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unholyplumpprincess · 3 years

Text

Speak Up

A commission for @mintocchi ! Thank you so very much for your patience while I moved everything around :D

Summary: You and Crypto have been in a relationship for awhile now, and he's still got issues when trying to speak up for things that he wants. You always try to get him to voice his opinions and concerns, and somehow this leads to training him how via the bedroom. Or! In which Crypto needs to learn to stop being an actions over words guy or else you'll make him beg over and over again for what he wants.

Reblogs > Likes. Please Reblog if you hit Like :D

!!!Minors and ageless blogs dni or you will be blocked!!!

Fandom: Apex Legends

Relationship: Crypto/Reader

Warnings: R18+/NSFT, Reader is gender neutral and written with a vulva, they were originally supposed to be a cis gal but there’s no real language depicting them as strictly a gal!, Denial and forcing Crypto to beg and use his big boy words, P tame kink wise!

Words: 5k

___________________

Starstruck.

That’s how you had first felt when you had met Crypto.

You were a new camera operator on the set of the Apex games, someone who got all the good angles and made sure the drone cameras could really catch all the action. You’d met him the same season he’d been introduced, noting how he’d been cold and disregarding, yet appeared confident in himself. But his eyes, they’d been so...paranoid. Especially when you approached to introduce yourself as one of the camera operators.

He’d regarded you with a short, quick nod. Odd, you’d thought. But that had quickly vanished when Elliott had taken you aside and chatted you up, an arm slung around your shoulder and a grin on his face. “Hey, don’t mind the kid, probably still jet lagged, dropships, bein’ legends and all- anyway sooooo I hear you operate those cameras now, huh? Make sure you get all my good angles- not that any of them are bad, just, you know, keep that attention on the money maker you feel me? The money maker being me, of course-”

~Rest under the cut~

“Mirage.” Crypto’s voice had cut in between you two, watching as you both had turned and you could note his irritated look at Elliott before a much more apologetic one was glanced your way. “Apologies. He does not understand personal boundaries-”

Elliott feigns a dramatic gasp, cutting Crypto off with his free hand against his own chest as if wounded.

You stifle your laugh when Elliott keeps up the act, sputtering before pointing at Crypto accusingly. “Woah, woah, woah, I’ll have you know that I know this lovely thing. Used to be the tech head up iiiiiiin- audio, right?” He turns towards you after that, squeezing his arm around your shoulders in a friendly way as you beam at being remembered.

“That’s right! I was actually hoping to speak to you, Crypto,” You gesture at him, noting Crypto’s light surprise of raised eyebrows before confusion and worry passes his features. Quick to overthink, huh?

You’re quick to follow up to ease his possible fears. “N-not! Not as an employee, I mean, I just- your, uh, your drone. They kinda remind me of an old camera used back in the day and I was wondering if you had any tips or tricks I might be able to pick up on?”

That’s what started the relationship in the first place. Crypto, that day, had offered merely a one shouldered shrug, but after Mirage giving him a look and whining to him like a puppy, he’d agreed. Resulting in you having your own private session with him as he helped you learn a few tips. You were already trained in operating the newer models, but having a few pointers never hurt.

The entire time he’d asked questions about you, it almost felt like he was interrogating you rather than trying to start up curious small talk. But, to ease any fears he might have had about you having ulterior motives, you answered as honestly as possible to each one. Judging by his more paranoid nature, you didn’t ask any in turn for fear of him shying away.

The least you wanted to do was make Crypto feel as though you were untrustworthy.

As you two grew closer, the more relaxed he became around you. No more tips were to be given, so that excuse flew out the window, so you’d offered hang outs. It took a few tries until he finally mumbled he’d feel more comfortable in his room, which is where you two ended up being and you learned he had a sweet little cat named Isabella-Marie.

You had smiled at her name, asking where he got the idea from, and he’d smiled softly- almost sadly when he’d said she was his sister’s cat he took in, but no more information. Said cat took to you nicely, and just as she had, Crypto started warming up to you as well.

It was a slow, slow process. You took your time with him and learned that the personality he put on was nothing but a front. Something to keep more hidden. In private, he’s so soft, almost shy in his approach to you. He’s still got his sarcastic tongue, but he’s more playful when in private with you. Much like a cat. You see him opening up the slightest bit to people he’s starting to enjoy too- Elliott and Natalie both seem to have won some sort of favor with him.

That friendship slowly worked its way into romantic.

The first time you kissed him is with your hand cupping his cheek and his cheeks flushed red as his dark eyes flickered to your lips multiple times until you took initiative. It took a bit of coaxing to even get him to rest his hands on your waist, but once that had happened, it’s like he’d been so touch starved all his life. Clinging to you and sighing into your mouth as if he’d just sunken into bed after a long day.

His need for touch didn’t surprise you considering when you offered hugs and snuggles that he’d melt into you and cling to you so tightly. Your height difference, with you being much shorter, made that kind of funny when he’d lean down to bury his face in your neck and you’d stand on your tiptoes to make it easier. All within a private setting- outside of these rooms, you were both strictly professional.

Crypto’s name had been revealed to you not long after. Tae Joon Park. You both agreed that if you used it frequently that you might yell it in public, so it was reserved for more intimate moments or serious when you two were alone. You were mindful about switching his name, so you kept to using ‘Crypto’ in your head to ensure you wouldn’t fuck it up.

Though, it never failed to delight you in hearing him sigh fondly when you’d mumble his name by his ear after a sweet kiss.

Dates were more reserved for the bedrooms as well. You never minded that either, but sometimes on rare occasions, he’d don a mask and a hood so you two could go out. You could only imagine the type of anxiety those outings brought, but it always warmed your heart that he was willing to take a breath and push himself out to do these things for you. In turn, you would spend the nights with him, with his head on your chest and his arms squeezing around your middle.

Crypto, you quickly find however, is really bad at vocalizing his desires.

He’s a man of action, hardly using his words and if he did it was one worded or quick. You’ve been trying to help him on communication skills for both your sakes, but it’s more difficult on him. It doesn’t help that he’s quiet either, so sneaking up behind you to snake his arms around you normally results in you jumping and making a squeak sound.

But it also meant that for more...bedroom activities, that he would use actions. You always knew when he wanted something, you weren’t blind to it, you just wanted to make 100% sure of what he wanted. Normally resulting in you straddling his lap, a hand around his neck and speaking low for him to tell you what he wanted.

Crypto always got the cutest face anytime you took the reins and control. A healthy flush over his cheeks, his breathing heavier and his eyes pleading, but his mouth refusing.

Stubborn was a good way to put it. How his eyebrows would furrow and he’d whimper and buck his hips up, but not tell you what he wanted. It took a lot of trial and error to even get him to utter ‘please’ at times. Your poor baby.

You especially found you liked teasing him. Learning quick that he liked nicknames like ‘Good boy’ and ‘Baby boy’. You enjoyed edging him, tying him up or even just making him cling to the sheets or his own hair as his hips humped the air and he sobbed without begging for you. Always trying so hard to convey in his body language what he wanted you to do.

You found yourself mesmerized by his desperation at a lot of times. Where Crypto’s kiss flushed lips would part, his eyebrows knitted and his eyes frantic on you. His own hands gripping his hair to follow instructions on not to touch you as his hips thrust into the air and made his thick cock bob.

Sometimes you wondered if he could cum just by humping the air alone.

Another time, you’d always tell yourself, always so eager to hear that final sobbed out word of ‘Please’ before you would swing your legs over him and ride him hard and fast. Normally fit with cruel croons about what a sweet, pathetic little thing he looked like. Your very good boy.

That’s what you were thinking of now as you sat on the couch in his quarters, waiting for him to return from his match in the arena.

Isabella-Marie is happily purring in your lap as your hand strokes through her soft, strawberry blonde fur. You’ve set up there with a blanket over your lap that she’s kneading happily, the match Crypto had been in having ended about an hour ago. You could tell he was struggling, too much talking around him that was reflecting in his steps.

He’d been in a team with Mirage and Wattson, both people you knew he liked being around, but unfortunately, they kept striking up conversation. Leading to Crypto being off his rhythm. But it was nice to hear him breathe out in amusement at their antics sometimes, caught on the audio feed with the announcers crooning about how it looked like he made some friends finally.

They at least made it to the top three. Fighting valiantly to maintain their location on World’s Edge in the city. Mirage had gotten cocky when they’d knocked two of the opposite team, going up to finish them off and ending up with a shotgun in the back and a cracking snarl in the sky of Bloodhound.

The rest is history. But, at least you knew Bloodhound wouldn’t be the type to gloat and act cocky if they caught Crypto- at least out loud. You’re glad it was them rather than Caustic. Bad blood ran deep between them, not to mention Natalie struggling herself with it all. You were glad her and Crypto could solve whatever issue it was that ran between them- one that not even you were aware of.

Security and secrecy, Crypto had told you with apology in his eyes. You understood, some things were best kept secret. Especially in case you accidentally got caught up in a mess, you could genuinely say you had no idea what was happening in all the legends’ lives.

The beep of the door being unlocked makes Isabella-Marie awaken, doing a stretch across your lap before she chirps and hurries to the door to greet Crypto. She curls around his feet as he removes his shoes at the door before entering any further into the room in the rest of his gear.

“Hello, sweetheart,” You hear him tiredly coo downwards, hearing Isabella-Marie's delighted chirp as she’s scooped up, quickly followed by her loud motor engine of a purr.

You slide off the couch, dressed in your lounging outfit of soft black sweatpants covered with cliché little green alien heads and a loose gray sweater with a green Apex symbol over the right breast, the collar falling off your shoulders. Crypto looks worse for wear, his eyes are tired and he’s got dirt smudged on his cheek and smells heavy of sweat. Not that Isabella-Marie minds. Nor you.

“Hey,” You greet him, a smile on your face as his eyes rest on you whilst his cat presses her cheek in insistent strokes against his chin, cradled in his arms.

“Hey,” He murmurs back to you, adjusting Isabella-Marie in his arms when you reach for him. Despite his tired expression, his cheeks flush when he leans down and to the side for you to cup his cheeks and peck a kiss on his lips in greeting.

“You need a shower. You go wash up and I’ll order dinner.” You tell him, offering your arms out for Isabella-Marie to be transferred to your arms in all her purring glory. “What were you thinking tonight?”

“Mmh.” Is his only reply, leaning down to rest his cheek on the top of your head in a small nuzzle. Affectionate boy. You laugh a bit, gently nudging him with your hip as Isabella-Marie jumps out of your arms. Giving you time to hook your arms around his waist and shove your hands into his back pockets under his jacket to draw him close and make him blush.

“Tae Jooooon,” You tease his name, enjoying how he hums low in his throat in response and turning his head to press his lips against the top of your head in a kiss. “We’ve talked about this. You can’t go your whole life being a one worded man.”

“Mmh.” He responds again, this time with a smile that you feel.

You shove at him playfully to shoo him off for the shower, calling out after his back when he goes dutifully towards the bathroom. “Fine! But if you don’t like what I picked because you didn’t give any options, I don’t wanna hear you complain!”

Not that he ever did complain. If he was picky this would be a bigger concern. But thankfully you two seemed to be on the same page a lot of times, especially when it came to food.

The food you order is Chinese takeout, getting here just in time for when Crypto emerges from his long shower looking a lot more awake and less grouchy. He’s dressed in his thick framed glasses, his normally slicked back hair nice and slick, some black sweatpants and a loose white crop-top, something you appreciate very greatly to be able to see his fit frame.

Like a nerdy jock.

You show your enjoyment when you wrap your arms around him from behind when he goes to look at what you got for dinner. Running your nails up his exposed beauty-marked, warm skin on his abdomen to feel him squirm and lean back against you with this flustered huff falling from his lips.

Eventually you two make it to the couch where you have dinner and watch one of the K-dramas he liked to indulge in. Sometimes Crypto will pause it to explain a verbal pun that wasn’t caught via the subtitles for you, something that always makes you smile and appreciate when he takes the time to pause and explain for you.

Though you’re sure he doesn’t appreciate when you wait for his most distracted point in time to steal a piece of his food and shove it in your mouth too quickly for him to stop you. Resulting in him poking at you until you squeal from being tickled and he can take a piece off your food in retaliation as you whine at him after.

Domestic. That’s the best way you could describe yours and Crypto’s relationship.

Home.

After dinner is put away and teeth are brushed, you two settle back onto the couch. You curl up on the corner, Crypto following you to cuddle up to your side. His cheek rests against your shoulder, kind of tilting his body into you as you rest your arm behind him, your hand resting on his nape to slide up to pet at the shaved portion of his head. Another hum from him of appreciation, but not verbalizing his like of it.

Crypto softly adjusts, but you take it as nothing more than him getting closer to you with the soft sound of the TV in front of you. You’ve got your phone in your lap to play a puzzle game while he watches his show, very much like a cat as he rubs his cheek against your shoulder affectionately.

Another squirm, another adjustment is felt after a moment of him pressing his thigh to yours. You take it as him wanting to be closer, only sliding your fingers higher along his scalp to the coarse hair atop his head to lightly scratch at the root like he likes.

You don’t notice his mouth starting to part, quickly cut off with the ringing of your phone and you groaning aloud. “Really? Right now?” Before you’re answering it with a polite ‘Hello?’ that makes Crypto snort at your tone change.

He watches as you chat, watching your lips move and hearing you discuss footage and what your boss must have wanted you to edit or someone else. He’s not really paying attention when you’re still petting his hair. He tries to nudge closer to you, near flush with your side as his hand now rests on your thigh, hoping to catch your attention. You only offer him a quick smile before returning back to your conversation.

After five minutes, it’s clear this isn’t going to be a short call either.

A sigh is heard from Crypto before he’s leaning up to start pecking soft, brushing kisses on your neck. Your head tilts for him, only a light flutter of your lashes as you go ‘Mmhm yeah’ to whoever you are on the phone with. Your nails press lightly at his scalp, letting him know you feel him as his teeth lightly nip at your neck like you like.

You’re damned good at keeping your composure verbally, and now Crypto’s beginning to wonder if you’ve ever done anything on the phone with him without his knowledge. Even the mental image of you spread out and touching yourself while on the phone near making him whine, something he swallows down.

You clearly can feel him and see him. You offer a little smile when he peeks up at you, catching your gaze. Emboldened by you sparing even a little attention to him, his hand slides down to your wrist in hopes you’ll catch up to what he’s saying. Gently drawing it to his thigh and towards his inner thigh. And yet, you still chat on the phone, but now you’re squeezing and massaging his thigh, your pinkie lightly skimming over his crotch and making Crypto’s breath hitch against your shoulder.

His brows are furrowed, looking ever so frustrated as you now purposefully lengthen the conversation out by bringing back a point from the last game played. Crypto’s head tips lightly up to you, his eyes pleading with you when your knuckles brush over the bulge in his sweatpants.

Your eyes meet his and you quirk a brow with a light smirk on your face. Your eyes say enough for him, you’re sure, judging by how his face flushes and his brows furrow once again. You can see and feel how he squirms, realizing he’s not going to get anything until he uses his words.

He’s stubborn. He’s always so stubborn. Squirming in his place and getting more frustrated as you keep chatting. Only after three minutes does he finally give in when he realizes this isn’t going to work and you’re only going to keep teasing him through his pants.

“Please?” He all but whispers, his mouth felt quivering on your bare shoulder and his hot breath felt in a shaky exhale. “Please touch me, please?”

You smirk.

“Oh! Hey, boss, looks like I’ll have to chat with you tomorrow morning about that- uhuh, yeah, yeah, getting,” -You pause there to let out a feigned yawn- “Oof, yeah, getting real tired....uhuh, yeah, sounds good! Buh-bye.” Before you’re ending the call and practically pouncing on him.

You end up in his lap, straddling him and cupping his cheeks, brushing some of his hair from his face before you lean in to kiss him. Crypto’s hands find your waist, hovering at first before gripping you when you lick into his mouth after biting his lip to make him gasp.

You sit up higher to press him back into the couch, letting your hands slide into his hair for him to tip his head back when you pull at it. His moan is low and vibrates his chest when your tongue licks over his own, feeling his hips jerk lightly up and against your ass needily.

“I like when you beg,” You breathe as you part from the kiss, moving the kisses down his jawline and towards his ear where you lightly nip. “Do it again for me?”

“Nnh-” Is the only response he manages at first, his fingers shaking as they slide down to grip your hips when you start grinding across his lap. Back and forth to your own rhythm and feeling just how hard he is. Bless whoever made sweatpants.

Crypto’s so cute when you pull back to look at him. Where his head is tipped back and to the side, his lips parted and letting out ragged breaths with each drag of your hips across his lap. How his brows knit together when you grind low and slow downwards to catch his attention and his mouth falls closed to hiss.

But. He still wasn’t speaking.

“Be a good boy and tell me what you want, hm?” You try to encourage him, letting your hands fall down to his exposed abdomen to slide your hands up and under his crop top. Slipping your hands over his chest to thumb at his sensitive nipples, gently pinching and rolling them. Crypto whimpers sharply, his head rolling to the opposite side and looking more stubborn by the second as he strains to come up with words.

“I-I-” His voice comes out in a whine, framed by how his lips quiver and his blunt nails cling to your hips when you stop grinding to encourage him further. “I...I want your mouth. On- o-on my cock. Please?”

“Awww, baby, when you look that cute? I’d do just about anything for you.”

You move down his body, kissing your way down until you can slink in between his knees onto the floor. You waste no time in hooking your fingers under his sweatpants, your mouth watering as you follow his happy trail downwards as it gets more exposed. You tug them completely off with his underwear, watching his thick cock bounce with a satisfying bob and a drool of pre-cum from the flushed head peaking from foreskin.

Crypto covers his face with his hands to hide his burning red flush that edges down to his chest when you hum at him approvingly. But, judging by how his cock throbs, you already know that as he likes being watched and praised without words.

You take your sweet time kissing up his length and down his balls, letting your tongue run over the sensitive skin. Your hand holds the base, stroking downwards to pull back his foreskin, mouthing at the flushed head and letting your tongue slide against the slit in teasing dips until a whimper falls from his lips.

You tease him like this for a good enough amount of time before you even take him into your mouth fully. Suckling and bobbing your head, your free hand holding his hip to squeeze to remind him to keep his hips down when he starts trying to hump upwards into your mouth.

Anytime you feel how his cock jerks and you hear his breathing quicken; You stop. Pulling your mouth off to kiss at his hips and thighs instead. Squeezing on his legs soothingly and rubbing at his skin when Crypto whines and rolls his hips up with not a single word peeping from his lips. Even if now his arm is thrown over his forehead, able to see how he peeks open one eye to look down at you pleadingly.

You smile up at him each time before you take him in again. Suckling, licking, your nails sliding down his thigh until your hand can cup his balls and lightly squeeze. And each time you feel him get close, you pull back. The same bite of pain of your nails on his skin, same edging, the same denial even as pre-cum spills from his cock and it mixes with your drool to connect you with a sliver that makes him near sob when he sees you.

You know he liked it messy. Liked seeing the mess you could make.

The mess you could make of him.

You’re about to remind him that he needs to use his big boy words if he wants to get anywhere tonight. But, seems Crypto gets the memo when he starts pleading.

“Let me cum inside you, please, please, please- please let me cum i-inside you, please, I’ll be good-” His voice is breathy, a high whimper as his hips try to fuck up into the loose grip you have on his shaft. He just looks so pathetic for you right now. Just a teary, drooly, humpy mess.

You like how desperate looks on him.

“Mmmhhh, I dunno, baby,” You let your voice elongate your words, your breath fanning across his sensitive skin and causing his dick to jerk, lightly tapping your lower lip and making you smile. “You look awfully cute. Can’t you hold it a bit longer? C’mon, you can be my good boy and hold it, can’t you?”

Each end of your questions is punctuated with a drag of your lips across his cock, letting him feel how you murmur across his reddened skin.

Crypto sobs out again, his body jerking in sensitivity as both his hands come back up to hide his red face and teary eyes. His nod allows you to continue, continuing your teasing kisses and licks. Making sure to bite pain into his thighs to cause his mind to either associate the pain with pleasure or to back off his pleasure. Judging by the way he sobs out and twitches each time you scratch or bite him, you’re guessing it’s your prior guess.

“Please, please, please-” Crypto starts to sob when you deny him again, his cock jerking heavily and spilling pre-cum on his lower abdomen. His hands have fallen to grip the couch as best as he can, his teary gaze looking down at you and his lips quivering with his shaky breaths. So cute. “Please, I-I cannot take it anymore, please, please let me cum in you, I want to cum in you-”

You’ll give him credit. This is the most he’s ever spoken during sex, let alone been so clear in his needs and desires. Something you’ll praise him for later. For now, you smile up at him, wiping your mouth off on the back of your hand before standing to wriggle out of your lounge clothing.

Crypto’s quick to help you, hooking fingers in your sweater to help you out of it. It’s fit with your laughter as you nearly fall on him, lots of giggling when his mouth presses a kiss to your abdomen when you get halfway stuck through your sweater and pants. “Tae Joon-” You laugh out his name when you feel him smile against your abdomen, “C’mon, lil help here?”

Eventually you escape your clothing prison, able to set the mood again when your straddle his lap. You’re plenty wet enough, but you still take the time to tease him a bit more by reaching down to stretch yourself while hovering over his cock. You feel flustered as he watches you, sitting under you and looking up at you with such love in his eyes while you make soft sounds yourself.

It takes a few tries to line up correctly, but soon you’re bouncing your hips on him with your fingers in his hair and your mouth on his neck. He always sounds so pretty the way he cries out, clinging to your hips at first before his arms wind around you to hug you to his trembling frame. You pepper kisses all over his face, cupping his cheeks adoringly as you rest your foreheads together.

He cums rather quickly, clinging so hard to you as his hips frantically hump up against you. He ends up accidentally holding you still so he can thrust up into you, resulting in you clinging to him in turn with your lips parted and murmuring praise as he fucks you through his orgasm. He’s swearing in his mother tongue, something you can only catch bits and pieces of.

When Crypto’s done cumming, one of his hands quickly goes down to between both your bodies to rub at your clit as you hump against his cock still lodged inside you. He finds your lips to capture when you whimper out his name when you begin to cum, your nails biting into his shoulders as he rubs you through it.

By the time you’re both satisfied, you slump against his frame, burying your face into his neck as your sweaty bodies press together on the couch, still connected.

When both of your breathing settles, he presses a kiss to the top of your head, nuzzling himself there as his hands slide up and down your sides. You smile softly, adjusting your hips a bit and laughing a bit when he grunts in this little oversensitive way.

When you lift your head to meet his gaze, you smile a bit brighter, gently bumping your noses together. “Hey,”

“Hey,” He murmurs back just as fondly.

“You need a shower.”

He smiles when he realizes you’re replaying your interaction from earlier that day, reaching up to brush your frazzled hair from your face. “Mmh.”

“You need a shower with me?”

“Mmh.” He repeats, moving to rest his cheek atop your head as you laugh at him when you feel his chest shake with a quiet laugh in turn.

“Alright fine. Guess I’ll be getting a shower first and you’ll be left out here with your dick out and cold-”

That gets him. Pushing you off him and to the couch with a yelp from you as you fall gracelessly on your side and gasp as he takes off towards the shower and you quickly following after him with a playful swat to his ass when you catch up.

Yeah. You would say your guys’ relationship was domestic.

#Crypto #Crypto x Reader #Apex legends #apex lemons #nsft #lemon #commissions #princess writing

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serpentinesarang · 4 years

Text

falling for you

pairing: baekhyun (byun baekhyun) x fem reader | part 2

genre: non-idol!au, angel!baekhyun, fluff, slow burn, split-perspective, first- and second-person writing styles, LOTS of plot buildup and dialogue, mild smut mixed in, part of a series

word count: 3831

content warnings: alcohol, swearing, theme of angels, virgin reader, strong theme of voyeurism, reader has gender-neutral best friend, vibrator masturbation

summary: baekhyun, your guardian angel watching over since the day you were conceived, has fallen in love with you and can’t bear to just watch you anymore. he needs so much more.

a/n: partly inspired by the teen romance-fantasy series hush, hush by becca fitzpatrick. #17 on my prompt list ♡

korean key:

⦿ none this time

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

You

It’s your 21st birthday, and a beautiful, late-spring day awaits you. You turn off your alarm, roll out of bed, and drag yourself to the bathroom for a much-needed shower.

Once you flick on the vanity lights above the sink, you stop in your tracks. You know what... today’s my big day. I’m gonna do shit MY way today, you think while eyeing yourself in the mirror.

You exit the bathroom for a moment and retrieve the unopened bottle of Fireball [American cinnamon whiskey] atop your dresser. Your dad had sent you the bottle along with your favorite brand of chocolate and a sweet card, and you’d accidentally received the package one day early (oh well!). Unscrewing the cap, you take a hearty gulp and wince at the delicious burning sensation in your chest.

“Fuck yeah,” you grumble aloud as you replace the bottle and amble back to the bathroom.

You turn the knobs of your glass-encased shower and strip off your pajamas while the water heats up.

Baekhyun

Good gracious. I will never tire of her waking up and taking morning showers. She looks the most ethereal after she sleeps and the most serene with water cascading down every bit of her curvaceous body. The way her nipples grow erect from the pressure of the water and the occasional chills when she reaches out to change the background music playing... her hair slicked back, drawing all my attention to her stunning face...

My darling human has at last become what they call an adult. She is now able to legally enjoy spirits and be merry with friends.

I remember the moment she was conceived and I was assigned as her guardian. I made sure her mother was never in harm’s way during her pregnancy with my darling, and ever since then, she has been my reason for existence. No other human soul before her had ever latched itself so deeply into my being, and I can’t stand the distance anymore.

I sit on her long bathroom counter with my wings comforting my back against the wall and my legs hitched upward, just watching her wake up to another day. The glass walls of the shower have fogged up, but I can easily discern her silhouette swaying side-to-side with the music. She seems to be in an unusually happy mood today, and I plan to make her even happier tonight.

You

You step out and dry yourself off, twisting your hair into a towel turban. You tiptoe in front of the mirror and wipe off the condensation with your forearm. Just then, your cell phone on the counter launches into a FaceTime call, the screen showing your best friend’s name.

Accepting the call audio-only, you greet them cheerily, “Good morning, sexy bitch!”

They chuckle. “Show me your face, coward! I wanna see what my 21-year-old best friend looks like on her birthday!”

You dramatically sigh and oblige your friend, keeping your phone facing the ceiling as you tap your camera on. You tower over the screen at a comical angle that only shows your towel-wrapped head and exposed neck. “Here she is!”

“A knockout as always. I hope you know that,” they reply.

Smiling, you ask, “What’s up?”

“We still good to go out to Fire & Ice tonight? I’m not gonna let you leave until you’re so sloshed that I have to carry you out!”

You laugh at your friend’s excitement. “Yes, I took the whole weekend off, so let the debauchery begin, my friend.”

You talk about your club plans a little more before your friend goes on a long diatribe about their evil stepmother—not really fresh territory at this point. So you carry your phone around while you dress in jeans and a college t-shirt, eventually returning to the bathroom for a quick round of makeup.

Your bestie is still regaling you with their convoluted family drama when you feel yourself zoning out into the mirror. It’s as if all other noises around you have slowly faded away, and the only thing you hear is a voice, seemingly right next to you, whispering with a velvety softness, “You’re beautiful as you are.”

Mesmerized by the voice, you unconsciously sigh out of deep contentedness, and your friend asks if you’re still keeping up. You assure them all is well, except for the fact that you’ve been hearing a comforting voice for the past three years now.

A voice you obey by only putting on mascara.

Baekhyun

I’ve been speaking to her since she turned 18. I always wanted her to know she’s never truly alone, but the problem with my method is that she never fully processes me. She’s always so captivated when I speak to her that it never occurs to her something extraordinary—someone extraordinary—is connecting with her, guiding her, encouraging her. And it doesn’t help that I can’t read her thoughts or impede her free will by planting thoughts. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the wide-looked look of bliss that overcomes her every time she hears me.

She goes about her morning as she usually does on the weekends: sitting on her balcony with a plate of toast, a cup of coffee, and whichever book she borrowed from the public library. This time, it’s Dante’s Divine Comedy.

I love the irony.

You

Two hours of reading pass before you grow restless and retreat back to your room. Flopping in bed, you let your mind wander. You’ve been single for as long as you can remember, and you’ve taken a liking to the clearly male voice you hear every once in a while. If you’re honest with yourself, you’re scared deep down of the reality of such a circumstance, but because the voice has always cared about you, what’s the harm in believing in it?

Remember, you tell yourself, it’s all about you today.

Without any more hesitation, you yank open the drawer of your nightstand and pull out a black wand vibrator. You may be a virgin, but you’re not an idiot who doesn’t know what pleasure is.

Wiggling out of your panties and jeans, you throw them to the floor and spread your legs across the mattress as comfortably as possible.

“Come back to me,” you whisper almost inaudibly.

Baekhyun

Absolutely nothing else on this planet makes me happier than watching my darling pleasure herself. She obtained that vibrating device last year as a gift from her friend, and ever since she discovered this realm of physical pleasure, I’ve fallen harder and faster for her. The salacious things I’ve watched her do to herself, the phenomenal sounds she emits, the positions she lazes into, the glistening of that little slice of heaven on her body... It drives me mad that I have no senses of smell, taste, and touch because I want to experience what she does. And with her.

Today is different. She’s never spoken aloud like that, and the yearning in her voice makes me believe it’s for me.

I rest on my stomach with my chin atop my hands, peering at the slit between her supple legs and how it’s slowly begun to flood as she drags the device up and down, stopping to rub slow circles at the very top. I don’t hear the thing humming, so she must be preparing herself.

She has one arm bent behind her head, her neck angled to watch herself move the device. Her mouth is ajar, and the rising of her chest fascinates me because it falls in tune with the device.

Then she pushes a button, and I hear it buzzing lowly. Not a millisecond later does her breath catch as her hips dig downward, and she closes her eyes. She holds the black thing at the top, over the little mountain of bulbous, pink flesh.

You

Whoever he is, you wish he’d speak to you now as you press the wand against your hardened clit. It’s only set to level one, but you feel your orgasm beginning to build up.

So beautiful like this, you imagine him saying. Keep going. I’m right here, and you’re driving me crazy...

You let out a breathy moan as you activate the wand’s level two vibration intensity, and your thighs shake uncontrollably at the heightened pleasure.

Shake for me, beautiful. Take me to your heaven, your imagination continues. It’s right then, though, that his voice sounds beside your ear for real in a soft tone: Yes, darling, you did it.

After hearing this voice long enough to be able to conjure it in your mind with any array of sinful words, today is the first time it brings you to a time-stopping orgasm.

Baekhyun

Out of nowhere, her hips fly off the bed and surge in random, up and down motions, and I watch the small opening of her slit pulsate in time with her hips as it erupts with a lovely, transluscent essence. I wish I could feel her arousal on my fingertips instead of just watching.

Her voice comes out in broken utterances and ragged moans: “UH-uh-huhhh-ugghhhh... ffffff-UH-uh-uuuck.”

The vibration ceases, and she tosses the device beside her with a heavy exhale, evidently spent. Her legs are still spread, and I can’t help but inch myself closer to observe the way her soaked flesh speaks to me in its language of spontaneous throbbing.

You

The rest of the day passes you by. After you came, you made lunch, went to the gym for a workout, went to the DMV to change your driver’s license, came home and read some more, answered a few work emails, perused social media, ate dinner, and even watched a movie. A typical Saturday for you, nothing particularly special by any means. The real fun would be at 9 PM when your bestie promised to pick you up.

...

You glance at the time on your phone: 8:56 PM. Perfect, a few more minutes to double-check everything.

Phone case on a crossbody chain with your new license and credit card stored inside? Check. House key attached to the chain on a carabiner clip? Check. Hair flat-ironed with minimal frizz and ultimate shine? Check. Makeup? Eh, all you did was pat on some cheekbone highlighter. Check. Outfit? Sleeveless, burgundy top with an open, laced up backside, faux leather miniskirt, and basic black Converse for comfort. Check.

You smile at yourself in the full-body mirror in your apartment’s foyer. “Effortless.”

Yes, the voice agrees.

...

It’s just after 9:15 when you arrive at the Fire & Ice club downtown. The bouncers stamp both of your left hands with purple stars for the bartenders to serve you the goods before you’re pushed along with the crowd further into the expansive club.

Lights of every color strobe all over with red-tinged string lights on the perimeter of the whole place, and a massive blue-tinged spotlight on the DJ and his setup. The dancefloor in the middle is decently crowded with people around your age, a few 40-something couples sticking out adorably.

“No chasers for you, missy,” your friend reminds you with glittering eyes and a loving squeeze on your upper arm.

You nod, feeling thrilled to be out on the town for once. You raise your index finger to the ceiling with a victory screech: “To the bar!”

Over an hour later, the overhead lights go out, the DJ’s spotlight turns red, and the entire bar gets lit up from the see-through floor with bright, pale-blue lights. Even though you’re definitely tipsy now, you finally notice the mirrored wall panels surrounding the club, and all the spotlights bouncing off of them combined with the bar’s own futuristic lighting makes you realize how truly fire and ice this place is.

Not surprisingly, your friend had slid into their drunk phase a little faster than you, and they’d disappared somewhere with a girl they’d met at the bar. They’d sent you a text 20 minutes ago reading, “Met a spicy lil thang at the bar. I’ll find u later! Keep ordering!!!”

Were you bothered? Nah, you really weren’t. This has happened a few times before elsewhere, and you were still intent on enjoying this day your way, even if that meant dancing like an idiot by yourself.

Were you wondering where the voice was? Yes. He hadn’t spoken to you since you got picked up.

Gulping down the rest of your Captain and Coke, you return the glass to the bar and catch somebody to order a Vegas Bomb shot. Feeling yourself finally dipping into your drunk mode, you down the shot with ease, not so much as wincing at the burn of the alcohol before heading straight back to the center of the dancefloor where a group of girls had left a pocket for you to slip in.

The DJ blends the ending of the current song with the beginning of a new one, “All That” by Emotional Oranges, and the vibes you get from this one are sensual. You’re in your own world of alcoholic delight, and you’re erotically body-rolling with yourself before you feel a pair of hands gently grasp your waist.

You feel the person press their chest against your shoulders, their breath icy cold beside your ear. “Effortless, my darling.”

Every fiber of your being comes to a screetching halt when you hear it.

It’s him.

You spin around—a little too quickly considering your current state—and brace your hands against his chest. He responds by wrapping his arms around your back.

Looking back at you with big, almost black-colored eyes is a man with platinum blonde hair and ridiculously full lips. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt tucked into black pants, a look more fitting for a business-casual luncheon or something.

But who cares about the clothes when he has a face like that? With the most flawlessly radiant, olive skin and hands so warm on your exposed back that he feels like a personal heater?

You could feel the surrounding people’s presence melting away the longer you gazed at him, the more it dawned on you with a certainty you didn’t dare doubt that this was truly the voice you’d been hearing.

You blurt the words without any more hesitation: “Say ‘beautiful.’”

Unphased, he fulfills your request with a melodic purposefulness in his voice, keeping his eyes trained on yours.

With relief washing over you, you drop your jaw in a loud exhale. “It’s you!” You bring your hands up to cup his cheeks, desperate to etch his breathtaking face onto your brain.

“It’s me,” he answers with a sheepish smile, hugging your body tighter against his. He feels as firm as Michelangelo’s David sculpture.

Then you faint in his arms.

Baekhyun

I can’t tell if she fainted from the shock of finally meeting me or from her obvious imbibement. I was actually able to smell it on her warm breath, and if I knew what literally anything on Earth smelled like, I’d be able to describe it.

I was more beside myself being able to finally touch her, though, to finally exist with her in the same dimension of reality. Her skin felt supremely smooth, and I could practically feel the love beaming from her face.

She knew it was me because she asked me to say beautiful, something I’d spoken to her earlier in the morning. She didn’t want to test me, but she also didn’t want to test her sanity or sobriety.

I carried her home, glancing down at her with a kind of all-encompassing happiness I’d never felt before as an angel.

You

At last, you rouse from your fainting spell, and the first thing you see is your apartment ceiling. A dull headache is knocking at the back of your head, and thankfully the only light source is the lamp on your nightstand.

You look to your side and are reminded of the night’s events.

“I’m sorryyy,” you murmur, frowning cutely at the platinum-haired man lying beside you with his head propped up in his hand. He moves his free hand from your hip to your jaw, tenderly grasping it and swiping his thumb side to side.

“Please don’t be,” he replies softly. “I’d do anything for you.”

You look at him for a moment, examining his features. “Do you know my name?”

He grins ear to ear, as if enjoying a private joke. “I think you know I do.”

Although you’d slept off the alcohol, you’re still a little lost. How do you explain meeting the man whose voice you’d heard in your head for three years?

You turn to face him, entwining your lower legs with his under the sheets. He seems almost caught off guard by the touch, but he quickly calms himself.

“I don’t know yours, though. Please help me,” you plead, and he picks up on your subtle allusion to the bigger picture, not just his name.

He sighs quietly, ceasing his thumb strokes and taking your hand in his. “I am—was the angel Baekhyun.” He pauses, gently squeezing your hand as he brings it to his white shirt. “I’ve watched over you for the past 21 years and nine months.”

He pauses again, letting this sit with you. You take a moment to process before speaking. “Why hadn’t I heard your voice earlier?”

He nods once, taking in a breath. “I didn’t want to scare you in your younger years, nor did I want others to think you’d developed an imaginary friend. And for obvious reasons, you couldn’t see me before I fell.”

Before I fell.

The words run you over like a semi-truck, and Baekhyun sees it on your face. “Yes, darling, I fell to Earth.”

You furrow your brow, caught between confusion and wanting to cry. “Why?” you whisper.

“I broke the law,” he says before kissing your knuckles. “I fell in love with a human.”

You can’t help but stare at him, speechless.

“And I want you to know that every time you ever heard my voice,” he continues, “I was speaking to you and only you when I felt you needed me. Most angels deliberately avoid speaking to their humans and instead conjure some sort of earthly sign for them to stumble across. But I couldn’t do that with you. I watched you become such an incredibly strong, self-sufficient woman that I worried you’d never get anything in return from anyone. I wanted you to know you have never been alone.”

Tears well in your eyes at Baekhyun’s sincerity, and you struggle to find any words to string together.

He kisses your hand again. “Before this, my only senses were hearing and seeing. I don’t think I can take my hands off you now.”

You burst into a toothy smile. “So that means you’ve watched me do literally everything...”

Baekhyun notices the streak of seduction coloring your eyes. Glancing toward your nightstand quickly, he says under his breath, “That thing drives you wild.”

You smirk, pulling your intertwined hands forward so you can kiss his knuckles this time. “Do you know how wild your voice has driven me? Still?”

“I kind of always suspected it,” he admits with a smirk. “Nevertheless, we are together, and I don’t know how to adequately express how deeply happy I am, much less how happy I want to make you.”

Moving your legs from his, you kick back the sheets. He’d left you both fully clothed, that gentleman.

“What time is it?” you say as you twist around to check your phone. Your home screen reads just past 3 AM, and there’s even a new text from your bestie: “Glad u found someone!! Text me tomorrow and happy bday again <3″

You turn back to Baekhyun, propping yourself up on your elbow like him. “You texted my friend?”

He nods earnestly. “I’ve seen you do that enough times to understand the courtesy of letting them know.”

You smile in response, deciding to push his shoulder until he’s lying on his back and you’re straddling him. He responds by placing his warm hands on your hips.

You throw your hair to one side before leaning over him with an outstretched arm. “Baekhyun,” you whisper.

“Yes, my darling?” he hums, his eyes eagerly drinking you in.

“I want you.”

His eyes widen enough for you to notice, and he unknowingly digs his fingers into your sides.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he says above a whisper.

You lean back and unzip your miniskirt, then you tug at your top’s ribboning to undo it enough for you to pull it off. You take in a deep breath as Baekhyun feverishly assesses you, and your nipples grow hard at his unfettered attention.

“Haven’t you seen this enough?” you ask him softly.

He shakes his head. “Never enough. And now I can feel you, smell you, and taste you.”

You carefully stand above him and brace a hand against the wall as you yank the skirt off, one of his hands tenderly holding your ankle. You straddle him again and sit a little bit lower so you can unbutton his shirt, open his pants and pull out the ends of his shirt.

Spreading the shirt fully open, his chiseled torso knocks the breath out of you. You bring your hands to his abs but hesitate for a second.

“Please keep going,” he begs quietly.

With his approval, you bring your hands down and gingerly run them over the indentations of his abs and the plains of his defined pecs. You trace your index finger from his chin over his Adam’s apple all the way down to his navel.

“Darling?”

“Yes, Baekhyun?”

“What am I feeling in my pelvis? Is something wrong with me?”

You look down and find his very human, very pink, very swollen erection poking out of his underwear. Taking his questions seriously, you answer him: “You have an erection, a boner. That means you’re turned on.”

“’Turned on?’”

“Aroused, excited, in the mood. This is how human men show it,” you reply, keeping your voice sincere. He deserves the truth as it is, not through jokes and teasing. “You’ll have to learn how to control it in public.”

He quickly infers your hidden meaning, nodding. “I trust you.”

Chuckling at his random admission, you say, “I trust you too. I’d like to help you with being a human as you have helped me.”

He beams at you. “I welcome your guidance wholeheartedly.”

You smile and spend the next minute removing your panties and the rest of his clothing.

Baekhyun, in your eyes, is literally the definition of perfection. Covered in bulging muscles and gleaming skin with an unusual heat that almost radiates off his body, you fell speechless again.

You’re on all fours above him now, hovering your face above his. “You make a fine human, Baekhyun.”

“Thank you,” he smiles, his hands back on your hips.

“Stop me whenever,” you say firmly. He nods softly, patiently waiting for your move.

167 notes · View notes

startreckobsessed · 3 years

Text

Let you go

Hi! Can i make a request? 🥺 For AOS Leonard Mccoy? With a lil bit of TOS Old Spock. Should probably set on Into Darkness, Bones and reader broke up between the event of the first and second film, so bones was a bit unbothered to flirt with Dr.Marcus (he’s trying to make reader jealous). Old spock talk them out of their misery by telling them that they’re story was quiet unique because in his timeline they didn’t even met, so they should cherish it. (Or whatever, as long as spock intervenes). They talk, and made up. And oh, fluff. Emotional tear jerking fluff. Thank you thank you!!

I have this idea (this was supposed to be a different request, but hey! ), that reader used to date and was in love with this hotshot before she met Leonard. Said ex died in action as a honored captain. Reader was devistated. Again this was supposed a different request, but you can make it as a back story. Can i make this my second request? Hehe 🥺😅

@lykxzandlove Thank you for requesting darling, and thanks for your patience, this one really faught me haha. If you recognise some of the dialogue it's from thirteen reasons why.

Warnings: ANGST ANGST ANGST. I may or may not have cried while writing this.

[[READ MORE]]

You stood in rank dressed in your grey uniform, cap framing your line of vision, shoulder to shoulder between checkov and Sulu as you gazed up at the podium where captain pike was speaking.

"Exceptional courage, is what drives us....

And our crew, is what fuels us..."

Your crew had just finished the first two year leg of your mission. A long two years...

"Let's take a moment to pay tribute to past captain's whom have made the ultimate sacrifice..." the images roll, and a firmiliar face flashed before your eyes and you suck in a breath, squeazing your eyes shut to keep your tears at bay.

You breath out carefully out of your nose, trying desperately to keep the sudden onslaught of emotions contained.

People told you time would numb it, but even give years later, the pain was still fresh and raw each and every time you heard his name, or saw his picture pop up in your records.

You gritted your teeth, struggling to ground yourself in this moment, focusing on your feet on the ground.

You blinked harshly, lifting your face and focusing your attention on captain Pike.

You don't fail to notice the doctors face turned toward you, no doubt brows mashed together over concerned eyes. The urge to meet his eyes and sink into their depths is nearly overpowers your will, but you hold strong, chin high.

------

You had never meant to fall for Leonard. You were deep in it before you even realised what was happening. You were complacent with where you were, some people go their entire lives without knowing true love, you got yours. You didn't feel the need for a new one. But there he came, blazing and true like a comment blasting across the black abyss your crew so faithfully piloted. It happened so naturally, slipping through your defences so you never noticed it.

Until it was too late, and both of you had been wounded in the process.

----

"Sweetheart?" Leonard called from behind you. You cursed silently, slowly turning to face him, trying to keep the guilt off your face as you turned to face him. "You should probably stop calling me that.." You said softly. He frowned, and not the way you liked when he was being sardonic or adorably frustrated with the captain, this one was real.

"Sorry." He said "habit. Are you alright? You left the ceremony yesterday so quickly..." you shake your head, looking away from him. "Fine, I'm fine." You said, swiftly turning and walking away from him. He frowned, looking after you, not noticing his hand was slightly extended, reaching out for you.

------

Later that day, you made your way down to the mess hall, spotting the old Ambasseter Spock, sitting alone by a window. You go through and get your food before approaching the table, greeted by a warm smile.

"Hello ambassator, " you awenered with your own. "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all Y/N. Your company has always always been welcome." You sit down across from him. "Do tell me, how is the good doctor doing." Your fork freezes near your mouth before you set it down. "Oh, I don't know." He frowns deeply.

"I can't imagine why not." He says. "We-" your voice cracks. You clear your throat. "Were not together anymore." Suprise flits crosses his face.

"Well, now that can't be right." He says. You grimace, "I know, nothing feels right anymore, it's like reality has been tilted on its hinges, but..."

"If you don't mind me prying..." He prompts. "Go ahead, you can ask."

"What caused the separation?"

"me." You say thickly. Unexpectedly he reaches across the table and pats your hand in a grandfatherly gesture.

"And by my estimation, you do not seem satisfied with the conclusion, correct?" You hesitate before nodding. "Then mabey its time to rethink that course of action?" Your eyes widen before you look down at the table, shame radiating off of you. "I can't do that, I've already hurt him too bad, I still hurt him." You grimace, thinking of the encounter in the hallway. "I don't know how to stop hurting him." You say, more to yourself than to him.

"Then perhapse it's time to discover what is hurting you." He says. You look away into the porthole, into the black inky abyss that you sometimes wished would swallow you up.

"You know, you two are a remarkable pair." You look at him quissicly. "What makes you say that?" "In every universe I've traveled there are differences, the events in a person's life, and how they react to them, shape who they become. In every universe a different set of events happen in both of your lives, and yet every single time, one of the only constants I find are both of you coming together, no matter the space or the time nor the obstacles placed before you, the one constant is your souls coming together. And from what I can tell, it hurts your souls to be apart."

Question bubbles to your lips, but you silence it. "Ask your question, Y/N." You smile grimly. "You know me too well." "Well I've only had two lifetimes to know you."

"Where you come from... what are we like?" He smiles fondly, memories coming back to him. He sighs in a melancholy way.

"Your other self passed on just a few months ago, from a human ailement not yet curable, he blames himself for not being able to save you." Your eyes widened before blinking in shock. "Wow, thats... God how is he?" He frowns even more deeply. "Trying to go day by day, but losing someone one loves so deeply for so long... is not an easy thing to accommodate to." "Well whats.." many questions bubble to your lips at once before deciding on one. "I-Is he alone?" You ask, voice cracking. He shakes his head. "The good captain has come to earth to stay with hm, along with your daughter and grandchildren." "Joanna?" He smiles just slightly. "Well I couldn't give everything away could I?" You bark out a teary laugh and he chuckles. "But time, is so very precious my dear, you yourself told me that after your diagnosis." "Well, at least one of us has sense."

"But to thoroughly awenser your question, might I go over a timeline?" "Yes, I'd like that." You sigh, resting your head on your palm. "You met on this ship, like so many other times...."

--------

A few days later, you smooth down your hair as you look in the mirror. You were ready to come clean with Leonard about everything you've been keeping buried. Your heart thundered at the thought of unearthing the source of so much pain, but you were ready to start again with him, start fresh, open and raw, with no secrets.

You exited your quarters and went looking for him. Your fingers nervously tapped against your legs as you walked, looking for him, first going to the Med bay. Christine greeted you, her brows burrowing when you ask for him. "Oh hun, he's off planet on a mission." "Oh." You say "thank you Christine." You say before dashing off for the bridge, where you knew they'd be monitoring.

The tube doors opened up and you made your way to stand next to the captains chair, where Jim was watching. He greeted you silently with a nod, both of you listening to the audio feed coming in. You asked what they were doing, knowing he could probably hear you being so close to Jim. Jim quietly filled you in. "We found some ancient Clingon battle tech on this planet, were trying to salvage it."

"Well sweetheart, there something I can help you with?" His voice came through painfully clear, flirtatious and laying it on thick. Your heart seized and you swallowed against the lump suddenly stuck in your throat

Jim eyed you warily "Dr. McCoy may I remind you you are not there to flirt." He said in a stern voice, concerned for your feelings. Dr. Marcus' voice rang in. "We've got it, beam us up."

Once you saw him you forgot that you were surrounded by your crewmates, your hurt voice ringing out.

"You... You called her sweetheart." You said, betrayal filling you, eyes filling with tears.

Without another word you took off down the adjoining hallway, Leonard taking off after you. You sped until you were in an abandoned hallway two floors down with him still following.

Your face got hot, embarasment taking hold. You didn't want to cry over a tiny little word.

His eyes widened, regret filling them when he saw how hurt you were. "Baby- " he stopped himself. He only called you baby when he was really concerned.

"No, no I'm sorry. It's okay, Carols great, she's a great person." You forced out, turning to try and walk away. He grabbed your arm spinning you back around. "I don't want Carol. I want you. I'm sorry." You blinked. "So your not ready to move on?" He shakes his head vehidamently. "It was stupid. So stupid. I've never done anything like that in my life. I wanted to make you jealous." It felt like all the air was sucked from your lungs.

"You still want me? After evrything-" he shakes his head. "My god woman, were you listening? Yes! I love you." He breaths, gently squeezing your bicep. "But I- I hurt you! I broke up with you without giving you a reason-" "I know, sweetheart." He says Your heart stopped.

"You know?"

"I know as much as I can guess. But why don't you tell me?" You took a shuddering breath.

"So you know I was on a different ship before this one."

"Yes."

"When I went onto that ship from the academy, I came with the captain. He made it so we'd make it onto the same ship, because we were..."

"together?"

You nodded. "We loved each other. He was my captain, and I was by his side as head of security and defense tactics." He nodded, fingers pressed against his lips as he listened. "One day, we were attacked by an enemy bregade, and crash landed us on a deserted planet. In order to save me, he threw himself in front the lazer that would have incinerated me and two other crew members. They would have killed all of us, all it did was incinerate him.

After he was killed the crew, furious overpowered them, and we survived, but..." You trailed off, before looking back to him. "How did you know?"

He sighed, as if debating telling you something. "As part of protocol, a captain must... gain permission from Starfleet to enter into marriage with another crew mate. His request form was entered just a few days before his death, with your name attached." You stilled, before another wave of emotion crashed over you. A sob escaped you, and you leaned against the wall for support, a hand coming up to try to muffle your cries.

Leonard watched you with glassy eyes, your pain like a twisting knife in his chest. He waited for a moment before slowly inching forward to wrap his arms around you, testing the waters. You pull him closer, wrapping your arms tightly around him, his warmth sinking into your cold body. "I'm sorry." He whispers into your neck. "I'm so sorry." You shake your head, pressing your face into his neck. His scent calmed you, and eventually your breathing slowed as his hands rubbed your back. "I love you." You said, his hands paused, and he untangled himself to look at you, hope in his eyes. "Really?" "Yes, I'm sorry I made such a mess. Do you want to try this again?" You ask. He let out a breathless chuckle before pressing his lips to your forehead. "Yes, God yes." You smile teary eyed, bittersweet joy filling you. You placed your hands on both sides of his face before giving him a slow melting kiss, thumbs stroking his face. "I just have to do something first." You say. His brows crease slightly, but he let's you go. "Okay.." He says uuncertainly

You smile. "I'll come and see you at dinner, okay?" "Yeah, I'll see you."

---------

You entered your quarters without turning on the light, blindly reaching for your padd. It glowed brightly in the darkness of your room, easily finding the picture of him you loved the most, him dashing in his captains uniform hat just a little bit crooked, every inch of him glowing from happiness. Hot thick tears leaked from your eyes as You gently placed your padd on the table in front of your window, his face materializing against the empty black abyss, somewhere where you knew his ashes were scattered, floating forever in the universe, amidst stardust and wonder.

"I love you." You whispered into the silence, looking at him. "Wherever you are, I hope you know that I love you. I hope you know that I'll never not love you... a good friend once told me, I can love you, and still let you go.... I know one day, thinking about you won't hurt so much, and the other feelings will fade, and I'll be only left with love. The way you loved me so fiercly and how i loved you. I'll never forget you i promise, how could I? Even when I'm dying I know you'll come back to me, when I'm old and tired. But there is this amazing man that I love that wants to love me, and I think I'm ready to be happy again. I know you'd want me to be." You looked back at his flickering image

"I hope we meet again. And So, Derek.... I love you, and I let you go. And I hope wherever you are, you feel peace, you feel safe...and I hope you know that I love you." You say, a feeling of weight being stripped off of you makes you feel lighter, and a strange peace settles over you, and somehow you know he hears you.

"I'll never forget you."

#bones x reader #leonard mccoy imagine #leonard mccoy x reader #star trek fanfics #star trek drabble #star trek imagine #mine

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obsidiancreates · 3 years

Text

Freezer Duty (Part Two)

"Okay, okay!" Cheyenne shouts. Everyone is gathered in the warehouse, shouting and holding money. "Guys, settle down! This is simple, okay? If you think Jonah is a vampire put your money in this stupid fedora-"

She holds up said Fedora, a hat that Jonah has tried many times to wear and has been relentlessly mocked for each and every time.

"-and if you think he isn't a vampire, put your money in this crazy big mug!" She holds up a novelty mug that says 'My hair is as slick as my moves'.

Bets are placed, and the games truly begin.

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Jonah looks at the customer and nods as they drone on about... something. He's trying very hard to focus on what, but it's just impossible. His lunch was completely unsatisfying, and he's still tired as hell.

"-so then the bagel caught fire-"

He just feels groggy and sick. And he's freezing! He even put his jacket on under his vest, and he's still cold! If only he had one of those cardigans from college with him...

"-and anyway, I just hope this won't turn out the same way."

Jonah nods along for a minute more before registering that the "conversation" is finally over. "Okay, well, good luck with that, ma'am," he says with a tired smile.

"Thank you, um... Joe-neh.”

“It-it’s Jonah, actually- and she walked away. Okay.” Jonah sighs and yawns, stretching his arms. He accidentally swings then out too wide, and knocks something over right onto the ground.

He jumps at the sheer volume of the impact! “WHAT IN THE-”

A barbell in a box smashes against the ground, denting the floor.

“How did- who- where-” Jonah looks around, trying to spot someone who would misplace a barbell into grocery!

He kneels down to take a look. It’s cracked the floor significantly.

He looks at his hand. It’s not even red where he accidentally punched the absurdly heavy weight. He struggles with grocery bags more often than not, and yet this- whatever this even is- happened?!

“Gotta be at an angle,” he mutters to himself. He puts his hands on the shelf, rubbing it, crouching down and examining it closely. “Just slid off at the lightest touch, clearly.”

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“Wow.” Mateo looks at Brett. “How did you even get that over there? It must weigh like, a million pounds.”

Brett gives no reply. Nor any indication that he heard Mateo at all.

“Fine then,” Mateo says, offended. “Well, that’s a point for the ‘vampire’ better for sure.”

“Totally.” Cheyenne is already marking it down in her notebook.

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Dina watches Jonah on the security cams. “Let’s see how you like this one.” She pulls out her walkie-talkie. “Do it now, Garrett.”

“This is crazy. You know that, right?”

“Just do it!”

At the customer service desk, Garrett sighs and pulls out his phone. He taps an audio file, and holds it up to his mic.

Dina watches Jonah like a hawk.

First his head lifts up, clearly confused, and then after a moment he claps his hands over his ears. Over the camera she hears him shout, “What the hell is that?!”

Customer turn and looks at him with bewilderment, and looks around.

Jonah looks around too, somewhat distressed.

“Ha!” Dina stands up a little and points at her monitor. “Superhuman hearing!”

“Hey, Dina?” Garrett says over the walkie. “What is this supposed to be doing, exactly?”

“That’s a frequency human ears can’t hear, but Jonah just did,” she says happily.

“Are you serious?”

“Always. He’s freaking out in the middle of grocery,” she says with a laugh.

“Okay, turning this off now.”

“No! I want to see how long he can handle it first, for future reference.”

“Yeah, well, I bet against him being a vampire so this doesn’t benefit me at all.”

Garrett lowers the phone and turns it off. Dina watches Jonah drops his hands from his ears with a small gasp of relief. She plops back into her chair with a disgruntled sigh.

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“Hey, Sandra? Um, so, we got a complaint,” Glenn says, trying to get Sandra’s attention, “Someone said that a bunch of bats flew out of the hole in the ceiling and started trying to rip their hair out? Anyway, uh, we can’t call animal control without corporate approval, so I need someone to handle that...”

Glenn waits for a moment, and then clears his throat. Sandra is still focused on something else. He clears it again, more insistently. Still nothing.

“SANDRA!”

The shrill shout make Sandra jump. Glenn smiles pleasantly when she turns around. “I need your help with something- ... wait a minute...”

Sandra is holding a spray bottle, garlic powder, and real garlic. “Um, I’m... restocking,” she clearly fibs. Glenn raises an eyebrow.

Sandra deflates. “We’re playing a game,” she admits. “To see if Jonah’s a vampire or not. Since garlic might kill him Dina and Marcus are making me wear garlic perfume, which is just garlic in water, to see if it makes his nose bleed or anything.”

“What?”

“I know we shouldn’t be playing a game at work-”

“Who cares?! Jonah might be a vampire?”

“Um... yes?”

Glenn shouts fearfully. “But-but vampires are damned! Jonah’s soul might be damned?!”

“... Yes?”

Glenn quickly runs away. Sandra waits, shrugs, and goes back to spraying garlic-y water on her neck.

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“Jerusha? We’re gonna start up a new savings account! ... Well, Jonah might be a vampire, so I think we’ll need to pay a heavy fee to get him into Heaven! ... Of course we have to do it! He probably can’t even think of Heaven now! OH! I prayed for him this morning, what if that hurt him?! Oh, god... I need to call Pastor Craig about this! Oh- hmm? Oh, yeah, I can bring home Italian, what do you want?”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jonah leans away from Sandra. “Yeah, uh, it’s-it’s certainly... pungent.”

“A good signature scent?” Sandra asks meekly.

“It... leaves a strong impression,” Jonah assures. And a strong headache...

“You don’t think it’s too strong?”

“Well, um... now you mention it, it... might, be a little... much. Uh... garlic-ish. Kind of.”

“Oh. Do you not like garlic?”

“I love it! I love garlic, just... not as a perfume.”

“You’re not allergic?”

“I just said I love it, so... no.”

“Okay. Um, thanks.”

Sandra walks away, leaving Jonah thoroughly confused.

“What was that about?” Amy asks, walking up.

“I think Sandra got garlic on herself and is trying to convince everyone it was on purpose,” Jonah says, slightly distracted sounding. He looks at Amy. “That or she genuinely wants to smell like garlic all the time.”

“Huh. ... I bet it was Carol.”

“Oh, that’s a good guess!” Jonah exclaims with a smile. “Why didn’t I think of that one?”

“Mmm, you’re off your game today. Anyway, I asked Glenn and we think insurance will cover a basic checkup if you think you need one.”

"Good, good, because I had another thing happen.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I started hearing this like um, this-this ringing sound, kind of? But I don’t think anyone else heard it. ... Everyone sort of looked at me like I was that guy from last Halloween...”

“Oh, yikes.”

“... Anyway, I’ll call at the end of the day.”

“You’re sure you don’t need to go home?”

“Well I’d like to but our insurance is so bad our boss thought I might die, so.”

“Right.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, Garrett-”

“Whoa, where the hell did you come from?!”

“The cafe. Here.” Dina tosses a pack of toothpicks to Garrett. “Hold one of these up around Jonah’s heart and see if he panics.”

Garrett looks at her skeptically.

“It’s the closest thing we have to a wooden stake! I mean, I could carve one, but we’d lose a chair or two.”

“Yeah, Dina,” Garrett pushes the toothpicks back over to her. “I’m not doing that.”

“Why? Scared you’ll kill him by accident? You can’t trip, it’ll be fine.”

“No, because this is stupid. And because if he is a vampire, I don’t want him to think I tried to murder him!”

Dina considers this. “... Alright, fair game. I’ll find someone else to do this.”

“Wait, really? Just like that?”

“Yeah. Any idiot could hold a toothpick to someone else’s heart.”

Dina walks away, huffing, as Garrett is left with an odd feeling of dejection.

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Jonah pauses as he walks past patio. He doubles back, and spots Marcus using one of the grills.

Marcus looks up and grins. “Hey! Feeling peckish?”

“Um, are you allowed to be- isn’t that kind of dangerous, actually?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I uh, get special treatment after cutting off my thumb,” Marcus brags.

“Oh... kay. Um...” Jonah looks at the steaks, mouth watering. “I guess... I could use a snack.”

“Great! How rare do you want it?”

“... Do you mean how well-done? Just- usually people don’t start with the assumption of rare...”

“Well, a lot of my friends like their steaks bloody.” Marcus laughs, and then looks at Jonah very seriously.

“Oh, um, that-that’s... cool.” Jonah looks at the steaks sitting on the plate, in a pool of red, metallic-smelling, warmed blood...

He wipes his mouth. “Um, medium rare,” he says quickly. “And I’m just- I’m going to head over to the um, I think I saw a spill! In isle, uh... yeah.”

Jonah quickly walks away, and Marcus pulls out his phone to text Cheyenne.

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“Hey, Glenn, I was thinking and I think we should send Jonah to- whoa.” Amy stops in her tracks, standing in Glenn’s doorway completely still as her boss tries to quickly hide the fact that he’d been crying.

“Um, go on, Amy.”

“Glenn, are you okay?” Amy closes the door and sits down.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Glenn waves off. “Just worried about Jonah, you know?”

Amy sighs. “Yeah, I am too. He said he heard a ringing in his ears, so I think maybe we should send him to the doctor and just use the jar method-”

“NO!”

Amy startles at Glenn’s shout. “Why?”

“Because he’s a vampire now, and-and who knows what the scientists will do to him!”

Amy closes her eyes and shakes her head, trying to process that. “I’m sorry, he- what? Why do you think that?”

“Everyone does!” Glenn swings his arm out for emphasis.

“... So... there’s no evidence, just people spreading rumors?”

“He had the two holes in his neck!”

“Okay, but, vampires aren’t real. You know that, right?”

Glenn shakes his head. “The Devil can do terrible things to good people! And-and one of those things, is turning best friends into vampires!”

Brushing past the fact that Glenn believes Jonah to be one of his best friends, Amy stands up. “Okay, Glenn, how about we go out there and look at Jonah.”

“... I’m scared to.”

“Just come on.”

Amy drags Glenn out of the office and runs into Justine. “Hey, Justine, where’s Jonah?”

“Oh, I think he’s at the grills-”

“Kay, thanks!”

She takes Glenn to Jonah despite Glenn’s protests. “See? Jonah is perfectly norm-”

She stops, and Glenn shrieks.

“Not what it looks like!” Marcus assures, fumbling with a napkin to wipe the blood off of Jonah’s chin.

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*minutes earlier*

“Why do I need to be blindfolded for this?” Jonah asks nervously, fidgeting with his hands in his lap as Marcus covers his eyes.

“I want you to guess which one is cooked right without seeing it.”

“Wh-why, though?”

“Because... it’s a game!”

It’s to see how sensitive Jonah is to blood.

Marcus cuts a slice of steak, and holds it up. Jonah hesitantly opens his mouth, and Marcus shoves the steak piece in. Jonah coughs. “Very aggressive.”

Marcus shrugs, and waits.

“... Medium well?”

“Yes! Noice! My friend knows his steaks. Okay, here’s another one.”

Jonah chokes a little. “You really don’t have to shove it, in, um, you almost stabbed me.”

“Just tell me the steak...”

Jonah chews. “... Medium rare?”

“You are on fire! Okay, one more.”

Marcus shoves the fork into Jonah’s mouth. Jonah hisses in pain, biting down on the very rare piece of steak. Blood dribbles down his chin, both from the meat and his own mouth.

“Oh, shit, I am so sorry! Let me help, um-” Marcus grabs a napkin, and starts trying to unfold it.

Amy and Glenn round the corner at that exact moment. Marcus looks at them with slight fear. “Not what it looks like!”

Jonah coughs, spitting out the steak onto his lap. “This game went horribly wrong!” He takes off the blindfold and grabs a napkin himself, pressing it to the roof of his mouth.

Glenn looks like he’s about to faint. Amy holds her hands up. “What the hell happened?!”

“I was seeing if Jonah could tell different steaks apart and I kind of, uh, stabbed his mouth.”

Jonah looks at Marcus with an incredulous glare (that almost seems to have concern mixed in, but all of Jonah’s expressions look like that).

“Okay, Marcus, go back to the warehouse! Jonah, let me see- dammit, okay, lets go find some kind of antibiotic mouth spray or something-”

She leads Jonah away as Glenn and Marcus are left behind.

Glenn looks around for a moment, swinging his arms. “So, um... how did he do?”

Marcus smiles. “Awesome,” he chuckles. “That guy is totally a vampire, I’d bet my windshield.”

“Oh.” Glenn’s voice is weak. “I-I think I need to sit down.”

Marcus holds up a plate. “Want a steak?”

“... Sure.”

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Amy takes the plastic off the spray and holds it up. “Okay, take away the napkin.”

Jonah takes it out of his mouth, and Amy shines a light in so she can aim the spray. “Where did he get you? I can’t see any holes.”

Jonah points. Amy squints. “No, there’s nothing. Not even any bleeding.”

They both look at the very bloody napkin.

Amy’s brows furrow. “... Sure healed fast.”

“I-I guess it felt worse than it was.” Jonah runs his tongue over the roof of his mouth. “You’re sure there’s nothing?”

She checks again, and her eyes drift to his teeth. ... Are those two actually sharper, or is she just imagining it?

“... Yeah. Nothing.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jonah heads back out onto the floor, stomach rumbling. He got two bites of steak, which just made him more hungry really.

He passes by the grills. Glenn and Marcus are gone, but a steak remains. The rare one.

He stares at it for a moment, and then gives in. He walks over, picks up the plate-

And the next thing he knows he’s holding the steak in his hands, and it’s bone-dry. He blinks, and looks up and around as though he thinks someone else could have come in and dried out the steak.

He has a metallic taste in his mouth, and he does feel marginally less hungry. Still at a stomach-growling level, but it had been starting to hurt.

He looks down at the now inedible steak. He sets it back down and walks away, trying to figure out what the hell happened and why he had blacked out again.

He passes by Sandra, who’s texting something to someone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Another point to Vampire.” Cheyenne smugly marks it down. “Told you.”

“Alright, alright, I shouldn’t have doubted you,” Mateo admits. “So what do we do? I mean, we can’t keep working with him now, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if he tries to bite us?”

“Ooooh. ... I guess I hadn’t thought of that. ... He’s probably going to be a nice vampire, though.”

“Sure, for now. But what if someone like, eats his lunch?”

“Wouldn’t his lunch be people now?”

“Okay, so then, what if someone becomes his lunch? ... Should we carry garlic on us?”

“Ew.”

“Super ew, but I think I’d rather stink than be dead. Which is saying a lot, when I run out of cologne I use Febreeze.”

“Which kind?”

“The sea breeze one.”

Cheyenne nods approvingly. “Well, maybe we can get some holy water? I bet Glenn could get us some.”

“Oh, I think there’s some at my house, actually. Tita uses it when we get ant infestations.”

They both smile at their foolproof plan, and keep working.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy watches Jonah from a distance.

He can’t be. It’s just not possible. Vampires aren’t real, they’re just in books she swipes from Emma (and reads herself) sometimes. And besides, Jonah doesn’t look like one!

Well, he kind of does, but he looked like that before this morning. Although he does look a little paler than usual...

No, no, it’s winter, of course he looks paler than usual, everyone looks paler than usual because there’s no sun.

... It was weird how his mouth was completely fine... and he has been acting weird today...

...

She plasters on a smile and walks over. “Hey, Jonah.” She wraps him up in a big hug.

“Oh! Um, hi, Amy.” He hugs back, and Amy shivers a little.

He is freezing.

She pulls away. “Just restocking the freezer?”

“Uh, no, why?”

“Oh. You just, feel really cold.”

“Yeah, I’ve had a chill all day.” He rubs his arms. “Not even coffee helped. But I don’t think I have hypothermia, so I’m not sure what’s going on...”

Now Amy feels a chill. “Well, um, how about we go sit by that heater display, then?”

“Yes, thank you, I need that.”

As they walk, Amy tries to get a good look at his teeth. He rambles on the whole way over, but she can’t get a good, clear view.

They sit down, and Jonah sighs. “Oh, that’s so much better. Feel less like a walking corpse now.” He laughs at himself.

Amy laughs too, forcing it out as she eyes his smile.

Those two teeth are definitely longer.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun sets over the Cloud 9, and Jonah sighs in relief. Finally, almost time to go home. He’s going to sleep right awa-

He pauses his mopping (someone chugged three giant sodas and did not have the stomach for it).

Where did that sudden burst of energy come from?

“Must be the relief,” he mutters. He finishes mopping up, and is immediately approached by a customer.

“Excuse me, but there’s a section back there with broken lights. Can you help me find my way around?”

Jonah sighs, hands on his hips, but nods. “Sure! Sure, no problem.”

He hadn’t even noticed the broken lights earlier, he could have sworn he could see perfectly. He follows the customer over to the dim, isolated area.

And blacks out.

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“Hey, Cheyenne?” Amy walks up to the cosmetics booth. “I heard you guys did a betting pool about Jonah?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cheyenne chuckles. “It was super fun, everyone was sending me stuff all day and some of the tests were super silly-”

“How about we shut it down?”

“... But, it’s almost the end of the day...”

“Yeah, I know, I know, just, it seems in poor taste.”

“How?”

“Kind of feels like it’s making light of what happened to Jonah, right? And I mean, I don’t know how I feel about gambling about someone who has a gambling problem, you know?”

Cheyenne considers, and nods. “Well, we won’t keep it up, it was just for today. We all know the answer anyway, he’s totally a vampire.”

“No! No, uh, he isn’t, because vampires don’t exist. So he can’t be.”

“Um, he totally is.”

“But he is not, because that’s fantasy.”

“No, really! Look at all this evidence everyone sent me.” Cheyenne pulls out her phone and shows the group chat to Amy. “We would have counted you in but... well, this.” She gestures to Amy, and the current conversation as a whole.

A crowd has begun to gather. Amy turns and looks at everyone. “Okay, guys, it was a fun day but this, vampire betting pool thing is over!”

There’s disgruntled chattering. “So there’s no payout?” someone shouts.

“Nope, everyone should take their own money back and let’s leave this to rest!”

“Like Jonah?” someone else jokes. The group chuckles.

“Not like Jonah, because Jonah is alive and well!”

“Well, vampires aren’t technically alive-”

“Sandra!” Amy snaps. “He is not a vampire!”

Dina scoffs. “Come on, even I think it’s obvious, and I’m not prone to thinking stuff like that. Unlike Glenn.”

“Where is Glenn, actually, he should be putting a stop to this-”

“He went home early. Something about needing to start a fundraiser to buy Jonah a new soul. His pastor is a con artist, but I respect his convincing marketing.”

“... Okay, then, Dina you put a stop to this.”

“Why?”

“Because Jonah! Is not! A vampire! There are no such things, and-and he just can’t be one, okay? Because he is a-a nervous, stuttery, sweet little man and it’s just not possible!”

Sandra glances over into the isles, and stiffens. “Uh, guys?”

“It could all be a ruse,” Dina says with a shrug. “He’s a creature of the night now. Can’t trust him anymore.”

“No, he is not!”

“Why are you so insistent about this?” Mateo asks.

“Why are you wearing a cross choker like you’re a teen going through a phase?” Amy fires back.

“This is to protect my bodily fluids from your ‘sweet little man’.” Mateo makes a sassy face at her.

“Guys,” Sandra says again, a little louder.

“He’s not my sweet little, I just meant he is in general a good guy!”

Garrett, highly amused, joins in the teasing. “Good looking?”

“No! I mean, yes, kind of, he’s not bad I-I guess- how did this turn into a thing about me? Stop saying Jonah is a vampire when he is not!”

“Guys!” Sandra’s shout finally draws everyone’s attention. “Look.”

A blank-eyed customer shuffles out of the isles, a worried Jonah following. “Ma’am, please, are you okay? Do you need me to walk you to your car? What happened?”

She doesn’t reply, which seems to make Jonah more frantic. As she walks past, everyone gets a clear view of her neck.

Two little holes, slightly bleeding.

And Jonah seems to have more color in his face.

“Ma’am, please, what happened in the isle? Did you trip? Did I trip and fall into you? Whatever happened I am very sorry-”

They both disappear out the doors. Cheyenne lowers her phone. “I’m texting that to Glenn.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment, the only sounds those of Cheyenne typing on her phone.

Finally, Dina pipes up. “I think Amy lost the pool.”

#Superstore #superstore nbc #superstore tv #superstore jonah #superstore amy #Amy Sosa #jonah simms #Vampire!Jonah AU #garrett mcneil #glenn sturgis #sandra kaluiokalani #amy dubanowski #Dina Fox #mateo liwanag #Cheyenne lee #blood tw #stabbing tw #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic

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oneboxofmatches · 3 years

Note

Hi!!! May I request a HP romantic and friendship matchup on both eras? (Preferably male), thanks in advance! 💞

𝗕𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗦 + 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘

19, Libra, Neutral Good, enneagram is 4w5, Ravenclaw, and my patronus spirit is swan. Bi Pan Genderfluid girl using pronouns of She/Her or He/Him. A friend of mine told me that I (kinda) look like Marinette from 𝗠𝗶𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝗱𝘆𝗯𝘂𝗴, Musa from 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝘅 𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯, and Alexandra Trese from 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲 (a Netflix animated series), but the exception is I'm short (5'1.2") plus sized Southeast Asian woman with Spanish descent that has messy/wavy brunette medium hair, chocolate brown eyes, oriental skin and a small beauty mark on the forehead. My sense of fashion is in between emo and boyish plus korean glam.

𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬

Distant and shy at first cause' I dunno how to initiate a conversation, but a total opposite if I open up---friendly, ambivert, witty, laughing loudly on a daily basis, talkative, awkward, daydreamer (I got embarrassed from knocking at the door even I'm inside the classroom 😂), EXTREMELY clumsy, secretly likes affection, easily overwhelmed, prone to melt over any wholesomeness, flusters on compliments, lightly blushes on cheesy banters, sarcastic person with a lowkey crackhead energy citing meme references, and talented girl who can be your no. 1 supporter and unashamed to be true to myself. In terms of leadership, I only educate and guide than being a prefect (I might take the role seriously), and will lift my group when there's lacking/incompleteness. About doing projects in school, I become too extra and prepared for efforts, but I'll forget the process in the end.

People thought I'm a demure self-effacing woman that looks "idealistic" or "one of a kind," (due to my protective parents, a reason why I've never been in a relationship) but the truth is, I'm eloquent, warm-hearted, willig to help, kind, intelligent, supportive, nice, creative, enthusiastic, determined, tough, competitive, and feisty outside, but a real softie that can be childish and dramatic crybaby filled with doubts, frustrations, and insecurities with fear of failure that pushes off the limits to to please everyone, yet I still managed to be stronger than ever, even it's a slow burn process. I can be intimidating, sassy, and a douchebag if I receive ends. Immature, headstrong, perfectionist, demanding, hesitant, jumpy, very indecisive, overthinker, quick-tempered, sensitive, and anxious (no joke, my nervousness makes me think worse scenario will arrive or I might break a belonging due to my carelessness). Though can be procrastinator and arrogant, I raised as a religious 𝖺𝗇𝖽 diplomatic person, willing to fight what I believe (including my dreams) 𝖺𝗇𝖽 what is right. In addition, I have a habit of staying up late and doing sign of the cross to ease nervousness.

Blunt but the loudest idiotic feeling-brokenhearted and bitter friend in the group who fangirl a lot, swears like sailor, will act like a silent backstabber on people that we loathe, will crack up over your stupid antics before helping, and bring gossips, but a hopeless romantic who tends to banter with sarcasms or pick up lines as an endearment (but gets grumpy if I received sappy or offensive one), still generous and concerned in a subtle way.

𝗛𝗢𝗕𝗕𝗜𝗘𝗦

My hobbies are singing, drawing, roleplaying, listening to music, chatting/browsing on social media, conceptualizing, writing, and reading some stuffs. 𝖨'𝗅𝗅 𝗂𝗇𝖼𝗅𝗎𝖽𝖾 making corniest jokes/puns, 𝗌𝗅𝖾𝖾𝗉𝗂𝗇𝗀, and dancing when nobody's around or walking like a model if I feel so bold (even I'm terrible at both xD).

𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗦

Loves kittens, eating a lot, cartoons, watching YouTube videos (mostly pageants, ASMR, edit audios, and mukbangs), also enjoys playing games on my sister's PSP. Sucker for arts, choir, night sky, makeup, fun/deep/dumb conversations, Christianity, documentaries (about saints, real crime stories, and inspirational people), reading interesting stuffs, talking about social issues, and writings, chilling both indoors and outdoors. Beside that, my music taste are like late 90s-2000s songs (mostly rock, pop, and country) sometimes kpop and ppop, chocoholic, and a sweetooth as well.

𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗦

Things that I hate are stereotyping, HUGE creepy crawlies (spiders, toads, snakes, and cockroaches), firecracker sounds, being left out, loneliness, heart break, blackout, and judgemental people. One random fact about me is, I 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 vent out EVERYTHING I despise in my entire existence---from bad soap operas to toxicity and worse scenarios in real life, because it's a big deal for me, and I consider forcing me to do what I'm not into and manipulating me as my major pet peeves.

𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗘𝗥𝗦

In terms of triggers...I only have two which are ta𝖨king about divorce/annullment/separation because I came from a generational broken family and religion/beliefs discrimination, cause' there are reasonings that doesn't makes sense because some are too hypocritical.

𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗔

My best assets are smile, eyes, personality, singing voice, artistic skills, writings, intelligence, and oratorical skills...so I can consider myself as a singer, artist, orator, and a top student who's a former active campus ministry member with three roles (choir leader, psalm singer, and reader). Currently an incoming college freshman, learning how to cook and have so many interests, to the point I don't know what I'm into because of my dreams to become a popular Filipino YouTuber, a novelist, and being part of a successful chorale competing internationally...I also consider joining pageants at school too once the pandemic ends, but maybe.

Thank you so, so much for requesting! I had a lot of fun with this one (as you can tell by some of the really long answers lol) and I hope you enjoy!!

In the Golden Trio era, I romantically pair you with…

CEDRIC DIGGORY

One of the most beautiful things about Cedric is that although he may show some introverted tendencies, he still manages to have a natural gift for connecting to others and allowing them to feel comfortable enough to open up. Really, your initial distance and shyness don't last nearly as long towards Cedric as they would with most other people.

Hearing your laughter brings the widest, cheesiest grin to Cedric’s face. Not only does he adore seeing you happy, but he also recognizes that your anxiety, insecurities, and strong emotions can sometimes cloud up your demeanor. Therefore, it brings him comfort knowing that (for the moment) you’re finding joy. He thrives when you thrive!

However, as much as he loves seeing your more energetic and happier self, it goes without saying that he’s the best comfort for when you’re not having the best day.

Cedric is an excellent listener, so he’ll most likely let you talk without interruption for as long as you need before even saying a word. He wants to make sure he truly understands your current state before acting. He may take a few seconds to process everything after you finish speaking, but then he’ll help you tackle whatever problems you’re facing. He’s especially talented at giving words of affirmation.

Cedric’s listening also comes in handy whenever you talk about your interests! He genuinely loves hearing about the things you’re interested in solely for the fact that you’re interested in them. Side note: you can count on him to be at any music performances, pageants, etc. you may have -- this guy is truly your #1 supporter.

Cedric’s a very good student (though I suspect he’s somewhat of a procrastinator himself), so I can also see you two supporting each other through schoolwork and celebrating each other’s successes.

Like you, Cedric has a strong urge to do the right thing. Talking to him about social issues stirs up a need to help, and I could see you two doing volunteer work together in your spare time.

I like to believe one of Cedric’s biggest love languages is quality time. Don’t get me wrong, this guy loves staying involved and busy. But taking a couple hours to be with you in small ways (even if that means just being in the same room while you scroll through social media) gives him a nice balance.

Overall, this kind boy will be there unwaveringly through the bad times and will laugh just as loud as you through the good!

As a friend, I think you’d best be matched with…

LUNA LOVEGOOD

You wanna talk about the best conversations, relentless support, and overall the most wholesome friendship you could ask for? Luna’s your girl.

Being unashamed to be true to yourself is one of the biggest reasons why Luna is so drawn to you. While she’s very friendly and insightful towards everyone she meets, it can get a bit repetitive for her to constantly interact with people who try to shelter their unique characteristics from the world. In her mind, these unique characteristics are what make people so fascinating! Why should anyone hide who they are?

Luna’s creativity is endless, and I can see it blending well with yours. Collaborating on a personal project outside of school (ex: novel, blog, etc.) together is definitely something I could see you two doing.

Speaking of creativity, finding creative solutions to everyday problems (both in school and in life) is your specialty as friends.

Admittedly, Luna isn’t usually drawn to louder individuals. However, the complexity behind your personality makes it easier for her to know you are much more than what meets the eye.

Speaking of, Luna has a difficult time standing up for herself -- whether it’s because she doesn’t feel a need to or she just doesn’t recognize the meaning behind certain phrases. She NEEDS a friend like you to stand up for her sometimes, and I know you wouldn’t hesitate!

Ranting to Luna is therapeutic to say the least. While her aloofness at times may make it seem as if she isn’t fully paying attention, that couldn’t be further from the truth. She’s actually catching every word, and once you’re done she’ll leave you with a philosophical solution that may seem borderline insane/irrelevant when you first hear it, but it strangely makes sense.

Overall, the lack of judgment from either of you is what draws you together. As a result, you build a unique bond that couldn’t be broken even if either of you wanted it to.

In the Marauders era, I romantically pair you with…

REMUS LUPIN

Let’s be honest, it would take you two so long to ask each other out. You were probably already really close friends, but the insecurities and “what if?” questions from both of you delayed an actual relationship.

When you finally started dating, you were both so relieved. You still share a laugh at how almost nothing changed in the way you interacted with each other.

While with mutual friends, Remus sometimes likes to sit back and just watch you, especially when you get really talkative because this is when you become the most expressive. He has the softest smile when you’re actively cracking jokes, discussing something you’re passionate about, or even calling someone out. Sometimes you may be too distracted to notice, but other times you’ll catch him.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” (While that same soft smile never leaves his face.)

You both hold really high standards for yourself in terms of school, so expect late-night study/work sessions to be your best bet for quality time.

Though the occasional instance of walking through/lying on the grounds becomes a favorite for both of you.

Remus listens when you’re particularly struggling through anxiety or strong emotions, but he has to consciously stop himself from interrupting because he can’t stand how he feels knowing you’re going through a tough time.

All he wants to do is soothe you during these moments. If you’re comfortable, he’ll hold you while speaking to you in a soft voice. Remus, the intellectual that he is, is also your best chance at finding a reasonable solution. So if you're not in the mood for calming words, he's also a great person to turn to for answers.

As for your ambitions, no matter what you choose to pursue, you already know Remus is going to be your biggest source of support every step of the way. He’s more than happy to help in any way he can!

Overall, Remus appreciates you, and he’s always going to make sure you know it.

As a friend, I think you’d best be matched with…

LILY EVANS

Lily especially connects to you because you manage to be determined, competitive, and intelligent without sacrificing your kindness, which is something she can relate to.

You and Lily are the C.E.O.s of doing the right thing. Neither of you hesitates to back the other up when it comes to confronting someone because you know it’s justified.

As perceptive as Lily is, you never need to tell her when something is bothering you. All it takes is a quick glance before she puts whatever she’s doing on hold to check in with you.

The reverse works as well. Typically, Lily really doesn’t internally struggle too much, and when she does she tries to hide it. You’re one of the only people who can see right through whatever she tries to pull.

The constant banter between you two is unmatched, but you both know it's because you really care about each other.

Overall, you and Lily have each other’s backs through anything, even when the other isn’t actively asking for help.

#matchups #fandom matchups #harry potter matchup #harry potter #cedric diggory #luna lovegood #remus lupin #lily evans #lily potter

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youllallriseintheink · 3 years

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Angel of the Ink Machine, chapter 2: Compromise

The premise of this AU is simple: Sammy leaves the studio instead of Henry, and as a result, Joey needs a new partner in crime. He finds one in Allison. Power struggles, sacrifices, passion, ecstasy and tragedy ensues.

---

Allison’s first few weeks at Joey Drew Studios had been interesting, to say the least. Joey had introduced her to the music room on her first day, and all had seemed to go well. The next day, however, just as she was setting things up in her recording booth, a small, blonde woman who hadn’t been around the day before had come in to interrupt her. Apparently, the last voice actress for the part of Alice Angel- Susie Campbell- had been away the previous day and hadn’t been told that she’d been replaced. The poor woman was heartbroken, and Allison had felt bad for taking a role that was essentially meaningless to her from someone who clearly cared much more about it.

That pity only lasted until Allison realized that half of the music department had taken a disliking to her, seemingly overnight. It was hard to tell how much of that was their loyalty to Susie and how much of that was just their regular standoffish-ness. Either way, Allison didn’t much care for the whole high school-level cattiness of it. Any friends she’d make in this studio would be outside the music department.

Voice acting was fine. Dating Joey was wonderful. She hadn’t gotten to play with the ink machine yet, but they’d done other magic together. She didn’t care for his secretiveness about his plans for the machine worked, though, and after a while she decided to seek out answers on her own.

Her first thought was to ask the man who was building the machine, Thomas Connor. He said that he didn’t know how this thing was supposed to work and didn’t want to, and sure as hell wouldn’t tell some random music department kid if he did. She asked his assistant, Wally Franks, who told her a round-a-bout tale about how he’d drawn up the first blueprint. This was not information Allison could use.

There was one other person she could ask, but it was a long shot. Despite her best efforts, Allison hadn’t fully avoided the high school nonsense of the music room, and she knew the reputation that their projectionist, Norman Polk had as a keeper of unknowable secrets. Allison thought that they were being ridiculous, but it was worth a shot, and he was open enough about meeting with her over lunch one day.

“So, you’re working with Joey Drew on the magical stuff,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Uh, yes. Does everyone know?”

Norman laughed a little. “Most people here don’t even know that magic is real. Anyhow, I assume that you came to me because you’re interested in knowing some kind of secret?” If he was annoyed about the new girl knowing his reputation, he didn’t show it. If anything, he seemed amused.

“Yes. Honestly, I just want to know as much about Joey as I can. Especially anything that has to do with magic, and the ink machine.”

“Well, I guess telling you can’t be any more dangerous than him keeping it from you. Follow me.”

“You want to know a secret about Joey?” Norman asked as they walked, “he hires people he thinks are vulnerable and down on their luck. So Joey Drew Studios has some teenagers working here, some people with disabilities from the war, and a lot more non-whites and queer people than you’d expect. Not a secret, just a pattern I’ve noticed. But I know that what you want is real secrets.”

Norman took her to a room labelled, “The Archives.” Within it was hundreds of audio logs in locked glass containers. “Joey audio-records us,” Norman explained. “I don’t know his purposes for it, but he clearly does it a whole lot. The glass bins are locked, obviously, but I stole one off his desk a couple days ago. Wanna hear it?” The man’s face had gone from proud and amused to dead-serious.

“Sure...”

Norman pressed the button, and the audio log played. It was Joey Drew speaking to Thomas Connor. They were talking about how to change Bendy from a soulless abomination into a lovable cartoon, and it ended with Joey promising that if these things are soulless, he would get them a soul. After all, I own thousands of them.

“You wanna know what I think? I think that Joey is great at preying upon the desperate. And quite recently, he made a person desperate to be a cartoon character again. So, Allison. I don’t know what your role in this magical business is, but if you can help it, don’t let Joey hurt Susie Campbell- she’s my fiancé. I’ve already told her to be careful around Mr. Joey Drew, but...”

Allison was struggling to take this in. Joey wanted to kill people for this project? That was insane! And yet, some of those pentagrams in the basement had looked awfully large. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean that he wants to murder people. But I’ll talk to him, Norman. I promise. And I do have power over him, so you can count on me!”

---

Allison kept her promise, and brought it up the next time she was at Joey’s house.

“Joey. I need you to tell me right now if this ink machine project involves killing people.”

Joey immediately tensed. He’d been thinking for weeks of a way to break that to Allison that wouldn’t make her run for the hills. “Not... killing. I mean, they’ll still be alive. It’s more like putting them in another body. Yes, the process does involve causing their old body to bleed out, but their consciousness will still be there- probably.”

“Probably?” her face was remarkably calm, given the circumstances.

“I’ve tested the machine on rodents. None of them came out physically resembling a cartoon- only your potion lets me do that. But some of them came out acting like rodents, some of them came out acting like cartoon characters, and some of them went berserk. I’m trying to figure out how to make more of them come out as either rodents or cartoons. If the person retains their personality, they could basically be actors. And if they come out with the cartoon personality, well...”

The more Joey spoke, the more withering Allison’s glare became. “Okay. None of that. I’m not going to destroy people for this. Going forwards, only retaining the consciousness is considered a good outcome. Capisce?”

“Okay,” Joey said, starting to regret letting Allison into the project.

“And I assume that you were going to tell the sacrifices exactly what’s going to happen to them beforehand?”

“Well... Allison, how many people do you think would do this if we were to tell them everything? I was going to tell them that they’d go to sleep and then wake up as the cartoon character they want to be.”

Allison shook her head and appeared to think things over a moment. “You know what, Joey? I’ll do this. But we can’t do it without my potion, so we’re going to do it on my terms. You understand? So, here are my terms: one, we test that machine. We test it on rodents until we have at least 70% of them coming out acting like rodents. Alright? Two, don’t sacrifice anyone without my permission. Ever. And three: I want to be the one who talks people into becoming sacrifices. I have a silver tongue, too, and I don’t trust you to be honest with people. Those are the terms. Take them or leave them.”

“I’ll... I’ll take them. But Allison, if you’re going to have this much power over the project, I need you to show that you’re loyal to it.”

Allison smiled. “Of course. I’m sure that we could work something out!”

---

“What do you think- can you break the lock, Wally? I can’t believe I locked myself out like this.”

“Hmm... Well, Shawn has been tryin' to teach me how to pick a lock. I could try.” Wally got to work on the door and had busted it open within two minutes.

“Alright! Thanks, Wally.” Joey handed Wally the 20$ he’d promised him. They parted ways, and then Joey got to work scouring Allison’s house for that potion recipe.

It was nine weeks and four days after Joey had agreed to Allison’s terms. Six weeks, and only now were they making their first human sacrifice. Worse, they’d wasted hundreds of dollars worth of pet store rodents and a few dozen hours spent altering their ritual. They’d gotten those rodents to turn into toons- mostly perfect toons- that acted like animals at a high enough rate to satisfy Allison, and now Allison was headed to Susie’s apartment to talk her into becoming their sacrifice. Joey wished he could be there, making sure that Allison was doing it right and not scaring Susie away from the idea in the name of honesty. But the one benefit to this situation was knowing that Allison wouldn’t be here, and that after this she would be headed straight to the studio- he wasn’t leaving this place without that potion recipe, and thus full power over the project.

Joey checked all the obvious places like cupboards and drawers, paged through binders full of recipes for various potions and food items, and then checked the obvious “hiding place” places, such as under her bed, under rugs, and so on. It didn’t help that Allison’s house was rather cluttered. For all Joey knew, he could have missed the recipe while sorting through the various papers on the kitchen table. He checked his watch and learned that he’d spent too long here and had supposed to be at the studio an hour ago. Well, he had to give up and leave sometime. Before he left though, he went back to one of Allison’s recipe binders, where Joey had bookmarked a page labelled, “Memory spell? Failed.” He tore out the page. Allison clearly wasn’t the best at creating spells, but seeing it had given Joey an idea of something he could add to the ink machine rituals. It would take at best a few weeks to perfect, but what if he could control what the sacrifices remembered and forgot? There were so many potential uses...

---

Norman had been right about Susie being desperate to be Alice again. Susie had been furious when Allison had showed up at her apartment, but once Allison had said the words, “Joey and I want to make you Alice again. We agreed that you’re the best person for the job,” she’d broken down in tears.

“D-do you mean that?”

“Of course I do! It was the plan from the very beginning. Susie, no one is as well-suited to being Alice Angel than you are. Now, I’ll still be her voice actress, but you’re going to make history- trust me, people will remember you as Alice for decades after this. Joey found an improvised means to bring you closer to Alice than any actress ever has been to a character. The process will seem scary, but Joey will help you, I’ll be there every step of the way. I’m pretty excited myself, honestly! No one’s ever done this before. So, are you with us?”

“Well, that sounds... too good to be true. I mean, even just getting my role back would be nice wonderful, but here you are promising me fame and all of that... But you’re being awfully vague about it. What exactly do you have planned?”

“Come with me to the studio. It has to be seen to be believed.”

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #allison pendle #joey drew #norman polk #susie campbell #my fanfiction #Angel of the Ink Machine AU

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itsallavengers · 5 years

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After Tony died, Steve’s life went like this:

He woke up, heavy. He went through his day, heavy. He tried to keep himself together for his friends, and then when he finally got to be alone, he let himself fall apart. A little further each time. A little more violently.

This had always been a part of their lives; the looming threat of ‘what if’. The knowledge that one day there might come a time when one of them would have to live without the other. When the last part of their vows -- “Till death do us part” -- became a harsh reality.

Steve had always just thought it would be him.

Tony had been 52 when he’d gone into battle for the last time, shooting up into an alien mothership that’d been heading on a cataclysmic collision course with Earth and instead steering it into the wormhole that had been flooding the streets of New York with aliens. Steve replays that day every night in his head. He won’t ever forget it. The sight of Tony piloting the ship through that gap in the sky would be burned into his memory forever, the words his husband had said on their private comm would be on repeat in his ears until he died or something killed him.

‘I love you, Steve. I love you. This won’t be the end-- I’ll see you in another life, I fucking know I will. I love you. I love y-’

Steve couldn’t get drunk on human alcohol, but Thor’s mead worked wonders, and that was how he had nearly died in the first month. Turns out enough magic alcohol managed to overwhelm even Steve’s hardy super soldier serum. Who’d have thought.

The team kept watch on him, after that, but they couldn’t exactly stop him. His therapist said that he needed time. Steve told him that was the last thing he needed. Tony was stuck in a point on the timeline that Steve was leaving behind, and that wasn’t the direction he wanted to go. He wanted to get closer, he wanted to go back.

But he couldn’t. So instead he was dragged forward, unwilling, unable to care about anything else going on around him. He saved the world a couple of times, because Tony would have wanted him to. It didn’t matter to him though.

Nothing mattered.

His husband had died alone in space, in the exact same way that he’d always feared. Steve had not even been able to tell him that he’d be there until the very end, because he wasn’t. The audio had cut off when the wormhole had closed, and Tony had suffocated on an alien spaceship, alone, in silence.

The Tower was 400 feet in the air, and not even Supersoldiers could survive a fall like that. Concrete was unforgiving. The only thing that stopped him was the thought of Peter, who swung by the tower every morning at 7am. He’d spot the body first. Steve didn’t want to do that to him.

After Tony died, Steve broke like this:

He couldn’t look his team-mates in the eye. Couldn’t hear them talk. It made him angry, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he wished that one of them could have taken Tony’s place. Maybe he just hated that they looked at him and saw a thousand memories of Tony’s face, Tony’s laugh, Tony’s presence marked like a scar on Steve’s body. He looked at himself in the mirror sometimes and remembered all the places Tony had touched him.

‘You’ve got the cutest little freckle on your ear,’ had been what Tony had told him after the first time they’d made love, a small smile on a flushed face, fingers tracing the side of Steve’s face with light fingers. ‘Can you just fucking listen to me for once in your life?’ had been what Tony had snarled as he’d grabbed Steve’s wrist and held on tight, stopped him from storming out of their room. ‘Sorry if my hands are sweaty’ had been what Tony had whispered with a nervous giggle as he’d slid Steve’s wedding ring onto his finger and wiped a tear off his cheek hastily. His body was a canvas, every part of him burned with Tony’s touch. If he concentrated hard enough on the memories, he could make them real, just for a second, Feel Tony’s fingers on him like they were actually there. But it never lasted. The illusion could not be sustained.

They said it would get easier, but they didn’t think about the fact that Steve remembered everything. He remembered each detail he’d ever processed since waking up after Porject Rebirth. Tony-- the happiness, warmth, love that he’d felt when he was around him-- was not something Steve could ever let drift away. He woke up every day and knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would never be happy again.

He realised shortly after that that wasn’t a life he wanted to live.

The world had been big when he’d been with Tony. It’d been endless and colourful. Tony saw things in a way no one else on Earth did; he innovated and designed and created life, a God in his own right. But Tony was gone now, and the world was small. Gray. Steve had always known that he would never be able to come back from losing Tony-- maybe if it was the other way around, Tony would have worked something out. Would have been able to fix himself like he did everything else. He was far more resilient than Steve had ever been.

Steve could not fix this. He had never been that sort of man.

“You realise that killing yourself isn’t going to fucking make this go away, right?” Natasha yelled at him in the hospital room where he’d ended up again after a mission, whether on purpose or not, he wasn’t sure. Maybe. Probably. “You realise that if you die, there will be nothing left for you. You will be nowhere, You will end. There is not some magical God that’s going to bring you back to him, Steve, because tony is fucking dead!”

‘Do you believe in God’ he’d asked Tony, the man curled into his arms as they cuddled on the armchair, looking out to the city as the sun sank low over it. He’d kissed Tony’s graying temples and rubbed his thumb across the scar over Tony’s middle finger.

‘No,’ Tony had said, ‘but I believe in something.’

‘Why?’

Tony had paused, tangling their fingers together absently as he’d turned his head, watched a plane fly across the horizon.

‘It’s more comforting to hope that you have another chance, I suppose.’

His heart monitor beeped beside him, and he didn’t like the sound. It grated through his ears, a reminder that he was still here, one heartbeat without an answering call. Natasha was glaring at him, breath heavy, eyes wet. He was making her sad. He was making all of them sad.

He was too tired to find it in himself to care.

“I’d rather be nowhere on my own than somewhere without him,” he told her simply, after a too-long silence. He looked down at his hand, to the ring still on his finger. The matching one was God-knows where.

They hadn’t even been able to bury a body.

Natasha left, in the end, nothing else she could say. She’d tried. They’d all tried. It didn’t work. Steve was past the point where he even wanted to be fixed.

After Tony died, Steve’s life went like this.

#itsallavengers writes #stevetony #steve rogers #suicidal thoughts/attempts #unhappy ending (he doesn't die he's just fucking broken lol)#character death

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btsybrkr · 4 years

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What A Time To Be At Home!: The Best And Worst Coronacontent The Internet Has To Offer

Remember that joke that’s been around for ages, but was being told literally everywhere back in 2019? The one that went something like, “I hate it when people ask me where I’ll be in a year’s time - I don’t have 2020 vision!”?

Well, I bloody wish someone did.

In fact, in early January, I wrote out my own predictions for the decade ahead right here on my blog. They were obviously entirely hypothetical and - I thought - ridiculous. They were just a series of daft ideas that I thought I could take the piss out of, in the hope that people might read it and take a second out of their day to do an amused little nose exhale for me. But now, even the post-apocalyptic TV show ideas I pitched in that piece seem less ‘far-off dystopian chaos’, and more like they could be pleasant additions to the BBC Summer schedule.

The world is in the throes of a global pandemic, the likes of which haven’t been seen since… I don’t know, The Black Plague, maybe? As a result of that, the instructions have been clear: stay home, save lives.

At first, the thought of being given a period of Government-sanctioned laziness seemed like a dream to many. We could write our autobiographies! Learn Klingon! Build ourselves a whole new house! But six weeks in, it appears to have started messing with the collective consciousness of the human race. Brains are fried, your Weekly Screen Time is up 103%, stomachs are full to the brim with banana bread and dalgona coffee, and certain celebrities’ egos are in a fight to the death with their common sense. In a time when we’re all supposedly doing nothing, there’s still so much going on.

With that in mind, I thought we could recognise some of the things we’ve seen online that have kept us talking in lockdown, not just because of Coronavirus, but in spite of it.

Welcome to the first (but hopefully not annual) What A Time To Be At Home! awards. The WATTBAH!’s, if you like.

The ‘Why On Earth Did You Think This Was A Good Idea?’ Award

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a sizable handful of blunders by the rich and famous that have, at worst, knocked them down a fair few places in our estimations and, at best, have left us scratching our heads, wondering what response they were expecting in the first place.

With that in mind, it’s only right that this title goes to the original celebrity lockdown mistake: Gal Gadot’s ill-advised acapella cover of Imagine, featuring a variety of different Hollywood stars - not one of whom had the foresight to ask “are you sure this doesn’t make us look like complete arseholes?”, which, unfortunately, it absolutely does.

youtube

Between the bizarre and insincere ‘I have a dream’-style speech at the beginning, the boldness of some of those featured to be quite clearly just taking the piss, and the fact everyone appears to be singing ever-so-slightly below the note without ever actually hitting it for the entirety of the song, this was tone-deaf in more ways than one. It’s even worse when you realise that this was posted less than one week into the lockdown, but then what would I know? Maybe madness sets in faster in multi-million dollar mansions. Probably because it echoes louder and bounces off the walls of your massive living room.

The ‘I Had To Suffer Through This, So You Do, Too’ Award

This award recognises content we’ve been witness to over the last few weeks that was so awful, so completely uncomfortable to watch, that after you’d gotten over the initial disbelief at what you’d just seen, you immediately had to send it to somebody you know, so that you can suffer through it together.

Despite how many celebrity lockdown moments have left me with my head in my hands over the last few weeks, this award could only go to a very recent contender - one which isn’t simply an embarrassing piece of celebrity lockdown content, but will likely haunt the inner corners of my brain long after this virus is simply a topic taught about in GCSE History lessons of the future.

I am, of course, talking about Olly Murs. I’m talking about Pringlegate. I’m talking about Olly Murs removing the bottom of a can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles to trick his own girlfriend into touching his penis. On video, on TikTok.

Twitter: @buckyw1ng

There’s something inherently quite chilling about Pringlegate. It might be something to do with the 10,000 watt grin on Olly’s face as we watch him carefully maneuver a tin opener around the bottom of the can, or perhaps it’s just the question of how long he’d been sat there holding it around his naked penis as he and his girlfriend watched a film, patiently waiting for the moment to strike. Perhaps it’s the way the video freezes as she reaches over for a Pringle, allowing time for Olly Murs’ to add in an audio clip of himself, shouting “SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND”.

Maybe it’s the uncontrollable show of amusement he launches into as she snatches her hand back in shock, laughing away, heartily, as if to say “Ha! You thought it was a normal can of Pringles, but it was actually my PENIS covered in Pringles crumbs! You just got PUNKED!”, like it was all simply a clever ruse.

Above all else, I think the most uncomfortable thing about it is that I can’t help but feel like all bets are off in 2020, and that this is a fairly tame warm-up for things to come.

So, Olly Murs, you are inarguably the rightful winner of the ‘I Had To Suffer Through This, So You Do, Too’ award. Congratulations! Don’t do it again, yeah?

The ‘Are You Actually Aware Of These Words Coming Out Of Your Mouth?’ Award

I’ve said some stupid things since this lockdown started. Personally, I put it down to the lack of social interaction, which I think might be frying my brain a little bit, or at least that’s what the ornament of a turkey that sits on my kitchen windowsill told me the other day. However, I don’t think I or anybody I know has said anything even one fraction-of-an-iota as void of intelligent thought as Vanessa Hudgens’ terrible opinions on social distancing, shared in a now-infamous Instagram live last month.

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“It’s a virus,” she clarified, helpfully, before going on to explain, “I get it. I respect it.”

I’m sure your respect means the world to it, Vanessa, but do you ‘get’ it?

“But even if everybody gets it, like… yeah… people are gonna die,” she explains, in a tone so chirpy that the word ‘die’ might as well be replaced by the phrase ‘have such a bloody lovely old time’, “which is terrible, but, like… inevitable?”

In all fairness, death is inevitable, but I don’t know if suggesting speeding up that process for thousands of people because you were disappointed that Coachella was cancelled is an equally logical take.

After a brief - and probably quite profound - moment of self-reflection, she laughs “I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this right now”. Oh, you think? Which bit? Just holding these insane ideas, or actually broadcasting them to your 39.1 million Instagram followers?

She did post a video the day after, clarifying that - despite what she said - she is staying at home, and is urging others to do the same. I guess she does respect the virus after all. Now, if everyone could hurry up, catch it and die from it, so that she can go to Coachella 2021, Vanessa Hudgens might respect you, too.

I guess We’re All In This Together, after all.

The Show Of Support Award

I’ve already talked a lot about the rich and famous here, so maybe it’s time to take a break from that madness - although, I get it, I respect it - and have a look at how the rest of our lives look at the moment.

One weekly occurrence that seems to be set to stick around is the weekly round of applause for the NHS. Whilst it’s nothing short of blood-boilingly annoying seeing Boris Johnson absent-mindedly clapping in celebration of a service that he recently admitted he hadn’t even noticed the strain on until he, himself, nearly died of the virus, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the rest of us getting involved. If anything, it’s heart-warming to see the videos of NHS staff being applauded by neighbours as they leave for work, and to hear the cheers echoing through the streets at 8pm every Thursday. There’s a lot of people being quite cynical about it. We obviously know it’s not going to stop Coronavirus in its tracks, but sometimes it’s just nice to be nice, alright?

One thing I’ve noticed recently is how many people have adopted different noise-making strategies, possibly in an effort to effectively boost their support by a factor of 300%. Banging pots and pans together appears to be the most popular, but the winner of this award saw your pots and pans and said “how sweet”, before showing us how it’s really done.

I present to you, a genius. The ultimate hype-man.

Twitter: “a deeply disturbed national psyche” - @willuminare

There’s something so chaotic and angry about the energy in this video, just one man, a cricket bat, and a wheelie bin, banging away to show his gratitude. Just living in the moment. I wish the neighbour who’d captured it on camera had caught more of it, or at least just enough to edit the footage with Electric Youth’s soaring synth anthem ‘A Real Hero’ from the soundtrack of the movie Drive against it.

I’ve been trying to learn to play the keytar in lockdown, to near enough no avail. Maybe at 8pm next Thursday, I’ll just take it outside and smash it against the pavement. You know, for the NHS.

Honourable Mentions: The Very Best In Coronacontent

It’s not all been so questionable - there’s been a lot of uplifting, funny, positive and thoughtful things shared online over the past few weeks. John Krasinski’s YouTube series Some Good News has provided a much-appreciated contrast from the bleakness of traditional current affairs programmes. There’s five weeks worth of episodes on his YouTube channel at the moment, so I would definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you feel like you need a lift!

youtube

Over on Twitter, there’s been a lot to laugh about, as ‘front camera comedians’ are well and truly in their element (my personal favourite recently has been Alistair Green), as well as plenty of other users who are utilising their free time to create some brilliant stuff - this six-part opera based on a 2007 Facebook argument by Archie Henderson is genuinely one of the funniest things I’ve seen in weeks.

Twitter: “I made a six-act opera out of a conversation between some 14 year olds on my Facebook from 2007″ - @jazzemu_

All in all, these are obviously bizarre times that we’re living in. We don’t know how many more weeks of lockdown we’re going to have, when we’ll get back to normal, or even if ‘normal’ will mean something completely different from now on.

What we do know is that the internet, and everyone on it - whoever they are or whatever they’re saying - will continue to surprise us, inform us, entertain us, provide a place for our quizzes and conversations, and keep us together in some sense, when we have no choice but to be apart.

Thanks to anyone who’s read this far. I hope that you and your friends and families are keeping well, and that you took even a slight shred of lockdown enjoyment from even one thing I’ve said over the past couple thousand words!

Finally, before I go, I thought we might share a little song. It goes like this:

Imagine there’s no heaven....

if you like, can follow me on twitter here or instagram here :-)

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emma-nation · 5 years

Text

Without You - Bloodbound AU (Chapter 11) *For You Sequel*

Summary: Gaius is back. While coming up with a plan to take him down, the gang must deal with some new life-changing events.

Genre: Angst/Adventure/Romance

Rating: T - Warning for violence and language

Tag List: @begging-for-kamilah, @lulu-the-cat, @ilovekamilahsayeed, @zoe6111, @kennaxval (If you want to be tagged in future chapters/fics of this pairing let me know!)

Notes:

- English is my second language, please forgive me for any mistakes.

- Hope you enjoy it, your reviews and likes are always appreciated. And I hope you still enjoy it now Bloodbound is truly returning, it’s near the end and I promise it’ll be worthy.

- My apologies for the delay. My wrist is pretty bad again :(

- Smut Alert!

Kamilah

Driving alone on the rainy road, a lot of thoughts were running through Kamilah’s mind. Trust. Betrayal. Hope.

She needed to trust her allies. The people she was working with to take Gaius down for good. She trusted Lysimachus with her eyes closed. Her brother used to be her advisor back in Egypt, so he knew very well the best strategies they could be using to strike. She also trust his knowledge about magic. Yet, she didn’t trust Priya at all. During almost a century she hasn't given The Council a single proof she was trustworthy. Her brother assigned her for the most important part of the plan. One that she could not fail, or do anything wrong on purpose... the sacrifice.

And there was Amy. Although her fiancée wanted to assure her everything was going to be alright, she knew how badly that could possibly end. She knew that kiss back in Vega’s mansion, before she entered Priya’s car, could’ve been their last.

Being 2064 years old and stronger than all of them, she could simply find an alternative. Stopping them and going on a suicidal mission to kill Gaius on her own again. Betraying all of them sounded like a tempting idea, when she felt so betrayed herself. Not even for a second, any of them considered her feelings. How Amy’s sacrifice would crush her heart and destroy the last bit of humanity she still had.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment to reflect.

Hope was her best and only choice. She looked for the last time at the picture on her cellphone screen, trying to be inspired by Amy’s usual confidence and optimism to believe everything would go as planned.

She parked her car at the Midnight Lounge and announced through the ear plug.

“I’m ready.”

----------

Amy

On the passenger seat of Priya’s car, Amy couldn’t help feeling tense. After all, she would die and supposedly return to life, hours later. She looked down at her watch. Under it, there was a black thread tied around her wrist. She shouldn't let any of the parts involved in the plan to know about it, especially the Fashion Designer.

That black thread was part of a spell. A spell that tied her life to Lysimachus’ witch friend, allowing her soul to later return to her healed body.

“We’ll use dark forces,” she advised, “someday we’ll have to deal with consequences.”

Kamilah quickly stated she didn’t care about the consequences. And Amy agreed, what consequences could be worse than Gaius anyways? That was her only chance of remaining alive and see her biggest dream coming true, their wedding.

Before leaving, Amy wanted to make sure everything was ready, just in case she didn’t return. She opened her laptop, watching the messages she recorded for her parents, Lily, Adrian and… Kamilah. There was something else she prepared for the female Vampire, in case she couldn’t be around anymore. Adrian helped her to record an audio file with the sound of her heartbeats. Kamilah always said it was her favorite sound in the world, the only thing capable of calming her when she was too stressed or anxious.

“I hope she'll never have to listen to it...” she watched the rain falling outside, through the window. That’d be a hard blow on Kamilah. She couldn't even imagine how she’d be able to cope if she really died.

“Girl,” Priya broke the silence, “you’re acting like you were going to attend your own funeral. Let’s cheer up the mood,” she turned on the radio and smiled.

“Do you believe we will all survive this?” Amy asked.

“I hope so, I’m too gorgeous to die. Besides, I’m also looking forward to this wedding of yours. Imagine the pictures in the magazines, the comments about the dresses I designed. I can even see what’s comes next, a brand-new line: Lacroix’s Weddings.”

"You're gonna rock!" Amy let out a small laugh. "And who will you be attending the wedding with? A celebrity or... someone I know?”

“By myself. I don’t wanna the photographers to focus on some random date instead of my precious dresses.”

“Okay. Fair enough."

“It doesn’t mean there won’t be a wedding hook-up, of course. Any hot guests on your list?”

“A few, but there’s one in particular that I think you may be interested.”

“There’s nothing between me and Hunter."

“Who said I was talking about him?”

Amy giggled as Priya blushed a little, then frowned. Then she decided to follow what the witch suggested, earning her trust. Making sure that she’d remain loyal to their plan.

“He’s counting on you, you know?” She said. “He has trusted you the most important part, I mean, the one to make sure I die...”

“Hmmm only a small cut in your throat right? If I accidentally rip off your head...”

“You wouldn’t do it.”

“How can you be so sure? I mean, if I see Gaius ain’t dying with your half-death, I won’t think twice before preserving my own life.”

“First, Kamilah would kill you. Second, you don’t wanna let him down. I know it. You won't throw it away, the weeks living under his roof, the intense training, how he worked hard to save your life..."

“Girl, one thing you should know. My life will always come before pleasure.”

“It’s not only pleasure anymore.”

“And why do you think that?”

“You could’ve saved yourself last night. Instead, you saved me.”

Priya was silent for a moment before grinning.

“Well, someday Kamilah will eventually bore you, then... my door will be open for you.”

Amy laughed, knowing deep down she was right about Lysimachus, but Priya would never admit it.

As the Fashion Designer stopped the car, she announced through the ear plug.

“We’re in position.”

----------

Lysimachus

“Be honest with me, what are the chances?”

“I never performed such a risky ritual before, but… naturally? About fifty percent. My ancestors will grant the permission and determine if Amy should return to life or not.”

His friend’s words echoed inside his mind. That spell had to work, otherwise Kamilah would never forgive him.

“I promise you, sister,” he assured her. “We’ll bring her back home. Safe and sound.”

Amy was the descendant of Keaseth after all. She was a powerful witch, before Turning herself into a Vampire. With her blood running inside Amy's veins, it made her a descendant of the witches too. The chances of them granting her permission to live were high.

As for himself... he was still unsure about his future. He held the most risky part of the plan, going on a physical battle with Gaius to trap him inside a magical seal. Seeking advice from an old friend, another supernatural Hunter, he learned it could go wrong. He could get himself trapped with Gaius inside the seal, that would eventually consume them both.

But he always accepted this fate. He was willing to die to take Gaius down, for everything he had done to him, his sister and the rest of his victims. He hated that man for taking away his opportunity of living a normal life beside his sister. His opportunity to grow old and die. He Turned him into a beast, something Lysimachus didn’t accept until a few months before.

He parked his motorcycle besides Priya’s car.

“Where’s Kamilah?” He asked.

“She has gone already.”

Lysimachus ran a hand through his hair nervously, because he was willing to say goodbye to his sister. Wish her good luck.

Then he looked at Priya...

“Listen...” he sighed. “I’m not very good at this, but just in case I get killed in the process... you’re an amazing woman, Priya. I hope you’ll always remember that.”

“I know that, Hunter,” she scowled. “Enough with the sappy talk,” she pulled him for a heated and passionate kiss, her tongue moving against his teasingly. “Do yourself a favor and don’t get killed, okay? There’s more when we get home.”

“S-Sure.”

He started walking inside the bar, fearing what was waiting for him...

----------

Kamilah

“I can’t do this, Amy. I can’t accept losing you, not after everything we’ve been through. I care about you… I… I love you.”

“I love you too,” Amy planted a soft kiss on her neck, “and this is why I wanna do this. Gaius will never leave us alone and you know that. If this spell works… we still can keep our plans of spending the eternity together.”

Kamilah focused on Amy's words as she headed the basement Gaius was hiding in. The Mortals vs. Vampires show was crowded, which was good because no one would hear, no one would interrupt what they were about to do.

Right after saying those words, her fiancée kissed her feverishly and lead her to the bed, where they made love for hours.

Kamilah wanted to register that moment as much as possible. She didn't want to forget how her lips tasted like, or the softness of her skin. Kneeling in front of her, she pulled her closer to her body as much as she could, leading to the most intimate moment they ever had, like if their souls were intertwined, as well as their bodies. Finding a rhythm together, she took Amy to ecstasy repeatedly, over and over again, and allowed the girl to do her the same, until they both reached exhaustion and slept in each other's embrace.

When they woke up it was almost time to go, so she prepared her fiancée a special meal. Pancakes, in which she did her best to draw her favorite emoji.

"This is the one you send me the most," she said. "I remember when we started dating, it annoyed me how much usage you made of these."

"Then you got used to them."

"I still don't know the real meaning behind some of them, but Lily said she's making me a dictionary."

Amy's phone buzzed and her smile grew even wider when she read the text:

"Like you always sent me every morning too, before I was comfortable saying 'the words'."

The girl sighed, placing her forehead against hers.

"Hey, stop, okay? When we get home, I'm going to send you so many of these that you'll want to smash my phone... and I may teach you what some of them mean like..." she typed a reply on her phone. "This one."

Kamilah furrowed her brows in confusion.

"Does it mean you want me to take you out to eat tacos?"

"Uhhh you'll see."

Before she opened the door, that would lead to the basement, she texted Amy one last time:

"It doesn't matter what happens, I'll always love you."

Everything was dark and silent. She didn't hear signals of Harvey or Jameson.

"I'm here, brother," she whispered. "There's no one. I think they moved to another location after the last confront."

"Keep searching."

Kamilah agreed, inspecting every corner of the basement, every door... Nothing. She returned to the main hall, ready to rejoin the group in the parking lot, when a voice spoke from the darkness.

"Searching for me, My Queen?"

“Gaius...”

Discreetly, she reached for her daggers inside her pockets.

“How dare you, Kamilah? I’ve given you everything! A new life, a chance of being a Goddess, a chance of being My Queen. What else could you have possibly wanted?”

“Freedom,” she answered. “Respect. Love.”

“My Queen...” his cold hands touched her face, “why would you think that what we had wasn’t love? What is love for you? Falling for a mortal, that is only amused by your power, your wealth, and that will eventually wither? She's weak, fragile, temporary. Us... we’re the same.”

“I was never, and I will never, be like you!”

She spat on his face, what she had been wishing to do for centuries and then, she started to stab him. Multiple times. Thinking and re-thinking about every humiliation, every pain, every tear she made her cry... how he separated her from her brother for centuries, how he killed her Italian lover, the things he forced her to do, how he manipulated and controlled every inch of her... In seconds, she was covered with his blood. Though he winced in pain, he remained standing and still, unaffected. A smirk appeared on his mouth.

“Still my Kamilah... that very same Kamilah I found in Egypt. So passionate, so strong, so brave...”

In one last move, her hand sank directly into his chest, attempting to remove his heart.

“I’m sorry, My Queen. You will not have my heart this time.”

As Gaius jerked his hand, Kamilah’s body slammed against the wooden wall. Her wrists and ankles strapped by invisible locks. The Ancient Vampire walked in her direction again.

“Does it bring you any memories, My Queen?” She felt his breath on her neck. “Our happy times together. You used to like this, remember?”

His hands started caressing her body, making her feel deeply disgusted. Kamilah closed her eyes, wishing it'd end soon.

“Maybe if I help you to remember, you’ll be the good woman you used to be.”

When he was about to rip off her shirt, a dagger came flying through the air, slicing off his hand.

“Maybe I should refresh your memory, Gaius,” Lysimachus said, clenching his jaw.

----------

Lysimachus

He was contemplating the pouring rain outside through a window, carefully thinking about every step of his plan. There couldn't be any failure, any vulnerability. He needed to do whatever it took to preserve Amy, Kamilah and Priya's lives.

The coldness of a sharp metal blade against his throat pulled Lysimachus back to reality.

"Dead," Priya mocked. "Still getting distracted too easily, Hunter."

"Priya, I thought you were getting some rest before we..."

"I couldn't sleep. Thought maybe you wanted to train one last time before kicking that old ass, but there you are, looking broody, sitting on my dead ex’s armchair... it doesn't suit you."

"Sorry, I'm not as confident and cocky as usual. I just have a bad feeling about tonight."

After serving herself a drink, she joined him near the window, telling about the last time they confronted Gaius’ and how great she did, compared to the rest. Especially, Adrian, who was about to get killed when Kamilah gave him the final blow. His mind was far, far away, traveling through his witch friend’s words about the entire ritual.

It was risky spell, to be performed only by an experient witch, but he had to try. It was the only alternative he could think of at the moment.

“You know it cannot be effective and Gaius live,” she told, “while Amy really dies.”

“He just couldn’t believe such a young vampire like me..." Priya continued her story. "You’re not paying attention.”

“My apologies. I was recapping the ritual in my mind again, nothing can go wrong, you know? I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to any of you, especially Amy.”

“Were you always like this?” Priya asked. “This whole thing of wanting to save the entire world?”

“Most part of the time, yes. We could’ve escaped Egypt, instead I wanted to stay and fight for our people, for our country. Kamilah supported my decision and look where it lead us.”

“It’s stupid, in parts, but it’s what makes you different from most of men I’ve ever met. You don’t let go, you don’t back down... even when everything is falling apart around you, you manage to find a way to overcome the obstacle.”

“Is that a compliment coming from Priya Lacroix?” He teased.

“It’s the closest you’ll get from one.”

Through the ear plug he heard his sister’s conversation with Gaius, how she was attempting to keep him distracted while he sneaked into the basement to create the magical seal. He needed to act quick and silent, not letting him notice his presence.

Lysimachus’ mouth turned into a grin as he watched his sister, stabbing the Ancient Vampire repeatedly, getting a revenge for all he had put her through.

“Still my Kamilah... that very same Kamilah I found in Egypt. So passionate, so strong, so brave...”

Just as he finished the seal, Gaius had trapped Kamilah on the wooden wall by invisible strings. He approached her, his dirty hands traveling through all her body...

“Maybe if I help you to remember, you’ll be the good woman you used to be.”

“Show time,” Lysimachus thought.

His dagger flew through the air, slicing off Gaius' hand. The restraints that were keeping Kamilah attached to the wall disappeared instantly.

“Maybe I should refresh your memory, Gaius,” Lysimachus said, clenching his jaw.

“You,” Gaius turned around to face him. “You cannot imagine how many centuries I’ve waited for this moment, boy. You... always ruining all my plans, refusing to accept my bloodline... you’re a shame to our kind! I should’ve exterminated you shortly after your rebirth.”

With his remaining hand, he created an invisible string that began to strangle Lysimachus.

“You’re not...” he struggled to say, “man enough... for a combat, are you?”

“And you,” Gaius finally made physical contact, by grabbing him by the throat, “are powerless compared to me, aren’t you?”

“What about two against one, huh?!” From behind, Kamilah jumped on his neck in an attempt to cut his head off. He let Lysimachus go, using his powers to throw her across the empty room again.

“I can see what’ve spoiled you, My Queen. His presence. He has made up your mind... I’m afraid now it’s too late. You’ve been contaminated. I’ll have to exterminate you too... but first...” with his recovered hand, he attacked Lysimachus again, making him lie on the floor, unable to move. Gaius' eyes were flashing in rage. “I’ll make him watch, as I make you My Queen again and then... I’ll kill you both.”

“Not so fast,” Kamilah threw a lighter in front of him. The fire activated the seal Lysimachus had previously created, without Gaius awareness. When he tried to lunge in her direction, he was unable to leave the small circle.

“I still can kill you both!” By the invisible strings, he threw Kamilah right next to Lysimachus.

His power began to create a pressure inside his head, as if his skull was about to explode at any minute. He was doing the same to his sister. They gave one last look at her and she nodded, giving him permission to follow with their plan.

“Priya...” Lysimachus spoke through the ear plug. “It’s up to you now.”

----------

Amy

"I'll just put in inside my car and..."

In only a few minutes they'd be leaving. Amy took the moment to observe Kamilah. Though she was trying to show confidence, she was clearly nervous.

"You've already placed it inside your car," Amy told, referring to a refrigerated box that was carrying multiple blood bags. After the ritual, she'd need a transfusion to live again. Being such an old vampire, her fiancée had contacts in the hospital, who provided all the material she requested.

"I guess I did," Kamilah forced a smile.

Amy looked down to her left hand, her engagement ring. In the weekend, they were supposed to be getting married. Now, the chances her family would be attending her funeral were higher, and the happiest day in Kamilah's life would become another disgraceful memory for her collection.

"So, uhh tomorrow I'll need to check some details of the flower arrangements... for our wedding, I mean. And there's the SPA day I'm scheduling for us, because after this..."

Amy sighed heavily and involved her in the tightest of the hugs.

"Kamilah, you're not good at being optimistic."

"I know, but... I have to be. I preserved myself for any attachments for over a century and then you came, changing everything. I'm not losing you, am I?"

"I can't promise you that but... I'm not losing you too, right? After all, you'll be fighting Gaius."

"You won't. That bastard won't be the one to kill me, that I can promise you."

“Hey, lovebirds,” Priya shouted. “We’re getting late.”

Before entering the Fashion Designer’s car, Amy gazed into Kamilah’s brown eyes one last time, deeply, as the first time they met. Then, she kissed her in the most desperate and intense manner she could find, wishing that moment would never end.

“I lov...” Kamilah’s index finger silenced her.

“Save that for later and..." she rolled her eyes, "I’m being optimistic again. I'm learning from you, perhaps.”

Waiting inside the Midnight Lounge, Amy heard Lysimachus muffled voice through the other side of the ear plug. She could tell he was suffering and struggling in pain. The thought Kamilah should be enduring the same made her stomach hurt.

“Priya, it’s up to you now.”

“Let’s go, mortal,” Priya grabbed her by the arm, then looked at her and smirked. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.”

Amy felt her heart rate accelerating each step they took downstairs. Priya’s hand gripping tightly around her arm, making sure she wouldn’t try to escape. She thought about Lysimachus’ witch friend, who was probably so appreehensive as she was. Her words only a few nights before, telling her to leave the supernatural world behind and go away. Then she thought about her family, and how long she hadn’t been speaking to them, after they refused to accept her engagement with Kamilah. Last, she thought about her fiancée.

“Amy, this is Kamilah Sayeed. CEO of Ahmanet Financial. Kamilah is a brilliant and fascinating woman, but warmth is not her forte.”

Never in her life, she could’ve imagined someday that icy gazed woman could become her fiancée. How that threatening Vampire, that once told her she’d kill her if something happened to Adrian, would become the person she loved the most in the world. She always did everything to make her happy, she planned the most amazing proposal someone could ever receive and now...

“Stop, Amy,” she told herself. “You’ll be hearing your mother’s homophobic complaints again sooner than you expect, before you say ‘I do’ to Kamilah in the altar.”

And suddenly they were there. At that dark basement from where she had escaped only a day earlier. Kamilah and Lysimachus were lying on the floor, squirming in pain as Gaius slowly killed them from inside the magical seal. She looked at him again, how he was powerful, intimidating...

“That’s it, kid,” was the last thing she heard. “Hope I’ll see ya soon, otherwise... bye.”

Before she could even blink, Priya’s sharp dagger sliced her throat. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel any pain. She only started to feel weaker, and weaker, as her own blood soaked her clothes. Her vision went blurry and she could no longer breath... when her body hit the floor, she still had time to see one last thing before everything went dark... Kamilah’s brown eyes.

Additional Notes:

- In case I wasn’t clear about the position they were in the smut scene (I didn’t want to make it too explicit), this is what I meant. *Don’t click if you’re under 18 or at a public place lol.

Next: Not everything will go as planned with the ritual... Stay tuned!

#playchoices #choices stories you play #bloodbound #kamilah sayeed #kamilah x mc #bloodbound fanfiction #lysimachus #priya lacroix

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wevegottogetaway · 5 years

Text

A Meaning of Love

It’s been barely two months since Harry and y/n moved in together, and yet, they feel like they’ve never seen less of each other before. The past few busy weeks have forced their routine into a high tempo of quick morning encounters, even quicker lunch break phone calls and countless half-asleep take-out dinners (few nights ago, y/n had been that close to face-plant in her soup had Harry not tenderly rubbed her back and urged her to ‘finish your soup, love, befo’ I take yeh to bed’).

By the time Friday finally rolls around, they are still both swamped in unfinished projects and boring paperwork that nobody really wants to sort out but that has reached its procrastination limit expiry date. And the worst is, even in the midst of this perpetual race against time, they still find some to miss each other and yearn for a quiet and relaxing evening.

Looking at the fancy clock in her office, y/n realizes it’s 7:26pm and she’s the only remaining worker on her floor (or probably all of them for that matter). Her head is throbbing and she has to read every sentence of the manuscript in her hands at least 3 times in order to get even the most remote idea of its meaning.

Exhausted, she dejectedly throws the document back on her desk before leaning back in her chair and harshly rubbing her face with her hands. She finds herself thinking of Harry, counting how long it has been since they last shared a couple-y moment. She just misses it. The intimacy. The idle talk, the deep conversations, the laughter, the cooking sessions, the movie marathons, the other kind of marathons…just the time to share and simply be together. Recently, it’s been all about coordinating their schedule to the best time-efficiency possible and she absolutely loathes it.

‘Fuck that’ she thinks as she starts gathering her stuff. When she’s done saving her work and turning off the computer, she makes her way to the elevator while pulling out her cellphone. In a matter of minutes she’s ordered food from Harry’s favorite place and is already on her way to pick it up. The frown previously etched on her face is finally morphing into a soft smile. She just wants to spend a casual evening with him, make him feel better after the hectic week they’ve had and maybe convince him to prolong said plan throughout the week-end too.

Still at the studio, Harry thinks he’s gonna lose his last hanging nerve if he doesn’t figure out what in hell is missing in the bridge of his new song. It’s 7:35pm and he’s been playing the damn thing since 8 this morning but nothing’s working. The pressure and the fatigue have rendered him inspiration-less and simply left him in a slump. His head feels fuzzy, his thoughts are jumbled and no matter how much he puts his all in it, he knows nothing creative can spring out from stress and sleep deprivation. So he pauses the audio and turns to his fellow songwriters/musicians with a sigh. "Sorry guys, think we should call it a day. My brain’s fried anyway."

They all nod and make their way outside of the studio after sorting everything out. "Don’t worry, man, we’re gonna figure this out. It’s probably best we stopped now anyway, it’ll give us a fresh perspective coming Monday." Mitch tries to reassure his friend.

"Hope so, yeah. I don’t know, I just…Righ' now, I just wanna go home an’ clear my head of everythin’."

"You’re right, it’s getting obsessive in there, and that’s never a good way to make music. ’S gotta be more natural than whatever that was" he says pointing his thumb back towards the building they just left.

"’S not just that though. Things are a bit crazy at the moment, an’ it’s like…I miss y/n in a weird way, yeh know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we just moved in together a few weeks back, right? But we barely see or have time fo’ each other. Her work’s keepin’ her busy as well...” It seems like he’s gonna add something so Mitch doesn’t interrupt his thoughts. “It’s like missing someone that is right next to you" Harry finally confides and it feels like some weight is being lifted off his shoulders with the confession. He’s been nurturing these longing feelings for a while now but had yet to express them out loud.

"Tell ya what, Harry. It’s the week-end, take advantage of it, man.”

"Yeah, think ‘m gonna go get some food an’ maybe flowers. She’s been workin’ so hard lately, just wanna give ‘er a nice evening." It’s his turn to pick up dinner anyway Harry thinks, and there’s a flower shop right across from her favorite place. Maybe they could just take off for the week-end too. Go someplace tranquil and far away from the city’s hassle.

That’s how half an hour later he’s finally pulling up on their street, take-away and sunflowers buckled in the passenger seat. Taking a long breath along with the rest of his purchases, Harry makes his way to the front door. When he finally enters their home, he’s immediately met with one of the most precious sight he could have hoped for: y/n in her sweats, humming to Here Comes the Sun as she gathers plates and cutleries to set the table. Harry feels already better and makes a bee line to his love with a wide smile adorning his lips.

"‘lo, love. Missed yeh today."

She looks up at the sound of his voice. "Hey, you. How was your day?" But as she’s about to melt in his embrace, she realizes he’s carrying items of his own. "Wait, did you get dinner?" she asks somewhat worriedly.

"Yep, I got yeh your favorite and these-" he hands her the bouquet, "are for you as well."

Now. When Harry imagined her reaction, he didn’t exactly picture y/n’s current expression. He’d thought maybe he’d be greeted with a ‘aww that’s so sweet’ hopefully followed by a kiss and the biggest hug in history. Or perhaps a blush creeping on her cheeks since y/n isn’t the best at receiving compliments and sweet gestures (getting her all flustered has become Harry’s favorite hobby ever since he realized that).

What he didn’t anticipate however, is the mystical look in y/n’s shiny eyes right now, like she was processing a hundred thoughts per second. She isn’t saying anything either. Just staring at him with love and wonder painting her irises.

"Love?" Harry tilted his head slightly on the side in sign of inquiry. Then y/n just chuckled and took his cheeks between her small hands, completely bypassing the bouquet and take-out still hanging from his fingers.

"Thought it was my turn to get dinner," she smiled at the qui pro quo. "I got you your favorite too. And some poppies." That’s when Harry noticed the bag with his favorite restaurant logo printed on it, seating on the kitchen counter besides a vase full of freshly cut poppies (his favorite as well).

Aligning his gaze back with hers, Harry awkwardly shifts around to place the food and the flowers on the counter by their side before engulfing y/n in a tight hug. His smile has grown tenfold and as he presses his forehead against hers, he thinks he couldn’t possibly fall deeper in love with her. So without further ado, he traps her lips between his and brings one hand to her neck. The kiss starts slow, eyes shut and hearts on the edge of imploding, savoring the moment. But then a small whine leaves y/n’s throat and it’s teeth colliding, breathed interweaving in-between, nose smudged against each other, and fingers kneading into heated skin.

The break is sudden and filled with their erratic breathing. It’s the ridicule of the situation that sends them laughing: both of them buying dinner, the result of a simple miscommunication. It’s an honest mistake really, they’ll just reheat the second take-out tomorrow. But it’s also both of them going out of their way, out of their exhaustion to get something special for the other. The desire to make a little gesture because days are rough and as a team they get through that by uniting moral support forces. It’s the intimacy y/n was craving so much. The small details Harry knows about her and she about him, and the fact that even through the madness of it all, they always seem to go back in sync.

"I miss you so much Harry" y/n finally says while tucking her nose in the crook of his neck. She just wants to feel as close to him as possible, breathe him in, and never let go. And really, Harry’s not complaining. He just squeezes her tighter against him and presses his lips on her forehead for a moment.

"I love you, y/n. How ‘bout no work this week-end, hum? Just yeh an’ me, wherever you wanna be" his lips are still brushing against her skin.

"Please," is what she answers before leaning back to stare at his pretty face with a soft smile. "I love you too."

➪ Masterlist

Hey guys, hope you liked that little piece. It is actually inspired by a true story; a so highly stereotypically French one, that I had to edit it for narrative’s sake. If you care to hear about it (no offense taken if you don’t!), prepare yourself cause I’m about to drop some serious French cultural knowledge on you.

There exists two ways one French fellow can eat a baguette: there’s the well-cooked team who likes it golden and crusty (like my Mum), and then there’s the not-so-cooked team who likes it soft all over (like my Dad). The basics being now established, we may proceed with the real story.

One time, both my Mum and Dad were having such a busy day that they forgot to agree on who would buy bread for dinner (I did warn you it would be awfully French). They ended up both buying some, laughing at the situation once they met at home. But see, now when my Dad recalls this — in appearance — insignificant moment of their lives, he says that in that moment they’d made love to each other. Because when they got ready to eat, they realized that my dad had bought a well-cooked baguette for my mum while she had bought a not-so-cooked one for my Dad. And yeah, my Dad can be a hopeless romantic sometimes but he’s kinda right, isn’t he? Love is about putting the other above ourselves and making them feel special with the little things like giving up your favorite type of something just so your significant other can have it their favorite way.

Anyhow, sorry if I bored you with my story (it is 3:52am as I’m writing, if you need some kind of explanation), I just thought it was something sweet to share. Please tell me what you think, I’d love to hear from you!

Take care xx

#Harry styles writing #harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #fluff #Harry styles #creative writing #short and sweet #please tell me what you think

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kootenaygoon · 5 years

Photo

So,

Election night was all hands on deck — Tamara was with Pat Severyn, I was with Deb Kozak, Calvin was with John Dooley and Greg was back at the Nelson Star office, watching the results come in and getting ready to post everything online. Over the summer our Facebook audience had ballooned, and we were starting to use Twitter a little as well. Calvin wanted us to compose multiple stories, not all of them destined for print, as the night progressed. Obviously the mayoral results were the main concern, but we’d also have six new council candidates all eager for their limelight as well. We huddled in the newsroom beforehand and went through our game plan. It was maybe 4 or 5 p.m., and we were planning to be there until long after midnight.

“So all of us, throughout the night, need to keep Greg updated by text message. When the results come in, get some quick audio and a few photos, then head back here right away,” Calvin said.

“This is going to be hectic, but if we keep things coordinated we can be constantly posting and updating all evening, in real time. We’re going to plaster this all over Facebook and Twitter, okay? This is the biggest story of the year right here.”

After we talked through some more of the logistics, I headed over to the Legion Hall, just three blocks away, where Kozak was hosting her supporters. As I came in I spotted Cass and Elliot, who had been on her campaign team. There was a lavish spread with brownies and cookies and veggie platters, so like any good journalist I headed straight there.

“How’s she feeling?” I asked Cass. “Stressed?”

“Nah, Deb’s got this. I don’t think anyone’s voting for Severyn.”

“But what about Dooley? Tons of people love him, it seems. Like his people are devoted acolytes.”

“It’s just time for something better. He’s the old-school boys’ club candidate, and that was never the right fit for Nelson.”

Deb was being swarmed by her supporters, but I shouldered through to say hi. She introduced me to her family, and I took some photos. By this point the other female councillors had arrived—Donna Macdonald, Paula Kiss, Candace Batycki—and I spotted a number of familiar faces from the arts scene. People milled around uncomfortably, making small talk and glancing at their phones to check the time.

Anything yet? Greg texted.

Nothing. Lots of people here but no news.

Polls are closed now so it should be soon.

I didn’t have to wait much longer to find out what would happen. Within an hour of my arrival the final numbers were in, way ahead of schedule. A giddy-looking dude came striding into the hall and tapped Kozak on the shoulder, whispering in her ear conspiratorially. Cass and I were both watching, food trays in our hands, as I realized I was going to need my camera out quick. I fumbled with the bag, pulled off my lens cap, then weaved through the crowd as the celebratory murmuring got louder around me. Deb threw her arms up in the air, laughing, while around her people started to clap.

Someone yelled “it’s official!”

I saw a flash of movement as a small woman darted in Kozak’s direction. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was Michelle Mungall, our MLA. I lifted my camera just in time to capture their fierce hug. Deb was still laughing, her eyes shimmering with happiness, when I snapped the shutter. It was a profound and intimate moment, one female trailblazer embracing another, and I’d captured it.

As people continued to celebrate, she followed me over to a quieter spot so I could record some quotes on my phone. She shook her head in disbelief, taking a moment to compose herself.

“I’m looking forward to the next evolution of who we can be. I don’t mean that in an airy-fairy way,” she said.

“I think that we’ve been resting on our laurels since the ’90s.”

Kozak said the first point of business was to speak with the new council and hear about the concerns raised by constituents while they were campaigning. That would set the priorities for the next four years to come.

“Elections are a great time of opening in the community, where we’re really engaged in the community and all of these people have been engaging with different people. I want to know what they heard with this election.”

And she made sure to say there were no hard feelings between her and Dooley. She said he chaired council for nine years and put in a “tremendous amount of work and effort”.

“He loves the community dearly. I respect the work that he did. I’m looking forward to his support for the initiatives that this new council will be taking forward.”

After our interview wrapped, I did a quick round of the room to get reaction quotes from the city councillors. As soon as I was finished I sprinted out of the Legion and back to the office to see what the photo looked like on the big screen. I was humming with energy as I uploaded, as I read quotes out loud for Greg to plug into the evolving main story: “Deb Kozak elected Nelson’s first female mayor”. Meanwhile Tamara and Calvin were processing their stuff from the other camps, both to contribute to the main story and to include in secondary pieces. I wrote and published a side-story quoting the female councillors congratulating Kozak and remarking on the significance of her accomplishment. I delighted in the wealth of social media engagements, the rolling list of comments.

“I still can’t believe John lost,” Calvin said, as things died down.

“I don’t think anybody in that bar had any idea that he was going to lose. They hadn’t even considered it as a possibility. And you should’ve seen the guy: he deflated like a balloon. I felt really bad for him.”

“You think it’s the split that did it?”

Greg piped in. “Well, if you were to take all of Severyn’s votes and give them to Dooley, then of course he would win by a wide margin. But most of the people voting for Severyn would be more likely to vote for Kozak, because they have more in common. The way I figure, even without Severyn in the race she would’ve still been ahead.”

Tamara laughed. “Severyn’s wife was dancing drunk in the streets. She was like ‘we did it!’, ‘we got him out!’ It was so inappropriate. No class.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“This was an ugly election,” Calvin said. “One of the ugliest I’ve ever worked. And I’ve worked a lot of elections. You guys did a really great job tonight, I mean it. It was nice working as a team like this.”

Around midnight I trudged home in the dark, slowly piecing together my thoughts and trying to translate them into a column. I’d successfully covered an election, now could I comment on it with authority? In the six months since I’d been hired I was averaging a Kootenay Goon column every two weeks, but so far they’d been mostly autobiographical and light. I wanted to continue to build my skill-set, and I felt like I had some unique insights to share with the community. My lede was half-composed as I pushed through the front door of my house and clumped upstairs.

I crawled into bed with Paisley and the dogs for a while, but eventually went out to sit on the back porch in my robe. The moon was bathing Elephant Mountain in a silvery glow, and I was still buzzing from all the action. This was my life now, being a reporter, and I was getting addicted to it. How had I ever tolerated being a lowly lifeguard? A gas station attendant? I felt like what I was doing mattered. This wasn’t a vocation so much as a calling, and I felt like a true convert. Like I could work at the Star for the remainder of my life and never get bored. It was an excuse, every day, to go out into the world and ask “what don’t I know about yet?” And it gave me access to people and experiences that I never would’ve had access to otherwise. I thought about my family on the coast, who I had barely seen for the past six months, and the friends I was slowly forgetting about. It was true, what people said: Nelson really did feel like a different type of reality. Paisley and I had found ourselves in a magical little enclave, now we just had to make it work. While I pondered this with my chin on my chest, I heard scratching at the door and turned to open it for Muppet. She had trouble sleeping without her Dad. I pulled her on to my lap and listened to the night wind rustling through the trees.

The Kootenay Goon

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roggling · 6 years

Text

Kidge Bodyguard AU Part 5

Okay, so this is the end… this has been a wonderful ride, my friends. Hope you enjoy this extra long chapter!

okay so the team went on with the mission

Pidge didn’t go

I’m serious

Seriously joking

Bruh the hell you think Pidge is

She legit jumped into Lance’s duffle bag before he got on and he still doesn’t know even though he’s legit in his position and opened his bookbag to take out his dismantled sniper rifle

HE STILL DIDN’T SEE HER

Whatevs

So Pidge is there folded into Lance’s bag and she’s doing her whole hacking shiz and helping the Paladins out by turning off the Galra’s cameras and all that ish

But THEN she finds the camera footage of the dungeon (which was basically the engine room with little prison cells in some nooks and crannies) and she sees her bro and dad there and she immediately taps into the audio to hear what’s going on

Unfortunately, it was also time for Lance to start shooting and it was LOUD AS HELL AND SHE COULDN’T HEAR A THING

She thought she could just guess what was going on but then Zarkon, the leader of Galra Industries and all their human experiments, stepped into the camera feed and she got desperate

She legit even pressed her small laptop to her ear to see if she can hear what he was saying

all she heard was “Destroy”, “friends”, “daughter”, “death”

Then Zarkon LEGIT ATTACKED HER FAM

She wasn’t having any of that so she burst through the duffle bag zipper

Lance almost shot her cuz she scared him

After realizing that it was just a little Pidgeon in his bag he legit laughed and handed her one of his extra handguns

“Go get ‘em, Pidgey.”

Pidge found her way to the prison cells real easy and she had to choke back a sob

There, fighting Zarkon, was a bloodied Keith.

Cowering behind him was her father.

Matt was laying against a wall, but it seemed like he was just recently thrown at it because he was slowly getting back up

No one noticed she walked in the room so Zarkon continued with his stupid monologue

“It is pointless, Keith. You may pretend to be one of them but remember that you are one of us. You’re like me. Why must you serve such useless people who can’t even defend themselves?”

He grabs

“You are a Galra, soldier. You don’t need such an inferior race.”

*cue Katie silently gasping*

Keith is pissed off now.

“I may be a Galra, but I am not nor will I ever be like you!”

Keith roars and throws four knives at Zarkon. Zarkon raises up a hand to block the weapons aimed at his heart but when he puts his arm down, Keith is gone.

Suddenly, Zarkon feels a kick to his face and he falls on the floor with a loud thump.

Cue angry fight between Keith and Zarkon

Pidge saw that Zarkon’s focus was no longer on torturing her brother and father and she took advantage

She ducked and ran to her father and her brother, who were both trying to stand up and help

They saw her and their eyes lit up and they were about to say something but she shushed them before they can bring attention to themselves.

She freed them and began leading them through the halls when she heard an explosion coming from the prison cells

She spun on her heel and began worrying when she saw smoke coming from the hall.

She turned around again and saw her father doubled over and coughing.

She couldn’t decide whether she should guide her family to safety or go back to help Keith.

However, she didn’t need to choose because Shiro came to the rescue.

“Pidge! What are you doing here?” Shiro swung Sam onto his shoulders

“I thought you guys would need help.” Pidge helped her brother walk and they continued shuffling towards the exit.

Shiro rolled his eyes but he wasn’t angry to see Pidge, “Well, wait until Keith finds out. Come on, he should be finishing off the armory and then we’re out of here.”

Pidge then realized that Shiro didn’t know what was happening to his best friend, but she decided against telling him. As she continued helping Matt, she heard another explosion from the armory. She looked back and she could see thick, black smoke pouring from the prison doors.

Without hesitating, now that she knew her family was in safe hands with Shiro, she gently let her brother go and bolted for the prison doors.

Matt was woozy cuz of his blood loss and he didn’t really process what was going on and he leaned against Shiro.

*cue confuzzled Shiro*

“Pidge, help your broth- Pidge? Pidge! Come back!”

Pidge sprinted through the halls and shot any Galra that got in her way (none of them were lethal but it was enough to prevent them from following her).

Then she heard a loud voice booming through the P.A.: “ATTENTION ALL GALRA SOLDIERS: WE ARE ON LOCKDOWN. WE HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED. REPEAT WE ARE ON LOCKDOWN.”

Just then, the doors started shutting down.

From a distance, Pidge can see the prison doors closing, but she couldn’t see anything inside.

Pidge huffed and puffed harder than ever before to get there. The wind has never whizzed so fast past her head. She has never felt such a rush of adrenaline until then.

Her thirst, her want, she need to make sure Keith was safe - that he was alive - consumed her whole body and guided her movements. She no longer had to think as she aimed to shoot. It was almost as if her body was an automatic weapon.

She had to squeeze in between the doors before they shut on her and she rolled on the floor when she made it inside.

She coughed as she lifted herself from the floor. Smoke was everywhere in the room. Fires were burning the prison cells’ bedsheets, it was melting the iron bars, it snuffed out the light.

It took a moment for Pidge’s eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room, but she managed to make out holes on the floor that revealed parts of the underground levels.

Her senses were being overrun. The smell of burning fabric, the stinging of the ashes in her eyes, the hot temperature, the red light surrounding the room, the low glow of a spreading fire, the crackling of nearby flames. However, only one sound was strong enough to catch her attention: Keith’s cough.

Pidge sprinted to the sound. It was a strong, throaty, almost choking cough. It was continuous and the labored breaths in between them told Pidge that Keith was struggling.

As she neared him, she could hear his raspy voice calling out, “Help!”

At last, she found him.

Dangling from one of the openings to the lower floors. He was there holding on to the end of a thick iron wire that is used for foundations and to layer cement. With one hand, he was holding on, with the other, he was covering his mouth in an attempt to keep the smoke out of his respiratory system.

Pidge had to choke back a tear and she bent down to offer a hand.

Keith looks up with a relieved look but then when he saw who it was, his eyes widened in fear and concern, “Pidge?!”

“Shut up and take my hand!”

Keith didn’t argue.

With A LOT of heavy lifting from Pidge, she was able to lift Keith out of his predicament and the two laid on the floor panting.

“You should lose a couple pounds.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll do that the next time I decide to dangle above a burning fire.”

Pidge laughed and got to her feet and helped Keith up while being aware of his injuries.

Keith chuckled and held on to his ribs and winced, “I thought … I told you to … not come.” He let go a sharp breath at the last two words and winced.

Pidge ignored him and felt his abdomen to feel his abs to feel his ribs.

“Keith-”

“I know.”

Pidge shook her head and wrapped Keith’s hand around her shoulders and took on most of his weight and she made their way towards the broken window at the back of a cell, “Come on, I’m getting you out of here.”

Keith coughed once more and asked, “Why’d you come back for me?”

In truth, Pidge didn’t know. At first, it was because he’s a part of the team who saved her missing family and she couldn’t let him die. Then she thought it was because he saved her life thrice already. Then she thought it was because of the butterflies and the red in her cheeks every time she takes a glance at him.

Eventually, she answered, “Why wouldn’t I?

Keith merely stayed quiet and let her help him but one their way out, a big figure materialized from behind them.

Pidge immediately dodged out of the way and rolled across the prison floor wrapped up in Keith’s arms.

When she regained her senses, she immediately got up to her feet and jumped out of the way of the incoming blast coming from Zarkon’s gun

“Do you think you got rid of me that easily, Keith? It takes more than a 30ft drop to kill me.”

Zarkon powered up his gun and aimed a shot at Keith, But when it fired, Pidge threw a chunk of fallen metal in Zarkon’s way and the blast ricocheted onto him.

Zarkon had to take a few steps back and then fixed his glare on to Pidge.

“So you’re the annoying Holt daughter that my two prisoners wouldn’t shut up about?”

“Yeah,” Pidge began and shot at Zarkon (which she missed), “I am.”

Zarkon laughed and taunted, “You missed.”

“Did I?”

Zarkon was confused before he heard a creak from up above. He turned around and was doused in thick black oil. Pidge shattered the fuel canisters.

Zarkon roared and wiped the oil from his eyes. When he opened his eyes and could finally see again, Pidge was nowhere to be found.

Then he feels a powerful force fall on him.

They roll around and he finds Pidge on top of him working on some ropes. He slaps her off of him and she tumbles on the floor. She gets back up and finds that her cheek is bleeding.

She lifts a hand to it and then calls out, “Keith, now!”

Zarkon completely forgot about the half-dead Galra he left behind and looked up to where Pidge was looking.

Keith was up on a ledge holding a heavy tank full of God-knows-what.

Zarkon watched as Keith dropped it from his position and as the tank fell, Zarkon was pulled up. Zarkon didn’t notice that the tank tied up to the very same rope he was tied to.

Now, his only form of escape is a 60ft drop. He watched as Pidge through a burning chunk of wood into the pile of oil he was dripping and the whole floor beneath him lit on fire.

As Zarkon spit threats and insults at the pair, Pidge managed to call Shiro for help and she could hear their helicopter by the side of the building. She picked up Keith and she shuffled towards an open window where the helicopter was waiting.

She handed Lance an unconscious Keith and as she boarded the helicopter, she looked back into the dungeon and aimed her gun. She only had one bullet left so she only has one shot.

She closed an eye, aimed, and fired.

The bullet whizzed past the open window, grazed Zarkon, and then embedded itself into an engine.

“Go, go, go, go, go!”

Shiro swerved away from the building and left the area immediately and behind them, the building blew up to smithereens along with anyone inside.

Now, they’re back and Keith has already recovered thanks to his Galra genetics.

Pidge and Colleen have already reunited with her father and her brother (it was a huge pile of crying Holts and it was endearing)

Shiro and Allura finally told the team that they were dating

Everyone already knew and had placed bets on when they were going to tell the team. Pidge got $20 from Lance and Hunk and made a note to remind Keith to pick up his winnings.

Now that everything is back to normal and she had her family back, the Holt clan is looking for a new house. The Galra trashed their old home.

With the prospect of her departure and the fact that she now knows his secret, Keith distanced himself from Pidge. The two barely spoke anymore and if they were asked, the team (and the Holts) would definitely say that the sexual tension is becoming unbearable.

Stealing glances, biting lips, longing looks, These two aren’t fooling anyone.

However, their stubbornness is what’s tearing them apart and it’s taking a toll on both of them

“She’s leaving?! Why should I try to start something that won’t work out?”

“He started avoiding me first! Why should I apologize?”

Allura then had enough and she talked with Keith (something along the lines of “If you don’t want to die alone you better go get her because no other person can deal with your quiznaking crap as well as she does.”)

Matt did the same with Katie (”I don’t know about you, Pidge, but he’s the only guy that has actually cared for you genuinely despite the fact that you’re a Holt. So you better pull yourself together and get you that hunk of muscle.” “Matt!”)

So now the two are awkwardly standing in front of the other and Keith hasn’t looked at her in the face yet.

Pidge rolls her eyes and became fed up with Keith’s shyness and walked up to him and lifted his head by his chin to make him look at her.

Pidge searched his violet eyes only to find them full of uncertainty. Pidge narrowed her eyes and asked, “What’s going on? We used to be so close, but now you can’t even look at me straight in the eyes.”

Keith hesitated before answering, “You’re leaving.”

Pidge paused and let him continue, “You’re leaving and then I won’t see you again.”

Pidge sighed, “Keith, I’m not leaving.”

Keith froze.

“Back home, I have nothing to do other than sit in a computer. With you guys, I get to work for a good cause and my work is needed here. I’m staying with you guys.”

Keith stood there for a minute before cracking a smile and chuckling, “So, you’re not going back with your family?”

Pidge shrugged, “Well, it’s not like I won’t see them. They’ve got their own lives, it’s about time I start mine.”

Keith stepped took the few steps that separated them and he wrapped his arms around Pidge’s petit one and whispered, “Am I in it?”

Pidge flushed a deep shade of red at Keith’s sudden flirts and opened and closed her mouth as she tried to find something to say. Once she finally did tho, she was just as smug, “It depends on you.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ! Just make out already!” The two laughed at Lance’s voice from the gym’s loudspeaker system and accepted the teasing.

The two leaned in until they met in the middle.

Keith, who had to bend down a bit, sighed as Pidge wrapped her arms around his neck and tip-toed to press in closer to him. Their lips moved in sync with the passion of the moment leading them to deepen the kiss more and more with every passing second.

“Ah! My eyes! I take it back!”

Keith led their kisses slower and slower until he pulled away to whisper a word, “Finally,” before reconnecting their lips.

Pidge did the same, “I,” kiss, “know.” Kiss, “Took,” kiss, “you,” kiss, “long enough.” Kissssss.

Keith chuckled and placed some more pecks on Pidge’s lips before they heard an unfamiliar voice over the loudspeaker.

“Hello, Paladins of Voltron and guests. I know we’ve had our differences in the past.”

Keith pulled away from Pidge and glared at the loudspeaker and growling, “Lotor.”

Pidge looked up at her ... lover? boyfriend? a really hot guy friend that will make out with her? ... with a questioning gaze before hearing “Lotor” continue, “But since you’ve killed my father and left the Galra under my control ... I think it’s time we have a discussion.”

#kidge #keidge #keith x pidge #pidge x keith #kidge bodyguard au #kidge au #kidge fanfiction #kidge fanfic #kidge bodyguard #it's finally finished you guys omg #voltron fanfic #voltron rarepairs #Voltron: Legendary Defender #vld #vld au

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writesandramblings · 6 years

Text

The Captain’s Secret - p.99

“Sigh No More”

A/N: Covers the remainder of episode 14, "The War Without, the War Within," and continues into episode 15, "Will You Take My Hand?"

I decided to split this chapter; I thought it was getting a little too long. That means technically there are still three left after this. Same content, nothing's being added, just slightly different numbering than I intended and hopefully a slightly easier reading experience.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 98 - A Fate Worse Than Death 100 - The Captain’s Secret >>

As they walked down the corridor, Saru considered the woman beside him. "Scan me," she had implored, suggesting there was physical proof of her claim to be Mischkelovitz. She had said other things, too—things that confused him, like "my quarters" when Mischkelovitz did not have quarters and slept in a hidden burrow in the walls of her lab.

Then there was the issue of the implant overloading, wiping Mischkelovitz's mind clean, and a miraculous recovery. Equally confusing was Groves’ panicked assertion this woman was Petrellovitz and subsequent reversal. This detail, at least, was potentially cleared up by a conversation he had once had with Groves and O'Malley about religion. I'll take a comforting lie over a truth any day.

Saru suspected Groves had done just that and the person walking next to him was Emellia Petrellovitz.

She was, for the moment, entirely docile. Saru sensed nothing that alarmed him other than the fact she was not who she claimed to be. She was making no attempt to retake Discovery and both the Mudd protocols and Brig Chess had been removed from the system, so it was unlikely she could.

He walked her to Lab 26 and wondered what to do. If she could fool scanners as to her origin and if Groves, her own brother, was going to back her claim, how to approach this without seeming entirely paranoid? He needed evidence.

The walls of the lab were open, panels stacked to the side of the door. Exposed conduits and controllers evidenced Tilly's efforts to remove Mischkelovitz's system modifications. Saru wondered if Petrellovitz would comply with the order to finish disassembling the lab to preserve her cover. "Now that your research into Klingon cloaks is no longer needed, I assume you will be leaving Discovery?"

"Why?" she intoned, voice low and hollow. "This is a science ship and I am a scientist. Provided the humans win the war, this seems like a fine place to work."

"Provided we all win the war," Saru corrected.

Her face darkened as she realized her mistake. "Yes. Because there are so many aliens here."

Nothing in Saru's words should have tipped her off as to his suspicions, but she was making it very hard for him to pretend he did not know. "Dr. Mischkelovitz, are you feeling alright? Perhaps residual damage to your brain..."

"Tell me something. If Gabriel had told you who he was from the outset and asked you for a chance, would you have given him one?"

Saru was taken aback. His first thought was that she was saying these things because she had no intention of letting him leave the room alive, but nothing in her body language, tone, or demeanor indicated any sort of danger. Slowly, Saru said, "I would like to believe that we would have."

"Then, would you give me one?"

He could not answer.

"I realize I can't maintain this pretense as well as Gabriel did, but if you help me, I won't have to. I think his mistake was not trusting you." She did not trust Saru either, she was simply beginning to understand that in this universe, you had to make people think you trusted them if you intended to work with them.

Perhaps it was a mistake on Lorca's part, but it seemed more of an intentioned plan. "I think Lorca was in a far more confusing position. A position I now find myself in as well. I assume you have prepared some form of retaliation if I deny your request?"

"No. If you deny me, I'll simply leave this ship and continue on my way. You'll never be able to prove the truth about what I am, because the truth is, I am the me from this universe." This was it, the big bluff Petrellovitz needed Saru to buy in order to secure her place in this universe. "My neural implant—her implant. When the Klingon attacked me, I activated an emergency failsafe to transfer my consciousness into her body. Because our neural structures are identical, it worked. Unfortunately, there's no evidence of what I did, so it would be your word against mine and Johnny's." (Ironically, Petrellovitz had accidentally suggested something the real Mischkelovitz's implants could do, but then, the genesis of their ideas came from the same place, even if their expertise had diverged slightly.)

"There are security monitors in this room," noted Saru. "This conversation is evidence of the truth."

Petrellovitz pointed up to the corner. "It would seem your engineer has presently disconnected them." That was the problem with trying to disassemble someone else's undocumented changes. There was no telling what would happen in the process. "I can reconnect that for you. You can keep an eye on me if you want. I don't mind. I should warn you I prefer to work naked."

This conversation was not going at all how Saru had expected it. "I do not wish to assist you with this deception."

"Then I will leave the ship. We'll pretend this conversation never happened. After all, no one can prove it did."

"A mind meld would provide proof."

Petrellovitz stiffened. "Vulcans," she said disdainfully. A side effect of placing so little value on aliens was that Petrellovitz sometimes forgot that some species had abilities and advantages humans lacked. "Are you trying to convince me to kill you?"

"Certainly not. But I am not the one who can approve your desired course of action. I will present your offer to Admiral Cornwell."

"Please don't," she said flatly, her tone entirely impolite. "The more people know, the less credulous my denial becomes. The last thing I need is anyone in command learning about it. As it is, maybe I can... beat a mind meld somehow." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I was hoping you'd give me a chance, as a fellow scientist. Allow me to prove my intentions. You're probably the most qualified person to run such an experiment. But if you're not interested, then let's forget I said anything and part ways. No mind melds, no need to go after one another. A truce."

Saru considered that. If Groves maintained his support of her, it was unlikely she would be convicted of any crimes based solely on a mind meld; they were easily challenged in trial. At best, she would be kicked out Starfleet and then there was no telling where she might end up. If she remained on Discovery, he could enlist the aid of people he trusted and hopefully obtain enough evidence to prove her true identity and prevent her from running amok somewhere else.

There was also a chance, slim as it was, that she was sincere. The experiment she was proposing might be a necessary one now that there were three Terrans in this universe. "If I allow you to remain here, your access will be heavily restricted. You must also remain clothed while you are on duty."

"We'll see," said Petrellovitz.

"That is not optional, lieutenant."

Petrellovitz hiccupped, surprising herself. (Having never truly laughed, her brain was not quite certain how to do it.) "Commander? I won't pretend I'll like you, but..." She smiled, and while there was something predatory in it, there was also something curiously hopeful. "Michael was right. This is a world bursting with potential. In my universe, there was no one else like me, who loved science for its own sake. All anybody cared about was what science could do. Now it turns out there are people like me. Here, in this universe."

It was, thought Petrellovitz, Lorca's best miracle yet.

Sadly, there were no further miracles to be found in the lab. When she opened the Mischkelovitzs' research notes on quantum mechanics, Petrellovitz discovered they were all audio files in a language she did not understand. It seemed she was going to have to restart her research from scratch.

There was only one other person who could potentially stand in Petrellovitz's way, but as he woke up disoriented and confused in sickbay with no knowledge of the events of the past few days, his first concern was not his sister, or Groves, or even Lorca.

"Hang on, is this stardate right?"

The one person on Discovery for whom the knowledge of their nine-month misstep meant the most was the last person to learn it had happened. His reaction was utter panic. By the time Saru arrived, the nurse was attempting to administer a sedative.

"Don't you dare sedate me! Let me call my wife!"

"Colonel," said Saru.

"Oh, thank god. What is going on, commander?"

O'Malley was forlorn to hear the full scope of the news. He asked to look at the tactical map and Saru could see the grief and worry as O'Malley brought up the Antares sector in detail and watched a replay of nine months of battle actions in the space of a minute. "Oh god, oh god," he whimpered under his breath as Klingon strikes appeared and the sector turned red.

"There are many who are seeking news of their loved ones," said Saru. "Our best course of action for now is to continue the fight."

There was one other matter. Saru considered not telling O'Malley, not yet, because the loss of one loved one was probably enough for now, but he also knew how it felt to have painful truths kept from you. "I must inform you of another issue..."

He had never seen a human break like that before, to fall so completely into abject despair. It reminded him of L'Rell's reaction to realizing the Voq she had once known was no more. Then, her Klingon scream had seemed to shake the ship to its bones. O'Malley's whimpering wail did not rise to this level of ferocity, but it also did not resolve itself into a state of ultimate coherency, and when the nurse came again with the sedative, there wasn't enough of O'Malley present to object.

Their attempt to reach Earth under Cornwell's command was unsuccessful. The Klingons had occupied Starbase 1 and as Cornwell stared at the sigil of House D'Ghor on the side of a base that had once housed eighty thousand people and was now devoid of all human life, Saru learned something both Captain Lorcas had long known: Katrina Cornwell was not suited to starship command. She sat there in the captain's chair staring as Klingons closed in around them, unable to issue any orders, until finally Saru took charge and issued the orders for her.

Discovery fled. There was no victory to be won here, only a chance to live and fight another day, and because they might only ever get one more day, they had to make it count.

Emperor Philippa Georgiou smiled darkly when they came to her. A decisive strike to take down the Klingons was what they needed, and as repugnant as Georgiou found all the humans in this universe, she still hated nonhumans even more.

Discovery made its way to the Veda system to execute the first step in a last-ditch effort to win the war once and for all: grow a crop of Prototaxites stellaviatori and restore functionality to the jump drive. They had a single sample of mushrooms to draw upon and the energy of a full set of terraforming probes to feed the crop. The ship fired the probes down onto the moon's otherwise barren surface and a forest of mycelial light sprang up below.

It was a lovely sight for Lalana to wake up to. She vibrated away the gel from her filaments and asked the computer to locate Lorca.

"Unable to comply," the computer responded. She asked for Groves and received the response again. Finally, she tried Saru, and this time she received an answer.

"Admiral Cornwell has been waiting to speak to you."

Lalana was utterly unconcerned with this information. "Certainly. Where is Gabriel?"

Saru was unable to answer this openly on the bridge, but Lalana had kindly provided him with an alternate narrative to fall back on. He answered, "His body has been incinerated."

"Well, that was rude, I would have liked to eat more of it," said Lalana cheerily and settled in to watch particles drifting in the air of her room while she waited for Cornwell. The wait was not a long one.

"You had better have a damn good explanation, or so help me—"

"Katrina, how lovely to see you. Can you tell me where Gabriel is?"

Cornwell responded with angry shock. "Gabriel is dead!"

"Not Hayliel, Gabriel. Or has the Federation instituted a death penalty for impersonating an officer in the time we have been gone from this universe?"

"You..." Cornwell took a deep breath. "Do you think this is a game?"

"Would you prefer if I adjusted my voice modulation to seem more serious? I understand you humans believe tone alters the meaning of words somehow. That has always been a very curious thing to me. How can one word mean a different thing simply because of the note that is struck by your vocal cords?" There it was, the crux of ten years of misunderstood communication. The monotonal lului tongue did not allow for tone variance in language.

It was easy to fall into Lalana's little verbal traps and engage her in one of her frivolous asides designed to distract from the actual subject at hand. Cornwell was having none of it. She said with resolute focus and angry determination, "You knew—this whole time—and you said nothing."

Speaking the words aloud, Cornwell found her breaths became labored and her eyes stung. The psychological effort required to finally confront the full truth felt like a massive physical undertaking and produced the same physiological reactions.

"What would you have had me say?"

"The truth!"

Lalana's head tilted to the side. "I never lied to you about Gabriel. I always spoke the truth."

Technically that was true. In San Francisco, she had said point-blank that Lorca was not their Gabriel. She had simply neglected to explain why that was the case and had framed the statement between sentences that, to Cornwell's human ears, made it sound like there was an implication of metaphor in the words.

It was very possible that Lalana had never used an actual metaphor in her entire nine-hundred-year life. To her, the idea that someone might liken the sound of rustling leaves to falling rain made no sense, because these were two entirely different sounds. Similarly, that someone could believe the words "he is not our Gabriel" reflected a mere change in emotional state was ridiculous. The sort of ridiculous that made her laugh, so she played with words this way every chance she got, and in doing so simultaneously told the truth and kept Lorca's secret.

"Some people would call what you did a lie of omission," said Cornwell. "But that's letting you off too easy. What you did was unforgivable. You let that man destroy everything Gabriel stood for. You helped him do it."

"Is that what you think I did? Then you have not seen him for who he is. It’s true that he is not your Gabriel, but he could become such if you would simply let him. He possesses much of what our Gabriel had."

"You can't replace someone with their doppelganger," said Cornwell, shocked by the suggestion.

"I am not suggesting you replace him, but I did love Hayliel more than any other human I have ever met. More, in fact, than any member of any species I have encountered. There is no one like him. He is irreplaceable. However, I have found that there is great happiness in the fact I can continue to see his face even though he is gone. That is the face of the human I love. I am glad it still exists in this universe."

"Do you know what I see when I look at that man? A reminder that our Gabriel died and I didn't even know." The sting in Cornwell's eyes became unbearable and she squeezed them shut.

"Perhaps I should have told you. Because of the way humans view death, I thought it would make you happier if he were still living. I also thought, and I believe correctly, that this Gabriel Lorca needed to be a captain and have a command. He needed it more than anything and so I gave it to him. Thank you for helping me do that."

Cornwell shook her head, her eyes watering. "You tricked me. I can't forgive you, either."

"You can, but you must first forgive yourself."

Cornwell started to quietly cry. She knew how important forgiveness was but she would probably never forgive herself for not realizing the truth sooner. Even if the cards had been stacked against her by both Lorca and Lalana, she felt like she should have known.

"If it is too much, I understand," said Lalana. "Perhaps in time. I do think that Gabriel would like a chance for you to know him for who he is. That bitterness and rage he holds within him, you could help him with it. Perhaps even come to see, as I have, that he is in his own way a good man. He did not come to us as such, but we have made him that, Hayliel and I. We showed him how to be this man. That is how Hayliel lives on: in spirit." Her eyes glinted as the striations of her compound irises shifted.

If lului could cry, Lalana would have cried in happiness at the idea. Many years ago, she had expressed disdain for the human concept of spirit, viewing it as a peculiarly human folly. Only when she had invoked the concept to offer comfort at a time when Hayliel stood at a crossroads had she begun to understand what it meant.

Invoking it again now, she discovered she understood and believed in it. Perhaps it was simply a ghost of a memory, but so long as she had those memories, Hayliel was with her. He had never left her. In her mind she would never leave him.

Cornwell did not share this outlook. "No. He's gone and we both need to accept that."

"I will never accept that," said Lalana. "For as long as I live. And I can live for a very long time."

"I just want out of here. I can't take this."

Lorca looked up from Larsson's book. Groves was lying in his bed, plucking at the strings of the guitar on his chest and staring at the ceiling. He had abandoned the violin. Not, he said, because he could not hack the computer with it, but because he had realized there was probably no point.

"Stop fixating on it," advised Lorca. "The more you think about it, the worse it is."

The lights went out and they heard the toilet flush. The first time this had happened, Lorca and Groves had been left wondering if something had gone wrong on the ship or if this was some kind of punishment, but in the end they realized the lights and toilet were simply set to an automatic cycle. This, for whatever reason, was the hour someone had decided should be bedtime.

Groves fumbled in the darkness as he put his guitar away. On his return trip to his bed, he tripped over one of Lorca's boots and landed half on top of Lorca. Lorca pushed him off to the floor.

"What, you don't want to cuddle?" quipped Groves as he picked himself up. "With the lights out, you can pretend I'm Michael."

"Dammit, Groves, what the hell."

"Or would you rather pretend I'm Mac? I've seen the way he looks at you."

"You have a serious problem. Didn't your mommy ever teach you not to poke at bears?"

"Sure she did," said Groves, which was probably a lie, "but I'm an agent provocateur."

"You're something all right," sighed Lorca, rolling his eyes.

Groves managed to find his own bed. "Maybe I just like poking the bear and getting bit."

"You like getting locked up? This fun to you?"

There was a long pause. "Makes me feel alive."

Lorca sighed again, this time in mild sympathy. Groves' bark was far worse than his bite. "I'll be sure to tell Mac what you said. He'll give you a good bite."

"Why would he do that?" Despite the darkness, Lorca thought he could hear the twist of confusion on Groves' face.

"That man is entirely too devoted to his wife."

"Maybe, but you're the new Anton."

It took Lorca a minute to remember where he had heard—or more accurately, read—that name. Anton Nguyen, from the QORYA trial transcript. The other male scientist on the project. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means all anyone's ever doing is reliving their own personal trauma. Whatever damage we get, we replay over and over again in our lives."

That, at least, was accurate.

Lorca wasn't the least bit tired and there was no way to read Larsson's book in the darkness, so he asked in his most pleasantly inviting voice, "We got nothing but time. How about it, who's Anton?"

The pause this time was very long. "That's not my story to tell," Groves decided.

The comms came online.

"We've all mourned the enormous loss of life due to this war," began Cornwell's shipwide announcement. As she decried their foes as lacking honor and outlined a mission to map vulnerabilities of the Klingon homeworld for a single, decisive strike against the heart of the Klingon Empire, Lorca rolled his eyes. At least the Federation was finally going to try and actually do something instead of floating around space like a fleet of Klingon punching bags.

Then Cornwell said something that shook Lorca down to the very fibers of his being. With three words, she stripped him of everything.

"Allow me to introduce you to the person who will chart your course to Qo'noS: Captain Philippa Georgiou."

"Thank you."

"Though long presumed dead, Captain Georgiou was recently rescued in a highly classified raid of a Klingon prison vessel. She was transported aboard Discovery..."

Cornwell had found the perfect revenge.

As the rest of the announcement played out, Groves heard some sounds underneath it that did not at all match with his perceptions of Lorca. Uncomfortable, he got up and made his way to the bathroom, using the manual override to close the door. This has nothing to do with me, he told himself, the same words he had thought to himself years ago as he hid in the QORYA facility walls and other children were dragged out screaming around him.

Part 100

#Star Trek #Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Admiral Cornwell #Katrina Cornwell #Gabriel Lorca #Captain Lorca #Mirror Lorca #Commander Saru #Saru

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punmasterkentparson · 6 years

Text

Sleep Talk

inspired by this post, because i think it’d be hilarious if Alexei Mashkov talked in his sleep and unwittingly inflicted it on Kent. But then feelings happened?

also on ao3.

“I love you, big rat.”

Kent is in the process of picking his clothes off Alexei Mashkov’s hotel room floor in the near-dark when this statement comes from the bed. In slow motion, Kent turns. He can just make out Alexei’s silhouette from the lights of Vegas coming through the hotel room window.

He doesn’t know which he’s more baffled by: the love confession from a guy he literally just hooked up with last night, or the attached nickname that’s either an insult or an unfortunate mistranslation from Russian.

“...Sorry, what?”

Alexei is still horizontal in bed, but he shrugs as if he’s sitting up. He hasn’t even opened his eyes. “It’s fine. Take the turtles with you, they’re lonely.”

Kent gapes. “What turtles?”

“The ones underground. Don’t feed them after midnight.” Then, as if that has concluded the conversation, Alexei rolls over under the blankets and presumably goes back to sleep.

Kent pulls on his clothes and sneaks out of the room. As he drives himself home, he wonders under his breath, “Turtles?!”

All-Star weekend is a gift and a curse. It’s a curse because it pulls Kent out of regular season and away from his team. It’s a gift because he loves kicking ass in the skills competitions. But mostly, it’s a gift because this year, when he’s out at a bar and spots Mashkov watching him, the hot tingle he gets isn’t residual terror from the memory of being single-handedly yanked out of a dogpile and yelled at in Russian last year.

Okay, it isn’t just from the memory of that.

The first hookup had involved a some name-calling and taken a while to get from ‘resentful opponents’ to ‘resentful opponents working off sexual tension.’ This time, it’s easier. All Kent has to do is slip Mashkov a napkin with his room number on it and then tell everyone he’s calling it a night. The guys accuse him of being a wet blanket for ditching the party early, but that just means they’re all still out when Kent lets Mashkov into his room at the hotel.

Mashkov blows him on the bed, both of them still half-dressed, then turns Kent around and fucks his way to orgasm between Kent’s squeezed thighs. It’s almost as good a workout as the day’s events had been. It’s definitely more satisfying. Lying on the bed afterward, Kent feels like his brain has melted, in the best way.

Mashkov, facedown on the blankets at Kent’s left, grunts. “We messy. Get towel.”

Kent’s legs are slippery with lube and his muscles are jelly. “You get it.”

“Rock paper scissors you for not go.”

Kent snorts but holds up a hand. They throw down, and Mashkov loses.

After they’ve wiped up the spunk and Kent has graciously tossed the towel back in the bathroom, Mashkov rolls off the bed and starts collecting his clothes. Kent watches, thoroughly enjoying the muscular flex of Mashkov’s ass whenever he bends down. “You wanna just stay over?” he asks, without even thinking.

Mashkov turns, nose wrinkled in confusion. “Why?”

Kent shrugs. “’Cause I wanna blow you tomorrow morning, and if I do it in the locker room or the showers, the guys��ll complain.”

Mashkov laughs, shakes his head, and says, “Okay. It’s good plan.” He pulls his briefs back on but leaves off everything else. Kent goes to brush his teeth, and when he comes back to bed, Mashkov is already under the blankets and half-asleep. Even with the heat on in the room, Kent gravitates to pocket of warmth on Mashkov’s side.

Even though he can’t quite admit it to himself, he falls asleep faster and easier with Mashkov there. He even drops into a deeper sleep than usual.

So when Mashkov grabs his arm in the middle of the night, Kent startles awake like he’s been stabbed.

“The fuck!? Oh, shit. Mashkov, what the hell--”

Mashkov responds in Russian.

“I don’t know what the hell you just said?”

“Oh, sorry,” Mashkov says, in what is...Jesus Christ, is that Jack’s Canadian accent? “We’re not in Russia?”

“We’re in Florida. Why do you sound Canadian?”

Mashkov frowns. “What is he usually?” he asks, his accent now closer to Rhode Island.

Kent stares, wide-eyed, and for the first time in his life entertains the notion that body-snatchers are real. “You’re Russian? But you speak English?”

“Oh,” Mashkov says, thankfully back to his normal accent. “You don’t say.” And he lets go of Kent’s arm and rolls over. Within ten seconds, he’s snoring.

Kent can’t get back to sleep for another half hour.

In the morning, Kent wakes to find Mashkov already sitting up in bed and scrolling through his phone.

"Do you talk in your sleep?" Kent blurts.

Mashkov jumps at the sound of Kent's voice. He puts his phone down and looks over. "Little bit? Why, I'm say something last night?" He's grinning.

"You grabbed me in the middle of the night and asked if we were in Russia. You had a Canadian accent. And you talked about yourself in the third person."

Mashkov laughs. "Sorry. It's happen sometimes. Never remember what I say."

"In Vegas you talked about turtles," Kent says accusingly.

Mashkov laughs some more and shrugs. "I don't know what it's mean. It's just my brain, you know? Say stuff, I'm not thinking."

"Your brain has weird thoughts."

Mashkov winks and puts his phone on the nightstand. "Maybe you guess what my brain is thinking about now? Give you hint, it's about your mouth and my dick."

Kent rolls his eyes and shoves him, right before ducking under the sheets.

They hook up twice more during the All-Star weekend. Then it's back to the regular season. They're on opposite ends of the country more often than not, but Kent somehow ended up with Alexei's phone number (and vice versa) so the distance between them seems to shrink.

It turns out that Alexei is fun to talk to even when he's NOT sleep-talking. He's a social media fiend who Instagrams everything he eats, and also things he wishes he could eat--like ice cream.

"I'm lactase intolerant," Alexei tells him over Skype one night. The video is off but they've got audio, and Kent is at home so he's multitasking by talking to Alexei and also cleaning Kit's endless toys off the floor. Alexei adds, "It was first English I learn when I come here. Because agent not want Mama and Papa kill him because I die in milk accident."

Kent laughs so hard that Kit flattens her ears. "So that's why your Instagam feed is full of cheese."

"Want to eat so much," Alexei moans. "Sometimes in off season I'm eat a little, even though make me sick and have gas. Trainer always know, always sigh like I'm disappoint her. And then ban me from office, sometimes weight room, because she say farts is smell too bad."

Kent laughs harder. "Shit, you're ridiculous."

"Takes one to know one," Alexei replies, and even through the connection, Kent can hear the grin.

A week later, Kent is in Toronto and Alexei is in Tampa. The Leafs trounce the Aces, and the Falcs lose in a shoot-out.

Kent doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He just wants to sleep. From the lack of texts on Alexei’s end, he guesses the feeling is shared. It’s fine. Everyone deals with losses their own way. Kent knows his own grief cycle by now, and how to get himself through it by the time he has to play another game. He gets on the bus to the hotel, chats with the guys who need to talk about it, and then goes to his hotel room and finds something mindless to watch for an hour. By the time he’s brushing his teeth and turning off the lights, he’s not exactly calm, but he’s not wound up so tightly that he’ll get caught in a spiral of doubt and self-blame the second his head hits the pillow.

He expects to fall asleep. He can’t.

Taking his phone off the nightstand, he checks for texts. There aren’t any. He sends a quick message anyway.

u up?

There’s no reply for such a long time that Kent gives up and puts the phone back. He’s just starting to drift when a buzz startles him back awake.

yes. skype?

Kent stares for a second. His heart thumps hard in his chest. He just sent a text, he wasn’t asking for...

He thumbs open the app and hits CALL.

Alexei answers without video. “Don’t want talk,” he says, apologetic. “Sorry. Just... sound. Room quiet, head loud.”

Kent is already lying back down, resting the phone near his head. “No, it’s okay. I get it.”

Rustling bedsheets come through the connection. “Thank you.”

Kent doesn’t say ‘you’re welcome,’ because he feels like he needs this, too. Alexei is right; the room is quiet and his head is still too loud. But with the background susurrus of someone else’s breath, he falls asleep within minutes.

Then, in the middle of the night, he stirs. It takes him a muddled moment to understand what woke him up. There’s a voice, tinny and digital, coming from his pillow, and it’s speaking in Russian.

Kent blinks at his phone, glowing in the dark. The Skype connection never cut out.

“Alexei? Are you sleep talking, or are you awake?”

“Fuck you, Santa Claus, you owe me twenty dollars,” Alexei replies, clear as day and clearly dead asleep. Kent has to bury his face in the pillow to keep from laughing. When he can manage speech, he says, “That dick. He should pay you.”

“If it’s yellow, they’ll buy it,” Alexei mutters, sounding pissed as hell. Kent puts his face back in the pillow; there are tears coming down his cheeks.

Alexei goes on, “Nevermind, it’s Wednesday,” and then two seconds later, snores lightly as he falls back into deep sleep.

It’s a long time before Kent calms down enough to sleep again. And even then, he’s still smiling.

The Aces’ last game of regular season is in Providence. It means nothing, because everyone has known since last week that the Falcs are going to the playoffs, while the Aces are not.

Kent works hard not to think of it as a throwaway game. He knows the team is just ready for the season to end. They missed a wild card spot by one point, which they’d have gotten if they’d pushed a game against the Hurricanes into overtime. And even though Kent knows that the Falconers win 3-2 because they’re riding the high of success while the Aces are mentally checked out, it still feels like the last nail in a coffin being lowered into a grave that he dug for himself through an entire season’s worth of small mistakes.

He doesn’t meet Alexei’s eyes when they go through the handshake line. For that reason, it’s not remotely a surprise when Alexei tries to call him after the game. But by then, the Aces are already on a flight back to Vegas, so Kent doesn’t get the notifications until after they’ve landed and disembarked.

Alexei called five times and left two messages. Kent ignores them all. When a sixth call comes through, he waits until it disconnects and then turns off his phone.

This isn’t like the few other times they Skyped overnight. Alexei can’t share this loss with him. Kent would rather he didn’t try.

Nashville knocks the Falcs from the playoffs in game seven of the second round. It makes Kent feel like a dick. Alexei has texted him several times and tried to call him as well, and Kent hasn’t responded, on the grounds that he wasn’t ready to stop feeling like shit. Now, Alexei will be grieving, and Kent wants to call him. But after what he did, he wouldn’t be surprised if Alexei gave him the cold shoulder in return.

He almost doesn’t reach out. But he knows he’ll be angrier with himself for not trying, than getting cut off permanently and knowing he earned it.

At 10pm on a Saturday, Kent gets up the nerve to dial. Alexei doesn’t take the call. Kent’s heart sinks into his socks and he curls up around Kit on the bed.

Ten minutes later, his phone buzzes with a text.

skype?

“I’m sorry,” Kent says as soon as the audio call connects. It’s the exact same thing as an actual phone call, but there’s symbolism at work here that doesn’t escape him for a second. “You tried to talk to me. I should have answered.”

“Apology accepted. Is okay.” Alexei sounds tired, raw. Like he’s been taking out his frustrations on himself at the gym, but instead of earning some peace, he’s just hollowed himself out. Kent knows the feeling.

“I’m sorry I’m like this,” Kent says. He’s still wrapped around Kit, one hand petting her and the other cradling the phone. If he closes his eyes, it feels like Alexei is in the room with him. “I’ll probably always be like this.”

“Could be worse. Could never call.”

Kent swallows. “Guess that’s true.”

“I know is true.”

Alexei sounds so confident that it drags a faint smile out of Kent. But it fades as he murmurs, “And, I’m sorry. For...” He doesn’t have to say it for Alexei to know what he means.

There’s a small silence, and then Alexei whispers, “Me, too. Want so much. Think we get, this year.”

“Yeah.”

They both fall silent. Neither hangs up. It’s getting late, and Kent knows he should sleep. He’s already dressed for bed. But he doesn’t want to hang up, not yet. “Do you want to... I don’t know. Talk about it?” The words feel trite as soon as they’re out of his mouth.

“No. Not about... Don’t want talk about it. But maybe just... we talk?” He sounds hesitant. Kent has never known him to be hesitant.

“That sounds good to me,” Kent says. But then he can’t think of something to say.

Alexei chuckles. “I don’t know what talk about.”

“You could just go to sleep,” Kent says. “You talk in your sleep, you’ll say something eventually.”

“Yes, ‘weird shit,’ you tell me.” There’s still exhaustion coming through, but warmth is creeping into Alexei’s tone. “Why you want hear if it’s weird?”

“‘Cause it’s also fucking hilarious. I told you about Santa, right?”

“Asshole still owe me money.”

Kent guffaws, startling Kit. “Well, Christmas is over, so you’ll have to head up to the North Pole if you want him to pay up.”

Alexei snorts. “You say I’m say weird shit.”

“You do. You know that first night we hooked up, in Vegas, you called me a big rat?”

“I call you big rat even when not sleeping, that’s not weird shit.”

“You monologue, sometimes,” Kent insists. “In Russian. Other times you’ll have halfway normal conversations with me, which isn’t even weird, it’s creepy. And you keep asking me about turtles. Why the fuck do you care so much about turtles?”

Alexei isn’t even listening anymore, he’s laughing. It makes Kent grin, still alone on his bed in the dark except for his cat, but with Alexei’s voice filling the room it doesn’t feel so awful.

That doesn’t change how tired he is, though. A yawn escapes him.

“Kent?”

“‘M here. I can keep talking. I just might fall asleep in the middle.”

“Okay.” Alexei is smiling too, Kent can hear it. “Maybe it’s same for me, too. But I like this. I like be with you when I’m go to sleep.”

Kent’s chest feels a little tight. He reaches down to tug the bedsheets over himself, and tugs the phone closer. “Yeah. Me, too.”

#savvy writes #i finished a thing #getting my groove back #kit is annoyed that i'm up past bedtime #he'll have revenge at 6am tomorrow #he doesn't believe in sleeping in #kent parson #alexei mashkov #omgcp #ficlet #oneshot #omgcp fic #patater #sleep talk

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Serial Stowaway Marilyn Hartman Explains How She Repeatedly Got Past Airport Security; 'The Story Is Crazy' By Brad Edwards and Carol Thompson CHICAGO (CBS) — For nearly 20 years, Marilyn Hartman baffled everyone. In a post-9/11 world, she flew the world over, she never had a ticket. She became America’s Serial Stowaway. READ MORE: Chicago Weather: Precipitation Lasts Into Evening Rush For Many The one thing she’s never done, is talk about it – in depth. How? Why? Will she do it again? Never talked about it until right now, exclusively with CBS 2 Investigator Brad Edwards. Marilyn Hartman reflected on the moniker she’s best known for: The Serial Stowaway. “I don’t mind if people say ‘She’s a nut.’“ “… because when I look at it objectively … “ “… that’s how I see it is craziness.” “I purposely remained a mystery, because of the crazy factor.” “This makes it even crazier, you might want to reconsider everything.” “… It was like something out of a movie.” CBS 2, over the years, has covered Hartman’s travels. “So, Bradford, I don’t care at all if someone calls me crazy, I mean the story is crazy,” she said. It started with a phone call from jail on October 29, 2019. Hartman: “Hello is this Brad Edwards?” Edwards: “Yeah. Hi Marilyn. How are you?” Hartman: “I really appreciate you reaching out to me that was a very nice letter and everything, and I like your reporting as well … I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’m willing to do this.” Edwards: “Can I record this call?” Hartman: “You definitely can record it, that’s fine,” Hartman said. And they were off. Like Marilyn Hartman herself: America’s Serial Stowaway. Edwards and Hartman were pen pals since late 2019 — her last attempt to flee for free. Audio recordings, obtained by the CBS 2 Investigators, reveal a Transportation Security Administration agent spotted her once again at O’Hare on October 10, 2019, and called police. “There’s been a Marilyn sighting over here,” said one TSA agent. The dispatcher then asked the agent, “Can you keep an eye on her for me?” From the Cook County jail, she wrote she wanted: “… To apologize … My mea culpa to law enforcement, including the TSA … it was not my intention to make their jobs more difficult.” She told Edwards she thought she had taken at least 30 flights over the years. The CBS 2 Investigators — through a series of sources, public records requests, Ms. Hartman’s recollections, and more — compiled a forensic accounting of her free rides. Jacksonville. Seattle. Phoenix. Philly. Atlanta. Minneapolis. San Fran. London. A real Catch Me If You Can — she says began in 2002. Hartman recalls, “The first time I was able to to get through I flew to Copenhagen” and “The second time I flew into Paris.” It wasn’t until some 12 years later that she popped on the radar of law enforcement. August 14, 2014: Ms. Hartman, sans ticket, flew from San Jose to Los Angeles. A judge then warned her, don’t do it again. Seven months later, in April 2015 in Jacksonville, she appeared in court where her fate was sealed: “Ms. Hartman has been determined by forensic psychologists to be incompetent to proceed.” “I know they keep emphasizing the mental illness … law enforcement … would like to have that in place. but umm … (laughs) no, I’m pretty good,” she said. Good at getting away with it. Per law enforcement documents, as early as January 2015, Hartman was on the “trespass list.” In April 2015, documents show she was known as a “serial stowaway.” In May 2015, she was “… considered a high security risk.” And, in July that year: a “habitual stowaway.” So, how did she get away with taking so many flights for so long, without a ticket or a boarding pass? “The thing I’ve got to tell you. I have never been able to board a plane by myself. I was always let through,” Hartman revealed. “I mean I was able to go through the security line without a boarding pass.” The year prior to her latest arrest, her last success happened in January 2018. READ MORE: Off-Duty CPD Officer Shot Near South Stony Island Reports obtained by the CBS2 Investigators say Hartman, “evaded the security process” “and document / ticket check” and took a $3428 flight to London on a British Airways plane. She had become omnipresent at TSA checkpoints, with her picture at security checkpoints. She described to CBS 2 how she did it. “I got by them, this is the thing that is so crazy, by following someone they would be carrying like a blue bag,” she said. “And the next thing I know, I get into the TSA line and TSA lets me through, and they think I’m with the guy with the blue bag.” “For her to be able to repeat that over and over, that is just mind boggling,” says aviation security expert Jeff Price. The genius of her mode of operation is in its simplicity,” he said and warned, “… It’s the unsophisticated types of plans are often the most successful.” Price, once assistant head of security at Denver International Airport, and a professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, has written “Practical Aviation Security: Predicting and Preventing Future Threats” considered the leading textbook on aviation security. “Have we taken Marilyn Hartman did serious enough,” Edwards asked. “I don’t think we have,” answered Price. Is the TSA using Hartman’s tactics as a training tool? We asked and were told to put in a public records request for the information. We did and are still waiting for a response. “They literally should have a curriculum designed around how she’s able to get through security and that should be taught to every Transportation Security Officer out there,” said Price. Marilyn Hartman looks like a grandmother. It makes you wonder would the same type of courtesy be extended to a young man with olive skin or a mother with a hijab? Or do we need to think differently, we asked Price. “We definitely need to think differently,” he said and added, “We can’t constantly be preparing for the last attack. The next attack will not look like that.” “And the next attacker?” Edwards asked. “And the next attacker. Exactly,” Price said. Back to Marilyn Hartman and why she took all those flights. “When I took the plane ride, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t ‘Oh, I’m going here or there’— I was actually in a depressed state of mind,” she told CBS2. Diagnosed bipolar, it wasn’t a manic episode that set off the flight trigger, it was the opposite. An example, in 2015. Back-to-back days – July 3 and July 4. One Midway, one O’Hare. Similar clothes, same carry-on. So depressed she’d admit, her desperation got her caught, both times. In one phone conversation from jail, Edwards asked Hartman if she felt a fight or flight response and literally took a flight. She answered: “That is literally what happened.” She spoke later about her mental health. “I’m bipolar. And this is something I’ve rejected for years.” She wrote in several letters to Edwards about her life growing up, as a young child. Hartman wrote that she was born in 1951 at Jackson Park Hospital and told Edwards later about her family life. “There was so much violence and mental illness in the household,” she said. Her life alone, ill, not much of note, until she took off. In October 2019 when TSA last stopped her at O’Hare trying to take flight again, she was already on probation for the 2018 flight to London. “I have real tough judge on this case,” she said. “Judge Chiampas is pissed at me for the situation in which I found myself.” She’s already been in custody for 500-plus days on these latest on charges of burglary, criminal trespassing, and probation violation. Details of a plea agreement announced in early March would drop the burglary charge and give Hartman 18 months’ probation, with mental health counseling. A deal the Judge didn’t seem interested in accepting. Judge Chiampas said at that hearing, “I will not be giving her a third probation.” In those several phone calls and letters with Edwards, Ms. Hartman had a warmth about her, was contemplative. She wrote of the inequities, Jim Crow- like in jail. She’s currently out of jail on electronic monitoring and on a steady diet of counseling and daily meds. Edwards noted: “So, you’ve had a hell of a life.” “Yeah, it’s been. It has been,” she answered. Edwards asked, “Would you consider yourself fascinating?” “Yes I would under the circumstances … and I downplay it, Brad, I don’t. Yeah,” she said. Hartman never did an in-depth interview “… Until I was confident that I wouldn’t take an illegal flight again,” she said. And, added one final thought, “I want the opportunity to apologize to the people I’ve hurt.” Hartman’s plea deal will likely be finalized in early April when all parties are back in court. The CBS2 Investigators could not find anyone, from TSA to gate agents, who had ever been disciplined for any Hartman gaffe. We reached out to several major airlines. Southwest told us they had nothing to say on the record on the matter. Delta and United did not respond. American Airlines did send a statement saying they had a rigorous process in place to ensure safety. MORE NEWS: Indian Lakes Hotel In Bloomingdale Will Not Reopen After February Shooting That Left 1 Dead, 4 Other Injured “We are aware of the incidents involving Marilyn Hartman at O’Hare Airport. American’s Corporate Security and Safety teams have rigorous processes in place to ensure the safety of our operation and we continue to work with our partners in law enforcement and at the TSA to maintain a safe and secure airport environment.” –American Airlines Spokesperson Source link Orbem News #airport #crazy #explains #Hartman #Marilyn #marilynhartman #news #o'hareairport #repeatedly #security #serial #Story #Stowaway #syndicatedlocal

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