#this one is a tad more mean spirited than the last | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soaringeag1e · 4 months

Text

Time

Jensen x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Language, Sadness, Heartache, injuries, Blood, Sweet Caring Jensen {I know, doesn't seem really Christmasy haha, sorry, not sorry.}

Words: 2,252

Main Masterlist - Patreon

She spent the day putting up her tree and decorating her apartment, keeping busy and trying to keep her mind off other things. She desperately wanted to feel the spirit of Christmas, feel excited and cheerful, but those moments didn’t last long unfortunately. Even with lights hanging throughout the space, her tree bright green and sparkling with twinkling white bulbs, she just wasn’t feeling it.

She was sucked in by the lights on the tree as they took turns lighting up, a few knocks going unnoticed as she was spacing out, lost in her thoughts. It takes a few more attempts from her visitor before she finally gets pulled out of her trance and hears the thuds against her door.

Glancing down at the glass in her hand, the melted ice tells her that she’s been spacing out for a lot longer than she thought, but that doesn’t surprise her honestly. Setting her holiday drink on the table, she moves towards her door where a few more knocks come through. Peeking through the peephole, she grows a bit confused when she sees who it is and quickly pulls on the locks to reveal her friend on the other side. He gets startled after the long dragged out silence but smiles when they lock eyes nonetheless.

“Hey! I was beginning to think you weren’t home.”

“No, I just um…” she pauses, looking back into her apartment to where she was glued just seconds ago. “I’m sorry.” she apologizes in a quiet breath, hesitating to look her visitor in the eye before changing the subject. “What are you doing here? I thought that you were in New Mexico working on…” When she can’t continue her sentence he raises his brow, a smartass smirk growing on his face.

“Big Sky?”

“Yes! That.” She looked embarrassed as she couldn’t remember the name of the show he was currently involved with.

“Well, it’s nice to know that you’re so into it.” he tells her, the sarcasm not going unnoticed.

“Hey, I’ve been busy.” she counters, letting him in the apartment. “And I’m halfway through season two now, so…”

“So…you haven’t even made it to my episode. Good to know.”

“Did you just come here to give me a hard time? Because I’ve had enough of that this year.” Her tone changes as she closes the door. “Best friend or not, I’m just not in the mood.” As she roughly rubs at her eyes, his heart sinks. The relationship he has with her has always been playful. It was his job to mess with her and it always made her smile, but sadly he has underestimated the pain she has taken on in the last year and hasn’t adjusted his teasing accordingly.

Her body flinches just a tad when he slides his arms around her, but she quickly melts into him, dropping her arms into his chest and letting him squeeze her tight.

“I’m sorry.” he whispers faintly, kissing her temple sweetly but never loosens his grip. He feels her relax more in his arms, the tension he could feel in her entire body slowly slipping away the longer he holds her. Minutes pass and he doesn’t know how many, but honestly doesn’t care. But what she says next fills his heart with pride.

“I needed one of your hugs today.” He can hear the emotion in her voice but knowing that he was able to bring something good to her keeps his happiness up. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You always seem to know when I need you the most and I don’t get it.” Jensen smirks, his pride only being fueled more.

“Magic.” he tells her as he pulls away, locking eyes with her. “If I told you my secret, I’d have to kill you.”

“Please, do.” She comes back with a not so sarcastic response and Jensen just has to remind himself that pain and anger makes people say that kind of stuff. It wasn’t long ago that he felt the same way.

“Can’t do that. Sorry.”

“Why?” she whines, dropping her head to his chest.

“Because you mean too much to me.” he says simply, but the feelings behind it are anything but. Which in turn makes the next few moments painful even for him.

She scoffs and pulls away from him, moving towards the table where her drink waits, the ice practically gone now.

“With the group of friends you have? Trust me, you won’t be missing me long.” He swallows back his initial reaction, pushing the sting his heart took way down and attempts to forget about it.

“You’re wrong.” There’s no joking in his gaze now, not that she expected it. But she doesn’t see that look often and it was definitely one that hit her hard. “Listen,” he starts before taking a few steps closer to her. “I know what you’re going through is hard and I know you’re hurting, but I promise that it will get better.” Honestly, he expected an eye roll or something, but it seemed that she understood he was being serious. “He may not know what he lost but we do, and we won’t make that same mistake.” Her eyes dropped to her drink, emotions coming to the surface again. He’s not sure what to say now because he’s finally let go of some of the things he’s been holding in. At least the more appropriate things. But as he scans the apartment and sees the tree all dressed up in the corner, he smiles, grateful that you were able to at least decorate for the holiday.

“It looks great.” he points out, stepping around her to get closer to the holiday staple. “I was afraid you weren’t going to decorate at all.” he admits, not taking his eyes off the twinkling lights.

“I almost didn’t.” she confesses, not moving from her spot. “But, I was hoping that it would help pull me out of this a little bit.”

“I think it will.” he nods softly as he turns back to face her.

“I don’t know about that.” she tells him, emotion heavy in her voice. “It hasn’t done anything so far.”

“Just give it time.”

“Ugh.” she grunts heavily, spinning around to make her way into the kitchen. “Time. It’s always about time, right!?” She raises her voice a bit as she makes it to the counter and pours more alcohol into her glass. “After being torn away from your family as a kid, give it time. You lose someone you love, give it time. Your husband cheats on you and throws away sixteen years of your life, give it time!” she cries, tears slipping from her eyes as Jensen makes his way towards her. Her body trembles from anger but she tosses back the liquid she just added to the glass, not really bothered by the strength of the drink. “You know what they all have in common, Jay!? No matter how much time you give them, they never go away! Ever!” she screams, slamming her glass down onto the counter as the anger she was feeling made her lose all control over her actions. Seeing this, Jensen surges forward but it all happens way too fast.

The second the glass touches the counter top, it shatters. Chunks of the glistening pieces fly across the counter in all directions, falling to the floor and sliding with their momentum. But it was the painful cry that Jensen was focused on. Glass crunched under his boots as he rushed to her side, blood dripping onto the counter and the fallen shards of glass as she raised her hand to see what she just did to herself.

“Let me see.” Fully concerned, he reaches for her hand, gentle so as not to hurt her more than she already was. She quietly huffs and moans in pain as he inspects it. It takes him a moment to see how bad it is and he becomes grateful when it doesn’t look like she needs stitches, but he does see a piece of glass sticking out from her wound. He glances up briefly, seeing that she’s only focusing on the cut. “Hold still.” he tells her before carefully removing the shard from her hand. She hisses in pain but it needed to be done. “Here, come here.” Keeping her hand elevated, he swipes the towel from the counter and then escorts her into the living room, helping her onto the couch. “Keep it up, I’ll be right back.”

Careful not to slip on the glass near the kitchen, Jensen rushes down the hall and into her room. He’s gone maybe thirty seconds, if that. He’s been in her house before, he knows where everything is. Especially the first aid kit. This wasn’t the first time he had to patch her up after hurting herself, but this definitely was the worst injury he’s had to help her with.

“Alright, let me see.” he says as he re-enters the room. Grabbing onto your coffee table, he pulls it closer to the couch and then takes a seat, situating himself so that he could fix you up without having you stretch your arm out too far.

“I’m sorry.” you whimper softly and he glances up through his lashes before focusing back on your hand.

“You don’t have to be sorry.” It falls silent after that for a bit. She flinches a few times as he cleans up the wound and checks to see if any more glass was hiding inside, but otherwise he gets it as clean as he can and then starts to bandage it up.

“You’re right.” he finally breaks the silence, not looking up from his task as he continues. “It never does go away.” he admits and then falls quiet again. But only for a minute or two. “But, eventually you will get to a place where you won’t think about it as much. And if you do, it won’t hurt as bad as it does now.” Silent sobs shake her body a bit as she listens to him, the pain of what she’s been through tearing through her more than that glass did to her hand. “Listen,” he says as he tapes off the bandage, making sure it’s secure and then he looks up at her. “Your scumbag husband lost his fucking mind.” The anger is visible in his gaze, but she knows it’s not meant for her. “To have one of the most amazing women on this planet choose him and love him and do anything for him just to turn around and…” his jaw locks as he reminds himself to keep calm. But that’s just something he can’t do fully.

“Fuck him. Okay? You deserve a million times better than him. You deserve someone who cares about you and takes care of you just as much as you do for them. No more of this eighty, twenty shit, you hear me?” Tears continue to slip from her eyes and though he knows they won’t stop, he reaches up and wipes a few away anyway. “So, yeah, it’s going to take time and it’s going to hurt like hell, but I swear to you, somewhere down the road you are going to look back at this and see how much of a blessing this was. You’re going to be able to wake up every morning and not feel like death when you roll out of bed. You’ll be able to drive home, take showers and fall asleep without crying every time. Right now, it doesn’t seem possible, I know, but it will happen. I promise you.”

Silence fills the apartment after that. The two of them soaking in the speech and just letting the moment be for a minute. Then Jensen reaches up and wipes away her tears again, this time clearing her face as no more were falling at the moment.

“Ready to get some sleep?” Unable to speak, she just nods softly. “Alright.” pushing himself up from the table, he helps her up and escorts her to the edge of the kitchen. “Why don’t you go and climb in bed, I’m gonna…” he pauses, looking over all the glass everywhere. “I’m gonna clean this up.” When he looks back at her, he gives her his best grin. She takes it and slowly turns and starts walking down the hall, but she stops a few feet away, looking back at the man in the kitchen, setting the dustpan on the counter and beginning to sweep the floor.

“Jensen?” Hearing his name, he stops. “Thank you.” A smile grows on his face and he sends her a nod. But when she doesn’t move, he pushes her a bit.

“Go on. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” This time, he watches her walk down the hall and disappear into her room.

The feelings he’s harbored for her for so long now have a chance to come out, but he has to hold them back for a while longer. Yes, she may be single now, but with the healing that she has to go through, he can’t be jumping in the deep end right away. The last thing he wants is to become the rebound or end up hurting her even more because he gave into his desires too soon.

He loves that woman, more than he realizes to be honest. So the only way to keep her is to wait. To give it time.

#Time #Christmas #jensen ackles #jensen fanfic #jensen fanfiction #jensen x reader #jensen x female reader #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles x female reader #jensen fic #jensen ackles fic #jensen ackles fanfic #jensen ackles fanfiction #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fic #supernatural fanfic #supernatural rpf

149 notes · View notes

scribblestatic · 9 days

Text

I hope y'all had a good 4/20. Anyway, here's more Sheepzun.

---

Finding his way out of the caves was much easier than going in. The flow of qi seemed easier for him to discern, and his senses were stronger. How curious! He was sure he'd be able to sense predators much easier now.

He cloaked himself in his qi and snuck out the caves, ensuring no one was looking at or for him. This time around, it seemed he had enough qi to do so easier than before, not feeling any pull or strain on his meridians.

He was a right chuffed lad, all things considered!

Shen Yuan made his way back to Qing Jing Peak without much of an issue. Disciples didn't seem to sense his hiding. Those with stronger cultivation did seem to look around, a tad unsettled if anything, but overall, none of them saw through his illusion.

It also helped that he was a prey animal who preferred to not leave things up to risk or chance when being careful was a perfectly reasonable option.

As he travelled, he noticed that the season seemed a little different. A tad on the warmer side than he last remembered. He had entered a few days after spring began, and the flowers he remembered were supposed to bloom seemed to already be at the end of its blooming cycle...

Was it the end of spring? Goodness, time flew!!

Thankfully, not an excessive amount of time passed since, upon making his way out of the forest near the woodshed, Luo Binghe didn't look too much taller. Yes, at the very least, only a few days or weeks had passed.

Hearing Shen Yuan's purposeful rustling, Luo Binghe's slightly pointy ears almost seemed to twitch. Then, he turned around quickly, eyes wide and swiftly becoming watery with unshed tears.

"Shizun!!"

Shen Yuan huffed, amused as the boy, sticky as ever, ran up to him and immediately hugged him around the neck.

"Shizun! Shizun, you came back! Shizun!!"

'Who do you keep calling out for, ah? I'm right here,' Shen Yuan thought.

Luo Binghe went still.

"...Shizun?"

'Yes?'

The boy suddenly let go of him and leaned back, staring right into his eyes. Then, slowly, like the flowers he missed bloom at the start of spring, Luo Binghe's smile spread across his face in a vibrant flourish.

"Shizun!! Shizun, you can talk now?!"

Shen Yuan paused, blinking.

'...You can hear what this one is...saying.'

"Yes, I can! I can finally understand you, Shizun! Has my cultivation gotten better? Is... Is this because of what you taught me?"

I don't know, what the heck?! This is scary!!

So, if he was actually thinking as though he was speaking to Luo Binghe, then the boy would actually hear it? After all, he wasn't responding to his thoughts now. Was this because he taught a spirit creature's Dao to a human that he became Dr. Dolittle? That's an entire genre change!

...Whatever that was supposed to mean! Who even was Dr. Dolittle?!

'...Indeed, it seems likely. However, this one admits that this is the first time he's taught this Dao to a human,' Shen Yuan replies, his mind in utter disarray and panic. 'As much as you are a student, this ram is still learning himself.'

There's no precedent for this! I'm sorry, Binghe! This ram is only about a year old!

Luo Binghe looked as though the meaning of the Dao was explained to him in elementary terms, as though he made a huge mental breakthrough with his words alone.

"I see... Thanking Shizun for his knowledge and education all this time!"

He bowed so respectfully, Shen Yuan immediately felt like a terrible saber-toothed wolf dressed up like a newly born spirit lamb to prey on the little human's trust.

But, well, he was at least somewhat honest just now. He really was also a student in all of this.

'This ram thanks you as well. Even through our language barrier, you've been an exemplary student. Now that we can understand each other more freely, we can further improve your cultivation.'

"Yes, Shizun! I'm looking forward to it!"

Shit.

[More under the cut, this one just got kinda long]

----

Okay, so, it wasn't all that bad.

One, it really was much easier to speak with Bing-lamb, and the boy seemed to flourish further under his his verbal guidance. He didn't really have to say much, though. Whatever Luo Binghe lacked in prowess, he was steadily making up for it in motivation.

All Shen Yuan had to do was correct him a little here and there based on whatever kind of strange animal instinct he had that said,

'This stance is a little off. Keep you knees elastic. Firm, but ready.'

'You must connect with your surroundings and hone to your senses. Humans, as predators, rely strongly on their eyes. But you must learn to use your nose, ears, and touch as well.'

"What about taste, Shizun?"

'There are some things a mouth shouldn't touch. We can build up to that as you learn more.'

Though, perhaps he asked such questions because Shen Yuan occasionally found himself chewing on Luo Binghe's clothes. It was more affectionate grooming for the boy than anything, honestly. But he was also a prey creature rather than a human, so it could be excused as such.

Two, after Luo Binghe's lessons with the human instructors, Luo Binghe would sometimes ask him for questions and clarification as he did the pile of chores constantly assigned to him. What was with all these duties, anyway? Weren't all of the disciples supposed to do these things? They were working too hard on purpose, but why?

Anyway, despite not being a human, it turned out Shen Yuan could read quite well. He wasn't sure where he'd learned such a skill, but it was nice to see it be useful. So, because Luo Binghe's questions never got answered in class, as the boy's Shizun, he took it upon himself to do his best to help.

It meant he sometimes had to get a bit creative with how he explained things, but he was doing well enough, it seemed.

Of course, there were limits to what he could do.

As a ram, teaching the four arts was mostly out of the question. Give him some paints and he could maybe bang something out on a canvas, but he had no guarantee it would look like anything useful or recognizable. Same for a guqin or calligraphy.

Go...well, if the pieces and board were big enough, maybe. But anyway, he had his limitations. Not that Luo Binghe seemed to see any of them. With the way Shen Yuan loafed and Luo Binghe sat in front of him, his workbook open, one would think he'd hung the moon.

It was...admittedly very nice to be so appreciated.

Also, getting petted. He'd stopped for a bit after they first spoke, but Luo Binghe did it by accident again later. When Shen Yuan stayed quiet without scolding the action and slightly shifting his head closer, well, he got the picture.

And snacks. Luo Binghe didn't have access to a full kitchen for reasons he didn't understand, but Shen Yuan just knew. The day he had kitchen privileges, it was over for Qing Jing Peak. They'd become Qing Jing Restaurant or something.

Although he still had to be careful, he found he was actually starting to enjoy living the way he was now. He didn't feel the need to look over his shoulder as often, Prey and predator, bridging the gap, huh? What a lovely story.

As Luo Binghe improved, keeping his sheep shizun a secret, several more months passed. Spring turned into summer, into fall, into winter, into spring, into the touches of summer heat once more.

Over that year, Luo Binghe grew taller and broader. His shoulders were starting to fill out, his hands and feet better sized for his body. From his experience working with his shizun's hair-like wool, he learned how to take care of his own hair better, the curls becoming shinier and tamable, no longer as difficult to pull into a ponytail. He also learned all the little nooks and crannies of Qing Jing Peak after going foraging with his shizun, and the mountain climbing and hunting he'd done for himself.

He'd thought his shizun would be against him hunting the birds and other creatures on and around the peak, but though he never partook himself, he was ambivalent.

'You are human. Even sheep eat meat when necessary. For you, it's even more so. This ram shan't fault his student for doing the best for himself.'

And so, with his own hunting skills built up, despite still living and sleeping in the wood shed and lacking some of the more artistic prowess of his sect siblings, he's grown considerably in strength, speed, and build. As he sometimes heard his shizun murmur, 'Born to Bai Zhan, raised to Qing Jing, manages both.'

Meanwhile, Shizun himself...

Luo Binghe had visited Xin Ya Peak before, alongside some of his sect siblings. He'd seen what spirit sheep normally looked like--fluffy, with slightly curved horns, and a nice sheen to their wool. Not particularly tall--mostly reaching around their knees or thighs.

Shizun, however, drew much more regal of a figure. His wool was less fluffy but somehow even softer. He was taller, too, reaching up to the bottom of Luo Binghe's chest. His horns had grown out considerably, to the point they were curling outward. Unlike his farmed comrades, Shizun was exceptionally fastidious. Though, it likely helped he was not locked into a barn or kept around mud. So, he was not only impeccably clean, but he kept a long, undocked tail that swayed behind him with his steps.

He kept his wool a beautiful shade of ivory white. The only discolorations were the slightly green tones that occasionally hung onto his stomach and legs from loafing on the grasses around the bamboo forest and the ever-present blood red huadian on his forehead. Moreover, after Shizun had returned from wherever he'd gone, his eyes had changed. Irises that were once a striking brown had become a soothing blue-green color, much like the peak colors of Qing Jing.

Perhaps spirit animals needed less effort to attain godhood. Luo Binghe could believe it. After all, his shizun appeared like a god nowadays.

'Binghe' he'd hear, his soft and elegant voice calling out to him in the dewy mornings.

He would look up to see his shizun returning from some place he'd found his wild breakfast, leaving him to sleep longer because, as the ram said, he was a growing boy and needed it more.

The sun would peek out at just the right time to shine on his arrival, making him look ethereal, even if he was holding moss in his mouth.

'Have you eaten yet? If not, add this to your food today. It has absorbed quite a bit of yin qi. Considering your yang constitution, it will help promote more internal balance.'

Shizun places the stringy, thick moss in Luo Binghe's waiting hands.

'This is called Qiyan Root, despite not being a root at all. Strain and boil it twice for the best effect. You can also dry some of it for medicinal use. It should taste quite nice in an herbal tea.'

His shizun hummed in consideration as he tilted his head, long white lashes against the fur of his cheeks.

Luo Binghe couldn't help but wonder what his shizun would look like as a human. He was quite the handsome animal, much like one would compliment a horse for its strong physique and beautiful sheen. Surely he'd be a handsome human as well.

Though, wondering such a thing would have to wait. It was time for morning chores, then his lessons could begin in earnest.

It was after one such set of lessons with his other teachers, when he was chopping wood with his shizun at his side that the ram suddenly raised his head with a frown.

"Shizun?"

'...The air feels different. What do you sense?'

Having learned his cultivation mostly from a spirit animal rather than a human, Luo Binghe honed his senses and listened. Indeed, the peak seemed quiet. Too quiet, however.

"Something's not right... Shizun, I'll be back."

'Be careful, Binghe.'

The boy nodded in return before he ran off, Shen Yuan staying behind as he tried to better understand what this energy fluctuation actually was.

Eventually, curiosity and concern won out over wariness, and he concealed himself as he headed toward the rainbow bridges separating Qing Jing from the other peaks.

There, he found several demons cracking away at the bridge between Qing Jing and Qiong Ding. Several were smaller demons with tiny horns and large machetes in their spindly hands. They were accompanied by a larger, more boubous demon in a loincloth, using an axe to slice and wear away at the energies keeping the rainbow bridge connected.

A siege? But this is Cang Qiong, one of the most powerful sects! How could these demons have the gall?!

Shen Yuan wasn't aware of the politics that came with running a peak, so, of course, he was unaware of the peak lord's absence. Several lords were away--more than honestly permissible--leaving the little lamb-like disciples without their guard dogs. Though, judging from the coordinated actions of the demons, the little troupe he was looking at was the least of his worries.

Binghe!!

If he was running this way, then surely he would've encountered the demons! But he could smell no blood or anything from his student. Perhaps he already passed through before they arrived. After all, behind the troupe, he could see several groups of demons destroying the bridges and leaving the peaks isolated...

No, not all the peaks. Qiong Ding.

Something about this scenario struck him as...oddly familiar.

But he shoved that thought aside. Now wasn't the time for excessive questioning! His student was in danger!

As much as he liked to believe he prepared Luo Binghe for combat in some meaningful way, he would never overestimate his teaching abilities. He's a ram for fucks sake, how could he be much better than human teachers and their opposable thumbs?!

Not letting up his concealing qi, he began running across the bridge, heading straight for the small crowd of demons.

Though they couldn't see him, his weight and trotting seemed to alert them as they turned his way. Cruel smirks spread on the imps' faces as they raised their weapons and prepared to strike.

Deciding not to conceal himself anymore, he instead focused his qi on his attack, suddenly appearing before them. For some reason, they seemed surprised despite already preparing to attack him.

His qi-filled horns collided with one of their machetes, causing it to crack and shatter. Milliseconds later, the same cracking and shattering came from the imp's ribs.

Gritting his teeth, he flung his head to the right, throwing several of the imps off the cracking bridge. But he still had some momentum and wasn't done yet.

Facing the bulbous demon and its large axe, he charged up as much as he could, enough that his horns began to glow dimly.

The demon bellowed as it swung the axe, intending to split his skull. But Shen Yuan was faster.

Putting more force in his back legs, he jumped forward, tucking his front legs close to his body. His curved horns rammed against the demon's chest, the bones giving way under it. It let out a choke, then it spit up blood as the wind moved around them.

When the demon fell back, Shen Yuan blinked, realizing he was going butt up.

With a surprised bleat, his legs stretched out as the momentum had him flopping on his back above the demon's head. At least it was on solid ground! Dirt, even!

He wiggled, then quickly got himself up, shaking the dust off his head. Reorienting himself, he realized he was on Qiong Ding Peak. Huh... He didn't think the demon was so close to the land there, but maybe he miscalculated.

Anyway, Binghe!

Worried about his student, he quickly ran off to find where he was, concealing himself behind a cloak of qi once more.

Of course, Shen Yuan missed several things.

For one, the imps and demons had not noticed him at all. What they had noticed were several Qing Jing disciples arriving with their swords drawn.

Secondly, the machetes and axes the demons held were not supposed to crack so easily to a ram's horns. They were made with reinforced metals to be sturdy. A regular spirit sheep would've long lost its horns and skull to them.

Thirdly, the largest demon on the bridge had indeed been standing further away from Qiong Ding Peak, and Shen Yuan hadn't miscalculated. He just didn't realize that his body, weighing over 160 kg (352.7 lbs) plus the force of his qi-powered forward thrust was, even by physics standards, enough to blow a large demon backwards by several meters and shatter their collarbone on impact.

He'd turned his body into a literal battering ram.

Lastly, the Qing Jing disciples, whom the demons actually saw and prepared to fight, were able to witness the entire event, and were now staring, wide-eyed, at the large, mystical, disappearing sheep.

...But those were concerns for the future Shen Yuan.

#sheepzun au #svsss #svsss au #static drabbles #au post 4 #static writes #shen yuan does a whoops #he's got binghe on the brain he can't help it

49 notes · View notes

odditycircus-2002 · 5 months

Text

Holiday Fun

featuring, Medusa!Reader, Syzoth, and Baraka! And in case you want context, I suggest you start all the way here.

A/N: Just some headcanons to get into the seasonal spirit and how Medusa!Reader handles winter in general. Please enjoy and don't forget to like, comment, and reblog. My inbox hungers!😁😁😁

You aren't the biggest fan of the cold, since as a child that meant more chores and work than being able to stay inside nice and warm. That and herb gathering are nigh impossible. But since you grew scales, you found that you absolutely HATED it now! While you're still technically warm-blooded, you still have difficulty staying actually warm. Something Syzoth theorized may be due to the possibility of Zatteran blood having influenced your mutation. Adding reason 5,000 to carve open Shang Tsung from the groin to the gullet the next time you see him.

You aren't able to go outside to do your usual morning basking since the chilled air leaves the Wastes colder than usual. The rocks may as well be ice at that point. It's a herculean effort for you to drag yourself out of bed and its many stacked comforters, in the morning. You refuse to go outside without at least 5 layers of clothing on you.

In fact, Baraka had to go out of his way to ask Ashrah, through Syzoth, to help set up a basking area in your living quarters, since the demoness had to do something similar for Syzoth. On the plus side, this also attracted other patients, mostly afflicted Zatterans, of yours searching to get away from the cold, which means more heat for you to be surrounded by even if it's just by proximity.

Speaking of your patients, you and Baraka make sure everyone in the Colony has plenty of winter clothing and blankets. Luckily, unlike before, Empress Mileena can provide plenty of clothing and blankets to the Tarkatan Colony, thanks to donations from Outworld. Baraka was the one to supervise the fuel for the fires to keep a steady source of heat going longer than usual. You check up on everyone even more because, of how winter brings the high risk of an uprise of Tarkat.

Besides just surviving, you and Baraka go out of your way to make things lively when it's around winter festivals. Both of you had all the more reason to see that the Feast of Thanks was a success with many Tarkatans. Like before, you make sure to incorporate a mix of festivals from all those who live in the Colony from Shokan to Zatteran. While not as many Tarkatans were able to help with decorations, by the time all of you were finished, the air seemed a tad more jubilant than usual. You contributed to decoration by using your wings to reach high cliffs and places to hang up garlands and banners. You even used your hydromancy to painstakingly create a giant chunk of ice for Baraka to carve up into a beautiful work of art. You saw how Baraka's eyes were filled with a bittersweet nostalgia when the Tarkatan children started to play in the snow made from the shredded ice.

By some divine miracle, you could drag Baraka to Johnny Cage's Holiday party briefly. You went with a mask that left the upper half of your face covered, with festive colors painted on. Although you couldn't convince Baraka to dress up in any sort of festive garb or costume. You also told Baraka about how it is custom on Earthrealm to bring food to parties, so he went out of his way to bring in a fairly large beast from the Wastes. A beast that resembles a large Earthrealm koala bear with a large horn like a rhinoceros.

Johnny Cage's eyes widened in surprise when he saw you and Baraka enter his home with this beast strewn across Baraka's shoulders before the latter dropped it at his feet.

"Make sure to remove the head before grilling the meat. I recommend having your servants cook the meat to medium rare before seasoning it generously.”

”Mmmhhh very exotic. Really appreciate the roast, even if uncooked.”

Johnny mutters the last part under his breath. Yet, he trusts Baraka's cooking instructions because, surprisingly, the creature you brought in on Thanksgiving didn't taste half bad. You then reveal to Johnny that you brought a small cauldron of what's basically hot vanilla, a traditional winter drink from your canton.

"Why didn't you bring that at the last party?!"

Baraka spent most of Cage's party standing away from the general crowd, not wanting to risk infection. The former merchant was content to watch you chat with Syzoth and Ashrah, occasionally joining in the conversation. Such as when you and Syzoth expressed your mutual distaste for winter, or Ashrah's experiencing winter festivities for the first time. At one point when someone opened a window to let in some of the cool air, you and Syzoth immediately cling to Baraka and Ashrah, respectively.

"Oh wow, Baraka. You're surprisingly hot."

At one point during Johnny Cage's party, you spot a mistletoe hanging at a doorway. Without thinking, you drag Baraka under the plant, pulling out your little book of Earthrealm medicinal herbs.

"Baraka, look! Have you ever seen anything like this??? A Viscum album or a European Mistletoe! Did you know they're parasitic shrubs that grow on other specimens such as pine trees..."

Baraka couldn't fully follow what you were saying, but his soft expression and how the corners of his mouth twitched was more than telling how he was happy to listen. He was leaning against the threshold, arms crossed, as you animatedly told him about a myth about how it was used to poison a supposedly invincible god when Johnny Cage and Kung Lao passed by.

"I mean seriously, where do you fit all that food? ... Ooo look at you two lovebirds."

You stop in your ramble to tilt your head, with Baraka reflecting your confusion with a raised brow.

"We are not lovers, Cage."

"Surrrre you aren't"

Kung Lao responds with playful sarcasm, his dimples visible from his grin. Johnny was more than happy to explain.

"It's one of our realm's traditions that two people kiss when they're both under the mistletoe."

"Y-y-you have to be joking!"

You stutter out with your snakes starting to hiss in a frenzy. Baraka steps away from under the offending shrub while glaring at the Earthrealmers.

When Johnny Cage and Kung Lao insisted they weren't kidding, with Kenshi confirming that it is tradition, it left you and Baraka in a bit of a bind. Mostly as Baraka tried to insist he didn't want to risk giving you Tarkat, and he has no lips, Johnny and Kenshi are both quick to counter his arguments.

On the plus side, you felt as if you could pass out from how overheated your face felt. So to finally get the Earthrealmers off your back, you grabbed Baraka by the shoulders to make him crouch to your height, and use one of your snakes to give him a quick peck on the teeth.

You pulled your cloak's hood over your face, all your snakes curled up close to your head. A stunned Baraka slowly touches his teeth where you technically kissed him.

You more or less avoided Baraka for a while and stuck by the offered catering table to sip your worries away with the homemade drink you brought while idly chatting with Syzoth and Ashrah. However, you were starting to feel rather hot and bubbly on your fourth mug. That couldn't be right; the beverage you made didn't include any booze.

When you started to look over Cage's decorations that included Santa and Reindeer, you started to giggle seemingly out of nowhere much to Syzoth and Ashrah's confusion.

"What do you find so humourous, Y/N?"

"I jussst realized that thisss holiday celebrates an elderly intruder that steals your sweets."

You then burst out in laughter again. Syzoth is quickly able to put two and two together and concludes that you're drunk. The Zatteran is quick to snatch your mug from your hands when you go to take another sip from it. You pouted as your snakes hissed in their displeasure.

"Syzoth, you big bully!"

"Believe me, you had enough."

Syzoth asks Ashrah to watch you and ensure you're hydrated as he informs your host and Baraka about someone possibly spiking all the drinks. However, by the time Syzoth returns with the Tarkatan, you managed to drag Ashrah over to another part of Johnny's mansion to do karaoke on a whim. You sang Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" in the Zatteran language. Your gaze locks on to Baraka as the song ends, refusing to break your line of sight.

"Oh, I just want you for my own. More than you could ever know. Make my wish come true...."

Not long after, Baraka escorted you back home to the Colony. He had no choice but to let you hold on to him for support since you almost fell down some frosted stairs heading out of Johnny's home. You were swaying on your feet while humming some Christmas songs you heard earlier before breaking the silence.

"I wish I could always be this close to you, Baraka."

"You know better than anyone; you can't risk too much close exposure."

You give him a frown as you wrap your arms around him and squeeze him hard.

"I don't give a damn! I rather risk my health just to hold you close to me, rather than continue to stare at you from afar for the rest of my life!"

"... Booze has clouded your judgment, Y/N. You already know why you can't get too close."

When you both returned to the Colony, neither of you really spoke to one another, but neither did you two physically separate for most of the night. However, it's not like you gave Baraka much choice, as you were determined to prove the former tribune wrong. Besides dressing into something more comfortable, you refused to detach yourself from Baraka as if you were glued on. Meanwhile, he tried to get you to rest off the booze and drink some water. The latter he was more successful with, but not the former. If he was being honest with himself, Baraka was almost tempted to immediately take up on your plead to sleep next to you, keyword, almost. However, you were just as, if not more, determined than Baraka and kept insisting. You only stopped when he offered a compromise of staying in the same room as you but not the same bedding. With that, you settled under your many blankets and quilts before you were out like a light.

The next day, you woke up with a painful hammering into your head and the low light searing your eyes, which forced you to use your second eyelids to look around. All too soon, memories of last night come crashing to the forefront of your mind, which causes you to bury your, suddenly hot-as-fire, face in your pillow.

'WHY DID I DO ANY OF THAT?!?'

After attempting to hide away in your pillows and blankets, you eventually emerge to find your flask, an ornate box with beautiful snake-like designs, some herbal painkillers, and some freshly cooked meat next to your sleeping area. A fond smile makes its way to your face.

After downing your meal and medicine, you open the ornate box, reasoning that it must be from Baraka. Inside the beautiful box is a single flower. A tropical flower that you thought was instinct. Which struck you as odd. Inside was a note in elegant and curvy writing that read

"To the most beautiful flower of them all."

It wasn't in Baraka's handwriting.

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat x reader #mk x reader #mortal kombat 1 #oddball writes #baraka x reader #mk1 #holiday headcannons #mk syzoth #ashrah #baraka #Johnny Cage #kenshi takahashi #Kung Lao #mistletoe

61 notes · View notes

peemanne · 15 days

Text

INFINITE WEALTH SPOILERS IN MINI RAMBLE AHEAD!!!!!!! YEAH!!!! LIKE FINAL CHAPTER SHENANIGANS!!!!! REALLY BAD!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!! (and also touching on y2 and y6 and gaiden i guess but come on)

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!! IF YOU ARE NOW ON YOUR WAY OUT, SEE YOU LATER AND ALSO CHECK OUT THIS COOL PHOTO OF ZHAO I TOOK

Been mulling over IW's story since I beat it, and while there are still aspects I'm very much still mixed on, one thing I've surprisingly found to actually only be better after thinking about it even more was the final boss in Ebina. And yeah yeah he could have used a tad bit more screentime, but I think the stuff he does have and all the stuff he symbolizes are really well written. In Gaiden, we dealt with the manifestation of the yakuza itself, and now we face off against the manifestation of all the wrong the yakuza's done. Despite Kiryu's best efforts, there's so many lives he's endangered. So much death that follows him and those around him, and he's completely aware of this. Kiryu shows a lot of self-destructiveness throughout the series, like in Y2 where he gives himself up in a practically suicidal draw with Ryuji, or in Y6 where he so readily throws himself away at the first chance he gets. I still remember Haruka's line in that game: "Don't look so satisfied about this!". And especially in IW, knowing that cancer's got him that much closer to death's door, he's still so ready to throw himself away. But now that's he's forced to rely on his allies, now that he gets to really reflect on all the friends that he's made throughout the years, now that he has Ichiban telling him to really LIVE, he's done running. Kiryu sees a lot of himself in Ebina, because he knows the look of a man who's hellbent on throwing himself away.

Ebina knows he's fighting a losing battle. He leaves Sawashiro alive and he repeatedly begs for Kiryu to kill him at the end of the fight. Look at the demon on his back: he knows he's falling into hell, and he's intent on dragging the reason why he's falling down with him. And that's why it's so cathartic seeing Kiryu beg to him at the end. He's breaks down, seeing the personification of all of the sins the yakuza, and he cries out apologies. Because that's what this fight is about. Atonement, against a vengeful spirit. A breaking of the cycle, further hammered in by the choice to name Ebina's moves after chakra points ("Pierce the Muladhara, Cripple the Manipura, Wheel of Samsara"). The theme The End of Denial is such an amazing choice for this too, a much more sorrowful, reflective track than most of the other final boss themes. It's not just a cheeky bit of "look how far we've come" that they've included the original Yakuza's intro guitar in here, it's Kiryu directly reflecting on running away. Running away from the Fourth Chairman spot. Running away from Daigo and the clan. Running away from his family. Running away from all the wrongs he's done throughout the years. And now that Kiryu finally finds himself ready to confront it all, even if it's in his twilight years, there's not a chance in hell he's gonna let it slip past him, as he takes Ebina head-on. I couldn't disagree more with the notion that Ichiban should have been the one to fight him. Despite it being his half-brother, this just isn't his fight to take.

It's why this line means so much. Teary-eyed, he begs the man he just punched down for forgiveness for everything the yakuza has done, and he begs for him to LIVE, to not throw himself away the very same way Kiryu has. And this is how he breaks the cycle.

This is how Kazuma Kiryu finally gets to live again.

~ ~ ~

ok thing over! i've been thinking about a write-up on this game's finale ever since i beat it last march 30th and ebina's an aspect i really had to stew over, and i finally got to it in the same way i did with my gaiden mini ramble. by making a long text wall in a discord server and figuring that it'd fit well enough to be put here

i'd really like to shoutout @.FormerSoulKing on twitter and their post on IW's religious symbolism for inspiring this post. it's also just like, a really cool read.

additionally i'd also ramble about the ending scene with ichi carrying eiji out at the end and how it's like him "setting things right" and not letting what he watched happen to masato happen to another friend of his but honestly i just love that scene so much i don't think i could ever properly put it into words

#ryu ga gotoku #rgg #yakuza #like a dragon #SPOILERS!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!#infinite wealth #infinite wealth spoilers #yakuza 8 #yakuza 8 spoilers #kiryu kazuma #ramblings of the pee-man

24 notes · View notes

sirowsky-stories · 2 months

Text

The Old Prince

Part 13

Author's Note: It's been an intense week for me, my loves, (I quit my job of 9 years!) so this was severely delayed, but here you are!

Description: You're forced to make a really tough decision, and as the war rages, you finally realize what it's gonna take to win.

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Monster Oberyn Martell x Female Reader, AU fic, obviously Halloween themed, reader cusses. Angst. Severe injuries. Word Count: 6427 Author's Masterlist

You’re not quite sure how Simon’s managing to change the oceans so quickly, unless he’s concentrating all his efforts solely on the Atlantic, not trying to expand in all directions at once. Still, there is a lot of ocean to get through, and he’s advancing terrifyingly fast, turning thousands of square meters of the water into the same goop you saw in the Mexican Gulf, every few seconds.

This is what allows him to stay at the front of his army, riding a bizarre wave of dead things at the head of his legion, while Oberyn circles above, keeping just under the shadow of the cloud, as if itching to reach new land to destroy. Seeing him sends shards of glass through your heart. He’s not a spirit, which means your light won’t be able to save him, and you have to be prepared to kill him if you wanna win this war. There’s no other way this ends.

But no matter how badly changed he is, you still see your beloved prince when you look at him. Your heart won’t stop choosing to see the love he gave you. It just won’t. His gift will live on in you for as long as you survive this world, and in Day for the rest of all time, which is the only comfort you can find while you stand there in front of the now once more glowing lighthouse, waiting for the storm to hit.

He is lost. But not gone. You can still save one small part of him.

The cloud reaches over your heads just as the last rays of sunlight fade from the sky, no doubt a precisely calculated time-plan on Simon’s part, but the dragon pulls back then, remaining above the mass of the army as the gunk which replaces the sea makes landfall. You guess that he’s being held back so he won’t kill too many people before they can be converted and added to the ranks, but it makes no difference as the island itself rejects their arrival.

It’s more than a little satisfying to see the Darkling literally fall over when his wave of death is brought to an abrupt stop, as if hitting a wall, once it tries to spill over land. You can’t help but grin smugly at him when he glares at you while getting back up, which of course, only further angers him. But there’s no use. The light holds.

“That’s a neat little trick, Lux. But you won’t keep me out forever,” he growls, and the slight tone of incredulity in his voice tells you this is something he hadn’t anticipated.

Which must mean your spirit has never managed something like this before.

“I thought you were the new and improved dark one. The best one ever,” you taunt, feeling a tad superior to have finally found an angle he can’t immediately break through. “I thought you knew all my tricks and had already figured out how to counter them.”

“Like I said, it’s just a matter of time.”

You refrain from replying that you can reach around the entire world like this, since angering him further isn’t gonna do you any favors. Then Oberyn’s flame suddenly drops on you from above. As if spewed from one of those airplanes with water-tanks, used to combat wildfires, it cascades over the entire western coastline. The dragon is sick of waiting for his cue, it seems.

You can protect the island from the dark forces, which means he can’t land or swipe at people or animals on the ground, but his fire is just fire. Neither belonging to light nor darkness. The people aren’t frightened of it, so they just stand there as it hits them, melting their bodies in mere seconds.

If you don’t do something, the entire island will be destroyed. But the only thing you can do is try to kill the dragon. The thought fills you with pain and sorrow, and Simon immediately senses it.

“Poor little Boo. How awful it must be to know you have to kill your lover if you want to save these pitiful people.”

You can feel him prodding at your mind, trying to slip past the light so he can disrupt your power, but you’ve been down this road before and you’re still immune to him. Flooding your mind with all the happy memories, all the curious conversations in the beginning of your time at the castle, the immediate connection you’d felt with Oberyn and how it had eventually blossomed into love, you shove Simon out of your being with such force that it once again unbalances him.

And when the dragon lines up for his next run, you use your connection to all the people around you to increase the strength of your beam, before unleashing it from your chest. It hits him at the base of his throat before he veers off, but you maintain the beam, chasing after him until you’ve hit him again, leaving a glowing trail along his spine. He crashes somewhere to the northwest, and the sea of malice swallows him whole.

It’ll heal him, you know it will. He isn’t nearly damaged enough to be out of the game, but it gives you a while to think. And what you think is that you can’t fight a war by being only defensive. Your enemy can and will wait practically forever for your barriers to fall. His army isn’t dependent on food and water to survive, whereas yours is.

The only offensive measure in your arsenal is your light-beam but it won’t be enough to decimate Simon’s forces. You need to find a way to put a weapon in the hands of every living thing you’re connected to. But how? While you’re working that problem, the Darkling continues to let his evil spread through the ocean, killing millions of water-dwelling creatures in the process, and when you see the black goo travel past the island, you suddenly wonder why your light hasn’t seemed to reach the underwater population at all.

Reaching out towards Europe, you try to feel if your powers seem to have reached into the landlocked rivers and lakes, but the only answer you find is no. Which means, given time, all water on the planet will eventually be infected and undrinkable, killing everything no matter how much light you try and infuse things with. If you can’t find a way to protect the water, you’ll lose.

You can’t see Caelum anywhere, so you have to assume she’s hiding and waiting for her moment to strike. But you’re also highly aware the other spirits are absent as well, meaning Simon knows you can restore them and is keeping them out of your reach. Fuck! You need more time. There are too many unanswered questions.

Then something unexpected happens. A person on the beach below you loses his light, and the darkness instantly swallows him through the gap in your armor, giving it a foothold on the island. It can’t spread any further unless more people give in to it, but it still worries you. The dark one must be whispering to them, reaching into their minds just like he tried to do with you and just like you expected him to. But you didn’t expect him to succeed in persuading anyone so quickly. It’s only been minutes…

One problem at a time, that’s as much as you can work on, and right now, weapons take priority. You need a way to distribute light through something other than yourself. Another person falls, further inland, leaving a second beast in her place. It writhes and screeches, clawing at the invisible barriers which contain it, already hungry. Desperate to consume.

Consume… wait, that’s it! Using your hand, you shoot a highly concentrated beam at the newly formed creature down on the beach, turning him into glowing dust. Your light has now consumed and transformed him, just like the darkness does to the living. Except the dust he becomes also becomes a part of you, because it’s light.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Caelum suddenly swoops down over you, heading straight for the glowing dust and then beating her wings against it, sending it flying off over the blackened sea. Taking the opportunity given, you attempt to amplify the light of those little specks as they disperse, and it works.

Like fireworks, each and every particulate becomes a sizzling little bomb, which when it hits a creature of the dark, multiplies and creates a chain reaction which kills thousands in mere seconds. Simon manages to stop its rampant progression by throwing masses of thick vines in its path, essentially drowning the fireworks. But this time, you’re the one who can sense his fear growing, because this is an effective weapon, and one he won’t be able to wait out or prevent.

There’s no reason to hold back, so as soon as the first volley is extinguished, you launch a second one, and Caelum is right there, helping you disperse it with her microbursts of powerful winds. This time, you use both hands separately and aim your beam along as much of the front lines of the dark army as you can endure, before your hands are once again charred. But it pays off. The chain reaction which follows is massive, destroying at least a tenth of Simon’s army before he can halt it.

Then, just as the battlefield grows louder with the shrieks of anger from the decimated forces, there’s a rumble from below the semi-solid surface of the black ooze, and then Oberyn comes thrashing out of it. It holds him back, weighing him down with its oily muck, leaving him struggling to get his wings up, having to beat them hard repeatedly before enough of the shit has been removed to allow him to take off.

He comes straight at you, fully aware that you’re the one who brought him down and obviously eager to retaliate. It takes less than a second of seeing his distorted and enraged face glare at you, before your mind reverts into thoughts of grief and despair, and just like earlier, the moment you do, the Darkling pounces and tries to invade your mind. You’re not threatened by it, but it does scatter your resolve, leaving you frozen.

It tortures you. Seeing this, knowing that it’s your Oberyn but you’ll never get to see him proudly glide across the skies again. Knowing you’re the one who has to end him. There isn’t enough light in the universe to keep those thoughts away. He closes in so fast, and yet it seems to happen infinitely slowly. Jaws wide and the churning heat within, trained solely on you, needing to destroy with such desperation.

You wonder if there’s more behind it. His very existence depends on your obliteration, that much is easy to conclude, but somehow, you feel as though this need is fed by more than just the fear of death. It was the fear of losing you which brought him here, so it stands to reason the same fear is still what ultimately controls him, even if his memories are gone. But none of this really matters. It’s just thoughts, coming to you now as your own desperation is brought to a head. A last attempt to put off the unthinkable… but inevitable.

Stop..

An image flashes before your eyes, obscuring the jaws which are about to reach you, and you hear your own voice whispering inside your head, just as it had sounded back then, while something occurs to you on instinct. You’d made it stop that day in Detroit. The creature attacking the policemen. But it hadn’t been sunlight you’d put in its way. Once again you scream the word, not as loud as you can, but with all the might you possess… and the dragon stops.

He’s brought to a halt so abruptly that he flinches backwards and then crashes down onto the beach below you as if an invisible rope had snared and pulled him down. You look up, checking if there are reinforcements on the way to try and aid the dragon, only to see Simon’s face contort into pure rage at the sight of his presumed perfect weapon against you flailing as he tries to get back up. But the monster makes no attempt to help his minion.

Turning back to Oberyn, your breath is suddenly stifled as pain floods your being with the knowledge of what you’re about to do. He’s helpless to defend himself while you hold him down, pinning him to the sands as you try to prepare. Except there is no preparing for this. No amount of conditioning is going to make this one damned bit easier. You need to touch him to finish it, so although it’s the last thing you want to do, you start to walk down towards the beach.

He thrashes against the invisible chains you have wrapped around him, screeching through his ruined throat for his master to save him, but the dark one isn’t going to spare his resources on a lost cause. Whether he knows what you’re doing or not, he knows he’s powerless to stop it.

“Shhh…” you soothe, making your way to the once so mighty king of the skies, and his writhing eases up a little. “It’s gonna be alright.”

By the time you’re standing in front of him, he’s completely stopped moving, laying his head down in the sand, staining the tiny crystals black with the oil that seeps from his ruined skin.

“It wasn’t the sun which stopped that creature in Detroit,” you explain, even though you know he doesn’t have the ability to understand you anymore.

You just need to. One last conversation. Your final chance to ever say anything to him again.

“It was conviction. In that moment, I truly believed myself strong enough to stand up to something so evil. And I believed it so completely, so fiercely, that my voice reached into its dead brain and sparked the idea that maybe there is something more powerful than darkness. That’s all it took to stop it in its tracks. Just an idea. The barest hint of a flaw in the fabric of reality woven by the evils of this world.”

Taking one final step, you lay your hands on the tip of his nose, ignoring the thick, oily goo you sink into slightly, and which starts to trickle down your lower arms in sluggish dribbles.

“Such a simple thing. And yet, I couldn’t convince you of it. Because around you, I didn’t think I had to be that person. With you, I thought I could just be… human,” you shrug unhappily, giving yourself just a few seconds to let the tears fall. “I should’ve known better.”

He watches you, giving no indication that anything you say is affecting him, and even though you knew it wouldn’t, it still hurts you to know he’ll never look at you with those big brown, adoring eyes again. Light flows through your hands and your chest, and you watch as he slowly dissolves before your eyes, until all that’s left is the glowing dust. And the love of your life is truly gone.

Pain overwhelms you, bringing you to your knees, but there’s no longer any fear within you. The worst thing that could ever have happened, has already happened.

What’s left is agony and loneliness, but this doesn’t concern you, because you now know those feelings won’t take away your love or your hope. That they don’t eliminate positivity, but each exist alongside one another instead. You now realize both are born from the same place. Equal parts of the same core, and each vital for the existence of the other. And this understanding makes you truly untouchable to the Darkling.

But you can’t force this kind of understanding on other people. It’s not something one can be taught, so there’s no way for you to render others equally untouchable. Oberyn’s final act was to make you invincible against the darkness, not so that you can singlehandedly stop it, but so that the forces of light will always have a leader. No matter how long this war rages.

“You may have temporarily weakened me, Boo,” Simon snarls then, “but so long as the spirits belong to me, you will lose. I have all of eternity to wait for you to recognize that.”

With those words, he and his army retreats, although the Atlantic remains ruined after their departure. He’s not defeated, not even close. He’ll regroup and head for another coast, another continent to try and infect, and he’ll keep doing that for however long he has to. Because he’s right. Without the spirits, you’ll never stand a chance.

As if knowing you’re thinking about her, Caelum comes to your side and lands in the sand beside you.

“We can’t let him drag this out,” you say through the tears and the snot which has accumulated in your nose, while you follow your enemy’s departure with your gaze. “I don’t know how, but we need to free your sisters and we need to do it soon.”

In your periphery, you see her nod decisively, probably also aware the longer this takes, the more people will eventually succumb to the darkness no matter how diligently you try to safeguard them. And perhaps even more importantly; the more of nature will be destroyed. As you stand there, a plan begins to take form inside your mind, and you wonder if she somehow speaks to you, because you don’t feel like all of this is coming from you.

“Has it ever been this bad before?” you ask her, turning to meet her eyes now.

She holds your gaze for a few moments, but if she replies, you can’t tell. You don’t know if she even remembers things from as far back as the last dark one, but you also feel like whether she does or not, she’s no longer the same thoughtless entity of raw emotion she’s meant to be. Her stoic stillness somehow feels like an answer, though, and not a good one. But however bad you might try to imagine things could get from this point; nothing could’ve prepared you for how truly awful they would become.

--=¤=--

You sigh heavily as you feel another person die. Not by the Darkling’s hand, though, this was natural causes. A young man somewhere on the northern Australian continent, you’re not sure exactly where. It stopped being important a while ago. The exact locations. They’re all just losses. Caelum senses it too, and you feel her sorrow, which annoys you. You’re not sure when you stopped being able to grieve the lost ones anymore, but it seems like a long time ago.

You still care, perhaps even too much. Because each and every one who dies feels like your failure, but after so long and so much death, it’s gotten harder and harder to let yourself feel it. To let your love for the world carry your burdens and lighten your heart. It’s so hard when you’re connected to everything, because people die, in all sorts of ways, every minute of every day. And even if it isn’t traumatic or horrible, even if they just die in their sleep, you feel all of them as they leave the light.

How long has it been? How many deaths have you felt at this point? The fight takes you all over the world, so time-zones have stopped having any meaning to you. You battle the dark for as long as you can, and then you find a place to rest, sleeping for what you assume are a few hours, and then you get back to work. That’s the routine. Day after day.

The world fights with you, holding off the black hurricane and the senseless death it protects, even when you sleep. Determined not to fail, feeding off the light you still pour into it with as much hope as you can muster. But for all their courage and strength, Simon’s power has not been weakened. You’ve made almost no progress in recovering anything he’s already corrupted, leaving the American continents his adult playground.

He’s frustrated, though. You can tell. His need to consume makes him crave fresh bodies. Living things to torture the light out of so he can feed his stale existence and give it purpose. His army is restless, spending its time tearing at itself in search of relief from such a pointless existence, needing to tear, rip, destroy something. At times it gets bad enough that they even start dismembering themselves, further mutating their bodies as the removed limbs grow back even more distorted.

Time, it seems, is no more their friend than it is yours.

Caelum has changed as well. She’s no longer limited to non-verbal communication, having learned not just how to speak telepathically with you, but how to remember things from one moment to the next. Ordinarily, she shouldn’t be capable of thought or reasoning of any kind, but circumstances have forced her to evolve.

“Please, stop,” you ask her without saying a word out loud, when she continues to grieve for the dead man, and her sharp eyes refocus on you.

“You are the one who recognizes the strength of caring,” she chides, not for the first time.

“I’m aware. But lingering on the dead won’t help, will it?”

She doesn’t respond to that, but something about her gaze makes you feel guilty.

“I just mean we need to keep looking ahead, find solutions. We’re not a single step closer to ending this war and it’s been… how long now?” you ask, genuinely trying to work it out but coming up short.

“Three and a half years,” she replies, and for a moment you just stare blankly at her.

Your own assessment was off by about an entire year.

“Fuck…” you sigh, bowing your head in recognition of your absolute failure.

It’s the fifth time since that day you’re back on Faial Island, standing in front of the lighthouse and looking out over the Atlantic. You had eventually figured out how to heal the ocean, and all water, once Simon had left, so today it glistens blue against the horizon to the west. It turned out that all you had to do was change the wavelength of your light for it to travel through water. But that’s also about as much as you’ve accomplished.

The plan you’d once had, to try and sneak back into the States and covertly reach some of the spirits by using your conviction to gain control over a darkened creature and use it as cover, had failed on multiple occasions, leaving you scratching your head for some other idea. Brute force wasn’t gonna work, because as much as the world would stand behind you, they couldn’t operate offensively and would be of little help to you. And powerful though you are, even if you could muscle your way past an entire army, you still can’t kill Simon.

But somewhere deep inside you, there’s a glimmer. A truth, or knowledge, you’re not sure which. What you do know is that this glimmer is the answer, if you can just tap into it and learn what it’s trying to tell you. Because there is a way to win, you’ve never doubted that, and you never will. You just need to find it.

“Hey,” a voice quietly greets from behind you, and you recognize it as Andreia.

She comes to stand next to you, and you glance at her with a polite nod and small smile. She always comes to see you whenever she sees you arrive by the lighthouse where she still works. That’s another thing which seems very odd to you. How the world still has to keep going as usual, even with the truest evil trying to devour it. How the stock market has been affected by Americas destruction, how the politics of the world have shifted.

It feels like all that should’ve just stopped. Been put on indefinite hold while you all band together and fight. But that’s not how it works. Oddly enough, the planet has probably never seen a more peaceful time in all its existence, with the entire population so devoted to hope. There are no ongoing conflicts, virtually no crime even on the smallest scale of offences, and people are generally behaving more helpfully and tolerantly.

What a strange world this is, where the end of this war will see it return to those darker traits in very little time.

“Any progress?” she asks, following your gaze across the sea.

“No, not yet. I’m… stuck. In my head, you know?” you ponder, grateful to have someone other than the owl to talk to, just because humans relate to you better and understand things which no spirit can. “I keep trying to look at the problem from new angles, looking for something I could’ve missed, but as much as I know in my fucking bones there is an answer, I just can’t find it.”

“Maybe you need to write it down.”

At first, you dismiss her suggestion, since you can’t see what difference it would make, but when she continues to explain her reasoning, you start to come around.

“It activates a different part of your brain, which sometimes helps with problem solving. Singing does too, but I don’t think there is a song for this situation.”

“I don’t know. People have been making music for ages, covering every topic under the sun. I’m sure if we looked hard enough, we could find something eerily appropriate,” you shrug, laughing lightly at the subject.

Ever since you lost Oberyn, laughter hasn’t come as easily for you as before. It’s harder to let yourself be happy when he can’t be there to share it with you. But it’s also so important that you do hold on to the good moments and allow their brightness to infect you.

“How about… Ironic by Alanis Morissette”, she offers, making you snicker.

“Definitely. Or Everybody by Backstreet Boys.”

She hums approvingly, and a few more songs are exchanged between you, getting more and more ludicrous.

“Mr. Brightside by The Killers. I mean, come on, both the song and the group are appropriate,” you suggest, and by now you’re both struggling against incessant giggling.

“Lose Yourself…” Andreia replies, but then forgets the artist for a second, “…by uh…Eminem!”

But your laughter dies then. Partly because while the song does fit the theme overall, the message you’ve always taken away from it is simply about living in the moment and appreciating what you have, however unimportant or insignificant it might seem to someone else, which doesn’t really fit with going to war against ancient evil. And partly because of how the woman herself doesn’t seem to know why she chose that song at all. The moment she said it, confusion flashed over her features and with every second since, she looks increasingly befuddled.

“Lose yourself,” you repeat on impulse, but this time saying it as a suggestion to yourself.

Immediately, there’s a strange little click inside your head, and then the glimmer suddenly comes into full focus, so distinct now that you know it. How did you never think of it before? Oberyn even said it to you, in your final conversation on your way north from Antarctica.

You cannot possibly think that anything but giving it everything you have is going to be enough to free them all.

Every word he ever spoke to you or around you, lives in your mind, remembered in such vivid detail you can even recall the slight tremor in his voice as he’d said it.

“Andreia,” you say, turning to face her and pulling her into a tight hug which she bewilderedly reciprocates. “Thank you. You may have just saved everyone.”

You pull back and smile at her, but before she can say anything, Caelum picks you up and flies off with you, having heard you call out to her in your mind the moment the realization hit you.

“Am I to head west, then, Lightbringer?” she asks even as she aligns her beak to the shrouded horizon.

“Yes. It’s time to end this,” you answer out loud, because these words should be heard. The time for sneaking around and whispering between shielded minds is over. “I finally know how to free your sisters.”

Your once again brimming confidence rubs off on the owl, and she sets a nearly impossible speed, excited by the prospect of seeing her fellow spirits restored to their rightful glory. It doesn’t take long before you’re back underneath the poisonous cloud, and right away you can tell that it’s changed since your last visit, maybe a year and half earlier. The air is so thick with soot and ash that it clings to your skin and colors you black, while also wreaking havoc on your lungs in mere minutes.

Undoubtedly, this is what the entire world would eventually become, once all life had been consumed and all that was left for the armies of death to occupy themselves, was to torture each other, flooding the air with their oily blood and mutated skin cells. You’re grateful to know that this will never come to pass, while you cough up some of the black goo which has already begun to accumulate in your throat and lungs. It doesn’t harm you since you’re continually healing the damage it does, but it hurts more than one might imagine.

Looking up, you can see that Caelum isn’t affected by it, beyond how it obscures her sight, so you do your best to help her navigate by trying to get a sense of where Simon is. You find him quite quickly, detecting a massive surge of energy as he realizes his enemy is back. Which is probably the only thing he’s had to be excited about in a very long time. Directing the spirit there, you instruct her to drop you from an altitude high enough that she’ll be safe even if Octopus should be around and attempt to reach her with its enormous tentacles.

“Such a fall will break many of your bones,” she notes, not really out of concern, but more like she’s just making sure you know.

“I’m aware. It’ll be fine.”

The weightlessness is strangely liberating. Instead of falling, it makes you feel like you’re soaring, maybe because of how hopeful your realization has made you. But still no more than a trick of the mind. Hitting the ground removes the illusion when your legs completely shatter, all the way up to your hips, and fractures to your spine, ribs and arms make themselves known moments later.

You can still move, though, and as you feel Simon approach, you manage to claw yourself up to a seated position, finding that ignoring the pain is easier than you’d thought this time, which gives you comfort even as your enemy reaches you, sporting a large smirk on his disfigured face. Whatever’s been going on here for the past three years, he’s clearly begun to mutate himself, because his features aren’t entirely recognizable as human anymore.

He still has two legs and arms, and only one head, but the true shape of the Darkling has started to emerge, and it’s fucking hideous.

“Eww… the hell happened to you?” you ask, breathing hard through the pain, but otherwise mostly disgusted by his appearance.

Unlike his minions, the dark one is dry. His skin is a pale grey and where it’s cracked from the lack of moisture, mostly on his arms and hands but everywhere else too, there are miniature faces growing out of his flesh. Not like images of faces, but rather as though tiny people are actually trapped inside of him, trying to crawl out through the gaps but held back by some thin, partly transparent film. He’s at least ten feet tall now, so there’s much more space for these trapped people to crowd around, but they’re still fighting each other for room.

“You don’t like it?” he asks, and even his voice is unrecognizable. “This is my collection. The ones I like the most get to live inside me. The ones who are the most frightened… they make such delightful music inside my mind.”

You were hoping it wasn’t what it looks like, but clearly, it is. He probably grows larger with each soul he devours, and since he couldn’t have infected any new people for a long time, these must be his own creatures. Which would mean, once the mutated body is destroyed, the original human soul is still there, to some extent. But not in a way that would enable them to be restored. Their bodies are gone and no power on earth could bring them back. But at least the destruction of the Darkling will set them free.

“You’re using them to protect yourself.. aren’t you?” you ponder, trying to buy time for the spirits to reveal themselves, but also hoping to understand more about him, since that will help you take him down. “You cover yourself with them to make it harder for anyone to reach your dead heart.”

“Well, of course. Who’s gonna try and reach into this mess of scared little people, so desperate to escape their hell, they’ll crawl into the skin of anyone who touches me, driving that person mad. Ingenious, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose. In a devilish sort of way.”

“You will make a very nice addition to the flock…” he pauses, and puts a finger to his lips as if trying to think of something which evades him, “…oh, what was it Oberyn called you? I only heard it once, but it was something Egyptian, wasn’t it?”

You don’t really wanna hear that name spoken by anyone else, but since you’re still not sensing any spirits, you play along.

“Kaivalya.”

“Ah, yes! Freedom. How insulting a name to give to a creature whose entire life has been doomed to this ending from before she was even born,” he laments, putting on a very noticeably fake tone of compassion just to irritate you.

His voice already grates your eardrums. It’s so dry and course he can’t get much volume to it, but it still manages to cut straight into your brain with how it breaks on the high notes. The fake sentiment only manages to mildly annoy you in comparison.

“It was a promise…” you spit through teeth held tight against the pain of your legs trying to realign themselves so that the bones can be set, only to hurt more when the angles they’re trapped in won’t allow the movements.

“A promise? That old prince promised you freedom, and you believed him?!” Simon squeals before starting to laugh, further abusing your ears.

“No,” you counter, once you’ve adapted to the new level of pain. “He didn’t promise me freedom… He couldn’t have, because I was never his prisoner. He named me Freedom because that’s what I gave to him. A heart free to love again.”

You can tell he’s about to counter, it’s easy because his smirk returns every time his own thoughts amuse him, but you’re done with this distraction so you continue before he can.

“That’s what you took from him. I gave him this amazing gift… and you ripped it out of him.”

“Prince Martell sealed his own fate by allowing his fears to rip him apart,” he challenges, no longer smirking, though. “He was so scared for you. So worried you’d lose and he’d have to live on without you. And so, the coward you loved, the man who knew better than anyone how important it would be to keep hope alive in the time of the Darkling, chose to die rather than fight for you.”

Fuck. He’s found your weak spot and thrown a knife into it. You shouldn’t care what he says but you can’t help how his words cut through you, because they’re the same ones you’ve battled with in your nightmares. The same ones you’ve been unable to answer ever since it first dawned on you that he’d turned. Why did he give in? He knew what would happen. How could he leave himself so vulnerable?

But this is why you’re here. To set things right, no matter what happened in the past. You’ll never get those answers, so all you can do is let the questions go. And just as you begin to calm yourself, you feel it. They’re coming. He’s summoned them to watch as he devours you. And to protect him, should you have some trick up your sleeve.

“Tell me something, Si…” you start, giving them time to come closer before you get this over with. “Did you really think you’d ever get me to surrender to you? Is that what all this flaunting of your achievements is meant to do? To win me over?”

He sours while he listens, clearly unable to think of a witty comeback because you’re right. He absolutely thought that this, beating you, would be such a triumph you wouldn’t be able to resist admiring him.

“I’m the fucking goddess of all light, you prick. I was never gonna bow to you, you’re nothing but a shadow under the bed, a cockroach hiding in the bottom of the sink. You named me Boo, remember? Because even back then, I was better than you.”

You’re not actually trying to antagonize him, you just really wanted to give him a piece of your mind before you get this show going. But true to form, he’s enraged by your insults and comes at you with his arms raised and ready to beat you into the ground. The nine all are there, too far away for your eyes to make them out in the dark and dusty air, but close enough that you can feel them, standing in a circle around you and their master. And Caelum circles directly above you, just as you’d asked her.

“Don’t hesitate,” you tell her, as you watch Simon measure his first punch.

“Your sacrifice will not be in vain… Kaivalya,” she replies, and unlike the Darkling, her use of your most beloved name shows you just how much she respects you.

Nothing else is said between you. Nothing more is needed.

The Ten Spirits of the World Air - Forest - Water - Stone - Night - Autumn - Winter - Spring - Summer.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! If you wish to be notified when this story is updated, follow @sirowsky-stories and turn on notifications, or just ask nicely, and I'll tag you.

@harriedandharassed @kittenlittle24 @joelswritingmistress @pedrostories

#oberyn martell fanfiction #oberyn martell x female reader #oberyn x reader #prince oberyn #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones au #au fic #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #halloween writing #spooky season fic #halloween fic #sirowsky stories

31 notes · View notes

cosmichorrorsarestillnicerthanme · 4 months

Note

Hello can i ask for a hcs artoria lancer with male or gn reader who haves alucard from hellsing powers? Also the reader was randomly transported to the fate universe from their own universe and everyone just thought the reader was a spirit who have amnesia and have made up a new identity from somewhere

Let me just say that I had a blast and a half while writing this.

NOW! YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND!!!

A one in one hundred septillion chance brought you to Chaldea.

A flare of the ley line at the exact right moment allowed you to incarnate in this world.

And it was an event like no other.

Shadows grew long, the air dropped to the point where the world outside of the arctic base would be a boiling hot summer day, and the summoning circle flared black and red.

Then you appeared from the circle, dazed, lost, confused, barely able to speak, barely able to comprehend the world around you.

Guda and the others did their best to help you in the moment, but the storm of chaos that is Chaldea quickly brought their attention elsewhere.

That being said, Guda did assign someone to keep an eye on you.

Artoria Pendragon Lancer.

A regal woman with enchanting beauty and power to match it.

She was a kind woman, if a tad awkward and a bit of a glutton.

And something about her… called to you.

Like a breeze on a day where the weather is just right as you lay in the shade of a great tree.

Comforting, calming, gentle, kind, and wonderful.

These are all words you would use to describe Artoria.

She was all of those and more.

And so, as soon as you were stable enough, you were instantly at her side whenever she called for you.

It also helped that Da Vinci was all too happy to let you test run her weapons.

So the two of you would always be sent together.

Her lance to close the distance and destroy the enemy, your guns to cover her approach with ammunition that no mortal human could ever hope to use.

Over time the two of you grew close.

Closer than guardian and protectorate.

Closer than comrades..

Closer than friends.

The two of you became lovers.

And despite how little you knew of yourself, you were happy.

But then, on one fateful day, everything came crashing down.

You never once had used your Noble Phantasm in service of Chaldea, not because you couldn’t use it, but because you were afraid of it.

Of what it could mean for this life you had made.

Of what it could mean for the family you had in Chaldea.

It terrified you, but as all of Chaldea faced down the last of demon pillars, you knew what must be done.

And so, you told your master to do it, to use their command seal on you.

And as the command seal activated, darkness surrounded you, engulfing you. In all honesty, it would be more accurate to say, the darkness was emanating from you and swallowing the world around it whole like a ravenous hound.

Bugs, arachnids, gaping maws with dozens of sharp teeth, these and a hundred more horrible things made up your form and the swirling aether around you. A massive pitch black hound, lounged behind you, the closest thing Artoria had ever seen to human cruelty in the face of an animal in her entire life carved onto its face.

You raised your hand, the back of it pointing forward towards the massive creature as a burning flame ignited upon it to make a seal, and the world around you ignited in turn.

“You asked for my name once, and now, I will finally be able to answer you…” you stated before trailing off.

Then, an infinite number of eyes opened upon your body, upon the darkness, upon the shadows, upon every single dark place for a thousand miles as you spoke once more as all who bore witness to what was happening felt ice flood their veins.

In that moment, a universal truth was revealed to them all.

A glimpse into the realm of God.

The infinite sea at the heart of the world.

The Womb Of Creation.

In that moment, all who bore witness to this knew one thing.

You could not be allowed to begin speaking, much less finish what you were saying.

Alas, no one could make any semblance of a move to stop you, that is the power you commanded in this moment as everything became clear with each word you spoke.

“In the sea without lees, Standeth the bird of Hermes, Eating his wings variable, And maketh himself yet full stable, When all his feathers be from him gone, He standeth still here as a stone, Here is now both white and red, And all so the stone to quicken the dead, All and some without fable, Both hard and soft and malleable, Understand now well and right, And thank you God of this sight, The bird of Hermes is my name, and so I am found eating my wings to make me tame.”

You were not a saber nor archer, lancer nor caster, assassin nor rider nor berserker, nor were you a pretender or avenger or ruler.

You were a Foreigner, an existence that is completely incompatible with reality.

And You?

You.

Did.

Not.

Care.

The only thing that you cared about was this.

A single blemish upon her could not be allowed, you refused to even entertain the thought.

She was the king, she was the one whom you loved and was loved by in turn, she was the one who had put her trust in you.

No, if even a single scratch was to befall her…

Millions of cruel and sickening punishments shot through your mind like a swarm of locusts blotting out the sky to devour the crops in the field below.

Something like that could simply not be allowed.

The black aether that comprised your body opened its eyes.

And then all hell broke loose.

By the time the flames died, the dust settled, and the screams subsided, nothing remained on the battlefield aside from you and the soldiers of Chaldea.

After this, you would only stand in Artoria’s presence to slaughter her enemies with brutality that was unmatched.

You haunted the edges of her vision, her shadows, her every move.

And it broke her heart.

She wanted to laugh with you again.

To eat with you again.

To be merry with you again.

That was her one wish.

And eventually, after many nights of gazing into the shadows of her room, after many nights of silent prayers, you answered her call.

Because it broke your heart to be away from her as well.

You wanted to laugh with her again.

To eat with her again.

To be merry with her again.

That was your one wish.

A wish that, as “The Bird Of Hermes” was forever out of your grasp.

Even now, you were only running on sheer willpower to keep yourself tied to this world.

Your return to the world you come from was inevitable.

Or, that is what you thought.

But Chaldea doesn’t let one of its own go that easily.

They all fought tooth and nail to keep you around.

And they succeeded.

So then you and Artoria returned to the same way it was before.

The Master Of The Holy Lance and The Bird Of Hermes

Steel and gunsmoke.

Light and dark.

Laughing with each other.

Eating with each other.

Being merry with each other.

And loving one another.

#artoria pendragon x reader #artoria pendragon #artoria lancer #fate grand order x reader #fgo fate grand order #fate x reader #fate #fate go

49 notes · View notes

thedragonagelesbian · 1 day

Text

i will never be what i once was again

"Storm witch!"

Yiseeril had never known that a man so large as Minsc could bound, but there was no other way to describe his perpetually jaunty gait, bouncing up to her with thundering footsteps, a barrel underneath either arm and a hamster perched on his head.

"Boo and I have been discussing a matter," he declared gravely as he set the barrels down in front of her, "a very serious matter. It is the last night before we kick the brain's butt, no?"

Yiseeril noted the disconcerting scent of smoke powder and firewine mixing together. "It is."

"Well then we should not be sitting around moping at the edge of camp like you! We need to celebrate! Fortify our spirits for the battle to come."

Yiseeril brought a hand to her chest and gave an exaggerated scoff. "Minsc, my disposition is one categorically set against moping! The very suggestion wounds me."

"Then for what other reason are you out here, head and wings low?!" he protested. "The dumps, you are down in them. Minsc knows these things."

Yiseeril considered doubling down on the lie-- it was, after all, so very easy to lie to Minsc, his entire perception of her being a comedy of fabricated errors such that she was somehow a hero worth valorizing. But the ease was what made it hurt, so she forced herself to exhale slowly and say, "I may be feeling a tad apprehensive."

"Ha! Minsc always knows!" The momentary triumph ceded quickly to concern. "But you should not worry. Your brain is bigger than that one."

She smiled bitterly. "I'll tell you what, share a glass of firewine with me, and I'll share what's on my mind."

"Did you hear that, Boo? Our plan, it is working!" Minsc had, of course, not brought glasses but beer mugs, serving up a pint of wine from the barrel while Yiseeril's mage hand discreetly nudged the other barrel of firecrackers further away. None the wiser, Minsc sat down where his other barrel had once been and slammed their mugs together in an aggressive toast. "Now, tell Minsc what troubles you."

Yiseeril took a sip of her wine. It burned hot as whisky all the way down her throat, and she remembered why she preferred sherries, ports, anything sweet and smoldering and rotten. "I am, of course, completely confident in our capability of defeating the Elder Brain. It is what will come after that troubles me."

"More adventure?" Minsc suggested. "Just because we have defeated one very big baddie does not mean that there is no one else for you to thunderclap through the skull."

"The precise problem, love, is that it will soon be very difficult for me to thunderclap anyone, or indeed do much of anything." Another sip, another wrinkling of her nose, the warmth of the alcohol trying to light the hearth inside her, but her core burned cold as the Far Realms now. "You know I was once an acolyte of Oghma, yes?"

Minsc's entire face scrunched up in disgust. "Bah. 'The Binder of What Is Known.' More like 'The Not-Knower of Anything.' You are better off without him."

"I don't disagree." For a moment, she felt it again: the terrible vertigo of her body tossed and torn beneath the waves, mouthfuls of saltwater in a darkness that would not end. "Unfortunately, I am not so easily rid of his influence on me. My monastery made me to be his Voice: a passive receptor for all his divine knowledge."

"All of it?" Minsc sounded appropriately horrified and reached up to rub his forehead. "That is too much even for a brain as big as yours."

"And thus you see precisely my predicament. I was hollowed out, made to be the empty vessel for a knowledge so vast I could not even pronounce it, much to the chagrin of my tutors. For years, I was catatonic, lost to the world and to myself."

"Like Minsc in the stone?"

"Yes, I suppose it was a kind of petrification."

"But like Minsc in the stone, you are free now, are you not?"

Yiseeril tapped her temple. "Only because of our annelid accompaniments. Much as it suppressed Astarion's vampiric weaknesses, it has kept the tidal wave of information at bay. When it's gone...?"

If it would ever be gone. If she didn't stick to her and Minthara's plan to put the parasites to a better purpose. If she was not already committed to tearing divinity asunder.

And she was committed to that, wasn't she?

The furrows in Minsc's brow deepened. "But... you are so good at magic! Even the othlor would be impressed with you, hathran. How can it be that you have not yet found a way to undo this?"

"Perhaps if I only knew a little more..." The irony of her words hit Yiseeril a moment later, so bitter and sudden that she could not help but laugh as she choked on it, not her usual snide chuckles but deep in her ribs and strangled in her throat. "If only I knew...! Hells, it's-- it's probably in there, isn't it?" Gasping, laughing, crying, the mug of wine slipped from her hands and rolled down the hill, spilling scarlet in its wake. "Everything is in there. 'How to fix this' is part of everything, isn't it? Isn't it? And I can't know it so long as the tadpole's in my skull, but the moment it's out, I won't be able to do anything about it! To know without saying, without acting, that isn't knowledge, is it? Ha. HA! I can't win!"

She keeps giggling, hysterical and sobbing until she felt a pair of broad, crushing arms wrapped around her. Minsc squeezed her tighter than anyone ever had, and Boo scurried onto her shoulder to nuzzle her cheek, his whiskers tickling her underneath the feathered halo that covered her eyes.

"It is okay to be afraid," Minsc was hugging her so hard Yiseeril was sure she'd have bruises in the morning, and she didn't care. "You are very good at scaring others. Sometimes you must scare yourself too."

"More than you know..."

More than she let anyone know, aside from Minthara, how the parts of herself pulled and strained, torn between divinity and mundanity.

"Maybe Nine-Fingers will be okay staying bad for a little while longer," he added, and it caught Yiseeril by such surprise that she let out another sputter of a laugh.

"What in the truenames of all the Gods could you possibly mean by that, Minsc?"

"That Boo and I know what our next adventure will be. Before we can help Nine-Fingers, we must help you! We will not let you stay in stone, Yiseeril."

Blinking the tears from her eyes, Yiseeril looked up at Minsc and saw nothing but the radiance of genuine conviction beaming down at her. "Y-you wouldn't even know where to start."

"It is simple: we will start where we start, and we will not stop until we end." Boo gave a series of squeaks, to which Minsc nodded sagely. "Boo is right: someone will know how to fix this, and we will find them, and we will thrash them until they do so, and though she does not like us, the dark elf will help us do this. And so will the wizard, and the vampire, and the moon-witch, and the gith child, and Jaheira! Of course Jaheira will help you too. None of us will leave you to your curse, and so you have nothing to fear."

Yiseeril wished she could believe him. She would keep wishing it until she was in the Astral Sea, mind wracked from doing battle with the Netherbrain, thoughts and nerves scattered by its overwhelming psionic force. She would wish she could trust him, Jaheira, all of them long enough to stop being afraid.

And instead she would see the worm the Emperor would offer her, and there would be no fear there. Only power.

#gods least favorite princess

8 notes · View notes

reds-ultrakill-brainrot · 1 year

Text

I Had Been Lost to You, Sunlight

gabriel & reader relationship fic

x reader content (read platonic or romantic) any explicitely romantic headcanons will be orange

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

pre act 1

- it starts with chance, heaven's favourite angel is a busy man but you seem to linger in his mind after the first meeting - he takes more interest once he realises you mean him no harm, why are you in hell? all questions to be answered with time and probably less tact then one would want - it would be your curiosity in him that would cause him to pause, he was always a tool, hell's judge and hand of the father, but to you he was just Gabriel. he had never thought as to what hobbies he had, does he have hobbies? - here would be his introduction to his first hobby, by you no less. the organ was a tad unruly, missplayed keys ring loud in the hall. he couldn't explain why, but he found himself putting substancial hours into practicing before he sought you out again - he’s a bit of a neat freak with his armour, and don’t even think you’re getting him to take any off, it will be a quiet day in hell before that happens - he isnt exactly sure how one goes about making friends with someone, prepare for some very odd attempts at gift giving or shared activities (basically you're getting a bible, or maybe specific passages he has hilighted for you) - he has an inlking of a feeling that he cares for you more than others, but he refuses to think further into it lest he be tempted into sin post act 1

- you would not see him for a substancial amount of time, enough that it was you who had to seek him out, it was in the hall you had taught him organ in where he sat, armoured head facing heaven. you join him, lacking the words to join his prayers, but nonetheless joined in prayer with him- for him - you had never seen him shaken so, the moment doesn't last but settles in your memory. he speaks first, neglecting to mention the council's decision but you can tell something had gone wrong. - its here you first physically comfort him, he doesn't know how to react to the hug, stiff in his posture. its here that sliver of realisation hits him, he cares about you strongly - i'd love to say the angel had a positive reaction, but after failing the council and the impending hour of his light leaving him, the idea that he not only failed god with his actions but also his thoughts broke him - he leaves almost instantly, yet again you are left with no explanation. so you leave. in all this time you had never considered him immature, and you wouldn't treat him as such. he would come when he was ready - when he decides to talk you are met with a letter first, he's embarrased at his own behaviour and uses the spare minutes to work out his thoughts - he wouldn't consider himself innocent by any means, he had dealt with the filth of hell personally, but he finds his previous tutelige lacking in education on these matters - he finds his first words are an apology, and despite his previous insistence in keeping what happened to himself he finds his failure to the council leaving his mouth soon after, however neglecting his nearing demise - the next hour or so is spent in the hall, the two of you sitting on the steps. he's quick to inform you about V1, frustration palpable as he describes the machine's crusade through hell - you offer to pray for him, something that takes him off guard. offers of prayer had only ever been meant as platitude, but you genuinely mean it - there you both sit, this time with you leading the prayer. your words lack the refined practice of his own but he finds an underlying passion that reknews his spirit post act 2 (spoilers)

- you automatically know something is off when Gabriel doesn't seek you out, this time you do seek him out. this isn't about wanting answers or waiting for him to compose himself, you have a bone deep sense of wrong plaguing your thoughts - you find him (you're more sure he lets you find him), swords across his hands and head hung low. he doesn't notice you approaching. the blood clinging to his blades is fresh, glowing charcoal of a near-dead fireplace shining off the fluid, a trail of his misdeeds stain his gauntlets and boots - you don't share words, his silent righteous anger speaks leagues. he seems to soften after noticing you, but there is a lingering emotion that weights on his appreciation of your company - in a startling moment of vulnerability he invites you closer, swords returned to their scabbards, the room beside him on the grass soon filled by you - night walks itself across the sky above you and for this moment Gabriel regrets his earlier actions. he prompts you to rest, your head gentle on his shoulder. gentle. he thinks to himself you are the one being in heaven and hell that has treated him so - his death approaches, each minute his grip on reality wavers, his hand meeting and lacing with your own as he uses his other to write - you awake as you would before, alone. a final letter, handwriting progressively sloppier, sits in your hand

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

hi again, thanks for the interaction with my last post, i'm stoked people are enjoying this. this format is a little different than last time, more of a fic told through headcanons. i'd love to know what people prefer or if i should title this differently

#gabriel ultrakill x reader #ultrakill x reader #ultrakill

119 notes · View notes

fbfh · 1 year

Text

rocks at your window pt. 6 - ricky bowen x reader

disclaimer: this series contains smut and chapter by chapter warnings, so as with all nsfw works, ricky is aged up to 18+!! ricky and reader are 18 and in their senior year

additionally, we're working towards a ricky x therapy plot so he's going to start expressing some symptoms of mental illness and bpd but he does get therapy eventually and has a good support system but he gets worse before he gets better yk. Obviously I'm not a professional and this is for entertainment so while I have done my research pls take this with a grain of salt!! or several!! /lh

!! contains some spoilers for season 1 of hsmtmts, and previous chapters of this fic !!

wc: 5.3k

genre: hurt/comfort, fluff, smut

pairing: ricky bowen x (afab she/her) reader

warnings: mike's a good dad, mike and your mom are the most iconic single parent bff duo, mike and ricky are both water signs so there's a lot of feelings fromt he bowen boys, LYNNE IS SO TOXIC, intentional and unintentional guilt tripping, todd /derogatory, ricky's spiraling just a tad /s, lynne calls herself mommy once /nx, passive agression and emotional manipulation from lynne, comforting ricky, more (brief) one sided gina pining, more background slowburn ashlyn x red, nina being a tacky toxic bitch </3, groping, grinding, fingering, bathroom sex/hitting it from the back, wrap before you tap, pressing on stomach/external g spot stimulation (we need a name for that), mirror sex, one brief mention of porn, clit rubbing, attention whore hours, trying not to be too obvious about sex, I think that's it

summary: As if the holidays aren't enough of an emotional minefield, Ricky gets blasted with back to back phone disasters from his mom, and trusts you implicitly to help him navigate through it. You turn the night around by going to Ashlyn's thanksgiving party with your theatre friends, where it's only a matter of time before you're sneaking upstairs together.

song recs: are you in love - the regrettes, nothing came out - moldy peaches, ribs - lorde, into you - ariana grande (bathroom at a party edit), lover's spit - broken social scene

a/n: got bad burnout/depressive episode in the middle of writing this (i'm fine now /gen) so it took longer than I wanted but I'm really happy with how it turned out!! I love you all and I'm really glad you're liking this so far, it really does mean the world to me babes <333 Also thank you again Cici for proofreading!!!!!

tags @yesv01 @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @afidiofobia @aliyahsutherland @hopefullhearts @pikzel @demirunner @matiere-detoiles @ifilwtmfc @uselesssapphickitten @nxstalgicnxbxdy @ggclarissa @n-slayaaaaa @stormi-ames

Ricky has been dreading the holidays this year, and he knows his dad has been too. When she left, she took that warm hustle and bustle, that rush of excitement was with her. But he and his dad weren’t totally without holiday spirit, thanks to you and your mom. Your mom and Ricky’s dad bonded over PTA meetings and having their kids star in the same show, quickly becoming the single parent friend the other needed. Since your mom has been through the divorce wringer, she’s been there to support Mike, encouraging him to be there for Ricky and prioritize him. Mike has found a lot of strength and camaraderie in your mom, so when the holidays begin to approach, a joint thanksgiving seems like the obvious option.

Pooling resources, helping each other cook, and navigating relatives together will both be much more manageable with a friend by your side, so they’ve been bouncing between each other's houses for the last week or so, coordinating recipes and travel plans. You and Ricky have been helping around rehearsals and homework too - just last night Mike watched you two sit at his kitchen table making paper leaves and turkeys, laughing for hours.

It’s finally turkey day, and you and Ricky are wrapping up the last decorations while your mom and Mike get the final dishes out of the oven. Mike watches you two talk, giggling at something or other ever few minutes. He hasn’t seen Ricky like this in a long time. A few months ago if Mike had asked his son to do festive arts and crafts with him, he would have laughed. Now you’re both approaching him with a giggle, asking him to decide which hand turkey is better. Yours is really colorful, but Ricky’s has a funky little hat. He sucks in a breath.

“That’s a toughie… I gotta say it’s a tie.”

“I called it,” you say with a knowing smile, and Ricky lets out a loud laugh.

“She did,” he tells his dad as you walk back to the dining room table, “she totally called it.”

Ricky stays in the kitchen for a few moments to throw away all the scraps of construction paper and synthetic feathers, tacky with glitter glue. He watches you until you’re out of sight, and his gaze lingers. He lets out a soft sigh, overjoyed from being in your presence. It’s quiet for a moment. Mike lets out a soft sigh.

“You really like her, huh?”

Ricky looks at the last piece of cut up construction paper in his hands, the one you’d been using. He watches the way the glitter shifts in the light, the glitter you’d placed with your own two hands, and it feels like he’s looking at the starriest night sky he’s ever seen. He’s enchanted.

“Yeah…” he breathes, obviously deeply lovestruck, “I really, really do.”

That’s putting it lightly. He’s been trying not to dwell on the dream he had last night where you two had moved into an apartment in portland and adopted two dogs. He didn’t realize how badly he wanted that sort of thing, that life, until he saw it last night, but now it’s consumed his thoughts in every spare moment.

Mike places his hand on Ricky’s shoulder. The gesture is reassuring and comforting, and brings a sudden unexpected wave of emotion over Ricky.

“You work well together.”

His words are simple, but there’s so much meaning behind them. Ricky understands this, and he’s grateful for his dad’s blessing.

“Thanks.” Ricky says with another one of those smiles Mike hasn’t seen on his face since you came into his life. He’s happy he’s been seeing them again. He pats Ricky on the back one more time before sending him back into the dining room with you to hang up the decorations you finished.

Mike goes back to the stove to check on the potatoes, and as it so often seems to, his mind wanders to Lynne. He's been doing his best to take your mom's advice, to let Ricky decide when and how much he wants to talk to her - if he does at all - but it's been hard. He knows how much a call from Ricky would mean to her, especially this time of year. Your mom enters the kitchen through the back door a few minutes later, and holds up a shopping bag triumphantly.

"Butter, yeast, and nutmeg." She states, pulling out the ingredients they had run out of. Mike thanks her, but she doesn't miss the solemn look on his face.

"You okay?" She asks, a knowing tone to her voice. Mike is so glad that she's been here. It's nice to have a friend, and some feminine energy in their house. He lets out a sigh, and finds himself rambling before he can stop himself.

"I just know she’s miserable." He says, "All alone in a cold apartment, and during the holidays? We used to get so excited this time of year, I can't imagine how alone she must feel."

Hovering outside the doorway, Ricky feels his stomach sink. Guilt creeps in, and he’s running up to his room before he can think.

As his footsteps recede, your mom lets out a knowing sigh. They've had this conversation many times before, and she’s happy to be there for him, to give him that support to make sure he doesn't backslide. The cleaner the breakup the better, especially when kids are involved - she knows from experience.

"Mhm." She starts, and Mike fights a smile. He knows what she's going to say, but he needs to hear it anyway. "And what did you and her decide about communication with Ricky?"

"She promised she'd call at least once a week and I'd tell her if he wants her to call him less."

"And…?"

His silence is all the answer either of them need.

"She’s probably upset," he says, reaching for an explanation, "I know she misses Ricky-"

"Screw that." Your mom says, pausing on the rolls she's making to look up at him. "If she wanted to, she would, Mike."

He's quiet again.

"Is there anything," she questions, that seriousness in her voice that only comes from a parent talking about their kid, "anything in this world, any bad feeling that could keep you from talking to Ricky for weeks?"

"No." He doesn't even need to consider. "Of course not."

She holds out her hand, point proven. Mike silently concedes. He's not sure what it is about Lynne that makes it so hard to detach, so hard to set and keep boundaries, but he’s grateful for the support. He couldn't do it without your mom.

“Why don’t you put on some music?” she asks, knowing his favorite part of the holidays are his playlists.

If Ricky had stuck around for a few more seconds, he wouldn't have found himself where he is now; pacing his room, biting his lip as he keeps opening and closing the phone app. The idea of calling her feels gross. Not calling her feels gross. He feels so fucking gross and he just wants it to stop. A wave of laughter passes downstairs as his dad starts singing along poorly to the Michael Buble now playing out of the Alexa in the kitchen. It should make him feel warm, happy, good. Instead it just makes his stomach drop and tears spring to his eyes.

It feels like the universe is conspiring against him, throwing in his face everything she’s missing right now. He can’t get the image of her alone in a sad dim apartment out of his head. His hands shake as he holds his phone to his ear, dial tone ringing softly. She needs this more than he does, he thinks. No matter how much it’s hurting him to call her right now, he can keep it together. He can do this for her. He can be civil for a few minutes over the phone and that will give her at least a decent Thanksgiving.

“Hello?”

Ricky stops in his tracks as an unfamiliar man’s voice reverberates through his phone speaker.

“Uh, hi,” he starts, confused. He knows he called her contact in his phone. “...I’m trying to reach Lynne Bowen?” he swallows thickly hoping the stranger won’t hear the way his voice cracks. He doesn’t remember the last time he had to use her full name. “I think I have the wrong number.” he chuckles dryly.

“No, you got it,” he doesn’t have time to process that before the stranger keeps speaking. “Ricky, this is Todd. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Todd?

“Lynne’s in the shower, can I take a message?”

He briefly wonders why she would have a stranger in her apartment answering her phone while she showers, but he knows this guy - Todd - must be her… He knows his fleeting hope that he’s wrong and this is some crazy stalker that broke into her house is just that, fleeting hope. His stomach is twisted up in knots and he can’t breathe right. His mind is racing, swirling and repeating the 10 seconds of this terrible phone call over and over.

“Ricky?”

Part of him wishes he could scream at this guy to keep his name out of his mouth. Hers too. He has no right to be anywhere near her. Not when she needs time to herself; so much time to herself, to figure this all out, that she can’t even be around her son. A very jaded part of him might understand if she never wanted to see his dad again, but a small voice in his head is screaming, asking why she’s okay with abandoning both of them. He’s her son, her child. Aren’t parents supposed to care about their children?

He hangs up the call before he can further this horrible pointless train of thought. He rushes into the bathroom, locking the door. He paces around. He splashes cold water on his face. He tries to get his shit together. He tries to make it look like he’s not about to break down. It’s Thanksgiving; this holiday might be ruined for him, but he won’t ruin it for his dad, or you, or your mom. He can pull it together, he can act like everything’s fine. He’s supposed to be an actor, right?

After he desperately tries to collect himself, he heads back down, bumping into you on the stairs.

“Hey, I was just looking for you…” you trail off. You take one look at his face, and he knows you know something’s wrong. “You okay?”

Your voice is so sweet, so sincere that it digs everything he just tried to bury. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. It doesn’t have to, though. He can tell from the look on your face that you understand.

“Do you want to go talk?” you ask gently. He nods. He can feel himself fighting tears, brow scrunching up at the effort.

A few minutes later you’re sitting on his bed while he tells you everything. He knows he’s probably not making it sound as horrible as it felt, but he’s backpedaling. He can hear her voice in his head, telling him not to get so worked up over nothing, that he’s blowing this all out of proportion.

“What the fuck?” you ask, looking as confused as he feels. He’s about to agree, this is stupid, and you should just go downstairs and- “What the hell is wrong with him?”

He stops in his tracks.

“That was so outrageously inappropriate. I don’t know whether or not she told him not to talk to you, but obviously she should have.”

He lets out a small breath, the first time he’s been able to since this whole incident.

“It was pretty out of line, right?” he says hesitantly.

“Way out of line!” you say with a disbelieving laugh, “I can’t believe you just went through that!”

He lets out a nervous laugh, feeling some of his distress transmute into anger, and because of you, he’s sure it’s justified.

“What kind of lunatic answers their… I don’t know who he’s supposed to be - a friend, assistant, weird invasive neighbor -” Ricky laughs, and you continue ranting, worked up for him, “But unless he’s literally her life coach or personal assistant or something, there is no fucking reason why should have answered her phone. Also why the hell would he try to strike up a conversation with you? This isn’t some little league game, or PTA meeting!”

He can feel himself coming down from the panic that had gripped him so tight before.

“You know, maybe - just if you’re ready for this -” you amend, wanting him to know he’s not pressured to do anything, “maybe you should take her out of your favorites.”

He sits with your words for a moment, considering.

“Yeah,” he says, “maybe I should.” He’s already opening his contacts to remove her, when a voicemail pops up. He must have missed the call when you were talking, but he recognizes the number as hers. He lets out a weary sigh.

“I got a voicemail…” he turns his screen toward you so you can see.

“Do you want me to… proof-listen to it?” You offer gently.

“Could you?” there’s a fragility in his voice that makes your chest squeeze. You accept the phone with no hesitation, pressing play and holding it to your ear.

“Hi sweetie, it’s mommy…”

Off to a bad start.

“Sorry I missed you, Todd told me you called, so I called you right back but I got your voicemail instead.”

Her voice drips with a tone that’s obviously looking for sympathy.

“I hope you’re having a good holiday. Tell your dad not to burn the turkey like he did a few years ago. I won’t be here to fix all the recipes, so help him out in the kitchen, okay?”

There’s an edge of condescension to her voice that you don’t appreciate. Ricky’s dad has been doing great, especially under the circumstances.

“My Thanksgiving is going well,” she continues, chuckling “Todd and I watched the parade, and some of those performances were really terrible. I don’t know who let them go out looking like that, and that tacky little girl on the turtle float was seriously tone deaf…”

You and Ricky had also watched the parade, and all the performers did great. You both loved the girl on the turtle float, she killed it. She hit a high C that left you both speechless.

“Anyway, we’re meeting up with some friends later; I think this will be the first holiday party I’ve been to in years without children. Other than that, things have been fine. It’s been quiet, and a pleasure not to spend all day slaving away in the kitchen. Call me back when you get this, I’d like to hear your voice. Bye bye.”

If you’d like to replay this message, press 7.

You pull the phone away from your ear. You don’t say anything, but the expression on your face tells him everything he needs to know. You slowly hand him back his phone.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t listen to that now.” Your voice is quiet, trying to maintain your composure, “Or ever. Maybe just delete that one.”

He chuckles dryly. “That bad?”

“Oh yeah.” you state. He lets out a shuddering sigh, and it’s obvious the toll this whole ordeal has taken on him.

“C’mere,” you say softly, flopping down on his bed and opening up your arms for him. His chest squeezes and he’s overwhelmed with another wave of emotion. He wonders when it will stop, constantly being bombarded with complicated horrible situations he can barely handle. It’s a lot. It’s too much.

You wrap your arms around him, dragging your nails up and down his back in that soothing way that you do, and he feels it start to slow down. He’s still upset, anyone would be, but it feels like he can handle it somehow. He buries his face in your neck, soothed by your smell, your touch, even your breathing and heartbeat. He lets out another sigh, this one relieved as he finally starts to come down from the acute distress he’s been in for the last little while.

“You’re gonna be okay,” you say, just loud enough for him to hear you. “It’s all going to work out with some time. It’s gonna be okay.”

He doesn’t say anything, just holds you tighter.

“Hey, kids!” You both look up as you hear Mike call you from downstairs, “Everyone’s here, come say hi!”

You share a look with Ricky, silently asking if he’s ready. As I’ll ever be, his expression says.

“Coming!” you reply.

You spend the next hour or so greeting aunts, uncles, and family friends that both your mom and Ricky’s dad had invited. A handful of elementary school kids run around; cousins, kids of coworkers and the like. After a substantial amount of wow you’re so tall, the last time I saw you you were still watching sesame street, and countless so how’s school going? comments, the parents finally rescue you from someone's grandma - you’re not sure whose - and pull you into the kitchen. You’re about to ask when you can go to Ashlyn’s thanksgiving party, but they jump in before you can.

“Thank you guys for all your help with the cooking and decorating, you did a great job.” Your mom says.

“And,” Mike continues, “since you said hello to everyone you can go to your friends party whenever you’re ready.”

You smile, blurting out a thank you in unison and hugging your respective parents.

“Take these with you, and tell Ashlyn’s parents we said hello.” Your mom hands you a box or two of pumpkin bites to bring with you.

You’re grabbing your coats when Ricky gets a text from Gina, offering to walk him to the party. He texts her back, letting her know he’s driving there with you and asking if she needs a ride. A second later, his phone buzzes again.

‘Of course you are. See you there.’

“You ready to party?” you ask, drawing his attention back to you where it so often resides. The drive is short and pleasant. When you arrive at Ashlyn’s a few minutes later, everything’s in full swing. Making your way through the house, you see Nini in the kitchen, having some intense girl talk with Gina. Most of your other friends are in the living room, including Big Red, who seems to be flirting with Ashlyn - or at least trying to. Ricky makes a mental note to ask him about that later. You pass by EJ on the stairs, who’s ranting to no one about getting ratioed. You start to sit down with your friends, then turn to Ricky.

“Do you want a drink?” you ask, and he nods, thanking you. You make your way to the kitchen, smiling when you see a case of Ricky’s favorite soda. You grab a can for him, then look around to pick one out for yourself. You turn around only to be met with Nina. You jump slightly at the unexpected presence. Before you can even greet her, she starts talking, staring you down.

“You need to stay away from Ricky.” You’ve been here for three minutes and she’s already off to a strong start. “You’re not his girlfriend, so stop acting like it. I should know, I’m the one who’s known him since kindergarten.” You’re trying hard to be mature about this, even with the ridiculously incredulous look on her face. You take a subtle, grounding breath and think for a moment about how to respond in a way that will get your point across without causing even more drama.

“Wow,” you start, “okay- uh, look, we haven’t made anything official, but full disclosure, we have hooked up a few times.”

She looks irritated, and you continue.

“Also, you broke up.” you state, a shrug, your expression bewildered at how she’s acting, “You’re not his girlfriend either.” Having said what you need to say, you grab your own beverage and leave the kitchen as Ashlyn enters. On your way out, you hear her tell Ashlyn how she’s right, that she should stop writing songs about crappy relationships and crappy boys and just write about life.

You sigh as you reenter the living room, glad Ricky wasn’t in earshot of that. After the day he’s had and all the shit he had to deal with from his mom, you’re sure the last thing he needs is another person to confirm all of his fears. You perch on the arm of the cushy chair he’s sitting in and hand him his drink. He smiles up at you, looking sweeter than ever, and you wonder how anyone could think he’s anything close to crappy, anything less than the most wonderful endearing boy you’ve ever met. You really don’t trust Nina’s taste in people.

“I am so sorry,” Ricky says for the millionth time, ushering you into the bathroom. You let out another sweet laugh, genuinely unperturbed by the drink he’d spilled on you by accident. You make your way to the sink, turning on the warm water and grabbing a wad of tissues. You briefly run them under the water to get them damp, and start blotting at the very large stain. Ricky does the same, attempting to remove the sticky sweet liquid from your clothes.

“God, it’s all over you,” he smiles, and you can tell he still feels bad.

“It’s okay,” you say with a giggle, “Now I have a tangible memory from tonight, and a great story for the drycleaners.” He starts to relax a little, sensing that you’re telling the truth, you’re not upset. Even if you were, he’s sure it wouldn’t be at him - you know it really was an accident. After a few more minutes of trying to get it out with partial success, you grab more tissues to dry your sweater back off. Ricky stands right behind you, watching you in the mirror as you do. He’s enamored by you. Everything you do draws him closer and closer to you like a magnet.

Satisfied enough with your work and mostly dry, you turn to throw away the damp tissues.

“Okay, I think that’s-” the words dry up in your throat when you turn, suddenly face to face with Ricky. Neither of you had realized how close you got in the last few minutes, but now your body heat is mixing and it makes your stomach twist. Your eyes are locked on each other, and the air is pulled from your lungs at the way he looks at you. The atmosphere is suddenly thick with lust, and you can hear a song playing on repeat downstairs.

His eyes flick between yours and your lips, bringing butterflies to your stomach. His hand rests gently on your waist as he finally leans in to kiss you. It’s sweet for a few seconds, then it melts into tongue and teeth and breathy sighs. Before you can fully turn around and hop onto the counter to let him stand between your legs, he’s kissing down your neck. You sigh at the feeling, bracing yourself on the counter, and he wants to make you moan. He wants to make you whine and scratch his back like you do, he wants it more than anything right now.

His hands run along your back, down your hips and thighs, leaning into you. He reaches the bottom of your skirt, slipping his fingertips under and inching the fabric up. He squeezes your hips while he sucks dark bruises into your neck. All the noises, the soft little sighs and halted breaths are making him want to touch you more and more.

His hands on your thighs and mouth on your neck are making you dizzy. You want him even more, and find yourself grinding your hips back against him. He lets out a hiss, and you can feel him harden against your ass. Your eyes flick up to his in the mirror, lingering on how flushed you're making his cheeks just by grinding against him. He catches your gaze, noticing the way you smirk at every sigh he lets out.

“Oh,” he mutters into your neck. His tone is playful as he gets dangerously close to your ear. “That’s how you wanna play…” He nips your neck before finally sliding his hand between your thighs. His fingertips brush against your clothed cunt, feeling the wet spot that’s already formed on the fabric. When he dips his fingertips between your folds, he can’t believe how wet you are already. It makes his head spin, as he slowly pushes into your entrance. After just a few pumps, sticky beads of arousal are already dripping down his fingers. He lets out a shuddering breath at the sensation. The noises you’re making, both your moans and the wet sounds of your walls around him, make his head spin. After a few minutes, you’re holding back whines. You need more, leaning onto the counter and sticking your ass out. It’s not a hard cue to pick up on, and he’s quick to grab a condom from his wallet. He pumps himself a few more times before slowly pushing in. You both choke back a moan as you squeeze around him. He feels his head grow fuzzy at the euphoric feeling of your bumpy walls squeezing around him, and it feels like being welcomed home. He braces against the counter with one arm, the other wrapping around your hips, holding you close to him as he thrusts into you.

His face is right next to yours, and you can feel his warm breath against your cheek as he pants at the sensations wracking through you. He squeezes you tighter, and the pressure against your lower stomach has you choking out a moan, eyes rolling back in your head.

“Fuck-” you moan, trying your hardest not to be too loud. Everyone else should be downstairs, but you’re sure anyone nearby would be able to tell what’s going on. Ricky’s staring at you in the mirror. He tries to look away, tries to bury his face in your neck and press his nose to your skin but he can’t. You look so beautiful fucked out like this, so ethereal with your eyes clouded with lust. He can’t believe he made you like this, it’s all from him, from his touch.

Your expression, the noises tumbling from your pretty lips he’s just itching to kiss are better than any porn, because you’re the one making them. Everything is better with you. It always is. You’re whining, begging for him, and you feel the vibrations of his voice as he moans right next to your ear. You feel so good, you touch him so sweetly in a way he didn’t even know was possible before he met you. He’s so close, and by the way you’re squeezing and pulsing around him, gripping tight onto his arm, you’re not far behind him.

He holds you closer, adding more blissful pressure against your lower stomach, leaning into you even more. His other hand moves from bracing you both against the counter to rub your swollen clit, sending jolts of electricity and pleasure through you. He’s been hitting that spot inside you over and over, and it’s more than enough to send you over the edge. You hold onto him for dear life, legs shaking as you hit an intense high, your cum beginning to drip down your thighs. You throb and pulse around him milking as his hips push and stutter into yours.

“Fuck fuck fuck-” he babbles into your ear, against your skin, “shit, I…”

“Oh god, Ricky,” you pant, distracting him from the words that had come up as suddenly as his high. You have his full attention, looking prettier than ever. He keeps his mouth busy, kissing and sucking your neck, running his tongue over your skin.

A few minutes later, you’re cleaning yourselves up and trying to fix your clothes. You’ve been up here for a while, and with how loud you got toward the end, you’re sure someone is going to have a few questions. Ricky wraps up the tied off condom in tissues and shoves it deep into the garbage can, hoping no one will find it. You start to make your way downstairs, Ricky keeping his hand on your waist to help you when your legs wobble. In spite of your best efforts, you know it’s obvious - anyone could take one look at you and know what’s going on. You don’t mind in theory, figuring it’s only a matter of time before someone puts the pieces together, but the last thing either of you need right now is more drama.

“Hey!” Seb exclaims, bumping into you on the way back to the living room, holding two drinks. “What took you so long?” he smiles. There’s not a thought behind his eyes, and you’re pretty confident he didn’t pick up on anything between you and Ricky. You look to each other reflexively, smiling nervously.

“Oh, uh…” you start, fumbling for an answer. “Just cleaning up.” Not technically a lie, so that works. Ricky laughs, a blush still present on his cheeks.

“Yeah, we started talking about the show and we just…” he suppresses another giggle, “got distracted.” He keeps looking over at you, staring at your pretty face. He can’t help it. You’re glowing in the warm lighting, the glow of the fake candles scattered around other autumnal decorations.

“Well, come on, we’re about to start playing board games!” Seb says with an excited shrug, before returning to the rest of your friends. You nudge Ricky playfully.

“Real smooth,” you tease, at his lovestruck gaze. He laughs and nudges you back.

“I guess I need to get better at improv. Maybe you can tutor me?” He leans into you as he speaks, living for the flustered expression on your face. You laugh and nudge him again, knowing your friends could walk around the corner and see you two like this at any minute. His gaze lingers.

You finally enter the living room, and before you can sit next to him, Ricky pulls you into his lap. Everyone’s crowded around the coffee table where Carlos has the game set up - it’s even High School Musical themed, which is really amazing - so you’re sure the lack of space is at least some justification for where you're perched, why his arms are wrapped around you like that.

“Okay,” Carlos says, a small smile appearing on his face, “...you two, pick a team. Knights or Wildcats.”

You and Ricky reflexively share a look again.

“Uh… Knights.” he says, arbitrarily.

“I’ll be on his team,” you say.

“Alright,” Carlos says, and begins explaining the rules. Ricky tries to suppress the smile, the warm feeling swirling and puffing up his chest at your words. You want to be on his team. He tries to pay attention to Carlos, but it’s so hard when you’re so close to him like this. He thinks that aside from the rocky start, this is the best way to start off the holidays. He can’t think of anywhere better to be than holding you, still a little blissed out, and having a great time with all your friends.

Your thumb brushing over the back of his hand, you’re trying not to space out too. You’ve been having a great time tonight, but you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen. You let out a sigh, trying your best to ignore it, to stay present with your friends, with Ricky. It doesn’t matter now, you remind yourself, if anything bad does happen, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. But for now, you’re going to have a nice night with your friends, and stop stressing about what could happen next.

#ricky bowen smut #ricky bowen x reader #ricky bowen imagine #ricky bowen #hsmtmts #hsmtmts x reader #hsmtmts imagine #hsmtmts smut #rocks at your window

80 notes · View notes

spotsupstuff · 2 years

Text

rambling bout the mandarin dub of s3 special (part 2)

before i do skedaddle onto more mandarin, i do actually wanna say- grollow has said a few times that they find Porty's sudden appearance very random which i do kinda agree with, but it also makes me think a tad. my three thoughts as to why He poked his head out are so far this: 1. shameless fanservice, as Porty is prolly the most liked Xiaotian clone 2. the crew needed a hype man more than anything to go thru their plan, so Xiaotian summoned Porty cuz das basically all that the clone does, did while he stayed and literally self-destructed the moment danger showed up instead of helpin 3. as per ar-blackshaw's and sketching-shark's theory convo, Porty has been alikened to Six Ear in the theory that Six is a clone of Sun Wukong's. Six is on the team now! Why not bring in the new generation of version of him in as well, yanno! sounds like a fun lore poke for the fandom ✨

Him Mouth... BUT ALSO he doesn't say "C'MOOOON" in the mandarin one which means he just Makes Noises n those are always fuckin PEAK up in this bitch, shit's fuckin hilarious

someone else pointed this out on twitter before i did a "try to understand now" rewatch actually, but SWK here calls Xiaotian "my little hero" which like fuck my heart, i guess

there's this tiny little quick inhale n exhale from Six Ear here and it fuckin Kills me

still not over Six Ear pullin THAT shit outta him chest n still not over Sun Wukong just BLASTIN that shit outta his hand like that, everytime i hear the fuckin sound effect of him shootin the energy i just go "Jaysus Fuck" like its so strong compared to Six Ear's wimpy ass weak sauce bullshit of a shadow emo energy stream it takes me out without fail, that thing could be aliken to a damb Spaceship Take Off

two things: 1. instead of "monkey" she only calls Xiaotian "little hero", for those wondering 2. her mandarin "no. it's pain/suffering." actually sounds so Tired and Pained- the no especially makes me think that at this point she's as far as struggling to get any words out

THIS MANS SAYS SHIIIIIIFU SO FUCKIN SMUGLY N BITCHY IM GON BITE HIS MINERAL ASS GO OFF KING

so mandarin Six Ear is known especially to me to have a VERY steady voice. he's incredibly calm almost thru fuckin Everything, including this special. his voice never rises up- it's almost as if he was stuck in a suave manipulative threat mode constantly

Except This One Fucking Time.

THIS interaction is what BREAKS his calm demeanor after ALL the seasons- he did NOT go squeaky in his debut episode (not countin the trainin sesh cuz that was more like choked up/running out of breath), he did NOT go squeaky upon recounting the events that build him up into what he is, he did NOT go squeaky over bein abducted by the not-mayor, basically enslaved by the White Bone Spirit and later on INFUSED with the bone demon's powers, no.

what fuckin breaks him is bein compared to the one person he was presumably created from. (very tempted to say sib culture wins here)

i was quite a tad worried at first that the mandarin dub would end up not giving SWK the emotional weak moments because the voice acting when he breaks out of WBS's control n thanks Xiaotian did not have the same shaky hit to it like the og english version had

i was... pleasantly surprised at the same time as distraught over how small and... Weak and lost THE Great Sage sounds when he gives his apology to his kid, though

he is So genuinely sorry. it hurts him that he hurt his little hero

after Xiaotian makes his joke with the noodles, he sounds close to tears. first he panics over being misunderstood, he stumbles thru his words and then he curls up, voice stretched out in a way that makes me think of my own before i cry. and then his words fade out in a raspy sigh

and it is still Weak and Raspy and charmingly Imperfect in the last sentences we hear from Sun Wukong

#Spot says stuff #lmk #man... swk's apology scene actually made me tear up n smile at the same time- made my heart warm and made me feel comforted #i fuckin love this dub so much #its kinda funny too i was worryin lately bout me fuckin up six ears characterization in ft n now this came out n im like -dabs- Sick-#-Im Still In My Lane

201 notes · View notes

karmic-vibes · 2 years

Text

If I Can Dream

3 - Birds Flying Higher

cw: gender dysphoria

Year: 1984

Steve wasn’t exactly what met the eye. From the outside, he seemed to be good at everything, impeccable with women, and set to lead the most perfect life anyone could possibly dream of.

But it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Everything he did was for someone else’s approval, whether it be his mom’s, his dad’s, or the girl he was dating. He didn’t feel comfortable in his own skin, feeling as if he was just a puppet for others to vicariously live through.

If he had his way, he would be chasing after love—marriage—with someone who actually wanted him for who he was. Faults and all. Sure, maybe he was a bit of an airhead, a tad effeminate, and liked dudes as much as (if not more) than girls. He knew it was too good to be true, nothing more than a fantasy, for someone to love him and all his baggage.

He sat in homeroom, waiting for the morning bell to ring. He rushed to finish whatever homework assignment he neglected to do the night before, but quickly got distracted by Eden.

Eden Munson—a free spirit. Everything he wanted to be and more. Someone who didn’t care as much about appearances and was completely, unapologetically themselves. She walked in that morning, hair done back into a messy braid, actually showing her face. Usually, it was either down or up in that horrid bun where bits and pieces of hair would hide her.

But not today.

Today, it was pulled back to show the soft curves of her face. Steve was able to see her beautiful brown button eyes and her adorable dimples whenever she smiled. He sat there, bewildered, by the girl, not realizing he was lost in her.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Sorry… I was, um, just wondering if you got last nights assignment.”

“Uh, yeah, I got it. Believe it or not, I did it too,” she teased. She may have been meek, but dear lord, did she have a smart mouth—one of the endless things Steve fawned over.

“You know what I mean,” he blushed. “Did you understand it?”

“No, absolutely not. I copied from last years. Here.” Eden pulled out the assignment and set it in front of him. “Consider it a loan, Harrington.”

“You’re a life saver, Munson.”

Steve found himself purposely not finishing Mrs. Click’s homework assignments, rather than just forgetting to complete them. He was finding any possible excuse to talk to Eden, even if it was only for a few seconds.

Several weeks passed and the annual Snow Ball was right around the corner. Nearly every girl in school was pining after Steve, doing every possible thing they could to get him to ask them out. He may have been ditzy, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew the girls’ true intentions—they were all the same. Girls either wanted Steve for a popularity boost, the possibility of a stable Trust Fund fueled life, or to get into bed with the legendary King Steve.

A week before the dance, Steve was in homeroom, anxiously biting on his pencil, awaiting Eden’s arrival. He had finished Mrs. Click’s assignment for that day—he didn’t want any distractions that morning. As the first period bell was approaching, Steve’s eyes never left the door. Eventually, just as the morning announcements began, Eden ran through the door, rushing to take her seat.

Without her noticing, Steve smiled fondly at her. Her hair was down that day, curls clearly brushed out with only her fingers. Her Hellfire shirt was on, along with a heavy leather jacket and a pair of blue jeans. She was wearing winter boots with a mix of slush and salt caked onto them. As the morning announcements concluded, Eden hauled her backpack over her shoulder and headed for the door. Steve panicked and quickly grabbed onto her arm.

“Good morning to you too, Harrington. What’s up?” Eden raised a brow. Steve aimlessly blinked at her a few times before clearing his throat, blushing.

“I was wondering if you had a date to the Snow Ball.” Eden scoffed. “What?”

“Why on earth would I have a date?”

“I don’t know… you’re pretty and nice.”

“Is this a prank?”

“What?”

“Because, if it is, just get it over and done with and find a way to humiliate me without wasting an evening.”

“No, Ed…”

There it was again—Ed—music to her ears. She looked to the floor, red in the face, avoiding the boy like the plague. This had to be a joke.

“I… I genuinely want to go out with you.”

“Please.” She crossed her arms over her chest, sports bra clutching her breasts a little too tightly.

“Eddie, I do.”

That was a new one. Eddie. Her heart was soaring.

“Please, go to the dance with me… i-if you hate me afterwards I’ll never talk to you again. I promise…”

“Fine… what time are you gonna pick me up?”

The days leading up to the dance were agonizing for Steve. He just wanted every possible excuse to have Eden Munson close to him. Slow dancing with him, smiling and laughing with him. He wanted to see her done up all nice. He wanted to take her in—all her beauty, all her faults.

That fateful Friday evening finally came. Steve was dressed in a finely pressed black suit, hair done just right, and conscious not to over do it with the cologne. He ran downstairs, waving goodbye to his parents, nearly forgetting the corsage in the fridge. He got into his car and sped off to pick Eden up at her house.

Steve made his way to the trailer park, parking as close to the trailer’s entrance as possible. He grabbed the corsage box and eagerly headed for the door, knocking a few times before being let in by Wayne.

“She’s nearly ready,” he said. “Wayne.” He stuck his hand out and smiled.

“Steve. Harrington. Steve Harrington.”

“Have her home no later than eleven, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me that. Way too formal.”

“Right, sorry…”

“Steve, is that you?” Eden called.

She emerged from her room and Steve’s knees nearly buckled beneath him. Her make-up was subtle—nothing more than some eyeliner, mascara, blush and lip gloss. Her ringlets were tied up in a proper bun, decorated with a black ribbon tied into a bow. Her dress was a black cocktail gown that hugged her torso and flowed with her body from the waist down. It was held up by two thin straps over her shoulders, barely visible with a shear shawl over her arms. Given that it was going to be a long night, she opted for black flats—still formal, but not murderous to her feet.

She nervously tugged at her dress as she approached him. It was too snug for her liking—Steve clearly didn’t have an issue, seeing how it left virtually nothing to the imagination. Wayne wasn’t a huge fan, thinking it was a tad too revealing, but the thrift stores only had so many options on such short notice.

Steve was still at a loss for words. He was drinking her in, from head-to-then back up to do it all over again. His mouth hung open, eyes lit up with joy. Eden nervously fiddled with her rings scattered across her fingers—her date still not having said anything. Wayne raised a brow, nudged the boy’s back, clearing his throat.

“Oh, uh, I got you this.”

Steve fumbled to open the clear box, eventually retrieving the decorative flower. He held Eden’s hand in his as he slid the corsage onto her wrist. Blushing at the sight, Eden smiled uncontrollably at her date. This had to be a dream.

“You look beautiful,” he finally said.

“You don’t look too bad yourself, Harrington,” she giggled.

“Home by eleven, E.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Bye, Wayne, love you.”

“Love you too. Stay safe, kids.”

“We will, Steve replied.

The two stood outside, under the awning, Eden hesitant to step into the snow. Steve snaked an arm around her waist before scooping her up to carry her to the car. She chirped out a gasp, and before she knew it, she was sitting in Steve Harrington’s BMW.

“Off we go,” he smiled.

The two began the drive to the school. Eden spent a majority of her time glaring out the window, unintentionally picking at her poorly manicured nails. Steve was stealing glances every chance he could, smiling in disbelief.

He couldn’t believe he got her. It all seemed too good to be true.

The pair pulled into the first available spot they saw in the parking lot, Steve rushing over to help Eden out of the car. The bitter wind stung Eden’s skin as soon as she stepped foot out of the BMW. Without hesitation, Steve took his jacket off and draped it around her shoulders, holding her close.

Eden’s eyes were soft, flashing her date a weak smile as a silent token of appreciation.

The two walked into the gymnasium, that had been thoroughly decorated for the event, and nearly everyone stopped in their tracks. People were leaning in to one another, whispering lord knows what about the unlikely duo. Eden pouted, looking to her feet as she shuffled towards the first available table she saw. Steve followed her around like a puppy dog, ignoring his friends that were incessantly trying to call him over. Eden handed the jacket back to Steve and adjusted her shawl.

“Shouldn’t you be getting over to your friends?” she pointed.

“Why would I do that?” he asked.

“Because they’re your friends?” She raised a brow, confused by his retort. “We made the headlines—shocked the nation. You made your point with me. Go hang out with your people.”

“My people?” he chuckled.

“You know what I mean, Steve.”

“I don’t want to hang out with them, Ed. I want to hang out with you… you are my date, after all.”

“I find that hard the believe.”

“Eddie, please, just… just try to have fun tonight. For me?”

“Fine, fine, I’ll try.”

“I’m gonna go get us some punch, okay? Make yourself comfortable.”

“Okay.” Eden gave him a soft smile as she took a seat at the decorated table.

Steve smiled fondly at his date and headed over to the refreshment area to get the two something to drink. Immediately, all of Steve’s friends hounded him, relentlessly asking him questions.

“Dude, why are you with Eden ‘The Freak’ Munson? Don’t you have any self respect?”

“Yeah, what happened to Nancy?”

“What’s with the third degree?” Steve defended. “She’s sweet, she’s cute. Why wouldn’t I ask her out?”

“Uh, because she’s a freak?” Tommy bit.

“So?”

“You, Steve Harrington, don’t have a problem being seen with the town freak? I find that hard to believe. How’re we pranking her?”

“What? No, we’re not pranking her! Can’t I just date who I want? Jesus.”

“You’re up to something, Harrington. You of all fucking people wouldn’t just date Eden.”

“Listen, she’s nice to me. I think she’s really pretty. Maybe there’s something there, who knows. Can’t I just enjoy myself?”

“Whatever, dude. Let us know whenever you decide to drop her.”

“Whatever,” Steve scoffed.

He filled the two plastic cups with watered down punch and eagerly spun on his heels to head back to his date. His face fell in defeat when he saw her talking to Billy fucking Hargrove. Reluctantly, Steve headed over and stood behind Eden.

“I see you’ve met my date. Here you go, honey,” Steve said, handing Eden the cup. She accepted it with two hands, face turning a light pink at the nickname.

“Steve, hi,” Billy smirked.

“How do you two know each other.”

“We don’t,” Eden quickly bit. “He was just leaving.”

“Was I?” Billy teased.

“Yeah, you were.”

“I don’t think you can handle her, Harrington…” Billy chuckled as he stood up from the seat. “She’s got a mouth on her… seems like a lot for you to handle, hmm?”

“He doesn’t need to handle me. I can take care of myself,” Eden sneered.

“Well, sweetheart, you know where to find me when you’re done playing with pretty boy over here.” He licked his lips, pinched Eden’s cheek, and walked off into the crowd. Eden twisted her face before glancing up at Steve.

“Sorry about him,” she whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” Steve reassured, taking Billy’s seat. “He hates me, so I’m not surprised he tried going after you.”

“Who could ever hate you?” Eden said, without thinking. Steve smiled uncontrollably before taking a sip of his drink.

“Hargrove, apparently.”

“Well, he’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, a major one.”

The evening carried on with Eden not wanting to do much—Steve, however, didn’t mind keeping his date company. The two sat and chatted for the duration of the evening, getting to know one another more than they ever thought they would. Soon enough, the slow song of the evening began to play. Without much thought, Steve stood up, straightened himself out, and offered his hand to Eden.

“Oh, no, I don’t dance,” she said.

“Come on, just once,” he insisted.

“Fine… just the one time.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Steve led Eden to the dance floor where she wrapped her arms around his neck. He gently rested his hands on her hips and fought every instinct to pull her close. The two began to sway to Elvis Presley’s If I Can Dream, Eden slowly pulling herself closer to Steve. By the bridge, her head was resting against his chest, smiling ear to ear, never wanting to move.

“So, will you go out with me again?” Steve asked. Eden didn’t reply, but instead nodded against his chest, pulling him closer.

“I’ve always wanted to be able to sing this,” Eden mumbled.

“Why can’t you?”

“My voice isn’t deep enough. I want the grit that he has.”

“I believe you’ll be able to do it one day,” Steve reassured.

“Thanks… that means a lot…” As soon as the song ended, Eden reluctantly pulled away from Steve and let out a heavy sigh. “Can we head home?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. You have everything?” She nodded. “Alright, come on, then.”

Steve draped his coat over her shoulders and led her out of the building and into his car. The drive was silent—Steve assumed his date was worn out from the evening. When the BMW pulled up to Wayne’s trailer, Steve looked to Eden and blushed.

“What?” Eden whispered.

“Nothing… you’re just really pretty.” Eden rolled her eyes and went to open the door. “Wait, wait!” Steve clamored out of his side and sprinted over to let his date out. “C’mere.” Without thinking, he scooped her up and carried her to the front door of her home.

“Thanks,” Eden giggled.

She fished through her purse to find the keys to the door. Steve awkwardly stuck his hands in his pockets, anticipating the goodbye. Once Eden forced the door open, she turned to Steve and sighed.

“See you around,” she said.

“Wait, uh, Ed?” he started.

“Yeah?”

“Can, um… can I kiss you?”

Her face fell in shock. Her pupils were blown as her mouth hung open, catching flies. She blinked aimlessly a few times before clearing her throat.

“Oh, uh… yeah…”

Steve stepped closer and gently rested his hands on her cheeks. Eden silently gulped, not knowing what to do—she hadn’t thought this far ahead. Steve eased her into a soft kiss, smiling as he did so.

Eden’s chest fluttered. She melted into his touch, still thinking she needed to pinch herself awake from this dream.

When Steve pulled away, Eden was at a loss for words. She bumbled nonsense for a few seconds before chuckling and pushing her loose hair out of her beet red face.

“Wow, um… that was nice,” she finally whispered.

“Yeah?” Steve smiled.

“Yeah… see you Monday, Harrington.”

“See you, Munson.”

97 notes · View notes

slayerlevampire · 8 months

Text

Technically Untitled - Almost got burned at the stake for this one lads

Idk a very short written thing I made a while ago about Robotnik becoming a vampire

Or something like one anyway

Since everyone is posting about their monster AU's around here aidnakxnskxj

It was a dark and stormy night, perfect for dramatics, dark magic, and mad science... Even if the "storm" was actually heavy snowfall in the form of a blizzard. Ivo Robotnik delved deep into his own writings, his notes scattered across a table as he took his own advice from each paper. As delicate as this process was, he was frantically scrambling to get it right this time, as it would be his last chance. The power to unlimited life came with human sacrifice, he knew that early on in his work, so with his failed attempts so far? The nearby village had finally figured out what was going on despite how much of a recluse he was in the woods. He knew they would be here by morning, so this was his last chance to get this right before he was most certainly taken and executed.

His human sacrifice was currently tied up, wrapped round-and-round in rope to keep them as still as possible. Alive of course, but unconscious by virtue of getting hit really hard on the head.

From tales of magic to science he's tested to be rooted in fact; he finally found that he compiled the key to eternal life. At least, a form of it anyhow. There was no way of truly knowing if this method was the most effective, but he figured that if it worked, it didn't really matter as long as he wasn't making any demonic deals. As easy as making a deal with some otherworldly being might be, there was no way he'd let himself be overshadowed by or even as much as connected to someone more powerful than him, nor would he allow himself to be put in a debt so deep.

This reasoning of his meant that it required him to do a little extra work, crafting his own demonic sigils rather than using ancient ones, so that he could make his own life rather than summoning an existing demon. Not to mention his dabbling into the science of lightning and its electric properties was something that most people this day and age thought was just things to do with deities of sorts, but he knew better. Variations of demons and maybe even angels might exist - along with other "supernatural" entities such as spirits, fairies, or werewolves - but gods, at least of the "all-powerful" kind, were nonexistent. No, this electricity from the sky was the work of natural forces that could be tapped into by less natural means. It just took skill and know-how, both of which Robotnik had acquired.

He took his various items outside into the blizzard, setting up a large circle in the snow of a cleared out area from the forest, his sacrifice in the middle. It pained him inside a bit to be letting his notes get wet from melting ice, but if this worked, he'd have plenty of time to rewrite them anyway. He followed his own instructions, drawing his symbols in the snow, cutting deep enough down to trace them into the icy mud below. Lightning struck a tree not too far off in the forest as he was doing this, almost as if it was a warning, but he ignored it and kept his concentration, mumbling an incantation that was honestly just him repeating a general idea of what he wants to happen. A form of manifestation, if you will.

Once he's got his magic items carved and laid out, he brings his human sacrifice out and in the circle. Then, he looks up to the sky, and counts between lightning strikes. This is the part he's yet to ever get to… And may or may not be the end of him here. So, admittedly, even through his intelligence and certainty that this was going to work, he was still just a tad nervous.

1… 2… 3… 4…

With each set of numbers, he drank from a new vial, each tasting more bitter or rancid than the last. It was like a waltz, counting the time between crashes of thunder and flashes of light until the electrical storm was dancing around his very circle, making it impossible to hear his own chanting even as he raised his voice louder and louder for nature itself to shy away from. The air was full of static, hot like fire despite the torrents of frozen rain that continued to pound down harder on the two forces of life on the ground. Robotnik raised his dagger high as sweat poured from his brow, melting into the clean snow on his face and running down into the earth, and he soon plunged the blade down dramatically into the chest in front of him. The sacrifice's waking scream from the burst of pain wasn't heard by anyone, not even Robotnik himself as the desire for immortality burned in his eyes while he watched the life drain from the only other pair around.

He pulled the dagger back out, and before he could hesitate or second guess himself, ran the side of the blade along his tongue before the air could freeze the blood or make his mouth stick to the metal. Then he plunged the dagger into the ground and raised his arms to the sky, calling out one last incantation to the clouds above.

That's when the first lightning strike hit the inside of the circle, hitting him directly. The pain was indescribable, like he should have been ripped apart from the very impact, but entirely energizing at the same time. The burn was searing just afterward, as if he had been in a fire for hours in the span of a second.

A second strike, hotter than the last, and Robotnik felt his body convulse as he fell backwards into the snow. He couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't hear, could hardly feel.

A third strike, and he knew no longer. Nothing but electricity and heat as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Into death.

~~~

Everything was too much. Way too much.

Robotnik was already trying to pull himself off the ground, but the snow piled on top of him was oddly sticky. The wind was too loud. Smells too strong. Everything was heavy. He couldn't have possibly been out for long, it was still dark out. However, he may have woken up just in time: The torches and lanterns were already sputtering in the distance. He had to try his best to block out as much as possible. No matter how weak he felt, how overwhelming it all was. He had woken up from a short visit from Death themself, and he was already on the run. He could hardly lift them, but his pure determination got him to pick up what was left of his notes after being in the pounding blizzard so that he could stumble his way back to his house. He needed to hurry, but he needed to change, as he wasn't getting anywhere far like this.

He slammed and barred the door behind himself, and had to continue pushing forward to refrain from just sliding down the wall.

He didn't even realize he wasn't breathing. Wasn't blinking. Wasn't shivering despite the cold, but his hands trembled as he shoved as much of his life's work as he could into a bag. That's all he cared about. No other possessions mattered other than that of his notes. He could hear the mob approaching as he shed his outer layers of heavy clothing, only having enough time to throw on a dry coat before banging sounded at his front door.

A lantern crashed through his window as he lifted his bag over his shoulder, and when the oil spilled it didn't take long for the old, wooden floors to catch fire, along with all the other flammable objects that were nearby. He went to escape out the back door, but it was blocked. They had trapped him inside.

At least, they thought they did, but Robotnik wasn't about to let that stand. He sidestepped what he could around the fire to make sure it didn't catch onto him as he made his way to a ladder, climbing up it and to the roof above in order to escape. It was hard to open with all the snow, but he managed to climb out and look around. His little house here is mildly surrounded, in a sense that if he hits the right spot, he could probably book it. So, that's what he aims for - knowing they'll gather too close if he waits too long - and hopes the snow is deep enough to break his fall somewhat as he jumps from the quickly burning building.

He hits the ground harder than anticipated, pain shooting up his legs, and thus he collapses then and there with all the rest of the pain he has going on. He shakily tries to stand, but before he knows it he's being lifted off the ground and slammed into the wall, the heat from the fire inside burning at his back. He grits his teeth as the man who lifted him up shines a lantern near his face, illuminating both of their angry faces. Though the anger on the man's face changes swiftly to one of disbelief, even mild fear.

"Глаза демона!"

The eyes of a demon.

While the man was distracted, Robotnik took the opportunity to reel back and send a punch as hard as he could muster, which - surprising even himself, with how weak with pain he's been feeling - manages to knock him reeling, dropping Robotnik in the process.

That's when he could smell it.

Another look up from both parties, and that's all it took. The sight of fresh blood pouring from the man's nose, less than a meter away.

Everything else seemed to go hazy, time felt slower. All he could think about was the warm, red flow of life.

Something he no longer had for himself.

Everything went out of focus. Everything, including what was right in front of him.

When he came to, the mob was gone. The snow was red. He was covered in red.

Robotnik felt temporarily satisfied.

#jimbotnik #robotnik #dr. robotnik #this is so very out of place from like #the original source material #so I'm only gonna tag him specifically sjdnsjx #vampire au #vampire #death tw #it's very brief though #as much as I would love to tag this as Stob otnik I don't think it counts because S tone isn't even here lol #but they'll meet. eventually. like hundreds of years eventually.#i am putting way too many tags on this thing sjdnsjd #also forgive the formatting this was all typed on my phone

10 notes · View notes

soup-of-the-daisies · 10 months

Note

Really loved your headcanon about why Harry didn’t name any of his children after Remus. I’d never thought of it that way before! In that post, you said you have thoughts on why Harry decided to name his child after Dumbledore and Snape, and you’ve piqued my interest! Any possibility of you sharing that headcanon?

Hello anon!!! I’m glad you enjoyed the post (this one, for anyone interested. There's quite a few good additions in the notices as well)! I’ve got so many opinions and it’s really nice to see that people agree with them!

About the headcanon on Albus Severus: I was actually writing a draft for the HC as to why Harry and Ginny named kiddo no. 2 after Dumbles and Snape, so you’ve come in at a good time! It’s gotten long (2k kind of long), so I’ve divided it into parts within the post and added a ‘read more’. There's also a TL;DR at the very bottom. Feel free to add to it or disagree with me, if you want! It's only my headcanon :)

To start

When I was eleven years old I finished my first proper read-through of the Harry Potter series. At the time, I obviously didn’t have a very good understanding of things like nuance and subtext and trauma and—well, you know what I mean. And I found it a cute name, actually. Obviously not as cute as ‘James Sirius’ or ‘Lily Luna’, as I’ve always been a Marauders fan (massive crush on Sirius starting the moment Mass Murderer is mentioned in PoA, anyone?), but still cute—until it wasn’t, which is when I started to find it a tad absurd.

Listen, I really, really like the thought behind naming your children after people who’ve been significant in your or the other parent’s life. It’s part of the reason why I like ‘James Sirius’ and ‘Lily Luna’ so much: both kids are named after parental figures (and in LL’s case, also a good friend) and it’s really sweet that both Harry and Ginny (because you bet your arse Ginny was fully present in that decision-making process) decided to honour Lily, James, Sirius, and Luna that way. I myself am named after both my grandmothers and now that they’ve both passed, it’s a nice connection to them.

But the name ‘Albus Severus’ – and this is purely my interpretation, mind – has very different vibes compared to ‘James Sirius’ and ‘Lily Luna’. Albus is named after two professors; when I read the Epilogue™ for the first time, the name simply felt out of place in the family. Teachers, no matter how much you like them, ought to be distant supporters—especially compared to parents and friends. Additionally, the last scene with Dumbledore (in spirit) is him being… kind of frustrating; the last scene with Snape is him admitting posthumously that he protected Harry only out of obligation and guilt. Neither Dumbledore nor Snape died for Harry specifically, like James, Lily, and Sirius did: Dumbledore and Snape died so Harry could and would as well.

Some context

Albus Severus Potter is born eight years after the Battle of Hogwarts, when Harry is 25/26 and Ginny is 24/25. That means that, less than a decade before AS was born, Harry learnt from both Snape and Dumbledore that he had to die to get rid of the guy who tried to kill him for years—that he was raised and subtly manipulated into ‘voluntarily’ becoming a martyr ever since he was orphaned—

(I’m putting 'voluntarily' in quotation marks because Harry kind of had no other choice: either he runs and Voldemort is basically immortal for another century or so, or he sacrifices himself—and Harry is righteous and selfless and honestly rather suicidal so he’ll obviously choose the latter option. Harry couldn’t make any other choices, not with his saving-people-thing and his guilt complex the size of the African Continent)

—which… okay. Reading it now, as an adult who now is able to see fully that Harry was seventeen (a child!!) when he allowed himself to be killed, the entire thing pisses me off.

Dumbledore subtly talked Harry into becoming a martyr, because what’s one innocent life lost in the grand scheme of things? Harry needed to die in order to defeat Voldemort, so that hundreds, if not thousands, of others could be saved from that fate. I still tear up sometimes at the image that emerges after Snape’s memories have been viewed, when Harry’s lying on the floor in the Headmaster’s office and finally knows that there was never an expectation he’d come out of the war alive.

Dumbledore isn’t the kind, empathetic, caring grandfather of the story—he’s the general on the other side of the chessboard, looking at bigger things and forcefully ignoring that Harry’s worth extends beyond his prophesied fate. And Harry knows it, at that point the DH: even if Dumbledore did care for him, it wasn’t enough to try and find another way.

Then about Snape. Though he isn’t wholly complicit in the ‘Harry shall need and be willing to die’-plot (as shown by his anger at finding out about it, because like, same, Sev… sort of), he was the one who inadvertently set the prophecy into motion. Sure, Voldemort needed to take action for it to come true, but Snape’s the one who told him: he didn’t care that that a family would be eradicated until he realised it involved Lily, at which point he panicked and begged for her safety (but not the safety of James and Harry). Cue disgusted Dumbledore (same, Al) but an agreement, as long as Snape becomes a spy. Both Harry and the reader figure out that Snape antagonised Harry mainly because Harry looks nearly identical to James and Snape had difficulty seeing Harry as his own person—and when he realised Harry’s situation at home was much more similar to his own than to James’, he didn’t back down.

In the books, Snape is an adult man who irrationally despised a child, knows it’s irrational, and does very little to change it. He wouldn’t have cared if Harry and James died, as long as Lily didn’t; it’s only his desperation for Lily to live that initially causes him to join the Order, and later it’s his grief and guilt about her death that makes him protect Harry.

Getting into the nitty-gritty

Putting all that I’ve said above together makes the decision to name Harry and Ginny’s second kid after both Dumbledore and Snape seem completely illogical—especially because it’s information Harry’s been made aware of. They’ve done surprisingly little for Harry’s personal well-being as characters who are claimed to have done ‘everything to protect Harry’—not only physical, like the infamous ducking for frying pans at the Dursleys’, but also mental, as in Harry doesn’t truly believe that he deserves to live. I’d argue that McGonagall, who has also done very little for Harry, cared more about that.

Dumbledore kept Harry alive to die at the right moment, by Voldemort’s hand and curse; Snape protected Harry because he felt obliged to after becoming accidentally complicit in murder, developing a guilt-complex, and then following Dumbledore’s orders. Somehow, Harey, Ginny, and JKR decided that naming the second born after these two men was a good idea.

Potential outside reasoning

Despite me finding the theory that Harry and Ginny decided on ‘Albus Severus’ to lure an outraged Sirius out of the Veil absolutely hilarious, I don’t believe JKR would’ve even considered that as an option. No, purely from a classic literary analysis standpoint, it is far more likely JKR just wished to highlight that Dumbledore and Snape actually were Incredibly Great Men who Harry hero-worships slightly and admires greatly—despite Dumbles’ fall from grace and because of Snape’s redemption (He Loved Lily So Much You Guys).

Now, I shan’t share my entire opinion on how I think Snape’s redemption has been executed (it isn’t up to Zuko-standard, I assure you), but I will say that I don’t consider it ‘enough’ for Harry in particular. I like Snape as an explicitly morally-grey character, and I personally think that his redemption did a decent job at establishing him as one of the good guys instead of the meanie double spy/humanoid bat hybrid who enjoys snogging Voldie’s snakey toes.

Snape being on the ‘good’ side shouldn’t mean that Harry has to like him or even fully respect him. However, naming his kid after Snape implies that Harry has forgiven Snape for making Hogwarts a little bit more miserable than it should’ve been, for selling him and his parents out, for getting Lupin fired, for encouraging the continued manhunt of Sirius, for the absolutely absurd occlumency training during an already terrible time, for actively participating in the incredibly fucked up situation of “Harry witnessing the poisoned and exhausted Headmaster he just saved from a horde of magical water zombies get murdered and thrown of one of the highest towers of the castle, whilst he’s frozen and can’t do anything”… yeah.

Similarly, Dumbledore and his manipulations and machinations have to be such a fucking blow as soon as Harry’s out of that fight-or-flight adrenaline boost. Someone Harry trusted and could’ve seen as family used him as a pawn in his game against Voldemort, and though Harry does continue to have some kind of respect for Dumbledore’s genius, the nineteen year skip towards the epilogue makes it so that we don’t see the resulting anger and devastation that Harry must’ve experienced as soon as he had a one (1) decent night of sleep. From my perspective (as someone with a Literature degree), naming the second child after Dumbledore and Snape is nothing more than an attempt by JKR at making a point: there’s good and bad in everyone including wizard-Jesus and wizard-Judas, Slytherin isn’t as horrible as I made out to be dear money-makers I swear, and forgiveness is key.

Obviously this shoddy job means that a whole bunch of people ignore the epilogue (and the absolute disaster that is Cursed Child) with a vehemence, which is a shame from a Potterverse standpoint. Comfy DADA Professor Harry (I refuse to acknowledge his Head Auror position; that’s CC info, anyway) who is also a Fun Dad is one of my favourite tropes.

Potential in-universe logic

We continue on to Harry-and-Ginny logic—or I, at least, take a shot at it.

To get one of the bigger criticisms out of the way first – it being the names of all three children – I’ll state that I genuinely believe Ginny had an active role in choosing what to name the children she’s carrying. Harry, for all his faults, isn’t a selfish person; Ginny, for the faults she has as a slightly underdeveloped female character, is quite an understanding one. It makes sense to me that she agreed with naming their children after James, Sirius, and Lily: the only family member Ginny lost was Fred, and George will obviously have first dibs on that name. Harry, however, has no biological family left, and his parents and godfather were ripped from him far too soon. I daresay that Ginny suggested the names, actually, because Ginny is like that and because I don’t see a future where Harry demanded to name the children after his parents. Ginny wouldn’t allow Harry to bulldoze over her like that.

But Albus Severus: the conundrum. The reasons I’ll propose are that the Wizarding World is unbelievably terrible about mental health, and that both Harry and Ginny are rather traumatised.

Say what you will about Dumbledore (and I will say loads), but his was the hand Harry metaphorically held as he walked to his death. His assurance was what kept Harry going, for better or for worse. Harry owes Dumbledore his survival. And say what you will about Snape, but he gave his life to go against Voldemort and help Harry succeed; despite the suspicions, despite the hatred and distrust from nearly everybody around him, Snape didn’t stray from that path as far as we know.

They’re actually two of the few adults of authority who Harry was able to trust to do the right thing in the end: rare, considering Harry’s tendency to side-eye every authority automatically because they disappoint him so much. Harry is someone with zero self-esteem, someone who has difficulty accepting gifts, someone who stares at every crumb of kindness he’s offered in amazement. This is an effect of the upbringing forced upon him, to be sure, but in a world without therapy, experienced by a boy/man who usually suppresses every emotion he feels, because he thinks he doesn’t deserve to or simply shouldn’t feel them? They’re very, very admirable.

I think that Harry in canon refuses to acknowledge what was done to him. He doesn’t want to know nor even consider that he was no more than a pawn, because what use does he have then, as a person? And Ginny—it’s likely she, too, likes to live in ignorance, because she’s got her own demons to fight. As long as Harry’s happy, she is, too: all she believes is that Dumbledore and Snape kept Harry alive.

Harry and Ginny name their firstborn after Harry’s two dads, who died for him. They name their third after Harry’s mum, who died for him, and their mutual friend, who was willing to die for them both.

They name their second born after the men who died for Harry to finish the job he was groomed to do. I’m sure they like to pretend that that last bit was only a happy little coincidence.

TL;DR: Harry and Ginny named Albus Severus ‘Albus Severus’ because JKR wanted to ensure that people knew that Dumbledore and Snape were Really Good Guys and that Harry thought so; and, in-universe, because the Wizarding World has no therapy and Harry doesn’t want to acknowledge how fucked up his life was with Dumbledore’s help—only that Voldemort was at fault.

#albus severus potter #harry potter #severus snape #albus dumbledore #ginny weasley #ask #anon #hp headcanon #hp meta #hp critical #jkr critical #regarding her writing this time

13 notes · View notes