#rough as fuck painting but i wanted to draw a boat

[itsmealaiah]

"No one'll know"

rafe x shy reader

TW: p in v, unprotected sex, profanity, AFAB reader, praise talk, semi- public sex, having sex on rafe's boat, sweet talk, reader not wanting to fuck at first, cockdrunk reader

Rating: 18+, mdni

WC: 2k

t was a warm summer day on the open waters, the gentle rocking of the boat lulling Rafe into a contented stupor. He had spent the entire day tending to the various tasks required to keep their family's pride and joy in tip-top condition. His muscles ached from hauling ropes and scrubbing decks, but there was something about the physical exertion that left him feeling invigorated, alive.

As he stood at the helm, gazing out across the horizon, he couldn't help but notice the way the setting sun danced across your skin, painting you in shades of gold and red. The way your hair whipped around your face, tangling with the wind, made him want to reach out and tame it. Rafe cleared his throat, trying to work up the courage to approach you.

"Hey," he said finally, not quite meeting your eyes. "You know, we've been out here all day… we could probably find some time for a little… you know." His voice trailed off uncertainly, as if he were almost afraid to voice his desires.

You hesitated, biting your lip. A nervous giggle escaped your mouth before you could stop it. "I don't know, Rafe," you said, shaking your head. "I'm just not sure if that's such a good idea." But despite your protests, there was a flicker of desire in your eyes that gave him hope.

Rafe took a step closer, his body brushing against yours as he leaned in. "Come on," he whispered, his breath hot against your ear. "It'll be fun. We're out here all alone, away from everything. No one will ever know." He gently ran his fingers through your hair, tilting your head back to look at him. His gaze was intense, almost predatory, but there was also a softness there that made your heart flutter.

You hesitated for a moment longer, feeling the tug of desire and curiosity warring within you. The way Rafe was looking at you made you feel wanted, desired. You could feel the heat building between your legs as you considered giving in to your instincts. Finally, with a small sigh, you gave in.

"Alright," you whispered, your voice barely audible over the gentle lapping of the water against the hull of the boat. "But you have to promise to be gentle."

Rafe's chuckle was low and rough, sending a shiver down your spine. "Gentle?" he repeated, his gaze traveling slowly down your body. "I can't make any promises about that mama." He wrapped one strong arm around your waist, pulling you roughly against him, his erection pressing firmly against your stomach.

With his free hand, he leads you over to the large, plush couches that take up one side of the boat's cabin. The cushions are soft and inviting, and you can't help but feel a mixture of anticipation and nervousness as he pushes you down onto your back, straddling your hips. The warmth of his body envelops you, and you can feel the heat of his arousal as he grinds against you, his breath hot and ragged in your ear.

His touch is anything but gentle as he grabs the straps of your bikini top, tearing it roughly from your body, revealing the hardened nipples beneath. He groans, sucking one of them into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth, as his fingers tease the other, drawing circles around the peak. You arch your back, moaning into the crook of his neck.

With one swift movement, Rafe throws your legs over his shoulders, spreading you wide open. The position makes you feel so exposed, but it also ignites a fire deep within you. You can feel the head of his cock pressing against your entrance, and you can't help but whimper in anticipation. He looks down at you, his eyes burning with desire, and then he pushes forward, slowly but surely.

The initial penetration is intense, almost painful, but it's also so good. You feel him fill you up, stretching you in ways you never knew possible. As he begins to thrust, you arch your back off the couch, meeting his movements with a desperate need for more. Your nails dig into his shoulders, leaving small crescents of blood in their wake, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Rafe's body is hot and hard against yours, and you can feel every movement deep inside you. His pace is fast and furious, pushing you towards the brink of orgasm with every thrust. Your breath comes in ragged gasps as you feel yourself starting to lose control. You're so close, you're so close, and you know he can feel it too.

The boat gently rocks with the motion of the waves, the gentle rhythm adding another layer of sensation to the already overwhelming pleasure coursing through your body. You arch your back, moaning loudly as you feel Rafe's fingers dig into your hips, guiding him deeper still. His thrusts become harder, more urgent, and you can feel the tension building inside him, too.

As the heat between you reaches a fever pitch, you close your eyes, focusing on the sensations raging through your body. The way his skin feels against yours, the smell of salt and sweat in the air, the taste of his lips on your neck. You can feel the wetness between your thighs, the evidence of how much you want this, how much you need it.

Rafe groans, his thrusts becoming more erratic, more desperate. "You feel so good," he mutters, his voice strained. "So fucking tight." His fingers dig into your hips, urging you to meet his movements, and you do, arching your back off the couch in perfect synchronicity with his powerful strokes.

The air in the cabin is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips. You can feel the tension building within you, the impending release of pleasure so close, so close, but not quite close enough yet.

Rafe's thrusts become more urgent, more demanding, as if he can feel it too, as if he needs this release as much as you do. His hips slam into you over and over, his cock buried deep inside you, and the sensation is almost too much to bear. You feel like you're on the edge of something immense, something powerful, and you're terrified and exhilarated all at once.

Your body tingles with anticipation, every nerve ending alive with the feel of him moving inside you. You can feel the wetness between your legs, the evidence of just how close you are to the edge, and it only serves to heighten the sensation. The air is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips.

You arch your back off the couch, feeling the tension building inside you as Rafe's thrusts grow more urgent. His fingers dig into your hips, urging you to meet his movements, and you do, arching your back off the couch in perfect synchronicity with his powerful strokes. The air in the cabin is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips.

Rafe's breath is hot against your neck, his body shudders as he pushes harder, deeper inside you. You feel the wetness between your thighs, the evidence of just how much you want this, how much you need it. His hips slam into you over and over, his cock buried deep inside you, and the sensation is almost too much to bear.

The boat gently rocks with the motion of the waves, the gentle rhythm adding another layer of sensation to the already overwhelming pleasure coursing through your body. You feel like you're on the edge of something immense, something powerful, and you're terrified and exhilarated all at once. Your body tingles with anticipation, every nerve ending alive with the feel of him moving inside you.

You can feel the tension building within you, the impending release of pleasure so close, so close, but not quite close enough yet. Rafe's thrusts become more erratic, more desperate. His fingers dig into your hips, urging you to meet his movements, and you do, arching your back off the couch in perfect synchronicity with his powerful strokes.

The air in the cabin is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips. You can feel the wetness between your thighs, the evidence of how much you want this, how much you need it. His hips slam into you over and over, his cock buried deep inside you, and the sensation is almost too much to bear.

Rafe's thrusts become more urgent, more desperate. His fingers dig into your hips, urging you to meet his movements, and you do, arching your back off the couch in perfect synchronicity with his powerful strokes. The tension builds inside you, the impending release of pleasure so close, so close, but not quite close enough yet.

You feel like you're on the edge of something immense, something powerful, and you're terrified and exhilarated all at once. Your body tingles with anticipation, every nerve ending alive with the feel of him moving inside you. The air in the cabin is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips.

Rafe's breath is hot against your neck, his body shudders as he pushes harder, deeper inside you. You feel the wetness between your thighs, the evidence of just how much you want this, how much you need it. His hips slam into you over and over, his cock buried deep inside you, and the sensation is almost too much to bear.

The boat gently rocks with the motion of the waves, the gentle rhythm adding another layer of sensation to the already overwhelming pleasure coursing through your body. You feel like you're on the edge of something immense, something powerful, and you're terrified and exhilarated all at once. Your body tingles with anticipation, every nerve ending alive with the feel of him moving inside you.

Rafe's thrusts become more erratic, more desperate. His fingers dig into your hips, urging you to meet his movements, and you do, arching your back off the couch in perfect synchronicity with his powerful strokes. The air in the cabin is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips. You can feel the tension building within you, the impending release of pleasure so close, so close, but not quite close enough yet.

"Fuck," you groan, the word escaping your lips as your body quivers on the brink of release. "I can't… rafe!" Your voice is ragged, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Rafe's hips slam into you one final time, his cock buried deep inside you, and you feel the familiar tightening in your abdomen as your orgasm washes over you in a wave of intense pleasure. Your body arches off the couch, your back bowing as you cry out his name. He continues to move inside you, his thrusts growing deeper and more urgent as he follows you over the edge.

The air in the cabin is thick with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the slapping of skin against skin, the moans and gasps that escape your lips. Your muscles contract around him, milking his cock as he empties himself inside you. The feeling of being so fully and completely connected to him is overwhelming, leaving you both gasping for breath.

Finally, as your bodies calm, Rafe leans down to press a soft kiss to your neck. "I've never wanted anyone the way I want you," he whispers, his voice raspy with desire. "You're so beautiful, so amazing." His fingers trace lazy circles on your hip, soothing the ache left behind from his possessive grip. "I'm so lucky to have you."

You nestle into the crook of his arm, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath your ear. "I feel the same," you whisper back, knowing it's true. "I love you, Rafe." The words tumble out of you before you can even think about them, but they feel right, like they've always been there, waiting to be said.

"Love you too, mama"

Taglist: @20doozers @madzandmore

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron x reader #smut #fluff #outer banks #obx #itsmealaiah

[airpanic]

Wanted to update the original post but Tumblr lagged too much. So reupload... Text from those days :

In lore explanation : After Yhaiko and the Rain Company traveled through the giant Kalevala forest they reached the old empire of Jin. There they had to stay for three years and witness the Court manigances. Then came the war between Jin and Tuonela on Jin’s western border. Yhaiko and those who survived the stay fought so well that the Jin’s emperor allowed them to go beyond, into the South seas toward their ultimate goal, the Star Island. A really dangerous place.  The South seas are not yet on maps, only those who can read the stars and the waves have a chance not to die. Yhaiko and her friends happened to enter the city of Petersburgh, an old jin city that the Hacora Republic just recently bought through gun-boat diplomacy. They hired there three ships with the money the Jin emperor gave them, but they also became the target of rough pirates. See, the South seas are filled with rich islands but with many more lost sons of the northern world. Those pirates have nothing to lose, no gods and no rules. Their lives are pure anarchy and despair is what make them so fearless. They are hailing from various areas of the north : Euskara, Portazul, Alpujas, Qvandavia, Hacora, even the northern shores of the Ratsland. Only a few can live old enough to dream going back home. Maybe they don’t want to, after all nothing awaits them there.   At some point a pirate crew led by Dark Chirac, made of former Qvandavia merchants, steals Yhaiko Iron Star’s necklace putting the heroes in great trouble. But those morons lose it pretty fast to Tuonela’s corsairs. They’re so pissed off that their heart screams vengeance and that they chase those Tuonela bastards with all their gunpower and all their wrath. And so, Yhaiko and her friends, as well as the awful Somi and Olivia, sail to the Star Island only to meet those pirates and corsairs before Tonga-Hiti’s showdown. Clear right ?

Real-life explanation : back in 2018 I listened a lot to Alestorm’s catalog and made several drawings with a pirate-theme, because you know... It became somehow a joke, especially their lines against the norwegian/spanish/japanese bastards. Recently I wrote the final words of my thesis and I don’t know why, despite all the time, came back this morning the lines of “Sunset of the Golden Age” :

“The sun will set forever Never to rise again And in the coming darkness We‘ll fight to the bitter end Our legend passed for memory It‘s time to turn the page The sun has set, now night is falling Never again to hear the calling The sun has set upon the golden age”

I looked for old dutch paintings with storm scenes and found a Willem van de Veld the Young scene that matched what I wanted and here it happened. Oh and by the way “Faen deg” means “Fuck you”. Those norwegians are really freaking bastards

[poptod]

hello! i'd like to make an ahkmenrah x reader request! maybe present-day reader gets teleported back in time to when ahkmenrah was alive and they eventually get to the palace and stuff happens? maybe they tell him about modern life? and maybe reader is unnaturally beautiful to the ancient egyptians because humans evolve to be more attractive as time goes on so a person from our time would be hot shit 4,000 years ago? this is long lmao. thanks!

Notes: god ive always wanted to do this kind of storyline but i was worried about like,, logic and stuff getting in the way of the storyline. anyway! i was so fucking elated to receive this request. i got a bit carried away so apologies! WC: 3.2k

+

Okay. It isn't that bad.

Would you ever see your family again? Probably not, but you weren't ruling the possibility out.

Would you ever get to have sour patch kids again? Probably not. But even during the time you lived in 2020, you had eaten more concentrated sour patch kids flavor than all of the people around you combined.

This little village on the outskirts of ancient Thebes is hardly L.A.––though that's probably a good thing––and is small enough for you to know every inhabitant. Your shop there is small to suit the town, and well known ever since your arrival in this time.

They found you beside the river, thought you to be a gift from the Gods. You were hazy, though––whatever had so forcefully pushed you back in time had made your head spin, making you sick and unbalanced. So, when they asked if you did in fact come from the Gods, you had no way of defending yourself either way. Generally you've been denying it––they think you are a god, and the only way you've convinced them you're not a god is by saying you're a gift from them. It explains the way you look, unnaturally beautiful and alien amongst the more pure genetics of earlier humans.

Your shop is pretty simple. You make portraits from paint, more realistic than anything else that exists, and it only affirms their belief in your god-like status. Fortunately word seems to not have gotten out––the village has remained small, and no one from Thebes has run into you. Every now and then you get unreasonably anxious that a noble will find you and turn you into a slave. It's a worry most people around you have, so you find comfort in the fact that you're not the only one. Still, you're not quite accustomed to such an atmosphere––the thought of nobles and Kings noticing you still sends terrified aches into your stomach.

It's about two weeks in that it gets bad. People start to pass by the village, more than you would've thought, and they're all looking to trade goods, food, and information. The people of the village talk about you––you're something interesting, you can't deny that, but they don't know just how worried you are. Whenever you see someone you don't recognize outside your home, you refuse to come out.

Five days later and there's soldiers in your home, looking over your paintings on their way back to Memphis from conquering the realm of Kush. You hold a deep contempt for them––you don't know all that much about history, but you know how Egyptian soldiers and Pharaohs reigned power over the people of Kush.

The soldiers aren't all that worrying. What really gets your heart pounding is the final man to enter your hut; a man bearing a crown and a long sword, with golden braces around his wrists and a chest plated in green scales. Your fingers dig into the wood of your counter when he notices you. The crown on his head––it's the crown of both upper and lower Egypt.

This is a Royal.

"Where did you learn this skill?" He asks you, eyes trained on one of your bigger drawings. It's just on papyrus––not for sale––and hung on the wall as a display of your talent.

"I spent a little while travelling the world," you answer. Technically, growing up in the modern world was a bit like travelling the world; you got to see the cultures and practices of many, many people. "The rest of it's practice."

"The peasants here, they... they claim you came from the Nile. Is that true?"

"Well... that is where I was found," you say carefully, but you can already tell you've fucked up. The look on his face is indescribable beyond the fact that he's pleased.

"How would you feel coming back to the capital with me?" He offers to you, setting his hands on the counter and leaning forward. "I think my father would much like to meet you."

"I – I don't think I'm really cut out for -"

"Nonsense," he dismisses with a smile, taking your hand from its' spot on the wood. "We shall teach you proper writing skills, give you a beautiful home, and the salary isn't horrid either."

You can't just say no. If you do, he's going to ask questions––he's going to get confused, and he's going to get suspicious. No one would turn down an opportunity like this; free schooling, free housing, and much more money for something you already do.

"Well... alright," you say quietly, looking to the home around you that you built with the help of the other villagers.

"Wonderful. My name is Kamun."

He's not a very nice person, you come to find. Or perhaps he's just not your tastes––the soldiers seem to like him well enough, at least the ones who aren't completely subordinate to him, but his attitude towards women and poor people is scathing to say the least. Otherwise he's very amusing, with a good sense of humor and quite generous with his food and wine as long as he gets his fill of it first.

The boat back to Memphis, where the royal family currently stays, is a long ride filled with various entertainments. It's clear these are not soldiers accustomed to rough conditions––the dancing women and flowing beer is enough to tell you that. Instead, you surmise these are faux war-heroes; people adored in their hometown for doing nothing but intimidating others in a foreign country. They try to get cushy with you, soften you up to their words and touches. It doesn't work.

He keeps you close to him. You let him do it, sort of––it's better than telling him no. Better than starting a ruckus. Then again, avoiding a ruckus is what got you here in the first place, standing before the doors of the courtroom where a false God on earth rules the Nile.

"Father, I bring you a gift from Thebes," says Kamun, pushing you forward by the small of your back. You can't bring yourself to meet the Pharoah's eye, so you fall to your knees and bow.

Everyone is staring at you. You don't look normal, and they all know it, and you know it. You could cry from the heat of their eyes on your back.

One of Kamun's soldiers steps forwards, handing the Pharaoh and his wife several of the drawings they'd taken from you. Silence passes as the two scan your work.

"How did you achieve such a mirror of the human face?" The Pharaoh asks in a slow, deep voice that sounds as he looks––old, weathered, wise.

"They came from the Nile," Kamun answers for you, and murmurs take the crowd by storm. You, on the other hand, feel your heartbeat increase in massive increments, speeding your already uneven breath. "A gift from the Gods, the locals said."

"I can't – I am not magic," you rush out, hoping your clarification clears you of any responsibility to the Pharaoh. You know he rules everything––if he says you are to stay here, you have no choice, and you don't like it here. Too many people. "I cannot give you anything, my King."

"I think you're lying," says a voice, its' tone soft and a velvet low. It catches you off guard, brings you to raise your head and meet the eyes of someone you don't know; a young man dressed in gold beside the Pharaoh's throne.

You almost lose your breakfast as your eyes bulge, your mind instantly recognizing him and connecting the dots. You were, by far, not a historian, but you knew a fair amount of Egyptian history––namely a family in the Old Kingdom who was headed by the Pharaoh Merenkahre. The remaining statues and busts of the King and his son are astonishingly accurate, and there can be no doubt in your head.

That being said, there also can't be any reaction on your face. You try your best to reign your expression in.

"I..."

Actually, you do have something to offer now. You know the names––memorized the history, committed each event to memory, and now you can pull their lifestory off from the top of your head. Wouldn't that be valuable to a King; a seer of the future, to predict the rise and fall of the economy and the coming armies. Besides, you can't just say he's wrong. That'd be treasonous to them. So you have to agree you're hiding something, come up with an excuse as to why you hid it, and it proves harder than you thought. You're quickwitted, though––it got you away from the villager's wrath, and it will promote you to noble living now.

You hide a smirk beneath a calm expression as you address the younger prince.

"They gifted me foresight," you say quietly, pretending as though it hurts you to tell the truth, "but told me to never inform others."

"You are in the presence of Ra once more," the Pharaoh reminds you.

"And others," you point out. "I would... it would be better to discuss such matters.. in private."

Detailed information about already-past events is enough to sway him to believe you. The Pharaoh is surprisingly easy to convince, and with a few, meaningless predictions of the future, he gives you housing in his own palace. Kamun looks proud of himself––puffs his chest out in front of his father and earns no compliment. Ire laces his glare as it falls upon his brother, Ahkmen, praised for his ability to see through your obvious lie.

The Pharaoh asks his younger son to guide you to your room. Apparently it's closer to his room than it is to Kamun's, and evening is approaching fast. The walk there, while short, is marked by a conversation composed mainly of Ahkmen's questions and your answers. When the two of you reach your room, he doesn't leave––actually, he follows you in and locks the door.

There's nothing more terrifying than a man with unchecked power, and there is no one watching you.

No fail safe.

You gulp.

"I know you're still not telling the truth," he says, and though it dismisses several of your worries it still begs the question; how did he notice? "Just thought I'd spare you the embarrassment in front of my father, but my generosity ends there. Now I won't hurt you, and I won't tell anyone––I'm just curious."

Oh thank fuck. He's not going to rape you.

"I'm not Egyptian," you blurt out.

"Obviously," he interrupts, but you glare him into raising his hands defensively.

"I'm from the future."

He stares at you. For a minute. You know this because you count it––he just pauses right in his stance, doesn't move, and stares at you for a whole minute like you just told him you're made of gold.

"I'm sorry, what?" He says, laughter suddenly wracking his body.

"It's how I know what's going to happen to your family," you say, hoping he'll believe you. Otherwise this handsome, seemingly-nice man is going to think you're insane for the rest of time. "I studied your family for years as a side-hobby, I don't know how to predict the future for anything but you and your father."

His laughing pauses, or lightens at least; enough for him to say, "actually?"

"Yes," you say, completely serious. This seems to gain his interest once more. "You have to help me. I know at some point people are going to ask me questions about other things and I'm not going to have an answer."

"Just do what all our priests do," he says with a chuckle.

"What do they do?"

"Lie," he says. You can't stop the grin that spreads across your face from the stupid joke, and when he sees that a shit-eating grin spreads across his own face, delighted he could make you laugh.

"Yes, well... I guess I could do that," you mumble in a laugh.

"There's no need for you to worry. Now that I know the truth, I can help you," he says, offering you something that takes nearly all the anxiety out of your brain. After two days travel with a prince, it feels like it took 50 pounds off your shoulders.

"Thank you, so much," you chuckle in relief.

"Of course. I do have questions though, and I want you to answer them."

"Anything."

These questions of his, they come at all times––almost at a constant rate when he takes you on long walks, which he does often. He passes it off to his father as an interest in your beauty, and it apparently works. This little lie also helps you enormously in avoiding the romantic advances of many of the people you come into contact with. You're still not quite sure how it works, since Egyptians supposedly had a strong sense of patriotism, but you look rare and they idolize it. Every eye that falls upon you sees something beautiful, and you can't understand it.

At least Ahkmen is normal. He doesn't talk about you being beautiful. Ever.

And it kind of makes you sad.

"Would you say people on the whole are happier in the future or in the past?" He asks you, his words surrounded by the warmth of a summer day in Egypt.

Birds chatter loudly in the trees around you, singing in the humid air that marks the mating season for many of them. The flowers that surround you are already familiar––you thought it would take longer for you to commit the shapes and colors to memory, but here you are. Dressed in gold-laced silk and turquoise necklaces.

"I think the happiness of a population is dependent entirely on the circumstances surrounding it," you say. Sometimes your answers relate more to the human condition than the progress of time on the human race; he likes these answers, too, so you tell him exactly what you think. "Six thousand years from now, there are times of great misery. One is even called the Great Depression, but five years before that were some of the most prosperous times my country had ever seen. The same cycle is evident here."

"So.. great misery and great happiness come in waves?" He asks, pace slowing as he tries to understand what you're saying. You pause along the pathway, allowing him space to think.

"It's a pattern, actually. When the economy goes up, it will always come down. Recessions happen right after economical booms. And yes," you say before he can ask, "a time of unease will follow the prosperity of the current years. But it won't be for a time yet."

"Will it happen in my lifetime?"

He's murdered about three years from now. You think you might be able to stop it, but if you do, it'll alter history quite a lot. Either way, he wouldn't live long enough to see the recession the building of the great pyramids caused.

"No," you say. "But I'd prepare for it anyway, if only to keep your citizens safe."

"Of course. You... you are a great scholar," he tells you, resuming the slow walk down the shore of the Nile.

"Oh. Uh, thank you," you mumble as a blush fills your cheeks.

"What did you do in your time?"

"I was an artist, but I spent a lot of time giving lectures on the role of autistic people in ancient Egypt. Autistic people are often timekeepers," you say, and you know he'll figure out what you mean. Autistic isn't a term here, but many timekeepers of these ancient times were autistic, and considered highly by their societies.

"You might be able to give lectures again, if you'd like," he suggests. "People would come from far and wide to hear you speak. And you've got things to say that I know many scholars will find interesting."

"Mmm," you wince, "I kind of want to stay away from altering history too much."

"Oh, yes. My apologies," he says in a softer voice.

"It's alright," you say. "I'm glad you think I would be a good choice for that kind of thing, though."

He chuckles bashfully as he turns to the ground, scuffing his sandals as he walks.

Ahkmen is sweet––much sweeter than any of his family members, and you find yourself appreciating that every time you pass by his room. You pass his door often, always stopping a second to contemplate the tall, wooden doors. He's on the pathway between your room and the library.

Most of the time he's not in his room. Actually, you can usually find him in the library––there or outside in the markets or near the stalls. Today is different; he's been missing all day, and only when you walk the path back to your room do you hear his voice, talking to himself in his bedroom.

"They're bombarded with just such compliments, though. I can't – I can't stand out!"

"Or maybe you should, because you still haven't said a single thing yet and they probably think you're completely uninterested and that's why they aren't noticing you?"

"You and your... logic," Ahkmen spits.

"Come complaining when you kiss them under my advice."

As you attempt to peek through the crack in the door you stumble, knocking your hand against the wood. You barely hesitate before knocking again––cool and collected, smooth to slip into another lie.

"Oh! Hello, um – hi," he says awkwardly, slipping out of the room when he sees you. He quickly closes the door behind him, careful to keep you from seeing the other person in his room, but you can't bring yourself to care about the stranger.

Think of an excuse, why am I here?

"Oh, that's... I like your flower," he comments softly, eyes flickering between your eyes and the flower tucked into your hair. You'd forgotten about it, but raised your hand to touch the petals as you smiled. The perfect excuse

"Thank you. I thought you might like it, so I," you take it out of your hair and grab his hand, holding his palm upwards, "wanted to show you.. um, here."

Setting the flower in his hand, you curl his fingers around its' stem and push his hands back into his chest. He stares at you for a moment, confused by your strange behavior, but accepting of your gift anyway. You know him well enough now––he'd never decline a gift from you.

"A white iris," he tells you in a lofty tone. "A symbol of the dead. Funny it looks so lively on you."

You need to get out of here before your chest combusts.

"I need to go now, but I'll see you this evening, yes?" You ask, stepping instinctively closer. He doesn't back away.

"Of course. And, um," he takes your hands, keeps you where you stand as he slips the flower back behind your ear, "keep it. I want to see it on you at dinner."

He's close to you––close enough that it gets hard to distinguish his breath from your own, when you started holding his hand. When his other came up to your face. When he leans in and kisses your forehead. It's barely there, just barely, but there's no mistaking the soft plush, the affection clear behind gentle, precise movements.

You rush away the second he lets your hands go.

#ahkmenrah x reader #rami malek

[phoenixblack89]

Blank Canvas

Travis is definitely one of my favourite characters the gorgeously talented Mr. Reedus has portrayed. 

TAGS: @fandomsaremykryponite @autocon23 @lilythemadqueen @darylsgirl @writingdeadangel

WARNING: Just pure filthy smut 

The incessant beeping of your alarm clock woke you as you tried in vain to stay under the covers of your bed. Your head throbbed in pain, a lecture about hangovers and the dangers of drinking by your mother echoing in your memory.

It was all Derek's fault.

You would have been quite happy to have the loft to yourself last night while your three roommates went drinking but no. He insisted that you come along to make sure Travis didn't have another 'discussion with gravity' as he liked to call them. Needless to say all of you ended up slightly more than drunk, hell Travis was literally dragged into his room out cold last night.

The only thing making you feel better was the fact he too would be horridly hungover as you at the lecture.

"Y/N? You awake?"

"Just..." You croakily replied, throwing your pillow over your shoulder.

The door creaked loudly as Travis opened it and slowly, holding his head, made his way to you and climbed under the covers.

"Can we skip today?"

"Travis sweetums, you know we can't." You groan, turning and putting your head on his chest lightly. The crush you harbored on the quieter, shyer roommate was nothing secret. Both Jones and Derek knew, Travis seemed oblivious to it however. If he knew he wouldn't do his usual hangover routine which involved him climbing into your bed to snuggle and complain about his head until the afternoon. As it was you weren't complaining. You loved feeling the heat through your body from the innocent act by him.

"Fuck it. Let's skip. We can always catch up. We'll just say we ate dodgy food again. Blame Derek's cooking." You laughed and wrapped an arm around his waist and sighed.

"Shhh my head hurts. Let's go back to sleep" He wrapped his arms around you and closed his eyes.

/*/

The slam of the door jolted you awake. Fucking noisy bastards you thought, glancing at the clock and groaning. Travis rubbed his eyes and sat up slowly. Derek kicked the door open and bounced on the bed, crushing you and Travis back into the mattress.

"See you two finally fucked!" He laughed.

You and Travis both turned bright red and you shoved Derek hard to get out from under him. You stood and pointed at the door.

"Get out!"

"Hey I'm joking! Nice shorts by the way." He laughed, leaning on one elbow to look you over lustifully. You huffed and slammed the door as you entered the bathroom.

Derek was such an ass. If he didn't mind you being late on the rent occasionally you would of moved out but you knew you'd never find somewhere as awesome as the loft. Especially when it came to your art supplies. The space for your canvases was your priority. Hours and weeks and months were spent on your art and they needed special storage to ensure they didn't get ruined. Derek, thankfully, had the perfect conditions for this. Oil, acrylic, watercolour, whatever your classical and fine arts class called for you had on hand within reach. The last place you lived meant you had to rent out a storage unit and numerous pieces of art had been lost because of the shit climate and vermin. You shuddered as you showered, remembering Travis helping you clear the storage unit to move in and discovering one of your favourite pieces had been converted into a comfortable two up two down by a collection of rats. That hadn't been a pleasant sight.

Wrapping a towel around you, you exited the bathroom to a thankfully empty bedroom. The laughs of your roommates reached your ears and you smiled lightly, dressing quickly in your usual baggy clothes before throwing up your hair and sitting at your desk. You sent an email to your professor for the weeks assignment and leaned back, your head ending upside down as you looked at the large blank canvas behind you. You'd bought the thing on a complete whim. You didn't know what to do with it now you had it. And honestly, you'd forgotten you'd even bought it in the first place until the delivery men hauled it into your living room. Maybe you should just give it to Travis. He'd know what to do with it.

"Hey you."

"Hello Miss Jones. What can I do for you today?"

You knew what she was going to say as soon as she closed the door. When you gonna tell him how you feel... Blah. Blah. Blah.

"Before you say it. No. Things are good the way they are. I ain't gonna rock the boat."

"Y/N"

"Nope... Not a chance Jonesy. Ain't telling my cute, sweet, sexy as fuck, roommate I share a vast majority of art classes with I like him. Not happening."

"You should. He's a sweetie."

"I know. That's why I can't. I ain't his type anyway. He prefers thin blonds."

"Oh hunny, you have no idea what he likes." Jones smiled and patted your shoulder lightly. "Maybe you should ask for his help on that huge monster of a canvas." She smirked as she left.

Frowning, you bit your lip and considered her suggestion. Jones smirked as she passed Travis and winked back at you.

Shit. Had he heard?

"You... Erm... Need help with the... Assignment?" He stuttered, his head ducked lowly as you blushed.

"Er yea... Later... I... I... I need to look it over some more.."

He nodded and smirked as he tapped against your doorframe before spinning on his heel and leaving. As soon as you were sure he was out of sight and earshot yoh banged your head forward on the desk with a groan.

"Fuck my life."

/:/

"Lift! Careful! Careful" You huffed as you directed Travis and Derek, who were lifting the canvas into Travis's room for the project that you'd come up with. You laughed as Derek bashed his arm against the door.

"Remind me to not let you get another one this big!" Travis huffed, setting the monster down against his wall and flexing his thick fingers.

"Its not that bad! It's gonna look awesome!" You laughed quietly, tying your Y/H/C into a high ponytail and smiling as Derek left grumbling. "Come on Travis. Let's get this baby started."

"What exactly are we doing again?"

You shook your head and tugged the canvas into a more pleasant angle, last thing you wanted or needed was to injure yourself by overstretching yourself. Travis glanced over his shoulder as he picked up his paintbrush, twirling it between his fingers with a cigarette hanging from his sinful mouth. Your eyes gazed over his wide shoulders and down his back. The black vest clung to the muscles in his back and tucked into the overalls he was wearing, the sleeves tied tight around his narrow hips. His boots banged against the wood floor loudly as he tapped his foot expectantly.

"Y/N?"

"Huh?!" You startled out of your thoughts of how he'd feel under your hands as your nails dragged scarlet lines down that delicious looking back. "Oh erm... Well I was thinking maybe... Erm... A sex scene but not straight up porn. Like two lovers in an embrace kinda thing out in nature... Does that make sense?"

"Hmm... So... Summit like this?" He asked, quickly sketching a rough plan of two lovers on a scrap of paper. The lines were sharp with his haste, the angles a bit off but it was perfect. The woman's head thrown back as the man's lips kissed her neck, the hands gripping onto the males broad shoulders, her leg thrown over his hip.

You smiled widely and began sketching it on to the canvas roughly. Travis smiled, flicked his cigarette and joined you. Each of you taking one of the figures to draw. Travis's eyes lingering on your rapidly shifting hands. He loved watching you loose yourself to your creativity. It was as beautiful as the sun rise to him. The look of pure joy and concentration on your face, highlighted your beauty. The dimples in the corner of your mouth as you placed your pencil between your teeth drove him wild. He couldn't help but wonder what they'd look like as you sucked his cock. He ducked his head to the side as he felt his cock getting harder at the mere thought.

/:/

You backed away from the canvas and tilted your head to the side. Something was off with the sketch and it was bugging you no end. You just couldn't put your finger on what it was. Was it the angle? The pose? Was it something small and seemingly insignificant? Was it because you'd taken the male figure where Travis the female?

"Something is off about it... I just can't see what it is though..." Travis agreed, another cigarette dangling from his fingertips.

"Yea... I see it but I don't. Ya know. Maybe we should... Nah... That's stupid." You blushed and ran your hands over your face. Your eyes were a tad itchy and tired from the low light in the room plus the smoke. Travis chewed his lip and walked to you slowly.

"What?"

"Well... Maybe we should try the pose out. See if its because we didn't have a proper reference for it." Your eyes stayed on the floor, running over the numerous splatters of multicoloured paint that had been dipping onto it. Travis felt a lump in his throat as he shifted his weight nervously. He nodded his head upwards and slowly stalked towards you, licking his lip nervously. You shifted closer and with a glance at the canvas lifted your leg to his hip, pushing yourself closer to him. His fingers hesitated for a moment before wrapping around your thigh tightly. His lips slightly red from being chewed dropped to your neck before pulling away sharply.

"Trav?"

"Hold up. Camera. Can't hold pose and look at it at the same time."

He rushed and grabbed his camera, setting it up on a tripod and grabbed the clicker to be able to take the photo. He smiled as he reached for you and you flushed, feeling the heat from his crotch against your core as he lifted your leg back into place across his hip. His mouth once more just brushing your neck as you ran your hand through his short dark tresses. The camera flashed suddenly and you backed away as Travis quickly hooked the memory card into his computer and gave a laugh at the blurry image on the screen.

"Still looks wrong. Maybe we should lose the overalls?" He suggested quietly, swallowing audibly as the image became more focused. You nodded and blushed, slipping the boots off your feet and shrugging the dark paint splattered overalls off your hips to pool on the floor beside his bed. Your throat went dry as his gaze ran along your legs, over your plain black panties and up your stomach to the thin white cotton vest you had on. Your nipples were clearly visible through the fabric, a dusty rose colour and hard from the tingle of arousal running rampant through you.

Travis's eyes darken as he removed his own clothes down to his boxers before returning to your side once more. You shuddered as his fingertips ran up your leg to grip you up around his hip once more. His eyes drilled into yours as he lowered his head to your neck. Your eyes closed, feeling his breath ghosting over your pulse point. You felt his cock harden against your core as your nails lightly scrapped his scalp and sucked in a gasp. His lips brushed against your neck as the camera flashed. His hand tightened in the back of your neck as he trailed kisses up your neck before pulling back to look into your eyes. You bit your lip and nudged your nose against his lightly.

"Travis..."

"You... God... Y/N I like you. I've thought about you and me so much. I wanna..."

"Shut up and kiss me idiot."

You smiled at the smirk gracing his face as he did as he was told, pushing his hips into yours tighter. He grabbed your other leg and pulled you up into his arms, walking forward to his bed before dipping down onto his knees. His lips felt heavenly after so long of a wait. You nipped his lip lightly and pushed your tongue into his mouth as he gasped.

He growled and thrust against you as his hands ripped your vest from your chest and licked at your nipple. You grabbed his hair and tugged him back to your mouth as you pushed his boxers down his hips and felt the heavy, thick weight of his raging hard cock.

His lips left a trial along your neck, sucking and nipping gently as he ground his hips against yours slowly. A thrill of desire flared in your core, making your clit twitch against the cotton covering them. His fingers lightly tapped along the edge of your panties before gripping them tightly and dragging them harshly down your hips. Your hand ran up and down his length as he leaned his forehead against yours, his breaths coming out as soft groans.

"Fuck... I ain't gonna last if ya keep that up!" He moaned, feeling his orgasm rapidly approaching. With a slight growl, he grabbed your hand and pulled it off himself, slamming it down above your head and panted against your neck. "Fuck..."

"Travis... Please..." You moaned, wiggling under his weight. He smirked against your collarbone as he began kissing down your chest. He shifted his hips and aligned himself with your dripping core. In one swift thrust he buried himself inside your aching pussy as you gave a very loud moaning shriek. Your nails raked down his back as he set a hard, fast pace. His fingers digging harshly into your hips, sure to leave bruises for days.

You gave a loud moan as you felt your core tingling and fluttering around his hard cock, your pleasure sky rocketing towards the orgasmic bliss it craved.

Your release crashed over you as his fingers dug crescents into your hips as his thrusts became harder and rougher. His head leaned back as he enjoyed the sensation of your walls spasming around him, your mouth held open in a silent scream as pleasure rushed through your entire nervous system.

You pulled him towards you and crashed your lips against his as his hips began loosing their rhythm, his own release rapidly approaching. He gave a groan and pulled out, gripping himself tightly and splashing your stomach with his cum. He fell down beside you panting then chuckled.

"Fuck..."

"Yea." You replied with a breath laugh, your hand pushing your sweat soaked hair off your face and grimacing slightly at the stickiness coating you. "We should probably clean up.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. It was worth it."

"Yea... Definitely. We should of done that ages ago." He said smiling, leaning up onto one elbow to look into your blissed out face, his other hand using his shirt to clean his mess from your skin. You pushed your hand through his hair and drew his lips to yours before pulling away and biting your lip with a smirk.

"Maybe we should get some more inspiration for that canvas huh?" You said flirty, wiggling an eyebrow up and down. He glanced behind him towards the canvas before laughing and diving on top of you again attacking your neck with his teeth. You gave a loud laugh.

The canvas certainly wouldn't be blank for much longer that was for sure.

#normanreedus #PhoenixBWrites #norman reedus fanfiction #Travis Gossip #travis x reader #Gossip smut #smut fanfiction

[millllenniawrites]

fun in the meantime (FO! Poe Dameron x f!OC)

part two of when the stars miss the sun

written with @vampirewithbedsidemanners

words: 2.4k

warnings: dark!ooc!Poe Dameron (if you want specifics, dm me); smut (rough sex, slight dubcon moment, praise, 'good girl' used); prostitution; established relationship (sort of); slow burn (yes the two can coexist leave me alone); redemption arc; Pixar ending; murder; warnings will be added as the series progresses

a/n: i love this story and im so excited to share it with you guys. this one is as cute and soft as it gets before everything gets very very dark (though please do heed the warnings cause it isn't just happy times)

__

Red woke up alone in sheets that still felt warm and soft like his satin skin. Her Admiral… not that she could let him know how ingrained in her mind he had become over the last three years. Just like every time before, he left her with the taste of him lingering on the edges of her senses, keeping her from the biting, harsh reality of the universe they lived in.

The house was beautiful and grand without being over the top, just as out of place as he was in everything. He’d told her the night before that the house was the only thing he had to his name outside of the Order. She believed it. There was something to him that made her believe that there really wasn't anything else out there for her beautiful, lost man.

She left the safety of his bed, padding across the warm floors and out into the hallway that fed a large central spiral staircase. It extended down all five stories to the basement, where they’d dragged out boxes of files the night before prior to shutting themselves in his office to work.

She hadn’t had the chance to see enough of the beautiful house. Later, when she had a moment, she would explore the place that seemed to be an extension of her Admiral. She would let her hands roam over the banisters, the same way they had caressed across the banded muscles in his thighs as she rode him, giving over her body and heart and soul before she realized that she was.

Red crept silently down his stairs. She followed the sound of fingers on a screen to his office, where they'd spent much of the night before. His uniform jacket was still in a ball on the ground where she'd tossed it after ripping it off him. The papers he'd swept off his desk to make room to lay her on it were still scattered all over the room.

Poe was sat at his desk, hair mussed from sleep. The collar of his threadbare shirt was stretched out, and he played with the edge of it as he studied whatever was on the screen in front of him.

Nothing about him appeared like he was a feared Admiral of the First Order.

When he finally noticed her standing in the doorway, he smiled softly. "Did you sleep okay?"

She padded over to him, easing down into his lap. Something about him put her at ease, when everything about him should have sent her running. Quietly, she threaded her fingers through his hair, tilting his head back so she could gaze into his eyes. “I missed you.” Her admission was quiet, timid, sweet... with no hint of the deadly resistance intel Captain that was actually sitting in his lap.

“Just thought I’d get a head start this morning ‘nd let you sleep.” He’d snuck out of bed before the sun had risen, intending to finish up the packaging of intel that he’d neglected the night before before returning to her. If he had the restraint to resist her, he may have finished the work, but he couldn’t deny himself the little temptations that made him feel alive.

Time had gotten away from him in the early morning hours, as it tended to do.

There was so much more to the war now, and he was no longer the young, energetic try-hard Captain, campaigning for what he believed in no matter the cost.

Things were complicated.

“Come back to bed?” She asked, brushing her lips against his in a soft kiss.

He melted into her touch, softer than he should have been. She could ask him for anything when he was like this, his vulnerable soul left barren for her. “Shouldn’t we finish up?” He murmured, a half-hearted attempt to retain control over himself that he no longer had.

“We should.” She sighed, shifting so she could straddle him. “But I only get you like this for a little longer. That uniform has to go back on eventually.”

“It’s just a uniform.”

“A uniform that keeps me from you.” She kissed his neck as her hands slid under his shirt. Every word fell from her lips like a quiet admission she wasn’t sure she could say, or mean. Not without wrecking everything between them.

“We’ll blow it all to hell. Just need a little more time...”

“I need you.” Her whimpers called him home, her deft fingers tracing his abs under his shirt and bringing the forbidden temptation of her skin flush to his. Her lips on his neck and jaw stole his breath, chasing all thoughts from his mind. “Just a little bit. I’m not ready to give you back.”

“You’re coming with me. You don’t have to. You don’t have to give me back.” His voice was breathy, betraying how touch-starved he truly was.

She kissed him to silence the whimper on his lips, tangling around him. “You don’t belong in the Order.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” She tugged him close. “I do, baby.”

Something changed in his eyes as the words left her lips, his vulnerability swallowed in something darker, clamouring for control. He gripped her hair, tilting her head back and kissing down her neck, rough and forceful. He needed it the way he needed air in his lungs. The wall he erected around his delicate heart shattered in her presence, and he couldn’t afford it. Not now.

He carried her up the stairs, distracting her with kisses and tearing through the thin clothing on her body. There was nothing gentle about it. Gentle sex gave her the space to break down his walls. Gripping her thighs, he flipped her over and pinned her down, lips at her ears.

“I need you loud for me, honey.” He growled, pulling her hips up into his lap and spreading her pulsing center open to make space for him.

“Poe!” She cried out, forgetting what they were for a moment. All that mattered were his callous-rough hands on her skin and the musk of his breath on her neck. He slid in all the way, not needing to get her ready for him, fucking her in the brutal but sweet way that made the room spin.

He lost himself in her moans, the way she thrashed in his arms as she neared the edge. He almost couldn’t hear her pleas for a break over the sound of her begging for more.

“That’s a good girl.” He murmured, too soft for what they were now, his praise painting her lips.

“Your... your good girl.” she gasped, “I’m yours.”

*

Red fell back into his arms in the bed, still giggling from the accidental tickles. Twisting so she could see his face, she relaxed, bitting her bottom lip. “Civilian life looks good on you.”

"Y'think so?" He gazed down at her. "This is the first time I've given it a try."

“Lucky me.” She grinned, wrapping her arms around him.

"I think I'd wanna be somewhere warmer. Salient has too much winter." He pulled the blankets up over them both before letting her curl up in his arms.

“Ever been to the old capital?” She hummed, drawing on his chest.

"I haven't been to any of them.” And he wouldn’t have the chance to visit one of them now that the Order had destroyed Hosnian.

“Chandrila is like a never ending summer. If this war leaves it untouched, maybe we can go after it all. Just us.”

"You don't wanna be seen with me." The thought of it was so absurd he snorted. He’d been in enough of the propaganda the Order put out that there would never be peace for him.

“No one has to see us. We can take a boat out to the islands and go swimming and fuck and lay out in the sun.”

She could see it. The warm Chandrilan sun on his tan skin, lighting his eyes. His curls in between her fingers and his lips between her legs. Them, laid out in the open, a far cry from the corners they’d been hiding in for three years.

Poe couldn’t help but indulge her. "We wouldn't even need to bring clothes."

“I think clothes on you should be illegal.” She giggled, scooting over onto his chest and straddling his hips.

"Yeah? I don't think that's part of Pryde's plan. You're welcome to talk to him about it when we transfer, though."

“When I’m done with him, it’ll be his first priority.” She grinned mischievously.

He couldn’t help but melt at how sweet she was. “He would be scared of you, if he saw who you really are."

Her smile softened as she eased down into his arms. She knew he meant it as a compliment, but she couldn’t help but worry. Why she gave a shit what he thought of her, she didn’t know. If it was going to wreck the mission, it would have by now. “Do I scare you?” She asked, her gaze as intense as the pounding of her heart in her chest.

"Yeah," he said softly. "But that's a good thing, right? You're supposed to keep your informants in line?"

“Are you still an informant? I thought we were friends.”

“We are. But you’re here to take down the Order. Same as me.” He poked her forehead. “Agent.” He poked himself in the chest. “Informant.”

She copied him, jabbing him in the chest. “Poe, Red. And right now, we’re just two very hot people in bed together. Naked. Enjoying life.”

“It’d be kinda sexy to call you Agent in bed.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

She laughed, shaking her head. “Anything as long as you don’t call me ma’am.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She punched his shoulder lightly. “Poe!”

“Why don’t you like that one? Bad boyfriend?”

“It makes me feel like my mom.” She made a face like she was grossed out by the thought, warm love for her mother radiating through it.

“Gotcha.” He kissed her lightly. “Your whole ‘young and innocent and beautiful’ look doesn’t exactly give off mom-vibes.”

She pouted. “I think I’d make a beautiful mom.”

He smoothed the wrinkle in her brow with his thumb. “You would. Of course you would. I just meant that you wouldn’t attract clients with Mommy kinks.”

She scrunched her nose. “Not mommy kinks. Breeding kinks though. I don’t mind those.”

He was quiet as he thought about it. “I don’t know if that’s my style. It seems pretty... close. Intimate.” He coughed, like that could make him feel less exposed. “I’m never gonna settle down with anyone so I don’t think I’d be able to handle taunting myself with that, y’know?”

She held his face, bringing herself as close as she could to him. “I’m not either. So maybe we can with each other. Right at the end. That’d be one hell of a way to go out.”

This was her job. Her role, for the Resistance. She had to make him comfortable and keep loyal and Poe understood that. But he had no reason to betray her. There was no risk in buying in. In letting her do what she had to. “It would be.”

The bed was more enticing than the rest of the house — or the rest of the universe — as far as they were concerned. A droid rolled in about an hour later, bringing foods that neither of them would see again once they left their little sliver of civilian life.

He drank caf, with milk in it if that was an option. He liked his eggs cooked through and spice with his dinner. Everything was appetizing to him as long as it wasn’t slimy. The more they rolled around and talked and fucked and snacked, the more human he seemed to her. The war was worlds away, set in another time and another life where her and her Admiral were just simple people living simple lives.

He knew what she was doing. The questions she asked and information she gathered, just set her up to move around him as seamlessly as the air he breathed. When they got where they were going.

If.

Her laughter made him dream of quiet afternoons just like this, with a beautiful girl in his bed. Endless summers in her eyes. With her, he almost didn’t need the Chandrila sun.

“How often do you make it out here?” She asked casually, eating a piece of fruit while sprawled out on his bed, her eyes on his bare ass.

“Not often. Less since my promotion. It’s pretty nice though, hey?” He noticed her gaze and tossed a clean sock at her.

“Great view. I could stay here forever.” She grinned, spinning her finger in the air at himself. “Nope. Turn back around.”

Poe twirled around, showing off like he had a part time job at a strip club. He moved from the hips, putting on a show until he caught her eyes.

It was too vulnerable. All of it.

He pulled a face, sticking his ass out and wiggling his hips.

She tossed the sock, hitting him in the ass. “You’re lucky you’re hot.” She giggled, reaching out for him. “Come back to bed. I won’t get to lay around and fuck you all the time when we get back to your ship.”

“It’s not mine. I’m only an Admiral.” He crawled up the bed to her, slotting himself between her thighs. “But I’ll take advantage of this while I have it.” He gripped her hair in his fist, tilting her head back to expose her throat. His gaze trailed down her as he murmured, “So pretty...”

She growled, flipping him over and devouring him. There was something in the way he held her, kissed her, that told her she could ask anything of him and he would. For her, or the resistance, she didn’t care. As long as he was on the right side of the war.

His words echoed back in her head like a problem she had to solve. The ship wasn’t his.

She could fix that.

#fo!poe dameron #first order poe dameron #fo!poe #poe dameron fic #poe dameron x oc

[thiswasinevitableid]

idk if i missed the boat on monster march but mer + indruck + nsfw? maybe something like that scene in from the depths where duck is rubbing off on indrid's tail but... not interrupted by abominations? with treasured human pet talk?

Nope, the boat is not missed. I’m pretty much taking these until the last few days of the month. Here you go!

There are rough days. There are bad days. There are terrible days. 

And then there’s whatever kind of godforsaken day Duck is having. 

It started with Winnie coughing up a hairball right on his pillow. Then he was out of coffee, trudged to the store to get some only to discover he left his wallet at home. Saying “fuck it” and spending the rest of his day at the beach seemed the best call when it came to turning things around.

Turns out his ex thought the same thing, and what started as an attempt to be pleasant while crossing paths ended with some thoroughly unkind comments about Ducks suitability as a partner, including his temperament, laugh, and appearance. 

His first spot for decompressing in the sun was overrun by seagulls, the second by a group playing New Wave hits at full volume, and on and on until late afternoon, where he trekked up the boardwalk to discover the Wolf Eel Bar and Grill was out of french onion soup. He went for a conciliatory sandwich at Amnesty Lodge instead. Barclay, saint that he is, gave him a two-scoop cone on the house when he went to pay the check. Duck retreated to the most secluded seaside spot he knows, the one where if anything happens to him, no one will see it, to enjoy his rocky road in peace. 

Then the cone toppled, the half eaten top scoop falling into the water and the bottom one hitting the rock. 

This is why Duck is now on his back, on the tidepool dotted rock, muffling a frustrated scream in his palms.  A tap on the shoulder interrupts him. 

“Don’t be sad. Look” two tan hands hold the now-gritty ice cream out to him, “I could not save the one in the water, but this one is only a little sandy. “

“Uhhh” Duck blinks at the merman bobbing in the waves, “no that;s, uh, that’s fine. Don’t feel like gettin sand in my mouth.”

The mer glances at his hands, back up at Duck, “May I eat it?”

“Knock yourself out.” He decides not to linger on whether this counts as feeding the wildlife. The merman is mid-bite before he even finishes his sentence. 

As the creature of the deep happily stuffs his face, Duck wonders why he chose this of all moments to talk to him. The merman first appeared a month ago, observing Duck while he was doing tide checks. A day later, he swam parallel to the shore as the ranger went for an evening walk. After that, Duck saw him whenever he was near the ocean. 

Duck prefers a life without too much weird, and thus ignores the strange and unusual unless it whacks him upside the head. Even then, he tries to shake it off and go about his day. So when the mer hauled himself onto the rock closest to the patch of beach Duck was reading and snoozing upon, the human gave him a cursory nod and went back to his novel. He only glanced up once, to see the merman sketching on a pad of paper; the mechanics of this happening in or near the water intrigued him, but not enough to make him talk to a fucking mermaid. 

“Mmmmm” the merman licks his fingers, “I like the little white bits in it best.”

“The marshmallows?”

“Yes! That’s the word.” He paddles his hands in the water to clean them, “you have very good taste in iced cream.”

“Uh, thanks.” Duck scrubs his face, not wanting to leave his oasis of solitude but not sure what’s going on here, “is there somethin I can do for you?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing. You are clearly having a bad day, and I wanted to improve it.”

“Man you don’t know the half of it; shoulda seen what happened when I wasn’t near the water.”

“I did. Oh, oh dear, that sounded creepy. I’m a seer and enchanter by trade, which means I can see timelines as they unfold. And, ah, I kept an eye on your futures today in the hope they would improve. Especially after that conversation between you and your former partner. I did not like how they spoke to you.”

“Not like I was a model of dignity and calm.” Duck scratches the back of his neck. 

“True. Nevertheless, were you my human, I would say far kinder things.”

Duck lays back down with a snort; he appreciates the sympathy, but today it feels like the universe has made it clear how little kindness he deserves.

“It is the truth. I would tell you that you are patient and kind. That your laugh reminds me of the shorebirds when they are joyful. That I have seen sunken ships laden with jewels and pearls larger than my eyes, yet when I hear the word ‘treasure’ I think of your face.”

The human rolls slowly onto his side, facing the waves. Rock digs into his shoulder as he studies the merman. He’s staying close, but seems to be waiting for permission to be in Duck’s space. 

“Why are you sayin all this?”

“Because it is true, and I like you.”

“You barely know me. Hell, I don’t even know your-”

“-Name. Ah, apologies, I am always a bit ahead. I’m working on not interrupting as much. And my name is Indrid.” The mer rests his arms on the rock, sets his chin on the back of his hand, “You are right, we do not know much about each other. I do not know where you grew up, but I know you take great pride in showing groups of small humans the tide pools and teaching them about the sea. I do not know what you like to read, but I know that I can sit near you and draw without you fleeing in fear or trying to take a photo of me.” 

Duck reaches out, presses silver hair behind Indrid’s ear, the lilting voice seeping under his skin, suggesting that maybe he’s not as terrible as he thinks. Like maybe something better is waiting for him “now you gotta tell me somethin’ about you.”

Indrid purrs, rubbing his cheek into Duck’s hand, “I used to live in Atlantis, but I took on a role that let me travel and see more of the world, both my own and that of humans. I settled here recently because the nearby mers are not territorial and the fishing is good.”

Rock catches his clothes as he scoots the last inches to the edge of the stone, “How come your drawings don’t get ruined by the water?”

“Enchantments. Though I did get Dani’s human to bring me waterproof paints.” He mirrors Duck’s arm, reaching out to play with the humans’ hair, his tail keeping him easily afloat in the water. 

The ranger closes his eyes to focus on the cool fingers stroking his forehead, “you really wanna spend your evenin’ playin’ twenty questions with me?”

“Yes and no. I came to see what would make you happy. If talking with me is the answer, that is what we can do.”

Duck groans at the reminder of why he’s hiding among the hermit crabs, “Gotta be honest, not sure what’d cheer me up. Everything I tried today backfired.”

“Let me try something.” Indrid’s face goes worryingly blank, then he grins, “I foresee an option that might help, though you will think it self-serving. I have a vision of you joining me for a swim.”

“Water’s a little chilly for that.”

Indrid zig-zags his finger through the waves, “Try it now.”

It’s like sticking his hand into a warm bath, “that ain't gonna mess with the fish is it?”

“Not at all. The spell only applies to you.” Indrid swims backwards as Duck strips down to his trunks, “here, there’s a sandbar where you can stand as long as you need.”

“Plannin on keepin me in the water awhile?” Duck teases, paddling over to join him. 

“If you will let me.” The mer circles him, and for the first time Duck notices the gold-red fan-shaped fin on his lower back, “I have many other things to tell you. For instance, if you look at that kelp raft, you will see otters in the next twenty seconds.

Four well-camouflaged bodies surface to their left. As they splash about, Duck remembers the time he mistook one for a piece of driftwood in the dim light of morning, tells Indrid the story as the otters play.

Something smooth and strong brushes his leg. Indrid is floating close enough that his tail keeps bumping Duck as they talk. 

“Hey, uh, could I, uh, could I look take a look at, uh, um-”

There must be timelines where he asks, because Indrid turns onto his back and adjusts so the last third of his tail waves in front of Ducks’ torso. The mixture of yellow-green and burnt burnt umber reminds him of an Undulated Moray, though the tail ends in a V instead of a point. Stroking one side leads to a splash and a sigh as Indrid twitches in the water. Duck continues the motion, the skin like that of a ray, and relaxes more with each pass. It’s soothing him and, judging by the tension leaving the muscles under his hands, Indrid as well. In fact, the merman is now so limp, his head is under the water and looks to have been for some time.

“Fuck” Duck lets go, moves to fish him out only for Indrid to contort and swim so they’re chest to chest.

“Oh right, gills.”

“Indeed. That was lovely. May I, ah, examine you as well.” There’s a purr in his voice. Duck nods, and the mer slips beneath the surface. His fingers trace along Ducks legs, then drag up the back of his thighs, pressing more firmly when they reach his ass. Duck barks a laugh, so the Indrid does it again before gliding his hands up to his shoulders. 

“Mmm, all of this feels as supple and strong as I hoped. Such a sturdy treasure I’ve found.”

“Jesus.” Duck gasps as Indrid nuzzles the base of his neck.

“A perfect treasure, sitting on the shore with no one to look after him.”

“Indrid.” His dick twitches in his trunks as the mer curves around to meet his eyes. 

“Yes?”

“Will you keep talkin like that?” 

Indrid loops his arms around Duck’s neck, “So polite. Perhaps I shall take my treasure back with me, keep you as I would a spoiled pet. Caress this wonderful body, see the most handsome face above or beneath the water whenever my heart desires.”

“Nnngh.” Duck whimpers, wrapping his arms around Indrids waist and hiding his blush in the crook of his neck, “M’not worth that kinda talk.”

“On the contrary, you are worth more than all the wealth of Atlantis, my treasure.”

Duck makes weak sounds of protest, the cruel words of the morning and his own mind drowned by Indid’s whispers. The merman is smiling at him in a way no one ever does; like he’s seeing Duck with all his flaws, fears, and hopes laid bare and wants to keep looking instead of turning away.

“You deserve so much more than this day gave you. Will you let me offer something better?”

Duck nods, raises his head, “c-can I kiss you first?”

Indrid dips his head down. His saltwater kisses wash away the miserable day, replace it with curious lips mapping his own. A low, soft hum emanates from Indrid as cool scales stroke his legs. The tail starts low, petting his calves, but as the kiss intensifies it drags up to his thighs, flicking and teasing his crotch. 

“Fuck.” He’s groaning, bucking his hips in search of more as the mer smiles, indulgent and wicked. The next tailstroke is drawn-out, undulating across his folds and rubbing his dick. 

“Does that feel good, pet?” Indrid pecks his cheek.

“Don’t those visions show you the answer?” He tries for casual, even cocky, and it comes out as a gasp instead as the tail grinds side to side.

“Yes, but answers can change. I want to do as you wish, treasured one, not as my foresight tells me.”

“It feels so fuckin good, sugarAHfuck, ahnnnyeah, hell yeah.” He squirms as the tail thrusts, the tip bumping his ass when Indrid angles it for a better pressure. Then the mer stops.

“Remove these, sweet one.” He snaps his waistband, “I want to feel my perfect human slick and warm against me.”

Duck braces on a nearby rock to pull the trunks off, having only time to set them out of tide range before the mer slithers around him once more. The alien texture of the scales sets him moaning, his hips pumping erratically in hopes it might envelope his cock entirely. All he manages is a rhythm that brings him out of sync with Indrid. Panic circles his stomach at the possibility that this will be yet another part of the day that goes haywire. 

“You needn’t work so hard, my treasure.” Indrid coos, “plant your feet on the ground. I will take care of the rest.”

The ranger does as he’s told, Indrid wriggling so Duck is straddling him a few inches from the start of his tail. Satisfied with their positions, the mer cups his ass with an appreciative “ooh,” then uses it to force Duck up and down the colorful ripples of his tail. 

“Fuck, fuck, that’s so much better darlin, thank you, fuck, keep doin’ that and your human will do whatever the fuck you want ‘im to.”

“I want him to enjoy himself.”  Indrid kisses each of Ducks arms when they drape over his shoulders.

“Mission fuckin accomplishedfuck, god I wanna feel you on every fuckin inch of me, wanna kiss this fuckin stunnin face of yours until the sun comes back up, wanna--uh, Indrid, what the fuck is that?” A slit is opening in the upper part of his tail and something of considerable size is emerging from it. 

Indrid smirks, “Do you think you’re the only one getting off on this, pet?”

“Oh holy fuck” Duck goggles at the “was not expectin’ there to be two.”  He slides a hand between their bodies, runs his thumb from the head of one cock down to the base where it joins the second one in the world's most obscene “V.” Indrid trills, thrashes his tail when Duck treats the other side the same way. 

“ThaAAAaat’s wonderful but, but you needn’t do it on my account. I c-can attend to it once you are satisfied.”

Duck circles one shaft with his hand, gives it a firm, determined stroke, “Sugar, I won’t be satisfied until you’re as fucked out as I am.”

“Oh” the mer looks surprised, “in, in most futures you were too perplexed by them to want such a thing, goodNESSgracious oh, oh Duck, that’s exquisite.” He fucks the human up and down his tail in earnest, “I should have known it would be, you’re so talented my pet, so thoughtful AHgods below and above the next time I am going to spread you on the nearest patch of sand and take you in whichever way you choose, make my perfect pet go mad with pleasure.”

“Dunno, might make you use that sweet-talkin mouth on my dick instead of lettin you fuck me.”

“You say that as if it is a bad thing and not a delicious outcomeoohhh” the mer rolls his hips in time with Duck’s, “that’s it sweet one, right at the base between them yes, yesyesyes” cum spurts into the darkening water. Duck releases his hold, only to be dragged back and forth so roughly he grabs Indrid’s hips for dear life. 

“Fuck, right there sugar, lemme rub off on you like that, yeah, fuck, fuckme that’s so fucking good ohfuck, Indrid, ‘Drid!” He cums, heat shooting through him so intensely it’s amazing the water doesn’t boil. He clings to Indrid like an anemone to rock, pressing breathless kisses into his neck.

 When he looks up, his hiding spot is coming closer, Indrid swimming them there with ease. The merman retrieves his swim trunks from where they were cast away, presents them to him with a flourish.  Duck laughs, pulling them on before pulling a towel from his little reusable bag. 

“Don’t know about you, but I feel a hell of a lot better.” Duck lays down on the fabric, rock beneath it still warm from the sun. 

“I was alright to begin with, but I take your point. That was wonderful. And I am glad I could make you feel better.”

There it is again, that smile that makes Duck feel more seen than he has in months. 

“Don’t suppose you’d be up for makin me feel better tomorrow too? Not that I hope it’s as shitty as today, more that I get the sense seein’ you will make me feel better even if I already feel pretty damn good.”

Indrid raises up enough to kiss Duck once, tenderly, on the lips, “I would like nothing better, my treasure.”

#indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #mermaid au #monster march

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 21

The Sergeant sprays me down next and I keep my mouth shut and breathe shallowly through my nose, but the same raw chemical odor still forces its fingers down my throat and makes my guts churn. I cough and the Sergeant gives me a rough smile that says something like ‘grin and bear it, soldier,’ and then he’s done and moving on to Klaus.

Ahead of us is the gate to the copepod barrows, a vast wall of metal set directly into the flesh of the Pit, with one of the ubiquitous submarine-style doors and a host of warnings slathered over the it in bright, eye-catching shades. One warns of hostile arthropods ahead and states that the buddy system is mandatory; another warns that the barrows are not area mapped and to exercise caution; another says that free fire is authorized and encourages rangers within to double-check their ID tags and to make sure they check their targets; a third states in bold letters that it is a felony for both civilians and non-combat-trained park personnel to enter, punishable by a fine of up to $1000, imprisonment, and administrative penalty, if applicable. A fourth states that there is nothing beyond this point worth dying for and practically begs the reader not to enter. The paint on this last example is peeling and the latter half of it looks stained by some kind of ichor.

My heart, which has been residing comfortably in my throat this past hour or so, does an ugly little squeeze and for a moment I feel somewhat faint, but I close my eyes and focus on the pounding in my ears and the feeling passes after a moment. I still have the tingles of anticipation racing up and down my arms, and my hands are quivering, though I can’t tell whether it’s out of fear or out of adrenaline overload.

Elena sneezes again next to me and I look over at her, then lean in. I know I shouldn’t ask, I know it’s practically pointless because the answer is obligatory, but I ask her anyway: “Are – are we going to be okay in there?”

Elena shrugs and looks at me with bleary eyes. “We’ll be fine,” she assures me, but there is an edge of tension in her voice that tells me the real answer isn’t nearly so cut and dried. “We have an…understanding with the copepods. We don’t fuck with them and they don’t fuck with us. Plus the pheromone spray will make us smell really unappetizing.”

“Even when we march right in and bother them?”

“When there’s this many of us they’ll think twice about starting anything.”

I neglect to mention that that cuts both ways. Or any of the other dozen holes in that logic that I can see. What if a copepod isn’t as smart as we are and thinks it can just scuttle up and grab one of us? Then one of us shoots it and they all take that as the signal to go ham on us? How smart are copepods anyway?

I swallow hard and push it out of my mind. Between the pheromone spray that the Sergeant is treating all of us with, including Joker, and Elena’s assurance that they do this all the time and it’s only somewhat dangerous, I am almost able to delude myself into thinking that we’ll be okay.

No, stop that. No negative thinking. These men and women (okay, well, woman) do this for a living and they’re paid very highly for what they do. If they say it’s safe, it’s surely safe.

Alright, says the little voice, whispering from its burrow at the back of my skull, let’s just ignore the fact that everyone has gotten very tight-lipped and anxious the closer we got to this place, let’s just ignore that everyone has triple-checked their rifles while we’ve been standing here, let’s just ignore –

Yes, I think savagely to myself, let’s just ignore all that. This is what you wanted, Roan, isn’t it, exhilaration and dangerous circumstances, right? This is the logical extension of chain-smoking, just more immediate. What would be worse, a death in twenty years of lung cancer or a death right now by disembowelment and then getting eaten alive by an arthropod? If you weren’t stupid enough to believe Thor when he told you that –

Elena squeezes my hand, interrupting my internal monologue, and then the foot-thick reinforced door to the barrows is swinging open at the Sergeant’s hand, and I have no more time for thoughts.

“Stick very close to me,” Elena reminds me, and I nod, not trusting myself to speak. There is a cold sweat along the back of my neck and I ball up the loose rubberized fabric at my thighs to keep my hands from shuddering.

One by one we file into the barrows, and then the Sergeant seals the door behind us, trapping us inside. All around me I hear sounds of slug rifle actions being racked and shells being chambered. I see Euler, just a few feet away, swallowing hard, pressing rarely used buttons on the controller, and see Joker, correspondingly, flash on a pair of headlights and unsling its rifle from around its shoulders, tossing the meter-long gunmetal rod around like it were a toy.

I look around at the barrows and to my immense surprise my initial reaction is disappointment. I guess I had anticipated surroundings even stranger than the rest of the Pit, something really weird to mark that we’re in the part of the map where the optimistic medieval cartographer would draw sea serpents rather than blank space, but the flesh on the inside of the vast stainless surgical-steel retaining wall is just as rugose and squamous and eldritch as the flesh on the outside. If the wall and all of the warning signs plastered rather tackily all over it weren’t in the way you practically wouldn’t be able to tell that you’d crossed over the boundary into The Forbidden Zone.

Here be monsters and so on. None are immediately forthcoming, however, and the Sergeant resumes his spot at the head of the column and takes out the slim palm-pilot-like locator device keyed to the tracker on the crystal and points towards one of the dripping orifices leading deeper within, and where he points we follow.

There’s something meaningful there, I think to myself, as my boots squelch against the vast living floor and my eyes scrape along the edges of the vast living walls and my nose inhales the reek of the vast living space I’m crawling through like a parasite. Because truly there likely is no real meaningful boundary between the barrows and the rest of the Pit, it’s just a place the copepods like to nest. Perhaps it’s got the perfect temperature for them or it has an abundance of food or it has – some other quality that they desire more than other parts. But, I think as I crane my neck back and glare at the wall receding into the darkness behind us, that boundary there certainly wouldn’t have been one they would have picked.

Or perhaps I’m anthropomorphizing too much. Perhaps the copepods wouldn’t have picked anything, perhaps their range is the same as the range of their tinier oceangoing fellows, spreading wherever they might and if the surroundings aren’t suitable to support their life, they die.

I remember Peter’s tale of the copepod that wanted to see the sunlight and wonder, and then fifteen minutes later I see my first copepod and the sight of the massive crustacean shatters whatever pondering introspectiveness that I had summoned to, I realize now, shield me from the brutality I had been anticipating.

The copepod, at any rate, was small, at least according to Elena. I had underestimated their bulk, just based off of Peter’s story. This one was the size, perhaps, of a smallish boat, and streamlined roughly the same, a bulbous cigar-like body tapering at both ends to a tail and to a head, with a pair of reticulated arms terminating in creepy little hands with long grasping fingers. Something about their five-fingered familiarity filled me with dread, and watching the way the copepod cocked its head at us from the warty, encrusted protuberance it had partially emerged from, I thought I could have detected a canniness to it that shattered my half-conceived notion of the copepods as being simply overgrown louses or similar. It was, I realized, sizing us up.

Evidently we were present in numbers large enough to prove unpalatable, for it retreated back into its hole with a squelching noise like a fart and let us be. I breathed out a sigh of relief when it went and Elena squeezed my hand.

My initial impressions were wrong, anyway, because the deeper we go the more the flesh around us seems to crinkle and whorl and shrink down, without really losing any volume or pressing down further against us, without restricting our movement overly compared to the flesh outside. It’s as though this portion of the Pit were, for whatever reason, much older than the rest, although that doesn’t really make any sense, and what I’m seeing are all the assorted wrinkles and liver spots and jaundices that would come from that age. It sags in here, the ceiling bulges downwards and blisters occasionally, wet and fragile-looking and dripping in places. I think I can smell ballast and I discover that that night only – Christ, only a day ago, had imprinted something indelible and Pavlovian into me, for with the smell of the ballast I only felt my knees weaken slightly and my pulse quicken whenever I glanced at Elena, which was frequently.

Encounters with copepods become gradually more common the deeper we press. We see them all over the place, great overgrown louses burrowing amid the flesh, peeking out at us blearily or waving their rotund abdomens as they struggle, pale and phallic, to force themselves into reluctantly elastic orifices. Many times they look at us, eyes like faceted obsidian paperweights sunk in their broad, plated skulls, and I feel the same eerie sense of sizing up that I had noticed before, the same sense of analysis, but not a single one of them even makes a move in our direction.

Two hours in I incline my head closer to Elena and ask her how smart these things are, really, and she shrugs, her shoulder nudging at my chin. “I don’t think anyone really knows,” she says, “but the conventional wisdom is that they’re about as smart as five-year-olds.”

I think about that, really think about it, about what that implies. I remember being five; I was conscious and functional, if a little stupid and naïve. I couldn’t have fended for myself but I was also a soft, coddled human child, not an arthropod the size of a truck. I know cockatoos and dolphins are about as smart as three-year-olds, I know that some cephalopods like cuttlefish are supposed to be rather intelligent as well.

Maybe it’s too much of an abstraction. Saying something is as smart as a five-year-old implies a number of things and invites the listener to imagine various things that are true about five-year-olds that might not necessarily be true about the animal in question. Perhaps a copepod is only as smart as a five-year-old in certain areas, like in recognizing itself in a mirror or foraging for food or in performing certain types of logic puzzles. Perhaps –

“You okay?” Elena asks me, and I realize I’m doing it again, I’m retreating into myself as a sort of anticipatory cringe. The air is electric in here and though nothing has happened so far some deep-seated monkey part of my brain knows that we are in a capital-letter Bad Place with Bad Things in it that want to do Bad Acts to my poor little monkey body, and if I go analytical, if I shove all of my thought into the high-level abstract end of the spectrum maybe it won’t hurt so bad when I’m being eaten alive.

Stop. Here and now, Roan, I tell myself. Psychoanalyze yourself later.

Elena nudges me and repeats herself and I realize with a kind of aching clarity that I am very, perhaps mortally frightened, and when I look at her all that I want, all that I need, on some kind of overpowering molecular level, is for her to hold me very tightly until this is all over. I think my lip even trembles a little, and I can tell from the tiny judder in her eye when it does that she notices. I don’t even have the presence of mind to curl my lip at myself at this effervescent and overly enthusiastic gesture of weakness. I must be losing my touch.

Elena takes a hand off her rifle and knits her gloved fingers awkwardly with mine, and then she does something with her radio and then I can hear her, as close and as clear as if she were inside my helmet with me.

“Roan,” she says, adding quickly that this is one-way only, some sort of ranger trick with the equipment that would take me too long or be too technical to replicate on my end, “I know you’re scared but you’ve been so strong so far and I’m so proud of you. I – “ she says, and then she breaks off for a moment, and I recognize in the silence a kind of precipice that she is dangling off of and she doesn’t know for a moment whether or not to let go or to pull herself back up. I’m smiling, I’m staring at her and I’m smiling and willing her to just tell me, to open up and say whatever it is she wanted to say, to not think for just a moment, but when she speaks again I can see that she brought herself back from it and is taking a more measured approach, she is looking before she leaps, which although reasonable leaves me aching with the desire to hold her, to put my hand to her cheek and tell her that no matter what she wanted to say to me I would have wanted to hear it.

“I am so glad,” she says finally, “that I kissed you, I’m so glad that all of this happened between us, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you down here. I promise.”

And then I reach over and slip my arm around her hip and tug her into me and although I cannot really tell her how I feel without clunking my helmet against hers and yelling I think she gets the idea that I do feel better.

We spend the next half hour or so with her radio still linked up to mine and with her low voice like cool water whispering comforting, sensual things directly into my ears, and though more copepods – or perhaps just a rotating menagerie of the same five or so, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference – come and inspect us warily from a safe distance, clinging to the walls and prodding their heads out of vents as we pass, I manage not to feel too frightened of them.

Elena tells me about herself, about the year she spent in France after she graduated high school and her parents still thought she was going to go to college, about the time she cracked a rib from laughing too hard, about the time that she got into a car accident and it turned out to be an ex-boyfriend that she had rear-ended and they ended up getting back together and he rear-ended her, and she says this last with a lascivious little grin I can hear very clearly and it both makes me picture it and bite my lip a little and makes me snicker because it is the dumbest way to refer to sex that I’ve ever heard, and I realize that it has been far, far too long since I’ve had a friend like this, someone who’s been willing to expose at least a little of their life to me without heavy editing getting in the way. I learn that she drinks but not heavily, that she likes the taste of whiskey but doesn’t like how drunk it gets her, that she tried to smoke a cigarette once and vomited all over her shoes and has never been able to smell cigarette smoke without feeling vaguely nauseous afterwards.

I feel a little jolt of serendipity blossoming in my heart, and I think of the crumpled pack of cigarettes, still half-full, laying in the muck at the bottom of the vent to the ballast bulb.

I learn that she likes jazz music and blues music and that one of her favorite musicians is Dave van Ronk but that she also (she admits with a wry little shake of her head) likes pop music and that she also feels vaguely ashamed of it whenever she looks at the small stack of CDs she keeps with her things back in the barracks. I learn that Fall Out Boy and Green Day have made the list, along with some Coltrane and Louis Armstrong, but also Five Iron Frenzy and Cold War Kids and Florence and the Machine and Queens of the Stone Age and Pearl Jam.

She tells me about how when she was a kid she wanted to be a figure skater and trained for so long and so hard but she didn’t have enough talent to really do it at a meaningful level, and her dream was always to go to the Olympics for it but it was something that she had leave behind, and she had ended up channeling that competitiveness and drive and motivation into diving instead and found that she was good at it, that she was beyond good at it, that she found a freedom there underwater that she hadn’t expected, and she had grabbed it like a quarterback and ran with it until she had ended up here.

She tells me about high school, how she was one of the lacrosse girls, and instantly I ache for her in a way that’s almost palpable, because one of my first real crushes on a girl had been in the senior year of high school, and every day I would walk across the bridge to the cafeteria at the same time that she was coming back with a group of her friends, wearing that blazing maroon and white oversized polo shirts that I found so indelibly attractive, and it had awoke something in me that had apparently decided afterwards to fall back asleep afterwards, with mild snoring in college, until it finally burst out of bed roughly four days ago at 2 PM in the metaphorical afternoon with a panicked look at the alarm clock.

There is a lull in the one-sided conversation for a moment and I look over at her wondering if something is wrong but I catch her staring at me with an abundantly warm look of open fondness on her face that immediately pushes a rising heat into my cheeks and makes me look away quickly.

She tells me that she likes my body, that she knows I think I’m too skinny and frail and what the hell ever else I think is wrong with me but she thinks my face and my big wonky Roman nose is terrifically aesthetic. She loves the little dimples I have just above my ass, and she loves my ass and the way I make a little animal grunting noise in my throat whenever she squeezes or spanks it. She loves the way that I’m so thin that she can wrap both her arms around me and hold me very tight and feel me wriggle against her. She loves the way that I nuzzle against her in my sleep and the way that, occasionally, she’s noticed, I mumble things and give her affectionate, uncoordinated kisses without ever waking up, and then press myself back into her bosom and settle down again.

She loves the way I cry out softly when I cum and dig my nails into her without meaning to, and she loves the way that my tongue knows exactly what to do when I lap at her. She loves how I taste and how I smell and even though it’s been a couple days of hard work and neither of us are particularly fresh as daisies at the present moment she’s loved giving me impromptu baths with wet-wipes so she has another excuse to cup my small breasts and watch my cheeks color when her thumb and forefinger come together on my small, sensitive nipples. She likes the way that I’m more passive than she is, that she gets to take charge, she likes the trust I show her when I do that and she promises to never, ever abuse it. She likes the way that I look at her when her hand is squeezing gently around my throat, the way my mouth drops halfway open and I practically start to pant I want it so bad.

Halfway through this list I had begun to feel embarrassed, but I’ve wrapped all the way around and ended up feeling fuzzy and clear and incredibly, incredibly warm.

She has a whole litany of these things that she loves about me and I end up grinning so widely as she recites them to me, her tone growing slowly more and more pleased as she does so, that I flash a copepod a dazzling smile from about thirty feet away and I amuse myself by imagining that it looks confused as it turns and thrusts itself back into the flesh of the wall.

I wish I had some adequate way to tell her that nobody, not even Thor, has ever done anything like this for me. Nobody’s ever recognized that I was frightened and out of my element and distracted me so organically and effortlessly and unselfconsciously that I didn’t even realize at first, and by the time I did I was too flattered to care. I settle for just holding here there to me and listening to her voice as we pry deeper into the Pit, into the barrows.

With my hand there on the gentle swell of Elena’s hip and the crook of her elbow nestled tight against my side, the rifle clanking lightly in a rhythmic pattern as we walk, it is easy enough to forget that we are all presently in mortal danger.

 * * *

 We’ve stopped now, in the middle of a broad flat chamber that throbs like a drum to a sickly organic beat coming from somewhere below. It feels like walking on a waterbed. The Sergeant is stopped there ahead of us, staring at the locator PDA clutched in his gloved palm with a curious expression that on any lesser man I would categorize as either chagrin or hesitance, but either of those would be frightfully out of place on the Sergeant so I simply assume that it’s some trick of the light bouncing off the glass of the faceplate masking his characteristically immobile face.

I watch as he reaches down to the radio at his waist. “Veret,” he says, his voice faint and crackly in my helmet, “the Big Guy has it.”

He says this improbable phrase with such complete nonchalance that I think initially that I must have misheard him. Then the radio sparks and Makado’s voice, equally grainy, blooms in my ears. “Shit,” she says, dead serious. “Are you sure?”

“Locator’s pointing right to it.”

“I wish we had fucking known –“

“No time,” the Sergeant growls curtly. “Can we go in?”

Dead silence for a moment. It stretches like taffy. I glance over at Elena; she looks concerned, but whatever line Makado is speaking on has overridden the link that Elena had rigged between us. Her lips move softly and then she shakes her head.

“Alright,” Makado says, “go in.”

The Sergeant waits a full fifteen seconds before he acknowledges the order and then gestures to the rest of us and we trundle ahead towards the puckered vent ahead of us. It’s narrow, so narrow that we have to get out the jack again, the lower-powered spare one we had to take from the storage locker in the Listening Station after Slate had disappeared with the big fuck-off heavy-duty hydraulic one strapped to his back.

Poor Slate, I think to myself again, standing there feeling nervous and edgy here at the back of the pack, with only Elena and Joker there to protect me. What if a copepod scoots in, those manic rows of frilled rudders on its sides working overtime, and scoops me up in one of those creepy little hands, big enough to encircle my entire waist in one palm but spindly and altogether too delicate-looking to really embody the force and power I know is lurking behind them?

I consider the copepod behind us just now, thirty feet back and pale in the wan spotlight Joker is casting on it. The robot’s walking backward with inhuman surety, the slug rifle clutched in its metallic hands in a relaxed, low posture, but with the barrel still trained on the enormous arthropod back there with unerring accuracy. I look at the copepod’s massive blunt head and its dark, dark eyes, and it looks at me. It seems as though it had intended to come this way. It’s holding something in one of its hands but it’s tucked up against its body and I can’t really get a good look at it.

The copepod puts one hand out in front of it and pushes off and with a sort of bulky, lumbering grace retreats back out of sight and is gone. I let out a sigh of relief I didn’t realize I was holding.

Elena’s helmet clunks into mine. “It’ll be okay,” she says, a little brusquely, and then she’s gone, marching up to the front at some unseen signal from the Sergeant. Me and Euler are left to trade glances; he looks nervous, but he also always looks nervous.

I feel the temptation to retreat into myself again but I resist it. I grin at Euler, widely, with more carelessness than I really feel, and he frowns at me. He looks as though he’s going to be sick.

“Euler,” I say to him, leaning in a little. “I don’t know about you but this makes me feel alive.”

“Very invigorating,” he agrees after a moment, in a drab tone of voice. His accent’s slipped a little, he’s got a trace of the German coming out in the consonants now.

“You all right?” I ask him, and he shrugs.

“The sooner we can get out of here, the better.”

“What, you’re not a fan of the surroundings?” I ask. I can feel a laugh at the back of my throat. I gesture around us, at the fleshy walls wreathed in shadow. “The scenic views? The locals?” I ask, eyeing the silhouette of a copepod scrambling along the ceiling far in the distance. It appears as nothing more than a great white tick rooting amid the remains of a piece of intestine someone has tossed on the ground in the middle of the night, lit briefly by our flashlights and then winking out of existence again. I experience a brief moment of nausea as the perspective seems to shift around me and I have to blink hard and stare at the floor to regain my bearings.

“We’re going in,” the Sergeant says across the radio. I stand on my tiptoes – not an easy feat in the heavy cleats – and peer ahead. The vent ahead takes a sharp curve to the left and – my breath catches – I can see an eerie, faint green glow emanating from it, the color of will-o-wisps and phosphorescence, the strength of about a hundred fireflies put together and flickering their hardest. It casts crazy shadows over the folds and flaps and moles and wrinkles of flesh on the walls, but we march around the corner just the same. I nearly plough into Fumi; I didn’t realize he’d stopped short, and he reaches back awkwardly and steadies me. Next to me I hear Euler mutter something under his breath in German and I frown and look over at him sharply but he is staring at something ahead of us.

I look ahead and see that we have fanned out into a rough semi-circle, and there in the center of the chamber, peering at us dubiously with an uncannily aggrieved expression on its flat, cracked face, is an absolutely enormous copepod. Its sides and back are scarred and pitted with age and it is missing an eye and a hand, but it has strewn across its tapered, bulldog neck a necklace made from what looks like fishing line and teeth, some of which – I blink, half-convinced I’ve gone insane and am hallucinating – look terribly human.

The copepod is curled over onto its side, and I can see beneath its bulk that it is resting on several animal pelts. Its one remaining hand strokes the fur idly as it watches us, and then it shifts a little, rolls over onto its belly. It raises its head and makes a buzzing, chittering noise that works its way into my bones and sets my teeth on edge, and a few vents on the other side of the organelle widen as two other copepods squeeze their way in. They start to approach us, mouthparts working, but the giant copepod gestures and they fall back towards the walls and simply sit still and watch us.

Behind the giant copepod – oh, of course.

Behind the Big Guy is a pile of what I initially think is trash, but as our lights play over I realize it must be more like treasure. I see more pelts, bits of clothes, disposable cameras, packs of cigarettes, jewelry, fishing rods, a set of tent stakes. I see shoes and shirts and flashlights, little bits and bobs, shiny things, precious things, all arranged in a massive pile there on the throbbing floor of the chamber. I can see a human skull, picked clean of flesh and yellowed a little, peeking out at me quite clearly.

And behind it, partially concealed by all the junk and detritus and cast-off relics that the copepods must have spent years collecting, is an enormous gnarled crystal, spiked as a sea-urchin, glowing with a pale green fire somewhere in its depths. I think for a moment, as I stare deeply into it, that I can see something moving inside of it, but it’s just my imagination. The winking red light of the radio tracker patch someone from the ill-fated science team had slapped onto it flickers wanly at us.

The Big Guy spreads its arms. Its mouthparts scuttle over each other for a moment before a hideous, strangled noise emerges from them, but as its croaks and grunts and screeches continue on some part of my brain manages to piece together a pattern out of them, and then I freeze. I can feel my pulse throbbing in my ears and I recognize distantly that my mouth has fallen open.

“What… you want?” the copepod moans at us, and as the Sergeant takes a step forward, his hands empty and outward in an almost supplicating gesture, and begins to speak to it, I feel my insides give an uncomfortable, shocked lurch, like the floor has just opened up beneath us and swallowed us whole, like the pit I’ve fallen into has come alive around me.

Continue with Part 22

Back to Table of Contents

#mystery flesh pit #writing #writeblr #alt lit #Novel #original writing #Michael Crichton #thriller #disaster #acid

[kbstories]

Deconstruction

de·con·struc·tion (n.) The act of breaking something down into its separate parts in order to understand its meaning.

To Trafalgar Law, trust has never come easy.

(Or: Luffy does his thing and Law recovers.)

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Trafalgar Law Needs A Hug, Recovery, Nakamaship, Luffy Being Luffy, Minor Canon Divergence

Set between Dressrosa and Zou but Sanji is there because the author mixed up the canon timeline woops. Content warning for references to suicidal ideation (in the context of Law’s plan).

***

The coffee is good, Trafalgar Law thinks as he follows the wood grain pattern of the Sunny’s dining table with zero interest. His eyes itch like there’s a sandstorm raging between cornea and lid; Law is certain they’re swollen something fierce too, and can’t bring himself to care. Fuck, his head hurts.

Another sip, and Law’s lips twitch into a frown. Scratch that, the coffee is fantastic, and isn’t that another entry on the ridiculously long list of things-to-resent-Luffy-for. Admittedly, this particular dose was administered by Strawhat’s cook. Luffy-by-proxy, then.

Never let it be said that Trafalgar D. Water Law can’t be both a master strategist and a petty asshole.

Cigarette ever-present between his lips, Sanji regards him with something-like-sympathy. The look doesn’t stick around, there and gone while he prepares enough food to be considered a light lunch on the Thousand Sunny, and a veritable feast anywhere else.

Sour mood or not, Law can appreciate the space he’s given. Unlike a certain someone, most Strawhats know to leave him the fuck alone when Law asks for it.

With a porcelain click, a plate is placed next to his half-empty cup of coffee: It carries a colorful assortment of cut fruits and two onigiri, perfectly shaped. The portion is small enough not to challenge the loveless marriage Law has with his appetite, and the glass of water that follows is served sans the usual snide commentary.

So much for that.

Law glowers at Sanji but the cook has already moved on to the dozen other dishes in varying stages of preparation, and to have a staring contest with Sanji’s back would be, well, childish. And unproductive.

The past few weeks – and yes, it’s weeks and not years or decades as his overtaxed nerves will have him believe – have taught Law a great many things. How much he appreciates wonderful concepts like privacy and personal bubbles, for example, and that the Sunny is a parallel universe where those things simply do not exist.

Oh, and also that food is not to be wasted, or else.

Thus, Law doesn't. He eats, and a quiet breath makes it out of his mouth that is only partially the annoyed sigh he intended. Because the food’s fucking delicious, and his stomach decides to stop hating him because it’s his favorite, and the headache that’s been shadowing his every step since he woke up eases just like that. Suddenly, the mother of all emotional hangovers dims and for the first time in hours, Law can think.

Sanji smiles like he knows it, too, the bastard.

Weeks of this bullshit and he’s at his limit, defenses shot, walls badly patched up and crumbling regardless. Law blinks and groans, presses tattooed fingers to closed lids in a desperate bid for the moisture building there to fuck off already.

And he’d thought he’d cried himself into a desert just yesterday. A naïve assumption to make, on a ship populated by sentimental idiots.

“Luffy finally got to you, huh?”

Oh, Law does not want to talk about it. The crux of the problem is that he wasn’t raised among thieves – at least, not entirely – and with the empty plate in front of him and the pleasant tingle of caffeine in his system, politeness dictates some form of reciprocation. Bepo would be oh-so-proud of him, if…

Well. That thought is added to the pile of others he pushes far down to be able to function.

So Law mumbles, “That’s one way to put it”, a fleeting glance over the rim of his cup ensuring that yup, that damnable glint of kindness is back in Sanji's eye and this time it's going nowhere. Law’s shoulders draw up so tight they might as well be made of granite, as rigid and unyielding as he wants to be. Strawhat made quick work of that illusion, too.

“Listen, cook–”

“You really think you’re the only one?” Sanji interrupts him calmly, a statement-turned-question for Law’s sake, and Law shuts up and watches the other smoke for a few, tense seconds.

Tense for him, at least. Sanji looks like he does this every fucking day, leaning against the counter with his back straight and his legs crossed at the ankles and his words piercing past all pretense like he’s the one known to wield swords, not the other way around.

Law just gives him a look. Sanji chuckles and turns his head to blow out the smoke away from him; in return, the doctor spares him the comment about deadly habits that he’s probably heard from Chopper a thousand times anyways.

“Well, you’re not. Luffy pulled that shit with every single other person he’s decided to befriend, so we’re all – pardon the pun – on the same boat here.”

“…Everyone?”

Even Zoro? is the real question here, because Law can imagine pretty much every Strawhat losing it eventually (they’re an overly emotional bunch even on a good day) but somehow his mind blanks at their first mate. And Nico Robin, while he’s at it.

There’s a particular sort of glee in Sanji’s gaze, then. “Everyone. Captain’s a charming little shit, and he hates seeing someone being sad on his ship. With that fucker Mingo gone and”, he gestures casually at Law’s… everything, and Law glares, “it was only a matter of time, really.”

“I see”, Law says but he doesn't, not really. Even after sailing with him, fighting with him, bleeding with him, Luffy remains an enigma and ultimately unpredictable. Law taps a rhythm against the edge of the table, catches himself doing it, stops.

“I don’t know how you stand it.”

What he means is the incessant laughter, the constant interruptions, the Hi Traffy! and What are you doing, Traffy? and Traffy, play with us! and You’re funny, Traffy! – yet all he thinks of are intense brown eyes and a starburst scar and Luffy’s voice, quiet with sudden sincerity:

Don't you know? You deserve to be happy, Law.

Law misses the flippantly dismissive tone he was aiming for by a nautical mile and then some. He winces, looks away with a huff; there’s no way Sanji can miss the rough honesty in Law’s voice, obvious and crimson-red like a target sign, pointing to the parts of his soul left aching and raw.

All Sanji does is shrug as if to say, you get used to it, and he extinguishes his cigarette and picks up the plate and leaves the cup with a pointed look. The cook returns to his craft and just like that, Law is off the hook again.

Oh.

His coffee is cold by now but he finishes it anyway, downing the rest like a shot of liquor. Carefully, Law returns the cup to the counter next to Sanji’s elbow, and his murmur of thanks is accepted with an easy-going smile.

Law’s motivation to step outside and face the day is fractured and hazardously taped together at best. There is no reason to delay it any further: It’s a miracle the galley hasn’t been invaded already, especially with the smell of grilling meat wafting all over deck at this point. Law will take whatever his pitiful sense of luck will grant him.

That is, until he taps his hat in parting, opens the door and promptly stumbles over Monkey D. Luffy, captain of the Strawhat Pirates and recently-assigned commander of an extensive fleet, as he loses balance and rolls into the room with a dumbfounded look of surprise on his face. Law stares as it is swiftly replaced by a delighted smile.

“Oh, hey Tra–!”

With a flash of blue and the dull flop of a book on wood, Law disappears.

*

The sun is dipping towards the horizon and painting everything in vibrant reds and gold when Law decides to stop avoiding Luffy.

It’s a bizarre amalgamation of factors that leads up to it: Nico Robin’s look of mild curiosity as he appears in the library without warning; the fact Law has already dug up and read every book that is even tangentially related to any of his interests (and those that aren’t, too); a rare sense of yearning to feel the wind on his face and to watch the sea as she tosses and turns playfully against the Sunny’s hull–

The sea is out there, however, and so is Luffy, and were his self-control to slip any further, Law would shudder with the nervous energy that tingles in his veins at the thought.

The truth is that Luffy is brilliant. Perhaps not book smart like Law or as mechanically gifted as his shipwright or his sniper – people and emotions, that’s what Strawhat Luffy knows better than anyone, and it’s fucking terrifying. By his own design, Law is more lies and deceit and meticulous strategy than he is a person; it’s what carried him from being a child-beyond-death all the way to Dressrosa, the island-that-would-be-his-grave. It’s the one element that didn’t change in a plan he revised and adapted a million times over the years.

And then Law shambled Luffy out of the air and Luffy smiled at him and they set sail again and there, with all escape routes barricated by endless blue, the man dedicated a whole week of his life to go look for what’s left of Trafalgar Law in the aftermath and just... No.

A real shame that the ally he chose turned out to be allergic to plans. And common sense, and doing things in reasonable amounts, and– He sighs, a tired little noise that is lost to the uncaring backs of countless books.

Yeah, this is getting ridiculous.

Thousand Sunny can rarely be described as quiet by any definition. Stepping out on the quarterdeck, Law is met with the idle cries of sea gulls high above and the fluttering of the gaff sail as it turns to catch a lazy breeze. The sight of a napping swordsman, a sun-bathing model, and a skeleton delicately partaking in afternoon tea with a reindeer really shouldn’t register as anything other than bat-shit insane. He finds himself immediately losing parts of the habitual scowl he keeps on his face, and once again he has to wonder what kind of forbidden magic the Strawhats wield to simply do that.

No matter. With steady hands, Law tucks the tips of his hair under his hat – it’s gotten rather long, without Penguin around to cut it – and makes his way across deck, side-stepping Zoro’s comfortable sprawl with an ease born of practice.

The same ease with which he ignores the mumbled comment of “Fucking finally”, as much as it makes his stomach churn. The notion that everyone on the ship knows is not a comforting one.

Your crew is waiting for you! Are you gonna give up on them, too?!

You don’t know shit about my crew, Strawhat!

Then again, a screaming match between two captains in the small hours of the night can hardly be categorized as ‘stealthy’.

Framed by the sun, Luffy is a proud silhouette atop the figurehead of his ship. His legs are crossed, hands hooked under his shins as if to limit the amount of excited twitching to be done; boundless energy slips through the cracks like the glow of a firefly held between two hands. Law huffs a breath, shakes his head. A botched attempt at holding back but an attempt nonetheless. He can respect that, at least.

The unwritten agreement among the Strawhats is that this spot, it’s Luffy’s and Luffy’s alone. The man claims no other luxury on his own ship – which contains a captain’s cabin, Law checked with the cyborg on that, it’s just that it’s used for storage because Luffy-bro doesn’t like sleeping alone, you know? – and there hasn’t yet been a situation which required contesting that.

Thus, Law hesitates just outside the invisible circle drawn around the Sunny’s wooden mane. And, while there’s little doubt the other can track his approach, he knows he owes him for the tactical retreat earlier in the day.

“Luffy.”

Law’s tone is neutral, expression marginally softened by the clear relief in Luffy’s reply of “Traffy!” that comes with a glance over his shoulder. The grin that follows may be the only predictable thing about the guy, and Law can’t find it in himself to begrudge him for that.

“Come up, come up! I wanna show you something.”

For once, he walks instead of using Room. There’s nothing to replace himself with up there except for Luffy’s hat, and (the expected outcome of his big plan aside) Law doesn’t actually have a death wish. Step by step, Sunny’s head reveals a breathtaking view that only a handful of people have seen: From end to end, the line between sky and ocean disappears in the purple-pink swirls of twilight and a world that stretches on to infinity below their feet. Up here, a universe of possibility is within reach for those courageous enough to try.

No wonder Luffy adores it so much.

Law sits next to him with as much grace as he can muster, one knee pulled close to his chest and disregarding the painful twinge from his side where the nerves of his arm have yet to fully reconnect. His gaze remains on the horizon for a while longer, soaking up the sight befitting of a king.

“So that’s why you’re always up here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah! It’s cool, right?” Luffy snickers, patting the polished wood under them like one would a well-behaved dog. Or lion, in this case. “Sunny’s the best. But that’s not it. Look!”

Law throws him a measured glance to see what he means and gets stuck on the scrap of paper cradled in Luffy’s hand with care, inching straight ahead. “Nami says we’re getting close”, Luffy tells him, voice radiating warmth and giddy anticipation in equal shares. “I can't wait to see them all again!”

Bepo (Bear), it says in Law’s own writing, with a miniscule scribble of the Heart Pirates symbol next to it.

“That’s...”

His train of thought is derailed by the sudden longing wrapping around his heart, there and impossible to push aside. Law misses his crew, misses Bepo’s stupid apologies and Ikkaku’s stern reprimands and the hopeless blush Penguin and Shachi share when a woman merely acknowledges their presence. In hindsight, the months without them seem unbearably lonely, bleak and shadowed without the cozy togetherness of his family and the comforting hum of the Polar Tang all around him.

To Law, giving that Vivre Card to the Strawhats was the last bit of reassurance he needed to make his plan a reality – a wordless promise for them to find his crew and tell them it worked, perhaps some final words, if he got lucky enough to utter them. Now, after, it takes all his resolve not to snatch the precious paper away and never let it out of sight ever again.

He snaps himself out of it in time to stay exactly where he is, opening his mouth without the faintest idea where to begin putting it all into words, but by that point Luffy is already showing him his palm, offering Law everything he holds dear without asking anything in return or even a shred of hesitation.

A captain without a crew is sad and lost. Don’t you know? You deserve to be happy, Law.

In that moment, it doesn’t matter how vulnerable and exposed he felt the night before or that Luffy saw– Law takes the Vivre Card back and holds it up to his eyes, barely blinking as the paper wriggles impatiently between his thumb and index, surrounded by the tender colors of dusk.

“I... When? Tomorrow? The day after?”

“Tomorrow”, Luffy nods and it’s the tone he makes promises with, filled with determination and the courage to dream. He leans back on his hands, says, “Told ya we’ll take you home”, the smile on Luffy’s lips now soft with fondness.

It's an unfamiliar comfort, to watch the sun disappear knowing dawn carries with it a brighter future. For the first time in years, excitement bubbles warmly in Law's chest. Humming, he quietly admits, “Yeah, you did.”

Then Law laughs, rusty and a little awkward, and feels freer than he ever has.

#one piece #trafalgar d. law #monkey d. luffy #fanfiction #lawlu #one piece fanfiction #i just want law to be happy....... #this fic is also on AO3! #my stuff

[glennetration]

from the temple to the tomb

read it on ao3!

What Mac hadn’t thought about was how cold the water would be.

It’s not freezing, not cold like Alaska or Antarctica or anything, not enough to make him shiver, but the vague notion of the chill swirls around in his brain and his limbs and his fingertips, weighing him down even more than his questions about God. It’s like when he and Charlie managed to convince Mrs. Kelly that they wouldn’t catch cold and die if they went to the pool in sixty-five degree weather, and they’d get in and it would all be fine until the water hit their thighs and stomachs and chests, and they’d have to race back and forth across the pool so they could tough out the chill. It’s kind of like that, because he honestly hadn’t really thought about the temperature until the water soaked through his jeans and got closer to his core, but it’s more different than similar, because instead of trying to out-somersault Charlie, he and Dennis and Dee and Frank are all making sure that Charlie’s head injury doesn’t make him pass out again.

It’s fitting that he and Charlie go down last, he thinks. The twins— God, how long has it been since he thought of them as the twins?— have been tied to each other since birth, and he and Charlie were only a few years behind them. He’s going to die, he’s going to drown and water is going to fill his lungs and he’ll be getting answers sooner than he ever imagined, and he’s going to do it with Charlie on one side and Dennis on the other. Dennis’s hand is warm, interlacing with his own so tightly that no water can slip through.

A wave of self-loathing washes over him, stronger than anything the ocean could throw, as he wonders how different everything could’ve been if he hadn’t been so afraid of God. He and Dennis could’ve dated, they could’ve gotten a one-bedroom apartment when Dennis graduated, they could’ve died without the words I love you sitting heavy on Mac’s tongue—

And then the door at the top is opening, and the old fear washes over him again as soon as the light touches him. A man’s voice, a lot like his dad’s, says, This was your punishment for doubting me, and Mac doesn’t question it. He swims up as fast as he possibly can, desperately trying to replace the water between his fingers with the brightness up above. Fuck, Mac thinks, God knows better than anyone. He breaks the surface and someone pulls him up, and his body is coughing up the water he’s inhaled but his mind is blank.

“Where’s Dennis,” Dee croaks, her voice salty-rough and filled with fear. “Where— my brother—“ she doubles over and coughs up water, and Mac barely notices because she’s right, Dennis isn’t here, and that can only mean—

The water is even colder than before, and he almost gasps in a lungful of it as he submerges his head, but it doesn’t matter because God is taking Dennis away as punishment for Mac’s sins. Dennis is suspended like a fly in honey and bathed in the ghostly light from above, his skin pale and his curls floating free, like Mac used to imagine that guy Icarus from the story Dennis had to learn for his Greek class, except this time Icarus is sinking under the waves instead of burning up in the sun. Dennis is not a golden god— what with false iconography and all that— but it still isn’t fitting for him to die underwater. Dennis isn’t gonna die, Mac thinks, even as panic fills his chest and church hymns about God’s wrath fill his head. He’s not gonna die, he’s not gonna die, he’s not gonna— and then he’s grabbing Dennis, and Dennis is ten degrees colder than the water but Mac is holding him tight and his lungs are burning and the surface is calling him again, and he heaves Dennis onto the metal floor and pulls himself out as he chokes on seawater that isn’t there.

He closes his eyes as the sting of the icy metal makes half his body go numb, and when he opens them again, the first thing he sees is a small cut across Dennis’s temple, the dark red standing out against the nearly blue tone to his skin. Mac’s stomach turns. “He’s— he’s hurt,” he croaks, trying to think, trying to remember if his feet knocked against anything on his first mad rush to the surface, if his flailing hands cracked against a fragile skull. He rips his hand away from Dennis’s wrist— when did that get there? he wonders, in the part of his brain that’s too far-off to be affected by what’s happening— and checks his knuckles.

They’re clean.

The relief disappears faster than it came, because without his knuckles to focus on, all he can see is Dennis’s face. In the background, the paramedics are doing something to him to make the water come up and Charlie is clinging to Frank like he’s his dad and Dee is staring, glassy-eyed, at her twin.

Dee is never silent.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mac asks. “Is he dead?”

“Sir, please calm down—”

“I am calm, assface! Is he dead?!”

“Sir, he’s not dead, we need you to stop yelling—”

“I’m not fucking yelling, and you’d know that if you were more than just the shittier version of a doctor—”

“Sir! I don’t want to sedate you—”

“What the hell is happening to him—”

“Mac, shut up!” Dee hisses, and it’s more like a sob, and he does, because the last time she sounded like this was when they were sixteen and Dennis had been put in the ICU for low blood sugar and she’d stabbed Mac with a scalpel because he wouldn’t quiet down with his praying, but how the hell else was God supposed to hear him? And Dennis had turned out fine that time, so Mac has to pray this time too. The words to one of his favorite prayers rise to his lips, unbidden, and he starts to whisper them. “Goddamnit, Mac, shut the fuck up with your fucking prayers—”

“Look, I gotta pray, okay!”

“Sir, ma’am—”

“What the fuck happened to ‘God doesn’t exist—’”

“He does! I was wrong! He does, and this— you—” He draws a shuddering breath, and he starts praying again.

“We need to look you over, sir—”

“Mac, I swear to God—”

“Don’t!” Mac bellows, and her eyes go wide. “Don’t you fucking dare, not right now—”

“Oh, you goddamn idiot! God isn’t going to save Dennis, okay? God doesn’t give a shit about us, and even if he did, you’d probably be the one to fucking—”

“Ma’am—”

“Do this later!” Charlie yells. They all shut up, and even the stream of prayers dries up, and Charlie takes a deep breath, like he’s regretting breaking his silence. “Just— look. Mr. Paramedic, how— how’s he doing?”

“We need to get him to a hospital quickly, in case there’s brain damage, and the rest of you need to stay behind to get examined.”

“I’m going with Dennis,” Mac tells the paramedic.

“Sir, please just—”

“I’m going with him!” Mac replies. “Have your little fake-doctor squad look me over on the way, because I’m going with him, and you can’t— you can’t—” His breaths are coming short and quick, and everything apart from Dennis’s prone form is a blue-and-gray blur. He’s not gonna die, he’s not gonna die, he’s not gonna die—

“Okay, that’s fine. Sir, take a deep breath—”

“Fuck you!” Mac yells, shoving the paramedic away, and he can’t get any air, he’s underwater again, fuck— he reaches out for Dennis’s wrist, begging whoever’s up there to let him feel a pulse.

It’s there. It’s sluggish, but it’s there. Mac tries to regulate his breathing, like Dee’s therapist bitch told him to, taking a breath with every pump of Dennis’s blood. “I’m going with him,” Mac repeats. “I’m going— I’m going—”

“Yeah, we’ll— we’ll see you,” Dee says. Without the anger lighting fires in her eyes, she looks like a shriveled husk. Her eyelashes are tacking together. Charlie looks completely lost, and not in the spray-paint way, but he lifts his hand and waves anyways. Frank’s face is stony, and Mac wonders if they’d be here if not for him. Either way, he knows that Dennis wouldn’t have been hospitalized at age sixteen if Frank had been a half-decent parent. He decides that for the moment, he hates Frank with every fiber of his being.

He doesn’t know how they get to a hospital— there’s stretchers and a boat and people who poke at him and ask him to say ahh, and then the next thing he knows is that he’s sitting in a chair next to Dennis’s hospital bed. He doesn’t think that he’s dropped Dennis’s wrist once. Maybe listening to the thump of Dennis’s heartbeat was some kind of blood magic, because Mac hasn’t been able to think of a single prayer, yet Dennis is still alive. Maybe Mac is going to burn in hell for it. He doesn’t think he cares all that much, because fire, with all its crackling warmth, sounds pretty fucking good right now.

Dennis’s pulse is still slow— Mac knows, because he used his own pulse for comparison, and even though his is apparently a little faster than usual, Dennis’s is still really, really slow— but he’s not gonna die. He’snotgonnadiehe’snotgonnadiehe’snotgonnadie repeats itself in Mac’s head, over and over like it’s the prayers he’s been forgetting this whole time, and it’s still not enough.

And then Dennis’s heartbeat speeds up a little, and Mac’s heart rate jumps to match. “Dennis?” Mac whispers, like if he says the name then Dennis will disappear in a puff of smoke. “Dennis, you awake?”

Dennis groans, his eyes screwed shut. “Jesus, my head.”

Mac lets out an aborted laugh, tentative and incredulous, and he blinks hard, just to make sure he’s not hallucinating. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah, no shit. What happened?” Dennis asks, and his raspy voice sounds like hell, but he’s alive.

“Uh. You— you took a hit, someone— on the way up— well, yeah. But you didn’t come up, and Dee realized that you weren’t there and I went back and got you.”

Dennis slowly opens his eyes and turns his head, and his red eyes are glassy, and he’s looking at Mac like everything is completely new. “So… you risked your life.”

Mac shifts, and he’s suddenly acutely aware that he’s still holding Dennis’s wrist, but Dennis doesn’t move away. “Yeah, I guess.”

“For— for me?”

“Well, I mean, I guess.”

Dennis turns his head back up to the ceiling and exhales sharply, like someone’s knocked the air from his lungs. “Oh.”

“What— what does that mean?”

“Can’t it just mean oh?” Dennis asks, his voice torn between snappish and pleading.

“If that’s what you want, buddy.”

Dennis closes his eyes again, and Mac’s gaze shifts from Dennis’s face to the rise and fall of his chest. Up. Down. Up. Down.

“You’re feeling okay, right?”

“Yeah. Yep.”

“It’s just— you’re shivering a lot, man.”

“Goddamnit, Mac, I’m—” The “fine” part hangs in the air like a cloud of smoke, and then Dennis says, “I’m— I’m cold, actually.”

“You want me to get them to bring you more blankets?”

“I have four already, dude. I don’t think that’s gonna help much.”

“Well, what d’you want me to do?” Mac’s itching to do something, to help, to make himself useful. “What can I do?”

“Mac, just—” Dennis opens his eyes and looks up and his jaw clenches like he’s steeling himself for something. The tensing muscles make the cut on his head stand out even more, and Mac resolves to ignore it. “Can you. Uh. Get in the bed.”

That’s unexpected. “Like. With you?”

“No, with Jerry fucking Seinfeld. Yes, with me, Mac. Uh. Please?”

Mac sits frozen for a second, because that sounds kind of gay and Dennis is his best friend and nothing more, but then again, he did say he’d do anything to help, and climbing into a hospital bed is hardly the worst thing in the world. He unfolds himself from the chair, and he awkwardly slots himself under Dennis’s covers. He lies there, stiff, keeping his hold on Dennis’s wrist, and then Dennis says, “You know being gay isn’t a sin, right?”

Mac tenses up, every muscle in his body bunched up and ready to spring loose just in case Dennis says the wrong thing, like when Sam Letterman had asked Mac out in ninth grade and Mac had punched him square in the nose, even though everything in him had said not to. “Why are you talking about gay shit, dude?”

“Because you came out to me, like, six hours ago, and I can tell that you’re doing that thing.”

“What— the fuck do you mean, thing?”

“Jesus Christ—”

“Can we not bring him in, please?” Mac asks, clenching his free hand into a fist.

“Fine.” To Mac’s surprise, Dennis says it almost understandingly.

“Okay. What thing?”

“The whole— y’know, the whole repression thing,” Dennis whines. “It’s just so— look, Mac, you think God smites those gay people on sight?”

“Well, He can’t do that anymore. He just sends them to Hell.”

“Yeah. Okay. But how do you know what Hell is like?”

“Because of the Bible, dumbass.”

Dennis sighs at him, and Mac glares right back. “It can’t be the same Hell for everybody.”

“Why the shit not?”

“Well, because you have people like masochists and shit, who probably get off on that.”

That’s actually a good point. “Dennis, what the hell are you trying to do here? Convert me to agnosticism or some shit?”

“That would be impossible in a non-life-or-death situation. No, Mac, just— just go with me here, okay, baby boy?”

And that’s the killer— Mac can’t resist when Dennis says that, because his heart does a weird little flip whenever he hears it, and if he dwells on why, then he’ll go crazy. And going along has never hurt him anyways, because he trusts Dennis. “Fine.”

“Okay. So, like, you don’t know what hell is like, right? Or at least your Hell?”

This is Dennis’s scheming voice, the voice he uses to hoodwink the mark faster than they can blink, and Mac has never been on the receiving end of it before, but he suddenly realizes why Dennis pulls off his part of their plans the most. “I guess not?”

“Well, what would your Hell be?”

Mac thinks of an answer to that immediately. Hell is fire and brimstone and screams and being without Dennis and the gang. “What the fuck are you playing at, dude? I don’t goddamn know.”

Dennis rolls over on his side, his face taut with pain, so that he’s facing Mac. He pulls his hand out from Mac’s grip, and then he lays it on Mac’s face. “Mac,” he says, slowly, cautiously, “can I try something?”

Mac is hyper aware of Dennis’s hand on his face, of Dennis’s cold fingers almost burning against his skin, of his heart thumping faster than it has any right to. He nods— if he even manages to get any words out, he might break the spell that’s fallen over them and allowed them to do this.

Dennis leans forward and kisses him, and Mac realizes that maybe he’s been waiting for this for the past twenty-five years. Dennis’s lips are warm and soft and Mac can taste the faint remnants of Dennis’s tinted lip balm, and when Dennis pulls away Mac thinks he might die if he doesn’t get to do that again.

You’re going to Hell.

Mac scrambles back, putting as much space between them as he can without launching himself over the rail of the bed. “What the fuck was that?”

Dennis’s eyes are wide, boring into Mac’s own, but his jaw is clenched, like he can’t decide whether to be hurt or pissed. “You know what that was.”

“That— that was fucking gay, okay? And I’m not gay, and you aren’t either—”

“Mac, gay people don’t go to Hell, okay!”

“How the fuck do you know that? Huh? You’re so sure—”

“Holy— just trust me on this, okay?”

“Why the shit should I trust you over God?”

“Did God come down to you personally and say that you’re going to Hell if you’re gay?”

“No, because the Bible exists for that!”

“No, it doesn’t!”

“Wh— you’ve never read the Bible once in your life, how would you know?”

Dennis takes a deep breath, still staring right into Mac’s eyes. “Mac,” he says, and Mac is starting to recognize that slow tone as dangerous, “if you’re going to Hell, I’m going to be there with you.”

Mac’s mouth falls open. “You— uh— you?”

“Yes, can we move past it?” Dennis asks, feigning irritation so well that even Mac is almost fooled. “If— and that’s a huge if— we go to Hell, we’ll be there, y’know, together and shit. And trust me, we’re not going to Hell.”

It’s not a question of who he trusts, it’s who he trusts more, God or Dennis. Mac’s made up his mind before he can even fully process it. Dennis was there when his dad was arrested, Dennis was there when the apartment burned to the ground, Dennis was there for everything. “You swear? On your life?”

If the rest of the gang were here, Dennis would act like he’s humoring Mac, but they’re alone and Dennis’s voice is filled with sincerity and maybe that’s the final hurdle, what erodes Mac’s hangups from mountains down to pebbles. “Promise.”

The beeping of the monitors fills the room for a moment, permeating what would otherwise be an almost-comfortable silence. Wordlessly, Mac grabs Dennis’s wrist again.

The pulse is stronger than it was before, and Mac falls asleep to the thrumming of Dennis’s heartbeat under his fingers.

“Where’s Dennis,” Dee rasps. “Where— my brother—” she coughs, and Mac is plunging back in before the seawater has a chance to leave her lips.

The water is so cold that it’s practically ice. Dennis is at the bottom, his clothes billowing around him. Mac reaches him easily, and then when he wraps an arm around Dennis’s waist, he can’t swim up.

He tries again, pushing off against what used to be the wall of the brig, but he only manages to get a foot away before he sinks once more, Dennis getting paler by the second. “Mac, come on!” Dee cries, her voice distorted and far-off. The surface is an impossible goal. Mac kicks off against the metal again, this time only getting a few inches away. He can tell that the blue hue to Dennis’s face isn’t just the water playing tricks on his eyes anymore, and, with more adrenaline in his veins than he’s ever felt, he kicks away from the wall once more.

Up above, the door closes, sealing them in semi-darkness. Mac’s lungs are burning like the fires of Hell, and he clings to Dennis’s lifeless body as he tries again to swim up. “Dennis,” he says, pushing the last vestiges of air out of his lungs, “Dennis, I’m sorry—”

“Mac!” someone calls, and he jerks upright. This is not his room, this is not his bed— “Dude, what the hell?”

Hospital. He’s in a hospital, and Dennis is next to him, looking at him with wide eyes and ruffled hair that hides the cut on his head well. Mac takes a breath, just to make sure that he’s not still drowning. “What?”

“Dude, you were all—” Dennis shuts his eyes and flops around for a second— “when you were asleep. You good?”

“Yeah, just— just a dream,” Mac tells him.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna— y’know, talk about it?” Dennis offers, like he’s unsure if Mac is gonna smack him or not.

“It was just a goddamn dream, dude, can you leave it alone?” Mac snaps. Dennis’s eyes harden, and Mac regrets it almost immediately.

“Sorry for caring, I guess,” Dennis drawls, his voice dripping with acid.

“Jesus, you’re such a drama queen.”

“I’m— was I the one who was flailing around in my sleep and moaning?”

“The fuck? I wasn’t moaning!” Mac insists, heat rising into his cheeks. “Why the hell would I be moaning in the middle of a goddamn nightmare?”

“Ha!” Dennis exclaims. “So it wasn’t just a dream!”

“Holy— I can’t do this with you right now,” Mac replies, turning over in the narrow bed so that he’s facing the wall instead of Dennis’s still-pale face. “Just leave it, Dennis. God.”

The silence makes Mac even more aware of Dennis’s body right next to his, and even though he can’t see him, Mac can tell that Dennis has crossed his arms and contorted his face into that I’m better than you even though I’m pissed at you expression. He flips back over to face Dennis. “Holy shit, fine, it was a nightmare, okay? I had a nightmare, where I couldn’t get you out of the water, and it sucked. Okay? You happy now?”

“Well— what the hell am I supposed to say to that?”

“Nothing! Just don’t say anything!”

“Fine!” Dennis says, because he’s a child and he just has to get the last word in. Jesus Christ.

It’s hard to stare angrily at a wall when there’s a hot person’s face in the way.

“You care about me enough to— to have nightmares about me?”

Mac’s expression shifts from pissed to incredulous. “What kind of fucked-up logic is that?!”

“You know what I mean, asshole!”

“Yes! Okay! I obviously— have you had your head up your ass— I bought you a goddamn RPG, dude!”

“You— you what?”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “That was, uh. Supposed to be a surprise. For Valentine’s Day.”

“Uh. For— for me?” And there’s that glassy-eyed look again, brittle and fragile and burnt at the edges by something that Mac is just starting to find a name for.

“Yeah.”

“And how did you, um— how did you know that I wanted an RPG?”

“‘Cause I know you, man.” Mac smiles at Dennis, the sharp edges of his expression like a broken beer bottle. “Also, you casually mention RPGs, like, a weird amount.”

“That’s— that’s fair.”

“It won’t be coming ‘till February, though, so—”

“Mac, can I—” Dennis motions towards him with his fingers outstretched, jerky, like a marionette.

“Can you— can you what?”

“Don’t make me— can I kiss you again, goddamnit?”

“Well, if you’re gonna be like that—”

“Holy Christ, Mac—”

“Kidding! Kidding! Of— of course.” He says it as if his heart isn’t beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings, as if he hasn’t been hoping for Dennis to kiss him for the past twenty-five years. “Yeah— just—”

Dennis’s lips press against his, hesitant and light, and the shadow of his fingers brush against Mac’s jaw. It’s quick and almost-chaste and everything that Mac thought it would be and more, and he thinks that yes, Dennis is right, gays don’t go to hell, because how could a sin feel this good? It would go against everything, against the fundamental orders of nature, for kissing another man— for kissing Dennis— to be sinful. He pulls back, and he can’t stop the sigh that escapes him. “Shit, man.”

“Yeah,” Dennis says, and when he grins, it reaches his eyes for the first time in an age. “That was— that was nice.”

“You wanna watch TV?” Mac asks, for lack of anything better (or just not totally, extraordinarily gay) to say, and Dennis’s face falls, but when Mac picks up his hand again, he nods.

“Don’t think you’re gonna get anything good, though.”

Mac makes a noise of assent as he picks up the remote and switches on the TV. “Wish we could get the DVDs and shit from Dee’s apartment. Wait, holy shit, what country are we even in?”

“Huh,” Dennis says, frowning. “I got no clue.”

“Didn’t you say that we were getting close to, like, Barcelona or some shit?”

“The Bahamas?”

“Yeah, same difference.”

“No, not same— holy shit! They have Thundergun!”

“Holy shit!” Mac exclaims, going back a channel. “Nice!”

All good things must come to an end, though, and this is proven by the door to Dennis’s room opening to reveal the rest of the gang. “Aw, shit, did you two bang in here?” Frank asks.

“What the— no!” Mac yells, heat rising to his cheeks again as Dennis cries, “No, we didn’t, Frank, you slut!”

“Jesus, no need to get so aggressive,” Dee says.

“It was a valid question,” Charlie adds. “We don’t wanna be in here if you guys spilled your— your fluids—”

“God!” Dennis yells. “What are you people even doing here?”

“We wanted to check on you, asshole!” Dee exclaims. Mac is about to protest, yell, call her a bird, and then he remembers how she asked about Dennis before she could get all the water out of her lungs and he shuts up.

Dennis has no such qualms. “You—”

“Let’s just watch Thundergun, okay?” Mac tells them. “Everybody, just watch Thundergun, and then maybe we’ll calm—”

“I don’t understand Italian, though!” Charlie yells.

“What the fuck— there’s no Italian in Thundergun, moron!” Dennis snaps.

“But it’s playing in Italian, so now who’s the moron!”

Dee rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Charlie, that’s Spanish!”

“I don’t understand Spanish either!”

“Holy shit, it’s not like we don’t know the words by heart anyway!” Mac yells. “Just shut up and watch the goddamn movie!”

“He’s got a point,” Frank says.

“Frank, haven’t I told you to never be on my side?”

“What? I’m just tryna help!”

“Frank, we’ve already established that you never help,” Dennis tells him.

Dee’s eyes widen. “Shut up! Shut up, the dong part is coming, and if you guys make me miss the dong part—”

“Dee, shut up, Thundergun is about to hang dong!” Dennis exclaims.

“Holy—”

“Shut up!”

“Jesus!”

John Thundergun hangs dong, and it is just as magnificent as every other time they’ve seen it. Except this time Mac is holding Dennis’s hand, so that probably makes it better.

By the end of the movie, Frank and Charlie have fallen asleep, both of them half on a chair and half on the bed, and Dee has elbowed her way to a spot in between Mac and the rail of the bed. “I don’t— I don’t think that this bed was built for five people,” Mac says, yawning.

Dennis turns the TV off as the opening credits of Downton Abbey roll. “Technically four, because Frank and Charlie’re on chairs, sort of.”

“Yeah, but with all my muscle—”

Dee snorts. “Your muscle is a joke.”

“Dee, I will—” a vicious yawn tears through his sentence— “I will beat you into little pieces.”

“Try me, bitch,” Dee says, sleep mellowing her voice.

“Can we do this in the morning?” Dennis asks. “For once, we don’t have Old Black Man��”

“Just Old Man,” Mac reminds him automatically.

“You’re right, we don’t have Old Man with us—”

“But he’s been replaced by Charlie and Frank, sort of,” Mac says.

“Shut up, Mac, you’re in the middle. They’re not at your feet,” Dee tells him.

“Whatever.”

Hesitantly, Mac slings an arm over Dennis’s stomach, pulling him closer. “That’s— that’s nice,” Dennis murmurs.

“Please don’t have gay sex next to me.”

“Dee, your presence alone is the biggest boner-killer ever.”

“You’re a boner.”

“Whatever.”

“‘Night, assholes.”

“G’night, Dee.”

#dennis reynolds #mac mcdonald #macdennis #iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #dee reynolds #charlie kelly #the gang #frank reynolds #mine

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So just for something fun, supernatural AU/crossover?

[Dear Anon, I’m not sure if you meant “supernatural” in the general sense or “supernatural” as in Supernatural the TV series, but I went with the latter.]

Their van belongs to Tobias.  The title’s in his name, anyway, even if Rachel does most of the driving.  It’s Marco, however, who paints the thing to look like the Mystery Machine.

Rachel blanches at the sight of the turquoise horror that greets her when she walks out of the motel room the next morning.  Jake grumbles about it the whole day, complaining that he’s been betrayed by Tobias’s willingness to help Marco with this monstrosity.  Now no one will take them seriously.

…which is, Marco says, the whole point.

The cops who investigate grave desecrations and destruction of property have no reason to suspect the six dumb college kids driving the garish performance piece.  The otherwise-suspicious locals tend to break their narrow-eyed glares to smile in spite of themselves when they see that van pull up outside.  The demons don’t know to be afraid — not until it’s already too late.

Anyway, it’s their home.  They stop by Marco’s parents’ roadhouse as often as they can, and they’ll spend the night at Toby’s any time they swing through Indiana.  If one of them is injured in a way impossible to explain to a civilian doc — striga claw marks, holy water burns, hex bag brands — that’s when Cassie’s mom will stitch them up with no questions asked.  But there are six sleeping bags bundled into the back of their van, and six duffels that rarely leave its trunk.  Their van has 900,000 miles on it and counting, worn places where Rachel rests her favorite rifle on the dash as Ax drives and a window seat that sags perpetually from Jake’s too-long legs jamming up against the support springs.  It’s been with them since Tobias first came to collect them, one by one (“my dad’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days,” he’d said, so casual, as if they didn’t all know what that meant), and it’ll probably outlive every single one of them.

Rachel is fond of pointing out that they are, none of them, suited for desk jobs or apple-pie life.  They’re hunters, she says, and they’re better off this way.  Jake wonders, sometimes, who she’s trying to fool.

Cassie crouches to close the little girl’s eyes, fingers trembling.  The striga was done eating by the time they arrived, too late to be of any help.  M-O-L-L-Y, says the hand-painted line of flowers on the wall.  Cassie looks for a long time, before she can straighten up and move on.

Marco arches off the bed sometimes, gasping hard like it’s him the kelpie dragged under the waves.  Like he’s the one who went down, sailboat and all, to drown in the cold depths of the Pacific.  He becomes too bright and too loud and a little too mean, any time they find themselves dealing with a water demon or a ghostly possession.

Jake enters the first four, first five, sometimes the first nine digits of his aunt’s phone number, on burners and payphones and Michelle’s secure lines.  He never gets all the way, never actually asks anyone to let Rachel come home, and he’s never even tempted where his own parents are concerned.

“What’d you get for it?”  Cassie’s voice is hard-edged with anger in a way that Marco has never heard before.  He doesn’t bother to ask how she knows.  That tiny touch of psychic, mostly on her father’s side, means that she was always going to figure it out.

“Three years,” he says, offering her his smoothest smile.

Cassie stares at Marco.  Both of her hands are fisted in the hem of her flannel, trembling slightly.  Her lips are pressed into a tight line.

“You know what?”  Marco laughs, the sound more desperate than he means it to be.  “That was far more than the demon wanted to offer, even for a top-shelf soul like this one.  I drive a hard bargain.”

Cassie continues to look at him, until he feels himself shrinking in his seat.  “What did you get for it?” she asks again, still not asking about the time.

Peter called today.  For nearly an hour he chattered so much — about the roadhouse, about the new dog, about the wedding in July — that Marco could barely get a word in edgewise.  Marco’s not sure about this Nora person, or he wasn’t at first, but Peter smiles every time he sees her or even says her name.  The first smiles Marco’s seen, the first complete sentences he’s heard, since the Coast Guard knocked on their door and asked them to sit down.

What’s dead should stay dead.  After five years in the business, Marco knows that much.  His mother is gone.  But happiness… even a lifetime’s worth… that doesn’t have to be out of reach.  Not for Peter.  Even if it does come with a toy poodle and an excess of algebra.

Marco pushes to his feet.  “None of your business,” he says.  “It’s my soul, and I’ll do what I want with it.”

He honestly doesn’t know what Cassie has in mind when she stands and crosses over to him.  Not until she grabs him in a hug so fierce it hurts, squeezing her whole body around him.  “I’m getting you out of this,” she promises.  “I don’t care what it takes, I’m not letting them collect.”

Ax was never even supposed to be on the mission to retrieve Marco’s soul from hell.  He tells them that a lot, that he was the only cherub included in the entire garrison of seraphim on what was supposed to be a milk run, an easy first mission just to get his wingtips wet.

He wasn’t supposed to be the only survivor.  He certainly wasn’t supposed to rebel mere months later when ordered to cut out Tobias’s heart to complete a cosmic ritual.

But then, lots of things that weren’t supposed to happen have happened anyway.  Marco was never supposed to die facedown in the half-frozen mud of a South Dakota ghost town.  No righteous man was ever supposed to reach the gates of hell, breaking the first seal as Taylor’s claws broke the surface of his soul.

Aftran is supposed to be helping her overlords do their best to destroy the earth right now, not assisting humanity’s rebellion against angels and demons alike.  Jake is supposed to be at home with his parents, not wanted by the FBI for his brother’s murder and a dozen corpse mutilations.

For that matter, “hasn’t been home in a few days” was supposed to mean that Tobias’s dad was “dead or worse,” not “forcibly called back to heaven to help set up the apocalypse, ‘cause turns out he left out a few crucial fucking details when explaining my family history.”

“…draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te!” Rachel recites.  And then waits, arms crossed, holy water at the ready.

Jake’s mouth curls.  “Okay, we’ve got the Catholic bullshit out of the way.  Now do you believe me?”  Two fingertips drum against the arm of the chair to which he’s tied.

Tobias looks over at Rachel.  Neither of them makes a move to break the devil’s trap.  “What the fuck are you?” Rachel demands at last, feeling her patience fray.

Jake’s shoulder lifts in a half-shrug.  “A high school dropout with six bucks to his name?”

“And severe cataracts?”  Rachel flicks more holy water at Jake; it continues to do nothing.  “We saw your eyes flash white.  Cut the crap.”

“Or what?”  Something subtle shifts in Jake’s voice, becoming rough and cold.  “You’ve killed enough of your cousins for a lifetime, don’t you think?  And Tobias…”  The thing under Jake’s skin runs his tongue over his teeth.  “I know what you and this one get up to in the dark.  Either way, I’m guessing neither one of you is ready to hurt this precious meat—”

Wham! The chair back slams to the floor.  Rachel’s knee is pressed into Jake’s chest.  Her knife blade digs into his throat.  “Guess again,” she snarls.

“Rachel!”  Tobias’s warning comes too late.  Partway loose now, the demon gestures, flinging Rachel across the room.  Jake’s body pulls free from the broken chair, motions not quite human.  Turning, the demon spots Tobias.  It draws itself up.  And up.

Jake’s eyes go white with shock when the thing inside him realizes it has lifted clear off the floor.  That it cannot move his arms or legs.  His mouth opens; there’s an abortive motion as it struggles to escape the meatsuit that now entraps it.

Tobias’s right hand is raised.  His eyes shine with a radiance entirely different from the sickly, jaundiced shield over Jake’s.  The light surrounding Tobias seems to come from everywhere at once, and yet it all shines on him, throwing the wings of his silhouette into sharp relief against the far wall.

“What are you?” the thing inside Jake asks, half-strangled.

“Been asking that question for twenty-three years, pal,” Tobias says.  Blood trickles from his nose.  His hand trembles slightly.  His eyes are steady.  “Guess we’re in the same boat, because I’ve never seen anything like you either.”

Jake’s lips pull back from his teeth, grimace or smile.  “I am what happens when a demon eats an angel.  Swallowed him up, grace and all, and now I’m a Knight of Hell.  And now I’m starting to think that before that happened, Elfangor might’ve got busy while he was here on Earth.”  It leers.  “So naughty, that one.”

Tobias squeezes his hand inward.  Jake’s body convulses, yellow-white flashing under his skin.

“Wait, wait—”  The thing gasps air.  “I can give you power, information, revenge, I can give you—”

“I want my father back, you son of a bitch.”  Tobias closes his hand.  Light flares, sharp enough to blind.  With it comes the unearthly scream of angelic power.

When their vision clears, Rachel and Tobias find Jake — just Jake — kneeling on the floor.  He’s swaying in shock where he stares up at Tobias.  “Did we know you could do that?” Jake asks, voice sandpaper-raw.

“I’m gonna vote ‘no,’” Rachel says, looking at Tobias’s flabbergasted expression.

“Okay, cool, still badass.”  Jake slumps sideways; Tobias lunges to catch him before he hits the floor.  “I’mma take a nap… for the next eighteen hours or so… then we can figure this all out later.”

“It’ll scar, won’t it,” Rachel says, watching Cassie’s neat row of stitches press into her leg as if it belongs to someone else.  She’s not bothered, she doesn’t think.  It’s not that she thinks scars are cool, or that they’ll impress anyone.  Marco will flutter his eyelashes and swoon when he sees it, of course, but that’s about all the reaction she’ll get, all the reaction she’ll want.  She doesn’t think scars make her tough, or that they make her ugly.  They’re proof, and that’s what she hates and loves about them.  Proof that she’s still alive.  Proof of what she’s been through and yet survived.  Proof that you should see the other guy, only of course there’s no seeing him, because he — it — is always ashes on the ground.

“Tobias?” Mr. Feyroyan says, and Tobias stops at the door.  He’s pleasantly surprised to be remembered, given that he attended this high school for a few months at most.  “Did you ever get out?” Mr. Feyroyan asks.  “Make your own life, the way you said wanted to do?”

Tobias considers talking about the five semesters of college he managed before the same things that’ve been chasing him his entire life caught up to him.  Considers explaining that he understands, now, why they had to move so often and why his dad had to be away so much of the time.  Considers admitting that the family business pulled him in, the way it was always going to do.

Considers the traces of ectoplasm still embedded under his nails from the ghost possession this morning.

“I help people where I can,” Tobias says, because at least that much is true.  “And this life isn’t so bad.  Not as long as you’ve got people willing to live it with you.”

Ax wasn’t raised to doubt.  He was raised to be a warrior.  The right hand of God.  Absolute.  Unquestioning.  Wrathful.  He was raised to fight and die in the war against the demons and forces of darkness.  Not to make decisions on his own, with no one to guide him.

“Is it a sin,” Cassie asked him once, “to want to know the truth?”

She believes in him, the way that she’s meant to.  The way that he’s meant to believe in Jake, in God, in the righteousness of heaven.  That doesn’t stop her from asking questions of them all.

Humans are pitiful, evanescent beings.  Earthly and evil.  Half-clay, half-spirit, and the clay half usually wins.  Aximili is supposed to demand their respect, to tell them be not afraid as they quail before him.  He is not supposed to let them shorten his name and feed him pecan pie and show him soap opera marathons.

It’s hard to remember that, sometimes, when he and Rachel exchange a bumping of fists over an annihilated vampire nest.  When Marco lifts yet another bottle down from the bar, wait’ll you try this one.  When he watches his nephew curl an invisible-intangible wing around Jake’s body where they sit at the edge of a reservoir, as if Michael’s sword is not a mere empty vessel but a precious and unique soul, worthy of being treasured.

“An angel, a demon, a nephilim, and their pet humans walk into a bar!” Marco announces loudly.  It has the desired effect, which is to say that Nora lowers the shotgun she grabbed the instant Euclid started barking at their approach.

Still in the front entrance of the roadhouse, Marco and Euclid exchange their usual greetings of polite mutual loathing.  Even Marco can’t deny that the little monster has his uses, when it comes to smelling unclean things.

Aftran seems solid enough, mostly.  But Marco thinks sometimes he can detect a hint of what Euclid smells coming off her: sulfur, smoke, the occasional unsavory whiff of little Karen’s body rotting around the corpse-animating creature within.

Nora thunks half a dozen shot glasses on the bar, pouring holy water-laced whiskey as she goes.  That’s for the humans, and Tobias.

“What’ll it be for you, Precious Moments?” Nora asks, using Marco’s nickname for Ax.

Ax refrains from pointing out for the four millionth time that being a fallen cherub doesn’t mean that his true form bears any resemblance to porcelain figurines, and instead sits at the bar.  “I would like the usual, if you please,” he intones.

Chuckling, Nora reaches down a bottle of Cinnabon Pinnacle.

Jake swallows his shot quickly, grimacing at the taste of the silver-lined glass.  “Does Peter have anything for us yet?”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Jake,” Nora says.  “I’m doing well, thanks for asking.  Have you killed any monsters since we last spoke?”

Chastised, Jake settles over his second drink.

“There are new omens, of course.”  Nora slides a plate of fries and a glass of whiskey — sans holy water — toward Aftran.  “All up and down the U.S.  The pattern isn’t holding anymore, or it’s just gotten so dense it can’t be detected.  Almost like…”

“It’s the end of the world?” Marco suggests.

She smiles grimly.  “Almost.  Funny, you noticed that too?”

Marco likes Nora, mostly because she doesn’t try to mother him.

“Let’s get to it, if that’s all right with you.”  Jake sets his glass on the bar.  “World’s not gonna save itself, after all.”

Marco runs off row after row of glossy badges, engraved name tags, exquisitely forged shields.  Only to have Ax present them upside-down, wide-eyed and utterly clueless.  Only to have Cassie drop the act and start telling the truth the millisecond she thinks a witness or victim has half a chance of believing them.  He’s not even sure why he hangs around with these numbskulls.  Probably because they’d be lost without him.

“Would you have made a good lawyer, you think?” Jake asks.

He and Tobias are sitting at the lip of an open grave, splitting a beer as they wait for the bones to burn down enough to fill the dirt back in.  Their shoulders touch, which is the most affection they ever show, really, living out of each other’s pockets as much as the six of them do.

That’s probably why Jake thought to ask.  Because this is the closest they ever come to having a real date: watching bones burn.  Jake’s already on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and Tobias is wanted by forces a hell of a lot scarier than mere law enforcement, so they tend to be the ones to risk racking up an entirely moot number of grave desecration charges while the others clean up the rest of the hunt.

“Probably not, no,” Tobias says.  “You’re always telling me I see too many sides of every story.  That would’ve made me a crap lawyer, even if…”

Even if he wasn’t a walking grimoire of spare parts.  He’s gone through the lore in Cassie’s family’s bunker, enough to know what all those demons and angels are after.  A vial of his blood can grant a few hours of invulnerability to harm.  A drop of his grace can open an interdimensional rift.  Cut his heart out and you can close heaven itself.  Stuff an angel inside him, and the resultant being could create and destroy universes with a wave of the hand.

“You could get out, you know,” Jake says.  “Now that you can protect yourself.”

Laughing, Tobias shakes his head.  “Cassie,” he counters.  “Cassie could get out.”

“Cassie will get out.  Just as soon as she figures out a different way to help, one that involves less hurting.”  Jake’s confidence probably isn’t even misplaced.  Cassie’s the one with the clean record, the sane outlook, the skills she can actually put on a résumé.  She’s not like the rest of them, dragged into this life because of one tragedy or another.  “I have hope for Rachel too.”

Tobias hmmms.  That one, he’s not so sure.  Rachel’s record is clean, yes, if only because everyone from the cops to the surviving Berensons believes that it was Jake who pulled the trigger on Tom.  “Rachel thrives in this life,” he says.

“If she would just freaking call her mom, get a little help getting set up…”  Jake makes a gesture of frustration.  He went to prison to protect his cousin, only to have her break him out and them both end up living full-time to hunt things like the one that took Tom.

“Marco’s headed for semi-retirement already, you watch.”  Tobias changes the subject, because he’s a coward.

That one catches Jake by surprise, causing him to twist around.  “You sure about that?”

“Semi-retirement.”  Tobias takes a long pull of the beer, passing it back.  Their fingers overlap, then lace together, as they talk.  “Like what my mom had.”

“She was a hunter?”

“She was the director of the FBI,” Tobias says, smiling at the memory.  “On the phone, anyway.  She went blind some time before I was born — got a few guesses, now, as to how that happened.”

Jake grimaces.  He’s seen for himself what happens when a human looks at the unshielded grace of an angel as powerful as Elfangor.

“So that took her out of field work, and she switched to working the phones full-time.”  Tobias tilts his head back, remembering the long row of landlines and cells, the raised bumps of the Braille labels for insurance investigators, Homeland Security, even MI5.  “Did that until I was seven, which is when…”  When someone came looking for spare nephilim parts.  Tore her to pieces instead.

“I stand corrected,” Jake says at last.  “Marco would make an excellent full-time bullshit artist.”

Tobias chuckles.  “And Ax?  Now that he’s all… locked out of heaven?”

“Your taste in music is a crime, you know that?”  Jake doesn’t answer the question, which is an answer in itself.

Tobias knew he shouldn’t have asked.  There’s no future for fallen angels or freak-of-nature nephilim or alleged career criminals.  Not in the private sector anyway.

“So.  You, me, and Ax-Man, huh?” Tobias says.  “‘til the end of the world?”

Jake levers himself to his feet with a grunt of effort.  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”  He pulls Tobias up; they lean into each other against the cold graveyard air.

“No.”  Tobias takes a breath.  Lets himself feel Jake: fragile, human, warm.   “Doesn’t sound bad at all.”

#animorphs #animorphs au #au #supernatural #supernatural au #supernatural spoilers #(minor) #jake/tobias #i must be out of my mind #violence #gore #nephilim #long post #anonymous #asks #jake berenson #tobias fangor

[cursed-ice-spirits]

Rebecca’s First Year: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Lonely Path

Prev: Here

First: Chapter 1

Next: Chapter 3

-

Rebecca woke up extra early. Mainly because she couldn’t sleep and ended up painting until she saw the sun rising, and because she wanted to avoid contact with her uncle as much as possible. 

It wasn't this easy to avoid him, so she’s taking this chance and enjoying it as much as she can. 

Rebecca presses a button on her trunk and watched it shrink until it was small enough to put it in her pocket, then turned to her black owl. 

“You need to get in your cage, Aurora,” she said tiredly. “And please don’t make any noise. I don’t want to wake anyone up.”

Aurora squawked but surprisingly obeyed. Rebecca let out a huff of amusement as she picked up the cage and started heading down the stairs quietly to get herself some bread or a snack at least. 

Hogwarts huh? Let’s hope it’s better than home. 

She was quickly snapped out of her thoughts when she spotted her mother in the kitchen.

There goes that idea. 

“Mum?” Rebecca said softly. “What are you doing up? It’s 2 AM. You should be asleep.”

Like she should be saying that. 

But still, her mother needs rest. 

Her mother looked at her and slowly and unsteadily got up from where she was sitting. “Becca.”

Rebecca froze. Ah, that dreaded nickname. She always hated that nickname and thinks it makes her sound childish. She allows her mother to call her that but not without a snap of “Bex, not Becca.”

This time she doesn’t, because it’s a sign of it being a good day. 

Thank goodness. 

Her mother went over to her, and Rebecca sighed as she let herself be sat down on the chair and stayed still as her mother started brushing her hair, not even twitching when she was a little too rough in some places. She was used to pain, but she didn’t care anyway.

A good day is a good day. They happen in fleeting moments but she’ll cherish them anyway. Anything other than a bad day. 

Her mother started singing a soft lullaby as she continued to brush her hair, and Rebecca closed her eyes.

She has time. 

—

She was at Platform 9 ¾.  Alone again. Earlier than expected but she wanted a good seat and not deal with anyone bothering her. That’ll be annoying.

A long time ago, she would have expected her parents and brother by her side, Ja— her brother laughing as he celebrated her first year at Hogwarts and her mother fussing over them while her father greeted coworkers with their kids.

That was before everything happened. Before everything went to hell.

Rebecca blinked rapidly and she rubbed at her eyes.

Dammit, Lord. You can’t cry now. Not when you came out of beatings unscratched.

She sighed and squared her shoulders. She can search for answers in Hogwarts. Don’t chicken out on this opportunity to kick her brother’s ass. 

Rebecca walked to the train. 

Her name is Rebecca Vivian Lord. She’s strong. She’s lived through storms and survived. She lived through finding about her curse. She lived through that thing, she can do this. 

Be brave. 

—

Time went by slowly as Rebecca read while waiting for the train to start moving. She saw a family of redheads and recognized a few of them from Diagon Alley. 

Didn’t matter anyway. She was here to search for her brother. Not make friends. They never last long anyway. 

Rebecca let out a sigh and pulled out her wand — The Parrish Wand. 

Evelyn Parrish. How interesting. The moment Evelyn told her good luck, she ushered Rebecca out of the shop and didn’t answer any questions and that drove her mad. 

How did she see the mark? Only her own blood can see it, her own blood. Unless she allowed it or the ice was recently melted but she didn’t remember any cold air or herself allowing the notice-me-not enhancement to fade. 

It was frustrating. 

Rebecca let out a huff and fumbled with her hair ribbon. She had hoped to find her the next day but unfortunately, the shop was empty when she came, with a sign that said Evelyn was traveling. 

A pity. She hoped to get some answers for once in her life. 

When was the last time her family didn’t lie to her face? Who didn’t? Oh that’s right, Ange—

The face of a tanned girl with smiling green eyes flashed under her eyelids and she forced herself not to flinch.

She died 3 years ago, you idiot. Why are you still torn up over it?

Oh that’s right. It’s because it was all her fault. Just like how it was her fault that Jacob vanished. Just like how it was her fault for BEING A FUCKING BABY—

Rebecca slowly set down her wand and forced herself to open her book, fingers shaking. 

Not now. 

Do not have a breakdown now.

She’s fine. She’s okay. 

She’sokayshe’sokayshe’sokayshe’sokayshe’sokay—

The cold air and the frost starting to form on her fingers says otherwise. 

—

The trip after she got off the train was a blur. First, she had to follow the rest of the first years along the path to find a giant of a man, who was responsible for taking them on the boats. She sat in a boat with a black girl and two others, but she was too busy focusing on the beauty of the boat ride to memorize their faces (she needed to draw the scenery later, the view is gorgeous). Then they were ushered into the Great Hall, and the rest was immediately tuned out by Rebecca. 

She already knows this anyway.

And now, the sorting. 

“Lord, Rebecca!”

Rebecca snapped out of her thoughts and looked up lazily. A wave of whispers started. A glance around her showed several students putting their heads together, whispering in low voices as they blatantly stared at the crowd of first years, at her (even though she had yet to step forward), like they were animals. Some were standing on their tip toes, searching for her, but she was so deep into the crowd, she was hard to notice, especially with her height.

Thank goodness for that for once.

“Lord, Rebecca?”

It seems like she waited too long. What a pain. She had enjoyed the anonymity.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end.

She knew that very well. All her good memories seem so far away.

Rebecca let out a deep sigh as she straightened her shoulders and walked confidently, not strutted mind you, to the stool. The whispers grew even louder, but with years of practice, she tuned them out. She knew what they were saying anyway.

She glanced around the room as she sat on the stool.

Some gazes were curious. Some were outright hostile.

Judging her because of her family and brother already, huh? People never change it seems.Ugh.However, only one set of eyes were not either those. A set of eyes belonging to a second year Ravenclaw with dark blue eyes and red red hair. They were narrowed and assessing her, calculating, but then they lit up with recognition when Rebecca met her eyes with her own hazel ones.

Interesting, very interesting. 

But before she can think more about it, the hat settled on her head and completely obscured her vision. Scowling, she sat back and heard a voice speak in her mind.

Well well well. Another Lord. One with the curse too. I admit, I had thought the curse would be broken after Ja—

“Do not speak the traitor’s name,” She hissed in her mind. 

You hold a lot of anger for him. The hat observed. 

“You tend to do that when your brother lies to your face and leaves you alone,” She said. “You know about the curse.”

It wasn’t a question. 

And the Veer. It agreed. You and your brother have very strong mental shields but that isn’t enough to stop me. I know about the curse from your ancestors over the centuries. Your grandfather, in particular, had stories prepared to pass on to his fellow students.

“My grandfather was a fool,” she said bluntly. “He shouldn’t have told stories of the curse but he can never keep his mouth shut around his peers. Always wanting to brag and please.”

“But,” she admitted softly, remembering his death the year before. “He grew up and he cared. Tried to fix his mistakes for all that’s worth.”

Indeed. And he grew up a great and powerful man just like his ancestors. Your mother’s ancestors, on the other hand, turned out the opposite.

“I am not like them,” She told it, remembering everything her mother said before everything went to hell. “Far from it.”

I know. It said simply. Now, to sort you. You are sly, cunning, and ambitious, but also kind, hardworking, and fair. A perfect blend of a Hufflepuff and Slytherin if I do say so myself, but it seems you’re more suited for Slytherin.

“So sort me there.”

Patience. Now, sorting you in Slytherin will help your ambition grow. To travel the world? To break your curse? To find your brother? Those great ambitions will do great in Slytherin and urge them to grow into something more and help you succeed. But you will be despised and looked down upon. You will be alone and distrusted even in your own house. You will be stronger, but you will never heal from the emotional and physical bruises inflicted on you. Alone, distrusted, but great and powerful. 

However, I do feel that your hard work will get you far, not your ambition. Sorting you into Hufflepuff will also help you greatly. Hufflepuff will help you gain friends that will stand by your side as you track down your brother. The road will be rough as you go, but you will gain loyal friends along the way. You may not be powerful, but you will heal and grow from your scars with the help of friends. 

Well, Miss Lord? What do you choose? I take account of your choices y’know. 

Rebecca tilted her head and frowned. She does have her ambitions and she is just as resourceful as her brother and father, but is she good enough for Slytherin? 

Yes, she is. 

But there’s also Hufflepuff to consider. Is she loyal? Is she fair? Is she hardworking? She likes to think she’s all three. But does she value her friends and family more than anything else?

A year ago, she would say something like:

“Yes!”

“Absolutely!”

But now? When her father lied to her father and left, when her brother vanished because of his stupidity? Because of her curse?

She’s not so sure.

Rebecca frowned as she lifted the hat from her eyes to look at the hundreds of eyes judging her through blood alone.

Wise Ravenclaw (Dark blue eyes narrowed as she tapped the table patiently, her housemates whispering Why is it taking so long? It’s been over five minutes), where the intelligent and witty reside. 

Brave Gryffindor, where those with courage, nerve, and daring dwell. (Bill Weasley sticks out as he stares at her, curious, cautious, and bored. 

He doesn’t seem to recognize her. Good.)

Cunning Slytherin, where you can make real friends with the cunning and ambitious. (And where the dark go. Some gazes were curious and some were narrowed. A set of purple eyes were hostile in particular). That’s the house that knows her brother the best. She can hear her brother’s name leaving their lips as she whispered and whispered. 

Loyal Hufflepuff, where the just and hardworking belonged. (Soft blue eyes belonging to a blonde hair with a bright and curious smile, and a small frail girl with silver hair and kind eyes staring up at her, Rebecca wonders if they are some of the loyal friends the hat talked about).

Four houses, four choices. And she can only choose one.

Rebecca frowned and lowered to the hat. 

“Put me where you think I will fit best.” She told it. 

Very well. Hufflepuff it is.

….wait.

What?

Rebecca’s mouth fell open in shock. 

Surprised? Well… You’ll fit in Slytherin with ambition, cunning, and slyness. However, I think your hard work will help you, not your ambition. I think your loyalty will keep you going.

“Slytherin is a fantastic choice for you but it’s a lonely path. Hufflepuff is the house for you!”

The Hufflepuff table exploded into applause. Rebecca frowned as the hat was taken off her head and she was ushered to the table. 

She sat in a lonely corner, head in her hands as she tuned out the sorting again and she pondered over the Hat’s words. 

Real friends huh?

Let’s hope it gets better. If not, she can deal with another hell to dread. 

Anything is better than home. 

—

“You dropped this.”

“Hm?”

Rebecca looked over her shoulder and saw the same redheaded girl standing behind her, holding out a locket, which her brother had given to her long ago. 

How strange. She thought she had pocketed it to keep it safe regardless of her feelings towards her brother. 

“Thanks,” she said slowly as she took the locket. She placed her thumb on the gem, watching it glow briefly, and clicked it open, ignoring the pain in her chest when she saw her brother’s side in the picture. “How did you know it was mine?”

“Your initials are on it,” the redhead shrugged, turning around. “It was fairly easy to connect the dots with RL.”

She wasn’t leaving. Huh. 

“Has it?” Rebecca asked quietly, snapping the locket closed again and, after a moment of hesitation, put it on. “I’m sure there are others with the same initials.” 

She eyes her. There’s no way this girl can open her locket. If she wasn’t her, it’ll prick her instead and refuse to open.

“You’ve been watching me at the feast,” Rebecca said. “Why?”

The girl just shrugged again. “You have your father’s eyes,” she said instead. 

Rebecca immediately blanched and the locket chattered to the floor. 

“An acquaintance directed him to me,” the girl continued, pretending nothing happened as she pulled out a small box and letter. “He was looking for information for his son, which I was unable to give to him, unfortunately, but when he found out I attended Hogwarts, he insisted I give these to you. For your birthday.”

And the girl handed them over. With shaking hands, Rebecca took both of them and held them to her chest. 

“I’ll be going now.” The girl started walking away. “Tap the barrel two from the bottom, middle of the second row, in the rhythm of ‘Helga Hufflepuff’, and you should be able to get in the Common room.”

“W-Wait!”

Rebecca curses herself for stuttering as the girl turned back around, bored blue depths turning curious as she raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?” 

“W-Who are you?”

The girl stared at her, dark blue eyes burning into her own. Staring long enough that Rebecca furrowed her eyebrows and straightened her shoulders instinctively. Then the girl said:

“Call me Veronica.” 

—

Rebecca entered the Common Room close to midnight, clutching the box. She was barely aware of where she was going until she found herself in front of the Common Room and tapping the barrel like what Veronica said. 

She raised her eyes to the clock. 

3..

2...

1...

Midnight. 

September 2nd. 

Happy Birthday she supposed. 

Rebecca felt nothing about her birthday, just like last year. Why should she? It’s nothing without her brother and father. And her mother...

She sighed and collapsed on a couch.

So her father had the courage to send her a gift AND a letter, but not her brother huh?

Shows what she knows.

Rebecca lowered her eyes to her lap and stared at the box and letter, then shook her head and stood up.

She’ll open them later. Tomorrow.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #hphm fanfic #hphm fic #rebecca lord #rana lord #veronica da rosa #first year #year 1

[silencedtechnophile]

==> Do something about it

The ship hummed around him in the darkness. Something, somewhere, was beeping near the meat puppet hung in the rigging that limited his abilities with a biological bottle neck. His head was so fuzzy. Which is what they wanted. He was too smart, they knew what kind of damage he could do if he werent forcefully throttled. 

He worked slowly. The plan had come to him in an instant, as he'd gotten encouragement from the helm chat. He could do something. He could affect his situation. He was not fucking helpless, he refused to be.

First he carefully hacked into the mediboard that controlled his blood chemistry. He fiddled around with it so its output would remain steady, but it would cease giving him the brain fogging drugs.

That took a while to make it out of his system, every moment of it afraid someone would draw a random blood draw to double check the mediboard, though that was passingly rare. They trusted their equipment.

As his head cleared his body began to hurt, he had a sudden more complete awareness of the agony of the living wires burrowed under his skin, and the way his shoulders were wreched and taking all his weight.

He had to adjust the output again to smooth out his heart beat so they wouldn't be alerted.

Pain was fine. He could deal with pain, he could think and that was what mattered right now in this moment. Blessed clear thoughts. Every moment he delayed was a moment his gamble might be discovered so he worked quickly, spoofing his address from outside the ship while he expanded his own permissions. HE could open and close doors, he could even open and close airlocks, but he wasn't trusted with them.

He wormed his way into the controls, granting himself admin powers at the root level.

Then he just had to wait.

This was the part he had the least control over. Her movements.

Now that he'd given himself root acess and no longer needed the clarity to hack the ships permissions he left the door he'd created open, and went back in to fix his medications and outputs back the way they had been, by the time he had his opertunity he would be fully drugged again, they wouldn't be able to tell it was him. ------------------ Being the Empress had its perks. No waiting in lines, getting to take par in destruction and culling without consequences, running fleets of ships, not having to tolerate any mischief, being feared and respected by everyone at default. But most importantly? Not having to do shit unless you want to. This is one thing Meenah took advantage of as much as possible. If she didn’t have to get up and go somewhere to get something done, why would she?

In her younger years, the idea of taking the throne had caused her nothing but annoyance and disgust. Being taken care of like a wriggler, being responsible for a planet full of easily influenced and hasty trolls. Taking care of her lusus indefinitely, and having to personally feed her each night. Making a quick and not very discreet exit from her original planet had been a great decision. She’s stood by it since it happened, all those sweeps ago in an universe that never quite fit to her tastes. Being born there had felt like a cruel joke once she knew what she had missed out on.

So when she had spawned here some number of sweeps ago, she had been horrified. Devastated. They won and she, as always, got absolutely shafted by the universe. That is... until she took a good look around and evaluated her situation. Beforus had been a little pond, full of toothless guppies. And she had been a shark, unable to even turn around in the limited space. But Alternia? Alternia was a vast sea, with plenty of prey to sink her teeth into and depths to claim as her own. It was as if this gift universe was molded for her, a refined combination of two planets and the two lives she had lived through. The best part was that she had gotten to float over the hard parts, the initial rise to power and the conquering and culling of her personified roadblocks. The endless cycle of teaching her throneworld to submit.

There’s no shame in admitting she’s fully enjoyed the spoils of her new life, entirely content with trading a few sweeps for her position. Hell, she was a tyrian. There were plenty of sweeps to spare, she would do it again.

Which led to this, a three night streak of kicking up her feet in her own block on the flagship. The Battleship Condescention.

Okay, fine, maybe she should have been doing something more important than catching up on dramatic cinema when there was a rebellion to stomp out with her boot. But things were fine. They were starting to close in on the short, mouthy, ship thief. Her biggest potential problem was nice and cozy some number of floors below her, tucked into his ports and wires like a wriggler to coon. And no one else was stepping up to oppose her. Even the most powerful and feared leaders of societies had to take a break, let the tide ease them out.

Of course, all good things come to an end. This time, it’s the portable communications device implanted into her tiaratop. Already missing her makeshift getaway, she flicked a claw against the gold and her features were illuminated by the live footage of one of her on hand advisors. She scowled at him, lip jutted out and pierced brows raised to put emphasis on her annoyance. “We got a, y’know, a problem.” He grunted, the last word coming out like pr-ah-bl-im. “Sum’thin’ funny, ‘kay. Minor. We’re handling it, swear it ma’am. Got someone on the f’rewalls, set that right. But...”

When the purple hued troll went on to explain, she was furious. Someone had managed to nudge at their security systems and give them a test and it took them a few nights to tell her? Her pan whirled to the worst and most paranoid conclusion. Someone from their session, probably that infuriating time wench or the pirate enthusiast, maybe a turnaround from her own Makara if he’d been fully awakened in their new planet.

She stormed about to get ready, pan immediately set to force her commandeered pissblood battery to help her track down and eliminate the source. If her goons couldn’t get the job done, he was going to do it for them.

“Soon as I grill this guppy, you’re gettin’ sautéed. Fried.” Meenah, better known as the Condesce, set her focus entirely on a stomping beeline for the exit and her threatening tangent. “Pike it or not, best get ya’ affairs in order. Boat t’ sea what the pointy end a’ my golden prod ‘eels like embedded in ya’ b’ass. No shrimp-athy for the in-conch-petent, set a bet’a example for the school.”

The door to her block opened with quiet ‘swish!’ as she took her first step out. And then another. Somewhere, a number of clicks below stationed near the central engines, a troll was probably filled with justifiable anger and excitement. With the Empress there was nothing but the light, sharp sound of her heeled boots in the metal corridor paired with the rough undertone to her flurry of words. The advisor on the other end of her video chat cowered, sputtering excuses as she glared down her defined cartilage nub at him. “And if you e’fin conch-sea-der tryin’ to catch a wave trout’a here, I ain’t mako-in it snappy.” She continued her tirade, satisfied by the way the other troll’s eyes went wide and his jaw slid open. “Yeah, that’s moray p’ike it. Best get ya-shelf practicin’ on a look a’ ray-morse.”

“Actually,” he started, gaze averted to the light over the airlock behind her. It blinked red once, yellow twice, and began to shift to green. “I think -“

“Clam it, small fry!” She stopped her determined march to point a claw at him, as if he were really a few feet ahead of her. “Can’t bay-lieve ya’ got the swimmers to gab at me, blowin’ bubbles slap full a’ bullshark.”

Just behind her, the light held steady at green. The advisor stumbled in his warning, horrified and relieved and stalled by his shock as her hair whipped away from her face and her words trailed off. There’s a second where the familiar sound of the airlock opening seemed to halt time. Meenah looked over her shoulder, and then to the projected feed of the lower blooded troll. For the first time in sweeps, she barked a laugh. And then? “Son of a’ eldritch pailin’ bitch.” She bared her impressive chompers, fins flared backwards in her surprise, disbelief, and pure offense that someone has made an attempt on her life. The tyrian scrambled to dig her claws into the metal wall beside her, a cringe worthy noise produced when they drag through the reinforced metal. “You gotta be krillin’ -“

“Maybe if -“

In what might be the most anticlimactic turntables of a story ever, the airlock smoothly opens the rest of the way. Sweeps in the past, there is a time traveling maroon blooded, grudge obsessed troll glancing through the ages and chortling at a joke no one will understand much less believe. The seadweller’s yellow painted claws dig and clip away in a desperate swing at survival. The hatches to the other blocks through the stem are sealed shut, and whatever artificial air was being released dissipated the minute the immediate area was exposed to space. Meenah had a moment, maybe two, to reflect on the mistakes that led her here. Putting an airlock directly outside the door to her block, entirely for the purpose of disposing of any unwanted visitors. Not once considering that someone might turn this around on her, or capitalize on her desire for the dramatic. Leaving her block using her balancing prongs at all, when a transportalizer would have been safer and faster - but would ultimately have lacked in the build-up of intensity and hostility that a chance to strut and lament and publicly humiliate and shortly thereafter kill her most recent workplace pest. If she had more time, she might have thought of a few more excuses to shift the blame a bit.

Including, but not limited to: This Must Entirely Be Megido’s Fault And Here Is Why, the three part series of essays assembled by Meenah Peixes. Or the potential ways Aranea could have somehow subverted death and the fate of their session altogether to somehow ruin the one fun thing she has EVER had the chance to do, seriously, what a Jealous Jude. Or maybe this is the fault of the younger Vantas, who mysteriously fell into her lap around a sweep ago and... well, he was disappointing as a whole until he managed to actually do a backflip off of the handle and body his way out of holding.The diversion of resources from the facility had been an oversight, and the cause of it was promptly replaced and reassigned to dinner duty. A more appealing way to refer to the main course.

Any of those things could have led to this, but none of them did. All the time in the world, and she likely never would have thought her laziness would play a part in her downfall.

It did, though. The metal peeled away from the support column, and the lurching movement broke her grip. It was inevitable. Meenah tried to yelp out a curse, perhaps one last bit of defamation for her last words, but nothing actually came from her throat. Her lips twisted and her expression caught somewhere between anger and fear. The last thought to coherently hit her ends with ‘- and this bucket of chum is the last thing I get my peepers on, really?’ as she wS forcibly removed from the flagship and sent careening into space.

A few blocks and a couple lifts away, the flabbergasted advisor had already dispatched armed forces. Not that it mattered, he decided. The connection to the tiratop flickers more and more as she departs, but the image of his frozen taskmaster tells him there’s no rescuing from that.

Her skin was flaking with ice, fins back and shining tyrian as they stretched, thin eyes obscured by the ice on her lashes, teeth exposed from where she tried to get the last word. The sight of her being quickly and surprisingly easily dispatched hadn’t left him hopeful for saving her, and the last glimpses of her expression deterred him from even attempting to recover her corpse.

The Empress was dead.

#plot post #bulgerot #character death #murder//

[runawaymarbles]

Black Sails Fic Rec

Silver/Flint

shaking at the sight by vowelinthug | 1k | T |

two pirate kings, united vs. an entire island's naval forces.

the island didn't stand a chance.

look for something left in this world by vowelinthug | 2k | M |

it’s a nice day for a white wedding

too bad they aren’t having one

yer mother darns socks in hell by youatemytailor | 4k | M |

Christ, Flint thinks. He fucking hates Freetown.

el cuentacuento by straddling_the_atmosphere | 4k | NR | +Silver/Madi

At the end of the day, John Silver is an unreliable narrator.

Or: a storyteller’s story.

show me the way to go home by vowelinthug | 8k | NC-17 |

set during 2x4, in which Silver and Flint take a much-deserved time out and enjoy a drink or seven

and they both learn a valuable lesson about each other

namely that neither one has ever had any chill whatsoever in their entire goddamn life

let us possess one world by vowelinthug | 8k | NC-17 |

They return to Nassau after their defeat of the British Navy, only to be met by Agitator Billy and his propaganda machine. This is why Captain Flint tries not to let other people decide things.

In which: Flint wears a disguise, Silver tells a terrible story, one bathes the other, and only one man died the whole night which is, like, definitely a record for them.

What's in a Name? by Craftnarook | 9k | NC-17 |

Some conversations in the dark between Flint and Silver, set during episode 3x09. They have a moment alone in the Maroon camp, after Mr Scott's death, and what begins as curiosity and sharing develops into rather a lot more.

you are the queen and i am the wolf by vowelinthug | 10k | NC-17 |

They call him John the Giant.

Flint calls himself James the Early Risk for Heart Failure.

Don’t Fear the Ships (Fear the Black) by farasha | 11k | NC-17 |

“You can’t read sea charts.”

“Can’t is a strong word.”

Flint teaches Silver how to sail. As with everything they do, there’s a lot more going on unspoken.

Or, Silver tries to convince Flint that it would be a bad thing if he died.

ya filthy animals by vowelinthug | 12k | NC-17 |

Flint and Silver could be rulers of an illegal organization, major mob bosses, kingpins, criminal masterminds, etc.

But then they could also be petty shoplifters who like to drink during the day and fool around on their houseboat.

With Nothing On My Tongue by RosieTwiggs | 14k | NC-17 | +Silver/Madi

“Silver thinks: Maybe God likes it when I fight with him.

He wonders now, whether he’s been playing into God’s plan all along. Because no matter how angry he gets, how defensive, how many “fuck you”s he flings to the heaven, isn’t it all just proof that he still believes God is there, despite it all?

Silver doesn’t know how to counter that.

Maybe he doesn’t want to anymore.

Blue all in a rush by twofrontteethstillcrooked | 16k | NC-17 |

There were dozens of questions Flint wanted to ask. He chose, "Did it not occur to you I would find out you were here almost immediately?"

st. augustine is that way by vowelinthug | 18k | NC-17 |

James Flint had yet to meet a conversation he couldn’t avoid.

John Silver had yet to meet a routine he couldn’t disrupt.

(post-show domesticity, with oranges)

we must unlearn the constellations to see the stars by lacecat | 19k | M | + Flint/Thomas, Silver/Madi

Silver wakes up each time to a different day in his past.

He thinks that if this is his purgatory, he can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.

Sail These Roads and Back Again by neverfaraway | 20k | M 

James has fled the New World for the Old, shed his name and found quietude in his solitary existence. That is, until his favourite worst memory appears on the farm track, collapses upon his sopha, and refuses to be shaken loose. While Corsica smoulders and war becomes ever more likely, Flint and Silver enter a war of their own: to reclaim their past and forge an uncertain future.

gonna need a bigger boat by lacecat | 20k | Not Rated

“You really want to say that, when you’re sitting across from a man who lost his leg to a shark?” Flint scoffs. "There is no way a shark took your leg!" "Of course not," Silver says, smirking. After he draws the silence out, for what feels appropriately dramatic enough period of time, he adds, "It was two sharks."

Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more by Craftnarook | 22k | M |

In the year 1725, or thereabouts, John Silver finds himself driven by a storm into an inconsequential little port town, barely a speck on any civilised map. Returned to the life of a drifter, tired and rough around the edges, he is resigned to waiting for the weather to pass before he can sail on again to the next town, and the next, and the next. That is until he overhears a conversation in the inn about a local fisherman, one Captain Barlow, and his tall tales of tempests and becalmings, devils and sharks, and Silver finds a new future opening up to him, haunted by the spectres of his past.

John Silver Can’t Get There From Here by Apetslife | 33k | Series, G-E | + Silver/Madi, Anne/Jack

Or: Fuck Treasure Island, And Also Actual History, And Probably Season Four Canon, Too

“He is so terribly in love with you,” Madi murmurs to him from out of nowhere, sitting easy in the curve of his arm in the shade of their small porch.

Fifteen Men in September by ballantine | NR | 34k |

Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

A Black Sails origin story for the song.

turning saints into the sea by lacecat | 86k | NC-17 | + Flint/Thomas, Silver/Madi, Miranda/Flint

They say she arrived in Nassau during a hurricane. They say that she brought with her a priest she had kidnapped to father her children, whom she then turned into storms to guide the direction of her ship. They say she has sworn to kill as many men on this Earth as she could, that she bathes in the blood of young children ripped from their mother’s breasts to attain immortality, doomed to serve the seas forever in return.

In reality, Silver has seen Flint conjure exactly zero storm-like offspring, but she does know how she speaks with the sort of conviction that if she were a man, they would write books about her. There’s a stiffness to her posture that speaks of someone who might better be found in a London parlor rather than a dusty brothel in the Bahamas, and yet she has a fierce temper that rivals any man’s on the island, a dangerous look about her like the air rippling over fire.

Silver/Flint/Hamilton(+)

The Isle of Hope by ElDiablito_SF | 16k | M |

When a heartbroken John Silver arrives in Georgia ten years after the events on Skeleton Island, he doesn't quite have it in him to face Flint. Instead, he concocts a scheme to befriend Thomas, and gets more than he bargained for in exchange

The Tether Series by stele3 | 58k | M |

“So you did find him,” the man says faintly. When Thomas looks up he finds himself caught in perhaps the strangest regard one person has ever given another, a gaze that absolutely does not dissuade Thomas from the notion that a feral, scavenging animal has broken into their home.

Smallpox Verse by vowelinthug | 70k | T-NC17 | + Madi

post-finale, where everyone learns a valuable lesson about communication and smallpox. (no one actually gets smallpox.)

The Canterbury Tales by Wind_Ryder | 133k | NC-17 | +Madi

Pirates. Attacking Georgia. A part of Thomas wants to believe that there’s nothing at all relating the events outside to the events in his personal life.

But when he turns around and sees John Silver slipping in through the backdoor, he very much doubts that’s the case. “Tea?” Thomas asks blandly, throwing the latch and shutting his blinds like a good Puritan man.

Flint/Hamilton(s)

the stars and she who runs with them by alovelylight | 1k | G |

When she declared Peter Ashe a traitor, her heart beating fury into the expanse of her body, she knew this was what James felt like. The constructed castles of civilization falling to the ground, dragons from the dark breathing out and destroying all the lies they hold dear. This was what she wanted; this would be her peace.

Time Covers All Things by lilithi|ien | 12k | T | +Silver/Flint

She imagines it will be liberating to take a new name, to adopt a new life. The next day, as she steps off the gangway onto the island sand, she tries to leave who she was behind like a snake shedding its skin. She can almost get away with it. How Lady Hamilton becomes Mrs Barlow.

The Witch Queen of Nassau by shirogiku | 12k | NC-17 | 

After James is captured by the Navy, it falls to Miranda to organise the rescue. Nothing goes according to the plan.

Revenant by BethWinter | 18k | T |

After Charlestown burns, Abigail Ashe meets a man who says he was a friend of her father’s. He gives her a choice.

The Far Waste of the Waters by more_night | M | 22.5k |  + Silver/Flint, Silver/Madi

James McGraw removes Skeleton Island from his mind.

Somewhere in Boston by redwhale | T | 29k | + Laura Moon/Shadow Moon

Mr. Wednesday tries to recruit the dread pirate Captain Flint for his war against the New Gods, and runs afoul of Thomas Hamilton in the attempt. Meanwhile, Shadow just wants a new goddamn book to read, is that so much to ask?

Soon after, on the trail of Wednesday and Shadow, Laura and Mad Sweeney find themselves in a charming bookstore in Boston...

Unaccommodated Man by kvikindi | T | 27k |

It is at this point that, for the first time, Thomas Hamilton begins to consider that he has gone mad.

The Sundering Sea by x_art | 137k | NR | Flint/Thomas

Stepping into the foamy surf, gasping at the force of it, the surprise of it—it had been breathtaking. Thomas had been that for him, his boundless sea, and he wasn’t ashamed.

Max/Anne (+)

you'll always paint my sky by mapped | 2k | T |

She still loves Max, and it gets harder and harder to deny it to herself.

(Anne through the second half of S4.)

histoire à tiroirs by straddling_the_atmosphere | 3k | T |  +Max/Eleanor, Max/Idelle

histoire (n): a story, a fictional tale, a narrative account, a lie

Or: Max and shifting sands

Bounteous by willowbilly | 4k | M | Anne/Max/Mary/Jack

It’s a queer hurt, almost like the relief of peeling off an old scab, to feel her heart pulling in three separate directions and to feel it expanding to encompass the whole damn rest of the compass rose rather than be so fragile as to rip itself asunder. Anne never would have thought, before, that she’d be this fucking caring. That she’d had such a deep well of love waiting untapped within her, way down.

kintsugi by princejake | 6k | T |

Anne nestles into his shoulder, her hair brushing against his cheek, and suddenly Jack can breathe properly for the first time in weeks. Here they are, together, in balance as they’ve been from the beginning. Complete again.

When he opens his eyes Max is watching them from across the street. Her posture is carefully neutral, but her eyes are… solemn. Stoic. Filled with a kind of barren peace. She always could convey so much with just a look.

Something twinges uncomfortably behind Jack’s breastbone. /Oh./ Perhaps not so in balance after all.

Other/Misc/Gen

no man’s land by rhllors | 2.5k | T |  Jack/Anne/Mary

The man on the deck looks back at them, considering. He’s handsome but he oozes violence; armed, scarred, tall, hair slung round a bandana, the same colour of a recently opened wound. “I’ve heard of you,” he says, with an infliction she’s not familiar with: somewhere from the continent, not French. Perhaps Holland. “The name’s Read.” he continues, eyes tracing the rim of her hat. “Mark Read.”

armed with the past and the will by whimsicalimages | 3k | T | Silver/Madi

The language of winning and losing, this language that men favor – Madi can speak this language, though she disagrees with its precepts. Success takes different forms, and failing once does not mean failing forever. It does not even mean failing the next time.

Gone to Port Royal by Apetslife | 3k | G | All the pairings

Definition of Valhalla 1: the great hall in Norse mythology where heroes slain in battle are received 2 : a place of honor, glory, or happiness : heaven

same bottle, same gun: two shots by AstronautSquid | 5k | T | minor Flint/Thomas, Max/Eleanor

„I will walk,“ Flint interrupted her objections. „You have just maneuvered yourself into a position of considerable power on this island, and now you have gone and cast aside a man the island admires and fears. It won’t do for you to be seen sharing a horse with me like a wounded young girl.“ Eleanor stared up at him; a wounded young girl full of curses, with a rifle resting like a sleeping babe in her arm.

[Nassau, 1708. Eleanor Guthrie remembers a moment in the life of Lieutenant McGraw. Captain Flint doesn’t.]

what’s a king but a heavy name by thatsarockfact55 | 51k | T | Mr. Scott/Maroon Queen, Madi/Silver, background Flint/Silver 

In the quiet night, one stranger tells another what he has always known: “I have been so many names, Long John Silver, and if not for love I would be no one at all.”

-

One story of a spirit, a slave, a father, and a pirate king, told in seven parts.

Winds of Change and Chance  by PanBoleyn | 60k | T | (eventual Silver/Flint, Miranda/Thomas, Flint/Hamiltons, Flint/Silver/Miranda) 

In which a thief and his daemon make their way onto a pirate ship, and vastly underestimate how hard it will be to get off again.

Well, the thief does. His daemon had a feeling this might happen.

#black sails #black sails fic rec #silverflint #flinthamilton #silverflinthamilton #flinthamiltons #maxanne #maxanor #op #rec list #fic rec

[corbinhunter]

I wanted to build a foam pirate ship for my 5e D&D campaign but I couldn't find any resources, so I figured it out for myself. The deck has magnets in it to function as a grid. So... here’s a shitty guide (WITH PICTURES) if you want to build one, too.

If you have done this before or have other resources, link them for others who want to try their hand at it (and so I can see). If you have suggestions on how things could be done faster or better, feel free to leave suggestions for future generations. And for me in case I ever build another one. This was my first time doing anything remotely terrain-y or set-piece-y, so I really can't give very good advice. But I couldn't quite find anything that matched what I wanted to build, so I figured this would be worth posting.

The benefits of building a foam boat instead of just buying a model ship or something come down to: a) scale: built it to 1 inch = 5 feet so your minis look good and any other props or grids you have work seamlessly. b) customizability: include the exact things you want in the game. God forbid if your players trash the ship in the game you can alter the model for a shipwreck or something (@ my players: fucking don't, please). c) accessibility: don't include anything you don't want, so the deck is uncluttered and there are no sails or rigging to try to reach around. Also the flat bottom means it doesn't need a stand. The foam construction makes it lightweight. d) magnets: make everything stick to the deck. The actual reason I built this boat. I love the magnets and they were a good choice.

The cons are: a) it's annoying and takes a long time (not too hard, just tedious). b) it's a bit fragile, especially the details and small bits. c) all your minis need an extra base for the magnets. Or I guess you could maybe stick the magnets into existing bases. I'm not an expert or anything.

This is gonna be the shittiest tutorial you've ever read so prepare yourself.

Actual guide:

1: step one is to draw out the boat. Scale is pretty key. Keep in mind that minis can't really fit on anything that's not a full square, so alter the proportions to maximize playable area. I altered the layout as I went to get rid of awkward spaces. Research galleons and frigates. I focused around 17-18th century but the coolest ships come after that. Make a boat that you love with however much realism you prefer.

2: get yourself supplies. You need:

polystyrene foam, about six pieces 10 inches by 24 inches apiece. I got a 96" sheet and used about half of it.

wood glue

paintbrushes, pens, pencils, scissors, utility knives with lots of spare blades, hot glue gun

drywall mud or something similar

wooden dowels, rods, skewers, toothpicks

popsicle sticks in a couple sizes

grid paper for templates

push pins to hold templates

yarn or string that looks like rope

sandpaper

beads (optional, see detail shots)

fridge magnets for embedding into the deck and attaching to the minis

clay to make a figurehead (not pictured) or a Barbie or something

3: trace out the cross sections (floorplans) onto the foam pieces by pinning grid paper to the foam, and cut them out. The curved deck makes this a real pain, because the floor plans don't perfectly map to the foam pieces. The decks are curved but the foam pieces are not. There's a bit of mental gymnastics in this part but you basically cut each foam piece to its widest dimension, then taper, trim and curve it to fit the profile you want after the basic shape is established. I cut everything out just slightly too large so I could trim and adjust it without losing usable space. After you have the top-down profiles correct, start tackling the side-view, which is the deck profile itself. In that picture just about everything is done but the main deck (fore- and aftdeck are nice and curved but the lowest deck is still flat). Pin it in place with toothpicks and glue it together with wood glue overnight. Leave weight on it. Let it dry for like 12+ hours for sure. I messed with it early and popped the aftcastle off, which was extremely annoying.

4: pick it up as one big solid piece and use a knife to slice away inconsistencies and match up the foam pieces better. Then sand it, mud it, let it dry and sand it again. I used lots of mud on the front edge because my cut-out pieces didn't quite match up. Fill up any weird cracks or miscuts that have developed. You can actually get away with adding quite a bit of mass this way. This is the final shaping of the basic form of the boat. Get a bit excited. Up to this point it's a lot of work for basically a big foam block that looks sort of like a boat. But take your time because you can't un-fuck the symmetry later.

5: paint the main deck, then trace a grid out and install one magnet per space. A drill or something would probably do wonders here. I just used a knife and some wood glue. Make sure every magnet has the same side up, and make sure they are pretty flush with the deck. I made bases for the minis out of foam and installed magnets in the bottom similarly. If you're fancy maybe little wooden or metal bases would be cool. Don't put any of the magnets the wrong way -- all the minis are supposed to be attracted to the boat deck so they don't slide around, fall over or get jostled.

6: cut a bunch of floorboards and paint and install them. Take popsicle sticks, slice off the rounded ends, and split them lengthwise with a knife. Paint roughly with one layer of brown to preserve some of the natural wood grain. Then cut them to various sizes -- whatever you think is right. Half of mine were 2", the rest were 1" or 3". Keep scale in mind. If you make them too wide, it'll kill the look. To fit the planks to the curve of the deck, just gently bend them with your fingers. Spread a layer of wood glue on the deck in sections and use your drawn-on gridlines as guides as you place plank by plank. A pattern would be clever. I just stuck whatever fit on. Go around any features like stairs, grates and masts. I left about an eighth of an inch around the perimeter for the railing/barrier later. Make stairs and stick them into the deck, and carve exterior stairs out of foam and glue them in place. Keep that eighth-inch perimeter in mind as you shape the stairs and place them.

7: base coat the rest of the thing. Don't actually put the masts in here because you'll be fighting with them for the rest of the build.

8: add a thin, 3/4-inch barrier around the perimeter and a prow structure. I traced the deck profile roughly onto paper, drew the barrier, cut it out of the paper, tested it on the ship and adjusted as necessary before transferring it to foam and cutting it out. Be really careful with the thickness. Don't slice it in half or break it. Cut cannon-crenelations out as well as the space where the plank goes. I stuck it down by sticking toothpicks straight down through it into the bare deck. This was probably a mistake. It's not sturdy or precise. I added some hot glue here (for the first time in the build) to fill in little cracks and adhere it better. You're on your own for the prow -- make it out of foam in two halves and glue it on. Good luck. If you look at reference you can make a way cooler one than me.

9: make windows, deck rails, a wheel, cannons, grates, swivel guns, and a border that covers the seam between the deck and perimeter railing. The window-frames are each a single piece of foam sliced thinly and wood-glued into position. If you know how, you could make them out of wood. Deck rails are square foam rails top and bottom, joined by toothpick posts. The wheel is foam with toothpicks stuck into it. The cannons are thin wooden dowels with carved foam bases glued together. Adding wheels to the bases would be cool but fragile and tedious. One of the grates is a foam border with toothpick cross-parts and the other one has a wooden frame made from popsicle sticks. Do whatever you prefer. Swivel guns are little foam tubes with toothpicks that attach them to the railing. This allows them to swivel. You could probably make them out of skewers or something instead of foam. The border (red part along the side) helps hide sloppiness between the hull and barrier, and adds some complexity to the shape. You could make it much thinner than I did if you have a steady hand or a wire foam cutter. Or more patience with sandpaper. Real ships have super cool features like this, so use reference and add whatever you can get away with, I guess. This is probably a better time to add the masts. Sharpen them and jam them in or bore holes and glue them.

10: add painted details, "rigging", nets and ropes, as well as anything else you want. I have a longboat hanging off the back of the ship, but you could also place it in the middle of the main deck. The rigging I added is composed of popsicle stick planks stuck to the side of the ship, with painted wooden beads glued onto that. It's not even nearly accurate, but I think it gives the rough impression of the pulleys that are on real boats. I used gold paint for detailing which I definitely recommend. Netting would be cool but I couldn't find a non-intrusive way to add any. Of course oars, buckets, crates, sacks, lanterns and all sorts of other props will look neat. I opted not to add those in order to keep things simple, as we'd just be taking them off or getting annoyed with them during combat. I made a balcony off the back out of popsicle sticks and stuck/glued it on. It's out of scale, but large enough for characters to stand on. Put little ladder boards onto the side of the ship and anywhere else you want them. Up a mast would be cool. Doorframes and square window-frames can be made with planks like the deck. I decided against any sorts of crow's nests or cross-masts to keep things simple and easy to see/reach around. I think more delicately sculpted embellishments would look very cool added on, but could not figure out a decent way to make them. Printing them out on thick paper, cutting them out and glueing those on might do the trick.

That's the whole guide. I would have done a better one but I forgot to take pictures. Feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer.

#my art #crafts #diy #props #pirate ship #ship #boat #polystyrene #foam #d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd #dungeon master #dm #game master #gm #game #game props #artists on tumblr #step by step #guide #how to #magnets

[jacobmellor]

Chapter 4

What was once seen as a bit of a challenge, an opportunity to show that there may be a different way of thinking or doing had recently been getting me down. I spoke to mum about it and her response was perfect, “most stuff is pointless really”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lib7w9AdDMY

9 months ago I left my bicycle in Da Nang, central Vietnam. That was me leaving my normal. I was stagnant, progressing through places but not really progressing personally.

Stepping out into the unknown was a really amazing step. Me, Jethro and Felipe rode our shitbox motorbikes costing a maximum of $200 across the country together. Each one a Chinese fake, bald tyres, oil leaks, broken lights, broken fuel gauges, dodgy speedos. They were constantly falling over, breaking down, making strange noises, running out of petrol. Locals gesturing they were going to explode any minute, laughing at us as they pulled out of the service station on their real Honda Waves. Well these shitboxes carried us all the way through that amazing country. Through the scorching heat, the torrential rain, over mountains, along bone shaking roads and survived an actual fucking tornado. Every second was priceless.

And upon arriving in Hanoi I quickly stumbled across a group of crazy awesome likeminded people and rented a big mad house together. A family of travellers. We hosted other travellers, ran a free community English class from the living room and taught English in kindergartens for a bit of money. Together we enjoyed everything that wonderful city has to offer.

With the cost of living so cheap and the wage for teaching English so good, we had time to do or not do. Anything, everything and nothing was possible. Sampling tasty food, playing music, painting, busking, yoga, going to festivals, trips to the islands, finding skyscrapers to climb, joining a football team, taking photos, going to circus, we did it all and more. But the centre of our world which we always enjoyed returning home to was our roof terrace. THE ROOF. Coming in from those manic streets you were instantly transported to a tranquil ish bubble surrounded by air cleaning plants and the smell of drying clothes and marijuana. The walls, tables, doors, and hanging clothes were all covered in our art and any space in between was filled with Jerome’s chilled music. Freedom. The little cherry on top of it all was Hien, our incredible Vietnamese housemate full of traditional culture and fire. At first it was a struggle to cope with our western ways but soon she blossomed into this inquisitive lover of life, opening a business teaching Vietnamese to expats, telling her parents she didn’t want to get married, yet, and trying simple things we take for granted like drawing or watching and dancing to live music for the first time. She lived in the room beneath, always keeping us in check. Check Check!

Around Christmas time everybody had made plans for something else, it’s not something to do forever, that Hanoi life, the city as I said is manic. And polluted. I was seeing family in Australia, Stef was hitching and busking back to Italy, Askar was going to Thailand to carry on his amazing journey of travelling without money. Vika and Yura back to Russia to make music, Xsenia and Pavel would carry on busking and travelling around Asia. Nick to Ukraine to meet a girl he’d met in Hanoi, Daniel to Perth to see family, leaving just Jerome and Hien in the house. But before leaving we all spent Christmas Day in Hiens home town, met her family and enjoyed a big dinner together. It was a perfect way to finish.

On the plane to Australia I cried knowing that I would see my family for the first time in 3 years, but also because I was leaving my newly found family and Masha, the woman I’d fallen in love with behind.

My mum and dad, are older, greyer but still the same people at heart, it was surreal to see them after so long. A few weeks spent relaxing, eating and just hanging out with the folks like normal. I’m very lucky. I’m also so thankful that they are happy knowing I’m happy, I couldn’t ask for anything more. It wasn’t so sad leaving them again, just sad to leave those avocado, poached egg, smoked salmon on toast breakies in the cafe.

I hitched from Sydney to Melbourne and back again and then up to Newcastle for a tree planting job. All the time planning on returning to Vietnam and Masha. I asked Daniel to come and help with the job seeing how he was in Oz, he needed money and it would be nice for him to learn how to plant. Just like that, we were planting 15,000+ native grasses by hand, the perfect job for one of the most inspiring families I’ve ever met. I’d been introduced to Paul, Tanya and sons over a year earlier when with Russ. We stayed at their house a couple of nights but never had the chance to fully get to know each other. Paul is working in construction, but has always challenged himself with amazing/insane adventures, living on the edge, sometimes even falling over the edge, but it doesn’t matter, he smashes through everything with his can do attitude and refusal to fail. After his wife died of cancer, he rode his bike to the very northerly point of Australia and kayaked, fucking kayaked to Papa New Guinea. Aaaaaand raised a shit ton of money for charity in the process. Wow, and then there is Tanya. Like us she is definitely a traveller at heart, hitching Europe and Turkey in the, I think 80’s, maybe 90’s. She’s not old old! One of the most open minded easy to talk to people in the world, she fuelled a love for horses by working in stables in different countries. After realising professional riding wasn’t for her and just going with the flow she now sculpts for a living and has life size bronze works on display across Australia. Being creative and doing what she is passionate about! If these guys aren’t an example of following what you love and achieving everything you put your mind to, I don’t know what is.

I’d booked my flight back to Hanoi from New Zealand, because first I wanted to hitch on a boat and do a bit of cycling in real nature before returning to Masha and Hanoi. And I guess this is where that feeling of pointlessness has come from. I couldn’t find a boat and things haven’t worked out with Masha. I’m not really used to things going against me, I’m used to things being hard, I can deal with that, but all of a sudden my dream of sustainable travel seemed up in a big fossil fuel guzzling cloud of aeroplane smoke as I bailed and flew to NZ. The fact the relationship ended multiplied this feeling ten fold, I felt lost. Instead of doing what I’d done previously, enjoying the journey for what it was, riding the waves, embracing the challenge, learning from the mistakes, going with the flow, smiling at the punctures or the breakdowns, or the bad weather, shitty road, lack of food. I got down.

I was riding but not riding, my head was stuck up in that cloud. But New Zealand is so bllllllloody beautiful that it’s actually difficult not to live in the moment when your surrounded by so much breathtaking scenery. And then I met cyclists Ryan and Dee, an awesome friendly couple from England, with the positive vibe returning I’m starting to find apples everywhere, and people are giving away the best tastiest pinkest peaches you can imagine. I stayed a few nights with a girl who loved to bake. Scones, banana bread, apple + blackberry pie, a loaf of bread and then leaving and discovering a home made quiche she’d woken up early to bake and put with my lunch. Last night I stayed with a family of 6, the dad Chris had cycled from the top of the north island to the bottom of the South Island. 3000km along rough trails in 22 days. Their 3 teenage daughters outwitting me in every conversation and then waking up this morning to watch their 11 year old average sized son devour 8 weetabix, his response, “I do a lot”. Needless to say, I feel good, I feel high on life. I already thought I should write a post whilst I was riding into town this morning. And then waiting for me was a message from a profile I’d made on a boating website months ago, I have just received an email asking if I want to crew a marine biology sailing yacht to Fiji and back.

I’m not saying that being positive or living in the moment had anything to do with the boat, it didn’t. The thing on the boat may never even materialise. I’m just saying that everything is always alright in the end, so no point getting down and worrying about it. You are doing what feels right, that’s all that matters.

So yes most stuff is pointless, my pointless thing is to challenge misconceptions and push boundaries, what’s yours?

[arcticwrites]

Finding Home

Summary: She’s been running for too long. Will she ever find a place to call home?

Rating: K

Words: 1,500

A/N: My round 1 Rumbelle Showdown 2017 entry under the pseudonym Thefreedictionary. Prompt: Note, Romance, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Others: AO3 | FF.net

Beads of sweat trickle down her back as the clouds roll away, exposing the midday sun to the tiny village. She grits her teeth as the top of her head quickly feels like a hot iron. The distant sounds of bird calls are the only thing tempering her mounting hatred for that yellow dwarf. Belle French can tolerate heat, but not when coupled with humidity.

“Paint goes on the wall, not your arse, French!” A muffled groan comes from the owner of said arse. “Can you not do anything right?”

“Fuck off, you miserable lump of coal!” Belle shouted over her shoulders.

“Language, French.” Her tormentor appears next to her, scrutinising her work. “Good job with the painting. Now go clean up and help the villagers with the school’s roof.” Belle crosses her arm and glares at the man. “Get on it before I make you smell my armpits,” he drawls, waving a lazy hand her way. Before she could tell him to stuff a frozen banana up his arse, he disappears into his pink hut.

Cameron Gold, or wanker as Belle occasionally calls him, is the leader of the Rainforest Village Volunteer Project that her father forced her into. He hopes it’ll sober her up. What’s the point in being sober anyway? It just brings to light her endless list of problems. “Move it, French! Do you want me to have you in a headlock?” And Gold recently topped that list.

“3 weeks down, and 9 to go,” she mutters under her breath.

They’re helping the villagers set the traps today. It builds character, Gold said. Building her temper is more like it, especially when her wristbands keep getting caught in the wires.

“It’ll be easier if you take them off, French.”

“No.”

“Don’t be a stubb—”

“FUCK!”

“Language, French.”

Belle looks down at her bleeding arm and memories of an accident long repressed surface once more. Her mother’s lifeless eyes stare back at her, telling her it was her fault.

Her fault…always has been and always will be.

Someone calls out her name, shaking her. She looks into the person’s eyes and sees her father’s accusing look in them.

Her fault… always has been and always will be.

She cannot breathe and so she runs because she burnt her home.

Without any means of escaping, Belle hides away in her hut. She spits and snarls whenever Gold tries to coax her out of it, but they get tiring and repetitive very quickly. So when the man comes to her one rainy day, she accepts his offered hand. Ever since then everyone treats her like a ticking time bomb, everyone except him.

He still throws insults her way and works her to the bone, but there’s a subtle difference in his countenance. His eyes don’t wrinkle as much and his posture is less stiff. He looks more comfortable… as if he has taken off his armour. She wonders if he’s living a pretended life as she has.

After a while, things settle back to normal. Her heart feels lighter and her steps swifter. She’s a lot more open with the villagers and smiling comes easier. They give her space when asked and go as far as making one for her when her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

On her best of days, Belle can be quite a handful. She’ll be doing a million things at once and talking animatedly. Gold’s solution at bringing her down from her high is by appointing her as the children’s storyteller. Every night, for an hour, she entertains the little ones with her fairy tales. Some days the roles are reversed. On those days, the children weave her tales of their mythical warriors, gods, and goddesses while she listens with rapt attention.

All in all, she never expects Gold’s presence to have a calming effect on her. He guides her with firm but gentle hands and when her little boat enters rough seas, he’ll steer her back to still waters. She sees now that they are not so different after all. She just hopes she does the same for him.

Two weeks. Two weeks before she heads back to her old life. The knowledge leaves her feeling sick to her stomach. Maybe she can destroy the boats. That’ll buy her time. What excuses can she—

“Miss Belle, come paint with us, please?” a voice pipes up. Turning towards the voice, two pairs of eyes look at her expectantly. Perhaps this is the distraction that she needs. Smiling, she lets them lead her away.

They stop outside of the village’s school, at a section of its wall where the kids are free to paint as they please. Tucked in a small section is the drawing of a hut with two tall figures and two little girls. Forcing down the lump in her throat she guides the children in their painting.

“This is our home,” says the shorter of the two girls. “What’s your home like, Miss Belle?”

Well, that’s a question that has not been asked of her since her childhood days. A simple question with a million different answers, but none strikes a chord with her. “I’ll let you know when I find it,” she tells the smaller girl.

On the other side of the wall, Gold heaves a sigh before moving from his spot.

On her last night as a volunteer, Gold appoints himself as her silent companion. They stare at the stars while the crickets chirp to the forest’s rhythm.

“You’ve come a long way,” he breaks the silence, “I only hope it is what you need.”

And the floodgates open.

She tells him of how her selfishness leads to her mother’s death.

She tells him of her spiral into darkness.

She tells him of her mistakes.

She tells him of her scars. There’s a story behind each white line on her wrist that she hides underneath her array of wristbands, constant reminders of her stupidity and failures. She doesn’t understand why she’s still breathing.

“To battle your demons and still find it in you to see the beauty in others and plant joy in their hearts, those are no failures. Those are to have succeeded.”

She squeezes his hand as her heart bleeds on the forest floor. When she finally falls asleep, he carries her off to bed before slipping a yellow note in her bag.

Nothing can prepare her for the city. Everything is too loud and hectic that she spends a week after her arrival within the confines of her apartment. She watches people move about like ants from her window—always walking, always in a hurry. When it rains, the road transforms into a sea of black umbrellas, the occasional sound of siren gives life to the monotonous landscape. Her bag remains unpacked.

At her father’s pleas, she braves the dusty metropolitan world. A day’s worth of exposure is enough to send her spending another week under the safety of her blanket. She tries to get blindingly drunk on one of those nights, but after a few rounds of foul concoctions, the feeling of hollowness doesn’t fade. Her bag remains unpacked.

She hopes going back to university will bring a semblance of normalcy into her life. But like the morning dew, hope evaporates just as quickly. University makes her feel like a cattle reared for slaughter. Students are herded into a room and fed “education”. Once they’re plump enough they’ll get a shiny seal of approval only to have it stomped by their employers. It is not what she wants, but then again she never knows what she wants. Her bag is still unpacked, but it has moved from her bedroom to the laundry room. The yellow note waits in anticipation.

Belle French functions on impulse—she lets her heart run away with her feet. One second there’s sand underneath her, and earth in the next. It is a common theme with her. Now, however, she dances to a different tune. Just like the thrill of jumping off a cliff and into the cold water, knowing her heart’s desire with certainty is a scary and refreshing feeling. She doesn’t want to stand on a loose ground anymore; hence, the reason why her feet have taken her to stand in front of a pink hut, knocking frantically on its door.

The sight of the bedraggled man has never brought her such joy as in that moment.

“Do you offer permanent employment?” she asks shakily. “I don’t have much experience or a degree, but an old lump of coal wrote me a note saying that my past and future are tiny matters,“ her bottom lip trembles, “compared to what I have on the inside.”

His smile is the only answer that she needs. Finally, she has found her home.

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle fanfic #rumbelle fanfiction #rumbelle showdown #rumbelle showdown 2017 #arctic's writing attempt #fic: finding home