#i was ready to fistfight her if she landed on my skin

[lazy-cat-corner]

There was a mosquito in the classroom and I finally got her before she bit me.

#dumbass couldn’t resist my carbon and thought she could beat my fast hands #i was ready to fistfight her if she landed on my skin #elle's thoughts

[lovehugsandcandy]

One-on-One: Love (N*FW, ColtxMC, ROD)

A/N: This is a birthday gift for the lovely @desiree-pow (HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE! I hope that this bday is AMAZING - you deserve it!!!). This is also the last (maybe?) one-shot in the Colt!basketball AU that no one asked for. (Series here)

Length: ~1,800 words 

Rating:  N*FW (Swearing and sex)

Summary: That’s one way to improve morale after a loss.

.

Ellie bounced Jaylen on her lap, trying futility to keep him occupied as the final seconds ticked by. The Knicks were down by 11; even with thirty seconds on the clock, this game was over.

“Ugh,” she moaned, standing at the final horn and turning to Brandi, the sole friend she had made amongst the other players’ wives. “This loss means Colt is going to be in a god awful mood tonight.”

“Oh no,” Brandi replied, fixing her with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t mind when they lose. Kevin gets all his anger out in the best way, if you know what I mean.”

Ellie blinked, mind slowly catching up to the implication, as she cradled her son closer. Her thoughts raced before finally settling on awe. It was a fantastic idea; she was amazed she hadn’t thought of it before. 

She knew Colt better than anyone. 

She knew he liked winning.

But she knew he loved her more, desperately, ferociously; she had seen it repeatedly, from callused fingertips tracing ever so gently over goosebumps emerging on her bare skin to his willingness to temper even his worst impulses for her sake. His absolute adoration had quelled many of the ceaseless on-court fistfights, though the smart mouth spitting insults remained. His devotion had convinced him to refuse multiple trade requests for the sake of their family. And it had even reduced the constant bickering targeted at Logan, though nothing would squash every jab.

Together, they had navigated graduations and parenthood, dissertations and Championships.

Of course she could get him over one loss.

It was brilliant.

~~~~~

She heard the front door creak open right as Jaylen drifted off to sleep, easing the nursery door closed as quietly as she could, Brandi’s words still bouncing around her brain, she waited two beats to make sure that he didn’t stir before creeping away.

When she edged downstairs, bare feet slow on the carpet, it was quiet but, if she focused, she could hear quiet clicking, tapping of fingers on a keyboard barely audible from the living room. She peeked in; the laptop screen illuminated Colt’s face, game tape already rolling in front of him.

“Hey, Colt?”

He didn’t respond, eyes glued on the movement in front of him, tight fingers reaching for his cell phone.

“Colt?”

“Hmm? Is the baby asleep?” He didn’t look up, not even when she stalked closer to lean over the couch and drag her palms over his chest, damp hair from the locker room shower tickling her cheek. “That fucking asshole,” he murmured, still transfixed by the screen; she rolled her eyes.

“Colt, come to bed.”

“In a minute, I gotta-“

“Coooolt.” Her teeth grazed his earlobe, and he shuddered, tremble rolling up and down his spine, but still his gaze remained on the screen.

“Baby, I-” His fingers were tense around the phone but his words cut off sharply, inhale whistling harshly through his teeth as her fingertips walked slow, teasing circles underneath his t-shirt, down the taut muscles of his chest.

“The tape will be there tomorrow.”

“But I need to-“ He sucked in a breath, again, as her teeth teased the tendon in his neck, and he grabbed hold of her hair when she paused, gently keeping her pinned in place as she nibbled a possessive mark into his skin. “Baby…”

“Come on.” She stood, edging backwards toward the stairs, and smirked when he turned to face her, leather couch creaking beneath him. His eyes trailed down, flashing greedy and dark, intent on where her fingers fiddled with the bottom hem of the grey sweatshirt.

“Logan’s supposed to call me, we’re gonna go over tape.”

She raised her eyebrows, saying nothing, and pulled her sweatshirt over her head, noting the exact moment when his eyes drifted down to the jersey underneath, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“We’re supposed to…” He trailed off helplessly as the phone in his hand began blaring, glancing between the lit screen and to where her hands were making their way to the front of her jeans. “Baby, this isn’t fair.”

She bit her lip when she popped the button, taking her time with the zipper, and had just started inching the denim down her thighs when he dropped the phone, still ringing as it bounced to the ground. He leaned forward, eyes intent on the emerging skin, and she grinned in victory, kicking away the fabric when it reached her toes.

She had just put her fingers on the hem of her jersey when he leapt clear over the back of the couch; she giggled as she stumbled backwards, but he was faster, long legs tracking her as if he were streaking towards the net. However, instead of the basketball, she was the prize. 

And Colt always demanded his prize.

“Fuck no.” He pulled her hands away from the Knicks blue, dragging her against his chest. “Leave it on.” 

“You are such a narcissist. You just want me wearing your name.”

“Our name,” he corrected, sliding warm fingertips up her sides to settle underneath her bra. “And it doesn’t matter ‘cuz you know you’re gonna be screaming my name in a minute.”

“You are such a- oh.”

His teeth were against her neck as she sagged against him, back resting against his chest as strong fingers dug insistently on her hipbones, leading her towards the stairs. “That was completely unfair. You cheat worse than the fucking Nets.” Behind them, Colts cell phone was still blaring from somewhere under the couch, but she could only focus on the hushed promises being dropped into her ear. “And, when we get to our bedroom, I’m gonna take you apart just like I did them in the fucking playoffs.”

But they didn’t make it to the bedroom, anyway.

She sassed back, “I think I can play tougher defense than they can.” But it was difficult walking, Colt plastered behind her, chuckling against her neck before his lips moved to the curve of her shoulder, teeth print on her skin marking her as his as much as the six letters on her back. He teased the line of her panties, fingertips dipping incrementally closer as revenge for her sharp tongue; by the time they got to the bottom step, her words were gibberish, unintelligible, and the muscled arms around her waist were the only things keeping her weak knees from giving out.

She made it one step, then two, the line of his chest solid against her back and his cock stiffening against her ass, grinding in an utterly distracting and entirely indecent way, and she couldn’t be blamed for missing the next step, collapsing to her knees on the plush carpet.

“Fuck, Ellie.” He followed her down, pinned to her the entire way, and his hands curved over hers on the step. “Ok?”

“Please,” she whined, the only coherent sound she could make through the fog over taking her body and mind. “Just please.”

“Fuck.” The word landed hot against her neck and he moved, shifting back, and she heard rustling, fabric being pulled away, her underwear tugged down to a rushed tangle at her knees, and then he was lining up behind her. Her forehead dropped to a stair as he slid inside her, her eyes squeezing shut and mouth falling open as the familiar stretch sent lightning up her nerves. “Ellie, God, you feel incredible.”

She inhaled, trying to somehow get oxygen into her heaving lungs; he felt incredible, joined as one and hard inside her, hands warm and solid on her hips, teeth digging designs at the curve of her neck. “Colt, move, just move, please.”

He huffed a laugh against her skin and obliged, slow at first, settling deeper and deeper until he was just right, her thighs clenching as pleasure flickered and flared up her spine, then back down, jolting every nerve ending until she could feel it in her toes.

She moaned, low and lusty and downright filthy, and her nails scratched against the carpet as his hips moved faster; she worried for a moment that she tore a thread from the floor but, with the next thrust, it didn’t even matter because all she could do was moan into the carpet. Her hand flew to her mouth to dampen the keening cry pulled from her lips, but Colt only dragged her hand away, interlocking their fingers as he moved faster, hips pushing her forward and forehead sliding over the rug.

“Fuck, I want to hear you, El.”

“But the baby…”

“Don’t care.”

“But oh God, Colt there, please- I can’t-”

He pivoted his hips just so and the noise that came out of her mouth was unnatural, high and debauched and inhuman. The world shook around her as her vision swam, carpet fading in and out of vision as she tightened her fingers around his, something to cling to as the world fell apart. She barely registered when he shifted, fingertips of his other hand digging into her hip bones to pull her hips flush against his, or his moan, low in her ear; she was still shaking, weakened body sinking lower until she and Colt landed flat on the stairs, a pile of limbs and ragged breath. 

She was a sated, pliant mess when he eased her up off the stairs, guiding her to their bedroom to tug off the jersey, her bra, and his entire tracksuit, now wrinkled and defiled beyond repair. He was just kissing down her ear when she bit her lip and grinned. “Are you feeling better about that loss now?”

“What loss?” he murmured into her skin.

She chuckled, craning her neck back as he reached that sensitive spot at her shoulder and continued down. “The game tonight?” It was getting harder to form words.

“What game tonight?”

She laughed again and had a smart reply at the ready before a tinny cry cut through the air. Colt dropped his forehead against her stomach. “I knew you’d wake the baby.”

“He has the absolute worst timing.”

“Colt?” She ran her fingers through his hair. “Can you…?”

“What? 

“Maybe go see if you can put him back to sleep?”

He looked up, eyes narrowing. “Ellie…”

“Please?” She put on her best pout, curling her fingers over the sensitive spot behind his ears.

“But this was your night.”

She stuck her bottom lip out further, batting her eyelashes.

“Oh, my God! I can’t believe-” Colt groaned, standing up in a huff. “Fine. Fine.” He threw on some boxers, feet stomping heavy as he gave her the evil eye the entire time. “You are so lucky I love you.”

She laughed, listening to his footsteps recede down the hall; gradually, the crying quieted, then ceased, followed by a soothing voice and quiet coos. Twisting the ring around her finger, she smiled and whispered to the universe, “Yeah. I really am.”

.

Tags:

Perma @desiree-pow @leelee10898 @emichelle @client-327 @choicesgremlin @brightpinkpeppercorn @thequeenofcronuts @lilyofchoices @choicesarehard @peaceinmidstofchaos @ritachacha @burnsoslow

ROD @omgjasminesimone @mskaneko @lovemychoices @troublemakerinspace @zaffrenotes @alyssalauren

Colt

@deimosensblog @alegria1580   @thefarrari @moonlit-girl-wonder @going-down-downtown @soniadotalves @jolietmaraud @flowerpowell@poeticscolt @zaira-oh-zaira @akrenich @sibella-plays-choices  @maxwellsquidsuit  @liamzigmichael4ever @octobereighth @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @theeccentricbibliophile @dancingboba @tempesrature @romewritingshop @shondideaira-blog @winchesterwolves @riyana

#n*fw #lemon #playchoices fanfiction #colt kaneko #colt x mc #amy writes #hbd des

[werezmastarbucks]

boston

honeymoon masterlist

word count: 2538

music: savage streets by perturbator, you’ll only be safe with me by tuff turf, dark all day by gunship

You stood on one knee, feeling Kai’s fingers under your belt as he held you. You shoved out of the window half way, and yelled,

“I’m good!”

He pushed the gas pedal into the floor, and the car roared angrily, tearing through the night mist.

The black shadows surrounded you, floating out of the metal and brick twilight of the street so suddenly fear shot through you like lightning. You held up your shotgun and aimed, trying to balance with your hip on the frame of the window. Falling out of the window would mean imminent death: zombies were everywhere. They were waiting on the corners, in the windows of the buildings, hiding in the shade, behind the smelly dumpsters and in the middle of the road. As the city lights died out, and the car raced deeper into the district, golden and silver changed into cold blue and electric, the colors of docks and warehouses.

“I got them!”

“Shoot!” Kai yelled.

You exhaled and did not inhale, because the best snipers don’t breathe when shooting. As the monster truck passed by the cluster of black silhouettes, you fired three rounds into them, scaring the gathering and hitting one of them. Then you fell back into your seat and pulled your hair away from your face. It will be a bitch to try and brush after. The car drove out into the narrow quay where black water lay like glistening dirty skin, and Kai’s face was yellow in the passing bleak lights.

“What the hell is that?” he asked, poiting at the figure on the roof on the left. He slowed down a little, and you looked back to make sure nobody’s following you. You set the shotgun on your right.

“It’s Jeepers Creepers”.

“Wha... Y/N. What is Jeepers fucking Creepers doing at our zombie apocalypse?”

“I don’t know, Kai”, you snarled, “maybe he launched it. How am I supposed to know?”

“You’re driving me crazy”.

“I am afraid of Jeepers Creepers, okay? He’s gonna be the final boss”.

“I’m gonna tear his balls off”, Kai mumbled.

“He’ll take yours. That’s what he does”, you reminded him.

Kai snored.

“Get up. There’s more. They must have circled the parking lot. Look”.

Right in the middle of the road, where yellow fog was floating in the air like phantom veil, and the asphalt glistened, sweaty after 10PM rain, the black shadows barricaded the road. Kai stopped the car, and the low grumble slowly faded into the quiet, monotnous howl of the city. Somewhere, trains were moving to and fro on the rails, colliding with each other, creating noise. The factories were working, sending black smoke into the opaque sky, clogged by unwilling cigarrette clouds. The river itself, it seemed, hummed something very low, like a deadly lullaby. This world was a hostile and lonesome place. The only warm thing in here was Kai’s body sitting next to you, radiating humanity. You jerked your shotgun. You knew he was seeing exactly the same thing as you did - a bunch of zombies swaying slowly in your direction. He turned up the music a little.

“Ready?”

“Yeah”.

“Aim better or else we’re gonna drive in circles all night”.

“Don’t tell me how to kill zombies, Kai”.

He mimicked you, starting the car.

Next night, it was his turn, and you did the same thing, racing through the night city, crashing into cardbox fortresses and blowing up the glass forts, shooting the heads off the zombies, until you both have had enough of that zombie apocalypse world. It has been some time until you got tired.

(To get into the right mood, you have occupied the Columbus Movie Theatre for like a week, rewatching zombie movies. Turned out, you can’t just walk into a movie theatre and find all the zombie films piled up neatly in the movie room - or whatever it’s called. You have argued about them again and again, Kai insisting on Evil Dead being immortal classic, but the Day of the Dead was his all-time favorite. You nearly got into a fistfight with him over the Return of the Living Dead.

“Of course”, he puffed and laughed out, condescending as hell.

“What’s that laugh?!” you demanded. Kai shrugged.

“It’s such a girly thing. Return of the Living Dead. The third part is also your favorite, isn’t it?”

And he gave you the nastiest look. You narrowed your eyes.

“You bigot. You absolute fuckface. The first one is my favorite”.

He was enjoying himself too much, obviously agitated by the topic, not entirely there.

“Okay, okay”.

“But for the record, yes, I do think that the third part is the best love story I’ve ever seen on screen. It’s incredible”.

Kai nodded, the smile never leaving his face.

“She managed to fight off her cannibalistic instinct not to hurt the person she loved. She tore herself with needles and hooks to fight the urge to kill him and actually managed to keep him safe although she was literally a flesh eating zombie. How cool is that?”

Kai sighed and looked you in the eye.

“Very cool’, he said, with the tone that screamed ‘you’re silly and I adore you’.

“What other movies came out this year?”

“Not many, it’s only May”, he replied, digging deep into the box with films.

“Is Dream Lover out yet?”

“Yep”.

“We should watch it”.

“Later”, Kai said, throwing a film across the room and allowing it to crash into pieces. You hoped to hell it wasn’t Dream Lover.

“And Freddie Krueger?”

“No, not yet”.

“Damn it”, you looked over his shoulder.

“No Freddie Krueger!” he announced, “that’s it, she draws the line at Freddie. We’re leaving now”.

You laughed.

In the dark movie room, you could choose any row, any seats. You nested against each other, honoring the sacred cinema theatre tradition to gently touch in the twilight. While the action unfolded on screen, you had to shove popcorn into Kai’s mouth because it was the only way you could make him stop talking. When you ran out of popcorn, you had to shut him up with your mouth. It was a great week.)

You looked around the street and then, at Kai. How lucky he was, to find himself in this wretched place with someone as willing to play zombies as you were. You should do it more often. Maybe you should act out Mist next, somewhere in Houston.

You pulled your backpack up, and your eyes darted towards the black tower, ominous, insidious without any light, like a gigantic grave stone. Before Parker cut all the electricity, it was the Hancock Tower, now, it was just Tower. And the path to it lay through the dangerous city filled with brain craving monsters, bloodthirsty, dumb and ferocious, and you were running out of bullets. Besides, earlier on, you fell through one of the cardboard box forteresses and bruised your knee so badly, together with your left hand which you landed on. This adventure would be the death of you.

Kai twitched.

“I hear something”, he said, cocking his gun. You stood behind him, one-handed, unable to shoot. You closed your eyes. Lo, if they attack from all directions, you won’t be any help. A wounded companion is worse than an enemy in this world. You wondered if Kai would leave you alone to be eaten and stall them, or whether he’d shoot you in the head first, to spare you.

He walked on a little, entering a small square, and the black outlines of hairless, clotheless humans frightened you like you weren’t the one who had put them there ten hours earlier. They spooked you every time.

Kai shot three times, hitting each mannequin with one bullet.

“On the roof!” you pointed, turning back. You bowed as he threw up his shotgun, and fired. Heavy plastic body hopped and rolled down, falling on the ground. Kai could see in the dark so well you had to remind yourself he was human. Sometimes you would forget that fact completely. He was so different from everybody else.

He led you towards the tower where you stabbed one of the zombies in the throat. He was good at shooting, but you were very gifted with stabbing. You never missed.

“God damn”, Kai panted, as the mannequin swayed and collapsed on the asphalt just next to the glass door he was holding for you, “you saved my life”.

He took you in the movie gesture, pulling you into a long kiss. Your wrist started swelling and you had to take off your electronic watch temporarily. In the bleak room, it shone with green thin neon light from the bedside table while you had sex on the matrass.

In the middle of the night something fell off the roof, and scared the hell out of you - for real this time. You did not put anything on the top of the Tower since it was your fort. In the morning you came up on the top, while Kai went down and examined the object. Turned out, on the tenth of May, 1994, one single bag filled with files and staplers fell off the roof of the Hancock Tower. There was no way of knowing why.

“Wake up”.

You opened your eyes and rubbed your neck, aching from sleeping on the single mattrass on the floor. You looked out of the window. It has just stopped raining, which meant it was already close to midnight. In the dystopian Boston, you have switched to night regime of living completely because in the daylight, mannequins randomly standing in the streets looked simply stupid.

“The Titans”, he said. Kai’s face was so close to yours, you could feel the words on your skin. His eyes shone nervously.

“What Titans? It’s zombie apocalypse, Kai”.

He frowned.

“And what was Jeepers Creepers doing there then?”

“Oh my god”, you groaned, “let go of it already! You killed him like a week ago”.

“Come on, see for yourself”, he pulled you up, and you walked to the window, and gasped, instantly feeling for Kai’s hand. It couldn’t be happening.

That’s it! This madness finally drove you... mad.

There was an actual silhouette, the one you didn’t put there, and possibly couldn’t. The one that could not be put there for the life of you. The one of proportions too great for anyone to put it in the middle of the city, one foot on the right side of the river, and the other, on the left.

“What the fuck!” you yelled, your fright real as ever. Kai grinned happily, but then his face changed back to the philosophical expression of impending doom.

“This is it, Y/N. The zombies... and that dude... were just omens, but that’s it. The sky people have come to destroy us. It’s the end“.

“Seriously, Kai, how did you put it up... there?”

The sky was blackish-bordeaux, like usual. The river was seen just fine from here, from the top floor of the Tower. You had a pretty good look on the gloomy city and all its post-war industrial charm. The figure was so big it stood almost above the Tower itself; he reminded you of the Colossus of Rhodos, the Bronze Man, or one of the mythical golden gods of ancient times. You could actually feel your heart trying to break the hell out of your ribcage in a desperate attempt to kill itself. You couldn’t breathe for a second, mortified by the size of that thing. It was one of the deepest nightmares of your childhood, one of the visions haunting you from when you were little and kept dreaming about the end of the world.

You told Kai about those, and he now used them against you, but you appreciated the performance. It was all almost like art. It was horrifying and great, but you hated it.

���He came down from the clouds”, Kai said quietly, like a dispassionate narrator. Who already knows what’s coming, and doesn’t give a shit, because he’s already dead.

“To press the earth into the core of the planet, and make all life perish. He shall walk the land... waging his wrath on all that breathes. Including you and me”.

You made an effort to turn away, mesmerized by the statue, and looked at Kai.

“How much magic have you wasted on it?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t break the character, it takes me a lot of concentration”.

“Sorry”, you whispered.

“How do you feel about facing the end of the world with me?” he asked.

It was a damn good question. Parker really did ask all the right questions. After all the time in post-apocalyptic Boston, surrounded by enemy, living in a dark den and barely seeing the sun, it was very easy to actually sense the end coming. You clutched your own elbows, thinking. Strangely, you weren’t scared anymore.

A part of his face was in the shadow. He blinked the way you’ve only ever seen Kai blink, just a little, as if he didn’t want to lose visual even for a split second.

“I’m okay with it. I have lived a fine life, in my totalitarian city, guarded by robots and...”

“...zombies...”

“Hunted down by Harrison Ford...”

“You just jumble together all the movies, it’s actually insane, stop it”.

“But now as Cthulhu has sent its warriors...” (Kai rolled his eyes), “I’m ready to go”.

A lonely honk of a train cut through the distance making you feel melancholic. The trains were just crawling there day and night, filling the air with their lonesome cries occasionally. It would make any reasonable person go crazy, too.

“What will be the last thing you do before you die?” he whispered, his nose almost touching yours. You gave in, hot slow lava crawling up your body. You took Kai’s waist, trying to feel his ribs through three layers of clothing.

“You”.

He probably wore three or four shirts just to see you go nuts as you tried to undress him every time. His street jacket goes, then, a pullover, then a shirt, then another shirt, and you groan with anger as he chuckles at you, his hands snaking under your clothes at once. Your skin went shivering, covered with goose bumps under his fingers, like by magic.

As he pushed you against the wall, the gigantic Titan started melting above the river, looming shadow stepping away from the city, which was flattering. Kai’s whole mind was directed at you now.

You thought about how one loves at the brink of extinction; is it passionate, like when Kai grabbed your shoulder, your hair, pounding you into the floor, or is it gentle and thoughtful, like when you only moved your hips slowly, pressed against each other like two halves of Oreo, or is it impatient, breathless and vile, like when he was fucking you against the wall, talking all the way through your whimpering?

It took the end of the world for you to end up on his dick.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries imagine #tvd #vampire diaries

[beesloosewithcanon]

Fictober2019

Thank you, nonny for the prompt submission! 

Lord, what is it with me and Mass Effect pairings? I went a little overboard on this one, too, clocking in at just over 3k words! I’ve provided a “keep reading” line so I don’t utterly bog down all y’alls feeds. <3

If you’re interested in seeing a writing drabble from me for a specific f/f pairing, look at this post and let me know which you’d like to see! (I currently write in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Avatar Legend of Korra; I’d be open to also delve into the following fandoms – Avatar the Last Airbender, Overwatch, Stardew Valley, to name a few).

Prompt #1 – “It will be fun, trust me.”

Fanfiction – Mass Effect

Pairing – Jack & Miranda

***

This whole night had not at all been what Miranda had been expecting, especially since she’d run into Commander Shepard and her crew, who were here working on some undercover mission apparently. Being here herself was a coincidence and Jack had made a similar statement that it was odd that all of the old crew seemed to gather here tonight. But that didn’t stop Jack from eagerly agreeing to help create a distraction so Shepard and her small team for the evening could sneak into a secure location of the casino.

Miranda had no idea what kind of distraction she had in mind. Only that Jack had come up to her and said they were going to help the Commander out for the night and they were on distraction and diversion duty. Miranda hadn’t even had a chance to refuse before Jack had grabbed her wrist and started walking. 

“It will be fun, trust me,” Jack said as she pulled her along with her.

“Wha-” Miranda started but was cut off as Jack’s forward momentum jolted her forward, her heels sinking into the lush carpet of the casino gaming floor. “Jack, shouldn’t we have some sort of plan, first?” she hissed, pulling Jack back a little.

“I already have one, sweet tits.”

“Jesus, Jack,” Miranda rolled her eyes, finally falling into step with the volatile biotic woman who had an iron-clad grip on her own wrist. 

The convict’s demeanor hadn’t changed since the last time she’d had to work with her. By all rights, she was surprised to even be seeing Jack again. Miranda would have been wholly contempt with life had she not had to cross paths with the woman again, but here they were. Their working relationship had started out contemptuous at best, but Shepard had been able to bridge the gap between them and they had become increasingly less hostile towards each other as the time had passed aboard the Normandy. They were even cordial at times. Saying they were friendly towards one another, however, was pushing it. 

Miranda had to admit, though... she liked Jack’s newest look. Her long hair and undercut paired with her studded leather jacket that ended mid ribcage and the white straps that disappeared into her tight fighting pants that constituted some sort of shirt. The look left nothing to the imagination. She realized that she was too preoccupied looking over Jack’s attire, that she didn’t realize that Jack had come to a stop in front of her and walked straight into her back. The studs of her jacket making cold contact against the exposed skin of Miranda’s chest. She was beginning to regret wearing the floor-length gown with the very open front, showing off her chest and stomach in the current fashion. If they were going to do mission work, it was the least practical thing she could be wearing. But at least it was bright red. She wouldn’t go unnoticed, which was good for being a distraction. 

To her surprise, Jack didn’t cuss her out for running into her. Instead, she pulled her hand a little more, pulling her slightly around her and then casually slung an arm around her waist, leaning in close to her ear. It felt almost intimate.

But she had to be imagining things.

“Okay, you see that shithead over there?” Jack asked as she gestured subtly beyond a doorway. 

Miranda ignored Jack’s hot break on her neck and forced herself to look where she’d indicated. But the convict’s digging fingers on her hip made it hard for her to focus on what she was looking at, her brain choosing rather to focus on how those fingers felt and what they could potentially promise.

“W-which?” she got out before clearing her throat quietly. “The one with the gun or the one with two holstered guns and a taser rifle?” she added flatly. 

She felt Jack’s breath again as she let out a singular humored breath. “Taser dick,” she said simply before she moved. Jack kept her hand on her waist as she moved to stand in front of Miranda, her fingers trailing along her low back before settling on her opposite hip.

Miranda swallowed, continuing to ignore the feeling of pressure from Jack’s fingers. “Alright. What’s the plan?”

 “You gotta go up to him and try and seduce him,” Jack said simply.

Miranda blinked twice at her. “I beg your pardon?!” She then looked to the man holding the taser rifle. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Jack’s free hand came up and cupped Miranda’s chin tightly, bringing her back to look at her. “Because it’s apart of the damn plan,” she said, a mischievous arc to her eyebrows. “Now shut up and listen. You try to seduce him. Then I come in, all in a rage of a jealous lover or some shit and start fighting him. Shepard sneaks by squeaky clean. Simple as that.”

Miranda blinked. That was quite possibly the worst impromptu plan she’d ever heard and was sure Jack simply wanted to start a fight. She always seemed far too eager to throw punches or biotic fields. 

“And we land ourselves in jail,” Miranda said flatly as she moved her chin to the side, out of Jack’s grasp. “Or did that not cross your mind?”

Jack waved a dismissive hand at her. “Nah, we can take ‘em.”

“Did you forget that we’re in a casino? The security here is insane.” Miranda brought a hand up to her forehead as she let out an exasperated sigh. The plan was horrid. Just from here she could spot five cameras, and those were the ones the casino security wanted the patrons to see. There was no telling how many cameras were hidden out of plain sight. There was also no way they’d walk out of the casino if they started a fistfight in anything other than handcuffs. 

She shook her head. “That’s an insane plan. Give me a second and I’ll think of something better.”

“Oh, what? Your tits can seduce anyone. My plan is perfect.”

“Shut it, Jack,” Miranda said with a glare. “And enough about my breasts, already.”

“What?” Jack asked, shrugging her shoulders before giving Miranda a thorough look up and down before grinning. “You’ve got a great rack and that dress of yours displays it nicely. Why the fuck are you ashamed of it?”

Her glare soured as she shook her head again. “I’m just not so keen to hear you mention them every other ruddy sentence.”

“Awe, what? You sad cause they haven’t gotten enough attention lately?” Jack teased with an over the top pout. 

“So help me, Jack,” Miranda threatened. “Shut it or I’ll shove your head through the nearest wall.”

“Yeesh. Get laid, will ya?”

Miranda rolled her eyes again. She then looked over Jack’s shoulder through the doorway to see the men change positions. They were in front of what looked like a control panel, a secure hallway, and another locked room. Whatever was in there wasn’t for any regular casino patron. So what the hell did Shepard want with it? She was the white knight of the galaxy who never did anything morally ambiguous. She must have had some interesting intel… 

But that’s not why she was here. 

An idea clicked and she smiled. “Why cause a fight when all we need to do is distract?”

“Because if they’re fighting us, they’re not paying attention to anyone else? Duh.”

“I have a better plan. Well,” she paused and looked back to Jack, looking her face up and down before offering a sly smile. “Maybe. So long as you’re up for it, that is.” As soon as she said it, she heard how flirtatious her voice sounded and hated it.

Jack quirked an eyebrow. “Let’s hear it. Shep will be here any minute.”

Miranda bit her lip as she looked between Jack and the guards again before settling back on Jack’s face. “Why don’t we stumble in, kissing, acting hopelessly drunk. I’m sure them seeing two women going at it will be enough to draw their attention.”

Jack sneered. “We’d really have to be going at it.”

“At least my plan won’t land us in jail.”

Jack’s only response was her sneer widening, her mischievous look turning downright devious. She didn’t say anything but rather moved her hand from Miranda’s waist and laced their fingers together and began walking towards the area in question. 

Miranda wished that she’d been able to take a shot before they set their plan in motion, but Jack didn’t give her any time. She was thankful for the glass of wine that still sat warmly in her stomach from earlier. But if she was ever going to kiss Jack, she was sure she would have had to be much more intoxicated and not practically sober.  

Jack was a better actress than Miranda expected. It seemed like she’d simply turned on a switch and immediately seemed intoxicated as she started to walk in a wobbly fashion, pulling Miranda along with her. She even let loose a giggle that suited a very intoxicated woman that was normally unbefitting of Jack herself. 

When they cleared the doorway, Miranda noticed both men take a step forward and open their mouths, probably to tell them they were in a restricted area, but Jack was quicker. 

Her hand pulled Miranda forward in a sudden tug, causing her to slightly trip. Jack’s hands were ready and caught her by the hips and then pivoted her, pinning her to the nearest wall, hard. 

“Finally able to get your sweet ass alone,” Jack said in a loud whisper.

Miranda had to remember that they were playing a part and that they had to be distracting. She bit her lip and put one of her hands on Jack’s shoulder and the other hand gripping just below the base of her skull.

“Shut up and kiss me already,” she said. It felt odd to say it as loudly as she did to ensure the men heard but, it was a part.

She pulled Jack forward and their lips crashed together. Miranda wasn’t at all prepared for how good Jack’s lips felt; they were demanding, impatient, and a touch forceful, but the pressure of her body moving flush against hers was similar yet enjoyable. It was an overbearing presence of a woman who she at one point swore she would kill if push came to shove back in their Cerberus hay days. 

It wasn’t that she’d expected Jack to be soft and pliable. The thing that was unexpected was her own reaction to Jack’s body. Her fingers grabbed greedily at Miranda's hips before moving to push up the sides of her body. Once their bodies were fully flushed together, Miranda had no room to move back any further. Jack then pressed her leg forward, forcing space between Miranda’s thighs and pressed further, causing Miranda to let loose an involuntary moan into Jack’s mouth and her nails to rack along the back of Jack’s stubbly undercut. 

She felt Jack smile against her as she salaciously pushed her leg forward again. It was a stronger motion this time and it caused Miranda to break their kiss and let out a sharp moan, her head angled towards the ceiling. 

“Does the cheerleader like that?” Jack whispered, her breath hot against Miranda’s ear as one of her hands moved to cup one of her breasts just as her mouth latched onto the pulse point on Miranda’s neck. The question had been too quiet for their onlookers to hear.

She didn’t deign an answer or else she feared she’d maker a further embarrassment of herself. Or acknowledge that Jack seemed to be flirting without thought of the facade of lovers. She genuinely was teasing just then. And it didn’t help that this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she said kissing and going at it in front of the armed men. She’d thought that they’d make out, not have the prelude to sex with an audience. But she wasn’t about to stop what Jack was doing. She wasn’t used to having such a demanding partner, but it was a refreshing change of pace. Normally she was the one that her ex-boyfriends would expect to be the more sexually dominant one. But as she was pinned to the wall by Jack, she felt utterly helpless. And she liked it. She didn’t want to admit it but she did. She had no control in the situation, as Jack’s strong hands and leg kept her in place as her lips moved deftly across her skin and all she wanted was more demanding pressure from the woman.

Jack moved back up and kissed her on the mouth, her tongue unceremoniously moving into Miranda’s mouth and tangling with her own just as her leg moved forward again, going slightly higher. A moan vibrated between their lips and Miranda wasn’t sure that it was wholly hers. Her hand then moved up, grabbing at Jack’s hair at the base of her ponytail, urging her closer. 

“We’re in,” Commander Shepard’s voice echoed statically. 

Jack then broke the kiss, her chest heaving heavily against Miranda’s. That’s when she saw that Jack’s implant had a small blue pulsing light. Perhaps it worked as a comms device, too. 

“You two look cute together, by the way,” the Commander added with a playful lilt. 

“Shut the fuck up, Shep,” Jack growled back quietly. She stayed still for a long moment, her eyes decidedly looking at Miranda’s lips as their chests continued to heave together in unison. She then blinked and looked over her shoulder and Miranda followed her gaze. The two sentries were staring at them, mouths slightly agape and one with a definite bulge in his trousers.  

“Shit. Didn’t realize this place was so popular,” Jack said before her face fell into a glare and her hands moved back to holding Miranda’s waist. Miranda might have imagined it, but Jack’s grip felt possessive as she held her, still looking over her shoulder and glowering at the two men. “Get lost, fuckers.”

“Uh, you’re in a secure area, ma’am.” The man with the taser rifle cleared his throat, ignoring the new tightness to the front of his pants and took a step forward. “We’re going to have to ask you two to leave.”

“Oh, you say that now? Cheap bastards just wanted a free show,” Jack said harshly before taking Miranda by the hand again and started walking. “Get fucked,” she said, raising her free hand in the air with her middle finger prominently displayed. 

Miranda smiled, using her free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear as they walked. When they cleared the threshold of the room, she tugged Jack to the side, out of the way of a cocktail waitress who had a tray full of shots. 

“What?” Jack asked, glancing over her shoulder to see if they were followed. 

Miranda didn’t know what she was doing. Jack was infuriating to deal with and definitely not one of her favorite people. But there was no denying the way that Jack made her body feel and how much she enjoyed the demanding movements of the woman. She hadn’t even used her biotics on her but her entire nervous system sparked at the feeling of Jack’s leg between her own. Perhaps it had just been a while since she’d been with anyone. But she also knew she’d never been with anyone quite like Jack. And her body wasn’t done with its wanting. She was just getting started and would be damned if that was all that was going to happen between them tonight.

Miranda pulled the convict into another kiss, pushing her body into hers. Jack reacted in kind by grabbing eagerly at her waist and urging her closer without any hesitation. With a few quick steps, Jack had her against another wall, her hands moving low to press her thumbs into either side of Miranda’s hips. 

Miranda wrapped her arms around the convict's neck and encouraged Jack’s movement. But it made no sense. This was a woman that she’d hated for a long time and had only recently learned to be able to simply be in the same room with. But she felt so good that she didn’t care that they couldn’t carry a conversation without it resulting in a yelling match. They didn’t have to talk. What they were doing was perfectly fine. And who was to say it had to be anything more than just one night of sex?

Miranda reluctantly pulled her lips away but stayed close, her breath hot on Jack’s lips.

“Wanna get out of here?”

“And go where?”

“I have an apartment on the presidium.”

“Then why are we still standing here? Let’s fucking go already.”

Miranda smiled and moved forward, kissing Jack again. Jack smiled against her lips and indulged for only a moment before pulling away. She then brought her finger up to her implant as she started walking away, her hand still holding onto Miranda’s. “Shep. Something came up and I gotta boogie. Get out safe, okay? Or I’ll fuck you up later.”

Jack was quiet for a moment before she shook her head. “Heh. Something like that.” She then tapped her finger to her implant.

Miranda squinted at her but ignored it. Shepard had probably teased her about something. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Jack back to her place, out of their respective clothing, and burning out whatever they’d ignited. Tonight. This had to be a one-time thing. There was nothing between them that would satiate anything long term. But one night of what she was expecting was going to be spectacular sex? Well… with the reapers taking more and more worlds, she felt she deserved at least one night of overly satisfying passion before all hell broke loose. Or worse.

Jack summoned a taxi as they got out of the casino and practically bounced on feet as she waited. She wanted this just as much as Miranda did, apparently.

She smiled to herself, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Jack’s waist and planted an opened mouth kiss on her neck, letting her teeth move up against her skin before moving to suck on her slightly salty skin. Tonight was turning out to be far more fun than she had initially anticipated.

“Fuuck, get here already!” Jack whined as she looked upward, leaning into Miranda’s lips as her fingers pressed impatiently against the top of her ass and pulling her flush next to her.

#fictober19 #fictober drabbles #fictober day 6 of 7 #mass effect #fanfiction #mass effect fanfiction #miranda lawson #Jack #subject zero #jackanda #Jack and Miranda #f/f ships #3103 words #oops #this got long #i regret nothing #this was fun #gimme those prompts #send me more prompts! #keep em coming #more tomorrow

[efrmellifer]

Dueling Lyres

Etien began another letter, even though she knew she was never going to send it.

She had meant to start it the usual way, but she had skipped it in the desire to get into the meat of it, which was just was well, seeing as she never wanted the ‘intended’ recipient to read it.

I know you’ll want to ask why I never told you, or why I’m telling you piece by piece, more accurately.

The truth is I didn’t want to pass my anger to you. So much of my spark that you’ve come to admire is really just poorly-masked rage, and I’m glad that you love it, but I hate that it’s there.

I was such a good little kit, until everything got difficult. Until I was chased up a literal and metaphorical tree, then molded for the life I was expected to have.

And… there was more to me and T’ahn that made me leave the Shroud.

It wasn’t just that I was being drained by him and my father. That was certainly part of it. But we said we were going to run off, pretend he had won me fair and square. It was going to be just us, he said. We were breaking the rules, trying to make a tribe of just us two.

Is it better or worse to know he wasn’t breaking the rules?

_

The huntspeak had died out, replaced with idle gossip while they waited for more prey to pass through. Etien could only guess that the others didn’t think she could hear them, since she was up in a tree, bow still drawn, trained on the grass in case something came by before the rest of them could get their weapons ready.

She was out of their sight, and so assumed to be out of earshot, and the gossip had turned to what a shame it was that that T tribe fellow was building a new tribe in such a strange fashion. Usually, it was a few girls from one tribe latching on with him, not one here, one there.

Did they even know they were being threaded together like beads? That poor M’etien, she seemed to really love him. And he hasn’t let her know?

Etien choked on her spit, sank her teeth into her tongue to stay quiet.

She took down an antelope by herself, let the other hunters start to skin and section it, and wandered off deeper into the Shroud. She killed a Diremite half out of reflex and half out of accidental bloodlust, but was settled into a resolve not unlike glass by the time she got home.

That was more than enough, and she was leaving. She had just decided. New Gridania was as good a place as any for an experienced archer like herself to start fresh.

She threw her belongings—her lyre, a change of clothes, her favorite book, a few pieces of jewelry (she might need to sell them for traveling gil…), and of course her bow—into a bag and dropped it in the corner of her room. Ready to go, when she got the guts.

She was heading out the next day when T’ahn came by. He tried to give her a kiss, and she ducked away from him.

“So. When were you going to tell me I was to be part of a breeding harem?” she asked, sitting on a stump that functioned as a fence post outside her home.

“Where did you hear that?”

“The whole Shroud’s crowing about it, about poor little M’etien, letting T’ahn Tia make an incoherent fool out of her.”

He didn’t really say anything, just stammered out an “I—”

Etien’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, Ahn?”

He said nothing.

“I don’t understand. Was I not good enough? Were you not happy?”

T’ahn sighed, leaning against the fence next to Etien. “Were you?”

She had no idea how to answer. Because the truth was no, she wasn’t. She was setting herself up to be content with the future they’d planned, but she wasn’t excited, per se. It was just a path to walk.

T’ahn grabbed his lyre, absently strumming it.

He launched into a little song not long after.

Etien caught up mid-phrase. She knew this tune. It wasn’t a happy one, usually sung by bitter ex-lovers.

Well, they weren’t ex-lovers yet.

They sang together, alternating lines for the first verse, but eventually, they were singing lines at each other pointedly, starting with T’ahn’s “I hope I lie, and tell everyone you were a good wife, and I hope you die.”

“I hope we both die,” Etien spat back, fingers flicking at lyre strings.

“I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow,” he began.

“I hope it bleeds all day long.”

Back and forth, they went, vehement and spitting. Halfway to a fistfight conducted on furiously-strummed lyres.

“And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can’t find one good thing to say,” T’ahn told Etien bitterly.

She responded, “And I’d hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you’d stay the hells out of my way. I am drowning. There is no sign of land. You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.”

“And I hope you die,” T’ahn finally said.

“I hope we both die,” Etien finished, grabbing her bag and heading for the trail towards New Gridania.

Damn. Her fingers were bleeding now.

_

Her fingers were sore from holding the pen so hard as she’d written it all out, so she let it go and stretched her fingers out, flopping back on the bed.

But T’ahn didn’t matter now, hadn’t mattered since she made it to Gridania and entered the Canopy and told Mother Miounne her name was Etien.

She shook her head, desperate for happier thoughts now.

When Etien let her eyes close, a recent memory floated up from the depths of her mind.

_

Aymeric had woken early, and woken her with his tossing and turning in an attempt to go back to sleep. She was keeping her eyes shut, clinging to what little haze of sleep was still clouding her mind, when he snapped her out of it with a light touch on her cheek.

She had reached up and taken his hand, flattening it against her skin and pressing against it.

“Good morning,” she warbled, still not opening her eyes.

They had laid like that for a while, and then Etien insisted they get up.

Aymeric was glued to her as she went about her morning, only letting her go so she could tug on her dress and occasionally bend to get things out of low cupboards.

And suited her just fine.

She was making them breakfast, and Aymeric had his arms around her middle, hunched so he could rest his chin on the top of her head while she worked.

Etien was humming, but she couldn’t remember what now, just that Aymeric had liked it, humming along with her.

When the water for tea boiled, she grabbed it off the flame, pouring it over the sachets of leaves, letting them steep.

While they waited, the food cooling rapidly but neither of them caring, they swayed across the floor to each other’s humming in the morning light.

He twirled her, and when they came back together, she leaned against him, sighing.

He tilted her chin up with gentle pressure from the backs of his fingers, eyebrows rising in a silent question.

Etien shook her head, resting against him more firmly. “Everything’s fine.”

Aymeric nodded, wrapping his arms around her, stroking her hair.

“I should get the tea,” she said finally.

While she was getting the cups together, adding milk and sweetener to each—birch syrup for him and honey from the East Shroud for her—she found she couldn’t get the honey open.

She huffed in frustration and Aymeric let her go so he could open the jar.

When he handed it back, she spooned the honey in quickly, catching him silently sticking his fingers together with residual honey from the bottle’s lid out of the corner of her eye.

Without thinking, she lifted his hand to her mouth, licking his fingers clean.

She wiped the corners of her mouth and handed him his cup with a bright smile, like it hadn’t happened.

When he joined her at the table, it was with a blush that wasn’t fading, no matter how he tried to settle himself.

Etien rested her chin on her hand while she looked at him. “I guess I should apologize.”

Aymeric blinked and cleared his throat. “No, no. Um. I would rather you did it again.”

She picked up her plate and her cup. “We don’t have time for all that,” she said with a giggle. “In the meantime,” she perched on his lap, taking a bite of her food and grinning at him, “this will have to do.”

His arm snaked around her back and he pulled her closer. “It’s perfect.”

_

With an airy sigh as she rolled onto her side, Etien smiled. She wanted to go home. It wasn’t quite so sharp of a complaint this time, at least. Just a quiet internal truth.

She wanted to go home. And home was waiting for her.

#it's angst! it's lore! it's fluff! #fic #I hesitate to tag this 'Aytien' because it's mostly not #but also? #Idk it's like three fics in one and one of them is Aytien #we won't count it #oh the song is 'No Children' by the mountain goats

[grell-writes-stuff]

@fenfaerie I did something ~*~*~*~Fucked Up~*~*~*~

When the bell rings again, I breathe a small sigh. I’ve made it to lunch without losing my lunch (breakfast). Bryson turns to me as I’m shoving my textbook back into my bag, and I try to read his face. I can’t quite decipher if his offer is genuine, or just out of obligation because I’m staring to feel like the pathetic, left-behind friend that they, for some reason, still feel the need to try to include.

“Hey, we’re going to Wendy’s for lunch. You in, Scott?” he asks. Both he and Matt look at me expectantly.

And that’s how I end up in Cole’s car again, sitting in the back with my crutches wedged on a diagonal between me and Bryson. I’m probably not hungry enough to actually eat – that I’m sure of – but they’d end up worrying too much or maybe scrapping the plan all together if I declined. Or they’d just go without me and I’d be stranded at ECR for half an hour with nothing to do and nobody to hang out with. I figured going to Wendy’s was the best option.

When we arrive and it’s my turn at the counter, I order water and a side of fries, and ignore the look of judgment from the cashier. I figure I won’t actually eat the fries and just let my friends pick at them, and my drink of choice is a safe bet and won’t do anything to my unpredictably fragile stomach. I’m doing so well already. I could afford to vomit, but I’d rather not. If I can finish off this day, it’ll be beyond victory. I’ll give myself a goddamn trophy for doing what every teenager in the history of mandatory education has already done. Which sounds fucking pathetic, but I choose to disregard that.

The four of us claim a booth, and the rest of them dig in. I don’t. I’d rather not even think about food because it makes my gut tense up a little. The only food-related thought I allow myself is wondering if a single burger will be enough to satisfy Cole when I’ve seen him devour three in one sitting before (with a side of large fries).

“So, Scott,” Cole starts to ask mid-swallow. His brown eyes meet mine. “When’s the cast come off?”

I hear the sharp breath that Bryson takes in through his teeth. “Really, Cole?”

My response comes out unfiltered.

“I don’t know, Cole. Whenever they fucking tell me it can.”

I regret it. Immediately. But Cole’s never been great at screening his questions before he speaks, so who cares whether or not I censor my answers? Who cares if I’m snarky? I think I’m allowed to be – expected to be – at this point.

“Scott,” Bryson sighs and scolds me in a similar, exhausted manner.

But that goes unheard, and so does Cole’s attempt at an apology because a voice by the entrance to the building carries on air and sends a bullet of ice up my spine. I only catch the tail-end, but that’s all it takes to make my jaw set.

“–and she was so good.”

It’s a flat tone. Sarcastic. Slightly nasally, yet shrill. As shrill and annoying as tinnitus, and it makes me want to shove one of my balled fists through drywall just to be able to feel something physical because my body suddenly goes numb. I don’t know how since I feel so stiff, my muscles locking rigid like the links of a chain pulled taut, but my head turns robotically of its own accord to zero in on her tiny form, and I wish I could shoot missiles from my eyes because she is in my line of fire.

Along with Roxy and a gaggle of her dumb, bratty friends, Selena Walton has entered the restaurant.

“Why the fuck is she here?” It slips out, a hiss seething through my teeth.

There’s a pause. Probably the guys are following my stare as it pierces her body like a battle axe. Their voices resume.

“Cole and I made the lunch plan at his locker after second period,” Matt begins. “Isn’t hers, like–”

“Right across the hall,” Cole finishes.

“She could have overhead,” Bryson pitches.

“Subliminal messaging,” Matt suggests.

Excuses. They’re all excuses. And I don’t care. I realize while they’re speaking that what I said was rhetorical. Instead, it should be: Who allowed her to be here? I got rid of her – why does she still insist upon barging into my life when she’s done enough shit to me already?

And the three of them need to stop trying to figure out her presence here because their voices are carrying and it’s not a big dining space. Suddenly, Roxy spots us – unlike the rest of them, she’s never trapped in her own, self-centered world, and she notices things in her peripheral. She does a short, cheery wave, and then Selena’s malicious, artificial face turns to me, and her makeup-masked, raccoon eyes meet mine, and then I see red for a minute.

“Hey, guys!” Roxy speaks, knocking me back into reality. I’m sitting in our booth and Roxy’s come up to the edge of the table with Selena, and their minions (two fake-blondes who share seven braincells between them named Tiffany Something-or-other and Ashley Something-or-other).

I don’t greet her back. I’m just focused on how hungry my balled-up knuckles feel, how the sensation has drained from my face, and how the humming molecules of my body are ready to snap and explode like a firecracker and cause the kind of destruction that is only capable of a nuclear bomb. My throat feels like it’s been scooped out piece-by-piece by a melon baller. I’m ready to unleash an airstrike just so everybody can feel how I suddenly feel – smitten to smoldering ash.

And that feeling is so smothering that I can’t find that logical part inside of me that I know is screaming out, trying to tell me that I’m scaring myself. It’s too far away to listen to.

I hear Matt, Cole, and Bryson respond politely to Roxy, but my teeth are fused together, and my eyes are trying to burn holes into the skin that once burned me as toothpick arms wrapped around my neck, so I don’t participate. By now, everyone must be used to that.

Roxy continues, “Bryson, I, uh, think I left something at your place the other day.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he responds. “Just text me when you want to come pick it up.”

My hearing starts to seem muffled and distorted as my blood races through every vein like it’s trying to qualify as an Olympic sprinter. I don’t have the time to dissect the fragments of conversation I’m able to pick up because she stops trying to distance herself from our table, and suddenly seems to register my presence. Her brown eyes flick to me and it sends an electric zap jumping through my body as if I’d jammed a fork in an outlet.

“What the fuck are you looking at?”

It just slips out. Unfiltered. I don’t regret it. Not even when the whole earth goes silent, or when her angled brows raise, her pupils beginning to burn. Not when the stunned pause shatters and Bryson says, “Scott, what the fuck?”

It goes unheard.

“You think you have the right to stalk me after what you did to him?!”

Him.

Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. Me. I meant to say me. After all she’s done to me. But that came bursting out instead like a dam finally giving way from the fissures and cracks that went ignored, letting a tidal wave loose to drown an innocent valley. I feel something else apart from the anger festering at my core. At my center, the shadowy mass that has been living inside of me knits itself into a tight, heavy ball. As it begins to run out of threads of itself, it slowly merges with the rage. They are one, yet they wrestle each other in a tangle of metaphysical limbs. The realization has just left my tongue and kicked me in the chest, stomach, skull.

“Excuse me?” Her obnoxious lips say. It’s quiet and I think it’s supposed to be, but that doesn’t matter. Even as a whisper, there’s still a punch to her tone.

I want to punch something – her, or just something hard enough to shatter every bone in my hand. I’m breathing with such intensity that my shoulders are heaving along with my chest, and I can’t suppress it. In, out, in out. Kelley’s suggestion to breathe slow and deep doesn’t work. My lungs are ablaze like her glare. My eyes are stinging, but it’s not tears rubbing salt into my wounds. This time, it’s a memory casting over my vision invasively.

Stupid, bubbly handwriting.

She’s not speaking. She’s waiting, suspended in the silence like a predator devising her next move carefully. Yet her heckling voice batters at my ears and no number of middle fingers will make it stop. I can’t hold it inside of me any longer because the venomous darkness has expanded to fill the furthest crevices of my being. I lose my sanity and I throw it at her with all I have. I’m operating on autopilot.

“It was your idea! It was all your fault! We wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you!”

“Morgan?!” Bryson sounds shocked and distant, but it doesn’t stop the tragic truth as it comes screaming out of me.

“He’d still be here if it wasn’t for you!”

And, just like that, it’s out there in the universe, and the air feels weighted with my words and ready to crush us all. The atmospheric pressure rivals the mass of four thousand mountains, and the heat boils my blood until it turns to lava. I’m a volcano, and I have just erupted.

Everyone is frozen like they can’t find words, but I’m not focused on that. I’m not focused on the things around me – like the other restaurant patrons who are surely gawking at what’s about to be a verbal fistfight at Wendy’s. The rest of the world goes dark and it’s only me and her.

Her nostrils flare, and somehow, even with a set jaw, her mouth parts. Her eyes are raging forest fires, now infected by surprise, but also by challenge. Her voice has the power to wound, but also has a hollow quality that tells me how deeply my own blow landed. The two words I’ve heard from her a million times are more hostile and poisonous than ever before.

“Fuck you.”

Everyone is surely staring because making a scene isn’t that hard. We’ve been the negative center of attention before.

“Fuck me? Fuck you! You just had to go to that cliff, didn’t you?! You just had to find the ‘perfect’ cliff and hog the spotlight and the praise and just be an attention whore! And it’s not like any of this matters to you because you never cared about any of us – no, you only care about yourself, you conceited bitch!”

“So you’re calling me a fucking narcissist?” she demands, her teeth bared. “Maybe get off your own fucking high horse because you don’t know shit!”

“I know all the shit I need to know! I know you could have picked literally anywhere else and he would still fucking be here!”

I’m even hitting my own nerves like each one is a piece in my drum kit and I’m in the middle of an angry solo. But even though I’m shaking, and she’s just a teary blob in the center of my obscured vision, and I’m fighting just as hard to keep my voice even as I am fighting her, that doesn’t stop me from saying it.

“You led him to his death! He died because of you!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you! It’s all your fucking fault! Just stay out of my fucking life before you take that away from me too!”

Whoever invented the idea of storming off clearly was not bound to crutches, but I’m too riled up to care about the awkward, intricate ritual of pulling myself to my good leg, and hobbling away from her. I think she continues to scream at me, but all I can hear is the rushing in my ears as all the blood must have seeped to my head because none of it is in my bone-white hands where they’re gripping my supports so goddamn tight so I don’t just turn around and slug her in her smug, angry fucking face. And I know I just have to get out of this place before I finally fucking snap and cross that line as well.

California heat hits me once I leave the air-conditioned building and it doesn’t do much to dull the hot rage. It feeds it. I don’t have the stability to consider tearing myself from the hoodie that was such a stupid choice to confine myself to, and I’m half afraid I’ll end up punching the hood of Cole’s disaster of a Cherokee and shattering my knuckles like glass because my entire fucking broken body is about to burst like an over-filled water balloon – except the water is acid.

“What the fuck, Scott?!”

I turn at the voice behind me to see that Bryson’s stormed out after me – and probably with better success considering the drama of it all would have been better on two working legs (though he still would’ve had to ask Cole to move to actually leave the booth, which is also not ideal for stomping away enraged).

This time, the careful façade he’s been putting on for me has just…gone. It’s disappeared. Behind it – and it’s probably been brewing for a while – is the look he gives me now. Frustration, shock, horror, vexation. And his tone, loud and indignant, makes me feel like a wall has been suddenly, hastily erected around me like a defensive barrier, except I’m just as ready to tear it down with my bare hands. I am a stronghold and a war machine. A new verbal fistfight is approaching the vicinity of the Wendy’s parking lot.

“What do you mean ‘what the fuck’?! She stalked us! She’s not leaving me the fuck alone!”

“Will you get the fuck over yourself?!”

That’s the first blow in this brawl, and it hits me like he’s thrown a hammer at my forehead. After over a month of being wary, Bryson’s finally decided to stop pulling his punches. And I don’t know if it makes me angrier or just…shocked. I feel numb all of a sudden. Then I’m grappling for something to scream back at him, but my brain still feels like it’s on fire and there are alarm bells blaring, but I’m stuck.

“So you’re dating Roxy now?! You just weren’t going to tell any of us?!”

Maybe that’s not something that should sound so mad coming from my mouth, but I really can’t find much else to yell at him for.

“This isn’t about me, Morgan!”

 He never uses my first name – or very rarely at that. But this isn’t like the way he’d said it on the worst day of my life, or the stunned exclamations just a moment ago in our booth. This switch between Scott and Morgan is serious. It’s serious in the way that a Shakespearean tragedy is serious where one minute two minor roles are making dick jokes, and the next someone’s been stabbed with a rapier through their kidney.

“Can you just give her a fucking break?!”

“She’s not giving me a fucking break!”

“Oh, my God! She’s not out to get you, Morgan! It’s not her mission to destroy your fucking life!”

“That’s literally always been her fucking deal!”

“Yeah? Then why the hell would she save it?!”

Save it? His eyes are hard, and something must come to my face while I’m staring at him because I watch as his steeliness can’t suppress a tiny shudder because he lets himself remember that day – parts of it that my mind couldn’t close around. His voice softens, and it’s painful, and he’s trying to fight back the emotions just so he can get it out as trembling words.

“You think I know what to fucking do when two of my friends fall off a goddamn cliff? Because I don’t. And neither does Matt. Or Cole. Scott, I…I froze.”

I know how that feels. I’m rooted to the spot and my body feels like it’s full of rocks and one heart that’s beating as fast as a jogger on a morning run. I don’t speak. I can’t make myself, and I’m waiting to hear what he’s going to say because I’m still trying to piece it together, and I’m terrified that I’ve finished the wrong puzzle since the picture no longer looks anything like the artwork on the box that I feel like I’ve been staring at for the past thirty-eight days.

“Did you know she knows first aid and CPR? Because I had no fucking clue. She was halfway down to the ledge before I…even really knew what happened.”

By this point, his voice is slow and careful so he can keep it together, but his face is still soul-crushing. I don’t want to imagine how I must look. My throat has closed, and the only thing keeping my hands from shaking are my crutches because I’m gripping them to avoid falling into Hell as punishment for the things that I screamed at her.

“She made sure you were okay… Breathing… I don’t think I would have had the sense to call nine-one-one if she hadn’t yelled at me to.

“And then she went to him when Cole got him out of the water, and…and she tried, Morgan. She tried to save him too. A paramedic literally had to pull her away from him because she wanted him to be okay…”

I’m hollow and my eyes are blurry and punctured by a hundred needles. My words are tainted with leftover hostility, but they’re only as loud as the whispers of a mouse. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“Yeah, that’s what you wanted,” he says with a sarcastic edge to it. “When we tell you the worst thing you’re ever going to hear, you want her there? You want to be thinking about Selena? We all thought you’d just…be better off not knowing that she was the only one with her shit together when it happened. She insisted. You know she didn’t leave the hospital until she knew you were going to be all right? She only left after we knew that, and we couldn’t have made her stay for…literally anything in the world. ‘He’s not going to want me here.’”

My legs are going to give way, even with my crutches. I lean against Cole’s Cherokee that’s been baking in the sun, and my burning, protective layer becomes hotter, but I don’t care. I’m still fuming, and her image enters my brain, and those flames don’t stop because of all the shit I’ve had to put up with since I bumped into her that day in a middle school hallway. Her constant torment, and psychological warfare, and pranking, and verbal fistfights both in public and private places.

So why do I feel like the ultimate asshole right now?

Years have passed before I hear Bryson speak again in that tone that he used on me yesterday when he dropped me off at home after I’d failed. “Are you coming back in?”

My lips part to answer, but I don’t have anything to say. I’m too afraid that I’ll still lose it when I see her again because my fists still itch with a ravenous craving. And, even if she’s left, I don’t feel stable enough to go back inside to where I erupted, not when every single person witnessed it, their eyes turned on the scene. It’s the opposite of healing, but I refuse to let myself feel so I can answer him.

I shake my head. “I’ll wait out here.”

He goes back to the booth.

#yay screaming in public #book: interlude #wip: interlude #interlude excerpt #selena walton #morgan scott #writing #my writing

[rwbyconversations]

100 Follower Special- The Scattered Leaves of Autumn (or: Why Amber is Awesome)

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who made 100 followers possible (it’s 120 as I write this). For a blog I really just started on a whim, this thing has taken off. I’ve got a post that’s racked up over a thousand notes in under two days, I’ve dipped my toe into serious analysis and felt my mind fracture as I imagine a RWBY fan ask the question “What’s your favorite ship?” 

So to celebrate, I thought I’d do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now, and that’s tell everyone how much character Amber is given in six minutes, one fight, and one line of dialogue.

First off, required listening is this loop of the music that plays at the beginning of Amber’s scene. This is, in my opinion, the best instrumental Jeff and Alex have ever produced for the show. It has this haunting, almost ethereal quality to the violin, a soft vocal element that almost feels like it’s part of a dirge for both Amber and the happier times of Volumes 1 and 2. After all, Chapter 7 is where the tone begins its radical shift in preparation for the Fall of Beacon and one of three major points of no return for the show (the other two being Yang crippling Mercury and Pyrrha vs Penny).

We’re introduced to Amber after several still shots of a field with a gloomy cloud cover, setting the stage for what’s about to go down. She’s alone with nothing but a horse and a bag for company until in the middle of nowhere (likely in Vale given the scenes with Adam are immediately before and after the Black trailer) she spies a lonely child with a wrecked bicycle, crying her eyes out.

And what does Amber do? Get off her horse and give the kid an apple while flashing a reassuring smile. Amber is kind, gentle, nurturing and cares for children.

But she’s also razor-sharp. She immediately notices the dust that Emerald kicks up (”Not a foot out of place,” Cinder warned them), and once the illusion vanishes, Amber immediately leaps back and gets her horse to run off. Her cloak is removed, staff out, she’s combat ready in the time it takes to blink.

We get a quick look at how Amber fights, and it seems that she’s fond of hiding in plain sight when it comes to power use- she casually blocks Emerald’s gunfire with her Maiden powers and uses her powers to augment the Dust crystals (wind and fire, I believe) embedded on her staff. Alternatively, Amber is more lax in using her powers in public since this is a brazen attempt on her life and she cares more about staying alive than preserving Ozpin’s masquerade. Regardless, Amber likely fights like this as a way for her to use her powers in public without causing a scene, as thanks to the widespread abilities Dust can provide, Amber kicking up a gust of wind or firing off a flamethrower blast isn’t out of the realm of possibility- just look at what Weiss and Hazel can get up to with their usage of Dust.

But when Mercury arrives and powers through her flamethrower, Amber takes off the kid gloves. At this point, she’s realized that they’re trying to take her powers and they’ve landed a serious hit on her. So she decides to let them see properly what they’re up against.

And we as an audience get to finally see the real power of a Maiden while a choir begins to resonate and then in comes Jeff Williams with a guitar to shake the damn earth.

This was the audience’s first glimpse at just what a Maiden can do, and it’s a masterful first showing. CRWBY have stated that Amber’s fight was meant to showcase that Maidens could use all four elements and weren’t bound to one (unfortunately the fanbase didn’t get the memo, considering that M&K have had to say this three times now). One of my personal favorite moments of the fight comes from Amber improvising a flechette storm out of leaves that she flash-freezes and fires at Emerald and Mercury. Amber’s power is shown easily through one simple shot, where she looks almost disdainfully down at Mercury and Emerald as they fire desperately at her, not even bothering to deflect the gunfire. 

Amber also showed how quick thinking she was after Cinder knocked her down. Before she sees CEM running towards her, we hear the trademark sound of Emerald’s Semblance and Amber gasps at that. She’d heard it earlier when Emerald set the trap, and after Emerald appears she immediately realizes it; Emerald has an illusion Semblance. And based on her behavior later in the fight, Amber subscribes to the Tamora Pierce school of combat.

But first Amber has to deal with Cinder and Mercury. And despite both of them flickering in and out of visibility thanks to Emerald, Amber proves why Cinder had to stack the deck so thoroughly to beat her.

Because she kicks their asses. Even without her staff or using her Maiden powers, and even outnumbered as she is, Amber wins every 1v1 close quarters encounter in the back half of the fight, mostly using raw CQC to wipe the floor with them (you know what they say about never bringing a knife to a fistfight). Mercury only lands a few hits on her when she’s distracted with Emerald, and every time, Amber makes him pay dearly for it. Let me remind you at this point that according to Qrow in Volume 4, Amber only had a year’s training with her Maiden powers. She was a natural-born prodigy. 

Even after Cinder breaks Amber’s Aura (and you guessed it, it wasn’t through direct combat, she had to wait for Amber to be distracted before she could do even that), she still keeps fighting like a determined little spitfire, blowing CME away. Amber uses this chance to finally get rid of the thorn in her side and immediately wastes Emerald with a fireball. And despite needing to limp on her staff, Amber slowly but surely makes her way to where Emerald fell, and before Emerald can pull any more tricks, Amber goes in for the killing blow. Rather than waste time on Mercury or Cinder, Amber used her head and went for the person who could cast illusions. With Emerald out of the way, it would have been much easier to neutralize Cinder and Mercury. It was also personal at this point; Emerald had ambushed her, manipulated her conscience and used her own morality as a distraction. Amber had no more mercy left for Emerald, and had she been just a second faster, Emerald’s skull would have been split wide open.

But she wasn’t fast enough. Based on where it looks like she got shot, Cinder’s arrow struck Amber in the spine or may have even pierced one of her lungs. Her eyes widen for a second, mouth struggling to say anything or maybe even breathe, and then Amber falls. She put up a hell of a fight, managed to beat around three very talented fighters, but Emerald’s Semblance was the trump card in Cinder’s deck. Add in some dastardly sneak attacks, and Amber ultimately never stood a chance.

And at this moment, her eyes widen as that realization settles in. That she is about to die, in a random field, to a bitch in a red dress. She tries to stay defiant as Mercury and Emerald grab her arms, but once the parasite bursts out of Cinder’s palm, Amber loses it.

Amber doesn’t scream bloody defiance at Cinder, doesn’t curse her name or provide a quip. Amber is terrified when she dies, shaking in abject fear, which makes her suffering even more tragic and ultimately realistic. She wasn’t just some hardened Huntress who stared death in the face. Unlike Pyrrha, she didn’t get a cool one-liner. Amber begs for mercy and is horrified in her last conscious moments. She was already gone by the time Qrow came to save her, and when she finally started to regain consciousness however many moons later...

There wasn’t a bright light at the end of that tunnel, unfortunately. After months she’s emaciated, pale from the lack of sunlight, and scars still riddle her face. And just as something may come of her suffering, Cinder plunges an arrow into her heart, and Amber dies in a cold, dark vault that serves as her tomb. She got no burial, no grave to mourn at, while Cinder stole a power she never deserved.

To conclude, Amber is one of my favorite characters in RWBY and I can only hope I did a good job covering why. In a lot of ways she laid the groundwork for Sienna Khan’s fandom in volume 5- a dark-skinned woman voiced by a big-name VA who only really had one scene before their tragic demise, but dominated that one scene and made it their own. Amber in six minutes shows multiple facets to her personality- a friendliness and willingness to help children, a smart and ruthlessly powerful fighting style that lets her draw on Huntress and Maiden training, a lack of mercy to those who cross her, and perhaps most human of all, pure unadulterated fear. She dies scared and alone, looking into the amber eyes of a monster, which only makes the tragedy of Amber’s short life all the more painful.

Thank you for reading. 

#rwby #rwby analysis #amber rwby #cinder fall #mercury black #emerald sustrai #character analysis #rwby volume 3 #amber deserved better

[athyrabunlord]

Tattoos

A/N: Here’s a blip to flesh out the dynamic/relationship between Dia and Kanan from [Mafia AU], as voted on my twitter. I had fun writing it XD Words: 1,946 Characters: Dia and Kanan (with implied KanaChika and DiaRiko)

Dia Kurosawa tightened her high-ponytail before hopping onto the ring. She had properly warmed up earlier with the punching bags and was more than ready to try her mettle against a moving opponent. It had been a few weeks since her rib injury had suspended her duties, far too long to confine someone in idle restlessness let alone the kumichou of the Kurosawagumi.

“You sure?” Her trainer and her confidante asked, though the rhetorical question was a jab to rile her up. Kanan Matsuura was a woman of few words when she wanted to be, but she had a certain way with them that caused whichever effect she desired.

“I make my own kills,” Dia said evenly, “I have been warming the bench for too long.”

Kanan let out a gruff chuckle, agreeing to her inactivity in past two grand missions. “Then come at me, and I’ll decide whether you’re ready or not.” She placed her orange-tinted glasses on a nearby table and pulled off her dress shirt, leaving only a black tanktop on. Her violet eyes had a gleam of amusement as she rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. “I wouldn’t want Riko to get angry. Oh definitely not.”

“The infamous Twilight Tiger is scared?” Dia also shrugged off her yukata so she was only clad in her sports bra and shorts. The cool air felt pleasant against her exposed skin, especially around her injured area. It was always a good idea to allow a wound to breathe, and any bouts of pain were inconsequential.

“Of Riko? Of course. It’d be unwise not to,” Kanan smiled. It was just a playful jest since nothing could faze her, but no one wanted to be under the scrutiny of the underboss’ lone chilly eye, not if they could avoid it. Even the Family’s ace assassin was no exception.

The mild humor then vanished just as quickly and Kanan gave her a curt nod.

There was no winning a raw fistfight, not against the best fighter of the Family, though Dia still enjoyed sparring and pushing her limits. She clenched her fist tightly under the training bandages and charged, her muscles coiled like springs. In her younger years, she had been scrawny, mostly bone and skin, but intense training had toughened her body. Sinewy muscles flexed and stretched under her pale complexion, making her jabs quick and powerful. Her legs, though not much of an asset in terms of power, gave her all the leverage she needed to swerve and outpace her opponents. She dodged most of the punches and kicks Kanan threw at her.

“You’re still favoring your left side,” the assassin grunted just before sending a powerful jab at her. Dia saw the attack coming but couldn’t react fast enough to dodge or parry it. Kanan’s fist rammed her middle, causing her to stagger but she bounced back up without as much as a grimace. The impassive expression in spite of the pain had Kanan smirking, like she always did whenever she approved of something. Even back in Russia, she never made accolades to a job well done simply because it was expected to happen. In their line of work, failure meant death, or worse, the safety of the Family.

Dia returned to her stance after rolling her shoulder, the yakuza-style tattoos flowing over the joint and deltoid like breathing water. She had earned every single one of those artworks, each worth a life snuffed, an enemy killed. She remembered the first she had gotten, back when she was sixteen. She just returned to the States then, a fiery youth ready to fight for her inheritance and her family’s legacy. That single sakura emblem had been joined by a myriad of other effigies since then; on her back, shoulders and right arm. The eight-headed Orochi and the immortal phoenix were typically reserved for higher profile kills; she didn’t get any of those until well into her nineteenth year. But being the heart and soul of such operations meant that those high profile targets were reserved only for her, and she had earned them well as the heiress of the notorious Kurosawagumi.

Emerald eyes spied similar artwork on her sparring partner’s body, which teemed with markings from her vicious upbringing. The muscular woman’s style depicted her origin, symbolic and predominantly inked in black. An eight-pointed star was inked in bold under her clavicle, a symbol for thievery of the highest caliber. She remembered Kanan telling her once that she earned that tattoo by stealing a minister’s daughter and all his riches right under his nose. As Dia dodged another punch to her right, she saw the white claws of a Siberian Tiger on Kanan’s shoulder blade, a symbol for the old regime in which authority was bestowed only to the strongest. Though mostly hidden by her tanktop, Dia knew that, under the beast’s jaw, were human skulls crushed by ruthless fangs, denoting the wearer’s high proficiency for murder. A myriad of stripes, interlaced with other motifs, climbed up her entire left arm for each and every single brutal kill for the Family.

Indeed, the phantom Twilight Tiger was their trump card, her presence indomitable. Even in the ring, and despite Dia’s own skills, Kanan was difficult to take down. She had always been a fortress, any strike a juggernaut, but the kumichou was nothing but patient and tenacious. She would chip her down, brick by brick if she must.

Her opportunity came when Kanan suddenly lunged at her in a reckless tackle. Dia leapt and hooked her legs around Kanan’s shoulder and neck, using the momentum to shove her opponent down. As soon as they crashed on the ground, Dia swerved to the side and tightened her thighs around Kanan’s neck in a triangle choke.

Anyone else would have already lost or would soon lose consciousness by this point. Alas, Kanan managed to avoid the brunt of the submission and wrestled out of the maneuver with one arm wrapped around Dia’s waist. One abrupt lift and slam later, Dia found herself sprawled on her back and wheezing.

“You shouldn’t have done that, especially in your injured state,” Kanan rasped, looming above her. “And against me.”

“I should have known better, yes.” Despite the slight prickle to her pride, Dia knew to acknowledge her mistakes. It was near impossible to get past Kanan’s guard, so she should have realized it had been a bait the moment she landed a chokehold on her.

“Aw, you’ll always be better at katana than me,” Kanan chuckled, not to console her but to invite her to another round.

Dia narrowed her eyes and smiled defiantly, accepting her friend’s offered hand to help her get up. The sparring match resumed for the better part of the hour with heated intensity. Punches made way for real blades; combat knives, short swords, and katanas. Their exchanges were as vicious as if they were out to slit the throat of a target. They have always trained like this because neither saw a point in training with toys.

It was also sign of utmost trust that could only be built from a lifetime of camaraderie, indomitable faith in each other’s abilities to dodge potentially fatal strikes. Besides, it was always better to learn and practice how to dodge since failing to do so would result in a stab wound or worse, than play along and get killed in action. Such training also taught restraint and precise movements, key skills for assassins and professional criminals.

“If only you weren’t still recovering,” Kanan grinned even as the tongue of the katana slid perilously against her jugular. “That was beautiful.”

“Naturally,” Dia could feel the cool steel of the switchblade pressed against her abdomen, its lethal fang ready to bite into her flesh at any moment. “You still went easy on me.” It was not an accusation but a statement, and Kanan neither acknowledged nor denied it.

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, both taking controlled breaths as the adrenaline steadily ebbed away.

“That’ll do.” Kanan’s stance relaxed, prompting both combatants to lower their weapons and putting them away. “You were able to hide the obvious weakness on your right after a while. If you can keep that up, I don’t see why you can’t join us in the next mission.” A teasing chortle left her lips then. “Not that my verdict mattered - you intend to go back to your duties anyways.”

“Of course. It has been far too long and I grow restless.” Dia flicked her disheveled ponytail to rid herself of the strands that stuck to her sweaty skin, embittered by the reminder of her rare fumbles. She had miscalculated in a skirmish almost a month prior, and in order to dodge a bullet, she threw herself off a bridge onto a speeding truck, injuring her side in the process.

“I would just chill and laze about if I were you.” Shrugging, Kanan wiped at herself with a towel and began to clean up the mess they had created in the ring.

Dia merely gave her a withering look.

Kanan shrugged again.“Well, then don’t let such injury happen again.”

“It shall not.” A soft, yet icy voice, spoke from the edge of the ring. The kumichou looked over her shoulder and found Riko Sakurauchi standing there with a towel in one hand, while her iconic cane was held in another. Her lone eye held no warmth, only the abyssal chill that Dia knew well. Her faithful right-hand was displeased with their spar it seemed.

“Ah, busted~ Welp, since I’ve already ticked you off...” Kanan lit up a cigar and took a long, slow drag as if to savor it. Grinning at Riko’s murderous expression, she exhaled the smoke away from her direction and held up her hands in a playful gesture of surrender.

“You’re incorrigible.” Riko tapped her cane on the ground once, a quiet but menacing sound, though Dia could tell that the younger woman wasn’t as vexed as she appeared to be. “There’s a mess in the bar. Go clean it up.”

Kanan laughed. Her partner, Chika Takami, must have fallen asleep in the Family’s private lounge after celebrating the success of last night’s mission. The stab-happy assassin would have to be manually relocated, a feat that could only be done by the other Twilight Tiger, if they wanted to avoid unnecessary casualties.

“Gladly. Excuse me then, and good luck, boss~”

Slinging her scrunched-up shirt over one shoulder, Kanan eagerly hopped off of the ring and strolled towards the exit, her ponytail bouncing with each step. On her nape was a small symbolic mikan tattoo, inked personally and zealously by her lover upon such a vulnerable spot.

The sight never failed to appease Dia, to see her oldest friend enjoying life to the fullest, to be the best killer for the Family without losing her humanity. Once Kanan was out of the door, Dia approached the second command of the Family, who wordlessly wiped at the sweat and grime off of her face. Riko’s finger fleetingly brushed over the ridged skin beneath Dia’s left eye, and the subconscious gesture had her smiling faintly.

That scar was perhaps the most significant tattoo she had above all others. Her choice, her anchor.

“You are not going to reprimand me.”

Riko’s lips quirked at that, the frost melting in her lone gaze. “What’s done is done. I’m just relieved to see you recovering well.”

“I am more than well.” Dia shrugged her yukata over her shoulder before leaving the training room in confident strides, knowing the underboss will soon be right next to her.

#athyra writes #lls-mafiaAU #platonic kanadia #implied diariko kanachika #the whole spar felt like a certain other physical activity XD! #if someone can doodle Dia doing the sankaku-jime on Kanan pls thx #lmao #maa this is just a blip #to show the tone of this AU #shall go write the other blip tmr #gonna sleep now cuz azalea niconama later

[snowsheba]

prompt week 1-4

anonymous said: super sentai Genji doing hero stuff and then officer Dva tries to arrest him because vigilantism is illegal and all – sort of like Gordon and Batman.

Here’s the thing: Hana Song is damned good at her job.

That is why she was promoted to detective so early on in her career, because she follows the rules as far as she can before she has to bend them, because she doesn’t shirk on paperwork, because she reports in exactly when she’s told, because she’s law-abiding and law-enforcing and sharp and quick and strong and she’s small, sure, but the best things come in small packages. It’s because her methods work. Her bosses know this. Her coworkers know this. Even the goddamn press knows this, and she would be proud of that if they didn’t often get in her way.

That is why she is assigned the Sentai case. Solo. Alone. All resources given, no questions asked. She’s trusted to do her job honorably, and Hana gives no thought to doing otherwise because that is how she does things. That is why she pulls late nights. That is why she wakes up early despite them. That is why she drives her bike like she’s running towards tomorrow. That is why people respect her, why people fear her, why people whisper D.Va is on the case, and it’s only a matter of time.

That is why she’s standing in the rain at one in the morning, breathing hard, gun skittered across the ground by the Sentai’s feet, eyes narrowed, lips pulled back in a snarl, hands drawn up defensively in front of her.

They say don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

What they don’t say is this: don’t bring a knife to a fistfight.

Here’s the thing about blades: it takes a lot of skill to wield one effectively. There are certain rules involved, and most of them revolve around your opponent fighting cleanly. Don’t fight out of the box. Don’t stray from your training. Whatever you do, don’t fucking cheat.

Here’s the thing about Hana Song: she hates cheating, she hates liars, she hates thieves, and she follows the rules but she bends them when she has to.

Here’s the thing about punches: getting hit in the face with one is disorienting as hell.

Here’s the thing about Sentai: he’s a cocky, cocky bastard, and he really should have known better.

He hesitates before he lands a cut on her, and it’s shallow and slices the skin of her upper arm.

She punches him in the face, roundhouse kicks him in the waist, almost breaks his elbow to disarm him, shoves him hard enough to the ground that he chokes, and slaps a pair of handcuffs on him before he can suck in a breath.

“GG, moron,” she says under her breath, knee pressed hard between his shoulder blades, lifting her radio to her ear and rattling off her coordinates before saying, “Backup, now. Sentai’s been cuffed, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Sentai says to her, breathless from being bested, breathless because this is the first time he’s encountered the legendary officer D.Va and the rumors all pale in comparison, breathless because he’s not sure how he’s going to make it out of this one, breathless because it’s Hana Song.

“Your entire superhero shtick is a mistake,” she replies, icy and flat and pitiless, and Sentai has no words as she says, “You’re lucky it was me assigned to your case.”

Sentai is, in reality, a man named Genji Shimada. His sidekick, who does not accompany him to the field, is a sleepless, brilliant med student named Angela Ziegler. His brother, who believes Sentai killed him, is an exhausted, tireless police officer named Hanzo Shimada. His nemesis, whom Genji has been fighting for over a year, is a shadowy, vicious wraith named the Reaper.

His friend, who has just now arrested him and is hauling him back to the precinct, who believes the Reaper killed him, who believes in justice and honor and righteousness and who is willing to fight for those things, is a tough, no-nonsense police officer named Hana Song.

Life is full of ironies, Genji thinks as he’s slammed into a chair, handcuffed, Hana Song leaning on the wall behind him and blowing a pink bubble with her gum. Life is full of ironies, and he’s but one mote of dust on a slightly bigger mote of dust, and yet the universe hates him.

“Hello, Sentai,” says Hanzo Shimada, sitting across from him, and Genji wants to laugh. “Let’s start simple. What’s your name?”

“Take his mask off,” Hana suggests blandly when Genji does not reply.

“Don’t,” Genji says instantly, and he can see how Hanzo’s eyes meet Hana’s, and he knows he only has to bluff for a few more minutes before Angela will come through.

The thing is, Hana knows it’s only a matter of time before Sentai escapes custody. That’s why she doesn’t waste her breath on questions; instead she studies Sentai’s body language, committing everything she can to memory, and knows in her bones that there will be next time.

As if on cue, the lights go out.

Genji finds Hana waiting for him outside. She’s holding his katana, the blade wrapped in fabric to keep from cutting her, and he watches, completely confounded, as she offers it to him hilt-first.

“Help me find the Reaper,” she says, drawing the blade back towards her as he reaches for it.

“That would be easier if you didn’t arrest me,” Genji says.

“I don’t arrest you, I lose my reputation, and I’ve worked damned hard for it,” Hana – no, D.Va says, tough as nails and ready to storm the gates of hell. “Help me help you, and maybe I will keep Hanzo from ever taking your helmet off.”

She holds his katana out to him and waits. After an eternity, Genji releases a silent breath and takes it.

“I’ll be in touch,” he says, and he can feel her eyes on him as he goes.

It’s not every day you get a superhero’s number.

You’re not a superhero. You’re a vigilante, and you’re not above the law.

Fair enough. Don’t be a stranger.

Overwatch Memorial Park. Two days. Twenty-one hours. Be there.

How do you even know the Reaper will show?

You said you’d help me. I can always arrest you again.

... I’ll be there.

“You have excellent timing,” she says to him many days later, pinned into place by gunfire.

“You have excellent instincts,” he replies, and she can’t see his grin, but she can hear it in his voice. “You were right, as it turns out. The Reaper is here.”

In response, Hana snaps her gun against her hand, reloading it with a fresh magazine and adjusting her grip. She jerks her head; lead on. She’s heard of his abilities and trusts him not to let her be killed. It’s not his style.

He leads. She follows.

“Hana Song, working with Sentai,” the Reaper rasps, and they’re on the roof of a building and Hana is fearless beside him, gun pointing with dangerous precision and eyes focused intently on the wraith. Genji is still having trouble reconciling his image of Hana Song with Officer D.Va. “The press will have a field day with this.”

“My oath says I will serve with honor and dignity in the pursuit of justice,” Hana says, “And there is no higher justice than defeating a criminal who has killed hundreds.”

“You’re next on the list,” the Reaper croaks, and Sentai breathes in, katana loose and ready in his hand.

“Perhaps,” Hana says, unwavering. “But I’ll be damned if it will be by your hand.”

The Reaper opens fire on her. Hana rolls to the side to duck behind a ventilation unit. Genji charges in, and it occurs to him that Hana did not have handcuffs on her, or any restraining equipment at all, and then Reaper lashes out, he dodges underneath, and he doesn’t think about her at all.

Here’s the thing about Hana Song: she’s endlessly loyal, clinically efficient, and, most importantly, completely ruthless. She does not show mercy, she does not do things in halves, and she is the type of person who weaponizes every aspect of her.

Here’s the thing about Genji Shimada: he’s jaded, but at heart he is an optimist. He believes in second chances, in redemption, in forgiveness and harmony. He does not kill; such is not his way.

Here’s the thing about the Reaper: he thinks he knows who is the more formidable enemy, and that is his last mistake.

The Reaper hesitates before he fires, most of his focus on Sentai somewhere beyond. The shot goes wide, and only a few ball bearings dig into Hana’s flesh.

Hana rips his mask off of his face, presses her pistol to his temple, and kills him with a twitch of her finger.

Genji is speechless. Hana watches impassively as the Reaper’s body drops to the ground.

“That was for Genji,” she tells the corpse, and then shoots it twice in the chest for good measure, adding, “And that was for my fathers and my friends.”

“Thank you for your help,” Hana says to him. Sentai says nothing, which doesn’t surprise her, and she looks at his sword before she looks back to his helmet. “You’re free to go. Not like I’ll ever be sent after you again.”

She chuckles. He doesn’t, which is a shame because it’s kind of a good joke, and instead he says, “Officer Hana ‘D.Va’ Song.”

“Just Hana now, I imagine,” she says. “That was the joke earlier.”

“Genji Shimada isn’t dead.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know why that matters, but you didn’t see the body, Sentai. He’s definitely dead.”

Sentai studies her for a moment. She stares back, not defiant but ready.

“Follow me,” he says, and she trusts him, against all odds, so she does.

“Oh,” Angela says when he opens her door, and her eyes shift to Hana, widen, and she says, softer, “Oh.”

“You’ve heard the news?” he asks her. He doesn’t make a move to enter until she steps aside, going to all the windows and shutting the shades, and Hana follows him wordlessly.

“Yes,” Angela says, and then, to Hana, “Do you need a place to stay?”

“No,” Hana says, and that is that.

“You’re going to tell her, then,” Angela says to Genji, and he nods, and when he moves to remove his helmet, Angela only shakes her head. “You knew something like this might happen.”

“Not like this,” Genji says, and when the helmet is off, Hana stills, eyes widening incrementally as he looks over and meets her gaze. He says again, quieter, “Never like this.”

The next time Hana runs into Sentai, she’s just arrived home from the precinct. She stays down in the evidence room these days – no more fieldwork for an indefinite period of time, so she’s told – and that suits her just fine.

“Officer,” he says. He’s in her apartment, somehow, perched delicately on the couch in front of her gaming setup. She throws her keys on the counter of her kitchen and doesn’t question it.

“Sentai,” she says.

“I need your help.”

Here’s the thing about vigilantism: it’s wrong in the best of ways, but that doesn’t make it right.

Here’s the thing about justice, about honor, about diligence and loyalty and determination: they are powerful and fearsome in ample amounts, but too much of any can be deadly.

“No,” Hana says. “Sentai is a mistake, Genji.”

Here’s the thing: Hana Song is damned good at her job.

“Suit yourself,” says Sentai.

Here’s the thing: Genji Shimada is a cocky, cocky bastard, and he really should have known better.

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#overwatch #genji shimada #hana song #d.va #sentai genji #superhero au #fic #anonymous #prompt week 1 #thank you!! <3 #i had a lot of fun with this one

[fluffleforce-mysdrym]

Kaitrith Disapproves - Underhanded - SFW

Kaitrith realizes that some battles can’t be fought with blades--or mauls. 

Pairing: F!Lavellan x Josephine Montilyet

Word Count: 1285

Kaitrith Disapproves

Underhanded 

“No.”

The word was hard and final.

Kaitrith narrowed her eyes, a few of the thorns on her Elgan’an vallaslin elongating from the tug of her skin. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table. “Come again?”

The pompous noble prat crossed his legs as he sat back in his chair, shoulders relaxed, fingers laced in his lap. While his lips remained a simply line, she could barely make out a gleeful gleam in his eyes. “I said no.”

Josephine sat beside Kaitrith, a measured frown in place as she carefully shifted just so in her seat. Not a fidget, but some human maneuver to show adjusted attention. “My dear marquis, we had an agreement. The inquisition has supported your endeavors. In return, we expect—”

“You expect too much, lady ambassador.”

“We expect—”

“The bare fucking minimum,” Kaitrith finished, standing up and slamming her palms down on the table. At first the marquis seemed bemused by the action.

“Ah, this must be the inquisitor’s fabled temper. You can’t have what you want, so you throw a tantrum.”

On most days, such a statement would have had her struggling not to get into a fistfight. However, today…

Today Bull had given her an update that Solas had nothing to tell.

Literally.

It was as though he didn’t exist until a few years before the Breach, and that was impossible. He had to have had a clan or come from a city or…

Grown men didn’t just pop up.

That in itself had Bull uncomfortable, and Kaitrith too. She’d expected some sort of twist, but for him to just not have existed?

That was impossible.

And she didn’t like the impossible.

And more than that, something her keeper had told her time and time again had finally begun to sink in.

Brute force alone could not solve all problems.

She’d known this, on some level, but now, dealing with Solas, it was abundantly clear just how much she lacked as far as abilities to figure him out went. He wasn’t a problem she could just run headlong at, and she couldn’t outsource it to one of her few friends, either.

Now, as she looked at the marquis, it occurred to her that a lot of her problems were the same. They required a tact that she didn’t have.

It was beyond frustrating.

She was already in a cat and mouse game, and she was the mouse.

She was the one without any damned power, even with the ability to close the rifts.

This wasn’t how she was going to let things go…

Just as she was about to defer to Josephine, she remembered one of the few times she’d interacted with other clans during the Arlathvhen, how one clan had felt slighted by another and had moved to disgrace them.

She’d thought it honor-less, and yet…

Letting out a disgusted noise, Kaitrith straightened up and glared down her nose at the man. Somehow the brambles on her face seemed all the sharper. “Josephine, what are the repercussions of falsifying inquisition support?”

Josephine’s brow pinched together. “Inquisitor?”

“This man says we support his endeavors, but I never met him before today, nor was I briefed on whatever he’s on about.”

For a split instant, Josephine looked confused, no doubt wondering just how Kaitrith had come up with this approach. Before the marquis could turn his attention to her, however, she’d caught on. “My assistant says he’s here about a bill that would support his claim to part of the Emerald Graves.”

“You already said you’d—”

Kaitrith crossed her arms, doing her best to channel that prat keeper she’d hated for the last few years. “You really think anyone would believe a Dalish elf would recognize human claims to our forest?”

The forest in question wasn’t actually part of the Emerald Graves, at least not according to any clan she’d ever met. However, it was in close proximity, and humans seemed incapable of understanding where the Emerald Graves actually ended. She’d been to the area in question, and at a glance she could see the difference in ages and types of trees. It was part of the Wilds, not the Graves.

She’d told Josephine this, quietly, and her lover had simply shrugged and suggested they take advantage of the misunderstanding, as the marquis was one of the more problematic Orlesian nobles they’d had to deal with.

The twinkle in his eyes was gone. “This will not stand!”

“What will not stand is your claim, marquis,” Josephine replied, measured smile in place, a predatory glint in her eyes. “The inquisition has no need of self-serving, manipulative games. That you could use our name to serve your own means—”

“You can have the weapons I promised.”

“The what?” Kaitrith asked, cocking her head.

“The weapons!” He sat forward in his seat, his earlier composure slowly unraveling.

“You think our honor can be bought with a bit of steel?” Kaitrith growled, brow dropping. “My people had had a long and hard past of being tricked and fooled, and that you would be so horrible as to—”

“I’ll double it.”

“The blood of my people—”

“Triple it!”

“Can we get that in writing?” Kaitrith asked, glancing over at Josephine, who was already drawing up the new contract.

When the meeting finally ended and the flustered marquis departed, Josephine hesitated. “You said that land wasn’t—”

“It’s not,” Kaitrith dismissed, finally slumping back down into her chair and glaring at the door.

“This could come back to hurt us,” Josephine murmured softly. “Especially with the Dalish. If they think you’re actually giving elven lands to humans, there could be bad blood.”

“I’ll write a letter to my keeper,” Kaitrith murmured.

“There are other clans.”

“I’m well aware,” Kaitrith muttered, though she stopped herself when she realized she wasn’t mad at Josephine. Shoulders slumping, she ran a hand through her hair. “I need to be able to fight the way you do.” Even as Josephine readied a protest, Kaitrith closed her eyes. “With words.” Her mind went back to Solas and the way he spoke, the way she knew he didn’t mean what he said, but could never figure out what it was that he was hiding. “I need to be able to read people, to be able to outsmart them.”

“Well, today was a good start,” Josephine offered, reaching out and lightly clasping Kaitrith’s hand.

“I’ve met toads smarter than that idiot,” Kaitrith muttered.

With a gentle laugh, Josephine leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss against Kaitrith’s cheek. “You give yourself too little credit. That was quite brilliantly done.”

“Hardly,” Kaitrith muttered, considering how such cheap tactics wouldn’t work on Solas. Creators, the only reason it had worked on the marquis was probably because he’d been prepared for brute force rather than mind games. Pulling Josephine’s hand to her lips, she held her there a moment before finally giving her a faint, half-hearted smile. “Thank you for the kind words, though.”

“I mean it,” Josephine smiled, turning her hand as Kaitrith let her go so that she could run her fingers down her cheek. “You handled that well, considering I’ve never seen you participate in politics like that before.”

“If it didn’t work, I was going to toss him out the window.”

As Josephine laughed, Kaitrith chose not to point out how that had been less of a joke than she’d meant it to be.

If she was going to figure out what Solas was hiding, if she was going to get him to show his cards, she would need a lot more practice at this sort of fighting.

That, or she’d need a damned miracle.

#dragon age #dragon age fanfiction #fanfiction #kaitrith disapproves #kaitrith lavellan #lavellan #josephine montilyet #josephine x f!lavellan #romance #action/adventure

[othersportsnews-blog]

TUF Finale: Johnson vs. Gaethje ultimate effects | UFC &reg

New Post has been published on https://othersportsnews.com/tuf-finale-johnson-vs-gaethje-ultimate-effects-ufc-reg/

TUF Finale: Johnson vs. Gaethje ultimate effects | UFC &reg

Who were the winners at The Best Fighter Finale? Simply click under to get the effects for all the fights at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Friday, July seven, 2017.

Main function: Justin Gaethje def. Michael Johnson In one particular of the most breathtaking debuts in UFC background, Justin Gaethje withstood the war of the calendar year to finish Michael Johnson by TKO at 4:forty eight of the 2nd spherical. Gaethje scarcely out-struck Johnson, a hundred-96 in the battle and each individual blow landed by the two fighters in this battle of the calendar year contender was a considerable strike. Gaethje was rocked at the conclusion of the 1st spherical and then in the 2nd Johnson wobbled him yet again, landing massive pictures as the crowd seemed to be ready for Gaethje to fall. But he hung in there and then arrived storming back, landing a traveling knee in the ultimate sequence and then a number of punches in advance of a number of additional knees. That’s when referee John McCarthy named the battle. Gaethje improves to eighteen- and pretty much absolutely will look in the best 10 of the light-weight rankings upcoming 7 days.

THEY Mentioned IT: Justin Gaethje: “ Who’s upcoming? Who’s upcoming? It feels great. I adore this. You simply cannot split, me I assure you.”

Co-principal: Jesse Taylor def. Dhiego Lima In a wild sequence that led to the finish of the battle, Dhiego Lima caught Jesse Taylor with a flawlessly-placed hook as Taylor looked for his third takedown of the battle. Lima, seeking to capitalize, bought overaggressive on Taylor’s back and slid off. The two scrambled and Taylor finished up on Lima’s back and sunk in a rear naked choke to get the finish at :43 of the 2nd spherical. Taylor wins the The Best Fighter: Redemption season and picks up a test for $290,000.

THEY Mentioned IT: Jesse Taylor: “I simply cannot put this into phrases. I think this is the excellent redemption tale. I have fallen down a large amount in lifestyle, we all saw it 10 several years back on The Best Fighter seven. I just saved heading, I saved grinding. I went around to Russia, I went to Australia I bought to see the world and I bought a 2nd likelihood and I was not heading to allow this 2nd likelihood go to waste. We all mess up in lifestyle. There’s absolutely nothing much too particular about me, I’m a uncomplicated male who went following his aspiration. If you strike me with a prepare I’m heading to get up and preserve heading. I’m heading to start a college fund for the two my boys and perhaps I’ll finally get that RV I have usually wished.”

Drakkar Klose def. Marc Diakiese Drakkar Klose out-struck the sensational striker Marc Diakiese, 95-fifty eight, and landed a pair of takedowns to get the split decision, 29-28, 28-29, 29-28. Klose landed two devastating leg kicks that seemed to definitely alter the momentum of the battle. Each kicks dropped Diakiese and he seemed significantly damage following the 2nd one particular. Klose improves to 2- in the UFC and Diakiese drops the 1st professional battle of his profession.

THEY Mentioned IT: Drakkar Klose: “It feels wonderful. He runs his mouth a large amount and following the battle he bought under my skin and I experienced to allow him know how I felt. You simply cannot be talking all this s*** and not back it up. To me, this was just a different battle. I want to get a different one particular heading, let us line it up in two or 3 months. I prepare with the ideal. I prepare with Benson Henderson and he threw all those kicks at me he threw all those punches at me a million times. Soon after the decision was read through I just allow him know. He considered he was heading to operate by way of me. Yesterday he advised me I was heading to snooze, but I’m extensive awake. I’m heading to consume some food tonight then I’ll go to snooze realizing I bought my hand elevated. I want the winner of the principal function tonight upcoming.”

Jared Cannonier def. Nick Roehrick Jared Cannonier brutalized Nick Roerick for the entirety of their battle, ending the UFC debutant in the third spherical at 2:08 by TKO. Cannonier landed 52 per cent of his strikes, landing massive mixtures and a massive elbow that was the beginning of the conclusion for Roehrick, who was tough and withstood the barrages from Cannonier, who landed a total of 84 total strikes.

THEY Mentioned IT: Jared Cannonier: “A battle is a battle it in no way goes the way you want it to so the opponent alter didn’t toss me off. Really not often does a battle go the way you want and I didn’t anticipate everything distinctive this time I just realized I was greater than my opponent. I have stomach muscles now – that is the largest distinction in this remaining my 1st camp as a total-time fighter. Also, I’m turning out to be a additional very well-rounded fighter. I only put in four months down at the MMA Lab, upcoming camp I’ll have a total camp at the Lab so there will be even additional resources in my bag. You listened to me connect with out the gentleman, Gokhan Saki. He’s a striker and I like to strike. I like to take a look at myself versus the ideal in the world and I believe he’s the really ideal striker in the world and I dig that connect with out.”

Brad Tavares def. Elias Theodorou Elias Theodorou landed 3 of 11 takedowns and out-struck Brad Tavares, 69-38, but Tavares was nonetheless ready to capture the unanimous decision earn. Theodorou landed most of his strikes in the 2nd spherical and the judges definitely felt Tavares did adequate in the other spherical to capture the earn.

THEY Mentioned IT: Brad Tavares: “Fighting in Vegas, my adopted hometown, suggests a very little little bit additional and it suggests that my pals and family members from Hawaii and I get to depict for them. Elias was just what I considered he’d be, tough. He moved a large amount. The one particular factor that did surprise me is that I have in no way noticed him be that wrestling significant, taking pictures, but I was completely ready for it. The choke in the third was not as near as I wished it to be, but I think I experienced him anxious. I’m balanced and I’m completely ready to go whenever the UFC would like.”

Johnson def. Fortuna Jordan Johnson took the unanimous decision victory, 29-28, 29-28, 29-28 versus Marcel Fortuna.

THEY Mentioned IT: Jordan Johnson: “I sense wonderful. That dude was a IBJJF world champion and I was a mediocre wrestler and we just bought in a fistfight and I defeat him. Individuals need to put their youngsters in wrestling packages and put dollars back into the faculties. I was hitting him tough. I’m positive people could listen to when I strike him. He didn’t definitely contact me, I caught all the things on my forearms. I’m heading to have a fake 4th of July party right now and I’m heading to get pleasure from Vegas for a few days.”

Angela Hilla def. Ashley Yoder Angela Hill finished a 3-battle getting rid of streak in the UFC with a dominant unanimous decision earn versus Ashley Yoder, thirty-27, thirty-27, thirty-27. The former Invicta FC champ defended 3 of 6 takedowns from Yoder and out-struck the wrestler, sixty six-54 in total strikes to earn the battle.

THEY Mentioned IT: Angela Hill: “ The largest distinction for me is acquiring a large amount of good schooling partners, a large amount of good people to spar with, a large amount of good coaches and remaining ready to mask all the things a large amount greater – not just relocating ahead and having taken down. I realized Ashley was heading to be tough, she was ready to get that 1st takedown rather effortlessly and I was shocked by that. I realized she was heading to be ready to get a large amount of punishment and I realized it would be uncomfortable because I’m not used to fighting southpaws. All of that kind of stunted me a little bit, but I’m nonetheless kind of delighted with my overall performance. I desire I experienced knocked her out, that was my aim, but she’s tough. I don’t know exactly where this places me in the division. She’s not rated, I’m not rated, so it is tough to convey to. I’m completely ready to be rated, I’m completely ready to battle a additional very well-known opponent and start to make my inventory. It doesn’t have to be best-10 or best-five, but just anyone that people know to preserve developing my mystique.”

James Krause def. Tom Gallicchio James Krause landed a hundred and fifteen total strikes to just forty five for Tom Gallicchio, employing his significant-quantity attack to capture the unanimous decision earn, thirty-27, thirty-27, thirty-27. The two pals from season twenty five of The Best Fighter went toe-to-toe for 15 minutes and Gallicchio hung in there, but was not ready to preserve the battle on the ground exactly where he wished it, landing just one/9 takedown makes an attempt.

THEY Mentioned IT: James Krause: “ It’s tough. There were four of us in the exact same space although we were in the property. I fought Ramsey who slept right earlier mentioned me, Jesse who slept throughout from me and I fought Tom who was in the best bunk. I bought 3 out of the 3 that were in my space, so it was a very little little bit uncomfortable. In fifty-something fights Tom is the 1st buddy I have ever fought and it was tough. Honestly, I was performing some techniques in the Octagon, I was talking to him – I was kind of talking s*** to him and I felt undesirable afterward. I know he’s a male who thrives off the underdog factor and I could not allow him into the UFC nicely. At this stage, each individual gain counts so I did all the things I could to make it a very little more durable on him. I’m heading to chat to my coaches and my group about whether or not I’m heading to continue to be at a hundred and seventy. That’s a massive dilemma right now.”

CB Dollaway def. Ed Herman CB Dollaway was ready to defeat Ed Herman in a grueling grappling-loaded bout, landing 5/5 takedowns en route to the unanimous decision victory, 29-28, 29-27, 29-27. Dolloway also doubled up Herman in total strikes, landing 121-53 and also landed additional considerable strikes at forty five-31.

Tecia Torres def. Juliana Lima Tecia Torres stepped up on small detect and sent in a massive way, submitting Juliana Lima with a rear naked choke at :53 of the 2nd spherical. The finish is the 1st for Torres in the UFC and the No. 5-rated strawweight has now received five of 6 within the Octagon.

THEY Mentioned IT: Tecia Torres: “At this stage in my profession I sense like if I want to battle with the ideal I have to be ready to defeat everybody else in the division. I definitely wished the option to battle Juliana and I felt confident with my schooling as a result considerably in Colorado. I think that “Karate Hottie” (Michelle Waterson) can get me the title shot. I fully grasp that she’s coming off a decline versus Rose in her final battle. That’s who I have been ready for, karate as opposed to karate, and I think that is a massive adequate battle to propel me into the range one particular contender place. I can be completely ready to go yet again as before long as late August.”

  Gray Maynard def. Teruto Ishihara Gray Maynard landed a staggering 11 takedowns unofficially versus Teruto Ishihara to get the unanimous decision earn in the opening bout of the night, thirty-26, thirty-26, thirty-26. Maynard picks up just his 2nd earn because 2012 and looked dominant in the system.

THEY Mentioned IT: Gray Maynard: “I adore Vegas, this is the ideal put in the world to battle. It’s the battle cash of the world, all my people are listed here, I adore to battle listed here. How you are handled listed here, the lodging, all the sites to consume – you simply cannot defeat it. I’m heading to be in Vegas for a lengthy time, so this is my best preference of exactly where to battle. Future, I want to get back in there in October or November versus Artem Lobov. He comes to battle and he has a good name. I’m only heading to the best from listed here on out.”

Resource url

[xivelliot]

Something slightly different: Abeodan's father doing crime in the Undercity.

(( I also shoved Abbie’s uncle in here because I can. ))

“Hawthorne Silverbrand and Wulfric…” The guard looked up from his paper, greasy fingers rolling along the fold and one eyebrow very visibly raised. “Heartwrath.”

For his only merit Wulfric was, by now, very used to being stared up and down by men of any official stance with the same breed of a glower they’d serve a mongrel dog. There was never a difference, in the very least of it; a military command correcting your form or a landlord prying the last third of your rent out of what you’d been saving for curtains. A world of people looking at you like you likely, absolutely, shouldn’t be there.

For the same reasons, he was also very used now to the sound of his own name meeting his ears like his his name itself was, surely, some kind of dishevledly delivered joke. Like he didn’t even belong in the same hemisphere of Gyr Abania, let alone whoever, whomever’s, fitted roster.

He tried not to swallow, cocked his head, and fit his hands behind his back with the military presence all men who guard a door like to see. His leather armor even crinkled as his back arched.

“Yes, that’s me. And I’m sure you know him,” He nodded to Hawthorne at his side, who was presently apparently very busy with acting distracted by his pockets. “You letting us through?” He asked, “Or are you out here cause you forgot how to work a doorknob.”

Wulfric looked from the guard pointedly to the steel wall of locks that sat behind the man, a single lantern bleeding over the only Undercity entrance Wulfric was ever going to allow himself to know about. He promised himself that part then and there, watching the lantern’s sway dip into every groove and rush back out as if fleeing from a tide. “We have a delivery to finish,” He continued, “And Hawthrone here I think has some family business to get to, so-”

“Gelva know you’re here?” The guard cut him off.

Wulfric paused, seconds spent trying to make a choice on how fast or slow to close his mouth, and how long to stare at the wall of locks and keyholes before he innocuously lifted his dark eyes. Another tilt of his head let the brown mane of hair slip from his shoulders and around the bearfur cowl he’d wrapped about his mouth. He could feel Hawthorne’s stare on him, the shorter monk gazing up and doing a pretty shit job at hiding a smirk beneath scrappy black bangs. The guardsman of course didn’t need to give a damn about hiding a single ilm of his grin.

“What?” Wulfric asked. And he kept his voice level. Curious, even. Shocked. Confused.

“Your wife.” The guard said. “Your wife know you’re here?”

Hawthrone made a bad show of muting a cough at his side and Wulfric narrowed his eyes, standing taller. Tall enough, maybe, to meet the guard’s height, if he could manage. “I don’t believe my wife,” He said, bolding the word, “Has anything to do with this. Now I have a delivery. Are you going to open that damned door or are you going to start explaining to me today who I’m going to be speaking with tomorrow about who in the hells stood in the way of my job getting fucking done?”

The final word clapped against the Undercity’s walls and reverberated until it’s beat stuttering their new, instant silence. Both men were looking at him. The guard with is eyebrows raised, mouth thin in a strung out line of absolute disinterest. Hawthorne with his stupid godsdamned smile, speechless for a heavenly pause before he cut straight into laughter.

Wulfric could feel his ears burn, and he was absolutely about to deck the pair of them in the jaw and be done with everything. But he swallowed, burying his face in his cowl more, hoping his ears at least weren’t red and his face at least had stayed, more or less, unhorrified.

He had come this far, already. And also hells if he could win a fistfight with Hawthorne.

To add to his chagrin, the guardsman easily turned aside and flipped down the top three bolts on the massive plank of brass, every action reflected in it’s glossed over face while the lantern struggled to fold light around his form. The door shoved open easily, presented with an open palm and a grin minus five teeth, and Wulfric stormed into the tunnels before the light had a chance to catch again on Hawthorne’s face.

Hawthorne, of course, followed.

“Alright, you got me in.” Wulfric said no more than a fulm or two into the dark. He dragged the package out of it’s home in his backpack, storming through the shadows and feeling over the wrappings, the twine stitch. “Now fuck off.”

“What? You don’t expect to get shit on in the land of shit? Don’t tell me the army’s any different, Will. Sides, it isn’t his fault if he’s maybe a little pissy about losing a bet.”

“A bet?”

Hawthorne collided with his side as Wulfric stopped and turned, misjudging the action in the strict pitch black and feeling the whole weight of the short monk nearly throwing him off his own balance. But even in the black, the shadows latching suddenly to raise in his voice and the strike of drama, he managed to find Hawthorne’s shoulders and shove him back. “Excuse me? A bet?”

“Yeah, you know.” Hawthorne said, sounding entirely unphased aside from the slight jingle of bells as he lifted an arm to fix at his ponytail. “My sister. If she stays straight, if she stays ‘straight’, if the guy she shacked up with turns out to be a bleeding lowlife after-”

Hawthorne was cut off by a fist and the sound of his own body hitting the underground floor. Wulfric’s mirth was cut off by the sound of Hawthorne laughing.

“Fuck!” Hawthorne cackled, “Fuck! Yo, man! Sister fucks off, tells nobody, talks to nobody, marries some mid-class, and spawns some damn kid? You think people aren’t gonna talk? You think people don’t know her name?” He was audibly getting up now. Grappling on the wall, patting on his face. Wulfric at least felt a sprout of pride as he heard Hawthorne wiping his hand a few times across his shirt, because he could now be sure he had broken a Fist of Rhalgr’s nose. Even with it pointless in the dark, he held his head higher. “Look, if you want the record, I betted /for/ you. And yeah I came cause I straight up wanted to know if I’d lose some gil. But if you want the truth of it…”

The words tapered off, and Wulfric’s brow wrinkled. He waited a second, another one. He waited long enough that full paragraphs could be fed through the time and sifted out on a wire. Finally, he coughed.

“Yes?” He asked.

Again, he was met with silence. This time he waited until his teeth ground tight and he was ready just to carry on, to the Undercity and the end of this damned dark. Enough time he’d almost forgotten Hawthorne was there, and it nearly shook him out of his skin when Hawthorne spoke.

“Why, Will?” The monk said.

Wulfric’s frown only increased, at this. In a show for no one, he scratched at his bear fur and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Um, what?”

“She don’t know you’re here. She don’t know I’m with you. She don’t know I’m helping you, of all damned things. And frankly soon as we’re done here I won’t know either for all it’s concerned, but I want to know why. You don’t belong down here. And fuck, you hells don’t belong lying to my sister.”

“It’s not-”

“'It’s not’,” Hawthorne mimicked, “It’s not her reputation on the line, or anything. It’s not her choices getting looked it. It’s not her getting seen anymore fool that she already is, right? A Silverbrand in a good life? A Silverbrand with a kid and an army boy, doing army work? Right?”

The silence, this time, was Wulfric’s. Blessedly Hawthorne waited as he looked down at his boots, looked at the wall, looked at the parcel - in al directions just seeing the deep, listening black. He swallowed.

“Theodoric’s got a… a new order.” He said, finally. He gripped the parcel tighter. “You’re right that I-… it’s not me. And I- I wouldn’t. But. The new rules, he’s. I don’t know it’s a little mad, we’d say. But wages for soldiers are gonna be cut until we actually start making a force against the Garleans. It’s…”

“You know, Will, you need money you can ask me. A little more won’t-”

“N-no.” Wulfric said, two beats after he’s shaken his head and realized Hawthorne couldn’t see him. “It’s too much. It’s just…”

“What?”

“We’re-” Wulfric started, stopped, paused. He opened his mouth, he closed it. He started again.

“Hawthorne, we’re having a second child. A son.”

This time he blessed the darkness as he waited for Hawthorne’s reply, staring down into the black and the parcel he held within it, fingering at the paper wrapping and taught strings. He didn’t want to see the brother of his wife staring him down in a criminal passageway about his poor choices, poor family planning. The will to have another child when you can barely afford your house, the will to raise a son on the funding of the Undercity. He waited for a returned blow to the face, a twinned broken nose, a word.

Finally, he felt Hawthorne’s fist. Two knuckles, gentle against his shoulder, rocking him back. And in his own surprise he could hear the grin in his words.

“Stop knocking up my sister.”

#Hawthorne Silverbrand #Wulfric Heartwrath #ie Abbie's dad #i love these idiots #asktag #onwesterlywinds