#so of course Violence would be the most accessible idea in my brain | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bvtbxtch · 9 months

Text

Checkmate. | Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: You thought your night couldn't get much worse, until a certain metalhead makes you an offer you can't refuse.

Pairings: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader, Fem!Reader x Original!Jock!Character, minimal usage of Y/N.

Series Warnings: MDNI!!!! 18+ smut, fluff and angst, mentions of drug and alcohol use, Eddie and Reader partake in substances and he drives, both give consent under the influence but no one is so intoxicated they don't know what they're doing, mentions of physical harm towards reader and domestic violence if you squint. Ageless or minor blogs will be blocked.

Word Count: 9.8k (Shes a mammoth, of course)\

A/N: Hello my babies thank you for coming to my ted talk. Here is my next series and I have no idea how long it will be thank you kindly. This man has just had a chokehold on my brain. This fic was inspired by the song Sex by the 1975 and Checkmate by Conan Gray. I want to say a special thank you to @darknesseddiem for being my sweet angel baby and chatting with me through some hard shit!! Love you lots! I hope you all enjoy!!

Going to tag some mutuals and my fave blogs because I would love feedback and ideas on what you would like to see next!!

@andvys @eddiemunsons-missingnipple @eddie-munsons-mullet @ali-r3n @lovebugism @trashmouth-richie

“Fuck” you gasp as you frantically look in all of your jacket pockets for any remnants of a cigarette. Your eyes clouded with tears as you tried to take deep breaths. You wish that the ground would swallow you whole as drunk teens climbed over you on the front steps of whoever’s house was hosting this weekend’s rager. You wished you talked your boyfriend out of this party - hell you wish that you were at home alone. That way this mess would have been avoided, or it could have happened in the comfort of your own home - or without being humiliated by most of the people you went to highschool with.

You laid on Billy’s unmade bed, pulling back on your shirt and fixing your panties that had been hastily pushed to the side.

“So, is that really what you’re wearing tonight?” the blonde studied you through the mirror on his wall. He had pulled his old Hawkins tee over his curls and smoothed it over his toned stomach.

“Wha- what’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” You peered down at your bare legs and suddenly felt self conscious. You had picked out Billy’s ‘favorite’ plaid skirt (for easy access) and paired it with an oversized one shoulder tee. Your previously perfected curls stood in a halo of frizz after your pre party escapades (which if you were feeling honest with yourself, were more pleasurable for one of you).

“It just, is like the same thing you always wear, babe. Show off that bod you got, you look like a prude” Billy sneered. You rolled your eyes as you readjusted the shirt you had donned.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go tonight,” you mumbled.

“What are you talking about?” the mullet of curls whirled around and glared at you. “This is the biggest party of the summer and I need to make an appearance. You know people will ask questions if you aren’t there.” He stalked up to the bed and stood over where you sat. He grabbed your chin and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. “Plus what happens when I get too drunk and need to relieve myself in the bathroom, huh?” He snickered as he grabbed your hands and pulled you up. “Now get out of that pretty head of yours and get ready to have fun. It's like all of our favorite things. Booze, friends, music, me…” He pulled you to the door and smacked your ass as you left, you let out a yelp and a sigh as you walked to his front door.

“Those sound like all of your favorite things.” You mumbled, but the boy did not hear you. The two of you pulled out of his driveway and raced through the sleepy streets of Hawkins.

“Who’s all gonna be there tonight?” You asked. You weren't necessarily miss congeniality when it came to the Hawkins High population. You often found solace of the likes of Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley; Steve being your neighbor since you moved to town, and Robin hardly ever leaving his side. They were the few other people who you felt fully comfortable being yourself around.

“Well of course all the boys are gonna be there, I think Harrington said he might show up, and Chrissy and the cheer girls will probably go, and… Heather will be there”He stuttered on Heather’s name, which made you look over at him. His cheeks cast a light pink glow and he glued his eyes to the road. He had never mentioned her by name before. She had always been a part of the ‘popular girls’. You were a secure person but you had a knot in your stomach. You hadn’t seen as much of your boyfriend lately, apparently going to show his alumni support at basketball games, or out with the boys. He had come back to your bed with a few suspicious looking marks on his chest and neck that he had shook off as bruises from golf with the guys. You weren’t dumb; you had your suspicions, but you found it easier to not confront him now. College applications had just gone out, and you had heard back from few. You were ready to leave Billy Hargrove and this shitty town, but the prospects were dwindling and even if you didn’t have a future, you would have someone to be with in town. You felt the stomach acid rising in your throat, making you feel sick.

“Heather, huh? You haven’t mentioned her before”

“Yeah, she has been at a few shindigs before… do you not remember?” Billy’s voice was hoarse, he was getting defensive. “Why are you getting so jealous?”

“Whatever, Hargrove. Let’s just drop it.” You had minimal energy to fight with him.

“No seriously, do you have a problem with her? Like, she’s just a girl, we’re dating. Do you seriously not trust me? Because I’ll stay stuck to your side all night if that’s what you fucking want.” His voice continued to rise as he babbled.

“Jesus fuck! I don’t care that much! You just haven’t mentioned her before. Just drop it” You scowled and turned your body to stare out the window.

“No, you look at me” The man grabbed your arm and pulled you hard towards the console of his car. “Do you fucking think I’m stupid? I’d drop your sorry ass before I went on to someone else - and this kind of shit makes me want to drop your ass so you better fucking behave because you know what happens if I fucking dump you.” His eyes were now fixed on yours instead of the road. You pulled your arm away with no avail

“Jesus, fine, I get it! Now let go, you’re hurting me” He let go of your arm as you threw your body towards the car door. You let a small ‘asshole’ slip out of your mouth, but he did not hear you. You rode in silence to the party. When the car stopped you opened your door and slammed it shut, leaving Billy to scramble out of his car after you. He caught up to you and grabbed your wrist.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He pouted

“Yeah whatever, let’s just drop it, okay? We’re here for a good time” you mumbled. You would do anything to get out of his grip. You needed a drink. He pulled you into his chest and planted a sloppy kiss to your mouth. He tried to stick his tongue in your mouth to deepen the kiss but you pulled away from him and led him inside with a tight lipped smile.

As the hours bled together like the alcohol on the linoleum, your brain begins to go fuzzy. Your boyfriend who was, at one time, hanging off of you, was nowhere to be found. You excuse yourself from the flip cup tournament occurring in the dining room to go to the bathroom and ground yourself from the alcohol that you had consumed. You came face to face with a girl with beautiful brown locks and big brown eyes. As soon as she looked up at you, she cast her gaze to the floor and scurried past you, a guilty smile plastered to her lips. As you made it to the end of the hallway, you were met with your boyfriend's figure. His eyes bulged out as you now stormed towards him; his hands flew to his neck.

“What the fuck is this?” you clamor, the alcohol fuelling your courage and anger.

“What are you talking about?” You pushed Billy into the wall and grabbed his wrists. When his neck was freed, you were met with sprinkles of violet bruises and lipstick.

“Are you fucking kidding me” you laughed dryly. You pulled Derek’s shirt up to see the marks lead down his stomach and disappear at the hem of his jeans. You let go and your hand wound up to slap his cheek. He takes the hit and stalks after you as you trudge back to the party.

“Y/N wait!” Billy’s pleas garner a crowd, drunk party goers begin to form a snickering gang around the two of you.

“Tell Heather I say hey, and stay the fuck away from me okay?” You turn on your heel and head for the front door.

“You want a puff of mine?” You hear a familiar voice ask you. You feel a soft thump and warmth beside you. You look over and you are met with dazzling chocolate brown eyes, a mop of curly bangs and a lopsided smile. The boy has a joint pinched between his fingers and is holding it between the two of you. You can smell the alcohol and weed radiating off of him, but unlike most of the people here, it brings you comfort. You don’t condone taking anything from strangers but tonight you needed it - and he wasn’t a stranger. Not really.

“Thanks” you whisper as you take the joint from his hands and place it in your mouth. The boy flicks his zippo and holds it to the joint in your mouth. When he pulls away, he spends what seems like hours studying your face. Your face was flushed, but you were pale. Your brows were furrowed in (what he thought was) the most beautiful way. Your lipstick had left a distant stain on your mouth and your mascara had just begun to smudge under your eyes. You looked tired, and you had obviously been crying. Eddie thinks you’re the most interesting and beautiful person he has seen tonight. He had thought you were beautiful when he had bumped into you in the hallways, or shared a friendly wave under the bleachers during a smoke break; but seeing you up close was worlds different. He feels addicted to your face already - maybe it was the beers and weed talking, but he couldn’t look away.

“How much do I owe you, Munson?” you mouthed through the joint.

“Owe me? Princess, you wound me! This one is free of charge.” Eddie quips as he throws his hands to his heart. He smiles as he plucks the joint from your lips, takes a puff, and places it back in your mouth. As little as you had talked to the metalhead in school, you remembered always being intrigued by him. Your gaze often rested on him as he made an ass out of himself. You often caught yourself smiling with him. His face always felt so kind and welcoming, a welcome change from the cruel judgmental stares of the population of Hawkins High. The only reason you weren’t eaten alive was because of Billy. Without him, you would have been the freaky new girl. But you also knew that Eddie Munson’s reputation preceded him: although he was labeled the freak, he was one of the few drug dealers in Hawkins, which also made him a hot commodity with the female population - and was masterful with skills that pertained to them (apparently).

“Totally free, huh? No strings attached?” you teased as you knocked your shoulder into his.

“Nah, pretty girl clause. I don’t charge for them… especially when they’ve been crying” His smile fell as he examined you. You met his eyes briefly but you couldn’t keep his gaze.. You glued your eyes to your sneakers. Eddie grabbed your chin softly and raised your face to meet his.

“Pretty girls like you shouldn’t be outside of a party crying, you should be making the boys inside cry” he thumbed at a rogue tear that fell down your face, then grabbed the joint from you again. Your breath hitched as he blew smoke back at your face.

“Tell me what’s going on.” You have no idea why, but you trusted him with your predicament.

“My-my boyfriend… I just caught him with another girl.” You laugh at yourself as the words fall out of your mouth. You never thought you would be the pathetic girl babbling to someone about her shitty life, but here you are. Eddie’s eyes harden and he begins to tense his jaw.

“Who’s your boyfriend?” he growls.

“Umm, his name is Billy”

“Fuck- no way, Billy Hargrove did this to you? What a fucking prick! What are you gonna do?”

“Nothing tonight. It’s not even worth it.” You slump. Wiping your eyes, you look back up to Eddie and smile. “Sorry, don’t mean to be a buzzkill. You can go back inside if you want, Eddie. I shouldn’t be bothering you with my shit.”

“Sweetheart, wherever you are feels like it's the most interesting place to be… now if I go inside, I would really hope that you would join me because the two of us can’t have much fun at this party if you’re out here alone, now can we?” Both you and Eddie blush furiously. His words went straight to the pit of your stomach. You didn’t know what you deserved for him to be so nice to you, but you hope that it doesn’t stop. Eddie jumps up onto his feet and stands in front of you, his hands reaching out to yours to pull you up. For a split second, you felt unsure of yourself. You stopped before Eddie led you back up the porch steps towards the house.

“You aren’t being nice to me just to get in my pants are you, Munson?” Although you try your best to hide it, insecurity seeps through your voice.

“Normally I would be flattered, but I can tell that’s the opposite of what you need right now. If you would let me, Y/N, I would love to go shotgun a beer with you and have fun at a party, that’s it.” Eddie’s smile is genuine. His eyes are soft and he smiles warmly at you. For the first time in what seemed like hours, you smiled a genuine smile. With a small ‘lets go’, you let Eddie lead you back into the party.

After a few more drinks, you find yourself across from Eddie in a circle of drunk teens. A beer bottle centered between all of you. You were never one for drinking games like this, but tonight you need a change, you want to do something you normally never would, thanks to your new drinking companion. What you don't anticipate is your boyfriend entering the circle, Heather not far behind him. Your gaze hardens as you see him fold his legs into a seated position. He looked angry at you, which fuelled your rage even more - how the fuck could he be mad at you? Your eyes peel from his form, to the lanky metalhead sitting across from you. He mouths the words ' it's okay’ then sends you a wink, your posture relaxed and you focus all of your attention at the mop head across the circle from you, not the boy you thought loved you.

A few rounds of the bottle, a few rounds of kisses, a few rounds of laughs. You are enjoying reacting to what was happening in the game of spin the bottle until the glass in the center lands on you. Time seems to stand still as you feel your heartbeat in your ears. Eddie’s face drops as he watches you, sensing your panic. He looks down at his hands and picks his thumbnails, not wanting to see the hot mess that was going to unfold in front of him. He was too pissed at your boyfriend to watch you - a literal angel - kiss someone who had hurt you so bad.

You felt your eyes beginning to well up with tears, feeling like you only had one choice in the circle full of strangers. You could hear some of them laughing at you - obviously knowing of what had transpired between you and Billy before. You look around desperately, hoping there is some way you could take your leave, then you make eye contact with the boy that had his stare trained on the floor. Your heart pounds harder as you unravel your legs and crawl across the circle - in the opposite direction of where your boyfriend was sitting. There are gasps and oohs escaping the crowd as you inch your way closer to the boy you were going to kiss. Eddie looks up at the commotion and instantly turns flush as his stare meets yours. You seem calm, but Eddie’s hands begin to shake. He makes the mistake of glancing over at Billy, who is bright red and clenching his fists. Was this really happening?

Eddie uncrosses his own legs and leans back on his hands, ready to receive you. As you meet his legs, he holds his breath. You slink up his body and when your face was close enough for Eddie to feel your breath on his face, you part your legs and sit into his lap. Eddie’s breath immediately hitches as everyone in the room falls silent. His arms fly to hover around your waist as your arms wrap around his neck. You gently lean in and close your eyes, giving Eddie a chance to pull away if he wanted to (but lord knows he didn’t). Your lips meet softly and you feel everything around you still. Eddie’s lips are chapped, but still feel soft against yours. You move your face to the side slightly for Eddie to deepen the kiss. His tongue glides across your lip as a permission to deepen your embrace further. You hum into him and he takes advantage, his tongue softly roaming the inside of your mouth, battling your own tongue. Your stomach backflips as Eddie grabs the side of your face, your squirm in his lap causes him to moan softly into your mouth. Everything felt spinny in the best way possible, you grab onto Eddie as you are afraid the euphoria was going to send you floating away. Suddenly, you feel a tight grip on your arm and you are being pulled to your feet from behind. You’re separated from Eddie with a smack of your mouths, and you are left to gaze at him in total awe as you are dragged out of the room backwards.The grip on your arm pulls you around the corner and it wasn’t until Eddie was fully out of sight that you felt any sort of panic.

Your back hit the wall with a thud and you were instantly trapped between two large biceps. You stare up at furious baby blue eyes glaring back at you. Billy’s hot breath fans over your face.

“What the fuck was that, Y/N? Are you fucking kidding me?” he slurs through gritted teeth. The vein on his neck was beginning to pop out. You’ve seen this vein many times before. The alcohol and intoxicating kiss were going to your head and the idea of your hypocrite boyfriend getting mad at you for a stupid spin the bottle game after he had fucked someone else gave you the giggles. You let a small one slip past your lips. Billy slams his hands against the wall that leaves a ring in your ears and your chest tightening. Your giggle fades and smile drops instantly.

“Fucking humiliate me like that again and I will fucking ruin you. You got it? You wanna do anything in this town, you want to see anyone, I’ll make sure you can’t. University? That fucking gross record store you work at? Gone. I’ll fucking own your life if you do that shit to me ever again. I can’t believe you would do something like that to me.”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me, right? You’re the one that’s mad at me?” you sneer. Derek takes a step back like you have punched him in the gut. “Go cry on Heather’s shoulder, because as far as I’m concerned, I’m single tonight. Fuck my life up just as hard as you fucked Heather in the bathroom.” The furious figure's hand forms a hard fist at his side. He looks like he is getting ready to wind up and hit you and you wince prematurely in anticipation…

Eddie sits in the circle completely stunned; your lips still burned onto his. It took him several seconds for his breathing to steady and for him to realize where he was: in front of a crowd of drunk teens that now look at him wide eyed, saying nothing. It also took him moments to realize that you were in fact sitting on his lap, but now were not. He runs his hands through his curls and offers his audience a tight lipped smile as he leans over and spins the bottle again. He rises from his seat and sets off after your figure, which had just disappeared around the corner. He floats over to where he could see your shadow, knees still shaky from going weak underneath your body. What he is greeted with snaps him out of his daze.

“Hey, is this dickhead bothering you?” a welcome voice rang in your ear and saves you in the knick of time. You look over to the side and see the once soft and dazzling brown irises are cold, his lopsided smile curved into a frown and his jaw was tense. Billy’s eyes meet with Eddie’s and you swear you see smoke coming out of his ears.

“Fuck off, Munson. This is between me and my girlfriend , so why don’t you find some other desperate slut to take home and leave her alone, okay?” He pushes two fingers into Eddie’s shoulder.

“Woah, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” you snap.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. The meathead needs to take his aggression out on someone, apparently the fuck in the bathroom didn’t do it for him” Eddie snarls, puffing his chest out, inviting Derek to make a move.

“Sweetheart? I’ll fucking-” Derek goes to swing at the metalhead’s face but you insert yourself between the two of them.

“Both of you, back the fuck up. I am so not in the fucking mood.” You push Eddie away, towards the front door. Eddie’s eyes are trained on the enraged boy, ensuring he stays planted in the hallway. Your boyfriend’s hands are held in fists so hard that you imagine there’s crescent shapes etching into his palms. Once you were a safe distance away, Eddie’s gaze shifts to your hands pushing on his chest. He grabs them and pulls you to the entryway of the house. His eyes soften when they land on you, his face now painted with worry.

“Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he? I’ll fucking kill him if he-”

“Relax, Munson. I’m okay. He’s pissed. I guess he has the right to be.”

“Are you kidding? You have every right to be pissed at him! The way I see it, you just got revenge - which I am happy to have helped facilitate by the way.” To Eddie’s surprise, your retort to his comment was a wholehearted chuckle. He looks at you in amused bewilderment as you give him a hearty laugh. Your nose scrunches up and your eyes begin to water. Eddie’s heart soars, he thinks he could get used to seeing you like this. He takes a mental picture that he hopes will last him forever. Your laugh is infectious and soon he joins you. Your head leans into his chest and he is holding you to ground himself as well - feeling like he was going to explode with glee just being around you. Your laughing settles and you peered up at your savior, your eyes becoming cloudy with anxiety.

“Hey, this party kind of blows” he scoffs. “You wanna go?” he rubs circles into your shoulder comfortingly. You lean into his touch and smile softly.

“Yeah, I am ready to get the fuck out of here. Walk me home?”

“Oh, sweetheart. I’ll do you one better.” Eddie grabs your hand and leads you to the door. As you shut the door behind you, you make eye contact with Heather, who is staring wide eyed at you. You felt sorry for her. As difficult as it felt, you let the thought of her marks down your boyfriend’s body disappear with her figure behind the door.

You shiver in the damp summer twilight. Hawkins had been blistering hot during the daytime, but the nights were a welcome pause. You take a deep inhale of fresh air as you catch up to Eddie at the end of the driveway. You walk with him in comfortable silence. The streetlights encapsulate Eddie in a halo of light, his pale skin glowing and eyes shining. The more you study the mop headed boy, the faster your heart beats. Once you have rounded the corner of the sidewalk the boy grabs your hand. You flinch, but squeeze his hand tightly in appreciation. Why was he being so nice to you today? Are you just a lay for tonight or is he genuinely interested in you? As much as you wanted it to be genuine, you remind yourself that anything to distract you from this night was welcome. And he was in fact a pretty cute distraction.

“I’m sorry your boyfriend’s a dick” he utters. He bumps his shoulder with yours as your eyes turn to the pavement beneath your converse.

“Yeah, it’s okay I guess.” Eddie could feel you shutting down. Your grip loosens on his hand.

“You don’t deserve that, you know?” Eddie stops walking and pulls you to face him. You roll your eyes and scoff at him.

“Alright, Munson. Take it easy, if you keep this up I might think that you like me or something”

“But, I do like you.” Eddie retorts. His answer blindsides you. He can’t mean he likes you like that. Plus you have a boyfriend.

“You don’t even know me.”

“Well, I know that kiss wasn’t just a normal kiss” Eddie’s eyes bored into you, full of a comforting darkness that was unfamiliar to you.. A coldness ran through your veins and you felt your breath catch in your throat. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We give you some matching marks that your boyfriend has. We can have fun tonight and you can forget about what you saw at that party. Or we enjoy the ride back to your house and we say goodnight and I still go home feeling like the luckiest guy in the world because I got to kiss a really beautiful girl tonight. What do you say? Van’s right here.”

Your cheeks are hot and the butterflies in your stomach feel like they are going to fly out of your body. Your mouth feels dry and your head is spinning. Did he really just offer to sleep with you to get back at Billy? Would you even be able to bring yourself to do it? But the kiss… You couldn’t stop picturing the kiss. It felt perfect. It felt like he was the only person that you were supposed to kiss. If your shitty boyfriend was off with someone else, why shouldn’t you have fun too? You stand in contemplative silence for a moment, then look up at Eddie with your big doe eyes. He feels like he could fall apart right then. You nod feverishly at him. He studies your face closely to make sure there was no hesitation, then his eyes darken with excitement and something that you could not read.

Eddie lunges into you like you are his prey. His hands fly to your hips and he pushes you onto the side of his van. Your mouth opens to let him deepen the kiss and he hums into you. Your butterflies move from your stomach to your core as Eddie puts his knee in between your legs. You break the kiss to catch your breath, giving the brunette prime real estate at your neck. He traces kisses from the side of your mouth to your pulse point, then he bites down hard - garnering a sharp gasp from you. You feel Eddie chuckle against your skin. He drags his tongue against the new bruise that was forming to soothe the dull ache.

“Eddie” you gasp, feeling the strength slipping from your legs, you needed more from him. Eddie raises his head from your neck. His golden eyes bore into you with pure lust and passion, but he is considerate; he studies your face closely, looking for any trace of hesitancy. He pushes his weight off of you and gives you air.

“You okay? This is okay right?” God, you feel as if you were going to drown in his eyes. His voice is saccharine sweet and you want to melt into him. But there was a sickly pang of guilt, knowing that you were doing all of this behind your boyfriend’s back. No matter how shitty he was, you couldn’t help but feel bad. But Eddie making you feel this good was too difficult to ignore; so, you decide that you can feel bad later - now it was time for you to give in to what feels good.

“Yeah, we should get going,” you pant. You pull at the lapels of his vest so he is back on you, your lips feeling lonely without him. You feel Eddie pawing at the passenger door of his van to the left of you. Once he gets it unlocked, he lifts you by the hips and sits you on the passenger seat, but instead of detaching himself from your lips, he grabs at your thighs so they wrap around his lean waist. A shock wave of pleasure shoots straight to your core as you feel Eddie’s calloused hands trace up your thighs. His cool rings send shivers down your spine and spread heat to your core. You push your body closer to Eddie’s, which warrants a moan into your mouth. Eddie’s beginning to sweat, he feels like he could explode any minute. The feeling of your core just a few layers of where he wants you the most drives him wild. His hands wander to the hem of your skirt and up the top of your thighs. You use his infatuation with your legs to mouth at his neck. You pepper soft pecks to his Adam's apple, pulling a hard gulp from the boy. Your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest in anticipation of what was going to come next. You spread a blotchy galaxy of bruises across his neck, but when you bite down on his pulse point, you hear a growl in the back of Eddie’s throat that takes your breath away.

“Fuck, sweetheart. You’re driving me crazy, you know that?” His hands travel further up your legs and rest at your hip, toying with the hem of your panties. You wiggle your hips as silent encouragement. Eddie hooks his fingers around the soft cotton of your underwear and pulls them down cautiously, giving you plenty of time to stop him if needed. The summer breeze hits your core and you shiver. Eddie gasps once he has your panties in his hand.

“Cute underwear. This all for me? You’re so wet already” he coos as he scrunches the fabric into his hand. “I’m gonna have to take these as a souvenir, if you don’t mind” You roll your eyes and laugh, but your smile fades as Eddie drops to his knees in front of you, never breaking eye contact with you.

“E-Eddie, what are you doing? We can’t do this in the middle of the road” you protest, pulling your skirt down and tugging your knees together.

“Then you better be quiet so we don’t get caught”. Eddie returns his hands to your thighs and traces over your knees so he can pull your legs back open. With a sigh, you give in. Eddie gives you a reassuring smirk, then presses a kiss to your knee. It feels like it is getting harder and harder to take steady breaths as you watch the beautiful boy beneath you plant chaste kisses up your thigh. You felt like you were going to suffocate the closer he got to where you wanted him the most, the anticipation strangling you like a noose. You wriggle in the seat, head pulled down to examine what the metalhead was doing beneath you.

“Such a pretty pussy, baby” Eddie's praises went straight to your core and you let out a strained moan. Eddie sent a pointed look up to you, warning you to keep quiet. You bite down on your lip as the boy disappears under the small amount of skirt left covering your decency. Eddie presses small kisses around your cunt, making you twitch with every move. You’re getting desperate for some release and Eddie could tell. Your hips subtly thrust towards his face and you can feel a smile on the next teasing kiss.

“Eddie, please, please,” your calls sound like prayers to him and he could get used to hearing the hymn coming from you. He decides to relieve you from your distress and takes a long swipe along your folds. You wrack out a mewl so sensual Eddie felt like he could cum right then. His tongue felt euphoric and he hums praise into you as he takes another swipe.

“Pussy tastes so good, princess. You’re so sweet” Eddie says before his lips bare down on your clit, sending your head jolting back in ecstasy. One of your hands flies to the roof of the van, the other in Eddie’s hair. As you claw at his scalp, Eddie doubles down on your heat, sending you closer and closer over the edge.

“Eddie, please, I’m so close” you pant.

“Come on, Y/N. Cum for me” Eddie encourages, probing a finger into your throbbing core. Eddie fixates his tongue on your clit, ensuring his eyes can watch your face as you fall apart over him. His finger curls expertly inside you, encouraging your orgasm to radiate through your body. Before you can register what was happening, your chest grows tight and you lose all feelings in your legs, a euphoric sob is pulled from your lungs and you couldn’t help but tighten your grip in Eddie’s hair, to his delight. Eddie moans into your core as he works you through, feeling hardly able to control his own high as well. When you moan again, Eddie detaches his mouth from you and swiftly raises to his feet. His hand cupped over your mouth as he continued to pump in and out of you, pushing you to overstimulation. You mewl beneath Eddie’s hand and he scolds you.

“Now, this is how you get us caught, sweetheart.” Eddie peers down each side of the sidewalk, luckily no one had seen the two of you. Eddie pulls his fingers out of your cunt and takes his hand off of your mouth, giving you an opportunity to catch your breath. Chest heaving, feeling high solely off of your orgasm, you swoon as you watch Eddie take the fingers that are covered in your essence and pop them into his mouth, sucking them clean.

“Get in the back, pretty girl” Eddie demands. You shake your head as you hop off the seat, legs wobbly and head spinning. You take Eddie’s hand and climb into the now open sliding door, giving Eddie a beautiful shot of your glistening pussy under your skirt. He curses to himself as he climbs in after you.

You take in the sights of the back of Eddie’s van and although it isn’t necessarily clean, it is cozy and you immediately feel comfortable being there with him. There are a few throw pillows tossed haphazardly in the corner, along with a few blankets strewn out on the floor. Cassettes littered whatever area they could claim and various metal posters decorated the walls. To your surprise, a line of wrapped condoms sat in one of the cupholders.

Eddie’s mouth was back on you as soon as he closed the door. The taste of your own essence and the weed you had smoked earlier made you feel high all over again. Eddie sits back against one of the van’s walls and guides you by the hips into his lap. The feeling of his rough denim on your bare core riled you up and again you were a mewling mess on his lap.

“Take this off, I wanna see you” Eddie mutters as he fumbles with the hem of your T-shirt. You fling off your shirt as Eddie ogles at your figure. His hands drift to your breasts and he moans in satisfaction.

“If I take mine off, you gotta take yours off” you tease. Eddie happily obliges you and pulls his shirt off. You were finally able to fully take in the boy's beautiful alabaster skin. You admired the dark ink that danced along his muscles and the neat lining of hair that leads to where you want to see the most. As much as you appreciated the distraction, you did find yourself truly appreciating Eddie for his looks as well as his sexual prowess. He truly was beautiful and looked even more so looking up at you with a fucked out stare, eyeing you like you were his whole universe. Eddie mouthed at the edge of your bra as he reaches around your back to unclasp your pesky straps. Your moans and breaths invigorate him even more and you could now feel his erection growing furiously hard beneath you. When your bra falls from your shoulders, Eddie captures one of your nipples in his mouth, while pawing at your other breast. You wanted his mouth to become a permanent fixture of your body. He felt so natural being there, and you couldn’t get enough. Your hands land on Eddie’s pecs, feeling the muscles moving beneath you, you claw down his stomach. Eddie hisses into your skin, loving the pain. You fumble with his belt beneath you, impatient to get his pants off. Again, you feel Eddie’s smirk against your skin. He separates himself from you to assist you in unclasping his belt and pants.

“Impatient girl,” he teases.

“Just get your pants off, Munson” You want your response to sound confident and sassy, but you are getting desperate, and your voice sounds whiny and breathy. It made Eddie laugh in confidence. He could ask you to do anything for him and you would do it right now, he knew that.

Eddie grabs your wrists that were still frantically trying to get into his pants and he pulls them away. You wriggle off of him and watch with bated breath as the boy peels off his jeans. Your eyes widen at the erection that Eddie is sporting. You couldn’t help yourself - you reach to him and run your hand across his bulge, eliciting a hiss from the boy. You flinch, but return your hand.

“Is this okay?” you question with sickly sweet care. Eddie could cum right this second.

“More than okay, princess,” he sighs. “Feels so fucking good already”. You place yourself between the boy’s legs and continue to rub at him, squeezing his length and rubbing your hands over his sensitive head every few strokes.

You understand how Eddie could get off by pleasuring you, because the sounds he was making sent heat straight to your core. His sighs and praises left you with a bewildered smile on your face. Your fingers curl beneath Eddie’s plaid boxers and he held his breath. You share a look, ensuring each other that you were both okay with going forward. You free Eddie’s cock and it flexes up towards his bellybutton. He is large - both exceptionally long and girthy. His veins trace the underside of his cock and lead to his weeping, pink tip. You feel your mouth watering as you lower yourself to Eddie’s waist. Your eyes peer up at him as you take one long swipe at him with your tongue. Eddie's eyes roll to the back of his head as he lets out a groan. You tease his tip, taking it into your mouth and swirling your tongue around his slit. Eddie’s hand finds purchase in your hair, stroking and pulling softly to ground himself. He was desperate to cum, he could just let himself go in this second, but then he wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of the time he has with you.

“Fuck, babe. You feel so good on my cock” Eddie’s praise encouraged you to take as much of Eddie that would fit in your mouth, and sucked back up his length. You bob on his cock until your eyes are watering. You milk Eddie for all of his sweet sounds and touches. You take a moment to look up at the boy and you are met with one of the most beautiful sights you have ever seen.

Eddie’s mouth was parted slightly. His bangs were beginning to stick to his forehead from the heat in the van. The rest of his hair settled on his shoulders, curls beginning to frizz. His brows were perfectly furrowed in concentration. His eyes pressed shut. A red flush formed on his face. He looked angelic. You could get used to looking at him like this: a moaning mess underneath you. You push Eddie’s cock further into your mouth and hold it there. Eddie’s eyes fling open in ecstasy and he looks down at you. He also thinks this is one of the best sights he’s ever seen. Then he feels you gag and he feels like his soul has left his body.

You moan into him then you gag, pulling back to catch your breath. Suddenly, Eddie is pushing you back against the opposite wall of the van.

“Eddie wha-”

“As much as I love seeing you choke on my cock, I can’t fucking hold on anymore. I need your pussy,” Eddie pleads as he undos the zipper on your skirt. You assist him in pulling it off as he reaches into his cup holder and grabs a small silver foil. He rips it open with his teeth and hisses as he slides the condom onto his penis. You felt a pang of nerves now. Being so close and intimate to Eddie felt so evil - he wasn’t your boyfriend. But it felt so right. Your pussy quivered just thinking of him being inside you. Eddie positioned between your legs. He rubbed his head between your folds, evoking moans from both of you.

“Fuck, you’re still so wet. You like sucking my dick, huh?” Eddie quips.

“Unff. Eddie, I love it.” You jolt as his head rubs at your clit. “Please, Eddie. Need you”

Eddie's eyes drop to where you are connected and he lines himself up with your entrance. He slowly presses in with a low growl.

“Fuck. You’re sucking me in”

“So big Eddie. Fuck” You pant. He had gotten barely half way and you felt deliciously full already. The stretch, mixing pleasure and pain. He is a perfect gentleman in taking his time with you. You admire his self control. You could tell going slow was not easy for him. His brows were furrowed even harder than before, his breath short and raspy. Finally, Eddie bottoms out. You felt like you were going to lose control too. You whimper underneath the metalhead.

“It's okay baby, you take my cock so well” Eddie’s hand came up to stroke your face gently, a brash juxtaposition to the lewd act you were both participating in. You turn your cheek and open your mouth on Eddie’s thumb. You look up at him with your watery eyes and suck down hard. Eddie thought he was going to collapse right then and there.

Eddie pulls himself all the way back out of you, instantly making you feel empty. You’re overwhelmed with fullness and pleasure as his cock rams back into you. You can’t help but yell out in pleasure. You bite your lip and cover your mouth with your hands. Eddie begins fucking into you at a ruthless pace. He pulls your hand from your mouth .

“Don’t stop those noises. I wanna hear you” he coos, pulling a sob from you. His cock hits just the right spot and you could feel yourself hurling towards the second orgasm of the night.

“E-Eddie… m’close. Please don’t stop” you whine. Eddie smiles down at you, quickening his pace. His hand flies down to where the two of you meet and while muttering endless praises, rubs precise circles on your clit. You feel Eddie’s hips stutter as he watches your eyes roll to the back of your head and gasp as your orgasm falls on you. Your pussy has Eddie in a vice and he could barely hold back his own finish, but he was determined to work you through your climax, to make you feel as good as you can for as long as he could. He can feel your legs shaking beneath him and sees tears well up in your eyes. As you push his hands away from your sensitive clit, he puts his hands beneath your back and pulls you into his lap. Your hands fly to the wall of the van. Eddie fucks into your pussy at a dizzying pace, so hard that you felt that you could barely hold on.

“That’s right baby, bounce on that cock like a good girl. Take it” You whine at his words while your pussy throbs from your ebbing orgasm. You look around and suddenly feel a pang of jealousy. You wondered how many girls he had done this with in the back of his van - hell, anywhere. Were you just another conquest? What makes you different? Eddie saw an opportunity and he took it; and as hypocritical as you were, you hated thinking that he was going to leave the party and go see someone else. You look down at Eddie, his hair surrounding him like a halo, his cheeks fully flushed and sweat dripping down his face.

“Come for me, Eddie.”

“Wha-”

“Come for me. Come on, I wanna see you cum” Your eyes darken with lust and never left his face. You could feel his dick twitching inside of you and his breath shallowed. With a grunt and a few hard thrusts, you could feel Eddie’s cock being milked for all it was worth. You almost wish that he wasn’t wearing a condom so you could really feel him. His hips settle and you put your weight down on Eddie’s body, both heaving and sweaty. You let out a small giggle but Eddie studies your face closely, something is happening behind your eyes. Something’s wrong.

“Hey” , his voice was soft and tender. “Everything okay?”

“What? Of course. That was… that was great” you sigh, but Eddie doesn’t seem convinced. You roll off of him and lay to his right, looking into his beautiful brown eyes.

“If you regret it we don’t have to do it ever again and you can pretend like you don’t know me” Eddie’s eyes darted from yours and a dry laugh left his lips. Was Eddie Munson insecure?

“Eddie, that was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I don’t regret it at all” you smile at him. You can feel his muscles relax beside you and his face sank into his usual dopey smile. You weren’t lying. Things with your boyfriend had been… tense to say the least.

The movie playing out of Billy’s old pick up truck was drowned out by wet smacks against your neck. As usual, your boyfriend ignored your requests to not be marked up and was in the middle of gnawing at you when his hands started to migrate to your thigh. You nudged his hand away, but he persisted, swatting your hand away from his. This time, he wrapped his strong arms around your waist. His kisses traveled down to your collar bone and he played with the hem of your shirt.

“Babe, we’re in public.” You scolded him, pushing him off of you. You had begun to feel like everyone around you was aware of what you were doing. You weren’t afraid of taking some risks, but you were just not feeling it tonight.

“Yeah, and the public is watching a movie, so relax.” Billy presses his kiss-swollen lips to yours and forces his tongue into your mouth. You took your hands and pressed against his pecks to push him off.

“I don’t want to do this right now, Hargrove. Seriously.” You turned your whole body against the door, away from him. He scoffed at you and you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks.

“So you wear a skimpy little dress like that and you agree to come to the drive in with me just to actually sit and fucking watch a movie? Or are you dressing up for someone else? Andy works here right? Is that who it’s for?” His voice raised with every word he spat at you. You could feel the tears starting to prick at your eyes. But you wouldn’t cry for him - you didn’t want to give him what he wants. You’re pulled out of your thoughts as a death grip engulfs your bicep. Billy pulls you to him, so close that you can feel his breath fanning on your face. Your breath gets caught in your throat.

“Don’t joke like that, Billy. I would never.”

“Prove it to me then.”

“Wh-what” you whimpered.

“Prove to me how much you love me.”

“Billy… please”

“Prove. It.” he seethed. He let your arm go and pushed you towards the passenger door. He leaned back and undid his jeans.

He raised his arms behind his head in satisfaction as you held back tears. You opened the truck door and slammed it, trudging towards the small concession to ask Robin for a ride home.

You and Eddie wrangle your clothes, sharing small laughs and pleasant conversation. You both share another joint as you both stall ending the night. Finally, the conversation lulls and you’re afraid the time has come for you to go home. Eddie lets out a lazy yawn and you can’t help but admire his treasure trail that peeks out over his jeans as he stretches his arms above his head.

“You getting tired?” he inquires, fidgeting with his rings.

“Yeah, I could sleep,” you admit. It was close to three in the morning and not only had you been up for almost 24 hours, you were so emotionally exhausted, feeling whiplash from your eventful evening. “I can let you go home,” you get up to open the van door, but Eddie grabs you by the waist and pulls you back into him. You giggle giddily. It’s been a long time since you have enjoyed being manhandled, but all of Eddie’s intentions seem so sickly sweet you couldn’t help but blush.

“Woah woah woah. You think I am going to let you walk home looking like that” He snorts.

“Looking like what?”

“Fucking gorgeous, and fucked out’. Eddie’s eyes rake over your figure again, sending heat back straight to your core. “Plus, I still have your underwear and there’s no way in hell you’re gonna walk home without those.”

“Well, you could give them back then,” you retort

“Not a chance in hell, sweetheart” He lands a chaste peck on your cheek before unwrapping his arms from you. He swings open the sliding door and hops out. Galivantly, he spins on his heel and offers his hand out to you. You take it and hop down onto the sidewalk. He opens the passenger door for you and helps you in. Once you are settled, he entraps you between his arms and leans his face close to yours. His eyes flicker between your mouth and eyes and he licks his lips. Suddenly, both of your movements feel more intimate. You meet him in the middle and lift your hand up to his cheek, he flinches at your touch, but quickly melts into you. Your mouths meld together perfectly and you would be content with staying like this forever. Eddie pulls away and rests his forehead against yours and offers you a sweet smile. He closes the door, leaving you for moments of silence. You can’t help but smile into your lap and touch your lips, still burning with the metalhead’s kiss.

He turns the ignition and turns the radio up, Black Sabbath ringing through the van. You tell Eddie your address and he turns off of the low lit neighborhood road. There was a comfortable silence between the two of you but you saw Eddie’s hand twitch a few times. He wanted to reach out and touch you so bad, already feeling so starved of your energy. His Adam's apple bobs and he slowly reaches out to touch your knee. Eddie’s warmth sends butterflies to your stomach. Never have you felt so cared for by someone, let alone a random revenge hook up. You feel conflicted. As you stare out the window you couldn’t help but feel like a bad person - not for sleeping with Eddie, but for sleeping with someone with the intent to hurt your boyfriend. At least when Billy did it, you thought, it might have just been a mistake or getting caught up in the moment. You went out and sought out an action to hurt him on purpose. But fucking Eddie felt too good, and from the conversation you had after spin the bottle, it was clear to you that you were just an object for Billy’s interest. When he was done with you he would move on and get what he wanted from someone else. So, should you feel bad about finding something - someone you like being with? You couldn’t break up with Billy, you wanted to forget about this whole night but his words will ring out in your brain and heart forever. You let out a deep sigh and relax into Eddie’s seat.

“What’s eating you, sweet thing?” Eddie squeezes your thigh and you flash him a tight, but kind smile.

“It’s just been an… interesting night.”

“Listen-” Eddie turns down the radio so Ozzy Osbourne is a mere whisper. “I don’t want you to feel bad about what we did. I don’t want you to be upset at yourself for that. So, if you want to forget this thing happened, I do understand. Really” His puppy dog eyes flickered between the road and your face, looking for any clues to what was going on in your head. You are such a mystery and he so desperately wanted to continue figuring you out, but, like you, your boyfriend seemed to be the only thing on his mind. You rub your lips together, deep in thought.

“Eddie, I don’t regret what we did at all. But, I mean I do feel bad. I cheated on my boyfriend… but he’s a piece of shit” you mumble. “I don’t want you to feel bad either. I had a lot of fun tonight. I was being honest when I said this was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, I promise.” You grab the hand resting on your thigh and give it a squeeze.

Eddie’s heart could beat right out of his chest. There was a twist of guilt in your voice but you seemed… different. You aren’t sad. You don’t seem angry. You seem similar to Eddie: enamored with the person you are looking at. It gives him hope that he could selfishly go home and think there is a chance that he might see you again. A comfortable silence falls upon the two of you, both giddy at the contact and reassurance you have both received, but your eyes stay cloudy. Even though Eddie doesn’t know you well, he can tell you are still deep in thought about something. It makes him nervous not knowing what about. Did he do something wrong? Are you going to tell him that this was all a joke and you never want to see him again? Eddie dreads turning onto your street, he’s not ready to say goodnight and potentially goodbye. He begrudgingly pulls into your small driveway and turns the key in the ignition. The console light illuminates your faces and Eddie is sure he is looking at an angel. Your soft eyes peer at him through thick lashes and you bite your swollen lips.

“I, umm, I had a thought” you peep. Eddie nods at you in encouragement to keep going.

“I mean… If my boyfriend is going to fuck around behind my back, why can’t I do the same, you know?” You fiddle with the rings on Eddie’s fingers that are still in your lap. “I mean, he’s practically holding the relationship hostage so why can’t I have fun behind his back too?” You peer up at the boy whose eyes soften when you do. He could tell you were nervous to say this to him, scared of being judged. Little did he know, you were also worried that this was just some random fuck for him too.

“Eddie, I was wondering if you wanted to make an… arrangement” you stop fiddling with his rings and your eyes bore into him; full of hope and desire. A smile quickly spread across Eddie’s face.

“Hmmm, yeah, sweetheart. I think we could make that work.” You smile down at your hands, worried that if you look too hard into Eddie’s eyes, there would be no way you would ever make it out of them. Your eyes spot a sharpie laying on the floor of your seat. You reach down and pick it up. Eddie shoots you a questioning look but lets you grab his hand anyway. Trying not to shake too badly, you neatly scribble your phone number on his hand. When you let go of him, Eddie looks at his hand in awe, like he has just won a million dollars. The truth is he felt like he had. He would tattoo your number on his skin if it meant that he would be able to see you again. You bombard his internal celebration with a peck on his cheek.

“Thank you for the ride, Eddie.”

“Which one?” He quips. You smile but roll your eyes as you regretfully pull away from him and hop out of the van.

“You better call me tomorrow.” you warn

“Sweetheart, it's gonna take everything in me not to call you as soon as I get home.” Eddie’s smile was from ear to ear. Heat rises to your cheeks and your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest. You turn and walk up the driveway with a matching grin. This night went from bad to worse to the best night you think you’ve ever had.

Like the perfect gentleman, Eddie waits until he sees your door close before he pulls out of your driveway. When you close and lock your door you are met with silence and darkness, but you felt as though your joy could light the whole neighborhood. You slide down your front door and pull your knees to your chest. You let out a content sigh, followed by a giggle. If Billy wants to fuck around. He’s gonna find out. He thought that you would sit around and be walked all over? Absolutely not. He might think that he’ll win the heartbreak, but with your new arrangement with a beautiful brunette? Checkmate.

400 notes · View notes

moriiartist · 2 years

Text

WRONG TURN (AT THE RIGHT TIME)

Masterlist

Taglist

PAIRING: Vampire!Ethoslab x GN!Reader

SUMMARY: It was simple, the arrangement you had with Gem. She would let you study in the library before it opened; you would be gone before her boss came in. So… how did you wind up with a vampire for a history tutor?

WARNINGS: Mild language, death mention, semi-graphic violence, non-consensual touching (you get manhandled a bit, nothing sexual), blood and injury, vampirism

A/N: Etho’s a little spooky in this one... had me feeling some type of way while I was writing him 🥴. This one is a bit longer than some of the other stuff I’ve written, and a bit scarier, but I hope y’all enjoy it anyways!

“Alright, time to pack up. You promised me you would be gone before my boss gets in, and the library opens in an hour.”

You jumped at the sound of a book slamming against the surface of the desk you were sitting at, jerking your head up and away from the paragraph you had been staring at for the past ten minutes. A figure loomed over you like the specter of death, impatiently drumming their fingertips against the flesh of their crossed arms.

They- or rather, she- affixed you with a glare that could melt steel, green eyes flashing behind the thick rims of her glasses. It took a second longer for your sleep-deprived brain to boot up, but it was almost too easy at this point for you to recognize the face of the library’s chief archivist.

Rubbing at your burning eyes with a forefinger and thumb, you puffed a slow breath through your cheeks. After trying to read by the dim light of the desk lamp for God knows how many hours, they stung like hell.

“Sorry, Gem. I must’ve lost track of time.”

The librarian, Gem, snorted but allowed her stern gaze to thaw, auburn hair rippling down her back as she tilted her head. “Are you sure you aren’t pushing yourself too hard? I know you want to finish up your degree, but I’m pretty sure you’ve studied here every day this week.”

You chuckled dryly. Oh, she had no idea.

Your day job took up almost all of the ‘working day’ so to speak, leaving only the darkest hours of the night for you to attend college classes and catch up on homework. However, during those hours, there was nothing you could access beyond what little you could pirate on your shitty laptop and printed course material.

Which is why Gem is the only thing standing between you and straight-up flunking college.

Despite her devout adherence to the laws that governed your local city library, you had convinced her with a mix of bribery, guilt-tripping, and groveling to allow you to visit in the early hours before it opened. You were able to read and complete your assignments in peace, but most importantly: you were able to access legitimate, essential, official resources during the only time you had during the day to study.

You felt the muscles in your jaw twitch as you held your smile, hoping it didn’t look too vacant. Or desperate.

“I’m fine, Gem. Just a bit tired.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Sorry- have you seen yourself? The bags under your eyes are big enough to carry my groceries.”

You winced.

“Can’t argue with you there.”

If you were being honest, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d gotten more than four hours of sleep in a row- and even that estimate was generous. You pivoted in your seat, making the tactical decision to retreat from Gem’s piercing gaze.

You sighed as you crammed as many books as possible into your backpack, forcing protesting muscles that had long remained stagnant into movement. Whatever didn’t fit you hefted in your arms, making a face halfway between a grimace and a look of abject horror as your back cracked under the weight.

Gem pursed her lips, and somehow you resisted the urge to groan. This was an old argument that the two of you had hashed and re-hashed ever since she’d let you come into the library during closing hours, and you were sick of having to defend yourself.

“You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends. You look like you’re going to keel over at any second.”

“Well,” you laughed airily, the lightness of your voice at odds with the abject exhaustion in your expression. “It’s not like there’s anything I can do. I need to earn my degree, and you know that night classes are the only thing I can afford to take.”

Pausing for a moment, you snorted. “Both literally and figuratively.”

“You’re going to kill yourself at this rate,” Gem sighed, her normally lively countenance as deadpan as she could make it.

“No, I don’t think so. Not if you get to me first.”

A beat of silence.

“... Fair enough.”

It was routine for you to haul your backpack onto your shoulders, Gem helping you with the straps, and wave a harried goodbye to Gem as you slipped out the library’s back door. At her insistence, you promised to text her when you returned to your apartment so she knew you had gotten back safely.

You shivered, clutching your books tighter to your chest as the warmth of the indoors faded, leaving you to the mercy of Autumn’s chilled embrace.

It was no exaggeration that your free hours landed squarely in the dead of night- because although you had been up for hours, the sky was still as dark as pitch. Only the barest hint of starlight shone through the inky blackness, and though logically, you knew it was because of light pollution, some part of you wondered if the entirety of the milky way had been swallowed whole.

While the library was laid deep within the city’s heart, it was directly at the center of the entertainment district. Meaning that, despite the late (or early) hour, the city streets surrounding the library were just as busy during the night as they were during the day. Restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and… other businesses lined the street, the light from their illuminated windows and neon signs shining like rainbows against the pavement.

Across the street, raucous laughter resounded from within a bar. The sound bounced eerily across the pavement and crowded walls of the buildings that rose like silhouettes from the ground. You flinched as you heard the sound of shattering glass, accompanied by loud cheering, wrinkling your nose against the sharp sting of early winter frost and the pungent scent of booze.

You quickened your pace, dodging and weaving through flocks of tourists that ranged from mildly inebriated to flat-out drunk, barely managing to keep yourself balanced under the awkward weight of your backpack. The idea of being caught up in whatever illicit business went down in the cramped alleyways and seedy taverns that garnished the area like sprinkles on a cake was far from appealing- especially with the whole ‘living alone’ thing.

At the next street, you finally made the turn that led you away from the throngs of frat boys and bar-flies into the residential areas that sprouted just a ways off from popular tourist destinations.

Although you had made the journey countless times, it never ceased to startle you just how quickly the general cacophony of shouting and laughter faded away with a few blocks of distance. It was much, much quieter here; the only sounds were the gentle tap-tap-tap of your shoes against the concrete and the occasional rush of a car driving by.

Windows of houses looked more like dark, empty eyes as you passed them, and the further you got from the entertainment district, the easier it was to pretend that you were the only person on earth. A sharp gust of wind suddenly howled through the trees, rattling leaves and raking icy claws across your skin.

You gasped as a shiver snaked its way down your spine, instinctually clutching your books tighter to your chest in an effort to conserve warmth. Cursing softly, you shed through your coat pocket to find your phone, exclaiming in victory as your fingers wrapped around it. Clicking it open, you blinked in surprise once you spotted the time: 5:00 AM.

Huh. That was definitely waayyy later than you had originally expected… and you had to get to work at 8:30. A high-pitched whine rose in the back of your throat.

Say goodbye to any chance you could’ve had at a (barely) decent sleep, because at this rate? It would be a miracle if you could get home in time to shower and eat.

You were so focused on your phone that you almost didn’t process the electric hum that filled the air, the lone streetlight ahead flickering in and out to the beat of your footsteps. Catching the flashing from your periphery, you glanced up with a frown.

Now- you weren’t an electrician, or really anyone skilled in the engineering field, but… you were fairly certain that it shouldn’t be making that loud, electric humming noise. You halted in your steps, tilting your head and squinting your eyes at the malfunctioning lamp. It flickered one more time, weakly, before plunging you into shadow.

If you thought that the night was dark before, surrounded by light and the nightlife, it paled in comparison to the true darkness that descended upon you like a cloak. One moment, you’re perfectly fine, and the next, you can hardly see the shape of your body against the pavement.

Another shiver wracked your body- but it felt different from a chill. Something inside your brain had begun frantically ringing alarm bells, and you could only desperately search for some kind of stressor as the hair on the back of your neck rose to attention.

Shakily, you exhaled, spinning in one, slow circle. There was the faint outline of a parked car, engine silent and sleeping, the houses, the trees- nothing. Nothing that would make your anxiety levels swing from ‘manageable’ to ‘DEFCON one’.

You turned back around, your previously relaxed pace discarded in favor of a light jog. It was all you could do not to fall on your ass as your backpack shifted and bounced with your downstep, and your chest felt tight as panic began to seep in.

What the hell is going on?

Something clattered behind you, and your breath seized in your lungs. The burning was hardly an afterthought because you were sprinting, stumbling and dropping your own books in your haste to get away from something you couldn’t- or wouldn’t- see.

You were so close you could see the gleam of the next streetlight up above. Your inhales were more like sobbing gasps of air, and distantly you felt the dampness of your cheeks as tears sluiced down them.

You were so close.

But it was never like you had the chance to escape, anyway.

A calloused hand wrapped around your wrist, yanking it and the rest of your body back. Hard.

All of the wind was knocked out of you as you slammed into the ground, hands and knees shrieking with agony as the pavement grain shredded the skin. The books within your bag did little to soften the fall, their hard spines digging into your ribs through the material of your bag.

Spots danced in front of your eyes, and you felt like you were moving through molasses as a pair of shiny dress shoes strolled into view. You didn’t want to see their face. Something visceral within you begged you to make yourself as small as possible- not a threat, nothing of interest.

Still, your traitorous gaze drifted upwards, and you felt the blood drain from your face as you stared straight up into a pair of ruby-red eyes.

“My, don’t you smell divine.”

You tried to scream, but it came out more like a choked gasp as your lungs came up empty.

This wasn’t- you had to be hallucinating. This had to be something that your sleep-deprived brain had dreamed up, safe and asleep in your bed.

Vampires weren’t real.

But, as it grinned with razor-sharp fangs, face alight with nothing but hunger, it was impossible to say it was anything else as it dug sharp, talon-like nails into your open wound.

Pain, quick as lightning and ten times more intense sparked through your nervous system, wringing a punched-out gasp from your throat. The periphery of your eyes darkened, and for a moment you genuinely thought that you would pass out from sheer agony as you desperately tried (and failed) to tear its wrist away.

It chuckled, twisting its claws in deeper to draw a proper scream out of you, humming in approval before it pulled them out. You went lax, heaving for breath as it lapped at the sticky blood- your blood- coating its fingers.

Your eyes fluttered open, and you realized that it was watching you. Crouched on the side of the street, inspecting you with a calculating gaze not dissimilar from how a fox inspects a cornered rabbit.

“Oh,” it said, a grin that was entirely too wide creeping across its face. “Yes. You taste even better than I thought you would.”

Feeling your breaths come faster and faster as fresh tears prickled at the corners of your eyes, you pressed your palm to your mouth, only succeeding in smearing the blood that covered it all over your chin.

So this was how you died. Alone, scared, and covered in your own blood, pinned down in the middle of the street by a creature you thought only existed in classical literature and trashy romance novels.

And, to top it all off, you had never even graduated college.

The vampire shifted, and you flinched at the sensation of its talons scraping at the soft flesh of your neck. You knew what happened next if the stories were to be believed, but terror had frozen your limbs as thoroughly as rigor mortis.

You swallowed, squeezing your eyes shut.

And promptly had them fly back open as the vampire shot back in a blur of snarling and snapping limbs, hitting the ground several meters away from you with a loud crack.

Transfixed, you could only watch with a dumbfounded expression as a cloaked figure appeared to teleport in front of you, hissing lowly. The vampire was on its feet before you could blink, its handsome features twisted into an animalistic snarl before it locked gazes with… whatever was blocking its path to you.

If you didn’t feel like you were about to pass out, you would’ve thought how quickly its expression changed from ardor to pure, unadulterated terror was hilarious.

“You,” it breathed, every muscle in its body snapping with tension. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Sheer survival instinct had kept your focus solely on the vampire that had cornered you, but the fear that radiated it was enough of a surprise that you found yourself glancing over towards whatever was perpetrating it.

One time, after you had gotten off work and had nothing else to do, you decided to watch a documentary series about tropical rainforest animals. For the most part, it was just background noise to help you fall asleep, but you found yourself engrossed when a particular segment about leopards began.

All you could think of, now that you were looking at the cloaked figure, was just how still they were. They didn’t move a muscle, not even where a normal person would’ve begun to cramp after a few seconds. They didn’t even seem to be breathing.

They reminded you of those leopards that you had watched. Especially in the way that those leopards went when they were hunting.

“Who says where I can and can’t be?” they, or rather, he said, masculine voice smooth and calm. “It’s certainly not your job.”

Sensing an opportunity to get the hell out of dodge, you grit your teeth as you shifted onto your hands and knees, slowly pushing yourself up into a crouch. The raw and ragged skin on your knees screamed in protest as it pulled taut, and you had to bite your tongue to stifle your soft sounds of pain.

The vampire’s jaw worked, and even as it drew itself up to its full height, you noted it was much taller than whatever had decided to intervene. (Something was wearing that cloak, but if he was an actual human person, you would eat your hat.)

The cloaked figure titled his head. “If you know what’s good for you, you should leave.”

You froze in place, heart jack-hammering in your ribs. Was he talking to you?

He went on- “Wouldn’t want to break any more rules. The covenant will have your head.”

For a long, tense moment, nothing happened. The wind whistled down the street. In the distance, police sirens wailed.

You didn’t dare move- not when the air itself felt charged, waiting for something to snap.

Then, the vampire growled, lips pulling back from their teeth wolfishly as they reluctantly bowed. Flabbergasted, you watched as it reluctantly melted back into the shadows, the red gleam of its eyes the last thing to fade to black.

The only thing you could hear was your heart thumping in your ears.

After a moment, the cloaked figure’s head turned deliberately towards where your crumpled form was hunched over, and you hastily scrabbled to your feet, Balling your hands up into fists. you trembled, staring him down.

“Are you alright?”

You don’t know what you would do if he decided to attack you, but you weren’t going to take it kneeling- not when you still felt the burn of humiliation for remaining paralyzed by terror. To your continuing horror, he took your silence as an invitation to step forward.

“Stay back,” you bit out, adrenaline buzzing through your veins. “I will not hesitate to punch you in your stupid face.”

Impressively, although you couldn’t make out his face with the shadows that clung to the hood of his cloak, you could see him do a double-take. “... Sorry?”

“You better be,” you muttered, eyes flickering to and fro as you tried to find a good escape route.

To your surprise, he hesitated, murmuring something under his breath that you couldn’t make out. He cleared his throat, shifting on his feet. “I am, if that makes you feel any better. You aren’t supposed to be attacked like this, it’s… uncivilized.”

Gaze snapping back to him, your brows raised incredulously. “Really? You’re not just saying that so that I let my guard down? And then you kill me and steal all my blood?”

“If I wanted to ‘steal all your blood’ I would’ve done it already.”

You deadpanned. “That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”

He took another step, but before you could threaten him again, pulled the hood of his cloak down. By now, your eyes had adjusted to the light (or lack thereof), and you found yourself sucking in a harsh breath.

Although you had guessed, what you saw definitely revealed him to be another vampire. His hair, a close-cropped shock of white, stood out against the darkness of the surrounding street.

You couldn’t describe the way that he was looking at you if you tried. His eyes burned like hot coals, pinned on you with a kind of unyielding focus that made your arms prickle with goosebumps. It both struck you as similar to that other vampire’s regard, a predator watching prey, but it was distinctly different- more like he was cataloging the rise and fall of your breath, the grinding of your shoe heel into the pavement.

A black mask- one of those anime ones that you couldn’t bother to remember the name of- hung around his neck, ready to be pulled up without a second’s notice. It looked well-cared for, despite being a little worn around the edges, and he fiddled with it absently as your gaze swept over him.

The most glaring thing about his appearance was the fact that he was almost flawlessly handsome, skin unblemished, bone structure pristine. The only thing that marred him was the long, thin scar that cut across his left eye, splitting his eyebrow in half.

“Even if you are pretty, I still won’t hesitate to punch you in the nose.”

He barked a laugh, fangs- holy shit his fangs- flashing. For some reason, he seemed pleased at your jab, chest puffing out slightly. “So you think I’m pretty?”

“Do I look like someone that would be attracted to an overgrown mosquito?” you scoffed, eyeing his shrewdly. “And a vain one, at that.”

He paused for a moment, staring at you, and you felt the fear that had temporarily abated come back in full force. One of these days, you were going to take a vow of silence so you could never say anything stupid ever again.

You swallowed, hugging your arms tight to your body as you leaned away. In a blink, he was suddenly, much, much closer, and you swore as you jumped.

“No,” the vampire said abruptly, tilting his head in a predatory manner. A smile split across his face, and a confident gleam arose within his eyes as his hand came up to grab your chin firmly. (Privately, you were relieved to find that he clipped his nails like a normal human being.)

“But you do look like someone who knows something they shouldn’t.”

You thrashed in his grip, eventually stilling with your palms pressed flat to his chest. Although you were pushing as hard as you could, it didn’t seem to affect him.

You laughed, a little bit hysterical. “Oh, so now you’re going to kill me?”

His fingers drummed against the flesh of your cheek. Languidly running his tongue against the swell of his upper lip, he cocked his head to the other side. You winced as you heard the vertebrae in his neck crack.

“What could I give you to keep you quiet?”

You blinked, taken aback by his jarringly serious tone.

“What?”

“What do you want? Money? Favors? What would convince you to keep your mouth shut?” he pressed, eyes narrowing, Distantly, you noted that his eyelashes were as pale as the hair on top of his head. “We’ve got kind of a secret society thing going on, y’anno, and we don’t need you blabbing.”

Confused, you shifted, and his hand came up to squish your cheeks until your lips puckered like a fish’s. You tensed but didn’t attempt to move. “‘Oul’nt you j’st kill ‘m?”

He smirked, ruby red eyes gleaming. “Yes, but it would be a shame. You’re funny.”

You batted his hand away, staring at him. He… seemed sincere, or he could just be a very skilled liar. It was more than likely that both were true, and whatever you did, it would be a gamble.

“... A tutor,” you said after several moments of silence, voice laced with quiet certainty. “That’s what I need. A tutor.”

He stared at you. You stared at him. There was a lot of staring at one another.

“That’s it? ”

You shrugged. “College is hell.”

“Not cash, or fame, or… cash…” the vampire frowned. “Everyone asks for cash.”

“I guess I’m just built different,” you said, as if you weren’t running on less than half of the minimum sleep quota and hubris.

You would be kicking yourself later when you sprung out of bed, wild-eyed as you beheld the healing cuts that littered your knees and palms, but right now? You were absolutely not in the right mindset to be making pacts with a creature of the night.

“Alrighty then,” he said after a moment, letting go of your face in favor of offering you his other hand. “It’s a deal.”

You, with all the bravado and lack of self-awareness that only a college senior could possess, took it.

He grinned, and in a blink, a solid chest bumped into your back. There was no heat to your proximity other than your startled flush, even as the vampire’s cold breath caressed the shell of your ear.

“The name’s Etho. I have a hunch that you and I... we’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

The crack of your fist hitting his face resounded through the street, drawing a startled hiss from the vampire.

Well, he couldn’t say you didn’t warn him.

@blufr0st @itsonlydana @amearla @bapthadapper @redactedsouls @sina-the-idiot @icarusthefoolish @blockyshieldmaiden @lunarheartsposts

157 notes · View notes

queer-and-dear-books · 1 year

Photo

Title: Someday

Author: David Levithan

Genre: YA Fiction | Romance | Friendship | Fantasy | LGBTQ+

Content Warnings: Bullying | Physical Violence

Overall Rating: 9.9/10

Personal Opinion: The plot is honestly nothing remarkable but that’s kind of why I love it. I love slice of life and seeing the world through A’s lens, hopping from body to body every day, that’s slices of many lives. But what’s great about this sequel to Everyday is that we get to see others like A too. How do they cope? What questions do they have? How do they live their unusual life? It’s truly fascinating.

Do I Own This Book? No but it’s on my wish list.

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- I’m going to start with the part that made me the most giddy. Aemon and Liam. Oh my god. They are both entities like A, changing bodies every day. By sheer chance, they met at a book festival and fell for each other. Neither of them thought they could ever have more than words on a screen until Liam finally stopped being a coward (his words) and went to see Aemon/Peter anyway. And boom! They now know each other for real. Oh my god, when I read that part, I about exploded with excitement because it was such a plot twist. And it wasn’t even part of the main plot. It was like a 6 page intermission at best. But I just love love and I love that these two found each other.

- Okay, on to the main plot. It’s honestly nothing remarkable and that’s kind of why I love it. The thing that drew me to Everyday was the fact that it was slices of many lives. The simple, the complicated, the happy, the sad, the good, the bad. A has to live those lives and they did it alone. After sharing parts of themself with Rhiannon, they were not used to being alone again. I felt their heartbreak but I also felt the bits of the people that they embodied. It created this lens that was so unique to reading this book and I was just so enraptured.

- It was also so interesting to see A living the lives of people who are neurodivergent. Of course, I mean, Alvin. Clearly, something is going on with his brain because he was all over the place. There were two pages that had zero indents. It was just one long paragraph crammed into the pages. It was fascinating. And I understood the purpose it had served in the story. It was the story’s way of reminding the reader why A and Rhiannon couldn’t work. Because A had no idea who they would wake up as and what they would be experiencing. Some simply don’t have access to the internet. Others go through a crisis and need help. It is impossible for A and Rhiannon to always be together because there’s no telling what sort of obstacles an individual’s life will present.

- I know A feels like they fucked up Moses Cheng’s life but I would argue that they helped Moses. First of all, his bullies were clearly racist and therefore deserve to have charges pressed against them for hurting Moses. Second of all, A was right to confess everything that had happened to Moses to the adults. It was the right thing to do and I think it will serve Moses well in the long run. I just hope Moses finds good friends to help him get through life in the future.

- I fucking hate X, oh my god. He (potentially) ruined Pat’s life. He killed Reverend Poole. He kidnapped Wyatt. He beat the shit out of Nathan. But my god, what a wild ride seeing the opposite of A at work. He is evil personified, abusing his power to ruin lives and harm innocent people while avoiding the consequences. But the crazy part is that he’s not wrong about some of his points. I mean, redistributing the wealth to the poor? That’s iconic. He still sucks ass for his violent tendencies though. Of course he identifies as a man too. It’s just like Amanita’s dads said in Sense8, “It’s always a man.” “Violence has a gender.”

- But yeah, glimpsing other entities like A at work was just so fascinating. People like that 98 year old lady who passed away uses God to cope with their waking up every day in a different body. People like Dawn who go to the MET every day and sit in front of the same painting for a constant. People like Helmut who have stayed in the same body for forty years because he wanted to stay. People like Morris who still don't understand how they work yet. It’s amazing seeing them exist because A and X aren’t the only ones. There’s more than just two ways to exist as them. And also A got to meet M on an online chat forum and therefore, neither of them are alone anymore. That makes me so happy too.

- I was worried that Alexander would be heartbroken by the end of this book but he and Rhiannon are still somewhat together. They have something and it’s theirs and it’s implied that Alexander learns about A too. And that makes me happy too. Plus, we also have Nathan and Wyatt starting their own support group of two to cope with being possessed. That makes me happy too. The fact that characters don’t have to be alone with their traumatic experiences makes me happy.

Dislikes:

- As I said, fuck X. I just wish we knew what happened with Pat. I hope he doesn’t remember all the shitty stuff. It’s also implied that he’s gay. And I hate that X used Pat’s body to have sex with a woman. And then treated that woman like trash. Oh my god, I hate X. He ruined another life too! That college guy who had a girlfriend! Oh my god, I hope they’re okay. God, seriously, fuck X. He acts like he’s a gift for “restraining” himself from doing worse things. The things you do are still pretty bad you sicko.

- That’s pretty much it, I hate X. I hate that he ruined lives. I understand why A feels conflicted about disposing of him but the world is better off without him. That’s it.

#Booklr #Booksbooksbooks #Book Review #Book Rec #Book Blog #Someday #David Levithan #LGBTQ #Queer Lit #Queer Books #Queer Representation

12 notes · View notes

merakiui · 3 years

Note

I was reading through your tags and you mentioned at some point the kazuscara roommates finding your onlyfans and I think I completely combusted—thus i present to you my brain rot of late: you attend the same school as them but you’re not actually friends, all you know about kazuha is that he’s the friendly regular at the cafe you work at, who makes polite conversation every now and then but otherwise is nothing of note. In reality he’s been stalking you for weeks ever since your first encounter, and is dead set on the idea that you’re this innocent, weak thing that needs to be protected (maybe he stepped in when you had a bad customer and your meek reply helped fester his delusions?). Scara, on the other hand, is only aware of your presence since you’re his favourite cam model that he recently found. (Since he’s a harbinger he’s probs loaded) Weeks of funnelling money towards you cause him to feel this unwarranted possessiveness, believing that since he’s been providing so much in your “relationship” that it’s time you reward him in turn. However, despite the unbridled interest they have toward you neither are aware of each other’s feelings for you— that is, until you happen to run into the both of them heading to your class. While both are known for maintaining their stoic masks, they’re friends for a reason— and instantly can tell the attraction their roommates have towards their own “lover”. After kazuha finds your onlyfans he’s certain that you’ve been coerced and wants to save you, while scara thinks it’s time that he’s stopped letting other plebeians look at his possession—so, despite their initial reservations, come together to form the ideal plan. When you find yourself waking up groggy in a room you don’t recognize, all they can do is look on with glee whilst planning their next course of action with their new belonging. They’re friends after all, and good friends share though, don’t they?

This is v long srry lol you can ignore this ofc!!

AAAH, ANON!! YES!!! <3 I couldn’t resist writing more on this concept. orz They make for such a terrifying pair when they work together!

(cw: yandere, stalking, nsfw, implied kidnapping/drugging, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, delusional thoughts, savior complex, implied violence)

What if Kazuha and Scara were just acquainted with one another and actually became closer through their mutual obsession with you? Yes, they’re roommates and ought to get along because they’re living together but they haven’t exactly clicked yet. They talk every now and then and know little things about each other. Nothing too special. They don’t really hang out outside of their dorm either, what with their class schedules being vastly different. And Kazuha’s always out of the dorm doing who-knows-what. Most of his time is spent at a café, where he’ll write and read and stare at you while you work. On the other hand, Scara prefers to stay inside if he doesn’t have a good reason to go out. He likes his alone time. Although he has enjoyed going to the library every now and then to study.

So maybe they need to find some common ground. Maybe they need a push in the right direction before they get closer.

Kazuha likes to stare. Talking to you is great, but he worries he’ll say too much and then he’ll be a nuisance, or you might not want to talk to him at all since you’re working. But you always regard him with a warm smile, happy to scribble his name on the plastic cup because you remember him. Because you recognize his familiar face and soft, gentle eyes. He’s the one who saved you from that rude customer, after all, and he’s a polite regular. Why wouldn’t you know him? You might look like you can handle those types of situations, but what Kazuha saw that day was something entirely different. You were nervous—so soft-spoken and scared. He absolutely has to protect you from those kinds of people now, doesn’t he?

And he does exactly that. He’s your second pair of eyes—your valiant knight in shining armor—who sees and hears all. Sometimes he goes to the café with the intention to simply watch over you and make sure no one’s bothering you. He can recall one time when a customer was speaking rudely about you because her drink hadn’t been prepared in a ‘timely manner.’ In reality it’s impossible to make a drink within a few seconds, especially when you’re already preoccupied with making another customer’s drink. She must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed, or maybe she’s just a hateful person in general. You didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of such fiery insults, though.

Her eyes just can’t see your perfection and therefore she does not deserve to see out of them.

Kazuha’s willing to wrestle with all of this darkness if it means you’ll stay safe, oblivious, and pure. You’re like a defenseless kitten, unable to protect yourself from the scary world. He writes about you a lot in his journal; you’re his muse—someone who constantly shows up in poems and short paragraphs where he tries to describe what your dream date might be or what type of wedding you’d prefer. Things get darker the deeper you delve into his writings, where you’ll find entries in great detail. Kazuha writes a lot and he doesn’t even mean to. He just has to get all of his thoughts on paper before they abandon him and he’s left with emptiness.

Everything you do is pure; you’re almost an equivalent to a holy being. Your smell is pure. Your body is pure. Your actions are pure. Your smile is pure. Even when you’re on the verge of crying from harsh customers or when you’re turning down a confession, you’re still pure. And Kazuha likes that about you because it’s special. There aren’t many people in his life who are completely pure. He’s been through a lot of rough things and has seen firsthand how impure people can be. It’s only fair that he gets a chance to protect purity itself.

He might have some impurities, but that doesn’t deter him from watching over you. As gentle and unassuming as he is, there are times when even he loses his composure. Not many are privy to these dark emotions of his. His smiles are sharp and venomous and his eyes fill with a gloom so dark it can swallow you whole. You’ll never see this side of him; he won’t allow it. Instead you’re treated to his sweet, calm side, where he feigns perfection in hopes of catching your interest.

As for Scara… He doesn’t really care about Kazuha in the beginning. He’s just someone he has to live with. It’s not a big deal and as long as he doesn’t try to make lots of pointless conversation everything will be okay. He prefers the peace and quiet, considering he’s acquainted with people who are far from peaceful and quiet. Scara’s relieved that Kazuha leaves the dorm so often because it gives him an opportunity to watch his favorite cam star’s most recent video. He’s your most loyal follower—someone who’s paid lots of money just to have access to the highest tier of rewards and such. He even got a private video where you addressed him and moaned out his name with lustful thoughts of him. Having lots of money comes in handy.

When he finds out that you go to the same school as him, he’s a little shocked. He didn’t expect you to be so close. You’re practically within touching distance. If only he knew your schedule. If only you were in one of his classes. It’s really annoying that he only knows your online presence and not who you might be in your personal life. The last thing he’s going to do is consult Childe, that popular athlete who knows literally everyone in the school for whatever reason. Surely he knows you. But he’ll die before he ever asks Childe for a favor.

Scara loves you out of every other cam model because you’re different. You’re not just trying to get fast cash. You’re genuine. You listen to your subscribers and their feedback. You do your best to improve and do even better streams than the previous ones. All of your hard work is overlooked by the other fools who watch your streams, but it isn’t overlooked by him. Scara appreciates your attention to detail and the way you’re able to hook him with your breathless voice alone. You’re very skilled at what you do, so it’s only fair you get paid for it.

But buying your services isn’t enough. It’s not a real relationship, but it certainly feels like it when he buys preferential treatment. Private shows, special requests, odd favors—you do it all because he pays for it. But this relationship isn’t going to be one-sided forever. You’ll have to pay him back in full eventually. Scara likes to think he has patience and that waiting is fine. It gives him more time to plan his next move—to figure out what he should do to finally have you all to himself. So that those private shows he watches through a screen can finally be real.

Scara finds the journal sitting innocently on Kazuha’s bed, its maroon cover and maple leaves pulling at his curiosity. He might not know everything about Kazuha, but he’d recognize this journal anywhere. His roommate almost always has it on his person. Scara wouldn’t be surprised if he slept with it. To say he’s curious would be absolutely correct. He can only wonder what Kazuha writes in that thing. Perhaps it’s just notes for a class. That’s what anyone would think, right?

Scara opens it and flips through the first few pages. They’re normal for the most part. Just a bunch of haikus and other useless scribbles. When he skips over some pages, he starts to find things that are far more interesting than poetry and doodles of cats. He finds the majority of the journal is comprised of information. More specifically, there are facts and other knowledge about you—the cam model he’s been obsessed with ever since he stumbled upon your onlyfans. He reads through as much of the journal as he can and instantly learns so much: your address, your roommate, your workplace, your friends’ names, names of any potential exes. The list goes on and on.

Scara doesn’t have anything against Kazuha. His first impression of him wasn’t anything groundbreaking. He thought he was a pushover at first. But now that he knows what this journal holds… Well, it sheds an entirely new light on his roommate.

Just days before Scara took a peek inside his journal, Kazuha discovers your secret online life. He snoops through Scara’s laptop when he steps out, having left it open and unlocked. He’s just trying to find what could have caught Scara’s interest, as he’s almost always glued to his laptop on specific days at specific times, with his headphones on and his gaze unyielding. He doesn’t intend to find the file of one of your private videos—something that was meant only for Scara’s eyes.

He clicks on the video out of interest. He’s not sure what he was expecting to see, but it definitely wasn’t this. Kazuha sits there and stares at the sight before him. You’re dressed in skimpy lingerie and you’re muttering the dirtiest things while coating your fingers in lube. And your hands are stroking a thick toy and you’re addressing Scara and you’re lining it up to your hole and— He shuts the laptop before it can get even more explicit than it already is. He’s so conflicted, fraught with a betrayal so strong it weighs his heart down.

Why would he have this sort of video on his laptop? Did you give it to him? Did he make you do this? Are you in danger? Are you still pure?

Kazuha can’t kill on campus. It’s way too risky and he’d be one of the first suspects if Scara’s body is found. Besides, it’s not like he has the full story. He doesn’t know whether or not Scara’s done something that’s worthy of death. You could just be in a tight spot. He knows how easily you give in when you’re under pressure. Maybe you’re just doing this because you feel like it’s the only thing you can do. Not to worry; Kazuha will save you before Scara can ruin your purity with his twisted fantasies.

They confront each other when the time feels right. Kazuha struggles to keep a smile plastered to his face for the sake of politeness, while Scara holds in his raging temper so that he can bear some semblance of cooperation. Neither of them is happy to hear that the other went through their stuff, but they force themselves to make up because a more pressing issue is at hand: their connection to you.

Kazuha says he’s your secret admirer. Scara says he’s in a relationship with you. There’s no way you’d ever date someone like Scara—Kazuha knows this for a fact. Yet he falters at the confidence in Scara’s tone. That can’t be the truth, right? Despite this, Kazuha still strikes up an offer: If they work together to get what they both want, they’ll be unstoppable. With Scara’s riches and his influence and Kazuha’s charisma and clever thinking, they can easily get their hands on you. Of course this means they’ll have to share, but it’s not a big deal when they’re already in so deep. They both know the other’s secret; now they’re swearing to keep it in the pursuit of having you all to themselves. And luckily Scara agrees to the deal, but that doesn’t give Kazuha a reason to lower his guard.

However despite how well they work together when it comes to planning the kidnapping and actually executing it, they both have their own reasons for wanting you. Scara wishes to make his relationship with you a reality—to toss aside the screen that once held him back and finally do all of the things he could only do in his dreams. Kazuha seeks to protect your fragile heart, lest you crumble under Scara’s intense way of doing things and cling to him for salvation. You can’t do those sorts of things with Scara; he won’t allow it. Your purity is meant for him and no one else.

But sharing is caring and some have to learn that the hard way. It definitely brings Kazuha and Scara closer together, even if neither of them will admit it. If they look past their desires, they can be friends. And soon enough they’ll have to accept this new friendship if they want to avoid any unnecessary complications.

However there are times when they’ll cooperate in order to do things with you. They’re a packaged deal you can’t get rid of.

#chit chat #yandere #yandere kazuha #yandere scaramouche #kazuscara roommates #ty for feeding me anon orz #i like the idea of them being friends on the surface #but beneath that they're willing to abandon the other in order to meet their desires #but when they come together they're a force to be reckoned with #aaah i could go on and on with this concept #but i don't want to ramble #ANYWAYS TY AGAIN ANON <3 YOUR BRAIN IS SO LARGE #🧸 anon

452 notes · View notes

abigail-pent · 3 years

Text

TLT Theory Redux: Secret Doors and Heists

gather round the fire, children, for I have finished my third reread and I have theories to spin. they are interconnected. they will also take the form of "a listicle, kind of". This is not as tightly written/cited as I hoped it would be, many thanks to tumblr for eating the first version of this post.

THEORY #1: HARROW WAS RIGHT

About what? Probably lots of things, but specifically about the secret door. You remember Harrow's "secret door theory," right? On GTN p. 303, Harrow and Palamedes are having an argument about what is going on in Canaan House. Harrow makes fun of Palamedes' idea that there is such a thing as a Lyctoral megatheorem. Pal lightly mocks Harrow's "secret door" theory, about which she says:

"But all this is more than unsustainable, Sextus. The things they've shown us would be powerful -- would bespeak impossible depth of necromantic ability -- if they were replicable. These experiments all demand a continuous flow of thanergy. They've hidden that source somewhere in the facility, and that's the true prize."

The action picks up pretty quickly after this, and you just sort of forget about Harrow's theory since Pal's theory is so quickly proven correct. It's set up to make you think these theories are competing, but they're not. Harrow and Pal are both right.

Proposition 1: An entrance to the River -- or perhaps the part of the River on the other side of the stoma -- is hidden under Canaan House.

Evidence for Proposition 1:

1A) On GTN p. 191, Teacher says, about Silas siphoning Colum in the facility: "He cannot empty anybody here, lest they become a nest for something else!" This is highly reminiscent of HTN p. 98, when Mercy says: " A Lyctor's body, empty, with its battery intact but nobody in the driver's seat? Do you know what could take up residence? Anything could get inside you -- any horrible or evil or lonely thing, any miserable revenant, or worse." These two places are described very similarly; they may well be the same.

1B) I'm missing the citation, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's textual that the first time the Lyctors + John ran from RBs, they ran by dropping into the River. Quite possibly from Canaan House itself.

1C) Teacher. We know he hates the water (GTN p. 325), we know he was created for the "sole purpose of safeguarding the place" (GTN p. 373). Of course, the whole place is surrounded by saltwater.

1D) When Ianthe and Cytherea are fighting and Canaan House is disintegrating, "brackish water from the fountain spattered across the floor and trickled into the cracks" (GTN p. 418). It's been well established already that 'brackish' is the word used to refer to River water. It's also the word used to describe the water that emits from Colum's mini stomae when he dies (GTN p. 393). Why is the fountain water brackish when other water in Canaan House -- for example, the pool -- is saltwater? Seems like a clue!

Proposition 2: Whatever is behind the secret door is the source of John's power.

Evidence for Proposition 2:

2A) During the big confrontation with John in HTN (p. 478-479), Augustine's suspicions echo Harrow's from GTN p. 303, when she's describing the secret door theory. He says:

"You've offered us explanations for everything over the years. But -- some of them didn't hold up on examination . . . It was the power I could never get my head around, you know? I follow power back to its source, John. It's the skill you asked me to perfect. And the longer I looked at yours, the less things added up."

Leaving aside for now the fascinating question of why John would ask Augustine to cultivate this skill, he goes on to ask:

"You're God, John. But -- as the Edenites are fond of pointing out -- you were once a man. So whither that transition? Where does your power come from? Even if the Resurrection had been the greatest thanergy bloom ever triggered, it would drain away over time. And then Mercy said to me -- in a moment of true Mercy vileness -- she said, What is God afraid of?"

Proposition 2.1: The source of John's power is not exactly Alecto, but is Alecto-adjacent. Alecto is from the space behind the secret door.

2.1A) Alecto is called a saltwater creature (HTN p. 328).

2.1B) The oldest parts of Canaan House are where the power emanates from (citation needed, but I’m sure it’s there). They are also the parts closest to the sea. As Teacher says (HTN p. 110): "The base of Canaan House dates back to before the Resurrection. We first built upward, to get away from the sea; then we built outward, to strive toward beauty."

2.1C) The Sleeper is identified with Alecto. Like Alecto, she carries a weapon, she sleeps in a coffin, she can’t be killed, and the River bubble crew is warned that the worst and most cataclysmic thing in the world would occur if she were ever to wake up (HTN p. 112, 185). Since the Sleeper is so clearly identified with Alecto, and is also identified as the presence that’s haunting the River bubble version of Canaan House, it suggests the connection between Alecto herself and the physical version of Canaan House.

Proposition 3: John has dammed the River underneath Canaan House by trapping the Earth Resurrection Beast there.

3A) Per HTN p. 43, we know there's one missing RB, since 9-5=4>3.

3B) Abigail thinks something is messed up in the River and it's dammed, and spirits cannot get across. On HTN p. 396-397, she says:

“A spirit can be trapped, trapped as every spirit in the River is trapped . . . I think there is a whole school of necromancy we cannot begin to touch until we acknowledge its existence – I think these centuries of pooh-poohing the idea that there is space beyond the River has stifled entire avenues of spirit magic, and I believe the Fifth House is waning entirely due to us reaching a stultified, complacent stage in our approach . . . Something has gone terribly wrong in the River, Harrow, and I wish you’d find out what.”

She’s describing a dam in the River that traps ghosts there. This is extremely consistent with what Teacher tells Harrow about what’s down in the facility (see 3E).

3C) On GTN p. 213, Cytherea suggests that "something has been lurking [in the Canaan House facility] forever", and when Harrow insists that "[A spirit] cannot sustain itself", Cytherea replies: "But what if one could?" We know that Resurrection Beasts are revenants, and a revenant is a type of spirit; and if any spirit was going to be self-sustaining, it would be an RB.

3D) HTN p. 172: "The card up the sleeve of the revenant, and the Resurrection Beast, is that it can inhabit anything it's got a connection to. Anything thanergetically connected with their death." So what killed Earth? Climate change, plus a massive nuclear fission chain reaction. Historically, early nuclear fission chain reaction tests took place underneath the ground (see, for example, the facility at the University of Chicago). So an underground or underwater facility could very well be thanergetically connected to the death of Earth.

An RB may very well be a continuous source of thanergy; and if this is the case, John may want to kill or neutralize the other RBs to keep other people from rivaling his power. Or better yet: harness the other RBs the same way Earth's RB was harnessed.

3E) On GTN p. 152, Teacher literally tells Harrow that the ten billion are haunting the facility. Harrow says she is “repeating exactly – to the word—what Teacher said to [her]”:

“Down there resides the sum of all necromantic transgression. The unperceivable howl of ten thousand million unfed ghosts who will hear each echoed footstep as defilement. They would not even be satisfied if they tore you apart. The space beyond that door is profoundly haunted in ways I cannot say, and by means you won’t understand; and you may die by violence, or you may simply lose your soul.”

For those of you following along at home: ten thousand million = 10,000 x 1,000,000 = 10,000,000,000 = 10 billion, or the exact number of people who died in the Resurrection. This is of course completely consistent with the Earth RB being down there, somewhere in or under the facility, because the revenant of a planet includes the spirits of every living thing on it when it was murdered.

Proposition 3.1: Alecto is one of the physical anchors for the Earth RB.

3.1A) HTN p. 454: “The only sure way to banish a revenant is to destroy the physical anchor it inhabits before it can escape the shell.” If John’s cavalier is the physical anchor for the Earth Resurrection Beast, which is the source of his power, then this would justify the characterization of Alecto as the “death of the Lord”: if she’s a physical anchor and she is destroyed, then so is the source of John’s power.

3.1B) She was the first Resurrection, and it’s plausible that she would be thanergetically connected to the death of Earth.

3.1C) HTN p. 495: Pyrrha notes that the stoma “must think [John] is a Resurrection Beast.” Which is a super interesting mistake for the stoma to make! But if John’s cavalier is a physical anchor for a RB, this mistake becomes more understandable.

Proposition 4: The other side of the stoma is not a trash space, and John actually can access it. He uses it as a battery for his necromancy. It’s a storage space for RBs, and now I guess for Lyctors too. (this is the most galaxy brain proposition, and evidence is slim)

4A) On HTN p. 340, John says: “It is a portal to the place I cannot touch -- somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless.” But this is the kind of shit John lies about on the reg, so take what he says and apply opposite day rules.

4B) if the other side of the stoma is related to the River Beyond, it would be to John’s advantage to keep the Fifth House scholarship from treating the River Beyond seriously (see 3B). If they don’t take it seriously as a branch of scholarship, they can’t learn anything about it, and they can’t let the RBs out from where John is keeping them.

4C) this could be why John condemns soul siphoning (GTN p. 340). If soul siphoning sends the cavalier’s soul to the other side of the stoma, and the power that floods into the empty body is from the other side of the stoma, then soul siphoning threatens John’s monopoly on use of power.

This brings me to Theory #2, born out of a delightful discussion with @mayasaura: the heist in ATN is not going to open the Tomb at all. Instead, it’s going to open the part of the River underneath Canaan House, and the goal is to free the Earth RB. After all, the Tomb has been open for seven years already.

Extant questions:

1) Mercy seemed so sure that the RBs were coming back and targeting Alecto in particular. But Alecto stayed in the Nine Houses, and didn’t get eaten by any RBs, and the Ninth House is still there. So why does Mercy think Alecto is a target, or makes the rest of them into targets? If she was lied to, what is the purpose of this lie?

2) Why does John want Augustine to hone the skill of following power back to its source?

3) If RBs eat Lyctors and both RBs and Lyctors are in the hammer space on the other side of the stoma, then, like… hey Augustine and Ulysses… are you guys ok??

#tlt meta #tlt spoilers #locked tomb spoilers #locked tomb meta #gideon the ninth #gideon the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth spoilers

247 notes · View notes

troquantary · 3 years

Text

Edward Cullen: That Boy Ain’t Right

So I was doing a reread of @therealvinelle 's collection of Twilight metas, as one does, and in "Edward, Denial, and a Human Girlfriend" she mentions that she doesn't believe Edward is sane. I thought, "ha, yeah, he's definitely not," and also, "but wait, what does that mean exactly, please say more about that." But since she's already inundated with asks, I've decided to use my own head-muscle and explore this idea. (TL;DR: I start out more or less organized, synthesize some points Vinelle has made across several posts (and have hopefully linked to them all where relevant but please tell me if not), touch a little on narcissism, then take a hard left into the negative effects of being a telepath.)

Just a couple things to note at the outset, though. Theses have been written already (probably) about Edward as an abuser. Edward being insane doesn't negate that at all; he's definitely an asshole and just...a disaster of a human being. (I find it more funny than anything, but YMMV.) I'm also going to try to avoid talking specifically about mental illness and how it relates (or doesn't relate) to abusive behavior -- that's territory I'm not really equipped to discuss, like at all. My starting point is "Edward has a deeply warped perception of reality," not "Edward has X disorder."

So: deeply warped perception of reality. The evidence? Goes behind a cut, because my one character trait is Verbose.

Vinelle provides a great example of it in the post linked above, which I'll just quote because she does words good: "[Edward] keeps acting like his romance with Bella is a romantic tragedy, and all the cast of Twilight are actors on a stage making it as sublime as possible." Edward's the one to pursue Bella, but he does so with the full belief, from the very beginning, that it will never last; Bella will "outgrow" him, go on her human way, and he can spend the rest of eternity brooding magnificently over his too-short romantic bliss. [Insert premature ejaculation joke.] Turning her is never an option, even though Alice, Noted Psychic, says that romancing Bella will either end with her dead (exsanguinated) or dead (vampire).

This framing, where he's a dark anti-hero in love with -- but never tainting! -- the pure maiden and eventually leaving her in a grand, tragic sacrifice to preserve her soul? It's fucking bonkers. Bella isn't a person to him in this scenario. As Vinelle points out, Bella's never really a person to him at all; he falls in love with his own mental construct, cherry-picking from what he observes of her behavior and her responses to his 20 (thousand) Questions to convince himself that she is the ideal woman.

Bella's not the only one who gets the projection/cardboard-cutout treatment. Edward sees everything and everyone through a highly particular, personalized lens. He filters his entire reality, which we all do to an extent, but the thing with Edward is that he starts with his conclusions and then only pays attention to the evidence that supports those conclusions. Often that evidence consists of what he admits in New Moon are only "surface" thoughts -- but recognizing that limitation doesn't keep him from taking those thoughts as representative of what people are. Edward then becomes absolutely convinced by his own "reasoning" and won't be swayed from what he has decided is Objectively True. It's obvious with Bella; it's also painfully obvious with Rosalie. (Vinelle explains this and brings up Edward's raging Madonna/Whore complex in the same post, so refer to that again -- she's right.)

He also catastrophizes. Everything. Bella's just vibing in her room, rereading Wuthering Heights for the 87th time? She's gonna be hit by a meteor, better sneak into her room while she sleeps. Bella's going to the beach with the filthy mundanes their human classmates? She's gonna fall in the ocean. Jasper's cannibal pals are stopping by for a visit, but know not to hunt in the area? DISASTER, DEFCON 1, ALSO FUCK YOU JASPER FOR EVEN EXISTING IN MY AND BELLA'S SPHERE YOU UNSPEAKABLE BURDEN. Edward must believe that Bella is vulnerable and in near-constant peril, to support the reality he has created in which he is the villain turned protector and maybe?? hero??? (!!!) for his beloved. So when the actual, James-shaped danger arrives, he goes berserk, snarling and flipping his shit and generally not helping the situation. His fantasy demands that Bella remain human, so instead of doing the very thing Alice, Noted Psychic, assures him will neutralize the threat (and not just a threat to Bella, either, but to Bella's family and any other human James might decide to include in the "game"), he vetoes it immediately, no discussion. Bella Must Not Turn, and he sticks to those guns despite James nearly reducing her to ground beef, despite leaving Bella catatonic with depression (but human! success!) in New Moon, despite Aro's order and his family's vote and, let's not forget, Bella's clearly and repeatedly stated desire to be a vampire. It's going to happen. But he doesn't accept it until Renesmee busts out of Bella like the Kool-Aid man and the poor girl's heart finally, unequivocally stops.

Sane people don't behave this way. I don't want to slap labels on Edward, but I can't help but note that he comes across as highly narcissistic. He's the only real person in his universe, the lone player among us NPCs. That probably has a lot to do with him being frozen in the mindset and maturity of a seventeen-year-old boy, but I think it's also just...him, on some fundamental level. His failure to connect with others and recognize them as full, independent beings with their own wants and priorities isn't like Bella's failure -- she's badly depressed. Edward is...something else, and I get the sense that his sanity has been steadily deteriorating over time. And a cursory google of narcissistic traits turns up some familiar-looking stuff. He's self-loathing, yes, but also grandiose; he hates himself for the monster he is (and hates most vampires besides Esme and Carlisle for their monstrosity, too) but still feels superior to humans, to the extent that he felt entitled to human blood and resented Carlisle for depriving him of his "proper" diet. He eventually returns to Carlisle, but he's far from content -- the beginning of Midnight Sun finds him in a state of ennui, bored and dismissive of (if not outright disgusted by) everyone around him, that has apparently persisted for years and years. He doesn't play the piano, he doesn't compose, he doesn't enjoy anything...at least until Bella comes along and then he becomes obsessed to a disturbing degree with her and his new, romantic tragedy spin on reality.

[Next-day edit: I’m not sure where else to fit this in, but the way Edward casually contemplates violence against people who have, at best, mildly annoyed him is...chilling. I have a hard time writing off his strategizing how to murder the entire Biology class as a result of bloodlust -- it’s so calculated, nothing like the blackout state of thirst Emmett describes when he encountered his own “singer,” and that is probably the default for when a vampire is extremely thirsty. But even ignoring the Biology class incident, Edward still does things like consider, with disturbing frequency, how he might grievously injure or kill Mike Newton, all because...Edward considers him his romantic rival (despite Bella barely giving the kid the time of day). He thinks about slapping Mike through a wall, which might be an amusing slapstick image, except as a vampire Edward’s actually capable of turning this boy’s skeleton to a fine powder. So it’s, y’know, kind of sick when you think about it.

But even worse than that, when Bella tells Edward about how she flirted with Jacob to get at that sweet, sweet vampire lore, Edward chuckles and then, after dropping Bella home, flippantly observes that now that the treaty’s broken, why not genocide? I’m not even kidding, it’s right there in Midnight Sun; he seriously thinks about the fact that he’d be technically justified now in wiping out the entire tribe because a teenager tried to impress a girl with a spooky story. That is fucked. Remember, Edward was there with Carlisle when the treaty was first established. He knows how remarkable it is that they even came to a truce in the first place, that it was only ever possible because Carlisle is...well, Carlisle, and that it marks a pretty significant moment in supernatural history. He doesn’t care; he doesn’t respect it, or he’d never think something like “Ha ha, if I went and killed them all, I wouldn’t even be wrong. I mean, I won’t do it, but I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be wrong.”

Again: not the thought process or behavior of a sane person. (Or a person that respects life in general -- sorry Carlisle, big L.)]

Finally, whether he's a narcissist or not, I think the fact that Edward has constant, unavoidable access to everyone's thoughts is a powerful contributing factor to his instability. He can tune out the mental noise to an extent, but he can't stop it -- so he comes to rely on it like another sense. This causes issues with disconnect and lack of empathy, of course, but there's another facet to this shit diamond: he's basically experiencing a ceaseless flow of intrusive thoughts. His narration in Midnight Sun suggests that he "hears" the words people think, can "see" what they visualize in their mind's eye, and can sense the emotional "tone" and intensity of their thoughts. Therefore, perceiving Jasper's thirst through his thoughts makes Edward more aware of his own, "doubling" the discomfort. This would be a lot to deal with even from just his immediate coven members, but Edward gets all of this pouring into his head like a firehose on a day-to-day basis because the Cullens live right alongside humans. I know Meyerpires have galaxy brains or whatever, but that's a ton to process.

Besides the compounding effect on his own thirst when he "feels" the thirst of others, Meyer never suggests that Edward has difficulty separating his own thoughts from other people's; even when he was newly turned, he recognized Carlisle's "voice" in his head as Carlisle's. That would create a whole different host of issues around identity, but it looks like Edward's escaped that particular torment. However, I can easily imagine that what he does experience is just shy of unbearable nonetheless, with an eroding effect on his sanity over decades. He can't sleep to escape it; he's on a dishwater diet and probably (like the rest of his family) experiencing a perpetual, low-grade physical discomfort due to his thirst never being fully satisfied; and he's around far more people than is the norm for vampires -- even discounting all the humans, his own coven is unusually large -- meaning more noise.

Honestly, it would be weirder if he were all there, considering.

And even though I feel like I lost a sense of structure around where I started ranting about telepathy, I've written like 1.5k words about Edward fucking Cullen and I think that's enough for one post.

#twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #edward cullen #i stared too long and the twilight abyss gazed back #long post #major credit due to therealvinelle for having basically all the ideas already #theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin too since they agree and build off each other's metas a lot #idk how people who write meta can just crank these posts out i've been here for two hours #edited to add stuff i forgot to mention about edward's disproportionately violent fantasies

314 notes · View notes

moonbaby26 · 3 years

Text

Title: The Battle

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x Reader

Summary: Continuation from last chapter. Set during X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, you and the others fly to Cairo to confront Apocalypse and his soldiers in an attempt to rescue Xavier.

Warnings: Apocalypse being a leg breaking, hero strangling jerk. Characters fighting for their lives, but bookended with fluff from Peter x Reader pairing.

Chapters: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Taglist: @drikawinchester , @n0obmaster69 , @alexloveskili , @what-a-silver-lining , @bluesprings18 , @weakmoony-stuff , @slytherinsi-mp, @wintwrsoldiwr, @tommy-braccoli, @amourtentiaa

Peter Maximoff x Reader Masterlist

———————————

You’d at least gotten to clean up somewhat. Earlier as Hank and the new woman you’d just met, Moira, had worked on readying the jet, you’d found some bit of helpful supplies. Clean rags to wipe off the blood, and bandages that’d you’d hurriedly applied to your shallow claw wounds.

All the remnants of your restraints were gone, and your old, torn clothes you’d just tossed in favor of the thin jumpsuit and lightly armored black flight suit over the top of it. You all wore these suits, commandeered with this experimental jet now rumbling beneath you as you shot off to Cairo together.

There was silence for a good while, after some initial nervous chatter and joking from the others. It would have been too easy to fill this quiet with any of the myriad of questions still rushing through your brain, but you really had just listened and little more when they’d filled you in earlier with the gist of what they’d learned.

All that really mattered was that the Professor was being held captive by a seemingly omnipotent mutant. One that had now declared war on all and recruited his own powerful soldiers. This was a rescue mission, with likely all your lives at stake.

You leaned your head back, wondering if anyone else would really even know or care what had happened to you if you never came back from this.

The escape from Stryker’s lab had been life threatening as well of course, but it was so different when it’d just been one thing after another. Events unfolding too quickly to really develop any sense of dread, it’d been all adrenaline and luck really.

But even in a jet like this, flying all the way to Egypt was more than just a skip and a jump. It was well enough time to dwell on your own inexperience and shortcomings, to wonder if this was the last time you’d ever do anything at all.

“Hey,” Peter’s voice was quiet, just to you, as you glanced over, having been mired only in your own thoughts until that moment.

He was sitting beside you, both of you strapped in these jump seats that ran along both sides of the jet. Vaguely you realized the others had started talking once more as well then. Maybe that was why he felt more comfortable speaking to you again now.

He hadn’t addressed you directly since you’d reunited with the others. Though you wouldn’t blame him if he was just as nervous as you were deep down. But from his self deprecating jokes in front of your friends earlier, about still living at home with his mother, he would at least seem better at hiding fear if he did have any.

“Hey,” You answered back reflexively, looking at him fully again.

“So uh....” He was chewing a piece of gum, as if some part of him still had to stay in motion in order to remain comfortable. “That car, that was pretty sweet. That yours or what?”

Honestly it took you a very long, awkward pause before you could piece together any idea of what he was referring to. But being that you’d only known him since literally just earlier today, there wasn’t anything else he could possibly mean. “The yellow convertible?” You questioned anyway, not really surprised by much of anything now.

“Yeah, I mean, I take the road if there is one. I saw you guys on the way to the house,” He answered, still offering a little explanation regardless. “Looked like you knew what you were doing though.” There was a more sheepish grin emerging. “I was going to stop and say hey I guess. But then I saw the, you know, fireball coming out the house and all, had to go see what that was about. Save everybody or whatever...” He trailed off after a bit, maybe realizing that you were just letting him ramble.

It reminded you of how you’d acted with him during the whole lab fiasco. He seemed the more confident one down there, while you got easily flustered. You really wondered if having your friends here now was making the difference. As if he was more unsure of himself when there was a potential audience to hear what you might say back to him.

It was interesting, getting to put more of those pieces together, or at least starting to be able to when it came to him. For putting on the display of an extrovert, and if you could finally admit it, even him being an outright flirt, you felt more and more sure that that was only skin deep really. That was just the outer layer he protected himself with.

“It was one of the Professor’s cars,” You smiled genuinely, probably the first one since they’d told you where you were going in this jet and why. “We were on our way back from the mall.”

That warmth from you seemed to ease him back into his normal tone, maybe a slight relief in him that you didn’t find it off putting that he’d already taken notice of you before you even knew he was anywhere around.

“Oh, mallrat, huh?” He quipped, “I can picture that.”

He was teasing, but you gave it right back. “There is no way you can tell me that you don’t end up in music stores wherever you live, like a lot.” You hadn’t forgotten his band t-shirt after all. You thought you’d seen him putting away headphones at some point too. “And that leather jacket and pants you had? Come on, that didn’t come from some bargain clothes rack.”

You might have had him for just a moment there. Just a flicker of surprise in his eyes to know you really had paid him that much attention, before he retorted, “Hey, what’s the point of a fast car if it has no style, right?”

“Says the guy who most people can’t even see until he slows down.” But you were purposeful to make clear in your tone that that wasn’t an insult at all, just continuing a little more bravely afterward, “Though their loss I guess.”

There was no mistake then, he really did pause. You could feel the slightest bit of heat in your face again, but you were not about to take that back. Not when you didn’t even know what was really awaiting you all at the end of this flight.

And you were still the next one to speak, that resolve remaining. “If we make it out of this, maybe you can come with me back over there to our mall. Help me pick out some new stuff.” You tried not to make it sound funny, but on some cosmic level it still was. “Seeing as how my room and everything I owned was incinerated and all.”

“Deal.” He said immediately. Only a little afterward seeming to realize that maybe he sounded a bit too eager. He cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. “I mean, I’m pretty good at Ms. Pac Man too. They have an arcade, right?”

“Yes.” You answered, trying not to look too amused, and going along with him to help him feel more comfortable. “I can’t say I’m actually any good, but they do have a Flash Gordon pinball machine I always play. And a couple of air hockey tables. That’s my go-to.” No question with his speed that he would likely annihilate you on both. But the idea of being in a much simpler, safer place like that with him some day was a pleasant one right now.

“Oh yeah. I can show you a thing or two.” He was clearly back in his element then, looking smug once more.

“I’m sure you will.” You could only wonder if the god complex mutant and his lackeys you were now off to go challenge would have any idea that in the back of your mind you’d now be dreaming of a simple date in an arcade as extra motivation to get back home in one piece.

———————————

It wasn’t long before things had started spiraling in quick succession again. You’d all arrived in Cairo to find it essentially destroyed, save for what this fake god had already erected in monument to himself. A huge pyramid in the style of the ancient Egyptians, one he’d taken Xavier hostage inside.

It hadn’t been clear though how much of the destruction was done by this mutant, and how much had actually been at Magneto’s hands as it was with more shock that you’d found him in the middle of this as well. Now serving this apocalyptic mutant.

You knew enough about Magneto to both fear and respect him. Even though his history with the Professor went back so many years, Erik Lehnsherr as he was actually named was always more on the side of peace through violence. While Xavier preached ideals of tolerance and education for regular humans to one day accept mutant kind, Magneto thought them incapable of such, and had no qualms on preemptive strikes against non mutants as well as eye for an eye type vengeance.

But even for Magneto this seemed surprising. He would really just give Xavier up this way? As you’d gotten closer, Jean had sensed that Apocalypse (what you were now calling the new enemy in your own mind) intended to take over the Professor’s body, possessing him permanently to gain access to his mind control powers and become basically omniscient. He’d be unstoppable with everyone as his puppets then. Free will would cease to exist.

“You guys help Nightcrawler get into the pyramid!” Raven called back to all of you as the jet was landing. “Get Charles and I’ll take care of Erik.”

You’d snapped back to attention at the orders, and you saw that Peter was suddenly at her side.

He looked so focused all at once, “I can get you in there,” He told her, referring to the debris field of broken buildings and all else now churning, stuck in a huge magnetic orb with Magneto at its center. When she didn’t look sure, he continued quickly. “I came here for him, let me help you.”

Raven nodded to Peter then in agreement, knowing there was no time for more back and forth. “The rest of you, get Charles on this plane and get him out of here!”

You too knew what was at stake, there was no reason to argue, even if there still must have been concern on your face. You didn’t understand Peter’s change and sudden fixation on Magneto.

But it was only Kurt that spoke up immediately, yelling back to Raven and Peter, “We’re not leaving without you!”

Peter looked back at that, “Don’t worry.” In fact, you realized he was looking directly to you for one moment. “We’ll catch up.”

———————————

While Peter had sped Raven out of sight to try and reason with Magneto, Moira had stayed with the jet and Hank had come with you, Scott, Jean, and Kurt.

But as you all ran along the rubble, trying to make your way to the pyramid, it hadn’t been but moments until you encountered Apocalypse’s other soldiers, mutants set on stopping you all from interfering by any means necessary.

A tall, blonde man with wings made out of metal, a ninja seeming woman with a pinkish purple energy she could wield from her hand like a blade even while also carrying a katana, and a girl nearer your own age with stark white hair and seemingly the most power out of the three as she’d flown right towards you throwing lightning bolts from her hands.

You’d had no choice but to split up. Which you were sure was what they’d wanted even as you’d chosen to try and take the white haired girl’s attention. You didn’t really want to find out what would happen if one of those bolts struck you directly, but you could guess you had the best chance of anyone to maybe absorb some of it in your energy form.

You’d immediately powered up, glowing white as she’d chased you around the sky, both of you darting and flying in some kind of bizarre dog fight.

Your heart had been racing though, no amount of training at the mansion could actually prepare you for dueling with someone who actually wished to harm you. Everything to this point had just been about learning to control your powers, maybe even firing an energy blast at a dummy or paper target or two. But you’d never tried to hurt anyone. Not on purpose.

“Why are you helping him!?” You yelled out to her, swerving again as she tried to get close enough to you to land a hit. You generated an orb of light energy from one hand, letting it destabilize before you threw it towards her. It collapsed into itself, exploding to make a shockwave through the air that pushed her back again.

“He’s going to make it so we never have to hide what we are again!” She growled back in frustration, steadying herself in the air before her eyes hazed over into solid white.

You doubted that could be good, and of course it wasn’t as she raised her arms, a tornado like blast of wind then trying to knock you from the sky. You were able to shield yourself somewhat with your force fields, but the barrage of debris and wreckage that came with the winds made it too difficult to keep track of her as she did nearly land a direct lightning strike then.

“You’re wrong!” You yelled back, even as you felt numb and disoriented briefly, like the electricity surge was messing with your own energy. “He’s just using all of you! He only wants slaves, nothing more! And you’re just going to hand us all to him!”

She didn’t answer back after that, but you knew it wasn’t as if you could change anyone’s mind for them. She’d have to live with her own choices, just as you’d have to live with yours.

After a good while of this tit for tat though, you were really trying to take her out of the sky at last, knowing you needed to find and help the others as this had already been going on for far too long. You started trying to get her in the chest with white energy beam after energy beam shooting from your hands. She was fast, but you were able to at least get her in one shoulder at last as she spun with the force, losing altitude quickly with the hit.

Even as she fell, you could see her already correcting course though, trying to take aim at you again as she glared upwards.

But you didn’t get to see what happened next. A three fingered hand grasped your left arm suddenly from thin air, and then you were collapsing onto the floor of the jet you’d come here in.

“Gotcha, time to go!” Kurt spoke quickly as you looked to him in surprise, that strange burning smell hanging in the air briefly that always accompanied his teleporting. It was as instant a feeling as moving with Peter, but thankfully without the subsequent vertigo as you stood quickly, powering down, even as you were already looking around for the speedster.

With relief you did see Jean cradling the Professor’s head as they sat on the floor, Xavier unconscious but still breathing. But you did not see Peter or Raven.

Moira and Hank were already firing up the jet engines and you grabbed hold to the wall as you felt the craft quickly rising. “What about Peter and Raven?” You called out over the noise of the turbines spooling up faster and faster.

“We’ll have to trust them to figure it out, we’ve got to get Charles out of here now!” Hank answered back, leaving no room for debate.

You felt an unease building in your stomach, but it was true that if Apocalypse got Xavier, that Peter, Raven, or anyone else would then no longer matter anyway. At least for now you could hope Peter would just take Raven and run somewhere far from here. Xavier and Jean could use their psychic abilities to find them later and you could reunite.

But a hard thud above you left you all looking upward as the jet rattled.

“What the hell was that!?” Moira called out.

As soon as you saw that pinkish energy blade emerging through the jet’s hull, you had already powered up again, glowing and ready to shield the others as best you could. Apocalypse’s soldiers were proving too difficult to shake.

Yet Jean had other plans, “Everyone, grab onto Kurt!” She yelled.

You didn’t know what altitude you were already at, but you knew it wasn’t a survivable one for the jet itself if it was ditched now. Yet a fight in this close of quarters with all your powers would likely end in the same result. So her choice wasn’t as irrational as it first seemed.

You reached one hand quickly back, firmly grabbing onto Kurt’s shoulder, even as you kept your other hand raised towards where the metal winged mutant and the blade wielding woman were now trying to force their way in through the breach they’d created in the hull.

“I’ve never done it with this many people!” Kurt warned as you all held to him.

“Get us out of here!” Jean commanded, her desperation bringing out a forcefulness you hadn’t yet seen from her.

But Kurt was still straining, the sound of his opening whatever portal he used clearly heard but not bringing you anywhere as he tried several times.

The man with the metal wings jumped down into the cockpit, now just feet away as you realized what you had to do.

“Go without me!” You screamed over the rush of wind now coming through the hull breach. You let go of Kurt, making direct eye contact with Jean.

You could get out on your own. At least you were going to try. It was the only way. Kurt wasn’t able to take you all.

You felt that Jean was listening, that she heard your thoughts and that as difficult as it was, she agreed just as quickly. It was the only way.

“Do it!” She urged Kurt even through the horrified look he gave you both.

“I’m taking it down.” You also heard her voice say in your head almost simultaneously. That briefest warning to ready yourself before she willed the controls to throw the plane into a nosedive and cause Apocalypse’s soldiers to lose their footing.

The last you saw of your other friends was still their shocked and frightened expressions as they disappeared from right in front of you. But this was your only chance as well, propelling yourself as fast you could, right through the fading cloud of gas they left behind and past the now tumbling winged mutant as all your focus went to that small square of sunlight that they’d cut into the hull.

It was your one window of survival. For just the briefest moment, you felt him try to grab hold of your leg as you flew past him. But you kicked him with the other leg as hard as you could manage, breaking free into the open air as the jet plummeted on without you.

Out the corner of your eye you saw the woman had remained on the outside of the jet, but jumped free from it as well. You lost sight of her as you both fell, focusing only on trying to slow your descent to a survivable speed. It was one thing to levitate yourself up from a neutral position, and wholly another to try and control your energy field around yourself enough to reverse the terminal velocity transferred to you from being within a crashing plane.

The ground still came too fast, too hard. You blacked out on impact, laying alone in the dirt as your light energy faded, receding back inside you.

————————————

An unknown time later, something jolted you awake. You could hear screaming as you opened your eyes. You were laying on your side. Everything hurt and you could taste blood in your mouth.

But you were already forcing yourself back up as you swallowed. Disoriented as you were, you still recognized that voice. It was Peter. He was hurt.

You were looking all around you, and it didn’t take long to see the source and reason for the screams.

Not far from you at all, Apocalypse stood in a clearing from all the rubble. Peter right beside him, half crumpled to the ground. One of Peter’s feet was encased in the earth, trapping him there like an animal in a snare. His other leg was clearly broken, twisted at a grossly unnatural angle.

You felt a foreign rage beginning to burn up inside you, but before you could even physically react you saw the woman with the katana again. Nowhere in your mind did you take any time to consider how she would look so clean and uninjured having just come from the same circumstances as you of barely escaping the crashing jet.

All you saw was her walking towards her master, sword at the ready to finish Peter.

“Stop, (Y/N)!”

Charles screaming inside your head was the only thing that kept you from revealing yourself at that moment.

“It’s Raven! I’m telling you, it’s Raven!” Even Charles was struggling to break through your flaring emotions, as he repeated himself desperately. “He’ll kill you, (Y/N)! Stay in place, I beg you!”

The Professor had never spoken to you in such a way before. You gripped onto the broken wall in front of you, still only just obscured from their view as you saw Apocalypse grab Peter by the hair, jerking the young man’s head back roughly to expose his throat to the woman.

“It’s Raven, please trust her!” Charles did not let go. You could feel him actually starting to control you even, something he had absolutely never done before, though your emotions were exploding like they also never had. He didn’t want you to make a life ending mistake.

“(Y/N), please.” He called again and you realized you were being held in place, unable to move out any further. You were forced to only watch as the woman raised her blade, Peter wincing in fear and pain beneath her as she swung it.

But it was only Apocalypse’s throat that ripped open. Yet even in your surprise, any sense of victory was still non existent. No blood poured from the wound, and it healed completely within moments as he only grabbed his supposed traitor by the neck, holding her up immediately.

Raven’s feet hung in the air while she choked, her blue skin and true appearance quickly returning as she could no longer control her disguise as Apocalypse strangled her.

And it was only then that you felt Xavier letting go of you, in his own shock as Apocalypse tried to bait him out.

“Charles! Come! Rescue your weaklings!” Apocalypse challenged aloud, still dangling the now helpless Raven while Peter stayed trapped at their feet. “Give your life for theirs!”

He was going to kill her right in front of you. You powered up, knowing there was no other choice. You had to-

“No. I’m still connected to him. Let me get in his head, (Y/N), then you can go to them.” The professor spoke quickly, yet with a touch of new resolve.

“Charles! Will you do nothing?” The false god continued to bellow.

This time you listened without being forced to. You did see Apocalypse pause as if Xavier was indeed making contact. It was still an agonizing wait, but when he finally let go of Raven, you allowed yourself some shred of hope. You’d never seen anyone be able to overpower the Professor mentally, once he was fully in.

But that hope was also short lived as just moments later Apocalypse raised his hand abruptly. At will he dissolved the outer wall of a nearby building. You could see Scott and Hank then exposed, themselves just as surprised and staring out. But you knew it could only mean that Apocalypse had used Xavier’s connection against him just that quickly to root out his hiding place.

This could be the end then. You resigned yourself that the only choice was to die fighting if that is what it had to be. But you weren’t as alone as you thought.

As Apocalypse had left Peter and Raven behind, now striding confidently to his prize, two massive steel beams suddenly shot into his path. They buried themselves into the ground, crossing into an X to block him.

You looked back into the sky, glad in this single moment that you had been right about at least one thing. Magneto wouldn’t give Xavier up in the end. Not without bloodshed anyway.

“You betray me?” Apocalypse asked, already turning to deal with Erik instead.

“No. I betrayed them.” Magneto unleashed hell then, every bit of metal he could pull shooting towards Apocalypse in an unending assault as the other raised a shield that incinerated each and every piece as it hit. But doing so clearly taxed him, allowing the perfect moment for the rest of you to join the battlefield.

You got to Peter almost simultaneously as Hank got to Raven. You and Beast were clearly in the same mindset of getting the injured out of the immediate firefight before you would join in.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, the Professor froze me,” You spoke in quick apology to Peter, using a small energy blast to break up the earth that had been hardened around his trapped foot. Once cracked, you broke the rest of it free just with your fingers.

He was obviously surprised, grateful, and maybe even confused all at once as you gently lifted him with the help of your powers. You wrapped his arm around your shoulders, trying to mind his broken leg as you helped support him while gliding over to a safer spot some distance away.

“Stay here.” You spoke, sitting him down so his back was against a mostly still standing wall to shelter them.

Hank was sitting Raven down in the same manner beside him as Peter suddenly spoke up to you. “Wait.”

You were still crouched in front of him, you’d been about to stand back up when his hand went around the back of your neck and pulled you in closer.

Before you could register anything else, you felt his lips press against yours. It was a bit harsh, desperate even, and then it was over just as fast as you pulled back in surprise.

“In case we don’t ever get to make it to that arcade,” he responded to your shocked expression that was still evident even in your energy form like this.

You took a breath, now was not the time for verbalizing any of this. But you wanted to show you agreed with the sentiment. You leaned back in, kissing him yourself for one longer moment, one hand gently cupping the side of his face before you stood back up. He allowed the contact readily and you could only wonder what it felt like to him when you were enveloped in light like this.

Hank and Raven just gave you both the most confused of looks, but nothing was said as you and Beast had then rushed back off to throw yourselves into the fight.

——————————

(Continued in next chapter here)

#quicksilver x reader #quicksilver x y/n #quicksilver x you #quicksilver #x men #marvel #peter maximoff #pietro maximoff #xmen #x men fanfiction #peter maximoff x oc #peter maximoff x you #peter maximoff x y/n #pietro maximoff x you #pietro maximoff x y/n #pietro maximoff x reader #xmen apocalypse #pietro maximoff x oc

284 notes · View notes

songsformonkeys · 3 years

Text

Digging Up Bones (whiskey x f!reader) - chapter 3

[Banner by the lovely @yespolkadotkitty ]

Summary: You work for the Statesmen as the head of their medical department. It’s your job to patch up anyone who gets back wounded and to work on ways to prevent them from getting badly wounded in the first place.

Agent Whiskey, in particular, seems to be more accident-prone than the rest and he never passes up a reason to come see you, whether for real injuries or imaginary ones. The two of you form a close friendship, which slowly turns into something more.

Then a British man with a headshot wound and a fascination with butterflies shows up in your emergency room and in the events that follow you’re forced to reevaluate just about everything you thought you knew about your partner.

Warnings: canon typical violence

Masterlist

Chapter 3

The following three days passed in a slow fashion. Not just because Whiskey was gone but the rest of the agents seemed to be staying out of harm's way as well. It was a bit boring, but that was something Tonic had taught you not to complain about out loud since it apparently made it sound like you longed for injuries and carnage.

On the bright side, the slow days gave you, Ginger, and Tonic time to begin interviewing the agents on base for their emergency folders for the Alpha-gel.

The three of you had realized that while the gel and the nanites healed the brain perfectly fine they still needed something to counter the retrograde amnesia, which seemed to be a standard side effect. The sample of agents that had needed to use the gel was still small and so you couldn't draw too many sure conclusions from it, but every single one of them so far had suffered memory loss. It had been Tonic's idea that reminders of a past trauma might jump-start the memory again. The results had been good but guessing and digging up past traumas had been painstakingly difficult and had taken up more time than ideal. So you had collectively decided that each agent should have a file or a folder containing their very worst memory and ways it could be triggered.

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

On Wednesday evening, you curled up in your armchair and called Whiskey. He picked up after three rings.

“Moonshine, “ he drawled, voice sounding a little tired.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” you asked, suddenly feeling a little bad. It wasn't that late in the evening but maybe Whiskey had needed to tuck in early.

“No no, I was awake,” Whiskey assured you, “Just got home from a looong day at an art auction. I'm not sure if you've ever been but it is possibly the most boring thing I have ever done.”

“Yeah? What was so bad about it?” you asked, smiling to yourself. You would be caught dead before admitting it out loud but you had actually missed him these past few days.

Whiskey began describing his day. A soon as he began talking, his voice relaxed you. You pictured him walking around in a swanky hotel room, with a view of the big city, probably still wearing his hat. You were half convinced he even slept in that thing.

Whiskey told you about the auction and the few stuck-up people who had pretended not to understand his southern accent just to make him feel less than. Then he told you about the way he'd later wiped the smug smiles off their faces by actually bidding home the small painting they had been ogling.

“Champ might kill me for it, 'cause it cost a small fortune, but it was worth it!”

“What will you do with the painting?” you asked.

“Hm,” Whiskey said and you didn't need to see him to know that he was shrugging, “Dunno. Might hang it in my apartment. It's a beautiful painting, reminded me of someone special... Speaking of my apartment, have you finished the cake yet?”

You nodded, before remembering that he couldn't see you.

“Yes, Ginger and Tonic helped me eat the rest of it.”

You had been over to Whiskey's apartment the day after he'd left. When you'd gotten to work, his key had been in a white envelope on your desk and you hadn't been able to keep your curiosity at bay for longer than a workday.

The apartment hadn't been quite what you thought Whiskey's home would look like. It had been much neater and cleaner than you had expected, for starters. You had expected more of a bachelor pad but Whiskey's apartment was quite nice. It looked lived in but not messy. Each thing seemed to have its own designated spot. As you had walked around the living room towards the kitchen you had taken in the big, comfortable-looking couch and multi-colored knitted blanket that looked like it was homemade.

There had been a couple of books on art history resting on the wooden coffee table. You had stopped, slightly in awe, in front of the big bookshelves that covered a whole wall of the room. You'd never pictured Whiskey to be the reading type, but here was clear proof otherwise. You had scanned the titles of the books and the exceptionally wide array of subjects made you suspect that a lot of these had been read for previous missions. But there had been a whole shelf of fiction too and you smiled a little as you noted that a lot of them seemed to be old western classics.

You had found the cake in the fridge in the equally clean kitchen. The cake had been in a plastic container and Whiskey had stuck a post-it note with a smiley on the lid.

“I liked your bookshelf. And I borrowed a book from you,“ you confessed over the phone and Whiskey chuckled in response.

“Is that so? Which one, if I may ask, was it that caught your fancy?”

“Lonesome Dove.”

“Ah, a classic! Didn't have you pegged as a western girl, Moonshine.”

“I'm not sure if I am, I've never read any. But you had a lot of them and I thought...” You cut yourself off, glancing over at the book on your bed, “You had a book on human anatomy as well that looked interesting and one on make-shift medical treatment when you don't have access to a hospital. I didn't take those, though. It felt wrong to take so many books without asking...”

Whiskey chuckled again and the sound did weird things to your insides, or maybe it was the nerves of having just admitted to raiding his bookshelf.

“Darlin', if it makes you happy, you are more than welcome to help yourself to any book in that apartment”

“Really? But what if it's a book that you suddenly need?”

“Then I'll know perfectly well where to find it.”

You couldn't really argue with that logic, didn't really want to either because the prospect of getting to read all those books almost made you giddy.

“So besides ogling my books, what else have you been up to while I've been gone?” Whiskey asked and you proceeded to tell him about the work with the Trauma Folders, which Tonic so affectionately called them.

“You still haven't submitted yours either, by the way,” you told him. Whiskey didn't immediately answer. The line was dead silent for a few seconds and just when you were about to ask if he was still there, he cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I know. I promise to get right on that as soon as I'm back, okay?” He sounded a little odd and your brow furrowed slightly. Whiskey cleared his throat again.

“Look, darlin', I'm pretty dead on my feet right now and as lovely as your voice is to listen to, I think unfortunately we gotta hang up before I start snoring on you.”

“Oh, of course! Sorry, I've talked too much.”

“Hardly,” Whiskey replied and his voice was warm and soft again, which eased the nervous knots that had begun forming in your stomach at his abrupt attempt to end the call. Usually, that was your role to try and say goodnight and his to try and linger. “I cherish every word, which is why I prefer to be awake for them. Call me tomorrow again?”

“Sure. Good night, Whiskey.”

“Good night, darlin'”

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

If the previous days had been slow, the following day was anything but, at least when the afternoon rolled around.

Ginger had called you about some very strange low-frequency readings coming from a church nearby in Kentucky. She told you that she and Tequila were gonna go check it out but that you should be on standby, just in case.

You told her to be careful. Ginger was excellent at her job but she was also one of your closest friends and you couldn't help but worry.

After you'd ended the call, you immediately set about preparing the emergency room and double-checking to make sure everything was there. Seeing as neither of you knew what the strange readings had been about, it was difficult to prepare for every possible scenario, and while you knew that the health effects of exposure to extremely low frequencies were being discussed in the medical community, no one knew exactly what the effects were.

It seemed like a lifetime had passed before Ginder called you again. You heard the sound of the helicopter in the background. She told you that they'd be there in thirty and that they were bringing someone in with a headshot.

“I'll get the chamber ready for him!” you told her

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

Thirty minutes later, on the dot, you watched as the helicopter landed and Tequila emerged, carrying a man in a suit. The man's face was obscured by the balloon containing the Alpha-gel but his clothes looked expensive.

“Entry point?” you yelled, over the sound of the helicopter as you waved for Tequila and Ginger to hurry inside.

“Straight through the left eye,” Ginger replied and you winced. The left temporal lobe would be damaged, for sure, maybe part of the occipital one too. You were confident that the nanites would be able to rebuild the brain matter but with the temporal lobe damaged you worried that the memory loss might be even more extensive than what you'd seen before and you wondered if it would affect his speech.

“Exit point or is the bullet still in there?” you asked.

“The bullet went all the way through as far as I could tell. Not sure what he was shot with though so we'll have to scan to make sure there's nothing left in there.”

Said and done. When you got down to the medical rooms you first put the man through a thorough scan of his skull. Just like Ginger suspected, the bullet had gone straight through and it luckily hadn't left anything but damaged tissue in its wake. Tequila helped move him over to the nanite chamber. Carefully, you removed the Alpha-gel balloon and quickly closed the chamber around his head.

“What happened?” you asked as you sat down in front of the computer and began tapping away at the keyboard, starting the machine and readying it for the healing and rebuilding process.

“We have no idea,” Ginger said. “We found him like this outside the church, no sign of who had shot him. Inside the church, however...”

“What?” you asked.

“Inside was a total fuckin' bloodbath,” Tequila supplied, “Whole congregation just...slaughtered.”

You looked over at the strange man.

“You think he did it?”

Both Ginger and Tequila shrugged.

“We don't know. But he's got blood on him that isn't his own and there was no gun in his hand so he clearly didn't shoot himself, which means someone got away from that Church alive.” Ginger reasoned, “And there's one more thing..”

She pulled a pair of glasses from the pocket of her jacket. The left glass was shattered.

“He was wearing these. These aren't normal glasses, which means he's not a civilian. And his watch... he's some sort of intelligence. I'll dig around and see if I can find out whom he belongs to.”

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

You called Whiskey again that evening. He sounded more awake today but you could practically hear the frown on his face when you told him about your strange new guest. He was not happy.

“He's an agent?” he asked.

“We think so. Ginger is running some tests on his glasses and his watch to see what we can figure out but so far we have no idea whom he's working for. So we just have to wait for him to wake up and see how much he remembers.”

“I don't like this,” Whiskey stated. “Not one bit. If he's intelligence, he's dangerous, Moonshine. You shouldn't be alone with him, not under any circumstances!”

“I won't,” you reassured him while rolling your eyes. “Agent Tequila also has an over-protective streak and has, therefore, put himself on guard duty until further notice. I've had him looking over my shoulder all evening.”

You had found it somewhat annoying but Whiskey had instantly calmed down upon hearing that bit of information. He told you to promise to listen to Tequila on this, which you reluctantly did. You didn't tell Whiskey that if the arrangement continued, you would have to come to some sort of agreement with Tequila on how close was close enough for protection. You couldn't have him reading over your shoulder all day long or you'd go stir crazy.

Whiskey continued to ask you a bunch of questions about the strange man and you couldn't answer a single one. He asked you about the signal too and you couldn't give him any answers to that either. It was all Ginger's area of expertise and you told him as much.

“Sorry, darlin', just wanna make sure my favorite girl is safe until I get back.”

Whiskey's words made you smile stupidly, despite the slightly patronizing undertone of them. You would like to think you knew how to take care of yourself, especially around your patients. But you did enjoy it when Whiskey called you his favorite. No one else had called you their favorite before.

After a few more minutes of chit-chat, you both said good night.

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

The next day, your patient woke up.

It had been decided the day before that Tonic and Tequila would be the first ones to greet him. Tequila because of the whole bodyguard business and Tonic because he was by far the one who had the most experience with calming people in shock and panic. You had only sulked a little when you'd sat down the desk on the other side of the one-way mirror showing you the stranger's cell. You turned on the cameras in the other room to record the interaction before leaning forward over the desk to watch.

As anticipated, the man was more than a little freaked out by waking up in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces around him.

“Where am I? Who are you?” he immediately asked and you raised your eyebrows as you noted his British accent. The stranger tried to scramble off the bed where he'd been lying. Tequila took a step forward but Tonic quickly held up a hand to stop him.

“You are in a hospital,” Tonic told the frightened man and gave him a calm smile, “My name is To...Tom.”

“A hospital? What happened?” the stranger asked.

“We were hoping you would be able to tell us. You were in some sort of accident and when we found you, you were unconscious.”

Unconscious... that was definitely an understatement to describing having had one's brains blown out through the back of their head.

“Do you remember anything of what happened?” Tonic continued.

The British man looked around the room with wild eyes but he was already calming down a bit. While you were a bit jealous that Tonic, or Tom apparently, was the first one to get to talk to your new patient you had to admit that it was a privilege to get to watch him work. Tonic continued talking to the man and answering his questions by saying just enough to calm him but not enough to confuse him.

You found out that his name was Harry, but he couldn't remember his last name. He was from England and he thought he was 23 years old, which he most definitely was not. You caught Tonic and Tequila exchange a look as Harry told them his age. If Harry couldn't remember anything beyond his 23rd year then you estimated that he had forgotten more than half of his life. And since he wasn't one of your agents, you had no idea how to bring those memories back again...

Tonic and Harry spoke for a while longer and Tonic told him about his injuries. He also told harry about the memory loss. Harry didn't believe him until Tonic guided him over to the one-way mirror separating you from them and let Harry have a look at himself. You stood on the other side of the mirror and could watch as realization dawned on Harry. His breathing immediately sped up again and he was beginning to panic.

“Harry,” Tonic said calmly, “Harry, I'm gonna need you to breathe slower with me, okay? We've seen this kind of memory loss before and we will do our very best to help you recover the memories you can't remember right now”

“Think of it as one hell of a hangover,” Tequila supplied and Harry gave him an incredulous look.

“Hangover?” he asked in a weak voice “I look old enough to be a grandfather and I don't remember any of it... I don't think anyone has ever been drunk enough for that kind of hangover.

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

Tonic and Tequila handled the whole ordeal in a way that made you proud to call yourself their colleague and they stayed with Harry for most of the day, talking and explaining. Harry listened patiently and you had to give him credit for taking the situation a whole lot better than some of the Statesmen who had gone through the same thing. He was scared and worried, sure, but he managed to keep his panic in check and asked Tonic a whole bunch of relevant questions.

You wished you could have stayed and watched all afternoon but eventually you had to go back to your own office and begin typing up your report.

You had barely gotten two paragraphs in when your phone started ringing.

“Moonshine?” Whiskey said as soon as you picked up and you could immediately tell that something was wrong. He sounded scared. There were car horns blaring and loud crashes in the background.

“Yes. Whiskey what's...”

Whiskey cut you off before you could finish your question.

“Where are you?” he asked and when it took you a fraction of a second too long to answer, he repeated the question, “Moonshine! Where are you?”

“I'm in the office. Whiskey what's wrong?”

“Good! Whatever you do, stay where you are! There's something in the air! People are killing each other!”

“What?” Before you could say anything further, your door burst open and you screamed from surprise.

“Moonshine!” Whiskey yelled, panicked, as Ginger stormed into the office and pushed you out of her way to get to the computer. She began tapping on the keyboard and you watched as she pulled up live feeds from several cameras around the country. Your mouth fell open as you watched the chaos that filled the screen.

“MOONSHINE!” Whiskey yelled again and you realized you hadn't answered him.

“I'm fine!” you quickly assured him and you heard him exhale loudly. “Ginger just showed up. What the hell is going on?” The last question was aimed at them both. The quality of the feeds wasn't the best but there was no mistaking what was going on. All over the country, people were killing each other.

“The fuck if I know,” Whiskey said at the same time as Ginger supplied the slightly more helpful “It's the same signal! It's the same low frequency as we picked up from the church. But this is all over...well the world”

She turned and looked at the phone in your hand.

“Is that agent Whiskey?”

You nodded but then froze as you heard a banging noise on the other end of the line, which sounded much closer than the previous ones. You heard Whiskey curse.

“Whiskey?”

There was another crash and he cursed again.

“I'm sorry, darlin', I seem to have a visitor. I gotta go.”

“Whiskey,” you begged and you heard your own voice break as you spoke his name.

“Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll deal with this and then I promise I'll come right home to you. You just promise to stay inside and stay safe, okay?”

What about you? you wanted to ask, but Whiskey had already hung up.

“He'll be fine,” said Ginger, who must have seen the expression change on your face. You nodded. She was right. Whiskey was an excellent agent. He would be fine.

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

He would be fine. You managed to convince yourself of that up until about an hour later when the office phone called. You were too busy clutching your own phone, waiting for Whiskey to call back, to pay any attention to the other phone so Ginger picked it up and answered. She exchanged a few cryptic comments with the person on the other line before ending the call by saying:

“We'll be ready for him.”

After she'd hung up the phone she turned towards you.

“Whiskey's on his way back. He's been stabbed but according to the pilot, he's stable. They're flying him back now. “

#whiskey/reader #whiskeyxreader #agent whiskey #kingsman golden circle fanfiction #kingsman golden circle #my fanfiction #female reader

31 notes · View notes

starbuckie · 3 years

Text

All You Knead is Love Chapter Four: A Bit Untraditional

Challenge: The CBC 1k Writing Challenge by @captainscanadian

Prompt: Bakery AU

Pairing: Baker!Bucky x CEO!Reader

Warnings: Loads and loads of fluff, angst, mentions of PTSD and violence, pining, language as always, and slow burn

*TW: PANIC ATTACK*

Description: After being cut off by her family, Y/N L/N started up her own business. With her business finally rising to the top after three years, her family invites her back on two conditions: that she finds a man and gets married. Once she accomplishes that, then she’ll be able to access her family’s fortune again, which could help her business immensely. While that didn’t sound horrible to her, Y/N had never let herself have the time to meet other people, and has no time now. Running on a deadline for the company, she picks the closest person she can find: which happens to be the sweet, shy, yet hot baker who occasionally caters at her galas.

Words: 2,064 words

A/N: Hey guys! It’s been a solid two months, but I am back and hopefully kicking it with this series. I actually decided to rewrite the ending of the story from what I originally had planned, so I’m very very excited to write it. The holidays are coming up which has me excited, and if you haven’t already sen in a request for the Twelve Days of Fluffmas, you most definitely should. Again, this is for @captainscanadian‘s writing challenge(which you should go join do it do it do it) and hope you enjoy :))

Thursday approached menacingly and rapidly. In the few days they had to prepare, Y/N had managed to move all of her belongings from her pretty empty apartment on the Lower West Side, and into the house that they had bought. She couldn’t be any more grateful for her real estate agent for being so snappy with the process of buying the house. The apartment she left behind had barely been decorated, so the process wasn’t too difficult for her to move in. Bucky on the other hand had started to bring boxes over, at Y/N’s slight insistence that her parents may ask to come over, but his house held so many memories that he knew it would take much longer. It was difficult for him to leave the home he had known for so long, full of cherished memories and the only stable home he had after Iraq. But he was ready to let it go.

The evening of the big engagement dinner Y/N and Bucky were frantic, rushing around the house after work to shower and look presentable, making sure they could pull the stunt off. Bucky’s nerves had been on edge all day, slipping out of the house at two am, hours earlier than normal to start his day. As he talked to customers and served coffee, the words he’d rehearsed with Y/N echoed in his brain, taking over every nook and cranny of his thoughts that he messed up several orders. This time he wouldn’t get nervous. It took him long months to feel the slightest bit comfortable in his own skin and around his neighbors, so if he ran his own bakery he could propose, right?

“So,” Mrs. L/N tried to conceal her disgusted face, “James, what kind of, er, delicacies do you make?”

So the conversation was less than great, even Bucky could admit that. Although Y/n had warned him ahead of time that her parents were not the most amazing conversationalists, he expected something better than this awkward discussion about his job. He loved his job. It brought back cinnamon flavored memories of baking at Christmas with his ma, his dad and younger sister yelling over Scrabble in the living room. Barnes Brooklyn Bakery was his pride and joy, yet he couldn’t help but feel self-conscious when both of Y/N’s parents looked down on it.

“I make lots of things. It requires an earlier or later start time based off of what I’m making, because I want everything to be fresh. But my ma’s croissants are a big seller, and I know that Y/N loves my cinnamon rolls.” He sent her a soft smile, one that the woman in question couldn’t help but return.

“They’re amazing, mom, you have to try them. I swear those hands are absolutely magic and anything that’s made from them is as well.” She intertwined her pinky with Bucky’s on the table, admiring the way the candlelight illuminated the slope of his nose and the hollow of his cheekbones. God, this man has no right being this beautiful. “Bucky’s a hard worker and it shows.”

Y/N’s praise breezed through Bucky like a breath of fresh air, and suddenly his head was clear again, cheeks flushing. “Thanks, doll.”

“And what about your pay, James? How much do you make annually? I have to make sure you’ll be able to support both you and Y/N. After all, her pay from her… makeup brand and her funds can’t be enough.” Fury raged through Y/N, Bucky could probably see it in her eyes as she opened her mouth, prepared to make her argument.

“I make well enough at Orion, dad, but that’s not the point.” Meeting Bucky’s stare from her peripheral vision, she almost panicked. The reason they were sitting there in the first place was so Bucky could get more money for his bakery. “Must you really bring up business at the table? I’m simply trying to have a nice dinner with my boyfriend and my parents, is it really that difficult to ignore money matters for once?”

Her parents eyed each other, as if they were speaking in their own silent, separate language and reluctantly quieted down. The rest of dinner was... tense, to say the very least, stiff questions about childhood and answers being reciprocated as well. Sitting in the presence of her parents, their food tasted bland, but that could’ve been from the anxiety of waiting for the proposal. They’d decided that Bucky was to pop the question while they ate dessert, just a simple small speech and a few tears.

Bucky’s eyes kept trailing back to Y/N as they shared a matcha tiramisu, repeating the words “will you marry me” a million differents ways in his head. The small restaurant he felt comfortable with suddenly felt too small, Bucky not knowing when the proper time to get down on one knee. They hadn’t discussed this. Y/N had just said “whenever you feel is right”, but when was right? The whole idea just felt so wrong to him. Marriage was supposed to be loving, a holy union and commitment for the rest of their lives. He and Y/n didn’t love each other. The whole sham of being husband and wife, for money suddenly felt so sickening to him. The room was closing in on him and all he wanted to do was bolt out and never turn back. He was going back out, he was going to, he felt it, and-

“Marry me, Y/N.” Dead silence. Eyes from all the customers sitting were baring through the couple, seeing his innermost secrets and every one of them felt like a beam of light, boring straight through his soul. Bucky hadn’t even realized how he had practically yelled it at her until the restaurant had gone quiet and he was absolutely mortified. Y/N’s eyes were wide in shock, as this was not how she imagined it going. Yet, the show had to go on.

He instinctively dropped onto one knee, eyes trained at the ground because he was scared of what he would see in her eyes. Short puffs of breath left his mouth and he all of Manhattan could hear his heart pounding. “When we met, I knew you were the one for me. I knew you were beautiful, hell, y-you were gorgeous that day you walked into the bakery, but every time you came in after I got to know the beautiful woman that wasn’t just on the outside, but on the inside too.” His eyes started tearing up, from both his kind of true confession and the pressure that was being put on him. “I-I promise to love you with all my heart. You’re my best friend, my confidante, my soulmate, and I want to be walking by my side for the rest of our lives, doll. I want to be yours forever. What do you say?”

Bucky lifted his gaze up to meet hers, hands covering her mouth as a soft sigh left her lips. Y/N couldn’t believe the beautiful sight. Shaking hands held a small cut diamond nestled in between two simple silver bands. Bucky’s hair was fluffy, newly so from his haircut the other day, clean shaven jaw showcasing the highlights of his cheekbones, and his eyes. She could go on forever about those pretty, blue eyes of his, but in the two years of knowing him, they had never been as pretty as they were in that moment, pretty blue eyes peering up at her.

Here he was, the man that she considered one of her closest friends in the city, literally giving his solitary life up to spend it with her. She wasn’t in love with him, not now at least, but those lingering feelings of hers tried to once again force their way back into her heart.

And this time, at the worst time possible, she let them.

With a small but giddy grin, she nodded and placed her hand on his cheek. “Yes, Bucky, I’ll marry you.”

He let out a long sigh at her approval, but the applause and cheers directed at him continued to make his heart race. Bucky slipped the ring onto her finger clumsily, his breath starting to become more labored as the cheers of “kiss” got louder. Y/N noticed his harsh breathing, and as she pulled him into an enveloping embrace she could feel the rapid beating of his heart the thin dress shirt he wore. “Can we go, Y/N?”

His whispered voice quivered, as if he were to break at any moment. “Of course, Bucky, I’ll go say goodbye and you can start heading to the car.” Grip on her waist tightened as she heard him grind his teeth.

“Please stay with me.”

Of course I’ll stay with you. “Always.” The cheers had not stopped, their voices still ringing strong throughout the restaurant. With no hesitation, Y/N planted a kiss on his cheek, hopefully ridding themselves of the large crowd they had garnered. Her parents looked confused, both of their eyebrows raised at the couple who still had yet to do anything besides hug at their engagement. “Mom, dad, Bucky and I are gonna go home to… celebrate by ourselves.”

Both of them heated up. “Just leave, we’ll take care of the bill. Your father will send you information for the fund over the weekend.” Mrs. L/N eyed both of them skeptically before saying, “Congratulations, Y/N.”

As soon as they got outside Bucky’s knees buckled, Y/N rubbing his back to try and console his breathing. His mind had grown hazy with wild thoughts, the crowd, the proposal, Y/N’s fucking perfume, it was all too much.

It was crawling underneath a truck in the boiling sun, Sam screaming for him, the first blossom of pain and staring down at his left arm, bloodied and detached from his body. It was screaming at his little sister to leave when she brought him groceries, ripping up Steve’s letters from Iraq. It was hours upon hours sitting in medical beds, sitting on couches, staring at the ceiling while doctors attempted to get him to open up. It was panicking at the bakery when someone eyed his prosthetic for too long and women leaving dates with him at the diner on 5th street after he failed to tell them all the gory details about how he lost his arm when they persistently asked. It was every moment he had looked at Y/N, all smiles and kind eyes, and wishing for once that he could not be a fucking coward and ask her out.

“I’m sorry.” The woman whispered. She now kneeled next to him, her right arm tracing shapes on his back, the light scrape of her nails bringing him to somewhat of a peace.

“I don’t need your pity, Y/N.” The second it left his lips he regretted it, waiting for her to leave him alone. They all did eventually. But Y/N sat there, patiently, with a small tilt to her red-painted lips.

“I’m not pitying you, Bucky. You’re one of the strongest and bravest people I know, and I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

“I just can’t believe I relapsed.” He let out a humorless laugh, his chin coming to rest in his palm. “I thought I was doing well, I always feel okay at the bakery, but I guess that the restaurant was too much. Haven’t been to one in at least a year.”

“It’s completely okay to have panic attacks and to relapse, okay, Bucky? Don’t beat yourself up about it, honey.” Kicking her high heels off, she brought herself down to his level, both of them sitting on the sidewalk as people passed them by. Though they were in New York, the city that never sleeps, she strangely felt calm. People didn’t even turn their heads at the two well-dressed people sitting on the ground. “I would’ve proposed to you, you know.”

“You propose to me? That’ isn't very traditional,” Bucky said with a breathy chuckle.

“To be fair, is any of this?” His grin was starting to grow back, and he squeezed her hand and looked out into the crowded street of the night.

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

TAGLIST

@aiofheavenandhell @barnesjamcs @kitkatd7 @adorkably @marvelnaturalock

AKYIL TAGLIST

@aiofheavenandhell @barnesjamcs @kitkatd7 @captainscanadian @93generation @drunkbucky @thebadassbitchqueen @asonofpeter @cosmicbreathe @adorkably @awesomeannanumber1 @blubberingmess @every-marveler-ever @supraveng @delicatecapnerd @bitchwhytho @peace-love-hobbitness @learisa @marvelnaturalock

67 notes · View notes

izartn · 3 years

Text

On the The Host romance:

A lil note: @into-september as you’re reading Twilight, and your last post made me realise this, I thought it better to write my own post and tag you! Hope you don’t mind.

The Host is the first novel of an “adult” science fiction trilogy by Stephanie Meyer which never was finished. Published in 2008, the same year as Breaking Dawn, I guess she preferred gaining the benefits of her vampire saga to keep on writing.

For shame, because for me, The Host is much better at establishing worldbuilding, a concept and its protagonists + a romance (not that there isn’t anything cuestionable in it, but to my taste it’s better done than in Twilight). Here is the first paragraph of The Host wikipedia’s section on plot:

A species of parasitic aliens called "Souls" have invaded Earth, deeming the humans too violent to deserve the planet. When a Soul is implanted into a host body, the consciousness of the original owner is erased, leaving their memories and knowledge.

Wanderer, a Soul, is placed into the body of Melanie Stryder. However, Melanie's consciousness is still alive and begins to communicate with Wanderer mentally. Wanderer's assigned "Seeker" suggests that she could be placed into Melanie to retrieve the memories before disposing of the defective body, but Wanderer makes several attempts to deny her Seeker's wishes. As Wanderer starts to uncover some of Melanie's memories of her younger brother Jamie Stryder and her boyfriend Jared Howe, Melanie gets her to follow a series of landmarks throughout the Arizona desert to find her Uncle Jeb, hoping that Jared and Jamie are with him. By doing so, she would be denying the Seeker Melanie's memories and the humans they would lead her to.

Just. Read that and have the face to tell me it doesn’t sound more interesting than Twilight I dare you. Of course the books are different genres, although the focus is in the... more sentimental part in both. It’s just that The Host story is more unusual and the worldbuilding dreamy and subtly horrific.

Well I said I was gonna talk about the romance right? Spoilers incoming!

A bit of more context is necessary; in The Host, Melanie, the human Wanda (nickname of Wanderer) is possessing, is in love with the boyfriend mentioned in the sinopsis, Jared. Wanda being in the body of Melanie, feels things for him. We can divine for context this is sexual attraction plus having access to some of Melanie’s memories and noticing Jared is pretty ok as humans not possessed are left on Earth.

Melanie reaction to this oscillates between “don’t you dare touch my boyfriend alien” and “well of course you fell for him, he’s pretty awesome” to “if I can’t it’s ok if you want to” when she’s feeling herself disappear at one point. Which is bullshit bc her conscience comes back when Wanda goes to tell Jared to kiss her bc she’s feeling Melanie disappear and when he gets near Wanda, Melanie usually mounts a whole circus in her head. It works.

Well that’s one part of the romance. The other is Ian, a human in the settlement who is pretty level-headed and who starts talking to Wanda, as her guard first and then as her friend. No previous contact with Melanie, so he mets Wanda in Melanie’s body and isn’t excessively hostile or sad. Bc you know, an alien is in the body of you “niece, girlfriend, sister, etc” isn’t really conductive to good first impressions although that alien has come bearing the news that said person is still alive somewhere in their brain.

(Also the whole human group is so hilariously based on those paranoid about the government/end-of-days usa people... And it works! LMAO) (The social dynamics are interesting in this book ok? basic but ingenious)

So Wanda falls slowly without noticing for Ian; Ian falls first and confesses and everything. I think their first kiss was a bit sketchy? But generally they good.

The interesting thing is this: Melanie and so her body, is in love and attracted to Jared. Wanda, inhabiting Melanie’s body, starts realising that although Jared is pretty ok and all that, he’s really Melanie’s love; she doesn’t exactly like his more violent tendencies.

(Really he’s more apocalypse survivor hardcore, but he really was a dick to her at the start, bc alien possessing girlfriend and all. Also gave her mixed signals, etc. Very american male which, eh. Melanie is also very apocalypse survivor hardcore; the two mesh well bc of that lmao)

Well, as Stephanie Meyer is SM, and she has some weird ideas about romance the thing is, Wanda doesn’t feel sexually attracted to Ian. Bc all the hormones in her body are signaling only Jared. But she really is romantically attracted to Ian, and loves him. When they kiss, she likes it, but it’s not super passionate nor does it brings the same high that the few occasions Jared kissed her. To Ian’s credit he doesn’t really get it at the start, but then is immediately acepting of Wanda’s boundaries. I think he pushes a bit? But this SM so. Sigh. (I like to think in the hands of another author he wouldn’t do the sterotypical male thing but yah)

What I mean is that Stephanie Meyer, without intention, created an ace romance. Sure, it bc really weird biological alien science, but if you take it to mean Melanie is demi and only feels attracted to Jared, that makes her body reactions logical when Wanda also falls in love. She isn’t occupying the body wholly; there’s the host original presence; so she falls romantically but not physically. If I’m saying great idiotices please correct me under; I don’t have any background on sexology or biology.

Sadly, Wanda is also super worried of not being able of correctly loving Ian, so. Negation of ace identity in one, two..., warning to folks sensible to it.

And well, she ruins it when at the end when Wanda is put outside Melanie´s body into one who doesn’t have a human conscience. She explained the others how to take “souls” out of humans without killing any part, and how to take the “souls” to the space ships where they’ll be transported to other worlds. But sometimes the humans have passed so much time suppressed, or have been taken so young, that there isn’t a conscience-anyone to recover.

The Host is very weird, bc this is a race of genocidal colonist aliens who are weird beautiful little ribbons of silver in their original form, who after abandoning their original world by possessing another race who invaded them realised they could live whatever lives they wanted possessing people without dying and just. Went for it. They are a supposedly all peace loving gents, who cured all poverty and illness by their superior technology and like, very comunist-anarchist society. Who abhor violence, but don’t see eliminating other people identity as violence.

They are weird and amazing; when they realise having and raising children as humans costs so much, they start acting as parents to those humans without going to have a soul implanted on their kid, bc they love them as they are. A mess of contradictions, and Wanda is so interesting bc of this.

Sadly, SM acted again, and made Wanda one of the rare females able of auto-destroying to create more fragments of herself (aka other souls). The rest of souls don’t have any gender and chose bodies as whatever sex they like most. Guess Wanda being an alien was fine, but not having an explicit gender was too much, lol. To be fair, she says she prefers female bodies, but doesn’t really mind. Good on Wanda.

There’s a secondary romance too; the search of Ian’s brother, Kyle (who almost kills Wanda once) for his abducted girlfriend, Jodie. Results the soul inside her body, Sunny has all of Jodie’s memories of Kyle and is like, already in love with him. She lets herself be abducted, and when they explain they’re gonna get her out and why, is like, cries and begs, but accepts it bc is Jodie who Kyle loves. She hasn’t ever heard her like Wanda did Melanie, though, so when like a week or two pass and Jodie’s conscience remains dead Kyle consents (bc the other relatives of Jodie are soulified) to bring back Sunny. Wow. What a clusterfuck. They don’t date but there’s this weird vibe where Kyle has stopped hating all souls after Wanda’s mess and his encounter with Sunny, and Sunny herself is like; yay! I can live with humans and Kyle and I’ll keep trying to awake Jodie. And the two of them are described as inseparable?

It’s more intriguing than Twilight; I wished there were more fics interested in exploring cool canon divergences and all. I didn’t dive in the problematiqueTM aspects of the book but come on, this is SM and you have reading comprehension. I just wanted to talk about how interesting is the intersection of sexuality in romance in Wanda’s case >-< Still better than Twilight but I guess the aesthetic of vamps surpases The Host. Which. Valid ok? Each to their own.

#the host #stephanie meyer #wanderer #melanie strider #ian o'shea #jared howe #kyle o'shea #sunlight passing through the ice #or sunny for friends #meta #the host meta

40 notes · View notes

kirstinmaldonado · 4 years

Text

CHAPTER ELEVEN 2.0

I got the bamboo in my backyard trimmed yesterday, like the proper adult I am. Though it’s now lost that unkept, tropical, “we could be anywhere” vibe (ya know with my suuuuper cool inflatable pool and all that staycation “make the most of it” stuff…), I’m happy that it looks cleaner overall and clears the power lines that it was getting dangerously close to..

Yet in a way, it feels bittersweet! Sweet to premeditate issues and be on the safe side, but bitter to snip away bits of its voice. Within the past few weeks, the unbridled bamboo would whistle and screech in the wind as if weeping for the bloodshed and violence that I’d also been weeping over for days. I’d lie awake at night, desperately trying to empty my brain that was already filled to the brim, but just couldn’t rest while nature literally knocked on my door.

On one of those windier nights the bamboo tapped on my bedroom window, firstly scaring the shit out of me, as if trying to lure me outside whispering secrets. My brain was an absolute mess trying to compartmentalize my thoughts and feelings amidst everything going on. The sound of its erratic movement stirred my anxiety, and I sat alone in the dark trying to decompress, but kind of nervous of its foreboding presence. I felt like a child, hearing and seeing shadows in the night. I even joked to the very asleep Ben that the wind sounded truly angry, for it wasn’t a peaceful sigh like bamboo so often does but harsh, abrupt shrieks demanding attention.

Well, Nature, you got me! I hear you!

A few days ago I walked through not one, but four different plant nurseries. Laugh if you want, but the Nursery Crawl starting at 11am was not on my to-do for that day, and no did not involve any adult beverage. I was so happy to be amongst the innocence of nature, the stillness, the beauty.

Although I left the good boys alone longer than they’ve been used to since quarantine, I had to get out of my house and the consistent circling of helicopters. My house didn’t feel right. My backyard didn’t feel right. Nothing familiar felt right and I didn’t want to run away, but I just needed a moment to really clear my head in a space that felt unadulterated and open.

The flowers, the succulents, the trees, even the little peaceful water machines grounded me back from reeling. I walked aimlessly through the gardens, picking whatever sparked my eye, asking questions, and laughably came home with a car packed full of plants!

I’ll admit, I’ve barely been able to keep a Chia Pet alive in the past and I’ve accidentally killed anything and everything that doesn’t make noise (aka I don’t have a natural green thumb). Give me a succulent, I’m too overbearing and nervous and overwater it. Give me a plant, I forget to water her enough!

This time is different though, you guys! I’ve obviously been doing my research and trying to re-home and love on them in the best way possible, and of course anything is easier to look after if you’re around and literally home in one place, but it also just feels so good to pour love in to something and watch it grow. I’ve even been propagating (I want you all to look that up because I had no idea what it meant a few weeks ago, haha)!

The patience and nurture it takes, the excitement when you see it root, is as lame as it sounds SO COOL. Nature is insanely beautiful and fascinating. If one would just take the time to listen, to nurture, to understand we could reap the benefits synonymously, without one taking advantage of the other. I think the best thing I’ve found in quarantine is that I want to be using and connecting with my hands: growing, cooking, painting, writing, creating. Being one hundred percent involved in the work I am putting out. CONNECTING with the work I am doing.

The past few weeks, this whole quarantine, as you know have been transformative. I feel like I’ve been shedding skin of old habits, of past hurt, of feelings or situations that I brushed aside that I am just now uncovering and understanding their brevity. Noticing scars of old burns I’d rather kept forgotten.

I feel like I was hurt and demoralized for years, so draped myself in a safety blanket of contentment, cruising happily and not pushing any major button because I was tired of conflict, anger, hate, and fear. I was blessed and happy thinking how a thousand horrible situations turned out a-okay, even brought the most amazing people in to my life, and that I was better and happy for it. I preached to be bright and positive, but was preaching it in hopes I’d latch on and the positivity would give me strength to face my days. I could wear my silence like a badge of honor, and thank the heavens that I somehow held it together.

I don’t want to be silent anymore.

I can’t, anymore.

By saying that, I also don’t intend to be irrationally brash and I’d never want to step over voices that should be lifted to be heard not spoken over.

By saying this, I just mean I don’t want to wear my safety blanket anymore. I’m not afraid to stand up for what I believe is right. I think back a few years to the music and distant voices that soothed my soul (shoutout to my queen, Sara B). I remember in my darkest times wishing I could put in to words how I felt, the quiver of my tiny voice as I tried to stand up for myself, and wishing that someone would have just stood up for me.

That’s all I needed. An ally. A real one. Someone to be on my side. Someone to see I was suffering, and unjustly, and even at bare minimum just notice. Just open their eyes, and SEE and try to do something about it.

Again, if you really truly see, and don’t try to close your eyes, how can you sleep knowing what you saw? How can you make cruelty in any form okay?

So...has my voice gotten louder? Yes.

Has it gotten stronger? Yes.

Have I lost thousands of followers, after posts saying people should be judged on the caliber of their heart and not the color of their skin and that everyone should grow up being accepted and loved? Yes.

And I don’t care. It’s a shame, but if the above is something you don’t believe, I may be the wrong person to pour your attention in to anyway. That is said with all the love in the world.

Maybe it’s just all the La Casa de Papel I’ve been watching. Maybe it’s seeing everything with my new eyes. Maybe I’ve just been comfortably sleeping and praying that I can live in a world without conflict, knowing very well in my core that although I’d never intend to incite, I can’t brush off the bad like it doesn’t exist.

My past has made me stronger, my platform makes me accessible, so I must try to plant little seeds of goodness along the way and do everything I can as an ally for people’s rights to live, love, and be accepted for who they are. I am not perfect. I never will be. I believe I express myself well, but I’m listening and learning every day and will continue to do so. All I know is this.

I will stand by you when you are feeling down or oppressed, because you and everyone deserves to be treated with respect and love.

Yes, you.

#blog 2.0

126 notes · View notes

iraacundus · 4 years

Text

Butterfly Lies - Four

chapter four ✭ masterlist ✭ previous ✭ next ✭

mafialeader kun x reader

words: 3.8k

genre: smut, angst, fluff

warnings: smut (degredation, dom!kun, sub! reader); mentions of torture death and violence

money makes people do strange things, is what people would say, it can even motivate them to murder. kun didn’t have people killed for the money, he had them killed for the power, he was a monster among men, is what people would say. in reality kun had only ever been motivated by one thing, his love for you

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

When you were actual allowed to start your real job at Qian Industries, it was weirdly fun. You spent all of your mornings with Ten, explaining to him why his ideas were wildly unrealistic and crazy and providing him with more sensible ones.

“Why would the office need to be near an ice cream place, I like ice cream as much as the next person Ten but I just don’t think that is essential,” you explained, “plus that would make the office very close to a G7 territory, they aren’t on the list of enemies and I guess we don’t want to add them to that list, it would probably involve unnecessary death.”

You put a big read x over the address Ten had proposed.

“I question your priorities there but okay…” Ten said. He was questioning your priorities? Maybe Kun had assigned you this job and ordered Ten to annoy you out of the company. Somehow you knew that wasn’t true, Ten was just Ten.

“If you don’t shut your ass up, I’m going to start leaving random fruits on your desk you idiot.” It was the one thing Kun had told you that would give you leverage over Ten – his fear of fruits.

Ten huffed, throwing his pen down at the map dramatically.

“Then where do you suggest?” he asked.

You picked up a black marker and drew a circle round two different locations,

“Both of these work, one is better for efficiency but the other is slightly closer to the NCT office which could be useful for collaboration. It would be better to be further away from them though so that we cover more area combined, but I’m not against that location so you can pick between the two,” you explained.

Ten looked vaguely impressed. He picked up the red marker and drew an X over the closer location.

“We go for efficiency then.”

You held your hand up, giving Ten a high five.

“The best team that V has,” you said. Ten raised an eyebrow.

“WayV, is the name of the gang you know?” he said, “or clearly you don’t know, people just graffiti the V because that’s easier.”

That made more sense, a single letter wasn’t a great name for any brand.

“But yes, we do make a good team,” he relented, “in that you’re smart and I’m stunningly good-looking.”

You let him have that one.

The day didn’t slow down from there, next you were expected to go and learn some skills with Lucas. You were marginally apprehensive about what skills entailed but trusted Kun knew what he was doing.

Lucas was staring out of the office window when you walked in, so he didn’t notice you.

“Hello?” you said, making him aware of your presence.

“Sorry there was a cute puppy on the street,” he said turning around to grin at you. Your first question was how he saw the puppy from the street when you were on the sixteenth floor. Your second question came after his second statement.

“So, have you ever stabbed someone before?” You decided he was dangerously nonchalant in asking you that question.

You stared at him for a second trying to figure out just quite how sarcastically to answer.

“Yeh, I stabbed a guy just last week for jumping the queue, he had a right smirk on his face. No of course I have never stabbed someone you idiot, like most people have never done that, like a high percentage.”

Lucas shrugged.

“Just would have made my job easier if you had but its chill,” he replied.

He then proceeded to hand you a knife and get you to practise stabbing a dummy he had set out, showing you different tactics for self-defence. He also showed you how to disarm and attacker or just fight someone without a weapon.

He wanted to show you how to fire a gun, but you refused to learn, you didn’t think it was necessary. You also didn’t want to contribute to the number of guns in the city or gun violence.

“We can’t go to the hospital, so you have to learn how to deal with stab wounds, how to slow the bleeding and how to do stiches also,’ Lucas explained. You were weirdly excited at the prospect of this.

It was exactly the kind of area you felt you could be additionally useful without having to resort to mindless violence. You would just help with the aftermath of mindless violence instead.

As you stitched the fake arm you struggled to understand how Kun was calm enough to have done this to himself. He was truly his own brand of strangely impressive but also maybe insane.

You had actually planned to meet him later on for dinner. You were slightly stressed about it because you really didn’t want to have to talk about the whole, ‘kiss’ situation, you reckoned it wouldn’t be beneficial for your friendship to linger on the reasons you refused to commit to Kun.

You also knew it wasn’t beneficially for our friendship to ignore him, thus you agreed to go. You thanked Lucas for helping you and walked into the elevator, planning to stop by and ask Kun what kind of restaurant it was so you knew what to wear before you went home.

You arrived outside his office where the door was open, and no one was inside. You didn’t think anything of it, he was probably just busy elsewhere.

At the same time, you got a text from Johnny, one of the guys who worked out in Korea about the office location. You had a bit of free time, so you decided to go look for Ten and tell him what Johnny had said.

You decided to go to random floors and explore a bit. You had only been to a few parts of the building. You looked at the options on the lift and were surprised to find the building had multiple basement levels.

You guessed it might be carpark and thought it would be fun to see what kind of cars they drove to work out if any of Kun’s guys were just as rich as him. You pressed B1 and the lift went down.

It was a carpark, but it was empty, so you decided to go down the steps to the next level.

B2 was decidedly not a basement. The door to it was locked by a pass that said top level security clearance only. You held your pass up and it opened the door, it beeped green and opened. You were surprised Kun had given you that level of access, you had expected the door to not let you in.

There was a big sign inside the basement entrance with another reception desk. Yet this time the reception desk said WayV above it in big letters. Not Kun industries.

You had stumbled across where the real action occurred. You felt a lump rise in your throat, you were terrified yet so intrigued that you couldn’t walk away.

Yangyang was sitting at the desk with his feet up and jumped when he saw you.

“y/n!” he said, “how did you get in here?”

“With my pass,” you said wiggling it, smile on your face, hoping if you faked like you were meant to be there enough, he wouldn’t question it.

“I thought you were working with Lucas and then you were done, what brings you here?” he looked slightly nervous.

“I know what’s happening in there,” you said, hoping that he inferred something from your statement that would stop his questioning.

“Uh, okay then go on ahead,” he said, sitting back down. You felt bad, knowing that he would probably get in trouble again for this, he clearly had been demoted a lot if he was on desk duty.

You pushed open a door on your right and entered a badly lit corridor. There were a few doors, but you heard voices coming from further on down, so you walked towards that. The door was left open slightly and so you stood next to it, you could see but you could here.

You heard someone get hit, groaning in pain, causing you to flinch.

“Tell me where he fucking gave you this letter or I will rip your fingernails out one by one until you change your mind,” you heard Xiaojun’s voice. There was something so terrifying about how such a seemingly nice guy could be here, doing this.

“No fucking time Jun, either he tells us, or we shoot his buddy here,” this time it was Kun’s voice which was so much worse.

“Fuck you!” came an angry reply immediately followed by a gunshot.

“Now your friend is dead, tsk, tsk, tsk,” Kun said his voice unlike anything you had ever heard before.

“And so is your leverage,” the man replied. Kun laughed. He laughed, you were so shocked, his laugh was so like him yet so not.

“You have other friends, other partners, no?” Kun began, “You are not the only two we have or the only two we can get. Lucas here will get your other buddies from next door, one by one. I will shoot them one by one. When we run out, he will capture more, I will kill more. That is unless you fucking tell us, how you got the piece of paper.”

“Just kill me… please,” the man begged.

“But that would be so easy wouldn’t it, where’s your flair for the dramatique? Get the next one in,” Kun said.

You panicked; you knew you should leave before someone saw you, but your legs wouldn’t move.

Lucas opened the door and stepped out, face to face with your tear-filled eyes.

“Shit,” was all he said. He grabbed your arm and pulled you a few steps along so everyone in the room could see.

“We have a visitor,” Lucas said, “Yangyang still can’t do his job it seems.

You saw Kun’s face turn from a sick smile, to something unreadable. You saw the blood spatters on his hands, a dead body being rolled into a tarpaulin on the floor by Hendery and Sicheng and you saw a man tied up in the middle of the room.

The time it took for your brain to recognise the situation was enough time for your brain to finally send signals to your legs.

You dodged round Lucas and ran for the door. You ran back out of the hallway past the desk where Yangyang saw you running and now looked worried and up the stairs. You skipped the lift and continued up the stairs to the main entrance before running out the front door.

You stopped a taxi in the street and asked it to drive you home. Your only real thought was that you didn’t want to think.

You pulled out your phone. You knew Kun wouldn’t try to contact you. He was nice like that, he wouldn’t impose. He also murdered people for information. He was evil like that.

You texted Yuyan.

Need to go clubbing tonight, can you meet me at the snake house at seven?

The snake house was your favourite bar, it was right near a good club and you couldn’t wait until the club opened to drown out your memories with vodka.

You stopped at home briefly to throw on some new makeup and a dress, they wouldn’t let you into the club otherwise before walking to the bar.

Yuyan was waiting outside.

“Not to be mean y/n,” she said, ‘but you look rough, did you fall down the stairs? Your face is a weird colour, are you sick?”

“Not sick, emotionally traumatised, shall we drink,” you said dragging her through the door of the snake house. Yuyan just laughed, she thought you were joking or exaggerating, probably assumed the mental trauma was just an awkward meeting or something similar.

You stood at the bar.

“Can I get a rum and coke?” Yuyan said to the barman, who nodded.

“I’m going to level with you, can you just give me that bottle of tequila and a straw please,” you asked.

“So, a real bad day then?” Yuyan said raising her eyebrows.

“The worst.”

You sipped your tequila with a straw, it wasn’t super pleasant to drink this way, but it did have the effect you had hoped for, it made you drunk very fast.

You had practically passed out in the bar seat by eight-thirty.

“How are we meant to get into the club when you can’t even stand?” Yuyan chastised, pulling the bottle out of your hands.

“If I stop drinking now, I should sober up slightly by ten,” you said and Yuyan couldn’t argue with that.

By ten you were in fact able to stand and just about managed to get into the club, the bouncer did give you a look but Yuyan was looking pretty so he let you in anyway. A fucked-up system but it worked in your favour.

Inside the club you were still drunk, but slightly more in control, you found a random guy on the dancefloor and started making out with him. Trying to push the resurfacing memories of Kun out of your mind.

It didn’t really work. You were sobering up by the minute and so left the random guy you had found to go back over to the bar. You downed three shots and could almost hear your liver complaining before getting back to the dancefloor.

It still didn’t help but your drunk confidence was back, you found Yuyan again and explained your alcohol fuelled plan.

“I’m going to call him, I’m going to tell him to stop being bad, how dare he be like this, he is meant to be a good guy.”

You had never told Yuyan about Kun, so she had no idea what you were talking about,

“Are you sure this is a good idea, drunk calling a guy rarely is,” she advised, “but that clearly won’t stop you,” she said laughing as you walked towards the door. It was fine to leave her because a few of your other friends had shown up by this point.

You rang Kun, standing inside by the entrance to the club.

“I need to talk to youuuu!” you shouted down the phone when he answered, “I need to talk to bad Kun because he’s making my heart sad.”

Kun sighed down the end of the phone.

“Where are you at, I will come pick you up,” he said.

“The club next to snake house,” you said, hanging up the phone and wandering outside. There were still people queuing to get in on the street. It was only just before midnight. The cold air sobered you up slightly and you were already regretting your phone call decision.

Minutes later, Kun’s SUV pulled up and he opened the door from the inside so you could get in. You pulled your heels off and climbed into the front seat.

“I hate you sometimes Kun,” you said.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. Like ever he really did sound sorry. You didn’t know what to say now he was here.

“I wish I had no feelings for you at all,” you iterated, “it would make things so much easier.”

Kun’s apartment wasn’t far from the bar. He stopped the car and got out, you followed silently until you reached the inside. Kun shut his door behind you both carefully.

“Do you want me to explain?” Kun asked, his face looked so sad, you knew how much your words hurt him, but you also knew how important is was to tell him the truth.

“Let’s have sex,” you said to which Kun almost fell over.

“Your drunk and well, given the situation I don’t think that is the best choice, we need to talk about this.”

“I’m not that drunk anymore.” You replied, “and talking hasn’t gotten us anywhere.”

“Are we gonna fuck because you love me or because you hate me?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” you countered. Kun answered by bringing his lips to yours, pushing you up against his wall, biting your lip softly as your hands gripped his hair.

“We’re only in this situation because you’re a bad girl who can’t do what she’s told,” he whispered in your ear, undoing the buttons of his shirt, “I gave you a job, I take you to dinner, I do everything for you and yet you still can’t behave for me.”

His words were turning you on, so you tried to kiss him again, but he pushed you back against the wall.

“Not yet baby, bad girls have to wait,” he said, still unbuttoning his shirt, painfully slowly before throwing it on the floor. Your eyes blazed at the sight of his chest, Kun really was the perfect man, excluding his violent activities.

Kun stepped forward again until your bodies were millimetres apart. He pushed your dress up slightly, his hand pressing against your bum, pulling you towards him across the final short distance.

He stared down into your eyes, you had no way of discerning what his thoughts were, his face was blank.

“Are you sure this is what you want? Will you be a good girl for me?” he asked, his hand playing with the zip of your dress, teasing you with the opportunity to back out, knowing that you wouldn’t.

You nodded. He immediately pulled the zip down, your dress falling to the floor moments later. You hadn’t worn a bra, but you were too tipsy to be self-conscious. You wouldn’t have needed to be anyway.

“You are so beautiful,” Kun said, his normal softness fleeting over his face for a second before it was gone again. He brought his lips back to yours, kissing you more aggressively this time, his fingertips brushing over your nipple lightly in comparison.

His fingertips traced down your stomach lightly, stopping just above the waistband of your panties.

“Cute,” he said, referencing your underwear with pink bunnies on, you hadn’t prepared for the current situation. You made a face at him, but he just chuckled, “I mean it, you’re cute,” he said, before pulling them down your legs.

The dichotomy was almost too much for you to handle. His hand brushed between your legs,

“I knew you could never resist me, I’m too handsome,” he said, licking the glistening moisture off of his fingers.

Your legs weakened even with that small touch, a problem that worsened when Kun began to rub gentle circles into your clit. You groaned slightly, desperate for more, but Kun was unwilling to give it to you yet.

“Such a slut, don’t think I didn’t notice that your lipstick was smudged when you got into the car.” He said, finally pushing two fingers inside of you as he trailed kissed down your neck, your arms wrapped around him.

“But now you’re my slut,” he said, his fingers moving at a painfully slow speed.

“Faster,” you begged, your breath raspy. Kun ignored you, continuing to do things his way, clearly enjoying it from the grin on his face.

You thought about ways to get what you want, and it didn’t take you long. You had never guessed Kun would be so into sex like this, but now you did you could use it against him.

“Please,” you said, “I’ll do anything you want; I’ll be a good girl.” Kun raised his eyebrows slightly before grinning again.

“As tempting as that is, you will do what I want anyway like a good little slut.”

Well your plan failed but when he added another finger you forgot all about that. You started to whine slightly, feeling your orgasm rise within you but just before you could cum, Kun moved his hand away, leaving you empty.

Kun walked away to sit on the sofa, his eyes still locked on yours. You could see the growing bulge in his sweats. The thought of sucking him off almost turned you on enough to dissipate your annoyance at his previous actions.

You followed him over and knelt down on the floor between his legs, undoing his jeans and pulling his waistband down, letting his cock spring free. It was thicker than you had anticipated as you wrapped your hand around the tip, moving your hand down slowly.

At first you planned to give him the same treatment he gave you but when you began to suck, Kun’s hands tangled in your hair, pushing your head down faster and deeper, you could feel his cock hitting the back of your throat, causing Kun to moan.

“Look at me,” Kun said, your eyes moving to stare up at him, as he continued to fuck your face on his cock. The look of pleasure on his face making you wet all over again.

Staring into your eyes as you sucked his dick was clearly too much for Kun as he came in your mouth seconds later, grinning when you swallowed it all.

“Fuck you’re brilliant,” he said, “the best whore for me.”

“Please Kun, will you fuck me now, I’m being a good slut, just for you,” you said, still staring up at him, feeling his dick harden beneath your fingers at your words.

He nodded, you climbed onto the sofa, kissing him softly before getting onto your hands and knees.

“Look at you just ready to be fucked, you really are a fucking whore for me,” Kun said, slapping your ass, the sting only making you more desperate to feel him inside of you.

“Are you taking the pill?” Kun asked, you nodded.

That was the final thing he needed to hear. He slammed his dick into you, setting a merciless pace from the start, his cock filling you up entirely.

Kun spanked you again before he placed his hand over your mouth as you screamed out in pleasure.

“Jesus the neighbours will all know whose dick gets you wet at that volume,” he said. You moaned into his hand as he continued to fuck you, his own low groans only adding to your pleasure.

You could feel his dick beginning to throb inside of you.

“Fuck you’re going to take my load like the dirty whore you are,” Kun said, removing his hand from your mouth, instead pulling your hair as his dick slammed deeper into you.

“Yes,” you whined,

“I want to hear you say it,” Kun demanded.

“I’m a dirty whore who is going to be filled up with your cum,” you whined, feeling your walls contracting around his pulsing dick.

He final came inside of you, the feeling of his cum filling you up as he fucked it deeper into you causing your own high as you called out his name.

Kun pulled out and sat down onto the sofa, pulling you down next to him.

“Can we just sit here for a second?” he asked, his normal kind tone returning. You kissed his lips softly.

“I don’t see why not.”

#kun #kun smut #wayv #wayv smut #nct smut #nct #kun scenarios #kun imagines #wayv scenarios #wayv imagines #nct scenarios #wayv mafia #kun mafia au #wayv mafia au #nct mafia au

110 notes · View notes

maaji-maji-majima · 3 years

Note

some kissing hcs for Majima?(if u can make it nsfw)

So I'm in a weird place with this. I don't want to leave you unanswered but I know you won't like the answer that I give. It has been a long time since I was active on tumblr and I'm not sure when along the timeline headcanon became synonymous with fanfiction. I appreciate fanfiction authors for their creativity, but I am not one myself. I use headcanon in the older definition of "this isn't in the source material, but it is true in my brain". They are either random things my half asleep mind thought of while walking home from work or a character analysis. At the same token your ask had crawled into my brainmeats and won't leave. So again, I apologize that this most definitely is not what you're looking for, but I hope someone out there finds this to be an interesting read.

Without further introduction, here is a character analysis of our favorite pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin in regards to relationships and why the he desperately needs therapy as brought to you by a different pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin who got therapy but probably needs more.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, self harm, mental disorders, poor coping strategies, unhealthy relationships, random tense changes, not fanfiction

Spoilers for the whole franchise, but very specifically for 0, K1, and 5.

Abuse does weird things to people's brains. In Yakuza 0 Majima has barely been out of the hole for a year. He might no longer be suffering the actual physical torture he had been subjected to the year prior, but he is still directly in the hands of his abusers and being watched every moment. He is still in a cage even if it doesn't look like one. He is depressed and likely suicidal, but doesn't follow through with those thoughts because he is determined to make sure Saejima has a home to come back to. He is willing to endure just about anything to allow Saejima a chance to exact that final moment of retribution because Saejima is the one who deserves it and Majima doesn't feel that there is any possibility for forgiveness. In all likelihood he hasn't sought out anyone for a hookup or paid company for an evening due to a combination of not feeling like he deserves anything that feels good and the fact that he's constantly being watched. The year in hole means he no longer really has a concept of privacy, but he's worried that getting close to someone, even for a few moments, could put them in danger if Sagawa or Shimano feels like holding something else over his head. It isn't worth accidentally dragging someone into his own personal hell. He no longer lives for the present, he is only living for that far-off future that he hopes isn't just a pipe dream.

Enter Makoto. At first she is a stand-in for Saejima's sister Yasuko, but it morphs rapidly from there. She is the light and kindness and hope that he hasn't seen in years and she's being dragged into his bullshit. He knows in his heart of hearts that she doesn't deserve what she is being forced into, so his mind snaps into the immediate and does everything he possibly can to save her. This is is the hill he wants to die on. Maybe, just maybe, he can end his miserable existence with a final act of good and he feels that Saejima might just be able to understand. But because he no longer has any relationships in his life that are not strictly professional or the abusers he cannot escape, he has little recollection of what a nuanced relationship or even friendship is any longer. Due to circumstance she is also the only person that he cannot keep at arm's length, no matter how desperately he tries. So he falls for her and falls hard. But in the end, after everything they go through he does the impossible. He lets her go. She has a life and a future, whereas he has neither of those. What would she do? Become his ane-san? Have some temporary happiness before she realizes she has a target on her back for the rest of her life? No. Majima believes she deserves so much more than that even though it hurts him deeply. What is one more hurt on top of everything else? He's gotten extremely good at burying his pain.

Getting to Tokyo flips a switch in Majima's brain. Like many people with mental trauma who don't have access to therapy he falls into excess as a way of self medicating. He fits virtually everything on the hedonism checklist. Drinking? Yeah. Violence? Hell yeah! Promiscuity? Yeah, but I ain't judging. Drugs? Probably, even though it isn't explicitly stated in game. Everything from his shift in personality to his wardrobe has become, intentionally or not, a defense mechanism. He has escaped from all of his abusers except for Shimano and he refuses to allow anyone to gain that kind of power over him again.

It is a double edged sword, however. His depression and PTSD are running unchecked. In all likelihood he hasn't fallen hard on vices as a way to reclaim ownership off his own body. Instead it seems more probable that he is dissociating. After everything he has been through he doesn't care what happens to his body in the long run because it isn't actually his anymore. Risky behavior, which is practically Majima's middle name, is also frequently used as a passive form of self harm because the end result is either temporarily feeling better thanks to endorphins and adrenaline or permanently feeling better after embracing death. He could achieve a similar feeling by taking up jogging and chasing a runners high, but that takes more time and energy than chugging a handle of whiskey or goading some chump into throwing hands. Sadly even now admitting to mental problems by seeking help is fairly stigmatized in Japan and it was only worse in the early 90s. Can't have a problem if no one tells you it's there, right?

Then he meets Mirei. She's intense but not wild like Majima. At that moment in time she is everything he needs. Head strong, domineering, and very, very determined. She knows exactly what buttons to press to wrap him right around her finger. And he lets her take the reigns, lets her run his life because he realizes he was doing a terrible job on his own. Better her than Shimano, right? Doing something wrong results in the cold shoulder instead of a vicious beating, and doing something right leads to more than simply the relief of avoiding a beating. He decides that making her happy is enough to make him happy. Until suddenly it isn't. He never wanted to be a father, but even the idea that he could have been was enough to cause a fundamental shift in his entire outlook on life. He could have had someone to live for, instead of just survive for. But he had no say in the matter and didn't know until the decision had been made for him. When Mirei told him she had an abortion he snapped. He hit her. The one and only time he raised his hands against her. Disgusted with himself, and wounded by her decision, he left. If he was capable of that, he knew couldn't be the person she had been trying to mold him into. He realized he was nothing but a weight around her neck dragging her down. And so that day signals the end of their short marriage. He spends the next several decades drowning in guilt for his actions while still resenting her for her choice.

That leaves us with Kiryu. Poor, oblivious Kiryu. Majima's fixation is multifaceted but in no small part due to the fact that Kiryu is one of the few people strong enough to hurt him, but is the only one that doesn't want to. And Majima just doesn't understand. After everything, he only deserves to hurt, right? Saejima, Yasuko, Makoto, Mirei. Everyone who gets too close to him ends up worse for it, so why won't Kiryu and his sense of honor seek justice on their behalf? So he does everything he possibly can to wind up Kiryu enough to Pay Attention Damnit, Fight Me. But Kiryu's response is always just flustered awkwardness because he doesn't want like fighting, it's just a part of his job, like wearing a suit or answering a phone. To Kiryu fighting isn't a thing done because it's enjoyable, it's done because it has to be. But he's still the only one who doesn't flinch when Majima brandishes a knife inches from his face.

And then Kiryu is arrested and in jail for ten years. And ten years is a long time to build someone up onto a pedestal. Like only wanting to talk about the best of a person after they've died. The same thing happened with Saejima. Build them in his mind to what he wants or needs them to be since they are not there to actively correct it. The decade is pretty miserable, going through the motions and trying to not make waves with the bigwigs while terrifying the minions into obedience. When he hears Kiryu is being released it is like waking up again. He all but waits at the taxi stand at the entrance of Kamurocho on the day of Kiryu's release, all but vibrating with excitement. It's a fight he has been waiting on for a decade, too bad it was little more than a disappointment.

So Majima decides to bring him back up to spec in that very Majima flavored way. Small fights, big fights, surprise fights. Kiryu is still reluctant because he doesn't have a reason beyond Majima's dreamed up training program he doesn't actually want to be a part of. Of course this only leads Majima to do everything possible to get under Kiryu's skin, including sharing his personal vulnerabilities while disguising them as jokes just to cause fights, but Kiryu just kind of rolls with it which leads to confusion and frustration on both sides. After a while Majima starts to get into Kiryu's hobbies, like pocket circuit, ostensibly as another form of picking a fight. And he discovers he actually enjoys a lot of it. And they are both too dense and emotionally stunted to realize they're basically dating at this point. At multiple points Majima takes potentially lethal blows meant for Kiryu and the excuse that he is the only one allowed to kill Kiryu is very, very thin. He just can't quite admit out loud that he doesn't want to see Kiryu truly hurt because that's weakness and he is Not Weak (tm).

Shimano's death and Kiryu's departure from the clan come as a whirlwind that destroys him all over again. He's left directionless. So he leaves the Tojo in an attempt to find his own way in the world, for the first time in over twenty years.

I think I need to call it here for now. I know I've left out Saejima and Daigo, among others, but I've been working on this for days and my progress has been eaten twice and I just don't have the energy to keep going right at this time. Maybe some day in the future I'll find the time and energy to write out the rest for all the other games.

tl;dr What Majima wants and what he needs are two different things. He wants to fightfuck, but he needs to be bear hugged into submission so that he can have that mental breakdown he's been carefully bottling up for over thirty years. He needs a good, ugly cry. And therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

#ask #character analysis #not fanfiction #yakuza games #yakuza headcanons #majima character analysis #rgg #rgg games #majima #majima goro #broken people doing broken things

33 notes · View notes

crstapor · 3 years

Text

Terror White

“You’re either with us or against us.” - George W. Bush 

On January 6th, 2021, domestic terrorists invaded the Capital Building in an act of political insurrection. Their intent was to overthrow the will of the people by preventing certification of a free and fair democratic election. They did so at the behest of their political leader (who was impeached a second time for inciting this gross transgression of his oath of office), other voices in their party - the so-called GOP - and talking head agitators inhabiting the far-right media echo chamber. Nearly to a man, a woman, a they, each of these terrorists were white.

Images of ‘good old boys’ traipsing down the halls of the people’s house waving confederate battle flags, kicking feet up on the Speaker’s desk, walking off with public property or smearing their shit on the floors pervaded the internet. These images provided by the villains themselves, posted shamelessly to social media profiles.

As a result of this treasonous, insulting, juvenile, despicable, and ultimately futile effort five people died. Even still, hours after the fact, a majority of members of the so-called GOP voted in accordance with the will of these terrorists. They voted to overturn the results of a free and fair election in the world’s oldest modern democracy. They did so because they believed there were serious ‘concerns’ (‘concerns’, let’s be clear, that started with them and like the Ouroboros, ended up with the confusing, if unhygienic, phenomenon of not knowing where their mouths or assholes ended or began) with the 2020 presidential election. After over 60 court cases arguing that point only one was ruled in their favor. None of the 50 States comprising our union found any evidence of wide-spread fraud. Indeed, a federal agency tasked with monitoring election security stated unequivocally that the presidential election of 2020 was one of the most secure in a generation.

And yet? There they were. Spouting conspiracy theories, assaulting police officers (those stalwart stewards of the ‘law & order’ they otherwise claim to love), brandishing spears and bearskins, stealing mail, leaving death threats to the Vice President, fundamentally acting the fool. A bunch of bullies let out of detention with rage and rebellion on their minds.

Let me be clear: each and every one of these terrorists should be hunted down by law enforcement and charged to the fullest extent of the law. They should then be prosecuted and the judges in each and every case should show or allow no mercy. These barbarians must never be allowed to storm the gates again.

Fine.

But that’s not the really interesting question here. The far-right has been producing assholes forever (one of the few things the ‘right’ is truly consistent at). What’s actually interesting is how these insurrectionists arrived at the conclusions they did. Which is to say; how did their ‘thinking’ bring them to this point.

While it might be tempting for some on the left to see that last sentence as a joke, let’s remember we’re sitting at the adult table. These terrorists, being human, sharing our genetic code, are people - real, live, eating, shitting, fucking, anxious, sleeping, scared, afraid, terrified people - just like you and me. As much as it would be easier if we could see them as Uruk-hai instead of our brothers and sisters, sadly? That’s what they are. Family. Part of the Human Condition.

Though humans that are clearly very, very, very sick. My diagnosis? Mind Cancer. Let me explain, under the assumption my readers understand the difference between mind and brain. As such, I am not asserting that the terrorists are physically sick. From their pics and videos it’s clear many are - obesity, hypertension, anal retention - though that isn’t the point. It’s their mental programming, their minds, that have been infected. Infected with what?

Put simply? A disjointed ontological phenomenology obscured, obfuscated, and accelerated by persistently chaotic epistemological aberrations. Said plainly? Their ability to process reality has been impaired.

Why? Racial resentment, poor economic opportunities, an aversion to books and learning? Yes. All that. Plus? The internet, which has created a new Dark Ages.

Paradoxically, one built on light.

Look. Self-interested demagogues intent on self-aggrandizement are nothing new. Nor are their ability to rally or rile a downtrodden populace. Sadly, demonizing the ‘other’ is also pretty par for the course in these scenarios. An old story, all told. What’s new this time is how it happens.

In a single second - count it out! One Mississippi - a beam, or photon of light moves 186,000 miles. Roughly seven times the circumference of the Earth. The new speed of hate. The internet, that modern marvel ushering in Humanity’s first truly post-scarcity resource, is built on light. Philosophers have for millennia wed knowledge with light. And now we all (well, those of us in the post-industrial world) carry a terminal connected to this internet in our pockets. A stunning marvel of human ingenuity. One would imagine that access to such a wellspring of knowledge and information would have a truly edifying affect on the Human Condition. Perhaps, in aggregate, or retrospect, it will. At the moment?

Yeah ...

At the moment it seems that the more access to information humans have the more they double down on tribal identities, wish fulfillment, instant gratification (read: porn), perceived slights, fantasy lands, Rick Astley videos, or the jibbering incoherent rantings of simple capitalists fomenting the fragile emotional states of low information individuals who feel they have no place in this world. This is a fundamentally devastating epistemological conundrum. Why? For centuries the barrier to the future was the amount of information, knowledge, you could access or process. Yet here and now? Here and now there might be too much access. Too much information. More so, the striking fact that our ability, as a species, writ large, to process or parse this information has not kept pace with the information at hand. A sad equation that inevitably leads to moments like 01/06/21.

The Trump Terrorists of January 6th, 2021, weaponized the internet to facilitate their attempted coup. As did their ‘dear leader’ throughout his humiliating single term in office. In fact, it was the geometrical acceleration of connectivity and interconnectedness enabled via the web and its insanely capitalist platforms that allowed for their ‘movement’ to incubate and evolve. While it is true that neo-liberal policies advocating globalist economics and monetary policy are at the current root cause of most ills genuinely affecting rural, or poor, or uneducated MAGA-heads, it’s also true that apart from an Independent from Vermont no one in the political economy of the last couple decades gave much of a shit about these poor and dispossessed inheritors of old racial mythemes and toxic narratives of self-reliance. No one that is, other than their ‘dear leader’. Never mind he didn’t intend to ease their suffering in any material, or structural way. He talked about it. He tweeted about it. And then he gave them a little song and dance at the rallies. Breathtaking stuff.

However, it wasn’t just the performative act of playing ‘authoritarian’ that got them hot and bothered. No, it was at the same time the eternal need to belong to a group, the legitimate feeling of economic obsolescence, coupled with these new tools of information transmission. Tools that at once gave them powers unheralded and seemingly ensconced them in a protective shell, a perpetually larval manifestation of all their baser inclinations. A reactionary ‘safe space’ from which they could launch a thousand ships of intolerance and hate. What good is truth if you can’t weaponize it? What good are facts if you share them with everyone else?

And so we find ourselves revising Plato. There isn’t just one cave in which we are chained, kept from reality. There are multiple tunnels, alcoves, deeper caverns in which we might dwell. Furthermore, if lucky, there are different days, vistas, egresses in which we can escape from the confines of ignorance. Much like the lucky Mormons, it would seem the far-right believes there are plenty of planets in which ‘Truth’ can dwell. Never mind that multiplying ‘Truth’ in such a way doesn’t actually produce more truth.

In fact, it reduces ‘Truth’. Impoverishes it. Hollows it out.

Which is sad, really. For the major harm caused by these rebels isn’t to our democratic institutions, nor our mythological vision of our nature, nor that ever-loving economy - but to the very fabric that binds the social contract on which all the preceding rely.

That fabric being, specifically, a shared objective reality.

How can we survive if we can’t agree on basic facts? Can a multi-racial, multi-cultural, representative democracy exist when a large percentage of the comprising citizens don’t believe in, or even acknowledge, that that’s actually what’s happening? Is White Supremacy so fundamentally a part of our nation’s DNA that the country can’t exist without it? If so, for those of us who vehemently oppose White Supremacy, the question might then be: is the country worth saving?

Most versions of Western Ethics indicate that violence is not the cure. Nor do I advocate such a position. At the same time I’m deeply troubled, because due their illness these actors are neither rational or coherent. Ergo, we can’t reason with them either. So what next?

To corral the revolutionary, if inchoate, spirit of these sick, fringe minds diseased as they are by hate, grievance, and digital oubliettes would any policy proposals be acceptable? Perhaps as fantastic an idea as the images from 01/06/21, what if the Federal Government decided to halt its obsequious sycophantry to corporate America and ‘elites’ and instead actually, seriously, emphatically reinvested in the heartland, in Main Street, in the working class? Wouldn’t it be ironic if a little more socialism was truly the cure these hatemongers require?

Maybe we should step back and listen to the wisdom of George W. Bush.

Confronting what was at the time the most disheartening terror attack on the homeland, Bush made clear not all who could otherwise be lumped in with the terrorists were terrorists. In the same way that, yes, not all Trump voters are Trump Terrorists.

Even so. Bush made it clear you needed to pick a side.

With us - toward a diverse future in which the promise of the Founders is emboldened and expanded for all who live between our shores. Or against us - back to your stunted hovels and holes with all the other low information troglodytes you like to cosplay revolution with.

Choose.

It’s your call. But choose quickly, because history is watching, and only one path moves toward the future.

C. R. Stapor Longmont, CO 01/16/21

#January 6th #terrorism #domestic terrorism #the internet #social media #revolution #insurrection #01/06/21 #low information #mind cancer #George W Bush #Trump #GOP #epistemology #white #essay #philosophers on tumblr

14 notes · View notes