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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 5 years

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Without Question (7)

Steve Rogers x Reader

Content: angst, fluff, and some new discoveries apparently

Warnings: None

Word Count: I finally found it. Finally found the time. I know this isn’t what you were expecting to be updated but this is what I saw the first thing I opened in my WIPs here goes my shaking hands finally getting the drug they are so addicted to. By that I mean writing. Purely writing. Nothing else.

MASTERLIST

“It’s really dark in here. Literally, as well, I mean.”

You sit down on the floor housing nothing but the endless void.

It feels weird to not see your reflection beneath you. Trying to touch what looks like a floor but all that comes in your hand is emptiness. Pure black emptiness.

“Must be lonely in here,” you ponder to yourself, your eyes trying to find some sort of source of light that was lighting up your existence in this hollowness.

But there was nothing.

You turn back to the only other entity you can see in the dark apart from you. A small blob, all black, but somewhat standing out from rest of the emptiness, rests in front of you at a safe distance. The darkness inside it seems to glimmer sometimes. Either that or your eyes play with you inside the void. Whatever it is, you are glad you can see the creature that had been controlling you all this time.

“Is this normal?” You tilt your head as you look at the blob, your fingers making swirling movements in the non-existent floor beneath you. “For people, you tried to possess to talk to you? You know, have an...intervention of sorts?”

The blob appears to move a bit, its shape forming and deforming. It takes a few moments for you to register it breathing just like you. Nothing else happens for the next few seconds.

“I don't know how these things go,” you whisper, opening your bent legs and stretching them. Even though you're in a dream, the cramps feel real. Your arms lean back and you close your eyes, taking in one long breath. “I don't know why these things go.”

Your muttering breath spreads around you without any idea if it's actually reaching the hearing organs of that organism.

Don't forget to breathe, Loki’s remnant of a voice lingers somewhere inside your mind from his monologue safely saved in some corner. Remember, that parasite is inside you. You are in control. Do not let her make you think otherwise.

Taking in one deep breath to calm down this minute flutter of fear running down your chest, you start humming the first tune that comes inside your head and just like that your feet start to turn with the hum.

“Sing another anime intro one more time and I'll end you right here,” thunders a hoarse voice from somewhere very close to you, causing you to force open your eyes and watch the familiar fanged atrocity staring you right in your face.

Your heart wants to run back and hide somewhere in the void to scream as loudly as possible in the first three seconds. As soon as the fourth comes, the long breath works, bringing a hint of ease along with a silent jolt that doesn’t let your position falter.

“But intros are good!” You respond ever so innocently, making that creature glower and narrow his wide eyes at you.

“Outros?” You ask, with the purity of a child.

“Is there anything that doesn't constantly play in your head and isn’t upbeat?” The creature questions furiously, her forced exhale sweeping away your hair like a wind gathered up from inside a bog. It takes you a moment to gather your half-conscious senses to reboot after that smelly encounter.

“Woah, okay,” you state calmly, “I’ll stop as long you talk to me.”

She huffs at you and turns to walk away towards the direction she quite possibly had been moping, curled up and sulking at the possibility of being tricked by the infamous trickster.

“How about we call a truce?” you blabber, not wanting to sit there talking to yourself, giving an open invitation to all those dark corners of your mind to make up things that did not exist in here. “I won’t use that weapon-thing on you as long as you cooperate with me.”

She stops midway, her figure- which you are sure is at least six feet tall- flinches a little before turning towards you with a calculating thought.

You shrug.

“You want a host. I would have been dead within a few weeks if it wasn’t for you. Just my way of thanking you. But I speak this for myself, not for the people out there who were ready to kill you when they had the chance. All I want to know in return is why you and your friend are here on earth.”

The creature covers the distance between the two of you within one step, her eyes curled at the edges seemingly smiling at you as she brings up her gooey claws to caress your cheek. You are sure that the void around you experiences golden lightning at her mere touch, turning the shadowless void into a gold haven for just a second.

Your breath falters. Your shivers quaking the still space surrounding you.

What in the actual f-

“What makes you think I want a truce?” she coos, “How can you be sure I won’t kill you when I want to?”

She can already register the change around her, smiling at the unbelievable effect she just had on you.

“Because,” you clear your throat, your shoulders slightly shaking away the buzz surrounding you, “you would have if you had the chance. Loki educated me a lot, actually, when he snatched away the controls from you. He planted this sort of a virtual bug inside my mind that turned on the moment I fell asleep, telling me all about you. So, yes,” you nodded, a tiny smirk creeping over your lips, “I know you are not much of a Bram Stoker’s gooey version of an alien female Dracula when you are on your sanity meds, which is okay. All of us have hard times. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

She pauses.

You watcher her shoulders rise a little, building up some tension along with her fists before letting it all go.

“Curse that wretched trickster.”

__________

A wince reaches Natasha’s ears, making her shut her book so loud that Sam flinches despite sitting five feet away from her.

“For the last time, Clint, stop touching your wounds or I’ll cut your veins off.”

The hall falls silent.

Everyone except the Black Widow is looking at Clint to watch what he does next while his finger is hovering over his bandaged chest, wondering how fast he would be able to run out the door the moment he pressed the point that was throbbing the most.

“Have any of you seen Y/N?” Loki’s voice finally breaks the tension in the room as Clint drops his hands and plops back on the sofa, receiving a relieved sigh from Dr Cho and Banner.

“She’s with Steve,” Sam mutters, the ice pack still healing his swollen cheek and eye.

Loki walks about the room, his eyes scanning the skies outside the glass as Natasha’s gaze follows every premeditated cautionary step the God takes around them.

“That son of a bitch better not come back again,” Clint announces with his eyes closed and chest relaxed, “or I won’t go easy on her like the captain.”

“Clint,” Natasha warns him.

“Babe, it’s alright,” Sam interjects her, “he won’t do anything like that.”

But Nat doesn’t lower her gaze, already planning fifteen ways to give him a slow death.

None of them, except Dr Cho, notices Loki still frozen by the glass, his gaze stuck towards the endless clear blue sky over them while his fingers rub against his thumb in some internal forethought of whatever in the blue ocean he is constantly staring at.

“What is it?” the doctor finally asks.

Cho is sure he hasn’t heard her for a moment when suddenly he shifts his gaze towards the crowd inside.

“Where is the captain?” Loki appears genuinely curious before turning towards a confused Helen, “I believe we have a storm coming, doctor.”

“And why is that?” Bruce comes and stands by Cho, resting his arm assuringly around her.

“I don’t know,” Loki almost shrugs before walking towards the elevator, “but I do know there are three entities standing right in the middle of it.”

___________

Steve is still resting by your side, his eyes never leaving your form as he feels a warm wave of sleep wash over him before he is woken up by the dreams of you engulfed in a black mass calling out for help as he is stuck there on the floor of the Quinjet, not able to get up and help you, screaming more at himself than at the gunk swallowing you whole.

And every time he wakes up, he is relieved to find you there in his arms, resting like you were, making it seem like that’s how it always is supposed to be.

He dips his head further into the pillow to once again study your features in the morning light like he did when you first fell asleep yesterday.

He is still not sure what to do with this sudden flicker of a light he had protected in the midst of a hurricane on the wick of a tiny candle that now rests inside his care, filling him with a forgotten warmth.

Your easy breaths are an unintentionally welcoming vision for him, feeling the rise and fall of your chest along with the lightest snores leaving you. Your hand rests on his chest loosely holding on to the black fabric that he wears, making him wonder if it was alright for you to make him your anchor of all the people in this world.

And just as he is watching you with the utmost care, not wanting to soil the purity basking in the first rays of the day, a latent ache brings itself upon the surface.

Do I deserve this? He wonders to himself watching the curled up light in his arms breathe easy in his presence.

Will I ever make it right?

“Loki is here to see you, Captain,” Friday announces just as the door opens, making Steve draw the blanket further over your shoulders before half getting up to fume at Loki’s figure barging in without so much as a knock, followed by Bruce, Natasha and Sam.

“I don’t think we have much time,” Loki declares even before Steve gets the chance to speak, making the Captain all the more furious at his warnings out of nowhere.

As if to prove his point, you flinch a bit violently in Steve’s arms, getting up with a jolt, your eyes opening wide while your lungs try to find air around you.

“They’re coming for her,” you whisper into the cold air.

“Wha-”

Before Steve can complete his question, Loki brings forward his dominant hand and twists it, engulfing it, in green and gold as everyone else who entered the room watches you and Steve disappear right in front of their eyes.

The bed that housed the two of you now sits empty but for the blanket that had covered you and a bewildered Stacie whimpering at the sight you vanishing into thin air.

“What the hell was that about?!” Bruce curses at the God.

Loki gives the room a once over before his eyes stop at Stacie clawing at his feet.

With one finger pointing towards the ground, he makes her sit down and wait for further instructions, evidently catching everyone’s attention.

“That was a warning,” he finally speaks.

“There’s a war coming our way. Trust me, doctor,” he utters before walking out of the room, “you won’t like to hear any possible end to it.”

TAGLIST

Parmanent

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#steve rogers #steve rogers x you #steve x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve x you #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers series #steve rogers smut #steve rogers fic #marvel #marvel smut #marvel fluff #marvel soft smut #maladaptive ninja returns #without question #smut #fluff

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tanmath3-blog · 6 years

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Kenneth W. Cain first got the itch for storytelling during his formative years in the suburbs of Chicago, where he got to listen to his grandfather spin tales by the glow of a barrel fire. But it was a reading of Baba Yaga that grew his desire for dark fiction. Shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and One Step Beyond furthered that sense of wonder for the unknown, and he’s been writing ever since.

Cain is the author of The Saga of I trilogy, United States of the Dead, the short story collections These Old Tales and Fresh Cut Tales, and his latest Embers: A Collection of Dark Fiction. Writing, reading, fine art, graphic design, and Cardinals baseball are but a few of his passions. Cain now resides in Chester County, Pennsylvania with his wife and two children.

1. How old were you when you wrote your first story?

Five or six, I believe. It was an awful rendition of the whole Baba Yaga thing.

2. How many books have you written?

Written or published? Written, I would say, so far: 6 novels, 5 novellas, 4 collections of short stories, and maybe a hundred stories that aren’t in those books that will likely end up in other collections. As well as a bunch of poetry, a lot of which is in a themed collection, most of which is still unpublished. The most recent releases will be a novella titled A Season in Hell (due out September 7th) and my next collection, Darker Days (due out December 7th).

3. Anything you won’t write about?

No, I don’t believe in taboos. There are stories in every taboo. They say not to kill the dog, but there’s a story there as well. It’s been done, too. I have to tell the story I have to tell. If it’s in me, it’s going to get out, like it or not.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc…

I’m 48, married to a wonderful woman with two kids. I write pretty much full-time, other than keeping up chores around the house and coaching my son’s baseball teams.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written?

It has to be A Season in Hell. This short book tackles many modern issues, things that matter to me. It’s hard-hitting, and a love story for the game of baseball.

6. Who or what inspired you to write?

If I had to put he onus on just one person, it would have to be my mom. She loved horror, and growing up, I saw several movies (The Omen, Psycho, etc). They fueled my passion, but so did discovering the stories in the various Writer’s Digest books my parents kept on their shelves. It’s there I discovered Poe. Or perhaps it was hearing that Baby Yaga story for the first time.

7. What do you like to do for fun?

Read. That’s fun for me. I also like to check out an original series now and then. Nothing that’s been rehashed or rebooted but something really original. Like Dark on Netflix. I also like gardening, fishing, coaching baseball, trying to play my guitars, drawing and painting, hanging with my family, and enjoying the beauty of this world.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book?

Wine! A bottle of Merlot, something like Smoking Loon.

9. Where do you write? Quiet or music?

I have an office…now, with a desk and all, though it’s more like a dungeon to me. As for music, it varies. Sometimes it’s music, which can be anything from Pink Floyd to Metallica to Sinatra. Other times, I listen to baseball games or baseball chat. Then there are the podcasts I listen to, sometimes chat about the craft and other times stories. My brain is usually able to separate the two, so I can write a story and still hear what I’m listening and process it. Kind of weird. But there’s also times I need silence.

10. Anything you would change about your writing?

Well, I would have started much earlier for one. I don’t know why I started so late, but it often feels like it’s too late. And I’d be far more patient, not taking the first offer, honing my craft before I rushed out there. I likely wouldn’t have hurried to get so much out there.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer?

I’m living my dream. At least I think I am. I get to write a lot, read a lot, do all the things I enjoy. I married an awesome woman who is SO supportive of all my endeavors and two really bright children who are blossoming into great adults. And sometimes, once in a very great while, someone will leave a kind review or contact me or make a post about something I wrote, and it will touch my heart deeply. Who could ask for more?

12. Where do you live?

Chester County, Pennsylvania.

13. Pets?

I recently got rid of all my reef tanks, but I’ve had several over the years, as well as many, many birds. Right now, though, I have two dogs, a Catahoula leopard mix named Iggy and a Labradoodle named Kady. They’re both sweet, loving dogs.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing?

Getting it all out of my head. It’s cathartic; helps me sort my thoughts and feelings in a way I can deal with them. I’m putting myself out there for my readers, getting naked with my feelings. Hopefully they get something from my stories that elicits a similar feeling.

15. What is coming next for you?

A young adult novella entitled Shadows in the Storm where Nita faces off with Shade, leader of the Shadow People. Though I still have to work on finding a publisher for the book.

16. Where do you get your ideas?

My inspiration typically starts with a seed from something I know quite well. For instance, with A Season in Hell (due out September 7th from Crystal Lake Publishing) I drew from my long career playing baseball, as well as coaching. The story is about a woman playing baseball in the minor leagues back in the nineties and what she must endure just to play the game she loves. For that story I took from my own personal experience, even down to the smallest details like taping up a torn muscle with duct tape just so I could play the next game.

There’s another element to the process, what I call the “what if” moment. You’ll see a lot of that in my shorter work. For instance, there’s this story in my collection Fresh Cut Tales entitled “Split Ends.” I was sitting at a pool while on vacation watching a mother furiously brush the knots out of her daughter’s hair and thinking about the “what if.” In this case, what came to mind was a disease, one the mother and daughter thought was very real, and it was but only mentally in this case. So that story is about the struggle of a mother not to succumb to that mental disease.

Additional info:

I have three books coming out this year (all three through Crystal Lake Publishing). Details for all three books follow

The first is a novella entitled A Season in Hell. Due out September 7th. 

“Kenneth W. Cain takes timely social topics and explores them against the backdrop of America’s pastime. What begins as a baseball story quickly delves into something rich, deep, and dark.” – Mercedes M. Yardley, author of Pretty Little Dead Girls

Synopsis:

When Dillon Peterson is honored for his baseball career, he must face a ghost that has long haunted him. He is transported back through his memories to a single season in the nineties that broke his heart. That was the season he met Keisha Green, the first and only woman to play baseball in the minor leagues. He sees what she goes through, what she must endure just to play the game both of them love, and this struggle leads to their friendship. As matters escalate, Dillon finds himself regretting his role in it all, as well as his career in baseball.

“A Season in Hell is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking story. You won’t soon forget Dillon or Keisha. Her struggle is as timely today as ever. A Season in Hell is also a love letter to baseball and how, despite everything, the game can still heal and bring people together who seemed impossibly far apart, and can do so through intimidating odds. A timeless story of true humanity.” —John Palisano, Vice President of the Horror Writers Association and Bram Stoker Award-Winning Author of Night of 1,000 Beasts

The second is Tales From The Lake Volume 5. Due out November 2nd.

Poetry:

“From the Mouths of Plague-Mongers” – Stephanie M. Wytovich

“Malign and Chronic Recreation” – Bruce Boston

“Final Passage” – Bruce Boston

Short stories: 

TBD – Gemma Files 

“In the Family” – Lucy A. Snyder 

“Voices Like Barbed Wire” – Tim Waggoner 

“The Flutter of Silent Wings” – Gene O’Neill 

“Guardian” – Paul Michael Anderson

 “Farewell Valencia” – Craig Wallwork

 “A Dream Most Ancient and Alone” – Allison Pang

 “The Monster Told Me To” – Stephanie M. Wytovich

 “Dead Bodies Don’t Scream” – Michelle Ann King 

“The Boy” – Cory Cone

 “Starve a Fever” – Jonah Buck 

“Umbilicus” – Lucy Taylor 

“Nonpareil” – Laura Blackwell 

“The Midland Hotel” – Marge Simon

 “The Weeds and the Wildness Yet” – Robert Stahl 

“The Color of Loss and Money” – Jason Sizemore

 “The Loudest Silence” – Meghan Arcuri 

“The Followers” – Peter Mark May 

“A Bathtub at the End of the World” – Lane Waldman

 “Twelve by Noon” – Joanna Parypinski 

“Hollow Skulls” – Samuel Marzioli 

“Maggie” – Andi Rawson

The third is my fourth collection, Darker Days. Due out December 7th. 

“Darker Days, the latest collection of short stories by Kenneth W. Cain, delivers on its title’s promise. From the very first story readers are dragged into seemingly ordinary situations that serve as cover for dark secrets. Ranging from subtle horror to downright terror, from science fiction to weird fantasy, Cain demonstrates a breadth of styles that keeps you off-balance as you move from one story to the next. There is something for everyone in this collection–as long as you don’t want to sleep at night!” – JG Faherty, author of The Cure, Carnival of Fear, and The Burning Time.

Now that you’ve warmed by the embers, submerge in darker days.

The author of the short story collections These Old Tales, Fresh Cut Tales, and Embers presents Darker Days: A Collection of Dark Fiction. In his youth Cain developed a sense of wonderment owed in part to TV shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, One Step Beyond andAlfred Hitchcock Presents. Now Cain seeks the same dark overtones in his writing.

There’s a little something for every reader within this collection. These 26 short speculative stories arise from a void, escaping shadows that ebb and weave through minds like worms, planting the larvae that live just under the skin, thriving upon fear. These are Cain’s darker days.

In this collection, Cain features stories from the Old West, of past lives and future days, the living and the dead, new and unique monsters as well as fresh takes on those of lore. Once more he tackles themes of loss and grief, and the afterlife, always exploring the greater unknown. In “The Sanguine Wars,” Cain takes us to a future where soldiers are made to endure the horrors of war. He explores the complexities of global warming and what lengths men and women alike sink to in “The Reassignment Project.” And, as often is the case, he ends on a lighter note, with “Lenny’s New Eyes” and “A Very Different Sort of Apocalypse.”

When the darkness comes, embrace it. Let it wrap you up in cold. Don’t worry, it’s not your time…yet.

INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING STORIES:

▪“A Ring For His Own”

▪“Heirloom”

▪“Rust Colored Rain”

▪“Prey”

▪“Passing Time”

▪“What Mama Needs”

▪“My Brother Bit Your Honor Roll Student”

▪“Outcasts: The Sick and Dying 1 – Henry Wentworth”

▪“The Sanguine Wars”

▪“The Hunted”

▪“Her Living Corals”

▪“Puppet Strings”

▪“The Trying of Master William”

▪“By The Crescent Moon”

▪“Mantid”

▪“The Underside of Time and Space”

▪“Outcasts: The Sick and Dying 2 – Gemma Nyle”

▪“The Griffon”

▪“Adaptable”

▪“When They Come”

▪“The Reassignment Project”

▪“Presage”

▪“One Hopeless Night by a Clan Fire”

▪“Lenny’s New Eyes”

▪“Outcasts: The Sick and Dying 3 – Anna Kilpatrick”

▪“A Very Different Sort of Apocalypse”

You can connect with Kenneth W. Cain here:

Website: https://kennethwcain.com

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKennethWCain/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethWCain

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kennethwcain/

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-W.-Cain/e/B004HHALF6/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Some of Kenneth W. Cain’s books:

Getting personal with Kenneth W. Cain Kenneth W. Cain first got the itch for storytelling during his formative years in the suburbs of Chicago, where he got to listen to his grandfather spin tales by the glow of a barrel fire.

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