#nevermind the fact that it's graves and nevermind the fact that its just . not the field im passionate abt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wttcsms · 1 year

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love cuts just like a knife (you make the knife feel so good) ; phillip graves

pairing phillip graves x f!reader word count 8.4k synopsis lover and victim are synonymous when it comes to those who fall into phillip graves’ trap. you learn this lesson a little bit too late. alternatively: an ambitious twenty-five year old graves will do anything for recognition and a promotion. even using you, a renowned general’s daughter, as a means to an end. collateral damage is insignificant when it comes to reaping the rewards of love and war, after all. content contains age gap (reader is 19, phillip is 25), manipulation, loss of virginity, possessive sex, possessive!phillip, lovers to enemies, naive + inexperienced!reader, mentions of pregnancy, power imbalance, breeding kink, minor depictions of violence + blood, literally heavily inspired by taylor swift’s “all too well (10 min version)” + “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” </3

The four walls of this bathroom are closing in on you, you can’t breathe, and you’re certain that this most certainly is the end of the fucking world.

You try to focus on your breathing, but the sound of your heart banging against your chest invades your mind and makes you think your eardrums are going to burst from the inside out. You’re vaguely aware of the knocks against the bathroom door, but you can’t make out what the person on the other side is saying. The whole room is spinning, and you shut your eyes, forcing yourself to keep steady, to stay calm.

Your fingers curl around the countertop of the bathroom, back hunched over and your shaky arms being the only things helping you remain upright.

This can’t be happening.

You only tighten your grip, staring at your fingers before wanting to throw up when the light reflection from the promise ring on your finger catches your eyes.

You swear that in the glint from the thin band wrapped around your finger, you see flashes of what transpired these past few months. Secret smiles shared from across the room, being tangled up in hotel bedsheets, that damn smirk and boyish grin that sent you spiraling, that led to your’s — your whole entire family’s — demise.

It all comes back to you at too much of a rapid-fire pace for your already shattered mind to deal with properly. Instead, you’re practically ripping off the ring from your finger and chucking it somewhere in the bathroom. You hear the distinct sound of its landing, and from the corner of your eye, it still taunts you.

You shut your eyes again, childishly refusing to turn your head any further so you can conveniently ignore what the ring happened to land next to.

You don’t care much for violence.

Which is ironic; a renowned general’s only daughter being a pacifist? Sounds more like the setup for a joke.

But there’s nothing funny about the way his knuckles are smeared with dried blood, and the sincerity reflected in his blue eyes is too real to be just a joke. Dangling from in between his fingers is the unmistakable golden locket your mother gifted to you when you were only twelve — just months before her quick death. It’s your most prized possession.

And then it was stolen.

At least, you think it was stolen. You’re smart enough to know better than to throw wild accusations, especially whenever you’re on base and these young men surrounding you are training to be the best and brightest for the country. But still — you’re not careless enough to just misplace something so important. The only reason you took it off was because your father told you jewelry wouldn’t be allowed past a certain point. He had promised that the locker would be secure, and you didn’t have the heart to come running to him to tell him that the lockers evidently were not. After watching a fighter jet’s practice run (a supposed special treat for graduating top of your high school class — neverminding the fact that your father’s influence probably had something to do with it), the door to your locker had been swung open and left entirely empty.

You even had a sneaking suspicion as to who the culprit could have been. Jeremy Omelia has been a pain in your ass since summer break started, and you’ve been forced to spend most of your time either on the training base or following your dad around like some little puppy. He’s a new recruit, evident in the way he talks loudly and obnoxiously about how badly he wants to go to war. Your father, a highly respected general, mind you, isn’t shy about his distaste for fighting.

Avoid it at all costs.

Instead of hardening him, all the violence your father has beared witness to has left him rather soft. He shields you to the point where some of his fellow men jokingly discuss about you living in your own little bubble world. And they’re right.

You’ve never had the luxury of sneaking out or having movie dates and getting your father to allow you to go to a sleepover at a classmate’s was harder and less painful than pulling teeth. You get it; that he’s overbearing and overprotective for a good reason. But when the situation calls for you to stand your ground, you find yourself completely at the mercy of your opposition.

So when you first accused Jeremy of stealing your beloved necklace, it had been nothing short of a miserable, failed mission. Too overwhelmed and yet too unsure of yourself, you had practically stuttered through your accusation. It hadn’t helped that you chose to confront him in front of the rest of the new recruits, too. They would have mocked you and probably teased you with the type of cruelty only boys are capable of, but the status of your father shields you from it. Their laughter still rings in your ears, though.

And for the first time in your life, you felt the urge to punch someone in the face.

Again: you’re not a very violent person. Nor are you the type of person who jumps in and does stuff as irrational as that.

But staring up at the boy in front of you, locking eyes with him, and then allowing yours to wander from his bloody knuckles to the thin gold chain dangling in his large hands, you feel a sudden surge of satisfaction. Your father may tell you to avoid fighting at all costs, and you may have a distaste for violence, but a punch managed to solve all your problems.

“Thank you,” you breathe out, daring to take a step forward. Your fingers graze against the familiar, cold feeling of the gold of your necklace. “Thank you.” You repeat it again, staring up at him, trying to see if you know him at all.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he says, knowing that he’s lying right through his pearly white teeth. It’s a nasty habit of his — lying, that is. It’s probably inherited. That’s the excuse he tells himself anyway. As if unlearning bad behaviors from your family is impossible.

“I know he stole it! That jerk! I—” You pause, clearing your throat. Your cheeks feel warm, and you suddenly can’t look him in the eyes. “That jerk” is probably one of his bunkmates. Badmouthing the guy might do more harm than good, and since you haven’t necessarily regained possession of your necklace, you should shut up. Instead of finishing your onslaught of insults, you stretch out your palm, silently asking for your prized possession back.

“I know.” He says, after a minute of silence. “Omelia’s a dick. And an idiot. Y’know, I think he has a little crush on you.”

That makes you look at him again.

“That’s— I—” You need a second to process what you’re trying to tell him.

“That can’t be true,” is what you lamely settle for.

“Guys do weird shit to get a girl’s attention, y’know. ‘Specially for a pretty one.”

(Things like getting their knuckles bloody and risking punishment and public humiliation. But, that’s neither here nor there.)

You want to blame your inexperience for being the reason why you react the way you do. You’re thankful that he’s only human and can’t hear the way your heart starts to beat at his comment. He says it so casually, as if it’s not a compliment. And maybe he doesn’t mean it in that way. Maybe it wasn’t a compliment towards you at all. Maybe he’s just being a completely normal guy, and he’s just making simple conversation, and you’re the weird one for practically gawking at him.

“I guess.” You reply back, feeling small as ever. “May I have my necklace back, now? Please?” You tack on the please at the last minute, hoping he’ll appreciate it, and the two of you can be done with this whole entire awkward situation.

“Depends. You gonna get it stolen from you again?”

You know he’s just teasing you, but you can’t think of anything smart to say back, so you just cross your arms, hoping your distaste for his comment will be made known. Instead of apologizing, he laughs.

“Turn around.” He tells you, and you do. Only out of curiosity, though. Only because he has a nice laugh. Only because he obviously went through great lengths to retrieve your necklace back for you, and he never acknowledged your thank you’s, so maybe doing what he says will make the two of you even.

The tips of his fingers brush against the nape of your neck, and you never realized just how sensitive you are. It takes everything in you to not jerk away from the movement, but it’s almost as if he’s shocked you. It’s silly to get overwhelmed from just the slightest touch, but you swallow hard as he manuevers around your hair to clasp the necklace around your neck.

“There.” He says, seemingly satisfied. “Now the next time someone takes it from you, at least you’ll have a solid look at ‘em yanking the chain around your neck so your accusation can have some credibility.”

You ignore his little teasing remark in favor of satiating your curiosity. “Who are you?”

“No one you need to worry too much about.”

You turn your head, ready to face him again and ask him for his name more firmly, but he’s already walking back from wherever he’s came from, leaving nothing but the memory of his face and the ghost of his touch lingering on the back of your neck.

Ambition is a curse.

Ambition is a bitch.

At least, that’s how Phillip Graves sees it. Ambition and the greed to do something more, to always have the best — sure, it motivates him to be the top of his class and to rise through the ranks faster than most. But it also ends up resulting in him doing some pretty questionable shit.

Things like beating up fellow recruits.

He doesn’t like fighting.

Or rather, he doesn’t like to be the first one to swing.

You see, it’s easier to justify when you do bad shit because it’s done out of retaliation. No one can blame you for being the bad guy if you were the victim first — right?

But no.

General McHenry is the closest thing Graves has to a father figure. His home life is something he chooses not to acknowledge, and when you’re too consumed with climbing the ladder, a lot of things get easier to move to the backseat, left to be abandoned and forgotten. His family being one of those abandoned, forgotten things.

The conversation still replays in his mind as Graves stomps on Omelia’s back.

“General [Surname] has been a pain in the fucking ass for as long as I can remember. The weak bastard’s always opposing the opportunity to strike, and he’s going to be the reason why our enemies are going to accuse us of being a bunch of pussies.”

Graves nods in agreement, even if he doesn’t truly agree. General McHenry’s been the one kind enough to take him under his wing, and so it’s better to just go with what he says and continue to benefit from the general’s sponsorship. Raw talent and simple ambition only gets you so far nowadays.

“You agree, dont’cha? ‘Course ya do.” McHenry grumbles, pacing around the room. “[Surname] refuses to man up and fuckin’ fight. It doesn’t help that he’s still viewed as a golden boy around here. He’s even got the fuckin’ president wrapped around his finger.”

Graves personally doesn’t have anything against General [Surname]. He seems like a nice enough guy. He’s a war hero, too.

Then again, so is McHenry.

“When I’m at the top of the fuckin’ foodchain, [Surname] and his entire family is going to regret crossing me. You understand, Graves?”

Graves nods. Lately, McHenry’s been going on little tangents like this, where he’s secretly plotting the downfall of this general. He goes along with it because he feels like he owes it to McHenry, and even if there’s only a sliver of a chance of taking down General [Surname], Graves will follow through for McHenry because the payoff will be fantastic.

He doesn’t actually anticipate McHenry coming up with a feasible plan.

“Fuck! What the fuck is your problem, Graves?!”

The howl of pain from Omelia snaps him back to his current reality. Staring down at the pitiful, crumpled form of Omelia, Graves can’t find it in himself to feel the slightest bit of remorse. Truth be told, Omelia’s had it coming since day one.

The pathetic idiot’s been eyeing General [Surname]’s daughter ever since you stepped foot on base. Everyone is aware of your presence, especially this year’s class. The famous general’s only daughter is going to be here all summer? And you just so happen to be the prettiest fucking thing most of these guys have ever laid eyes on? Trouble was bound to happen.

Graves just didn’t know that he was going to be one of the unlucky participants of it.

He sighs, crouching down before taking a hand to tug at the collar of Omelia’s shirt. The action forces Omelia to weakly lift his head, allowing him to look Graves in his gunmetal blue eyes.

“Where is it?” Graves doesn’t sound angry, which is shocking to poor Omelia considering the fact that he sure as hell punches like he is. The proof is in the constant stream of blood trickling out of his nose.

“Where’s what?” He’s not even feigning ignorance, which Graves can’t necessarily fault him for. He’s not really the type to wear his heart on his sleeve — would much rather prefer to pretend that he doesn’t even have one, thank you very much — but he’s on a bit of a time crunch right now. He knows your schedule. You’re going to be leaving the canteen pretty soon, and if he wants to catch you, he needs to speed things up.

He chooses to further take his irritation out on Omelia, punching the guy with his left fist this time. It’s not a particularly hard punch; he figures he’s already done enough damage, and by the time word gets around of his transgressions, Graves will hopefully already have McHenry pulling some strings to make sure his punishment isn’t too severe. Now, though, both of his hands are bloody. Blood is a bitch to wash away.

“Fuck!” Omelia yelps. “What the fuck are you even looking for?”

“Her necklace. The damn locket that she confronted you about for stealing. Where the hell is it?” With each sentence, Graves shakes the boy, forcing his limp body to jerk with each aggressive tug. Graves starts to feel a little bit guilty, before he remembers that technically, Omelia made you cry.

You’re cute, Graves finds himself thinking. Too cute to be crying over an idiot like him.

The guilt dissipates.

“That’s what all this shit is about? Over some stupid fu—”

Omelia’s complaints are interrupted by another one of his pained screams. Graves had punched him again, this time a bit harder.

“I don’t have time for your bullshit.” Graves growls. He switches gripping Omelia’s shirt in favor for curling his fingers into the locks of the boy’s hair. It’ll be easier to use that as a sort of leash; provides him the ability to more forcefully bash the idiot’s head into the pavement beneath his feet. Seemingly smart enough to sense the impending danger, Omelia quickly begins to shout.

“It’s in my fucking left pocket! Left pocket, left pocket!”

Graves keeps his grip tight and unyielding as he uses his free hand to rummage in said pocket. Sure enough, Omelia had enough sense to not lie.

He releases Omelia unceremoniously, clutching the dainty necklace and keeping it safely secured in the calloused palm of his hand.

His parting words — more like a warning — leaves Omelia wondering just who the fuck are you to Graves.

The next time you make her cry, I’ll break every fucking bone in your body for every tear she spills.

Eighteen years old. Freshly graduated from high school. More college acceptances than you know what to do with. General [Surname]’s only child. His precious little princess. His only immediate family, and after the untimely death of your mother, his biggest weakness.

General McHenry is teaching Graves on how to exploit weaknesses.

“Good job,” McHenry says, laughing before clapping Graves on the back of his shoulder. “You sure can put on a performance, son.”

Son. Huh. It has a bit of a nice ring to it, he supposes.

“Y’know, I thought I wouldn’t be able to stick out my neck for ya, but you must’ve done some Oscar-worthy acting, boy. You should’ve seen the look on that girl’s face when she begged her daddy not to let ‘em punish you too harshly. Looks like you’re smarter than you look.”

Yeah, sure. It’s a bit of a backhanded compliment, but Graves will settle for it. He just has to deal with this shit for a while longer, and soon, he’ll never have to settle for anything ever again.

At first, General McHenry thought it was a bit of a bullshit idea. The general’s daughter is much too protected by the likes of her father and his closest allies to be touched by the likes of any outsiders. The best way to have him in the palm of their hands is to hit you with it, but that provides to be a bit of a challenge. No direct attack on you will go unpunished.

Graves suggests playing the long game.

He’s read your file, and it doesn’t take a psych degree to read you to filth. You’re nothing more than a pretty girl who’s been spoiled and sheltered by her father all her life. You’re eighteen and about to begin the start of your life, and you probably feel as if you’ve never done anything exciting. Even if you act like a stickler for rules or you’re scared to face the consequences of disobeying your father, with the right words and the right timing, Graves bets planting the seeds of rebellion in your naive, little brain will be a simple task. He’s certain you’ve never had a boyfriend, never even been given the chance to go out on a date — the slightest bit of affection will have you eating out the palm of his hands. The same hands he’s going to use to force your father into the ground, allowing him and McHenry to do whatever the fuck they want.

Naturally, no good deed goes unpunished. Graves still has to scrub the bathrooms with a toothbrush for the next two nights, but it’s a small price to pay. If you truly caused a commotion and swayed your own father to change his stance all for a guy you don’t even know the name of, he’s certain in the next few months, he’ll have you craving his last name and the privilege of bearing his children.

Which isn’t such a bad thing. You’re pretty, he’ll give you that. The prettiest girl he’s ever seen, too.

“What do you plan on doing next?” McHenry asks, grinning. Graves smiles back.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it all figured out.”

Word spreads around quickly in places like these. While you saw the evidence all over his knuckles, hearing what actually transpired leaves you a bit breathless — shocked, but not necessarily because of the violence of it all. Shocked because it had all been done in your honor.

It’s only been two days since the incident, but the feeling of your locket pressed against your skin seems to burn. It serves as a constant reminder of the boy who fought to get it back for you, and suddenly, this necklace has two special memories behind it. You never want to take it off again.

You catch snippets of the recruits whispering to each other, but it’s hard to hear the full story whenever they look up and notice you’re nearby. No one has outright approached you about your connection to this whole fight, and it’s not until dinnertime that you finally get all the details.

“What’s this I hear about between you and Graves?”

“Me and who?” You continue twisting your pasta around your fork, perfectly content with eating in silence and daydreaming about the boy who retrieved your necklace for you. You’ve been texting your closest friends from high school about all the drama, questioning them on what it means. The general consensus? That boy’s got it bad for you. The thought makes you way too happy.

“Phillip Graves.” Your father says.

You shrug, still not sure who he’s talking about.

“Young lady, do not play the fool with me. According to Omelia, he’s the one who left him bloody and bruised outside the back of the gym.”

So, two things you now know for certain: Omelia is a necklace thief, and the boy you’re thinking about is named Phillip Graves. This is becoming a truly enlightening conversation.

“Oh. Well, I didn’t know his name.”

“You don’t know his name, and yet, he’s starting brawls over you?”

“Well, dad, when you put it like that—”

“[Name], what Graves did was a very inappropriate thing to do. Honorable men should never raise their fists against their own fellow soldiers, especially over disputes that could have easily been solved with a simple conversation.”

“Dad, you don’t seriously think that he’s the bad guy in the situation! He’s the one who defended me—”

“I’m just saying, sweetheart, that he used unnecessary force—”

“Omelia is such a jerk! You weren’t there that day. He totally humiliated me in front of everyone in the canteen whenever I tried to make ‘simple conversation’. He wouldn’t listen at all.”

“There’s going to be a meeting to discuss what Graves has done. I personally believe that he should be punished in accordance to what’s written down for men who act as rashly and harshly as he did.”

“Dad!” You gasp, dropping your fork entirely. It makes a tiny sound as it hits the porcelain of your plate, but you ignore the clanging noise. “Don’t you think that’s unfair?”

“Omelia has a broken nose, [Name].”

“Omelia stole the last piece of mom I have left. He would have never given it back if his nose wasn’t broken.”

Looking back, maybe the violence was harsh and uncalled for. A punch might have sufficed. The brutality he’s capable of is simply excusable in your untainted mind. You reason that all soldiers must be capable of going through great lengths to protect and defend others. Isn’t that what he was doing? Protecting and defending you?

“If you vote to have him punished horribly, I won’t forgive you.”

Even if your bottom lip is trembling and your hands are shaking, your father can see that there’s some conviction behind your words. He’s never been one to deny you, his only daughter, and perhaps Graves is just young and brash.

“Fine.” Your father says, appeasing you.

The clink of his fork tapping against his own plate sounds a bit too much like the first domino of his downfall.

“You never told me your name,” you’re standing with your arms crossed against your chest. The sunlight coming through one of the large windows hits your necklace, making it shine. He takes in your entire form, memorizing the shape and silhouette of your body. You’re a sight for sore eyes, at least.

“I’ve got a feeling you already know it, though.” He watches the way you fight down a smile at his remark. He bets you have a pretty smile.

You pull out the seat that’s across from him.

“I didn’t know you read.” You say. You’ve been plotting running into him for the past week now, and you know that he frequents the library every day for at least an hour. You’re not sure what he likes to read, but you doubt brushing up on the hockey romances on your Kindle will provide much conversation. You downloaded The Art of War and only made it past the first three pages before deciding that you’ll just manipulate the conversation into something not about books.

“You think about my literacy levels on your freetime, honey?”

All common sense evaporates the moment he calls you honey.

He teases you every time he talks to you (which, then again, isn’t very much), and so you’re certain there’s nothing genuine behind the pet name, but it still makes you undeniably giddy. No one’s ever called you something so sweet before.

Trying to appear unfazed and not as flustered as you feel, you eloquently reply back, “Um— I— No.”

He laughs, the same nice laugh that you can’t stop thinking about. It almost makes up for the fact that he’s most certainly laughing at you.

“Don’t feel bad. I think about you during my freetime, too.”

He can’t just go around saying stuff like that! It’s unfair! It’s… No one goes around saying stuff like that!

“What? Nothing to say to me now?” He’s grinning at you, book in his hand long-forgotten. You notice that it’s not mean, though, which makes you relax just the slightest.

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that.” You tell him. “People might take you seriously.”

“Well, they should. I am serious.”

And for a split second, he thinks he’s being a bit cruel. Mean, at the very least. The way you’re looking at him makes it plainly obvious that you’ve never been flirted with a day in your life.

The hopeful gleam in your bright eyes makes him believe his own lie, just for a brief moment.

It could be worse, he reasons with himself. There are worse people to pretend to fall in love with, after all.

You’ve never been gifted flowers before.

Maybe Phillip knows this. Maybe the insane amount of bouquets he’s gifting you is to make up for all that lost time. Maybe he’s just one of those people who believe in going big or going home.

Maybe he likes you as much as you like him.

You know how your father feels about dating. He’s a rather traditional man. Believes in the whole entire “ask him for permission before taking his little girl away from him” type of shit. Graves is thorough with his research, and even gathered the courage to ask your father for the chance to take you on a date.

It had been a risk—

—one that almost didn’t pay off.

He thinks his ears are still ringing from the shouts of your father. He’s heard reports that he’s a stoic man, for the most part, and isn’t one for conflict when there’s an option that avoids it. But he’s also a reasonable man, and so, Graves can’t necessarily fault him for the rant he went on.

You’re six years older than her! The hell are you doing trying to take her on a date?

He eventually calmed down, of course. Graves took the brunt of the screams pretty well, gave a whole long lecture on how he would never harm a hair on your precious head. He didn’t anticipate on liking you so much, and believe him, he’s been trying to fight down the feelings he’s harboring for you, but he knows he’ll regret not at least trying.

Your father is soft on you. You must talk about Graves more than he realizes it, because General [Surname] gives him his permission a lot easier than he planned on.

He almost feels bad for the way he’s playing your family like a fool.

Then he remembers the power he’ll receive once all is said and done, and he can almost ignore the lingering feelings of guilt.

He forgets everything when you walk through the doors of the library, surprised at the sight greeting you.

He’s made sure that everyone on base knows to avoid the library at all costs tonight, and he even retrieved the key from the librarian on hand after slipping him a twenty and whispering a quick threat about what will happen if he isn’t left alone in this building. Dealing with the closest florist available and strategically arranging all the bouquets to the point where the whole front entrance of the library is covered in red roses. The spines of the books, the front desks, every table — none of them are visible due to the sheer amount of flowers obscuring them from view.

“I don’t–? What?” You take in the scenery before looking at him. He’s got a large bouquet in his hand and a proud smile on his face, like he’s pleased with your reaction. You think this is a good thing.

“Told ya I was serious. Now you believe me?”

There are weeks that go by without the two of you ever even talking. Most days, you’re lucky enough to be walking past him on the base, and for a fleeting moment, he’ll shoot you a smile that’s so quick, you blink and he’s already long gone. You convince yourself that there’s a meaning to all of this, though. That distance must truly make the heart grow fonder, because why else are you collecting all the scraps you’re given and convincing yourself that they’re the only things keeping you full?

(It’s hard to face reality when you find yourself falling in love with the image of his back turned, walking away from you.)

And in your mind, you’re right. You’re pleased to find out that you’re not just some silly little teenage girl, falling in love with the first person who will give her the time of day. After all, this isn’t necessarily your first time experiencing what it’s like to be crushed on.

It is your first time being wowed by someone so much older and therefore unattainable.

It’s addicting — his attention. He can only gift you his affections so few and far between; every time you find yourself on the receiving end of it, you get dizzy from excitement and joy. This is someone who likes you. Someone who likes you so much, he does grand gestures like this to properly court you.

It’s not your fault, is what you’ll tell yourself in the future. Anyone would have fallen for his tricks.

Anyone would have fallen for him.

Being with Phillip is exciting. Your friends from school tell you it’s simply because he’s your first boyfriend — the word still makes you smile every time you think about it — but you know in your heart that it’s because it’s him that makes it exciting.

You like the way he teases you, not to mock you or to bully you, but because that’s just how he shows his affection. You like the way he’s better than all of your friends’ boyfriends because unlike them, Phillip is actually a man. He’s older, making him more knowledgeable about a lot of things. You like the way he never makes you lift a single finger; you think you’re almost forgetting how to do basic things, like opening doors and pulling out chairs and even putting on your seatbelt yourself. But he makes up for it by teaching you things.

Things like spreading your legs for him when he tells you to, even when you’re not expecting him to.

“Phillip, I—” You forget what you’re about to tell him the moment the moan escapes from your lipglossed lips. It’s your nineteenth birthday. Dad’s away on a mission. Phillip tells you he had to pull some strings to not get sent away, either, and the lengths he’ll go to keep you happy makes your heart flutter.

The two of you get into his fancy sports car, and he drives upstate to a quaint little bed and breakfast that he knows you’ve been doing research on. The two of you were supposed to be heading out for dinner right about now, but when you finished getting ready, something in your beloved boyfriend seemed to change.

Now you’re not having a birthday dinner.

Gripping the sheets and gasping as the cool air hits your bottom half because of the way Phillip flipped the skirt of your dress, you realize that at least one of you will be eating tonight.

“Phillip, we—we don’t have time to be doing this.” You weakly protest, no true conviction behind your words.

Before him, you would have never imagined how good one person can make you feel with just the tips of their fingers or strategic movements with their mouths. Now the flood of pleasurable memories travels from your mind to in between your thighs as you remember just what exactly Phillip Graves is capable of.

“Fuck, baby, you’re already so soaked. I haven’t even done anything yet.” He murmurs, ignoring you entirely. He licks his lips, pressing quick, wet kisses against your inner thighs.

“Phillip, wh—what about dinner?” You fight the urge to instinctively buck your hips, but it gets harder to think reasonable thoughts whenever you feel him tugging at the waistband of your panties.

“You should’ve thought about that before wearing this slutty little dress. Were you trying to get the whole restaurant to fuck you with their eyes?” He practically spits out the sentences, and you’re momentarily shocked.

“I didn’t think it was…slutty.” You say, voice sounding as small as you feel. He can feel you practically shrinking away from him, and he mutters out a swear.

He doesn’t mean it. Doesn’t mean to be harsh with you; he knows you’re a sweet girl. He knows you would never have bad intentions.

But he’s not sweet. And he never has good intentions unless he’s the one benefitting.

And he can tell McHenry and even himself that this is all just a ploy to take down your father, but the moment he knew he had you wrapped around his finger was the same moment he realized that if he’s not the one protecting you from the dangers of men like him — maybe even men worse than him — then who will? It’s not like father dearest, for all his overbearing efforts, is doing that great of a job. Look at how easily Graves slipped through those defenses.

He’s doing right by you, is what he tells himself as he strips you of your panties, leaving you in just your pretty pink sundress. Men are wolves. They’ll take one look at you and eat you alive.

At least he has the decency and heart to make it a good time for you.

He presses a kiss against your clit, and you almost forgive him for his cruel words. Phillip makes everything so easy, including forgetting about any of his minor transgressions.

“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean it like that.”

You nod, even though you’re sure that he can’t even see the movement. He’s too busy with his head buried in between your thighs, kissing all over you, sucking hickeys on your thighs before his mouth meets right where you truly need him. You can’t even remember what he’s apologizing for the moment you feel him lapping up your juices before plunging his tongue inside your needy cunt as if it’s his right to do so.

Your hands find purchase in the thick locks of his hair rather than the bedsheets. Phillip has been doing this lately — eating you out, that is. The first time he had done it, you nearly cried from the sheer embarrassment of having someone so close to a part of you that is so intimate. You suppose, though, that if it had to be anyone, at least it’s him.

You always want it to be him.

You wonder if all men are like this. If all men plunge so deeply into the wet depths of their girlfriend’s pussy. Your walls flutter around his tongue, and the tip of nose seems to brush against your clit every so often, only adding to the overwhelming stimulation. Maybe it’s because you’ve never done this before him, or maybe it’s because he has a stronger effect on you than he should have, or maybe it’s because you’re just a sensitive girl — maybe it’s all of the fucking above. No matter the reason, all you know is that the pleasure Phillip is capable of handing out is nothing short of overwhelming.

You gasp and mewl out his name, letting out breathy moans of curse words — such filthy words have never left your mouth before he tainted you — and you keep tugging at his hair. He pulls away, your weak grip doing nothing to keep where you want him. Before you can complain, he immediately replaces his tongue with two fingers, scisscoring them inside of you, trying to stretch you out.

“Such a tight, little pussy.” He breathes out, chin wet with your slick and eyes darkened with lust. “Wonder if my pretty, little girlfriend can make me proud.”

“Huh?” Your pleasure-addled mind makes it hard for you to keep up with what he’s saying, and he only chuckles darkly at your clear confusion. He’s only been eating your sweet pussy for a few minutes, and you’re already too fucked out to even make conversation.

Cute. You’re too cute.

Fuck — he wants to keep you by his side forever. Even after his little con is over, and he gets the position he wants.

“You know what I wanna give you for your birthday, baby?” He’s still slowly thrusting his fingers in and out of your tight hole, and he relishes in the feeling of your walls contracting and squeezing against him. He decides to add in a third finger, which makes you gasp. He takes that opportunity to press his lips against yours, forcing his tongue inside your mouth and giving you a sloppy kiss. You think you can taste a hint of yourself on his tongue, and the dirtiness of it all makes you moan into his mouth. Everything right now is so filthy. You don’t know why you’re enjoying it so much.

“I wanna give you something special.” His voice is rough with lust, and the feeling of him curling his fingers in your tight cunt makes everything so hard to keep track of. All you can focus on is the heat coiling in your belly, and your eyes are glazed, barely able to look at him straight. “I want to give your little pussy something you deserve. I’m going to fuck my cum in you, and then when we go out to dinner, everyone is going to be able to see your wellbred pussy. How does that sound, hm? You want it? You want me filling your cunt with cum for the first time?”

If you had been in your right state of mind, you would have had the decency to be embarrassed at the way you cum all over his fingers, his words bringing you right to the edge.

“Oh? I think my baby likes the sound of that, huh? Just turned nineteen and already such a slut for me.” He’s still lazily thrusting his fingers in your cunt, and your walls are still spasming from the orgasm. “But you only act like this just for me, right?”

You nod too eagerly. “Yes, yes, yes. Only you. Only your slut, only want your cock, your cum.”

He’s already unzipping his pants, tugging down his briefs, freeing his cock from its confines. He removes his fingers from your wet hole, and your cum and juices act as lube as he uses it to wet his cock. In the back of his mind, even he’s aware of how far he’s taking this.

There’s no coming back from this — he knows this. But he’s still going to do it.

“You trust me, baby?” His eyes search yours for any hint of hesitation. He knows that he’s taken advantage of your naivety already; if you tell him to stop, he will. He expects to see nothing pure in your eyes, certain that he’s your ruination, only to have his heart skip a beat when he realizes that there’s only love and reverence in them. You’ve fallen for him, and he has no idea why he feels the way he does. Swallowing hard, he ignores his uneasy feelings in favor of giving into the one he knows he can actually control: lust.

You nod your head, eager to please him. His rough hands are gripping both your legs, easily exposing yourself to him, and you should feel incredibly vulnerable, but all you really feel is safe. It’s Phillip, after all. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.

“Good girl.” His eyes travel down your body, stopping once to admire the amount of marks he’s left on your soft skin, and then stopping again the moment he sees his prize. Your pretty pussy is slick with arousal, tiny hole clenching around nothing. You want him; it’s clear as day. And he’ll give it to you, give you everything; any part of him that he can afford to give is yours for the taking.

What he’s doing is unforgivable.

He doesn’t want forgiveness, though.

His hands grip your waist as he sheaths himself into your virgin cunt, your previous orgasm allowing the movement to be slick. It’s far more gentle than Phillip would treat anyone else, but it’s merciless all the same. There is no room for resistance, and all you can do is moan out in pain and pleasure as you feel yourself stretching to accommodate his length and girth.

You thought your first time would be romantic. A room full of roses, at least, like when he first asked you out.

But it’s Phillip. As long as it’s him, you’re happy.

“Fuck, baby.” He groans out, voice sounding raspy as he watches your tiny hole taking his dick like it’s supposed to. You feel full, filled to the fucking brim, and the foreign feeling of it all has you confused and overwhelmed. There’s a slight sting, and you think you should wait for the pain to subside, but he’s already shallowly thrusting, and you choose to shut up.

Phillip knows best. Phillip would have waited if you were supposed to wait.

“Forgot how good virgin pussy feels.” His touch is possessive as his hands travels all over your body, exploring areas he’s already well acquainted with before gripping your hips once more. His thrusts are starting to get more aggressive, but you find that the pleasure outweighs the pain. All you can feel is Phillip.

For a second, you wonder how many girls he’s been with before. Then he leans down to give you a kiss, and you forget what you were worried about.

“Don’t worry too much, baby. Just relax, and let me fill your pussy. Then, I’ll take you out to your birthday dinner. How does that sound?”

Nice. It sounds nice. Actually, you wonder why you even cared about something as silly as a birthday celebration. Isn’t this good enough?

“Should I make you go out with no panties? You’re squeezing me so tightly, I bet your cunt can hold my cum all night.” He kisses your forehead, the action far too sweet, juxtaposing the rough thrusts of his hips slapping against yours. “Or maybe I’ve loosened you up too much, and it’ll just drip all over your thighs and onto the floor. Wouldn’t that be a shame?”

You moan, imagining the filthy scenario in your head. Everyone would see; how humiliating. How exhilarating.

“At least everyone would know that you’re. Fucking. Mine.” He starts to punctuate every word with an especially rough thrust, and you can only moan as you lie there, taking it all. Taking everything he’ll give to you, and turning it into something sacred.

“I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours!” You cry out, and you prove it. You’ve proved it by the slight blood painting his cock from when he took your virginity, and you prove it a step further by cumming all over his cock. This is the first time you’ve ever came on it; Phillip vows to make sure it’s not the last.

Even if it jeopardizes his own personal mission.

“Atta girl.” He groans out, practically hammering into you at this point. You’re fucked boneless, left to just serve as a cocksleeve as he chases after his own pleasure. Phillip is surprisingly meticulous. He’s usually better at keeping himself composed, never one to give in to instinctual, animalistic pleasure.

In the back of his mind, he knows the risk, has even calculated it. He’s never done something as stupid and reckless as fucking a girl raw.

But no girl has ever been as sweet as you, as trusting as you. It’s the lust talking as he imagines you as the mother of his children. You’d be kind and patient, teach them to be better. They wouldn’t become fuckups like him if you’re there to raise them.

He can see it. He’s always been good at envisioning his future. Coming home to you barefoot and carrying his kids isn’t so bad. It’d be nice. He’d build you your dream house, make sure you always stay bred and dripping with his cum, keep you safe.

All of these thoughts only serve to bring him to the edge, and he makes sure he’s as deep in you as possible as his warm cum shoots inside. He refuses to pull out, and you don’t tell him to. Why would you? You feel closer to him than ever, and he’s kissing your forehead now, cooing that you’ve been such a good girl for him.

You’re tired. You felt like you’ve barely done anything, and yet your eyes are droopy and your vision is getting blurred. You still find the strength to mumble it out, though.

I love you.

He freezes up immediately, but when he looks down at you, you’re already fast asleep.

He’s got you hook, line, and fucking sinker.

So why doesn’t he feel like celebrating?

“Dad, what’s going on?” Your confusion is evident on your face. Your father has his hands pinned to his back, and there are men in scary uniforms yelling at you, and you’re frozen in place. “Dad, tell them that this is a mistake!”

“I’m going to be okay. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.” Your dad’s words of reassurance do little to console you; it’s kind of hard to believe what he’s saying whenever he’s quite literally getting arrested by men who are supposed to respect him.

You’ve just gotten back from a date with Phillip. He had seemed a bit off, but you brushed aside his odd behavior as a result of his nervousness. After all, he ended up presenting you with a promise ring. You don’t think he’s ever given someone something so precious and important.

Your good mood obviously disappeared the moment you walked through your front door.

“You’re innocent. You know nothing. They’re going to make sure that you stay in a safe place while I’m gone, okay? Just do what they tell you, and wait for me to get back—”

“Dad, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” The desperation and anxiety in your voice makes him frown, but there’s nothing he can do as the officers drag him out of the house. Despite your screams of protest, they don’t stop, and even you know hitting an officer would only make things worse. It’s not as if you could have done any real damage anyway.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

The worst part is, you don’t even know what he’s apologizing for.

They’re calling your father a traitor. And by extension, you are one, too. A child is but a reflection of their parents, after all.

Your mother was an enemy spy, and your father knew. Even worse, he protected her. Broke his own moral code, broke the rules of his training, destroyed everything — all for her. The proof was hidden inside his own office, and you don’t even know how someone could have broken in to obtain such incriminating evidence.

Now everyone is treating you like a criminal, down to giving you only one phone call. Naturally, the only person you can think to phone is Phillip. He’ll understand. He’ll calm you down, explain everything to you because that’s just what he does. He’ll know what to do. He’ll get you out of this mess.

You bite down on your lip, impatiently waiting for him to pick up. Usually, he picks up after the second ring, but the dial tone goes on for what seems like ages until you hit the automated voicemail message. You frown, wondering if he’s been sent away. You try again for good measure, but he doesn’t pick up the second time, either. You’re about redial and try for a third time before the woman supervising you snatches the phone away.

“It’s supposed to be one call, remember?”

You don’t talk back, afraid to make things worse, but you don’t think it’s fair. Phillip didn’t even pick up for it to count as a phone call.

You try again and again. Every time they make you move to a different safehouse, you waste that one phone call opportunity on him, daring to hope that he’ll pick up.

After a month, the dial tone haunts you in your sleep.

Hindsight truly is 20/20. When you’re free from the haze of first loves and rebellion, when the smoke of lust has dissipated from the air, when you’re given nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company, that’s when everything starts coming together.

That’s when you can see a traitor for what they are, not what they tell you to view them as.

On the way to the next safehouse, they had to stop at a gas station. You had to learn to be sneaky these days, and the old you would have felt incredibly guilty at the idea of stealing a pregnancy test, but you refuse to ask your handler for one. Pride is the cause — or maybe shame is more accurate.

Whatever the reason is, you find yourself locked up in a gas station bathroom, your worst fears confirmed.

#phillip graves x reader #modern warfare 2 #smut #graves x reader #cod x reader #angst #fluff #one shot #lemon #wttcsms winter writing week

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redux-iterum · 25 days

Text

Charred Legacy: Chapter Three

(AO3 counterpart here.)

“Yeesh.”

“Yeah.”

Greystripe shuddered and squinted in the direction of the distant Fourtrees, like he could see the dogs coming already. “One thing after another, huh? You think they’ll show up here?”

“I hope not, but…” Ravenwing shook some soil off his paw. “I don’t trust our luck. Nor do I trust those dogs.”

Fireheart stretched out, the early evening warmth still permeating the ground under him, which he knew to appreciate before he lost it by the time the moon was fully up. Greystripe had been asleep when the Gathering party had returned home last night, and Fireheart had insisted on not waking him up with such grave news as the leaders had given. Ravenwing had complied, but roused his friends early this evening for a “hunting patrol”, which was really an excuse to walk in the woods while they still had that freedom. Whatever Bluestar was thinking about the warning from Rookstar, she hadn’t said, but by the time everyone turned in for sleep, common opinion was near-certain she would restrict wandering about in the forest alone or in a small group. Just for safety, obviously, not that the reason made it any more fun.

“It’s the fact that we don’t have any information at all that bugs me,” Ravenwing continued. “There’s more than one, and that’s it. That’s all we know.”

“That’s at least something, isn’t it?” Fireheart asked, trying to sound hopeful and probably not doing a good job. “We know to watch out for several dogs.”

Ravenwing shook his head. “I mean, sure, but we’ll live with the uncertainty that, if one or more go away for whatever reason, we don’t know if all of them left, or just some. Two could leave, but then another one from the pack shows up when we don’t expect it, and we’re feather-plucked.”

“One thing at a time.” Greystripe lifted a paw and lowered it in a “settle down” gesture. “They’re probably still near WindClan territory. ThunderClan just needs to form a plan while we can.” He paused. “Whatever that plan may be.”

“And maybe humans will catch them first,” Fireheart added. “Anything could happen.”

Ravenwing, sitting up while the others were reclining, kneaded the ground and grimaced at the marks his claws were making, muttering, “We still ought to err on the side of pessimism.”

Neither Greystripe nor Fireheart responded to this. Fireheart instead swiveled his ears this way and that, keen on any small noise he could detect, just in case pessimism was warranted. All he got was a familiar, rushing rumble on the edge of his hearing.

“Hey, you can hear the river from here,” he remarked cheerfully. “It really got filled up from all that rain, didn’t it? Even though it’s been so dry this month, it’s still loud.”

Ravenwing slowly lifted his head and mimicked Fireheart’s ears, pulling himself out of his dour mood. “Huh. You can.”

Fireheart looked over at Greystripe, who had his ears turned as well, but more bittersweetly back than curiously pivoted towards the direction of the distant river. His eyes were half-shut with grieving affection.

“You know…” he said after a moment. “She never found a nickname for me.”

Ravenwing’s tail went stiff. Fireheart sadly sighed under his breath.

“Just a little bit of a bummer.” Greystripe’s head turned round to where the river sang. “It’d be nice to have at least that, you know? Something tangible to remember her by.” He made an attempt at an amused snort that came out more as a limp huff. “I mean, something tangible in this Clan.”

Fireheart didn’t say anything, but his mind soared over the river and went straight into whatever RiverClan had as a nursery, where a litter of grey kits nursed at a belly that wasn’t their mother’s. How much did they look like Greystripe now?

Ravenwing sank onto his belly, looking a bit queasy. He murmured something, seemingly to himself.

“What?” Fireheart tilted his head.

“Nevermind,” Ravenwing said, jerking his head up. “Just. Thinking.”

A memory shouldered its way into the forefront of Fireheart’s mind. In a bid to change the mood, he said to Ravenwing, “Well, at least you never had to learn that lesson the hard way, right?”

The mood changed indeed—Ravenwing flinched and stammered, “Are yo– don’t bring up that whole thing! It’s not the same!”

Greystripe looked back at them, frowning. “What’s not the same?”

Fireheart almost leapt to his feet, instantly eager at this chance of merriment. “Oh, it’s—” He looked at Ravenwing, who was burying his face in his paws. “Can I tell him?”

“Go ahead,” Ravenwing grumbled.

Immediately, Fireheart turned back to Greystripe, tail dancing in delight. “Ravenwing likes Wrenwhisker, and he overheard us talking about it at that one Gathering while we were still fighting, and he winked at Ravenwing and walked off.”

“You—” Greystripe almost coughed out a halting chuff of disbelief. “Excuse me? You—”

“It’s not him specifically!” Ravenwing blurted in protest. Then his voice dropped to a mumble. “It’s all WindClan toms.”

Greystripe’s face was unsure whether to be outraged or highly amused. “And you yelled at me!”

“That’s what I said!” Fireheart near-trilled.

Greystripe shook his head, his eyes bright and amazed. “I cannot believe the hypocrisy.”

“I didn’t go after anyone, Greystripe,” Ravenwing said hotly. “I can appreciate from a distance! Wasn’t I just appreciating, Fireheart?”

Fireheart’s eyes were almost squeezed shut as he beamed at Ravenwing, putting on an airy voice. “You certainly could have done the exact same thing as Greystripe instead, I suppose.”

“Okay—” Greystripe lifted his tail for silence, visibly struggling to decide what thing to dunk on Ravenwing for first. “For one—for one—you have the audacity to fancy an entire Clan of toms and then get mad at me for picking one molly across the river. For two…” He tilted his head and squinted at Ravenwing, snorting. “WindClan? Are you serious? Have you seen those cats?”

“Yes!” Ravenwing glared at him with no severity. “Have you?”

“Look, I could get, like, RiverClan—”

“Yeah, you could,” Ravenwing muttered.

“Shut up,” said Greystripe. “I could get RiverClan, but WindClan is literally the least attractive set of cats in the territories. Their faces are weird—”

“They have handsome faces!”

“With those dog-eyes and long noses?!”

“Yes!”

“How in—” Greystripe shook his head again. “You are out of your mind.”

“They’ve got a unique beauty to them!” Ravenwing looked to Fireheart now. “Come on. Aren’t they handsome?”

Fireheart rolled a shoulder. “Well, I think everyone’s got their own flavor of beauty, no matter where they come from.”

“Why are you asking him?” Greystripe said to Ravenwing with a chortle. “You know he’s never looked twice at any cat at all, much less appraised their appearance.”

“He can still have standards,” Ravenwing sniffed.

“My standards are that everyone’s got something,” Fireheart said when the bigger toms looked at him. “I mean, we all look good to someone, right? Isn’t that how it goes?”

“I will catch you every single mole in this forest if you can point out a cat that thinks Yellowfang looks good,” Greystripe said.

“Or Darkstripe,” Ravenwing added sourly.

“Darkstripe’s ugly is from the inside, it just came out in his face.” Greystripe squinted in amusement. “Honestly, I don’t know how anyone born from Patchpelt could have that hideous of a personality.”

Fireheart blinked. “Wait, he’s Patchpelt’s son?” He looked at Ravenwing. “Your grandpa? Then he’s…”

“My uncle,” Ravenwing finished. He scowled. “I try not to think about it.”

“Wow.” Fireheart nearly cuffed his own ear in admonishment. “How did I never find this out? I’ve been here for, like, over a year now, and I never knew!”

Greystripe leaned a little his way, speaking in a conspiratorial voice that was poorly hiding its humor. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Darkstripe is kind of a slitprick.”

“Greystripe!” Fireheart mimed cuffing his friend’s too-far-away ear instead. “That’s not nice!”

All he got was a chuff in response. “Neither is Darkstripe. Would you want to acknowledge that you’re related to him?”

“Not in thlain* years,” Ravenwing said, still scowling. “And if he doesn’t want to acknowledge us, that’s fine by me. I have pampam** and that’s all I need.”

“Well…” Fireheart mulled over this for a moment. “It’s still sad for family not to feel like family.”

“Not with that piece of—” Ravenwing started, and abruptly jerked his head back and scrubbed at his muzzle like there was dirt on it. “Nevermind.”

Greystripe leaned forward with an expression similar to Yellowfang’s frog-like grin. “No, no, go on. What is he a piece of?”

“Forget it.” Ravenwing tucked his paws under his body. “Fireheart’s here.”

“Are you afraid to sully his innocent ears?”

“No, but he’ll scold me.” The black tom narrowed his eyes. “I’ve got a worse name for him than you do.”

Fireheart regarded Ravenwing with amazement. “You are just full of surprises today. Are you going to tell me you secretly have crow-wings next?”

Ravenwing swiped dust at Fireheart with his long tail. Fireheart sneezed a chuff, and the trio fell into a comfortable silence as the moon’s rising slowly reclaimed the warmth of the ground.

---

They couldn’t stay out forever; eventually the cold ground got to them and they rose, returning home with a couple mice they had caught along the way. Whitecloud was leaving Bluestar’s den when they reached the entrance of camp and greeted them with a nod.

“It isn’t much,” Ravenwing said, his mouse dangling from his mouth by its tail, forcing him to talk through clenched teeth. “We just went out for a walk.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Whitecloud said with a slow blink. “We’ll be alright for a night. Perhaps bring that to Brindleface, she was hungry earlier.”

Something in his usually-warm yellow eyes seemed to be… missing. Fireheart, not carrying any prey, paused in his walking just before reaching the tunnel. Greystripe looked back at him questioningly and Fireheart silently nodded for him to keep going. Obediently, the hulking grey tom turned forward again and followed Ravenwing.

Whitecloud was watching Greystripe and his former apprentice disappear. It took a long moment for him to realize Fireheart was watching him. He turned and looked down at him, eyes falsely creased. “How can I help you?”

Fireheart tilted his head, concerned. “Are you okay?”

The tall tom, just for an instant, seemed to shrink at the question, before recovering quickly and purring. “I’m fine, Fireheart. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Liar, Fireheart thought, but he played it carefully; he glanced at the lichen in front of the leader’s den, just past Whitecloud, and then back to him. He lowered his voice. “Is Bluestar okay, then?”

To his relief, Whitecloud didn’t brush this off. He, too, looked back at Bluestar’s den, sighed and lowered his angular head to speak quietly to Fireheart.

“Physically, yes, she’s okay,” he murmured. He paused. “Mentally… mentally, I’m not so sure.”

Something in Fireheart’s mind iced over, but he stayed calm. “Everything that happened really did get to her, didn’t it?”

“It did.” Whitecloud sighed. “But I worry that it affected her in a different way. Has she… has she sounded alright, to you? No slurred words or strange things she’s said?”

Fireheart blinked, confused. “She’s been fine. Maybe a little terse, but that’s about it. Why would she…?”

He trailed off at the sight of something invisible lifting itself off of Whitecloud’s back, settling his spine into a slouch. “Good. Good. It’s just that…” He drew in a breath and held it for a long moment before exhaling his next sentence. “I don’t know if she ever told you about Gooseleaf. Her uncle.”

Fireheart shook his head.

“He was unwell,” Whitecloud said quietly. “Hallucinated, had mood-swings. He was lucky enough to make it to the seer position, where StarClan could take care of him and speak to him in a way he’d understand. But he was paranoid and easily frightened, and he saw things that StarClan certainly didn’t send to him. I don’t remember much of him beyond being told not to say anything that could set him off.”

Fireheart felt his face fall. “That’s sad. Poor tom.”

Whitecloud shut his eyes. “Indeed. But he wasn’t the only one in our family that had struggles only found in their head. Bluestar’s grandmother, I was told, lived a long time, and when her mate died, she slowly became confused and distressed, asking where cats were that had died before she was an apprentice. She was made an elder early to keep her safe, because she wandered into the forest alone and approached a badger cub thinking it was one of her kits. The real mother nearly killed her.”

Fireheart nodded for him to continue, the ice reaching his stomach.

“I just…” Whitecloud looked back to the leader’s den, his eyes foggy. “I see Bluestar now: hiding, tired, scared. I worry that… everything… is going to affect her mentally. Make things worse for her. She’s hardly even telling me anything, and I’m the only family she has left. She’s never kept secrets from me.”

Ice in his toes now. Fireheart tried to clench his teeth, but his thoughts escaped him anyway. “If we were allowed to talk about ‘everything’, I think it would help her get some of that out. It could make her feel better. Make all of us feel better.”

As he could have predicted, Whitecloud started, “We can’t run the risk of bringing his soul back—”

“Horoa’s hunters must have caught him by now,” Fireheart said, surprised at the sternness in his own voice. “And just pretending that nothing happened, while it doesn’t leave our heads—he’s haunting our hearts anyway. Talking about it could help us move on.”

Whitecloud looked a little surprised, too. He recovered and gazed down at Fireheart with a mixture of affection and sadness. “…Maybe so.”

Fireheart caught himself with a breath, and with that his calmness returned. “I mean, I could at least try to talk to Bluestar myself. I am her apprentice. If she won’t tell you, maybe she’ll tell me.”

“And you are very good at getting people to talk,” Whitecloud purred. He nodded and turned for the tunnel. “Very well, then. I trust that you can be easy on her. Whenever you feel like it, try.” He stopped and looked back, his eyes serious. “But if you see her acting oddly at all, tell me immediately. It’s much more important than I can emphasize.”

Fireheart dipped his head in respect and agreement, and the senior warrior retreated into camp. Fireheart did not follow him immediately. Instead, he regarded Bluestar’s den, his stomach twisting into knots that were still quite cold.

She’ll be okay, he thought. She has to be. We need her.

*”Thlain”: A thousand, a million, infinity, or some other humongous, uncountable number.

**”Pampam”: Affectionate form of “pamarpam”, meaning “grandfather”. Similar to saying “gramps”.

#warrior cats #redux iterum #iterum #chapter #chapter three #book three #arc one #charred legacy

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untaemedqueen · 9 months

Text

At Your Service

Escort!Jeongguk x CEO!Reader

Genre: Strangers to Lovers!AU, Angst, Fluff, Smut

Chapter 14.

Series Warnings (Will Be Updated): Angst, Fluff, Cold Heartedness, Emotional Trauma, Healing, Smut, Dark Humor

Your sickness came and went with the wind, almost as if Jeongguk's soup was some sort of magical brew that could save the universe in one fell swoop.

The days after that were simply transcendent. You were slowly coming to the realization that Guk will probably be the first and last great love of your life.

Until you got sick again.

It didn't make any sense, it came out of nowhere and it was more fierce than the first bout of illness you had almost two weeks before that.

You were bedridden for a day, violently ill two days after that and even now it's difficult for you to function.

Namjoon had to buy and set up a computer for you in the empty office that had sat alone in your mansion for years now.

Jeongguk has been ever patient and kind, loving like you cannot believe and incredibly accommodating.

It's really strange for you to feel so well taken care of especially when you're retching over the toilet making ungodly noises at the crack of dawn.

The past couple of days your boyfriend has been begging you to go to the doctor and finally you've heeded it.

You never enjoyed going to doctors, it's as if they got their licenses just to give out bad news. Nevermind the fact that the offices always smell weird and the air within them is practically palpable.

You don't know why all doctors need to give bad news but even today you've heard something grave.

So now as you sit alone in the garden maze of your mansion, you can only stare straight ahead.

You're dumb.

It's that simple.

You're impulsive.

You're fucked.

You've been a shell since the doctor spoke to you. Your heart had been beating so fast and so hard that you can still feel how your chest thuds painfully.

But now, you're simply a shell, void of any emotion.

There's an evening haze that lingers over the bushes of roses before you, it's thick and heavy like you'd lose the sight of your hand inside of it.

You simply stare at the sight before you, allowing your skin to become damp by the small droplets of dew that swirl within the thick layer of fog.

How did this happen? How did your life become the way it is now? What did you do to deserve this?

Once again, the walls Jeongguk fought to break down are immediately patched up and even thicker than before. It's a tragedy, really.

Or maybe the tragedy is finding love in your heart for him.

When your phone rings, it tears you from your mind numbing thoughts.

With lazy eyes and the tilt of your head, you look down to the ringing device beside you.

You have no feelings, no emotion. You want nothing more than to crawl into your bed and just wither away.

"Yes?" you answer, picking up the phone and lifting your hand into the thick haze before you.

"Madam, there's a Jeon Jeongguk here at the gate for you."

He'll never know why you're breaking it off. He'll never understand.

You, yourself, will never understand.

But the mistakes you've made with him are far too many to count.

To let yourself become lost and loving under his spell… It's unforgivable. To let yourself make such a mistake with him is… earth shatteringly impressive.

"He's not welcome here anymore. Please take him off the list. Jimin Park and Taehyung Kim too," you chirp, ending the call without another word.

The world around you is quiet for a moment, it's peaceful and lulling you into its clutches of madness before your phone begins to ring once more with a confused Jeongguk who could only want an explanation.

Silencing your phone, you stand. Your long black silk robe meets the soft, dewy grass underfoot and solemnly you make your way back to your mansion.

You can hear Jeongguk shouting your name in the distance, you can hear the horn of Taehyung's car blaring to no avail.

Once you're back in your sterile house and you close the back doors, the world is silent once again.

Jeongguk sits on his couch, arms folded as he stares at the screen of his phone.

It's almost as if he's trying to will it to give him a phone call with your name on it.

He doesn't know what went wrong.

What did he do? What did you find out at the doctor?

Hawking jumps up beside him, obviously missing the body who has been coddling him the past month. Guk can find no easy way to move, he feels sluggish and torn.

The Great Dane has to forcibly worm his strong head onto the escort's lap to even get some sort of attention.

"What'd I do?" Jeongguk asks his pet sullenly, burying his face into the top of his dog's head.

He was gone from your sight for all of four hours and now he's single and alone.

"Fuck!" he seethes through his teeth sharply, earning a weary puppy before him who he apologizes to for scaring.

He fucking loves you, he's all in in this relationship but to have no way of even contacting you? It's tearing him apart.

He knows you blocked his number, he knows you took away his privilege to get into your gated community, he knows it all.

But he doesn't know why!

Even Jimin and Taehyung can't even see you. What did he do wrong?

This feeling, this is different than when he was with Chloe. By the end of his time with her, he was a ball of angry and violent energy. Now, he's just an emotional mess who's scared and confused, heartbroken even.

"Let's go to bed," he breathes to Hawking, shaking his head.

You're going to work from home from now on.

You decided this almost immediately when you woke up the next day.

You weren't sick, you didn't feel any illness but you're not ready to face the world. Once you're outside of the gates of your community… anything could happen.

Grabbing your glass of orange juice, you sit down at the large desk within your home office. It's quiet in here with memories of Guk helping move stuff floating around the room like spiritual shadows.

Even when you woke up this morning the regret that lingered through your limbs was monumental. Jeongguk must be losing his fucking mind over you.

To have no explanation given, to rip yourself away from him so fast… you're causing him so much pain.

Chloe hurt him and betrayed him, that relationship made him into nothing. It brought him to lengths you wouldn't wish on anyone. And you're doing something almost as evil to him now…

He fucking loves you and you're… gone.

You can feel bile wanting to retch from you like you're a possessed demon and you can only think that this is what you deserve.

Turning on your computer, you stare straight ahead at the little teddy bear that sits atop the new couch by your desk.

Guk bought it and left it for you, a sweet secret present you very much adored.

"I thought you could use a friend while you work. Every time you look at the bear, it'll remind you of me and I'll always be with you."

With a whimper, you bury your face into your hands.

You hate this.

But most of all, you hate yourself.

Jeongguk bursts through your office doors with tired eyes that hold venom and fire within the pupils. The security couldn't stop him even though he had his access restricted and with a heaving breath he fixes his leather jacket.

"Dude," Namjoon guffaws, stepping out of your office.

"Where is she?" Guk inquires, waltzing with quick, angry steps towards your office.

"She's not with you? She didn't come in to work today, I dunno," Joon replies flippantly, folding his arms and leaning against the doorjamb.

When security arrives, your co-worker seems to grasp the situation just a tad bit better. He holds out his finger, telling them to wait as he takes in your disheveled boyfriend. "What happened?"

"She went to the doctors and then she fucking blocked me from everything and took away my access to see her! I don't even… I don't know what I did! I didn't do anything for her to act like this towards me!"

The blonde haired man before him fixes his glasses and he thinks carefully for a moment to weigh his options.

When you were with Guk, you were better. It's just that simple. Anyone could see it. You had a soul, you had emotions, it was really nice to see you in a comfortable light for once.

But you are casting him away… there's something wrong.

Namjoon has known you for years now and he knows that you're impulsive, he knows you're almost too ready to let things go at the drop of a hat but not with Guk.

You're invested -- were invested.

He can see just how broken and lost the escort is and even though he disliked him not too long ago… he can't help but feel bad for him.

"I'll pay Y/N a visit, see if she's okay and get some answers," your co-worker promises.

"Really?!" Guk gasps, widening his eyes.

"Yeah, I'll see what's up," Joon assures him, putting his glasses back on.

"Thank you!" the escort cries, coursing his fingers through his long black hair.

Namjoon hasn't been to your mansion since that fateful day, the day he realized he had absolutely no chance with you.

It was a cold slap in the face when he walked in on you. He finally understood in that minute that all the hoping he'd done for years now meant absolutely nothing.

You weren't his to have and it was that simple. And although it hurt him deeply to come face to face with reality, he's still your friend, he's still an adult. He still cares for you.

When he pulled up to the gates of your community, he was immediately let in.

Joon is confused with how to feel, if he's being honest. Should he be happy that he's still on the guest list or should he be offended that you don't care nearly as much for him as you do for two other people you only met a month ago to take away their visiting rights? It's hard for him to process.

On the other hand, he's incredibly worried about you. You were fine just two simple days ago and now you're locking yourself away in the black, sterile mansion once more.

Your co-worker can only think the news from the doctor is grave. He hopes you don't have a month to live or something like that because he won't handle it well at all.

He still fucking loves you, for God's sake.

All of this weighs heavily on his mind and shoulders as he steps up the stairs to the large glass doorway of your house.

Joon thinks about ringing the bell before he simply opens the door with the spare key that you haven't moved since he last let himself in.

If he rings the bell, you might simply decide not to answer at all.

Letting himself in, he calls your name which is drowned out by the loud opera that screeches throughout the house.

This is bad. Opera is a coping mechanism for you.

Namjoon creeps through your house quietly, hoping to not scare you if he sees you. He's almost positive that you're not in the mood for visitors.

Stepping up to the speakers that forcibly shake the floor around it with how loud the bass is, he lowers it.

That should get you to come out of whenever you're hiding.

He waits patiently for a moment before you appear in the hallway with curious eyes.

Joon in all his time has never seen you like this, you're wearing Jeongguk's hoodie and a pair of leggings that seem like they just came right out of the package.

When your eyes meet, you deflate visibly and trudge back into your office.

Joon follows after you, sketching your appearance into his mind like a quick artist.

You have bags under your eyes and yet they're puffy like you've been crying oceans and oceans of tears.

When he steps into your office, he watches you sullenly lay back down on the couch, clutching a random stuffed teddy bear.

"Y/N," Namjoon whispers softly, almost as if he's talking to a wounded fierce animal.

"What?" you breathe, your voice is hoarse and monotone.

"What's going on?" he inquires, sitting down on the Persian carpet beside you and unbuttoning his suit jacket.

"Nothing," you mumble stubbornly, letting your eyes flutter shut.

You're not yourself, obviously.

You bring your knees to your chest, hugging the teddy bear tighter and Joon can't help but feel his heart thud painfully at the sight.

"What'd the doctor tell you?" he inquires softly, pushing stray hairs off your wet cheeks.

He won't ask about Jeongguk just yet, he can see the emotional turmoil you're stewing in and bringing up the man might just break you.

"Nothing," you repeat monotonously.

"I'm here to help, sweetheart. Talk to me," the blonde man practically begs, leaning back against the couch to give you your privacy.

He stares at the intricate paintings along the wall as his temple connects with the top of your head sweetly.

You find some sort of ease with the touch and you sigh softly.

You sit in silence for a bit, listening to the now soft opera screeching into your ears. Once you say the words it'll mean that it's true. Are you ready to speak them?

Taking a deep breath, you just decide to say it.

You tell Joon the doctor's orders and he turns his head towards you with wide eyes.

"Are you serious?" he gasps, looking down at you.

You simply look up at him with broken eyes that scream that this is the truth.

"Y/N… you have to tell him," Namjoon whispers, coursing his warm thumbs over your cheeks.

"No!" you gasp, sitting up sharply.

Joon breathes a heavy sigh, standing up only to sit down beside you and pull you into his chest.

"You can't hide this. It's wrong," he coos softly.

The feeling of his suit fabric against yours is oddly comforting and your eyes snap shut.

The weight of telling someone else feels relieving but now that it's out there in the open… it makes an Earth sized hole in your soul.

"He'll hate me," you announce after a moment.

"He hates that you've cast him away," Joon replies simply.

"You saw him?"

"He came by the office earlier. He's a mess without you," your co-worker murmurs.

"I'm a mess without him," you say honestly.

"So what are you going to do?"

In all actuality, you don't know what the fuck you're doing. You don't know how the fuck to proceed with your life. You wish you could just stay in your mansion everyday for years to come. But it can't be that simple.

With a sigh you bury your face farther into Joon's chest and sob softly.

"I don't know," you cry out, wrapping your arms around his strong torso.

<---------- Last Chapter Next Chapter ------>

#at your service #chapter 14 #chap 14 #jungkook fic #jungkook #jeongguk #jeon jeongguk #jeon jungkook #bts #bts fic #bts smut #jungkook smut #dom!jeongguk

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eunoiaaaivy · 1 year

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- ♡︎ NOBODY HAS TO KNOW !!

-cw: suggestive themes, making out (?), possessiveness, neck marking, kissing, established relationship, ooc (?).

-characters: zhongli x reader

-a/n: oh em gee! kinda anxious for this one, i didn't really expect writing for genshin. i know! i know! i can't play on my phone and i tried once but it gives me a broader perception of characters! lemme know if i missed any tags. </3

Zhongli swears that he's never jealous. He wasn't the type to be. However it did not mean he wouldn't be possessive. He was still half dragon after all. That possessiveness had ran tonight, maybe that's why he pinned you against the wall in an alleyway, away from the bustling crowds of Liyue.

Well, he had every right to be possessive of you. The fact that a guy wouldn't stop hitting on you awhile ago annoyed him. Did he not see him beside you or he did but that person only assumed you were friends? This isn't even the first time that person tried to hit on you. It was weeks ago. 4 weeks to be exact, in the same restaurant and spot.

He just wanted to eat with you peacefully, so why can't he? Oh right that guy. This was his final straw.

You were his as he was yours. Like a dynamic of a dragon and it's gems. Dragons are possessive, whatever it is in their possession is theirs and only theirs. In which you are his and he is yours. Maybe the guy was a bit too stupid but nevermind him.

He wanted everyone to know you're his. Well, some people knew already and some don't. His scent would always be on you. His presence is always near you, so how come this guy did not know you were his?

His thoughts were snapped away when you called his name.

"Zhongli, my love, are you okay?" You asked him, blushing with the way you were pinned against the wall.

He didn't answer your question, he was already consumed with the possessiveness in him.

He kissed you, so quick like the wind that you didn't have the chance to be surprised because you reciprocated it as quickly as it went.

Lips on lips, so soft like pillows and smooth like silk. The sweetness between it all. You didn't need him to answer you, as you already knew he was consumed with his possessiveness again. This wasn't the first time and you wouldn't really mind it at all.

He consumed you gravely, his scent invading your senses, his other hand on your waist felt like it should be there forever and his lips felt so perfect against yours-

The sync, the contrast, the way he kissed you, everything was so intense yet so intimate and sweet at the same time.

In no time you had your arm around him, his hands on the wall long forgotten as it went to your waist, both hands now on it.

The kiss isn't just a kiss. It's left you breathless yet earnestly seeking for more. It was granted, ofcourse.

Your lips detached from each other and you were breathless, yet he didn't stop there. His lips instantly attach to the side of your neck, peppering it a trail over from the side to the center.

It leaves you once again breathless, shaky sighs are released. The sounds of kissing only heard from you two and only seen by the moonlight trying to peek its way into that alleyway.

Marks were now seen in between your neck and the side of it. Ofcourse, Zhongli knew boundaries, but this even- was just subtle.

He chewed and gnawed on the skin on your neck, hoping that the person hitting on you would get the hint that you were already taken once he sees you again.

It was an outburst of adrenaline, it was. It felt great, kissing you and all this. A make-out session couldn't hurt every once in a while right? Plus this was urgent.

The marks on your neck increased but no more was added, he went back to your lips, kissing them once again, as if you weren't already breathless.

Finally, he detached his lips and attached his forehead on yours. It was an intimate session, but it felt great for the both of you.

After that intense make out session, this was a serene moment, the love now emitting from him and his emotions free only for you to see.

Like dragons, with anything that's theirs is theirs, more so their life companion. Like dragons, loving another is a fulfilment and an intense outburst of possessiveness and protectiveness at the same time. So like dragons, ever their love so intense yet serene at the same time, he will continue to love you earnestly.

You guys both chuckled, because no one has to know how much you love each other so greatfully yet intensely. Like dragons, the fire in their hearts continues to blaze like their love for their loved ones. Ever so intense yet sweet. Fiery yet so serene. In times like this, no one ever has to know.

#genshin fluff #genshin impact imagines #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact fluff #zhongli x reader #zhongli #zhongli x y/n #zhongli x you

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kieuecaprie · 9 months

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KieueCaprie's List of Games Finished in 2023: Entry 10

tfw Tumblr still doesn't have spoiler tags because there's a bunch of games in this entry that I want to talk about in full.

#26: Etrian Odyssey 1 HD

Finished When? 11/7/23

What's Finished? Main Story

Platform? PC

I didn't get into the Etrian Odyssey franchise until the 3DS era with Etrian Odyssey 4, which was pretty good by the way. I enjoyed creating my own party of adventurers and going out into the world to slay monsters and solve the mysteries of Yggdrasil (or whatever World Tree they explore through).

Then I moved onto Etrian Odyssey Untold, which was a remake of EO1 with a more story-focused cast of characters but with an option to play the game in Classic Mode. I also liked the it.

And then I fell off. Not because I hated the series but because other things took my attention and it fell by the wayside.

Then cue Atlus saying they're porting Etrain Odyssey 1, 2, and 3 to PC and now it caught my interest again, especially due to the fact that there's a potential for modding in there! So I picked up the bundle and started playing with EO1HD.

I will say that it was fine, I was treading old ground so nothing was really new to me and while I still like it, I feel like it has parts where it overstays its welcome, especially towards the end, and, of course, the music was just the classic music, not Untold, which kinda sucks but whatever.

It's fine for what it is and I can now say I've completed a version of classic EO1.

Now, I just wish Picnic mode wasn't super heavy-handed in its changes to enemies because taking 20% damage from them seems too much. Atlus REALLY loves making their beginner modes SUPER easy for some reason and I don't know why they do this.

#27: My Friendly Neighborhood

Finished When? 19/7/23

What's Finished? Story

Platform? PC, Steam

This game was on my radar for quite a while ever since that one Steam Next Fest (I think?) had a demo for it, on top of seeing tweets (sorry, X-cretes) of it on my feed of the developer working on bits and pieces of it.

When it finally came out, I went to go pick it up and while the price was a little higher than I initially expected, I'm glad to have paid the price of admission for it! The characters are memorable (I mean, they are when you have to listen to them prattle on about the mail for the entire playthrough), the gameplay feels like I'm playing a Resident Evil (not the super action-packed ones) except with puppets and the fact that there are cheats in a game in 2023 is something that I never thought I'd see.

On top of that, I enjoyed how it essentially deconstructs the whole mascot horror formula and makes its own where the mascots in question aren't out to kill you, at least, it seems that way, and aren't trying to eat your pancreas or whatever.

This game is great and would definitely sit on my list of favorite games this year.

#28: Pikmin 4

Finished When? 22/7/23 (First completion), 24/7/23 (True 100%)

What's Finished? Game complete, True 100%

Pikmin is one of my favorite Nintendo franchises that I wished did not get shot in the head by a game that just feels tedious. Fortunately, Nintendo finally dug up the grave and brought it back to life (Now do it for Chibi-Robo, PLEASE.) for Pikmin 4, something that took 10 years to add a dog.

I played the demo and loved it, even went out of my way to not meet the 1500 sparklium limit just so I could experience all the caves, the controls feel great, Oatchi is baby and I love himb, and the levels you have to go through are quite beautiful to see on the Switch, all of this running on Unreal Engine too.

I have quite a bit more to say about this game so I'm gonna have to say that there's a Read More below that will spoil Pikmin 4 for you if you click on it. (EDIT: lmao nevermind, clicking expand on the post in the feed also expands the read more so now I have to make a separate post)

#29: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Finished When? 1/8/23

What's Finished? Normal Mode Story

Platform? PC, Steam

When I first heard this game was only coming to PS5, I unanimously decided to just.. not. Just not. This was because I could not get my hands on a PS5 and that it was terribly expensive and getting a console for one singular game these days feels like a waste, so I decided to just not talk about this game so as to avoid the algorithm.

This was so I wouldn't get spoiled on anything beyond what was shown in trailers and also so I wouldn't get an ALL BOSSES & ENDING (NO DAMAGE) video on my Youtube feed by some jerk who decided to plaster the face of the final boss in the middle circle and call it a day. Surprisingly, this actually worked and I never heard about this game again.

Then Sony decided to port it to PC and I jumped on it because now I can actually play it. Of course, I decided to wait until I was done with Pikmin 4 first before I moved on and I'm glad I did.

I'm really glad that I was lucky enough to have a PC that could just power through some of the issues the game had, although it still had a few issues such as geometry not loading in and the occasional time where I would clip through the ground and die for no good reason, but I was able to play through the game from start to finish.

Was it worth not spoiling myself for however many years? Probably. It was a short game but I got my money's worth. Rivet is cute, Ratchet is great as ever, and the fact that the game completely ignores the remaster of the first game is also great, mostly because that game kind of ruins Ratchet's character development that he went through.

Also, on my birthday, I was given a Dualsense controller (Lemme say that I didn't know what I wanted for my birthday, it's hard to do so these days...) and I must say the adaptive triggers did change up the gameplay quite a bit, priming a shot with a half-press and clicking it all the way in to fire. I initially thought it'd be overhyped as all hell but no, it felt pretty good to use, add to the fact that it has touchpads much like the Dualshock 4, which means that it'd be the perfect companion to my Steam Deck as well as enabling a much easier time of gyro gaming on PC (one of my issues with gyro gaming was simply not having an easy way to toggle the gyro on and off and I was not about to give up one of the face buttons for gyro-ratcheting).

All in all, game's great, was worth the wait, and I'm surprised at how well it ran and looked on the Steam Deck running at 30 FPS @ 800p. Perhaps I judged 30 FPS too harshly.

#30: Nerf Arena Blast

Finished When? 5/8/23

What's Finished? Single-player campaign

What prompted me to play this? Why did I choose to play this? Simple. Nostalgia, among other things.

This is probably one of the times where nostalgia really screwed me over.

The feel of the game is great, I loved the 90's aesthetic of there being some sort of nerf arena and playing as an up-and-coming team, the first few levels were pretty nice to play through too, but that's where everything kind of stops.

Also, this game is... well.. it's a game filled with slow-moving projectiles and bots that are dumb as bricks one minute and ultra try-hards the next is not my idea of fun. Not to mention that the game began to feel tedious as I kept pushing through the campaign.

Sure, I'm probably asking for a lot from a licensed kids game from the 90's/00's but Unreal Tournament had a lot more to offer than just deathmatch, ballhoopmatch, and speedrun, I wish they had done more than just those modes.

Speaking of the modes, I've found Ballblast to be extremely tedious to play through. It felt like it'd drag on and on and on and on and on and on until someone FINALLY finds the six dragon balls, shoots them through a hoop, and then collects the seventh one and shoots it through a hoop to FINALLY end the game. I have to ask, who the hell decided it would be a good idea to make it UNTIMED? There's a VERY good reason why objective gamemodes with the ability to disrupt those capturing has a timer, it's so that, at the end, the game can end and the winner be found.

But these games could drag on for ages, compounded by the fact that the bots, despite being masterful gods of leading projectiles, are stupid, somehow even dumber than Unreal Tournament's bots, and will take forever to go to the hoop and shoot balls into a hole.

BUT, I will give credit where credit is due, Pointblast, which is deathmatch but points, is a neat idea where you go around slaying people like normal BUT they drop points that you have to pick up BUT it can also be stolen meaning that you could get 1st place killed and steal the 1000 point drop from someone else. I like this idea, I like how it essentially changes the pace from sitting around camping to a more frantic slugfest, which I appreciate because when I played through Unreal Tournament, most of my problems could be solved with either a Flak Cannon to the face or pulling out the sniper rifle and just headshotting everyone from a safe place.

Speedblast is... interesting. I like the idea of running through the map, shooting others to stop them from capturing checkpoints, and finishing before everyone else. Maybe it's just me, really, because while I do like the idea of it, the execution was often less than stellar and the maps that had ways to disrupt without having to kill people were very few and that kind of makes me sad. Is it a stupid gamemode? Yes but I applaud the devs of the time for trying to make something new for a change.

All in all, this game is very flawed and somewhat poorly aged but it has some decent points to it and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy my time with it at all. I really did have at least a bit of fun with it, even though I did not appreciate the game quitting on me after I finished the final level and it blasting my ears off with the ultra-loud video that plays.

And it also has a niche cult following that helpfully has a community patch that allows it to be played on modern systems, so clearly it has something going for it that I may not have found for myself. And that's okay, you know?

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#kieuecaprie gaming #kieuecaprie gamer list 2023

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leam1983 · 8 months

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The Soul of Wit and Whatever

Walt kind of hates speaking with teenagers. So do I, but I have some patience for them. It's not that I uniformly resent them, but rather that their demographic's always contained a group I've been a part of in my time - the Disaffected Youth stereotype. They don't care, don't know, don't give a shit, and if you drop a message with one of them, it reaching its intended destination is a crapshoot at best. It's especially infuriating if you're calling about their own car. As in, the one their entry-level job covers payments for. I.E. something they should give a shit about.

The thing is, as I remember being sort of like this, I know it's an affectation. They do care, it's just that empathy is passé. What's in is mutual disgust, low-key self-loathing and the notion that getting your ass out of bed is too much to ask of anyone, nevermind if you're not, in fact, the victim of a depression-causing chemical imbalance. Grunge isn't dead, in a sense - it keeps resurrecting, rising from its own grave, always with a new set of clothes and the same complete lack of muscle tone.

So how do you get one of these kids to care? It's more common to have your own car as a teen in the US than in Eastern Canada, so it's easy to sort of turn the screws on those who do have one.

"Yeah, I know, there's probably a billion other things you'd rather be doing, but your Check Engine light's been on for three months straight. Either you check it out for a nominal fee or you cough up an arm and a leg later."

To which the response usually is "Ugh, fine. Like, whatever."

#work post

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thekillingjoke-haha · 3 years

Text

We’re Batshit Crazy

@spnquotebingo Word count:1,609

Summary: Love isn't all that perfect sometimes love is crazy especially when the Hero is in love with said crazy.

Gotham AU

Jason Todd(Jensen Ackles) x Villan!Reader

Enemies and Lovers (none of that "to" bs)

Gotham Recasting: Batman=John, Dick Grayson(second Robin not first) =Sam ,Tim Drake=Adam, Joker(ledger style)=Lucifer, Harley Quinn=Lilith,ect.

Warnings: Mention of death, blood, guns, and violence

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The mad laughter rung out into the night sky as the purple Lamborghini hit corners with violently sharp turns. "Oh puddin I just love family night!~" The pale platinum blonde giggled as the man with green dyed hair licked his smiling lips. A bubble of laughter came from the back seat he turned around to see his princess looking out the small back window. "Batsy batsy batsy" Her low/high pitched giggle caused a crazy chain reaction as the bat mobile hurried to catch up. "Always ruining our fun,huh,princess?" The clown king shifted his gray-ish blue order into the mirror grinning making the scars on his face raise into a sinister smile at the look of pure chaos in his daughter's e/c eyes. "Not tonight! Not on my birthday!!" She said as she smiled reaching under the seat to pull out a Tommy gun. Climbing to the front seat sitting on her mothers lap she leaned out the passenger window. "Go back to the Rat cave your not gonna put a downer on my weekend!" Y/n yelled shooting off round towards the tires,windshield,and headlights.

The mobile didn't seem to have a scratch as as a motorcycle pulled up beside it. Slipping back in the car the younger women pouted looking at get parents. "He called his little birdie no doubt the replacements in the car." Y/n huffed as she dug around for more fire power. "Puddin we have a visitor.~" The red mask gazed at us as he lifted a forearm pistol. Shots were fired and Joker took a hard right almost like tron the motorcycle quickly turned into a ally to avoid being hit. "Sorry Princess might have to cut tonight shot." He said licking his lips as a thump came from the roof making the youngest clown snarl her eye crazed as she shot above her as the purple car swerved wildly. "YOU'RE RUINING MY BIRTHDAY,BATS!!!" Y/n cackled madly a mixture of her parents laughed till the magazine ran out.

They got to one of their warehouses where Jokers men were armed to the teeth. The clown mask had black soulless eyes and immediately fired the moment the batmobile entered. Y/n skipped out of the purple Lamborghini she got on her tippy toes and kissed her dad on the cheek. "I got the hooded punk. Can you clip the bats wings for me...a little present?!" He laughed as he armed himself with a shotgun. "Anything for my princess." The f/c sf/c female clown skipped away knowing that the motorcycle riding vigilante was hot on her tail. That's how she found herself on the roof tops jumping the gaps as heavy footfalls followed. Her loud laugh echoed as she leaped to a smaller building hiding behind a vent the moment the brown leather jacket came into view she tackled the tall man. They were both panting as a grin pulled on the clowns lips.

Y/n POV

"Caught ya,Jay bird." I giggled pulling of the helmet his apple green eyes covered by a second mask stared at me he chuckled as his hand slipped above his head in mock surrender. "Yeah you caught me,beautiful." Leaning down I kiss him my hands pushed into his cheeks my thumb running over the scarred J. We've been dating for awhile now ever since dad kidnapped the second Robin at seventeen. I was fifteen at the time and dad had me at his side as he tortured him.I was always there to stitched him up and put burn cream after shock therapy I didn't know how we got attached maybe because he wanted to rebel a little by talking to me or someone around his age saw the same if not worse shit.

Six years ago(Y/n 15 Jason 17)

"Why are you helping me?" Looking up his head was strapped down along with his arms and legs. I shrugged my shoulders I knew who he was if I wiped off the make up and temp dyed my hair I was the honor student in the same class as him. Jason Todd anyone with eyes had a thing for him,but after removing his mask it wasn't hard to piece together who the bat fam is. "I know what my dad has planned for you Jay. This is just a band-aid on a gunshot wound and might I say that's very unhelpful." This was the first I spoke to him and it wasn't long before Dad beat him to death.

Two years later.

I sat in the back of the car as Frost drove. We just left the cemetery. "Why are we doing this,n/n." He asked looking in the rear view mirror at me. I'm seventeen now my thoughts screamed at me. Why was I trying to bring him back? "Because I crazy that why!" I giggled as we grew closer to the lazapit. He was dressed in a black suit with red tie his body sunk into the water as I waited. A loud gasp drew my attention as he shot up a white streak in his hair. "Heya sleeping beauty." Looking over in shock he lowly made his way looking like a baby deer. "I'm alive,but h-how?" His green eyes looked at me. "A Ghoul owed me a few favors I just asked to use his fountain of youth." Handing him a towel and some clothes. "Sorry about the outfit,but Arkham does have one size fits all." Jason chuckled as he started to dry off.I realized why I brought him back. I was crazy about him.

Two more years later(two years ago)

Jason wanted to stay dead he didn't go back to His dad and brother after he realized that neither of them tried and save him. It was sad to see,but it brought Jason closer to me and he started to trust me and I gave trust in return. Blood coated my hands while some was on my face. Looking at Jay some was speckled on his cheeks taking the pockets square out of the mobsters coat I wiped it off he looked down at me his arm slipped around my waist pulling me closer my breath hicked. "Will you be my girlfriend,my little jester?" A large smile grew on my face as my arms went around his neck pulling him down further. "Gladly,Jay bird." I kissed him not caring if my lipstick stained his lips and he didn't seem to care either as the kiss grew more intense. We shared our first kiss at nineteen surrounded by dead bodies as sirens and the unmistakable sound of the armed batmobile. At least he's as crazy about me as I am about him.

One year ago. (Jason POV for a sec)

I came to Bruce I hate to admit it but I needed advice about the one think he knew best. Women. It was just a couple of months ago he found out I was alive and shocker he managed to drive Dicky boy to Blüdhaven to get away from him to get his own image and not just Robin. Oh and surprise surprise when out of robins he had a spare like a tire and it's name was Tim. Nevermind that I stood across from Bruce in his home main office he had a frown on his face. "You're dating someone and its serious and I didn't know about it?" He asked trying to deduct everything. "I've been dating her ever since I came back. As strange as it might sound,but I want us to be something more." That's when the billionaire playboy stood up standing just a inch shorter then myself.

"Life is short Jason and you've experienced that first hand if you feel that both of you are perfect enough to be more then go for it." Perfect wasn't realistic nothing was ever perfect my life isn't perfect her life sure as hell isn't she's the clown princess I'm a bat son. Maybe that what makes us so good together the fact that it would have never really happened any other way life is just crazy like that.

Present

Staring into those vexing green eyes always brought me back. We're both twenty-one him being older only by a couple of months. "Happy birthday,gorgeous." His voice brought me back as my smile grew. We were standing up now he held a box wrapped in my two favorite colors. "Awe you shouldn't have." I grab it and opened it a gun was inside it was red and gold revolver it looked like my moms love/hate gun,but it said King/Queen. Looking at Jay I reached to hug him when suddenly he dropped to one knee pulling out a box with a beautiful f/c ring and ruby gem. "This feels over due. You took care of me when I was considered enemy number one. You brought me back from the grave when my own family didn't try. And this might sound stupid,but I had a crush on you in middle school you were one of the only people that didn't give me pity after Bruce adopted a street kid." He licked his lips as he gave of a small smile. "Together we are far from perfect, but we are good. You complete me...Y/n M/n Napier become my queen?" My eyes glossed over with tears my make up running down the pale foundation. "Oh my god of course!!!" I jumped into his arms hugging him tightly before letting him slip on the ring. "I love you." "I love you more crazy." I chuckle it sounded watery in my throat. "If I'm crazy then that makes two of us. You wanted to marry me." Yep we're both batshit crazy.

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A/n: Quote= We are far from perfect, but we are good. ~Supernatural

Is it just me or does Jensen look fucking hot as Red Hood?! I'm mean he's definitely a reason to move to Gotham

Well first crossover AU in my bingo card

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littlemissnoname13 · 3 years

Text

I have always known- Part 2 (Draco Malfoy x Hufflepuff!Reader)

Summary: What happens when you find Draco Lucius Malfoy standing on a ledge at the Astronomy tower, ready to pitch himself off

Pairing: (Draco Malfoy x Hufflepuff!reader) HBP era

Warnings: Mentions of suicidal tendencies, self harm, angst, smut

Words: 1500+

A/n: Thank you to everyone who read part one from the bottom of my heart. It means so much to me! <3

If you haven’t already, you can read part one over here.

Draco let the revelations sink their way into his brain as he carefully and meticulously recalled that fateful day at the ledge once more.

He recalled how he’d sat alone, hugging his knees at the tower later that night after you’d convinced him to get down from the ledge.

His shirt sleeve—pushed up as he stared at the nasty looking snake and skull etched into his forearm all the while fighting a strong urge to gnaw at the flesh till the mark came off.

And just when he thought he’d cave into his urges, something fluttering,speckled in black and orange caught Draco’s eyes.

The paleness of the moonbeam made the Monarch butterfly seem almost iridescent and he held his breath watching it land gently on the palm of his hands.

“I should have known.” Draco finally shouted pacing back and forth in the room of requirement as he ran his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Of course it was you—How could I have not realised! I mean who else would even want to turn into a butterfly at will?!”

“What is that supposed to mean?” You asked as you walked towards him—completely ignoring the fact that your shirt was still lying somewhere on the floor.

“The fucking butterfly tattoo, the whole the-world-is-full-of-goodness-and-sunshine attitude.” He scoffed. “Coincidence? I think not.”

“Draco—” you attempted to reach for his hand but he instantly pulled it away.

“Only you would be stupid enough to stick around a bloody death eater despite knowing.”

“Please just calm down—” You began reaching for him once again and he winced at your touch like it pained him as you gently grabbed onto his wrist.

“No.” He shook his head as he cut you off hastily. “Listen to me y/n, and listen to me carefully —You need to stay the fuck away from me.”

“Malfoy please. Just hear me out. I’m sorry for sneaking up on you that night. I shouldn’t have.”

You took a few mindful steps towards him.

He looked absolutely furious at first glance with his bloodshot eyes, heavy breathing and slightly flared nostrils. But when you observed him more carefully, you saw the helpless and vulnerable boy from the ledge again. Tucked away somewhere in the depths of this tired and sunken eyes.

Branded at such a young age.

Forced to give up his youth and any shard of innocence he had left inside of him.

While his friends may have been playing quidditch, getting into trouble and stressing out about their homework, here he was stressing out about the god damned cabinet like his life depended on it.

You felt a sharp stab at your heart when you remembered.

His life did depend on it.

“Please y/n. Just go away.” He pleaded with this voice cracking as you slowly wrapped your arms around his stiff torso and placed your head on this chest. “Don't make it harder than it already is.”

Draco was right.

This was wrong on so many levels.

You knew better than to melt into the arms of a death eater.

But you were already too fucking deep in.

You knew exactly what you were in for when you gave him a smile at potions class. You knew how grave the situation really was every time you walked towards the Slytherin common room with your book bag full of food you’d snuck out from the kitchens.

You knew full well that the task given to him was no child’s play.

Even though he’d barely said anything during your nights at the tower, you’d gotten to know him by the way his eyes widened when you kept blabbering about the most mundane details of your day.

You’d learned him and the way his brows furrowed in frustration while he spent hours on end trying to fix the vanishing cabinet. He was completely unaware of the fact that you constantly looked up from your book to steal quick a glance at him.

“Okay. I’ll go away.” You whispered pressing yourself impossibly close to him.

“Good.” He mumbled even though his slender arms found their way around your waist. He rested his chin to the top of your head and the smell of your smell of your shampoo comforted him.

Contradictory words and actions. Nobody did it better than Draco and Y/n.

You held onto the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards you until your lips were pressed against his. As your lips moved against his, you noticed that he had let his arms fall from your waist.

But before the waves of disappointment could hit you, Draco’s right hand made its way towards the base of your neck while he raked his left hand through your hair.

It would be an absolute understatement to say that he kissed you feverishly.

He may have told you to go away and you may have agreed but the way your lips moved together told a different story altogether. The way he lightly bit your bottom lip before hungrily exploring your mouth with his tongue gave everything away.

Draco Lucius Malfoy was a goner.

The passion and aggression in your kisses had you both tugging at each other's clothes- gasping for air.

It wasn't long before you found yourself pressed up against the wall again while your bra quickly got discarded.

“Stunning.” He breathed trying to commit every bit of your exposed skin to his memory.

He wasted little to no time covering the exposed bits of your skin with open-mouthed kisses. The already existing marks on your neck only darkened with each kiss as you let your fingers comb through this hair—gripping. Encouraging him to kiss you harder.

And when he placed his lips over your taut nipple, he had to remind himself to be gentle with you even though It was impossibly hard for him.

That wasn’t the only thing that was impossibly hard.

Especially when you whimpered and moaned his name over and over again.

You gently pushed his shirt back indicating that you wanted it off and while he hesitated for a brief second, the shirt was quickly discarded next to your bra on the floor.

He suckled and caressed your breasts and you dug your nails on his biceps arching your back, desperate for more.

His fingers skillfully touched you in places that made you blush as you kept moaning deliriously.

Over and over again.

Soon enough, you were lying on our back on the floor as he hovered on top of you, propped up against his elbows and you were seconds away from begging him to take you then and there.

“We don't have to do this if you don't want to y/n.” He said softly. His darkened grey eyes went back to their normal color and you could see the sincerity in his eyes while he asked you.

“I want you. Please. I just want you.” You pleaded bucking your hips as you caressed his face in reassurance.

“Fuck” he hissed as he slipped inside of you and you struggled to keep your eyes from rolling to the back of your head when he started to move. Slow and steady at first before he took you harder and faster.

You felt like the last days of summer in Draco’s arms as he took you.

The kind of day he desperately wanted to hold onto before an impending Autumn.

There was a cacophony of sounds in the room of requirement.

The sounds of skin against skin.

Your pants, and moans.

His grunts and curses.

Draco.

Only his name escaped your lips when you fell apart at his mercy. Waves upon waves of pure, unadulterated, leg spasming pleasure as you came.

Y/n.

And only our name rolled out of his tongue when he found his release inside of you. Glistening beads of sweat on his forehead and veins slightly visible on his neck.

When it was over, he conjured up a blanket and wrapped his arms around you, greedily scooping as much of you as he could into his embrace.

You felt his fingertips trace the outline of your butterfly tattoo before he placed his lips over it. Kissing it gently.

The gesture softened you just like you softened him but he wasn’t going to admit that. Not anytime soon anyway.

“Why butterfly y/n?” He whispered tracing shapes onto your bare skin. “Your tattoo, your animagus.”

“Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect Draco?” You asked, pushing his hair away from his eyes as he shook his head.

“They say that when a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it causes a storm elsewhere.”

He blinked his eyes at you in confusion and you gave him a small smile before placing a tiny kiss at the corner of his lips, continuing.

“Every small change counts Draco, a small change in the present can garner a completely different outcome in the future.”

He stared at you as you shook your head and mumbled “I just like to believe that our actions matter you know. I don’t know. I just—nevermind.”

You soon fell asleep in his sturdy, safe arms as he held onto you tightly staying up all night to savor the moment.

Little did you know, the butterfly effect stuck with him.

It stuck with him through the war and even after the war.

Just like you did.

The girl who kept him alive and kicking.

The girl with her butterfly tattoo.

~~~~~~

And that’s it. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Tagging those who wanted a part 2: @imbadwithunsernames @dumbassswhore @larywitchlingacademic @lainphotography ❤️

#harry potter #slytherin #draco malfoy x reader #draco x reader #draco fanfiction #draco malfoy #draco malfoy imagine #draco smut

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cayofdreams · 4 years

Text

A Succubus’ Dilemma

Summary: Succubus!Reader is struggling with her identity as she gets closer to Kirishima. She wants to continue being the diligent, strong-willed hero that he praises her for being but the presence of Eijirou Kirishima is making that unbearably difficult. She just can't pretend to be quirkless anymore…

Words: 4.5k

Rating: 🌊 Explicit, Smut

Warnings: cursing, virginity (but there’s no explicit mention of it), oral (receiving), aphrodisiac, heavy overstimulation, a bit of corruption, kinda dark ending?

Notes: ~Welcome to another steamy piece from your favorite island resort~

This one is pretty straight-forward. I feel like I kicked up the smut on this one. Also, I based the ending off one of the endings of one of my favorite yaoi visual novels :-)

You were lying down on Kirishima’s bed, deeply engrossed in the romantic scene transpiring on your phone’s screen. You had decided to entertain yourself with an episode from your favorite show while your best friend was in the shower.

‘I love you, Jake. But…I just want to wait before we get intimate. I’m just not ready, right now’

‘Of course, Kathrine! I’ll wait however long it takes! You’re so much more to me than a warm body!’

‘You say that…but what if I choose to stay celibate forever?’

‘Then you can live with the confidence that I, Jake Petersmith, have wholeheartedly loved you for the wonderful human that you are!

‘Oh, Jake!

‘Kathrine!’

You were tearing up at the cheesy displays of affection since you were a sucker for all things romantic. You loved how characters seemed to have an undying love for one another. Often, you fantasized about sharing that kind of ethereal love with someone yourself. How it would be to run together through a field of sunflowers, or skip hand-in-hand on the sandy surfaces of the beach, or even make couple pranksters YouTube videos that were so obviously not faked.

But that kind of future won’t happen for you. It can’t. Not in the gross body you were in. Surely you were easy on the eyes, but what lurked inside was a demon that constantly bewitched your thoughts. Making you see people around you as simply meat sticks and sticky caverns to be engorged in.

Simply put, you were a succubus. Or at least had a succubus-like quirk. You never told anyone though, only being known to your parents. You tried so hard to reign in these feelings on a daily basis while pretending to be quirkless. But it was becoming increasingly difficult as you got older and as you hung around the likes of…Kirishima.

Oh Kirishima. He was such a beautiful human on the inside and out. Always praising and encouraging you. Being there for you when it seemed you were at your worst low points, and then being there to pick you up and trophy you around when you succeeded at doing even just the bare minimum. You wished you could return even half the happiness to him that he gave you throughout your days at U.A. You wanted to do all the romantic things you saw in movies and books with him. Kirishima was just such a sunshine in your life and you wanted him to continue warming you for the rest of it.

There was a time where 90% of your thoughts toward him were like this…and then as time went on, they became more savagely. Where all you wanted was for him to sink those sharp teeth in your flesh, ravaging your body with a cock that could probably barely even fit inside you, holding you within those arms- those beautifully muscular arms that glistened provocatively with sweat when he trained. You wanted him. Needed him. Please desire me, Eijirou.

You were about to slip your hands down your underwear when you heard the creak of the door open.

“L/N!! Did you miss me?! I’m back!” Kirishima bursted through the door with that wide grin you loved so much.

Of course, I freaking missed you, Eijirou. You were only gone for 11 minutes, 35 seconds, and 23 milliseconds. But I missed every moment.

You covered up your lust with a chuckle. “You weren’t even gone that long.”

“Aww don’t say that!! I missed you, you know.” He teased at you.

Don’t tempt me, baby

“Haha, whatever, Kiri…” You sat up as Kirishima slumped down on the floor next to his coffee table and pulled out his laptop. “So what are we watching, tonight?”

“Hmm…not sure! What do you wanna watch, L/N?” He turned his head to smile back at you. He was so cute. So gorgeous. And your erotic thoughts seemed to be running rampant right now. Especially at the fact that the two of you would be huddled up alone together for who knows however long a movie marathon is. You had to find a way to quickly rid yourself of these thoughts.

“Mmm, let me look up some! Hold on.” A blatant lie. You were going to google get-dry-quick schemes so you could enjoy the rest of the night safely with Kirishima. It was the least he deserved after training so hard today.

HOW TO NOT BE HORNY??!!1!

You analyzed your search results before clicking on a forum where someone seemed to be going through the same dilemma as you.

‘Hello, my name is [redacted] and I’m horny all the time ☹. I’ve lost so many boyfriends because of it and I truly want to find a husband, but it would be silly of me to expect them to drop everything to please me. How can I stop these feelings?’

Someone just like you! You weren’t alone in this cruel abyss. Perhaps she also had a succubus quirk!

Looking through the answers wasn’t much help for the most part. Most of the replies being trolls who asked where she was so they could “help” her. Even worse were the ones that chastised her for her feelings. Saying she was impure and needed to change her ways.

But your eyes were intrigued at the first comment that seemed to provide some kind of helpful information.

‘You might be a nymphomaniac. Have you tried talking with a professional?’

A nym- what? What was that? You opened another tab.

What is a nympomiac?

Too concerned with research to get the correct spelling, you saw articles for definitions of the auto-corrected word.

Nym∙pho∙ma∙ni∙ac

Noun: a woman with uncontrollable or excessive sexual desire

Gasping at the accuracy you divulged further.

How to not be a nymphomiakc?

A lot of the results for this returned with solutions that were too time-consuming. Prescribed medication, cognitive therapy, and even some evil medieval treatments that involved leeches.

But you needed something now. Why were all these long-winded answers so abundant?! Couldn’t they just give you something to do now? What the fuck would you have to do?? Shove an iceblock your pussy?? Should you go ask Todoroki for a favor??

You were in the middle of texting Todoroki when Kirishima pulled you out of your frenzy.

“You find anything, L/N?”

“Gyahh! What?!” You dropped your phone and looked at Kirishima like you were a deer caught in his headlights.

“Woah, you okay there?! Did I scare you? Maybe horror isn’t a good idea, then.” His worried face could send you to the grave. How could you let him worry about you like this?

“Ohh..no Kiri. I’m fine. We can just watch whatever you want.” You eased your breaths, desperately trying to sound normal.

“You sure?! Awesome! There’s this zombie flick I’ve been meaning to watch but I get kinda scared watching stuff like that alone.” He clicked around happily through some tabs on his browser. “I think if its with someone as courageous as you, I’ll be less scared.”

Was he trying to make you cry? Saying something so beautiful like that with a face like his. Shame on him, honestly.

“I’m gonna play it now, you ready?”

“Mmhm”

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

The movie so far was just as you hoped: grotesque, gory, horrifying, and most importantly, non-arousing. It helped that you stayed on the bed while Kirishima sat on the floor, so I guess that was cheating, but nonetheless necessary.

“You doin’ okay up there, L/N?” Kirishima checked up on you. You had probably been suspiciously quiet due to concentrating on waving away any little lewd thoughts.

“Oh yeah, what about you, Kiri?”

“W-Well! I was kinda thinking! That maybe uhh…I could possibly join you up there?” He scratched his head in nervousness at his slighty flirty suggestion.

Oh no

“Up where?”

“On the bed. Y-you know…with you?”

At this point you didn’t really know whether to praise or curse the gods above you. If there was one thing you could be sure to thank them for, it was the dark room that hid the flustering of your facial expression.

“I-Its your bed after all…”

“I know! I guess its just- heheh..nevermind! I’m hopping up!” Kirishima rugged his massive body on the bed next to you. Even taking some of the blanket you had so you’d be forced to share with him, he just softly smiled as he did so.

This was way too much for the hellion within you to handle. You could smell his strong scent from beside you. His breathing more pronounced in your ear drums. And its like you could feel his heartbeat within you. Pulsating inside you…

Things would take a turn for the worse when it seemed like a sweet romantic scene was about to show up. The two main leads were alone in a bunker and one of them had just revealed they were bitten.

“Samuel, Nooo!”

“Lilia! Listen to me! I need you to hear what I have to say.”

“We don’t have time, Samuel! We- We need to get you medicine. We have to! We have-“

“Stop, Lilia! There’s nothing that can save me now! You and I both know what happens from here.”

“Samuel…”

“Lilia… I want you to be the one who does it.”

“I can’t…Samuel..I can’t”

“You have to, Lilia. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

“Don’t do this, Sam…”

“I love you, Lilia.”

“Oh Samuel! I’ll never be with anyone else! Ever!”

“Lilia…”

The words lingered in your head as the movie continued on.

‘I’ll never be with anyone else’

Was such an option available to you? Even if you did take away the innocence of your love, Kirishima Eijirou, who’s to know how your body would react? The best result would be that your body would finally be satisfied and you’d no longer have these perverse thoughts.

On the other hand, maybe you’d just sink further and further down. Drowning in the suffocating waters of lust. And then what? Kirishima can’t just drop everything to cater to your needs. No. He was going to be hero. An amazing one at that.

But Kirishima wasn’t just a hero, he was your best friend. You felt awful every time he would praise your strong-willed persona. Saying how amazing you were despite being quirkless. He’d even say you were more manly than him at times. It was like you were betraying him. You were betraying that innocent smile he wore for you everyday…you couldn’t hold it anymore.

“Kirishima.”

He looked back at you, surprised at your rare use of his name. Sensing something was wrong he paused the movie and turned his entire body to face yours.

“L/N, what’s wrong”

You were doing it again. Making him worry over you. But you couldn’t keep holding in this secret. You needed to tell him.

“I have to ask you something…”

“Please ask! I’m listening with all ears, L/N” He perked up at you. He looked just like a puppy, waiting for your every move like that.

“What do you think about…impulsive people?”

“Huh? Impulsive people?” He scratched his head at the question. “Well…I guess they’re entertaining to watch? Kind of like Bakugou. But I suppose being too impulsive is bad. You could get yourself or others in danger.”

Your head lowered at his statement, eyes closing shut. Of course he would say something like that. It’s only natural for humans to be mindful of their indulgences. They had to. It’s a part of social conformity after all.

Yet still, it hurt.

He noticed your displeasure in his answer.

“What’s wrong, L/N? Why did you ask that? You’re not impulsive at all!” He was trying to cheer you up, but it only dug the knife further into your chest. “You’re one of the most dignified, tough, and resilient people I know!”

Tears were starting to form in your eyes and before you could object him he continued.

“A-and that’s why…That’s why I love you, F/N. I want you to be my girlfriend.”

As much as you wanted to pull him close to you and pamper him with kisses, you needed to come clean. You shot up from the bed, your back faced towards him and your handing closing into a clenched fist.

“That can’t happen, Kirishima! It won’t work!”

Kirishima followed you by jumping up from the bed, grabbing you by the arms to get you to face him. “Why, F/N?! Why can’t it happen? Is there something wrong with me?! Please just tell me!”

“Nooo…nooo there’s nothing wrong with you, Kiri..” The waterworks flowed from your eyes and violent sobs escaped from you. You slumped down on your knees in sorrow. Kirishima joined you on the floor and tried to pull you into him, but you’d jerk your body away. “You know nothing about me, Kirishima…I’ve- I’ve lied to you.”

“What do you mean, F/N? What did you lie about? I’m sure its not that bad!”

“I’m not quirkless, Kiri…” A couple more sobs came out of you. “I-I’m a demon…a succubus. A filthy succubus! Just a filthy disgusting succubus!!”

Not being able to stand your self-hatred, he grabbed you by the jaw to force you to look at him. His blazingly crimson eyes met your beautifully wet e/c ones. “Stop that, F/N! You’re not disgusting! Or filthy! You could never be those things!”.

You gripped his wrist and pulled it harshly away from you. “What would you know?! You don’t know the things I deal with inside this wicked head of mine! I encompass the most obscene thoughts about people! About you! Every morning I think about how I’m going to seduce you and get you to desire me just as much as I do! Every training session I look at that beautifully sculpted body of yours and I mentally defile it! Thinking of you as nothing more than a walking, breathing dildo! I see you when you’re smiling with your friends and all I want to do is just steal you away make you mine forever! And every night, I cry at the lack of pleasure I’m getting. The lack of warmth that I only want YOU to give to me. The lack of feeling your hot, meaty cock inside me! It drives me insane, Eijirou! I hate having these thoughts! I hate them! I hate them! I ha-hmmph!”

Kirishima had suddenly kissed you, and you had returned it by ravaging your tongue around his. You didn’t care about the cuts you might receive from his teeth grazing against your delicate flesh. You could only be swallowed by the pleasures overtaking your mouth. You drowned in each other, but only briefly before you had placed your hands on his chest and pushed him away from you.

“What are you doing?! Didn’t you just hear what I said?” You struggled to catch your breath as you wiped away the remnants of his saliva from your face.

“Why didn’t you tell me this, F/N? Did you…did you not trust me? Did you not think of me as manly enough to handle this?” His hands gripped tightly at your shoulders, craving a reply from you.

“You know that’s not true, Kiri. You’re the best person to ever come into my life, and that’s why I had to withhold this secret from you. I didn’t want you to abandon me.”

“I could never aban-“

“But I also didn’t want you to get wrapped up in me. I want you to continue your goals of becoming a hero, Eijirou. Who knows what sanity you’ll be sacrificing by being with me. It’s not a chance I’m willing to take.”

“That isn’t your call to make.” Kirishima’s uncharacteristically cold reply created an atmosphere that overwhelmed you.

“What do you mean? Hiding my quirk was the best decision.”

“Did you really think about me?” Kirishima’s hands glided from your shoulders to your upper arms, still holding a tight grip. “Did you think about how I’d feel if I knew you were holding yourself back like that? What if you’re killing yourself and you don’t know it? I’m supposed to be a hero, F/N. Your hero.”

Before you could reply he had stood up and lifted you back on the bed. He layed you down and positioned himself between your legs, squeezing at your thighs. They were so soft, so delicate. All of you was soft and delicate. And nothing you had told him tonight would change the way he felt about you. There was nothing you could say or do to change his feelings for you. Nothing.

You tried to pry his hands away from the meat of your thighs, but you were admittedly weak from his confession and the thick, encompassing atmosphere that was Kirishima’s presence around you. “Kiri-“

“Eijirou. Call me Eijiirou.”

“…Eijirou. We can’t do this. It’s dangerous…”

“It’s dangerous if I do, its dangerous if you don’t. But I’m telling you right now, F/N, I’m not letting you continue to do this to yourself. Knowing that you’re hurting like this and not being able to do anything? Not doing anything to help the one I love? What kind of hero would I be?...What kind of man would I be?”

Kirishima then leaned down to capture your lips in another kiss. You tried to move your head away but he took one of his hands against your jaw to hold you in place. It felt so good. So fucking good. His lips, his tongue, his rough hands. You teared up just at the pleasure of it all.

He then took his other hand to lift up your shirt, revealing your bra that contained the softest bust that any man could ever lay his hand upon. And right now that man was him. And he’d make sure it’d always be him.

Letting go of your lips, he roughly caressed your breasts before completely pulling your shirt over your head. Faint thoughts of resistance would slip away as you lost yourself in the pleasure you’d been craving for so long.

Struggling to get your bra off, Kirishima impatiently ripped it himself, using a bit of his quirk in the process.

“Eiji…”

“Sshh, baby. I’m gonna take care of you so well.” He slipped off your shorts along with your underwear and threw them unmindfully on the floor. Gripping the flesh below your inner knee, he spread your legs wide enough to slightly sting.

Your pussy was overflowing with juices for him and he barely even touched you yet. He took a moment to relish in the view, taking in deep breaths to smell your intoxicating aroma. He was inexperienced at sex but he knew this erotic perfume you were exuding could only have been the work of your succubus traits. He leaned down to give an experimental lick, his tongue curling to make sure he could gather as much of your juices as he could. He let your flavor sit in his mouth as if trying to enjoy the last sip of water on a mission in the desert.

His lewd behaviors made an unbearable heat rise to your face and you cowered behind your hands. Irritated, Kirishima jerked your hands away and looked at you as if you just insulted his entire lineage.

“Don’t you dare cover up that beautiful face of yours.” He leaned his head back down, this time capturing all the folds of your pussy in his mouth. “I want to see every expression you make. Hear every seductive sound that leaves that your throat.” The vibrations of his voice on your pussy drove you crazy. The rapid moving of his tongue against your clit was immediately sending you to a heavenly dimension.

“Ohh Eiji…Eiji I’m gonna cum…”

“Cum for me, baby. I want it.”

Your orgasm was so intense you could’ve passed out, but you couldn’t. Not with Eijirou still licking all over your clit like that.

“Oh my god, Eiji! Eijiii” Your hands gripped at his spiky hair, tugging tightly trying to get him to have mercy on your sensitive bud. “F-ffuckk! I can’t, Eiji, I can’t!”

Still not letting up, he continued to overstimulate you with his relentless tongue. “I’m sorry, F/N.” He slurped up your juices before working his tongue again. “You taste so fucking good. Like the freshest fruit from a garden.” He rotated between drinking up your fluids and licking vigorously at your clit. “I can’t stop, baby. I need more. Just cum again, okay?”

And cum, you would. A second orgasm was on the horizon and the overstimulation of it was making you shed tears. “Eiji…I’m gonna cum again. Oh my fucking god, I’m gonna cum againnn- Hnngh!!“. Intense waves of pleasure rode over you. However, Kirishima was still lapping up at your folds. “Eijirouuuu!!!”. Your moans became more high-pitched and erratic as you were overstimulated now for the second time.

“Just one more time, baby. I promise”. “I swear I just-“ Slurp. “Never tasted-“ Slurrp. “Anything so fucking good before.”

You were left with no choice but to cave into your third orgasm and Kirishima seemed to show no mercy for you. “Fucckkk.” You sniffled through your sobs as your next high came quicker than the previous ones. Finally Kirishima had lifted his head from between your lips. He had the most animalistic and erotic face you could have ever dreamed of seeing.

“Damn, that was so good. You did so well for me, baby.” Kirishima gleamed with the shine that was your juices. He leaned down to entwine his tongue with yours. You could taste yourself on him and it made you delirious. You had just cum three times, but you wanted more. You needed more.

Kirishima felt the same way as you as he backed up to give himself space to take his shorts off. Cock now springing free, you could see the beast of a rod he had and it made your mouth water. You whined at just the thought of the pleasure you were about to become entranced by. He lined himself up at your sopping entrance, but before he could slip in, you lightly pressed on his chest to get his attention.

“Are you sure, Eijirou? You can stop right now if want. I won’t be mad at you at all. You’ve already done so much for me, tonight.”

His cheeks faded into a deep pink as he moved your hands to be at his shoulders.

“I want you, F/N”. He stuck the tip of his cock in you, grunting at the tightness of your entrance. “I fucking want you.”

You let out a guttural moan as he slowly stretched your pussy to fit his cock. You finally felt it. The warmth you’d been craving deep inside. The stingingly sweet pain of his cock stretching out your drenched pussy. You could die right now. Right here in the arms of the man you loved. And your ghost would be perfectly okay with it. But your flesh craved even more. You needed him to reach the deepest parts of you. You needed him to destroy your greedy pussy.

“Fuck me, Eijirou. I want you to fuck me like the greedy slut that I am!” You looked directly into his dazed eyes, whining at him to give you what you wanted. “Please, I want you so bad. Mark this pussy with that cock of yours. Make me unable to think about anyone else like this. C’mon, give it to me! ”

Too aroused by your begging, he silently obliged. Sinking the entirety of his cock inside you, he twitched at your pulsating walls. It was like your pussy was a breathing organ, sucking him in and tightening around him so he could never leave. And he wasn’t going to. He’d stay like this forever with you.

Not giving you time to get used to his size, Kirishima started thrusting brutally against your hips. You let out the sweetest moans as you littered his back with scratches. His thrusts becoming smoother and smoother as your pussy got used to him. His cock ferociously grazed against your g-spot as the tip teasingly nibbed at your cervix. The perfect mix of pleasure and pain, you felt your now fourth orgasm approaching. You let go of his shoulders to lay your head back deep in the cushions of his pillows.

“Eijirou, you’re gonna make me cum again! You’re gonna make me cum all over your cock-!”

“Oh fuck- me too, F/N”. The rhythm of his thrusts became more faltered as your walls inhumanely squeezed the life out of him. He looked at your cock-drunk face, pleased with his performance. “Where do you want it, baby?”

You raised your head to reestablish eye contact with him. “I want it inside! Cum inside me! I need your cum so bad, need to feel it in my-Hmmnghh!!” Your orgasm overtook your speaking as you groaned hysterically.

Kirishima not far behind you, quickened his pace to chase his own high. “Shit, F/N! I’m gonna cum inside you! Fucking take all of it, baby! Don’t let any seep out, okay?”

You moaned at the hotness of his seed spurting inside. It was so deep inside you and you wondered if it was either easier or more difficult to get pregnant as a succubus. Either way you wanted more and your walls clenched once again against Kirishima’s cock.

He grunted before leaning down to bury his face in your neck, once again starting to thrust inside you. He was overstimulated but your pussy was driving him crazy. Perhaps your juices were an aphrodisiac, making anyone a slave to the area between your thighs. He kissed along your jaw and brought his hand up against your throat. He didn’t squeeze tight, just enough to get your attention.

He rose his head up to get a good look at your face. You looked liked a corrupted angel beneath him. He couldn’t believe you withholded him from these pleasures for so long. Were you just gonna go fuck other guys? You were going to let other men taste what has been his all along? He needed to hear you say you belonged to him. He’d give up anything to hear your sweet voice tell him everything from your insides and out belonged to him.

“Tell me who you belong to, baby?”

You replied with no hesitation, willing to say and do anything to milk more of his cum inside you.

“You, Eijirou! I belong to you! My flesh, my womb, my guts! Everything belongs to you Eijirou!” You felt another orgasm filling up in your stomach. “Please don’t ever leave me, Eiji. I want you with me forever. “

Of course, this was something he had no qualms about doing. He was ready. He’d give up school, his goals, his life to please you at every waking moment. He’d keep you pumped full of his cum so you’d never think about anyone else. You wouldn’t even remember what it was like to live like you weren’t a succubus. You’d be happy like this. With him.

Because he was your hero.

#kirishima x reader #kirishima eijiro x reader #eijirou x reader #kirishima x reader smut #kirishima #kirishima eijirou #kirishima smut #kirishima eijirou smut #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mha smut #bnha smut #my hero academia smut #boku no hero academia smut #i was supposed to just be doing drabbles #i just couldn't not make this dark #the vn is called room. no 9 #cayofdreams #cayfanfic

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dcforts · 3 years

Text

[day 11: sharing is caring]

That’s just what they need.

It’s not enough that they’ve been digging up graves in the snow and that they’re dirty and tired and aching – the weather had to play its part and send them a storm.

From where they’re stuck in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin, home seems far, far away.

“Do we know anyone around here?” asks Cas from the passenger seat and Dean closes his eyes and sighs.

“Yeah,” he says disheartened, “We know Garth.”

It’s not that Dean doesn’t like Garth. In fact, he likes him very much. And he’d be happy to see him. It’s been a while and his warm smile it’s never a bad sight.

It’s just that – he’s a lot. And he brings up some stuff.

He may pretend like it never happened but Dean remembers how he first reacted when he’d found out that he’d been bitten and how he acted around his family. And then there’s the fact that Dean doesn’t like bothering hunters who got out of the life. He feels that who he is and what he carries with him, it’s something that they’ve put behind them and don’t wish to see again.

Not to count the bitter feeling that surges in him everytime he’s reminded that Garth not only managed to retire and have a normal life, but he double did it. There are not many hunters, or werewolves, or hunter-werewolves for the matter, that can say that. Dean certainly can’t say that.

Still, when they call him and Garth says he’ll be happy to have them, Dean feels relief flooding over him, if not for the prospect of a warm and dry place to rest for a few hours, just enough to wait for the storm to calm down.

He can manage.

Or at least that’s what he thinks until he and Cas are huddled together on Garth’s front porch and even above the wind Dean hears Christmas songs blasting from the inside.

His eyes find Cas, who’s looking back at him, alarmed, but the doorbell has already been rung and it’s too late to back out. Garth opens the door with his patented smile.

“Guys!” he shouts above the music, “You made it!” he hurries them in the tiny entrance and closes the door.

Dean finds himself enveloped in a cocoon of warmth and lovely aroma of pine wood and cinnamon. His cheeks and hands tingle and he lets out a sigh.

Garth comes back into his view; Dean opens his mouth to speak but he has already wrapped his arms around him. “It’s so good to see you,” he says in his usual cheerful tone. He moves on to squeeze Cas into a similar hug and Cas stiffens and tentatively pats his back. Garth gives out a little laugh, “That’s it, buddy,” he encourages.

“Hello, Garth.”

Alright, Dean thinks, maybe it’s gonna be a little funny.

But then he notices the two-feet-tall inflatable Santa that’s bumping against his shins and when he looks up he’s stunned into silence. It actually takes his eyes a moment or two to register what’s surrounding them: the garlands on the doors, the tinsels around the banister, the baubles hanging from the ceiling all above them. Judging from the giant Christmas tree he can spot in the living room, he’s pretty sure the rest of the house isn’t in much better condition.

Garth himself is wearing an bulky red knitted cardigan with reindeers all over it. Seeing that, combined with the songs and the decorations, Dean feels the need to ask, “Uh – Garth? Are you guys celebrating something?”

Garth slaps him on the shoulder and laughs like he’s made a great joke. “It’s December, Dean-o! Every day is a celebration. The most magical time of the year, right?” he says beaming “You’ll have to wait for the carols but you’re right on time for hot cocoa!”

Dean feels dread creeping in. He takes a step back, “Wha- Garth, no – we don’t mean to -”

Apparently Cas is on the same page as him because he also starts saying, “This is your family time,” and steps back with him. “We don’t want to intrudr –“

Garth shakes his head vigorously, “Guys, guys, guys,” He holds up his hands to shut them up, “It makes Bess and I very happy to have you here to share it with us. Sharing is caring. And we happen to care a lot about you two,” he says making a silly voice and pointing a finger at them.

Yeah, nevermind, this was a terrible idea.

Cas throws him another freaked out look Dean can’t help but reciprocate, but Garth pays no mind to their lack of enthusiasm and shepherds them cheerfully into the living room. Dean feels even more out of place among the pastel walls and the embroidered pillows, the toys and the dolls. He tries to make himself weight less so that he doesn’t leave traces of dirt on the carpet. Everything seems soft and cozy, which is a real change from the hard leather seats and the icy wind.

“So, how was the journey?” Garth is asking Cas, as if they’re coming back from a cruise. “It’s been so long, man. Just the other day I was thinking ‘When I’m ever going to see them again?’ and then - ”

Dean gets distracted as he feels something tugging at the duffel bag he’s carrying and when he lowers his gaze there’s a blond head and two little hands trying to hold on to the fabric. “H-hey,” he says, shifting back a little to get out of his reach. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have clean, innocent baby hands near a bag that was in a graveyard an hour ago. But the kid takes an unsteady step forward and grabs it anyway. “This is – no, no – uh, G-Garth?” he calls, horrified.

Garth stops drowning Cas in questions and shifts his attention to the ground. He laughs and picks up his kid, totally unbothered, “Sammy, these are not toys for you,” he shakes his head, “He’s such a curious kid.”

Bess comes down the stairs right in that moment, wearing a green cardigan that matches Garth’s. “I thought I heard you two!” she says, even if Dean is pretty sure they’ve barely said a word since they’ve come in. “Garth, why don’t you bring their bag in the guests’ room? I’ll be right out with the drinks.”

There’s another round or “No need -,” and “This is really not necessary -,” and “We don’t want -“ before Garth yanks the bag from Dean’s hold with one hand.

He always forgets how strong he is.

“Of course you’re gonna stay. There’s no way I’m letting you leave in the cold and the dark. Come on! You know me,” he disappears down the hallway shaking his head and saying, “We’re gonna have so much fun.”

Bess gives them an encouraging smile, “Relax guys, take off your jackets, sit on the couch.”

So they do. Sit on the couch.

They both let out a sigh when they sink into the cushions and Dean would call Cas “old” if he hadn’t made the exact same sound.

“This was a bad idea,” whispers Dean.

“You think?”

In the sudden emptiness of the room, with It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year in the background, and the giant Christmas tree twinkling in the corner, it’s weird to just - sit there.

Dean is dirty and smelly and feels marginally better only when he looks over at Cas who seems so much out of his comfort zone that he might as well be a tropical bird.

He takes a hopeful look out of the windows behind the couch but the weather seems to be even worse than it was five minutes ago.

“Are you still cold?” asks Cas.

“No.”

“Good.”

They look away from each other again.

In the last few weeks they’ve settled in a pretty hectic routine. Find the case, drive to the case, work the case, drive home, rinse and repeat.

It’s a well-oiled machine, but that doesn’t leave much time for – well, anything else. Definitely not sitting around and relaxing – and it’s just awkward all of the sudden to be alone in a place that is not a sticky diner, or a dusty motel, or a morgue.

It sounds depressing but that’s the hunter life for you. Without even noticing you become your job and it gets easier to just put your head down and work.

After three hunts in a row, Dean realizes this is the first time they’re actually taking a break. He looks over at Cas, his messy hair and the hands folded in his lap, and he feels the need to say something conversational.

What comes out is, “Last time I was here, Garth fixed my teeth.”

Cas’ face scrunches up in confusion but then Garth comes back.

“Have you seen Cas?”

Dean blinks at him and then slowly and dubiously points at his right.

“No, I mean,” Garth laughs, “The little one. I’m so excited for you to meet him,” he says, leaving the room again.

“How do you lose a kid?” Dean asks under his breath, looking around. His attention is drawn to a group of pictures on the little table beside the couch. There’s a bunch of the family on holidays, and then a bunch of the kids. One of the frames says Castiel and, on the bottom, Always our little boy.

“Hey, Cas,” he picks it up to show it to him, “Want me to get you one of these?”

Cas glares at him and doesn’t dignifies him with an answer.

Dean smirks and shrugs, “Fine, we’ll get the one that says Sammy. Can’t wait to see his face on Christmas morning.”

Cas doesn’t look at him again but Dean sees the corner of his mouth stretch a little so he calls it a victory.

Then Garth comes back and finally sits down in the armchair across from them. “He’s asleep. I forgot he was asleep!” he rolls his eyes at himself, “Cas,” he says, clicking his tongue, “he’s the best. He’s got this look, you know?”

“Wait, who are we talking about now?”

“Him. No, uh -” Garth laughs and bangs a hand on his forehead. “Sorry, I keep getting confused. Alright, alright, lets call our Cas 'Little Cas' and we’ll call you, 'Big Cas'.”

Dean stifles a laugh.

"I don’t think-" starts Cas, but it gets drown out by Bess coming back with a tray.

From the steaming mugs comes the rich smell of chocolate and on the surface Dean can see mini marshmallows shaped like little trees. He watches as Bess and Garth pick up their mugs and toast before taking a sip and notices with a smile that even their mugs are matching. Bess’ says “Mine” and Garth’s says “Yours”. He thinks it’s cute, whatever.

But then he looks down at his own mug and realizes that there’s something written across it too. It says “Perfect” and when he dares to look in Cas’ way his whole body blushes when he reads “Together” on his.

He takes a sip of chocolate and tries very hard to avoid Cas’ eyes and stop blushing. He fails on both fronts and burns his tongue.

At least it tastes great and the sugar warms him up and makes him feel much more comfortable.

Cas drinks it too without making a fuss over molecules and Dean wonders if it’s because he’s very polite or if he’s a pain in the ass just when they’re alone.

Finally Cas meets Little Cas and Garth keeps telling them how smart he is, because apparently he’s learned how to use the remote.

Dean snorts, “That’s already more than Big Cas can do,” and Cas shoots him a deadly “Stop calling me that,” that shuts him up for five minutes. Dean agrees it was a bad idea anyway.

Kids love Cas, for some reason. Little Cas stretches his arms towards him the whole time he’s in the room and Cas just pretends he can’t see him, as if avoiding eye contact is enough to make him stop. It amuses Dean greatly.

Even Gertie, when she comes in with a gingerbread cookie, looks between them and chooses to give it to Cas.

“I only have one,” she tells Dean, who is totally not offended.

But then Cas says, “It’s okay,” with his soft voice, “We’ll share it.”

And for some reason that makes Dean’s heart flutter. It’s something in the way he casually snaps the cookie in half and hands him a piece.

Somehow it’s different than sharing a car, a motel room, a bed, all kinds of weapons and bags and just space, in general.

Dean doesn’t know what it is, but somehow there’s a difference.

Garth is fairly disappointed when he finds out that angels don’t know Christmas carol by heart just because they’re angels.

At some point he just starts playing the piano and expects Cas to start singing along.

Dean says it was a hard blow for him as well, knowing that he couldn’t play the harp, just to enjoy the way Cas rolls his eyes with his whole head.

“What about Holy Night?”

“I- I don’t know that one,” says Cas, for the thirteen time in a row and Dean would love to stay on the couch and watch him awkwardly handle the situation if he wasn’t afraid Garth would eventually try and bring him into it.

So he jumps up at the first occasion to follow Bess into the kitchen right under Cas’ betrayed look.

“What songs do you know?” Garth’s voice carries through the walls.

“Uh, I know Led Zeppelin?” says Cas and Dean almost drops the mugs as his heart expands.

Now he kind of regrets having left the room but then Garth is saying, “Oh no, silly, I mean Christmas songs,” and Bess is asking him, “Do you play any instrument?” so he focuses back on her.

Dean puts down the mugs in the sink and opens up the tab, “Uh - just the guitar – a little bit. Never had much chance to practise.”

“Oh, you should. Then you can bring it up here sometime and play for us at the church.”

Dean scoffs, “You sure they’d want to see me again, after last time?” he asks and can’t hide the genuine uncertainty from his voice.

Bess rests a hand on his arm, reassuring, “Well, it’ll be different. Last time we said, ‘This is Dean, he’s a hunter’. This time, we’ll be saying, ‘This is Dean, he plays the guitar’.”

It’s such a simple concept but it hits him like a brick. He needs a moment to try and see himself from another point of view and he really doesn’t know what to say. Bess doesn’t seem to mind. They dry the mugs in silence and when Dean looks up to smile at her, she smiles back.

Dean, he plays the guitar. It could work.

They go back to the living room and Bess and Garth duet over Silent Night and it’s only a little embarrassing.

It gets dark pretty soon after that.

Before they bring their kids upstairs they all take part in the traditional – apparently daily – lightning of the tree. They turn off the lights and when Garth says “Ready?”, Gertie says “Yes!” and he lights it up.

Only, in the dark Cas gets really close to him and when Garth says “Ready?” Dean can hear him too say “Yes,” and so he turns towards him just as Garth plugs it in and his breath catches in his throat as he sees his face light up with the colours dancing on his skin.

Bess turns on the lights again and Garth puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder and it startles him.

“Amazing, right?” he says, “Gets me everytime,” and only then Dean realizes that he’s missed the whole thing.

“Yeah,” he says.

Watching them at the table is always a jarring experience.

But just a "How’s the – dental practice going?" is enough to kick off the longest most absurd recount of Garth’s last few years and Dean finds himself laughing heartily with a hand on his chest, having forgotten all about the raw cow hearts on their plates.

They talk about things to do in Winsconsin and Dean tells them about that one time when he was a kid and got sick on cream puffs at a fair. Even Cas talks about Claire non-stop for a solid minute an a half, which is honestly impressive.

Bess and Garth want to know all about Sam and Eileen. When Dean says they’re splitting up more these days, Bess nods and says, “Yeah, I imagine you all enjoy a bit of privacy.”

Dean hears loud and clear the implication that him and Cas are like Sam and Eileen but doesn’t really know how to correct her, so he doesn’t.

He knows he can’t blame her. He’s not totally oblivious to the way they look from the outside. Working together, living together - just that would be enough to assume. But Dean hasn’t looked at anyone else in years either so – yeah. He knows how it looks.

Cas doesn’t say anything either, and doesn’t show any signs as to whether he’s picked up the implication but Dean can never really be sure with him.

That’s about around the time Dean realizes he’s shifted towards him and has an arm draped on the back of his chair.

Cas hasn’t said anything about that either. Dean doesn’t remove it.

Garth proposes a toast to Bobby and Dean loves him a little bit more and then Bess asks them what they’re doing for the holidays and looks shocked when he says that they haven’t really thought about it yet.

“But Christmas is in two weeks!”

Dean is about to say that they never really did holidays and they’re always on the road anyway, so it doesn’t matter and they don’t care, but for some reasons he settles for, “I guess – if we’re not working – then we’ll get Sam and Eileen and just -”

He doesn’t know what they’ll do.

Garth makes that face he makes when he finds him adorable.

It makes his skin crawl.

“What would you like to do?” he says and Dean feels hot all of the sudden as Cas looks his way as well.

“Nothing,” he blurts out, feeling his face reddening, “I mean, just stay at home, relax. That’d be great.”

Bess smiles, “That doesn’t sound like such an impossible plan now, does it?”

Cas softly says, “No, it doesn’t,” and Dean’s heart starts pounding.

“Next year we could get the families together,” jumps in Garth and that makes him laugh again.

From the fact that he doesn’t think right away that it’s the most horrible idea that Garth could possibly have, he realizes he’s having a good night.

And even later when he brings to the kitchen the last of the plates and sees Garth and Bess share a kiss and a laugh over the sink, he smiles. He’s careful not to make any sounds as he puts the plates down on the counter and tiptoes back to the dark living room.

Cas is standing near the tree, looking at the decorations and Dean silently joins him.

They smile at each other briefly and go back to watch the tree.

Considering how they’ve started the day, Dean thinks it’s not a bad way to end it.

The guest room is – well, like the rest of the house, colourful wallpaper, soft carpets, floral-scented bedsheets. And a Santa on the nightstands with cheeks that light up. Dean puts it under the bed first thing cause it creeps him out.

Garth says, “Are you gonna be alright in here?”

“I don’t sleep,” reassures him Cas and Dean wants to retort that for someone who claims he “just lays down” he sure knows how to steal the covers.

“Yeah, Garth,” he says instead, “We’ll be up early and leave through the backdoor.”

“Well, guys,” Garth says on the door, his eyes swelling up, “It’s been so good to have you here.”

“Yeah, thank you for everything, Garth,” Dean says and he really means it. “We had a good time.”

Garth shakes his head. “You guys make me cry.”

He pulls him into a hug and then moves to do the same with Cas.

“Come back, whenever you want. And have a very merry Christmas.”

Dean closes the door behind him and leans his back against it with a deep sigh. “If I’d walked home instead of coming here I’d be less tired, I think.”

Cas huffs a laugh as he unties his shoes.

They undress in silence and slips under the covers.

Dean turns off the lights and looks up at the ceiling.

"It’s nice,” Cas says unexpectedly in the dark, “what they have."

A weight drops on Dean’s chest.

"Yeah,” he agrees in the end, “it's nice."

After a moment, Cas speaks again.

“Dean?”

“Mh?”

“We don’t have to – go home straight away,” there’s a pause. The familiar shape of Cas shifts next to him, “We could find some cream puffs for you to get sick on.”

“That’s sweet,” Dean huffs a laugh. “I appreciate it, Cas.”

He settles more comfortably against his pillow.

“I mean it,” Cas keeps going, and his whisper is a lullaby, “We don’t have to find another case. We could just go meet Sam and Eileen in Illinois. Drive home together.”

Dean likes the idea very much.

“Yeah, we could do that.”

He feels his eyes falling shut.

“We could make it home in time for Christmas,” Cas’ voice is saying.

Dean’s lips stretch into a smile.

“Yeah, let’s do that, Cas.”

He falls asleep.

joining @bend-me-shape-me in doing this!

#SPNAdventCalendar2020 #deancas #destiel #deancas ficlet #destiel fanfic #3.6k #garth fitzgerald iv #holiday time at garth's house #fluff #this one exploded on me #but i had a lot of fun #i love these prompts !!!!#they light up my brain #domesticity is my vocation #my writing

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raelly-writing · 3 years

Text

Little Secrets - Thancred/WoL

Post-5.5. Silly little bit of fluff I’ve had lying around in my WIP folder since before 5.3. :)

---

The Rising Stones lay still and quiet as Thancred made his way through its hallways. Not that it was unexpected at this hour - either it was far too late in the night or too early in the morning for many souls aside for the town guards to be awake.

At least the others out in the field had been faring well when he’d checked in with them, despite their less than pleasant task of intercepting any further attempts to bring captives to the towers. Sure, he could have checked in via linkpearl, but after the chaos out in Pagl’than, it’d seemed prudent to get a feeling for the situation elsewhere.

Well, he could convene with Riol and Alphinaud in the morning, Thancred thought as he took the steps up the stairs to the sleeping quarters in twos. Despite his long travel and the late - or early - hour, he felt rather energetic.

Or perhaps it was the thought of slinking into Viana’s room and just catching a few precious hours of sleep with her after several days apart that put a slight spring in his step. Between his time away in Garlemald, and leaving again to see how the situation at the other towers were, he looked forward to the comforting warmth of her body curled up next to his as he slept. In the dark, still corridor, his quiet huff of laughter at himself seemed far louder than it was. It would have been a hard thing to believe once that he’d be eager to slip into his lover’s bed, just for the simple pleasure of sleeping by their side.

Nevermind that there were no fears of entanglement driving him from leaving said bed early, that he was content and secure in this bond between them that kept him by her side - that he could allow himself to have this simple happiness in his life, despite those moments where he felt it was something he had not yet earned, and those familiar, dark voices whispered to him that she would one day realise that he was not fit for her.

With a shake of his head, he fished out the spare key she had given him from his inner coat pocket and quietly unlocked her door. Her chamber lay silent as he slipped inside and closed the door behind him, bathed in the low light of the lantern left burning on her desk.

Too silent, in fact.

A small frown creased his brow as he quietly stepped deeper into the room and looked around the ornate Far Eastern wood screen that customarily partitioned off her bed from the rest of the room.

The piles of pillows and blankets were untouched, the covers still neatly tucked in. No one had slept in that bed tonight.

Thancred felt a small but potent pang of disappointment. Most likely she had been called off somewhere on an urgent matter, as was wont to happen.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it - guess he was sleeping in his own bed tonight. Tataru and Alphinaud would tell him in the morning where she’d gone, he was sure. Sighing, he reached out to turn off the lantern, when he caught sight of her gunblade lying on her desk with its maintenance kit beside it. Thancred stopped at once, a curious frown back on his features. Looking around he found her katana sitting on its customary stand and her axe hanging off a pair of hooks on the wall by her wardrobe.

“What the-?” he murmured to himself. She wouldn’t have left without any of her weapons.

Just then, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock, followed by a dull thud as someone on the other side pushed their weight against the door. A pause. Then the sound of it once more unlocking.

“Seven Hells, I swear that I locked-” Viana froze the moment she saw him, her eyes going almost comically wide in surprise.

Thancred’s eyebrows rose as he took in her appearance, the surprise he felt not mitigating the heat that instantly crawled up the back of his neck. A dark leather corset hugged her body, with familiar looking bits of gold jewelry twinkling in the low light like little stars against the dark blue cloth of her dress.

A moment of silence stretched out between them.

Clearing his throat, he smiled and gestured towards her. “Were I to check the hallway, would I find Urianger knocked out and robbed off his usual adornments?”

Viana’s shoulders, bared by the cut of the dress, sagged when she exhaled. “Funny,” she replied dryly while she stepped inside and closed the door behind her, turning the lock. Tall boots covered her legs, though even in the dim light of the room he could see the tantalising glimpse of bare skin at her thigh.

He tried not to let his eyes linger, but it was hard not to let his gaze wander and soak in her unusual appearance, used as he was to her in full armour or just lighter shirts and trousers. This was… extravagant, by comparison. “People have on occasion accused me of such feats,” he quipped.

Pausing, she gave him a shy, uncertain look while still lingering by the door. He was not meant to have seen her like this, he realised. Only once, long ago, had he seen her carry herself in such an apprehensive manner - at the banquet that had been held after the Grand Melee in Ishgard. But there were no crowds of gossiping nobles present now to watch her every move.

Thancred gave her a reassuring smile as he took a couple of slow steps forward. “So, do you mind me asking what this is about?” He had an inkling but...

Viana tensed up, and he nearly told her that she did not have to if so was her wish, but then she sighed and procured from behind her the folded together metal rings that appeared to have been suspended from one of the chains around her waist. “I suppose you’d find out sooner or later,” she said quietly as she took a few steps to close the distance between them.

With a touch of aether, the slender rings flared to life and hovered above her palm - a familiar sight, though hers lacked the intricate decorations of Urianger’s. The bracelets on her arm tinkled when she moved her arm over the astrolabe, her face set in a look of concentration.

Briefly, the room was illuminated by a surge of aether, and then a soothing sensation washed over Thancred, like a gentle whisper of the softest silk over his bare skin that swept away the weariness in his limbs. Rejuvenating magic, tinted with the warm, familiar feeling of her aether.

“I made the mistake of voicing some curiosity about astrology to Urianger while we were dealing with Eden.” The corner of her mouth curled with a crooked smile. “And I fear he took it as a personal challenge to teach me.”

“Ah, a grave mistake indeed,” Thancred chuckled. “Give him an ilm and he’ll take a yalm.”

Shrugging, she eyed the slowly spinning astrolabe with a small, thoughtful smile. “It’s been… interesting to learn though.” Her gaze flickered back to him. “I’ll probably never take this out in the field. I’m barely good enough to heal a minor cut, but I do genuinely appreciate the effort and time he’s put toward this. He’s a good teacher. Very patient with me.”

Thancred’s expression softened. He knew her lack of an education was a sore spot for her, and that she often felt like her non-existent grasp of magical theory made her less of use than the rest of them - that, as per her own jest, her sole contribution to any given problem was to take a beating and punch the issue until it either went away or one of them solved it. Gratitude towards Urianger for taking her under his wing tugged at his heart, along with a content pride in her efforts to learn. Even if Thancred himself thought that she hardly had anything to prove to them, in that regard. She was more than just a weapon. Reaching out, he took her free hand in his and brushed a quick kiss to the back of her fingers, below the rings that adorned them.

“I take it you were out studying the stars then,” he asked, recalling how Urianger would sometimes venture out into the fields of Il Mheg even when the blanket of Eternal Light had made it impossible to see the night sky.

Viana nodded and slipped her hand from his to caress his jaw. The scratch of his stubble made her smile widen a little, mirth dancing in her eyes. “Mm, his balcony has a good view of most of them. Otherwise we go up to one of the towers.”

With another wave of her hand, the astrolabe folded back up and she took a careful hold of it before walking past him to the same low cabinet upon which her katana stand stood. The soft light from the lantern caught on the gold chain hanging down between her shoulder blades. Focusing on it, he saw that another star pendant was dangling at its end, and that another, heftier chain was attached to the band around her upper arm. There was an itch in his fingers to slowly undo each clasp and tie, to loosen the corset hugging her body and unwrap her like a fine namesday gift.

“He’s been teaching me about the various constellations and how to draw on them,” she told him over her shoulder, unaware of how his eyes were following the chains looping around her waist, and the small blue gems hanging from them that sparkled like they were distant stars twinkling in the night sky. “Not sure how successful I’ve been at it though.”

She turned around and his gaze instantly snapped back up to her face. Clearing his throat, he nodded. “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.”

Viana shrugged sheepishly. “Perhaps. If nothing else I might be able to apply some of the theory to my gunbreaker barriers.” Her smile turned crooked, as humour sparked in her eyes. “And, I might not stand around and look like I just got clubbed over the head by Titan whenever a discussion turns theoretical in nature about aether balancing and all that stuff.”

“Ah, my dear, you’re hardly the only one who gets turned around by their theoretical debates.”

A soft peal of laughter made her shoulders shake as she walked back to him. “Well, I suppose I have Estinien as company in that regard, for now.” The knowing look she gave him made it clear that she knew he was obfuscating his own knowledge on the field, but instead of calling him out on it she merely leaned down and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re back,” she murmured.

Smiling, Thancred slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “I’m glad to be back.”

Viana leaned against him and brushed back his hair from his eyes. “Planning on staying for more than a day, this time?”

Immediately he felt the long journey catch up with him, and with a tired chuckle he nodded. “Unless the gods decide to suddenly turn the world upside down tomorrow, then yes, I am.”

Her smile brightened a little at once. “Good.” She leaned down and he eagerly met her in a slow kiss.

Thancred made a pleased noise at the back of his throat, his heart skipping a beat in joy at being back with her. The kiss was short and sweet, familiar and welcoming in tone.

Almost too short, he felt, when she straightened back up. Peering up at her, he felt curiosity tug at him once more as he thumbed what felt like a star shaped pendant. “Haven’t seen you in something like this before,” he murmured with a smile. “Well, aside from that dress at ser Aymeric’s banquet.”

A blush immediately crept up on her cheeks as she glanced away. “Ah, yes, I... asked Tataru for some more aether conductive gear,” she replied while tapping her fingers against his shoulders in a nervous manner. “Apparently she’d gotten her hands on some new patterns in Ishgard that she wanted to try out. Decided to kill two cloudkin with one rock, as it were.” The tilt of her smile turned a little self deprecating as she shrugged, “Can’t help but feel like her efforts were wasted on me.”

Raising a hand, he touched her chin to urge her to look back at him. Thancred held her gaze and let the levity drop from his voice when he responded, “You look stunning, darling.”

Viana’s eyes widened a fraction before her expression settled back into a bashful look. “Not exactly my usual style,” she murmured, her tone uncertain. “It seems a bit… frivolous, compared to my normal clothes.”

“Nothing wrong with a little frivolity, if that’s what you are in the mood for,” Thancred mused.

She pursed her lips with a thoughtful look, before leaning down and pressing another quick kiss to his mouth. “Well, thoughts for a later time I suppose. Mind helping me out of this?”

“Mm, that would be my pleasure,” he replied with a grin and gave her waist a squeeze.

#Thancred #Thancred Waters #ffxiv #thancred x wol #really just wanted to finish up something for myself today #My writing

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four-loose-screws · 3 years

Text

FE8 Novelization Translation - Chapter 15, Section 1

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations

If you are interested in donating to support my work, please check out my Ko-fi here. Thank you!

———————————

I call this a “section” because it is not a separate part of the chapter in the book, but divided from the rest of the chapter by a scene break.

———————————

Chapter 15 - The Day the Empire Fell

Bethroen was a port town located in southwest Renais. After capturing Fort Rigwald, Ephraim's army continued their preparations to head towards Grado’s capital city by ship.

Their march progressed smoothly. The only worry on Ephraim’s mind was Eirika, who was currently headed for Rausten.

The day before, the Frelian pegasus knights had told him the grave news that Carcino had betrayed them. Prince Innes was all alone at a fort on a plateau, and Eirika was headed his way to rescue him. Both the status of the prince and Eirika’s safety were currently unknown.

Because they’d thought that going to Rausten was the easier journey, he’d sent his sister out on that mission. It made Ephraim panic, but now that he’d come as far as he had, he couldn’t go back. He continued to pray for his sister to stay safe, and with no further time to spare, he decided the only thing he could do now was hurry to Grado's capital to capture it.

First, they had to find an appropriate ship. Ephraim gave the command to his soldiers to procure a ship, then he received a message from a member of the reconnaissance team.

“Lord Ephraim, the Grado Army is straight ahead of us!”

“So they’re on their way here?” Ephraim decided to put their ship search on hold for the time being and order everyone to prepare for battle.

However, the next piece of information was very strange.

“The Grado Army is not coming this way. They are chasing someone.”

“Who…? A deserter?” Ephraim quickly climbed atop a tall cherry tree and scanned the area.

Just as it had been explained to him in the report, he saw the Grado Army chasing around a knight atop a horse. The knight was avoiding his pursuers with expert handling of his horse's reins, but they had him surrounded, and it was only a matter of time before they captured him.

The moment that Ephraim saw that sight, he realized the identity of the knight dodging the Grado soldiers. He shouted aloud without even thinking before he spoke, “That… That’s General Duessel, isn’t it!? Why is he being chased by the Grado Army…?”

He knew absolutely nothing about the situation, but couldn’t overlook his teacher when the man was in danger. Ephraim immediately changed his orders. They were now to prioritize rescuing General Duessel over fighting the Grado Army.

He also grabbed his own lance and ran towards Duessel. The crowd of Grado soldiers dispersed, and once he was within earshot, he called out his instructor’s name as loudly as he could.

When Duessel noticed him, he galloped his horse over to where Ephraim stood. He looked so different that Ephraim was at a loss for words. Both Duessel’s clothing and hair were in disarray, and he was breathing heavily. The general, once with a refined demeanor fit for royalty, now looked like an entirely different person.

“Lord Ephraim…!”

"What happened, General Duessel? Why are you being chased by the Grado Empire? ...Nevermind, we can talk later. It's more important that we protect you. Come with me." Ephraim immediately started to turn around, but Duessel didn't move. Ephraim turned back around and said in an irritated tone, "What's wrong, General Duessel? You're surrounded here. Please come with me to my army."

"I am sorry, Lord Ephraim. You are my enemy to the bitter end. And no matter the circumstances, I cannot accept help from an enemy." Ephraim immediately started to give his argument, but Deussel shook his head with a heavy heart and interjected, "I am Deussel, the Obsidian. Ever since that title was bestowed upon me, I have sworn my loyalty to Grado and the emperor. I am running now only because I am to be executed, as His Majesty is questioning my loyalty. It is not to get help from you."

"Did you just say… executed? What the hell happened…?"

"There is nothing for me to tell you. Please retreat, Lord Ephraim."

"What will you do when you get away from the army?"

Duessel did not answer.

Ephraim, now all the more irritated, thumped his lance against the ground and shouted, "What's going on, General Duessel?! Tell me what happened!!"

"...No. I can't tell you…"

"Why won't you talk no matter what? If that's the case, I have an idea too. I know it's selfish, but I will protect you."

"Lord Ephraim…" Duessel's face was frozen in utter astonishment.

Ephraim said to him with conviction, "It is because it is something I can do. Don’t throw away your own life in front of me. You are my teacher. No matter the circumstances, I will not allow you to die. Even if I have to drag you along with me. Don't make this that difficult for me."

Duessel clenched his teeth in pain and looked at Ephraim.

Ephraim softened his words a little. “I’ve heard rumors of the emperor’s descent into madness as well. And those who advised against his actions were his true retainers… isn't that right?"

"Yes. And so I…"

“You can’t do anything by your own power alone. Do not choose this path you are on and be captured without resistance. Right now, even if you have to bear with the disgrace, please accept my assistance. The happiness of the Grado people is much more important than your honor, isn't it?"

Deussel's cheeks turned slightly red. Ephraim's sincere speech seemed to have hit home. The general clenched his jaw, then nodded. "...You're right. I've been showing you my embarrassing side. I will entrust these old bones to you. The countless evil deeds that the Grado Army has committed… Take me with you, and help me atone for all of them."

With Deussel added to their ranks, the Grado Army was no match for Ephraim's army. The battle ended with hardly anyone on their side becoming injured.

Ephraim and Deussel first found an inn in a port town to rest in. After Deussel cleaned himself up, his face was still pale, but his expression calmed. "You've grown up, Lord Ephraim. When I taught you the lance, you were just a boy who hated losing."

"It is because of your guidance. General Duessel, please, I want you to talk to me. Why were you discharged from the imperial army?”

Duessel was silent for a long while, but when Ephraim pushed him one last time, he finally opened his heavy mouth to speak. “...His Majesty ordered me to kill you.”

Ephraim’s expression froze, and he nodded. He had of course expected that to be the case.

“Nothing could get me to agree to this war. It might have been only a matter of time before the countries of Magvel started fighting with each other, but this war is not for a just cause. It is an invasion, and nothing more. A war like this makes not only the people of Renais, but also Grado, suffer… I said that to His Majesty, but he did not listen to me. Or should I say… it made him question my loyalty.”

Ephraim knew that Duessel was more deeply loyal to Emperor Vigarde than anyone else who served him. He could easily imagine just how painful it would be for the emperor to question his loyalty.

“And so, I decided to do as I was ordered and set out to kill you. Please forgive me.”

“There is no need for you to apologize. It is just something you would do as a general of the Grado Army.”

“But his Majesty really did doubt me. Selena went with me under the guise of my assistant.”

“Selena… The general known as “Fluorspar.””

“You are correct. She is a woman with a powerful sense of justice. She had doubts about this war from the very beginning as well, just as Glen and I did. But she is also a Grado soldier… she could not disobey His Majesty’s orders either. Selena insisted that I go kill you immediately, but I was still hesitant. I wanted to talk to you if at all possible… If I could, then we might be able to avoid a pointless fight. That is what I insisted upon.”

Ephraim and Eirika planned to avoid fighting whenever possible, and so had Duessel. That reassured Ephraim, but at this point, it was also stressful.

“And with that, I was branded a traitor. Selena accused me of the crime of betrayal, and told me to immediately drop my weapon. If I resisted, then I would be executed. I did not fear death. If I did not have the resolve to sacrifice my life for His Majesty, then I never would have become a soldier. But I couldn’t allow myself to be executed for groundless suspicions of my loyalty. His Majesty is walking the wrong path. Until I successfully advise him to choose otherwise, I cannot die. With that conviction in my heart, I ran from my pursuers, but… it seems that I was lacking a bit in my usual composure. Your words have opened my eyes. There really is no way that I can do anything on my own. I will bear with my humiliation, and lend my power to Renais.”

With that explanation, Ephraim knew exactly why Duessel had run from the Grado Army. Things were worse than he imagined. For the emperor to question his most trusted retainer meant that his descent into madness was much further along than Ephraim had suspected.

“So is General Selena close by here now?”

“No, as I understand, as soon as I escaped, she received orders to return to the capital. What is His Majesty intending to do by scattering the generals…? Even if he is doing it on a whim, it is still an absolute mystery."

“General Duessel. I can't help but think that the emperor's personality has changed to its very core. What happened in the capital? Isn’t there anything that comes to mind?”

Deussel furrowed his brow at Ephraim's question.

Ephraim guessed what he might have that he wanted to talk about, and waited.

Deussel's hesitancy over whether or not he should say anything likely came from the fact that he had not yet abandoned his loyalty to the emperor. It wasn’t impossible. Even if he had been branded a traitor, he wasn’t the type of person to have a sudden change of heart.

After a long pause, Duessel finally opened his mouth. “I have no way of confirming whether or not this is related to the emperor's change of heart, but… there is something that has worried me for a long time."

“What kind of thing is it?”

“This happened quite some time ago, but… Prince Lyon and the mages said one day that they had successfully made the Dark Stone. The prince was unusually excited about it."

"What is this 'Dark Stone?'"

I do not know. But they said that it is an amazing stone even more powerful than the Sacred Stones. Now that I look back on it, I think that was the day that the emperor started to change."

Ephraim was deep in thought. If that story was true, then this Dark Stone was what was negatively influencing the emperor.

"...Ephraim."

He heard a small voice. It was Myrrh. He'd put everyone else in rooms far away from this one, but she was different. Just taking his eyes off her worried him, so he had told her to always stay close by.

"What is it, Myrrh?"

"I have felt an ominous energy coming from the capital for a very long time now. That energy twists people's hearts. No matter how good they may be, it will turn anyone into a bad person…"

"...Is that true?"

Was the Dark Stone the source of this "ominous energy" that Myrrh was talking about? It would mean that they would have to destroy the Dark Stone to save the emperor.

"General Deussel, where is the Dark Stone now?"

"Prince Lyon should have it. He hasn't put it down for even a second ever since that day."

"...So that would mean there's a chance the Dark Stone has also had an effect on Lyon as well, correct? Has Lyon changed at all?"

"Well…" Duessel seemed to be even more baffled by this question. Once he was finally done thinking, he shook his head.

"No, I don't think that he has. He stays holed up in his room even more now, but that's probably because he is fervently studying the Dark Stone. On the occasion that he has shown his face to us, he is the same kind prince that he always has been. Even if he has not clearly stated it, I believe that this war is weighing heavily upon his heart."

"I understand." Ephraim breathed a sigh of relief.

"So, as we thought, our march towards the capital is the key. I want to meet him and talk to him. If we were to combine our strength, then I strongly believe that we could return the emperor to normal."

"I will go with you." Duessel's tone was full of conviction.

Ephraim looked him in the eyes, and asked, “We will be fighting the Grado Army. Are you okay with that?”

“I have already been branded a traitor. To worry about that at this point is futile. More than anything else… I want His Majesty’s heart to return to what it once was. If you figure out the mysteries of the Dark Stone, then surely His Majesty will be freed from the terrible curse he is under. To accomplish that, I am prepared to resign myself to my fate as a disloyal servant." Duessel said word by word, slowly trying to convince himself of what he was saying. “Before that, there’s just one thing I’d like to ask. You might think of it as a shameless request, but…”

“Whatever it is, I’ll hear it.”

“It’s about my subordinates. There are some that still did not abandon me, even after I was branded a traitor. Their numbers are few, but… I was wondering if you would let them do as they wish. If there are any soldiers that want to serve you, I want you to welcome them. And I want you to let those who say they wish to return to Grado do so. It is a selfish request… but I want to reward them for their loyalty however I can.”

“General Duessel, you really are my teacher.” Ephraim laughed. “The soldiers that serve you are yours. I won’t interfere with them. All of you may do as you wish.”

“Thank you, Lord Ephraim.” Now that one of Deussel’s worries was gone, his face relaxed.

He left the room and explained to his soldiers what Ephraim had said to him, then told them to consider themselves free to do as they wanted from here on out. None of them said they wanted to return to Grado. Every single soldier was prepared to tie in their fates with General Duessel’s.

Together with their new allies, Ephraim’s army finally set out on a ship. Their destination was the shore opposing Bethroen, Port Taizel. That put them in Grado territory already, and just a few days' distance away from the capital.

#fire emblem #fe #fe8 #sacred stones #eirika #gba #game boy advance #japan #japanese #translation #light novel #fe8 novelization translation

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whump-town · 3 years

Text

A Cumbersome and Heavy Body

Chapter Four: How to Disappear Completely

Summary: Stubborn until the very end, Aaron Hotchner isn’t going to go down without a fight. It’s just getting hard to tell the difference between fighting them and fighting the cancer.

Word count: 2,670 (not very long but I’m getting back into the swing)

Author’s Note: I know it’s been like freaking two months but this felt nice and I remembered how much I actually enjoy this fic. You can find the first chapter here!

Warning: the subject of this fic is cancer and it’s treatment, cursing, maybe out of character (idk, man. hotch is weird) bonus: I’m 19 and a humanities major so obviously I don’t know anything about medicine so I’m doing my best out here

I'm not here I'm not here This isn't happening I'm not here I'm not here

She’s not allowed to go with him to treatments-- radiation treatments, he never said anything about chemo. You’d think she was the ex-lawyer but really she’s just mastered the art of annoying him. “That’s a straight flush, eat it!” She lays the cards out for him to see, grinning as his face falls and he realizes that he’s lost to her, again. “We totally should have played strip-poker.”

He rubs a hand over his face, digging his fingers into his eye socket. “That’s the last thing I need,” he mumbles, leaning back against his chair. He’s exhausted and freezing his ass off despite the long-sleeved t-shirt he’s wearing under his flannel and the blanket Emily’s tucked around him. There’s no point in bringing it up, no point in talking about it. No one can do anything about it. He’s just cold and he can handle the clump of hair that fell in the sink this morning and the fact that all foods, even foods that he’s considered safe for decades, betray his body. This being cold all the time thing though? It’s pissing him off and it makes him feel even more helpless because he can’t control his emotions.

Nevermind, most of his control over everything is gone. He’s stuck in this chair until the toxic whatever they have hanging above his head enters his body. The whole bag and a two-hour, maybe longer, wait. For comfort, he’s got an endless supply of blankets, all as thick as paper, and a popsicle. He likes popsicles but he’s certain he’ll throw up anything he eats right now. So he sticks to lightly sipping his water. At least he gets to control the water most of the time. Occasionally they even get to veto his decisions there.

“I’ll give you a break,” she offers. She can see he’s having a hard time. He knows he’s lucky to have her as his shadow but that doesn’t do much for the temper he’s struggling to control. “I’m going to go call JJ,” she knocks her hand against his knee and he hums his understanding. He’s moved his body up, sitting up enough to tilt to the left, his head in his palm, and his fingers moved to block her view of a pained grimace. Trying and failing to keep her distracted with his silence.

Knowing that crouching down beside him would create far more attention to his discomfort that is such grave importance to him to hide, she just lowers her voice and quietly asks, “do you want me to get some more water?” He shakes his head, just rocking his forehead into his palm. His attention lost to a sea of pain. “Okay,” she mumbles, feeling utterly helpless. A feeling she’s becoming quite familiar with.

The worst part is knowing there’s nothing she can do physically for him but there are some people that never fail to draw a smile to his face. So she texts Spencer and Penelope, hoping Reid will numb Hotch out with never-ending conversation and Garcia will lighten his sludge. She hesitates to ask Jessica to bring Jack over. After the night they watched the Chronicles of Narnia he’s been a little outwardly disruptive. Acting out and it’s to be expected, this isn’t easy for anyone and it’s impossible for a child who has already lost his mother. But it will be good for Hotch and Jack so she risks it and Jessica seems to agree.

“You’re back early.” What she does not account for is Derek Morgan beating them back. They walk in and hear a racket, and though their training should have them reaching for guns not strapped to their hips, they both just glare at the direction in which it’s coming from. Derek stands up, eyeing them both over, and motioning to something out of their sight. “Was just fixing the sink.” He’s covered in dirt and sweat, it’s evident he was fixing something though the state of his shirt looks more like he breaking something.

Emily is opening her mouth to inquire but Hotch beats her to it. His tone and his mood are not in a good place and if she’d known Morgan was here ahead of time she would have warned him. Morgan has no warning when Hotch’s already firmly placed scowl turns even crueler and he grumbles, “the sink wasn’t broken.”

She’s stuck standing between them, Hotch walking away and Morgan watching his back and looking hopelessly at her to explain what just happened. She’s not sure if she’s allowed to follow Hotch or if she’s better here explaining his behavior. It’s just like old times, she thinks bitterly. To Foyet and his pain and she can’t say she’s surprised, he really held out. She can’t blame him for being in a bad mood, he’s in pain. It’s his cancer, he’s allowed to be pissed about it.

“He okay?”

She is surprised to find that Morgan isn’t angry. That he looks nearly sad standing there, torn between going after him and being reassured by her. “He’s…” she won’t tell him about the drive back. Hotch silent but in so much pain he’d been restless, incapable of sitting still in the car. Or this morning how he’d needed her help just putting on a shirt. The hair she’s noticed falling out but he’s not commenting on it so she certainly won’t breathe a word. That they’re up all night, the sound of Hotch’s pacing making her too worried to rest or barreling through the house to find him curled around the toilet looking miserable. That he’s losing weight rapidly and she doesn’t struggle to help him up anymore-- but she tells herself it’s because she’s getting stronger because she has to.

“He’s Hotch,” she reasons, foolishly. “Of course, he’s okay.”

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

Garcia would lay her own life down in a heartbeat to protect the team if they’d let her. She owes them all so much for the quality that they have given her life over the past few years. They have built a family around her, from the ground up, and accepted her through all her flaws and misadventures. No one as much as her suit-clad, knight in shining armor boss. Hotch has been there for her since before there was even really a team. When no one else would, he gave her so much more than a chance-- he believed in her. When no one else, when no one had even tried since her parent’s death. Even when time and time again she made mistakes, pushed rules, and on his last nerve. He never tore her down.

He commends her strangeness, even if she suspects he doesn’t fully understand it. Smiles good-naturedly when she brings him holiday-themed ties so they can match and allows her silly days out for conventions beyond his own taste. He’s never grasped a full understanding of her but he’s never given up trying. He commends her abilities to do this job and also reminds her how proud he is of her, to have her on his team, and to call her a friend. So, yeah, if Hotch needs a little pick-me-up, she’s his man.

“Are you two fucking?”

Garcia freezes. The key Hotch gave her half-way in its retreat from the lock and the door only slightly opened. She’s technically coming in unannounced but Hotch had given her this key under the same pretenses as the one that gave her access to his and Haley’s house-- in case she needs him. The situations are flipped now, he needs her, but the sentiment is still the same. She’d prepared for the Hotch’s thousand-word frown upon entrance just not the verbal assault of “are you two fucking”.

She hesitantly makes her way into the room, peeking around the corner of the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room. Emily and Morgan are standing there, both looking equally disgusted and annoyed. She watches Emily fluster, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. “What?” she barks out in pure surprise. “He’s-- NO!”

Morgan reciprocates his own franticness, waving at Emily’s clothes, “you’re-- you’re... matching!” He’s grabbing at straws for the most part. His own anxieties and fears coming into play to create this monster of a beast he can’t stop thinking about. To distract himself from the panicked thoughts he has about watching his friend die he’s conjured a reality in which it makes sense that Emily and Hotch would be boning. Really, it’s only bothering him because he has no idea what he would do if the two of them were… doing something. It’s just-- just disgusting. Hotch is Hotch, he doesn’t… do that.

Emily rolls her eyes, “Derek, I see him every day. I live with him.” She makes an exasperated throwing motion with her hands, tossing them upwards. “It’s going to happen occasionally, alright? We own similar articles of clothing.” She motions down to her clothes, “we’re ‘matching’ because we look a lot alike and he knows green is his color just like I know it’s mine!”

Of course, that’s what she says now but this morning when she was working the tiny ass buttons of his shirt together she’d given him endless shit about managing to pick out the one shirt the two of them both own. He couldn’t change-- that day’s appointments needed full access to his chest and the easiest way to do that is to wear easily opened and shut clothing. She could change but simply refused-- it was far more entertaining to tell him they looked like those preschoolers whose parents dressed them to match.

He wasn’t amused.

“Besides,” she adds just to a rise out of him, “he’s not supposed to be doing anything strenuous until the rash on his chest clears back up.” She tucks a strand behind her ear, nonchalant. “Even then I would have to be on top.” She smiles as he sputters, satisfied with her own work.

Morgan frowns, “No!” He momentarily covers his ears, shaking his head. “Why do you even-- How do you know that?”

Emily shrugs, “Oh… well, his doctor thought we were… you know.”

Garcia isn’t sure where her allegiance should be. If Hotch and Emily are… she’d prefer not to know the details. Well, she’s interested because it’s Emily but it’s also Hotch. She makes a face, the thought… it-- Hotch needs to lighten up. He needs someone back in his life that can bring some fun but Emily is, well she’s Emily! It f-

“Is she done tormenting Morgan, yet?”

Garcia reels around, caught off guard by a sudden deep but unimpressed voice behind her. When she turns, she finds Hotch. He’s dressed down, out of the attire Morgan and Emily had been talking about. Now, in a simple Hanes t-shirt and black sweatpants. Comfortable-- she likes the way he looks. It may not be his usual attire but it makes him look more… dad-like. More himself.

Garcia looks back over her shoulder and finds herself grinning. Her boss may seem like a boring, hardass but he can have his fun too. No doubt, he either gave Emily the idea to go torment Morgan (never direct but planted the seedling idea) or, at the very least, gave her permission. “I don’t think so,” she answers honestly. “She’s not going to let it go if she knows it bothers him that much.” Which is completely true.

Hotch smiles, softly. A dimple making a guest appearance as he shakes his head. Only Emily Prentiss. He looks Garcia down, lifting a brow at the sight of all the things in her arms. “Can I help you with that?” he offers, motioning to the filled Tupperware clutched to her chest so that they don’t topple over.

She remembers, suddenly, the armful of goodies she has. “Oh yes, sir!” She lets him take a few off the top, telling him what they are as he acquires them. “Those are macadamia nut cookies! This really nice woman--” she follows him as he takes the containers and directs her to the kitchen. “She moved in across the hall from me. She loves to bake and so she’s been giving me all these little recipes.”

He moves right past Emily and Derek, smiling to himself at the panicked raise in Derek’s tone as they catch sight of one another. He directs his attention back to Garcia, making sure she knows he’s listening. Though he doubts his own abilities to dig into the delicacies Garcia has brought, he knows that Jack and Emily will rip them to shreds. Which is the honorable way Garcia’s cooking should go, straight into very gracious mouths.

“I really hadn’t been able to test them out,” she continues. “So, I thought why not try them all right now and bring them to you!” She smiles cheerfully up at him, their height difference more apparent when he looks down realizes she’s not wearing her signature heels. She’s wearing pink converse, perfectly complimenting her pink sweater and pink glasses and jewelry. He thinks she looks positively amazing but knows any compliments will have him smothered in kisses and, well, he’s already been accused of sleeping with one coworker...

Mind still wandering off on the subject of his height and when the last time he saw Garcia in shoes other than heels, he settles a soft smile on her. She keeps talking, showing him each container's contents. It’s the exhaustion that leads him down the path beaten path of dissociation, his mind simply slipping out from beneath him. Someplace warm and fuzzy where his body doesn’t ache.

“Aaron--” He blinks, startling at the sudden touch to his shoulder. He looks down to find Emily and an anxious-looking Garcia. He’s sure Emily and Derek’s conversation about their relationship is now going to seem more damning as her hand slips into his. She squeezes his fingers, “you okay?” Her eyes flick between his, searching for an answer that’s going to be far more honest than the one he produces on his own.

He clears his throat, forcing himself not to blush. “Yeah,” he croaks. “I don’t… I don’t know what that was.” He bashfully averts his eyes to the kitchen floor, very aware of their attention on him now. Too much attention. It’s impossible to hide the way he shivers, the paling, near purpling of his arms. He knows it’s inevitable that they’ll notice but… he’d like to think himself some mastermind. Impervious to the tests of cancer and his treatments. That they don’t affect him. He can hide the central line under layers of clothes. Wear hats to hide the hair. Fake a smile and force his way through the day.

But he’s failing miserably. They see it. The radiation rash now sitting at the base of his neck, red and angry. Peaking out through his shirts. The bulge of the central line under his normal shirts. The nose bleeds that never stops, he’s scarred Reid and Morgan for life with those. The tinnitus that’s recently come back with a vengeance. He’s affected, good and proper, and he hates it. Hates that he has to be so blatantly mortal in front of everyone. Never gets a say in if today is good or bad. If he’ll be too weak to get out of bed or too sick to eat. He hates it.

Garcia is the first person to properly break the tension. She playfully knocks Hotch in the shoulder, more of a tap than anything. It’s careful and his throat tightens with the realization of how weak he must look to make Garcia afraid she could hurt him with a simple tap. “It’s all good, sir.” She settles a small smile on him, “but you can make it up to me by eating?”

Eating. He runs his tongue along his bottom lip, swallowing thickly around the sick twist of his stomach. “Okay,” he answers softly, forcing a smile to match hers when she beams. Thinking she’s won against his unruly stomach.

Emily glances at him but ignores it.

He just wants to be normal again.

@laiba-the-person, @emily-hottie-prentiss, @unionjackpillow, @clockedstar, @baumarvel, @blakeprentiss, @qvid-pro-qvo, @aaron-hotchner187, @ssalavellan, @lazyhater (Just lmk if you don’t want to be tagged anymore)

#tw cancer #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #penelope garcia #derek morgan

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ary-se · 4 years

Text

Mankai with a roach

some of these are based on irl experiences so i hope y'all enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it LMAO no braincells were involved in doing this i am so sorry.. also tagging @tsum-uwu-gi for some of the totally whack ideas, tysm 🥰

🐪 the mankai dorm never really experienced having a roach flying all over the place that much, and even if it did, they're immediately dealt with by the moms of the dorm

🐪 that was mostly the case until that one specific day arrived, when the reliable people were gone for different reasons. tsuzuru was in his part-time job, omi was getting groceries, tasuku was a guest actor for another troupe, and no one knows what in the world sakyo was up to

🐪 anyways the first one to notice was azuma, he walked in the bathroom probably to take a dump or something - who knows really lol - when he found himself staring at a roach that was literally on the toilet.

🐪 azuma literally has no idea how or when it got there, but the fact remains that there is no freaking way he is going to use the toilet unless he wants a death sentence. the logical choice was to close the toilet and flush it, but at that moment he kinda lost his shit, both literally and figuratively, and so all he did was act composed as he quickly left the bathroom

🐪 "azu-nee, why do you look so pale?" yuki asked him out of curiosity in the dining room, but azuma is hella smooth so he just laughs it off and acts as if he totally wasn't horrified at all, "it's nothing, you're probably imagining things."

🐪 after that incident, nothing happens for at least an hour. unfortunately, a roach doesn't simply disappear just because you want them to, which was why azuma's efforts of not letting the roach escape from the bathroom were in vain...

🐪 for some apparent reason taichi sometimes has this tendency of holding his own pee before he sprints to the toilet and just bursts in there, so when he ran to the bathroom and immediately let out an ungodly screech, it's all fucking over

🐪 did taichi piss himself? who the hell freaking knows. if he did, mankai would normally either laugh or feel bad for him or both, but at that moment nobody cared about that. what actually mattered was that taichi left the fucking door open so the moment he screamed, the roach already started flying EVERYWHERE

🐪 the one who was nearby the bathroom that time was kazunari. even if kazunari acts like he is scared of roaches, he actually isn't and he is capable of killing a roach in sight. would he help taichi, who has his fly almost open, by killing the roach and call it a day?

🐪 the answer is hell no. killing it doesn't even cross his mind. kazunari thinks this is really hilarious, and if he finds something funny he doesn't do anything to solve the problem. kazunari would basically make things worse by going live on his instablam to record what is happening. in this case, it is all about the unwanted creature and where in the actual world it is gonna land

🐪 gladly, kazu's sanity is still intact that he didn't include taichi in his live for the first few minutes. if kazu did, taichi better say bye bye to his remaining dignity and write his last will so he can finally dig his own grave. people will forever know him as the ugly sobbing, screaming dude in the bathroom with his fly open, and that is honestly the last thing taichi wants to be known for

🐪 sakuya goes to where the chaos is, poor boy was legitimately confused as to why two people are yelling and laughing at the same time. it is normal in mankai but every time it happens, somewhing whack is happening. unfortunately for sakuya, he was completely unaware of the roach flying behind him

🐪 "hi kazunari!" sakuya greets, and the roach lands on the sleeve of his hoodie. sakuya is a pure little bean, he is ALWAYS a pure bean but if kazu was being honest, the current image of sakuya smiling widely while a roach is chilling on his sleeve was really unnerving in its own way

🐪 kazu started to laugh so hard that he is physically unable to explain to sakuya what was happening, and he felt so bad about it. sadly, kazu doesn't have the capability to stop laughing by force, does he? because of the lack of explanation, it took sakuya approximately 7 seconds of obliviousness before he notices

🐪 tenma arrived right after that, and the roach flies off sakuya's hoodie after he jumps from surprise. high and mighty carrot boy is now in for a storm cause the moment he appeared, the roach lands on top of tenma's freaking head out of all places

🐪 "hey guys, what's happening?"

🐪 "there's a flying roach. and it is now on your head." kazunari deadpans. he always tricked tenma when it comes to these kinds of things, but he is serious this time

🐪 tenma literally HUFFS as if he doesn't believe kazunari in the slightest, and tbh you can't blame him cause summer troupe gave him trust issues from their pranks. sorry mister. unlike their old pranks, it is actually real right now... kazu ain't joking, please believe him now

🐪 tenma shrugs and places a hand on his head nonchalantly to ~prove his point~, "you won't fool me again-" he froze the moment he actually felt something moist moving under his hand

🐪 at that moment tenma screamed one hundred fucking times louder than the entire mankai company could, the entire neighborhood would learn their lesson to bring earplugs wherever they go cause his screams are literally ear-splitting

🐪 tenma should say goodbye to his reputation as a k00L b0y 4ct0R😎 that he has maintained for so long cause a lot of people are already watching the live. also rip to the people who were using earphones... at least you have witnessed tenma's most unglorious moment on public. from that moment he is already and permanently a meme and there is no going back

🐪 "STOP SCREAMING HACK!!" yuki yells at him with all of his might, but it was super inaudible because his scream still reigns. the roach lands on the wall, so yuki grabs whatever was on the table. it was banri's fashion magazine, which is fucking useless by the way, because he still can't dress himself up no matter how many fashion magazines he purchases. good job yuki for using it as a sacrifice

🐪 yuki rolled the magazine and repeatedly whacked it to the wall out of pure annoyance so he can kill the roach. in all honesty, the roach would've been dead by now from yuki's wrath, but curse his height cause he can't reach the freaking roach no matter how hard he tried. sorry yuki, your courage and bravery were all in vain

🐪 amidst all the chaos, nobody freaking noticed muku, who was deadass in the living room the whole time. question is, how is muku not aware of what was happening? how did he manage not to hear taichi's and even the mighty tenma's screams? the answer is simple. HE WAS TOO ENGROSSED IN HIS SHOUJO MANGA.

🐪 when yuki was about to finally hit the roach, it flew to the cover of muku's shoujo freaking manga. for an unknown reason, muku doesn't even flinch. HE JUST KEPT ON READING. muku, everyone adores you especially with your love for romance but the kissing scene isn't important right now, PLEASE STOP READING THIS INSTANT

🐪 everyone literally went silent, nobody had the heart to tell muku. they just watched the roach crawl slowly to muku's fingers in suspense. after what seemed like forever, muku closed his book while giggling, but that didn't last forever cause he saw the roach and in a split second he dropped his book without any hesitation

🐪 muku got so freaked out they all felt sorry to the poor boy. he just stared at the shoujo manga that is now on the floor, endlessly mumbling about having to buy a new one because the roach already cursed his book and he will become unlucky and he might pass on the curse to everybody else and they will fail all their upcoming shows and---

🐪 anyways. the roach lands on citron's palms, and citron... surprisingly doesn't freak out. he doesn't care. actually, CITRON'S HAPPY??? he just looks at the roach in fascination and if it were any other creature it would look so adorable. but no, it had to be a ROACH and it's absolutely whack and disgusting. please remember that it is the same roach that came from the freaking toilet. citron, please wash your hands RIGHT NOW.

🐪 "CITRON KILL IT!!"

🐪 "NO, NO! POOR COACH!" citron shakes his head, reluctant to kill it. he kept the roach in his hands so nobody would be able to kill it... he was oddly protective of it and NOBODY KNOWS WHY. THEY ALL DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHY EITHER. citron please stop, what you're doing is making everything way worse. let go of that roach this instant and be hygienic just PLEASE oh my god

🐪 everybody already lost hope on trying to kill the roach, citron and his questionable logic is beyond their comprehension. but they refuse to waste their time fighting him about it because it will fly everywhere and no one wants that... lucky for them, tsuzuru finally arrives the dorms. HE IS EVERYONE'S SALVATION! SOMEONE WHO CAN FINALLY KILL THE ROACH! FREAKING FINALLY,,

🐪 yeah no, nevermind that. tsuzuru was so fucking tired from his part-time job that he just collapses right after he closed the door. please let the poor man sleep, don't even bother on trying to wake him up to kill the roach cause there's no way he is gonna wake up any time soon. cut him some slack. they felt bad for him but it happens way too often so they just left him on the doorway and that's it.

🐪 a few minutes after tsuzuru passed out, banri got back from no one knows where, probably shopping for more animal print clothes... who the hell knows. unlike the others, banri already knew what was happening without asking cause he has been watching kazu's live for like ten minutes already. if he was being honest, the whole thing was making him lose his shit so he tried to go back to the dorms asap to not miss out on anything good

🐪 coincidentally, juza also left their room from his long ass nap to see wtf was happening cause they were being hella noisy. after some explaining, when juza already fully figured out what was going on, he was aboutta kill it, ACTUALLY KILL IT, when banri stopped him. "you get out of this. i am the one killing it."

🐪 "get your own roach for you to kill, settsu"

🐪 curse their competitive asses cause it has reached to the point where they're already starting to beat each other up to death. the goal here is to kill the roach, not each other you dumbasses, get your brains straight please that's not helping anything don't be stupid for once

🐪 the roach flew from citron's hands and everybody screeched but finally, FINALLY AN ADULT walks in. tsumugi went in the dorm from the garden with a bottle of pesticide in his hand. once everybody noticed what he was holding, they were all getting panicky so they angrily screamed at him to spray it to the roach, it was too chaotic

🐪 tsumugi was so confused??? why was everybody angry at him?? what did he do to deserve this?? he doesn't actually think his pesticide works on roaches, but it was probably better if he stays silent about it since everyone will not listen and would force him to spray it on the roach anyways, what's the point

🐪 and so he did. at first, the roach stopped moving, so they assumed it was already dead. tsumugi then sprayed a lot more to make sure it actually was dead and everybody collectively sighed in relief. finally the fiasco is over. everyome can go back to their normal lives before this fucking happened

🐪 or not. the ROACH DEADASS FLEW AGAIN AND THEY ALL PANICKED. funny enough tsumugi calmly explained amidst all that, and it turns out tsumugi's pesticide was weak, and to top it all off it was water-based so it had no freaking effect on the roach whatsoever. too bad, so much for everybody getting false hope, huh. they wanna blame tsumugi for not saying anything before spraying but it is also their fault for getting worked up so whatever

🐪 itaru arrives from work, and one quick glance on what everyone was yelling about tells him that he refuses to participate in this crap. give him a freaking break please. he was dealing with work and you're telling him that he has to put up with this, too? hell fuckin no. he manages to quickly escape to his room to catch up on his games and it is a good thing that no one really noticed. they're too busy screeching every time the roach just flies outta nowhere.

🐪 masumi was deadass watching them from the sidelines. he could tell them to open the windows and just wait for the roach to fly outside so they can get it over with and call it a day. what a joke though, masumi giving helpful tips so everyone can calm down? yeah right haha no. he doesn't want to waste his energy on doing that even if their noise was actually getting into his nerves, so the whole duration he stays silent while he watches them lose their shit

🐪 this is one of the moments where they all legitimately wished misumi was here right now. him blabbing about triangles every second made them think that the roach kind of looks like a triangle when its wings are out. misumi what did you do to them to make them think this way?? did you make them do the triangle calisthenics or cathletics or whatever the heck that is??

🐪 knowing misumi, he can catch the roach in a matter of seconds. so where in the world is misumi? he is out again for his daily triangle hunting, obviously. come back, misumi... literally everything would be over in a flash if misumi decided to stay in the dorms today

🐪 despite this, for some apparent reason homare manages to find inspiration in all this. look, mister. the dorm is a fucking chaos. actual chaos. kazunari is somehow still live on instablam, wheezing so hard like he is gonna die any second now. the scene is literally just teenage boys screaming and running all over the place. two of said teenage boys are beating each other up... and one (1), ONE roach flies on top of everything, still fucking alive. EXACTLY WHAT PART OF THAT MAKES YOU FEEL INSPIRED HUH HOMARE!!! SPEAK UP!!!

🐪 the noise levels of mankai dorm is practically a headache at this point, if sakyo was here his boomer brain would be having a migraine that would be worth a week of pure pain and agony. for some reason, hisoka, who is on the sofa in the living room, literally in the MIDDLE OF THE CHAOS, just sleeps through it all.

🐪 how does he do that? just what kind of marshmallows does he eat?? do they permanently damage a person's hearing?? no matter how many times they woke hisoka up, he doesn't budge. what the actual fuck. and tsuzuru is still sleeping in the freaking doorway. at this point they could cuddle each other for all they want until they fucking die cause no amount of noise is gonna wake them up from their eternal slumber

🐪 after what seemed like forever, sakyo arrived and everybody immediately went silent. they stopped what they were doing except kazu, who was either incredibly stupid or incredibly brave, nobody wants to answer that right now. he is still live on instablam. even the live chat went silent.

🐪 sakyo still doesn't know what was happening but he knows it is BAD news, so he glared right at kazunari's camera and the last moments before the live ended was sakyo angrily stomping his way to kazunari and the screen blacked out

🐪 after learning that everything was only caused by a roach, sakyo got so mad that he managed to snatch a flip flop out of nowhere and killed the roach until it was completely crushed. it was safe to say everybody felt bad to the roach despite being the cause of everything. by the way, whose flip flop was that? nobody knows.

🐪 tasuku, misumi and omi arrived in the dorms while sakyo was lecturing everyone, and they still got dragged in without knowing what in the world happened. please pray for these poor souls they have to deal with his yelling without even being a part of it.

🐪 omi just bought groceries for dinner, he didn't waste his time to do that just to have no dinner tonight oh my god please give this man a break from everyone's bullcrap. tasuku's role in the other company's play was some random teen whose parents were mad at him for doing shit. he doesn't have to deal with sakyo actually getting mad too please let this man live in peace. and misumi? he isn't happy that he got dragged in, too. this is not very sankaku of you, sakyo

🐪 "MIYOSHI, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO RECORD THE WHOLE THING? YOU'RE RUINING THE COMPANY'S IMAGE. ALSO THE BOTH OF YOU FIGHTING YADDA YADDA YADDA"

🐪 the lecture lasted for 5 hours and nobody ate dinner that night. everybody was so tired after that. nobody was allowed to speak and if someone mutters, sakyo will yell at them next. can sakyo still lecture you for another 5 hours even after that long ass session? unfortunately yes.

🐪 everybody was banned from eating meals the next day. the resident moms reached an agreement that at least one of them always stays in the mankai dorm so this never EVER happens again. once is enough, they do not need another fiasco like this one.

🐪 oh and was it mentioned that kazunari doesn't have a phone for a solid month? cause that happened, sakyo banned him. you bet he managed to live a phoneless life by logging on his social media platforms on other people's phones without sakyo knowing,, not really the definition of "phoneless" if you ask him..

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introductions-are-a-spook · 3 years

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Tag list: @kyuudomo @kissthe-gogoat @caloroso-cosmos @omrade-echorin < You said you like the last one so added you. Let me know if you’re okay with that, and sorry if not!

Let me know if you want to be added or taken off. Reblogs and feedback always appreciated!

Fifty miles from the Chapman house and twenty years ago, rain fell over an English boarding school. Children ran from building to building, clutching their bags under hunched chests in an attempt to protect them.

Visible through a window, one student sat huddled on a library bench, nose deep in a book. And of course they didn’t see through their concentration to the rambunctious upperclassman arguing with the librarian.

“I told you before, my father tore the book, not me. I can get the money to pay for it, it’ll just take a couple days!”

“That’s ridiculous. Just why in the world would a parent do that, hmm?”

“You obviously don’t know him like I do,” he snipped under his breath.

After a moment more of this, he sauntered over to where the bookworm- maybe a grade or two below him, sat. Flopping down, he groaned.

Finally the quiet one spoke. “Mrs. Kingsley’s going to wring your neck if you don’t replace the book soon, you know.”

“Yeah, I get it already. Geez.” The older boy looked at the younger with a raised eyebrow. “Hey I know you, you’re in my chemistry class. Mary, right?”

“Er, it’s Maxwell. And yes, what about it?”

“Isn’t that a bit too hard for you? You’re what, twelve?”

“Fourteen. You?”

“Aww, a little shrimp. I’m seventeen. Andrew, by the way,” although teasing, his tone lacked any genuine malice. He held out a hand to shake.

“Nice to meet you, prick.”

Andrew laughed. “Damn right. Whatcha reading?”

Maxwell tilted the book. A collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. “I want to be a detective when I get out of school, so I’m studying now.”

“That’s cool. We better get to class though, the bell’s gonna ring soon,” Andrew said, standing up and checking his watch.

Maxwell reluctantly closed his book and nodded. “Just try to pay for the book soon, okay? Mrs. Kingsley isn’t the only one who cares about this library.”

“Oh sure. I’ll just steal the money from my dad while he’s at church or something,” he said with a mischievous grin. “Nice meeting you, Maxwell!”

“Same here. Criminal!”

Andrew laughed and walked off. Maxwell allowed a chuckle as he went the opposite way.

~*~

Six pictures were laid out in front of Andrew. All of various bedrooms. Half he recognized- Maxwell’s, Isabella’s, and his own. The other three varied. There was a rather plain, maroon themed bedroom with several camera monitors in one corner. Another was coated wall-to-wall in weapons and a bright scarlet palette. The last of which was more pink and the most homely, with picture frames full of people everywhere. All belonging to Maxwell’s siblings, most likely.

And yet, Andrew was not confused. In fact, he was quite disturbed. He sat with his ferret, Brie, in his arms, petting her in an attempt to calm down.

He had finally worked up the courage to read the letter. Mr. Antigone had left a graphic plan of all the horrible things he would do if Andrew didn’t leave Maxwell as soon as possible. He detailed all the ways he could get away with it, and included the pictures as proof of his deadly seriousnessand capability.

Well if he hasn’t killed me yet, it probably means he wants me alive. He must be trying to beat me into submission.

What a mess. Within just a few weeks of going out with Max, Andrew’s world had turned upside down. Of all the people in the world, he had to fall in love with a detective.

A knock at the downstairs door stirred him. Quietly putting Brie in her pen, he cursed himself for not burning the letter as told. Walking down to the front on tiptoe, he slipped a kitchen knife into his pocket- just in case.

Another knock. Andrew took a deep breath, prepared for the worst, and opened the door.

“Maxwell! Oh, it’s just you, thank god,” he sighed in relief.

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” He cut Andrew off before he could respond. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. We need to talk.”

A twinge of fear settled in Andrew’s gut. “About what? Is everything okay?”

“Given that you feel the need to answer the door with a knife in your coat,” he gestured to how poorly it was hidden, “No, things are far from okay.”

Andrew studied Maxwell’s face. His handsome features were pulled into a grave expression, his demeanor uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you come in,” Andrew said, holding the door ajar for the other man.

“Thank you,” Maxwell responded, sitting down at an empty booth in the main shop. Andrew sat down across from him, and they sat in silence for a long few moments.

Maxwell slowly tapped his thumbs together. Andrew could see how his eyes faded in deep thought.

“Andrew.”

“Yes?”

“Are you…” he took a shaky breath. “No. I know you’re the thief.”

Andrew’s stomach flipped, but he calmed himself. “You’re good. Guilty as charged. Is this my day of reckoning, then?” His tone was bitter, almost scared.

For the first time since arriving, Maxwell looked Andrew directly in the eye. “I have an idea.”

“You didn’t answer my question, but go on,” he said with a dry chuckle.

“Tell me, who is Nikos Antigone?”

Andrew stood up suddenly. “What do you mean, has he contacted you? Have you met him?”

“So you do know him. He sent me a letter- or, as it turns out, two letters. The first ‘anonymously’ telling me to run away from you, the second saying that you robbed him. Tell me, have you ever used violence in your hijinks?”

“I don’t know how much you’ll believe me, but no, I haven’t.”

“I figured as much. So it was Antigone that broke your nose a couple weeks back?”

Andrew hesitated. Was this an interview? But Maxwell seemed so genuinely worried. “Yeah, basically.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said, brushing a finger over the bridge that was still sore. Andy winced slightly, causing Max to draw his hand away.

“I’m not going to turn you in. I want to help, but to do that, I need answers. Could you tell me more?” He was now surprisingly soft.

So with a heavy sigh, Andrew spilled his guts about everything, even ousting Isabella’s involvement in the process. He also provided some insight on Jennifer. She was the daughter of a nobleman, one that rudely broke off dealings with the Antigone family’s crime loop, when she was just a baby.

Despite this, all four of them had attended the same school without realizing. She and the young Nikos were the best of friends, before they all went their separate ways, and Nikos followed in his family’s footsteps. Andrew was doing jobs for him simply to make him money and to be a jewel in his crown.

“You won’t have to be for long. If we can find a way to get him in the wrong place at the wrong time, we can pin all of your wrongdoings on him.”

“Maxwell, no. You could lose your job if you did that!”

“I’m more than willing-“

“And besides, I’m the one at the wheel, I should take the blame-“

“You think I haven’t shuffled blame before? You know neither of us have ever cared about morals and virtue.”

“That may be true, but this is still a huge risk. One I’m not willing to let you take for me!”

“Well too bad, because I refuse to allow you to keep on like this. If you don’t let me help, I’ll find a way to do something on my own.”

“Max, what the hell has gotten into you? Why can’t you let me sort out my own problems- or just throw me in jail already?”

“Because I love you, you nitwit!”

There was a long, charged silence. The tension of argument melted away, leaving something else entirely in its place.

“I… I think I love you too. And I don’t want you to get hurt. You have no idea the things this guy will do to you.”

Max held Andy’s hand, up on the table. “You’re right, I don’t. But I know with our combined minds, we can outsmart him.”

Andrew took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you really think so?”

Maxwell nodded. “The Antigone family has done enough damage. It’s about time someone put a stop to it. I only have one condition.”

“That being?”

“For both of our sakes, you need to drop your game. Once Nikos is in prison, well…”

Andrew nodded and pondered for a moment. “I’d need something else after the fact- to keep me entertained. But yes, for you, I will.”

“Then our plot can be your last heist. Any ideas as to a replacement?”

“You could marry me, and we could run away together. Be musicians in Vienna till’ we’re old,” Andy smirked.

Max giggled. “Ask me again in three years.”

And then he gave Andy the most lovestruck look. Andy returned it. They glanced at their pose- they were awfully close.

“I’d ask if I could kiss you, but there’s a table in the way,” Andy whispered with a quiet laugh.

“Just get over here, you,” Max then pulled a laughing Andy by his tie to the nearest wall, moving close, only to be stopped.

“Hang the hell on, you’re the short one, shouldn’t you be the one-“

Max swatted Andy’s arm. “Oh, shut up.” And with that, they finally closed the gap.

Andy smelled like fresh cakes, and Max like old books. Where the thief tasted like strawberries, the detective was like tea with milk; both felt like smooth butter.

Andy’s arms were strong as he lifted Max and held him so close. They stood like that for a long time, pausing only to dash upstairs. Andrew had only one thought before his mind went blank with bliss.

Antigone thinks he can use me as a puppet. Poor man has no idea what he’s messing with.

#📖 the detective and the crook 🖋#✒️ you write and i’ll read 📖#writing #my writing #one more people!!

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