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theywhowriteandknowthings · 3 months

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Heatwave | Frankie Morales x Reader Drabble.

You can't sleep with your furnace of a boyfriend smothering you, but you can't sleep without him either. Warnings: Mention of naked Frankie, implied both reader and Frankie sleep naked, just fluff based on my own sleep issues <3 Un-beta'd - wrote it mostly in bed this morning. 720~ Words

Your skin burns, hot and sticky as you feel the weight of another person draped over you. Most of the time you can just roll him off and strip the sheets off when the weather gets this extreme. But not tonight. Tonight, Frankie will not relinquish you from his catatonic embrace.

Frankie groans softly as he spoons you. His thick fingers splayed across your stomach; broad chest fused to your sweat-slick back. One leg is draped over your hip and its almost blissful. Almost.

But you’re too fucking hot.

“Frankie, baby,” you whine as you try and wriggle from his grip, “Too hot.”

All that seems to elicit is a muffled “hmm” from him as he somehow pulls you in tighter. His scruff tickles your shoulder as he nuzzles his face behind your ear.

Great, now you’re too hot and you’re turned on. There’s no way you can sleep like this.

“Frankie,” you groan as you prise his arm off you, “Need to sleep. I’ve got that meeting with my boss in the morning.”

You know it’s falling on deaf ears, but it makes you feel better, convincing yourself more than him. You slip out from under him after a minute of wrestling his thick thigh from over you.

“Love you baby,” you say softly as you press a gentle kiss to his furrowed brow.

He stirs as he reaches for your now empty spot on the bed, and you can’t help but feel a little guilty. You love him so much, but you can’t sleep like this.

You make your way down the hall and into the spare room. You slip under the fresh sheets of the modest single bed. You think you’re settled, sheet covering your lower half – because lord knows even in a heatwave your feet get cold – and head resting lightly on the pillow.

Ten minutes tick by, then twenty. When you check your phone for the third time it’s only been twenty-five minutes, but you still can’t sleep. You haul yourself back out of bed, cursing the weather as you slip back into your bedroom.

The pale moonlight illuminates Frankie’s sleeping form as he lays on his back. He’s sprawled out in the middle of the mattress, bare to the humid night air where he’s kicked the sheets off in his sleep. You ease yourself back down onto the bed, crawling into the small space left as you hope Frankie will stay where he is.

Your head hits the pillow just as Frankie shifts back onto his side, a sleepy grunt falling from his lips as he reaches for you. His fingertips ghost your burning skin as he scoots closer.

“Frankie,” you groan as you turn to face him, “I need to sleep, please just roll over.”

“But I like holding you,” he protests sleepily as you see his eyes flutter open, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m too hot Frankie, I can’t sleep with you wrapped around me, it’s too much,” you admit with downturned eyes, teeth pinged into your bottom lip and embarrassment and shame curdle in your belly.

“Amor, I’m sorry,” Frankie says with a sigh as he reaches for you, but he stops himself, “I can sleep in the spare room if that helps?”

“No,” you say as you cup his scruffy jaw with both hands, “I tried that, doesn’t feel right without you in bed with me,” you explain as you scrape your fingers through his scruff.

“What can I do?” Frankie asks as he places his hands over your own.

“Stay with me like this?” You ask as you brush your feet against his, “Just touching a little?”

“I can do that, go to sleep mi sol, I love you.”

“I love you too Frankie,” you say with a yawn.

Eventually you both fall asleep, close to touch, but Frankie is sure to keep his distance. He wakes up sometime in the night, with you curled up against his chest, dead to the world. He smirks to himself as he nuzzles the top of your head. Some things never change, and no matter how hot you get, you always crawl right back into his arms. No matter how poorly you sleep.

“Sleep well, amor.”

He whispers against your scalp as his eyes flutter closed.

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #francisco catfish morales #francisco morales #fanfic #frankie morales #francisco morales x reader #fluff #sleep issues #drabble #<800 words #800 words #fluffy drabble #x reader #reader insert #ppcu #ppcu fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfic #pedro pascal fanfiction

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saintsenara · 9 months

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You mentioned fanon turning barty crouch jr. into an uninteresting character. I don't know much about what the new fanon characterisation has really done with him, but I'm curious for your thoughts on why he's a canonically interesting character. I agree that he is, but it sounds like you might have some interesting thoughts on it that are already fleshed out.

thank you for the ask, @jamesunderwater, and i'm sorry for taking so long to drag myself around to answering this.

as you may have gathered if you’ve read my views on jegulus or wolfstar, the common fanon interpretation of marauders-era characters and i don’t really get on.

this is not a new development - me and goofy fanon sirius have been beefing for over a decade at this point, i fear - but our enmity has taken on a new form since (roughly) 2020, when the emergence of what we might call the modern marauders subfandom brought with it a whole series of expectations about characters, ships, personalities, and appearances in first war stories which, let me state my position immediately, have absolutely nothing to do with the characters as they are in canon.

i could talk about sirius or regulus or james or snape or lupin until the cows come home - as, i’m sure, could many of us - but i also dislike the expectations the marauders subfandom has around its supporting cast. these characters - who largely fall under the categories of women, slytherins, or both - have names that we might recognise from canon, but they are - to all intents and purposes - original characters.

to do some marauders fan defending, i do understand the rationale behind this. hogwarts is a school, and it needs to be filled with the sort of incidental characters that lightning-era writers can pull from the canon text (shoutout to ernie macmillan, the mvp). if you’re writing about lily, then she needs friends - why not have them be alice, marlene, dorcas, emmeline, pandora etc.?

[well, because dumbledore isn’t running a child army. it makes no sense for the entire order of the phoenix to be in the same school year - and the idea that alice is probably around ten years older than lily, that pandora is around the same age as narcissa malfoy and isn’t a pureblood, and that marlene, dorcas, and emmeline are hard-nosed ministry bitches in their fifties who can have mad-eye moody quaking with just a look is something which can be prised from my cold, dead hands.]

and if you’re writing about the epic highs and lows of high-school football going to school during a sectarian conflict, then you need some antagonists. which is to say, you need some slytherins.

the issue i have is that the three key slytherins who seem to have been elevated to principal cast in the marauders pantheon - regulus black, barty crouch jr., and evan rosier - get what can only be called the smol bean treatment. that is, that three teenagers who all canonically join a terror organisation are turned into soft and tiny babies who thought lord voldemort was just feeling silly when he said, ‘my aim is the eradication of the muggleborn population through violent means.’

and even fics which do acknowledge that the three willingly become terrorists often go out of their way to provide justifications for this which don’t contextualise their decision (something which is important - you can’t write about snape becoming a death eater without acknowledging the way that poverty, loneliness, and a sense of hopelessness make someone an easy target of radicalisation) but which minimise it. sometimes, their violence is turned into romantic vengeance - i’ve seen a fair amount of suggestions that barty goes to torture the longbottoms because frank was the auror who killed evan. sometimes, authors imply - or even outright state - that there’s no need to see these boys as aspiring villains: voldemort is right; the class system is good and should be maintained; and purebloods (usually james, sirius, regulus, barty, evan and maybe a token woman or two) should stick together while the half-breeds and the mudbloods go hang.

this - like all aristocracy wank in this fandom - annoys me enough with regulus and evan. but it’s particularly grating when it comes to barty crouch jr. because - unlike evan, who is literally just a name in the text, and regulus, who isn’t much more - he actually has a canon personality.

and it’s fascinating. indeed, i would even go so far as to say that barty crouch jr. is the greatest villain in the harry potter series.

[my apologies to lord voldemort.]

after all, even though he’s been imprisoned under the imperius curse for over a decade, barty is still so lucid and powerful that he is able to:

produce magic capable of tricking the goblet of fire, which is treated by all the adult characters involved as unprecedented.

pull off a year-long impersonation of a man whom dumbledore evidently knows extremely well without being clocked until his mission has been successful, even though his opportunities to observe the real moody can have been virtually non-existent. he is in character within seconds of his ambush on moody’s home - after the intruder-alert dustbins are set off - and is able to persuade ministry personnel who can be presumed to have met moody personally (including both amos diggory and arthur weasley, who appear to know him not only personally, but well) that he is the real deal. he maintains his performance even under close scrutiny from the teaching colleagues he has to interact with daily at hogwarts, despite the fact that he presumably can’t get a great deal out of the real moody, since he’s having to be kept deliberately weak and docile under the imperius curse.

manipulate multiple people into become accessories to his crimes, without ever being suspected of doing so. with the hindsight of knowing who he is, the first defence against the dark arts lesson in goblet of fire, in which ‘moody’ deliberately distresses neville by using the cruciatus curse directly in front of him, before swooping in to be the person to cheer him up so that he can plant information which will help harry win the triwizard tournament and deliver him to voldemort, is chilling. he just gets unlucky that harry has the biggest martyr complex in human history.

commit murder on hogwarts’ grounds without ever being suspected of wrongdoing.

execute lord voldemort’s plan to kidnap harry and use him in his resurrection ritual flawlessly. the plan itself may be convoluted - but dark lords are allowed to have a flair for the dramatic, as a treat - but, crucially, it works, and barty succeeds in every respect.

but, i concede, we’re talking about the adult barty here. perhaps he was once a sweetheart who went unfortunately off the rails after his father sent him to prison and then - in effect - drugged him for years. that wouldn’t be a ridiculous suggestion.

except for the fact that - canonically - the teen barty was just as clever, sly, manipulative, and - above all - ardent in his support for voldemort as his adult self.

at his trial in the early 1980s, young barty gives the performance of a lifetime. he screams, he shakes, he looks terrified of the dementors, he is pale and weak and harmless-looking, he begs his mother to help him, he pleads with his father for mercy, he maintains his innocence as he is dragged off to his cell. he gives off the impression of simply having been in the wrong place at the wrong time so well that harry potter is almost certain that his conviction is illegitimate. so too, it is implied, is albus dumbledore.

indeed, barty plays the part of the wrongfully imprisoned so well that - as canon tells us - he not only influences public opinion to be broadly in favour of his probable innocence (or, at least, his diminished culpability - sirius suggests that the widespread view was that he was probably there, but that he only ended up involved in what was clearly bellatrix’s idea because of his father’s failure to relate to him properly), but also changes public opinion against the government’s anti-death-eater strategy entirely. following his imprisonment, his father - a man who never met an extrajudicial punishment he didn’t like, and whose ruthless approach to dealing with the death eaters in the first war (such as his use of internment for suspected terrorists, his order to aurors to shoot to kill) was, we are told, enormously popular with the wizarding public - is forced to resign in disgrace from his role as head of the department of magical law enforcement. crouch sr. is quietly shuffled off into a boring bureaucratic position, his ambitions to be minister in tatters, and his only way forward to free his son from the prison cell where he is languishing for the crime he very literally did.

[as an aside, i do think that we are supposed to read that bellatrix is the ringleader of the torture of the longbottoms. but, all too often, that gets reduced to her doing everything while rodolphus, rabastan, and barty just stand there gormlessly. they were clearly performing the curses too!]

now, barty’s unusual cunning can - of course - be explained by narrative reasons. the text needs to conceal that he’s the villain (since, as with philosopher’s stone, it wants to imply that the dark lord’s faithful servant at hogwarts is severus snape) until the very end - and this naturally requires dumbledore to not think too hard about whether his good judy alastor is behaving even more strangely than usual.

the text also needs to suggest that he is innocent in order to properly stick the landing on the narrative role of his father - barty crouch sr. as with dolores umbridge in order of the phoenix, crouch sr. exists to show harry (and the reader) that the rot in the wizarding world was not caused by - and will not stop with the defeat of - voldemort. his ruthlessness and inflexibility, his lack of respect for due process, his astonishingly cruel treatment of winky (brutal beyond even the standard way in which wizards abuse their enslaved elves) all serve to teach harry that the anti-voldemort cause can become just as easily corrupted as the disillusioned young men in voldemort’s orbit. the suggestion that crouch sent his own son to azkaban without good reason, simply because he would not deviate from his beliefs, is an important lesson to harry about what ‘justice’ actually means.

but, despite this, barty is also able to pull off his deception because he’s spectacularly talented. it’s not all just narrative.

and his talents are caused by characteristics which aren’t good or bad in and of themselves. he’s clearly very intelligent (he got twelve owls, the series’ benchmark for genius). he’s hyper-observant, creative, adaptable, good under pressure, and possessed of nerves of steel. he shares these traits with other villains in the series - voldemort above all - but he also shares them with plenty of the heroes. harry, for one.

which is to say that all of his personality traits could be put to non-criminal uses. but - as with harry, who is capable of being quite sinister when he wants to be (for example, when he manipulates slughorn into giving up the horcrux memory) - they would give a non-criminal barty an edge. and this doesn’t seem to be present in his standard fanon persona - as sweet and goofy as all marauders-era men - to any great extent.

finally, there is another aspect of barty’s character which is absent from his fanon version - that he clearly has some sort of childhood trauma, but that this does not excuse any of what he does.

even though crouch sr. is right to send him to azkaban, he was clearly also a cold and distant father, who had absolutely no idea how to relate to his son.

[as another aside, this emotional negligence is bad enough without it needing to be written as having been accompanied by extreme physical and/or sexual abuse. there seems to be a real tendency in fan-fiction - not only in marauders-era stuff, although the exaggeration of orion and walburga black into despotic villains is one example of this - to make childhood misery ‘worse’, in order to justify a character’s later actions.]

voldemort demonstrably uses barty’s terrible relationship with crouch sr. (and his absolutely flagrant daddy kink) to groom him into taking the dark mark (not least because there’s otherwise no explanation for why he cheerfully informs him that he too is named after his dad), which he may very well end up taking when he’s still at school. my reading is that he’s recruited to inform on his father - since voldemort would undoubtedly wish to keep the head of the department of magical law enforcement under constant surveillance - and that this is why the dark lord pays him the attention he is so obviously lacking.

but, as with snape and regulus and draco malfoy and all the other young death eaters, barty also colludes in his own radicalisation. voldemort is a master at ensnaring recruits, sure, but he’s also a busy man. he only bothers to make the effort because the clever, creative, cunning, manipulative young man - who wishes to avenge himself on the father who never paid him attention (sound familiar?) - he finds before him is very much determined to become a spectacular part of his terrorist organisation. and stories which feature him owe it to him to give him that dark complexity of character

show the series’ best villain some respect.

#asenora meta #barty crouch jr #characterisation #asks answered

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backintimeforstuff · 6 months

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next up on my txf rewatch: I WANT TO BELIEVE M Y B E L O V E D

#you can prise this film from my cold dead hands #i have always and will always be obsessed with it #angst fix 100 #don't give up #let it try #my god #i want to believe #iwtb #txf

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celestinovietti · 29 days

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Enea said you can prise my cold dead hands from my factory seat bitch

#motogp lb

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whinlatter · 10 months

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In your opinion when did Ginny start drifting away from Dean? What was it that made her decide she didn’t want to be with him anymore? I know it can’t just be him helping her through the door because it’s such a small reason to break up with someone. Did she start to notice Harry noticing her? Or did the relationship run it’s course?

are you ready for an unhinged galaxy brain take from me

I actually think Ginny started to suspect something had changed in Harry's feelings for her not long after he himself realised, after the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match, early November. The scraps of evidence for this headcanon are few and far between but you can nonetheless prise them from my cold dead hands. Even before Harry himself realised he had feelings for Ginny, he was asking to hang out with her (on the train, in Hogsmeade) in ways that definitely would have seemed new. Then after the match itself:

'Laughing, Harry broke free of the rest of the team and hugged Ginny, but let go very quickly. Avoiding her gaze, he clapped a cheering Ron on the back instead as, all enmity forgotten, the Gryffindor team left the pitch arm in arm, punching the air and waving to their supporters.'

Ginny is a very good reader of Harry's emotions and responses at this point in the series. She seems to clock that Harry has just given her this very weird, out of character hug - weird both in that it's clearly very physically awkward and brief, but also weird in that Harry has given her a hug at all, when he's never initiated a hug with any other character before, let alone her. Then, this chat at the after party, immediately after Harry has just ditched a group of admiring (and extremely willing) girls flirting with him:

'“It looks like he’s eating her face, doesn’t it?” said Ginny dispassionately. “But I suppose he’s got to refine his technique somehow. Good game, Harry.” She patted him on the arm; Harry felt a swooping sensation in his stomach, but then she walked off to help herself to more butterbeer. Crookshanks trotted after her, his yellow eyes fixed upon Arnold.'

This is the first time Ginny touches Harry in the series. It's innocuous enough to anyone watching - Chaser pats Captain on the arm after a game - but given how unusual it is for Ginny to touch Harry, so soon after their previous strange interaction where Harry initiated touch with Ginny for the first time, I think we can see this interaction as Ginny testing her theory. (Tbh I think Harry's response to her here, including the fact that he literally doesn't even speak in front her lol, would give her even more reason for suspicion.)

I basically think Dean and Ginny are doomed after this. Not because I think Ginny would be like great Harry likes me time to break up with Dean - I think she's got months of pranging out about it ahead of her. But I think the stage is set for Ginny starting to actively compare Dean to Harry, and finding him wanting. Between the more morsels of evidence she gets in the following weeks (taking Luna to the ball, the maggot incident), and how miserable Ginny seems at the prospect of going back to Dean in the New Year, I think there's good reason to suspect she had clocked that Harry might, at long last, be returning feelings for her. (I tried to talk a bit about Ginny's view of Dean here).

I know a lot of fics and general fanon has Hermione working Harry's crush out first and pointing it out to Ginny, but I actually really don't buy this! There's no real proof of Hermione noticing Harry's changing feelings for Ginny until really late on. On the topic of Slughorn's party, she tells him to "just invite someone", and doesn't seem to suspect anything after he lies that there's no-one he wants to invite. I genuinely don't think Hermione knew until mid-March:

“Yeah, well, there was no need for Ginny and Dean to split up over it,” said Harry, still trying to sound casual. “Or are they still together?” “Yes, they are — but why are you so interested?” asked Hermione, giving Harry a sharp look. “I just don’t want my Quidditch team messed up again!” he said hastily, but Hermione continued to look suspicious, and he was most relieved when a voice behind them called, “Harry!” giving him an excuse to turn his back on her.

Of course, after this point, Hermione is in full super sleuth mode. To Hermione, Ginny's argument with Dean suddenly makes a lot more sense now she's realised that a) Harry likes Ginny and b) Ginny has already worked out Harry likes her and so is sabotaging her relationship with Dean. After Ginny and Dean break up while Harry is on Felix Felicis (subtle from HJP), Hermione knows for sure what's going on, and is deliciously smug and unsubtle about it in ways that makes me think if she had known before this, she would have let on. It's true that Harry is oblivious, but it's also true that Hermione has never passed up a chance to say I told you so (she's just like me fr)

#hinny #meta #TL;DR ginny weasley knew as soon as that man came in for a cuddle #'harry potter wants to HUG ME? oh shit i'm in trouble' - ginny weasley #probably #thank you anon!#trying to work through my inbox i'm so sorry this week has been a fresh fiery hellscape of deadlines #doin my best forgive me forgive me

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theladyofbloodshed · 2 months

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Chapter 7 - The Penultimate One

With no signs of sirens blaring towards them or the door being kicked in by the auxiliary units of the city, all Hunt could do was wrap the Horn in a towel and shove it under the desk out of sight. He’d figure out that headache in the morning.

Nesta kept glancing towards it when she thought he wasn’t looking; Hunt caught her often frowning or wrinkling her nose up in its direction.

He pulled out the chair to sit on it backwards. Nesta perched on the edge of the bed, tiredness nibbling at her expression.

‘Tell me what’s going on.’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, lifting her chin in defiance.

His fingers grazed against her cheek. ‘I’m on your team, Nesta. I want to help you.’

Fluidly, Nesta rose then moved to stand beside the wide windows which looked out upon the city. ‘In my world there are objects from the Dread Trove. The Harp is one. It opens wards. I’ve also used a Mask. I wouldn’t wish it upon my enemy. The world went cold. I-’ Nesta paused a moment. ‘I was being attacked by a kelpie. I thought I was going to die. It was biting me, pressing its face to mine - and the Mask came to me. I didn’t need to breathe or think. An army of the dead rose when I wore the Mask to do my bidding.’

‘A kelpie. Why were you anywhere near one?’

Nesta said nothing, just kept a slight scowl upon her face.

‘I hope they tucked you into bed and fed you ice cream for days after that.’

A light went out in her eyes. ‘No. They did not.’

Hunt couldn’t take the fraught expression on Nesta’s face; couldn’t bear to see her clinging to the cracks to keep from breaking. He crossed the room to stand behind her, his wings cradling around her. A hand rested on her waist as he stood behind her, watching the city with her.

‘There is a queen who was mortal, but – like me – she entered the Cauldron. It was of her own volition, but after I had attacked it. It turned her fae but ancient. She wears the Crown which can gain control of another’s mind. She wants me dead. It is my fault that she was cursed. If I hadn’t sought vengeance on the Cauldron for Elain…’

His hand went tighter on her waist. Between the Asteri, Einar Danaan, and this queen, there seemed no place safe for Nesta.

‘And do you think the Horn is part of that trove?’

On her exhale, Nesta sank into him. ‘It keeps calling to me, Hunt. Its voice is weak and broken but it is communicating.’

As if his arms might protect her from everything that life could throw at them, Hunt wrapped them around Nesta and kissed her temple. ‘What does it say to you?’

‘To use it.’

‘I’m not an expert on fae objects, but do you not have to pay a toll to use them? You haven’t suffered from using them?’

Her fingers rested on his forearms and Hunt wished they could stay that way for an eternity. He had to overcome his shitty life to make hers better; she deserved that.

‘It is said that some have not been able to take the Mask off. I won’t make a habit of using them.’

‘We can ask Danaan what the Horn was fabled to do. The fae like secrecy. I don’t want you whizzing off and landing in a road somewhere else.’ Hunt kissed her temple again. ‘You might end up in a world without waffles.’

‘A true terror.’

Nesta prised herself free then turned to gaze at him. She had to raise her chin an inch or two to meet his eyes, but for a female she was tall. Those long, lean legs reminded him of a dancer. If she stayed in Lunathion and kept up her diet of pure sugar, the harshness of her face would soon soften.

‘You are very calm about this,’ she noted.

‘Four nights ago, a shooting star fell from the sky and changed my life for the better.’ Hunt bopped the end of her nose. ‘I’ll take whatever life can throw at me as long as you’re there too.’

‘You barely know me.’

Hunt laced his fingers through hers then brought them to his chest so she could feel the steady thud of the heart within. ‘My heart knows you. It recognised you the moment we met, like we’d met in another life.’

When Nesta’s lips parted, he thought she might laugh or call him embarrassing for his words. Instead, she rose up on her toes to kiss him.

***

It was late when they settled into the bed. Like the previous night, they moved in together, one body tracing the other’s path. It was Nesta who needed Hunt beside her that night. Despite his words, she could sense the undercurrent of worry within him regarding the Horn. She did not know how it had come to her even after he had returned it to Luna’s temple but she imagined it was similar to the Mask, with even wards being unable to hold it. The trove items seemed to have a consciousness or their own desires. For now, Nesta was a tool they wanted to use so she needed to remember that.

‘Stop overthinking and go to sleep,’ said Hunt, voice hazy with sleep.

‘How did you know?’

‘You stopped stroking my wing.’

Indeed, her fingers had stilled from their path. Once she had discovered that an angel’s wings were nothing at all like an Illyrians, she could not be stopped. Hunt had explained that whilst most didn’t make a habit of touching a malakim’s wings, it wasn’t forbidden. He’d likened it to stroking somebody’s hair and even shared that his mother would brush his wings with her knuckles to ease him into sleep as a child. She found it soothing to stroke the feathers, especially the soft downy ones on the inside.

‘Everything will be alright, Nesta.’ Hunt kissed the back of her neck which sent a shiver down her spine. ‘You’ll be home soon.’

If anything could have sent her spiralling, it was that. They were well and truly different worlds. In Prythian, she lived in Rhysand’s pocket. She was Cassian’s to parade. She had been willing to believe that it was love because she knew no better, had no other options. They had all been taken from her. She’d watched her mother and father’s stifled, loveless marriage that had been arranged by their parents and expected the same. These days with Hunt had shown her that life could be fun. It didn’t have to mean survival. There could be somebody who stood on your team and wanted to be there for every moment.

Hunt groaned and pulled his arm tighter around her. ‘Overthinking.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Do you want to talk?’

‘Let’s sleep,’ she offered.

Hunt kissed her skin once, twice, she couldn’t count the number of small kisses he peppered upon her. ‘Goodnight, waffle queen.’

‘Sleep well, Orion.’

It was Hunt who woke her in the morning. He spoke softly on his cellphone but the words were crass and aggressive; a threat to whoever he was talking to as he made the morning coffee. A shard of light was exposed by the curtains which promised another bright, sunny day in Crescent City. The dawning of each day was a countdown that Nesta didn’t want.

‘For once in your pampered life, stop being a fucking dick,’ Hunt whispered.

Nesta couldn’t make out the quiet voice on the other end as she lay in the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

‘Fae bullshit,’ replied Hunt. ‘Whatever. I’m heading to the Comitium soon. Your father can cry and scream all he wants, but it’s a fae item and it’s missing from Luna’s Temple so of course the finger will be pointed at your lot.’ A pause. ‘Fine. There’s still a warrant for your father’s address.’

He tossed the phone to the end of the bed then carried over the mugs.

‘What’s a warrant?’

As Hunt jumped, a dribble of coffee sloshed over the side of the mug. ‘Sorry. Did I wake you?’

‘No.’

‘A warrant is an official document meaning we can search a premise. In this case, Einar Danaan is being investigated. Apparently Luna’s Horn is missing. Can you believe it?’

‘Colour me shocked,’ Nesta replied drily.

‘It’s still where we left it. I’ve checked.’ Hunt settled the mugs down then flopped across the bed, covering her legs like an overgrown house cat.

‘What should we do?’

Hunt yawned carelessly. ‘Take a shower together. Find breakfast – there’s a nice little café not far from here – and then get as far away as we can. Pangera, maybe. Or the moon.’

Something about the way he’d said we as if they were in this mess together, like even if it was Nesta’s fault that a historical relic had turned up in the room, Hunt was still on her side and they’d figure it out.

She wiggled her feet out from beneath Hunt to draw her knees to her chest. ‘It’s really bad, isn’t it?’

Hunt gave a short smile. ‘I mean, it’s not great, but it is a little bit funny that Micah has managed to get a warrant from the other side of the world to have Einar Danaan’s home searched. I wish I could see the fae prick’s face.’

‘Is it a common theme across universes that the fae are disliked?’

‘They’re all stuck-up assholes. Except you, of course.’

‘I am not fae by choice,’ she reminded him.

Hunt rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Let’s get your Harp and find a nice corner of the universe where it’s warm and sunny and nobody knows us.’

‘I’d like that,’ Nesta admitted.

Despite what she had seen in Prythian, Nesta had never been convinced that fate was real. There was no such thing as destiny moving two pieces together across worlds. No force tethering souls. And yet, her heart so wanted to believe in it when she looked at Hunt. As a child, Nesta’s ideal husband had been one who left her alone; polite at best, neutral at worst. She had never dreamed of a man who was her equal because those sorts of mortal men did not exist. Her mother had instilled in her that she was an asset and that was all. Even in Prythian, a male was still worth more than a female. It was he who felt a bond, not a female. And Nesta, so stupid and lost, had stopped fighting for her freedom, for her choice, and gave in. She’d become her worst nightmare; her mother’s daughter. For months, she had told herself that beyond lust, it was only irritation that she felt for Cassian. There could be sparks of brilliance, of kindness, but it was extended to anybody – and more often than not, Nesta was the bottom of his priorities. The male she loved shouldn’t make her feel like a problem.

Hunt yawned his way through a sleepy morning, cuddling up to her legs beneath the duvet while Nesta drank her coffee. She couldn’t bear to tell him that she wasn’t a fan of it unless it had whipped cream on top and sugary syrups pumped into it; the fact he made her drinks in the morning was such a low expectation and yet nobody else ever had. Nesta alternated between running her fingers through his hair or his wings whilst prompting him to wake up and drink his own coffee. It appeared that burrowing against her was a more favourable way to spend his time.

Eventually, when Isaiah had called three times, Hunt dragged himself from the bed to shower.

He returned with a towel slung around his hips with damp wings.

‘Where’s the hairdryer?’

Nesta frowned. ‘The what?’

Hunt plucked a device from one of the drawers, careful not to disturb the Horn. It was red with a metal grid over the muzzle. A black cable was wrapped around the handle which he unwound before plugging it in.

‘Oh, you’ll love this,’ he said.

‘I thought it was a gun, like the one you have.’

Hunt tried his best not to laugh at her and failed quickly. ‘Nesta, in this world – probably any world that has guns – they don’t need to be plugged in. They’d not be effective. I mean, I can see why. It looks like one.’

The angel aimed it at her face then pressed a button.

Nesta screwed her eyes shut, bracing for pain, but was met with a loud noise and a burst of hot air.

When she dared open her eyes, Hunt was pointing it at himself, blowing the moisture from his hair. Nesta practically groaned at the sight of it. All of those nights carefully towelling her hair dry and still finding it damp in the morning.

‘What would happen if I used the gun on your wings?’

‘Hairdryer, Stargirl,’ he called over the noise. ‘I’d be all fluffy like a little chick.’

‘Oh, I’m very tempted,’ she said, grinning with a delight that she rarely felt.

Nesta lay back on the bed, watching Hunt dart about the room readying himself for a brief visit to the Comitium. She never thought she’d be the type to be so comfortable sharing such a small living space, but Hunt made everything easy. Nothing ruffled his feathers.

Perhaps because they were the same. Two lost souls searching for another’s hand to hold.

‘I have to go and play dumb about the Horn. I’ll look through Einar’s underwear for the sake of it.’

‘A strange way to spend your day.’

‘I’ve already rifled through yours,’ he shot back. ‘You’ll get a frequent shopper card from that lingerie boutique soon. When I come back, I have a day planned. A final day in Lunathion hitting up all the sights.’

She knew the final day was coming, but it felt a lot like a noose pulling tighter with each passing moment. There had been so many goodbyes that were stolen from her. Nesta didn’t want to say this one. Couldn’t say it.

***

After putting on his best bored tone and acting as though it was as much a pain for Hunt as it was for the Autumn King to be searching every inch of his home for Luna’s Horn, Hunt allowed himself a little laugh when he got back to the barracks. The king had seethed, demanding to know which informant had planted the information that the Horn might be in his possession – and Hunt had shot him down with about thirty different city regulations about witness protection just to piss him off further.

‘Hunt, you still here?’

Vik called through the door as he was changing, ready for a day of adventure with his Stargirl.

‘One second.’

‘Meet me in my office when you’re done.’

It wasn’t like Viktoria to summon him so, warily, Hunt grabbed another change of clothes and hurried down to her basement dwelling. There were three monitors open and a computer that sounded like it might fly from the churning noise coming from the fan. Polystyrene coffee cups littered the desk.

‘Just the male,’ she said, spinning in her chair. ‘Micah asked me to pull the footage from Luna’s temple. There are no cameras inside which is so not helpful, but I’ve managed to get a picture of anybody who entered or departed the temple within a two-hour window of it disappearing. According to witnesses, it simply vanished before their eyes.’

‘Weird,’ Hunt said with a shrug.

‘Yeah. So, Declan Emmett is running additional tests on the footage and other teams are scraping the images to match them with IDs from our databases to question them. Isaiah’s got another team already speaking to the acolytes at the temple about what they saw.’

Hunt said nothing, just nodded along because this was information he already knew.

‘What’s really weird is like two hours after the Horn disappeared, there was a freak lightning storm that frazzled the cameras for a while.’ Viktoria threw an empty cup at him. ‘Hunt Athalar, I know your lightning.’

‘That’s not my lightning,’ he lied, voice pitching slightly too high.

Vik glared. ‘Oh, terribly sorry. It must have been the other Umbra Mortis who sent all the tech haywire last night.’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘Fuck, Hunt. What are you getting involved in?’

‘What? Nothing. Why the Hel do you think I’m involved?’

‘Uh, because you have a faerie girlfriend from outer space whose Harp went absolutely nuts last night.’

‘Nuts… how?’

Colour dotted her cheeks as she rolled up her long-sleeved top to reveal a painful-looking purple bruise wrapping around her elbow. ‘It shot me across the room when I was working on it. Literally nothing since it arrived. I’ve played every single string, ran every test, and nothing. Except last night. It was like it was excited. A burst of energy threw me into the wall and it was vibrating. Can you guess what time that happened? I’ll tell you, Hunt. A minute before the call came in that the Horn had disappeared.’

Hunt gave an innocent shrug. ‘A weird coincidence, huh.’

If looks could kill, he should be dead.

‘Sorry about your elbow,’ he said gingerly. He scratched the back of his neck. ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’

‘No, because tomorrow, I am handing that Harp and the sword back to Nesta Archeron and she’s going back to where she came from. Isn’t she, Hunt?’

‘Yeah, she is,’ he replied dejectedly.

When he tried to leave, Vik called out to him again and told him to shut the door.

‘Hunt, I’ve noticed a change this last week and I like it. I really do. But this isn’t her home. When Micah returns-’ she cut herself off. ‘Shit, if the Asteri even catch a whiff of her.’

‘I know. She’s going home.’

On the flight to her hotel, his plans for a day of excitement at the adventure park just on the outskirts of Lunathion plummeted to the ground. For a moment, Hunt debated not telling Nesta – but he couldn’t keep her in the dark. It wasn’t fair to do that. It was a thin line between scaring her or being honest, but surely with the reassurance that he was on her side, it would be alright. Hunt told himself that again: it would be alright. He glanced down at his phone as he landed. A text had been sent while he flew.

Dearest Orion,

I miss you.

Yours,

Nesta.

As he expected, Nesta was quiet as he told her. Her face was too guarded to pick up on much. No wonder Isaiah had such a hard time interrogating her when she landed.

The mood had soured so neither wanted to do much – except enjoy the other’s company.

With Tristan Flynn’s credit card still in Nesta’s possession, they walked to the supermarket. Nesta liked pushing the trolley although they only tossed snacks and a few fruits into it. Hunt let her scan it herself at the self-service even if it took ten times as long because she wouldn’t have the chance again.

‘I wanted to take you on a roller coaster today,’ he said as they walked hand in hand back to the hotel. He swung the plastic bag of groceries as they went.

‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘Like a big metal thing with a cart on it and it goes fast or upside down and everybody screams.’

‘A torture device?’ she hedged.

It sounded that way. ‘No, it’s fun. They have cotton candy. You’d love that. Hot donuts. Lots of rides.’

All of these stupid things that he wouldn’t get the chance to show her. He hated it. Hated that their time together had a fucking expiry date that was drawing closer.

‘I wish you could show me everything,’ she said, entering the elevator and jabbing the button with more force than it required.

Hunt heaved a sigh and slumped against the mirrored-back. ‘I wish you could have met my mother. She’d have loved you.’

Nesta did well to hide the few stray tears on the brief walk to the bedroom, but Hunt didn’t draw attention to it. His mother would have loved her. He wasn’t the Umbra Mortis when he was home, wasn’t the bottom-wrung malakh who was rising up the ranks with his brutality. He was just goofy Hunt who made his mother laugh. It wasn’t like Shahar who’d seen his value and concocted a way to use it while holding his heart. With Nesta, he could be just Hunt.

‘What’s the plan then?’

‘The plan is,’ he said, tugging off her jacket to hang on the hook, ‘we see what crap is on the T.V. and eat our way through this. You can cuddle me, of course, or read your book. We’ll order dinner tonight or go out then back to here. Then I’m cuddling you.’

The smile on Nesta’s face was almost shy as she turned to him. ‘Before I leave, there is one request that I have.’

‘Anything.’

‘Can we wet your wings then fluff them up with the hairdryer?’

Hunt cupped her face then squeezed it. ‘It’s a good job that I like you.’

There's one chapter left then an epilogue. Where the story broke POVs in the first half is where there will also be a smut insert so either you can read it or not :-)

#hunt x nesta

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the-likesofus · 1 year

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Buddie Fic Recs

So I've never made one of these rec lists before so bear with me but I felt like the authors in this fandom deserved some loving so here's a few that I've read recently(ish) that I wanted to pass on. I’m going to try to do this semi-regularly maybe.

Pleaseee please don’t get upset if your fic isn’t on the list, my intention is not to upset anyone that being said if you have a fic (yours or someone else's) that you wanna send me to read then please do! I am always looking for new recs for myself) ❤️

REMINDER TO CHECK THE TAGS AND TRIGGER WARNINGS

drink the river dry by Rianne (@rianneeyre)

It wasn’t until they were discussing his discharge paperwork and painkiller schedules that it really sunk in for Eddie that Buck would be staying with him and Christopher. That he would be around 24/7 except for his shifts at work. That he’ll sleep on the couch, where he’s been sleeping for days now to look after Christopher. The worst part is that it’s necessary—Eddie isn’t going to be able to do a damn thing for himself for the next couple of weeks. He’s lucky if he can put a shirt on by himself a month from now. Yeah, that’s going to be a problem.

Or: Eddie gets shot, breaks up with his girlfriend, and pines like there’s no tomorrow.

as the lights go down by BekkaChaos (@bekkachaos)

Buck is trying to adjust the neighbourhood power supply to stop the newly hung Christmas lights from tripping out, but he is not as handy as he thinks. Eddie watches from the bottom of the ladder, knowing things can only end badly.

Under Kitchen Light by WheelsUpIn_Five (@two-cut-lines)

It’s 3am and the left-hand side of the bed is cold. Buck’s tired fingers grasp at the sheets, his brain lagging behind.

“Eddie?” It’s mumbled, barely audible, and receives no answer. He prises his eyes open and fumbles for his bedside lamp to push back the shadows of the pitch-black room. He’s alone, and Eddie’s place is cold.

from the ashes by casfallsinlove (@oliverstarked)

It makes the breath catch in Buck’s lungs. He doesn’t know how it’s possible when he’s just spoken to him but suddenly he misses Eddie with such a fierce intensity that it leaves him aching. He presses the phone to his chest so hard it hurts, but he wants the words inside of him, wants them bruised onto his skin and scratched into his ribs. You’re the love of my fucking life, he wants to say back. What he actually types is just as honest.

Sent 10:53pm I miss you.

In which Buck's father dies and Buck takes the long way home.

Sometime Around Midnight by Bob_loblaws_lawblog (@buddierights)

Every moment Buck feels as if he loves Eddie as much as possible, and every moment he’s proven wrong by falling even more in love. He’s proven wrong again as Eddie shifts so he’s facing Buck, lifting his leg onto the couch so that his shin is flush against Buck’s thigh, bringing them closer.

“Buck.” Eddie speaks his name quietly, like its something precious. And Buck falls even more as Eddie captures his gaze in those warm, brown eyes.

OR a series of miscommunication leads to confusion and mistakes, until everything finally becomes clear.

blue enough to bruise by renecdote (@renecdote)

Two things happen at once:

Buck overbalances, arm slipping from around the bridge.

The rope snaps.

They lock eyes for a second, half a second, Buck’s wide and afraid, Eddie’s probably a match with the way his heart is pounding hard enough to hurt, nothing either of them can do, knowing that there is nothing either of them can do, and then—Buck is falling.

love finds a way by alkaysani (@alkaysanii)

It was a quiet day after a long shift, and Buck landed in Eddie’s home instead of his own loft afterwards, dead on his feet. After a much-needed shower and takeout, he found himself wrapped in a throw blanket that Abuela made for Eddie that he keeps on the couch, Eddie pressed against him, their legs intertwined after the man just dropped beside him, eyes already on the TV.

For twenty days and twenty nights, the emperor penguin will march to a place so extreme it supports no other life. In the harshest places on earth, love finds a way.

“Love finds a way,” Eddie mutters, so softly that Buck’s not even sure if he realizes that he’s doing it, but he’s turning to look at him anyway. What he finds is beautiful: Eddie’s brown eyes illuminated by the light coming from the television, reflecting the white and blue of the snow on the screen.

OR the one where Buck finds love again while watching March of the Penguins with Eddie

out of ashes by ashavahishta (@ashavahishta)

“They found Buck.”

Hen’s hand goes to her chest. Chim stumbles like he’s been hit, hand curling around the back of a chair for balance.

And Eddie -

Eddie’s knees give out. He’s lucky there’s a chair right under him because he just buckles, head in hands, trying to remember how to breathe.

“Is he - did they - what…what did they find?”

“He’s alive.”

“What?” Eddie’s head snaps up.

If you do read any of these, please show the authors some love. Leave kudos, comments, stalk their tumblrs etc. maybe make a rec list of your own? Share the love around peeps and have a wonderful rest of your week xxxx

#buddie #buddie fic #buddie fic recs #buddie rec list #911 fox #eddie diaz #evan ‘buck’ buckley #christopher diaz #911 buddie #eddie x buck #buck x eddie #911 fic #911 fic recs #meegs says stuff #buddie ao3 #911 ao3 #buddie recs list 1

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pigeonwhumps · 3 months

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Friend, lost

Bug and Company masterlist

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @flowersarefreetherapy @whumplr-reader @whumpinggrounds @den-of-whump @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump @febuwhump

Febuwhump alt 7: last words

Sarita has a nightmare.

713 words

CWs: BBU, pet whump, death, grief, manslaughter, nightmare, emeto, implied food deprivation

"No. Please no. Don't die, please don't die."

Her friend coughs, wracking her body, hacking up blood.

"We knew it'd happen," she whispers. "Once they start to use you as bait and employee training you don't last long."

"But you– you can't leave me, please. I can't lose you, Six."

"Sarita."

"What?"

She coughs violently. "It's my name. Sarita. It's all I remember. Can we talk about something better?"

"Okay. Okay. What would you like to..."

"Tell me your ideal holiday?"

They've done this oh so many times. All either of them have are dreams, things they've heard handlers mention. But anything is better than here.

"A beach. A very sunny beach, and it's warm, and we can hear seagulls. We're eating ice creams, but I don't know what flavour because I don't know what flavours exist. We have large floppy hats on. You have ice cream on your nose, and we're laughing and happy and... and..."

She trails off. Her friend's body is still, her eyes blank and staring.

She bends over and kisses Sarita's bloody forehead. "No. I can't go on those holidays without you. Please come back. Please, come on, I can't do this without you."

There's no answer. Of course there isn't. She tightens her grip on Sarita's body, buries her face in her still-warm chest, and screams.

It takes five handlers to prise her away.

Sarita wakes up, heart pounding, tears streaming down her cheeks. It takes her a minute to realise she's not there, she's at Alix's, that was a long time ago. It feels like she was just there.

She can't hear anyone else so she doesn't think she actually screamed. But she can't stay here. The bed's sweaty and she can feel the cold light of their room, her friend's body, the blood on her hands.

She throws the covers off and lurches out of bed, just making it to the toilet before throwing up.

Not again. Not again. She can't keep doing this.

She stumbles into the front room, vision blurred with tears. There's a nice, soft couch there and she can just see through the light of the sodium-yellow streetlamp and she curls up in the corner, grabbing a pen and paper on the way.

She thinks vaguely that it's a nice coloured biro.

Then she starts to draw. Not the blood-covered face, not the one that was still and blank and staring. It's the good one. The one from when they were first put in a room together, and her friend offered half her meagre portion of food and a small smile that had tugged at the corner of her mouth as the only attempt at comforting the new trainee available to her.

One sharing of food too many was the final infraction that made her disposable. Sarita still doesn't understand why that was an infraction, or why rooms were shared in that training facility when nowhere else seems to do it.

Sarita uses half the pad before she's happy with the sketch. And then she moves onto one of her friend's dreams, the two of them in the forest together, eating a picnic and enjoying a waterfall.

It's not fair. It's not right. She shouldn't be dead, she should be alive and here and smiling shyly and able to go on all their dreamed-up holidays.

Sarita notices movement out of the corner of her eye as Oscar places a mug of chamomile tea down in front of her and sits far enough way that it doesn't feel like an intrusion, sipping at faer coffee. She should've noticed fae earlier.

"I'll change your bed," fae murmurs after a while. How many nightmares has fae heard that fae knows to do that? How many of hers?

How many of faer own?

She nods tearfully, not trusting herself to speak. Oscar is... fae's not in charge as much as Alix and Jane, she doesn't think. But she likes fae all the more for it.

She doesn't move for hours, until the sun starts filtering through the gap in the blinds and she realises she needs to move before anyone else appears. So she heads back to her bedroom, curls up under the pile of blankets with an electric candle lantern, and carries on drawing.

#whump #whump writing #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpalt7 #bbu #pet whump #box babe #whumpee and caretaker #multiple whumpees #tw death #lady whump

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