#its the frozen w indecision for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

babyybitchhh · 3 years

Text

Arlong x Reader 18+

Rating: Explicit/R-18+

Words: 4,609

Warnings: noncon/dubcon, monster fucking (?), size difference, over sized genitalia and the buckets of cum to go with it, oral sex, fellatio, eventual consent

A/N: After consulting with my editor in chief, we agreed that the fishmen probably feel a bit like dolphins - firm to the touch but stupidly smooth, a bit clammy - so that's where my descriptive inspiration for this one came from. Y'know. Just in case anyone ends up wondering what the fuck I was smoking while I wrote this. lol And as always, please enjoy! : )

♥♥♥♥

Arlong was not what you would consider a nice man.

There was something mean about him, and undeniably so, but the way he crowds you against the wall late one evening still manages to catch you off guard. You’d thought you had already seen everything his cruelty had to offer. Foolishly, you’d believed that there was a certain line even someone like him would not cross.

Regrettably, you’d been wrong about that.

“W - what are you doing?”

“Don’t be coy.” He mutters while he idly, possessively toys with a strand of your hair between his webbed fingers. “I know you’ve been looking forward to this.”

The cloying stink of booze on his breath hits you all at once and you wrinkle your nose in distaste. You don’t mean to do it. You regret it almost instantly but Arlong doesn’t care for the why or the how, or the rushed apology already forming on the tip of your tongue. All he sees is the discomfort etched across your expression and his demeanor responds in kind, becoming surly and aggressive in the same moment.

With a rumbling grunt, he steps into you and bodily shoves you against the wall. The amount of force in just that simple gesture has you quailing under the imposing weight of him even as you start to shirk away. You think to bolt for safety a little too late and his clammy hand takes advantage of that split second indecision to grab your chin, forcing your head up to look at him.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? Hm?” He curls himself over you, bracing his other arm high above your head on the wall so he can lean close and get in your face. You’ve never felt quite so minuscule as you do standing there, frozen to the spot and horribly dwarfed by the towering fishman who’s hacksaw nose was mere inches from yours now.

With each passing second, it was becoming exceedingly hard not to panic.

“Am I not to your liking? Is that it? You’ve really never thought about this before?”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. You aren’t sure what to say. You don’t know what it is he wants to hear.

Arlong doesn’t wait around for a proper response, though, and instead trails smooth, rubbery fingers down your neck to your shoulder, and then further still to grasp your wrist. You put up no resistance when he pulls, unceremoniously directing your slack hand to the front of his shorts and you jolt at the firm weight pressing up into your palm.

Sucking in a stilted gasp, your eyes go wide at him. “I - I haven’t - -“

“No?” He cuts across you with a faintly disappointed sigh. “Not even a little? You’re not at all curious?”

You whimper, shaking your head when he squeezes and manually forces your hand to close around the stiff outline in his pants. It was big and still growing, as evidenced by the eager twitch it gives at your touch. Shame immediately washes over you when your pussy clenches, the blood in your neck pounding as you try to turn away from him.

“Of course not, w - what would I have to be curious about?”

“You ever seen a fishman’s cock before?”

Your ears were starting to burn. “Nuh … no. Please, Arlong. I don’t - -“

“Come on. I’m sure you’ll like it. There isn’t anything else like it in the whole world, y’know. One of a kind.”

Same as before, he doesn’t give you a chance to sort through your thoughts before taking the incentive. His unoccupied hand drops from the wall and tugs at the waistband of his shorts even while he wrests your twisting hand where he wants it to be. You struggle wildly now, adrenaline fueled fear making you desperate and jerky, but he’s much too strong to break free from. You were trapped.

Horrified, you screw your eyes shut before you can catch a glimpse of what’s hanging between his legs. You’d never seen one before - not a fishman’s, and you would have preferred to keep it that way. The hushed rumors you’d overheard about encounters between people like Arlong and humans such as yourself were nothing kind, after all.

But with very little effort on his part, he clamps your hand into place and you go stock-still at the sensation of porcelain smooth, velvety skin under your fingertips. It doesn’t feel half as repulsive as you’d imagined it would. And, you’re surprised to find, it doesn’t look anywhere near as unnatural as you’d assumed it to be when you apprehensively crack your eyes open and glance at it.

What you had in your hand was just a cock. Nothing more and nothing less.

Albeit a rather large, hefty cock that was a slightly darker shade of blue than the rest of him but still by all accounts a normal looking appendage. If it hadn’t been for it’s unusual color and the staggering size, you could have easily mistaken it for a human’s.

Embarrassed, you flounder for something to say. “It’s … it’s rather nice, isn’t it?”

Arlong snorts and displaces a few of your wispy flyaways with the resulting puff of air, making you shudder between him and the wall. “Don’t try to bullshit me. S’not polite.”

“I’m not.” You insist, shyly forcing your gaze up to meet his. “I expected something different, that’s all.”

“Like what?” He murmurs as he leans his weight into you, not so subtly pinning you under him. You swallow hard, hesitant to say it. But either by virtue of being mildly intoxicated or genuine sincerity on his part, you felt a strange sort of inclination to be honest with him.

“Frankly, I thought it would be more monstrous.”

Arlong manages to catch you off guard again when he outright laughs at that. “Give it time. I’m not fully hard yet.”

Your eyes go big as saucers. “W - wha - -“

He laughs again, somehow even louder this time, and you start to quake with renewed vigor as his cock does indeed continue to twitch and grow in your hand. You couldn’t believe that it would get any bigger than it already was but the proof was right in front of your face. It was still filling out, becoming increasingly more weighty in your palm, and that knowledge terrified you far more than you were willing to admit.

“Don’t look so scared.” He coos, anything but sympathetic when he notices the obvious disquiet casting a shadow over your face. His suddenly good mood did not bode well for you at all. “You said it was nice, didn’t you?”

“Well … well, yes, but - -“

“Here. Let me show you something.”

Releasing his hold on you, Arlong clamps his moist palm down on the back of your neck and unceremoniously steers you forward, away from the wall. You don’t even think to fight it. And how could you when your fate was already sealed? You’d given him an inch by conceding that his cock was not entirely disagreeable and now he was taking a mile.

It was your own fault, really.

“Wait - hold on.” You stammer, panic suddenly creeping into your voice when you realize he was making a beeline with you for the nearest chair. “I didn’t mean it like that, Arlong! I just - -“

“You just what?” He sneers. “Felt like teasing me some more? Thought it’d be funny to tempt me with that pretty little mouth of yours again?”

You sputter in red faced affront. “I never - -“

Cutting you off yet again, he forcefully shoves you down onto your knees. Hard.

You seethe at the splintering pain racing up your legs as he pivots around you to plop down on the waiting seat, his ever present grip on the back of your neck quickly dragging you closer. Arlong’s anticipation for what was coming next was almost palpable, the eager excitement in his motions clear as day. In a last ditch effort, you try to twist away from him but he holds firm even as he works to tug his shorts the rest of the way down with the opposite hand.

“I know you’ve thought about this.” He says it again, breathy now, as if repetition would somehow make it true. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, sweetheart. There’s no need to hide it.”

Whatever biting insult you were going to spit at him catches in your throat and momentarily chokes you when he gets his pants down over his knees, cock springing up in all its full glory. You outright stare, your mouth going dry. Mind blank and pussy aching with phantom pain.

You weren’t sure what he expected you to do with it. He was far too big to fit in any human orifice, surely; but if he was at all concerned about the logistics involved he certainly didn’t show it.

Casually kicking his shorts off, Arlong plants his feet firmly on the floor and shuffles his long legs wide open to welcome you in. The heavy sway of his hanging nutsack seems to taunt you, silently promising a steaming hot load that you weren’t prepared to take. You audibly gulp down your nerves as he pulls you closer, right up against him until the sinfully smooth shaft of his cock is pressed tight against your cheek. It was hard to breathe through the potently masculine musk assaulting your nose and even harder to come to terms with the way your cunt gushes in response to it.

Why was this turning you on so much?

“Arlong … please!” You mewl, helpless to stop it when he relentlessly rubs his cock against your face as if to scent you. “Please listen to me. I never intentionally tried to tease you. I’m sorry …”

“Liar.” A sharp thwack against your cheek accompanies this accusation, the fleshy head of his dick leaving a sharp sting in its wake. “You want me. Just admit that. If you do, your punishment for being such a flirty slut won’t be so severe.”

You bristle at that, trying once again to recoil from him, but he merely pinches your neck even tighter to keep you in place. All you can do is watch in mounting horror as he takes his cock in the opposite hand and starts to pump it, slowly, as if to coax it that last little bit harder. The prominent vein running along the underside visibly throbs for you while he does it, pushing against the thin layer of skin in a rhythmic beat which probably would have flattered you under better circumstances. You hadn’t thought he’d get this worked up over you.

But, to be fair, you also hadn’t expected Arlong to be interested in a human woman in the first place.

“Like the view? You’re going to be a good girl and suck it for me, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

Dazedly, you watch the steady up and down motion of his webbed hand until you eventually find yourself nodding along with it. You felt vaguely like an idiot for consenting to this but there was no denying how tantalizing he looked. For better or worse, you were willing to take the risk.

And that seems to amuse him a great deal, his raspy laugh misting over you even as he adds a twist to his pumping motion, tugging at the foreskin in the process. Scandalized surprise rushes to the forefront of your mind when you catch your first peek of the glans and realize it’s a blue so dark and rich it was almost purple. It’s such a stark contrast from the rest of his uniquely pigmented skin that you immediately want to see more of it, and you lean forward to get a better look with nothing short of rapt fascination. You’d never seen anything quite like it before.

“You’re that interested now?” He murmurs knowingly, snickering faintly under his breath.

“Only a little …”

“Liar.”

But Arlong’s tone holds no real bite this time, and he graciously gives you what you want by rolling the meaty tip back to tuck it behind the ridged glans. The blunt head is just as impossibly smooth as the rest of him, his skin entirely free of pores or blemishes, and so firm that you aren’t sure if there will be any give to it. You’re immediately reminded that you and him were not the same, the differences between you two as glaring as ever.

Without missing a beat, you decide you no longer care.

Reaching up, you carefully take him in hand and a thrill runs through you at the sensation. He’s every bit as silky as he looks but when you experimentally squeeze, it becomes apparent that he’s also relentlessly stiff. You’d thought, maybe, it was just the muscle bound parts of him that were as unyielding as they appeared to be but even this area was so densely padded with fatty insulation that it offered very little cushion. It seemed, then, that the only truly soft spot on his body was probably his ballsack.

Tentatively, you rove your gaze up to look at him. “Can I really?”

“I’ll be pissed if you don’t.”

You scoff, trying not to smile, but when that fails you lean up to drag your tongue along the throbbing vein and hide the curl of your mouth. A triumphant sigh puffs out of him, the hand on the back of your neck relaxing slightly, but he makes no move to completely let go of you yet. The weight of his palm spurs you on and you go up a little higher to flick at the glans, pleasantly surprised at the taste of him. Salty and strong, yet not repugnant. It was a heady flavor, one you’ve never sampled before, and you can’t help but wonder if this is how all fishmen taste. It was strangely intoxicating.

“There’s my good girl. That’s it.” He goads you, leaning back into the chair so he can fully appreciate the sight of you on your knees for him. “Is it as good as you thought it’d be? All you had to do was ask and I would have let you do this a lot sooner, you know.”

Resisting the urge to snap at him to shut up, you use your grip on his cock to angle the tip towards your face. The narrow slit in the center of that purple-blue bud winks at you, oozing a fresh bead of slick precum that glistens faintly in the overhead light. Sticking your tongue out, you lap it up with a hunger you hadn’t expected from yourself and a fresh wave of bitter salt swarms your tastebuds. You moan, very quietly, against the glans before sealing your lips around it.

Arlong’s lean thighs give the faintest jolt in response, his pelvis lifting just enough to nudge his dick a little deeper into your mouth. You allow it, for the time being, far too caught up in the exquisite taste of him to worry about his propensity for being a bit pushy. It was in his nature, after all.

But when you try to take more of him on your own, it quickly becomes apparent that your earlier estimation of him had been right on the money. He was much too large to comfortably fit and you only make it a few inches down before your jaw starts to scream in protest. You pull back to suckle on the spongy head for a moment, laving it with your tongue before deciding to try again. The progress you make is negligible at best, your lips straining around his girth as you furrow your brows and noise a muffled sound of frustration around him.

“Don’t try to force it, sweetheart. You’ll just hurt yourself.” He chuckles, the hand on the back of your neck sliding higher to curl around the curve of your skull. His palm is massive in comparison and you feel your cheeks start to warm when he condescendingly pats your head, tutting at you. “You’ll have to practice hard if you want to take it all someday.”

The heat inside your gut sparks anew as your eyes snap up at his face. He smirks right back, razor sharp rows of teeth glinting dangerously and reminding you, once again, that he was a real threat. An apex predator of the most deadly kind, and you were knelt at his feet sucking his cock like a good little pet. You should have been ashamed of yourself. You probably were going to be ashamed of yourself, later, when the carnal high faded and your senses returned.

For now, though, you’d already made peace with your fate and you pointedly give his cock a rough tug. That only makes Arlong’s lascivious grin widen, though, and you’re left with no other choice but come up off him with a wet, smacking pop to give your jaw a break.

Tilting your head back while you suck in a much needed lung full of air, you pull his cock to your open mouth and set it along your tongue. He hums appreciatively at the visual while you pump the length of him with your hand, letting more precum ooze out of him and onto your waiting palette. A faltering groan rises in the back of your throat at the taste, so heady and potent that it makes your mind spin dizzyingly fast. You couldn’t get enough.

“Heh. I take it you like it then?”

In lieu of an answer, you seal your lips around him and lean forward again, glancing up at Arlong through the fall of your lashes. His stilted sigh of approval rushes straight to your cunt, and you give a needy little squirm as he drags webbed fingers along the side of your face to touch at the pulled taught corner of your mouth. Rubbery palm skirting along your cheek, he reaches further back and then clamps down on the nape of your neck so he can pull you somehow even closer to him.

You’re pressed flush against the chair by the time he’s satisfied, neck straining to accommodate the length of his cock. Your unoccupied hand comes up to brace against his thigh when he starts to guide you through a bobbing motion, the stuffed full schlucking noise of your mouth almost unbearably loud in the otherwise quiet room. It sounds borderline obscene to you but he appears to enjoy it, resting his head against the back of the chair and sighing up at the ceiling with unmistakable pleasure coloring the exhalation.

Your pussy clenches at the sight of Arlong enjoying himself so much, enjoying what you were doing to him, and you offer the glans another enthusiastic suck in return. His fingers twitch against your neck and squeeze, just this side of painful. But he does a good job keeping himself in check, and you put a little more effort into pumping the part of him that your lips can’t reach by way of thanks. He could all too easily rip you in half - in more ways than one - so you appreciated the restraint he was showing.

He doesn’t even seem to notice the change in your hands pace though, his mouth running on drunken autopilot now that he’s let his guard down. Now that he’s fully given himself over to the wet warmth of your maw, he was uncharacteristically eager to heap his praises on you and you were more than happy to soak it all up.

“My good, good girl. Yeah, you like that cock, don’t you, baby? You love it. I can tell. You’ll never want another human to fuck you after I’m done. I’m gonna’ ruin you, you know that? So damn good for me …”

The tingling warmth that spreads through you makes it hard to think straight, your vision starting to swim as if you were looking through a foggy fish eye lense. You never thought he’d talk to you that way. Didn't think he could stand your kind enough to regard you as anything other than a nuisance to tolerate for the sake of his own goals. It may have just been the booze talking, you knew that, but you were still rather pleased by this turn of events anyway.

Your jaw was beginning to ache in earnest, though, and you whimper around his cock as you drag your hand down off his thigh to squeeze in between Arlong’s legs. Gently, you caress the heavy weight of his ballsack, delighted to find that it was just as soft and vulnerable as you’d suspected it would be. He hisses at the contact, hips lifting off the seat of the chair again, but he does it a little too roughly this time and you gag.

Seething through clenched teeth, he readjusts his hold on the back of your head, gets a better grip and slowly thrusts up into your mouth. The careful way he does it surprises you slightly, but you don’t get a chance to linger on that thought for very long because he immediately repeats the motion without giving you a moment to adjust and your eyes start to mist up. He doesn’t quite reach your throat like this, your lips already stretched to their limit and unable to accommodate any more of him, and yet that doesn’t stop you from choking with each drawn out flex of his hips. You were going to be sick at this rate.

Sucking in a faltering wet breath through your nose, you try to brace yourself for his next upward stroke. You weren’t sure how much more of this your gag reflex could take, or your poor jaw for that matter. Being on the receiving end of Arlong’s praises wasn’t worth it if you just ended up spewing your guts all over him, ruining everything in the end. Plus, you were pretty sure he’d just redact everything he’d said if it came down to that. You were damned either way.

Deciding it was best to take a moment and regroup, lest the unthinkable happen, you try to pull off him but the hand on your head keeps you firmly in place. You let out a muffled squawk, as confused as you were terrified of what would happen if he kept going like this. But he doesn’t seem to share any such concerns, and your gaze frantically shoots up at his face when he just keeps shallowly pumping into your mouth. He wasn’t even looking at you, though, his eyes closed and turned up at the ceiling.

“That’s it. Just a little more. I know it probably hurts, sweetheart, but just endure it a little bit longer for me, okay? I’m getting close … I’m getting so close, baby. Can you feel it? I’m gonna’ give you such a big load … ngh, you’ll never be able to swallow it all, but that’s okay. Just … haah, just keep it in your sweet little mouth a bit longer, okay?”

You don’t exactly have a choice in the matter, your cheeks burning hot as reflexive tears streak down your face. Abandoning his balls, you dig trembling fingers into the meat of Arlong’s inner thigh as a painful reminder that you were working on borrowed time here. But he seems to enjoy that, the groaning burst of air that puffs out of him in a sudden rush sending sympathetic shockwaves racing down your spine. Your panties were soaked at this point, uncomfortably clinging to your sticky cunt as you rock forward in a fruitless bid for relief. It was all you could do just to keep your lunch down, though, and you were far too lightheaded to even consider slipping your hand between your legs to rub circles into your clit. It wouldn’t take much to send you over the edge, either.

Even through your clothes, you were sure to cum quick - but how could you possibly think about that right now when he was still thrusting into your mouth at such a staggered pace that you felt as violated as if he’d properly fucked you? It didn’t make sense, how he had such a powerful effect on you when he’d barely even touched you so far. Almost like he had some sort of potent aphrodisiac at his deploy.

Could this possibly be a fishman, thing or was it just an Arlong thing?

“Oooh yeah, baby, right there. Right there. Your mouth feels so damn good. Are you ready? I’m gonna’ give it to you now … fuck, I’m cumming, baby, I’m cumming!”

With a feral, animalistic grunt, Arlong thrusts up off the chair and shoves his cock as far into your mouth as it will go. You sputter around him, frantically noising as your throat constricts and heaves against the pressure. In the same moment, he gives a full bodied shudder and hot, thick ropes shoot out of him to pool at the base of your tongue. Your eyes promptly roll back as you choke around his bubbling semen, face wet with tears and snot, and perspiration, but he doesn’t stop. It just keeps coming out of him, flooding your mouth until you’re sure you’ll drown in it.

So blissfully numb by the time he finally pulls out, you almost don’t notice the absence. It’s only when a fresh string of ejaculate plops heavy against your cheek that you realize he's cumming on your face now, and you obediently stick your tongue out to catch the salty discharge. He doesn’t seem to be aiming for your mouth, though, and you’re left with no other choice than to sit there and let him paint your face white until the pulses gradually slow to a stop some moments later.

The last bit oozes out of him, achingly drained from the bottom of his balls it would seem, as he squeezes it from the base up with an accompanying guttural moan. You let him push your head back down without protest and lap up the sticky bead, much to Arlong’s heaving pleasure.

He was still panting from the exertion, trying to catch his breath, and you were still struggling to swallow the excessive cum in your mouth so you could breathe at all. An odd sense of peace settles in the aftermath and you think maybe, in a far off, dreamy sort of way, maybe he wasn’t quite as mean as you’d pegged him. Someone inherently cruel wouldn’t have been so mindful of your physical limitations, right?

You’re pretty sure that’s not how it usually goes, anyway.

Gathering yourself to the best of your ability, you glance down at the front of your shirt only to outright grimace. You were absolutely coated in sheets of fast drying cum, and you weren’t so sure it wouldn’t stain. Dammit.

“So, uh. Do you always cum buckets, or was that all just for little ol’ me?” You venture to ask, not the least bit surprised when your voice comes out a raspy mess. You’d definitely need some warm tea after this.

“It’s a fishman thing.” He says rather flippantly, clearly unconcerned. “You’ll get used to it.”

Your head comes up in stark surprise. Well. That certainly answered your earlier question.

“Y’know,” you say, speaking cautiously slow. “That sounds an awful lot like you’re planning on doing this again, boss.”

Arlong actually has the audacity to smirk at you, his pale eyes dancing with what could only be mischief, and a not entirely unpleasant shudder promptly races through you in response.

“Again? We haven’t even finished the first time, sweetheart.”

#arlong #arlong x reader #one piece #self insert bullshit #my writing

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dastardlydandelion · 3 years

Note

So...what kind of horror movie would you write featuring the Hargrove/ Mayfield family? (That you haven't written already lol)

oh boy, u may regret asking me this bc i am indecisive af and i can’t pick just one!

two that i'm actually writing are max as (g is for) ghostface killer in the abcs of neil’s death and also the max + tory nichols werewolf movie fic outlined here. also some more misc gorror junk bc i’m a demon and esp horny for susan wearing blood splatter. but more ideas commence below:

horror movie #1: another creature feature! awhile back @lucdarling sent me an ask abt max + billy hiding smth from susan and her like, playing along, pretending she doesn't know, and one of the scenarios that popped in my head was them keeping a baby bat as a pet. max finds it and she’s only like six or seven, and she thinks it’s going to turn into a vampire. so here is that scenario except horror edition: baby bat is actually a vampire type creature. not rly a vampire like, what’s prolly popping into ur head, like an undead human like dracula or smth, but like a bat monster that sucks blood.

billy being a lil older doesn’t actually think the bat is going to turn into a vampire. he makes fun of max for believing this, but he helps her take care of it anyway bc he thinks it’s cool. susan, like in the non-horror version, knows abt the bat but plays dumb bc she’s feeling a lot of guilt abt max’s difficulty adjusting to the blended fam (as of rn tho, neil has yet to reveal his abusive nature. the red flags are not yet red, more of a brownish maroon, and he is on his best behavior almost all the time, showering susan + max with affection and keeping the swears out of his mouth when he scolds billy in front of them) and knows the lil furry baby makes her happy. she tacitly cleans up after the bat whenever the kids miss a spot (bats poop a lot, dude) and distracts neil, deterring him from discovering it whenever he gets close.

baby bat gets rly big rly fast. and the older it gets, the more it starts to look monstrous. it still has bat features but it’s just like, different. its fangs grow suspiciously long, its hooks grow suspiciously long. its feet are elongated. a dorsal ridge emerges from its spine, spikes at first just flesh but soft fur rather like peach fuzz eventually sprouting. billy catches on that smth is strange abt this animal when it's as long as his forearm after two wks and still growing. he nearly shits a brick when the bat is clinging to his sweater one day and he steps in front of a mirror and only his reflection looks back at him— no bat.

max laughs at him all like, “stupid brother, ofc there’s no reflection. nosferatu is a vampire, vampires don’t have reflections.” 😂

susan catches a glimpse of the thing when nosferatu crawls out of the home max built it in her closet the same wk billy realizes it doesn’t have a reflection, and also almost shits a brick. she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s NOT a fucking bat. not a normal one, anyway! cue a comedy scene where she’s chasing it around the house with a butterfly net and it’s always one flap *ba dum tss* ahead of her, flying just out of reach. she suddenly regrets not getting rid of it sooner, scolding herself for ever allowing her daughter to keep a wild animal.

she can’t catch it. max comes home, susan tells her she needs to get rid of it. max cries, flips her the bird, refuses. billy tho…billy has mixed feelings. he loves nosferatu but he’s worried it’s going to get dangerous. he loves his dad and his dad is dangerous too. he’s stressed out enough, always on edge, knowing that one way or the other, neil is going to hurt him again. he’s already waiting for his dad to hurt him, he doesn’t need the added stress of waiting for nosferatu to hurt him too. and while max is 100% nosferatu’s favorite, it likes billy too. billy’s been handling it since it could fit in the palm of his hand, it trusts him much more than it trusts susan and doesn’t know any different when billy takes it out of the closet when max isn’t around.

billy frees nosferatu at an abandoned farm. there are always bats flying out of the old silo adjacent to the dilapidated barn. while he knows nosferatu isn’t a *normal* bat, it’s still bat like enough that he thinks it might make friends and be happy here…

yeah, that doesn’t stick. before long, nosferatu is feasting on that colony. leeches the blood out of a couple bats nightly. the number of bats increases with nosferatu’s size. meanwhile, max mourns her missing friend. she’s sullen af and won’t speak to susan at all. she thinks susan is the one who got rid of nosferatu. billy never fesses up and susan doesn’t contradict max’s assumption bc she wants the step-siblings to get along.

neil, meanwhile, is getting more comfortable. those maroon flags are slowly but surely brightening to scarlet. he starts sabotaging susan’s plans with her friends, trying to keep her around the house more and more, quietly but steadily eroding her relationships with other people. he’s getting more visibly aggressive when he disciplines billy. he curses him out with a virulent venom that dunks susan’s stomach in ice water and scares max so badly, she runs to susan and hides behind her even though she’s still so mad that susan got rid of her beloved baby vampire.

nosferatu’s appetite surpasses what the bat colony can offer. it’s like the size of a ten yr old human child now. fucker’s big. it doesn’t just have fangs on top, but tusks on bottom. it can’t go out in the sunlight anymore, the sun sears its flesh. it misses max a lot and before, it wasn’t strong enough to fly back to her house. but now it is. it’s extremely strong, actually.

so bc it's hungry, nosferatu grabs a snack along the way. some nameless rando, it swoops down and sucks dry. nourished and much happier, nosferatu makes its way back home. patiently waits outside of max’s bedroom in the moonlight, tapping its hook against the window until she wakes up. initially max is a lil startled— nosferatu looks so different, there’s a beat before she recognizes it— him?? yk, ig it’s male, the og nosferatu was a guy. sure, why not, nosferatu is a boy now.

once she realizes who it is, she is so! happy! max opens the window and embraces her friend. she isn’t freaked out by the blood on its fangs. she’s always known nosferatu is a vampire, albeit, she was thinking he’d look more like dracula than this bat-monster-thingy.

nosferatu moves back into max’s closet. it hangs upside-down from her rod by its weird, elongated feet. we get more shots of nosferatu sucking rando ppl dry at night, tho he remains gentle with max. when max drags billy in to show her he came back, nosferatu is less friendly with him. he’s not aggressive with billy, but he is standoffish. nosferatu’s thought process is somewhere between human and animal. he doesn’t quite cognitively understand that billy took him to the farm with the intent of getting rid of him, but he does understand that the last time he clung to billy, billy left him alone and never came back. max puts two and two together, and realizes it was billy who “stole” her friend. she yells at him a lot, he yells back, she then ices him out.

billy acts out bc he’s upset. runs away, thinks he’s going to find his mom…the cops find him first and call neil. neil is rly embarrassed and pissed abt the whole thing. he breaks down and beats billy in front of the mayfields for the first time. nosferatu smells the blood and it’s time for the main event! we love dead!neil, yes, we do.

nosferatu flies out the closet and right into the living room where billy’s bleeding and teary but biting his lip so they don’t actually fall. susan’s covering max’s eyes but so shocked and tbh, FRIGHTENED, she doesn’t move a muscle beyond that. neil’s got the belt raised, preparing to bring it down again, and nosferatu smashes right into him. neil stumbles, turns back to see this freaky monster looking thing. proceeds to whip the belt at nosferatu. tries to fight him off with the belt and it doesn’t accomplish much beyond pissing him off more— nosferatu, like most classic vampire types, has a healing factor!

max rips her mom’s hands off her face in time to see her pet sink its fangs into her stepdad’s throat. nosferatu sucks neil dry. billy’s a little dazed, not quite frightened. susan is just dead ass frozen, too scared to scream, even. nosferatu crawls over to billy and nudges at him, making sure he’s in once piece and forgiving him in the same go. max darts over and that snaps susan out of her stupor, but she isn’t as fast as our blood-sucking bat monster.

nosferatu stretches his wings out and with a truly impressive wingspan, hugs both of the kids. <3

horror movie #2: a haunting! this one opens with a bang. it’s a tragic horror, beware. we’re in hawkins post s3. billy died at starcourt mall. neil’s obvi had a longstanding abusive mindset and abusive behavior, but he rly takes his grief out on susan and max. mostly susan. she does her best to protect max however she can, whether that means shielding her w her body, sending her out of the house, getting neil’s goat to inspire his ire in max’s place, etc. but sue simply isn’t around all the time and when she isn’t, but max is, well. yk.

one day neil comes home early (bc he lost his job for a violent outburst, tbh) and discovers susan packing a suitcase.

sue fights hard. she rly does. but neil is bigger, heavier, crueler, and to boot, he caught her completely unawares. he kills her. and no, no it’s not some accidental thing where neil makes one bad move rage-blind. he strangles her with his belt. she’s clawing at his arms and making these horrible choked, trapped animal noises. thrashes and twists her body with everything she has trying to get him off but he’s so strong, his grip is unrelenting, and she's growing weaker, lightheaded with the lack of oxygen. strangulation can induce incontinence and when susan blacks out, her piss streams to the hardwood— neil hears that as much as he felt the clawing and heard the noises, even now he could stop, but he doesn’t. he just. doesn’t think his wife has the right to leave him, esp not after his son just did.

neil burns the body and the suitcase in the woods while max is at school. max has been spending as much time as she can (and often with sue’s prompting) outside of the house, so it actually takes her about two days to realize her mother isn’t around. neil tells a pretty convincing story about how susan abandoned them, voice saturated with apology and sorrow. he takes her out for a fancy dinner and promises he’s going to be a better father-- that being a better father is the least he can do now that her mother abandoned her and they are alone in their grief.

max doesn’t know what to think. she’s been preoccupied with her own grief and pain. she finds it hard to believe her mother would just leave her to neil’s wrath. she has a lot of hangups with susan and anger toward her for marrying neil and not getting them out sooner, but she’s also old enough to realize there would be risks involved with that. it’s hard to reconcile the memory of her mother just last wk pinning max to the wall to protect her from neil’s blows with her own bod just abruptly taking off without a word in the middle of the night. but hey, maybe that’s why susan left. maybe she got sick of protecting her, maybe the pain got to be too much and she turned tail.

but also…it’s early october now, abt three months after billy’s death but still fairly warm outside. yet neil is wearing long sleeves. neil never used to button his collared shirts all the way up, and yet. every collar is buttoned. also, mom’s car is still here. why would mom leave without her car?

that ceramic pelican she loved so much is still here too, on the mantle in the living room. it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she would leave behind, she's had it since max was a baby.

max almost wants to believe neil because she’d rather her mother abandoned her than be dead somewhere, rotting in a storage locker or a hole in the ground. under the earth with the worms, just like billy. max has the worst feeling low in the pit of her gut. she thinks she knows the truth. she thinks abt going to hopper and hesitates bc she’s not sure she could handle it if he actually found smth. or what would happen to her if he did, where she would be sent, who she would end up with.

this movie would be more on the ambiguous end of things. an arthouse horror, if u will.

the days turn into wks and neil is crawling in his skin. the viewer isn’t sure if the shadows he’s seeing, always, always susan-shaped shadows, are of a ghostly nature or if he’s just hallucinating out of guilt. but the signs gradually point to the former— that smth paranormal is indeed going on. bc those scratches and bite marks susan left in his skin?

they do not heal. they do not get infected. they do not become necrotic. but they do not heal, either. days turn into wks and the wounds still look fresh, like she just left them moments ago. neil can’t wear light colors anymore because his wounds weep red into the fabric. he isn’t just seeing susan’s shadows either, he’s smelling her.

he washes his sheets and pillowcases a dozen times and the scent of her shampoo, her lotion, it’s like it’s woven into the fibers. he walks into the hallway and chokes on the aroma of susan’s perfume. he wonders if max is screwing with him, if max figured it out and she’s trying to torture him into a confession. one day he stomps off to max's bedroom, furious, adamant on confronting her. he grabs her doorknob, prepared to yank it open and then lets out a yelp, jerking his hand back with a sudden sharp pain.

it feels like a bee sting (which would be esp bad for this fucker in anything i write, bc i headcanon him as being allergic). but there’s no stinger. no injury. nothing. neil is freaked out enough that he backs down.

max, on the other hand, is getting gentler signs. when she turns the radio dial in the camaro, it’s somehow always her mom’s favorite songs that come thru the speakers. when she goes to pull clothes out of her drawers in the morning, she discovers that the things she’d just shoved inside in wrinkled balls are perfectly folded, neat as a pin, exactly like how susan always folded. susan was always fond of cardinals and suddenly max is seeing cardinals, pretty red cardinals, in just abt erry tree and shrub.

neil wakes up one night to his wife’s voice whispering “boo” right in his ear. he throws the covers off and discovers ashes in the bed. he doesn’t smell susan’s shampoo or lotion anymore, he smells the kerosine he’d poured all over her body.

his wounds still won’t heal. whenever he looks in the mirror, he catches a glimpse of susan walking past behind him, peering at him from her peripheral. he whips around, heart hammering, but there’s never any tangible person there.

max is almost certain her mother is dead at this point. neil’s been so bizarrely nice to her lately. she never believed in ghosts but her experiences with the upside-down broadened her perception of reality. she doesn’t know how else to explain the songs, the cardinals, the folded clothes. the way that these days, whenever she does feel fear toward neil, it just fades away. her fear melts like popsicles in the sun, immediately replaced by the sensation of a warm, maternal hug, as if arms she can’t see are trying to reassure her she truly doesn’t need to be afraid of him anymore.

in fact, max feels so unafraid of neil and brave, that one night she calls him out on it. he’s grizzled and unshaven in his recliner, beer in hand. she steps in front of the television he’s vacantly fixated on and folds her arms across her chest.

“you killed my mom, didn’t you?”

quick as a flash, neil leaps to his feet. he brings his arm back like he’s going to strike her and susan’s ceramic pelican on the mantle explodes into shards. the lights flicker, the television program cuts to snow with a static roar. every other knickknack on the mantle rattles and framed photos tumble off the wall.

neil very wisely lowers his hand. he slumps, boneless. he doesn’t say a word. max sees the answer in his eyes. it’s the dead of night and she snatches the camaro keys off the hook, marching out of the house, slamming the door behind her. it’s the dead of night and she doesn’t care. she’s going to blow past every stop sign and pound on the chief’s door until he opens up. and fuck, i just realized if this is post s3 he’s supposed to be in russia. shit. i don’t watch this show, but i know abt russia bc i DID watch the clips of that demogorgon that i rly hope isn’t stuck in captivity!! okay, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen?

it’s an au?? i mean, errything i write is always technically an au anyway, bc when i write stuff susan has an actual personality and billy isn’t *completely* abhorrent. okay, so it’s an au and mr. hopper didn’t blow up and un-blow up in russia. he’s still here. so max drives to his house.

she pounds on the door so hard this guy snaps outta bed, thinking someone’s trying to bust it down. she tells him neil confessed to killing her mom. it isn’t true, exactly, but he didn’t have to. so it’s a helluva grim drive back to cherry lane, this time in the cop car.

but when they go inside, chief prepared to arrest neil, no need. neil’s hanging from the belt he strangled susan with, shirtless for the first time since that night, erry seemingly fresh furrow and bite mark on full display. below his dangling feet is a map, the area he burned susan’s corpse in circled in red marker. did he kill himself or did the ghost do it?

up to u, we soundlessly cut to credits without a concrete answer to that question.

horror movie #3: crossover special! stranger things meets the chilling adventures of sabrina. sequel to that fic i wrote where susan makes out with lilith, queen of hell, and lilith kills neil for her. sue officially joins the church of lilith. bc in this ‘verse the church of lilith actually happens after caos s2 instead of the nonsense that was s3 and the inconceivably godawful migraine-inducing shit-fest that was s4.

killing neil was lilith’s only freebee. susan isn’t a witch, she’s a mortal, so in order to reap the other rewards of worshipping the one and only mother of demons, she has to fornicate with the witches and participate in the sacrifices!!!

this is, uh, well. it’s p much a porno, dude, sorry. 😅

this is just an excuse for susan to have sex with lilith, zelda, marie, hilda, big witch orgies + susan. witches bathing in the blood of their sacrifices, susan so nervous and timid but unable to deny her desire. the witch’s dressing her in their gothic garb.

how does the rest of the fam get it on this?

max joins the church too. she has more age-appropriate conduct with sabrina and the weird sisters, and what have you. just smooches and over-the-clothes groping, and whatnot, even tho the weird sisters, at least, would be interested in going further if given the opportunity.

billy dies in starcourt again, so he gets revived in the cain pit! hilda is the one who goes to him after bc she’s been in the cain pit many a time (i am still BIG side-eyeing zelda for repeatedly murdering her sister since childhood). hilda understands how jarring it can be to come back. suddenly alive!billy is freaking tf out but she brings him inside the mortuary, wraps him up in a big blanket burrito and they have a talk. hilda explains that he’s going to be okay and rubs his back while he tentatively sips the hot chocolate she made.

after billy’s calmed down, she brings max and susan in. max and susan can’t do as much magic as the caos witches— they’re mortals, after all, it’s not in their nature —but they’ve gained some abilities thru being in the church, following the rituals, and being carnally involved with the immortal witches. max happily shows him some of her new magic tricks.

horror movie #4: another crossover with caos. heavily inspired by creepshow episode s2e1, model kid (which i already v blatantly referenced in the last axe snafu update and i’m not ashamed, bc it’s a good series i love v much).

billy picks max up from the byers’ place rly late one night. it’s dark and the weather is bad and okay, yeh, he might be a little high. and a little concussed. he pissed neil off pretty bad the other day and okay, actually he’s defo concussed bc he doesn’t even remember what he did wrong!

needless to say, they take a wrong turn somewhere. they end up in greendale. at first max is pissed. she yells at him a lot! yells so loud hilda can hear them thru the walls of dr. cerberus’s comic shop/diner. she goes outside to see what all the fuss is abt, hilda never rly ignores youth in need. we love hilda, she deserved so much better…i’m getting distracted, okay, back to the story.

hilda ushers them inside. max is like, “ooh, comics? horror junk and comics? nvm, i’m not mad anymore.” she pats billy’s arm and wanders away to go check stuff out! hilda makes billy sit down. caos canon established that she’s psychic, at least when she wants to be. she smells the weed but she also sees his life, his trauma. billy doesn’t remember what he did to piss neil off or the abuse that followed, but hilda sees it clear as day.

he’s rude and cranky w her when she probes a little too much for his liking. hilda gently but firmly reprimands him and gets him a milkshake on this house. then she goes to check on max. she steers max to a v particular section of the shop, the one that sells model kits. now, max isn’t *huge* into model kits BUT they are p neat and she enjoys them well enough. more so when the weather is nasty and she can’t go outside. or when she needs smth to do with her hands (a trait she shares w susan) to distract herself and ease some of the anxiety when she hears her brother being beaten or her mother being shouted at.

max is actually rly impressed by the array of models. vintage ones and newer ones. monsters, slashers, final girls, tiny accessories like knives and bloodied heads. but when she gets to the paint-your-own shelf, her jaw drops to the floor.

there’s one that looks just like neil. unpainted, plain gray vinyl, but undoubtedly her stepdad. the expression on the five inch figurine is one frozen in fear.

“i think that one’s calling to you,” hilda prompts her, with the softest smile.

max blinks away her bewilderment altho she still can’t speak. she turns to hilda and turns her empty pockets inside out. hilda just waves her hand. she tells her it’s on the house. that it wouldn’t be fair if she gave billy smth on the house, but not max.

speaking of billy, when he finishes his milkshake, he’s suddenly totally sober and healed!! no more high buzzing in his blood. no more pounding headache or concussion fogging his mind. he doesn’t feel his bruises anymore, rolls his sleeve up, and realizes they simply aren’t there anymore. like they dissolved off his skin.

albeit it’s muttered under his breath, but billy does thank hilda. then he and max are on their way. max shows him the suspiciously familiar figurine in the box. this night cannot get weirder.

max knows what to do with the model kit. she does. she isn’t sure how she knows, but she does. she grapples with it for a long time. neil’s the closest thing she has to a dad these days. and things aren’t bad all the time, ofc.

sometimes neil gives max a ride when mom and billy aren’t available. sometimes he brings her ice cream entirely unprompted. neil’s the one who picks max up off the sidewalk when she wipes out super bad on her skateboard, carries her inside and then later to the car when her cut doesn’t stop bleeding and she ends up needing stitches.

but most of the time he sucks. she can’t rly be herself around him. he's indifferent to her interest at best, scornful at worst. he would hate all her friends. he scares the shit out of her when he’s angry. he doesn’t have a problem belittling her mother in front of her, tearing susan to shreds and making her out like she’s lower than dirt, the most worthless person on the planet. doesn’t have a problem beating billy in front of her or glaring at her with the promise that she’ll be next if she dares to voice her dissent.

max doesn’t always want to do what she knows she’s meant to do with the model. bc she's kind at heart and bc on the good days, she genuinely does have mixed feelings toward neil. never enough to hope he'll be better, he's proven he won't...but maybe enough to hope he won't get worse, either.

then comes the night neil breaks ribs. bad, like we’re talking, a-sharp-spear-of-broken-rib-punctures-billy’s-lung-and-he’s-coughing-up-blood-bad. that’s a trip to the emergency room. in the days that follow, at her next dnd meeting w the party, max places the fully and attentively painted model of her stepdad on the table. normally her pals would protest her derailing the intended game, but they can sense it, yk, that smth is different.

max takes over as dungeon master to the protest of no one, all other mouths sealed as if bewitched and spellbound. she narrators a scene where the demogorgon devours neil and uses the demogorgon piece and the model for demonstration.

when max returns home, neil is strewn across the house in gory chunks and torn wallpaper curls around massive claw marks.

#writerwhowritesao3 #susan hargrove #max mayfield #billy hargrove #neil hargrove #crossover #hilda spellman #my scenario tag #i may have gotten carried away #my bad #it's october!#i'm in big horror mode

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markley · 3 years

Text

movie night with choi beomgyu part two

your heart is racing as you panic. how the hell do you face beomgyu with this new revelation? like what? you just look your best friend in the eye and say ‘hey i think im in love with your dumbass. alright now lets watch disney’s hercules’?

because thats sure to go well.

you’d love to be able to pretend you never realized how you felt but beom can read you like an open book... or rather an open music sheet? he’s never been one for reading. he’s always preferred finding entertainment in music.

the image of beomgyu teaching you guitar years ago flashes through your mind. his eyes crinkling at the edges when you completely messed up the chord and the way his hands moved over yours as he took the guitar away to show you how to play. and the way his hair was so-

creak. the sound of the unoiled door opening snaps you from your memories of beomgyu. you look up from your spot on the couch to see the boy in question standing there with a wide grin and arms full of movies, snacks and plushies. the typical best friend movie night essentials.

beomgyu immediately ran to you, tackling you into a hug on the couch. “you ready for the BEST movie night ever?”

“you say that every movie night, beom.”

“and im always right! they just keep getting better and better.” you can’t help but giggle an the surety of his words. “plus tonight i rented pretty much every disney movie in existence and we’re gonna be binging it all and its gonna be great.”

an excited beomgyu gets up from his seat on top of you to slide one of the dvds in. disney’s hercules.

when he sits back down he slides an arm around your shoulder like he always does, but unlike every other time, you freeze under his touch. he gives you a slightly worried look but seems to shake it off in favor of cuddling closer to you.

even by halfway through the movie he hasn’t stopped touching you. whether that be an arm around you, a hand on top of yours or even fucking feeding you popcorn as he messily belts the lyrics to wont say im in love. ironic, you think, attempting to shove the growing feeling of anxiety at his touch down your throat. maybe if you continue to ignore it, your feelings will go away and everything will be back to normal?

beomgyu has always been touchy but not this suffocatingly so. it’s almost like he’s testing your boundaries- and you are at your limit. either you are an insanely good actor or he just doesnt care because he seems to not notice your growing stress.

“okay so you are acting weird.” he says it so casually, like he’s just talking about the movie or the weather, that you barely notice his words. when they register, however, your breath catches in your throat. shit—so its definitely not because you’re a good actor.

you look up at him, but he’s eyes stay trained on the movie. “w-what do you mean, gyu?” even you wouldn’t believe your attempted nonchalant words. why is your voice shaking so much, you bitterly think. you may have been able to escape questioning if you didn’t sound so suspicious.

he finally looks at you, eyes soft but unimpressed. he raises an eyebrow, prompting you to explain. but how the hell do you explain to your best friend that you may or may not be deeply in love with him? so you choose to stay silent, just gazing back at him.

you two are locked in a staring battle until he seems to lose, looking away disappointedly. “fine, dont tell me, your best friend, what the hell has been going on with you.” he huffs, shoving popcorn in his mouth, annoyance clear in his eyes. you tell eachother everything, so it makes sense he’d be annoyed by you hiding something from him.

you dont know if its the noticeable pout on his bitten lips and the guilt in your gut upon seeing it, or if its simply the adorable way he looks sitting there, bundled up in a hoodie, hair tousled and shoving popcorn in his mouth instead of talking to you that makes you impulsively speak, not a word being thought through before its spoken into the tense air. “i think im in love with you.”

now its beomgyus turn to tense up, his previously annoyed eyes turning to you in surprise. he looks like a deer in headlights and youd think it was cute if it wasnt a reaction to you confessing. but then, his shoulders drop, his eyes close, and he giggles. “you think?”

your frozen in place at his casual response. you expected a bit more surprise, and a lot of discomfort, but all beomgyu does is smile, raising an eyebrow at your indecisive words. “you think that you’re in love with me? come on, i dont even get the pleasure of you being sure?”

you gape at your best friend, in shock of how unbothered, and perhaps even happy, he seems. taking a deep breath, you look him in the eye. “beomgyu.” he hums in response, grinning at the seriousness in your voice. “gyu, im in love with you.”

“god it took you long enough!” he complains, whining as you sit there frozen when he pulls you closer to him, forcing you to cuddle into his side. it’s a normal position for the two of you, but now that you’ve confessed it’s just different. “i thought i’d have to deal with you acting weird for forever and then i’d have to be the one to confess so you’d stop acting like i killed your puppy.”

“beom what the hell are you talking about?”

“oh yeah that’d be pretty important to mention...hey y/n, im in love with you too.” he shrugs, acting like he didn’t just confess his love to you. you shoot up from under his arm with wide, annoyed eyes. you’re best friend was never one to be serious but this is ridiculous!

“beomgyu why are you being so casual about this?!”

“because we might as well already be dating. we’ve known eachother for years, live together and cuddle like we’re dating. ive known i liked you for a while so basically all i was waiting for was a confession.”

“so why didn’t you confess first?!”

“i wanted to wait for you to figure it out! you weren’t acting weird until today so i figured you didnt consider loving me until well, right now.” he’s grinning at you, giggling and unshaken.

“you are the worst beomgyu”

“yeah well, you love me.”

“...unfortunately.” he’s looking you in the eye now, a smile still playing along his red lips. lips you’ve never wanted to kiss this much until right now; lips you’ve never even considered kissing until today. but when he finally slots them against yours, it feels right. yeah, you were so in love with choi beomgyu.

#oh my god this got long #is this even classified as a blurb anymore #tomorrow x together #txt fluff #txt blurb #choi beomgyu #txt x reader #beomgyu x reader

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radiosandrecordings · 4 years

Note

Ace fic request if ya feel: Jmart taking a bath together at Upton, w some nonsexual nudity/intimacy? Thank u!!

“Ahaha, I’ll ask for some ace fic prompts and do drabbles for it!” I said, naively. 3K words later. Thank you Gwyn for reading over this and fixing my typos because it is. now coming up to 5am because I decided to write 3K in one sitting

CWs for talk of nudity but no one ever gets full nakey. Jon also has a brief panic about not being able to protect Martin without the Eye.

Ao3 version too

They’d probably been awake for an hour or so by the time the feeling of grime coating his skin became intolerable.

It felt wrong, really, the juxtaposition of the soft, clean cotton under his head and the greasy knots his hair had woven itself into over the course of their journey. Like it was insulting to the pillow, the case of which, Jon guessed absently, was worth more than his entire bed back in his flat, if it was still standing.

And wasn’t that something? To have to guess that and not just be aware. As it normally was, the Beholding would inform him that that wasn’t quite true, as while the sheets on this bed were certainly nice they were more chosen for display purposes than with the intent of anyone truly sleeping in them. The house was a museum. The curators had not supposed upon the current scenario.

The current scenario being that there were two men lying in it, half asleep, lying still and just staring at each other with an eye-watering fondness. They had spoken, when they first awoke. Got out all the words they wanted to say. The “Where are we” and the “How long were we asleep?” and the “Is it finally safe to rest?” and the “I love you so, so much.”

Now the thing to break the silence was the sound of Martin’s stomach making its discontent known. This, of course, sent them both into peals of laughter, because when was the last time they’d felt mundane hunger?

“Do you think they even have food here?” Martin asks, still buried up to his neck in duvet.

“Perhaps? Salesa surely has to eat, if we do.”

“Yeah, but Annabelle though,” Martin chews his lip in mock contemplation. “What if we go downstairs and open up all the cupboards and it’s just… Flies as far as the eye can see, all wrapped up for eating. There’s one in the fridge all done up on a platter like a Christmas ham. Cloves spiked into it and all.”

Jon winces. “I’d really rather not picture that right now, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah, course,” Martin says, looking slightly sheepish as they lapse into silence again. “Should probably go check though. Don’t exactly want to have gotten through all that just to starve. Though I’d happily let this be my death bed, honestly. Don’t think I’ve slept that well in… Ever.”

“Mmh, now that you mention it, I’m quite peckish as well… Odd, that. Had almost forgotten what it felt like.” Jon heaves himself into a sitting position, and takes stock of the door to his left. “Probably the bathroom. Ensuite. Very nice.”

“You want to get cleaned up before we go scavenging?” Martin asks, prying the duvet away like he’s pulling teeth. Jon feels bad that they can’t just stay in bed all day. He hadn’t been able to sleep, in the safe house, but Martin had chosen to dream. He might be biased, but Jon figures that that was probably worse. Martin seemed now to be relishing the opportunity to relax.

“I think we rather need it. Not keen to embarrass ourselves in front of our hosts a second time, so I’d rather not appear downstairs looking like something the cat dragged in.” Jon shoves the duvet away and gets, somewhat shakily, to his feet. Damn. No Beholding means the pain from- Where- The wound… His leg hurts. It means his leg hurts something fierce. He hopes he can stand in the shower.

When he makes his way over to the door and swings it open, it turns out not to be a concern. The bathroom, in the fashion of the rest of the house, has no shower. Instead, a comically beautiful bathtub sits against the opposing wall. It’s a clawfoot, gold varnish painted over its feet where porcelain turns to antique wood.

“You want to go first then?” Martin asks, slowly pulling the duvet around himself again.

Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’ll go on ahead. You enjoy the extra time.”

Martin gives him a smug look and burrows down again. God, Jon really, really loves him. Which is why, when he puts his hand on the door handle to close it behind him, he freezes.

Statement readings aside, this will be the first time Martin has been out of his sight in… However you choose to categorize the indefinite amount of time they spent roaming the hellscape. And even then, Jon had his powers. If anything threatened Martin he’d be there to help him. To save him. The Eye offers no such comfort now. Jon doesn’t want to close the door. He doesn’t want Martin out of his line of sight. Not with Annabelle here. He won't leave him alone, not now.

“... Jon? You okay?”

Jon realises he’s been standing in the doorway for at least a minute now, hand frozen in indecision. He blinks a few times, trying to bring his eyes back into focus. He opens his mouth, and finds himself gaping slightly, looking for the words.

Martin shifts, sitting back up again. “Jon, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

It comes out like a croak. “I- I don’t Know.”

Martin’s tone is gentle, placating, two hands gently offered out in Jon’s direction. “You don’t know what’s wrong?”

“No, I don’t Know,” he can feel tears beading at the corners of his eyes and tries to push down the lump in his throat. He’s gone this long without crying, why does he have to go and do it now, ruin the peaceful moment that he’d watch Martin lapse into like a drowning man with air.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Martin hushes, sliding out of bed and walking round from his side. He brings his arms around Jon and just lets them stay there, not pulling him against his chest in a restrictive grasp, but just laying his hands against his back, letting him know he’s there.

Despite his best attempts, Jon lets out a hiccup. “And- And that should be a good thing. It should. I don’t want to Know. But it’s… I’ve spent so long with this constant presence at the back of my skull and now it feels… It’s raw and it’s vulnerable. Annabelle Cane could be a wall away and I’m vulnerable and that means you are too. If I’m in another room, I can’t Know if something is wrong, and more importantly, if something does go wrong I can’t save you.”

The right wrapped around to hold Jon’s left hip, Martin’s free hand has been tracing soothing patterns into his back through his shirt. It stills when Jon finishes. He takes a moment, before breathing out heavily through his nose. He leans back slightly so he can look down and match eye levels.

“Jon,” he says, and his voice is as soft as that duvet felt. “I can’t imagine what that’s like. I’m so sorry. I thought being free of the Eye would be a good thing, I didn’t even consider how it would feel for you. I can’t promise nothing will go wrong, because… Well, our track record speaks for itself. But I can try and ease your fears.” He brushes Jon’s fringe out of the way, and presses a quick kiss to his forehead. “Tub seems pretty big. How do you feel about taking a bath together?”

Jon feels his face, flushed from tears, pale. And oh what a relief, to feel a fear so comparatively… Mundane. To not be afraid of the cosmic monstrosity in the back of your brain, or the spiders with motives that scuttle across the ceiling, or the fact that you are responsible for the suffering of billions. Oh to be afraid of… Intimacy.

Martin must feel him tense, because the hand on his back drops away, and the one at his hip loosens its grip. “I’m sorry, if that’s too much, we can just-”

“No,” Jon cuts him off, and is surprised at his own voice. “No, I… I would like that. That sounds nice.”

He knows it’s from his earlier anxieties, but Martin must still be able to feel Jon trembling slightly under his hand, because he continues to give Jon a sceptical look.

“Forgive me for being blunt, but you really don’t seem up for that. If that’s not in your… Intimacy wheelhouse, I get it.”

“I’m just a little shaken, is all,” Jon says, but he knows there’s a truth to Martin’s words. He knows Martin respects him and his orientation, they’d had long discussions about it in the safe house, about boundaries and desires and how Jon wanted to spend his days glued to Martin’s side but he under no circumstances wished to have sex with him. He knows that this isn’t what that is, that Martin means it in the most innocent fashion imaginable, but there’s still something about the idea of close, physical proximity while naked that makes the hairs on his arm stand on end and his stomach churn.

It’s not that he was bashful about it. He’d seen Martin naked before, gotten changed in the same room most mornings and evenings in the safe house, but that was just a symptom of existing in the same space, never something actively done with the intent to exhibit. It had, predictably, stirred no feelings in him. The idea of them so close while not clothed… No, that wouldn’t be happening.

“I- Can I make one request, though?” Jon asks, tilting his no longer watery eyes up to meet Martin’s.

“Anything,” Martin replies, no hesitation to be found.

Jon feels his face flush again, and the rapid pooling and draining of blood from his face must be doing terrible things to his circulation. “Can- Can we keep our underwear on? Please? God, sorry, that must sound horribly childish-”

“No, no that’s okay. Whatever you need to feel comfortable,” Martin says and his voice is not so much laced with sincerity as built from bricks of it.

They break apart and Martin ambles through the doorway and over to the bath, turning the water on. It sputters, clearly struggling after years of disuse, but after a few seconds it flows clear. Martin waits for the brackish residue to be cleaned away before popping the plug into place.

Jon preoccupies himself with looking over the shelves. They were well stocked, likely by Salesa, as Jon has a hard time believing that plastic bottles full of opalescent purple liquid were considered period appropriate set dressing. He pops the lid open on one and is met by a strong whiff of lavender. He tucks it under his arm before swiping a shampoo and matching conditioner.

“Find something you like?” Martin asks, leaning against the edge of the tub. Jon hums a response before joining him. The tub was filling up quickly now, almost half way full and the water is pleasantly warm when he drags his fingers through it. Jon deposits two of the bottles where they can be grabbed when needed, before taking the lavender body wash and drawing swirls into the water until a layer of foam and bubbles begin to build on the surface.

When Jon turns back to face Martin, his fingers are twitching at the hem of his t-shirt. Whoever was responsible for transferring them from cold marble floor to warm bed had also seen to it that their shoes were removed, as well as their bags and coats, which Jon had seen folded and placed over a chair in the corner of the bedroom. They were both down to their now ripped, muddied and bloodied trousers, and two v-neck t-shirts from the same set, Jon’s of which was tucked into his jeans to disguise the fact that it was several sizes too large. What possible conclusion could be drawn from that?

Martin cleared his throat. “Do you mind, then, if I…?”

“Yes, of course, go ahead.”

Martin pulled his shirt over his head.

It’s not that Jon didn’t find him attractive. He did, very much so, just in the romantic sense. So seeing Martin shirtless was similar to seeing him in a particularly flattering outfit. It didn’t change the way he felt about him, just intensified it. He was very handsome and Jon enjoyed getting to look at him.

He pulls his own shirt over his head, before turning back to trail his hands through the water again, trying to gage the temperature and encourage more bubbles. When he turns back to face Martin again, he’s fiddling with his belt, eventually getting it undone and letting his trousers drop. Jon does the same. And then nothing more happens, and Jon breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not that he hadn’t trusted Martin to keep his word and not fully strip on him, it was just.. It was a relief.

“Shall we?” Martin asks, gesturing towards the water.

“Let’s,” Jon responds, hooking one leg over the edge before stepping fully into the bath, and letting himself sink below the water.

He’s just about acclimated when suddenly the water is rising slightly as Martin joins him, placing himself at the other end of the tub. There’s not enough room for his legs, so he ends up with his knees close to his chest, sticking out of the water. Jon’s just about fit, stretching down to the other end of the bath and bracketing each side of Martin’s hips.

If the bed was heaven, this is absolutely blissful. The warm water surrounds his aching joints, slowly massaging them as it laps around him. The water, just seconds earlier clean and pure, is already starting to take on a stale quality as the dirt begins to slough off of the two of them, but Jon can’t bring himself to care for relief that it’s no longer coating his skin. He thinks the lavender may have been a bad choice, because between it and the warmth he’s finding it hard not to fall asleep again.

“This okay?” Martin asks, because he’s still worried about Jon and his comfort and that makes his heart ache with affection, that someone would care that much about him and his boundaries.

“Far more than okay,” he responds, dragging one hand down the other arm in an attempt to get some stubborn filth off. Martin is doing the same, except he’s wisely taken a sponge from somewhere and is scrubbing at a spot on his ankle where his trouser and boot hadn’t quite met and the Buried had decided to leave a crusted circle in its wake.

They sit in silence for quite a while, each taking care of their own needs before Jon reaches one arm out of the bath to make a swipe at the bottle of shampoo.

“Here, let me,” Martin says, breaking the quiet. He shifts forward slightly, on instinct, before pausing and rocking back slightly. “If you want, that is. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you want me to do your hair? It’s just- It’s probably easier, y’know, than you trying to do it yourself.”

“And far more romantic,” Jon adds, smiling as he leans over to press a kiss to Martin’s freshly cleaned cheek.

“That too. Do you want to turn around?”

Jon answers wordlessly by shifting until he’s facing away from Martin. He’s surprised, but not unpleasantly so, when Martin’s arms wrap around him and gently pull him backwards until his back is just shy of flush with Martin’s chest. It’s very intimate. It’s very nice.

“That okay?” Martin asks again, and more than ‘I love you’, that’s a phrase Jon will never grow tired of hearing because it means Martin truly cares for his comfort.

“Absolutely.”

“Good,” Martin says, as he uncaps the shampoo and pours a small puddle of it into his hands. Even turned away, Jon can smell the wafts of artificial apple scenting in the stuff.

When Martin starts to gently drag his fingers against Jon’s scalp, he can feel himself almost melt under the touch. His spine loses all tension and he lets himself fall back entirely against Martin’s chest, and it’s only the knowledge that he needs to keep still for Martin to actually do his job that stops him from turning and burrowing his face there.

“I really hope that was a positive thing and you haven’t just fainted on me. Like, literally on me,” Martin says from behind him and this close, pressed up against him Jon can feel it reverberating in Martin’s chest.

“Still conscious, don’t worry. That’s just… Very nice.”

“Oh! Well… Good.”

This continues for a few minutes, Martin slowly making his way from the scalp down to the roots of Jon’s hair, untangling it with his fingers and then repeating the process with the conditioner until his hair ran smooth under Martin’s hands. Even when Jon knows he’s long finished any actual hair care, Martin continues to run his fingers through the hair, just because. Jon loved him for it.

Eventually, both of Martin’s hands come to rest against Jon’s torso. “This okay?”

“Yes. I don’t mind any of the touching, as long as it’s… Nowhere previously established to be out of bounds.”

“Gotcha,” Martin says, pressing a kiss to Jon’s shoulder that makes his brain fizzle like fireworks.

It takes Jon a minute to fully realise what Martin is doing. Two hands trace lines along his ribcage, one on each side, thumbs gently drawing and redrawing a pattern. His scars.

Then, the hands travel upwards. Again, two lines along his chest, traced with as much tender care, and Jon’s brain has gone a little fuzzy. He’s unused to such casual touching. There is nothing hurried about it, no urgency, no purpose other than to make him feel good. To make him feel loved and cherished, and if he’s being honest, it’s working. No ulterior motive. This isn’t the lead up to anything. It just exists on it’s own as an experience he gets to have without worrying about what comes after, because he knows the answer is nothing.

After, Martin shifts slightly, leaning forward. One hand cups Jon’s elbow, raising that arm out of the water as one by one, from shoulder to palm, Martin makes his way down pressing a soft kiss to each and every circular scar. He repeats the process with the other arm. As if to finish it off, he presses a slow, soft, close mouthed kiss to the line that stretches across the front of Jon’s neck.

He’s perfect. Martin Blackwood is perfect and Jon doesn’t know what he did to deserve… This. This quiet barrage of love, the consideration and care poured into it something Jon never thought he would be worthy of, let alone have become a reality.

Jon twists to lie sideways, pressed against Martin with his head tucked under Martin’s chin. Martin’s knees bracket his shoulders on either side and he feels safe. He is in the eye of the storm, a brief respite from the dreadful horrors that ravage the world outside their bubble, but with Martin Blackwood he is safe.

#My Post #The Magnus Archives #Jonmartin #Jonathan Sims #Martin Blackwood #My Writing #dickwheelie

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theresnosuchthingasmonsters · 4 years

Text

(((Combo Prompt!)))

(((“Look, I don’t have much time, but I wanted to say I love you,” with Martin and Ainsley, sent in by Anonymous.)))

(((“If you go anywhere near them, you’ll have to deal with me!” with Martin and Nicholas, sent in by Anonymous (Modified) )))

-----

An echoing, electronic buzz unlocked the door to The Surgeon’s cell. But Martin Whitly remained lying on his back, glaring at the ceiling above his cot with mild irritation in his eyes, irked that he’d been disturbed from his nap.

Mr. David poked his head into the cell, announcing, “Call for you.” He held the hallway phone in one hand, the pig-tail cord extended to its maximum reach.

“Is it another set-up?” Martin grumbled with a dash of spite. “Like last time, when I quote ‘tried to escape?’” What bullshit. It was a miracle that he hadn’t been hauled off to Riker’s. That was what Endicott was going for, he just knew it.

“It’s your daughter.”

Martin glanced over, hesitated only a second longer, then heaved himself to his feet and padded to the entryway. Mr. David moved back toward the phone’s base on the wall, giving the cord some mercy.

“I expect you’re going to piledrive me the second I step foot outside this door,” Martin mumbled with sarcasm, glancing outside the cell to ensure that no other untrustworthy guards were lying in wait for an ambush. The crotchety inmate was still bruised from yesterday’s ‘misunderstanding.’ He continued griping, “Or try to kill me when I turn my back.”

Mr. David gave him a deadpan look. Evidently, the guard did not think that the nefarious incidents which occurred during his absence were funny. Toting a grumpy, miserable look, Dr. Whitly ventured into the hall and finished his jokes with a bitter, “No? Good. I appreciate it.”

“You’re very welcome,” Mr. David muttered. Dr. Whitly came to stand beside the guard and lifted his cuffed hands to accept the handset from him. Mr. David remained close by, and although he’d repeatedly assured his patient that everything was going to be fine, the guard did glance at the red door down the hall.

Things were tense lately, to say the least. There was no telling what surprises would pop up next. Mr. David didn’t know exactly what The Surgeon had done, but he had apparently pissed off some pretty powerful people.

Martin held the phone to his ear and forced a cheerful tone through his voice box. “Hello sweetheart!” No one would have been able to guess that mere seconds ago, he was as cranky as a drenched cat. “How is my girl? Any news on--?”

Ainsley wasn't in the mood for chit-chat. “Dad, shut up,” she urgently hissed.

Martin shut up. Before he could ask what was wrong (because something was clearly wrong,) Ainsley rushed through what she needed to say. “Look, I don’t have much time, but I-- I wanted to say, I love you.”

Dr. Whitly didn’t know which part of that sentence caused him more confusion and surprise. His expression shifted indecisively between a smile and a concerned grimace. “W-- Ah, Ains... what d’you mean you... ‘don’t have much time?’” he laughed nervously.

She didn’t answer him, but he could hear her breath. “Ains?” he repeated expectantly, listening as hard as he could to try to translate her subtle sounds. His half-smile abandoned his facade, which was no longer a facade, but a genuine look of worry. He could hear her suffering through a silent sob. Crying.

“I love you,” her voice croaked. “I love you, dad.”

That didn’t matter to him at that moment. His daughter was wasting her breath, and wasting whatever amount of time she claimed she had. Martin wanted to know what was going on. “Ainsley, what’s wrong?” he demanded. Alarm congregated on the cusp of his stern voice, as if his words were preparing for an attack. But he employed what was left of his calm, patient reserves.

She didn’t answer.

Martin stared at the wall in front of him, his eyes searching through the detail of the painted bricks as if they displayed a map of encrypted answers. Mr. David warily watched his patient, and they both held their breath.

Dr. Whitly heard a muffled rattle on the opposite end of the line as the other phone was roughly handled. Ainsley cried out in the distance that had been placed between her and their call. “Ainsley?” he raised his voice so she could hear him, wherever she was.

Again, she didn’t answer him. But someone else did. “Hello, Martin.”

It was Endicott.

Endicott was what was wrong.

“Nicholas,” Dr. Whitly hissed, his fury boiling in an instant. “You leave her the fuck alone!”

“Sorry, I can’t quite hear you over the sound of your daughter screaming.”

Ainsley screamed.

Martin had heard too many screams in his lifetime not to know the difference between them. It was a language that only those familiar with them could translate, like how only a parent was able to immediately identify the cause of the various cries of their own infant. Hunger, fear, emotional anguish, or physical pain. Ainsley’s scream was born from a prolonged, invasive, searing kind of pain --the purpose of which was clearly to rip the sound out of her. Thanks to all of his experience, Martin could easily imagine the many inflictions that could elicit such a scream from his daughter.

Martin’s own scream was born from pure rage. “NICHOLAS!” he roared, his blood vessels swelling with heat and strength as an angered adrenaline surged through him. The phone felt like a pistol being pressed to his head, but he leaned into it, yearning to get to the other side of that weapon and turn it on his assaulter.

Endicott chuckled. “But don’t worry, she’s not going to be ‘alone,’” he promised with an audible grin. “Your son’s gonna join her soon.”

Fire burned in Martin’s eyes. It was nearly tangible enough to char the wall in front of him, yet he was frozen in place and struggled to breathe.

Mr. David stepped closer and raised a hand to take the phone. “Martin--”

The Surgeon took a large step away and bore his teeth, displaying a deep, silent snarl like that of a feral beast. He held up a finger of his free hand, which was chained beside the other. It was a reaction that warned, ‘do not fuck with me right now.’ Mr. David didn’t need to be told twice, and he heeded the warning. The guard gave the man his space, then moved to grab the wheeled cart with the other phone on it. He used it to dial the NYPD.

“Nicholas, if you harm them--” Martin seethed, returning his acidic attention to the wall.

“Already did,” Endicott interrupted, enjoying this.

“--You are going to swallow a KNIFE, I swear to God--” Wrath poured from Martin’s cavernous lungs, which in that moment were endlessly deep and entirely filled with hatred. “--I’m gonna shove a blade so deep down your throat--!”

“I warned you, Martin. You didn’t listen,” Endicott’s honey smooth voice smiled. “You brought this on them.”

“I--!” Martin’s rage shattered. He was unable to argue against or deny that. He flipped a switch, transitioning from detestation to desperation. “I lied, Nick, I lied.” There must have been a short in the circuitry of that switch, because his anger resurfaced in bursts. “I LIED, Goddamn it, I don’t know anything! Sophie didn’t tell me ANYTHING!”

“Too late, Martin. You can’t beg your way out of this, though I do love hearing it.”

The Surgeon’s fire extinguished. His passionate wrath could not stop Nicholas, no matter how fiercely it burned.

Behind him, he heard Mr. David talking to the NYPD on the other phone, explaining that they’d received a threatening call at Claremont and ordering the police to find Ainsley, now. It was no use. The police weren’t going to stop Nicholas either. There was nothing Martin could do to regain control of the situation. Nothing could wake him from this nightmare.

He’d never felt so helpless.

Endicott continued to taunt him. “I hope you love hearing them scream as much as I love hearing you begging for th--HHGK-!”

The Surgeon stared at the wall, wide eyed as he listened to Nicholas’ choked cry. It was a cry that he recognized all too well. Thanks to all of his experience, Martin could easily imagine the many inflictions that could elicit such sounds from his enemy. Endicott’s garbled sounds were those of a dying man.

A rattle accompanied the constricted sounds as the phone was dropped. Martin waited, studying the brick in front of him with bated disbelief.

Finally, he heard, “Dad?”

In the form of a relieved gasp, he answered, “Ains?”

“Hey,” she greeted plainly. Her voice was slightly trembling, but also calm, and emotionless. Numb. Her shock conflicted with her adrenaline.

He knew the feeling. “Hey,” he echoed.

They breathed together for a moment, each processing what had happened. After a long exhale, Martin hesitantly smiled. “Did you get him?”

“Yeah,” she answered hollowly. “I got him.”

Martin closed his eyes and grinned before hissing a violent, “Good.”

“Thanks for distracting him,” she huffed with faint humor. Dr. Whitly could hear her smile.

That was the true reason why she’d called him. The Surgeon’s grin spread. He couldn’t be more proud of her, even if her plan had given him a heart attack. “Anything for my girl,” he joked. But it wasn’t really a joke. He was still beaming when he asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m fine,” she answered in the same emotionless tone. “Better than him.”

Martin chuckled.

It was then that he heard a door slam in the environment of Ainsley’s call. Malcolm’s distant, muffled voice cried, “Oh my God, Ains, what happened!?”

“Gotta go.” Ainsley hung up.

Martin removed the phone from his head and fondly smirked at it.

“The police are on their way,” Mr. David informed him, also ending up his own call to the cops.

Martin turned over his shoulder and delivered a pleasant smile to the guard. There was no need for him to be concerned any longer. “Oh, it’s fine now. She took care of it.” His happy expression remained on his face as he tenderly placed the handset back on the switchhook on the wall. “Everything’s alright.”

Mr. David cautiously stared at his patient as he walked back into his cell, knowing that everything was not alright. It was far from alright by any ordinary, sane standards. But in Martin’s mind, everything was bliss. The Surgeon settled himself on his cot and grinned at the ceiling above it.

He closed his eyes and imagined.

---------

Hope you enjoyed it, Anon(s)! Want me to write a short scene? Send me a prompt with a pair of characters! Check out my #starter and #prompt tags for more ideas and responses!

#martin whitly #dr. martin whitly #ainsley whitly #prodigal son #prodigal son fanfic #fanfic #martin #ainsley #my writing #mine #starters #starter #prompt #prompts #ficlet #Mr. David #murder

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abbybubbls · 4 years

Text

For Nostalgia (Wilford Warfstache and Darkiplier)

Summary: Dark tries to find Wilford’s pants, but finds something completely different.

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

“Wilford, I have a very important question for you.”

“Yes?”

“Where the fuck are your pants.”

Wilford was being very indecisive that day. It took him half an hour explaining why he couldn’t find his favorite pants with a bunch of side stories that had absolutely nothing to do with Dark’s question. Or maybe Wilford just didn’t want to wear pants and he wanted his story to sound interesting. It all concluded to him not getting fired, so that’s a… plus?

“Can you tell me why you didn’t want to go without pants today?” Dark asked. Wilford felt offended.

“I just told you, I couldn’t find my favorite pair! What, you don’t believe me?”

Dark put his palms together. “Precisely.”

“I’ve looked through my closet for hours,” Wilford pouted. “None of my other pants fit me, that’s all.”

“You just wanted to go waist-down clothless,” Dark replied flatly.

“Not true!” Wilford exclaimed, pointing down at his feet. “I’m wearing socks!”

At least he’s wearing ‘boxers’ too, Dark thought, trying not to look. But it doesn’t explain why he doesn’t have his real damn pants on.

I am innocent, I swear~ Wilford made a smug face while looking at Dark without his lips moving.

Sure you are.

“Why don’t I look through your closet and find your pants myself, Wilford?” Dark asked out loud.

Wilford’s face flinched, exclaiming “No!” before covering his mouth with his hand. Dark’s face stiffened.

“Why not?”

Wilford cleared his throat and chuckled, waving his hand around his face. “O- Oh, you wouldn’t like my closet, Dark. You wouldn’t like my whole room at all! It gets so messy and everything is everywhere- Oh! And it’s so cramped! We both know how much you hate tight spaces!”

“I was just in your room three days ago, Will,” Dark’s tone lowered. “It was perfectly clean since then.”

Wilford scritched his chin. “Y- You know me, Dark. I see no mess, so I create the mess!”

“And I’ve been in worse situations when it comes to tight spaces,” Dark added. “I’m pretty sure your exit-able closet is more tolerable than a broken-as-all-hell elevator that we never use.”

“When you mean ‘we’, you mean you, cuz you’ve never used it since that incident-”

“I know what I meant.”

Wilford huffed and crossed his arms. “Well, I’ve got some things that are super important in my room! What does it take to not disrespect a man’s privacy around here?”

I’m fairly certain you don’t even know the half of it.

Dark eyed behind Wilford, and spotted the Captain Magnum near Wilford’s gun, that was quite dangerously lying on the counter.

“And who cares if I don’t have pants on?! I’ve run around like a moron without them during an interview before, and nobody seems to remember it!”

Dark pointed over Wilford’s shoulder. “Oh hey, Wilford, look. The Captain is touching your gun without your permission.”

Wilford gasped and gripped at his hair. “WHAT HAPPENED TO COMMON DECENCY?!”

He ran down the hallway with Dark covering the side of his face with his hand. “MAGNUM, DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BABY!!!”

“It’s alive?! ”

Dark smirked, and quickly sent himself inside of Wilford’s room.

(Click keep reading, or read on my AO3!)

Just as Dark suspected, everything in the room was spotless. Only a dozen pieces of sticky notes of doodles and interview questions were scattered all over the floor, but it seemed like they were brushed aside near Wilford’s desk mirror right next to his door. Will’s bed was a mess as well, with the blankets draping over the other and pillows flattened, but Dark thinks he likes sleeping like that anyway. There was also a sparkled up fake fireplace with a rack of colorful suspenders hanging above it as if they’d be stockings, with the red-faded-to-pink pair hanging at the dead center.

I’m sure those all won’t overheat and catch on fire. Sarcasm.

Dark bumped into the closet door, seeing that the frame reaches to the very ceiling of Wilford’s whole room. It’s not like Captain Magnum is ever gonna sneak in, why is it so tall? No matter. Dark opened the closet door, only for an avalanche of clothes to fall right on top of him. Not enough to make him stumble over, for Dark is as sturdy as a boulder.

Dark yanked all the clothes off of him, and saw that MOST of them… were shirts. The clothes that were pants though…! Were either stained, torn up, or just straight up too small. Dark was going to suggest in his head that Wilford could wear his collection of tight shorts like layers, but that’d make him appear too… big.

“Goddammit, Will.”

Dark stepped over the pile of clothes to hesitantly get himself inside of the closet. His head bumps against a light bulb with a pulley-switch next to it. Dark didn’t really need to turn the light on because since he was wearing his new white suit for a change, and he’d practically be glowing more easier that way with his twins’ auras and such.

But just because he can, Dark turned the light on by pulling the switch. The closet was a tiny bit smaller than the elevator he never uses, but at least there’s an escape route. Dark looked around every nook and cranny in the closet to at least find one, one good pair of pants that isn’t too revealing, and so that Wilford would give in to wearing until he finds his ‘most favorite’ pair soon. But if that doesn’t happen, it could be the goldfish situation where Dark buys or makes the same pair, and Wilford wouldn’t even know the difference.

There was a very tall shelf at the end of the closet, and Dark tried to reach up to the top to grab something, any thing… only to have a tan round thing fall off and land on the floor. Dust was flying, enough dust for Dark to almost hack and choke on while coughing it all away. And waving his hand around was definitely helping. “What the hell-?”

As soon as the dust died down to the floor, Dark rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The helmet rolled on its side for a moment, and wobbled near the wall. It was Wilford’s old old old old old pith helmet.

Dark stared at it for a long minute, knowing perfectly well that Wilford wouldn’t remember having this helmet, not even remember being a colonel.

Dark picked the helmet up from the floor, and gently brushed the dust away. He looked up at the shelf. “He wouldn’t happen to have the rest, would he…?”

A corner of a sleeve was hanging from the very top of the shelf. To avoid the possibility of getting dust all over the place again, Dark put the helmet down on a lower shelf and stood on his tip-toes, and reached up with both of his hands tugging on edges of old linty clothing. His grip on both edges tightened, and he slowly lifted a neatly folded pile of bright tan clothes off the top of the shelf.

“No,” Dark muttered, blinking away dust. “There is no way…”

Indeed, it was 100% Wilford’s old outfit for when he was a colonel from the early 1900’s. Dark already had questions running through his head. How in the world does Wilford still have this? When did he put it in the closet? Why does Wilford still have this outfit after all these years, even when he’s so far gone from who he was?

Dark slowly brushed the grime and lint off of a small, silver winged metal that is still pinned on the coat. Same with a red and white metal on the other side.

Dark had no idea where Will’s red ascot went, it probably faded to pink like his suspenders and turned into the bowtie he still wears to this day. And Will’s glasses were definitely snapped apart, or shattered, or burnt when he realized that even seeing clearly didn’t matter to him anymore. All that is left is the pith helmet, the coat, pants (finally!), and the boots, which were surprisingly very well hidden in the darkness of the bottom shelf. Will shouldn’t have these.

Wilford’s voice from outside of his room gradually got louder, but that didn’t phase Dark at all. He had a few questions to ask. Chances are, Wilford might not know all the answers, but it’s worth a try to ask anyway.

“You may be taller than all of us, but it ain’t gonna phase me, Captain!” Wilford shouted, shaking a fist. “You wanna know why? Cuz Warfstache don’t take no sh(BLEEP!)t from nobody! ”

With a slam of his door, Wilford looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “I should really fix that swear-detector thing.”

“Wilford.”

Wilford hiccuped, seeing Dark standing right in front of him with his hat, boots, and the rest of Will’s outfit in his hands. “Hiiiiiiiii…!”

Dark’s face was frozen in place, stern. “Care to explain to me what these are all about?”

Wilford was grinning nervously. “W- Well, they’re um- they’re winter clothes!”

“We live in Ca-”

“Traveling vacation winter clothes!”

“You know, depending on how much Mark uses us for projects, we’re technically almost always on vacation,” Dark said. “We’ve never traveled once.”

Wilford’s face dropped, and Dark took a step forward.

“So, Wilford,” he continued. “What are these clothes here for?”

“I- I found it in a zoo! I won it for a bet!”

“Wilford.”

“I don’t know!” Wilford exclaimed, throwing fists like a child. “I’ve always had them in my closet! I don’t remember what they’re for, but they give me warm fuzzy feelings, maybe a tiny memory or two.”

“A bad memory or a good memory?”

“I dunno, does it matter that much to you?” Wilford asked. “The good and bad don’t matter to me, cuz they’re useless memories! Memories that’ll come back and disappear from my head like always!”

Dark didn’t know exactly what to say to that. Why would he care about somebody else’s memories and whether they’d be good or bad? It’s like having someone constantly looking over your shoulder. Sure, Dark has been invasive when it came to Wilford being a pain in the ass, but Dark only did it because he didn’t want Wilford to cause any more trouble than he already did.

Wilford pouted with his arms crossed, and looked down at the floor as if he’s been ashamed of himself… for some reason. Dark stared down at the pile of clothes in his hands. His grip tightened, and he sighed.

“I’m sorry, Will,” he muttered. Wilford blinked at him. “I didn’t mean to make this appear as a bigger deal than it should be.”

And all of this started because of pants.

“Have you…” Dark continued. “Worn this outfit lately?”

Wilford’s frustrated and hurt face softened. “Not in a while, no.”

“I was just wondering because of how much dust it was collecting,” Dark’s tone went gentle. “Have you thought about wearing it?”

Wilford’s hands were gripping on his sleeves loosely. “Kind of.”

Silence filled the room. Dark’s hands leaned forward. “Here. You can wear it. If you’d like.”

Without saying anything, Wilford hesitantly held the outfit out of Dark’s hands, and kicked some clothes out of his way as he headed inside his closet. Dark sat down at the edge of Wilford’s bed, waiting patiently.

A moment later, and Dark heard the closet door open. The familiar sound of boots slowly walking on the floor filled the room, and Dark saw Wilford in the entire outfit. He looked the same as he did a long time ago, only the mustache stands out a LOT more now than it did before.

Wilford was still doing the last few buttons of his coat as he left the closet, and Dark just noticed the wearing out on them. The belt around Wilford’s waist was a bit loose, but there was nothing for it to hold anyway.

“How does wearing all of that make you feel?” Dark asked.

Wilford’s hands rubbed all over his arms, and he tucked his face in his collar. “Warm, mostly! Gives me a trip of nostalgia.”

“You know how you said earlier you don’t remember what the outfit was for?” Dark asked, head tilting. “Maybe nostalgia is why.”

The front tip of the pith helmet was hiding Wilford’s eyes, which he did not like. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t remember a whole lot, just a few baby pieces.”

“I see no problem with that,” Dark replied, smiling gently. His watch hidden in his sleeve beeped. “Meeting. Wilford, do you want to go dressed like that?”

Wilford took his helmet off, tossed it on his bed, and ruffled his hair. He and Dark went over to his door. “Why not? It’s cozy and makes me feel good. And I did find pants so you wouldn’t be staring at me all day~”

As Wilford opened the door, Dark smacked his back. “Shut up.”

#markiplier #a heist with markiplier #who killed markiplier #takes place after the 'The Interview' ending #wilford warfstache #darkiplier #darkstache #i've posted this on DA and AO3 #why am i so nervous posting this on tumblr #probably because i'm a noob in this site #oh well

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yandere--stuck · 5 years

Text

Yan!Kanaya x Reader

You walked alongside Kanaya down the winding, labyrinth-esque hallways that made up the meteor you found yourself on.

One of the other trolls - Gamzee, if you recalled correctly - was fiddling absentmindedly with a random transportalizer, not thinking it would actually work. He had found you and locked onto your coordinates, and had managed to zap you onto the meteor. You fought back a smile at how the purpleblood had wigged out, apologizing and trying to calm both you and himself down.

After the dust had settled and you were cautiously introduced to the trolls that had been harassing you and your friends, you found yourself favoring the jadeblood of the group - Kanaya. You appreciated her caring and level-headed nature, at least in comparison to her friends. And she, in turn, had a very soft spot for you. You often stuck by her side - she would sit and talk with you as she sewed new articles of clothing, use you as a model, or read books, in between "trolling" your friends, of course.

And today was no different, as Kanaya led you down one of the many hallways that made up the meteor.

You noted her new dress - it was your favorite color, oddly enough… Purely a coincidence, you were sure. The dress had a slit that showed off one of Kanaya's upper legs. A matching scarf was wrapped comfortably around her neck, resting on her shoulders.

You walked together in comfortable, familiar silence. Every once in a while, you'd notice how her eyes dart over to you, gazing at you, a smile quirking at her lips. When you'd return the smile, she'd turn away, a jade blush on her cheeks.

Kanaya was so cute!

The troll cleared her throat in embarrassment, before ushering you to an opening at the end of the hallway. The hallway opened up to a large, circular room. The gray room was lined with machinery. Rows of vials containing green sludge were stacked in lines on shelves.

Your eyes widened, looking all about in awe. "What is all this?"

"It's A Little Project I've Been Working On," Kanaya said, a bit sheepishly. Then her face fell with annoyance. "Ever Since Eridan Completely Destroyed The Last Mother Grub Egg, I've Been Forced To Find Other Ways To Restore Our Species' Populace."

You walked over to the vials of green liquid, looking them over, up and down the lines. "You needed a grub to make other trolls."

"Mother Grub," Kanaya corrected. "But It Isn't… Er, Wasn't Really That Simple. Quadranted Trolls Would Pail And Their Respective Genetic Material Would Be Mixed In A Bucket For Drones To Take To The Brooding Caverns And Delivered To The Mother Grub And… Well, It Was Basically A Gross Mess That I Don't Feel Like Getting Into Right Now. And That Process Isn't Even A Valid Option Anymore."

"So, you're looking for other options." You said, taking a vial from its stand and looking it over.

"Precisely," Kanaya grinned. Then, her eyes practically bugged out as she noticed the vial in your hand. "Ah, I'd Be Careful With That If I Were You!"

You stilled, eyes regarding the liquid in the glass container cautiously. "...What is it?"

Kanaya approached you hesitantly, a jade blush rising to her cheeks. "It's… Liquified Red Troll Mating Pheromones."

"What?!"

"Don't Be Alarmed! As Long As It Doesn't Escape Into The Open Air, We'll Be Fine."

"Why do you have this?"

"Like You Said, I'm Exploring Other Options," Kanaya smiled sheepishly. "It Took Quite A Lot Of Work. Lots Of Failed Attempts… Many Hours Watching Trolls Get It On… It Was A Particularly Tiresome Endeavor."

You giggled, smiling wryly at the troll behind a hand.

Kanaya rolled her eyes, but smiled even still. "Oh, Yes, Laugh It Up! Let's See How You Like It - Watching Pailing For Hours In The Pursuit Of The Greater Good, Always Looking Over Your Shoulder In Case Anyone Were To Catch You And Claim You're Watching Pornography."

You burst out into laughter, though still clutched the vial in your hand tightly. Kanaya beamed at your melodious laughter, her eyes crinkling.

As you calmed yourself, you quirked your head a bit, smiling. "I thought you said Mother Grubs were the ones who made troll babies."

"Very True," Kanaya nodded. "However, That Was Not Always The Case. A Long, Long Time Ago, Before The Condense's Reign, Trolls Reproduced Through, Well… Copulation.

The troll blushed brightly. "One Troll Would Receive The Genetic Material And Would Eventually Conceive Eggs Within Them And Eventually Lay Them."

You nodded, understanding where Kanaya was going with her plan.

"That's Not To Say I Would Use The Substance Against Anyone's Will," The jadeblood clarified. "Just To Simply Speed The Process Along."

You nodded, and Kanaya offered you a sheepish smile. One of her hands reached over to pluck the vial from your hands. You shivered a bit as her cool hand brushed against your own.

Kanaya looked down at the vial, not meeting your eyes momentarily, before reaching over with her other hand and rested it upon your forearm.

She spoke your name softly, looking deeply into your eyes. "There Was… Another Idea I Had Thought Of…"

You nodded, giving her the cue to continue.

"I… I Was Thinking… What If Humans Were Possibly Compatible Mates For Trolls, And… And If It's At All Possible That- That You W-"

"HONK!"

The both of you let out a yelp at the sudden noise coming from the vents. Kanaya flinched, and the vial in her hand dropped. The glass container landed with a sharp crash, shattering into pieces. Green sludge spread onto the floor, and a visible gas began to rise up from the puddle.

"No!" Kanaya cried, before shoving you out of the way, sending you stumbling backwards.

The cloud had already surrounded Kanaya, and she coughed as she began to wave her arms, attempting to clear the air.

You inched slowly closer, watching as she stood there, breathing heavily, with her hands resting on her knees.

"Kanaya…?" You squeaked.

A growl filled the room. The troll's head whipped up. Kanaya's eyes were wide and deep and wild.

"Go… Away…" She hissed out, though clearly restraining herself.

"Kanaya, what's…?" You trailed off, finding yourself stiff with fear. You knew what was happening, she just told you. But even still, you found yourself frozen, overwhelmed with indecision.

"You Need To Leave!" Kanaya insisted, even as she stalked ever closer to you.

Her voice was growly and filled with restrained need. Her eyes were narrowed and dark, staring at you like a predatory gazes upon prey.

"I…" You fell silent, finding yourself unable to speak.

"Or… Or Is It That You Don't Want To Leave?" Kanaya twitched, licking her lips. You could swear you saw something writhing underneath the fabric of her dress. "That You Want This As Much As I Have?"

You managed a step backwards, but you'd never be able to outrun the jadeblood at this rate - she was almost on top of you.

The troll reached out, securely grabbing your wrist and pulling you against her. Was… Was she purring? "I've Wanted This For So Long - Since You've First Arrived, Red Love. I've Been Too Afraid To Confess My Feelings, But Now… Now I See… You Want This As Much As I."

You… You didn't know. Did you want this?

Kanaya's other hand came to cup your chin, pointing your head to look into her eyes.

"There's No Need To Overthink… Just Give In, As I Have. Help Me RepopulateMy Species, Won't You?"

#this takes place on the meteor but everyone is 18+ dw #yandere x reader #homestuck x reader #hs x reader #kanaya maryam x reader #kanaya x reader #kanaya #hs kanaya #kanaya maryam #homestuck kanaya #kanaya homestuck #kanaya hs #hs #homestuck #home stuck #yandere #dub con #dubcon #suggestive

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sasspan · 5 years

Text

the stars rewritten

summary: five realities that didn’t happen and one that did.

wordcount: 2,565

(dedicated to @junimullet, whose kind messages gave me the motivation to finish this fic half a year after i started writing it! thanks for renewing my love for k/a 💕)

ETA: ao3 link

---

They took Allura’s bedside vigil in shifts.

Coran was the one who sat by her for the first few hours, and then Lance for the next few. Romelle came in for a while, the mice perched on her shoulders, then Pidge, followed by Shiro.

Keith tapped in at three in the morning. Shiro gave him a tired smile and a clap on the shoulder by way of greeting.

“Chin up, Keith,” he said on his way out. “Hunk’ll come by in around four vargas to take over.”

Keith nodded. The door slid closed, and the room was quiet.

Slowly, he walked to her bed. Slowly, he sat down next to it. Slowly, he pulled his gaze to Allura’s face.

It was hard, looking at her, the sallowness of her face, her closed eyes. It was hard, knowing that there had been a chance of her not being here at all.

What was he supposed to do? He knew that Romelle had sung to her. That Coran had told her old childhood stories. That Pidge had brought in a bouquet of juniberries grown in the hothouse—they were wilting in a vase on the table.

He thought maybe he should talk to her. Tell her it would be all right. Tell her how she had saved them, all of them. Tell her about Daibazaal and Altea, about Voltron. Tell her he was sorry.

He thought maybe he should hold her hand.

Hers were lying on top of the sheet, curled into loose fists. They looked so small there; no bracelets, no bayard. He remembered holding them when the two of them were spinning in a void of stars, clutching them like a lifeline. They had been small out there, too.

Keith reached out—

—and Allura gasped for breath.

Keith withdrew as though he had been struck. The very next moment he was reaching forward again, helping her sit up as she shuddered and coughed.

“Keith,” she managed after several minutes, and the relief that cut through him at the sound of her voice was so sharp and hot that he couldn’t quite speak. “Keith,” she said once more. “What happened? Where are we? Is everyone—”

“Allura,” he said, finding the words at last. “Allura. We’re fine, everyone’s fine. We’re all right. We won.”

Her eyes caught his, held him still. She said, wonderingly, “We won?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

Allura drooped back onto her pillows, her hair a silver pool beneath her. “We won,” she repeated, almost cautiously, like she was testing the way the words felt on her tongue. “What about Honerva? The other realities?”

“They’re... Honerva disappeared,” he said. “And the other realities, they came back…you restored them.”

“I restored them?”

“Yeah. You saved us.” Keith swallowed. “You saved everybody.”

And she’d nearly died doing it.

Allura looked around the room, at the flowers and the get-well-soon cards at her bedside. Pidge’s card, at the front, had a roughly scribbled picture of the Blue Lion under the words We Love You!

“Voltron,” she said, “what about Voltron?”

Keith’s hand clenched at his knee. He did not want to be the one to tell her.

Regardless, he said, “It’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“It, it disappeared when Honerva did.” The words were wooden and graceless in his mouth; Shiro could’ve said it better, Hunk could’ve said it better. “There just wasn’t—I guess there just wasn’t enough quintessence to bring everything back, and…”

And that had been the end of it. Voltron swallowed up by that endless white light, the paladins spit back out like watermelon seeds.

“Oh,” breathed Allura, and crumpled.

Keith looked away as the tears slipped down her cheeks. He was miserably out of his element now, and all he could think of was the way her face had looked in that strange other dimension, that collective consciousness.

I know the risks, she had said.

The quiet steadiness of her voice. The acceptance.

The memory hit deep.

“I’m sorry.” It tumbled out of him before he could stop it.

She stared at him with wet eyes.

“Allura. I’m sorry,” he said again, and then it was a flood rushing up his throat, so thick he could hardly breathe. I’m sorry about Voltron. I’m sorry about the Castle. I’m sorry about your father. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

He could not bring himself to voice it. So instead Keith laid his open palm next to hers on the bed.

She did not move for several ticks. And then, Allura placed her hand in his.

She didn’t need an escort, not really; the mission was a simple visit to the planet Puig, meant to strengthen diplomatic relations. Guards, she’d argued, would make everyone more on edge; and that couldn’t possibly be conducive to a peaceful alliance.

But Lotor had insisted repeatedly, and she’d finally agreed to take along a single guard as a precaution.

So he had sent one of his generals, the slight one who always wore a kerchief around his face. Keith. He followed her like her own shadow, silent and unshakeable, as the Puigians led her on a tour of their capital city.

Occasionally she would catch his gaze. He did not look Galra, not the way she was used to; and she knew, of course, that he was not fully Galran, just like all of Lotor’s generals, but…still. It was unnerving. How quietly he followed her. How the blade flashed at his hip. How dark his eyes were.

Allura pushed the feelings down, or at least attempted to. She owed the Puigians her full attention; they were potential allies, after all, and she was the leader of the Coalition, a paladin of Voltron.

So she focused on the tour, on the food and dance and song. She focused so much that she let her guard slip.

“Princess!” shrieked her guide, and Allura, too late, registered the rush of cool air on the back of her neck, the shadow that loomed behind her, blocking the sun. Metal whistled as it cut through the air, and she reached for her bayard, knowing there wasn’t time, knowing—

A bang, a grunt, a thud. She turned, whip in hand, to see a huge figure slump to the ground, an axe falling from its grip.

Keith stood behind it. The blade in his hand shimmered indigo. His kerchief had slipped from his face, so she could see the long scar reaching up his cheek.

He dipped his head, his eyes locked on hers, fathomless. “Princess. Are you all right?”

“Keith,” murmured the prince’s advisor, the tall one with the broad shoulders. “Maybe we should think about this.”

“We can’t, Shiro,” the prince snapped. “This is something I have to do by myself. A bunch of amateurs from some random planet are just gonna slow us down.”

“Random?” Pidge clamored.

“Who’re you calling amateurs?” Lance demanded.

“Settle down, cadets,” said Coran, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “Perhaps the word ‘amateurs’ has a different nuance here than it does on Earth, eh?”

“Not the way I mean it,” said the prince coldly. He whirled around, his cape sweeping over his shoulder, and began to stride away.

Allura glanced at everyone else, frozen with indecision (or in Lance’s case, rage) before hurrying after him. “Prince—I mean, your highness—please, just hear us out.“

The prince turned to face her, and she was suddenly taken aback by his proximity. He looked so young, so human. Except for the tapered ears and the violet marks beneath his eyes, he could have been any other cadet at the Garrison. It was difficult to believe he was an alien who had been asleep for ten thousand years.

“Well?” he said. “Say your piece.”

Allura swallowed back her surprise. Now wasn’t the time to be tongue-tied; everyone was depending on her. Coran, the other cadets. Her father. She couldn’t let them down.

“When I found the Blue Lion,” she began, “I…felt something. As if…I was destined to find it. As if my life was leading up to that moment. When I flew it, I could…it was almost like we were one being.” She paused, inhaled deeply. The weightless exhilaration of that first flight had not yet left her veins. “There has to be a reason for this…for all of this. It cannot all be a coincidence. And…the Galra must be stopped. Allow us to join you. Let us to fight by your side.”

The prince was watching her warily, his shoulders tense. Like he had never been offered help before, and did not know how to accept it.

“Please,” said Allura.

Keith let out a breath, and closed his eyes.

“I hope I don’t regret this,” he said.

When the aliens came, there wasn’t any big deal made about it; it was quiet, hush-hush, the whole thing kept under wraps.

“The Garrison’s worried that telling the world about this would cause mass panic,” Shiro told him. “They figure ignorance is bliss, for the time being.”

Keith grunted noncommittally. He didn’t really care about Garrison politics, but it was annoying that he didn’t have security clearance to hear this stuff firsthand.

That changed the following month.

“Me?” he said when Shiro gave him the news. “Why do they want to talk to me?”

“Not them,” Shiro said. “Just her. The princess.”

“But why?”

“You’ll see,” said Shiro. He smiled at Keith from the seat of his hoverbike. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, cadet.”

“Yeah,” said Keith. But already, he knew he would. He had to; there was no way he couldn’t. Shiro hadn’t said much about what the aliens had done to help him, but Keith had realized: they had fixed Shiro. Healed him, so his strength stopped withering away, so he could stand tall once more.

It was the sort of debt that could never be repaid. Keith still wanted to try.

He was taken to a conference room in the communications building. The princess was seated at a table inside; she rose when he entered.

“Keith,” she said, coming forward, holding out a hand. “How wonderful to finally meet you. My name is Allura.”

“Princess,” he said uncertainly. He took her hand, and, for a bizarre moment, wondered if he was meant to kiss it. But no; they shook, and then pulled away.

“Shall we sit down?” she asked.

They sat across from each other. The princess had a sheaf of papers before her that she sifted through. “I want to thank you for agreeing to this meeting. I’ve heard…quite a bit about you.”

What, exactly, had she heard about him? He wanted to ask, but found that he had trouble meeting her gaze. There was something about her eyes; they were bluer than the desert sky, unearthly.

“Before we start, I suppose you have some questions for me,” she said. “I’m more than happy to answer them.”

Keith frowned down at the table. Questions…he had too many to count. “Why Earth?” he asked at last. “Why now?”

“I’m not quite sure myself,” the princess admitted. “I was asleep in my ship for thousands of years without any disturbance. But… for some reason I was awoken, and led here.” From the corner of his eye he saw her fingers flex and relax, grasping. Her voice softened and became almost dreamlike. “It’s almost as if… as if there’s something on this planet that I’m meant to find.”

The words stirred something in the depths of his chest. Something I’m meant to find. He knew that feeling, that feeling of peering out into the night sky, that inexplicable pull. Like a voice, calling your name, waiting for an answer.

His silence seemed to encourage her. “Commander Iverson tells me that you’re one of the best pilots here.”

Keith was quiet for a moment longer before shrugging. “Sure. Griffin and Rizavi aren’t bad either.”

“Perhaps. But Shiro tells me that you also have a…tendency of getting into trouble.”

This surprised him into looking up, and he saw that she was smiling at him, those strange blue eyes dancing.

He coughed and glanced away. “So what—what exactly did you need me for?”

“Well,” said Princess Allura, “have you ever heard of the legend of Voltron?”

“I thought I would find you up here.”

Keith tipped his head in her direction. “You gonna report me?”

“Perhaps I should… but I think I’d rather join you,” Allura admitted. She could not see his face, but she thought he might have smiled at that.

She came up to join him at the edge of the roof. The view from the top of the Garrison really was breathtaking, especially at night; the desert unfurled before them, dimly red-gold, interrupted only by the dark shapes of the plateaus on the horizon.

She glanced at Keith out of the corner of her eye. He was not looking at the Earth below them, but at the stars above. His brow was furrowed. She knew without asking what he was thinking of.

“I spoke to that engineer cadet earlier,” she said instead. “Hunk. He told me the signal frequencies that I asked him to track have been getting stronger these past few days.”

“Good,” muttered Keith. “I’ll go back to the caves again this week.” He looked at her. “You’ll come with me?”

“Yes,” said Allura steadily. She had only been to the caves once before, but there was something about that place…

Keith nodded. He turned back to the stars. “Thanks.” They stood together for another minute. “Thanks,” he repeated, suddenly.

Allura blinked. “For the caves?”

“No. Yes. Not just for…” Keith trailed off, his voice low. “Just. Thanks.”

It was hard, for both of them. It was hard, without Shiro or her father or Coran to provide a guiding hand. It was hard, knowing that the people they loved most had been flung into the stars, lost somewhere in the cold emptiness of space.

But at least they had each other. Not for the first time, Allura found her heart soft with gratitude that she did not have to do this alone.

“We’ll find them,” she whispered to him. A secret to tuck into their hearts, a spark of hope to carry them through this dark.

“How,” he started, then stopped. Again she knew without his saying what he meant. How do you know?, he was asking. How can you be sure?

She couldn’t, really. It was not a promise she could make. But a promise that she could make was that whatever happened, they would face it together.

Allura reached out, and clasped Keith’s hand. For a moment he was still; then, slowly, his fingers curled around hers, rough and warm.

He saw her once, after.

He was at a refugee planet with Acxa and Ezor and the rest of the Blade, handing out cans of food and folded blankets, when a flicker of white caught his eye.

Keith looked up without meaning to, and—

There she was, standing in the crowd. Looking right at him.

Her face. Her eyes. Her smile. Pride and grief and joy and longing. A million things at once. Breaking his heart all over again.

There was no breeze, but strands of her hair lifted slightly, glinting like pearls in the sunlight. Lighter than petals, lighter than feathers, lighter than air itself.

When he blinked, she was gone.

#kallura #vld #keith #allura #hope k/a fans like this :') i know it was hard after the finale but i still love these two and i hope others do too <3 #my fic

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calvin-af-crone · 5 years

Text

@staff

I am having the most confounding experiences w/ your new monitoring software. I’ve received about a dozen Red Banners for photographs that don’t remotely contain “Adult Content” of a sexual nature. Sure, a few of them showed a beautiful woman wearing a bikini but they were commercial fashion photos that have been used for public promotions of swimwear. Making Appeals & having my posts quickly cleared has been an only slightly irritating process.

But yesterday morning (11:05 am EST 26 January 2019) instead of a notice on my dash, I received a Content Warning in my email inbox that threatened to take away my account for repeated violations of your new guidelines. I didn’t see this until hours later & was shocked that the offending video only showed a dog lying on a sofa licking its paw. I appealed & the image was almost instantaneously cleared.

Then last night I tried to post 4 photos & a video of a dog enjoying a visit to a park. The "Post” button remained shaded & the gray flickering boxes at the top of the post that indicate it is being processed never ceased flickering. By discarding the post then trying again one element at a time, I finally identified the video was the problem.

Essentially, your algorithm was frozen in perpetual indecision by a video of a dog wallowing on its back. Yes, the puppy’s “private parts” were on display. But the very idea that images of a sprawling wiggling puppy constitute some form of deviant “adult content” is disturbing. By extension, a photo of a high-heeled shoe might be banned because foot fetishists do exist!

I respectfully suggest your monitoring software has become corrupted beyond practical use when it cannot detect the difference between a puppy & porn. The other possibility is that I am being falsely & maliciously reported by a Third Party using your system to harass me. All this would be funny if it didn’t threaten me with the loss of my account. I feel quite anxious about that possibility. Please correct this problem.

#Appeal to Tumblr Staff #Tumblr's Censorship Robot has gone berserk

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flyingsassysaddles · 7 years

Text

The Ice Spirit and the Werewolf

(For the special werewolf event by @hetaliacreators and the Hetalia 100 special event)

The wet snow scrunched and spattered underneath the quick steps of the small ice spirit, violet eyes flashing in fear as he flew over the frozen slush and closer to his home, his family. The sky quietly continued shining, small pinpoints of light hiding behind the harsh glow of the moon that blinded the scarfed spirit as he squinted past the glare snarling into his eyes. His white hair flashed by the startled squirrels nesting in the bushes, sparking the flight of a grumpy owl, and the confused blinking of fairies whose eyes tracked him down the trampled path he forged.

As he rushed down the path he instinctively knew would lead him to the tiny burrow he shared with his sisters, he cursed that stupid jinx that got him caught in that flame bush, the one that sat back and howled while he spent hours trying to peel him and his priceless scarf out of the flame bush without setting himself on fire. The red-eyed jinx, with its unusual white color and always present smirk, had zipped off to its own burrow as soon as the sun sank from the sky, leaving the ice spirit alone, in the dark, to be subject to the snarling Night Creatures that roamed the forest when the moon sighed its light on the cold earth. Stupid jinx, always picking on me, he grumbled internally as he raced down the past as far as his pitiful human form legs could carry him, tripping over begrudging rocks and devious roots that grabbed his ankles as the Mother Tree slapped them down. The more he ran, the less the world made sense, and the less he knew where he was. That tree there, the one with the growing branches that spewed fresh moonflowers, did he pass that before? What about that boulder that shuddered and groaned while it hobbled around its tiny spot in the leering forest? Did that burrow house thousands of fairies that grinned at his unprotected magic? Did the creep of the falling snow that slowed to an impossible speed and swirled around screaming animals smile at him while he flickered past?

The young ice spirit lurched deeper into the forest, frigid air whipping past him as the wind whirled and howled in his ears, trying to get him to slow down and greet the unforgiving earth mites the chattered below his blurred feet. Finally, when the creatures and sights that still grinned back whenever he closed his eyes were far, far behind him, he came to the sullen fork in the light path he clung to. Sighing in relief, he prepared to go left, to his safe haven, to a fresh meal and warm clothes, when he jolted to a stop. Was it left? He backed up, eyes shifting between the two directions the path took, identical in all ways but one. One led to home. Another led to the stomachs of creatures that would make the ones he flew past seem like cute bunnies. So. Was it left?

He racked his brain, silent while he tried to remember the brief instructions that his older sister had drilled into him. Yes, he decided, nodding in confidence. It was left. He had to go left. Smiling, he prepared to strut down the left fork when he stopped again. Did his sister say left? Didn't she tell him to go right this morning? And to never go near the path next to the fairies? See, right now they were chattering to his left! Was he wrong? Perhaps he should check the right, just to be safe. Yes, that was the safest option, he decided turning away from his previous choice and hesitantly putting his light foot on the right-sided path, his magic whispering about the creatures before him in a language he never learned. Swallowing, he followed the muttering darkness, passing the squinting trees and leering shadows. His back turned to the world as the ice spirit disappeared into the deep, he didn’t see the fairies floating over to their nest on the tree beside the fork in the path, whizzing to the right side and vanishing.

The dirt snapped and the ancient leaves crinkled under his worried feet, the heavy snow that coated the entirety of the forest unable to penetrate the roof of clawed branches the snarling trees built for themselves and leaving simple patches of white here or there. The path twisted right and left, up and around, down and down and down into the underbrush, with the ice spirit following obediently, occasionally stopping to look behind him. His magic protested violently against every step he took down the ominous road, whipping his cheeks pink and ringing his ears sore, ice trailing his feet and twisting into deadly daggers undercutting moonlight. Something isn’t right, it whispered, gently pushing him towards away, away from whatever lied ahead. A scent of something dangerous is on that rock, it explained. Danger, the trees sigh danger, the fairies blink danger, the rocks mumble danger. It smells of danger, his magic fruitlessly muttered into his ears.

It was no use. The young spirit was dazzled by the floating fairies that whizzed by, hypnotized by the sapphire will-o-wisps that invited him off the path, offering safety and adventure. The earth mites below his feet shifted and twirled into a million shapes, here a rock, there a clump of dirt, another a patch of starving dandelions. The stars lit the path ahead of him, the moon led him down the murky path, and the nightlife of the dark forest stared in wonder as the ice spirit, a shining magician of the dayside, stumbled onto their turf. Entranced, he continued down, deeper into the brush, ignoring the cutting ice that followed closely on his heels or the deathly cold that choked nearby hazards in worry, pulling, begging him to turn away.

Then the path stopped. It simply stopped. The ice spirit whipped around, trying to squint through the darkness. There! Another fork in the path! Grinning at his cleverness, he pushed through the veil of darkness that had settled over his eyes and strutted towards the left-sided path, following the harmless and safe will-o-wisps that beckoned him closer. Ignoring the screams of his magic, he followed those violet flames, and they would whisper him closer and closer until the ice spirit feet crunched soft snow, and the moon glowed over the white plain of powder unfiltered.

Come to us, the will-o-wisps whispered, inching him farther and farther away, and the young spirit smiled and obeyed, shoulders relaxed under the trance of those beautiful indigo flames, happily stepping where they led him. Step by step his followed the wisps, too hypnotized to notice the leering spirits that nudged him ever closer to the straggly cliffs, pushing away all of the craggy rocks that might stumble him and ruin his path. That’s the way, the lost spirits smiled, and the ice spirit stepped closer to the jagged rocks that awaited him.

Then the will-o-wisps froze, flicking flames no longer inching for the drop as an aura sank into the air, one of power and clashed teeth. They twinkled in indecision at the dazed boy, and at the approaching monster that the flames have met once before. As the lost ghosts huddled together in discussion, the air crackled once more, and a beast stepped out of the gloom.

The beast was shaped like a wolf, dark bronze fur flashing in the moonlight, with dark spots of midnight trampling its way in between the beast’s eyes. It stepped with an arrogance only known to the monsters that had jagged teeth and a vicious glare, monstrous paws smashing the snow as the beast stepped closer, its white teeth standing out sharply with the onyx head that was now raised, sniffing for intruders. The trees whimpered back, leaves curling away from the beast as its fur easily bristled by their top branches, keeping close to the woods and away from the wide, exposing plain of white that sighed to its left. It followed an old path, known to the wolf creatures of the forest for as the long as the first tree bristled and the first splatter of blood sank into the frozen ground. The monster followed its daily path, letting its magic pierce into the air and warn all enemies that this lone wolf was not one you should even consider messing with, not if you ever wanted to see the rising of the painted sky once again.

The monster continued on its way, licking his chops at the prospect of an early night dinner when a flicker of flame caught his eye. Growling, he marched over to the will-o-wisps that had invaded his land time and time again, seemingly immune to his threats and snaps of teeth. Fully prepared to tell off those spirits once and for all, he burst into the rocky overhang, landing on all fours and snarling at the startled will-o-wisps, still locked in a discussion. One look at the snapping monster ahead of them, the flames glimmered out of existence, leaving the dazed prey standing with a small smile still on his face, kicking at the ground.

Now that’s interesting, the titan mused, stepping closer to the ice spirit that was just starting to break out of his trance. Those blasted spirits almost never leave me gifts. Oh well, I’ll just eat that, whatever it is, and get back on my way.

The ice spirit’s magic had had enough and finally slammed the young boy to the ground, smashing his face on jagged rocks that popped back into existence once the will-o-wisps had fled. The beast sat there stunned as the air screamed with frustration, smacking the boy side to side with snow that clustered in thin air and flew into the now whimpering boy’s face.

Finally, after a very stern talking to about going down paths that were filled with night beasts translated by the huge pile of snow and rocks that sat around the crying boy, the magic of the ice spirit finally realized that someone, a very powerful someone, was watching it in amusement.

The boy whipped its head towards the wolf, who calmly stepped over and loomed over the ice spirit with something that could almost be described as an expression on its charcoal face. The boy scurried back, mind foggy with will-o-wisp magic and the heavy aura the monster was wearing like a cloak. The wolf made no move to go after the small ice spirit, simply putting its head to the side, and waiting for the spirit to do something. The air crackled with its magic as it shoved its way to the boy in a strange, foreign pattern. It was almost like the beast was trying to, well, trying to talk to him.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know Animal tongue,” he confessed, and the monster nodded its head in understanding. A blot of magic jolted the air, and the ice spirit shielded his eyes as a flash of light sliced through the white plain and shadowy overhang the pair found themselves.

“Do not worry, young, uh, spirit. I speak your language just as well,” chuckled a deep voice that came from the place the wolf used to be. In its place was a tall man, teeth elongated and golden eyes still slitted, smirking at the wide-eyed boy in amusement. He strutted over to the small boy and knelt down until he was eye to eye with the petrified boy, a fur cloak wrapped around his shoulders and dark clothing shrouded over his lean frame.

“Y-you-” the boy stuttered.

“Yes, I am a wolf and a human. You will find a lot of stranger things in this forest. Now boy, why is a day spirit such as yourself in this part of woods?” The wolf watched the boy with his slitted eyes, and the ice spirit could feel slimmers of fear sink into his heart. His magic screamed at him to get away from this beast, this monster that would devour them whole. But, as usual, the boy’s curiosity deafened him to his magic’s frustrated cries.

“Who are you?”

“That’s not a very nice thing to ask. Names are quite powerful things after all. You can call me Munkhbat,” he smiled, putting his hand in the air to be shaken and then putting it down again as the spirit continued to cower. “What about you? You still didn’t answer my question, tiny rabbit.”

“T-tiny rabbit?” the spirit repeated, eyes growing wider as the wolf’s smile grew.

“You shiver like a rabbit, so you are one. And you might end up as food if you don’t answer my questions,” the monster grinned, leaning in closer to the quivering spirit.

“PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!” the boy cried, collapsing on the ground.

“I won’t if you answer the question,” Munkhbat explained, raising an eyebrow and the cowering boy.

The ice spirit took a deep breath and blurted out his explanation to the alarmed werewolf. “Okay you see there’s the jinx called Gilbert and he hates my guts and he picks on me all the time and one of these days I swear I’m going to crush his head but anyway he put me in a flame bush and it took me a long time to get out and I got hurt a lot because I’m an ice spirit and the bush was a FLAME bush so I got really hurt and I went into a river to cool off and put the fire out but Gilbert the stupid jinx left me alone in the dark so I went to go back home when I saw the fork in the road and went right instead of left which I’m guessing was the wrong choice but I was walking down the path and I got really scared but the night time is also super pretty so I just continued walking and then the path just stopped and I followed the pretty blue lights because they were pretty and shiny which I now understand isn’t really a logical basis for following magic things out of a safe path but they were like SUPER pretty and I followed them here to this cliff and then you rescued me.” The spirit finally finished and gasped for air, and the wolf sat there in shock as the boy doubled over.

“Okay. That was, well, thorough to say the least.” The man shook his head in wonder. He grabbed the ice spirit’s scarf and dragged him up, standing up to his full height and dangling the boy off the cliff. The ice spirit yelped and clung to the arm that was the only thing standing between him and a death marked by the jagged rocks below. The man rattled him over the cliff for a couple seconds, before pointing down at the rocks below. “See that?”

“S-see what?” the boy stuttered, clutching the man’s arm and pulling himself into a ball at the sight of the grinning death below him.

“That;s the path you WOULD have followed. The will-o-wisps are nasty little creatures, always trying to drown things and leading people off paths to be eaten, but they, in the end, they do lead to where you want to go. Just not in the way you want to.” The cloaked man again pointed at a small indented in the dirt below to the terrified spirit. “I’m guessing that is the path you choose, correct?”

The boy peered down, finally squinting past the layer of darkness and dread to see the few trees he remembered from his previous walks back home. There! That was the small frozen lake his sisters always played in! And there, in the distance, you could see a small burrow of dirt with light pouring out of it. There it was. There was home. “That’s my home.”

“I thought so. Now, you can either go all the way back, no doubt either get caught by more will-o-wisps or getting eaten by something else, or you can take a shortcut.” The werewolf pointed at the burrow below, then hanging him even farther over the edge.

“B-but that would-”

“Kill you? Doubt it. You’re an ice spirit, right? Just conjure up a pile of snow to leap into.”

“But I don’t want to jump over a cliff! I want to go home!” the boy cried, clutching tighter to the man’s arm, wide eyes glancing at the mask the werewolf now had glue on. After a couple of seconds, the man brought him back down to the ground on the overhang, prying him off his arm and shrugging,

“Well, if you don’t want to take the shortcut, by all means.” He turned to walk away, appearing to be bored with the conversation. “Just remember, go left next time.” The air was once again sliced by a radiant light, and the cloaked man before him was exchanged for a grinning wolf. The bronze titan seemed to walk away, stepping awfully slowly past the pebbles that now dug into the ground.

“WAIT!” the boy cried out, reaching towards the only night creature that had been even remotely nice to him. “Please don’t leave me alone. Can’t you take me home?”

The monster shifted its head to the side at that, almost like he was pondering the value of helping the lost ice spirit. He gave a breathy sigh and walked over to the boy, looming over him and pushing the spirit closer to the cliff edge as he scurried to get away from the wolf. The ice spirit again had the short feeling that the wolf was trying to talk to him before the grinning beast placed a powerful paw to his forehead and pushed him off the cliff.

The feeling of weightlessness consumed his body as the world whipped past, whirling and howling into his ears as the small head of a wolf smirked back at him. The world jolted itself black, and the last thing the spirit saw was the flicker of fur vanishing from the cliffside and the crackling magical laughter that howled in the air. The world went cold, and the werewolf was gone.

#hetalia #fanfic #russia #mongolia #hetaliaspecial100event #au #ice spirits #werewolves #magic #magic forest #I'm an evil being why do I keep doing this to poor little russia?#writing #aph

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transformationstuck · 7 years

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makatu43 asked: Rose getting shrunk and sat on by a naked Kanaya, flattening permanently to her booty

(They sent this prompt in as a submission instead of an ask for some reason, but w/e.)

It’s really easy to get bored on the meteor. Being on a rock hurtling close to the speed of light through the Furthest Ring is all well and good, but if all you have to do on that rock is eat, read, watch movies, and peruse the dormant internet, it can get pretty boring pretty fast. There are only so many times you can re-watch The Shawshank Redemption before you want to tear your own hair out.

So lately, you’ve been playing with the Alchemiter, trying to make something truly new and fresh. Most of the time what you get out is useless, like a coffee mug with the handle on the inside, or a deck of cards where all the twos have bite marks on them. But occasionally, something completely unexpected pops out. Something so utterly unique and interesting that it alone can entertain you for a week.

This time, you get the distinct feeling that it’s gonna last a lot longer than that.

You made a ray-gun. An actual vintage 50’s sci-fi ray gun, with the completely pointless circles around the barrel and everything. This alone would provide at least a few hours of amusement, but when you aimed the thing at a nearby can left over from the Mayor’s last supply run, you realized the true potential of what you had made.

A beam of energy erupted from the gun, surrounding the can in an aquamarine aura, and over the course of a few seconds the can had shrunk down to about 5% of its original size.

You’d picked it up. It was tiny, only about half the size of your thumbnail, whereas before you’d have been able to comfortably wrap your hand around half of its circumference. You’d held it between your fingers, and it had crumpled between them.

Oh yes. You could do some very interesting things with this thing.

Your first thought was to show Kanaya, and so you did just that. She was skeptical when you’d described it, but after you’d unleashed its power upon a poor, unsuspecting lamp, her eyes lit up at the possibilities.

“This is incredible!” she’d said. “If you could build a growth-ray, we could store so much stuff in a much smaller area. I could weave small complicated designs at an inflated size and shrink them down when I was happy with them. If you could-”

You’d interrupted her tirade to suggest an alternative. “Those are all very pragmatic uses, yes. But I have a different suggestion: let’s mess with Karkat.”

It took some convincing, and repeated assurances that you could build the equivalent growth ray to reverse your mischief, but she eventually acquiesced. That’s how you ended up here, hiding with Kanaya behind a doorframe, watching Karkat read an Alternian romance novel to Dave.

“Hang on a minute I thought Murfle was Ralana’s matesprit?” Dave interrupts.

Karkat glares daggers at him. “She is, oh my god, how could you miss something so basic?”

“Come on dude don’t tell me you don’t see it. The way he’s looking for an excuse to get out of the redder activities they do together.”

Karkat raises his eyebrows at Dave.

“That subtle concern he shows when Ralana looks distant. The way he’s gradually opening up to her more and more.”

Karkat’s eyes widen in what you can only imagine is disbelief.

“Murfle totally wants in Ralana’s diamonds, dude.”

For a moment Karkat just sits there, mouth agape, staring straight at Dave.

“… What?” Dave asks. “Am I wrong?”

“Holy sweet mother of fuck,” Karkat says, shocked, “how did you even spot that this early? That’s meant to be the big twist in chapter twenty-three, and you, a human, have already figured it out? How?”

“What, isn’t it obvious?” Dave asks with a hint of incredulity. “Tell me it’s obvious.”

“When I first read this I only caught it last chapter. Most people don’t see it for ten more.”

“Well fuck,” Dave says, leaning back, his head now resting on the back of the couch. “Looks like I’m a bona fide quadrant aficionado now. Better watch out Karkat,” he turns his head to face him, raising one arm in the air, pointing into the sky, “your undisputed rule is about to be challenged. A new contender enters the arena, and that contender,” he lowers his hand and places it open palm over his chest, “is me.”

Karkat’s just staring at Dave, clearly enraptured by your brother’s perceptive skills. You spring your trap whilst he’s distracted, poking the shrink-ray around the corner, taking aim at his head, and firing.

The same aquamarine hue envelops Karkat, snapping both him and Dave out of their headspaces.

“What the fuuuuuUUUUUUAAAAAAHHHHH-“ Karkat trails off as he begins to shrink, and shrink fast. He rockets past shoulder-height, his legs no longer reach the floor, and before you know it you can barely see his little orange horns poking out from behind Dave’s thigh. Dave’s poker face is shattered – he looks shocked, frozen with indecision. He starts scanning the room around him, and you and Kanaya dart back around the door just before his gaze sweeps past you. You wait a few seconds, then Kanaya peeks out and gives you the all-clear. You resume your vigil.

“Uh”, Dave says, at a loss for words. “Are you… okay?” he asks with such sincerity, such deep concern, that you’re taken back for a moment.

You can hear deep breaths being taken, and you can tell by the noise level that Karkat’s trying very hard to keep a level head. “… I think so”, he says after a few seconds. “Physically, at least.” You see one of Karkat’s now-tiny hands reach up and feel one of his horns. “I’m not… it doesn’t feel any different. But…” You see both or Karkat’s arms gesturing upwards at Dave. “Look at you! You’re gigantic! What the fuck!”

“Uh, pretty sure you’re just small dude,” Dave points out, “unless the couch grew with me or something.”

Karkat waves a hand dismissively. “Fine, whatever, relativity, who gives a shit. The point stands.”

After a brief pause, Dave concedes the point. “Yeah this is a pretty ‘what the fuck’ situation.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, Karkat’s horns tipping down as he no doubt buries his face in his hands.

“So how heavy are you?” Dave interjects.

“What?”

“Do you still have all that mass you used to have, or did that get scaled down too?”

Karkat throws up his hands. “How am I supposed to know that? Either way, my muscles would have been scaled down by the exact same amount, so I wouldn’t feel a difference.”

“I’m just wondering like,” Dave rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, “would I be able to pick you up? You know,” he mimes a grabbing motion, “carry you around and stuff.” He shrugs. “Gonna be hella inconvenient to get yourself around at that size.”

Karkat’s arms fall out of your view. “… You’re right,” he says after a time, resignation in his voice. “Oh god, you’re right.”

“What, Strider Airlines not good enough for you?” Dave quips as he smirks.

“No!” Karkat says, suspiciously quickly. After a pause, he repeats: “… No. I… appreciate the offer,” he says carefully. “It’s just… I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

After a protected gap, Dave ventures “… We could always just try it. See what happens.”

“You know what, fuck it, why not. Do it before I change my mind.

Dave reaches down, and when he brings his hand back up, he’s got his palm and fingers wrapped around Karkat’s torso, his legs dangling down and his arms stuck awkwardly out to his sides. He looks absolutely adorable, and Kanaya fights to suppress an “aww” at the sight. Dave brings his other hand up to form a cup, releasing Karkat into it. You can see his face now, and you can spot… red tears?

“Shhhhh,” Dave says softly as Karkat begins to vocalize his despair. “Shhhhhhhhhhhh.” Dave’s thumb reaches out and starts rubbing Karkat’s head, slowly, gently, like he’s afraid of hurting the troll. “It’s okay, Karkat. We’ll figure out how to change you back.”

As the head-rub continues, Karkat’s cries subside into hiccups, and then into… a purr? You look to Kanaya for answers, and the enormous jade flush overrunning her cheeks is answer enough.

“Got a lot of smart people on this meteor, and three literal gods.”

Karkat’s starting to nuzzle into Dave’s hands now. The angle gets too awkward for Dave to continue the head-rub, so he switches to a full-body stroke instead. “Can I…” Karkat says, his pitch oscillating as the purr interferes with its normal operation. “Can I stay here for a while? It feels… safe. Here. With you.”

“What you think I would leave you here right now? I ain’t a troll, dude, that’s not how humans roll.” Dave starts to smile so genuinely it’s kind of disturbing you. “We don’t abandon our bros when they need us most, that’s like, against rule zero or the bro code. It’s so implicit nobody ever tells you about it.”

Karkat starts interlacing small, high-pitched chirps with the purr.

Kanaya taps you on the shoulder and whispers, awkwardly, “We should go. We shouldn’t be watching this.”

But you keep staring, enraptured by the scene. Karkat, so small and vulnerable, cupped between Dave’s hands, hands that are one errant muscle twitch away from breaking apart and sending him tumbling down to the lap below. And yet, despite what just happened to him, and despite his precarious position, those sounds he’s making are triggering something deep in your brain, telling you that he’s content – nay, happy. It’s fascinating to watch the dance play out – Karkat’s trills and purrs in response to both Dave’s ministrations and the occasional whisper exchanged between them. It feels deeply intimate in a way you don’t have words to describe, and you’re absolutely fascinated by it.

In the end, Kanaya has to physically dray you away from the doorframe. You’re pliant to her wishes – you feel strangely relaxed, content, almost as if Karkat’s display was contagious. You catch yourself trying to figure out how to purr, but lacking the vocal structures to do so, you just end up gurgling.

Kanaya shakes her head at you, her head in her palm. “You have no idea what we just watched do you.”

It’s not a question.

—————

Surprisingly, it was Kanaya who brought up the idea of delaying Karkat’s reversion. She cited “them needing to figure out their relationship” as her casus belli; you’re just happy he’ll be adorably tiny for a little longer.

In the meantime, your mind had drifted once more to the possibilities of the shrink-ray. After a minute of thought, your mind locked onto one particular scenario that sent a burning flame through your loins. When you’d described it to Kanaya, her eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed in arousal. She agreed almost immediately.

That’s how you ended up here, with your girlfriend holding the device as you show her how it works.

“So I depress this piece of plastic here?” Kanaya says, her finger tapping on the trigger. It’s incredibly clear she’s never wielded a gun before – she’s holding it all wrong, her thumb on the sights and two fingers under the trigger. You take her hand and shift it down, showing her how to clasp the grip. Ah, the benefits of an American upbringing.

“Yes. Don’t pull it suddenly,” you warn her, “make sure the entire motion is smooth. If you jerk it, you’re more likely to miss.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

You’re not so sure she has, but your arousal is leaving you impatient, so your remove your hand from hers and take your position, sitting down upon a wooden desk-chair.

“Are you ready?” Kanaya asks.

You take a moment to mull over the question. Is this a good idea? Should you make the growth-ray before you do this? But eventually, your libido wins the day. And so, closing your eyes, you mutter two simple words.

“Do it.”

A blast of energy washes over you, surrounding you in its warm embrace. It’s cozy, like a warm blanket after a night’s sleep. You smile as you feel your feet leave the ground and your head come clear of the backrest, and when the feeling dissipates and you open your eyes, Kanaya is looming above you, pointing the ray-gun where your chest used to be.

She’s huge. Oh god, she’s huge. If she had grown instead of you being shrunk, she’s easily be the height of a three-storey building, plus a chimney, and that’s not even counting her horns! She’s awe-inspiring in her beauty and stature. You feel yourself starting to get moist.

“You’re… beautiful,” you tell her, your voice laced with arousal.

Kanaya stares at you for a moment, her mouth open in amazement, before quickly moving to take her shirt off. You do the same, pulling your god-tier robes over your head, removing your leggings, unclasping your bra and dropping your panties. You look up and see Kanaya’s almost finished doing the same, her bulge writhing in the air, looking for something to grasp onto, to wrap itself around. It’s about the same size as you are now; just as you’d calculated.

Kanaya saunters towards you; slowly, steadily, one immense leg after the other. You’re mesmerized by the sight, and you reach down to stroke lightly at your clit.

Before you can get very far, though, Kanaya reaches a massive hand towards you, gripping you in her strong grip, surrounding you with her cool flesh. You close your eyes and take in the feeling, enraptured, and surprisingly relaxed. You understand Karkat’s state of mind a lot better now. It does feel safe here, being in the grasp of someone you trust.

You feel your legs leave the chair as Kanaya lifts you up; you open your eyes and you’re soaring past your girlfriend’s breasts, adorned with nipples larger than your head, and up in front of her stunning, vast face. She brings you forward, giving your entire head a kiss, covering your top half in her saliva. You try to kiss her back, but at your size the effort is futile, so you settle for pecking one of her fingers instead.

Kanaya’s lips retreat, and you look up at her eyes – her big, round, wonderful jade eyes, alight with passion, aflame with her love – and you smile. She smiles back.

And then you’re moving down, past the soft curve of her chin, the arc of her neck, the globes of her breasts, and the tight muscles of her belly, before you stop just above her crotch. You strain your head to look past Kanaya’s fingers and down at your ultimate destination – her bulge. It’s powerful, writhing like it is beneath you, and you shudder in anticipation. Kanaya’s lower fingers release their grip on your legs, allowing them to hang free. You kick them on instinct, your hind-brain afraid of falling; the movement attracts the probing tip of your girlfriend’s bulge, and it wraps around your legs, slithering up between Kanaya’s hand and your body, until you see the tip poke out next to your head. You reach out and caress it lovingly, kissing its tip, and Kanaya’s whole body shudders at the sensation.

Then she removes her hand from you, and you’re being held up only by her bulge.

It’s… disorienting. Obviously. It moves about in ways you can’t predict, coiling and uncoiling itself, rearranging its grip on you. You’re flipped around, moved upside down, and your entire body is coated in jade fluids. You idly wonder if hair can stain.

But then Kanaya’s bulge starts to rub against your clit, and that’s it, you’re gone, goodbye coherent thought, there is only pleasure now.

And what pleasure it is. Kanaya’s bulge has always brought you tremendous orgasms, but this one is shaping up to take the cake. It’s not her bulge that’s doing most of the heavy lifting, though – it’s your predicament. Here you are, just shorter in height than her bulge is long. You’ve got your girlfriend’s plump bulge wrapped around you, writhing, squeezing, caressing. Kanaya’s fingers press against the thing every now and then, along with whatever parts of your body happen to be exposed at the time. It’s humbling. You feel small, both in body and in mind. And that turns you the fuck on.

You can’t get yourself off from here – your arms are pinned to your sides by the bulge surrounding you – but it’s looking like you won’t have to. The tip pokes at your breasts, exploring the chasm between them, and occasionally flicking at your nipples. Further down, another section is splitting your legs, as if you were riding a horse, and rubbing against the full length of your crotch. Occasionally the entire ensemble springs up and down, as if your entire body was a cock it was stroking.

And above it all, in the rare instances where you can see past the part of the bulge above you, you can see Kanaya, pinching her nipples, and looking down at you with such pure, unfiltered pleasure. This, right here, right now, is exactly where you need to be. Where you want to be, with all your heart. You’re a pure instrument of pleasure, a tool to get Kanaya off. And that thought, right there, is what sends you over the edge of the most powerful orgasm of your life so far. Your pussy clenches down around nothing, your eyes roll back into your head, and your entire body shudders with rapture.

Bliss.

When you come to, you’re falling, headed straight for the chair below you. You slow your descent just in time, firing up your god-tier flight abilities to land if not softly, then at least not bone-shatteringly hard. Kanaya’s bulge must have let go of you when she came and it straightened itself out. You lie face-down on the wooden surface, panting, and grinning to yourself while laughter bubbles up from your throat.

Holy shit. You have to do that again.

It’s then that you notice the shadow looming over you, creeping past your position and up the chair, growing more defined by the second. You turn your head and look up.

There’s a massive grey sphere descending towards you at an alarming pace. Kanaya’s going to sit down.

You scream and cover your head with your arms, bracing for impact. You’re too small to get out of the way in time.

With a squelch, Kanaya’s butt covers you, plastering you between her and the chair. You feel your body distort, contorting into shapes you’re positive it can’t make, until finally you’re pressed flat against the ass above you.

Given the circumstances, it doesn’t really surprise you when you pass out.

—————

When you come to, your entire body is rumbling. For a moment you’re confused by the sensations you’re feeling – hard wood beneath you and soft flesh above you, your body feeling like it lacks depth – and then you remember.

And you scream.

Kanaya’s snoring ceases and she darts up, peeling you away from the chair. You hear a chainsaw rev up.

“Rose?” She asks, suddenly alert. “Rose where are you?”

You keep screaming. “This can’t be real” you think to yourself, repeating the mantra over and over again. “This can’t be real this can’t be real this can’t be real!”

You feel Kanaya spinning around, looking for you, but wherever she turns your screams continue to come from behind her.

“… Rose?”

You feel the skin around you distort, and a nail brushes up against your face. She covers your mouth for just a brief moment, muffling you, before your screams return in earnest after it passes by.

“Rose!” Kanaya says, alarmed and confused. ‘What happened?”

You don’t answer. You keep screaming, only pausing to take enough air in to continue the act.

“Sshhhh…” Kanaya says, stroking the dull side of her claw over you. “Shhhhhhhhhh…”

Gradually the screaming subsides, only to be replaced with silent tears.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” she continues, the sound slowly soothing your mind.

After about ten minutes of this, the tears stop, the only sounds escaping you being the occasional sniffle.

“… Rose?” Kanaya asks, probing for a response.

Weakly, and without much fanfare, you offer a simple “Mmn” in response.

“Are you… okay?”

The sniffles stop and slowly, you shift into hysterical laughter.

“Rose?” she asks, puzzled.

“K-Kanaya,” You manage to get out between giggles. “I-m a- I’m a mole on- on- on your ass now. Take- take a guess.”

The tears start to flow again as you keep laughing and laughing. You want to hug her, you want to bury your face into her shoulder and let it all out; let her see your weakness, you don’t give a shit anymore. But you can’t even move your arms to cover your eyes. You’re trapped here, pressed flat against an ass you were admiring not long ago – an ass that is now your prison.

—————

Kanaya tries everything she can think of to get you off. She works at you with her claws, she wipes at you with a cloth, she tries peeling her own skin off – but no matter what she tries, the result is the same. You remain squished against her butt, in continued anguish at your situation.

An anguish that you’re abruptly thrown out of when you notice the ray-gun pointed at you.

“Kanaya, what are you doing?” You ask, trepidatious.

“I-” Kanaya stutters, struggling to control her emotions. “Maybe- maybe if I shrink you again you’ll pop off,”

Your entire brain suddenly crystalizes around the word “No!”, and you shout out the same.

“No! No… If you miss that shot, you’ve lost every other avenue you could possibly explore.”

“I’ve explored every avenue!” Kanaya yells, desperation wrapping around her voice. “This is all I have left!”

“You don’t know that! How could you know that? You haven’t even left this room yet!”

Kanaya breathes heavily, hiccupping, contemplating your words. Finally, fifteen seconds of tension later, the ray-gun falls from her grasp and tumbles unceremoniously to the floor below.

“I’m sorry…” She says, starting to weep. “This is all my fault. I should never have agreed to this, should never have let you go through with it. And I should never have so carelessly flopped down in post-orgasmic lethargy.”

“I’ve let you down Rose,” She says, sniffling. “I… I…”

She collapses onto your bed, forcing you to look up to the ceiling, and cries jade tears into your pillow.

You can’t blame her. Not just for the crying, but for the whole incident.

“Kanaya…” You say, trying to be comforting. “It was my idea. I pushed you to o it. I gave the final okay. And I certainly can’t blame you for the unconscious haze after you came. I should have spotted that in advance, and planned for it accordingly. This is not your fault,” you say decisively. “Do you hear me? It’s. Not. Your. Fault.”

Gradually, the crying subsides, replaced with an uncomfortable silence.

“… Kanaya?” You ping her. “Are you there?”

“Yes…” She says. “I just can’t believe that you’re the one calming me down right now. That’s… that’s…”

She pauses, and after a second of silence, you both burst out laughing simultaneously.

“She’s right,” you think. “That is so stupid.”

As you bask in the happy moment with your adorable matesprit, your spirits rise. Maybe… maybe you’ll be okay after all.

—————

The first thing out of Karkat’s mouth when you both enter the common room is, understandably, “Kanaya, where the fuck are your pants?”

In response, Kanaya turns around, letting you face them. Dave’s sitting at a barstool, with Karkat up on the counter next to a coffee mug that reads “I hate ironic statements on mugs” in black-outlined Impact.

“What the fuck is that?” Dave says, devoid of his usual ramblings.

“Hi Dave,” you respond.

Karkat’s eyes widen and your brother removes his shades, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing through them.

“Rose?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

You sigh. “The one and only.”

“But… but…” Karkat stutters, for once in his life struggling to think of the words.

Kanaya walks backwards towards them to give them a better look. Dave leans back over the counter, looking for a better angle, and Karkat walks up to the edge, reaching out his hand. His palm touches your face, then Kanaya’s skin, and then your face again.

“How?” He asks.

“We, ah,” Kanaya beings before you cut her off.

“A shrink-ray, followed swiftly by shenanigans of the highest order.”

“Figures,” Karkat says. ‘It’s always shenanigans.” Suddenly, his eyes light up. “Wait… that means…”

Oh, right. That other shrink-ray incident.

“Oh you son of a whore,” Karkat says, his voice rising in volume and becoming much more menacing. “You absolute festering pile of hoofbeast-manure. You… you did this to be, didn’t you? Didn’t you!” he yells, spit flying into your face.

“Shh shh shh,” Dave interrupts, rubbing his index finger down Karkat’s back. “Not now.”

“Why the fuck not now?” Karkat yells, turning his rage onto Dave. “She’s- one or both of them are responsible for my size right now!” he says, gesturing to his body. “And I’m sure as hell going to hold them accountable for it!”

Dave starts rubbing Karkat’s head with his thumb simultaneously. “Dude, as much as I like your signature rants – and trust me they’ve grown on me – do you really think yelling is gonna solve anything?”

Karkat takes a deep breath in, and deflates. “No,” he admits. “No, it won’t.”

He turns around, freeing himself from Dave’s fingers, and stares you in the eye. “So. How do we get out of this mess?”

“That, dear Karkat,” you say, “is the million dollar question.”

—————

It’s been a week now, and none of you have any leads on either front. No progress on getting you off Kanaya’s butt. No progress on the growth-ray to get you and Karkat back up to normal size. In a screw-up of the highest order you never wrote the recipe for the shrink-ray down, and the one you already have broke when Kanaya dropped it. You’re left with wracking your memory and trying the Alchemiter combinations it spits out, but with how esoteric these recipes can be, none of you are sure your efforts will ever bear fruit.

And so, you’ve all been adapting. Kanaya’s cut holes in all of your dresses, so you can always see and be seen. She’s gotten remarkably skilled at positioning herself so both you and her can see something at the same time, and she’s come up with a tube she can surround you with so that you don’t drown in sopor slime when she goes to sleep. Karkat’s taken to his reduced stature remarkably well – it’s still impossible for him to carry most things around, but Dave let him have his hash-map modus, so it only becomes a problem when he decaptchalogues something. He seems surprisingly happy all things considered – you’re beginning to suspect even more so than when he was full-size. His relationship with Dave seems to have settled into what Kanaya is calling a “flush-tinted moirallegiance”, which she seems happy with. At least that goal was met.

All four of you are in the common room together. Kanaya’s lying down on a beanbag, you and her staring up and Dave and Karkat on the couch. Karkat’s reading a book to you all – the same one you’d seen him reading a week ago. He’s walking around the page, reading paragraph after paragraph, using the entire length of both of his arms to turn every page. All three of you agree it’s adorable, and as much as Karkat vehemently denies that, the blush on his cheeks tells you all everything you need to know.

It’s at that moment that Vriska barges in, proud and cocky.

“Alright,” she interrupts, all high-and-mighty with her eyes closes as she points towards the ceiling, “it’s been long enough, we need to talk end-game strategy! Karkat!” she says, opening her eyes and looking for him. “Give me-“ She cuts herself off and stares at you all, wide eyed.

You all stare back, your eyebrows raised.

“Sup?” Dave says, deadpan.

Vriska rubs her eyes and mumbles something about another week being fine, before slowly backpedaling out of the room.

You hear her run down the corridor away from you all, and after a few seconds you all stare at each other, and burst out laughing.

Okay. Maybe this isn’t ideal. Maybe everything would be better if you had never make that shrink-ray. But this is where you are now. You can’t change the past, no matter how many time players you have. All you can do is work in the present, towards a better and brighter future.

And that, you think, as the laughter begins to die down, is all you need. All any of you will ever need.

Your name is Rose Lalonde. You’re a human girl, squished flat against your alien girlfriend’s supple, ample ass.

And you are going to be okay.

#homestuck transformation #flattening #shrinking #homesmut #/#mod e #rose lalonde #kanaya maryam #dave strider #karkat vantas #submission

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rosheendubh · 7 years

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This draft is so pre-draft rough(ruff) it's barking its language...forgive the bad pun;)

–I’m putting this here to paste into my WriteWayPro file later. Its OTT, way over-narrated, and sort of stream of conscience, including my personal thought asides on notations to address later, bc it’s better having more material with which to work when editing later, and refining after that, than less… –This is part 2, actually after the opening (not posted on my tumblr) told from Artorius’s POV, which started on ‘how does a man enter Rome’? –Rome, spring 182 CE Early, early spring, the second year of his honored majesty’s rule, Emperor Lucius Aurelius Commodus, banquet celebrating the deification of the beloved Marcus Aurelius –The theater, some private theater mentioned in my most recent audiobook venture, 'The Architecture of Ancient Rome’, which was utilized for smaller venues hosted by the nobility, including the Imperial family… ~~ The headache was with her all day, a throb in the back of her skull that felt like a siege hammer pushing through her forehead to the back of her brain. It had started in the morning, barely noticeable, but had grown steadily with the falling night, made her eyes ache/strain in the light, and curled her stomach with faint waves of nausea. They had plagued her since adolescence, these 'cephalgia migrainosus", which is what Galen called them, and the had grown steadily worse Since the death of her father, more frequent, hammering through her brain, and sometimes incapacitating her for 2 and 3 days at a time. The days when her maid could attend her at home, and she could lay in her sleeping quarters, the cool breeze wafting up from the (Hamilton…just kidding)__Heights, sun freshened air chasing the stagnancy of the lower streets hanging heavy in the chill mist that clung to Roman mornings in the early spring, with her favorite lute-player strumming a soothing melody, and her daughter rubbing her temples, she rebounded within a day. It was when her brother summoned her to court, the drill she played between his excesses and outrages, his impetuousness and boredom, which, if he indulged it, turned to malicious amusements unless she interceded, the way she had cultivated through the years, teasing and tailoring, softening and easing Commodus’s temperaments in counterpoint to the Ruffled sensibilities of the old patrician Senators, taking care to not overstep that tenuous boundary imposed by his favorite hangers-on. The headaches on those days were interminable, but she has learned to sublimate them, subsume the pain, and construct her mask. A public facade, the flawless serenity she shows the world, –She’s taken a place at a window, facing north (I need to establish if this setting is at the Theater of the Nobility/or the Palace/and decide the direction toward the Tiber…) across a sea of darkness, broken by the faint lamps and torches that line the maze of streets and plazas, down the _____Hill, toward the docks of the Tiber, sipping wine she knows will make her headache/weariness worse, but it warms her stomach, spreading its soft glow to her clenched fingers, grasping the vessel, and slows the rapid burst of her heart against her chest. The Scent on the night wind reminds her for a moment, of that week in Hispania, when her father paid visit to a branch of an equestrian family, native to the (Neopolitan region), the gens Artorii, who had settled along the sea-battered cliffs of Asturias, and supplied cavalry mounts from their breeding farms outside of Isirium/Coruna. A retired veteran, Aelius Artorius Verus had one son, a restless youth on the eve of his 2nd decade, Lucius Artorius, who was grappling like a caged beast w/ambitions to see the wider world, and for a young man of provincial equestrian status, that meant joining the army. She had been newly widowed, an empress, now a mere emperor’s daughter once more, and thinking she was to enjoy a welcome respite from domesticity, enjoy her father’s company as his confidant, in place of her often frail mother, anxious over her infant sisters, and her favored brother. But she was the most gifted of his children, for all she was a daughter and not a son. Her rebuke to her father had been sharp that morning, discovering she was to be bartered off in yet another marriage, to another eastern low-born catamite. Marcus Aurelius’s unruffled, philosophical regard/equanimity only set her off her more, and she stormed in angry tears from his quarters, used as his temporary audience hall, whilst they resided at the home/villa of the Artorii. Her upset took her out into the stables where Artorius, in the process of grooming and saddling one of their private mounts, stopped frozen in his task, tongue tied/stuttering out some greeting. Lucilla, accustomed to the adoration she often observed upon the faces of the varied retainers of her father’s men, learned to accept such worship with nary a pucker or a blush, as serene as her father, and properly haughty when necessary. But this day, she had no patience for such awkward/untried/infatuations, snapping at him to ready another of their horses, and to ride out with her, letting loose another rampant of temper when he tried to insist there was no horse in his father’s stables gentle enough to act as a woman’s pony. *You think the only sorts of horses I rode while crossing the rocky footpaths of Dalmatia with my husband were slow-broke nags and docile ponies? My safety isn’t a concern of yours or anyone’s but my own.* Artorius had flushed, the shade harsh, making his ruddy, sun-touched skin only darker, but his eyes, a steel-gray that made her think of storm-clouds low over a squalling sea, met hers, saying firmly. *I did not mean imply you have no talent for more spirited horses, Lady. But I’ll bear your anger to correct you in saying that your safety, in fact, is of the utmost importance, bc it’s my life forfeit if it’s in my company when you happen to be unseated from your mount and break your neck, or your head is dashed upon rocks bc you’re thrown. It will be upon my conscience that I did not caution nor guard you close enough, and it will be upon my family’s honor that I, who ought to have been responsible for the Augusta’s life, failed in my duty.* Shocked into silence, it took Lucilla some very long, slow breaths to work through the turmoil in her mind, not used to being opposed/countered in her demands. He was obviously not the callow, infatuated, all-worshiping youth she had thought; though she could see him starting to glance away from her stilled gaze uncomfortably, looking like he wanted to be anywhere the other side of hell than in her presence just then. Her sudden peel of laughter took him aback, his eyes leaping back to her, consternation in his frown. *Indeed, Artorius Castus, forgive me. You are right–about my flippancy toward mortality anyway. As for the title, that’s no longer mine to claim.* His face eased into a gradual smile, a cheeky half-grin at first that lifted his earnest melancholy, a flash of white teeth and twinkle in his gaze that made her, in that moment, uncomfortably aware that he was quite handsome, in that roughened way of men who spent their hours outside tasting of wind, sun, and chasing the clouds or the waves in all elements. His laughter was warm and deep. *We aren’t as inclined to track titles, my Lady. You’re the daughter of an emperor. And you were the wife of one. Your husband being dead makes you no less an empress. That alone elevates you above the common stock.* His words hit like a cold ice-crush into her chest. *Today, I don’t wish to be anything other than…me. Lucilla.* She willed him with all her heart, trying not to let the edge of panic/desperation/hysterics take her voice. *Please, take me out with you today. I’ll ride whatever horse you feel suited.* The set of his mouth revealed his inclination to protest. Studying her, she wondered what he must have seen in the intensity she could feel drawing tight the muscles of her jaw/the strain over her brow. *I can’t go back to face my father right now* *As you wish*he nodded, after a moment’s indecision.

–During week Lucilla/MA visit Isirium, escaping plague sweeping through the east, Artorius and Lucilla escape from dreary boredom of older older adults early morning in spring, riding out along the cliffs down to seaside, finding a sheltered copse ringed by early spring flowers, in low cluster, discuss Varro, Artorius despises, commenting how poets make all rural dwellers sound like they suck the tears of their goats, and fuck their sheep, to which only realized the coarseness of the comment after he says it, apologizing, Lucilla insists she not offended, explaining that she spent most of her married life around her husband’s dissipated crowd…Artorius expresses his frustration, wanting to see the world, to which Lucilla states it may not be all so enticing, Artorius states he will at least have experienced it, Lucilla asks if he would like to hear what offends her, going on to explain how men belittle the fact she’s a woman, and for that reason, can’t understand what it takes to rule an Empire, despising how the borders need reinforcements, and are strained, spend gold to the East for foreign luxuries, eyeing the silk and thread threading of her over gown, while the treasury taxes the people to privation in order to buy Egyptian grain… Artorius insists he’s not offended, but enchanted, and she states how the both have their ambitions…

She ignores the background chatter in the room, finding the dim glow from the streets below, stretching north and east across the Forum___, and climbing up the terraced ____scattering of homes set into the ____Hill less harsh to her pulsing/exhausted vision/sight/stressed sight. “Is it very bad, this one?” The words come from behind her, as she swings around at their sound. “Artorius! How did you escape being announced?” she whispers conspiringly, dropping her head low. “By taking to the streets, on my two feet, like a common pleb.” His grin hasn’t changed in all the years between their first meeting and now, revealing the same cheeky humor, the twinkle in his eyes. “Your attendants were made of more delicate stamina.” “Careful with your criticisms. They’re two of Saertoros’s favorite cosmeticians. You insult them too strongly, and he’ll see that my brother orders you to groomed by an African ape for the amusement of the mob.” “Well, they did wonders with my garb, I’ll grant that.” He gestures over the fine linen tunic of light blue, which falls below his knees, edged in the thin border of porphyry silk, the belt of silver plate-links, the buckle of bronze and gilt working showing Neptune driving his chariot of sea horses across the waves, trident in one hand, whipping his beasts on with the other, the only indication of Artorius Castus’s commissioned status in the chief marine unit of the Emperor. The years haven’t so much aged him as refined the essence of that eager, restless young man who had captured her heart in those brief, sweet days they had spent rambling along the wind swept-cliffs, upon the sturdy steeds his father used to fortify bloodlines of cavalry mounts for the legions, bearing them, clamoring up hidden trails, and winding into the deep green valleys, where they sat and shared their dreams, their memories, with one another beside a sun-dappled river, and a strand of blossoming aspens. Thick black brows crown his strong features, a wide forehead, balanced by deep-set eyes, their gray now shaded by a more staid melancholy than she recalls, the first lines at their corners evidence of sun, wind, and sea, than the ravages of time. His gazes moves over her unabashedly, following the line of cheek, the slope of throat, where the glitter of twined Spanish silver drapes like a slither of snow over her collarbones. She feels her skin warm/face flush beneath the draw/heat in his gaze, his focus sliding along the slight rise of her breastbone, the curves of soft flesh just below, outlined by the gentle folds of Indian cotton, shot with silvered silk, the delicate fabric shivering against her skin with each quickened breath. A handful of stolen kisses, caresses in shadowed corners of fort buildings, the dizzying exhilaration of their movements, his limbs twined with hers on the rare nights she had been able to sneak away to him, the last time they had been together in Aquileia/Sirmium, in that week before her father died, and the world changed forever. Despite their solitude by the window, at the edge of the banquet hall, Lucilla is ever aware of the greedy attention of the guests that track her every move, and posture. She sighs long, gathering her poise, giving him a scrutinizing look, inhaling/sniffing the air about him. “Well, you don’t smell like you’ve been at sea these last 12 months.” He quirks an eyebrow,/puzzled look/caught by her off hand comment, before breaking into a short, gruff laugh. “Your attendants- "Saortius’s attendants.” Lucilla wants it clear, she bears no ties, however casual or trivial such associations may be, with any of the intimates of her brother’s circle, particularly his male-lover. Artorius gives her a pointed, playful look, humoring her correction. “Whoever. They had their hour, primping over me in the baths. Amid the mewling, hissing, and tsking- "Fascinating. Were they cats, or men?” His mouth quirks up at one side, the mirth in his eyes basking over her, not off-put in the least by the tart tone. “They were yowling like cats by the time I was done with them.” “Oh dear,” Lucilla frowns, feigning concern. “You weren’t too horrible to them, were you? They are, after all, rather used to the effeminate world of stage actors and court dancers. Not the demanding rigor of our military men.” Artorius’s voice carries all of his mimed disdain/insult/violation. “They plucked a hair from my chest.” A line of neatly trimmed hairs accents his jaw, matching the dark brown, thick cropped tresses covering his scalp. “They left your beard,” she offers in mock sweetness. “They tried sprinkling me with Rose oil from Antioch,” he blurts in his barley contained indignation. To which she laughs suddenly, Artorius’s deeper timbre adding to her joy. A husky merriment that relaxes the tension cramping/squeezing her temples, chasing away the dull hammer of her headache behind her eyes. She feels…lighter, in that moment. Young again, and wishing to be the woman, the person she always had been with him, the person he had always cherished. Not an icon of power, a vehicle to breed heirs, or even, as her brother acknowledged, an advisor, his echoing confessor, to soothe his impulses, and temper his fears, balancing that fine edge between keeping his favor, and repairing the sensibilities of the senators. Conscious of the attention their mirth has drawn from the other guests gathered about the hall, they quiet into breathlessness. A glance exchanged, Lucilla has to squeeze her lips together, seeing Artorius’s smirk flick at the edge of mouth, threaten to dissolve them into another round/gale of laughter. “You should smile more,” he says. The tenderness in his voice cuts into her heart. He sees the question in her eyes. “You look…” “Younger?” She can’t quite keep the archness/tartness from her tone. “Freer.” Her smile this time, is a sad ghost, a memory of the girl she had been, the hope of her youth, buried, sunken beneath the woman she has become in the years since her father’s death, managing Commodus’s excesses and corruptions, fighting to keep her perfect composure, serenity, and keep his suspicions of her dead. Her eyes cross over the myriad bodies clustered in the private groups, conversing in low voices, sipping from their fine molded, silver goblets. She tone is hard. “The same men who used to surround my father squealing like suckling pigs now cage my brother like scavenging sharks. He and his lover paw each other like humping dogs in front of his wife, and she does nothing. He insults our generals, men who won our father’s victories, spurning their counsel on the eve of triumph to instead, treat with the Quadi, and they do nothing. He degrades our senators, ignores our laws, and squanders our treasury upon his perverse entertainments, and they do nothing. My husband does…nothing.”

“Lucilla?” Her name only, but his tone if full of caution, knowing, not wanting to understand what she’s saying.

Far below, the streets of Rome emanate a faint glow, the soft light of torches mounted outside forecourts, oil-lamps set on open casements in upper story rooms. The season is still early, the night fresh with the spring rains which blow in from the coast, washing out the muddied lanes, and clearing the gutters of their festering filth. She turns from the window, from the dark night beyond the palace, meeting Artorius’s’ frown with a slow, reassuring smile. “It will all be different after tonight.”

“What do you mean?” The question is spoken low, his eyes heavy upon her.

Her smile fades as she glances behind him, seeing her husband, Claudius Pompeianus, approach them from across the banquet hall. On his arm, he escorts his guest. A woman, tall, regal. Striking, despite being on the closing end of her fifth decade, as Lucilla figures her age anyway. Envy, jealousy, or hatred. She ought to feel something other than this empty echo of sadness which rises, a dull ache pressing into her chest. She can’t hide the curl of her lip, her sorrow briefly breaking through. “Nothing,” she repeats the word like a mantra of her emptiness, turning her attention fully to Artorius, “I mean nothing. Only that I am happy you are here. That we are finally together after so long apart,” her practiced poise smoothing away any expression of upset.

The troubled shadow in his gaze tells her he’s not convinced. Despite Artorius’s devotion, his desire for her, there’s little he, nor anyone can do to cure this malignancy, the pain of her marriage. The grudge she still carries against her father, who she adored with all the faith in her being, transforming into the epitome of culture and grace, an empress to match her emperor. She had been the restraint, the light touch of wisdom redirecting the excesses of Lucius Verus’s behavior into victories that secured the loyalty of their eastern provinces. When plague had taken her first husband, and stolen away her role as Augusta, Marcus Aurelius hadn’t granted her the reward of autonomy, but bartered her to a man of lower rank, and dull ambition. For all Pompeianus’s military achievements, he carried little regard for the art of politics, and the intricacies of imperium. He had long ago accepted his wife’s baffling contempt as yet one more necessary inconvenience in the fulfillment of duty. She had given him a healthy son, and in so far as state contracts were concerned, Lucilla had kept her part of the bargain, providing an heir for Pompeianus, and assuring his senatorial heritage. Had she known back in the early years of their marriage, the true source of his coolness toward her, his forbidden, secret affection for the woman now at this side, Lucilla might have been spared the gnawing guilt that had haunted her for so many long, tortured nights.

An urge nearly overwhelms her, to suddenly unburden herself, admit everything of her plans, the reason for her enigmatic words, to Artorius. But Pompeianus and his companion draw near, almost into ear-shot. Instead, her desperation raw in her voice, she whispers, “Come to me tonight?”

She hears the ragged breath of his surprise, his desire, the way his gaze, suddenly bright with need, lances through her, then leaps to her husband and the woman at his side. The conflict of his conscience constricting his face. "Lucilla–“her name harsh, dragged past his lips into silence.

"Please.” She knows Artorius’s opinion of her husband is somewhat more elevated than her own, more favorable. They had served along the Danube together, Artorius Castus a mere centurion at the time. He was honored by Pompieanus, by her father, for his treatment of the Sarmatians, the conscription of over five-thousand horselords to re-garrison the depleted forces along Britannia’s hinterlands. Those shores of cold mist and savage moors, where legionaries described the women as giantesses, war-mad and frothing at the mouth, charging their chariots into battle. The woman striding elegantly beside her husband is tall, taller than the average Roman man. By all appearances, though, she embodies the ease of a Republican matron, rather than a warrior-queen, bent on tearing her enemies to pieces.

“Who is she?” Artorius asks, following the line of her gaze to her husband and his guest.

“The one he ought to have married.” She clutches his hand quickly, feeling the warmth, the power in his answering grasp. "Come to me tonight?”

He traces the delicate band of bronze circling her ring finger. “You still wear it?”

“Always.” She nods, swallowing, her breath catching in her throat, the years of loneliness she’s kept at bay with the precious memories of their loving her only succor in the endless seasons of their separation. “Please. Tonight.”

A moment of silence, marking the time with the thundering of her heart drumming through her hearing. Then…

“Always,” spoken harshly, a sigh, everything of his love, and his reluctance in that one word.

One last squeeze, and their hands drop apart. Claudius and his companion slow, stopping to offer their welcome. Lucilla inhales deeply, greeting them with a bright smile. "Husband! You recall Lucius Ar-

"Artorius Castus!” She’s always hated how he over-speaks her, but Lucilla manages her annoyance, a small bow, and she steps back to Lucius'a side as the men exchange their greetings.

Claudius grabs Lucius’s hand, drawing him into a vigorous hug, their hearty ribbing full of laughter and jest. Her husband is still a well-built man, for all of being in in his mid-sixties.

“Last I saw you, lad, you were pummeling Sarmatians back to their Maker. Then, stroking the scabbards of Marcus Aurelius’s advisors the wrong way–may his soul rest easy–insisting the turds be conscripted.”

Artorius grins quickly/ruefully as the part. “For which I had the dubious task/honor seeing to their transfer across 10 rivers and no less than five provinces, excluding the crossing to Britannia.”

“And soundly rewarded with an assignment direct to the emperor’s fleet out of Misenium,” Claudius says in his clipped/brisk voice/chuckle. Lucilla marvels how he can strip himself of the trappings of a genteel senator, and take on the trappings of his old military demeanor when in the presence of fellow veterans and active legionaries, as though he doesn’t wish to be thought of as soft or indolent these years he’s resided in Rome. “Are you bored yet, with spitting sea salt and basting German whores along the fringe of the Rhine?”

Artorius’s laugh is short, his smirk touching his eyes, a comradely smile passing between the men. “You’ve obviously been keeping a close track on my career.”

“We heard about how your men routed the Quadi/OTHER TRIBES/LAST ENGAGEMENT AFTER COMMODUS’s PEACE at ______Fort on the Danube, where it crosses at____, all the way here in Rome.” Claudius’s admiration is plain across his grizzled features, white brows and silvered hair, his dark eyes shine like a alert hound’s, hungering for the hunt, reliving the glory days of his own command under her father. “Ingenious, using the damming from the winter melt.”

Artorius, more reserved, says only, “We were fortunate the spring thaw was so rapid that year. It slowed their boats/rafts, halted their offensive, or we would have been fighting their parties from two fronts. It allowed time to oil the logs, and have the archers take a position from the trees, and set them ablaze. Gods be thanked, it’s been some years since we’ve seen an active engagement like that. Now, it’s mostly transport, food-stuffs, supplies, occasional livestock, transferring a unit or two, and the like.”

“Ah, the reality of peace.” Her husband can’t quite his disdain/disproval/contempt, her brother’s odious treaties with the tribes among the Danube one of the few points he seems to concur on, feel as strongly as she does, in regards to the ill-reasoned direction of her brother’s decisions in ruling the empire. “Are you Nostalgic for the days of direct action?”

Artorius hears the peculiar vibe of dissatisfaction from Claudius, eyeing him curiously/carefully/cautiously. “Only in so far as it kept the men occupied. Bored soldiers are no good for the integrity of our frontiers.”

A strange look, full of some unspoken meaning that unsettles Lucilla, passes between Claudius and the woman who stands just off to his side. Claudius nods. “Which is why it’s necessary to have men of experience staffing the posts in our hinterlands.”

He sounds like he’s about to reminisce on the glory days of his own command, but Artorius sniffs loudly, an unvoiced frustration/consternation surfacing. “And leaves me in my current quandary. I was advised by my commanding officer not 6 months back I’d receive my next assignment direct from the barracks here in the capital. 6 months later, and there’s been no commission forthcoming.”

“This, perhaps, is where my brother’s wife may of some help.” She waits patiently to be introduced, stepping forward to take Claudius’s hand. wrapped the woman who has accompanied her husband to this banquet tonight, held by her brother. “Maeve, the wife of Antius Crescens Calpurianus, legate of the VI Legion Victorius out of Eboracum, daughter of Lucius, king of the Briganti nation, and heir to the provincial domains of northern Britannia.” She weaves an Alluring portrait/image, a tall, elegantly figured woman in a gown the shade of crushed violets, her black hair, streaked with white, is pulled into an elegant coif, held by a circlet of netted silver and diamonds, her cheekbones high in a long face and probing eyes , her high forehead accented by thick slanting brows, heavy lidded eyes the color of ice, appear serene, ironic, as though they’ve looked on the multi-layered worlds, the souls and actions wrought by men, and little, if any circumstance exists which can still disturb her ease/poise/composure. She must have been stunning in her youth, and now, into her middle years, her presence still invokes a hushed respect in Lucilla, rarely effected by others of rank, a stab of envy jabbing her conscience as Artorius’s gaze travels over the woman’s form appreciatively/admiringly/consideringly. He’s never been shy in his appraisal of the women around him, a trait which would have infuriated her had he not also prized their talents and minds in turn.

“A queen?” Artorius says admiringly, on cue, bending down to kiss her elegant fingers, twined with Claudius’s. “You’re far from home.”

“It’s an impotent title, carrying little more these days, than the symbolism of a fabricated past.” Her smile, fleeting, warms her eyes with a quick, darting humor upon Artorius, and thawing the image of immaculate reserve. “Far from home, and long away as well.” Her voice has a low, smoky lilt, her Latin accented in that cadence of her northern home.

“I imagine you’re much missed by your husband, Lady. What would spur you to leave so far from both hearth and country?”

Her eyes rest upon Artorius, an enigmatic smile ghosts over her lips. “That would be long story for one night. Suffice for now, there’s value in seeing how the world fares beyond the sunrise and sunset of our own lands, whether we’re women and men. Do you not believe so, Artorius Castus?”

“I do,” he says with a single, firm nod, meeting her intent expression.

“Good. Then, you’ll understand to my chagrin, I’ve been so long absent, that I’ve only now had the benefit of Claudius apprising me of the most recent reports from Britannia. They’re distressing, to say the least.”

“My sympathies, Lady. If the reports I received as well from the Hadrian limes hold any merit, they also credited your husband, and your sons I believe, with the discipline and courage that has kept our frontiers solid against barbarian incursion these last years.”

A flash of some emotion, anger, lances the coolness of her poise. “It’s your Saramatians, Artorius Castus, who haven’t yet fulfilled their potential as reinforcements in our northern auxiliaries. They’re recalcitrant and have proven excessively difficult to integrate into the deployments, according to my husband.”

Artorius blinks at her sharp tone, nonplussed it seems, but his voice is hard when he answers her remark. “Perhaps it’s that the right man hasn’t yet been found. Who understands their customs without denouncing them, and demonstrates an adequate command of equestrianship.”

Amusement, subtle, washes over/melts across/softens the British woman’s regard, returns his defensive/tense words with breathy, considering little laugh. “Alas, my thought as well.

Artorius’s regards her/studies her/watches her with a closed/guarded expression. "And your husband?”

“My husband tends to concur,” Maeve states with an air of serene confidence. An unease begins to take hold of Lucilla, as the British woman’s crystalline eyes fall upon Claudius, and he motions with a nod in return. “Marcus Aurelius highly commended you. Senator Pompeianus extolls your feats in battle, especially against the Sarmatii, but it was your skill in orchestrating their/the steppe nomads’ peaceful transfer to British shores which snagged the accolades of my husband. Your name crossed the rosters for reassignment in the last year. Antius has had you marked.”

Anticipation livens Claudius’s usually /bland/stern/morbid comportment when required to interact socially with others. “The command is yours, if you wish it, Artorius Castus.”

“And what command is that, Senator?”

Lucilla glances at him quickly, sees the interest sudden, blazing, lighting up his rugged features. He carefully/deliberately avoids her stricken gaze, as she struggled to quash the rising panic, the awareness he is to be taken from her again before they ever have a chance to claim a happiness forever eluding them, duty the despair of their love.

Maeve answers before Claudius can speak. “Prefect of the Cohort of the First Wing of Sarmatian cavalry.”

He ponders her words in silence for the beat/space of a breath. Then, a rueful smile crosses his features. “That was the post Aurelius’s counsellors denied me at the juncture when their Prince, Batrades, was about to embark with the first contingent across the Channel from _____(northern French/Amorican/Norman/Breton port). They told me I treated them too sympathetically, that my interactions with the Iazyges were too familiar, and my orders were not issued to conscripts with sufficient authority or discipline to keep them in their place, subordinate.”

“You lacked the seasoning and rank back then to have been rewarded such a sensitive assignment/position. That rapid a rise would have ruffled the envy of other officers Aurelius considered too essential to snub at the time,” Claudius says. “Times are different now. The opportunities for a talented legionary, the equestrian background–well lad, there’s few who would object to your placement as head of the Sarmatian horselords.”

He’s obviously drawn to the offer, his gaze bright, what regret he might feel, once more being separated from her by distance and duty, rapidly evaporating from his mind.

“But so far?” Lucilla asks, trying to keep her voice smooth, distant/polite, wo the imposing need, but thinking how forced the words, her smile feeling forced, past the constriction of her throat. “Surely after a year at sea, and so many seasons spent in our hinterlands, you would seek an assignment more centrally located to Rome, to your family. The Praetorian ranks, perhaps?”

A strange perplexity clouds his features. “I barely know my family, at least of the Neopolitan branch. My father’s uncle is my closest living relative, who now lies near his last breath, and never gave my father more than a passing indulgence once year around Saturnalia. Home has ever been…Asturias. I’ll accept your offer, on one condition,” Artorius says, his fingers worrying/working the fanged pendant, his determined gaze on Claudius’s. The senator gives a small nod/cautious nod/slow nod. “Grant me leave to see my grandmother, assure the farm is stable, and our household provided for.”

“Done.” Claudius reaches out his hand. Artorius clasps the man’s forearm in a return, a exultant light suffusing his eyes, sealing their deal as Lucilla’s tenuous grasp at joy begins to spin away from her, into a dark abyss drilling a hole of abandonment into her soul.

“A curious pendant, those teeth.” Maeve’s voice moves over them like a gentle breeze off summer seas.

The men part, stepping back from each other. Artorius, still fingering the fangs off the leather tong around his neck, gives a cursory glance down at the yellowed ivory canines. One curved fang embossed with vertical gold etchings like bird’s feet in sand, down its the curve to the narrowed point, the other tooth bare, wo embellishment or mark.

Artorius lets the enameled teeth drop from his grasp, to rest undisturbed, just below his collarbone. “A family heirloom of sorts. It was the only treasure brought from Hibernia by my grandmother, passed to my own father, then to me upon his death.”

“The one with the writing, it’s rendered in the language of the Druids.”

His gaze upon Maeve is measuring. “Do you know what it means?”

She squints, a veiled/hooded expression/unreadable expression upon Artorius, examining the gold-embossed talisman. “It takes some time to translate druid-script into the Latin. What of the other?”

A half grin twitches across his lips. “A humbling reminder, Lady, of hubris–a novice recruit, his first assignment at the northern extent of the Rhine, and a perhaps, too reckless exuberance for adventure that turned into a struggle for survival in the face of a blizzard, between myself and the wolf who had previously made use of that tooth.”

“Would he now propose he’s free of hubris?” Lucilla asks, hurling the question like a thrown dagger, looking directly at him, probing his face, refusing to let him retreat from her silent pain.

Contrition shines from his eyes, but before any other comment can be spoken, trumpets sound through the hall, blaring the arrival of the emperor in a flurried entourage/procession from the high vaulted gallery fronting the entrance.

–Commodus’s entrance, greeting with his sister, announces for his guests to be seated in honor of his father’s commemoration/deification, change in the program of the entertainment, from Aristophanes and Lysisrrata to ??writer and Antigone, a message of familial fidelity, of devotion to one’s parents and one’s siblings, gaze fixed on Lucilla. Premonition chills her, hearing Maeve’s whispered observance, her ice-blue eyes fastened upon her brother’s procession like she’s gazing into a different world/a distant horizon just beyond. “The shadow of death lies on him.”

“What are muttering about, woman?” Claudius asks distractedly, scowling at her. “This isn’t the time to having spells/episodes, Maeve.”

She blinks, a slight pucker, snd a fine crease between her brows forming, her disconcerting gaze shifting to Lucilla. “Oh Claudius, you should have left when I told you with your wife,” she says with a peculiar remorse.

Commodus announces the change in venue, explaining it’s only appropriate on a night for commemorating their father deification, to celebrate a playwright of Antigone who had captured the virtues his father always espoused, of humbleness, modesty, dignity, serenity/patience, asking Lucilla if this is not what their father taught, as he gestures for her, in a change of seating hierarchy, in a bow to familial ties over marital, to take her old position at his right hand as they, the guests about them begin to move toward their assigned places toward the lounge-divans/cushioned/pillowed benches facing the central raised platform of a stage, Commodus’s wife, Bruttia Crispina throwing her a savage/vicious/waspish glare, and in the coup de grace, as Lucilla takes his hand, he proffers her the accusatory dagger, hurt and rage finally contorting his fine-hewn features that he shares with his sister, words filled with venom, 'The Senate sends you this gift, sister’, shock and confusion buzz from the spectators/witnesses, and Claudius demands to know what the meaning of Commodus’s insinuation is, tossing his wife a bloodied dagger, whilst in this juncture, as everyone’s attention is focused on the play between brother and sister, Lucilla stiff as a statue, color faded from her cheeks, fastened upon the dagger in her trembling hand, Maeve has melted back into the shadows at the edge of the hall, noting a slave who directs her to where the latrines are located, skirts stealthy/sneaks out unnoticed, throwing her palla over her hair, and evading groups of guards at the main entrance, as she darts out a rear servants’ access leads out from the fetid drainage/sewer alley in order to hasten back to Claudius’s mansion on foot, through the streets, and get a message off to her daughter, Artorius too is trying to make sense of the situation, 'Lucilla’, shifts Commodus’s attention to him, in a forced theatrical voice, 'Ah, Lucius Artorius Castus, I believe. I recall the praise my father heaped upon you after the close of the Macromanni assault, and my sister’s favor for you, retaining her golden cunt for her particular lovers. What, I Wonder, did she promise you, in dividing of my empire between her enchanted conspirators, Artorius says in a a low, dangerous voice, menacing, Be careful, Commodus, of what you’re charging, to which he bristles, You have no right to address me as such! I am your emperor, spurring Lucilla to intercede before Artorius advances/responds, voice tense, He has nothing to do with this Commodus, and Commodus pierced her with blazing look of despair and hatred, 'Like Ummidius Quadratus had nothing to do with this, like you hadn’t fucked him into treason against his emperor, his face livid, His blood stains that blade sister, bc he tried to take my life at your instigation, a collective gasp rippling over the audience, as she bites out in a voice like acid, 'How dare you, little brother–no more fit to hold the throne of Caesar than you are to mount a donkey. You insult our father by shitting on his vision, and parlaying with barbarians. The Senate abhors you, the people despise you, and the army disdains you. Perverted and corrupt, your reign will be nothing but a curse left to be smashed from the pillars and walls after you die, Commodus stepping toward her, she sees Artorius tense, ready to jump to her defense but her brother, only a finger breadth taller than her, only whispers, I loved you, Lucilla, above all my sisters. I valued your words, and would honored you. We would have ruled in glory, to outshine even our great father. Hesignals the Praetorians to break their formation, coming forward, taking positions around Lucilla and Artorius Castus on all sides. In a voice meant to project to the audience, he says, “Instead, sister, I order your arrest, for treason, sedition, and attempted assassination against your emperor. You will be exiled to Capri–” the Praetorians wo any command, taking up points on all sides around her–“your sentence to be decided. And Lucius Artorius Castus, to be taken into custody under suspicion of conspiracy–” Fear pierces Lucilla’s voice for the first time that night. “Commodus, he had no part in my actions, no knowledge,” Throwing a desperate look to Artorius who makes no protest as two guards move to restrain each of his arms. “Claudius, please,” she begs, “you know he is innocent!” Commodus raises his hand, commanding his guard to pause, and they freeze, like mimes sharing one mind, in unison. “Indeed,” her brother says with a small, sadistic twitch of his lips that leaves Lucilla numb with dread. His gaze falls on Claudius, who looks like he’s aged a century in the moments since his wife’s treason came to light, skin parchment pale, sagging exhaustion beneath his eyes. He shuffles toward the emperor, falling to his knees, kissing the signet ring when Commodus extends his hand. “The clemency I seek, your Grace, is not for my wife, but for this man. He has served your father, and you, fiercely and faithfully, along our water routes, and our furthest boundaries. He could not have had any knowledge of my wife’s betrayal, gods have mercy upon his life.” “Mercy,” Commodus repeats the word, as though spoken in a foreign tongue. “My father promoted justice along with mercy. And we are, if harsh, also just. Rise Claudius Pompeiaus,” he motions with his hand. “And if Lucius Artorius Castus is, indeed innocent,” he fingers clutch Lucilla’s fine-boned wrist, bringing the dagger in its grip to Artorius’s hand, as the guards thrust him, shoving him, before Commodus, “then he may prove his loyalty to his emperor.” Malice fires an ardency across Commodus’s features, meeting Artorius’s defiant gaze. “So, soldier, I ask, how ought my traitorous sister be punished?” She feels Arorius clasp the handle of the knife, his focus unwavering from her. He’s as taut as a catapult, drawn, and ready to fire. The tremor from the power of his grip on the knife, her own fingers still wrapped about its handle, shudders up her arm to her shoulder. “No, Artorius, don’t!” What happens next is a blur of outrage/alarmed cries/bellows, the dagger in his grip driven upwards, Lucilla trying to divert its momentum/force from her brother’s chest toward a point into her neck, unaware of her helpless/stricken utterance echoing through the hall. Commodus’s outraged cry sends the Praetorians into action, the nearest raising his short sword hilt like a bludgeon at the same moment Artorius wrenches Lucilla backwards/pushes her backwards, out of grasp, sending her stumbling to the ground, ramming his shoulder into the man’s armored torso, his fist smashing into the doubled-over guard’s jaw with a sickening crunch. The man behind him flails, his spear flying out of his grip across the floor, scattering the onlookers, as his downed comrade, sluggish/reeling from Artorius’s blow, crashes into him, and spins to marble floor, his shout to look to the emperor strangled by the Artorius’s foot landing in the side of his neck. Lucilla manages to stagger upright, seeing the additional regiment pour into the hall, twenty-five men, in polished black armor, advancing to the scene, as Artorius dives for the lost spear, dodging the third guard’s hapless maneuver with his shield, that he tries to leaver up, and clip Artorius’s rapid motion, but he lunges into a tight roll at the last moment, lurching to one foot just in front of the surprised guard, the closest Commodus, and trying to impose himself between the attacker and the emperor. Artorius thrusts the spear into the thunder bolt blazoned shield, using the soldier’s paralyzed astonishment to yank back, dragging the guard forward, the man loosing his footing, warning Commodus to back away while he and Artorius grapple for the man’s still sheathed sword, dangling at his waist from the leather strapped belt. With the spear shaft as his winch/lever/mast, Artorius Heaves himself bodily into the shield, shoving the guard further back as he tugs the sharpened head out of the rawhide and bronze/alloy sealed wood, maneuvering to come behind the guard, and drive the spear head into the man’s calf as the guard snarls in pain, twisting to his knees, his shield clattering to the floor as his hand flies to where the barbed lance is buried in his muscle, a pool of red liquid leeching out from the wound. Artorius, undeterred by the arrival of the additional soldiers, never stalls, launching himself with a bestial sound, all his disgust/contempt for Commodus in that sound, who staggers back, vulnerable and exposed, face a mask of fear, flinching away from the bloodied dagger Artorius aims at his throat, even as his free hand, flies out to grab her brother beneath his chin, hauling him off his feet, carrying him back, such is his anger and power in his motions, slamming Commodus into one of the grand marble columns/Quartz columns lining the room. “Was this what you thought I would do to your sister,” his voice full of menace, pressing the edge of the blade up to her brothers throbbing vessel in his neck, glaring into Commodus’s frenzied/panicked eyes, rolling in his head. “Artorius, no!” She knows there’s no recourse now. Claudius restrains her from rushing toward them as a contingent of 4 new armored men surround her and her husband, another looking to the beaten soldiers slowly recovering themselves, gathering gear and coming unsteadily to their feet, but the soldier with his leg left bleeding, groaning as a medic trained officer readies to dislodge the spear head driven into the back of his lower leg. She and Claudius are the only two left standing of the other guests as the additional Praetorian regiment cleared through the hall in a ruthless efficiency, they have forced every guest, man or woman, senator, wife, escort, actor, or nameless slave, to the ground with their swords drawn, shields in the front, every 5th man left at the perimeter of the kneeling, prone, terrified audience to survey for any surprise attack. “You’re a dead man, scum,” Commodus chokes out past the iron grip flexed about his throat. One of the black armored guards, flanked by two of his companions advances toward her brother and Artorius. “Release your lord emperor, soldier.” He levels his spear, in unison with the other two guards fanned to either side of him. Artorius ignores the command, keeping the dagger edge pressed against the pulsing artery in Commodus’s jugular. “I’ll make your death a living hell, if dare harm her.” The guards shuffle nearer, spears readied in the grasps, closing from behind where Artorius has Commodus pinned against the column. The leader stresses the words more firmly. “I repeat–release your emperor, soldier, or you invite a harsh consequence.” Commodus’s voice is audible, shaking in his fear, his forehead slick with perpetration, but his malice shines from his blue, reptilian eyes, basilisk’s gaze. “You heard them, soldier,” the word hissed. “Release your emperor. How exactly do you expect to save my traitor of a sister by murdering her brother?” Lucilla entreats Claudius’s understanding, and he releases her arm, seeming to read the plea in her eyes. The strain weighs heavy on him, and she can still see the disbelief of her actions warring with the reality of events spinning faster than he can keep apace from the loss/confusion marring his normally stern features. The troops surrounding them act, at first, to obstruct her purpose. Her raised hand, a pacifying gesture, the regality of her bearing, assure them she intends no threat. They keep their weapons trained upon her warily though, as she glides toward Artorius and her brother, locked in Artorius’s choke-hold. She stops just short of the three guards oriented near enough that could thrust a spear into his neck, or slice an arm with their short-swords if so incited. “Artorius–There is no winning this now.” She passes like a wraith between two Praetorians, coming alongside him, begging silently that he will heed the force of her will in her words and /unmoving/fixed/steady gaze centered upon him. Tension tremors his hand, squeezing the dagger blade harder against Commodus’s neck, just short of drawing blood. Her brother makes a short, strangled sound that alerts the trio of guards to close in, their spears in positioned, the men postured for the kill. Rage burns from Artorius eyes, trained upon Commodus, and for an endless heartbeat that leaps into her throat, stopping her breath, she thinks he’s about to slice the dagger across her brother’s bared throat. Contempt twists his features, and with a snarl, Artorius shoves his elbow forcefully/hard against Commodus’s windpipe, removing his throttle hold from the emperor’s throat with a rapid recoil of his hand, fingers still flexed/curled about the knife handle. Commodus falls to floor, crouched on his knees, trying to relax the spasms of his crushed throat, his blazing hatred centered on Lucilla. “He was innocent of all involvement in this, brother. The responsibility of all of this lies with me, solely.” “Lucilla…,” Claudius calls her name helplessly, a mixture of anguish, shame, and fear in his voice. “You’ve so much as condemned yourself of treason, sister,” Commodus rasps past his raw throat. He struggles to his feet, his quick glance to a guard staying the man who was about to come to his assistance. Even her brother, for all his idle cowardice, still has his pride. “Do you admit your guilt in this failed 'coup’ (did that equivalent exist in the Latin lexicon??), sister? That you deliberately deceived your rightful emperor, and plotted the assassination of your Augustus, and most disappointingly of all, devised the downfall of your only living brother, who has loved you above all his siblings?” She meets his evil/vile smugness calmly, her mind so clear in purpose now, even fear has left her, replaced by a resurgence of clarity and determination. “Will you let Lucius Artorius Castus free? With no accusation of complicity, and innocent of all malicious/malevolent intent?” “Oh, my dear,” Artorius murmurs softly at her side, a sad acceptance imparted with words. “He’s hated me from the moment of our love.” His presence by her side is a warmth, a comforting touch in her mind of reassurance, filling her with courage. She cannot look at him, or she thinks she will lose this last thread of hope to make some kind of reparation for the disaster of her plot. “Will you let him go, without threat of harm or imprisonment?” The smugness across her brother’s face makes her want to spit in his eyes. Instead, she keeps her her gaze placid, drilled on him, awaiting his decision. Benevolence floods/washes over/spreads into a gracious smile over his smooth cheeked face. “Of course, dear sister. As I said, we are, of all things merciful as we are just.” She raises her chin, eyes steadied upon Commodus, defiance, pride, in her voice to the last. “Then at least one us, brother, shall go to our death having tried to preserve our father’s legacy.” Anger tics his mouth in a sneer, immediately repressed by his facade of equanimity. She fully expects him to issue the order to his guards of her arrest. Instead, he shifts his attention to Claudius, who continues to watch their exchange cautiously. “I’ll presume by having not mentioned your husband with the same passion you defended your equestrian legionary, Claudius Pompeianus also had no affiliation with your plotting.” Shame, guilt, resentment all wash through her, reluctantly looking toward her husband’s broken expression. A man of talent whose ambitions had fallen short of greatness, disappointment leaves her with an exhaustion that almost sacks her of her stoic will. Especially when Commodus continues in his pronouncement. “Pompeianus will surely not wish to provoke his emperor’s anger by attempting any additional conspiracy when he mercifully allows Pompeianus to collect his wife for the night, to spend one last evening with her family, snd settle estates or make reparations as she might. For your son, of course, Claudius, my favored nephew, who remains innocent of all wrong-doing despite the sins of his mother.” Something bleak, creeps into Lucilla’s voice when she rallies her response. “You will not harm him, my son?” Commodus’s beneficence is sickening. “Why would I harm him?” He asks innocently. “I love him.” “You loved me,” she returns stiffly, through her dread. Her son, who she won’t be able to protect once death and the earth separate them. “And I still do, sweet sister. I still do.” Commodus inclines his head toward the guards surrounding Claudius, to allow him to approach. Commodus stretches out his bejeweled fingers, thick with the rings of his authority. The aged senator kneels, effacing himself before her brother, humbly posturing obeisance as he places his lips upon the imperial signet. “Remember Claudius Pompieanus, guard her well. The official warrant of her arrest shall be issued tomorrow.” Artorius exhales sharply, but Lucilla stays his protest with a darting glance, a short shake of her head. “A Praetorian contingent will take her into state custody at that time.” “I understand, your Eminence.” Pompeianus awaits Commodus’s permission to rise. “I am ever your faithful servant.” Magnanimously, Commodus gestures for her husband to rise, even offering his arm for the retired army general to use as support. He turns to her, and she’s struck by the haggard/worn pall which makes her husband seem suddenly ancient, shrunken, like a dying tree, is a new thing. Next to her golden haired, trim-built brother, with his high cheek bones and Asian tilted eyes the color of lapis blue, Claudius appears like a withered stump. She’s never noticed how tottering his hair has become, nor how lumpy/swollen his knuckles have grown with rheumatism, as he places a hand hesitantly, almost permissively/or submissively/timidly upon her wrist. “Come wife. Let us go make your preparations.” She feels moved to pity for the pain she has caused him, for first time, she experiences the deeper awareness/burden of the fallout of her brother’s rage that will undoubtedly be unleashed upon not only her fellow conspirators, but all members of the Senate, whether or not they were involved in her plot. Names which must have been ripped from Ummidius Quadratus’s mouth as he suffered extraordinary torment at the hands of Imperial interrogators. *So long as Artorius is spared*. Lucilla would once have sheared herself with guilt at the priority of her affections, before her husband and even her son, but she’s done with self-castigation, with deception, to herself most of all. Her father’s values of justice and moderation were her guiding beacons through her life, but it was the value of truth, to oneself, above all else that Marcus Aurelius instilled most deeply into her heart. Artorius Castus, his love, had been a treasure, a precious gift belonging to her alone. The truth was, What judgements history would later lie upon her sarcophagus, where her ashes would rest in eternal darkness, no longer caused her worry. And she knew all of them, the infamous women with whom she would be staged with posterity, from Cleopatra to Livia, Agrippina to [Vestal murdered by Domition], they were strung upon the wrack of condemnation, torn apart by ambition, led astray by lust, covetous for power, and over-reaching in their grab at immortality, at glory. Lucilla wondered when people of later generations read the story of her downfall, if anyone would read between the lines imparted by the chroniclers. If they would understand the higher purpose she had been trying to serve in her father’s memory, the honor, however miscast as the sort of nobility peculiar to women, which had been the true motive behind her attempt to oust her brother from power. Or perhaps, that was her own deception, and she truly had hungered to rule, bc she ought to have been appointed Augusta in her own right. It no longer mattered. It was now, only the moments she had shared with Artorius, worshipping each other with their bodies, as the shared the hearts and souls. That was the treasure, the gift that was hers alone, and would never be taken from her so long as she met her death, knowing in those minutes, he would still see the sunrise on this side of life the day after. He would still exist in the world, and so would she, carried in his heart, the memory and hope of their stolen seasons beneath that same sun. She lets Claudius lead her toward the arched entry of the banquet hall, sensing the rustling of dispersed guests arrayed on the floor, raising heads, trying to catches glimpse, hear a line, take the measure of the events which so rapidly unraveled, all of them still under the watchful attention of the Praetorians. She pauses, and Claudius makes no objection to her turning, her gaze searching out Artorius’s one last desperate, stolen glimpse of the happiness she had almost won, and slipped from her grasp like the salvage rope from a drowning man’s fingers. “Remember me,” she calls. His eyes hold the cast of stormy seas, anguished. “Always,” is all he can manage. She sees the rebellion, the need to fight, leap to her defense taut in his powerful form, the way his throat works, his anger at his own helplessness, the injustice at her arrest. The guards with their spears trained on him are aware of his coiled anger as well, the leader of the three leveling/weighing him with a warning look, a repositioning of his spear, indicating any wrong move and Artorius was a doomed man. The bronze band around her finger seems to pulse, grow warm, and contract, causing her skin, the bone beneath to burn like she was scalded by hot oil. Perhaps it was true, the insistence of the poets and musicians, that some magical chain ran from the ring finger to the heart, where all life in its pain was a measure of an organ beating away the time until there was no longer the despair or ecstasy of joy, sorrow, hate, loss, and most of all love. Until there was only peace, stillness, silence, and the memory of a life once lived.

It’s in that moment, when she registers Commudus’s motion to his guard, the leader of the trio who still pen/corral Artorius with their spears, and the troops fall upon him. Artorius, surprised by the first blow to his gut, doubles over, the wind knocked from his lungs an audible grunt, wheezing/gasping to breathe even as he makes to spring at his attacker, catching the man’s hand, gripping his spear, shoving it aside before the guard can react, and pummeling his fist straight into the man’s nose, bone and cartilage crunching like a rotten egg, a wet, sickening spray of blood that sends the guard tipping back, letting out a gurgle of choking, red-stained phlegm and tissue. One of the remaining guards imposes himself between Artorius and the emperor. His companion blusters his shield out in front of him , as Artorius wheels to meet them, the spear in his hand. Fellow troops cross the room, leaping into the foray/scuffle/melee. He attempts a valiant rally. The collective battering of spear butts into stomach and back, dull thud of booted feet into knees and groin, and finally a sword hilt to his temple, which downs him at last, occurs in the dead silence holding the guests in an entranced spell of horror, broken only by Lucilla’s screams, bringing her to her knees, even as her husband tries to keep her from toppling to the floor with the agony that seizes the strength from her limbs. The ring blazes against her finger, scalding, and she knows what it is for her heart weep in an explosion of grief, shuddering against Claudius, her pleas to her brother broken by her sobs, Commodus watches/scans the entire scene like a god over his enamored worshippers, in the midst of his black-armored troops, his fine-boned face, like a cherubs in its pleasure, resplendent in his triumph, glowing, his skin smooth as a boy’s over his sharp cheeks, the radiance matched by/accented by his the halo of cropped, golden curls, thick about his head.

#Roughing it #rough draft #Arthuriana #Lucius Artorius Castus #sorry for the length #will insert 'read more' divide later #can't do it from mobile post

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