment he wonders if she saw it in a vision or if one of the people she’s just helped escaped has started talking out of gratitude, but pushes it to the side. He has biggest issues.

“Winter Soldier, Soothsayer, get into place. On my signal, we move.”

“Copy.”

“Three… two… one… go!”

Sam kicks off into the air, thanking whoever the hell out there invented this tech that he doesn’t have to fly with an extra 250 pounds of dictator in his arms (Redwing is handling that). Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Soothsayer making a run for it, shooting as she goes. Where the hell did she get the gun? Problems for later.

He’s just about to radio into the jet to see if the ‘package’ was delivered when the shots turn in his direction. He returns fire at the same time a dagger flies past his head.

“Throw it a little closer next time Soothsayer. I dare you.” It’s muttered under his breath.

“So you wanted a sniper’s bullet in your back?” Damned super hearing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be causing a distraction?”

“I am. Close your eyes and cover your ears.” He complies just in time for the flashbang to go off over his head.

“Fuck! You could’ve told me that’s what you were doing!” There’s no reply. “Soothsayer?” A grunt followed by the sound of impact comes over the com.

“Little busy. Hold up.” Hand to hand, if he had to venture a guess. More shots are fired, and he flies lower, returning them, kicking a few assailants in the head as he goes.

“Winter Soldier, this is Falcon. Come in.”

“I read you.”

“Do you have eyes on the target?”

“Almost there. There’s a few more obstacles than we thought.”

“Copy. Over and-” He doesn’t get to finish the sentence as a yell of “Get down!” pierces the night.

It all happens in slow motion. He reaches for the shield, but he can already hear the gun discharge. A force runs into him, knocking him to the ground. Realization hits him: it’s her. He doesn’t see the bullet impact, but he hears her cry out. On instinct, he covers both of their vital organs with the shield, and that’s when he sees the splotch of red blooming from her right shoulder, which so happens to have acted as a human barrier, blocking what would have most assuredly have been a kill shot to the head for him.

“Falcon, Soothsayer, come-” There’s a muffled shout over the com, followed by more sickening thuds and a few shots.

“Barnes?” He hears a whisper of movement from behind him, and without looking, fires. “Barnes, do you copy?” As he speaks, several hostiles gang up on him at once. Using the shield to it’s full advantage, he knocks two off their feet, kicks another in the gonads, then chin, and punches two more’s lights out. He starts on the one that’s left, but out of nowhere, the hostile’s legs go out from under him. What-

“This is Barnes. I have the target. Moving hostages out now.”

Sam opens his mouth to speak again, but a tug at his ankle draws his attention. She’s sitting up, features drawn in pain and still bleeding, her fist bloody from the last hostile’s face.

“Don’t tell Barnes.”

Internally groaning, he speaks again. “Copy. Meet us back at the ship. Over and out.” Grabbing her good arm, he hauls her to her feet and drapes her body over his shoulder. “Pretty sure the blood’s gonna tip him off. And the bullet hole.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

“It’s not that bad.” This has to be the tenth time she’s repeated that sentiment in the past five minutes since arriving back at the quinjet, and yet it’s still not making an impression. As she stands yet again, Sam gives her good shoulder a hard push.

“Sit your serum-ed up ass down. You’re gonna bleed out if-” She narrows her eyes at the man with the shield. “Fine. You’re still dripping blood everywhere.” Yeah, well, it’s not like it hit a major vein or artery. She saw it coming, after all. Still… it fucking hurts.

“Shouldn’t you be hailing Barnes again?”

“Who’s in charge here? You or me?” She thinks about snapping back with something truly brutal, but bites her tongue. “Only thing you should be worrying about is how we’re gonna get that slug out of you.”

“Give me a pair of pliers and I’ll do it myself.”

“The hell you will.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! It’s-” Before she can repeat herself again, the door opens. Her breath seizes in her throat a she takes in Barnes’ appearance. Dear God.

“Target acquired?” Sam nods and motions towards the back of the plane.

“What about you? Package secure?” With a thump, a black bag is dropped onto the floor between them. Sam opens his mouth (more than likely to make a sarcastic remark about being careful with the brain child of at least a dozen scientists worldwide), but before he can-

“You’re hit.” He’s in front of her, crossing the narrow space in just two strides.

Biting back a wince, she stares pointedly at the oozing bullet wound in his thigh. “So are you.”

“It’s nothing.” She’s about to call bullshit (that’s a fuck ton of blood, and also she doesn’t remember that cut on his forehead last time she saw him), but he turns away, fixing Sam with a hard stare. “Why didn’t you say we had a man down?”

“Not a man-” She starts.

“And technically, she never went completely down. Plus-” She knows what he’s going to say, and mouths a silent ‘Don’t’, which Sam ignores. “-she told me not to.” There it is. She’s never gonna hear the end of this.

Returning his gaze to her, he asks, “You told him-”

“It wasn’t a big deal. Can we talk about this later?”

“I second that.” Sam nods. “Preferably when you’re not both about to bleed out in the air.” Bucky’s lips twitch momentarily, and she barely contains her own smirk. They’re not about to bleed out. Still-

“You want to go first with the pliers, or do you want me to?”

“For the last time, no one is using pliers to go spelunking for bullets. Aren’t you two supposed to be smart?” She raises an eyebrow in Bucky’s direction, and he smirks.

“Technically, I think the serum just turned us into better soldiers. Not geniuses.”

“Right, and since it would take us what?” She glances at her phone, checking the time. “Five hours to get home? More than likely we would’ve already started to heal pretty significantly around the bullet and would have to disrupt that so they could dig them out.”

“So, pliers.” She nods.

“Pliers.”

With a groan, Sam stands and, digging around in the compartment overhead, produces a first aid kit.

“Fine, but if either of you starts to hemorrhage, don’t come crying to me.”

Rolling her eyes at his retreating back, she asks, “The question still stands. You want to be the surgeon first or the patient?”

“That depends.” Bucky motions to her own bullet wound. “Is that as bad as it looks, or worse?”

She attempts a shrug, but the motion makes her wince. “It’s just a scratch.” The look on his face tells her he’s not convinced.

“Then I guess I’ll dig yours out first. If push comes to shove, I can fix myself up.” This time, she’s with Sam. The hell he will. She’ll just power through.

“Alright.” She motions to the few members of the TACK team still hanging around. “If you don’t want to see me shirtless, I’d suggest you find somewhere else to be, or at least look away.” Shockingly few heads turn at her words. “Okay smart-asses. What I mean is give a lady some privacy and avert your eyes.” There. That’s more like it.

She’s kinda pissed off that she’ll have to junk the suit. It was a new one. Even more infuriating is that when she goes to unzip it, thanks to her injured shoulder she can’t manage it, and what’s worse, she lets out a groan of pain.

“Easy. Let me help.” If they were alone, she’d make an off-colored joke (something along the lines of “any excuse to get me undressed”), but she swallows it down and grits her teeth as the material tugs at her wound. She’s just going to have to toughen up and rip it off like a band-aide.

“I think there’s a water bottle somewhere, so we could soak-” Bracing herself, she gives the material a sharp tug, completely exposing herself. “-or you could just do it the hard way.”

“After all these years, why would I start doing things the easy way now?” She feels more than hears the short intake of breath that signals a laugh.

“Good point. Hold tight while I check the kit.” Taking advantage of the brief lull, she closes her eyes. She’s not exactly squeamish, but there’s something about seeing a bullet lodged in her shoulder that’s somewhat unsettling. “Alright. This is gonna sting, and then it’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” That one earns her an actual snicker.

Sure enough, it does sting. That is, if by “sting” you meant “feels like I scrubbed myself with a sandpaper washcloth and then rinsed off with vodka.” Still, she manages to keep still and wipe any expression of pain from her face as the disinfectant is poured on, completely soaking her.

“Sorry.” She shakes her head.

“Nothing a towel won’t take care of.”

He’s in front of her now, so she opens her eyes, concentrating hard on his face so she won’t look down.

“You alright?” It’s completely false, but she pastes on a smile.

“Splendid. Thinking of taking this up as a hobby, actually.” He frowns.

“You couldn’t just take up embroidery like a normal person?”

“No one-” Her breath catches as he starts to probe for the bullet. It was a distraction. “-takes up embroidery as a hobby anymore.” Deep breaths. She needs to take deep breaths.

“Shit.” Shit? That’s not comforting. “Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”

“Dealer’s choice.”

“Good news, it’s in one piece. Bad news-” He looks up, holding her gaze. “It’s lodged pretty far in there, Doll.” Of course it is. Just her luck. “Do you want to wait ‘til we get home, or-”

“Just do it.” Once more, she closes her eyes. “Sooner we get it out, sooner the super soldier mojo can do it’s thing.”

“You sure?” She nods.

“Just do me a favor. Don’t tell me when you start pulling it out. I don’t want to know.”

It’s silent, no one saying a word. Still, she clings to the little sounds she can make out in order to keep herself occupied. The engine running. The air filtration system. Her own jagged breaths and his measured ones. Despite her attempts at distraction, she can feel it the moment he starts easing the bullet out of her shoulder. On instinct her body seizes up, and she has to force herself to relax each muscle. It’ll only be more painful if she’s tense.

“Do you want something to squeeze? Maybe a hand to hold?”

Taking a slow, deep breath, she answers.

“That depends. How much do you like that arm?” If she takes out the pain on anything else, she’s almost certain she’d crush it.

“I’m sort of attached to it, so-” She chuckles, and that’s when the bullet slides free. “And, next time you make fun of my corny jokes, I get to remind you of this.”

The patching up process is simple from there. The bleeding is easily staunched and although it’s in an awkward place, they manage to bandage her without much trouble. She’s so nervous, she expects her hands to shake as she takes her turn and, with her good arm, digs the bullet out of Barnes (his is in fragments but luckily, a vision hits and shows her the shards’ locations), but surprisingly, her hands are steady. She glances up at his face just as she pulls the last shard out, but of course, he’s shut down, completely expressionless.

Finally, the quinjet touches down outside of what used to be the Avengers’ compound. Normally they would disembark, then head straight off to a debriefing, but under the circumstances, Sam calls it a night and tells them to get some rest, then come in tomorrow to go over mission reports. As they watch Falcon climb into his car and drive away, it hits her how terribly exhausted she really is. Between her bum shoulder and his bum leg, neither of them is really fit to drive home, so-

“Think we can get a cab this time of night?” Great minds think alike, it seems.

“I don’t know, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

It’s only once they’re home safely and she’s climbed into bed that she allows herself to wonder if they’re ever going to talk about today.

#marvel #captain america #the winter soldier #bucky x reader #fanfiction #bucky x y/n #bucky fic #post endgame #part 1

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victoriousscarf · 3 years

Note

#6 and #9 for the DA OC ask meme! 👀

6. What would they think of each other’s combat skills/techniques?

Well, Mahanon has straight out said he wishes all his mage companions could learn the Force Mage/Spirit Healer combo, because he /really/ likes that, and it’s one reason (besides everything else plot related) he keeps dragging Hawke out with him. He definitely respects Alim being an Arcane Warrior because that’s cool to bring those ancient elven traditions forward, and because a mage with a sword is pretty badass. He might not realize Alim is also a shapechanger yet though. So he’s very positive on both his super destructive mage friends.

Hawke is gonna lose his entire mind when he realizes Alim is a shapechanger meanwhile (Alim: I can’t turn into a dragon. Hawke: But you have the foundations of HOW to turn into a dragon please dear maker teach me). He might not fully get the Arcane Warrior stuff but he’s not gonna mess with Alim and his sword.

Alim respects any power that can break the bones of everyone in a several foot radius, so he might agree to teach Hawke the shapechanging bit in return for the Force Mage stuff, because honestly the last thing he probably needs is more ability to crush the field in front of him, but he sure likes it.

Meanwhile both mages are pretty positive on the fact Mahanon is an inspiring little shit with a giant axe, but even with his sword, I figure neither of them know that much about the finer points of axe skills.

Basically they’re all super positive on each other and their various ways of crushing everyone they want to in their way. It’s a violence love fest here.

(One time, I think it was in a comment to you, I mentioned how I think each of them would have responded to a bar fight, which I think explains their respective reactions to battle:

Hawke would break the nearest bottle if he ran out of weapons, because he’s a knock them down, use everything at hand street fighter.

Alim would, except he’s always got brass knuckles in his pocket and thus is never without a weapon to smash someone’s face in with.

Mahanon meanwhile is hiding behind the bar, complaining about the fact they couldn’t just talk this all out, while he’s massively escalating the issue by making moltov cocktails).

9. Would your warden or Hawke have actually accepted the role of inquisitor if Cassandra had located them as she’d planned to? Would they have been a good leader for the Inquisition?

Alim? Probably not. First of all he’s got his hands full being the Warden Commander, a total distaste/outright hatred of the Chantry, and he remembers too clearly how the nobles reacted when he moved into Vigil’s Keep. It’s not that he wouldn’t be a good leader, because he’s already an excellent leader, but he’s also very jaded and cynical and gives negative fucks at this point. But he does have a deep bench of allies and everything with Morrigan would probably have been pretty interesting. Though I’m not sure the Well of Sorrows would have been good for him persay.

Hawke would have done it, despite the fact he’s also jaded and cynical and hates the Chantry a whole ton and it probably wouldn’t have gone great. He’s a great dude for inspiring people, and convincing them to agree with him, but he’s also running on a lot of guilt, a lot of depression, and being shoved into a Chantry like organization would probably have spiraled him down further into both of those things. Plus, the Mage/Templar conflict wouldn’t have been wrapped up even remotely as neatly as the game pretends it can be, because as soon as Hawke showed up as Inquisitor both sides would have flipped their absolute shit. No mage would trust him, and no Templar would trust the Inquisition.

However, stumbling into the wrong place at the wrong time and picking up the bad magic glowing thing sounds like something he would have done.

#i have been emotionally compromised by dao #vs does a meme #the forest is dark and deep and ive seen you here before

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whatapunk · 3 years

Text

Sooo... I finally decided to start my Kanan/ex-girlfriend fic that I've been writing in my head for weeks. I haven't written fanfiction (or anything fun) in a very long time so this took some real motivation (and unconditional love for Kanan/Kanera).

It is set at the very beginning of Season 2, when the Spectres have joined Phoenix Crew and Kanan is looking for anything to distract him from the formalities of military life. "Anything" including his ex-girlfriend Rhia Denley, current member of Phoenix Crew. This fic will reflect the battle between my love for Kanera and my need to write about Kanan’s love life in general in the only way I see fitting: through a love triangle!

This is just a taste for the first bit, but I hope to keep going!

Title: Endings

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Relationship: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla; Kanan Jarrus/female OC

Rating: t for now, m in future chapters (I'm guessing) for language and some non-explicit intimacy

Word Count: 1688

Chapter 1

Everywhere people walked, trotted, and ran into and out of Kanan’s line of vision. They criss-crossed in every single direction, yet everyone managed to stay out of each other’s way for the most part. It was suffocating, Kanan thought. So many people, faces, ranks and titles. He’d only been working aboard the Liberator for a few standard weeks (long enough, in his opinion), but he’d already given up on trying to remember the ranking system, let alone the specific rank of each rebel. He’d taken to walking behind Hera any time they were aboard the vessel, and when she saluted someone, he, begrudgingly, did the same. Otherwise, he stayed aboard Ghost as often as he could.

Hera was in front of him now, and the kids- Zeb, Sabine, and Ezra- followed close by. Kanan felt bad; she’d been explaining what she wanted to do differently the next time they were on a similar “cargo-thieving” mission as the one they’d just returned from, and he’d all but started ignoring her. It was entirely his fault, he felt. He couldn’t hear himself think over all of the people in the bay and the intercom that seemed to always be seeking out someone.

Hera could sense that Kanan wasn’t really paying attention, but she was mostly talking to herself right now. She always felt better when she could explain things out loud, even if it was only to herself.

“Well I thought the mission went pretty well,” Ezra spoke up, shaking Hera out of her thoughts. Turns out one of them was listening.

“It’s not that it didn’t go well, Ezra,” Hera added, gently. “I’m just saying there’s always room for improvement.”

Several droids, each carrying a large crate, crossed in front of the Spectres, forcing Hera to stop abruptly and Kanan, who was so focused on watching everything else, bumped into her.

“This place is a madhouse. Why do we need to talk to Sato? Didn’t he just watch everything that just happened? Wasn’t he there?” Kanan said, letting more frustration than was warranted slip out. He frowned and Hera turned and matched the look.

“Kanan, it’s standard protocol to debrief with our commanding officer after…”

Kanan checked out at “protocol.” It seemed like these kinds of things were all Hera talked about these days. He hadn’t felt so restricted in years, nor had he felt like he had to compete for Hera’s attention (more than normal) in years. She was still talking when something caught Kanan’s eye and pulled his gaze and his feet to an abrupt stop.

A glimpse of red, he thought, the kind of which he hadn’t seen in years. Seven of them, to be exact.

A glimpse was all it was though. His eyes searched for where it had come from, but there were easily a hundred personnel in any given direction. Five stacks of crates rose and floated by, presumably carried by five people eclipsed on the other side of them. They formed a wall as they passed that effectively obstructed his view of the crowd of people in which he thought he spotted the red hair.

“Kanan?” Hera touched his arm, and his attention returned to her.

“What are you doing?” He glanced back over the sea of people, not ready to admit he hadn’t seen anything.

“I thought I saw....” Kanan trailed off, searching… searching…

“Who do you know in Phoenix Cell?” Hera asked, disbelief and a joking edge surrounding her words. That got Kanan to look at her, his usual smirk back on his face. Hera thought briefly how she hadn’t seen such a face lately, and then the thought was passed up by a million others.

“No one, that I know of,” he said, giving Hera a smile and walking back over to the others who waited, confused. Just as he was ready to get his mind back on the Spectres and whatever mundane, soul-crushing aspect of Phoenix Cell awaited him, there it was again- a flash of the most unique and memorable shade of red Kanan had ever seen. Only this time it wasn’t just a flash, and it was connected to the head and body of one of the people who had just set down one of the large stacks of crates. Kanan stared at the woman, mouth starting to fall open, and almost let her return to the crowd, lost, before he forced a single word onto his tongue.

“Rhia?!” *** Rhia Denley grunted as her arms lifted a crate over her head and locked it into the stack that rose before her. Bashi said something next to her that still wasn’t loud enough for her to hear it (she’d been telling him to speak up since she reported this morning).

“What, Bashi?” she snapped, and the Mythrol pursed his blue lips, hearing the edge in her voice.

“I was saying,” Bashi started, then remembered to amplify his voice even more, “all of the carrier droids have been checked out, so I could only get three of them. So you and I just need to move these two stacks to the drop zone on the other side of the bay where someone else’s droids will see them and grab them.” Rhia smiled, feeling guilty for snapping and also appreciative that he’d finally spoken loud enough for her to hear him.

“Gotcha. Sorry, Bash, you know this place is an echo chamber. I’m already old and hard of hearing,” she joked, giving him a punch in the arm. He smiled and nodded as he typed in directions on the last carrier droid next to them. The droid revved and began lifting the stack; only, it’s motor whined and sputtered, nearly collapsing and bringing the stack of crates tumbling. Before either Rhia or Bashi could react, the droid’s engines fully kicked in and its back thruster let out a gust of warm exhaust that sent a few bits of Rhia’s pinned-back hair flailing. She frowned, pushed the pieces behind her ears, and squatted, ready to lift her stack.

“Don’t forget,” she started, glancing sideways at Bashi who had started to bend forward to grab his crates, “lift with your knees.” She snapped upright, her stack in her arms and her legs feeling underprepared. She would have grabbed an anti-grav platform if she’d known she’d be in charge of the heavy-lifting. Bashi’s recent words floated through her mind at that thought; if droids were in short supply, everything else useful probably was too.

Rhia couldn’t really see where she was going but she was able to sneak her head out from the side of her stack and kept up with the droid in front of her. When she saw the yellow-outlined square appear under her feet, signalling a drop zone, she brought her stack to the floor again. Her legs felt shaky, reminding her she really should adhere to the volunteer fitness regimes more. She stood up and saw Bashi’s shaky stack show up right next to hers. Clearly, the Mythrol had struggled with the weight as well.

“Bashi, I think you and I had better hit the running machine more if the Rebellion gets any bigger.” He looked at her, confused. “There won’t be any droids left to save our legs,” she added, smiling. Bashi grinned, letting a quiet chuckle out, and began walking back into the crowd in the main part of the bay. Rhia began to follow when someone unfamiliar called her name, just her first name, and she looked back over her shoulder.

“Rhia?!”

There stood a man with a small beard and ponytail, wearing green shoulder armor that extended down his right arm. He was several years older than the last time she had seen him, to be sure, but there was no doubt- the man was Kanan Jarrus.

“Kanan?” Rhia asked, just as stunned as he had been. Around them, organized chaos continued, monotonous calls came steadily over the intercom, and the group of rebels around Kanan all watched intently. However, the two of them only continued to stare. Finally, Rhia spoke first.

“You’re with Phoenix Crew?” she asked, clearly in some sort of disbelief.

“Well… uh…” Kanan drew his hand up to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess… We’re new,” he added, gesturing to the Spectres. Rhia’s eyes went to them as he introduced them.

“This is Zeb, Ezra, Sabine, and Hera my- uh, my pilot,” he stammered when he got to Hera, and Rhia could instantly tell why.

Hera frowned ever so slightly and gave Kanan a look out of the corner of her eye at the word “pilot.” Kanan was doing the stammering thing he did when he was pretending to know what he was doing. Clearly, he knew this woman and clearly she was having an affect on him. She didn’t want to be jealous and tried to remind herself that the only reason Kanan had stumbled over what to refer to her as was because of the boundaries surrounding their relationship- boundaries she’d been the one to set. Still, the sight and sound of him now reminded her of the moment they’d met for the first time, back on Gorse all those years ago, and, frankly, she didn’t like it.

“It’s good to meet you,” Rhia said, politely, nodding to the crew. She waited for Kanan (or anyone, really) to speak again, but they stood together in more silence that was quickly becoming awkward. Rhia was trying to think of a quick way to end the encounter when a familiar blue face popped out of the crowd behind Kanan and the others.

“Captain Denley!” Bashi called, a datapad aloft in his hands. Rhia silently thanked him with her eyes for the rescue.

“Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me,” she said, giving a final nod and beginning to walk past them. On her way she paused and placed a soft hand on Kanan’s shoulder. She spoke quietly but not so quiet that it seemed intimate.

“We should catch up,” she said, smiling. And with that she continued past and back into the throng of the bustling service bay.

#idk about it but I'm just so happy I sat down and started #woof #star wars rebels #fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #rebels fanfiction #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #zeb orrelios #sabine wren #ezra bridger #kanera #endings

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pandoraborn · 3 years

Text

Throw me to the Ground (and watch me fly)

Chapter Three (AO3 Link.) Word Count: 2709 words Characters: Schlatt, Dream Content: attempted manipulation, jealousy

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The office is unusually quiet this time of night. Normally, Niki or Quackity would be hovering nearby, but evidence shows they’d left early, probably due to the random announcement Schlatt had made, concerning Tommy. He’d been so sure of himself in the initial moment, and after Tommy left, Schlatt had promptly announced it to the entire white house staff. The majority of them had seemed pretty stoked, especially considering Tommy already had experience with leadership and power; it was natural he’d be the perfect fit.

However, now that the adrenaline is wearing off, Schlatt isn’t so sure of himself. Tommy hadn’t seemed as excited as everyone else, and he can’t figure out why. It hadn’t been until he’d agreed to take on the role of vice president that his wings lifted up off the ground, and he’d seemed happy. There had been something off about the teen this time, and Schlatt feels like he’d been played.

It has to be Wilbur’s fault.

No, he’s not going to start thinking like that. Wilbur had never lied to him, Wilbur had never once led him astray. The man was always honest with his words and intentions, and if he had wanted Tommy to be vice president the whole time, he’d have made that perfectly clear. Schlatt has to admit that this had been entirely his idea. It doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.

Who would be? He’d appointed a sixteen year old to be vice president of an entire country. It doesn’t matter if Tommy had helped create and build it, he’s still a teenager and should be treated as such. Schlatt wonders if it’s too late to take it all back, to find someone else who’s older. Then again, Tommy does have the most experience out of everyone who works under him. Tommy would know best how things are run, or supposed to be.

There’s also the question of whether or not Tommy can follow orders. The teen is known to be very stubborn, with an inability to listen very well. Would the new president have his hands full? He hopes not. Tommy is the younger brother of his closest friend, Schlatt has to put trust in the entire family as a whole. They would never betray him. Tommy would never betray him.

He hopes.

Coming back to reality has Schlatt realizing he’s still sitting in his office. He’s still behind his desk, staring at the dark oak, the computer that’s shut off, and the mess of papers scattered around the edge of his desk. Had his office been like this when the others were here, or had he messed it up somewhere in between then and now? He had been jovial when Wilbur and Tommy had been here, sitting on his desk and creating a mess. He barely remembers the meeting though, but that logic does make the most sense.

With a sigh, Schlatt leans forward, reaching out to grab at the mess in some hurried attempt to organize it. He wants to get home and relax. Being here in just making him think strange things, like feeling resentment toward a kid. There’s a mess of papers that still need to be sorted too, like documenting the new addition to leadership.

That alone is going to be another several signatures and faxes for official purposes. Tommy’s going to need a letterhead of his own. Fuck.

“Knock knock?”

The voice is not what he had expected to hear, and it comes with a slight reverb. Schlatt jumps out of his chair, glaring at his door frame. He’d expected Quackity or Wilbur to come back, so to see Dream standing there is different. Dream has no business being in the white house. Schlatt narrows his eyes, but beckons him into the office anyway. If Dream’s there, it’s bound to be something important.

“It’s after hours, Dream. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” The mask on Dream’s face is the only emotion being shown. The rest of him is nothing but a sea of green, with only the vaguest of silhouettes to show he has some shape to him. Schlatt finds himself wondering what Dream even is, if not human. Angel? The wings on Dream’s back would indicate as much. The faceless, endless green would also indicate as much.

“Schlatt, I came because I had a feeling you needed some help.”

“No thank you.” He offers a smile as he stacks papers. Maybe the paperwork can wait until tomorrow. He’s itching to go home at this point. “I’m a very busy man.”

“Oh, don’t worry! I didn’t come to take over your job. I wanted to bring up a few concerns I had.” Dream walks further into the office, pressing his hands to the desk. The more Schlatt looks at him now, the more he can see a humanoid figure. He can see a faint outline of a face underneath the mask, too. There’s an urge to ask what creature Dream is, but Schlatt bites his tongue. That would probably be a rude question to ask in the first place.

“What concerns?” He asks. “I wasn’t aware that I needed help from someone like you.”

“Everyone always needs me for something.” Dream pushes the mask up, showing his mouth. There’s a grin on his face that doesn’t exactly give off a friendly aura. “It’s why I’m here, Schlatt. I’m always needed, whether or not people realize it.”

Sitting back down, Schlatt gestures for the sofa. “Alright Dream, if you’re so smart, then enlighten me. What could I possibly need any help with?”

“Tommy, of course.” Dream takes the silent offer and perches himself in the middle of the couch. He spreads his wings out, overtaking the length on either side of him. Feather flutter to the floor, as if Dream had detached them himself. Shades of black, white and green feathers fall all over the place, almost like they’re taunting him for his lack of wings. Schlatt can’t help but stare at them. He continues to stare until Dream clears his throat, causing his gaze to snap back to the entity.

“Tommy,” Dream repeats. “You appointed him vice president earlier today, if I’m not mistaken. You’re having doubts about the position because of his age. There’s more to it than that though, isn’t there?”

The blood drains out of his face. How does Dream know about that? He’s sure Dream hadn’t been in the office when he told Tommy, unless Dream has the ability to turn invisible. That thought is unlikely.

“How...how do you know that? I barely even told the rest of the white house staff.” Schlatt’s gripping his desk now, refusing to look in Dream’s direction. His mind is racing, trying to come up with every likely scenario possible. More than that, it’s the thought that Dream had just hinted he knows there’s more to the situation. He knows Schlatt is doubting himself. How does he know that?

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Dream says softly. “Nothing has to make sense for it to exist. Life itself doesn’t make sense. Why else would a sixteen year old help build an entire nation?” He tilts his head to the side. When Schlatt looks at him this time, there’s no trace of humanity in him. He’s back to being a vivid, bright shade of green that’s almost blinding. The wings seem to be glowing as well. Dream is painful to look at. Yet, he’s radiating a sympathetic aura that Schlatt almost finds comfort in. Someone who understands him…

Wait. Dream is speaking about sense while not making any himself. He shouldn’t be listening to the words coming out of the entity’s mouth.

“What are you doing, Dream?” Schlatt asks. “You can’t come in here and start acting like you know what I’m thinking. I trust Wilbur, and I trust Tommy. Furthermore, you can’t possibly know things unless you were actually here.”

“But I was here, and I do know things.” Dream folds his wings around himself, once again drawing his gaze. “I see the way you’re staring at my wings, Mr. President. I’ve seen the way you stare at their wings too. Anyone with half a brain cell can tell you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.” The reply is immediate, terse and overly defensive. He winces at his tone, trying to backpedal. “I’m not exactly fully human myself, you know.” A grin is forced onto his face as he turns his head to the side. “See these horns? I’m also a hybrid. I have nothing to be jealous of, especially not wings.”

“Yeah, that’s obvious.” Dream’s mask seems to smile wider. “Everyone can see you’re a goat hybrid, it’s not exactly a secret. I wouldn’t mind being a goat hybrid, the horns are pretty cool.”

“I guess.” Schlatt’s already done with this conversation. If kept up, they’d go around in circles with this pointless small talk.

“You want wings though, don’t you? It’s why you’ve always kept Wilbur close. You’re clearly hoping to gain something out of the friendship. So I’ve come to offer that to you.”

“That’s not true.” Schlatt abruptly gets to his feet. He’s done with this conversation, and he’s tired of Dream poking holes in his life. It’s decidedly not fun having some godlike entity poking at his vulnerability, pretending to know and understand him. He especially doesn’t like the insinuation that he’s using Wilbur.

Whatever spell Dream is attempting to weave is shattered the second he’s on his feet. “Wilbur’s been a great friend to me, his family’s wonderful. They’re great people, very law-abiding and upstanding. I’m not going to let anyone talk me out of my decisions.”

“If you say so.” Dream stretches out his wings again, mirroring Schlatt. He’s on his feet, and there’s that faint outline of a human face beneath the mask. Schlatt can see freckles. “It’s clear you don’t trust Tommy though.”

“I trust him just fine,” Schlatt snaps. “I think it’s time you leave.” He waves toward the door. “He’s already had a hand in running this country, I know he’ll continue to uphold it to my liking.”

“Yeah, but he said ‘maintain its dignity.’ It’s like he doesn’t trust you, Schlatt. You’re smart enough to see right through him.” Dream lets out a giggle as he moves toward the door, wings fluttering. Dream is still taunting him, and feathers are still floating around. Schlatt has a vision of himself burning every last feather left on his floor.

“I’m busy,” he says instead. “I have a lot of work to complete before I go home, and you’re just taking up time with random bullshit that’s not even true.”

“Oh, of course, of curse.” Dream nods. “Because you don’t wear your emotions on your sleeve, and you don’t get moody whenever someone calls you out on your own bullshit. You’re the president, Mr. Schlatt, you definitely know what’s best for this country.”

“I was elected, wasn’t I?” Again, he waves toward the door. “It was a fair election, and even Wilbur conceded. I’m the one in charge. Don’t come into my office and start trying to dictate things to me. You’re not even a citizen.”

“No, but considering this country is in the middle of my land, I think I have a right to express my concerns. I was under the impression you shared them. I’ll admit I was wrong though, once you admit that maybe, just maybe, I know you better than you think I do.”

Schlatt shakes his head. “You don’t know me at all if you think anything about what you said is true.”

“So why constantly stare at their wings? Or mine, for that matter? It’s like you’re hypnotized. I know that look, I’ve seen it before. It’s envy to an unhealthy degree.”

“Because they’re pretty, duh.” Schlatt rolls his eyes. “The only thing you might be right about is the fact that Tommy’s young.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that part.” The mask seems to grow even wider. If Schlatt squints, he thinks he can see teeth in that poorly drawn smile. It’s downright terrifying, and the implications that Dream has more power than anyone knows is even more so. “You said that, not me. I just said to you that he might be a problem.”

“He’s sixteen years old. Anyone with, what was it you said? Half a brain cell- would be concerned about his leadership skills.” Schlatt is no longer feeling so tired. Adrenaline is pumping through his body, making him feel on edge. Something about Dream’s presence is unsettling, and Schlatt wants to put as much distance between them as possible. “This is my country, and I get to make the final decisions.”

“But it’s not really your country though, is it?” Dream’s hovering in the door frame now, as if that too is framing his silhouette. Everything about him seems to be glowing, and Schlatt once again is staring. This time, with disgust rather than awe. “You appointed the person who found it as vice president. I mean, I didn’t come here to tell you what to do or how to run things. Yeah, it’s your country, but you just ensured that Tommy’s always going to have a say in how things are done. I’m not sure you’re not his puppet anymore.”

“Get out,” Schlatt snarls. “I’m busy, and you’re just throwing random shit out there and hoping to get under my skin. I’m not falling for it, alright? You’re not even supposed to be here. You’re not part of the cabinet, you’re trespassing and it’s after hours. Don’t make me page security.”

“What security?” Dream laughs. “Alright, I’m going. Just remember though, Tommy never lost power. You might be president, but he still has a lot of power and ability to sway people. Where he’s concerned, I’d watch your back.”

“Goodbye, Dream.” Schlatt marches around the desk and slams the door shut. He can hear Dream laughing as he leaves the floor, before the sound abruptly stops. It’s hard to tell if Dream had just left the building or vanished into thin air. He doesn’t even know if Dream can do that.

He goes back to his desk and stares at the mess of papers. He hadn’t made much headway in cleaning up his office, but now he’s especially not feeling it. He thinks back to Dream’s wings and how bright they were.

Why can’t he get them out of his head?

Why can’t he get Tommy’s wings out of his head?

The doubts he’d had earlier come back full swing. He’s not sure Tommy is a good fit for the position of vice president, and previous experience no longer matters. Still, the decision is made, it’d be shitty of him to go back on his word just because of some stupid green entity that likes to play around with words. Schlatt just has to trust in himself. Plus, the other employers will help keep Tommy in line, no doubt.

He’s the president, he’s not going to let anyone forget that. He’s the one in charge, and Schlatt is going to remain in charge. This is his country, the people wanted him in charge.

No idiot with wings, no matter who they are, is going to take that from him. He can instate Wilbur as part of the cabinet and it doesn’t prove anything other than Schlatt deciding who rules with him.

He mutters to himself angrily as he finally cleans up the paperwork. He’ll sort it all out later, when Tommy starts his first day. They’ll work on the letterhead, on the signatures and policies and everything Tommy might need to know, and it’ll be fine.

When finished, he shuts off the lights and heads out, turning back only once to glance at the dark building behind him. By this point the sun had long since set. Streetlamps are the only source of light as he wanders down the path. Hardly anyone is out at this time, most citizens either heading to their homes or enjoying a night on the town.

As for him? He goes home. He has a busy career ahead of him and he’s going to take any downtime he can.

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