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love-belle · 6 months

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you were my summer love !!!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in which their fall-in-love-again era is them missing each other while their friends go crazy over their relationship.

for when you know they'll be your love for all eternal summers. ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

social media au // pierre gasly x fem!reader

prequel - i want sweet revenge and i want him again ⋆·˚ ༘

warnings - language, mention of vodka once.

author's note - i am in fact not dead :) i hope u all like this <3 i will be back with a new post 4 months later jk I LOVE U THANK U

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by pierregasly, y/n4eva, gasly10 and 56,828 others

paddock.club pierre gasly and celine d'souza have called it quits on their relationship after almost three months of dating, sources close to the pair reported. the pair started dating back in august after gasly broke up with his "summer love", y/n y/l/n, affectionately named as augustine by gasly and his fans. although their break up was kept hush for a long time and so was their relationship, pierre wasted no time in moving on and with none other than social media influencer, celine d'souza. "there is no bad blood between them," sources claimed, "they just didn't fit well and it was no good trying to make it work." for more details about their short-lived relationship and the driver's summer romance with the singer, click on the link in our bio.

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≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by lewishamilton, carlossainz55, landonorris and 2,518,916 others

yourusername yeah i miss the way he kisses and the way he grabbed my ass but i can't do anything about it so idk i cry

14,782 comments

username GIRL WHERE IS UR FILTER

username Y/N NO!!!!!!!!! WE DO NOT GO BACK TO OUR EX!!!!!!!!!

username ngl this version of get him back is fire

username girl get UP

username no bc his dick game couldn't have been THIS good

-> yourusername TIME OUT FOR U 😭

-> username be fr is he really THIS funny

username girl WHY DO U NEVER LEARN

username im honestly gonna kms WHY ARE U DOING THIS TO URSELF

username the gasp i js gasped

charles_leclerc go stand in the corner and THINK

-> yourusername SHUT UP UR LITERALLY NOT VALID HERE

username every day i wake up and every day im amazed that she has managed to attain unattainable levels of delusion

-> username no bc im TIRED

username PLS BABE LET HIM GO.

username y/n have u learnt NOTHING

username the lyric change gawd dayum

username is it bad i kinda want her to do something about it ????? like do it for US im off school for weeks and i need entertainment

-> yourusername thank u for supporting my delusions 🙁

-> username GIRLYPOP NO

landonorris i say we start treating y/n like a bad kitten every time she makes a bad decision

-> landonorris that came out wrong

-> danielricciardo i see your vision here

-> charles_leclerc spray her with water DRENCH THAT DEMON

-> yourusername OFF MY PAGE U UNFORTUNATE MUTATIONS THAT ARE UNEMPLOYED FOR THE FIRST FEW MONTHS EVERY YEAR

-> username OH MY GOD

username i genuinely do not know what to do with this information

username THE WAY HE GRABBED MY ASS OMG

lewishamilton i would genuinely appreciate it if you gave me back my son

-> yourusername he's mine now move along

-> lewishamilton i will never forget that you called me weird

-> yourusername omg i apologised??? and made u sandwiches??? and took roscoe for walks THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS???

-> username they're FRIENDS

-> username no bc their conversations must be WILD and so RANDOM

-> username im eating up every second of this

username now i js need max and nando to be besties 🤞🤞🤞🤞 with y/n and my life will be complete

-> yourusername i don't want them they're annoying

-> fernandoalo_official this is why pierre chose the other girl

-> yourusername SO LOW

-> maxverstappen1 the reason i like you is because you were drinking pure vodka out of a sippy cup at 8 am without blinking

-> yourusername this is why charles doesn't follow u x

-> maxverstappen1 THAT'S A LOW FUCKING BLOW

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by charles_leclerc, landonorris, danielricciardo and 2,156,976 others

pierregasly do something about it

15,729 comments

username SCREECHING WHAT THE FUCK

username i have never ever been this invested in someone else's life THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT

username oh he's BOLD bold

username i know my girlie is panicking rn she did not MEAN for this to happen

username mf say this to HER

username bitches wouldn't be in this situation if they js TALKED FFS

username no bc i KNEW that something was gonna happen when he posted that song on his story

-> username fr like "when i touch her i feel like im cheating on u" BABE????

username cheating on u by charlie puth is actually so y/n and pierre coded it's INSANE

-> username the way my jaw dropped

charles_leclerc i should confiscate your phone for this

-> pierregasly you were the one who held an intervention for me so that i would "get my shit together"

-> charles_leclerc you don't HAVE to get your shit together if it means that i wouldn't be seeing her everyday

-> pierregasly just say that you're scared of her and MOVE

-> username charles is so valid bc she scares ME

-> username u never know what she's gonna do next and that's the scariest part

username im BEGGING y'all pls get back together

username the sigh that left me when i heard that pierre and celine broke up like 😭

username i live in fear that y/n and pierre will get back together and we won't be getting any more angry petty bitchy songs

username motherfucker MAKE A MOVE

username i know the grid is conspiring to get them together like they're MY menacea

-> username yeah and their most effective method (according to them) is locking them in a room

-> username do u think they know that one of them will not be making it out of the room and it'll probably be pierre 🧍

username i am a child of divorce this is christmas of '07 all over again 😔

landonorris i did NOT see you post this and then throw your phone up at the sky and screech as if someone just turned your ribs inside down to make you feel like a fairy

-> pierregasly stay away from me

-> oscarpiastri oh my god that was you??? i thought one of the cars ran over a cat on the track 😭

-> pierregasly okay mctwinks let's get you back in your playpens

-> landonorris unprovoked ☹️

-> oscarpiastri i would say watch your back but you're in the BACK so ☺️

-> pierregasly I WILL RUN YOU OFF

-> pierregasly i'm sorry my team told me i can't say that

username my head is wrapping itself around all this information like a shawl im going INSANE

username i know pierre is on all fours trying to get y/n to take him back

-> username as he should be idgaf

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by pierregasly, landonorris, lilymhe and 2,628,826 others

yourusername yeah i really missed the way he kisses and the way he grabbed my ass so i did something about it

tagged pierregasly

18,628 comments

username IDK WHETHER TO BE MAD OR HAPPY BUT HELLO???

username im gonna scream bc wtf

username NO WARNING WHAT THE FUCK

username sigh ARE U SURE

username are we SURE it's gonna STICK this time

-> yourusername im 182729291% sure charles is gonna murder him if he acts a bit silly again so i'd say it's looking pretty good!!!!

-> charles_leclerc alex hates it when y/n is sad and they both make it MY problem so i'm sorry if i wanna make pasta in a peaceful and tranquil environment instead of bitching about my best mate

-> alexandrasaintmleux you were the one who came up with the most creative insults every time don't LIE like a LIAR

-> pierregasly charles???

-> charles_leclerc they're LYING they LIE they're LIARS

username why am i js figuring it out that y/n is AUGUSTINE like from august by taylor swift

-> username BABE 😭😭😭😭 HOW DID U NOT KNOW

username something about pierre going from her summer love to love love (we don't talk abt what happened in the middle ☺️)

username someone sedate me they're BACK

username i just KNOW charles is pulling at his hair rn bc i know my man has so much dirt on pierre but they reconciled a bit too quickly

-> charles_leclerc I DIDN'T GET TO TELL HER ABOUT THE DUCK INCIDENT

-> pierregasly ONE WORD AND I WILL ERASE YOU FROM THIS EARTH

-> yourusername charles ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️ don't be shy ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️ i always liked u the most out of ALL his friends ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️ please elaborate ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️

-> yukitsunoda0511 death would've been kinder than this ☹️

-> yourusername STOPPP U KNOW UR MY FAVOURITE I HATE THAT CHARLES MF HE TRIPS ME EVERY TIME I SEE HIM

-> charles_leclerc for the last time, i REALLY did not see the puddle exactly in front of you and i'm really really really really really sorry that you fell in that puddle. and ruined your dress. and made me pay for it. and then pushed me into a fountain.

-> alexandrasaintmleux say away from my gf charles_leclerc 😡😡😡😡😡😡

-> username i have a migraine

username the lore slowly coming to the surface

-> username NAH BC UR TELLING ME THAT YUKI AND Y/N ARE BESTIES???? ALEX AND Y/N ARE LIKE ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️???? CHARLES AND Y/N HAVE BEEF???? HE PUSHED HER INTO A PUDDLE AND SHE PUSHED HIM INTO A FOUNTAIN????

-> username they kept us in the dark for so long we could've had it all 💔💔💔

username time to go on a vacation and make it a mission to hate the dude i meet and then fall in love with him

-> username HATE????

-> username pierre and y/n HATED each other when they first met but then long story short y/n saved him from a jellyfish and then it was lovers part of enemies to lovers ❤️

-> username oh the lore is WILD

username don't be a coward and record get him back with these lyrics 😡😡😡😡😡

-> yourusername i would but pierre would cry if i sang that song again now that he's back in my good books 😔💔

-> landonorris this is why you need to break up again x

-> pierregasly don't make me break check you next weekend

username is it a good time to mention that i saw u at lax and u looked WRECKED so im really glad ur both back together so that he can grab ur ass again

-> yourusername 😭😭😭😭 thank u my love

-> username tears

pierregasly thank you for doing something about it because i could NEVER

-> yourusername someone has to go to the counter and say "he asked for no pickles" in this relationship babe ❤️

-> charles_leclerc i have seen you both TREMBLING at the prospect of human interaction

-> yourusername why are u friends with him pierregasly

-> charles_leclerc not just him now 🥰

-> yourusername i am ready to break up with pierre if it means that i can get rid of this annoying parasite

-> charles_leclerc i go, alex goes

-> alexandrasaintmleux no you go away, i go to yourusername

-> yourusername DEVOURED AND BY HIS OWN GF

pierregasly all jokes (charles included) aside, i love you ❤️ thank you for hearing me out instead of pushing me down the stairs of instant death like charles told me you'd do

-> yourusername i love you 🫶🏼 i could never push u down the stairs, stair (singular) maybe but no ☺️

-> username why r u like this 🧍

username everyone cheer her crisis is GONE

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by yourusername, carlossainz55, maxverstappen1 and 2,578,826 others

pierregasly you were my summer love and now you'll be my forever love

tagged yourusername

17,629 comments

username STOP TEARS ARE LEAKING

username can't believe this is the guy u told y/n she was trippin (she was btw ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

-> username character development and threats from f1 drivers does wonders to ur personality

username can't believe we're not gonna get anymore petty and bitchy songs anymore 💔💔💔

-> username maybe the petty and bitchy songs were all the comments from this group we collected along the way

username y'all cannot convince me that charles didn't at least TRY to tell y/n to let pierre GO simply bc he's a little shit

-> yourusername can confirm, the reason it didn't work was because then i'd have to AGREE with 🤮 charles 🤮

-> charles_leclerc you act as if i'm not actively gagging while talking to you

-> pierregasly so good to know that the reason i have a LOVING girlfriend is that she just hates my best friend

username pierre will forever be catching strays as long as y/n and charles remain friends 💔

username everyday i wake up and thank the lord that i exist in a world where pierre and y/n are together and that a dying jellyfish was the cause of it all ❤️❤️❤️

username real talk!!!!! how did mama gasly react when y/n told her that her son sucks

-> yourusername i didn't have to, she called me and told me that herself

-> username iconic

-> pierregasly i'm leaving the country and shaving my hair

username "forever love" i will be on the highway don't test me

username god i have seen and noted what u did for the others

username i love it when men are unapologetically in love with their gfs

lewishamilton happy for you both. please tell y/n to return my dog.

-> pierregasly she's currently cuddling roscoe and asking me to tell you to fuck right off

-> lewishamilton godmother privileges PROVOKED

username i will never be able to wrap my head around the fact that lewis hamilton and y/n y/l/n are FRIENDS like how'd THAT happen

-> username do u think they exchange fashion tips and pointers

-> username they deffo talk shit abt charles' fashion choices

-> username they should add him in the gc and TALK to him bc those choices are HORRENDOUS

username y/n 🎤🎤🎤 did u really key his car 🎤🎤🎤

-> yourusername my lawyer advises me to deny this false allegation

-> pierregasly she did something worse.

-> yourusername OKAAYYYYYYY U R NOT ALLOWED TO TALK HERE

-> pierregasly she put glitter ALL over the interiors

-> username WOAHAHSHSKSKSKD

-> username u deserved it 🗣️‼️

username i need a step by step walkthrough of exactly HOW these two got together and i need it NOW

username so when y/n hates publicly on a dude, she manages to make him her bf but when i do it, i make him my mortal enemy??? make it make sense 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

username it is so sexy of me to continue life even when life (instagram) throws obstacles (y/n and pierre being cute and shit) at me

username i will lay in my grave and dream of a love like theirs

-> username aahh haha didn't mean to get so philosophical mb

-> yourusername that was crazy babe

-> username it's true 😔💔

username me patiently waiting for a summer love that will have me ripping my hair off my scalp 🧍

username YOU WERE MYYYYY SUMMER LOOOVEEEEEEE

-> username one direction 🔛🔝

yourusername 4ever is not so bad after all ❤️

-> pierregasly with you it won't ever be enough ❤️

-> yourusername stop making me cry i have a reputation on here 🙁🙁🙁

-> username she says as if her personality isn't js crying over things all day long and being a Hater

-> yourusername OH FUCK OFF

yourusername i love you 🪤

-> pierregasly je t'aime mon cœur but the emoji? (i love you my heart)

-> yourusername it was the closest thing i could find to a tripod

-> landonorris 🔭 this is right here and also GROSS

-> username why are u all like this

yourusername off topic but i accidentally set off the fire alarm and now im locked in the bathroom bc the lock broke and im kinda Panicking

-> pierregasly why are you a fire hazard

-> yourusername THAT'S WHAT UR CONCERNED ABOUT

username i love it when bitches are chaotic like yessss!!!!!!! go and show us that unhinged energy!!!!!!!

#f1 x reader #f1 x female reader #f1 imagines #social media au #fake instagram imagines #pierre gasly blurb #pierre gasly au #pierre gasly imagines #pierre gasly imagine #pierre gasly x reader #pierre gasly x ex!reader #pierre gasly x y/n #pierre gasly x you

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maccreadysbaby · 6 months

Text

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

a little bentley + tim and bentley + damian action ain’t never killed nobody (seriously dami and bentley might be my favorite pair to write atm)

part two

❝ METAHUMAN PROBLEMS ❞

MONDAY — JULY 27 — 9:46PM

BENTLEY PADDED BACK DOWN TO THE BATCAVE WITH PUPPY-DOG-EYES AND PUPPETEER CHARM AT THE READY TO ASK TIM FOR HELP WITH THE PHONE. He was in a Red Robin t-shirt and pajama pants that used to be Tim’s (just for good measure), and his red hair was floppy and wet from his shower, to assure maximum cuteness. Getting Tim away from that computer was more a job for, like, Batman himself than Bentley, but he didn’t intend to fail.

It was pitch black outside now, and Dick had left for Bludhaven a few hours ago. Jason hadn’t been at the Manor for the past couple days, Duke was out with Steph and Cass doing some community service or something for school, Damian was in the training room, and Bentley had a solid excuse for needing Tim’s help.

He walked into the Batcave with the phone clasped ever-so-tightly between his hands to ensure its safety. Damian was still in the training room, now throwing knives at a dummy. Bentley saw him land five square in the dummy’s chest in a span of three seconds through the windows.

Tim was still at the computer. There was a fourth cup of coffee there now, steaming next to him like Alfred had just brought it down. The papers had been shuffled around, and it looked like more had been added to the massive pile. There were a bunch of files pulled up all over the Batcomputer with information and photos of villains they’d fought recently. Tim was staring between the screen and pages like he had been the whole time.

Bentley drifted up to the left side of Tim’s chair, glancing between all the different villain faces on the screen. “Hey.”

Tim didn’t even glance up from his papers. “Hey, Bentley.”

Bentley stood there for a moment, reading some of the information on the screen before he continued: “Whatcha working on?”

Tim hummed, flipping a paper over. “There’s been a massive influx of new metahuman villains in and around Gotham. I’m trying to find whether or not they’re coming from the same place. Maybe working for the same person,” He muttered, then tapped a key on the Batcomputer. All of the villain photos went away, and civilians replaced them. “And I’m looking into the disappearance of several different Gotham citizens that have vanished over the past month. All completely gone without a trace.”

Bentley’s eyes flicked across the screen. Being a Metahuman meant all these supervillains had literal superpowers — no wonder patrol had been tougher than usual recently. “Do you think they could be-“

“No,” Tim shook his head. “Metahumans are all born or endowed with the same genetic traits. None of the missing people have them.”

“How do you know?” Bentley murmured, leaning closer.

Tim shrugged. “Medical files, military history, school records. We have access to a lot of stuff here, and none of them have the genetic information of a metahuman. So I’m working with two completely unrelated, very strange occurrences.”

Bentley hummed again. “Guess what?”

Tim finally glanced over at him, and Bentley nearly frowned at how tired his eyes looked. “What?”

“Bruce got me a phone,” He stated, holding the little green device up so Tim could see it. “I was gonna ask if you would help me set it up.”

Tim rubbed his eyes with his pointer finger and thumb. “Did Dick already go home?”

“Yeah. And Duke is still gone. Bruce said you’d be way better help than him,” Bentley explained quietly. “Please? I don’t think it’ll take super long.”

“Why don’t you ask Damian?”

Bentley glanced up, past Tim, into the training room just in time to see Damian throw a knife at the dummy so hard the blade came out the back of its head.

Bentley screwed his face up, and Tim chuckled. “Yeah, me too,” He sucked in a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, you got me. Just tell Bruce to be a bit more stealthy in his attempts to make me come upstairs next time. He is the Batman, after all.”

Bentley nodded sheepishly, and Tim pushed the chair out from under the desk and stretched his legs. He grabbed the coffee mug and chugged the whole thing in just a few seconds. “You might want to plug it up for a few minutes before we start messing with it. Where’s the charger?”

“In my room,”

“Brilliant. I guess that’s our next stop,” He stated. He stood up and scooped Bentley off the floor, who squeaked in surprise. Thankfully the death grip he had on his phone didn’t let up as Tim lifted him up to sit on his shoulders.

“What are you doing?!” He exclaimed, wrapping his arms around Tim’s neck tightly from behind so he wouldn’t fall off backwards.

“You don’t have to choke me, I’m not gonna drop you,” He stated. He was holding onto Bentley’s legs but it didn’t feel secure in the slightest.

Bentley loosened his arms. A little. “Sorry.”

“No worries,”

Bentley glanced back at the training room just in time to see Damian throw a knife. It missed.

Damian never misses.

He didn’t get to watch any longer, though, because Tim made for the stairs and Bentley had no choice but to go with him. He had to duck under all the doorways back into the Manor, and going up the stairs was borderline terrifying, but they made it to his room without any casualties. Tim dropped him backwards on the bed with a flop.

“Okay, let’s see what this thing can do,” He stated, plopping down next to Bentley on the mattress. He’d already plugged the wire into the wall earlier, and he plugged the phone into it. It was just long enough to reach the mattress without being too tight.

They shimmied up to the headboard and stared at the screen for probably a couple hours. Tim handled all the fancy stuff, like setting up the memory and an email address and fiddling with the settings. He organized his Home Screen nicely and taught him how to use the most important apps. (Which just ended up being messages, making calls, the camera, Google, and maps.)

Then he gave it to Bentley and let him download cool games and other stuff. (Even games he had to buy, which he’d been hesitant about, but Tim assured him it was okay.) He made sure to sit extra close to him and sort of use him as a pillow so he couldn’t move.

By the time they had actually finished, Bentley was playing a game called subway surfers, and Tim was asleep in a strange little ball next to him.

Mission success.

After he was sure Tim was sleeping, he wiggled out of the comforter and climbed out of bed. He left his phone on the nightstand and flicked his bedroom lights off, leaving the bathroom ones on for a little visibility, and closed the door softly as he returned to the hallway.

The Manor was quiet now. Damian’s bedroom door was still open, which meant he wasn’t inside. Duke, Cass, and Steph hadn’t returned, because Bentley would definitely be able to hear them, and he wasn’t sure where Bruce was. So he floated back down to the cave to check if Damian was still there.

He was. Bentley could hear the knives landing before he even turned the corner to see the training room. It was nearly ten, which meant they’d be leaving for patrol sooner rather than later.

Damian was doing the same thing he’d been doing for hours — sticking knives to the dummy. He didn’t even look up when Bentley entered the room, just threw the final knife in his hand, and it landed in the artificial man’s face with a dull thud.

The knife was still planted in the padded wall where he’d missed earlier.

Bentley, satisfied that Damian didn’t have any knives left, drifted over to the one sticking out of the wall. “Damian?”

“Yes?”

Bentley carefully grabbed the hilt of the knife and pulled it out of the wall, blinking at his own reflection in the blade. “Are you okay?”

The quiet thumps of Damian pulling the rest of his knives out of the dummy made Bentley turn. He watched him rhythmically wiggle the hilts up and down until they shimmied out.

“I am fine. I have no reason not to be,” Damian replied flatly. Bentley took a few steps forward and handed him the knife (hilt first, like Jason had taught him in the kitchen) and Damian took it. He momentarily thought about reminding him that last time he told Bentley he was fine he ended up passing out cold in the floor of the library. But Damian was holding about eight knives and he didn’t want to bother him about it.

“Are you sure?” Was what he said instead.

“Positive,” He replied.

Bentley hummed, moving off to the side incase Damian was going to throw them again. To his surprise, the assassin grabbed a little fabric holder off of the bench and began putting them away.

“Are you nervous for patrol? Dick told me it’s been harder lately, with all the new villains popping up,” Bentley tried again.

He thought he might’ve heard Damian scoff. “Tt. Of course not.”

So he decided it was time to stop talking about it. He drummed his fingers on his pajama pants and stood in silence for a few moments as Damian strapped the knives into place.

“Do you think you could teach me how to do that?” He finally muttered. Damian glanced over at him, his greenish eyes dancing across his face for a moment.

“Throw knives?”

Bentley shrugged. “Yeah. I think it’s pretty cool.”

Damian blinked for a moment, folding up the little fabric knife holder. “I can attempt. I was young when I learned — I do not remember all of the specific instructions. I simply know how to do it.”

Before Bentley could think better of it, he inquired: “How young?”

Damian slid the pack of knives away in a large rack used for storing their practice weapons. “Four or five, I believe.”

Bentley said nothing. He could hardly dress himself when he was four, and Damian was already learning how to throw knives in combat?

He had lots of questions about the League of Assassins, but he decided it would be best not to ask them. Maybe Jason would answer a few. He was older when he was in the League, after all, and wasn’t born into it. He didn’t know how differently his and Damian’s experiences had been. Maybe he’d just keep the questions to himself, actually.

“Todd might be a better teacher than me,” Damian continued with a quiet sigh. “But I will teach you if you’d like me to.”

Bentley nodded. “I would.”

Damian made his way to the dummy and began moving it back into the corner near the rack. “Looks like you managed to get Drake away from the Batcomputer. That’s not an easy feat, given his extraordinary amount of stubbornness when it comes to staring at that screen.”

Bentley snickered a little. “I basically had to lay across him to make him stay still enough to go to sleep, but yeah. He’s in my room.”

Damian made a tt again. “He seems to like you.”

Bentley blinked a couple of times, unsure how to respond. He’d been living in the house Tim spent most of his time in for about ten months now, literally right across the hall, so he’d hope he liked him.

“Yeah,” Is all Bentley said. He had no clue where Damian was going with that, but apparently neither did he, because he didn’t say anything else about it.

“Are you going to see if Gordon will let you sit in on patrol tonight?” He asked as he positioned the dummy next to the others and gathered his water and phone off the bench. Bentley shrugged.

“Probably. I really like to listen,” He replied. Damian hummed in response.

They fell silent again for a few moments. Bentley had no clue what to talk about. Apparently Damian didn’t either. So Bentley just dragged himself back up the stairs with him, not entirely convinced he was fine, but staying quiet nonetheless.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @cademygod

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neonghostlights · 1 year

Text

Don’t Fear The Reaper Chapter 04

Chapter Four of the Don’t Fear The Reaper Series. Series Masterlist can be found on my page.

Chapter song: Risk by Deftones

Summary: Dani Crawford didn’t expect to spend her days wandering around Hawkins, Indiana as a ghost. She also didn’t expect her only chance at peace to come from local metalhead Eddie Munson. When he becomes all she can rely on in hopes of solving the cause of her demise, the lines between life and death become blurred.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x f!oc (OC is given a name but NO physical descriptions are used)

Warnings: Death (MC is literally a ghost), Jason Carver, Drug deals, Cussing, 18 + Only, Minors DNI

Word Count: 1.4k

It was breaking news the following Monday that there had been a break in at the police station. The news station mentioned that some case files seemed to have been targeted. Dani and Eddie agreed to take a break on Sunday, blamed on the fact that Eddie needed to go to band practice, but really it was to move past the disappointment of their findings at the station.

“Hey, man. Can I talk to you real quick?” Eddie said as he cornered Gareth outside his final class of the day. Gareth had been purposely avoiding Eddie all day. Eddie didn’t think Gareth would have anything to do with Dani’s death but his behavior was raising red flags for him.

“Y-yeah sure.” Gareth gulped. Eddie led him down to the empty drama prop room and locked the door behind them in case his friend tried to run. He placed himself between the locked door and a nervous looking Gareth.

“You know something about Dani. Spill it. Now.” Eddie said as he crossed his arms over his chest. Doing his best to look as intimidating as possible.

“Why do you even care, Eddie? It’s not like you knew her or anything. Just drop it.” Gareth said as he tried to side step around Eddie. Eddie blocked his advances and shot him a glare.

“I didn’t care until you started acting weird.” Lies. All lies.

“You don’t want to get involved in this.” Gareth said as he dropped his head to stare at the floor.

Eddie narrowed his eyes at his friend and took a step forward. “Involved in what?”

Gareth let out a long steadying breath. “Do you remember that party on Halloween? You brought me with you because you had to deal and we were gonna go smoke afterwards.”

Eddie quickly rifled through his memories. “I mean yeah I think so. Why?”

“Because when you went outside to deal I went to go get a drink from the kitchen and I heard something.”

“Heard what?”

“Like yelling or crying. I couldn’t really tell. But when I stepped into the kitchen I saw all the basketball players and some cheerleaders and that Dani girl ran out of there. I didn’t even know her name until I saw her on the news.”

Eddie's stomach dropped, he and Dani had been in the same place the night she went missing. “What? Why did she run? Did you see any one go after her at all?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know anything had really happened until Jason and Andy cornered me and told me if I told anyone what I saw they would come after me and my friends too.” Gareth's face paled. Eddie could only assume the original threat had been more descriptive than that. Gareth continued, “I’ve been feeling so guilty for months. I feel like if I would have said something or followed her maybe she wouldn’t be missing.”

Eddie felt an immense amount of guilt for ever questioning him. How had he not noticed that he had carried this weight on his shoulders for months? Eddie brought his friend in for a hug, “I promise it’s not your fault.”

Eddie knew he had to speak with the basketball team and get information from them and he had the perfect way to do so.

Eddie sat on the floor beside Dani explaining everything he had learned from Gareth. The index card with his friend's name was traded out for two new ones. Andy Buchanan and Jason Carver. Even with this new information, it did nothing to jog Danis memory of the night she disappeared.

Dani’s head fell into her hands. “A party? No way. That does not sound like me at all.”

“Maybe he was mistaken but he seemed pretty sure that it was you, Dani.” Eddie said softly.

“Do you think that those guys hurt me?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them.” He said angrily. Making Dani wonder what exactly they have done to Eddie before.

Eddie thought back to the party too. He remembers making some cash from drunk popular kids. He can also remember the loud annoying pop music. He can also remember someone bumping into him without apologizing, causing him to drop his metal lunchbox containing all of his supplies, spilling them all over the wood floor. The loud noise of the lunchbox hitting the ground drew a lot of unwanted attention towards him. He had to crouch on the floor to scoop up what he could of his merchandise. Yeah, that wasn’t a good night for him.

“Luckily, I happen to sell to Jason Carver every Tuesday after school. So, I may be able to ask him some questions.”

Dani snapped her head up to face Eddie. “Do you think he’ll actually say anything?”

“I mean, he’s not that smart so it probably won't take much.”

Dani met Eddie in the school parking lot at 4:00pm the next day. Even though she had been spending everyday with Eddie, she still felt excitement to see him again. Dani blamed it on not being able to talk to anyone except him. She wonders if she’ll miss him when ever she gets to where she's going or if he��ll miss her.

Eddie walked out of the school and motioned at her with a tilt of his head for her to follow him to the woods behind the school. Dani didn’t like how the woods felt when she walked them and found herself looking around nervously. “What’s wrong?” Eddie asked.

“Nothing, just don't like it out here.” Dani said with a shrug. They walked up to the old picnic table in the middle of a small clearing of trees. Eddie took off his jacket and laid it on the table in front of him along with his metal lunchbox. “Can’t say I’ve ever been on a drug deal before” she said with a small laugh.

“Man, I’m really corrupting you now that you're dead, huh?” Eddie snickered.

“Who are you talking to, freak?”

Dani moved to stand behind Eddie while he sat on the bench. His face showed nothing but calm as he waited patiently for Jason Carver to make his way to the table and sit across from Eddie.

“Just saying how excited I was to see my favorite customer today.” Eddie said coolly. He made quick work to unlock his lunchbox. “Got bad news though, supply chain issues mean I had to raise my prices.”

“That’s bullshit!” Jason seethed.

“That’s what I said, anyways I can give you a super special discount if you answer a few questions for me.”

Interesting interrogation technique, Dani thought to herself.

From her spot over Eddies shoulder, Dani let out a humorless laugh, “Really, Eddie, do you think he's stupid enough to fall for that-”

“What kind of questions, freak? Need to know the answer to 2+2 since you obviously aren't smart enough to graduate?” Jason spat out.

Rage flew through Dani. She really didn't like this guy. She wished she could figure out a way to punch him right in his smug face.

Eddie ignored the jab and continued on, “Maybe I’ll get your help with math some other time, Carver. I was just wondering if you know Danielle Crawford?”

Jason immediately shot a cold glare at Eddie. “I have no clue who that is.”

“Of course you do. Her missing poster is- well was everywhere. I was just wondering since I thought I saw you, her and Andy hanging out at a party once or something.” Eddie shrugged.

Jason narrowed his eyes, “Listen here, freak, keep whatever you think you saw to yourself if you know what's good for you. I mean maybe you used her as one of your little blood sacrifices or something. Aren’t virgins a commodity for you?” Jason said through clenched teeth.

“ASSHOLE!!” Dani screeched in disbelief, close enough to Eddie's ear to cause him to flinch.

“Watch your damn mouth, Carver!” Eddie said loudly before standing up and towering over Jason.

Jason slammed his hands on the table before grabbing a few bills from the pocket of his letterman jacket and tossing them on the table. Eddie counted the money slowly before handing a bag over to Jason's waiting hand. They both watched Jason stomp through the woods muttering curses. Once he was far enough away Eddie took a deep breath before saying, “Well, that went well.”

-----

(Itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny) Tag list: @sheneedsrocknroll92

#eddie munson x oc #eddie stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson au #eddie munson x f!oc #eddie munson x original female character #eddie munson x ghost #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson series

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cascowriteswords · 2 years

Note

Clexa prompt - I Can't Believe It's Not Butter

Out of all of the requests in my inbox, this is the one my brain decided to let me write. Sorry to anyone who sent in a less-cursed prompt and is still waiting, I will get to them eventually!! But for now, here's a prompt about butter.

_______________________________________________

“Come in!”

Clarke’s voice comes from somewhere far off in the apartment - it sounds echoey and hollow and is barely loud enough to be heard where Lexa stands in the hall after knocking three times on her door. She opens the door slowly, peeking her head in before she enters. She and Clarke have only been together for just over two months and she’s kind of in limbo between feeling comfortable and at home in her girlfriend’s apartment and still feeling jittery and nervous and never knowing what to do with her hands.

Closing the door behind her and shrugging off her coat to hang by the door, Lexa follows the noise coming from in the kitchen as much as she follows her nose, tantalized by the scent of garlic and roasted tomatoes wafting down the hall. She enters the kitchen to find Clarke standing in front of the island, using a spatula to cut into a glass baking dish full of lasagna. She’s wearing light wash jeans and a black turtle neck and Lexa has never seen someone look so insanely attractive clad in an apron that looks like it may have been handed down to her by her great grandmother, tattered and stained.

"Hey, you," Clarke greets her cheerfully, wiping her hands on her apron before she approaches Lexa, looping her arms over her shoulders and clasping her hands behind her neck. Lexa's hands find their home on Clarke's waist as she leans in for a kiss that tastes like hello and feels like I missed you.

"Hey," she says back a moment later when they separate. Clarke’s lips leave remnants of the glass of white wine she’s sipping on her own and she savors the sweetness. "What is all this? I thought we were ordering takeout." Truth be told, Lexa had been daydreaming about her red curry since her 10am meeting this morning. "I didn't even know you could cook."

"Despite what you may think I don't subsist entirely on iced coffee and takeout," Clarke informs her, a self-righteous lilt to her voice. "Just mostly. And it's your birthday, Lex. I know you told me you didn't want anything and not to do anything but… well, I just couldn't help myself, I'm sorry. My love languages are literally gift giving and acts of service, you know this.”

Lexa does know this, but still, she could never have been prepared for the truth of those words. Over the last several weeks Clarke has showered her with thoughtful little things - dried and pressed flowers on her doorstep for no reason at all, a new bookmark when she had noticed dog-eared pages in Lexa’s books, a scarf she thought would ‘look really nice’ with her eyes. And then the acts of service, with Clarke happily tagging along on a Saturday morning at the DMV and helping Lexa get her paperwork organized beforehand and doing her grocery shopping for her on a weekend when she was sick.

Clarke is kind of perfect. Okay, not just kind of perfect; she is perfect. Lexa is terrifyingly head over heels for her given that their relationship has still not surpassed the length of her longest streak to date on Snapchat (with Lincoln, 83 days).

Clarke mistakes Lexa’s silence for dismay and her smile slowly fades from her mouth. “I’m sorry, are you upset? Because we don’t have to eat any of this, we can still just get takeout if you want. Raven is always raiding my fridge anyways, I can just give her this as leftovers and - “

“Clarke,” Lexa interrupts gently. She pulls her girlfriend back into her arms, runs her thumb across a cheek painted rosy pink from standing over the heat of the stove. “Stop trying to give away my birthday dinner. You didn’t have to do all of this but it’s so sweet that you did. I love it.” And I love you, I’m just too scared to say it quite yet. She thinks, watching the smile return to Clarke’s pretty lips, adoration swimming clearly in blue eyes, that she knows anyways.

“Okay, good. Because honestly I think I’d never hear the end of it if I tried to feed Raven vegan and gluten-free lasagna.”

Lexa smirks, knowing that Clarke has only recently become acquainted with the trials and tribulations of dating someone with multiple food restrictions. “I’m sure it’s amazing,” she reassures.

Clarke leans up on her toes and pecks Lexa, lingering for several seconds before she drops her heels back down onto tile. “I appreciate the confidence. Sit down and let me feed you, please. I made a cake for after too.”

…..

Clarke can cook, it turns out. The lasagna is good, enough so that Lexa argues that Raven wouldn’t even be able to tell it’s vegan unless Clarke specifically told her beforehand. Clarke isn’t as sure but she still beams under Lexa’s praise.

The cake is good as well - surprisingly good for having been made by someone who doesn’t have years of experience trying to create something edible with structural integrity without gluten or any animal products. Lexa still doesn’t even have that down herself 100% of the time.

“This is really good, Clarke,” she says, covering her mouth with her hand as she speaks.

Clarke preens. “Thanks. I wasn’t sure about the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter but it actually tastes like butter? I might even just start using that regularly.”

It takes a second for Lexa to register what she just said. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, which is deceptively still not vegan even though it’s ‘not butter’. Then she’s faced with deciding whether or not she should inform Clarke of that fact; she’s so proud of herself for her successful meal and dessert that Lexa is loath to take away from that. She’s leaning heavily towards not saying anything, but Clarke is more perceptive than Lexa gives her credit for.

“What?” she asks, brows furrowing slightly. “What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Lexa says quickly. For someone notoriously good at hiding her thoughts and feelings, she’s surprised how easily Clarke can read her. And surprised that she has let her guard down enough to be read at all.

Clarke narrows her eyes. Waits.

“It’s just that - well, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter isn’t actually vegan. It has traces of milk in it. Unless you got the one that specifically says vegan on it?”

Clarke stares at her blankly for the span of a few seconds. Then her face falls. “Oh my god, Lexa, I’m so sorry. I just - why would they call it that if it still has milk in it?!”

“Well, it’s not called I Can’t Believe There’s No Milk In It,” Lexa quips. Then quickly sees from Clarke’s face that she’s not receptive to joking around right now. “It’s misleading, I know,” Lexa says, shifting her tone to sympathetic. “It’s okay though, babe. Mistakes happen, it’s not a big deal.”

“You’ve been vegan for 11 years and I just fed you milk.”

“By accident,” Lexa reminds her. “Realistically I’ve probably accidentally eaten dairy in something before. Really, it’s not a big deal.”

Clarke sighs loudly. She stands up from her seat and walks over to Lexa’s, worming her way until she’s crammed between Lexa and the table, seated across her lap. Lexa slides an arm around her back to support her, the other falling to rest on one of her thighs.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says again, needlessly. “You just wanted takeout from the Thai place and I did all of this just to accidentally poison you. Did I ruin your birthday?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure?” Clarke toys with the baby hairs at the nape of Lexa’s neck. “Because I was thinking of some ways I could make it up to you. If I ruined your birthday, that is.”

Lexa momentarily shortcircuits at the suggestive tone of Clarke’s voice, the feeling of her blunt fingernails skating lightly across the back of her neck. She swallows thickly. “On second thought, it might have been slightly ruined. Just a teeny bit.”

“I knew it,” Clarke says, a sly grin on her face just before she leans in to kiss Lexa soundly. “Any ideas or requests as far as how I can make up for it?”

Lexa cocks her head, pretending to think about it. Then she slides her chair back from the table, the legs scraping loudly under their combined weight, and stands up, nearly dumping Clarke onto the floor before she hooks her hands around the backs of her thighs and hoists her up into her arms. Clarke giggles in delight as she wraps her legs around Lexa’s waist and hangs on, letting herself be carried towards the bedroom.

“Oh, I have plenty of ideas. And I think you’re going to like them all very much.”

She can feel Clarke’s smile against her skin when she buries her face in her neck.

Despite the mix-up with the butter, this is by far the best birthday Lexa has had in years.

#clexa prompt #clexa drabble #what even is this? idk honestly #clexa butter prompt #thanks for asking

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glapplebloom · 4 months

Text

Remember this character? Because I clearly don’t...

So Julie-Su is a character from the Archie Brand of Sonic the Hedgehog. She is currently owned by Ken Penders who is basically doing diddly squat with her as he’s focused on his Mary-Su in his yet to be released book. And I liked her when I was younger so I added her in my comics and made her into a villain. But why, her character wasn’t like that... Right?

(By SonicGal390)

That’s the thing, I don’t think I remember her character prior to my comics. In fact, the fact I made her into Juliet Suter really showed how different the two are. So what was Julie-Su really like? For the month of February, I am going to be reading her issues and see if Juliet is an improvement or a missed opportunity. This week, the Knuckles Spinoffs.

Her first appearance was in Issue 4 where it begins with a Classic Vector with realistic feet... Yikes. He is trying to get the jump on a cloaked Dark Legion Soldier who I presume is Julie-Su. And she punches Vector once and throws him to the side. So already, we see the idea of the writers preferring their OCs over the original crew. And she was going to sneak up on Knuckles if it wasn’t for this Ant OC giving him a warning.

Knuckles was having the upperhand until he realized she’s a girl and she looked to capitalize on it. Then the Ant OC saved Knuckles. After being disarmed, she explains basically that she was trying to rejoin the Legion but between it self-exploding and something making her follow Knuckles instead. Literally saying “like someone forcing their will over hers”. Just focusing on Julie-Su’s story, so ignoring how Knuckles’ papa creeps on his own son.

Well, something is happening in the Marble Garden Zone and Julie-Su joins Knux’s crew despite other’s protests. And so far it's arguing. Then they found a city all of a sudden appearing out of nowhere full of Echidnas. Then it is gone. Then an Earthquake where Julie-Su saves Knuckles from falling. Then the city returns... I’m gonna skip to the part where Julie-Su’s character is focused on.

So that’s Issue 7 where we see Julie and Knuckles talk. She’s isolated from everyone besides Knuckles because they associate her with the Dark Legion and it bums her. So Knuckles is trying to fix that. But everyone he wants to introduce her to is gone. And the plot happens. Next issue she’s back with the Legion but she’s still feeling like a stranger among them. Next issue, it is revealed she left stuff to help the Prisoned Knuckles’ friends. And when the Dark Legion goes to attack the city, she makes her allegiance clear and stops them.

She was arrested and then, for some reason, assigned to the deputized Chaotix. Like this is two comics worth of stuff and no explanation. Issue 13-15 are the drug comics where she doesn’t really show much of a personality outside being cautious in a logical situation. Like they completely forgot she got arrested for being part of the Dark Legion. Thrown off a building. Yadda Yadda.

So far the most interesting thing I’ve seen of her is she has a grappling hook. And it is issue 16 that she kisses Knuckles on the cheek. Despite Knux saying don’t do it again, she thinks she wants to but doesn’t know why. So apparently Echidnas have this Soul Touch thing that makes people like each other automatically. Never mind trying to build up a relationship naturally, we gotta get this ship on the waters.

Issue 17 has her riding some weird looking horse. This guy goes up to her and choking her to death because he thinks she’s with the Dark Legion. And then 6 pages later is taking this guy to Knuckles. Sometime later talks to Knuckles’ mother, most likely warning her about what her husband did to her in the relationship. Issue 22 has her relaying information to Knuckles.

Issue 26 has her shooting at something to blow off some steam when Knuckles ditched her last issue. Almost Yandere like. Then she decided that she needs to do something in her life since she doesn’t know what she needs to improve herself. When she thinks she needs to have more fun, a Knuckles with a belt said try on this black hat in the window. And the issue ends with her on a date with the guy.

Next issue, Knuckles is spying on Julie-Su after being teleported there for some reason. The date seemed to have gone well outside thinking she heard someone. Then Knuckles shows up and seems to be asking her to go out on a date and she looks super excited. And 28 has Knuckles’ mother seeing Julie-Su to see if she can keep him away from a certain surprise everyone else is setting up.

Nevermind because the date turned into leading him into a Surprise Birthday Party. They dance and plan for a date next week and kiss. Issue 30 has her riding that weird looking horse again. And that’s it for Julie-Su’s appearances in the Knuckles solo run. So what is she like? You’re basic “tough chick who can do things on her own but doesn’t like Knuckles Baka.” Outside her being in a relationship with Knuckles, there’s not much of a character there.

But let’s see how next week fairs as we stick to the Pre-Penders Departure.

#february theme #Julie-Suary

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xxruinaxxmcu · 2 years

Text

Jack Thompson x Reader

What Lies Before Us

Previous Chapters (and Book 1)

Chapter 13

From what the doctors said, Sousa would need to stay in the hospital for about a week – mostly for observation and wound dressing.

Jack had handed the file he had discovered in the cupboard to Peggy to look through whilst they were still at the hospital.

The file contained, as he had suspected, intel on all the members of the 107th, but it was more than that. It contained information on Peggy, too, and even Steve, who was listed as ‘possibly dead/missing’.

“They file inconsistently”, Peggy remarked, flipping through the pages, “If they list Steve as missing, they should’ve listed James Barnes as missing, too.” Unfortunately, this inconsistency in filing would remain a mystery none of them would crack during their lifetimes.

“Did you know HYDRA worked globally?”, Y/N asked, looking through some parts of the file herself.

“Yeah, I mean, Germanic territories and America does mean they work internationally”, Jack replied with a shrug.

“Thanks, Jack, that much was clear”, she snorted, “No, I mean actually globally. There are coordinates here that, if I’m not mistaken, would place it somewhere in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the Pacific Ocean where they’ve just established a base. I mean, actually globally.”

“The Pacific Ocean?”, Peggy asked, visibly confused. Whilst she spoke, Y/N looked up, searching for Jack’s face.

“How well do you know the Pacific Ocean?”

His face was absolutely stoic as he replied: “Well enough.”

“26’30 degrees north, 128’00 -“

“East?”

“Yeah”, Y/N looked up from the papers, “Why-“

“You don’t forget the location of hell”, he snorted cynically, but he said it with a frozen voice. “That’s on Okinawa.”

Y/N didn’t know what to say. It was horrible enough that they were hunting HYDRA again, and now this?

“You’re telling me”, she said lowly, “that on one of the most heavily fortified American positions in the entire freaking pacific, HYDRA managed to open a base just a few months ago and no one noticed??”

“The entire island resembles a honeycomb. If they used the trench system to hide it, they might as well be invisible”, Jack replied surprisingly calmly.

“So now, what, HYDRA’s expanding into Asia? Cooperating with the Japanese that weren’t happy about the surrender?”, Sousa questioned, trying to make sense of this development.

Jack shrugged, leaning against the wall: “No clue. Can’t say we ever came across HYDRA when we were there, then again, I doubt they’d introduce themselves like that. I guess they share some similarities. Not least did the Japanese research a great deal on biological weapons and human enhancement.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow: “Like Mengele’s guys?”

He nodded: “I just think no one survived. But the documents were partially transferred to the US after the war. Other parts went to Russia. Who knows what happened with the rest.”

“Comforting.”

Y/N once again took notice by the visible separation between Jack and – well – the rest of them. Sousa, Carter and her, they had all served in the European theatre. They had all fought the Nazis, and Nazi sympathisers, on European soil. He, on the other hand, had made his experiences in war literally on the opposite side of the world, with a different enemy. They might as well have fought in two different wars altogether – the only thing that loosely tied it together was the term ‘Second World War’. But it really wasn’t ‘a war’. It was many wars, happening at the same time. And she had only begun to understand just how difficult that had to be for him – after all, whenever Sousa or Carter or she mentioned something about the Nazis, the others just understood. Because they had been there, because they had seen them. The only Japanese she had ever seen were those that were interned in the US camps during the war.

“How come I’ve never heard of these guys?”, Sousa asked, causing Y/N to look over.

“You think we’d want to accuse our new buddies against the Communist East of these sorts of crimes?”, Jack asked back, cynicism dripping from each word, “Unlike Germany, most of the leaders remain in place.”

“Right”, Y/N folded her hands, “Right. We need all the aerial photography from the area from the last six months. I suppose the US Army Air Forces would be the place for that.”

“No, not anymore, it’s the Air Force now. Got their own branch just a few weeks ago”, Jack specified, causing Y/N to roll her eyes at his nit-picking.

“Never mind, then the Air Force”, she huffed, “and I suppose we’ll have to reach out to the CIA now, too. I don’t really want to run into our own guys without them being briefed we’re there.”

“You’re not seriously planning on going there, right, Y/N?”, Sousa asked, “In case you haven’t noticed, the people you’re after are incredibly dangerous and tend to ask questions after they shoot!” He pointed at his bandages for proof.

Y/N simply shrugged: “What do you want to do, Sousa? If you have some sort of other branch of government you trust more than the SSR to handle this, and I can’t really say anything about the CIA yet, they’ve literally come into existence a few months ago, then by all means, give them a ring. But the last time I checked, the SSR’s main purpose was to hunt HYDRA, and this very much looks like it.”

She looked over to Peggy: “You understand, don’t you?”

Peggy looked at her sympathetically. Of course she did. But she also knew that she couldn’t abandon L.A. right now, because they still had to hunt down their Arena Club people connected to Frost, and with Sousa not on 100 percent, losing Peggy was out of the picture.

“Of course I do.”

Y/N felt an immense weight being placed upon her – though she knew that it was wrong. She wouldn’t be the one to suffer the most, she feared.

“You remember what I said before you went to Boston?”, Y/N asked silently without looking at Jack. “I intend to keep up my end of the bargain, now I need your word that you will keep up yours.”

……….

“Look, there’s a freaking difference between shadowing an individual on home soil and travelling across the globe to possibly take out a foreign installation!”, Jack almost yelled when they entered his hotel room, “Now, I’m not sayin’ we send no one, but this isn’t a one-man-show!”

“If we can verify what it is, we won’t have to infiltrate, Jack!”, Y/N shot back, “We just have to take it out. And sorry, but pulling the remote trigger of a bomb, I can manage that just fine.”

She waited for the next barrage of words to fly at her – another verbal explosion to go off. But though he looked like he was just about to start again, abruptly, he shut his mouth and turned away.

For the second time in under 24 hours, Thompson had defied all versions of his behaviour Y/N had prepared herself for.

“Nothing?”, Y/N asked, “You’re just giving me the silent treatment??”

“Look, put yourself in my shoes”, he said without turning around, “we’re freaking agents. First and foremost. And you can go through the list of all the people within the SSR, from West to East Coast, and tell me. Who’s the most qualified?” He turned around now, his face stern as if he had internally given himself a slap in the face to man-up: “Of all the men here, hardly a handful served in the Pacific. Harrow spent time on the Philippines, and two of Sousa’s guys in Guadalcanal. Last time I checked, I was the only one who’s been to Okinawa. Now take your pick. Agent Carter logic. That will be me.”

She looked at him in silence. He wasn’t wrong. She knew that. Still, that didn’t make it hurt any less.

‘You’re not thinking as an agent’, Y/N reminded herself, taking a single breath to focus. “You’re right, Agent Thompson. Actually, you are exactly right. Neither of us is thinking rationally right now. This is a mission on Okinawa, which means that you are on the ballot. And it most likely means dealing with HYDRA. Which means you still need someone who speaks German. Which means I am coming, too. And no, I don’t accept the entire ‘one man is safer’ or ‘you’ve done enough’ speech. Last time, God knows why, you volunteered to go on that island. And for some wicked reason, here we are and here you volunteer again. Well, I volunteer for you not to go in there alone. That ain’t happening.”

He was about to open his mouth to say something, probably a last attempt to dissuade her, but Y/N only raised a finger.

“Nah, don’t waste your breath, agent”, Y/N cut in, “Because I’m not listening.”

If anything, he looked pained at her resolve.

“It won’t be like 1945”, she said quietly, “and it won’t be like our mission in DC, either, where we wanted to retrieve that blueprint. If we can verify the nature and location of it, we will blow it to hell. And by God, given the amounts of shells and undetonated bombs still in the area, I doubt anyone will bet an eye.”

It wasn’t that he was afraid for her, or, for that matter, for himself. She wasn’t wrong – it wasn’t an extraction mission, not a rescue mission. If the base was HYDRA, they’d blow it up with everyone and anyone inside it. Carter might have wanted to choose a different route, one that was inherently more dangerous, but not him. And apparently, not Y/N, either. No, he wasn’t afraid because of that.

He hated the island. He hated it equally, though that was hard to fathom, as Iwo Jima. He hated the thought of seeing the ruins of Shuri Castle or the hills of all the damn Ridges – Tombstone, Kakazu, Cactus, and countless others. He hated the thought of that enough to want to throw up again, even though his headache had begun to lessen. How would he react once he was actually there again? And of all the people in the world, he really didn’t want her to see it, whilst simultaneously wanting no one else there in her stead.

It was a paradox he couldn’t get his head around.

“Yeah”, he said, not saying a word about what he had just thought about, “It’ll be a walk in the park.”

……….

Y/N wasn’t blind, she could tell from six miles away that every fibre in Jack’s being didn’t want to go there, even as he pushed his mind in the other direction – stubborn, and, though some might find that hard to believe, dutiful as he was.

They first had to fly back to New York, so on the plane there, Y/N decided to do most of the talking, if that was required.

“You know, as much as I hated being there, I saw some beautiful landscapes in southern Germany. The Alps are a sight to behold – though, I suppose, you could now visit them in less hostile territory in France or Switzerland. But they were amazing”, Y/N said, recounting the images of immensely tall mountains, whose tips were covered in snow and ice all year around. “

“Can’t say I can compete with that”, he said dryly, “Iwo Jima is a pile of smoking rock, and Okinawa is a single subtropical health hazard. Wanna know what my company’s first enemy was? Wasn’t a soldier. It was a snake. Apparently, they have venomous snakes on Okinawa.”

“Oh.”

“Good news, the bite can be lethal, but most often, it wasn’t. Had many who were still unable to fight after being bitten by one of those things. The locals called them Habu, I think.”

“Right”, Y/N nodded, “So I’ll stay six feet away from snakes. Other potential death traps, humans aside?”

“Possibly mosquitos, otherwise, not necessarily deadly. Giant crabs and a bunch of lizards”, he shrugged.

“So it’s basically like Australia minus the deadly spiders?”, she raised an eyebrow, “Wonderful location for the biggest landing force of humankind to wage a battle.”

He snorted at her sarcasm. “Yeah.”

Y/N pondered about what to say next, she just wanted the silence to not become piercing, and for him to get lost in his thoughts.

“So, Germans have their beer and their schnapps, what’s Japan got to offer? I feel like every country has some alcohol in store.”

“Call me biased, but Asian alcohol is strange”, he pulled a grimace, “rice wine, sake.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have been able to taste the difference about twenty hours ago”, she remarked dryly, receiving an elbow to the side, causing her to laugh.

“In all fairness”, she said with a grin, “I never warmed up to schnapps, either. Tasted like disinfectant to me. And the food, well. It was pretty bad towards the end of the war, shortages almost anywhere. But, I guess, it spared me the experience of Army rations.”

“Ours weren’t that bad. I mean, they were disgusting, but they were big enough for us not to starve”, Jack shrugged with a grin, “though I can’t say that spam is a real delicacy.”

“I bet”, Y/N laughed, “cold tinned pork mash doesn’t sound like a feast.”

He tilted his head: “I guess that was the one advantage of being stuck on Iwo Jima. We could bury the rations in the ground and the volcanic heat would warm them.”

She looked at him in disbelief: “Well, I guess you were at least inventive.”

“Had to be. Guess that helps now where we fight anything from kid assassins to hardcore Nazis.”

“You make us sound way cooler than the filing mess that we produce on an average day”, Y/N remarked with a grin, “But don’t say Sousa I said that. Otherwise, he’ll be pissed that I didn’t make the caveat that his filing is ‘impeccable’.”

…………….

Arguably, the only upside Jack could find right now was that they were headed to Okinawa in early December, which was both one of the coolest, as well as driest months possible. Though both of these things were relative – the weather was still warm, and rain was always possible. It wasn’t monsoon season though, unlike the last time he was stuck there, when their foxholes and trenches turned into a field of mud.

Whilst he was talking to the lab boys regarding the tech they would take with them, Y/N was collecting all the files they could potentially use regarding HYDRA, or Japanese bio experiments.

The phone rang, and Y/N didn’t even have the time to rattle down her usual greeting.

“Y/N, it’s Sousa.”

“Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”, Y/N asked, a bit taken aback.

“In a perfect world, probably.”

She noticed the tone in his voice, knowing something was seriously wrong.

“What’s happened?”

“Don’t repeat a word, just say yes and relay it to Thompson.”

“Yes.” She had a hunch where that was headed, being reminded of the Owens-debacle from not that long ago.

“We caught a lead out in Nevada that Keller’s been seen there”, he began, “so we sent a bunch of agents to track and arrest him. We sent four agents, now three are dead. And the fourth one and Keller have vanished.”

Y/N’s face froze. She knew what he was getting at. But she knew she had to control her reaction, so she didn’t say anything, she didn’t do anything.

“Y/N? You still there?”

“Yes, Daniel”, Y/N said calmly, “I understand. I understand exactly what you mean. I will let him know. I’ll call back when we’re back in the US.”

She ended the call and continued her filing. HYDRA, it would seem, wasn’t just not dead. HYDRA had infiltrated the SSR.

At this point, she felt little more than disillusionment. She had been willing to risk her life again and again for the SSR, and for everything they stood for – only to figure out that not only had a covert Soviet organisation infiltrated their ranks, no, so did HYDRA. And if that was the case for the SSR, then chances were, the other branches of the intelligence services had been infiltrated, too.

Looking up, Y/N clenched her teeth.

Right now, it didn’t matter. Mission One was to find, and destroy, that target on Okinawa. Mission Two was to find and kill Keller. And long-term Mission Three was to hunt down every last member of the Arena Club, where now, she didn’t care anymore that they didn’t have exact proof to pin on every one individually speaking. She now placed them under general suspicion without differentiation.

“You ready?”

Her eyes met Jack’s.

“Always.”

……….

Getting to Okinawa was an endeavour all by itself. First to L.A. to change, then to Hawaii to change, then to Guam to refuel and then to Okinawa. The flight from Hawaii onward was only the two of them, and a bunch of Armed Forces personnel headed into the occupied zone.

Y/N had decided to not bring up the issue of HYDRA within the SSR until they had finished Mission One. First, it didn’t affect their mission plan, and second, she didn’t feel like she was able to talk openly about it in the office, or on the plane. In both instances, there were too many potential listeners around them. And slipping over a note felt incredibly inappropriate given the gravity.

She could already see that once they had set foot on Guam, that Jack’s personality became more alert, more, well, more on-duty. Maybe it had been the familiar scents, the familiar scenery. The soldiers that were fairly visible everywhere. Maybe it was just the knowledge that soon, he’ll be back to the place he had never wanted to see again since getting the chance to leave it alive.

They landed in Naha in the early afternoon. It was like being thrown back into summer, having left the winter of New York far behind. It was a beautiful day, at least it was in theory. The war was still very visible in the city – airfield aside, and military bases aside, much of the area was still damaged, or under reconstruction. Even without knowing exactly what the battle had looked like, Y/N directly knew that they were standing on – essentially – a graveyard.

“You’re gonna be alright?”, Y/N asked when the two entered a vehicle they had been given by the military.

Jack’s eyes were fixed solely on the road: “Yeah. We have work to do.”

A/N: So sorry for the longer pause in between updates - the last weeks were a bit all over the place. However, I am incredibly happy to announce that I had VERY good reason for that: I have just been confirmed to have met all the necessary criteria to start my PhD this autumn. I am beyond excited!

I am, as always, incredibly appreciative of all sort of feedback - comments, hearts, reblogs! They make all the effort worth it by a mile

Tag List

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williams-17 · 2 years

Text

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petnews2day · 2 years

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Brisbane cat owner told her pet 'will disappear' unless she keeps it inside

New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/pet-news/cat-news/brisbane-cat-owner-told-her-pet-will-disappear-unless-she-keeps-it-inside/

Brisbane cat owner told her pet 'will disappear' unless she keeps it inside

Read the threatening letter sent to a mortified cat owner as war erupts between neighbours: ‘Control your animals or they will DISAPPEAR’

Brisbane cat owner was left an ‘abusive’ note by her neighbour about her cat

The woman was told if she didn’t control her pet, the animal ‘will disappear’

She shared picture of the note to Reddit asking advice on how to keep cat inside

Many sided with the person who wrote the note saying cats kill native wildlife

By Eliza Mcphee For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 04:23 GMT, 7 October 2022 | Updated: 08:23 GMT, 7 October 2022

A cat owner has been told her pet ‘will disappear’ if she doesn’t keep it locked up inside by a furious neighbour who left her a very threatening note.

The woman from Brisbane shared a photo of the blunt hand-written note to Reddit, asking for advice on how to keep her rescue cat inside.

She explained a feud had kicked off with her neighbour after her cat ran into their yard and picked a fight with the feline next door.

‘I was mortified and apologetic and immediately removed the cat flap on the back door and replaced the door so she can’t get out, but we had a tradie out leave the garage up and she snuck out,’ she said.

After her cat’s second escape, she was then left a note that read: ‘Control your animals or they will disappear!’.

A cat owner has been told her pet ‘will disappear’ if she doesn’t keep it locked up inside by a furious neighbour who left her a very threatening note

The neighbour even went one step further and chose to write the message on the back of a printed out council information page with sections highlighted on ‘responsible pet ownership’.

The woman said she was frustrated her neighbour had left such an ‘abusive’ letter without approaching her first.

‘The problem is our house has casement windows and young kids and I’m forever on their case about shutting windows and not leaving doors open,’ she added, asking for advice if a digital fence would work.

She said she kept her cat inside as much as possible but the animal ‘busts out’.

‘Their cat has also been over to our side of the road so it’s a bit pot calling the kettle black,’ the owner said.

‘The neighbours who complained to ME have giant aggressive dogs that jump up on their fence and go crazy every time someone goes past and we live opposite a kids park.

She explained a feud had kicked off with her neighbour after her cat ran into their yard and picked a fight with the feline next door (stock image)

‘Oh and my next door neighbours dog barks all night at 3am when she’s on shift so it’s just a whole load of hypocrisy that I’M getting the threats.’

Her post was flooded with comments and sparked fierce division amongst many Aussie pet owners.

Many pointed out the fact cats are known to kill native wildlife and said the woman had a responsibility to keep her pet inside.

‘Cats kill for the fun of it, they aren’t killing to eat, and one cat can decimate the local wildlife. Keeping cats inside has been a thing for a long time for people who know how destructive cats can be,’ one person said.

‘Take the cat back to be rehomed to a home it can actually stay inside and not run around bothering people and killing wildlife,’ another said.

‘Take it seriously. My family received a letter and the cat ‘went missing’. Try to change whatever it is that the cat is doing,’ one wrote.

One man said he’d caught five cats in a trap on his property and dropped them each off at the pound in the past six months.

Others were more sympathetic with the cat lover’s problem.

‘People who threaten to, or actually do hurt animals are scum. Literal human garbage. No excuse,’ one said.

‘I think you’re doing the right thing. Sorry you had to deal with this, I would be mortified if I got that letter.’

‘You’re doing really well and tbh your neighbour should be keeping their cat indoors too? Accidents happen, what matters is the work you are doing,’ added another.

The Brisbane City Council guidelines state cats must be microchipped and kept in enclosed areas if they’re outside.

The cat owner said she tried her best to keep her pet inside but it ‘busts out’ (stock image)

Share or comment on this article:

#Cats News

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krystalites · 3 years

Text

stationary date with nct dream

genre: fluff all the way

word count: 2.4k

a/n: this popped off when I was planning a stationary date with a friend of mine. Jaemin's part got a bit short cause I kinda forgot about his existence and added it after I lost all my imagination.

⌜ mark ⌟

Between Mark's endless promotions and you studying for your exams, you thought it would be nice to plan a stationary date. You needed new supplies and your boyfriend Mark needed some time to himself.

When you and Mark arrived to the stationary you discovered a few days ago, you noticed that it wasn't as busy as usual. There were only a few people and all that could be heard was soft mumbling of these people along with the soft music playing in the back ground. After making sure Mark was well hidden under his mask, hat and sunglasses combo, the two of you quickly entered the stationary and immediately sprinted towards the rack here the colourful pens were stacked. After minutes of trying out pens and trying to create a nice colour palette, you moved on to the notebooks.

Hours passed by, the sun setting and everybody else leaving. Mark lifted his head from the Oz-Pack's he was checking out and smiled at the sight of you trying to pick out a pencil case. You looked adorable looking from a pencil case to another, examining them carefully so you could choose one of them.

"Come on, I'll buy you both of them." No matter how much you protested, Mark didn't listen and still bought you everything you've put in the little basket the cashier gave you when you first entered the store.

On the way back, you squeezed Mark's hand tightly. "I'm sorry if you didn't have as much as fun as I did." you mumbled quietly. Your boyfriend was quick to shake his head and smile.

"No, I really enjoyed it. It was quite calming actually. We should do it again another time."

⌜ renjun ⌟

The idea was all Renjun. Over the few months, he had grown a habit of keeping a diary. He would sketch stuff, tape random stuff, put stickers and more. When you told him that a bullet journal would look really nice and showed him some pictures, he became really excited. A few days later, he asked you to tag along while going to the stationary to buy the items he needed. Of course, you quickly agreed and took him to a stationary you knew that was pretty popular. By the time you guys got there, it was quite late. Only about an hour left to closing the store, it was almost empty.

You two quickly entered the store and started your little journey of looking for the perfect items. Renjun told you he would go for a more brown-ish look, so you both picked out lots of nude coloured supplies with black ball point pens and stickers. He also got a few sketching pens and markers.

And Renjun being Renjun, he managed to convince you to keep a bullet journal too. So whatever you guys picked for Renjun, you quickly bought them too and left the store minutes before closing. Not wanting to end the night, you quickly went to a convenience store nearby and bought a few drinks. You went to a park, sat on the picnic tables and started to decorate your journals.

You had finished earlier, leaving a bit more place for writing and less for decorations. You wrote something inside the journal, left it open and started napping with your arms under your head. Renjun smiled at the sight of you sleeping and noticed that your journal was open. He took it to close it, yet didn't when he saw what was scribbled inside. Instead, he smiled and leaned forward to plant a kiss on your hair.

Words weren't enough to express his endless and pure love to you.

Dear Diary,

I love Renjun.

⌜ jeno ⌟

Jeno was the perfect boyfriend, quite literally. He was caring, gentle, sweet, handsome, funny and all. But most importantly, he never forgot anything you said. Never. In your whole relationship of 3,5 years he never forgot anything you said. Including you telling him about how you ran out of school supplies over face time a few months ago.

Which is how you ended up in front of a stationary you mentioned to your boyfriend over a week ago. He pulled you in, walking over to the yearly agendas to get you the alpaca one you always wanted. Whatever you mentioned to him on that face time, he found all of them. He also payed for them, after you made him promise to let you pay when he wanted to buy something.

After the two of you exited the store and went back to the dorms, you quickly walked over to his shared room with Jaemin. Thankfully he wasn't at the dorm. You quickly pushed your boyfriend on the bed, climbing on his lap and squeezing the hell out of him. He laughed and kissed your forehead, hugging you back.

"Thanks for remembering everything I say, Jeno. You have no idea how loved that makes me feel." you mumbled quietly. He opened his mouth to say something, but you quickly put your pointer finger on his lips. "Let me continue. Seeing how much you care for me makes me really happy and I think that we could actually have a long and beautiful future ahead of us." you leaned to your bag sitting a few inches away from the two of you. You quickly pulled out a box out of the bag and threw the bag to its old place. You opened the box and pulled out two rings. Jeno's eyes widened as the realisation hit him.

"Which is why I'm giving you this promise ring. One day, when we're sure we can come out to the whole world, I'm going to marry you. Until then, let's keep these rings as a promise."

Jeno talked to his manager later that day, telling him that both him and you were ready to go public.

⌜ haechan ⌟

Donghyuck hadn't left you alone in days, clinging on you like a koala. You had come from your hometown to Seoul for two weeks. Your boyfriend missed you like crazy over the months, being in a long distance relationship could be hard sometimes. There were only a few days left, after flying back to your hometown you were going to start your spring quarter of the school year. A friend of yours who used to lived in Seoul had told you about a certain stationary, mentioning cute pens and school supplies you couldn't find in your hometown.

When you asked Donghyuck if he wanted to tag along, he whined and whined until you managed to convince him. You needed him anyways, you still had difficulties in speaking and understanding Korean.

"Do we really have to do this? You only have a few days left, I want to cuddle with you! And more..." He pouted and crossed his arms on his chest. When you finally arrived at the stationary, he entered it unwillingly but you know the mighty power of Stationaries. As soon as he stepped in, he was amazed by the environment and the beautiful supplies and before you knew it he was more excited than you.

After an hour of wandering in the stationary and picking out stuff, the store started to get busy. Considering you had to keep Donghyuck's existence there as a secret, both of you quickly payed and ran out. Giggling like high school girls, you two exited the store and called a cab. While waiting, you two compared the stuff you bought. You had bought all the stuff you were planning to buy and he bought a notebook and a bunch of pens to write lyrics.

The first song he wrote was a love song for you and only you, waiting to be shared to the whole world with only the two of you knowing the meaning behind it.

⌜ jaemin ⌟

When Jaemin came up to you with an idea of a gaming journal, you couldn't say no. He wanted create a little booklet filled with all the games he's ever played, along with ratings and comments about them. He was very enthusiastic about video games, always finding something new to play. Sometimes he would come over to your place to play games with you, or simply teach you how to play one.

The two of you met up at the stationary close your school, as it was in a less busier area. While there, he also declared that this meet up was actually a date. While he was looking at the stuff he wanted to buy, you tried out different pens. Noticing a little white board and a few colourful white board markers, you quickly bought them so you could use them for studying. You had to start revising for your exams in a few days. When you were done, you fund Jaemin in the huge store, now just following him around. He bought different coloured markers and pens and a black notebook. He also got copies of some game covers to stick on each page.

When the two of you got back to the dorms, you quickly pulled a chair next to his table where his small set up was. Placing your newly-bought items on the desks free space. You quickly began sticking the covers on each page, writing the games name and general information, how it ended, on what platform he played etc. At the very bottom, there were Jaemin's comments and a rating he gave. The first few pages were done, and you two were actually very proud of yourselves. It looked really good! Jaemin thanked you and gave you little kisses all over your face. After finishing showering you with kisses, he told you he'd play games with his friends. You quickly climbed on his lap and snuggled into him, burying your face in the crook of his neck with your legs swinging on his sides.

Jaemin smiled at the way you were cuddling with him and shook his head to the sides. He gave you a little kiss on the temple and started playing.

"Thank you sweetheart. You make me really happy by showing interest in my interests."

⌜ chenle ⌟

Chenle had bought you a few last minute plane tickets , and yes multiple tickets, because he wanted you to fly all around the world with him for Dream's world tour. He made you so happy, proving that he doesn't want to be away from you for that long.

When he came home and told you about the tickets, your first idea was to create a small photo album. Though, you didn't want it to be simple. You wanted small details, which is why you were at the stationary now, trying to decide if you wanted to decorate the album with blue-ish colours or pink-ish colours. The items were laid on a small rack in the store, in a less busier part of it.

The date idea was both yours and Chenle's. You wanted him to come with you, he wanted it to be a date. And the closest place where this date could take place was the stationary a few blocks away from his house.

"I think we should go with pink." Chenle said after a very long silence. "The album cover is cream coloured, and pink would go better with that." Imagining what it would look like, you agreed with him. You bought a bunch of pink ink pens, Stabilo's and Signo's. You bought a few black pens and markers too. Chenle insisted on buying pink post-it's too, so you also bought them. Even though the two of you were done with the shopping, you still looked around and bought some stuff for the next school year.

Hours passed by in the little store. You found your boyfriend in the very back of the store, checking out agendas. You tapped his shoulder with a little smile, and let out a loud laugh when he flinched.

"Calm down, Lele. It's just me." He pouted and flicked your forehead gently. "You scared me! Are we going home?" He asked and rubbed his eyes. He was feeling sleepy. Something he does whenever he feels like he could sleep at the spot. "You look tired. I think we should." With your answer, you exited the store hand in hand.

Later that night, right before falling asleep, Chenle whispered something in your ear.

"I can't wait to travel like this with you, I hope we can do it with our children sometime in the future."

And you did it.

⌜ jisung ⌟

To say Jisung was freaked out would be an understatement. The first day of school was tomorrow, and he hadn't bought any school supplies. He called you last minute, rambling something about going to the stationary with him because you had a lot of "knowledge about pens and everything. You being the amazing significant other you are, quickly agreed and got ready.

After meeting Jisung in front of the stationary and making a list of everything that needs to be bought, you quickly got to work. Files, copy papers, scissors, pens, erasers and whatever else you need for school. You bought a few stuff for his locker too, so he could decorate it. You got copies of all the necessary papers and forms, quickly putting them all in a file you bought from the store.

Almost an hour later, you were finished. You quickly went to the dorms together to organize all of the stuff you had bought. While sticking the name tags on the notebooks, Jisung looked up at you ,who was sitting on his bed, and smiled gently. After watching you carefully write Park Jisung on each tag both in Hangul and Romanisation for a few minutes, he finally spoke up.

"Hey Y/N..?" You turned your head to him and tilted your head to the side. "Yeah, 'Sungie?" He blushed at the simple nickname, despite having heard it for almost a million times. It really affected him that much. "I wanted to thank you for helping me out today. I'm sorry I asked you to come over just like that, but I couldn't have finished all of this so soon without you." You chuckled and finished tagging your last item, quickly jumping on his bed, right next to him. You pulled him on your chest by pushing his head on it. Jisung smiled and wrapped his arms around your waist.

This was his happy place.

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nuttynutcycle · 3 years

Note

I just discovered your blog, and I'm in LOVE with your writing! I'm completely obsessed with Familiar, so if it's not to much to ask, could you write a continuation? Thank you so much, your snippets and prompts are greatly appreciated!!

Familiar - Pt 2

First part here

On a scale of one to ten, this was either a -2 or a 12 on the good idea scale. Hero double-checked the address Villain had sent her before looking back at the tiny house. The paint was peeling, steps were rotting and that roof was definitely of the leaking sort. Somehow, she had expected Villain to live on the rich side of town.

When he had invited her over to work on their assignment, her thoughts had been torn between screaming trap and find some evidence. The second side won. If there wasn’t anything in there to prove who Villain really was… Well, she’d have to find another way of getting proof to show the authorities. She knocked and noted the cracked windows to her side. After a few seconds, Villain opened the door.

“Hey, I’m glad you could make it. Come on in.” He led her down the musty hall towards a suspiciously normal bedroom. “Thanks again for making the trek all the way over here. My mom hasn’t been doing too well recently, and I’m trying not to leave her alone for too long.”

“Of course, I get it.” Hero let her eyes trail over the spartan room. The only furniture was a bed and two chairs beside a fold-up table covered with books and scribblers. Funny, the number of times Villain escaped from her with stolen cash made her think he’d at least have better furniture. Or a safe to put the money in. Maybe it was hiding in the closet? Although in this neighbourhood, keeping money lying around might not be the brightest idea. “It’s good that you’re taking care of her.”

He nodded, avoiding her gaze and moving his stuff from the table to the floor. “Hopefully, this next surgery will be the one that works.”

“Yeah, it’s tough watching people you love go through painful things. My sister has a heart problem right now, and it’s terrifying to watch her energy come and go.” Shut up! Stop telling him personal things. “Yeah.” She finished lamely.

Their gazes locked in understanding. Hero was the first to break away. “Ready to start the pain?”

They worked on the assignment in silence for a while. Honestly, there was probably a special punishment designed for whoever invented assignments over ten pages long. This just wasn’t fair. Hero sat back, running a hand through her hair. “I think this is karma's way of punishing me for not reading the textbook.”

His lips quirked. “There’s a textbook for this class? That would’ve been helpful to know at the start of the semester.”

“Want to know how tired I was at the beginning of the semester? I can’t even remember choosing my classes,” she pulled a hand down her face. “I think I just closed my eyes and pointed at the screen.”

“You could have been in differential calculus. Or worse, accounting.”

“Or Phys Ed. Did you know our university has a course devoted to badminton?”

Villain laughed. “What a racket. To think, I could have spent time swinging my arm around and gotten credit for it.”

“But then you’d be missing out on the glories of this assignment.”

“And a friend.”

Oh nope. Big nope. Wait, Hero reconsidered. Were they friends? They did chat after class and had studied a few times together, but that didn’t mean- wait. Huh. Time to deflect with awkward humour and process these feelings later. “I thought you saw me as a role model, but that’s cool too. I’ll just have to find a new lackey.”

“And here I thought you were friends with me for my brilliance and good looks.”

She felt her cheeks begin to burn. “Yep, it’s all for your looks. If you seduce our professor, then we don’t have to do this assignment anymore.”

Villain rubbed his chin. “I’ve never seduced a professor before. Would I have to wear a sweater vest?”

“And a tweed jacket. It’s the only way.” Her fingers twitched, and she was suddenly very aware of him. The light hitting his hair, the way his lips curled when he was amused… Bad, very bad. This is your official ABORT MISSION alert. Find some evidence on the dangerous criminal and get out of there. She cleared her throat. “I’m parched. Could I get some water?”

Villain nodded, standing and leaving the room. Hero leapt out of the chair the moment the door shut behind him. Her eyes latched on the only place one could hide anything in the sparse room - the closet. She yanked it open, feeling her heart speed up at the sound of Villain opening a cupboard in the kitchen and turning on the tap.

The closet was small and impressively dull. Clothes and boxes littered the tiny shelves, with no signs of the files or weapons she was looking for. A flap of a familiar fabric dangling from one of the top boxes caught her eye. Bingo. Hero gingerly reached to feel the consistency, making sure she wasn’t wrong before bringing the authorities in, and accidentally bumped an elbow against the side of the closet. The box plummeted from its precarious placement and met the ground with a thump. No! She scrambled to pick up the box and the spilled-out uniform when a movement behind made her pause.

Villain stood in the doorway, hand clenched around a glass of water. His eyes darted to the clothes on the ground. “What are you doing?” he asked quietly.

Hero’s throat went dry. She tightened her grip on the clothes and tried to look surprised. “S-something fell in your closet, so I opened it to check what it was.”

“Huh,” Villain said. “That’s unfortunate.”

He knelt, gently taking his outfit from her hands and placing it back in the box. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

“Clearly.” Hero swallowed and prepared to run if he attacked. Worst case scenario, she had beat him before and could do it again. Theoretically. “I didn’t mean to-“

“I know.” A familiar calculation crept across his face, making her hands shake. Villain sat across from her and blocked the only exit, placing the cup of water between them. She felt trapped against the closet.

“You know, if this had happened a month ago, I would have killed you without a second thought,” he said mildly. “Guess you’re lucky.”

A horrifying reminder that she was not dealing with her awkward classmate anymore. “What are you going to do instead?”

Villain shrugged, seeming far too calm for the situation. “I don’t know yet. Talk, I guess?”

“I won’t tell anyone.” Hero said, lying through her teeth.

“Unfortunately, I’m too old to believe the promises of others so easily.” He trailed his fingers through the thin carpet, tracing patterns through the material. “Even yours. The stakes are just too high.”

“What’s even worth all the stealing and destruction?” she asked quietly. “Why do you do it? “

The fingers paused. “It started out as one job. My mom needed treatment, and we didn’t have the money to pay for it. Then one treatment turned into two.” He shook his head. “Before I knew it, I was on the city’s most-wanted list.”

Her shoulders tensed. “Will you stop when the treatments are finished?”

“There have been other benefits to criminal activity.” Villain ducked his head, cheeks turning pink. “Lots of amazing people to meet. I haven’t decided yet.”

She leaned against the wall beside the closet, feeling safer with something solid against her back. “I don’t know if meeting people through crime is worth a lifetime in jail.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “You’d be surprised.”

Hero picked up the forgotten water sitting between them and drank, if nothing else than for the excuse to avoid responding.

His fingers trailed larger patterns in the carpet. “I never wanted you to find out- this is one of the first friendships I’ve made since I started university. I don’t want to lose that. And I don’t want you getting hurt, but this does put me in a tight position. I won’t let you inform the authorities.”

Hero pressed her back further against the wall.

Villain took one look at her wide eyes and softened his tone. “Just don’t tell. If I get one inkling that you’re about to turn me in, then..." he sighed. "Please don’t make me choose between you and my mom.”

He would know it was her. Hero didn’t think she could after this. Or fight him, knowing it was for his mom’s medical bills. She pursed her lips, making a highly regrettable split-second decision. “Alright. But only on one condition: you stop once her treatments are done.”

He twitched. “I told you, I haven’t decided yet-”

“I’m making the decision for you.” She tried to sound more confident than she felt. "Deals are much easier to trust than promises.”

“No. I’d miss-” Villain stopped, clenching his jaw. “I can’t let certain people from that life go yet.”

Something clicked. The girl he liked was from his criminal life… Oh gosh, Hero probably knew her. The brunette villain from the southside? The redheaded weapons supplier? Stop getting distracted.

“I trust you. Give it up as soon as you can.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. “For me.” That was even worse. Was it possible to die from a foot in your mouth?

Villain relaxed his shoulders. “Yeah. It’s a deal.” He stuck out a hand and Hero grasped it, shaking firmly and ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest. So like, a 5 on the good idea scale.

@revrevrew-personal @spruceandpine @sailor-cat2 @literally-just-kirby @emerqlds @chaoticgoodandu @notsocharmingmagician @flying-paperboat @touchedbyanerdyotaku

#my writing #writing #hero #villain #creative writing #hero x villain #heroes and villains #hero villain snippet #snippet #my snippet #sorry for the long wait guys!#two idiots in love #if i was Hero I'd tell Villain's mom

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mammonshuman92 · 3 years

Text

- Watched - Pt.4

(Mammon x GN!MC)

** TW: swearing, kidnapping, religion, abuse, blood, death (if I missed any I do apologize!)

He smiled wickedly as he turned around, going back to the table he’d been at earlier and picked up the same knife he’d held to you when he kidnapped you. The only other weapons you could see on the table were a baton and a taser. There was also a thick book you could only assume was a bible and a large jar of water. The most concerning however, was the gas can, thick work gloves, and what looked a lot like a body bag.

“This may call for a more extensive purification.”

Your heartbeat quickened, breathing becoming slightly erratic. Your eyes widened at the scene laid out before you, but you tried your best to hold your resolve.

Whatever he plans to do, even if this is where your time on this Earth comes to an end, you didn’t plan to give him the satisfaction of conforming to his insane, backwoods ideologies. For your most beloved demons, and the love of your life, you were ready to fight until the bitter end.

After leaving the coffee shop, Mammon made his way back to your house to come up with a plan. As he rushed back, he got a brilliant idea and immediately made a phone call.

Given their status and connections, he was sure that at least a few of his brothers would be able to dig up info on this Alex dude and the ATA, however he couldn’t risk any of them finding out what was going on, for fear it’d get back to Lucifer, so he had to be extremely careful.

“Ugh, what do you want, Mammon? I’m in the middle of a raid right now.”

Levi seemed like the least likely to get too curious and ask questions, especially since Mammon was the one asking. No way would Levi want to end up being part of one of his usual schemes. And since he rarely comes out of his room or socializes with others, Levi was definitely the best one for the job.

“I need a favor.” Mammon could hear the slight clacking sound of Levi’s controller in the background.

“Nope. No way. Your “favors” always end badly; for everyone involved. Goodbye.” He declined immediately, wanting to hang up and get back to his raid.

“Wait, Levi! It’s real important!” The second born begged. Levi could hear the desperation; the emotion in his brothers voice. His interest was piqued now, along with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

“What is it?” He asked with a sigh, casting his controller aside.

“I need ya to dig into a group called the ATA.”

“ATA?”

“Yeah, it’s the “Anti Treaty Association”, they’re in the human world. And see if ya can find anythin’ on a guy named Alex who might be associated with ‘em.”

“Anti Treaty..? As in the peace treaty? Mammon, what did you-”

“I’ll explain everythin’ later, okay? Just.. please, Levi? I need ya to look into it.” The level of sheer desperation in Mammon’s voice was concerning, but he didn’t push the issue.

“Okay, okay. Hang on..”

The sound of Levi’s fingers rapidly clicking across his keyboard flooded Mammon’s ears for the next few minutes.

“Okay, so the group was founded not long after the Devildom exchange program was formally announced. They started small but grew in number quickly; looks like mostly religious extremists. They hold protests at any event involving relations between our world and the human world. Let’s see..” Levi went quiet for a few seconds as he scanned his monitor.

“It looks like some of the members have a clean record, aside from a couple parking tickets, but there are a few bad apples. Most of the charges consist of harassment, disorderly conduct and destruction of property, all of the incidents taking place at protests. All of them were first time offenders, and have stayed out of trouble since then.”

“Anythin’ about an Alex?”

“Hmm, nope. Do you have a last name maybe? Or literally any other info? I can’t do much with just a first name, especially a common one.”

“Umm, he drives a really old car and he works at a take out place as a delivery driver.” Mammon proceeded to give him the name of the restaurant.

Levi began tapping away on his keyboard again, scanning all the social medias and websites associated with the group and the take out place, looking for anything related to the clues Mammon gave him. Without much to go on, he wasn’t very hopeful and began to lose courage, then he finally got something.

“I got a hit on a few social media accounts related to the ATA. I was able to find some pictures with a crappy older model car in them that were taken at some of their protests a few months back, one of the pictures had a shot of the license plate. After doing a quick search of public record, the car came back as registered to a John A. Smith, who actually died a few years back..”

Mammon sighed, feeling dejected. That information was all he had, and it may not have even been enough to be helpful.

“Wait..” Levi suddenly said, pulling Mammon from his thoughts.

“His obituary says he had one child; a son named John Smith Jr. I can’t find him on social media under that name, but if we assume the middle initial “A” stands for say, Alexander, then I may have something. I found an Alex Smith, and it’s honestly gotta be him. He’s a member of the official ATA group page, and several others like it. His profile picture has a crappy looking car in it, granted it’s mostly cropped out, but it looks a lot like the one I ran the license plate number on. I’m confident that this is your guy.”

Mammon felt like he could breathe a little easier. Another piece of the puzzle had, hopefully, come together.

“Where do I find him?”

“Not sure. His last location was near the middle of nowhere, but it hasn’t pinged anything for quite some time. I’ll send you the coordinates.”

“Thanks, Levi. I owe ya big time.”

“Yeah. Uh, Mammon? I know you said you’d tell me later, but is everything alright? You’ve never asked me to do something like this before. It kinda feels like you’re looking for someone..”

He waited for his brother to stutter out some kind of excuse to explain it away like he always did when he got himself into some kind of trouble, but he didn’t. Which only made more red flags pop up for Levi.

“If anyone asks, especially Lucifer, this never happened and ya haven’t heard from me, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay, Mammon..”

He didn’t like the feeling he had, the gut instinct and the hair that stood up on the back of his neck that told him something was seriously wrong.

After he hung up with his brother, he decided to dig a little deeper. He traced Mammon’s phone and found him at a location nearby the restaurant he’d had him research. His awful, suspicious feeling was confirmed when his brother’s location came back as one in the human world. A little extra digging of public land records and it pinged as your house. His heart sank as he thought about the urgency and desperation in his brother’s voice.

He traced your phone, but it just showed the same location as Mammon. But, if you were there, why would he be so frantic? His stomach churned when he realized that there were only a few things that would cause Mammon such distress, and seeing as how he was apparently in the human world, at your house, desperate to find some random dude, it couldn’t be good. Whatever was going on definitely involved you. That thought alone made him sick to his stomach.

“I hope I’m wrong. Please be okay, MC.”

*bzzz* *bzzz*

Mammon opened the new text message from Levi, which contained the coordinates to Alex’s last known location.

“MC has gotta be somewhere near this location. If not, maybe I’ll be able to pick up their trail.”

He was pacing around the living room, going over possible plans for his next move. Thankfully it would be dark soon and there was also a pretty big storm rolling in, which would provide the perfect cover for him to scout from the skies. Heavy wind and rain would make it nearly impossible to pick up your scent though.

He went into your bedroom to retrieve something of yours that would be heavy with your scent, like your favorite jacket or maybe a pillowcase. As he looked around the room, he spotted a strip of pictures shoved in the frame of the mirror on your dresser. A warm smile spread across his face.

It was of the two of you, not too long after you’d officially started dating. He remembered that particular day very well. You’d decided to walk the cobblestone streets of the Devildom, much like you often did together, but this was different. There wasn’t anymore of that “trying to pretend neither one of you had feelings for the other” junk. It was just..real. You were actually his. He reminisced about how warm your hand felt in his, the way his stomach erupted in butterflies when you looked at him with pure excitement after you’d stumbled upon the photo booth. The way you threw yourself at him, locking your lips onto his for the last picture; the shade of red your cheeks turned when you pulled apart.

That day was one of his favorite memories of you. You were so happy and full of life; looking at him with such excitement and love.

The haunting reality came creeping back in on him, sending his beautiful trip down memory lane, spiraling into despair. There he stood, alone in your bedroom, while you were gone. Taken, by some psychopath. His whole world, snatched right from underneath him as he sat down the hall.

The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. How could he? He should’ve been there. He shouldn’t have let you answer the door. He should’ve done something, anything.

“I knew somethin’ didn’t feel right, and I should’ve listened to what my gut was tryin’ to tell me. This is all my fault..” He ran his finger over the pictures on the mirror, letting a few tears escape before aggressively wiping them away.

“I will find ya, MC. And I promise that I’ll make ya safe again, I swear it.”

He felt a sudden vibration in the floor followed quickly by a deep rumble from outside.

The storm’s comin’. It’s time to move.

He grabbed the shirt you had worn the day before from the hamper and quickly smelled it to make sure your scent was strong enough. From the way it made his heart twist in agony, he was sure it would do just fine.

He shifted into demon form and headed straight for the door. With the approaching storm, it was dark enough now that he could fly and remain unseen. Since he was by himself and up against the unknown, having the element of surprise would come in handy.

“When I find that piece of shit, he’ll understand why I hold the rank of the second strongest of the Avatars.” He growled into the dark of the night as he stepped out onto the front porch.

With that, he shot up into the night sky, stealthy and silent.

“Extensive purification? Is that what the body bag is for?” You asked audaciously.

Naturally, you were scared. This mad man kidnapped you at your own damn house in broad daylight and drug you to what you could only assume was the middle of nowhere to tie you up and torture you. So yeah, you were pretty fucking wigged out to say the least.

But, did that mean you would back down? Let him know you were scared so he had the extra control over you? Make him feel like he was winning?

Absolutely not. You’d never give him the satisfaction. On the inside you were shaking, writhing in terror; begging for Mammon to come and save you. But on the outside? You were taking none of his shit, and playing zero games. If you were going to die here, you planned on going out as uncooperative as you could. Fuck him.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” He turned around to face you from where he’d been at his make shift work table, with the taser in his hand. He closed the gap between you, keeping his eyes locked on yours, and leaned down until he was just inches from your face. “The night is still young though.”

“Then why not just kill me now? Get it over with.”

“I want to cleanse you; save your soul.” He said, as if you were crazy for not grasping that concept.

“But why? Why are you so worried about my soul? You prodded.

“Because you have chosen to lay with demons and abandon your humanity.”

“And? Who I choose to love and spend time with isn’t yours, or anyone else’s business.” You snapped back.

“You see, that’s where you’re wrong. Your part in all this; the exchange program, being close with a bunch of high ranking demons; you as a human are committing the highest level of treason by aiding in the progression of uniting the realms. You are opening the door for corruption, chaos and sin to pollute our world.”

You laughed lightly in disbelief.

“When has our world ever been free of any of those things? Do you honestly think the Celestial Realm would be part of the treaty if He wasn’t on board with it? Stop blaming others because you’re close minded. Your blatant hatred for others is your fault, your sin. No one else’s.”

His face turned red and his expression changed into one of anger at the mention of Him. He stormed off toward the work table.

“And by the way, none of this-” You wiggled your fingers around as best as you could in an attempt to gesture around you, “is free of sin. Pretty sure He would frown upon this. Maybe even more so than my relationship with his sons.” You couldn’t help but smirk at your own jab.

He turned back to face you, bible in hand and quickly walked back to where you were hanging, and knelt down into your face again.

“It’s time to begin.” He said with sick, sadistic smile on his face; ignoring what you’d said.

With one quick movement, he lifted you off the giant hook your hand restraints hung from; letting go of you when you were a few feet from the ground, slightly knocking the wind out of you. Although you were being a little mouthy, you still felt pretty weak from being trapped inside that trunk. Not to mention that your shoulders were killing you from being suspended for so long.

He pulled you across the concrete floor by the hand restraint, stopping once he reached the stock tank. He opened up his bible and laid it on a little table near the side of the tank. He picked you up easily and climbed into the water. Even with as hot as it is, the water was frigid. It was only about four feet deep, but being restrained and unable to move freely, you would easily drown if Alex didn’t keep hold of you.

He stood at your side, facing you with his hands firmly grasping your arms right below your shoulders. He started reciting scripture from memory, glancing back at the open bible a few times for reference. He began to repeatedly dunk your head below the surface of the icy water. He recited the same passages over and over again, making it easier for you to figure out when to hold your breath. Although, a few times he seemed to hold you under a little too long, leaving you gasping for air when you returned to the surface.

When the never-ending baptizing finally did come to an end, he plucked from the water and returned you back to where you had been suspended. You were shivering uncontrollably and your head was pounding. No doubt from lack of oxygen after having to hold your breath, then gasp for air more times than you could possibly count. The added weight of your dripping wet clothes added to the searing pain in your shoulders.

He went over to the work table and grabbed the big jar of water you’d seen earlier. He dipped his fingers in it and flicked it at you whole reciting scripture. You assumed that it was holy water.

As you listened to him drone on and on, you found it hard to stay conscious. You haven’t really felt right since getting out of that scorching trunk; you most likely had heat exhaustion.

“Does being saved from eternal damnation bore you?”

“No, just you.” You replied weakly, looking up at him and trying to muster a smirk.

“Is that so?” He challenged.

He abruptly turned around and went back to the work table, returning a moment later sporting the thick work gloves you’d seen earlier, carrying the taser in his hand.

“Then I suppose we need to take it up a notch.”

Mammon went straight to the coordinates Levi sent him, but found nothing except dirt roads and cow pastures. Even from an aerial point of view there wasn’t much to see. After circling the area several times, he landed atop a tree in a densely wooded area. Although it was pretty dark out here in the middle of nowhere, far from civilization, he still couldn’t risk being seen as Alex could be watching; waiting for him to come for you.

“Where are ya, MC?” He quietly asked aloud, eyes continuing to scan the darkness that enveloped his surroundings.

With every passing minute his heart grew heavier, his chest tighter. It felt as if he couldn’t breathe properly. As cliche as it sounded, you were his literal heart; his entire world.

Before you came to the Devildom, he thought he had it all figured out. Stealing and gambling, partying every night, spending money like there was no tomorrow, making shady deals with witches. He was living what he considered the luxurious life of a high roller and he couldn’t get enough of it.

Then you came along, and he was forced to be your guardian or sorts and look after you. It was such a pain. You made it harder for him to give Lucifer the slip so he could go on gambling binges and live up to his title. But, being the weak, magic-less human you were, you needed constant protection.

It didn’t take long before being your protector became something more than what he was ordered to do. He needed to be the one to watch over you, the poor helpless human. His human. As soon as he got a taste of what it felt like to be around you, he couldn’t get enough. He was hooked.

Your smile and the sound of your laughter, the face you make when you’re concentrating or how you pooch your lips out when you’re getting irritated. The never ending kindness you showed him, especially when he was less than friendly at first. Even during those early days, just simply being near you brought him a sense of peace and warmth. The energy you radiated was intoxicating. Before he realized what was happening, he was a lost cause; completely wrapped around your finger.

If someone were to have told him he’d end up completely smitten with a human, he would’ve called them crazy. The Great Mammon would never waste his precious time on something that didn’t involve Grimm and how to obtain and/or spend it, much less a human. Smitten is precisely what he was though, to say the least. Not that it bothered him in the slightest.

He’s been around for thousands of years, and never once has his heart beat the way it does now. He’d always known love because of his siblings, and even the great loss of a loved one when Lilith died. While he would move mountains and do anything for his family, and even lay his life down for them, the way he felt about you was completely different. He would do all those things for you as well, and so much more. You knew him on a different level, a way no one else ever had in all his existence.

Relationships were never really his thing. Sure, he’d had plenty of flings, but most of them only cared about what they could get out of being with the Avatar of Greed, not that it really bothered him. He pretty much only got involved with people when the bitter loneliness became too much to bear. Love isn’t typically something that happens for demons, not that he was looking for it anyway. But, sometimes it was nice to have someone to hold, to feel the warmth of another. Even if he didn’t remember their name. Not that they, or he for that matter, really cared.

Which is why he was so perplexed by the feelings you stirred up inside him. He was one of the strongest rulers of the underworld, who could probably have any succubus he wanted, so why was he becoming increasingly enthralled by you? A completely ordinary human. Or so he thought, anyway. No ordinary human would’ve been able to knock him off his feet the way you had. You were special. You made him feel.

You were kind, warm, headstrong and funny. You’d even put your own life in danger to save those who were much stronger than you, like that time with Beel and Luke in the underground tomb; not because you thought you would win the fight, but because it was the right thing to do. He’d never witnessed such bravery, such selflessness in a human. Especially not when it came to protecting a demon, someone who would be deemed unworthy of such an act simply because of what he was. This once weak, irrelevant human, was now one of the people he respected most. You’re undying love and kindness for others was one of the infinite things that made him fall for you.

He clutched your shirt tightly in his hand, bringing it up to his face and burying his nose into the fabric. He breathed in your scent, filling his lungs as much as he could. He needed to keep the smell fresh in his mind, in hopes of picking up your trail. Tears began to prick his eyes. All the memories of you were nearly too much to handle. He couldn’t lose you. He wouldn’t.

He had no idea what this freak had planned, but he knew it couldn’t be good. The clock was ticking. The more time that passed, the harder it would be to find you. He looked out into the night again, hoping to see anything that might point him in your direction, but there was nothing. The only sounds came from the cows in all the pastures around the area, and a very faint humming noise off in the distance. He couldn’t see any signs of the car or any other clues, but he refused to give up.

“Alright, MC. C’mon, talk to me. Where are ya?” He said, getting ready to take to the skies once more to scan the area. Then it hit him, sending a shiver down his spine. He whipped his head to the right, and breathed in deeply.

MC!!

He took another long breath in, to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. It was definitely your scent. It was very faint, and muddled with something else, iron maybe? But there was no doubt it was yours. Like a shot, he flew in the direction your scent was coming from. The incoming storm was making it hard to stay on the trail, but he was not going to lose it now. He was almost there. Almost to you. There’s no way he was backing down.

A minute or so later he could see the faint glow of a light in the distance. It looked like it was coming from a barn or something. Your scent was getting stronger and stronger as he closed in on the building.

That’s gotta be it!

He landed on top of the building with a thud; coming in a little faster than he intended thanks to the increasing intensity of the storm. He paused a moment, waiting to see if his brilliant entrance had caused any kind of movement. When he didn’t hear anything, he moved to the edge of the roof to have a look around. There was a lot of overgrowth around most of the building, and some spots in the roof seemed to give a little. If he wasn’t careful he might end up crashing through the ceiling. It wasn’t a barn, but more like a warehouse or something.

He walked the perimeter of the roof, looking over the side for any kind of clues. There was nothing out front, and the sides of the building were all overgrown with vines and other greenery. He peaked over the side of the roof near the back of the building and tensed. He could see the car that matched the description of Alex’s, hidden underneath loose foliage in what looked like a poor attempt to conceal it.

I knew it He thought, his heart beginning to race.

He remembered seeing an industrial ventilation fan on the side of the building before he landed, and quietly rushed over to it, crouching down slightly on the maintenance access platform.

By now, the storm was raging full force. The rain was coming down in sheets, the thunder booming as lightning lit up the night sky. The fan was pretty rusted but thanks to the thunder, he was able to crack open the slats slightly without being heard. The sight he was met with made his blood boil, prompting him to let out a guttural animalistic growl that rumbled deep in his chest. The iron smell mixed with your scent he’d smelled earlier, was blood.

Anger like he’d never felt before burned deep inside his very being worse than the raging storm around him, truly making his demon side come out. He never had any intentions of letting this psycho walk away from this, but now it was going to be a lot less humane. The witch’s words came rushing back to him.

‘Bring me the heart of a mammal, not of our world, that thrives on malice and sadism. If you cannot fulfill your end of the deal, I will place a curse on you until the ends of eternity that will make everything of value you come in contact with turn to ash.’

Mammon smiled viciously. Looks like he’d be able to fulfill his end of the bargain with the witch after all.

The “cleansing” quickly shifted from that of something considered somewhat normal, to something very far from it. Nothing about it could be considered holy anymore.

“Are you going to denounce your demonic pacts and sinful ways and conform?”

You lifted your head weakly to glare at him, “Never.” You snarled between staggered breaths. His face twisted in anger.

Blow after blow landed on your weak, fragile body. You spit out yet another mouthful of blood, the wet sounds echoing in the large room as it splattered onto the floor. Needless to say, you were in pretty bad shape.

Blood ran down your face from a laceration on your brow bone. Your lip was busted pretty bad and you had at least a few cuts inside your mouth from your teeth puncturing the skin on your cheeks and lips. You assumed you had some ribs that were at least cracked seeing as it had become pretty painful to breathe. All the spots he tased you in burned like fire, no doubt blistering up badly. He’d held it in the same spot for so long that you could smell your own hair and flesh burning.

There wasn’t much you could do in the way of fighting back, but you sure tried like hell in the beginning. But now you were way too weak, barely even able to scream out in pain. You’d already come to terms with the fact that you probably wouldn’t make it out of here. The reality of never seeing Mammon again swarmed you, tearing away the last bit of resolve you had left. You forced yourself to remember all the time you’d spent with him, making sure he was the only thing you thought of as you began to slowly depart from this world.

You would forever be grateful for the time you had with him and all the amazing memories you were able to make. Movie nights, staying up too late talking and laughing, trying and failing to hide from Lucifer after pranking him.

The way his too big of a hand completely engulfed yours, the way he looked at you when you were both all dressed up for some fancy party at the Demon Lord’s castle and how much he tried to hide his face so you couldn’t see his blush while he held you close on the dance floor.

Sneaking into each other’s beds when one of you had a nightmare, the way his body felt against yours when he cuddled you; his warmth and smell. The way he tried to hide his enormous smile and pink cheeks when you’d gush like a groupie over his newest spread in a magazine.

The time he was a flustered, stuttering mess for three entire days in the beginning of your relationship, unable to hear your name or see you without turning various shades of red because every time he did, flashbacks of loving you for the first time just days before came rushing back to him.

Those intimate moments were your favorite, for more reasons than the obvious. You got to see him in a different light. He was still his usual goofy, lighthearted, prankster self, but he was so much more than that too. He was so sweet it could make your teeth rot. He was gentle, slow. You could feel the love leave him, his heart pouring over into yours. There were always stars in his eyes; pure adoration. Something you could never quite grasp; how someone who had seen the literal heavens could look at a normal human like you in such a way; with such breathtaking awe.

You always felt like you didn’t deserve to be loved by someone as amazing as Mammon, but you would always be eternally thankful. In such a short time he’d brought so much happiness and light to your life. As happy as those memories were, you wished more than anything that you’d get the chance to make more, but sadly it didn’t look that way.

As Alex was coming in to land another blow, a loud thump could be heard from above you; his fist stopped in the air a few feet from your face.

“What was that?” He questioned to himself quietly. He stayed silent for a moment as he listened for more noise, but there was nothing. “Must’ve been thunder.” He shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention back to you, pulling the taser from his pocket.

“It really is a shame that you refuse to comply.” He said as he jabbed it into your ribs, causing you to use what little fire was left in you to cry out in pain. “You really were a fine specimen, until you wasted yourself on demons.” Another jab of the taser, this time on your thigh.

You choked out a weak, raspy laugh. “And I’d do it again, a million times over you sadistic, psychotic freak.” You spat, voice breaking. He reared his hand back to hit you, but was interrupted by another loud noise, this time near the entrance.

He turned toward the sound and decided to check it out this time, picking the knife up from the table on his way. He was only gone for a few minutes, but you were grateful for the break. As much as you didn’t want to give up, your body just couldn’t take much more.

He slithered back through the entrance, soaked from the down pouring rain and complaining about hearing things.

“If you didn’t have a guilty conscience, you wouldn’t be so paranoid.” You said between several pained breaths. Your voice was small and frail, but you still managed to lace some venom in your words. He snarled, storming toward you and sticking the knife under your chin, lifting your head up to look at him. You used what energy you had left to glare at him.

“It’s too bad really, that even in your darkest moments, your last moments, what’s-his-name wasn’t here to save you.” He snickered, tracing the knife from your chin to your jugular, applying just enough pressure along the way to coax out a small line of blood.

“That’d be The Great Mammon to you, human.”

Alex whipped around toward the entrance at the sudden voice, the color draining from his face as a look of sheer terror washed over him.

“M-Mammon?” You choked out, a massive lump forming in your throat. You looked around Alex, the most beautiful yet terrifying thing coming into your field of vision.

It really was him.

Seeing him in demon form was nothing new to you by now. However, the look on his face was something you’d definitely never seen before. It almost looked as if there was an aura around him; a definite shift in atmosphere at his presence. His natural sin was Greed, but right now he embodied Wrath.

It was so easy for you to forget that he really was a demon, as you’d never seen him in such a state before. The sight of him now; raw, malevolent power seeping from him, the low guttural growl, emitting such a heavy, nightmarish presence. He was scary. Even to you.

“MC..” There was pain in his voice; his face distorting in agony when he looked at you.

He charged forward, only making it a few steps before Alex swooped in. He got behind you, reaching around and keeping the knife at your throat; Mammon froze.

“Not another step.” Alex warned. “I have no qualms with spilling the blood of a traitorous demon whore that turned their back on the human race.”

Mammon stared at him blankly for a moment, then burst into laughter. It wasn’t his normal, happy laugh. It was dark, and oozed ill intent. He turned his attention to you once more, his expression softening just enough to not utterly terrify you.

“MC, do you trust me?”

“Since my first day in the Devildom.” You smiled fragilely, noticing the way his mouth briefly tugged up at the corner when your words reached him. He locked his eyes on Alex once again, dark expression returning.

“Close your eyes. No matter what you hear, don’t open them.” He instructed as he slightly crouched, getting into an attack stance; you nodded in agreement, doing as he said.

You could hear Alex huff behind you. “I will slit their throat, or did you hear what I said you filthy, abomina-”

He was silenced mid sentence by a sudden impact that jostled you slightly where you hung. You could hear gasping breaths and Mammon’s same sadistic laughter as earlier, followed by several ear splitting cracks and tearing sounds as Alex screamed out in pain; wet, squelching noises and heavy thuds rang through the room as several things hit the floor. It went on like this for several minutes, until the screams finally ceased.

You pretty well knew just by the sounds, that you were finally free; that psycho would never be able to hurt you again.

Moments later, you were lifted off the large hook and being cradled gently in arms that you knew all too well. Mammon sank to the floor, his wings wrapping around you protectively, shielding you from the gore you didn’t need to see.

“MC..” He whispered, tears running down his cheeks as his eyes scanned over your frail, broken body.

As much as you wanted to savor the moment of finally being safe, once again in the arms of your demon, the reunion would have to wait. You had been through so much and your body couldn’t take any more. You began to fade in and out of consciousness, no longer able to hold on.

“MC..? MC! Stay with me! Please, please hold on just a little longer.” He begged, his voice cracking as he patted his hand against your cheek gently. You tired to put a hand on his cheek to soothe him, but your arm fell limp halfway to his face as you lost the fight to stay awake. You heard him yell your name a few times as you drifted, his voice fading away slowly.

What is that infernal noise?

You had suddenly become hyper aware of an out-of-the-ordinary noise somewhere close by. An alarm clock perhaps? No, it was more of a beeping sound than a shrill ringing.

You lazily opened your eyes, immediately regretting it and squinting them shut because of a blinding white light that was shining in your face. You blinked several times as you tried to adjust.

As you scanned the room slowly, it started to look as if you were in one of the rooms in the Demon Lord’s castle, but it appeared to be set up as a hospital room of sorts. The blinding light was coming from one of the big lights they use at the dentist office. You soon discovered that the beeping noise you’d been hearing was actually one of several monitors you were hooked up to.

Everything started to fall into place and make sense, memories coming back of the events that brought you here. The monitor closest to you started to sound an alarm, indicating your heart rate had picked up and your blood pressure was rising. Seconds later the door flew open, a figure rushing into the room.

“MC.” He said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Barbatos moved to your bedside and silenced the alarms, opting to check your vitals himself.

“How do you feel?” He asked, pressing his index and middle fingers to the underside of your wrist, checking your heart rate.

“Fine, I guess?”

“You guess?” He repeated, taking a small light from his pocket and shining it in your eyes, checking the dilation of your pupils.

If you remembered correctly, which you’re very sure you did, your injuries were extensive. There’s no way you could forget that level of pain. You felt tired, kind of groggy from sleep, but there was no pain.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About three days.”

Three days?! You thought to yourself, a little shocked.

That’s still not nearly enough time for your wounds to heal. You must have looked as confused as you felt, prompting and explanation from Barbatos.

“Your injuries were rather extensive, so Mammon brought you here after rescuing you. Lord Diavolo had the best doctors in the Devildom tend to you with magic. Although they healed you perfectly, you weren’t showing any signs of waking up just yet, so we decided to keep you here to monitor your condition.” You nodded along in understanding as he spoke.

He placed the light back in his pocket and moved away from the bed. “I shall notify Lord Diavolo and the others that you have awakened. Please excuse me.” He said as he bowed, then left the room.

You sat up in the bed and criss crossed your legs, careful not pull out your IV or tangle any of the wires to the other monitors. You let out a long, heavy sigh. Before you could be consumed by your thoughts of all the memories of the last few days, the door to your room flung open once more. This time, it was the one person you wanted to see most.

“MC!” He shouted, voice cracking with emotion. Mammon crossed the room in an instant and sat in front of you on the bed.

“Are you okay? Do ya feel any pain?” He asked frantically, his eyes scanning your face then darting to the monitors, hands hovering over you as if he wanted to help but was unsure how. You grabbed his hand, intertwining your fingers in his. It seemed to calm him a little.

“I’m okay.” You assured him. Although you’d been put through the wringer, you felt so at peace. Not only were you in the safest place in the entire Devildom, but the one thing that threatened your peace of mind, was now no longer a problem.

“I-I uh, I was scared.. that I was too late. That ya weren’t gonna wake up, that I’d...that I’d lost ya..” He confessed, voice catching in his throat as tears fell from his eyes. He carefully scooped you up and held you in his lap, holding you as close as he was able to with all the wires and such. You sat up a little and snaked your arms around his neck, pressing your lips firmly to his.

While you were held captive, you had been so sure that you’d never get a moment like this with Mammon ever again. You were happy beyond words to be back in his embrace once again with his lips on yours. Smelling his wonderful scent, and feeling his warmth on your skin.

After a few minutes of your lips moving in synchronization, he broke the kiss, and pulled back to look you in the eye. A serious expression washing over his face. “MC, I’m sorry I didn’t-”

You held up your hand to stop him, “No, Mammon. You’re not going to blame yourself. I won’t let you. Everything that happened was his fault, not yours or anyone else’s. He was sick in the head, with a twisted ideology.”

He nodded, “I know, I know. It’s just..” He shook his head as he tried to choke back more tears that threatened to spill. You knew exactly what was running through his mind.

“Mammon, there is no one else in the three realms I’d rather trust with my protection, than you. As a matter of fact, there’s no else that can even compare to you in my eyes. As I already said, none of this, none of it, is your fault and I’ve never once thought it was. I love you, Mammon and there’s no one else I’d rather entrust my life with, or spend it with for that matter.” You placed your hand on his cheek and smiled at him, tears now streaking your cheeks. He leaned into your touch, his hand resting lightly on top of yours for a moment before pulling your hand away and placing several light kisses on your palm.

Barbatos returned soon after, with a doctor in tow. Once they unhooked you from all the monitors and removed your IV, Mammon took you back to the House of Lamentation where everyone was awaiting your return.

It felt so good to be back. The HOL was technically your second home, but nowhere has ever felt more like home than here in the Devildom, surrounded by all your favorite people. And thanks to Lord Diavolo extending your stay until further notice, you were on cloud nine.

Although all your physical wounds were gone, the mental ones were sure to stick around for awhile. You expected as much though, having gone though quite a traumatic experience. Although, it made it a little easier knowing that Alex would never again be an issue.

It was clear that his soul wouldn’t be fit for the Celestial Realm, and you had fears of him being reincarnated in the Devildom and finding you once again. But, Mammon quickly laid those fears to rest, informing you of what he’d done that night after getting you safely to the Demon Lord’s castle.

He said he preformed some kind of ritual that ensured Alex wouldn’t be reincarnated anywhere; his soul having been wiped from the worlds. As if he’d never existed. He also mentioned something about Alex helping him to fulfill his end of a bargain with a witch. He didn’t really go into detail about the whole thing, but assured you that everything would be fine, so you didn’t push the issue. He’s a high ranking demon, after all. This surely isn’t his first rodeo. You were just ready to start the healing process and put an end to this awful chapter in life.

And with Mammon by your side; loving you, protecting you, helping you heal; you couldn’t think of a better way to begin such a beautiful new chapter.

~ fin ~

#obey me #obey me shall we date #mammon x mc #gn!mc #obey me angst #trigger warning #potentially triggering #gender neutral mc #angst #finale #mammon #obey me mammon

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captainsimagines · 3 years

Text

To Topple A Giant || Finale

Summary: You had made it your mission to destroy even the smallest evils. When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate.

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x Reader || Avengers x Reader

Part 10 of 10 ~ Mini-Series

Warnings in this Chapter: strong language; slight reference to past sexual abuse; fluff

Word Count: 6,700+

Author’s Note: Guys... the finale! I’m crying actual tears lmao. Thank you for reading my words. It means the world.

The New Compound, July 2025, 7:09pm

The extra hour of sunlight this time of year was the easiest excuse to use for lounging on the roof to watch the sun set slowly. The compound no longer touches the clouds, but it still provides a rich view of the landscape across. There is no blowing of horns or shouts of the road hecklers; it’s a simple hour of solace to rest your chin against your arms, eat your snacks, and watch the sky change colors until nothing remains but the possibility of counting the stars.

“Hey… can I sit here?”

Your heart does a little jump at the sound of his voice. Traitor, you want to say to the pesky organ, but remain quiet as Steve wanders over to stand by you. He’s close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from his body.

“Do what you will, Captain.” It’s simple enough of a response, you figure. You look down at the granola bar in your hand, turning it over a few times before rolling your eyes at the silly gesture. “Granola bar?”

He nods, watching as you snap it in half, and grabs the piece. “Thanks.”

You eat in cooperative silence. You take small bites, saving the granola bar so you have something to focus on during the length of time Steve decides to stay up here. He seems to be doing the same. “So what brings you out here? Another depressive episode?”

“I happen to have the perfect amount of depressive episodes, thank you very much.”

You snort, “Ditto.”

He takes a small bite and rolls the granola over his tongue. “No, I uh… I actually came out here to watch the sunset.”

“That’s sweet.” You shrug and admit your reason to him without a second thought. “I came out here to be sad, so.”

“Thor’s visit isn’t doing you any good?”

Thor is genuinely looking better. He’s started braiding his hair again, exercising with the help of Quill and Bruce, and participating in conversation without being addressed first. Seeing him makes you happy, but there’s still a glint in his eyes that reminds you of the lowest point of his life. And his lowest point was also yours. Sometimes you just want to forget. “He looks better. Healthier, got some light back in his eyes. It’s just whenever we look at each other we think of the same thing, I guess.”

Steve hums low and his shoulder brushes yours. “Loki.”

“It’s good to reminisce and all but I’ve got my limits,” you say.

“What was the special connection between you and Loki anyway?”

You grin at such an innocent question. Steve had never been close to Loki, didn’t really like him much, but he tolerated the God wandering about. You figure he genuinely wants to know. “I met him a little bit before I was assaulted. Everyone in the compound had their suspicions but no one asked. It was like they were avoiding me but also trying to help, I don’t really know. It was a weird time. And Loki, after we caught that dragon thing and really, really properly met, just straight up asked me why I was so distant all of a sudden.” Your chest warms at the memory. “I told him. And you know what the first thing he said to me was?”

Steve shakes his head a little and his eyes follow the tilt of your mouth. “‘What a cunt’.”

He startles himself into a laugh, the rough word not expected. You continue, “It was the first time I laughed in four months.”

Steve follows your gaze out to the sunset. He suddenly feels guilty, out of the loop, sad. You had only mentioned your assault to him once when you discovered Tony’s afterlife gifts, and he never brought it up again. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were-”

“Bucky had just moved into the tower and all of your attention was on him. I don’t blame you for not seeing me.”

It’s true, but Steve doesn’t forgive himself. He’s had two years to check up on you and because of his own selfish choice, he’s let you slip from his fingers. A question bubbles from the back of his mind — one that he doesn’t think twice about finally asking. If he does, he won’t ask. “Do you miss… me?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Sam put the idea in my head and—”

You sigh, “Steve, it’s the fact that he had to put the idea in your head. I can lie and say I’ve been all fine and dandy, or I can tell the truth and say I’ve been all fine and dandy. Take your pick.”

Steve stares at you for a long moment, mouth parting around invisible words. You’re staring at the sunset, avoiding his gaze but aware of his eyes on you, and he misses you. He truly, terribly, misses you. He decides he’s got nothing more to lose — he’s already lost you. “Well, I miss you. Do with that what you will.”

The two of you sit in silence for a few minutes: wind in your ears, legs shifting when too much weight has been applied, tiny sniffs of the nose. You don’t really know what to do with that information. Steve misses you. And you miss him. But he doesn’t deserve to know that. There’s been no apology from him, just things he’ll do to appease Sam.

At the three minute mark, you groan quietly and turn to him. “Are you seriously still going to watch the sunset up here?”

Steve smirks and watches you from his peripheral. He really has missed being on the receiving end of your various tones of voices. “I have been told that I’m impossible to get rid of, so yeah.”

His company isn’t all that bad.

Present Day, 2025, 9:07am

Perhaps there were good things that came from being locked up for over two weeks, alone. Last time you were locked up with the team and there was absolutely no special treatment after that. Now you’re resisting the urge to burst out laughing as Steve piles on the seventh massive pancake on your plate; or rolling your eyes as Sam keeps asking if you want more maple syrup — ‘What flavor? We’ve got six!’ — and Peter’s drowning Bucky with questions about who he encountered at the wedding.

“Is it the same as Netflix Narcos?”

“No,” you say bluntly.

“Is the Amazon series legit? Like, did Omar really kill the DEA agent?”

“No.”

“Is Omar as evil as they say?”

“No.”

“Damn,” Peter groans, piling a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. “Nothing’s as exciting as it seems, huh?”

Everyone looks to him, then to each other.

Steve clears his throat, “I was literally shot.”

Mouth full, you follow. “And I was abused for years.”

“And I had to deal with them while with HYDRA,” Bucky says with his mouth full too.

“Man, they shot at me. That counts,” Sam adds.

“And I finally got to use the shield. While being shot at,” Scott says.

You interject, “Technically I was being shot at.”

Even with such a cloud of violence, with gruesome memories — memories that would just be shoveled into the pile of things that no one is ever going to talk about again — you all begin laughing. Poor Peter missed out on a lot, but he can put two and two together. He knows this is his only chance to ask before you all lock it away and call it just another mission. It doesn’t hurt to humor him.

And even though you won’t mention it to any one else unless they ask — this wasn’t just another mission for you or Steve. Things have changed and the both of you know it. The aches within your chest are no longer negative or a bother, but instead are blooming flowers that have laid dormant for years. You’ve been plucking petals for as long as the two of you can remember, and it’s about damn time you both end up on the same page.

Everything has been quiet. Sure, there are bounties on everyone’s head but when is there not? You’ve pissed off more cartel leaders and gang leaders and political enemies than you can count on two hands, so this enemy territory is not all that foreign. You recognize the high trees, the gray skies, the mud beneath your boots. But you’ve got friends on your team that know how to climb those trees; friends on your team that know how to move the clouds and make the sky the talk; friends on your team that would hump through mud and snow watching your six.

You can’t believe you even thought about leaving after the mission in the first place. This is where you belong, where all of you belong, because you’re the only ones with good hearts who qualify for the job.

As breakfast winds down, Steve takes the opportunity to sprinkle in moments of long-awaited public displays of affection. When you go to refill your orange juice, he sneaks a kiss on your cheek. When you go to wash your plate, he makes sure Peter is looking the other way before patting your ass. And when you’re the one to envelope his slim waist from behind, he melts in your combined warmth.

“So, about our date,” Steve inquires, cheeks turning pink but voice unwavering. He looks brand new, refreshed, and there’s a shine in his eyes that you haven’t seen since forever. You can’t remember the last time you have, but you figure it must have been back when the world hadn’t yet swallowed him whole. Now, he’s burning bright with the youth his soul has missed.

You jump up and down, “Ooo, exciting!”

Steve takes you by the waist, swinging you in every direction. It’s uncoordinated, messy, and not exactly dancing but it’s pure. “Chinese? Pizza? Just fries?”

“¿Por qué no los tres?” Pursing your lips, you wait for his answer.

“That can be arranged.”

You gasp dramatically, “You’re spoiling me.”

“Well I have two years to make up for it.”

That startles a laugh from deep inside your chest. “That’s gonna be our inside joke now, huh? Two of the worst years of our lives and we’re joking about it.”

He blushes along with you. “I think that describes our relationship perfectly.”

“Our relationship…” Your voice comes out like a melodic whisper and Steve feels it in his bones.

He grins down at you but before he can respond, someone enters the common room rather cautiously.

“Oh, now what the hell are you doing here?” Steve demands, pushing you to stand behind him. The gesture is nice, but completely unnecessary. Friday would have alerted the team if someone entered the grounds armed.

Agent Kavert raises his hands, “Relax. I’m not here to arrest you or anything.”

Steve tries to move his shoulders in a way where Agent Kavert can’t see your head. But you maneuver around him, somehow ending up peeking your head through Steve’s underarm. “If I know the law, and I think I do, you can’t really arrest someone in their own house anyway, right?” You pat Steve repeatedly on his side. “Right?”

Before Steve can respond, Agent Kavert speaks. With Steve guarding you, it seems the only thing Agent Kavert wants to do is get in and get out as fast as he can. “I just came to apologize. Ballistics came back and the evidence does show that you didn’t kill Ernesto Vega. It was Ramirez’s issued gun.”

Yeah, you think. The gun Seda stole.

“Oh, what a breath of relief! I almost forgot I was there.”

He sighs and his lips pull into a small smile. “You’re not gonna tell me where Ramirez is, huh?”

Steve takes this as his cue to leave you two alone, but not before squeezing your hand on his way out. He nods over to Peter, who’s still crouching in the kitchen, unseen by Kavert. Peter gives him an enthusiastic thumbs up, happy to spy for his Captain. But you know he’s really asking Peter to take care of you while he’s gone.

You let out a heavy sigh. Omar has been wanted for years for another murder he didn’t even commit. And now, he’s wanted for another. He may be a giant with morals, but even he can’t escape the gruesome reality that plagues the wicked.

“I don’t even know where he is. If you came looking for answers—”

“No, I just… Everything’s been so fucked up since half the universe came back. And the possibility of an Avenger being bad, having played us for years — I think it just scared a lot of people.” Agent Kavert actually looks sincere. He adjusts his footing and chuckles a little under his breath. There’s a fine line creasing his forehead, but it isn’t formed from stress. He’s smiling, an honest look, and his eyebrows pull inward. “And Shakespeare? Really?”

Rolling your eyes, you shrug and lean back against the counter. “When half the world disappears and takes your family and friends with it, there’s really not much else to do.”

And besides, Loki was really into Shakespeare.

You continue, deciding at the last second to throw Agent Kavert a bone about your past. “Shield didn’t know but Nick Fury did. So did Pierce. And when Shield fell, Fury just hid it even more.” You give him a half smile. “We weren’t helping the cartel. We were slowly taking it apart.”

Agent Kavert nods, thinking it over. “The deal Jackeline made with us was pretty simple. She’d tell us all the inside secrets that she knew and in exchange, no charges against her and none so serious for you.”

Your shoulders slump and you shoot him a blank stare. “Was it really that simple? Like, I could have just used her as my one free call?”

“Joke all you want. You should have called us when Shield fell. The double agent thing was risky and everyone needs help taking down a giant like that.”

“I did have help. Involving more people was never planned.”

“He was just as much our mission as he was yours.”

Agent Kavert, as sorry as he looks, still doesn’t seem to get it. But that’s fine, you think. Not everyone can. And you’re not in the mood to argue anymore. “No… he wasn’t.”

He seems to read your mind because he simply accepts your answer. “I really am sorry for accusing you. And for the government arresting you alone and letting the white man go free.”

A tiny snort tickles your nostrils. Agent Kavert is white, and it’s even more amusing considering he’s being serious. “Thanks… I guess.”

He turns to leave, seemingly normal, until he spins on his heel and claps his hands. “Oh! And by the way — don’t leave the country. The charges of conspiracy and murder have all been dropped. But there’s evidence of drug smuggling. So, you’re on house arrest.”

Your eyes widen and you reply with a sarcastic yell. “Thanks!” He turns to leave again. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

He glances over his shoulder, “Could not have let you just get away with it. Some of that smuggling was under no order from Shield at all.”

“You know I can easily disable that ugly ass ankle bracelet you’re about to give me?”

He chuckles low, and finally waves goodbye. “Goodbye, Agent Y/LN.”

You stand dumbfounded, slightly annoyed, but you figure it’s better than actual jail time. Peter rises from his hiding spot and walks over to you, blowing air from his mouth. “Friend of yours?”

You whip around to point a finger, scream and laugh mixing into one. “No friend!”

Peter finally hears that accent Steve can’t stop talking about.

It’s a tiny portrait, sealed in a tiny frame and hidden in a tiny room. The frame is black with professional wooden carvings that make the sides look like perfectly detailed tree trunks. It’s in between the portrait of Tony and Natasha’s bracelet. Tony wears the same AC/DC shirt Steve has somehow stolen and claimed as his own. He’s got this sarcastic grin, some type of wrench in one hand while his other rests on his hip. He stands in his lab, glasses pushed up onto his head and black soot smudged on his cheek. You think Peter snapped the photo back in 2017.

But the middle portrait is your favorite. It’s the only photo he ever allowed to be taken of him. Brushing your index finger against the glass, you trace the small outlines of Loki’s jawline, to his thin pink lips, to the bulb of his nose, to the waves of his hair. He sits caught off guard, book in his hand and in regular human clothing. He shoots a rather annoyed but joyful look over his shoulder as the camera was shoved in his face. You know for sure Wanda took that photo.

“You’re not dead,” you say as you study the blue of his frozen eyes. A God doesn’t die, you remember him saying. Loki was wrong about a lot of things, but you pray he wasn’t wrong about this. There’s a small part of you that wants to speak the same words to Tony and Natasha, but there’s only so many times the world’s axis can shift for a miracle. You tap the glass, sighing a breath of acceptance, and finally let go. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Smiling up at the ceiling, you think you’re right about this one.

It’s quiet. The only sounds are the mild ripping of wrapping paper and small ‘thank you’s’ from the team. Everyone got each other something — granted, everyone got something small for everyone. No matter how much Tony joked about still splurging on Christmas shopping, his promises weren’t exactly kept. He’s gotten everyone things they actually need or wanted. Steve, a new drawing pad; Natasha, a bright pink knit sweater; Rhodey, a new watch; Bruce, a pair of sunglasses; Nebula, a dark blue knitted sweater that she immediately presses against her cheek, eyes focused on the ground as she savors the soft brush; you, the full collection of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. And he finally presents the baby’s crib to Pepper, constructed three weeks after she originally asked him to.

“I know how much you like to reenact A Midsummer Night’s Dream in your room,” Tony grins at you. Biting your bottom lip, you throw yourself at him and hug him tight. He returns the hug with just as much strength, if not more.

As the night goes on and midnight rings, your small group exchanges tight-lipped merry Christmas’s and happy holidays. Natasha retires to her room, a distant look in her eyes as she says goodnight. No one knows where Clint is.

Steve nudges your elbow with his once the room empties. He holds out a box with festive wrapping — snowmen with carrots for noses and a variety of pebbled smiles. “From me and Okoye.”

“You got me a gift?”

Steve’s brow furrows as he nods like it’s obvious. “Of course. You’re my friend.”

“Well, now I feel inadequate,” you laugh. It comes out wet and it’s then that you realize you’re tearing up. “I promise to reenact Midsummer for you, okay?”

Steve chuckles, “You got it.”

You unwrap it slowly, half wondering why Steve and Okoye teamed up to get you a present. You. Your stomach churns an innocent whirl.

It’s a long sleeved vest… or sweater. You can’t really tell until you pull it from the box. It’s intricately designed and it takes a moment for you to finally see it, to finally understand, and the moment you do you exhale a wracked breath.

It’s not Wakandan fashion. It’s threaded with the colors and swirls of a place you haven’t called home in years. It has red flowers down the vest portion and multicolored rows down the sleeves and back. It’s made from a thick fabric that’s rarely used this century. Vintage — home.

“Steve…”

Steve clears his throat, “Now, I only did the flower parts. Okoye found it unfinished in… um…”

And there, where tags from brands would usually be, is a small threaded engraving.

‘From Bucky, To our muñeca.’

“He didn’t get to finish it so I thought I would — you know, help? — so it’s really from Buck. Probably an apology for not letting you visit him in Wakanda.”

Steve tries to push out a laugh at his poor joke, but you can see how he’s faltering. You reach up and wrap your arms around his neck, dragging him down so his knees bend, and pour as much nonverbal thank you’s into the hug. He hesitates at first, arms floating awkwardly, until he swallows his fear and wraps his arms around your waist. He holds you to him tightly and breathes in the sweet scent of your vanilla shampoo.

“Thank you.” Your voice is small, but Steve regards the delivery as powerful.

You wear it once, that Christmas night, enveloped in its warmth as you slept. In the morning, you hang it in the back of your closet.

A knock on your bedroom door sounds through your headphones. Bucky peeks his head in, “Is now a bad time?”

Sitting up, you pull the headphones from your ears. “Nope. Just thinking about how I’ve lived several years in the span of one week.”

Bucky lugs in a sports bag in one hand and a manila file in the other. He places them at the edge of your bed and proceeds to bounce in the available space near you. “Yeah, that can be annoying.”

You attempt to shove him away as he tries to steal your blanket. “Did you need anything?”

“Yeah.” He lets you take it, and simply turns on his side to face you. “What’s gonna happen between you and Steve?”

It’s an innocent question, but you know Bucky well enough to notice when he’s stressed. Steve probably told him to mind his business. “We’re good.”

He inspects your face with squinted eyes, “I know what you’re thinking so cut that shit out. This isn’t one of those missions where the feelings will just go away.”

“Funny thing is, I believe you,” you admit, watching as his face does something unexpected. His smile drops suddenly, like he didn’t expect you to agree with him, and then it’s immediately back full force.

“Peggy and Steve - right person, wrong time. You and Loki - right person, wrong time. You and Steve, all those years ago — right person, wrong time.” A weird thing happens: you agree with him again. “But now, after everything — right person, right time.”

“It’s just weird feeling like it’ll actually work.”

“That makes us seem like we’re all broken, doll. We’re not.”

You turn so you’re facing him; two mismatched parentheses. “We’re just tired.”

“We’re just tired,” Bucky agrees, smiling. “I’m not saying don’t look over your shoulder whenever you feel like it. Hell, I still look over mine.”

Snorting, you roll closer to hug him. He pulls you into his chest. “You give amazing pep talks.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why they gave that trophy to Steve.” Bucky shares the intimate moment for as long as it takes before the blanket starts overheating. He groans as he sits up to retrieve the things he brought with him. “By the way, our mutual friend sends one last warm regards.”

Bucky throws the sports bag onto your lap. “What’s this?”

“Your shit.”

You don’t even want to ask him how he packed your things without your knowledge. “Kicking me out, Barnes?”

“Clothes, toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner, pads, the quilt I just finished knitting thank you very much,” Bucky lists and hands you the file. “Maribel found him.”

“Ramirez?”

“Your dad.”

You snap your head up to look at him. Bucky expects to see anger, hurt, maybe even betrayal. He was prepared for it. But you just look confused, lost for words, maybe even scared. “Goes by Richard these days. Lives with his wife in Wisconsin, no kids, keeps to himself.”

You flip through the files, holding your breath. The file is small, Richard’s information only covering the first page, the rest just drabble. He seems relatively normal, looks normal even; normal job, normal credit score, normal upbringing. It doesn’t even seem real. You close the file and set it aside. “So you are sending me away?”

Bucky smirks, “It’s a suggestion. But I took the liberty of doing the hard part for you.”

“Yeah, because packing my lady products is the climax of this story.”

It didn’t go unnoticed that Bucky called Richard your ‘dad’. Everyone either referred to Ernesto as ‘your father’ or by his name. Steve had said ‘dad’ a few times before he met him, then he never said it again. Hell, even you did sometimes.

It’s a sweet distinction and you’re certain Bucky said it on purpose. Bucky takes your hands in his, “It’s been a long time coming. But at least we can both say that the people who hurt us can’t hurt us any longer.”

You can. You really can.

Bucky’s already packed Steve’s shit as well. Steve’s just shoving extra socks into his bag when someone knocks on the door. He expects Bucky or Sam, final words of encouragement, but it’s Scott. And he’s standing there grinning like a mad man.

“So, what’s the verdict, Rogers? You going after her or not?”

Steve huffs a laugh, “Think you already know the answer to that, Lang.”

Scott closes the door behind him and leans back against it. He shoves his hands in his sweater pockets, “Not that it should matter, shut me up if I cross any line, but everyone supports this.”

“Weirdly, I think it does matter. We’ve had you guys picking sides for two years. Selfishly. Like we were having a fucking civil war after everything.”

“Yeah, well.”

Steve huffs a laugh. It’s always going to surprise him just how comfortable Scott is around him now. Not afraid to tease him or call him out on something he doesn’t agree with. It’s refreshing.

“I’m not giving up on her, Scott. Not again.”

Scott nods. Perhaps breaking the mission ethic code wasn’t a bad thing after all, Scott thinks. He gives Steve a proud smile, genuine. “Then I hereby declare our hanging conversation officially closed.”

Steve wanders from his bedroom, to the conference room, to the main living room without an end destination in mind, seeming to just follow his quick feet as they lead him around the halls of the compound. He’s proud of himself, really, because he truly believes he’s learned to swallow his pride, has opened himself up to the possibility of being happy, and accepted that the world has changed and will continue to alter whether he likes it or not. He was, is, and will always be a man out of time — he’ll never fit but goddamn does he feel settled. He hasn’t felt this sane since before the war — which one? — so he relishes in the feeling for a few calm seconds.

He feels tears well-up on his water line and feels the pressure in his temples. He’s at a crossroads — both proud of himself for finally choosing the path he wants and relieved that this week, this mission he has dreaded for almost ten years, is over. He doesn’t know if he should sleep for a month or occupy his time with other things awaiting repair. A build up of five years, grief and loss and happiness all weirdly mixed into one pot, and Steve simply hasn’t noticed the improper portions of each ingredient.

It’s too much.

He thinks about his mental health. Shot to Hell, he jokes with himself. He’s already got the virtual therapy appointments scheduled. He figures he’ll get better with time and if Steve knows one thing for sure, it’s that he’s got a whole lot of that.

He thinks about Sam and Bucky and Scott — his three best friends that have gone to the ends of the Earth and back for him, and who would proudly do it all over again. He thinks about their kind words, their gentle touch, their devotion that Steve still sometimes feels he doesn’t deserve.

And he thinks about you. To anyone else, this was written in the damn stars. No, there wasn’t anything extremely obvious in the first few years. You were friends. Friends that grew to consider each other teammates. Teammates that drew a drop of blood while fighting on opposite sides. Teammates that recognized the true endgame, teammates that helped each other escape, teammates that went silent for two years. Two years of no contact, no signal of survival. Then again, teammates who stood by as their world crumbled around them. Teammates who grew to be friends again, leaning on free shoulders and seeking help through happy conversations and long nights. Friends that brought the world together again, only to rip each other from their own. Friends into the most bizarre of enemies. And enemies back to teammates.

Steve wipes a hand down his face as he fixes the strap over his shoulder. The common room is empty — he likes it this way. That means everyone is either napping, getting food, visiting friends or family, simply living life. The silence is therapeutic.

His eyes fall on a crooked picture frame near the television. He tries to ignore it, almost to the door and ready for another road trip, but he steps back. Then forward, then back again. He groans in frustration of himself and moves to turn the frame back in place, holding it for a few seconds until it stays. But as he lets go, it tilts once more. He tries again — it tilts back.

He pulls the frame from the hook and turns it over. He rightly freezes, the presence of a small pink paper airplane taped near the edge knocking the wind from his constricting lungs. He pulls it off, careful to not tear the delicate post-it.

He never found it. Natasha probably placed it behind this very picture frame in the other compound for him to find. Surely the explosion should have destroyed it — but it didn’t. It’s right here, perfectly intact, just a smudge of dirt on one of its wings. The frame hadn’t been damaged either. It’s real.

He holds the thin piece of paper like it’s the most precious thing in the world.

Steve turns it over between his fingers a few more times, before he carefully folds it back in half and puts it in his wallet. “You’ve got some nerve, Nat. But I hear ya.”

Steve decides to write you back. He hides the letter in that sweater he knows you don’t wear anymore, in the far back of your closet, and marvels at the intricate stitching while he can. He poured his heart out, even if it’s not guaranteed you’ll ever see it.

‘Yes, I found your letter. I found it when I was looking for perfume in your suitcase. The tape was loose and I violated your privacy. I’m truly sorry for that.

But I felt compelled to write you back, in case the reverse happened and I died instead of you. I didn’t write it then, when you were drying your hair in front of that impossibly small mirror you so weirdly called ‘a stupid little bitch’. And you looked so beautiful. But I’m writing it now and maybe I’ll share it with you in person when we’re both ready.

When the world turned to dust, I held on to you. I know exactly why. Natasha bugged me about it also, teasing me whenever I would glance at you too long, or give you the last remaining Oreos I was planning on eating, or whenever I would leave your room in the mornings after a nightmare. She knew nothing was happening between us, but she had this smile whenever she caught me. Like she was happy I was comforting you, and in turn seeking comfort for myself.

You remember how her smile would tilt up more on the left side?

There isn’t a proper way to truly apologize for hurting you. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it. You at least deserve that.

I returned a different man. And I think that was for the better.

Yes, I wanted the quiet life. I still think I do. And I think you know this — you have always seen right through me.

I now know what Natasha saw. You irritate me, you damn near make me want to choke myself out, but I care for you. We hold each other up, and I’m always rooting for you, and I’m always by your side. No matter how annoying and smart-mouthed you may be.

You’re my best friend — I hope I’m one of yours.

Steve.’

There’s no one currently in the compound who really knows how to change the battery in your car. Bucky tries, does a rather good job too, but he claims he’s winging it and that you should call a mechanic just in case. He leaves you there with two random batteries on the ground, hood of your car open, and without any idea of what to do next. So you chill and wait for the mechanic you hope isn’t going to jack up the price just because he knows who you are.

But he doesn’t seem fazed by you at all — or at the fact he just had to drive through countless checkpoints and security checks just to get on Avengers property. He changes the battery and changes the oil, hooking you up with as many upgrades he can. He even offers to wash it until you thank him repeatedly and that Really, really, you don’t have to do that. Thank you so much!

“Quite a garage you got here.”

There are unfinished projects and random wires falling from the ceiling and enough tools to supply five garages. It’s messy, but it was Tony’s. You accept the compliment and see him out.

“Eh, make sure those windshield wipers work. I hear it’s gonna rain tomorrow.”

You thank him again. The clouds to the west are gray, getting darker as the expanse stretches, but from where you’re standing everything’s blue. You figure the mechanic was right: it’s gonna rain, and it’s gonna rain hard.

The mechanic did good, all things considered. You never thought your old, beat-up Honda could look a few years younger. You flick one of the wipers lightly, testing its strength. It holds, as does the other, but when you go to lift it up it stops halfway. Without wanting to break it, you don’t force it. There’s something blocking the switch.

You grab it before it can accidentally fall into a deep slot; the figurehead of a man, curly hair and beard that matches Steve’s, who also has a prominent and strong nose. You turn the coin over a few times before looking around the garage, down the street, at the remote area where the mechanic has just left. Standing there, mouth agape, you wonder just how in the world you missed the mechanic placing it there.

You were lacking in the spy department nowadays. Oops.

You know you’re not going to find Ramirez. But him giving this back to you? It was his way of saying he’s alright and that he owes you many thanks.

You pocket the coin and accept the fact you just got bested.

It should take a few hours before you hit the first motel. Wisconsin isn’t that far, but you do have to pass through about hundred “middle of nowhere’s”. You pull out of the garage and check your mirrors — completely unaware of the super soldier running full speed to the passenger door. Steve carefully throws it open, somewhat aware of his strength, and lands into the seat beside you.

You hit the brakes hard. “Oh my! Rogers!”

Steve sucks in a few heavy breaths, like he literally ran across the compound to make it. “What? I startle you?”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing? Aren’t you on house arrest?”

You squint at him, “Touche.” Putting the car in park, you turn your whole body to face him. “Answer my question.”

“Thought you were just gonna leave without saying goodbye?” Steve asks, expression much more teasing than serious.

“I’ll be gone for three days tops,” you say, waving your hand in the air. Steve smiles at you, seemingly waiting for you to speak again. You roll your eyes, “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

Steve lifts up the small duffel bag you hadn’t seen when he first got into the car. He throws it into the backseat and smiles lovingly at you. “I’ve been told that I’m impossible to get rid of, so yeah.”

“Rhodey said that the ankle bracelet they gave me wasn’t a trusted model. Easy to break off, like they did it on purpose.” You lean toward him, holding your chin up with the palm of your hand. “Should be able to drive free for a few weeks before they suspect anything.”

“Already booked us a cabin for Thanksgiving.”

“What makes you think that I even want you to accompany me on this road trip? Did you like the first one?”

Steve clears his throat and mimes like he’s writing on paper. The next words out of his mouth make your legs turn cold. “No matter how annoying and smart-mouthed you may be, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be than here, there, and everywhere with you.”

You blink multiple times, as if that would fix your ears. “...You. Fucking. Didn’t.” Steve reaches over to try and hug you. “No, don’t.” He squeezes harder, smooshing your face in his chest. “Steeeeve!”

“It fell out of your suitcase during the mission and I just… looked,” Steve reasons. He allows you to escape his grip.

“You just looked?”

Steve sighs. He really does look guilty. He pushes a strand of your hair behind your ear, letting his fingers tickle your skin. “I’m sorry I read it. I’ll get out of this car for real if you want me to.”

You arch an eyebrow, “You’re a little shit, but I’m not mad. No one understands privacy these days.”

Steve smiles wide enough for his dimples to pop and his eyes to crinkle. “I’d follow you anywhere, doll.”

“Anywhere?”

“Just name it.”

Humming low, you lean forward. He follows your direction like you’re a lighthouse beaming with light, capturing your lips with his in a sweet kiss. He hooks a large hand behind your head to press you to him harder. You smell like that vanilla scented shampoo he loves so much and feels his heart constrict with a pleasant pulse.

You pull back for air and smile against Steve’s soft lips.

“Well, I’m headed for the middle of buttfuck Wisconsin—”

“Just drive!”

Bursts of laughter fill the car until you’re past the checkpoints and well onto the long roads. The clouds continue to turn darker but they’re inviting, alluring, and it’s not insane that both of you desire thunderstorms because they remind you of family.

Steve watches you from the passenger seat, memorizing the contours and edges of your profile. The roots in his heart begin spreading again; the meat of his heart filling with a soothing promise that his time on earth is no longer rootless. He’s dug his feet in, he’s watered all he’s needed to water, and he feels it spreading within him like newly blossomed flowers in the spring. He has a sudden urge to take out his drawing pad to immortalize the way your mouth tilts higher up on the right side when you smile, to record it forever.

But he’ll remember it. He’ll remember well into this timeline, several years down the road, and even when he’s resting in his grave. So he leans his head back against the seat and chooses to watch the curves of every expression you grace him with. He immortalizes the sound of your voice, the taps of your fingers against the steering wheel, and the accented way you say his name.

There’s a long drive ahead, but he’s excited for it. He’s excited for you. Steve promises himself that he’ll ask you a million questions, and give you a million answers, and share a million more stories.

Right now, he just needs to sleep.

THE END.

Taglist: @dumb-ass-3 @justab-eautifulmess @supraveng @mycosmicparadise @missnighttigress

#captainsimagines #Steve Rogers #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #reader x steve rogers #avengers fanfic #avengers x reader #marvel fanfiction #chapter ten #to topple a giant #to topple a giant finale #avengers mob fanfic #by Moni

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bookwyrminspiration · 3 years

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hello! just curious, how do you plot out your stories? (for example, what have you done to plan out the wings au? do you have it all in your head? do you plan it out on paper or in a doc specifically for it? do you just go with the flow? sorry if this is a lot of questions lol i'm just trying to convey my point-)

hello, synonym!! lovely to see you again! I'd love to share my process!

as I explain my personal methods (again, personal, just how I do things!), I'll use the wings au as an example because i know you've read it and it'll just be easier over all. but essentially, yes to all of the above, just with different parts of the story!

my progression is: chaotic doc, background (as needed), basic written plot, expansion on the plot, any other details needed, and then just write things! but don't worry, I'll provide more detail, i say as if i'm capable of being concise

(putting below a readmore for simplicity)

chaotic doc: so, the very first thing I do when i have a story is open up a doc, and write down everything i know about it in little bullet points and rambling sentences, just basic information with no organization. the organizing can come later, right now I just want to get as much of what's in my head onto the paper as possible.

I type out the basic premise of the story or the few things I know about how I want it to go, the things I know I want to remember later, things I'd need to think about to set it up, etc. for the wings au, this was details like everyone's wings (things to remember later), how they got those wings and a sentence or two about what the world was like now (things I needed to think about to set it up), a little blurb about where the story would start. this is less writing details about the story, and more noting down the details I want to figure out later in the expansion. i find it works best to type this out because i'm a much faster typer than I am at physical writing, which allows me to follow the flow of my thoughts a lot better and go back and change things.

background: background prepares me for the next step, but the amount of effort I put into this section depends on how complex my story is. it basically means write down (we've moved to pencil and paper now, but this could be digital too if you prefer) anything you need to know in order to set up the rest of your story. what do you need to know in order to tell the story you need to and to get you where you want to be? for the wings au, the background was that the world had been overrun with monsters and everyone was living underground now. the neverseen had been defeated, or so they thought, coming back later. all these things that essentially prepared me to get to the plot. it told me where the story was happening and the emotional/physical environment everything else would happen under. if you have a more worldbuilding heavy world, this step might be a little more complex, or if there's something very specific with the characters you need as context beforehand.

sometimes the readers will be aware of pieces of the background, and it's even necessary for them to know--for example, you all knowing the elven world is in the middle of a monster apocalypse and living underground; if you didn't know, the rest of the story wouldn't make any sense. but there may be things you write down that are just for you to know, personal notes. for example, I have notes written about how the monsters came to be, more specifically, that you all haven't been made aware of and may never be. planning this out is for you, so if there's something you want to remind yourself to keep in mind while writing, this could be a good place. but now that we know the world we're writing in, we can move on

basic plot: for me, I struggle to figure out where to take a story, and if I don't have the basic concept laid out before I start writing, I ended up with really weird stories that completely deviate from what i wanted (I say this from experience). so I break it down into the bare essentials. literally as basic as I can be. there are five crucial parts of a plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. just those five. for each of those, i write--writing, because it takes more time (allows me to think) and feels more organized to me, but you can do it differently--just the general idea I have for each section. just as few words as possible. detail comes later. for the wings au I literally wrote "they get wings" for rising action. having read the wings au, you know just how simplified that is.

one things that might help is consider how you would explain this idea to someone in one or two sentences. you just want to make sure you have a beginning, middle, end, and the transition between them. from there you've got the skeleton of your story, and everything else can fit itself into this idea.

expansion: now that you have the skeleton, it's time to fill in some of the more essential anatomy. this is where you add the specifics. for me, i write this physically in bullet points in a journal of some kind. I take the first section, and write down how the story is going to start. where am I going to begin this journey. for the wings au I wrote "beginning: sneaking into breeding facility to destroy monsters. problem: caught/monster breaks loose." if you remember this is essentially the events of the first chapter but in two sentences. I'm giving enough detail that I know what I'm going to write, but not so much it's going to be stifling to follow my exact notes when I actually get to writing. this will be different for different people, so you may want more or less detail than I provided, I'm just giving an example of how I did it.

I continue this for the rest of the plot, but that doesn't mean every single little detail that will ever happen is planned out. I'm not patient enough to be super thorough with every little thing, so I go long enough until I have a solid understanding of what I'm going to start with when I'm writing, or just until I'm bored and can't deal with planning anymore. for me, that meant I was more detailed when planning from the mission in the facility to them getting to the abandoned gnomish village, as those would be some of the first things I would be writing about. after that, I got more vague and just touched on some of the key part of each of those five sections. I take those two/three words and turn them into two/three bullet points. I also didn't want to be too specific with the later details, because I knew i'd be influenced by things as I wrote and would be inspired to fill that out.

any other details: this is kind of any afterthoughts you might have or details you need to keep i mind that aren't necessarily plot. you may have a lot of these, or you may have none. for me, this was where I wrote down what kinds of wings and other animalistic traits each of the characters had (yes, I wrote them down again). it's not strictly plot, but it does affect the rest of the story. this is also where I write anything I forgot to when going through the first time, and then i can draw a little arrow pointing towards where it fits in to the rest of the story or is relevant (which is part of why I like the writing aspect, but this is entirely achievable on a doc). another example from the au is me writing "domestic" to the side and pointing it back to my notes about the gnomish village, because while it wasn't essential to moving the plot forward, i wanted to touch on some aspects of domestic live with the ten of them while they were there.

just write things: now that you have all this planning done (good job, you!) you can get into the writing aspect. you've already decided your beginning and know where you want to go, so this is the part where you just starting putting words on the page. it can be pretty daunting to just look at a blank page, so if you'd like, start a paragraph in. skip the first paragraph and just start in the middle of something else--you can add back what's missing later. I personally note things that I want to come back to inside [brackets like this], and that can be words, sentences, entire paragraphs. i use the square ones specifically because I don't use them in my writing unlike (these parentheses), and then I can search the document for them all at once and see all the places I need to go back.

this is also where the "just in my head" and "make it up as I go" part comes into place. you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but you're going to have ideas as you write, so sometimes you just follow the flow of your brain and write things you could've never even planned for. and if you're interacting with others as you're going (like I'm talking about theories with you all while writing future chapters) then you may be inspired by them to add things to the story. originally, I wasn't going to even have any messages from Bronte or Oralie, but now because I saw what some of the people reading it were picking up on, I realized the potential there and added them in on a whim

and sometimes when you get stuck, the best way to get yourself out of that is to just add something random, which can spiral off and affect the rest of the story. I've said it before, but the dragons were not planned. I'd actually seen a piece of writing advice months ago that if you're stuck, change the weather. so I was stuck and made a sudden rainstorm, but then I needed an explanation as to how things got so wet so fast because I'd mentioned clear skies earlier. so in my attempt to explain it, dragons came to exist. writing is a process, so don't limit yourself to everything you've written. you'll be inspired along the way, so try to take it in stride.

one final note: as much as you plan, this is not going to be a definite map for how the story will go. maybe something makes sense as you're planning it out, but when you get to actually writing it makes no sense as all and you need to change things. that's fine! this kind of a plan is just to get you prepared and keep you afloat amongst this ocean of words trapped in your head that you want to transcribe. if something isn't working, change it! in my original written plan for the wings au they weren't going to run away for a few weeks, instead sneaking out for an hour or two at a time over those few weeks because they couldn't stand being underground anymore, until Linh was actually the first one to make contact with a creature and realize it didn't immediately want to kill her. but because she's not the narrator of this story, I couldn't write it the way i wanted, so I gave that to sophie in the tree.

this is just my approach to my more complicated stories! for some of the really quick ones, I just open a doc and start going. this kind of thinking keeps me organized so that I'm doing the idea the most justice. but just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. if it does work for you, great! but if there are parts you need to modify for yourself, you are more than encouraged to do so. personally, if I could only chose one part of this process to rely on, it would be the basic plot. that's the key to everything for me, but for others it might be something different.

I hope this helps with whatever it is you're writing!! I wish you luck and look forward to seeing whatever it is (should you chose to share it, no pressure)!! if you'd like more of my process on how I write it consistently and update on a schedule, I'd be more than happy to talk about that too!

#all of this took up about three pages in a 4.25 by 8.25 dotted journal #but I have very small handwriting so keep that in mind #also you might just be more/less detailed then i am!#this is just the framework I use #so use it if it helps!#this is also usually spread out over multiple days so I can think about the idea in between #and also because i don't want to do this much work all at once #I get distracted #but i did have a very specific approach when writing the wings au #so I'm very excited to get to talk about it!#i have written several other stories without planning and they always end up veering off into random things #like 'what happened. to the original plot. of the movie??' vibes #ah seli (an oc whose name I might change yet again)...I did you so dirty...#kotlc wings au #writing #writing advice #story planning #quil's queries #synonymroll648 #writing tips

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pikapeppa · 3 years

Text

Varric vs. Solas: Wake Up

I watched the Dec 2020 DA4 teaser trailer, heard Varric and SAW MA VHENAN, and I had to write a little something. Behold: a little post-Trespasser, mid-Tevinter Nights chit-chat between Varric and Solas, with a twist.

2400 words. Read here on AO3.

************************

Varric scrawled his signature one last time, then put his plume down with a sigh. He resentfully eyed the pile of documents he’d just finished signing; most of them were orders or requests that Bran could easily have signed on his behalf. Varric suspected that this was his comeuppance for telling Bran that he didn’t care that the new signposts in Lowtown were two centimetres taller than the regulation standards.

“Not like the signposts will help,” he muttered to himself. “People are gonna get lost in Lowtown no matter what. It’s just the charm of the place.” Sure, maybe the real reason people got lost in Kirkwall was that the city design was based on some old magister’s crazy blood magic plan, but that didn’t bear thinking about right now – or ever, really, considering the other shit going on in the world right now.

He sighed and regarded his paper-strewn desk. There was the tidy pile of documents he’d just signed, and the untidy larger pile of documents he had yet to review. A little stack of coded letters sat in a tray by his left hand — letters that he’d be sending out by raven once he was done here. And finally, poking out from underneath a dog-eared copy of the latest Randy Dowager, was the long-neglected draft of his most recent chapter of Swords and Shields 2.

A pang of guilt penetrated his fatigue. It had been months now since he’d sent Cassandra a new chapter. He could try to get a little writing done now, while the Viscount's Keep was quiet in the middle of the night, but his eyes were stinging with tiredness…

Ah, what the hell, he thought. He couldn’t deprive his most loyal reader. He pulled out the chapter pages and quickly skimmed the last one to see where he’d left, off then dipped his plume and began to write.

He had barely gotten out two paragraphs before he heard a soft knock on his office door – so soft he thought he’d imagined it. When the knock happened again, he looked up warily.

It was almost midnight. Who would be coming to his office this late? Whoever it was, it couldn’t be urgent. If it was urgent, they’d be banging, not knocking quietly.

He leaned back in his chair and idly ran his thumb over the small stiletto blade he kept in a hidden pocket on his thigh – you could never be too careful these days. “Come on in,” he called.

The door opened slowly, and a tall hooded figure stepped into his office. “Master Tethras,” the figure said. “It’s good to see you.”

A ripple of shock shot down Varric’s spine. He recognized the voice long before the hood was pushed back, revealing a shiny bald head and a subtly tragic expression.

Solas? he thought incredulously. Solas was here? Here, in his office? Impossible. For years they'd tried fruitlessly to track Solas down using any means available, and even with the knowledge of his last known whereabouts from his encounter with Charter, they hadn’t been able to find him. And now here he was, in Varric’s office, strolling in as casually as though he’d just come out of the rotunda at Skyhold?

It was ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. But since when did things ever make sense, really?

He quickly gathered his wits and leaned back in his chair. “Chuckles. Funny seeing you here.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or should I call you the Dread Wolf?”

Solas let out a little laugh – a very tired-sounding laugh. “Please don’t.”

Varric smirked. “What, reputation getting too heavy for you?”

“You would know, I suppose,” Solas said softly. “You have written about the crushing weight of a reputation several times over.”

“Sure have,” Varric said.

Solas nodded. For a long moment, they were silent as they looked at each other, and Varric got the impression that they were sizing each other up, almost like–

Don’t use a wolf-related simile, Varric scolded himself. He gestured at one of the visitors’ chairs across from his desk. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you,” Solas said. He seated himself on the chair, somehow managing to make his rich dark cloak drape elegantly around himself without making a show of arranging it, and Varric took careful note of the elegance of the gesture. It was… different than the Solas he was used to. More reserved but more powerful at the same time.

Lavellan mentioned he’d changed, he thought. Well, here was the proof. But just how much had Solas changed in the years since Varric had last seen him?

He sat back comfortably. “So,” he said.

“So,” Solas agreed.

Another moment of silence ensued, and the back of Varric’s neck began to prickle. Solas’s expression was calm and neutral, almost alarmingly neutral, and Varric hoped he looked equally unfazed by the strangeness of the current situation. It might be as weird as a giant nug with a beard and a pirate’s hat to be sitting across from an elven god, but Varric didn’t want to show it.

The silence thickened between them. Varric itched to break it, to know what Solas was doing here, but he didn’t want to ask. Something about this visit felt like a power play, and Varric was fairly sure he’d lose if he asked a direct question.

Instead of asking why Solas was in his office, he asked something far more innocuous. “Any interest in a hand of diamondback?”

Solas’s posture relaxed slightly, and he gave Varric a faint smile. “I would like that. Thank you.”

Varric nodded and pulled a deck of worn cards from his desk drawer. He shuffled the cards and dealt a hand, and for the first time in years, Varric and Solas played a game of diamondback together.

They played a couple of hands in silence. Varric won the first round and Solas won the second, and by the time they were on their third, Varric was feeling much more in control of the situation.

He discarded a card and selected another. “It’s been a while, Chuckles. What have you been up to?”

“Travelling, mostly,” Solas said. “Observing. And yourself?”

“Signing my life away,” Varric said dryly, and he nodded to the pile of signed documents on his desk.

Solas’s smile widened slightly. “I see.” He glanced at the unfinished chapter under Varric’s elbow. “You have continued to write as well, I see?”

Varric huffed. “Eh, not really. This is just for Cassandra.”

“For Cassandra exclusively?” Solas said.

Varric nodded. “Aveline — she’s the inspiration for the main character — she demanded that I stop writing it. I told her that making me choose between her and Cassandra would be putting me between a rock and a hard place. Literally.”

Solas chuckled. The rare sound of Solas’s amusement was strangely familiar, and it only served to highlight the weirdness of the situation.

Varric dealt another hand. “How’s Cole? You seen him lately?”

“Yes,” Solas said. “He is happily dwelling in the Fade once more.”

His tone was very bland, Varric noticed. With Solas, ‘bland’ usually meant ‘something very significant’. Had something happened to Cole, then?

Varric’s gut twisted with concern, but he carefully kept his expression calm. “Tell the kid I said ‘hi’ during your next Fade nap. We miss him around here.”

“I shall,” Solas said softly. “It is your turn.”

Varric nodded and selected a card. They finished the round, which went to Solas this time, and as Varric shuffled the cards, he carefully considered what to say next. Everything he and Solas said to each other involved giving up a piece of information. Even admitting that he and Cassandra were still in touch was a piece of information that could be used – though not one that would be hard to discover even by a fairly poor spy. But in such a fraught situation, Varric needed to be very careful about what he said next.

It was time to try and unbalance Solas. And there was only one thing — or rather, one person — that had been able to soften Solas up in the past. Would a mention of her still be enough to unbalance this especially placid and self-possessed version of the elven apostate?

Only one way to find out, Varric thought. He dealt out their cards, then looked at Solas. “She’s fine, by the way.”

Solas met his eye. And for a split second, swift as the blink of an eye, an expression crossed his face — an expression that landed like a strike to Varric’s gut. It was a complicated mixture of heartwrenching longing and regret: the kind of regret that could haunt a person for decades. The kind of regret that spoke of near-misses and what-ifs that would never be resolved.

The kind of regret that could twist and fester in the walls of a once-loved fortress until it became literally monstrous.

Then, just as quickly as the weight of emotion crossed Solas’s face, it was gone — but not quickly enough for Varric to miss it.

Solas still cares about Lavellan, Varric thought. This was very useful information to have. If Solas still loved Lavellan, if the Dread Wolf still had some kind of attachment to their world, then there was hope. A little hint of hope, sure, but Varric was well-accustomed to seemingly-hopeless situations by now.

Hope is good, he thought. Hope’ll keep us going. He couldn’t take any pleasure from this information, though — not when he knew Lavellan still loved Solas too.

Solas, meanwhile, had returned his now-neutral gaze to his cards. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “You see her often, I take it?”

“Nah,” Varric said. “She’s still out in the Hunterhorn Mountains.”

Solas looked up with a tiny frown. “The Hunterhorn Mountains?”

“Yeah,” Varric said. “With the rest of the Seekers. What’s left of them, anyway.”

Solas blinked. Then his face cleared with comprehension — and a whisper of disappointment. “Ah,” he said. “Cassandra. Of course.”

Varric raised his eyebrows in faux-innocence. “Who did you think I meant?”

Solas stared stonily at him, and Varric steadily returned his gaze. Then Solas huffed softly, and a hint of a smile touched the corner of his lips. He looked at his cards once more without replying, and Varric watched him carefully as they played out the remainder of the round, but his face had resumed its unnervingly placid expression.

Varric won the round. When he’d collected the cards once more, he paused and gave Solas a frank look. “Listen, Chuckles, the personal visit is nice, but I’ve gotta wonder what it’s about.”

Solas leaned back and crossed one ankle over his knee, looking supremely comfortable for an ancient god who had just been called out by a mere mortal. “Truthfully?” he said. “It was an experiment.”

Varric frowned. This was not what he expected Solas to say. “An experiment?”

“Yes,” Solas said. “I am both interested and somewhat alarmed to see that it worked.”

“Okay,” Varric said slowly. He couldn’t decide whether to be amused or annoyed that Solas was being his usual cryptic self. “So… what happen next, then?”

“That is largely up to you,” Solas said.

“What do you mean?” Varric asked.

“I mean that the choice is yours. It is your mind, after all.” He gestured at the cards in Varric’s hands. “We could continue talking and playing, if you like.”

Varric narrowed his eyes. What did Solas mean, ‘it is your mind’? “And what if I don’t want to?” he said suspiciously. “Are you going to kill me?”

Solas’s smile widened into something indescribably sad. “No, Varric. If you don’t wish to continue playing, then I suggest you wake up.”

Varric jerked and opened his eyes. “What?” he blurted.

Solas didn’t reply. In fact, Solas wasn’t there.

Disoriented and alarmed, Varric looked around his empty office. What the hell? he thought. So… wait. He was confused. How — what had just happened? He’d been asleep, so how had he been playing cards with Solas?

A sudden realization gripped him. Thinking or doing things or seeing people while he was asleep: Varric had never done this before. In fact, he didn’t know any dwarf ever who had done that before.

“Did… did I just have a dream?” he said incredulously to his empty office.

No one answered — of course no one did, because Varric was alone. But… Andraste’s knickers, that had felt so real. If that was a dream, how did humans and elves and qunari stand it every night?

He rubbed his face roughly. He was spooked; there was no denying it. And he couldn’t make sense of how this was even possible. Everyone in Thedas knew that dwarves didn’t dream; it was a fact, like the sky being blue and grass being green. But if Varric had just had a dream, and Solas said it was an experiment…

Shit, he thought. Maybe that meant Solas was doing some kind of weird new magic, which didn’t bode well. If that was the case, he needed to talk to some mages about this. Good thing Lavellan was in Kirkwall at the moment. He could talk to her and to Dorian through her sending crystal thing, and they could explain what had just happened.

He stood up and stretched, then quickly locked the coded letters in the hidden compartment in his desk before leaving his office. As he made his way through the silent Viscount’s Keep, he tried to remember what he and Solas had talked about during the dream, but it was becoming indistinct. He remembered playing cards, and he remembered Solas saying it was an experiment, but the things they’d discussed…

He rubbed his forehead, frustrated that his memory of the dream was so fuzzy. Had they talked about lyrium? Varric didn’t think so. Maybe… maybe about Varric’s books? That was possible. Was it normal for dreams to just disappear so quickly? He thought he remembered humans complaining about this, but Solas always made it sound like his dreams were so clear…

Then Varric remembered something very clear: the look on Solas’s face when he was thinking about Lavellan. That wistful, yearning expression that spoke of hope and tragedy at the same time — the same expression that Lavellan wore when she thought no one was looking.

His heart sank, and he sighed. It looked like shit was about to get weird again for Lavellan, and soon. Then again, when had shit ever not been weird?

At least we’re never bored, he thought wryly. With that semi-positive thought in mind, Varric stepped out of the Viscount’s Keep and into the heart of Hightown.

#varric tethras #solas #da4 speculation #da4 hopes #da4 #post-trespasser #solavellan #solavellan hell #pikapeppa writes #yes i know varric dreaming is implausible #impossible though? i think not

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sunflowerspecter · 4 years

Text

haley (a.h.)

summary: hotch doesn’t know if it’s time to move on. then he meets you, and your daughter haley.

warnings: canon-typical violence, canon-typical mentions of murder, canon-typical mentions of drugs

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

words: 3.6k

note: hey? i’m back! with another fic! after like four months! woo. i’m also almost at 400 followers which is pretty wild so cool cool. this is absolutely unedited and i’ve been working on it for literally ever, but i doubt you expected more from me anyways (the plot is also kind of sketch) anywayss, here it is my loves!

~~~oOo~~~

“JJ!” you yell, crossing the bullpen quickly. She turns to face you and smiles widely, throwing her arms open.

“Y/n!” she calls as you fall into her arms. “Oh my god, it’s so good to see you! What are you doing here?”

“My team’s going to be working with your team for the next couple of cases!” As the communications liaison for Operations Support Branch (OSB), you and JJ used to collaborate often, until she was transferred and changed positions. You and her don’t get to see each other half as often as you want, but sometimes you bring your daughter, Haley, to spend time with Henry.

“Wait, really? Why weren’t we alerted?” she asks. Behind her, a tall man with dark hair steps towards you, and you already know who he is. SSA Aaron Hotchner.

“Because the decision was just made this morning,” he says. He offers his hand and you shake it. “I’m SSA Aaron Hotchner.”

“We all call him Hotch,” JJ adds quickly.

“Y/n Y/l/n,” you say to him. “I’m the communications liaison for the OSB. I’m the only one here right now, my team is heading up as we speak.” You turn to the elevator, where your boss, Sam Holmestead, is standing, talking to Derek Morgan, someone JJ had introduced you to. “Holmes is over there.”

“Great,” Hotch says, “excuse me.” He nods at you and begins his way over to your boss, and you watch the entire way.

“Ooh,” JJ sings, giving you a friendly laugh.

“Oh, shut up,” you say, but you’re laughing too. “Now, I heard there’s a case.”

She nods. “Come up to the conference room, we’ll introduce your team to my team and give you all of the details.”

In the room, you, Holmes, and the two others from your team that were joining you— Gary Long and John Wilson— stand at the back, while the BAU all gathered in their seats.

“These four are from the OSB,” Hotch says. “Strauss wants our team to collaborate with some members of the OSB on the next few cases, so they’ll be travelling with us,” Hotch says. “JJ, want to make introductions?”

She nods, then says, “Sam Holmestead leads the team, and this is Y/n Y/l/n, Gary Long, and John Wilson.” She turns to her team, then, and says, “This is Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia, and David Rossi.”

Greetings are exchanged, and then it’s back to business. “Two young women were kidnapped and then killed in Tallahassee, Florida,” Garcia says. “Each one was taken from a parking lot, then held captive for a week, and then killed. A week after the first girl was killed, the second one went missing. She was found dead yesterday. Other than their throats being slashed, they were otherwise unharmed.”

You blink down at the pictures. You’ve seen things before, awful things, but this was just… so much worse. You feel better about your squeamishness when you look over and see that Wilson is as white as a ghost.

“So, what does this guy get from the kill?” Morgan says, one elbow on the table.

“It’s rather clean, as far as murder goes,” Prentiss quips. “No stabbing, no bruising. Even the cut is clean.”

“How long did it take her to die? This could be seen as merciful,” you say, glancing at Holmes, who nods at you.

“I’m guessing just a few seconds,” Reid said, looking through his file and finding the coroner’s report, then nodding and glancing up at you.

“Garcia, do these girls have anything in common?” Hotch asks, and your attention goes straight to him (because he’s talking, and you’re polite, obviously).

“They both attended Florida state and now work in insurance. Different companies,” Garcia says.

Hotch nods at her, then says, “Wheels up in 30.”

~~~oOo~~~

The jet is larger than you expected. And nicer, too. You take a seat between JJ and Morgan, and see Garcia on Skype on the table. The rest of the group files in, and you begin discussing the case.

“So, what’s this guy's deal? What’s he doing with these girls for a week?” Morgan says.

“There aren’t signs that they’re tied up, or that he blitz-attacked them,” Prentiss adds.

“Maybe he kept them locked in a sort of cellar. He wouldn’t need to tie them up.”

“Did he drug them?” Holmes asks. Reid looks over the report, then nods.

“Actually, yes, both girls had methylenedioxymethamphetamine and methamphetamine in their system,” Reid says.

“MDMA and meth?” JJ says, crossing her arms.

“Wilson, you still have contacts in Florida, right? See who’s dealing both of those these days,” Holmes says, and Wilson nods, pulling out his phone.

“MDMA is really hard to get a hold of,” Wilson says, “I’m sure it’s easier in Florida, but still, this guy has to have some way of getting money in. Lots of it.”

“Okay, so how does he insure he doesn’t hurt them with the drugs?” Prentiss says.

“And what purpose does it serve? What fantasy is he living out?” Rossi adds.

The plane hits a bit of turbulence, and your stomach flips. “Is that normal?” you whisper, and JJ laughs, nodding.

“You’ll get used to it,” Morgan says. You nod and give a short laugh.

“The likelihood of being in a plane crash is about one to 5.4 million,” Reid says, “and even so, it’s improbable that turbulence will cause a crash. Even commercial airlines are built to withstand forces 1.5 times stronger than anything experienced in the past—”

“Reid,” Hotch says sternly, but softly, “focus, please.”

“I didn’t know the BAU made cyborgs,” you say, squinting your eyes at Reid.

Prentiss nods at you, throwing her arms up. “That’s what I’ve been saying! Someone finally understands.”

“Sorry,” he says, eyes widening. “I’m curious as to whether these girls were using these drugs before or after he took them.”

“You think they were using before?” Hotch asks, and Reid nods.

“I just don’t know why he would give the girls these drugs.”

“I’ll ask the families,” JJ says.

“When we land, Reid, start setting up a geographical profile. Prentiss and Morgan, check out the dump sights. JJ, talk to the families, and make sure the press doesn’t get the information about the drugs. Rossi, take Long and go check out the abduction sights. Wilson, reach out to your contact. I want Y/l/n and Holmestead to help me with victimology,” Hotch says, looking around.

“Yes, sir’s” went around the group, and you flip to look at the victim pages.

Holmes leans across the table and looks at you. “What do you think?”

You shake your head. “It’s strange,” you say. “They hardly have anything in common. Yeah, they went to the same school, and yeah, they both work in insurance, but two very different jobs.”

Holmes shrugs, then nods. “I agree. Were they friends?” He looks at Hotch for guidance, who shrugs.

“We’ll have to find out. Garcia, have you made any connections?”

Garcia looks up on the screen, then says, “Actually, another girl has just been reported missing.”

“It’s only been a day,” JJ says, and looks at Hotch.

“We hit the ground running,” he says, and you all nod.

~~~oOo~~~

Working with the team goes a lot smoother than expected. Your teams bond together instantly, and you all work quickly and effectively.

Unfortunately, even a day and a half after the third victim's abduction, you’re no closer.

“In his comfort zone, there are 14 warehouses, 13 abandoned buildings, 25 apartment complexes, and too many residential areas to count,” you say, looking over Reid’s shoulder as he writes on the board.

“He could be anywhere,” Hotch mutters, standing beside you.

“What are we missing?” Rossi says, and you turn and slump into a chair, sitting at the table with the team. Hotch sits next to you, a pensive look on his face.

“How did he choose each girl? Are these premeditated or spur of the moment? And why did he escalate his time frame?” Morgan says, looking around the table.

JJ rushes into the room. “The third girl's body was found. And he left a note.”

The table stands. “Reid and Y/l/n, stay here and analyze the note. JJ, keep the press occupied. No one releases the note. We don’t address it yet. Everyone else, at the crime scene.”

You nod, finding it a little odd that he left you with Reid (sure, you aren’t a field agent, but the rest of your team is going somewhere), but you stay nonetheless. The team files out and you turn to Reid, looking down at the scan of the note.

“The paper looks old,” Reid says, and you squint.

“It’s not old, it was made to look that way. See how it’s not torn or wrinkled, but it’s yellowed?”

Reid nods and looks at you, for a moment, surprised. It passes quickly, and he’s looking back at the text. “Typewriter, and it’s in third person. It just describes the crime.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, and Reid shrugs.

“It could mean any number of things. Could be living out his fantasy, could be any number of mental illnesses.”

You nod, crossing your arms. It’s going to be a long night.

~~~oOo~~~

The fourth girl was taken in the wide open. There was a witness. With a description of the vehicle.

“There are more purple Volkswagens in Tallahassee than there should be,” Garcia says, “but only one registered to someone within the comfort zone of our guy.”

He doesn’t know you’re coming, and the arrest is smooth, and the girl is safe.

The plane ride back is quiet—everyone is mostly asleep. You sit by Holmes, talking idly about how the court is probably going to rule on the case. Hotch is awake and across from you, but you can tell he’s listening.

“How’s the little one?” Holmes says, and you laugh.

“As rebellious as ever,” you sigh. “She wants to be a superhero when she’s older.”

Holmes laughs, leaning back in his seat and pushing his hand through his hair. “And that’s exactly why I didn’t have kids.”

You elbow him. “Like you could get someone to reproduce with you, anyway.”

He gasps, grasping his chest, feigning pain. “Low blow, Y/n, low blow.”

“Whatever, old man,” you say, leaning back. “How long are we working with the BAU?” you ask, glancing over your sleeping teammates.

“I’m not sure yet,” he says. Then he lowers his voice and whispers in your ear, “You’ve caught the BAU’s dear boss’s eye, I think.”

You giggle (you giggle) and say, “No way.”

“Yes way.”

“I guess he’s cute,” you say in a whisper. “But that’s a conversation for the morning. I’m exhausted.”

You look over at Hotch, writing his report and talking quietly with Rossi. You wonder what’s going through his mind.

“You know she wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life mourning her,” Rossi says quietly. Hotch nods.

“I know that, I do. I just, I wish there was a sign.”

Rossi puts his hand on his friend's shoulder. “There will be.” He looks over at you, eyes shut, head on Holmes’ shoulder. “Meanwhile, you’ve been looking at her quite a lot.”

“What?” Hotch says, taking in a shaky breath.

Rossi chuckles, shrugging. “I think you know.”

~~~oOo~~~

“Hey, sleep today, but tonight you should come out with us,” Garcia says as you gather your things from your makeshift desk. You landed at 4:30 in the morning, and after finishing your paperwork, you were ready to sleep for the entire day.

You hesitate, then shrug. “Sure, why not?”

Garcia squeals, “Yay!” You laugh and nod.

“What time, and where?”

“How about I pick you up?” she suggests, and you nod.

“Actually, that would be great,” you say. She smiles, and leaves you in your office. Your daughter calls you as you're leaving the building, and you meet Hotch in the elevator.

“Mommy!” the little girl cries happily into the phone.

“Hi, hon! I’m on my way home right now, what are you doing up this early, baby?”

She giggles. “Auntie and I have a surprise for you!”

You freeze. “Haley, what did you do?” You feel Hotch stiffen beside you, but you don’t ask him about it.

“Nothing! Bye, mommy!” she says before you can tell her no, and she’s hung up.

“Children,” you mutter. Hotch nods.

“What’s your kids name?” he asks, barely looking at you.

“Haley,” you say. “She’s four next month.” He hums, and you ask, “Do you have any children?”

“Yes,” he says. “Jack. He’s seven.”

The elevator door opens, and you almost think you’re disappointed.

“Can I walk you to your car?” he asks, and you nod.

“Yes, thank you.”

The walk is silent.

“See you tonight?” you say.

He shakes his head. “Probably not.”

“Why not? Could be fun.”

He hesitates, meeting your eyes. Then, he says, “I’ll think about it.”

You smile, getting into your car. “Have a good one, Hotchner.”

“You too, Y/l/n.”

~~~oOo~~~

Haley is asleep by 8:00, your sitter is at your door by 8:15, and Garcia is at your door at 8:30.

Black dress, red lipstick. It isn’t too fancy, but if Hotch shows up, you’ll look nice. (Not that you care, of course. As far as you know, he’s married).

“You look so pretty!” Garcia says once you’re in her car.

“Thank you! You too!” you say, and then she starts telling you stories from the team. How Reid will go off about Halloween, how Prentiss faked her death, how Morgan and her flirt endlessly (which you picked up on), how Hotch’s son, Jack, is doing soccer.

You, in turn, tell Garcia about Wilson’s wife, Mary, and how Holmes once fell down a well while working on a case and was stuck for an hour and a half, and how Greg has this terrible habit of accidentally befriending the worst people.

You reach the bar laughing, and you find the table everyone (except Hotch) is sitting at. You and Garcia join them, and conversation becomes easy. Until, a few minutes after your arrival, Hotch takes a seat beside you.

“Hi,” he says, and everyone greets him.

“We were just talking about how we could run off and buy a house in the woods and live a secluded life together for the rest of time,” Prentiss says, and you let out a laugh.

“I’m sure that will work out wonderfully, especially with three children,” Hotch says.

“And the house has to be big, there’s a lot of us,” you add.

“And we work for the government, they’ll be suspicious if we all quit at once,” Greg says.

Spencer shrugs. “Not to mention the cost of living would be expensive, and we’d be out of a job. Plus, there’s no one to replace us.”

You lean over and boop Spencer’s nose. “We’re irreplaceable.”

“Don’t count on that, Strauss has been after my ass since the moment I stepped in that office,” Hotch says.

Rossi mutters something into Hotch’s ear, and your stomach does backflips. JJ turns to you. “Is Haley still into dance?”

You shake your head. “That was a short lived hobby. I think this week it’s art.”

“Henry is the same way! He doesn’t stick with one thing for more than a few days,” she laughs. “Hotch, what about Jack?”

“He’s stuck with soccer pretty consistently, but he also can’t decide if he likes drums or drawing on the wall more.”

You and JJ laugh. “Where’s Will?” you ask JJ, raising an eyebrow.

“He stayed home with Henry, but he sends his love.” JJ looks over at Hotch. “I presume Jack is with Jessica?”

“Yes,” he says, huffing a laugh, his eyes darting to yours. “I really should be paying that woman.”

“Is Jessica not your wife?” you ask, glancing from JJ to Hotch. They share a look, and JJ turns to Spencer, picking up on his and Emily’s conversation. Your attention is now fully on Hotch, who sighs.

“No, Jessica is my sister-in-law,” he says, and he opens his mouth to say more, but then hesitates. “My wife died a few years ago. Her name was Haley.”

“Oh,” you say dumbly. “Oh, oh I’m so sorry.” You meet his eyes, but he shakes his head. “My husband died a few years ago too. Right before Haley was born, actually,” you say, laughing humorlessly.

He nudges your shoulder lightly, then says, “Look at us, two widowed single-parents.”

“A pair we make, Mr. Hotchner,” you say, and he nods.

~~~oOo~~~

As you’re leaving the conference room after a briefing, Holmes pulls you aside. He watches as everyone leaves the room, and says, “This will be our last case with the BAU.” You blink at him, disappointment filling you.

“Why are you telling just me?” you ask, crossing your arms.

Holmes shrugs, looking out the conference room window. You follow his gaze to where Hotch and Morgan are talking in front of Hotch’s office. “Because you might want to shoot your shot before you never see him again,” Holmes says. You try to ask him what he means, but he’s already left the room.

You sigh, picking up your things and getting your bag, going to stand beside JJ and Emily as you make your way out to the jet. You trail a step behind them, your mind racing. What did Holmes mean by that? Your heart dropped a little bit at the thought of never seeing the team you had been working with for the past six months ever again. Surely, you will. JJ and you are close friends, and you had grown close with the rest of the team too, right?

“What’s on your mind?” You startle at the sound of his voice, looking up to see Hotch looking down at you, his brows drawn together.

“Oh,” you say. “Nothing.”

“You can’t lie to a profiler.”

You laugh. “Holmes told me this is our last case together,” you tell him, looking ahead, where JJ and Emily are boarding the plane.

“It is,” he says. His voice is even, steady, normal. There is nothing to suggest he is happy for your departure or upset about it. He is neutral.

“Shame,” you say, “I was sort of getting used to working with you guys.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and you board the plane. You sit in your usual seat and he sits beside you; that’s how it always is. It feels wrong, today.

“It’s not like we’re just going to disappear, though,” Hotch says to you, just so you can hear. “You know where I work after all.” You huff a laugh, your heart rate increasing more than you’d care to admit. “On top of that, we have no idea how long this case will last. Maybe it goes horribly wrong and you’re stuck with me forever.”

“We better solve it quickly, then,” you say, raising an eyebrow at him. He scoffs, and you shake your head. “But, really. I’ll miss working with you.” After a second, your eyes widen and you add, “All.”

He nods, shifting in his seat. “I’ll regret no longer having your team’s expertise.”

“Our teams are good together, for sure.”

~~~oOo~~~

After the case, you try not to look too blue as you step onto the jet for the last time. You and Holmes are the first ones on the jet, and when you sit across from him instead of your usual spot, he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Do you know where we’re going next? What our next assignment is?” you ask. He shakes his head, and you look down at your hands.

“We won’t be travelling with the BAU,” he says, “but we will be working at headquarters for the meantime.”

“That’s going to be an adjustment,” you say, looking over at him. “Watching the team leave, not going with them.”

He nods. “But at least you’ll get to see him.”

“You mean them,” you say, furrowing your brow. “The team.”

As the words leave your mouth, Hotch walks on board. He nods at the two of you, his facial expression blank. He sits in his usual spot. He looks small.

“No, I said what I meant,” Holmes said, shrugging. “Maybe you just didn’t want to hear it.”

You don’t reply, looking over to where Hotch is sitting. You look to Holmes for permission, and he nods at you. You make your way over to Hotch, sitting next to him.

“Hi,” you say quietly.

“Hi,” he says back.

A beat.

“So—” you both say at the exact same time.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“You go first,” he says.

“I’m going to miss you. The whole team,” you add, “but especially you.”

He flushes, giving a sort of smile as he shifts in his seat, nodding to you. “I’m going to miss you too.” You hold your breath, and he says, “But I figured, you know, there’s not really any reason we can’t still see each other. After this. We could get coffee sometime.”

You grin, bumping your shoulder against his. “Are you asking me out, Hotchner?” you whisper quietly, jokingly.

“Maybe,” he says, looking uncharacteristically unsure. “If you say yes.”

“Well,” you say, looking up and tapping your chin. You meet his eyes, and he’s staring at you like your next words are the most important thing in the world, “I would be an idiot if I said no.”

He smiles, big and wide like you’ve never seen and it goes straight to his eyes. “Then it’s a date.”

“Then it is,” you say, smiling right back at him.

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