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itbmojojoejo · 11 months

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Gold Obsidian | Sigefrid x OFC.

Pairing: Sigefrid x OFC

Summary: After Arnora is captured during a raid she is claimed by Sigefrid, over time lines become blurred.

Wordcount: 6.2k | Other works

Warnings: MDNI18+ NSFW. Brief mention of previous SA/Attempted SA. DUB!CON (she starts off enslaved and claimed so consent will always be iffy in this dynamic). Mentions and threats of violence, unprotected PinV.

Authors Notes: This has been plaguing me, and I know I said it would be Reader but my brain couldn't, so uh enjoy? If Sigefrid seems ooc, shhh.

Underneath the scorching sun Arnora’s bound wrists ached with each pull on the tight rope keeping her in line with the other newly enslaved women. Perspiration beaded across her forehead and trailed down her temples and cheeks leaving clear marks in the dusty grime that had built up on her face from the days spent travelling on foot next to lines of horses kicking up dry earth.

She had grown tired of her captors and their boisterous laughter on top of their attempts at claiming her as their own in the nights when they rested on the long journey to Eoferwic. Arnora had been throwing curses under her breath at the short stocky man named Haesten after he struck her for biting and punching him during an attack on the second night of her newfound nightmare.

She had also tired of the other women with their near constant pleas and cries for mercy, wanting to strike them herself for not understanding that this was their life now, for however long until they died of starvation, sickness or at the hands of one of the men leading them into the heart of Danelaw.

Entering through the large gates a tall blonde man with piercing blue eyes and well groomed facial hair instructed that the women be fed and so they were all ushered into an empty horse stall and given hunks of stale bread and a jug of weakened ale to share. Arnora listened to the other women offering whispered words of comfort to one another as she rubbed at her calves with her still bound hands, wondering if she should tell them that they were about to be introduced to their new Lords and claimed instead of being given nice little tasks to do such as baking bread as they hoped.

They weren’t resting for long before a group of men came to round them up and walked them through the town square and had them stand in a line, it was announced to them that Eoferwic was under the rule of the brothers Erik and Sigefrid who they now had the pleasure of serving in any way required.

Sigefrid walked the line of women with an amused light behind his almost black eyes and his lips quirked up. He paused at Arnora, her long braided hair hanging over her shoulder was far too fair for the raided area and her bronzed eyes showed no confusion at what was happening. Then his gaze dropped to her wrists and his brows pulled together,

“Why is this one still bound?” He asked, gesturing a hand towards her.

“That Saxon bitch bites,” Haesten spat on the floor.

“That is no Saxon,” Sigefrid claimed and regarded her further, she lacked the fear most women captured possessed and even with her face dirtied he considered her pretty.

“Lord?” Haesten questioned.

“Look at her, she’s the only one who hasn’t pissed herself.” Sigefrid laughed and took a step towards her, “Speak, woman.”

“What would you have me say, Lord?” She responded in an almost mocking tone, her pronunciation and honeyed voice giving her away in an instant.

“So you are a dane.”

“And you are a Northman.” She countered, her tone laced with anger.

Sigefrid smirked as he unsheathed the dagger at his side, he enjoyed the way her eyes never left his as he stepped closer and towered over her smaller frame. He tugged harshly on her bound wrists and cut through the rope with ease,

“What is your name?” He asked quietly, discarding the restraints to the ground.

“Arnora,” She answered, rubbing at her rope burned wrists.

“This one is mine, no man is to touch her!” He declared loudly and pulled her out the group of women by the shoulder; shoving her in the direction of the hall.

He continued to direct her through the hall with light shoves here and there and took a moment to look over her some more until they came to the closed door of a room she guessed to be his sleeping quarters.

“Why did you not tell the men you are a dane?” Sigefrid lifted her chin with the knuckle of his forefinger.

“What difference would it make?” She jerked her face away from the contact and he smirked.

“You think we would enslave one of our own?”

“I am a woman, they would bed or kill me anyway.”

His brow briefly raised at her response but there was no flicker of concern or compassion across his face and his deep brown eyes remained void of any warmth. He opened the door to reveal a well furnished room with a large bed covered in furs that weren’t needed at this time of year in the middle and a table with fresh fruits and bread and nudged her inside.

“And what if I want to kill you?” He suggested, searching her eyes for any sign of fear.

“Then I pray to the gods you will make swift work of it,” Sigefrid pressed his lips together and hummed at her answer; invading her space he ran his fingers along her braided hair and tugged the tie off the end.

“What if I only want to ride you?” He spoke lowly and roughly pulled apart her braids to have the loose hair frame her face, he imagined it would glimmer like molten gold in the sun when clean.

“I pray you will make swift work of that too,” Arnora responded coldly.

“Not likely.” Sigefrid threatened, “You aren’t to be a slave, but I have claimed you.” He walked away and slammed the door leaving her standing in the room alone.

She grappled with the idea of death as the better alternative to being claimed, she couldn’t imagine living the life of a forced bedmate to a Jarl and having any happiness at all.

The birdsong quietening down and sky changing from bright blue to hues of golden oranges signalled evening approaching and she was relieved at the chance of the day's heat dwindling. Arnora stopped her pacing the moment the door opened with Sigefrid being followed by two other women who filled up two bowls of fresh water and set down a pile of clean cloths and clothing before leaving her alone with the tall Northman.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” He noted, placing his cup of ale down on the table removing his sword and seax.

“You didn’t say I could, people hang for stealing,”

“Eat,” He sighed with an eyeroll.

“I have no appetite.”

“Eat.” He insisted more sternly.

Sigefrid leaned against the table and watched her idly pick at some bread, with a huff he peeled and cut an apple into slices, he carelessly threw them into a wooden bowl and offered it to her along with his ale knowing the bread would be making her mouth dry. Arnora accepted with a curt nod and once he saw the empty bowl he called for a jug of ale to be brought to him.

With a full cup he untied his tunic and let it fall open to reveal the toned planes of his abdomen and regarded the woman in his company for a moment. Her face was sullen and amber eyes vacant, the spark of anger that was within them earlier in the day now missing, but that is what had made her so interesting to him and he wanted it back.

“Come here.” Sigefrid beckoned.

Her eyes flickered over him for a moment and his head tilted to the side with a raised brow to suggest he wouldn’t take no for an answer. As she came to stand in front of Sigefrid he smiled down at her and put a dry cloth into her hand.

“You will wash me,” He instructed, taking off his tunic and throwing it onto the bed.

“Yes, Lord.”

She carefully ran the now wet cloth over his biceps and defined muscles of his shoulders under his watchful gaze that was full of amusement, he followed the movements of her hands over his chest and down his taut stomach and a hint of an emotion he couldn’t place flickered through her eyes. It wasn’t the anger he wanted but at least it was something to show she still had life inside her.

“Tell me, Arnora, will you miss your husband?” He hoped to tease her but was also curious about what her life was before arriving in Eoferwic.

“I don’t have a husband, Lord,”

“Why did you bind your hair then?”

“Most men leave you alone when they believe you are someone else’s property,” She shrugged.

As she patted him dry he took another cloth and damped it, he pinched her chin between his fingers and wiped away the dirt to reveal her clear skin marred by a lightening bruise under her eye and smirked at her expression from the unexpected contact. As his eyes skimmed over her chest she tried to pull back from his grasp so he put the cloth over the edge of the bowl with a sigh and stepped back from her.

“Now you.” He nodded to her dress and she knew what he wanted.

Arnora huffed and harshly untied the laces of her dress and pushed the woollen fabric off her shoulders, she was unhappy to be doing this but had an odd sense of relief that it was her own hands doing the work and not someone like Haesten. Sigefrid sat back on his bed, resting on an elbow and observed as the material slid off her hips and pooled at her feet exposing her naked form.

He admired the curve of her breasts and waist leading down to her soft stomach, focusing on her hips he noticed mottled bruising and larger spots of purples leading up her back as she turned and plunged the cloth back into the cold water. He swallowed any feelings of concern at the treatment she may have received on the journey and continued to watch Arnora drag the soaked cloth quickly up an arm and then the other and he tutted,

“No.” He scolded and stormed back over to the table and bowls.

He took the cloth from her and wrung it out, she winced as he roughly took her wrist in his other hand and slowly ran the damp fabric up the inside her arms with a light pressure. Rewetting the cloth he wiped around her neck and down her chest, when she looked away from him at the corner of the scratchy material grazing her nipple he held her neck and the side of her face in his large calloused hand to keep her gaze on him.

She stared up into his cold coal like eyes as Sigefrid palmed and squeezed her breasts cleaning away the grime, as his hand rubbed down her cleavage and navel she tried to shove him away, his grip on her jaw quickly tightened and as he ran the cloth between the apex of her thighs she slapped him away hard with both hands.

Out of frustration Sigefrid pushed her backwards by the face and threw the cloth into the bowl of water splashing them both in the process.

“Fight me all you want but I will have what is mine,” He growled and she focused on the waving water instead of the anger further darkening his eyes.

With a deep breath Arnora turned back to the bowl and continued the task of washing herself at her own pace, she could still feel Sigefrid’s watchful gaze on her and involuntarily flinched at bundled up fabric hitting the side of her face.

“Put that on when you are done.”

She listened to him gathering up his swords and begin to storm out of the room but he paused in the open door way,

“Eat and drink all you wish.” and with that he closed the door and she was alone once more.

In the comfort of privacy Arnora had scrubbed herself as much as she could and used the small wooden bowl she had eaten apples from to assist in washing her hair and ridding it of the smell of hay. She picked up the clean dress Sigefrid had thrown at her and admired the delicately embroidered runes that adorned the hems of the sleeves and neck of the blush pink material.

It was bittersweet to be given an item so lovely when her new purpose was to be a bed warmer until her new Lord grew tired of her and handed her off to his men to use as they wished for their own amusement. With a deep sigh she willed away the tears threatening to spill with her mind flooding of all that she had witnessed and been on the receiving end of since the small settlement she had only just begun to call home had been raided.

With the sounds of roaring laughter, cheers and shouts coming from outside the hall the bed looked to be more and more inviting, she hadn’t had much sleep recently and she was finding it hard to resist the idea of comfort with the darkening sky creeping in through the window.

Sigefrid returned to his room being dimly illuminated by a torch burning outside the window, Arnora appeared to be asleep on the far edge of the bed. She was laid on her front with tendrils of hair covering her face, he paid attention the soft rise and fall of her back as he loosened his sword belt and set the weapon down against the wall, to his surprise she didn’t stir at the clinking of metal or the bed shifting under his weight when he sat down.

The usual savage in him lay dormant as the thought of pulling her from her slumber to serve him and satisfy his needs flickered through his mind, then he wondered if he could instil loyalty and have her submit to him in a more willful way and scoffed at his foolish thinking, she was woman good for one thing; ploughing. But as he removed his tunic and boots and laid down beside her he did not reach out, he left her be.

As the sun rose and lit up the bedroom Sigefrid sat in a chair with a foot up on the table listening to the birdsong ushering in the new day as he rubbed his thumb on his cup of weak ale and watched a still sleeping Arnora. It was rare to have an enslaved woman, even if only briefly, not be a snivelling wreck flinching at every sound or movement after spending a few days in the company of Sigefrid’s men and he felt his curiosity growing.

Arnora rolled onto her side and woke feeling disorientated, pushing up onto her hand she recognised the sword leaning against the wall on the other side of the bed and rubbed at her eye wondering where the man it belonged to was. Her head snapped towards the sound of a cup hitting wood and her gaze fell on Sigefrid,

“Morning, Lord,” She spoke quietly and he found that he liked the way her honeyed voice shrouded in sleep sounded.

“Well rested?”

“Yes, thank you,”

“Good,” He stood and held her gaze as he tied his tunic, “I want you in the kitchen today, you cannot stay in this room forever.”

“The kitchen, Lord?”

“Unless you would prefer to weave yarn?”

Arnora shook her head and the morning sun spilling through the window glinted off the golden strands of her hair. She would much rather knead dough and prepare meats than handle delicate yarns, it was a lot easier to get that wrong than cooking.

Arnora had barely noticed the hours passing as she worked out all her frustrations into the dough she kneaded, the northman she was now bound to had not put his hands on her at all after she had refused his touch yesterday evening and she didn’t know why.

She also didn’t like the anger she was carrying now, Arnora was raised to be kind and understanding yet defend herself when needed, being angry and rough was not natural to her and she didn’t want to have to become that type of woman just to survive.

When the chatter within the hot and stuffy kitchen fell quiet later on she felt Sigefrid come to look over her shoulder and see what she was doing. Arnora peeked up at him, his brows were slightly furrowed and lips parted, she couldn’t figure out if it was a look of confusion or interest.

“Lord?”

“Go get cleaned up, you will dine with me in the hall.” His dark gaze met hers.

“And your men?” She asked, diverting her eyes to the floor.

“Yes, as I said you cannot stay in that room forever.”

He observed the way she tensed up as she dusted the flour off of her hands sending a powdery cloud fluttering to the floor and he remembered the bruising on her body that matched the one beneath her eye, with a sigh he offered up the only words of comfort he could find in a low voice solely for her to hear,

“They dare not touch you.” His words came out more aggressive than he had intended but Arnora nodded in acknowledgement and quietly stepped away from him making her way out of the kitchen.

Inside the warm hall under the burning torches Sigefrid sat at the head of a long table, he glanced to the woman sitting on his right who picked at smoked meats with her hair glistening in the fire light when Haesten sat next to her, careful to keep some distance between them.

“For a Dane you look to be uncomfortable in a pagan hall, woman,”

“Does my lack of celebration at being stolen from my home upset you, man?”

Sigefrid chuckled at the exchanged but didn’t miss the way her body had tensed up similar to how she had earlier, although he considered her to be his property now he didn’t feel like torturing her in the form of forced close proximity to a man who he guessed was responsible for some of her injuries.

“Arnora, fetch me a fresh jug of ale,”

He chose to ignore the stocky blonde’s eyes raking over her body as she obeyed the simple order and walked away from the table with the empty clay jug in hand.

“Play nice, Haesten,” He spoke with a cold look over the lip of his cup.

Arnora returned a short while later and stood at Sigefrid’s side, refilling his cup without instruction when Haesten piped up again, a smirk plastered on his face as he stared at her.

“How does she ride, Lord?” Sigefrid forced a smile at his question, instinctively wrapping his arm around Arnora and resting his hand against her hip.

“She passes the time,” He shrugged and pulled her into his lap, relieved that she put an arm over his shoulder to indicate there had been a physical closeness between them, against her will or not. It wasn't anyone’s business that he hadn’t had her yet but she knew the implications if people found out.

“She fights too much for my liking,” Haesten sucked his teeth and took a gulp of ale.

Arnora’s blood began to boil and rush beneath the surface of her skin and from her position in Sigefrid’s lap he saw the way her heart hammered, threatening to break through her chest.

“You will not tease her,” Sigefrid chastised his man for being so bold.

“It’s only a bit of fun, Lord,” Haesten smiled, looking to his Lord hoping to diffuse the situation.

“You will not.” He commanded further, his eyes void of any amusement making the stocky dane stand from the table and leave with a face resembling that of a sulking child.

Arnora felt Sigefrid’s fingers press into her thigh along with an unforgiving energy emitting from him and she found herself relaxing into his hold. He had no need to berate the other man for his behaviour, it was the usual treatment towards taken women but she oddly felt safe, almost protected, being close to him in that moment.

She spent the rest of the evening seated in Sigefrid’s lap, silently observing him talking and laughing with his brother Erik. At one point he had moved her arm from around his neck and placed his cup in her hand, pushing the bottom of it towards her mouth with his fingers silently telling her to drink with his eyes locked on hers the entire time. It was a strange moment of intimacy that she had been reluctant to be a part of but was in no position to refuse.

When he said his farewells for the night and pulled her along back to his room a ball of tangled nerves grew in the pit of her stomach knowing she would be faced with the dilemma of trying to avoid his advances for a second time.

She dutifully helped him remove the leather armour he wore strapped to his shoulders along with his sword belt as instructed and when she was done took two steps back from his lingering gaze in an attempt to put some distance between them.

“Get on the bed.” He demanded with a softer than usual tone.

“No.” She whispered.

“I told you I will have what is mine, now get on the bed.”

Arnora shook her head and slowly backed away, Sigefrid growled and rushed at her grabbing her by the hips and threw her onto the furs with ease. She quickly scrambled to crawl off the bed but he was faster and pulled her back towards him by an ankle and flipped her over onto her back in one rapid motion.

She tried to slap and kick at him to prevent him from settling between her thighs with no luck, his strength only increasing with every thud against his face and chest as he gripped her forearms and pinned them above her head, trapping her beneath him. Arnora’s ragged breathing had her chest heaving under the weight of Sigefrid and he smirked as she failed to lift her arms.

His obsidian eyes flickered from her bronze gaze to her full lips and he inched close enough that she felt his beard brush against her chin and his breath fan across her mouth. She jerked at him fast and clamped down her teeth in an attempt to bite him and he pulled back with a dark chuckle.

“You cannot win this fight,”

He leaned down close again and this time his lips touched hers, she grunted and thrust her head forward once more catching his bottom lip in a sharp bite, he ran his tongue over the small cut and a tiny gasp escaped Arnora feeling his growl rumble through him with a grind of his growing erection against her covered core.

Each slow roll of his hips into her had the air around them grow heavy with a charged silence only broken by their mingling breaths. He noticed how her body steadily started to relax and her pupils began to dilate at the contact, with a lick of his lips he crashed his mouth down to hers and as he suspected she didn’t fight back this time, instead she met his furious kiss with her own, allowing their tongues to taste each other.

Not fully trusting her Sigefrid kept her wrists locked in one hand while he tore at the laces on his breeches and pulled up Arnora’s dress exposing her bare cunt to him. There was no gentleness as he nudged the tip of his throbbing cock through her folds gathering up slick before he pushed into her with a hard thrust earning a loud moan from her at the intrusion.

He hissed, taking hold of her jaw as her walls stretched around him with each deep roll of his hips. Sigefrid basked in the sounds of her gasps and breathy pants while he sank his teeth into her soft neck sucking purple welts onto her pale skin and Arnora felt like she was drowning in murky waters of pleasure and resentment.

He finally released Arnora’s aching wrists and pulled her legs up over his shoulders, setting a brutal pace he furiously slammed into her over and over filling the room with the sounds of skin slapping skin. Her knuckles were white from the grip she had on the furs at her sides and her mouth fell open with her brows knitted together feeling the tight knot forming deep within as Sigefrid’s cock assaulted the spongy part of her heat repeatedly.

Feeling the flutter of her walls around him Sigefrid leaned forward to see her blown pupils swallowing the bronze iris, with her folded up underneath him his cock hit deeper depths and she arched up into him with her climax shuddering through her body. Sigefrid groaned and nipped at the inside of her knee as he spilled his hot seed into her still twitching cunt, and the only thought clear in his pleasure clouded mind was that she would be more than just a body helping to pass the time.

Arnora winced as he pulled out and laid on his back next to her as she straightened her legs and dress, they remained in silence for a few moments catching their breaths and coming down from their highs when Sigefrid noticed her cringe as she gently touched her damaged wrists, with a near silent sigh he directed his eyes back to the rafters.

“Does that hurt?”

“A little, Lord, I am worried it will become infected if you keep grabbing at them,” She was playing it down, it ached and stung with even the smallest of contact from the sleeve of her dress and burned when pressed in any way.

They shared a cup of ale with no words spoken in a comfortable silence, only peeking glances at each other here and there from their separate sides of the bed when their fingers touched as they passed the cup between themselves. Arnora was unsure of how things would proceed now, she hadn’t expected to willingly give in to him as she had but worried that if she stopped putting up a fight he would grow bored of her and pass her around.

In the morning Sigefrid had woken early and sought out a trusted woman who worked the kitchens that had knowledge in the ways of healing and on his way back to Arnora with an assortment of items he passed by Erik who flashed him a playful smile.

“Broken her already, brother?”

“Not quite.”

To his surprise Arnora sat at the window in the morning sun finishing a small braid of the front parts of her long hair, she offered him a small smile as he placed a little jar, some leaves and thin strips of linen on the table next to her then knelt in front of her chair and held out his hands palm up thinking of how that was the first smile had seen her wear.

“Lord?”

“This,” He nodded to the items he had brought, “is to help your wrists.”

Her lips parted and brows raised at the kind gesture not expecting him to have cared but she placed a hand into his and watched as he gently pushed up her sleeve exposing the injury. He took his time coating the raw skin in a thin layer of honey before covering it in a large burdock leaf and wrapping the linen around her wrist keeping it all in place with a neat knot.

“Thank you,” Arnora spoke quietly after he had repeated the process on her other arm.

“Do not mention it,” The corner of his mouth quirked up and she let out a breathy laugh.

“No I mean it, I have a reputation to uphold.”

The next couple of weeks passed with somewhat of a routine, they would have breakfast together in the privacy of Sigefrid’s room, Arnora would then spend the day in the kitchens with the women from the north talking of their homelands, and in the evenings she would either sit beside or in the lap of Sigefrid wearing his marks across her neck and chest for all to see.

Of a night he would take her however he wished, and she did not fight him as he replaced any fading marks with new ones and filled her with his seed sometimes multiple times before falling asleep with a distance between them. She had grown accustomed to his rough ways but there was a lack of intimacy she found to be bothering her, a strange fondness for him was growing and it made her feel as though she was falling into madness.

On a particularly hot and stuffy morning Sigefrid paced the room as Arnora turned an unbitten apple in her hands, she had quickly noticed the heat got to him and so people would be tiptoeing around him until the warmth eased to avoid setting off his temper.

Erik had come to inform him that some priests had arrived from Cumberland at the request of their bishop, Sigefrid instructed Arnora to join him at the meeting and although she tried to protest being there he insisted.

The doors were held wide open to help the building up heat escape but it had little effect, Haesten was displeased to see the blonde woman stood behind his seated Lord and the priests gave a disapproving look at her presence, unsure as to why she was there in the first place as they knew the brothers were both unmarried.

“My Lords, this letter is of great importance,” The shorter of the two priests spoke nervously.

“And what does this letter say?” Erik asked, looking amused at their nerves.

“We do not know, Lord, it is for you to see only,”

“Your bishop has sent you all this way and you do not know why?” Sigefrid challenged, tapping his palm off the arm of the chair.

“We are simply following commands, Lord,” The taller balding one held the small sealed parchment out to him.

“Is this meant as an insult, priest?”

Arnora’s eyes flicked from the priest to Sigefrid, the poor souls sent by their bishop must not have been aware that the Northmen they had come to see were not taught letters as children but how to be fighters.

“N-no, not at all Lord,”

“It feels like an insult,” Sigefrid insisted and rubbed at his bottom lip with his thumb.

“It is not an insu-”

“IT IS AN INSULT.”

Arnora flinched at his booming voice and the way he jumped out of his chair just as the holy men had but she did not cower or shake, instead she took a deep breath and stepped forward placing a gentle hand to the back of Sigefrid’s shoulder hoping to diffuse the scene,

“If I may, Lord’s, perhaps it would be best for the father’s to cool down with some ale and allow you time to read this letter in privacy?” She spoke her suggestion softly and looked to Erik who nodded in agreement as she took the folded parchment that was being offered to Sigefrid.

“Haesten, take the priests to the church where they will be surely welcomed.” Erik commanded, and as soon as the three men were out of sight Arnora broke the wax seal under the watchful gaze of the brothers.

“Well, what does it say?” Sigefrid sighed with a wave of his hand, his patience wearing thin.

“It is simply a request to stop raiding the land, Lord,”

“In exchange for what?” Erik asked.

“Nothing, Lord,”

“Nothing.” Sigefrid repeated with a sneer, he caught the subtle frown that flickered across Arnora’s face and took a step closer to her, “What else?”

“The bishop is also urging you to consider a christian life,” She quietly revealed, knowing it would only anger him further.

“I have a mind to take my men and destroy his precious building and take all their silver for us, brother,”

“It is a long way to travel without knowing what is waiting on the other end, it is not known to be a land of wealth” Erik claimed with a stroke of his beard.

“Fetch the priests!” Sigefrid shouted and a man on the doors hurried off towards the church.

Arnora stood back behind Sigefrid’s chair expecting him to sit but as the priests were ushered back into the hall he stormed towards them with ferocity, in one quick motion he unsheathed his sword and slashed through the first man’s throat inciting a shriek from the second who only moments later was stabbed in the gut.

The angry Northman shoved his victim backwards off the metal and turned, setting his gaze that burned with fury on his claimed woman, her head slightly bowed with her bronze eyes looking at him from under long lashes and her lips pressed into a tight line.

“Have the bodies displayed outside the gates, anymore holy men arriving begging for peace shall be turned away!”

Sheathing his sword Sigefrid beckoned Arnora to him with a jerk of his head and she obeyed, he placed his large hand on the side of her slender neck and used his thumb to push against her chin forcing her to look him in the eye.

“You think I should have spared them?” He asked, focusing on the way her creased brow relaxed.

“It is not my place to say, Lord,” In truth Arnora had been surprised they had survived being inside the walls of the city as long as they had.

“Come, let us go for a ride.” He needed to cool off, and weirdly he didn’t want to leave her behind.

Underneath the high sun shade of tall tree’s sheltered Arnora and Sigefrid as they arrived at a shallow river with water cascading from high rocks. It was the coolest she had felt in weeks and was happy to feel the ground beneath her bare feet. Sigefrid removed his sword belt and rid himself of his faded red tunic as he watched Arnora dip her feet into the clear waters edge with a smile playing on her lips.

“‘Nora..”

Her head snapped towards him with the use of her name in a way she hadn’t heard for years and made her heart skip a beat. Walking towards him there was an odd look of affection in his dark eyes and his fingers brushed through the length of her golden hair.

“Do you fear me?” He asked, he had found her to be a peaceful companion in recent weeks and didn’t want her to be afraid of him, he had no intentions of harming her.

“Sometimes, Lord,”

“Sigefrid,”

“Sigefrid.” His name sounded nice spoken with her honeyed voice.

Cupping her cheeks he gently brushed his thumb across her full lips and Arnora felt herself chasing his touch when he stopped. Stepping closer into his space she placed her hands flat on his toned chest and pushed up onto the balls of her feet, her lips ghosted over his as she searched his eyes for permission and it came in the form of a low grumble vibrating through his chest to her hands.

Closing the gap Sigefrid held her close with a tight grip on her soft hips, he’d not kissed her since the first time he had taken her but this was slower with a different emotion behind the act, the soft press of her lips on his was sweet tasting and addictive. He pulled back with a sigh and her dress bundled in his fist.

“Into the water, ‘Nora.”

Nodding she stepped away and removed her dress, throwing it to where she had left her shoes and eased into the cool waters. Sigefrid watched her dip down and disappear beneath the surface before re-emerging and wiping her face as he took off his boots and breeches to join her.

Wading in up to his waist he held her with her back flush to his chest enjoying the feel of her wet cool skin against him, Arnora place her hands over his and guided them in roaming over her body as he replaced his usual habit of hard biting with hot kisses down her neck and along her shoulder tickling her with his beard as he did.

Reaching up behind her she hooked a hand around his neck and his fingers skimmed down her stomach slipping beneath the water and through her folds, she gasped and gripped him tight as he brushed against the sensitive nub at the apex of her thighs. Nipping at her skin he circled the pad of his finger against her until she was panting and moaning under the summer sun.

Sigefrid committed her chest heaving, her peaked nipples glistening with water and the way her back arched under his touch to memory. He pressed his lips to the shell of her ear as he increased the pressure and speed of his ministrations and spoke to her in a low tone,

“Who do you belong to?”

“Sigefrid.”

End Notes: Look man, this whole thing ran away from me and did its own thing, I'm just happy to have gotten some words written instead of have a complete writers block lmao. The flow of this feels dodgy I know. if you stuck around long enough to get to here then, well done, you champ.

#i'm just going to throw this out into the universe and what will be will be lmao #Sigefrid x oc #the last kingdom fanfic #tlk fanfiction #sigefrid #tw dubcon

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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plush-rabbit · 3 years

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Behave Yourself

Request: Hmmm... I'm just gonna request this. Chrono teaching Kai's sister a lesson because she's bratty and doesn't listen to him- make it smutty if you want. Love your blog btw! (˘³˘)♥

Warnings: dub-con

Word Count: 3.3K

A/N: Chrono time!! I really have fun with him because he wasn’t like properly introduced as a character and i like to think he would be a mix of sleazy and sweet

You can feel his eyes on you. Since Hari entered the room, he’s kept track of you. He’s watched as you swivel side to side in your chair, shuffled around and played on your phone all while your brother talked about some nonsense pertaining to the Shie Hassaikai. You’ve only responded to him by giving him a raise of the brows, slightly bothered by the way that he hasn’t taken his eyes off of you.

“Overhaul,” Kurono states, standing from his seat and gaining the attention from the rest of the attendants, “is there a reason why they’re here?” He keeps his gaze on you, disdain etched into his words.

“They’re part of us. Why wouldn’t they be here?” Overhaul asks, leaning back into his chair. The toe of his shoe knocks against the leg of your chair and you stop moving, giving him a small grin. “If you rather not be in the same room as them, then go ahead and leave Kurono.” To emphasize his point, a gloved hand is raised and is gestured to the door.

A triumphant smile reaches your face. You puff out your chest, staring at him through a gleeful stare. “Ha,” you spit out, the smile ever growing. “He likes me better.” you stick out your tongue, moving your chair closer to your brother. You sit tall, your eyes piercing into his, pride the only thing that you can feel course through your body as your brother places a hand on your shoulder to quiet you down.

“Quiet.” His hand tightens around your shoulder. “Am I allowed to continue now?” He stares at Kurono through narrowed eyes.

Giving you one last stare, Kurono sits down. You roll your eyes, deciding to humble the dog that sits below you. “You know Kai-” you turn to face him, pulling his hand away from you- “if I’m that much of a bother for him, then I have no problem leaving. I was up so late last night that I might as well go and sleep a bit more.” All he does is wave his hand, excusing you from the meeting. You stand from the chair, pulling down on your skirt and sticking your tongue out to Kurono once more, before walking away.

All you had to do was drop off paperwork for Kurono to sign. You didn’t know why Kai had to send you off as if you were some intern, but you did so. And now you’re here, scowling at the man in front of you, who spits insults at you. You stand in front of him with your arms crossed, a headache already beginning to form.

“You’re a damn bitch, is what you are,” he hisses, stepping closer to you, his cheeks red with anger.

“Oh fuck you,” you spit out. “Call me a bitch all you want but we all know you’re just some pussy who doesn’t even have the balls to go tell me that in front of Kai. Oh-” you mockingly cover your mouth with the tips of your fingers- “I meant Overhaul. Because you’re not supposed to address him any other way, right? You’re just his little lackey. You may think of yourself as his right hand man, but guess what? I am. I’m the one he tells everything to, not you. So go fuck yourself Kurono.”

He grabs your wrist, pulling you closer to him. You stumble in your step and press against his chest. “You should learn to respect those older than you.” His grip tightens around you. “You’ve been nothing but a brat. Hasn’t anyone taught you manners?” You pull your wrist away from him, and hold it gingerly in your hand. “Or have you been fucking them on the side that none of them care?”

“You have no right to talk to me like that!” You snap, stepping closer to him and pointing your finger into his chest. “You’re just some self-centered prick who thinks he’s better than others. Guess what? You have a quirk! You’re some damn hypocrite and the first bullet that’s stable will go to you.” Your smile turns cruel, your gaze focused on him. “I’m sure Kai would agree if he found out that's how you were talking to me.”

You make your way to leave, the papers that he had to sign be damned. You were too angry to stay focused, too full of rage to actually hit him where it hurts. You weren’t actually going to tell your older brother, you just needed to leave. To stop hearing his voice and stop feeling his eyes on you.

A hand grabs the back of your shirt, pulling you back as you yelp. Your back makes contact with the edge of the desk, your hands going to hold you study. You look at him in a mix of horror and rage, baring your teeth to scare him away from you. His hand covers your mouth, and his nails dig into your cheeks when you lick his hand, so desperate to push him away. Your legs move, trying to kick him away and he places his thigh between your two legs. You try to push yourself away, his stormy gray eyes narrowing and darkening the longer they focus on you. His thigh rubs against your sex and you spit muted curses through his hand.

“Get off of me,” you hiss, trying to push him away, ignoring his shushing and demands of you to be quiet. “You’re a fucking creep.”

You’re tossed onto his desk, crying out with the harsh contact. You take a harsh intake of air, your muscles tensing and falling limp in the same second. “Now,” his hair pierces through your skin, blood trickling down your thigh, “remember to be quiet, sweetheart. We wouldn’t want people to come in wondering why you're moaning like a whore.” His hand squishes your cheeks together, your lips pursed and mouth forming an oval. His eyes narrow, hair slowly receding back into place as you’re forced to sit up, his hand on your lower back, arching your chest into him. You try to gather all the hate that you can into your gaze, cheeks flushed and ears dusted in a dark hue. “Don’t give me that look. After all, I was the one who gave you the choice to start behaving and you’re the one who decided to throw that back at me.” His hand lets go and you’re dropped back onto the desk, your face scrunching up in pain and your upper lip curling upwards. “Oops, sorry,” he apologizes with a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’ll go in smoothly, the last thing I would want is to clean up a mess of yours. After all-” his hands are brushing down your side, past your shirt and against the hem of your skirt- “I’m not your brother. I have no real obligation to clean something of yours.” His knuckles brush against your thighs, tipped with red as they hold the fabric of your skirt in his hands, lifting it upwards to reveal your intimates. The muscles in your legs squeeze, your body burning as he lowers himself, his breath cool as it breathes against your covered sex. “You should consider yourself lucky that I even want to do this.”

Your sex pulses, anxiety coursing through your body, your heart beating in your cunt with his tongue so close to it. His tongue is flat as it presses against the cotton, dipping it with his spit and furthering it with your arousal that beads out cautiously. You try to clench your hands but you are unable to do so. You are still in front of him, feeling as his hands travel over your thighs, the cotton growing wet with each suckle.

Your underwear is pulled down, around your ankles it hangs as hot breath fans against your bare sex. His tongue laps around you, passing your folds, teasing against your entrance with the tip of his tongue, sweet trickles of your arousal drip and latch onto his tongue. He pushes in, his tongue scoop and swallowing your arousal, and you can hear him release a sigh.

“Who knew some brat would have a sweet tasting cunt,” he muses, his thumb pressing against your clit. “Huh, you tried playing so tough but would you look at this-” he rolls your pearl around, your body growing hot and a tight coil beginning to wrap around your body- “you’re actually turned on from this. What a pervert you are.” he kisses your sex, his tongue passing your folds. Despite being still, your body still reacts, your cunt pulsing, and breaths growing shallow. “Don’t tell me you’re already so close with just a couple of licks? No wonder you’re such a brat. You’ve never been fucked before, hm?” His tongue is thin and slimy, pushing inside of you and squirming inside of you.

“I hate you,” you hiss out, your leg twitching in response. “Calling me a pervert when you’re the one who froze me.” Every word is an effort, one that tires you out and makes you huff and puff at the end. “What is this? Some sort of hate-fuck?” You give out a bitter laugh. “It’s a pity, you’re actually handsome but still no one wants to fuck you because fo your filthy attitude.”

You yelp, your mouth closing and lips pulling into a thin line when his lips suckle against your fold, pulling in the plump fat and leaving it marked with his teeth. You whine in horror, choking against your own spit, your eyes wide as you focus on the light that blinds you from above. He kisses against the skin, blowing cool air on you, his lips wrapping around your pulsing clit, sucking on it. You cry out, snapping your mouth shut and giving out a soft whine. Even though there’s no reason to, he holds you down with his hands, the point of his tongue pushing your erect clit around, flicking it with his tongue and suckling on it. The pressure becomes too much, your muscles tensing but being unable to move it becomes all frustrating. You want to squirm away form him, to remoe his mouth away from your sex and end the building pressure. WIth a pop, he releases you from his mouth. You’re left unsatisfied and disgusted.

His lips are pressed against yours, his tongue sweet as it fills your mouth. Your eyes squeeze shut, a frown on your lips when you realize that you’re tasting yourself, his hands cupping your face as his cock rubs against your folds, pressing close against your pulsing clit, his cockhead teasing at the rim of your entrance.

He pulls away, a thin string of saliva connecting his mouth to yours. Stormy eyes look down at you, his gaze curious as he watches you desperately try to move, your eyes shining with unshed tears. “Oh come on,” he mutters, his knuckles brush against the side of your face tenderly, catching a tear that curves down your face. His knuckles are cold compared to your skin. “Don’t cry- there’s no reason for that. I’m making you feel good, aren’t I? I could be a big, bad scary man just thrusting my cock into this sweet pussy of yours-” his hand that isn’t touching your face cups your cunt at his words, warmth seeping onto his hand in heavy strands- “but I rather have you enjoy it. See?” His smile is gentle, his head tilting in a patronizing way, as a finger inserts itself inside of your cunt, nestling it’s way deep into your warm embrace. “You’re already so wet, and all I had to do was kiss you.” He leans down, the tip of his nose ghosting above yours, his breath thin with peppermint and your arousal as he nudges your head in place to stare at him. “I hope that you know this is a punishment for you. You’ve been acting too cocky, too full of yourself for blood relations. Remember who the fuck you belong to, okay? Because it isn’t to the Shie Hassaikai or even to Overhaul-” his nails embed themselves into your cheeks- “it’s to me. If I have to fuck you raw to have you understand your place, then so fucking be it. I’ll make you cry and that’s a promise.”

He turns you on your side, a leg lifted into the air and hooked over his shoulder, the other falling past the edge of his desk. His hands returning to wrap around your upper thigh, his face leaning close to yours and in this position, you can feel his cock press further into your inner sex. Your eyes close, your muscles clenching and tightening around his cock, your arms cushion under your head, tears falling onto your forearms. You try to hide your face, your breath ragged and chest heaving. Your muscles are tense, sore from being positioned for so long in one setting.

“Kurono, please, my body hurts,” you whisper, looking up at him through a teary expression. “I’m already crying, just please.”

He stares at you blankly for a moment, but then the corners of his mouth start to rise, a sick grin taking over his features. “Well, would you look at that. Even the brat can beg with a cock stuff inside of them.” A hand leaves your thigh and grabs onto your chin. “I have to say, tears really do suit you.” His touch on you softens, his fingertips now squishing over where his nails had marked you. “You must not hate this, because you’re already clinging to my cock. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that I leave you nice and full once I’m done.” His cock slides out of you, a warm trail leaving you empty as his cockhead is kissed against your rim. “I’ll make sure it feels good for me.”

“Kurono-” You yelp as he thrusts himself inside of you, your eyes going wide and body tensing. It’s a dull pain that courses throughout your body, wrapping tight and squeezing around your stomach. “Ah-!” Your eyes squeeze shut with every thrust of his cock inside of your cunt. You try to force yourself to calm down, to not let him take notice of how your cunt throbs with every thrust. “Hari- Please, I’m- Oh fuck!” You moan out, tilting your head forward, eyes squeezed shut as colors begin to burst. “I promise to- promise to stop, just please,” you moan out, embarrassment settling deep in you at the sad show of enjoyment that you are receiving from him.

“You silly, little thing,” he grunts, pounding into your cunt merciless, harsh clicking sounds filling the room with every squeak of the desk. “I’m supposed to believe that? How fucking dumb do you think I am, huh?” Anger is faint on his words, but his actions speak louder and he reaches under your shirt, twisting harshly at a pert nipple. You squeal in response, your sound cut off by his hand clamping down on your mouth. “Shut up,” he hisses. “How desperate are you to have people walk in and see me fuck you? Huh? You want everyone to come in and watch me ruin your pussy? Is that it?” You shake your head. “Then shut up.”

He holds tightly onto your thigh, pushing himself to the base of his cock, shaping your walls to fit him. Your tears touch his hands and his hand is wet with your spit. It’s a simple hate-fuck, one where he hurts you, defiling you over his desk like you were some sort of toy. However, you’d be lying to yourself if you said that you didn’t enjoy it. Or rather your body enjoying it while you lay there as his cock curves so sweetly to hit against a certain spot. You can feel him press deep inside of you, his own hair sticking to his face and his cheeks and the tip of his nose rimmed with red. He pants heavily, his hand falling from your mouth and falling to your throat, curving to the back of it and pulling you close to him.

Your mouth is slack, the tip of your tongue pressed against his shoulder. Your legs are starting to burn, the joints and tension starting to become too much, a far sharper pain than anything he’s subjected you to recently. In fear from what will happen if you speak out, you remain shut, trying to milk his cock so he could release you, your eyes closing and body feeling heavy. The knot in your stomach is tight, pushing against you until you’re left with a tingling sensation that makes your body shake. You bite onto his shirt, pressing yourself close to his body with all the force and strength you can muster in order to mute your own cries.

You sigh in ecstasy, your eyes closing and body going limp onto the table. His hand smacks against your thighs, your brows knitting together. Cruel as ever, he turns you on your back, his cpk pressed against your thigh, his hand going to grip your face and he lifts you up. You support yourself by resting on your forearms, you hair sticking to your face and your sex still sore.

Shaking with sensitivity, your body has clamped around him, your legs shake as he continues to thrust inside of you. He grunts your name, clawing his hands into any of your exposed skin, until his movements start to grow sloopy and then he stills. He follows your actions, biting down on your shoulder to mute to his own cries of pleasure. He’s still, his seed filling your sex with a thick, creamy fill. He holds you for a second, riding his own wave of afterglow. He pulls out of you without a word, your sex fluttering around the now empty space. You can feel a drool of mixed arousal slowly slide past your sex.

He presses his face close to yours, the grip on your face firm. “Are you going to behave yourself?” He asks in a low tone, his gaze expectant.

You nod your head, muttering out a soft “yes.”

He holds onto your face tightly and you worry you’ll have to explain the bruises to others. “Yes what?” He states, his stromy eyes focused entirely on yours.

You swallow whatever little bit of spit is left inside of you, your stomach twisting into knots and your heart racing. “Yes sir.” A heavy flush of warmth floods throughout your body, pooling on your cheeks.

He smiles, releasing your grip from you and you are laid back onto the desk. “Good.” His hand slips away from your thigh and you are left a creamy mess on a desk. “Now,” he says, pulling out of you, a thick trail of semen coats the inside of your thigh, “run along to your big brother. I’m sure he needs you for something.”

In a cruel sense of irony- and perfect timing- your body finally listens to you, your hands clenching tight and spreading open, each finger wiggled in a test. Your legs are unsteady, feeling as if you were only learning how to first walk, each step unsteady and hands gripping tightly at the desk where you once laid, a wet stain already settling into the wood. You look at him, brows knitted together, your chest heaving with every breath. “Fuck you,” you spit out, bending over to pick up your discarded underwear, slipping it on as goosebump trail over your skin. The flat of it presses against your cunt and you try to hide your discomfort when his semen drips out of you and lands heavily on your underwear.

“Ah, ah,” he says without so much as looking back at you, raising a finger and wagging it in a disapproving motion. “Watch your mouth. That’s what got you into trouble with me.” The last image of him that you see is his smiling face, a hand combing his hair back into place as the door closes behind you.

#bnha imagines #bnha chronostasis #chronostasis #chronostasis x reader #bnha chronostasis x reader #hari kurono #kurono hari #kurono hari x reader #hari kurono x reader #tw dubcon #i love this man #i want him to spit in my mouth #hope you like it!!

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thran-duils · 3 years

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Was Ich Liebe (P.3, Final)

Title: Was Ich Liebe (Part Three, Final) Summary: Fem!Reader x Dark!Tony Stark. Tony becomes enamored with a stripper at a club his hedonistic friend Thor owns. A casual sexual relationship quickly becomes possessive and the reader sees more of the underground mafia life than she would like to. The cherry on top is that Tony is married and so is she. Him to a woman who has no intention of losing her throne at any cost and the reader to a deadbeat alcoholic. Feeling trapped by both her previous life and the suffocating hold Tony is trying to put on her, the reader steals away in the night, which is not going to go over well. Words: 4,647 Warnings (for whole fic, more may be added): Dub-con, smut, infidelity, stripping, vaginal fingering, public sex, possessive behavior, angst, degradation kink, violence, physical abuse, domestic violence, language, drug use, alcoholism, death Warnings for this chapter: Mention of abortion! Author’s Note: As usual, this is 18+.

Part Two || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

Tony was calling. He must have gone to the apartment and found you gone by now, especially since you had not been answering him via text or by phone. You sent him to voicemail letting your music start again. You had rented a car to drive away from the city.

The jewelry he had given you came in handy to get cash that you were using for gas and hopefully a down payment on an apartment somewhere. Stripping joints were abundant, and you were sure if you found a sizable city, you would find work without an issue. You were thinking about Milwaukee. It was far enough away from NYC and there was a college there too.

Your phone beeped with another voicemail from him. Signing, against your better judgment, you reached forward to press play, it coming over the car’s speakers.

He was pissed. Unsurprisingly. He had been tight on the last one he had left, wound up that you were not answering him. But this was a whole different level. He was practically shouting.

“This better be a goddamn joke, Y/N. My patience is already up with it though. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you had snuck out? Where the fuck is all the jewelry? Huh? Your clothes? If I find out you left and you’re cheating on me, I’m gonna kill them.”

You did not doubt him when he said that. And he confirmed he was at the apartment if he noticed your stuff was gone.

“And were you planning on telling me about the pregnancy?” Your eyes widened and then you swore remembering you had not emptied the trash in the bathroom. “Or were you just gonna keep that to yourself? Listen very carefully to me, if you do something drastic, I’m not gonna be nice about it. Not in the fucking slightest. You best believe that and take that to heart! Don’t be fucking stupid! Call. Me. Back.”

The voicemail ended.

Yes. The pregnancy. You were already thinking about which office you could go to. You had left a note for Thor about quitting and you wondered how quickly your health insurance was going to stay in place. Before after leaving a job, it had stayed on until the end of the month, but you were unsure, and you were not about to call him and ask. An appointment at a clinic though, that was something you needed to deal with quickly. You were sure there was a facility you could find when you got yourself established.

<><><>

“You’re a psychopath,” Carol said to Tony, smirking.

She was watching him put up security cameras around Y/N’s apartment, hidden from the normal eye with his technology. And when he had taken the lock apart on her door to install tech he could control himself from his cell, she had shook her head.

“I prefer creative,” Tony responded, as he tested it out. It worked perfectly. “Little bitch isn’t going to be leaving without trying extra hard.”

<><><>

You found a hotel in Columbus. You made sure to put a chair underneath the door handle on top of using both locks. It was scary to be traveling alone. And especially when you did not know the area.

The next morning, you woke up to another voicemail from Tony. You had reached over to silence it while you were sleeping, knowing damn well who would be calling you at 2:30am.

He sounded sloshed.

“Do you remember me telling you I was never going to let you go? Cause I said it multiple times. That hasn’t changed, Y/N. It’s been almost 24 hours since you answered to me!” Slip up there with that ‘to’ added in. “It’s really fucking frustrating, and you know goddamn well I don’t like being frustrated. It’s…you’re being disrespectful!” There was a slight pause and you heard him take a drink. He let out a humorless laugh. “You won’t run away from me. I’m going to find you.”

He hung up.

Hearing how mad he was, your stomach was twisting. He was not a man that liked to be thwarted or feel like he was being disrespected. Not to mention that he was a fucking mafia member. If he got his hands back on you, he was not going to be kind. And the time he told you he would never hurt you would be tested, you worried.

Why did you let yourself get so far involved with such a dangerous, jealous man? Again?

Forcing yourself to get up from the bed, you went to take a shower to try to relax in the hot water. Afterward, you walked across the street to the coffee shop. You wanted to get on the road again to put some more distance between you and NYC and ultimately between you and him.

<><><>

You drove around the edge of UW-Milwaukee, stealing glances at the campus. A city like this with a college surely had good clientele for the clubs.

Pulling over and parking, you opened your phone beginning to search for an apartment and a job. There had to be an abundance of apartments available around the college since it was summer and a class had just graduated.

<><><>

He kept calling and kept calling. He was not going to stop. It had been two weeks. You had been trying to convince yourself to answer him and tell him to leave you alone and that it was over. You thought about changing your number and you would, but after the conversation you needed to have.

Piqued, you answered, “Tony, I’m busy—"

“Oh, you’re busy? So busy you couldn’t fucking answer me? Over the last two weeks, you’ve been ‘busy’. Too busy for me? That’s hilarious! You should have your own fucking stand up show.” His tone was dripping with condescension.

Sighing, you said, “I’m getting ready for work! This needs to be quick.”

“Work?” Tony chuckled darkly. “Now you care about work? You fucked Thor over by quitting on the spot. How were you even able to get a reference?”

“I danced. That was reference enough.”

“Of course you did. Of course you’re stripping. Where are you?”

“I’m not going to tell you, Tony!”

“Y/N, baby,” he started, sounding like it was taking everything in him to keep his voice even. “If you just apologize and tell me where you are or just come back, I’ll be able to let this go easier. You can come back to me, and it’ll all be okay.”

You mustered out a strong, “No! I am not going to do that.”

His leash was back off. “Why are we playing this stupid game, Y/N? I can handle you being bratty — cause I love fucking it out of you — but this is really pushing me over the edge!”

“I’m not being a brat! You were suffocating me!”

“Suffocating you? I worship you!” He was so easily able to confuse his possession with love. He continued on irritated, “I shower you with gifts! I make sure you’re well taken care of! I’ve treated you better than anyone else has! And you’re coming at me like this? What is your fucking problem, Y/N? What? Is being on the phone instead of in person giving you some fake confidence? Don’t think I’m not keeping track of this ungrateful bullshit just because you’re not standing in front of me!”

He was quickly losing his temper. You had never made him this mad, had never pushed back.

You were shaking as you tried to stand up for yourself, “I’m not the one with a problem! I didn’t force you to move anywhere or—"

Tony interrupted you furiously. “Do you understand how much that apartment cost? How much that car cost? You barely drove it!”

Frustrated he was steam rolling you as usual. you said fighting to keep tears back, “Sell it then!”

“If that was supposed to be a joke, it was an awful one. This shit isn’t fucking funny, Y/N! When I find out where you are, I’m gonna drag you back by your goddamn hair!”

“Good luck!” you spat, it slipping out before you really thought about it. Your eyes widened at what you had just done, and you quickly hung up as he started to snarl something back.

He was immediately calling you back and you sent him to voicemail again.

<><><>

Tony let out an aggravated shout, throwing his phone down on the desk when she did not answer him back.

Good luck was right.

She had stayed on the line long enough to give him time to trace her down to the general area. Milwaukee. Near the university. He would find her, and he was gonna find her quick with getting eyes on the ground to spot her leaving her place wherever that was in the area. And she was not going to like it when he came knocking to collect her.

<><><>

The bag from the closest grocery store was heavy with groceries for the week. You had returned the rental car when you signed your lease, able to use the bus system until you bought your own car.

You noticed there was a man watching you across the street and you slowed in your pace, narrowing your eyes. He did not look away and you swallowed sharply before resuming your pace. You felt like you could still feel his eyes on the back of your head. You had felt like there had been eyes on you earlier this morning too. A foreboding feeling was creeping; you wanted to get inside and quick.

Entering your apartment, you kicked the door closed and struggled to lock it immediately. The bag crunched as you walked over to the kitchen and placed it on the counter.

You put the few groceries away and walked around the counter, tearing your shirt off and tossing it on the back of one of your chairs. It was hot since you were on the third floor and you had not been able to buy an air conditioner yet.

“This place is a shithole.”

You screamed, startled at the voice, whipping around, your eyes searching wildly.

Tony was sitting in the end of your bed in your room.

He had surprisingly not called you for the last few days, not after the conversation the two of you had. Not hearing from him had set you on edge just as much as him calling you did. You knew he was not going to give up easily and the silence was a trap if you fell into it thinking that it was done.

Your eyes flicked to the door, and he chastised you in low, dangerous tones, “Y/N, you’re already in enough trouble. Don’t make this worse for yourself. Carols outside. So is Rhodey. And a handful of other people I brought along in case you were gonna cause more trouble.”

The man outside. So, you had been being watched.

Tony stood up from the bed and came out of the bedroom, and up to you. You took a few steps back and he tsked you. You stopped immediately, knowing what he wanted. He closed the rest of the space and raked his eyes up and down you.

“Why did you have to go and cause trouble in the first place? You think I was suffocating you? That’ll seem like a cakewalk compared to when you come back with me. See, we’ve lost trust. I can’t have you running around when you know as much as you do. And you running off looks like you were going to squeal.” You opened your mouth to protest but he rose his voice, shutting you up. “And I can’t have that. Not when I have other people to answer to on the team. I will not be the weak link in the chain, which means you are not going to be running off in the middle of the night. Even if it’s not what you planned to do, it looks bad.”

His hands came to rest on your biceps, squeezing in tight, causing you to flinch slightly. His eyes were hard. “You could have had the world and you threw it away.” His thumbs caressed, his tongue slipping between his lips. “But I can be a forgiving man if you make me believe that you’re sorry. Just do that for me, beg for forgiveness, and I’ll take care of you and that baby.”

You gulped at the mention of the baby, and he noticed. His eyes narrowed. He leaned in, searching your face and you looked away, but he forced you to look back at him, his hand holding your jaw tight.

“Y/N, baby… you got something to tell me?”

You were silent, your heart starting to hammer.

“Y/N, you know I don’t like repeating myself.”

His grip tightened and you felt tears pricking, apprehensive of how he was going to react.

Your voice warbled, “I…I had an abortion.”

Tony was frozen, his eyes wide and incendiary. His grip on your jaw loosened and you took a step back away from him. His jaw clicked, eyes not leaving you. You saw he was going to explode.

Raising your hand shakily, as if that was going to hold him off, you started, “Now, Tony—"

His backhand sent you stumbling. He caught you before you could do it yourself and slammed you up against the wall.

“You’re lucky I didn’t cold clock you!” He snarled, his fingers digging in painfully to your arms.

“Tony, don’t—”

“Don’t? Don’t what? Be fucking furious that I told you not to do anything drastic and then you went and did just that? Without even consulting me? I have a goddamn right to be furious! How fucking dare you!”

You were sniffling now, terrified.

He gave you a rough shake before demanding, “What’s the lease on this place?” You took too long to answer. “Answer me!”

“Month to month,” you whimpered.

“Smart. Makes this easier.” His nose was practically brushing yours. “Look, you’re gonna be good and listen to me about exactly what is going to happen—"

“You can’t—"

“Did I tell you that you could talk? No! I told you you were going to listen. Keep your fucking mouth shut!” Tony lashed out. You closed your mouth, your lip warbling. “You’re coming with me. And I haven’t decided yet if I want them all to listen to you beg for forgiveness on the plane or if I’m waiting until we are alone. Not doing it here. Don’t wanna alarm your neighbors and have to injure any of them if they try to interfere. I don’t want, nor need that type of mess.”

He shoved you as he let you go, and you wiped at your eyes.

“I can’t fucking believe you. Can’t even follow simple goddamn directions. What are you? A child?” he snorted angrily. He snapped his fingers at you and pointed at your room. “Get your shit. We are leaving and going home. The jets at the airport.”

<><><>

He had not punished you on the plane. You instead had sat, curled in as tightly as you could to yourself in the chair across from him under a blanket, looking out the window as much as possible. You felt him watching you intensely the whole two hours. You could only imagine the deranged ideas going through his head about what he was going to do to you when he got you alone.

The moment you stepped into your apartment, he ordered you, “Get yourself done up. I want you to look nice for me. I’ll be out here watching the game.”

His goons brought in your suitcases and put them next to the kitchen table before leaving at his order. Tony grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. He saw you were still standing there, and he glared.

“Y/N…” he said dangerously. “I don’t see you moving.”

You grabbed your suitcase with your clothes and trudged down the hall, feeling his hard stare at your back until you disappeared into the bedroom. You had left a lot of your clothes here but there was a dress you had brought with you, one that he liked specifically. Which shocked you a little bit because it was loose and free; still short though.

Taking the time to shower, blow dry, do your makeup, and dress, you felt the anxiety rising about what he was going to do. You thought the extra time would calm you down, but it was doing the opposite because it was giving you more time to think.

When you walked back down the hall, your black wedges announcing your arrival, Tony looked over the back of the couch. You saw the bottle on the coffee table. He had been drinking, not a surprise. He gestured you over and you walked around the couch, coming over to him. He ran his eyes up and down you, taking you in.

“Well, don’t you look just perfect?” he asked, an edge underlying his tone.

He stood up from the couch and you stayed still. He pulled his phone out and took a picture of you without giving you time to prepare. He turned his phone around and you looked dumbstruck in the photo.

But he complimented, “Look at that. Pristine. That’s what good girls look like.” A cruel smile flashed across his features, and he tossed his phone down on the couch. “But you’re not a good girl are you, baby?”

You only had a moment to react before he was forcing you down to your knees. You hissed in pain as your knees slammed against the hardwood.

“You brought this on yourself. You think I like punishing you?” Tony asked, working on his belt with one hand as the other held you by the back of the neck. Your hands came up to grip his thighs, pressing back against the hold he had on your neck. “Ah ah, stay where you are.” He stroked himself with purpose, his hand moving at a steady pace. “Look at you. A pretty little slut that needs to be taught a lesson.”

He was hard now, the head of his cock pressing against your lips.

“Open your damn mouth!” You clenched your teeth, knowing he was gonna be rough and not wanting to choke. He let go of you to slap your cheek and sneered, “Don’t make me ask you again!”

You opened your mouth reluctantly, and he grabbed you by the back of your neck again and shoved his dick in all the way, your nose brushing his pubes. You gagged before he pulled back out, running his head around your lips. He groaned at the sight, slipping back in and using your mouth.

“Tell me you love me!”

“I love you!” you got out around his width.

“Look at me!” You forced your gaze up to meet his and he thrusted faster, hitting the back of your throat. Your hands gripped tight onto his thighs, eyes begging for him to slow down. But he was not relenting, and your throat was aching. Another groan left his lips as he demanded, “Tell me you love me, you little bitch.”

It was hard to say it, you choking now, tears stinging your eyes. “I love you!”

He pulled away roughly, his hand wrapped around your hair tightly, keeping you in place. Your saliva was stringing messily between him and your lips. Your chin as well as his pubes were glistening with your drool. You gasped for air, thankful for the reprieve from your jaw aching from being open so wide.

The reprieve was short lived though and you cried out in pain as he began walking, dragging you by your hair.

“Forgive me that I don’t quite believe you. But I’m gonna make sure I do believe you. I’m gonna get a genuine one out of you before I’m through.”

Tony sat on the edge of the bed and held you tight. “Give me a show. Take that dress off and let me see you. Let me see what I’m going to take.”

Shakily, you stood up as his grip laxed and he was watching you like a hawk. You wiped at your lips, knowing there was little to do about your eye makeup since he had made tears come with how hard he had been choking you. You started to sway your hips, trying to find a rhythm amongst the excitement. You turned away from him so he could not see your face as you struggled to calm down enough to dance.

It was sloppy, unconfident. But that did not seem to bother him. He pulled you into his lip and his hands slipped up your dress and into your underwear.

“Don’t get to tell me now that I can’t touch,” he husked against your cheek, his fingers slipping into your pussy. “All mine.”

He was stroking you, getting you worked up, making you lose focus on grinding. You bit your bottom lip, a strangled moan escaping.

Tony chuckled, nuzzling your cheek. “I know you like that. Gonna get you good and wet for me, sweetheart. Spread your legs further.”

You were falling so easily into his touch, your core wanting more. You were getting wound up and he was loving it. He worked quicker, his breath heavy as he felt how aroused you were, wetting his fingers.

“Maybe you are a good girl. Look how well you are behaving for me. Is this you apologizing?” He pulled away just to lay a hard smack on your cunt. You bucked, crying out and he did it again. You whimpered as his fingers entered again, focusing on your bud. “You’re a needy little slut, aren’t you baby?” You nodded and he sucked at your neck. “You’re repenting so well… but you’ve got a long way to fucking go.”

You were so close, but he suddenly shoved you away roughly, causing you to stumble in your heels.

“Strip.”

You did as he asked, pulling the dress up and tossing it behind you, leaving you in just your underwear. He rose his brows expectantly and you turned around, bending over slowly. You pulled your underwear down, feeling how wet they were at the crotch. You heard him hum at the sight of them and your glistening pussy. They fell to your ankles, and you turned around, kicking them off.

Tony stood up and pointed at the bed. “On your stomach.” You did as he asked and heard him getting undressed. You peeked over your shoulder at him undoing his tie as he walked towards your closet. He emerged again with a scarf, his eyes fixated on you. “Did I tell you you could look at me?” You turned back around quickly, butterflies swarming.

He grabbed one of your ankles and yanked you down the bed. You felt his tie around your ankle, and you tensed as he tied you to the bed frame. He was at your opposite ankle and tied your other leg with your scarf tightly.

“Tony…” you said hoarsely.

He did not answer you and you laid there, spread wide. The bed creaked with his weight and his thick thighs straddled you, holding you even tighter in place. You felt him pressing in and your fingers dug into your quilt. Each inch filled you up more and he exhaled as he reached his base.

“That’s the gentlest thrust you’re going to get, sweetheart. Enjoy it.”

Tony was not lying; he was pounding you into the mattress and you were not being quiet about the intrusion. You were already so wet, and he was adding to the sensation the way he was working you.

“You’re gonna remember who you loves you the most,” he groaned. The bed was shaking with how hard he was driving into you. “You’re gonna remember to behave!”

Pulling out of you, he smacked you hard against your ass. “Get up on your knees. Now!”

You obeyed, maneuvering with the restraints and his fingers replaced his dick, rubbing your clit. You keened, your back arching at the intense contact. You were ashamed that as usual you fell to the arousal, letting him take you over completely even when he was being as mean as he was.

“Fuck, you little whore. Look at you. So needy for cock. Why did you leave me in the first place? You were never going to find anyone that would love you like I do. You hurt my feelings, baby. And I don’t like having my feelings hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” you gasped without any prompting.

Tony’s fingers fell from your sex, and he was up, holding you by the throat. His breath was hot on your ear. “I might just leave you here on the bed right now. Tie those delicate wrists up too. Keep you on display for me. I’ll just walk by and see you stuck here, just dependent on me to come back to release you.”

You shook your head, begging pathetically, “No, p-please.”

“You want me to finish?”

“Yes!”

“Do you deserve it? Cause I don’t think you fucking do.”

You shook your head, “No. I don’t. But, please!” He brushed your pussy lightly with his fingers, teasing and you broke down even further. “I love you! I love you! Please!”

“You’re not gonna leave me again.” It was a statement, not a question.

You shook your head furiously again, gasping, “No! No, I won’t leave you!”

He yanked you up painfully by your hair again and new tears stung your eyes.

“I’m gonna make fucking sure of it. You’re gonna be on house arrest until I see fit to let you out! Face down,” Tony snarled, pushing you roughly down by the shoulders. He was behind you again. “You’re gonna be full of my seed when I’m done.”

Your chest hit the bed as the room filled with skin slapping skin loudly as he ravaged you. It did not take long for your body to tense up and a shriek left you as your pussy clenched around him. Tony’s breath was erratic as his pace lost control, his fingers digging into your hips. Broken husks were falling from his mouth, you could not make it out over the buzz in your ears. You felt the warmth though when he filled you up, his cock buried deep. He was making sure it was up against your cervix. His groan was long and loud, his hands squeezing your ass tight.

When he pulled away, you laid out flat, feeling worn. You heard him leave the room, the hardwood in the hall creaking with his footfalls. Your body was covered in sweat, heavy pants leaving your lips. For a moment, you forgot you were tied and tried to adjust and let out a sigh of disappointment when you felt the tug of the restraint on your ankle.

Tony was back with his phone. He cooed, “Oh, sweetheart. You’re so tired. Look up at me.” You lifted your head and saw him snap a picture of you. His lips curled into a smirk at the photo, and he turned it around to show you. Your makeup was ruined, tear trails on your cheeks, mascara and eyeliner smudged. You looked like a mess.

“Look at this lovely sight,” he purred. He flipped to the last photo of you looking made up and then back again. “Look how dirty you got pleasing me compared to before. I’m going to keep these.” A malicious glint flashed in his eyes, and he said, “I’ll give you a few to recover. But baby, there’s gonna be round two and no, I’m not going to let you clean up. Let’s see how much dirtier I can get you.”

~~~

Marvel tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld @holl2712 @agustdowney @biiskuitx @buttercupfangirl

Fic tags: @buttercandy16

#tony stark x reader #dark tony stark #dark!tony stark #dark marvel #my shit

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ollieofthebeholder · 3 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 43: Jon

There aren’t words to describe what being home feels like.

It’s not just the four walls of the house they’ve bought together, or the warmth and beauty of a March sunset, or the sounds of a London evening. It’s Charlie flying down the sidewalk to attack Jon with a hug and a bright smile and a flurry of words about how much they’ve all missed him and then coming back two hours later, pleased as Punch and bearing a “welcome home” cake he baked himself. It’s Sasha calling, not texting, to tell Tim she’s home safe and then asking to talk to Jon so they can reassure each other that they’re both okay. It’s Martin gently tending to the marks on his wrists and ankles, still raw from his desperate attempts to pull free before his strength started to desert him, and singing the song he remembers from when he was a little boy and his father came back from a voyage. It’s Tim cooking Jon’s favorite dinner, but serving him in small helpings so that he doesn’t overstretch his stomach after two weeks while still making sure he eats his fill. It’s the cool, clean sheets and the thick, warm quilt and the weight and security of Tim and Martin on either side of him as he falls asleep, and it’s Tim and Martin soothing and reassuring him, as much with their presence as with any actual words, when he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.

Going back to the Institute is harder than he would have thought. Only the fact that he knows he can’t be away from it for long gets him to go back—that and the fact that he can’t, won’t, leave his team alone to deal with Elias. Once there, though, he slips back into the routine easily enough. Despite Elias’s snide insinuations, the Archives ran fine without him, but he knows they’re glad to have him back.

They take Tuesday morning to regroup and plan. It’s all very well for both Elias and Jon Prime to tell them to find Gertrude’s notes, but Gertrude was, in Tim’s words, a paranoid old bitch, and it’s not likely that they’ll find a conspicuous notebook with detailed plans on how to stop the Unknowing. More likely that whatever they find will end up being more memory aids than anything, cryptic jottings that only mean something to Gertrude, and sussing it out won’t be easy. But it’s a place to start nevertheless, once they figure out where those notes are.

In the end, Tim and Martin take to looking through the shelves of statements—Tim looking for anything to do with the Stranger, Martin looking for a few of the tantalizing little threads they’ve noticed weaving through the tapestry of their database. Sasha attacks the filing cabinets, with the logic that Gertrude may have pretended to file something important. And Jon takes his counterpart’s advice and goes through his office.

It’s not like he doesn’t know what’s in all the drawers of his desk, but he does his due diligence, pulling everything out of each drawer, tapping for false backs or false bottoms. He does find, stuck in the back of the drawer where he keeps the spare statement forms, a creased and faded concert program printed on green stock from 2003; it doesn’t seem to have any immediate significance, though, so he sets it aside with the intention of looking into it later. Perhaps it’s simply a concert Gertrude attended that she enjoyed, but it might also be a clue to the Unknowing. He’ll have to research.

It isn’t until Wednesday morning that he finds the laptop, hidden along with a key under a floorboard that’s been creaky as long as he’s been working in the Archives. There are scratches on some of the floorboards that Jon’s always hoped aren’t fingernail marks, but several of them are loose and one of them levers up fairly easily, revealing Gertrude’s hidden stash. He digs around a bit but finds nothing else, only the laptop and the key. He sets both on his desk next to the concert program and goes to tell the others.

The laptop is dead, of course. Jon vaguely remembers seeing a charger for it when he was in Gertrude’s apartment, but he didn’t grab it then and it’s far too late to go back now. Luckily, Sasha’s laptop is almost the exact same model, so she simply swaps over the cable and lets it charge while they go over what they’ve found so far. Tim has three statements he thinks might be Stranger ones, but hasn’t looked at yet to be sure; Martin found a third statement involving the Daedalus, which Tim seems positive is a Dark statement, and another statement involving Salesa. Sasha hasn’t found anything in the filing cabinets—yet—but she does have Elias’ schedule, so they’re able to plan their briefings when they know they won’t be observed.

She also kindly hacks into Gertrude’s laptop for him, once it’s charged, and he spends most of Thursday painstakingly going through the files, emails, and Internet history. The latter is by far the most voluminous. It almost makes him laugh to discover the account name “grbookworm1818”—how had he not figured out that was Gertrude, attempting to buy Leitners? She seems to have obtained three, one of them being the copy of The Key of Solomon he found fragments of in the tunnels and the other two being ones he’s never seen or heard of. There are also purchase reports for Archival supplies, airline tickets and travel bookings, and sporadic but suspiciously large orders for petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches.

When he comes out of his office at the end of the day, eyes bleary and with no clear plan, he finds a number of dusty boxes scattered about and his assistants attempting to find space for them, but they refuse to tell him where they came from or what they’re for. The next morning, however, Martin and Tim usher him into one of the storage rooms they’ve never really got around to sorting out the second they arrive in the Archives. It’s completely empty, save a table, four chairs, a low set of shelves, a whiteboard, and a corkboard, to which Sasha is tacking a large map of the world. The shelves hold fourteen boxes of the kind designed to hold photographs, a large box of pushpins, three different-colored balls of string, and a laptop cord, ready and waiting.

“We thought we needed a war room,” Tim explains, obviously trying to fight back a grin. “You know, somewhere we can keep everything together and not…get mixed up with the rest of the work we’re doing.”

“Allegedly doing,” Sasha says over her shoulder. “I’m still not sure how much of this job is what was presented to us when we took it and how much is the sort of thing we’re doing right now…can one of you give me a hand here?” she adds as the upper corner of the map flops over onto her head, just above her outstretched hand. Tim comes over to assist.

Jon looks around, surprised and pleased, and opens his bag to pull out Gertrude’s laptop. “Why did you pick this room, out of curiosity?”

Martin pulls the door shut behind him. “The molding.”

“What?” Jon frowns at him.

Tim gives the map a firm stroke to smooth out any air bubbles and presses the pushpin deep into the cork, then turns to give Martin a warm, approving smile. “You know how Elias always seems to know what’s going on in the Archives whenever it’s least convenient for us? Martin realized why the other day.”

“It was an accident,” Martin insists, face turning slightly pink.

“It was brilliant.” Tim claps him on the shoulder. “Those fancy decorations at all the joins in the molding? You know, those elaborate carvings at the top of the fake columns and the corners of all the doorframes and whatnot?”

“Not…I’ve never paid much attention to them.” Jon’s only five foot seven, and since he’s never had to worry too much about clearance or anything like that he’s never really looked too much at anything over his head.

“It’s at the corners of all the shelves, too,” Martin offers. “At least the ones where the statements are stored, the ones that are pretty obviously original to the Institute. You know, with what looks like a medallion in the middle?”

Those Jon has seen. “It’s the Institute seal, isn’t it? Or the Magnus family crest?”

“That’s what I always thought, too, but Martin got a good look at one the other day while he was getting down a statement for me.” Sasha’s eyes sparkle behind her glasses, which instantly puts Jon on edge; these days, anything that excites Sasha is likely to have bad ramifications for them. “It’s an eye.”

“And if he can ‘see through any eye, real or image’…” Tim spreads his hands out invitingly.

Jon sets the laptop down harder than he probably should, eyes wide. “He’s been watching us through the moldings!”

“Yep. It’s anybody’s guess whether or not Gertrude knew about it. I ran it down right after I told them and got a lot of stammering and profanity. Although not from who you might expect,” Martin adds with just the tiniest bit of a smirk. Sasha practically cackles. “Anyway, this room doesn’t have anything like that, we double-checked. So we just…cleaned out all the stuff that was in here and set this up. Give us a bit of breathing room, anyway.”

“At least until Elias comes down to the Archives to figure out why he can’t see us easily,” Tim adds. “But, you know, it’s a head start.”

Jon is six inches shorter than Tim and a full nine inches shorter than Martin, so there’s no way to make it look less than deliberate if he attempts to give either one of them even the most casual kiss on the cheek, but good Lord, he wants to. Instead, he just beams at them both. “God, you’re brilliant. Right, let me get a cup of tea and we can get started.”

“I’m on it.” Martin slips out of the little room.

Sasha smirks at Jon behind Tim’s back, but he does his best to ignore her and focuses on the boxes. “What are these?”

“Tapes. We made copies of all the recordings we’ve done so far of the real statements and sorted them by which fear they belong to.” Sasha taps the lid of one of the boxes and indicates the label on the front. It’s a bright yellow set of concentric circles—no, Jon realizes, it’s a spiral. “Tim did the labels.”

Jon glances up at Tim, both impressed and worried. “You didn’t—”

“Nope.” Tim pulls out a box and shows him the label, simply the word US in a rich, vibrant green. “I don’t know how detailed the ‘image’ has to be, but I’m not risking it. Everything else I tried to do the symbols they described, or…something that made sense. Like antlers for the Hunt.”

“And the ink colors? Is that corresponding to—it’s not the labels we use.”

“No. Those are the colors I’m pretty sure the fears are.”

Martin comes back in with four mugs of tea. Jon takes his with a grateful smile. “Actually, let’s start there. We’ve never really talked about the colors, beyond…”

“What I told Elias,” Tim completes.

“And the little bit you described when you took a look at all of us.”

Tim takes his own mug from Martin, and for some reason Martin’s ears turn slightly pink. Jon’s distracted for a moment until Tim muses, “It’s…weird. Some of them are obvious. Like I said, it’s super obvious the Eye is green and the Stranger is indigo, because I saw that one at the Trophy Room with no other colors interfering. And the Corruption being yellow-green is obvious because of—”

“Me,” Martin finishes.

Tim nods. “And the Spiral being yellow—Christ, that door. The others I…sort of had to guess. Even with…you know…it was hard for me to suss out. The Eye is everywhere. Looking at him is like looking at the shelves in the Archives. The scars are pretty obvious, but not completely.” He frowns. “Like the Hunt and the Slaughter. They’re really close in color. I think the Slaughter’s got a bit more orange in it, the Hunt’s a true red, but especially under the cover of the Beholding, it’s hard to tell the difference. And, actually, sometimes it’s hard to tell the Stranger from the Web at a glance. I mean, until you really start looking at them. The Web is purple, so if it’s not by itself…I mean, it’s a subtle distinction.”

Jon glances uneasily at the carefully-inked purple spiderweb, then turns away. It still bothers him.

They manage to get nearly two hours into their discussion, moving from the colors to the Stranger threads they’ve picked up to what Jon’s gleaned from Gertrude’s laptop. Tim is just jabbing a pin into Nairobi on the map when Sasha stiffens and glances over her shoulder. “Incoming.”

Jon’s about to ask what she’s talking about when the door opens and Elias pokes his head in with a patently false smile. “Knock, knock.”

Tim and Martin make nearly identical noises of frustration. Jon clasps his hands behind his back and gives Elias his best I’m-annoyed-at-being-interrupted-but-you’re-my-superior-so-I’ll-be-polite look, which is only partly put-on. “Can we help you, Elias?”

“I simply wanted to see how you were progressing with finding out about the Unknowing.” Elias looks around the room with interest, and Jon has to work hard to use the tricks Jon Prime has been teaching him to keep his excitement from being obvious. Martin and Tim are right; Elias can’t see into this room. “What have you uncovered so far?”

Jon is immensely proud of his team. They manage to weave an incredibly tight explanation of how much they’ve learned, within limits, that doesn’t let on how much information they were given ahead of time, listing steps without revealing that anything other than chance led them to it. Elias completely acts the part of the mildly interested academic and bureaucrat, but he’s also obviously fishing for information. Martin does a masterful job of acting like he’s falling directly into Elias’ traps while neatly sidestepping them, Tim cracks jokes at the appropriate times to distract him while putting just enough bite into them that Elias will assume they’re simply angry and sarcastic jabs, and Sasha throws a flurry of technical terms into the discussion that are certainly relevant to the topic at hand but serve to make Elias change the tack of his questioning. Like Jon, she knows the value of a well-placed info dump.

There is no redirecting him from the map, however. While he must have known about Gertrude’s travels, at least in a general sense, it’s clear he knew little about her actual movements. Jon masks his reluctance with annoyance and gives Elias a clipped version of his findings.

“Is there any significance to the colors of pins you have used?” he asks, gesturing to the map, where they’ve been marking out Gertrude’s travels. “Or is it random? Or for the…aesthetic?”

“We were trying to do it by what year she took the trip, but we only have so many colors,” Jon answers. “We’ve just switched over. Red are trips that were very definitely expensed back to the Institute, white are ones that were not, and yellow are the ones where we aren’t quite sure.”

“Mm…Gertrude did request a rather high travel budget, comparatively. Of course, if the Archivist job was as simple as it is in other institutions, she would have required no travel whatsoever, but in her capacity to stop the rituals…” Elias seems particularly fascinated by the pin on Beijing. “Why is this one in blue?”

“We just haven’t swapped the pin over yet. That’s one of the last trips we have a record of in Gertrude’s laptop.” Tim tilts his head at Jon. “From, what, six months before she died?”

“Closer to nine. Actually, Martin, can you change that one out, please?” Jon gestures at the box. “It’s a yellow one, I think.”

Martin mumbles an excuse me and switches out the pin. Elias purses his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t recall there being a ritual anywhere near Beijing at the time. What could have sent her there?”

“No idea. What’s bothering me is that we don’t know where she went from there.”

That draws Elias’ attention away from the map and back to Jon. “Surely she came back to London.”

“No.” Jon folds his arms over his chest. “Or at least, not that we can find. As I said, we’re largely tracing these trips from booking confirmations sent to Gertrude’s email address, and she largely purchased one-way tickets. Her last flight purchased out of London was to Paris, and then she booked a flight from Paris to Beijing. From there…I don’t know. I suppose she was buying tickets as she went along. It’s not like her credit card statements list where the flights went, only what airlines she flew and when she purchased the tickets. No hotel accommodations, though. Doubtless she paid cash, or else Gerard paid for those.”

“Gerard?” Elias says with interest. “Gerard Keay? Who told you he was traveling with Gertrude?”

Panic strikes Jon. Most likely it’s something he gleaned from Jon Prime—but on the other hand, did the Primes actually mention that? Flustered, he stammers, “I—someone must have—”

“No, no one told you. You Knew.” Elias sounds delighted.

“I probably just—gleaned it from the statements.” Jon glances at the shelves.

“No, Jon, this is a good thing. You’re getting stronger! It’s one thing to be able to—” Elias gestures vaguely and almost dismissively at Tim and Martin “—glean something from somebody in the room, but just Knowing something like that, that’s a big step.”

He sounds like a proud father, and it makes Jon feel incredibly uncomfortable. He balls his hands into fists, gathering up the cuffs of the sweater he definitely didn’t steal from either Tim or Martin, to stop himself from reaching out to one of them for protection. It’s stupid. Elias won’t hurt him, not here, not now; he needs him too much. He knows he’s safe. It just feels…dangerous, and he wants them to make him feel safer. Rather than risk Elias knowing how much he depends on them and doing something about it, he grips the sweater.

Elias practically beams at him. “It seems to me your next step should be obvious.”

“It should?”

“You should start retracing her steps. Are her notes from this trip on there?”

“Ah—no.”

“Then you’ll need to go where she was. Find out where she stayed, what she did.” Elias clasps his hands behind his back. “Where she went from there. How soon do you think you can leave?”

Jon blinks. This is going a bit faster than he expected. He turns to Tim and Martin. “Do you two have a passport?”

Martin looks a bit stunned. “N-no, I’ve never—never needed one?”

“Mine’s still in good standing,” Tim answers. “But if Martin needs one, that’d be—what, four weeks, at a minimum?”

“Jon, I asked when you would be able to leave,” Elias says, mildly enough but with a bit of steel behind it. “Your assistants need to stay here. We do need to get all of this straightened out still, and there’s research that needs to be done from here. You can relay whatever information you find back to the Archives, and I’m sure they can assist you if needed, but really, the Institute can’t spare the funds to reimburse more than one of you for an extended trip.”

Jon is pretty sure that’s a lie, but he knows Elias won’t reimburse them, and he also knows that neither Tim nor Martin can actually afford to pay their own way to come along, not with the house payments and Martin’s mother’s medical bills. He sighs heavily and fights to maintain eye contact with Elias. “I can get a flight out Sunday night or Monday morning.”

“Monday will be fine,” Elias says without batting an eyelash. Jon knows Sunday, statistically speaking, is the most expensive day to fly, so anything to save the Institute a few pence, he supposes. “Well, it seems you’ve all done marvelously well. I think you all deserve to take a half-day today. With pay. Finish up what you need to do here, and you can leave at twelve. Jon, do keep me appraised of your flight information.” He flashes them an absolutely terrifying smile, turns on his heel, and leaves the room.

The second the door shuts behind him, Jon sags, bracing himself against the table. “God.”

Sasha collapses into a chair, looking absolutely wiped out. “Tell me about it.”

“Hold on.” Martin picks up Jon’s mug, then Sasha’s, and slips out of the room.

Tim tentatively reaches out and touches Jon’s arm. “Sit down before you fall down. You look almost as bad as she does.”

“I’m all right.” Jon sits down anyway, grateful for Tim’s concern.

A phone buzzes from somewhere; Jon instinctively reaches for his pocket before remembering that he hasn’t replaced it yet. He spent longer than he should have trying to resurrect his shattered phone after Martin silently handed him its remains, but finally had to give up. “Is that yours, Tim?”

“No, I think it’s Martin’s.”

With that rare sort of timing that almost never happens, Martin comes back in, bearing two brimming mugs of tea; he hands one to Sasha, then one to Jon. He has to bend over to do it, and Jon brushes a quick kiss against his cheek as it comes past before he loses his nerve, then tries to play it off like he didn’t notice he did it. “Your phone went off.”

Martin’s ears are pink, and he goes to pick up his phone rather quickly. He actually snorts with laughter and shakes his head, a slightly amused smile on his face as he taps out a reply.

“Everything okay?” Tim asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, it’s from Melanie. Just says ‘Jet lag sucks balls.’ I’m guessing she’s back in town.” Martin slips his phone into his pocket and sighs. “What do we do now?”

“Unfortunately,” Jon mutters, “I think we do what Elias said. Finish up what we’re doing here, and leave early.” He looks over at Sasha. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Sasha manages a smile that even Jon can tell is fake, then drops it immediately and sighs. “I was trying to keep on top of how much he knew, or thought we knew. It’s a weird sort of balancing act…thing. Like keeping just the right tension on a rope.”

“Sasha.” Martin sounds upset. “You were reading his mind?”

“Just—skimming the surface,” Sasha protests.

Jon sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You have to stop doing that. I know it’s tempting. God knows I know that. But you can’t just—and you knew he was coming. Was that intentional?”

“Sort of. It’s not like I’m constantly trying to read his mind or whatever, but…I don’t know. I just got a sense of…something.”

“All right, Gwen Stacey,” Tim says with a smirk. “Jon’s right, though, you’ve got to quit feeding it or it’s going to start feeding on you.”

Sasha sighs heavily. “I’m…trying to try.”

“Well, it’s a start.” Jon takes a sip of tea.

They get the room straightened up, then head back into the Archives. Martin keeps periodically replying to text messages on his phone, but the others don’t ask. It’s not until Jon, having brought his laptop out to join the others, is finalizing his booking that he frowns at his screen and looks up at the others. “Melanie wants to know if the rest of you’d like to join us for lunch, seeing as we’ve got the afternoon off and everything.”

Jon hesitates. On the one hand, he’d like to decline; he and Melanie tend to prick at each other whenever they interact, despite his best intentions. On the other hand, he admittedly wants to spend as much time with Tim and Martin as he can before he leaves on this trip. Heaven knows how long he’ll be gone and he’ll miss them, he knows that.

“If I’m included in that,” he says at last, “I’d be honored.”

They lock up at twelve and head to the pub Jon has begun to think of as “theirs”, even though they don’t go often. It’s cool and overcast, and there are definite signs it rained earlier, most notably the worms on the sidewalk. Jon notices Martin carefully avoiding treading on them and reaches over to take his hand comfortingly just as Tim throws his arm around his shoulders from the other side. It makes Sasha laugh, which makes them laugh, too, and at least gets Martin to stop watching his feet.

Pat waves when they come in and gestures to one of the tables, and Martin steps forward with a warm smile as Melanie King rises from a chair and meets him with a hug that would probably make Jon jealous if he didn’t know Martin was gay, and also if he had any right to be jealous. “God, it is…surprisingly good to see you.”

Martin huffs a laugh. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

Melanie actually laughs and gives Martin a friendly punch on the arm. Martin laughs in earnest as he reels back in an exaggerated manner, rubbing at his arm. “Ow! Hey, I need that!”

“Sure.” Melanie turns and offers Sasha a smile and her hand. “Sasha, good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too.” Sasha shakes her hand, then turns slightly. “Sorry, don’t think we’ve met.”

Jon turns, too, and his brain pulls up short. She’s changed up her hairstyle and shed her glasses, there’s a tattoo peeking out from under the collar of her t-shirt, and he’s pretty sure there are a couple additional holes in her ears, but the smile is unmistakable to someone who’s spent six years running from it.

“Georgie,” he stammers.

Georgie Barker’s smile gets a bit more uncertain, but there’s at least no hostility in her eyes. “Jon, hello. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I, ah—” Jon gestures vaguely, either at Martin or at Melanie, he’s not sure which.

Melanie shrugs. “I did say the invitation was open to everyone. Kind of didn’t expect you to accept, to be honest, but—”

“Frankly, it’s been a shit month and we’re an all-or-nothing deal right now,” Martin says. He looks slightly quizzical and slightly worried as he eyes Georgie. “I—did I talk to you on the phone once?”

“Right, introductions. Georgie Barker, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, and—” Melanie waves at Tim. “I actually haven’t got a clue who you are.”

“There are some who call me….Tim?” Tim quips with an arch of the eyebrows.

It’s the right thing to say to diffuse the tension, especially as Melanie and Martin both let out exaggerated groans as Georgie, who consumed every bit of media even vaguely associated with Arthurian legend during a time when she was obsessed enough to qualify as a minor expert on the subject, bursts into laughter. The six of them arrange themselves around the table as Pat brings over a tray of pints, then takes their food orders and heads off to get them together.

Martin takes a sip of his pint and evidently starts to speak three times before saying in a carefully neutral voice, “I hope you had a…successful trip.”

Melanie lifts an eyebrow at him. “You were a lot less cagey before. Is it them?”

“No, I’m a bit tired,” Martin says. “Like I said, it’s been…a lot.” He hesitates, glancing at Georgie for a brief second, then evidently gives up. “Remember how I said we all had…weird stuff we could do? My thing is that I can make people answer questions when I ask them. And if I’m tired or not really paying attention, sometimes I do it without meaning to, and that’s not fair to you.”

“I don’t believe you.” Melanie folds her arms over her chest. “Prove it.”

Martin hesitates. “Okay, um…what made you so upset when I asked if you wanted to come to lunch with me when we met?”

“If you weren’t a bloke, you’d be exactly my type and I had just a second where I wondered if I was actually a lesbian,” Melanie answers automatically, then blinks. “Fuck.”

Martin’s face catches fire. Tim grins and winks. “That just proves you’ve got taste.”

“Yeah, well, still.” Melanie presses her lips tightly together. “S’pose I can’t get too mad. I did tell you to prove it. Not your fault I didn’t actually expect it to work.” She snorts. “Successful? Yeah, I guess. I found out what I went to find out. And I didn’t die, so…promise kept?” She shrugs. “I owe you the whole story, but maybe not here.”

“Come by the Institute on Monday,” Sasha offers. “We can get your statement—oh, right.” She looks at Jon. “That okay with you?”

“No, that’s fine. Ah, take your pick on who you want to tell it to,” Jon says to Melanie, indicating the other three. “I promise you don’t have to deal with me.”

“I don’t mind all that much,” Melanie says with a sideways glance at Georgie. “You’re not…actually that bad to talk to. At least you’re trying not to be a prick.”

Georgie turns a laugh into a cough. Jon studiously avoids looking at her. “Thank you, I think, but I didn’t mean that in a ‘you can choose to talk to someone else’ way. I meant that as in ‘I’m leaving on a business trip Monday morning, so I won’t even be there.’”

“A business trip—for an Archivist? What, are you going to the Library of Alexandria or something?”

“No, the last one blew that up,” Tim says under his breath.

Jon kicks Tim under the table. “Beijing. My…predecessor traveled there some time before her death, but she didn’t leave any notes behind on what she may have learned there. So, lucky me, I get to follow behind her and try to pick up a three-year-old trail.”

“You can’t tell me the idea of piecing together something like that doesn’t appeal to you,” Georgie says, sounding amused. “What’s your—hang on, what was it called—your PFX count these days?”

“I haven’t—yes, all right, I suppose the idea of the hunt’s not altogether unwelcome,” Jon admits. “I just…would really rather not be doing it right now. For God’s sake, I only just got back from my last—unexpected absence.”

Martin’s hand tightens on his glass. Tim takes a huge swallow of his. Georgie looks back and forth between the two of them, then frowns at Jon. “So why are you leaving so quickly? If it’s been three years, it’s not like the clues are going anywhere.”

“Yes, but the situation is…somewhat time-sensitive.”

“Critical,” Martin supplies.

“Life-or-death, you might say,” Tim offers.

Georgie’s frown deepens. “You’re an Archivist. Which I’m still wrapping my brain around, by the way. You were a researcher, Jon. I know you don’t just have a degree in library science lying around.”

“No,” Jon says with a sigh. “The Archives at the Magnus Institute are…interesting, let’s put it that way. Library training in the actual Archivist is surprisingly less important than you might think. Besides, we have Martin, and what he doesn’t know about organizing and categorizing isn’t worth knowing.”

“Christ.” Martin buries his face one hand. Both Sasha and Melanie snicker at him. If the two of them are going to be friends, Jon thinks, God help them all.

Only Georgie can manage to frown while simultaneously arching an eyebrow in a knowing fashion. Jon tries very hard to pretend he doesn’t understand what she thinks she knows. “So you have a degree in library science.”

“No,” Martin says, voice still muffled by his palm. “I don’t have a degree. But I worked in the library at the Institute for ten years before I got assigned to the Archives, so I kind of know what I’m doing.”

“Right. Still. What do you have to do, as an Archivist, in China, that is life or death?”

Protect my team, Jon wants to say but doesn’t. The ritual, according to the Primes, can’t succeed; Orsinov’s Unknowing will collapse on itself. They’re probably going to try to stop it anyway, because he doesn’t doubt that Orsinov will survive the ritual’s failure and try again, and they can’t let anyone else fall prey to that. This world tour, retracing Gertrude’s steps, won’t give them any information to help them with that. But Elias doesn’t know they know that, and Jon can’t risk what he might do to the people he loves if he doesn’t obey orders.

“It’s…a long story,” he tries.

Georgie shrugs. “I’ve done my recordings for the week and I’ve got plenty of time for editing. And I thought you got off early today.”

Pat turns up then with everyone’s lunch. Jon waits until he heads back behind the bar to say, “I don’t…know where to begin, honestly. Trust me when I say it’s all pretty unbelievable.”

“You’re an archivist. We left believable behind a while ago.”

“Ha, ha.” Jon gives Georgie his best glare. As usual, she sticks her tongue out at him and rolls her hand for him to continue. “I—really, I don’t know where to—”

“Jon.” Martin sets down his glass, reaches over, and covers Jon’s hand with his own. Jon meets his eyes instinctively. “In thirty words or less, what is the story behind this trip?”

“There are monsters in the world, tied to different fears,” Jon answers immediately. “They’re trying to reshape the world in their own image and basically kickstart the Apocalypse. We’re trying to stop them.”

Martin sits back, looking miserable, and it’s only then Jon registers the wash of static receding from his mind. “Sorry, Jon. I really should have asked first.”

Jon grabs Martin’s hand before he can pull it away and squeezes. “I’d have sat here dithering to the end of time if you hadn’t. Thank you, Martin.”

Martin manages a tentative smile. Georgie’s frown has eased back a little. “Huh. How many of these things are there?”

“Monsters? Or rituals?” Jon blinks at Georgie. “You believe me?”

“Well, yeah.” Georgie waves a hand as if to say duh. “It’s not like I didn’t know there are monsters in the world.”

Sasha’s hand tightens on her fork, and she pushes back from the table abruptly. “Be right back. I—I need a minute.” She strides purposefully for the front door.

“Sasha, don’t—” Jon begins to call after her, but too late; she’s out the door.

“Did I say something wrong?” Georgie looks concerned.

Martin sighs heavily. “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve seen…monsters before.”

“Yeah? What’s that got to do with anything?” Georgie asks with a deepening frown.

“Oh…damn.” Jon looks at Georgie, and now he can feel it, too—the static building behind his eyes, an almost imperceptible itch beneath his skin. This shouldn’t be happening, he’s taken two statements already this week, first Michael’s and then Tim and Martin’s, and even if Sasha siphoned off most of that one…he can’t possibly need one this badly, not now. But it’s not need, it’s want, it’s a desire at this point, so he can fight it…

“The Institute serves one of those fear things we’re talking about,” Tim tells her, his voice subdued. “In our case, it’s about knowledge and secrets and…hidden information and stuff like that. We usually just call it the Eye, it’s quicker than most of the other names. But one of the ways it sort of feeds itself is with other people’s stories of their spooky encounters. Usually with something touched by one of the other beings.”

“You’ve got a story to tell,” Martin explains. “The Eye wants it. And Sasha and Jon can both…” He hesitates, looking at Jon. “Sense it?”

“Better than saying ‘smell it,’ I suppose,” Jon says softly. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, forcing the static back.

Georgie blinks. “I mean…I’ll tell you about it. If you want.”

“That…would probably not be a good idea. I can’t—we can’t take but so many statements in any given period of time.” Jon opens his eyes, feeling a bit calmer. “Not without wearing ourselves out, or hurting ourselves. And I’ve had two already this week.”

“And we’ve had one each,” Tim adds, gesturing to himself and Martin. “Right? You just read—”

“Statement of Manuela Dominguez, regarding her unconventional religious beliefs and their intersection with her project aboard the space station Daedalus,” Martin recites. “And you read yours yesterday, it was—”

“Not, as it turns out, a Stranger statement. The Web. Statement of Darren Harlow, regarding a failed psychology experiment at the University of Surrey.” Tim rubs his forehead and sighs. “Actually, I need to talk to you two about that one. We may have a problem.”

Melanie looks back and forth between the two of them, blinking. Jon sighs, too. “Anyway, yes, it’s…there’s a lot. The ritual we’re trying to stop right now is the Stranger’s. It’s—kind of the opposite of the Eye? The ritual’s called the Unknowing. We’re still piecing together what it’s all about, but anyway, that’s what I’m about to go haring off around the world about. Which I would really rather not do, but I don’t have much of a choice. Our boss made that perfectly clear.” He can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Sasha comes back in, looking much calmer, and slips back into her seat with an apology. Melanie looks at Tim. “So what about you, then? If he can ask questions and make people answer, and they can tell when someone’s got a story—”

“It’s not quite that. It’s more—” Sasha spreads out her hands. “Less stories and more secrets. Things people haven’t told. At least, that’s how it is for me. The ones who come to make statements and will talk to anyone, they’re not as interesting to me. It’s the ones who just…don’t want to talk about it, I guess. Or choose not to. Sometimes I know things without meaning to, but I’m trying to throttle that back. Jon is more…all of it.”

Jon nods. “I have the—the question thing, too. And the knowing, although it’s not just hidden things, it’s facts or important information. It’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s getting worse. On top of that, there’s the compulsion to read out the statements, and…it’s just a lot.”

“None of which actually answers my question,” Melanie says. “What did you get out of all this?”

“Oh. I can…look at people, or things, and see if they’ve had anything to do with one of the fear…things,” Tim says. “They glow different colors.”

“You can see auras,” Georgie supplies.

“Not—exactly. I mean, I can’t say ‘oh, you have a calm personality’ or ‘you’re a very troubled person’ or anything like that. But if you’ve bumped into one of the powers, if I concentrate, I can see where it marked you and…usually figure out from there.”

Georgie folds her hands on the table and meets his eye. “What color is mine, then? Or am I making it up?”

Tim hesitates, then takes a deep breath. His eyes go slightly unfocused, and Jon feels the faint crackle of static—not quite the same as when Martin asks questions or Sasha blurts out a secret, but close, like the dial on a disused radio station turned a single click in a different direction. After a moment, Tim’s shoulders relax and he blinks. “White. Bright white. The one you’ve met is Terminus. The End.” He hesitates. “Death. Am I right?”

There’s a short pause before Georgie looks at Jon and says, “You’ve got a good bunch here.”

Jon looks at both Tim and Martin and says, softly, “I know.”

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartim #emotional manipulation tw #implied blackmail tw #slight misuse of beholding powers

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vapcrwaves · 3 years

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━♡ guess the 24 YEAR OLD JULY baby just arrived to dallyeog! it makes sense, because AOKI IMOJEN is just as BLAZING as the month of JULY. wait, why do they remind me of HIRAI MOMO? beyond that, they seemed SELF-RELIANT & BUOYANT upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of INSURGENT & RECKLESS though. i hope they get acquainted here in COMPLEX # 3 / APARTMENT # 2 / FLOOR # 2 ; they seem to have a lot going on with HER job as TATTOO ARTIST / BASSIST.

bonjour , y’all !! my name’s jade ( she/her , twenty-one , gmt+8 ) !! and i’m super excited to meet and write with everyone !! this is my spunky kid , imojen , and i hope you’ll come to enjoy her as much as i did writing everything about her :D if you wanna plot , do not fret because i’ll be dropping in everyone’s IMs hehe , but if you prefer to plot over at discord , don’t hesitate to tell me !! <3

* 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊 ╱ ʙᴀꜱɪᴄꜱ .

name : aoki imojen nicknames : yoki , jen . age : twenty - four . birthday : july 27 , 1996 . zodiac : leo sun , aquarius moon , sagittarius rising . place of birth : tokyo , japan . currently living : seoul , south korea . occupation : tattoo artist , bassist . pronouns : she / her . orientation : bisexual biromantic . ethnicity : japanese . spoken languages : japanese , korean , english . character insp. : kat stratford from 10 things i hate about you , bridget vreeland from sisterhood of traveling pants , effy stonem from skins uk , young carol rhodes from gossip girl tv series , rhonda smith , mia’s backstory from if i stay . label / tropes : hoyden , icarian , insurgent , reveller , the rebellious spirit . pinterest : here . aesthetics : scared of commitment , but has 7 tattoos. a habit of endlessly lighting a lighter. platform boots to boost your height. but then again, sneakers for comfort while running from the cops. forgetting to discard empty cigarette packets from your bomber jacket. spilling your fifth espresso onto your drawings and designs , maybe it’s time to sleep. a frightening look on your face which millennials like to call a resting bitch face. the heat ruining your collection of leather jackets. finding comfort in your friends who seem to understand your mood swings. having a pet cat who’s as feisty as you. spontaneous adventures live inside your head and your friends fall victim to those ideas. liking the rays of the sun more than the moon despite being a night owl. oversleeps anyway. trimming your bangs yourself because you couldn’t be bothered to go to the salon. overcooking your sunny side up eggs. sleeping to forget problems. drinking to forget problems. epitome of a ride or die.

* 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖘𝖙 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 ╱ ᴘᴀꜱᴛ .

aoki imojen was born to understand what it was to live a life with no structure. her father was part of a rising band in the 90s, toured all over small venues in japan that they slowly rose to a known local name, and imojen has seen all the chaos unfold from backstage in the arms of her mom. however, slowly transitioning into the year of 2000s, the economy was still struggling from the lost decade and the income from touring never sufficed for a growing family. imojen’s father was forced to leave the music scene with the help of her mother’s influence: “it’s time to be serious”; and work multiple jobs in order to fully provide for his first child and the another growing one inside his wife’s womb.

growing up, imojen’s no stranger to music and her father loved to introduce rock music and bands to imojen’s upbringing. she adored b’z and the gazette, and it leaves no doubt that imojen’s father had been her greatest influence in life. as she grew older, not only did they share identical music preferences and influences, but imojen’s learned to play various instruments— the bass being her favorite. imojen’s also stemmed from that infamous reckless behavior his father’s known for back in the day, and when the teenage years came, so did the impetuous reputation begin.

imojen and her mother aren’t exactly as close as she was with her father. in fact, their relationship was a toe out of the civil line. it got worse when imojen started to focus on the band she created with friends instead of school and late night practices turned to never returning home for a few days and having the audacity to blatantly lie when asked where she was when asked. it’s hard not to blame her mother when she assumed things for the worst. imojen’s gone quite defiant especially when she discovered that her and her father’s relationship had began to run askew. imojen blames her mother’s interference with her father’s music career as much as her father did, she loved him so much that she was completely blindsided to always take his side. and when the divorce papers came and went, imojen chose her father as she always would.

her father got a job as a musician locally and eventually overseas, however, money didn’t come by so fast and easy initially. instead of going to university, imojen invested in learning the arts in tattoo design and worked as a tattoo artist to help with the bills. the pair finally thought to settle in korea when imojen’s father got a permanent job. and at this time, imojen has decided to try pursue a career as a musician as well, hoping that the thrill in her early band days are still well stored in her system.

* 𝖘𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖉 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 ╱ ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛ .

imojen can never be satisfied of living in the same area for so long, or at least under the roof with the watchful eye of her father. work’s payed well and imojen decided to move out and get an apartment of her own. hence, she found dallyeog, parties almost every single day, drags everyone into spontaneous adventures, comes home terribly drunk and wakes up with a huge hangover—well, still pretty normal. aside from the norm, imojen working at the tattoo parlor and taking gigs at bars as a bassist, imojen’s investing in writing music as well. she hopes one day to finally finish at least one song she’s been procrastinating for far too long and convince her father to make them a rock duo instead, but a band of her own would fantastic too.

* 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 ╱ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ .

imojen looks quite mean at first glance, and it doesn’t help that she’s indifferent towards anyone who isn’t part of already her friend. she doesn’t hate, hate is such a strong word, she simply doesn’t have the attention span for people that don’t interest her or she doesn’t know fully well to enjoy a conversation with.

honestly has the gina linetti energy “how was i supposed to know there’d be consequences for my actions” as she literally does anything she wants before her brain can even weigh the pros and cons to it.

imojen enjoys taking risks despite the relaxed attitude and seemingly nonchalant view in life. it might be a surprise to learn that she’s quite ambitious, but underneath, she does aim for the highs (both meanings) in life, except there isn’t exactly a time frame for those and would much rather pursue them steadily.

everyone can depend on imojen to have a good time, or if someone needed a friend to vent to, she can surprisingly be all ears, but never follow her words of advice. she does mean well, it’s just that she doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time and is quite reckless,, like ask her to pick between two choices and she’ll advice you to take the riskier one bc “it’s fun don’t be a prude”.

she is more sympathetic than she let on. imojen’s not very vocal especially with her emotions and on what she exactly feels about other people’s situation. serious conversations? catch her yeet away from those. they render her uncomfortable, most especially if it is about her. however, seeing her friends gloomy doesn’t sit right with her that she does anything to make them crack a smile.

believes that people should be left to roam free and that authority is useless and ruins the fun— hence why she’d always be caught defying them. yes, she uses her brain, but acts more towards intuition and what she felt like doing that day. so yes, she might loves setting her life on the line.

* 𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖍 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 ╱ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ .

plastic hearts ╱ someone whom imojen shares a passion for music with. the both of you are like peas in a pod as you both are in the same wavelengths as each other. they may not have the same types of music, but open enough to share a plethora of music playlists.

angels like you ╱ the typical bad-good influence trope wherein imojen’s reckless behavior and liberated thoughts on legalities have gotten your muse in various dangerous but fun adventures. on a flip, your muse may be the reason why imojen’s woken up at 8 in the morning, bright, well, and not hungover.

prisoner ╱ an angsty and toxic relationship that imojen could not get enough of. everyone sees this partnership (romantic or platonic) of destructive nature, both of you may or may not know, but regardless it can never be broke off no matter how hard both try.

gimme what i want ╱ the typical fwb relationship, we can add spice to it, but on the base that’s the idea.

night crawling ╱ imojen’s ride or die, the person she would instantly run to for an adventure, midnight strolls, alcohol escapades, and vandalism. but as things you both do burst into haywire, you’re both aren’t afraid to be open to each other too and spill secrets or bodies hidden in the closet.

midnight sky ╱ perhaps a new acquaintance?? friend?? that doesn’t exactly have a first good impression of imojen?? maybe vomited on your muse the first time they met, or jen was really mean for no reason under the influence of alcohol?? she’s chaotic so perhaps it wasn’t a good first meeting.

bad karma ╱ imojen hasn’t been exactly an angel all her life, and perhaps karma has run around to bite her in her ass. your muse might’ve been somebody who hurt imojen; either a terrible break up or severing trust, let’s explore :D

golden g string ╱ a band :D maybe nothing too serious, just a group of pals playing and making music together :D or maybe the group's been playing gigs for awhile now and wants to head into the big leagues :D

honestly im so down with anything so !!!!!!

#[ PINNED POST ]#dallyeog:intro #this has gotten too long SORRYsdfsdf #but thanks for reading <3

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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slxyangel · 4 years

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Handcuffs (Duff McKagan x Reader)

Summary: Hii! I was wondering if you could write something about Duff and his girlfriend have been fighting on tour. Everyone is annoyed with the fighting, so Axl handcuffs them so they can’t run away and avoid their problems. Thanks. This was requested by @julessworldd and I finally had time to get round to writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Wordcount: 2.1k.

Warnings: Some swearing and that’s essentially it.

A/N: The name of the fic sucks super super bad, but I swear it’s funny; tell me your thoughts on it :) Also, get ready for a lot of Duff, bc all of my requests rn are about him. I might leap them with some other works I have in mind *wink, wink*.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Masterlist: https://slxyangel.tumblr.com/post/189625800403/masterlist

Waves.

The boat is drifting from side to side.

A lot of waves.

Like, a dangerously fucking lot of waves.

What the hell.

Wait, these are not waves.

This is you being carried around in God knows what to God knows where.

And now you are almost violently left (or, more accurately, thrown) in a bed. You open your eyes to see several arms, probably more than two, probably less than six, toying around your recently awakened figure. Seriously, what the fuck?

As you try your best to figure out what is going on, what was going on before you were tossed around under yet to clarify circumstances, and what apparently will still be going on for a while, you identify your captors by their features. Fibrous arms, tan skin, callous hands and a mop of dark curly hair? Pale, tattooed arms, twinky frame and red strands of straight hair? Obviously, it has to be them, it couldn’t be any other people on the planet.

And the milliseconds it takes for you to draw their names in your head are enough time for the skinny diabolic peanut to handcuff your right wrist. Then he backs off, along with his accomplice, just a few steps. Well, not that they have much more space to back off inside a tour bus.

Obviously, it has to be them. It has to be Axl and it has to be Slash. And it has to be the two of them together.

You turn your incandescent eyes from their main objective to the place where your no-longer-free-hand is tied to something else. And that something else turns out to be another hand. Another hand attached to Duff.

- OBVIOUSLY, I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL THE TWO OF YOU.

And this time you say it out loud.

Like, so damn out loud that your boyfriend, now turned into an annoying physical extension of your arm, wakes up from his most definitely no longer peaceful sleep. And when he does, since you are in a tour bus and the place is small and the space is used to the millimeter, he bumps his head against the cupboard strategically placed above him. His blow raises general laughter among his bandmates, who are all around to see the spectacle you two are surely about to give. And when you see Slash waving a tiny metallic key with a mischievous smile, your anger tells you that Mamma didn’t raise no disappointer.

- GIVE ME THAT KEY.

You sit up and stretch your free arm towards the guitarist, but he doesn't give you enough time and immediately puts the key in his mouth, just enough to bite it with his front teeth and show you what he is doing. He can’t hide his smile, or he doesn’t want to. He finally closes his lips around the metallic thingy and it disappears from your view. He hasn’t swallowed it. He hasn’t swallowed it, right??? I mean, he might have, cause it’s Slash. But holy shit tell me he hasn’t.

- This last week with you has been a fucking nightmare -- Axl speaks with voice clear as a day, he is enjoying. Thoughts of the cruelest methods of revenge start pacing your head --, and for “you” I mean you two lovebirds. What are you? Fifteen years old? You can’t be running around yelling at each other, then go with the silent treatment and then come to the rest of us bitching about how the other has pissed your ass so much, this has to end. And since some of these cowards -- now he points at the members of the band who are not handcuffed to your wrist -- were brave enough to complain the same way I am doing right now but not enough to put an end to it, I took matters into my own hands. Well, yours, more exactly. And I’m not gonna take the cuffs off until you talk it out and solve your problems like the adults you clearly aren’t.

- Oh, now that’s surprising -- your answer comes off bitter -- I didn’t know the “adult” way to solve things involved handcuffs.

- Well, you can take them off now because I don’t need this shit to talk to my girlfriend -- Duff finally opens his mouth. He sits up in the bed, right beside you, not that he has many more options. His free hand is covering the spot of his head he just hit with the furniture --. Though now that I mention it, maybe she does.

- Excuse me??? So I am the one running from the problem here??

- See? I told you all she was bitchy.

- YOU TOLD THEM I’M BITCHY?

- Yes he did -- Slash answers your question before Duff has time to, but his words sound weird.Good thing he mustn’t have swallowed the key.

- Slash, we’re trying to solve a problem here -- Steven adds, also looking at the panorama -- so shut the fuck up.

- Sorry mate, she asked.

- Well, sorry to break it up to you but I’m not the one who’s ignoring her boyfriend here, in fact it’s pretty much the other way around -- your intervention is directed to the general public, since they seem to be so aware of the issue because of someone’s loose tongue. But that someone takes the hint.

- So now I am ignoring you???

- No, now you aren’t ignoring me because you have a fucking handcuff and you can’t run from me like you usually do.

- Oh my god, do I run from you??? -- Duff sounds genuinely shocked. This bastard knows how to play his part in front of the guys, but it won’t wash, not with you.

- No he doesn’t -- Steven adds, always being the advocate for love.

- Yes he does -- that’s Slash, always being the advocate for chaos.

- SLASH!

Now he doesn’t even bother to defend himself, he did it on purpose, he is fucking enjoying. Lowkey, you find that funny, but he obviously hasn’t contributed to the plot for the sake of a solution, but for the sake of drama. I mean, the guy is only missing a bowl of popcorn and the 3D glasses. On the other end of the spectrum there’s Izzy, who hasn’t opened his mouth a single time and looks like and unbothered wine aunt. Like, literally, he has a glass of wine in his hand. And now returning to the point that keeps us here…

- I don’t run from you, babe.

- Ooohhh don’t use the babe card on me right now because we are arguing and I might as well stab you in the eye, Duff.

- Jeeeeeesus, I don’t run from you -- the bassist backs off before your eyes start going up in flames --, I don’t know, I have stuff to do. But you can always talk to me.

- No. I can’t because YOU NEVER HAVE TIME.

- BECAUSE I’M ON TOUR!!!

- OH so since you’re on tour you don’t have time to talk to your girlfriend but you do have time to fuck her??? -- There is a general snort. Well, at least no word from Slash, which is kinda disappointing.

- Holy shit -- Duff has opened his eyes so much it looks like they are gonna jump from his skull and leave the place rolling -- don’t give these fuckers one more thing to pry about because. They. Clearly. Don’t. Need. It. -- He shots deadly glares to each of his bandmates.

- Well, you were the one telling them I am bitchy. For which, by the way, you also have time.

- Jesus Christ how the hell did I think this was a good idea????? -- Axl starts regretting having put handcuffs on both of you, and you don’t blame him.

- Then take off the cuffs -- you suggest, slyly.

- Slash won’t give me the key.

- I wouldn’t have worded it better than that -- the guitarist finally puts the key out of his mouth, but he doesn’t give it away. It must be tiring to try to intervene in someone else’s argument while trying not to choke on metal.

- Then this is what you get for being such a brat -- now Duff is the one calling him out. Good, at least there is one thing you two agree on --. Now, honey, I’m sorry. I never meant to ignore you, but I didn’t notice you were upset about it or anything until this past week. I know things shouldn’t have escalated the way they did, I guess I was just overwhelmed by everything and I ended up projecting stuff into us two.

- Duff… -- that was so sweet. You actually never thought he would back off so easily, especially since you had been so picky with each other for some time now. -- It’s fair, I’m not mad at you. Actually that’s on me, because I am the one who hasn’t been clear about her feelings lately. I don’t know, I have been feeling a bit off, but I never got round to talk to you about it, because I see you have so much going on around, and so much to do, and so much pressure, but at the same time you are living your dream and you look happy and you deserve to enjoy it. I really didn’t want to be the one to pop the bubble worrying you with my stuff, and I just thought it would eventually vanish. But it didn’t, and I made you pay for something you are not to blame for.

- Babe -- he uses the word with feet of lead this time, just in case your reaction to it resembles the one you had before. But no, now he can definitely use the babe card -- please, I need you to know that you can always talk to me about anything. Always. No matter what. That’s what I’m here for. -- now his handcuffed hand holds yours, and his other hand travels to your cheek. The touch is so tender, so concerned that you can’t help but lean into it and close your eyes for a moment. You hadn’t realized until now how much you had missed that. -- But I need you to tell me, please. I can’t guess what’s going on out of the blue, so please, please, always tell me. I really don’t want us arguing like this again, especially if it has a solution, so let’s communicate from now on. Okay?

You nod against his hand. In the end, it turns out that you only needed to talk, to have a conversation instead of throwing things at each other to see who hits harder. In almost perfect synchronization with each other, you two lean in for a hug. Well, better said, a semi-hug, because let’s not forget that you are handcuffed and basically can’t move your arms. But who cares? You love him so much you feel your heart is gonna burst out at any moment and, now that you finally have him around you, you don’t understand how you were able to live without it for a WHOLE ENTIRE WEEK. Insane.

From your place between Duff’s hair and the scent of his neck, you hear Steven saying “Told ya. Pay me” and Slash responding with a huff, before he slaps what you presume is a banknote in what you presume is the drummer’s hand. So the fuckers have been betting on whether you would or wouldn’t fix things.

- So you fuckers have been betting on whether we would or wouldn’t fix things? -- Duff reads your mind and speaks your words as you two separate from each other. He shakes his head and smiles -- That’s really really ugly, and you really really never disappoint.

- Thanks dude! -- Steven smiles back and Slash doesn’t seem to have anything else to say now that he has a lighter wallet. He even gave the key to Axl -- I just believe in love.

Duff moves his hand up and exposes it along with yours so that Axl can unlock the cuffs. Instead, the vocalist hands him the key and says “You’ve earned it”. Your boyfriend takes the metallic piece and frees your wrist before he frees his. Then, he grabs the handcuffs and the key, he puts them in his back pocket and, winking at you, says:

- If any of you was expecting to have these back, they can go choke on a fork. They are mine, now. For the inconvenience and for the celebration.

#duff mckagan #duff #duff mckagan imagine #duff mckagan x reader #duff mckagan fluff #duff mckagan fanfiction #oneshot #one shot #duff mckagan one shot #guns n roses imagine #guns n roses x reader #guns n roses #gnr #gnr fanfiction #gnr x reader #fluff

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angryhausfrau-writes · 3 years

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I Travel Troubled Oceans: Chapter 10 - In Which Jack Hosts A Fashion Show

Jack is finally ready for his first runway show, after months of work and agonizing over every small detail and making sure he keeps up appearances as a flighty party boy with enough money that he doesn't need to have talent or ambition.

But he's honestly quite proud of how everything has turned out. He's tailored the runway fashions for the trendy, upscale gallery that's hosting the show, of course, so everything is very modern and very stark. There are a lot of geometric shapes, structured collars, plunging triangular necklines and sideslits, things like that. Lots of metallic black fabrics.

It's all very cyberpunk dystopia - but chic. Because the upper echelons of society will commodify and romanticize everything, including the surveillance state.

It does appear to be a successful strategy, however. Mary has been taking pictures of his work throughout the process. Pictures that are framed to hint, to tantalize, but not to actually reveal anything. And there's been significant hype building around the show. Some of the backstage photos from the runway rehearsal have even appeared in the society sections of various newspapers. Which nobody really reads anymore, but Jack's Instagram account has simultaneously blown up, so that's probably a better indication that he's on the right track with this designer nonsense.

And he's had no trouble filling seats at the show itself. Since it's all rich assholes in attendance, they'd never do anything so gauche as to charge admission, but there's an understanding that everyone who attends the event will provide a hefty (and tax deductible, after some creative accounting) donation to both the art gallery and Jack's little design company. And Kaylen has used her extensive network of snooty art acquaintances to make sure there are plenty of critics in the audience, which should help get his name out there in the fashion world so he can start broadening their field of influence.

So the last thing that remains to be done is to personally invite the Councilor to the show. Not only because Jack is trying to develop a deeper friendship with him (and thereby cement his influence over any and all planning decisions) but also because Max wants to form another sort of relationship with Councilor Featherstone. Ie. she wants one of her girls to start “dating” the esteemed Councilor and whispering sweet nothings about their competitors into his ear instead of pillow talk. Which is also why Jack's throwing an after party at his house where the invitees can mingle with the models, get to know them a little better.

Jack had initially been rather uncomfortable with this plan. Mostly because he doesn't like people in his house messing up his things. But also because this feels just slightly skeevy in a way he hasn't been before. He's a con and a killer and a dealer, but he's not a pimp.

But when he'd talked to the girls about this plan, they'd seemed surprised at his reservations. One girl - Jackie – had even asked if the Councilor was, quote, wicked and seemed disappointed when Jack told her he had the sexual charisma of a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal. And Jack supposes it's their job, so they know what they're getting themselves into.

So he finds himself at the office building downtown (a pricey piece of real estate if Jack's ever seen one) to personally extend the glossy black invitation to both fashion show and after party to Councilor Featherstone. Who apparently has not yet grasped e-vites as a concept. And anyway, it's the personal touch that leaves a lasting impression.

And Charles has elected to accompany Jack, for whatever reason. He seems familiar with desk security and the building layout at least. Which is, perhaps, suspicious. As are the wary glances Councilor Featherstone's second in command – a man who's doing much what Max wants them to do in terms of filtering exactly what proposals actually reach the Councilor's desk, although his criteria for acceptance is more in line with being rich and titled and not a dirty foreigner - keeps giving Charles through Featherstone's glass door.

Charles's self satisfied smirk is not particularly encouraging either.

But he'd rather have any potential adversaries cowed as apposed to actively antagonistic. And Counselor Featherstone is more than happy to receive an invitation to his good friend Jack's debut fashion show. With front row seats to ensure that he gets a good look at all the models as they parade past on the catwalk. And Max's second sitting next to him - because Featherstone doesn't seem like the sort to approach a woman of his own volition and they'll need some indication of who to throw at him later tonight.

Jack's stupid fashion show is giving Anne a bitch of a headache. He's running around backstage in a fucking tizzy, because someone's makeup isn't quite right or they're wearing the wrong style of jewelry or a dozen other fucking things. And Anne's supposed to be coordinating this mess – as if that's fucking possible.

At least she's good at glaring and rude hand gestures. That appears to be all that's required to get the DJs – some poor fucks Max has by the balls – to get their shit set up and now there's some pumping electronic shit going as all the rich fucks mingle and drink cocktails, waiting for the show to start.

Fortunately, Eme'd been the one to recommend the caterers and other than pointing towards the kitchen and telling them when the show starts, she hasn't had to deal with them. And Mary's running around taking pictures of all the models and dresses and shit but she spares Anne a quick smile whenever they cross paths. So it could be worse.

And then Anne's pressed into lining up all the models in order and cuing when they're supposed to go out, so she's too busy to hear Jack's little speech at the start of the show. But by the polite applause he gets, it's a pretty good one – always been silver tongued, Jack has, and that ain't changed any with this new venture.

And it turns out he's pretty good at the whole designer thing too, which had been a surprise. Anne doesn't think much of the outfits – completely impracticable and all ugly weird dresses - but all these posh idiots are eating this shit up, if you take into account the fact that rich people excitement is a lot less loud than normal people excitement. The after party is sure to loosen them up, at least.

Jack slumps against the wall, absolutely exhausted. The fashion show had gone well, with several of the critics and many of the various high society invitees coming up to congratulate him afterwards. He's the darling of the upper crust for a night.

And in order to cement that for the future, he's in the process of throwing the mother of all parties – champagne, blow, stupid finger foods with gold leaf on them. The sort of club music that keeps coked up partiers on the dancefloor all night. And it's all getting to be a bit much.

Anne and Mary have already disappeared upstairs to bed, and Jack dearly wishes he could join them. Or at least meander in their general direction – he doubts they want him in their bed. Particularly because they're probably not even attempting to sleep what with all the noise downstairs.

And Jack doesn't really feel like laying awake for hours in his empty bed while Anne and Mary fuck down the hall, even if he wasn't bound by his persona to stay until the party ended or the sun rose. And it's starting to look like sunup will be the earlier of the two conditions, so it's just as well he's a jobless layabout who can sleep all day tomorrow.

At least Counselor Featherstone looks to be having fun with Idelle, all tucked into a sort of quiet corner with her and staring shamelessly at her tits. Which are quite noticeable in the dress she's wearing, to be fair. But Jack doesn't particularly want to spend his night thinking about that either.

So he turns on his heel and weaves through the crowd until he's reached the French doors leading to the little patio out back. He needs a minute – just one minute – of quiet and calm. Just a minute to catch his breath before he heads back into the heaving throng.

He walks out to the edge of the lawn and lets out a long sigh, head tipped towards the heavens.

“Get sick of the party, Jack?”

Charles emerges from the dark, only the glowing cherry of his cigar lighting his face, making his eyes gleam in a way that would be terrifying if Jack didn't know him so well.

But he does know Charles, so he just turns toward him, slumps against him in exhaustion. “I'll admit, it's a little harder to make it through these things without enough blow to keep an entire 80's office building supplied.”

Charles grins. “Or you're just getting old.”

“And what does that say about you, Chaz?” Jack leans back to look him in the eye. “You're the one out here in the dark all by yourself. Maybe you're the one getting too old for this shit.”

Charles eyes the house and all the guests making a disgusting mess all over Jack's fancy furniture. It's unbelievable, and he's spent his whole life, minus the last few months, living on the streets or in derelict drug dens.

“Don't know that I was ever young enough for this particular shit. Want to pretend to be desperate for a fuck and go hide upstairs?”

Jack considers it for a long moment, torn between responsibility to Max and his desire to escape the party. But fear of Max wins out – she can make is life awfully difficult. And that's without Anne giving him unimpressed looks on her behalf.

“Want to pretend to make out on the dancefloor instead?”

Charles grins. “Ok, but don't get pissy at me for grabbing your ass.” And he proceeds to steer Jack into the house and out into the middle of the dancefloor by doing just that, to the cheers and wolf whistles of everyone close enough to understand what he's doing.

Which is a fair number, because Charles is not exactly known for being subtle. And then he sticks his tongue down Jack's throat.

“I hope you know this means I'm spending tomorrow braiding your hair in retaliation,” Jack growls at him, when he's finally let up for air. “And I will give you pigtails.”

Charles just laughs, so apparently it's not a enough of a threat. Jack will find something truly menacing at some point. He swears.

#black sails #charles vane/jack rackham #max/anne #i travel troubled oceans #chapter 10

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thelastarchangelaskblog · 5 years

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Session 15

Last session we left off right after Zira realized her mother has been looking for her since she was kidnapped by the Horned Crown. This one picks up immediately afterwards!

The entire party was once more present for drama and shenanigans, although @rebaobsessions was sick so Rhodey was mostly communicating through typing today.

(Read more.)

There was some more fallout after the revelation of Zira’s ( @heliocentricgeometric) mother and what it meant for her. She was unsure if she wanted to let her mother know that she was alive and relatively all right.

Zira: I am not the best daughter or the best agent or the best anything.

But multiple people did tell her that her mother would want to know and she is good, so Zira eventually gave the go-ahead.

Zira is super hard on herself and blaming herself for having been kidnapped.

Clint: Don’t be hard on yourself. Would you go back and tell your six-year-old self that?

Helio: DID HE SAY THAT IN CHARACTER?

DM ( @the-grey-hunt): Yes, because I think it's funny.

We make the decision to check out the abandoned temple of Erathis, since we don’t feel comfortable leaving without investigating it. Before we do so, we go return to collect our weapons. Rhodey really wants his back.

Helio: Is he really Rhodey if he's not a walking armory?

Weapons collected and fully armed, we head to the temple with Clint and Natasha in stow for their supposed lock picking and trap detecting expertise. It’s broad daylight; there are crowds around.

Bob ( @thechaoticwave) rolls high on stealth but it’s the middle of the day and we’re attracting attention. Tony picks the lock on the door in the end with double proficiency because he has tool expertise. (You have no idea how many tool sets he has, guys.)

DM: Is this the same person who gave Tony his fine clothes? He went on a Weekend at Bernie's excursion and now he has 8 tool proficiencies?

In real life, we’re RPing hardcore and having debates and this all means that it’s taking us...

DM: It's been 20 minutes in real life since I told you you were standing in front of the unlocked door that leads to where you're going.

DM: You go inside. It is a room.

We’re all super suspicious and investigating for traps and perceiving danger. To be fair, Zira perceived something super suspicious and shady in a window with a high roll.

DM: 8 people have rolled perception checks. There are only 6 players.

I don’t know what Bob is supposed to be familiar with here but it’s apparently something in the temple.

thechaoticwave: How familiar would Bob be?

DM: None.

We very slowly creep through the temple. I mean, slowly in real life. It’s relatively fast in-game but in real life it’s taking a while. One of us takes the initiative to hurry us along.

Helio: We keep going. I'm sorry to anyone who wants to explore, but if we do, I think our DM will try to kill us!

Finally we end up in the last room of the temple. There’s an altar here, and as we enter the room JARVIS gives an alert. Torches magically light up and the room gets super cold.

We don’t realize what’s happening until we notice a ghost! It’s the tiefling priest who was executed for the kidnapping of the jarl’s daughter.

Veritas is rather adamant it wasn’t their fault and that things aren’t as they seem. They’re super pissed at us disturbing them, too, since they’re stuck in the temple. But they are familiar with the Horned Crown and what happened in the past.

Only...what do we want to do with the cult?

Zira: We're hunting them down.

Veritas: You can't.

Zira: I know. I can either die running away or I can die giving them the middle finger.

There are several charisma checks being made since Veritas is trying something funky. JARVIS is still freaking out about the ghost and does not like them.

Zira tries talking to Veritas some more, get them to tell us what’s going on and what happened back then. Veritas is saying they didn’t have a choice, that there was a woman involved who probably threatened them. But they’re not being specific and are complaining about injustice.

And then... Clint miserably fails his charisma save and is possessed! Zira gets shot by an arrow!

We roll initiative!

Helio: For one, I call the ghost a little bitch.

Bob is in dismay by what Clint did with an arrow.

Bob: Fuck damn it, Clint, this is not what I gave them to you for.

Zira doesn’t actually do anything with the arrow for the entirety of the fight. Also we kill the ghost double dead and we don’t know where ghosts go after dying a second time? Only Veritas is super dead now.

Lucky, Clint’s bird, tried to attack us on seeing us attack Clint. JARVIS did a good and pounced on him before he could attack Zira

In the end we’re all a bit upset and pissed at the ghost and everything in Neverwinter and agree to leave as quickly as possible.

We’re given some horses by Theodora Coulson and make it out quickly. While we’re camping, Zira has a conversation with her celestial guide on what she found out.

Zaphkiel is super wise and loving and sensitive to Zira’s doubts and fears.

Zaphkiel: Sometimes the hardest lessons are the ones we need the most.

Zira: Lady Laurelin is getting three kids for the price of one.

Zaphkiel: That sounds like a good deal to me.

Zira also finds out Zaphkiel is her father. Her biological father.

There’s a fight in Zira’s mindscape on finding this out, during which the third alter - 6 y/o Zee - comes to the front! She’s out and about freely!

Zee: IT'S ZEE TIME. It's my body now!

She’s a bit peeved at how tall the body is and keeps falling over. DJ (doxblogsstuff) finds her like this and realizes this isn’t Zira or 465 but rather someone else he hasn’t met before. Zee is super cheerful and happy to meet him.

Zee: The only reason I'm out right now is because they're fighting and being stupid. Last time I was out I was way shorter, and now I'm all the way up here.

Zee continues being precious and sweet and pronouncing words very deliberately.

DJ gets the rest of the party’s attention and Zee is introduced to Tony! And also Rhodey but reba was absent for this bit until she popped on again a little later.

Zee: That's my sci-en-tif-ic con-clu-sion.

Bob gets the chance to ask Zee what her favorite color is!

Zee: My favorite color is actually ocean color.

Zee sits by the fire and eventually notices JARVIS by Tony.

Zee: Why is your cat shiny and big?

Tony: That's just how he is.

Zee: Well, I'm big and shiny so I can't judge.

Zee mostly talks to DJ, at least until Zira manages to front again and is absolutely dismayed at what happened. But it’s all good!

We continue traveling to Ankh and are met by a thunderstorm. We make our way indoors to S.H.I.E.L.D., meeting first Agent 13 and then taking the boats through underground rivers before we finally, finally meet...Director Fury!

Tony: He doesn't look as furious as I thought he would.

Fury: Try me on a bad day.

We’re given some basic information on S.H.I.E.L.D. and asked about our own interest in the Horned Crown and why we want to ally.

Zira: We would get smushed like itty bitty bugs.

Zira: We want to...how do I say this? Fuck the Horned Crown up so bad that they never look at another kid again.

One by one, each of us gives our answer as to whether or not we want to join. Zira is a yes. DJ is a yes. Rhodey is a yes. Luna ( @imagine1117) has questions about what Fury knows about them but is a yes as well. Tony...does not say yes. He doesn’t say no, but he doesn’t say yes. He’s for allying, but not for joining S.H.I.E.L.D. as a lackey.

Bob declines to answer in favor of getting more information.

Fury: If I can be frank.

Bob: I thought you were Fury.

We end the session here with Fury sending us back above ground to talk about this as a group before giving a final answer.

So much happens next session. To the point our DM titled the session notes “Oh Boy Guys.”

#d&d campaign #imagine1117 #doxblogsstuff #the-grey-hunt #heliocentricgeometric #thechaoticwave #rebaobsessions

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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Elastic Heart Part 10/10 (Branjie) - Mia Ugly

Heyyyy. So even though this says Part 10/10 there is actually going to be an Epilogue. It is pure fluff and not as long as this chapter but it will be up in the next couple days or so. Pure, endless and sequin-covered gratitude to artificialmeggie who is not only a brilliant writer but also incredibly generous with her time, energy and kindness. Thanks to all the awesome people on the Branjie discord, and everyone who has been commenting/liking this story so far. Come scream at me about Drag Race feelings any time. I am literally interested in nothing else right now.

The gravel path crunches beneath Brock’s runners as he makes his way through the forest. Everything is layers of green on green here, moss growing on ferns growing up the side of leafy oak trees. It’s a bit overwhelming but also Brock is three days without a cigarette so everything is overwhelming at the moment.

He’s back on the West Coast of Canada for a show on the island, killing time before he has to get ready. If he sits still he’s going to end up convincing himself to buy cigarettes, so a hike in the middle of a fucking rainforest seemed like a a good idea at the time.

There are wildflowers pushing through the soil (daisies and violets and bleeding hearts), another long winter behind them. Brock’s been thinking that maybe he’ll go home after Drag Con. Just for a couple days. Maybe he’ll go to Ontario, see his mom and sister. Unplug for a bit before the tour, if his manager will allow it (his manager is still pissed about Brock’s lack of communication around the lip sync with Vanjie. It’s understandable, but Brock is 100% firm on this. He’s not saying anything until he talks to Jose. If that means he never comments on it, fine. If that means he needs to get himself new representation, then - okay.)

There is an incline on the path, and Brock climbs, winding his way through pine trees. He breathes in damp air that would taste better if it was full of nicotine and tar, but - he can’t have everything.

When his phone rings, he’s almost expecting it. It feels inevitable that this call happens now, alone in the silent forest, overrun by moss and flowers.

“This a bad time?” Jose asks, and it’s never a bad time when he gets to hear Jose’s voice, no matter the reason.

“No.” Brock slows his pace, stands at the foot of a maple tree that seems to go on forever. “Hi.”

“Sorry I took my time gettin’ back to you. I had to get my head right, and I been traveling so much -”

“It’s completely fine. I get it.”

“Nah, girl, it ain’t fine. And shit, that was a ride hey? Watching it all go down. Thought I was at Disneyland.”

“That’s scarily accurate.”

“None of those fun rides neither. I’m talking like that rollercoaster in space shit.” He’s half-laughing as he says it, but his tone is brittle. It makes Brock take a couple of deep breaths, steeling himself for whatever happens next. “And that - what you said. You know, at the end –”

Brock waits, waits. Holds on.

“I don’t - know what to do with that.”

Brock stays in the moment, fragile and still, where there are chickadees calling and bleeding heart wildflowers and Jose’s voice on the other line for now, just now.

“Yeah,” he says at last, because moments are lovely only while they last, and they never last long. “No. Of course. I was all messed up then, and I just - it was the show. You know.”

He’s playing it down and he doesn’t know why. He wasn’t in any sort of headspace to be making grand declarations, but the denial tastes bitter in his mouth.

“Huh,” Jose says softly. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear it that way. On television, fuck. That must have been – something.”

“It was sure as hell something.” There’s a silence on his end, and then Jose sighs. “I – that call the other night. That was not –”

“It happens,” Brock interrupts quickly because - because the alternative is to say how much he wanted it, how much he needed Jose’s voice on the phone telling him all the ways Brock could touch him, all the ways he wanted him. “You were drinking and - it doesn’t mean anything. It’s fine.”

“Ye-ah.” The word is unsteady, broken in halves. “Course. So. Where are you now?”

“Canada again. You?”

“Berlin! Crazy, right? Taking my ass international.”

“America can’t tie you down.”

“Damn right. I gotta spread my oats around or whatever. That what they say? Spread oats around?”

“I - um.”

“Bitch, don’t laugh! Whatever, I been up for twenty-two hours, I get to say whatever the fuck I want.”

There are birds singing as Brock laughs. In the trees, under his skin. He feels the melody in each beat of his heart.

“At the reunion.” There’s a slight hiccup in Jose’s voice, and Brock breathes into the ground beneath his feet. “I’m sorry for losin’ it at you like that. Everyone’s been – good about what went down. A couple comments but nothin’ serious. I’ve had worse, you know? So – I shouldn’t have come for you then. I was just – feelin’ a lot of ways.”

His voice is like a song that Brock just remembers parts of.

“You didn’t do nothing to me, Brock. You were – we were good. When I see it now, it looks good.”

Good doesn’t do it justice, can’t possibly describe Vanjie’s laugh across the werkroom, the rush of adrenaline on the main stage, the thrill of victory and loss and desire. Good is like a raindrop in the ocean.

“We were good,” Brock says anyway.

“But it wasn’t real life. I keep forgettin’ - like it was a month, right? That’s nothing.”

He’s right, of course, but the words don’t feel truthful. Brock knows that they’re different people, knows that they were together for too short a time to feel things this deeply. But there was something about Drag Race that moved differently, an intensity to every day that made their connection somehow sharper, stronger, the bite of lime after tequila. Brock sometimes feels like he knows Jose better than he knows some of his oldest friends. You don’t go through an experience like that, share all the vulnerability and self-doubt and pride and passion, without it changing you. Without it leaving its mark scored all over your bones.

“It wasn’t real life,” Jose says again.

Brock wants to tell him he’s wrong. He also wants ten cigarettes and Jose’s tongue in his mouth. Want, want, want - it overwhelms him, a desperation he hasn’t felt since he was much younger (living on nicotine and ballet and adrenaline, with a heart that had never been broken. The superior vena cava scar-free, ventricles pumping steadily, never imagining what would come.)

“It got all fucked up. And it’s my fault –”

“No, absolutely fucking not,” Brock cuts him off.

“Well it ain’t yours. It was just –”

“It wasn’t either of us.” There are birds singing. Their voices are all the words Brock wishes he could say. “It was everything. The competition and the job and – the timing. Everything.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Couldn’t get it right.”

“But –” (Fucking say it, say something.) “I would have liked to. Gotten it right.” His heart is pounding in his chest. Is this what being vulnerable feels like? He hates it. “I wish we had.”

“You don’t gotta say those things to me. I can’t –”

“I know.” Brock swallows. “I get it. Yvie told me you were dating someone and I think that’s –“

“Did she? Fucking Yvie, course she did. Dating someone, Jesus. That’s – it’s not like that.”

“I don’t need to hear about it.” Brock will be sick in the middle of the fucking forest if he has to hear about Jose’s new boyfriend.

“I wasn’t going to share no details or anything. Just – nah, I ain’t dating no one. Single dollar bill, right?” Jose gives a sad little laugh. “So – what are you gonna say, girl? About that lip sync? That I got you all dickmatized and made you act a fool?

Brock smiles despite himself. It’s always like this when he talks to Jose, aching affection shot through with threads of pain, like precious metals. “Yes, that’s basically it. Verbatim.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s like – word for word.”

“Huh. Okay, I’ll get ready for it.”

The wind picks up, and leaves are rustling. The whole world smells like rain. “Are you going to say something?” he asks, not sure he’s ready to hear it. “About how it ended? How things are?”

“Yeah. I'ma say that -” Jose hums to himself, thinking it over. “That Brooke Lynn and I worked it out. That we are very good friends.”

(Tibial stress fracture. Labral tear of the hip.)

“Okay.” It’s fine. Really, it was more than he expected. They can be friends. Brock can be a professional about this, he’s been a professional his whole life. “So I’ll see you in a bit for the tour.”

“Yes you will, sis. I’m not there for the first week but I’ll catch you after that.”

“I’m away for the second week, I’ve got some bookings in New York.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I guess I’ll – see you around. On the big screen, right?” They’re less than two weeks from the finale, the ending of which even Jose doesn’t know. “I’ll be watchin’ it live with my girls in NYC. You doing a show?”

“Maybe.” (Nina’s asked him but Brock hasn’t responded yet.) “Can’t wait to see you win.”

“Girl, you as crazy as you are fine. You think I’m gonna be the first queen in history with no challenge wins to get a crown?”

“You were the first queen to go viral for her exit line.”

“You’re wrong as shit, but I’ll take it.” There’s silence. “Brock, I -”

Brock’s heart stutters like he was punched in the chest. He forgets to breathe for a moment (Jose has that effect on him.)

“I -” Jose starts, and then laughs quietly. “Nothin’. I just like saying your name.”

I like hearing you say it. He doesn’t say it, even though it’s true, even though hearing his name in Jose’s singular voice feels like falling through space, cliff-diving, hanging in the air before hitting the cold water.

“See you around, boo,” Jose says.

“Yeah. See you around.” The pleasantries feel like stones.

Jose hangs up and Brock holds onto the phone for a moment, getting used to the silence once again.

“I miss you so fucking much.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. He wishes he could breathe them back in, but he can’t, it’s done. So he leaves them there. Leaves them for the forest to find.

He hikes for another hour, and when he reaches the crest of the hill he finds himself in a cluster of cherry blossom trees. The wind is blowing gently, and petals fill the air, falling slow and pink to the mossy ground.

Brock can remember Vanjie scattering handfuls of flower petals on the runway; it was the first night they kissed and he walked away from that moment tasting roses between his teeth.

He bends to pick up a few blossoms from the path, holds them loosely in his hand.

Then he lets them go.

Two days later, his manager sends him a video.

It’s from Jose’s instagram, just posted that night. He’s in a hotel room, eyes slightly unfocused with exhaustion, shirt off. He’s beautiful (and Brock tells himself he’s allowed to think that because it’s objectively, inarguably true, has nothing to do with Brock’s feelings or their past.)

“So I’m here to set the record straight ‘bout me and Brooke Lynn. You know a lot of shit went down in the last few episodes and I just want everyone to know that we’re good now. We good. Brooke Lynn and I are friends, and -” Jose holds the palm of his hand to the corner of his eye, blinking brightly.

He holds his palm there, and he blinks, and he smiles. When he finally drops his hand, his palm is wet.

“It’s good,” Jose says, smile white and eyes shining. “So good. So you know, you don’t got to worry none about me or Brooke. I ain’t mad at her, she ain’t mad at me. What happened, happened. But that’s in the past and now we both gotta live our lives.”

Jose laughs, turns away from the camera for a moment. “I don’t know why I’m all -” he says under his breath, and then turns back. “Okay, that’s it. I don’t know what else I gotta say. Bye.”

Then Jose waves (Brock pushes all his longing into his stomach, like an ulcer. Something painful but isolated, something that will heal in time.) He waits until he’s moved onto to the next show, the next hotel room, before he posts a response.

He hasn’t been drinking and it’s been six days without a cigarette (only six? Jesus, it feels longer.) At first he’s going to do the video as Brooke Lynn because he feels less vulnerable that way, but then he decides it’s cheating.

Brooke Lynn is like armour. She’s like - brick walls.

”Okay,” Brock breathes, ruffling his hair. “Okay, okay. A lot of people are talking about Vanessa and talking about me and everything that went down. And I wanted to say something, officially, and then I’m going to stop talking about it. Because my fuck up isn’t the biggest story on Drag Race this season. It’s not.”

He should have maybe written this down or something. Planned it out. But it’s too late now and he’s not going backwards; he forces himself to keep talking (say something, something.)

“Remember my sickening runway reveal if you’re going to remember anything about me. Or remember Yvie dressed like a fucking jellyfish or Silky as Oprah or the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo –“ (covered in red roses, petals sliding between her fingers) “or A’Keria, just - everyday, doing anything while looking that gorgeous. The Top 4 is the Top 4 for a reason. They got there and they deserve to be there. So.”

Brock can do this. He can be honest without completely falling apart, people do it all the time.

“My whole life I worked hard and I – I had goals and I got it done. I wanted to dance ballet so I did. I wanted to be Miss Continental so I was. I wanted to make it on RuPaul’s Drag Race and I got there. I was – it was all very by the numbers. Calculated. And then –“

He has to stop for a moment because it’s harder than he thought it would be. He takes a few unsteady breaths, thinks about cherry blossoms. Pictures his cats.

“You can probably tell from the show that I’m an over-thinker. In my head. I don’t do anything without planning it first, thinking about everything that could go wrong. But there was a moment on that stage with Vanessa when my head wasn’t in charge. I made one decision and – it fucked some things up and maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But it happened. I’ve explained and apologized to Vanjie and uh – I’ll apologize again now: I’m sorry she didn’t get the chance to kick my ass on her own terms. I’m sorry that I took over her story. That’s the worst thing you could ever get from this because that girl – damn, she’s got stories to tell. She is a fucking story, and I’m so, so lucky that I got to be a part of it.”

Brock swallows.

“But – and this isn’t very Canadian of me - now I’m done. I’m done apologizing. I’m not sorry Vanessa made the Top 4. And I’m not sorry I met her on the set of this crazy, amazing competition, and I’m not sorry we went through it together. I’m not sorry I listened to my heart for maybe the first time in my life.”

His throat is so tight that speech is becoming difficult. Fuck it, get it done.

“So I’m not apologizing anymore. It’s a show for you, an important show, a phenomenon, but - it was real for me.”

The words are true, which is absolutely the fucking worst. Whatever Jose says or thinks now, it was real. Saying it out loud is like a weight being lifted.

“This was – real for me,” Brock repeats, a bit staggered by the knowledge. “So. Thanks for watching.”

He posts the video without looking at it. Then he paces a hole in the carpet of his hotel room before grabbing his hoodie and hating himself as he walks to the nearest convenience store.

He’s at the register with the cigarettes in his goddamn hand when he changes his mind (six fucking days, almost a week, that’s got to mean something.) He buys gummy candies instead, and cream soda, and is going to crash hard into a sugar coma but at least his mouth will taste like Vanessa’s as he dies.

That night, he doesn’t dream.

* * *

(Now.)

Brooke Lynn Hytes takes the stage. As she moves toward the audience in a glittery nude body suit, she is fierce and she is fine. She is untouchable. She is slowly dying of internal bleeding but that’s below the surface, where no one can see, so it doesn’t matter.

She’s in Boston for the next two days, Machine tonight, and a different club tomorrow. The reunion episode just aired, and people have been talking to her about it all evening, mostly with concern. No one’s thrown any shade at her or Vanessa, and Brooke hopes that it stays that way (even as she knows that the fans can be cruel and vicious as well as loving and supportive in equal measure. It’ll probably break all kinds of ways before the finale, but that’s the nature of the job.)

“In my head,” Lorde comes through the speakers, “I play a supercut of us.”

Brooke lifts her hands, runs them over her neck.

“All the magic we gave off.

All the love we had and lost.”

The rhythm of the song picks up, and Brooke starts to dance. This is what she does, this is what she was born to do. There are cheers from the crowd, but this time she barely hears them. Her mind is too full of Vanjie, an imperfect memory (neon lights, rose petals, saltwater). Brooke imagines that Vanjie’s there in front of the stage, the only person in the room, watching.

Brooke lets her heart fall, bleeding, from her hands. Then she crushes it under her heels, spinning and twisting, seeing Vanjie’s face every time she closes her eyes.

People are waving tips, and Brooke takes far fewer than she normally would, too caught up in the lyrics of the song (Vanessa is in the sand beside her, smiling sweet and shy.) Brooke thinks about the first time they kissed, the taste of cigarettes in her mouth and stars in her eyes. She thinks about the whole twisted mess of it, Jose’s voice on the phone, the silk of his skin against her tongue.

They had moments, that was what they had. A whole love story’s worth of moments (edited neatly, pieced together for public consumption.)

That will have to be enough.

As the music ends, a wistful fading beat (“In my head I do everything right”) Brooke smiles for the audience, bowing slightly and waving back at the applause.

That’s when she hears - something.

A low, growly shout from the back of the bar, a “yeaaah girl” in a voice that she would recognize anywhere.

Her eyes frantically scan the room but she can’t see anything in the bright lights. She nods dumbly as the host is saying something that she can’t hear. She has to get off stage. She has to go. She has to -

Backstage a couple of other performers try to approach her, but Brooke just rushes past them, (coming off like a total bitch probably but she doesn’t care. That much.) She hurries out into the crowd, where people are pushing close to her, trying to touch her, trying to talk to her. Brooke apologizes to them over and over again, Canadian to the core, but doesn’t let them stop her.

She doesn’t see him. He’s not by the bar - the dance floor is packed, he could be anywhere. She turns helplessly on the spot. She can’t find him. Maybe she heard his voice wrong. Maybe she should - she should -

“You okay, Brooke?” one of the staff asks her, and she nods.

“Was there like -” she begins weakly, not really knowing what to say, “a guy -”

“Um There were a lot of guys,” the staff member says and Brooke turns away from him.

She could have been hearing things. Or - it could have been wishful fucking thinking. Or -

She should call him! That’s what she should do. Maybe she’s losing her mind but if there’s even a chance that he’s around -

She walks quickly back to the dressing room, ignoring anyone who tries to stop her, aware that she’s probably looking frantic and ridiculous. Her hands are shaking, heart beating fast enough to make her feel light-headed.

When she gets her phone out of her jacket pocket, she has a missed call from one minute ago, and two new text messages.

From Silky Ganache of all people.

“Pick up yr damn phone bitch dont make me call 911. this an emergency!!!”

“me and AK47 got sick of lookin at her sad ass face. Vanjs there but bitch is running away go catch her!!!!”

Brooke almost drops her phone. She rushes to the doorway of the dressing room. As she touches the handle, though, she freezes.

Wait.

If Jose wants to leave - it’s his choice. Right? If he’s ‘running away,’ if he’s made his mind up, Brooke’s not the kind of person to chase him down. To beg someone to want her. She’s got walls around her heart and -

- you know what, fuck you, walls, and fuck you heart and fuck this shit FUCK it -

Brooke is out of the dressing room, pushing her way across the dance floor, heading toward the front door. Beneath her ribs, bricks are shifting and falling and smashing onto the pavement. She runs past the bouncer and the clusters of people smoking on the sidewalks, runs into the street (nearly avoids getting hit by a cab) and cranes her head around. Panic is thick as syrup in her veins, everything feels simultaneously slowed down and sped up.

Oh God, what if she’s missed him. What if she’s too late. What if -

At the end of the block, about to cross the street, Brooke sees a slender, gorgeous man walking away. There are streetlights and moonlight on his skin, as if even inanimate forces feel the need to touch him.

“Jose!”

He doesn’t hear her so she runs, platform stilettos sliding on the damp pavement, ignoring the stares she gets from strangers.

He’s on the phone, she can hear him talking softly, “Nah, I told you I’m not goin’ to -“

Brooke keeps running, calls his name again. And - like a bullet to the chest – he turns around.

He stares at her (there is a crease between his eyebrows, the one that makes Brooke forget what her banking passwords are, what money means, or that she’s ever been lonely.)

“Tell Silk that she’s a meddlin’ ho,” Jose says into the phone. “I’m gonna call you later.“

Brooke comes to a halt a few feet in front of him barely avoiding sliding and twisting her ankle. She can’t breathe right, something’s wrong with her chest, with her lungs. They feel heavy and tight, full of rose petals.

“Hey. Hi,” Brook manages between gasps of air. “What are you doing here?"

Jose twists his fingers, tugs at his cuffs. "I was just - you know, around. Had a couple days off, thought maybe I’d - I dunno. Come by.”

He’s wearing a fitted blue shirt underneath a leather jacket - and a fucking tie? A thin black tie that shines like it might also be made of leather. Brooke wants to touch it. Wants to touch him. He’s the most handsome person she’s ever seen in her goddamn life - but he doesn’t look entirely comfortable. Doesn’t look like himself.

“You’re wearing a tie,” Brooke says because she’s a brilliant conversationalist. Dynamite at parties.

“Yeah.” Jose glances down at it. “Silky gave it to me. Feel like I look like a lawyer or somethin’.”

“Silky gave it to you?” The thought of Silky in a tie is about as bizarre as Jose in one.

“Yeah, she said that I should try to look - it don’t matter.” The tie gives Jose something new to mess with. He presses it flat to his chest, scrapes his thumb over the edge. “You were good out there.”

Brooke tries desperately to remember how to speak. She could do it once, she swears to God.

“You should have come backstage.” (God, it’s good to see you, how have you been, why are you here, why were you leaving, why -) “I thought you were booked until the tour?”

“I - canceled a couple shows. It was getting to be - a lot. And I had to -” There is a silver ring on Jose’s thumb and he fidgets with it, spinning it around. "Did Silky call you?"

"Yeah.”

“Girl’s got to start mindin’ her business.”

“I’m glad she called me. Where were you going?”

“You seemed - I didn’t know if you’d want to see me. After that episode.”

“Didn’t know if I’d want to see you,” Brooke repeats, like - like that could be a reality in any dimension. “How could - no. Yes. I want to see you. I was in Orlando. At Southern Nights, when you were - but you looked so - happy, I couldn’t -“

“I looked happy?” Jose fusses with his bangs, then smoothes them out. “That’s some bullshit nonsense. Anyway, Silky told me. Said she sent you packin’. I think she feelin’ some kinda way about it. She pretty much threatened my life until I got on the plane this morning.”

Brooke mentally notes to have an edible arrangement delivered to Silky in the near future. She takes a step closer, gently pushing at the barrier set up between them.

“I saw your video on Instagram.”

Jose blinks at her from underneath long dark lashes, as pretty out of drag as in it. “Saw yours too.”

Cars are moving past them, headlights shining on the slick-black streets. The same headlights catch Jose’s cheekbones, the shine of his lips where he’s been biting them. Brooke fights the urge to dissolve into seafoam like a princess in a fairytale.

“Are you in town for awhile or - just tonight?”

“It’s - I’m figuring it out.” Jose shakes his head, looks away for a moment. He keeps twisting that ring around his thumb. “You know that thing you said. Before the lip sync. About like if we met somewhere else, or at a club or something.”

Brooke stares at him.

“I thought - if you wanted -” Jose won’t look at her. “Maybe we could try that.”

There is something intolerable in Brooke’s chest.

Something that feels unbearably like hope.

“What do you think about it?” Jose asks.

Brooke can’t say a word. All the blood in her body is concentrating on keeping her upright. She can’t be hearing this, there’s got to be some mistake. This sort of thing, this sort of offer, doesn’t happen in real life.

“You gotta tell me what you’re thinkin’, Brooke,” Jose says quietly.

Say something. Say something.

“Yes.”

They stare at each other. Or Brooke stares at Jose while he stares at his hands.

“Yes,” she says again. “I mean, okay. We could try that.”

Jose lifts his eyes at last and they are beautiful (and soft and scared and hungry.) “So like if you met me tonight, at this club or whatever, what’d we do now? What’d you say to me?”

Brooke takes a step forward. Then another. She looms over him in her heels, but she moves slowly, giving him no doubt about what she’s going to do next. When she’s right up in his space, she touches his chin (she did that once in the backstage lounge and it feels like years ago and it feels like yesterday) tilting his head back.

Then she kisses him.

As kisses go, it’s in the Top Three of her life.

(Number Three: Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, night of the “What’s Your Sign” runway, tasting like mint and still glittery. The kiss that started a war, sunk a battleship, peeled away all the layers of Brooke’s dried up onion heart. A mistake and a reckoning and a miracle all at the same time.

Number Two: first kiss with a boy. Whatever, he’s straight and has kids now and they were both too drunk to function. Still. It was a good one.

Number One: remember that blank space at the beginning? Here we are children: Jose on the sidewalk, hands on her face, mouth open. Finally where he’s supposed to be, close enough to touch, lighting Brooke up like birthday candles. There a faint trace of stubble on Jose’s upper lip and she licks it, wants to taste it, wants to touch everything. Her hands slide into Jose’s hair, cradling his head as they kiss. Brooke’s starving, wants everything all at once and the soft little murmuring noises Jose is making against her mouth make Brooke Lynn fucking shine.)

“I’d say,” Brooke breathes, pulling back, “that I’m in love with you, and then I’d ask you to come home with me.”

Jose doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word for a moment. There’s a little crease of pain between his eyebrows and his lips shine with Brooke’s lipgloss.

Then he smiles.

“Girl, we just met. You move fast.” And then, softer, “Okay. We can try that.”

“My wallet’s in the club,” Brooke says stupidly because her heart is racing and this cannot possibly be real. “I have to - will you wait here? Don’t -”

“I’ll get us a cab.”

“Okay. Don’t go, though, you’ll -”

“Yeah right, you think I’m going anywhere now? Now that I get to take you home? Come on, mama, you know me.”

I do, Brooke thinks, even though - really - she only knows parts of him. But se wants to know the rest. And she’s going to know the rest, she decides, every question that she has, every stupid thought Jose has had in his beautiful weird brain.

She gets changed in the dressing room, back into boy clothes. Fuck you if she’s going to sit next to the sexiest man in the world on a cab ride across Boston while tucked. No thank you, Mary.

When the last makeup wipe hits the trash can, Brock looks up and sees himself in the mirror. Still in desperate need of a shower, grey toque pulled low on his head, but himself. No armour.

He looks happy, and that’s fucking terrifying. His face is doing that thing it does around Vanjie, the thing he’s only seen on television.

Jose is waiting for him when he gets back outside. Brock feels his face pull into that expression, helplessly.

They barely make it to the hotel room (they don’t make it to the bed.)

“Get your fucking shirt off,” Brock gasps against Jose’s neck, the two of them grinding on the floor against each other. How the fuck did they end up on the floor, last thing Brock knew they were pressed against the wall.

The hotel carpet is rough on Brock’s knees, and will probably be rougher on Jose’s back, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He pulls his shirt up over his head, doesn’t bother with the rest of the buttons, and makes a moan of frustration when it means they can’t kiss for a second. He throws it off, pushes it aside. His mouth on Brock’s is wet and sharp, his fingers on the zipper of Brock’s hoodie.

“I want you in me,” he says against Brock’s teeth, “Okay? Been waiting too long for you. I can’t -”

“Jesus Christ.” Brock has his fingers on the buttons of Jose’s pants, pulls them off his hips along with his underwear, pressing biting kisses to his hipbones, his stomach.

“You don’t gotta -” Jose starts and then Brock is sucking his cock, swallowing him down and it’s familiar and unfamiliar and so fucking hot he might die. “Oh my God, yes -

Too soon, Jose is pulling on his hair. “I’m going to come if you - get up here, please -”

Brock pulls off slowly, kisses his way up Jose’s body, feverish and dizzy with all the promise of a night alone together. He licks into Jose’s mouth, and he’s trying to go slow but it’s impossible to take his time when their skin feels this electric, when Brock’s been basically half-hard for him since he was dressed like a sparkly Mountie and trying not to stare at the most beautiful girl in the room.

“My jacket,” Jose waves an elegant hand toward the sofa where he’s thrown it over an arm. “There’s -”

Brock speaks the same language, and he forces himself to his feet so he can grab the leather jacket, rummage in its pockets until he finds what he’s looking for.

“Someone came prepared,” he says, crawling back over to Jose, condoms and lube packet in hand.

“No one’s come at all, ho. If you don’t hurry up about fixing that -”

“Pushy,” Brock mumbles. He slicks his fingers and spreads Jose’s thighs; he can’t stop moving or he’ll start thinking and this will be over too quickly.

“You love - oh.” Jose’s voice shatters and his head drops back at the first touch of Brock’s hand. Brock fingers him slowly, letting the pads of his fingertips drag inside Jose’s body, watching his cock twitch slightly every time Brock hits the right place. He could do this all night. He rests his head on Jose’s thigh, watching for every reaction he makes, every time his chest flutters, ever gasp that breaks from his mouth. Two fingers become three, Brock twisting his wrist until Jose’s legs are spread as far as they can go, one hand covering his face and the other making small, clenching movements on the shitty hotel carpet.

“Oh, fuck you,” Jose bites out, back arching. “I can’t - you gotta - Brock, please -”

“I will.” But it’s too delicious to watch Jose writhe like this, and Brock takes his time, kissing the inside of one knee and then the other before sliding his fingers free. He licks the pre-come off Jose’s stomach and then sits back on his knees, opening the condom and rolling it on (biting his lip to give himself edges, to haul himself back from this cliff.)

“You okay like this?” Brock leans over Jose for a kiss, and Jose immediately wraps his legs around Brock’s waist, pulling him closer.

“Yes, damn it, If you don’t hurry the fuck up I’m going back to that club to find a bitch who -”

His sentence ends in a bitten-off moan, as Brock pushes into him, a slow hot glide that makes Brock slam his eyes shut. It’s too good. Too much. This is the worst possible decision Brock could have made because being inside Jose is better than anything and Brock has an addictive personality. He’s already aching from it - so, so utterly fucked.

“Okay?” he asks with another thrust, and Jose just nods, mouth open and eyes blown black. Brock leans down to kiss him, and then Jose’s nails are scraping down his back, and his hips are rising to meet Brock’s, and everything is speeding up, turning hungry and vicious with wanting.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Brock hisses and he’s had sex before but it wasn’t like this, nothing’s ever been like this. “You’re -”

Jose tightens his legs, drawing him in closer, and making the sexiest sounds Brock’s ever heard in his life.

“Come on baby, get me there,” Jose leans up to whisper in his ear. “Know you can, know you got it -”

Brock pulls back slightly to change angles, pulling one of Jose’s legs up over his shoulder before thrusting back inside. Jose smacks the ground, shouts, swears - it’s a bit like fucking a tornado, or a hurricane.

“Come on,” Jose begs, “You have to just - there, baby, there -”

Brock tries to repeat the movement that’s making Jose throw his head back like that, and he’s close, he’s fucking close, and then they’re grabbing at each other and Jose is moaning and coming between their bodies (“Yeah, fuck my - oh Jesus Brock I can’t - oh GOD -”.) Brock’s suddenly there, suddenly gone, and he fucks Jose through it, shaking, sweat rolling down his neck. Then he swoons down on top of the smaller man, kissing his mouth and his eyes, licking the come off his chest, dragging his tongue down and down and down Jose’s stomach until he can’t stop, he’s fucking lost again.

They end up in the bed at some point. Brock sleeps like he hasn’t in years, a black and weightless sleep, only waking at the sensation of slow patterns being traced down his spine (words in Spanish that Jose will translate for him someday, but not now). He rolls over to see Jose’s face only inches from his own, and thanks the God of his distant religious childhood that this is still happening. Still real.

Their lips find each other in the half-darkness, hands moving soft over ribs and hips, between legs. Jose nudges Brock on to his back, rolls a condom on him before riding him excruciatingly slowly, still loose and open from their first time.

“Had to get you up. Was dreamin’ about this.”

Jose pins Brock’s hands to the bed-frame above him, moving his hips like a dancer.

“Open your eyes,” Jose says, and Brock didn’t even realize he had closed them. “Want you lookin‘ at me. Don’t need you thinking about no other ho.”

Brock opens them briefly before squeezing them shut again. The feeling is too intense for him to get distracted by something as unnecessary as sight and the way Jose’s body moves over him might make him go blind. He’s too close, it’s too much -

“You’re here,” Jose whispers, pressing his mouth to Brock’s temple. “Open your eyes.”

Brock does.

They don’t leave the hotel room until the next evening - well, basically they don’t leave the bed. Except for the couch. And once, the shower.

Jose comes to the club, watches as Brooke performs “God is a Woman” and throws dollar bills at her like they’re confetti. Afterwards they make out like teenagers in the dressing room, pressed up against the mirrors until Jose has lipstick and powder smeared all over his face. Jose grabs at Brooke’s hips like they’re real, sucks her fingers and bites her palm, whispers all sorts of filthy promises to the lines on her hands (lifeline, loveline, Mount of Venus.)

When they finally break apart, Jose’s eyes are wild and unfocused. Brooke holds his face between her hands, presses their foreheads together, wondering whether it’s possible to feel this much and survive.

“Come to New York with me,” Jose says quietly. “For the finale. I want you there.”

“I -”

“Don’t get all in your feelings about it. You don’t got nothing lined up yet. Come with me.” Jose licks his lips and then smiles. “Love the taste of your gloss, baby. Look at your face - you know you’re gonna say yes.”

Brooke is. She is.

She does.s

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #smut #angst #eventual happy ending #canon compliant #elastic heart #mia ugly #tw addiction #concrit welcome #submission #s11

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canyouhearthelight · 5 years

Text

The Miys, Ch. 33

This was a very difficult chapter to write, mostly because of the discussion of the death penalty involved. I know it is a controversial topic, and trying to handle it in a way that worked was challenging.

Another panic attack in this chapter, so be on the lookout for that. Also, content warning for blood in a non-violent situation, along with discussion of injuries previously sustained.

The corridor was an uproar, and I wasn’t hesitating to contribute to it. Conor’s voice was booming his objections as my sister tried to calm him down. Xiomara looked both apologetic and harried as I argued with her. Execution? Earth had abolished the death penalty decades ago, with the establishment of the Global Parliament; how could the rest of the Council even consider this?

She must have realized that there was no way to quiet us down until we said our piece, because Xiomara finally ushered us into the Council Chamber to stop the scene we were causing. Once the door closed behind us, she took a deep breath and ran her hand over her hair. “Mr. Mac Maoilir,” she pointed to a chair. “I will hear you out next, if you have any questions. No shouting, or you will be escorted from the room, immediately, do you understand me? You shouldn’t even be in here to begin with, so consider yourself extremely lucky.” Conor gave a tight nod and took the seat she indicated. She turned to me and her face softened slightly. “Sophia, please understand. We had no idea that Galactic Law uses this kind of penalty, not when we felt so enlightened for stopping the practice on Earth.”

“Then why are we going along with this?” I demanded. “I’m the person she tried to kill, and I’m the on objecting. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Give us a better solution,” Xiomara begged. I was taken aback; Xiomara Kalloe was a strong, proud warrior. She didn’t plead with anyone. “Talk through it all, pros and cons. If you find a solution, we will try to convince Miys to consider it.”

I exhaled, trying to gather my thoughts. “Can we imprison her?” Solitary confinement for life was the maximum penalty back on Earth, Before.

“If it was just her, yes,” Xiomara nodded. “But there is a total of fifteen people involved, and we don’t have the space to lock all of them up.”

“I can’t imagine how we would isolate them, anyway,” I muttered. “Making them share space would be dangerous, because then they could work together. Keep them sedated until we reach the colony?” I asked hopefully.

“And then what?” my sister spoke up. “Then they would be alive, able to sabotage our efforts to start over.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. “We can try to rehabilitate them, don’t you see that? Everyone deserves a chance to do this right. We’re supposed to be the ones worth saving! ‘Orderly, decisive, direct, practical’. That’s Arantxa. That’s why she’s here.”

“Yes, Sophia, that’s why she’s here,” Xiomara sighed and gestured to the room. “According to the testimony of the others involved, she was a Baconist. High-ranking.”

Baconist. The people who triggered the End, and turned our shining achievement of FTL travel into weapons of a slow apocalypse. Today seemed to be the day for my breath to desert me. “How high-ranking?” I whispered. When she didn’t respond, my temper had all it could take. “How high-ranking, Xiomara!?” I shouted, making everyone in the room flinch. I must have looked like a lunatic, and in that moment, I could not have possibly cared less. “She came in my home, worked by my side for months, heard all of our stories about surviving the world her fucking people created, and never even looked guilty. How high-ranking was that heartless bitch?” I spat. Any sympathy I ever had for Arantxa was gone with this new information.

“We only have hearsay from the others,” a calm voice interjected. Turning, I saw Grey approaching. “Sophia, I can understand that you are furious, and rightfully so. However, the stress is not good for your recovery.” They pointed at my nose and held out a cloth. I took it, only to discover that my nose was pouring blood. “Please, take a seat. Tyche, can you bring her some tea? I would, but I am not sure how she takes it and I trust you to know.” Gently, they maneuvered me into an empty seat. “To answer your question, the testimony of the others involved indicates that Ms. Bidarte is the highest-ranking member of their group on the Ark. If that information is correct, it is immaterial what power she held on Earth. Here and now, she is said to be their leader.” Tyche arrived with a mug of steaming tea, setting it on the table and rubbing my arm comfortingly. Grey handed me the mug as I moved the cloth away from my face. “The bleeding has slowed, that is good,” they smiled thinly. Their calm demeanor and matter-of-fact tone were working magic on my anger.

I grudgingly took a sip of the tea, before trying to get back to the original argument. “Execution, Grey? Are we really considering this?”

“She and the others tried to kill our hosts, and kill everyone on the Ark,” Grey stated. “She, personally, tried to kill you and came closer than I think you realize. Even with all the technology available, Miys was not entirely certain you would ever wake up.”

“Several people on board have killed,” I argued. “If we execute them all, I’m probably on that list.”

They only shook their head. “That was in self-defense, this was not in any way the same thing. We were trying to survive. They were trying to bring a complete end to humanity, the exact opposite of what the Ark is for.”

“We’ve had people in our history try the same thing,” I begged, a Hail-Mary if there ever was one. “We didn’t execute them.”

“Those people attacked ethnic groups, not the entirety of human kind,” Grey told me. “I’m certainly not saying one is worse than the other, but it excuses much in the eyes of history. Additionally, those who were imprisoned were old men, at the end of their lives. The majority were actually executed, whether it was in the attempts to stop them, apprehend them, or by their own hands. I believe, deep down, you know this makes logical sense, but you do not want to admit that.”

Dammit, they were right. Part of me wanted her dead, but not for her crimes. I wanted to see her punished for betraying me, my sister…Conor, especially. “We are supposed to be better than this,” I whispered, mostly referring to myself.

“The Hujylsogox will not fault us for following the same laws as they do,” Grey told me. “We will still go to our new home. Miys has been very worried about you, as much as they tried to hide it. They have also expressed feeling guilty for what has taken place, since they were the ones who approved everyone brought on board. We have been over the data they had on each person involved, and there is nothing to indicate that they had extremist views. In addition, only two are shown in the files to have even known each other Before.”

“I thought Noah vetted everyone before we were brought on board,” Conor ventured as he scooted over. Grey opened their mouth to say something, but he raised both hands defensively. “Tyche sedated me, cheeky thing, so no more yelling.” He pointed to a patch on his neck. Grey nodded, apparently satisfied. He continued, taking the gesture as permission. “If we were all vetted, including them, how did they manage to get on board the Ark?”

“No one believes they’re the bad guy,” I answered mournfully. “Think about it. Before everything happened, a lot of people agreed with what the Baconists were saying: why should a bunch of rich people who refused to stop climate change allowed to be the first people to run away from it? Hell, even I agreed with that part. That doesn’t mean I agreed with the methods, especially not what ended up happening. And we have pretty much no way to track what happened in the After, other than written records, and those are definitely not the most reliable sources. Noah definitely isn’t at fault on this one.” I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache coming on from all the emotional swings of the past few hours. “Okay, when does this trial actually start? The sooner it starts, the sooner it will be over with.”

“That’s it? You’re just going to go along with this?” Conor asked skeptically.

“The trial is happening, regardless of the punishment if she’s convicted,” I sighed. “Do I like the idea of executing them? No. And I honestly don’t think anyone in this room likes the idea. Xiomara definitely didn’t look she was on board. Eino comes from a country that hasn’t had a death penalty in over two hundred years, so I’m pretty sure he’s not on board with it either. Unfortunately, I can’t argue with Grey on the logical sense of it: those fifteen people tried to kill all of humanity. Not even for the first time, it turns out.” I blinked a few times as my eyes starting stinging. “This all just sucks.” I managed to choke out in a whisper.

He scooped me out of my chair and into his lap before I could protest, wrapping his arms around me like he had the night before. “Yeah, it does,” he agreed. “But if you say this makes sense, even if you don’t like it, I won’t make this harder on you. It’s bad enough as it is.”

I nodded weakly and sniffed several times before taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down. I couldn’t even muster the energy to be embarrassed by the display we were making. Finally, I calmed down enough to stand. Glancing over at Xiomara, I nodded. She gave me a weak smile and nodded back, understanding that I was ready to face this.

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#the miys #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #aliens #apocalypse #science fiction

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marinsawakening · 4 years

Text

hey anyone wants to hear about the MP100 Lieat AU that I’ve spent way too much time developing? No? Well too fucking bad here it is:

Reigen is the Theo equivalent, obviously. He’s a licensed private investigator who also happens to be a conman pretending to be a dragon with the ability to read minds travelling from town to town looking for money. One day, he wakes up and finds a dragon egg under his bed, and soon has to deal with actual dragon Mob looking up to him for guidance.

The power Reigen pretends to have is less telepathy and more empathy. He generally keeps his explanations vague enough that it’s hard for people to get a good grasp on the limitations of his ‘power’, making conning them easier, but in essence, he says he has the ability to read people’s emotions and intentions to a very high degree of accuracy. Which is true, it’s just not magic.

The wish Mob was born from was made when Reigen had been run out of town after being exposed as a con for like, the seventh time in a row, and he was pretty done with it, and it made him wish his lies could just disappear. Que Mob.

idk this is subject to change bc it should maybe be a Bit More Serious, but I’m not giving Reigen Theo’s tragic backstory so I’m not sure how to go about this yet.

Reigen generally doesn’t feel guilty when lying to people, which is why his lies don’t manifest for Mob. However, over the course of his time with Mob, he slowly started to feel more and more guilty for lying to him, but he suppresses it, letting everything build up inside him. This is obviously going to backfire sooner or later.

Mob is Efi, a young dragon (about a year and a half old) with the ability to eat lies. Although he is quite powerful, he has little control over his powers and dislikes fighting, so he attempts to use them at little as possible. Unfortunately, since he does need to eat, and since his abilities are very useful to Reigen, he still ends up using them quite a bit, but nevertheless, he’s still pretty small and functionally the equivalent of a human 14-year-old.

For a reason he doesn’t know, he can’t make Reigen’s lies manifest. This confuses him quite a bit, especially after figuring out that Reigen isn’t a dragon and therefore doesn’t have any magic to counteract him. It sort of worries him, but since this is his norm, he figures it might just be a limit of his power.

He knows Reigen isn’t a dragon and figured it out about three to six months into his existence. However, he hasn’t told Reigen that he knows.

In this AU, Mob’s tendency to suppress his emotions/emotionless exterior is because a) he’s autistic and has flat effect, b) he’s autistic and has alexithymia, and c) when he gets emotional his powers go haywire, which he’s scared of.

I’m not sure yet if ???% is a thing that exists in this AU, but if he does, he’s probably going to some kind of lie ooze monster.

I’m also thinking of maybe giving him an extra power, namely the power to control the lie monsters, since I feel like that would make him suitably overpowered.

Ritsu is a human(?) kid that Mob picked up after his first job. Ritsu’s parents were murdered, and Mob decided that he deserved good parents, and since Reigen is a good parent, Mob dragged Ritsu with him and Reigen really had no way of protesting.

The three of them travel through towns looking for work and solving mysteries, and I currently have about three to four arcs planned out, More details about those and Ritsu + some other characters in this AU under the cut.

About Ritsu:

The murder of Ritsu’s parents was the first real job of Mob and Reigen. Ritsu hired Reigen after learning he was supposedly a dragon, because the police weren’t making any progress in solving the murders. It worked out fine since Mob was able to make the killer’s lies manifest and get them caught. During the investigation him and Ritsu bonded and Mob forced Reigen to adopt Ritsu.

Ritsu hates Reigen’s guts, because he recognizes that the man is a con and is pretty livid at him for a) lying to Mob and b) taking up the investigation into Ritsu’s parents’ murders by getting Ritsu to hire him under false pretenses, which yes, that worked out fine, but only thanks to Mob; he could’ve easily gotten the wrong guy arrested just bc he didn’t want to fess up to his lies. In Ritsu’s eyes, Reigen is a selfish asshole with no regard for others using Mob for his own means. He stays with Reigen because he feels responsible for Mob, and also because he has literally nowhere else to go, though he won’t admit that last part.

Ritsu has something of an inferiority complex, believing he brings little to the family because of his lack of powers or even any special skills (like Reigen has), and overcompensates by being unnaturally polite and helpful.

This eventually leads to him subtly lying to Mob and Reigen about his feelings, but since it’s not something Ritsu admits to himself is a lie and it’s more a lie of omission than a real blatant lie anyway, this doesn’t really manifest as a monster and instead just becomes ooze. Ritsu can usually clean it up before anyone sees it, but even if they do, Mob can’t properly figure out what it is or where it came from, so nobody traces it to Ritsu, and so he continues to hide it.

This will eventually reach a breaking point where Ritsu is consumed by the ooze and Mob can’t really save him anymore because he has trouble eating the slippery oozy lies. Saving Ritsu required the combined efforts of Mob eating whatever lies he could and giving pep talks, and Reigen talking to Ritsu, for the first time admitting to him that yes, he lies to them as well, and that he has similar feelings of self hatred and understands what he’s going through, and that he’s sorry for not noticing what Ritsu was going through, and just generally being completely honest with Ritsu (and Mob) for the first time since meeting him.

This eventually leads Ritsu to the realization that he’s essentially doing the same as Reigen; hiding his true self because he’s afraid of what people will think of him, and instead using lies to entice people to stay, and this realization is what makes him understand that he can’t keep lying. He knows that Reigen’s way of living is unsustainable, so his must be as well. This realization is what’s needed to finally make him able to break away from the ooze, and have it properly manifest as lies, which Mob then eats.

This incident improves Ritsu’s relationship with Reigen. While he still doesn’t like him and has justifiable issues with the guy, he does understand him a little better now and sees him as a person rather than a 2D asshole, and makes him believe Reigen has the capacity for change.

Yes, this is probably going to be something of a combination of the ???% arc and the Big Clean Up arc.

Ritsu may or may not be a dragon. Everyone (including himself) is under the impression that he’s human, but I’m debating whether it’d be interesting if he later turned out to be a dragon, as a parallel to canon.

I also have the basic idea for the world domination arc, so have some characters:

Touichiriou. He is the captain of the police, a human presiding over the dragon department and many crime investigations. He was appointed because the higher ups wanted a human influence on the dragons. Unbeknownst to everyone, he’s still a dickhead bitch who is planning world domination, and he’s grooming the dragons in the department’s care to be his personal army. This eventually leads to this AU’s version of the World Domination Arc.

He and the family have quite a bit of run-ins, because Reigen & Co keep getting tangled up in crimes he’s investigating. He and Reigen do NOT get along, but since Reigen’s technically not committing any crimes, Touichirou doesn’t have an excuse to arrest him. That didn’t stop him from trying once, but Serizawa interfered and Reigen was free to go. Touichirou hasn’t tried it again, since that could attract serious attention, but boy oh howdy is he bad at disguising his hatred.

Touichirou realized pretty quickly after meeting Reigen that he wasn’t actually a dragon, because that’s not an act you can keep up for very long when people actually know a thing or two about dragons. Touichirou knows that Mob is a dragon and he wants him so bad. Mob is very powerful and his abilities could be extremely useful for someone who is planning to be a dictator. Unfortunately for him, everything points towards Reigen being a good caretaker of Mob, and since it’s department policy to not separate dragons from their humans if they don’t want to be separated and aren’t in danger, his hands are tied. It’s one of the primary reasons he hates Reigen so much, and why he tried to have him arrested.

Mob doesn’t really care much for Touichirou, but doesn’t necessarily think he’s a bad guy either, just thinks he’s kind of rude and very no nonsense. Ritsu is somewhat suspicious of him, first because Ritsu is suspicious of everyone, and later because he has more interaction with Shou, and although he doesn’t necessarily see any immediate reason to think Touichirou might be up to no good, having your best friend tell you to keep your brother away from his ‘father’ is not something you forget. Ritsu does not tell Reigen or Mob about this, because he doesn’t want Mob to worry, and because he trusts Reigen about as far as he can throw him.

Serizawa is a dragon who is nominally Touichirou’s second in command/co-captain, like Brett is to Neil, but in practice, he defers to Touichirou entirely. He is a lot like his Claw self, and is being manipulated by Touichirou.

Serizawa was taken out of the care of his human pretty much as soon as he was born, as his human was scared of his power and kept him locked up in a small room, and called the police to pick him up as soon as she realized she didn’t know what to do with him. He was one of the first dragons placed under Touichirou’s care, and has latched onto him because he had no one else.

He’s being manipulated, obviously, but doesn’t really realize that the way Touichirou treats him isn’t normal, since he spent so much of his life around him and no one else. He’s slowly starting to suspect something might be wrong after seeing how Reigen treats Mob (i.e. just like a human being), but he’s deep in denial.

Serizawa’s power is energy manipulation; he can manipulate energies electricity and warmth to form ‘barriers’ that basically roast whatever comes through and attack people with explosions of power or targeted electrocution/overheating. He was most likely born out of a wish to get electricity to become warm, after the electricity in his human’s house stopped working during a snowstorm.

He’s about five years old in literal years, but about the equivalent of a 30-year-old human, since he’s used his powers quite a lot.

Serizawa and Reigen befriend each other, though Serizawa tries to pretend this isn’t true because Touichirou would murder him. However, they get along very well, and Reigen tries to tell Serizawa to get some self esteem and not let Touichirou treat him like shit, but Reigen doesn’t really realize what’s actually going on and it really doesn’t work for that reason.

Eventually, during the final battle, he’ll turn on Touichirou to save a bunch of the kid dragons (the Awakening Lab kids) in the department’s care, who would’ve otherwise died from overexerting their powers. He takes over Touichirou’s place at the force, afterwards, and slowly grows into his own.

Shou is a dragon born out of Touichirou’s wish to have someone who would be capable of doing all the sneaky things Touichirou himself can’t do. He has the power of invisibility as a result, and Touichirou frequently sends him on ‘errands’ that are mainly just missions to steal stuff or infiltrate something or another to get information. He’s working to take Touichirou down.

Shou is still very young, only about six months old, but has grown almost as much as Mob has due to his very frequent use of his power. In fact, he uses it so frequently, he’s permanently of the verge of overusing it, and he’s always in danger of dying of it. He’s not planning on stopping anytime soon though, not until he’s taken Touichirou down.

It took Shou about three months to realize what a douchebag Touichirou was, mainly because Shou read some of the comics lying around for the young dragons, and realized that the people who try to take over the world are usually not the good guys.

Because Shou’s moral system mainly comes from comic books, it’s very black and white, and very oversimplified. He realizes murder is bad, but doesn’t quite understand why, so he even though he doesn’t kill, he still frequently goes too far à la the Kageyama House Fire. He thinks his father is the ultimate evil, and because Shou opposes him, he must be a hero. This mindset doesn’t lend itself to more complex understandings of morality, but that’s to be expected, growing up with a dad like that. It’s kind of a miracle his moral compass is this good.

Shou met the family not long after realizing his dad was a bitch, and immediately related to Ritsu, because Ritsu was complaining about having to deal with a parental figure who lies and manipulates him and his brother and uses him and his brother for his own gain, and Shou immediately went “!!!! same hat!” This led him to project his own negative emotions towards his father onto Reigen, which hasn’t been conductive towards their relationship. He gets along okay with Mob, but frequently gets annoyed with him because, in his eyes, he’s incapable of seeing how Reigen uses him and it reminds him of Serizawa.

Doesn’t like Serizawa, because he’s annoyed by his yes man attitude, and doesn’t really understand that some people react to abuse and manipulation differently than he does.

Shou spends a lot of time sowing the seeds of unrest and rebellion within the dragon police. That’s how he met Fukuda, Higashi, and Ootsuki in this AU; they’re dragon officers who agreed to work with Shou.

One of the main reasons Reigen hates and distrusts Touichirou (aside from clashing personalities and the whole getting arrested thing) is that Reigen is aggressively not on board with the way he treats Shou. While Touichirou obviously doesn’t let people know that Shou does spy stuff, he does frequently bring Shou along with investigations and has him work for the police, and it’s clear that he doesn’t see him as a kid, but rather as an employee at best and a tool at worst. Mob and Ritsu don’t really pick up on how wrong it is, because they’re kids and they have some difficulty grasping the nuances in this situation, but Reigen, as an adult, can see how Touichirou treats Shou completely inappropriately for a child, and he’s Not Having It.

He suspects that Touichirou may actually be abusive and not just a dickhead, but he doesn’t have any evidence, and since the way he treats Shou isn’t illegal or anything (and even if it was, what’s he gonna do? call the police?), his hands are tied. He does try to get Shou to talk to him, subtly trying to figure out exactly how far Touichirou’s dickishness goes, but Shou trusts him about as far as he can throw him and is unresponsive.

A large part of his arc is going to be learning to be a kid and recovering from everything. It’s mostly going to take place after Touichirou’s defeat, though it starts during it, when Reigen jumps into the fight to try and kick Touichirou’s ass in his place because he doesn’t these fucking kids fighting, damnit. That was a moment of revelation for him, pretty much, and his opinion of Reigen approves afterwards, and so he agrees to travel with him, Mob, and Ritsu.

(Obviously the kicking-ass-thing doesn’t go all that well, and Serizawa and maybe Mob have to jump in to help him, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.)

#mp100 #lieat #as you can see it's still under construction but i love it already #my posts

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

Text

4.03, In The Beginning. Which is actually either before or after the actual beginning, depending on where in the timeline you're actaully starting from... gah, time travel.

I'm gonna start with a trip to the past *harp music and wiggly wipe effect*, to stuff I've already posted about this episode on my blog:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/183244379115/mittensmorgul-watching-403-and-404-between

and

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177781012780/hi-mittens-i-rewatched-the-episode-where-the

That second post is from before s14 even began airing, and it feels even more relevant now, with regard to how TFW have only slowly begun to understand the Bigger Cosmic Picture as the story unfolded.

And this episode in itself was an exposition in a smaller scale version of the entire season (and honestly, metaphorically the entire series now) and the long con manipulation Heaven and Hell conspired against TFW:

In the beginning (lol irony much)

CASTIEL: Listen to me. You have to stop it. DEAN: Stop what?

in the middle:

CASTIEL: Time is fluid, Dean. It's not easy, but we can bend it on occasion. DEAN: Well bend it back or tell me what the hell I'm doing here! CASTIEL: I told you, you have to stop it. DEAN: Stop what? Huh? What, is there something nasty after my Dad? DEAN turns as a car horn sounds. When he turns back, CASTIEL is gone. DEAN: Oh, come on! What, are you allergic to straight answers, you son of a bitch?!

(the problem is Cas doesn't yet have any answers, only orders...)

also in the middle, in a painfully different context from a painfully different source as Dean struggles to understand what's even happening:

DEAN: No... There been any cattle mutilations in town recently? JOHN: Okay, mister! Stop it. DEAN: Yeah, if only I knew what to stop. Listen, uh – watch out for yourself okay?

a bit later, after Dean's decided that he's figured out what it might be that he needs to stop, only it doesn't work out like he hoped, no matter what he did he couldn't change the course of events:

SAMUEL: You seem like a really nice kid, Dean, but yeah, you're crazy. DEAN: Yeah, maybe, but I know where this bastard's gonna be, and I'm gonna stop it, once and for all.

Cas confronts him about this, delivering a lesson about the inevitability of destiny through a fixed point in the past that Dean is powerless to change:

CASTIEL: You realize, if you do alter the future, your father, you, Sam – you'll never become hunters. And all those people you saved, they'll die. DEAN: I realize. CASTIEL: And you don't care? DEAN: Oh, I care. I care a lot, but these are my parents. I'm not gonna let them die again. I can't. No, not if I can stop it.

and then in the end:

DEAN: I couldn't stop any of it. She still made the deal. She still died in the nursery, didn't she? CASTIEL: Don't be too hard on yourself. You couldn't have stopped it. DEAN: What? CASTIEL: Destiny can't be changed, Dean. All roads lead to the same destination.

And isn't that grim in the larger context?

The fact that Sam was effectively absent from this entire episode, off secretly doing secret things with Ruby, is even more painful with the revelations Dean learns from Azazel-as-his-grandfather in the past. The knowledge that Azazel had a bigger endgame plan than even he knew about, and that he'd been in Sam's nursery specifically to bleed into his mouth, only opens up more questions that inadvertently make Dean even more suspicious of what Sam is actually up to now.

The narrative even gives us these clues to the bigger picture, only some of which we already have answers for but which act like keys to unlocking the rest of the Bigger Picture Scheme happening within s4 as a whole. Namely, Dean's absolute certainty in his confrontation with Azazel:

DEAN: End game? What end game? YED: Like I'm gonna tell you, or those angels sitting on your shoulder. No, I'm gonna cover my tracks good. DEAN: You can cover whatever the hell you want, but I'm still gonna kill you. YED: Right. Now that, I'd like to see. DEAN: Maybe not today, but you look into my eyes, you son of a bitch, ‘cause I'm the one that kills you.

Because we already know this is an absolute truth. We've seen it happen in 2.22. Dean is the one that kills him, no matter how much Azazel scoffs at Dean's certainty about this. Dean knows a thing that the YED doesn't. And we know it too. We can see his ending from the beginning, and round and round it goes.

In the beginning, the universe was intent on convincing Dean that his destiny had been set in motion long before he was born, and that Heaven was only there to helpfully guide him through accepting his role in this larger picture that he hasn't even begun to understand yet. And Cas? Even Cas doesn't understand yet just how much his firm belief in this destiny is also a manipulation, subterfuge to keep him doing his job. And he hasn't even begun to question his orders yet. Give him a few episodes. He'll get there. After all, this is just the beginning.

(and the end, ironically, in the fashion of All Along The Watchtower, where all of this has happened before, but will all of this have to happen again?)

#spn 4.03 #s14 hellatus rewatch #it's spirals all the way down #that's what free will is #spiders georg of the tnt loop

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naevaliaakster · 5 years

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( cisfemale ) haven’t seen NAEVA LI AAKSTER around in a while. the NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO lookalike has been known to be (+) ORGANIZED & (+) RELIABLE, but SHE can also be (-) UNFORGIVING & (-) IMPULSIVE. The 21 year old is a JUNIOR majoring in ARCHAEOLOGY. I believe they’re living in POTENTAS. but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( pepper. twenty three. est. she/her. )

hello folks, it me, back again, to give you a bit of insight into my girl. down bellow will be some facts on facts on facts, and once again please smack that like button and i will teleport into your dms. before i forget here is her pinterest board.

naeva is eva’s god sister. their parents met in university and were pretty much inseparable since, so eva and naeva grew up together despite the fact that naeva was just a smidge bit older. naeva’s parents are also well known writers, but they’re also both therapists, which means, you guessed it folks, naeva has pretty much spent her whole life under a microscope. was psychoanalyzed at the dinner table yk what i mean.

naeva was also her parents only child so all their energy and overbearing tendencies were focused on her. naeva couldn’t so much as breath without one of the two trying to comment on it, they would go through her things as she got older, ask borderline invasive questions about her personal life. there was really no boundaries, and it was a stifling environment but it was really all she knew.

growing up naeva and eva were two peas in a pod. they did everything together. dance classes, halloween, back to school shopping, dress up. they had more play dates together than they could count, but when they played house eva was always the beautiful wife and mother and naeva was always the family dog yk? they were never truly equal, and naeva knew it, her parents knew it. eva was the leader, and naeva was the follower, although she never quite understood how she fell into that position.

later in life naeva would escape a lot from her parents, and she tended to do that with eva. they would take road trips to france or germany or honestly anywhere that wasn’t their home. the two were pretty much a package deal, and they told each other everything growing up. or well, naeva told eva everything. she had no way of knowing what eva was hiding from her.

on these trips they would get pretty Wildt. they were basically unsupervised so they would do whatever they wanted, so drinking partying, seducing boys (and girls) all that fun stuff. they’d tell a lot of lies, pretend to be people they weren’t, con dumb older men and tourists just for shits and giggles. you know. just girly things.

eva honestly wasn’t always the nicest to naeva either? she was kind of the karen to eva’s regina yk, like always kind of living in her shadow, kind of blindly and naively following her. naeva loved her like a sister though so she tried to look passed eva’s nasty comments or sharp demeanor, tried to ignore it or downplay it because she knew she had good heart underneath. it worked for years. until it didn’t.

when naeva was sixteen her parents got a book deal and they had a big party for it. naeva didn’t know what the book was about, but her parents hadn’t written something together in about two decades so she understood the fanfare. but she was completely blindsided when she found out the novel was about her.

it was basically a novel surrounding parenting her, psychoanalyzing her behavior and her upbringing, like naeva was nothing but an experiment. naeva was horrified and made a big scene at the party forbidding her parents from publishing it, but they refused. told her that this wasn’t about her, and that she was just being dramatic, and besides the book was already being printed so there was nothing she could do about it. naeva never felt so violated in her life.

after the book was published naeva was completely humiliated. it skyrocketed in success, even being put on the book list for some universities for developmental psychology classes. naeva tried to stay inside and stay away from anybody who knew the last name ‘li aakster’ and could connect this whole thing to her. during that time she leaned on eva, who supported her during the event.

however later naeva ended up overhearing eva ripping her apart to her friends, discussing the novel and fact checking it with the personal things she knew about naeva. naeva confronted her and this really put a rift in their relationship, because eva really showed no remorse.

understandably after this naeva’s relationship with both eva and her parents was Rocky as Hell. the of the closest people to her had completely broken her trust, and so she made their lives as miserable as she could until it got to the point that they had to send her away to boarding school (location flexible. could have been in the states 👀) . she stayed there for two years before returning home after graduation, still hurt and angry but colder with time.

it’s because of their rocky past that she picked eva’s name. she regrets it now. at the time with how angry and hurt and betrayed she still felt, she just wanted eva to feel the same humiliation she did. but she didn’t want her to be hurt, or scared, or whatever the hell the person who runs this app is doing to her. she hasn’t told a soul that she picked her, but god does she wish she could take it back.

HEADCANNONS/PERSONALITY

trust issues, daddy issues, mommy issues, issues issues.

naeva originally got into the hendrix psychology program, but that reminded her too much of her parents so she changed it. for a second she was in the photography program, but again she ended up changing it. now she’s in archaeology and she already wants to change it tbh. thinking of switching to paleontology, because at the moment she’s toying with the idea of being a museum curator.

has a lot of issues with her identity? she trailed behind eva for so long, and then her parents exploited her identity for money, and now she just isn’t really sure who she is as a person, hence changing her major every thirty seconds. also very insecure deep down but that’s a whole other thing. very self critical.

since she’s such a mess, she tries to control external factors? her dorm room is always pretty much spotless, she can be kind of a mom friend, she can occasionally meddle to try to fix things. the type to give advice despite the fact that she has no idea what she’s doing with her life.

the biggest sweet tooth. sugar is a coping mechanism. humour is too.

knows how to speak dutch, mandarin (has some trouble writing in it though), english, and some conversational french and german from her travels.

alcohol and drugs and partying as a coping mechanism when she’s upset??? more likely than you think!

still kind of wants to leave the country whenever she feels stifled tbh sdkdsksdkj a big travel bug though so there’s also that

doesn’t drive, bikes everywhere tbh, this bitch is a friend of the environment.

a photography hoe tbh. takes lots of pics of her travels but pretty much burned or ripped up most of the ones with eva in them when she was sixteen. only a few were spared.

was convinced this whole watershed thing was some sort of fucked up prank until recently. now she’s paranoid as all hell.

WANTED CONNECTIONS omg listen,,, fuck me up

EXES: like i said, naeva’s got hella trust issues so things probably didn’t go the best but give me this

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS: people she grew up with outside of eva? again fuck me up

FRIENDS FROM BOARDING SCHOOL: like,,, i said 👀 location flexible

PEOPLE SHE AND EVA FUCKED OVER: let naeva’s dark mean girl’s henchman past come back to haunt her... fuck her up

FWB/EWB: realistically the only commitment she could make

ONE NIGHT STANDS/HOOKUPS: wink wonk.

PEOPLE SHE MET ON HER TRAVELS: she may have dkjdk messed with them or fucked them over in the past, or they might know her by a different name because she lied to them and told them she was arabella finch a competitive gymnast from dubai, but we can deal with that.

BAD INFLUENCES: someone who eggs her on when she’s getting Wildt. or someone SHE eggs on when they’re getting Wildt.

GOOD INFLUENCE: someone who naeva gives unsolicited advice to who actually takes it? and is better for it? wild. or someone who’s trying to help her be better would also be wild.

EX-FRIENDS: naeva has a particularly hard time trusting friendships since eva, so she definitely would have been the one to self sabotage this.

SOMEONE SHE TAKES CARE OF: honestly they might hate it. or it might be useful. naeva, honestly, probably isn’t doing it for them, she’s the girl who tends to be in the bathroom holding stangers hair you know.

PARTY FRIENDS: this honestly also suits naeva tbh, but someone she only gets along with drunk or who parties with her would be Ace friends

anything and everything else folks. my brain is unfortunately Fried, but i am coming around to love on you all and plot now i promise <3

#water:intro #??? i don't think there are any triggers in this ???#wowowow #wild #alright now i'm coming around for all the plots uwu love me

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go-through-me · 5 years

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My OCs

I've been thinking about sharing some original writing on this blog!! I have many characters that I particularly like to whump, but I'm planning to share the ones not associated with the novel I'm writing. Here's an introduction to the main three! Just for context: this is a fantasy setting, in a vaguely DnD-esque world, where magic is present but illegal.

Yara is a witch in her late teens/early twenties. She's had a fairly shit life so far-- she grew up in a small village, where the only other person who knew she had magic was her mother. When her father found out, he alerted the king’s guard, which raided the village and slaughtered everyone but Yara. Her mother had hidden her inside a well, which filled up very quickly with corpses. As a result, Yara is terrified of blood and tight spaces. She's eked out a living on the streets by hiring herself out as a mercenary, which has had the incidental effect of honing her skills with magic. She’s tough, smart, and sarcastic, far more willing to conceal than reveal. She buries any sort of vulnerability between fifteen different personalities and facades, and she was perfectly okay with being lonely, mistrusted, and safe until she met two assholes who actually seem to like her and who would probably get themselves killed without her help. She’s the POV character of the three.

Nix is what I call a naturalist (power over the natural elements) in his late teens/early twenties. He was born in a poor family in a large city, and he and his sister were sold into an apprenticeship so that their parents could afford to care for their older siblings. He and his sister, who was very protective of him, managed to scrape through and were approaching something like an actual life when a plague hit their city. Nix managed to avoid the worst of it for himself, but he was forced to watch his sister die in agony. Mourning and bitter, Nix ran away and carved out a life for himself as a thief and con. He’s very clever and charismatic, with a sharp eye and a manipulative tongue, but he’s also lonely, vulnerable, and grieving. He finds comfort in his connection with the natural world and in his two best friends.

Mai is a fighter in his late teens/early twenties. I’m still figuring out his backstory, but he’s estranged from his wealthy family for some reason. Like Yara, he’s also taken to work as a mercenary and hired hand because of his skill with a sword. He hasn’t had much in his life to anchor himself, so he’s been lonely for the majority of his life. Despite this, he is the most willing of the three to believe that there is good in the world. He’s a bit abrasive, mainly because he’s awkward and bad at socialization but also because he’s far more intense and serious than the others. He’s practical and willing to put in the work for survival, and he’s fiercely protective of those he loves.

The three of them were hired for a job together but discover very quickly that they’re a bitching team. They stick together, traveling across the kingdom and raising hell, before they discover a secret school of magic and end up working there. They eventually discover that the three of them are reincarnations of the three aspects of the Moon: magic (Yara), nature (Nix), and spirit (Mai) and therefore are very powerful. This also means that they’re kind of siblings. There’s a LOT of lore that I have in mind for this world, which probably isn’t too relevant here. What IS relevant is that I really enjoy hurting these characters to make them work through their feelings and trauma and that the three of them love each other. Also, vaguely related, but they’re all queer (Yara is a lesbian, Nix is aromantic and asexual, and Mai is pansexual and trans).

That’s most of what I have for them (but there most certainly is more where that came from). I have some whump already written that I’m thinking about posting, but it required some context. Hopefully I’ll work up the courage to do so soon. Please let me know if you like my dumb asshole children! I love them and they love each other and I love stabbing them.

#ocs #my ocs #not whump #pls let me know if y'all want to read more about them!#i love them so much #rogues #(my tag for the three of them bc they're all assholes)#(also that's the name of my playlist)#(i have many playlists)

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sarahboseman · 6 years

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WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT (PART 6)

CHADWICK BOSEMAN X READER

PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4 - PART 5

WORD COUNT: 3400

WARNING : None

TAGLIST:

@greenswishbish @royallyprincesslilly @captiansaveasmut@sisterwifeudaku @wakandanmoonchild @tchallaswife @kumkaniudaku @airis-paris14 @ashanti-notthesinger @brianabreeze @zforzathura @90sinspiredgirl@imgabbyrae @wakandanblogger @wakandawinning@heyauntieeee @brownsugarcocoabutterwildflowers @sarahboseman@skysynclair19 @angieswonderfulworld @ljstraightnochaser@mermaidchansons @qweentbh @zxddy-panther @stressedgyal@bubbleboss17 @ovohanna24 @autumn242 @starsshines-blog @wakandankings @blue-ishx @yaachtynoboat711 @texasbama@maverickabull @leahnicole1219 @fireboltrose7559 @savagemickey03@jecourt @deliciousstreetkidcroissant @inlovewith3

I HOPE THE TAGS WORK!!! LET ME KNOW PLEASE! Reblog if you like it ❤❤❤

********************

"Anything else Miss?"

"No, thank you so much, I’m good"

"Do I mark your order at your room?"

"Of course, thank you"

The waiter supports your order on the table and after greeting you with an unusual Greek accent, he leaves you alone in your contemplation. Lying belly up on the beach chair, facing the sea following the right angle of the sun, you continue to stare at the screen of your phone.

You knew he was going to write, you knew that the picture returned to its place meant something and after all, maybe you knew it wasn’t him who blocked you.

- "I apologize, I ruined everything this time, I lost you again and it’s my fault now… Always yours - Chad”

You keep re-reading his text to which you haven’t answered yet and you don’t even know if you'll answer. Surely he’s noticed you’ve read it and may be he’s waiting for an answer, or maybe not.

"Always yours ... always yours ..."

This whole story seems like a never-ending misunderstanding, there’s not a thing going into place, there’s nothing seems to be clear, nothing right. Everything seems fighting the current and seems to say "It's not your time” It's all a series of misunderstood events just because one of you thinks something that is not what the other thinks or that corresponds to the truth.

Will this ever end?

But mostly ... do you still want all this?

What do you want?

Do you want to clear up again or leave everything the way it is and try to forget?

It’s the fifth time today you find yourself asking the same questions and the same reasoning, you’ve also opened your agenda and while sunbathing lying on the beach, you wrote a list of pros and cons, and another list about what it could happen or not, if you respond to that message or not. You know these are thoughts left to the wind, but writing these lists gives you security. As if you had your life in your hand a little more.

But everywhere on your lists, when you asked: Do u miss him? Would you like to have him with u right now? Would you like to talk to him? The answer is always YES.

If it weren’t this mess of feelings holding you tied to him so much, you wouldn't think twice, you'd already forget him. If only you wouldn't have met him at the club that night in February, most likely you would now be really with someone else. But unfortunately it’s not like that.

Maybe Chad was right when he naively told you on the phone, "If only I hadn’t seen you the other night, maybe it was better for both of us”.

But neither of both of you really believes at this mental process.

Everything around you is wonderful, 12 days have already passed since you arrived in Greece, now you’re in Mikonos, which is really beautiful, another wonderful island with a thousand things to see, crystal clear sea to die for, colors that envy the most famous abstract painter.

Gorgeous people, fantastic food. Your skin is darker, caramelized, more tanned, smoother and softer, the dark circles under your eyes are finally gone and you're definitely more relaxed. You made a lot of friends, meet a lot of people, you had fun, you ate, drank, meditated, but tomorrow it's time to leave again, in fact you're packing for the third time.

Your itinerary includes departure tomorrow from Athens in the direction of Malé-Maldives, almost 11 hours of flight with only a change. But you're sure it’ll be worth it, you can’t wait, you're very thrilled and your stay will definitely be longer. Heaven awaits you.

You haven’t answered to Boseman's message yet and curiosity is eating you alive. As a diary you keep posting beautiful pictures of your trip on your whatsapp story, where you noticed he punctually checks and displays, but obviously he doesn’t dares to write you. You took it as a regular appointment: you post your picture and he checks where you are. You know he's waiting for your answer.

DOHA - QATAR Hamad International Airport

Your change lasts just over an hour and you take the opportunity to make a little tour of the airport, you turn on your phone and tell Mom and Aisha that everything goes according to your plans, you landed halfway through your journey and everything is more than fine.

Aisha is the first to answer you, she has been with you for all your stay in Greece, even if only virtually and from a distance. She’s like a sister with whom you always share everything, but you don’t know why you omitted Chadwick's message and all your fucking thoughts, you kept all for you ...

Maybe because you know she’s a little bit biased, maybe a little bit pushy in some situations and of course with her temperament she would have prompted you to respond immediately. You understand you need your time and you have to follow what your instinct tells you.

You’re sitting at the gate with your book on your legs, open for too long on the same page. You’re waiting anxiously to embark and finally fly to your destination, when you suddenly grab your phone and reply to that message with no hesitation.

- “Do not ask me why I didn’t answer until now. Do not ask me thousand questions. Perhaps I knew that it wasn’t you who blocked me, but I don’t know what to do with your apologies now… This whole story is a huge misunderstanding, maybe you're right, it's not our time yet. I hope however your vacation in Jamaica was amazing …”

Ooooooh yes, because you follow his instagram profile, but also the tag #ChadwickBoseman and you saw some pictures of his holiday last month …

You wrote that text without thinking a lot, you wrote what your mind and heart was suggesting at that moment, maybe a little bit too challenging in two points, but you don’t care, because what you want is perhaps start a conversation, and see his reactions. You want to capture information and satisfy the curiosity you've had for two weeks straight.

You know that, sooner or later, you would have replied to that message, you can’t let things end once again with a misunderstanding and then … you tremendously want to hear him.

It can sound very stupid, naive and surely now you look like a confused woman who isn’t strong enough and doesn’t know what she wants. But you actually know what you want, you know what and who you want in your life since that February night, maybe you're just too coward to admit it. After all you’re human and human beings are very imperfect, too complicated.

But you can admit one thing, however, what they’ve told you until now is true, "you don’t look like yourself, I've never seen you like this before ..." it's true, it’s damn true, you know it's not you and you have to fix this situation in some way to finally get back to yourself. With or without him in your life, but still yourself. This story has been too buried deep in your heart and soul, somehow you have to fix it.

Actually, it could have already been resolved in February, when he left your house, but unconsciously you both knew it wasn’t the way you wanted your story to be solved. Then if we also want to talk about the messages and the sexy phone call ... A very big mess.

It's time to embark, but Chad hasn’t viewed the message yet and hasn’t replied. With the hope that that bitch doesn’t block you again and with the hope that maybe she’s not even with him anymore. You turn off your phone … another six hours of flight await you.

“Welcome to Paradise” was the wording written on the brochure the travel agency had issued to you after your booking for the resort in the Maldives and it can’t be more correct than that. It’s really a paradise. It’s evening and you’ve just arrived in your “room”, if you can call it that, it’s practically a duplex apartment with swimming pool and with direct access to the beautiful beach. It’s about 10 minutes you’re walking back and forth gaping, dragging your bag behind you, to see if it's all a dream or a really existing place.

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ ... Your phone is buzzing in the pocket of your shorts, your telephone operator has synchronized and also your messages and missed calls too.

"Are you sure you want to wait for Bora Bora?"

You don’t even check all the incoming messages and you write quickly to Aisha, who answers you immediately since the time zone is not so much, only 4 hours.

“Damn Girl! I’M COMING! ... Indeed, no, I forgot that I AM AT WORK ... "

You burst out laughing when she sends you a picture of a stuck of files you immediately recognize.

"How was your trip sis? Everything good?"

After a brief exchange of messages with your best friend, and after having also reassured your family that everything is ok and you’re safe, you check the rest of the incoming messages and ... here they are, his answers. You get anxious even before you read them. You feel your heart in your throat, you have a strange fear and you don’t know why, and you haven’t read anything yet!!

You sit on the sand, in front of the umpteenth lonely sunset of your journey, sink your feet into the warm, fine white sand and read.

- "I won’t ask you a thousand questions, you have every right to be upset and take your time to answer me, if you want. Thank you for doing it, I was afraid of losing you and you would never answer. I can’t even tell you what to do with my apologies, I only hope you will accept them again trying to understand this fucking mad situation"

- "I have no idea where you are now, it's been a while since you're online, I hope you're fine. I'd like to hear you, to hear your voice”

- "I'm trying to fix my life, take some wise decisions, I took a break from everything. I finished the press tour and several work commitments, I don’t want to hear about anything for some time, I really need to rest and clarify some things"

- "And anyway my vacation in Jamaica was a complete shit"

- “On the other hand your holiday seems like a dream ... I'm just wondering who you're sharing with, but I'm also afraid to want to know it"

After having finished reading his texts sent a few minutes away from each other, your anxiety disappears and read the last messages with a slight smile, especially when he tells you his vacation was a complete shit …

He’s online.

With no hesitation you take a picture of the stunning landscape in front of you and send it to him

-“Yes, my holiday is really a dream”

Immediately Chadwick displays your message and it's like you can hear him smiling telling you’re a bitch.

- "Lucky the one who can see that wonder with you"

You don’t know what to answer, it's obvious that he thinks you're with someone or, better, it's obvious that he wants you to confirm you're not with a man. You know him, he's smart and he certainly knows how to do his turns of words to get the information he wants.

- "I've missed you, I don’t know where to begin to apologize, I don’t want to be too much talkative and then say something stupid" he writes you

- "Maybe you can start by telling me about the invasion of privacy …”

- "Let's start by telling you that after discovering the invasion of privacy I feel better, I'm alone, but free"

- "I read that you're trying to fix some things and make decisions"

- "In fact, I took one and I think it's the right one. She had crossed every limit in every aspect of our relationship, but blocking you taking my phone secretly, was the last straw. I flipped out when I discovered it. I was convinced you had disappeared again ... forgive me, again if you can.”

- "I'm not going to be here talking about your girlfriend Chadwick, really"

- "Ex Girlfriend …"

He will also be good at talking, but you’re also good when you want immediate confirmation.

- "Can we start all over again? Without equivocal, without misunderstandings, can we pretend that the last thing that happened is that phone call that I still dream at night?"

You sigh to that message, you decide to follow your instinct and the desire you have of him, not only the physical desire, but the desire to get him back in your life, in whatever way it is.

- “Of course we can, but I don’t want to hurt Chad"

- "And I don’t want to do it"

- "Ok ..."

- "Where are you now? The place looks breathtaking, seems you’re on a long journey”

- "Maldives"

- “... of course your holiday is a marvel. Do you stop a lot?"

- “My boss has forced me to two months of holidays, so I'll stay here about 3 weeks"

- "Forced holidays ... Is that what they’re calling? You’re doing right by the way"

- "I swear, I was skeptical at first. Only at the beginning, now I get off on it, actually, let’s be honest”

Silence for a few minutes, in the meantime you re-enter your bungalow.

- "Since you said we can start again from that night … we can tell you’re not on holiday with your new boyfriend …”

- "And you deduce it from what? I said we can resume from that phone call, but I didn't specify how ... "

You think you blew him away with your answer, but you really didn’t want to be bitchy, apart from his "ok" he didn’t write anything to you and you didn’t write him for a whole day, that compared to his 5 months, it's nothing.

Although you want him to die for that if he asked you, you would leave tomorrow to see him, you're still a bit proud and then you stay in your silence.

02.40 A.M Two days after your arrival

- “Just for the record, I'm on holiday alone, completely alone. No friend, no sister, no boyfriend no man or men”

You totally drank too muck at the beach party, you were at the bar talking with two girls you met at the resort, they’re American just like you, and you let yourself go.

You danced, you drank (a lot) and you had a lot of fun. So now that you’re writing to him you’re not very present with your mind, in fact, you’re very tipsy. And you know that when you're feeling like that, you can say things you know you could regret.

- "Well ... and to what do I owe the pleasure of this confession?" His answer is not long in coming.

- "Nothing, it's just the information you wanted. By the way, another good information for you, I’m half naked in the pool under the stars"

- “Y/N … baby … come on, seriously?” He writes to you laughing

- "I'm veeeeery serious”

- “I'd pay gold to see you now" Of course he didn’t understand you're drunk, he has no clue.

You take a selfie a little naughty and you send it with no hesitation.

- "Jesus Christ Y/N"

- “Do you want me maybe?"

He doesn’t answer immediately, he doesn’t understand your sudden shamelessness, but he doesn’t complain. He’s a man after all. A man still very interested in you.

- "Yes, I want you, I would like to have you now"

- "And then join me, come and get me”

You laugh placing you phone on the edge of the pool forgetting it completely. With the last remaining strength you have and laughing like a fool, drunk like you don't remember ever being, you get out of the water, dry yourself and throw yourself in bed, knowing that tomorrow morning you’ll have an huge headache.

2 DAYS AFTER 7.15 P.M Local time

"It was more than beautiful, to be redone, surely" You say goodbye to the group of friends coming down the off-road

"See you Y/N, we'll see you around. Next time we take you to see the sharks” One of the instructors tells you

"No thanks, I willingly pass"

"If you don’t have any other programs, see you for dinner later?" Leslie says, one of the girls known at the Resort

"Absolutely, I'm going to take a shower and change, see you at dinner"

Before going to your place, you greet the group of guys with whom you went for an excursion. You had never snorkeled before, it was a spectacular experience.

By now you’ve met many people, the resort is not really big, and so you made friends at least with everyone. You’re a person who may seem shy at first, but only because you’re used to studying people around you, then you melt and you’re very very company.

Coming back inside the Resort and passing through the reception, you notice a unusual crowding. People whispering, excited girls hugging themselves "was he really?" "YEAH, I can’t believe it, he’s so beautiful"

You don’t understand, so you approach the reception, greetings and curiously asking what is going on

"Good evening Miss, how was the excursion?" One of the boys on duty at the reception asks you.

“Amazing! Thank you very much for the advice, I will definitely do it again. Wonderful. But what’s happening? There’s a big crowd outside"

"Actually, something a little unexpected, this afternoon that actor who was in that good movie arrived ... Mrs Padma what's the name of that film your daughter watches twice a day?"

"What movie? Oh hello Miss Y/N!” She greets you very gently.

"That movie she also saw last night for the umpteenth time"

"Black Panther"

All the tools, flippers, mask, bag, sunglasses fall off your hands.

"Sorry? Who ... who arrived?” You ask the guy, you're stuttering.

"ooooh you like that actor too? How to blame you honey, but I never remember what his name is” The owner Mrs Padma says turning to you with a sympathetic, almost maternal smile.

"Boseman?? Chadwick Boseman"

"Yes, HIM!! Sorry but I'm a disaster with names”

You feel your heart pounding in your chest, you start to sweat even though the air conditioning comes out frozen. Your hands and legs are shaking.

You haven’t heard about him for three days, you've spent your days avoiding being constantly on the phone with him and now the kind lady is telling you that Chadwick is there somewhere in the Resort.

“Y/N? Y/N? You’re all right dear? You must like this actor so much darling, if you want I can tell you where he is now“ she says smiling

"No ... I don’t know if I want to"

"Come on, he's somewhere signing some autographs. He asked for some privacy and of course those who don’t stay here can not enter. This explains people outside "

You nod as you somehow try to fix what fell out of your bag.

"Mrs Padma, can I ask you something? Don’t take me for a crazy"

"Sure darling, tell me”

"Did he make a reservation or is he just passing through?"

She smiles at you, as if somehow she understood ...

"I couldn’t give this information ... but ... he said he was looking for a person, and maybe he would stop. He didn’t add anything else, he was very nice and kind” she says whispering, leaning to you over the reception desk. "The couple who were with him instead booked the last remaining bungalow for a few days" she adds.

"Thank you"

“Well, if you're interested … he’s over there”

You don’t know if you want to go where he’s now or go to your place and wait, maybe writing him a message. You move away from the reception, your head is exploding and instinctively you direct towards his direction, then suddenly you change, exit and head towards your accommodation.

You throw everything on the bed, you quickly undress and throw yourself in the shower. You can not explain your fears and the feelings you’ve got right now. Mixed anxiety anger, happiness and desire to see him mixed with fear.

You should be glad that he’s reached you, that he’s a few steps away from you and instead you feel awkward.

Why did he come here? How did he know where you were? Who told him to join you?

And you remember the other night when you wrote him and you were drunk.

You told him to come and get you.

And so he did.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

I HOPE THE TAGS WORK!!! LET ME KNOW PLEASE! Reblog if you like it ❤❤❤

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