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write-it-good-imagines · 3 months

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Nothing More(M) - Three

~5k words, in this chapter we see how Mark and Sam navigate being apart from one another and how rain washes over the souls. Enjoy and don't hesitate to let me know what you think about it!

Don’t you want to try it? Are you scared to start? There’s no one you’ll find that’s quite like me.

Do you wanna take my broken heart?

Fame, music, concerts, freedom, artistry. In a fruitless attempt to sum up all that being an artist meant to Mark, the ability to walk up on the stage in front of as many as 60,000 people was exhilarating. It never stopped being meaningful. To inspire another person enough to have them watch and admire thyself was not only a privilege but also a responsibility.

Each concert began with the same mantra, it would be safe to assume for each of the seven members was the same. Each time they would walk on and make sure they enjoyed themselves to the maximum, as much as they made sure they would do their best. In the tumult of the shows, there was now something different.

All the love songs sounded a little different.

When the love song was hopeful, Mark performed happier. When the love song was desperate, Mark performed sadder. It all played a bigger part in the tapestry of each performance, but it would never go unnoticed by those closest to him. With each show, the emotion grew little by little. And as much as Mark tried to dismiss it to the back of his head, it sneaked right back in when the lights turned down.

It always came back when he wanted to forget.

When the lights turned down over Jakarta, the boys were still bowing to the audience. Under the ravenous applause and the avalanche of confetti, the platform on the stage brought the boys down under the concert set. Another night ended in complete success.

Mark was the last one to dispose of his ear set. He stretched his arms above his head and felt a cramp starting to settle at his nape.

“Mark?” Jackson traced behind the group to match his pace with the other. “You good?”

“Yeah,” sighed Mark, massaging the tense muscles in his neck. “Just a little tired I guess.”

“Huh, we still have one week and a half to go, if you’re tired now... “ Jackson joked and nudged Mark with his elbow. “Getting old?”

Mark threw an arm around Jackson’s shoulder in a friendly hug. “No chance.”

“Passionate out there I’d say.” Jackson began, fidgeting. “Each concert getting only more passionate.”

“Yeah? Thanks. Aren’t we supposed to be like that?”

Silence.

“No?”

“I mean, sure.”

Jackson shrugged his shoulders. That’s when it hit Mark.

“Should’ve asked me to my face, Jackson.”

Jackson sighed. “I’m not good at subtleties!” He cleared his throat. “But you haven’t told us nothing in… ever since we left.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Jackson.”

Jackson stopped dead in his tracks, looking at the other with a much softer expression than he would have liked.

“There really isn’t.” Mark concluded, walking ahead of Jackson. “I am the sex. She was the sex. That’s it.”

Mark grabbed a bottle of water from an adjacent table to drown out the words, and the apparent reality. Spelling out loud that they never spoke after he flied out left a burn to his throat.

A couple thousand miles away, Samantha was jerking her body to the other side of the bed. She extended her hand to grab a hold of her phone. 2:15 AM. With a light groan, she threw her feet into her bed slippers, rose from the bed, and hugged her body into her bathrobe. Murphy perked an ear up in response to the sudden movement, but he was not interested enough to follow Samantha from his nest.

Samantha opened the kitchen window to fill her lungs with a breath of fresh air. When she unlocked her phone, she realized that her latest google search was still pointing to Mark’s band’s latest concert.

Jakarta: more than 20,000 fans delirious after boyband’s successful stop.

Live pictures from the concert were quick to flood the internet. Samantha’s finger hovered over a very flattering picture of Mark, half-naked on stage, his chiseled abdomen contracting with whatever movement he was making. One arm was lifted in the air to hype the crowd, the other holding up his microphone. The tattoo reaching over his right set of ribs was vivid to the eye.

The kiss in the locker of the club flashed into Samantha’s memory.

Samantha locked her phone and slid it across the kitchen counter, leaning herself against the window frame, with one arm hugging her side. To the contrary, what should have come to mind should have been the dirtier times, all the times her fingernails drew over his tattoos, reshaping them into muscle memory.

She sighed, her eyes fixated on the shimmering full moon. If she called, would he pick up?

“Probably not. He has all those girls to keep him busy.” Samantha lied to herself, unable to resist the urge to pick up her phone. She hesitated, reading Mark’s name on the screen over and over again. Until she tapped on it.

Once, twice… “Mark?”

The call went to voicemail. Her voice deflated in disappointment.

“All those girls to keep him busy.”

The next dawn, Samantha was already ready to leave for the hospital. Sleep was light and uncertain, and she tried to mask it with concealer and foundation. In a haste to leave the house, she grabbed her motorcycle helmet, to catch a ride in hopes of easing her mind.

Sun was cracking out on the horizon, tangerine hues intertwined with tamed shades of red. Samantha took a longer route to the hospital to enjoy the scenery. Chestnuts strands tossed out of the helmet were gliding freely in the wind in an enduring antithesis with her thoughts.

‘You’re going to have to find a replacement for me.’

Unbeknownst to her, Samantha’s hand switched another gear.

‘I cannot make love to you and leave the next day like I am the worst scum to have ever walked this Earth. I am not that guy.’

The motorcycle revved once again.

‘You are irresistible, you know that?’

Samantha reached the hospital faster than she anticipated. She took off her helmet and shook her head to the sides, ruffling her long strands in the process. She locked the bike and put her helmet under her arm, a high-pitched whistle distracting her from her thoughts.

“Nice suit, cat-girl,” Jonathan smirked, locking his Yamaha super sport bike some paces away from Samantha. “We should ride out together next time.”

“I’ll think about it.” She stated simply, taking the lead towards the entrance of the hospital.

“That’s it? No smart reply, no anything? Wow, did I do anything to offend you?”

Samantha threw out a chuckle. “Not necessarily, just didn’t get that much sleep.”

Jonathan caught up with her, entering the hospital at the same time. “Oh? Mind me asking why?”

“Yes.”

“Touche. But I can take a wild guess.”

“Don’t take a wild guess.” Samantha offered a polite smile to the nurse’s station, grabbing the medical documents of a case.

“How’s Romeo doing? Wait, is that a—”

“Yes Jonathan, I’ll take a consult today.”

Jonathan put a hand over his mouth in a mocked attempt to hide his shock. “No fucking way, are you actually coming back?”

“Wait and see!” Samantha chirped, walking away to her office, the bounce in her hair leaving Jonathan with a smile imprinted on his face.

“And I told him he should have bought Rome! If he’d bought Rome, he would’ve won that trade on the airport with you, Jinyoung!”

A hearty laugh filled the room as Mark and Jinyoung entered Mark’s hotel room. The sun was well up in the blue of Jakarta sky, sending its shimmering beams across the universe. A sleepless night passed for the seven boys, fighting one another to the death to the Monopoly title. Their departure was set in a couple of hours to Kuala Lumpur that left them at liberty to let a night’s sleep go by.

“Bambam’s sweet tooth for money, what can I say.” Jinyoung threw his body on the bed, eyes glued to the ceiling to revisit his winning strategy. “Truth be told, he never had a chance to win.”

“You just led him on.” Mark chuckled and walked to the bathroom. “I am going to take a shower to wash off the defeat.”

“You bet.” Jinyoung rolled over on his chest, hand reaching out for the phone in his pocket. His movement on the bed caused Mark’s phone to light up. The water in the bathroom was not running yet.

“Hey, Mark,” Jinyoung shouted for the other. “You have a missed call.”

“Yeah?” Mark’s voice echoed. “Text Joey and let him know I’ll call back.”

There was a delay in Jinyoung’s response. “It wasn’t Joey. It’s Samantha.”

The next thing he heard was the faltering sound of the water running in the shower. Mark stepped under the rapid droplets, closing his eyes. It had been 11 days since they’d last spoken and she only left an unpicked call behind. It was not like Mark was expectant of something else entirely to happen, but he did not know how to feel. Happy that she had reached out? Bitter that she had not tried more?

Mark slapped his hands against the cold tiles to steady himself. As vehemently as he tried to distance himself from Samantha, something tugged him closer. Mark felt like he walked one step ahead, and two steps behind. He kept reciting to himself that it was not real, the feelings he rejected to feel. He couldn’t allow himself to miss her.

Still, I miss you.

The bathroom door opened, and Mark walked into the room with a towel ruffling his damp hair.

“So?” Jinyoung spoke, thumb scrolling lazily on his Instagram. “Are you going to call her back?”

“Probably,” reacted Mark, almost choking on his own spit. Would it be pitiful to acknowledge to the other that, in fact, he was not as nonchalant as he wanted to let on? “when we leave later for the airport.”

“Huh.” Snickered Jinyoung, jolting himself to his feet. “Here I thought I’d get to hear that conversation.” He pursed his lips, tapping at his chin with an index. “Maybe some sort of a clarification for why she had not reached out until now?”

Mark rolled his eyes with a small smile on his lips. It wavered when Jinyoung stopped in the doorframe. “But I guess fuck buddies don’t really get such clarifications, huh?”

Two and a something hours later, the boys were prepared to leave the hotel and embark for the next stop on their tour: New Delhi. The lobby of the hotel was swarming with staff, luggage, and security, preparing for the group’s very public departure. The journey to the airport was as chaotic as ever for the boys, in a joyful and brotherly atmosphere which always eased Mark’s mind and heart. He was always beyond thankful for the company and friendship of all the boys. Each held their own piece of Mark’s.

While waiting for the private transport from the gate to their plane, Mark stepped aside from the group to make the call he owed. It should have been around 4PM in Seoul. He took an anticipative breath in his lungs and tapped on Samantha’s phone number. There shouldn’t have been a singular reason why he felt so expectant.

‘You aren’t making love to me Mark. We are having sex, it is just sex.’

“Do you really think about us like that?” he whispered under his breath, a hand reaching up to cover his face better with the mask.

Mark did not receive his chance to hear the voice of the person whom he wished to hear the answer from because the call got interrupted to voicemail. “Fuck.” The breath in his lungs rushed out, leaving blooming traces of disappointment attached to his veins. All at once, the 10-hour flight became burdensome. Mark switched his phone to airplane mode to join the boys, a wee piece of his heart shattering from the expectations that failed to come alive.

In an empty common room, Samantha was flipping through her patient’s chart, examining and re-scanning what the laboratory results and the obvious common sense were reiterating. Because of an unforeseen and tragic natural complication, her patient would have to choose to lose her pregnancy to save her life.

“How do you tell someone this?” Samantha mumbled to herself, resting her face in the warmth of her palm. She flipped the chart and sighed, closing her eyes for a loose second. She had grown too soft in the big shoes of a surgeon. But it ultimately was what made her a better surgeon.

“Hey,” Leena stopped by, in a rush to reach somewhere else entirely. “Did something happen? I was in a hurry to prepare for surgery, but I couldn’t ignore you here all sappy by yourself.”

“Yeah. This patient I saw today… I have to tell her she has to give up the baby to save her life. This is why I sometimes am at peace with my decision to step back from being a surgeon.”

“And all the other times when you are not at peace?” Leena seated herself by Samantha.

“All the other times are when I miss going in the OR. Like last time I went in with Jonathan. It was the thrill crawling back, until it made my fingers tingle.” Another sigh. “Then I try to heal and come back, and I have to tell a mother to kill her child. Is this fair?”

“No, it’s not. It’s not. But you must remember how many lives you’ve saved and how many you can save, still. Young lives, who don’t even know they are about to live.”

Samantha tilted her head to look at Leena who had a softened look on her face. “Yeah.” She concluded as Leena rose from her seat.

“I gotta go now, Sam. Think about it. We miss having you around the OR. My girl power team lost all that power.” Leena gestured dramatically with her hands. “Maybe it’s a stretch but I think Mark would say the same to you, if he were here.”

“What?” Samantha exhaled. “Why are you thinking about Mark?”

Leena perked in the distance, as she was walking away “Because you won’t!”

And true she wasn’t. Samantha leaned back down in the chair, eyes obsessed with the ceiling of the office. It pained a little, both her ego and her wishes. Reason would say he couldn’t have picked up in the middle of the night, through the thousands of little things he had to attend to in the middle of a world tour, on top of probably the fatigue kicking in. Against reason, Samantha would tell herself anything to keep herself from hurting. Lies were always easier. Truth was always justifiable.

Truth was, Mark was everything she didn’t picture him to be.

Samantha gathered the scattered chart off the desk and mustered her courage to fill the big shoes of the surgeon she knew herself to be. Ever since Mark stumbled in the bar that night, to curl her hair through his fingers in a cheeky endeavor to rescue her from a vulgar stranger, with the smooth smile and the glimmer in his eye, Samantha’s life felt like it finally took a seat, on a vast green plain under the night sky. When pausing for oneself started to matter.

The rest of the day felt differently after Samantha decided to take charge. She went ahead and had the talk with the family whose happy hope vanished from their fingers. Then she offered to take lead of the surgery. The way she used to carry herself was slowly returning, with all the responsibility and the dignity. It was then she realized she did miss saving lives.

“So I guess it’s time to ask again about riding together? On the bikes, of course.” Jonathan laughed at his own joke, which brought a smile to Samantha’s own lips.

“You know what?” Samantha said, turning up the engine and securing herself atop of the seat. “I’m going to say pass for tonight, but let’s do it some time. It’s just been a full day today.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jonathan said, climbing in his seat and undoing his helmet. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

Samantha chuckled. “I know I don’t really take you at your word, most of the time. But I do appreciate you being in my life Jonathan.”

Jonathan threw his head away to veil his content expression. There were times like that one when Samantha wished she knew what was going on through his head. “Someone has to stick around, until prince charming rides back from his tour. Saw he got all naked and whatever up there. Not cool.”

“Mhm. Not cool for someone who asks prince charming how sex with me is.”

Jonathan almost dropped his helmet to the ground.

“Why would you ask him that?”

He raked his hair with his fingers, the previous content expression fading into a longing one. “Because it is part of why I made that bet with you when you were hopelessly drunk and so was I and I hoped we’d wake up and forget.”

It was almost puerile that they both remembered an inebriated bet to sleep with one another when they both had the desirous impulse of the body to do that on the spot. And, somehow, they did not go through with it.

“Jonathan—”

“You should have lied to me and told me you forgot. I would’ve made allowances for how your skin felt against my own. You didn’t even kiss me on the mouth you know?”

Jonathan kicked the jack of his motorcycle. “And trust me, I am actively working on giving up on you but it’s one hell of a job. So yes, that’s why I asked him how sex with you was, to get some closure. And Romeo proved to be almighty with it.” He threw one last look at the girl, and it caused Samantha’s breath to hitch in her throat. Under the alabaster streetlight, Jonathan looked so vulnerable. “Bear with me as I’m giving up on you.”

Keys rumbled against the glassy surface of the living room coffee table. The helmet bounced on the cushions of the sofa in a hasty attempt for Samantha to undress off her riding suit. Samantha plopped into the depth of the couch, skin getting goose bumps from the cold material. It was already the depth of the night when she finally managed to catch a stable breath. The roughness of the day found refuge in her nape, pressing unpleasantly in her muscles. Murphy came running towards her, jumping in an agile motion on the couch beside her. The contact of his fur against her skin eased the pressure in her body. Samantha twirled Murphy’s coat through her fingers, and the dog snuggled closer into her side. He perked up at her, always receptive of her mood.

With the other free hand, Samantha hastily searched for her mobile phone. The silence in her house echoed loudly, in sync with her accelerated thoughts. Jonathan’s confession ripped a band-aid which she did not believe she had. She felt guilty for the impulsive decisions she took a long time before, which still reflected into their present. Almost like a butterfly effect. Had she chosen Jonathan back then, would she have suffered the same heartbreak by his side? Would they have parted, or would they have thrived? Would she have avoided the public humiliation in the hospital?

Would she have met Mark?

The silvery radiance of the moon tiptoed into the living room through the crack of curtains, settling on the black screen of Samantha’s phone. It was repelled by the quick motion to turn the gadget on, an even quicker one to reach Mark’s phone number. A very late observation that he had called her back.

Would she have felt the same need to reach out to any other man, same as she did to Mark? A sliver of a breeze trembled through the thin material of the curtains, disturbing the lull of the house. In that natural equilibrium, the moonlight painted Samantha’s features in an artificial calm. Her heartbeat picked up in her chest.

Samantha drew her breath in sharply when the call connected.

“Mark? Hey, I know it must be late wherever you are, I wasn’t expecting you to pick up. How are you?”

She must have spoken fast, precipitated, in a much too evident surprise and much too little preparation for the feelings raging in her ribcage. All the stupid childish reasons of Mark being and keeping away took the reins.

“I’m sleeping, babe.”

Mark’s voice was low and coarse, at times breathy. Unbeknownst to him, Mark played with her heartstrings, with the ease with which he called her that affectionate name. He could not have meant that.

“Sure, no I’ll let you sleep, I’m sorry I disturbed you—”

“…don’t go. Missed your voice.”

Samantha took her phone away from her ear reflexively to double-check it was indeed Mark whom she was speaking to. On the other line, a faded puffing sound confirmed he was still there, as if he was adjusting his position.

“You there?”

“Yeah, I am, I just… you took me by surprise.”

“Mhm. You, too.”

A gust of wind played with the calescent air in Samantha’s living room. Through Mark’s groggy voice she couldn’t tell if he was upset, sad, or even remotely happy with her for contacting him.

“Just know I’m kinda drunk, so I might say shit.” Mark snickered, which caused Samantha to emit a giggle of her own. She had a palpable reason to blame Mark’s drunkenness for her heart’s quiver. “Drank our minds off with the boys. Middle of the evening.” Another snicker.

He was devastatingly alluring.

Samantha’s voice eased to Mark’s, a lonely index tracing the naked skin of her abdomen. The moon shifted, as if following the movements of the hand in a trance. “You’re too coherent to be drunk. Any special reason for the celebration?”

“Guess we felt like. Don’t know about them but I had a reason.”

Samantha took the bait. “Oh? How so?”

A sharp breath echoed on Mark’s side of the line, closely followed by another sharp exhale. “Promise you won’t get upset with me?”

Samantha’s eyebrows rose with curiosity, yet the heart in her ribcage threatened to stop beating. “I won’t.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you.” But Mark stopped himself once again to prolong the anticipation Samantha prepared herself for. Maybe he would tear the scar open and confess he’d slept with others, that he went ahead and made good of their agreement, that he did not care. Or maybe that he was enough of a good guy to at least let her know he’d touched other women, that he’d heard other women scream his name in the intimacy of his sheets—

“I missed you.”

The sound of thunder reverberated in the infinity of the sky and a glim of lightning flashed in the darkness of the living room to put a halt to Samantha’s life. A strong current awoke goosebumps on Samantha’s skin, akin to Mark’s tender touch whenever he pulled her body to hide into his own.

Mark continued. “But I know you don’t miss me cause heck, you would’ve called a lot more than once, so cheers to me. You’ll say, ‘why are you an asshole cause you didn’t call either’, and you could be right.” A short pause. “I actually could be the asshole.”

What was Samantha supposed to say? How was she supposed to form coherent thoughts in her mind when Mark singlehandedly went and kicked away all rationality had to offer? In the tone of his voice, Samantha felt resentment. A resentment directed at himself for wishing he’d done better.

I should have done better, Mark.

“No, Mark, don’t say that about yourself. You could be anything but an asshole.”

I missed you too, Mark. And I didn’t want to.

“No, it’s fine. Absolutely fine. I’m just sex. You’re just sex. We’re just sex, nothing more, right?”

A sudden downpour started falling over the horizon, in a ghastly chase to envelop the night sky of Seoul. The sound of droplets played in a staccato rhythm, brushing against the tall glass windows of Samantha’s house. The restless curtains danced however the wind dictated, to cast shadows of the moon over her features, now rigid from the amalgam of emotions pirouetting through her being.

If she hadn’t met Mark, would she have wished to grant herself a second chance so easily?

Samantha rose lazily from the couch, leaving Murphy behind to meditate in his calmness. She carried herself to the windows, gripping the handle to open one of them, and ultimately seated herself on the windowpane. She extended one leg to feel the rain. “Do you hear that, Mark?” she spoke ultimately, tears gathering at her eyelids.

“Is that rain?” replied Mark, accompanied by a hissing sound. “It’s pouring in New Delhi, too.”

“It feels so cold on my skin.”

Another thunder trembled in the sky.

“I’m so jealous.”

“Jealous? Jealous on what?”

“All this rain is getting to touch you and I’m not.”

Samantha brought one knee to her chest to lean her cheek against it. If it was raining in New Delhi, it meant that maybe, just maybe, her and Mark could both look at the same sky.

It took a considerable amount of effort for Mark to push himself straight outside of bed. He couldn’t remember at what time the boys got back to the hotel, at what time he fell asleep, and he couldn’t remember why he recognized Samantha’s voice without even knowing it was her who called. With each reply exchanged between them, Mark was driving back to reality, a reality where both him and Samantha were looking at the same sky.

He walked over to the window of his hotel room, peeling it open to fully pick up the song of the rain. There was a tiny table adjacent to the window where he prompted his body, head leaning against the pane, and the free arm toying with the beads rushing down from the sky.

A reality where he was catching feelings for a woman who did not feel the same.

“It feels so cold on my skin too, beautiful.”

Maybe it was because of the same sky they both were watching but it felt like Samantha was smiling. “Why would you be jealous?”

“I should be, shouldn’t I? When something other than me is touching my fuck buddy.”

There was a pause on the other line. Rain was feeling tougher against Mark’s forearm.

“No one has touched me since you left, Mark. Don’t think anyone will.”

It was too good to be true. He did not believe her, could not believe her. Mark retreated his arm and raked his fingers through his hair. The coldness of summer rain made him flinch.

Mark was playing a game he knew he’d already lost.

“Do you think about us? Do you think about me, how I’m touching you?”

“Yeah, I do. I did today.”

Mark’s mind replayed their kiss in the club’s locker room.

Samantha’s mind replayed their kiss in the club’s locker room.

“Do you like the way I’m touching you?”

Mark’s mind replayed their hug in the club’s locker room.

Samantha’s mind replayed their hug in the club’s locker room.

“I do.”

“I guess you still want me to fuck you, then.”

Samantha’s lack of response gave Mark the opportunity to glue his eyes to an outward building which still kept its presence through the water veil. The buzz of the alcohol was still messing with his head, and with his emotions. He shouldn’t had gotten so attached to a game plan, he should had cared enough back in the club when Samantha stated she was not interested. There was just something about her that kept reeling him in, which only amplified with each touch they shared, doubled with each kiss, tripled with each moan she’d mewl, calling out his name.

At the end of the day, the heart wants what it wants. And the heart shuddered at the thought of her moaning any other name than his.

“Hey Sam, I gotta go. I’m supposed to be waking up in 3 hours to rehearse the setting for the concert.”

This time, it was Sam. Not ‘babe’, not ‘beautiful’, just ‘Sam’. Bleak, obscure, a name. Samantha feared a simple name that carried no meaning. It was supposed to carry a meaning.

“Are you frustrated with me, Mark?” she breathed out, the tears rolling down her cheeks at the thought.

“What? No, I’m not. I’m not. Promise.”

“How long will you be gone, still? I hope it’s not that long because I’m naked and I am sitting on the windowpane, hoping that this rain will make me recall how your hands felt against my skin, and it’s not you and I cannot recall how your hands felt against my skin, Mark.”

Clouds wrecked into one another to release a rambunctious roar.

Mark sighed, and it almost broke Samantha’s heart. Then he laughed, and suddenly, the world came alive.

“Okay, let me guide you to remember, hmm?”

“Guide me.”

“If you lay your hand to the side of your neck, cupping it, but not too tight, and a bit far back, you’ll remember it is my favorite spot to hold when we hug.”

In thorough obedience, Samantha did just as Mark instructed her to. She closed her eyes, picturing Mark’s silhouette right by her side.

“Now, if you lower your hand to your side, not too low on the hip, and drum your fingers against the flesh, you’ll remember it is my favorite spot to tickle you.”

The action made Samantha giggle loudly, almost the same as Mark used to. “I am ticklish there, yeah.”

Mark laughed, and Samantha couldn’t see, but he laughed heartily. “Yeah, I know. Now, if you go further and caress a trail from your lower belly all the way to your clit, you’ll remember it is my favorite spot to make you pant. Right before I slide a finger inside you.”

Samantha followed Mark’s voice until her middle finger caressed over her womanhood, a loud whine erupted from the back of her throat. “Oh no, no, don’t even think about doing it. The last part is left for me to do.”

She unexpectedly stopped, Mark’s charm still working strongly. “How did you know I wanted to do that?”

“I know what your body is telling me, angel. It’s just you I need to know more about. I’ll be back in a week and a half, can you hold out for me this long? I can always talk you through it if you think you can’t.”

Samantha scoffed jokingly, draping her hand around herself instead. A week and a half felt to her like an eternity. When Mark had her wrapped around his finger like a marionette, when he knew when to go back to calling her endearingly, when he so easily confessed it was hard on him, as much as it became hard on her, the time stopped dilating as fast. Another bolt of lightning pierced the night sky, casting a porcelain light over her body.

“When you come back to me, Mark, I’ll tell you about the more you want to know.”

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boop-le-snoot · 3 years

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@buckyownsmylife hey babe! Remember that one time you threw that cool challenge? Here's my entry. Prepare to get absolutely ruined because daddy!Bruce is exactly that sort of man.

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emotional support nerd

Your best friend's dad, Dr. Bruce Banner, is hotter than you thought he would be. 6k words, NSFW. Kind of Alt!Reader - she refers to herself as 'goth' in one instance. Tony Stark makes an appearance because God forbid I write a fanfic without him in it.

This is filthy pron, ft. age difference (reader is college aged) daddy kink, throat fucking, dirty talk, praise kink, cream pie, possessiveness, belly bulge and ending with a hint at a threesome. I really crammed all I could from Eyre's wheel in here, didn't I. Oh well.

"How much longer, dad?" Lyra's annoyed voice struck a chord within me. I tried to hide my snickering - unsuccessfully might I add - causing my best friend to shoot me a hurt look, equally fed up with me as she was fed up with her forgetful adopted father. "You know what, we'll take the subway."

Lyra's father's voice, both agitated and apologetic, reached my ears in bitten-off phrases as the traffic noises around us grew in volume, NYC rush hour rapidly approaching its peak.

With a sound huff, Lyra removed the phone from her ear, staring me down with the most amount of petulance I've ever seen on her usually reserved, placid face. "It's twenty more minutes. Apparently he's driving Tony's car," she offered in the way of explanation, like it actually did anything to better the cold, wet situation we found ourselves in. "Please, and I can't stress this enough, please don't be weird."

I felt a flood of amusement at Lyra's pleading tone. "Darling, if you wanted a normal friend, you should have looked elsewhere," I gestured to my outfit. I looked like a goth boy's wet dream: chunky platformed boots, fishnets, heavy eyeliner. Of course, all in black.

"You know what I mean," she whined, waving off my pointing hand and fixing me with a hard stare. "The least my dad needs is someone that is terrified of him just because sometimes he turns into a big green monkey. It's not as exciting as internet thinks, anyway," the last part of the sentence was mumbled but I heard it nonetheless as Lyra stared out into the traffic, clever eyes looking for a particular car model.

What Lyra didn't know was that I was not at all considering to be terrified by the man who dosed himself with radiation and developed an advanced version of split personality disorder. I could be intimidated by him, sure, because he was incredibly intelligent, a world class scientist with more PhDs than I had zeroes in my bank account, but even despite his green problem, Dr. Bruce Banner was about as far away from 'scary' as a man could be.

The few scarce pictures of him on the internet showed a short, stocky man with kind eyes and salt-and-pepper curls, always dressed in un-ironed, crumpled button-ups with dorky patterns. Looking at him, I mused that there was a high chance he spoke with a stutter and that fact amused me to no end. Jekyll and Hyde, alright.

Lyra was much the same way. Shy and reclusive, with curly brown hair and doe eyes, she spent a good chunk of her first semester in college being avoided by everybody because of her last name; I, on the other hand, avoided everyone out of habit, I'd never been a social butterfly, but the way people subtly made sure to exclude Lyra from all the activities filled me with quiet, seething rage, and I stepped over my general distaste of people and removed my bag from the seat next to me so Lyra could at least study in relative peace.

Yeah, yeah, you've heard it all, I'm sure. Weird goth chick adopts a socially awkward, shunned nerd and they become best friends forever. I had to admit that under the shy exterior, Lyra was smart, witty and even funny sometimes. She was willing to entertain my crude jokes without moaning, at least, and I was perfectly okay with listening to her rant about science every now and then.

Rain banged on the slanted roof of the café we were hiding in, the autumn wind howled, making both of us shiver at the prospect of having to go outside, even if it was for a short moment to run to Lyra's dad's car. The day had started out warm and sunny, but much like a badly calculated chemical formula, it all went downhill a split second after we had set out to leave campus.

"There he is," the grouch in Lyra's expression had me once again unsuccessfully attempting to conceal my snorting.

Nonetheless, I followed her out into the rain, struggling to keep up with the brisk running in my platformed shoes, unceremoniously crawling into the car behind her without sparing a glance at the driver in my eagerness to get out of the freezing downpour.

"Hi, dad," Lyra's tired voice spoke up at the same time as I angrily shook out my hair.

"I've just about McFuckin' had it with New York," I was afraid the dye in my hair would bleed out into my clothes, or even worse, the nice, cream-colored car seats.

"Hello, ladies," the voice that greeted us was low, gravelly and apologetic to boot.

My eyes shot up, meeting an expression full of surprise and amusement. I stared at the shockingly handsome face of Dr. Bruce Banner like a deer in the headlights.

The fine mimic wrinkles had stretched into a resemblance of a smile, soft, plush lips revealing a set of straight, white teeth. The five o'clock shadow framed his jaw, giving it a sharp, defined edge, his clever brown eyes slid down my form, faltering on the pentagram on my belt and my fishnet-covered legs, settling on my chunky boots before hastily snapping back up to my face.

"Dad, this is..." Lyra's voice was full of suspicious bewilderment as she attempted to dissipate the sudden awkwardness.

"Oh, yeah, I'm Dr. Bruce Banner, but you can call me Doc or Bruce," he cleared his throat, turning himself towards the windshield and starting up the car.

"Nice to meet you," I busied myself with putting away any stray hair just to occupy myself with something during the time I needed to recuperate from being just... Looked at by Lyra's dad.

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I was so taken aback by his handsomeness and his aura of a gentle but powerful man that the ride to Stark tower, however swift, went on in slightly awkward silence. The streets outside were, thankfully, noisy, and the lack of an attempt to have a conversation could easily be attributed to Bruce's need to focus on the road, but Lyra's increasingly concerned looks did very little to settle the sudden racing of my heart.

"C'mon, I'll give you some sweats so you can let your..." Lyra's vague gesture towards my upper body disappeared behind her side of the door. "Hey, Tony," she suddenly interrupted her sentence, very obviously addressing another person who I managed to miss as Bruce parked in the spacious garage.

"I've been told you're finally bringing your friend, Green Pea," a voice I'd heard a thousand times on the TV poked fun at Lyra.

She bent down to retrieve her bag, shooting big eyes at me and mouthing an exaggerated "Sorry!"

Tony Stark looked about a week in debt on sleep, a contrast to the way he usually appeared in public. The exaggerated eyebrow raise made me shuffle awkwardly in my spot; the Led Zep tee caught my eyes as I lingered on it, aware of my own Mötorhead top on display. He noticed it too, causing his face leave the snide territory.

"Wow, I didn't expect kids these days to have any resemblance of taste in music but you've surprised me, Corpse Bride," he gave me a quiet wolf-whistle, watching me through lidded eyes.

I felt my eyebrow crawl upwards at his attitude but Bruce spoke up before I could say anything: "Tony, no," so firmly, I had to raise both of my eyebrows. I felt a smile tug at my lips, the situation strikingly familiar in it's essence. Like father, like daughter...

"No," Lyra's identical expression, fond and annoyed, topped up with an accusing finger pointed in my direction had everyone snorting a giggle at the situation.

"Lyra," I whined, just so I could coax her grin that she was very obviously trying to conceal. "See, I told you, every crazy genius needs their emotional support nerd," I fixed her with a pointed look.

She promptly grabbed me by the arm, leading all of us to the elevator as the two men behind us shared a hearty laugh at my well-timed joke. It was either that or I would have completely embarrassed myself by gaping and drooling over both THE Tony Stark and Lyra's father.

The rush didn't stop there. I was promptly and generously offered not only a spare pair of pants but also a whole room to stay in after an invitation to dinner I simply could not refuse. Dr. Banner firmly coaxed me into staying overnight with his pleading eyes and a hearty seasoning of guilt tripping, softly crooning how he simply could not let a young woman to wander the cold, rainy night in NYC alone.

Tony added something too, in a tone way too surefire and patronising. I guessed he noticed my eyes lingering on Dr. Banner, being a genius and all.

In a short amount of time, I found myself seated at a dinner table next to a happy, giggling Lyra who'd downed a glass of wine and was well into her second. I found it adorable how much of a lightweight she was; not hesitating in the slightest to point out that fact when she made hands for a pitcher of water.

Tony was the first one to snark back something vague about his college days and all the wild parties he used to throw, booing Bruce upon discovery that he, in fact, actually studied in college in favour of partaking in various illicit activities. That had both me and Tony giggling with Lyra promptly joining in, both of us losing it over the running joke or her being either a test tube baby or the result of immaculate conception.

Bruce's face blushed scarlet. He sputtered, a few stray drops of his lemonade landing on the (ironed!) collar of his purple shirt, cough disappearing in the wake of Tony's truly amused cackling. Dr. Banner was well on his way to either choke on his Lo Mein or turn green; thinking quickly, I decided to defuse a situation by sharing a harmless, funny story that happened to me as a freshman.

"I went on a date with this guy who said that music was the most important thing in his life, and I thought, wow, that's so beautiful!" I began my story over Lyra's incessant snickering. "So we had dinner and went back to his place because I'm a whore," the whole table erupted in laughter at my deadpan remark, Tony reaching over to give me a high five.

"And as we got there, he put on one of his demos which was just a bunch of sampled and remixed Guns'n'Roses songs, and I thought wow, that's gotta be one of the worst things I've ever heard," I pointedly looked away as Lyra's cackling grew in volume, having heard the same story several times by now and the outrage I expressed at the situation first hand.

"But instead of that I said, wow, that's so cool! Then we did the thing and his whole bedroom was covered in Axl Rose posters and I'm sure at some point Mr. Rose stared right up my asshole," there were tears streaming down Lyra's face as Tony flopped his upper body onto the table and Bruce convulsed helplessly in a silent fit of giggles. "And then I thought to myself: wow, I would have to pretend to like his music if I dated this guy and I just couldn't do that..." I breathed out, succumbing to the mirth at the dinner table. "It was good but not November Rain good, y'kno?"

Bruce snorted loudly, sliding down his chair with a hand over his face. The table shook with the force of Tony's cackling; I didn't see his expression but the howling, rasping noises sent me into another fit of laughter, right on par with Lyra.

"Is this..." Tony rapidly inhaled the much-needed oxygen. "Is this why you keep wincing whenever I play the 'Roses in the lab?" Tony wheezed and Lyra nodded.

"I just... I can picture it, and I-" she made a vague, encompassing gesture and a face.

"Please, don't," I urged with a snort. "There are better ways to get disappointed."

Dinner went on by smoothly after that, everybody happily making remarks on my dating fail, the topic of Lyra's birth and Tony's college shenanigans dismissed.

I caught Dr. Banner's pointed look as we finished our dessert - he was studying me, eyes searching for something that he very obviously wished was there. From the damp roots of my hair to the soft, cotton top clinging to my chest, I wasn't left unscrutinzed and unexamined. Like one of the many specimens he studied on a daily basis, Bruce lingered on the many characteristics that made me stand out in the grey crowd.

"Would you like to see the labs?" He asked, appearing behind me without a single sound.

The freshly cleaned dishes clattered in my arms. I'd almost dropped them, startled, but Bruce's hand landed on the top of the stack right before the top plate would have slipped off and shattered into pieces on the cold tile of his kitchen.

Blood rushed to my ears. "I'd love to," my brain had briefly returned to reality, the rush of meeting both Stark and Banner succumbing to logic and reason. My and his fields of study briefly overlapped, the question he posed was more than reasonable. In fact, many people would cheat, lie and steal to be in my position.

Bruce smiled, opening a cabinet and taking half of the dishes I was holding to stack them up in their proper place. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, exposing wide, muscular forearms littered with dark, coarse hair.

I was sure my face was flaming. After waving off Lyra's attempts to put shoes on me and leaving her to watch her TV show, a wide, warm palm rested on the back of my waist, gently steering me towards the elevator.

I tried to keep my eyes off Bruce in the large mirror on the walls of the car as it swiftly moved down, scrutinizing my appearance instead. My throat bobbed, the elevator car suddenly too small and too hot.

His eyes left marks on me - invisible ones, the kind that I knew were there just from the scorching heat sizzling on my skin.

There was a certain je ne sais quoi about him. Perhaps, it was in the way he was acting - a polar opposite of what I'd had expected, Dr. Bruce Banner possessed a quiet confidence and his patience appeared to be endless, heartily doused with an appreciation for his closest ones. The way his eyes lit up in response to people smiling around the dinner table was hard to miss.

When Bruce spoke about his research - whatever wasn't classified, anyway - the spark expanded into a mischievous fire. I could hardly understand the nuances in his work, scratch that- I could not understand a single word he was saying, at all. The individual syllables registered as they should, but my traitorous brain could only focus on the way he licked his lips in between quickly inhaled breaths.

"You're not... Following, are you?" The corner of his mouth lifted upwards, clever brown eyes fixed on my face.

God, I hoped I wasn't drooling. But to deny the obvious would have been a stretch. "No, not really," I swallowed, willing my eyes to lift from the large veins on the hand that was pointing at a set of equations. Reasonably good at math any day, they looked like the scribbles of a madman to me at the time.

Dr. Banner sighed, letting silence creep among the whirring machinery in the lab for a brief moment. "I don't scare you?" He removed his glasses, cleaning them with the corner of his shirt.

The question reeked of self-doubt and, perhaps, insecurity. "No," I answered simply, not giving him the slightest chance to find doubt in my words. I was barely holding my voice from shaking, afraid he'd misunderstand my reaction to the sudden change in atmosphere.

He was closer to me than I recalled. My hip was almost brushing his, the bulk of his shoulder millimeters from touching against my bare skin, the smell of something herbal, like tea, and sharp chemicals clouding my senses. It was such a contrasting experience.

Bruce turned to me, an expression between hunger and regret forcing me to shiver and look him straight in the eye. A hand landed on my waist, holding me in place with gentle firmness. "I'm a monster, I could hurt you," he whispered, leaning into me like a touch starved kitten. The man screamed contradiction. "We shouldn't."

Vivid images of the Hulk and the rampages years prior flashed through my mind; the rubble, the collateral damage in the form of many lives. I barely remembered it, having been too little to really understand what was going on. One thing, though, I knew for sure: ever since the world became aware of Lyra's existence, there had been no incidents. Sure, the Hulk still appeared when there was a threat, but there were no documented incidents of the green creature running amok, accidentally.

"You won't hurt me," I spoke with conviction. Perhaps, I was bluffing just slightly but I wouldn't lie like that to myself. The variable, the... Twelve or so percent chance of things going... Awry, it made a small, malicious worm inside of me rejoice and fill my limbs with familiar adrenalised yearning. "You're not a monster. Far from it, actually," I used the hand that was not supporting me against the desk to gently cradle the side of his face, letting my fingertips brush over the rough five o'clock shadow on his cheek.

Bruce emitted a sound somewhere between an agitated grown and a pleading whine, sagging with the sound exhale, pressing himself flush with my chest. His face slipped from my palm, the warm tip of his nose running a steady line up my neck, sending goosebumps running wildly down my back as his hot breath tickled the arch of my throat.

"Baby," the nickname punched a stuttered gasp out of me with the intensity contained in just that one word. "I've been hearing all these amazing things about you," his voice dropped, low baritone rumbling straight into my ear. "I won't be able to hold back. I'll want you all to myself," his bicep flexed under my hand.

My knees would have bucked if I wasn't grasping onto Bruce for dear life after those words. I had some sense of personal pride in me, so while my body was an easy, traitorous thing, my mind was more than eager to participate in this game, to ping pong a little bit before... "Yeah? What things?" I breathed.

Teeth briefly closed around my tender skin, nipping for just a second. "You're kind, beautiful," his hand took a steadfast hold on the back of my neck, exposing my throat to his mouth. More skin to mark, more time to whisper. "Intelligent, bright and clever," the more he spoke, the fiercer he became. Bruce's grasp tightened until I was pliant in it, willingly following his silent commands. "A bit of a pain in the ass," a healthy dose of humour was added into the mix as my ass was roughly grabbed, our fronts pressed together at his insistence.

"That sounds about right," I didn't resist the sudden urge to snark, thoughts lazily floating in my head, like clouds on a bright sunny day, fleeting and sparse. None of them caught on. I was focused on feeling the need, on my need to feel.

A sharp smack landed on the plump of my ass, the sound resonating in the eerily quiet lab. The sounds of machinery had dulled at some point, leaving just the two of us panting our lust into each other's space. "I know you can be a good girl. Will you, princess?" His fingertips dug into my flesh, surpassing the soft sweatpants as if they weren't even there.

I could only nod, dumbly, overcome by the sudden rush of blood to my body. The life coarsing through me sang, demanding a release of the pent-up tension.

"What's that?" Bruce removed himself from my neck, catching my unfocused eyes with a crooked smirk on his lips.

"Yes," I swallowed, breathing through my mouth.

"Mmm," he hummed, running both hands over my sides, over the frayed edges of my Mötorhead top. He admired it, briefly, setting his eyes on the band logo that was right over my breasts. Having decided something to himself, Bruce promptly removed it, lifting it over my head with ease and leaving it right on the science lab table.

Taking hold of my hand, he walked over to a hidden set of sliding doors that revealed a rather large, frequently used bed, shutting them just as I walked in, wearing only my bra and borrowed sweats. My back was pressed to the door in mere seconds, hot palms chasing away the chill of the lab as Bruce slotted his lips over mine.

He tasted like something I've never had before. His lips - so plush and supple, took hold of the kiss with practiced gusto, sucking me in without a chance or the desire to escape. I drank from him, sucked on the bottom lip as his tongue explored my mouth, danced with mine.

The room was spinning, the ringing in my ears growing in volume. I was only partly aware of the sensation of sliding down the wall; our knees thudded on the carpeted floor simultaneously, heavy breathing the only noise I could distinguish.

"Breathe, baby, that's it," Bruce coaxed, gently stroking my nape. The soft cotton of his shirt crumpled under my fingers where I held onto him, desperately searching something to ground myself with.

The buckle of his belt clattered and then clinked again as he wrapped the worn leather around my wrists, bringing them together in front of my chest. I exhaled sharply at the intimate gesture, a whine bubbling up from my chest when Bruce used a single fingertip to raise my chin.

My eyes met his; a brown iris tinged with the faintest of green around the outer edge. "This okay, princess?" He sought my face for confirmation, for agreement, for anything.

I nodded, stuttering mid-gesture, remembering our previous interaction. My mouth did not want to cooperate but I forced it to, even if it came out as little more than a pitiful mewl. "Yes, daddy," the word, sweet and sticky like fruit syrup, poured from my lips.

My eyes slid shut as my conscience - or was it common sense? - took hold of the situation. I was on my knees in front of my best friends dad, a virtual stranger, and I'd just-

Bruce's soft chuckle stopped the negative spiral of my thoughts. "That's my girl," he sounded a tad more breathless now, a hairliner in his perfect façade of self-control. As if he'd sensed my indecisiveness, he tugged on the makeshift restraints, pulling me closer, closer and into his lap.

A warm, solid chest with a healthy amount of fluff greeted me. Bruce let my lax, pliant body fall into his arms, catching me effortlessly and bringing my face to his lips. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, you're my good girl," he peppered soft kisses all over my flaming cheeks, my twitching nose, my fluttering lashes.

"Please," I begged, shame giving way to the flood of arousal that seemingly hit me all at once. I was aware of the dampness collecting in my panties, the stiffness of my limbs from holding back the ravenous desire to paw at Bruce like a wild animal. "Please, daddy..."

"I know, I know, baby girl," he soothed, not stopping his tender assault on my face. "Daddy will make it all better. I know just what you need," Bruce finally pulled away. I heard the sound of him undoing his zipper and then the awkward shuffle of him shucking off his pants.

Somewhere in between of all that, he'd ended up sitting down on the bed, wearing only his boxers, his shirt hanging open. The red crawled down his chest, partially masked by the coarse salt and pepper hair; his lips were cherry red and his hair was sticking out in odd directions. Bruce looked sinful.

My eyes inadvertently landed on the impressive bulge in his boxers; in response to my widened eyes, he reached out for it, stroking the outline of his thick cock through his boxers. "Like what you see, baby?"

"Yeah," My mouth watered.

"Baby wants a fat cock?" He teased, sounding like he knew exactly what he was doing, testing my self-control like that. With a flick of his wrist, it sprang free, slapping against his tummy, coating the fine hairs with drops of clear, musky fluid.

I swallowed, feeling the taste of him from afar and yearning for more where I was parked between his spread legs.

In a gesture almost loving, he tugged on the belt still wrapped around my wrists, bringing my face to his leaking shaft and my hands to the base of it, letting me feel the weight of his balls in them. The cock throbbed, neglected, weighed down by the heaviness of his full balls.

"Go ahead, baby, suck my cock," the encouragement came with a gentle push to my head.

I obediently followed, wrapping my lips around the pink, moist crown of it, a hum beginning in the back of my throat. My God, Bruce tasted heavenly... I whirled and slipped my tongue a around his head, I dipped into the slit to drink the nectar right from the tap, idly coming to awareness of the broken, choked moans coming from the man above me.

Raising my head got me a view of his chin; head thrown back, the lax O of his mouth glistened in the meager light. My eyes slid lower, to the flex of his abs. Bruce fought hard to stay still. The desire consumed me, a sudden rush of power at having Dr. Bruce Banner's cock in my mouth and the man at my mercy; I inhaled, sliding my mouth further and further down his throbbing length.

"Fuck," I heard him mutter before his hands gripped the sides of my face. "Hungry, baby, are you?" His eyes glowed a faint green; I shuddered at the power he held within himself. Held back for me. "Tap my thigh twice," he spoke and I had no choice but to obey. "Okay. Do that if it gets too much, alright?" I nodded. He gave me a wide, beaming smile. "Good girl," he praised, experimentally bucking his hips into my mouth a few times.

In and out. I focused on my breathing, sharp, little inhales: his girth took up all the free space in my mouth, the tip of it barely fit into my throat. The burn, the stretch; I felt every tenth of an inch, every bulging attempt of my body to accommodate Bruce's huge cock. It was delicious, I couldn't help but crave the same stretch in my neglected, sopping wet pussy.

"Fuck, you're taking it so well," Bruce moaned wetly. "Your mouth... S'like heaven... Could fuck it all day, that's my good girl," the rambling increased in it's intensity as the pace of his hips hastened. Drool and tears flowed like a river; my chin was dropping with it, spit connected my face to his pelvis. "Oh," there was a brief pause to his movements; suddenly, he pulled out, fisting the base of his cock, staring me down with a ferocious gleem in his eye.

I must've looked a straight mess; my face like a crime scene, my clothes disheveled, covered in fluids and most of all - I was desperately grinding against my own feet, too focused on the glorious cock in front of me to notice the weakness of my own flesh. "Daddy?" I questioned, wincing at the grating of my own voice.

Without a word, the belt was tugged once more; in a set of movements just slightly north of acrobatic, I found myself laying on my back in the middle of the bed, my sweatpants suffering a haste demise in the corner of the room.

Bruce crawled atop me, leaving a trail of sloppy kisses on every inch of my skin he could reach, mouthing something inaudible into every pore of my body. As he drew closer, I discerned bitten-off phrases, stringing my desire into sticky, tangy mess at the apex of my thighs.

"My perfect baby girl," the words reached me; all tongue, he kissed me once more, arching into me as much as I arched into his hot grasp. A brief inspection of my face - he was satisfied with what he saw - and Bruce crawled back, settling in between my spread legs, breathing hot air on the lips of my sex still covered by a sopping wet piece of fabric.

"Oh fuck," I yelped, feeling him smooch it soundly, the hot wetness of his tongue penetrating the meagre lace barrier with ease.

He moved it aside anyway, with a single finger, giving my pussy a broad lick, moaning into my cunt like a man gone mad. It took a few more licks for him to feel sated enough to surface, all the while holding my hips down. I was so sensitive, I felt even the tiniest flicks to my clit, I was sure if I didn't cum then and there, I would explode.

"Such a pretty pussy, princess," his heavy breathing paused briefly. He nipped my thigh. "So wet, is that all for me?"

"Yes, yes, daddy," I rasped, pushing my cunt into his face, losing all shame and trepidation.

"So tasty," he continued the torture, outlining my lower lips before taking another nosedive right into it, swirling his tongue around every fold, sucking onto my clit.

Bruce ate my pussy until my thighs shook, until my core quivered and I could no longer hold back the choked, ragged screams starting somewhere in the low of my belly and coming out as unholy, all-consuming yowls filled with unadulterated lust.

"Louder for me, baby," he inhaled rapidly, and then, he sucked on my clit.

The world stopped, halted on it's axis, every muscle going rigid in my body and every nerve ending simultaneously coming alive. Faintly, I heard a chant, repeating two syllables over and over, it sounded like my voice - but I had no control over myself. All I could do was weakly grind my hips against Bruce's mouth, faltering when the crashing waves of my orgasm began to recede.

The infuriating overstimulation stopped; blinking hazily, I saw Bruce's eyes glimmer brown and green in front of my face. His nose and his chin was glistening with a thin coat of sticky fluid; disheveled and red, he looked a man on the verge of a revelation.

Something hot and blunt nosed at my cunt, bringing back the moment to me - I realized, with a great deal of impatience - how empty I felt. The decision was minute. "Daddy, fuck me, please, I want your cock," the words came easily.

"That's my girl," his eyes fluttered shut as the first inches squeezed through the snug of my cunt. I was sopping wet and as relaxed as I'd be, but even then, it was a stretch. "Good girl, good baby," the mumbled praise made me whine and my pussy clamp on his cock. "Relax, let daddy fill you up." Breathing through it, I consciously unwound myself around him, letting my palms rest freely on his shoulders. "Let daddy take care of you."

Like melted sugar, his husked words stuck to me inside and out. Short, sharp thrusts; Bruce was patiently burrowing himself inside of me, making his way to reach the deepest parts of me I didn't even know existed. His cock head pressed against something hard and spongy inside of me; stars burst behind my eyes I'd clamped shut on reflex.

I moaned weakly, tugging on his arm, pressing myself closer. It felt so, so good. Like a raw nerve had been exposed and he was stroking it, pushing that little switch with every stroke of his hips.

"I'm not gonna last," he muttered as once again, my cunt squeezed him snugly in place, just as greedy as I was to feel that tiny explosion spark up within me again.

"I want..." I panted. Bruce set in a punishing pace after that, a palm under my ass, squeezing it so hard there would definitely be bruising. I craved it, I needed to see the evidence this was not some elaborate fever dream. "I want... Daddy to fill me up," words came out garbled; it sounded like gibberish to my ears but Bruce - they spurred him on.

"Oh yeah?" That breathless, boyish cockiness was back in his voice again; despite how fucked out he sounded, I prepared myself for something truly out of this world. I just knew.

He sat back on his shins, dragging me by the hips with him, making me shiver and moan and twitch and clamp onto him again as his throbbing cock hit that special spot again. And again. And again.

"Look at me, baby," a hand on my belly and his eyes burning right through me. As they slid down, towards the apex of my thighs where he was still moving within me almost lazily, I saw it.

"Oh fuck," I couldn't utter much more than a two-syllabled profanity. There was a bulge in my belly, just above my pelvis, moving in rhythm with Bruce's hips. And then he pressed on it and I-

Something, someone, somewhere was screaming. The noise was loud and pitched, but even then, I could barely hear it though the neverending waves of bliss that enveloped my whole being. Gold and silver at the edges of my rapidly darkening vision; I was drowning in something that smelled and felt like Bruce. The safety of his arms, the warmth of his heated body, the rapid snapping of his hips-

Oh.

"I'm gonna, fuck," the last word was but a ghost of a human speech. Growling low and filthy, Bruce leaned into my ear, his breath hot and moist. "Mine," his hips stuttered, his cock nestled deep, the sensation bordering on painful, forcefully extracted pleasure. It throbbed with every spurt of his seed; each one felt like a solid punch in the gut to my abused pussy.

"Daddy," I mewled, my body jerking away from him but my mind and my soul yearning for more. His rapidly softening flesh made the idea of being separated unbearable.

"S'good, s'my good girl, m'so proud," he mumbled, looking slightly disoriented as he removed himself from me, immediately pressing me to his side and interwining any free, flailing limbs.

We laid in silence, each of us slowly coming back to Earth after the completely unreal experience we just had. I didn't know what to think, didn't know what to do as the realization set in, the post-orgasmic haze giving way to a sudden rush of clarity.

"I can hear you overthinking," Bruce's voice was fond.

Before I could muster up the courage to snark back, the divided doors opened, one very concerned Tony Stark standing there, armed with a tranquilizer gun in one hand and a pack of cookies in the other. His mouth, previously open to (probably) yell at us, remained as open when his eyes had registered the scene in front of him.

I stared at Bruce. Bruce stared at Tony.

"The noise," he offered in the way of explanation, dangling the pack of cookies, looking, for once - speechless. He recovered quickly, however, even if the remark was a thin ghost of his usual sass: "You pick the nerd over me? I'm hurt," he scoffed in mock irritation, although I was pretty sure I saw some satisfaction in there, too.

Bruce looked at me. I looked at Bruce.

A mischievous grin slowly crept up his face, an identical one beginning to appear on my own face seconds after.

"Hey, two nerds is better than one, right?" My response is what did it; or, rather, it was the evidence of my previous throat-fucking clearly audible in my voice... Tony dropped the cookies and then, the tranq gun.

Bruce Banner taglist: @pilloclock @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @persephonehemingway @mostly-marvel-musings @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites @sapphicnoodle69 @couldntbedamned @xoxabs88xox @marvelsbanner @tripleyeeet @tatestripedsweater @stuckybarton

#bruce banner x reader #bruce banner smut #bruce banner x you #bruce banner x y/n #Bruce Banner #bun writes #I haven't written shit in a month and boom #6k words in three hours #i don't like the ending #I'm bad at them #okay #okay .

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lottiebagley · 3 years

Text

Till forever falls apart- Fred Weasley

Out on our own Dreamin' in a world that we both know It's out of our control But if shit hits the fan, we're not alone

Fred Weasley lived in his own little world. He had his friends who he eagerly invited in but he was never particularly aware of the world around him. He never needed to look any further than his circle of friends.

She fell in love with Fred Weasley instantly. From the moment she saw him she wanted to be around him. Something about him made her heart beat faster and her mind run miles. She wanted Fred Weasley in every room she entered.

He never really noticed her.

She was the year below him at school and he never needed to know who she was.

His little world didn't include her and so he barely realised she existed.

That was until she arrived at his quidditch practice in floods of tears in the middle of his third year at school.

Fred had watched in shock when Oliver Wood immediately called a break mid-practice, something he never does, and rushes down to the crying second year.

Fred notices as he flies back towards the ground that despite being in tears the girl is beautiful. Something about her so raw and vulnerable. He pushes the thought away because what 13 year old is looking at a 12 year old, he doesn't quite understand the difference between them is a mere 6 months.

"What's got Wood all caring? Hope he's not dating a child the pedo," Fred jokes to his friends who all seem to look at him like he's grown a second head, even Harry, who had only been on the team for four months.

"That's his sister you moron," Angelina Johnson states, rolling her eyes.

Thinking really hard Fred can almost remember knowing that Oliver Wood had a sister, he just never took the time to realise who she was. He watched from afar as Oliver comforts the girl before she settles in the stands and practice resumes.

The entire time Fred feels drawn to her. Glancing towards her every so often and watching as she reads her book, occasionally glancing up at the practice.

When Oliver finally calls time Fred watches as the girl walks down to the pitch, eaves dropping as Oliver tells her to wait for 5 minutes while he changes. Fred sees his opportunity to talk to her, wanting too not just because she's beautiful but because something about her seems to pull him in, he runs to the locker room and grabs his bag before heading out to the pitch where she's standing.

"Hey, I'm Fred," He grins brightly to the girl who blushes just from the way he looks directly into her eyes, looks into them like he can see her very soul.

"I'm y/n, Oli's sister," She introduces herself, he nods

"You alright? You- well-"

"Showed up a sobbing mess?"

"Yeah," He nods, chuckling a little at how direct she is

"I'm fine. I've been arguing with this girl in my dorm a bit recently. I'll be honest she's kind of a bitch,"

"Really? Who is she? I'll prank her for you," Fred offers brightly

"Florrie Watson, but you really don't have to. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble,"

"I have no clue who that is but just you wait, once I find this Florrie Watson she won't know what hit her. And don't even worry about me getting into trouble, I've done it for much less beautiful girls," Fred promises, the girl giggles a little and Fred would do anything to be the cause of that giggle again and again for the rest of his life.

"Thanks Fred," She smiles, he grins back brightly, fishing around in his bag

"Here, have a chocolate frog, they always make me feel better," He offers, she smiles gratefully accepting the frog as Oliver exits the changing room. He strides over, nodding his end in a goodbye to Fred before leading the girl off talking about a game or exploding snap and some hot chocolate.

Fred Weasley would never forget the image of her, a few feet away, turning over her shoulder to shoot him a warm smile.

Three days later she arrives at breakfast to see Florrie Watson with bright green hair and exploding boils on her face. When she looks to Fred he sends her a knowing wink before returning to his breakfast.

She was utterly in love with Fred Weasley and maybe one day he would feel the same.

Cause you've got me and you know That I've got you and I know

Fred does feel the same. He doesn't realise for a while but he falls just as hard.

Once she's become part of his little world she is a staple of it.

They chat in the common room, she helps out with pranks, they tease Oliver together.

They grow close over the next two and a half years and so on the platform ready for his sixth year at Hogwarts, Fred is more than excited to see her.

Although, he had probably been in love with her for a while, the realisation happens all at once.

He turns around to see her charging down the platform, skillfully avoiding bumping into people, as she runs towards him and George. She has a bright grin on her face and her eyes are shining with excitement.

She throws her arms around Fred who wraps her in a tight hug lifting her into the air to spin her around.

It's as her easy laughter floats into his ears he realises he's a goner.

That he is madly in love with her.

Despite feeling anxious at the realisation he wouldn't have it any other way.

He places her down gently and smiles happily as she grins up at him "Missed you Freddie," She grins and with that she's moving to pull George into an equally tight hug.

"I'll never understand why you come from Scotland all the way to London to go back to Scotland," George teases her as he releases her from his tight grip.

"Becuase floo powder takes literally seconds and otherwise everyone gets fun memories and I don't,"

"So you're scared of missing out," George deadpans

"You're happy to see me, right Freddie?" She beams, turning to the boy who is staring at her with a love struck grin on his face

"Couldn't be happier sweetheart," He confirms, she grins even bigger, although he hadn't thought it possible, before turning back to George

"See Georgie, some people actually like my presence," She jokes

"Don't remember saying I didn't," He chuckles, raising his hands in mock surrender, she laughs loudly, swatting his hand down. She moves to say something but is stopped when her name is squealed from across the platform.

"I'll talk to you guys later," She informs, turning to run towards her best friend, the very Florrie Watson that Fred once pranked.

"George?"

"Yes, Fred."

"I think I'm in love with her," Fred speaks with confidence

"About time you figured it out," George smiles, patting his brother's shoulder with a laugh

If the tide takes California I'm so glad I got to hold ya And if the sky falls from Heaven above Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love

She was almost 100% sure she had no chance with Fred Weasley, that and that alone is why when Cormac McLaggen asks her out she says yes.

"Hi boys," She smiles, leaning over the sofa to stick her head between Fred and George

"You smell good," Fred comments, not really thinking about what he is saying but immediately recognising the scent as the one coming from the potions classroom that morning.

"Thanks Freddie," She grins happily

"You look good too, what's the occasion?" Lee questions, he's the only one who can fully see her from his arm chair across from the sofa the twins are sat on

"I've got a date," She shrugs. Fred feels his heart sink as he takes a deep breath, mustering his best fake smile, before putting on a 'totally fine' act, not wanting her to think he is mad, although right now he's thinking up a thousand ways to make whatever boy she's about to go on a date with's life a misery.

"Show us the outfit then," He chimes cheerily, she moves away to come around the sofa, George catching Fred's eye and sending him a sympathetic smile.

She looks beautiful as she stands in front of the boys. Fred letting out a dramatic wolf whistle and smiling when she blushes

"Give us a twirl then," George encourages, she laughs but plays along and twirls for the trio.

"Looking gorgeous," Lee compliments

"You really are," George adds. She smiles at them both before turning to Fred, his the only opinion that ever really mattered to her.

"You think I look alright?" She questions, he wonders for a second how she seems so anxious, like he doesn't think she looks like a piece of art people would wait hours to see even when she's just in her pjs in the common room.

"You look better than alright darling, absolutely beautiful. He's a lucky guy," He grins happily. She blushes a bright red, moving to respond before her name is called from across the room.

"See you later," She smiles to the trio before rushing off towards Cormac McLaggen who is eyeing the girl like she's a piece of meat.

Fred watches as he leads her out of the common room with a scowl on his face "Seriously? McLaggen of all people? If Oliver knew he'd murder Cormac and then he would murder us for letting it happen," He grumbles, receiving sympathetic grunts of agreement from his friends.

We've been livin' on a fault line And for a while you were all mine I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart I swear that I'll be yours forever 'til forever falls apart 'Til forever falls apart

Fred feels his heart sink at the sight in front of him. Cormac McLaggen dancing at the ball with a girl who is most definitely not his current girlfriend.

He's exiting the ballroom quicker than his friends can work out what's going on. "She's in her dorm," it's the voice of Florrie that makes him stop his frantic search, turning to look at her, thinking it best to have a clue what's going on before he charges full steam at a problem.

"What happened?"

"He broke up with her this morning so he could bring Romilda. I tried to force her to come anyway but she didn't want to. Managed to talk her into her dress and we did her hair and makeup but she just wouldn't actually leave the dorm,"

"Prick!" Fred grumbles, shooting the younger girl a thankful smile, before running off in the direction of the Gryffindor tower.

When he arrives, slightly breathless, outside her dorm his heart sinks even further in his chest. He can hear her sniffles from inside her dorm, raising his hand to knock on the door.

"Florrie, please, I really don't want to go," she calls, her voice cracking a little.

"It's Fred," he calls back

"Oh, do you need anything?"

"Just wanna see you sweetheart," he responds gently

"You should be at the ball,"

"So should you," he calls, "I'm coming in," he adds.

The sight makes his blood boil in anger but also makes his heart beat race.

She looks beautiful, a long silver ball gown flowing around her, her hair curled and falling gently around her head, her makeup is smudged from crying but he can tell before the tears it was done to perfection. She looks like an angel walking the earth and he wants to kiss her right there and then.

At the same time though, he notices her red eyes and the tracks of mascara on her face. He thinks about Cormac and how horrendously he treated her and it takes everything in him not to turn around, march back to the hall and kill the stupid boy.

"You look beautiful,"

"I look a mess," she responds

"A beautiful mess," he sighs, moving to sit next to her on the narrow single bed.

"You look handsome Freddie," she smiles, resting her head on his shoulder, exhausted from crying all day.

"Thank you darling," he grabs her hand and gives it a gentle squeeze "There's no chance I can talk you to coming to the hall is there?" He asks

"No. You should get back though, I don't want to ruin your night,"

"Well my plans were to stare at the most beautiful girl in school from across the hall which I can't do when you're sat up here," he's completely honest but she laughs like it's a joke.

"It's your one ball at school,"

"Look, I know you don't quite realise how important you are to me, but I'm not just leaving you a crying mess on your own. So, you and I will stay up here all night," he decides

And they do.

He steals snacks from under Ron's bed and they sit up in her bed eating them. He makes her laugh and she cheers up a little. He catches Bertie Botts every flavour beans in his mouth and smears Cauldron Cake filling on her nose.

He talks her into dancing around her dorm with him. It's fast at first, music playing from her friends record player. When a slow song comes on he holds her close and strokes his hand up and down her back, she rests her hands on his shoulders and stares up into his eyes with a too quick heart beat and a need to kiss the boy she's head over heels for.

They drop to her bed, laying up as she explains what happened. She tells him that she never really liked Cormac all that much and it was the shame and embarrassment that hurt so much, it was the feeling of worthlessness.

Her friends filtered back from the ball one by one, finding them fast asleep in their ball outfits, her head on his chest and his arms holding her close.

So this is it, that's how it ends I guess there's nothing more romantic than dying with your friends And I'm not sorry for myself I wouldn't want to spend a minute lovin' anybody else

"Where too next pretty girl?" Fred questions with a smile, his arms wrapped around her shoulder, holding her to him as they walk through the warm streets of Hogsmeade, the first drops of summer warming the couple.

"Three Broomsticks?" She suggests, taking a lick of the caramel ice cream Fred had insisted on buying her in Honeydukes.

"Sure," He nods, beginning to walk in the right direction, swinging his Zonko's bag in his empty hand "How's the ice cream?"

"As good as ever, you wanna try some?" She questions, taking another lick before tilting her head upwards to look at him, he shrugs in agreement before a smirk takes over his face.

Her eyebrows raise in question before his thumb comes down, hand cupping her jaw, the thumb swiping over the corner of her lip and collecting a smear of ice cream, he pops it into his mouth, sucking the caramel flavour off as she stands staring up at him, eyes a little wide and mouth a jar.

"It's good," He nods, casually dropping his arm back around her shoulder and continuing on his was towards the pub. She allows herself to be tugged along, slightly in awe and massively in love as he somehow manages to act nonchalant, in reality his insides feel like they're on fire.

"Hey, Fred?" She questions as they walk, he hums gently in response, eyes flickering down to look at her

"Why no date this weekend?" She questions casually.

"Haven't been on a date in a while if I'm honest," He admits casually. It was true, for a while Fred was serial dater, she was so unattainable and so he occupied himself, tried to find someone who would make his heart beat just as fast as she did. That was until George informed him the more girls he dated who weren't her the less likely she was to admit to liking him if she felt the same, George knew she did, he could tell, not that Fred believed him.

"Very out of character," She teases, a smirk falling to her face "You lost all your game?"

"Why don't you consider how much you blushed when I tried your ice cream and answer that yourself?" He smirks, watching as she blushes once more but rolls her eyes at him.

The afternoon passes pleasantly, harmless flirting that makes them both overthink carrying the conversation.

It was a joke at first.

He had snuck into a small florist whilst she was talking to a girl from her year.

When he had returned to her side, the flowers held behind his back until the girl was gone, he smiles politely along with the conversation.

She had turned to him, ready to ask where he wanted to go next, and blushed madly when he held out a bouquet of sunflowers to her, he knew they were her favourites. She had taken them with a bashful smile and a teasing 'what have you done wrong to butter me up with flowers'

And it had been a joke when he responded.

"Nice guys buy their dates flowers Wood,"

The reality of what he said hit the pair hard as his eyes widen at the realisation. He can practically see the cogs turning in her head before she whispers

"Is this a date?"

He almost lies. Tells her she's insane and that she's like a sister and he had just been messing with her.

But then he sees it.

The flicker of hopefulness in her eyes.

"I hope it can be," He admits, breathless although he's not quite sure what from.

"Okay, date it is," She confirms, tugging the flowers to her chest in one hand and taking his hand in the other.

'Cause you've got me and you know That I've got you and I know

Fred's foot taps loudly on the floor, a rapid beat ringing through the kitchen.

"You're up early," Molly comments as she enters the kitchen, she's unsurprised by her son's presence in the kitchen even though it is hours before he would normally wake up.

"My girlfriend gets here today. Merlin, mum, you didn't forget did you?" He questions.

It had taken hours and hours for Fred to be able to convince his mother and all the other adults involved to allow his girlfriend to stay for the last two weeks of summer given the location of the Order was supposed to be a secret.

It was eventually Remus' declaration of trust for the girl over dinner after a meeting one night that forced the adult's agreement. "Of course not sweetheart," His mother assures, a loving smile on her face as she watches her son who she's never seen happier. "You know she's not getting here until the afternoon though and that Remus is meeting her in Diagon Alley and he hasn't even woken up yet, let alone left,"

"I know. Just couldn't sleep," Fred admits, rolling his eyes at the beam that overtakes Molly's face

"You really love her?"

"I do. If it means anything I think you will too,"

"I'm sure I will dear," Molly smiles, squeezing her son's shoulder before moving to prepare breakfast.

6 hours later the door is pulled open and Fred feels his heart practically double in size. She hadn't been expecting her boyfriend to be sat on the stairs staring at the front door waiting for her, he had been there since his old professor left. She had been talking happily with the older man, something about her brother's new quidditch job from what Fred heard before she's silenced.

She let's out a mildly shocked laugh when two arms wrap around her, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around in circles. He places her back to the ground, staring down at her with a bright grin that's mirrored on her face as she stares back up.

Half the order and all the kids have now made their way to the front door to watch the couple's reunion. No one can deny that the entire house seems warmer now that their love is filling the walls. No one can question that it's love to the very truest form as they watch the couple stare at each other.

"You're entire family and a load of people I don't know are staring at us," She whispers, only he can hear and he chuckles a little, his arms still wrapped around her waist as her hands rest on his chest.

He can faintly hear the scream of Walburga Black's portrait followed by Tonks shouting 'shit I tripped, did I miss it?', her question answered by Ginny's laughter and a 'They haven't even kissed yet'

"I'm going to kiss you anyway darling, because it's all I've been thinking about for the past four weeks an-"

He's cut off when her hand tugs him down by his shirt, his lips meeting her for the first time in a month. It's not the most magical of kisses, a little toothy from both their wide grins and ruined by the onlookers and Ron's dramatic faux gags.

She pulls away quickly, not wanting to seem disrespectful and giggles when his lips chase after hers "Next time don't talk so much and just kiss me," She teases in a quiet whisper, just for him, he lets out a breathy laugh as she pats his cheek before squeezing past him in the corridor, approaching Mrs Weasley with a tentative smile.

She's pulled into a hug by the woman before being lead into the kitchen. Fred watches from the doorway as she's introduced to everyone and happily greets his siblings, a lovestruck smile on his face.

If the tide takes California I'm so glad I got to hold ya And if the sky falls from Heaven above Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love

Fred sits on the cabinet, his legs open as she stands inside them.

"You really need to stay out of trouble," She comments quietly, trying to be gentle as she dabs the open wound on the back of his hand clean.

"Better it's me than the 11 year old she would have given the detention too if I didn't take the blame," Fred responds, trying not to wince at the sting of the alcohol on the cotton pad.

"I hate seeing you like this though," She sighs, he leans down to press a kiss to her forehead "You were very brave though," She compliments, throwing the red stained cotton pad into the bin as she grabs the ointment the twins made a few weeks before from the cupboard. "We're running low," She comments quietly

"I'll make some more in the morning," Fred sighs, letting his head drop back against the wall "Is there enough for George too?" His voice sounds tired but she knows if there wasn't he would stay up to make his twin more, it was the quickest way to heal the scars of Umbridge's quill.

"Yeah," She sighs gently. "Freddie?"

"What's wrong darling?" He asks, one eye fluttering open to look at his girlfriend. Not liking the anxiousness of her voice.

"I was just thinking that tomorrow I could go to Umbridge and tell her the other night was my fault, your hand is practically raw and-"

"No," He doesn't mean to snap at her but he would never, ever, let that toad of a human lay a hand on his girl. He'd take any punishment she has a thousand times before he let her take it even once.

"Fred, you can't just-"

"I mean it. I'm not letting her hurt you, alright? 'M your boyfriend, it's my job to keep you safe so no. You aren't taking the blame for her finding us kissing in a broom cupboard," He demands, she sighs as she grabs a bandage to wrap up Fred's hand

"You're killing yourself slowly Fred and I won't let you. I was just as at fault as you were and you've taken the blame for every slip up I've made all year. Even when you weren't there," She argues, her voice is soft though, not wanting to fight with him.

His hand that's not being bandaged rakes through his hair in frustration. "Please, please just let me keep you safe?" He's speaks so quietly, so full of nerves and love and every emotion in between that her heart melts a little

"You-"

"I swear to you right here that I'll start being more careful and I'll stop taking the blame for other people if it makes you worry, but, please. Angel, please, just let me look after you,"

He's practically begging and she can't help but agree, reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek. "Just start being careful alright?" She whispers the question

"Promise," He confirms quietly

"I love you Fred,"

She had been in love with him since her first year and it was the first time she ever said it to him.

She wasn't nervous though, not even for a second, she knows he loves her back, he may not have ever said it but he tells her in his own way a thousand times a day.

"I love you too sweetheart," He smiles gently, reaching his none bandaged hand to her jaw to pull her to him.

He kisses her soft and slow before she pulls away, moving her head to press a gentle kiss to the palm of his hand that's moved to cup her cheek.

"George! I'm ready to do your hand!" She calls, turning away from her boyfriend to blink away her tears, her anxiousness for his well being feeling overwhelming. George enters the small bathroom, cradling his own bleeding hand.

Neither twin mentions the redness in her eyes.

We've been livin' on a fault line And for a while you were all mine I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart I swear that I'll be yours forever 'til forever falls apart 'Til forever falls apart

"I need to tell you something," Fred had spilt the words out over dinner, interrupting his friend groups story. She immediately turns to him, eyebrow raised in concern. She had joined his friends for dinner at his request, he'd been clingy fort he past month but she thought nothing of it until that very moment.

His brown eyes that usually held so much love and mischief seemed consumed in guilt.

"Alone," He adds hastily, trying to ignore the questioning look from Angelina Johnson across the table who had been talking about her Potions essay.

He stands, his girlfriend following behind wordlessly. Normally, he would reach out to grab her hand but he could feel the cold stare of Dolores Umbridge.

By the time he pulls her into an empty class room, too anxious to go all the way back to his dorm, he can feel his heart in his mouth.

He knew, realistically, that he should have told her months ago. Told her when the idea was first born. Not now, less than 24 hours before it happens.

"I swear to god, if you've cheated on me Fred I will cut you-"

"No!" He's quick to defend himself "Of course not. I would never, you know that," He sighs, still not sure where to find the words. "I have something to tell you but please don't be mad,"

"You can tell me anything Freddie," She reassures, sitting down on a desk as he stands in front of her

"I'm leaving," He speaks lowly

"What do you mean leaving?" she questions, eyes scrunched up like she's concentrating.

"I mean Harry gave George and I his tri-wizard cup winnings and we are dropping out of school to open a joke shop. I'm leaving tomorrow,"

"I- I don't know what to say," She admits quietly

"Well, what are you thinking?" He promts, trying to gauge her reaction

"I'm- I'm kind of mad that you didn't tell me you were leaving. That you've undoubtedly known for a while and you didn't bother to tell me. I'm worried because I'm so in love with you and I don't know what happens to us when we aren't both here, I mean I knew next year everything would change but I thought we had time to work out what we are doing. I'm sad cause I'm going to miss you like crazy, but, if I'm honest more than anything I'm so unbelievably proud of you and happy for you,"

"I should have told you. I know that. But I promise that nothing has to happen to us, I love you, not being here won't change that,"

"And you'll write?"

"Everyday," He assures, standing between her legs to press his lips to hers.

We never had it from the start 'Til death do us part

"So, what do you think?" Fred's voice questions, his hands that had been clasped over her eyes nervously ringing by his sides.

She was the first person to see the inside of the shop and both the twins, who stand on either side of her, were nervous about it.

She looks around with wide eyes, her feet spinning her in a slow circle as she takes in the bright colours of the store.

"Jeez woman, say something already," George groans, his anxiousness getting the best of him

"It's perfect," She grins, turning back to the two boys

"You really think?" Fred questions

"I do. It's like you two in shop form. I love it," She grins, flinging her arms around her boyfriend's arms as he lifts her up into the air, spinning her around as his loud laughter of excitement mixes with her giggles

"You love it?" He asks, excitement evident in his voice

"I love it," She confirms as he places her back onto the ground. She turns to hug George, smiling a congratulations.

Fred tugs her by her hand around the store, giving her the guided tour and pointing out every single product, explaining ones she hadn't seen before. She listens attentively, her heart swelling in pride and she swears she falls in love all over again as he grins at her, eyes shining.

If the tide takes California

I'm so glad I got to know ya

Fred's arms hold her close to him, her's looping round her neck as he sways them gently to the music playing through the marquee, her head tilted up to look at her boyfriend who smile back down.

"When we get married-" Fred starts, rolling his eyes when she immediately rolls her eyes

"Did you just say we?"

"Obviously we are getting married you idiot," Fred huffs, she smirks, reaching onto her tippy toes to press a kiss to his cheek "As I was saying, when we get married, it's not going to be this fancy,"

"No?"

"No. Not worth the stress, unless you want a big fancy shindig, if you do obviously we can have one, we will just put a full body binding curse on mum," He chuckles at his joke but she can hear the sincerity in his voice

"Fred Weasley I would marry you with a piece of string for a ring and only one witness,"

"So a small wedding?" He smiles, pressing a kiss to the top of her head

"Small wedding sounds good. You'll have to ask Oli for permission before you ask me though, otherwise he'll genuinely murder you,"

"I'll do that," He grins down.

She laughs it off, no idea there was a ring in his bedside draw since his first pay check at the joke shop, that he was just waiting for everything to calm down to ask.

And if the sky falls from Heaven above Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love

Fred feels like he can finally breathe again when he hears the door of the flat swing closed.

"Hey, I'm back," Her voice rings through the home above the joke shop.

"In the living room," He calls back, he hears her drop her keys onto the small table by the door before she arrives in the door way. Staring at him from the door way

"Thought I told you not to wait up?" She questions

"Couldn't sleep, hated not knowing if you were okay," He admits, she let's out a sigh, crossing the living room to sit next to him on the sofa.

"I know what you mean. Spent the whole day worrying if anything had happened to you," She admits, he sighs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"How was work?" He asks softly

"Busy. The world is a mess out there," She admits, her job as a healer seemed to only get crazier with each passing day, the war raging on the streets.

"I know," He hums gently, "Did you see Oliver after you finished?"

"I did, he's good just worried about everyone," She shrugs, it was how everyone seemed to be recently.

"I'm glad your home safe,"

"I'll always get home safe to you Freddie, as long as you promise to do the same?"

"I promise angel,"

We've been livin' on a fault line And for a while you were all mine

She feels like she can't breathe when the door is pulled open, she had the address on a piece of paper in Hermione Granger's neat cursive.

For a second, as selfish as it makes her feel, she allows herself to pretend. Pretend the man standing in the doorway is him. Allows herself to pretend it's the love of her life staring at her, and, for the second she does she can almost kid herself into thinking everything is okay.

"You want to come in?"

She feels the world crash around her as she nods, allowing George Weasley to lead her into his house. He offers her a drink and she politely declines, taking a seat in his living room.

"You're staring," He comments, he doesn't seem angry, nor does he seem hurt to see her. Instead, he watches her with pity.

"Sorry, I just-" She sighs, not bothering to finish

"I do it too. I stare at my reflection and trick myself into thinking it's him,"

"I'm so sorry, that you've had to go on without him. George, I'm so, so, sorry,"

"The same to you," George smiles sympathetically. His eyes scan her, trying to work out how she is without asking. "So, that's why you're here?" He questions, nodding towards the ring that sits on her left hand.

"It is. I need to talk to you about it. I'm sorry, because I know we said that we weren't going to speak but it had to be you,"

They'd both agreed it within a few months of the war ending. Being around each other was too hard. They were the one person who reminded the other of Fred the most.

"Okay," George nods in agreement. He watches as she eyes the framed photo of his wedding day on the mantle piece before letting out a deep breath.

"I moved away, to America, after the war- I just- I needed to get away. It was 5 years before I went on a date, it was 6 before I had sex it was 7 before I had a boyfriend. I didn't want to have a relationship, not when it would never come close to the one I had with him, and it doesn't, you should know that it doesn't, but Daniel, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. But- I can't go through with it, not if you're mad at me for it,"

"I'm not mad," George speaks gently, he has a feeling that in this moment it isn't him she's speaking too at all. If it were anyone else he would be angry, but for her, he is prepared to be the bridge to Fred, because he knows the one person who loved his twin more than George himself, was the girl in front of him.

"I know. I knew you wouldn't be I just-"

"You aren't asking if I'm mad. You're asking if I think he is," George comments, he reaches across the coffee table to squeeze her hand gently

"I know. I'm so sorry George, it's not fair to you and I know that. The thing is- You knew Fred better than anyone and you- Oliver keeps telling me that it is okay. That Fred would want me to be happy and to have a husband and kids and- I want to believe him but- I need to hear it from you. From you who knew him so deeply. Wherever he is does he hate me right now?"

"Fred would want to be the one who made you happy,"

"Look, George, I believe in love. I believe in one grand love, a soulmate, a forever. I believe that Fred was mine. He was the one. He was the sun and the moon and the stars. He is the love of my life. But I want kids, George, I always wanted that, and he is gone. I believe that when you die, the person you loved most in life is waiting for you and no matter what I believe it'll be Fred who greets me. I believe that he's watching over me and every decision I ever make I can practically hear him telling me what to do. I have love for Daniel but I am not in love with him, I will never be in love with anyone like I was with Fred, he was it for me. But I can't have him. I think he knows I would always pick him, I would still pick, I wish it were him. So, George, would he hate me for having a life without him?"

"You had a forever with Fred. It wasn't your forever, but it was his. I never saw him so happy. He wouldn't hate you. Just, for me, don't forget him,"

"I won't George. Nothing else comes close. It never will,"

I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart I swear that I'll be yours forever 'til forever falls apart

Masterlist

#fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley #fred #weasley twins #weasley #harry potter fanfiction

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talkfastromance4 · 4 years

Text

kill my time-- luke hemmings oneshot

*gif made by @carriedawayfromhome

A/N: in collaboration with @spicycal after her impeccable one shot of pretty please with Calum and in the same universe as my Hot Tub Fantasy. We’re back again with Cake content! Enjoy, and feedback is always welcome :)

Word count: 4.4k

Warnings: pining, sweet little moments, “there’s only one bed” trope, a hot tub makeout, dirty talk

donate to my ko-fi here :)

Masterlist

Copyright talkfastromance4 © All works is intellectual property of the author. All rights reserved. Any redistribution or reproduction or any part or all contents in any form is prohibited. You may not, without written expression and consent from the author, distribute works amongst other social media platforms

• • • •

A week's getaway in a cabin with Luke, your best friend and the rest of the guys was exactly what you needed. Work has been more than anxiety inducing, customers and employees both getting under your skin that you had to hold in your screams of aggravation. Plus, a weekend in the mountains with Luke? Even more perfect.

With him being the youngest, he was stuck with the car piled with food and the luggage while the rest of the boys and their significant others carpooled together. Your best friend would hopefully be coming up later that day after declining riding up with you and Luke, she said she had some things to take care of. By things, you hope she meant dumping the guy she’s been seeing. He gave off bad vibes and you know she deserves a thousand times better than him.

Disappointed she wouldn’t be with you quite yet, Luke quickly made up for it by singing your favorite songs on the drive up. Sometimes he’d use his actual singing voice that made your knees week, and for others he’d sing very dramatically, hand motions and all. You recorded prime videos of those ones.

You and the group arrived about midafternoon. Ashton and Michael wanted to hit the slopes before it got too dark which left you, Calum, and Luke to unload the car. It wasn’t until you placed all the bags in the main living room that you saw how the sleeping arrangements were set up. There were six rooms like promised, but only four of them had beds.

“Uhhh...guys,” you say nervously stepping out of one of the rooms barren with a bed.

“What’s up?” Luke asks, setting some of the food bags on the counter.

“There’s only four beds.”

“But there’s six rooms,” Luke looks at you confused.

“No shit, Luke,” Calum chuckles. You give Luke a kind smile to make up for Calum’s comment, Luke returns it easily. Calum then examines the two rooms that are vacant of a bed. “I’ll call the front desk quick.”

While Calum walks between rooms on his phone, you help Luke unload the food, placing the bags of chips and crackers in the cabinets. You left the necessities for s’mores out on the counter, knowing you and your best friend would want a sweet treat later.

Luke would brush up against you while you were putting things away, each time left you with butterflies in your stomach. When you struggled putting a box of oatmeal on the top shelf of one cabinet, he placed his hand on your waist, fingers skimming over a small sliver of skin as he helped you.

“Thanks,” you sigh looking up at him. He gives you one of his signature smiles that you adore, you realize how close you are to him. So close, that you could see the small amounts of scruff on his chin that you want to touch with your fingertips to see if they’re soft and fluffy like his curls or coarse and scratchy yet equally pleasing.

The air between you thickened, your heart beating loudly in your chest when he tightened his grip on your waist.

“Turns out the people before us were a little too...rowdy with the beds,” Calum announces causing you and Luke to break apart quickly.

“Yikes.”

“Gross,” you scrunch your nose at the thought of what exactly “rowdy” meant. You hope the other beds were clean at least.

“So now what, do we have to change cabins for more beds?” Luke asks. Did he sound a little disappointed?

“No, they gave us a discount for the next time we use one though,” Calum shrugs leaning on one of the chairs at the island in front of you and Luke. “And since Ash and Mike are gonna crash with their partners, the four of us will have to share two rooms.”

“I’m not sharing a bed with you,” Luke says looking directly at Calum.

“What? What’s wrong with sharing a bed with me?”

“You’ve kicked me out of the bed all the other times we did.”

“You take up most of the bed,” Calum rolls his eyes.

“I’ll share with Y/N, she’s not as violent,” he grins at you, giving you a quick wink that makes your heart flutter. He looks back to Calum, “you can share with Y/F/N when she gets here.”

The rest of the afternoon and night was spent playing card games while snacking and drinking, listening to Ashton, Michael and their partners gush about the slopes. You remain quiet, you’ve never skied in your life because you’re clumsy by default but were willing to try it.

“You wanna head out tomorrow?” Luke asks you quietly while the rest of the group gather in the kitchen for more drinks.

“I do but I don’t want to die,” you joke.

“I’ll help you,” he bumps your shoulder. “There’s a few bunny slopes we can start out on.”

“Cause that’s not embarrassing,” you huff shuffling the cards, Luke chuckles.

“It’ll be fun, plus,” his fingers close around your wrist lightly stilling your shuffling, “you’ll make a cute snow bunny.”

You can still feel his fingers on your skin after you watch him walk into the kitchen, you’re a little breathless from that comment. His gaze is still on you while he fixes a drink, meanwhile you’re scrambling for your phone looking for a text from your best friend if she’s on her way or not.

Before you join them all in the kitchen, you glance to your left at the hot tub room and your stomach clenches. A fantasy enters your mind of joining Luke in there one night, both of you completely naked in the water. You’re seated onto his lap, cockwarming in the lowlight and the bubbles while he whispers dirty things to you in your ear. You inadvertently clench your thighs together, but it doesn’t stop the fantasy in your mind.

Luke’s hot breath on your neck, his hands all over you. Then, the man himself calls your name pulling you from your reverie, your cheeks incredibly hot.

“You all right?” he asks you lowly, eyes full of concern.

“Uh, yeah, yeah just um…” you motion to the fireplace you were all just seated by, “the fire got me a little hot.”

You have butterflies the whole time you’re getting ready for bed, mentally preparing yourself for sharing a bed with Luke while the images of your forbidden fantasy are still fresh in your mind. When you exit the bathroom, he’s already under the covers sitting up against the headboard. He’s wearing a white tank top that showcases his broad chest and you force yourself to not stand there and stare.

“Kept it nice and warm for you,” he smiles watching you walk around the bed to your side. You requested to sleep near the window.

“How kind of you,” you giggle lightly and get under the covers with him. You let out an involuntary moan at how comfortable the bed is, then quickly cover your mouth when Luke stops adjusting himself. “Sorry, it’s really comfy.”

“It’s fine, I thought it was cute,” he settles more under the covers facing you. You blush.

You and Luke end up staying awake most of the night talking, laughing, and discussing ideas on what else to do for the whole week you’re here. Eventually, you end up falling asleep mid-sentence then wake the next morning with his arm draped comfortably over your lower stomach, his head burrowed a little into your neck.

His soft little breaths tickle your neck and you don’t want to leave the bed. The sound of a toilet flushing from across the way rustles him awake, Luke stretches his long limbs resulting in him pulling you closer to his body.

“Mornin’,” his voice is muffled in your neck, the tenor of his voice gives you goosebumps.

“Morning,” you sigh quietly, secretly loving the way his thumb is making circles on your skin. You want to stay like this forever but then your stomach makes an incredibly embarrassing gurgle.

“Little snow bunny’s hungry,” he chuckles.

“I’m not a snow bunny yet,” you grumble as your stomach makes yet another noise.

“Yeah you are, I say so. C’mon, I’ll make you pancakes,” he pinches your waist making you squeal.

You follow him quickly at the promise of pancakes. While he’s getting the proper ingredients, you start a pot of coffee. When it’s finished you hop up on the counter next to him when Luke places the perfect circle of batter in the pan. While he’s cooking you admire his adorable sleepy face, his curls are a little unruly, begging to be played with, and his eyes are a little glossy. He looks sleepy but refreshed and it makes you happy he’s getting this break as well. He’s been working so hard.

To your surprise, he grabs your coffee mug then takes a drink. He hums at the taste and takes a longer drink before placing it back in your hands. The whole ordeal felt incredibly intimate and you slid your eyes to his pancakes.

“Don’t burn my pancakes,” you warn, pressing the mug to your mouth, the same spot Luke just had his lips on.

“I would never. These are the best pancakes in the world.”

Just then, your best friend appears in the kitchen and you’re quick to give her a hug asking if everything is alright. She promises she’ll dish the whole story to you later in the hot tub, and just the mention of that place sets your mind reeling. Cal joins soon after and you hide your smirk because you can only imagine how well he slept snuggled up to your best friend.

Not long after the four of you finished eating, Ashton and the others woke up too and began discussing plans for the day. The seven of you were going to hit the slopes while your best friend offered to make the food upon your return.

Your stomach is twisting in nerves as you stand near Luke in the ski lodge. He’s placing different poles in front of you, then when you’re ready to take it from him, he snatches it away and grabs another. It isn’t until he places the last one under your chin that there was a purpose for his madness; apparently you need the poles to be chin height.

“Okay, I think we got what we need,” he says, lifting both his and your set of skis. Oddly, it was extremely attractive to see him handling all that equipment so easily. If you tried that, you’d tumble to the floor from the weight and get caught in the boards and poles.

You stomp in the snow towards what you’re assuming is the bunny slope, your stomach sinks when you see a bunch of little kids. As if he could sense your disdain, Luke flashes you a bright smile.

“Don’t be embarrassed, we’ll stay here until you feel comfortable enough and we can go to the green slope,” he assures you. “That’s the easiest slope for beginners.”

“I don’t want you to kill your time teaching me,” you frown, a slight pout on your lips. He moves in front of you, ticking your chin with his gloved hand so you’re looking up at him.

“I wouldn’t want to kill my time with anybody else. C’mon, little bunny.”

He’s going to make you pass out from all the times he’s leaving you breathless.

He helps you with your boots and attaches them to the boards, as predicted you nearly fell just from trying to stand but Luke helped you by keeping a steady hold on your arms.

“Bend your knees, remember,” he tells you.

You do as he says and feel extremely weird bending your knees and just standing there. It’s awkward how your feet are literally planted in the boards. When your knees stop wobbling and you finally find your balance, you give him a triumphant smile.

“I’m not falling!”

“That’s great! Now,” he hands you your poles looping the strings over your wrists. “Try and move your way towards me by walking.” He backs up a few feet from you.

“Walking? I thought we’re skiing.”

“We are,” he laughs, “but you should walk in them first before you glide. Walk to me.”

With a deep breath, you lift your right leg, surprised at the heftiness of the boot but you place it back on the snow and lift your left leg. You feel awkward, like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time, but eventually you’re stopped in front of Luke who catches you in his arms before you have a chance to stumble.

“I walked!” you’re triumphant once more.

“Let’s try a few more walks before you start to glide.”

You didn’t end up going on the green slope, but Luke kept reminding you how proud he was of the progress you made in just one day. You still felt like you were holding him back from his ski time with the others but his happiness in helping you seemed genuine enough.

You had lunch at the Lodge then enjoyed the pizzas your best friend made for you all. You and Luke sat together while you ate in the living room, talking quietly.

“My fingers hurt a little from the grip,” you chuckle flexing your fingers after placing your empty plate on the coffee table.

Luke takes them in his hands, lightly massaging them with his thumbs. Your gaze is on his face while his is on your hands moving together, his lips parted slightly.

“How’s that feel?” his voice is a little gruff, then his pretty blue eyes glance up at you. He swallows harshly, the air between you has thickened once more. He squeezes your fingers lightly, inching his head closer to you.

Then your best friend enters the room, her voice breaking the moment and the almost-kiss with Luke. You both pull away quickly, he clears his throat and you remove your hands from his slowly.

“What?” you ask not hearing her correctly the first time.

“Ready for the hot tub?” she asks, and you instantly feel warm because of the thoughts you’ve been having about that space.

Being this close to Luke makes you feel even warmer.

“Yeah, let me just get changed,” you nod then turn to Luke, “See you in a bit.”

You can feel his gaze on you as you walk away towards your shared bedroom to change into your swimsuit. You press yourself against the back of the door, sighing from the moment you’ve imagined a million times of sharing a kiss with Luke. You change quickly and grin widely when your best friend enters with a large bottle of wine.

She tells you her juicy story of dumping her boyfriend then giving information that the dude wouldn’t even go down on her. You listened aptly, eyes widening at the appropriate parts while both of you passed the bottle between you. She asks you to fill her in on you and Luke and you tell her about the hot tub fantasy you had as soon as you saw it when you arrived the day before.

You explain to her your doubts, that there’s something there but you have fears that he might just be lonely. She assures you that he’s been looking at you like you’re a snack, the wine and the bubbles from the water make you giggle at that.

As if on cue, Luke slides the door open and you’ve zeroed in on his bare torso. You barely register your best friend exiting the tub, Luke helping her out then he climbs in as well, wine bottle in hand. He moves through the water sitting next to you, his curls becoming curlier from the steam of the water.

“Hey,” he greets, taking a pull from the wine.

“Hey,” you smile, and you feel like you’re having a deja vu moment.

“Sounds like you girls were having a fun time,” he grins examining the half empty bottle in his hands.

“You know, just having some girl talk,” you giggle, skimming your palms over the top of the water.

“How are your hands?” he asks, taking another long pull of the wine. You’re glad he’s drinking most of it, your head is pleasantly light and airy, the perfect amount of buzzed.

“They’re bubbly now,” you giggle wiggling your fingers.

“Are you sure you shared this wine with Y/F/N?” he chuckles watching you.

“I’m sure! Now I’m sharing with you,” you press back against the side of the tub.

Luke’s arm is draped across the back and you lean into his bicep, taking notice of his sparrow tattoo. Without thinking, you trace your finger on the outline of the bird, his muscle tensing at your touch.

“We’re sharing a lot of things this week,” he hums watching you.

“Mhm, our bed, coffee, breakfast, the wine, now the hot tub…” you roll your head on his arm gazing up at him.

“And your first experience of skiing,” he winks. “We could share something else, too.”

“What’s that?” you ask.

He leans over you, arms caging you in as he sets the wine bottle on the wooden corner of the tub. When it’s released from his grip, he still has you in the circle of his arms. He’s so close that his curls are tickling your face. Heart racing, you flicker your eyes to his and he has a slight smirk on his face.

“This,” he sighs then his lips are on yours.

You lean up into the kiss all too willingly, your hand cupping his cheek while his lips work with yours in the sweetest way. They’re soft, warm and controlled. This is way better than how you’ve pictured kissing him. Your stomach is filled with butterflies and clenches when his tongue slips inside your mouth making you moan softly.

You curl your fingers in his hair sitting up straighter in the tub so you can be closer to Luke, his hand moves to your lower back pressing you to him even more. In one swift movement, he shifts in the water so he’s sitting and you’re on his lap. You let out a small squeal then giggle as the water settles around you, his arm on your back tightens while his other hand cradles your cheek in his palm.

“C’mere…” he huffs, dragging your mouth to his again in a mind-numbing kiss. He moves his lips to your jaw, then to the space below your ear giving you sucking kisses on your skin. You gasp at the tingling sensation, tilting your head so he has more room to work with and kiss you wherever he pleases.

When his fingers loop under the string of your suit, the hot tub lights and bubbles shut off, cloaking you in darkness except for the moonlight reflecting on the snow outside. Luke pulls his lips from your skin and his eyes are so pretty in the blue black of the night. You trace his lips with your fingers, not wanting this moment to end.

“Head back to our room?” he mumbles, you nod wordlessly moving back to get off his lap. He pulls you in for a quick kiss before following you out.

You share a few more quick kisses while you clamber out of the tub. He holds your hand as you step down but you’re a little wobbly from his lips and you fall into him. He catches you with a laugh, kissing you yet again and you feel like you’re spinning.

“Let’s dry off a little,” you whisper, snatching up two towels.

You both towel off quickly, then Luke loops his towel around your neck pulling you against him so he can kiss you. You laugh into the kiss pushing him towards the door, fingers fumbling with the handle. It slides open and you’re welcomed with a whoosh of cool air, lips still locking together. The towel falls from your shoulders, leaving a trail to your room.

You peek open your eyes and swear you see your best friend and Calum in a compromising position on the couch. Before you can investigate further, Luke’s lips are on yours again dragging you to your bedroom. He lifts you into his arms, your legs wrapping around his damp waist, and he closes the door quietly.

“Did you see them out there? I think they’re about to have sex,” you whisper through giggles.

“About damn time,” he chuckles, nudging his nose with yours bringing you to the bed. He lays you down gently, his left arm tucked behind your neck as you let your legs fall from his waist. “I only had my eyes on you, though.”

You smile softly lifting your head to kiss him with all the energy you have inside of you, your sexual desires are coming to fruition and it’s never tasted this sweet. Luke’s long fingers trail down your stomach, slipping under your suit bottoms and it reminds you that you’re still wet from the hot tub.

“I don’t want to get the bed wet from my suit,” you pant around his mouth.

His fingers dip lower and lower as he smirks at you. “I want you wet, sweetheart,” then his middle finger slips between your folds. Your hips buck at his touch and his mouth moves to your neck while his finger plays with your folds.

“That feels good,” you sigh, turning your head into his arm. You kiss his bicep, nipping lightly at the skin, “better than I imagined.”

Luke’s motions stop, your eyes widen at what you just said, and you slowly turn your head facing him.

“You’ve imagined this?” he grins in a teasing tone, mischief in his eyes. The pad of his finger circles around your clit.

“Maybe,” you give him a coy smile.

He inhales through his mouth and exhales deeply out his nose, his eyes roaming over the harsh rise and fall of your chest.

“What do you imagine me doing to you, lovie?” he gives you a barely there peck, finger teasing your hole.

“U-um, this,” you breathe watching Luke sponge kisses down your chest and stomach.

“Just this?” he chortles removing his finger to instead hook it under your swimsuit bottoms, his eyes flash to yours. “If I remove these, I’ll do exactly what you’ve imagined.” He kisses just below your belly button eliciting goosebumps.

You lift your hips as he removes the small article of clothing, he groans at the sight of you shifting your legs open. His lips are gentle on your thighs, nibbling and suckling on your skin and your head is reeling.

“I’m waiting, sweetheart,” he sighs, his breath blowing over your core.

You clear your throat. “Um, we--we’re in the hot tub…”

“Mhm,” he kisses closer to your center, tongue darting out. “Jesus, you’re so wet…”

“And then...we’re in here after I was cockwarming you in the tub,” you bite your lip as Luke groans, his mouth finally on your warm center. “And your tongue licks me so slowly.”

His actions mirror your words, his tongue licking between your pussy lips agonizingly slow. You moan at the slow sensation, feeling the buildup in your tummy as he takes his precious time. While his mouth is lazily working you up, his fingers rub down your thighs until he grasps them tightly bringing his face closer to your pussy.

“And you do--” you moan loudly when his tongue flicks at your clit, it makes your ears ring from the pleasure. Your hands fly to his curls, pulling him closer to your sex just as he adds a finger. “Fuck!”

He pumps his finger torturously slow in and out of you, his lips doing wonders as your body starts to tremble. Your sentence disappears in the air, your focus is on Luke’s mouth and he picks up speed, his mouth moving with fervor.

You grind yourself against his mouth, stomach muscles tensing as your orgasm approaches, head tilted back into his pillow that smells like him. His finger picks up momentum adding another one, humming against you sucking on your clit.

“There! Oh, right there, yes,” you pant moving your hips faster and faster against his face. His grip on your thigh tightens and you know you’ll have bruises in the morning, but you’ll welcome them as a reminder of a fantasy come true.

You suppress a scream by biting into his pillow as your orgasm explodes within you, your whole body tensing as you feel intense pleasure. When it slowly subsides, Luke removes his mouth but keeps his fingers inside you. He crawls up the length of your body grabbing your hair so he can jerk your head in his direction removing your mouth from his pillow.

“Wanna see that pretty face when I make you come one more time,” he huffs and his fingers twiddle inside you.

You grasp onto his biceps, mouth open as he works you over again. You rock your hips with his motions, chasing what he’s giving you. When his thumb presses onto your clit, you’re seeing stars and you want to cry out. He removes his fingers from your hair to cover your mouth, silencing your moan.

When your body relaxes, he removes his fingers from inside you and from your mouth to pet your hair. You watch him through half lidded eyes as he sucks your juices from his fingers, sighing as he does.

“Your moans are a lot prettier than I’ve imagined,” he whispers, stealing more kisses from your mouth.

You’re blissed out, body humming and buzzing as he slips off the bed. When he returns, he hands you a pair of your underwear and one of his shirts. You’re surprised to see him already changed into his sleepwear.

Even though he just fingered you and ate you out, you turn away when you remove your swimsuit top to pull his shirt on. You’re invaded by his smell again, you inhale deeply before turning to face him, and he has the blankets pulled back.

“That’s all we’re doing?” you ask a little disappointed that you aren’t continuing. As you settle against him though in the comfort of his warm embrace and comfy mattress, you know you couldn’t go on even though you desperately want to.

“We’ve got all week, sweetheart,” he sighs kissing your forehead, “that hot tub isn’t going anywhere.”

• • • •

Taglist: @galcalirwin @cashtonasff5sos @thecurlsofgod @myloverboyash @rotten-kandy @tea4sykes @jannimoeller3 @loveroflrh @iovehemmings @cxddlyash @princesslrh @here-for-the-uproars @katiaw2 @g-l-pierce @fairyintheglass @gosh-im-short @banditocth @dezzym17 @koalacal @lukeisbaby�� @spicycal @mysticalhood @notinthesameguey @wastedheartcth @atlcalm @itjustkindahappenedreally @calumance @babylon-corgis @thew0rldneedsmcreycghurt @lanternlover2 @istaywithmyjonas @calteahood @sarcastically-defensive17 @another-lonely-heart @calumhoodaf @frontmanash @philthepegacorn @mantlereid @lukedorkyhemmings @addietagglikesbands @kikixfandoms @sanrioluke @mayve-hems @morguelth @haikucal @thatscooibaby @meghanrose05 @idontneedanyone @dinosaursandsocks @cassie-sos @suchalonelysunflower @burstintocolor @zhangyixingxing1

**if your url has a strike through it’s because your blog didn’t show up as a tag! :(

#luke hemmings smut #luke hemmings writing #luke hemmings fanfiction #luke smut #luke writing #luke fanfic #luke 5sos writing #luke 5sos #5sos writing #luke hemmings imagine

243 notes · View notes

egcdeath · 3 years

Text

a blip in the reader-verse

chapter 4: going once, going twice

summary: you meet an interesting character while attending a charity auction.

warnings: soft moments, angsty moments. asshole ransom, soft ransom. you’ve been warned.

pairing: ransom drysdale x reader, overarching steve rogers x reader

word count: 3.4k

author’s note: before anyone asks, i don’t really consider this cheating since it’s just steve in a different universe. but i’d skip this chapter if it won’t sit right with you!

p.s. i had to google translate some french, please don’t hate me if you speak french and it’s awful🥺

previous chapter / series masterlist

Sounds seemed to be the first thing you noticed as you entered a new universe. This was absolutely no different.

Well, except for the fact that the first sound you noticed was the announcing of your own name.

From the moment your eyes opened, you were met with a blinding yellow light, and the urge to stand up. You glanced over at the table that you’d previously been sat at, and received raised brows from Aaliyah, who’d been sitting at the white, round table across from you, along with a hand gesture that shoo-ed you away.

You timidly walked up to the small and raised platform of a stage, and stood next to a person who vaguely resembled your old boss from your main universe.

“Alright, ladies and gents! Our final lady of the night, well, not a lady of the night, is the gorgeous Y/N L/N! Starting at $1,000, do we have any takers?”

You looked out into the ocean of round tables, and watched a decently handsome man, with dark hair and a beard raise his paddle, “1,500!” he called out.

The man received a death glare from someone else at his table, and looked up at both the stage and you to raise his own paddle. “2,500,” he responded in a bored tone.

After getting over the extreme ego boost that was being bid over, you let yourself take a good look at the second man who’d offered the cash, and,

Holy shit.

It was Steve, but it definitely wasn’t Steve.

His hair was slightly darker, he was wearing a cream sweater and long, multicolored scarf that your Steve would never be caught dead in. He held an air of confidence and cockiness that you could see from miles away, and according to his bidding style, he was loaded.

After seeing him, you desperately wanted to find a mirror and find out if your own appearance had changed at all.

“Fine, $4,000,” the bearded man offered, glancing back and forth between you, and this alternate version of Steve.

“$5,000!” A new contestant jeered, this one a rather old man whom you could tell you wanted nothing to do with.

“Old fucking geezer,” the alternate Steve muttered. “$7,000.”

There was a gasp, and a silence throughout the audience.

“$7,000 for Hugh, going once, going-”

“15,” the bearded man lifted his paddle once again. You glanced over to Aaliyah, whose eyeballs seemed to be bulging out of her head at this.

“Fuck it, 30,” Hugh sighed.

The bearded man threw his hands up in defeat, and set his paddle all the way down on his table.

“45, final!” The old man called out.

“75,” Hugh glanced around the audience, a rather smug look on his face.

“Oh wow, $75,000 going once, going twice… sold to Mr. Hugh Drysdale! Miss L/N, is there something you’re not telling us about the nature of your date?” The auctioneer passed the microphone to you, and you laughed awkwardly into it.

“Nothing that I know of,” the rest of the crowd seemed to laugh with you at this, but you couldn’t help but feel the growing discomfort in your stomach.

“Well, I’m sure the folks over at One Mission will be very happy at this sizable donation. Can we get one more cheer for Miss L/N?” You gave a friendly wave before awkwardly stepping off the stage while the people around you clapped.

You’d had a decent idea at this point of what was going on, but you couldn’t quite piece together why this Hugh character had decided to bid so high on someone he’d never even met. You sat back down at your table, and slipped your phone out of your pocket to look at yourself. Yep, same you.

“Okay, what the hell was that?” Aaliyah asked you, a mixture of confusion and excitement present in her tone.

“Hell if I know,” you sighed, and scratched your neck nervously.

“I mean, I get it, you’re hot. But the price of a luxury vehicle for a date? You’re gonna have to let him finger you at least,” she giggled.

“Shut up,” you groaned at the thought. You were still feeling pretty confused about the fact that the Steve in this universe wasn’t actually Steve at all. You so far, you’d only really met Steves that were well… Steve.

You internally lamented the situation, until you noticed someone plop down at the open seat at the table, causing you to turn and look at him.

“This seat taken?” Hugh asked, and you shook your head. “Great, now it is,” he quipped.

“I’ll give you two a moment. I’m gonna go find my own socialite,” Aaliyah bantered, slipping up from her chair and following through on her comment.

“So you must really love those kids you just donated to,” you awkwardly chuckled.

“Oh hell no. Fuck those kids. I just hate losing, and I absolutely was not gonna let those douchebags win,” he looked down at his hands and played with his pinky ring in an extremely bored manner.

“Oh, okay,” you nodded slowly. This man was a complete 180 to the type of Steve that you were used to. Your Steve was warm and caring, but this man seemed cold and apathetic. Your Steve would gladly lay his life on the line for anyone, and this man didn’t even seem to have the emotional capacity to hold the door for someone else. “So Hugh, what do you plan to do on our date?” You lifted up your glass of champagne and took a little sip.

“Call me Ransom, only the help call me Hugh. We’ll probably just go to Europe or something.”

You nearly spat out your drink at this. In fact, you felt a little carbonation in your nose. Then again, Ransom just spent ¾ of a hundred thousand on a date with you. “Jesus,” you murmured.

“Think you can head out tomorrow?”

----

Waking up in the bedroom of the apartment you seemed to share with Aaliyah taught you two things. One, you could apparently sleep in these universes and not wake up elsewhere, and two, the walls of your apartment were far too thin.

You glanced over at the clock on your bedside table, and noted the time. You had about an hour before you needed to be at the airport.

You quickly threw a mixture of clothing, a phone charger, a packet of birth control, and some skincare products into a suitcase before heading out to the kitchen to grab a granola bar. You chewed half the bar before hopping into the shower, then tossing on some ugly, but comfortable travelling clothes.

Maybe you spent a bit too long checking yourself in the mirror that morning with the newfound knowledge that you were now worth at least 75,000 dollars. Frankly, having multiple (attractive) men fight over you was the greatest boost to your pride that you’d ever been given.

Glancing down at your phone after the matter, you realized that you only had a few minutes to order an Uber to pick you up, unless you wanted to be late and miss your flight.

----

You had your baggage checked, stumbled through TSA, and showed the screenshot of your plane ticket a boatload of times to a multitude of people before you finally reached the lounge, and found Ransom sitting on a sofa with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Why the hell are you dressed like that?” Ransom asked you as you approached, looking up and down at your outfit of a college sweatshirt and loose joggers.

“Because I want to be comfortable, you dick. Do rich people not like being comfortable?” You sat down beside him on the sofa, and slumped into the chair. Who knew travelling throughout the multiverse could be so tiring? “Besides, you have like seven holes in that sweater. I wouldn’t be talking about anyone else’s clothes if I gladly let moths have a four course meal on my things,” you scoffed.

That seemed to shut him up for a bit.

Eventually, your flight number was called, and you, along with the few other first class flyers piled into the plane.

You sat down next to Ransom in a soft chair that seemed to lower back into some sort of makeshift mattress, and slipped your phone out of your pocket to send your friends a message that you were taking off.

“You excited?” You asked Ransom while he began to slip a pair of Beats onto his head.

“Yeah, I like Nice,” he nodded, then grabbed his own phone to connect to the headphones.

“So you’ve been there before?” Ransom nodded, clearly trying to ignore you. “Do you have a plan on fun places to take me?” He shrugged.

You got the message, and huffed as you sat back in your seat. Right before takeoff, you received a message back from Aaliyah of a picture of her cat, and that was enough to bring a smile to your face.

——

About 7 hours into your flight, you noticed Ransom picking out a movie to watch, and you found the idea intriguing.

“What’cha watching?” You asked, leaning over a bit into his space.

“Nothing,” he said stiffly, and you rolled your eyes.

“Porn?” You joked, glancing up at him to see if it landed or not. It did not.

“You know what? You’re a lot prettier when you’re quiet.”

You slunk back into your seat at this and turned your head away from Ransom. The words really bit at you, considering that it sounded just like your Steve, and if you squinted enough, it looked like him too. But your Steve would never say something like that to you, right?

For a moment, you twisted the watch on your wrist consideringly, wondering if you should go to the next universe, where you might gain a little more respect from your partner. Yet something told you to wait it out. If this was still, in some convoluted way, Steve, he’d come around, right?

That alone gave you enough reason to stay.

----

You dragged your suitcase into a hotel room much too big for just two people after nearly 12 hours of an extremely awkward flight, and even more awkward cab ride to the hotel.

After plopping your things down into the bigger bedroom of the hotel, you stretched rather dramatically in hopes of waking up some of the stiff muscles in your body. In the midst of this, Ransom came up behind you, and set a hand on your back, scaring the life out of you.

“What the hell, Ransom! A knock or a ‘hello’ will do it next time!”

You turned to look at him, and became a bit flustered at his shirtless, short-clad figure. It was silly, because you’d seen Steve naked a million times before, and this was simply Steve in another universe.

“You coming to the spa with me?” He smirked as you blatantly checked him out. “Okay, yeah. You’re coming with me. I’ll meet you at the front door.”

You spent around an hour at the spa with Ransom, sweating yourself out in the sauna until you were likely majorly dehydrated, soaking in the heated pool until your skin became pruny and wrinkled, and ending the night with a massage that sent you straight to sleep.

Like, deep sleep. When you became even slightly conscious, Ransom was laying you in your pillowy soft bed. As your eyes opened the slightest bit at him, he scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Pretending to sleep, how cute,” he muttered sarcastically. You’d argue with him, but you were simply too exhausted to do so. In fact, you were convinced you’d just given him a whole monologue about how travelling makes people tired, but the most that had exited your mouth was a tiny squeak.

You watched Ransom leave the room, before your head collapsed onto your shoulder, and you fell back into a nice rest.

When you awoke, it was not on your own will.

An overly saturated light attacked your eyes from behind your eyelids, and came all at once, snapping you out of your dreamless slumber. When you glanced over at the harsh source, you noticed none other than Ransom by your window, with a hand on the drape.

“Time to wake up. It’s like, 3 PM, by the way,” he huffed before exiting your room, not even allowing you to reply.

You groaned in annoyance, having an off handed thought about how jet lag was kicking your ass, before rolling out of bed and trying to find something nice to put on.

By the time you left your room, Ransom was standing by the door, aimlessly scrolling on his phone. “You wanna go for a walk?”

“Sure, I guess. I’m kinda hungry though, so maybe we can stop somewhere first?”

Ransom shrugged and gave you what seemed like the hint of a smile, and you hurried to put on your shoes before heading out.

——

The two of you ended up on the patio of some local restaurant, your eyes skimming the menu while Ransom took sips of his complimentary water.

What seemed to be out of nowhere, a burly man came rushing over to your table, and appeared to be approaching Ransom, as he turned his head to look at the man, then quickly looked away.

The man, who you could only assume to be the owner, clapped Ransom on the back, and in return, Ransom slumped over in embarrassment.

You were definitely going to enjoy this.

“Où étiez-vous?, Ranny?” Where have you been?

“Occupé, Henri.” Busy, Henri. Ransom clearly had a dark red blush on his face now, and he glanced at you as if you could offer him some sort of assistance.

“Trop occupé avec la dame?” Too busy with the lady? Henri asked with a smirk.

“No!”

“Présentez-moi à elle,” Introduce her to me.

Ransom sighed dramatically, then sat up from hunching, “Y/N, this is Henri. He’s a family friend,” you couldn’t help but notice how pleased Henri seemed, “Henri, this is Y/N, mon rendez-vous,” My date.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” Henri extended a hand out to you and you gladly shook it. He turned back to Ransom, and continued grilling him. “Est-ce votre cavalier ou votre petite amie?” Is she your date or your girlfriend?

“Mon rendez-vous!” My date! You don’t think you’d ever seen anyone become this flustered so fast.

“Hey Henri,” you interrupted, feeling a tiny bit left out, “any way that we could order first, then you could come back here and tell me all the embarrassing stories about Ransom you can remember?”

“That sounds fun to me,” he shrugged.

——

During lunch, you’d learned more about Ransom than you ever knew you needed to know. In the midst of it all, you couldn’t help but to think about how different he was compared to your Steve. His parents were extremely wealthy (no surprise there), he went to boarding school in Nice (which explained his ability to speak French), and Ransom was a bit of an art nerd (perhaps some characteristics could transcend universes).

Surprisingly, he was starting to grow on you. Which was why you were far from opposed to his suggestion of going sight-seeing around the town.

The first stop you took wasn’t too far from the restaurant. A quaint little gift store with tiny knicknacks lining the shelves, and a relentless, old, orange cat who did not seem to want to leave Ransom alone.

“You should pet her, Ran,” you suggested, leaning down to do so yourself.

“First of all, don’t call me that. Second of all, if you pet her once, it’ll literally never stop,” He glanced over at you from where he was standing at a set of tourist-oriented keychains.

“Are you speaking from firsthand experience?” You grinned down at the cat who was now aggressively rubbing its head against your hand.

“Yes. Luis may seem nice, but one second you’re petting his head, and the next, you’re carrying him around the store, the whole time he’s whispering in your ear for you to buy more things.”

You were a bit taken aback at this, for a second concerned that the man you’d impulsively travelled to Europe with had a few screws loose, since he was apparently hearing local cats speak to him. That’s of course, when Ransom broke into laughter. It took you a second before you laughed a bit too.

“That was so weird, man. Don’t do that again,” you lightly punched his shoulder, then went to pick up Luis who was more than happy to be transported around like an infant.

After buying a nice mug and a postcard to give to Aaliyah once you returned home, and parting with Luis who seemed to feel a bit, you suggested hopping in a cab to visit one of the many art museums Nice had to offer.

After a bit of bickering in the backseat, the two of you compromised on the Modern and Contemporary Art museum, and you couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit excited.

Around two hours post-arrival at the museum, you realized that, maybe modern art wasn’t exactly your thing. But it certainly was Ransom’s. He rambled on and on about different pieces that seemed completely mundane to you. Who knew that someone could talk for nearly half of an hour about a canvas painted completely one color?

You noted a shift in Ransom’s attitude towards you. It was clear that you were willing to put up with his little antics, and as the day went on, he began to let down more and more of the tough guy persona he’d had up for so long. To your Steve, at least, art was something that made him feel a bit vulnerable, and you figured that Ransom held the same sentiment. This thought made you feel vaguely homesick, and go in for a half-hug from Ransom, who gladly returned it while he shamelessly effused.

It wasn’t the same, but for you, it was good enough.

----

You very much enjoyed the rest of your day with Ransom, hopping from interesting site to interesting site with him, and sharing a multitude of fond memories that you hoped would stick with you throughout your inter-dimensional travels.

You ended the night with him on the piano bench in the lobby of your hotel. He wordlessly played a Chopin piece while you mindlessly listened. It was a rather relaxing experience, and quite the finale of your day. You had a bit of a nagging feeling that this was the finale of your time in this universe as well.

“Today was really nice,” out of nowhere, Ransom began.

You hummed in agreement, “it was.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have taken you to all my favorite places on day one, but oh well,” he half chuckled to himself, and you pulled back to look up at Ransom.

“You took me to your favorite places? That’s.. Wow. That’s really sweet,” you glanced down at the piano, then back up at Ransom. He gave you a soft smile in return.

This was the moment, right? The silence that followed that was your perfect opportunity to be kissed. Yet, Ransom wasn’t taking it. So you decided to lean forward slightly, and do it yourself. Catching onto what you were getting ready to do, Ransom moved away from you slightly, and shook his head.

“Hey, I don’t really do that,” Ransom looked down at you, and bit the inside of his lip.

Deep down, you knew that this was just a man who looked like your man rejecting you, but the less rational side of yourself only told you one thing.

Steve was rejecting you.

He was leaving you again, he wouldn’t even kiss you. The thought of it put you somewhere between seeing red, and seeing nothing at all from the tears that were now flooding your vision.

The one thing that had once convinced you to stay, was now begging you to leave.

You reached down to your watch, and fiddled aggressively with it. Part of you felt bad for leaving a version of yourself to deal with the awkward aftermath of what just occurred, but another part of you just wanted to get the hell away from all of the distressing emotions you were feeling.

That part of you seemed to be stronger than anything else. You glanced down at your watch, pressed the button on the side that you were told could make you leave, and let nature take its course after feeling the soft vibrations run throughout your arm.

next chapter

#ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #steve rogers x reader #captain america x reader #ABITRV

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kyber-crystal · 4 years

Text

united we stand || s.r

summary: in which you, sam, steve, and natasha are forced to go on the run after civil war. unfortunately, being a fugitive with government officials out for his blood doesn’t seem to stop the great captain america from falling even more in love with you.

words: ~2.5k

warnings: slight angst, sam and natasha being matchmakers, fluff

a/n: OMG IM SORRY THIS ONE WAS SO POORLY WRITTEN ADLFJDSF

It doesn't have to come down to this, Tony. Look what you're doing. You're tearing the Avengers apart."

"You did that when you sided with Cap, Y/N."

"What do we do now?"

"We fight."

"He's my friend."

"So was I."

"He killed our parents, Y/N. And you're still willing to take his side? I thought I could trust you. But I guess I can't even rely on my own judgement anymore to make decisions, can I?"

Your heart hammered against your ribcage as you jumped from rooftop to rooftop, a dull ache forming at the edges of your skull due to all the thoughts rushing around in your brain and narrowly escaping a flurry of over two dozen of General Ross's men.

Guilt settled in the pit of your stomach, making your insides churn. You turned against the last family you had left, and now you were paying the price.

You're one hundred percent sure that Tony hates your guts at this point. Leaving your brother for someone else; what had you become?

"What now?" Sam asked, looking around and sending Redwing out to survey your surroundings for any other agents that could be approaching. "What's our next step?"

"We gotta catch a train. Belfast's no longer safe for us," Steve panted as he slid his shield over his back, trying to catch his breath. "Our safety's already compromised as it is."

"Nat's gonna go get the tickets, I'll buy us some disguises. We're less likely to be recognized because you guys are all suited up with your wings and shield," you explained. "Wait here."

A few minutes later you were all dressed inconspicuously in your new disguises, looking like the other civilians that were walking around. You didn't have enough time to check the sizes of the clothing, so Steve ended up wearing some jeans and a light grey T-shirt that was about a size too small for him, outlining every inch of his toned torso.

You quickly tore your gaze away before anyone noticed you staring. Sam caught this, however, and sent you a little wink. You glared at him in response.

"The next train to Glasgow leaves in nine. We gotta hurry," Natasha said as she handed you your tickets. "Come on."

Luckily you weren't recognized as the ticket holder came around, though you tried to keep your heads down low when she passed by.

"It's a 14 hour ride. You fellas might wanna relax, take a nap or something," she said, reclining her seat back and closing her eyes. "We won't be arriving until early tomorrow morning."

You relaxed in your seat, the tension in your muscles loosening a bit. But Steve saw the distressed look in your eyes and placed a gentle hand on top of yours.

"You alright?"

"Could be better, I mean, it's not like I chose to be a fugitive on the run from the entire world," you joked, but the smirk on your face quickly fell. "No. I'm not."

"It's going to be okay, you know. Things'll work out in the end."

"I sure hope so."

You fell into an awkward silence after that, resting your chin on your hand as you stared out ahead, watching the rolling hills whiz by in a blur, the vibrant green a sharp contrast to the powdery blue sky. Ireland was a beautiful country, really. You wished you could stay longer purely for the sake of admiring all the lovely scenery.

"You know, if you just want to talk about anything, we can do that. 14 hours is a pretty long train ride," he finally spoke up about an hour later. Sam was fast asleep at this point, mouth opened slightly as his head rested on Natasha's shoulder, who was sleeping as well.

"Yeah, it is. But we've had worse days, right?"

"We have," Steve agreed.

So you just talked, about whatever came to your minds. Your childhood, your past before joining the Avengers Initiative where you'd previously served as one of SHIELD's top agents for several years, Steve's life back in the 40's before becoming a super-soldier, how much things changed over the years. About past missions.

Soon enough you felt your eyelids droop heavily from fatigue. He noticed your tiredness and reached out his right arm, gently wrapping it around you and pulling you towards his side, encircling you completely in his warm embrace. Slowly but steadily, your muscles began to release the tension in them and you leaned into his touch.

"Why don't you get some shut-eye. We have plenty of time to talk when we arrive."

"Mhm," you mumbled sleepily. He smiled, brushing a few stray hairs away from your face as you drifted off.

...

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is our final stop. We have arrived at Glasgow Central Station," the conductor's voice announced over the intercom as the train began slowing down. "The weather is currently 59 degrees, and it is 5:27 a.m."

"Wake up, lovebirds," Natasha clapped as you stirred slightly, looking confused as you raised your head from where it rested against Steve's chest. "Time to get going."

You yawned and stood up, stepping off onto the platform into the station, surprisingly busy at the crack of dawn. You really just wanted to curl back up into a ball and sleep. Talking for four hours straight with Steve had knocked you out completely.

After getting new SIM cards, Sam quickly created an account to get you checked into a hotel.

"It's a half hour walk. We should probably limit public transportation as much as we can," he stated as he slid his phone into his jacket pocket. "Managed to snag a 40% off deal including a free night, so we're good for the next few weeks until we get an actual apartment."

"You know," Natasha commented, adjusting her baseball cap and aviators as you made your way outside down the bustling street, "if we weren't currently trying to flee from the government's grasp, I'd say I'd wanna come back here for a vacation. And that's on nice architecture."

"With us?" you raised an eyebrow.

"Why not? You're pretty good company. I wouldn't wanna hang out with anyone else."

"Well, what can I say?" Sam puffed up his chest. "I'm smooth with the ladies."

You simply laughed. "Yeah, sure you are."

Glasgow was a breathtaking city. With sprawling Victorian style buildings and cobblestone roads, brightly labeled bars and restaurants, it appeared as if it was pulled straight from a rustic 19th-century painting.

You checked into your hotel after grabbing some food from the nearby bakery. For a cheap price, your room was surprisingly simple but large: a king bed in one room, a pullout couch, and a small balcony so you could stand outside and take in the view of the city.

Despite having no time zone difference between Ireland and Scotland, you were still extremely jet-lagged, most likely due to the flight you'd taken over to Berlin not long ago. After binge-watching reruns of some sitcom for the rest of the day, you fell asleep, clutching your pillow tightly.

Natasha and Sam had good eyes, and could clearly see something was going on between you and Steve.

The truth was, you wanted something to happen but both of you were too chicken to make a move, thinking being in relationship while on the run was inconvenient and unnecessary.

The first few days passed by relatively quickly. You only really went out to buy groceries, and even then you went two at a time to avoid drawing unwanted attention to yourselves. Once, you treated yourselves to a night out at a nice restaurant, enjoying each others' company. It was a way to forget about your currently unfortunate situation.

...

But then the nightmares began.

You swung your legs over the edge of the bed after waking up in a cold sweat, heading over to the bathroom. Everyone had already gone to sleep long ago, and you envied people like Sam as he could knock out cold almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Staring at your ghostly reflection in the mirror, you squeezed your eyes shut, releasing tears that cascaded down your flushed cheeks in a hot flood. You ran trembling fingers through your messy hair in an attempt to tame it, taking a brief look at your disheveled appearance. The heavy dark circles underneath your bloodshot eyes that were a result of hardly sleeping over the past week were clear, as well as your sunken cheekbones and deathly pale complexion.

You studied the woman that looked back at you, with the same unnerving and hollowed out gaze that she'd worn for years; a façade she learned to develop so that nobody could see when she felt weak; helpless.

Ten days.

Only ten days had passed since you arrived in Scotland, yet it seemed as if you aged ten years during that short amount of time. Small creases in between your brows indicated stress and anxiety from leaving everything you knew behind, for a future you could barely see ahead of. For a life that held an endless amount of consequences if you took one misstep, one wrong move.

Your body felt heavy, weighed down as if you carried the weight of a thousand men upon your aching shoulders. You didn't know what to do; what to think anymore.

You didn't look thirty-two anymore, you looked older. Almost as old as Tony. And there was a 10+ year age gap between you and him.

God, Tony.

You betrayed him. The last living member of your family on earth, and you betrayed him.

Turned your back on him, because you didn't believe in the same ideas. Was it really worth turning your back on your own blood just because of a disagreement?

I thought I could trust you.

I thought I could, too. But I guess things don't always work out as planned, do they?

They don't. I don't even know what I can say to you anymore. Hell, I can't look at you without seeing a traitor. You turned your back on all of us, and that's unforgivable.

The Accords, you know I couldn't sign them. It isn't right. I'm fighting for what I believe in.

No, you're fighting for Steve, not yourself. Always running over to precious Cap even if it costs you your safety, if it costs you everything and everyone you ever loved. Because you think that you can rely on him and him alone, to get through this. You won't get very far by keeping this act up, you know.

News flash; the world doesn't revolve around you, Tony. Just because someone doesn't agree with what you believe, doesn't mean you have to tear their team, their family, apart for it.

You're blaming me?

Maybe I am.

"What are you doing up this late?"

Steve's voice jolted you from your train of thought, and you looked up to see him leaning against the doorframe dressed in sweats and another tight-fitting T-shirt, his blue eyes scanning over you worriedly.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I'm fine, if that's what you're wondering. I'm just a bit jet-lagged," you muttered, hastily wiping away another stray tear that escaped. He pushed himself off the wall and caught your wrist as you were bringing your hand down, tugging you towards him slightly.

"Tell me what's going on."

"I'm fine!"

"No, you're not. What's wrong, Y/N?"

"I..." your voice faltered. You didn’t even realize you’d started crying until you felt your face grow wet from the salty tears that rolled silently into your cracked lips. "I don't know. Everything's wrong."

"Everything?"

"I made a mistake."

"What do you mean, mistake?"

"I turned my back against Tony. My family. I betrayed my own family, Steve." Your voice cracked. "And now I can't even guarantee that I'll ever see him again."

"You did what you had to do," he said softly, placing a hand on your shoulder. You felt your skin burning up under his touch. "You were just trying to do what you felt was right."

"Yeah, by teaming up with the side of the man who killed my parents. I can't imagine what he even thinks of me right now."

A look of hurt briefly passed over Steve's face at the mention of Bucky.

"...But I know their deaths were out of his control, so I don't blame him," you continued. "Still..I hurt him. And now, I have to live with knowing that fact." "Look, I'm sorry."

"What?"

You looked up and met his gaze, feeling his bright blue eyes boring into yours. He didn't seem upset or angry at all; there was an eerie softness and calming feeling about the way he looked at you that made you relax a bit.

"I shouldn't have dragged you into this mess. I never wanted you to have this kind of life; where you're always living in uncertainty. You deserve better than that."

"It's not your fault at all," you swallowed hard. Talking and breathing grew increasingly difficult with the sob that was building up in the back of your throat, that you tried desperately to conceal for so long, "it's mine. I made that decision to side with you, not only because I couldn't stand the idea of signing the Accords. So it's...it's on me. God, I don't know what to do anymore, I can't—"

A wave of grief suddenly hit you from all sides, causing you to keel over, sliding down against the cold wall with a hand clutching your stomach as an agonized scream tear itself through your body and out of your throat. And you were drowning; suffocated by your own tears as you struggled to breathe. You tried desperately to stop them but nothing could seem to hold back the heavy sobs that wracked your body, clawing at your lungs and heart.

Steve crouched down in front of you and pulled you against him, arms tightening around your body with each cry that escaped your lips. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to take all your sadness and frustration and grief and put it upon himself, to carry the weight on his shoulders so he wouldn't have to watch you endure the pain. He'd much rather have to suffer himself than watch you try and bear the burden and fall to pieces in the process.

Seeing you breaking down before him with your gut-wrenching cries that echoed across the small space, more vulnerable than you'd ever been in front of him before, made it feel as if someone was directly ripping his heart right out of his chest and tearing it into a thousand pieces with their bare hands.

"Hey, it's okay," he whispered soothingly as he pressed his lips to the side of your temple, "it's okay. I've got you. You're gonna be okay."

Despite how you felt as if your heart was twisting itself into knots, there was something comforting about the way he held you ever so gently in his arms, the way his warm breath fell against his neck as one arm was firmly hooked around your waist, running his free hand through your hair.

So for a moment, you allowed yourself to believe that there was no one else in the world except for just you and him, holding you close, and that everything was fine, even if the feeling only lasted for a second.

#steve rogers x reader #avengers x reader #captain america imagine #marvel fic #avengers fanfiction #steve rogers one shot #captain america one shot #captain america fanfiction #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x you #captain america x reader

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crstapor · 3 years

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Terror White

“You’re either with us or against us.” - George W. Bush 

On January 6th, 2021, domestic terrorists invaded the Capital Building in an act of political insurrection. Their intent was to overthrow the will of the people by preventing certification of a free and fair democratic election. They did so at the behest of their political leader (who was impeached a second time for inciting this gross transgression of his oath of office), other voices in their party - the so-called GOP - and talking head agitators inhabiting the far-right media echo chamber. Nearly to a man, a woman, a they, each of these terrorists were white.

Images of ‘good old boys’ traipsing down the halls of the people’s house waving confederate battle flags, kicking feet up on the Speaker’s desk, walking off with public property or smearing their shit on the floors pervaded the internet. These images provided by the villains themselves, posted shamelessly to social media profiles.

As a result of this treasonous, insulting, juvenile, despicable, and ultimately futile effort five people died. Even still, hours after the fact, a majority of members of the so-called GOP voted in accordance with the will of these terrorists. They voted to overturn the results of a free and fair election in the world’s oldest modern democracy. They did so because they believed there were serious ‘concerns’ (‘concerns’, let’s be clear, that started with them and like the Ouroboros, ended up with the confusing, if unhygienic, phenomenon of not knowing where their mouths or assholes ended or began) with the 2020 presidential election. After over 60 court cases arguing that point only one was ruled in their favor. None of the 50 States comprising our union found any evidence of wide-spread fraud. Indeed, a federal agency tasked with monitoring election security stated unequivocally that the presidential election of 2020 was one of the most secure in a generation.

And yet? There they were. Spouting conspiracy theories, assaulting police officers (those stalwart stewards of the ‘law & order’ they otherwise claim to love), brandishing spears and bearskins, stealing mail, leaving death threats to the Vice President, fundamentally acting the fool. A bunch of bullies let out of detention with rage and rebellion on their minds.

Let me be clear: each and every one of these terrorists should be hunted down by law enforcement and charged to the fullest extent of the law. They should then be prosecuted and the judges in each and every case should show or allow no mercy. These barbarians must never be allowed to storm the gates again.

Fine.

But that’s not the really interesting question here. The far-right has been producing assholes forever (one of the few things the ‘right’ is truly consistent at). What’s actually interesting is how these insurrectionists arrived at the conclusions they did. Which is to say; how did their ‘thinking’ bring them to this point.

While it might be tempting for some on the left to see that last sentence as a joke, let’s remember we’re sitting at the adult table. These terrorists, being human, sharing our genetic code, are people - real, live, eating, shitting, fucking, anxious, sleeping, scared, afraid, terrified people - just like you and me. As much as it would be easier if we could see them as Uruk-hai instead of our brothers and sisters, sadly? That’s what they are. Family. Part of the Human Condition.

Though humans that are clearly very, very, very sick. My diagnosis? Mind Cancer. Let me explain, under the assumption my readers understand the difference between mind and brain. As such, I am not asserting that the terrorists are physically sick. From their pics and videos it’s clear many are - obesity, hypertension, anal retention - though that isn’t the point. It’s their mental programming, their minds, that have been infected. Infected with what?

Put simply? A disjointed ontological phenomenology obscured, obfuscated, and accelerated by persistently chaotic epistemological aberrations. Said plainly? Their ability to process reality has been impaired.

Why? Racial resentment, poor economic opportunities, an aversion to books and learning? Yes. All that. Plus? The internet, which has created a new Dark Ages.

Paradoxically, one built on light.

Look. Self-interested demagogues intent on self-aggrandizement are nothing new. Nor are their ability to rally or rile a downtrodden populace. Sadly, demonizing the ‘other’ is also pretty par for the course in these scenarios. An old story, all told. What’s new this time is how it happens.

In a single second - count it out! One Mississippi - a beam, or photon of light moves 186,000 miles. Roughly seven times the circumference of the Earth. The new speed of hate. The internet, that modern marvel ushering in Humanity’s first truly post-scarcity resource, is built on light. Philosophers have for millennia wed knowledge with light. And now we all (well, those of us in the post-industrial world) carry a terminal connected to this internet in our pockets. A stunning marvel of human ingenuity. One would imagine that access to such a wellspring of knowledge and information would have a truly edifying affect on the Human Condition. Perhaps, in aggregate, or retrospect, it will. At the moment?

Yeah ...

At the moment it seems that the more access to information humans have the more they double down on tribal identities, wish fulfillment, instant gratification (read: porn), perceived slights, fantasy lands, Rick Astley videos, or the jibbering incoherent rantings of simple capitalists fomenting the fragile emotional states of low information individuals who feel they have no place in this world. This is a fundamentally devastating epistemological conundrum. Why? For centuries the barrier to the future was the amount of information, knowledge, you could access or process. Yet here and now? Here and now there might be too much access. Too much information. More so, the striking fact that our ability, as a species, writ large, to process or parse this information has not kept pace with the information at hand. A sad equation that inevitably leads to moments like 01/06/21.

The Trump Terrorists of January 6th, 2021, weaponized the internet to facilitate their attempted coup. As did their ‘dear leader’ throughout his humiliating single term in office. In fact, it was the geometrical acceleration of connectivity and interconnectedness enabled via the web and its insanely capitalist platforms that allowed for their ‘movement’ to incubate and evolve. While it is true that neo-liberal policies advocating globalist economics and monetary policy are at the current root cause of most ills genuinely affecting rural, or poor, or uneducated MAGA-heads, it’s also true that apart from an Independent from Vermont no one in the political economy of the last couple decades gave much of a shit about these poor and dispossessed inheritors of old racial mythemes and toxic narratives of self-reliance. No one that is, other than their ‘dear leader’. Never mind he didn’t intend to ease their suffering in any material, or structural way. He talked about it. He tweeted about it. And then he gave them a little song and dance at the rallies. Breathtaking stuff.

However, it wasn’t just the performative act of playing ‘authoritarian’ that got them hot and bothered. No, it was at the same time the eternal need to belong to a group, the legitimate feeling of economic obsolescence, coupled with these new tools of information transmission. Tools that at once gave them powers unheralded and seemingly ensconced them in a protective shell, a perpetually larval manifestation of all their baser inclinations. A reactionary ‘safe space’ from which they could launch a thousand ships of intolerance and hate. What good is truth if you can’t weaponize it? What good are facts if you share them with everyone else?

And so we find ourselves revising Plato. There isn’t just one cave in which we are chained, kept from reality. There are multiple tunnels, alcoves, deeper caverns in which we might dwell. Furthermore, if lucky, there are different days, vistas, egresses in which we can escape from the confines of ignorance. Much like the lucky Mormons, it would seem the far-right believes there are plenty of planets in which ‘Truth’ can dwell. Never mind that multiplying ‘Truth’ in such a way doesn’t actually produce more truth.

In fact, it reduces ‘Truth’. Impoverishes it. Hollows it out.

Which is sad, really. For the major harm caused by these rebels isn’t to our democratic institutions, nor our mythological vision of our nature, nor that ever-loving economy - but to the very fabric that binds the social contract on which all the preceding rely.

That fabric being, specifically, a shared objective reality.

How can we survive if we can’t agree on basic facts? Can a multi-racial, multi-cultural, representative democracy exist when a large percentage of the comprising citizens don’t believe in, or even acknowledge, that that’s actually what’s happening? Is White Supremacy so fundamentally a part of our nation’s DNA that the country can’t exist without it? If so, for those of us who vehemently oppose White Supremacy, the question might then be: is the country worth saving?

Most versions of Western Ethics indicate that violence is not the cure. Nor do I advocate such a position. At the same time I’m deeply troubled, because due their illness these actors are neither rational or coherent. Ergo, we can’t reason with them either. So what next?

To corral the revolutionary, if inchoate, spirit of these sick, fringe minds diseased as they are by hate, grievance, and digital oubliettes would any policy proposals be acceptable? Perhaps as fantastic an idea as the images from 01/06/21, what if the Federal Government decided to halt its obsequious sycophantry to corporate America and ‘elites’ and instead actually, seriously, emphatically reinvested in the heartland, in Main Street, in the working class? Wouldn’t it be ironic if a little more socialism was truly the cure these hatemongers require?

Maybe we should step back and listen to the wisdom of George W. Bush.

Confronting what was at the time the most disheartening terror attack on the homeland, Bush made clear not all who could otherwise be lumped in with the terrorists were terrorists. In the same way that, yes, not all Trump voters are Trump Terrorists.

Even so. Bush made it clear you needed to pick a side.

With us - toward a diverse future in which the promise of the Founders is emboldened and expanded for all who live between our shores. Or against us - back to your stunted hovels and holes with all the other low information troglodytes you like to cosplay revolution with.

Choose.

It’s your call. But choose quickly, because history is watching, and only one path moves toward the future.

C. R. Stapor Longmont, CO 01/16/21

#January 6th #terrorism #domestic terrorism #the internet #social media #revolution #insurrection #01/06/21 #low information #mind cancer #George W Bush #Trump #GOP #epistemology #white #essay #philosophers on tumblr

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meloncubedradpops · 3 years

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Repo! The Corona Opera: Final Countdown

This is the third and final installment of Repo: The Corona Opera. In the first piece, I made the argument that the surreal events we are experiencing in 2020 remind me of the world in the movie Repo! the Genetic Opera. My second essay compared the characteristics of fascism with the same movie. Here we will tie together ideas in both works to highlight a dark path that America is on, based on what we know about Repo!, in the hopes that we can reject the evils of those who are sacrificing our health and safety for their own selfish reasons.

When I began thinking about this movie through the lenses of COVID-19, I saw uncanny patterns that just years ago seemed like an exaggerated storytelling. Millions of people dying from organ failure. Yeah, but how?

Then 2020 happened. Oh, that's how. Sure the disease doesn't affect everyone in the same way, but its wrath and potential to harm are tremendous. The death toll in the United States alone is, as of today, is 231,000. At least, that is the death toll we are know so far. It will take time when the dust settles and we can analyze the excess death data to truly know how many of our fellow Americans have died.

And while our world does not currently emulate those opening comic scenes in Repo, the impact from the sudden loss of life will be felt for a long time. There are a lot of really great themes in Repo: the concept of the family, drug addiction, the impact of corporate monopolies, and let's not forget it's a gothic coming-of-age story too. I am going to highlight three concepts that weave together our current reality with the world of Repo: the parallels of the Trump and Largo family, the Graverobber as the symbolic "other", and organ repossessions is genocide.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I highlighted the ways that Rotti Largo is a fascist. I went into detail supporting the argument that his company GeneCo holds tremendous and unyielding power in the city we see in the movie. And despite his efforts to save humanity from extinction, his assumed heirs and blood-related children are nothing short of entitled mediocrity. I will draw many parallels between President Donald Trump and Rotti Largo throughout the duration of this essay, but let's take a few minutes to talk about their children. Believe it or not, this meme was made by myself and my friend FOUR years ago, almost to the day!

But unlike 2016, I had no idea that I'd find multiple comparisons to draw upon. And frankly, if we all knew how bad this presidency would be, for both America and the rest of the world, we might have made less jokes from our complacency. I ask the the real question though, which Trump and Rotti offspring are most alike?

Now, I've wanted to do this thought exercise since the inception of my essays. The surface level combinations would look something like, Amber and Ivanka (since they're both women, obvs), Donald Trump JR as Luigi (oldest child), and Eric Trump as Pavi ("you're just his useless brother!").

However my boyfriend raised a great point that had me rethink this: Donald Trump Jr is ACTUALLY Amber Sweet. When I took out the gender aspect out of the equation, it made so much more sense. In my next point, I will go into drug addiction in a much more dignified manner. But let's just take a moment here to consider the following.

We know that Amber Sweet is addicted to two things in life: surgery and pain killing drugs to make surgery bearable. Amber Sweet's character provides an incredible insight to the daily life of the people in Repo. If you subtract the Zydrate Anatomy scene, you would hardly even know that zydrate is devastating lives of the people addicted to it. We hear about zydrate in the graveyard as a commercial and the media spends its first opportunity asking Rotti about zydrate's "use and abuses". After Sweet becomes a no-show in the presser, we quickly learn that she runs a support group for fellow addicts, or at least she is supposed to.

How does this relate to Trump Jr? Quite simply, many are speculating that Trump Jr abuses cocaine. The most compelling evidence is his speech during the Republican National Convention. Now, obviously we don't have solid evidence that he is indeed consuming and abusing cocaine, and quite frankly if he is, that would not be incredibly surprising or even a huge deal.

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But the conversation doesn't end here. President Donald Trump did not hesitate to bring up former vice president Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his battle with addiction during the first Presidential Debate. It was a low jab, especially considering that the United States is going through a crippling opioid crisis, which he even admits is exacerbated by covid-19 and related lockdowns. Both Donald Trump and Rotti Largo exploit their own children in this manner. I mean, Donald Trump helped fucked up the Trump Foundation where his children were held prominent positions, which was caught stealing from a charity intended to help children with cancer! Every time we see Donald Trump Jr on our doom-screens, we get another glimpse into Jr's downward spiral. And with every additional crime that all of president Trump's children become implicated in, the more and more we can see that this family is rotten to the core.

If Trump Jr is Amber Sweet, then Ivanka is Luigi. In Repo, Luigi can be described as nothing short of a homicidal maniac. I am not saying that Ivanka commits murder, at least not directly, but she does hold a lot of power in the White House. Spend any time learning about the machinations of the White House, particularly in the early days, and you will learn Ivanka competed with Melania for a voice in the administration, and still works for the White House today. Even if you exclude all of the shady business ties, such as the dozens of Chinese patents (including for voting machines!!!) Ivanka has filed, clearly the boundaries of nepotism do not exist for this family. Luigi somehow kills multiple people in the movie and faces no consequences for it. How can this be? Obviously corruption, but that is too simple. If there were multiple checks and balances at one point that would have forced Luigi to face justice for his crimes, they have obviously failed to come to roost in the movie. The obvious common denominator between today and the world of Repo is that those who want power will do anything to obtain and maintain it. Does the public know about every murder committed by Luigi? Does the public know about every crime committed by Ivanka (and also by proxy her husband Jared Kushner, who by the way, failed to pass mandatory security clearances but still has access to the intelligence of our government)? Jared intentionally made it difficult for many of the states hit hardest by covid-19 in the early weeks to acquire the necessary medical supplies because the electorate did not vote for Trump in 2016. That. IS. MURDER. Just as Luigi calls the common citizens in Repo "filthy mice", “Jrvanka” (and the Right at greater) frames the nation as two groups: us and THEM. Luigi is much less calculated, but the comparisons are there. If given the chance, the Trump and Largo family will kill because of their sociopathy, greed, and egos.

Admittedly I don't have as compelling of a comparison for Eric Trump and Pavi. However I will say that both Pavi and Eric do the bidding for their father's empire, and I would also argue that both feel like they have to compete to get a modicum of attention and love from a paternal figure devoid of basic empathy. And at the end of the day, they do not reject their father's tyranny. And honestly that is enough of a comparison for me.

Last but not least, I can't ignore the fact that the official Republican Party platform for the 2020 election is loyalty to Trump in the absence of any other political or philosophical idea. A majority of the speakers at the Republican National Convention were members of his family. Their pitch to Americans is “Just Trust Us”. However, a quarter million Americans aren't here to agree or disagree with that statement. With each passing day, more and more Americans are getting sick, to the tune of tens of thousands of cases a day on average currently. The Largo family and GeneCo are not much different. Remember that scene in 21st Century Cure where Shilo and Graverobber are in a mass grave where we can see truck loads of humans being added to the pile of corpses?

The only real thing separating the corpses from the rest of the city is a poorly constructed brick wall and the years of propaganda that normalizes what I imagine would be a terrible pungent smell of death.

The entire Trump family came into the first presidential debate without masks. The president was literally sick with a virus that statistically speaking, could kill his opponent; and he was on stage shedding this incredibly contagious virus screaming and shouting, spreading his droplets everywhere. The Trump family failed to show up early enough to be tested for covid before the debate.

This was not an accident. Jared Kushner bragged to journalist Bob Woodward back in April that Trump was going to take the country "back from scientists". As of this past weekend, we learned that Trump is floating around the idea of firing our nation's leading disease expert Anthony Fauci in a time where our cases, deaths, and hospitalizations from covid-19 are surging. It is almost grotesquely poetic how similar this is to GeneCo. GeneCo is a company in the healthcare industry, but they exploit the worst parts of society, which I will go into very soon. And in its effort to achieve maximum quarterly profits, the ends always justify the means, even if that results in fascism and excess death/suffering. Rotti's body guards kill the doctor who gives him his grim diagnosis. Trump didn't kill the doctors treating him during his recovery with covid, but information we got from the White House doctors were straight up WEIRD. We witnessed a Gentern being killed by Luigi in the Mark It Up Scene for no other reason besides existing in the proximity of him. Trump has spread misinformation about how there's more money to be made when a doctor declares a death as a covid death. I am finding it hard to see the difference. I think I've made my point regarding the parallels of the Trump and Largo family quite clearly, but you may see additional points I bring up as the rest of my essay unfolds.

Society is complex with more nuance than we give it credit to. The different ways that various groups of people interact with are endlessly interesting, and one of the reasons I love Repo so much is because there's an incredible amount of unpacking that you can do, even in the absence of written dialogue about it.

If you don't know, Repo started out as a story originally penned as "The Necromerchant's Debt", which gave the Graverobber character a more active role in the world crafted by Darren Smith and Terrace Zdunich. When watching the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera, the Graverobber is certainly a character seen in multiple scenes, but in a lot of ways, his importance is left out. An entire scene was cut from the film, see Needle Through a Bug below if you're interested.

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Regardless the parts that we do see are still greatly impactful. Graverobber is essentially the symbolized "other" living in a world that is greatly stratified by social class, and he's doing what he can to survive.

Now if you have been living on this planet we call Earth and have ever paid attention ever, you probably have noticed that there are a lot of power structures that influence the resources and opportunities that aid in our development and maintenance of our needs. The access to being able to elevate ourselves above basic survival are typically contingent upon a few things, one namely our ability to draw a paycheck. As I mentioned in my last essay, so many things went wrong to have what would equivalently be either a drug trafficking felony in today's terms or maybe theft, result in permissible extra-judicial murder. And I am not saying that Trump's bragging of the extra-judicial murder of an ANTIFA activist is at all related, but look at the way Trump compares his dissidents with the way GeneCo treats Graverobbers.

We are experiencing the early stages of economic collapse, millions of people are hungry, soon-to-be evicted, jobless. And yet, the Republicans in power just HAD to rush through a Supreme Court justice. When arguing against lockdowns that would have saved lives, the Right spent countless hours arguing about increase suicide, drug use, poverty, domestic abuse, blah blah blah, you know all the things that were there and as equally as important pre-pandemic? And they did NOTHING to help mitigate this disaster beyond the bill that was passed this spring. The house passed the HEROES Act back in May, and senate majority leader Mitch McConnel declined to take a vote on it.

Never mind the fact that landlords are still expected to pay the banks their mortgages on their investment properties. Never mind the fact that rent wasn't cancelled. Never mind that the Trump administration sought to prevent any oversight into the first bill passed previously to prosecute fraud. So you know, we can make sure the money went to small business owners, and not instead to the many, many crony ties to the administration who were approved for huge amounts of money. Honestly to think about this is kind of sickening, particularly when you relate it back to Repo and my essay I wrote on fascism.

I could probably talk all day about our failure with the "War on Drugs", but I feel like you can probably see based on the efficacy of its policies that drugs still exist and people are still abusing them. I bring this up because the Graverobber's occupation is essentially a drug dealer. However he sells a counterfeit of zydrate derived from the body of a bug who naturally borrow in a corpse's body, which is and also isn't stealing from the corpse / their estate, but is somehow still "bad" enough that you can legally be killed "on site" if a Gene Cop thinks you're harvesting the blue brain goo. I mean this entire concept makes my brain hurt.

The Graverobber, as a concept, is a perfect example of the enemy who is simultaneously the biggest and the least threat, and the only way to stop them is to kill them before they can appeal before the jury of their peers or go to prison to pay for their crimes. And I am sure the propaganda that justifies this is beautifully orchestrated. It literally mimics Russian propaganda, AKA the biggest foreign intelligence threat since, I don’t know, the Cold War? I can picture authoritarian stump speeches now:

"Here the Graverobber who comes in the night, tempting your children. They sell the promise of a good time, but did you know they are raping your daughters for this drug?? They can get your husband hooked on zydrate, and you won't know it's coming until he comes home unrecognizable. These thugs are stealing your grandmother's ring off her corpse, and you will find her half-rotted corpse thrown askew across her tombstone when you go to pay your respects."

And yet Graverobber defends himself:

"Industrialization has crippled the globe (Enjoy GeneCo's day and nighttime formula of Zydrate) Nature failed as technology spread (Ask a gentern if Zydrate is right for you) And from this wake a market erected (Buying Zydrate from an unlicensed source is illegal) An entire city built on top of the dead! And you can finance your bones And your kidneys For every market a submarket grows But best you be punctual With making your payments Lest it be you on the concrete below It's quick! It's clean! It's pure! It could change your life! Rest assured! It's the 21st century cure! And it's my job To steal and rob GRAVES!"

He then goes into detail about how this is just the cost of doing business with his modern world. How many of our current and future stories by those who will not make a single sentence in our history books will be casted as enemies of the state who were ultimately just trying to make end's meet? You can deport the illegal immigrant but neglect to prosecute the American company who hired them to work here? How is that much different? If the people in Repo need this drug to cope with the deaths of their loved ones and their livelihoods, then what does that say about the soul of their nation?

If you are still with me at this point, I want to thank you so much. I am going to conclude on a fairly heavy topic, but it is one worth having. Organ repossessions in Repo are genocide and in America, we are currently also committing genocide.

The whole premise of the film is the justification that those who fail to make payments on their surgeries deserve to have their organs repossessed, because what other reality is there with unrelenting end-stage capitalism? People are losing their whole lives as I type this, through no fault of their own. Most Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense pre-covid-19. Millions are unable to pay for basic life expenses, such as rent, healthcare or food. Our president specifically shoved a Supreme Court justice because he wants the American Healthcare Act to be deemed too unconstitutional for public policy. Never mind the 100+ million Americans with pre-existing conditions. Never mind the millions who acquire their healthcare through the ACA marketplace. Never mind the fact that we are in a once-in-a-century PANDEMIC. Never mind that we spend more per capital on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. Never mind that the Right does not have ANY sort of plan to replace something in its place. How could MILLIONS die in an organ failure crises in Repo anyways? We already know that the Trump administration already stopped caring about covid deaths when we learned it was hurting people of color disproportionality than the general population. 1 out of 1000 black Americans have died from covid. Reread that sentence. If you don't believe me, go out and seek those facts for yourself. When we think of genocide we think of Hitler killing thousands of people via gas chambers. But there are SO many other steps that lead to the normalization of that.

Undesirables, aka the "others", are easy to discard. Is it a surprise to anyone that ICE gynecologists are removing the uteruses of detainees? I almost made my whole essay about that one controversy alone. Genocide is insidious like that.

"Oh but if she didn't want that hysterectomy, she shouldn't have tried to come to America for a better life, even if that's what my ancestors did."

Of course not, she's the "other", and you're the law-abiding citizen. You were able to afford the extra $30 a month for the upgraded booby package that gave an otherwise unremarkable kidney transplant a fun twist by including breast implants. The orphan who works the streets because his parents died during the plague who needed a new pancreas because insulin became too expensive is threatening your suburbs. Bonus points if the orphan has a hint of melanin in his skin or if your daughter shows favor towards his antics, completely ignoring the fact that his mommy and daddy were killed by preventable disease. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but look at the makeup of people who get their organs repossessed in Repo and try not to tell me there's a trend. Yes it could have been the coincidence of casting, but nevertheless it is worth mentioning. We don't see many people of color in this movie, but of the few we see, they get murdered by GeneCo/Wallace. And I don't care how stupid coincidences are because that is exactly what is happening with covid-19. The so-called essential, working class citizens (who are disproportionally POC) are putting their whole life on the line to serve everyone else who works at home.

The ends justifies the means, kill enough elderly and the federal government won't have to pay out on social security. Force everyone to get back to work and fuck you if you think you deserve money for the hours you weren't allowed to work (oh and by the way we want to make it so you can't sue for covid-19 related liabilities). Oh you lost your job, "try something new", as told by Ivanka Trump earlier this summer.

My main point is if you let fascism get control, they will normalize genocide and put you in jail for even making the connections of corruption. "Millions of people dead from organ failure, what's adding a few more to the pile in the name of law and order?" "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". Once again, I am failing to see the difference.

Okay I threw a lot at you just now, and the fact you made it to the end is a miracle. If you skip around because you have a squirrel brain like me, I thank you as well. The fact we get out of bed everyday and do anything right now is a miracle and I know attention can be finite.

I am writing this on the eve of the United States General election after having wanting to write this since June of this year. I am tired. We are ALL Shiloh right now. Our lives have been on pause. "I must be brave", "I'll capture it", "Run back inside". Yeah girl, same! I haven't talked about her much throughout any of my essays, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

Humans are a resilient creature. We have millions of years of experience on this Earth, and much of our survival has been based on pure dumb luck. But we have blown so many other species out of the water in one way alone, and that is our ability to communicate.

We don't have to let people who exploit our weaknesses control us. The sociopaths who try and run our society did not historically aid in our survival. They didn't care if we ate the mushroom that killed us or would have protected us when threatened by wildlife, it was our tribe. The Right has successfully hijacked that bond between the self and the tribe so that it can fit the needs of sociopathy and greed. It is not normal for a president to tell a nation that "it is what it is" when over 100k citizens die from a preventable disease. Do not let the sociopaths throw us in that tiny pine box in a mighty small drop in a mighty dark plot, hastening the trip to our epilogue. Because every inch you give, they will take a mile and charge you by the hour. Never forget that.

#repo! the genetic opera #repo #shilo wallace #nathan wallace #terrance zdunich #darren smith #gothic #coronavirus #COVID-19 #election #vote #Fascism #politics #donald trump #ivanka trump #eric trump #donald trump junior #republicans #genocide

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nekoannie-chan · 4 years

Text

Charm-ed

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Mutant! Reader

Word count: 3596 words.

Summary: You managed to prevent Thanos from snapping, but not other events that led to victory.

Warnings: Angst, sad, actually very sad, death of a character, mentions of smut but nothing explicit, mentions of blood.

A/N: So I was watching Skins season 6 when this idea came to me, this fic is a little bit based on that season.

Flashbacks are in italics.

The note is in italics and underline.

Phone calls are in italics and bold.

The prompts are in black, italics, and underline.

In this fic the Snap never happened, this means that Thanos was defeated and Pietro is alive.

The UFO catcher is the claw machine where you can catch stuffed animals or other prizes.

This is my entry to the @joannie95 ‘s 500 Follower Writing Challenge with prompt #19:

“Please don’t forget me and all the things we did”

Also is one of my entries to @im-a-writer-right ‘s Writing Challenge ~2K Follower Celebration~ with the angst prompt #37:

“I haven’t been the same since you left me”.

And my entry to @jtargaryen18 ‘s 30 days of Chris.

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don’t steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other’s people. The only exception is the ones I gifted ‘cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and is not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Marvel’s characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Steven Grant Rogers

Steve heavily turned off the alarm clock, it had been late, he flipped to your bedside, and he sighed disappointed when he noticed that it was empty.

He dialed your cell phone in the hope that you'd answer him, but you didn't, the mailbox came in instead of hearing your voice, his stomach protested.

He went down to breakfast like every morning, even though they had prevented Thanos from making the snap, and you had beaten him, nothing was the same again.

After finishing breakfast, Steve decided to go for a run in the park, it was the fifth lap he gave when his cell phone rang.

“Y/N!” He answered immediately excitedly.

"Steve, you keep calling me a lot," you answered.

"I know, it's just that all I want is for you to come back," he confessed embarrassed.

"Maybe you should have come to visit me more often after those days," you complained.

"You know I tried, but I wasn't allowed in.”

"You didn't try hard enough, but now no one will stop you from visiting me.”

“Y/N…”

The call was cut off, Steve blinked, after the battle, the calls were strange, sometimes he didn't understand what you wanted to say.

"Steve?" Sam called him while he approaching carefully.

"Hey, Sam.”

“Are you okay?" Sam questioned.

"Yes, only... I was thinking about Y/N...”

"Steve we've talked about this... she's gone," Sam said.

"I know... I know," Steve replied sadly.

Sam looked up at a tree on the other side of where they were, blinked several times, you were half-hidden behind the tree, waving you a hand.

Wanda Marya y Pietro Django Maximoff

Wanda and Pietro were training, Wanda moved obstacles with her powers while her twin dodged them.

"You're doing great," you congratulated them.

"Y/N...”

They approached skeptically, they weren't sure what they were seeing, and they didn't even care if it was a hallucination.

"But...”

"Aren't you happy to see me?" you asked.

You stirred their hair, they were dumbfounded, and they didn't know what to say or do.

"You should stop feeling like you did something wrong when you joined HYDRA.

"How do you know?" Pietro questioned.

"Pietro... I know everything.”

The twins saw each other, they had never told him anything about what they thought about what they had done.

"They told you a lie, but when you found out what was going on you decided to do the right thing, didn't you?" you went on.

The twins nodded.

“Y/N...”

Wanda couldn't take it anymore and fell up to you to hug you, Pietro imitated her.

"I've missed you so much," Wanda confessed.

"Me too, but you know I can't stay.”

You separated from them.

"Please, stay with us,” Wanda begged.

"We need you," Pietro supported.

You were already gone.

Steven Grant Rogers

Steve was taking a shower when he heard the bathroom door open, he didn't pay attention, and he still felt angry with himself.

You went into the bathroom, took off your clothes, you walked in with him, you hugged him in the back, he turned around.

"Y/N..."

You put a finger on his lips.

"Shh, I don't want to talk, you know what I want."

Steve kissed you fiercely as he touched you while the water was falling.

Natasha Alianovna Romanoff

Natasha peeked out the window, blinking several times, you shouldn't be there, and she immediately ran out to where you were.

You kept swinging without being undeterred by the presence of your friend.

“Hi, Nat” you greeting.

“How is…?”

“You should talk with Banner,” you said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You still love him."

"Y/N, but you..."

"Nat, I just want you to be happy, I can assure you that you've paid for everything you've done in the past, it's time to start over," you said.

"Y/N... But... is just..."

"Nothing Nat, I promise you everything will be fine."

"Steve..."

"I know.”

Nat heard footsteps close and turned to see who was approaching.

“Are you okay?” Clint asked her.

Nat turned to where you were... but there was no one on the swing anymore, it just moved slightly as if someone had just come down.

“Yeah…is just…”

Steven Grant Rogers

You handed the documents over to Cameron, you joked a little bit and then he left, Steve saw everything, got discouraged, but he had to get the doubt out of his head.

"Agent Y/L/N,” he called you.

"Captain.”

"Your boyfriend?" Steve asked referring to Klein.

"Hmm? Oh... Cameron... no, no, no, we're just friends," you answered.

"Friends?" repeated Steve unconcern convinced.

"If we've known each other since the Academy and we're friends.”

Steve exhaled more calmly, maybe he should be encouraged to ask you out.

"Do you have anything to do on Saturday?" he questioned.

"No, I don't think so.”

He impulsively kissed you.

"You already have plans then... with me, " he sentenced before he left.

You just stood there smiling like a fool.

Natasha had told him he had to be bolder if he wanted you to go out with him, so that's what he did.

Samuel “Sam” Thomas Wilson

You knocked on the back door of Sam's house kitchen, he was preparing his breakfast, he went to see who he was, suddenly he felt the air was missing, it was not possible what he saw.

"Y/N, but you..."

"I'm here Sam."

"Y/N, I need explanations because..."

"There's no time for that, Wilson, I need you to do me a favor, I need your help," you interrupted him.

"What is it about? If you're in danger...”

"Take care of Steve for me, I know he doesn't want to accept what happened, but I don't want him to do anything stupid," you asked.

"What do you mean Y/N?" he asked across his arms.

"Just promise me, Steve needs the support of all of you."

"Sure, just explain to me what happened..."

He looked up, there was no one in front of him.

“Y/N?”

Steven Grant Rogers

"You took a long time to get back" complained when you saw him walk into the room you shared.

Steve was startled, he was supposed to be alone, but there you were in front of him, lying and naked in the bed you used to share.

"Are you going to stand there watching me all night?" you asked.

He came slowly, put a hand on your face, wondered if you were real, and kissed you.

Anthony “Tony” Edward Stark

Tony was designing armor for Pepper, they had decided to postpone the wedding one year after what happened, it was so unforeseen, and no one was over it yet.

"I'd ask FRIDAY to announce me, but I'm sure you'd think it's a joke," you said.

Tony turned around, what was going on was implausible.

“I forgive you for being a moron with all of us,” you said.

"Thank you?"

"I know you have thousands of questions, but I won't answer them even if you do them, so abstained yourself," you continued.

"Everything's been gone wrong since you left..."

"No Tony, everything went wrong since the Accords, forgive Bucky," you ordered.

"But he..."

"He killed your parents under HYDRA’s orders, not because he wanted to do it, all that he did was because he was under their control, all that things still cause him nightmares and a lot of regrets, anyway, shouldn't you be mad at your father and Peggy? They were the ones who hired Zola in S.H.I.E.L.D.; Zola was the one who created the Winter Soldier," you explained.

Tony saw you quietly for a few minutes processing your words.

"If you want to have a quiet life you could do it, but first, you must forgive and apologize, Tony."

"I should have done something else, we should all have..."

"It was my decision."

"Could you come back? You are the heart of the team..."

You smiled and left the lab without saying a word.

Steven Grant Rogers

You saw your little dog approaching you while he wagged his tail.

"What are you wearing on your dog collar?" you asked when you saw something weird.

Your dog sat in front of you and when you checked it, you saw the engagement ring.

Behind Steve, he was watching everything, realizing that you already had the ring in your hand, he peeked out.

"And what is your answer?" questioned nervously.

"Of course I accept to marry my little boy," you replied jokingly as you took the dog in your arms.

Steve's face was a mixture of emotions, it couldn't be said if he was bewildered, wanting to laugh or something else.

"Would you marry me, doll?" he asked.

You approached him and you were going to kiss him when the dog got between the two of us, laughed.

"Of course I want to marry you, Steve," you answered.

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes

Bucky dared not leave the room, he feared he would meet Tony and that He would start a fight; however, his cell phone rang.

"Hello, Buck."

"Y/N..."

"Can I see you?"

You gave him the directions, a few minutes later he arrived at the agreed place.

"It's not a trap, is it?" he questioned.

"No Bucky, HYDRA is gone, I promise you.”

"Sorry, I..."

"Stop blaming yourself for what you were forced to do, you've done the right thing to redeem yourself," you said.

"I'm not sure..."

"Believe me, I just need you to take care of Steve for me, okay, like before the war, I know it's hard..."

"We can't without you..."

"You must continue without me, there is no other way,” you sentenced.

"Y/N" he called you.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for taking care of Steve, while... You know... I wasn't there," Bucky thanked.

You smiled.

Steven Grant Rogers

Steve was training, it was the fifth punching bag he broke.

"You should stop this habit of breaking punching bags, Stevie," you said.

"Doll..."

"I've always liked to see you train, it's so... Hmm, I have no words to describe it.”

He didn't say anything, he just took your hand.

"Don't go, please,” he pleaded.

"I love you, Stevie."

Thor Odinson

Thor had in his hands the little teddy bear you had taken from one of the UFO catcher machines, he looked up when he felt a presence in the place.

"Lady Y/N.”

“Hi, Beach-boy" you welcome.

“What...?”

“I think on this planet, somewhere you could create New Asgard with the survivors, do you like the idea?" you proposed.

Before Thor could answer, you were already gone

Steven Grant Rogers

The nerves invaded Steve and increased every minute, what if a last-minute mission came up and ruined everything if everything was ruined, would you still want to marry him?

His doubts vanished when he saw you walking down the aisle, fortunately, there was no inconvenience.

"You're the most beautiful bride in the world,” he whispered to you as you danced the waltz

Scott Edward Harris Lang y Hope van Dyne

"Giant-man"

"Y/N," Scott said surprised.

"Who are you?" Hope asked.

"Do you remember Cap?" Scott asked.

Hope nodded.

"Well, she's his girlfriend."

"I’m his wife actually, you must be Hope, Scott told us about you," you corrected.

"Well, this doesn't make sense..."

They knew what had happened.

"Nothing has it, maybe you should talk to Steve, and I think there's room in The Avengers."

Both of them were confused, when Scott was going to ask you what you meant, there was no one else was with them.

Steven Grant Rogers

Steve woke up when he heard a noise in the kitchen, he had fallen asleep in the lounge sofa, and he went to see what was going on.

"Y/N?"

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry, I can't find my chocolates," you apologized.

Steve turned to see the clock on the kitchen wall.

"It's two in the morning..."

"It's never too late for one," you joked.

He smiled, always his little jokes were funny, and he loved to see you smile and heard your laughter; he approached the cupboard and pulled the box out of the highest shelf.

"Do you want to see a movie?" he proposed.

Clinton “Clint” Francis Barton

"I keep insisting that it's not safe to have arrows in a house with children," you said.

Clint dropped the bow to the floor, it supposed he was alone, Laura was taking care of their children.

"Maybe you should go visit the guys, Steve will probably need paternity advice; Nat and the twins miss you so much," you continue.

"Y/N...”

"Several times I envied that you had such a beautiful family, sometimes things don't go as you expect," you said.

Clint looked down at the bow without understanding, when he looked up to ask you something, there was no one.

Steven Grant Rogers

He was nervous, it was still supposed to be two weeks before your baby was born, but you'd woke up with contractions.

"Steve, calm down now, you're not helping me at all," you asked with a grimace of pain.

"But it was two weeks away...”

"WELL, THE BABY WANTS TO GET OUT, I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO!”

"Don't yell doll, we're in a hospital... Auch...”

You squeezed his hand very tightly when you felt another contraction.

You had no idea how many hours or minutes had passed, but eventually, the little girl was born.

"It's so small," Steve said as he carried her.

"Steve give it to me, I have to feed her," you asked

Robert Bruce Banner

"You've never been afraid that one of your experiments will go wrong?" you asked.

“Y/N…”

Bruce watched you for a few seconds.

"There must be some logical explanation," he said.

"That doesn't matter, get out of this damn lab and talk to Nat, one of you has to take the first step," you ordered him.

"She hates me," he said.

"She doesn't hate you, I had to put up with her talking about you, I don't know how many years, most of the time she described how she wanted to kill you."

"But the other..."

"She doesn't care, she loves you the way you are, then do it or I'll hit you so hard that it's going to scare the other guy," you threatened.

"Okay, I just have to turn this off," he said.

Bruce turned to the team he was working with and then flipped to where you were.

“Y/N?”

Steven Grant Rogers

Steve heard Sarah crying, in last weeks he had not felt able to be close to her daughter, Natasha had cared for her at the time, but right now she did not know where the spy was.

He approached the girl's crib and loaded her to try to reassure her.

"Shh, calm down little girl, I know you miss Mom, so do I."

Suddenly the girl calmed down unexpectedly and stretched out her little hand.

"Mommy" she babbled.

Steve turned strange, there you were, you approached them and you took your daughter.

"You put her plushies wrong, she likes to have her stuffed animal on the left, but you put Cap's stuffed one in that place that goes to the right" you explained.

Maria Hill, Nicholas “Nick” Joseph Fury, and Phillip “Phil” J. Coulson

"Haven't they decide what they're going to do yet?" Fury asked Maria.

Maria left the phone on the table before answering.

"No, no one has dared to talk about the situation," Hill confirmed.

"Maybe if we tell them there's an option..."

Whatever they want to try isn't going to work," you said.

"Y/N?!" the three exclaimed surprised in unison.

"Guide them, they feel completely lost, they don't want to continue with the proposal," you asked.

Steven Grant Rogers

Steve took all the pictures of you and the drawings of you he did, there were too many, he’d give anything for you to come back.

"I wish you'd never left..."

Someone knocked on the door, he was hoping it would be you, he needed you, he opened the door and his face showed complete disappointment.

"Stark wants to talk to everyone, he needs us in the boardroom," Nat told him.

"Okay," he said, trying to hide things.

"Are you okay, Steve?"

"Yes, in a moment I go, I only put in order a few things,” he answered.

"You're a bad liar."

"In a moment I will go,” he said again.

Peter Benjamin Parker

"Queens Spider-Boy" he greeted.

"Miss Rogers.”

"Y/N, just call me Y/N.”

Peter carved his eyes, maybe he was hallucinating, and there was no way that was possible.

"I would never think that Tony did it right when he involved you in something that was only to adults, but you should go visit him, he feels a little or maybe very lost," you said.

"With who are you talking to Peter?" May asked.

"With...”

He turned to ask you with his eyes if I should reveal your presence, but you were gone.

"... Nobody.”

Steven Grant Rogers

Thanos had finally arrived in Wakanda, Wanda was trying to destroy Vision's gem, just as Thanos came up to her feeling it.

You assumed what he was going to do, with your powers you immobilized him.

"Don't you dare,” you warned.

He was too strong, but you weren't going to give up so easily, you managed to take away two of the stones -the time and reality stones- as soon as you had them in your possession, you opened a portal to go somewhere else and destroy them.

You concentrated as much as you could, it was difficult, but if Wanda had been able, you could too, all you needed was that Thanos didn't find you, you hadn't left Wakanda, but if in the next few minutes you couldn't destroy them, you'd open another portal to go somewhere else to buy more time.

"Y/N, status,” Steve required.

"I've got two, I'll try to destroy them," you reported.

"Where are you?" he questioned.

"Just deal with him," you asked.

You had finally succeeded, those two stones had been destroyed, without all three, you were sure That Thanos could not fulfill his goal, you rose with difficulty, you were exhausted, to destroy them you had needed more powers and energy than you thought.

As soon as you turned around you felt a bump, Thanos had found you.

"They no longer exist... I destroyed them," you mocked.

"How you dare?"

Suddenly you felt a sharp pain in your entrails, the metallic taste in your mouth appeared.

"No!" Steve yelled.

He pounded on the enemy to get you off your back, at that moment Thor appeared where you were.

"Go with her," he told Steve.

Steve came up to you, the blood kept flowing, he didn't know how to stop the blood, but he had to do something.

"S-Steve..."

"Shh, its okay, doll, don't try hard," he asked.

"I think... take care of Sarah, okay, I love you..."

Your eyes were heavy, slowly closed.

"No... Y/N... no, wake up doll, please..."

James Rupert “Rhodey” Rhodes

“Rhodes” you called him.

He stood still, did not know what to do, perhaps he had heard wrong, but no, your voice had been very clear, slowly turned.

"I made a mistake in signing the Accords..."

"It’s okay, you thought you were doing the right thing..."

"I thought the government would know what to do, like acting the right way. But when Thanos..."

"Okay, now just try to reunite everyone," you asked.

Steven Grant Rogers

His mobile phone rang, desperately Steve caught up with him to answer him as quickly as possible.

“Doll, we need you.”

“Stevie, you know I can’t go back.”

“I haven’t been the same since you left me.”

“Sarah need you.”

"She needs you, she wants her mom back..."

"You're a good father Stevie, you'll do well, I didn't mean for that to go wrong either, but you know I did it for her."

"Please come back."

“Stevie.”

“Doll.”

“Please don’t forget me and all the things we did”

"Stevie, you know, this is a very beautiful place" you commented.

"I want to be with you."

"No, you must be with our daughter, you know, I met your mom, she's a lovely woman."

"What?"

He wasn't sure what he'd heard, those words only saw one of his greatest fears, now he had no choice but to accept what had happened in the battle.

“I have to go.”

"No, don't go, please, " he pleaded.

"Tell Sarah about me."

"I love you too much, never forget it."

You hung up, you knew time was up, you smiled, at least you'd been given a chance to say goodbye.

Steve dropped to his knees crying, give anything for you to come back, though he would tell Sarah about you.

Everyone

On the board all the tension went away, they had already decided what to do, all the roughness had been filed, and from now on they would be a team.

They decided to go visit Y/N's tomb, they put the flowers on it.

"She wanted us to continue," Nat said.

"I found this," Steve commented, showing a note.

"Me too," Wanda replied.

They all got the same note, none had no idea who had written it or exactly what it meant.

Thank you for what you did, I hope you liked the gift.

"Are you sure it was the best?" asked Ulana.

"They deserved a gift for saving the universe and she had not been able to say goodbye to everyone she loves," Uatu replied.

"You're right."

Now they could get on with their lives.

78 notes · View notes

probably-writing-x · 4 years

Text

Admittance pt.4

Guzmán x Reader

Request by anon: Hi~ Do you think that Admittance (Guzman x Reader) can be turned into a mini series??? Basically just drabbles about reader's pregnancy..

Gif is not my own

Requests are open🤍

The next few weeks went comfortably smoothly as your pregnancy continued. Guzmán had ended up staying at yours more often than not and you found yourself reaching the end of your first trimester. You could notice more and more in yourself how the little things had changed. And gradually, your bump began to inevitably grow. It was Guzmán who mentioned it first - glancing down at your stomach like he feared your reaction if he mentioned it. You’d done your best to cover up where you could and tried to limit anybody seeing as much as possible. Telling Guzmán, telling your family, that all seemed doable. But telling the remaining group at Las Encinas? You’d avoid it for as long as you could. Though, certain focused eyes at school couldn’t hold off for too long.

It was Rebeca that noticed first, laughing at how you’d worn a jumper over your uniform.

“Anyone would think you’ve got something to hide!” She jokes, “Anything you want to tell us?”

You couldn’t act quick enough to hide the blush on your cheeks.

“Fuck!” She leans forward in the chair, “Are you pregnant (Y/n)?”

Ander and Omar both look up with widened eyes, watching the secret unfold that they’d been keeping for weeks now. Samuel looks at you with the same expression as Rebeca - pure and utter shock. Guzman’s jaw clenches and so do his fists.

“I-“ You fumble a little, “I... yeah, I am.”

“Holy shit (Y/n)!” Rebeca exclaims, “You’re full of surprises. How far along are you?”

“Thirteen weeks,” You say bashfully, looking down at your hands.

“Summer fling, huh?” She laughs, “Well, congrats!”

“How are you feeling?” Samuel asks, his brows furrowing.

Guzmán walks over and clasps him on the shoulder, “I’m sure a thousand questions from you is the last thing she needs.”

You look at him and gulp down the lump in your throat.

“Come on, we’ll be late for class,” Guzmán encourages and waits for the two of them to get up.

You watch them whisper to each other as they walk away and Ander, Omar and Guzmán all crowd around you.

“They were bound to find out eventually,” You shrug, standing up from the table, “We should go.”

Omar and Ander look at you sympathetically before they walk out, Ander muttering something to Omar that you assumed would be his typical protective attitude.

“(Y/n),” Guzmán stops you by grabbing your hand, “It’s okay, you know?”

You glance down at his hand over yours. The two of you still hadn’t spoken about that kiss at the hospital. What would you say? How would you question something that was supposed to mean nothing?

“If anyone says a thing, you tell me okay?” He assures you, “I won’t have anyone be rude.”

You laugh a little, “They don’t even know you’re the father.”

“They will do if they get on the wrong side of you, understood?” He says the words with a smile and you know he’s trying to make you feel better. Though you also knew he meant what he said. He wouldn’t dare let anyone disrespect you or that baby.

- - - - - -

Things took a turn when Christmas started to approach and all of the Las Encinas students started to return from their universities. Lu and Nadia came back from New York, Carla came home, and piece by piece the normal group started to reunite. Needless to say, news travelled fast about your pregnancy - nobody knowing who the father was but plenty of people placing their moneyless bets. You’d heard talk around the school as more and more people learnt of your news but you tried to keep yourself away from it as much as possible. As did Guzmán. He made sure to stick to his word and talk down anyone who made a snide comment. Ander had done the same to a few people too.

The swim gala would be the first time you’d seen everyone again. They’d all followed tradition and agreed to watch the gala as they would have done when they were students here. Guzmán was competing so you found it impossible to find an excuse not to attend. There was only so long you could hide from the students who’d known you for so many years. Only so long you could continue to be (Y/n) - not the pregnant one.

“Hey!” Omar grins when he sees you, standing up to give you a hug, “We got good seats.”

You smile and sit alongside him and Ander, “Did I miss anything?”

“Just Guzmán getting stressed because we’d left you home alone,” Ander rolls his eyes, “I told him exactly what you said.”

You roll your eyes, “He worries about everything.”

You knew he hadn’t trained as much for this as he should’ve done - he’d been spending too much time with you. But, no matter how much you encouraged him that he didn’t have to, he’d still be with you every morning and every night that he could. Once again, not faltering from his promise.

It doesn’t take long before the gala starts filling up with people and you notice a familiar crowd all enter. Lu, Nadia, Carla, Valerio, Malick... all of them filter through the door and take seats on the opposite side to you. You see their eyes go directly to you, your stomach, your changed appearance - before instantly turning to each other with hushed discussion. It’s only Nadia that comes over to greet you and give you her congratulations.

“I just wanted to say my congratulations, you must be so excited!” She smiles, “I’m sure nervous too but you’re more than capable of being an incredible mother.”

You smile fondly at her comment, “Thank you, I really appreciate it. What have the others said?”

She glances over her shoulder towards them and lets out a sigh, “They’re judgemental, you know they are. They’ve been talking about it nonstop. I’m sorry (Y/n), I guess they’re just not very accepting.”

“Yeah, no, it’s to be expected right?” You shake your head, “I’ll see you after, okay?”

She gives you a sympathetic look before going to take her seat as you sink back down into yours. How could you expect any different? They wouldn’t see you as their classmate anymore. They’d see you as the girl who had completely changed her future. Who had failed her year at school and now had practically set up to fail this year too. The girl with the random, meaningless summer fling that had resulted in life altering consequences. You weren’t (Y/n) to them anymore. You were the teenage Mum.

You try your best to dismiss it as the gala begins and the crowd erupts with cheers for different people, all sounding like drowned out noise to you. It feels like everything’s simply happening around you, up to when Guzmán walks out.

He pauses as he walks past you, a frown overshadowing his features, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” You assure him, “Good luck!”

He knows he can’t stop for any longer as he hurried to catch up with the rest of the swimmers as they board their platforms. His eyes glance over to the group on the other side and then back to you. Did he know? Had he seen them talking about you? How long would he put up with it when it was people that he cared about the opinions of, and not just a random kid from your year?

Despite his lack of training, Guzmán still manages to win his heat in a solid time as the other swimmers come in close behind him. It all looks so natural to him. Would your baby have the same athleticism?

He doesn’t worry about celebrating any sort of win or checking his time, he’s straight over to you and the boys. He crouches down in front of you and frowns.

“What’s going on?” He questions, scanning your face as worry spills over his skin.

You glance up and see the group on the other side all watching, evidently realising things they hadn’t done before.

He follows your eyes and watches them, his jaw clenching, “What did they say?”

“Nothing, honestly, it was nothing,” You encourage, “Come on, you’ve got more races to do. Don’t worry about it.”

He squeezes your leg and stands up, turning to Ander and Omar, “You come find me if anything happens, okay?”

It killed you. How would they react to him being the father? They’d always been closer friends to him than you’d been with them. Even with Lu as his ex girlfriend. He’d already lost Polo and Marina - could he survive losing all of his other friends just because of this baby?

As he walks the length of the pool, he keeps his eyes harshly focused on them and you know there are a thousand words he’s wishing he could say to all of their prying eyes. You’re relieved when Nadia keeps her head down - she hardly deserved to be caught in the crossfire.

- - - - - -

It’s after Guzmán comes second in the final that he clearly loses his patience with them. They’d done nothing but whisper amongst themselves about their supposed revelation and were treating you like the latest gossip and nothing more. He’d seen how it was getting to you and there was only so long that he could watch that as a bystander, and not the man who’d promised to shut down anybody who was disrespectful. Especially when they mattered to you.

He walks past the group one last time and stops in front of them. Oh god.

“Do you think this is funny?” He questions, eyebrows raised as water drips down from his hair, “Who do you think you are?”

He’s met with silence.

“You come back from university and, what? You’re suddenly all superior than us idiots that re-sat the year?” He scoffs, “But you just can’t help getting yourself caught up in some high school drama when one of your classmates is pregnant.”

Lu purses her lips, somewhat enjoying the demise of her ex more than she should do.

“Whatever you think, whatever stories you’ll come up with for how this all happened, it doesn’t matter,” Guzmán shakes his head, “Because you can get your fancy degrees from your top universities and start these careers that you think will shape the world... But I’ll tell you for certain, (Y/n) will do more with her life than you ever will. She’ll shape the life of that baby. Sure, we didn’t plan for this. But there isn’t anyone better I could imagine to be the mother to my child.”

It’s Ander that goes over to stop him, “Come on man, it’s not worth it.”

“What? You think it’s a shock that the baby’s mine?” He laughs, brushing off your brother, “Use that to fuel your gossip then, your petty, worthless gossip. But leave (Y/n) and our baby out of it. They’re worth a lot more than your whispering.”

Omar glances across to you from his seat and squeezes your hand like he’s trying to reassure you of the exact same point. It still felt weird to hear Guzmán talk about you like that. ‘Our baby’. Did he really think that highly of you? Or was it all just to silence them? You’d believe it was the latter, but something about the way he’d acted through this entire process made you have a slight leaning towards the prior.

You didn’t need to have the support of all of them. Instead, you watch Nadia stand up from her seat and come over to join you and her brother. And the five of you leave together. Not needing to explain yourself more than Guzmán already had.

- - - - - -

“Who do they fucking think they are?” Guzman’s lost his composure by the time he’s out of their earshot, “They’re sat there with smug looks on their face! What? Because they think we’ve ruined our lives? Bullshit!”

“Guzmán, calm down,” Ander sighs, holding his chest to stop him from launching back into that pool room and kicking off at them again, “You’ve said what you needed to say.”

“She doesn’t deserve seeing them act like that Ander! Don’t you think she’s already dealing with enough?!”

“Guzmán!” You exclaim as you come through the door, followed by Omar and Nadia.

Ander takes a step back and lets you take the lead, knowing you now had more power over his best friend than he did.

“It’s fine. You said it yourself, it’s worthless gossip,” You say, “I’m fine, the baby’s fine - isn’t that enough?”

He sighs and pulls you to him, wrapping his arms around you as his damp body sticks against your clothes, “I’m so sorry.”

“For sticking up for us?” You laugh, “Yeah that was a real dick move,” You roll your eyes sarcastically.

“You know what I mean,” He scoffs, “But you’re okay, yeah?”

“We’re fine, we said we should go and get some food. All five of us,”

Guzmán looks over your shoulder to see the other three stood together. That was more than enough. Three people that were willing to completely support the three of you. And for the first time in a long time, Guzman’s surrounded solely by good people. It’s refreshing.

“Yeah, I’ll go and get ready,” He nods, “I’ll meet you outside.”

He leaves you with a gentle kiss on your forehead before turning to walk into the changing rooms.

- - - - - -

Later that day, the five of you find yourselves crowding round a table for four at a cafe in town. You catch up with Nadia about New York, and she assures you that there’s always an open invite. You all decide on going over at some point, after the baby’s born. Guzmán gives you his jacket because your clothes were still damp from his impromptu hug and, somewhere along the line, Guzman’s arm falls around you like it’s so natural to be there. Maybe it’s when you’re all squeezing together to make room for Ander to sit down, he was just trying to make more room. Or maybe it’s when Nadia says about how proud she is of how maturely you’ve been handling the situation, or when Omar mentions the fear you’d had at that night at the hospital. All of these moments that could’ve been the cause. Or maybe Guzmán just felt it was right. Either way, it feels so utterly comfortable to be surrounded by all of them.

“Do you have a photo of the scan?” Nadia asks excitedly, “I completely forgot to ask!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got one,” Guzmán nods, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet.

He gets out the printed photo that was safely tucked into one side of the leather casing. It was your most recent scan - the first proper one. At twelve weeks.

“Here,” He hands it over, “So there’s the little arm and that right there is the head.”

Nadia looks at it in awe and mentions something about how tiny all of its features are as Omar leans over to look too. You instead turn to Guzmán and see how proud he looks. He still has a small smile on his lips and he’s leaning over the table like he can’t possibly take his eyes away from the photo for a moment. He looks brighter, his freckles more prominent, his eyes warm.

It doesn’t take him long to notice your lingering gaze.

“You okay?” He asks, eyes flicking down to your belly as they always did.

“Yeah,” You hold back a grin, “I’m good.”

Guzmán smiles and sits back in his chair, hand finding yours as your fingers lace together with such ease.

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fuckallthegood0nesweretaken · 4 years

Text

The Dove and Her Hound - CH. TwentyOne

Title: The Truce

Words: 2,309

Warnings: Some strong language

Taglist: @tonbluemchen @affection-rabbit @art-flirt @10morgan10 @thatting @iwontdance-dontaskme

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Sandor Masterlist

Game of Thrones Masterlist

Masterlist

~~~~~~~

It had been a long voyage to King’s Landing. Jon and Daenerys were apparently now an item and you had learned something about you. Tyrion had successfully convinced Jaime to talk to Cersei and there was a temporary truce. You and Daenerys still weren’t getting along, but for Jon’s sake you were civil. Now you were walking along with Tyrion, Jon, and Sandor. When your group of people met another, you saw some familiar faces. Brienne of Tarth and Podrick Payne.

“Welcome, my lord’s. And my lady’s. Some of your friends arrived before you. I’ve been sent to escort you all to the meeting,” the man leading the other group said.

Sandor’s grip on your hand tightened and you looked to see where he was looking. His eyes were glued to Brienne and hers to him. She looked at you after and bowed slightly. You nodded your head back and she looked surprised. Following her gaze, it lead to your intertwined hands. You blushed lightly and a goofy smile found its way to your face. Her eyes still held surprise, but understanding.

The Dothraki protecting your group went and walked ahead with some of the Lannister men Cersei had sent with Brienne and Podrick. You were still with Sandor when everyone else started moving. Tyrion and Podrick stopped for a second to chat and he bowed his head as you walked past.

“What’s in the box?” A Lannister soldier asked Sandor.

“Fuck off,” he replied. The soldier backed off and Brienne took his place.

“Thought you died,” she said.

“Not yet. Came pretty close.” You stiffened slightly and held onto Sandor tighter.

“I was only trying to protect them.”

“You and me both.”

After a moment, Brienne spoke again. “She’s alive. Arya.”

“What?” You said.

“Where?” Sandor asked.

“Winterfell. She’s with Sansa and Bran.”

“Who’s protecting her if you’re here?”

“She can take care of herself. The only one that needs protecting is the one who gets in her way.” You let out a laugh at that.

“It won’t be me,” Sandor said. “I have too much to protect here.”

“Hey! I can take care of myself, thank you very much!”

“I know you can, but it’s not just you anymore.”

“What do you mean?” You and Sandor looked at each other. He motioned to go ahead and you looked at Brienne with a blinding smile.

“I’m with child!”

Brienne was shocked and gave her congratulations. You couldn’t keep the smile off of your face and if you looked at Sandor you could see the happiness in his eyes. Soon after you dropped that bomb on Brienne, you had arrived at the Dragonpit. You waited for Sandor to finish hitching his horse and cart then walked with him to the pit. Cersei wasn’t there when you were escorted in. It made you uncomfortable. The place you were in was the perfect place for an ambush.

“I don’t like this,” you said lowly to Jon. Your hands were splayed protectively over your stomach. You were only four months pregnant, but you couldn’t help it.

“Neither do I. Please stay close to me or Sandor.” Jon looked at you, worry in his eyes. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I promise.”

Hearing clinking, you looked towards the entrance. Cersei, Jaime, the Mountain, and two men you’ve never seen before were approaching. They took their seats and after they sat down you sat next to Jon. Sandor was standing behind you. He stepped out in front of everyone and approached his brother. You straitened up slightly and watched with hesitant eyes.

“Remember me? Yeah you do. You’re even fucking uglier than I am now. What did they do to you? Doesn’t matter. That’s not how it ends for you, brother. You know who’s coming for you. You’ve always known.” After his little monologue, he went to go get the Wight.

“Where is she?” Cersei asked Tyrion.

“She’ll be here soon.”

“Didn’t travel with you?”

“No.”

Cersei looked angry. She looked at Jaime. He looked back when the sound of wings flapping echoed through the air. He got up in a panic as the shadows of her dragons covered the Pit. They were beautiful yet they still filled you full of fear.

Drogon roared and made his way down the side of the Pit. You could see the uneasiness in all of the Lannister men and in Cersei and Jaime. Daenerys got off of her dragon and made her way to her seat. Drogon took off into the sky to join his remaining brother.

“We’ve been here for some time,” Cersei said, venom lacing her voice.

“My apologies.” You could feel the tension in the air. Tyrion got up and stood in the center of the platform.

“We are a group of people who do not like one another. We have suffered at each other’s hands. We have lost people we love at each other’s hands. If all we wanted was more of the same, there would be no need for this meeting. We are capable of waging war without meeting face to face.”

“So instead we should settle our differences and live together in harmony for the rest of our days,” Cersei said.

“We all know that will never happen.”

“Then why are we here?”

Jon stood up and joined Tyrion.

“This isn’t about living in harmony. It’s just about living,” he spoke. “The same thing is coming for all of us. A general you can’t negotiate with, an army that doesn’t leave corpses behind on the battlefield. Lord Tyrion tells me that a million people live in this city. There’s about to be a million more soldiers in the army of the Dead.”

“I imagine for most of them it would be an improvement.” Cersei seemed to think this was a joke.

“This is serious. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t.”

“I don’t think it’s serious at all. I think it’s all a bad joke.” She looked towards Daenerys. “If my brother Jaime has informed me correctly, you want a truce?”

“Yes,” Daenerys said. “That’s all.”

“That’s all? Pull back my armies and stand down while you go on your monster hunt. Or while you expand your position. Hard for me to know which it is with my armies pulled back. Until you turn back and march onto my capital with four times the men.”

“Your capital will be safe until the Northern threat is dealt with. You have my word.”

“The word of a would-be usurper.”

“There is no conversation that can erase the last fifty years. We have something to show you,” Tyrion interjected.

Sandor came up the steps with the Wight’s box on his back. He set it down and unlatched it, everyone who knew what was in the box was on high alert. When Sandor pushed the lid off of the box and stepped back quickly, your heart beat rapidly. Nothing happened and Sandor kicked the box. The Wight started running towards Cersei and you could see the panic in her eyes. The Wight was stopped before it reached her and Jaime stood up from his seat.

When it saw Sandor, it rushed towards him. Pulling out his sword, he cut it in half. It still tried to get to him despite not having legs and when it reached out, Sandor cut his arm off. After that, Sandor took his place behind you. Jon took the arm from one of Cersei’s men and Ser Davos lit the torch in his hand.

“We can destroy them with fire.” He lit the arm on fire and the Wight screamed in agony. “And we can destroy them with Dragonglass. If we don’t win this fight, then this is the fate of every person in the world.”

Jon stabbed the Wight with his Dragonglass dagger and it fell to the floor, dead for good.

“This is the only war that matters. The Great War. And it is here.”

“I didn’t believe it until I saw them. I saw them all,” Daenerys said.

“How many?” Jaime asked her.

“Hundred thousand at least.”

“Can they swim?” Euron said, twirling the Wights hair around his fingers.

“No,” you answered.

“Good. I’m taking the Iron Fleet back to the Iron Islands.”

“What are you talking about?” Cersei said tersely.

“I’ve been around the world. Seen things you couldn’t imagine. And this, this is the only thing that terrifies me,” Euron said to Cersei. To Daenerys he said, “I’m going back to my island. You should go back to yours. When Winter’s over, we’ll be the only ones left alive.”

Daenerys looked unimpressed and just looked at Euron as he walked away.

“He’s right to be afraid and a coward to run. If those things come to us, there will be no kingdoms to rule. Everything we suffered and lost would’ve been for nothing.” Cersei looked at Daenerys. “The Crown accepts your truce. Until the Dead are defeated, they are the true enemy.”

You let out the breath you had been holding and your frame became less rigid. Then Cersei kept talking.

“In return, the King in the North will extend this truce. He will remain in the North where he belongs. He will not take up arms against the Lannisters, he will not choose sides.”

“Just the King in the North? Not me,” Dany said.

“I would never ask that of you. You wouldn’t agree to it and if you did I would trust you even less than I do now. I ask it only of Ned Stark’s son. I know he will be true to his word.”

Jon looked at you for a moment, then looked at Dany. The both of you told him with your eyes to say yes. Please say yes.

“I am true to my word. Or I try to be. That is why I cannot give you what you ask. I cannot serve two Queens. And I’ve already pledged myself to Queen Daenerys, of House Targaryen.”

You went tense again, and Sandor put his hand on your shoulder. Everyone was looking at each other, waiting for someone to speak. You knew that Jon had said the wrong thing and now nothing good would come of it.

“Then there is nothing left to discuss,” Cersei said as she stood. “The Dead will come North first. Enjoy dealing with them. We will deal with whatever is left of you.”

Jon looked as if he wanted to speak to Cersei as she passed him by, but he could not find words. They all walked by him and Brienne was the only one to talk.

“Ser Jaime,” she said, going after him. You didn’t hear the rest of the conversation and you looked to Sandor. He said nothing and only took your hand.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Ser Davos said when Cersei was gone.

“I’m grateful for your loyalty, but my dragon died so that we could be here,” Daenerys said. “If it’s all for nothing, then he died for nothing.”

“I know.”

“I’m pleased you bent the knee to our Queen,” Tyrion said. “But have you considered learning how to lie every now and then?”

“I’m not gonna swear an oath I cannot uphold. Talk about my father if you want. Tell me that’s the attitude that got him killed. But when enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers only better and better lies. Lies won’t help us in this fight.”

“You’re right,” you said to Jon. “But the more immediate problem is that we’re fucked. Are there any ideas of how to change that?”

“Only one. Everyone stays here, and I go and talk to my sister.”

“She’ll kill you before you can say a word,” you said.

“I know. But we have to try something.”

---

While Tyrion went to try to talk to Cersei, you sat with Sandor. You were growing restless with the waiting and all you wanted to do was get out of King’s Landing. You had always hated this shit city and never wanted to go back. But here you were, trying to get an army from your most hated enemy. You didn’t think that Tyrion would be able to talk some sense into his sister and that would most likely lead to the death of everyone here.

“It’ll be alright, Dove,” Sandor said to you. You looked up at him and smiled faintly.

“I don’t know about that. You know Cersei. If she doesn’t get what she wants she’s going to kill us all.” Sandor sighed and pulled you onto his lap. He held you close and put his hands on your stomach.

“I won’t let that happen. She will not touch you or our babe.”

You put your hands over his and rested your head in the crook of his neck. You were both silent until Tyrion showed up. You got up out of Sandor’s lap and stood. When Sandor saw Cersei walking back behind Tyrion, he stood as well and put a protective hand on the small of your back.

“My armies will not stand down. I will not pull them back to the capital. I will march them North to fight alongside you in the Great War. And when the Great War is over, perhaps you will remember that I chose to help, with no promises or assurances from any of you. Call our Banners, all of them.”

You were dumbfounded, but relieved that Tyrion was able to actually talk to Cersei. She left just as quickly as she came and after a few minutes, you followed. Sandor was by your side, still touching your back and didn’t let go until you were safely on the ship. It was time to sail back to Dragonstone and get ready for war.

#sandor x reader #sandor clegane x reader #game of thrones x reader #got x reader #x reader #xreader #reader insert #Sandor Clegane #Jon Snow #stark reader #game of thrones #got #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones fanfic #got fanfiction #got fanfic #sandor clegane fanfiction #sandor clegane fanfic

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cherryeol04 · 4 years

Text

The Firsts

Summary: No one ever told him that living was going to be so difficult. That there would emotions get couldn’t label and distinguish. He’s just a young boy trying to navigate through life and its unexpected ups and downs.

Genre: Humor, Fluff, smut(?)

Pairings: Oc x Felix, Oc x Changbin, Changbin x Oc x Felix

Warnings: poly relationship, angst in some part, excessive fighting about the MCU.

Parts: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17

A/N: This story has a theme of Firsts. First love, first kiss and many other firsts. Each part can be read on their own and are meant to stand as oneshots. It’s basically a collection of oneshots (little snapshots into my Oc’s life. 😁)

Aiden knew he was avoiding the situation, but could anyone honestly blame him. He wanted nothing to do with Felix and Changbin, but it was difficult to not run into them when he left the house. Seoul’s was not a small city, hundreds of thousands of people lived there and visited at any given point in the year. It should be a rare occurrence to run into the two, the odds were so low. And yet Aiden found himself dodging, hiding and running when he spotted one of them.

He knew they needed to talk - to address the situation that happened but the pain was still fresh in his heart and all Aiden wanted to do was just feel better and move on before he confronted the cause of his pain. He really wished that Changbin and Felix would understand that.

Slipping between the bodies in the packed arcade store, eyes scanning the area for something to do. His attention was drawn to the small crowd that was forming around the Dance Dance Revolution machine. Aiden hadn’t seen one of those in such a long time, it was a blast from the past and he was surprised this place even had it. As he approached, he could hear a voice over the booming music of the machine and he slipped himself between small gaps to get a clearer view of what was going on.

“Thank you for support. Chose my next song and I’ll do it on hard. Watch me beat this machine and get the highest score!” The boy that stood before the machine was talking fast - almost as fast as Changbin - his eyes wide as he scanned the crowd. His cheeks were chubby as they stretched in a smile and Aiden was reminded of a squirrel. He was pretty cute. Someone from the crowd shouted a name that Aiden didn’t quite catch and the kid pointed towards that person.

“Excellent choice! Here we go!” He said and climbed back onto the platform. Putting in his coins, he selected the song and difficulty before getting into position. He was poised, ready and as the song started, Aiden’s eyes widened at how fast the arrows came raining down, the direction and different beats that they stood for. And this guy hit every single one of those arrows. Perfects we’re flying left and right and Aiden felt his heart swelling with such admiration. As the song came to an end, the guy hit each arrow perfectly, spinning around and bowing as his perfect score flashed across the screen. The crowd around him cheered happily, giving out praises before they slowly trickled off to do their own thing.

Aiden stood there still in awe, watching as the guy entered his name so he could have the top score. Han. Well, that was a unique name. Aiden bit his bottom lip as he stepped closer, grabbing onto the safety rail of the platform lightly. “You’re amazing!” His voice startled the other, and he watched him turn around with wide eyes and a hand over his heart.

“Shit, you scared me.” He laughed with a slight bow. “Thanks, did you enjoy the show?”

“Yeah! I’ve been we seen someone move like you before.” Aiden praised him. “You got the best rhythm I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks man, maybe I can teach you.” He chuckled.

“I’d love that. My name is Aiden.”

“Jisung, but my friends call me Han.” Introductions finally out of the way, the two stared at each other briefly before Jisung hopped off the platform and leaned against the railing. “So, Aiden, how are your basketball skills?” He asked.

“Decent.” Aiden answered with a small shrug of his shoulders. “Why?” He asked.

“Think you can beat me?” Jisung asked.

“You’re on.” Aiden grinned and pushed off the railing and headed for the basketball game near the back of the arcade center.

Three hours later saw the boys sitting outside a fast-food restaurant, stuffing burgers into their mouths as they laughed about everything and nothing. Aiden found Jisung’s company wonderful. The older male was filled with jokes, insights and a strange way of viewing life that always managed to bring a smile to his face. They clicked well and Aiden was excited to see how their friendship would bloom over the coming months.

“So why are you alone on this wonderful day?” Jisung asked as he swirled a fry in his ketchup and mustard mixture.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Aiden counter, eyes watching Jisung with curiosity.

“I asked you first though.” Smirking, Jisung lifted his eyes to stare at Aiden. “So?” He asked. Aiden looked away quickly, a sigh leaving him as he picked up a fry and ate it slowly, taking his time to savor the salty goodness on his tongue. He was procrastinating and he knew it.

“I needed to get out and enjoy life. So I decided to go to the arcade.” He said after a few moments of debating on how to tell the other.

“Ah, you don’t have any friends though? You seem really nice, I’m surprised you didn’t come with friends.” Jisung commented, watching the way Aiden flinched at the comment and raising a brow in curiosity. “Something happen?” He asked.

“It’s complicated.” Aiden said quickly as he grabbed a handful of fries and stuff them in his face. That’s all he wanted to say to his new friend. He didn’t want to be rude, but it wasn’t Jisung’s place to pry into his life like that and Aiden didn’t feel comfortable sharing that painful memory. He just wanted to forget about it.

“I’m sorry.” Aiden lifted his gaze to look at Jisung, a soft whine leaving as he saw the frown plastered on the other’s face. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine.” Aiden assured him, giving him a small smile. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. So, why were you here alone?” Aiden decided to shift the focus from him to Jisung.

“Me?” Jisung asked as he leaned back in his chair, arms rising above his head as he stretched. “Well, my family just moved back here from Malaysia. Starting my second year at a new high school in a week and I have absolutely no friends.” He said and laughed. “So I decided to come to the arcade and let off steam and just enjoy myself before hell begins.”

“Hell.” Aiden snickered and laughed, covering his mouth before he could spit food everywhere. “You don’t know the half of it!” He snorted, coughing as a piece of his burger went down the wrong pipe. Smacking his chest, he grabbed his drink and drank about half of or before coming back for air, coughing once more and finally clearing out his windpipe. “Holy Jesus.” He gasped.

“Dude, it wasn’t that funny, no need to die.” Jisung chuckled. “But are you alright?”

“I’m good.” Aiden croaked out, giving him a thumbs up.

“Thank god. I would hate to lose my first friend over a stupid comment.” Jisung huffed, a tiny smile on his lips.

“Don’t worry. It takes a lot more to get rid of me. Trust me, I’m like a parasite. I attach myself to you forever.” Aiden said and reached over the table, the tips of his fingers touching Jisung’s arm in a light grip, teasing him. Jisung laughed at that and shook his head.

“Just remember to pay rent.” He said.

“As long as you remember to feed me once and while.” Aiden winked at him and Jisung snorted with laughter.

“No problem.”

#stray kids #skz #fanfic #stray kids fanfic #skz fanfic #stray kids au #skz au #stray kids fanfic au #skz fanfic au #au story #the firsts #humor #fluff #felix #changbin #changbin x oc #felix x oc #changbin x oc x felix

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thej13579 · 4 years

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Paper Mario Sticker Star: Really That Bad?

This will be the first in a series that I have made called Really That Bad? It's where I judge a negatively reviewed product to see if it's really as bad as people say it is.

If you have your own suggestions for Really That Bad? or you just want to give out your own opinions on either this critique or the game itself, comment down below.

Paper Mario is a series that I really liked growing up. From its humble roots as a spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG to its generally considered superior sequel in The Thousand Year Door to even its weird diversion into platforming with Super Paper Mario, I considered these three games to be some of the best Mario games ever made.

But starting with the game that I’m discussing today, the Paper Mario subseries has gone in a different direction that has not been received all that well. Considering that Paper Mario: The Origami King just came out recently, I have been wondering if Paper Mario: Sticker Star deserves all the hate it gets, or is there something worthwhile in the direction that the subseries is undergoing. Let’s find out if I think Paper Mario: Sticker Star is Really That Bad.

Story and Characters

Let’s start with the story. A basic rundown is that Bowser has disrupted the beloved Sticker Fest by causing the Sticker Comet to explode. Now Royal Stickers and pieces of the comet have been flung far and wide, and it's up to Mario and his ally Kersti to set things right by recovering them. That’s basically the entire story. A basic Mario story with nothing aside from the paper theme making it stand out.

Sadly, the characters don’t come out much better. Nearly all of them are basically bland and generic with very little in terms of personality or character design making them stand out from each other. (The Toads in of themselves have become a meme because they’re all the same exact character model) Even Kersti, an ally that follows you on your entire journey, stays static from beginning to end. Characters like Mizzter Blizzard, who actually does have a fairly sympathetic reason for what he does with him wanting to live longer and not melt, are very few and far between.

Overall, the story and characters lack any real charm from the other games and it comes across as a generic Mario story at the end of the day. While the first Paper Mario game had this exact same plot with the stars instead of the stickers, there were several things making that game stand out with its unique and memorable cast of characters and you also get to play as Peach every now and then to help Mario on his quest which was always rather nice. Not a particularly great start to this analysis.

Graphics

The graphics definitely are one of the highlights of the game. It’s fairly bright and colorful and the Nintendo 3DS takes good advantage of the fact that the world is paper. Some may dislike the extra emphasis on paper compared to the previous three games but I think it does add a little charm to the game that is sorely needed.

My main problem with the art direction essentially boils down to the locations; mainly, how generic they are. The designers fall back on various Mario locations that have been done to death by the time this game came out: Grasslands, deserts, jungles and finally Bowser’s castle. You take out the paper style, there will be nothing distinguishing it from most Mario platformers in the franchise and that’s a shame because the game actually looks pretty good on the Nintendo 3DS.

On a side note, I don’t really care that much for the 3D function of the Nintendo 3DS so I’m not taking that into account when evaluating the graphics.

Overall, the graphics, while good at taking advantage of the paper theme, suffered from a lack of originality when it comes to its locations (a flaw that later Paper Mario games did fix). It’s good but not great.

Sound

I’ll admit that the soundtrack is actually pretty good. It does have plenty of great tracks and the jazz motif throughout most of them really make it memorable in my eyes. Special mention goes to the main battle theme, Boo Night Fever, the Gooper Blooper battle themes, and the final boss themes.

I honestly don’t have much to say in this section. I just find this a very good soundtrack and I bet even most of the people who hate Sticker Star will agree with me on this.

Gameplay

Now, here’s the main part that many people have been criticizing this game for; the gameplay.

Let’s start with some positives. I liked the exploration aspect. I liked roaming around the areas, looking for stickers, solving puzzles. It really does feel like I’m accomplishing something whenever I found a secret passage that leads me to a different goal than when I was going down the beaten path.

There’s also the paperize power where you can reveal areas where you can place stickers down to enable certain events whether it is simply placing a sticker to make a ? box appear or a Thing that can really affect the environment, allowing you to progress further into the level..

That leads to the Things that you find by looking around the levels and I kind of like how they can affect the environment such as using the Faucet to fill up a dry oasis in the desert world and I especially like the animations that are played when you use them in battle. My personal favorites are the Goat, the Turkey and the Water Gun with how fun and bizarre they are. Sadly, they are not perfect for a major reason that I’ll get to in a bit.

Then we get to the battle system and here’s where most of my criticisms on the game design start to pour in. For the most part, it seems fairly similar to the RPG battle system from the first two games. You and your enemy take turns attacking each other and you have to get their health points down to zero to win the battle. Sounds exactly like the first two games... but that’s where the stickers come in.

Stickers come in a fair amount of variety with various forms of jumps, hammer attacks, and items. The main problem with them comes in the fact that all of them are consumables, even just the regular jump and hammer attacks. If you ran out of them, your only options are to either wait to die, or run away. Granted, you usually find enough stickers around the area just by looking around so it never really became a problem for me during my playthroughs. But the fact that it’s possible is not good game design.

The idea of your basic actions being entirely reliant on consumables would have been bad enough on its own, but then there’s the fact that, unlike nearly every other RPG ever, you get no experience from fighting enemies. What do you get from enemies? Coins and stickers. Two things that you can easily find on your own throughout the levels and you get plenty of the former the first time you actually complete a level. Not a very good incentive to battle if I say so myself. You are basically better off just avoiding enemies and saving your stickers for scripted encounters and boss fights.

And here’s where we get to what I consider the worst part of the game, the boss fights. The main issue can be boiled down to the fact that they are puzzle bosses with too much emphasis on the puzzle part. They are so powerful with their high health points ranging up to the hundreds and attack points they are all but guaranteed to wipe the floor with unless you have the proper Thing (and without a walkthrough, you probably don’t). If you do have the proper Thing, the boss quickly becomes a joke, hence the puzzle boss with too much emphasis on the puzzle. This is the flaw that I was referring to earlier when it comes to the Things. You have very little knowledge of what Thing you need for the fight until you’re already fighting the boss. Without a walkthrough, the only way to know is to die and possibly get a hint on what Thing you actually need.

To best describe what I’m talking about, let’s go with the very first boss, Megasparkle Goomba. To beat this boss, you have to fight the boss like normal until the sixteen Goombas that the boss is made out of reveal themselves and start to flip. From there you need one of two Things: Scissors or a Fan. Seems simple on paper (pun not intended). However, the main problem is that there is no indication that you need either of those Things to beat the boss.

It’s far from the only example of this design issue at work and not the worst, the final boss takes that spot, but it’s a perfect example of how the Things work when it comes to bosses and how poorly designed the bosses in this game are. This is not helped by how the game actively discourages trial and error considering that, one; you only have a limited amount of space for stickers and Things take a huge chunk of space in your inventory. Two, they go away once they are used so you have to either buy them which costs quite a bit of coins, or you have to go to the place where you originally found them which can be long and tedious depending on the level.

Overall, the exploration aspect of the game is kind of fun with plenty of clever puzzles and platforming. But the battling system ranges from pointless at best to downright cryptic and poorly designed at worst. The gameplay is an extremely mixed bag ranging from pretty good to pretty bad.

Is It Really THAT Bad?

So, after all that, is Paper Mario: Sticker Star really that bad? Yeah… sort of.

I will admit that all the parts the game gets flack for do genuinely deserve all the criticism it gets and then some. The lack of emphasis on story and characters, the uncreative environments, and especially the battle system with its stupid reliance on consumable items to do anything in battle and lack of any good incentive to actually fight enemies along with the awful bosses. Aside from the art style, which I do like, the game lacks the charm that the first two Paper Mario games, and even Super Paper Mario, had. The fact that the very first Paper Mario did this exact same plot but did it better with more creative characters, environments and better game design just makes Sticker Star look that much worse by comparison.

But, I can’t find myself to really hate this game and that’s for several reasons. First, when I’m not battling any enemies and I’m just travelling the world, overcoming obstacles and solving puzzles, Sticker Star can actually be pretty fun. There may be some issues with that, mainly when Things are involved, but I’m still having a good time just exploring the levels, uncovering whatever secrets they may have.

There’s also the graphics and music which are still top notch with the extra emphasis on paper in the former and the excellent jazz motif throughout most of the tracks in the latter. The game overall, looks and sounds nice and it’s definitely a point in Sticker Star’s favor.

Overall, I wouldn’t call Paper Mario: Sticker Star a good game as it has too many flaws and inadequacies to push the overall product beyond okay. The game was rejected by most Paper Mario fans for fairly good reasons with its lower emphasis on writing and a poor battle system that gives the player very little reason to battle. But I think that the game does have some potential as an action-adventure sort of game. If the people at Nintendo are really that insistent on this direction for future games then I think that these are some of the things they should take into account if they really want to go in this direction. Perhaps The Origami King could take those criticisms into account?

#paper mario #sticker star #paper mario sticker star #review #opinion #criticism #really that bad?

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regina-nox · 4 years

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Look I get being annoyed with all the attention/praise Natalie Portman got for her cape at the Oscars being embroidered with the names of the female directors that got snubbed by the academy. Especially considering that she has only starred in two* films with female directors, one of them being herself. One might argue that it’s another case of performative wokeness. Another then might counter that by pointing out that it’s better than doing nothing, which is never a strong argument.

We need to stop expecting perfection from artists. I’m not saying we can’t hold them accountable or criticize their actions, but we need to also be patient. Be annoyed at all the Buzzfeed-esque drooling over celebrities doing cool/good things that gets plastered all over social media, but don’t get annoyed at the celebs themselves for that coverage. Portman didn’t ask to be congratulated on her sartorial decision: she was merely using her platform in a very clever way to bring attention to an issue she has been outspoken about in the past.

I know how annoying all of the sheep like praise for celebrities can get, it’s ridiculous, but I don’t think we should let that stop us from still giving people credit for doing awesome things. Like I said, we’re allowed to critique people who possess swaths of influence and have a platform whether they acknowledge it or not, but if we’re going to critique them then in turn I believe it’s our job to commend them when they contribute to significant issues. Not only does that encourage celebrities to do this more, but it also sends a message to all of the people who follow this person that what they’re doing is important and deserves positive recognition. Because then their attention is brought to the issue, and it can ultimately foster widespread change. For example, while it’s definitely worth mentioning that it seems Portman could make more of an effort on her part to work with more female directors, however I don’t think it’s fair to completely slam her for making a statement with that outfit. I think that kind of bashing promotes purity culture—are we not allowed to take a stance on an issue if we haven’t led a perfect example?

I think the scathing attacks just discourage people. Because who among us is perfect? People (celebrities and non-celebrities alike) see Portman trying to make an effort and then being dragged for it. Again, not saying we shouldn’t or can’t point out the flaws with her protest, but to ruthlessly bash her doesn’t help. And I usually hate that kind of argument, like when I was on a date with a guy and he said “women saying ‘I hate men’ doesn’t help their cause” and I replied saying “maybe I don’t always need to be helping the cause, maybe I can say whatever I damn well feel like.” The difference is at the end of the day Natalie Portman is a physical human being and being a celebrity she is already subjected to mass amounts of criticism. And yes, we can find what she did to be more of an act of performative wokeness and find that tiresome. But did it deserve outrage?

And this isn’t me saying we need to be polite in these times, because fuck that. Like when fucking T.I. told everyone the weird shit about his daughter and her gyno appointments and everyone was rightfully like what the fuck, you complete gross fuck. The crowd booing Trump at the World Series was great, Pelosi ripping up the SOTU speech was also great. I’m just saying, as a cynical person myself, it’s important not to tear down everything all the time because it isn’t perfect. Uh Obama’s presidency was far from perfect, partly because of the continued use of drones (I mean hey if we could employ drones without killing thousands* of innocent people I wouldn’t complain but that’s just me and my opinion idk), but it also gave millions** of people access to affordable healthcare (and hey while the ACA isn’t universal healthcare it has provided a great foundation to move the country there). Oh that being said it doesn’t mean someone’s good behavior always excuses bad behavior. I’m not saying every artist should simply be able to get away with bad shit (“I mean I know that whole T.I. thing was fucked up but he’s so good in the Ant-Man movies!” or even “Well T.I. apologized and then donated a million dollars to some women’s charity*** ok let’s all move on!”).

Again it’s super important that we criticize people that wield massive amounts of influence. Speaking of the Academy, it annoys me to no end that people simply blame twitter for the lack of Oscars host when people had every right to criticize the choice of Kevin Hart as a host considering all of those awful tweets about if his son ever came out as gay. Some people might argue that they’re just tweets and jokes, he isn’t serious. But when you think about all of the LGBTQ kids currently living in the streets because their parents kicked them out, it becomes slightly less funny. And now I’m getting into comedy which is a whole other can of worms. I mean we should definitely approach these things holistically as we’re all entitled to our own interpretation. But we don’t always have to be mean is I guess the crux at what I’ve been trying to say. (Again, not saying we shouldn’t or can’t be mean because fuck it.) So then maybe not?

It’s tricky because as I’m writing this I’m also playing the counter arguments in my head. I guess what I’m trying to say overall is can we please chill with tearing imperfect people down when they try to make a difference, and that tearing people down is not the same as constructive criticism.

Keys (because I don’t feel like doing research on an opinion piece of a tumblr post):

*=me being not entirely sure of the accuracy of this number full disclosure

**=me knowing it was in the millions but also still not knowing the exact number so yeah disclaimer there

***=me having no actual clue if this happened, like I’m going to assume he apologized because public opinion practically demanded it and then it would just make sense to make a show of making an effort which is so easy when you’re wealthy. But my point is I really have no idea what he did and so I completely made this up and don’t know the extent of how fake/real it might be.

#rant #oscars 2020 #natalie portman #opinion #fashion #twitter

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jawnjendes · 5 years

Text

shawn meets... | sapphire(2)

SUMMARY: in the life of a rockstar, shawn mendes comes across some unique people. sometimes, things stray from the norm. (AU, shawn x every one of my oc’s)(continuation/spin off of goth gf)

AN: yall asked,,, so yall shall receive

***let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist

previous chapter

sapphire’s blog | sapphire’s playlist | masterlist

“Don’t know if you love me or you want me dead”

Shawn fell asleep after his time with Sapphire. It wasn't a deep sleep, though. He faded in and out of consciousness, opening his eyes every so often and wondering where he was and why there was a hand around his neck. Rain was hitting the windows, which caused an uproar in the straggling party guests still outside. The sounds weren't unfamiliar to Shawn, and neither was the squeezing sensation around his neck.

“Push me away, push me away… beg me to stay, beg me to stay”

The fourth time Shawn opened his eyes was when he was waking up from a nightmare. He couldn't quite remember what he was seeing in his sleep, he just felt that fear strike his chest and send him back to the waking life. Wheezing, he touched his neck, feeling pain like bruises on the skin. But that was a dream, wasn’t it?

Perhaps he was still dreaming, he thought as he spotted something in the corner by the bedroom door. Shawn wasn’t exactly afraid, just confused. Why was the figure so far away? Why wouldn’t they come to bed? There was a lot of room here. He looked down at Sapphire, but all that was left was an empty space.

The figure in the corner was Sapphire. Head down at an angle, her hair almost covering her face like the girl from The Ring. Her eyes were open, but hooded and so red they lit up that corner of the room.

“...something in the way you looking through my eyes…”

Shawn leaned forward a little to get a better look, to make sure that that was Sapphire. He was still unafraid, just a little confused. His eyes were heavy, and he was prepared to just let it go for the night. But he felt the hand around his neck again, and air stopped moving through his lungs.

“Don’t know if I’m gonna make it out alive…”

Sapphire was not joking when she said she wanted to keep Shawn around. The morning after the party, she had people bring his luggage from the hotel he was supposed to be staying at. Andrew had a few stern words to say, but Shawn reminded him that he was on a break right now. There weren't any work-related obligations to take care of. Even if there were, Shawn may have cancelled, because living in Sapphire's home was incredible.

Take Ariana's 7 Rings, and put it in real life. Breakfast at Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles. That's what it was like for the next few days. Now, Shawn has had his own taste of the good life during his time as a celebrity, but there was something different about the energy here. The butlers (yes, there were others besides Charles) always hovered a little bit, making sure that Shawn had everything he needed. Every maid was a little jumpy, always yelping or nearly toppling over a vase every time he walked past one of them when they didn’t see him. The only person who wasn’t moderately scatterbrain was Kat. She was very determined to remain professional around Shawn.

“You have a call with Spain today,” she told Sapphire, who was sat at the table in the garden with Shawn. They were having a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausages, and beans. Sounds plain, but when it comes from the chefs of a 27 year old billionaire, it hits different.

“Oh, KitKat,” she replied, looking up at her assistant, “when will Spain realize that there is nothing between us?”

Shawn couldn’t tell if she was referring to the country or a person with a country’s name. He chewed his food slowly, feeling pain in his throat. Maybe he was coming down with something. It was awfully cold the night of the party.

“I will tell them you’re on vacation… again,” Kat said, texting on her phone. “Okay, next: you have a meeting with the contractors to discuss the expansion of your closet. After that, you have a Skype meeting with the head of the Butterflies for the Better charity to further discuss the conflicts of interest with said head of charity.”

“Mm,” Sapphire hummed. Then she looked up from her plate. “Wait. Conflict of interest?”

Kat let out a breath, like she wasn’t keen on saying her next statement. “It seems that the head of the charity, Ms. Santiago herself, noticed your interest in her. She would have removed you from the organization altogether if you didn’t have something the charity needs: funding.”

It was kind of difficult to act like Shawn wasn’t listening in on this conversation, but he looked up at the two women, mild interest on his face. There was a name he recognized in there after all.

“Something you want to add, Mr. Mendes?” Kat asked, acknowledging him for the first time in days.

Sapphire looked at him as well, blue eyes expectant.

“Butterflies for the Better,” he said. “I, uh, I helped Bella get it off the ground last year. Didn’t know Sapphire was a trustee.”

“I am,” she said with a grin. “It’s such a wonderful charity, I didn’t know you had a hand in bringing it to life.”

Shawn nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I mean, I owe Bella a lot so I figured I could help her. But, what’s this conflict of interest thing?”

It turns out, Sapphire followed Bella’s YouTube channel almost religiously and had a not-so-tiny-or-secret crush on her. The two of them met in 2017, and kept in contact every so often. Meaning, Sapphire was not shy with her flirtatious comments on Bella’s Instagram posts. Bella wanted her involved in the charity’s creation, but only if Sapphire remained professional.

“I can’t help it. Have you seen her?” Sapphire pouted.

“Yeah, she’s very pretty,” Shawn told her. “But this isn’t about that. You have to keep the charity’s interests as a priority.”

“But do I have to Skype her for that?” she whined.

“How else is she going to know you’re serious?” Kat asked in return.

Shawn thought for a moment. He’s known Bella for a good few years, and while she has grown and evolved, some things just never changed.

“I think a text would be better,” he told the two women. “She doesn’t like anything resembling a phone or Skype call.”

Kat scoffed. “It’s unprofessional.”

“She’ll appreciate it,” he persisted. “And I just saw you text Spain, so.”

“Do what my little one says, KitKat,” Sapphire said pointedly.

The eye contact the two of them shared made Shawn remember a few questions he had to ask. He would have to wait when Kat wasn’t around, though. He was expecting some tension, dirty looks, or even something not-so-great between her and Sapphire, but things were… easy? Things were okay, and laidback? It was weird, but Shawn wasn’t going to complain. He just had to know why it was like this.

Sapphire was quick to slightly change the topic when Kat went back inside the mansion. "Speaking of Bella, she's in a video with another YouTuber, it came out today! You wanna watch it?"

"Yeah," Shawn replied. He was down for relaxing with a pretty girl and watching his equally pretty friend on YouTube.

The two went back inside, and Sapphire led him to one of the many sitting rooms with massive plasma screens. She excitedly booted up YouTube and put on said video, "I Spent a Day with Legendary Beauty Gurus."

Bella was among two other beauty gurus, separate interviews that were cut together into one video. They were all interviewed about "the wonderous world of being a makeup artist on YouTube." However, Bella referred to herself as an "almost artist," saying that she dropped out of cosmetology school to pursue YouTube and attend the university for it. The interview was pretty funny and lighthearted, while being educational at the same time. The interviewer, Anthony Padilla, was quite funny himself and even hugged Bella when she got deep about a particular question. He wasn’t just some sleeze trying to get dirt and gossip out of his guests.

"I like this guy," Shawn said after the video was over, grabbing the remote and flicking through the recommended section. "Man, he's interviewed so many people. Sugar babies, OG YouTubers, furries? And…"

He stopped on one video, his stomach turning at the thumbnail. There was Anthony, with the inquisitive look on his face, and next to him was a very familiar face.

"I Spent a Day with GOTHS"

"Something catch your eye?" Sapphire asked him. "You can put on whatever you want."

Shawn pressed play before his brain could process it. There was the dramatic intro as always and the animation of Anthony plopping down in his seat before introducing himself. Shawn's heart went faster in anticipation as he watched each guest be introduced. One was a bald man in his 40s with tattoos all over his scalp, with a charming smile. Another was a lady with a mohawk and about a thousand face piercings and a serious tone. The last one was in fact-

"Ann! So nice to meet you!"

"You too!"

Her face was exactly the same. Her hair got longer, and there were bright green and blue streaks in it. She pushed strands behind her ear, revealing many piercings. She was in her signature black lipstick and a Wednesday Addams type of dress, paired with fishnets and leather platform boots.

Anthony got the same vibe. “Got a Wednesday look, I see.”

Ann chuckled. “She’s my style icon.”

Like the previous video, it cut back and forth between all three guests, but Shawn only cared about one. He leaned forward on the couch, immediately consumed by Ann’s voice and focusing in on her body language. She still rubbed her hands together, an indication that she was nervous to be on camera. The video was edited to zoom in on that gesture, since she did it so often as she was asked the first question.

“So what do you refer to yourself as? A goth, a death enthusiast?” Anthony asked.

“You know, I’ve never said I was goth out loud,” Ann said, “even though I looked the part, and other people said I was. I think within the last four or five years I’ve called myself a goth and just embraced the name.”

Shawn couldn’t believe it. He checked the video description to see when it came out, and it was a year ago. Four years prior to that, Ann was still dating him. At what point during university did she externally take on that label? Shawn couldn’t remember an instance where she called herself a goth.

He didn’t fast forward through the video even though he wanted to. He was still aware of the pink lady sat by him, even though she was scrolling on her phone, having gotten bored of the video already.

“Did you always wear black, or did you have a phase during your life of wearing other colors?”

“It’s funny, because my parents are polar opposites. My dad’s a goth and my mom is, for lack of a better word, a normie,” Ann said, folding her arms.

“Really? A goth and a normie?” Anthony replied, surprised.

The video cut to one of the other guests answering that question. Shawn huffed out a breath, almost sitting back until Ann came back on the screen.

“Yeah. So when I was a baby, they took turns dressing me everyday. One day I was in a pink frilly dress, the next I was in a plain black onesie. But as I got older, I migrated towards black and they let me wear dark clothes all the time.”

“Did you get made fun of in school?”

“Oh, I got made fun of all the way through university. The trick is to play along and the normies will stop giving a shit.”

Anthony laughed. “Really? Like how?”

Again, the video cut. Shawn grew impatient and grabbed the remote, forwarding the video until he saw Ann again.

“Okay, there was a guy I knew in college. Every time he’d see me, he was like ‘who’s soul are you sacrificing today?’ And I just looked around at our group of friends and said ‘I haven’t decided yet’ or like ‘I’m not hungry for souls, I want a heart instead.’”

That made Anthony’s and Shawn’s jaws drop. While Anthony was entertained by that answer, Shawn knew exactly what Ann was talking about. She had that interaction with Brian the first time they were introduced. It became a running joke with the two of them.

"What is a common misconception that the majority have about the goth subculture?"

"That we're all depressed and suicidal! I mean I am depressed but that has nothing to do with my tendency to wear black and think about the inevitability of death!"

Anthony chuckled. "You sound like a friend of mine."

"Seriously, like eighty percent of the goths I meet are some of the happiest people I've ever met!" Ann was talking louder, and using her hands more. She was hyping herself up. "We've reached a point where we respect ourselves enough to express ourselves exactly how we want, and be our authentic selves! What about that seems sad or depressing?"

It was true, because Shawn had seen that in her in the past. Ann was happiest in her darkest colors. She had a talent of making the most morbid things look beautiful.

As the other guests spoke, Shawn had no choice but to think back to Brian. He felt the pang of guilt that was still on his chest. He hadn’t spoken to Brian since the birthday party, and he had been too distracted with Sapphire to actually do anything about it. Shawn really ditched his best friend for a girl. Sure Sapphire is fun, and incredibly sexy. She’s a mindblowing lay…

Shawn zoned back into the video upon hearing his own name. He saw Ann chuckling, but quickly rewound the video to catch the context.

“So, as a goth, you tend to deviate from mainstream things,” Anthony prompted. “Is there any type of mainstream media you do enjoy?”

“Yeah, there are some pop artists I like,” Ann replied, nodding her head.

“Like who?”

“Uh… name some, and I’ll tell you.”

“Taylor Swift?”

“No.”

“Billie Eilish?”

“No.”

“Shawn Mendes?”

Ann went silent for a moment, brown eyes flickering to the camera. Then she chuckled, and rubbed her hands together.

Anthony grinned. “Did I guess one?”

Then, the video cut again. Frustrated, Shawn grumbled under his breath, not even realizing that Sapphire was paying attention once again.

“Something wrong, darling?” she asked.

He ignored her and fast forwarded again. Ann was on the screen.

“It’s funny you mention Shawn Mendes,” she said. “I actually loved him at one point in my life.”

“Yeah? Big fan?”

“Definitely.”

Shawn’s eyes were wide. It seemed like he was the only person that knew the real meaning of Ann’s statement. At one point in her life, she loved him. And he loved her. He loved her so much that her presence still lingers in his head and heart to this day, and it’s been almost five years since they broke up.

He didn’t like admitting it to himself, but Shawn was starting to think that Brian was right, and that was why he was kicked out of the makeshift dressing room the other night.

Sapphire piped up once the video was over, her hand reaching over and gently touching the back of Shawn’s neck. “Are you a goth or something? Why were you so interested in that video?”

He felt a weird chill and a type of deja vu go down his spine. It passed quickly, and he focused on the question. Sure, he was staying in this mansion for a while, but Sapphire was by no means a girlfriend, or someone with any kind of romantic interest in him. He could be honest. “That girl in the thumbnail. She’s my ex.”

That made the blonde grin with surprise. “Is she really? Didn’t know you had a type.”

Shawn chuckled. “A type?”

“Well of course. You dated a goth girl in the past. You slept with my assistant, who also dips into that realm.”

“You, you knew about me and Kat?” He blushed, and a pit formed in his stomach.

Sapphire giggled. “I know everything, baby. Can’t hide anything in this house,” she said with a wink. “And I don’t mind. We’re not dating, and you’re both hot. Everyone should love everyone at one point.” She suddenly gasped, her hands reaching for his arm. “Wait until you meet Sam! He’s going to come round in a few days! I adore him, and I know you will too!”

There was so much to take in, Shawn felt like he had whiplash.

next chapter

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taglist: @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @someoneunimportantxx @iloveshawnieboi @chillingbythesea @shawnsunflower

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes smut #shawn x oc #shawn meets fic #yall were askin for the og goth gf #there she is #thats all u get #now shut up n eat #(im jk thnk u for the comments n validation)

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