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marauderundercover · 3 years

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Crashed Dates (Day 2: Scarecrow)

Marinette grins at her boyfriend, swinging their intertwined hands back and forth as they walk around the pumpkin farm. It was so nice, finally being able to go on cute dates like this. They’d first started dating while he was in Paris on business, around a year ago. Sure, he’d made trips to Paris and she’d made a few to Metropolis, but it was different now that she had moved to Gotham. Now they were able to go on random, unplanned dates, instead of dates that had been planned for weeks. He was definitely worried when she first told him she was moving to Gotham, but she had reassured him that it would be fine. (Not that she had a choice in the matter, Tikki had informed her on her last trip to Metropolis that Gotham was sick, that it was calling out for help and that as the Guardian, it was her job to help it). Gotham was….interesting, but she’d settled in just fine in the two weeks she’d been there.

And so, when he had called her out of the blue to tell her he found a place he thought she’d love, she made sure she had enough layers and jumped at the chance for a day with him. So far, the day had been absolutely perfect. They’d drank hot apple cider, ate warm donuts, taken a trip around the farm on the hayride- everything was great. But for some reason, her amazingly stubborn boyfriend didn’t want to go into the corn maze.

“Please! You’ll be my favorite person in the whole world.” She begs again, her grin quickly switching into a pout. She keeps pouting, leaning against his arm, until he sighs.

“Fine, we can do the maze.” He says and she cheers, standing on her toes and tugging him down slightly to give him a quick kiss.

“You are the best!” She says, over enunciating every word. He just grins, giving her another soft kiss.

“If we get lost, I’m calling the Demon Spawn to come get us out. Pretty sure he has a tracker on my phone.” Jason says, letting her tug him along towards the maze. She just rolls her eyes, grinning.

“You know you’re secretly touched that he cares enough to track you.” She teases as they near the entrance of the maze.

“Yeah, yeah.” He grumbles, glaring at the scarecrow situated at the entrance of the maze. Marinette raises an eyebrow.

“You have a problem with men made of straw?” She asks, legitimately confused by his reaction.

“Geeze M, I knew you were new to Gotham but I forget how new.” He says, pulling her closer. She melts into him, still confused by his reaction, but happy to be close. As they walk through the maze, frustratingly running into deadends, Jason explains Scarecrow. Marinette decides that he’s number two on the list of villains she never wants to meet. Joker is number one. (Joker is also number one on the list of villains she wants to meet, but that’s because she’s always wondered what it would look like to cataclysm a psychotic clown). She’s just about to suggest they call Damian and utilize the tracker that was, undoubtedly on Jason’s phone, when the screaming begins.

“There isn’t a haunted house here, is there.” Marinette says, her face pale. She wasn’t ready to be a hero again. She’d only defeated Hawkmoth a year ago. Just before meeting Jason. She didn’t want that part of her life again, not now.

“No, no there’s not.” Jason says, eyes glancing around wildly. Marinette’s heart breaks at the panic on his face. She knew that, despite his tough guy appearance, he struggled. A lot. He had nightmares, constantly, mostly of the time Joker had kidnapped him (hence the whole, cataclysm Joker thing). Pushing down her own fear and doubt, she tightens her grip on his hand and squares her shoulders.

“Come on.” She instructs, tugging him behind her as she darts through the maze, determined to get out. She stumbles over a rock and lets go of Jason’s hand in time for her to fall into a larger clearing. She curses as she falls, her palms stinging.

“What have we here?” A voice says. Marinette sits up, staring up at a man in a scarecrow costume and suddenly, Jason’s fear, or rather, dislike, of scarecrows makes more sense. So much more sense. She glances around and lets out a sigh of relief. She’d let go of Jason quick enough. He wasn’t caught up in this. Hopefully, he could call his father. She wasn’t sure if the rumors about Bruce Wayne and Batman dating were true, but Batman was always quick to interfere if it was a Wayne or Wayne adjacent involved.

“A girl who’s a little pissed that you crashed her date.” She retorts, standing up and brushing her stinging palms off on her jeans. She’d have to get the blood out later, which would be a pain. Better than having the blood on her palms mix with the dirt that also now covered her hands.

“You’re either very brave or very stupid, little girl. Let’s see how you deal with my newest strain of fear toxin.” He says, and she lunges towards the man, not willing to go down without a fight. Almost immediately, a sharp pinch on her neck has her stumbling back away from the man as she tries to take in her new surroundings.

She was back in Paris, but it wasn’t the Paris she had left. The city that was healing. Instead this Paris was underwater. Buildings were toppled over, and the moon was in pieces in the sky. She was back there. A place she hadn’t seen in person since she was fourteen, a place that had haunted her nightmares for ten years. She inhales sharply when she sees him. Chat Blanc. But instead of fear, she’s just angry. This isn’t real. It can’t be. Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir. And Adrien was….turning, she realizes that she can almost see him. Out of the corner of her eye, she can almost see Scarecrow, watching her. Waiting for her to react. Anger coursing through her, she charges the man, tackling him all the way to the ground. She pulls back her fist and punches him, repeatedly.

“How dare you! How dare you use his face like that! You son of a bitch!” She screams as she hits, the roaring in her ears blocking out all other sounds. She keeps her focus on feeling the man she’s hitting, because the second she lets her focus wander, she gets sucked into her surroundings again. The way the sky just looks wrong. The odd haze over everything. And now, the corpses floating in the water closest to her. Adrien. Maman. Papa. She’s not scared, she’s pissed. Sure, those were her biggest fears and that’s definitely why she was seeing them all like that, but she’d already seen it. She’s lived it. They were gone, not coming back. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to fall down and break about it. Not when some asshole with fear toxin was running around randomly injecting people. Suddenly, something is wrapped around her and she’s pulled up. She kicks frantically, trying to get out of the steel grip she’s trapped in. She had to- what did she have to do? Another sharp pinch in her neck makes her eyes droop sleepily. She struggles again, barely able to hear the voice calling her name as she succumbs to the darkness.

---

Jason Todd feels like a major prick. He watched his girlfriend trip and instead of helping her up, he uses it as a distraction to try and call B. How the fuck was he supposed to know she tripped right into the Scarecrow? He’s cursing himself mentally as he rushes towards the ambulance. Replacement had texted him.

Marinette was injected. At ambulances near front of farm

And Jason felt like shit. She’d never forgive him, not that he deserved it. He’d left her with one of Gotham’s biggest villains. His heart sinks when he sees the blood on her, and the oxygen mask attached to her face. Fuck. He’s almost to her, when one of the asshole cops stops him.

“Excuse me, sir, you can’t go over there.” He says and Jason scowls.

“Like hell I can’t. She’s my girlfriend, let me through.” He says, and the man shakes his head.

“Family only.” He states. Jason’s about to argue, when a hand lands on his shoulder.

“I still need to get a statement from Mr. Todd, if you’ll excuse us.” Replacement says, leading him away from the cop.

“I left her.” He says, the second they’re far enough away. Tim frowns.

“What do you-”

“I mean, I left her. She tripped and instead of checking on her, I was a complete and total asshole and left her so I could call B to get his ass over here and solve the goddamn problem.” Jason says, feeling like even more of an asshole now that he’s said it out loud.

“Did you see Scarecrow?” Replacement asks. Jason scoffs.

“Of course not! You really think I would’ve left if I had?” He asks with a glare.

“No, I don’t. So stop blaming yourself. I literally peeled her off of Scarecrow, she was beating the crap out of him. She’s gonna be tired and scared and confused when she wakes up. Just be there-”

“Jason!” Her terrified voice echoes out and Jason turns, sprinting for the cot he’d seen her on a minute ago. She had ripped the oxygen mask off her face and was looking around while arguing with the paramedic.

“Ma’am please-” “Marinette!” Jason calls, and her face relaxes as she leaps off the cot and launches herself into his arms. He holds her as she shakes, sobs wracking her body.

“I saw them.” She mumbles once she calms down a little. He frowns.

“Saw who?” He asks.

“My parents. Adrien. Their bodies.” She says, and suddenly, Jason has another name to add to his kill list. Being a complete asshole to all of Gotham, sure. Making his girlfriend see the bodies of those she’d lost? Nope. Now the bastard better hope he didn’t meet Red Hood in an alley.

“God, Mari, I am so sorry. I’m so sorry I left.” He apologizes, his heart aching when she pushes him away. She frowns up at him and he winces, certain she’s about to break up with him.

“Left?” She asks and he nods.

“When you tripped, I swear, I didn’t know Scarecrow was there.” He says.

“But you got Batman here.” She says and he jerks back. How the hell had she figured it out? When did she- “I know Bruce said he isn’t dating Batman, but honestly, I think he’s just in denial.” She adds.

“I- what?”

“Batman always comes when anyone in the Wayne family is in danger. Like, so quickly. And I know that Bruce says it’s just a bunch of rumors, like the whole ‘the butts match’ thing? But I also think that Batman is head over heels for Bruce, and your dad is just kinda clueless.” She rambles. Jason just laughs before pulling her into a deep kiss. She was okay. They were okay. He pulls back and grins at her, until he notices the blood again.

“Shit, that’s a lot of blood.” He says, taking her hand in his to try and find the source. He glances at her face and raises an eyebrow at the blush that had taken over her face.

“Oh, um, it’s not mine.” She mumbles.

“Then who-” “Apparently I beat the hell out of Scarecrow. In my defense, that fear toxin sucked. And I was kinda pissed.” She says, frowning down at the blood on her hands. Jason takes one of his hands and gently tilts her chin up so that she’s looking at him again. He grins at her, giving her a short, soft kiss before pulling back.

“I love you.” He says, and if the kiss she gave him in return meant anything, she felt the same way.

Permanent tag list (open): @maribat-october-rarepairs @stainedglassm @kittenmywaythrulife @laydeekrayzee @doll246 @queenz-z @deathssilentapproach-blog @literaryhiraeth

#maribat #maribat fanfiction #maribathalloween21 #maribat jason todd #jasonette #maribat marinette dupain cheng #marinette ships bruce and batman #i dont make the rules #major character death #mentioned character death #maribat oneshot

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aimeelouart · 3 years

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Repurposing a bit of server freewriting for part 2 of purring!Cloud (Saving Subject C AU). Lil’ bit of whump, lil’ bit of hurt/comfort, and lovely fluffy cuddles

Also doubles as a preview if we end up going in a certain direction, but tbh I doubt it. Either way, spoiler free.

Cloud held pressure across his stomach, grimacing as the pain came and went in throbbing waves. He’d already pulled the shrapnel out so his body wouldn’t seal around it. Now it was just a matter of staying still and keeping pressure on until it closed enough for him to safely move.

His chest was doing the fucking thing (he refused to put a name to it) but he couldn’t make it stop, which didn’t make any sense. Didn’t cats only...do the thing when they were happy? Why was it happening to him now?

Fuck, at least the SOLDIERs weren’t around to hear it.

“Cloud!”

The call was still fairly distant. Cloud loosed an involuntary, irritated grunt at the sound. Shit, they were persistent. Maybe that wasn’t surprising. He had run off and destroyed Shinra property at the first available opportunity. With any luck, his hiding space would work until the hole in his side closed and he could make a proper escape. It didn’t have to be long. Just...long enough.

Gaia, he was starting to feel lightheaded. He cracked an eye open and checked the size of the blood puddle spreading from his side. It was much wider than he’d hoped. He might be in more trouble than he thought.

“There you are.”

Cloud breathed out a heartfelt “fuck” as Sephiroth’s voice reached him. Grimacing, he tilted his head enough to see the silver-haired demon kneeling and peering into the dark space beneath the broken lift Cloud was using for cover. He snarled at the man, but it was half-hearted at best. Even if he somehow found the strength to take up his commandeered knives again, he was too weak to run, never mind fight.

He’d miscalculated, and how he was going to pay for it.

But…

But.

Sephiroth didn’t sound angry when he dropped down onto his stomach and slid as far into the narrow space as he could. “Cloud, where are you hurt?” He sounded…concerned, alarmed, maybe even a little bit…afraid? “Cloud?”

“Fuck off,” Cloud slurred, confused. His sight was starting to gray a little bit around the edges. A real pang of concern shot through him. Had he missed an exit wound?

Sephiroth snorted a little, disbelieving. “Even when you are bleeding out, you still…” He reached, but even his long arm wasn’t quite enough to snag Cloud’s shirt. “Cloud, can you move toward me? Just a little bit.”

He hunkered down into himself, trying to apply more pressure. The pain was fading, and he still couldn’t make the stupid rumbling stop. “No.”

“I can’t help you unless you move a little bit, Cloud.”

“Fuck off,” he repeated, eyes starting to slide shut.

Another voice. “Seph?”

“He’s here. I can’t reach him.”

Cloud’s eyes shut all the way.

“Let me try. Here, Angeal, take my coat for a second.”

The voices were starting to sound like they were coming from underwater. Cloud felt, distantly, that this was definitely the point at which he should have been outright alarmed. He’d missed something. Probably an exit wound on his back, based on the blood loss. He’d be fine, even if they left him where he was, but they weren’t going to do that. He wished he had the strength to grab one of his knives.

“Cloud, sweetheart, can you say something?”

He found the will to say “fuck off” a third time. It sounded like “f’k ov.”

Genesis—that was Genesis—snorted. “Okay. Okay, I’ve…” Fingers snagged the edge of his sleeve. “…got you! I’ve got you, come on.” He pulled, sliding Cloud across the blood-slicked ground until he could grab an arm, and then Cloud was dragged from the safety of his hiding space and out into the light. Alarms were still going off in the distance. He smirked weakly.

“Shit, kiddo,” someone breathed as he was rolled onto his back. He couldn’t quite find the strength to keep his hand over the wound and it fell limply to the ground. “Did you⁠—is this a shrapnel wound? Cloud, did you pull it out?”

Duh, he thought, unable to articulate his disdain.

“Later, Genesis,” someone else said. Large, strong hands provided the compression Cloud wasn’t able to any more.

“I need to see his back. Get the shirt off.”

His shirt was cut off as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was shifted, then propped up across someone as two more hands pressed down on either side of his torso. Magic flooded his body, sealing the path carved through his flesh. The gray retreated a little as another flood of magical energy compensated for his blood loss until his body could make up the difference.

And, finally, the stupid purring stopped. He really, really hated that it seemed to be involuntary.

Cloud was shifted again, wrapped up in something primarily leather and then picked up like a swaddled infant. Fucking rude, he thought, struggling to drag his leaden eyelids up. A vaguely silver blur hovered above his face. He tried to object, but what came out of his mouth was closer to a grumpy kitten growl than articulated displeasure.

“Hush,” someone said. It might have been the silver blur. A water bottle was pressed against his lips and since he wasn’t completely self destructive, he drank.

“Little idiot. What was your plan, hmm? To bleed out under there?”

That was probably Genesis. Out of pure spite, Cloud managed to spit out a “yeah” in response.

A frustrated noise. A tired sigh. A rumbling, half-stifled laugh against his ear.

“Stop antagonizing him,” someone said. A hand passed over his face, brushing his staggering eyelids down. Tired, he let them stay closed. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about appropriate responses to severe bodily harm later.”

And Cloud was...increasingly confused. It was hard to think, drained and cold and barely hanging on to consciousness, but none of this was what should have been happening. They were threatening...scoldings? No one was angry. He’d destroyed a massive amount of Shinra property, practically spat in their faces, and somehow no one was angry.

He shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill.

Cloud’s little stunt had scared the hell out of them. It wasn’t that they didn’t care that he’d demolished Shinra property and made their job fending off the Turks much, much more difficult—they did—but when they’d started searching, they really had thought it would be a tiny, lifeless body they found. Any anger and frustration they might have felt paled in comparison to the sheer relief of finding him alive.

Sephiroth was the one watching him (hiding him, more or less), while Genesis and Angeal dealt with getting all of them back to the Tower in one piece. It wasn’t going to be easy, but Cloud was so little and this event just reinforced the fact that only SOLDIERs had any hope of containing him. Hopefully that would bolster their argument rather than encourage Science to get involved, because...well, forget what he and Genesis and Angeal would do to save the kid, Cloud himself would rip the whole department to shreds using only his teeth if they even tried to take him.

On some distant level, Sephiroth wondered how Cloud had managed to ensnare the three of them (and more SOLDIERs besides) so quickly. Or at all. Sephiroth wasn’t supposed to have a heart. He was supposed to be the pure paragon of SOLDIER, a soulless weapon forged only to mete out death. But here he was, holding a child safe in his arms and feeling his breath stutter every time he wondered what it would have been like to find a cold, unmoving body beneath that broken equipment.

Cloud was asleep, face milk-pale where it rested against the dark leather of his coat. He had proper blankets now, and Sephiroth’s own body heat besides. Angeal had been very clear about that—Cloud was not to be without a heat source until he was no longer anemic.

Not that Sephiroth would have willingly put him down. He found himself oddly agitated at the thought of not being able to feel the boy’s heartbeat beneath his palm. And, more than that...he felt unwilling to give up the strange, powerful contentment he felt just having Cloud safe in his arms.

“Seph?”

He startled a little, moving his eyes from Cloud’s face to find Genesis standing with one hand on the door frame, watching them with an unreadable expression. “...yes?” Sephiroth responded when Genesis didn’t continue. He realized that he had been shifting back and forth from foot to foot without noticing. When had that started?

“...you’re purring.”

What? He stopped—he stopped breathing entirely, actually. They’d told him about Cloud’s near-violent reaction to his own purring weeks before, but only now did he really understand. Because humans weren’t meant to be able to do that.

“Hey,” Genesis said quickly, crossing over to touch his arm, “stop. I know what you’re thinking.” His eyes were unusually gentle, maybe because he was riding the same relieved high Sephiroth was. “But...aren’t you glad Cloud isn’t alone?”

Aren’t you glad you’re not alone?

And he...was. He really was, once the thought was put to words. Cloud had been frightened by his own body and abilities, but he didn’t need to be anymore. Not when Sephiroth was with him. Neither of them were alone.

The rumbling started back up. He thoughtlessly leaned his head down and pressed his cheek to Cloud’s damp, unruly hair. The boy smelled like mako and blood and explosives. Sephiroth didn’t mind at all.

Genesis huffed a laugh, but it choked a little, and Sephiroth cracked an eye open inquisitively. “You’ve...you’ve never been injured enough or happy enough to do this before, have you?” he asked.

Oh. Was that it? He thought it might have been in response to Cloud, somehow, but...he really hadn’t ever felt such powerful relief and contentment until today, had he? Objectively, that was probably sad—that’s what Genesis’s expression was telling him. He didn’t much care though. There were more important things to think about.

So he just hummed noncommittally and gathered Cloud a little closer, shutting his eyes again. When Genesis huffed a second laugh, it was much lighter.

“So,” Genesis said, nudging him, “when is it my turn to play space heater?”

Sephiroth growled.

#Tumblr exclusive writing #Saving Subject C #ff7 #Cloud Strife #Sephiroth #genesis rhapsodos #aimeelouwrites #SSC Purring Saga

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j0elmill3r · 4 years

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Good Times

Sebastian Stan x Daughter!Reader

Sebastian Stan Masterlist

Warnings; Underage drinking, drugs [weed], swearing, yelling, mentions of vomit, police, some angst

Word count; 2k

A/N; I hope the anon who requested this enjoys!

"Okay, Y/N, it's your turn," You turned to Jack, who was holding the bong towards you. You looked at it hesitantly before everyone in the basement started to chant your name. Putting your cup down on the floor beside you, you held your hands up and sighed as you took it. You took a hit from the bong, and it felt like all of the weight had been lifted from your shoulder. You coughed and screwed your face up. "Jesus, Stan knows how to handle her shit," Jack said, clearly impressed.

"This isn't my first rodeo, Moranis," You told him. You sat on the couch beside Brooke, who said she wasn't doing any drugs because she got caught last time. "I need another drink, what about you?" You asked Brooke, who nodded. As you stood up, your head began to spin and you felt what little food you had eaten begin to come up. You cringed as you swallowed the vomit, and a few minutes later you felt the mix of the alcohol and the weed take its effect on your body. Brooke's hold on your arm came loose and you were left stumbling to the kitchen yourself. You got yourself another drink, you weren't quite sure what it was, but it had vodka in it, so you thought it would be fine. You stayed on the main floor and got caught in the group of people in the huge living room who were dancing. The house was huge, it had a fucking elevator, it was that big. Most of the people who went to your school had rich parents, it was a private school after all. Everyone's parents were known, they were either lawyers or a politician, yours just happened to be a well-known actor. And you knew for sure he was going to kill you in the morning. You made your way out of the crowd and then you managed to get down the stairs of the house without falling down them and breaking any bones. Your vision was blurred as you stood outside of the house the party was being held in. It was the last senior party of the year, there was no way you were gonna miss out on it. Surprisingly, your dad let you go, just as long as you promised to be safe and didn't drink or do any drugs. You may have broken your promise, but it was fine, you were gonna be staying with Brooke after, you told your dad that. The loud music was making your head hurt, as much as you loved blackbear, you didn't want to hear about whatever the fuck a 'hot girl bummer' is. Blue and red lights started to appear, along with sirens blaring. People started running past you, but you were drunk and high, you weren't even sure of where you were. You were stumbling around until you fell into someone, grunting and falling to the floor.

"Miss, can you hear me?" You looked up and could make out the shape of a police badge on their shirt. Your bloodshot eyes focused in front of you so you could see straight.

"Mhm," You answered. The policewoman in front of you raised her eyebrows and pulled the cuffs out of her belt, not because she thought you were dangerous, only because she was scared you would run off and get yourself hurt. "Hey! What are you doing?" You slurred.

"Taking you to the police station, come on, up on your feet," You stood wobbly and let her lead you to the car. You nearly fell, sober you could walk in those heels like nothing, but drunk you was walking like a newborn deer. You sat in the back of the police car and looked around, you felt like you were underwater. You were driven to the nearest police precinct, which just happened to be a couple of blocks away from your apartment building. The police officer held the middle of the cuffs and took you into the brown, brick building, sitting down at the desk. "Alright, what's your name, kid?" She asked. Your head bobbed as you looked up at her, squinting your eyes.

"I don't know," You told her. She looked at you with her eyebrow raised. "People call me Y/N, but that doesn't sound like my name," You continued.

"Right, so let's say that your name is Y/N," She said. She had dealt with teenagers before, they said stupid stuff when they were high all the time. "Do you have a phone on you?" You felt around the pockets of your denim jacket for your phone and handed it to her. She pulled up your medical ID. "Your dad isn't gonna be happy with me calling him at 2 am, miss Stan," You gasped.

"How do you know my name?!" You asked her, leaning forward. You began to laugh as she called your dad.

"Y/N, you better have a good excuse for calling me this early in the morning," Sebastian said as he answered the phone.

"Is this Sebastian Stan?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah. Who's this and how do you have my daughter's phone?" Sebastian enquired, sounding concerned.

"I'm officer Louis Kelly, your daughter's fine. She's in trouble though," She told him. Sebastian sighed.

"What did she do?" He asked.

"Well, she hasn't done anything, but we caught her at a party that we got a noise complaint and an antisocial behaviour concern from a few people in the neighbourhood. She's also intoxicated and under the influence of drugs," She informed him.

"Dammit, Y/N," Sebastian murmured. He grabbed his jacket and car keys, thankful that he hadn't gone to bed just yet. "I'll be there in a few minutes to come and pick her up,"

"Okay, thank you," Louis hung up the phone and put it down beside you. She looked over at you and noticed you had managed to free yourself of the cuffs. "How in God's name did you do that?" She asked you. You looked up at her, your eyes were still bloodshot and unfocused.

"Haha, bobby pin," you said, jangling the cuffs. She sighed and shook her head. A few minutes later, your dad came into the precinct. "Hey, I know you!" You said, pointing to your dad.

"Thank you for keeping her here, God knows where she would be," Sebastian said as he took your phone from the officer, who smiled at him. "Y/N, move," You stood up and narrowed your eyes.

"My dad said I can't go with strangers," You said adamantly. Sebastian laughed humourlessly and took a hold of your arm.

"Well, too bad I am your dad," Sebastian started to drag you out of the building and out into the car, where you sat quietly. Even with your brain feeling fuzzy, you could tell your dad was angry at you. You knew he was angry at you when he didn't say anything, only looking at you every so often. He was never one to yell, even if he was mad at you.

You sat on your bed, you hadn't changed out from your dress, but you had taken your uncomfortable heels off and dangled your legs from your bed. You had returned to some state of sober, but not completely. You looked up as your dad came into your room, sitting on your desk chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

"So, you lie to me about not drinking, but drugs? Really, Y/N?" You looked over at him and you could see the anger written on his face.

"It was only weed," You said quietly. Sebastian chuckled and shook his head.

"Only. Y/N, only isn't the point. The point is that you lied to me and that you could have gotten yourself hurt if the police didn't come," He said. You sighed, he might not be vocal about it, but you could tell you had let down your dad, big time. "You've disappointed me, kid," You frowned and looked down, your eyes glassing over with tears.

"Oh," You said quietly. "I'm sorry," You said sadly. Sebastian sighed and sat beside you on your bed.

"I know you are, and I know you're not gonna do it again. Mainly because you're grounded until college," He said. Sebastian noticed how you didn't laugh and became concerned. "Y/N, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired," Sebastian looked at you wearily and raised his eyebrows.

"You're not very good at lying, honey. I'm not gonna yell at you if that's what you're waiting for," You sighed and looked up at him.

"I didn't mean to disappoint you. I just got carried away, I'm just a stupid teenager," You were clearly coming back to your senses since your words were becoming easier for your dad to understand.

"It's over now, alright? We can't go back and change anything, and now I know not to let you go out to parties unless I'm there watching over your shoulder for any suspicious behaviour," You laughed quietly. "And, you're not stupid, Y/N. Yes, what you did was stupid, but we all did stupid things as high school seniors, I know I did,"

"Weren't you a theatre kid?"

"Aren't you?"

"Touche," You replied. For a second, you had spaced out, but then a random thought popped into your head."I really want ice cream," You blurted out "but at the same time I wanna throw up," You told your dad. Sebastian looked down at you and saw you had put your head on his shoulder.

"You get changed, see if you need to throw up, and then we can go for ice cream. Then in the morning you're gonna show me everything else in your closet that I have no idea that you own because I do not remember buying you a dress that struggles to reach the middle of your thighs,"

You stared at the empty bowl of ice cream in front of you, you had gone with vanilla because it seemed like the easiest option. Your usual order would have made you throw up if you even thought about it.

"So what's hitting you first; hangover or comedown?" Sebastian asked you. You looked up at your dad and blinked to try and focus on him.

"Well, I think that both of them had sex, created twins with both assets, they tried to each other but didn't, then they came out and they're both attacking me at once," You explained.

"I have no clue what any of that meant, but I'll nod because it'll make you feel better," He said. You put your hands on your cheeks and clenched your eyes shut.

"It's so bright in here, Jesus Christ," You groaned. Sebastian laughed and took your hands away from your face.

"If you're ready, we can go home. It's still 3 am, Y/N. You're gonna need a lot of sleep to get rid of the hangover, from what you told me that you drank, you've got a long day of vomiting ahead of you tomorrow," He said. You huffed and pulled your hoodie on, following your dad out to the car. You put your hood up and shut your eyes, planning on getting a quick 15 minutes on the drive back to the apartment. When your dad pulled in, he looked and saw you were passed out cold. He didn't have the heart to wake you, so he got out of the drivers side of the car and then walked over to your side, carrying you out of the car and into the house. He carried you up to your bed and put your blanket over you, making sure you were comfortable. "Alright, I can't wait to see this tomorrow," He said to himself as he left your room.

Well, your dad was right about one thing, the day after, you were pretty sure you were a vampire because whenever your dad opened the blinds in your room, you would throw the biggest fit ever and scream for him to stop it. And the literal mental image of food made you want to vomit, more than you already had.

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datheetjoella · 4 years

Text

Fantober 2020, Day 12: Enchanted Forest

Author: DatHeetJoella Fandom: Free! Pairing: MakoHaru Rating: T Part: 12/31 (read the full collection here) Word count: 1,799 Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Human!Makoto, Elf!Haru, First Meeting, Magic, Fluff Read at: AO3, FFn, or right here!

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Tired and worn-out from his travels, Makoto weaved through the dark woods in search of a place to camp out for the night. Preferably at a river or a creek, somewhere he could refill his flasks and wash his face. His horse was starting to lose speed, so hopefully, he would find a good spot before she had to give in to exhaustion.

Then, the sound of running water drowned out the symphony of owls and crickets. He followed it and to his delight, he stumbled upon a glade at the bottom of a cliff. A pristine waterfall cascaded down the rocks, flowing down into a moderately-sized lake.

Relief engulfed Makoto from within and he leapt off his horse, guiding her over to the edge of the lake so she could drink from it. He kneeled and peered into the water. Moonlight shimmered on the surface, illuminating every droplet. Never before had Makoto seen such clean water; there were no fish or algae in the lake, not as much as a leaf or a branch floating down the stream or caught on the sides. It seemed almost divine and the mere sight of it made his scratchy throat even drier.

He cupped his hands and let the water flood his palms, gratefully drinking as much as he could get. The water tasted even better than it looked, fresh and crisp like it rejuvenated him from the inside.

Once he'd quenched his thirst, Makoto checked the trees to see if anyone was around. When he was sure the coast was clear, he disrobed himself and dove into the water headfirst.

When he broke through the surface, he felt reborn. The fatigue and strain of his travels slipped off him, leaving nothing but contentment and serenity in his heart. Although he was miles removed from home, Makoto had never felt quite as comfortable as he did within this lake.

Alas, this feeling did not last.

A shadow moved behind the waterfall and Makoto let out a strangled screech, hastily covering his nude chest. Through the stream emerged a man, someone whose presence he hadn't noticed before.

Fear spread through Makoto's body like he'd been hit with a poison-tipped arrow; he was alone in the dark forest in a rather compromising position. Even if he hadn't been, he was not exactly the type suited for combat anyway and he saw no opportunity to make a quick escape.

But when the man stepped forward and the moonlight showered over his face, Makoto's fear evaporated.

Long, dark robes that reached down to the ground were wrapped around his slender body. Pointed ears poked through a curtain of dark hair, framing his small face. His features were soft and elegant and his pale skin contrasted the darkness of the night. But the most mesmerising parts of him were his eyes, blue and piercing. Like he could peer straight into the past, present and future.

Elves were rumoured to be gorgeous and although Makoto had never seen one in person, he was certain this man was among the most beautiful in their entire species. His appearance made him forget about the world around him, enchanted by a single glance.

But then, the elf's expression shifted, from neutral to confused. Or rather, shocked.

"Who are you?" he said, and despite the vibrant distress in his tone, his voice had a calming effect on Makoto. "How did you find this place?"

"Oh, um I," Makoto stuttered, unsure which question to answer first. "I was looking for a place to rest for the night. I heard the waterfall, so I followed the sound and it brought me here."

"Impossible."

"Sorry, am I not supposed to be here?" Perhaps he was trespassing on elven territory without his awareness. "If that's the case, I'll leave immediately. I don't mean to cause any trouble."

The elf seemed to be at a loss for words and the uncomfortable, misplaced feeling in Makoto's stomach grew.

"The water…" the elf said after a brief pause, "did you drink from it?"

"Yeah," Makoto said, cowering into himself like he was being scolded by his mother. "My horse did, too. Is that bad?"

A loud groan left the elf's lips and before Makoto could blink, his robes were flying through the air and water splashed upwards, sending ripples of waves throughout the lake. He emerged right in front of Makoto's nose, shaking the beads from his hair.

It startled Makoto and heat warmed his cheeks when he realised how clear the water was and how he was still very much naked. The look inside the elf's eyes was fierce and sharp and Makoto wasn't quite sure whether he should be embarrassed or scared.

"Listen, if I did something that I shouldn't have, then I sincerely apologise," Makoto said, frantically waving his hands as if to prove his innocence. "Please believe me when I say that I had no ill intentions. I just wanted to wash up and fill my flasks, I meant no harm."

After another second of staring in scrutiny, the elf relented. "I believe you. What's your name?"

"Makoto. And yours?"

"I'm Haruka. Haru," the elf said. "Say, Makoto, you have no idea where you are, do you?"

"Not a clue." Makoto sheepishly rubbed at the back of his neck.

"This is the Sacred Moon Spring. Every droplet of this spring has been infused with ancient magic and every full moon, its magical properties are replenished and the water is at its most powerful." Haruka looked up at the sky and Makoto followed his line of vision; the moon was large and round, standing out brightly between the trees.

This was not good. No wonder he felt so refreshed. "We drank from the sacred, magic water…" Makoto stated the obvious. "So, what happens now?"

"I don't know. My clan has been guarding this spring for centuries, but no human has ever come near here, let alone drank from the water," Haruka said, "To be honest, I'm not sure how you even found this place. There's a protective spell around this area, a barrier that's supposed to keep all non-elven creatures out. Not even birds or deer can pass through."

"Oh," Makoto said, drawing circles on the surface with his fingers, "Well, there's this story in my family that my mother's great-great-grandmother was a Woodland Elf, but I always thought that was just a tale. Do you think it could be true?"

Haruka shrugged. "I guess it is. I don't have any other explanation why you would be allowed to pass through. The barrier must've detected elven blood in you."

"But there's so much more human blood in me, and I don't look like an elf at all."

"You don't," Haruka said as he took a step closer. "But your eyes do."

Makoto frowned. "My eyes?"

"Hm. They're… vibrant." When Haruka noticed how close he'd gotten and how breathy his voice had been, he blushed all the way up to his ears and increased the distance between their bodies. The pink hue looked immensely cute against his pearly skin. He coughed and tried to regain his aloof demeanour. "So, I suppose you are a descendent of a Woodland Elf."

"But what about my horse? I don't think she had a great-great-grandmother who was an elf."

"Were you riding her when you arrived here?" When Makoto nodded, Haruka said, "Then that's why. You lead her here, and your authority granted her permission to pass through, too."

That did make sense, as much as any of this magical spring situation could. Maybe there was an off chance he had bumped his head against a low hanging branch and was hallucinating, or maybe he fell asleep beneath a willow and this was all a dream. But was his simple mind truly capable of conjuring up something so fantastical, or someone as beautiful as Haruka?

Ashamed of his thoughts, Makoto said, "If I'm not supposed to be here, then I shall leave. I wouldn't want to disturb the balance of this place."

"You can stay, if you'd like," Haruka said, brushing his fringe back to appear nonchalant, "if the barrier let you through, then I see no reason to reject your presence."

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to impose on this sacred place. If there's a barrier to keep humans out, then I can't imagine it's okay for a human to bathe himself in this water."

"As the guardian of this sacred place, I'm sure," Haruka said, "To be honest with you, no one is allowed to touch this water with their bare hands, not even I. It's used in important rituals in my clan."

"Then I should get out! I'm so sorry," Makoto said in a combination of disbelief and panic; Haruka didn't seem to care, but the last thing he wanted was to be struck with an elven curse if anyone else found out.

A hand on his shoulder held him back. It was small and felt cold, yet it also emitted a strange sort of heat.

"You already touched it and drank from it, so I don't see why I would send you away now. The water is already contaminated, and truthfully, it was long before you even got here."

"What do you mean?"

"How could I guard such a beautiful spring without going for a swim every night? There truly is no water like it." For a second, a hint of an adorable smile was visible on Haruka's face before he let himself fall backwards underwater and Makoto couldn't help but laugh. Haruka was the first elf he'd ever met and a rather odd one at that, but Makoto had an inkling they were going to get along very well.

All throughout the night, Makoto stayed inside the spring and talked with Haruka while floating beside him. They discussed their everyday lives, Makoto's family and his apprenticeship at a blacksmith a couple of towns away from his home, Haruka's clan and their traditions - and Haruka's disinterest in adhering to them -, how Haruka became the guardian of the spring and what effects the water could possibly have on Makoto and his horse.

The hours flew by and Makoto completely lost himself in their conversations and in Haruka. He didn't sleep a wink, but the water energised him like no amount of rest could and there was nothing that could whisk him away from this place. That wasn't because of elven magic, though, but because of Haruka. Makoto's suspicions were confirmed; Haruka turned out to be just as beautiful on the inside as he was on the outside.

Many things about his future were uncertain now, but there was one thing Makoto knew for sure: this would not be the last night Haruka and he spent together.

#i'm sorry i'm stupid #makoharu #makoharu fic #my fic #fantober2020 #colourful days with you #this is an idea i've had for so long now #i'm glad i finally got the chance to write something in this universe

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itsomgitsgreenblogging · 4 years

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Let Me Hold You: A Critical Role Fanfic

I really have no excuse for this besides the fact that it was half-finished and I need to absorb the latest episode and figure out how to edit my current WIP to match up a little better with all the canon we've been getting. Also...like...I love Essek so much. We could have this. Caleb...it is your duty...level up the party. Just do it.

Enjoy!

Read on AO3

Warning: Explicit content

"For once, the anxieties...the fear...all of it felt so far away. Without those things, he barely even knew who he was. How did one define themselves without the things holding them back? It had to be with the things they desired. And all he desired was for Caleb to touch him, recklessly and like Essek would die without him. What did that say about him?"

“Oh Luxon,” Essek groaned as Beauregard laid him down on the floor. He was cold and dizzy, the sort of cold that came from continual blood loss. An ice shard in the leg would do that to a person, Essek thought. He hadn’t expected to die today, but he also hadn’t expected to run into an ancient white dragon either.

“Caduceus!” Caleb shouted. There was an ugly looking bruise on his face from where he had been bashed against a wall, and his coat was half frozen.

“I got him,” Caduceus said, voice calm and coming from underwater. There was the sensation of more pain, a rough tugging, and then blessed warmth and comfort. It had to have been his Goddess’ power rushing through his veins, pulsing against his ribs like something alive and growing. Essek’s breath came harsh and whistling in his lungs. Caleb was already handing him a water flask, and Essek gratefully swallowed the water. He cringed as he felt a pulling at his ribs, obviously whatever spell the cleric had used had been strong enough to heal him, but not completely.

“We all alright?” Fjord asked, looking harried and frost bitten.

“Well, we’re not fucking dead,” Nott grumbled, pulling an ice shard out from where it was impaling her bag.

“That dragon was super duper not fun!” Jester nearly whined, splaying out on the floor like she was about to make snow-angels on the carpet. “Fjord you really ought to have married her, so that way she coulda loved us!”

“Uh, no. That is definitely not a plan that would work,” Fjord pointed out with a long suffering sigh.

“Wow, Essek, I didn’t think it was possible for you to look pale. Dude, are you fucking okay?” Beauregard asked him rather astutely.

“I feel still...a bit bloodless,” Essek admitted, managing to pull himself into a sitting position with Caleb’s help. Essek was surprised how warm Caleb felt, and how that warmth bled into Essek and made living almost become manageable. If he was less exhausted, Essek would have probably shied away from the touch. Even after everything, he still had that ghost in the back of his brain screaming at him to leave and to go home and to bury himself in a book and to not interact with another breathing entity for at least twelve hours. However, somehow, Essek found that in his exhaustion it was easy to overcome that. Especially since being in Caleb’s arms felt worth the whole near death experience.

“Nott, ach! I am out of healing potions. Do you have any extras?” Caleb asked, and Essek could barely focus because his arm was around Essek. It was giving everything in Essek’s body not turn his head and bury himself into that embrace.

“I think I do,” Nott said, rummaging around in her half-ripped bag. The goblin swore as things came tumbling out and she barely managed to catch them. She shoved two potions into Essek’s hands. Essek, still half-lucid and very hurt, opened them both and downed them like shots. As was usually the case, the taste of a healing potion hit him in the front of his tongue. The liquid was made of a cacophony of herbal bitter notes that had him cringing. However, strangely, something else...something floral caught his attention.

Essek immediately felt better, as if a rush of energy and health had been breathed into his flesh. On his own strength, he was able to get up to his feet. He caught Caleb’s relieved smile, watched as it unfurled across his mouth. It was sweet and private and was just for Essek, and it made him breathless to think that he could ever be so lucky as to have seen that smile. Even battle hardened and bruised and dirty, Caleb was always a sight to behold.

And then, immediately, his knees went weak. Caleb yelped as he reached out and managed to catch Essek before he collapsed completely onto the floor. His arms catching Essek’s, and half-hoisting him up.

“Essek? Are you alright?” Caleb asked him, desperately searching his gaze. Essek couldn’t respond beyond nodding his head because his mouth was suddenly watering. Caleb’s scent was overwhelming through the strange fog in his mind. His canines itched to bite into the nape of Caleb’s neck and claim the exotic...pale...untouched skin there.

No, Essek thought, physically shaking his head to rid himself of these inappropriate thoughts. This was not normal...in the sense that this had come on too quick. His thighs pressed together as just the sensation of Caleb’s hands on his arms made him half-hard. Yes, definitely not normal. There was something wrong with him.

“What...did I drink?” Essek managed.

“You drank a health potion and--” Nott looked at the second bottle. “Uh…”

“Did he drink Rhino Sex?” Yasha asked, looking down at Nott.

“You gave him what?” Fjord asked, sounding horrified. Jester nearly shoved a fist in her mouth to hold back giggles...and it didn’t work in the least.

“It was just something I stole from an apothecary! Yeza said it was like, snake oil! It wasn’t supposed to work!” Nott shouted.

“Oh Gods,” Essek groaned, a wave of strange dizziness hitting him again. He couldn’t even follow the conversation any longer. This time he gave into his instincts and buried his head against Caleb’s neck and shoulder, breathing in deep the smell of wood fire and male. He had to resist every urge in his body to rut against Caleb like an animal. There were others watching...and yet, it was becoming harder and harder to think about them. Besides, who cared if they were watching? Caleb was right here...was right against him and he wasn’t moving. It had to mean that Caleb wanted Essek as badly as Essek wanted him.

For once, the anxieties...the fear...all of it felt so far away. Without those things, he barely even knew who he was. How did one define themselves without the things holding them back? It had to be with the things they desired. And all he desired was for Caleb to touch him, recklessly and like Essek would die without him. What did that say about him?

Honestly, considering how hard he was and without any relief, he might die anyways.

Distantly, Essek felt himself be half-carried and half-dragged somewhere. Suddenly Essek realized that he wasn’t pressed to Caleb any longer. Essek, fueled by his ravenous desire and desperation, found himself pinning Caleb to a wall. The kiss was bruising and filthy, and sent his hips bucking against Caleb’s. There was the distant slamming of a door, and then a bed hit the back of Essek’s knees and sent him toppling backwards. Caleb didn’t go with him, instead his eyes were bright and wild and a strange grimace was pulling at his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb apologized, and it didn’t make any sense because he should have been kissing Essek instead of apologizing. “Jester and Caduceus are out of spells, this is all I could think to do.”

“Caleb, I need you,” Essek moaned, pulling at the clasp of his trousers and finally releasing himself from the confines of his pants. He arched as he grabbed a hold of his own cock, the sensation stronger than anything he had ever felt before. It was as if he had been on edge for days, teased until he simply could no longer take it. He had never understood the appeal of that, until right then, when even the brush of the covers against him made him wanton.

“No,” Caleb said firmly, though his gaze was burning into his skin like the hottest glow of a flame. It settled upon his skin and made him whimper.

“Why?” Essek pleaded, his hips stuttering into his own hand. He sounded debauched to his own ears, and in any other situation he would have just curled over and expired from the sheer embarrassment. But at this exact moment he didn’t give a damn. “Caleb, I promise, I’d make it good...I’d make it so good!”

“Work through this first,” Caleb said, softly, comfortingly. He reached out to brush his fingers against Essek’s cheek. Essek leaned against it, chasing the touch, and just that made Essek gasp with pleasure that wracked him down to his bones. “Then I’ll give you what you want.”

An oil vial was pressed into Essek’s hand. Essek wasted no time. After all, it made perfect sense, Caleb wanted Essek to open himself up for him. Essek managed to open it with his shaking hand, before turning it over into his fingers and coating them. The slick slide against his cock was worth it, as was the feeling of fullness as he pressed inside himself. This. This was what he had wanted. Now all Essek needed to do was chase the feeling until he was ready.

“Very good,” Caleb said, kneeling on the bed beside him. “You look beautiful like this, Essek.”

Essek screwed his eyes closed. He was close. He was so goddamn close. Why? What was missing?

"Please Caleb," he begged, trying to work in deeper, to press harder, but it wasn't any use. He needed Caleb so badly, entirely, desperately and he was right there. Essek could almost taste his scent, his kiss, his everything. Why was Caleb doing this to him? Why, when it was so obvious what Essek wanted? He may as well as been bleeding his feelings all over the floor for everyone to see. He was doing it again, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Essek didn’t want to stop it, especially when it felt this good to be vulnerable. But if only Caleb would touch him it would feel so much better.

"You are doing so well," Caleb promised, forehead pressed to his. "You are almost there, Essek. Be patient. Once this is over then we may give in to any of your desires."

"Why?" Essek sobbed, tears welling in his eyes and thick in his voice. He moaned as another one of his fingers stretched inside of him, but his fingers weren’t enough. "Caleb, I want you so badly. I don't...I don't want to wait!"

"Sh," Caleb soothed, cradling Essek's cheek. The sensation shooting through him and making Essek tingle. "Liebling, I want to watch you. You are so very beautiful like this. You wouldn't want to deny me that pleasure, would you?"

Essek couldn't answer beyond a whimper, he was so close, so close. He was a thread ready to be snapped by the tension. Caleb wanted to see him, and then he would fuck Essek. It made perfect sense now. He had to do this, and do it well, or else Caleb would withhold more of his glorious touch and that was something Essek simply couldn’t stand.

"That's it," Caleb said, forehead tenderly pressing against Essek's. "Come for me, Essek. Let me see you."

Essek broke over Caleb's words and the gentle soothing touch like a wave against the rocks. It was perhaps the most punishing orgasm of his whole life, and it left him light headed and strung out upon the bed. The strange fog in his mind that washed everything out in shades of desire was lifted, and everything crystallized into much more rational thoughts. He ran his tongue over his teeth, minding his still aching canines, before groaning at the utterly foul taste that clogged up his mouth.

"Water?" Essek croaked, and Caleb immediately gave him a wineskin. He swished the water, gargled and then swallowed. Thankfully, he was rid of the awful stale taste in his mouth. He couldn’t help but stick out his tongue and shudder, causing Caleb to chuckle at his antics.

"How are you feeling?" Caleb asked worriedly.

"Sticky…" Essek sighed, rubbing his legs together. The simmer of arousal was still there, but it was easier to think around. His thoughts were coming clearer and more organized, and at the moment he was choosing to simply not feel the warmth that blossomed across his skin. "Embarrassed."

"No, no need," Caleb promised him.

"Horny," Essek concurred, and despite everything this is what made Caleb blush. "As are you, I'm assuming."

"I'm...I'm fine--"

"No," Essek said desperately, wrapping his arms around Caleb's neck. "I'm open, and I want you so badly. Please, let me have you. I need to feel you inside of me, now."

“Are you thinking clearly?” Caleb asked suspiciously.

“I could list every component in my bag in alphabetical order if it would make you feel better,” Essek offered, kissing Caleb’s neck--sucking and biting at the places that were open for him. He opened Caleb’s shirt, sighing at the feeling of them skin-to-skin. Finally, he thought as Caleb sighed into his embrace. “I just need you, Caleb.”

"Desperate," Caleb chuckled, and Essek raked his nails across skin, yanking at his pants to get them loose.

"Yes," Essek admitted, finally getting his hands on Caleb. He moaned as he did. Caleb's cock was hot and pulsing against his fingers. He liberally coated him with the oil still wet on his fingers. "Oh Gods, get that in me."

"Surely I am nothing compared to what you have had before?" Caleb said, mouth kissing and sucking. "A beauty like you, you must have tasted pleasure greater than what I can give you."

"No, no, I…" Essek gasped before spreading his legs. Caleb's hands were hot on the back his thighs. He felt Caleb press into him, the sensation so overwhelming that he nearly was thrown over the edge again. He would never forgive Nott for this. He was going to die. Caleb was going to kill him with his cock and Essek didn't care. "I haven't!"

"No?" Caleb grunted as he sank in, Essek scrabbled at him trying to touch him. He needed to feel Caleb's weight as he reached so deep. Caleb caught his hand and pressed a languid kiss to Essek's palm. And Essek couldn't explain then, not when Caleb had him speared on his magnificent cock. Not when his brain was on fire from the arousal and the remnants of the magic coursing in his veins. Essek couldn’t explain that nothing in his life had ever felt like this. The Essek he knew was just a simple observer, distant and solitary like a star. His other brief, loveless relationships--his flippant couplings, nothing had touched his heart. But now he was rupturing. Caleb and his friends had broken through the walls of his heart--had passed through them like ghosts and now Essek couldn’t get enough.

But Caleb didn't move. Essek attempted to buck his hips back--to get friction, relief, something! But it was no use.

"Move!" Essek snarled and in his desperation for Caleb he had become transformed into a feral creature. His voice was almost unrecognizable in his own ears.

"Of course," Caleb said, his voice warm and halting. It broke goosebumps out all across Essek’s skin as he held him down with ease. "But tell me--hn, you didn't answer my question."

"Anything, anything! Just move, Caleb!”

"When others have had you, tell me, did you plead so prettily?" Caleb's asked before slowly his hips forward, and the drag of it, the overwhelming sensation made him breathless. Essek curled his legs around Caleb's hips to keep him from escaping. "Perhaps, ugh! Perhaps the potion, has no effect. Maybe you have always been so needy."

"It just feels so good," Essek moaned as Caleb angled his hips and hit the place inside him that had him splintering with pleasure. "More! Don’t stop!"

“Of course, anything for you,” Caleb gasped as he caught Essek’s mouth with his own, licking into it, and Essek tasted Caleb thoroughly. His fingers twisted in his hair, scratching at his back, as he tried to pull Caleb against him harder. He needed more, he needed all of Caleb. Essek needed Caleb to touch more of him, to touch him deeper, further, and harder than anyone else had ever dared to. He wanted to crack open so that he could feel more. It was filling him up, like pressure--like the light of a full moon. And how could he contain that inside his body?

“Please,” Essek begged, gripping Caleb because he would fall apart without him. Essek felt Caleb pulsing inside of him, and threw his head back with reckless abandon, baring his neck and everything inside of him. “Please, Caleb!”

“Fuck!” Caleb groaned, “I’m close!”

Essek’s hips were moving without his permission--and he was so close too. He was balanced on the edge of a knife and he couldn’t take it anymore. His second orgasm crashed through him, ripping a bestial keening noise out of his throat. Essek distantly felt Caleb’s hips snap harshly into his, felt the sticky warmth spread deep inside of him. Caleb rocked them through the aftershocks of their explosive lovemaking, before collapsing off of him.

“Oh Gods,” Essek gasped as he finally managed to catch his breath, his chest heaving with the effort.

“Are you alright?” Caleb asked, concerned, half-sitting up. Essek immediately caught him and pulled him down into another kiss. This time, it was deep and longing and felt like a breath of cool air.

“If you consider recovering from the best sex of my life alright, then I suppose so,” Essek said, unable to help his cringe at the soreness of his hips as he tried to sit up. Almost immediately he felt thrumming of arousal rise once more. Caleb noticed it too, because almost immediately his thick calloused fingers curled around him and pumped. “Oh Gods above and below…my hips are going to break.”

“Lay back down,” Caleb bid him. Caleb’s expression was tender as Essek traced the darkening marks upon his shoulder and neck. He then traced his mouth, catching on Essek’s nipple, eyes dark and longing as he continued to move down the length of his body. He tasted of Essek like he was starving, and only he could sate him. Essek wondered if maybe he had gotten a dose of the potion too, or if he was always like this. They had slept together before, and it hadn’t been like this. But were all humans so secretly and ravenously insatiable? “Rest...I’ll take care of the rest this time.”

Essek was helpless but to agree.

Essek tried to make his exit out of the Xhorhaus as quiet as possible the next morning after about three more rounds of mind-blowing sex and the deepest trance he had ever had in his whole life. Half of the reason for his sneakiness was so that he wouldn’t disturb anyone, but the other half was in order to preserve what little dignity he had left. However, seeing the other members sitting in the living room made Essek feel the kind of fear he had only ever experienced when the Bright Queen was displeased with him. Essek nearly turned around and went to go find a window to escape out of when Jester shot up.

“Are you alright?” Jester asked. “I mean it sounded like you were better than alright but I’ve rested and can use a spell--”

“Please,” Essek bid her. Thankful to all of the powers in the universe that the high collar of his mantle hid how...well...marked up he really and truly was. The last round had particularly punishing in that regard. “Let’s...never speak of this ever again.”

“So no head?” Beau piped up from the back.

“I will eviscerate you,” Essek warned, the dull ache in his hips overriding all of his well-established niceties. “Don’t make me consider it.”

“Are you gonna stay for breakfast?” Caduceus asked good-naturedly.

Essek was about to answer that though he appreciated the offer, he would be able to find breakfast on his own at home where he could recover from his all night ordeal. And he was about to open his mouth to speak those words into existence when there was a distant thud and a swearing in Zemnian from down the hall. Nott gave Essek a thumb’s up, pat his arm, before disappearing down the hall to go investigate.

“So...does someone need to go heal Caleb?” Yasha asked softly. Fjord sank down in his seat, looking mortified as Jester hid giggles into her hand. Beau began to whistle.

Essek immediately pressed his hands to his face and tried not to scream.

#critical role #critical role fanfic #shadowgast #essek theylss #caleb widogast

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solitaria-fantasma · 4 years

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((Session #7 shenanigans, GO!))

We’re skipping the filler stuff this week and jumping straight into the Plot bc our DM has figured out how to connect us to her main campaign and really wants to get to the good parts.

It’s been a while so we had to do a little discussing to remember where we’d left off: Destroying a dog-fighting ring, making friends with the dogs, and kidnapping the pit boss.

We dragged the pit boss halfway back to town bc we’d left our horses at the inn, and then dragged him into the woods to interrogate.

I woke him up with a slammin’ lute chord (and I was absolutely thinking “SECRET TUNNEEEEELLLLL!” in my head as I did).

Udaji rolled another ‘4’ on her Perception check and someone else in the voice chat said “yeah that’s on-brand for her”.

ZONE OF TRUTH! ZONE OF TRUTH! ZONE OF TRUTH!

(the pit boss calls the dogs ‘stupid animals’) “Someone needs to hold Udaji back, please.”

“Lord Hassan? Yeah, he’s the boss-.....I shouldn’t have said that.”

This poor man didn’t have a high enough intelligence to recognize the spell ‘Zone of Truth’ and is confused af right now.

The second piece of the map to the Crescent Gang’s Hideout was rolled up in a little bottle on a string around the pit boss’ neck - now we have two!

We asked where the third piece was, but the pit boss didn’t know - he gave us a few towns that he thought it might be in, though (such as Caister, in Everton).

Apparently, you need to layer all three map pieces over top of each other to see the full picture - like animation cells!

We asked about the marriage-murder scam, too, but the pit boss didn’t know anything important.

“If these bitches were cute enough then maybe-” *angry Dragonborn noises*

“Maybe we could feed him to the dogs?” “No way! Burnt Toast and Matthias Jr. need a well-balanced diet, not junk food.”

The only thing holding Udaji back from killing this man rn is Claus’ hand on her shin.

We leave the pit boss tied up in the wilderness, and he’s probably going to die. It’s a good thing none of us are Lawful Neutral.

The fastest way to Caister is by boat, which will take about one week, rather than two weeks if by land.

We have to pay to board the horses on the boat, but as long as the sailors were allowed to pet our new dogs, we didn’t have to pay for their boarding.

“What would you like to do on your two week boat ride?”/”I would like to train Matthias Jr. to play dead when shot with a pretend bow and arrow.”

Level Four! Yay!

We had barely landed in Everton when we heard an NPC shouting about a thief.

Mountain was too distracted trying to keep Señor Guapo from eating poison ivy to notice the commotion.

I have only just now realized that I did not include in my last session’s notes that the other two dogs are named “Señor Guapo” and “Joel”.

“Because Claus is a good boy and he is the conscience of this party.”

“We could also surround her. We number quite many.”

*insert Benny Hill theme here as the party & our dogs attempt to surround the suspected thief while our horses graze serenely a few meters away from the chaos*

The thief is a hungry young woman I don’t care what her role in the story is I have already mentally adopted her.

Mountain paid the farmer the five copper the carrots were worth, and the man stormed off, threatening to call the guard if we let her near his farm again.

“You offer her your rations, and she looks at you like you are God.”

The child is absolutely bewildered by the size of Ganondorf the Horse, but then she looked back at me (the Dragonborn) and whispered “Oooh, that makes sense…”

Soothing lute music is good for panic attacks and that’s about all Udaji’s good for right now.

Her name is Colette De Mir, and she claims to have fallen on hard times after receiving a letter pROPOSING MARRIAGE TO A LORD IN EVERTON OH NO-

She survived an attack on her traveling group, and was the only survivor. Lord Hassan tried to kill her, and threw her off of a bridge into a ravine, where she once again managed to cheat death. No-one else in her party survived, and everything in their carriage that could be stolen was.

Burnt Toast and Joel are therapy dogs: Confirmed.

Colette was horrified when we told her that she was not the only one who had been targeted by this scam, and demanded to know what we knew.

Matthias doesn’t trust her, for some reason, but the high Insight roll checks out.

“Yeeting princesses is not a very Lordly activity.”

Colette says she woke up underwater after the fall, and found herself breathing rather normally. What a way to find out you’re a sorcerer.

I lent her one of the costumes from my Entertainer’s pack, to replace her dirty and mismatched clothing as we go into town, and it’s WAY too big for her, considering it was sized for a Dragonborn.

Once we get to town, Astrid and I take Colette on a spa/shopping trip so that she can get cleaned up, and have some proper clothes.

At the inn, Colette tells us that she didn’t know that this town was Caister - she had been told that it was Kenkilly by the ship that had carried her and her entourage.

She was lied to about which town was which, basically, and - being from a completely different country - she had no idea.

Our money from Swadlin is still good in Everton, but almost all of the shopkeepers and merchants could pin us as tourists from our foreign currency.

Colette asks us to take her to Kenkilly, where Lord Hassan is supposedly supposed to be. Safety and strength in numbers, right?

Udaji - having been raised by an overprotective party of retired adventurers in a quiet, but populous, town - has no survival skills of her own.

For all intents and purposes, Colette is a Waterbender.

Colette has a blue cloak that she tried to hide from the party, and took great care to dry and keep when changing clothes. It was a gift from her mother, meant to protect her.

When we set out the next morning, Colette rode with Astrid and got the tea (whether she wanted it or not) on the rest of the party.

“She has all the embarrassing stories on you, like what you do when you sleep.”/”Oh, no! She’s seen me cuddle my lute??”

Kenkilly is actually a small, rural village on the coast, rather than the larger city it had been made out to be in the letter to her family.

We track down some shady locals to try and get information, and we….are not subtle about it.

Between the Dragonborn, the Tiefling, two half-elves, a princess, and four dogs, we stand out quite a bit.

Matthias joined the shady people for a game of chance with dice, and won a bit of money, but no information.

Mountain joined in the betting, and Astrid is shit-talking both of them while Colette, Claus, and Udaji stand off to the side and watch.

Claus lasts about five minutes before he gives up trying to pretend we aren’t doing some shady BS and goes back to the inn to drink.

Mountain asks about the Crescent gang, but one guy asks for a bribe for his answer. Mountain tries to intimidate him, and fails miserably

Matthias also tried (and failed) to intimidate, but with Astrid’s help, the criminal was successfully intimidated.

Lord Hassan does indeed live in this town (or at least the castle nearby it), and he does not seem to be entirely well-liked by the people.

None of the complaints are super-bad, though….”trash day changes too much”, “the cost of living is too high”, “there’s too many damned foreigners-” Okay. Okay. We get the point.

“Udaji’s gonna look herself up and down from her boots to her flower crown and ask: “Do I look like a cop??’.”

“If we’re gonna ‘case this castle’, may I recommend not sending the Tiefling or the Dragonborn?”

Matthias goes out to scout, and finds out that Lord Hassan has ‘appointment times’ where he is available to the public - the next time being 2pm the next day.

He signs up the party for the 2pm meeting and comes back to the inn where the rest of us are waiting.

“I have been giving you guys tons and tons and TONS of money! You know you can spend it, right??”

The local armorer can upgrade our weapons with silver, but it would take two days, and we don’t expect to be in town that long...bummer.

I bought some new Studded Leather Armor for Udaji, sold her original Leather Armor, AND got it refined - my bby now has an AC of 16 now!

“Why do you still have all these rotten apples in your inventory?!”/”She’s fermenting them!”

Matthias’ player had him eat twenty rotten apples in one sitting just to spite the DM (their sister).

He then had to go throw up in the harbor.

So earlier, Matthias horribly embarrassed Astrid back in the alley, and now she’s refusing to talk to him.

Colette is confirmed for 19 and Udaji is still the baby of the party at 17.

The rest of the party is hanging out in the tavern, completely unawares, as Astrid yeets herself out a second story window to avoid talking to her father.

The innkeeper gave Udaji some alcohol, and Mountain casually stole it, drank it, and said “Underaged drinking is bad.”

Everyone goes around placing dinner orders at the inn and Udaji orders an entire chicken.

Astrid came back after brooding out in the wilderness for a few hours and we settled down to sleep.

Astrid steals a crown that Matthias had ‘found’ in an earlier session for Colette, arguing that “she’s actual royalty, and we’re going to talk to a Lord tomorrow, so we need to make the best impression”.

We also get a ‘glow-up’ montage as Astrid uses Matthias’ disguise kit to alter Colette’s appearance (bc if Lord Hassan really DID try to murder her, then walking straight back into his castle with no disguise would be a death sentence).

Still refusing to talk to her father, Astrid paid a very confused and slightly offended Colette to bring her breakfast in her room, just so she didn’t have to look at Matthias’ smug elven face.

Astrid also does not join us at the castle.

The Lord that we meet in the castle…..is NOT the same Lord that tried to kill Colette.

“It is kind of rude to show up for your scheduled appointment and just stand at the door, not saying anything.”

Colette storms past the party to demand an explanation of Lord Hassan, who is very unimpressed with this strange woman’s attitude.

“She’s a little upsetti spaghetti.”

Udaji’s soothing lute music saves the day again.

We tell the Lord that we are from the land of Swadlin, and were sent to investigate a series of deaths.

This Lord Hassan is a widower who is deeply faithful to his late wife and has no intentions of marrying again, and is VERY confused to hear that someone is using his name.

An advisor steps forward to take over the situation, and Matthias’ successful Insight roll gives him TERRIBLE vibes.

“He’s the kind of person whose teeth are too straight; too white.”

This advisor offered to pay us to investigate who was impersonating his Lord, and despite the bad vibes, Matthias agrees.

“Maybe DON’T intimidate the advisor while surrounded by guards.”

“He’s essentially offering you $7,000 EACH.”

We got sent off to investigate this impersonation of a Lord, and went back to the inn to try and shake off the Bad Vibes and calm Colette down.

Colette draws us a (rough) sketch of a frowning man with a pointed hairline and stiff moustache as the man who threw her off the bridge.

*two minutes of the DM (lovingly) insulting her cat in the background*

Colette says he was incredibly handsome, but Udaji just doesn’t see it.

We decide to try following the river upstream until we find a bridge that matches the one Colette was thrown off of.

Colette uses some of Matthias’ paper to write a letter to her parents, and asks Udaji to come with her to find a sailor to deliver it to her parents (for a modest fee).

The DM brought up the map and showed us the island of Mir, where Colette was from. It is a tiny dot out in the ocean, down in the far right bottom corner of the map. No wonder she needed to sail for two months!

“Matthias drinks one drink and then is blackout drunk.”/”Why do you think I have a kid?”

When we leveled up I took “Suggestion” as my next 2nd level spell, and I absolutely cannot wait to use it.

I CAN TAKE THE “DRAGON WINGS” RACIAL FEATURE AND GIVE UDAJI A 20FT WINGSPAN! Oooooooh boy the sTORYTELLING I can do with this!!!

#OOC #Quarantine D&D

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coffee-obsessed-writer · 5 years

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When You Least Expect It, Preview - Part 8

Jensen x Musician!Reader

Preview of Part 8! The full chapter should be up over the weekend.

Spotify PlayList

Everything Tags: @kazosa // @sorenmarie87 // @lefthologramdeer // @his-paradox // @letsby // @thefaithfulwriter

SUPERNATURAL TAGS: @wings-of-a-raven // @negans-wife // @mrsbarnes-rogers // @teller258316 // @spnhollis // @sweet-things-4-life // @hobby27 // @sweetlythoughtfulbird // @theoriginalvicki // @dreamchester67 // @xxwarhawk // @babykalika2001 // @superwhovianfangirl81 // @toobusynerdfighting // @missihart23 // @idreamofplaid // @thewinchesterchronicles // @wayward-gypsy // @closetspngirl // @fatestemptress // @rebelminxy // @22sarah08 // @witch-of-letters// @cole-winchester // @rainflowermoon // @adoptdontshoppets // @waywardvalkyrie // @fandomoniumflurry // @gnrfanfic // @blackcherrywhiskey // @jessieray98 // @lyoly // @a–1–1–3 // @31shadesofbrown // @whereismyangel-damnitdeanshare // @pilaxia // @screechingartisancashbailiff // @kgbrenner // @holylulusworld // @deansenwackles // @jamielea81 // @coffeebooksandfandom // @logical-princey // @gemini0410 // @salt-n-burn-em-all // @collette04 // @mrswhozeewhatsis // @deathofmissjackson // @lauravic // @akshi8278 // @katehuntington

When You Least Expect It: @winchest09 // @jerkbitchidjitassbutt // @aomi-nabi // @luciathewinchestergirl // @alexisxwinchester // @moonxdance // @seppys-return-to-madness // @donnaintx // @deans-baby-momma // @the-is13

“Hey! Did I miss anything?” Rob said and plopped down into his seat, his beer now completely saturated in condensation from sitting untouched.

“Nope,” Y/N said and leaned back in her chair, “Jay and I were just catching up. By the way, fun concert tonight. You boys rock out like that at every one of these conventions?”

“We do,” Rob smiled, “It's usually a really good time. You need to start coming to more of them, you fit right in up there. If you’re up for it, that is. I mean, you and Bri sounded amazing together. That should happen more. Right, Jensen? Maybe I should grab her and Bri, then we take this act on the road?” He wiggled his eyebrows and playfully draped an arm over Y/N’s shoulders, drawing her into his side.

Jensen opened his mouth to respond and the lights of the bar dimmed on and off, before settling into a hazy ambiance. The duo took to the stage again and picked up their instruments for another set of four songs. While they played, Y/N took out her phone and zoomed in to record them play. She took less than thirty seconds of video before tucking it away.

“What’s that for?” Rob leaned in and whispered.

“I’ve been taking videos and pictures of all the acts so far, to put them out on the social media accounts. The followers have been growing a lot. Hoping by the time the pre-sale starts next month, all the final acts will be in place and lots of tickets will go fast once they get a look at the line up and diversity of the acts.”

“Smart girl,” Rob mused before leaning back in his seat.

As their second set played on, they transitioned into a cover of Etta James’ Misty Blue. Y/N knew it almost instantly. It was one of those songs that immediately conjured up a memory and not necessarily ones that she wanted to have present. Her initial reaction was that she wouldn’t let the memories of the song hit her like a tidal wave. But by the time the first few lines were sung, she was already being pushed underwater.

“Do you guys want another round?” she asked in a hushed whisper, suddenly desperate to get up and move around.

“Sure, but I ca--”

She waved Rob to sit. “I’ll go.”

Y/N didn’t wait and left the table in a hurry, headed towards the bar. She wanted to leave the club completely, but it was just a song after all. She just needed a moment to herself and she would be able to push away the memories of her father playing it on repeat after her mother left. Y/N didn’t want to think about how he would sit on the couch, staring out of the window at the ocean, most liking wishing he was out on the sea, instead of in the house he had shared with the woman he loved.

Somewhere around the second chorus, Y/N had realized that she wasn’t standing alone at the end of the bar, Jensen now standing next to her, reaching out to take her hand.

“Hey, you ok?”

Y/N shook her head but then chuckled. “Yeah, I’m just being stupid.”

He watched her carefully and could see she was far from the truth. “What’s wrong? Something is clearly wrong.”

“It's the song. Just… reminds me of--”

“The ex?”

“No… not at all. My dad, actually.”

“Oh,” Jensen breathed and pulled out the stool next to her and guided her to sit.

He stood right at her side and motioned to the bartender to bring over another round. When he looked back down at her, he wanted to offer some kind of comfort but wasn’t sure where the boundaries had been set. “Do you wanna get out of here? We can take a walk, or…”

“No,” she replied again, but this time gazed up at him and was struck by how suddenly grateful she was that he was there. She didn’t talk to many people about her dad, yet she felt comfortable sharing things about him with Jensen. “The messed up part is I love the song. But after my mom left, he played it repeatedly for months. He and my brother would fight about it constantly. Then Dave started being home less often, then eventually took off for good. I mean, it wasn’t just the song, obviously. They butted heads over everything.”

“What about you?”Jensen asked, just as the beer was left for them on the bar top. “Did it bother you?”

“Not then, no. I knew it was what he needed to work through it. That’s just how my dad was. I learned from an early age that music was how he dealt with stuff. Whenever he had a problem or got hurt, felt angry he would go to music. He was a man of few words, but you always knew what kind of mood he was in by what was playing in the house.”

Y/N sighed at his memory, and as the song she both loved and hated came to an end, she felt Jensen rest his hand on the middle of her back, gently gliding his thumb back and forth over the fabric of her shirt. She liked the warmth and weight of it against her and silently hoped he stayed just where he was. It was inviting. Soothed her enough so as she sat in the dimly lit corner of Rosa’s Lounge, she felt ready to trust him a little more.

What’s the worst that could happen? She asked herself. I end up singing Joy to the World, right, daddy?

“One time, my brother had stormed out after dinner, so my dad sat out on the bench and killed a six-pack. He had this on repeat, of course. I remember going out there and sitting on the bench with him. I wanted to ask him so many questions, but I could tell he just wanted to sit quietly. Then he started to sing along with it. And I mean, his eyes closed, a few tears in his eyes, and just this look of pure anguish, you know? He was ripe for a country song to be written about him.”

“Oh yeah, I know the look,” Jensen said.

“It was one of the few times I’d seen him cry. He sang through a verse and a chorus and then finally remembered I was there.” Y/N stopped and drank her new beer, and felt his hand still there only now slowly working its way to the small of her back. “I guess over time I just realized that music could talk for those would didn’t have the words to express how they felt.”

Y/N felt like she was rambling on and bit her lip to stop talking. Taking a gulp of the beer, she felt a sense of relief when they came to the end of Misty Blue and picked up the melody of some old Muddy Waters tune.

“I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. That’s how it was for your dad?”

Y/N nodded. “Me too, actually. As you’ve experienced, I’m not a great communicator,” she chuckled nervously and raised her glass before taking a sip.

“Oh, I dunno,” he said with a slight shrug. “I think you’re doing just fine.”

Y/N turned her head to look at him. His features looked drawn and tired, but his eyes were alive with something she couldn’t quite place. Being close to him again, and not just in proximity, but opening up about things that were very personal to her satisfied a need she didn’t even realize she had. Though he looked weary, he looked happy.

“You look beat. You should have gone back to the hotel to sleep.”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“Never.”

“Good. I mean you’re not wrong. I’m fucking beat. But I wanted to come out with you guys tonight. I really did miss having you around, Y/N.”

“I think we got what we needed. We can call it a night. You have another long day tomorrow, right?”

“Eh, I’ll be fine. I’m used to these schedules by now,” he waved her off and ran his fingers along the rim of his glass. “Besides, we were talking about you, not me.”

“I would rather talk about you. Are you sleeping enough? Traveling too much? Please tell me you’re not just gorging on Sow burgers and beer every day, are you?” she asked sternly, though Jensen could easily see through her facade and sarcasm. She was asking because she cared and wanted to know he was taking care of himself.

“Yes ma’am. I am well rested, hydrated, and have even been eating my veggies.” He was teasing her now.

“Don’t give me that look. Someone’s gotta make sure you’re taken care of.”

Jensen smiled and looked up through the bar, watched the blues duo play for a beat before turning back to Y/N. “That’s your job, is it?”

Y/N shrugged, then changed the subject. “You coming out with us tomorrow night, too?”

“Do you need me to?”

“No. Not necessarily.”

“Oh,” he sighed, the disappointment oozing from that single word.

“But… I’d like you to. You certainly make it more fun.”

Tags are open for SPN or this series if you wanna hop on (or off)!

#Jensen Ackles RPF #Jensen ackles Fanfics #Jensen Ackles x reader #when you least expect it preview

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midnightlie · 6 years

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title: i really should have thought this through ocs: jess, sophie, kai notes: as some of u may or may NOT know.....i have this mermaid story that i wanna maybe get down some day. the general idea is that a boy rescues the first mermaid ever caught from her exhibit in an aquarium while interning there during the summer and his stubborn little sister gets caught up in the mix lol.

tbh, it’s really fun to try writing something new, and it’s very short, just a quick character study, really, so i’d love it if you could check it out!!!

Jess generally doesn’t know how to deal with feelings to begin with. Sure, he feels them strongly and emphatically, but acting on them? Interpreting them? A fool’s errand. On his best days, he wears his blasé attitude like a shield, invulnerable and confident, but ever since he met her - since he saved her - he can’t help but wallow in his emotional ineptitude.

He wants to be soft, wants to understand, but he doesn’t know how.

Kai sits next to Sophie on the other side of the campfire, rubbing at her sore legs with firm hands. Sophie helps, looking up at Kai with heady concern.

“Are they still hurting you?” Sophie asks, frowning, her hands working unhelpfully against Kai’s shin.

Kai nods, matter-of-fact as she has always been, and Sophie’s frown deepens. With a little smile, Kai shakes her head and stops rubbing one of her calves to touch Sophie’s bare arm. Not for the first time, Jess wishes that there was a better way to communicate with Kai. He furrows his eyebrows as he watches the exchange, Sophie’s expression changing as she tries to make sense of the sensations Kai passes to her through the physical contact.

Sophie retracts her tiny hands from Kai’s legs. “Not….bad?” she tries out in an attempt to understand. “They don’t hurt as bad? You mean, like last night?”

Kai nods enthusiastically, and tucks one of Sophie’s stray hairs back behind her ear. Sophie turns to her older brother and smirks victoriously. “She talks to me more than you.”

He leans back on his hands and rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Just admit you are jealous and that I, your adorable little sister, am superior to you,” she says smugly. Far more smugly than any ten year old ought to have a right to be.

“I’ll admit it when you actually learn how to pronounce ‘domino’ like a normal person,” he quips. He really isn’t jealous at all when there is an easy sort of camaraderie in the silences that he shares with Kai. He prefers the quiet, anyway.

Kai makes a strange noise that he can only surmise is her version of a laugh. He has wondered before if it sounds the same underwater. Does she laugh when she’s underwater, in her element? He pauses at that. Do mermaids laugh at all?

Sophie sticks her tongue out at him and leans into Kai’s side. “I’m only ten, you heathen. Cut me some slack.”

He doesn’t know where the hell she learned the word “heathen” but he makes a mental note to track down the source and eliminate it. When they get back. The last thing he needs is for her to get in trouble for bullying some scrawny kid at school. “Stop pulling the ‘I’m ten’ card. We know. It’s not cute.”

“Kai thinks I’m cute.” Sophie wraps her arms around Kai’s waist and smiles at him angelically. To her credit, Kai looks sheepish as she glances up at Jess, giving him a little shrug as she brushes the ends of her long ponytail back from her shoulder.

“Jesus in heaven, give me strength,” Jess mutters, disengaging from the conversation before it escalates into a fight. He leans back onto the grass, peering up at the diamond-studded sky. It’s a moonless night, and the void of darkness is strangely comforting in the concept of absence. Sophie begins to talk again, chattering this time at Kai, who without the means to interrupt, falls victim to the little gremlin’s endless prattling.

Jess tunes her out, as he is well trained to do, and instead lets his thoughts drift. It’s been two weeks on the run like this, and he’s starting to feel the weight of his decision. He doesn’t have a car, and the only money he has left is a $50 bill tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. They are famous, plastered across every news article and showcased on every TV station. Sophie hasn’t had a proper bed to sleep on since that seedy motel last week and he still doesn’t know anything about Kai other than her name.

And god, his parents were going to murder him for dragging Soph into this.

He sighs and tucks his hands behind his head, listening to the sounds of the night life around them and the crackling of the dying fire. Distantly, he’s aware that his sister’s voice slows and quiets. He only stirs when he hears that it has stopped completely.

The fire has become a bed of bright embers, and on the other side, Sophie sleeps with her mouth wide open, leaning heavily on Kai who runs her long, delicate fingers through Sophie’s dark hair. Kai looks up and meets Jess’s gaze when he shifts into a sitting position. He laughs quietly at the scene.

“I should probably put her to bed,” he almost whispers, so as not to disturb his sister.

Kai gives a little dip with her head toward the tiny two-person tent that is popped open under an evergreen a couple yards away.

“That’s alright; I got her,” he replies, understanding her gesture easily enough. He rolls onto his feet and moves to Sophie’s side, scooping her up into his arms with as much grace as he can muster. She snores a little at the disturbance, and he has to fight not to laugh as he places her gently on top of her sleeping mat and pulls the blanket up over her shoulder.

Once he has extracted himself, he makes his way back over to Kai and sits down beside her, leaning back against the fallen tree behind them. He can feel her heat beside him, radiating, despite being a foot or so apart, and he can sense that she wants to speak but she can’t, so he does.

“Are your legs really feeling better?” he asks softly, staring at the embers and their muted light show.

She sighs and he takes that as a no. He kind of wants to scold her for lying about it, because there’s no use in hiding something like that from them, but he also kind of gets why she would. There’s only so many of their water bottles left after all.

Jess reaches for Sophie’s half-drank bottle discarded hours ago to the side and turns towards Kai. She sits there with her hands outstretched palms up, her gaze downcast, as though she’s ashamed of her weakness. Like, he’s not an expert or anything - what emotionally constipated 17 year old boy is? - but he’s pretty sure that feeling guilty for something as wildly unavoidable like dehydration is outrageous.

“Is it worse?” he presses, tipping some of the water into her hands.

Even in the darkness, with just the softest glow from the embers, he can see the sheer relief that breaks across her face like a sunrise. A blissful sigh tears from her as the water falls through her fingers and onto her bare legs. She rubs the moisture into her skin delightedly, and immediately the tension he hadn’t known she’d been holding onto totally disintegrates.

Now entirely soothed, she leans back against the tree, boneless, and he can’t make out her expression but he’d guess that she is at ease. He vaguely sees her make a gesture and he recognizes it as one of the only sign language gestures he had known and taught to her the first day that he had pulled her from that tank in New York.

“You’re welcome,” he says, handing her the bottle. She drains it eagerly and discards it beside her. Jess leans back beside her again, and turns to stare at the embers. He takes a deep breath of crisp, summer air, and releases it. “I’m sorry it’s taking us so long to get you home.”

He doesn’t jump when her still-damp hand slides over his jacketed arm and down to find the bare skin. When she finds his wrist, an overwhelming wave of gratitude so potent that it nearly chokes him, and then her touch disappears, and the gratitude is gone.

He smiles to himself, crossing his legs, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “You know, if I had stopped for five seconds to think up an actual plan, this would have been a hell of a lot easier.” He fights to keep his self-depreciation from getting out of hand. “I didn’t even have a car, for fuck’s sake.”

There is insistent tapping on his shoulder and when he glances over, he can see Kai looking at him, but he is unable to read her expression. She begins violently signing, determined to get her point across.

Thank you, she signs. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

He wonders what else she would say, if she could. Jess gives her a tired, lopsided smile and crosses his arms over his chest. “Hey. I know. I know.”

She shakes her head as if to say, no, you don’t know, but she merely sighs in frustration and straightens, facing the darkness before them.

Slowly, the embers finally die, leaving them almost totally blind. He expects her to go to bed, but she stays put as firmly as him as the minutes pass. Jess turns his gaze back to the sky and watches as a satellite skates smoothly over the curve of the Earth. “I have so many questions for you,” he says.

Her hand searches awkwardly for his again, so he holds it out so that she can touch it more easily. There is a timid openness to the sensation she passes to him. She wants him to ask her questions, and she wants to answer. He doesn’t know whether the limitlessness to this feeling makes him happy or wary.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, and then she gives him warmth and knowing. He doesn’t know what makes her so confident in him. If it’s the whole saving her life thing, that was a total fluke and as his obvious lack of forethought has shown, he hasn’t done a single thing deserving of her assurance since. She lingers for a moment and then pulls her hand away.

“We should probably get to bed,” he says, using the tree behind them to stand up. “We have to get moving tomorrow since we’re running out of supplies.”

She shifts, too, and then follows him to the tent. Jess zips the entrance up once they are both inside. He turns around to see Kai’s shadow stretch out languidly beside Sophie and pull a blanket up over herself, settling comfortably into the idea of sleep.

“Good night,” he whispers, slithering to the other side of Sophie. After a few long moments, Kai begins to breathe more heavily. Jess lets out a low breath, and tries to ignore the sticky humidity of three people crammed into this tiny tent. He rolls onto his side and finds his face pressed into the wave of Sophie’s hair. His eyes flutter closed, and instead of pushing her away, he sinks into a dream where Kai finds freedom back in her waters and he brings Sophie safely home.

#taylor writes things #mermaid story #idk if it has a tag but that's what i'll make it for now #my ocs

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mylittlejoanie · 7 years

Text

Cherry Blossoms (I) - a chanyeol story

Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight

Plot: You loved Chanyeol with everything you had; but after many broken promises, it may be time to let him go

Genre: Total and complete angst

Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader

Reader

I woke up with a start. I felt sweat beaded on my brow; I wiped it with the back of my hand and slowly opened my eyes. I could see the beginnings of a sunrise creeping in through my blinds, a few birds chirping to start their early day. ‘What time is it?’ I couldn’t find my phone. I lazily pawed at the other side of my bed, startled when my hand hit something warm.

He’s here. Chanyeol is here.

When did he arrive? He surely wasn’t here when I went to sleep at 2am. He had promised me he’d be home by 11. He said he would make me popcorn, and we could finally watch that cheesy drama I’ve been begging him to watch with me. He said we could finally have time together, alone.

But as usual, Chanyeol broke every single one of his promises.

He was pretty good at that.

Park Chanyeol and I were high school sweethearts. I’d been by his side since our school days. If I closed my eyes, I could still picture him, walking around the halls with a spring in his step, smiling and waving at everyone he saw. The sparkle in his eyes was contagious. He was popular with everyone, and not just because he was training to be an idol and would surely be famous one day.

He had a way of making everyone he met feel important. He made everyone feel like they belonged, like they were a part of something. That sense of belonging is what drew me to him, and it’s why I never left his side. I knew that even if he never became famous, he was still going to be somebody one day. He already was to me. We were in love; the kind of love that makes you feel like you’re invincible. I didn’t think anything in the world could ever tear us apart.

And then he debuted.

—

"Chanyeol, stop, you’re going way too fast!“ I managed to get a sentence out through my heavy breathing. I tried my best to stifle a giggle as I ran to catch up with him. It was a gorgeous spring day in Seoul. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom, and the streets had a strange stillness to them. It was virtually silent, but we wouldn’t have been paying attention if anyone else had been around. The exquisite beauty of the park and the tangible force of our bond was enough to keep us shielded from the outside world. Chanyeol turned around to face me, fluffy hair bobbing in the breeze, his lanky arms almost flowing behind him, as if he were underwater. And that smile…

Chanyeol has always had a smile that made people stop in their tracks. It wasn’t because his teeth were blindingly white, or because he was always laughing when he smiled. It was because his smile was genuine. I could never remember a time when Chanyeol expressed any emotion other than pure, unadulterated happiness. Sure, he got sad, frustrated, tired. His training kept him busier than the average 19 year old, and I didn’t expect him to be in a great mood every second. But he handled his feelings like a true professional. He’d been that way even before he signed with that entertainment company.

"Jagi! Come here! Run to me!” I ran as fast as my legs could carry me and leapt into his muscular arms. He held me tightly and spun me around, gleefully laughing all the while. I could see cherry blossoms, green grass, and the face of the love of my life. As long as I was with him, I didn’t have a care in the world.

Chanyeol cradled me gently with one arm and rested his other on my shoulder. He leaned forward and kissed me deeply, trying to say what he couldn’t possibly express with words. When he looked up at me, I saw that his features had hardened and he had suddenly become subdued. A shadow hung over his face as he said the five words that changed both of our lives irrevocably.

“I’m debuting in six months.“

Tears rolled down my face as I realized what this meant. No more sleepovers, no more walking through busy streets unrecognized, no more late night phone calls and promises of forever. Things were changing. We were no longer going to be two carefree teenagers in love; he was going to be an idol, with millions of fans all over the world, and I would be the girlfriend that he eventually had to leave behind. Because there was no way Park Chanyeol wasn’t going to be accepted with open arms by an adoring public. I loved him, more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone. I just hoped that everyone else would love him, too.

"Chan… what about us? What about forever?” His lips gently curled upwards as he told me the words I’d been wanting to hear since I was a lowly freshman, admiring him from afar. “Forever. Nothing could ever change that. You and me, forever…” he words trailed off as he held my hands in his, gently swaying back and forth in the breeze. Could life get any more perfect than this?

—

It was no longer cherry blossom season in Seoul, and we were no longer teenagers. Chanyeol’s group, EXO, became one of the most successful Kpop groups of all time. He got to tour the world with his best friends, meet new people, and live his dreams. Or at least, part of his dreams.

I stayed behind.

What else could I have done? I went to college, completed my degree, bought a shitty car and a flat in central Seoul. I threw myself into my work, into cocktail parties where I avoided conversations about my love life. What could I say about the great Park Chanyeol that everyone didn’t already know? His birthday, his mom’s name, his sister’s name, even his goddamn blood type were all in the public domain.

I was the only thing that stayed a secret.

In the beginning, he tried. He really, truly tried. He would come to my flat after showcases, exhausted and covered in sweat, just to give me a kiss and a quick hug before heading back to his dorm to fall into bed. Every second that he wasn’t practicing or performing or recording was spent trying to communicate with me in some way. He had flowers delivered, and he would FaceTime me from backstage. I began to see how the effort to keep our thin threads of a relationship together was wearing him down. He no longer smiled his soul-changing grin, he had bags under his eyes. With many tears shed, I told him to take a step back from me. I didn’t want him to risk his reputation by causing a scandal. Why the fuck would it have been called a “scandal”, anyway? Since when was being in love a crime? Regardless, he did what he was told. He promised to always keep in touch, to check up on me, and to be with me whenever he could.

Those were the first promises broken.

Since then, I couldn’t count on all of my digits how many promises he’d thrown aside. He missed my college graduation, almost every single one of my birthdays, and I didn’t have him around to help me move into what was supposed to be our first apartment together. Instead of coming home early on the rare nights he had off, he’d stay in the studio until the early hours of the morning, his guitar strings coated in his blood from playing. But it wasn’t entirely his fault that our relationship slowly crumbled. I could have joined him on any tour spot I wished; Chanyeol was exceedingly generous, and would have flown me straight to him the second I had said the word. But I was too engrossed in my work, too busy trying to stay afloat without my other half to realize that my other half was exactly what I needed. I didn’t stop to think about how heartbreakingly lonely touring must be, how much he missed his family. I didn’t even entertain the thought that he might have missed me as much as I missed him.

I would call him, and he wouldn’t answer. He would text me, and I wouldn’t see it until the next day. I couldn’t remember the last time we had a real conversation, the last time we ate cold ramen and drank hot tea and poured out the day’s events, giggling as he recounted a funny prank he had played on his friends. I barely knew them. I had met them all once, maybe twice. They were polite, and kind to me. But I had seen the pity in their eyes. Maybe they knew all along.

I was finally catching up.

I felt tears drip into my mouth, salty and hot. It was that taste that shook me out of my daydreams and made me realize exactly what I needed to do, for both of us. I felt surprisingly strong despite how weak I truly was. My tears didn’t betray my heart full of sorrow; that would come later. In the back of my mind, I had known this was coming, but memories of cherry blossoms kept me from seeing reality.

He took it well. His eyes watered, but tears never spilled over the edge. He smiled at me, wished me the best, promised we would always be friends, gave me a quick side hug, and left. I knew that was all a lie. How could someone so completely wonderful have any time for me? I wasn’t even an idol, and I had barely had time for him.

He hadn’t begged, pleaded, or cried. But had I really expected him to? He was Chanyeol, world famous rapper and musician. Within a year, there would be an announcement of his relationship with a female idol infinitely more beautiful than I. It would be a perfect match.

He would finally have his forever. But what about mine?

Chanyeol

I shook the tears from my face as I walked as fast as I could down the street and away from her cozy apartment. It took every ounce of strength I had not to turn around and scream for her, beg for another chance. It was cold outside, and I could feel it in my bones. I could still feel her in my skin, in every single part of me. I had never felt this kind of uncontrollable sadness before. I felt like half of me was gone, the better half of me. I would have died for her, but now I was walking away from the one thing I had in this world that was worth my life. It had just been me and her for so many years. How could I possibly move forward without my heartbeat?

I had promised forever, and I meant it.

Now I had to let her go, and do everything in my power to change what I hadn’t in the past. Maybe we could rebuild, move on, and continue growing together. But within a year, she’d find someone nice to date. Someone who would be there when she called, someone reliable. Someone who would actually keep their promises.

Someone infinitely better than me.

#chanyeol angst #chanyeol fanfic #chanyeol fanfiction #park chanyeol #chanyeol x reader #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #fluffy exo #exo fanfics #exo angst #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop fic #kpop angst

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hellagaymccree · 7 years

Text

Kiss Me With Adventure

been a while since i posted something, and this has been on my file for a while, so here

[more works by me]

---------

Jesse still stares in awe at the room he had scored. It was definitely worth the run in with the door. Sure he had to share it with Rainer since they were short on rooms, but the bed was big enough for both. Once they took off the dozen of pillows and two covers decorating the mattress, they will fit in comfortably and sleep like babies. Rainer enters the room after taking a shower and falls on the bed made for a prince.

“It’s like a cloud, McCree!” Rainer starts swaying their arms, as if they were making bed angels. “Never wake me up.”

Jesse laughs before looking out the glass window behind the fancy curtains. The houses around him look just as the one they broke in to hide until morning. A gang was using these vacation homes around to hide their drugs in backyards and do deals in said houses. Blackwatch got them and now it was just time to wait until morning for back-up and reach the gang’s main hide out. Sure, they had broken into one of these fancy houses themselves, but they were heroes. Like Gabriel said as he hacked the alarm system, they deserve it.

Of course, Reyes had called dibs on the master room, with the bed made for a king, as soon as he stepped foot in polished wooden floor. Which led to his 7 agents run to the three empty rooms. Jesse and Rainer both reached the one besides the master bedroom, they still needed to pair of, mind as well be fair.

“The water is amazing,” Rainer comments, lifting themselves on their elbows. “Should get to it before one of the others calls dibs.”

“Nah,” Jesse waves them off. “I’ve got my eyes set on that fancy pool over there.”

Rainer scoffs, “I don’t think Reyes would like us out at this hour. Could attract attention.”

“I’m pretty sure our dear commander is far gone on his big ass bed. He won’t know shit.” Jesse makes his way to the door. “Meanwhile, I would bathe in the fountain of gods.”

“Good luck, McCree,” Rainer says as they get up to pick up pillows off the way and undo the covers to slip under.

Jesse marches into one of the two bathrooms, ignores Kimura’s complains, and grabs a towel from the cabinet. On his way out through the kitchen to the backdoor, he grabs a beer and snaps it open to get that first sip before going outside.

He sighs to the breeze against his face and the pretty sight of the lights shimmering under the clear water, shifting into soft different colors. He looks over at the wall of rocks at one end and the small cascade rushing into the pool. He’s sure someone turned on the lights and the fountain, he hadn’t noticed the pool when they broke in until he looked out the window while Rainer took a shower.

He was quick to undress until he was left in boxer briefs. He wasn’t going to risk members of the gang attacking him in his birthday suit. He got his legs in first, tested the waters. It was colder than he expected, but he waited and drank his beer, giving his body time to adjust to the temperature. When he felt ready, he dipped in and sunk under water. He came out with a bursts and pushed his wet hair back as he sighed to the refreshing drops rolling down his skin. He sinks lower, until the water reaches his nose.

“Looks like we had the same idea.”

Jesse turns, startled, and sees Gabriel, his commander, swimming towards him. His whole body, face and hair are wet and his eyes are shinier with the different colors of the lights.

“Great minds think alike,” Jesse straightens up, keeps his legs floating as he moves his hands. “You also got tempted?”

Gabriel shrugs, “Tough day at the office.” Gabriel leans back and swims softly.

Jesse watches him with a fond smile. The lights reflect nicely on him, coloring his dark skin and giving him a glow that makes Reyes look heavenly. Jesse swims closer to him as he looks with half-lid eyes. His gaze trails to Gabriel’s legs when they start floating on the surface. Both are covered in tattoos and Jesse’s mouth drops open.

He hovers his hand over one of Reyes’ legs, wanting to touch, but at the same time no wanting to damage the masterpiece. “Since when do you have these?”

“Got my first when I turned seventeen, a friend did it as practice,” Gabriel says without even looking. His eyes are fixed on the sky. “Couldn’t stop after one.”

“They are awesome,” Jesse admires, fingers finally tracing over the intricate designs and patterns. He notices the tattoo Reyes mention, a small, wobbly outline of AC/DC’s logo over his ankle. The tattoo made by his friend is still displayed proudly while the others work around it, Jesse finds it touching he hasn’t covered it.

Jesse can see half a rose coming under Gabriel’s black boxer briefs. He traces the petals and counts the falling ones that go over other tattoos. He pokes at the thorns as if they would bite. He can almost feel the beads of a rosary and looks deep into the gaps of a skull’s eyes. Every design has a different style, seems most were done by different artist, but just as much work went into them to mark sharp details. Jesse recites the names he finds on the way, he remembers them from Gabriel’s stories about his three sisters. Reyes doesn’t even flinch, he allows the younger man’s hands explore and map every line.

“You hid these well,” Jesse says as he keeps looking at them. He knows he’s probably taking longer than anyone has ever done admiring Reyes’ tattoos, but if Gabriel allows this touch, he’s going to take the opportunity.

“Gotta have my secrets,” Reyes says, still letting the water keep him afloat.

Jesse raises an eyebrow and slowly drops his arms into the water. “And I will have fun unraveling them all.”

Gabriel hums with some mockery in it, “Sometimes, if you shut up and really listen, they will unravel in front of you.”

Those words give Jesse even more of a push to pull at Gabriel’s every threat. He wants to read everything Gabriel has to offer and between the lines. For now, he floats beside his commander and stares up at the stars. Jesse had heard of light pollution from years ago, but after the omnic crisis, it seemed people took more conscious on a lot of things. Is not like he can see all the stars or as if he were out on the dessert with no light source around, but it’s enough to connect dots. The sky looks enchanting enough and with Reyes by his side, both floating, feeling almost numb, it’s a blissful feeling.

His ears are barely out of the water, everything feels muted by it. He can’t hear much, there’s nothing to listen to anyways. But he’s sure if Gabriel spoke, he would hear him clearly.

After the silence is too much, when it starts feeling like everything is dead around him, Jesse speaks, “Do you think ants get discouraged because ‘giant’ has the word ‘ant’ in it?”

Gabriel splashes him before setting his legs down, “You had to ruin the peace.”

Jesse also lowers his legs as he chuckles, “Can ants even understand words?”

“As much as I’d like to discuss ants with you, wouldn’t you rather see the secret bar?” Gabriel smirks as he points back at the cascade.

“No way!” Jesse blurts out as Gabriel starts swimming to the fountain. The cowboy follows shortly behind.

His commander disappears under the cascade and Jesse hesitates. Once he swims under, the water assaults his head and his hair covers half of his face. Once behind, he pushes it back and his eyes adjust to a new baby blue light. There’s a counter and two underwater stools. Gabriel has already set himself behind the bar, a hole with a cement barricade his boss had to jump over so the water doesn’t go in and where the mini fridge and the essentials for beverages are set.

“Good stuff,” Gabriel says after pulling out a bottle of wine.

“Give me some of that,” Jesse responds as he sits on one of the stools.

Gabriel sets the bottle down as he grabs two classes. Jesse watches Gabriel do the task of ripping the label off, not caring for leaving clues of their presence, probably because he thinks the owners have so many bottles they won’t notice. Or Gabriel already had his share of drinks and is not thinking completely straight. It makes sense now why Jesse didn’t see him or how Gabriel didn’t hear him from the gush of the cascade covering the cave.

Once the glasses are full, Jesse takes his and they toast to themselves before the first sip. The liquid flows like water down his throat, but it burns like candle wax. He can taste the velvet red and raspberry in his tongue. His half lidded eyes stare at Gabriel’s lips as the older man licks away any drop that might have slipped. When Jesse’s gaze comes up, he finds Gabriel’s on his. They smile at each other, and Jesse already feel intoxicated.

“Have you dreamt of living like this? Having the life on a king?” Jesse looks at the water falling near him, tries to see beyond it, at the house and the other houses. “Sipping wine while floating on this water? Bathing under a cascade under the moonlight?”

Gabriel is quiet while he takes another sip, “Not until today. I mean, it would be nice but…” He trails and Jesse looks back at him. “I’d prefer something simpler.”

“A bed you can just fall and sleep in without having to take off like a dozen pillows?”

Gabriel points at him, “Exactly! Am I asking too much to be able to just flop on my own bed?”

“And there’s like two set of towels on display,” Jesse points out.

“Two of those are actually for display. The other two are for drying.”

“I’d be damned,” Jesse mumbles before sipping from his glass. “When I was a kid, I was lucky if I had one clean towel to use. Then again, it was because I hardly did my laundry and ma wasn’t my servant, as she would say.”

Gabriel chuckles, “I mean, I get setting out one towel when you have guests over, but always?”

“Especially in a vacation home, it’s empty most of the year,” Jesse comments.

“I’d be happy if I make it to retirement and get one house. That’s enough.”

“Aw, boss, ‘course you’ll make it to retirement.” Jesse holds up his glass. “I’ll make sure of that.”

“Sometimes I think you’ll be the reason I don’t make it.” Gabriel smiles in a way Jesse has caught too many times when they’re together. He not just smiles with his lips, but his eyes also shimmer more. The lighting in the cave and the water reflecting in his gaze makes it more piercing.

Jesse stares and doesn’t care if Gabriel notices, he’s making it very clear himself.

Gabriel looks straight at his eyes as he takes a sip before licking his lips and speaking, “You look like you wanna say something, vaquero.”

Jesse bites his bottom lip, “Have you thought of what I said?”

Gabriel looks like he swallows his words and drinks again, a bigger portion than before. He taps his glass and nods.

“And?” Jesse asks and waits while Reyes pours more wine in his glass.

Gabriel drinks again and Jesse itches to hold back his glass, afraid Gabriel’s words keep getting drown by alcohol.

“Jesse,” Gabriel sighs. “I think we should talk about this some other time. When we’re not drunk.”

“You know we ain’t drunk. Or maybe I am, I can’t tell the difference anymore from how delirious and light you make me feel.”

Jesse catches the blush on Reyes’ cheeks before he looks away and it only makes him lean closer.

“You deserve someone closer to your age at least. Who’s whole and can live the whole life you still have ahead of you.” Jesse’s heart sinks when the light from Gabriel’s eyes start to fade. “Things with me won’t be easy.”

“Does it help that since I told you how I feel I’ve seen you cry, scream at me until you look like you’re gonna spit fire, seen you wake up shaking from a nightmare and still think yer the most beautiful man I’ve seen and still wanna kiss you until I’m out of breath.”

Gabriel hums and smiles, “Since when did you became such a poet?”

“Ya bring it out of me, darlin’. Can’t help myself from saying the truth. I meant every word. Hell, I ain’t whole nor holy. You know what kind of demons I carry and I ain’t saying I can scare yers away. I’m saying I will be with you through it all, that I want to be with you.”

Gabriel looks like he has been holding his breath and finally lets it go, “Jesse—”

Jesse leans over the bar and clashes his lips with Gabriel. He has gone thirsty for far too long and he’s sure the wine will taste better from Gabriel’s mouth.

He can feel Gabriel turn into a statue when their lips first touch, but then he melts and relaxes as Jesse pulls his lips. The wine taste like sweet nectar and poison at once. He can feel it spreading all over him in heat and something he has never felt before and he’s already addicted to it.

He pulls back softly and slowly, careful of scaring Gabriel off. But Gabriel’s eyes are still closed and he’s savoring Jesse’s taste on the tip of his tongue. When his eyes open again, Jesse is there smiling, promising him so much and all good things.

The night is young and they spend it under water and floating on the surface. Counting the stars they see and Jesse says more words that Gabriel drinks up to sooth his nerves. They kiss once, twice, more than Gabriel can count with alcohol and Jesse’s taste in his veins, stimulating his senses and turning him delirious. But Jesse keeps track with tally marks he licks on Gabriel’s bottom lip until there’s no more room.

#mcreyes #mcreaper #writingramblings

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bang-exo-tan · 7 years

Text

The Omega’s Secret

Warnings/Tags: angst, violence, mentions of death and suicide

Chapter 5

Hot… It’s HOT! You woke up sweating, panting and gasping for cool air. You wiggled around but you felt a pressure so heavy on top of you, that it made moving difficult. You somehow managed to turn until you were laying on your left side, only to see a familiar brown eye and black fur.

Who is that? you wondered. As you wiggled until you were laying on the opposite side, you peered over a large leg covered in fur. There a tan and gray wolf slept about 50 feet from where you, and the wolf on top of you, were positioned. You shifted to until you were sitting on your belly and crawled –with great difficulty – your way out from under the large mass that seemed to have taken its place on top of you.

When you finally were free of the mass, you heard a shifting and grunting from behind. You looked back to the black wolf, whom you assumed was the man from earlier named ‘Seokjin’. His brows were furrowed and his nose was flared, making his expression look like he was extremely uncomfortable. Though he stirred, he curled up against the tree he was lying beside and after a couple of seconds, fell back asleep.

Finally having been freed of the large wolf’s body heat, you still felt abnormally warm. It was dawn, so the sun was just beginning to come up, but you deducted that the sun wasn’t the reason for the continued heat you felt.

Maybe I’m just thirsty, you thought. I haven’t really drunk anything since I left home. Home… Jungkook… Mom, Dad… I miss you.

By doing the math in your head, you realized that this would be the second day you had been away from home. You wondered what Jungkook was thinking. Was he mad at you? No, he was probably furious. Mom? No doubt about it, she was worried sick. And Dad? He was definitely blaming himself.

When you felt your chest tighten, you shook your head hoping to shake out the thoughts and homesickness with it. Let’s go get something to drink.

You walked over to the spot where you had seen Seokjin drinking at before, making sure to be quiet so you would not wake up the two wolves and dipped your mouth into the cool water. Due to it still being late winter, the water was like ice sliding down your throat so it caused you to shiver. However, you were still extremely hot.

As you were quenching your thirst, you tried to observe your surroundings. You had only been out of your pack’s territory a handful of times (usually taking the main road with your parents) so you knew you were off the beaten path but you didn’t know exactly how far off you were. You had already noticed the river, and as you looked around you saw that across the river there was a small field that turned into a forest after some brush. Behind you there were staggered large trunk trees that also formed into a forest. However as you turned your head and looked up, you realized that the forest on your side of the river seemed to be at the bottom of a mountain, and three quarters of a mile up the river there was a rock wall that the river ran through which seemed like it could easily be used as a bridge to the other side of the river.

While you were making your observations, you realized that the adrenaline from the events of the day before had worn off and your whole body surged and ached with pain. The cut on your back hurt, your legs ached, your head was pounding, but as you moved your feet in the soft mud of the riverbank, you felt a pain in your paws that was worse than everything else. Though you knew you were standing in mud, as you shifted your weight from one side to the other, the pain told you otherwise. Instead of mud, it was like you were standing on heated glass shards or a bed of nails.

You just wanted to get your weight off of your paws, and cool the heat that – no matter how long you drank – wouldn’t subside. So in a split second decision, you launched yourself into the river. Now, at about .0003 seconds in the air you thought that jumping into a river right after a big rain storm might not have been the smartest epiphany you had ever concocted. This was proven true when you felt your body hit the rushing water with a force that caused all of the oxygen inside your body to become oxygen outside your body.

You began to panic when you realized that your legs were so sore, they wouldn’t move on their own. You tried to paddle yourself to the river bank, but the current of the river was too strong and you couldn’t fight it. You opened your mouth to howl or bark, anything really, but a whine was all that came out before a rush of water found its way lodged in your windpipe.

I can’t believe I’m going to die like this, you thought. As your head sank underwater, you closed your eyes and waited until the inevitable point where your lungs would ache and burn until you finally tried to take another breath, causing more water to pour into your mouth and sealing your fate.

However that feeling never came. Right as you closed your eyes, you felt a strong hand grab the nape of your neck and hoist you up onto the riverbank.

Your coughs and gasps for air caused your lungs to burn and your head to feel dizzy from the lack of oxygen. Through your coughs you could hear a growling and almost yelling coming from the man who seemed to have changed into his human form. When your breath evened out you could finally understand what he was blathering about?

“Are you listening to me?” Seokjin growled as he glared at you, “Were you trying to kill yourself?!”

His question was met with your face of confusion. What does he mean? Try to kill myself? I was hot…

Of course still looking like a wolf and with no voice to even properly whine, growl, or howl, you couldn’t relay your thoughts to him at all. Still he continued with his rant.

“Have you completely lost your mind?!” He yelled. For some reason the sound in his voice made you cower a bit, which was a strange experience to you. It made you extremely uncomfortable. You couldn’t tell if he was somehow forcing you to feel bad, or if – being in wolf form – your omega was feeling guilty for upsetting him.

Is it because I’m shifted? Does that lessen my humanity to where I can fight back? Or is it him?

You felt tears brim your eyes and lowered your head as he continued to glare at you. You wished Mrs. An was there, she would be able to help you understand what was going on. Why you could fight against anyone, but this person made you feel guilty. You missed your mom, you missed her hugs that made you feel like everything was going to be ok. You missed the comfort of having your little brother around, and the safety net that was your father.

Why is he yelling at me? He doesn’t even know what I’ve been through these past couple of days… Wait a second, I’m Do Miyeon. I don’t have to be guilty. I didn’t even do anything wrong! That’s it, if he yells at me one more time, I’m going to bite his foot!

With your head lifted up, your shoulders held high, and your resolve set, you stared back into the eyes of the man who seemed to currently be scolding you. He began to speak but you didn’t let him finish as you quickly started walking to the tree where you knew your bag was. Your feet however were not cooperating with your current “I have pride too” show off, but you held back your tears as the pain in your paws continued to prick and burn.

You made your way behind the tree (which was not very far away from the riverbank) grabbed your bag in your mouth and plopped yourself down grateful that your feet were finally relieved of your body weight.

Why are my paws hurting this bad? You wondered as you twisted your paws up to get a better look. What you found made you almost want to faint. You had never been much on gore and wounds, and that’s exactly what you saw. These must have come from the territory border. Your feet had large gashes and cuts in them and though they had stopped bleeding, the semi fresh wounds were still horrifying to look at. I’m going to throw up… you thought as you turned your paws back toward the ground opting to not stare at the wounds.

You laid your head down trying to keep your mind off of the pain that seemed to intensify after finding the source of your discomfort when you heard a rustling from behind the tree. “Jinsin, what happened? Why is your face so red?” Solbi asked.

“Let’s just walk over here,” Seokjin whispered. You heard the wet leaves squish under their feet as they seemed to walk away from where you could hear their conversation. Luckily they didn’t know that you had extra sensitive hearing.

“What happened?” Solbi said, “And where’s the kid?”

Kid? I’m older than you KID.

“She jumped into the river. I don’t know what was going through her head. I thought she was trying to kill herself but... maybe not. She’s behind that tree now sulking.” Seokjin explained.

You huffed and growled a bit. I am not sulking!

“Ok, well... what should we do about the mission?” Solbi whispered. “We were just supposed to meet up with agent Park, but you decided to pick up the hitchhiker instead.”

“We have to go back to the capital. The mission’s been… we just need to regroup and I’ll brief everyone then.” Seokjin said and you could sense a deep sadness in his voice.

Seokjin being sad eased the anger you had against him from before.

“Jinsin is everything okay? Did something happen to agent Park and the mission?” Solbi asked but after a couple seconds she continued. “Alright, I’ll go get them and bring them back here. You just stay with the kid. She really doesn’t like me so it’s best if I go and you stay here.”

“You’ll be fine by yourself?” Seokjin began to ask but a howl was his reply. You heard the sound of paws plodding off into the earth, with the next sound being a mass plopping down behind your tree.

For a while you just laid there and listened to him breath. By the time he cleared his throat and started to speak, it was already sunset.

“You scared me, that’s all…” he sighed. “I woke up to you flailing in the water. I can’t stand for anybody else around me to die. ”

You felt the heartbreak in his voice reach all the way down to your own heart. Mrs. An… elder… I’m not the only one who’s lost important people. It hurt so much you thought you were going to be sick. The pain in his voice sent a message from your brain to your feet and you quickly stood up so you could make your way toward him. You could only take a couple of steps though as the pain from your feet quickly won and you fell to your stomach with a yelp of pain.

“What’s wrong?!” Seokjin said as he ran around the tree and up to you. You turned your paws up to the side and looked up at him. As he looked down at your paws and let out a sigh that almost sounded like he was the one in pain. “Why didn’t you tell me – oh right, don’t cry, you’re ok.”

Crying? I’m not crying, you thought. Somehow he knew you were going to cry before you did as he was proven right when you felt your eyes water.

“Stay here, I’ll go find some herbs for – ,” he was cut off by your stomach rumbling, “for your feet… and how about something to eat too,” he chuckled. As quickly as he said it, he ran into the forest and disappeared behind the leaves.

With Solbi gone, and Seokjin occupied, you figured that it was the perfect time to go through your bag to find the supplements. There has to be something on that bottle that will tell me why I can’t get back to being a human.

Getting into a drawstring bag with paws instead of hands was not as easy of a task as you had thought. You maneuvered the bag around quite a bit before you could finally nuzzle your way through the opening. Though the sun was gone, there was a little bit of light left from the refraction of the clouds just as you carefully pulled the bottle out with your teeth so you could read the warning label. Which pretty much listed the maximum dosage as 2 pills within a 24 hour period and seeing as you had taken 3 in the span of about 16 hours, you figured the most common symptom “shift disorientation” was to blame for your current wolf form. As you read further the bottle said to seek immediate help if you couldn’t shift after 36 hours.

It’s been more than 36 hours by now right? Your fever had subsided about an hour after the river fiasco, and since failing the previous day you had not tried to shift again. Well, while they’re gone, I might as well try again.

The darkness had just set in as you made your first attempt to shift, which ended up being a complete failure again. But thankfully after a great amount of concentration, willpower, and prayers, the second time was the charm. You were so happy, you wanted to jump up and down but all of your weight being focused back onto your feet again made you think twice. It only took a couple of seconds for your excitement to dwindle as a cold, late winter breeze brushed past your now naked skin. Somehow you felt around until you found your underwear and bra, a long sleeve shirt, some sweat pants and your socks and converses. You reached back in your bag and realized the only items you had left were your first aid kit, sweet potatoes, supplements and the chest wrap Yomin had given you.

Where’s the rest of my clothes?! You panicked when you remembered that you shifted when you were running from Kang’s henchmen, meaning that pieces of the clothes you were wearing at that time were now scattered like confetti on the forest floor behind your house.

“I’m back,” Seokjin said and you felt yourself lurch forward with excitement.

What the… it was like you wanted to see him. You wanted him to be proud of you for being able to switch back into looking like a human again. You wanted to hear him praise you. I must just want to see him happy because he was sad earlier, you reasoned. Yeah that’s it.

You were about to walk out from behind the tree when you heard him speak again. “Oh, you’re back too. I was just about to make a fire. Where are they?”

“Putting clothes on,” Solbi grunted and set down something heavy with a ‘thud’.

You heard the smacking of wood and then the crackle of a fire, “I bet Hoseok just loves the thought of having to walk around clothed,” Seokjin said sarcastically. “I see you brought food.”

“This isn’t all of it, Taehyung and Yoongi have one each too. And Hoseok complained a bit on the way here but not as much as I thought he would. He’s probably just more excited about the new kid than anything else. Though he did say ‘Sleeping is always better when nude’ at least 5 times, but he’ll get over it.” Solbi chuckled, “Besides, not having to see a naked Hoseok for a while will do us all some good. What are those herbs for?”

“She has some really bad cuts on her paws,” Seokjin explained.

“Speaking of that little menace, where is she?” Solbi asked.

As she was talking about you, a flash of what she said earlier came back to your head. If she’s an omega, I call dibs. You felt around in your bag for the chest wrap. You quickly pulled your shirt up and wrapped your breasts as tightly as you could living a little wiggle room for breathing.

Just in case, you thought. You popped 2 supplements into your mouth and held back the reflex of wanting to throw up after taking them without anything, a sore throat making the task more difficult than before. 3 a day = bad, but 2 a day should be fine, you deducted.

“I think she’s sleeping behind that tree,” Seokjin said.

You took that as your cue to come out and as you walked toward the fire slowly letting yourself be lit up by the burning mass, you confusingly cocked your head to the side because – not only were there three new faces – but the two you already knew were looking at you strangely.

“Dang~,” someone had said in between the two, “she’s cute.” He had brown fluffy hair, beautifully tanned skin and a face that essentially looked like a puppy incarnate.

You looked over to Seokjin who was standing on the left and seemed to have his jaw dropped. You smiled at him then quickly looked away when someone came up behind him and whispered something about ‘type’ which you couldn’t make out because another very excited male started talking.

“With those hips, I bet she’s an omega,” the excited man said.

“Nah, Solbi says she’s feisty. Definitely an alpha like us,” the man who had whispered to Seokjin replied. He sleepily smiled at you and went about setting the large mass on his shoulder next to the other large mass that Solbi had placed to the left of the fire.

Like us? What does he mean like us?! Internally you began to panic until you saw a man walking from behind the others with his hands crossed over his chest.

The way he walked looked so familiar, but you just couldn’t pinpoint it. He made his way around Solbi and the crowd of three until his face was just barely lit up by the light of the fire. You couldn’t see much of his facial features but the outline of his head and the smirk he was wearing rekindled an angry fire in you so deep that, by the time you had controlled your emotions, it was already too late. Seokjin and Solbi each had an arm across your chest holding you back, and a man you had never wanted to see again was staring up at you from his position on the ground with a bloody nose and a look that could kill an army of wolves.

“Do Miyeon, I’m going to rip you to shreds!!!”

#bts wolf au #bts au blog #bts wolf #bts au #bts fan fiction

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fumbliesthots · 7 years

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So, I’m a scuba diver now

Successfully completed my PADI Open Water Diver course in Phuket, and didn’t die! Hooray.

It wasn’t easy for both Az and I, since we were both deathly terrified of drowning. In fact before the trip I was (jokingly) bidding farewells to people in case I didn’t make it *touch wood*.

The course spanned over 3 days, and weeks before that we had to watch a long-ass series of training videos to acquaint ourselves with the techniques of diving, and complete a rather long and technical MCQ test.

Day 1

On the first morning of our lesson, we met our instructor, Andre, at the dive school. He went through our test sheets and patiently explained the principles and techniques behind each questions, especially the ones we didn’t get right. (I was super confused on questions about no-stop dives and calculating safety stops)

After that, we were driven to the pool, a short distance away, to have our basic swimming and underwater techniques training and test. Az and I were asked to first swim 10 short laps across the pool without goggles. Then we went through the lesson on preparing our gear and equipment checks. There were many details to remember but we were assured that once we do them a few times it would be easy enough.

The entire afternoon was then spent in the pool, learning the techniques of managing our equipment underwater, moving through the water, buoyancy and how to deal with emergency situations. Some of the exercises that I thought were quite challenging were removing our masks underwater and swimming without them, and then replacing them back on; and removing our heavy equipment underwater and putting them back on again.

I must say that was quite an intense training, trying to train our bodies to breathe and move in a new way that we were not used to. It was a hot day, and we didn’t even get a lunch break! So by the time we finished and went back to the dive shop for our final theory exam, Az and I were blurry-eyed and exhausted. We were quite anxious about how the next lesson in the actual sea dive would be like. (And whether we would die??)

Day 2

We were picked up by the driver from the dive school at sunrise to be driven the pier, where we met up with the other divers and our instructor. There, we board ferry which would bring us to our first dive site. The only thing memorable about the boat ride out was the lady boat captain(?) who made boat safety sound like we were in a military camp. She would fit right in with the Ma’ams in our NCC days so long time ago.

Fortunately the weather was pretty nice that day – overcast and not too hot. As soon as the boat started on its way, Instructor Andre got us up to the deck to start preparing our equipment. With wind whipping in our faces, and trying our best to gain our balance on the bumpy boat ride, we tried as best as we could to remember what to do from our practice in the previous day’s training.

Just look at our nervous faces, lol.

After our equipment check, we moved back into the cabin where Andre started giving us a long pep talk to prepare ourselves for our first actual dive. But I remember not hearing a word of it because I was getting a little bit seasick in the cabin.

Some fresh air from the top deck, (and several Moana soundtrack karaoke) later, we finally reached the first dive site at Koh Racha Yai.

We put on our wetsuits and equipment with the help of the boat crew, and stepped to the edge of the boat. We hadn’t done this jump in the previous day’s lesson and I was terrified suddenly. Andre went in, followed by Az.

So the giant stride technique is, holding on to your weight belts, and pressing your mask and regulator in your face, you put both feet to the edge of the boat and take a big step out into the water.

All I remember from this first jump was,

Put my hands where? Step where? Huh? 3, 2, 1... uhh wait.. hold on. Okay, 3, 2, 1, go! Ahhhhhh! Bloop bloop bloop... cough cough cough!

Turns out I forgot to press my mask to my face, and it flew right up. The shock made me gasp and drank a bit of sea water.

But after a few coughs, it was no big deal. We followed Andre’s instructions and did some surface exercises, before slowly descending into the water, as we held on to a mooring rope to the bottom.

It was pretty terrifying trying to descend correctly at first, taking precautions that we equalised our ears as often as we can.

To be honest, I didn’t remember much of the first dive except that at one point I accidentally floated up to the surface by myself. There was a sense of helplessness when there is nothing to grab onto to stop the ascend upwards. Andre had to send up with emergency float for me to hold on to descend with again as he and Az waited at the bottom.

Once below again, he handed me an extra weight to better control my buoyancy. We explored the bottom for a bit, and I was still so nervous that I couldn’t really enjoy the view.

After lunch back at the boat, we went for our second dive.

Buoyancy control was still a challenge, and this time it was Az that kept floating up. The emergency float was released again. We tried to hold our hands to stabilise ourselves as we moved to prevent one of us from uncontrollably floating up again.

Andre tried to get us to do some exercises at the bottom but found that we were having difficulties trying to balance ourselves and moving properly. I for one, kept tilting off to the side, unable to stabilise myself at rest. And once I tilted off, I would flail my arms to try and regain my balance but apparently that’s the wrong move to do so.

Once back on the boat again, Andre recapped to us about our performance so far. We managed to do most of the exercises correctly but buoyancy and balance control was still a weakness. At this rate, we couldn’t pass for Open Water yet, as he’s still not confident we could be independent diving by ourselves, but assured us that we were already eligible for the Scuba Diver cert.

Side note: on the boat ride back to land, this happened.

Kids, the lesson here is – never to put your hands on the ledge of a door, even to steady yourself on a boat. Nope.

Day 3

Last day of the course to prove ourselves worthy of the Open Water Diver title, something unfortunate happened for Az. Her red tide came, shit. We googled whether it was safe for one to dive on a period and the results were not encouraging. Surprisingly not because of possible shark attacks, but more of higher risk in getting decompression sickness.

The weather that day was not in our favour as well. A storm was brewing, causing the sea to get super choppy on our boat ride out. I took 2 seasickness pill and hoped for the best.

Seeing how ill I was sitting in the cabin trying not to puke, Andre took pity on me and helped me prepare my equipment. He made a deal with me that on the 2nd dive once we are on calmer waters again, I would do it on my own.

This time without Az diving with me I was a bit more nervous. But Andre was incredibly patient and tried to instruct me step-by-step of what I need to do once in water.

Az helped take some pictures of the pre-dive. This was me waddling toward the waters with all the heavy load on me.

The first dive was fine, with better weight distribution around my waist, I was able to control my balance better this time, but the same problem of buoyancy control persisted. I started floating upwards very fast as we neared the surface. Andre figured that perhaps the problem was of my BCD self-inflating for some reason, and suggested that I used another for the next dive. Another problem was I was too anxious to fix any small problems too quickly. So while I was breathing out to deflate my lungs so I would sink lower, my next breath was too big, making me float right up again. Patience and mindfulness is key.

With all the lessons learnt from the previous dives cumulated in my mind, I had one last dive to prove myself.

This time I would hold my hose high to let all the air escape my BCD properly. This time I would distribute my weight evenly. This time I would not kick around. This time I would observe my breathing. This time I would be patient. This time I would go slow.

We slowly sank down to the bottom without a moor line this time. After observing that I was able to keep my balance and buoyancy fairly well, Andre led me to deeper waters to explore the reefs and get closer to the underwater creatures. And we even got to an amazing shipwreck site 19m down, where I high-fived another dive team who were surprised we managed to get there.

We did some more mandatory diving exercises like the removing my mask underwater and swimming without it. I was anxious about this exercise before but was actually quite surprised when I managed to do it without problems. I even managed opened my eyes a little bit, in salt water! Shocking, I know! I think this was all thanks to Andre’s constant encouragement that made this easy.

And that concluded my last dive where I finally passed all my tests to become a PADI Open Water Scuba Diver. Oceans of the world, here I come! * *Footnote: With a licensed professional divemaster as a guide at all times, preferably.

Btw, here’s us with our amazing dive instructor, Andre Jensen.

#diving #scubadiving #openwaterdiver

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nikkiexploreseu · 7 years

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January 15th; Venice, Italy and Rome, Italy

I haven't updated for a few days now as I've been sick and have now gotten off of Contiki so I've been trying to get myself better, but I've posted pictures! After our beautiful castle meal in Slovenia we headed out the next morning to Venice. It was a full day of driving so we had to get up really early, but it gave us plenty of time to catch up on sleep which was nice. When we arrived we had to get a boat over to Venice itself, because there are no vehicles on the island of Venice whatsoever; it's completely pedestrian and water canals. The architecture was exactly what you expect of Italy, all the windows were flat with shutters, all the walkways were pebbled and all the architecture was ancient and glorious. We had a gondola ride through the canals which was not what I'd expected but was still nice. It only went for half an hour, but where we went it looked like a few steps up to the old houses and apartments were under water; an estimated 3000 years is left before the city is completely underwater. I asked why the city was built the way it was rather than with roads and it was to do with escaping their enemies of war at the time as they had not yet discovered boats. There were dozens of gondolas everywhere you looked, with a guy on the back of each rowing them around. After the gondola ride, we had a few hours of free time, so a few of us sourced the number one priority of being in Italy; pizza. And we weren't disappointed. We had a lemoncello shot with lunch, bruschetta that was the size of a pizza in itself and then a prosciutto pizza for main course. After lunch Marisa and I found a little bar and had the best tiramisu I've ever tasted in my life, with a Bolini; an Italian drink that is made of peach purée and champagne. It was incredible, I'm definitely finding out if they make them on the cruise. We wandered and met with the rest in a pub and all drank Bolini's until it was time for the next tour. We went on a wine and dine tour of Venice, where we went to 3 different bars and got to try a different Venezian specialty food and wine at each place. It wasn't like wine tasting in adelaide where you get to try heaps, we only got to try one red and one white at each place, which was fine anyway. Walking around the streets of Venice would be much more crowded in summer, I think going during winter was a good choice because the streets are really narrow and were hard to fit through with traffic from both directions as it was, I can't imagine during the summer. We got told that it's very easy to get lost in Venice, and now I understand why. All the buildings are stories higher than you, and street signs are far and few between; its like being in a maze. In the main square there are pigeons and birds everywhere, and if you stand in the middle of them there are guys that hand you a handful of bird seed without even slightly asking permission and you get flocked. And then you have to pay them. Like what? I didn't really want to get covered in pigeons but I did so that was an experience. There were heaps of little souvenir stores in the main square as well so I bought an Italia jumper because why not, I haven't bought a hoodie yet on this trip. Through the little side streets there were a lot of boutiques and like Gucci stores that were all really expensive, so I don't recommend shopping in Venice, or in Italy in general. We left at 10:30pm to go back to the hostel and were up again at 7:45am to go to my final destination; Rome. It was another full day of driving, we arrived at around 4pm and dropped our bags off with some difficulty before going on a walking tour and to dinner. I learnt really quickly that Italians are rude, and absolutely suck at organisation. We got put in a room which the first time didn't have working keys, and when we had working keys discovered that there were people already occupying said room. So then we got moved from the 1st floor to the 4th floor in an elevator that probably shouldn't have held more than a small child, and was about the size of a toilet cubicle, to then find out that we in fact didn't have a room there either, so we got taken back down to reception and had our bags put into the luggage area and got given free beer to compensate; overall not a bad deal in my opinion but the other girls weren't happy. We also got an upgraded room; we saw real carpet in the hallway and got excited. After that debarkle we headed out on the walking tour which took us to the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the fountain out of angels and demons where Tom Hanks pulls the guy out of the fountain I'll post a picture so you know what I'm talking about; or just google it. It was raining slightly but it wasn't too cold, it was in positives and that was honestly a really exciting moment. Gloves were not necessary for the first time in two weeks. Venice was warm too actually, sunglasses were out! Seeing the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain in person was yet another one of those moments when I realised that photos do nothing any justice whatsoever. I didn't think it would interest me that much, but standing there had a very different effect. I don't understand how thousands of years ago literally thousands like BC level thousands, people, human beings built structures of that scale. Like if you stood 56 of me on top of each other, these buildings are bigger than that. And all the columns are perfectly round and dozens of metres Tall and wide, how do they even exist? The Trevi Fountain isnt even in a featuring position, it's literally all but in the back streets of Rome like WHAT. But the reason for that, is that structures like the well known ones aren't the only ones to their scale; there are buildings throughout all of Rome of the same scale, literally throughout. Rome is entirely ruins with a few hotels and a few McDonalds thrown around. There's random columns like along the side streets and the old gladiator racing strips are just a square in the middle of roads. It looks like so much of it should be a feature but it's not it's just part of the city; it's again, indescribable. We went to dinner and this was the moment that I was at the height of my sickness for the trip, I got light headed and ill and couldn't breathe at all, so I didn't eat much and decided I was going to go straight to bed when we got back. But did I? No. Because it was the last night on Contiki, and I'm an idiot. So I went out drinking with everyone else until 5am, when we had to get up at 7:30am for the Colosseum. WHY NIKKI. GODDAM. Getting up was a struggle and pretty much everyone was still drunk, and one of the guys I've been travelling with lost his metro pass and the tour manager was also still drunk and she had no time to be mothering so everyone was like yeah nah we will see you there, even the people he was travelling with. I felt bad for him so I stayed with him at the train station and we managed to find the right train ticket, the right train and get off at the right stop which was the easy part because it's called 'Colosseo'. We ended up getting there about 40 minutes before the group because they did a walking ruins tour which we agreed neither of us could've handled at that point in the morning anyway, so we gave ourselves a 40 minute colosseum tour before meeting up with everyone else. Again, I feel like I say this too much, but the Colosseum has to be seen to be believed. The outside looks spectacular no doubt but it has absolutely nothing compared to the inside. It is insane. Absolutely insane. Not much if any has been reconstructed at all, it's been left to naturally erode and age over time, which honestly just made it that much more incredible. We walked into the arena and there's an immediate sense of needing to imagine exactly what went on here, you can't help but see it so clearly. We stood on the top level for the best part of half an hour and just stared and took it in, there isn't much else that you can do other than that. We met up with the group and the tour was actually quite shitty, it only went for 15 minutes and didn't really tell us anything that isn't already well known; that the broken half broke in an earthquake, that top seats were reserved for women and slaves and the closest balconies were reserved for priests and important people. One thing I didn't know was how much went on underneath the main floor of the arena. The animals were brought out from under the ground, for effect. The main arena floor is now gone so you can see all the walls where the cages were for the animals, and it was explained how they were hoisted up by slaves pushing the ropes to move and open the trap doors in the arena floors. To be honest I'm glad that we got to the Colosseum first, because we spent about an hour in there whereas the others only spent about 20 minutes. We went to the souvenir shop and I bought a little gladiator helmet, and then because everyone was either drunk or hungover we headed for food. It was bucketing down with rain all afternoon, and i bought an umbrella off of a gypsie for 5€ which was a mistake because of course as soon as the rain touched it the actual handle, not the umbrella, the HANDLE, snapped in half. So that got left on the ground and I actually drove past it about half an hour later in my taxi to my hotel, and I had a bit of a laugh. We got back to the hostel and went to our separate hostels ( those of us that got off in Rome) and met up again at 3pm to do the Vatican. My Hotel was beautiful, it was an air BnB and the guy there was so friendly, it was bit overwhelming to know that I was no longer on an organised tour and had to adult again but the receptionist actually got me a map and taught me how to get everywhere from the hotel which calmed me down a lot. I'm going to say it again, the Vatican was indescribable. I was staying three bus stops from it, THREE, and then just had to walk under an underpass to get to the Vatican square. I picked up in Rome as well that if you walk around with earphones in, the beggars and guys trying to tell you tours and souvenirs don't bother you, so walking around with earphones in even without music is a good way to go. Otherwise they follow you and call out to you until you respond. We did a tour of the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel, both of which I could have spent much more time in and intend to in the future. Leave a good 5 hour window to do the Vatican, because the museums are fascinating, and get an audio guide please for the love of god, it makes it so much more interesting. I was the only one that did and it was the best 7€ I've ever spent. The most amazing thing was seeing ruins and artifacts and tapestries from BC, like yes you learn about the history of BC but standing in front of roman ruins that were actually built BC is just another experience. And not being religious doesn't make a difference, if you know the bible to a reasonable extent then seeing the Vatican is worth doing. There was a hall of tapestries that depicted major events in Jesus' time, that were taught throughout all of my schooling and that i know back to front, the betrayal of his disciples, the last supper, the birth of Jesus, and they were made like 1-2 AD. They were made in the time of Jesus as it is believed, and while it didn't make me Christian or catholic it certainly made me question whether or not some of these events really did exist. Sorry Hughes'. It's very different learning the stories in school and seeing a tapestry woven in the time when it all supposedly happened. Right there in front of you. I will go back to Rome ( technically I have to because I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain), and when I do an entire day will be dedicated to the Vatican. Contiki has officially ended. To be honest, and don't let this put anyone off of doing a Contiki, but I don't think I'll be doing another one, and if I do it won't be 12 countries in 16 days. Pros: - meeting people - Becoming a literal alcoholic - Seeing the highlights of each country you visit - Having an experienced tour guide - Having people around you that are in the same boat - Seeing a lot in a short amount of time Cons: - the contiki cold. It is NOT a myth, and it WILL NOT go away. - Getting up early every day - Only spending 36 hours in each city, sometimes less. - Not having the time to do everything you want to do - Spending waaaay too much money on alcohol and nice dinners that you wouldnt otherwise spend - Minimal sleep; absolute exhaustion. 16 days was too long, if I were to do it again I would do a week maximum and 2-3 countries. But, in saying all of that I did have an amazing time, meet some amazing people who I'm now going to Switzerland with, and doing a road trip along Australia's east coast with, and I will definitely never forget the experience. I flew back to London last night and am currently sitting on the plane to ICELAND!!!!! I've been super stressed because after being on tour I forgot how to adult a little bit but I'm back on the horse now and ready. Iceland, here we come! Oh and I really need to do some laundry. So Iceland and laundry, here we come! Some memorable things I've learnt so far: - don't be scared to talk to people that you don't know, 99% of the time they're willing to help you. - Don't constantly worry that you're being kidnapped; you're not. - Don't buy premium everything, make do with what you can. I've been blowing my nose with toilet paper for 3 days now, tissues are expensive. - Tipping is ridiculous, but necessary pretty much everywhere except for Australia. - Italians don't line up well; push in. - Polish people don't like you eating in their restaurants, they all stare when you walk in. - Not everyone can speak as much English as you assume, ask everyone you talk to before you talk to them if they speak English, purely by saying "English?" - .Learn how to sleep on transport; once you've got one type down, you've got them all down. Buses, planes, you name it. Buy a neck pillow. - Experiment with food, never stick to what you know when you're travelling. Half of the experience is eating their food. - If something scares you, it generally means that it's good for you. Just do it. - If you have to pay to go to the toilet, hold it. - Napping is a precious skill whilst travelling, learn it and do it whenever you can. - Don't be scared of overseas pharmacies, their products are exactly the same as ours. - Do not be scared to do things that you haven't done before, if you don't know where you're going or what you're doing, just remember that everyone else in the world has done this before, it can't be as hard as you're thinking it is. - Drink lots of water. - Bring lots of Chapstick. - BRING PAW PAW. - Packing a rucksack is easier if you put the cases of stuff on the bottom, and the clothes on the top; they squish better. - In Italy eat as much gelato as humanly possible. - Do NOT pack more than two pairs of shoes, you will not wear sneakers in winter. - Pack less pants and more jumpers; I've been wearing one pair of jeans everyday for 3 weeks, you just change the leggings underneath. - Bring a goddam jacket and don't spend 90€ on one in Amsterdam. - Go to Amsterdam, but don't buy weed stronger than 2 🐾 - They'll try to tell you that Austrian and German are different languages; they're not. - Pack more socks and more underwear than you think you will need...And then some more. - Sometimes in Europe, you can leave without paying the bill. - Sometimes in Europe, you can ride public transport without buying a ticket. - If you go to a thermal bath, pay for the package with a massage. You won't regret it. - Don't be scared of anything, you may think you do, but you don't stand out. You're just another person. - Live with #noregrets.

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theo-la-dora · 7 years

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Ink Stained: Chapter 4 Kitchen Knives

Read here or on AO3

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Summary:

In which the library is still creepy, Laura more or less kidnaps Kirsch's car and Carmilla thinks that Vodka is a great idea for problem-solving. Also, there are candles. A lot of candles.

The days passed in numbness for Laura. Long phases of being underwater interspersed with alarm clocks, phone calls and Betty’s concern and she felt cold.

So very, very cold.

Laura tried calling Carmilla but the number didn’t work. There wasn’t even a voicemail for her to leave a message on, to tell her that she was sorry even if sorry didn’t quit match the feeling in her throat.

Because how did you explain the life-long fear ingrained in your bones until it was part of you? How did you explain always covering up, never buying low-cut shirts, never having sex with the lights on, never quite trusting your friend because science was everything to them and telling meant being the shiny new research object, meant the end of being Laura? How did you explain wanting to run, full speed, and then stop before you stumble over the jagged edges of the world, tiptoeing in a minefield in a dance that was routine before you even learned to walk?

How do you explain the guilt at having failed to trust the one person who would’ve understood? The one person that needed to know?

Laura still went to all her classes, still wrote all her essays and drank too much coffee and when Betty questioned the amount of ice-cream she ate, she fixed her with a glare that shut even her usually so unflappable roommate up. The routine held her up and kept her going and it wasn’t until someone stepped in her way when she tried to leave the library on Friday night that Laura finally woke up.

“Laura Hollis,” a boy drawled, tilting his head sideways in a weird angle that her instantly on edge. He was unfamiliar, with brown hair and eyes, a few years older than her tops. There was a gleam in his eyes that had Laura instinctively step back and reach for the bear spray in her left jacket pocket. “Laura, Laura, Laura,” he chided, grinning at his own words. “You’re a rather difficult person to get a hold of, little Laura Hollis.”

Laura bristled at being called ‘little’ – a lifetime of always being the shortest person in the room did that to you. “And why would you want to get a hold of me?” She was proud that her voice didn’t waver as she furtively widened her stance. There was no one around her that she could call for help with the library’s subbasements as deserted as they were and getting almost killed once should’ve really taught her better than this.

“See, that’s a funny thing,” the strange boy grinned, teeth sharp and too bright in the dimly lit hallway full of dust and books. “You’ve been making things rather difficult for me and it’s been quite… what is the word again? Annoying.”

“And why is your annoyance my problem exactly?” she asked with all the fierceness she could muster and more bravery than she felt. “Who are you even?”

“Always so curious,” he cooed, taking another step towards her, his movements strangely sluggish. “That’s not a good look on a girl, you know that, right?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“And she’s talking again.” He shook his head condescendingly, his neck bending weirdly to one side. “I’d really hoped that you’d at least swallowed enough of that river to shut you up for good, but no, she’s still babbling-”

“You,” it escaped Laura, “You were on that bridge! You were the one trying to run me over, what the holy-” She walked backwards until her back hit one of the shelves and she was trapped.

“And she’s starting to get it.” He looked absolutely delighted at the prospect. “Yes, girlie, I was in that car and it would’ve worked so very nicely even with you jumping off that bridge if my dearest sister hadn’t intervened.”

“Your sister?”

“Oh, did Kitty Kat forget to tell you that precious detail? Technicalities, I suppose,” he brushed it off. “She’s always had a weakness for pretty girls.” The guy reached out a hand as if to touch Laura and she bared her teeth at him, all her senses telling her to run, run, run but something about her defiance seemed to amuse him enough to drop it for the moment. “Otherwise, why protect you – a mere girl?”

“Protect me?”

“The bat wing was a nice try to be honest” The boy – Carmilla’s brother - grinned, pointing at her wrist. “Unfortunately, it was only designed to divert attention, not to make you completely untraceable, so with enough perseverance…,” he gloated, clearly pleased with himself.

Laura gritted her teeth. “So, you sent me the cursed necklace then, too?”

“Oh, yes. That would’ve been so very entertaining, too. Do you know how messy car accidents are? All that blood and intestines? In Mexico, there’s a whole group of paparazzi charged with taking pictures of gruesome deaths and I can tell you it’s just delightfully-”

“But then your other sister intervened,” Laura finished the sentence for him, her stomach revolting at the pictures he was painting with his words. “Sounds to me like your family isn’t all that fond of you.”

“Well, they will be.” He put a hand on the shelve next to her and Laura felt her skin boiling. “I will show them, little dolly.”

“Show them what exactly?”

“What I can do.” He stepped even closer and the smell of something overtly sweet and rotting assaulted her and made her gag. “It’s really quite unfortunate that in order for me to do just that, you must die, Miss Hollis. Sadly, there’s just no way around it. If you only hadn’t been so curious and gotten involved in all of this… But you know what they say…”

Laura saw something silver and sharp gleam in her periphery. A knife she thought, he has a knife. She forced herself to stay calm and grip the spray can tighter.

“Curiosity has always killed the cat.”

He lunged for her, but Laura was faster, years of self-defence classes ingrained in her movements and she punched him in the throat and simultaneously hit him with the bear spray right in his eyes. Her attacker reeled back, pained howls sounded through the empty hallways as he tried to rub the acidic spray out of his eyes and Laura used his distraction to knock the knife out of his hand.

“And satisfaction brought it back,” Laura hissed and, picking up the discarded knife, she took off running.

+++

Laura feels like she’s in a spy movie.

Always looking over her shoulder, she sees the boy’s face and a hundred more like him everywhere in the crowd and she’s painfully aware of the stolen knife burning a hole through the pocket of her jacket.

She arrives at Kirsch’s place at two in the morning and it’s probably due to his decidedly not quite awake state that he hands her the keys to his car without discussion. She’s a long way from Toronto when the sun climbs across the mountains, a memorized address leading her somewhere she’s never been to before and hope burning brightly in her chest.

(Laura tries not to think about the knife.)

+++

The cabin was dark when Laura arrived, the forest's silence eerie after the roaring of the engine and when she tried the door, it wasn't even locked. The familiar smell of ink and books enveloped her when she finally entered and it stitched up her throat with surgeon’s hands.

Whatever she’d been expecting here, it wasn’t this.

The cabin was small and cozy, consisting of just one main room with a kitchen in one corner and a door that probably lead to a bathroom in the other. A large couch took up most of the space, conveniently placed in front of the fire place with a multitude of blankets and pillows piled on top of it. The walls were covered in shelves overladen with books of any size and sort. Poetry, philosophy, medical textbooks, science-fiction from the 18th century as well as fairy-tales and photography books – they were all scattered across every available surface, interspersed with large candles and tea lights. Strange symbols and crystals were strung up in front of every window, the morning light casting foreign shadows and coloured flecks of light across the room.

Laura felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Because this was a home. This was Carmilla’s home, this cabin in the woods and it suddenly felt like an invasion to be here. But she was exhausted, drained to the bone and she just needed to talk to Carmilla.

So, Laura took off her shoes and pants and curled up in one corner of the couch under a pile of blankets. Her foot bumped against something hard beneath the covers and Laura jerked back, thinking knives and poison but it turned out to be just a photo album. An album containing over a hundred photos depicting the same forest scene over and over again and it wasn't until she discovered the dates written neatly in one corner of every picture that Laura understood the album's title.

Continuation.

There was a sense of profound loneliness about the picuture and its slowly changing landscape. It tugged at the edge of Laura's mind but she couldn't quite name it as her tired mind sowly overwhelmed her. She didn’t mean to fall asleep as quickly as she did and when she woke up, it was to the sound of glass shattering and someone cursing under their breath.

“Shit, shit, goddamn it… fucking miserable piece of shit throwing a motherfucking knife at me, who the fuck does he think he – oh fuck, stop fucking bleeding, I can’t – ouch, shit, this is-”

“Carm?” Laura asked sleepily, still half caught in strange dreams about fireworks and veils, and rubbed her eyes as she sat up, blonde hair a messy halo around her head.

The cursing ceased abruptly.

“Who the fuck are you and what the frilly hell are you doing here?” Carmilla’s voice was dangerously low and Laura knew that she was curling her hands into fists right about now.

“Rude,” she chided her, slipping off the blankets and not caring that she was only wearing an oversized shirt over her underwear. She blinked at Carmilla, noting that something about her was different. Her hair reached just below her shoulders and was cut into bangs, the clothing different – high waist shorts and thigh highs paired with a see-through blouse – and she looked so very, very young.

“I’m asking you what you are-“ Carmilla started again, brow furrowing and Laura swallowed, figuring that this Carmilla was indeed much younger, perhaps from years before she had met her.

“I’m Laura and you gave me the address, so stop snarling and-,” she began because if her theory was correct, this was in fact their first meeting for Carmilla. She let her eyes rove over the girl’s face, pain-laced fury and hunched over posture and it wasn’t until she blinked again that she saw the blood staining her blouse.

“You’re hurt,” she interrupted whatever hissed curse this Carmilla was ready to bite out. Disregarding the girl’s warning growl, she stepped closer, prodding at her arm until she let her examine the wound.

“Holy Hufflepuff, what happened?” Laura asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice as she tried to see the what, where and how deep through the stained fabric, but it was impossible to make out much of anything because of the sheer amount of black-blue blood.

“Idiot tried to stab me,” Carmilla muttered, eyeing Laura with suspicion. “And in case you didn’t notice, sweetheart. This kind of fucking hurts and I have no idea who the bleeding hell you are, so if you don’t want me to tear out your spine, could you please-”

Laura shot her a chiding look before pushing past her towards the small bathroom to find a first-aid kid of some kind. Her heart beat a lot easier when she actually found one in the cupboard beneath the sink behind an inordinate amount of liquid eyeliner flasks.

When she came back into the main room, Carmilla was leaning heavily against the tiny kitchen counter, pouring what looked like vodka into a water glass and almost missing it because her hand was trembling so much.

“Are you kidding me?” Laura exclaimed, rushing forward to knock the bottle out of Carmilla’s hand and pour all its contents down the sink. “You’re bleeding, you stupid vampire. Do you really think now’s the time to get wasted?”

“Numbs the pain though, darling,” Carmilla grins, teeth stained blue on the edges as if she’d been coughing up blood. “And vampire? Really?”

“Well, grumpy space-time anomaly was a bit of a mouthful,” Laura snapped back, pushing Carmilla until she was sitting on the counter, head leaned back against the cupboards with a pained hiss. Carefully, she unbuttoned Carmilla’s shirt and pushed it off her shoulders, leaving her in just a plain black bra.

“Oh, buy me a drink first, cutie,” the girl quipped despite the pain she had to be in when Laura started cleaning up the blood. The wound itself wasn’t that deep and Laura prayed to any deity currently listening that Laf’s proposed immortality extended to some kind of supernatural healing ability so that cleaning and dressing it would be enough.

Her fingers lingered on the white bandage long after she’d wrapped it up, eyes flickering over bare skin to check for other injuries and when she met the other girl’s eyes, Carmilla was staring right back at her.

“It was a cursed knife,” she finally said. “Any other injury would’ve been healed by the time I made it here but wounds like this one… they take longer.”

Laura nodded in the dim daylight, filtered by the clouds and the forest surrounding the cabin. “Who did this?”

Carmilla scoffed, the movement causing her to jolt when pain hit her once again. “Will,” she pressed out, “Who else? The little weasel thought it great fun to use me as target practice and then drain me just because I wasn’t careful enough to not step into that damn circle. Fucking sadistic piece of-”

“Will - your brother?”

“That’s what he likes to call himself.” Laura saw the fury in Carmilla’s eyes, the bottomless disdain. “A cockroach, that’s what he is. Fancies himself one of us but he’s no more than a grave robber, a thief that uses spells and violence to steal time, drinking our blood because he-“ She coughed at that and Laura remembered her blood-stained teeth and shushed her.

“It’s okay, Carm,” she whispered and the girl went rigid at the sound. “You’re safe here now.” Laura smoothed her own blue-stained hands over the bare thighs between shorts and stockings, the bandaged waist, the sides of her chest and up over arms before resting on her shoulders, hearing and feeling their hearts beating in sync. Carmilla took in a shuddering breath, pupils blown wide as she simply stared at Laura.

„So, was our touch half as sacred as I’ve made it seem?” she whispered, the quote unfamiliar, as she took Laura’s hand, grazing her finger tips as if searching for something. “Or just another fabrication of a half-dream?”

Her expression was one of deep unsettlement and that tinge of sadness did Laura in.

“Carm…” Slowly, carefully as not to cause more pain, Laura pulled the girl down towards her, fingers curled around her neck and in her hair, something flaring in her chest when the girl complied. She pressed her lips against Carmilla’s for a kiss that tasted like ink and the sharp tang of alcohol, more a promise than anything.

“And time can be such a funny thing,” she heard her murmur in the blueish light of the cabin. “Always moving to the future, glorifying the past and amplifying the pain in frames and glass (1).”

+++

After past Carmilla disappears, still wide-eyed and searching, Laura falls asleep curled up on the couch, skin stained black-blue and she feels at peace for the first time in weeks, the burning longing momentarily dulled.

(When she wakes up, the ink stains are gone, replaced with even more words spreading down the insides of her arms.

There’s another girl in the room.)

+++

Carmilla was sitting on the other end of the couch when Laura woke up sometime in the evening, the room illuminated by a myriad of lit candles. She took one look at leather pants, corset and ink-free hands to know that she was dealing with this time’s Carmilla. Her dark hair was messy, faint red bruises dotting her neck and Laura blushed at the memory, instinctively knowing from where Carmilla had come.

The girl looked almost nervous. Her face was carefully blank, but she’d pulled her knees to her chest, bare feet digging into the cushions and eyes tracking everyone of Laura’s movements as she slowly blinked at the intruder.

“Liebling,” Carmilla whispered, voice raspy and Laura felt something inside her choke up. But dusk had thrown its weight over her and moving seemed like an impossibility.

“When I saw you here for the first time I thought that I had gone mad,” Carmilla continued and she suddenly looked old and weary. “You… you knew me. Knew my name and what I was and you were in my home and you were real.”

Laura watched her, unable to look away and there was fear and anger and the helplessness of inevitability warring in her chest, a tenderness in her throat and fingers that she did not dare name.

“I drowned for almost seventy years,” Carmilla said almost lightly and the pain was right there, was tangible. “It’s hard to kill someone like me. We are time itself. We’re relative, we’re unmoving and ever-changing. We are humanity’s heartbeat, it’s hymn, it’s lifeline. We do not die.”

She looked shaken for a moment and Laura couldn’t help but reach out despite her own mess of a heart and tangle her fingers with Carmilla’s as she pulled her down to lie next to her.

“You were like a hallucination, a creature of Will’s doing or a half dream from underwater that I faintly remembered but when you kissed me… I thought that it was a madness I’d gladly take.”

They’re quiet for a long time, their heartbeats thumping in rhythm in this still night. When Carmilla whispers “I’m sorry for leaving”, Laura finally turns to face her.

“According to my Dad,” she said quietly, throat burning and eyes focused on Carmilla, “the mark’s been there since my birth. At first, it looked like a regular beauty mark, a small black dot in the middle of my chest but then over the years it started to grow. My parents were so scared,” she whispered. “They didn’t know what to do or who to ask because they were afraid that people would hunt me down, so they covered it up. But then the accident happened.”

“The one where I-“

Laura nodded, smile a bit tremulous. “When I got out of the hospital and my father took off the bandages – he almost had a heart attack. Because the vines had opened to envelop what looked like an animal skull.”

It felt like they both took in a shuddering breath at the same time and Laura let her fingers skim over Carmilla’s hairline, smiling softly.

“So, I can’t really compete with you know years of I don’t know… pining or something-”

“I did not pine -”

“And I can’t really tell you what any of this means, but in a strange, really like to ask the universe why kind of way, it’s always been you.” She smiled at Carmilla who suddenly looked a bit flustered.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Anyway,” Laura rolled her eyes and reached for her coat, the movement startling Carmilla, and pulled out the knife that the guy in the library – Will – had tried to stab her with and one look at Carmilla’s blanching, coldly furious face told her everything she needed to know.

“We need to talk.”

+++

She kisses her there, in candlelight, because that's what they do in the stories and sometimes, in the quiet moments, this feels just like a story. Something prewritten and already decided like the mark on her chest and the words on her skin and it makes her want to revolt. But then Carmilla smiles at her and it's the most real thing she can think of.

(So Laura kisses her).

+++

Notes:

1) Carmilla quotes La Dispute's song "The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit" here (the song is more or less about hooking up). It's a post-hardcore band so while that's not for everyone, they have lyrics that read like poetry so definitely check that out - it's just the type of music that I think Carmilla would be really into (and i'm the kind of nerd that has playlists for characters, ok?) Also, any lyrics about time are somehow really bloody hilarious to me when writing a time travel story.

#carmilla #fanfiction #hollstein #Carmilla Karnstein #laura hollis #time travel au

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drdonckeandmdposts-blog · 7 years

Photo

THE TRUEST BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF SHOWING HOW TO LOVE YOUR ENEMY (An excerpt from the book "I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS") I came to my senses at some unknown point later lying flat on my stomach. My head, when I raised it from the ground hurt something fierce. I figured since I felt pain that I must still be alive. When I raised my head, my neck felt like it was all but broken clean in two. The pain shot down into my back and deep into my shoulder blades. My vision was blurry. I had trouble focusing my sight on what was around me. I still had no clue as to what had happened. I figured that if I had taken a bullet to the back of the head that I would not be here anymore. I raised my hand and felt the back of my head. My scalp hurt when I touched it. I then reasoned through my foggy thoughts that I must have gotten knocked upside the head. As my vision cleared a bit, I saw the red pond about 20 to 30 yards away. Their were bodies lying everywhere around it. I believe there were more bodies lying on the ground than their were rocks and pebbles on the pond bank. I wanted to get to the pond and dip my aching head into the cool water. I was too dizzy to stand. I crawled my way like a drunken man to the ponds edge. As I crawled, I passed many a man who had fallen on that day. Some appeared to have tried crawling to the pond after being badly wounded but never managed to make it that far. Others I past I knew must have died quickly. Their faces showed all manner of looks of pain and horror that were frozen at the moment of their death. Some bore nasty gashes upon their face and bodies. Many had been stabbed or shot in the eyes and jaws. Many had no face at all as it had been disfigured by the terrible assaults of an opponents weapon. Seeing a dead body always sobers a man and sends chills down his spine. But seeing dead men in the grisly aftermath of a violent war battle is far too sickening and horrifying to describe. The gruesome pictures stay in your head forever. I was completely covered in blood. None was my own. It was all a very sick pale red color mixed with mud. From how many different men did I have blood on me? That I did not know. I would never know and did not want to. I never would have thought there was more blood in the world than dirt. But on this day and in this ghastly place, their was. Finally after reaching the waters edge, I could see even more bodies. Many still had the breath of life in them. Many drank the rusty red water to soothe their parched mouths. Others washed their wounds. Some simply wished to feel the cooling effect of the water over their torn and aching bodies. Their were also broken animals at the waters edge. Many beautiful horses who were mercilessly forced to take part in the fray carried more than one wound. Far too many bore two or more bullet wounds to their flanks. A number had nasty cuts and hideous gashes all along their bodies. Once at the waters edge I laid my head in face down trying to get my aching head fully submerged. The coolness of the water felt so wonderful that I wished I could hold my head under for a long while. For a moment I wished I were able to breathe underwater like a fish so I could escape the sight of the grisly world above. My canteen was still full. I drank the better part of its contents without stopping. Men washed their wounds in tremendous pain. Some had limp arms and legs that I could tell although I was not a doctor would never be of more use to them. Some were Yankees and some were Rebels, who had spent two days trying to kill and maim one another. But now they were soul mates, the best of friends, joined at the hip. It was odd watching enemies care for one another. They shared their water and food and their hearts and souls. Even though just hours before they were bitterly bent on the sole task of killing one another, they were now filled with the spirit of servant hood, forgiveness, and a brotherly love that could only be born of God. The acts I witnessed were truly the best example one could ever see of loving your enemies. Now I completely understood what the Scripture in the Bible meant. As I slowly regained my senses, I started to see things more clearly. The fuzziness in my head was starting to wane. I also began to hear the sounds around me much better. I almost wished I had stayed senseless because way too much came into focus and sound. My eyes now showed the wounds were much uglier. The looks on men’s faces showed nothing but pain, sorrow, and dread. I could have counted at least 100 bodies within a brief short scan of my sight. Men were piled on one another in heaps dead and bloody. Their bodies were twisted, bent, and broken into all manner of postures. Many faces of the dead showed the pain and horror of their last breath on this earth. I wanted and needed to cry out to God but could not. I wanted to help but was far too weary. I felt so worthless and useless. What could I do for anyone? I had little strength to get to men in need. I realized that even if I could reach them I had even less knowledge in my head for how to care for bruised and torn men that were either near death or well on their way to it. Now that my hearing returned, I wished I were still deaf. Because the sounds were even more chilling than the sights. I heard what I thought was the moaning of the damned, as men in torment who barely clung to life tried to describe their pain and suffering to anyone who would listen, or maybe just to God, or maybe even to no one in particular. Grown men cried out for water to cool their burning pain, or for someone,anyone, to staunch the flow of blood and life from their bodies. I heard far too many cry out to God, to forgive them first, and still more to take them away quickly because they could bear no more. More heart rending was seeing men reduced to crying like three-year-olds for either what they had done, or what had been done to them. I had never seen a scene like this in my worst nightmares, nor had I ever heard anyone tell of seeing such a gut wrenching sight. I kept trying to fool myself into thinking that none of it was real that it was all a dream. But tragically it was not. During the very heat of a battle you see the gruesome sight of men who die instantly. It is most truly an horrendous sight to see a man’s body torn apart by bullets and explosions. But seeing men die slowly, miserably, and hopelessly is so much more horrible and heart rending than anything you can witness. It leaves you with a deep sense of soul sickness that you know you will never get over. And you know you will never forget. J.D. Sims learns a DEEP SPIRITUAL LESSON at an awful scene after The "bloody" BATTLE Of SHILOH, Tennessee April 6th and 7th 1862. This TERRIBLY COSTLY American CIVIL WAR battle would claim over 24000 AMERICAN CASUALTIES. Read more of J.D's incredible story before and after SHILOH by reading "I Didn't Sign Up For This". For more information see; www.amazon.com/I-Didnt-Sign-Up-This/dp/1911044060 https://www.prlog.org/12557491-kentucky-author-wins-publishing-contract-with-civil- war-novel.html and www.Facebook.com/Ididntsignup and authorpage.co/donckean/ Available at www.amazon.in/I-Didnt-Sign-Up-Thisebook/dp/B0171WH8Q8 Up-This/

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