#moira's face lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

froggibus · 10 months

Text

Vermillion Flames - Blackwatch! Genji

Pairing: Blackwatch! Genji Shimada x f! Reader (reader uses female pronouns + has a pussy)

Genre: angst, smut/NSFW

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: Genji is the newest addition to Blackwatch, and while he seems to be angry at everything, his anger seems to be clouded over by something else—his feelings for you

CW: dubcon, dark! Genji, Blackwatch! Genji, dom! Genji, sub! reader, dacryphilia, masturbation, marking, choking, possessiveness, unprotected sex, multiple creampies, overstimulation, breeding? kinda, violence, reader gets shot, mutual pining, Genji is a lil obsessive

THIS IS NOT THE HAPPY, WELL-ADJUSTED GENJI WE KNOW AND LOVE. THIS IS A DARKER, BLACKWATCH GENJI WHO IS STILL COPING WITH HIS THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AFTER THE INCIDENT.

I’ve had this idea for a really long time and at one point was writing a full length fic about this, but I always lose motivation so here is the bite sized version lol. I kinda tried to keep his character here while also playing to the darker elements, especially his feelings towards himself and others after the accident. also I’m just super down bad for dark! Genji so enjoy <3

————

If there’s anything you’ve come to learn in your time as a Blackwatch agent, it’s how to know when you’re being watched.

Despite stepping off of the jet into the cold Russian air, you feel the warm sting of eyes on your back. You glance over your shoulder—but the only people around are your teammates.

Cole Cassidy isn’t even looking your way, his focus is on the holster attached to his belt and the Peacekeeper that sits inside of it.

Gabriel Reyes has his holopad out, eyes narrowed at the schematics on his screen. He doesn’t seem aware of what’s going on around him, but you know Reyes—he’s always watching.

Moira O’Deorain hasn’t even stepped off of the jet yet. Your best guess is she’s still gathering all of her equipment into a bag that she’ll force Cassidy to carry later on.

So that leaves Genji. The mysterious cyborg is the newest addition to your team and he’s kept to himself the past few weeks. You’d be lying if you said he hadn’t caught your eye, but you knew better. Reyes and Cassidy had constantly reminded you that he was dangerous, unstable. Still, the dangerous air to him sends electricity arcing up your back.

You shrug it off. Maybe you’re just paranoid because you’re about to infiltrate a terrorist organization. You turn back to the terrain ahead.

Genji Shimada can’t seem to tear his eyes off of you. Something about the sway of your hips, the swell of your ass, just captivates him. Dark eyes stare at you, shockwaves rushing through his system.

It’s been so long since a woman has been able to capture his attention. Ever since he became the cyborg monstrosity he sees himself as, he hasn’t had time for women. Or more accurately, women don’t want a robot for a boyfriend.

He suppresses a sigh. The group has already started trekking through the snow, and he has no choice but to follow. The cold air does wonders to suppress the heat rushing through him, and he’s grateful for his mask so that no one sees the red tinge to his face. He forces his eyes to look at the horizon, to look at the path ahead, to look anywhere but you.

The trek to the facility feels like an eternity, and you’re not sure if it’s from the eyes burning into you or the deep snow, or some combination of both.

You shake it off. You can’t afford to be distracted on this mission, and Genji is off limits.

—

Genji is less than enthused when Reyes pairs him off with you. He couldn’t help but notice the way you shrunk in on yourself when Reyes called his name. He hates how the sight sends blood rushing through him.

The two of you set out on sneaking through the vents of the facility, blindly feeling your way through the dark in hopes to find the lab. You can hear Genji breathing behind you and see the red glow of his armor reflected on the vents. Having him behind you now, nowhere to stare but you, only confirms what you thought earlier. He was looking at you. You’re not sure how to feel about that.

You’re so distracted by his presence that you don’t realize the loose grate beneath you until you’re falling through it, tumbling towards the ground. You barely manage to brace yourself before you hit the rubber floor of the facility, using your momentum to roll.

Unfortunately, your entrance was less than graceful and now the Talon agents in the room are staring at you.

Genji groans, shaking his head at you. Great. He watches as one of the agents hits the panic button, and red lights and an alarm start blaring. He watches from the vent, waiting to see what you’ll do.

The agents in the room flee, but they’re replaced by other agents in full body armor, carrying pulse rifles. You stand your ground, extending out your bo staff and spinning it in front of you with expert grace.

If he wasn’t so pissed off at you, Genji would be impressed.

He lets you fight off the first wave on your own, but as soon as the agents start to overwhelm you, he’s dropping out of the vent. He lands silently, the agents not even noticing him until he’s slicing through their ranks.

You finish off the last of your agents and freeze, watching him fight. He’s a blur of silver and black and red, a gory mess but beautiful in the same sense a graveyard is. Watching him now, you see why Cass and Reyes had warned you about him—you can almost see the ghosts of his past following him through the fight.

You’re so distracted, so infatuated, you don’t notice the stray bullet headed straight for you.

Genji reacts before you do, diving in front of you and deflecting it into the straggling agent. The agent collapses to the ground, a hole burning in his chest armor.

“T-thank you.”

Genji spins around, staring down at you. He’s not very tall, but he just seems so much bigger than you right now. You wait for him to say something, anything, but instead he just sighs.

The two of you make your way through the facility as quietly as you can, blending into the shadows casted by the blinking red lights. Every once in a while, Genji grabs your wrist harshly to tug you along with him. You don’t need words to know he’s pissed at you.

He’s so mad at you, so frustrated with your inability to focus. And yet a stupid part of him still wants to protect you.

The journey back to the jet feels like an eternity, made worse by Genji’s complete and utter silence. You try to make conversation with him, avoiding bringing up what just happened, but it only seems to make him more angry. He walks slightly ahead of you, refusing to let himself look at you.

The emotions swelling in his chest are so confusing, he just wants to hit something. He’s so angry at you, and your stupid sunshine persona just keeps talking and talking. He’s half tempted to tell you to shut up, stop talking, but he knows he has to keep it together until you’re back to safety. And though he’s angry, another part of him isn’t.

It’s the first time in months he’s felt something that wasn’t riddled in angst and guilt, and he hates it. He hates that he wants to just look at you. Just stare at you for hours on end. He hates the way you make his heart race and the blood rush to his groin.

Just before you make it to the jet, a few meters from where the ramp is down and you’re sure Reyes and Cass and Moira are waiting, you try to catch up with Genji.

You jog up to his side, trying to grab his shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, I’m really sorry for—”

Genji spins around impossibly fast, catching your wrist in his metal palm. He squeezes it enough for it to hurt. You try to pull away but he keeps you there—a display of his strength, and the difference between the two of you. You hate the way it makes your heart speed up in spite of the pain.

“Don’t.” He simply says, but he doesn’t let go of your wrist.

His tone catches you by surprise. You’ve barely ever talked to him, and now he sounds so angry with you, it makes you shiver.

You glare at him, waiting for him to say something else. He glares back, red eyes narrowing in on you. When your eyes meet, there’s that electricity again. You wonder if he feels it too.

Then, as if nothing happened, he drops your wrist and boards the plane. You catch your aching wrist, rubbing at the sore skin, before following him onto the jet.

—

You’re pulled into Morrison’s office almost as soon as you land back at HQ. Reyes follows you in, ready to both berate and defend you in front of his closest comrade. You stand the whole time, fingers fiddling with the foam head of the chair next to Reyes.

You zone out while Jack yells, staring at the wall above his head, waiting for it to be over. Everything he’s saying is true—you were reckless, distracted, stupid. You could have gotten everybody killed, one more mistake like this and there won’t be a place for you within Blackwatch anymore.

Genji listens from the other side of the door. He tried to stop himself, but the look on your face when Reyes started to guide you down the hall changed his mind. You looked so scared. He wasn’t going to let you face that alone.

Everytime Jack raises his voice, Genji’s hand clenches the door handle, ready to burst into the room. Yet he doesn’t, because everytime, you just say ‘yes sir’ in that cute obedient voice that’s driving him crazy.

At a particularly loud burst, he’s turning the handle when he hears the loud clicking of boots behind him.

“Don’t,” Cassidy warns, “it ain’t worth it.”

He spins around, squinting at the cowboy. They’ve barely interacted, but when they have, it’s been brief.

“Y/n made the mistake, y/n’s gotta pay for it. Simple.”

Genji takes a deep breath. He knows he’s right, it’s none of Genji’s business. But something about being told to leave you alone, let you face this alone, makes him so angry. He can feel the blood rush to his ears.

“I don’t know if I like you muckin’ about in their business, anyway.” He raises an eyebrow at the cyborg, “y/n’s a good person.”

Though he doesn’t say it, the implication is loud and clear. You’re a good person, he’s not. Still, being told to stay away from you only makes him want to be with you more. He hates it.

“Just,” the cowboy sighs, taking back his earlier judgment. “Don’t do anything stupid.” He turns on his heel and walks down the hallway, spurs clicking the whole way.

They’ve been talking for so long that the meeting is almost over, and Genji only has a few seconds to dash down the hall before the door is swinging open.

You tug on your hair in frustration, forcing yourself to keep your feelings in until you get to your room. You scream as soon as your door closes behind you, kicking a pile of clothes in frustration.

You pull off your suit, toss it with the clothes, and collapse in a heap on your bed. You fucked up so bad, you really, really fucked up. And it’s all because of that stupid fucking cyborg and his stupid fucking attitude.

You lay there in your underwear for god knows how long, sobbing out your frustrations for the day.

Genji sits in his bed on the other side of the wall. He can hear you, and a part of him wants to comfort you. But another, darker part of him just wants to see you cry. He shakes his head—when did he get so fucked up?

Still, he can’t help but seethe. He’s the only one who should be making you cry like this, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be from him yelling at you. God.

He tugs off his visor and slams it on his nightstand. He doesn’t even know how to deal with his feelings anymore. It’s been so long since he’s felt anything but this burning anger, and the combination of these emotions are driving him crazy. You’re driving him crazy.

It’s like his attraction has dialed up to 11, and he doesn’t know how to cope.

He can still hear your sobs from the other side of the wall, and he hates the way it makes his cock swell. It hurts—straining against the metal plate of his armor.

He groans, part pain, part pleasure. He hates his body, he hates his stupid robot parts. And the fact that he can’t even get a hard on anymore without it hurting makes him hate everything even more.

He strips out of his armor, peeling away the metal parts that he can, despising the ones he can’t. Still, he’s happy that his cock is free, the fresh air feeling amazing on his sensitive head.

He spits in his hand, spreading out the moisture on the shaft of his cock. He focuses on the sound of your crying through the walls, shutting his eyes and rubbing himself while he listens to it. You sound so pretty, so weak. He loves it.

He only wishes he was in there with you.

He speeds up his movements, thrusting into his hand. He can picture it so well—him pinning you to the bed, fucking you until you cry like that. Listening to you beg and whine and sob all night.

He’s finishing in his hand before he can finish the fantasy, wiping off the cum with a tissue and tossing it in the trash.

He lays back in bed. What the fuck is wrong with me? He was never like this before, never into stuff like this before. And he knows a part of him will never be the same since the accident, but he didn’t know it would be like this.

He wants to protect you. He wants to avoid you. He wants to fuck you, he wants to make you cry. He wants to make you feel better, he wants to take care of you. It makes his head spin. He’s never been obsessed like this before.

He shakes his head. He needs to stay away from you before this gets any worse.

—

Genji avoids you like the plague after that. He always chooses to spar with Cass during training, he refuses to be your partner on missions, and when he is, he just ignores you the whole time.

You’re not even sure what you did wrong. You know there was that weird, tense moment after you messed up that mission, but you didn’t think that was reason enough to hate you. The whole enigma of him makes your head spin, but it’s so alluring that you couldn’t hate him even if you wanted to.

Sometimes you catch him staring at you, red eyes examining you like prey, but as soon as you notice it, it’s done. You’re not one to talk though—sometimes you catch yourself zoning out on him, watching his arms as he trains, watching his sweaty black hair falling in his face.

The tension between you two is suffocating.

So of course Reyes has to assign him to be your partner on an undercover mission in London.

The mission starts off normal, but so did all of the other ones. Genji keeps a close eye on you, ready to make sure you don’t get distracted and fuck up again. Still, he’s the one that’s distracted. Ever since that day in his room when he got off on hearing you cry, his feelings towards you have only grown.

He shakes his head and forces himself to focus. He can’t afford to get distracted here—not when either one of you could get hurt in the process.

The rooftops of London are completely empty, and so are the streets, surprisingly. The two of you creep around, trying to make your way to the stakeout point so you can observe a secret meetup. The air smells of petrichor, the sky threatening to open up and pour down on you. You wouldn’t complain if it did. You need something to cool you off from the thoughts you’ve been having about Genji.

You make it to the designated spot, setting up your stuff. You radio to Reyes that you’ve arrived at the vantage point and he radios back that the deal should be happening at any minute.

Any minute, which is code for anytime in the next hour. You hope it’s sooner rather than later so you don’t have to deal with this awkward silence. You fiddle with your fingers, tapping them on your knees.

Genji watches you closely. He watches the way you mess around with your fingers, watches your chest with every breath you take. That costume fits you perfectly, and he hates the idea that other people get to see you like this.

The meeting happens only a few minutes after you arrive, a tall omnic dressed in a suit emerging from the shadows to deal with a scraggly looking man. Genji observes them closely while you take pictures, capturing everything they do.

Something seems wrong, though. They’re not exchanging goods like the intel said they would be. In fact, it doesn’t seem like a secret meeting at all. Genji realizes it’s a trap a second too late, only managing to shove you down as a bullet rips across the landscape.

It grazes your shoulder, a burning pain spreading through your body. You collapse to the ground with a whine, Genji landing on top of you. He presses his hand to your mouth to keep you quiet.

You’re in so much pain—you’re not sure you’ve ever felt this way before. It burns and it aches and it feels as though you’ve been ripped apart. Genji presses down on the wound and a scream leaves your throat just as another bullet rips through the air.

It just barely misses the top of Genji’s head.

“Stay here,” he breathes heavily, suddenly pouncing to his feet.

That’s the most he’s spoken to you in weeks, and it’s the first thing you’ve heard him say without that tone behind it. You watch as he stands up and draws his sword, challenging the sniper to shoot again.

They do, and Genji is ready. He deflects it back perfectly, the clang of metal on metal replacing the sound of the shot. There’s a yelp from far away, and satisfied that he’s got them, Genji returns to your side.

Only, you’ve lost so much blood that you’re barely coherent. “Fuck!” He taps your face, willing you to stay with him, but you drift off.

—

You wake up in a hotel room, body aching in the clean linen sheets. Your shoulder burns, and then you remember what happened. You sit up quickly, tugging off your shirt to examine the wound. It’s been cleaned and bandaged, under a huge patch of blood stained gauze.

You sigh in relief. You’re not dead—but you would be if it weren’t for Genji.

The hotel room is fairly clean, aside from your bloody uniform that’s laying on the ground next to the bed. You blink a few times. You were on a mission—where did you get a spare change of clothes? Did Genji go shopping?

As if on cue, Genji speaks from where he’s sitting near the closed curtains. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got shot,” you admit.

He nods, clearly not in a joking mood. “They won’t be able to extract us until tomorrow morning. Reyes set up this room for us and sent the extra clothes.”

That makes sense. There’s no way they’d be able to get you two out of the streets without drawing attention, especially after shots were fired.

You rub the seam of the gauze, trailing over the wound subconsciously.

“We should change that.”

You follow him into the bathroom, awkwardly sitting on the counter while he pulls out a grocery bag of first aid supplies. You pull off your shirt, embarrassed at the prospect of him seeing you half naked. At least you were unconscious and didn’t have to deal with the humiliation last time.

You don’t miss the way Genji’s eyes graze over your skin, tracing the outline of your collarbone. It makes you heat up, thoughts of him kissing you there flooding your mind. You shake them away—he’s just helping you out. It’s wrong to think of him this way.

He peels off the old gauze covering, discarding it in the trash, before dabbing alcohol across the wound.

You watch him work, fingers knowing what to do without him even thinking about it. He traces the outline of the gauze after he places it on your skin, cold metal fingers settling the hotter parts of you.

You shiver under his touch, looking up at him. Genji looks back, dark eyes meeting your softer ones. You offer him a gentle grin.

His hand moves from your shoulder to your hip, squeezing it. He finds himself leaning in, and you find yourself getting closer. And then just before your lips touch, he pulls away like he’s been burned.

“G-Genji?”

He shakes his head, storming out of the bathroom. You follow after him, not even bothering to tug your shirt back on.

“Don’t come near me!”

You furrow your brows at his words. “What? What’s going on? Did I do something wrong? You’ve been avoiding me for weeks!”

He tugs on his hair, repeatedly shaking his head at you. You can see the way his muscles are tensing, see the way he’s trying to show restraint. But why?

“Genji,” you step closer to him cautiously, like you’re approaching a wild animal. “What is it?”

He keeps shaking his head, eyes focused on the floor, ignoring you completely. You take another step, only inches from him now.

“Genji.”

“I’m a fucking monster, okay?” His outburst makes you flinch but you hold your ground. “I’m not even human anymore, and I have all these sick fucking thoughts about what I want to do to you and—you should just stay away from me, okay?”

“What kind of sick thoughts?”

“You don’t want to know,” his eyes finally meet yours.

You step an inch closer, standing on your toes so that your mouth hovers near his. “I think I do.”

“Y/n,” he warns.

You ignore the warning. You ignore all of the red flags. You ignore the voice in your head that says maybe this isn’t the best idea. You jump into his arms, smashing your lips against his and wrapping your legs around his waist.

He turns you around to slam you into the wall, being careful to avoid reopening your wound. He’s so hungry for you, so desperate. His lips nip at yours like a man starved, all he wants, all he needs right now is to have you.

He carries you over to the bed, tossing you into it before climbing on top of you and ripping off your pants. You’re left naked, shivering in anticipation at what he’s going to do to you.

You don’t know how deep his cybernetic parts run, you hardly know anything about him, but he’s all you want. You tug him to you by his hair, making him kiss you again. One of his metal thighs slips between your legs, giving you something to grind your wet pussy against while you make out.

His lips move down to your neck, biting at the sensitive skin. Moans force their way out of your throat, the sting of his teeth breaking the skin making your eyes water.

Genji pulls back, looking at your teary eyes. The thought of finally having you like this, so vulnerable underneath him, is enough to make him feral.

His hand is slipping between your legs, shoving two fingers inside of you with ease. Your wet pussy gushes around him, begging him for more. You whine at his roughness—but it’s so fucking good.

He shoves them in and out of you, curling them inside of you in a way that makes your eyes roll back. His mouth finds its way to your tits, biting your nipple hard enough to make you gasp. The sound has his cock swelling even more, straining against the metal.

He slips a third finger in you, stretching you out in such a delicious, amazing way. You moan his name, trying to let him know you’re getting close, but Genji is too drunk on the feeling of you to listen.

He keeps attacking your chest with his mouth, leaving bruises and bite marks across your skin. It’s his way of marking his territory, of showing everyone who you belong to.

He’s wanted this for so long, and he’s going to enjoy every fucking second of claiming you.

You cum hard on his fingers, and Genji stops just to watch how pretty you look when you cum. He pulls his fingers out of you, sucking off the juices and moaning at the taste.

The sight of him is enough to make you horny again, and suddenly you’re thrusting your hips in the air, desperate for any sort of contact.

“So desperate,” he teases.

“I-I—”

He mocks you, popping off the metal plate from his crotch and stroking his cock. He rubs his head through your folds, collecting up your slick on his shaft. You’re already ready for him, your first orgasm prepping you more than enough.

He pushes his whole cock in, your walls straining to take him. He can’t quite get his whole length inside of you, so he pulls out and shoves it in again. He watches as he sinks in and out of you, the last two inches of his cock staying outside of the wetness he longs to be in.

He’s bigger than you’re used to, and your pussy is already so sensitive. That doesn’t stop Genji, though. He keeps slamming his hips into yours, trying to force his cock inside of you. You whimper with every thrust, almost screaming when he hits that spot deep inside of you.

Genji rolls his hips into yours, thrusting hard and deep. He grabs at your neck, strong hand gently squeezing. You gasp at the sudden feeling and the lack of oxygen, but the burning in your throat feels so good you don’t want him to stop. Everything starts to get fuzzy, and the feeling of Genji railing you starts to feel even better.

You don’t even realize you’re cumming until he releases his grip on your throat and lets you breathe. The blood rushes to your ears. Your eyes have teared up from the choking, a few tears rolling down your cheeks. You go to wipe them away, but Genji pins your wrists above your head.

The sight of you lying beneath him, whimpering and crying like he imagined has him going crazy. He keeps bullying his cock into your swollen pussy, thrusts getting sloppier by the second until he fully bottoms out and pumps his cum inside of you.

“G-Genji,” you breathe. “Did—did you just—”

Genji’s too drunk on your pussy to listen, fucking his cum back inside of you. The hot mixture of his cum and your juices being fucked inside of you has you curling your toes.

His pace is brutal, his mind only set on fucking you full and keeping you stuffed. He pushes your legs up into your stomach, fucking you into a mating press.

Your vision blurs from the tears, your nerves overloading from the overstimulation and making you shiver. Genji fucks you through it, pounding into you, sure to get his entire length in every time. It’s not long before you’re cumming again, your body convulsing with your orgasm. Your thighs shake uncontrollably, but Genji holds them in place while he finishes fucking you.

He reaches up to wipe the tears from your face, the sight of you sobbing only making him fuck you harder. God, he’s wanted this for so long and he’ll do anything to keep it. Anything as long as he gets to keep fucking you like this.

“G-gonna finish inside of you,” he groans. “Gonna stuff you full. Y-you like that?”

You nod furiously, but you’re so fucked out that he could do anything to you at this point and you wouldn’t care. Genji cums with a string of moans and curses, cock twitching inside of you.

He doesn’t pull out, instead, he lays on his side and tugs you so your back is pressed against his chest. He keeps his cock inside of you, holding his cum inside.

It’s not long before you’re falling asleep, Genji’s fingers tracing patterns on your stomach. For the first time in a long time, he feels like the anger and the darkness within him are sated, and for now, that’s more than enough.

675 notes · View notes

twola · 10 months

Note

Hey don't know if this one is up your alley but I was wondering if you could do one where the reader is a sharpshooter (kinda like Black Belle) and Arthur was originally gonna take her to the sheriff's but they end up getting caught up in a fight with the O'Driscolls and she saves his life, then que the enemies to friends to lovers lmao

Later on they meet again and take down a house full of lemoyne raiders, they both lay low for a while then smut ensues lol.

I'm bad at describing but you can put your own twist on it if you want, make it however long you want, don't matter I just love your writing ❤️❤️

Hoooooo’kay. So this is probably a bit harder than the original requestor was thinking, but I’ve written too many sweet one-shots recently. It’s time to get a little nasty.

Anything You Can Do

Arthur Morgan x Fem!Reader Smut (18+), MDNI

➵ Fic Masterlist ➵ AO3 Link

Arthur meets his match in one of his bounties. His infuriatingly difficult match.

taglist: @pinkiemme, @redwritr, @mykneeshurt, @bimbo-dollz

Curtis Malloy rolls his eyes as the gunslinger ahead of him inquires about the bounty poster tucked on the far corner of his desk. Of course, the man would ask about that one. A picture of a woman, of all things, wanted for murder, robbery, and theft. A woman with hard eyes but a pleasing face.

Wasn’t the first one to come askin’. The sheriff took the damn poster off the wall after men started dying when they went after her. He’d hear talk of fool-hearted bounty hunters heading north into Ambarino to find this lady to bring her in, only to end with lead between their eyes, floating down the Dakota River.

But this man, well, he’s been rather successful as of late - and Malloy knew that he probably ran in the same vein of people he was picking up. No loyalty to the trade, he guesses. And in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t any skin off of his nose. Would get the man out of his hair and stop begging for more folks to hunt. Give him more time to deal with this Moira situation…

“Supposed to be up campin’ by Window Rock. But she likely has the area booby-trapped. Startin’ to lose count of the men who’ve gone up there to get killed tryin’ to take in this little lady.” Malloy warns as he hands the poster to the man ahead of him. The man grunts, tucking away the poster in his brown leather jacket, nodding before exiting out to the street.

Malloy gives a look to one of his deputies across the room.

Both begin to laugh.

Arthur’s seen his fair share of women easily fend for themselves. He saw the way Black Belle could shoot - likely better than he could. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to meet Mrs. Adler in a dark alley. She’d likely stab him before he could get a hand on her.

This woman supposedly had a deadly shot - a pile of bounty hunters at her feet. He knew he wasn’t going to just walk up to the tent and threaten you. This required a bit more finesse.

But still, as he gazed through his binoculars at his prize, you certainly didn’t look like the woman people were talking about in Valentine. Fairly short in stature, long dark hair falling in waves over your back. Arthur raises an eyebrow when he notices your curves as you kneel on one knee at your campfire.

Nope, he definitely does not miss the way those trousers hug your form.

He also does not miss the revolver in the belt slung around your hips as you rise from the fire, stretching your arms above your head and yawning. He does not miss the fishing line taut along the ground, tied to a rock precariously perched on a tree branch. Obviously placed there to alert you of intruders. Several fellers likely met their end due to that fishing line.

Arthur circles the campsite at a wide angle, hidden by the shadows of the night. He takes his time hunting his prey, taking in the lay of the land around, noting your movements, and ways of egress - like stalking a deer, he has you in his sights and is damn sure of it before he makes his move.

That move being edging dangerously close, revolver drawn, and diving at you once you’re in distance to reach. Your breath is knocked from your lungs as his large form lands atop you on the hard ground, caging in your limbs beneath him. You squawk, in a rather undignified manner, as he holsters his own revolver and reaches into yours to draw it out, disarming you and tossing your revolver several feet away.

“Get your damn hands off me.” You spit, but alas, the way he has you pinned down, you’re unable to fight back. The strength of this man was frightening. If it weren’t for the damn noose you know is waiting for you at the end of this, you would be excited by how strong he is. He quickly and easily hogties you, leaving you cursing and sputtering on the ground as he whistles for his horse.

Once his mare has sidled up, he heaves you over his shoulder like a damn sack of potatoes, and you yelp in indignation as he tosses you over the rump of his horse.

A sack of potatoes with a very nice ass in those trousers.

Arthur blinks briefly before shaking his head, pulling himself up into the saddle. Just to cut back through Cumberland and to Valentine, then he’d get the pretty penny on this woman’s head. One of the larger bounties he’s seen, he has to admit.

“You lousy sack of shit, I wasn’t bothering anyone!” You yell from the rump of the horse.

“Ain’t me who decides your bounty, Miss-” Arthur simply replies, urging the mare into a trot, before you cut him off with a hiss.

“Say another word and I’ll geld you.” You interrupt before he can say your name.

“Sure, lady.” Arthur chuckles, knowing you wouldn’t be gelding anyone hogtied on the back of his horse, crossing the Dakota near Fort Wallace.

Blessed silence. For what seems like only a few moments.

“Since you know me so well, who the hell are you?” You ask, raising your head a bit.

“Now why would I tell you that?” Arthur chuckles, urging his horse southward on the road, deep into Cumberland Forest.

“I’d like to at least know the man’s name before I get fucked.” You retort, an even more sour tone in your voice.

“Arthur Morgan, my lady.” He replies, egging you on with the honorific, knowing you ain’t anything close to that, especially with the mouth on you. He’s about to stay something to prod you further when he hears voices up the road in the distance.

“Shit.” Arthur curses, as four green-sashed men crash through the trees. He immediately circles the horse to change direction as he hears a rider approaching on horseback, yelling at him.

Of course, O’Driscolls had taken up again at Six Point. Morgan, you idiot, you’re waltzing straight past them.

“Let me go and I can help you.” You call from behind him, trying to duck from whizzing bullets as much as your bindings would allow.

“Yeah, so you can shoot me in the back of the head too? Not a chance, lady.” Arthur retorts as he spurs his mare into a gallop, and you grunt as the wind gets knocked out of you from the jolting.

The O’Driscolls are in hot pursuit, the rider is joined by three others as Arthur pushes his horse back toward the Dakota, but with you slung over the back of her rump, he’s not able to urge his horse faster, not if he was going to get this bounty. Needed you alive.

He curses aloud as a bullet whizzes by his head on the right, and he turns the horse to the left, which was a poor decision as the mare reaches the cliffsides jutting up on either side of the Dakota, the river far below.

Pinned down along the face of the cliff, Arthur senses his horse getting skittish. Any more of this and the mare is going to buck him, and the bounty. He curses again as a bullet nearly hits his hat, sliding off the saddle and dragging you to the ground. You squeak with indignation until you hit the ground, groaning and cursing him. But to your surprise, he is unsheathing his knife and cutting the ropes at your ankle and wrists. You immediately scramble up and turn to him, smacking him hard across the face.

“Serves you right, asshole.”

“Y’done now, lady?” Arthur fumes, working his jaw as he reaches over your shoulder to grab the long guns from his horse’s saddles, before the damn thing spooks and runs away.

“If you wanna go with them, be my guest, but O’Driscolls don’t have a particularly good reputation of their handlin’ of women.” Arthur sneers at you, shoving a repeater at your chest, glaring before another bullet whizzes by and the both of you hit the ground out of sheer reflex.

You immediately open and close the lever to chamber a round, gritting your teeth. “This thing full at least?”

“Yes, your majesty.” Arthur retorts as he pulls revolvers from his belt, dual wielding as his mare screams and bolts for cover.

By the time the two of you rise, bullets fly and hit their targets, one O’Driscoll falling off his horse in a spray of blood to his chest, another gets shot in the head and his body limply clings in the saddle. Arthur runs across the open glen, knowing he’s a sitting duck in the wide open, and you dart in the other direction to the other treeline, quickly disappearing from sight.

Goddamnit. Of course you ran. Morgan, you’re even more of an idiot.

Arthur is fuming to himself so much so that he doesn’t hear the clicking of the revolver’s safety until too late, the steel of a barrel being pressed against the back of his neck.

“Drop 'em’.” The O’Driscoll threatens, and Arthur drops the revolvers in his hands, clattering to the ground as his captor pushes him forward, winding an arm around his shoulder and pressing the revolver further into his neck. They stop in the middle of the clearing.

“Think ol’ Colm misses ya, Morgan.”

Arthur scowls at the ground with the warm barrel of the gun against his neck, probably burning his skin. The O’Driscoll laughs behind him.

“You stop right there, you mick bastard.”

Your voice, high and sharp, cuts through the mountain air like a knife.

The O’Driscoll spins himself and Arthur around, forcing Arthur ahead of him to shield most of his body.

“C’mon now, you go on and leave the shootin’ to the men, dearie. I’ll even give you a head start.” The O’Driscoll laughs as you point the repeater dead at his face, twenty feet away.

You don’t move, and the O’Driscoll frowns, shoving his pistol into Arthur’s neck harder.

“Put the gun down, lady. Or Morgan gets the next round.”

Your stance never wavers. A small smirk comes across your face.

“Doin’ me a favor then?”

The O’Driscoll raises his eyebrow, but in a flash, it is all over. The crack of the repeater echoes in the glen as a body hits the ground. Arthur’s hat rolls on its lid across the ground.

“Jesus Christ!” Arthur stumbles ahead, holding his ear, absolutely covered in blood and brain matter. His eyes flit behind him, to take in the O’Driscoll, dead on the ground, half his face caved in from the bullet that hit him between the eyes.

He looks up to you in shock and bewilderment. You slowly lower the repeater and open and close the lever, chambering another round. Completely unfazed.

“I got one more round in here, Mister Morgan. I’d like very much not to use it on you.” You state with an air of superiority, dead serious as you grip the repeater tightly.

Arthur slowly raises his hands, his guns still strewn across the ground feet away after his tussle with the now-dead O’Driscoll.

“Now listen to me. I’m gonna take one of these horses and be on my way. And you ain’t gonna follow me. You’re gonna forget that bounty and get on with the next sucker you chase down.” You say, with an even, deadly tone.

“Don’t you usually shoot them men comin’ after you?” Arthur asks, his hands still outstretched.

“I do. But usually the men comin’ after me ain’t as handsome as you are. Would be a shame to blow your brains out.” You say with a smirk, starting to back away, toward where the O’Driscoll’s horse grazes in the long grass.

Arthur’s cheeks tinge pink as he remains still, but lowers his hands.

“I’m sure I’ll see you again, Mister Morgan. Maybe you can make up for me savin’ your pretty hide.”

You give an exaggerated curtsy before climbing into the saddle of the horse, the repeater still ready to fire. You grab the reins tightly and circle the horse once before galloping off, leaving Arthur Morgan standing alone in the clearing, saved but for the dead O’Driscoll.

Lemoyne was too damn hot. Sweltering. Disgusting. Even as the dusk fell. Even outside of the damn swamp, Arthur hated it. The gang had moved south after that shootout with Cornwall in Valentine. Bad business all around. Now, Dutch and Hosea have been working both angles of the local yokel families, locked in some kind of bitter generational feud.

Arthur just needed to clear his head. Dutch had him working as a lawman, of all the ridiculous things. He’s taken this free moment to do his own work, having been tipped off on a Lemoyne Raiders safe house not far from Ringneck Creek, supposed to be just a few of these idiots and a cache of items they have stored from their roadside robberies throughout the state.

Ripe for the taking.

The old barn house stood on the rise, and he could tell, as he swung down from his mare just beyond the treeline. He smacks her rump and she’s off, back down toward the Kamassa. He lets the rifle strapped across his shoulders down, aiming through its sights at the movement of men in the distance.

“Well well, if it isn’t the fastest draw in the west.” A sharp voice cuts through the quiet.

Arthur swings his rifle at the interloper that appeared several feet away from him, cursing himself for not being aware of his surroundings.

Oh. It’s you.

God damnit.

“The hell are you doing here?” Arthur harshly whispers, lowering the rifle.

You nod your head toward the barn behind him, “I was going in on a tip I got that the yokels had things stashed here.”

Arthur frowns. “Don’t tell me you got that from Alden.”

“The ticket man, in Rhodes.”

“God damnit.” He rolls his eyes. He scowls at you, standing there with your hand on your hip. Looking positively infuriating in dark trousers and a fairly tight-fitting button-down. Highlighting your curves, while your dark hair is pulled back into a long braid.

Focus, damnit. Arthur chides himself as he turns back toward the barn, looking again through the scope of this rifle at the men mulling about.

“Tell you what, Mister Morgan. You could use another gun. I could use wastin’ less bullets on these inbreds. Split what we find.”

Arthur has counted seven Raiders going in and out of the barn, which would be a fairly large number if he were alone. He sighs in exasperation.

“Fine.”

“Well, probably wasn’t the whole lot of them, I’m sure there are more of these wannabe civil war soldiers slinking about.” You muse, rifling through papers on a makeshift as Arthur picks a lockbox, pocketing the billfolds inside. Stepping over a dead body, you catch Arthur’s frame over that lockbox.

You notice what his hands are doing, and glare at him. “Hey - asshole, we’re splittin’ this.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, but acquiesces, tossing one of the billfolds at you. You catch it with ease.

“After that noise we should probably lay low for a bit.” You move toward the barn door, shouldering your repeater, stopping to listen outside for a moment.

“Oh, so now there’s a we?” Arthur snaps back at you as he follows you to the door.

“Be my guest if you wanna head into the swamps at this time of night. I, on the other hand, have a cabin I cleared out on the other side of Dewberry Creek.” You glance at him, pushing through the barndoor with your hand on your gun, looking around for any kind of movement. Your horse has meandered closer, and you whistle lowly for it to come closer.

You pull yourself into the saddle and look down at him.

“You coming? Or you just gonna stand there like an idiot?”

“Ain’t this homey?” Arthur retorts, looking at the rundown state of the cabin inside. A bed, with a near-disintegrating blanket, an old table, broken cabinets, and maybe one chair that didn’t look like it was about to fall apart.

“Ain’t your momma teach you manners? Lady invites you into her abode and you just insult her.” You slide the rifle from your back and place it upright against the stone fireplace.

“You’re a lady now? Coulda fooled me.” Arthur follows, placing his repeater on the table, unwilling to have you get the last word in.

You sneer at him, crossing your arms over your chest. “Last time I checked, I have two tits and a cunt - pretty sure that makes me a lady - unless you’ve encountered different.”

“Pretty sure a lady wouldn’t be speakin’ like that.” Arthur returns, glancing away from you and trying to hide the flush that he knows is burning up his cheeks - he’s trying not to look at your breasts, framed by your crossed arms. Trying not to think of your ass in those trousers, the taper of your hips, the cunt he suddenly can’t not imagine filling.

“Oh, is you a gentleman? A dashing outlaw with ladies falling in his lap from here to Armadillo?” You point at him, pressing your finger into his chest, gritting your teeth as your self-righteousness and hackles both rise.

For once, he’s silent. For once in the whole goddamn time you’ve known him, he’s given you an opening. Seize it. Take the enemy down. Merciless. Just like shootin’.

“Bet you couldn’t please a lady even if you was the one being paid.” Your voice lowers as you go in for the kill.

To his credit, Arthur resurges with sputtering indignation, pushing you several steps backward until your back slams against the cabin wall. Your eyes widen in surprise.

“Christ alive, the mouth on you. How’s about I shut you up by givin’ you somethin’ to fill it?”

With his hands clamped on your shoulders and his large frame looming over yours, it’s not fear that you feel. Not that he’s going to hurt you, or turn you in. Something more profound than that. Something that shoots to your very core.

“I’d like to see you try.” You hiss at him, and see his jaw work in frustration, “Probably can’t even make a woman come.”

His thigh immediately rams forward, parting your legs as his hands fly to your hips, lifting you several inches above the ground, you yelp as he presses up against your core.

“I’m gonna make you eat them words, missy.” He hisses as he leans into your ear.

“Not if I make you come first.” You respond breathily, your hand moving to cup at the seam of his pants, grabbing at his burgeoning cock. He grunts and shoves his thigh up higher, and you mewl as it causes you to grind against the hard bone of his femur.

“You’re askin’ fer it.” He grunts as he presses his pelvis against you, his cock hard against your belly. A zing of pleasure shoots through your core in response. He’s not lacking, in any measure. His hands briefly leave your body to pull at the buckle of his gun belt, and the belt clatters to the floor at his feet.

“Yeah,” You grab his collar two-fisted and pull him to you, “I am askin’ fer it.” You parrot back in his drawl, lips inches away from his for just a moment, before you bridge the distance and take his mouth forcefully, not letting him respond as you shove your tongue inside.

He’s not surprised, nor taken off balance, matching your fevered press into his mouth with his own, battling for supremacy as his tongue wrests with yours. You barely feel one of his hands leave your hip and start to work the buttons of your trousers, it's not until he works them open enough to shove his hand down the front of your pants that you groan in surprise into his mouth. His rough, calloused fingers weave their way downwards, under the waistband of your bloomers, and straight to your moistening core, where he slides a long, meaty finger into your cunt, making you mewl.

But you cannot let him win.

Summoning all the fight you have in you, battling against the sweet sound of his hand smacking up against wet skin, your hands shoot down to cup his burgeoning erection through his pants, and he moans as his hips move to press forward into your touch.

You grit your teeth, squeezing your eyes shut as you open his pants, breathing through your nose as he latches his mouth to the side of your neck, slipping his middle finger inside you, making you curse under your breath as you finally reach your goal. You nearly rip his pants open and fish his hard cock out, your fingers wrapping around it as you begin to pump his shaft, desperate to make him feel as helpless as he’s making you feel.

Arthur moans needily against your neck, rolling his hips, and losing his rhythm as he rocks his hand into you. You smile as your head tilts back, pleased at yourself that you’ve met him and matched him.

It would not be for long, though. He retracts his hands and finds your hips again, and the next thing you know, you’re lifted in the air, caught off guard, and instinctually wrap your legs around his waist as he walks you both the several steps to the table. One of his hands moves to your lower back, keeping you upright, as he lays you down and spreads you out on the flat surface.

The gunslinger leans over and captures your lips again as he starts to work your trousers and bloomers down your waist, over the swell of your ass that you raise in the air to help him. You have the wherewithal to kick your boots off as he works your pants down your thighs, standing to his full height as he peels them off you completely, leaving your lower half bare to his gaze. Your tapered hips, glistening folds, wet and ready for him.

You take advantage of his dumb-struck stare to unhook his suspenders from the front of his pants, yanking them down over his hips to let them rest above his knees.

Wasting no time, before you know he’s going to catch you, you wrap one hand around his shaft and cup his testicles with the other, squeezing both gently as he groans, his hands holding himself up as he leans above you, his hips starting to thrust forward.

It's only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before his eyes open, hands snap to your hips, and you’re yanked bodily forward, ass nearly hanging off the table, and you let go of his member as he presses forward, the head of his cock touching your wet folds and making you both moan aloud.

“Still askin’ fer it?” He pants, and all you can do is moan in response and shake your head in the affirmative, spreading your legs for him.

Arthur immediately slides his cock all the way in, until the chestnut curls at the base of his cock meet the dark hair over your cunt, and you cannot help but to mewl, watching as he slowly withdraws and presses in again. Your legs spread even wider as both of you can’t look away from the sight: his long, hard shaft glistening with your slick, disappearing into your body.

One of his hands moves from your hip to splay beneath your abdomen and presses down hard, he moans in appreciation as he can feel himself through your skin as he buries his cock in your cunt again. And again. And again. You fall back from your elbows completely onto your back, the pressure of him making you gasp and whine.

Fuck, this is where you hurtle toward that point of no return, there’s no holding back the wave of pleasure that threatens to drown you as Arthur pounds himself into your hips. There’s no winning or losing anymore, there is just the chasing of that pleasure.

You’re cresting, back beginning to arch uncontrollably as he pumps into you hard and fast. You don’t give a shit about losing, because you’re wrung so tightly you’re about to snap, needy whines escaping your throat as you squeeze your eyes shut, unable to stop tears from overstimulation from spilling down your cheeks.

The head of Arthur’s cock keeps hitting that spot in your cunt that makes you want to die in pleasure, his large hands gripping your hips hard enough to leave bruises.

You can barely recognize the shriek you give as your own, and the grunts in return, fucking you harder through your release. Your spasming, clenching, shaking release.

“Yes, yes,” Arthur grits out. The broken syllables of his name escape your mouth as you come, he thrusts deep inside of you and you gush warm slick around his length.

He immediately groans, loudly, clenching your hips hard as he jerks himself from you, painting your mound white with arcs of his spend landing in your dark pubic hair. Arthur pants, not letting go of your hips as you at least have the wherewithal to lean up on your elbows again.

“Think…” he rasps, voice sex-hoarse and breathless, “I win.”

A smile cracks from your lips as you tighten your legs around his hips, drawing him closer.

“Best…” you pant, “Two outta three.”

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead fanfic #arthur morgan #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan x female reader #red dead fandom #rdr2 #twolafic #tumblr prompt #red dead smut #arthur morgan x reader

313 notes · View notes

vaguely-concerned · 2 years

Text

I have always been fascinated by the scene in Harrow the Ninth where all of God’s lies are finally revealed, so here is a post of appreciation for the last part of the book and also trying to pick apart some of what Muir is doing on a writing level, because I want to steal all of it for my own to gain even a tenth of her power lol

- “What? No tongue in your head, you—you mutant, you mistake, you great big calf-eyed fuck-up?!”

mercymorn is the funniest person to ever live probably dfhasjkfas (moira quirk’s delivery of this in the audiobook is out of this world, please experience it for yourself one day.) the metatextual layer that she’s essentially saying this to locked tomb jesus, and that she would 100% still be saying it if she knew just how much she’s talking to locked tomb jesus, because that is the very essence of who mercy is as a person... fucking immaculate

- God said, “Summarize, please. You both do tend to go overboard on the foreplay.”

no actually John Gaius is the funniest person who’s ever lived (and died and lived again etc.). in the middle of his ancient lies finally being exposed and all his death empire and personal life about to come crashing down around him as he gets exploded, he still takes a moment to be completely, comprehensively, needlessly, astoundingly and utterly petty. inspirational, in a way. if you commit the profane act of resurrection you, too, could spend ten thousand years working on becoming your very worst self

(also a definite indication that God is terrible in the sack, what the fuck)

also, Mercy throws John’s own ‘You’re trying to start a fight with me to get out of the fight I’m trying to have with you, which is a painfully domestic tactic’ from the beginning of the book back in his face here at the end, which shows that even so, John is merely a novitiate in pettiness, she will brook no comparison <3 I love her so much

- Upon seeing God getting exploded, Pyrrha straight up stands there with her cigarette until it burns down to ashes in her hand fhsdkjfhas. god this poor woman she’s been dying for a cigarette all that time and she’s too shocked by everything going on to even get to smoke it!!!

can you imagine what a mindfuck all of this is for her, though. she’s been doing the same thing as Gideon has this whole book from the back of her necromancer’s head for ten thousand years, she lost her necromancer like half an hour ago, max, and is figuring out being in the driver’s seat of his body (his corpse??? technically???) alone for the first time, she just mercy killed her ex, she found out that at least she and her necromancer didn’t kill both their lover and their child twenty years ago (and also it wasn’t their baby, it was baby jesus in a space pod, phew, that makes it... better? no, no not really huh), she finally got a cigarette... and then her siblings in death empire seemingly upend the entire natural order she’s known as long as she’s had consciousness.

“It was complicated.” she’s saying what we’re all thinking. if she simply wants to settle down on a farm somewhere and live a quiet life, no fucking wonder!

A lot more thoughts behind the cut Because Of Who I Am As A Person

- There was silence in that room. The air had cooled somewhat, but it was still hot and sticky, and it smelled like everyone’s sweat. It smelled like hot perfume and cigarettes and fear.

ever since the first time I read that part I’ve been astounded by how perfectly this captures the feeling of being young and ignored and witnessing adults Feeling deep, tangled things at each other that you don’t understand yet but can sense the outlines of as it settles over you too. ‘hot perfume and cigarettes and fear’. that feeling of peering at adulthood through the keyhole and only half-understanding what you see and that you’re terrified. between that and the way John can literally freeze people in place with a glance until he decides to let them go... it’s the weather front of emotional violence settling in a room, atmospheric and suffocating, as much in the pressure while nothing’s really happening as when the lightning strikes finally hit. hell, Gideon has been through all kinds of abuse in the Ninth House, emotional as well as physical, but this particular form of tension seems to be new to her and to (rightfully) freak her the fuck out. fuckkkkk Tamsyn Muir is just SO GOOD at this -- it’s the perfect set of sensory details to pull forward to get that effect.

(and of course the station is cooling, come to think of it, the Resurrection Beast and the Heralds have begun to flee! Didn’t catch that the first few times around lol)

- Augustine said blankly, “Mercy. Don’t do this.”

“You never loved him as much as I did,” she said, without taking her eyes from John*. “This is the moment. This is the chance for unlovable Mercymorn -- critical Mercymorn -- to show she is the most capable of her name. Every time you have said I did not understand the human heart, that I was unfeeling, that I only knew worship without adoration... Watch me, Augustine: I am the second saint to serve the King Undying. I will teach you a lesson in forgiveness.”

“You don’t even know the meaning of the word,” said Augustine.

John later says he ‘adored them all’, mirroring Mercymorn’s use of ‘adoration’ here. Also I think that she is showing her love, in a very Mercymorn sort of way... just not for John. It’s love for Cristabel, even after all this time, that means she can’t actually forgive John for making her die needlessly. John always assumes people's love for him trumps all other loves in the end, and it just came back to bite him big time. Plus, another case of Augustine knowing Mercymorn much better than John does; he is completely right, she does not intend to forgive anyone for anything lol (and honestly fair enough at that point).

(God asks Mercymorn what he has to do to earn her forgiveness, in his usual uselessly self-flagellating way)

Thick tears pooled in those bloody, stormy eyes. Augustine looked at her, and then he quite abruptly pressed his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting, a posture of absolute defeat.

as I talked about in another post, the precise way Augustine catches on to what’s about to happen is actually foreshadowed in his and Mercy’s very first fight!

*interesting that this is one of the very rare times the actual narrative voice -- so Gideon’s POV in this case -- actually calls him ‘John’. It may be the only time? I haven’t been paying attention specifically to this, but it stood out to me really clearly this go around. it emphasises brilliantly the sense that John before Mercymorn in that moment is very much a person. the narrative does a great job at subtly shifting those around, how much he's a real human vs. concept to the people around him at any given point

John also says he will love ‘you three’ forever, which I’m presuming is the three original saints? well, I think that may be a record speedrun from him lying to it being revealed he was lying; instead of a myriad it took like five minutes this time

-Mercy turned around to Augustine. She was not weeping now.

“It is finished,” she said.

(Insert Gideon having an oh-so-valid little breakdown about her own speedrun back into orphanhood :’) I’m so sorry Griddle, if it helps it won’t last...?)

- The saint of Patience stood up and crossed to her. She reached forward and took big clawed fistfuls of his shirt.

“I wanted it to be me,” she said, in this weird, unearthly calm. “I didn’t want it to be you. I didn’t want it to be you, Augustine, after all. The sin needed to be mine.”

“It’s ours,” he said unsteadily.

(They take in the probable devastation that’s happening to the Houses right now; Mercy consistently calls them ‘our people’, which I find strangely moving despite everything)

“We don’t know how long it takes to undo the Resurrection. Millions of people. All those millions of our people. No. I had to do it. I’m not very nice, Augustine, and I was never very good.”

(Later he says: “As you chose to stain your hands so mine could be clean, you’re going to have to put up with the fact that you picked the wrong man to enter a suicide pact with. I hate ‘em.”) honestly I am still incoherent over WHATEVER THE FUCK their relationship is. they do hate each other, but she didn’t want it to be him. she did it, so it wouldn’t have to be him, and to him that is ‘absolute defeat’. like there are so many sibling feelings in my heart over that, when you want so desperately and futilely to shield someone even though it has by all accounts already stained you both indelibly and equally. Mercy has been the scapegoat child among the lyctor 'siblings' for so long so y'know, 'I was never very good anyway, I can take this for you', and Augustine is The Eldest Brother who they seemed to agree on beforehand would be the one to do it... but she did it, for both of them, and he couldn't stop her. the mirror of that in the way Gideon and Harrow wants the other to live, to be whole, even at their own expense, even though they 'hate each other' I have. space shrimp emotions.

- it seems like the population of all the Houses doesn’t reach the billions! interesting factoid, I guess it makes sense the Death Planets aren’t that hospitable to human life or expansion long term lol

- Gideon likens the look on Augustine’s face to that she found on Jeannemary after Cytherea murdered her. There’s some very deliberate language and framing going on in this part of the scene to compare Mercy and Augustine -- The original immortal evil space vamipires slash war criminals lmao -- as two scared children clinging to each other. Ianthe too, actually:

Ianthe was staring into space, looking like a child, for all her height. Little. Bemused.

Tamsyn Muir is such a good fucking writer. The expert subtextuality in this scene of God as the Father (and the dad joke amen), bitches!!!! Lord and Emperor and God and Dad (and sort of Spouse, for Mercy and Augustine), all in one. And when (it looks like) he dies, despite all his unforgivable crimes both personal and y’know against humanity, they are all still reduced to frightened orphans.

- “You have a job, Joy. If you kill yourself now, you’ll leave everything remarkably untidy. And that’s not like you, is it.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGH remember “Cristabel always said I was tidy”?????? he wasn’t even there for that, so he just knows! he knows that is the exact button to press to make her stay alive!!!!! I am going to throw myself off a cliff!

- “We’re going to go round up the ships, everyone who’s left. Sue for peace, as best we can, get the Edenites on side. And then we’ll find a place to fulfill the old promise. Somewhere out there exists a home not paid for with blood. It won’t be for us, but it will be for those who have been spared. Babies always get born, houses always get built. And flowers will die on necromancy’s grave.”

Her throat was working. “Augustine...”

The lyctor took her silently in his arms. They held each other like children who’d had a nightmare, and had woken in a fright. Just as silently, they detached.

She said in a low voice: “He was right. There can be no forgiveness.“

“Then let us not seek out forgiveness, but forgetfulness,” he said. “Bury me next to you in that unmarked grave, Joy. We knew that was the only hope we ever had, that we would live to see it through, and pray for our own cessation. Oh, we’ll still hate each other, my dear; we’ve hated each other too long and too passionately to stop. But my bones will rest easy next to your bones.”

kill me. strike me down. this whole part has haunted me from the very first moment I read it and it won’t let me go, I think it did something irreversible to my brain. who let augustine say the most beautiful things while being one of the worst people. it’s so unfair.

And if you think about it… there’s probably no way he could have stopped her, if she really wanted to kill herself right then and there. She could have just triumphantly dropped dead and left him to deal with everything in the aftermath alone, with a message telling him where to find the instructions for her hilarious 24 minute funeral. But she doesn’t. She wants to go out with him, because they have a deal. *sobbing hysterically* all they wanted was two unmarked graves side by side and they couldn’t even get that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- God taking Mercy’s robes immediately upon killing her and ‘coyly pulling it closed’ as he puts it on is such.......... Peak John-ness. objectively hilarious, objectively horrific.

also he says he ‘never likes cleaning house all at once’, which makes for some...... deeply troubling implications around the gradual dying off of the other lyctors, doesn’t it???? um what the fuck, actually?????????

- the scariest thing about John to me is that I think he really means it, when he says he wishes Harrow was his daughter. I think he genuinely feels that, and does not see all the nightmarish shit he does to her as antithetical to it in any real meaningful way. literally having her attempted murder staged over and over and over again, ‘for her own good’, and I believe his affection is still as real as anything he can feel anymore. he is so terrifyingly, insidiously good at reframing the world around parts of himself in such a way that he’s always ultimately justified. he could have sat down with harrow and helped her figure out what was going on with her, even as one scientist to another, never mind everything he should be doing if he intends to be her teacher or her father figure! he’s GOD! even apart from being god, he’s the ur-necromancer! if he took her and her condition seriously for five fucking minutes and actually sat down with her, he probably could have helped her figure it out and relieve at least part of her suffering!! (and thank god he didn’t, I guess, but in principle at the very least)

and like... why on earth doesn’t he? is he just that emotionally lazy and feckless? if he thought getting G1deon to kill her over and over would be more ‘expedient’, then surely that is belied pretty quickly when it doesn’t fucking work. it’s an evil way to go about it in the first place, but even aside from that it’s uh... scientifically indefensible to repeat an experiment that’s clearly not giving results? is he afraid that if he digs too much in Harrow’s Situation (being a 200 soul Frankenstein’s monster and all, I’m so sorry Harrow), people will be able to follow the threads of that back to what he did and how his powers work?

(I will say that this is one of the best portrayals I’ve ever seen of an ineffectual and covertly harmful adult in relation to a mentally ill teenager. It’s almost scary how true to life it feels at times. If you don’t catch yourself you could find yourself defending him like ‘well, what was he supposed to do, how was he supposed to know, how could he have done anything differently, it’s not his fault’, like he isn’t, again, GOD, and also a grown fucking man positioning himself in the role of her father)

- I have said it so many times before, but Augustine asking John to ask him if he forgives him just so he gets to finally tell him ‘no’... fucking amazing.

Augustine murmured: “You said there was no forgiveness.”

“I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.” so smug in his lonely references no one else can get! I hate him! I love him. I wonder if John was religious before the Resurrection or just like... chronically went to Catholic school, if you see what I mean fhaskfa. Now there’s a fascinating mindfuck that’s relevant only to him, he has a conception of ‘God’ no one else in the Houses could have, because they only know what he set up for them. (which I think is also the narrative point being made with the memes in this series, btw, maybe I'll write out my thoughts on it properly at some point)

this I have also observed before, but the last thing Augustine does before turning down John’s ‘forgiveness’ is looking around a room of dead siblings, with the eyes of a dead sibling, and with Mercy’s heart still splattered all over him. Alfred was the first person to die for John’s lie about lyctorhood (narrowly, since it’s implied Augustine and Mercymorn became lyctors pretty close together. well this is true mostly symbolically, I think all the fucked up shit they did to Teacher & co had already happened by that point lol), and Mercy is the last, and Augustine stands there marked by them both and doesn’t forgive it.

- I wonder if Pyrrha actually has any kind of loyalty left for John or if this is just Strategy and playing out the role of Saint of Duty. (Ianthe is 100% only self-serving strategy, which, you know, at least she’s honest about it haha) I’m assuming it’s mostly Strategy. Also interesting that she seems to be trying to avoid him finding out it’s her and not G1deon, while she might be about to tell Augustine before God poofs back onto the stage?

- It feels so good to have Gideon looking with clear eyes at how everyone’s been treating Harrow and affirm that ‘that is fucked up, go to hell’. Like it’s so good just to have Gideon back in general that it gets lost a bit in the cloud of euphoria for me, but having her validation and care in relation to all Harrow’s been struggling with and that it wasn’t all in her mind? She’s had like fifteen life changing revelations the last twenty minutes and her sense of justice and compassion still breaks through it all. I know we all love Gideon very much but I truly love Gideon so very much help

- But it was the girl’s face that sent Harrow’s neurons in a thalergetic spin

+ bonus ‘I don’t know what the people who think Harrow and Gideon’s vibe is primarily sisterly are on, and whatever it is I don’t want it’ lmao, the entire description of Gideon in the coffee shop AU is so deeply unmistakably sweetly horny. Romantic and sexual attraction is only one set of brushstrokes making up the beautiful yet inconceivably fucked up painting that is their relationship, but I think it’s kind of willfully obtuse to say it isn’t there at all or isn’t also important. Harrow didn’t make TWO dream bubble AUs with explicitly romantic elements for you to overlook her bone gremlin horniness like this

There may be a lot of punctuation and orthography weirdness in this post; this is all transcribed from the audiobook version as best I could figure, I don’t have the books in text format! Only a few days left to go before Nona the Ninth, you guys, I don't know about you but I'm about ready to vibrate right out of my skin

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb meta #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #john gaius #pyrrha dve #gideon nav #griddlehark #I've been wanting to write down some of this for ages and finally The Time Has Come #my brain is currently a wasp net on fire being run over by a truck but I hope some of this is readable anyway lol

808 notes · View notes

tonberry-yoda · 1 year

Note

Yo Tonberry! Could I get some Moira smooches? Please and thank you! :D

OMFG YES!! Sorry for it being late, you sent it to me right when I was getting to bed last night lol, but I am so so happy to do this for you (I'm not gay, but godamn Moira, why you built like this???) Thanks for the request!!!

You had this scientist wrapped around your finger. The woman who refused to come out of her shell, the woman who never had emotion, the woman who was unethical, impractical, and a villain.

The woman who was now yours.

"Moira," you gasped when she stepped down the stairs, a shiny black dress clinging to her body. "Moira, dear, you look beautiful." You kissed her hand and helped her down the rest of the steps. You admired her in all her beauty. You rarely got to see her all dressed up like this.

"It's nothing, really," Moira chuckled and looked at you. You were just as dressed up as her. "If anything, you're the beautiful one here, rabbit."

"Moira, don't. You can be happy to be in a dress every now and again."

Moira jokingly rolled her eyes, but looked at herself in a nearby mirror. Her eyes lit up, to your surprise.

"See, love," you said, wrapping your arms around her waist. "You look beautiful."

Moira blushed and turned to you. "I suppose I am.... just a bit though."

She pressed a kiss onto both of your cheeks and tucked your hair behind your ear. "You're the stunning one here, y/n."

You wrapped your arms around the back of her neck and pulled her closer. Moira placed kisses up and down your face, making you giggle before pulling you to the car to go out for dinner.

~~~~~

if you want smooches, just send in a character name and i gotchu!

~~~~~

#i hope you enjoy #god moira doesnt have to be this fine #asks #writing #fanfic #my writing #<3 #fanfiction #tonberry answers #overwatch #overwatch x reader #moira #moira x reader #moira o'deorain #moira o'deorain x reader

211 notes · View notes

pochipop · 1 year

Text

＃OVERWATCH !! ♡ — LET ME PAINT YOUR SKIES (MOIRA X READER).

#. synopsis! — moira, a frustrated geneticist in the throes of an impossible war against her superiors, meets a despondent young artist drowning sorrows at the bar. as it turns out, the latter is a particularly good listener, and the former is the type of woman you’ve only met in your wildest dreams .

#. characters! — moira .

#. warnings! — light angst, mentions of alcohol consumption, extreme slow-burn .

#. word count! — 11.7k .

#. others! — navigation & masterlist .

#. a/n! — sorry i've been gone so long, got busy w/ school and irl stuff :// feel free to hmu to play overwatch lol (i swear i'm not ass all the time!!) anways, moira kissers, this one's for you!!

This place is as rundown and decrepit as they come these days, —a hole-in-the-wall type of establishment with old, creaky stools and paint that chips off into the drinks from time to time. Fruit flies are more regular than most customers, and they provide little bits of extra protein to those either too wasted to fish them out of their shots or unfortunate enough to not notice them. It's incredible that this place hasn't been permanently shut down, actually, with health and safety hazards galore. . . And yet, despite all its undeniable (and very obvious) flaws, you quite like it here. It's where you come when you're stuck in a rut and need to drink away some sadness.

Sure, it's not the healthiest of habits, but everyone has their vices. This is yours, —but it's an occasional thing, for the most part. You go months at a time without so much as glancing in the direction of any alcohol whatsoever, and most times when you indulge, it's more of a social thing than that of a desire to get plastered. Unfortunately, old habits die hard, as they say, and being an artist has its ups and downs. The highs are more intoxicating than any alcoholic beverage could ever be, but the lows hit you like a semi truck. They claw at your ankles and pull you down into the depths so mercilessly, as if feeding on your sorrow is the feast of a lifetime.

Thus, here you are again for the first time since mid-November of the prior year. It's been roughly five months since you've sat on this stool, ordering shots from the grumpy bartender who never remembers your name and doesn't care much about conversing with his customers. This time, however, a fresh face stands out to you. She'd come in when you were still nursing a whiskey on the rocks, insisting that tonight would be different, that you wouldn't leave with your head all foggy or your balance thrown completely off. You've since changed your stance on that, of course, —as one simply does when they're wrung dry of artistic inspiration and turn to seeking some sort of haven in an unhealthy vice.

Still, the woman at the other end of the bar has your full attention, even if she hasn't realized it yet. Even from her slouched position you can see that she's quite tall, —and equally as thin. She's dressed in more formal attire than yourself, a starkly white button-up and a pair of black dress pants as opposed to your own ill-fitting jeans and a greyish-blue sweater you'd picked up simply because it was seventy-five percent off. It's certainly comfortable, but stylish is most definitely up for debate.

Her foot taps against the bar counter, the toe of her black flats ringing out in little thumps that nobody seems to notice but you. She swirls a shot glass in her elegant hand, —her long, lithe fingers adorned with lengthy nails all painted a uniform shade of violet. Strands of short, ginger hair fall over her forehead, clearly unstyled after a long day. Whatever she's going through, you're sure it isn't pleasant for her to have ended up here alone on a Thursday night. Even so, you silently wonder if she's aware of just how attractive she is. In a sense, she's almost ethereal to you, with her extended limbs and sharp lines. . .

You reach for a napkin and are pleasantly surprised when the rusted dispenser sitting loose just a seat away isn't completely empty as it usually is by this time of night. Digging in your bag for a moment, you find an old ballpoint pen buried at the bottom. You try to take something to write or sketch with wherever you go, —but sometimes you still find yourself wholly unprepared for when inspiration strikes.

It takes a bit of scribbling before the ink begins to flow. Even then, it's rather choppy and doesn't come out in a smooth line. But, it's the best you have on hand, and so you're sure to use it to your advantage in whatever way possible (which isn't many.) Your gaze flickers between the woman at the end of the bar and the napkin you're sketching her likeness on in inconsistent ink. It's certainly rough, but it's the first thing you've drawn all week that you haven't felt the urge to light on fire, so you're considering this a win.

You get a little carried away with the shading and the general environment, adding flowers that aren't there and little markings all around for some additional texture and pizzaz.

"Interesting," a low-toned, curious voice says from just over your shoulder.

You startle at the sudden interruption, nearly scribbling a horrendous line across the center of your sketch. The woman had been so silent in her move, (or perhaps you'd just been too engrossed to hear her make her way over) that you were left flinching under her looming shadow.

She seems fittingly confident for the aura she gives off, —like some kind of CEO.

"Uh. . . Sorry," you apologize, hoping the mood won't become too awkward. "This must seem pretty weird."

This is pretty weird, actually, and you can acknowledge that much. After all, when someone trudges to the bar late at night, it's not as if they go there expecting that some equally as frustrated stranger will see them and be unable to resist the urge to sketch their likeness on a painfully thin napkin.

"I've seen weirder," she replies, —and though you don't ask for examples of that, you're rather curious about what she'd give as some.

She sits next to you now, on the bar stool just to your left. Her knee brushes against yours as she does so.

"You're an artist then, I presume?" She asks without missing a beat.

You nod, letting your pen drop to the bartop, giving her your full attention now. Something about her demands it (not that you're complaining.)

"Yep," you answer, though you can't bring yourself to sound particularly stoked by that admission at the moment.

She takes notice of that much too quickly for having just met you.

"You don't seem very pleased about it," she notes. "Trouble in paradise, perhaps?"

An Irish accent clings to her words; not a heavy one, all things considered, but more than enough to be obvious. It's quite attractive.

"Yeah, something like that," you say with a bitter laugh, —one directed more at yourself than her statement. "Nothing I'd want to bore you with."

She hums in acknowledgement, not trying to pry anything out of you that you aren't readily willing to share. That makes you like her all the more.

"I understand that quite well," she seems to sigh. "I'm a geneticist, —seasoned and well-ingrained in my field."

That makes sense. She speaks with an air of confidence that you assume comes with not only age, but experience, and it's clear she's well-educated.

"Yet here I am, constantly being pestered and questioned by those around me," she complains. "They insist upon checking and checking and checking again for ethical violations, —as if any true scientist has ever been able to examine the fullest potential of life without bending a few rules."

You gather rather quickly that she likely just needs someone to vent to, and a stranger is as good as anyone else. Though you're sure it won't be long before she gets into specifics and you lose the plot entirely, you have no qualms about keeping her company for the time being. In fact. . . This might as well be just as much for you as it is for her.

"They say rules were made to be broken," you quip, hoping it'll be enough to keep her talking.

"I don't know that I'd go quite that far, —but what I will say is that being ethical will do no good if it leaves us plateaued and unable to advance," she says. "Humanity is shackled by so many things. I am searching for the key to those shackles, —searching for the means by which to unlock the true potential of human beings. Just imagine what could be achieved if every individual was consistently performing at their highest levels of functioning. Productivity would skyrocket, advancements that have taken decades in the past would come about in less than half the time. . . There's so much waiting to be discovered, and yet so many seem to want to stand in the way of that."

"I'm sure that's frustrating," you acknowledge. "Obviously I'm not familiar with your field, but it seems a bit counterintuitive to stunt your progress when advancement is such a crucial part of today's society."

At this point, you're just speaking and hoping something sticks. It'd be nice to have someone to share time with, even if all she does is rant about things you're nothing short of completely removed from.

"Exactly," she practically hisses. "Sometimes, I'm utterly convinced that I'm surrounded by fools. Fools who haven't a clue what it means to strive for the betterment of humankind."

Truth be told, she knows you don't get it. She knows you're telling her what you think she wants to hear from you. . . But, at this point, it's enough. She doesn't have the patience to keep it all bottled up anymore, and your vague attempts at encouragement are something she's rather pleased by (for the time being, anyway.)

As a result, she goes on, and on, and on, well into the early hours of the morning. She drinks, but seems to hold her liquor so well that it hardly affects her at all. Or, perhaps you're just a bit sensitive in that department. Either way, she finds you to be a tantalizingly good listener, even if she lost you the moment she started detailing something about stem cell research and the possibility of using the brain's localization to its 'fullest potential.'

By the end of your time with her, you're drunk less on the drinks you've admittedly been nursing, and more on her. A woman of such. . . Confidence and refinement. Perhaps in great contrast to the artist at your core, who craves some semblance of chaos and passion that burns so hot you can feel it course through your veins.

It's only after you've parted ways with her that you realize you never caught her name.

You return to the bar several times after that, though you seldom have the urge to drink any of your problems away. Your long, strange conversation with that enchanting force of a woman weighs heavily on your mind. Her very likeness on its own had helped to chip away at your stunted inspiration, giving birth to new designs and a perhaps pretentious series of paintings in which long, slender fingers with sharpened nails painted a deep violet color held different types of flowers. A part of you wonders if she’d like them. . . After all, they were born only because you’d had the chance to meet her (and spend at least a good two hours staring at her hands.)

Now, however, you’re content with staring at the art displayed at this gallery. It’s clear many of the paintings are uninspired, simply taking the form of references, —which is all well and good, of course. . . But there’s a sense of romanticism missing from most of them that isn’t quite scratching the itch inside your chest.

You stand before one such piece; a beautiful painting of a teacup filled nearly to the brim with amber liquid. It’s accompanied by a few cookies, ones that look delectable in spite of their bland appearance. The scene is nothing revolutionary, but there’s a sense of warmth it exudes that the other works here lack, so you’ve chosen to camp here for a bit, if only to bask in its delight for a while longer.

“I don’t presume this is one of yours.” You’d know that voice anywhere.

Perhaps a bit too quickly, your head whips to the side, eyes immediately scaling upward. You meet the duel-colored stare of the woman you’d met at the bar, and the intensity of her gaze leaves butterflies tickling your stomach. She’s dressed much the same as the night you first crossed paths with her, but her hair is pushed back completely, —not a single strand out of place. She wears some subtle makeup, a bit of color on her lips and liner on her eyes. You couldn’t even begin to picture her in casual clothing.

You blink, clearing your throat as you remember that she was likely looking for a response.

“No, not quite,” you reply.

She hums in acknowledgement. Her hand almost looks empty without a glass in it, you note, but choose to say nothing of it.

“I’m y/n, by the way,” you introduce yourself, hoping that she’ll follow suit. . . Hoping that she’ll take it as a sign that you’d like to see her again at some point, even if just at random.

“Moira.”

You swallow. It’s a name that sounds so elegant, and it suits her completely. Before you can compliment it, she turns her full attention to you, no longer dividing it between the painting. She never seemed particularly interested in that one anyhow.

“Are any of your pieces displayed here?" She asks. "I'd be interested to see them."

You swear the smallest semblance of a smile quirks at the corners of her lips as she speaks now.

"No, unfortunately not," you reply. "The deadline was too tight, and. . . Nothing I'd created recently felt worthy of the spotlight."

Untrue. The few paintings you'd stayed up until ungodly hours to finish were more than suitable; but they were of her. Only her hands, thus far, but. . . You still felt the urge to keep them to yourself. That's why you'd lugged them back to your apartment instead of keeping them at your worn-down studio.

She hums in acknowledgement.

The conversation is running thin, and you feel your chest tighten. She’d gone out of her way to speak to you first, so you assume there’s some semblance of a spark here, even if only a little one. You yearn to keep it safe from anything and everything hellbent on snuffing it out before it even has the chance to burn brightly.

“How’s work been for you, then?” You ask, somewhat desperate to keep her talking.

Moira heaves a heavy sigh, —not so much at you, but at the mention of work. You take that as ‘less than stellar.’

“It could be better,” she replies bitterly.

It’s then that you let impulse take over. Working as an artist is the culmination of your life’s devotion and effort to refining your skills. . . But it can be a bit lonely. Usually, that doesn’t bother you much, —it’s a feeling that rarely bubbles up enough to even cross your mind; but since you’d met Moira, it’d been much more difficult to ignore. In the end, you took a chance, perhaps a bit rashly. And yet, it paid off.

“I’d be willing to listen, if you’d like someone to talk to,” you offer. “There’s a little cafe just down the block. I’ve heard the pecan pie is to die for.”

She stares for a few moments, as if eyeing you down like prey. At the very least, Moira seems to be giving some thought to your offer, and you consider that as good a sign as any. Eventually, she breathes out through her nose just loud enough for you to hear it (and make note of the amusement it carries.) A smirk tugs visibly at the corner of her pretty mouth, and this time, it’s not one you’d have to squint to catch sight of.

“Suppose I am feeling a bit peckish,” she notes, then tells you to lead the way.

You’re almost dumbfounded that you’ve gotten this far. It’s all too easy to abandon the gallery and travel with Moira to the newly opened cafe just a ways off. You’d stopped by a few times since its grand opening just a few months back, but had never ordered anything more than a simple drink. You’d also never taken the time to sit down and enjoy the sweet atmosphere of the establishment, always rushing about too frantically to even consider the possibility.

This time is different. You sit with Moira by a large window, tendrils of sunlight pouring in from above, creating long shadows on the table between the two of you. She orders a simple cup of dark roast, but decides for the both of you that the pecan pie does, in fact, look too heavenly to pass up; so she requests one slice with two forks.

She tells you about her day, —about her work and her ongoing struggles to convince her superiors that she knows exactly what she’s doing and should be permitted to do as such. You still don’t understand most of it, but you make sure she knows she has your full attention nonetheless.

And then she makes the decision to turn the direction of the conversation.

“How has life as an artist been treating you since we last spoke?” She inquires.

You’re almost thrown off by the sudden reciprocation of curiosity. Between the both of you, you’d simply assumed she was leading the more interesting life, and had been completely content to listen to her spew her frustrations while sipping on coffee for an hour or so.

Still. . . It felt nice to know she cared about your own ventures, if only out of politeness. (Though, really, Moira didn’t seem like the type who’d ask a question she didn’t care about receiving a genuine answer to for the sake of saving face.)

“Better,” you smile softly. “I was struggling to find inspiration, —worried that everything I was producing was just bland and uninteresting. But, after speaking with you, I started digging myself out of that rut. Since then, things have steadily been getting back on track, so I suppose I should thank you for that.”

Moira hums in acknowledgement.

“I’m happy to have helped, though I’m not certain I truly know what I did to spur any of your artistic inspiration,” she admits.

“You’re alluring,” you tell her without thinking the compliment through.

You qualify: “Unique. Very visually striking.”

She raises an eyebrow at the sentiment, then offers you a low chuckle in reply.

“Is that why you asked me here?” She questions, though she doesn’t seem perturbed by the idea. “To be your muse of sorts?”

Your heart thumps a little louder in your chest now, though you’re not sure why.

“No,” you answer honestly, shaking your head a bit, “—but I’m sure that’ll be a secondary benefit.”

Will it ever.

“I take it you simply enjoy my company then?” Moira continues.

“Precisely,” you nod. “It’s exactly that.”

She stares at you for a moment longer, her eyes all but boring holes into your own. In a good way.

Finally, she cracks an amused smile, and mumbles: “Likewise.”

At that, you’re certain you’ve won the lottery. You talk with her a bit more about a variety of things; what it’s like to be a full-time artist, about her nails (press-ons, apparently, —you could hardly believe the notion), —about how right everyone was about the pecan pie. She disappeared before you could say a proper goodbye, paying the bill and scribbling her phone number down on a napkin that she left at your seat while you were in the restroom. You grin to yourself the whole way back to your apartment, letting the day’s events wash over you like the evening tide.

Just before you turn in later in the night, you send a quick message to her phone thanking her for paying the tab and telling her that next time is your treat. She responds in almost record time, and you let yourself believe for a moment that maybe she’d been waiting around for you to reach out since she’d left the cafe.

Looking forward to it.

As late spring turned to early summer, you kept in contact with Moira, if only passively. She was a busy woman, unsurprisingly, and despite the continued conflict with her peers and superiors, she remained wholly devoted to her work and ideals. It was easy to recognize that you came second, —if you even made her list at all.

But that was okay. It didn’t weigh heavily on you as it might have if she were anyone else.

You saw her only a few times here and there over the weeks, returning to that same cafe to chat for a bit over coffees, venturing to a steakhouse on the far end of the city for a night of fine dining, and attending an opera performance with her after she’d been given tickets by a work colleague as a regifted-gift when that individual had no interest in attending themself. Each time, you saw a new side of Moira; getting to know her better, getting to experience the many shades of her.

It was mid-June when you heard your phone buzz late at night, vibrating against the oakwood of your bedstand. On the off chance it was Moira contacting you at such a strange time, you shot upright, startling yourself awake in the process. You snatched your phone off the surface, squinting at the brightness only to realize it was a completely unrelated, automatic notification from an app. But you sat there that night, your stomach tied in knots, that device clutched a bit too tightly in your hand, only to realize something all at once.

You were falling for her. For Moira. And you were so certain that that was a terrible idea.

You laid awake, thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong in the face of this newfound revelation. Really, had anyone else had a say in the matter, the more shocking part of it all would have been that it took you so long to put two and two together. —She’s addicted to her work, utterly devoted to her job. That had long been established. Any plans you sought to make with her had to first be run through her hefty work schedule; the one that was so bizarre and so obscure that you’d given up trying to make sense of it a week into your acquaintanceship.

Any relationship you could hope to forge with her would be a lowly affair. Her first love was destined to be science. Still, you rationalized that Moira wasn’t much unlike you, in that sense. You too were deeply devoted to your career, thinking of it often, keeping your art at the forefront of your mind more often than not.

Even that aside, there was so much that could go wrong here. If she were to feel the same way, which seemed so unlikely to you that even considering it felt like something akin to a cruel joke, —it was more likely to be fleeting than anything else. Yet, a part of you still wanted it. . . Wanted the push and pull, the long weeks of her undoubtedly forgetting that you even existed, just to fall back in her arms at the first sign of affection. Foolishly, a part of you still wanted the late nights and early mornings, —wanted to feel your own heart break as you watched her slip out of your bed through hazy eyes, leaving you lonely without a proper goodbye.

Obviously, you were getting miles ahead of yourself.

Still, the fact remained that you liked Moira. . . You just weren’t sure what exactly you were supposed to do about that.

The summer heat became sweltering before long. Moira traded her long-sleeved dress shirts for short-sleeved ones in the same color and style, and you began to stare not only at her hands, but at her arms now when the two of you found time to get together. You’d sit and listen to her frustrations, —always about her working life and how it was so difficult to deal with being stifled, told that she couldn’t do this or that because someone had deemed it inappropriate by their own standards.

Admittedly, you still didn’t get it. Her work was so different to your own, and in the end, she didn’t really get yours either. But, each of you managed well enough. Your relationship was symbiotic. She had someone to vent to, you had someone to lust and desire for, someone to get your inspiration pumping. . . And that was good enough.

Until it wasn’t.

You did your best to drown your feelings out. There was too much at stake, what with Moira being your closest friend in the city, you assumedly being hers (since she often made note that you were the only person she spoke so candidly with,) —and you didn’t want to disrupt the balance the both of you had created together. It worked, and they say what isn’t broken doesn’t need to be fixed.

But it was breaking you, little by little. It was something you could ignore at first, until ignoring it became much more difficult, and you defaulted to stuffing it down on purpose, forcing thoughts about the bow of her lips and the dips of her waist into the back of your mind. If she ever caught sight of your wandering gaze, she never mentioned it. Still, you were prepared to chalk it up to admiring her frame for artistic purposes, and Moira likely would have bought that without much thought otherwise.

And then came the banquet, —the gathering, the party— whatever the hell it was. You didn’t really know what it was about other than that it had to do with Moira’s work, and that in itself was enough to signal to you that you probably wouldn’t have been able to make much sense of it anyway. She’d asked you to attend alongside her, saying that it would go much smoother with someone there to talk to (presumably so she could ignore everyone else that would be lapping at her ankles, vying for her attention.)

Whether her colleagues liked or disliked her and her methods, it was surely undeniable that Moira was intelligent and could provide insight into just about anything (within reason.) Thus, she’d requested that you come along as her so-called “plus one.” It didn’t help that when you mentioned that you’d likely be out of place at such an event, she responded by assuring you that many of the scientists would surely be taking their partners and spouses along with them.

“So, this is your way of asking me on a date?”

It was a joke. You gave a sly smile to project that, and it seemed that she understood the intention. You just hoped she didn’t catch sight of the desperation that lingered in the back of your stare, —desperation born from the desire to cross every line known to man and then some.

The worst part is that she didn’t deny it. She seemed unphased by the proposition even, telling you to “call it what you’d like.” And you would, albeit not to her face again. In your mind, this was a date. Perhaps one of convenience more than anything else, —but a date nonetheless.

When the time comes, you meet Moira just out front of your apartment. It’s the first time you’ve ever seen her sleek, black car in person. She’d made mention of it before, (only when you’d asked first), but your get-togethers with her had been within comfortable walking distance of most things in the city. This time, however, the venue was a bit further out, and because the occasion called for fancier clothes, Moira decided driving there would be the best option.

You watched through the slightly tinted windows as she reached over the passenger seat, her long, slender arm easily reaching the inner handle of the car door. She pushed it open for you, and you got in, feeling like some kind of moviestar. It wasn’t often that you saw a car as expensive and luxurious as hers around your admittedly worn-down apartment complex. It was even less often that you got to ride in one.

“Wow,” you note, slipping your seatbelt on, “I figured you’d drive something nice, but this is really something else.”

She lets an amused tuft of air escape her nostrils.

You turn to look at her now, taking her in as the last rays of dying sunlight spill down from the sky. She’s in a nice suit, as expected of her, —one that compliments her lengthy stature noticeably even in a sitting position. The fabric of her blazer is a deep, crimson red, a few shades darker than the scarlet iris of her right eye, and it’s paired with a black undershirt and black dress pants to match. Her hair is slicked back, and her hands are hidden under a pair of black gloves. She’s almost too stunning to be real, you think as she seems to examine your own attire.

Though Moira pays you no compliments, the light smirk that curves her lips upward ever so slightly says enough.

“I’ll have you home before it gets too late,” she says. “This is more for appearances than anything else. Those matter much more than one might think in the scientific field.”

Unsurprisingly, she seems less than excited about all of this, and you temper your own expectations as a result. It wasn’t so much the event itself you were looking forward to, —it was just getting to spend time with her that really lit your fuse, so to speak.

“I’ve got nothing better to be doing,” you note. “I’m yours for the night.”

Maybe that was a little too forward. As soon as you’ve said it, a part of you wishes you hadn’t. . . But Moira gives you a little hum in reply, throwing you a final glance before fixing her eyes ahead, and that’s the end of it. You like to think she was pleased with that admission, though. The drive is quiet, but in a comfortable sense. She seems to be in neutral spirits in spite of her distaste for the final destination, and you’re glad for it (not that you mention it.)

The venue was about as extravagant as you would expect; chandeliers hanging from the ceiling in the party hall, well-dressed staff members carrying platters of red wine and bubbling champagne, weaving their way through the guests with surprising grace and elegance. You can’t help but think to yourself that you’d never survive a day doing their job.

Moira snags the both of you some wine.

“Can’t help but think this is a bit nostalgic,” she comments as you put the rim of the glass to your lips to take a small sip.

The dark red liquid almost matches her outfit.

“I guess so,” you smile sheepishly. “It’s been a bit since we first met, and that’s the last time we drank together.”

“Indeed.”

She takes her own sip now, her lipstick clinging to the glass. You let yourself stare for a moment, gaze caught on her mouth. . . You let yourself wonder what it’d be like to pull her in, match your hand to the curve of her neck, —kiss her, taste the wine on her lips. It’s a bad idea, of course, but. . .

You just can’t help it.

“I suppose I should give you a proper thanks,” Moira notes after a few moments of silence. “I’m sure this kind of event isn’t much like anything you’d be used to.”

“Not in the slightest,” you shake your head.

She appreciates the candid way you answer, not trying to soften the blow for the sake of saving face. Your honesty is part of your charm.

“Lucky you,” she notes. “These things are practically the bane of my existence. They’re just glorified circle-jerks, —everyone squanders their time meeting here to drink alcohol and grit their teeth while they speak with colleagues they haven’t seen since the last one, even though they promise to keep in touch every single time.”

You get the feeling she’s quite pleased they never actually go through with that. The very prospect seems more like a threat than a broken promise.

“Sounds. . . Fake,” you answer lightly.

“Utterly synthetic,” Moira says, venom lacing her words.

She really isn’t holding back tonight, and there’s a certain luster that comes with it, —the kind that makes your insides twist into pretzels. Though she’s seldom the type to be vulgar for the sake of it, her gloves seem to be off tonight. Metaphorically, anyway. The actual gloves on her pretty hands are still there, tightly fitted to her elegant fingers. You’d be a tad more bitter about the view they steal away from you if not for how nice they look on her.

“Worse off, you may think idle workplace gossip would be less common in a career such as mine, —but you’d be wrong,” she tells you. “The amount of nonsense they spew never ceases to amaze me.”

And here you thought it was an impossible task to impress her. Imagine your shock when you found that a tried and true way of doing so was just to spout off pointless grains from the rumor mill. . .

“Seems hellish,” you remark.

You shiver at the mere thought of it, your eyes surveying the loose crowd now, looking for anyone who seems to be questioning your presence at Moira’s side or making assumptions about whether you really belong here. You don’t, and that just makes the anxiety worse. Another sip of wine down the hatchet, but your worries don’t go down with it the way you’d hoped they would.

“Hellish may be a bit of an understatement,” Moira mumbles sourly.

“Really though, a proper thank you for coming along is in order,” she sighs. “If you have anything you’d like in return, do tell. Money isn’t much of an obstacle, —within reason, of course.”

Unsure of how to say that all you really want is for her to pull you in and let her body meld into your own, you give her a little nod and a polite smile instead.

“I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind.”

She seems pleased enough by your confirmation, swallowing down the rest of her wine in a few ungraceful gulps. The way her throat contracts as she tips the glass back sends a shiver down your spine. Everything she does is so mesmerizing, and at this point, it’s just unfair. No one person should be able to captivate you; mind, body, and soul the way she always has, even from the very start. Sitting at a rundown bar, standing tall before a painting of tea and cookies, —drinking down blood red alcohol under dazzling chandeliers and crystalline lights that dance off her eyes like fireflies in mid-July.

You stand by as the night drags on, going much too slow for Moira, and far too quickly for you. It’s clear she’s not content to just be by your side here, and that hurts a little more than it should. She has another two glasses of wine and leaves a lipstick stain on each of them. . . And she doesn’t know just how much you’d risk for her to leave that same mark anywhere on you.

For the briefest of seconds, you consider asking that of her in return, but you banish that thought to the shadow realm just as quickly.

A few fresh faces greet Moira with varying levels of that synthetic politeness she’d mentioned not long ago. Seeing it in real time is like looking through a kaleidoscope of disgust, and you have to force a scowl off your face. You try your best to zone out when they come around, figuring that you’re not supposed to be privy to whatever information they’re sharing, —and that you wouldn’t understand much of it anyway. Unless they were suddenly struck with the urge to discuss color theory or artistic interpretation, you were pretty certain you wouldn’t be of much help. Moira’s field of expertise was worlds different than your own.

“Doctor O’Deorain,” a pretty blonde woman greets, her hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail and a little black dress clinging to her body in all the right places.

Moira regards her with less hostility than the others, her expression softening a bit.

“I wasn’t expecting you to actually show up,” she continues with a familiar giggle, losing the formal nature of her address. “I’m almost afraid to ask what you were offered in exchange for your attendance.”

If she’s comfortable enough to joke with Moira, you assume she’s known her for long enough to have built that kind of comradery. Maybe it was just a hunch of yours, but you’d have been willing to bet that Moira didn’t ease up to people very quickly. You like to think you were a slight exception to the rule.

“More like what they threatened to take away if I didn’t,” Moira answers, that characteristic bluntness still present in her tone, —but it’s softer with this woman, for one reason or another.

The blonde laughs again, seeming content in the redhead’s presence. Jealousy prickles at your heart, making you feel utterly ridiculous. Her blue eyes finally travel to where you’re standing, as if she’s just now realizing that you’d been standing there the entire time.

“You brought a friend along?” She inquires, her kind smile never fading. “It’s nice to meet you.”

You open your mouth to speak, but Moira beats you to the punch.

“Lover, actually,” she corrects, one of her gloved hands sneaking around your waist, pulling you closer and nearly knocking you off-balance in the process.

Your throat goes dry, face falling into an expression of panic, but you gather yourself before the blonde woman can take notice. Though you have no idea why she’d lie about such a thing, you can only assume that Moira has her reasons, and the last thing you’d want to do is correct her in front of a colleague, —even about something like this. You’ll probably never see this woman again anyway, so no harm, no foul. (Well, maybe some harm to your heart, but what else is new.)

The woman seems shocked by even the idea of it.

“It’s nice to meet you as well,” you say with a forced smile.

It’s not that she isn’t kind or easy to talk to. She’s both of those things, actually, and you can admire that (and you do.) But you’re still reeling from Moira’s sudden concession, and making small talk is the last thing on your mind.

The rest of the conversation is a blur. You do your best to fall into the background, hoping that each of them might just forget you even exist. Your heart hammers wildly in your chest, beating something dangerously close to out of control.

The feeling of her hand on your waist all but burns itself into your flesh.

By the time they’ve said their goodbyes, she’s taken it away. But it’s far too late to fix the damage she’s done.

Moira never does explain herself that night, and you don’t have the nerve to ask. Questions are ripe on the tip of your tongue the entire ride back to your apartment, but you sit in silence just as you did before, —albeit much less comfortably.

It’s then that you’re forced to acknowledge the crueler parts of her. . . And yet, you fear, you’re still falling for her anyway.

Communication is brief and inconsistent over the rough week and a half following the event. You send a few messages out of nicety, hoping she might choose to spark up a conversation. . . But she doesn’t, and you chalk it up to her being busy with work. At least, that’s the story your rational mind would like you to believe. The part of you that you’d like to shut out completely warns you only of the possibility that you’re being overbearing, and it’s pushing her further away.

You begin to worry that it’s now or never. If things continue as they are, Moira might as well just be another person who only contacts you when it’s convenient or they’re feeling a little nostalgic and want to hear a whisper from a ghost of their past.

As a means to counteract that possibility, you decide that it’s time to put that favor from Moira to good use. Best of all, —it’s utterly free of charge.

She agrees to meet you at your little painting studio to provide some assistance. Upon arriving, she walks around and gazes long and hard at each of your pieces, —finished and unfinished alike, sparing you the flurry of compliments she’s sure you’ve heard a million times over. If she were anyone else, her silence might have been a bad omen, but you know her well enough to understand that she means well.

“I’m not certain I can really be of any help,” she says, giving you a sidelong glance over her angular shoulder. “I enjoy art, but I haven’t the slightest clue how to create it. I leave that to the lot of you who’ve crafted your skills and put in the time.”

“For many of us, —myself included— inspiration is just as important as skill,” you reply. “These days, it’s been running a bit dry. But I was hoping you could get the wheels turning, if you know what I mean.”

Moira thinks she has a good idea of it.

“And how, pray tell, should I go about that?” She asks. “Do I just need to sit here and pose?”

“Actually,” you say, hoping to rip this off like a bandaid, —because you know it’s bizarre and that she might well say no, but you’re sick of wondering about it.

As it goes, you’ve prepared for the worst, but you’re hoping for the best.

“I’d like to paint on you.”

She looks at you evenly, as if she’s not shocked by the request at all. You’re more surprised by her lack of a visceral reaction than she is by your requisition.

“Interesting,” she notes, though it doesn’t sound like this is particularly intriguing to her, “—where, exactly?”

“Just like that?” You laugh. “No hesitation? You’re just gonna let me do it?”

“That’s dependent on the where,” she replies, an amused smile thinning her lips out. “If I’m right to assume you’re keen on keeping this within a certain boundary, I see no real reason to object. I do owe you, after all.”

Above most things, Moira is practical. She sees this as repayment, not only for your attendance at her working banquet, but also for the many afternoons, evenings, and nights she’s talked your ear off, sharing her own disgruntled feelings over coffee, steak, and whiskey neat respectively.

You offer her an appreciative smile, as if she’s done something so loving for you out of the kindness of her beating heart.

It’s more out of obligation, you fear, but you’re fine to ignore that for now.

“Will an arm suffice?” She asks.

“Maybe two,” you answer cheekily, and she doesn’t object.

You grab her a wooden stool to sit on, one much less rinky-dink than the barstool she’d sat on the night you first met as you go about procuring your materials; paints, brushes, —the necessities for this kind of ordeal.

“Can you roll your sleeves up a bit more for me?” You request.

“Would it be easier to just discard the shirt?” She asks.

Your breath catches in your throat. Yes, she’s probably right in some sense. . . That likely would make this process increasingly easier in a pragmatic sense, —but you’re certain seeing her in such a state would do numbers on your heart that you’re not sure you’re really equipped to handle.

“I. . . I suppose so,” you nod.

You try not to stare as her elegant fingers undo the buttons of her shirt with ease, like she’s a master of the craft. Her back arches ever so slightly as she slips her arms out, long and limber as they fall to her sides and she keeps the mess of white fabric balled in her hands now. Her bra is a stark black, the kind of deep shade that really contrasts with every inch of her pale, porcelain skin. You swallow nervously at the sight of her, taking the shirt from her hands to drape it over an unused easel.

She seems to have no reservations about this. Maybe it’s because she’s simply confident in every aspect of herself, —or maybe it’s because she trusts you enough to remain stoic in the face of it. You don’t ask, and Moira doesn’t tell.

“Any ideas?” She says instead, “—For the artwork.”

“I was considering something floral and nature-themed,” you answer, focusing in on that aspect of the ordeal so as to forget that she’s sitting in front of you like this, so much of her on display for your eyes only.

“Butterflies with carnations,” you add, “—or daisies, perhaps.”

“I’m impartial to hyacinth myself,” she notes.

It’s not so much a suggestion for your art piece as it is something Moira simply wants to share with you. Still, you think it best to run with it, and you give her a slightly lopsided smile.

“Hyacinth it is.”

She watches with curiosity as you go through the motions, —mixing colors, cleaning your brushes between them, dabbing them dry. It’s not often that Moira has the luxury of watching something like this in person. . . In fact, now that she’s thinking of it, she’s not sure she’s ever witnessed an artist work firsthand at all. In her lifetime, she’s seen innumerous things she would personally describe as incredible, —and unbeknownst to you, this is one of them.

“This is actually quite relaxing,” she says. “Like a massage. I don’t fancy those much, I loathe the thought of a stranger touching me so extensively, —but this is nice.”

You offer her a small smile.

“I’m glad,” you reply. “I knew it was a bit of a strange request, and I wouldn’t have blamed you for turning me away, but I’m happy you felt comfortable enough to allow it.”

“Perish the thought,” Moira shakes her head slightly. “If anyone knows about unconventional methods, it would be me. I know better than most that in order to reach one’s full potential, sometimes it’s necessary to step outside the proverbial box.”

That wasn’t quite your mindset going into it, but if she was ready and willing to place a perfectly good excuse for this in your lap, then so be it. Truth be told, you were simply a conduit of passion to your very core, and in a perhaps distorted sense of the word, this was romantic to you.

You hum in acknowledgement.

“While you’re here. . . Can I ask you something?” You inquire.

Though it feels like your heart is in your throat now, you manage to keep your hand steady enough to continue your work with little disruption.

“You can ask,” she says, “though my ability to answer might waver depending on what the question is.”

“At that event. . . You told that blonde woman we were lovers. Why?”

It’s been eating at you since it happened, in more ways than one, and now seems like as good a time as any to get it off your chest. You steal a peak at Moira’s face, noting the way she remains completely composed, even in the face of such an off-color inquiry.

“So I did,” she says plainly, certainly not the type to deny responsibility or deflect accountability for her own actions. “It’s an unfortunate fact for me that my colleagues can be quite. . . Eccentric. And by that, I mean they often poke their noses in the affairs of others with something similar to reckless abandon.”

Her brows furrow now as she thinks about it, clearly agitated.

“It’s not uncommon for them to pry into my personal matters, and I was hoping to quench their overbearing interest in my romantic life by giving them a glimpse into it, —if only a false one. Like I said before, everyone there is in it for themselves. It’s all synthetic. . . An act they put on to please one another a few times a year. That night, it was my turn to do the pleasing.”

“That makes sense,” you acknowledge.

Of course it did. You weren’t expecting anything less from her of all people.

“Did it work?”

A low rumble of brief laughter resounds from her chest, —husky and divine.

“Like a charm,” she tells you. “I’m sure they’ve found another staff member to harass with their incessant yammerings about intimacy and partnership.”

“You’re not a fan of those?” You ask, and the question is punctuated by the quiet ripples of your paintbrush through water as you clean it.

Moira is silent for a few moments, as if pondering on your inquiry.

“I don’t. . . Dislike intimacy,” she replies, —though she doesn’t sound as sure of that response as she normally would have had the two of you been discussing anything else.

“Rather, I don’t dislike the idea of it,” she corrects quickly. “In practice, I suppose that’s a different story. I don’t offer my trust like candy, and for me, intimacy only follows trust.”

“I’d argue this is quite intimate,” you note softly, blending two shades of deeper purples together on her bare skin. “Does that mean I’ve won your trust?”

You fear you’re pushing your luck here, but can’t stop yourself from asking. Eventually, Moira lowers her chin a bit, seeming amused by your line of questioning.

“I suppose so.”

Bingo.

If nothing else, that was your win for the day. If nothing else, —Moira trusted you. . . And that was more than enough for the time being.

You thrive off the high of that evening for the next several days. You don’t even worry when things go silent on Moira’s end. It’s all too easy to simmer yourself down now that you know for certain she trusts you, —and it’s almost elating to hold that information so near and dear to your heart. She invites you for a drink that Saturday night, in the cooling heat of summer, and you jump at the first opportunity to see her in person again.

This time, the bar isn’t quite so run down. It might just be the fanciest one you’ve ever set foot in, and the outfit you wore that you were worried would come off as overdressed now feels like the opposite. Things like this remind you of just how different you live in comparison to Moira. . . It’s easy to forget that she’s quite wealthy, and though you’re well past your struggling artist phase, you’re far from living the way you imagine she does day in and day out.

She’s not keen on discussing work tonight, so you sit around nursing lemon drop martinis with sugar-lined rims, hanging off her every word like the admitted lovesick fool that you are.

It’s nothing profound, nothing inherently important in the grand scheme of it all. . . But it’s nice to know that her favorite season is autumn, and it’s nice to know that she can play a bit of piano. It’s then that you really understand just how much little things really do matter, even within the finite days we’re given. Especially within them.

Just like your drink, it’s slightly bittersweet.

You talk with her well into the night, eventually forgoing the bar to simply walk around under the stars and the city lights. And maybe it’s alcohol or that aforementioned trust she’s placed in you, —but she tells you that she misses her home on nights like these, and when she sees you shiver, she drapes her jacket over your shoulders and walks a little closer to you now. So close that the back of her hand brushes against yours, —once, twice, thrice— but the fourth time never comes.

Instead, she reaches out in between the hum of passing cars and the hollow breeze that swishes by, and takes your hand in her own. You don’t bother to bite back the smile that graces your lips.

That night, you consider telling her all the things you’ve been keeping bottled up inside, —all the time you’ve spent groveling over her and her unfair ability to captivate you like no other. But, a part of you is almost certain she already knows now, as if the poetry written in your heart has all but flowed right into her own from the lines in your palm.

As summer moves both far too slow and much too fast all in a single breath, Moira becomes a semi-frequent guest in your studio. Sometimes she simply watches as you work on canvas, and at others, she becomes the canvas herself. You have a little collection of photographs of her now, —posed according to your will, displaying her painted arms in the process. It must be hours upon hours now that you've spent gracing her skin with your brushes, listening to her tell you about her day; the good and bad parts.

She leaves out the finer details, not wanting to bore you with the intricacies of a job one could only understand through years of training and experience. Still, you know more than you probably should about her research, and you're there when the scientific community at large decides that she's a perfect fit for their next public enemy.

For how harsh the punishment is, you'd think she would have been more upset, —but she remained indifferent to it all, as if taking it in stride was the only way she knew how to cope with it. Moira asked that if you stumbled across any articles of her, you pay them no mind. . . And you didn't. Maybe that was a naive choice, but her work was only your concern to a certain extent, and you were already well aware that she was prone to bending ethical guidelines. At the end of the day, you knew her as a woman rather than a scientist, and that was that.

You have to admit, it’s a little tortuous seeing her so often, being constantly reminded of just how hard you’ve fallen, and yet never having the courage to act on it. You often hype yourself up, readying yourself to shoot your shot, —but as soon as Moira is actually in front of you, all the confidence you’d spent the prior day and night building up all but crumbles to your feet in pathetic little pieces.

You sit with her at that cafe again, sipping on lattes together in the early afternoon. She seems more relaxed today than she is most of the time, —like something amazing has happened, though she hasn’t told you what. If anything even happened at all. For a moment, you let yourself believe that she’s just happy to be here with you.

The new employee of the quaint shop slips you a napkin with some scribbled numbers on it, and you feel a sense of deja vu. It wasn’t too long ago that Moira gave you her phone number in much the same way.

“His number, I presume?” Moira inquires.

You nod.

“I was wondering when he’d decide to make a move,” she laughs. “He’s had his eyes on you since you sat down.”

“O-Oh?” You utter, heat rising to your cheeks, “—Has he? I didn’t notice.”

You were a little distracted by the way she held the handle of her cup, though you’re keen on keeping that particular detail to yourself.

“Indeed,” she confirms. “So, any plans to take him up on it?”

“Ah. . . No, I don’t think so,” you shake your head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered and all, I just. . .”

“He isn’t to your liking?” Moira guesses.

She’s so nonchalant about this that it’s close to driving you wild.

“I don’t know that I’d say it like that,” you mumble.

“He’s not your type, then?” She revises.

“I don’t think I have any specific type,” you answer.

“Perhaps there’s someone else?”

Your face falls and it doesn’t go unnoticed no matter how quickly you right yourself. There’s no hiding that it’s the case now, —but you have a feeling she already knows as much. She’d known it for days, weeks, —maybe months. Maybe she knew you were falling for her before you yourself had the wherewithal to pick up on it.

“Something like that,” you mutter, taking a long, drawn out sip of your drink.

Something like that.

She doesn’t press it any further, letting it drop completely for the time being. You part ways as you exit the cafe, and while she spends the rest of her day in her lab, you meddle about your studio, unable to keep your focus steady enough to get much done.

Perhaps there’s someone else. . .

You sigh deeply, frustrated and overwhelmed. If there was ever a time when you wished she’d be as blunt as she always seems to be, —it’s now. A part of you is certain even rejection would hurt less than this; less than the unknown. You’re sick of sitting in this pit of misty grey indifference, stuck in limbo, always waiting for the right time (that never actually comes.)

“Fuck,” you curse under your breath. “Fuck.”

You feel pathetically underproductive, sitting against the wall in your studio as the sun begins to set. You’ve done so little, but your mind has been racing for hours, and there’s still no sure-fire way you’ve found to reason yourself out of this mess. Telling her how you feel is always an option, but there’s a risk there that you’re just not comfortable with as things stand now. Moira pushes and pulls, and you don’t know what to make of it.

She makes that choice for you, as expected of her.

When your phone buzzes, lighting up with her name on the screen, you’re close to jumping out of your skin. It says so little, but it makes you feel so much.

Dinner?

Though you’re not particularly hungry despite having eaten very little all day, you quickly agree, if for no other reason than to bask in her presence and soak her in for everything she’s worth (which is more than any simple number could ever do justice, no matter how large.) For the sake of having an idea of how to dress, you ask where.

My place.

And so it goes. You get her address and she tells you to swing around by 7:30. You’re there by 7:28, spending the last two minutes outside her door, preparing yourself for whatever is to happen next. This building is incredible, —clearly high-class and unsuitable for the average working person based on price alone. You’d expect nothing less of Moira.

The outside pales in comparison to the inside, however. Her bookshelves are filled to the brim with titles, —some academically inclined, and others more for pleasure (though you’re not certain Moira would see much of a difference between the two.) She greets you in her typical attire, dress pants and a white button-up, although the top two buttons are undone tonight and her hair lacks any form of styling. You’re staring as she sits you down at a table overlooking the city, but you can’t help it, and you can’t bring yourself to look away. There’s something about her tonight that has your heart shivering in your chest.

“Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes,” she tells you. “Feel free to look around. I don’t mind what you touch as long as it isn’t broken.”

There’s a twinge of a smile on her lips and eyeliner slightly smudged beside her eyes. This is probably the closest you’ve come to seeing Moira in her rawest state, topping even the version of her you saw that night at the bar. It seems like that was so long ago now, but also feels like it was just yesterday somehow.

“You’re cooking?” You inquire.

“I dabble,” she replies. “It’s a necessary skill. I’m no Michelin star chef, mind you, but I can manage a proper meal.”

She hasn’t even set the food before you yet, and you already know she’s being far too humble. In the meantime, she pours you a glass of champagne, apologizing for the fact that it’s all she has on hand besides whiskey. You think nothing of it. If you didn’t know better, you’d consider this a date. . . And maybe you will, if only to yourself.

While she’s off in the kitchen, you run your fingers along the many book spines of her collection, imagining what she’d look like just sitting near a window in this place, a cup of tea resting near her, those elegant fingers flipping through pages.

Dinner is mostly quiet, but delicious. As you’d guessed, she was certainly being humble about her own culinary skills. She takes your compliments with lilted smirks. Moira seems more comfortable here, which makes sense. . . This is where she lives, after all, where she sleeps and spends a fair amount of time (you’re assuming) when she’s not in the lab or off doing something with you. She keeps her space impeccably neat.

You ask about the things strewn about her place, —about some of the awards she displays on a shelf all to themselves. It’s pressed into a corner, like she isn’t much proud they’re even there. She doesn’t seem to mind telling the tales, but doesn’t jump at the opportunity; like she’s doing it to quench your curiosity rather than stroke her own ego. She gives you a few book recommendations after gauging your tastes, —offers to let you borrow her copies, and you tell her you might just take her up on the offer, even if you won’t.

“It’s a bit late,” she says at a quarter past ten, “I hadn’t meant to keep you so long.”

But she doesn’t apologize for it, and Moira doesn’t seem sorry at all.

“I can drive you home,” she continues, “—or I could walk with you.”

She leans in a bit closer now, and you swallow nervously. You’re convinced you’re misconstruing something, but her lips are so near to your ear that you can almost feel them ghost against your skin.

“Or you’re welcome to stay,” she says softly, “if you’d like.”

You’re scared she can feel your heart hammering away in your chest. A part of you wants to just do as she’s offering, —stay the night with her, let her crawl under your skin, let her wrap you up in her arms and melt into her. But you’re not certain you’re ready for that yet. It’s a leap, and the both of you know what happens between adults when the lights dim and you stay over.

When you say nothing, she places one of those beautiful, elegant hands on the side of your face, cupping your cheek. You never really knew Moira could be that gentle. She waits, watching as your eyes flicker about for a moment, then leans closer; almost touching, but not. Like she’s waiting for permission or rejection. You meet her gaze, then let it flicker off nervously, and a smirk grows on her face.

Moira’s lips fall just to the side of your own, pressing a light kiss to the corner of your mouth. She leans back, standing to her full height, letting her hand linger on your face before pulling away. You were hesitant, and she could feel it.

“Goodnight,” she says, —as if she already knew how this night was going to end.

She’s not upset, and you let yourself smile up at her.

“Goodnight, Moira.”

This thing with her is intoxicating. It’s like a drug, and it’s getting in the way of everything. You’re finding it difficult to even be in her presence now without your eyes wandering or thoughts sneaking off somewhere they need not be. You fantasize about her more than you’d like to admit.

And now, you know that she must like you to, —at least to a certain extent. There’s plenty you aren’t certain of, plenty you’ll likely overthink in the future, but. . . You want this. You want her. You’ve known that for weeks, and now the only question left is what the hell you’re going to do about it.

You tell yourself the next time she comes onto you, you’ll accept her advances more readily. You’ll ask for the kiss she silently offers, tell her you want to stay the night. . . Maybe you’ll take the initiative, grab her by the ivory button-up and stand on the tips of your toes to press your lips against her mouth, even if it’s somewhat out of your character.

But then what?

What happens after, when the heat has cooled down, when the water’s stopped boiling, —when her dry luster has dimmed and you’re tired of being tossed to the wayside everytime she’s set her mind to something else? What happens when you’ve fallen down the list of her priorities and she has a million and one things to think about before she ever gets to you?

What happens when you run out of excuses to make for her. . . ?

And why doesn’t that seem to matter to you as much as you know it should?

You wonder if that’s what it means to love someone. . . To know that there are parts of her you’ll likely wretch at the sight of, to know that there are facets of her that you’ll find absolutely fucking repulsive, —and you’ll love her in spite of it, just as you do now.

Or maybe you’re just a lovesick fool.

She kissed you a few nights later in your shabby little studio. Your eyes had flickered from the roses you were painting on her arm to the glimmering red and blue of her irises that still shone even in the yellow lighting of the dying bulb above your heads, and then to the bow of her lips. Moira reached out, tucking a few strands of hair behind your ear, as if this was how she’d chosen to test the waters. Your stare was so tender, and even she, in all of her romantic ineptness, could see that you were practically begging for her to make the first move so you wouldn’t have to be the one to break the ice.

You felt one of her fingernails trace your jawline from chin to lobe, then back down again. She cupped your cheek that time around, her surprisingly smooth palm sitting warmly against your skin.

You’ll never forget the way she paused just then, or the way she met your gaze just to lean in closer, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips before she asked simply: “May I?”

And even when you were still uncertain of what that really meant, —uncertain of what she’d do in the moments that followed your approval, if only naively, you gave her a nod, because you trusted her.

Her lips were soft and imperfect, and her lipstick wasn’t the type she could kiss with and leave nothing of the remnants behind. The reddish-orange color left an imprint on your mouth, faintly, of course, but it was there. It served as proof that what happened wasn’t just in your imagination anymore. You felt your heart stutter when she pulled away, and your head was swimming.

Since then, you’ve gotten that same feeling more times than you can count. Sometimes, it seems to live in the marrow of your bones. You had it for hours on end the first night you spent with her, all but glistening in afterglow under your worn-out covers. She never complained about the quainter life you lived, even though it often paled in comparison to her own. Moira held you just the same whether on your creaky frame and dreary mattress or on the king-sized bed in her luxury apartment that overlooked the cityscape.

You get that feeling when she takes your hand in her own, —when she traces shapes and cursive letters against your flesh under humble moonlight. You get it when she peels you apart, when she looks inside your chest with a single glance, when she soothes your deepest flaws simply because she can.

And it’s not always perfect. Sometimes she’s snippy, sometimes you’re sensitive, and sometimes you sleep in the spare room of her apartment just to make room for your thoughts. Sometimes she doesn’t call when she knows she’ll be working late, and sometimes you don’t see her for a few days when her workload piles up too high and she shacks up in her laboratory. Sometimes she forgets to make the most of every moment, and sometimes you shut her out when you know deep down that you shouldn’t.

But there’s always love to be found, —no matter where you are. She attends company banquets with you on her arm, just to show you off like a prize. You sit and watch her with stars in your eyes when she cooks, when she reads, when she paints the press-on nails she wears like claws for protection. She makes your coffee for you in the mornings, memorizes the way you like it, and keeps the additives on hand (even when she drinks hers straight from the pot.) You make her your greatest source of inspiration, filling in page after page of her likeness, never tiring of a single thing.

It’s not always easy. Love never really is, —not even in most of the movies these days. But as Moira crawls into her bed, —your bed—, the bed you share now more nights than not, her hair ever so slightly longer now than on the night you first met, she drapes a thin arm over your waist and welcomes your warmth, pulling you closer, smelling faintly of the perfume you gave her for her birthday, —you’re certain some things are not just meant to be, but are meant to be maintained: and this love is one of them.

#moira #overwatch #moira x reader #moira o'deorain x reader #moira odeorain x reader #moira o'deorain #moira odeorain #moira overwatch #overwatch x reader #moira reader insert #moira x you #moira o'deorain reader insert #moira odeorain reader insert #moira x y/n #overwatch imagines #moira imagine #overwatch x you

201 notes · View notes

leorawright · 1 year

Note

ok so what about the Overwatch and Talon members of your choice reaction to Australian Reader arguing with junkrat and going full Aussie and them trying to understand what they're saying

Lol yeah you got it!

Overwatch hearing their Australian s/o go full Aussie

Reaper

When he hears you for full Aussie because you were annoyed he gave up trying to translate your sentences after 15 seconds

If you're not yelling at him he just lays his head on whatever surface is nearby and just waits for you to be done

"You're accent is an enigma mi vida"

Sombra

She finds it quite enjoyable when you go full Aussie on someone

Seeing their confused face as they try to figure out what you said is her favorite

She's actually spent a lot of time studying so if you go Aussie on her she can speak Aussie back and Reaper is just banging his head on the walls in the background

Moira

She just sits there with a smile as she listens to you say words she doesn't know the meaning of

She does get annoyed if the words are aimed at her because she's not use to not understanding what people are saying to her

But if it's to other people she happily watches their confusion from afar

Sigma

He just watches, fascinated at the words coming out of your mouth

He also tries to figure out the meaning of the words you said so he can surprise you

Seeing him use Aussie phrases and then look to you to make sure they made sense is honestly the most adorable image

Soldier 76

He, much like Reaper, doesn't try long to figure out what you're saying

He just stares quietly as you and Junkrat yell at each other using strange phrases said in a Aussie accent

If it's used at him he tries to get you to speak in a way he understands so you two can have a real conversation

Mercy

She knows her accent can get a little strong sometimes but everyone (except Junkrat) seems confused at what you're saying

Mercy and your arguments are so confusing because your Aussie accent is strong and hers is as well and it's almost unintelligible

Genji

He just stares expressionless since his mask covers up the look of confusion

He's honestly never hears a Australian accent that thick before

He really wants to know what you said so he knows how bad of an insult is was

Brigitte

Brigitte is very confused and intrigued by the words and phrases you're using

She definitely asks you to teach her some so she can slyly insult some people

Hey she's not nice all the time and not many people seemed to know the Aussie phrases you used

#overwatch x reader #reaper x reader #sombra x reader #moira x reader #sigma x reader #soldier 76 x reader #mercy x reader #genji x reader #brigitte x reader

407 notes · View notes

samantha-rae-velcher · 7 months

Text

I Promise

Slade Wilson x Fem reader

Requested by: none

Warnings: Swearing, angst, Violence, mentions of death.

A/n: If you don't like the warnings please don't read! PLEASE KEEP MY COMMENT SECTION AGGRESSION FREE! If you're comment is rude in any way, you'll be blocked. Ive been wanting to write a story like this for a while but haven't gotten around to it, my service is terrible so the app might just eat this lol

I know this isn't how Arrow went, but I'm just making my own thing out of it 😁

___

"Y/n, This is Slade Wilson." Moira said, holding her hand out towards a man on the couch.

Y/n felt dread wash through her as he stood, stepping over to her with a smile on his face. He firmly grasped her hand, the smile fading.

"A pleasure, Miss Queen."

"Let him go." Y/n had said, fear in her voice at the sight of Slade holding a knife to her brothers throat.

"Or what, little one? You'll attack me? Not likely."

Y/n and Oliver had fallowed Yao fei's directions to the crash site of a plane, only to be ambushed by a rather intimidatingly large man, Y/n had to admit she found him quite attractive.

"Fao Fei sent us!" She yelled, "I doubt it was so we could be killed by you."

He lowered his brows, staring her directly in the eye. No doubt trying to see if she was pulling a fast one or not. It took a few moments but he let go of her brother, but still didn't drop the knife.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"I'm Oliver Queen, and this is my sister Y/n."

"Sister? Funny, she looks nothing like you."

"I was adopted." Y/n grumbled. "Now who the hell are you, and why are you so fuckin special?"

"I'm Slade Wilson, and I have no idea why Yao Fei sent you to me."

Y/n threw her hands in the air, "Great, Ollie. This is great! We have an army attempting to track us down! We have an Australian jungle man with a sword and no way to get off this fuckin island! Yao Fei sends us here and none of us know why! This is just fuckin great!"

Y/n shook her head and sat on a nearby box. The men watched her, almost as if they thought she'd set the place a blaze with just one touch.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing." Oliver replied, "But we need to get him out of there."

"Do you two know how to fight?"

"She does, I don't."

"Well then, I guess we begin your training tomorrow."

As time went on the three had gotten close, Y/n was surprised when Oliver learned how to fight. They had rescued Yao Fei, and met his daughter. Only for the poor SOB to get himself killed . Y/n and Slade had been attacked, Slade had gotten hurt and she had to drag him into a cave that was well hidden by large shrubs.

"Stay still, if I don't take this out then it will get infected!" Y/n yelled

"I'll do it myself!"

"The fuck you will!"

"It'd be wise to not argue with me!"

"Then shut the fuck up and there won't be an argument!"

Slade was almost shocked by her words, Y/n was never afraid to fight back or curse someone out, even if they were holding a gun in her face.

"It's not as bad as I thought, I stole some medical supplies on my way out of the camp."

"That's why you stopped?" He asked.

"Well yeah, can never have enough bandages and whatever else I grabbed."

Slade chucked, wincing in pain as she pressed a rag doused in alcohol against his wound.

"We need to keep moving." He grumbled. "They'll find us if we stay."

"We aren't leaving until night. Rest, Slade. I'll keep watch."

"Y/n? Are you alright?" Moira asked, gently gripping her arm.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"Okay, ill let you two get acquainted while I grab us some drinks."

When the older woman left the room Slade pulled Y/n closer, his breath hot against her ear.

"What's the matter, little one? You look surprised to see me."

"You were dead, Oliver said he killed you."

"Tell him to check for a pulse next time."

"Here we are!" Moira cheered, bringing a tray of whiskey glasses and the bottle.

"I can't stay." Y/n said. "I have some very important business that-"

"That can surely wait until after we give Mr. Wilson a tour of the mansion." Moira interrupted.

"Yes, Y/n. Why don't you stay?"

"Stay." Slade whispered. "If you leave me and they find this place, I won't be able to defend myself."

Y/n hesitated, ready to run out and find her brother, but her feelings for Slade pulled her back to his side.

"Alright, but one more hour and I'm hauling you out of here."

It was Y/n who saved him, who fought and defeated all those men to get him back to the plane. But he still had eyes for Shadow, when he was healed they began sparring again. Y/n had to watch as the man she loved was being swept off his feet by the woman who wanted Oliver.

She felt sick watching them roll around and tackle each other. Oliver could see how she felt and it made him sad, she deserved to be happy after all she had been through. It was because of him that she was cooped up on this island, nearly being killed every day.

"I'm outta here." Y/n muttered under her breath.

"Where are you going?" Slade asked, grabbing her arm.

"I don't know, I'm gonna go disarm a mine or catch a fish. Just let go of me."

He did. Watching her disappear through the trees, oblivious to how she felt for him.

"What's her problem?"

Oliver shrugged and went back to fumbling with a stick.

Y/n walked through the forest, climbing a tall tree and watching a few soldiers sneak around. She jumped down and took them out, bringing them to a cliff and pushing their bodies off.

She could feel the anger building inside her, the pent up rage just wanting to get out. Y/n wanted to hate Shadow, but it wasn't her fault. She felt so controlled being stuck on the island, not being able to leave, having to worry that she'd wake up in a cage or not wake up at all.

"You have a lovely home, Miss Queen." Slade said, kissing her hand.

"Oh please, call me Moira."

"Of course, Moira. Unfortunately I have to be going, I look forward to seeing you again."

"As do I. Y/n could you see Mr. Wilson to his car?"

Y/n nodded and lead him outside. The trip was quiet, all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears.

"Slade, why are you here?" She asked, watching as he got in his car.

"Five years ago I made you a promise, Y/n. Well I'm here to fulfill it."

Y/n pointed a gun to his head, tears running down her cheeks.

"You won't do it, princess. You and I both know, your heart won't let you. Best to stop pretending to be someone you're not."

"I won't let you kill her." She whispered.

"How do you know it's Moira I'll kill? Maybe it'll be Oliver, or Thea. We'll just have to see, won't we?"

Tears stung Y/n's eyes as she sat with Slade, the others had already left but she couldn't pull herself away just yet. The sight of him drove a knife through her, his dead body leaned against a crate. A lantern casting their shadows over the wall, the cold of the room making Y/n feel so lost and alone.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered. "If I could've saved you I would've, even if I had to suffer through watching you fawn over Shadow. Id go through that pain, just to have you breath again."

She couldn't hold back anymore, her quiet sobs filled the room as she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I would give my life for you Slade."

The sound of people yelling outside ripped Y/n from her sorrow. She took Slade's gun and slowly made her way to the noise, watching as Shadow and Oliver were put to their knees by the same people they've been fighting on this island since they got here.

"Where is she!?" The leader yelled, pointing a gun at Oliver.

"I'm right here you fuckin chump!" Y/n called from over his shoulder.

"Ahh, Y/n. So good of you to join us, put her on her knees with her friends."

She was pushed to the ground next to Oliver, all she could think about was Slade as the man started his big speech on how long he's been trying to catch them.

"But you Y/n, you've caused me the most trouble." He growled. "Whenever I got close to finding you or perfecting the Mirakuru, you had to destroy it. You've ruined everything I worked for! So now...I'm gonna make you choose."

"What?" Y/n asked.

"You heard me! Choose! Who do I kill!? Shadow or Oliver!?"

She was stunned by his question, the pain of Slade's death still raw in her system.

"Who!? CHOOSE!"

"Me! You son of a bitch!" She cried. "Me! shoot me for fuck sake!"

The man chuckled, pointing the gun at Shadow. "Wrong answer."

The sound of a gun shot rang through her ears and Shadows lifeless body falling to the ground had Oliver screaming. Y/n shook her head, not knowing what else to do. She charged at the man, throwing him to the ground. Y/n took his gun and fired it at a few of his men, taking Oliver by the arm and running into the woods.

They made it back to the plane and Y/n collapsed, her breathing was rapid and her heart was racing. Her hands shook with the rest of her body as her vision went black.

"Oliver!" Y/n yelled, running into Arrows headquarters.

"What!? What's going on!?"

"It's Slade! He's back! I don't know how but he's back!"

Oliver ran over, wrapping his sobbing sister in a hug. The same memories racing through his head.

"It'll be alright, everything is gonna be alright."

"H-he's gonna kill you."

It had been weeks since Shadows death and here Y/n was running from more men with guns, she had just escaped a cell, and was on her way back to the plane when they came out of nowhere.

"Get her!" They yelled, racing through the trees and vines.

She was about to book it down a hill to the shore, when a hand came over her mouth, and she was pulled into that same hidden cave.

Y/n attempted to pushed the person away when she felt their chest against her back, but she was hushed by a familiar voice.

"Slade?" She asked, her own voice sounding shakey.

"Quiet, Princess. They're right outside."

They watched through the brush and vines as the men ran past and down the hill. Slade loosened his grip on her, allowing Y/n to turn around.

Her eyes scanned his face, not a scratch.

"How?" She asked.

"The Mirakuru. It healed me."

"It thought it killed you."

"Yeah, then it healed me."

Y/n pulled him into a hug, the feeling of his arms wrap around her made her heart race.

"Is Oliver and Shadow alright?" He asked.

Y/n slowly pulled away, dread written all over her face. "It's only me and Oliver now..."

Slade swallowed, "Where's Shadow?"

"After you died, we were captured. And a the guy that made the Mirakuru shot her."

His eyes filled with tears, "Do you know where he is?"

"Y-yes, Slade I'm so sorry."

"Can you take me to him?"

"...yeah, I can."

The two of them made it to the camp, they hid just outside and watched. Y/n could feel the anger and hurt radiating off of him. He's feeling just how she felt whenever she saw Slade and Shadow together.

"Is he in there?" He asked, pointing at the largest tent in the camp.

"Yeah, but he's got guards."

"You stay here, I'll make this quick."

Without another word he made his way through the brush and out of sight. Y/n did as she was told and stayed there, she was expecting him to be out within minutes but when an hour had passed, she knew something was wrong.

Y/n was about to go in after him when she heard a twig snap behind her, and a gun press to the back of her head.

She slowly put her hands up and turned around, it was the man that killed Shadow. His face was twisted into an evil grin. Y/n was about to jump at him, but before she could a hard object hit her in the side of the head.

Y/n woke up in a cell, it was wet and she could hear waves outside. She rolled over to see that she was below deck of a ship.

Y/n sat up clutching her head, she looked around to get her bearings. She saw the man who killed Shadow, a few of his guys and...Slade?

"Slade?" She asked.

He turned, the look in his eyes was hatred and pain. This wasn't Slade, not mentally anyway.

"Are you okay?"

He didn't answer, only stepped closer to the bars of her cell.

"He just shot her, huh?" He asked.

"What?"

"Shadow! He just shot her!? Funny, he tells me you chose to have her shot!"

"Slade I-"

She was cut off by the feeling of a blade being pressed to her stomach.

"I wanna show you something."

He opened her cell door and stepped away so the guards could grab her, once again she was thrown to her knees in front of the same man.

"Show me how you did it." He growled.

"What?" The man asked.

Slade handed him his gun, "You killed her didn't you, show me how you did it."

"No, she chose."

"I chose?" Y/n asked, getting to her feet. "You wanna know what happened? All three of us were on our knees, he told me to choose but I was so torn from seeing you die that I couldn't comprehend what he said. So he said it again, and I told him to shoot me. And you know what he did?"

She stepped closer, "He laughed, he pointed the gun at her and said "Wrong choice" then he shot her."

Slade looked at her, he could see the tears in her eyes as well as what she was saying was the truth.

"I didn't choose Shadow, he did."

Y/n was expecting I'm to put down his weapon and let her go free, but that wasn't the case.

"I don't care." He said. "If you hadn't chosen yourself, Shadow would still be dead."

Slade turned to the man who killed her. "Is that how you pointed the gun?"

"Y-yes."

Slade suddenly sliced the man's hand off, taking Y/n by surprise.

"Take him out of here."

Y/n watched them drag him away as Slade slowly came towards her. "You love me." He whispered.

Her heart sank at his words, "How-"

"Oliver told me."

"When?"

"Two days before I died."

Y/n felt small and helpless as he got even closer, towering over her.

"You would've chosen Shadow anyway, because you were jealous of her. You hated her didn't you? Because she had my love and you didn't."

"That's not true, Slade. I didn't hate her, she was my friend."

"No, I bet you were happy to see her die. Only to remember I was gone as well."

"This is the Mirakuru talking isn't it? You're not acting like yourself, the Slade I know wouldn't blame me for Shadows death!"

"It is your fault!"

"Then kill me! Then fuckin kill me!"

Slade shook his head, and began circling her. "No, you cannot die until you have suffered the same way I have suffered. Until you have felt every single shred of pain I have."

He got close to her once again, she could feel his hot breath against her neck.

"I won't kill you, until you feel complete despair. And you will...I promise."

To be continued...

I hope you enjoyed ❤️

Reblogs are welcome 🤗

#fyp #fanfic #foryou #foryoupage #x reader #slade wilson #slade wilson x reader #slade wilson x Fem reader #requested #deathstroke #death stroke x reader #slade Wilson x y/n #slade wilson x you #arrow slade wilson #slade wilson arrow

54 notes · View notes

oceansmotion · 1 year

Text

The sleepy town of Wormwood

A powerful witch has cast a spell over the town, isolating it from the rest of the world. Perpetually 1956, it exists in a stasis, unchanging over the years. No one has ever questioned the way things are, never thought about why nothing seems to change from year to year. Will anyone ever break free of the curse and bring Wormwood into the present or will it forever remain the same? I really love this hood and despite having so many issues with it, I still love playing it (and so does @nonsensical-pixels who is the one that inspired me to dig around to get most of the original files back because she was making me jealous). It's a little more silly but there are some pretty dark undertones as well. I know there's a couple issues but they really aren't a problem if you play the hood as a standalone or with non-PV subhoods. There is an overarching mystery/plot :) Who really is Moira and...is she really that bad? Is she actually evil or is there more to it? What's going on in the Moore house and why is there a strange smell wafting from it? The Tegan's sure are an odd bunch, is the picture perfect family of blonde hair and blues eyes a coincidence or something more sinister? Will Olive Specter finally find some good luck and love in Ocean Grisly? Sam Spyers is determined to figure out what's happening in Wormwood, but can she figure it out before it's too late?

There are 3 files included: Required, Highly Suggested, and Wormwood itself. The Required folder contains various CC that I used, almost entirely from Michelle's recolors from MTS (merged) + the Bespoke build set (merged), the (optional) Prison mod from Simlogical is not required but sort of ruins the immersion for two families, there are various plants from Parsimonious, fences from Smug Tomato Basket, more plants from the Castaway conversion site, the Sims 2 store sets, and unfortunately a really old merged buy mode folder that I genuinely do not remember what's in it other than a ton of Veranka's stuff. I don't think I used too much from this folder and most of it has the creator in the item descriptions. In all, it's about 1GB of CC, so it's not exactly that much. CC lite, I guess? Most of it is just to get the general vibe of the hood and can be replaced and even then, the bulk of it is simply recolors or bespoke wallpapers. I used this template from enchantedw0lf on MTS to create the hood. Townies may or may not be bald. No, I will not explain. As the first hood I've ever made, it has been through hell and back. I actually completely finished a more complex and involved version of it before managing to corrupt it due to a simple misclick in simpe and thinking I had a backup but not actually :):):) Then entirely remade it from scratch again but it was a hacked down version with fewer sims and simpler plot lines (rifp cowboy farmer who secretly wanted to be a pretty ballerina and had a room full of mannequins facing a stage where he'd dance for them). All this to say that I didn't make this hood 100% correctly and it has some...quirks. When I remade it, I forgot to disable stealth hoods (you'd think I'd have learned my lesson from this when I decided to make Natosi later lol), and I simply can't be bothered to delete townies n stuff. I don't have the energy or willpower to clean it up. The hood itself is still very pretty and fun to play, I think the odd quirks actually fit in perfectly and helps give the vibes I wanted for it!

Download || Mediafire

#sims 2 #sims 2 maxis match #sims 2 download #sims 2 creator #sims 2 simblr #sims 2 custom hood #Wormwood #Oceansmotion #OceanLivesHereToo #shemighthaveissuesbutshesworthitanyway

135 notes · View notes

swan-of-sunrise · 1 month

Text

Hawkeye (Part II)

Summary: Clint reaches out to (Y/N) for help and after a visit with the physically and mentally taxed archer, she takes it upon herself to meet Hawkeye’s #1 fan and impart a little wisdom onto Clint’s young partner.

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings/Disclaimers: None

A/N: This week's chapter is a little longer because (a) I'm not sure I'll have Part III finished by next Thursday and (b) You guys deserve it!! There's a surprise character that'll pop up in the second half of this chapter and if you've seen Spider-Man: No Way Home, then I think you'll know who it is lol thank you for reading, I hope you all enjoy!

Hawkeye (Part II) December 21st, 2024 Apartment of Moira Brandon, East Village (Previous Chapter)

Out of all the Avengers she’d been introduced to during that fateful party at the Avengers Tower so many years ago, (Y/N) always had a secret soft spot for Clint Barton; he was equal parts kind and sarcastic, quickly noting the anxiety she’d been desperately trying to mask from the moment she arrived and taking the time to get to know her while simultaneously directing playful jabs at his fellow teammates. Their first meeting and team-up in the subsequent conflict with Ultron coupled with Natasha’s endless stories from their days of working together at S.H.I.E.L.D. cemented (Y/N)’s unbreakable trust in the archer, and it was that trust that led her to an average-looking East Village apartment building only four days before Christmas with a priceless and top-secret piece of S.W.O.R.D. technology tucked away in her messenger bag.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice, (Y/L/N),” Clint smiled as he ushered her into the temporary safe house, checking up and down the hall before locking the door and leading her into the cozy living room. “See any of those idiot Tracksuits tailing you?”

(Y/N) shrugged her winter coat off and draped it over the back of the couch with a humorless chuckle. “Nope, but I almost wish I had; I could’ve used a good laugh or two after that horrendous traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge.” She folded her pink scarf in half and tossed it on top of her coat, meeting Clint’s eyes with a sardonic smirk beginning to spread across her face. “Wouldn’t you know, some dumb-ass archer decided to impale a Pym Particle-infused arrow into the Manhattan Bridge and create commute hell for anyone traveling in or out of Brooklyn?”

Rolling his eyes, Clint flopped down onto the well-worn couch and sighed in exasperation; he looked exhausted, with darkened circles under his eyes and a noticeable cut on his forehead. “Still a smart-ass, I see. For your information, I shot a Pym Particle-infused arrow at a regular arrow and then it impaled itself into the bridge.”

“Well, either way, I thought you’d like to know that Scott got his ass chewed out by Hank for that little stunt,” She replied in amusement and sat herself down on the couch beside him, taking a moment to adjust her sweater over her small baby bump before rummaging through her messenger bag. “Apparently, Hank’s not too fond of his life’s work being used for – and I quote – ‘stupid shit you see on the eleven o’clock news.’”

The archer scoffed at that. “I once saw the guy use Pym Particles to enlarge a goddamn chicken sandwich, but whatever.”

(Y/N) laughed as she withdrew a small metal case and handed it over to Clint. “Back-up hearing aid, as requested; my coworker said that this is one of the best on the market, so you should be well-covered if yours ends up breaking again.” He nodded in thanks and slipped the case into his pocket. Her former teammate’s recent hearing loss as a result of years of work as a S.H.I.E.L.D. spy, Avenger and vigilante inspired her to seek out Brooklyn College’s underfunded but resilient disability resource center; she studied ASL and learned enough to not only begin teaching Steve and Carina, but to also pre-film her lectures for any hard of hearing student who decided to enroll in her Introduction to American Popular Culture course. “And I looked into that socialite guy for you…” Activating the transparent S.W.O.R.D. tablet – a parting gift from Nick Fury before he traveled up to the organization’s newly-built space station – (Y/N) allowed it to scan her handprint and read off the information she’d collected. “Jack Duquesne, born into the obscenely-wealthy Duquesne family that’s apparently descended from European aristocracy. Since he’s seemingly never worked a day in his life, he’s had enough free time to become an expert swordsman and accrue a pretty impressive sword collection; is that what he was doing at that black market auction the other night?”

Clint nodded as he studied the images on the tablet’s screen. “He wanted to add the Ronin’s sword to his collection; according to Kate, he ran off with it after the Tracksuits crashed the auction, and then he almost took my head off with it when we broke into her mom’s penthouse this morning.” When (Y/N) thoughtfully tilted her head to the side, his frown deepened. “What?”

“When I did a little more digging, I found out that Duquesne is listed as the CEO of Sloan Limited. It’s a shell company, one that launders money for none other than-”

“The Tracksuit Mafia…” The archer exhaled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Kate thinks that Jack Duquesne killed his uncle Armand. At first, I thought the idea of him becoming her stepfather someday was clouding her judgement but it’s looking like her instincts might’ve been right.”

Taking note of the stiffness in his movements and the weary tone of his voice, (Y/N) tucked the tablet back into her messenger bag as she gave him a sympathetic smile. “None of what I found out really helped you, did it?”

“It helped, (Y/L/N), it really did…” Clint hastily reassured her. “But I’m no closer to being able to go home for Christmas. I’ve got the suit and the sword, but Maya Lopez and the Tracksuits still have me and Kate connected to the Ronin and there’s a good chance that they’ve got Laura’s Rolex; I can’t leave until I track it down and figure out a way to stop the Tracksuits from targeting Kate, and I’ve gotta do all that before Kingpin gets involved.” He sat back and offered her a small smile. “The Barton Family Christmas hit a little speed-bump, as you can tell, so how’s the Rogers-(Y/L/N) Family Christmas going so far?”

“Well, Carina helped us decorate cookies and gingerbread houses for the vets down at the VA hospital yesterday, and then she decided that our living room wall could use a thick coat of frosting as well.” Clint burst into laughter and (Y/N) couldn’t help but join him. “Steve’s convinced that she’s got the makings of an artist, but I just think she likes to keep us on our toes. And this little gumball…” Beaming, she rubbed a hand across her bump. “Moved for the first time this morning.”

“That’s amazing! Boy or girl?”

“We don’t know yet, but we’re gonna open the envelope my doctor sealed for us together on Christmas Day and find out.” Memories of her first pregnancy and the overwhelming loneliness she struggled with unwittingly came to the forefront of her mind, but she forced herself to ignore them as she continued. “I’ve never really been one for big gender reveals, but after Carina’s…shall we say, unconventional birth and everything we’ve been through since, I just wanted this pregnancy to be special for us.”

A look of understanding crossed Clint’s bruised face, as he was one of the few Avengers who could empathize with desiring balance between a normal family life and the superhero life they’d been thrust into, but he merely smirked and jokingly replied, “Well, if you’re still thinking of baby names, I’ve always thought that Clint Rogers-(Y/L/N) had a nice ring to it.”

(Y/N) snorted in amusement. “Oh, really? You know, I’ve heard the same exact thing about Sam Rogers-(Y/L/N), James Bucky Rogers-(Y/L/N), Bruce Rogers-(Y/L/N), Thor Rogers-(Y/L/N), Korg Rogers-(Y/L/N) and Rocket Rogers-(Y/L/N).”

“I’m not usually one to judge, but I’ll totally judge you if you name your kid after a talking raccoon or a big pile of rocks.” When his chuckles died down, the archer’s blue-grey eyes softened as they looked between her face and the bump she was unconsciously cradling. “I’m really happy for you guys, and I know…I know that Nat and Tony would be, too.”

After flashing him a thankful smile, (Y/N) leaned her elbow on the back of the couch and rested her temple against the palm of her hand. “So, what’s this Kate Bishop like?”

“A pain in my ass,” Clint bluntly replied and when she lightly scoffed at his answer, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m serious! That kid’s cocky, reckless and she talks way too much…but I can’t deny that she’s a damn good archer and her instincts are sharp.” His brow arched as a thoughtful expression crossed his injured features. “You know, she reminds me a little of you, actually; she put that suit on to protect innocent people from the Tracksuits without a single thought for her own safety, just like how you volunteered to help an Air Force vet and a couple of wanted Avengers save the world from Hydra without a single thought for your own safety.”

(Y/N), detecting a hint of concern in her friend’s tone of voice, nodded in understanding. “You’re worried about her.”

Clint nodded. “Damn right I am. You were twenty-seven when you helped Steve, Nat and Sam stop Project Insight, and Kate’s only twenty-two; you understood the risks of getting involved in this sort of life, but Kate…she’s got blinders on. I tried to make her understand that I’m not a role model, that I’m not someone that people should look up to and that this life I’ve led for the past twenty years isn’t a game but like I already told you, she’s cocky and reckless.”

“She doesn’t know about the Ronin, does she?” When Clint shook his head, (Y/N) bit her lip and carefully contemplated her next words before speaking. “Maybe the reason you can’t get through to her is because you haven’t shown her the real you and she can sense that you’re hiding something from her; if you open up to her now, then you might be able to stop her from getting too deep into all this.” He shrugged his shoulder, but she could see that she hadn’t convinced him to confide in his reluctant partner; she glanced down at her wristwatch and hummed to herself. “Well, I should probably head out now if I want to beat the commute traffic to Brooklyn…”

“Yeah, and I should give Laura and the kids a call before I pass out from exhaustion.” Clint helped her to her feet and gave her a fond smile as she pulled her coat and scarf back on. “It’s been good seeing you, (Y/L/N), and I really appreciate your help. Tell Steve that I said hi and that he should totally name his second-born after one of his oldest and coolest friends, okay?”

“Sure thing, Hawkeye,” (Y/N) chuckled, slinging the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder as they walked over to the apartment’s front door and giving her friend a hug, careful of his bruised and battle-worn limbs as she did. “Good luck, Clint. You’re going to fix this and you’re going to make it home for your Barton Family Christmas and on Christmas Day, we’ll give you guys a call to let you know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” With a smile and a teasing salute, Clint opened the door and watched her head towards the building’s elevator before retreating into the temporary safe house.

(Y/N) stepped into the elevator and after the door slid closed, the uneasy feeling that had begun to form when the topic of Kate Bishop came up only seemed to deepen as the elevator descended. It was foolish to further embroil herself in Clint’s struggle against the Tracksuits; not only was she entering her pregnancy’s second trimester but if a powerful man like Kingpin caught wind that she was involved, it could put Steve’s secret life in jeopardy and their family’s safety at risk. But it was Clint’s comparison of Kate to (Y/N) that compelled her to pull the S.W.O.R.D. tablet out of her messenger bag and research the young archer’s cell phone number.

“I sure hope that I’m doing the right thing, Nat,” She murmured under her breath as she worked. “For Kate and for Clint’s sakes…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An hour later, (Y/N) was seated at one of the rickety metal tables outside Greenwich Village’s own Joe’s Pizza, patiently waiting for the twenty-two-year-old to work through her star-struck awe while she enjoyed a slice of pizza and scratched the young archer’s rescue Golden Retriever behind his ear.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe I’ve met two Avengers in less than a week! Is this, like, some sort of a superhero test? Or a trial period or somethin’? I mean, I’ve only been in four-ish fights so far…or wait, was it five? I don’t know, I can’t really remember ‘cause I’m pretty much running on caffeine and adrenaline at this point,” Kate nervously chuckled, a little out of breath as she finally stopped rambling and attempted to rearrange her excited features into a nonchalant smile. “…So, um, what can I do for you, Ms. (Y/L/N)?”

“Please, just call me (Y/N).” Smiling, (Y/N) took another bite of her pizza slice and used it to point at Kate. “I’ve heard a lot about you from our mutual friend, so I wanted to meet you for myself.”

The young archer’s brows raised almost comically. “R-Really? Wow, that’s really…was it all good things you heard?”

“Mm-hmm, and I also saw the video of you rescuing this good boy on the news.” The one-eyed Golden Retriever nuzzled his face against her lap and perked up when she tore her slice of pizza in half, wolfing it down in record time once she offered it to him. “He’s lucky that someone as skilled as you came along when you did.” After watching the dog enjoy his chunk of pizza, she looked back up at Kate and sobered as her eyes fixated on the steri-strips that closed the lacerations that were scattered across her youthful face. “Actually, I asked you to meet me here because I wanted to talk to you about this case you’re working with Clint.”

Kate slumped in her seat, a dejected frown beginning to form on her injured face while she took a halfhearted bite of her pepperoni pizza slice. “You think I should stay home and let Clint handle it, don’t you? That’s what my mom thinks, too; she didn’t say anything about it to me, but I know she thinks I’m crazy for doing this. I mean, I’m just a civilian and Clint’s a freaking Avenger, so I guess I see why it’s nuts that I’m helping him out, but I…I can’t just sit back when I know that I can help.”

Smiling a little to herself, (Y/N) dabbed at her lips with a napkin and shook her head. “Kate, I’m the last person on the planet who’d ever tell you to stay home and ignore the instinct to help. I was just a civilian when I helped Steve, Nat and Sam take down Hydra – an unpublished historical-fiction novelist with a part-time job at the V.A., who just so happened to be one of only two people in D.C. that a couple of wanted Avengers could trust. They tried their hardest to make me stay home and out of danger but I refused, because I knew that I could help them. I had to help, no matter what, and nothing they’d say could change my mind.”

“So, you understand why I’m still helping Clint?” The young archer’s expression brightened and she sat up in her seat. “That’s great!” When (Y/N) didn’t immediately answer, her head tilted to the side in confusion. “…Isn’t it?”

“You and I are a lot alike and because I see so much of myself in you, I wanted to tell you what I wish someone had told me ten years ago, when I took my first steps into the life of an Avenger.” (Y/N)’s fingers caressed the content Golden Retriever’s fur, taking small comfort in his calming presence as she continued. “When you choose to spend your life trying to help people, there’s going to be consequences you’ll have to face. Some of the consequences won’t come as a surprise – the fights and battles have taken a physical and mental toll on me, for example, and I’ll have to live with their effects on my body and on my mind for the rest of my life – but others will. From the moment it began, my entire career’s been called into question; you see, people assume that my success is due to my long-time association with the Avengers and not the writing skills I’ve worked my ass off developing and perfecting. I lost any chance at anonymity or a private life when I announced my engagement to Steve Rogers. I became estranged from my family, because they didn’t approve of my relationship or my association with the Avengers. I went through the joy of befriending some of the kindest and most misunderstood people in the world, and then I was forced to mourn them in a way that no one but my fellow Avengers could ever understand; the world lost Iron Man, Black Widow, Black Panther and the Vision, but I lost Tony, Nat, T’Challa and Vis.”

Kate bowed her head and stared down at the discarded pizza crust on her plate. “And you lost Steve, too.”

(Y/N) nodded mutely, careful to keep up the ruse that Steve Rogers died in the Battle of Earth and wasn’t currently wrapping Christmas gifts with their fifteen-month old daughter in their Brooklyn home. “When you face the threats that Clint and I have faced, you have to accept that there’s going to be things that you lose along the way. I don’t tell you any of this to dissuade you, Kate, far from it; I’ve always believed that if you feel that you can help, then it’s your moral obligation to do so.” She reached across the table and rested a comforting hand atop Kate’s, giving her a small smile when her eyes finally met hers. “But it’s important that you know that this life isn’t easy, and it’s only fair that you hear it from one of the only Avengers who stumbled into this life the way you have. Do you understand?”

Kate nodded, and the brief silence that filled the air as (Y/N) finished her slice of pizza was broken by a timid question. “Do you know who the Ronin is?”

“…I know who they used to be,” (Y/N) carefully replied. “But if you want to know more about the Ronin, then you’ll have to ask Clint.”

“Urgh, I knew you’d say something cryptic like that. Hey, what’re Clint’s favorite Christmas movies and does he have any strong opinions about ugly Christmas sweaters?”

After (Y/N) helped Kate plan out the perfect mini-Christmas party for a homesick Clint, she bid the young archer and her energetic Golden Retriever goodbye and watched them both stroll down the sidewalk with a fond smile on her face. It was clear to her that Kate’s heart was in the right place, and that perhaps she was the perfect person to help Clint move on from the Ronin as well as resolve the ongoing conflict with the Tracksuits. I just hope they’ll both stay safe, she thought as she anxiously bit her lower lip and stroked her small baby bump, her mind preoccupied with a myriad of the worst possible outcomes to the archers’ partnership.

“Here you go, Ms. (Y/L/N): one large chicken and olive pizza to go,” The young worker’s sudden appearance shook (Y/N) out of her heavy thoughts and after setting the pizza box down, he started to bus the table with a small smile on his face. “Need any packets of Parmesan cheese or red pepper flakes?”

“No, thank you, I-” (Y/N) cut herself off when her eyes caught sight of a familiar well-worn paperback sticking out of the teenager’s back pocket and she felt herself begin to grin. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a copy of For Queen and Country with its original cover art. How’re you enjoying it?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “It’s one of my favorite books!” The young worker’s gaze briefly met hers as a light blush dusted his cheeks; there was a brief flash of grief in his brown eyes – a deep sort of grief that looked entirely out of place in the eyes of a teenager – but it soon vanished when a bashful expression graced his features. “I’ve been a fan for a pretty long time, Ms. (Y/L/N), and I was actually workin’ up the courage to come out here and ask you for your autograph. I don’t wanna bug you or overstep-”

“Of course I’ll autograph your copy!” (Y/N)’s smile widened as he stammered out a brief thanks and scrambled to hand her the paperback and his server’s pen. “Who should I make it out to?”

“Peter, Peter Parker.” Again, (Y/N) was struck by the strange emotion that flashed across his face, but what gave her pause was the sudden familiarity that his name brought her; she couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about the teenager’s name tugged at the far reaches of her mind. Doing her best to shrug the unsettled feeling off, she jotted down a brief greeting and signed her name before blowing on the drying ink and handing the book and pen back with a smile. “Thanks a lot, Ms. (Y/L/N)! It was good seein’ you agai-um, sorry, I think my manager’s callin’ me, happy holidays!”

Peter Parker, who’d abruptly turned as white as a sheet, shoved his book and pen into his pocket and scooped up the dirty dishes before practically sprinting back inside. (Y/N)’s brow arched at his odd shift in behavior, but gathered up her pizza box and strode down the sidewalk to where she’d been lucky enough to park her yellow Volkswagen Bug. After securing the pizza in the car’s front trunk (or ‘frunk,’ as Sam liked to jokingly call it), she carefully climbed into the driver’s seat and waited a moment for the baby to settle down before dialing Steve’s cell phone number.

“Hey, sunshine! How was your visit with Clint?”

“Productive, for the most part; he has an idea of who the middle-man between Kingpin and the Tracksuits is, but he’s still not sure how to stop them from targeting him and his new friend Kate or uncovering Laura’s past. I also had a quick chat with Kate over lunch, which is why I’m bringing home a chicken and olive pizza from Joe’s; you should also know that your offspring conned me into buying it.”

Steve chuckled. “Oh, they did, huh?”

“Mm-hmm, and you should count yourself lucky that it was only pizza; at four months pregnant with Cari, I was craving Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dipped in vanilla ice cream,” (Y/N) snickered as her husband made a sound of disgust on the other end of the call. “Oh, and the strangest thing happened as I was leaving! Do we know a Peter Parker from anywhere?”

“…I don’t think so, but the name sounds awfully familiar.”

“Right? There’s something strange about it but I can’t put my finger on-” A recognizable babbling in the background of the call caused her to stifle a giggle. “Someone’s feeling chatty today, aren’t they?”

“I think that last episode of Sesame Street might’ve riled her up a bit; you know how much she loves when the Count makes an appearance,” Her husband remarked before calling out, “Cari, did you wanna talk to Mama? Mama’s on the phone right now.”

The gibberish grew louder as the infant toddled over and happily exclaimed into the phone. “Mama!”

“Hi, lemon drop! I’ll be home really soon, okay? Mama loves you!” (Y/N) smiled to herself, listening to their daughter’s incoherent mumbling grow faint as Steve regained control of the cell phone. “I should be home in a half an hour or so, depending on how backed up the bridge is.”

“Fingers crossed that all the city’s archers decide to leave the Brooklyn Bridge un-impaled for the afternoon commute.” Steve joked. “You can tell me all about Clint and his new partner over pizza and my famous green smoothies. I love you, sunshine.”

She gave her phone an exaggerated air-kiss that made Steve huff out a quiet laugh. “I love you too, sweetheart, and I’ll see you soon.”

After hanging up the call and tucking her cell phone into her messenger bag, (Y/N) started the car’s engine and turned up the radio, the local station’s Christmas playlist already playing through the speakers. “Okay, gumball, your daddy promised to make us a smoothie, so let’s get this show on the road.”

Pulling away from the curb, (Y/N) hummed along to the upbeat Elton John track in the hopes that the music would distract from the unsettling feeling beginning to take form in the pit of her stomach, but the tune wasn’t enough to make her shake the suspicion that someone was watching her from afar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Who do you guys think was watching (Y/N)?? You'll have to stay tuned to find out! Thank you all so much for reading and commenting! I’ve created a Spotify playlist inspired by this series, and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter. Enjoy!

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ziGMhEsAw833GQ9eV44nR?si=6dfead09c76848d5

Hawkeye (Part III)

Stumblin’ In Book VII: “Superhero Snapshots” Masterlist

Tagging: @mrs-obrien @lahoete @awkward117 @cminr @natdrunk @momc95 @savedbystyle @miraculouscloud @awkwardnesshabitat @marinettepotterandplagg @mangosandmimosas @supersouthy @benakenalove @brooke0297 @hufflepeople @becausewelie @outoftheregular @junipermurdock @ladydmalfoy @mads-weasley @username23345@crist1216 @capswife @lilmschild @avngrsinitiative @crowleysqueenofhell @y-napotat @mary1raven @groovyqueer @ljej95 @innersublimefury @prettysbliss

21 notes · View notes