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kopikokun · 4 years

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Star-Crossed Lovers༄ mark l.

↳ You’re not supposed to be so hopelessly in love with a man as dangerous as Mark, especially given the fact that you’re engaged, but you just can’t help it.

pairing: hitman!mark x reader

genre: fluff, angst

wordcount: 1889 words

Request 28: Mark + “I’m so in love with you.” (36) + “I wish we could stay like this forever.” (39) + “I want to take care of you.” (51)

— 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧. | 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬.

What was that saying? It’s wrong yet it feels so right?

Regardless of what it is, you can’t deny the exhilarating rush from doing this. You feel a shiver creep up your spine, and it’s not from the cold night breeze. No, it’s from the sight of the lone figure before you, the ends of their robe dancing with the wind, their lithe fingers adorned with the faint gleam of silver rings, and their large, near worn-out hood, draped over their head, obscuring their face.

The figure on the shingled rooftop with you holds a small knife in their hand, its sharp and pristine blade reflecting the moonlight as they twirl the small weapon expertly around their fingers.

You should be scared, and you would be bluffing if you weren’t at least just a little. But you know the man would never let his knife even graze your skin. The only sharp thing which makes your heart pound is his smile.

“Miss me?”

Mark’s hood falls to his shoulders, revealing that mischievous face that you fall in love with every night. His grin is deadly, arguably even more so than he is as he continues to weave that knife easily between his ring-clad fingers. From the way he so casually does it, it’s as if he was born with a knife clasped in his fist, which wouldn’t be surprising for Mark. You turn away from the sight, a feeling of mild disdain building in your chest.

You hum vaguely in response, and Mark smiles softly, almost a little sadly, as if he knows what you’re thinking. He tucks his knife away.

“I hope that’s a yes.”

You don’t even realise that Mark has taken a seat beside you until he sighs. He’s truly a talented hitman, but you’re unsure if that’s exactly a compliment.

“I missed you,” confesses Mark, his voice so quiet it could almost be mistaken as the light gust of air which fans your face.

“Really?” you challenge, raising a brow and turning to face him. “I guess you didn’t miss me enough to come yesterday.”

Mark holds your gaze. “I-I had something to do.”

“Something to do...” Your chest tightens, and you debate on whether you should even ask. “Who was it?”

Mark blows out an unsteady breath. “It doesn’t matter.”

You would push him further, but doing so would take you nowhere. You know that from experience. “Okay.”

You decide to rest your head in Mark’s lap. It’s what you usually do when you meet him up here every night. At first, you would sit crossed-legged beside him, relishing in the one-of-a-kind view. Buildings and humble homes stretched out for miles, a few of them emitting a yellow glow from their windows, but most dark and dormant, its inhabitants fast asleep as the moon casts its light onto their roofs. The stars blinking, scattered across the vast and endless canvas of the night sky, whispering to you about the tales of the past, about wars, treachery and greed, yet also of two lovers, just like you and Mark, who had lay under these very stars professing their love and clinging onto one another until the Sun began to rise.

You’ve got a clearer view of the sky with your head in Mark’s lap anyway. And a clearer view of him too. It’s unrealistic how attractive he still looks at this angle. Unfair, actually.

“What’re you looking at?” Mark’s hands support his weight as he leans back, staring down at you. His eyes are playful and a familiar brown—intoxicating almost—as they reel you in and drag you under.

You smile up at him. “You.”

Though one of Mark’s most impressive qualities is how easily he can slither his way into any woman or man’s heart without any emotional attachment, his breath still catches in his throat despite having heard that line over a hundred times. You don’t miss this fact, smiling coyly, knowing that you have this untouchable hitman wrapped around your little finger. “You’re really pretty,” you elaborate.

Mark laughs heartily, and though he’s a feared man, painted out to be a ruthless beast with a cold stare and a rugged edge to his voice, his laughter contradicts that belief. It’s joyful, airy and boyish, reminiscent to that of a young teenage boy in love, and in this moment, you’re reminded that he’s hardly an adult. He’s only barely been chaffed by the harsh reality of adulthood, yet his eyes possess a wisdom far beyond his years, one he’s earned from the twenty years of sneaking through the shadows and scaling walls silently, grappling to stay alive. But as you stare deeply into his eyes, roaming their never-ending depth, you can make out that dim glimmer of childlike euphoria, something Mark never had the chance to experience. He’s a crumbling monument, only barely standing thanks to a few make-shift pillars and beams, but there’s something beautiful about him, something that had drawn you in that first night you met him.

Mark tilts his head, smiling softly. “You think I’m pretty? Look at yourself, darling,” he says, putting those long years of charming others to use. But unlike with them, his words are genuine with you. He giggles again, smiling fondly. “I’m so in love with you.”

Your hand reaches forward to caress his surprisingly smooth skin. He flinches as the chilled metal of the band which hugs your left ring finger comes into contact with his cheek. “I love you too.”

Mark grips your wrist, even his own fingers are cold compared to yours and the contrast in temperatures sends a prickling jolt through your arm. He tugs your hand from his face, inspecting your ring. “Oh, really now? You do?”

You pull your hand out of his grip, sitting up from his lap. He gives you a pointed look, leaning back in his position.

“Mark…” Your own fingers subconsciously fiddle with the ring, twisting it around. “You know I didn’t have a choice. I don’t get a say in who I marry…”

“I know that.” He frowns, his usually light-hearted and carefree expression overcome with a bitter one. “He must be great, huh? Kim Doyoung; rich, handsome, intelligent, son of a prominent figure—he’s perfect for you. Little old though, don’t you think?”

You roll your eyes. “He’s only three years older than you are, Mark. And how did you—”

“I’m a hitman. Finding out who your fiance is isn’t exactly the hardest thing I’ve had to do. And it’s not like he’s particularly low-profile or living humbly either.” Mark crosses his arms. “And I figured I should know who’ll be sleeping in the same bed as you every night.”

Mark’s tone grows sinister, and a muscle in his jaw twitches. You place a cautious, delicate hand on his shoulder and sigh, “Mark…”

“I know. I shouldn’t be getting jealous or possessive. I don’t have the right to, but I want to.” Mark looks at you, his gaze sincere and his smile, sad—longing. “I want to be the one who marries you, who kisses you before you go to bed, who makes breakfast for you when you wake up in the morning, but I can’t do that, huh?” He laughs humourlessly.

You grow silent. You can’t even bring yourself to look into Mark’s eyes. You know they only hold sorrow as he grieves for something he’s lost; you. Though, he’s never really had you to begin with, and how could he possibly lose something he’s never had anyway?

You’re selfish. You knew being involved with Mark would only end in tragedy for the both of you, but you went against your own logic regardless. Something about following your heart, you suppose. How naive of you. Fate isn’t kind.

“I guess, I,” Mark clears his throat, “I want to take care of you.”

You laugh dryly, though tears threaten to spill, blurring your vision and those stars that seemed so bright and hopeful look fuzzy now, like they’d vanish with one measly swipe of your thumb. “You want to take care of me? You murder people for a living, Mark.”

Mark laughs too, but it’s laced with despair. “Killing pays, babe.”

You curl up beside Mark, resting your head on his shoulder as you wrap your arms around his. He lets his head fall to yours too, stroking your hair gently. “I can’t say you’re wrong.”

“I wish we could stay like this forever.”

Your frail heart shatters at Mark’s words. His voice is thick with tears, with heartbreak and with acceptance. You don’t realise that all your pent up tears have finally escaped until you feel a single drop land on your left hand. The ring on your finger glints with malice, and that’s what finally breaks you.

Mark smoothes down your hair, shushing you gently and whispering reassuring words into your ear. You pay no heed to them, because you know they don’t possess an ounce of truth. Because they’re just words—wishful thinking and momentary delusions to get you through the sobs. And Mark knows that too, because eventually he grows silent, crying soundlessly, his warm tears and muffled hiccups mingling with yours.

When the Sun begins to peek through the mountains in the distance, Mark stands to leave, kissing you softly as farewell. His lips mould perfectly with yours and you grip his sleeve, willing for him to stay. He pulls away, his hot breath interlaced with yours. He runs the pad of his thumb across your hand, before he’s turning away from you, your arm falling limp and cold to your side.

As Mark is about to leave and flips his hood up, he glances back at you, a wistful smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He pauses, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mark.” You brave a smile for him, desperately hoping it looks genuine.

Mark has spent his entire life observing people’s emotions, perfecting his craft so he can secure the best time to strike. He knows it’s not genuine, but he returns it anyway and it looks just as forced as yours is.

As you watch Mark’s nimble figure retreat into the jet black landscape of the night, his body skilfully navigating and leaping from roof to roof as he’s done all his life, you can’t stop the tears from falling. Despite that, you’re still smiling from ear-to-ear, rubbing your swollen eyes with the back of your hands.

When Mark is finally out of sight, the only trace of him he left behind being the inviting smell of his fabric softener, you hug your knees to your chest and lift your gaze to the sky. You begin to wonder, if you and Mark’s circumstances had been different, would you have fallen in love and got to experience the life you yearned for with him?

With a resentful laugh you realise you probably wouldn’t have. Fate is cruel, and star-crossed lovers will always remain star-crossed lovers. Suddenly, a burning abhorrence towards the illuminated sky grows in your gut, the flames lapping at you and tearing down everything in its path.

You cover a single, miserable star with your thumb, childishly hoping that you’ve snuffed it out. You screw your eyes shut. The view doesn’t look that great anymore.

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gimmesumsuga · 5 years

Text

2! 3! (M)

The one at the end of Jungkook’s Wembley Vlive.

Pairing: Jungkook x reader

Warnings: Absolutely tooth-rottingly sweet fluff and smut. Vanilla sex, unprotected.

Word count: 3K

"Hana, dul, set!"

And just like that, with a most tired and satisfied sigh, Jungkook ends the recording and slouches back into his chair. His head flops back, eyes falling closed, and you can't help but smile at how pretty he looks even when his face is dangling upside down.

"You did really good, boo." The sound of your voice has him sitting straight again in an instant - likely having forgotten you were even in the room - but when he turns in his seat to face you with that boyish grin he wears so well, you swear your stomach somersaults in reply, far too in love to ever think to hold his preoccupation against him.

"Yeah?" he asks as he rises. Crossing the small space to the edge of the bed, he mounts it on his hands and knees.

"Yeah," you grin, "Your English is getting better all the time." Your compliment has Jungkook smiling as he crawls to you; happiness still tugging at the lips he leans forward and presses to yours in a kiss that ends far too soon.

He sinks back from his knees to sit at your side, tilting his head to rest on yours and making you hum with contentment when he turns it to press another kiss amongst your hair, soft and sweet. Rotating your body to face him you lean in too, thankful to finally have him all to yourself - if only for a little while.

You'd barely stepped foot into the hotel room before Jungkook was setting up his desk space for an impromptu Vlive, still buzzing from all the residual energy from tonight's concert. He'd been so insistent in his need to talk to ARMY - his one and only focus throughout the entire journey home - but you can understand why he'd felt that way. Having seen it first hand, tonight's rendition of Young Forever had moved you just as much as it had Jungkook; tears running down your face even as you watched the closing fireworks fly.

And really, you can't begrudge your boyfriend for making his fans a top priority. After all, not so long ago that's all you were to him, too.

"ARMY need to say thanks to you," Jungkook says into your hair, words warm against your scalp as he slips his arm around your waist and pulls you tighter against him. "It's your help. Your fault."

For all his optimism, Jungkook's statement only makes you laugh dryly against him, shaking your head. You're not sure it's thanks you'd be getting if the fans were to learn that Jungkook's sudden determination to master English had come from his unexpected acquirement of an English-speaking girlfriend. No, thanks probably isn't quite the right word.

"It's all your hard work, though."

"I work hard for you." You feel him squeeze at your waist through the thin material of your pyjamas. "And for ARMY."

"I know," you smile wryly, tilting your head back to look up at him to be met with another kiss that's even sweeter than the last one. Your hand comes to rest on his cheek as your eyelashes flutter closed, his skin soft under your gentle caresses. "I love you." Those words mumbled between the meeting of your mouths has Jungkook smiling again, his hand reaching up to mirror yours on the opposite side of your face, holding you close.

"Love you," he replies, soft and low, and you feel it in the fervour of the kiss that follows; lips firm pressed to yours and tongue eager as it slips into your willing mouth.

You're familiar with his groans now; well acquainted with his habits and the way Jungkook's first move will always be to slip his hand under the hem of your shirt and then higher. Blessed with a younger man's libido, Jungkook can never seem to keep his hands off of you for long - especially after a concert - and you wouldn't want him to. You can think of no better way to ride out the adrenaline high than like this, together.

"Wait." He breaks your kiss just as it's really getting good - just as your insides were beginning to throb at the feel of his large hands sliding up the length of your back. "I need to go to shower," he tells you as he withdraws them, leaning back with a regretful look on his face that gets wiped away when you surge forward to kiss him again, grabbing at his hoodie zipper.

"Later," you mumble against his lips as you kiss them, startle parted. "I like you dirty anyway." That earns you a grin and a light smack on your bottom, squeaking when his palm and then groaning when he squeezes, indulging you for just a moment longer.

"You are bad girl," he teases, his nose scrunched at you as he pulls away once and for all, slipping off of the bed before you have chance to pull him back and reclaim him once more. "Five minutes." Jungkook holds up five fingers at you as he backs away from the bed, his eyes twinkling with amusement as you roll over and hold up two in reply.

"Two!" you insist, laughing when he reduces his digits even further.

"One," he promises, disappearing into the bathroom just a second later and pulling the door shut behind him with a click that seems unnaturally loud in the now otherwise silent room.

Not that it stays quiet for longer, that is. A mere second longer and the silence is broken by the sound of running water - Jungkook's sweet singing voice joining it not long thereafter.

It's funny how even after all this time you're still so moved by it. Rolling onto your back and closing your eyes, you let the muffled melody wash over you, not even realising the way you begin to smile up at the ceiling for no one to see.

It's only when the bed dips beside you that you realise that you'd almost fallen asleep to the sound of Jungkook's lullaby, opening your eyes and blinking rapidly when his lips brush against your cheek.

"You are sleeping?" he asks, leaning over you and looking down with affection in his eyes, wet hair dangling into them.

Topless and glistening, he looks something out of 90's boy band with the center parted bangs he's been favouring lately - not that you'd ever bring that up. Best not to wilfully remind him of the age gap that separates you both.

"Maybe," you admit shyly, turning your face and covering it with your arm as you yawn.

"You want sleep?" The hint of disappointment in Jungkook's tone is impossible to resist smiling at - even more so you look back and see his beautiful eyes peering down at you all wide and doleful.

"Yeah." You reach your arms out to him, wrapping them around his shoulders and pulling him down into a kiss, "But I want you more," you confess, smiling as he does and threading your fingers into the back of his hair as Jungkook ever so gently lies himself on top of you above the covers.

The inside of his mouth tastes like spearmint, not peppermint, and you can feel how eagerly he's been awaiting this in the determined way he kisses you; so firm and deep your head is pressed down deep into the pillow. The path his lips travel down the length of your neck is mapped out by the droplets of water he leaves behind as he goes, tickled onto your skin by the tips of his hair and cool to the touch.

He has you sighing at the first feel of the wet of his mouth encasing your nipple; shifting beneath him as he wrestles back the covers that separate you and loses the towel wrapped around his waist along the way. Fingers reach into your pyjama shorts and groans of pleasure louder than yours vibrate into the flesh of your breast as his digits begin to tease your entrance, slick and wet and warm.

"Baby," you gasp as one and then two smoothly slip inside to stretch you open. A tug on his shoulders has him looking up from where he's nestled his face between your breasts, a fawny brown so soft it has your heart strings tugging too. "C'mere," you beckon and he does, fingers still curling deep inside as he shifts his body upwards and close enough for you to pleasure him in kind, wrapping your fingers around his length and moving your hand in time with his.

"Noona…" His voice is quiet - needful - hitching when your thumbs rubs across his sensitive tip and you kiss the delicate little mole that rests below his bottom lip.

You've done this enough times now to know what each other like; to know that when it's this late at night and all you want is each other that only the minimum of foreplay is required. It's intimacy you're chasing right now, not an orgasm. If that comes too, then that's just an added bonus.

Words aren't required as Jungkook helps you tug off what's left of your pyjamas - nor are they needed when you guide his length between your legs and lift them, wrapping them tight around his slender waist. You're too busy kissing to speak anyway; everything you need to say perfectly conveyed by the way your body trembles his arms as Jungkook begins to press inside, his fingers linked with yours on either side of the pillow.

He must be feeling sentimental tonight. Usually after a performance Jungkook is still so hyped up that sex can often be a somewhat rough and rushed affair, and whilst you still very much enjoy those times, nothing quite ever compares to when he makes love to you like this; when his body moves against yours so tenderly it's as though you're made of glass. It's deep and it's slow and has you holding onto him too tight - too desperately - wanting him closer and closer and closer until parting would seem both cruel and impossible.

Still, in the midst of all the heady confusion, Jungkook still thinks of you.

"You feel good?" he asks into the crook of your neck, lifting his head just long enough to look at you - to lock eyes and have the tenderness of his gaze squeeze at your heart.

"Of course," you reply, all smiles as he pauses the smooth rocking of his hips just kiss you again. "Do you?" The breathy moan that leaves him when he presses into you anew tells you he does but you want to hear it anyway, never tiring of being reassured that you're somehow able to bring Jungkook to those same dizzying heights that he does you.

"So good," he promises, and after that there's no more talking to be heard between you. It's all groans and moans and sighs; the pressing of lips and wet caress of tongues. It's the sound of Jungkook's pelvis meeting yours when he starts to pick up speed and lose himself in you and the creaking protest of the mattress when he suddenly rolls over and pulls you on top to ride him the way he loves best.

His hands are worshipful as they trace the lines of your body - his chest firm as it pits beneath the press of your fingernails. It won't be long now until you both reach the inevitable end that awaits you; not if Jungkook keeps rocking your hips the way he does, coaxing you to go faster, harder, grinding you down onto his length and lap. The slap of your flesh sounds wet, now, proof of your mutual enjoyment.

Your insides begin to tighten and you know that Jungkook can feel it just as well you can. His eyes shut as he groans, a furrow in his brow, and when he bites his lip you can no longer resist the urge to lean forward and suck it into your own mouth, biting in his stead.

Large palms find your buttocks and now he's pushing up into you from beneath, strength and speed increasing, and your fingers are in his hair, your own trailing down all over his face as you kiss - wet and messy.

"Cum inside," you gasp as you tug at his roots, "Cum inside me." And as eager as ever to please you, Jungkook does.

You'll never get sick of the sounds he makes; how high pitched and soft he moans as he empties himself into you. You'll never tire of the way he'll blush and deny them, either, but for now your mind is elsewhere, focused on picking up speed and chasing the white hot ecstasy you so crave before Jungkook gets too sensitive and whines for you to stop.

"Oh god, Jungkook..." Your breath hitches, your teeth pressing hard into your lip as your orgasm takes its hold - a pleasure so intense that for a moment you lose all sense of time and place. It's only when you feel his gentle fingers in your hair and kisses pressed to your temple that you finally start to come back down to earth. You ride out the aftershocks in each other's arms. Warm, sticky and out of breath, but above all: happy. So, so happy, you can barely believe this is all true.

"Saranghae," Jungkook sighs and then, as if catching himself, he hastily adds, "I love you." Smiling, you lift yourself up off his chest and smile fondly down at him.

"Saranghae," you say back and it's worth it for the way it makes him smile so hard that even his nose crinkles as he sits up too. He cups your cheek as he captures your lips, kissing you tenderly.

When it ends, Jungkook flops back down into the pillow with his arms thrown out wide.

"Ah!" he exhales in contentment, eyes closed, and you grin to yourself as you attempt to climb off of him just as delicately as you can, laying quickly at his side lest you make a mess of the covers.

Resting your weight on your elbow, you watch over him, chin on your palm.

"Tonight was amazing," you say, all too aware that if you don't speak now he'll most likely fall asleep in a few seconds flat. He always does once he sets his mind to it.

One cheeky eye peeks open at you from below, a shit-eating smirk twisting your boyfriend's lips.

"Thanks," he grins smugly, looking far too pleased with himself until a light smack on his chest reminds him of the importance of staying humble.

"I wasn't even talking about that!" you laugh, "I was talking about the show! The crowd singing. I've never seen anything like that before." Pulling himself back from the brink of sleep, Jungkook sits up a little to rest back on his elbows.

"It was… incredible," Jungkook smiles, shaking his head as if he still can't quite believe it himself. He picks out a piece of hair that's fallen in front of his eye and then places that hand on his chest. "When ARMY sang it felt like… my heart…" Pausing, Jungkook can't seem to find the words to explain, and just when you're about to offer up some suggestions your sweet, silly boyfriend uses sound effects to do the talking instead. He imitates the sound of an explosion as his clenched fist bursts open, both of you laughing as he falls dramatically back into the pillow.

"I think 'exploded' is the word you were looking for," you giggle and Jungkook nods his head amongst the pillow, grinning up at you. He looks so cute it's almost more than you can stand - his every mannerism so sugar sweet that you're compelled to reach out and brush his hair back to better see the face you love so much.

"You're so cute," you tell him earnestly, laughing again when he wrinkles his nose in distaste. "And handsome," you add, shuffling closer so you're able to kiss the tip of his nose, delighting when he laughs. "And kind and funny and sweet and so god damn sexy." You kiss him between every word, only stopping when Jungkook takes hold of your face in both hands to keep you still hovering just a few inches above him, stars twinkling in his eyes.

"A lot of English."

"Yes, a lot of English," you chuckle, only vaguely embarrassed at having gushed so unreservedly. Truthfully, he's probably used to it by now. "I'll explain it all in the morning, promise."

"Ok," he smiles. Ever so gently, Jungkook pulls your face down towards his to kiss you, relinquishing his hold only when the need to breathe dictates he do so.

"You better get some sleep," you sigh as you pull away, "Busy day tomorrow."

"I know," Jungkook sighs in return as you lay down at his side and place your head on his chest, fingers splayed out across his abs.

Of course, it's not as if every day isn't a busy day, but with the start of Festa the group's schedule is bound to be even more hectic than usual. You're just thankful you can be there with him through it with it all as a support - to offer your strength when he no longer has one.

Jungkook reaches above you to turn off the light, his lips pressing to the top of your head as it clicks off and sumerges you two in darkness.

"Night," he says softly.

"Lip balm," you remind him sleepily, your eyes already closed, and you can almost see Jungkook's fond smile behind as he chuckles quietly, straining as he tries to reach for the tube where it sits atop the bedside table without disturbing you.

His lips are strawberry flavoured the next time they find yours; plump and sweet. You smile, hugging him tighter as his arm does the same, pulling you into his chest with a satisfied sigh.

"Sweet dreams."

#bts smut #jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #bts fluff #jungkook fluff #bts #bts one shot #jungkook one shot #jungkook/reader

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parkeraul · 5 years

Note

A blurb with the prompts “you’re so annoying… just kiss me, already.” And “I swear to god, if you weren’t so hot, you would have been dead by now.”

you make me feel | s.m — blurb

“close your eyes then!” she says to him, bodies timidly deciding to move close to each other. shawn is smiling, that unmistakable boyish grin melting her along with his puppy eyes shining. his shoulders relax and drop down as he tries to find relief in a breathy laugh, making her heart thrum inside her chest with adrenaline and affection.

“it’s not exactly like this,” shawn rambles, gesturing his hands as he stands right in front of her to stretch one of his arms to find support on the wall behind her. his face inches closer while he takes a deep breath, that single stubborn curl falling down to his forehead. “i’ve been wanting this for so long, it has to be perfect, you know?”

she rolls her eyes playfully and gives him that smile he dreams so much about since the very first moment he saw her. the idea of a romance that pushes him over the edge and requires all the effort from his sentiments seems to entice him even more, getting the best of him even physically — no wonder why some of his songs are now performed with an undeniable passion and so much love in the air. and she’s finally here, her back clinging to the wall of a dark street where no one can see what’s going on and, to be honest, not even they care to see what’s going on. the feelings are a great guide already, thank you very much.

“why do you have to pull up such a drama?” as soon as she asks, shawn thinks about, well, pull up another drama to maybe make her laugh — but then he has to agree that he does make a scene sometimes for things that are so simple. like, she’s here and she’s all he ever wanted. why hesitate now? why make plans when he can actually live them whenever he wants to? it all fades away when her smart hands grab the fabric of his red shirt to pull him nearer, to a point where their lips aren’t as close as they want to, but enough to tease him. “it took you a month to finally step up your dick and talk to me right the way. if you want a perfect kiss, you can stay totally chill because that i can promise you. now i wonder if you can promise me the same.”

“of course i can!” he says with a squeaky tone, making his ego show up in the cutest way possible. “i can promise you whatever you want.” smirking as he thinks out loud, he finishes his words and lifts a hand to caress her hair, tucking the strand in the front to the area behind her ear. the street lights illuminate her face and in his eyes, she’s the prettiest girl he’s ever met. this is how he knows he can promise her whatever she wants, because no one can deny that he’s completely fucked for her, practically on his knees.

“you know what i want?” she asks and he murmurs in response, waiting for her to say the words he’s dying to hear. “i want your lips on mine until i can’t breathe. this is what i want. think you can give it to me?”

chills run along his body and he hopes she hadn’t noticed the way his frame quivered lightly to her words, so calm and so serene just like he wasn’t about to faint in anticipation or nervousness.

“sorry,” he mumbles, cupping the nape of her neck and brushing their noses together. “just want it to be as good as it is in my mind.”

“there’s only one way to find out, hm?”

“but what if it’s not what you’ve been expecting? i mean—”

“oh my god, you’re so annoying!” she interrupts, trying hard not to laugh at his hesitation. “just kiss me already.”

and he laughs along, drinking her in by the way she’s giggling so beautifully. he doesn’t care if he sounds or looks dumb, he’ll gladly do it again and again and again if it means she’ll laugh like this forever. shawn clings his forehead to hers and drops his arm from the wall to her waist, holding it like she’s made of crystal as his broad body nearly hides hers when he steps forward to close all the space between them. she bites her lower lip, admiring in silence his rosy cheeks and bright hazel eyes, watching the way his pupils dilate to the sight of her. his cheek scar never looked so kissable and his lips — getting slightly wet by his tongue — had never looked this irresistible, shining gracefully in the moonlit space. the sky gets embellished my more and more stars and shawn likes to think they’re all gathering around to watch this moment attentively — because he also thinks they’ve been seeing him go to his rooftop with his guitar to sing words of love and need to the thought of her, taking in the way his mind’s been stuck on her so intensely for days and days of torture.

“‘m gonna make you feel so so good,” shawn has no control of his mind at this point, venting his aching heart almost unconsciously in raspy whispers. his lips touch hers so weakly she wonders if they had even met. her eyes flutter close and her hands open to palm his warm chest, traveling to his shoulders and neck to eventually go back to his chest once again. every graze traces a burning stripe on his body even with his cloth separating his skin from hers, making his heart twitch and breath go unpatterned. “can i?”

“please…”

and after her permission, he enjoys the lack of sanity that washes over him to finally capture her plump lips with his.

firstly, it’s a long peck and it feels sloppy, hurried and harsh. so he thinks he might’ve fucked everything just like he feared he would. but then she rubs his chest with her thumbs, quietly calming his nerves and feeling his heart pound so fast against her hand that, to himself, the sound of the beats are almost deafening even though the streets are crowded and noisy. but then she pulls away to see his lips part and quickly goes back, jouting her bottom lip to fit perfectly in between his mouth.

still feeling her sweet caress on his chest, he intensifies the way he holds her but not with lust — it’s with love and gratitude, along with all the respect he can carry for her. shawn locks their mouths together slowly, feeling every inch of her smooth flesh and how their lips mould so deliciously together. even with the cold air hitting their bodies, the kiss seems to light a sparkle inside her and shawn in a way that encourages him to poke his tongue out modestly and she promptly parts her lips for him to meet her tongue with his. it’s unexplainable the way she tastes, even more intricate how wonderful their flavours mix as their tongues dance together so deliberately, so delicately.

shawn feels his head spinning, finding it hard to tilt his head to the side to savor her deeper — but he does, ignoring his body getting that tingling sensation all over like she’s turning him into a melting mess in a matter of seconds just with her delicate and skilled mouth driving him insane. it’s all so overwhelmingly delightful that everytime they press their lips together to end a phase of the kiss and open their mouths and start a new way to taste each other, smack sounds fly from them to echo throughout the tiny street he chose to hide with her. his defined jaw loosens and softens to receive her lips more carefully, allowing her to undress his entire soul with the most spine-tingling kiss of his life and, whoever decided to watch with the stars the so waited love moment happening in there, would agree that not even the most complimented romantic movie could compare to the beauty of this image: that tall curly-haired boy holding the smaller frame in front of him with all the devotion and necessity, his lips curling in a smile that anyone could see from afar, maybe even the moon up in there among the shiny stars. her chest was floating on the inside, but moving with a fervent emotion. love maybe? or just searching for the air he knocked out of her lungs with his mouth?

they break the kiss but keep their smiles still pressed together, teeth only separated by their lips in between to maintain the electricity of the kiss running back and forth. she holds his neck and tangle her fingers in his curls while he cups her face with both hands, looking deep in her eyes with all the joy and love.

“two questions,” he starts.

“go on.” she says, barely sound to answer him.

“think i kept my promise?”

“hell yes!” laughing, she admits and he giggles along, so happy and finally feeling the relief of making it worth take over his body, comforting his heart. “what’s the second one?”

“well,” shawn looks around, not shifting away from her that much like he would lose her at any moment. identifying his car across the other street, he goes back to her but this time his face goes to the side, mouth reaching her ear to speak softly. “think i can make you feel even better?” he lifts an eyebrow and smirks, biting on his lip right after and thank god she can’t see his face now, otherwise he sure would get his arm slapped hard.

although, he knows she finds his idea very impossible to resist by the way the skin of her neck gets goosebumps after his invitation.

“i swear to god, shawn, that if you weren’t so hot, you would have been dead by now.”

shawn scrunches his nose due to the biggest smile he’s giving towards her right now, holding her with attitude and decided to earn more sweet whimpers, smack sounds, breathtakingly kisses and not only on her lips. he brings a hand up to take her chin in between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head up to ask her the final question:

“is this a yes?”

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes blurbs #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfics #mine #ficsofmine #shawn mendes masterlist #shawn mendes x reader

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alltheworldsinmyhead · 5 years

Photo

FLORIAN THE FOOL

ao3

Time flies and it does not wait for anyone. But theirs are years well-lives, so Gendry supposes it's all right, in the end // Gendry gets to watch his Arya grow old with him. It feels like a blessing.

gendry’s pov of the white fawn

Clearing the air, I breathed in the smoke

Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down

Maybe I've stormed out of every single room in this town

Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it's morning now

It's brighter now

I once believed love would be burnin' red

But it's golden

Like daylight

- Daylight, Taylor Swift

***

Sometimes, when it’s raining outside and the kids are deep asleep, curled on top of one another like a litter of pups, Gendry takes Arya’s hand and they dance slowly in the middle of the room, swaddled in darkness. Nothing fancy – mostly, they just sway side-to-side, her cheek leaning on his chest and his chin resting on the top of her head.

It’s very quiet between them.

This always reminds him of kneeling on the cold, soft mud in front her, underneath Raventree, when they were told to ask gods to bless their marriage. He did not believe in gods then and he does not believe in them now; Old or New or Red, they don’t seem to listen to mortals’ wishes at all. But despite that, he bowed his head dutifully and, against everything, did ask for one thing and one thing only-

Let me love this woman right, please. Just let me love her like she is supposed to be loved.

It is a prayer, but it’s also more than that; it is a promise.

Arya, with her hair chopped short and desperate eyes, trying to convince him she is a boy.

Arya, bow in her hands, swift and nimble on her feet, running through the woods like a fawn.

Arya in yellow silks and with flowers on her head, so young and so fucking gorgeous it hurt. Arya, saying she is his, claiming him as hers.

Arya hovering above him, her eyes shining in the dark.

Arya on her back, face all red, hair stuck to her forehead and crying in pain, her hand clasping his so hard that bruises form on his fingers.

Arya, ankle-deep in cold, cold river, holding Ben under his armpits and lowering him into the water and raising him up over and over again as he wiggles in her grip, giggling.

Let me love her like she deserves to be loved.

Jory only falls asleep if someone sings to him and it takes them way too much time to figure it out, probably because none of them have any fucking idea what they’re even doing and so the thought of ever trying lullabies have somehow never occurred to either.

But one yet another sleepless night, Arya, more tired than sane really, lays their screaming, screeching baby on the bed between them and begins to rub comforting circles on his belly with her eyes closed as she opens her mouth.

Six maids in a pool

They're of noble blood

One Fool, but great, on the shore

He'd seen that flower full of love

"She'll be in my garden" - he'd sworn

And then there is a sudden silence, blissful silence except for Arya’s low, rough voice and the sound of crickets outside as Jory’s eyelids flutter and shut. Soon enough, he’s deep asleep, clutching Gendry’s index finger with one of his tiny fists.

They stay frozen, afraid to move, to even breathe, in case the baby will wake up, but it does not happen and Gendry slowly tears his gaze away from Jory, so relieved and overjoyed, about to just pull Arya against his chest and kiss her senseless-

But Arya looks down, still like a lake, tears rolling down her cheeks one by one.

‘’Arry.’’ – he whispers hopeless, at loss of what to do. His heart beats so loudly in his chest that he’s sure she must hear it.

‘’It was- it was Sansa’s favorite.’’ – she lets out with a shaky breath, hunching over and hiding her face in her hands. – ‘’Florian The Fool and Jonquil.’’

Slowly, so, so slowly, Gendry grabs her wrists and lowers her hands down and cups her face, wiping tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. She’s so skinny, so sad lately, worn to the bone.

‘’It’s just so hard now.’’ – she admits quietly.

He’s about to say I know, but bites on his tongue before those words escape from his mouth. No, he doesn’t. He does not know much really. He leaves on the first light and comes home late, and Arya stays, day and night, hissing in pain every time she nurses and lulling crying Jory in her arms for hours, over and over again. The girl who wanted adventure and thrill, stuck in one place like a caged bird.

Staring into Arya’s weary, gleam-less gray eyes, Gendry really, truly hates himself for the first time in his life.

He does not know how to make it better. So, instead, he does the only thing that comes into his mind; he kisses her forehead and tells her that she can go to sleep and he will watch Jory. This night and all the other nights. And he will learn all the songs under the sun, if that’s what their baby wants. Behold, Gendry The Fool.

This earns him a smile. Small and barely-there.. but it’s a beginning.

In the morning light, she is a statue carved out of marble.

Sitting on the threshold, barefoot and with her hair loose, she looks so fragile. Bird-boned. If she was a metal, she would require goldsmith’s nimble fingers to form, not brute strength of a blacksmith.

And yet, she hears his footsteps, she turns around to look at him and moves a little to the left to make place for him. And, when he sits down, she rests her head on his shoulder as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do and he wraps his arm around her-

And yet, despite all, they just fit. They work.

She places his hand on her swollen belly so he could feel their babe kicking underneath his fingers, oh gods, he never wants to move from this threshold ever again. He tries to imagine sitting here with another woman, sharing his life with another woman and it just leaves a foul taste in his mouth.

He is hers. Simple as that.

Duncan is so small in Gendry’s hands, barely bigger than a loaf of bread and looking so delicate. Born a moon too early, he came out of Arya’s womb pale and unmoving and Gendry has never been more afraid in his life than in those few seconds stretched into infinity, looking into Arya’s wide wild eyes and waiting for their second son to take his first breath and start to cry. He’s fine now, maybe still a bit too light, but that’s okay – Gendry can keep him safe and warm in his arms as long as it takes for his to gain strength on his own, as long as he needs it. Even if it’s forever. It doesn’t matter.

Jory is so curious about his baby brother that it’s almost comical. He peaks at Duncan napping on Arya’s breast and then gently, very gently, pats his chubby cheek.

‘’Soft.’’ – he grins up at Arya and she laughs.

‘’Yeah, babies are like that. All soft and nice. Do you want to give him a kiss?’’

Jory seems to be thinking about it for a while, a tiny wrinkle appearing between his brows from concentration. It smoothes down when he leans to press a peck on Duncan’s dark head.

‘’Love him.’’ – he babbles with a toothy smile and Gendry can swear that there actual tears in Arya’s eyes, no matter that she would deny it.

‘’Wish I could give ‘em a name.’’ – he says quietly, watching as older boys snore in unison, both of them holding each of Ollie’s tiny fists.

Arya reaches out above their sleeping children and puts her little hand on his cheek. Her eyes are shining in the darkness like twin stars and yes, indeed, Gendry wishes for a name other than Waters more than he has ever wished for anything, but that’s not the only thing he desires. He wishes for a featherbed for Arya; for her to be less tired; for her hands to remain soft. He can’t give her comfort the same way he can’t offer any of the three sons he has with a noble-born woman anything more than a hut on the hill, a few goats and a small workshop in the Maidenpool.

‘’They have a father who loves them, a father who they can be proud of. That’s more important than any name could ever be.’’

Gendry thinks it’s very lady-like of her to say so. But, after all, she gave up her name for him, so maybe he could trust her on this matter.

Sometimes he dreams of Arya in Winterfell; Arya all highborn in Northern furs, a silver crown on her dark hair and cheeks painted pink from frost. He dreams of wolves surrounding her, howling for her in the woods, bowing their heads for her when she passes through the pack of them as if she was their queen.

Wolf dreams, she tells him shortly one time when he wakes up in the morning to find her sitting in the bed still deep asleep and biting on her lip hard enough that it bleeds, her hands all scratched by her own nails. He doesn’t ask for more explanation. It’s scary enough, to think what she might have become, how high she might have risen had she not she chosen him.

Beric arrives one evening, seated on a fine black mare that makes boys gasp in awe and nervously elbow each other until Jory asks very politely – let it never be said that Gendry raises his son as wildlings, thank you very much – if they can maybe, just maybe, feed her an apple. As horse happily munches, absolutely not paying any attention to three little creatures combing her tail and patting her sides, Arya hoists baby Ben on her hip and talks with Beric outside as Gendry goes to fetch cheese and milk.

On his way back, he stops on the threshold and grins involuntarily. Gods, his wife is just so fucking pretty, more beautiful with every passing year. No one would call her a dirty boyish urchin now, with her long dark locks cascading down her back and a blush on her sweet face. She sways delicately, side-to-side, as the child in her arms dozes off, his head resting on her shoulder.

Gendry very briefly wonders if he could possibly persuade her to have yet another babe. A daughter this time, a little Arya, gifted with her mother’s effortless grace and devious gleam in grey eyes. From their sons, Ollie is the only one brown-headed and also the only one alike to Arya in any physical regard; Jory and Duncan are both copies of him, taller than they should be at their age and growing out of every pair of shoes more rapidly than Gendry can supply them.

‘’Your brother would take you. All of you.’’

Beric’s voice is like a cold shower, briefly, just before it turns into a cold fury brewing in Gendry’s gut.

‘’Why would I ever take my sons to Winterfell?’’

‘’They could have a future there.’’

Gendry doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. If Lord Beric All-Mighty Dondarrion wants to say that he cannot damn support for his own family, he can fucken say it to his face. But he remains inside the house, hidden in shadows and frozen in place. Listening.

Arya laughs, both softly and bitterly somehow.

‘’What kind of future? Bein’ treated as bastards, even though they’re not? Bein’ treated as baseborn and worse for that, even tho they don’t deserve it? ‘’

‘’Your brother has no heirs, he could use three healthy, strong boys. Do you want your ancestral seat in the hands of some other house? For Starks to die out?’’

Gendry’s fist clench. That’s a low blow and Beric bloody knows it, probably that’s why he does not look Arya in the eyes.

He never let it go. He rode with smallfolk, wined and dined and shat with them, but he never forgave himself for letting highborn girl under his care to be defiled by a bastard blacksmith, knight or not.

Nearly killed me when I refused to ride North with them, sulked through the wedding and acted all high and honorable, and now he tries to take a wife from her husband and children from their father.

‘’Rickon married Shireen Baratheon; if Bran will die childless, Rick’s second son will hold Winterfell. If not, Sansa’s child will. Heard she has a boy now.’’

‘’It’s your sons’ right.’’ Beric’s voice turns sharp. ‘’Hope you know what you’re depriving them of.’’

There is silence ringing in Gendry’s ears for a moment. He inhales, deeply, and is just about to move, to bash Lightning Lord’s skull in, when-

‘’Oh, I know full well.”

Ours is the fury. For the first time, he thinks Arya would make a fine Lady Baratheon; there is so much anger radiating from her that he half-expects for the sky to part and send down thunderbolts.

‘’I deprive them of ever watching their father killed in a godsdamned game of thrones. No one will chop Gendry’s head off for a secret. No one will betray me and slit my throat. ‘’ she states, her voice unwavering. - ‘’If I die on them, it will be in childbirth. If Gendry does, it will be from the plague. These are honest deaths, the ones that don’t scar. Don’t teach me how to love my own children, Beric, or how to take care of them. I gave them the freedom to be who they want to be. And if I will ever bear a daughter, she will be freer than I ever was.’’

Guilt, heavy like a stone, punches him in the gut.

All those years and I’m still underestimating you, love.

Beric gifts them their fine black mare when he leaves the next morning, against their protests. Gendry wants to sell her – it’s suspicious for people like them to have a horse like that – but boys plead and plead for hours and Arya glances at the mare fondly, and Gendry is reminded how she used to ride faster than wind, hair unbound and no saddle needed. Freedom incarnate.

His wife calls the horse Wintersong.

Alysanne is born nine moons later.

Against his stupid, silent wishes, their children grow up quicker than a blink. He longs for bare feet and joyous shrieks, for mud fights and hurts that could be healed by kisses. What he gets now is to see them all go their own way and seven hells, it hurts so much.

Benjen is the first one to go, stolen away at just nine by Lord fucking Dayne, to squire for him and then to be knighted. And Gendry knows, somewhere in the more rational part of him, that this is a good thing, that Ben would be happy doing what he was so clearly made to do. Ned is an honorable man and he will take good care of the boy, and one day Ben will be a great knight. They would sing songs of him. Still, this knowledge does nothing to soothe his sorrows. Bloody Starfall is too far away to travel and, as he hugs Ben’s scrawny frame, the realization that it might be the last time he does that takes his breath away.

I will never see him practicing with wooden swords in the woods again. I won’t see as he grows up.

Is there ever a bitter moment for a father, he thinks, clutching Alysanne’s hand as she waves her brother goodbye. – then when he gives his child away and they are not his anymore?

The first night after his son’s departure, Arya weeps from dusk till dawn, clinging to him in desperation until exhaustion pulls her under. Next morning she’s calm and collected again, moving on as if nothing happened, but this is the first time that Gendry looks at his wife and thinks she’s getting older.

Jory’s next; always the responsible one, he quietly and slowly explains to them one afternoon how he will finish his apprenticeship soon and would like to stay in Maidenpool and marry his carpentry master’s youngest daughter. Gendry knows the girl – pretty lass named Joy, fox-like and with hair kissed by the fire. He had no idea that Jory fancies her thou, although it is possible he might be the only one oblivious, as Arya doesn’t even try to look surprised.

(Stupid. – she tells him in the evening, shaking her head. – During the fair last year all he did was look at her, all moony, too afraid to ask her to dance. Didn’t you notice that?

Well. He didn’t.

Arya sighs heavily, resting her head on her hand and glancing at him from underneath her lashes.

Remind me why I married you?

He leans down, resting his forehead against hers. His hand sneaks underneath her skirts to rest on her bare tight and he watches as grin blooms on her face.

Don’t complain, m’lady.)

Duncan doesn’t ever really leave, which Gendry cherishes. Even as a kid, Duncan loved coming over to forge the most, begged Gendry to teach him blacksmithing ever since he was maybe six. As a man grown, his second son is his mirror copy; his body made to hammer metal into obedience and temper it into strength. He’s good at that, very good in fact. Steel sang for Gendry for most of his life – and it sings for Duncan too, even more beautifully. Girls from the whole town come over to watch him work and even Gendry is not as blind as not to see that the boy enjoys their attention.

He would be lying if he said it does not worry him, the thoughts of his own father and bastards swimming in his head until one day Duncan sets the hammer down and turns to him, blushing like a maiden.

‘’Dad.’’

‘’Hmm?’’

‘’Well. There is this girl- we, I mean, she… you know…‘’

Ha. There is always a girl.

‘’Are you going to marry her?’’

Duncan’s ears turn red.

‘’Yes.’’

Gendry stays quiet for a moment, before deciding that it certain things just don’t matter as much as he used to think they do.

Slowly, he eases his scowl into a smile.

‘’Congratulations, then.’’

Olllie… Ollie is a burden too heavy to bear.

(Arya screamed for hours, howled like a wolf with the limp body of their son clutched to her chest. No words, just raw ache of a wounded animal, not letting anyone come near. Alys hid in the cupboard, curled in a little ball with her hands pressed to her ears and crying in terror until Jory carried her away, hushing Duncan and Ben out.

Spring fever has a smell, sweet and disgusting. It always comes too late, when there is nothing that can be done anymore, clinging to hair and skin for weeks. No one can wash it off. In a way, Arya was right – death from plague never really scars. The wound that it leaves simply doesn’t ever close.

Ollie was so small, gasping for breath. He still had all his milk teeth, he still loved for Gendry to toss him up in the air, he still would ask Arya to tell him stories every evening and kiss his forehead goodnight.

So small.)

Sometimes he wonders – if they lived in a castle, maybe a maester could heal him, maybe he still would be alive. He wonders if Arya wonders about it too, but decides to keep silent.

They don’t talk about Ollie, none of them.

Alys runs away two moons before her five and tenth name day, surprising no one. Gendry guesses he got his wish; she is her mother’s daughter, truly. He watches, sad and resigned, as his wife tries and fails to hide her quiet glee as she reads him the letter Alys left. He just hears some phrases, here and there: mummer’s troupe, tightrope, adventure, being an acrobat and a boy, there is always a fucking boy.

And just like that, there is two of them again.

When they were younger, they used to be more desperate for each other, more hungry. Gendry supposes it makes sense - he was less sure of her then. Not in a way he doubted she loved him, he always knew she loved him, cared for him. It was more like he was living without ever exhaling, holding his breath and waiting until someone will take her away from him, because surely someone will?

Lady Arya, the Northern Princess on his lap, her eyes shut closed and mouth opened in pleasure, moaning his name and digging her nails in his shoulders.

It was just too good to be true.

He was so careful, not to get used to any of it. From his experience, Gods delight in taking things mortals take for granted. And his family already feels fragile enough; no matter how solid the walls are, they built them on quicksand. Everything is perishable and he can never forget that. But the older he gets, more and more of this burning anxiety disappears from his bones, evaporating in the thin early-morning mist outside when he wakes up in her warm arms and she sleeps like breast milk and dreams.

He still memorizes as much as he can though. Just in case one day memories would be the only thing he has left.

The identical shade of blue of his sons’ eyes. Alys’ breathy laughter. And Arya, Arya, Arya.

Years made her sweeter, softer. When they were freshly married, she used to order him around in bed, half-starved for his touch and half-ashamed for being so needy. They would go hard and fast, his fingers leaving bruises on her hips and her teeth leaving bite marks on his neck. He would be lying if he said he did not enjoy that, but now it’s even better. -now, when they make love, it’s slow and gentle, and everything they never thought they could be. She unravels underneath him, letting him pleasure her and worship her until she’s boneless and pliant, laughing breathlessly when his beard scratches her belly. She used to be slim and skinny, his wolf maiden, taut like a bowstring about to break, with lean muscles dancing underneath her pale skin. Now, there are traces of their children all over her body. They are written in the silver threads in her hair and in a blue spider web of veins on her breasts and faint marks on her belly where it stretched to accommodate growing babies, each of them.

It makes him stupid every time, looking at all those. Stupid and drunk on a feeling he does not even know how to describe.

Time flies and he can never get enough of her, of how it feels to be buried in her, of her hair in between his fingers and her nose bumping his and the way she bites on her lips when she peaks. The taste of her, the sight of her, the sound of her – she drives him mad and he sometimes wonders if he was put on this Earth just for this one purpose, to love this woman until he dies.

Because Gendry loves his lady Arya, like a fool and with all of him. This one thing never changes, even when they grow older and softer and weaker, and their hearts beat slower than they used to. Even when she is no longer dark-haired and he is no longer strong like an ox.

He can no longer carry her through the door, but he can still hold her hand as they watch the sunrise together. And maybe she does not water dance anymore, but, when she brushes her lips against his knuckles, this wicked gleam still burns in her eyes.

He loves her. The best he can. And as it seems to be enough for her - well, he trusts her enough to find solace in that.

#gendrya #gendry x arya #gendrya fanfiction #gendrya fic #gendrya au #got fanfiction #asoiaf fanficiton

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iloveyoulikekatsudon · 7 years

Text

as promised, here’s that YOI Pacific Rim AU

Read it here on ao3! (http://archiveofourown.org/works/12578480/chapters/28650268)

Yuuri is eight years old when the first Kaiju sprung out of the ocean and breached the surface of the Earth.

It is during a school break that he and his family visit Tokyo for the first time, and Yuuri admires everything he sees with undisguised wonder. They stay by the coast after lunch, and it’s when their mom and dad leave him and Mari to go inside a nearby store that Yuuri notices something odd.

There’s a black thing swimming in the ocean.

He sees it with his own eyes as he stands by the sidewalk with an overlooking view of Tokyo bay, and the movement of something rising from the water gets his attention. It looks harmless enough from a distance, nothing more than a disfigured lump that keeps on inching closer to the shore. Yuuri blinks in curiosity and tugs at his sister’s sleeve.

“Mari-nee-san,” Yuuri says, eyes fixed on the figure that swims steadily towards the beach, getting larger as it gets close, “Mari-nee-san, are there sea monsters in Tokyo?”

It’s his first time in the city and Yuuri doesn’t know any better.

Mari frowns down at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Look, right there.”

His big sister turns to look at what he’s pointing and goes deathly still, her face suddenly draining of color. Later, Yuuri will come to know that this is what fear looks like when it’s reflected in his sister’s expression.

“Yuuri, hold my hand.”

“What? Why—“

“Just do what I say,” Mari snaps. Yuuri does as he’s told, wincing when his sister’s nails dig sharply into his skin.

“Okaa-san,” Mari calls as the people around them slowly discover the looming shadow that casts a spreading darkness over the bay. “Okaa-san!” Mari calls again. The ground shakes as if it’s coming alive out of sheer terror and Yuuri feels the tremors of the earth underneath his feet. People start stumbling away from the sea.

“Okaa-san!” Mari screams.

Yuuri turns back to the shore and loses his breath.

The monster has grown big—bigger than any other creature had the right to be, with a mutated face Yuuri can’t tear his gaze away from. When the monster takes its first step on dry land, the ground shatters, crumbling into dust as the thing releases a bellow that rings deep within Yuuri’s bones. Suddenly, there are screams everywhere, and Yuuri’s world explodes into deafening roars and chaos. Salt water rolls like a tidal wave toward them, crashing into people, drowning out their gasps for help.

“Don’t let go of me!” Mari yells at him. A ball of cold nausea quickly forms in his gut as Mari harshly pulls him by the wrist and begins running.

“Wait!” Yuuri says helplessly as Mari drags him away and he almost makes them both fall when he turns back to the store his parents had entered earlier. He can taste his heartbeat in his throat. “Nee-san, we can’t—Mom and Dad are still—!”

“I know!” Mari shouts. Her voice breaks with emotion. “Yuuri, we’ll find them, okay? Now run!”

Yuuri trips twice and sprains his ankle but not once does Mari’s painful grip loosen—not when Mari herself skins both of her knees when she stumbles on the gaping cracks of the road, not when a deep gash in her forehead bleeds as she shields Yuuri from the falling debris and makes him duck his head low, not when the terrified people threaten to shove them apart and bury them alive in the stampede.

Not even when Tokyo falls into ruins around them.

It’s Yuuri’s first time in the city. Later, he will realize it will also be his last.

Later, he and Mari will find their parents frantically screaming their names in the sea of lost people looking for their loved ones. Later, they will get out of Tokyo bleeding and scarred but alive, buried in their father’s worried arms and their mother’s relieved sobs echoing in their ears as the authorities send them back to Hasetsu, and their parents will have no plans to ever leave their hometown again.

Later, Yuuri will stare hollowly at his bandaged foot, recalling the sickening crunch of bone against asphalt. He will realize it didn’t come from him—instead, it belonged to the man who had stumbled and shrieked by his far left in the midst of the panic, and was crushed underneath the claw of the behemoth.

Later, Yuuri will discover he can no longer stomach the scent of the sea without hyperventilating. He will come to know that this is what fear feels like when it has solidified in his very being.

Later, Yuuri will still be latching on to his sister’s hand and Mari will forever be unwilling to let go of his.

Later, Yuuri will realize that witnessing death is how soldiers are born.

The people call the monster Kaiju.

Japan mourns the ones they’ve lost as the rest of the world calls it a tragedy, an unfortunate accident involving a freak of nature. It takes months before Tokyo can rebuild itself back to its former glory but the Japanese are nothing if not patient and resilient.

The incident leaves its mark in Japan’s history, and the people slowly learn to move on from it.

Until six months later, it happens again in San Francisco.

And again in Manila.

And again and again and again.

And the world stops calling it an accident and starts fighting back.

Yuuri is twelve when he first hears the word Jaeger.

He stares at the television screen, watching the news report with bated breath as it features a gigantic robot beating a 300 feet Kaiju into the ground. To this day, the sight of a Kaiju still chills Yuuri down to the bone. He swallows with difficulty, clenching his fists in his lap so they won’t tremble, and worries for the robot. All around them, the city’s buildings look fake, like miniatures made of paper and aluminium foil instead of glass and concrete as they crumple and break during the course of the brawl.

“Delta Specter!” Someone gasps and Yuuri glances up to see Yuuko plopping down to sit next to him, her eyes already glued to the screen. “Wow,” Yuuko breathes in awe, “I’ve never seen it in action before.”

“Delta Specter?” Yuuri repeats, looking back at the TV. The robot has a choke hold on the Kaiju, its grip unbreakable even as the reptilian horror thrashes around violently and opens its jaws to bare its fangs.

“Yeah,” Yuuko says, nodding with fervor, “it’s one of the first Jaeger models they’ve designed! There’s Scarlet Rogue and Thunder Luna and—oh! Did you know Delta Specter holds the highest record of Kaiju kills? They’re amazing!”

Yuuri watches as the robot—the Jaeger—jerks its arm to the side and audibly snaps the Kaiju’s neck, letting it drop boneless and dead on the wreckage. The resulting crash is loud, echoing in the dining room of the onsen even with the TV’s volume turned down, and onscreen, it sends an explosion of smoke and dust to rise from the ruins.

And just like that, the fight is over.

In all of his life, Yuuri has never seen something so unexplainably terrifying and beautiful at the same time.

The camera cuts off to an interview of a young man in a metallic suit, a ponytail of silver hair swaying behind him as he keeps a helmet tucked under one arm. “We received the distress signal at 0800 hours,” the man says in English and even when he doesn’t understand the words, Yuuri notes the smoothness of his voice, boyish still and not unlike Yuuri’s own, but tinged with an accent Yuuri can’t name. “Yakov and I were the first ones to be deployed on the miracle mile.”

“Who’s that?” Yuuri asks under his breath, refusing to look away from the screen.

“That’s Victor Nikiforov,” Yuuko whispers back, just as quiet, and Yuuri can almost note the smile of amazement in her voice. “They say he’s the youngest Jaeger pilot in history.”

“Really?” Yuuri exhales, eyes wide and entranced. “That’s incredible.”

“Mr. Nikiforov,” the reporter says in English, “you have just successfully defeated another Category III Kaiju, codename Reckoner. This marks Delta Specter’s sixth Kaiju kill. Can you tell us what you’re feeling right now?”

Victor Nikiforov gives a soft laugh, shaking his head, and Yuuri takes note of the way long eyelashes flutter delicately as Victor Nikiforov blinks on the screen. “Terrified,” Victor answers with a grin. The reporter makes a noise of shock, and Victor smiles even wider. “Absolutely terrified.”

Yuuri’s breath escapes him in a slow sigh. Next to him, Yuuko gives an empathic hum and says, “He’s beautiful, isn’t he, Yuuri-kun?”

There’s a moment of silence as Yuuri studies the face displayed on the screen, taking in the sharp slope of Victor Nikiforov’s nose, the soft curve of his jaw, and his blue, blue eyes, as clear as the morning sky, without any trace of fear whatsoever.

“He is,” Yuuri says finally. He smiles a little, and marvels at the way his heart beats steady in his chest for once, despite having just watched a Kaiju attack. “He really is.”

Yuuri proceeds to spend the rest of his days following the battles of Delta Specter on the news and watching with unwavering loyalty every single interview of Victor Nikiforov, desperately trying to learn English in between so he can finally understand the foreign words coming out of Victor’s mouth.

His parents note his sudden interest in the news—more importantly, his lack of anxious fear at the sight of Kaiju rampages.

“I’m getting better,” Yuuri says simply when his father asks and smiles when his mother worries. “I promise, I’m okay.”

It goes on for months and months until Mari joins him in the dining room one night, sitting beside him as he watches a talk show with Victor as the guest interviewee, and Yuuri smiles as he carefully deciphers broken fragments of Victor’s answers.

“Victor Nikiforov,” Yuuri introduces the man to his sister distractedly, and misses the sound of acknowledgement Mari makes. “He’s Russia’s hero and the youngest person to ever pilot a Jaeger.”

“I see,” Mari says.

“He has a record of eight Kaiju kills now.”

“That’s impressive.”

“It is,” Yuuri sighs wistfully, and the conversation dies away as the two of them watch the rest of the show in silence. When the show cuts to a commercial, Yuuri turns to smile at his sister. He pauses at the look Mari gives him.

Yuuri blinks. “What?”

“Yuuri,” Mari begins in a careful tone, “you know what they do is dangerous, right?”

“I—,” Yuuri takes a hesitant breath, and then nods in confusion. “I know.”

“And you know I’m here for you, don’t you?”

“O-Of course, Mari-nee-san.”

“Okay.” Mari drops her eyes to the floor between them for a moment. “As long as you know,” She says, glancing up to look at Yuuri straight in the eyes, as if she knows something Yuuri doesn’t. Mari stands up before Yuuri can say anything else. “That’s all. Good night, otouto.”

“Good night,” Yuuri calls out reluctantly, staring at his sister’s retreating back, “nee-san.”

Yuuri is still twelve when the Mark-2 Jaegers are launched.

He is fourteen when the Peru and Alaska Shatterdomes are established and during the same year, the news covers Victor Nikiforov’s sudden decision to cut his hair short. Victor looks different with short hair, Yuuri notes when he watches the news. He looks older; his jaw is sharper, more defined, his cheeks have lost their softness, and his eyes—Yuuri is concerned to see—are more tired.

He is fifteen when rumors of developing Mark-3 Jaegers are spreading. The news reports the death of Alexei Vasiliev, Victor’s second co-pilot, who passed away after being diagnosed with stage four brain cancer only three months ago. Victor gives a short eulogy about his partner, voice so soft and vulnerable as he speaks that it reminds Yuuri of a younger version of Victor, three years ago. Yuuri cries over it for days. Another Shatterdome is established in Australia. Not months later, Victor takes on another co-pilot and a new Jaeger.

Yuuri is sixteen when Japan opens the Tokyo Shatterdome and begins to recruit rangers. The news does a feature about the Jaeger Academy in the US and Yuuri hears over dinner that new slots have been opened for interested students. It is then that Yuuri understands what his sister had meant.

“Nee-san, I want to be a Jaeger pilot.”

In the open area of the hot springs, Mari takes a long drag from her cigarette, a cloud of smoke curling out of her mouth as she breathes out. After the attack in Tokyo that left lasting scars on both of them, Mari had taken up smoking—that, and taekwondo. Yuuri doesn’t understand how either of those help her cope but he isn’t about to question her. After all, he’s the one who spent years terrified of the ocean and avoiding any news of Kaiju attacks, only to follow them now for months as he obsessed over a certain Jaeger pilot.

Mari doesn’t look at him—not yet, at least. Her movements are slow and sure as she drops the cigarette to the ground and snuffs it under her shoe, and it’s then that she turns to Yuuri with a smile.

“Took you long enough to decide.”

Yuuri is sixteen when he enlists in the Jaeger Academy. Mari is twenty-three.

It takes both of them less than a year to soar through the ranks and dominate the Kwoon Combat Room. The instructors compare notes about them, staring at their battle simulation scores with something akin to fearful wonder. They end up at the top of their respective classes, and the name Katsuki soon spreads like wildfire among the students, whispered in between breaks and in the hallways like an urban legend.

The scores are out—that genius Katsuki aced the exam in Kaiju science again.

Whaaat? I thought Kwoon bushido was Katsuki’s specialty.

Also, have you heard the news? They say Katsuki’s got the highest record of 45 drops-45 Kaiju kills in the simulation.

No way! The last record was 43-40! That’s crazy.

I’m pretty sure it’s true. My buddy Wei Hui was matched against Katsuki in combat class the other day. Poor kid didn’t stand a chance.

Yeah, I bumped into Katsuki in the sleeping quarters last night. She was intimidating as hell. I thought I was gonna die.

…“She”? Katsuki isn’t a chick. He’s the smart dude with the glasses in my Kaiju science class who’s got a really scary face when he fights.

Um, no? Katsuki is the beefy Japanese girl who aces Jaeger engineering in MY class and kicks ass like a motherfucker.

Yuuri is sixteen when he joins the Academy. Mari is twenty-three. The instructors speak of them with respect; the students, with amazement. In response, both of them keep their heads low, their mouths shut, and let the fire in their eyes do the talking.

It isn’t until the final compatibility test held in the Kwoon that everyone puts two and two together as Katsuki Yuuri and Katsuki Mari, siblings set seven years apart, face each other on the mat. There’s a wave of incredulous whispers—what the fuck, man, did you know they were fucking related—but as the fightmaster signals for them to take their positions, both Yuuri and Mari assume the fighting stance.

The murmurs die down into complete silence.

The thing about drifting in a Jaeger is that everyone can do it with almost anyone else. But it’s the trust between the pilots and the bond they share that strengthens the compatibility, makes it impossible to break the neural connection even under the most extreme circumstances.

Yuuri remembers how the instructor compared drift compatibility to the ability to hold someone’s hand—how it takes immense courage to reach out, how it takes a dose of confidence to keep one’s grip strong but delicate finesse to prevent yourself from crushing your partner’s hand and overwhelming them.

How it takes an infinite amount of trust to keep holding on.

Yuuri remembers the Kaiju attack in Tokyo like it happened just yesterday. He remembers the way Mari made him hold her hand, the way her fingers closed surely around his. He remembers how terrified he had been, running blindly within the chaos, but Mari’s grip on him never faltered.

In front of him, Mari smiles, just a little, and Yuuri sees the teasing glee in his sister’s face.

Yuuri grins and takes a deep breath.

Mari-nee-san, he thinks, there’s no one I trust more than you.

And Yuuri strikes.

Later, their scores will be 3-4, in Mari’s favor, and Mari will be smug about it for the years to come but more importantly, they are drift compatible, and they leave the Academy as certified Jaeger pilots.

They get stationed at the Tokyo Shatterdome under Marshal Okukawa Minako. As soon as they arrive on the base, it’s all Yuuri can do not to drop his mask of professionalism and bounce on his toes like a giddy schoolboy at the sight of his wildest dreams turning into reality before his very eyes. It’s there that they see their Jaeger for the first time, a magnificent Mark-3 model made of iron and a double-core nuclear reactor. It’s built very differently compared to Delta Specter—where Delta is heavy and intimidating in its bulk, the Jaeger standing before Yuuri is designed to be lighter, sleeker, metal flowing smoothly over curves and ending in sharp joints. It’s painted a striking shade of blue, like the ocean during a calm day, with greys coloring the inner armor plates.

Next to him, Mari smiles and shakes her head fondly, turning to address the Jaeger-Tech Chief in her accented English. “What’s it called?”

“We haven’t named her yet,” The blond Swiss man who introduced himself as Christophe Giacometti says, throwing in a wink charming enough to make Mari let her guard down a little, “I’d like your opinions on what to call her, actually.”

“What do you say, Yuuri?” Mari glances at her brother, who is still busy marvelling at the Jaeger, and smirks. “Should we just call it Victor?”

Yuuri swivels his head back down, mortified. “Nee-san!”

“Nikiforov?” Christophe barks out a surprised laugh, and Yuuri’s face explodes tomato red. “My, my. Someone has a crush. He’s an old friend of mine, you know? I could set you up, get you to meet him—”

“It’s admiration,” Yuuri forces out, sounding gravely serious despite the color that rests high on his cheeks. “I respect him a lot. And yes, I want to name it after him. Victory,” Yuuri suggests, turning to look at their reaction. “Victory Riser.”

Mari hums in consideration.

“Victory Riser,” Christophe repeats, testing the words on his tongue, and grins wide. “Sounds like a champion.”

The first time they get deployed to a handle a Kaiju—codename Hageshī—it’s to one of the biggest Category III’s that has ever been recorded. Standing at 375 feet and weighing 2,500 tons, Hageshī is only 30 miles away from reaching the bay and wreaking havoc within the city. Yuuri is nineteen and terrified out of his wits, his thoughts going haywire in his head as he and Mari trudge their way deeper into Tokyo’s ocean territory. There’s static noise filling his mind, a chorus of what if what if what if playing on repeat.

Mari spares him a quick glance. “Stop thinking,” She tuts at him, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as Victory Riser steadily marches forward despite the current that fights against them. “You’re screaming in my head.”

“Can’t help it,” Yuuri grits out. His limbs move on autopilot, completely in-sync with his sister’s but his brain is a different matter. They’re 10 miles away from the Kaiju. It’s even more menacing up close, with its violent thrashing and ear-splitting shrieks, and when it swerves around to face the Jaeger, Yuuri’s heart stops in a false heart attack. “Nee-san, what happens if we can’t contain it?”

The Kaiju lets out a horrible scream as it sees them and charges, rapidly closing the distance. Yuuri remembers how it felt to be 8 years-old and frozen in fear. Hageshī gets 9 miles away, 8 miles away, 6 miles away—

Mari swears under her breath, grimacing. “We will, Yuuri. Now, focus—“

5 miles away.

“What if we don’t? What if it reaches the city? What if—”

“I said focus—“

4 miles.

Yuuri chokes around a gasp of panic. “What if—“

Yuuri, his sister’s voice rings crystal clear in his head, and it shuts him up. For a deafening moment, all he could hear is a heartbeat, drumming slow and rhythmic in tandem with his racing one, and then Mari says, trust me. We can do this. She takes a deep breath and Yuuri’s lungs stutter in reflex, sucking in air. They breathe out at the same time. “Yuuri, we can do this.”

The Kaiju is 3 miles away. 2 miles. 1 mile—

The Jaeger breaks into a run. Yuuri pulls back his arm and so does Mari, and the Jaeger follows like a puppet, iron limbs drawn taut with tension. Mari jumps, and Yuuri feels his legs tighten as they leap into the air, diving headfirst towards the monstrosity that bares its glowing fangs at them.

“We can do this.”

Yuuri swallows his breath, closes his eyes shut, and slams his fist down.

The fight is over before they realize it.

“Yuuri, Yuuri, wait.”

Yuuri is holding up Hageshī by its thick neck, jaws clenched as he empties the clip of their left cannon into the Kaiju’s torso, when Mari slows her movements and lets their left arm drop. He turns to her in question, all ragged breaths and drenched in sweat in his body suit. It has taken them painfully long moments before they were able to pummel the Kaiju into surrender; Yuuri’s not about to stop now and risk it thrashing around again. There’s a phantom sting of a bite on his forearm where the Kaiju had bitten the Jaeger and Yuuri ignores it in favor of looking at his sister. “What?”

“I think it’s dead,” Mari says, sighing in relief. She looks as drained as he feels, sweat clinging to her forehead.

“You think?” Yuuri frowns, inspecting the unmoving Kaiju in their grip. “Shouldn’t we make sure?”

Mari looks at him in surprise and snorts, quiet at first, and then it builds into full-blown body laughter. “Yuuri,” She snickers, “you’re literally holding the decapitated head.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, and then balks. “OH.”

He takes notice of the blue Kaiju blood dripping from underneath the detached neck he’s holding and makes a face, dropping it back to the water with a disgusted shudder that Mari feels through the neural connection. It makes her laugh even more until she’s wheezing and out of breath and the combined relief and happiness wells up in Yuuri’s chest, incredible and overwhelming.

Soon, he’s laughing as well, voice high and just the slightest bit hysterical. He can feel tears burning behind his eyes. “We killed a Kaiju,” Yuuri manages in between croaks of laughter. “We killed a Kaiju, what the fuck.”

“I know, holy shit,” Mari gasps, and that makes them crack up again.

They laugh and laugh and laugh, bending in half and clutching their stomachs, happy and banged up and shaken to the core. When Christophe’s voice bursts out of the comms, asking them whether they’re alright, neither of them can break out of giggling long enough to give a coherent reply. Minako orders them to get back to the Shatterdome for a psych evaluation, post-haste. Mari and Yuuri simply laugh harder.

Later, after Mari has given their statement on the attack, the reporter holds the mic to Yuuri’s direction and says, “This is Victory Riser’s first successful Kaiju kill. Can you tell us what you’re feeling right now, Katsuki-san?”

The question takes him aback, leads him to a comforting sort of déjà vu. Years before, Yuuri had been a younger boy watching a news report in repeat, staring in awe as Russia’s legendary hero answered a similar question with a smile. Now he’s the one standing before a camera that’s probably recording a live newsfeed, being asked what he feels after defeating a 375 feet tall monster while piloting a ridiculously huge killing machine. Everything feels surreal.

I feel like crying, Yuuri wants to say. I feel hysterical. His knees are creaking ominously from the shock, threatening to buckle under his weight. There’s a tremor to his hands that resemble small earthquakes. He feels alive, very much alive, to his disbelief.

He glances at his sister shortly, looking for an answer, and Mari gives him a smile that’s thin and breaking at the edges. She looks as if the reality of what they had done has just dawned to her. Distantly, Yuuri thinks he understands Victor’s answer from all those years ago.

“Er, Katsuki-san?” The reporter repeats after a moment of his silence. “C-Can you tell us how you feel right now?”

“Terrified,” Yuuri answers with a smile, and laughs softly when the reporter stares at him in confusion. “I’ve never been this scared before in my whole life.”

Yuuri is nineteen when Victory Riser kills its first Kaiju. The city of Tokyo hails its new champions and the Katsuki siblings become some sort of celebrities as the pioneers of Tokyo Shatterdome. That year, the Academy receives an influx of Japanese candidates hoping to be Jaeger pilots. Marshal Okukawa is pleased enough that she gives them the biggest sleeping quarters in the Shatterdome.

He is twenty when they reach their fifth kill. The Shatterdome becomes their permanent residence as the attacks grow frequent by the month; both of them agree that it’s much better for everyone if they stay near just in case, and they find themselves in a whirlwind of activities as they split their time doing interviews, facilitating the training of rookies, visiting Hasetsu, and getting deployed into combat. Christophe becomes just Chris to them and he keeps on flirting still, with either Mari or Yuuri. Turns out, Chris isn’t picky with his partners. Marshal Okukawa slowly becomes Minako-sensei.

Yuuri is twenty-one and Tokyo remains unbreached for the longest time. Victory Riser has eight kills under its belt and Japan acknowledges the pair of them as national heroes. The name Katsuki spreads throughout the Pan Pacific countries, and other Shatterdomes begin to call for their aid in urgent times. They get deployed to Seoul, to Manila, to San Francisco. Guiltily, Yuuri wishes they would get deployed to Vladivostok, Russia, but no such thing happens.

What does happen to Yuuri, is Minami Kenjiro, a rookie pilot in the Shatterdome who looks younger than he actually is and has taken to following Yuuri around like a puppy. Chris and Mari find it endlessly amusing—Yuuri doesn’t.

He is twenty-two when Victor Nikiforov declares his retirement as a Jaeger pilot. The news breaks Yuuri’s heart, upsets him enough that even Mari can feel the pain in her own chest, and she spends days lingering by Yuuri’s side, worrying for him. Chris makes several attempts to cheer Yuuri up to no avail. During their interview after handling their tenth Kaiju, the reporter asks them of their opinions regarding Victor Nikiforov’s retirement and Yuuri’s hands quiver shamefully.

“Nikiforov-san was a brilliant Jaeger pilot, and he has given his country and his people a great service.” Mari’s statement is short and polite, her expression schooled into neutrality; Yuuri almost envies her composure. “His decision to retire is his to make, and no one else’s.”

When the reporter turns to him, Yuuri only barely manages not to show his dismay. “Victor Nikiforov was my hero,” he admits, so painfully sincere that he stuns the reporter and the camera crew. “It was thanks to him that I was able to overcome my trauma of Kaiju and realize my dream as a Jaeger pilot. I’m happy,” Yuuri says, swallowing past the lump in his throat, “that he can finally rest. The job of a Jaeger pilot is tiring. He’s done more than enough for the world already.”

“A-Ah, I didn’t know Katsuki-san felt this strongly about Nikiforov-san,” the reporter frets after hearing his answer, laughing off the seriousness, and embarrassment makes Yuuri’s ears burn with heat. “It seems like someone has a crush!”

Next to him, Mari bristles with annoyance. “It’s not a crush,” his sister snaps for him. “It’s admiration—“

That’s as far as Mari can speak before Yuuri takes the microphone from the reporter’s hand, much to everyone’s shock. Yuuri breathes calmly despite his nervousness, and tells the reporter, “It’s more than that. What I have for him is respect. Victor Nikiforov,” Yuuri declares, looking directly at the camera lens in a rare moment of confidence, “all that I have done, all the battles I’ve won—I dedicate them to your name. Arigatou gozaimasu!”

The video goes viral, and goes on to have several more copies and links in different websites. Yuuri absolutely refuses to look at a single one of them.

Yuuri is twenty-three and he comes to accept that certain things simply change. Whether the change is for better or for worse is another thing entirely.

For example, Minami Kenjirou finally stopped treating him like an idol, and has started treating him like a mentor figure instead.

Mari has given in to the temptation of flirting back at Chris.

The Anchorage Shatterdome in Alaska is shut down, its Jaegers decommissioned.

Georgi Popovich, a Russian Jaeger pilot, declares his retirement after seven years of service.

Yu-Topia onsen remains the sole onsen in Hasetsu that’s still open for business.

Victor Nikiforov remains retired.

Yuuri is twenty-three when he realizes that change is unavoidable. Whether the change is for better or for worse is another thing entirely.

Yuuri is twenty-three, and the first Category IV comes out of the breach.

“Victory Riser, report to bay 03, level a-12.”

The alarms blare urgently overhead and Katsuki Mari is already halfway out of her bunk before the announcement is even through, movements brisk and alert as if she hadn’t been woken up from sleep. “Yuuri,” she calls as an afterthought, throwing a shoe at the top bunk bed and grinning when she hears a startled yelp. “Wake up, grumpy. We’re being deployed.”

“What?” Yuuri pokes his head out of the covers, squinting angrily at his surroundings. There are dark shadows painted under his eyes, his mouth turned down into a grimace. His hair is sticking in all directions when he finally climbs down from his bed to dress in haste. “But it’s 2 a.m.”

Mari shakes her head as she laces her boots and glances up at her grumbling brother, snorting at Yuuri’s deep scowl. “I don’t think the Kaiju cares much for your beauty sleep, otouto.”

“I’m going to rip it apart,” Yuuri grunts under his breath, sharply looping his belt. “It’s going to regret ever coming out of the breach.”

“Victory Riser, report to bay 03, level a-12,” the alarm sounds again, “Kaiju Codename: Kyodai. Category IV.”

Both Yuuri and Mari freeze.

“Did they,” Mari begins cautiously, frowning at the comms, “…did they just say Category IV?”

“That’s not good,” Yuuri murmurs.

They exchange a fleeting glance and waste no more time getting dressed before they’re out of the door and marching into the launching bays. A flurry of activity greets them as soon as they enter the chamber and at once, Jaeger technicians surround both Yuuri and Mari, attaching metal plating to their body suits and securing the steel spine onto their backs before they’re escorted towards the Jaeger cockpit.

Yuuri takes his position on the left and breathes deep, forcing his muscles to relax against the tension that rests deep within his gut. They’ve fought bigger and fiercer Kaiju before, Yuuri reminds himself as the technicians mess with the control systems behind them. A Category IV should be no different than a slightly more massive Category III Kaiju.

“Stop it,” Mari scolds without skipping a beat, “I can hear you thinking.”

“We’re not even connected yet,” Yuuri protests.

Mari shoots him a look. “Exactly my point,” She deadpans.

The comm in between them bursts into static, interrupting their conversation, just before a deep voice flows out, smooth and suave, “Good morning, sweethearts. How’s my favorite pair of pilots today?”

Yuuri presses the button to reply. “Tired,” he groans.

“Ignore him,” Mari says with a roll of her eyes as Chris’s laughter rings from the speakers. “How are you doing, handsome?”

“Oh, you flatterer,” Chris purrs, “I’m doing good, darling. Had a fantastic time last night.”

Mari grins. “Oh?”

Chris gives a husky chuckle. “Without a doubt.”

“Your date went well, I presume,” Yuuri sighs fondly, shaking his head. “Skip the details, please. I don’t want to know.” Over the years, Chris’s flirting never faltered. It didn’t help that Mari’s now encouraging it, too. Humming in consideration, Yuuri pipes in again, “Come to think of it, Mari-nee-san went on a date last night, too.”

“You don’t say,” Chris drawls out all-too innocently and if possible, Mari’s smile spreads even wider. “Was it a good date, Mari?”

Yuuri makes a face. “Now I really don’t want to know.”

“Oh, it was good,” Mari agrees with a leer. There’s the slightest hint of a pleased flush on her cheeks, as if she’s recalling last night’s events. “It was very good, Chris. Better than yours, even.”

Yuuri stares at her with mild disgust.

“Ooh, I doubt that,” Chris says. “Mine was mind-blowing.”

She glances at Yuuri and gives a high cackle that leaves him confused as to what’s particularly funny. It’s only when Chris laughs alongside her and says ‘darling, don’t make fun of him’ that Yuuri makes the connection.

“Wha—” Yuuri stammers, turning a dangerous shade of red and whirling around to yell at the comms, “Did you sleep with my sister?!”

“That I did,” Chris hums without missing a beat, “She was a very good bed mate, too.”

“You’re too sweet, Chris,” Mari teases just as Yuuri lets a choked noise of mortification.

“Oh, god, no,” Yuuri sputters out. He feels his face drain of color at the same time the back of his neck heats up in embarrassment. “No, no, no. This is not happening. What—You and Chris?! Chris and you—how—what—“

“Don’t be upset, Yuuri,” Chris tells him, “You can have your turn.”

Mari bursts into uncontrollable laughter as Yuuri screeches a mortified and resonating NO!, shaking his head violently.

The hysterics die down immediately as the Marshal enters the control room, and Mari and Yuuri hear the sudden change in Christophe’s demeanor through the comms, the humor of his voice fading as he announces, “Marshal Okukawa is on deck. Engaging the drop now.”

The conn-pod secures and once Marshal Minako gives the signal, the cockpit drops down and fits with the rest of the Jaeger.

“Pilots, this is Marshal Okukawa Minako,” the comm delivers Minako’s voice, as calm and collected as ever, “Prepare for the neural handshake. Starting in 15 seconds.”

“If I see a single mental image of you and Christophe, I’m never climbing inside a Jaeger with you again,” Yuuri warns in an undertone as the countdown begins, and he and Mari switch on the pilot controls.

Mari grins without remorse. “Looks like we’re having an early retirement.”

The neural handshake commences, and Yuuri dives back into the drift with his eyes closed and his pulse steady, welcoming the wash of nostalgia and familiarity with practiced ease. He manages to avoid focusing on any of Mari’s memories from last night, thankfully, and when they finally latch on to each other in the drift, Mari reads Yuuri’s awkwardness and grins. “Don’t be like that, Yuuri. Chris had been the perfect gentleman to me—”

“Stop it,” Yuuri groans. “I really, really don’t want to know, nee-san.”

“Pilots,” Minako reprimands curtly.

It makes both of them fall into combat mode without a word, and the moment of silence is all Minako needs before she commands, “Your orders are to hold the Miracle Mile off Tokyo bay. Kyodai is a Category IV, first one ever, and moves quicker than your usual Kaiju. Keep your eyes peeled and be careful. Do you copy?”

“Copy that, Marshal,” Yuuri answers. At the feeling of distress radiating from the neural bond, he turns to see Mari frowning at the hologram screen in front of them, eyes locked at the red dot that’s glowing insistently near where the Kaiju is.

“Marshal,” Mari says, “there’s still a civilian vessel out in the sea.”

“Katsuki, the city holds over 9 million people,” Minako points out sternly despite the worry clinging to the edge of her tone, “You will not compromise their safety for the lives of 10. Do you understand?”

Mari frowns. “With all due respect, Marshal,” she begins, and next to her, Yuuri pales at his sister’s stream of thoughts, “I don’t think that’s the right—“

Yuuri presses the comms.

“We understand, Marshal,” He says, ignoring Mari’s betrayed glance.

“Yuuri,” Mari snaps.

“Katsuki Yuuri over.” He turns off the comms before things get heated further. Taking a deep breath, Yuuri faces Mari’s scowl and, despite his own uncertainty, says, “We’ll be fine.”

“We’ll be cowards,” Mari mutters. That’s all she says before they start moving.

They march into the open sea in silence with nothing else but the crashing waves rumbling underneath the Jaeger echoing in their ears.

They reach the Miracle Mile when Yuuri breaks the tension between them.

“Mari-nee-san, I can hear your thoughts, you know,” he starts as they march past the 10th mile away from the shore, which has Mari craning her head to frown at him. Yuuri keeps his eyes in front of him. The ocean is restless today, waves stubbornly shoving against the legs of the Jaeger as if to deter them. Yuuri doesn’t believe in premonitions. But there’s something in the way the sea desperately pushes them away that makes him whisper, “It’s a dangerous thing to do”, despite knowing his sister won’t change her mind once she has decided.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Mari argues quietly. She’s got her eyes trained forward, chin up and back straight, ignoring the current unlike Yuuri. “Our job is to protect the people from Kaiju attacks. And that means everyone.”

She glances at the hologram. It shows the Kaiju’s position, only 8 more miles ahead of them. The boat is alarmingly close to it. Mari clenches her teeth. “Even the Marshal knows that.”

“I said it was dangerous.” Yuuri repeats distractedly, scanning the turbulent ocean for any signs of a small boat. He sees it out of the corner of his eye, bobbing in the distance, and changes course. Mari follows him on automatic. “I never said it wasn’t right.”

Mari snorts. “The Marshal won’t be pleased.”

“Minako-sensei is more forgiving of me than you are,” Yuuri answers back.

He tells himself his sister’s grin is worth the risk they’re taking.

They reach the boat just in time, scooping it up from the sea as Kyodai bursts from the surface of the water, letting out a bellow that echoes painfully inside Yuuri’s ears.

Yuuri realizes their mistake too late. The Kaiju isn’t classified as a Category IV for nothing—as it rises to its full height, Kyodai ends up towering over them by a good 50 feet, something even the largest Category III has never managed to accomplish. It chills Yuuri down to his core, his heart dropping like a stone to his gut. By his right, Mari turns ashen grey and loses her breath.

“Shit,” Mari swears, and Yuuri swallows hard in agreement.

Kyodai lunges for them.

It charges forward, jaws wide open and claws bared, and Mari manages to make them dodge the attack by the skin of their teeth in the last minute. They bring up the Jaeger’s fist, hitting the Kaiju in the jaw, and Mari orders Shoot it! at her brother through the neural connection.

“Can’t!” Yuuri yells. “I’m holding the boat!”

“Then fall back!” Mari shouts.

Yuuri forces his legs to move, and Mari jerks with him, the two of them stumbling back hastily until there’s distance between them and the Kaiju. It’s risky, retreating so close to the shore, but it’s the only way the boat will have a chance of escaping safely. They bend down to drop the boat on the next rise of the waves, letting the ocean current carry it away from the fight, and they whirl back around to see Kyodai too big, too close—

Their collarbone explodes in searing agony.

Yuuri grits his teeth and Mari cries out and both of them swing blindly at the Kaiju in outrage. It has its jaws clamping down on the Jaeger’s shoulder with a force strong enough to tear out their entire arm. They punch it once, twice, three times—it doesn’t budge.

Kyodai yanks them forward by its teeth, clawing violently at the Jaeger’s chest. The sting of it resonates like a knife cutting their skin open and fuck, it hurts.

Mari hisses. “Son of a—”

Yuuri buries down a flinch, activates the left cannon, and shoots the monster in the eye.

The Kaiju shrieks in anger.

It releases its bite on them, stumbling back as it shakes its head. There’s glowing blue blood trickling down from Kyodai’s eye. Yuuri and Mari waste no time attacking again.

Yuuri raises their foot up and kicks Kyodai in the stomach.

Mari delivers a quick right hook and then another uppercut to its jaw.

Yuuri brings a fist against the Kaiju’s torso.

Mari pulls it down by the head and bashes it against their knee.

Yuuri shoots it in the mouth when it snarls.

They fall into the same brutal rhythm, fighting in sync, exchanging hasty orders in the drift.

Dodge left.

Right jab, Yuuri—

Duck—

They miss the claw swiping for the Jaeger’s head.

On your right, nee-san—

Got it. Watch out—

They lock their elbows in place when Kyodai charges forward. The Kaiju bears its entire weight against them, leaving Mari and Yuuri straining to shove it back while simultaneously avoiding the Kaiju’s snapping jaws.

I have a plan, on three—

Aim for the head!

Just as Kyodai attempts to bite them again, they step back and let go of it, slamming their hands down on the Kaiju’s head when it pitches forward. It sends Kyodai nose-diving into the water and it lets out a pathetic shriek when Mari kicks it in the face—once, twice, three times—

And again and again and again, until the Kaiju stops moving.

The sea around them falls quiet, tainted a glowing blue from the monster blood. The sudden calmness of the ocean is unnerving.

“I—nee-san,” Yuuri says around a gasp of air, heaving with effort. Their foot dangles in mid-raise just before Mari can kick the Kaiju again. “Nee-san, I think it’s dead.”

Mari inhales slowly, catching her breath as they drop the Jaeger foot back into the ocean and she scrutinizes the unmoving thing in the ocean with a glare. There are bullets of sweat beading in her hairline under the helmet, exhaustion scribbled in her expression. Yuuri knows he has the same chalk-white pallor on his face that matches his sister’s.

“Well,” Mari sighs after a second of nothing bursting out of the ocean to scream hellishly, “we should report back to the Marshal now, shouldn’t we?”

“Agreed,” Yuuri says. He flips the comms online again. “Marshal, this is Katsuki Yuuri speaking. We’ve got Kyodai under control—”

“KATSUKI!”

The comms burst into violent static and high-pitched shrieking, sending both Mari and Yuuri yanking their heads away from the speakers. Marshal Okukawa’s furious shouts ring in their ears.

“What the hell did you just do?” Minako bellows. “Giacometti has a reading of your cannon discharge within the Miracle Mile!”

“The Kaiju was stronger than we thought,” Mari says, not quite lying, “it shoved us back into the coast—“

“Don’t mess with me right now,” Minako snaps. “We see the boat’s location, you can’t lie to me. You disobeyed a direct order! I should have your asses on probation for this!”

“Minako-sensei—,” Yuuri stutters.

“No offense meant, Marshal,” Mari interrupts, giving her brother a reassuring glance, “but we intercepted a Category IV Kaiju and successfully defended Tokyo Bay while saving all those people in the boat. I don’t see what we did wrong.”

“You have to admit, Marshal,” Christophe joins the conversation as Minako gears up to yell again. His voice soft, deliberately careful with his words, “That was a pretty heroic feat they just did.”

There’s silence in the other side of the comms.

Yuuri waits with bated breath, exchanging nervous looks with Mari. His sister’s expression remains neutral but Yuuri can feel her hopefulness through the neural bond.

“We’ll talk after you get back,” Minako finally grounds out. Yuuri sags with relief in his place. He turns to Mari and says through the drift, ‘Thank god Chris is on your side’. Mari’s answering smile is tired and fond. “I want Victory Riser back to the Shatterdome immediately.”

“Yes, sensei,” Yuuri hurries to say. “Thank you. Also, we’re very sorry. Aren’t we, nee-san?”

Mari shrugs. “Sure. We’re sorry, Marshal.”

“Oh, spare me the cute act,” Minako grouches. “Just haul your asses back here.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Neither of them bothers to switch off the comms as they turn away from the unmoving Kaiju and march back to the direction of the Shatterdome. Now that the fight is over, Yuuri can feel how sore his muscles are from the strain, twinging in protest at his every movement. Mari doesn’t seem to be any better judging from the exhausted frown she has.

“The boat’s safe, right?” Mari asks, just to make, and receives a snort.

“Yes, Katsuki,” Minako answers with a heavy sigh, the one that suggests Yuuri and Mari have given her a migraine yet again. “They’re only a mile off the bay now. We’re sending choppers to rescue them.”

Yuuri heaves a breath. “Good to know—”

“Kaiju signature rising!” Chris shouts all of a sudden, breaking the peace that has settled. There’s a distinct panic in his voice that jerks everyone out of their stupor. “Victory Riser, that thing is still alive!”

Mari and Yuuri stumble back to whirl around to where Kyodai is supposed to be.

The Kaiju corpse is gone.

There’s no movement under the ocean aside from the current and the glowing Kaiju blood that’s spreading around the area in a rapid pace. The sea is turning into an unnatural shade of neon blue. “Marshal, we’ve got no sign of it,” Mari says as Yuuri scans the water. “Chris, where’s the signature?”

“It’s closing in towards you!” Christophe warns.

“We can’t see it—“

Something bludgeons the Jaeger’s side and then, there’s a throbbing pain radiating from their torso, knocking the air out of them. Yuuri cries out, clutching his left rib by instinct. Kyodai breaches the ocean surface with a piercing shriek, filling their ears with a bloodcurdling noise, and sprays neon blue acid out of its mouth.

“Katsuki, I want you to get out of there!” Minako orders into the comms, alarmed. “Do you copy? Get out of there now—”

“We can’t!” Mari yells, pressing buttons none too gently in her haste. She grits her teeth. “We need back up!”

Mari aims her cannon at the Kaiju but it grips the weapon with its claw, shoving the cannon to the side as plasma shoots out of it. It uses its other claw to dig into the Jaeger’s chest and Mari winces at the sharp sting it leaves.

“Yuuri!” Mari shouts. “It’s got my arm, you have to shoot it!”

“I’m on it!” Yuuri clenches his jaw and bears the pain, raising his arm shakily. It’s as if everything is happening too fast and they can’t keep up. He aims and shoots at Kyodai, missing its head by a wide fraction and only managing to graze it on the neck. The Kaiju screeches in anger, turning to bite Yuuri’s hand. Mari takes the chance to shoot it in the eye. Kyodai roars, provoked, and whirls around once more.

“Keep going!” Mari yells. “It’s working!”

Yuuri readies his cannon again for a second shot only this time, the Kaiju moves faster, brutally swiping a claw in front of the Jaeger to bash the weapon away. The resulting blow breaks open the hull and the harsh wind sweeps into the exposed cockpit, leaving Kyodai to stare at them from where they are inside the Jaeger.

Yuuri’s heart jumps to his throat.

On the other side, Mari stares up in disbelief, eyes wide with fear. “It broke the hull,” she chokes under her breath, just before she shouts at the comms. “Marshal, it broke the hull!”

Kyodai lets out a deafening bellow.

It sounds all the more terrifying now that they’re no longer enclosed safely inside Victory Riser’s helmet and it sends chills down Yuuri’s spine. What if, Yuuri thinks in cold dread, and for the first time since they started fighting as pilots, Mari’s agreement joins him in the drift. What if we can’t stop it? What if we die fighting?

The Kaiju brings its claw down on them, too strong for Yuuri’s arm to block it, and it hits the open cockpit where Mari is connected to the rest of the Jaeger. Electricity travels down her spine, crackling angrily, as the body suit dents inward, into her back, and Mari’s eyes widen, breath catching—

What if.

Yuuri screams.

“Victory Riser!” Minako barks into the intercom. There’s a solid ball of fear building in her throat and she refuses to choke on it. Her best pilots aren’t dead. They can’t be. “Victory Riser, answer me! I’ve sent the Red Samurai as your back up. ETA, 5 minutes. Do you copy?”

Static leaves her question dangling unanswered in the air. Minako bangs her fist against the desk.

“Do you copy, Victory Riser?”

All around her, the mechanics and technicians have stricken expressions, distraught at the thought of their champions defeated by a Kaiju.

“Marshal,” Giacometti says. When Minako glances down, she can see the heartbreak painted in his eyes. “Marshal, I’ve lost all signatures of them.”

Minako grits her teeth. “The Kaiju?”

“No signatures of it either.”

“Dammit!” Minako slams her hands down once again, and the noise rings hollow inside the HQ. She shuts her eyes and clenches her jaw, forcing down the sinking feeling that’s overtaking her. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. Her pilots are supposed to survive.

“Check in with the Red Samurai,” she tells Giacometti. “Ask them to report back.”

Her chief technician presses the button with a trembling hand. “Red Sam, what’s your status?”

“Minami Kenjirou reporting! We’re three miles off Tokyo Bay.”

“We’ve lost the signatures of Victory Riser and the Kaiju,” Christophe says, “Where are they?”

“Five miles away. We’re too late for the fight, Giacometti-san. Victory Riser is already marching back towards the shore—“

Giacometti’s eyes snap wide open.

There are resounding gasps inside HQ.

“What?” Minako snatches the microphone in shock and demands with desperate hope, “Say that again.”

“Victory Riser is marching towards the shore,” Minami says, confused. “They look okay—whoa, wait, they’re collapsing! Victory Riser is down! I repeat, Victory Riser is—!”

“I want rescue choppers on them right now!” Minako barks out. The headquarters explodes with action, people rushing back and forth to contact the rescue teams. “Giacometti, take care of this. I want my pilots back in one piece—”

“On it,” Christophe says, already out of his seat and running out the door.

Minako takes over his seat and drowns out the noise of her technicians, willing her heartbeat to slow. There’s a tell-tale sting at the back of her eyes that she won’t acknowledge. The Katsuki’s are alive. That’s all that matters right now. “Red Samurai, I want you to check on Kyodai. Make sure that thing’s dead. Keep us posted.”

“Copy that, Marshal. Minami Kenjirou over!”

If asked about it in the years to come, all Yuuri will be able to remember is the pain—the burning sensation inside his skull, as if his brain is being fried by electricity, and the white hot feeling of being split apart.

He doesn’t remember how he managed to kill Kyodai.

Nor does he remember how he had the strength to pilot Victory Riser alone.

What he does recall is Mari, lying on her back on the wreckage of their cockpit, breathing shallowly and reaching a weak hand out to him. “Yuuri,” Mari murmurs and it’s all that takes for Yuuri to crawl towards her, collapsing by her side.

“Yuuri,” Mari says. Her helmet is broken like his, revealing a deep forehead wound and unfocused eyes. There’s blood pooling around her. “Otouto…you’re not supposed to pilot a Jaeger alone.” She reaches to touch Yuuri’s face feebly, and her fingers come back stained crimson. “Your nose...”

“Don’t care,” Yuuri croaks out. His lungs feel like they’ve been set on fire. He grabs her hand, intertwining their fingers together clumsily, and tries to blink away the tears that are threatening to spill out of his eyes. “Hold on, nee-san. You’ll be okay. They’ll find us soon.”

“Can’t feel my legs,” Mari coughs. She draws in a breath, wheezing, and her eyes flutter shut. “I can’t feel anything, Yuuri…”

“You’re going to be okay. We’re going…going to make it out of here, I promise. Just hold on.” He clings to her hand as his vision darkens. “Please hold on.”

Mari coughs again, and this time, a little bit of blood comes spilling out of her lips. “…don’t know if I can.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t let go of me, nee-san,” Yuuri begs.

He feels her grip slipping and it scares him to death. Everything is turning hazy. For a moment, Yuuri thinks he can imagine Christophe’s voice calling out for them, but that might just be a hallucination, like how everything keeps spinning no matter where Yuuri looks. He feels lightheaded, all of a sudden.

“…still bleeding…” Mari murmurs. Her hand twitches inside Yuuri’s grip. “…you’re still bleeding.”

Yuuri blinks, slow, slow, slow, and the world loses color.

“Don’t let go of me,” Yuuri whispers as his eyes fall halfway closed. The taste of blood is on his tongue. “Don’t let go of me, nee-san.”

Mari lets out a wounded noise, choking out his name. “Yuuri…n-no—”

Everything fades to black.

#yoi #yoi fic #Pacific Rim AU #victuuri #yuuri katsuki #victor nikiforov #mari katsuki #christophe giacometti #yuri on ice

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nicksstoryvault · 5 years

Photo

"Ingcuka..."

It was a mantra of childish reverence in Xshoa; incessant echoes of free spirits that were not diminished by obstructors of resistance. A harbor of anchoring serenity that silted him to contentment against torturous apparitions that had ravaged his destabilized—amnesic mind.

There was no lightning raid cruelly penetrating through his bones, soldering into the fabric of his dismantled soul by the possessive command of Zola's stubby hand. Resting on a makeshift heap of cushions within the straw hut, Bucky consciously embraced the exhilarative—feminine warmth that dreamily melded against heavy-corded muscle planes of his board chest. Naked heat felt elatedly galvanic against the tactile—ardent surge of bodily contrast that he was hijacked into as she intimately clung to the mirrored stillness of his bulked mass. The sirenic pulse of her was riotously chasing his veins with beckoning heat that evoked unslaked desire to ride viscerally through him.

Being tantalizingly aware of the sleek, delicate planes of her garbed back, Bucky eased the slack heaviness of his stubbled jaw a breadth off her freckled shoulder, the prow of his nose caressingly grazed over silken mahogany, sleep-tousled and draped alluringly over the bunched cushion under them. Just the reality of her curvaceous body melded against him felt addictive-indescribable that he didn't want to attempt to shift closer to the breaching scones of morning light.

The delish scent of coconut rice and vanilla cakes rousingly wafted out of the pottery bowls that had been generously placed inside of weaved baskets that he utilized for stowing his discarded clothing. The archaic traditions of the Border Tribe were reserved to honor the ancestors; herding furry pygmy goats in the fenced pastures that girded the serene vistas of the hamlet was a cyclic ritual that Bucky readily adapted to while discovering the sheer essence of Wakanda mountainous outposts. It was a sanctuary for his dysphoric-traumatized spirit to tread back onto a road of salvation.

"Never thought I could feel this at peace," he murmured as he nuzzled the warmth of her creamy skin along her neck. There was a comfortable silence that lingered in the faintly lit sanctuary of his lowly hut. The outside world couldn't breach the interior with its cruel talons and ensnare them with misery. He lived a solitary life that was a far-cry from the chaotic existence that came before. A life of penance and quietness that was only disturbed by the daily routine of entertaining the village children and tending the live-stock animals. It helped to heal a part of his soul, but if it weren't for the beautiful woman in his arms, he wouldn't have a life-a soul to heal. "This..free." He took in the scent of her lavender fragrance in her hair and felt it soothe his nerves. "Wish you could come by more often. It gets harder each time to see you go, Selina."

The fevered drag of breath intensified over the supple curve of her shoulder, jetted fire beneath her pearlescent skin razed as she felt the possessive-cool flex of his robotic-metallic hand bracketing her forearm in a grounded wake-the intimate fusion that clambered with every cushioning -heated pulse of his shapely-wide lips branding her flesh archly with sensuous pressure. Sleepily in ardent response, her lithe fingers blindly kneaded through his unkempt brunette tresses, beckoning him to stay down with her-just for another-joined moment. "It does get dull around here, Barnes," she murmured huskily, not lifting her cheek off the cushion. "I'll stay longer if you want..."

He instinctively tightened his arms around her, brushing a soft kiss against her neck. "Careful darlin', I just might ask you to stay forever." He felt himself burn with heat at the thought as his trail of kisses led him to her freckled shoulder. 'I wish you would stay forever,' the words went unspoken as they lingered in his mind. He felt they were selfish and unfair for him to say. Selina for so long lived an elusive life of freedom and independence in the world and the last thing he wanted was for her to give up what made her happy. But it didn't mean he wouldn't stop hoping for the day she would. "As for it getting dull, I could always ask Shuri to install that Netflix everyone is so crazy about." He chuckled against her shoulder as she looked at him with an arched eyebrow.

Kittenishly against a deviant smirk that quirked her lips, Selina turned her neck with a painstaking arch, intently fixing the dark coffee of her irises over the ghosting caress of his cybertronic palm leaving phantom heat enticingly over the curvaceous planes of her abdomen with reverent delicately steered in his altered ministrations with each conscious-steeled flex; cradling the sleek firmness of her curve as sensual tension was accelerating with bone-driven, unrelenting fervor. In a fluid effort of practiced accord off the cushions, the delectable swells of her ample breasts exquisitely pillowed over the sheathed ridges of heavy muscle thickened over his bare chest.

In that irresistible stillness, Bucky felt his lips stretching up with a kissably variant play of boyish radiance, he was deeply conscious of the rapturous need-the sense of intimate relevance-that drove his heart beyond grounded measures. A delicate graze of his splaying fingers became feather-light over her bare-toned shoulders, tentatively edging to lift up the straps of her black camisole hugging over her supple-voluptuous curves. Drowsiness receded into an unslaked thrall of virile resilence, the solidity of his powerful body that made evocative heat grew increasingly palpable between them.

A subtle pulse of desirous allure as Bucky kept his bulked weight braced on his mirrored forearms of unerring balance over her svelte form, the telltale hardening of his enhanced muscles intimidatingly careened her ignited senses within a tumultuous battle that she couldn't wage against.

Their visceral dynamic was burningly fused in headier sync of addictive cadence. She caught the glacial coolness of his darkening irises flittingly against heavy lashes-that sudden raw intensity arced with her rampant pulse. "Giving a girl an offer that she can't refuse, handsome..." Selina teasingly quipped, her thready undertone subtly muffled against the banded- tautness of his corded flesh, as the sliding pressure-lushness of her voluminous lips against his chest temptingly stoked fringes of an ephemeral paralytic to implode through his veins. "You might have to do better than that..."

"Oh I have a few ideas. Give me another night, and we'll see if I can convince you." He grinned wolfishly while cupping the softness of her cheek. He coaxed her towards him and slowly pressed the fullness of his lips against hers in a warm kiss. It was slow and languid, and then it became another, much headier than the last. Her cool minty breath sent pleasant chills across his skin and he fought the urge to take things further. A soft chuckle escaped him as their foreheads touched and they gazed at each other through lidded eyes. "How's that for a start?" He teased brushing a curly lock from her mascara-painted eyes that made him feel like melted butter with her gaze.

Before Selina could snarkily answer him, the vibrating pulse of her iPhone X, expectingly grappled her from the rush of suffusing desire; with a deft swipe of her lithe hand, she unnervingly reached for the mobile device that was placed on a metallic footlocker, eluding the dismal cast nakedly patent in Bucky's aquamarine irises that readily ached for the inevitable -derailed moment as she fleetingly glanced on the alerted text screen in her contacts.

Obviously, the rarefied client had eagerly accepted her required terms of the arrangement by a blackspot tip-off-a big score of dangerous-high stakes penetration of her stealth caliber and encryption code breaking. The Black Market quarters had converged War Dog extensions of a stockpiled arsenal; certain Russian zealots had bolstered their shopping list-targeting uncontainable viruses to sire a new game of warfare. She couldn't pass this infiltration job up. "Looks like another score has priced my talents," she whispered out sultrily, typing back an immediate reply."Don't worry, handsome, I'll be packing light..."

"...Just stay sharp out there, darlin'." Bucky had just barely managed to mask the disappointment he felt that she would be leaving soon. He expected it as much, but it was never an easy feeling. The smile on his face was encouraging but the light that diminished in his eyes was telling enough to her. "In and out, no sight-seein' and no one will see you comin'." Together they rose up to their feet. Bucky adjusted his shuka before flexes his shoulders while Selina began collecting her things and placing them into her duffle-bag.

For a moment he watched her with silence while contemplating the thought of just following her out to wherever the work took her. It was a risk to his anonymity since the UN was still after him, but the consequences were the last thing on his mind as the ache in his chest intensified as she finished getting dressed.

"You know if you need me out there, I'm just a phone call away. Right?" He asked with a hopeful look. He could never shake the fear that one day someone might discover their relationship and use her to get to him. Or that she might one day take a job too dangerous for her to handle and he would be too far away to help her.

With his rugged hawkish features revealingly poised on lethal edge, with cool reserve Selina knowingly watched invincible resistance delineated the bestial smoothness of his curved bicep sheathed by frayed material of his gray shuka garment that was bequeathed by Border tribe's generous elders; apparent to the furrowing pinch of his tense brow; Bucky stubbornly gnawed on underswell of his pouty lip that jutted slightly, as he took an involuntary half-step back in contrast of stilted reluctance.

Everything felt torturously deactivated against the inevitable onslaught of rivaled distance. The maddening echoes of the outside world grew utterly incessant, as Bucky unabashedly released a long-drawn breath, without the errant attempt to fiercely cage his enhanced-muscled strength over her-a raging variant of desperation shockingly propelled him into a headlong maelstrom of unwarranted heartache; he staved back a blearing rush of unshed tears, resolving his steeled vision with tactful reverence. Last night he fully engaged the battleground of passion with her, unrelentingly fueled by breakneck abandon and escalating heat. Those ignitable-boneless hours were unsated by liquid ecstasy.

Lifting her dainty palm her up, Selina's fingers curled over the bristled swatch of his hard-edge cheek, as his steel-aquamarine depths stormily banked with coaxing heat, while he leashed up the unquenchable urge to breathlessly capture her kiss-swollen lips that were sheening for his bruising-decadent pressure. There would another daybreak for them soon. As his steel-aquamarine irises captured the sconces of the morning, Bucky felt a tenor of urgency quaking his control, he couldn't let her slip away-not again.

With gentled ease of chaste delicacy to capture her pulse, against heavy-lidden depths, Bucky angled his head down, lengthy chestnut tresses feathered the cool satin of her rose-flushed cheek in feverish contrast and possessive thrust his shapely lips to fuse a throbbing stretch as the rushing pressure of the kiss blindingly dragged them back into a dueling thrall of greater fervency.

A visage of a throaty growl was roughly caught against the heated intensity of their sliding lips. Through each shivery rapt of breath ghosting down his throat, Bucky felt her urge of distance in that sudden revelation of detachment. Underlying rawness struck him deep as he finally eased his lips with a swift release before the steel bands of muscle in his sculpted arm braced her against him as her palm slipped off his thickened nape with a reluctant flex. "It will be a quick dance, handsome..." she raspily purred and vanished without a trace against the morning light.

In that arrowing wake of uncertainty, with a fierce thrust of his cybernetic hand, Bucky gripped onto the draped blanket half-slung over the hut's entrance, fighting against the racking emptiness. Doing his utmost to keep a torrent of aggression reined down, he nonchalantly strode outside, bare-foot, relishing the contrast of grass brushing against his toes while advancing closer to the village's bordering lake. Catching a breathy sob racking up his throat, Bucky grimacingly clenched his stubbled jaw and flashed his aquamarine irises stormily with laser-edge intensity, veering onto a massively obese creature-a hippo- sluggishly thrashing in the water for a morning cool-off against the sweltering rise of humidity.

"Now that's a lot of packaging..." he staunchly uttered in graveled timbre, watching dark blubbered-leathery flab disgustingly roll with every movement. "Yeah, that's a sight I kinda don't want to wake up to..."

Since arriving in Wakanda, he had come across a myriad of different animals native to the region, and some of which he never fathomed existing like the Warthos; a hybrid of a pig and dog. It was an endangered species kept sheltered in the Wakandan jungles away from the rest of the world. Bucky never thought much of animals, aside from wanting a pet bulldog during his very early years to brave the streets of Brooklyn. Wakanda had shown him that the animals themselves were attuned with the land and its people, some identifying with them as their spirit-animals. The Hippo was one he rarely saw, and he began to suspect why as the bloated creature lazily rolled in the muck after snacking on a patch of grass nearby.

"Life must be easy for you, pal. Worry about nothin' except for your next meal. If things could only be as smooth for us humans, this world might actually be a better place." He mused thoughtfully. He was in for an odd surprise as the Hippo shifted his absent gaze onto him and stared at him. It wasn't a passing glance of a curious animal, it was the deep intent that one would suspect from an intelligent creature assessing another. Bucky felt unnerved a moment until the hippo snorted and resumed his idle indulging. "What's with the animals around here?" Bucky wondered.

"Good morning, Sergent Barnes," The eighteen-year-old Wakandian princess addressed to him, smilingly, keeping herself distant from the rambunctious village children that would inevitably swarm towards her with jubilant momentum; Shuri never evicted her visceral spunkiness towards defiling her brother's regal orders. Her valid connection with Bucky had evolved beyond remedial assessing of cerebral discipline in her lab and morning visits. He channeled a nomadic- warcrossed spirit that possessively grappled him into calamitous throes of immeasurable guilt-trauma.

Instead of barricading him, the young princess offered him a chance for an infusion of serenity--his true harbor of peace came from the outsider thief that he cherishingly loved-Selina Kyle. Wearing one of her inventive athleisure fashions of vibrant white neoprene- mesh that hugged over her svelte form, Shuri fixed her dark irises knowingly on his crestfallen, rugged features, her lips quirked up, apparent to the sassiness in her tone. "Did your sneaky cat leave again?"

His lips stretched into a somber smile at that. "Old habits die-hard. She's always been a free-spirit. Selina might never stay, but she'll always comes back." The thought was enough to brighten his mood considerably as his smile became genuine. In the years now that he'd been living in Wakanda, Shuri was a bitter-sweet presence that reminded him too much of his sister Rebecca. Like his old-life, she was lost to time and now moving forward he allowed himself to feel a kindred spirit with the young Wakandan princess who helped repair his mind. "Besides, Valentine's Day is coming. That's a tradition we never miss out on."

"You mean the cheapened traditions involving expensive chocolates and teddy bears, yes, I have observed that..." Shuri replied back, trenchantly, aware of his tactics on engaging the arena of passion, igniting a new Valentines' ritual with his enchantingly beautiful kitten (kotenok).

Nothing ever stowed reluctance between their ardent intimacy, they were dynamical spirits of mirrored reverence. She honored the steered measures of Bucky's unbreakable devotion, with deft tentativeness altered in her poised stance, readily, Shuri gestured a delicate hand over the lush-tropical outposts that encompassed them. A subtle rapt of disgruntlement tellingly pinched in the hard-edge planes of his bristled cheeks, as his grayish-aquamarine depths gleamingly echoed unabated desperation. "We don't express that here, the gifts of love must carry meaning instead of priced indulgence...I'm not saying giving her a coconut, but there are flowers that are meant for these outsider traditions..."

Bucky considered Shuri's words with deep thought. Selina was always more of a diamond-girl than a flower one. But he knew she appreciated the beauty of exotic nature that couldn't be found anywhere else in the world. Since Wakanda had become opened to the world, he never risked venturing into the city where he'd risked being recognized from a foreigner. So shopping at one of the luxury stores was out of the question for right now.

"Selina always enjoyed the finer things in life that couldn't be found anywhere else." He said, his gaze wandering across the grasslands in the distance and the jungle beyond. "Sometimes I think there isn't a materialistic item in this world that can show just how much I love her... But Valentine's Day is comin' and I got to give her somethin'," he shrugged with a soft chuckle. "Anywhere you suggest I look first?" He asked.

"Well, I don't have a map in hand, Snarky Wolf," Shuri teased back-impishly. In a murmurous groan, underlying his restoked vexations, involuntarily, Bucky reeled back against phantom tension, contemptuously setting the heaviness of his broad jaw into a rigid clench-nothing was ever straight and narrow on the faltered road he determinedly trudged-a new relevance of his stability-hope cemented him away from the infectious tentacles of HYDRA's demon spawn.

His programmed existence was being sutured up, threads of dissected-butchered memory weaved back into his consciousness. Shuri had extracted the Kracken's venom out of his heart-using nano wavelengths to isolate the hypnotic receptors that Armin Zola had surgically implanted within Bucky's cortex with barbaric methods to conceive a weaponized enforcer-a mechanical strain of lethal docility. For seven-unthawing decades HYDRA deadened Bucky into muted severance; turning him into a reactivated instrument to execute kill shots with no cadence of mercy. He was a fugitive of memory, fighting against throbbing wakes of hellish guilt.

After using sonic pulses while he was in cryofreeze, Shuri had recalibrated a sense of hellbent tenacity-Brooklyn spirit, giving him a chance to embrace humanity again. In a subtle measure of lithe grace in her cautious footing, Shuri inched closer, her dark irises grew daringly alight with an implosion of rewarding promise."If you ask one of the village elders, they'll guide you in the right direction to your desires..." she urged, sneakily.

The thought of venturing out into the beautiful Wakanda gardens and grasslands was an inspiring choice to get out of his hut and clear his mind. Going back to it was just a painful reminder that Selina wasn't there waiting for him. Not right now anyway. "I better get to it then. I got a beautiful kitten to win over next week. I'll see you around later, Shuri." Bucky gave her a parting smile as he left to collect his sandals then ventured out into the village. His gaze landed on the Hippo that had unsettled him only a few minutes ago. He was nowhere in sight. The very realization caused Bucky to frown in confusion. "For such a big guy, he moves around pretty quick." He scoffed. As his steps took him to the village elder, he could shake the chill in his bones that made him think there was something off about that encounter.

Engaging the jungle terrain had proven to become unnervingly taxing with his tactical prowess as Bucky stalked with a measure of hyperaware paces through high vistas of dense forest encompassed the mountain pass- an extrinsic labyrinth of acacia and palm leaflets and gnarled branches that ominously shadowed over vibrant petaled flora. He never daringly ventured beyond the underbrush without Shuri; away from the river hamlets.

After his morning audience with the tribal -delphic elder, while sampling tangy flavored kumquats, Bucky had been given a reverent location of a rare white orchid that had outstretched petals beautifully forming into a quasar shape- Nqwenela inkwenkwezi ( wish star). An empyreal treasure rooted in the heart of Wakanda-the ancestral priests of the Border Tribe believed that the spirit of Bast had created the paradisical flower to grow in realms of the phantsi komhlaba (underworld), a beacon of infinite love to usher her lover-the watcher of the shadow gateway-the Jackal warrior-back to her every time radiance of moonlight caressed the petals.

Unbeknownst against Bucky's combative-honed senses, a phantom chill raked through canopies of thickened palm leaves above him, his determined traction edged closer to the archway of runic stoned pillars; fiery amethyst etchings of Wakandian sigils began to hauntingly pulsate auras of unearthed vibrainum in livid fruition in a viscerous matrix. A razed-vaporous force was assailing in the reaction of his unwelcomed intrusion-it was forbidden domain—a No Man's Land at he was disarmingly crossing through.

Glaring at the eroded slabs of rock, under the unkempt length of brunette tresses that roguishly smelt grungy, his grayish-aquamarine irises slit piercingly with a resolved intensity flooring in his veins; being a penetration operative—weaponized sniper, Bucky was trained-conditioned to merge with elemental grounds of his kill-zone, lethally utilize his stealth tactics before pulling the trigger back, every shot could betray his marksman—vigilant stance. He executed with dead-eye precision; dispatching targets locked in his scoped crosshairs: insurgents, outliers and deviants that were purged—terminated from HYDRA's tyrannical sight of counterintelligence. He defected from the Siberian ranks of sleeper cells, yanking off cadging tentacles that grappled him into cryo-freeze, and staked a price redemption on the grounds of Wakanda. 'Nothin's ever easy Barnes...'

Advancing between the mirrored obelisks with a measured pace of stilted caution, Bucky suddenly felt the kinetic pulse of energy as crimson skeins began to form vapory arcs hauntingly over eroded granite; an elemental-arcane fusion that prevailed to become unleashed onto an intruding tomb raider— outsider. He knew without a grip of doubt the white orchid of Bast was protected.

Bracing himself into a sniper-crouch frontal of an obelisk, Bucky undeviatingly lowered on his haunches when his enhanced senses reacted to a lagged thumping, palm leaflets rustled, he steered voltaic intensity of his ultramarine irises automatically onto a bulbous dark shape infringing closer. "Shoulda figured, it's a jungle after all," he murmurously quipped with a scathing grunt, muggy air felt suffocatingly denser against the passing odorous miasma of squalid animal that disgustingly compelled him to press his fisting hand over his nose, unaware that a worming vine arced out of putrefied log behind him. "Urgh, what the hell is that..."

The harsh ringing of gun-fire rang in his ears, even after having narrowly escaped the hailing storm. His massive rotund form shuddered in the aftermath of fading adrenaline. It hurt to breathe, it ached to even move. The animal reacted on primal instincts while the man within was struggling to remain in-control of his inhibitions. Bucky didn't know what had come over him this afternoon when he had ignored Selina's demand to remain secluded to his hut. The pull of the lake to a hippo was as tempting as a warm bed to a human.

Day-by-day it became harder to ignore the demands of his new body. His soul was fracturing into pieces as it warred with itself. His hunger had gotten the better of him and brought him to the edge of the lake, past the Border Tribe, where he was at the mercy of poachers and trophy hunters that operated out of West Africa. He had unknowingly gone beyond Wakanda's protective barrier and exposed a vulnerable point in its security that led the hunters into the once isolated kingdom. He was a Hippo, alone, tired, hungry and most devastatingly of all; he was over-racked with fear that he would never find his way back to Selina.

"Lina, I'm sorry, darlin'. I screwed up everything." He grunted as he collapsed on his side beneath underbrush. Dried muck coated his body and he knew it wouldn't be long until he attracted a swarm of flies. In his exhausted state, he couldn't bother to care. He had to make it back home. He had to make it back to Selina while he still had time.

Sambisa Forest...

Against the fading gleam of twilight burnishing over a canopy of heavy palm leaflets; the assonance of Wakanda's nocturnal denizens became incessantly prevalent. Crouching down on a gnarled branch with the deceptive stillness of balletic grace erringly invested through her sleekly-toned legs, Selina veered her vigilant-cunning resolve towards an dense area of forest outside the river border; feigning her poise of nonchalance she collectively detected the encroaching thumps of heavy-lagged paces treading over the jungle terrain-crescendoing volumes of unhinged distress erupted around her-this was the uncharted kill zone-a precarious ground to brazenly infiltrate without being marked down in the predatory crosshairs.

After receiving an urgent hologram message from Princess Shuri from a Kimoyo bead, she desperately gunned straight into the opened underbrush where a massively obese male hippo was fleetingly seen by the Border Tribe herdsmen. She found no trace of Bucky's gluttonous, bulked mass-just hoof prints leading sluggishly towards a boggy swamp. A harbor point that he would tactically utilize while evading the openness of the underbrush. The wobbling traction of his stubbed legs would only drag his rubbery mass a breadth closer to a swamp.

Now existing as a rotund-paunchy hippo with innate Brooklyn stubbornness, Bucky wouldn't easily adapt to his safeguarded elements; he was inevitably fueled by hoggish urges to quenchlessly munch on damp reeds and grass, before spending passive hours soaking his dark-flab in watering holes. Everything imploded against her as the hunky beast machine she loved was inexorably being disarmingly saddled down into thralls of a fattened oblivion. The sacred white orchid had condemned Bucky to a repugnant—obese existence; it was a charming 'Brooklyn Boy" tactic to dazzle her for a Valentine's Day gift.

Knowingly, Selina had followed the hoof-tracks with a full measure of her stampeding heart, leading her fervent paces within a forested domain where a tangy sweetness of ripening yellow mangos wafted over bladed grass. For an unevaded moment, she readily composed herself, feeling a virile—lethal aura beckoning her in a naked wake. With her teeth set on gritted edge, she fluidly descended off the branch, landing in a nest of palm leaves. "Can't move your big ass that far huh, Barnes," she tersely quipped under breath, her dark irises blazingly fixed on a blubbery mass of disgusting flab laying slacked-jawed on his cushioned side—definitely Bucky.

The encroaching vibration of footsteps in the Earth had set him on edge in a way that threatened to overwhelm his accumulated focus. Bucky felt trapped and vulnerable and realized that he hadn't outrun his pursuers in the way he had thought. His trail had been picked up and he was too exhausted to so much as even carry himself into a wobbly canter. Despair was a feeling he knew all too well, but it wasn't until his sense of smell picked up an empowering familiar scent of lavender that he felt hope surge through him.

"Huh? Can't be..." He grunted, trying and failing to raise himself off of his side. The footsteps were getting closer and the scent even stronger he could almost taste it. "Lina?" He called out, hoping to God that his prayer would be answered. At least seeing her one last time before succumbing to his primal state-of-mind would be enough for him. And then, she came into view, dressed in form-fitting cargo pants, hiking boots, a tank top with a ball-cap covering her silky mahogany locks, fastened into a ponytail. His heart pounded so hard in his chest, his pulse so loud, he wondered if she might hear it because she looked in his direction. "You found me, darlin'."

Listening to him ruggedly draw out a snorty breath in murmurous timbre, painstakingly Selina advanced with collective paces; lowering the lithesome form down on her garbed sleek-tone haunches, becoming unwaveringly crouched low against the contrasts of tall grass, doing her damnedest not to scrunch up her nose against the putrid rush of swampy muck and feverish-anguished sweat that was unmistakenly infused over his dark-blubber.

He didn't attempt to budge with stubborn effort, as his large pudgy snout flexed widely in a deft reaction of emitting a throated yawn. Pointedly, Selina arched up an eyebrow, evicting the devious urge to ram her boot into his protruding girth; to knock some urgent sense back into him. "Care to explain why you took a long walk in the jungle, handsome..." she cajoled out, scathingly, impaling him with razor-edge intensity of her vixenish coffee irises—she was cutting in deep. "Stop acting like all that exists now is a fat hippo...Don't shut me out."

He felt abashed by her reprimanding tone; small and pathetic in the state of his lost and downtrodden state where he couldn't tell which way was north and which was south. The gnarling sensation of his stomach being squeezed with hunger threatened to override his sense of focus, but he steeled himself in her presence. His mind warred with his body to become dominant as he felt pinned by her inquisitive eyes of coffee brown. So soothing and so concerned for his well-being; not for the first time he wondered what he had done to deserve someone so special and amazing.

"Couldn't control myself, darlin'." Was his somber reply. He wouldn't show self-pity; an innate part of himself would never stoop so low into despair. His steel blue eyes looked into hers, apologetic and tired. "The Garden Curse, its like a poison inside of me that I can't control. All I can think about is rolling in the muck and stuffin' my face. I keep getting put on the ropes only to jump right back off of em', waiting for the next swing."

He wobbled on his feet into the open beside her, his breath was rough and bore the deep exhaustion. "I'm...afraid, darlin'. There might not be much of me left to recognize."

The roughened pitch of his suave drawl gratingly stole her pulse as Selina felt a blunt nail being driven through her heart. The remorseless charade of her raw intent leached over the angelic delicacy of her elfish features as she dragged out a breath, gripping into emotive rationality. With controlled a gaze, she unwaveringly mirrored the glacial depth of his heavy-lidded irises that were disgustingly sheathed with layered pudgy flab. The roguish steeliness of his defiant Brooklyn spirit was still being harbored against the possessive influx of the orchid's curse-a blazoned promise of warring strength that wouldn't be divested. Nipping the lush underswell of her lip, shivery, a bated breath feathered out, ruefully. She wouldn't let him slip away into dormant isolation. "I'm not letting you walk this out alone, James..." she gritted with a promising hitch in her raspy undertone, kneading a tactile caress of her lithe palm over the width of his jowled snout. "Besides you do make a cute moody hippo..."

"But not a smart one, little missy." A voice cut through the air like a knife, startling both Bucky and Selina who whipped around to come face to face with a trio of shotgun barrels aimed in their direction. A disgruntled squeal erupted from Bucky once he registered the dreadfully familiar southern-accent and the cold blue eyes that came with them as he gazed up at the Trophy-Hunter's listless stare as he stood in front of a pack of armed men. His cavalier posture was arrogant as well as coy as chewed on a tooth-pick with his hands rested on his belt where he carried a holstered 44. magnum revolver. A weapon powerful enough to kill an elephant with a single shot.

"Your little pot-bellied sheep wandered too far from the herd and wasn't too careful about leadin' us back in. And lookey where we are now. Wakanda! Land of mysticism and all exotic animals that the outside world is just dyin' to get a close looksy of." He waved his arms dramatically while monologing his point. He showed no hint of fear as Selina pinned him with a lethal glare. "I honestly wasn't expectin' to believe all the jibber-jabber about this place that men of my profession aren't welcome into. But alackaday, not two hours into combing that stinkin' border do we find ourselves a talkin' hippo!"

It was a gusty intrusion of rapacious poachers that Selina anticipated; baring her teeth on edge, she didn't abandon her defensive stance, impassively her dark irises chased the lanky-thuggish Souther's tackless paces as he brazenly circled around Bucky's paunchy mass with vulturous thirst alight in his devilish gaze. It was obvious that he measuring the protruding expanse of her sniper hippo's blobbing girth. The clash of his inevitable assault of seizing her chubby beast machine wasn't discarded.

Curving her pillowy crimson lips heatedly into a fleering smirk, Selina waited for his slackened footsteps to daringly breach her dangerous proximity. He was rattle-snake incarnate, venomous and deceptive with his tactics of palpable charm. "You think I'm going to let you take this big boy..." she challengingly purred, keeping her palm braced possessively over Bucky's sagging neck. "I'm a girl that doesn't play fair so easily and having your boys around makes this a party..."

"Not a party girl I take it?" The Hunter chuckled drily as he folded his hands into his vest pockets. "You pick interesting company anyway, Missy. What are you, a tourist? Animal-Rights activist? You certainly don't seem to be a native and I for one can't fathom why a pretty thing like you gives a damn about me and my crew taking that Hippo's head and mounting on the wall of our lodge. Of course, that's if no one is interested in buying him first. Talkin' pig is bound to get a lot of scientists curious and they'll be itching to poke him with needles. Hell, I should just off him now and save him all the pain and misery they likely to put him through."

"I don't know who you think you are, Pal. But you picked the wrong jungle to play Follow the Hippo," Bucky grunted with an aggressive grunt. The fear and confusion he had initially felt in his first encounter with the animal poachers had subsided and now the calm focus of his training began to take point. He couldn't let these soulless killers into Wakanda any further than he had unintended did. He couldn't let them claim him as some trophy to cash in, and more importantly, he couldn't let them harm Selina. "Just walk away now and no one gets hurt."

The reaction was quick and expected, the animal hunters erupted into laughter. Bucky nudged Selina and was grateful to have her glance at him and understood him plainly when he gestured with his snout to the hunting knife the Poacher had on his belt. 'Go for the knife.'

Emitting out gravelly snort, Bucky rolled onto his stubby legs, in wrenching effort as he nudged her leather-sheathed palm with his pudgy snout with subtle urgency; the phantom wake of his blubberly heat evoked high-octane to intoxicatingly rev through her veins in that addictive moment as her coffee irises deviously caught a telltale glimpse of the jutted-curved blade strapped to a leather zebra-skinned scabbard; an easy grab that she would blindingly swipe in her thieving clutch.

With seductive ease of her feline allure, flashing him a vixenish glint, Selina fluidly arced her voluptuous svelte form, temptingly distracting the smug-face poacher into her ardent thrall when the supple-litheness of her garbed thighs flexed into a balletic stretch to grapple down his carnal indulgence. "Now, a big spoil will be hard for your boys to load up, so why don't you save yourself the trouble,..." she rasped out, smokily, beckoning him to dare a step closer. " ...and go for something more thrilling."

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