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countryclubstarkey · 4 years

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Hate To Like You - Drew Starkey x Reader (Smut)

NOT MY GIF

Pairings: Drew Starkey x Reader; Rafe Cameron x Y/C/N (Character’s name)

Warnings: NSFW, Smut, 18+, Choking, Angry Drew, Degradation, Rough Drew, Overstimulation, Daddy kink, Fingering, Creampie, Cockwarming, Violence, Face Slapping.

Word Count: 2.4K+

A/N: This is extremely filthy and dirty, please read at your own discretion.

You were close to finishing shooting season 1 with the cast, but there is one scene that you have yet to do that you have been dreading. Throughout filming, the whole crew have all become close as ever, well except you and Drew. You two have an extremely complicated relationship, not only do your characters hate each other, but you do as well in real life.

The first time you met, he made a rude comment towards you, and ever since then you two have been at each other’s throats. Throwing shady comments, or lightly fighting without injuring the other is something that happened often, your friends interfered each time dividing you two so there wasn’t a big fight where anybody got hurt emotionally or physically.

Currently, you were trying to calm your nerves down because your character and Drew’s character have to do a sex scene today. The two characters are finally going to deal with the sexual tension between them. Not only is this your first ever sex scene in the film industry, but the details are pretty descriptive. The shoot is going to take most of the day apparently, that is if you and Drew can get along without ripping each other’s throats out.

There is a knock on your trailer door, “Y/N we’re ready for you on set,” one of the assistants yells at you through the door.

You straightened out your outfit and headed towards the set. Jonas kept it a closed set mostly today since it’s an intimate scene and wants as much privacy as possible.

You arrive at the scene to see the set up all done, Drew is having some final touch-ups to his hair, while the makeup artist is fixing some of your makeup as well before the shoot can start.

You look towards Drew and notice his appearance. He’s wearing a baby blue suit with his hair gelled back. You’re going to admit, he looks extremely good but you would never say that to others or him. He’s trying to get into his Rafe mindset, which shouldn’t be hard since it’s pretty similar to his own shitty personality.

“Okay, let’s start this, Y/C/N is going to follow the kooks and JJ inside the building, trying to stop the kooks from beating him up, then this is where the scene between the two of you happens,” Jonas exclaims. You both nod as you try to calm your nerves down a little by doing some deep breaths.

“And, Action.”

------------------The scene between the characters.

You start running after the kooks trying to protect JJ, but you bump into someone causing them to knock the wind out of you. You trip over your heels and fall to the ground, noticing Rafe Cameron is the cause of the altercation.

“You really got to be careful princess, we wouldn’t want you to get hurt, do we?” He deviously smirks at you.

You try to stand up, but it’s a little hard with your long flowy dress and high heels, “Get out of my way Rafe, where’s JJ?” You try to push past him, but he blocks the way trapping you between his body and the wall.

“What, you trying to save your little friend from getting his ass beat,” he taunts you. Trying to get away, but Rafe’s broad figure prevents you from moving even an inch.

You push against his chest roughly causing him to stumble a little, “I’m so sick of your shit,” you yell at him. The little stumble gives you a chance to walk away from him, as you continue your journey to find JJ.

“You’re not going anywhere you little whore,” he wraps his hand around your wrist and pulls you towards his chest. He crashes his lips against yours making your eyes widen from his rough actions. He bangs you against the wall while keeping your lips connected continuing to kiss you passionately with his soft lips.

His tongue swipes your bottom lips demanding access, but you keep your lips together teasing him. He delivers a harsh slap to your ass, making you gasp giving him access to tangle his tongue with yours. You begin to fight each other trying to gain dominance, but you get distracted when Rafe’s hands move towards your neck limiting your breathing. Keeping a tight grip around your neck, his lips leave sloppy wet kisses all over your jaw and collarbones. He slides one of your straps down, leaving gentle kisses on your shoulder causing delicate moans to release from your lips.

Rafe’s hands squeeze your ass lifting you up slightly, “Jump,” he grunts in your ears. Your legs wrap around his waist, as you feel him poke your thighs slightly through his dress pants.

His hand moves up squeezing your face roughly, while he stares into your eyes that are filled with lust and desire, “You want me to fuck you don’t you, you little bitch.” You shake your head at him, not wanting to give in.

“Are you sure, I’m going to even feel it,” you taunt him chuckling. His hand returns to your neck squeezing it harder than before making it hard for you to get anything out, as your pants begin to fill the narrow hallway.

“You’re going to regret saying that, I’m going to fuck you into next week,” Rafe walks towards the closet that’s near and slams the door shut. He drops you onto the ground, making you turn around so your face is pressed against the cold hard wall.

He removes your dress as it pools on the ground around your feet. You hear him unzip his pants and unbutton his shirt and jacket.

As Drew pretends to drop his boxers as well, you hear the words.

“And Cut.”

———————————-End of Rafe x Y/C/N Scene.

Jonas hands you your robe, quickly putting it on to cover up, “That was great, but I feel like it was missing some chemistry, I want you both to go to Drew’s trailer and talk a little, then we’ll try the scene again tomorrow.” Jonas didn’t know about the rivalry you had with Drew, so he doesn’t know how badly you want to kill him for forcing you to do this with Drew. He just knew that you and Drew have a rocky friendship and weren’t that close.

He notices the grim look on your faces, and his smile drops, “What, what’s wrong?” he asks. You shake your head at him not wanting to disappoint him in any way.

“Nothing man, well we better get going, come on Y/N.” Drew offers his hand, which you take hesitantly. Heading towards Drew’s trailer, you immediately let go of his hand when Jonas can no longer see the two of you.

“Never grab my hand again,” you tell Drew with a scowl on your face as you open the door to his trailer slamming it in his face. He enters the room with his cheeks bright red from anger, his heavy breathing following through.

He walks towards you getting close to your face, “You know what, I’m so glad Rafe gets to call you a whore and a bitch because that’s exactly what you are,” he spits out. His comment makes your blood boil, which makes you give him a rough slap to the face making a little red mark that is going to last for a few hours. Drew punches the wall beside your head as retaliation making a small dent, you release a small yelp from his action, “You make me so mad,” he breathes out. The room is filled with silence only the sound of your heavy breathing is heard.

Leaving you speechless as you look into his lustful blue eyes, you take a step forward crashing your lips against his breaking the tension. Immediately, his hands travel to your waist while yours envelop his neck bringing him down closer to your height. Your teeth and tongue clash against each other, both of you wanting to rip the clothes off each other as soon as possible. He unties your robe, leaving you in your matching baby pink lace set, your hands fumble with his shorts trying to pull them down.

Drew slaps your hands away, gripping your throat like he did as Rafe earlier, “You want me to make you my little whore,” letting out a desperate whimper due to his language, you nod at him not trusting your voice enough.

He chuckles darkly at your desperate state, “Words, baby, I need your words.”

Your hands wander down his body, palming him softly through his pants, “Use me as you wish, Daddy.” You catch him off guard, but Drew gathers his thoughts lifting you up, making you sit on the counter in his trailer.

Feeling his hands traveling all over your body trying to explore every inch that is visible to him, he rubs your inner thighs but doesn’t touch you between your legs where you crave him immensely. His fingers travel towards your clothed cunt, sliding his hands up and down to see how wet you were for him. Filthy words escape your lips as his hands connect with your little bundle, rubbing it a few times. Drew slides your panties to the side, and two of his finger feeling around your outer lips before sliding them in your warm pussy.

“F-uck Drew,” you moan slowly, his fingers filling you up perfectly. He slaps your clit aggressively, causing you to pull away from his hands not used to the feeling, “What did you call me?” He questions you.

“I meant Daddy, sorry,” your voice trembles. His fingers return to your pussy, as he speeds them up, while his thumb rubs your clit at a faster pace. Your hands grip the countertop, turning your knuckles white since Drew’s hitting the spot that you had been craving for since you’ve met him.

He adds a third finger, increasing the pressure deeply you throw your head back in pleasure, “F-uck I’m going to cum,” you scream out grabbing onto his hair pulling it as hard as you can. He growls at you, speeding up his actions while you feel yourself cum all over his fingers. Drew drops to his knees licking up the mess you just left right away, lapping your wetness and juices. His tongue teasing your entrance, licking a long strip.

You try to push his head away, too sensitive from your previous orgasm, “I’m too sensitive, give me a minute.” He doesn’t listen but continues his actions instead. You feel the pressure building up in your stomach again, as your body trembles all over specifically your legs. He alternates between pleasuring your clit and your entrance. You almost slip from the counter as you feel your orgasm hit you harder than the last, as you cum over all over Drew’s face. He continues eating you out until satisfied with your shaking body.

Pulling him for a kiss, and tasting yourself on his tongue, his hands travel to breasts to rip your bra apart not having the patience to reach your clasp. About to complain, he grips your face harshly preventing you from making any noise.

He softly slaps your face trying to see your reaction to it, “Harder,” you try to say between your heavy moans as his hands tease your breasts. He slaps your face harder before doing the same action to your breasts. Drew releases his member from his boxers, as your mouth waters from his size, not expecting it to look as good. His defined veins, red tip oozing precum as you try to wrap your hands around him.

“Not today, Princess,” he whispers to you. Seconds later, he slams into you giving no chance to adjust to his size. You grip his biceps trying to keep up with his pace as he rams into you, his hips meeting yours. Pulling you forward so that you’re barely sitting on the counter, most of your weight supported by Drew. Your nails drag down his chest leaving long streaks, the trailer filled with your shuddering sobs as you feel Drew hit your g-spot with each thrust. One of his hands furiously rubs your clit, as the other travels to your face once again alternating between delivering slaps to your face and gripping your neck.

You feel the coil build up in your stomach again, as your body shakes violently around Drew from the amount of pleasure, “F-uck, fuck, Drew, I’m going to cum,” you scream out.

“Wait, for me.” He groans in your ear trying to reach his orgasm as well, you begin clenching all around making his thrusts sloppier. His hand grips your throat tightly causing your oxygen supply to cut off slightly making you light headed not only from that but because of your orgasm as well.

Delivering a few last thrusts, “Cum for me,” Drew yells out as you feel his warmth fill you up leaking out of you at the same time. Tears begin to build up in your eyes, as you let out a silent scream reaching your own orgasm. Your body falls limp in Drew’s arms, as he continues his thrusts to make sure your orgasm lasts throughout. He remains inside you, as you feel your broken body calm down from your intense orgasm as Drew whispers calming words in your ears. He carries you towards the couch and sits down with his cock still inside you as your body shudders from the sudden movement.

You brush the hair out of his eyes, as you make eye contact, “Didn’t know you were kinky as Rafe,” you tell him. His body rumbles with laughter, you feel the vibrations through his cock making your body shudder, “Fuck, don’t do that,” you whisper.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to do this since the first day I saw you,” Drew tells you sweetly.

You roll your eyes at him, “What, fuck me in your trailer?” you ask him. He shakes his head smiling at your comment, “No, tell you I like you, then fuck you in my trailer.”

Your eyes widen, “You like me, I thought you hated me since the first day.”

Drew leans his forehead against yours before whispering, “I’ve always liked, but you never gave me a chance and then we started fighting all the time.”

“I like you too Drew.” You both grin widely at you. He lays down pulling your body towards him, cuddling you.

“Are you going to get out of me or what.” you wonder.

He shakes his head playfully and closes his eyes, “Nah, we’re going to have round two when we wake up.”

(Need some holy water after writing this).

#drew starkey #drew starkey smut #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey x reader smut #rafe cameron #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron x reader

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unmaskedagain · 4 years

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Marinette: Stone Cold

Ok so i love this prompt but it took forever to get to. And as soon as I did its like suddenly I was swamped with everything. So frustrating. But I finally finished it. And I love it. @vixen-uchiha

Marinette was six-years-old when her parents died in a car crash. She had been at school when the vice principle, Mrs. Valmontes, stopped by and pulled her out of class. The little black haired girl had known something was wrong instantly as Valmontes had smiled just a little hard at her and much more gently than what she was known for.

Still, she had been really surprised to see Office Raincomprix, her classmate Sabrina’s dad, waiting for her in the principle. Marinette always thought he was really nice; always jolly and quick to lend a hand to the teacher at the end of the day if he got to class early to pick up Sabrina. However, he too, seemed rather despondent when Marinette entered the room. His partner, a rookie named Lorna, looked really sad too.

They took her down to the station where she was led to one of the back offices. Sabrina’s dad waited with her there. And then woman name Susanna LeFlont, who Marinette would later learn was a grief counselor. Then they told her.

Susanna held her as she cried and begged and called them liars, until she couldn’t cry anymore. And then they gave her a stuffed animal, and said they would try calling her relatives to pick her up.

They came back an hour later, saying they got ahold of her parents’ emergency contact…

Marinette’s Uncle Jareth Dupain.

She had frowned when they said his name because to her he had never been Jareth Dupain. No, he was always her cool Uncle Jagged. So it took her a second to remember that his real name was Jareth Dupain-Stone, her father’s younger half-brother. Marinette even briefly remember her dad mentioning having to change their emergency contact after his mom, Gina, passed away a few ago.

He was only 20 when Marinette born and he was always a budding Rockstar so he wasn’t around too much. And 6 years later he was the biggest rockstar in the world. Still, that didn’t stop him from rushing to the police station, Penny hot on his trail, and pulled his sweet niece into the biggest hug he could.

Jagged took his niece to the hotel room to get her settled and had Penny go back to the bakery to get some of her things. He didn’t think it was a smart idea to take her there yet; not when the wounds were still so fresh.

Still as the twenty-six year old Rockstar stared at the small form cuddled up to Fang, he realized for the first time that he was all Marinette had in the world; the only family she had left. The only family he had left.

So he knew, despite the lawyers taking days to contact him regarding who Marinette’s guardian would be, that it was him. Jagged was the person Tom had entrusted to protect and watch the most precious thing he had the entire world; his daughter. And he wouldn’t let his brother down.

Tom had always been the best big brother anyone could have. And when Jagged’s own father, Tom’s Stepfather (as tom’s own father had suffered a heartache when Tom was a teen), had walked out, Tom had stepped up. He showed Jagged, who was still called Jareth at the time, how to be a man. He believed in Jagged’s rockstar dream when Jagged didn’t even believe in them himself.

Jagged would do right Tom, by Sabine; he would do what they would do if the situation was reversed and they were given Jagged’s kid to care for.

He would raise Marinette as he own. And though he knew would never come close to being the father that Tom Dupain had been…

Jagged would damn well try to be.

…

Jagged Stone, Shattered Roses, Nightmare’s Hail Mary, Unmasked Dragon, True Born Rejects, and Emancipated Mirrors were some of the biggest rock band in the world. Whenever, they went on tour together, they were the epitome of what people thought Rock Stars were. They were loud. They partied all night. Groupies hung around everywhere. To them, it was paradise. When all the bands were invited to go on the Kings of Neverland tour, with Jagged Stone headlining, they expected very much the same as they were used to. Jagged always had the most Rockin tour bus. His parties were legendary. They came to expect it.

However, when Neon Savage (front man of the Shattered Roses), Austin Knight (Leader of Unmasked dragon and lead Guitarist), and Niklaus Bane (Lead vocalist of True Born Rejects) showed up with beers and all other sorts of alcohol the day before their opening concert for the tour, they came across something very unexpected.

Or rather someone.

A little Asian girl with pigtails in her Blue hair, a tiara on her head, in a rainbow tutu paired with a black too large Guns N Roses shirt, her hand on her hips, no shoes, and a rather large crocodile next to her.

“What’s with the ballerina?” Austin asked. He had dyed silver hair done in a stereotypical emo style, grey eyes, and too many piercings. He was slim and tall.

Niklaus sighed in relief, “Oh good, you see her too!” He had curly blond hair, dark brown eyes, and wore mostly black. He had ripped jeans and a red tie. The tie was as red as the whites of his looked. “Why is your hair blue?”

“Because Uncle said I could,” She answered and pointed a figure at them, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Savage scoffed, “You got that twisted, kid.” He was a bulk guy, with long dark hair, and a severe expression on his face. His arms were covered in tattoos. He played in a metal band, and it was obvious. “Where’s your mommy?”

“Dead,” The little girl said bluntly. “I live with my Uncle Jagged now. This his tour bus, and you’re not supposed to be here.” She glared at them. “Fang, Stranger Danger!”

What happened next was a bit of a blur. One minute they were fine, the next they were being chased around Jagged’s tour bus by a rather vicious crocodile while pint-sized twerp laughed.

Lucky for them, their yells for help were overheard by Penny and Jagged who had been working in back, “What’s going on?” Penny asked as she ran in.

“Mates, what the h. e. double hockey sticks is going on?” Jagged asked right on his assistant’s tail.

Austin, who had jumped on top one of the shelves, gave Jagged a confused look, “Better question; what the hell did you just say?”

“Ooohhhh! There’s five bucks for the swear jar!” The little girl taunted.

Jagged glared at rockstar, “Watch it! A Kid’s in the room!”

Savage glared at his longtime friend, “Who the fuck do you think set Fang on us?!” He cast a dark look at the crocodile. “Stranger danger my ass! I’ve known you sent you hatched, you overgrown cheap pair of boots.”

“That’s ten buck for the swear jar!” The girl said.

“Ten bucks?” Austin frowned. “Kinda of steep for just two swear words.”

“I swear to God-” Savage growled but was cut off.

“Chill, mate,” Jagged said. “This is my niece Marinette.” He gave her a loving smile. She beamed up at him brightly. He had been taking care of her for a year now. “I told ya about her.”

“You didn’t say she was Satan!” Austin whined. Fang had bitten him, the slowest of the three, quite a lot, and he had a giant hole in his jacket.

“I’m not Satan,” Marinette huffed. “I’m a ballerina, princess, Rockstar on my way to a tea party with Duchess Rosy Sparkles, of the Unicorn Fairies. And guess what, you’re not invited!”

“Oh that’s just mean,” Niklaus complained.

“She sicked a mini dinosaur on us,” Savaged hissed.

“Yeah, well, now she hurt my feelings.”

Jagged sighed. The guys were some of his closest friends, and by the look up the “entertainment” they brought, they were ready to raze it up like always. But things had changed. Jagged couldn’t be that guy anymore. “Marinette’s staying with me from now on,” He reminded them. “No parties on the tour. She has a bedtime. And doesn’t need to see “us” at our finest, no matter how Rockin we are.” Jagged shrugged. “Spread the world, my bus is off limits.”

The rock stars grumbled a bit but didn’t leave. They could hang with Jagged without presence of booze, weed, loud music, and groupies. It would be a little weird but they’d managed. Jagged was their friend; they’d known him before any of them became famous and stayed close well after. They hadn’t been there for him as much as they wanted to after Tom died; too many commitments, too many required appearances in different countries that had taken them away. But they were there now. And if being there for one of their best friends meant regularly chilling with a six-year-old, then they’d deal.

Savage grunted, “Austin, get rid of the booze.”

“By ‘get rid of’, I assume you meant put back in my tour bus,” The silver haired guitarist corrected.

Niklaus raised his hand like he was a student in class, “I get the whole no alcohol thing; that stuff will kill ya. But what your feelings on pot?”

Jagged just sighed. It was going to be a long summer.

The three musician, and even the other Rockers on tour, slowly but surely got used to the seemingly near constant presence of a six-year-old around Jagged or running around backstage. And the swear jar was a serious thing. It didn’t count when they were singing on stage but off it and anywhere near Marinette and they found themselves forking over five dollars for ever swear word. It added up a lot. And quickly.

Jagged’s tour bus, instead of being the Party palace it used to be, now was the chill zone. It was also the cleanest of all the tour buses. No empty beer bottles everywhere. No one random passed out anywhere. No having to watch out for throw up. No rabid fans, as Jagged had increased his security to Tony Stark worthy levels.

All they had to do was mind their manners and remember that Marinette was very impressionable at her age.

“OH screw you!!!!!!” Savage roared as he jumped up and frantically mashed buttons on his controller. “I’m not losing!”

They had been babysitting Marinette all day while Jagged did an interview Buzzfeed.

Austin snickered, “Says you.” His character raced past Savage’s. Only for something to hit him and send poor little Yoshi spinning out of control. “Did you- did you just blue shell me, bitch?” He hissed at Niklaus.

“Nooo!” Niklaus said sarcastically. “Hey!!! Not nice, brat!” He told Marinette after a banana caused him to slip off the ice.

Marinette smiled easily, but there was a determined look in her eyes. Her hair was jelled into a faux-hawk courtesy of Ashley Crimson, from lead singer for Emancipated Mirrors, an all-girl punk rock band.

“Die, scumbag!” Ashley roared as her racer zoomed by. She was a vivacious redhead. Her and her bandmates got used to being some of the only girls around that weren’t either working for one of the rock stars or were scantily clad fangirls who do “anything” to get backstage.

“You’re going down, twerp!” Savage told Marinette.

“Bite me!” She snapped back just as Jagged and Penny walked into the tour bus.

Jagged crossed his arms, “What did you morons do to my sweet little niece?”

“Nothing!” Niklaus, Ashley, Savage, and Austin chimed together.

“Savage taught me to throw a punch, and or kill a man.” Marinette smiled happily. “I helped Austin set up a glitter bomb in Nightmare’s Hail Mary tour bus. Niklaus and I are banned from Chuckie Cheese. Ashley and I spray painted her ex boyfriend’s car. Cleo and I got arrested. We disturbed the peace!!” Cleo was a pink haired girl who played drummer from Nightmare’s Hail Mary. She had to rush off for her own interview. “Oh and we’ve only been Playing Mario kart for an hour but they each owe like a hundred bucks to the swear jar.”

There was silence as the words were processed.

“And not one of us taught her how to keep a freaking secret?” Ashley face palmed.

Jagged just sighed.

…

For the next few years that was Marinette’s life. Austin, Niklaus, Savage and Ashley became pseudo Uncles and Aunt to Marinette.

She spent most of her childhood on tour with her Uncle; going from to place, concert after concert. Marinette was homeschooled and didn’t mind it. Jagged went on tour with a bunch of different people over the years and she got to meet all sorts musicians; Clara Nightingale, Ed Sheeran, Adam Levine, Brendon Urie from Panic! At the Disco, Taylor Swift. Her favorite were the award shows though. Through them, she got to meet all her favorite actors. And was inspired to start designing on her own clothes after seeing so many fabulous looks. She got to model and do some acting. In her free time, she ran a very popular fashion blog/youtube channel.

The press had always loved her. To them, she was Marinette Stone (Jagged didn’t want her real name released to the media). She was always on the best dressed list, frequently seen with various celebrities, and could be found on the cover of various magazine.

However, when Marinette was eleven, she begged her Uncle to let her go to school with other kids. She was getting older and she wanted to have some type of normal childhood. It took him a year to agree. Her uncle Jagged had become quite protective over the years.

So Marinette went back to Paris. She cut her hair, used her given name of Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Her Uncle bought a grand penthouse not too far away from her new school, and whenever he was gone her bodyguard, a sweet woman named Harlow who was former CIA, was in charge of her. She started at her new school with a smile on her face.

Not long after, she became the hero Ladybug.

Everything was great. She had friends, a normal social life, went to school with other kids her age. She wasn’t constantly being followed around by paparazzi. She still ran her fashion blog and had frequently updates. It was perfect.

It took two years for it to go bust.

The reason’s name was Lila Rossi.

And she was the biggest liar Marinette had ever met. And Marinette had grown up in the entertainment industry.

Lila made wild claims that the other kids just ate up. A simple google search could refute all of them. The ones Marinette could stand was always about Jagged. Like her Uncle, or an airline, would be reckless enough to let a kid race on to an airport to save a cat; not that Jagged had ever own one. Fang was territorial.

Lila made her out to be a bully, and slowly Marinette lost all her friends. Her only one left was Adrien, her partner Chat Noir. The blond and Marinette had modeled together a few times and he had recognized Marinette despite her new looked but he kept it a secret. Because of their history, Marinette developed a crush on the other and Adrien was quick to lose his crush on Ladybug once he found out it was his dear friend behind the mask.

When Marinette was exiled to the back, Adrien was quick to join her (much to Lila’s fury) and nothing could change his mind. Mostly because he was sick of Lila always touching him despite his vocal protests, and Bustier not doing anything about it.

Soon Marinette things started being messed up or destroyed; her homework, her sketchbooks and pencils, her jacket. She was tripped and called rude names. Her cellphone, (Well one of her phones. She had two; one she used as Marinette Stone. One for Marinette Dupain-Cheng; a number only her classmates had.) was filled with mean texts.

Bustier caved to demands and had her excluded from class trips and events due to being a negative influence; again Adrien decided not to go either, and Lila was Akumatized once he said this. Marinette hadn’t been surprised. Bustier always ignored the bullying and harassment clearly happening in front of her. Still, Marinette decided to start recording her classes a hidden camera on her desk, on the corner of the celling and even on top of the whiteboard behind Bustier. It was just in case anything took a serious turn.

Still losing all her friends because of a few promises and dreams of glitz and glamour had been a wakeup call. Her Uncle had warned her. Her Aunt Penny, who Jagged had married with Marinette was ten, had warned her. So did Savage, Ashley, Cleo, Austin, Clara, and Niklaus. They told Marinette to watch out for fake friends and gold diggers, coattail clingers and desperate wannabes; people who would sell out every secret she had to the paparazzi behind her back just for five minutes in the spot light. So called friends who would do anything to get ahead, to get famous.

And it was clear that’s who most of her ex-friends were. Even Lila learned the hard way. When she told Alya about her mom meeting with some important celebrity about their Go Green initiative, this wasn’t a lie as it would turn out. However, the glasses-wearing girl posted it online, despite Lila legitimately asking her to keep it a secret. Lila got in big trouble with her mom apparently.

The teacher, Bustier, was awful but she always had been. Marinette ignored it in the past because at least she had her friends. But if that witch told Marinette to be a better example one more time, it was over.

Everything came to a head after Marinette got expelled, granted she was brought back after evidence that it was impossible for her to have cheated surfaced, and the bluenette decided enough was enough. She finally gave in and told her Uncle everything.

Jagged was pissed. He cursed up a storm; enough to fill the swear jar ten times over and buy Marinette a car.

It took a while to get him to calm down. And to convince him that Marinette could handle it. She had a plan.

Still, she remembered that Uncle was a wild card.

Friday, during lunch, Marinette was eating in the cafeteria, when suddenly the lunchroom doors burst open, “Marinette,” Jagged called as he entered, trailed by a happy Penny and bodyguards “Where’s my favorite little fashion designer?”

Marinette just sighed.

Adrien smirked at her; looking way too amused. The jerk must’ve known. She had thought it was strange that he wanted to eat in the cafeteria. The two rarely ate on the school grounds, opting and preferring to go to local restaurants rather than deal with terrible food and pesky classmates. Still Marinette didn’t mind as long as they away from her classmates. And they did.

Kagami, Aurore, and Claude gave her perplexed looks.

The students in the cafeteria went wild. Girls and guys screamed, and tried to get pictures. Jagged ignored them and went straight to Marinette’s table, walking passed where Bustier’s student at lunch. Alya shook Lila’s shoulder and pointed at Jagged, and loudly asked if Lila could get her an interview. Lila looked horrified.

Jagged beamed when he reached Marinette, “There you are, you’ve been ignoring my texts,” He accused. Which to be fair, Marinette had been. Her Uncle had been coming up with way too many revenge plots to be healthy. “I decided I need a new look for the VMAs; something rockin, something tasteful, something to show remind the world the amazingness that the Rock Gods have blessed them with.”

“I’m at school,” Marinette told him.

He smirked, “Then Learn to answer a text,” The Rock star shrugged. “But fine; we can talk later. How about at my concert, yeah. You and your friends” he motioned to the kids at Marinette’s table, “Can have backstage passes. We’ll talk then. But I really want you to wow me. Maybe get a matching hat for Fang too.”

“Fang?” Adrien asked innocently. Still Marinette could practically hear see the script he was reading off of. “Is that your cat?”

Jagged gasped as if insulted, “Cat? Do you think I’d ever own anything as ordinary as a cat? Me? Jagged Stone?! I should be insulted, mate. I hate cats, always have. Never owned one, never will. Fang’s a crocodile. Marinette’s knows. Fang loves her.”

“That is strange,” Kagami shot Marinette a smirk which caused Marinette to nearly hiss at the betrayal. Kagami knew too?! “Lila said you did.”

“Lila?” Jagged asked. “Who’s Lila? I don’t know a Lila.”

“Lila Rossi?” Aurore offered. “The Ladyblog practically swears in an interview that Lila Rossi saved your cat from being hit by a plane or something.”

Jagged scoffed, “What a loud of bull! Any journalist that believes that is not worth the pen they write with.” Gasps were heard. “But I heard that rumor. Didn’t know where it was from. Thanks for letting me know who I should sue. This Ladyblog and Lila Rossi will be hearing from my lawyers.”

It was a photo finish as to who fainted first; Alya or Lila.

Lila went home right after that. This caused the reactions of the class to be split. Half the class still defended Lila; refusing to believe their golden ticket was lying. The other half was ready to burn her at the stake; they had carried her books, done her homework, wrote her notes, nearly everything for her.

Marinette just sat back and watched with amused eyes. If they thought this was bad, they hadn’t seen anything yet.

That weekend Marinette Stone released a video on her blog about bullying. She had been mentioning her own trouble with bullying for months and people had asked her for more information.

The title of the video was:

Bullying Stone: The Expose

In it Marinette revealed that at her school she went by Marinette Dupain-Cheng, her real name, and had a new look. She told about how much she liked school at first. And they what changed; that it all started when a new girl arrived and started telling lies about celebrities about Marinette. She told the story of how she was expelled; and just how many procedures were broken when it happened.

Marinette used the recordings she had of class, and even showed up the horrible texts she got.

“As you can see the teacher does nothing,” Marinette frowned. “It’s all happening right in front of her and she does nothing. In the next video, you’ll see someone being sexually harassed, in front of the teacher and she doing nothing about it. And then what victim blaming looks like. Again, as a reminder, all these videos and pictures are unedited.” She had offered to blur Adrien’s face but he declined, and even appeared in the video too and talked about his own experience.

At the end of the video, Marinette looked straight at the camera, “Anyone can be bullied; famous or otherwise. If you’re being bullied; speak up. Tell your parents, your Aunts, your Uncles, your siblings, your cousins, teachers who you know will actually do something about it. I waited too long to tell someone. I regret that. They thought what they were doing was hurting me. They thought I’d be miserable without them. They thought I’d cry and break and come crawling back to them. They thought wrong. You can bully Stone but it takes a hell of a lot more than that to break it.”

The video went viral in an hour. And people were angry. The people who knew Marinette and loved her were beyond furious. Jagged, even more so, as he hadn’t seen the videos before, read the texts.

Marinette Stone’s phone blew up with texts and calls. She was tweeted and retweeted thousands of times. And she got far too many, ‘You want me to kick their asses for you. I can kick their asses for you,” texts. But she had known she’d get them.

The Ladyblog was ripped for lies by celebrities who been lied about on site and fans.

Gabriel Agreste, Adrien told her, was pissed about what had been happening to Adrien, in front of a teacher no less. Lila Rossi fired. And if Lila ever had dreams about working in the fashion industry, they were over.

Savage, after berating her for not kicking Lila’s ass, told her he and the gang (Austin, Cleo, Ashley, and And Niklaus) was coming over for some Mario Kart and artery clogging fast food.

When the call disconnect, Marinette got a text from him.

Why did you sic Fang on them?

And that’s a five for the swear jar!

Marinette couldn’t stop laughing.

#ml salt #ml fic #ml salt fic #marinette dupain cheng #Marinette deserves better #adrien deserves better #adrien agreste #alya salt #class salt

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anika-ann · 3 years

Text

Hell Froze Over - Pt.1

The Good (and Fast) Samaritan

Type: mini-series to a series (part 1 & part 2 & part 3 & part 4), Avenger!reader AU.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 2750

Summary: There’s a new enhanced on a scene, showing up at places of the Avengers�� fights. She’s fast. Really, really fast. And Wanda can’t read her mind.

So far, she has been helping. But surely it’s only a matter of time before she switches switch sides – otherwise she would have approached you instead of speeding away.

You had a problem. And you needed a solution.

Warnings: violence and blood, mention of multiple characters’ death (the Snap), a bit of inuendo and language… oh and extreme fluff

A/N: This part of Melting Hearts’ verse follows after everyone was brought after the Snap. The majority of the story was written after A:IW, soooo, there are no references to Endgame and there’s canon divergence. They somehow saved them all, without building a damn time machine and all that. Just run with it ;)

Previous part of the series II Story masterlist

────── ·❆· ──────

Aliens.

Why was it always aliens?

And extremely annoying ones on top of that.

They had freaking tentacles – or multiple limbs, whatever they called it. The thing was, they had four ‘arms’, which made them incredibly handful, pun definitely intended. And what was making it worse? Once you cut off one limb, two grew in its place.

More than once during the fight, in which New Yorkers were being terrorized again, you wondered if these particular creatures, aka Tentacles, had been on Earth before, possibly meeting Hydra. You couldn’t imagine the Nazis’ organization getting the inspiration for their motto anywhere else, Greek myths be damned.

Apparently, these aliens loved going after Captain America too. Then again, they generally didn’t seem to be fond of the group of superhumans standing in their way of invading this planet, so perhaps Steve was not special in that respect.

Pinning two Tentacles to a wall by spray of thick icicles, you allowed yourself to breathe in after a long time. If you were being honest, you wouldn’t mind if Tentacles were the ones whose population would stay with the half of them erased from existence by Thanos. Seriously. They were obviously dickheads.

Taking few more breaths, indulging the feeling of having time to do so, you scanned your surroundings; the fight was definitely going your way, the aliens falling one after another, but the damage to the area was immense. It was a miracle no building had collapsed yet, but you had a hunch it wouldn’t take long. Wanda was helping with removing the civilians out of the harm’s way with her mental powers, but several blocks had been hit. You hadn’t had your eyes on her for a while now.

Hearing a roar by your right, you were immediately back to the highest alert. Tentacle no.39 was not coming your way though; it went after Natasha. You sent an icicle right through the creature’s belly, killing it at instant. Nat just nodded your way and threw herself back into the fight. You did the same.

Your whole body hurt, burning with exhaustion, but you knew you had to keep going. Even when a warning pinch bit the base of your spine; you were getting really fed up with this whole fail-safe trigger, because in moments like this, you simply couldn’t allow yourself to stop fighting in order to be fine. You were supposed to push yourself to your very limits, because lives were at stake.

Unfortunately, you didn’t have a choice.

You slowed down a little, trying to stay closer to Steve who was the nearest. He must have caught up on you pulling back, because he stated fighting with more ferocity – one you weren’t sure where he got from.

You noticed he didn’t have his helmet anymore and it made you bite the bullet and throw yourself back into the fight despite knowing the pain would only grow with time and at one point, it would paralyze you. But Steve had lost his fucking helmet again and he had the armour for reason goddammit!

And then, all of sudden, the battle was over. Car alarms blared all around you, smoke rising to the sky, flames licking anything they reached; you did your best to put the fire out. It was why you didn’t notice it at first – the loud creak of metal tens feet away, but then the concrete started screaming, just like the people.

You snapped your head that way, only to see a restaurant collapsing onto itself.

With people still in it.

You acted on instinct, sending the thickest layer of ice you could summon to slow down the falling debris, seeing a flush of red energy heading the same way. You felt the crushing weight of the building almost on your shoulders.

And the very same moment, you could also see that in a blink, there were no people underneath it.

They were gone; more specifically, several feet nearby, staring as incredulously as you were. Feeling unbearable sting in your back, you allowed yourself to let go, Wanda following your example.

Unlike the civilians, you knew all too well what happened. But your eyelids felt too heavy and you were too tired to be annoyed; in fact, you were grateful, because you didn’t know how long you would have been able to hold the improvised barrier.

You mentally thanked the girl who got all the people out in what seemed like a split second.

Dark spots danced in front of your eyes, your knees getting wobbly. The world threated to sway out of its place and you knew you were about to fold like a house of cards, only to wake up seconds later. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But you didn’t hit the ground. Strong arms enwrapped you securely, pulling you to your Captain’s chest, supporting you as much as you needed. You closed your eyes and breathed through the dizziness.

“Hey, it’s okay, I got you. It’s over, you can rest. But stay with me, alright?” Steve’s voice reached you from a terrible distance, slowly getting closer as you were gradually regaining your strength. The vibrations of his words caressed your own torso and you blinked your eyes open. “There you go, Snowflake. Let’s wrap it up here, okay?”

You just nodded, looking up to his face gratefully. He gave you a small smile in acknowledgement of your wordless ‘thank you for not letting me fall’.

“She was here again,” you mumbled and Steve grimaced as he cautiously let you off his embrace.

“Yeah. I know.”

────── ·❆· ──────

You all entered the conference room slowly, some of you barely standing on your feet. It was a miracle you didn’t have to drag each other in here. After a long time of scrunching your nose at it, you reached for the energizing drink specially designed for you just like everyone else.

While no one had suffered a serious injury – serious on the Avengers’ scale, things like the cut on Steve’s forehead didn’t count –, you were all ready to just have a shower and go to bed. But no. Being an Avenger meant you couldn’t. It meant that if the work wasn’t finished, you couldn’t get rest.

You dropped into one of the comfy chairs, Steve’s body making a muffled thud as he chose the one next to you. If even Captain America was dead on his feet, things were bad.

You pushed yourself up, sitting up straight to inspect the gash on his smooth skin. It was already healing and you knew he had it treated (by you, at least), but the drying bloody line on his head just wouldn’t let you relax.

Your fingertips carefully brushed alongside it, wary of not applying any pressure. Steve smiled at you faintly.

“Snowflake, it’s okay.”

His hand caught your wrist tenderly, pulling it away.

“How did you manage to get it anyway? How did you lose your helmet again?” you questioned. He bit his lip and looked almost apologetically. Naturally, that had you frowning. “Steve-“

“He was getting too close to--- to them, alright? I admit I didn’t quite see the other three coming-“

You gritted your teeth, torn between admiring his heroics as he defended the civilians and clipping round his ear for having a tunnel-like vision and not looking around properly before jumping to the rescue.

In the end, you just huffed, letting your hand slip from his grasp.

You carefully eyed the rest of the team, glad you found Wanda mothering Vision and Bruce checking Natasha once again, while Tony, Sam and Clint were on the phone. It put a smile on your face as you saw Bucky fumbling with his phone as well – you knew he had started seeing a woman from accounting here and now he was probably wondering if he should let her know he was fine.

“We make a good team. Taking minor risks is worth it,” Steve whispered, straightening in his chair in favour of dropping a kiss to your forehead. You closed your eyes contentedly at the pure and innocent display of affection.

When his lips lingered, his hand brushing your jaw and he inhaled the smell of your shampoo – if there was any smell left after the fight and debris flying around –, his breath faltering, a realization dawned to you.

He hadn’t lost his helmet when defending some civilians, had he?

Steve wouldn’t let himself to be distracted enough to be jumped when protecting civilians. Never. He only lost his focus when protecting the people he loved. Mainly the ones he had lost before, in the Snap or otherwise; if he could help it, his gaze never left you on the battlefield, simply too scared you would disappear in a blink of an eye. He might be getting less anxious about it lately, but it was always in the back of his mind; having your loved ones wiped off by a snap of fingers and seeing them fall to ashes did that to a person.

Not that you would know – you were among the ones who disappeared.

But Steve knew. He saw it happen to you, Bucky, Sam…. And he could only watch. Nothing he could do stop it. You still remembered the burn of in the base of your spine as your powers fought to freeze the process of your body disintegrating, watching in horror as many of your friends did – and that you were about to meet the same fate. Just as helpless as Steve was.

“…I’m just stalling, Steve. I know it and you know it too. I should— I should let go-“

“No! No, Snowflake, you stay and fight-“ he practically growled, gripping your wrists with enough strength to bruise them.

“I love you, Steve,” you whispered in response, feeling your whole body trembling in both exertion and fear. You didn’t want to leave. You didn’t want this to be your end.

The wild haunted look in Steve’s eye only made you shudder further, a painful twist to your gut.

“No-“

“Please, say it back,” you pleaded, swallowing your tears and the scream that was threatening to erupt from your throat. The burn, fuck, the burn… you couldn’t hold it any longer.

“NO! You fight this!”

Lips trembling, you understood you wouldn’t get the last love declaration you craved. You closed your eyes.

“Goodbye, Steve.”

“NO!” he yelled, pulling you to him, bodies aligned as he wrapped an arm around you, holding you impossibly close. “You--- sweetheart, please. I love you. I can’t-“

“Thank you,” you sobbed, breathing in his scent, feeling the coarse material of his worn uniform, revelling in the warmth of his touch… and you let go.

The last thing you heard was him, choking on a desperate shriek of your name.

The memory and the sheer wonder about what it must have been like for him almost brought tears into your eyes. Again.

Could you really be mad at him for being reckless?

“Thank you for saving me,” you whispered, hearing his breath hitch. You opened your eyes, only to see his resigned ones as he guesses you figured out the truth.

“No ‘you idiot’, huh?”

“No. Not this time. I can see you’re fine. You’re allowed to look out for me as long as you walk away relatively unharmed.”

“Lucky me,” he murmured and kissed you lightly on your lips, tasting after the sickeningly sweet energy drink. You couldn’t say you minded.

“I love you, Steve. I care for you too. Nothing wrong with that,” you hummed lovingly, gazing into his eyes, the rest of the world be damned. “So yeah. Thank you.”

His blues got their vivid spark back, the corners of his lips rising inconspicuously. “Always. And I love you too.”

“You two are sickening,” Bucky noted close to your ear and you honest to god yelped, almost falling off your chair.

Bucky receded with silent laugh and while you clutched at your chest, your heart too frantic in your ribcage, you noticed Steve rolled his eyes at his friend fondly.

“Lefty here has a point,” Tony hummed, making you huff and turn to the big screen as it lit up with news feed.

There were already so many images and videos on the internet that it was scary. Why people hunted down good shots instead of running away?

Unsurprisingly, Tony froze the frame in which a blur of dark blue could be seen. Hint: it was neither you nor Steve in his stealth suit.

No. It was the enhanced girl. The fast one. The one you knew too little about to your comfort.

“Hate to say it, but things could have got ugly without the Rush-girl rushing in,” Tony announced and you scoffed, mainly because you felt like he was nudging your conscience.

It felt like he was blaming you, seeing you wouldn’t have been able to hold the falling debris for long enough. You were sure Tony wouldn’t blame you, since he knew all too well you simply couldn’t beat it; after all he had been the one to install your fail-safe, preventing you hurting yourself. But you also knew he didn’t like the thought of anyone else getting hurt because of it either.

The thing was it always went like this with this enhanced girl. She would show up, help the Avengers and then puff, she was gone. No trace. Except for the people she saved. The ones you might have failed to save unless she had come.

You forced yourself to drift away from the dark thoughts.

“Tony, your nicknames are getting more ridiculous with each try,” you remarked, earning a few hums in agreement from around the table.

“I can go back to naming you if you want… Popsicle. I bet Cap here got the memo and he loves to lick and s-”

“Stark!” Steve lashed out at him, his cheeks getting an unhealthy shade of red. You choked on your own spit.

You were pretty happy with Tony somewhat reconciling with Steve (and you and others), okay, but his jokes were sometimes too much. He really was pushing it.

“Go to hell, Metalbrain,” you muttered under your breath, feeling your ears burning.

Also, yes. Yes, Steve got the memo. So did you. But you didn’t need to talk about it in front of everyone, thank you very much.

“Cute blush you have here. I hit the nail on the head, eh?” Tony continued, earning a murderous glare from Steve, who certainly was sporting a remarkable blush.

“Tony!” you called out, not less horrified than your significant other.

“Trust the advice of the elder – biologically older anyway. Hate to break it to you, but that’s not how you make a kid. Then again maybe that’s the point-“

“Tony, shut your metal mouth or I swear to god I will tell Pepper you’re being a pervert.”

A look of pure horror appeared on his face and you couldn’t help but smile smugly. This always worked.

The thing was Tony would know how to get a girl pregnant; Pepper Potts lived to tell the tale. She was in her twenty-seventh week, after all; and her hormones were misbehaving. Big time. Her emotions were like on a roller-coaster lately and no one with a shred of brain wanted to be on her bad side, ever, let alone now.

Needless to mention Pepper Potts was a strong woman, capable of handling herself, being in control. She wasn’t quite in control of herself now and what was even worse, she always had been the more rational part of the Stark and Potts-Stark duo, keeping Tony’s impulsiveness in check. Once again, not now. And it was driving her insane.

So yeah, threatening Tony with snitching him to Pepper always worked these days. It was even mean of you. Then again, Tony was being extremely pervert today, venting his frustration on you and you did not like it at all.

“Ouch. Low blow, Popsicle, low blow,” Tony said darkly, before his expression turned gleeful again. “See what I did there with the blow--- never mind, I have a place to be. Bye, kids!”

Tony took his abrupt escape, disappearing from the room, and you sighed heavily. You massaged the bridge of your nose, feeling your face burning with embarrassment. The rest of the team pretended not to watch you highly amused.

“He’s an actual infant— no, he’s worse,” you stated, your voice a little too high-pitched.

“That’s hardly any news. Now, can we pay attention to the actual problem?” Natasha interjected, switching back to professional mood.

“Sure. Let’s talk more about the Rush-girl,” Clint hummed, a smirk on his lips.

A collective groan was the answer, but you did start working.

────── ·❆· ──────

Part 2

────── ·❆· ──────

There we go!

The first chapter of the last part of Melting Hearts. Hopefully, I will make it worth it your attention ;)

Thank you for reading! Happy Sunday :-*

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #captain america x reader #captain america x you #mcu #marvel #avenger reader #avangers fanfiction #steve rogers #captain america #steve rogers imagine #captain america imagine #avengers #melting hearts series #melting hearts #hell froze over #anika ann

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poesparakeet-fics · 3 years

Link

Second part done! Read on AO3 or here! SFW!

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Caduceus Clay & The Mighty Nein, Caduceus Clay & Jester Lavorre, Caduceus Clay & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Caduceus Clay & Yasha, Caduceus Clay & Caleb Widogast, Caduceus Clay & Beauregard Lionett Characters: Caduceus Clay, Jester Lavorre, Mollymauk Tealeaf, Yasha (Critical Role), Nott | Veth Brenatto, Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett Additional Tags: Tickling, Revenge, Shrinking, wild magic mishaps, safeword, Teasing Summary:

Caduceus has made a habit of tickling some of his companions, be it as a cheer-up, a settle-down or a playful punishment. When a mishap with some wild magic makes his smaller than his friends, a few decide to get a little revenge.

CHAPTER 2 TEXT

They’d all agreed to wait a few days before going anywhere weird or dangerous, at least until Caduceus was back to normal. Sure, he didn’t fight using his size much, but the dangerously thin firbolg looked so breakable without his formidable height that they agreed to wait it out. After all, it was only a few days.

So naturally, trouble had found them.

They were lucky, really. Nobody was hurt badly, just a few scrapes and bruises. The spellcasters were burnt out, though.

“OK…” Jester said as they breathed a sigh of relief after entering the tower’s front door. “I got one healing word in me. Caduceus, want me to take care of that cut on your head?”

Caduceus reached up to touch it. It was barely a scrape. “Nah, I’m good. Maybe take down some of the bruising on Yasha’s arm?”

Jester did so, and Caduceus started to float upward toward his room. Thanks to the floating he didn’t even notice he was being followed until two sets of feet set down behind him, two bodies suddenly moving to walk with him pressed between them.

He looked up. It wasn’t Beau and Yasha, as he would have expected, Yasha being the only one to share the floor with him. It was Beau and Caleb, both smirking in ways that made his stomach squirm.

“Hey Caleb, did you hear what went on down there?”

“Ja, I think I did, Beauregard.”

“I think Caduceus just dodged a healing spell.”

Panic ripped a gasp out of Caduceus chest. “I did NOT!”

He started to try and break away from them, but Beau caught him around his middle and hugged him tight from behind. She lifted him off the ground easily, his feet kicking the air while Caleb stared him down.

“Jester offered you healing and you refused, Herr Clay. These are your rules. We have a zero tolerance policy, you see.”

Caduceus squirmed in Beau’s grasp. “It’s not the same –”

“Um, actually…” Beau cut him off, starting to walk them toward his room, “I’d like to refer you back to a previous instance of you counting Caleb’s ribs two months ago, where you involved Mollymauk for the first time. I believe it was the seventh instance of this punishment being meted out. In that instance, there were limited healing spells left and Caleb’s injury was superficial, but you cited the zero tolerance policy.”

“Ungh!” Caduceus grunted, trying to tug himself free of two arms as strong as ship cable, “You two are–”

“–Going to find out how many ribs a firbolg has?” Caleb teased over a very frightening little smirk that broke into a grin when his eyes flicked over Caduceus’ shoulder. “Veth the brave! I could use your assistance!”

When Beau turned to look he caught sight of Veth floating at the centre of the tower, her arms crossed and an amused look on her face. Her eyes met Caduceus’ gaze for a second.

“Nah. You guys have fun.”

Beau jostled Caduceus as she addressed Caleb. “Don’t worry you skinny shit, I’ll hold him down for you so you can get a little payback.”

“Noo…” Caduceus whimpered, the futility of the situation growing ever clearer. Caleb and Beau ignored him, talking to each other over his head instead as they entered his bedroom.

“Hey, has he ever done that thing where he tickles you until you say nice things about yourself?”

“Ugh. Ja.”

“So what’s he gotta say?” Beau climbed onto the bed with Caduceus still in her arms, keeping his back to her front.

“Hmm. We could make him say something mean, but that does not quite fit….”

“Nah.” Beau started to wrestle with Caduceus arms, fighting to get them up over his head. “How about just ‘I deserve this’ over and over until we’re satisfied?”

Caduceus fought her, whimpering, but her hands were as quick as sparrows and it was barely a moment before she had his wrists gripped tight. He tried to twist and get his feet under him on the bed, but Caleb grabbed his ankles and tripped his feet out as he perched on the side.

“Ja, that works for me.” Caleb shoved Caduceus’ shirt up, tucking it behind his head to keep it out of the way.

“No no no!” Caduceus wheezed as he saw his wizard friend and frequent victim smiling like a cat who caught the canary and floating his hands in a move that was clearly meant to rile him. It worked.

“Ah, you can take it, I’m sure.” the wizard answered, meeting his eyes with a wicked glitter in his gaze, “I mean, you could safeword, but I don’t think you will. Not when you know you deserve this.”

Caduceus choked a little at the reference to his very first time counting Caleb’s ribs, a whine building in the back of his throat as the man’s hands drifted closer. Oh, he was in for it . It might be easier just to cast gentle repose on himself now— Jester wouldn’t be able to bring him back until the morning.

“Alright, so we start with number one, ja?”

Caleb’s ink-stained fingertips found Caduceus’ lowest rib, flatter and broader than a human’s. The firbolg bit his lip and whimpered as first they only grazed the downy hair there before starting to pinch along the length.

“Eeheek!” Caduceus squeaked, his heels drumming on the soft bedspread as giggles poured out..

“There, just like the first time.” Caleb teased over a tight-lipped smile. “Although, actually…” Caleb’s fingers started to attack him on one side, and then the other, switching back and forth to make him writhe. “That first time, you did it one side at a time, didn’t you? So, do you deserve this, Herr Clay?”

“Noho! I- I caught you ahaha– with aha broken rib thahahat first time!”

“He what ?!” Came a growl from over Caduceus’ shoulder.

“Ah– nothing. Moving on. Two!” Caleb’s hands jumped up one rib, drawing a satisfying squeal from their captive. “Now, the second time was still just you, but a little more like… this.”

Caleb ducked down to nuzzle his nose and cheek across Caduceus’ lower rib cage. The gentle pressure and rough hair along his cheek nearly made Caduceus jump out of his skin. His back arched, his body driven back into Beau’s embrace for lack of a better place to go.

“Aha— AHAha— Ohoho, OHo OK! I deserve it! I deserve it!”

Caleb stopped nuzzling but put his fingers back to work immediately. “Wunderbar! Three.”

“Nohoho! I deserve it! Aahaa! Please!”

Caleb ignored him. “The third time… that was Veth and her feather, wasn’t it?”

Caleb pulled away to dig around his coat, and Caduceus got a precious moment to breath. He slumped against Beau and tried his best to unscramble himself.

“Got it!” Said Caleb.

Caduceus’ eyes shot open to see the wizard twirling a quill in his hand.

“Eep! Wait! I deserve it, I deserve it, I deserve it! ”

Caleb flicked the soft fronds of the feather across one rib, then another. “It’s good that you can admit that now. So here is three, and there is four… I’m sure you have more ribs than I have vengeance, right, Herr Clay?”

Cad was too breathless to answer, slumped against Beau in a frenzy of chirping giggles that pitched upward when Caleb jumped another rib. The feather was surprisingly maddening after the rough scrape of stubble.

“Five!” Caleb cheered, “so the next time would have been Yasha…”

“NO! Nononono! Pleeheeheehease!” Caduceus didn’t bother telling them he deserved it this time, that clearly wasn’t getting him anywhere.

Caleb chuckled, exchanging a devilish wink with Beauregard over Cad’s shoulder before leaning in to nip at the side of Caduceus’ ribcage.

His reaction was more scream than laughter. Oh, the teeth were bad . The biting had all the same staticy mix of sensations that the nuzzles did with the added maddening little scrape of teeth. His breathing was hitched, his legs were kicking desperately against the bedspread. By the time Caleb let up there were tears in his eyes.

Caleb let him catch his breath and watched him with a little softness.

“While we are not nearly even for what you have put me through, I do feel a little bad. You’re nearly done, eh? How about this: We’ll skip to Mollymauk–”

“NO!” Caduceus yelped, still breathless.

“Hey, hey, calm down. I only want one. You made me use my safeword over a black eye, Herr Clay. You deserve much more, but if I get one, we may call it even.”

Caduceus’ whole body was rigid, and he groaned from behind clenched teeth. “Even? Blank slate?”

Caleb chuckled at the answer. “Ja. Blank slate. Until you decide to torture me again.”

“Well that’s up to you, man.” Caduceus growled, shutting his eyes tight and clenching his teeth. “OK. Do it.”

“Ja?” Caleb asked with a renewed smile.

“Yes!”

“You’re ready?”

“Cale–”

Pbbbbbt!

That sound again, this time mostly drowned out by a bleating shriek as Caduceus jerked like he was hit by lightning. The single raspberry felt like it went on forever, a rare credit to Caleb’s lung capacity.

When Caleb pulled back he was chuckling, partly out of delight for his vengeance and partly out of mirth at Caduceus’ reaction, now starting to fade into a collection of leftover giggles, sniffles and hiccups. Beau let go of his arms and hugged him to let him lean against her and catch his breath.

“The next *hic* time you beg for *hic* mercy…”

“You’ll take it very easy on me. We are even, remember? No vengeance allowed.”

Shit . Caduceus winced. He hadn’t processed what he was agreeing to, something the wizard had undoubtedly been hoping for.

“You know, I think this erases your escalations, too.” Beau added from over his shoulder. “Blank slate, right?”

Caleb brightened considerably. “Ja! A blank slate. Starting from the beginning.”

Caduceus growled, crossing his arms and trying to look annoyed while still hiccuping. Beau crawled out from behind him, and they both rose to their feet. Caleb planted a kiss on top of his head.

“Goodnight, Herr Clay.”

…..

He was big again before long. It happened when he was sleeping, and the next morning he’d made a pot of tea by the time he realized he no longer needed two hands to pour. The epiphany made him spring up straight, a smile on his face. He felt like himself again.

It was Veth who trundled into the kitchen first.

“Good morning!” Caduceus greeted her.

“Oh! I see you’re back. Are you happy to be big again?”

“Well, it’s a little more.. Me.”

“Yes, I think it is,” her eyes glittered at him, “now you’ll be safe from the others.”

“Heh.” Caduceus nodded, “I think everyone who wanted revenge got it by now. But I am glad to be a little harder to pin down. Thank you for not helping them.”

He turned toward the sink with his mug, and Veth was suddenly hanging off his back with her feet braced on his belt.

“We both know I don’t need you to be small to get you, do I Mr. Clay?” She whispered in his ear.

Caduceus barely got one large hand over his own mouth before one of Veth’s small ones was plunged down the back of his shirt collar. Her arm disappeared there, fingers scrabbling at the skin between his shoulder blades. He squawked into his hand, legs collapsing and spine twisting. He ended up on his knees, trying desperately to shake her off as she moved with him like a rucksack, as slippery as an itch he couldn’t reach to scratch.

“Ok! Ahaa! Ok! Veth, please!” He wheezed around his hand.

She did stop, hopping off his back with a little smirk. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna keep that secret and hold over you for a while yet.”

“Wonderful.” Caduceus groaned from his position curled up in a ball on the floor.

“Just don’t get cocky and I’ll never have a reason to TAKE YOU DOWN!”

“Alright, alright.” He sighed as he stood up. “Deal. Mercy. And don’t worry, Caleb already negotiated a pretty generous immunity offer for himself.”

Veth snorted. “Please. Do that as much as you want. Just don’t. Get. Cocky.”

“Ok, Veth.”

#critickle role #caduceus clay #tickle fic #tk fic #caleb widogast #beauregard lionett #veth bernatto #tickling #ticklish #rib tickling

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realityhelixcreates · 3 years

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Lasabrjotr Chapter 78: The Great Provider

Chapters: 78/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: pg 13

Relationships: Loki x Reader

Characters: Loki (Marvel),Thor(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff, vision, Bruce Banner

Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Party Time, Alarr Is A Little Bitch Now And Forever, Seriously Bull Cults Are Super Old, And Super Important

Summary: You face the bull.

“There's a lot of people looking at me.” Your father whispered to you, fiddling nervously with a crumbling slice of dark buttered bread. “Your asshole beau got me good this time.”

Seated on the other side of you, Loki sighed. Of course he could hear, even with the din of the First Feast all around. You shook pepper onto a peeled, boiled egg.

“It wasn't planned like that.” You whispered back. “All of the humans are seated on this side, me included. The planners just thought you should be next to me.”

On the one hand, you were glad your father was acknowledging your relationship without major pushback. On the other hand, insulting a prince within earshot of that prince, and many of his vassals, was probably not such a good idea.

“I mean, I can ask them to change the seating order. Put you down at the farthest table, with a bunch of Asgardians you've never met.”

He shuddered. “You wouldn't. My own daughter wouldn't do that to me, her poor old father, who has so few years left to him. You wouldn't show such cruelty to a vulnerable old man.”

“Yeah, yeah, you've got one foot in the grave already. You could fall over dead any minute now. You're practically dust.”

“Well, that might be going a little far.” he huffed. “I've still got some vinegar in me.”

“You even talk like an old man.” you teased. “Besides, you don't get to pull the Old Man Card, and then complain because I play along. Make up your mind.”

You passed him a serving bowl full of bilberry porridge, and he dipped some out. One thing your father was always willing to do, was try new food.

“Speaking of, what counts as 'old' to these folks?” he asked. “You've been saying some stuff about that, but it seems unbelievable.”

“You gotta start believing this stuff, Dad.” you chided.” It's all real. I know it's hard. My head has been swimming for months. But it gets easier to accept the more you learn. Anyway, for an Asgardian, about five thousand puts someone firmly into the 'elderly' category, but for an Aesir, like the king, or Saga, or Loki, the sky is the limit. I can count the number of kings Asgard has had in it's whole history on one hand. They just live that long.”

“Five thousand? Damn. That's...That's like, pyramid building times, isn't it? Say...did they...?”

“No, they didn't build the pyramids. I already asked. And even if aliens did build them, it wouldn't have been Asgardians” you pointed out. “They would have been in the north, making, I dunno, runestones? Longships? Something like that. The people in the north never really did the large-scale monument building like they did in Egypt. But Asgardians sure did. You saw the paintings of the old palace?”

That thing that looked like a pipe organ? Yeah.”

“So, if they were building our monuments, they'd have looked like that, wouldn't they?”

“Okay, but what if it was different aliens? We know there's more than one kind of alien.” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but...I never found out if the other gods of the world were aliens or not. But even if they were, I'm pretty sure the pyramids were built by humans, even if they were built for their gods.”

“They were.” Loki interrupted. “But they also made for interesting sight-seeing expeditions for many peoples across Yggdrasil, so yes, aliens visited Earth quite often in your distant past.”

Your father clammed up and glared. After a few awkward moments, Loki turned back to his plate, passing along a crumbly cheese that turned out to be similar to feta. You added some to your grain salad.

Just get through dinner, you thought to yourself. Why did the men in your life always have to be so difficult?

Time was left between courses for the making of toasts, and there was a lot of back and forth-between the Icelandic dignitaries praising the Asgardians for being such gracious hosts, and the Asgardians praising them for hosting all of Asgard in the first place. There were toasts for the Avengers in attendance, though they were somewhat subdued; the Maximoff girl was still a fairly controversial figure, Dr. Banner continued to be visibly uncomfortable with the attention, and the Vision was simply not as well known. But they were dutifully honored nonetheless, and then the humans of Trolerkaerhalla turned their adoration on you.

'The People's Seidkona', they called you. 'The bridge', and 'the Huldra shield'. Even 'the Sapphire Brand', a kenning Loki had invented for you, which made you wonder what he had been discussing with his worshipers when he was out working on the longhouses.

The dessert course was mixed dried fruit, cooked down into a compote and served over bread.

It was also the last course before the slaughter of the bull, for tomorrow's Second Feast.

You'd told Tara and your father about it, to mixed reactions. Tara was repulsed, but your father, who presumably saw more dead animals along the side of the road than you would be comfortable with, seemed to take it in stride.

“Someone has to do it.” he'd said, “They gotta get to the plate somehow. Sucks, I know. There's no way out of it?”

“It's tradition.” you'd sullenly explained. “And it's really old. Like, Proto-Indo-European old. Back when kings used to be worshiped and held responsible for everything. If the crops failed, they sacrificed him. So it was in a ruler's best interests to make sure his people were provided for. I think, eventually, the bull became a stand-in for the king. I don't know if the Asgardians influenced us in this case, or if it was the other way around, but there's a whole deep layer cake of symbolism involved, and I really do have to participate.”

The bull and the ruler. Symbols of power, fertility, plenty, and prosperity. It was poetic, in an ancient, rustic kind of way.

You had thought that you had it all together, but when you heard the bellowing sound of the bull somewhere close, and your heart clenched in your chest.

Suddenly dessert didn't taste so good.

******

There had been an arena built between tables for the bull to be driven into, with a raised platform that you were currently perched on, holding a goad with a trail of ribbons at the end. You would be enticing the bull towards you with the movement of the ribbons, and once it was within range, Loki would strike.

Then the beast would be butchered on the spot, to prepare for the next nights festivities. It would be very educational.

The human guests had been informed of what was about to happen, and of course, the Asgardians already knew, but they still cheered you on anyway. Skaldic students picked up a slow drum beat, that pulsed like a heart.

How many thousands of years worth of rulers and seidkonas doing this? Odin and Frigga had done it. Bor and Bestla had done it. Buri and Audhumla had not-the holiday hadn't been declared until after Buri's passing. But one had to assume that they all gazed out from Valhalla, within it's great black hole, and saw what their descendants were doing. Presumably, Buri could now see that two people who had no true relation to him, were now the ones honoring him. How would he feel about that?

The bull bellowed behind the gates, the sound echoing and distorting strangely. Loki lurked next to the platform, waiting. This wasn't going to be like a matador facing down an angry beast. This was going to be an ambush.

The gates slowly begin to open, and your adrenaline spiked into the sky.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes

The bull entered the arena and you froze in shock, almost completely forgetting what you were supposed to be doing.

The bull was...wrong. It was completely still, standing on a board on wheels. It did not walk into the area, but was pushed. It's head was oddly textured, almost shiny, and strangely shaped. It bellowed again, weird and distorted, but did not open it's mouth.

Its strangeness blended into your anxiety, becoming a potent cocktail of revulsion and dread. Loki patted the platform next to you, and you started, jerking your ribbons to and fro. The bull bellowed one more time before Loki strode up to it, and, with one smooth and elegant swing, beheaded it.

There was no blood. The wound was hollow, and the head sprouted the legs of a child as soon as it hit the ground, running around and mooing irreverently to the amusement and obvious confusion of the audience.

It was fake. It was a fake bull. Loki had mentioned to you that you need not worry because he had taken care of her bull problem, but hadn't had time to elaborate before you'd had to scramble up the platform. You would have never guessed he meant this.

With a flourish, Loki whipped the tanned hide off the bull, revealing a hollow armature beneath, within which was an ice-covered table, piled up with cuts of meat, bowls of organs, piles of stew bones, and a bucket of blood. The bull reduced down to its edible parts, all ready for tomorrow's feast.

The drums stopped abruptly, the child who had been hiding in the paper-mache bulls head discarded it to the side and ran off into the cheering crowd, as people came forward to carry away the bits of bull.

Loki draped the bull's hide over his shoulders and helped you down from the platform.

“Did I not tell you?” he said smugly. “I took care of it for you. Truly, the symbolism is the most important part, and this speeds the process along so that we may get to the dancing all the sooner!”

“That was freaky as hell!” you scolded. “You shoulda told me it was gonna be a fake! I spent that whole time all bent out of shape because of it, ugh, what a lot of wasted sleep!”

“In my defense, I didn't find out that you were troubled about it until yesterday. I had only a limited time to come up with something.”

“And you decided to stuff a kid in a fake bull's head? That's what you came up with?”

“That's Beli's youngest great-great-great-grandson, and he volunteered! My dear, what's wrong? I thought you would prefer it this way?”

“I do!” you huffed, irritated. “But I need you to start telling me when you do things like this! How am I gonna do my job if you already make all the decisions by yourself? Stop trying to surprise me all the time. I froze out there because of it! What did that look like to everybody else, huh?”

“I think they were too captivated by the bull to take notice...” he didn't sound so sure. “But yes, you are right, of course. It is a bad habit. I will be better.”

Somewhat mollified, you took his arm and allowed him to lead you to the dances.

*******

“It's an insult!” Alarr raged. “He reduces our history to mere spectacle!”

“It may have been for convenience.” his wife pointed out. “Our Midgardian guests need more frequent rest. It wouldn't do for his Highness' little seidkona to collapse from exhaustion.”

“Do not call her that!” he snapped. “She doesn't deserve the title! What part of her is a seidkona? The part that graces Loki's bed? Or the part that gets into cat fights with her betters? This is exactly what I am talking about though! The Midgardians are weak, but we are the ones expected to lower ourselves to their level? If they cannot keep up, they shouldn't be here! The prince is a fool, and the Allfather merely enables him. Together, they will reduce us to infants.”

“Watch your tone with me, Alarr. I tire of your temper.”

“And I tire of watching our culture and people be diminished for easier consumption by outsiders. When does it end? If even our holy days aren't exempt from foreign influence, then what part of us can we really expect to keep? How much can we be diluted, and still remain Asgard?”

“Alarr, this obsession has already cost you dearly. And not just you, the whole family has been impacted by it. You are so preoccupied with everything you're afraid we're going to lose, that you don't see the harm that you are doing to us yourself! Now you may sit here and let your rage rob you of your Buridag, but I'm going back out there to enjoy myself! Stars know, I've had precious few chances to do so lately!”

She stormed out, leaving him behind to seethe.

******

“That was so weird.” Todd said. “I thought it was going to be a real cow.”

“I'm glad it wasn't!” another camper exclaimed.

“Yeah, me too, but why did they go through all that rigmarole about what was going to happen, explaining the whole thing, telling us not to fear, and then wheel out a meat-filled piñata instead? Did they think we were gonna think it was real? Like, are we toddlers to them?”

“Maybe? They're all hundreds of years old, aren't they? Even the kids.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I feel like that's a problem though. I mean, think of the advantages they have over all the rest of us! I can't help but feel like they will eventually have a disproportionate amount of global influence, just because of the monumental projects that they can put together with that longevity. And like, I know the longhouse squad might not mind having alien overlords, but I'm sure not excited about it.”

“Global superpowers rise and fall. That's just history.” another camper said. “Are you sure you aren't just worried that yours might be overshadowed?”

“No need to be rude.” Todd chided. “People were rightly worried about super powered individuals before these guys even showed up. I mean, look at what happened to Sokovia! When I was a kid, that kind of thing was unthinkable! Now we've gotta worry about nukes, and terrorists, and school shootings, and climate change, and now alien invaders and supermen on top of all that? It's no wonder people are so worried. Did you know these people haven't even signed the Accords? What do you think that says about them?”

“Hey, I'm not disagreeing, man. I'm skeptical too. But they're refugees all the same, and it's only been a couple years. I figure they're just trying to get adjusted before they go committing themselves to anything big, you know?”

“And that's fair for the average Asgardian. As far as we know, they didn't do anything wrong. But Thor...you know, as much as I like him, he's been involved in some pretty destructive events. And the least, I mean, the very least he could have done to show some kind of good faith with Earth, would be to turn his brother over to some kind of justice. But he hasn't; he's just let Loki flaunt every authority. The man committed a felony, he kidnapped my girlfriend, and...nothing! He's not allowed on United States soil, but he did it anyway, and nothing has been done. I can't help but be resentful, who wouldn't be?”

“I know what you mean, but then why did you come to this shindig, anyway?”

Todd shrugged. “I just wanted to see that she was okay, you know? We weren't perfect, but we really had something, and I just want to make sure she's okay. She didn't look okay, up there with that fake bull, and I don't like it. I know her; she's kinda delicate. All this is gonna be too much for her.”

“You have a lot to say.” interrupted an unfamiliar, accented voice. The little knot of campers jerked to attention. A young man stood nearby, arms crossed, glaring.

“Uh, yeah...” Todd said. “To my friends. Who are you?”

“Fritjof.” the stranger said shortly.

“That's the mutant.” one of the campers whispered urgently. “We saw him out in that fight, remember? He throws fire!”

“Oh.” Todd held his hands up in front of him. “Hey man, we don't have any beef with you. No need to lose our tempers or anything...”

Fritjof snorted. “Somehow, I doubt this.” he sneered.

“Frit!” A woman cried, then rattled off a quick sentence Todd could not understand. Fritjofs intimidating stance softened, and he answered back.

“I'm going to dance now.” He told Todd. “Be a more gracious guest.”

Several of the campers let out the breaths they'd been holding, as he left.

“What a freak.” One of them muttered.

“Don't know what his problem is, but I think he could use a class on minding his own business.” Todd said.

“So, you wanna go dance?”

“Not really, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to go see what it's like.”

******

The dancing was energized and frenetic; stomping, clapping, twirling, leaping. It was full of laughter and celebration, messy and unchecked. The commoner's dances were danced by all, and you had thrown yourself into them with relish. From arm to arm you passed, jumping and shouting in time with everyone else.

You danced, and spun, and bounced, finally ending up panting back in Loki's arms.

“Come, sit with me.” he said. “You need a breather.”

He sat you down in one of the covered seats, wrapped you in his cloak for extra warmth, and pressed a cup of hot cider into your hands. The community continued to dance, some breaking off to rest, some jumping back in. You simply watched, sipping your cider as Loki twirled Sjofn, Thor kicked with Wanda, and a very tall Asgardian lady tried to entice an increasingly uncomfortable looking Dr. Banner. Even Gloa seemed to be having a good time, though you noticed Alarr was nowhere to be seen. Andsvarr, however, was dancing for all he was worth, and rarely let Saldis out of his grasp. It was cute, but not as cute as Tara, slightly drunk off buttered rum, flirting openly with several very confused Asgardians, or your father, trying hard to avoid Dr. Banner's fate.

Loki whirled his way back to your side, and plopped down next to you, but must have noticed you were fading.

“It has certainly been a long day, hasn't it?” he asked. “Would you prefer to return to our rooms?”

“Yeah. As much as I'd like to stick around, I'd really need some sleep.” you admitted. “Gotta be up bright and early tomorrow too.”

“Then shall we?” He offered his arm, and somehow the two of you slipped away without much notice.

“Are you going back out?” you asked, as he tucked you comfortably into his bed.

“Yes, for a little while longer. It's best that my brother and I be seen out among the people for as long as possible. I'll be back later. Sleep soundly, my dear.”

The rigors of the day caught up to you quickly, and you had no inkling of how much time had passed when you finally felt him slip into bed next to you, smelling of sweet crystal mead.

#lasabrjotr #loki (marvel)#loki x reader

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de-profundis-ad-astra · 3 years

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Fury, Oh Fury - Part One

Triple Frontier | Hunger Games AU

Me: Hey what if I started working on Fury again? Y’all: Me: Hey if I started working on Fury again would you read it? Y’all: Me: Okay okay you’ve forced my hand I guess I gotta start working on Fury again

Rating || Mature (for graphic descriptions of violence/gore and strong language) Characters || Ben Miller. William Miller. A good chunk of this fic will be heavily focused on the Miller brothers, because I’m most comfortable writing them and I feel like I know them the best. Rest assured, Pope and Catfish will be making appearances ~eventually~ Word Count || 4.2k Taglist || (Starting out tagging some mutuals and people I remember from the previous taglist) @firefeatherx @mylifeliterally @mandoplease @phoenixhalliwell @skylyknightly @havenforafrazzledmind @beatriz-silva-00 @veuliee @veuliee2 @oldstuffnewstuff @dindisneydjarin @lilacyennefer @dignityneeded @agirllovespancakes @xjustmenobodyelse @oscarflysaac @jaime1110 @goldenhour-goldenboy @pascalz @briskywalker @herestherealproblem @givemethatgold

Author’s Note || For anyone who might be new here, @veuliee sent me a concept that I kinda uh, tripped over my own feet and plunged face first into and that’s the story of how I started writing a Hunger Games AU for Triple Frontier. Things got unbelievably crazy once I started work, and I’ve had some pretty unhealthy work/home boundaries with being virtual. I’m trying to establish some healthier limits and make more time for my writing, and this seemed like a good enough starting point. That and the outlines for the rest of this fic are still staring at me and demanding to be written.

So, here goes.

Home hasn’t felt like home since Will left.

It’s been nothing more than a house since the day of the reaping, almost a month ago. A collection of walls with a roof—the same as any other building. The place where he grew up. A place to rest his head and feed himself between training sessions. It won’t be home until Will comes back.

If he comes back.

Will has trained for this, Ben tells himself when doubt creeps in, wraps its icy fingers around his lungs and clenches tight, pushes down on his chest in the dead of the night and it feels like Ben is drowning. Will practiced and fought and earned the chance to volunteer for District Two. He wouldn’t have been selected as the male tribute for this year if his teachers hadn’t felt he had a strong chance of returning victorious.

But there had been Two’s female tribute also. And the tributes from One and Four. All were formidable in a fight, and knew the tips and tricks to survival that would be essential in the arena. Not to mention the Games themselves were an absolute wild card. For all Will’s training, he still could be killed by a natural disaster of the gamemakers design, stabbed in the back by his allies, a tribute from an outlying district could catch him off guard.

There’s far too much that can go wrong; Ben drowns each and every thought behind his own training at the academy.

He can’t let that kind of vulnerability shine through. Not to his father. Not to his peers. Especially not when he’s being followed as much as his brother in the arena. Since the field of tributes narrowed down to eight five days ago, when Capitol cameras and personnel arrived to interview him and his father, there’s been hardly a moment of privacy. So Ben covers his fear with a smile, says he has full confidence that his brother will be home as soon as he can. He laughs when they ask him if he’ll volunteer one day, just like his brother did.

Ben answers with a grin, says he has no place to make that determination—but who knows?

Deep down… he knows. He’s known for a while now. He’s young, but he’s already tall, strong, quick. A prodigy, they’d said of his skills. A promised child, just like his brother was.

In spite of his age, Ben is favored to volunteer and represent District Two in the coming years. For now, though, the focus is on honing those skills, shaping him into the best warrior they can to bring pride to District Two.

The Capitol, they say, are charmed by him already. The idea of two brothers bearing the title of Victor is the kind of narrative they’re keen to fall for. So Ben plasters that smile on and lets himself become a part of the show.

Because if he lost Will…

If he lost Will—

Where would home be?

All of District Two seems to have hit pause, every pair of eyes glued to the nearest screen.

Peacekeepers-in-training pause their exercises. Future tributes stop their sparring matches. The lines at every shop in town are on hold. Even the children have stopped playing their games to witness this.

And in the city square, standing in front of the Justice Building in a roped off section reserved for family, the mayor, and a handful of District Two’s more recent victors, thirteen year old Benjamin Miller tries to keep his fidgeting down to an occasional scuff of his feet on the dusty ground or flex of his weary muscles.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we are entering the final moments of the Fifty-fourth annual Hunger Games!”

The massive screens mounted in the square broadcast live footage from the arena. Presently, two feeds are placed side by side, dedicated to the two remaining tributes of this year’s Hunger Games. One tracks Will’s every move, the other follows his opponent: the boy from District Four.

Will abandoned the Career pack when there were still fourteen tributes left. One night, during his watch shift, he left them behind, taking with him a pack with enough food to last him four days, a bottle of water, a sleeping bag, a hunting knife, and his preferred sword. A long, wicked thing most people might have struggled to wield two-handed. Will handled it with ease. One-handed.

Speculation rippled through the district at that. The decision to leave so early in the Games was shocking enough. Why not kill the rest while they slept and increase his odds of victory by an exponential margin? It was known that the pack would disband eventually, but why so soon?

At the academy, Will was both praised and berated for his choice. It was understandable to leave before bonds formed and killing another tribute turned into killing an ally. But so early? When so much could go wrong? It was a risk not many were brave enough to take.

In the arena, navigating the terrain proved to be its own exercise of survival. This year’s terrain consisted of three mountains of varying height, surrounded by dense forest. It became apparent early on that the woods were not safe, as they were crawling with all manner of predators, both organic and manufactured by the Capitol. Two weeks into the Games, the gamemakers destroyed the entire forest with a raging wildfire, killing an additional two tributes.

The forest now uninhabitable, Will had taken to carving out several hiding places among the mountainsides. Once he’d burned through his rations, he relied on hunting small creatures still inhabiting the cliffs and whatever his mentor was able to provide through sponsors. With the element of surprise working for him, Will had managed to ambush and eliminate four additional tributes, bringing his kill count to a whopping ten—high above the average for a typical career.

Almost half of the playing field, brought down by one seventeen-year old. Will must have struck a deal with his allies before the start of the Games, because during the bloodbath, he’d done most, if not all of the killing while the remainder of his team secured their supplies from the Cornucopia. If he walked away from this, he’d be the pride of District Two for a long time to come on that merit alone.

When the tribute pack thinned down to four, the gamemakers struck again. Devastating rockslides hammered each mountain, cutting off both Will’s access to his hiding spots, and any freshwater sources he’d relied on. The slides killed two tributes, the girl from One and the boy from Five.

Ben remembered watching in abject horror as his brother fled from the avalanche, finally managing to take cover underneath an outcropping of rock that shielded him from the worst of it. He’d escaped, though not without accruing a fair amount of scrapes and bruises along the way. The worst of it was a small, but deep cut slicing through his eyebrow. By a small miracle, it had stopped bleeding within an hour, but half of Will’s face was now crusted with streaks of dried blood, only adding to his already haggard state. He lost his knife in the chaos, but managed to hold onto his sword—his saving grace.

Not only that, but the only reason the boy from Four had survived was because he’d turned on his companion as they fled. When they were clear of the slides, while her guard was down, he’d shoved her back, right into the path of an oncoming boulder. She was crushed before she could even appear shocked by the betrayal. There weren’t even any remains left for the hovercraft to collect.

More whispers rippled through the district, then. Yes, it was sad. But it was what needed to be done.

No fresh water. Most of the wildlife either dead or scared off. Two tributes. It was evident the gamemakers wanted to end this fast. The Games had already lasted nearly three and a half weeks, far longer than average. This year had proven to be a particularly hardy bunch. Even getting a small water bottle into the arena at this rate would likely cost a large fortune.

Which meant they were on their own.

The moment the dust cleared, the cannons fired and faces projected in the sky, everyone knew what came next. Immediately, a space was cleared in the square for Ben and his father, victors called out to join and prepare to offer either congratulations or condolences depending on the outcome of the final encounter.

On the screen, Will inches his way along a narrow path on the face of the tallest mountain. All he has on his person is his sword and his clothes, veritably shredded after three weeks of fighting for his life in such an unforgiving environment. The landscape is similar enough that when Ben looks at the screen with the boy from Four, he can’t tell how near they are to each other. Will grew up in the mountains of Two. In theory, he should have an advantage over the boy from the coast. Nothing is ever set in stone, though—not in the Hunger Games. Four had proven himself to be quiet the adaptable tribute.

They have to be getting close, Ben thinks, there’s no way the gamemakers would push them away from each other at this point.

As if in answer to his thought, a low, feline snarl rumbles through the speakers. It’s faint, far away, but Will hears it. Everyone hears it. Pressing his back against the rock, he dares a swift look down towards the origin of the sound. As if oblivious to the cameras trained on him or simply not caring, Will’s shout cuts through the wind.

“Fuck!”

The camera angle switches, and Ben’s heart plummets.

Prowling about fifty feet beneath Will’s feet is a strange breed of feline, the likes of which Ben has never seen before. Three of them. Large, with a pale golden coat and small round ears. Long, curved, razor-sharp claws extending from all four oversized paws carve thin scratches into the rock as they pace back and forth beneath him.

Ben’s first thought is cougar, but then the cat looks up, and he beholds the elongated canines extending far past its lower jaw. He’s learned about it in school. A kind of cat that went extinct long before the continent was even known as the Americas. Despite his best efforts, Ben cannot recall its name.

It’s undoubtedly a muttation, designed and put out by the gamemakers to do one thing: kill.

The long-toothed cat bares its teeth, its companions following suit. From his perch on the mountainside, Will’s chest moves rapidly. He’s struggling to control his breath, Ben realizes. His throat tightens, his stomach tangling with itself.

Beside him, his father murmurs, “Move, William, move.”

“Look at that!” one of the commentators yells. “It seems the gamemakers have one last trick up their sleeves to push Will and Reed together!”

Ben grips the rope in front of him as if that is the only thing separating him from Will. The big cat crouches, leaps up to a rock jutting out from the mountainside, ten feet closer to him. Ben spares one glance towards Four’s feed. He doesn’t seem to be faring much better. Another trio of cats nip at his heels as he struggles to ascend the mountain.

Will’s breathing slows and deepens, and he masters himself enough to take several tiny steps closer to the end of the path. There, he will easily be able to summit the mountain, another twenty feet above his head.

The cats leap up another ten feet, and Will draws his sword with one hand. Bracing his free hand on the smooth, grey rock, he angles the blade towards the advancing cats and continues inching along. Only a few more feet separate him from the safety of the broad platform of stone. Beneath him, one of the cats leans back onto its haunches. Its entire body trembles before it goes preternaturally still, preparing to make one last leap towards its prey.

Reading the movements, Will does the same. For a moment, they lock eyes. Blue to gold, predator to predator. Silence grips the square. Ben’s lungs strain against his ribs, but he doesn’t let himself breathe. Not yet. Not when it feels as if a single puff of air could alter the course of history in this moment.

The cat leaps.

So does Will.

He goes nearly parallel to the ground, his free hand reaching out for something he can catch himself on and his sword hand sweeping downward the same moment the cat swipes a clawed paw towards him.

The honed edge of the sword slices deep into the neck of the feline. A trail of blood droplets follows the arc of the blade as Will twists in midair, angling his body so his back will take the brunt of the impact and tucking his chin down into his chest. The cat yowls as it tumbles back, the sound turning into an awful gurgle before cutting off. Its body falls down the steep mountain face. Ben only catches a short glimpse before it tumbles off the screen, but he can see that Will cut deep enough that its head is barely hanging on by a few tendons and muscle fibers. A thick streak of red smears the rock where it fell.

With a grunt, Will slams into the ground, sliding over the dirt and loose rocks for a moment before his body stills. He remains there for several seconds before ever so slowly, he turns onto his side. Pressing his left hand into the ground, Will pushes himself up, dragging his feet beneath his shoulders. As soon as he puts his weight onto his legs, he gives out and he topples back down.

Any relief Ben felt at his brother’s life-saving maneuver is swelled out by a pulse of fear when he sees why his brother can’t stand.

A duo of long cuts, so straight and deep it looks almost surgical, extends from the middle of Will’s thigh down to his ankle. Ben had been so busy watching his brother he’d been oblivious to the fact that the cat had gotten him.

Each breath Will takes has blood oozing from the laceration until the leg of his pants are soaked and glistening a deep, sullen red. He tries, and fails, again to rise to his feet. Even using the sword as a support, he loses his footing and crumbles, his weight kicking up a cloud of dust when he hits the rock.

“In a stunning turn of events, it seems that the outcome of these Games have already been determined…”

Get up, Ben thinks with every shred of desperation he has. Get up, Will.

Will sluggishly turns onto his back, and hoists himself upright with his legs stretched in front of him. It seems to take every bit of energy he has to shrug his jacket off, and slide it underneath his bleeding leg. He brazenly ties the sleeves around his thigh until his arms are straining and the blood flow slows. The makeshift tourniquet may save his life, but it’s only a matter of minutes before the damage is so permanent that he risks losing the limb altogether.

Again, using his sword for support, Will heaves himself to his feet. He wobbles again, and Ben feels his heart rise into his throat before he steadies himself. Will straightens, and takes a few limping steps towards the final ascent. He’d been so busy tending to his wound, worrying about the big cats, that he hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps. Ben, too wrapped up in concern for his brother, hadn’t checked the other video feed, hadn’t heard the commentators call out in shock—

When Four crashes into Will and sinks a knife into his shoulder.

Ben, his father, the city square, the entirety of District Two, cry out in collective shock as Will and Four go down, Four pinning him with a roar so inhuman it sends a chill skittering over Ben’s bones.

It’s worse, so much worse than he’d imagined.

Blood sprays, and Will’s fingers splay when he hits the rock. His sword clattering too far for him to reach. Ben barely processes what he sees as he fights to remain upright. He feels the cameras in the square narrow in on him. He can’t give out. Not now.

Will rolls, flipping Four off of him and onto the ground, wrenching the knife in his shoulder free in the process. His blood drips down the blade as Four angles it in front of himself, his own arm shredded, likely from his encounter with those big cats. Will slowly climbs to his knees, beaten and bloody and entirely at a disadvantage. The blood, the dirt—he looks more animal than human when he bares his teeth.

Ben’s never seen anything like it. Anything so unearthly, so primal and raging.

Four leaps again, and Will leans down. As Four descends on him, Will straightens, and there’s a clang of metal on metal.

It takes a moment for Ben to understand what he sees.

But there’s Will, knife in hand, his face red with the effort it takes to keep Four from landing another blow. He’d lost his knife in the avalanche. He’d seen it.

How long had Will kept a knife hidden in his boot, waiting for a moment such as this to use it?

Will manages to deflect what would have been a life-ending blow, but they topple again. Four bellows as Will’s blade plunges into his forearm and twists. The shrieking of Four, coupled with the spray of blood, sends a chill weaving down Ben’s spine.

Move, move, move!

Four’s free hand slams into Will’s face hard enough to crack bone, and Will stumbles back, blood gushing.

Will just grunts, his brow bunching in pain and concentration.

Every part of Ben shakes.

Four punches his face again and the sound fracks from Ben, “Will.”

Four yanks his arm free of Will’s knife, blood spraying like rain as he slashes at Will. He catches Four’s wrist in the follow-through with both hands, pinning his arm across his body. Four swings with his free hand, the punch easily dodged this time by Will.

They stare at each other for long, uncounted moments, nothing between them but howling wind and heavy, pained panting.

Then Will does the last thing Ben expects him to.

He headbutts Four.

Will releases Four’s arm as he staggers towards the edge of the peak, right towards where the long-toothed cats stalk in wait. The blow proves disorienting enough, and though Four swings his arms wildly to regain his balance, he takes one step back too far back and plummets.

He screams as he falls, but it goes hauntingly quiet when he hits.

The impact of Four’s body on the stone is heard across the nation. They wait for the cannon, but there’s nothing.

The mutts attack.

Will sinks to his knees.

Ben clutches the rope so tightly his knuckles whiten. It could be minutes, it could be hours, before the cannon booms at last.

Will looks to the side, his eyes finding the camera as if he’s known precisely where it was the entire time. Something like relief shines there, overpowered by pain and fury and something feral as the announcer declares, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victor of the fifty-fourth Hunger Games, William Miller—the tribute of District Two!”

Two days later, Will’s final interview in the Capitol airs. Before now, he’s been kept keenly away from the cameras, and it becomes clear why the moment Ben sees him for the first time since his final glimpse in the arena. He wears a sharp grey suit, but any evidence of his injuries on his face have been wiped away. Whether by makeup or surgical alteration, Ben can’t tell. His skin is smooth and pristine, unmarred by bruises or cuts or even the faintest scar.

The crowd breaks into applause as Will is presented. He gives a winning smile, but the haunted glow is still there. He still looks a little too much like a cornered animal. His stylist is praised for his masterful capture of Will’s strength, physique, and iron-willed character.

Will sits in the victor’s chair like he was born for it. Maybe he was. He views the highlights with the rest of the nation, and answers his interviewer’s questions with grace.

“While you were there, in the arena,” says the host. “Was there any one thing that kept you going?”

Will seems to think on it for a moment, working his jaw over before he answers, “My brother. The whole time… I just wanted him to know that I love him.”

The audience croons about how strong and brave he is. Ben feels himself swell with pride.

He wants to be like Will one day, he thinks.

The wait for the train is its own agony.

District Two is nearest to the Capitol, but operations there don’t start until late in the morning on a good day. With the conclusion of the Games so fresh, it seems they need a few extra hours to get moving.

At last, the train rolls into the station late in the afternoon. No one comments on how Ben stood there, waiting for almost the whole day as more and more citizens of Two arrive to welcome their newest victor. They chatter amongst themselves, clearing space for Ben’s father as he arrives at last, fresh off his shift as the town’s head Peacekeeper.

As the train crawls to a halt, the voices around Ben die down, awaiting with bated breath for Will to show himself. Ben feels like he’s about to burst from his own skin with the anticipation—

The doors open, and there he is.

Will’s eyes snap to Ben’s almost instantly. The relief that cleaves through him almost knocks him to his knees.

Ben thinks it might have, had Will not leaped down and ran to him.

Will opens his arms, and Ben finds his way home.

Will remembers every face of every tribute in that godforsaken place.

The ones he killed directly haunt him the most.

He kept count of many things in the arena. The minutes that turned into hours that turned into days away from home… away from Ben. The number of breaths he still counted himself lucky to take. But most poignant of all was those faces. Each one, their faces as they died, had been etched into his memory. Every time he blinks, he sees them.

Ten. He killed ten of them.

The train barely makes a creak as it speeds over the railway. The ride from the Capitol to District Two isn’t long—barely an hour.

Though he grew up in one of the “wealthy” districts, there is a certain elegance to Capitol wares Will thinks he’s going to miss. He relishes in every moment he has left, wresting back thoughts of death and killing and betrayal.

He hadn’t been lying when he said it was Ben that got him through the worst of it in the arena. But that hadn’t been the whole truth, either. It was the thought of how he could redeem himself after so much tragedy, inflicting so much pain on others. He couldn’t do that if he let himself die in the arena.

How did Ben—little Benny, who perhaps wasn’t so little anymore but would always be to Will—see him now, at the end of it all? What could he say that would make all the violence, all the killing, right.

He didn’t know how, but he would do it. Will would make sure to see it done, no matter what it took.

Will is barely formulating what he can say to his brother when he feels the breaks engage on the train. All too soon, just like that, he’s back home… whatever home is, now. Sure, he’ll have the house in Victor’s Village and of course his family would be allowed to live with him, but the concept seems too foreign, now. He suspects it’ll take some time to adjust to that.

His mentor—a victor from about ten years ago, beckons him forward. Will’s legs are surprisingly shaky as he rises to his feet. Outside, he can hear the district already clapping, cheering for him. He tries to imagine Ben there, tries to pretend that his brother will be happy to see him, that he’ll be happy to see Ben.

The doors open.

Light floods the train car, and Will almost lifts a hand to block the sun. The initial surge of stimulus is overwhelming. The light, the sound, the unrelenting heat of the mountains. Will blinks hard to adjust his eyes.

As if by gravitational pull, he sees him.

His eyes find Ben’s, almost an exact mirror of his own. His brother’s eyes are wide, his face broken into a grin so wide it’s a wonder his skin hasn’t split.

That’s all it takes.

Will leaps down from the train car and runs. Every thought, every doubt, every word flees his mind as he takes in the sight of his brother. Healthy and whole and alive.

Ben’s there to meet him. They collide, and Will finds his way home.

#triple frontier #triple frontier fanfiction #william miller #william ironhead miller #ben miller #benny miller #pls god let this post to the tag on the first try #i don't want to redo all the formatting #triple frontier fic

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blizzardfluffykpop · 3 years

Text

Vermont

Summary: It’s been three whole years, thinking about you everyday, sometimes for hours, sometimes in passing. [Inspired by Your Graduation and Redo by Modern Baseball and Vermont by fail better, heal faster]

Oneshot

Word Count: 2,143

Jaehyun X Reader

Requested: Aite last one is for Mr Jeong! 13. “I’ll see you around?” “Yeah, I’d like that,…” “Merry Christmas, see you sometime.” + Jaehyun. Work your magic! Hope you had fun writing!

Prompt: 13. “I’ll see you around?” “Yeah, I’d like that,...” “Merry Christmas, see you sometime.”

It’s unbelievably hard to date an idol. I knew that when I fell for Jaehyun, I knew it when we started dating. Why would I believe dating him was going to be different? That him being an idol wouldn’t have any effect on our relationship? I understood he had a schedule and obligations, just like I did. That wasn’t the problem, where the problem lied was right in the company. Once SM caught word we were meeting up with each other,...

That’s when SM started controlling us. We were allowed to date, but there were restrictions placed on us both. If we stepped too far over the line, SM would kick Jaehyun out of NCT. We were free to keep contact with each other but when he was on a show our communications were off-limits. That didn’t bother either of us because he had to concentrate on work, which was fine. Just like we couldn’t go public which I knew from the get-go. It wasn’t hard following them was the easier part of it all. It’s when Dispatch would catch us, two years into our relationship. When everything would hit the fan on Christmas Day three years ago.

I came over to the dorm to spend Christmas with Jaehyun. We were enjoying ourselves, eating Christmas cookies and drinking. When we heard a knock on our door, in pops Taeyong, looking somber and not meeting either of our eyes. We asked him what was wrong and he showed us his phone in defeat. When we finally got a good glimpse of it, we knew we were fucked. It wouldn’t be long for us to get a call from SM. Having to end our time together on Christmas early to head over to the SM entertainment building.

As much as I loved Jaehyun, I knew the decision I had to make before we even got out of the dormitory. It was going to hurt, but that pain would be nothing compared to him losing a career over me. When we got inside we were told to meet Lee Soo-man in his office. We looked at each other and decided to take our time. Avoiding the inevitable by going up the stairs together. We reached the fifth floor and he turned around and looked me in the eyes. “No matter what happens, I want you to know I love you with my whole heart.” I nodded and kissed his nose, “I love you so much, Jaehyun, nothing can change that.” He nodded back and grabbed my hand, holding it tightly, like I was going to float away and I would never get to see him again.

It was sad to know that was close to being right. We reach the door and I gulp as I reach my hand out and knock on the door. From inside he says, “Come in,” trying to calm down I squeeze his hand and he smiles down at me. I smile back up at him, my smile soon turning into a frown as Jaehyun opens the door and I set my eyes on Lee Soomin.

He gestures for us to sit down and with heavy hearts we do. “I know you’ve already seen Dispatch’s news. This can go one of three ways, one you risk it all for each other. If the fans have a big backlash you leave the company, Jaehyun.” I gulp, I know I can’t let that happen. “Two you deny the allegations and you,” he stares at me, “start dating someone from your workplace publicly.” I shake my head knowing I could never do that Jaehyun, my heart could never take that. “Three, I’ll pay you to live in another country and you don’t come back. We’ll say you guys dated in the past.” I hold the tears back not wanting to look weak in front of his CEO. Jaehyun looks over me and squeezes my hand, I already know which choice he wants to take. He would risk it all if it meant we could be together. But, I know his career means everything to him. I can’t risk him losing that for me, I don’t care how much it hurts me. I know it will hurt Jaehyun, but his dream is to be an idol and who am I to get in the way of that? “I choose option Number 3.” Jaehyun shakes his head, “No--” I shake my head at him and kiss his hand. “Being an idol is your dream and I can’t let you lose that over me.”

I walk out of the office as Jaehyun runs after me. I’m down three flights of stairs before he catches my shoulder. Tears stream down our faces, knowing the consequences of my actions. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, Jaehyun.” He nods, “I know, nothing can change your mind when you’re set on something,...” I look down at my shoes and say, “I’ll see you around?” I nod and sniffle, trying to wipe most of my tears away, “Yeah, I’d like that.” He grabs my face and we look at each other in the eyes, and for the last time, we share a kiss. Our hearts burn as we realize this is an untimely end. We walk down the stairs and I say, “Merry Christmas, see you sometime.” He nods, “Merry Christmas, I’ll see you then.”

The next day, I boarded my flight to Vermont. I didn’t know anyone, and I wanted the world to suck me in or destroy me in the collision. Neither of which happened, my heart was in pieces and I had no way of contacting Jaehyun. None of my friends from Korea knew what happened to me. I couldn’t even tell any of them, my phone was confiscated and I was lucky that I had my parents' phone numbers memorized. I went to a pay booth that night, calling them up and telling them what went down. They wished to hold me and comfort me, but their words did little to comfort me. The only person that could comfort me was no longer allowed to have contact with me. My heart shattered in more ways than one, at least Jaehyun could still pursue his career.

I wished to be anywhere but in fucking Vermont. But I was stuck here, with only enough to pay for rent and food. It took three months before I found a good enough job to at least have a furnished apartment. I cursed out Lee Soomin’s name to the point where my throat was sore. Some nights, I couldn’t find it in myself to fall asleep because Jaehyun wasn’t there. I began to hate Christmas, it was an ugly reminder of how I could never be with Jaehyun. Snow in Vermont is a sight to see when you’re not cursing at it. Because if it wasn’t for Christmas Day I’d still be in Jaehyun’s arms. And maybe, just maybe, we would be happy together and never have to worry about Dispatch catching us. Maybe, we should have been more careful, but when you’re in love that’s not how it works. Maybe, if the entertainment world wasn’t so fucked up we would still be together. But it’s been three years since then, and I have had yet to see Jaehyun.

I’d rather be home than stay in Vermont where I’m cut off from everyone except my parents. But I’ve been excommunicated from my country, my home, my life. So I learned to suck it up. I worked so hard to get over it, my favorite genre was Kpop, and now I can no longer stand it. I know if I’m not lucky, I would catch Jaehyun in the crowd. My heart still longs for him but my mind has moved on. I’m as happy as I was when I was with Jaehyun. I feel comfortable by myself, and maybe Vermont isn’t so bad.

My father calls me up on Tuesday and tells me, “It’s taken a while but we have a big surprise for you.” My mind is reeling, did they get me a pair of Heelys? That’s been on my Christmas list since I was little! “Really? Your presents are on the way and should be there by Friday morning.” He laughs, “Okay honey, but don’t hate me for your surprise. It took a lot of haggling to get it.” That raises my concerns, did he have to fight a poor mother over a pair of Heelys? “Okay,... I promise whatever it is I won’t hate you. I love you guys” I hear him hum, “We love you too, have a Merry Christmas if I forget to call you.” I nod forgetting that he can’t see that, “Alright you guys have a Merry Christmas, see you soon.” I know I won’t be able to see them soon but the idea feels comforting.

Friday, Christmas Day, I hear a knock on my door and throw on my coat. Expecting a UPS delivery person to be standing outside my door with a present from my parents. When I open my door, my heart soars as my stomach sinks. I pull him in, it’s not the UPS person. It’s Jaehyun, “How did you get here? Why are you here! Oh no, you can get in so much trouble. How did you--” He smiles, “It’s nice to see you too.” I lock my doors and look out the window to make sure no one else saw him enter. “I don’t know if you saw the news lately,...” I shake my head, “What news?” I lead him over to my kitchen table and sit across from him.

“SM lifted all the dating bans and basically told fans to shove it. Idols deserve to live their lives,...” I scoff, “Wow, that would have been nice three years ago.” My heart thumps at the implications of his statement but I keep it cool. “I never got over you,... I tried everything, (Y/n), nothing seemed to work. Do you know how often I was over at your parent's house? Whenever you would call I would beg to talk to you. But I knew if I did, you would cut off communications with them. Not wanting to harm my career,... As much as it is noble of you, I desperately missed you.” The tears start streaming down our faces just like that fateful Christmas Day.

My heart lurches out of my chest, wanting to hold Jaehyun in my arms. “I missed you too, Jaehyun. There are still sometimes when I wake up and cry because I realize you’re not there next to me.” He wipes his tears with his coat, “I told you Merry Christmas, see you then,... I meant it.” I nod, “Is this what they meant when they said they haggled?” He rubs the back of his neck, a habit he had whenever he got nervous. “The day your parents found out, they fought with Soomin for three hours. I wish I was kidding,...” I laugh, “From then on they had been digging at his character, making him break. They would call me in ever so often because they wanted me to speak about my experience. How it ripped me from the inside out to lose you because of my career. That I couldn’t keep it while I dated you.” I wipe a few tears from my eyes, “You know if it wasn’t for my resolve to make sure you could keep your career. I would have been in your arms just to piss off Soomin and Dispatch.” He nods, “My parents almost convinced me to come back home on many different occasions.” He gets up from where he’s sitting and wraps his arms around the back of the chair and me. I pull him around and we cry into each other’s arms.

“I still love you, Jaehyun. I wish we could have a complete redo.” He shakes his head, “I don’t want to redo, I want to continue.” I laugh, “Well, what’s stopping us?” He looks up and grins at me, “Nothing now… So what do you say, (L/n) (Y/n), would you like to be mine again?” I lean down and kiss his forehead, “I never stopped being yours.” He smiles, “I love you,...” “I love you too, Jeong Jaehyun.”

I started loving Christmas again, he helped me move back home. After we spent the rest of the day enjoying Vermont. A place I still wasn’t accustomed to, a place I didn’t enjoy until Jaehyun was back with me again. They say the heart grows fonder when you are away for longer. That if you love someone, let them go. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were. I knew in my heart someday we would be in each other's arms again.

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tricksters-captain · 4 years

Text

FP Jones/Andrew’s Family/Riverdale imagines - Oh Dear Part 35 - Final Chapter - A Sore Goodbye

A/N: This is based on the memorial episode for Luke Perry. Watching and writing this was very hard and I miss him as do many fans and everyone who ever knew him. My characters pain here is almost real as it pained me to write about Fred’s death knowing that we didn’t just lose Fred Andrews, we lost Luke Perry. I hope you enjoy this final chapter of ‘Oh Dear’. It’s been a wild ride and I thank every single reader, liker, etc. I love you all.

MASTERLIST LINK (HERE)

Overall Summary: You’re Archie’s older sister and you have a thing for a certain Serpent.

This chapter: Based on Season 4 Episode 1 - (Y/N) has been living away from Riverdale for two years now. Only keeping touch with her family every now and then but (Y/n)’s brother, Archie, and herself never allowed any Riverdale drama to pull her back to the town which held the man she loved but couldn't have. But the sudden death of her father meant she had to finally return...

Pairing: Reader x FP Jones, Sister!Reader x Archie Andrews, Daughter!Reader x Fred Andrews,

Word count: 8,864

Warnings: Very emotional. Loss of a father. Some strong language. Some smut.

“(Y/N).” His voice was like velvet as his arms snaked around you.

You slowly moved in his arms to face him. Your smile widened as you met his eyes.

“You’ve been gone ages–” Fp’s mouth cut your words short as he kissed you deeply and with a hunger you could feel in the pit of your own stomach.

Your fingers tangled themselves in the older man’s hair within seconds, your hips pressing against his as he held you tightly.

You dragged the man backwards to the bed behind you and allowed yourselves to fall down onto it. FP’s hands rushed to rip the clothes from you.

You let your eyes roll backwards at the feeling of his hot tongue against your neck.

His hands left your body for a moment which made you pout and whine in desperation. The empty feeling didn’t last long as hands placed themselves back against your soft skin; but the feeling was different... Not completely foreign but not him.

Your eyes fluttered open to see Malachai’s face. The air flooded your lungs in a sharp gasp but before you could make another sound, Malachai’s hand trapped your lips beneath it.

You screamed into his hand and tried to fight underneath him but his body felt like a deadweight.

You watched him with wide eyes as he moved closer to your face; his lips and eyes blood red.

You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling his fevered breath against your cheeks, trying your best to mentally escape this.

You finally felt the weight lift from you when you snapped your eyes open and thrashed forward, sending your bedsheets across the floor.

Sweat drenched you.

It took you a minute to realise you were alone in your apartment, not in Riverdale.

You shifted your legs off the side of the bed and rested your elbows against your knees with your head low whilst you tried to slow your breathing.

It'd been months since you dreamt of Riverdale; of FP; of Malachai and that night.

You lifted your mobile from the bedside table and a glaring 4:43am flashed back at you.

It was July so the sun was already rising outside.

You pushed back your curtains and opened your window to let some air into the stifling room.

It wasn’t likely you’d be able to sleep against after a dream like that so you just headed to the shower and put some coffee on for yourself.

You kicked some of the dirty clothes from the night before towards your clothes hamper as you entered the bathroom to cool off and clean the nightmare from your body.

Your apartment was small and you hadn’t been there very long but it was perfect for you. No one had been inside it but you since you moved in so you felt like you truly had a place just for yourself.

You let the water cascade down your body and through the tangle that is your hair.

You thought after all this time why would the dreams be coming back?

The dreams plagued you for weeks when you first left Riverdale but after your first short relationship with some barista that you met in your first town, they’d completely disappeared. They’d only ever come back if you had been heavily drinking but you hadn’t gone out drinking for weeks so why would it happen now?

You managed to waste some time in the shower, clearing your head before you slipped into some clothes and went to get your coffee.

You checked your phone again to see that only 40 minutes had passed so you decided to go through your unopened messages.

Archie had texted you last night asking how you were but you must've been asleep when he did.

You had to admit you missed your little brother, you had always been there for each other even when you disagreed with each other. It was hard for you to stay away from Riverdale when he was arrested so soon after you left but Archie had convinced you to stay away. He always convinced you any problem in Riverdale was smaller than it was in order to stop you from leaving your current life to return to one you didn’t really want.

You contemplated calling him but you knew that he'd be asleep. That boy always tended to sleeping if he wasn’t with Veronica or facing whatever problem Riverdale currently had.

You put down your phone and walked over to your small portable radio to switch it on. Your footsteps pattered around the apartment whilst the quiet music began to fill the space.

You had work today but it wasn't until 8, it was a small bookshop a few blocks down so there was no need for your bike. Still you eyed your helmet and keys and wondered where to go.

You downed your coffee as the idea came to mind then grabbed your keys, heading down to the apartment blocks private garage.

The wind challenged you as you rode towards the smell of the ocean. You inhaled deeply as you pulled up to the sand, slowing down to eventually switch off your engine.

You had travelled all over the U.S. and some of Europe too but you always ended up somewhere near the sea. It was calming and even during these hotter months where the beaches became overcrowded and noisy, you somehow always found the most peaceful area or time to just come and sit.

You fought the urge to go swimming over the couple of hours you sat there due to the fact you knew you'd have to head to work shortly.

“Morning (Y/n).” The son of the owners of the book store was sat behind the counter with an open book on his lap. He was about Archie’s age and was very polite and nice enough but you knew that he held a small crush on you which made it a little difficult to converse sometimes.

“Morning Jeffrey.” You smiled as you passed him to walk into the small staff room to place your bag inside.

“That book for your dad arrived yesterday afternoon while you were off.” Jeffrey hopped off his stool to collect the novel for you.

“Perfect. I wanted to write a note inside it before I sent it to him.” You explained to the boy about why you didn't just order it to your old home. It was that and the fact it was way more expensive to order the book to the house rather than the bookstore.

“Well if you need me to run it down to the mail for you, I’m heading there at lunch?” Jeffrey offered as he leant against the counter, close to your side.

“Thank you, Jeff, but I’ll probably write in it tonight and send it off before work tomorrow.” You passed on the offer which made the boy look a little disheartened but you brushed it off and asked what other orders came in yesterday so that you could start on calling the customers to inform them.

A couple hours into your shift you kept feeling your phone vibrating in your pocket. You excused yourself to use the bathroom and checked it to see it had 1 missed call from your Dad, 3 from your Mom, 2 from Archie and 3 from Jughead.

You called Jughead since his was the most recent number and he answered within two rings.

“Jughead? What the hell is going on? I’m at work and my phone’s been exploding with missed calls from you, my mom and Archie?” You didn’t bother with a hello since the calls seemed so urgent.

“(Y/n)...” Jughead swallowed. “(Y/n), you need to come back to Riverdale. It’s your dad...”

“My dad? What’s happened? Is he okay?” You felt your chest tighten.

“(Y/n), he... He died.”

The words spun around in your head like a marble in a bowl.

“Jughead... Whatever you’re playing at...” You started, trying, hoping, that this was some stupid game or prank.

“(Y/n), it’s true. Archie got the call from the hospital. He was in an accident. The details aren't clear at the moment but––” You hung up as Betty took Jughead’s phone and spoke the truth.

You threw your phone across the bathroom which resulted in your screen cracking but it didn't matter. All that matter was that your dad, Fred Andrews, was dead.

The events that followed were a blur.

Jeffrey sent his mother into the bathroom, an elderly woman with kind eyes and red hair. She found you collapsed on the floor with tears streaming down your cheeks and tried to help you as you gathered the words together to tell her what happened.

The next thing you knew was that you were at your apartment, packing a small rucksack full of essentials with your bike keys in your hand.

The only moment that became clear in your memory of that moment was when you pulled open your closet door to find your old Serpent jacket.

You held the rough leather material in between your fingers as you reminisced your old life. You ran the tips of your index and middle finger over the embroidered snake but only Fp’s face flashed before your eyes.

You pushed down the memories of the Serpents and continued to pack.

You didn’t know how long it took you to travel home. You knew you didn’t follow the speed limits but you didn’t care. You needed to be home. You needed to know if it were all true. Really true.

You passed the old sign at the border of the town and what felt like a hundred different emotions all seemed to hit you like once.

WELCOME TO RIVERDALE

You hadn’t stepped foot into the town in a couple years now. It felt like a whole new place now.

That is until you hit the top of your road where your old home resided.

You pulled up in front of the house and stared up at the front door with tears in your eyes.

Your dad's truck wasn't here.

“(Y/n)?” The door opened whilst you were lost in your head. Archie must've seen you from the window after hearing your bike pull up.

“Arch?” Your eyes met his with the question you didn’t want answered.

A tear fell from Archie’s eye. You immediately rush up the stairs and took him in your arms.

“(Y/n)?” Your mothers voice crept up behind Archie. It was almost a disbelief in her voice.

“Hi Mom.” You wiped your nose and faced her. In that moment, all hatred and betrayal washed away and you just wanted to be a family again.

The three of you held each other in the doorway, sharing the same pain, crying the same tears.

When you finally parted, Archie was the one to notice his friends had gathered outside.

“It’s good to see you, (Y/n).” Betty was the first to greet you. “It’s been too long. I’m sorry this is why you had to come home.”

You could see the pain in Betty’s eyes, the sadness, the sympathy.

“Me too.” You whispered, returning her hug.

Veronica then hugged you and so did Jughead but when Reggie made some comment about how good you looked you decided to leave them be.

You tiptoed up the stairs to your old room. It was just the same as you left it, not that you stayed in it much towards your final few months in Riverdale.

As you sat down on your bed, you looked towards the door, half expecting to see your dad’s head poke around it to check on you.

You heard commotion in the garden. Archie and his friends were all putting seats around in a circle and chatting.

“When things started getting bad with my dad and drinking, my mom would call up Fred... for help.” Jughead’s voice caught your attention as you sat by the window. “And he would drive to the bar, and he would pick up my dad and he'd lay him on the couch. And he'd always stay a little while... just to talk to me... to see how I was doing in school, and... if I'd eaten dinner. He just wanted to know if I was hungry. I always was.” The group chuckled lightly at Jughead’s comment but the story just reminded you of FP. How you looked after FP when Fred could no longer do it...

You wondered what he was doing. How was he handling this?

You mentally scolded yourself for thinking about him when you were Fred’s daughter. You should be thinking about you and the pain you feel.

You heard a knock at your door. It was your Mom.

“I thought you’d want to know about the accident.” She sniffled as she entered.

You nodded your head. You wanted to know if he died in pain, if it was his fault or someone else's, something else’s...

“FP spoke to the Sheriff at Cherry Creek. He knows all the details. I don’t know if I can––” Your mother broke down in tears once again and you found yourself comforting her with a short embrace.

“FP? Why would FP know the details?” You pulled away, a little confused.

“FP is Riverdale’s Sheriff.” She managed to string together. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You were almost convinced this was all some crazy nightmare.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon.” You hurried past your mom and down to your bike.

You were at the station within minutes.

It took every ounce of energy you had left to walk through those doors at the station. Your feet felt like rocks being dragged through the mud at Sweetwater River.

The station was busy, people rushing around and talking to one another.

You found yourself outside the sheriff’s office, peering through the small glass window at a man you knew you recognised despite the khaki disguise.

He was on the phone, wrinkles frowned on his face and his eyes were glassy but focused.

You watched him put the phone down and pinch the bridge of his nose. He slid off the corner of his desk and moved around to his chair where he finally became horizontal to you.

His eyes finally lifted from his desk and upon seeing you, the colour seemed to drain from his face. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.

Suddenly, your flight mode kicked in and you turned to leave.

“(Y/n)!” FP’s voice seemed to freeze every joint in your body even though your mind was screaming at you to walk away.

“I only came to know what happened. What happened to my dad.” You couldn't stop the tears rising to your eyes but you refused to let them fall.

“Come... Come inside.” FP held his door open for you and you forced your feet to move in that direction.

“It’s, uh, good, good to see you.” FP seemed almost as nervous as you felt.

“It’s been–– Please tell me what happened.” You couldn’t do small talk right now. You were desperate. You wanted to know if it really were an accident.

“Fred was driving home to Riverdale when he pulled over to help someone's car that was stalled on the side of the road, and, uh... Another vehicle... came upon them way too fast and... He was struck by it.” FP could barely get the words out himself.

You buried your face into the palm of your hands as you broke down once again. He just wouldn’t ever say no to helping someone. And now he's dead because of it.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/N).” FP placed his hand on your back and the electricity almost made you jump backwards but you managed to stay sat.

“I kept dodging his calls. I hadn’t spoken to him in three weeks. I was sending him this stupid collectable book to apologise for my distance and now, now he’s... he’s...” You couldn’t help but let the words fall from your lips.

“Hey. Hey, now.” Fp pulled you towards him and you let yourself engulf in the man. His arms felt familiar, safe and warm. His scent flooded your nose which brought you some peace. “It’s alright.” He tried to assure you but seeing you in this much pain only made his pain worse.

You were even more beautiful than ever. His heart almost stopped when he saw your (y/e/c) eyes shining through the window. Sad but still bright.

“Sheriff?” The door swung open which made you pull away from the man out of habit. “Sorry to interrupt but there's a call waiting for you, sir.” The young deputy recognised you as Fred’s daughter and sent an apologetic look your way.

“I should be going. I shouldn’t be bothering the ex-Southside Serpent sheriff anyway.” You laughed a little trying to lighten the mood but nothing could lighten the darkness inside your chest.

You returned home and found yourself in your fathers closet.

You pulled out one of his favourite shirts and pressed it against your face. You hadn’t even gotten the chance to hug him since you last left Riverdale.

You pulled it on and retired for the evening to your bedroom.

Dreaming of you as a little girl in Pickins park with Betty as you took turns on the father/daughter potato sack race with your dad.

You woke in the morning to your mothers stern voice downstairs. She was clearly on the phone with someone who’d upset her.

You pulled yourself from bed and trudged down the stairs. You held on to the banister as you swung around to see your mom at the end of the hall in the kitchen on the house phone.

Your mother hung up before turning to face you. The irritation she once felt from the call had disappeared when she saw you stood at the bottom of the staircase with your father’s shirt on. You look almost as innocent and sweet as when you were a child, a picture image of you 8 years old in your dad's shirt to go play ball in the garden with your father and Archie came into her mind.

But today you were different to that little girl; dark circles clung to your eyes and your skin seemed to dull in colour. You weren’t a little girl anymore, you were a woman, but it seemed that both of you were desperately wishing times were different in this moment.

“Who was that?” You asked, you didn’t realise how hoarse your voice was until you spoke, it must've been from the crying during the night.

“Your brother. He went all the way up to Cherry Creek to fetch your fathers body.” Your Mom sounded almost as shocked as you felt by the news.

With that, you darted back upstairs and grabbed your cell.

“Archie?” You were fuming as Archie answered your call.

“(Y/n)?” Archie responded.

“Why did you go to Cherry Creek? Why didn’t you say anything? Why have I travelled all the way back to Riverdale just to be alone?” The questions seem to leave your mouth like a flood. “He’s my dad too, Archie. You didn’t think I’d come with you to bring him home? I waited so long to see him and now it’s too late.”

“(Y/n), I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d want––”

“––want to travel hours away to bring dad home? Want to see him as soon as possible?” Your voice broke as tears flowed from your eyes.

“I’m sorry, okay?! I had this nightmare and I left as soon as I woke up. I just couldn’t leave him here. I didn’t want you or Mom questioning or dictating to me about this journey. I’m sorry, (Y/n).” Archie sounded emotional himself. You wondered if he had seen your dad yet.

“What if I get on my bike and come up now? I’ll leave within minutes.” You suggested.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, (Y/n). It’ll take you a few hours to get here and by the time you arrive, we’ll be allowed to take dad and leave. You might as well stay there and make sure Mom’s alright. We’ll be back as soon as possible.” Archie discouraged your idea and as much as you hated it you knew it was best if you stayed and waited with your mother.

You heard the doorbell go off downstairs by the time you hung up the phone and got dressed for the day. You knew you had slept in your dad’s shirt but his scent clung to it so strongly you didn’t want to take it off.

The sound of high heels downstairs gave you an idea of who might have arrived so you weren’t surprised to see Cheryl and Toni in the hallway, embracing your mother.

“(Y/n)! Oh my god! Wait ‘till the Serpents hear your back!” Toni almost ran towards you when she saw you. You hugged the girl back and smiled at how grown and beautiful she’d gotten since you left.

“I’m terribly sorry for your loss, (Y/n), but I must admit seeing your face has made it a happier time for Riverdale.” Cheryl hugged you once Toni finally let you and all you could do was force a smile onto your face as you tucked your hands into your back pockets.

“The girls say they’ve come to ask us something.” Your mother chimed in.

“Actually I’m going to head out and look around town. It feels too heavy in this house without dad.” You admit, sending an apologetic look towards Toni.

“It’s alright. Maybe you can stop by Pop’s later and we can get some food and catch up?” Toni asked,

You just nodded before taking hold of the front door handle and escaping.

Just as you looked up from the concrete floor, leaning against the house door whilst letting out a deep breath of relief, there stood at the bottom of the steps on the sidewalk was FP.

You watched him remove his hat before stepping towards you.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his face full of concern.

“Just feeling a little claustrophobic.” You admitted you felt a little closed in with the visitors this morning.

“I see you kept your bike.” FP gestured to your motorbike on the side of the road.

“She took me all around the country. Broke my heart to leave her here for a while when I travelled Europe. I plan to take her to Italy in the future. I rode a bike there but it just wasn’t the same.” You found yourself talking about his gift to you with ease. It was the first conversation you had that wasn’t about your father.

“Wow, Europe? That’s further than most people from Riverdale get.” FP saw how you gushed over your bike and it made his heart squeeze knowing he was the one who got it for you.

He still couldn't believe you were stood in front of him. When you rode off and out of Riverdale he figured he wouldn’t be seeing you for a long time. Perhaps ever again.

You had grown in more ways than one. He could see the travel helped you find yourself or at least figure out yourself a bit better than Riverdale could ever do.

Even though you looked worn from the news of your father passing, he could see that you were comfortable in your skin, any insecurity you had previously shown was gone or hidden. He admired you from afar.

“How are you? How did you even become Sheriff? Are you seeing anyone?” You couldn’t help but let the last question be spoken aloud.

“Uh, it’s complicated.” His response seemed to answer every question. You noticed his eyes flicker to the Coopers household.

Alice.

“Do you, uh, do you want to get out of here?” You pointed your thumb down the direction of the street as you looked around.

“Um, (Y/n), I––” FP started, tugging on his belt loops with his thumbs as he too looked around but his answer only began to panic you.

“––No, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have asked. Things have changed, I get it.” You rambled on, hugging your arms around yourself as you retreated.

“I’d love to.” FP cut any more rambles from your mouth off.

“Your ride or mine?” You asked, nodding towards the sheriff wagon across the street.

FP chuckled and shook his head,

“Mine.” He made his way to the car, and opened the door for you.

The gesture was so small yet so large. Who was this man now? Has he changed much? His smile hasn’t changed. It never has.

He had his radio on quietly, probably so he wouldn't miss any calls on the police satellite. You tend to be busy as the sheriff of the town called Riverdale. This crazy, surreal like town.

“How’s Red handling it?” Fp asked,

“He, um, he went up to Cherry Creek last night. Arrived this morning to collect my dad. He didn't tell me or our mom. He just went with Jughead, Betty and Veronica and left. Called Mom this morning asking her to sign some paperwork so that dad could be released to Archie.” You stared out of the window as you spoke. The town floated by as if it hadn’t been bothered by Fred’s death.

“He what?” FP furrowed his brow as he looked over at you for a moment. “That boy...” FP started but you finished it with a light chuckle and a ‘I know’.

FP pulled off the main streets of Riverdale and toward the river.

“So, what happened the last time you spoke to your old man? You said you didn’t speak to him for three weeks after that.” FP was careful to poke due to the sensitive topic but for some reason, you felt calm enough with him beside you.

“Nothing. The usual, asking questions where I'm living, if I’m eating, have I met anyone? Have I got a job? But he kept talking about me coming to visit Riverdale now I was a little closer. He kept on about how much my Mom wants to see me and how happy it’d make Archie but... But I just didn’t know how to say that I didn’t want to come back yet.” You admitted honestly.

FP’s car wheels came to a squeaky stop as he pulled into Sweetwater River.

“I know it’s stupid and selfish and I should have come back when he asked. I mean he only wanted me to visit and now it’s too late. Now I can’t... He can’t... He’s not here.” You felt yourself crumble throughout the sentence and FP watched with tears in his own eyes.

“Hey.” He pulled you towards him, hugging you tightly. “It’s not your fault. You had only just got the hell out of here.” FP tried to comfort you.

You gripped onto his shirt as you buried your face into him.

“We all should have spent more time with him. Life likes to play these dirty games with us.” FP could feel the pain radiating from your body.

You seemed so small and fragile in his arms. You felt like the person you used to be right at the beginning of your relationship, when all you wanted to do was look after him and make sure he was alright. Now, he just wanted to make you feel alright.

“I remember when Fred found out that he was having a baby girl. He couldn’t have been more excited and terrified at the same time.” FP laughed softly, “Little did he know that little girl would grow up to be one of the kindest, strongest and damn-near smartest women in this town. Fred knew you were beautiful in and out, (Y/n). He believed you could do anything you wanted to.” FP explained, trying his best to bring some happiness to the memory of your father.

You pulled away slowly to look the man in the face. He took hold of your cheeks and tried to smile but you could see the sadness in his eyes.

“And I can’t believe that little girl grew up to change my life. She used all of her kindness and strength on a hopeless drunk who couldn’t hold down a job.” There seemed to be a hint of regret in FP’s eyes. Not regret for the relationship but perhaps regret that he had dragged you alongside him for so long.

“That man has turned out to be the sheriff today. Ex-king of the Southside serpents and sober. He helped me find a backbone and gave me something to fight for.” You argued with his negative outlook. “My dad must've been so proud to see you as big dog in Riverdale.”

FP lowered his eyes and shook his head with a smile.

“He wouldn’t have been proud much longer if he found out that his best friend had been in love with his only daughter.” FP’s words seemed to fall from his lips in slow motions as you processed what he had said.

You had no control over your body when you found your mouth meeting his, lifting his head back up.

FP didn’t expect the gesture but welcomed it as one hand found the back of your neck and the other squeezed your waist.

Your tongues danced together like two lost lovers had finally found each other again.

You tried to lean forward to press your chest against his but the position of the car seats wouldn’t allow it.

It was the police radio that interrupted you both, a deputy calling for ‘Sheriff Jones’ to return as there was new information on the Fred Andrews case.

You fell apart as quickly as you came together.

You shot your eyes down to your feet as you tried to catch your breath.

Fp stayed silent as he panted beside you.

The car came alive as he cleared his throat, pulling out of the famous riverside and back onto the main road.

You both remained silent until you pulled into the station.

Your skin felt like it was on fire from the passionate kiss but the news about the case overtook your thoughts.

You both rushed into the station and to the sheriff’s office where FP picked up the phone, dialling the Cherry Creek police.

You sat in the rigid uncomfortable chair opposite FP’s desk and bit down on your thumb nail as you waited anxiously.

You sat up in anticipation as FP hung up the phone.

“So?” You asked, your voice was soft, almost a whisper.

“The guy that hit Fred. He turned himself in this morning.” FP informed you, dialling a number on his cellphone.

“So they’ve got him? He’s off the roads?”

“He, uh, he made bail. He’s been released. It’s just how these things go sometimes.” FP could see the anger on your face when he said that the guy was released.

“But he killed my dad.” You felt sick knowing the man who killed your father was out walking around.

“And he’ll get justice for it.” FP said it in a way that you immediately it was a promise than a statement.

“I’m gonna call Red. Go ahead and inform your mother.” FP instructs you and you do as you’re told. Telling her only what you know.

When you returned to the office from taking the call outside, you could see the worry on FP’s face.

“What’s wrong?” You asked,

“Your brother. I think he’s gonna try and take justice into his own hands. I’m trying to get through to Jughead now.” FP held up his phone.

When Jughead finally answered, FP told him everything and Jughead said he’d take care of it.

“Jug will get to him. Archie might be mad but if they get to him first then no one should get hurt.” You tried to be optimistic. You didn’t want Archie starting a fight he might not win. Who knows who this guy is!

FP leant back in his chair and ran a hand over his face the way he usually does when he’s stressed.

“For some reason, it doesn’t feel real.” You murmured as you folded your arms across your chest and moved yourself in front of FP. Leaning back against his desk, standing between his legs.

“I keep thinking that I’ll go home and his truck will be there. He’ll be stood in the kitchen, buried in some paperwork with a beer bottle in his hand. He’ll moan at me for staying out so late and we’ll argue about how I’m an adult. But at the end of the night, he’ll still be leaning in bedroom doorway to say goodnight.” You didn’t realise you were crying against until the salty tears found your lips.

“This town’s not gonna be the same without him.” FP met your eyes with his own glassy ones.

“I didn’t tell him I loved him in three weeks.” You broke.

Fp rose to his feet and his hands squeezed your upper arms as he tried to get you to look at him.

“You didn’t need to say it. He already knew.” FP embraced you once again and you relaxed once more.

“Look, while you were on the phone to your mom, I got a call from Cheryl. She has this whole parade planned for when Archie returns with Fred. A special way to honour him and I gotta be the one to stop Archie from going straight into town. We’re gonna give him a police escort and let the town say goodbye.” FP thought the idea would give you something to look forward to. Something to be apart of.

“This town really loved him, huh?” You wiped at your nose and smiled sadly.

“Yes, they did. Now, if you’ll have me, I’d like for you to ride in the wagon with me out front.” FP knew it was a risky move but he knew you’d appreciate it.

You nodded your head, letting another tear slip from your eye.

FP caught it with his thumb.

The next thing you knew your lips were gently pressing against his.

Fp nor you could fight these feelings. Fp knew that if Alice or Jughead’s mom found out.... His thoughts seemed to disappear when your hands caressed his arms, leading up to your neck.

He deepened the kiss, closing the small space between you by lifting you up onto his desk. He fitted nicely between your legs and you arched your back against him as he kissed down your neck.

You internally rejoiced when you noticed the blinds on the office door were shut. Hopefully prompting anyone who needed to enter to knock.

You straightened back up to reclaim his lips as his hands moved up your shirt to your chest.

“FP.” You whispered, your hands were on his belt buckle but you didn’t make any movements to loosen it yet.

The pain of the past couple days seemed to melt away at the touch of one another. You were like each others morphine.

FP took the hint and yanked at your jeans, pulling them down your thighs to your ankles. You clawed at his belt, hissing when he brought you forward and sank his teeth into your shoulder.

You threw off your top and fixated your arms around the older man.

He could feel your want on the outside of your panties.

A moan escaped as his fingers brushed your sex as he moved your panties to one side.

“You have no idea how much I’ve needed this. You.” FP spoke against your skin as he pressed himself inside you.

You threw your head back for a moment before resting your forehead on the man’s shirt.

Fp lifted you slightly to get a better angle as he thrusted in and out of you.

He felt so good that the world around you seemed to become white.

“Fuck.” FP snarled as you rolled your hips against his.

His name left your lips as you both picked up the pace. You could feel yourself drawing close to climax already.

His hand buried itself in your hair and tugged as you bit down on your lip to stay quiet. Your cheek burned against his with the friction of his beard and the heat from you both.

With your bodies moulded together, the desperation of a release built.

You bit down on his shoulder as you unravelled, throbbing around him which only brought his release closer.

You let go of his shoulder and silently cursed at the wet teeth mark you left on his khaki shirt but you quickly forgot as he pulled his length from you and emptied his seed over your thigh.

He rested his forehead against you as you both caught your breath. You were glad you tore off your shirt as you were coated in a thin layer of sweat.

FP reached over to the box of tissues in the office and began cleaning up his mess.

He looked up from your thighs to catch something he had forgotten about on your shoulder.

A very obvious ‘M’ was scarred in your beautiful skin.

You watched him stare at you with a twisted look of pain. His thumb ran over the mark which made you flinch away slightly.

It was just a horrid reminder of what nearly happened that night. However, you refused to cover it with a tattoo as it also reminded you that you survived it.

You slid off the desk to tug up your jeans and scoop up your t-shirt.

You cringed slightly as you realised what you had done. You had thrown away your dad’s shirt to fuck his life long best friend on the sheriff’s desk.

FP must've noticed your face pale as he asked if you were okay.

You could hear his belt being done up and you muttered a swift apology about his shirt before turning the handle on the door.

“Hey! Wait!” FP called after you but you tried to escape the building as fast as you could.

As soon as you were out the station doors and the warm summer air hit you, you started sprinting.

You ran until your legs ached and when you finally stopped.

You were at the play park.

It wasn’t too busy considering what the day was.

You sat down on an empty swing and took a moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” You looked up at the sky as you spoke. You didn’t know whether you were happy he never found out about the affair or sad because all you did was lie to him for years.

The internal conflict you had only worsened the pain you felt.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.” The voice was enough to almost make you groan audibly.

“Don’t think anyone did.” You pressed your lips into a thin line as Alice approached you.

“No. I mean in the park. Of course, you’d come home for your fathers funeral.” Alice looked like she had been crying but her words were stable enough.

You didn't respond.

“I’m sorry for your loss, (y/n). Fred Andrews was one of the best men this town ever knew.” Alice stated.

“Yeah, thanks.” You pushed yourself off the swing and started to stride away from the woman when she caught your wrist.

“Hey, you need anything you let me know? You and Archie are as much family to me as my own.” Alice sent you a sympathetic smile and you couldn’t help but remember all the times you’d play with Polly and Betty at their house.

“Thank you, Alice.” You softened your words before turning to leave again.

“(Y/n)! (Y/n)!” Not long after you left the park you heard a man calling your name.

You faced the direction of the call to see FP shutting his car door to come towards you.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Archie’s almost back.” FP announced.

“We better head to the edge of town then.” You brushed past his shoulder to enter the car.

“Hey.” FP took hold of your wrist and made you look at him. “What happened?”

“I just... I’m wearing my dad’s shirt today. It smells like him. I threw to the side to be close with you and when I picked it up... I couldn’t help but think about how much I’ve lied to him. How many lies I told and how many secrets I kept.”

“Sometimes we have to keep things from others to keep them from getting hurt.” FP’s eyes darkened at the mention of your secret relationship.

“There’s just so much I never said.” You sighed, closing your eyes to prevent any more tears.

“Fred knew all of the important stuff you needed to say. We all kept a few secrets and lied to your old man, that’s the way it is in this town. We can forgive ourselves for it or we can let it turn you into a sour old drunk that can’t even feed his kids.” Fp’s eyes flashed with regret and sadness from his past mistakes.

Your throat was locked shut so you just nodded your head.

“Let’s go get your old man.” Fp opened the car door and you followed.

You didn’t have to wait long on the side of the road before Archie emerged in a hearse with your dad’s truck, driven by Betty and Jughead, behind him.

Fp pushed himself off the front of the car where you both had sat to wait, you lifted your head from his shoulder to watch him stand and raise his hand to slow Archie down.

“Everything all right, Mr. Jones?”

“Everything's good, Red. I, uh, heard what you, and Jug, and the girls were up to, and I wanted to be a part of it. I'd like to give your dad a police escort the rest of the way home, if you're okay with that. He deserves it.”

“Yes, sir.” Archie looked past Fp to you. You smiled as much as you could manage and quickly wiped away any water escaping your eyes.

“All right. Follow me then.” Fp leaving Archie’s side gave you the signal to climb into the wagon.

As you drove towards town, you couldn’t help but hold FP’s hand. He held onto you tightly and gave your hand a tight squeeze here and there when he caught you getting emotional again.

“He’d be so happy to see you home.” Fp told you.

“I know.” You agreed.

That's when the parade became clear ahead.

You smiled as you cried silently to the cheers and appraisal your father was getting.

You couldn’t help but laugh as the Serpents all cheered loudly as you passed. You blew them all a kiss as a thank you.

You didn’t stop crying until you pulled up in front of the house.

All the signs and familiar faces tore at your heart and made you think about how well known Fred actually was.

He changed a lot of people’s lives and you were so thankful he was always apart of yours; as your father.

As Archie exited the hearse, you opened your own door.

You rushed to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist as he approached your mother.

“I couldn't leave him there, Mom.” Archie confessed, taking both you and your mom into a tight embrace

“I know.” Your mom said as she snivelled repeatedly.

“I brought Dad home.” Archie looked between you and your mother. You only smiled and tucked yourself under his arm.

“You did. You sure did. I'm so proud of you. I know he would be, too.” Your mom gushed, Archie pulled her back into the group hug and you all just stayed there for a minute.

Fp watched from a distance as you hugged your family and he knew that things would never be the same in Riverdale ever again. He once thought that when he saw you leaving but now, now he knew that he truly meant it.

“Hey, I found something in Dad’s truck.” Archie parted from the hug and dug into his pocket.

What he pulled out was a photo of you, Archie and your dad. All together. Happy.

You laughed weakly as you stepped towards your bike, pulling up the seat to get into the under compartment.

You put your hand into a small bag inside and out came the exact photo but more crinkled and torn. It has travelled with you always.

“I can’t believe he’s gone, Arch.”

“I know. Me either.” Your brother buried you in his chest and it wasn't the first time you felt like the younger sibling between the two of you.

The funeral didn’t take too long to put together and before you knew it, the casket was being walked towards you and your mother at the graveyard.

You watched your mother press a kiss against the closed casket as she lay her rose on top.

You were shaking when you found the courage to step forward yourself.

You wrapped your arms around the casket and pressed your cheek against the cold wood, letting your tears hit it below.

“I love you, Dad.” You were heartbroken. Here lay Fred Andrews, never to be seen again. Not outside of pictures or videos.

Archie had to be the one to come forward and move you along as the crowd watched with agony in their hearts.

“And now... Fred's son, Archie, would like to say a few words.”

You watched Archie take the podium with more strength than you could even muster that day.

“‘Uh, earlier I was thinking... on the drive over here... how much of Riverdale my dad built... or just fixed up. Houses, office buildings... A bit of everything. He helped build this town. And one day if I'm lucky enough to have a son or a daughter of my own... I'll be able to point to a building or even just a brick in the building, and say, "Your grandpa made that... with his hands."” Archie paused, you smiled at the idea of a little Archie running around Riverdale.

“It's the 4th of July. I remember this one th... it was raining. The fireworks show was canceled, and, uh, I was so bummed, I remember sitting in the backyard just bawling... Until my dad came home with all these fireworks. I mean, enough to burn our house down, you remember that, (Y/n)? Mom?”

You and your mother nodded with a smile as she took your hand.

“And, uh... we lit them in the backyard, it was just... it was the best night. My dad was here for every high and every low. He's the greatest man I've ever known. It hurts me that I never got to say goodbye. That I won't get to see him again or talk to him. But his spirit and his memory lives on... in this town, and in everyone he's met. Fred Andrews will always be a part of Riverdale. I love you so much, Dad.” Archie finished his speech and you felt like you couldn't even move.

You felt horrible that you couldn’t say anything but you could barely get a word out without breaking down completely.

Once the funeral was over and you had returned to your childhood home, you went upstairs and draped one of your dad’s flannels over your shoulders and your dress.

“I miss you, Daddy.” You curled up on his side of the bed and buried your face into the sleeves of the flannel.

Archie could see you from the hall and he considered comforting you but the sight of you so broken was too much for him to bare at that moment.

You knew you couldn’t stay in Riverdale without Fred being there.

You knew you couldn't even stay a week just to stay with Archie.

You had spent so much time in the past fighting to stay in the town but now all it held was memories of your pain.

You returned to your room after what felt like hours, you must’ve fallen asleep at some point as you felt groggy when you finally lifted yourself up to gather your things together.

“You’re not staying for the fireworks?” Your mom appeared at your door.

“I can’t.” You tried to keep yourself composed. “I can’t, Mom. I can’t be here without him. He was always there. Always. When you left, when I'd fight against him, when I left. He was always right here.”

“I understand.” Your mom surprised you with her answer and even more with her hug. She kissed you on the cheek and pressed a smile onto her lips.

“I love you so much. Please don’t be a stranger in the future.” She begged,

You kissed her forehead as she lowered her head.

“I promise I won’t.”

As you moved away, you noticed she had changed and redone her makeup.

Archie was downstairs from what you could see from the top of the stairs and he too was dressed up.

You descended with your mothers hand in yours and your bag in the other.

“We’re about to start...” Archie’s words trailed off when he saw you were holding your bag.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll visit you real soon little brother.” You placed your bag down as Archie watched.

“Already?” Archie pouted,

“I have too. We all have our ways of coping. I can’t move past this if I stay here. I can’t stay here without him.” You were honest with your little brother.

You awaited an explosion but Archie followed in your moms footsteps and simply hugged you.

“Promise me this isn’t the last time I’m going to see you.” Archie whispered against my ear.

“I promise.” You kissed his cheek and pulled away. “Tell the others it was good t see them.” You didn’t want to deal with any more goodbyes.

“I will. You ready?” He turned back to his mom and she said she was.

You didn’t stay to watch them head out to the garden to watch the fireworks.

You put on your helmet and mounted your bike.

As you drove away, you smiled as you saw the fireworks in your wing mirror.

At the end of the road you noticed FP’s sheriff car parked and FP dressed in his usual get up of jeans and a flannel.

“Didn't think you could skip town again without a goodbye.” FP smirked as you stopped your bike.

“How’d you know I’d leave tonight?” You rose your voice enough to be heard over the fireworks.

“’Cause...” He shrugged and swaggered towards you.

“You think you can just smile at me and everything will be alright?” You removed your helmet as you spoke.

“I wanted to tell you something. Something I should have said a long time ago.” Fp only grew closer to you.

“I’m all ears, Sheriff Jones.”

“I loved you, (Y/n). I always loved you. You were this unexpected gift that came into my life and kicked the crap out of the old me. You taught me what it was like to feel again. You were better than any drink I had ever had.” FP began to confess to you. “I know I didn’t deserve you and I know we can never be together in the way I wanted to but those many months of my life with you by my side. My Serpent Queen. They were some of the best days of––”

You kissed the man after hearing the words you had always wanted to hear.

You knew he loved you that time ago but he never said. Never told you.

“I loved you too, FP Jones.” You let your lips part from his slowly as you breathed out the words.

“Keep on fighting. You’re stronger than you know.” FP pressed his forehead against yours as he looked into your eyes.

Those eyes. Those hypnotic eyes.

“Stay out of trouble. Don’t make me come back and kick your ass back into shape.” You half-kidded.

FP sighed and kissed you once more.

“I’m forever yours, FP Jones.” You let the man know as you backed away from him back towards your bike.

He watched you climb back on but before you replaced your helmet he remembered something...

“Wait.” FP pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and as he got closer with a slow jog, you realised it was the polaroid. “It’s your turn to keep it.”

You took the photo without any fight and tucked it into your jacket.

“Look after yourself, Jones.” You brushed your lips against his as you held his cheeks between your fingers.

“Don’t break too many hearts, (Y/n) Andrews.” FP took a step back.

“Can't make that promise.” You winked. The only heart that ever mattered to you was his.

You revved your engine as you finally rode away.

Watching the man only disappear in your mirror as the fireworks only continued.

The End.

AN: That’s a wrap folks. I hope you enjoyed this story and I hope this ending wasn’t too awful for you all. I want to say that I hope all of you are safe and doing well. I hope those who are rioting are staying safe and protecting themselves. This chapter is dedicated to Luke Perry may he rest in peace. Goodnight my lovely readers and thank you once again for reading.

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roguesandsaviors · 4 years

Text

Searching for the Facts

Fandom: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Jon Bernthal characters

Characters: Mr. McCarthy, Elizabeth McCarthy (OFC)

Pairing: Mr. (Joey) McCarthy x Elizabeth McCarthy (OFC)

Summary: After Greg poses the question about cancer, Mr. McCarthy heads home to his wife but can't shake the news. He knows she would have the answers.

Word Count: 1,888

Rating: SFW

Warning: Mentions of cancer

AN: This idea popped into my head as soon as the scene where Greg asks Mr. McCarthy about Leukemia played out. Joey was also the first name that came to mind for the character since we don't get a first name. Not sure why. Enjoy!

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

(gif credit)

The gentle hum of jazz was the first sound that greeted him as he walked through the door. It brought a smile to his face as he toed off his boots and settled his keys onto the hook set by the door. A few new books lay scattered on the ottoman, along with a notebook and various colored pens. He would have taken a moment to peek over what the work of the day had been if he hadn't been as eager to see his wife.

While they had been together for some time, it was only recently that they married and there still was that new sense of pride in being able to call her his wife. The thought was enough to put a smile on his face. A couple of his co-workers had asked about the ring that they had spied and it had generated some talk around the school. It had been an amusing addition to the day. No one had expected him to settle down. He kept quiet about his personal life normally so any sort of change would come as a surprise to any of them. No one needed to know every little detail. Besides, the longer that no one asked, the longer he could just keep her to himself. Not that he had an issue showing off the relationship. Joey had never really been shy about much. No, it was more of a desire to spend what free time they had together unencumbered, enjoying the company of the other soul that understood. Perhaps it was selfish but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Joey found himself leaning against the door frame leading to the kitchen. The sight before him warmed his heart and reminded him of just why he loved coming home. Liz was swaying softly, singing just under her breath to the steady rhythm coming from the small speaker in the corner. The kitchen smelled wonderful and he realized just what she was making while enjoying the soft moments to herself. One of his favorites, cutting noodles while the soup had to be simmering in the pot on the stove. He was a lucky man and coming home to this just reminded him of that. He cherished each of these small moments.

Coming up behind her, his hands found her hips as he pressed a kiss to the back of her head. A deep breath in and he found the soothing scent of lavender still clinging to her. He had never found any sort of scent on a woman soothing before Elizabeth had entered his life. Now he couldn't help but relax when the familiar smell carried in the air.

"Evening sweetheart." He heard the soft gasp that left her, knowing that he had surprised her, before laughing as she slapped at him blindly. The waving motion barely tapped his side and he had to suppress a laugh.

"Joey McCarthy! What have I told you about sneaking up on me?" She whined playfully but never stopped working on dinner. He loved that even rattled, she rarely lost her composure. It was one of the first things that he had noticed about her when they met.

"I couldn't help myself. You looked so peaceful. Love it when you sing and dance like that."

"And you had to go and ruin it." He kissed the back of her head again, swaying to the music with her. He didn't have to see her cheeks to know that she was blushing. For as fired up as he could be in school, these soft moments were far more common in the household. Not that he didn't get excited and child-like in his enthusiasm, but he was a bit more mellow here, with her.

"Nah. Just added to it and that's a fact." He teased. "What made you decide on Khao Soi tonight?" He rested his chin on her shoulder and watched as she finished cutting the noodles.

"Thought it might be a nice surprise. Didn't know what your day was going to be like and I had to take a break."

"I saw the notebook." Forced to step back so she had room to continue cooking, he moved to grab himself a water. "Did you get stuck?" It was rare that she would abandon her own research in favor of cooking, no matter what. It must have meant that she had to leave it. Now that he was looking at her, he could see the frays on the well worn long sleeve shirt of his that she had taken. Apparently it was comfortable and comforting while she worked but the sleeves told him how frustrated she had been when or working.

"Hit a snag." He could hear the frown in her voice. "The data didn't add up so I had to backtrack a bit and dove into some similar projects to see what was found and what problems they may have run into. It's just not making sense. So either I'm missing something I'm not seeing or the experiment itself was flawed."

"I'm sure you'll get it figured out one way or another." He wasn't even going to attempt to understand what it was that she had been working on. He was skilled in a lot of areas and knowledgeable in many but when it came to the hard research she performed, he was lost. He tried to look it over and understand, always willing to expand his knowledge. Even if it was over his head.

"It just feels like if something is wrong, all of those people wasted time that they won't get back. Things they could have done with loved ones, bucket list things. Their time is limited and they were generous enough to grant it to try to help others. And if there's nothing to show for it…" She paused and Joey could see just how affected by it she was. He stepped forward again and turned her around so they could look at one another.

"It isn't a waste of time and they wouldn't feel that way. They knew what they were getting into and wanted to do it. Just like you said, to help others. If something is wrong, then you know it for next time. It's all a step in the right direction. Data to be compiled and figured out, giving you the opportunity to just improve on it." She didn't look at him right away but found herself sighing and nodded. He tilted her chin up and pressed a kiss to her forehead, cheek, and finally lips. "If there is anyone who knows how to handle this, it's you sweetheart." Finally a small smile came from her and he felt relieved. She took this all to heart, and being a cancer researcher, he couldn't see her being anything but empathetic and passionate about it. It was part of what had drawn him to her in the first place.

She pressed a hand over his heart, eyes dropping for just a moment to where it lay, before they raised again.

"What would I do without you?" Now would be the time for teasing.

"Be locked away in that awful one bedroom apartment you had, crouched over your research, and probably not eating the way that you should." She rolled her eyes but was clearly more at ease than she had been before. "And you know it's true. Can't deny it."

"Yeah yeah. As if you are any better," she grumbled playfully before giving him a little push back. "Let me finish dinner." He allowed the push and backed up with a smile. She looked adorable right now. He had left her in a better mood than when he had found her so it was mission accomplished.

"I'm going to go shower. I'll be out soon." Letting her finish cooking in peace seemed like a good thing now that he had cheered her up a bit. She could enjoy what she was doing rather than focus on what she hadn't been able to figure out. He fully understood the need to take a break from the research if things were not going the desired way. He had been there himself plenty of times.

The dinner was a quiet affair, though it often was. They took the time to enjoy the food and each other's company after the long days that they each faced. There wasn't a need to fill the silence. It was soothing enough to be sitting across from one another, sharing occasional glances.

It was only after he helped her clean up and they were settled on the couch did he bring what was on his mind up. The new documentary that he wanted to watch would be on in a few minutes so he had a little bit of time before he ended up throwing their normal evening routine off.

"Had a student ask about leukemia today…" Immediately, her head snapped. So quick he actually was worried about her neck. His hand came up off of her shoulder to rub at her neck for a second before dropping back down.

"Why?" Liz knew the answer but needed the confirmation. She didn't like to assume but most high schoolers only asked questions about cancer for a small handful of reasons. All of them were personal. Joey was quiet for a moment.

"Another one was diagnosed with it. One of his friends. He doesn't have too many so I think it's weighing on him more than he realizes. Didn't know much about it and was looking for some answers." He sighed and held her a little closer. "Kid spends lunch in my office daily. He isn't great socially. I think the friendship with the girl is good but I'm worried about the outcome if things don't go well." Liz shifted to face him a little more, rubbing his chest absently.

"I'm sure I have a few articles and a book or two that would be reachable enough to a teenager if you want to offer them. It might help ease his mind, at least understand what is happening a little better. Create some reasonable expectations of what this is going to do to her. In case things don't turn out well. Better to be prepared even if it isn't easy." He had been hoping that was how she would answer. Any sort of help that he could get for Greg, he would. He had seen how the kid was closed in on himself. The fact that he was even asking showed that he cared. Even if he liked to pretend that he didn't.

"That would be perfect. I think Greg will actually take the time to read them. This means more to him than he's letting on."

"It's not an easy concept for anyone to understand, let alone a teenager. If he needs to talk…" She left it open ended, not wanting to seem too forward.

"I'll let you know. I don't see him being the sort that would have any desire to though. He has a hard enough time talking to his peers." Joey sighed and gave her another squeeze. "Thank you." She leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"Nothing to thank me for." The documentary started and the two quieted down, settling in for a routine night between them.

#my writing #my fic #my oc #Mr. McCarthy #Mr. McCarthy x OC #Elizabeth McCarthy #tw cancer #cancer tw #mentions only #fluff #Jon Bernthal characters

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klbwriting · 4 years

Text

The Sparrow and The Rogue - Part 2

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy

Pairing: Ben Hargreeves/female!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of abuse, once again fighting

Summary: The Umbrella siblings learn about what’s been going on in this timeline, One lives a day in his life, and has a pretty fun date trying to kill his wannabe girlfriend

Even though the Umbrella siblings were promised an explanation that evening they never got one. At least most of them didn’t. There was a debrief to the small group of powered adults by Lila and Eight and then Diego and Lila disappeared somewhere while the rest of the group had dinner with what they discovered were a team called the ‘Rogues’ and they were kidnapped from directly under Reginald’s nose. Most of them had chosen names while a couple stayed with their numbers, liking the way they sounded. Eleven was very happy now that they kept their named now that Stranger Things was popular and they had the same powers as the character in the show. They were giving rooms in the hideout, having to double up with the Rogues already there. It was a surprise to no one that Diego was just fine sharing with Lila and Allison was almost a little nervous to share with Eight not knowing what her power was.

“You look happy,” she said, trying to break the ice with the girl who was texting and had a smile on her face. Eight looked over as if she forgot Allison was there and blushed, putting the phone under her pillow quick. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Its no big deal, just don’t tell Lila about it ok?” she said. Allison nodded with a smile. “She would be very annoyed if she found out I was texting with someone inside the Sparrows.”

“Ben?” Allison asked, sitting up now, full ready to have some girl time. Eight considered this, then finally sat up herself. She never got to talk to anyone about One and how confusing things were between them.

“Ya, he’s One here, he was your brother?” she asked. Allison nodded.

“Ya, he was killed on a mission when we were teenagers. Klaus could still see him, he communes with the dead, but the rest of us weren’t so lucky,” she said.

“What was he like in your time?” Allison considered how to answer.

“We weren’t super close, he was always close with Vanya and Diego, he was so kind to everyone, especially the ones dad was hardest on. I remember one time I was walking by Diego’s room while he was practicing his speech and Ben was in there, they had to have been 7 maybe, and he was just sitting there listening and encouraging him. Diego was crying after a bit of not being able to get a word out and Ben just took his hand and said ‘don’t think about dad, just think about talking to me, you know you can take your time with me’. That’s who Ben was, just the best,” she said, getting a little teary thinking about her lost brother. Eight smiled and moved to sit next to Allison, a comforting arm going around her shoulders.

“That version is still here. I have seen moments of that person in One, that kindness,” she said. “My first memory is with One, when I think we were 4, its really simple, I had fallen and scraped up my knee during a morning run and dad was livid at me, even at 4 I was always too big and slow for him to tolerate so he made me do extra laps and One was there with me the whole time, ran every single one next to me even though he was faster and could have been done, he stayed with me.”

“That sounds like Ben,” Allison agreed. “I hope maybe we can get past this, I don’t know what dad is planning but I’m so tired of running around and being chased, just so tired.” Eight nodded.

“Get some sleep, no one will wake you up tomorrow so you can get a good rest,” she said, moving back to her bed and laying down. Allison followed suit and she closed her eyes, drifting off to a music box playing now in the room. She hadn’t noticed one being around before but Eight must have had next to her somewhere. Once she was sleeping Eight lifted a hand and the music box across the room stopped playing, letting her fall asleep also.

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Number One was going through the motions today. He had woken up early as usual and went to the kitchen to help mom make breakfast. He knew she couldn’t really appreciate it like a person, but he thought she enjoyed spending time with him anyway. He could feel his father’s present before he saw him, entering the kitchen and giving him a disproving look, still angry about dinner no doubt.

“Good morning Number One, feeling a little less rebellious today?” he said, sitting at the breakfast table and looking through a morning paper. One glared at the eggs he was plating and set the plate down in front of Reginald a little harder than he meant. “Ah, I see you are still in a mood. Very well, you will be in charge of leading drills this morning, now eat your eggs.” One didn’t say anything but internally he groaned, drills made everyone hate him for days. He ate in silence with the rest of his siblings before standing and telling them to get up and get to the yard. They shot him death glares before doing as asked, knowing the punishment was worse than the drills.

Two hours later and his siblings were off again, probably meeting in one of their rooms to talk about how much they hated him and his kiss ass ways. One however, had more work to do, heading out to do his first patrol of the day. He had no idea why dad sent him to do patrols instead of waiting for something to happen, especially now that the Umbrella siblings had shown up. First the patrols were for them, then they became patrols for general crime, but now that the word of the Horror had spread no one would dare commit a crime in the city limits unless they wanted to die a horrible death over 30$ in some purse.

This time out in the city gave him a chance to release some stress that he needed. He found a park nearby and soon was casually swinging watching the kids around him and reminding himself of why he dealt with everything. Without the Sparrow Academy the apocalypse would have happened two days ago. They had saved history, keeping the timeline on track after something called ‘The Commission’ went belly up in the 60s due to some kind of explosion. Where they had left off Reginald had picked it up, first on his own, and then when the 43 were born, with the 15 he had been able to get his hands on. They had been whittled down to 6 humans and a box that told them where to go and got them in and out. Ben may have hated his father but he would protect these people, always.

One patrolled until lunch, stopping at the kitchen table to eat alone before going to his room and checking his messages on his secret phone. Before he could open it he had to hide it under his pillow as his door was shoved open and Number Two walked in. Two stood silent for a second, seemingly realizing that he had caught One doing something he shouldn’t.

“You alright One?” he asked suspiciously. One stood up, facing off against his sibling, mustering up his bravado.

“Ya, what do you want number Two?” he emphasized the word two just to irritate them. They growled, glaring.

“Dad wanted to have us trade patrols tonight, I’ll take 9th to 15th, you take the old trainyards,” Two said. “Starting now, I’m supposed to watch you leave.” One gritted his teeth, anger seething through him.

“Let me get ready, I need to get my shoes,” he said. Two just stood in the doorway watching as One went back to his bed, sitting down and tying his shoes extra slow, hoping something would happen to make Two glance away. Someone must have heard his silent plea because something clunked in the hall making Two look around for a fight. One grabbed the phone and shoved it in his pocket before standing up. “Alright, you want to walk me to the front door too?” Two glared and let him pass by, closing his door behind him.

After he was outside and a couple blocks away he texted Eight, letting her know of the change of plans, before heading down to the trainyards, thinking about maybe doing some sprints while he waited for her.

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

The Umbrella siblings sat in the main room of the hideout with Lila and Eight, Lila explaining what had happened to the Commission and what the Sparrow Academy had been up to. They knew that after the Commission was taken down those in the ‘Resistance’ had taken up control of the timeline under rule of Lila and the kids she had collected from over time, starting with Eight.

“We developed the traveling technology by stealing what Reginald had already figured out. The briefcases were big and too easy to lose, too much of a hassle, so instead Reginald created watches capable of the travel,” she explained.

“How did he figure that out? I watched the Commission try for decades to create that kind of technology,” Five cut in. Lila glared at him, still not exactly happy that he was alive after killing her parents, no matter who had ordered the hit.

“I don’t know, took a few tests to figure out how to use the watches, but now we can track where the Sparrows go and then fix whatever they mess up in history, keep the timeline on track,” Lila explained. Confusion rippled through the room.

“What do you mean you fix the Sparrows messes?” Luther asked, sitting forward, the chair creaking loudly. He made a face and waited for someone to say something just so he could hit them.

“The Sparrows travel around on orders from dad to ‘fix’ history, ya know, kill Steve Jobs before the iPhone, assassinate Abe Lincoln when he’s running for president, take out Thomas Jefferson, although that last one I really hated to fix,” Eight said. “Such a brilliant mind, such a shit fucking person.” She stood up and went to stand by the open door, Lila looking over at her.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lila asked.

“I’m warm, there’s a draft over here,” Eight explained, leaning on the wall, hand in her jacket pocket.

“Why don’t you just take off the jacket?” Klaus asked, getting elbowed by Allison. “What?”

“I like this jacket,” was her answer before she looked out the doorway. Lila rolled her eyes and returned to the original conversation.

“So after we fix their messes, they make more messes. We’re not sure what exactly Reggie is trying to do but either way, we know we have to make sure history happens as expected. Except for the apocalypse, none of us could really muster the desire to stop fixing that,” she said.

“So now we’re in no mans land?” Vayna asked, getting a little nervous about bringing about another end of the world scenario. Lila nodded.

“Honestly, only Five has lived past the apocalypse and now that it didn’t happen I don’t know what the game plan from here is, I just know what happens in actual history to keep that on track, what those changes bring in the future is a crap shoot,” she said. “Isn’t that right Eight? Eight?” She turned to see the doorway empty, no trace of Eight left in the hide out anymore. Allison sat in her seat and smiled softly, having an inkling where she was going, hoping that maybe she could turn Ben back to their side.

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

Eight had gotten One’s message and headed towards the trainyards. She passed by Number Four along the way and realized quick that One was being followed. She acted like she was patrolling, hoping to not have to fight Four but knowing it was a possibility. Four however, let her pass, clearly just being around to watch their brother and what he was doing. Once at the trainyards Eight dipped through old train cars, running up and down tracks until she saw One. She approached him slowly.

“You have a friend around,” she said. One’s eyes flashed the area and he caught a quick glance of crimson ducking behind a car nearby. “So I guess this is another fight to the death?”

“Guess so,” he said with a smirk. Eight smiled back sweetly. “No powers?”

“No powers, pinky promise,” she said before diving towards him, fist raised.

One easily blocked the shot, moving around to fire back with his own fist. Eight easily dodged and punched his stomach, pulling the hit so it didn’t actually hurt. One doubled over anyways, spearing her around the waist and taking her to ground, just out of view of Four.

“So, ready to play dead?” he asked, holding her shoulders down as she laid under him, watching him closely before nodding. He smiled down at her before standing up and walking around the car, hands raised above his head as in victory. He knew once Four saw this they would call out to him.

“Hey Number One!” Four called as expected, walking over the tracks. One hurried to meet them, not wanting them to actually see that Eight was alive. “You finally got the bitch!”

“Yup, finally caught her by surprise, she said no powers like an idiot,” he said, chuckling darkly. Four nodded and laughed. “Well I’m going to finish my patrol and head home, but ya know, gotta get rid of the body first.” Four nodded.

“Need help?” they asked. One shook his head.

“Nah, I got it, just going to shove her under the traincar, no one will find her and if they do animals will do the job first,” he said. Four nodded, turning and walking away without another word. Four was easiest to trick and One was glad dad hadn’t sent Two or Six after him.

Once he was sure Four was gone he headed back to the traincar to find Eight sitting against the wheel, having been listening. He took a seat next to her, close enough that their shoulders were touching, hand gently finding its way over to hers on her leg. He linked their fingers and sighed.

“Well, that’ll lighten things up for a bit, dad will think you’re dead for awhile,” he said, looking at her. She nodded and looked at him.

“You know we can’t do this forever, one day we have to either tell all the truth or run away,” she said. “We could go to the 90’s, relive our childhood but ya know as adults. I’ll be old enough to buy myself Backstreet Boys tickets.” One laughed and shook his head.

“Someday, but I can’t leave this behind, I mean we’re fixing history, making sure everything keeps on track,” he said. Eight sighed and rolled her eyes. “I know, you guys think we mess it up, but we don’t, we help, we save people, you guys are the ones who come around messing it up again.”

“We honestly don’t know who is fixing what,” she said. “I just wish I knew what dad was planning for, why he’s doing all this.”

“He’ll tell me when I’m ready,” One said indignantly, trying to justify why he was so readily going along with Reginald.

“I hope he does, I’m curious which side I’m on,” Eight said. She looked at him. “Enough talk, I don’t think we really came here to talk.” One nodded, leaning in and pressing his lips to hers, kissing her until he ran out of air, then taking a breath, and going right back in.

#The Umbrella Academy #ben hargreeves #ben hargreeves x reader #ben hargreeves series #ben hargreeves fanfic #umbrella academy fanfic #umbrella academy

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colemacgrathtkz · 3 years

Text

Ah, memories

Disclaimer: I went past the character limit. This one might be hard to read due to formatting.

Previous. Next

[Human realm, three weeks BBI]

Luz crouched close to her task. Eda's lesson really came in handy. Picking a door lock, she never thought she'd be so grateful for an unmodern store. Standing by her side, only perceivable to her, the empress stood watching her progress.

Empress Luz: "I know you want to say it, just say it. What do you want?"

Since they came back, Luz's glyphs hadn't worked once. At first, she thought magic didn't exist here. But if that's the case, why was her angry counterpart still stuck to her.

Luz: "How come you're still here? I mean, my dream of being a witch is dead on this side, right?"

Empress Luz: "Ok, let me put this in terms you can understand. Congratulations, chica, you're an astronaut. Let's think of the Boiling Isles as earth and magic is the air we breathe. This side is the moon. On the Boiling Isles, magic is everywhere. Here, looks like we're S.O.L."

Luz: "So, you're what?"

Empress: "Holding my breath for you... to finish the job."

The tumblers finally obeyed the thief working on the outside. Luz didn't have much aside from some old clothes from home and the Empress' outerwear. The store inside should have some cash and new stuff to try on. She needed to avoid being recognized. Also, she kept getting glares when she entered stores during the day.

Luz: "Does that mean, if I wait long enough, you'll die?"

An note of optimism was detected.

Empress Luz: " You should be so lucky. No, I don't think so. I'm the only magic you brought over. So, WE'RE holding our breath."

The cash register was the first task they needed done. Emptying the register, they now browsed their options.

The place didn't look like anything exceptional. But one jacket caught Luz's eye. She put it on and felt... something.

Luz: "What do you think?"

Empress: "A little big, don't you think? And do you really like the color green that much?"

They both realized what this jacket was to her. For whatever reason, this jacket made Luz miss the others less. Almost like a sort of comfort cloth.

Man: "Who's there?!"

A flashlight broke through the dark and nearly blinded Luz. She dove for any cover that would keep her out of sight, bumping into something.

Empress Luz: " What are doing?! Let me tak..."

Almost like hitting the mute button, something landed on Luz's head. In that instant, she noticed her partner disappeared. She raced out the door and as far away as she could get. Once she was clear, she examined the hat on her head.

Empress Luz: "Stop ignoring me!"

The instant she took off the beanie, her partner reappeared in front of her.

Now there was some magic.

It would be another three weeks before she'd make it back to Bonesborough. But they were clearly on the right track.

[Present day, Blight manor]

Amity stirred awake in her old bed. She felt like she'd dreamed about something important.

The first thing she noticed was her old room, not remembering how she got there.

Luz: "No, wait, you can't!"

Her girlfriend's voice echoed from somewhere in the manor. She bolted out of bed and ran out to find the source.

Willow: "It's only fair. After all you put us through, this is the least you can do."

Gus: "I wouldn't call myself a 'vengeful guy'. But I do want to see this."

Amity practically jumped the stairway to see what was going on. Luz sat, tied up by vines, while her friends stood around her. Willow had a pair of memory tweezers while Gus held a memory print.

Amity: "What're you doing?"

Willow: "Luz wants to make amends. This is it."

Gus: "But you should be here, too. Take a look at this."

Snickering, he handed Amity the prize in his hand.

Luz: "No, come on, give me a break."

Willow: "If we wanted to settle things, once and for all, we could go fishing in her memories. That's what she said."

Gus: "We didn't find anything nefarious. But we did snag these nice beauties."

Scratch that, he handed her the prizes in his hand.

A few memories of Nevareth Bladestrife, teen Prince of Angstmore. Amity didn't say a word as she examined the recollections in her hand.

Luz: "Ames? You ok, linda?"

Amity: "So, who's this?"

Luz( visibly nervous): "No one, really. He's not even real."

Amity: "You sure? It looks like you think about him a lot. You had an imaginary boyfriend?"

Luz: "He's just... not even worth mentioning. I mean, he's got nothing on you, Ami."

Unfortunately, Amity flipped the print to reveal a small note written in ( what looked like) Luz's handwriting.

Goodbye, flawless pecs

Amity stared Luz down with one of the most menacing glares she'd ever seen.

Amity: " Well, if you say so, then it's fine. If he's not worth mentioning, he's not worth remembering, right?"

She lit a small fire in her other hand and dangled the pictures over it.

Luz: "Wait! You don't want to do that."

Amity: "Why not? You want to make amends, right?"

Luz: "Right! Let me out of this chair and I'll tell you all the truth."

Willow and Gus stopped snickering amongst themselves. Luz's proposal seemed like something worth seeing. Her friend undid the vines and let Noceda take a step forward.

Luz: "The truth is..."

In a swift moment, she surprised Amity with a kiss. Stunning her girlfriend, she swiped the memories back and placed one arm around her.

Luz: " We're official! Amity and I are dating. There's no reason to bother with these. So, I'll just take them back and we don't have to talk about him ever again. Agreed?"

Luz would later understand the wrath of a Blight, later. For now, she pocketed the memories.

Gus: "Wait, when did you figure it out?"

Luz: "Well, last night...wait, what do you mean by that?"

Her two best friends looked at each other, awkwardly.

Willow: "It just seems like... you were the last to know."

Luz: "...."

Gus: "You kind of already acted like a couple. I mean, when did you find out she liked you?"

Luz: "Right after..."

Her pause might have made anime fans proud.

Luz: "Point is, we're both where we want to be. Right, Ami?"

Amity: "When did you start calling me that?"

Luz: "Last niiiiiiiiiight."

Last night? Last night was a blur. She remembered grudgby and dancing but that was it. She didn't even recall how she got back last night.

Gus: "Um, speaking of last night, are you just getting out of bed? It's past noon."

Looking down at herself, she was wearing an orange and white striped pajama top with purple pants.

Amity shot a death glare at the last person she remembered being with.

Luz: "I swear, I didn't do anything weird! You were really tuckered out. I carried you home and that's it, I swear!"

She redirected her wrath to the others.

Amity: "Don't you all have somewhere to be?"

Gus: "Not really."

Luz: "You told me to quit my job."

Willow: "My boss didn't come in this morning."

Amity: "Get out!"

Just as they were leaving, Luz sheepishly tried to be cute.

Luz: "So.....stripes?"

And with that, Willow had to pry her boss off while Gus pulled Luz to safety.

[Last night, Hexside's gymnasium]

Luz: "I think I want to tell you where the staff is."

Taking a step back, Amity knew she was being sincere.

Amity: "Where is it?"

Luz: "With you, carino."

Not realizing what she meant, Luz poked her forehead.

Luz: "In here, with the witch I trust the most."

Amity had mixed feelings about this.

Amity: "No, you need someone to cast that spell on you. Who pulled you out? When did you even do that?"

Luz: "I'm kind of two for one package deal now. Not to mention, a quick study. Remember when you caught me in your room and I sent you a snoozing? It was after that."

Amity: "You knocked me out and went into my head?!"

Luz: " I'm getting the impression you're angry."

After taking one deep breath, she grabbed Luz by her face and pulled her close.

Amity: "Just, please, give it to me and we can go from there."

She was being pretty bold tonight.

Luz: "I can't say 'no' to that face. Especially like this, keeper of the staff."

Knowing full well that was a bad joke, she proceeded with Amity's request.

Amity(thinking to herself): "Please don't do anything weird. Please don't do anything weird. Please don't do anything weird. Please don't do anything weird."

Luz(echoing in Amity's head): "You know, I can hear you, in here. It's really a lot like what I've been living with on a day to day.."

Amity: "LUZ!"

Luz: "Right, right, we can talk about that later."

Popping out, Luz stood in front handing out the staff.

Luz: "One sure fire proof of my trust of you.. for you."

Her most trusted companion took the gift in her hand.

Amity: "It's the real thing. You actually meant it."

There was no mistaking the smug look on the latina's face as she placed her hands behind her head.

Luz: "Yep, we can be honest with each other."

Amity cut her off by raising her arm up. Now, the room had a serious tone shift.

Luz: "What're you doing?"

Amity: "You'd never lie to me, right? With or without this thing?"

Luz: "Bebe, this isn't funny."

Fear, once again, gripped a member of the Blight family.

Amity: "I order you to tell me the truth, what are you doing here?"

Luz: "I'm on a date with you."

Luz couldn't stop herself from answering, but she tried tweaking her answers.

Amity: "Why did you come back to Bonesborough?"

Luz: "I wanted to be with you all again."

Amity: "Are you planning something behind my back?"

Things were getting worse as it became apparent that Noceda didn't want to answer.

Luz: "Our second date, maybe. Now, can you give me that back, please?"

Amity: "One last thing, the empress is still in you, right? Neither of you are going to hurt anyone, right?"

This time, Luz covered her mouth, muffling her response.

Amity: "Take your hands off and tell me the truth!"

This feeling of once again not being in control of her own body; brought tears to her eyes.

Luz: "I don't want to hurt anyone. But I can't say the same for her."

Empress Luz: "GET THE STAFF!"

Amity found herself gripped from behind by a giant abomination hand. She looked back to see the Otabin mutant was still there.

Amity: "Wait, how are you doing that?"

The empress simply took back her staff and looked disgusted at what just happened.

Empress Luz: "I think I'm done answering questions."

Luz: "I pulled out all the stops for you, carino. It's my own 'little' mix of abomination, plant, illusion, and potion. Something that can keep on going, even if my finger stops spinning."

She just gazed at the object in her hands.

Luz: "I gave this to you because I trusted you."

The goo around Amity hardened; preventing her from moving a finger.

Luz(sadly): "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"

She reached into the almost solid goo and searched Amity's pocket. Pulling out the tweezers just before the muck became rock hard.

Luz: "Thanks for the date, bonita. I'll be sure to remember it."

She held Amity's head still as she pulled out her memories of the date. Contrary to her pleas, Luz burned the ones that held the night's closing events. Her girlfriend felt the effects and passed out.

Empress Luz: "We'll have to clean this up."

Luz: "Hold on, I don't want to leave her like this. This could seriously damage her mind."

Luz used the tweezers on herself and pulled a couple memories. She done this before, unbeknownst to anyone else. When Willow's memories were burnt, her personality changed. Luz discovered that she could sort of keep that from happening by putting place holders.

After she had done the deed, she picked up the sleeping green haired witch in her arms, princess style.

Empress Luz: "Even after all that?!"

Luz: " You feel the same way, right?"

The two had gotten unbelievably good at switching control between them.

Empress: "What about the staff?"

Luz: "It can wait. I want to take her home and just forget this ever happened."

To her dismay, she knew her partner wouldn't simply "forgive and forget".

Empress: "Before we go, I think we should check her memories. I mean, it's only fair after what she just pulled."

Complying with her internal partner, they discovered the two other conspirators. She took the staff and hid it. She also took Amity home, but not before she made sure the coast was clear.

Willow and Gus would have no memory of their findings. They would be left to believe their investigations had come to a dead end. Reporting to Amity only that Luz Noceda had nothing to hide.

Author's note:

I just want to make two things clear.

1.) In "Understanding Willow", Willow's brain appeared to be faulty after her memories were burnt. I figured Amity might unknowingly experience something similar AFTER Luz left her in her room. No funny business. Amity was half asleep and disoriented when she changed into her new attire.

2.) I've wondered, how Amity might react to Nevareth or Luz's other crushes? I just wanted to throw that idea into the hat.

#Broken! Luz AU #Lumity #the owl house #luz noceda #Luz Noceda #amity blight #toh #willow park #agustus porter #angst #story i pieced together #luz x amity

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rottenbrains · 4 years

Text

Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Wordcount : 1763 words

Warning : curses and cuss because we’re talking about THE Bakugou Katsuki

Quirk: Natural Wielder (you can pull out swords from your thighs, and add natural elements to it)

Your blades clash with the rock-solid ice mountain that Todoroki managed to aim to emerge right in front of you, blocking you from closing the gap. 5160 carbon steel and engulfed in blue flames, the double swords you are using now were a bad match for his ice, being the strongest material for swords and able to melt his ice. Even if he used his fire on you, you would just jump around and evade every attack. Soon, you’re able to cut through his ice and rushed to him in a frontal fight. Again, another wall of ice. You have to finish him quickly, you’re almost at your limit. Maintaining the fire and double swords, on top of that is really pushing you to your limits. One full swing and you destroyed the wall. Your knees buckled below you as you pushed through. Grazing his cheek and left arm, you attempted to make frontal combat as you thrust your fist on his chest, pushing the air out of his lungs. A hook on his ankle, and done, detained from any move. Aizawa was about to wrap both your training when Todoroki flipped you, making you lie on the ground and freezes your limbs on the ground.

“Todoroki, it’s cold!!” you yelled at your opponent for the basic hero training.

“You can unfreeze her, Todoroki… you both did great” A speaker was booming with the teacher’s voice. “Both of you go fix yourself first, before coming to the monitoring room.” Aizawa finished his comment, urging the white-crimson red-haired male to unfreeze you.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to go overboard…” Todoroki mentioned to you as you stood up from the ground and followed your classmate to Recovery Girl’s booth to heal both of your injuries. Since it’s only cuts and grazes, both of you got patched up quickly and made your way to the monitoring room to join the others.

“Y/n, you can be really hasty… that’s why Todoroki can still knock you out… so try to improve that, and also your blade control since it drains you too much” Aizawa-sensei commented on your fight. “As for Todoroki, you could improve your combat skills… Since you’re already comfortable with fighting at long and medium-range, a close-range attacks can do you just as many injuries… but your stamina is good, better if you can improve it more. That’s why I have you both as a partner for today’s training…” he concluded his comment on both of your fight.

“Well, that’s it for now… I’ll see you guys on Monday. Rest your body during the weekend, next week’s training will be much more than these… we’re pushing your limits as you know…” Aizawa-sensei said as he let us go back to change and go back to the dorm. You walked ahead to join Momo-chan and the others so you can change quickly and go back faster as you heard your loud boyfriend shouted from the back.

“You half-bastard can’t even hold a candle to her!!! She still scarred you!!”

And cue the comeback from ‘half-bastard’.

“Why are we talking about candle here?”

“That’s not what he meant, Todoroki-kun…”, Deku decided to correct his classmate.

“Shut up, Deku!!

“Ooh, let me join you guys,” you cheered from the living room when you saw Ochako-chan and the others preparing food for dinner. From the sink, Kyoka-chan stopped you from helping.

“You must be still tired, we’re almost done so why don’t you just wait??” she asked, looking at you with an apologetic smile. Well, you did have your right palm and left forearm that’s bandaged due to the injuries from the training. You couldn’t really blame her.

“Ehh… let me help with the plates, then…” you asked. You made your way past her and take the plates to serve the food without even waiting for an answer from your friend. She just let you be, since you already have the plates. Slowly, the others emerged from their own rooms and made their way to the living room, waiting for everyone. Soon, with warm foods in front of us, we chow down the food while chatting with the others.

…

“It’s Friday night, time for games!!” Kaminari shouted from the couch as he pulled a set of game controller from a drawer, and showed it to us. Mina-chan also took out some board games, making all of us flocked around in the living room. You ran towards Denki, fetching one of the controllers.

“You’ve got yourself a match, Pikachu!” you yelled at him as both of you settled down in front of the TV, picking your characters for Mario Kart. You were about to call Katsuki when you saw him walking towards the lift. You took a peek on the clock… it’s almost 9. Knowing that your boyfriend sleeps early, you gave up wanting to call him and focused on beating Kaminari. After few rounds of winning streaks, you let others take your place and played board games with Iida and the others… then gossip with the girls.

“For someone that’s not storing electricity like Kaminari, she can be quite energetic… but, it looks like she’s out of charge now…” Kirishima grumbled while looking at Y/n’s sleeping figure, leaning sideways on the couch as she hugged one of the pillows there. Looking back, he looked at Ashido.

“How come you didn’t realize that she was sleeping?”

“You can say we’re too immersed in stories, we didn’t hear her soft snores”, Ashido answered as she scratched her neck.

“Well, we should expect this. She was tired from the fight with Todoroki, being the last team and having the longest fight…” Sero interjects.

“Even Todoroki-kun went to sleep earlier…” Deku added.

“She’s too energetic all the time, we kinda forget she can be tired too~” Ojiro commented.

“Guess it’s time to move her…” Kirishima finally said.

After much deliberation, Kirishima kneeled down near her and was ready to scoop her up when he’s pushed away.

“Don’t touch her, bastard… I’m carrying her.” Bakugou growled lowly, a note of finality evident in his phrase as he picked her up, bridal-style. The whole class was shocked to see the ‘old man’ suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Since he’s always one to sleep early, they didn’t expect him to be awake now that it’s almost 12am.

“Okay okay… he’s all yours, doting boyfriend” Kirishima teased him.

“You just wouldn’t let go of her, huh… Just be honest for once will ya?” Kaminari added fuel, making the male to snap.

“Shut you, you extras!!” he yelled loudly, only to hear giggles from the ‘extras’ and squirming from her.

“Hmm.. Katsuki??” she yawned as she rubbed her eyes to look at the figure carrying her.

“…you shit.. you shouldn’t be sleeping on the couch… stupid…” he said as he entered the lift, and punched the button. She just quiets down, waiting to be sent to her room.

…

Both of you exited the lift on the fourth floor, which is wrong. Your room was on the fifth floor, just beside Tsuyu-chan. Sensing your confusion as you thought Katsuki forgot your floor, you were about to ask when he growled.

“Stop looking like a lost dog, stupid… we’re going to my room.” He quickly made his way to his room, opening the door by his hand and slamming it shut by his foot. He put you down on the bed as he went to drink from his bottle.

“I thought you were asleep… it’s almost.. oh no, it’s already 12…” you questioned him as you looked at him. No bedhead, bloated face, or hoarse voice, meaning he hasn’t slept at all.

“It’s because you shits kept on yelling so loud, I heard it from here…” he grumbled loudly as you focused your sensory. You can hear Mina-chan’s voice from his room, she was cackling with the others, since you can hear Kirishima’s loud voice too.

“And you should’ve gone to sleep earlier if you wanted to sleep!! Who the fuck sleeps on a couch, without blankets and the others so noisy?!” He poked your head as he sat down beside you, glaring thousands of blades on you that it makes goosebumps appear on your skin.

“It’s the weekends, we ought to have some fun with the others…” you retorted back at him.

“It’s Friday, for fuck’s sake…”

“Well, at least I’m not an ‘old man’ like someone…”

“What was that you shit!!”

Occasional insults and banters were exchanged between the two of you, and soon enough you felt growing drowsy again as your body relaxed against him as you ticked him off with your replies. Feeling your body against him, he shut up automatically. Hooking you by the waist to keep you near, he pulled both of you to lay on his bed as his leg pulled the blanket until his hand can reach it. You turned around to face his chest as you snuggled closer, the blanket draped on both of you.

“Next time, don’t sleep on the fucking couch, you shit” he whispered to your forehead before planting a chaste kiss.

“You’ll come and carry me back even if I do…” you whispered to his chest.

“You fucking like working me to the bone?” he growled, pulling you even closer to him if it was still possible.

“I like you, carrying me like a princess…” you answered coyly to his question.

“Tch…”

Listening to his heartbeat so close to you, his warmth and scent enveloping you, his company relaxing you. You felt yourself growing more drowsy while being hit by the fact that you really loved this prick like an airplane crashing to your whole body. You craned your neck to look at him, your arms being freed from his hug and slithered to his back. He looked down at you from the sudden movement of your hands.

“You know I love you, right??” you asked him, genuineness laced your question/statement.

Even though he would mostly keep his ‘tsundere’ demeanor all the time, there are times where he would let it go.

One of those times is now.

“Yep, and I love you too, you shit.” He whispered before his lips fall on yours. Moving in sync, the kiss lasted until you have to pull from him due to lack of oxygen. Annoyed, he clicked his tongue. He wants more. Granting his wish, you pecked his lips and smiled sweetly.

“I’m sleepy, and you are too… we’ll continue next time…” you said, and hid your face on his chest.

Good thing he loves you. If not, he might already blast you off the bed.

The next day

“Y/n you shit, come back here!!!” Katsuki yelled as he tried to find you. On his cheeks were scribbles, written using a permanent marker.

‘I love Y/n’ on right, a big heart drawn on the left.

And a phrase on his forehead, written in bold.

‘I’m a tsundere!’

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mattmurdocksscars · 4 years

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Hypothetical Questions

ALRIGHT! This is for Ellie’s 1500 follower celebration. I chose the character Pietro Maximoff with the prompt “ What would you say if I asked you out on a date? Y’know like….hypothetically.” This is also a continuation of a previous fic I wrote for Ellie called Let Me Help! I suggest reading that one first because this picks up where that one ends.

Also, I refer to the reader as Baby Avenger in this to try to keep our Reader gender neutral. I also HC that Stark would totally make FRIDAY call them that, so there.

Rating: T- Just some language

Word Count: 1132

Tag: @mycupoffanfiction

ENJOY

The first thing that you noticed when you woke up was that it was very warm. Snuggling in deeper to the blankets, you realized that you were not only not in your bed, you were also not alone. A heavy arm was wrapped tightly against your waist and your back was pressed to someone’s chest. Mentally freaking out for a moment, you quickly tried to figure out where you were without moving. As your sleep addled brain leaped into awareness, the memories from the night before sprung forward and as your eyes swept over the room, they settled on a familiar black jacket with a chevron pattern on the sleep. Sighing in relief and relaxing, you felt Pietro pull you even closer to him and bury his nose in your hair.

“Good morning, Prinţesă” He murmured. You shivered slightly at his breath on your neck but couldn’t stop the soft smile that spread across your lips.

“Good morning, Piet.” You felt him take in a breath as if about to say something, but FRIDAY cut in before he could get anything out.

“Excuse me, Mr. Maximoff?”

“Yes?”

“Captain Rogers is looking for Baby Avenger. Sergeant Barnes has requested to see them.” You felt your breath leave you in anxiety but Pietro’s arm tightening around your middle helped ground you. “I thought it best to let you know since they’re with you.”

“Thank you, FRIDAY.” You rubbed a hand down your face before rolling out of the bed. Standing with your back to the bed, you stretched before running your hand through your hair. Turning to look at Pietro, you felt your cheeks heat up at the look he was giving you. His eyes seemed to linger on the exposed skin of your legs and you couldn’t stop how flustered it made you.

“Uh, right. I guess I should go.” You headed to the door but stopped in it to look back at him. He was still laying in the bed but had shoved the blankets down around his waist. His hands were rubbing his eyes and you were hit with just how amazing he looked like this. Closing your eyes, you forced the thought from your head. Opening them again, you found Pietro looking at you in confusion.

“You okay, Prinţesă?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good. Thank you for last night.” With that, you left the room. Heading to your own, you continued to try to push your feelings to the side, not even knowing you weren’t the only one fighting feelings.

After getting changed, you hunted down Steve and went with him to see Bucky. Both men berated you for feeling responsible for Bucky’s injuries and you sat back, properly chastised. Logically, you knew it wasn’t specifically your fault, but you felt responsible for not being able to do more. They both assured you that you did everything you could and that sometimes, unexpected outcomes happen in missions. What mattered was that you both got out with your lives. All you could do was learn and grow from it.

Your slightly accelerated healing meant that your arm healed in two weeks and as soon as the cast was off, you were back to training. Everything seemed to return to normal except your relationship with Pietro. There was a tension there that hadn’t been present prior to the night you spent together. The two of you were almost never alone together and whenever you were, it was like Pietro couldn’t speak. Which for the usually chatty speedster, was incredibly unusual. You found yourself worried that you actually had overstepped your boundaries by asking to stay with him that night. You wanted to apologize but never could get him alone long enough to do so.

Sometimes, Pietro would go to say something to you but someone else would walk in and he would immediately stop talking. Every time you would ask him about it later, he would brush it off as nothing. You were getting frustrated and you weren’t the only one. Occasionally, you would walk into a room where Pietro and Wanda were to find them arguing in Sokovian. Pietro would take the distraction you entering the room caused to speed off every time. Wanda would look after him in exasperation before throwing an apologetic look your way. It made you feel a little better that you weren’t the only one getting annoyed.

Wanda had clearly reached her limit. You were training one morning when the door to the room opened. Pietro was quite literally thrown inside, and the door was shut and locked before he could get to it.

“Wanda, this is childish!” He yelled, slamming a fist against the locked door.

“I wouldn’t have to resort to childish measures if you would quit being one!” She yelled back. You watched this all from your location across the room, jaw dropped in shock. Pietro stood leaning against the door; his forehead pressed into the metal. Straightening up, he roughly ran a hand through his hair before turning and surveying the room. His eyes landed on you and a sigh left his lips.

“Piss Wanda off, Piet?” You asked before turning back to the punching bag you had been training with. He never answered you, so you fell back into your usual rhythm. You could feel his eyes on you though and did your best to ignore it. A few minutes passed before you heard him sigh and shuffle over. He called your name causing you to stop and turn to look at him. He muttered something under his breath before looking up and straight at you.

“What would you say if I asked you out on a date? Y’know like….hypothetically.” Your eyebrows shot up, trying to decide if this was a joke. The man before you looked nervous but completely serious.

“Hypothetically? I would say no.” You told him, watching his face fall. “You’ve been a dick these past few days and that’s not the kind of person I would want to date.”

“I’m sorry, Prinţesă. I shouldn’t have-“

“Realistically though? If you asked, I would say yes. Because I know that’s not how you are normally.” Several emotions flickered across his face. Confusion, shock, happiness, and finally confidence. His usual smirk in place, he stepped up to you and grabbed your hands.

“Will you let me take you out, Prinţesă? Let me make up for how I’ve been acting and then some.”

“I think I will, Piet. I hope you realize you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“You know I love a challenge.” Wrapping an arm around your shoulder, he led you out of the training room. You had no idea what he had planned, but you knew you would be happy as long as you were with him.

#pietro maximoff #pietro x reader #pietro maximoff x reader #ellies1500 #hopefully this isnt garbage #our speedster is a dork who cant feelings properly #we love him anyway

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years

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Desert Sands: Part 3

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Scott, John, Alan, Virgil, Gordon, Kayo, EOS

Still here, still not finished with this fic, but here’s another chunk of it to tide things over while I work on new stuff. Healthy dose of TAG-physics involved here, not gonna lie.

<<<Part 2

“You want to do a three hundred mile HALO drop?” Alan asked, aghast. John rolled his eyes.

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“But that could kill you! HALO drops aren’t supposed to be anywhere near that, John!”

“I know,” he sighed, checking the mechanical release on his exosuit wings. “If you’ve got another idea, I’d love to hear it.”

Silence answered and a part of John sagged. He was, as Alan had said many times, a ‘console jockey’. He dealt with data and holograms, and left the actual plan-plans to the guys on the ground. While he could, of course, make plans and execute them, experience was the best teacher and even Alan was at least his peer on active participation on rescues.

“In that case-”

“How about the space elevator?” Alan interrupted, and John blinked, started.

“The space elevator?” he asked. “But Thunderbird Five can’t get here; the other space station’s in the way.”

“Thunderbird Five can’t get here under her own power,” Alan corrected. “But what if we used Thunderbird Three?”

His brother was staring at him in earnest, but John wasn’t sure what the connection was. All the genius in the world didn’t help decipher the way a teenager’s mind worked, sometimes.

“What about using Thunderbird Three?” he asked, cautiously.

“Thunderbird Five can only move in linear vectors, so she can’t manoeuvre around the other space station, but how about if we use Thunderbird Three to move her?” Alan explained. “With Thunderbird Five’s thrusters to move, and Thunderbird Three’s thrusters for manoeuvring, we can get her here and then you can take the space elevator down.”

John blinked at him. He’d never considered that Thunderbird Three would be able to move Thunderbird Five, but considering some of the things the space rocket had moved, it was perfectly a perfectly reasonable assumption.

“Okay,” he said. It was Alan’s turn to blink.

“Okay?”

“Okay. It’s a good idea, Alan; we’ll give it a go.”

His brother’s mouth slowly stretched into a grin, while his blue eyes sparked excitedly.

“F.A.B. Thunderbird Three returning to Thunderbird Five.”

The red rocket rolled around, nose pointing back towards the space station, and then they were off.

“Alan, any progress on dealing with that EMP?” Gordon broke in, making contact with Thunderbird Three. “Oh, there you are John. Tell us next time you plan on leaving Thunderbird Five unmanned, maybe?”

The aquanaut looked grumpy, and was clearly piloting. That meant Virgil was dealing with Kayo, still.

“Sorry,” John allowed. “We’ve located the EMP and have a plan of action to disable it, which we’ll be commencing shortly.”

“How?” Virgil cut in, apparently linked in from the medical bay. “We can’t get close.”

“I’ll drop down on it from above using the space elevator and disable it like that,” John informed them.

“John, two problems. You said you can’t get Thunderbird Five above the Sahara, and the space elevator will also get fried.” Virgil sounded less than impressed with the plan, and John had a brief idea of just how much the bear would have torn into him if they’d gone with the HALO drop.

He resolved not to let Virgil know about that. Ever.

“Alan’s creative,” he responded instead. “Let EOS know once you’ve dropped Thunderbird Shadow back at home.”

“John-” He ended the transmission, knowing he was going to get complained at later but needing to concentrate on the finer points of the plan. Using the space elevator was all well and good, but Virgil was right – it would get fried, so even if he had Alan and EOS control it from Thunderbird Five, he couldn’t travel down inside it or he’d be locked in, and he didn’t have the tools to manually get himself out in a hurry.

If no-one was in danger, he’d do it, but Scott had been missing for over an hour and despite his reassurances to Alan the voice of cool logic in the back of his head was reminding him that Scott had been doing Mach 15 before being hit with the EMP. John had no intentions of taking any longer than necessary. At absolute best it would be another half an hour before anyone could reach him – fifteen minutes to descend, another fifteen to turn it off and get Thunderbird Three down into the Sahara, despite his earlier declarations that Alan would not be doing that – and with Thunderbird Two having to take Thunderbird Shadow back home, it would be at least another hour before their main land-based equipment was on site.

He was going to have to take a slight risk, and ride on the outside of the space elevator. Scott and Virgil had both chewed him out for doing that exact thing before, but with a brother’s life potentially on the line John had no qualms about doing it again.

“We’re here,” Alan announced unnecessarily as Thunderbird Three once again locked into the gravity wheel. “John, set Thunderbird Five’s thrusters to half power. We just need her to start moving; Thunderbird Three will do the rest.”

“F.A.B.” There were few occasions when John would take orders from Alan, but Alan was the better pilot and towing Thunderbird Five was going to be a difficult operation. He slipped through the airlock, not bothering to shed the exosuit when he’d be needing it again later, and engaged the thrusters.

Thunderbird Five was not like her sisters. She had powerful thrusters, mainly for use in evading meteors and other space hazards, but was not specifically designed for travelling through space. That was Thunderbird Three’s job, and it was with the knowledge that he was putting his ‘bird almost entirely in Alan’s hands that he set the thrusters to half power and stepped back. She moved, slowly to start with as she fought with the additional weight attached to her, and then slowly increasing in speed as Thunderbird Three’s boosters ignited, shifting her out of her orbit.

“Thunderbird Three has control,” Alan informed him after another minute. “Cut thrusters, John.” He did so, hearing his ‘bird’s own engines whine down into silence and finding himself in the very odd situation of his Thunderbird moving under external influence. If it was anyone other than Alan, he didn’t think he’d be able to stand it – not even Scott, for all that his older brother was a brilliant pilot.

The space station that had caused all this passed by the window at a respectable distance – part of John hoped they weren’t watching Thunderbird Five being towed, or pushed, as the case actually was – and then the coast of Africa was approaching, far below.

“Begin braking manoeuvres,” Alan cautioned and he obeyed, watching Thunderbird Three’s data out of the corner of his eye as Alan matched Thunderbird Five’s breaking with his own retros, bringing the two Thunderbirds to a precise stop above the co-ordinates EOS had calculated for them.

A moment later the airlock hissed as Alan entered, EOS in hand. “Well done, Alan.”

“It was nothing,” his brother shrugged off, inserting EOS’ drive back into the terminal. After a moment, the security camera rotated again, a ring of lights reappearing.

“John, I will control the space elevator from here,” the AI said. “Control will reduce to only paying out the cable once you reach the final two hundred and fifty miles, but as that does not require any technology from the space elevator itself I will be able to lower it to the ground safely from here.”

“Thank you, EOS,” he said, once again checking his exosuit. While the tech itself would be useless, the suit itself would give him additional protection and John wasn’t so desperate he’d launch himself from space without all the protection he could get – if only because Scott would never forgive either of them if he got hurt saving him.

“I’ll scan the area again, with Thunderbird Five this time,” Alan said. “If Scott’s down there, I’ll find him.” John offered him a small smile.

“Let me know what you find,” he said, heading for the airlock. “EOS, start the descent.”

“The space elevator is away,” she informed him. “I will hold it at ten feet until you’ve boarded.”

“Be careful!” Alan called out as he left, clinging to the cable and waiting for EOS to continue to lower it.

Alan had relocated Thunderbird Five in a much lower orbit than usual, and as such the two craft were not actually in geostationary orbit. The vastly reduced distance of only twelve hundred miles, instead of Thunderbird Five’s usual twenty two and a half thousand, meant that the drop would be much shorter, but it also meant they were on a time limit. Looking up, John could see Thunderbird Three’s boosters firing, Alan and EOS having calculated the exact force she needed to exert on Thunderbird Five to keep her temporarily stationary, but Thunderbird Three only had so much fuel, and there was a much higher traffic level in Low Orbit.

As soon as John was on the ground, they would need to at the least allow Thunderbird Five to orbit, and preferably pull her back to her usual altitude, otherwise they risked a collision with another satellite.

He was quite frankly amazed that no-one was calling him and Alan out on their dangerous relocation, but John wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

His communicator beeped, and he answered to see a very grumpy Virgil glowering at him.

“You had better not be doing what I think you are,” he threatened, and John raised an eyebrow at his younger brother.

“How’s Kayo?” he asked, instead of bothering to respond. They both knew what he was doing.

“She’ll be fine,” Virgil assured him, although his frustration hadn’t abated a bit. “Some bruises and a broken leg, but all in all it could have been a lot worse. Thunderbird Two is refuelled and heading back towards the Sahara now. Gordon and I will be there in an hour.”

“Good to know,” John said. “I’ll be at the EMP generator in less than fifteen minutes. With any luck by the time you arrive I’ll have it disabled. Now that Thunderbird Five is overhead, Alan and EOS are working to get Scott’s exact position; they’ll let you know when they find him.”

“How did you get Thunderbird Five overhead?” Virgil asked suspiciously. “You said it wasn’t possible.”

John was saved from explaining his Thunderbird’s new location by an incoming call from Alan.

“I’ve got him!”

“You’ve got eyes on Scott?” Gordon cut in. “Where?”

“Well, technically I’ve got eyes on Thunderbird One,” Alan amended. “But there’s a single life sign from inside the cockpit and there’s no sign of anyone leaving her, so that has to be Scott.”

The cool voice of logic in the back of John’s head finally stopped its mantra that there was no way Scott could have survived.

“What’s Thunderbird One’s condition?” Virgil asked.

“Looks like a wing broke off on landing,” Alan reported. “The other is fully extended but seems to be still attached. She’s a bit banged up, but apart from the wing she looks like she’s all in one piece.”

“Wait,” Gordon interrupted. “Her wings are extended? But wasn’t she doing Mach 15?”

“Thunderbird One has a manual override on the wings,” Alan reminded them. “Scott must have tried to use them to slow down. That mea-”

John didn’t get to hear what that meant, as a tangible shudder ran through the space elevator, and then both his exosuit and space suit.

Two hundred and fifty miles to go, and the failsafes built into the space elevator in case something went wrong on Thunderbird Five’s end, or with the cable itself, were no longer operational.

Still, he had evidence to prove that Scott was still alive. That was something to hold onto as he descended closer and closer to the sands below.

~~~~~~~~

When John’s data all cut off, leaving him and EOS with nothing except a high resolution camera aimed directly at the top of the space elevator by which to keep an eye on his big brother, reality hit Alan.

It had been easy to supress until then, with John there and grounding him even though they were looking for Scott, but now he was the only Tracy in space – EOS, family as she was, didn’t have a warm body and therefore didn’t count – and with only two of his older brothers in contact, reality came crashing down.

Scott was missing. Thunderbird One had been hit with an EMP while travelling at Mach 15 and had crashed. Alan had seen ugly scenes of plane crashes from much lower speeds, and the sight of his eldest brother’s Thunderbird with a wing sheared off did nothing to quell the rising horror. Even at her low altitude, Thunderbird Five couldn’t get any information about the life sign other than the fact that it existed. All Alan could do was watch the red heart symbol and pray that it stayed there until John disabled the EMP generator and his brothers could reach him.

“Records show that Scott Tracy is resilient,” EOS said suddenly, and Alan spared her a grateful glance. The AI was still learning human emotions, but he knew her well enough to know that she was attempting to reassure him.

It helped. A little.

“How’s the space elevator doing?” he asked, and EOS’ rings flashed white.

“John will be in contact with the ground in approximately two minutes and twenty five point three seconds,” she informed him. “We will need to relocate Thunderbird Five away from this position within nine point five four six minutes.”

“Is something coming?” Alan had hoped they’d be able to remain above the desert for longer, at least until his brothers were with Scott.

“Yes, a satellite will be in this location in eleven point three minutes and I calculate it will take Thunderbirds Three and Five one point seven minutes to clear the collision zone,” EOS informed him. “That will also allow Thunderbird Three to conserve enough fuel to return Thunderbird Five to geostationary orbit, land in the Sahara to collect John after he has succeeded in disarming the EMP generator, relaunch to arrive at Thunderbird One’s current location, and then return to Tracy Island.”

Alan hadn’t actually given a thought to how John was going to get out of the desert. With his communicator now dead, and the space elevator needing retraction, someone was going to have to do it, and Thunderbird Two had to get straight to Scott because that was where their equipment was. With Thunderbird Shadow also out of commission, that left just Thunderbird Three, and a glance at her fuel reserves warned him that it was going to be tight.

But Alan couldn’t just leave John there. With his suit also fried, that meant he had no thermal regulation and he hadn’t taken any water with him. If John had a plan, he hadn’t shared it with Alan, and no matter how much of a genius John was, Alan wasn’t about to trust that he’d had one. Scott’s crash was messing all of them up, even the supposedly unshakable space monitor.

Part 4>>>

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #john tracy #alan tracy #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #eos #kayo kyrano #desert sands

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