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#i like that i can focus on his shapes without having to worry about patterns
vehemourn · 4 months
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a baby snapper a friend gifted me :] hes shiny !
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(((Here we go, de-squicked for non-horrifically-debauched reading pleasure~))
Okay, as much as we like to talk about how fluttery and "proper" the Thalmor would be with their pet system and courting, I think we can all agree that like most "I'm holier than thou" archtypes, they're probably also into some mega kinky shit.
You're nuzzling against Ancano as he greets the others upon entering the next party. Even as he keeps his focus on the conversation, his hands wander up under your sheer, silky skirt to cup the cheeks of your ass and kneading the soft flesh. When he's sure the others' attention is where he wants it to be, he spreads your cheeks apart, the thin fabric doing nothing to hide the glittering gemstone decorating the plug embedded in your second hole.
Soul gems carved into the shape of yoni eggs and charged with magic before being pushed deep inside your core. As if the stone itself humming with magic wasn't enough, skilled mages with more finesse can cause it to produce additional effects. One agent strokes your hip gently and the stone surges with heat, another traces patterns on the inside of your thigh and it becomes frigid like ice, yet another trails their fingers down your spine and the gem buzzes with electricity. They probably put a positive spin on this practice as well, as it's said consuming soul gems increases one's powers, and this is a way for them to release the gem's magic power into your body in a similar fashion. If you become more enduring, they may even start using multiple stones in the future.
Once you've become more used to the "routine" of these gatherings, Ancano starts taking you to the "after parties" that happen after the initial party. Taking place in the Embassy's dungeon, imprisoned Talos worshippers and pets that have fallen out of favor with their owners at the mercy of the heated whims of all sorts of monsters for the Talmors' entertainment.
"If they insist on worshipping a man as a god, then they must consider themselves below men," Ancano whispers in your ear as you all watch a troll line the heavy head of it's massive erection line up with the hole of breton woman, already sobbing and slobbering over the cocks of two goblins thrusting into her mouth. "Best to re-acquaint them with their own kind, don't you think?" He pulls you more firmly against his lap, feeling the bulge starting to form. "And as for her," he gestures at a girl in a similar silken outfit to yours, caught in a minotaur's full nelson, "that's simply what happens when pets become boring. It'll serve you well to stay…engaged, with this arrangement."
He says he makes you go to these particular showings to keep you from getting complacent with all the attention your receive, but he purrs in your ear all the while that no matter how much his colleagues are trying to curry your favor with gifts and flattery, they'd just as well love to watch you in the place of these heretics. He uses illusion magic to resonate with the soul gem nestled in your walls, making you see yourself in the prisoners' places as you watch, then making it mimick the sensations of what their going through without the pain, making you squirm at the false feeling of a werewolf's knot bouncing at your entrance or a spriggan plugging you with gooey sap.
When your whimpering and stifled cries finally start to stir some attention is when he speaks up, "my pet seems to be finding this display incredibly upsetting. May I ask for someone to take her out and 'console' her?" It's a miracle that it doesn't turn into a violent free-for-all for the other Altmer when they see the large stain of slick you've soiled Ancano's lap with by this point. When he lets your suitor for the night (first or only is debatable) lead you out of the room, he leans back in his chair with the most smug grin on his face. You need not worry, my little treasure, he thinks to himself, they'll never be bored of you.
WORK BITCH, THAT'S WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT 😩
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(Of course my dear, I do apologise this took so long. Life was life for a while. I based this one on personal experrience but all eating disorders show in different ways. I send hugs to all those that deal with them, for the bad days and the relaspes but just know you aren’t alone.
I am going to tag this with eating disorder warning, I did try to keep it sort of vague enough that it shouldn’t be triggering but I don’t want to run any risk.)
          ____________________________________________________
Hanzo is quite aware of how the mind can shape the body, putting ideas in one’s head that aren’t necessarily healthy.
First noticing this in you one afternoon. Hanzo, Genji, Hana, Lucio and you had decided to take a walk through Havana after being stationed nearby. Some sort of festival had been going on, the sound of music had filled the air, children laughing, smell of food and sweets hanging heavy.
It had been quite a fun experience, Genji, Hana and Lucio all being eager to start binge trying everything in sight but none of the food seemed to interest you, explaining it away as “having had a large breakfast” but he noticed you seemed to lose any colour in your face and seem almost nauseated by the smells and looks of the treats around.
Making an excuse of needing some fresh air, he had taken you with him to a large park where while there seemed to be a band playing and some small rides set up, the smell of food was faint.
Questioning whether you felt alright seemed to yield no results as you insisted you were fine so he let the subject drop. Distracting you with small talk as you both waited for the rest of your group to be done.
He seemed quite concerned over the next few days but after some reassurance from you that you were fine, he seemed to let it go. To you at least. He kept quite the close eye, concerned about his dear one.
Noticing a pattern emerging with your behaviour. Some days you were your usual self, others you were withdrawn, self-critical, commenting on your physical appearance and wearing large hoodies. He always checked on you, make sure to compliment you both on actions taken or on physical things. Being slightly more affectionate.
You always seemed to bounce back but would hit those low points and he could never quite figure out why. You made excuses but he could always tell there was something more going on.
It hit him during a mission in Oasis, the two of you had been tracking Null Sector in the area for a week. Having to pull odd shifts to  keep up with the Omnic group's activities as unlike you both, they didn't need to rest.
After waking you up for a 3am shift swap, he was alarmed as you tried to take a step out of bed and just crumpled like a leaf. He was able to catch you before you hit the floor, your limp body being moved back to the bed.
You had woken up after a few seconds, your boyfriend’s concerned eyes staring back into yours with a hand pressed to your forehead. 
Another attempt was made at getting out of bed with your insistence you were fine, you ended up having to sit back down quite quickly. 
After a quick argument about the mission taking priority over you having a dizzy spell, Hanzo made it very firmly clear you were his priority and others could take over for them. Null sector were not aware they were being watched as far as you both knew and he refused to put you in danger when you were not 100 percent.
After that, evac was called, Genji and Tracer soon taking your place on mission as your boyfriend was far too concerned about you to be able to focus and you knew in your current state, you would just worry him more if you left without him.
The next few days were spent in your shared apartment, the couch becoming a small nest of blankets and pillows, your favourite movies and TV shows being watched as the two of you cuddled on the couch. The compromise on food being a snack plate of your favourite items that you slowly worked your way through it.
He was quite proud of you and made that known over those few days, pressing the occasional kiss to your head, giving the occasional squeeze here, telling you that he loved you there. Trying to show in his own way that he understood but was proud of you for whatever you managed to eat.
From there on, he kept an eye on you. Never being overbearing about his reminders about you needing to eat but not ignoring it.
Handing you a breakfast bar in the morning, coming by with some of your favourite meals for lunch, finding local restaurants that allowed take-away for dinner. Respecting the times where you couldn't get yourself to finish a plate and simply putting it away as leftovers. Always quick to reassure you that while structured times to eating could help, it was never too early or late in the day to eat something. Or that a snack and some water was truly better than nothing at all.
The compliments turn up to an 11 on those bad days, not just limited to physical ones but those were the main brunt of them, ones about your mental abilities, smarts, one liners he still finds particularly funny that you had delivered were often also common. Wanting you to know that even if your brain was being cruel to you about your appearance, that he thought you were gorgeous. No matter what.
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forecast0ctopus · 1 year
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hi there, I love your art! if you have time to answer, I was wondering if you have any tips or recommendations for drawing in a more expressive or cartoony style? I've been drawing for years but I always get caught up in the weeds and end up adding way too many details that don't necessarily look bad, but are too stiff and over-detailed. I really admire the way you capture so much in such clean lines, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear them - thanks for sharing your art, have a great day!
ah thanks so much, i really appreciate it!! i totally get where youre coming from tho, i really tend to get caught up in the small things too (the amount of sketch layers i have on finished things is stupid lmao). anyways yes theres a few things i do to help myself out of that pattern!! im not all that great at putting things into words but hopefully the pictures help haha putting it under the cut because it'll probably end up long sorry
i cant speak for everybody but this is what i do! heres how i tend to approach my initial sketches:
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i like to keep it minimal here so i can focus on the pose over everything else, i try to do it in one pass and not worry about the anatomy. usually i do a few of these kind of sketches before i figure out something i like. also something ive found recently is that, for me, zooming in and doing these sketches really tiny helps because i dont have the space to add in detail. i do this a lot when i thumbnail a sequence to storyboard (usually on paper tho) and it helps me focus on the idea over the drawing
after that i like to focus on shapes!
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if theyre a character with loose fitting clothes i usually won't sketch out much anatomy and just get into the shapes of the clothes bc then i dont get too particular with proportions and all. im gonna state here that this is not an excuse to not study anatomy tho and the reason that this works out for me is because i have studied it haha
getting into details of things, i kind of try to walk the line between too little and too much? like with clothes the details i like to get are wrinkles at bent joints and obvious seams. with wrinkles i try to only do one, maybe two, because it can get excessive fast.
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seams are really good for establishing the direction things are facing, like to read volume in 3D space. the ones ill pretty much always include (unless theyre not present in the clothing worn) are shoulder seams and pants seams. in my experience shoulder seams are great at telling the fit of a shirt without a ton of detail!
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lmao heres a collage of expressions for an example. as far as faces go i like to exaggerate mouths and eyebrows a lot lmao its kind of hard for me to put into words my process here. i really like dot eyes bc i feel like i can do a lot with em in combination with lines. tho i dont usually use em on finished artwork. eyebrows and mouth are primarily what i use to establish a facial expression, though sometimes ill throw in a scrunched nose if the expression calls for it.
the whole "clean lines" bit really does help with making sure things dont look too cluttered, and the way to approach that for me is doing your line in just one stroke (maybe two if u want it darker but thats besides the point lmao) but yeah drawing from your shoulder, not having a hairy line, etc really helps not clutter your drawing anyways i think thats about it for expressiveness and clean lines idk if youve got anything more to ask ill answer to the best of my ability
TL;DR i try to focus on shapes and pose, and putting in just enough details to make action/expression read well
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cheesy-cryptid · 2 years
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I was planning to write this out in later stories, but my brain refuses to cooperate so I'm telling you this now bc I can't wait for my own damn fics apparently.
My Bruno fankids descriptions:
Matteo: Caucasian, black hair, hazel eyes. Born without his right arm below the elbow but his gift gave him one made of ceramic. He wears a green shirt w/ teal accents shaped like bowls/cups and khaki pants under a white smock that doesn't stay clean, as well as brown shoes.
Melodia: Tan, blonde(super rare thing from Abuelo on mama's side), green eyes with a blue ring around the pupil. She wear a chartreuse dress with a white collar that looks like sheet music with the opening notes of dos orugitas on it and black shoes.
Deston: Tan, but not as much as Melodia, brown hair, eyes are green, but he has light sensitivity so he wears sunglasses(They were invented in the 12th century, so don't call me out on that!). He wears a white shirt and grey pants under a dark green ruana with a black swirling pattern, and sandals like his papa.
There. Maybe now I can focus on my fic....
Pray for me.
DONT WORRY BESTIE YOULL GET THAT WRITER’S BLOCK OUT OF UR SYSTEM SOON! Just have fun and take breaks too! No need to pressure yourself when it comes to making stories. 💖💖
Your Bruno Kiddo ocs ARE PRECIOUS OMG 😍 i love all the descriptions you gave them! They all seem so cool and im in love with all the details you give from their outfits that hint at their personality and gifts 🥰🥰🥰 Because of this i remembered the multiverse idea of similar encanto ocs meeting each other JAKDJDLSJSUHKSG😤 Gahhhh cant wait to here more about these kiddos soon 🥹🥹🥹
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neonraven28 · 8 months
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Rapace n Keegan something something
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okay. oc x canon stuff, I wrote this a month ago and never finished it... a few things have changed since then, but overall the base idea is this one. i haven't been writing for months before this, so yeah... i also considered putting this in the x reader tag but i feel like it's too much rapace focus
anyway, warnings: a wee bit of cursing and wounds, im not a doctor, self indulgent... I suggest you read about Rapace but if you don't it's fine, you can imagine yourself in her place too
Being a resque of some sorts, with a different kind of training and abilities, she doesn't exactly serve a country or take sides. She isn't a mercenary either. She follows the military rules she was taught, in a way keeping up with Italy's plans and whatnot, and everyone who teams up with her has contracts that go into extreme detail, in order to avoid any conflict.
After she was first rescued, she had to go through a mix of rehab and therapy, in order to be more grounded and reliable— as she was overly independent and, simply put, just not a great teammate.
Which is how she managed to make at least a few friends.
One of these being Keegan—
They met when she had already been in therapy for a while.
Initially, Keegan didn't think much of her. He heard the rumors, he was warned, but the gravity of the situation didn't strike him until he saw her on the field.
"We need her," they were told, "So put up with her for a while."
How he wished they didn't need her.
She was a beast— an absolute force, skilled in her own abilities.
But she was a literal beast, too.
Careless, reckless, selfish. You name it.
He didn't like her.
Until.
He noticed her rebellious attitude get gradually pushed aside, instead following orders without second-guessing them.
He watched her dismissive beheaviour fade, treating the wounds of her teammates and effectively not blowing their cover.
He saw her talk, not taunt or tease.
And then she begun to open up.
Keegan has never been the sociable type- but that did not deter Rapace's interest. Maybe it even beckoned her in.
Most of their initial talks was all of her doing: talking about training, weapons and future plans. He would listen, only occasionally giving her an input. The furthest she ever got was regarding her own shapeshifting powers, a topic that always attracted Keegan's attention.
Rapace didn't seem to mind his silence.
She assumed that if he wanted her to shut up, he would just tell her. She had gotten on his nerves multiple times at the beginning.
What she didn't expect was for him to become sociable to some degree.
Keegan had approached her once, running over the details of the missions before going into it. Rapace didn't think much of it, it's a mission, she thought.
But then he begun to approach her about the most random things, all mission wise. Going as far as making a few jokes here and there.
And it picked up from there.
Small things someone would think nothing of, but Rapace noticed all of them. Small patterns being broken and shaping into something akin to affection. Little gestures, such as passing some ammo, handing her her cloak...
Initially she found it a little weird.
Affection made her skin crawl, anxiety slowly building up and squeezing her chest. Her legs itching to run away.
She knew why. She knew what it was. She had talked about it in therapy.
So she gave it a shot, tried to fight it.
One day at the bar, she offered him a drink and a meal. "Don't worry about it, at this point I have more money than I can spend," she tried to play it off cool.
Another day, she complimented his perfomance. Then she asked for his opinion on something of her private life. And he gave her one.
After a long and exhausting mission, they sat in the safety of their base.
Their limbs sprawled out, enjoying the calm after the storm. Rapace hummed, closing her eyes.
Keegan glanced at her, gaze lingering for longer than normal. He sighed, "you should take better care of yourself."
Rapace's head had never whipped this fast towards Keegan, eyes opening wide. It was so sudden. "What did I do now?" She straightened her posture, staring at him.
Keegan layed back, eyes fluttering shut. "You got injured plenty of times."
"You know it's not a problem—"
"That doesn't mean you can cheat death." Keegan interjects.
Rapace shuts up, eyes searching his face for a moment before deflating, back resting on the wall and closing her eyes. "Don't worry."
"You said it yourself."
"Fine—" she gives up and runs a hand through her hair, "I'll tone it down."
Keegan looked at her, eyes wide.
This was the first time she had agreed to such a thing.
He blinked and decided to take this victory, looking away and resting his head against the wall.
Another day, Rapace was on the hospital bed, hand on her lips as she picked dead skin off.
She heard a knock on the door and turned her head towards it, seeing Keegan come through.
"Oh, hi," she greets, pleasantly surprised. Keegan nods her way and sits on the chair next to her.
They sit in silence, Rapace idly staring at him. "They took out the bullets," she starts, pointing to her shoulder. Not a single scratch. The same was probably true for all other injuries. "Healed quickly, but they insist on letting me have the day off."
"As they should," Keegan interjects, laying back on the chair. Rapace tilts her head, "it's wasting time—"
Keegan rolls his eyes and places a hand on hers, effectively stopping her oncoming rant, "how many bullets were there?"
"Twelve."
Keegan squeezes her hand, "just take the day off," he retreats back into the chair.
Rapace sighs, holding back any complaints.
She heed his advice and took the day off.
When they were on a mission together, they were sneaking away. Both were walking quick and silent, mindful of their surroundings.
As they finally opened the vent that led outside, smoke filled their vision— Rapace growled and quickly threw a granade in the direction where it came from. She hears gunshots be fired and she takes a step back—
"Fuck—" Keegan doubled over, gripping his side.
Rapace's fight or flight kicks in and she pushes him backwards, before turning into a panther and lunching forwards.
Screams echo and blood stains the snow, a bit too close for comfort.
Keegan panted, applying pressure to his wound as he occasionally looked around to make sure no enemies would catch him.
He hears the snow crunch and he turns his head, to be met with a bloody Rapace. He frowns beneath the mask.
Her pupils are constricted and she quickly falls to her knees, hands going behind his knees and around he shoulder. "Rapace—" he breaths, but she doesn't listen. She drags him out the vent, quickly checks her surroudings, hauls him up and sprints for the next best hiding spot. Keegan groans at the sudden movements, curses leaving his lips.
Then, just as suddenly, Rapace lays him beneath a tree.
Keegan breaths heavily and throws his head back, a bit relieved. "I'll be fine—" he rasps out, but as his eyes land on Rapace he notices she isn't listening. Instead, she is already rummaging through her backpack, hands shaky. Her jaw is clenched tight, so tight it should hurt. She gasps as she finds the medikit, "Here—" she places it next to him. Her eyes shift around quite quick, further pointing out her agitation. She pulls off her gloves and grabs the alcohol, pours it on her hands and shifts closer to Keegan. "Can I—" her voice cracks as her hand reaches to his shirt, stopping just before touching it.
Keegan groans and grabs her hand, "Rapace," her eyes finally look at him, "I'll be fine, just..." he trails off.
Rapace squeezes his hand, enticing him to continue. She was finally listening to him. He looks into her eyes, noting how they zeroed on him. He takes a deep breath, "the bandages," he pulls up his shirt as Rapace grabs the bandages, he then unlatches his tactical vest to make access to his torso easier.
Rapace shakes her head, squeezes her eyes shut and reopens them, working to wrap the bandages around his torso tight enough to apply the pressure needed. She secures it and gives Keegan space.
Keegan takes deep breaths, looking down at his bandaged side.
Rapace's pupils finally go back to normal, and she puts everything back in its original space. She gently adjustes Keegan's shirt and vest, biting the inside of her cheek. Keegan looks up at her as she does so, studying her expression. He was glad to see her steadier— he had never seen her so nervous, even when she treated their team mates. He looked at how the tension in her eyebrows left, how her pupils were their normal size and how hands no longer shook. "There," she mutters, eyes staring at where his wound was. Keegan swore he could see the sorrow in her eyes.
He shifted in his seat, testing how well he could move. Rapace looked up at him, then stood up and took a step backwards.
"Let's get the hell outta here," He mutters, and Rapace offers him her hand, which he takes.
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Week 9 Reality vs My Perception
This week I took observational photos of moments in my daily life, and experimented with different effects and angles. I’m interesting in exploring the relationship between my reality and fact. Reality is subjective. My perception of the world is unique because of my individual life experience and history. I used distortion and blur to explore this idea of my unique reality- how do my experiences shape and manipulate how I see life? I shot in a combination of black and white and colour. Trying to take self portraits has led me to think outside the box in terms of angles. Without using a self timer, self portraits involve twisting yourself in different ways. Mirrors and reflections were a good way to frame my self portraits, as with a mirror you can be in a photo and see the photo as you are taking it.  This week my camera has really acted as my visual diary, and I’ve documented the people I see around me and what I see of myself. Looking over these photos I can see how they capture random details that are really key to my ideas of these people. 
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I shot these images in monochrome but as they’re raw files they displayed as colour in my preview. They look so different in colour! I liked the blurred effects I saw in many of Man Ray’s images and I experimented with this a lot this week by shooting with longer shutter speeds. I found this challenging and a lot of the time it didn’t work. There’s a fine line between a blurry image that captures movement but is still recognisable and one that is just a messy pattern of light. 
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This is one of the overexposed images I took, of my brother running at a park. I explored overexposure to create a hazy image and capture his movement. He was very stressed on this day, because his medications had been increased.  When he’s like this, he has so much manic energy. I converted this photo to black and white, which I think works with the composition better- the trees are dark and frame the image, and the other dark element is his t-shirt, which is the focal point of the image. I also put a vignette round the image. This creates a pinhole focus on him, like the view out of a tunnel or through my eyes. In this moment, I was very worried about him. I didn’t know what he was going to do next, or whether he would have a seizure. All my focus was directed at him. 
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Below: I took this image of my brother Archie through a glass of water. The distortion makes a familiar figure seems alien- our relationships with people are ever changing.. My relationship with my brother is complex. We are really close, but very occasionally he lashes out at me, and in those times we become distant. 
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This is my brother lying on the couch at my grandmothers. Sometimes he has to take sedatives to prevent seizures. He wears all his emotions very openly so when he’s exhausted you can always tell. 
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frogtanii · 3 years
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your palms were sweaty as you adjusted your slacks, making sure the pleats were where they should be with not a wrinkle in sight. you wanted to look professional and put together, at least on the outside, because you knew you were actually about .2 seconds away from falling apart.
your palms were sweaty as you adjusted your slacks, making sure the pleats were where they should be with not a wrinkle in sight. you wanted to look professional and put together, at least on the outside, because you knew you were actually about .2 seconds away from falling apart.
a quick glance to the boys at your sides notified you that they weren’t faring much better. atsumu kept fidgeting with his cufflinks, sakusa was so stiff you could knock him over with your pinky, kenma looked like he was about to pass out, bokuto was debating on squeezing under the table in front of you, kuroo was tapping a pattern on his pants (akeelah and the bee style), and akaashi kept reciting ominous poems under his breath.
the only people in the room who looked even remotely fine were osamu, oikawa, sugawara, daichi, and, surprisingly, yachi. osamu was munching on some peanuts that he pulled from... somewhere, while oikawa and sugawara were holding their own conversation by the window. daichi seemed to be minding his own business but you could never really get a proper read on him anyway.
well, you supposed yachi was okay because she knew what to expect. i mean, you were meeting her boss.
after you and kenma had posted your “exposing the hype(r) house” youtube video, an email had come to the both of you, inviting you to visit the “big boss” along with the rest of the crew.
you weren’t necessarily afraid of losing your job; the hype(r) house was already being dissolved and you were (finally!!!) getting to move in with makki and mattsun until you found your own place. you were genuinely excited to put the drama and literal hell behind you and begin to live your life again but...
that didn’t mean meeting the Man™ wasn’t terrifying. it was like being called into the principal’s office, complete with the existential dread and occasional bouts of gassiness.
the door opening made you flinch as you quickly moved out of the way to let the newcomers enter. while they walked past you, you couldn’t contain the shock that overtook your face, your jaw practically on the floor.
the man was massive.
built like a brick wall, the man who you assumed to be the “big boss,” had a chiseled jaw, broad shoulders, and massive fucking pecs, his white button up barely closing around them.
beside him stood a tall, lanky man who was dressed suspiciously un-office-like with a red buzz cut and wild eyes that seemed to cut into you as he took his place at the table.
the final man seemed a bit awkward in comparison to the other two, but he was trying to seem unaffected, his purple bowlcut, despite being rather juvenile, fitting perfectly with his slim but toned build and bright complexion.
yachi hurried to greet them, giving all three a blinding smile before motioning for everyone else to take a seat. you ended up between the redhead and atsumu, the former being way too entertained by just your general being. his eyes rarely, if ever, left your face sending shivers down your spine. the remaining members all hesitantly took their seats and “big boss” began.
“it is an honor to meet you all. i am ushijima wakatoshi but you can call me ushijima or wakatoshi or ushiwaka or toshijima or just ushi or just jima or just waka or just toshi.” for a moment you thought he was joking but his face never moved, not even with the awkward silence that followed. redhead seemed rather amused by the whole display and bowl cut looked like he was on the verge of spontaneously combusting.
it took an uncomfortably long moment for ushijima to proceed but he did as though nothing had happened. “these are my associates, satori—” redhead gave you a mischievous grin “—and tsutomu.”
“goshiki,” bowl cut interrupted, his voice wavering but his eyes gleaming with righteous indignation as though he was challenging wakatoshi to say something in defiance. instead, ushijima just gave him a nod and he visibly deflated back into his seat.
“goshiki is the social media manager for imla and satori is... satori,” big boss continued, not a hint of emotion on his face. the rest of the table perked up at his comment but atsumu was the only one who apparently had the balls to say anything.
“so yer the one who wrote that shitty among us tweet?” goshiki flushed horribly and sunk further into his plush leather chair, his body language showing he must’ve already gotten an earful about it. “thought it was a good idea,” he muttered while averting his eyes, completely ignoring satori’s cackle from across the wood.
ushijima put up a (massive???) hand to calm the both of them and it instantly worked. satori quieted down though he never lost the mirth in his expression and goshiki straightened up, a new wave of determination crossing his features.
you sat up as well, feeling the shift of energy in the room but you were startled to realize the boss had decided to focus his energy on you, his deep baritone voice calling your full name. “i am extremely sorry. we have failed you as a management team and as men. i have failed you.”
he sounded remarkably remorseful, his brown irises conveying heavy emotion and guilt. you had no idea what to say but he wasn’t done.
“although i do not have full control of the decisions that have been made here, i should have fought harder for what i believed was right and for that, i will forever be sorry.” you shifted uncomfortably under his weighty gaze, not that he noticed because his attention was swiftly taken by kenma at the opposite end of the room.
“who is in charge then? aren’t you like the ceo or whatever?” he asked. ushijima took a moment before nodding very slowly, his attention clearly on something in his head.
thankfully, satori rapidly took over the thread of conversation before the room could fall in tense silence yet again. “there’s a board of old, stuffy guys who basically kicked miracle boy wakatoshi to the curb and make all their decisions without him.”
...miracle boy? what did he have to do to earn that kind of nickname? you shook your head and tuned back in, just as the ceo spoke up once again.
“because i have not succeeded in doing my job properly, i have something to give to you,” ushijima deadpanned, sliding a thick envelope towards you. you carefully grabbed it and opened it up to reveal a thick, thick, wad of cash.
a gasp caught in your throat, words not coming to you as you thumbed through the money. there had to be at least $60k in there, your eyes filling with tears while you took in his generosity. “thank you,” you whispered, not trusting your voice to speak any louder.
wakatoshi nodded at you before addressing the rest of the table about something but you weren’t even listening.
you were so overwhelmed. for the longest time, you’d hated whoever management was for ignoring your pleas for help and trying to placate you with nice dresses and fancy dinners so meeting ushijima was quite the welcomed surprise.
despite everything that occurred, you could tell he felt horrible for letting things slide even though it was technically out of his hands and you couldn’t even articulate how much that meant to you.
the fact that he had gone out of his way to pay you extra, assumingly without the permission of the board, was heartwarming, confusing, shocking, and staggering all at once.
i mean, you could probably describe the past few months as exactly that. so much had happened, so much had changed, and while you could do without some of the life adjustments (the nightmares, spare trauma, and fear of public bathrooms to start), you felt blessed with new friends and the experiences that helped shape you to the person you were now.
the boys didn’t hate you anymore (well, not all of them at least and none were actively antagonizing you), you were seeing dr yamada again, you were getting to move in with your two best friends, you were just given enough money to expand your channel drastically, and you were finally feeling good. better than good.
meiko was behind you and though you missed the person she once was, you were so glad she was out of your life in a way where she couldn’t harm you or the boys any longer.
a grin spread across your face, your cheeks nearly burning from the intensity of it. things were definitely looking up.
a soft call of your name jolted you from your thoughts, your eyes landing on all the boys already standing as they got ready to leave the room. you could sense their worry and you shot them a genuine, reassuring smile before standing yourself.
you waved goodbye to the three men at the table, thanking ushijima profusely for his kindness but he shook you off, insisting that he had just been doing what he should’ve done a long time ago.
what a nice guy.
as you followed the boys out of the building, you took a moment to observe them together with fondness written all over your expression. they were laughing and joking around, the happiest and most carefree you had ever seen any of them. bokuto was begging yachi to get them ice cream, the rest of them piling on until she gave in with a playful roll of her eyes, giggling at the cheer that went up from the group.
atsumu seemed to notice you lagging behind, falling back to join you. “ya okay angel?” he asked, eyes focused on your feet as he slowed down to match your pace.
you didn’t answer for a while, instead focusing on the sun warming your cheeks, the cool breeze messing up your hair, and the sounds of pure joy swirling above you.
“i’m absolutely perfect.” you replied and you actually meant it. “race you to the van?” you sent him an impish grin before taking off, his yells of indignation making you laugh freely as the rest of the boys joined in, right on your heels.
this is it, you thought. no matter what, i’ll have this moment and i’ll be okay.
you’d been through hell and back and you’d survived. you’d been cursed at, choked out, hospitalized, and been beaten at mario kart more times than you could count and you had still made it through. you were resilient and strong and you’d never given up, despite how badly you’d wanted to, multiple times over.
things weren’t perfect, they rarely are, but you knew that if you could make it through all that, you could get through practically anything, especially with the boys by your side.
yeah. i’ll be just fine.
ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
bonus!!
“told you it sounded stupid as hell.”
“gah, stop talking about it!!”
“you sounded sooooo old ‘shiki, what are you, 92?”
“AAAAAAAAAA!!!”
“satori...”
“what’s up miracle boy?”
“...what is ‘sus’?”
Tumblr media
℗ poker face
i’ll be just fine
series masterlist
(●’◡’●)ノ
an - AND THATS A WRAP FOLKS 🥳 wowowow did the ending give me trouble but that’s ok SISJSK the endings will be coming shortly but they might not be daily just cs they may take more time, who knows lmfao i’ll let y’all know :3 AAAA ANYWAYS ILY I HOPE U GUYS LIKED KITH KITH don’t forget to feed me <3
taglist - if your name is in bold, i cannot tag you
@boosyboo9206 • @geektastic84 • @elianetsantana • @trashy-simp • @infinitebells • @6mattsun9 • @suhkusa • @katsulovee • @kotarosbabygirl • @fucktheworlddude • @insomniacwreck • @calumsfringe • @saltylettuce • @chai-blu • @al3x1ss • @hawksyoongi • @jooleuuh • @loubells • @kissungjae • @liberhoe • @tetsurocore • @animeoverdosee • @duhsies • @saiKishaircLip • @afire24 • @premiyagi • @kit-kat428 • @doctorspencereid • @daphnxy • @kyomihann • @maer-333 • @sinoflust19 • @peteunderoos • @peachiikichu • @iidanotlida • @yongboxerrr • @kac-chowsballs • @tanakaslastbraincell • @memorableminds • @risjime • @starry-magicshop • @sugavwara • @smuttyanimeslut • @kiwibirbs-library • @haijkk • @airybnb • @crybabygumi • @iwaisa • @decaffinatedtealover • @notameera • @kawaii-angelanne • @rintarovibes • @urlocalsimp • @keiarma • @shrimpypenis
the rest of the tags will be in the replies!!
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ragingbookdragon · 3 years
Text
All I Wanna Be Is Somebody To You
A Jason Todd x Reader One-Shot
Word Count: 2.6K Warnings: None
Author's Note: For the one anon who wanted a nervous reader! I hope I did this justice for you, darling! Enjoy! -Thorne
**********************************************************************
She didn’t hate talking. Not really. But the idea of holding conversations with people she didn’t know sent her heart fluttering and her throat tightening until it was impossible to breathe. More often than not, she found herself apologizing a lot for the stuttering or the repeating of things she said. Most people gave her odd looks, told her to stop apologizing so much (like that ever helped anyone), or laughed and told her she was cute—which was nice until she realized they meant in a childish sort of way rather than an endearing one.
But it wasn’t always like that. According to her parents, there’d been a time when she couldn’t stop talking. Always had something to say and had somebody to tell. Something changed during her years, she knew when, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself or her family when they asked what happened to their outgoing and talkative daughter. Too many times she’d heard, “You know no one cares about X, right?” or “Oh my God, will you shut up?” and every time she heard it from a friend it dug into her a little deeper, made her shut her mouth tighter, and tore her heart much harsher.
And because she chose to be the silent type instead of the outgoing one, people assumed her arrogant and cold, distant and rude, and she found herself spending most of middle school and high school by herself. She was glad when graduation came, and while she’d dreaded giving her valedictorian speech, she did manage to get through it without too much trouble. It did feel like her one triumph against everyone who ignored her throughout school.
College freed her. Allowed her to make a flexible schedule, take smaller classes, and be solitary when she wanted. She’d refused a dorm room on the campus, living only fifteen minutes from Gotham University, instead choosing to commute daily and she liked it a lot more than having roommates in a four-bedroom apartment on the school grounds.
When she wasn’t in class, she stayed home a lot. It came with being a homebody, but when she did go out into the great big city, she liked to shop. Little antique shops or bookstores. She went to bookstores more than she did school. There was something so wonderful about finding a book in the shop and sitting down at a café and reading quietly. Which is how she met him, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why he wanted anything to do with her. She was quiet and shy, and he was open and flirty. They obviously didn’t match in any way, shape, or form. At least, that’s what she thought.
***
She drew her gaze along the wall of books before her, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she searched for the novel. It’d been a long time since she’d read The Count of Monte Cristo, a copy of her father’s that he’d had when she was just a child. Something had reminded her of it the other day and all she could think about was getting her own so she could annotate in the margins.
As she came across it, she started reaching when someone got to it first, one finger pulling it out by its spine before taking it into their hand. She visibly deflated with a soft sigh as it was the last copy and hung her head in defeat.
“I’m sorry, were you wanting this too?” Her head cocked up and she gazed at the young man before her. He smiled and she felt like she’d been shot in the chest at how dazzling it was. “Here, you can have it.”
Swallowing thickly, she shook her head, “You got it first.” Nodding, she added, “It’s yours.”
He cocked a brow at that. “Well, from the devastated look on your face, doll, you want it to be yours.”
Her cheeks warmed at that, and she felt nervous where she stood, resisting the urge to fidget under his scrutiny. “N-no it’s okay.” She said. “You take it.”
“Oh no you don’t. That’s not how this works.” He chuckled and took her hands, pressing the book into them, then he winked at her. “The doll deserves to have her book.”
If there had ever been a time in which she wanted to explode from embarrassment, it was then, and before she knew it, she shoved the book back into his arms and so hard that it must’ve knocked the wind out of him because he gasped. She spun around and took off down the aisle and out the front doors as fast as she could, wanting nothing more than to disappear in the crowded streets. That or sink into the ground. Maybe next week she’d come back and get the book. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be there again.
***
Then again, her hopes were always wrong, and she picked up the copy of The Divine Comedy, flipping it open to read the first page.
“I see you’re a fan of the classics, aren’t you, doll?”
She snapped the book shut when she heard his voice and looked over at him. Something inside annoyed her at the cocky smirk he wore, much more was the arm he had resting on the top of the bookshelf as he gazed at her.
“You know, you left a nice bruise on me the other week.” He quipped, shifting his weight to cross his ankles. “You’re pretty strong.”
“Thank you,” she muttered, turning to look back at the book. “Sorry I hit you…it was an accident.”
“Well, I can accept your apology if you tell me your name.”
“Why?” she questioned quietly, wiggling her toes.
“Because I wanna put a name to such a cute face. Why else?” he flirted, and she scowled at the book cover. “Oh, that’s an even more adorable face.”
“Quit doing that!” she hissed. “It’s not funny!”
He chuckled. “Oh contraire, it’s actually hilarious.” He took a step towards her. “I’m Jason, by the way.”
Her eyes darted to the outstretched hand, and she stared at it for a split second before softly shaking it. “(Y/N).” she murmured.
Before she could pull her hand back, he raised it and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “Enchanté ma chérie,” he professed, breath hot against her skin and just like before, she was so absolutely flustered she was yanking her hand back and poor Jason’s grip slipped, and he whacked himself in the face with his own hand.
“Nice to meet you!” (Y/N) yelped and scurried off down the aisle and to the register where she purchased her book in record time. Third time was the charm and she prayed that he wouldn’t be there again.
***
And whoever lived upstairs must’ve really had it out for her because she flipped the page in her One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and heard an exaggerated cough. Looking up through her eyelashes, she saw Jason standing there with a grin on his face. “Hello (Y/N),” he purred, and she immediately felt her cheeks become hot.
“Hi Jason,” she muttered, gazing at her book, listening to the chair screech as he sat down across from her.
“How are you doing today?” he asked, setting down his own copy of Arabian Nights.
(Y/N) cleared her throat, finding it harder to focus on the book over the smell of his woody and oriental cologne. She thought she smelled a twinge of tobacco with it. “I’m fine.” Her eyes found his teal ones for a moment. “And you?”
He smiled, making her heart pick up a beat. “Doing pretty good.” He winked. “I got to see you again. Though I’m hoping I don’t get hit again. Either by a book or my own fist.”
“Sorry…” she cringed, sinking down in her seat. “That was an accident.”
Jason shrugged and propped his elbows on the table, placing his chin on his fingers. “Don’t worry about it. Say, do you like coffee?”
“I do,” she murmured.
“Great, want anything from the café?” he asked, nodding at the board and she looked over at it.
“I guess I could order a latte,” she replied more to herself than him, starting to pull her wallet out.
“Nah, I got it.” Jason said, standing from his seat.
(Y/N) blinked. “Wait, what?”
“I said I got it.” He quipped and she jumped from her seat to stop him, but caught the leg of her chair, and she flailed, stumbling right into Jason. They went tumbling to the floor and she landed atop him. For a minute they were both stunned silent as the people in the store looked at them and he smirked at her. “Well, this saves me the trouble of asking you out to dinner.” He winked again. “Should’ve told me you had a bold streak, doll.”
She immediately scrambled up, placing one of her hands on his chest to shove off him when her leg slipped, and her knee went into his groin. He groaned and rolled over, holding his crotch and (Y/N) was so mortified all she could do was apologize profusely and at one point she was sure she was mixing up her words, but it didn’t matter. Grabbing her things, she started running off a third time.
Though she’d made it ten feet out of the door and down the street before someone grabbed her round the waist and hauled her to a stop. “Oh no! We’re not doing this pattern again! I am not getting hit a fourth time!”
(Y/N) spun in his arm and gaped at him. “I’m sorry!”
Jason sighed heavily and lowered his head. “Holy crap, I’ve never had such a hard time getting a girl to go out with me.”
“You wanna go out with me?” She pointed to herself despite her flustered state. “W-with me?” she gave him a dubious look. “Really? M-me?”
“Well, if you wanna hit me a fourth time to be sure, go ahead, but yeah,” he retorted then heaved another sigh. “Jeez, talk about getting hit on.”
(Y/N) spluttered at that. “I did not hit on you!”
“Right, you just hit me instead.”
“It was an accident! And I said I was sorry!”
Jason grinned at her and arm away. “Well, I’ll accept your sorry’s if you go on a date with me.”
She blinked at him. “A date? When?”
“Tonight.” He said. “There’s a bookstore down in the town square for insomniacs. Open until seven A.M. and serves a mean cup of hot cocoa.” Jason smiled and took her hand. “So? How ‘bout it, doll? Wanna go out with me tonight?”
All she could do was simply stare at this gorgeous man that obviously had a thing for her for some god forsaken reason. “Why?” she asked blankly, and he seemed to falter at that.
“Why what?” he repeated, confusion etching across his face.
“Why do you wanna go out with me?” (Y/N) gestured to herself. “I’m weird.”
“So am I.” he agreed.
“I stutter a lot.”
“So does my brother.”
“I don’t talk a lot. I don’t like talking a lot. People get mad at me when I talk a lot and I prefer to listen and you’re not going to like going out with me because I’m going to be super quiet because I get flustered easily and I��”
Jason put his hand over her mouth and stared at her. “Do you ever take a breath?” she nodded silently, and he sighed. “Look, (Y/N), it’s only taken getting shoved in the stomach with a book, getting punched with my own hand, and getting nut-shot to understand that you’re not exactly comfortable with the public.”
He removed his hand. “That’s why I invited you to the bookstore. Because even in the few weeks we’ve known each other, I know you like quiet places. But if you don’t feel comfortable going with me right now, that’s okay. We can take it slow.” Jason smiled at her. “Doll, all I wanna be is somebody to you.”
(Y/N) swallowed thickly and looked at her feet, whispering, “I…don’t wanna go out right now…but I’d like to give you my number…if you’re okay with that?” she shrugged. “We can text.” Feeling hopeful she reached out and placed her hang on his arm. “And get to know each other better? Maybe tell each other our favorite books? That’s…the best way in my opinion.”
His face lit up and he murmured, “I’d love that.” He pulled out his phone, tapping at it before he handed it over to her. “Here you go.”
She took it and looked at the contact name he’d already put in. My Flustered Doll. She glared at him. “You think you’re pretty cute, don’t you, Jason? You’re not. At all.”
He smirked. “Oh, is that so?” She nodded and he quipped, “We’ll just see about that then.”
(Y/N) rolled her eyes and typed in her number, handing him back his phone. “There you go.” He glanced at it, seemingly satisfied before he locked it and put it back in his pocket, then they met each other’s gazes and she awkwardly pointed over her shoulder. “I’m going home now.”
Jason caught her hand and kissed the back of it. “See you later, doll. Stay cute.”
She was hurrying off again, his laughter in her ears, unaware that their exchanging of numbers was going to evolve into so much more in the coming months.
***
“—And I’m pretty sure I can never show my face again at school, Jay. I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life.”
He hummed, fingers gently dipping into her spine. “Well, this is coming from the girl that nut-shotted be in the middle of a busy bookstore.”
“Why would you remind me about that?” (Y/N) scowled. “It was an accident.”
“And yet it can’t be more mortifying than telling a guy to shove his head up his ass.” He retorted, eyes still closed as they basked in the sunlight streaming through the window. “This is at least a five on the ten scale.”
“More like a hundred.” She muttered, tucking her head under his chin. “I can’t believe I said that to him. Oh, I was just so—just so mad at what he said about my poem! He was just being mean!” (Y/N) gripped his sweatshirt. “You understand right?”
Jason nodded, his other hand resting at her hip. “Mhm.”
“You don’t think I’m overreacting, do you?” she frowned. “Everyone else thinks I am.”
“Telling someone that their poetry isn’t good because it isn’t iambic pentameter isn’t following constructive criticism, doll. It’s called being a douche.” She giggled and he bent his neck, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Call me next time Lord Douche-Canoe starts on your poetry again and I’ll school him on face-time.”
(Y/N) giggled again and rolled over, pressing them chest to chest and she grinned when he whined at her moving. “Thank you, Jason.”
He smiled at her. “I only take my thanks in kisses. Sorry, doll.”
Rolling her eyes, she bent down and pressed her lips to his. “I love you,” she murmured against him, and he hummed, hands grasping her hips.
“I love you more.”
“Nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” he scoffed, pulling back to look at her. “I am willingly in a relationship with the girl who nut-shot me in—MMHPF!”
(Y/N) shoved a pillow into his face, face hot as she shouted, “Stop bringing that up! It was an accident!” All she got in return was his laughter.
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readerstories · 3 years
Text
Tie Reveal - Aaron Hotchner x male!reader
What is it with me and turning short and sweet ideas into long one shots? Yeah so anyway, enjoy (AO3)
Warnings/tags: relationship rreveal, fluff and humor, light angst
Wordcount: 2837
Summary: You come into work wearing the wrong tie
You hate rushing in the morning, preferring to start your day in a calm and relaxed manner. That’s not on the table for today however, as you and Aaron both rush to get dressed.
“You’re going to be late.” You say as you button your shirt, glad you had had the forethought to grab on from your to go bag, as not wake any suspicion or teasing from the team. Aaron glances at the clock as he puts his shoes on.
“It’s still before the time you usually get in.”
“Yeah, but not for you.” You pick up your ties from the floor, giving Aaron’s to him. You’re quick to put yours on, Aaron mirroring you.
“I’ll just say that I got a flat tire.” You nod, stealing a quick kiss from him as you grab your jacket on the way out.
“Okay, see you at work!” You’re out the door before he can respond, making your way quickly down, not even bothering with the elevator in your haste to get to your car.
—-
You make it to work on time, only a few minutes later than usual, but that can be blamed on the fresh coffee in your hand from the coffee shop down the street.
As the elevator plings to announce your arrival on the right floor, you’re met by Garcia, Reid, and Morgan standing right outside, groaning as they spot you.
“Well, good morning to you guys too.” You say with a confused look at them all as you step out.
“It’s not you, we’re just just waiting for Hotch.” Garcia explains and you raise a brow, faking confusion.
“Hotch? Isn’t he here already?”
“No, so I got worried, so I checked his phone and it was pinging on the road just outside his apartment building, which is weird cause he’s normally the first one here-”
“Are you even supposed or allowed to do that outside of a case or emergency?” Garcia hesitates, and you huff and shake your head at them.
“Well, I’m going to go and start work, like you all should.” You leave the team as they go back to watching the elevator doors, quickly shooting off a text to Hotch to let him know that the flat tire excuse won’t work.
A few minutes later you hear a happy Garcia shout Hotch’s name and seconds later he comes in through the glass doors, followed by Garcia, Reid, and Morgan.
“Guys, I’m fine, I just slept trough my alarm this morning.”
“But you never do that.” Garcia responds, hot on his heels.
“So what’s her name?” Morgan quips, Hotch stops in his tracks to give him a withering glare before resuming his path to his office.
“Ohhh, lover boy!” Morgan teases at Hotch’s back.
“Remember we got a briefing in ten minutes sir!” Garcia yells after him before the door to his office is closed behind him. You hide your smile behind your coffee, trying not to bring much attention to yourself. Garcia leaves to prepare a few last things for the briefing, but Reid and Morgan linger next to your desk, still standing.
“Do you really think that’s what made him late?” Reid asks.
“Come on, that man never misses anything and sleeps light, and Jack is away for a week, so what else could it be?” Morgan glances at you. “What do you think?” You take a sip of your coffee, pretending to think.
“Maybe, or maybe he is telling the truth. The man is only human, and with the amount of hours he spends in the office he might actually just have slept trough his alarm.” Morgan nods, but doesn’t seem convinced.
You all make your way into the meeting room. You sit down in the chair next to a standing Garcia as you often do, Reid, Morgan, JJ, and Rossi joining you around the table, Hotch striding in as usual a few minutes later.
“Garcia, please begin.” He stays on his feet, ready to go as soon as he can.
“Look to the screen my mighty crime fighters, because today you’re goi-”
“You’ve switched ties.” Reid cuts Garcia off mid-sentence, making everyone look at Reid, wondering what in the world he is talking about. He points at you.
“You and Hotch, you’ve switched.” Both of you look down, then at each other as the team looks between the two of you. Shit, he’s right.
“When you came in I saw your tie was the same as Hotch wore yesterday, a grey tie with a Gucci pattern. I just thought you had bought the same one, since you both have a similar taste in ties, but Hotch got the same as you wore yesterday, a grey tie with stripes, which still has the small coffee stain from when you spilled some yesterday.” Hotch frowns as lifts up the tie to inspect it, and yes, there’s indeed a small, barely noticeable speck of coffee about halfway up the tie he is wearing. No one says anything for a few seconds, you yourself have turned into a statue, neutral expression on your face. Hotch is much the same, everyone else looking between you two. Garcia is the first one to break the silence, squealing with glee.
“Omg, omg, guys!” She yells as she hugs you from behind, the angle a little awkward with how she leaning over your sitting form. You’re not stone anymore, but you don’t return the hug before she lets you go. Morgan and JJ are both grinning, Rossi is looking at Hotch with smile, Reid is trying not to do the same at you while you glare daggers at him. Hotch sighs.
“Garcia...” His tone is chastising, reminding everyone that there is something else to focus on, which seems to snap her back to work mode. Sort of.
“Right, right, case, lets just brush past that revelation about two of my best friends, so, uhhh, where were we? Or right! Today you’re going to-” She begins to explain the case, both you and Hotch get a few more glances before everyone turns their focus on the case.
----
On the jet you think you’re in the clear, until Rossie settles in the seat next to you. Which is odd, because you’re the only two on the jet so far, and he usually doesn’t sit next to you.
“So you and Hotch huh?” You pretend to read over the case files in front of you, and Rossi chuckles.
“You know, none of us expected a thing. Well done on hiding it from a group of profilers I must say.”
“Rossi, there’s nothing-”
“There’s nothing?” He’s grinning, clearly teasing as he looks down to your tie and taps it with a finger. “Something tells me otherwise.” You sigh, but are saved from answering by the rest of the team joining you on the jet. Everybody buckles down for take off, and not long after you’re in the air, and then all the attention is on the case.
For a little while at least.
You can tell they want to talk about it, but the case keeps everyone occupied, so there’s nothing else before JJ comes back from the hotel with the room cards. Everyone is spread around doing different tasks, so she finds you alone in the conference room the team had been given. You’re reading trough the victims files for some more specifics on victimology when she places a keycard on the table in front of you. You look up, startled as you hadn’t even noticed her entering the room.
“You’ve seen Hotch?” She asks and you furrow a brow.
“I think he’s talking to the police chief in his office, why?”
“His key card, but you can just give it to him when you see him, since you’re sharing a room.”
“I thought we were past the budget cuts-”
“Oh we are, but Garcia made some changes to the booking after this mornings briefing sooo....” JJ grins and you sigh, rubbing your forehead. There’s silence and no movement for a few seconds, then there’s a hand on your shoulder.
“Hey, you know we will always support you guys right?” You sigh heavily, resting your own hand on top of JJ’s, looking up at her.
“I know, it’s just... It wasn’t revealed in the best way.” She grimaces.
“Yeah.” She looks uncertain how to respond, but seems to go for light, which you are grateful for. “But I’m surprised none of us caught on until then, it has been going on for at least a couple of months right?” You try to hide your grin as you pretend to go back to reading the files.
“Well, I’m not a ‘kiss and tell’ kinda guy, but it’s a bit more than a couple months.” JJ laughs and pats your shoulder before leaving the room.
You find Hotch not long after, and when you tell him the whole situation around the shared room, he sighs too, but mostly in a ‘oh what can you do’ kind of way, seemingly mostly resigned to everyone knowing now.
Even with sharing the same room and not needing to hide anything from the team, you go back to the hotel without him. The man is a workaholic, and you want a shower and some sleep, but he promises to join you soon. Instead you end up sharing a car with Reid and Morgan, neither of which say anything in the car, but while you’re waiting for the elevator, all bets seems to be off.
“So, you and the bossman huh?” Morgan teases with a grin as you do your best to ignore him, watching the numbers on the display tick down. The elevator door opens and you quickly step inside, hoping to leave them both behind. But alas, no such luck, as they step inside and Reid presses the button to the floor above yours.
“You know, work place relationships aren’t actually that uncommon. Did you know-” Here you tune him out, once again watching the numbers off the elevator. Normally you like when Reid goes on a tangent, but now, not so much.
“Reid, I will strangle you with my tie to shut you up if I have to.”
“Don’t you mean Hotch’s tie?” The grin on his face is shit-eating, which is rare from Spencer, and Morgan laughs loudly. The combination of it makes you curse under your breath as the doors finally open to your floor. You don’t bother saying goodbye, just going straight down the hall towards the door with your room number on it. Sliding the keycard in, it opens with a click. You drop your bag on the floor as soon as the door shuts behind you, and you switch on the lights.
You can’t help it.
You laugh as you take in the big room in front of you.
Or rather, the suite.
The honeymoon suite by the looks of it. Red and white decor, candles, big bed, nicely decorated with towels shaped like a heart, and some champagne in an ice-bucket on the desk in the room. There’s a small white card right next to the champagne, which you quickly read. ‘Have fun ;) -G’. You snort at it, that woman is a menace. (But also very nice, but you do shoot her text to warn her that she should sleep with one eye open. The only response you get is a winking emoji).
A surprisingly short time later you hear the door to the suite unlock, alerting you to Aaron’s arrival where you just stepped out of the shower. He calls your name in a questioning tone, you’re quick to respond as you wrap a towel around your mostly dry form.
“In here, one sec.” You step out of the bathroom, Aaron’s attention going straight to you before pointedly looking around the room. You lean on the door frame of the bathroom.
“Garcia.” You offer as an explanation.
“Ah.” He accepts, looking around once more. “This is going to be a fun expense report.” You snort at that, pushing yourself of the door frame and walking over to him. Putting your arms around his neck, you pull him close for a kiss.
“Certainly, but let us enjoy it for now, I’m sure Garcia has an explanation locked and ready for the report when we need it.” Aaron tries not to smile at that, but is halfway to failing when you catch his lips in a kiss.
----
The next time your relationship is brought up is on the jet back when the case ends well a few days later. Everyone have found their way to pass the time as usual. Reid and Rossi are playing chess in the one of two seaters, Morgan is half asleep, JJ is typing away on her phone next to him, across from them in the aisle seat is Hotch who has started on more paper work already, and you’re laying down on the couch across from them reading a book.
Everybody is in their own little bubble, that’s until Rossi is standing in the aisle and clearing his throat. Everyone looks at him, even Derek who JJ jostles awake with an elbow. Rossi got a bottle of expensive looking whiskey in one hand, several glasses in the other.
“I believe a little celebration is in order.” He starts handing out glasses, you sit up and close your book as you accept yours, just as Garcia pops up on the screen over the couch.
“What for?” You ask, genuinely curious, giving Garcia a look trough the screen, a very grinning and happy looking Garcia.
“Well, the case went well, we saved several people, and ah yes, your not so secret relationship anymore.”
“Rossi-” You and Hotch try to say something at the same time, but Rossi doesn’t let either of you speak another word.
“Oh no no no, neither of you get to Rossi me. Just shut up and listen okay?” He pours a hefty helping of whiskey in everyone’s glass as he speaks, even Garcia got a glass back home somehow, no doubt filled with something similar.
“We just want you both to know that we are very happy for you, both of you. And though the way us knowing came about wasn’t ideal, we will always support and be there for you.” You and Hotch look around at your team, noting the happy faces watching you before making brief eye contact.
“I want you all to know that nothing in this team changes with this, we’re still going to work together and remain professional while on the clock. There will be no preferential treatment here.”
“What he said.” You incline your head towards Hotch as you look around the jet once more.
“Aaron, we know that. Like I said, we just want you both to be happy.” Rossi says, soft smile on his face. You raise your glass, trying to pretend that the slight sting you can feel in your eyes is just tiredness.
“Cheers to that.” Everyone joins in, clinking their glasses together in loud celebration and happy voices, Garcia cheering with her glass against the camera lens back home. Everyone takes a sip of the whiskey, several mentioning the smooth burn of it.
“So, how long have you two love birds been together?” Morgan eyes flicker between you and Aaron.
“See, that right there Morgan is the million dollar question.” Rossi points between you both. “Come on, out with it.” You grin, trying and failing to hide your grin behind taking another sip of the whiskey, Aaron doing the same.
“Do you want to tell them or should I?” You ask, getting up to lean on the chair Aaron is sitting in. He looks up at you, taking your hand and placing it on his shoulder.
“I think you should.”
“Okay.” You say with a shrug, looking at all of the team before settling your gaze on Spencer. “Remember the strangulation serial killer we caught in LA earlier this year?”
“We caught him and finished that case 6 months, 11 days, and 9 hours ago.” Spencer helpfully supplies.
Then it dawns on them all what that means.
Yells of surprise from everyone, and this time neither you or Aaron try to hide your matching grins. Rossi is laughing loudly while slapping his knee, Reid seems to have lost his composure, mumbling that he should have seen something sooner, Garcia is speechless for perhaps the first time since you have known her, Morgan looks frozen in shock, and JJ is trying to hide her laughter behind her hand.
“6 months? How even?!” Morgan exclaims. You shrug, your grin shit-eating by now.
“What can I say, we’re good profilers and now how to hide our tells.” You glance at Aaron and squeezes his shoulder, who in return brings your hand to his lips for a brief kiss on your knuckles. Garcia squeals from her screen, gushing over how cute the two of you are as you smile and laugh in response.
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magic-missle-blog · 3 years
Text
Ghost division 2 – The belly of the beast
2nd story in what will hopefully be a series. Roughly 6k words. Hope you enjoy
:readmore:
Four missiles streaked through the darkness of space from the canadation destroyer as it smashed through the human battle group.
The warship TDF Glasgow rocked as a missile impacted the hull. Point defence had taken out three others but the fourth slammed into the starboard side.
“Damage report!” the captain shouted as he swivelled his command chair to face the tactical officer.
“The hull plating is scorched and buckled, but no internal damage. We were lucky.” The tactical officer replied, shouting to be heard over the various alarms and beeps in the small bridge.
“We cant rely on luck. If we get hit again its your head!” The captain growled. His hair was cut close to his scalp and a sheen of sweat reflected in the bright yellow light on his dark skin.
Tactical officer Rotchford nodded. Her brow furrowed as she quickly typed into her console. “don’t worry I’m on it, I’ve analysed the firing pattern and I can probably take out most of the missiles, its those fucking fighters and energy weapons I cant do a thing about.”
Just as she finished speaking a swarm of small locust shaped fighters buzzed passed the ship, pelting the armour with energy weapons.
Turrets tracked the fighters, spitting hypersonic tungsten shells. One of the Canidation fighters exploded, the rest of the group took evasive action and continued on the attack run through the human fleet.
The ship rocked again and various alarms clamoured for attention. Lights on the bridge flickered.
Captain Conroy nodded and straightened his uniform. He brought up a tactical display on the console built into his chair.
Five Canidation warships had engaged the fleet of seven Terran defence force destroyers and the humans were loosing badly. The Canidations had the firepower and faster ships. Fighters swarmed over the fleet firing kinetic weapons and lasers, some with great effect.
He watched as another of the fleet exploded. That was the second ship they had lost. The battle had been raging for what felt like hours but in reality it was only 30 minutes. The Canidations had dropped out of hyperspace in this remote system to ambush a Human supply run. The freighters had escaped unharmed but the escort fleet couldn’t leave, not without leaving this Canidation battle group free reign to attack other convoys.
“Shit. That was the Newcastle!” the first officer said “Fleet captain Broadie…he was a good man”
The computer screamed out a proximity warning as another salvo of missiles streaked towards them, but true to her word the tactical officers new point defence programme took them all out. She returned fire with the main cannon as the destroyer elegantly swung around, scoring a direct hit to the Canidations engines. The insectoid ship vented atmosphere and appeared to lose power as running lights flickered out and the ship drifted
The other enemy ships moved towards the remaining fleet.
“Scan that ship, is it dead?” Conroy commanded the science officer as the warship rocked under more impacts
“yeah it appears… Fuck” the science officer said as his console went dark and the lights cut out.
A few moments later the ships emergency power kicked in and the lights came back on, but dull red colour. His console lit up. “ yeah its dead. I think. Scans are all over the place.”
Conroy nodded, as the most senior officer left in the tattered fleet he assumed command.. “signal the fleet. Lets get the fuck out of here...but slowly, I want to draw them away from that damaged ship.” He plotted a course that would take them deep into the Oort cloud of this system.
The remaining ships of the Terran defence force broke off the engagement and retreated. Caught by surprise at the sudden change in tactics, The Canidations stopped dead, recalled the fighters then followed, slowly gaining ground on the slower terran warships.
Glancing at his command console captain Conroy opened fleet wide comms. Signalling the other commanders he said “Listen up people. Once we are in that cloud drop sensor decoys try to buy me some time . I’m going to double back and capture that ship.”
The crew looked at him in astonishment
“Damn” said the first officer. “And I thought today was going to be a quiet day.”
************************************
The war against the Canidations had been raging for 3 months, and the Terran empire was losing.
The Canidations ships were more advanced, and they had the numbers. The only saving grace is that the Canidations were fighting two other larger empires. Humanity, as a relatively new race to the galactic stage, hadn’t been seen as a concern. Almost an afterthought.
No one knew why the war started. Canidations were a reclusive species. They had no trade with the wider galactic community, no embassies, no contact at all. No one really even knew if “Canidation” was their species name. They stayed in their home systems, A group of a dozen or so stars a few light years around the Canadathon, their home world.
A decade ago the Canidations has blasted out of their home system with an over powering military force and attacked a neighbouring world without warning. Everything was a viable target to them and they didn’t take prisoners…or at least they didn’t keep them alive for long.
For ten long years they attacked and destroyed any neighbouring species, expanding their empire. The first races, unused to galactic warfare on such a scale had fallen quickly. Other species had tried to build up their own military force but simply didn’t have the infrastructure in place and couldn’t come close to the Canidations speed of production. It seemed like for every Canidation ship that fell two more would take its place.
The Canidations were an insectoid race, they looked like an unholy amalgamation of a spiders body with a praying mantis torso, like an insect centaur. They didn’t seem to capture any world they won, they destroyed it. Left it a lifeless husk, took any easily accessible resources then moved on like locusts. Maybe they would be back to terraform it later, maybe not. No one knew.
The destruction on such a scale seemed senseless, and completely alien. Not even the best human generals, phycologists or philosophers could come up with a reason for this carnage.
What was known was they had a lot of ships. More than every other military in this region of space combined. They had been building up for decades and it seemed like now was the time to unleash their might.
******************************
The Glasgow had ducked behind a dwarf planet in the Oort cloud and waiting while the remaining fleet had drawn the Canidations away, then used a risky in system jump to get back quickly to the battlefield. They had scanned for survivors of the destroyed Terran ships but unfortunately found plenty of debris but no life signs.
TDF Glasgow slowly drew up alongside the crippled Canidation vessel, comms jammers at full power blocking any communication from the hulk. It had been few hours since the shot had crippled the Bug ship, but it was still drifting without any main power, its engines dark and cooling.
It looked like reserve power had kicked in and there was several Canidations on the main hull close to the breach in what looked like dark space suits, although it could have been their flesh. Conroy didn’t know enough about the species to tell. It was obvious the Canidations were trying to repair the damage.
The insectoid ship was large, at least half again as big as the Glasgow and followed an unorthodox design. It was nothing like the sleek Terran ships, whose lines were reminiscent of the war planes that fought in earth’s skies in the 20th century. Human ships were long and sleek, with swept back retractable wings protruding from the mid section to allow atmosphere flight when fully extended. Canidation was bulky, and looked like a flattened pinecone and close range scans showed it be highly modular.
The bridge appeared to be at on top of the bulky front section. Conroy guessed below this would be weapons, crew quarters and the like. Engineering and the ships drive core, and sub light engines must be located in the tapering end. Cannons clustered around the front with turrets in two rows along the top and bottom of the ship.
Conroy assumed there would be about 60 or so crew on board. Terran destroyers had a crew of 30 plus 10 marines. Not good odds Conroy thought.
“Easy to build, quick to swap different sections out if needed” Science officer McCallum said as he looked over the data.
Conroy nodded to Commander Paulson, the first office. “Pauly, get a boarding party ready. Find any intel you can get your hands on but don’t take any stupid risks. Focus on engineering, medical, ship deployments, shit we can find to kill these things.” Looking at McCallum “what do they need?”
McCallum brought up all the information he had on Canidations, which wasn’t a lot.
“Scans show gravity and life support is still active and the ship has atmosphere, although I use the term loosely. Their air is made up of 30% oxygen, 15% Co2, 10% Hydrogen sulphide, the rest is nitrogen, water vapour and trace gasses. Average temperature is roughly 30 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 70%. Gravity is low, roughly 0.6G. So basically your walking into a hot sweaty hellhole that’ll smell like Satan’s ass. Enjoy” he finished with a laugh.
Paulson looked at the captain “Gee thanks Boss, you give me all the best jobs. Breathing units all round then.” He saluted as he left the bridge.
“Mac…what killed this ship? Did we get a lucky shot?”
McCallum looked over his reading for a few moments. “Yeah, very lucky. Looks like there is a weakness around the main engine core on this ship. Plasma exhaust has weakened the hull armour in a small area right above the main power linkage, its little better than paper. Must be a design flaw…if that shot had hit even a few meters on either side it wouldn’t have made a dent.”
Rotchford laughed. “luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure skill.”
She grinned
Conroy rolled his eyes.
“Yeah yeah if you say so” he said grinning. Conroy didn’t mind a bit of banter with the bridge crew. He felt it build camaraderie and they all worked better as a result.
Turning to Macallum he said
“Deep scan this bitch, I see what else you can find, anything that’ll give us an edge.”
From over the other side of the bridge the tactical offer said “Captain, I think I’ve found something too. The missiles on the ship are armed.”
Conroy looked over “So?”
Rotchford brushing her brown bangs that had escaped from the severe bun on her head said “Our missiles auto arm a second after launch to prevent any accidents, these appear to pre arm before launch, Probably as soon as they find a hostile ship. Once direct hit could detonate the entire missile battery. The armour is thick but the launch tubes are vulnerable . “
“Comms” Conroy said excitedly “Tight beam the rest of the fleet and let them know what we’ve found…might give them an edge.”
Turning back to tactical
“Why would they do that?”
Rotchford shrugged. “not sure. It does mean the missiles can be fired much closer then we can shoot. Out missiles travel so fast that by the time they arm they’re a couple of hundred kilometres away, makes them useless for close engagements. By pre-arming them they get around that problem. Makes it almost impossible to shoot them down when the bugs get in close.”
Minutes passed slowly. Soon the boarding party was on board a small ship to ship shuttle and on route to dock with the crippled ship.
The shuttle did a quick fly over the damaged section and fired small arms at the Canidations working on the damaged hull, Killing the repair team. The aliens magnetic grips kept the bodies stuck to the hull like bugs splattered by a windscreen.
McCallum looked up “I’ve found something else captain, it wont help us now but I think we can take advantage of it.”
He put his display on the main screen, All eyes turned to it.
“I thought about using some kind of plasma weapon to weaken the armour of the whole ship, and that’ll probably work, we don’t use plasma tech, but I’m sure the weapons experts back home can build something.” He took a breath “Anyway, that got me thinking, Plasma is basically really hot ionized gas. Its expelled as exhausts right away as too much heat inside the ship it bad. As you know its almost impossible to loose heat in space, so we use active cooling systems to…”
Conroy interrupted before McCallum could go into a lecture on the finer points of starship heat management. “Get to the point”
Mccallum looked sheepish “Sorry sir, anyway, the Canidations seem to use radiator panels, they’re well armoured but vulnerable to excessive heat. A focussed laser beam could overload them. If they cant loose heat they’ll cook inside the ships.”
“Well done Mac, get everything we’ve found so far and bundle the data ready for transmission back to HQ”
Minutes dragged as Mccallum compiled the data.
Everyone was on eggshells, watching the boarding shuttle latch on to the Canidation hull and begin cutting through. Tactical constantly scanning for any Canidation ships that might be inbound. Conroy wondered how the rest of the fleet was fairing. The TDF ships were more manoeuvrable than the larger Canidation warships, so as long as they kept in a dense part of the Oort cloud, dodging comets and dwarf planets then the TDF ships should have an advantage.
*****************************
Inside the shuttle the atmosphere was tense. Paulson looked over the assembled combat team. All had breathing units over their lower faces. The units would filter out the harmful gasses and reduce the oxygen pressure to something breathable, but as they weren’t full space suits or fully sealed Paulson knew the stench would get through, he grinned inwardly he hadn’t told the team what the Canidation air was like, he wanted to see the reactions.
The ten member boarding team all had dark grey combat armour, and each carried a small side arm and a combat knife. Eight also carried an assault rifle with enough ammo to take on a small army, the other two combat engineers carried various tools and computer equipment. Their mission was to hack into any systems they could find and mine it for data.
The shuttle bumped into the hull and latched on. A magnetic tube made an air tight seal around the hatch. It opened to show a sold hull. The engineers immediately started cutting to gain access. It was slow going. Armour that can withstand heavy ship weapons wont easily fail to small plasma torches.
Sargent Waltham stepped up next to Paulson. “We’re ready to go” She said coolly.
Paulson nodded. “Get in and secure the area. Set up fire lines kill anything that’s got more than two legs.” He said to Waltham.
She was tall, blonde, very pretty in hard way. People, especially men, tended to underestimate her due to her looks, thinking she was just a made up barbie doll. Paulson had thought the same thing once, until she kicked his ass in hand to hand training. The first round he went easy on her and he was flat on his back in 5 seconds. The second round he went all out, and to his credit, he managed to last a full 7 seconds before she had him pined, face pressed against the floor and his left arm twisted up his back. Waltham, like all the other,s had earned her place in the combat team, but unlike the men she had to continually prove she deserved to be there. This constant striving for perfection had made her one of the best solders Paulson had ever worked with.
The thick hull armour fell inwards with a heavy thunk. The sound echoed around the shuttle. The stench of rotten eggs filler the small enclosed space and everyone wrinkled their noses.
“For fucks sake… is this ship full of farts?” Jones, the lead combat engineer said.
Paulson grinned. “Ok move out. Slow and steady, I don’t want any fuck ups.”
The team moved slowly into the alien vessel. The interior was dark, smelly and hot, lighting was a deep red that cast odd shadows. Paulson didn’t know if this was normal or if it was due to low power.
Waltham took her place first in line as the engineers cleared the hull and opened a portal to the interior of the ship. She directed one of her team , Ramerez, a young marine on his first away mission , hang back and guard the shuttle just encase they needed to make a quick exit.
Ramerez took position just inside the the shuttle door, he pulled a couple of boxes containing emergency supplies across the entrance and dug in.
The rest of the team followed her lead, with Paulson acting as rear guard, scanning the corridor behind him with a quick practiced eye.
One of the marines whispered in a low voice “damn, this is weird.”
“what is? Looks like a normal ship corridor to me” Paulson said
“sir...that’s what I mean. I expected...well dirt..or tunnels like that old movie ‘Aliens’. You know, the one where the dildo bursts out of some guys chest and all these Marines hunt it down? I mean they’re bugs for Christ’s sake..but this just looks normal.”
Paulson shook his head.“Lay off the old horror flicks. Keep it together”.
Looking at a handheld scanner Jones said “looks like there might be a room down the corridor to the right, I’m reading power spikes, it could be a place I can hack into there systems.”
The team crept inward, the low gravity giving them a bounce to their steps. They were searching for a room with a computer access, but all the could see were long featureless corridors. The came to a junction and as they passed a blast of plasma energy almost took Walthams head off. She Pulled back just in time, lightning quick reflexes saving her life. As it was the plasma shot singed her combat helmet.
Risking another blast, Waltham popped her head around then quickly pulled it back. Three Canidations waited around the corner, plasma rifles at the ready for another shot.
Pulling a flashbang from her belt she leaned out and expertly tossed he weapon into the centre of the group, a second later a loud BANG and a FLASH of bright light lit up the corridor. She could hear a smattering of legs as the Canidations fell back. Her and two of her team ran around keeping low and opened fire. The sound of the assault rifles sounded odd in the dense air. the Canidations tried to return fire but there shots went wide, scorching the metal bulkheads, obviously still blinded by the light. The skirmish was over quickly.
The team crept up slowly to the dead aliens. One in the was headless. Its body twitched, a dark yellow fluid pumping from its neck. The other two were still. Red faceted eyes that took up most of the head were dull and lifeless. Mandibles closed tighter than a vice.
Bullets had ripped the skinny top part of one in half, and the others larger thorax between the spiders-like legs was riddled and leaking the same yellow fluid.
The team looked at the corpses, they were…creepy. They unnerved the humans just looking at them. Jones knelt down and pointed something out. “Look, this one has a couple of cybernetic legs. That one has a cybernetic head…That’s so weird. Gives me the creeps.”
Paulson looked. “Why weird?”
“Think of what this means. They use medical tech to repair wounds. Replace missing limbs like we do. You don’t think of bugs caring for individuals I guess. I assumed they would be like a hive, like ants or termites just mindless soldier’s, disposable and replaceable. Maybe they’re more than that.“
One of the other marines, Patel a tall solid build man with a cold gaze said in a whisper “They’re like spiders, I fucking hate spiders. Normal spiders are bad enough but these are super sized fuckers with guns. “
He shivered as a cold chill ran down his spine. Taking one last place at the dead Canadation he walked slowly past, rifle ready for another attack.
As the team moved on one of the corpses stood up with a clatter. It swiped at a passing trooper with its upper limbs, razor sharp claws sliced across his face and chest, cutting flesh and the scoring deep cuts on his combat armour. He fell back shocked. The headless alien thrashed about, seemingly attracted to the noise the shocked humans made. It tried to reach for another one but a burst of fire from Waltham’s rifle tore through its thorax . the alien twitched again then fell back. She crept up, gun ready and kicked the corpse. No reaction. It was truly dead.
Patel looked a mess, his face had been cut to the bone, but he’d live. Two others helped bandage him up.
“fucking fuckitty fucking spiders! “ he shouted and kicked the corpse, holding his wounded face and blood soaked bandages.
“get back to the shuttle” Waltham commanded him.
He nodded, his face screwed up in pain, The bandages soaking with blood. He got to his feet and headed back the way he came.
Paulson looked at jones “What the fuck?”
Jones shrugged “I’m no medical expert, but I guess a head shot wont kill them. Maybe they keep their brains in there ass or something, I guess the head is just for eating and seeing.” Pointing to the Canidation with the cybernetic head “Maybe loosing the head for them is just like loosing an eye for us? Or maybe they’re like cockroaches. We should drag these things back to the shuttle. Medical back at HQ would have a field day.”
Paulson nodded “team, forget headshots, aim for the centre mass.” He directed a couple of team member to take the most intact body back to the shuttle “Keep it under guard…just in case”
The diminished team made there way deeper into the ship. Paulson was aware of the time he was taking, he knew The Glasgow couldn’t wait forever, but he wanted more than a few dead bugs. Soon they came across an empty room. The door was closed but a kick and a shove and it slid back into the wall. The team entered. Looking around, there was a lot of electronics that Paulson couldn’t guess the function off. Jones quickly set up his scanner. Pulling open a panel he found circuit boards. After quick scan he attached a lead from his scanner to one of the chips.
“If i can hack this, this should give me access” he worked quickly The rest of the team took up positions around the door. Paulson moved to the back of the room and signalled Waltham.
“thoughts? He said after she walked over
Waltham shrugged “they don’t seem too tough. Decent weapons though.“ she pointed to the plasma rifle she’d captured.
“hows things between you two?” he nodded to Jones
Relationships were against regulations but as long as it was discreet no one really minded. It could be lonely in deep space.
Waltham smiled. “he’s sweet, like a puppy. Always eager to please. But utterly fearless too. He could be a great soilder, but likes his gizmos too much.”
“Yeah jones is a good one.” Paulson agreed. He’s been friends with jones for years. They grew up in the same town went to the same high school, and went through training together.
Minutes ticked by. Jones had attached a large data cube to his scanner. He came over to the pair while the data downloaded “. I can copy the full ships hard drive. Shouldn’t take long. There’s not a lot of data, mainly seems to be the ships opperating system. Seems pretty basic. I did find something interesting though, I found ship schematic. We’re not far from a path to fire control. Its down the end of that corridor out there. “
Paulson thought for a second. “no, we have enough we need to get back”
Just as he said that his communicator beeped. It was the shuttle “Sir, get back here we need to go! A Canidation warship is on approach, ETA 7 minutes!”
“Ok people pack your shit up, we need to get out of here! Double time!”
The team grabbed there gear and quickly made there way back into the corridor. Several canidations ran down the steel hallway, the hack had triggered some kind of security protocol. These Canidations didn t have weapons but they moved so fast in the lower gravity that the quickly closed the distance, soon it was a melee, claw against fist.
****************
Alarms cried out for attention on the bridge of the Glasgow. A Canidation warship was closing in.
“eta?” asked Conroy. His calm voice a counterpoint to the frantic activity on the bridge.
“roughly 7 minutes until weapons range. I’ve contacted the shuttle”. maccalum replied.
Conroy nodded. Looking at the helmsman her said “keep that bug ship in between us. We’re smaller and so keep us in its shadow and hopefully they won’t get a weapons lock.”
Nodding, through helmsman fired up the thrusters.
“’ll try time get a target lock on the missile batteries.” Rotchford reported as she programmed the ships turrets.
Captain Conroy starred at the main screen, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of his command seat.
Paulson tried to get a clear shot as a canidaton reared up on its four rear legs. It brought its full weight down on Waltham. Its mandibles opened and snapped closed right over her head. Only her quick thinking and combat helmet saved her from decapitation. She ducked her head and trusting the hardened carbon nanotube and ceramic construction she head-butted the bug right in its open mouth. Mandibles crunched against the helm. The force of through blow and the weight of the bug staggered her for a second, but years of hand to hand training came to her and with a twist and a flick she grabbed the alien and slammed it against the bulkhead. The lower gravity and adrenaline giving her almost superhuman strength.
Her combat knife flashed on the low light as she stabbed the mantis like torso. There was resistance then with a crunch she forced the blade through the carapace. The bug shuddered and wrenched. Flailing its limbs then it was still.
The skirmish was over as quickly as it started. Looking around Paulson shouted “sound off”
A chorus of voices said “here” or “i’m good”
A few troopers took minor injuries but no fatalities.
They sprinted down the corridor. The sound of gunfire brought them up short. The bugs were trying to capture the shuttle. Paulson knew if they lost that they were dead.
A scream echoed down the steel corridor. One of his men had fallen. Canidations pressed on.
“We need a distraction” Paulson shouted to Waltham over the blaring alarms.
“i have an idea. Hold here for a few seconds”
With that she sprinted back the way she came. Moments later an explosion rocked the ship. The lights and gravity cut out, then seconds later they came back on. The unprepared soilders hit the ground but were quickly back on there feet, the Canidations were not as lucky, they were a tangle of legs and claws further down the corridor.
Seizing his chance, Paulson shouting a battle cry and his boarding party fell in the bugs from behind. The battle was short and brutal but they pushed through just as Waltham returned. Her hair was burned and armour scorched.
“What the fuck did you do?” shouted Paulson
“I overloaded that plasma rifle and tossed it in the fire control room. I think we need to get out of here, that room is burning and it’s right next to the missiles”
Once everyone was on board the hatch slammed shut and the shuttle detached then raced back to the Glasgow, just as another explosion ripped through the Canidation warship. A series of smaller explosion’s rocked the ship them with a blast like a supernova the power core blew up. The shuttle was caught in the fireball but escaped with minor damage.
Paulson looked at his and bruised team as the shuttle pilot plotted a course back to the Glasgow.
Paulson pushed one of the Canidation corpses to the side, making down room in the small shuttle. He sat next to the body of a young man, almost a boy. Ramerez. It was his first tour, he was 18 and fresh out of boot camp. Ramerez had taken a plasma blast to the chest. His armour was burned through. Mercifully he had been killed instantly.
************
Conroy watched as the Canidation ship exploded. The shuttle streaked towards the hanger.
“well... shit” he said “get the shuttle on board and get ready to bug out”
calls of “aye” and “yessir” Echoed around the bridge..
The Canidation warship closed in, spitting fire and death at the Glasgow. Point defence destroyed the incoming missiles but the ship rocked from impacts
The Glasgow returned fire, turrets pounded the underside of the Canidation ship as it passed overhead passing through the expanding could of gas and debris.
The helmsman kept a steady course until the shuttle was back in then started evasive manoeuvres, he would have to hold the ship steady for a few moments to allow the hyperdrive to spin up, but the Canidation ship was not making it easy.
“Shuttle is on board. Prepare for Jump in 3...2...1...”
The ship lurched to the side and spun almost 90 degrees, crew members were thrown around the bridge like sticks caught in a hurricane. Alarms blared.
The main lights were down, red emergency lamps cast an eerie glow. Groans came from the crew
Rochford pulled herself back into her seat. Blood running from a head wound. She checked her console “sir..the hyperdrive core has been hit. We’re venting plasma and atmosphere...main power is down. Weapons down....the Canidations are coming around for another pass...”
Before Conroy could respond an explosion tore through the bridge as a missile impacted the armour surrounding the command center.
A ceiling panel that had been knocked loose earlier in the fight fell with a resounding crash pinning Conroy to his command chair and knocking him unconscious. Bones snapped under the force of the impact.
Rochford as the most senior officer left standing opened ship wide Comms “all hands. This is commander rochford. The captain is incapacitated abandon ship. I repeat abandon ship”
She moved as quickly as she could to try to help Conroy, Macallum was at his side trying to move the panel. “mac..leave him. We need to go...” she grabbed his arm “come on...move it soldier” macallum looked at the damaged viewscreen. The Canidation ship was baring down. Any second now it’s main cannons would finish the job. They were out of time.
White hot plasma blasts leaped from the Canidation vessel tearing across the cold black darkness. Promising death to the Glasgow.
A flash and a massive lurch pulled maccalum and Rotchford off their feet, but it wasn’t a weapon impact. It was the lurch of a gravity field forming a few miles away as a ship dropped out of hyperdrive.
A dangerous and potentially fatal move – a single miscalculation could have dropped the new ship right on top of them - but it saved the Glasgow. The rest of the fleet, the few ships that remained had jumped back to help. The TDF New York had jumped In front of the plasma blasts. Taking the hit that would have finished the Glasgow off. It opened up with its main cannons, rail guns blasting the armour above the Canidations missile batteries. Another Terran defence force ship TDF Cardiff jumped in behind and opened up on the bugs with everything it had. The Canidation vessel was powerful, but it couldn’t withstand the combined firepower of the vengeful human warships.
Explosion and explosion, hit after hit. The Canidations withered under the combined firepower and with a final flash it vanished as it’s fusion plant exploded.
The TDF Glasgows communication system beeped for attention. Maccalum moved slowly across
“This is captain Yoshimoyo on the New York. Prepare to receive medic and engineering teams. Your information won us the day Glasgow. All Canidation vessels have been destroyed. This is the first human victory in this war...”
“This is science officer McCallum. “thanks for the help. That was a risky move I owe your helmsman a beer. Captain Conroy has been injured. We don’t know how bad, the ship has taken heavy damage.
*****************
Weeks later Captain Conroy stood in front of admiral Wong.
Conroy had spent most of the time unconscious. His injuries sever, but with advanced medical skill, talented doctors and a dash of luck he had made a full recovery.
“Captain” the admiral began “I’m glad to see you’re back on your feet. I’ve out an official commendation for yourself and your entire crew. The information you fought so hard for will prove invaluable in this conflict”
Wong continued “The data contained ship specifications, technical manuals, training documents and recent fleet movements. With that information we’ve managed to push the Canidations back in a number of theatres , you and your crew have saved thousands of human lives. We all owe you a debt captain.”
“Thank you sir...i'm eager to get back to the Glasgow sir, to get back in the fight.”
The admiral shook his head
“I’m afraid not Conroy. The Glasgow was heavily damaged and will require months of repairs and refit. We can’t have a seasoned crew out of action for so long. You and your crew are being reassigned.”
Wong passed a pad to the captain
“Our newest, most powerful warship. The TDF Lucifer. You’ll be part of a task force – the ghost division. The Canidations are throwing more and more ships against us, and while we’ve slowed the advance to a crawl we are still loosing. You’ll go behind enemy lines and fight a guerrilla war. Do everything you can to bring the bugs down. Everything is a viable target, including the Canidation homeworld. Teach them to fear the wraith of Earth.”
End
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Text
inventory, m | jjk
pairing(s): jungkook x reader
summary: You’re missing a piece of inventory from your erotica shop. Surprisingly, you find it in the same day. It’s around your boyfriend’s neck, who also happens to be your sub. Hm, well, you have to act accordingly, don’t you?
warnings: rated M (18+) for language; non-idol!AU; dom/sub dynamic; feels and there’s a decent bit of buildup; smut (mirror kink, spitting, cock ring usage, cock-slapping, scratching, spanking, vibrator use, overstimulation, edging, m-masturbation, cum eating, f-receiving oral); fluff; noona dom!reader x sub!Jungkook
technically part iv of ‘customer service’ series, but can be read alone
customer service part i | part ii | part iii
-
Jeon Jungkook was a problem.
Technically, your problem.
You tapped your pen against your recordkeeping book. No one was in the store. It was the middle of the week. Not usually the time to get freaky. People got freaky on the weekends. You usually spent these times doing the boring stuff. Setting up the deliveries for the rich customers that purchased clothing from you. Cleaning the store from top to bottom and finding some interesting fluids in interesting places. Typical. Answering emails, accounting, taking inventory. You were missing one piece of inventory, but those things always turned up eventually. You weren’t worried.
Eh, wasn’t a big problem.
Your big problem was Jeon Jungkook.
He wanted to be exclusive. Okay. He wanted it to be a relationship. Slightly less in your comfort zone, but you were willing to give it a shot. Unfortunately, Jungkook also wanted one more thing.
He wanted you to lose you temper at him.
Now, there were several things you, personally, did not do anymore. And number one on the list was losing your temper. You did not want to be in power and actively angry at the person you were fucking at the same time. It was dangerous. It was irresponsible. You’ve gone too far before and hurt your sub. You weren’t going to repeat it.
Not with Jungkook, no matter how much he tried to rile you up.
And he tried. Disobeyed you outright. Talked back. Taunted you. It took a lot of your skill and redirection to focus his attention elsewhere and not at his ultimate goal of pissing you off so much that you used sex as a weapon, because quite frankly, that was a fucked-up thing to do and you were not going to do it. You would rather leave than become that.
You told him this. You told him that he should not try to provoke you, especially not this early in the relationship. His body couldn’t handle it, he couldn’t handle it mentally, and you didn’t want to end up emotionally and sexually abusing him, even if it was an accident. Because it was your responsibility to not do that and you took that shit very seriously.
Jungkook had agreed reluctantly and he still tried.
Sigh.
You rubbed your forehead. If he was an experienced sub, then maybe you could be less strict. But he wasn’t. And yeah, maybe you were a little scared. Because your last relationship had ended very, very badly, because you had gone too far and your sub had been too scared to use the safe word even when it was too much and that really, really fucked you up. You regretted it, even after all this time, even after all the apologizing, even after your sub had forgiven you, multiple times.
You had never forgiven yourself for it.
The whole relationship had fallen apart because of that one time.
After that, you didn’t really date. All you did was have one-night stands with subs you already knew. It was easy having sex with no strings attached. Now you were dating Jungkook. Yeah, that. The dating bit. It was messing you up. It was making you overly cautious. You didn’t want to repeat your mistakes.
You let out a tense exhale.
You didn’t tell Jungkook about this, mostly because you didn’t want to admit it. You didn’t want to admit your sub had been too scared of you to use their safe word. You were ashamed. Scared of yourself and what you were capable of.
Sometimes, when you thought about it, you wondered if you should stop. Give up on the dom/sub thing and have vanilla sex instead with some nice guy who had a normal job and raise some babies and fucking chill out. Seemed nice. Life wasn’t about needing a power complex when being intimate after all. You could have a perfectly satisfying sex life with two people in equal power. Could even still be kinky without the whole ‘I’m the authority and you have to listen to me’ thing.
Yeah, well. Before you could commit to that, Jeon Jungkook decided to fucking seduce you in your own damn sex shop.
You placed your hands on your head and let out a big sigh.
Damn you, Jungkook.
-
You found your missing piece of inventory.
It was around Jeon Jungkook’s neck when he opened his apartment door for you.
Your face was completely neutral, one hand in the pocket of your black trench coat. The other holding your black leather briefcase. Underneath the coat, you wore a simple floor-length black skirt. Black heels. Nothing but your face and hands uncovered. In one second, you took in every detail upon seeing Jungkook.
One, his long black hair was tied back, his bangs framing his large brown eyes. Two, he was wearing a little bit of makeup. Slight amount of eyeshadow and liner, lip balm to make his lips pinker. Three, he was wearing a very low V-necked black t-shirt that was quite obviously meant to show off his shapely collarbones and sculpted pecs. The ink-black tattoos in his right arm stood out against his tan skin. Fourth, he was wearing leather pants – not the ones you made him, that would be indecent exposure showing up to the door like that – but, still, black tight faux leather trousers that he half-tucked his shirt in so his crotch was visible.
And.
Fifth.
He was wearing a black leather collar around his neck, one with a large silver ring hanging down at the center. It had silver studs with in the shape of a diamond pattern punched into the leather. It closed in the back with a silver buckle.
How did you know this?
It was your missing piece of inventory, of course.
You clicked your tongue.
“Oh! Noona,” Jungkook said nervously, biting his lip.
You little shit, don’t you ‘oh, noona’ me. You almost turned around and left. Almost. Irritation was putting it mildly. You were pissed. He had stolen from your shop. Became an actual fucking thief to get a rise out of you. You two weren’t going out on a date. It was already late, so both of you had intended on having a nice night in. He’d dressed up for it, as one does. Made himself pretty for you to ruin. Jungkook knew what he wanted. And he wasn’t being subtle about it, wearing the stolen inventory right in front of your face the second he opened the door.
He wanted you mad and he wanted you mad from the start.
You did not look at the collar. Instead, you stared into his eyes, furious internally, but completely placid on the outside. His brown orbs were observing you in anticipation. He wanted it. Bad. You had refused to let him cum last time because he had talked back to you. That was a week ago. You wondered if he had jacked off or not. You put no such restrictions on him even though he asked you to. You were curious on how far Jungkook was willing to go, so you let him choose.
And, clearly, Jungkook choose death.
Just kidding. But he was really testing you here. And so, you made up your mind.
You waited, raising an eyebrow.
Jungkook flushed and backed up, holding the door with two hands.
“C-Come in.”
You stepped inside, heels clicking on the hardwood. Jungkook closed the door behind you. The large, floor-length mirror was in the living room again. The incident in the fitting room must have really had an impact on him. Maybe he was developing a mirror kink because of it.
You felt Jungkook slide up next to you, his breath against your ear. Shallow, needy, already horny. You weren’t surprised. Nobody dresses like that and doesn’t want to be fucked.
“N-noona…” He was making his voice desperate and breathy, already submissive for you. “I really missed you.”
“That’s lovely to hear.”
You kept your tone light, no pet names, stepping out of your heels and walking towards the couch. Jungkook followed you like a shadow, still chewing on his lip, messing up his own hard work of making himself pretty for you. You placed your briefcase on the coffee table. He hovered as you undid your trench coat slowly, pulling open the tie and unbuttoning it deftly, fingers dancing on the placket.
“I can help you?” Jungkook offered, holding his hands out.
Your eyes gradually lifted, locking your gaze with his. You saw him visibly shiver in excitement.
“No need.”
You saw Jungkook pout as you slipped out of the coat, one arm, then the other, revealing the white dress shirt that was neatly tucked into your black skirt. It had pleated detailing down the front and silver collar pins, completed by the silver cuff links you used to close the sleeves. You folded the coat elegantly and laid it over the back of his couch.
“Are you mad, noona?”
You want me to be mad. Thankfully, at this point you had calmed a little. Yes, Jungkook was an idiot for doing such a thing, but he wasn’t doing it because he was trying to hurt you or actually steal from you. Maybe it was something he’d seen or read in porn. Maybe it was something his brain devised because he felt some weird need to prove to you that he was a good and obedient sub, because he knew you had previous partners and he wanted to outdo them or something. Maybe he wanted to see how much of a dom you really were.
And, most likely, it was all of those things.
“Jungkook.”
This time, you said his name with a sharper tone.
“Y… yes?”
You turned your right hand upwards, entirely aware of the placement of your fingers. Pinky, ring, middle curled inwards. Index up, thumb out. Poised, elegant, almost haughty. You flicked your cuff link, straightening the backing to slip it out. It was a diamond-shaped accessory, completely unnecessary for everyday life and completely necessary to force Jungkook to wait on you one more second. One more heart-stopping moment.
You glanced at his crotch. Hm. Interesting. Then you blinked and your eyes were on his. Hair hanging around his cheekbones, pupils dilating, swollen lips parted as he let out light pants of desire. He was slowly but surely losing it.
Maybe it was because his erection was suffocating in his leather pants.
You twirled your cuff link in your fingers. Jungkook watched the action, entranced by the dexterity of your digits. You knew what he wanted. He’d been texting you all day, trying to work you up. You had made him wait. Just like how you were making him wait now.
“What is your safe word?”
That was the question you used to start off the scene.
Instantly, you saw the relief, the hunger, the absolute need to serve flood his dark brown eyes. Now you were the dom. Now he was the sub.
“Euphoria,” Jungkook nearly moaned.
You nodded slowly, placing the cuff link on his coffee table. You upturned your other wrist, removing the other with a swift flick. You heard him whimper at the quick action. You almost smiled. He really wanted it. Ah, but you are a bad, bad boy, Jungkook. The metal clinked as it touched the walnut wood of the tabletop.
And there are consequences for being a bad, bad boy.
Your gaze connected with his once again. His eyes were practically begging for instruction.
“You look like you want to ask me something,” you drawled. His teeth sunk into his lower lip once more, the tiny mole underneath winking at you. “Go ahead.”
His eyes flitted about, trying to search for the trap. He swallowed, straining against the collar.
“Do… do you notice anything different about me?” Jungkook asked hesitantly, taking a step towards you.
You didn’t move from your position, observing him closely. His hands by his sides were antsy, itching to touch you or be caged with rope. You hooked your thumb at the base of your cuff and rolled it down. Once. Twice. Three times.
“You’re wearing makeup for me,” you replied, letting a small smile drift to your lips.
“A-ah…” He blushed. “Is it… is it too unmanly?”
Who the fuck put these ideas in Jeon Jungkook’s head? You just wanted to talk to them. And by talk, you meant flog the living daylights out of them. You had a big one at home. It could be arranged.
“No, of course not. You look very handsome.” Pause. “And fuckable.”
No reason not to tell the truth.
Jungkook’s cheeks flushed a dark pink. “T-Thank you, noona.”
During the entire conversation, you had folded the sleeves of your dress shirt up to your elbows. The stiff, crisp fabric held, and suddenly you were imposing, sleeves rolled up, black skirt skimming the hardwood floor. The neutral façade you had upheld for so long dropped away. Jungkook noticed the change instantly, even though you hadn’t actually said anything yet. His eyes widened a little, shoulders tensing.
Your eyes flashed, chin lifting.
“Or is that not what you meant, pretty boy?”
You did not hide the irritation in your voice this time. His breathing hitched, the muscles his arms ripped and Jungkook very, very much wanted to be punished.
“Um…” He fiddled with his hands guiltily, eyes skirting about. “It’s not what I was referring to, no…”
“Look at me.”
He snapped his head up, gulping. So obvious. His neck strained against the leather. You raised an eyebrow, crossing your arms over your chest.
“What were you referring to?” you questioned icily.
Jungkook was shaking all over. He lifted his hand slowly, reaching up to his neck, hooking two fingers around the metal ring of the collar. He tightened them, tugging down a little, eyelashes fluttering, a tiny moan rumbling in his throat. You were going insane on the inside. Fuck, did he know how submissive he was? Did he know how his small, cute little actions made him look so fucking appetizing?
“T-This.”
“Ah, yes,” you finally acknowledged. You waved a hand and he removed his, biting his lip again. “I did notice that. A nice touch. Is it for me?”
He nodded quickly. He seemed to forget for a second that he stole it from you. “Yes, noona, it’s for you.”
You sighed. Jungkook’s expression changed, becoming slightly confused.
“Pause.”
The indication that there was an intermission in the scene. You narrowed your eyes at him.
“You are testing me, Jungkook, and I do not like it.”
Jungkook’s brows knitted together, looking down. “I’m sorry, noona.”
“I told you that you shouldn’t try to make me angry on purpose.”
He closed the distance between you two, placing his hands on your elbows. His brown orbs anxiously found yours. “I… I just… please…” His fingers pressed into your skin, his breathing deepening. “I want to see how far I can go. How far you can take me. You won’t…” Jungkook shook his head, hair flying everywhere, ponytail bouncing. “You’re holding back, but I can take it, noona, I promise. I promise I can.” His fingertips caressed you, determination in his eyes.
Hm. Jungkook could tell. You breathed in deeply, inhaling his clean scent.
You are aware of your mistakes. You have learned.
You pursed your lips.
I really, really do not want to hurt you, Jungkook.
“You must promise me.” You looked deep into his eyes. “You must promise me, that if it is too much, if you cannot handle it, if it is not something you want, you must use your safe word.”
He nodded quickly. “I promise.”
And then you crumpled a little bit, your strict demeanor falling, the fears rising, the vulnerability making your voice quiver as you unfurled your arms and grabbed his t-shirt, shaking him roughly.
“No, Jungkook,” you pleaded. “You must promise me.” And you couldn’t explain, couldn’t bring yourself to say why, but he could tell how serious you were because you were suddenly weak, suddenly the parts of yourself that you kept under wraps revealed themselves, the parts you were ashamed of appearing, and you were letting him witness it. Because he said he wanted you. Not just dom you, but you.
And this, well, this was you too.
Jungkook’s eyes softened and he smiled. He leaned in and kissed you, long, sweet, delicate. It was like time stopped. As if the world froze and there was nothing but Jungkook’s lips on yours, reassuring and comforting. He drew back and opened his eyes slowly, warmth in his chocolate orbs.
“I promise.”
You looked up at him, stunned. He grinned at you, showing off his teeth, a little cheeky and embarrassed all at once. You removed your hands from his shirt, lowering them gradually.
“Sorry, I…”
Jungkook’s hands dropped and held yours tightly. He shook his head.
“No, noona. I understand. I know you are looking out for me,” he said brightly. “Because I’m always trying to get into trouble.”
A muscle in your eye twitched. At least he admitted it.
His teeth caught his lip, still smiling. Less nervous now, more playful.
You removed your hands from his. Okay. Okay, fine. Jungkook wanted you to be the dom. Not a dom, the dom. You let out a breath, controlled, clean. Step back into your role. You are in control. You can do this.
“What is your safe word?”
You cracked your neck, a sharp pop that made Jungkook jump.
“Euphoria,” he replied automatically.
“Very good.”
A beat passed. Jungkook remained close to you, unsure what was going to happen. His eyes wide and flighty, chin trembling, hands in front of his chest. You lowered yours, placing them behind your back. Piercing gaze on him, taking a step. His eyes followed you as you slowly circled him, speaking carefully and deliberately.
“So, Jungkook, tell me,” you began, skirt grazing the floor as your glided around him. “What makes you think you’re wearing the collar for me?”
Jungkook’s head whipped around quickly, following your movement with darting eyes. Damn, his ass looked great in these leather pants. He looked unconfident, brows furrowing, trying to conjure the right answer to get what he wanted.
“Um… I thought… maybe you might like it…” He stumbled through his words. “B-Because you like controlling me…”
You smiled at him. Jungkook brightened.
“I do.”
The eagerness beamed off his face as you stopped in front of him, still smiling pleasantly.
“I love controlling you.”
Then the smile dropped. The air around you became ten degrees colder with your shift in demeanor. Jungkook barely had a half-second to realize the change before your hand shot out and gripped the silver ring, yanking down harshly. He yelped, arms flying out, falling to his knees hard, gripping your skirt for balance. Your other arm was still behind you, folded into the small of your back. You narrowed your eyes, holding the collar ring so tightly that your knuckles were white.
His eyes flew up, pain and surprise.
You ticked your head. “But clearly, I’ve done a poor job, because you’ve gone and stole from me, you bad boy.”
Jungkook shook his head quickly, scooting himself forward, clutching your skirt tightly. “N-No, please, noona, I only–”
You yanked the ring up and Jungkook gasped, words cut off from the sudden jerk of his head snapping back. “You only what? Pickpocketed? Broke the law? Took my hard-earned money from right under my nose, to hurt me?”
“No, no, never,” Jungkook whimpered, looking up at you, blinking rapidly. “I don’t want to hurt you, noona. Never.”
“Then explain yourself,” you barked severely.
His eyes were turning teary, pleading. “I only… I only wanted to borrow it. So you could punish me and so I could show you I could be a good boy and take what I deserve.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Your other punishments weren’t enough?”
Jungkook’s lower lip quivered. The shame of his true intent was creeping in his eyes now.
“I… I wanted to see you angry, noona.”
“Even after I told you that you shouldn’t?”
He nodded, scurrying himself even closer on his now, most likely, bruised knees. Eyes on you, holding onto your skirt, whole body trembling. He angled his hips forward, showing you how hard he was in his pants, straining it even more by pressing his erection into the zipper of the leather. His lips open, black curls hanging around his face, almost pathetic but not quite, because you knew Jungkook was acutely aware of exactly what he looked like. Doing it to entice you, doing it to assure you that he wanted it.
“Y-Yes,” he admitted.
You forcefully let go of the ring, flinging him away from you. Jungkook squeaked, releasing your clothes as his body twisted to the side from your sharp movement. You swept your skirts away and took a step back.
“Noona, w-wait!”
Jungkook tried to scramble to his feet, but you snarled deep in your chest, making him freeze.
“Crawl.”
He looked startled, looking at you with wide puppy eyes. You took another step back. Jungkook followed you, on hands and knees, his bangs flared out, the low neckline of his shirt hanging down, revealing his chest. You could see his back muscles rippling under the fabric. Fuck, he was so handsome. You weren’t heading for the front door. You watched his mind calculate the angle of your body, mood lightening as he realized that was the direction of the bedroom. You, however, stopped at the floor-length mirror in the living room. Pointed to the patch of floor at your feet.
“Here. Now.”
Jungkook immediately complied, getting on his knees in front of you, hands between his legs, keen to please, facing you.
“Other way,” you clarified, sounding disappointed.
He lowered his head at his mistake and spun around, now facing his reflection. You glared through the mirror, making eye contact. He looked very sorry and very dejected. You almost forgave him just like that. Maybe Jungkook didn’t like this. Maybe you were being too harsh.
“Do you want to use your safe word?”
His eyes on yours. He shook his head lightly, not breaking your gaze.
“No, noona.” Your heart thudded in your chest at his tone of voice. “I’ve been a very bad boy.”
Jungkook licked his lips slowly, not looking away, the tip of his pink tongue lingering before sliding back into his mouth. He kept the same look in his eyes, but his actions were giving you the go ahead.
Shit.
You raised an eyebrow and lowered your hands. They floated above his shoulders and you were reminded of the first time, in the fitting room of your erotica shop, the moment he seduced you and pulled you into his pace. Jungkook tipped his head back, long hair sliding to his ears, the reflection of the stolen collar taunting you.
This brat.
Slowly, finger by finger, you placed your hands on his face. Fingertips pressing into his jaw, cheek, temple, into his soft skin, nails slightly digging in. Scratching up his pretty face a little, claiming it as yours. Jungkook had perfect bone structure, high cheekbones, sharp jaw, pretty forehead. He was panting, mouth open, hot breath drifting down. Hands on his thighs, clutching them tight.
You bent down, chin above his head so he could feel your hot breath on his scalp.
“My pretty boy,” you murmured softly. “Why must you be so bad? Do I not treat you well enough? Do I not give you what you love?”
“You do,” Jungkook whined in your hands, the guilt creeping into his voice. “You do, noona. Your pretty boy is… g-greedy.” He rolled his hips a little, spreading his thighs more, staring at his own reflection of his low-necked shirt and his thighs open, cock bulging in his leather pants.
Your fingers slipped down, down, tracing the leather collar. You let your index finger circle around the metal, not yet touching his chest, so close but so far. Jungkook kept trying to raise it into your touch.  Your other hand reached back and grabbed his ponytail, yanking his head back. He moaned right into your chin, too turned on to pretend he was hurt.
“I am going to my briefcase,” you stated, not looking at him under you and instead staring at his reflection, torso straining from how sharply you were forcing him to arch his back. “You are to remove your clothes. Whatever is left on you will remain for the rest of the night. Do I make myself clear?”
“Y-yes, noona.”
You abruptly let him go, striding to your briefcase swiftly, hearing a flurry of noise as Jungkook flung all of his clothes off. Snap, open, grab. You had already packed a black velvet bag holding the things you intended to use on him tonight. You spun around to see him practically ripping his leather pants off, the panic and regret evident on his face as he tried to shove them down his muscular calves. Smart boy had removed his underwear with his pants, smearing trails of pre-cum down his legs and onto the floor. You waited half a second for Jungkook to pop them over his ankles and he threw the pants to the far wall, so hard they made a loud slapping noise. Jungkook was on his hands and knees, panting, beads of sweat on his forehead.
It was actually hilarious to watch, but now was not the time to laugh.
Jungkook snapped his head towards you, eyes wide, his hard cock smacking his thigh. You raised an eyebrow at him. He gulped. Wearing nothing but the collar. Oh, he looked so good. You could tell him to get into position.
Or.
Tease him.
“Want to put my mouth on you, handsome boy.”
His cock twitched as his jaw dropped.
Your tongue slid out and stayed at the side of your lips as you spoke. “You look so tasty for me. When was the last time you came, Jungkook?”
His hands curled into fists on the hardwood floor, legs falling open, cock throbbing. The veins stood out against the hardness, head swollen and red.
“F-Fifteen days ago…” he whimpered.
He had denied himself. So cute. What a good boy. You smiled at him, still holding the velvet bag. “Really? You didn’t cum, not even once, without me?”
Jungkook shook his head rapidly, hair flying everywhere. “Wa… wanted to be tasty for you.”
You pouted a little. “Hm, that’s half a month. You waited so long.”
Jungkook nodded, chewing on his lip. You gestured for him to adjust his position and he turned his body to fully face you.
“Eyes on the mirror.”
He turned his head to face his reflection. Hands on the floor next to his ass, slightly leaning back, legs open.
“Look away and I’ll walk away,” you warned.
“Y-yes, noona.”
You floated down to the floor. He couldn’t exactly see you, but you slid into the frame of the mirror, right between his legs. The velvet bag was out of his sight, next to his leg, but Jungkook wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at his stiff cock and your proximity to it, holding his breath. You collected your saliva on your tongue and opened your mouth. It dripped down in a thin, slim line, hitting the angry red head of his cock and causing it to jerk at the sudden impact, coating it.
“A-ah, s-so good…”
“What do we say?” you purred, collecting more.
“T-thank you, noona,” Jungkook moaned, watching as you dropped more onto his aching cock, splattering onto his crotch. You lowered your head, closer. Closer. Jungkook sucked in a breath, waiting, needing, trying not to move. You made eye contact with him in the mirror.
“You’re a bad boy, Jungkook.”
And then you spat on his balls.
His head tipped back as he groaned, eyes barely open as he watched himself, chest shuddering as he felt it trickle down and onto the floor below. You spat on his genitals again, more force this time, spraying it across his cock and stomach. He cried out, slamming one of his fists onto the hardwood.
“Y-yes, noona, I’m a bad boy.”
And then you produced a cock ring seemingly out of nowhere, eyebrow raised as he wailed loudly.
“N-no, please, please don’t,” Jungkook panicked as you brought the black silicone ring closer and closer to his now saliva-drenched cock. “Please, I promise to be a good boy, please don’t do it…”
You said nothing, simply placing it on the engorged head and using three fingers to hold it, pushing down slowly.
“Noona, a-ah… no…” His eyelids fluttered, eyes on the reflection of his thick cock being viciously squeezed into the silicone ring. He let out a choked sob as it popped over the bottom of the head, sliding down, down, all the way to the base. You barely touched him, removing your hand as Jungkook shuddered, his pulsating length now bound by the black band.
You raised your head. He was still, very obediently, staring at the mirror.
You smacked his cock with your palm.
Not hard, but enough to make it bounce and for Jungkook to squeal, hips rising as his dick shook from side to side, unable to move much from the tight cock ring. He was making it move more by rocking his hips, heightening the feeling of being bound.
You waited until it stopped swaying.
“Your neighbors will hear you, Jungkook,” you said calmly. You turned your head and looked into the mirror. His eyes locked on yours, pupils dilated, strands of hair clinging to his sweaty face. “Should I gag you?”
“N-no, noona,” he whispered hotly, breathing shallow and tight. “They have to know I’m being punished. B-Because I’ve been b-bad.”
Good gracious, Jungkook.
Your panties instantly soaked. Who was losing it here? Was it him or was it you? Fuck.
You slowly smacked his cock back and forth, back and forth, staring at his face in the mirror. His head tipped back, not closing his eyes, moaning wantonly as his stiff length was roughly shoved around, barely any pressure and too much at once because of how hard he was. You stopped, watching his cock bob, almost purple-red now. Pre-cum beaded at the tip.
You couldn’t help it.
You leaned down, tucking your hair behind your ear so he could see, and gave the slit a tiny kitten lick.
Fuuuuuuuck.
Jungkook lost control, eyes rolling back into his head, and you almost moaned, his strong, intense taste all over your tongue. He tasted so good. So fucking delicious. You pulled back, pretending not to notice that Jungkook had looked away from the mirror as he quickly collected himself, back to staring at his reflection. You grabbed his hips and dug your nails into his skin, dragging him so his body was tilted.
“Flip over,” you growled.
You backed up, taking the velvet pouch with you as Jungkook obeyed, on his hands and knees now.
“On your face.”
Jungkook whimpered, lowering his cheek to the cool floor, leaning against it. Now his ass was up in the air, vulnerable and exposed.
“Both hands on the ring.”
His teeth sank into his lower lip, scooting his hands so he held the silver collar ring with fingers on both hands, arms against the floor to hold him up. His cock stuck straight down, stiff and swollen, trapped in the silicone circle. You waited to let Jungkook readjust his knees to be more comfortable and so he could see everything. The muscles on his back tensed with anticipation.
“I didn’t cover your mouth for a reason.”
“Yes, noona,” Jungkook breathed.
You raised your hands and raked your nails over his back, all the way to his ass. Hard, deep, leaving lines of pink and red, almost breaking the skin. Jungkook moaned, tongue sliding out, body shaking, eyelids fluttering. You did it again, and again, creating your pattern of lust on his back.
“Mine,” you growled possessively. Your eyes locked with his.
Thump.
Had anyone ever looked at you with so much adoration before?
Jungkook nodded.
“All yours, noona.”
You slapped his ass with your open palm.
He yelped, shoulders hitting the floor, face sliding a little against the wood. Pupils dilating, whimpering for more. You smacked him again, and again, and again, never the same spot, always with the full palm, all over, causing large red handprints patterned all over his ass. Jungkook was a groaning mess, legs slipping, the head of his cock touching the hardwood.
You stopped.
His ass was bright red, covered in your slaps and scratches.
Jungkook opened his eyes. He seemed to realize he wasn’t looking at his reflection anymore. He panicked, seeing your glare in the mirror, and tried to raise his hips, but your hand stopped him. The tip of his cock was in contact the floor, dripping pre-cum.
You pressed his hips down a little and shifted them from side to side.
Even the little stimulation of the head against the hardwood made Jungkook moan, pleading with you as he desperately clutched the collar.
“Noona, p-please… Please let me c-cum…”
You removed your hand. Jungkook continued rubbing himself in his own puddle of pre-cum on his living room floor, as you predicted. You didn’t stop him. You reached into the velvet pouch again. Jungkook’s eyes had fluttered closed as he continued stimulating himself, probably not enough, but he didn’t seem to care. You pressed the thing in your hand onto his scrotum and turned it on.
“A-ah!”
Jungkook’s hips flew up, balls suddenly shaking violently from the bullet vibrator in your hand. He shut his legs, sticking his ass out into your hand as he gasped, pressing back into the vibrator as you lazily drifted it around his balls.
“Oh, fuck, noona, oh, fuck!”
He was still holding onto the collar somehow as he tried to get more, wiggling his hips, but you were faster, grabbing his ass with one hand and digging your nails into it.
“Stop.”
Jungkook froze, whimpering and panting on the hardwood, cheeks hollowed out, eyes glazed over.
You traced his asshole with the tip of the vibrator.
His eyes rolled back, tongue lolling out.
“Oh, please, noona, put it in me, p-please…”
You drew figure-eights around his asshole and his balls, calmly.
“I bet you would love that, but you’ve been a bad boy, so I don’t think so.”
Jungkook whined, shaking his head, dark curls fluttering, soaked with sweat.
“P-please, I’ll be good, I need it, I need you to do it, fuck, please.”
“No.”
You pressed the vibrator into the cock ring and Jungkook nearly screamed, cutting himself off by snapping his jaw shut and yelling into the floor, hips jerking in your hands. You kept it there for a good five seconds before you removed it and backed up, reaching into the velvet bag again. Jungkook had maybe one shaking inhale before you gripped him under his armpits, hoisting him up.
“Let go of the ring,” you commanded, and his hands dropped, helping you get him to his knees. His bruised knees. Still, he leaned against you, soaking your clothes with his sweat, spreading his legs out more so his body lowered and your head could be seen past his shoulder. 
You reached down and removed the cock ring, Jungkook gasping in relief. It rolled away, now forgotten.
“Get yourself off.”
“B-but, noona…”
Your hands appeared and pressed against his nipples, turning on both bullet vibrators at once.
“Get. Yourself. Off.”
“F-fuck!”
His hand immediately flew to his cock, viciously pumping himself as you rubbed his nipples with the toys, his groans rumbling in his chest with the vibrations, so strong, so intense, his tan skin glistening with sweat, arm tattoos dancing as he stroked himself fast, his cock so hard it was purple now, veins popping out.
And, like the masochist he was…
Jungkook grabbed the head and squeezed firmly, cutting off his own orgasm with a wail.
You responded just as fast, dropping your hands and shoving the vibrators against his balls, twice as much stimulation as before. His head fell back against your shoulder, half-moans, half-screams of your name as he bucked into them, working himself up once again, your breath against his neck, your eyes watching Jungkook’s reflection – his shaking legs, his balls cupped in your hands, his abused and overstimulated cock popping in and out of his tattooed hand, his now inflamed nipples, sweat dripping down his neck, long black hair flared out against your cheek, the mole under his lower lip trembling with his cries.
Fuck, he was everything. Everything you ever wanted.
“Ah, noona, yes, yes, you’re so good to me, so good…”
“Cum on the mirror,” you demanded. “Cum all over yourself, pretty boy.”
Jungkook whined, snapping his head back down, feeling you increase the vibration setting on his balls and that was it, the tipping point as he sobbed out your name, shooting all over the mirror in large splatters of white, jerking his hips so it traveled higher, sticking onto the reflective glass, all over his reflection.
And he watched it, moaning, so entranced by his likeness covered in his own cum, dripping down in slow smears, messy and dirty.
You turned off the vibrators, withdrew your hands from him.
“Lick it off.”
Jungkook was exhausted, wheezing, hoarse, and yet he still removed his hand from his cock, crawling to the mess he made, pink tongue flopping out, licking his own cum off the mirror, eating it up with groans of satisfaction. You watched him, fascinated, surprised he even listened to you, surprised he was still going, because honestly at this point, you really thought you had gone too far, but Jungkook was enthusiastically making out with his own face with his orgasm at your command, and loving every second of it.
“Jungkook.”
He pushed himself away from the mirror, immediately coming to you, his dark brown eyes hazy with pleasure. He dumped himself in your lap. You still wearing all your clothes. He looked up at you, lips curving into a naughty grin.
“I love it when you turn me into your plaything.”
This guy.
“What do you want?” Jungkook panted. “I’ll do anything. Anything for you.”
Oh, that’s right. You had spent so much focus and energy on Jungkook that you completely forgot about yourself. How did that happen? Ah, but you were so tired now. You let out a puff of disbelief and slid down to the floor.
“I want a nap. Get back to me tomorrow morning.”
-
You woke up slowly to something wet and hot between your legs.
Can I wake you up by eating you out tomorrow morning?
If you brush your teeth.
Really?!
If you brush your teeth, yes.
Your fingers curled into the sheets, breathing in Jungkook’s scent. His bed. His tongue against your opening, softly lapping, burying his nose into your core. You pursed your lips, sighing softly. The tip of the wet muscle slid up, licking at your clit. You pressed your hips into his face and the large hands around your thighs tightened, holding you closer.
He moaned, so hot, right into your pussy.
Your hands released the sheets, sliding across the fabric, up your hip, tracing his fingers. Eyes still closed, feeling for his long hair, clean, fluffy, wild from sleep. Burying your fingers in the strands, pressing him down into you.
“Ah, Jungkook…”
He licked faster, lips closing around your clit, pushing his head into you as he pressed your thighs into the sides of his face. You could feel his cheekbones, his jaw rubbing against your skin. Felt his wet warmth, rapidly rubbing your sensitive nub.
“That’s a good boy,” you purred and he whined, vibrating your pussy with the sound.
Your fingers tightened in his hair and you hissed, gliding into your orgasm, dripping into his mouth as your clit throbbed against his tongue, pleasure flooding you like a warm blanket.
You finally opened your eyes, breathing out as you saw Jungkook’s handsome face between your legs, cleaning you up. He kissed the insides of your thighs, nuzzling your skin. He seemed to feel you watching him and his eyes looked up, bright, doe-like, chocolatey. His pink lips glistened with your release.
“Noona?”
“Mhm?”
“Can I keep the collar?”
You raised an eyebrow. He smiled at you, playful, naughty.
“If you pay for it,” you replied, half-joking.
His tongue flashed out.
“I can pay in cash and in orgasms.”
You laughed as Jungkook dove down between your legs once again.
--
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Some post-4x13 Buddie because ummmm no to everything that just went down and whatever the hell they're doing with that promo. Pre-relationship Eddie introspection, guest-starring sleepy Buck and Chris (how often can I have these two idiots—Buck and Eddie, not Chris—wake each other up too goddamn early in the morning; the answer is infinite).
Eddie wakes up.
The world is a quiet, washed-out hum of static and dim light. He listens to his breath, in and out, in and out, as the room comes into focus. The rhythmic beeping monitor. The rough sheets over his chest. The hollowed-out numb of his shoulder where—
fuck. Where he’d been shot.
Eddie blinks open his eyes and grimaces. He’s probably doped to hell but his shoulder aches like forest fire, like a pain that will consume him and the whole world too, if he lets it. His head feels like someone pumped it full of air right up until the point before it bursts. He grits his teeth and gathers saliva on his tongue, carefully distributes it so that when he swallows, it will feel less like he’s ingesting a quart of sand. He knows this song and dance. He wiggles his fingers and toes and notes that remarkably, everything’s in working order. He wonders how often you can cheat death before that karma comes to get you.
Although he thinks Buck would probably go to bat for him, even against death himself. The heart monitor spikes as Eddie remembers with a vicious and cruel clarity Buck’s eyes on his as Eddie shuddered and collapsed. Buck’s wide, deer-in-headlights eyes, all that Eddie could see, just two pinprick pupils until there was nothing else, just the black, blank darkness.
Eddie tips his head to the side and opens his eyes, unclenching his fists, and nearly reels back when he sees Ana. She’s crumpled in the seat beside him, her chin resting on her collarbone, her long, dark eyelashes twitching against her cheek as she sleeps.
He closes his eyes and turns his head away.
But Ana’s a light sleeper. She was already waking up when he looked at her, roused from the shallow depths of unconsciousness by the change in Eddie’s breathing pattern, or something. His eyes are still closed when she croaks out, “Eddie?”
He looks at her.
“Eddie!” She says, raising her hands to flutter them over his chest, his face, his un-wounded shoulder. “You’re awake! You’re alive! Thank God,” she says, fervent. Like a prayer.
“Guess I’m just… lucky,” Eddie wheezes out. She smiles at him, eyes watering, and he gave the PG-version of his Silver Star story in her classroom but there’s no hint of recognition in her eyes.
“Either the luckiest man alive, or the unluckiest,” she says. “I’m pretty sure a lucky man wouldn’t be shot at quite so much.” She presses a kiss to his temple and Eddie has the horrible impulse to bat her away from him like she’s an overbearing aunt.
God, he’s an idiot. And it would take getting shot for him to realize it.
“What… happened?” Eddie asks, relieved when she leans back and settles into her chair.
“I’m not sure… I heard there was a sniper on the scene. The police think he might be targeting first responders, because how could this year get any worse?” When she shakes her head, her curls bounce in a way Eddie found appealing, once. It feels like a million years ago.
“Chris?” He asks, heart racing once more. She glances at the monitor and then back to him, offering a reassuring smile that does little to soothe his nerves.
“He’s OK. Buck’s with him.” Those three words calm Eddie instantly, like someone turning off an electric kettle, the worry bubbling up inside him simmering to a still. Because it means Chris is OK, and so is Buck. “I’m really grateful to Buck,” Ana is saying, taking his hand in hers, drawing his attention back to her. “It means I get to be here, with you.” She smiles at him like he’s fragile.
Wrong.
Eddie looks at her and doesn’t know how to tell her. How to tell her that the right thing would be for her to be at Chris’s side. That Chris always came first. Chris was the first and only priority. Chris was Eddie’s heart, raw and exposed, just like Bobby had said.
He looks at her and thinks about Chris’s smile, how he lights up the minute Ana walks in the room. He thinks about Chris confessing to him, quiet and anxious, that he’d asked Santa to find Mommy. He thinks about his parents telling him that the proper thing to do was to marry the girl carrying his child, even if he wasn’t sure he loved her.
Chris has been and will always be the most important thing in Eddie’s life. But Eddie’s starting to realize that even with a Northstar as good and perfect as Chris, Eddie didn’t always make the best choices. For himself, for Chris, or for their family.
“Can you call Buck, for me?” Eddie asks, brushing his thumb over Ana’s delicate knuckles. “If it’s not too late. I want to see my boys.”
She hastily bends down to pick up her purse and fumble her phone out, tell him it was fine, Buck had wanted her to call him as soon as Eddie woke up, anyway. He catches a glimpse of a “5” as she unlocks the phone and opens her contact list.
In the early morning, hospital quiet, Eddie can hear the phone ring on the other end of the line. Once, twice. Click.
“Hello?’ Buck asks, voice scratchy with sleep.
“Let me talk to him,” Eddie says, before Ana can get a word in. She hesitates, opens her mouth, but he holds her gaze until she extends the phone to him. Eddie’s hand is steady when he takes it from her.
“Hey,” Eddie says. Buck’s bleary-eyed, curls smashed to one side of his head, half his face obscured by a dark shape.
“Eddie,” Buck says, a ragged, relieved sound. He shifts, and Eddie hears him say, “Chris, Chris wake up, it’s your dad, Chris, he’s OK!”
And then there’s another face, pressing too close to the camera, so that Eddie mostly sees a nostril and some chin.
“Daddy!” Chris whoops, and Eddie smiles, and Buck pulls Chris back from the phone screen so Eddie can see him.
“Hey there, buddy,” Eddie says, “sorry I scared you.”
“W-wasn’t scared,” Chris insists, blinking rapidly because without his glasses, the world was mostly a multi-colored smudge. “I had Buck.”
Buck—who settles Chris’s glasses over his face with heartbreaking tenderness. Buck—who wraps an arm around Chris and scoots them back against the headboard so they can both see Eddie. Buck—who had clearly been sleeping in Chris’s bed, keeping him safe while Eddie was getting several pints of blood pumped into his body and shrapnel extricated from his shoulder.
“That’s good,” Eddie says. “Really good.”
“We knew you’d be OK,” Buck says. “Right, Superman?”
“Yeah. ‘Cause of your lucky charm.”
Eddie has to close his eyes against that. Chris is still so young, still Disney-innocent and honey-sweet, and Buck knew exactly what to say to calm Chris down. He knew Chris’s favorite bedtime story and the playlist Eddie made for him to help Chris fall asleep.
“That’s right,” Eddie chokes out. “My St. Christopher medal.”
“No.” Eddie blinks at that, at the stubborn line of Chris’s mouth. “Me. And Buck.”
Buck looks just about as surprised as Eddie feels.
“What?” Eddie asks.
“What?” Buck asks.
“What?” Chris asks, confused at their confusion. He addresses Buck. “Daddy said that I was his good l-l-luck charm. Because he loves me. A-and he loves you, so you’re his good luck charm too.”
Eddie isn’t sure if his kid is perceptive or just putting together ideas in the way only kids can. But it doesn’t really matter, because he isn’t wrong.
“Got me there,” Eddie agrees. “I must be pretty lucky, since I’ve got the both of you watching my back.”
Buck’s smiling a pleased, sunshine grin. The room is too dark and the connection is too poor, but Eddie would bet money that Buck’s blushing.
Eddie very deliberately doesn’t look at Ana.
“We’ll come visit as soon as the hospital opens,” Buck promises. “It’s good you called, because we should probably get going.”
To his right, Chris gives a huge yawn.
“You sure? I’m not going anywhere.”
“You think we’re gonna be able to sleep now that you’re awake? No way.”
“No way!’ Chris agrees.
“We’ll be there in fifteen. Twenty. Ten?” Buck looks down at Chris.
“Five!” Chris shouts. “The f-firetruck could make it in five minutes!”
“But we only have Buck’s jeep,” Buck says, pouting at Chris. “Definitely not a firetruck.”
“Fifteen,” Chris amends.
“OK,” Eddie says with a laugh that barely hurts. “I’ll see you soon. Thanks, Buck.”
“For what?” Buck asks, ruffling Chris’s hair with the hand that had been draped over Chris’s shoulders. “Be there soon.”
The call disconnects with the finality of a book snapping shut. He squares his shoulders (as much as he can while lying in an inclined hospital bed with a bullet injury) and turns his head to face Ana.
Her eyes are narrowed and hard, like ice over a troubled stream.
“So,” she says, slow and calm, “Buck?”
“Yeah” Eddie says. It’s all he can say. He can’t tell her how to be what he needs, what Chris needs. He can’t tell her to put Chris first like a reflex, like an instinct.
He doesn’t blame her. He isn’t mad at her. He isn’t even disappointed. He’s as shocked as anyone that he met someone who understood, immediately and profoundly, that Chris was Eddie’s world. Eddie had never counted on someone like Buck. And it was time he stopped running from that and accepted it for the undeserved, unparallelled gift that it was.
“I’m sorry,” he adds.
“Me too.” Ana takes her phone back with a snap of her wrist and drops it in her purse. “I’m going to go home.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, feeling a little guilty. He knows what it’s like to feel left behind, waking up with nothing but a note and the realization that you could never be good enough.
Ana gets to her feet and smooths the wrinkles of her blouse, and for a moment she reminds him so much of Shannon that he’s dizzy. The straight back, the self-posession, the tumble of curls swept over her shoulder.
He hopes Ana finds a love worthy of her, someone who will treasure her and believe her when she says, “sometimes our limitations let us know who we are.”
Because Eddie looked at the world like a challenge. He threw himself into it like the world might burn up tomorrow, but he would fight to the last breath anyway. He peeled away honorable discharge and may experience lifelong mobility dilemmas and we know what’s best for him and don’t you know how hard it is to be a single father like strips of old paint.
And Buck was the same way. Buck was I had to do it and didn’t you know Jim Abbot played baseball with only one hand and I’m in. You wanted us to bond, Cap. We might end up real close.
Eddie watches Ana leave, her heels clicking sharp against the tiled floor. At the door, she turns her head.
“I am glad you’re OK, Edmundo.”
“Thank you.”
And then she’s gone.
And then Eddie waits, anticipation mounting, for his boys to bring him home.
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20 Questions With Darren Criss: How Acting Has Helped Him Make New Music
While Darren Criss has graced our TV screens with a range of characters, from high schooler Blaine Anderson on Glee to serial killer Andrew Cunanan on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, he was last spotted just being himself, on our For You Page on TikTok. “I’m walking to rehearsal with a guitar on my back with a Trader Joe’s bag ... I did not bring an umbrella because I forgot that it was raining. I’m rocking that NYC musician life,” the Glee alum explained in the hilarious clip posted three days ago.
While Criss’ acting work has earned him acclaim and stardom, he leaned into making music during the pandemic. On Aug. 20, he dropped a new EP, Masquerade, featuring five new tracks that Criss says were inspired by the different characters Criss has embraced throughout his career. After Criss wrote songs for his musical comedy web series Royalties and Apple TV+’s animated sitcom Central Park before the pandemic struck the United States, he then used those experiences as a precursor to his new EP. As Criss continues to promote his new music, he answered 20 of Billboard's questions – giving us a peek into how his new EP came together, and how growing up in San Fransisco shaped him as an actor, singer and all-around artist.
1. What inspired your latest project, Masquerade?
Although I would have preferred that it come at a far less grim cost, I finally had the time. Before the pandemic, I had written 10 new songs for my show Royalties -- along with an original song for Disney and another for Apple’s Central Park. These were all assignments in which I was writing for a certain scenario and character. Go figure. It was the most music I had ever written in a calendar year. This really emboldened me to rethink how I made my own music— to start putting a focus on “character creation” in my songs, rather than personal reflection. The latter was not proving to be as productive. The alchemy of having this time and having set a new intention with my own songwriting and producing made me put on a few of my favorite masques and throw myself a Masquerade.
2. How do you think your background as an actor complements your music?
They are one and the same to me. I treat acting roles like musical pieces— dialogue is like scoring a melody; there’s pace, dynamics, cadence, tone. Physical characterization is like producing -- zeroing in on the bass line, deciding on the kick pattern. Vocal characterization is like choosing the right sonic experience, choosing the most effective snare sound, and mixing the high end or low end. It goes without saying that it works in the complete opposite direction. Making each song is taking on a different role literally and employing the use of different masques to maximize the effectiveness of the particular story being told.
3. On Instagram  you wrote that “Masquerade is a small collection of the variety of musical masques that have always inspired me.” Which track do you identify with most in your real life?
Everybody absorbs songs differently. Some key into the lyrics, some into the melody, some the production, some into vocal performance. When I listen to songs, I consider all of their value on totally different scales. So it’s hard to say if there’s any track I “identify” with more than any others, since I -- by nature -- identify with all of them. I think I just identify with certain aspects more than others. If it helps for a more interesting answer, I will say I enjoy the slightly more classical, playful -- dare I say -- more Broadway-leaning wordplay of “Walk of Shame,” but that’s just talking about lyricism. I enjoy the attitude of “F*kn Around,” the batsh--t musicality of “I Can’t Dance,” the relentless grooves of “Let’s” and “For A Night Like This.” All have different ingredients I really enjoy having an excuse to dive into.
4. What’s the first piece of music that you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
Beatles audio cassettes: “Help” and “Hard Day’s Night.” I just listened on repeat on a tape-playing Walkman until my brother and I got a stereo for our room with a CD player in it, which was  when I just bought the same two albums again, but this time as compact discs.
5. What was the first concert you saw?It’s hard to say, because my parents took us to a lot of classical concerts when we were small. But I guess this question usually refers to what was the first concert you went to on your own volition, and that my friend, was definitely Warped Tour ’01. My brother and I went on our own— two teenagers going to their first music festival, in the golden age of that particular genre and culture. It was f--king incredible.
6. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid?
My dad was in private banking and advised really, really wealthy people on how to handle their money. My mom was, by choice, a stay-at-home mom, but in reality, she was my dad’s consigliere. They discussed absolutely everything together. They were a real team, and I saw that every single day in the house. They both had a background in finance (That’s how they met in the first place.) and were incredibly skilled at all the hardcore adulting things that I absolutely suck at. They were total finance wizards together. So of course, instead of becoming an accountant, I picked up playing the guitar and ran as far I could with it. Luckily, they were all about it.
7. What was your favorite homecooked meal growing up?
My dad was an incredible chef. For special occasions, I’d request his crab cakes. They were unreal. I’ve never had a crab cake anywhere in the world that was good as my dad’s.
8. Who made you realize you could be an artist full-time?
I don’t know if I’ve actually realized that yet.
9. What’s at the top of your professional bucket list?
The specifics change every day, but the core idea at the top is to continue being consistently inconsistent with my choices, and to keep getting audiences to constantly reconsider their consideration of me. But I mean, sure, what performer doesn’t want to play Coachella? What songwriter doesn’t want to have Adele sing one of their songs? What actor doesn’t want to be in a Wes Anderson film?
10.  How did your hometown/city shape who you are?
San Francisco. I mean, come on. I was really lucky. The older I get, the more grateful I am for just being born and raised there. It’s an incredibly diverse, culturally rich, colorful, inclusive, vibrant city. By the time I was born, it had served as a beacon for millions of creative, out-of-the-box thinkers to gather and thrive. I grew up around that. The combination of that with having parents, who were unbelievably supportive of the arts themselves, laid an incredibly fortunate foundation to consider the life of an artist as a legitimately viable option. It’s a foundation that I am supremely aware is not the case for millions of young artists around the world. I was absurdly lucky.
11.  What’s the last song you listened to?
I mean probably one of mine, but not by choice. I know, lame. But I’m promoting a new EP, what’d you expect? But if you wanna know what I’ve been listening to, as far as new s--t is concerned: a lot of Lizzy McAlpine, Remi Wolf, and Charlie Burg.
12.  If you could see any artist in concert, dead or alive, who would it be?
The Beatles is an obvious "yeah, duh." Sammy Davis, Mel Tormé, or of course, Nat King Cole. I would’ve loved to see Howard Ashman give a lecture on his creative process and his body of work.
13. What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen happen in the crowd of one of your sets?
I feel like just having a crowd at all, at any one of my sets, is pretty wild enough.
14. What’s your karaoke go-to?
The real answer to this I’ll write into a book one day, because I have a lot to say about karaoke etiquette. I have two options here: I can either name a song that I like to sing for me, for fun, or I can name a song that really gets the group going. The answer depends on what kind of karaoke night we’re dealing with here. So I will say, after I’ve selected a ton of songs that services a decent enough party vibe for everyone else, then I would do one for me, and that would be the Beatles’ “Oh! Darling.”
15. What’s one thing your most devoted fans don’t know about you?
What I have up my sleeve.
16. What TV show did you binge-watch over the past year?
Dave is a stroke of genius. There are episodes that I believe are bona fide masterpieces. Also, My Brilliant Friend is a masterclass in cinematic television.
17. What movie, or song, always makes you cry?
It’s A Wonderful Life.
18. What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
Get used to sharing everything about yourself and your life now, or more astutely, to the idea that you don’t necessarily get to control how your life is shared. I know it’s not really your thing, but you’re gonna have to get used to it, so start building up those calluses now. And don’t worry, all the stuff you love now will be cool again in your mid-thirties, so keep some of those clothes because you’ll be a full-blown fashion icon if you just keep wearing exactly what you’re wearing. Oh nd also, put money into Apple and Facebook.
19.  What new hobby did you take on in the last year?
I’ve always been a linguaphile. My idea of leisure time is getting to study or review other languages. This past year, I took the time to finally dive into learning how to read, write, and speak Japanese. Other than making music, it was one of the biggest components of my 2020-2021.
20. What do you hope to accomplish or experience by the end of 2021?
I hope I get to play live shows again.
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malkumtend · 3 years
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Regrets - An AU where Squirrelflight and Crowfeather ran away from the clans.
Art by @lonely-ghost-606
“Do you have any regrets about what we did?”
“What do you mean?” Crowfeather yawned, raising his head and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He looked to his side. He thought she was curled beside him, ready to sleep off the rabbit they had caught earlier. Instead, she lay on her back, staring up at the night sky.
“It’s a simple question, isn’t it?” Squirrelflight said, her tone too dry to sound annoyed.
“I… I guess.” Crowfeather shifted so his head was above hers. “I’m just wondering why you’d ask that.”
Squirrelflight shrugged, her emerald eyes looked dulled by the dark hills. “I’m just wondering.”
Crowfeather felt a sharp gust of wind scratch his coat with cold claws. He grunted. “I see.”
“So do you?”
Crowfeather’s brow furrowed. Did he regret what they did? There were many things that they did. He scanned the hills around them, focusing on an invisible distance they’d long since abandoned. To the left of them, a few tree-lengths from the steep hill they’d decided to camp at, a thick ground of unsearched woods lay open for the pair to explore. Even though they weren’t close, Crowfeather could catch the unknown smells that beckoned them further away from their original lives.
Crowfeather thought they would go into it tomorrow.
“Not especially.” Crowfeather said. He watched Squirrelflight blink, the same blank expression on her muzzle. The tom’s tail curled closer to his partner. “It wouldn’t do me any good to regret now. It’s too late for that.”
Squirrelflight’s muzzle scrunched in a way Crowfeather couldn’t read. Her ears twitched gently. “Yeah.” She sighed. “I know.”
Her voice drifted into the night like a dying hope.
Crowfeather bit his lip, the pain offered a good counter to the uncomfortable quivering along his tail. He looked away, debating if he wanted to ask the question or hear her answer. “So… Do you have any regrets?”
Squirrelflight cast him a glance, her head edging back. Their eyes locked for a minute. Crowfeather waited, uneasy but patient. Squirrelflight’s mouth opened a few times but closed within a blink. The cold air around them and the whistle of the night was the only consistency of their silence.
The silence was frustrating. So incredibly frustrating. Crowfeather fought to hold his tongue.
If there was one thing he knew, he couldn’t rush her.
She needed her own time.
So, he suffered through the quiet, if that was what she needed to speak.
Even if he was scared of what she might say.
Squirrelflight exhaling through her nose made Crowfeather jolt back to attention. “No.”
Crowfeather settled a little, but he kept his gaze fixed. “But?” He sensed.
“There isn’t really a but…”
“So why did you ask then?”
“Guess I just wanted to know.”
“What?” Crowfeather’s muzzle creased, “It’s a bit of a random question, don’t you think?”
Squirrelflight’s eyes narrowed, “Well ‘sorry’, I just thought I’d ask.”
A low hum rumbled in Crowfeather’s throat, his ears flattened back. “No normal cat ‘just asks’ something like that?”
“Was that supposed to be a jab?” Squirrelflight closed her eyes with a huff, “I don’t think you’re in any position to call any cat abnormal.”
“And you are?”
“You’re missing the point, mouse-brian.”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
Squirrelflight rolled onto her side, effectively ending the conversation is she so wished.
Despite the heat storming his ears, Crowfeather knew in his gut that fighting wouldn’t help them. If he wanted a reason from his mate, he wouldn’t get it by making her mad.
Even if she was the one who started it…
Crowfeather grumbled, then he sighed.
By the stars, they were a couple of overgrown apprentices. He looked down at her, his mouth thin, almost feeling he could laugh at the stubbornness glaring off her.
She really was difficult when she wanted to be.
But then again, so was he.
They matched each other, and maybe that was why they were stuck with each other.
Crowfeather offered a light touch of his tail to her back. He heard a low mumuring he couldn’t decipher, but he assumed it was something to do with his tail and a mouse trap. He chuckled lightly, keeping his touch on her. Slowly, Squirrelflight’s back stopped shivering and he saw her body descend with a low breath.
Then her tail moved, the tip laying over his.
All was buried and forgiven.
Crowfeather sniffed, the sound reverberated over the hills. “Did I do anything to make you think I regretted leaving the clans?”
Squirrelflight started up, her tail flaring, before going still. Slowly she rolled onto her belly, facing the tom. It was hard to read the sinking expression, but Crowfeather assumed that she was fighting between giving the easy answer or the truth.
“No, I just thought… I dunno, you might have thought about it.”
“Well, I haven’t.” Crowfeather leant down a little, trying to match her height. “So, have you?”
Squirrelflight looked down. Crowfeather noticed her fur lying flat on her back. “Well…”
Crowfeather inhaled tightly. “You have, haven’t you?”
Squirrelflight didn’t respond straight away. “N- Well, I…” He could tell she hated the idea of lying to him. “Not for long.” When she looked up and saw Crowfeather’s stilted gaze she let out another sigh. “But yeah.”
A short, relative silence filled the air, as Crowfeather alternated between casting this off as a bad dream or waking up and wishing that it was. Either way, he said nothing. The idea that she could regret going with him, that she could regret him, filled him not with anger but a crushing guilt.
“Do you want to go back?” He said quietly.
Her eyes flashing, Squirrelflight rose up with a mrrow of shock. “Of course not!” She meowed.
Crowfeather looked at her with a shadowy scepticism. He was afraid to feel relieved.
“I didn’t mean I regret running away in the first place.” Squirrelflight said, giving her mate a hard stare.
“So what did you mean?” Crowfeather asked, his voice low as he sat on his hind legs.
Squirrelflight turned away with a groan. Her tail was thumping against the ground in clear irritation.
The fact she didn’t look at him made him second guess that he was the focus of it.
“It’s just…” Her breathing began to slow down and her movements became sluggish and tired once more. As another cold gust passed them, Squirrelflight was reserved once more to a still shadow. Her gaze kept low. “You don’t regret anything about leaving?”
Crowfeather paused. “Nothing I can think of.”
“So the idea of leaving was never… scary to you?”
The dark tom’s brows rose.
“The fact that you’re never going to see your family again.” Squirrelflight said softly. “That never bothered you?”
Crowfeather stared. Squirrelflight’s whiskers twitched as a look of pain grazed her. He didn’t need to think twice about who she was thinking of. But, as soon as she mentioned it, he did find the face of a sleek grey cat fill his vision.
A cat he had never said goodbye to.
Like she could have understood that.
“You’re not scared that you don’t have a clan anymore?” Squirrelflight stiffened.
Scared. The word confused Crowfeather for a bit, but he thought he knew what she meant. The safety, the security, the pattern. Knowing you would be protected, knowing what to do every day without worry, knowing that you had a clear pattern to follow. Comfort and reliance.
“That’s what’s bothering you.” It wasn’t a question. “You miss your family and your clan.”
Squirrelflight looked up as if she was shocked at how reserved his tone was. “Don’t you?” She asked.
Crowfeather thought back. It wasn’t an unfair question. Any normal cat would miss those they grew up with every day of their lives.
But like Squirrelflight had said, he didn’t have the right to judge what was normal.
“I miss my mother sometimes.” Crowfeather admitted. “But that’s about it. I didn’t have anyone else I was close to in Windclan.”
Squirrelflight mrrowed in astonishment. “Seriously?”
Crowfeather gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “You’re talking to me, remember? If you thought I was bad on the journey, you wouldn’t want to see me in my clan.” To his delight, Squirrelflight betrayed herself with a small chuckle. “I suppose I was close to…  my mentor. But… that’s buried bones.” The less he said about Mudclaw, the better.
Squirrelflight knit her brows together, staring at the ground with a slackened jaw. Her shoulders had sunk under an invisible weight.
Crowfeather pursed his lips and took a hesitant step towards her. When she didn’t flinch away, he stopped just when he was close enough to graze his paw with hers. “I take it you have fonder memories of your clan?” Like that was hard.
Against her better instincts, Squirrelflight stared ahead to the hills. As if they could see the shape of the forest they once knew. “Sometimes.” She echoed him. Her ears fell down like dying leaves. “I miss my sister terribly. We were always close.”
Crowfeather nodded, a sympathetic hum on his lips. “You must have been. If not I don’t think she would have let you leave like that.”
When Squirrelflight had shown up at the border with Leafpool, Crowfeather had almost burst from the terror. But it only took a moment and a good look at the medicine cat’s wet eyes for him to realise she was keeping their secret. Even as the weeping sisters embraced one final time, Leafpool had not even looked like she was going to reveal their secret.
And from how far they’d gotten since then, it seemed that she never had.
“I think about my parents as well. About whether they’re worried about me or not.”
“Of course they are.” That didn’t seem like a comfort or a jab.
“Well if they are,” Squirrelflight took a sharp intake of breath, “I can’t help but feel bad. I want Thunderclan to carry on without me, not waste time looking for me. If there’s a patrol looking for us right now,” She grimaced, “I hope they give up soon. They have their own problems to deal with and I shouldn’t be one of them.” Her face went dull again, as if being stung by a wasp too many times to feel the pain.
Crowfeather blinked slowly. “They will be looking for you.”  He dipped down so his cheek rested against hers. He was relieved when she nestled a little closer to him. “And that’s because you mean something to them.”
He’d been torn between comforting her with what he knew was true, reminding her of the love of home, and the beckon of silence that could keep her close to him.
But it hadn’t lasted long.
“My clan won’t care a whisker where I am, I can promise you that. But yours will search day and night for you, they’d only do that for a cat like you.”
Squirrelflight scoffed, “What? A leader’s daughter.”
“No. An amazing, beautiful Warrior.” He purred. He watched Squirrelflight’s eyes go wide and felt her face fill with heat. Her breathing began to become thin. Crowfeather lowered his eyes again. Her happiness pricked his determination once more.
“And if you miss them that much, we can go back.”
Squirrelflight paused.
Crowfeather coughed away the tightening in his throat. “I mean, if you think you’d be happier there… it’s worth it.”
“Don’t be silly.”
A brushing feeling curled under Crowfeather’s chin. Now it was his turn to go stiff. He laboured above Squirrelflight as she purred under his chin, her small body feeling perfect against the curve of his own. Her thick fur rustled against him, making his face drain of colour.
“I wouldn’t have left if I thought I’d be happier there.”
Crowfeather’s gaze skittered down until he found her. She was warm under him, smiling with a crescent moon grin. “But you said...”
“That I have regrets, but not that I regret everything.” Her muzzle had nuzzled into his chest and when he peered down he could barely see the hard determined glint of emerald. “I do miss my family. But when I don’t think of them, I think of everything else in Thunderclan.”
The fire that burned her scowl communicated the images of her thoughts.
The bitter feud of two toms, demanding their place beside her, too engrossed in their hate to notice the disgust on her face.
The way her clanmates offered nothing but tired grimaces and pleads for the peace of quiet whenever she made her voice heard.
The way her parents warned her to stay close to the clan whenever a cat complained of her ‘too-close’ relationships with the cats she travelled with for moons.
The way that it only took the mere sound of her voice to illicit a groan somewhere she couldn’t see, but she knew was close.
She could remember it all with a painful clarity.
Crowfeather licked her forehead gently.
“Trust me, I’m not so desperate that I’d want to go back to that.”
“Okay.” Crowfeather said, even though he wasn’t sure how he could even mutter that one word as his throat felt like it had been stuffed with dirt. He listened to her purr underneath him until his paws felt strong again and the cold air somehow felt refreshing.
Then he blinked, brows furrowing again. “Wait. If you don’t want to go back, then why did you ask me if I regretted leaving?”
Squirrelflight went still, and while that did make Crowfeather chill a little he did think an answer was deserved.
“Well, just because I’m happy here didn’t mean you were.” Squirrelflight broke away a little, licking her shoulder quietly. “You never told me much about your life in Windclan.”
“You wouldn’t want to know.” Crowfeather rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious!”
“So am I. I don’t have the fondest memories of Windclan, Squirrelflight.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t is obvious? If you wanted to go home then…” She trailed off, looking at her paws again.
Crowfeather had been stunned into silence. He tried to make something articulate, but his mouth hung half-way, as if it was trying to mimic actual speech.
Did she honestly think he wasn’t…
“Crowfeather.” Squirrelflight addressed, as stern as ever. It drew Crowfeather to look down until he was eye to eye with the hard-faced ginger cat. “There aren’t great memories for me in Thunderclan, but if there were for you.” There was only the briefest flash of fear of the molly’s face. “I’d want you to be-”
Her voice came out into a squeak as she felt herself dragged off her hind paws. Her head hit something soft and firm as her backside slid along the calm drifting grass. Squirrelflight couldn’t catch her breath as she felt something on her chest, gently holding her in place like a kit in its mother’s mouth. In the dark, it was hard to make it out as Crowfeather’s foreleg.
She realised, face burning all the while, that the soft mound her neck rested on was actually Crowfeather’s smooth chest. His steady heartbeat patted her skin, as if mocking her rapid pulse.
She was about to pull herself away when she felt a soft touch to her cheek. Along with a soft smacking sound.
Squirrelflight’s protests died before they could begin.
That hadn’t been a nose peck or a lick.
What it had been… Well it made Squirrelflight realise she couldn’t say a word even if she tried.
The alarm, the surprise of moments like this with Crowfeather, moments she could hardly imagine he was capable of, it just made her melt where she was.
Which only meant she eased deeper into his embrace.
“Now look who’s being silly.” Crowfeather uttered. Each word was warm on Squirrelflight’s already burning cheeks.
“Hu-Hu-Huh?” The slightest sound was all Squirrelflight found she had the strength to gasp, and even then she stuttered as if every part of her didn’t feel like hot sand. The rumbling in her chest was bizarrely comforting.
“Why would I ever go back to Windclan?”
Squirrelflight couldn’t whisper the obviousness of her soaring doubts.
But that was okay.
Because Crowfeather wrapped his foreleg just a bit tighter around her, and actually pulled her gently against him. And when he spoke it tingled everywhere. “I’ve been at home ever since I met you.”
With that, he gave her cheek another deserved kiss.
As the feeling burst over her once more, Squirrelflight found herself shaking far less than she could have ever imagined. Her paws cradled over the foreleg on her chest, holding onto it with all the care she could muster. Her heart rate began to soften until she heard it perfectly align with his. Only just a little less noticeable than the shimmer of their purrs.
As her neck peacefully sank back, her cheek being cradled by the warmth of his neck, Squirrelflight felt the invisible shape of the forest sink away until she couldn’t see it in the shadows anymore.
And she found she was okay with that.
She closed her eyes, not caring enough to give some witty comeback that may have suited her.
It didn’t suit this.
But Crowfeather spoke nonetheless. “Y’know, I’m kind of surprised, Squirrel.”
“About what?” Squirrelflight said, not opening her eyes.
“When you talked about regrets, my first thought was that you were scared about Starclan.”
“Oh.” Squirrelflight edged back a little more. “No, I’m not worried about that.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm.”
“I… How come?”
Squirrelflight opened her eyes as she craned her head just enough to peck Crowfeather’s chin with her nose. She giggled as she felt his heart begin to thump. “Just look at the stars.”
Crowfeather did and, despite the cold air, or the grey clouds that passed like fading wounds, he could have sworn the stars had never looked so beautiful as he pulled the ginger cat close once again.
...
Side note - this is not an indication of what will happen in ILYL. It is a separate AU.
And to hell with it, if I say these humanised cats can kiss they can kiss. So there!
Anyway this is the last Drabble until the next chapter of ILYL is finished. Hope you liked them so far.
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tarithenurse · 3 years
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Spark - 25
Fandom: Enn Enn no Shōbōtai / Fire Force. Pairing: Shinmon Benimaru x fem!reader. Content: Angst, feels, danger, stubbornness. The usual. A/N: Manage to get myself pretty confused because it said I’d already posted 25 chapters on AO3 but here on Tumblr it only claimed 24...aaaand then I remembered posting the what-if directly in the story there but not here...so yeah! Feel free to ASK (or reblog) for tag – in fact: always reblog. Thanks to those who have already <3
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25. Forged by fire
...   Reader   ...
Your brain is protesting as you wake up. No, scratch that. Your entire body is throbbing as you’re being jostled by each step of the one carrying. Benimaru. The scent and heat can only be his but it’s comforting to open the eyes and see the shock of dark hair flopping about, occasionally blocking the view of his right cheek bone. Somehow, probably with the help of Joker, you’ve been tied together, allowing your arms to hang limply over his shoulders while he supports your by wrapping his arms around your thighs. It’s not comfortable but it’s efficient.
“Wait,” Joker hisses from up ahead.
There’s very little light – barely enough to illuminate the obstacles littering the crumbled hallway – and you can’t see what has alerted the gangly man, but you feel the uncrowned king of Asakusa tense beneath you, his lungs slowly expanding as he takes in the surroundings.
“Hm. I smell it.”
Smell? Sniffing the air, you don’t pick up on anything much at first apart from Benimaru, dust; and your own need for a bath.
“Don’t worry, [Y/N], just stay calm.” He must have felt you stirring.
Nothing snappy comes to mind and it doesn’t matter because that’s when you realize that a curl of sulphurous stench is mingling with the air.
“Let me down.”
“You can’t stand on that leg,” he argues as Joker steps closer.
Already fumbling with the sash holding the two of you together, the idea of supporting the weight seems like a horrible idea. “It wasn’t an invitation to a discussion, Beni,” you growl, “I’ll hold you back if you carry me.”
“I’m not leaving you behind!” Stubbornly digging the fingers into your thighs, he’s probably stubborn enough to stick to the word.
Finally free of the restraints, you tug at his hair. “I’m only telling you to put me down for now.”
There are whispers now, low murmuring groans coming from both directions as if carried on the fumes. The lightest dust and ashes are starting to dance on the ground in spiralling patterns that clash and divide in mesmerizing patterns. They could have been fascinating to watch if it wasn’t for the temperature slowly rising.
“Do as she says, Shinmon,” Joker drawls, his eye fixed at a warm glow that has appeared in the distance.
Begrudgingly, the man sets you on the ground, careful to let you gain the balance on your good leg before letting go. It’s obvious on his face: one wrong move and he’ll sweep you off your feet. I’m so gonna use this to my benefit once we’re home. You decide to ignore the nagging sense of doubt and instead focus on the growing lights in either direction of the tunnel.
What at first was nothing more than a glow has now, beyond a doubt, taken shape of several flickering fires moving towards the same cluster of targets. Misshapen bodies cast their stretching shadows beneath the flames, obscuring dozens of shuffling feet as the pace begins to pick up. They know you’re there. They are hungry.
Glancing at the men, the darkness before them is illuminated in red and purple and the air around them is shimmering with heat.
“Let them get close.”
“Guess you’re too exhausted to think clearly, dear,” Joker chuckles but then hesitates as he sees your face, “...okay. Call it.”
...  Joker  ...
Smiling behind the collar, Joker recognizes the worry flashing across the other man’s face. It’s a bold plan and he isn’t sure it’s strictly necessary...but they can’t be sure what else they’ll be facing on their way out, so [Y/N]’s idea of preserving the would-be rescuers’ power for later makes sense.
“Lighten up...or not, actually,” he smiles wickedly at Shinmon, “let’s see what our girl can do, eh?”
The glare he receives from the captain is a logical response.
“[Y/N]...there’s no reason to push yourse-”
“I didn’t survive this shit just to be rescued like some fairy tale maiden.” The threatening purr combined with the half-dried blood makes her seem tantalizingly dangerous. “There’s no one to take out my revenge on, but at least I can clean up the mess I’ve made when I let the lab blow up too.”
Oh? That must be an interesting story...for later. Finding an adequate slab of broken concrete, he brushes it off and sits down. In one of the inner pockets of the coat is a pack wrapped in cellophane and he picks a cigarette from it, lighting it with a flick of his fingers. Aaah. The acrid taste fills him for a handful of seconds before it’s blown out through his nostrils together with the last hours’ worth of stress – he could almost chill for a moment if it wasn’t for Benimaru joining him by the boulder, sitting as relaxed as a statue about to crack.
“Has anyone ever told you t-”
“Shut up, Joker.”
The men relapse into silence. It’s not that the man with the hat doesn’t understand Benimaru’s sentiment: the girl’s in horrible condition and is using almost all her strength to stand, it seems. The white-clad ran from her. The image of a dying man clutching a bundle of hastily written notes is still clear in Joker’s mind. Abandoned a comrade together with a demon infernal...he didn’t think they could end it. It’s clear, though, that something did put it to rest, most likely causing the explosion at the same time. Show us what you’ve got, [Y/N).
...  Benimaru ...
Like lit matches, only their heads are burning as they rush forward. At first surging for whomever is nearest until a clear shout orders them to ignore the men.
“I am what you want!”
The way the infernals all zero in on [Y/N] it really looks like she’s right and as they swarm around, pushing closer but never able to touch her, he can barely see her until he stand up on the slab of concrete.
Eye glowing bright yellow even against the infernals’ blaze, she doesn’t flinch as charred fingers scrape against the air, trying to reach her. She stands, immovable, talking calmly as if they could understand her. Maybe they can. Yes, they absolutely can and some must be accepting what she says because they stop and wait without a sound. Wait for what? A few infernals continue their struggle only to be wrapped in the arms of those standing by until finally, none of them are moving more than their dead faces.
There’s a shift in the air as [Y/N] spreads her arms, smoke and heat pushed outwards by an unseen pressure and stilling the flames of the damned.
“I’m sorry,” the woman whispers a second before tugging her fists tightly to the chest and plunging the Nether in darkness once more.
Benimaru can hear the muted sounds of clothing landing in heaps on the ground, the impact softened by dust and ashes, but the room is obscured by dark flakes filling the air to the extend that the glow from Joker’s cigarette nor the captain’s excellent vision can guarantee a view of the woman they came here for.
“Impressive,” the smoking man comments, snapping a fiery playing card out of nowhere to illuminate the space.
No one is listening to the compliment. The captain of Special Fire Force Company Seven is reaching out for the swaying figure of the woman he loves, barely making it over the heap of sooty jumpsuits in time to catch her as she collapses one more time.
“[Y/N]!” he croaks, frantically feeling for a pulse.
Eyelashes flutter for a brief second before she scrunches her face to look up at him. “Yeah yeah...I’ll let you carry me this time too.”
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