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wmarximoff · 1 year

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𝐝é𝐣à 𝐯𝐮 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟

summary: as you slowly reconnect with Wanda, you feel a familiar feeling of déjà vu.

warnings: making out, smut, strap-on sex (Wanda receiving) mentions of smoking, mentions of drinking, canon typical violence, angst.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 10k

main masterlist| series masterlist|

༺ᱬ༻

A carton of almond milk, a jar of peanut butter, a dozen eggs, a stick of butter, a can of peas, a bag of soft multigrain bread and a sizable bottle of wine are the components of the plastic basket that Wanda carries slung over her right arm. She doesn't know that she forgot to get a can of corn too. But the basket is kind of weighty and she might as well use her magic to levitate the items around her own silhouette, but she prefers that way, holding them down herself with her own arm strength.

Sometimes it's good to keep the sense of normality active. Even if normality just means carrying a basket full of groceries around the supermarket. She then looks at the face of the brown watch buttoned at the base of her left wrist and checks the time, blinking her greenish eyes after squeezing a long, full yawn in the back of her throat.

A gray-haired old lady (Mrs. Sharon Davis, an elderly widow, all wrapped in her pale blue cardigan) in front of her appears to be in a conflict with herself to find some of the change interred in the lowest of her silver wallet. And Wanda scrutinizes the establishment around herself, between the shelves stocked with groceries and the glossy linoleum floor; the weary gaze wavering absorbedly over her own white-fabric sneakers and contingently fixing on a dark, even smear on the floor between them.

Old Mrs. Davis still hasn't spotted her desired coins, and she's been digging into her wallet for the silver pennies for a good few minutes now. Wanda listens over her shoulder as someone pulls into a shopping cart right behind herself and lets out an audible groan, evidentially annoyed at the delay of the old lady with her change, but Wanda doesn't see the point in bothering to torment herself.

It's not yet six o'clock and she'll be peaceably walking home, for Westview is a small, undisturbed, reticent suburban town where everything is so close and easy to find. And she knows that, with her house being just a few blocks away from the locality of the modest market, she won't be long in coming to prepare dinner for her and her boys (whom she has left securely at the house, both doing their math homework). She smiles tenderly to herself when she thinks about Billy and Tommy.

After all, she knows she's never loved anyone as passionately as she loves those two little boys (the grace of her life, the reason for her morning smile and for the blaze of keenness pulsing within the fond fortifications of her warmish heart). For her they are everything, and that is why she would do anything for them – they are the epithet of the purest form of love that Y/N had ever gifted her with; the culmination of their love converted into two vulnerable little creatures that are made up of the best of the two of them.

She just knows, like a good mother who understands both her children so well, that at that moment, the twin boys are probably watching some silly cartoon on the television set beside the broad fireplace found in the corner of the commodious living room. And she is placid in a supermarket line, getting a whiff of the eccentric consequence of the odd combination of the full-bodied aromas of cleaning product and some sturdy feminine perfume – an even slightly nauseating aroma, kind of overpowering and suffocating. In some aisle away from her, a child is heatedly asking his mother to buy him some treats.

Wanda then ponders about making something a little special for dinner, and recalls about the delicious kugel recipethat her mother used to prepare in the length of her childhood days, back in devastated Sokovia, so many years in the remote past that encompasses the beginning of the disasters that marked her life.

The memory that gushes over her is sentimental and bittersweetly recurring to her core; she deliberates about the sporadic months of starveling and a small humble family of four, when her father was lucky with his sales and there was a sufficient amount of money left to buy the soldiers' leftover ingredients.

But then, she retrieves back to the years of her late youth, all lived in the restful caresses of the compound in upper Manhattan. She was still understanding about how to breathe without having Pietro to hold her hand. She was learning to live on her own. She was coming to terms with the truth that living didn't inevitably have to be a bad experience at all; not when Y/n showed her that there could still be delight in the little things in life.

And it was Y/n who used to marvelously praise the dish when Wanda found comfort in the act of cooking, and she always repeat a few slices every time Wanda cooked it so long ago, when they were just two teenage lovers (and eventually also young wives, both living in a small bubble of love and companionship on the edge of a comfortable wooden cottage surrounded by dozen of yards of apple orchards).

There was the sweet virtuousness of the warmth of two young girls' lives at that time. It was the first time that Wanda was really fond of being young (of breathing and having a beating heart, of having a life to live valuing every little detail of it).

She memorizes the exultant smile of her ex-wife, looking so light and beautiful even while talking with her mouth full (a half-crocken smirk drawn to her left-side, like the smirk also articulated in the innocuous characteristics of her little Tommy after he was born, which reminds her so much of the radiance that used to gleam in the sweet features of her former companion). Her ex-wife wasn't always a lonesome and distant creature creeping in the corners of her mind, and it genuinely aches inside her chest to remember that.

Y/n always devoured lavishly every traditional Sokovian dish she has ever prepared and promptly asked for more – and then thanked her with a chaste kiss placed on the pulp of her lips, which promptly evolved into the building of an intimate, sweaty moment with two bodies rubbing greedily against each other. But she soon lets out a crestfallen, rather disillusioned sigh, repressing herself for having gone back to those secluded memories amorously stored in the edge of her brain in the first place (of the concept of two adolescent girlfriends absorbed in love in the purest sense of the word, emulating the seriousness of a relationship with adult bearing, but never losing, at its core, the youthful sweetness worthy of teenage lovers). Two girls playing love in a world that was a little too hard on them.

She glares ruefully at the bulbous base of the red wine bottle and then lets out a sorrowful exhalation. Her relationship with Y/n felt like it was straight out of the old sitcoms that she always appreciated so much, where no problem was a genuine obstacle and that, by the end of the day, the two lovers would be in each other's affectionately secure arms again (and that perhaps she let have an effect on her a little too much, when dealing about decisions made early on in her adult life).

But then she reminisces that she was merely turning eighteen years old when she became a wanted on an international scale, and that, prior to that, she had also grown up in a war-torn country. She never knew how to behave like a normal person per se – whether that was before or after she became able to expel bolts of magical energy from her fingertips. She never quite knew how to fit into the role of a child or a young adult in the first place. Not by herself.

There was no time in Wanda’s life to understand precisely how to fit these labels (she was protesting with so much loathe constricted within her heart, volunteering to save her homeland, being made of little more than a lab rat by the clutches of a bunch of mad men, being used by the being that promised her greatness, but only ended up costing her the life of her darling brother).

In the cramped confines of a bleak, sullied cell, with only a modest television in the corner to entertain her mind away from the needles and the brutality, there were not many allusions of love and passions that elapsed through her life outside a square screen.

Wanda was aware that she just mimicked other people's movements and transcribed them into her own actions, as if it was all just a show and she was its young star, trying to intomb in her core the path of catastrophe and violence that had always shadowed her closely; it was only the years of strict therapy, self-knowledge and self-care, right after being blipped and coming back, that edified her to be her own person in a truly healthy way. There would be no more extremes in her life.

Her cohabitation with Y/n at the time facilitated, of course – even though her wife had changed a lot in the time that followed since the blip, at first, things had worked out well between them. Or as well as possible under the anomalous circumstances. The two of them took care of the (still) newborn twins and of each other, always with great tenderness and affection while they did it. At least that's how it worked for the first year after their reunion – until Y/N got into alcohol's graces for good, that is.

Their relationship had always felt rather light and jovial before Thanos snapped his fingers. And after that she might even have come back, but it was indeed her marriage that had turned to dust in that remote dreary day in Wakanda. In all honestly, she's not quite sure what's changed in that meantime that she's been away (dead, she was dead). And it's uneasy to ponder about it, but sometimes she does – she can’t help it.

Her corporeal existence had disintegrated into a sift of life, crumbling into her own ashes. There was color, and then the dreadfully wide expanse of emptiness (death); she, as a self-aware being, ceased to exist with just a thought and a snap of two fingers.

Her consciousness faded before she could even realize she was doing it – the palms of both her hands constrained firmly against the wound in YN's stomach that was leaking bundles of fresh blood. And Wanda never relatively questioned her existence before that (she only questioned why she ceased to exist in the first place). Returning to dust, as people of faith would say. Five long years that slipped through her fingers and dripped onto the floor in the form of a veil of dust.

It still feels odd in her guts, even ten years later, to remember that there's a void somewhere in her life that would be filled with the time that was thieved from her by the Infinity Gauntlet. A void that had once been filled by the subtle presence of Y/n's love.

Once, when the twins were about a year old after the blip, Y/N drunkenly knelt down with her face defectively reclining on Wanda’s thighs and questioned her as to why Wanda and the babies where the ones erased from existence while she stayed behind, abandoned like an old piece of furniture that no one wants to use anymore. Wanda never knew how to answer it, but they got divorced about a month later or so.

But she imagines that it, the crumbliness of their relationship, has something to do with the fact that they were both a little precocious in getting married before their twenties properly speaking; maybe if they were older and more experienced before doing it, she thinks, standing in line at the supermarket, maybe then they wouldn't have had the sorrowful culmination that they did (the crying faces and the broken hearts).

Maybe they could have risen together, and not just drifted further and further away as the days passed. Maybe Y/n didn't feel guilt-ridden every time the twins cried in need to be held or fed. Maybe Wanda wouldn't have queried her for the love she no longer knew how to give – she is fully aware of the fact that she has always had a somewhat pushy nature, after all. Maybe this, maybe that.

She doesn't know why she's been thinking about maybe so much these past few days. But it's not her fault that her ex-wife happens to be so pleasing to the eye. The person behind her in line grumbles again, and there is a mischievous chuckle that reaches her ears with airs of grace. Wanda is sincerely considering summoning some coins with her magic for Mrs. Davis.

“Oh my God, this wine is divine!”

It is Sarah Proctor who addresses Wanda, the key to undeniably everything in this town. Wanda knows it's the other woman because a sudden pulsing urge to fade away takes over her nervous system as soon as the voice echoes behind herself.

She is the high-nose blonde woman who lives up the street, is a devoted member of the Westview Elementary School parent-teacher association (in the year before Wanda had witnessed her make a young teacher leave the room in tears after a meeting), proudly cultivates the most exquisite yellow roses in the neighborhood and wears a pair of classy yoga pants that would fit a young teenager with half of her age. A self-proclaimed wine mom.

Her daughter is a classmate of Billy and Tommy, and the children often attend both the Proctor and Maximoff residences – which occasioned in Sarah a vague idea of intimacy that only endures in the head of the blonde woman with bobbed hair.

She has already invited Wanda several times to Westview Pool Club girls' gatherings, but Wanda politely declined with an odd smile and a trivial wave of her hand, because she's never been the socially outgoing kind of type—and she's always been under the impression that every attempt Sarah made from approaching her were due to the fact that the other woman knew of her past as an Avenger (as did most of the small-town citizens), and so was trying to turn her into a kind of living-tourist-spot for the eyes of the rest of the world to witness.

Rumors had it that Sarah would run for mayor in the upcoming election, and having a former Avenger as the face of her campaign certainly sells well with the predilections of the American public. Little does she know that Wanda won't vote for her.

“Oh yes, it's one of my favorites,” Wanda retorts, talking about the dark tall bottle of red wine prudently deposited inside her plastic basket, “It's been a while since I've had a drink, so I decided to buy a bottle to open this weekend.”

“Some special occasion, I suppose?” Sarah articulates a suggestive grin, but Wanda just frowns uncertainly, half squinting at her neighbor, “Maybe some... special visitor? I always knew you had it in you, Wanda. You know what they say about the quiet ones...”

“What– no, no. No,” she flashes a half embarrassed, half awkward smile, chuckling nervously while doing so, “Y/n is staying with the boys for the weekend, so it's just a special little thing for me. All by myself. A quarantine-style staycation. A whole weekend... just to myself.”

“Y/n, huh?” Sarah raises a well-crafted eyebrow in a pique of curiosity, “Your ex-wife, right? I remember seeing her at the twins' birthday party. I mean, she's pretty, yes, but she's quite the quiet type, huh... just minding her own business with a cup of soda.”

“Yeah, she was never one to talk much in public, even when we were with our teammates… but neither am I, honestly.”

“A pair made in heaven, indeed,” Sarah then flashes a smile, but the taste that slides across Wanda's tongue is bitter and kind of hard to swallow. Wanda shifts her body weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other.

“But wait, she's also an Avenger, isn’t she? Yeah, she's the one in the black and white outfit! Oh my God! Who wore a jacket over it and had that kinda mean attitude, all punk rock and stuff?”

“Herself,” Wanda agrees, pressing her lips together in a long, clumsy line. She just wants to go home and cook her damn kugel.

“My my, how did I not notice this before? I remember seeing her in the news once, when I was in college. I also had quite a taste for delinquents back then, if you know what I mean. And, well... I explored a lot in college.”

Wanda feels a hot twinge high in her face and she bites the inside of her cheek in a rather timid act (but there's no denying that Y/n's somewhat rebellious attitude has always had a lewd effect on her legs as a young teenager with a schoolgirl’s heart).

“She and Black Widow, I think, saved the life of the mayor in that bombing on the Fourth of July in... ‘15, ‘16, maybe? Yeah, I remember that! She's the one who's super strong, isn't she? Who held up a scaffold once and saved those kids!”

“That's her, yes.”

The brunette muss in a limp voice, which seems to draw a slightly indecent laugh from the blonde woman with her shopping cart full of knick-knacks and silver hoops clicking in her earlobes. It is from her that the aroma of sturdy perfume comes.

“Well, I imagine that super strength of hers comes in handy in some… situations.”

“Situ–” but then she blinks just one time, “Oh,” Mmrtification hangs over Wanda like a bucket of paint spilled over her dark-haired head.

She opens and closes her mouth like a golden fish, frowning, and her cheeks don't take long to reach strong shades of scarlet, glowing red like one of the tomatoes inside Sarah's cart.

It's inappropriate, and she knows it, but she can't help but feel a certain tingle in her breasts as lapses of memory enlighten her thoughts with the ghost of touches coursing along her body. Then she thinks of Y/N's warm, measured breath against her earlobe (of strong hands pinning her wrists above her head, of a tense, impassive hip against her own hip, of the cracked headboard and the broken bedframe). A movement and a moan. An electrical discharge in her bowels. And then, fuck... just Y/n tearing her insides apart.

The other woman smiles viciously, and Wanda suddenly wishes she hadn't put on a sweater before leaving the house, because she can actually feel herself starting to perspire at the expectant look her neighbor bestows on her.

She's never been one to deal with such intimacies with anyone other than her ex-wife (merely some casual, unsuccessful and sporadic blind dates that's never been more than a few kisses and a few touches here and there, by no means ending up in her or anyone else's bed). But she permits herself only to flash a wan grin towards the other woman when she realizes that, in front of her, the old lady has lastly found her damn change. Fucking finally.

And then, with the memory still boiling hungrily in her innards, like a hungry beast devouring her from the inside out, she takes a large step in the other direction, trying to walk away from Sarah as humanly possible, as if the other woman carries with her a toxic cloud that sickens everything that comes in contact with her. If Wanda couldn't probably get a nice lawsuit for that (or worst), she'd turn Sarah into a disgusting slimy frog.

“Well, I, I, I need to go, Sarah, but it was really nice meeting you around here. Bye,” the enchantress raises her wrist, bidding the blonde woman goodbye with a wave of her hand and a small, introverted (half-awkward) grin.

There is barely time for an answer to be formulated on the part of the housewife. Wanda's cheeks are still red hot as she (virtually) dashes through the small supermarket's automatic double doors like a fugitive on the run. Mrs. Davis drops a coin on the floor on her way out.

ᗢ

You don't know exactly how long you've been raising and lowering the joint of your bent elbow above your head. It doesn't feel right to do it, just as it doesn't do it if it feels wrong. It's just necessary – it’s like cracking some eggs if you're in the mood for an omelet for breakfast. You just have the fullest conception that a few good minutes have passed since the beginning of all the activity, and as in the rehearsal of a play, you are repeating the gestures until you overcome them with great proficiency and your culmination comes out perfect, from your liking.

And you don't bother to intend to stop doing it anytime soon – such a guttural, animalistic and barbaric action. At this point, the movement is already instinctive after being recorded in at the core of your memory, an automatic message engraved between the ligaments of your neurons. You've done it innumerable times before, and you know you'll do it a few more times after this one.

You lift your right arm, lowers your implacable fist constricted like a steel ball, the resonance of smashed cartilage and wrecked bones echoing in your eardrums, all instructed by the figure of a bloodthirsty invisible conductor within the ramparts of your own cranium. The face of the bewildered guy lying beneath you looks like a loaf of raw, misshapen meat as you repeat a cadence of sequentially delivered punches against his facial bones. And he, who is at least twice as big as you, lets out a piercing howl of pain from the cavernous depths of his throat, as even a wild bear would do if attacked deep in a forest.

But in that alley on Long Island there is not a soul available to help him to get rid of your uncomplacent fists – not at the end of a passage that is unpopulated, far from prying eyes that could creep in your direction during the action which takes place there, a beacon of environment squeezed between two amorphous walls of scorched bricks, which gives the illusion of a single long, damp, narrow street.

A sphere of blood is clotted on your face, like an eccentric gemstone, a dark red pearl splattered under the arch of your left eyebrow. And you pant heavily, your veins stiffening.

You've never been one to refuse punching a motherfucker in the face – your forte has always been pounding up things, whether on the countless missions conveyed alongside your teammates or at work during your teenage years, taking advantage of your inhuman gifts to have something to eat at the end of the week.

You've never had a dilemma in whacking someone’s ass. Even more so when that said someone had committed a hate crime against a racial minority and got away with the trial, because that's the way it is in New York City. The recurring metallic scent of fresh blood squirts in a jet of reddish color, thick and gleaming across your rigid, compact knuckles. The gruesome fragrance is no stranger to your sense of smell, and you're not quite sure whether you want it to be or not.

But it is what you are; as an inherent component of your biological chemistry (like the serum gushing through Steve's veins, altering him from inside out, or the magic pulsing within Wanda's core, changing the structure of her brainwaves), you know that hostility is a primeval part of your nature longer than the placid ends of an ordinary, quiet life.

The peaceable domestic life lived alongside Wanda is long gone, and desolation and wrath are your only roommates within the walls of your morbidly valueless apartment. You've been living like a cornered animal for fifteen years in programmed mode, always exposing your fangs and your claws at any sign of danger, just self-destructing, dying little by little, not craving to exist for one more day after laying your head on the blandishments of your pillow and staring blankly at the ceiling, whirling through your usual drunken state. Just desiring to somehow wreck your imperishable body that can't be cut or torn by human hands or tools.

People much well-intentioned than you are long gone, and you, by some implausible probabilities, were (cursed) fortunate to have endured thorough all the catastrophes that life directed at you. The car accident as a child. The blip as a mother and as a wife, as a friend.

The damn journey by the mountain of Vormir, in which three of you went in the grip of that appallingly isolated planet, and only two came back with a chest full of oxygen and life pumping through your nervures. The avid combat for proprietorship of all the six Infinity Stones, and the provenance of the final snap that brought back peace to the equilibrium of the universe by eliminating the existence of its greatest known threat at the time.

You just seem to live confined in this unbearable cycle of misfortune, and it's not fair to others that you are the person left to tell the story of those who are gone. If only you could, you would swap places with the true heroes who gave their lives for the greater good. You would even be honored to do so yourself.

Your chest heaves and deflates severely within the molds of your leather jacket fitted around your shoulders over a short-sleeved plain shirt, your veins bulging with rushing blood, and you rise to your feet, setting up your knees, and step back to inspect the big man who lies defeated to the floor of the alley, amidst a pool of his own blood and filth typical of places like this — your jacket sleeve shimmering with bundles of fresh blood, a coat of gleaming sweat limping glistening on the beam of skin on your forehead, near your hairline.

He is still alive, groaning in a vital position, and is severely battered. And it was never your intention to kill anyone. He probably learned his lesson. Maybe you should break his legs, just in case. A tremor rolls under your black sneaker feet as a loud motorcycle passes by in the distance. Sirens also pass presently afterwards, coming and going with their blue and red outcome.

But there, squeezed inside the claustrophobic walls of the dim alley, you are far from any possible intervention. You then register a single shake that travels along the outline of your left leg as your cellphone pulses inside the back pocket of your old jeans, shivering against your hip bone.

You take an elongated gulp of air before diving into your flickering pocket and hooking the device through your fuming, blooded finger length. You know your pupils are dilated and dark. Your gaze is empty and brittle as you scrutinize between the digitally formed words before your motionless eyes. Frequent bursts of oxygen are a method of neutralizing the pulses of adrenaline throbbing in the artery inside your neck. But the taste that slips between your teeth is acid and sour, and you lock your jawbone at the information that is cognitive to you.

Hey, Y/n. Are you really going to come get the boys tonight? I saw somewhere that it will rain later, so I wanted to check with you just to make sure.

(seen)

It’s Wanda.

(seen)

By the way.

(seen)

Yes, you know it's Wanda (your sweet Wanda, the trace of humanity lingering inside your icy chest), that she texted you. And it doesn't astonish you at all (not anymore), because not many people contact you lately during the sunny period of the day. You two have been keeping in touch the last few days, after all, you told her that you wanted to be more present in the twins' lives. And it's not an untruth at all, but your sly creaking anxiety makes you feel like it's a kind of uncertainty inside your throbbing stomach walls.

Maybe it's not the right decision, the voice inside your head spoke. Maybe at this point in life they don't need you anymore. Maybe this is a breakthrough, or even the commencement of a calamity worthy of a Greek novel, you're not quite sure yet. You turn on your heels and spin your back on the battered man, so you can send your reply to your ex-wife's number without looking at the ferocious outcome of your latent tantrum.

yup, your avid thumbs type along the digital keyboard provided on the screen of the small electronic device, i’ll be there in 1 hour or so. hope they like cheeseburgers.

And then you slide your upper teeth along the flesh of your lower lip, somewhat unsure of how to proceed.

try to enjoy your staycation btw. you deserve it

(seen)

You don't know why you sent her that stupid emoji. It's not like you're a teenager reproducing a failed flirtation attempt with the girl you have a crush on anymore.

But a lapse of realism is present as your vision aims on the blood folds on your stinging fingers folded around the cellphone, and you feel a heavy ball of constricted lamentation taking shape in the back of your throat when your sorrowful eyes scrutinize thorough the lines of your hands and find there only odious signs of a cavernous viciousness (a raw, physical cruelty also reflected within the mirror of your shattered soul).

In the background, the man is still groaning in pain. And you're not sorry you broke him in a beating. No, no. You're just sorry for yourself, because you didn't bat an eye when you did it. Vaguely the memory of Wanda placing chaste kisses along your hands invades you, and you realize you wouldn't want her to kiss your unseemly fingers right now (because you find her too pure to dwell on the filthiness of your touch).

The skin on your hands abruptly itches and feels dull, and you don't feel like having those plagued fingers around your children’s immaculate faces anymore.

ᗢ

The twilight of dusk breaks with the trepidation of an ingrained thunder, which rumbles all in a glow of white light that splits along the longitudinal path that comprised the pleasant suburb that is Westview. So, this is an opaque afternoon resulting from the middle of the rainy day, gray and hazy in its chilly essence, with tenuous threads of a torrential drizzle protecting the foundations of the two-story house on the slopes of the street, making the dewy ivy rustle on its ground, dripping slowly from the eaves of the ceramic tiles.

Standing on the porch of Wanda's house, you ponder that you should have listened to the weather forecast when it was said that during the afternoon there would be a period of rain. Your dark hoodie is really soaked through and your hair, pulled back in a high half ponytail, is damp against the skin of your own forehead. You feel kind of stupid.

Compact, opulent, slate-colored clouds were uneven against the emerald green of the panorama of howling houses, hills and trees, like the leaning of thick smoke from a desolate fire. A fierce storm, nevertheless, is not anomalous in the face of the oscillating spring climate of the state of New Jersey, which is not a real stranger to the rainy weather of the season. Thus, the nonstop drizzle is not the atypical episode of the day altogether.

The conquering event of such a rank happens when Wanda opens the door and finds you there, standing with your elbows dripping cold droplets water in the light wood entrance, and then pulls you into the cozy embrace of the pleasant climate established within that domestic environment of her own home.

“For God’s sake, Y/n, you're soaking wet!”

She reiterates, surveying you with an apprehensive gaze that runs the length of your head to toe, her slender ringless fingers still pressed worriedly around the outline of your right forearm tucked beneath the humid fabric of your damp blouse – but Wanda doesn't seem to realize as she's still carries with the action, and you kind of don't want her to let go of you anytime soon, so you say nothing about the warm touch tingling on your cold skin.

“Yeah, the rain started when I was halfway there and there was no way for me to avoid it, so I just went with it,” you mutter, with a certain lack of interest smoldering in your quiet voice “Sometimes I wish I still had a car...”

“But you didn't bring an umbrella?” Her gaze is accusatory in your direction, the tone of voice sounding dangerously concerned inside your ears, “Wait, you walk all the way over here?! I could have gone to get you!”

“Well,” you kind of sigh, shrugging your shoulders within your hoodie, without looking her straight in the eye “You see, I, hah… I didn’t think it was actually going to… you know… to rain. And technically I have some level of super speed in me, so...”

And then you look at her, and the exact facial expression you'd expect to find there makes its way until it slides all over her face. She’s pissed off.

“But I told you it was going to rain!” she then frowns at you, looking a little exasperated while doing it, her beautiful features drenched in an irritated tone of incredulity, “Seriously Y/n, you need to listen to what I say more! What if you get sick?”

You flick an eyelid at the grumpy figure of a very upset Wanda standing right in front of you, exhaling aromas of tea and crimson color. It's funny how the pique of nostalgia slips through your bones – there is an air of familiarity when a subtle sense of déjà vu settles into your cognitive system, like the feeling of coming home after a long trip. You feel at home. You feel belonging.

This image is very cherished to your spirit, and you can't help but to articulate a small grin that feels light in your heart in front of your ex-wife, who then aims towards your gaze with a gleam that is an assortment of misunderstanding and irritability flickering in the greenish irises, the color that look like two emerald stones embedded within her eyeballs, curving a single one of her sharp dark eyebrows in an high arching cut.

You feel married to her again for half a fraction of a second – it's like your remote newlywed routine all over again. And the feeling is actually good. She looks so pretty. It's like you could kiss her lips right there.

“What? What's so funny?”

Wanda questions you in an almost petulant way, and you let out a pleasant chuckle as she tilts her head slightly to the side of her right elbow, her chin pointing toward the tip of your nose – her typical irritating movement as the harbinger of an angry reaction to anything that troubles her spirit.

“You know I'm physically incapable of getting sick, don't you?” you declare, still with a smile carved along the outline of your own lips, and Wanda crosses her forearms close to her chest in an even vaguely embarrassed way in front of you. She was always a stubborn type anyways.

“It's that super durability mutant thing or some shit like that. At least that's what Banner told me once, and he's a smart guy y’know, so I believe him,” you casually shrug, “I haven't had a cold since I was, like, thirteen. Shit, I don't even know if I remember what it's like anymore. You don't have to worry about me, Wanda.”

“W-well,” she exasperated in a timidly cute way, even a little childish in essence, pressing her open palms against the sides of her hips well-guarded by a pair of pale mom jeans – the attire so far from the miniskirts and chains and torn clothes she used to wear when she was younger, at the apex of her mean girl phase.

Today isn't the first time you've noticed that her waist got wider as a result of the prudent ripening endowments of late adulthood blossoming into her beautiful body-type. It suits her well. You want to touch her skin through the fabric of those flimsy jeans and the thin white cotton blouse; your fingers itch to do it.

“Just because you don't get sick like other people it doesn’t mean you can walk around in the rain whenever you feel like it. You look like a wet dog right now, you know.”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” you raise both your hands to shoulder height in a placid gesture of surrender, “No more walks in the rain, I promise you.”

“You're impossible, Y/n,” she then rolls her green eyes into their sockets, but you just smirk jokily at her reaction.

It only takes a nonchalant magical flutter of Wanda's wrist, with her right five fingers all enveloped in a fading mist of crimson steam, for the well-versed witch to make your garments still swell on your body, expelling from the bristles of fabric, as even in a chemical separation reaction, the water molecules that soaked them in the first place.

It's like a huge hair dryer blowing hot air the entire length of your body and then unexpectedly stopping as if pulled from the socket, making your skin temperature pleasant again like a sunny embrace all around your body. You find yourself dry in a matter of seconds, from your socks to your underwear, thanks to her remarkable magical gifts.

The tingles consequential from the scarlet mist touching your skin still slither down the length of your body. It is familiar and eccentrically comforting – it's like eating again a candy that you used to eat during the preludes of your childhood; tastes like home and happiness.

“You know what, your powers come in handy sometimes, I’ll give you that,” you say in a mocking tone of voice, and she raises a single eyebrow in response.

“You’re annoying. I'm still considering throwing you out back in the rain for dripping water all over my carpet, just so you know.”

“All right, mom, relax. I won’t do it again, girl scout word.”

“You were never a girl scout, Y/n.”

Wanda just casts a weary glance in your direction, but there's a slight lighthearted tone that resides in the green outline of her graceful irises, as if an inside joke has taken hold between you two. She smiles, and so do you, because you feel comfortable while doing it – a pair of complicit grins from someone whose chest is filled of joy and fullness. The atmosphere that sets in is comfortable, and you feel more relaxed being close to her.

You don't really do it, but it feels like your fingers are entwined with the fingers of her own hand – the specter of touch is written between the two of you, and it's as if your soul can really feel hers at its core, like two magnets that can't stop attracting each other instantaneously. You've always gravitated towards Wanda's overwhelming presence, and things won't be any different now.

“Come on, the boys are watching cartoons in the living room,” Wanda says, then turning her back on you so that you follow her lead to the intimates of the house, “You can stay until the rain stops.”

You follow after your ex-wife without further circumlocution, the two of you passing through the small and comfy entrance hall as you go after Wanda into the large rectangular living room, your hands always tucked inside the single pocket of your hoodie as you accompany her with phlegmatic steps in your essence. Your shoulders feel even lighter as she turns to you and casually offers you the sweetest smile you've ever seen in your life.

Torrential rain is still pouring down from the sky outside the house, and the boys Billy and Tommy can be seen wearing warm, comfortable clothes, both the twins snuggled up against the back of the gray linen sofa, their little smart eyes looking smilingly at each other’s faces and not towards the television screen, where some cartoon that seems unfamiliar to you is shown.

They seem to share some secret that only two people with some primal connection as to what unites them would be able to do it, but the sounds of banter irrigated in the air of childish shenanigans reveals the mockery between their giggles.

They are brothers and they are twins, yes, two parts of a whole, born of the same womb that they shared from the beginning of their existence as two living beings, but you were always a little happier to realize the closeness established in the friendship between your children. Billy and Tommy are each other's best friends.

The pair then seem to make themselves aware of the presence of their two mothers as they enter the room, and the smiles of both children scintillate in enthusiasm as the pairs of eyes look up and acknowledge your appearance a little further behind Wanda's still figure, following her very closely, ceasing the small section of chitchats they had between the two of them.

“Mom!”

“Mommy!”

From the sofa the boys joyfully call out to you, beaming in your direction. You can't help but do the same to them.

“Hey, my demons spawn. What are you up to there, huh?”

“We were preparing something! Okay, so, mom,” Billy speaks in response, barely seeming to be able to contain the glee of excitement inside his tiny body.

“Listen to this-!” Tommy complements his brother's phrase, in a tone of enthusiastic anticipation.

"Hey, I want to start it!" but the other twin intervenes promptly, almost indignantly.

Tommy frowns, turning up his freckled little nose towards a rather annoyed Billy, who is sitting next to his left elbow. The little boy briefly tilts his head to the left side towards his brother, and you know you've seen similar action in Wanda's characteristic mannerisms.

“No, I want to start it!”

"I want to start it!"

“But I want to start it!”

“I want to start it!”

“Why don't you both,” Wanda then promptly interferes with the small disagreement between the boys, increasing her mother's reproachful tone of voice a little, preventing, at the beginning, that the intrigue takes a somewhat bigger proportions, “Start it together?”

“Yeah,” you support her in a complacent tone of voice, “You two came up with the idea together, so the right thing would be to do it together too. Whatever it is, I mean.”

"Okay."

"Okay..."

The two of them mutter almost in almost defeated tune, fidgeting together on the couch. You think that they look cute while they're there, tiny and sitting like two baby rabbits.

"You ready?" Billy questions in a low voice, turning to the brother beside him.

“Yeah,” Tommy mussed back, nodding in agreement.

“Okay,” says Billy then, almost proudly, “Three, two, one, go.”

And then, you can barely contain a smirk when the boys, in different and discrepant voice tones, begin a silly chant in their thin children's voices. In the corner of your peripheral vision, you notice that Wanda also lets out an amorous smile, melting into a comfortable puddle of kindness, dying in love with her two singing little children sitting across from the two of you.

“We like ice cream like any child should,” they hum together, vocalizing playful tones as they proceed through the song's component words, “And if we get some ice cream, we pro-mise to be… good!”

Then they look towards the two of you, displaying expectant smiles written all over their childish faces. And you and Wanda exchange glances, and the smile she offers you is very similar to the one that graces the curve of Billy's lips.

"Nice try, smarty-pants, but you haven't even had dinner yet."

“But mama,” Tommy replies in a pleading tone of voice, “We really want ice cream!”

“Yes, we want ice cream!” exclaims Billy in agrément, "We can't wait!"

“Well, we can have dinner first, then ice cream. What do you guys think?" you offer them, your eyes darting towards Wanda's face, "But you need to have dinner first to grow to be strong and healthy, and ice cream is for dessert only. Right, mama?"

Wanda looks in your direction, and then smiles. And you smile back, because the situation is prone to do so. You, for the first time in so long, feel welcomed and hassle-free in the presence of others. The air inside the house is blissful and warm, so unlike your empty, disdainful apartment forgotten somewhere on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan. Wanda doesn't feel like your ex-wife right now – at least, that's not how she looks at you.

“Right,” her eyes flash pale green beams towards you “Let's have dinner first, mommy.”

ᗢ

You wake up in the middle of the night, but maybe you just haven't fallen asleep at all. The sheets that grace the bottom of your body are soft and comfortable, and the pajama set you wear is not your property. It's late in the course of the long night, and like so many that have passed before this one, you just know you wouldn't be able to rest your relaxation anytime soon.

How could you even do it? Perhaps you stayed longer than you realized detailing the gloomy ceiling of Wanda's guest room, counting in your mind as you scrutinized every passing second so that you still had control over something (time being something), so that you wouldn't go mad at being dismembered alive by each of your own inner demons.

If the beginning of the night was watered in jubilation and a serene comforting coziness on your part, the firstfruits of the dawn soon came to frustrate you in the form of intrusive thoughts quite harmful to your twisted mental health.

The torrential rain didn't stop anytime soon, and after having dinner with Wanda and the boys (in a very warm congregation, you were sitting at the table with your family, eating the same food as them and breathing the same oxygen, always supported by grins of pleasure as you chatted eagerly with each other), and the twins were slow to fall asleep after two generous mugs of chocolate mint ice cream each.

Your ex-wife insisted that you stay for the night after the two of you carried them upstairs and deposited them in their respective tidy beds, showering each of them with chaste kisses to the tops of their childish heads – Wanda's little staycation was long-forgotten by then. You let out a disturbed sigh, both palms of your hands polishing the length of the dull face of yours.

What the fuck, you think, what the fuck are you doing there? This may even be your family, but this is not your house. It's not your home. Not anymore. Reverberating through your insides you find the throttling need for a drag of a cigarette eating away at the bottom of your lungs like a harmful parasite sucking the life from its source, and then you get up to do it, because lying down feels like it consumes you from within in a profuse haze of bubbling anxiety that bursts from your stomach to your mouth, making you feel so weak inside.

It has always struck you as a somewhat ironic cynicism on the part of the universe that you, who are possessed of an impenetrable shell on the outside, suffer so much from the brittle fragility of your own interior – hard skin does nothing to protect a broken mind.

The lavender bedclothes had begun to tighten the muscle in your neck after a while, and in the room just down the hall, you assume Wanda sleeps comfortably cuddling in her bed. When searching inside the single pocket of your hoodie, the well-folded garment on top of a plain desk in the corner of the room, soaked in the darkness of the shadowy environment, the absconse pack of cigarettes from a brand that you are quite familiar with, that keeps you company in the acrimonious moments of solitude, you take a single cylindrical unit towards the spaces open to your drooping mouth and then you find the cold lighter with your fingertips, leaving for the entrance door of the room offered to you by your ex-wife.

After descending the stairs, stepping one step at a time with your bare feet, you are surprised that the door leading to the backyard is already open before you are even there, and the cold night wind has blown inside the house like a curious, invisible animal, installing an icy feeling of dysphoria within the broad walls.

But before you could search with your watchful eye for some intruder who went beyond the icy specter of the night, in avid state of alert, you notice an apollonian silhouette hunched outside, sitting on the step outside the door, with a long waterfall of soft hair in the color of a raven's down running halfway down her spine.

The restlessness that weighed heavily on your shoulders eased as the familiar full-bodied scent of hibiscus tea mixed with the sweetness of a mild strawberry shampoo slithered into your nostrils and filled your lungs thirsty for smoke and tobacco. As you approach, you see that Wanda, wearing a sheer silk robe over a red nightgown, is accompanied by a large cup that exhales small clouds of steam, with the tiny bundle that carries the tea herbs submerged into the hot water inside the dark container.

"You really have loud thoughts," Wanda's small, soft voice ripples through the air and then hugs your body as your ex-wife turns toward you with a lingering slowness that, to you, is as familiar as the taste of your unsmoked cigarette.

Her eyes glow an intoxicating green hue amid the darkness of the night, only supported by the silver light of the moonlight coming from outside the residence. You feel like a frog being studied on a silver platter in some high school biology class.

Wanda's diligent gaze always seemed to be able to penetrate through the cracks of your soul – she always understood you as if she were an expert when dealing with any subject concerning you. You let out an uneasy sigh, oddly scratching the inside of your throat as you do.

"Sorry if I woke you up, it wasn't... it wasn't my... intention."

“It’s okay,” she mumbles serenely over a sip of hot tea, the pulp of her nacarine lips being moistened by the hot liquid she's ingested, “I still haven't been able to sleep anyway.”

And it's no surprise to you, because you slept and woke up next to this woman for several of the component years of your life span, and it was always well known to you that Wanda is a woman quite affected by long sleepless nights, not being able to afford to actually close her eyes and be fortunate enough to have a good night's sleep.

Countless were the nights turned to morning dawns, when you both resided under the same roof in the compound back at the Avengers Tower, so many years before you were there, standing in the middle of her kitchen, silently watching her perform the simple act of drinking tea at her backyard door.

“Still having trouble sleeping?”

“Once in a while,” Wanda answers you, and with her eyes she indicates the empty space next to her right elbow so you can sit there, “Sometimes I need to relearn how to sleep all by myself. And... It's not easy, when I’m under the same roof as you again.”

Without saying a word, you cross the entire length of the kitchen, passing by the island and the marble sink, to be seated on the marble step that freezes your warm skin, next to the woman who smells of hibiscus with strawberries and deep scarlet tones.

Her eyes recognize the figure of the unsmoked cigarette between your fingers, unlit and forgotten like the insignificant little rolled-up tobacco paper that it is, and then she looks toward the profile of your silhouette, blinking once with her thick eyelashes as she does so.

“You start smoking again?”

“Yeah, it's been a while, actually. A couple of years to be honest. Not that I'm proud of it, but,” your gaze shifts to the small cylinder, turning it between the digits of your index and middle fingers of your tender right hand, “This little shit here helps me calm down, I guess. Or at least I like to think so. I don’t know."

Silence touches both of you shoulders, and there is a moment for Wanda to sip more of the tea that has spilled into her cup. When the drink is gone, then all the way into her stomach, she places the container on the floor, close to her left ankle like a tame kitten, safe from her company. You are still hesitating in the uncertainty of whether or not to light up that damned tempting cigarette.

“Earlier today,” she begins, immediately drawing your attention to her pretty face, and you're met with her pink lip as she clamps her upper teeth over the contour of her wet mouth.

“You and me and the boys... it was good. They like having you around. And I... I like it too, Y/n. It felt right.”

She hums in the sigh of the night. You feel a crackling feeling swelling inside your swollen chest, but you don't say anything in sequence, because it's Wanda who continues to talk in her silver moonlight monologue.

“I had forgotten what it was like to feel like this. Me and you acting like family with the boys the way we’re supposed to be. And it's good, Y/n. It’s… really good. I missed that, you. I missed you.”

You choke relatively. For Wanda, a heartbeat rumbled in her ears. And then she looks at you, and you look at her.

And suddenly, you don't want to light that cigarette anymore – because she leans her chin forward, leaning her head towards you, and you do the same when your body cries out for her, lips colliding in midair like the consolidation of a wish, a scarlet fever supernova bursting within your own chest.

And then, the full-bodied freshness of hibiscus darts into the half-open breach in the gap between your lips, pressing a velvety tongue against the slit between your teeth, discharging into your mouth a red-sour-sweet flavor, definitely good though, but rougher than usual as the two of you now share a needy, somewhat sloppy, even animalistic kiss.

Even if there is indeed a need on Wanda's part, and you just need someone to scare you away from the evil inside your head. Your ex-wife, in a thoughtless act, dives with her clever hands into the thin fabric of the tank top that clothes your impenetrable skin, grabbing the sides of your waist in a needy way, as if all she wanted at that moment was to feel you, as if her entire existence existed based on physically feeling you snuggled into her icy body.

She blinks, consenting to the overflow of her feelings, enraptured by the image of your cheeks burning and your chest heaving. And she does what she thinks is right to do, which seems to be the only option possible in this small moment of affection and dedication, filled with an ember that if she could name it, she would call it love - because she knows she love you, even if she didn't say it out loud yet. You are the love of her life, and she is the love of yours.

Wanda then hurls herself even farther forward, a nymph figure smitten with idolatry, and takes her prize, pressing the commission of her red lips against the outlined mouth with the flavor of melancholy that could belong to none other than you, so exotic, and never the same.

You feel the smart hands rest at the end of your spine with an almost practiced disregard, seeking nothing but feeling at first, far from the lascivious idea of consolidating the carnal act. Wanda just wants to feel you close, all to herself, comfortable in her grip. Between a set of pink lips, a tongue is present, and this tongue curls up in another in a not hasty and exaggerated way. It's elegant. It's careful. It is harmonious.

But a slow kiss unravels, and Wanda holds her breath and returns in search of more of her favorite flavor to keep in her mouth, only to be promptly reciprocated by a devoted you, a soft nostalgic familiarity edging your silhouettes connected by the lips beneath a star-studded sky, with an absorbed perfection that no one else but the two of you would be able to achieve.

Up and down, side and side; surrounded by genuine attunement, lips moved carefully, following an invisible line that dictates your not so reckless actions. A waltz of delicate, tangible lips that still fit together so perfectly, so neatly, that you might as well cry.

But the pacified kiss soon takes the form of a fervent kiss as you pant hot against your ex-wife's lips, and the fervent kiss becomes little kisses sprinkled around her neck that soon dissolve into a hollow moan, into a world where there didn't seem to be any more worries as long as you were in each other's arms.

In her own time, Wanda drags her teeth along the lower lip of your mouth, which groans deeply in response with a tingling in your throat, a tiny fraction of time passing until, like a buzz, quick, rough lips take refuge again in a tongue inside your mouth, and you feel an icy hand grasp your breast in a primitive way.

Clever fingers, soaked in crimson, traveled to your scalp, and a light mouth caresses yet another moan of yours. In a heartbeat, Wanda swings a leg over your knees and sits right on top of your lap, grabbing your wrists to put your hands around her waist.

“Please,” she cries against your lips, “Please, Y/n, touch me. Make me feel you again.”

The feeling is familiar. Toxically familiar. It is the red invading your senses, intoxicating you with dense doses of scarlet. You know very well that, even before the enticements of alcohol and cigarettes, your primary vice has always been the crimson sweetness of Wanda's body. And, well… you're not known for being resistant to the temptations of your addictions.

ᗢ

A crimson marble glow glistening under the palms of both your hands. Sweat glistened in the hollow of your groin across your burning hips. Wanda riding on your lap, naked as a Renaissance painting displayed in the dim light of a museum, her chest heavy like a marathon runner. The long, thick length of the red strap brushed against a specific spot on her inner walls that made her delirious and increasingly pivot her hips toward you, seeking more, brushing against each other like two animals in heat.

There was nothing rational in that animalistic act. The symphony in the room was that of skin beating wet against skin; of her lascivious wetness voraciously swallowing your cock.

You could see it from the single, retracted drop of sweat that poured into the valley between her own swollen breasts, the two mounds swaying just before your lascivious eyes; a delight modulated to your stormy gaze, profuse as sea water, which clouded your young girlfriend's body with a predatory look, immersed in illicit labor.

Your insides tingled in a white-hot tingle, both clits sliding through the material of the strap, the insides of your thighs strong and wet against Wanda's pulsing center.

Her tight pussy pressing against the erect silicone phallus between your legs, the red of the material buffed with the sticky juices from inside of her. That was her bed, her sheets wet beneath your sweaty bodies, the walls of her room reverberating the pornographic grunts and moans from deep in her throat.

“F-fuck-!” she clenched her teeth, her nails lacquered with black nail polish carving red paths in the muscles of your back, “Y/n, fuck, right there, ah-!”

Her thick Sokovian accent spilled into your ears, and something primal and cavernous rumbled inside you, like a spark that explodes in a raging fire. You wanted to own her. You wanted to consume her.

You wanted to eat her alive; fuck her until the mold of your strap was forever etched into the walls of her greedy cunt, which was increasingly squeezing the silicone phallus, a delicious pressure forming a red knot just below her belly button.

“Ah-! Ah-!, pozhaluysta, pozhaluysta-!” she gasped in her native dialect, loud and clear against your ear as you fucked her as hard as possible “Trakhni menya... ya pochti u tseli, ya po-pochti u tseli... Ugh, dorogaya!”

“Fuck, are you close?”

“M-mhmm! ” she kind of moaned, both eyes squinted two lewd lines “Please don't stop, don't stop Y/n, ah-!”

The scream was loud as you dropped her suddenly onto the sheets, her sweaty back slamming against the thick material of the mattress, her dark hair spilling across the pale material of the pillow.

You slipped your hands between the folds of both her knees and brought her lower back close, barely giving her time to miss your strap inside her dripping cunt before guiding the red material between her sticky folds, resuming the vigorous action of fucking your way against her cervix.

Your strong hand pressed itself (as did the bone of your jaw) against the upholstered headboard, and there a rip was deferred by your own touch – as it had done to a plucked pillow, and a lampshade shattered to the ground.

The lamp above your heads flashed white. Wanda's eyes glowed a profuse scarlet that swallowed the moss green of her irises, the darkening of her dilated pupils making her eyes look like two bottomless wells of lust. You buried your face against the beam of sweaty skin that joined her neck to her collarbone, and placed a generous, savage bite there.

“Fuck- I’m gonna cum, I'm gonna– fuck! Y/n! Oh, fuck!” she decreed, panting against your bare neck, pressing her fingers against your buttocks in an incitement to the act they so indomitably committed.

“Come for me Wanda,” you murmured against her ear, “Come on my cock, pretty girl, make a mess for me. I wanna hear you fucking scream my name.”

The bed hit the wall again. And again. And again. You didn't stop at the first orgasm. Nor in the second. Nor on the third. Until you abandoned her in the middle of the night.

652 notes · View notes

lvstcd · 4 months

Text

no time to die ⟶ finnick odair & oc [part 5]

A/N: this is for my pookie ookie bear rese <3 happy birthday bbg

WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of death, mentions of torture, mentions of sex trafficking, weapons, trauma, smoking, pretty much all hunger games shit :)

SUMMARY: rhys marley was the youngest victor of hunger games, winning at the age of 12. 9 years later, she's competing in the third quarter quell against all of the other tributes.

GENRE: angst, dystopian, fluff, slow burn, friends to enemies to lovers

WORD COUNT: 1.1k

oc - original character(s)

EDITED BUT THERE COULD STILL BE MISTAKES :0 LINKS OF OUTFITS AND HAIR ARE INCLUDED IF YOU'RE INTERESTED :)

lower case intended

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄

"SOMEONES coming."

zephyr states, sinking down to ground as everyone turns to look to the right, seeing a group of three people, two of them running into the water. rhys' blue eyes widen, "johanna." she whispers to herself, starting to run over. finnick puts his arm out in front of her, "wait, we don't know who it is." rhys looks at him like he's stupid, which wasn't a new thing to him. he's starting to get used to the new way that she looks at him now.

"it's johanna." rhys says as she turns back around, "johanna!" she yells, seeing johanna turn around, "rhys!" she yells as they run over to each other. rhys goes to hug her but see's her covered in blood head to toe. "oh my god, what happened?" rhys asks, looking at her. johanna tells her about how they were in the forest and they thought it was raining but it was thick hot blood instead.

zephyr, peeta, and finnick jog over and catch up with rhys, watching beetee and wiress in the water washing the blood off of themselves as wiress is repeatedly saying, "tik tok." zephyr looks at her, confused, "what happened? is wiress okay?" zephyr looks at beetee, her green eyes full of concern as she starts to step towards wiress in the water.

beetee looks at her, sighing, "she's in shock. she'll come out of soon." he says, washing the blood off of his face. zephyr nods her head softly and walks over to wiress, "cmon. lets get you cleaned up, yeah?" zephyr helps wiress wash the blood off of her, trying her best to calm her down. "tik tok." wiress whispers to herself, staring out into the water as zephyr rinses the blood out of her hair. her eyebrows furrow together, "..tik tok.. oh my god.. wiress, it's a clock!" wiress looks at her with a goofy grin, "tik tok." wiress states out of breath. zephyr helps wiress out of the water and gently leads her over to the rest of the group, explaining how the arena is a clock.

as the group walks to the cornucopia, finnick looks at wiress, "wiress, you're a genius." rhys looks at wiress with a small content smile on her lips and softly winking at her, "great job, wiress." rhys states, following the group. as they sit all there, they try to figure out how the area works. all of the sudden, zephyr hears a gargled noise leave wiress' throat from behind them.

rhys gasps, turning around and lifting up her kusarigama and swinging it forward to the man who just stabbed wiress in the chest. more careers pop out, causing zephyr and rhys to grab their weapons, fighting while finnick uses his trident, stabbing a guy in his chest before ripping it out of him. all of the sudden, the cornucopia starts spinning in circles, causing rhys to fall back gripping onto the rock as she begins to fly off.

"no!" zephyr yells, gripping rhys' hand but shes not strong enough. rhys flies into the water, the cornucopia slowing down before stopping. zephyr yells in fear as she looks for rhys. she finally spots her trying to climb out of the water, out of breath. zephyr pulls her up and finnick jogs over but zephyr glares at him.

"we're fine. we don't need your help. we haven't needed your help for a long time." she states, eyeing him as rhys coughs up water. finnick's eyes soften as he hears her words, his heart aching. he slowly nods and walks back towards peeta, johanna, and beetee. johanna runs over, helping zephyr as she tries to pull rhys out of the cold water.

the group decides to make a plan with the wire and the lightning that strikes the tree. all 6 of them climb up to the tree, finnick watches rhys as she sits there looking at the plants all around her as they walk. "why do you hate me?" he asks her softly, glancing at her.

rhys looks forward, "i don't hate you." she whispers. finnick looks at her, "really? because ever since you've been around me you have done nothing but make comments and look at me like im a stranger." rhys looks at him quickly before looking away.

"i feel like i only exist to you when you need someone to fix you." she says, continuing to walk. finnicks eyebrows furrow in confusion as he watches her. "what're you talking about?" he starts, his eyes not leaving hers, "you've been everything to me for years. since we were kids. i've done nothing but base my life around you. i won the games for you because i didn't want to lose you!"

"that's such bullshit, finnick." rhys scoffs, "as soon as annie came into the picture, i was nothing to you. i didn't exist." rhys speeds up her pace, leaving finnick behind her as she starts to walk with zephyr and peeta.

as beetee wraps the wire around the tree, he tells zephyr that her and johanna need to go run it down to the beach. "why can't finnick and johanna go? and why can't peeta come with us?" finnick looks at zephyr, "is there a problem?" zephyr looks at him, her eyes squinting as she looks at him, the whole situation feeling really suspicious.

rhys glares at finnick, "knock it off." finnick scoffs as rhys turns to zephyr, holding her face in her hands, "it's okay. go with johanna, she will do everything she can to protect you. when you're done, just come back, okay?" zephyr nods, looking at rhys in fear. before zephyr leaves, she walks up to peeta, kissing his cheek before turning around and walking with johanna. rhys walks up to finnick and looks at him, "what the fuck was that? she doesn't know. peeta and zephyr dont know." she whispers in a hushed voice, glaring at him.

finnick ignores her, licking his teeth as he stares straight ahead, scoffing. as zephyr and johanna walk with the wire, they hear someone behind them. johanna and zephyr crouch down, looking. johanna immediately smacks zephyr in the back of the head, knocking her down and slicing her arm, ripping out her tracker and smearing the blood on her neck, "stay down. do not move." johanna whispers, looking at her before throwing her weapon at the other tributes and running. zephyr doesn't move as the other tributes assume she's dead and run after johanna, not looking at zephyr.

after a couple minutes, zephyr hears finnick running towards them, "johanna!" he whispers aggressively, running past zephyr as she hides behind the hill. zephyr quickly stands up, making her way back to the tree when she hears a loud explosion. she sees beetee twitching on the ground and no one else around. she sinks down, hearing finnick run towards her.

"zephyr! where are you?!" he looks around, seeing her aiming her bow and arrow at him with an evil glint in her eyes. he holds his hands up in defense, "zephyr..." he starts, "remember who the real enemy is." his words ignite a spark in zephyr chest. her green eyes widen and she reaches down, wrapping the wire around her arrow and aiming, the lightning about to strike.

"zephyr... zephyr get away from that tree!" he screams, watching her. "i need to get her out, finnick. i need to save her!" she yells screaming as she releases the arrow, the lighting striking the tree and causing an explosion, the arrow shooting the top of the arena and causing it to explode. zephyr and finnick fly to the ground, the world going black.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄

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marximoff · 2 years

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déjà vu | w. maximoff

summary: as you slowly reconnect with Wanda, you feel a familiar feeling of déjà vu.

warnings: heavy make out, smut, strap-on sex (Wanda receiving) mentions of smoking, mentions of drinking, canon typical violence, angst.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 10k

A/N: this chapter sure was long awaited (i know it was you horny gays) but before the hot sapphic sex everyone wanted (emo wanda my beloved), this chapter deals with a character study of both r and wanda, to understand a little more about who they are rn as people

((by the way, I'll be taglisting the chapters from now on, so if you want to participate, just say something in the comments

enjoy!

|series masterlist|

《《《《《《《ᱬ》》》》》》》

She doesn't know that she forgot to get a can of corn too.

But the basket is kind of weighty and she might as well use her magic to levitate the items around her own silhouette, but she prefers that way, holding them down herself with her own arm strength.

Sometimes it's good to keep the sense of normality active. Even if normality just means carrying a basket full of groceries around the supermarket.

She then looks at the face of the brown watch buttoned at the base of her left wrist and checks the time, blinking her greenish eyes after squeezing a long, full yawn in the back of her throat.

And Wanda scrutinizes the establishment around herself, between the shelves stocked with groceries and the glossy linoleum floor; the weary gaze wavering absorbedly over her own white-fabric sneakers and contingently fixing on a dark, even smear on the floor between them.

Old Mrs. Davis still hasn't spotted her desired coins, and she's been digging into her wallet for the silver pennies for a good few minutes now.

Wanda listens over her shoulder as someone pulls into a shopping cart right behind herself and lets out an audible groan, evidentially annoyed at the delay of the old lady with her change, but Wanda doesn't see the point in bothering to torment herself.

She smiles tenderly to herself when she thinks about Billy and Tommy.

For her they are everything, and that is why she would do anything for them – they are the epithet of the purest form of love that Y/N had ever gifted her with; the culmination of their love converted into two vulnerable little creatures that are made up of the best of the two of them.

And she is placid in a supermarket line, getting a whiff of the eccentric consequence of the odd combination of the full-bodied aromas of cleaning product and some sturdy feminine perfume – an even slightly nauseating aroma, kind of overpowering and suffocating.

(In some aisle away from her, a child is heatedly asking his mother to buy him some treats)

She was coming to terms with the truth that living didn't inevitably have to be a bad experience at all; not when Y/N showed her that there could still be delight in the little things in life.

And it was Y/N who used to marvelously praise the dish when Wanda found comfort in the act of cooking, and she always repeat a few slices every time Wanda cooked it so long ago, when they were just two teenage lovers (and eventually also young wives, both living in a small bubble of love and companionship on the edge of a comfortable wooden cottage surrounded by dozen of yards of apple orchards).

Her ex-wife wasn't always a lonesome and distant creature creeping in the corners of her mind, and it genuinely aches inside her chest to remember that.

Y/N always devoured lavishly every traditional Sokovian dish she has ever prepared and promptly asked for more – and then thanked her with a chaste kiss placed on the pulp of her lips, which promptly evolved into the building of an intimate, sweaty moment with two bodies rubbing greedily against each other.

But she soon lets out a crestfallen, rather disillusioned sigh, repressing herself for having gone back to those secluded memories amorously stored in the edge of her brain in the first place (of the concept of two adolescent girlfriends absorbed in love in the purest sense of the word, emulating the seriousness of a relationship with adult bearing, but never losing, at its core, the youthful sweetness worthy of teenage lovers). Two girls playing love in a world that was a little too hard on them.

She glares ruefully at the bulbous base of the red wine bottle and then lets out a sorrowful exhalation.

Her relationship with Y/N felt like it was straight out of the old sitcoms that she always appreciated so much, where no problem was a genuine obstacle and that, by the end of the day, the two lovers would be in each other's affectionately secure arms again (and that perhaps she let have an effect on her a little too much, when dealing about decisions made early on in her adult life).

But then she reminisces that she was merely turning eighteen years old when she became a wanted on an international scale, and that, prior to that, she had also grown up in a war-torn country.

She never knew how to behave like a normal person per se – whether that was before or after she became able to expel bolts of magical energy from her fingertips. She never quite knew how to fit into the role of a child or a young adult in the first place. Not by herself.

Her cohabitation with Y/N at the time facilitated, of course – even though her wife had changed a lot in the time that followed since the blip, at first, things had worked out well between them. Or as well as possible under the anomalous circumstances.

The two of them took care of the (still) newborn twins and of each other, always with great tenderness and affection while they did it. At least that's how it worked for the first year after their reunion – until Y/N got into alcohol's graces for good, that is.

Five long years that slipped through her fingers and dripped onto the floor in the form of a veil of dust.

(Once, when the twins were about a year old after the blip, Y/N drunkenly knelt down with her face defectively reclining on Wanda’s thighs and questioned her as to why Wanda and the babies where the ones erased from existence while she stayed behind, abandoned like an old piece of furniture that no one wants to use anymore. Wanda never knew how to answer it, but they got divorced about a month later)

Maybe they could have risen together, and not just drifted further and further away as the days passed.

Maybe Y/N didn't feel guilt-ridden every time the twins cried in need to be held or fed. Maybe Wanda wouldn't have queried her for the love she no longer knew how to give – she is fully aware of the fact that she has always had a somewhat pushy nature, after all.

Maybe this, maybe that.

She doesn't know why she's been thinking about maybe so much these past few days. But it's not her fault that her ex-wife happens to be so pleasing to the eye.

The person behind her in line grumbles again, and there is a mischievous chuckle that reaches her ears with airs of grace. Wanda is sincerely considering summoning some coins with her magic for Mrs. Davis.

“Oh my God, this wine is divine!”

(Rumors had it that Sarah would run for mayor in the upcoming election, and having a former Avenger as the face of her campaign certainly sells well with the predilections of the American public. Little does she know that Wanda won't vote for her)

“Oh yes, it's one of my favorites” Wanda retorts, talking about the dark tall bottle of red wine prudently deposited inside her plastic basket “It's been a while since I've had a drink, so I decided to buy a bottle to open this weekend”

“Some special occasion, I suppose?” Sarah articulates a suggestive grin, but Wanda just frowns uncertainly, half squinting at her neighbor.

“What- no, no. No” she flashes a half embarrassed, half awkward smile, chuckling nervously while doing so “Y/N is staying with the boys for the weekend, so it's just a special little thing for me. All by myself. A quarantine-style staycation. A whole weekend... just to myself"

“Y/N, huh?” Sarah raises a well-crafted eyebrow in a pique of curiosity “Your ex-wife, right? I remember seeing her at the twins' birthday party. I mean, she's pretty, yes, but she's quite the quiet type, huh...”

“Yeah, she was never one to talk much… but neither am I, honestly"

“A pair made in heaven, indeed” Sarah then flashes a smile, but the taste that slides across Wanda's tongue is bitter and kind of hard to swallow.

She shifts her body weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other.

“But wait, she's also an Avenger, isn’t she? Yeah, she's the one in the black and white outfit! Oh my God! Who wore a jacket over it and had that kinda mean attitude, all punk rock and stuff?”

“Herself” Wanda agrees, pressing her lips together in a long, clumsy line. She just wants to go home and cook her damn kugel.

“Oh my, how did I not notice this before? I remember seeing her in the news once, when I was in college. I also had a taste for delinquents back then, if you know what I mean”

Wanda feels a hot twinge high in her face and she bites the inside of her cheek in a rather timid act (but there's no denying that Y/N's somewhat rebellious attitude has always had a lewd effect on her legs as a young teenager with a schoolgirl’s heart).

“She and Black Widow, I think, saved the life of the mayor in that bombing on the Fourth of July in... 2015, 2016, maybe? Yeah, I remember that! She's the one who's super strong, isn't she? Who held up a scaffold once and saved those kids”

"That's her, yes"

“Well, I imagine that super strength of hers comes in handy in some… situations”

“Situ-“ but then she blinks just one time “Oh”

Mortification hangs over Wanda like a bucket of paint spilled over her dark-haired head.

She opens and closes her mouth like a golden fish, frowning, and her cheeks don't take long to reach strong shades of scarlet, glowing red like one of the tomatoes inside Sarah's cart.

And then, fuck...

Just Y/N tearing her insides apart.

But she permits herself only to flash a wan grin towards the other woman when she realizes that, in front of her, the old lady has lastly found her damn change.

Fucking finally.

If Wanda couldn't probably get a nice lawsuit for that (or worst), she'd turn Sarah into a disgusting slimy frog.

“Well, I, I, I need to go, Sarah, but it was really nice meeting you around here. Bye” the enchantress raises her wrist, bidding the blonde woman goodbye with a wave of her hand and a small, introverted (half-awkward) grin.

ᗢ

You just have the fullest conception that a few good minutes have passed since the beginning of all the activity, and as in the rehearsal of a play, you are repeating the gestures until you overcome them with great proficiency and your culmination comes out perfect, from your liking.

You've done it innumerable times before, and you know you'll do it a few more times after this one.

The face of the bewildered guy lying beneath you looks like a loaf of raw, misshapen meat as you repeat a cadence of sequentially delivered punches against his facial bones.

And he, who is at least twice as big as you, lets out a piercing howl of pain from the cavernous depths of his throat, as even a wild bear would do if attacked deep in a forest.

A sphere of blood is clotted on your face, like an eccentric gemstone, a dark red pearl splattered under the arch of your left eyebrow. And you pant heavily, your veins stiffening.

The recurring metallic scent of fresh blood squirts in a jet of reddish color, thick and gleaming across your rigid, compact knuckles. The gruesome fragrance is no stranger to your sense of smell, and you're not quite sure whether you want it to be or not.

The peaceable domestic life lived alongside Wanda is long gone, and desolation and wrath are your only roommates within the walls of your morbidly valueless apartment.

You've been living like a cornered animal for fifteen years in programmed mode, always exposing your fangs and your claws at any sign of danger, just self-destructing, dying little by little, not craving to exist for one more day after laying your head on the blandishments of your pillow and staring blankly at the ceiling, whirling through your usual drunken state. Just desiring to somehow wreck your imperishable body that can't be cut or torn by human hands or tools.

People much well-intentioned than you are long gone, and you, by some implausible probabilities, were (cursed) fortunate to have endured thorough all the catastrophes that life directed at you.

The car accident as a child. The blip as a mother and as a wife, as a friend.

You just seem to live confined in this unbearable cycle of misfortune, and it's not fair to others that you are the person left to tell the story of those who are gone.

If only you could, you would swap places with the true heroes who gave their lives for the greater good. You would even be honored to do so yourself.

A tremor rolls under your black sneaker feet as a loud motorcycle passes by in the distance. Sirens also pass presently afterwards, coming and going with their blue and red outcome.

You take an elongated gulp of air before diving into your flickering pocket and hooking the device through your fuming, blooded finger length. You know your pupils are dilated and dark.

Your gaze is empty and brittle as you scrutinize between the digitally formed words before your motionless eyes.

Frequent bursts of oxygen are a method of neutralizing the pulses of adrenaline throbbing in the artery inside your neck. But the taste that slips between your teeth is acid and sour, and you lock your jawbone at the information that is cognitive to you.

Hey, Y/N. Are you really going to come get the boys tonight? I saw in the weather forecast that it will rain later, so I wanted to check with you just to make sure

(seen)

It’s Wanda

(seen)

By the way

(seen)

You two have been keeping in touch the last few days, after all, you told her that you wanted to be more present in the twins' lives. And it's not an untruth at all, but your sly creaking anxiety makes you feel like it's a kind of uncertainty inside your throbbing stomach walls.

You turn on your heels and spin your back on the battered man, so you can send your reply to your ex-wife's number without looking at the ferocious outcome of your latent tantrum.

yup, your avid thumbs type along the digital keyboard provided on the screen of the small electronic device, i’ll be there in 1 hour or so. hope they like cheeseburgers.

And then you slide your upper teeth along the flesh of your lower lip, somewhat unsure of how to proceed.

try to enjoy your staycation btw. you deserve it

(seen)

You don't know why you sent her that stupid emoji.

It's not like you're a teenager reproducing a failed flirtation attempt with the girl you have a crush on anymore.

In the background, the man is still groaning in pain. And you're not sorry you broke him in a beating. No, no. You're just sorry for yourself, because you didn't bat an eye when you did it.

Vaguely the memory of Wanda placing chaste kisses along your hands invades you, and you realize you wouldn't want her to kiss your unseemly fingers right now (because you find her too pure to dwell on the filthiness of your touch).

The skin on your hands abruptly itches and feels dull, and you don't feel like having those plagued fingers around your children’s immaculate faces anymore.

ᗢ

So, this is an opaque afternoon resulting from the middle of the rainy day, gray and hazy in its chilly essence, with tenuous threads of a torrential drizzle protecting the foundations of the two-story house on the slopes of the street, making the dewy ivy rustle on its ground, dripping slowly from the eaves of the ceramic tiles.

Compact, opulent, slate-colored clouds were uneven against the emerald green of the panorama of howling houses, hills and trees, like the leaning of thick smoke from a desolate fire.

A fierce storm, nevertheless, is not anomalous in the face of the oscillating spring climate of the state of New Jersey, which is not a real stranger to the rainy weather of the season. Thus, the nonstop drizzle is not the atypical episode of the day altogether.

“For God’s sake, Y/N, you're soaking wet!”

“Yeah, the rain started when I was halfway there and there was no way for me to avoid it, so I just went with it” you mutter, with a certain lack of interest smoldering in your quiet voice “Sometimes I wish I still had a car...”

“But you didn't bring an umbrella?” Her gaze is accusatory in your direction, the tone of voice sounding dangerously concerned inside your ears.

“Well” you kind of sigh, shrugging your shoulders within your hoodie, without looking her straight in the eye “You see, I, hah… I didn’t think it was actually going to… you know… to rain”

And then you look at her, and the exact facial expression you'd expect to find there makes its way until it slides all over her face. She’s pissed off.

“But I told you it was going to rain!” she then frowns at you, looking a little exasperated while doing it, her beautiful features drenched in an irritated tone of incredulity “Seriously Y/N, you need to listen to what I say more! What if you get sick?”

You feel married to her again for half a fraction of a second – it's like your remote newlywed routine all over again. And the feeling is actually good.

She looks so pretty. It's like you could kiss her lips right there.

“What? What's so funny?”

She was always a stubborn bratty type anyways.

“It's that super durability mutant thing or some shit like that. At least that's what Banner told me once, and he's a smart guy, so I believe him” you casually shrug, “I haven't had a cold since I was, like, thirteen. Shit, I don't even know if I remember what it's like anymore. You don't have to worry about me, Wanda"

“Just because you don't get sick like other people it doesn’t mean you can walk around in the rain whenever you feel like it. You look like a wet dog right now, you know”

“Alright, alright, I get it” you raise both your hands to shoulder height in a placid gesture of surrender “No more walks in the rain”

“You're impossible, Y/N” she then rolls her green eyes into their sockets, but you just smirk jokily at her reaction.

You find yourself dry in a matter of seconds, from your socks to your underwear, thanks to her remarkable magical gifts.

“You know what, your powers come in handy sometimes, I’ll give you that” you say in a mocking tone of voice, and she raises a single eyebrow in response.

"I'm still considering throwing you out for dripping water on my carpet, just so you know"

She smiles, and so do you, because you feel comfortable while doing it – a pair of complicit grins from someone whose chest is filled of joy and fullness. The atmosphere that sets in is comfortable, and you feel more relaxed being close to her.

“Come on, the boys are watching cartoons in the living room” Wanda says, then turning her back on you so that you follow her lead to the intimates of the house, “You can stay until the rain stops”

Your shoulders feel even lighter as she turns to you and casually offers you the sweetest smile you've ever seen in your life.

"Mom!"

"Mommy!"

From the sofa the boys joyfully call out to you, beaming in your direction. You can't help but do the same to them.

“Hey, my demons spawn. What are you up to there, huh?”

“We were preparing something! Okay, so, mom,” Billy speaks in response, barely seeming to be able to contain the glee of excitement inside his tiny body.

"Listen to this-!" Tommy complements his brother's phrase, in a tone of enthusiastic anticipation.

"Hey, I want to start it!" but the other twin intervenes promptly, almost indignantly.

“No, I want to start it!”

"I want to start it!"

“But I want to start it!”

“I want to start it!”

“Why don't you both” Wanda then promptly interferes with the small disagreement between the boys, increasing her mother's reproachful tone of voice a little, preventing, at the beginning, that the intrigue takes a somewhat bigger proportions “Start it together?”

“Yeah” you support her in a complacent tone of voice “You two came up with the idea together, so the right thing would be to do it together too. Whatever it is, I mean”

"Okay"

"Okay..."

The two of them mutter almost in almost defeated tune, fidgeting together on the couch. You think that they look cute while they're there, tiny and sitting like two baby rabbits.

"You ready?" Billy questions in a low voice, turning to the brother beside him.

“Yeah” Tommy mussed back, nodding in agreement.

“Okay,” says Billy then, almost proudly, “Three, two, one, go”

“We like ice cream like any child should” they hum together, vocalizing playful tones as they proceed through the song's component words, “And if we get some ice cream, we pro-mise to be… good!”

"Nice try, smarty-pants, but you haven't even had dinner yet"

“But mama” Tommy replies in a pleading tone of voice “We really want ice cream!”

“Yes, we want ice cream!” exclaims Billy in agreement "We can't wait!"

“Well, we can have dinner first, then ice cream. What do you guys think?" you offer them, your eyes darting towards Wanda's face "But you need to have dinner first to grow to be strong and healthy, and ice cream is for dessert only. Right, mama?"

The air inside the house is blissful and warm, so unlike your empty, disdainful apartment forgotten somewhere on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan. Wanda doesn't feel like your ex-wife right now – at least, that's not how she looks at you.

“Right” her eyes flash pale green beams towards you “Let's have dinner first, mommy”

ᗢ

You wake up in the middle of the night, but maybe you just haven't fallen asleep at all.

The sheets that grace the bottom of your body are soft and comfortable, and the pajama set you wear is not your property. It's late in the course of the long night, and like so many that have passed before this one, you just know you wouldn't be able to rest your relaxation anytime soon.

You let out a disturbed sigh, both palms of your hands polishing the length of the dull face of yours.

What the fuck, you think, what the fuck are you doing there? This may even be your family, but this is not your house. It's not your home. Not anymore.

Reverberating through your insides you find the throttling need for a drag of a cigarette eating away at the bottom of your lungs like a harmful parasite sucking the life from its source, and then you get up to do it, because lying down feels like it consumes you from within in a profuse haze of bubbling anxiety that bursts from your stomach to your mouth, making you feel so weak inside.

The lavender bedclothes had begun to tighten the muscle in your neck after a while, and in the room just down the hall, you assume Wanda sleeps comfortably cuddling in her bed.

When searching inside the single pocket of your hoodie, the well-folded garment on top of a plain desk in the corner of the room, soaked in the darkness of the shadowy environment, the absconse pack of cigarettes from a brand that you are quite familiar with, that keeps you company in the acrimonious moments of solitude, you take a single cylindrical unit towards the spaces open to your drooping mouth and then you find the cold lighter with your fingertips, leaving for the entrance door of the room offered to you by your ex-wife.

As you approach, you see that Wanda, wearing a sheer silk robe over a red nightgown, is accompanied by a large cup that exhales small clouds of steam, with the tiny bundle that carries the tea herbs submerged into the hot water inside the dark container.

"You really have loud thoughts" Wanda's small, soft voice ripples through the air and then hugs your body as your ex-wife turns toward you with a lingering slowness that, to you, is as familiar as the taste of your unsmoked cigarette.

Her eyes glow an intoxicating green hue amid the darkness of the night, only supported by the silver light of the moonlight coming from outside the residence.

You feel like a frog being studied on a silver platter in some high school biology class.

Wanda's diligent gaze always seemed to be able to penetrate through the cracks of your soul – she always understood you as if she were an expert when dealing with any subject concerning you.

You let out an uneasy sigh, oddly scratching the inside of your throat as you do.

"Sorry if I woke you up, it wasn't... it wasn't my... intention"

“It’s okay” she mumbles serenely over a sip of hot tea, the pulp of her nacarine lips being moistened by the hot liquid she's ingested.

“I still haven't been able to sleep anyway”

“Still having trouble sleeping?”

“Once in a while”

Wanda answers you, and with her eyes she indicates the empty space next to her right elbow so you can sit there.

“Sometimes I need to relearn how to sleep all by myself”

“You start smoking again?”

“Yeah, it's been a while, actually. Not that I'm proud of it”

Your gaze shifts to the small cylinder, turning it between the digits of your index and middle fingers of your tender right hand.

“That shit helps me calm down, I guess. Or at least I like to think so. I don’t know"

You are still hesitating in the uncertainty of whether or not to light up that damned tempting cigarette.

“Earlier today,” she begins, immediately drawing your attention to her pretty face, and you're met with her pink lip as she clamps her upper teeth over the contour of her wet mouth.

“You and me and the boys... it was good. They like having you around. And I... I like it too, Y/N”

She hums in the sigh of the night. You feel a crackling feeling swelling inside your swollen chest, but you don't say anything in sequence, because it's Wanda who continues to converse in the silver moonlight.

“I had forgotten what it was like. Me and you acting like family. It's good, It’s… really good"

You choke relatively. For Wanda, a heartbeat rumbled in her ears. And then she looks at you, and you look at her.

Even if there is indeed a need on Wanda's part, and you just need someone to scare you away from the evil inside your head.

Your ex-wife, in a thoughtless act, dives with her clever hands into the thin fabric of the tank top that clothes your impenetrable skin, grabbing the sides of your waist in a needy way, as if all she wanted at that moment was to feel you, as if her entire existence existed based on physically feeling you snuggled into her icy body.

She blinks, consenting to the overflow of her feelings, enraptured by the image of your cheeks burning and your chest heaving.

And she does what she thinks is right to do, which seems to be the only option possible in this small moment of affection and dedication, filled with an ember that if she could name it, she would call it love - because she knows she love you, even if she didn't say it out loud yet.

You are the love of her life, and she is the love of yours.

Between a set of pink lips, a tongue is present, and this tongue curls up in another in a not hasty and exaggerated way. It's elegant. It's careful. It is harmonious.

Up and down, side and side; surrounded by genuine attunement, lips moved carefully, following an invisible line that dictates your not so reckless actions.

A waltz of delicate, tangible lips that still fit together so perfectly, so neatly, that you might as well cry.

The feeling is familiar. Toxically familiar.

It is the red invading your senses, intoxicating you with dense doses of scarlet.

You know very well that, even before the enticements of alcohol and cigarettes, your primary vice has always been the crimson sweetness of Wanda's body.

And, well… you're not known for being resistant to the temptations of your addictions.

ᗢ

A crimson marble glow glistening under the palms of both your hands. Sweat glistened in the hollow of your groin across your burning hips.

Wanda riding on your lap, naked as a Renaissance painting displayed in the dim light of a museum, her chest heavy like a marathon runner. The long, thick length of the red strap brushed against a specific spot on her inner walls that made her delirious and increasingly pivot her hips toward you, seeking more, brushing against each other like two animals in heat.

There was nothing rational in that animalistic act.

The symphony in the room was that of skin beating wet against skin; of her lascivious wetness voraciously swallowing your cock.

Your insides tingled in a white-hot tingle, both clits sliding through the material of the strap, the insides of your thighs strong and wet against Wanda's pulsing center.

“F-fuck-!” she clenched her teeth, her nails lacquered with black nail polish carving red paths in the muscles of your back, “Y/N, fuck, right there, ah-!”

Her thick Sokovian accent spilled into your ears, and something primal and cavernous rumbled inside you, like a spark that explodes in a raging fire.

You wanted to own her.

You wanted to consume her.

“Fuck, are you close?”

“U-uhum! ” she kind of moaned, both eyes squinted two lewd lines “Please don't stop, don't stop Y/N, ah-!”

The scream was loud as you dropped her suddenly onto the sheets, her sweaty back slamming against the thick material of the mattress, her dark hair spilling across the pale material of the pillow.

You buried your face against the beam of sweaty skin that joined her neck to her collarbone, and placed a generous, savage bite there.

"Fuck- I’m cumming, I'm cumming!" she decreed, panting against your bare neck, pressing her fingers against your buttocks in an incitement to the act they so indomitably committed.

“Cum for me Wanda” you murmured against her ear “Cum on my cock, pretty girl”

The bed hit the wall again. And again. And again.

You didn't stop at the first orgasm. Nor in the second. Nor on the third.

《《《《《《《ᱬ》》》》》》》

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 4 months

Text

UMMM UM I'M SORRY TO DO THIS BUT UHH

HOBIE x SPIRITUAL!OC

HOBIE X BLACK!OC THAT'S LIKE ERYKAH BADU

Do you see it do you see it

Like an incense-burning super-calm natured, grounded, centered black sista

They both have natural hair she compliments him on all the time. In fact, it was one of the first things she said to him - and it stuck with Hobie. Hardly anyone compliments his hair - that like that.

To others, his hair 'interesting' or at most 'stylish'. But he's never had someone call his hair beautiful, or healthy, or inspiring.

She's like 'brotha you need to put me onto what you're on' because seeing Hobie with hair so free and thriving in the world is something so rare and valuable

And her saying that sticks with him so much.

She talks JUST as cryptically as he does.

Most of the things she says are almost phrased like poems. Always dropping little nuggets of knowledge about spirit and racism and balance

Lots of time she'll make references to poems, of quote lines of books from black female writers like Maya Angelou.

She sees him after a long day, telling him 'Look at you, giving a caged bird a reason to sing'

Their conversations sound confusing as FUCK. Hobie and her are always talking in metaphors and making jokes referencing leftist thinkers

They're very into black love.

They bond over literature written by black anti-apartheid thinkers in South Africa, she teaches him how to celebrate Kwanzaa - after Hobie spent years ignoring the holidays (bad memories)

She probably plays the guitar or the bass, but her music is the opposite of his. Hers is the 'smoke sesh' type of slow lofi. Full of hypnotic soothing cards and whisper vocals. Just a politically charged, just as socially concious

She's a lot more spiritual than him, and it's something he has to get used to.

It takes him a bit.

She's ALWAYS burning incense. She'll tuck one behind her air and forget about it, she only wears Earth and jewel tones.

Her house is stacked high with nonfiction books, and she's the only one who can make his cup of tea better than he can - she even got him into green tea. Now he knows what oolong is. What the hell

Sure she makes him take off his boats EVERYTIME he comes over - and was horrified the first time he just walked up in her place with them on - he's still over there all the time.

It's one place he knows he can find calm, or feel safe.

To be honest, she's probably not into his music too much.

She's not into the big crowds and big speakers and drinking at the venues.

She loves hearing HIM play. She doesn't need the bright lights or vocalists or drummers or any of it at all-

Instead she'll just sit on the floor of his boathouse, barefoot and criss cross as she watches him strum away.

And she ADORES when he plays accoustic - something he'll do exclusively for her

The DYNAMIC THE DYNAMIC OKAY

She's not a Spider person. She's a helper in this world too, but she'd rather be a healer than a hero.

It's how she keeps her peace. She's a lot more quiet and soft-spoken than him, but not because she's shy. She's just chilling. Fully committed to never letting no one stress her over NOTHING

Half the time Hobie will be joking or messing or playfully teasing her and she'll be like 'Boy, stop stressing me out.'

And when he's pushed to the edge, full of anger and bitterness and resent at the world, at what they're forced to, by the responsibility he carriers - she's always there to rub circles into his shoulders, putting a record on the player as she fixes them some tea.

He doesn't believe in all that mystic shit, not that much.

The first time he went to her place he raised an eyebrow, asking about her supposed 'rock collection'.

'Those are crystals.'

She explains what they are, and why she keeps them. How she uses them in her spiritual work. He thinks it's a load of bullocks.

Does he actually think this hunk of clear rock is going to 'purify' anything in a world like theirs? NO.

He won't say it, but she can read his vibes like a book.

But she explains that - regardless of all that - most of her crystals were taken from the motherland. And that she's happy having them, it's a way to reclaim a bit of the land they all were taken from.

When he asks what the hell is motherland is she's like

'Africa, Hobie.'

They have some interesting conversations. They were the world VERY VERY differently, but they always see eye-to-eye eventually.

He may not believe in it, but he believes in her.

And when he's at the end of his rope, coming to get place beat to hell and back - and she puts on that incense, the sound of her music hypnotic and sedative - he can't help but feel like he's lost in that world with her.

Hobie believes in anarchy, in all things. He'd love to think that the universe has it all figured out, that everything is in perfect balance as is - but he's not buying it.

And yet sometimes she seems so sure, and so grounded, that he can't help but fall back on her. And she's okay with it, that's what she's there for.

She's happy to exist in silence with him, quietly teaching him the difference between Frankincense and Myrrh incense, the historical uses and how to tell the difference.

She gives him small gifts if things she's made - Florida Water (the spiritual cologne not literal Florida water 😭) for him to use as protection, a cowrie shell bracelet, herbal tea blends made by hand.

She sews up holes in his vest or suit, humming quietly as he lays on the floor, soul food cooking on the stove

DO YOU FEEL THE VIBES DO YOU DO YOU

He's fire and brimstone and loud guitar solos. She's wind and earth, and meditation sessions. She's not a pacifist and she doesn't judge

Despite being two very different people, who approach life in two very different ways, they still find themselves on the same path of wanting to help people

HOBIE AND A SPIRITUAL SISTA. HOBIE AND A BLACK!HIPPIE!READER. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU.

LET HOBIE FIND PEACE

#imma be real this is COMPLETELY me projecting #like im one step below astral projecting right now with how hard I'm going 😭#I love spiritual shit I llve Erykah Badu #alright I'm out *leaves to go light incense*#Diane probably grows more to be like this after years of them being together but she's still a LOT more dazzly and not calm at all #spiderman #atsv #spider man #marvel #across the spiderverse #hobie brown #spider punk #spiderpunk #Hobie brown x oc #hobie x oc

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runningfrom2am · 11 months

Text

the sea around us; chapter thirteen

In which Rafe Cameron has to choose between his dad and a pogue who's changing his outlook on life more and more every day.

(rafe cameron x f!oc)

(eventual!jj maybank x f!oc)

warnings/tags: violence, drug/alcohol use, smoking, sexual content (if you squint), slowburn, older brother’s best friend, (these tags are obv not exhaustive but regardless it’s pretty PG13)

wc: 1.6k

my masterlist

series masterlist

requests

*:･ﾟ✧*:･

~Rafe's POV~

"Rafe, bro, I am so god damn serious right now if that wasn't my sister I would've thrown one your way, man." Kegs says to me, lighting up a j as we stand in the parking lot of the theatre, leaning against my bike and watching the screen burn and smoke and ash fly into the sky.

"Yeah, I get that." I respond, holding my hand out for him to pass it to me.

"What's up with her now, anyways?" He asks, taking a hit before passing the joint over. I take a drag as well before answering.

"She's staying at John B's." I answer, blowing the smoke out of my lungs.

"I figured that much." Kegs chuckles. "I meant more what's happening between you guys."

"Oh, yeah, uh.." I take another hit and hand it back. "Not fully sure, man, to be honest." I lie, avoiding eye contact as I hand him his weed back. It's not completely a lie. I mean, I know in my gut that I want to be with her. She's all I've been able to think about for a while now, even before I offered her a ride home on the night of the storm, but Snowy had never looked twice at me before then, I just don't know what she wants. Or how she feels. I just know that it took everything in me to leave her standing behind the burning screen as she cried over what we did to her friends. Fuck- it makes me sick remembering how she watched me walk away, the way her long, red hair hung down in front of her, and her cute little shorts. I need to stop. I just need this high to kick in so I don't think about it anymore.

"Really? 'Cause that's not what that video of you guys making out at Kelce's made it seem like." Fuck.. Someone filmed that? I sigh, running my hand through my hair. "I don't think I need to mention what I'll do to you if you hurt her."

"Yeah, man, of course. I wouldn't do that." I mumble.

"Dude, I'm serious. You haven't had a serious girlfriend the whole time I've known you." Kegs laughs and I shrug.

"I've just never had a nice girl." I chuckle.

"Snowy is nice." Kegs says, nudging me. "Listen, I'm not trying to scare you. You know that. I just don't want her to be another chick you hit and quit. She deserves better." I know that. She deserves better than me at my best, honestly.

"I agree." I tell him. "I don't know what she's doing hanging out with those pogues anyways." I say, in attempt to change the subject.

"Yeah, I mean, she thinks they make her happy." He shrugs. "She doesn't get that in the long run, like, she won't want to live on the cut forever. She'll marry that JJ kid and stay at her three jobs until the day she dies, funding his drug addiction." I feel my teeth grinding just at the thought of that. She deserves everything. I want to give her everything. I'm being crazy- I hardly know her, yet.

"Listen, I better dip. I'll see you tomorrow?" I ask, grabbing my helmet and straddling my bike.

"Yeah, of course man." Kegs nods, handing me the j for one last hit before I leave. I take it, then pull my helmet down and start my bike. Snowy wouldn't want me to drive high. I find myself pushing those kind of thoughts out of my head more and more.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･

I get home, and my dad has this great idea, more like demand, that I invite Snowy to Midsummers this weekend as my date, obviously to keep up appearances. I love that idea, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it, but I didn't want to put her out of her way, and I couldn't imagine she would want to come. Especially after she just hardly forgave me for what we didI don't have much of a choice now anyways.

I'm on my way home from the gym, and I see her old, beat up car parked outside the coffee shop she works at. Now is a better time than ever, I suppose. I park outside and sit on my bike for a minute after I take off my helmet, looking inside through the window. I don't see her, but I don't see anyone else either. It's perfect.

I take a deep breath before I get off, putting my helmet on the back and approaching the door. My hands already feel sweaty. Gross. I wipe them on my shorts and then look at my reflection in the glass, quickly making sure my hair looks okay before I open the door and walk in.

"Good morning, what can I get for you?" Snowy asks as she walks out from the back, customer service voice in full swing. She has her hair up in a ponytail that looks like it could fall out at any minute, and wearing these leggings that hug her curves perfectly. She is so pretty. She wipes her hands on her apron, since they're dripping wet. She was probably doing dishes- I feel guilty for interrupting.

"Iced Caramel Macchiato please." I say, trying to mimic her from when she ordered those for us the other day. She looks up, her face relaxing into a more genuine smile. It is so contagious.

"Oh, hey." She says, reaching down and clicking a few buttons on the register. "Just get back from the gym?"

I laugh slightly, gesturing down to my clothes. "How could you tell?"

"Just a guess." She shrugs, walking over to the espresso machine.

"So, uh, I needed to talk to you about something." I say, and she hums back in hesitant acknowledgment as I rub the back of my neck. I'm sweating like crazy- it's hot in here for it being before 8 am. "There's this thing this weekend, kind of a big deal apparently, and I was wondering if you would be okay with going with me?" I internally cringe at the way I said that. God- that probably made no sense.

"Midsummers?" She asks, pausing making the drink to look up at me. I'm getting butterflies in my stomach, just looking at her brown eyes.

"Yeah, that. My dad is getting some sort of award or something." I explain. "So? What do you think?"

"Uhm.." She pauses, clearly thinking. Great. I screwed this up with her already. Of course, I saw this coming- she should still be mad at me. "I would love to, I really would, but I don't think I'd be welcome there. Besides, I don't own anything even remotely appropriate to wear." She replies, with a nervous-sounding laugh.

"If you're my date, you'll be welcomed. Besides, my dad wants you there." I tell her, smiling despite how anxious I'm feeling.

"Ward? He specifically requested that I come?" Snowy raises her eyebrow at me, getting back to working.

"As a matter of fact he did- I can tell you don't believe me, but he loves Kegs, and he wanted me to bring someone to keep up appearances, since he's the guest of honour or whatever." I say, immediately hearing how bad that sounded. "Not like- fuck, that sounded bad. Not like I don't want you there." I laugh nervously. "I do want you there, and so does my dad. There. That's what I meant to say." This is humiliating. I'm waiting for her to laugh in my face- even though I know she would never do that. She's too kind.

"Okay.." She nods, placing my drink up on the counter in front of me. "I still don't have anything I could wear. I just don't want to embarrass you. I'm sorry. Maybe ask one of Sarah's friends? I'm sure they would be all over you." She jokes.

"That's the easiest problem to solve." I dismiss her comment. "I've got it. Here.." I say, pulling out my wallet and digging around for the bills I'm looking for.

"Oh my god, Rafe, no. I seriously can't let you give me any money. I can borrow something from Kie, maybe. I'll sort it out. I'd love to go." Snowy says quickly, shaking her head at me. She is so cute.

"Okay fine, then this for my drink." I say, placing eight hundred's on the counter. She just looks at me, as if to say 'come on, seriously?' and that makes me laugh.

"Your drink is free." She replies, crossing her arms. "On me."

"Oh, thank you. How sweet. Then that's a tip." I grin, pointing at the cash and she rolls her eyes.

"I'll pay you back, Rafe." She sighs, picking up the money and folding it before putting it in her pocket. "Thank you." Snowy says honestly, looking back up at me.

"Don't worry about it. I really want you to come." I say as I pick up my drink. "Can I pick you up from John B's at 3 and you can get ready with Sarah? That's a thing girls do, right?" I laugh, totally unsure. I've just seen that in movies.

"Yeah, totally." Snowy laughs, leaning her elbows on the counter. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too." I smile, taking a sip of my drink. "This is good, I need to come while you're working more often, Juliette." I tease her, reaching down and flick her name tag.

"Oh my god, ew. If you keep calling me that I'll get you banned!" Snowy laughs, swatting my hand away.

"I gotta run, but I'll talk to you later?" I suggest and she nods.

"Of course. Thanks again, Rafe." She says as I wave and start to head for the door.

"Oh, and one condition on me paying for your dress," I say, turning as I walk back toward the door. "Send me pictures of everything you try on." I wink, seeing her roll her eyes.

"Bye, Rafe." She giggles, waving me off. I don't know when I stopped feeling nervous, but I leave feeling much better than I did when I walked in.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･

A/N; Bet y'all didn't see his POV coming lol I hope you liked it though! I tried my best but as always feedback is appreciated :) -R

taglist: @boo22sstuff @madelynie (you mentioned you liked this series so i added you but lmk if you want to be removed!!)

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super-ion · 1 month

Text

Red & Wolf

(remaster - chapter 1 | chapter 2)

Chapter 3: Silver

A week passed and then another and another.

Red and Loup rarely left each other’s sides, both terrified of being separated once more and eager to spend every single moment together. By day, they dedicated themselves towards renewing the bond they once shared, swapping jokes and stories and memories. By night, they explored the new fragile thing that had grown between them, with locked lips and tangled limbs.

On the night of the full moon, the wolf showed Red the forest in her own way. She showed her the moon and glittering stars and sang her haunting songs to Red until she collapsed exhausted into the warm soft fur.

As each day and night came and went, Red began to believe that the danger had passed. Perhaps the protection of the wolf of the forest counted for something.

But the huntsman did return, and he did not come alone.

Red and Loup were in the forest collecting mushrooms when they came. Loup had just told a lewd joke and Red was doubled over in laughter when the sound of hoofbeats echoed through the trees.

Red rushed to Loup's side as five riders appeared and promptly surrounded them. All of them bore spears and swords and armor that gleamed in the sunlight.

"My lady," the huntsman called. A few of the accompanying guardsmen snickered at the title and Red's stomach churned with fear and anger. "This is your last opportunity. Surrender calmly or we will need to resort to force."

Loup stepped between him and Red, letting out a low growl.

"If you have any affection for this beast, I suggest you consider your next actions carefully," he added.

Red looked at the distressing number of spears, all pointed directly at Loup

"Loup-" she whispered.

"I'm not letting them take you!" Loup hissed.

The huntsman dismounted and drew his sword, its edge gleaming impossibly bright.

Loup drew her own knife in response, but it seemed dreadfully inadequate in comparison. What was worse, Red could see straight through Loup's bravado to the tense fear below. She knew just as well as Loup that she was nowhere near full strength. It was too many days since the full moon.

Without warning, the huntsman struck, catching Loup across the arm as she tried to dodge. She dropped her knife and screamed in pain, clutching at the wound. The horrible stench of burning meat struck Red's nose and a faint wisp of smoke curled from the wound.

Silver.

Red knew that the royal armory had a secret arsenal of weapons: cold iron chains, ash staves and arrows, silver edged blades… all manner of unique weapon to combat the supernatural. To see one employed for its intended purpose…

Someone seized her roughly from behind, one of the huntsman's companions.

Loup howled and spun at Red's scream, only to receive another slash, this time across her back. Red watched in horror as Loup staggered forward a single step before collapsing to get knees and then her side.

Red bit hard into the gloved hand at her chest. The man roared in pain and she threw her weight against him. She broke free and fell upon Loup before the huntsman could take another swing.

“Please,” she begged. “I'll do whatever you want. I'll go with you willingly. Just don't kill her!”

Some flicker of sympathy crossed his face and he lowered his blade.

Red's previous assailant grabbed her by the hair and jerked her off of Loup.

Loup cracked her eyes open and reached after her.

“Red!”

The man delivered a kick to Loup's side.

“Enough,” the huntsman snapped. “She'll be dead by nightfall anyway, leave her for the vultures.”

Dead?

Red thrashed against her captor as she was dragged to his horse. A blow to the face and a punch to the gut rendered her senseless long enough for her hands to be bound and her body secured to the saddle.

“Loup! I love you,” she managed to croak out before she was carried away.

Loup's injuries burned like fire as she last curled on the forest floor. She drifted in and out of consciousness as the sun slid slowly across the sky. She needed to get up. She needed to save Red, but every time she moved, the searing pain from her wounds overwhelmed her.

The sky was gold, edging towards red, when a figure appeared, silent as death.

“Foolish child,” Grandmother clucked. “What mess have you landed yourself in this time?”

“They took Red,” she rasped.

“Of course they did,” Grandmother replied. “The queen is too stubborn to let that one go.”

She crouched before Loup, meeting her gaze with cold grey eyes.

“We have to-”

“Do you love that girl?” Grandmother interrupted.

“Yes,” Loup replied without hesitation.

“Hm,” Grandmother replied. “That's good, you'll need that for what comes next.”

A gnarled hand pressed a smooth stick between Loup's teeth.

“I do apologize, child. This will not be pleasant.”

Loup squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her teeth down.

The guards were not gentle with Red. The first order of business was to roughly hack off her hair and burn her dress while she screamed and trashed against their grips. Her resistance earned her a split lip and a couple of likely cracked ribs on top of her black eye from earlier.

She was dressed in a rough spun tunic in a masculine cut that made her stomach twist and brought to the queen's chambers where she was roughly shoved to her knees.

"Not so fair or beautiful now, are you?"

Red glared up at the queen where she lounged in a high backed chair. Ever haunted by her own vanity, the queen's appearance was immaculate, with not a single hair out of place and a dress intended to make her look ten years younger than she was. But beneath the caked make up, there were new stress lines embedded in her skin and the manic gleam in her eyes had only intensified in Red's absence.

The queen languorously stood and made a circuit about Red because gesturing to a single apple that sat upon a side table.

"Would you care for some refreshment?" she asked with a cruel edge to her voice.

The skin of the fruit was glossy and deep red… like blood.

Red recalled the events and revelations that led to her initial flight from the castle.

"Why? Are you planning on poisoning me like you poisoned my father?"

The queen's eyes flashed with fury and she stalked forward to deliver a backhanded blow to Red’s face. The room spun and the floor rushed up to meet her painfully. Red lay there, tasting blood and feeling the throb in her cheek where a ring had caught her flesh.

"You should be so lucky to get poison!” the queen hissed. “Not after everything you've done. Did you think word wouldn't get to me? I know about the noble families that you've been communicating with. I've heard the whispers of revolt."

Red blinked up at her in confusion. What on earth was she talking about? Was that what the queen thought Red had been doing in the forest? The idea seemed almost ridiculous. Red did not have a mind for schemes or machinations. She didn't even want to rule at all.

For a strange dizzying moment, she wondered if she had fallen into someone else's story.

The queen snatched the apple from the table and looked over Red's still prone form.

“I am going to make an example of you,” she said in a low, dangerous voice. “You will beg for poison before I am done with you.”

She bit into the fruit, spraying flecks flesh and droplets of juice on Red’s face.

"Take him to the dungeon," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Give him some time to consider his crimes before we begin."

Night had fallen in truth by the time Grandmother finished.

All that remained of Loup's wounds were puckered scars and a bone deep ache that might never fully heal.

“I'm going back for her,” Loup said as she painfully rolled her shoulders.

She cast a defiant glare towards Grandmother, but was met only with a nod.

“Of course you are. I wouldn't expect any less.”

The old woman climbed painfully to her feet and leaned heavily on her staff as she hobbled over to Loup. A gnarled hand fell on Loup's shoulder and…

For a horrible, dizzying moment, the two of them were nowhere, a black empty place in between.

…and then they were back in the forest. Loup broke free of Grandmother's grip and staggered into the bushes to wretch. When she finally recovered, she discovered that they were now at the edge of forest, miles from where they had started.

The castle rose imposingly in the distance.

"This is as far as I go," Grandmother grunted. "The rest is up to you."

The old woman looked worn, almost translucent, as if healing Loup and transporting her here had used up some vital part of her.

“Thank you,” Loup said, swallowing the lump in her throat, “for everything.”

Grandmother gave her a single nod and turned to hobble into the shadows of the forest.

Loup turned back in the direction of the castle and took a deep breath. The moon was merely a crescent hanging low in the sky. She'd only have two, maybe three hours to draw on its light, meager as it was.

She closed her eyes and sought the beast where it slumbered within her.

Please. I need your help.

It stirred. The song of the moon was just a distant echo, but the wolf heard the plea and lent Loup her power.

The world came into focus. Sounds and scents grew sharp. Her muscles sang, ready to run. Teeth and claws grew into weapons that she hoped she would not need.

"I'm coming, Red," she whispered and she began to run.

"A princess, beautiful and fair, will take the queen's throne."

Red's eyes snapped open and she looked painfully over her shoulder from the cold floor of her cell.

Standing in the other side of the bars, somehow looking regal even as she clutched a lantern and peered into the gloom, was Red's stepsister, Antonia. Behind her was a nervous looking clerk holding a folio. He kept glancing over his shoulder nervously as if he would rather be anywhere else.

"I always thought the meaning was rather straightforward,” Antonia continued. “Of course one of us would take the throne from her when the time came. But mother was convinced that it meant something nefarious. She has always been obsessive and paranoid and the prophecy only made it worse. I don't know her exact wording, but when she asked her mirror for a princess, it showed her you."

"What are you doing here?" Red muttered as she sat upright. "Did you come to gloat before your mother tortures me?"

Antonia pursed her lips but said nothing. Instead she produced a heavy key and unlocked the cell.

Red stared at her, utterly baffled.

The cell door swung wide and Antonia made a beckoning gesture.

"What…?" Red asked.

"You're free to go, but as a good faith measure…"

She held out her hand to the nervous clerk who produced a sheet of parchment from the folio.

"...I would like your formal abdication, forswearing any claim to the throne."

She handed the sheet to Red who eyed it dubiously.

"And if I refuse?" Red asked cautiously.

"I let you go anyway," Antonia replied. "I want you gone, not dead. Your presence here complicates matters and your signature on this document will make things a lot cleaner for the both of us."

Red stared at her, comprehension dawning slowly.

“It's you,” she gasped. “The prophecy… you… you're the one plotting against the queen. You're the one inciting revolt.”

Antonia smiled grimly.

"Don't sound so surprised, I am my mother's daughter after all. I have my own eyes and ears in the kingdom. There are a great many individuals who are displeased with my mother's rule. The scent of change is on the wind. I've merely positioned myself to be on the winning side."

Her face sobered, and there was a rare flicker of sisterly concern.

"I do apologize for your current condition. It was never my desire that you come to any harm."

She produced a pen and handed it to Red.

"I know you never wanted to be a prince and I strongly suspect that you have no desire to be a princess either. Sign and you can run off to your lover in the forest and no one will ever trouble you again. Everyone can live happily ever after."

The choice was so plainly simple, it was almost laughable. It was true. Red had no desire to rule, she never had. Even if the court accepted her as she was, she would never be happy. Not like she had been in the forest with Loup.

Loup… Red's heart twisted. Her Loup was somewhere out there in the dark, hurt and alone. Loup was the only thing that mattered to Red now.

With a shaky hand, she signed her throne away and handed the sheet back to Antonia. The clerk produced an official stamp and the deed was done.

Red felt a weight leaving her shoulders that she hadn't even realized she'd been carrying.

"Come, I'll show you a way out." Antonia said, hefting the lantern. "There isn't much time."

Red heard a shout from down a hallway and distant sounds of fighting.

"You're staging your coup now??" Red asked incredulously.

Antonia shrugged apologetically.

"Like I said, your presence complicates matters. We had to move up our timetable."

Red followed her in baffled silence. She'd only been away from the castle for two months. How far back did her stepsister’s political machinations go? She would have made a very poor ruler indeed if she had missed all of this.

She found herself begrudgingly grateful for the choice to abdicate.

"There's a secret passage, just around-"

Antonia cut off as another lantern bobbed into view. They had arrived at an intersection at the same time as the queen and her huntsman.

#my writing #writers on tumblr #lesbian #transgender #fantasy #fantasy lesbians #transgender fairy tale #lgbtq fairy tail #lgbtq fantasy

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belle--ofthebrawl · 22 days

Text

Earth Wife (Terra, Pebble, Ivy.) ficlet under the cut! Post-line up change. Terra discusses Ivy's new place in the band with Primo.

(this is developing a plot)

“She’s not going to last.” The First Emeritus had remarked, leaning back in his chair. Terra, adjacent on her own seat, chose to lean forward instead. Propping her elbows on her knees and blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth as she watches the ghoulette in question.

“Why'd they fuckin’ pick her then.” Is her only response. Her tone is disgusted. She has every right to be. There's something else afoot here, she can smell it, sure as shit on a summer day. “The boy’s ready for his moment. He's better suited.”

“The boy” as she calls him is near double her height and a respectable four hundred years old but to Terra, he’ll always be a fawn-legged new summon, so green and wet behind the ears he might as well be one of new saplings Ivy picked out for the orchard. He's more than good, more than suitable for the job. But the higher ups had taken her suggestion and ignored it. Giving Pebble the unceremonious boot and yanking Ivy out by the roots.

“Someone wants my brother to fail.” Primo continued, cupping his hand to re-light to end of his cigarette. “Now, all due respect to the lady, but she's not exactly…fit for the lifestyle.”

Terra peers over the rim over her sunglasses, taking her eyes over the hunched figure of Ivy in the dirt. It's the happiest Terra's seen her since the news broke; examining the plants with her usual attention to detail, dirt up to her elbows and smeared on her face. The sunlight makes her glow, the fresh air helps her bloom. Terra thinks of long, stuffy bus rides and fluorescent lighting. Cramped, sterile hotel rooms and tap water tinged orange.

“She'll survive.” Is all Terra says. She loves her Papa but right now, the ground’s not steady. Ain't nobody better than sussing out shaky foundations than her. Someone could hear her, someone who shouldn't. Her Papa could say anything and be brushed off like dust on a windowsill. Terra is a servant. She might belong to him but insubordination is insubordination. She's toe-ing the line as it is.

“More to life than surviving.” Primo responds enigmatically. Then, just as bizarrely, “Do you think it's time for a transplant?”

Terra doesn't say anything. Just watches as Ivy stands up, brushes dirt off her legs and turns around to wave.

“There's a couple that might need it.” She responds, jerking her chin up in response to Ivy. She thinks about the work involved, about fragile roots and notoriously fussy blooms. “We’d have to get it done at the right moment though.”

“Can't do it before tour.” Primo continues. “Too much work and they’d pull you away in the middle of it. Have to be afterwards. Right when she comes back.”

“No time to rest?”

“Can rest when the work is done.”

“How very Puritan.”

Primo chuckles, soft and slow as a trickle of smoke snakes its way down his body. It doesn't dissipate, but crawls along the floor until the trail reaches Terra.

“The garden is always worth the work.” Primo says. “Wouldn't you agree?”

Her eyes are on Ivy as she approaches, her smile fading when she catches sight of their faces.

“What?” She asks, alarmed. “What's wrong.”

Terra glances at her Papa, who's settled comfortably into his role of an old man admiring a pretty young lady. He plays it too well for Terra’s comfort, but then she's never been any better herself.

“Just a pity you finished before that rain started.” The First says. “Now you’ll have to shower inside.”

“Oh, boo.” Ivy says, an understanding smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Sorry I’m denying an old man his peepshow.”

The First Emeritus taps his forefinger to his temple, on the side of his Lucifer eye and Ivy snickers, flicks dirt at him and Terra's heart breaks to see it. It took her so long to open up, to finally be comfortable and someone decided to take all her progress and destroy it. Her Papa is right, Ivy's not suited to the touring side of the Ministry's outreach.

Outreach in general, is not Ivy's strong suit. There's a reason Primo requests privacy in his gardens and it's not all the poisonous plants he keeps. Humans blundering in and bothering Ivy would cause problems no one wanted to deal with. She liked who she had and she liked where she worked. Deviation from her routine brought up fear and distress, the kind chamomile had no hope of calming.

She doesn't know why Ivy’s like that. Frankly she doesn't care. They're all a bit unusual at the end of the day. Terra’s just glad that after decades of careful flirting, Ivy finally clocked on. It's been good to see how being loved helped her blossom. She doesn't think Ivy would have taken as well to Mountain if that foundation hadn't been built first, but there's no use speculating. Terra's built her little family up as best she could, providing a stable frame for them to grow upon. S’what she does best.

Ivy’s still teasing Primo when Terra re-surfaces from her thoughts.

“Look, what did you do to her?” Ivy says, pointing a filthy, gloved hand at Terra. “She's up in space.’

“Nothing she didn't explicitly ask for, multiple times.” Primo says unashamedly and Ivy gasps.

“Oh, you beast.” She says, but her eyes are twinkling in a way Terra doesn't get to see too often these days. “Suppose I can't tell you to leave, no. You're both stuck in those chairs, too useless to move.”

“Stoned to high heaven.” Terra says, though they aren't and Ivy knows it. “Be a dear and check on the boy’s progress with Pebble? Make sure she hasn't tricked him into eating a magic mushroom, at least.”

“I'm sure he's fine.” Ivy says, but she looks to where the kitchen window is with a worried expression. “They were going over pastries today, I think.”

Sure enough, if Terra sniffs the air she can smell something fruity and delicious and Ivy's too sweaty to be the source. That's a different kind of delicious, one Terra wouldn't mind tasting if Ivy felt like sharing her pre-lunch shower.

“Pastries!” Primo booms, startling them both. “Ah, when I was a boy back in Sicily…nineteen twelve, I believe…there was another boy, the baker’s son.”

He gets up from his seat with surprising agility, crushing his cigarette in the nearby ashtray before offering an elbow to Ivy. She takes it, after removing her thick gardening gloves. Glances at her Papa with the fond smile of someone who's heard a similar story many, many times and looks to Terra, her hand outstretched. Terra leaves her own seat to accept it, sticking her cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She supposes they aren't the strangest threesome the Abbey's ever seen as they make their way to the kitchens but they probably come close. Already she can hear Pebble shouting, probably from a stool as she bullies the poor kitchen staff to her every whim.

“After you, my dear.” Primo says grandly, opening the door for them and ushering Ivy in. She murmurs her thanks and walks ahead as Terra waits for her Papa.

“We will talk more later, ah?” He says, patting her shoulder. “About the transplanting. I have an idea of where these plants of mine should take root, but I would like to hear your opinion on it.”

“Yes, Papa.” Terra says obediently. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.” Primo says with a faint chuckle. “My most rocksteady ghoul, ha! That is what you are, yes.”

“Terrible old man.” Terra tells him with a smile. She spies Pebble with the boy, tugging him around by his apron strings as she directs who gets what plate as the Abbey trickles in for lunch. The little earth ghoul shoots Terra a questioning look, one she waves off with a mouthed later.

Ivy? Pebble mouths back, eyes darting around to catch their ever elusive blossom. Already gone through a secret passage, she’ll take lunch in her room. Not alone, if Terra and Pebble have anything to say about it.

Don't worry. She locks eyes with Pebble, giving her a quiet nod. She'll be ‘right. Pebble raises an eyebrow and Terra only jerks her head to their Papa, even now sliding easily into the role of harmless old man once more. To the average observer, retirement and age had softened him. Made him and the work he did easy to overlook. Terra knows just how far his roots stretch though. What hidden places in the Abbey they touch. And even she can't guess at the depth they reach.

Pebble hands her an extra plate, tells Mountain to get the dishes started after he's had food of his own. She'll meet him for practice afterwards. The boy nods, trying not to look morose at the prospect of dishwasher duty, but they all have to start somewhere. That new little water ghoul is in the kitchen too and Terra thinks they'll get along just fine.

“What's the word?” Pebble asks as they slip into a concealed passageway, accessed by pulling a sconce. Terra waits for the section of wall to slid back into place before she speaks.

“Nothing new.” She says, as the rats scatter away at their footsteps. “Talk of a big transplant, is all.”

#nees to get these girls their own ficlet collection #terra ghoul #ivy ghoul #pebble ghoul #papa primo

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kedreeva · 1 year

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Prompt: Fruity Four, last sparks of the fire

(my inbox is open for ST prompts!)(Previous prompts)

Robin watches the last log in the fire collapse in a little shower of orange sparks, smoke flaring up into the air in artful tendrils. It's been a long time since she felt comfortable being this close to a fire, but Eddie hadn't been at the mall, and he'd invited them over, and they weren't about to avoid him when he'd already picked up supplies for s'mores.

And it's... it's nice. It's quiet, controlled. Steve had set out two pails of water nearby, and after Robin explained to Eddie, he'd kept the fire small. Enough to spit some warmth into the cooling September air, but not enough to cause any raging flames, even at the peak. Normal.

"I think it's ready," Eddie says muzzily, from where he's falling asleep against the side of a large log, head resting on Steve's knee.

No one moves for a minute, and then Steve gently rakes his fingers through Eddie's hair in a bid to get him to look up. "If you let me up, I'll get the stuff."

Eddie considers this, clearly not wanting to give up his place dozing between Steve's legs. "'n toast me one?"

"Toast you as many as you want," Steve agrees warmly. He glances up to Nancy and Robin in their camp chairs. "In fact, I'll toast marshmallows for everyone. But you gotta let me get up first."

Eddie heaves a put-upon sigh, but he shifts so he isn't leaning so fully on Steve, giving him room to clamber up and fetch the s'mores supplies from the front porch. He takes a minute to set up the graham crackers, breaking little blocks of Hersey's chocolate off the bigger bar and arranging them. He'd brought his own roasting sticks after Eddie told him I'll just find a stick or something. Steve has seen the sticks around here, and does not want them in his food. Someone has to have standards around here.

He shoves marshmallows onto the ends of two of the sticks, and heads back over to the fire. Robin stretches her hands up and makes grabby motions for one of the sticks, and Steve passes it over without a fuss. She's almost certainly going to shove it as close to the coals as she can, set it on fire, and eat it right off the stick like she'd done at his house with his lighter. Eddie would have done the same, Steve's sure, but he wants to give him one perfectly golden-brown, gooey marshmallow to try.

Robin, true to form, sets hers alight almost immediately. She holds it aloft and cackles at it while Steve crouches and patiently turns and twists his stick, letting the heat brown the marshmallow until there is a golden shell around it. Right at the end, he sticks it a little closer to the flame and lets the end begin to bubble before he pulls it out and hurries it over to the graham crackers.

He smushes them off and into the crackers and then quickly loads the stick with another pair. He manages to balance the stick and two s'mores as he walks back toward Eddie, who takes his with a broad smile. Nancy takes the other with a polite thank you and a very skeptical look thrown Robin's way. Robin trades sticks with him, and Steve burns the leftover marshmallow off her stick before going to get his own.

In all, they make too many and just enough, fingers and mouths sticky with melting sugar and sweet chocolate. Eddie kisses Steve soundly in thanks, something Robin makes a good-natured retching noise to and Nancy watches in quiet contemplation. Neither of the boys notice.

When the area has been cleaned and the supplies packed away and the goodbyes lingered over long enough, Nancy douses the coals with the first bucket, and Robin with the second. Nancy offers to drive Robin home for Steve, so he can stay, and Steve thinks maybe that's not the only reason, but he doesn't call her on it. She's smart. She'll figure it out.

They watch until the girls have disappeared down the street, and then Steve checks the fire one more time for any last sparks before he slings an arm over Eddie's shoulder and they head inside together.

#stranger things #fruity four #steddie #ronance #my writing #stranger things fic #askbox prompts #asks #anon asks

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ghostlykeyes · 2 years

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Heyyy! I’ve been reading your work’s recently and I love them so much! For my request, could you do headcanons for quanxi dating a shy person? They can be NSFW or SFW (your choice!) Tysm!!!

Thank you!! I'm glad you enjoy💖💖

Female pronouns because Quanxi, also warnings for some really slight NSFW behavior before the NSFW heading (but all the juicy stuff is below it)

Quanxi

As someone that socializes as little as possible (but more from the fact that she's usually not all that interested in what other people have to say), Quanxi doesn't mind that you're shy. It's not like she's dragging you around to parties and introducing you to new people all the time. As long as you can hold a conversation with her whenever the two of you are alone together, she sees this aspect of your personality as a non-issue.

If you're feeling self-conscious, Quanxi curtly reassures you. Complain about your shyness and she cuts in with a quick, "Don't worry about it. It's cute." She refuses to let you dwell on the matter any further.

If you ever want to avoid people or take a break from the crowd, Quanxi gives you an easy out by excusing herself and pulling you along with her for a smoke break. Whenever she notices you're biting your lip or picking at your fingernails she quickly slips her hand into yours and tugs you towards the nearest exit. The two of you find the nearest hidden corner and Quanxi lights up a cigarette. She puffs at it quietly, engaging you in small-talk until the tension starts to melt out of your shoulders. From there, she lets you decide if you want to head home for the night or return to your previous activity. (Quanxi doesn't smoke all that much, really; seldom enough that a pack of cigarettes gets her through several weeks, and she often has to buy a new pack before going out with you just because she doesn't remember where or when she put her last pack down. You don't need to know that, though.)

Quanxi's incredibly protective with you in social settings. Most of the time she's got her hand resting in your back pocket or her arm slung around your shoulders, a constant physical reminder that she's got your back and you don't need to worry.

It can be hard to get a word in edgewise when the fiends are all trying to speak at once, but Quanxi looks out for you. If she gets the sense you're being bulldozed by the others, she quiets them down; "girls, let (y/n) say what she wants." She doesn't intervene often, because she doesn't like bossing any of you around (outside of the bedroom, at least), but if you really want to speak your mind, rest assured Quanxi will make sure it happens.

Making you blush is Quanxi's favorite pastime. It's easy, since you're shy; all she needs to do is slap your ass in public or drop a comment that could be interpreted suggestively, and your face is going tomato-red. Quanxi thinks it's absolutely adorable. You wouldn't be able to tell just from looking at her deadpan face, but if you know how to read her, you might just catch the quirk in her lips or the glow in her eye when your face turns pink.

NSFW~

Of course Quanxi loves to make you blush, but her favorite way to make the heat rush to your cheeks is by doing absolutely filthy things to you. She'll whisper how many times she plans to make you cum later tonight in your ear while you're waiting in line at the convenience store. She'll suck and bite your neck until every single spot of skin is blanketed in hickeys. Her most favorite dirty way to get your cheeks flaming is by fucking you in front of a mirror, though. Nothing makes Quanxi wetter than gently holding your chin, forcing you to watch as she coaxes the most embarrassing noises out of you.

If Quanxi forgets her cigarettes, but senses you need a break from a social setting, she'll drag you to the nearest bathroom for a quick fuck. Nothing like an orgasm to calm your nerves! (Sometimes she forgets her cigarettes on purpose, but if you call her out, she'll just shrug, face remaining perfectly neutral.)

Topping a shy girl is one of Quanxi's favorite things to do, lucky for you. She loves taking control, and she loves how easy you give it. (And how cute you sound when you're letting her ruin you, too.)

#Quanxi #quanxi chainsaw man #quanxi x reader #Quanxi/reader #chainsaw man imagine #chainsaw man headcanons #chainsaw man/reader #chainsaw man x reader #I'm never sure how much to include the fiends so it's reeeeeal light in this one LOL #Hope that is okay!! I can always write more that are more harem centric if you'd like!! Just lemme know :))#NSFT

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eric-the-bmo · 2 months

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The Neighborhood Watch s2ep4: Running With The Wolves

[Summary: Song reviews some memories and gets a rush, while Markus and John decide to do some investigating- with horrible consequences.] Aka, Louis's player had to leave early, and all hell broke loose /pos @gr3y-heron

(heads up, there's some implied domestic violence in this one)

----

Louis and Lestat are lead into a room by Mr Grant (ig he was there with them in the elevator?), one that's very clearly an interrogation room. Upon sitting down Mr. Grant presents them with extremely detailed files about both of them; their lives, their crimes- they even have a note that Lestat is a vampire. There's a picture of Louis outside his house. It looks recent.

Mr. Grant gives his full name- Cary Grant- and there's a bit about how yes, he's named after the old-time movie star, his mother was a huge fan. He, however, doesn't like movies (he's so serious too, does this man not know how to have fun?). Anyway, he just wants to make sure that Loius and Lestat, two criminals, genuinely have no ulterior motives to dating the rich daughter of the casino's head of security. They assure him it's not that at all, and are let go.

-----

Meanwhile, Song is on the 3rd floor with a woman who claims to be her mother.

The third floor is a large office, with extravagant furniture and fine decor; a desk nameplate reads "Melody O'Sullivan," though Song is still suspicious. Melody apologizes for sating; she hasn't seen Song since she was a baby. Song is still suspicious, and Melody agrees that's reasonable, seeing as Song's father destroyed all record of her existence, in both traditional and non-traditional. Melody asks how old Song is now, and Song comments that if Melody were her mother she would know that; the woman apologizes again, saying that time has lost a lot of meaning for her. She wants to be a part of her daughter's life, as that choice for her was taken by force from someone she loved long ago- by Song's father.

["He can be quite... overprotective." Melody sits down in the chair across from her daughter. Song doesn't follow suit. "...And why," she asks, "Would he have reason to be protective of me with regards to you?"]

Melody asks Song where she thinks her inclination to magic comes from? She wanted to raise Song with the knowledge of their shared power, but Greyson didn't take kindly to that idea, viewing it as dangerous, and cut contact with her.

Song says this is difficult to believe- Melody says she'd understand if Song wants nothing to do with her, but please hear her out. She then gets an idea on how to prove what she's saying- it only requires a bit of trust. The mage goes on to say she'll allow Song to look into her mind- her memories- however it is a two-way street; She'd be able to see some of Song's memories as well.

Song agrees.

["I have nothing to hide, and an awful lot of questions."]

Melody blows out some smoke from her cigarette, and our Hex enters her mind.

---

Melody looks no different than how she does now in terms of age- meeting Greyson, going on dates, getting married, holding a small child- arguing, Melody crying- a scene of her on the floor holding her arm with Greyson looking over her- Melody walking away from a house as a beam of purple light surrounds it, hiding it from her eyes.

(Song wants to probe deeper, but knows that would allow Melody to do the same to her. She does it anyway, focusing in on the fight.)

It's a jittery memory, but she hears Greyson yelling that "she's far too young to start this," and Melody claims if they "don't get this under control now, she's only going to hurt herself." Greyson continues to yell, and the memory fades as a child starts crying- it goes to Melody on the ground with her clearly broken arm, and Greyson with clenched fists.

["Get the fuck out of my house. I don't want to see you around her ever again, do you understand?"]

Greyson turns to a bookshelf, flipping through the books until he finds the one he's looking for, and the memory ends.

(Song goes further.)

A new scene- Song as a toddler with brown hair, playing with her mother who has a bag of random objects. It's almost like a placement game, with a tiny Song putting the objects around herself in a circle. Before the last object is placed, Melody kisses Song on the forehead- her eyes glow, as does the circle. Greyson enters the room and drops whatever he was holding as he rushes to pick up his daughter, whose hair is now stark-white, disrupting the object circle.

There's the beginning of an argument as the memory fades out.

Song goes further one last time, getting flickers of memories of Melody all over the world in different parts of time- The woman was an archeologist at some point, leading expeditions into jungles and such. She looks the same as she is now, but the outfits are far before this one (1920-30s?).

----

The mind share ends; Melody's cigarette has burned out.

["Who are you?" "...If you're wondering what I am- I'm human, just like you. I learned a long time ago that time and death are more... suggestion than anything."]

Song tells her mother to bring Greyson to the office- upon hearing that it would be a bad idea, she points out that Greyson works for her, and then is corrected that he works for Mr Grant, the manager. Not Melody; She's the owner. She ignores Song saying that she can't possibly expect Greyson to never find out she's here, and says she took a gamble with this casino as a possible chance to reconnect with her daughter. If Greyson finds out, they'd never be able to meet again- she invites Song to meet her later tonight, perhaps.

She also claims she wants to give Song a gift. Song lets Melody sit next to her, and the mage lets out a deep sigh, letting out some sort of red mist. The mist gets into Song's nose and mouth, and there's this feeling of pure energy- a beating as newly-tapped magic goes through her veins. Her eyes begin to faintly glow. (Game Note: Song can no longer fail (nor fully succeed) any Magic checks until she falls asleep. She also does not have to sleep for the next 24 hours.)

Melody says she's been wanting to do that for her for her entire life- Song asks if she's able to do this herself. Melody responds that she can, eventually, if she has the right kind of teacher, and hands her a business card with a phone number on the back; when Song runs her finger over the numbers, they change to Melody's real number before shifting back. Song's mother asks if she'll talk to her again ["I will see you again, won't I?"], and Song replies she'll stay in touch.

Song gets back to her boyfriends, and Lestat gives her a look; with telepathy, he says they need to talk later. But for now, the trio plays some cards, and their luck seems to be exceptionally well...

----

The loud noise of a car starting up wakes up both Markus and John- Markus peeks out their window to see Sammy getting into his car and driving off. Then Markus sees the Sampaths, sans their daughter, and the couple ignores them when they wave hello. There's other people getting out of their houses. John, who's been watching all this with a furrowed brow, does a quick look-back to make sure Shelby's asleep; Normally she's alseep at this time, so he throws on a shirt and meets Markus (who had sent out a bug scout to follow the cars) at the sidewalk. Markus, through the bug they had sent, sees the cars aren't going down the road into the main part of town, but rather to the casino....

John and Markus begin to run, as neither of them can drive, and despite John's superhuman speed he's running a bit slower so that Markus can keep up. Markus says it's fine, takes off their hoodie to reveal huge moth wings, and soars over the cars. John reminds himself that Markus is human, and starts to run at his normal pace. The two of them are about as fast as the cars now, and quickly make it to the casino.

Watching from a distance, the duo can see that everyone from town is entering through a side entrance of the casino. Markus quickly breaks away from John, entering the line and taking on the similar blank-faced expression as everyone else. John has a moment of "what in the world are you- Oh," and mimics this. There's a lot of people they recognize in this line: The firefighters from earlier, the coffee shop girl, the librarian, and two people we haven't met yet (a large man with a tank top who runs the diner, and a tall pale man with stringy black hair- he's the mortician). Inside the building a man in glasses is handing the townspeople staff jackets (custodial outfits?), which they then put on.

The people are beelining to the elevators, where a man is checking off a list and grouping them off into groups of four. Markus and John observe the faces of the others; it's almost like they're sleepwalking.

---

Meanwhile, Song is still on the second floor of the casino. There's no windows or clocks so she has no idea how long they've been there, but eventually she notices that she and her partners are part of the last group on the floor. The final guy in the group who isn't part of the polycule eventually leaves, and the sense of being alone is starting to weird her out. Song notices that there's no security at all on the second floor- odd, since a lot of them were posted earlier.

She heads over to the balcony (which is like a one-way mirror kind of thing) and sees a line of blank-faced custodians heading to the elevator- and within the line she spots the firefighters, Sammy, and John and Markus. She sends out a telepathic message to the two of them-

["What the FUCK are you doing?!?!"]

It's a jarring message- Markus is fine (they're quoting lines from The Mummy in their head, btw), but John's never had telepathy used on him before- he clamps his hands over his head and growls. Unfortunately, this draws the guards' attention to him, and they're approaching quick. They look tough, which makes sense given they're probably part of the mafia; they've got guns.

[Another message: "John, get the fuck out of there!"]

The nearest exits are the way they came through (the side door), and the front doors. There's guards at both doors, as well as more people on the side and a few casino-goers still near the front- and then there's the unguarded elevator. John bolts for the elevator (he uses his What Could Go Wrong? ability)- the guards are drawing for their guns now, but Song casts a spell to freeze people through the water of the fire sprinklers so that he can get there safely; unfortunately, Markus gets caught in the blast. John races into the cage of the elevator and presses the first button he can think of, and as the doors are closing and he sticks his arm out so that Markus, now unfrozen, can have enough time to escape with him- but the guards are able to move now, too, and Markus gets tackled to the floor. They give John a look that pretty much says "go without me," because if he tries to help he'll get captured too, and John gets separated from them.

---

The elevator doors to the second floor open, and John, visibly panicked, runs out to meet Song (meanwhile, Lestat has been trying his best to convince Louis to not do anything impulsively stupid).

A message from Markus, to Song: ["Don't follow me yet, I'll tell you where they take me. I'll tell you what I see- we need more information."] They tell her that the casino's got their neighbors, and that they're not acting right. Song tells them to be safe. She relays the message, and asks what they should do next.

Lestat agrees they should do something to help, and this is when John finally notices the southern monster- and if you recall, the last time he had interacted with this man was discovering he was a vampire, and chatting with Louis over how to possibly kill him. John tenses up, because he's a territorial thing, and demands to know what the hell Lestat's doing here, weren't they going to get rid of him— but Song gets in between them, staring him down.

["Leave it alone, John," she commands, her eyes still glowing as she enunciates each word. "Back. Down."]

John hesitates- Lestat speaks up and informs him the other monster that wants to be better, he has no quarrel with him- he's going to therapy, and genuinely wants to improve. John pauses again, sensing a bit of kinship there, and finally backs down. His gaze is still fixed on the vampire, albeit not as aggressive. They can deal with this later.

---

Meanwhile, Markus gets restrained, and dragged into the now-open elevator by the guards. They notice they're being taken to one of the basement floors, specifically B1— they try to alert Song where they're being taken to via the telepathy connection, but all Song can hear is their message dissolving into static.

Markus makes a dry comment about how there's three guards for such a small person (and are the guards really that afraid of them?). Then they get shown a file— it's one for them, and one of the file notes just says "BUGS" in big letters.

It also has their real surname on it. Markus bristles when they see that (The file has other things, too- their birth country, their address, etc). Markus tries to threaten the guards, saying that they have about 30 seconds, and if they haven't been told what the people are doing at the casino by then, something bad will happen. The guards ignore them counting down, though, and toss them into an interrogation room. The door locks. It's like the one Lestat and Louis were in earlier; very plain, with a chair and table.

There's a glass of water sitting on the table.

The intercom in the corner crackles to life and tells them to just drink the water and then it'll all be fine, they can be let out; but Markus doesn't trust like that, and sends an ant out to get out of the room. It doesn't work, and they end up throwing the glass at the intercom, demanding how they can get out of here. The voice responds the only way out was to drink the water, but now that that's gone-

Markus slams into the door with their shoulder. They're going to get out of here. While the voice on the other end of the intercom tells them to calm down, they continue to insult it and barrel their body into the door.

They manage to break in down, but they don't get far- they race out of the hallway and see four guards, and only have enough time left to have the thought of "Oh. I've been shot by darts" before they collapse.

---

Meanwhile, the doors to the elevator open, and Mr Grant, Song's dad, and a group of security guards all rush in.

"You there," they say, pointing to John. "You're under arrest."

Notes/Commentary:

MAN OH MAN. WHAT A SESSION, HUH?

Never once did I think Louis and Lestat would be taken in not for the fact they're supernatural, but bc they're criminals.

WHY DO THEY HAVE FILES ON US HELLO?

Cary Grant name drop -> that's Percy's face claim -> this is a Blood and Silicon reference. To me /silly

Melody,,, :-(

"Life and death are more suggestion than anything" GIRL ARE YOU A MAGE? WHAT (she's so cool though, i love her)

Sorry i took the chance to have John be shirtless and I took it-

There was a moment where I considered having John turn into a wolf but alas,, I'll have him turn into a freaky creature eventually

MOTHMAN

"Cryptid siblings! We're all cryptids now!" DM: "As if you all weren't cryptids to begin with"

Hey yall. what the hell are yall doing in the casino. are the drones getting paid for this /hj

Markus's player, rolling to stay calm from the sudden telepathy jumpscare: Wow, I'm on fire today! Me, rolling bad: I think you've stolen my luck

I genuinely considered using a Luck point for failing the telepathy composure roll, but I also really wanted to see how bad it could get lmao

"I mean, if John gets shot at I can add more scars to his character design-"

JOHHNNN U SHOULD'VE GRABBED MARKUS AND RAN

Song considered teleportation but that is so risky. She's never done that before and ough. it can be gruesome.

At one point the DM commented "What's a monster game without a monsterfucker?" in regards to Louis, and Yeah

SONG TELLING JOHN TO STAND DOWN LIKE HE WAS A DOG. OH MY GOD IM SO NORMAL

That whole scene was so good to me. John was ready to fight but also ready to back down solely because Song told him to and he holds her in extremely high regard. Seeing a part of himself in Lestat. Oh my god. "Was it a command or a leash?" He's so dog-coded /pos

I want John and Lestat to enter a hesitant friendship. theyre both monsters who want to be better. uwaghhghg ;-;

MARKUS IS SO INSANE I LOVE THEM. I was genuinely in Awe the whole time during the water glass scene

Song's player is So Suspicious of Shelby it's wild. They're saying there's no way Shelby hasn't noticed something's up, no way she's that naive. She's hiding something.

Also hey DM? Why did u imply the possibility that Shelby wasn't in her room? Fear,,,,

DONT ARREST MY SON HE HAS A DATE LATER—

Also did you know that it's uh. It's probably Super Bad if he actually does get arrested? John doesn't have any form of ID or papers confirming his legal existence in America, and he's not really from anywhere else? What are they gonna do? ;-;

Also can you imagine being Shelby. And going to the casino and having fun, and then u find out ur roommate has a date and u cry about it. And then u maybe are gonna wake up the next morning and find out he's gone to jail /hj

Listening back on the recording was so fun, we had a lot of silly little bits (joking that The Mummy existed in-canon, the idea that Song's head voice was different than her actual voice and how thats a psychic damage attack, etc)

Anyway. We're in for a wild ride next session, im sure. Oh my god

#eric finally speaks #the neighborhood watch #the neighborhood watch recap #motw campaign #john doe

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scumscuttlers · 2 months

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A really normal person who is just an asshole.

— @coralcalypso describing my character, 2024.

Inezra as a character has been around since 7/28/2014. She doesn't have a super long history though because most of what I did have was lost to hard drive failure. So, lol. I ended up reconstructing things pre-2018, and have been trying to flesh her out by interacting with more people.

If you're curious what writing I'm referencing, her writing tag is over here.

Personality

Inez is obsessive. This isn't always a negative.

Inez is too smart for her own good and frequently thinks herself into knots (as evidenced from some of the conversations and interactions in recent / old stories). She is absolutely yanking on people's chain when she pretends to not know or understand some things. Key word: Some. Somewhat at odds with the brawns over brains presentation she has. It's easier not to think about things. Imagine how happy you would be if you stopped thinking too. (She's still not happy.)

That said, she's also allergic to being honest about herself and her feelings. She doesn't lie out of habit. It's more likely she'll omit information or deflect by making a joke. This makes it easier to slip in actual requests for information. You just never know if she's fucking with you or not.

Rarely does she reconsider whatever she thinks the "best" option is. Gleaned from Dialus' perspective in old writing and conversations with my friend @sleepytrolls.

She has a kneejerk reaction to new information, but will also keep asking for details until she's satisfied that she knows enough about it. She's then incredibly likely to turn around and make fun of your character for their perspective. This makes her not fun to talk to. She knows this. She also doesn't care (most of the time).

Has a penchant for violence that's hereditary and probably in part caused by brain damage. From all the concussions, your honor. She has poor emotional regulation normally. She also does not have a moirail or very many trolls willing to put up with her, so this is just bad soup. She's gotten better but not better fast enough.

She has standards and a conscience even if she goes to great lengths to pretend she doesn't. There are absolutely lines she won't cross and she's sensitive to people not being receptive to her bitching, but that's new. Notably, times in the watch party chats when she's switched tack mid conversation based on someone's responses. You won't catch her apologizing though.

She tries to tone down her assholery depending on the person, or tailor it specificly to them to make their day worse. It depends.

Likes

Fighting. As 5lux put it, Inezra was hatched to hate. She doesn't need much reason to fight people and will go so far as to injure herself to get another lick in during those fights. There's something going on up there in her pan. Don't ask what it is.

Being a dick. This is just a precursor to fighting. She doesn't really do blackrom or she'd be in a quad with the whole world. If you hate her she likes you.

A cool cigarette to ease the pain.

Reading, but only sometimes, and she doesn't like most contemporary writing.

You'd think music would belong in this list but it doesn't. No I won't be elaborating on that right now.

Quirks

You can earn her honesty. Ways this has been done so far includes: fighting her and making it fun, having a spine, making her laugh, or being upfront about feelings (that last one doesn't always work). This is usually only for a limited time. You get one glimpse into her functioning troll brain. Just one.

She smokes. A lot. If she were normal she would probably have had two types of lung cancer by now, but she's suspiciously okay.

Whatever

Stuff that doesn't have a specific place to go yet.

Inezra doesn't relate to anyone in her age group. She finds it very strange how Sefoni & co (how she mentally refers to that entire extended friend group) seem wrapped up in other alien's cultures. It's somewhat alienating to be the only "real" troll, which as we all know is a feeling normal people react to with anger. 😀 (She's not actually normal.)

She actually did dodge the draft. That piece of trivia isn't punk posing and will probably catch up to her at some point.

The game doesn't exist in her universe. Every time she sees somebody talk about the game and adjacent topics she thinks they're taking FLARPing too far. It's the cognitive dissonance for me.

Thanks for making it this far. Maybe I'll vomit words again soon.

#OOC #[Character Info]#[Meta Post]#// Meta character stuff.#// I was initially aiming to answer the “why is she like that” question but there's no good outside looking in answer.#// She's just like that. She is what she is.#// Awful and probably going to die awful. 🥰#// Fixed the writing tag link!

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ashknife · 1 year

Text

Dear Lucy

This is my entry into the Four Loves Fairy Tale Challenge for @inklings-challenge. I have chosen to retell The Little Mermaid since it was the first fairy tale to leave an impact when I was a kid. It was one of the first Disney movies I got to watch in the theaters. It is a rough retelling, and I'm not really sure how I managed to eke this out with a particularly grueling semester, but here it be for better or for worse. Criticism is, of course, welcome.

Dear Lucy,

I never thought I would see you again, much less play a part in your upcoming wedding. Becoming a florist has provided me with such interesting encounters, and it's far less dangerous than what I was before.

I'll never forget how I met you. The wreck at 8th and Main was one of the worst I had ever seen. It was a miracle that the wreck missed me by inches. It was a miracle that you survived. It was a miracle that I could see and drag you out before the entire mess was engulfed in flames. It was a miracle that the others in the wreck could crawl their way out. Only two people died in that. It was a shame they couldn't all be saved, but it was a miracle that anybody was.

I've roughed up a lot of people in my day, broken some bones, and stabbed some people, but I've never seen injuries like that. I had never been scared for someone like that before. I had to follow you to the hospital. I had to be sure you were okay, and that someone was there to watch over you. It was a silly thing in hindsight: you had so many friends and family who arrived and waited. I heard so many stories about you. I wondered if I had in fact rescued an angelic being. I had never heard of anyone so kind, loving, and pure. I think it was then that I fell in love.

The boss gave me hell for it. I skipped out on several jobs to help you. The boys had to cover my slack, and they wanted some payback. The beatings were hard. I lost a finger and an eye from it. The extra work was awful. I was ready to die by the end of that month. Even then, I made time to check up on you, trying to play off the injuries like I was trying to cosplay as a pirate. I was happy to hear about the progress you were making. My efforts didn't go unnoticed. The same boss who ordered my punishment threw me a bone.

"Jack, you're one of our best, but we can't have you going soft on us for some broad you just met. Tell you what, though. You made it through your penance, so here's an address I want you to go to. It's a flower shop called The Rose's Thorn. The lady who runs it is called The Witch. She'll help you out."

So I went. I found The Rose's Thorn. I went in and found a shriveled old woman who proudly wore the gaudiest black outfit and puffed on a cigarette like it was her right and privilege and nobody else's. She commanded such a presence that I almost bent the knee to talk to her.

"You're the one Curly sent, yes?" she said with an amused smile.

"Yes, my lady," I let slip. She laughed.

"Come, now, I'm not that intimidating, am I? Call me Rose."

"Like the shop?"

"Sometimes the truth is less imaginative than we'd like. Now, let's get to business, Mr. Jack." She took a long drag and blew the smoke in my face. It was...entrancing.

"Lucy. Lucy Miller."

"Ah, yes," she said, pulling out a newspaper. The cover story was that wreck, and the accompanying photo was of me pulling you out.

"Not the most daring rescue, but one no doubt many are grateful for. If not for you, she probably would have suffered severe burns from the fire, or even..." She took another drag. "The Ricci Family owes me some favors. I can cash in a few, but I won't spend them all for you. It's better that the families owe me rather than me owe them. To keep that balance, I paid Curly to borrow you for a few."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I have some clients who are past due. I'd appreciate it if you would collect on my behalf. Without the normal violence. These people aren't your usual clientele."

"So, I just ask nicely for money?"

"Do whatever it takes within legal limits. That's not a lot, but a young man like you should be able to come up with something. In the meantime, I will provide you with a better connection to Ms. Miller."

"I'll do it."

"I thought you might. Here is a list of those clients. You have a week."

The first guy was a pastor of a small church. He was involved in a string of funerals. He apologized over and over as he wrote the check. If I were in his shoes, I’d probably forget, too. The second lady was very old and had no idea what was going on. Her daughter paid. The next person was a mother of small children. The man of the house left them, and she struggled to keep food on the table. She cried and apologized as she gave me what little she had. I shoved it back and paid for it myself.

Most people were just forgetful, but nowhere did I find anyone like my family’s usual clients. Just a bunch of normal folk who, for one reason or another, couldn’t pay some chump change. Real reasons. Good reasons. Reasons that were hard to make examples against. I suspected that Rose curated this list, but I had nothing to base an accusation, and really, did I need to?

“You’re early,” she told me when I returned with her payments. She counted everything silently, looked over the roster, and smiled. “And effective. No wonder Curly recommended you. Tell me, how much of this is yours?”

“Uh…$128.86…” I said absently.

“Does the Ricci Family normally treat their clients this way?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve roughed up more than a few.”

“Ah, no matter,” she said with an all-knowing smile. “Fortunately for you, my part is also early. Here, take this, and be back next week.”

She handed me a business card for a cafe called Le Petit Fleur. Written on it was the date for that Saturday at 1:00 pm.

So I went. I got a mushroom crepe at the insistence of the weird waitress and a cup of joe while I waited for whoever would meet me there. And then they arrived: your parents. Much of the conversation was a blur, I admit. I mean, not only has it been only a month since that wreck, I had gone from being perfectly whole to sporting an eyepatch and some bandages covering a missing digit. They had questions. They had concerns. I had to…fib a bit. I was a collections agent of sorts, and I was injured on the job, but I neglected to mention the part where I was in the mafia. I didn’t think it would sit well with them. But they didn’t spend long on me. They were so proud of you and the strength you displayed each day of your recovery. They had so many stories to tell. Further, they invited me to your room. You wanted to meet your rescuer. Of course, I accepted.

Our first (or would that be the second?) meeting was so awkward. I mean, what do a middle-aged man of the streets and a young woman fresh out of college talk about? But then you talked about flowers, and I talked about the florist I started working under, and somehow we found common ground.

From that point on, I came by each day to talk and see how your healing progressed. Your ideas were so bright and idealistic. Mine…less so, but you listened anyway and punched your holes. I hid a lot from you, too, because, again, the mafia. I doubt you would have approved of that. I mean, who lives this kind of life if they don’t have to?

During the day, I collected money for Rose. It seemed there were numerous ways people were stepped on, but then again, I was among those doing the stepping. Living in the darker corners of the world turns a blind eye to suffering because everybody is. I swore she handpicked those jobs to remind me of what I tried to forget. I talked with her about some of your questions and thoughts about flowers. She patiently taught me a lot about raising her plants. I think she enjoyed having someone interested in her trade, even if it was for some ulterior motives.

For six months you were in the hospital. Your journey back to health was hard but well-fought. Many of your bones were crushed. Some of your skin was badly burned. Well, you know that and more, obviously. You were there for all of that, and you healed. You recovered, and it was time for you to go home. My daily visits had to end, for you needed to return to your life, and I still had mine to live. I was saddened by the change, but I never regretted the time we spent together. They were some of the brighter days of my life then. I hope they brought you some measure of comfort, too.

Not two weeks had passed from your discharge that you sent an invitation to visit you at your home. Rose was amused that she played the middlewoman in that transaction, but she was not surprised. She even handed me one of her most expensive roses and a tailored suit.

“This would be a good time to express to her how you feel, Jack,” she said.

“I…is that…really?” I said.

“You regularly take on jobs from Curly that threaten your life, yet you hesitate to tell a woman how you feel?”

“Oh…guess I never gave it any thought.”

“Nevermind. Go put that on and be on your way.”

So, I took the suit home, cleaned up the best I could, put it on, and strolled down the street with the rose in hand. My reflection off of business windows and windshields and mirrors was of a handsome man I had never seen before. The suit felt out of place. It smelled of a newness I couldn’t afford. The rose felt heavy. I stopped in front of a 7-Eleven and stared. I beat people up for money. I cheat people. I steal from people. I might have even slept with a few women, and who knows who they were or where they were now. Now I was on my way to your house to confess my feelings to make you mine. I’ve been forcing people to do things all my life. Wasn’t I just trying to impose something on you? What if you had rejected me? What could I have done? What would I have done? The reflection in the window was handsome, except for the eyes. The eyes were haunted, jaded, cold. They knew what was underneath the hood. It wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. I couldn’t go. I shed a tear.

Nearby, bells rang. A clock showed that it was the top of the hour. I followed the sound, and then the echo, to a church. I tried the front doors. They opened easily. I stepped into a lobby. There was an older lady sitting at a desk in the next-door office. She looked and pointed at me. A man stepped out, barely older than me, and shook my hand.

“Welcome, brother. Can I help you?”

I opened my mouth and struggled to form the right words. I wanted to step back and leave. I wanted to throw the rose down and trample it. I wanted to scream. And then the words came.

“I’m a bad man,” I said.

I spent hours with that pastor spilling out everything I hid.

I returned to the flower shop. In all of that, I never broke or discarded that rose. Rose sat behind the register, cigarette in hand, waiting for me.

“I knew you’d be back,” she said.

“I didn’t…” I started.

“If you did, you wouldn’t be here.”

I offered the rose back.

“Keep it. I’ll teach you how to preserve it. You’ll want the reminder,” she said. “Come, sit.”

She poured me a drink and one for herself.

“When we first met, I introduced myself to you as Rose.”

“Was that wrong?”

“No. That is my name, but I imagine that wasn’t what Curly told you.”

“The Witch,” I recalled.

“Yes. It is a name I have earned over many years serving the families of this city’s underbelly.”

She pointed behind her.

“There’s a room back there that I never let anyone in. In there, I grow all sorts of things that would land me in jail. It’s my currency with the families. I grow high-quality produce. For many, that is why I am called The Witch. For others, I provide another service. I can turn people into what they aren’t. People like you.”

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Surely you’ve figured something out,” she said.

“The clients you had me collect from. They’re all legitimately down and out,” I answered.

“Good boy,” she said. “Curly always liked you and saw what talent you possessed, but he knew you had a soft spot. That came through with that awful, terrible car wreck, how you took that girl out without so much as a thought and saw to her well-being beyond what many would consider necessary. Curly was unnecessarily rough with you because he didn’t want to do what he normally would.”

“He didn’t off me,” I said. For some reason, I never thought of that, and it sent a shiver down my spine.

“Right. You went down a digit and an eye, but you could still function. He sent you to me to get rid of you in a…more humane manner.”

I looked down at my drink, suddenly afraid of what was in it. She laughed.

“Your drink is fine, honey,” she said, slipping a piece of paper to me.

It was a notice from the boss that I was expelled from the Ricci family, with a little note on the side where he scrawled, “Good luck, kiddo!” I sat, dumbfounded. That was my life, my everything. What was I going to do? I looked at Rose. Her confident demeanor was gone. She was exhausted.

“You’re dying,” I said.

“Cancer. I don’t have much time left. You’ll be taking over the shop. Minus that,” she said while pointing behind. “I orchestrated many transitions from life in the families to normal life. I never thought I would ever train my own replacement. I guess nobody really lives forever.”

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“It’s okay, honey. It was lucky for both of us that Lucy liked flowers. I’ve been training you this whole time. Tomorrow, we start putting it into practice. Soon, you will be the owner of The Rose’s Thorn, a normal man, with a new lease on life. Perhaps you can make a better name for yourself and become worthy of that girl.”

“I’m not a good man,” I said.

“No, you aren’t. But you aren’t a bad man either. Take this chance to become a good one.” She held up her glass. I held up mine, and we clinked them together. The deal was made.

In the months that followed, I trained under Rose until the cancer took her. She dismantled her little secret garden before she left, and I used the space to expand what I could grow. I worked with her clientele, established the business as my own, and grew it into what it is today. I loved working with flowers. I loved seeing happy customers. I started going to that church. The Rose’s Thorn had flourished for the last ten years. It has been my labor of love.

It was a wonderful reunion we had, you and I. We had much to catch up on. The nurse who helped you get on your feet again, I’m sure he will be a fine husband to you. I took a very long time to become someone worthy of you, but it took too long. I’m not entirely sad, though. My life has gotten better. I see beauty in life. There’s a deep sense of fulfillment in my new work. Not everything works out. It doesn’t have to.

If by some crazy random happenstance you ever come across this note that I’ve tucked away into a bottle I’ve chucked into the harbor, know that I’ve loved you all these years, even if it’s deep down and far away. Seeing you again was a gift, but I cannot be burdened by the past. I still have my life to live, and you yours.

Farewell,

Jack Smith

#inklingschallenge #theme: eros #story: complete #the little mermaid #there are elements of agape #there are also elements of beauty and the beast

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runningfrom2am · 10 months

Text

the sea around us; chapter twenty-six

In which Rafe Cameron has to choose between his dad and a pogue who's changing his outlook on life more and more every day.

(rafe cameron x f!oc)

(eventual!jj maybank x f!oc)

warnings/tags: violence, drug/alcohol use, smoking, sexual content (if you squint), slowburn, older brother’s best friend, (these tags are obv not exhaustive but regardless it’s pretty PG13)

wc: 2.5k

my masterlist

series masterlist

requests

TW: violence

*:･ﾟ✧*:･

In the morning, it's obvious we all hardly got any sleep. Funnily enough, my ankle is starting to feel slightly better, so maybe it's not actually broken. I hope.

Pope leaves to go get gas for the boat, and JJ and Kie go to find the keys for The Phantom. I hide in a cupboard in the back of the restaurant, just in case anyone comes by.

I didn't realize I fell asleep back there until someone is opening the cupboard.

"Snowy? Are you asleep?" It's Kie.

"No, I'm up." I lie, crawling out and standing against the counter.

"We got the keys, it's like two so we have to hurry to get the boat and meet John B. Pope will meet us at the boat." She explains and I nod, limping after her. We grab a bunch of food, enough for the three of us to survive for two weeks, and head out to the car. As we walk out the door, we see Kie's parents getting out of their truck.

"Kiara, oh my god Kiara, where have you been?" Her mom says, quickly approaching us.

"Oh shit..." JJ says, helping me into the car on the other side.

"Mom, mom I'm fine, okay? We slept here." Kie tells her mom, still getting into the car.

"We were out all night looking for you- we thought you were dead!"

Kie sighs. "I know, but I'm okay. We're fine, but I have to go." She explains as her mom talks over her, begging her not to go.

"Mom, I'm sorry, I have to help my friends, I love you, I'm sorry." Kie says, almost in tears as she closes the door and starts the car, her mom banging on the window for her to open it as we drive off.

We all sit in silence for most of the drive.

When we arrive, Kie climbs in the back seat with me as the boys get out. "Here, I got some stuff to wrap up your foot. It should help.." Kie said, gesturing for me to lift my leg up onto the seat.

Eventually we get my shoe off and Kie wraps my foot tightly with a tensor bandage. By the time it's wrapped up, JJ has hitched the boat to the car.

"I just hope it runs." Kie says, hopping out and walking over to JJ.

"Oh, she'll start. This is the fastest thing that Kildare has ever seen, faster than any of the cutters that the boys in blue have got. The first boat to make the run to Bermuda in under sixteen hours." JJ says proudly, placing his hands on his hips as I sit with my legs hanging out of the car watching.

"If you say so." I agree, smiling over at him.

"It's kind of a junker." Kie says, arms crossed.

"Let me put it this way- you ladies would not be smoking weed if she never existed." JJ says, smiling over at me.

Just then, we hear a motorcycle engine and a door open on the other side of the boat.

"Pope, finally." Kie says, getting up to walk over to where he was with a smile on her face, when Rafe walks around the corner.

"Oh no- oh shit." I mumble to myself, scrambling to get out of the car as Rafe walks out instead of our friend. No way he's just here to wave us off.

"Hey there, what's goin' on?" Rafe says, a fake smile on his face. "JJ, nice to see you again." He says as Kie turns back, walking towards us again quickly, panic drawn across her features.

We turn back when we hear a whistle from behind us now, and I instantly recognize Barry- the man who held a gun to my head not too long ago. Surprise surprise, he's got one now.

"Well, well.." He says, cocking the gun and pointing it right at JJ who raises his hands. "See, don't think I forgot about you and me on the side of the road." He says, getting closer.

"I'm here, because I want my motherfuckin' money!" Barry says angrily, hitting JJ across the face.

I gasp and jump a little, covering my mouth.

"JJ? JJ!" Kie is yelling at him now as Rafe walks up to me quickly.

"Rafe, no, don't..." I say, trying to back away.

He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight as I try to wiggle out of his grip. "Tell me where John B is." He says and I shake my head. "Tell me where he is and I can fix this. You don't have to be so impulsive and fucking run off with no plan. Just let me help."

"I don't know- I swear we don't know."

"Snowy..." He chuckles a little. "Do you actually think I'm stupid?"

"Get off her!" Kie says, walking up and trying to pull me out of his grasp, but it's hardly making a difference.

"Tell me where John B is and she's all yours." Rafe insists, but I know that's not true.

"We don't fucking know! How many times do we have to say it!" Kie insists and he sighs, dropping his head back.

"You guys actually expect me to believe that? Seriously?"

"We know what your father did." Kie says, fully angry now. Rafe lets me go and I stumble out of the way, trying not to hurt my foot anymore. I look over and see Barry beating on JJ, who's now laying on the ground. I feel a pang in my chest- I hate seeing him hurt, but I know there is nothing I can do.

Rafe steps closer to Kie, not saying anything. "He murdered Sheriff Peterkin!" Kie shouts, suddenly slapping him across the face. I stand there and watch in disbelief as he quickly grabs her throat, lifting her head and pushing her back.

"I wish you hadn't said that..." Rafe says, and I can see that Kie can hardly breathe.

"Rafe! Let her go! Are you kidding me?" I say, stepping closer and trying to push him back, but it's like he can't see me. Or hear me. He's so deep in his own head I truly believe he doesn't know I'm here.

"Don't you ever say those fucking words again." Rafe says, looking briefly over at me and shoving Kie backward, letting her go.

"We're getting out of here." He grumbles, grabbing me again now.

"No, no. Rafe let me go..." I say, just noticing now that I'm crying.

"Snowy, I'm not letting you go. I can't do it." Rafe says, a low growl in his tone. "Tell me where John B is and I will fix this."

I shake my head as I watch JJ get thrown back on the floor as Barry yells at him. "Fine- we'll talk about this at home." Rafe is lifting me off the ground now, dragging me back towards the door. Just then, he drops me as I feel his legs give out and he screams out in pain. I turn and look, and see Pope standing there with a crowbar.

"Don't touch her!" Pope yells, hitting him again.

"Pope! Pope stop!" I shout, reaching out as Kie helps me up and Rafe knocks the crowbar out of his hands.

They begin fighting, and I watch as Barry hits JJ again before noticing that Rafe was getting into it with Pope now.

"Hey!" He yells, getting up and JJ grabs his leg, pulling him down and making him drop the gun.

"Kie! Kick it! Kick it!" JJ yells at her and she runs over, kicking it out of the way.

I look back at my boyfriend as Pope is absolutely beating the crap out of him.

"Pope- stop!" I try and grab him but he shakes me off.

"Pope? Hey, Pope? That's enough!" Kie tries to get his attention now. We watch as he lays punch after punch on my boyfriend.

"Hey, man, Pope, he's had enough, stop!" JJ says, finally free from Barry to come and intervene, seeing that Rafe is in such bad shape he's no longer a threat.

"JJ do something!" I say, totally panicked now. I feel myself hyperventilating as I look at Rafe laying on the ground, and Pope proceeds to grab a rope and pull it back around his neck. I feel like I could throw up.

I turn away as my friends try to stop him- I feel like I can't move. Eventually, it gets quiet, and I see Kie and JJ pulling Pope away. I feel myself crawling quickly to Rafe's side, where he's laying on the floor, coughing and gasping for air.

"Rafe? Rafe? Hey, can you hear me?" I ask, kneeling over him and placing one hand on his cheek as he coughs. He's clearly been spitting out blood- it's covering his face. "You're gonna be okay- you're gonna be fine." I tell him as he looks up at me- I'm sure right now he can't talk.

He pulls me down on top of him into a hug, his hand in my hair as it falls down over both of us. I shake as I cry in his arms- how am I the one who's crying right now? My best friend just tried to kill him- he should hate me.

"Snowy- we've got to go right now." JJ says, and I feel his hand on my back. "I'm sorry- we have to go."

I feel Rafe hold me tighter in a desperate attempt to keep me from leaving, despite him being unable to speak.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." I cry, trying to pull away. After taking so many hits from Pope, and with a crowbar too, he's weak enough for me to get up.

JJ pulls me into a hug and quickly guides me away, and I look back over my shoulder pretty much the whole way to the car. Just as we're driving out of the garage with the Phantom, I see Rafe sitting up and wiping his eyes. It hurts me to see him cry. to know that I'm the one who made him cry. I feel sick.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･

We make it to the meeting spot, and my eyes are still burning from tears and my throat stinging as I sit silently on the dock. If i had a dollar for every time this summer I vomited from anxiety after seeing someone I love almost die at the hands of one of my best friends- I'd have two dollars. Not a huge amount by any means, but still way too much in my opinion. We had to stop for about five minutes on the drive over here, otherwise, I would have puked in Kie's car.

I run over our plan over and over again in my head while we're waiting for John B and the boys are readying the boats. Last night, I convinced Kegs to take a boat from the Camerons for JJ and I to take; our plan right now is to take it somewhere where it will be spotted, and we can take the cops off John B's tail so he can escape, and then he'll meet us in Mexico.

I'm turning over the note Kegs left for me on the boat, having read it about a hundred times.

Snowy,

Stay safe. We love you.

Until we see you again (in this life or the next),

Kegs

My heart shatters every time I read it, but it never changes.

I look up when I hear sirens approaching, and quickly stand up.

"Shit, they've got him." JJ says, and we all assume the 'act natural' pose- as we don't have time to run. Not that it will work, since we're in the presence of a stolen boat. As the police truck pulls up, we all look at each other with panic in our eyes, that is until John B steps out. I sigh a breath of relief as he turns off the vehicle.

"Wait- no way." JJ says in disbelief.

"No way!" Pope laughs a little.

"I'm sorry, uh.." Kie chuckles.

"Shoupe let me take it for a spin." The brunette explains, pulling his backpack over his shoulder.

"Okay, that's believable." I smile, holding my arms out for a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay..." I say as John B pulls me into a hug.

"It wasn't easy bro, but we got The Phantom for you." JJ says, patting him on the back. "She runs like she was made yesterday." He adds and tosses him the keys.

"Where's Sarah?" He asks us, and we all look at each other.

"She's not with you?"

"No, no. We got separated in the swamp. She said she was going to meet me here." John B insists.

"We haven't seen her..." I shake my head.

"Yeah, we haven't seen her man." Pope says.

"Okay, well I'm not leaving without her."

"John B, look at me." JJ says, "I know you feel bad for leaving, but there's no time, man. You've got plenty of gas, plenty of food. Once you get around that point, it's a straight shot to Dismal Swamp, okay?" He starts firing off the plan. "Once you get there, lay low, alright? Hang out for a couple of weeks, then go overland. Snowy and I will take a long way and meet you after you cross the border at Brownsville. You got that?"

John B has a vacant look in his eyes. When he doesn't respond, JJ grabs his face. "You got that? Brownsville."

"Yeah, yeah. Brownsville." John B nods as thunder rumbles across the sky.

"All right, saddle her up, saltwater cowboy. Let's do this." JJ says and I hold out my arms to hug my friends goodbye.

Kie instantly pulls me into her chest. "I love you, I'll see you soon, okay?" She says and I nod slightly, feeling tears come back to my eyes.

"I love you so much, Kie." I respond, hugging her tight. I pull away after a moment and look her in the eyes as we both start to cry. I laugh a little as I let her go, moving on to Pope.

I press my head into his chest and hold him tight. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop." He mumbles into my hair, rubbing my back.

"You scared me." I admit. "Don't go all tough on me now." I laugh slightly, I know if he can apologize, he's okay.

"Take care of Anna for me, yeah?" I joke, trying to change the subject and he laughs. "Do me a favor- if you don't have her blocked, will you teach them how to surf? That's all they wanted this summer."

Pope nods as he lets me go. "Of course." He smiles sadly. "Good luck, Snowy. We'll see you on the other side." He says and I nod, wiping my tears.

I turn and grab John B's arm right before he gets into The Phantom after hugging everyone. I go to say something, but I don't get the chance before he's hugging me again. "We're gonna get through this." He says, his lips pressed to my head.

"We've got this." I agree. "I'll see you soon. Stay safe." I say, pulling away and looking up at the boy who has grown to be my best friend. If you told me on the day I met him that one day he would be wanted for murder, I definitely wouldn't believe it. I honestly don't believe it now.

"You too." He replies, getting into the boat as I turn and see JJ holding out his hand to me from the other.

"Your carriage, Snow White." He jokes, but I can see his eyes are red too after hugging our friends goodbye.

"I think that's Cinderella." I laugh slightly as I take his hand, stepping into the boat and he starts it up.

"I'm gonna go say bye to Sarah, plan is still on, though!" John B shouts over the boat motors as we start to pull away from the dock.

"Brownsville!" JJ shouts back and John B gives him a thumbs up, going the opposite direction as us.

We drive away without a word shared between us, and I rest my head on JJ's shoulder after I pull on his spare hoodie and tuck all my hair into the hood.

We hear sirens behind us as we head just out of sight of the dock, where Pope and Kie are standing.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･

only one chapter left in part one! I'm so excited for y'all to read it I'm proud of that one lol

taglist: @boo22sstuff @madelynie @username5786451 (message me or reply if you want to be added!!)

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