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littlefreya · 4 years

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White Honey

Summary: Waking up the morning after you lost your virginity to Henry, you muse of the night before while feeling hungry for more.

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Word count: 2K

Warning: Smut, loss of virginity, mentions of blood, mentions and slight oral, unprotected sex, bodily fluids.

A/N: Written by anon request. Slight, gentle-rough. Many thanks to @agniavateira for the beta! Please remember to give feedback and reblog.

Title: White Honey.

Pale sunlight shone through an ocean of white linens that draped around you securely. The surroundings still felt like a misty collection of dreams: mellow and saccharine, holding you in their embrace. Yet, a throbbing twinge at the apex of your body welcomed you into a newly-found awakening.

You were no longer a virgin.

Every muscle strained to remind you of said "stolen" innocence. Looking down your naked form, bruises peered in return. Dull, purple fingerprints covered your breasts, hips, and thighs; each mark indicating the blood vessels that ruptured under Henry's greed and desire.

You stifled a pained groan, reaching a hand between your aching thighs to soothe another throb that quaked your sore mound. Henry tried to be tender, at least when he unravelled your seams and penetrated you for the first time. But his size and weight were both generous; once he began moving, all control was lost. He was drawn into you in a daze, adoring the reaches of you with every jerk of his hips.

It was as if he just stepped into heaven and yearned to fill his soul with every inch of it.

Sanctified in a primal dance, you made passionate love. His thrusts were slow but rough, unaware of his strength and of the fire in his blood that drove him to get more and more. Your words made no sense, neither did the beating of your heart. Though breathless gasps told a story: You needed this emotion to go on like an endless ocean, with your legs engulfing him tightly, pulling him deeper until your bodies became laced together in euphoria.

A soft blush stained your cheeks at the memory, and your flesh felt ablaze again. The man who claimed your virginity was asleep by your side radiating warmth, inviting you to bask in his pungent musk. Feeling a soft longing, you sneaked a quick glimpse, watching how his furry chest rose slightly in his sleep. His scent was still on you, and yours was on him; it was as if you've been carried by the calming breeze, floating in a sea of creamy light.

A foolish smile tugged at your lips, and you shook your head at yourself, feeling unbelievably immature and frivolously in love. You rolled on your side, wincing at the soreness in your core while determined to sneak out of his bed.

A firm grip pulled you back beneath the covers into the hardness of Henry's broad chest.

Low and pleasant, his groan tumbled in your ear like a bear awakening from his slumber. His torso entirely covered your spine, making your heart flutter as your skin grazed together, and his heat embraced you.

"Morning kitten," Henry murmured, voice still husky from sleep.

It was as if you were already together for a hundred years, his lips and hands felt familiar as they secured you. He dotted your exposed neck with languid kisses and cradled your jaw between his stark fingers that painted an invisible pattern on your jawline.

"Hi," you replied coyly and grinned to yourself, trying to shake off an onslaught of giggles as his stubble tickled. Entangled limb to limb, you felt small. Henry wrapped himself around you, declaring you as his through the language of his body. His knees pushed between the back of your thighs, forcing your legs open which accidentally elicited a dry whimper of pain out of your throat. Embarrassment burned in your cheeks; it was enough that he made you cry out as he tore through your seal the very night before. There was no need for another embarrassing vocal reminder.

"Aww sweetheart," Henry cooed, pushing you to lie flat on your back while he shuffled to lean on his elbow. His blue gaze focused on your blushing face, a comforting grin tugging his lips. He bumped his nose against yours before offering a chaste kiss.

"You're sore?"

You nodded quietly, watching as he raised a hand and placed it on your sternum. The air left you at once, lungs shuddering as the pads of his fingers glided down your supple skin. His big blues followed, watching how you sunk and caved, bound to his strokes like a tamed lioness.

"Was I too rough?"

"No…" You replied and pressed your chin into his shoulder shyly. "Maybe a bit, but you're just…" You never thought your cheeks could burn this much. "You're really big, and everything kinda hurts right now."

"I'm so sorry," he answered sincerely as he leaned to brush his lips over your nipple ever so delicately. "I don't want to hurt you."

Your eyes fluttered shut, your breath suddenly shallow. It felt so natural to feel his mouth on your skin as if it always belonged there. Flowing down your abdomen, he left wet markings that felt chilled upon his departure while his large palm smoothed itself down your apex. Fingers etched at your ripe cherry, massaging gently to soothe your discomfort.

Immediately, you flinched. No one touched you there, no one but Henry. And he was the man you pined for, perhaps your entire life, without even knowing so.

When he held you, it was as if every cell came to life, tingling as both past and present blend into a sweet whirlpool of physical touch and emotions.

"Good?" He asked, his thumb sensually circling your pearl.

"Good." You hummed, arching on the mattress as more kisses followed down the long trail of your torso. Henry attempted to take your distress away as he tasted your body. His loving lips coated every bruise while his palm rubbed your swollen womanhood protectively.

You jolted as you felt something wet snake down your navel, briefly realizing it was his warm, skilful tongue that descended gracefully to the valley of your pelvis. Henry was specifically enthused to work the magic of his mouth on you, as proven many nights before. He made love to you with nothing but his tongue, drinking from the fountain between your thighs.

No one made you come like this before, thrusting and grasping onto the sheets with desperation as another orgasm rocked its way through your body. In your mind, you screamed for him to fuck you already. But even if you did vocalize your desire, he'd wait.

Henry wanted you right when you both stood at the edge of frustration.

Grasping your legs, he unwrapped you once again, folding them up while settling in-between. The mixture of brownish-pink dried blood and semen was evident beneath your behind. You hid your face beneath your hands and shook your head in protest as you peered down and noticed what Henry discovered.

He chuckled at your response and pressed his lips to your inner thigh. "Don't worry", he said, trying to reassure you. "It's a nice something to remind me of my first time with you."

"No, it's embarrassing." You retorted, your answer muffled by your palms. A moan broke out of your lips as Henry's mouth lined your inner thighs, dangerously inching toward your sacred entrance. You shivered as you felt him huffing against your slit.

"Hen…" you called out, your legs visibly trembling in his grasp. He hardly minded your state, intent on making the burn inside you subside. It only ignited a different type of warmth, and as his lips found yours.

You felt the fire rise again, drenching your core with want, the void within calling to be filled.

You ached for him.

"I need you," you begged, your fingers reaching the messy bundle of dark curls that grazed your torso as he held his mouth at the edge of your groin. "I need you inside me."

The air pushed out of your lungs as Henry dragged you down to meet him, massive and brooding. He soared from above, his groin resting between your spread legs. One hand pressed the side of your body while the other seized his shaft and bobbed it between your lust-coated folds.

"Are you sure?" he asked, but you felt as if it was nothing but mere courtesy as he already teased the tip of his erection at your now deflowered sleek. Panting with exhilaration, you nodded frantically, desperate for the cure of the sudden loneliness inside you.

You were reduced to vocal begging, mewls coming out from your throat while your talons reached to scratch as his shoulders.

"Please, please."

Answering your plea, he pressed himself between your silken petals, carefully driving into your ripe haven. Slowly, an inch at a time, rediscovering the kingdom that he now owned.

It still felt like the first time; your hot mouths hovered agape onto one another, exchanging loud gasps, astonished by the union.

"Henry!" you mewled his name, your nails sinking deep into his back. Your canal was still too taut, too raw. The awkward sting inside made your thighs clench around his hips, and you couldn't help but tear.

There was a war between pleasure and pain inside you.

Sheathed all the way in, he stilled inside you. Immediately, reached to kiss your temples, collecting the tears that escaped your closed eyes. He whispered something in your ear while wrapping his arm around your back and drew you near.

You couldn't make sense of it as all you could think of was how his large cock pulsated between your closing walls.

Opening your eyes, you saw him staring down at you with love burning in his gaze. His lips were a tad gaping, quivering ever so slightly as if he meant to speak but couldn't find the words.

There was no need to say it, though. You both felt it, and your response was the wider spread of your hips as you attempted to take him deeper, and the snake-like squirm as you pulled against him. Henry followed, his hand fisting your hair as he began to stroke you within, grunting as he felt the pull of your body.

"You feel amazing," he panted as your walls wrapped around him rhythmically, sucking him deeper like an ocean sinking a ship, threatening to never let go. But he welcomed his demise, letting himself drown into your mysterious depths.

The serene ocean of sheets turned into a humid whirlpool of sweat and groans. You pushed against him with desperation, a whimpering mess. Your breasts squeezed at the wall of his chest, and your bodies slammed with demand while your groin shifted upward.

Fire began to spill from your gut as your clit grazed against the bone of his groin. Henry continued to move harder into you, stretching you to accommodate him with every push and shove. Yet, you could only feel your body fighting to grip onto him more. He groaned in your ear, his face buried in your neck while his body continued to crush you.

The stroke of his hairy abdomen against your belly made you shiver; you felt yourself being consumed by the flames that spread throughout your soul. Once more, you experienced the type of wholeness that made you sob.

This love made you weak and fearful of how intensely you felt.

Blackness fell on your sight and behind your eyes; golden butterflies spread their wings as you ascended into euphoria. Coming undone you cried his name and reached to grab the cheeks of his behind, clutching them hard urging him to fill you.

"Come inside me," you begged, peering at him through a veil of tears. "I want you to fill me, please."

Henry snapped, pulsating hot inside you. He rode you earnestly, the muscles of his behind flexing inward and you could sense him swelling bigger and pulsating as his climax drew near.

An onslaught of grunts and animalistic roars tore from his throat. Henry's chest lifted from yours, and he threw his head back as he spilled himself, pumping you full of his hot seed. His cum felt like a soothing warm lake of honey inside you, taking the very last tendrils of pain away.

Humming to yourself you tried to relax, hugging the bear of a man on top of you. Your hearts still fluttered as the pleasure lingered, surrounding you both in a euphoric aura. As the air shook through your lungs and your tears dried, you kissed his cheek and moved your lips to whisper in his ear.

"I think I kinda like it when you hurt me..."

Henry growled gently, shifting his head slightly to brush his lips against yours and bump your noses together.

"Well it's a good thing that we have all weekend to ourselves, we can stay in bed and test some... boundaries. Shall we?"

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#henry cavill x reader #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfiction #littlefreya's fiction #henry cavill rpf

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jotunn-loki · 3 years

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my king

FANDOM: marvel, mcu, black panther PAIRING: erik killmonger x female!reader RATING: explicit, NS//FW!!! WARNINGS/KINKS: throne sex, praise kink, daddy kink, bj, power dynamics, blackmail? ish? a little at the end that’s implied ig

SUMMARY: An ally of the royal family, you were sent on a stealth mission to gather intel on the new Wakandan Empire with Nakia, but when she escapes without you, you are left behind and must...face the consequences.

NOTE: I just re-watched Black Panther last night and I couldn't stop thinking about erik stevens/killmonger, especially an au where he wins and holds power over well, everything??? so then i wrote this at 3am lmao. Reader is female and on the chubbier side:)

You are kneeled in front of your king, weight digging into the solid cold tile of the throne room’s floor, making you grimace in pain. It feels like you’ve been here for hours, even though it’s just a few minutes, and you know that it’s probably because of the way Killmonger’s hand is on the back of your neck, grip squeezing you gently, a wicked smirk on his face. “Looking pretty down there, princess.”

Of course, you are not a princess, but you appreciate the sentiment. And the pet name, which seems to be a favorite of his. You know only too well how Shuri would most likely destroy you on the spot right now for “stealing” her title—or at least get Okoye to do it for her—but right now, that doesn’t matter. Shuri’s fond annoyance can wait...or what would be fond annoyance if you were in anything but this situation. Fond annoyance would be reserved for you butting in to respond to someone addressing her, maybe teasing her in front of the Avengers. That’s what fond annoyance would be for.

Not for anything like this.

Because right now, you’re not sure that if Shuri, much less anyone else in the royal family, knew where you were, she would ever talk to you again. They ordered you on a stealth mission with Nakia to infiltrate Erik Killmonger’s tightly-secured nucleus of the Wakandan Empire, and yet, here you are on your knees before him, staring up at him as he imposes over you with heavily lidded eyes that tells you he knows exactly what you’re thinking.

It’s not that your mission has...failed, per se. You managed to get Nakia to the vaults she needed to access in order to re-transmit the old intel from before Wakanda’s takeover, and she slipped by you with practiced ease, giving you a terse yet respectful nod of her head and slight smile. You had both been extremely stressed; you couldn’t blame her.

And now she has escaped. You hope. You were not so lucky, instead dragged to the throne room and unceremoniously dumped before Erik Killmonger like a discarded whore. Maybe that had been the point.

The chamber is empty now, and every harsh pant of your breath can be heard echoing across the tiles. It’s beautiful, and ironic, and you wish that in another life, you could be here under pleasanter circumstances.

“Know why I brought you here? ‘Stead of killing you on the spot?” Killmonger suddenly asks, and his grip on the back of your neck tightens. You groan in pain, but also because this is somehow extremely arousing, and for a third reason, too: you are ashamed of your own bodily reaction.

Gasping out a breath, you say, “No. Why did you, my king?” Another sharp intake of breath as Killmonger draws you in, free hand drifting to your ass and pinching it. You wince, shame flooding through you along with arousal, and you let out a small whine.

Killmonger’s smirk widens. His actions have told you answer enough.

You are practically on his lap now—well, just your head is, for your knees are still pressed stubbornly into the tile. And this lap… His legs are spread wide, even wider than usual to accommodate your head being pulled between them, chin tilted up to stare at him defiantly.

As if he can sense your thoughts, he shifts his hips, slouching lower in the throne so that his crotch is almost pressed in your face. “Huh, princess? This what you want? My fat cock in your mouth?”

You moan, practically salivating at his words, and you can already feel yourself growing wet. “M-My king—”

“Tell me what you want, princess.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you mumble.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear.”

“Fuck me, daddy!” you nearly scream, this time unable to stay quiet, as he has quietly slipped his fingers beneath the band of your underwear and is now ghosting over your clit in a tease. Fuck, you want him so badly, despite the ruin he’s brough to Wakanda and the whole world. It only makes you feel more ashamed, and that alone sends another burning spike through you.

With your admission, Killmonger grins. “That’s right, babygirl. Beg for your king.” You moan as his fingers begin to stretch you open, large and thick, preparing the way for his cock, for right now, you are nothing but a vessel for him to empty himself into, a fucktoy, a lost spy whose last chance at survival is to cum on the cock of the most powerful man in the world.

“Use me however you want me,” you beg, nearly a whisper.

He cocks an eyebrow. “Aight then, if you say.” His reluctance is not nearly as convincing as he would have it seem, however, for the statement is followed by him pushing your head back to the ground so forcefully that it hurts, and then pulling his fingers out of you with a slick sliding sound, arms coming to rest on either armrest of the throne he sits in.

He looks down at you and spreads his legs just a little further. “How ‘bout if you can get me close to cumming, I’ll fuck you, how’s that, princess?”

Quicky, you nod. You’ll do whatever it takes to please him, even if that means taking him in a whole nother way.

His lips twist to the side as if to say, well get to it, then, and you do, hands flying to undo his pants and push away the sides of the long robe he’s wearing. Soon, his cock finally springs free, and you grasp in eagerly, giving it a few pumps before taking it into your mouth, tongue dancing along it skillfully.

It’s not long before Killmonger takes control, though, and it becomes less of you giving him a blowjob and more of him fucking your face, dick pumping against the back of your throat furiously and without mercy. He is always without mercy. You choke on his length and size, but that only empowers him further, and he grins as he takes your hand and presses it down onto himself, making you bob along at his pace.

That’s new, and you feel like you can’t breathe, but that only serves to make you even wetter, so you let him continue to fuck your mouth, and when a thick pulse courses through his cock, you can tell he’s close, so you tear your head away before he can cum.

“Fuck,” Killmonger curses, breathing heavily. The part in his robes reveals his chest, heaving with his near-orgasm, and cautiously, you run your hand across it, feeling each of the burn scars against the skin of your palm. It’s so different from anything you’ve ever felt, but it only intrigues you.

Finally, with wide, pleading eyes that you can only hope look bratty, you meet his gaze again. “Will you fuck me now, my king?”

“I did promise you, princess,” he admits, dabbing at his own precum and prodding your lips with his wet finger. You open your mouth to lip, cleaning his fingers with a skillful tongue. “But you better take those clothes off.”

Though feeling a little self-conscious, you do, unwrapping the basotho blanket from your neck and the tighter layers underneath. Finally, you slip off your undergarments, leaving you bare in front of him.

Erik Killmonger’s eyes travel slowly when he’s assessing a situation, and this time, it’s no different, his gaze appreciative as it lingers on the curves of your hanging breasts and the swell of your hips and ass. “Come over here, babygirl,” he says to you, nearly a whisper, and you do, about to kneel in front of him when he stops you with a soft kiss to your lips and a hand clenching a cheek of your thick ass. “None ‘a that, now. I didn’t kill you for a reason, right?”

“I, uh—” You break off in confusion, unsure of where he’s headed. Didn’t he just want someone to fuck the shit out of? And you were there, so willing, so eager?

He smirks as he realizes that you have no idea what he’s talking about. “We’ll worry about that later, princess. Right now, I’mma fuck you senseless.”

Your pussy clenches at his words, and he grins at that, grabbing you and pressing you onto his lap so that your legs are folded on either side of him. The throne is large enough that it’s still comfortable, even with his legs spread out as wide as they are.

Slowly, you begin to ride him, moving faster when your body becomes more impatient. Erik hisses, hands settling on either side of your hips and using the padding of flesh there to aide you in bouncing on top of him with ease. “That’s right, princess. You’re doing so good. Fuck yes.”

It’s heaven, right here, and it sends a rush of thrill through you to know that this man fucking your pussy is one who’s killed hundreds of people, who largely rules the entire world with a fist made of vibranium. Not literally—though you wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to replace one of his own fleshy limbs with a metal one.

“Oh, my king, I’m so close,” you moan then, feeling your body’s tide reach near its peak. “Please, daddy—”

“Cum on my dick, princess,” he hisses in your ear, allowing you to ride him through your orgasm as obscene sounds emit from your mouth and your hands grip his shoulders, serrated and roughened as they are.

When it’s over, you collapse onto him and the throne, curling onto your side, plushy skin such a contrast to his muscled frame. You almost could fall asleep, if there wasn’t that one pinprick of fear, and of course, the omnipresent hatred festering for him in your heart.

“What were you talking about for a moment?” you finally ask him, eyes closed and head resting on his shoulders. He is absentmindedly running a hand across the bare expanse of your body, tracing lazy circles across the curve of your stomach and down to squeeze your thighs in appreciation.

“You wanna stay?” he asks. It’s an almost answer, and you frown. “Why should I do that? You’ve destroyed everything that’s important to me.”

“Then let me be that new important thing,” he says in reply. “Rule with me. Be my queen.”

“For the sex?”

He shrugs, and the movement is massive. “For everything. Whatever my babygirl wants.”

You suck in a breath. It’s tempting, for sure. But it’s also a betrayal to everything you’ve worked so hard for. “I can’t,” you admit.

“Then I gotta kill you,” he whispers. “And that’d be a shame, yeah?”

You swallow. Look at him. Swallow again.

“Yeah.”

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A/N: well, lmk what you think!! (imma just be hiding under a blanket embarrassed that i wrote something this smutty). this fic is also posted by the same name on ao3, but i’m not linking it because then tumblr will hide this post lol.

TAGS: let me know if you want me to make a taglist!

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swaps55 · 3 years

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Here we fucking go.

We have a glorious moment, one of the best of the trilogy. Anderson dies, and Shepard has to get up.

What do you need me to do.

No protests. No arguments. There is only the mission, and Shepard isn’t done. It’s the very essence of Shepard, the heart and soul of what makes them such a magic character.

And we follow up that moment with this bullshit.

I’ll take this moment to remind folks that in the original, vanilla ending, there was no explanation of the reaper origins. Shepard couldn’t ask questions. There was just, HEY. Pick a color.

So to my jaded self, the Extended Cut and Leviathan are merely attempts to sleep in the bed they made.

The biggest mistake BioWare made was attempting to explain the reapers. They are supposed to be unknowable. Beyond our comprehension. Yet here, in the final moments, they are distilled into something completely knowable and understandable, at the expense of everything the trilogy spent three years building.

“The reapers are not at war with you.”

Yeah, except you gave Harbinger understandable motivations, an ego, an obsession with a tiny organic, and a vendetta. You made the impersonal Cthulhu monster something with a very personal agenda. Those two ideologies are in direct conflict with each other.

“Who designed the Crucible?”

“You don’t know them, and there is no time to explain.”

WHEN THE FATE OF THE GALAXY HINGES ON IT, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY MAKE TIME. Honest to god, this translates to, “we dunno, fuck off.”

Now onto the color coded choices. I’ll further point out the reminder that the vanilla ending included no voice over, no slideshow depicting the outcome and consequences, no memorial for Shepard. It was literally exploding relays in three different colors, with no other differences between them. At all.

The Extended Cut is a direct response to the uproar, which included the following:

“The relays exploded. Everyone’s dead.” BioWare, astonished at this assumption, somehow forgot they put out a DLC that makes it explicitly clear that destroying a relay releases a titanic source of energy that would wipe out a system. So Extended Cut? Comes out and says, “everything that was broken can be fixed.” No why, no how. You have a decimated galactic economy, the bulk of half a dozen armies stranded in a single system, and the codex clearly states we do not know what kind of material the relays or the Citadel are made from. So...how do we fix all of these things in the next few lifetimes? Fuck you, that’s how.

“...how the hell did my love interest get on the Normandy??” Because in vanilla, there is no goodbye scene. Shepard runs to the beam, never looks back, gets blown up, then stumbles to the beam. There is no injured squad mates, no evac, no tender goodbye. One second they’re there, the next they’re exiting the Normandy on Lame Jungle Planet. Which is why Harbinger so patiently waits for Shepard’s ship to come take the wounded love interest away, because we had to have some reason for them to wind up on the ship, and there isn’t a way to do it that makes sense, so have a tender goodbye and don’t think about the fact that the Normandy apparently could have just dropped you right off at the front door and saved everyone a lot of time and trouble.

“Why did the Normandy flee?” In vanilla, there was only the cutscene of Joker frantically mashing buttons while consoles exploded around him, with a swelling instrumental cacophony that ended with a discordant shriek, suggesting total disaster. When I first played it, I somehow thought, to my horror, that I’d killed Joker. And guess what? Joker and your love interest exiting the Normandy on Lame Jungle Planet is just where the game ended. That music is the credits music. That’s where the journey stopped. Not ended. Stopped. The only other scrap was the voiceover by Buzz Aldrin and a pop up saying, ‘you did it! buy our DLC.’ So the Extended Cut added a cry from Hackett to run from the Crucible, though there’s still no reason given for why, aside from ‘energy is bad for technology,’ and apparently the Normandy is the only ship that somehow winds up stranded on Lame Jungle Planet.

If the Crucible was essentially just a giant EMP that nukes all technology, then everyone is basically fucked, and how do you ‘outrun it,’ since it goes everywhere??

Fuck you, that’s how.

The choices themselves can fuck themselves, too. Attaching strings to the trilogy-spanning goal of destroying the reapers is a cheap bait and switch. A human being somehow being turned into an immortal vessel to puppet the immortal machines is a complete disaster waiting to happen. Human minds aren’t meant for that, and we’re given no context or information on how that’s supposed to function.

And Synthesis? You’re asking one person to directly violate the bodily autonomy of every single being in the galaxy? With zero explanation given for what that means other than a few utterly abstract sentences, how it works, what it changes, and what the consequences will be, good or bad? Fuck right off.

Is my interpretation of the endings completely and forever impacted by experiencing the vanilla ending after playing ME1 when it launched in 2007 and waiting five years for the finale? Yes. I won’t even pretend that I can take an unbiased look at Extended Cut, because all I can see is how blatantly and poorly it tried to respond to the backlash.

Beyond the incompressible narrative choices, the plot holes, the confusion, etc., the worst sin the original ending made was not giving the player an emotional release. There was no closure. No end. It just stopped. That haunted me. It sounds stupid to say I lost sleep over the ending of a video game. It sounds melodramatic and entitled and obnoxious. But I did. This world and these characters meant everything. I’d like to think that after having lived through a pandemic, it’s a little easier to understand why the fictional places we escape to so we can forget about the real world feel like a lifeline. It may be stupid that a video game means this much to me. But it does. And I have never gotten over how that ending made me feel, and I have never forgiven it.

The only thing the Extended Cut does is provide an emotional release, in the form of goodbyes to your love interest, an ending slideshow, and a voiceover telling you all the ways the galaxy isn’t actually fucked, even though it is. For a lot of people that’s enough, and that’s a good thing. Emotional release is a big deal. Even if the ending isn’t satisfying, having somewhere to put your emotions makes it a lot easier to swallow.

This is the first time I have experienced the ‘true’ ending since EC came out in 2012, and now that I have the achievement for finishing the game, I never intend to do it again.

I’m going to go boot up the Citadel DLC, which is the love letter send off the trilogy deserved, and what BioWare was capable of giving us all along.

They just...didn’t.

#tow cables on the citadel #in which i am angry and emotional and crying and in general a disaster of a human #apologies for the typos #of which i am sure there are many #i just can't bring myself to reread it

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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fluff is good, it’s even fun sometimes. but, you know, i think i’ll always enjoy dark content the most. like, no matter how much i insist i have moved past it, my entire career began because i learned the term yandere and realized i’d found my place in the online sphere. but, really, lust and fear have a complimentary relationship. the emotions and sensations they invoke, both physically and mentally, are equally potent and stem from the same place for me. the fluttery sensation in my stomach dances indiscriminately to the tune of disquiet and arousal, excitement stirs itself up within my chest at the mention of being wanted, uncaring if the intent is sadistic or lustful. its a shared theatrical fantasy of fear, catching thrills from simulated danger as we imagine what it is to be in a situation so dire, so intense and frightening, that we cannot help but to hyperfocus on our discomfort. we practice these emotions and engage in these disastrously unhealthy relationships through emulation and the sanitized vessel of the written word, but without any of the emotional price that would be asked of us if it were real.

it’s not real.

there is nobody lurking behind your window in the gaps between the streetlamps, even if you were to turn off the lights in an attempt to get a better view, but maybe you shouldn’t anyway. there is no face to breathe fog and leave smudged fingerprints on the glass pane while they peer into the internal life you hold sacred, but you should probably keep your blinds shut. there is nobody hiding behind your shower curtain as you stumble half-blind and asleep into the bathroom at two in the morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. if you hear a sound, surely you cannot logically attribute it to a malevolent person moving unseen through the secure sanctuary of your home when they assumed you would be in bed, but you should probably take a look at your locks. if you notice that your things are not where you left them, it’s silly to assume that someone has been into your room, rifling through your things and leaving them almost as you left them. to believe that somebody genuinely and truly meant you harm in such a personal way would be to risk the foundational safety that you rely on to live with any measure of peace. and besides, memories are fallible. our senses are imperfect. our overexcited and imaginative minds can betray us. you can be infected by a nightmare you can’t quite remember, only that you woke up shaky and gasping and frightened, squinting in the darkness to make out the figure standing at the foot of your bed that you could have sworn was just there only to be reassured that it was just a bad dream. you can hurry home because you felt certain you were being watched only for the sensation to be ultimately attributed to your own paranoia. yes, the world is dangerous. but maybe not your world. these things, these dramatic scenes cut straight from an episode of the hundreds of crime dramas, don’t happen to people like you.

but

we fantasize about yanderes and dark personalities and the brutal psychological and bodily torture any character of our choice could subject us to, we imagine the most grim of situations in a light that appeals to our own desires, twisting horror to suit us in a controlled manner.

still, it is frightening, isn’t it?

it’s past midnight, maybe one or two in the morning, and you’re sitting within the four walls of your room that you no longer believe to be protection enough from the stalker that has been creeping closer and closer. you’re staring at the familiar surroundings that suddenly feel very alien and contend with the bone crushing frenzy of utter stillness in the face of animal panic, the intense crackling and wavering that you can almost see hovering above your skin and holding up little strands of hair as chills crawl in bug-like hoards across the feverish flush of your flesh. all at once you are overwhelmed and helpless against him as he invades, defiles, and dismantles each aspect of your life. there is nothing you can do, no protection from this stylized predator who who has been perfected by fantasy made real so that he no longer resembles any common stalker. in the dark, you are vulnerable. in this situation, you are isolated. shame fills your chest, sloshing around to the frantic rhythm of your heartbeat, embarrassment at the ridiculousness of your reaction. really, what are a few messages? maybe you’re misinterpreting the signs, there’s not enough evidence to prove anything. you have to use the bathroom, yet you don’t feel safe to enter the dark hallway because there might be a figure standing at the other end, and what would you do then? you want to contact somebody for comfort, but everyone you know is asleep and you don’t want to disturb them over something so trivial. you want to move and run and scream and deal with the problem, but you can’t do anything. just sit. just watch. just wait. minutes tick by, somehow. and somehow, dawn breaks over the horizon. you didn’t sleep, but maybe the sun will provide safety. maybe.

maybe not. there’s a unique kind of horror in the mundane. you don’t think about the sounds of the world around you until you begin to feel uneasy in the sunny open air, until the paranoia kicks in and suddenly it’s all you can hear because you’re hyper-focusing on trying to identify why you no longer feel safe. birds warble and call to one another. the leaves relentlessly rustle as the playful breeze shakes them about. from far away, a dog is barking. the big kind, the one that goes “boof boof,” you’ve just gotten out of your car after being out all day and you’re standing uncertainly in your driveway, looking around to try and pinpoint why you’re so anxious. you realize, with a zipping sort of shock down your spine, that there’s nobody else around. not even any evidence that they existed in the first place and it’s so stupid but you begin to think that maybe you’re the only person who has ever existed because the world around you feels so empty and barren. energy tingles in the air, but it is hollow. a void of something you can’t quite perceive. the dog stops barking. the wind dies down. do you dare go inside? your home, the place that should be your refuge, is not safe. you go inside and look at a kitchen you scarcely recognize as your own, at a bed that might as well belong to somebody else, at decor you once were so proud to put up that now seems arranged by a strangers hand. the one who is preying on you is probably human, but the threat feels supernatural in effect. omnipresent. we fear that which we don’t understand, and how can you possibly understand the motive of someone who has focused on you? dread sinks down deep as you shift from foot to foot and second guess every move you make. it smells like sun-warmed concrete and the wind-blown scent of spring greenery. just like your home itself, the smell is familiar as it is foreign. eventually, you go inside.

it’s so obscene, the way that sweat pools between your shoulder blades and slicks your skin, making you shiver with a distinctly antithetical chill to your blazing temperature. sweat is gross and uncomfortable, it makes your clothes cling to your skin and hair mat to your forehead. it’s so crude, this gouging, pinching discomfort like you need to pee making your thighs tremble as they clench together. your entire body is wound up tight as you crouch in the dark, barely allowing yourself to breathe for fear of being discovered while he looks for you. maybe he takes his time just to mess with you, maybe he doesn’t. maybe he tauntingly calls out to you in a feigned attempt to draw you out of hiding. maybe he means it when he tells you that he loves you. no matter what, there’s no escape, not anymore. it’s a foregone conclusion that you will be found. but you can’t move. fight or flight is out the window, you are frozen. you know the eventuality, yet you cling to hope out of the sheer, stubborn, and half-mad belief that this cannot possibly be real.

its so repulsive, this sickness that gathers in your gut, that invites the swollen weight of nausea to press down heavy and inescapable in your throat, that sits on your paper dry tongue. it tastes like old, rusted metal, the scent that clung to your blistered hands when you were young and tried your luck on the ancient playground monkey bars. the bloody flavor that choked you when you lost the last of your baby teeth, leaving your childhood behind and exchanging imaginary monsters for the real ones. just when the anticipation is on the precipice of killing you, you’re found. you expected it, yet you still scream. it still hurts, it’s still terrifying, you’re still clouded by the vague fog of disbelief that this could be real. you keep thinking that. it can’t be real, this can’t be real. things like this don’t happen to you.

but it is. you can’t stop it. you have no control over your life in that moment and thereafter.

and you think about everything you’ve ever read online about torture. human beings are so capable of hurting each other, it’s a dedicated art form. and you know about stalkers, the real kind, not the fun fictional yandere kind. you know the torture that human bodies are capable of withstanding before dying, the grotesque limits they can endure. limbs removed or hobbled. fingers peeled of nail and skin. teeth pulled, tongue cut out, eyes gouged, skin lashed to tatters, feet spun around so the skin stretched like rubber. not to mention sexual torture. when a human being is granted absolute dominion over another, even the best of them go rotten. do you ever think about that? in these situations, the fear of pain would get to me above all else, i think.

if you don’t immediately disassociate from the fiction, if you force yourself into the scenario as its presented with a degree of reality, the horror is really limitless. and, you may ask, why was this important? because it is six am and i cannot sleep and i’ve had this entire conceptual outline of good horror yandere fiction sitting in my docs for ages that i’ll never actually use to write character x reader so i am giving it to you raw and uncut.

#personal #yandere #uh tw for being a pretentious and sleepy idiot cooming over ye ole classic yandere tropes #sometimes i like to imagine this stuff in clear enough detail that it actually makes me uncomfortable enough to turn on the light #and rethink my life choices #because this aint it #but at the same time #at this point its sunk cost fallacy i've spent too long typing this out to discard it #sorry dear followers #stalking tw

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fortheloveoffanfic · 4 years

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The Arrangement

John Wick x Reader (A/n- AU where John isn’t an assassin. Did i mention that there’s Angst in dom!John? I didn’t? Well, there is.)

Warning- SMUT/NSFW, Angst, dom/sub, oral sex, bondage, bodily fluids.

She didn’t know when it happened, or how, but at some point, he had become everything to her; the forefront of her thoughts, some sort of pseudo-king in her mind and the man that literally dominated her body. He was everything, Y/n didn’t think she’d ever feel that way about another, even if she knew it was wrong. John wasn’t interested in anything other than what they had, he had made it clear than his interests laid far from romantic affections.

Sex, that was what he wanted.

And Y/n? She was just a vessel.

They’d met just under a year ago, when John had represented her boss after he was put on trial for his ex-wife’s murder. To that day, Y/n still worked for that C.F.O at a bank in New York, and she didn’t have a clue on whether or not he actually killed his ex or not, but John, John was an excellent attorney and could probably make a serial killer look like an angel. Their exchange had started over the phone in the beginning; after being greeted by Y/n at the bank. After about a month, he’d started letting his assistant put her calls through when information needed to be relayed. Things only escalated from there on, and when the case was won, upon John’s last visit to the bank, he’d asked, or rather informed Y/n, that he’d be taking her to dinner. And in a private lounge at a hotel, he’d made his offer. She’d pondered on it, but after a few days of mulling over everything, Y/n’s attraction to him had surpassed reason and she’d called him, his cell that time, with the answer he’d been waiting for.

That evening, Y/n’s mouth was circled around the generous girth of John’s cock; plump lips staining his shaft red with the lipstick she’d applied just before her arrival. Kneeling between his spread legs, Y/n’s head bobbed eagerly, while one delicate hand worked what she couldn’t take in her mouth. “That’s it baby,” he managed through gritted teeth. Slouching further into the armchair, John’s hold on a fistful of her loose tresses tightening so much that it might have hurt in any other situation. Her other hand massaged his balls, just the way she knew he liked it; frequently switching between rolling her flattened palm and kneading gently, while her tongue occasionally swirled around his shaft. Y/n moaned quietly at the feeling of his bulging veins against her lips and arousal throbbed in her lace panties. Each time she came down, his swollen tip hit the back of her throat, threatening to go further on the occasion where John would eagerly buck his hips. The first time she’d taken John in her mouth, his length had made her gag before she could even take him fully and though months later, Y/n still hadn’t managed take him fully, she now reveled in the feeling, always eager to train herself for more.

“You’re so fucking sexy when you take my cock in that pretty little mouth,” he praised harshly, guiding her pace, his free hand roaming the back of her neck, brushing the collar that he’d put there upon her arrival. It’s purpose aside from the aesthetic was a simple one, so she’d remember her place, and who she belonged to.

When John drew closer to his high, Y/n could feel it and just then, John yanked her head back harshly. On instinct, she sat back on her calves, the tips of her black stilettos barely scratching her back, “Not tonight,” John breathed, a few dark strands escaped from his usual neatness, falling over his face, his pupils still blown with lust, “Tonight, I want to cum right here,” John brushed a few messy locks away from Y/n’s features, his rough touch subsequently falling to her bare breasts. “Stand up,” he urged, following that up with instructions for her to go lay on the bed, face up. John then pushed out of the armchair where he formerly sat, providing Y/n with a tantalizing view of his nude glory; his was a body that she adored, loved, dare she say.

She didn’t

He was a little over twenty years her senior, but John was in peak shape, his firm biceps and barely defined torso was hardly a testament to how deep his endurance ran. It had surprised her at first, but now, it thrilled her beyond compare. Y/n watched as he went over to one of the drawers in his dark oak dresser, his broad tattooed back on display, the bold ink work standing out against his skin. She’d always wanted to ask what they meant, but Y/n didn’t think that John was the type that wanted to spend an hour explaining why he’d gotten them. Her eyes stayed on him, mesmerized as John shifted some things around in the drawer, eventually producing a familiar set of restraints along with a ball gag. “Sit up,” his instructions were usually like that, brief and gruff, John wasn’t a man of many words and praises like the one she had received earlier were most times infrequent. But still he meant them, he always did. Besides, Y/n didn’t need words to know that John appreciated her, it was in the respect he had for boundaries and how well he cared for her after their sessions were over, it was enough.

At least, it used to be.

Lately, Y/n had started to wish there could be more. She wanted to be more. More than a woman that was bound to him by a contract, more than his dirty little secret and his designated play thing. But she wouldn’t say it, being with him like that was better than losing him entirely.

When Y/n sat up, John positioned himself behind her, gently pulling her wrists together- he was never rough unless it was during the act itself, restraining them behind her back with a pair of leather cuffs. Next, he fastened the strap of the gag to her face, and just before he moved the hard-plastic ball to her mouth, he asked, “Is this still okay?”

“Yes sir,” she nodded diligently.

“You won’t be able to use your safe word,” he explained firmly, “But you’ll have this instead,” from his nightstand, John got out a little blue ball. It was the kind people bought for small children or dogs, that made a squeaking noise when squeezed tight enough. Y/n was familiar with the contraption, they’d used it whenever John wanted her mouth…..otherwise occupied. “Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” Y/n nodded again.

“Good,” he fit the little ball in one of her palms, “Try it out; squeeze it twice, that’s the signal I want you to use if you need me to stop,” much to John’s satisfaction, Y/n gave the ball a couple squeezes and it made it’s little childish noise. “Good girl,” he praised and Y/n thought it was a little out of turn when he kissed the crown of her head before fitting the gag between her lips and urging her to lay back. Without a moment to waste, he was re-positioned between her spread legs, peeling off her delicate, lace panties just before leaning over on either edge to secure them to hidden handles with another set of cuffs, those with longer chains.

When Y/n was sprawled out before him, gagged with lust blown eyes, completely wanton and ready for his taking, John barely took a minute to admire his handy work before his hands were on her. His calloused fingers started at her restrained ankles, skimming up her legs. His fingers sent shocks of her spine when they brushed her inner thigh, not staying too long there as he splayed one large palm on her stomach while the other traveled further upwards to cup her left breast. Harshly, John groped and squeezed, smiling slyly when Y/n arched her back as he twirled her hardened nipple between his stocky fingers.

Y/n’s sounds were muffled, but John enjoyed them nonetheless. He took her right breast in his other hand, playing with them as he shifted his gaze to between her thighs. Easily, he could see the sheen of slick arousal, her legs spread wide enough so he could have a salacious view of her clit too.

Despite his longing for release, John wanted to savor the moment and test Y/n’s limits. Leaning forward on his knees, he gently blew on her drenched cunt. One hand still toyed with her breast while he momentarily gripped her thigh, opening her up even further, with the other. His lips descended on her cilt and he sucked on the bundle of nerves while moving slip two digits inside her folds.

Y/n bucked her hips a bit and suddenly annoyed by her enthusiasm, John’s hand left her breast, pressing her down at the stomach, “None of that little one,” he warned, crawling up her body, until he was a hot breath away from her ear, John remained, “You’re my slut and you take what I give you, understand?” Y/n just whined for the loss of contact and John growled, “Do you understand?”

Meeting his dark gaze, Y/n didn’t let him ask a third time, nodded astutely, her ‘yes’ garbled by the ball gag. Wordlessly, John returned to his former task, that time running his flattened tongue running the length of her pussy lapping up her juices. His tongue invaded her core and it had Y/n aching for more, longing to grind on his face but knowing that some consequences weren’t worth it. Despite her gag, she tried to moan his name, desperate and already growing frustrated.

John’s lips found her bud again, alternating between sucking and flicking his tongue over the sensitive bundle of nerves as he re-introduced his fingers. Slowly, he pumped, slightly curling his digits in an expert, successful attempt to hit her G-spot. Y/n moaned around the plastic ball hampering her speech, saliva leaking out the side of her lips. She was so close, and they both knew it, Y/n could tell that the boil in her stomach was near the point of bubbling over and John could feel her walls starting to tighten around his fingers, but he wasn’t done with her yet.

Again, much to Y/n’s dismay, John stopped his ministrations and when she whined, he chuckled, “You don’t get to cum that easily,” his voice was gravely and his beard was coated with the glisten of her silky, moist arousal. His feather light kisses started at Y/n’s public bone, trailing upwards and temporarily lingering on her stomach before he finally took one of her breasts in her mouth, teasing her sensitive nipple with his teeth. With one elbow sunken into the memory foam, supporting his weight, John palmed her pussy with his other hand, feeling Y/n’s wetness on his palm, occasionally rubbing her mound with his thumb. Y/n’s moans became more frequent and that time, when she arched her back, tossing her head to the side and shutting her eyes, John didn’t reprimand her.

The edging continued for longer than Y/n had registered, though, by the time John kissed his way up the valley of her breasts, only stopping to lick her neck erotically, Y/n was a frustrated mess, unchecked tears escaping her shut lids. She longed to say his name, but her last sensible cell told her it wasn’t welcome there, Y/n knew her place.

“Open your eyes,” John urged, lining himself up with her longing entrance, “You know I like to see you,” his low, gravelly voice had Y/n’s eyes snapping opening, widening noticeably when John pushed into her, his cock stretching her familiarly. Drinking in the sight below, John let his hardness remain unmoving, nestled in Y/n’s wet haven for a minute.

Rapt with desire, his gaze locked with hers as he conjured up a rough, almost selfish pace. One calloused grip held her steady at the hip, the other held up his weight, holding him high enough so he could enjoy the way her boobs bounced with each violent movement. She attempted to crook her legs at the knees, but her ankle cuffs vastly limited their movement. Y/n’s heels were buried in the sheets, but John couldn’t have cared less, his housekeeper could deal with that, hell, he could buy new ones.

The sound of skin slapping skin; his balls assaulting her core joined the filthy symphony that was his throaty grunts intertwined with Y/n’s stifled yelps. John’s jaw was clenched and beads of exertion had started to build up on their skin despite the air conditioning.

It hurt, but in the best ways possible. His member stretched Y/n wider than anyone else’s ever had and it was difficult for her to keep up with the aggressive rolling of his hips. Time spent with John was usually like that, it was how he got off; the control, his ability to bring pain and pleasure at once, and of course, being able to use her to his liking.

As he drew closer to his climax, John growled, sliding his hand from Y/n’s side to firmly palm a swollen breast, his mouth descending on her neck, biting and sucking on her pulse point, reveling in her scent. “Cum for me,” he eventually ordered, “I want to feel your cunt squeeze my cock baby.”

Y/n’s head pressed into the black sea of silk, her hair fanned out around her as her eyes rolled back. Her toes curled as her body trembled in ecstasy, her walls clenching around John, stiffening his pace and she came around him, her warmth spilling out; coating her thighs and dripping onto his sheets. John rode out Y/n’s orgasm, half smiling triumphantly as her smaller body quaked; pleasure that he’d brought coursing through her veins, “That’s it,” he praised through gritted teeth.

Before her body could settle, John pulled out, aiming his cock to the valley of her breasts as Y/n tried to prop herself on her joined elbows. He pumped his length vigorously to keep up momentum, using her juices as lubrication. Within seconds, he was coating her chest with generous spurts of hot, creamy cum. Y/n watched intently, enjoying the moment just as much as he was, loving the feeling of his product dribbling down from her nipples onto her stomach, trying to smile when stray drips caught her neck and face.

When they were finished, John undid the cuffs and gag, pulling on a pair of lounge pants before scooping Y/n’s tired body up his strong arms, holding her against his bare chest as he took her to his large, adjoining bathroom. He drew her a bath, helping Y/n wash herself with a gentle rubs from a loofah and the lather of a fragrant body wash, all from outside the of tub- he rarely got in with her, unless of course, he was in the mood. The after care process was a lengthy one, though John was a patient man, and Y/n liked being taken care of. After her bath, he helped her dry her hair and get dressed in an outfit he’d bought her a while back; a grey-blue, soft, cotton button up dress with capped sleeves and a ‘v’ shaped neckline. Her shoes and coat came next and it was late when John was finally walking Y/n down the stairs, to the front door of his Upper East Side townhouse, his hand stationed low on her back. He went through the motions of unlocking the wrought iron and glass double doors, “I’ll be meeting with a client for dinner on Friday night, you need to make yourself available.”

“Yes John,” outside of scenes, rules were slightly laxed; Y/n was still expected to respect and obey, but there was still room for her to look at him directly and use his first name, “When would you like me to be ready for?”

“Seven thirty,” John’s hand closed around the barn handle, “I want you to buy a new dress,” he explained sternly, signaling that it wasn’t up for debate, though, his orders typically weren’t, “Get something in mauve, I like how that looks on you. Just above your knees. Go to that place on Madison Avenue, the one I usually take you to.”

“Okay,” she nodded quaintly, waiting until he bid her goodnight before walking to her car, parked on the curb. Without as much as a smile, John watched as she got into her cool grey, hatchback Lexus Hybrid, the one he’d bought her, making sure she closed the door and got the engine started before shutting the front door.

When John was out of sight, Y/n, threw her head back on the leather rest, tossed her bag to the passenger seat and gripped the wheel tightly, with all intentions of pulling off. Though, after a minute of just letting herself sink into her thoughts, her breath caught and Y/n began sobbing quietly. Lately, leaving was a part of their arrangement that she had started to hate; leaving meant that they weren’t really a couple, and though it was a fact she always knew, it had recently started to hurt.

When did it happen?

How did it happen?

Y/n didn’t have an answer, but she did know that somewhere along the line, John had stopped being just her ‘dom’, even if he didn't know it, and she had fallen in love with him. And the worst part was, he would never love her back.

*******

Tagging- @harrisongslimited @magnificentclodpiebanana

#keanu reeves #keanu reeves x reader #John wick x reader #john wick x you #keanu reeves x you #John Wick #oneshot #john wick oneshot #keanu reeves oneshot #angst #john wick fanfic #john wick fanfiction #ff #fanfic #fanfiction

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scarlettrose0 · 3 years

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Abortion & Forced Organ Donation

Forced Organ Donation & Abortion Why I don’t need to agree with forced organ donation in order to believe that abortion is wrong.

The Argument Forcing a woman to remain pregnant by denying her an abortion is like forcing her to donate all her bodily organs to sustaining another life. Unless you also believe that it’s okay in general to force people to donate their organs to sustain the lives of others, you hold a hypocritical and illogical position and your opinion can be dismissed. If you don’t believe that it’s okay in general to force people to donate their organs to sustain the lives of others, then you have no grounds for then thinking that it’s okay to force the pregnant woman to donate hers to sustain the life of the embryo/foetus.

The Problems with this Argument 1. Firstly, I’m going to take issue with pregnancy being described as organ or tissue donation, when it is nothing of the kind.The pregnant woman does not donate her uterus to her unborn child. The uterus is designed to house the unborn child, and to say that this means that it is donated to the unborn child is akin to saying that a women’s vagina is donated to a man during sexual intercourse, or that a nursing mother’s breasts are donated to her breastfeeding child. An organ used as it was intended to be used by another human being does not constitute a donation. Similar to the above, the pregnant woman does not make a tissue donation of her endometrial lining (which would otherwise be discarded during menstruation) to the unborn child, as this is the intended use of the endometrium. The pregnant woman does not donate her blood to the unborn child. Unlike an actual donation of blood, where the blood is removed from the donor and placed into the recipient, no blood is removed from the mother and no blood is placed into the embryo. Bear with me, because it does get somewhat technical in order to demonstrate this;- Until three weeks after conception, the embryo receives oxygen and nutrients via the trophoblast, which is the precursor to the placenta and forms the outer layer around the embryo. Picture the trophoblast as an eggshell, and and the embryo as the egg yolk. The trophoblast is in contact with lacunae, which are cavities within the endometrium that are filled with maternal blood. Material diffuses from the lacunae through the trophoblast and to the embryo.– At two weeks after conception, the embryonic circulatory system begins to form. By three weeks after conception, embryonic blood is moving through capillaries (very small blood vessels) within the chorionic villi, which can be pictured as stalks sprouting from the layers surrounding the embryo. These villi project into the lacunae, and material diffuses from the blood in the lacunae into the embryonic blood vessels, where it is circulated via the embryonic cardiovascular system, which – by the end of the third week – includes a beating heart.– The pregnant woman does not donate her body to the unborn child. Her body systems do work together to provide nutrition and shelter for the unborn child, but to claim that this is akin to organ or tissue donation makes no more sense than claiming that my use of my body to provide nutrition and shelter to my three born children is akin to organ or tissue donation.

2. It doesn’t take into account the relative rights at stake. By this I am saying that it fails to recognise the difference between not acting to save a life (non-organ donation) and acting to end a life (abortion). It is important to realise here that my stance on abortion is based primarily on the concept that the unborn child, as a human being, deserves the same human rights as the rest of us.The key right here is the right not to be arbitrarily killed. Other rights of the unborn child are also violated by abortion, but this one is the most outstanding. However, refusing to donate an organ does not result in the arbitrary killing of the ill individual. We have a right not to be killed; we do not have a right not to die. The most relevant right for the individual requiring an organ transplant is the right to health, but this only covers a right to ethical treatment, and so does not cover forcing another person to undergo a intervention in order to acquire treatment. Therefore no rights of the would-be organ recipient are violated by a refusal to donate.3. It minimises and trivialises the bodily autonomy of the unborn child while elevating the bodily autonomy of born human beings, including the pregnant women. Let me illustrate what I mean;A person dying of kidney disease MAY NOT violate the bodily autonomy of another in order to save their own life, even though death may considered one of the most drastic of consequences. A pregnant woman MAY violate the bodily autonomy of her unborn child in the most extreme manner in order to avoid the continuation of her state of pregnancy. So, on one hand we say that bodily autonomy is so important that we may not violate it even to save our own lives. On other hand, we say that bodily autonomy is so unimportant that we can violate it drastically in order to not be pregnant. The only way to escape this illogical conclusion is to argue that the unborn child does not deserve human rights – and I’ve yet to see one convincing argument on this presented to me.

4. It fails to mirror the state of pregnancy in its analogy of forced organ donation. Even if we were to ignore that pregnancy is not organ/tissue donation (see point 1) and pretend instead that it is in some way, it still does not resemble the organ/tissue donation that takes place between born human beings. For example, if I am pregnant, than the embryo or foetus is already using my uterus; the ‘donation’ has already taken place. The only way to stop the foetus using my uterus is to forcibly remove them, at the cost of their life. Likewise, after a kidney donation has taken place, the only to stop a donor recipient from using my kidney is to force them to undergo a surgical procedure and reclaim my kidney from their body. Regardless of how my kidney ended up in their body to begin with – forced, voluntary or as a foreseeable consequence of my own actions – most people would see that this remedy for reclaiming my bodily autonomy is not sufficiently justifiable.5. It fails to recognise that that granting a right does not grant every remedy to that right. I have a right to bodily autonomy, but I may not pursue any avenue that I feel is appropriate to exercise that right. To give an example, if I overheard a plan to kidnap me and forcibly remove my kidney in order to give it to the child of the main conspirator, and I know that the only way to stop this from taking place was to kill the unknowing and essentially innocent child, am I justified in doing so? I am not, even if this is the only remedy available that will uphold my right to bodily autonomy

6. It doesn’t differentiate between an active violation and a denial of intervention (e.g. operation to remove donor organ versus denial of abortion procedure). A doctor needs to meet a high bar to treat a patient without consent (example here), but a much lower bar to refuse to treat a patient (example here). An example in my own personal experience has been an elderly and demented female patient with a cancerous lesion in her gastrointestinal system. Should the surgical team discover spread of the cancer or other complications, they are well within their rights to refuse to perform surgery on this lady. However, they cannot decide of their own accord to perform surgery on her; not without the consent of the relevant family members.

The Challenge of this Argument

It was put to me that it is immoral to refuse to save a life when it is within your power to do so. I am inclined to agree somewhat with this, so how can I then defend myself from being called hypocritical when I fail to advocate for forced organ donation, but advocate for so-called forced pregnancy?The answer is that it doesn’t matter if I think refusing to donate an organ is immoral. For the above reasons listed, this argument is as relevant to pregnancy as suggesting that because I think lying is immoral, but don’t advocate for legislation banning it, I don’t have a right to advocate for the banning of abortion.

Conclusion:

Consideration of the unique situation of pregnancy, awareness of the affected rights of all individuals involved in both pregnancy and organ donation and recognition of the very significant differences between organ donation and pregnancy have led me to the conclusion that this argument, although seemingly relevant and powerful on the surface, can be refuted when it is thoroughly explored

#prolife #prochoice #abortion #bodily autonomy #reproduction rights #feminsm #women’s rights

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imnotokaywiththerunning · 3 years

Text

Aziraphale Descending

My third prompt fill for @goodomensbingo The prompt was ‘heaven’

Title: Aziraphale Descending Rating: Mature/Depictions of Violence Characters: Aziraphale, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Tags: hurt no comfort, seriously there is no comfort here, blood, bodily harm as punishment, pinioned wings Word count: 1.6k

Special thanks to Fae_Fiction for the beta and encouragement.

Read here under the cut or on AO3

Seriously heed the tags. This fic goes hard on the hurt and gets pretty dark.

Aziraphale walked steadily into the arena with Michael and Uriel on either side and Sandalphon at his back. If pride were not a sin, he might have felt proud of the fact that they thought three Archangels were needed to escort him to his trial. Especially as his nerves were so busy jumping from wingtip to wingtip with every step.

Aziraphale had known this was coming. Known since he had helped Eve cross the rubble of the Wall of Eden. Before that really. When God had asked Adam why he had fashioned clothes for himself out of fig leaves he had felt a cold spike of dread crawl down his back. He had failed in his duty to protect the inhabitants of the Garden from the Adversary. And now, here was his punishment.

Gabriel stood in the centre of the arena on a raised platform. His head was bowed in prayer as it always was before such events. All around the edges of the arena the entire Hosts of Heaven were gathered in silent awe. The only sounds were the quiet rustling of feathers and the slight echo of footsteps as Aziraphale was marched to the centre.

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel said warmly, looking up as the foursome joined him on the dais. His whole face was curved in a smile, but his purple eyes shone with a Divine fire that sent Aziraphale stumbling back into Sandalphon. Gabriel stepped up to Aziraphale and grasped him firmly by the shoulders. “I’m so glad you could come, Brother.”

“Of-of course,” Aziraphale stammered nervously. It wasn’t like he had had a choice in the matter, but Gabriel liked to be liked. And this was just another part of the ritual trials that had sprung up after the Fall.

Gabriel turned from him to address the Host with a grand sweep of his arms. “Aziraphale, Cherubim, Guardian of the Eastern Gate and Angel of the Flaming Sword,” he paused.” Your duty was to guard the Tree of Knowledge within the Garden of Eden, was it not?”

Gabriel had not spoken this to him but to the silent audience. Michael pinched Aziraphale’s arm when he was slow to answer. “It was,” he said quickly. “It is.”

“Was,” Gabriel said sharply, glaring back at Aziraphale momentarily. He smiled again at the Heavenly Host, asking conversationally, “Were you successful in guarding the Tree of Knowledge?”

“No,” Aziraphale answered, drawing himself to his full height. There was no use denying it. That was why they were all here after all. To see his punishment for his failure to protect Man from the Serpent. It was the same for every angel who failed to follow orders, at least now after the War of the Revolting Angels and the Great Fall. Order was kept in an iron fist- Gabriel’s iron fist with the other Archangels his clawing fingers.

“No,” Gabriel growled barely loud enough to be heard. “You weren’t.”

Aziraphale flinched. Something dangerous was bubbling just beneath Gabriel’s words. Something he did not want to think about. His vessel’s heart began to beat frantically in his chest trying to warn him of danger.

Gabriel began to pace the length of the dais, his footsteps a solemn death beat. “Your failure,” he said, raising his voice once more to the Hosts, “resulted in a Fall-- the Fall of Man. Man was made in our Mother’s image.”

At this Gabriel stopped at the dais’ centre and finally turned to address Aziraphale directly. “The last time a Fall occurred we were unfortunate to lose many of our brothers and sisters from our number. But I bring you good news, Aziraphale,” he said with a broad smile, closing the distance between them. “Today will not see a brother lost to us today.”

Aziraphale smiled nervously. He had never really considered the possibility that he might Fall. He could still feel the Almighty’s Grace flowing through him, reminding him of Her Love. Surely if he were destined to Fall he would have felt Her Grace fading. Aziraphale had made peace with the fact of his punishment, had thought he could take any punishment, but the loss of his Grace was nearly unthinkable.

“A price must still be paid for failure, Brother,” Gabriel said, drawing Aziraphale’s mind back into the arena. His eyes shone a fiery purple. “Do you accept your punishment, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale glanced around at the impassive faces surrounding him. There was no clue what exactly his punishment would be. But he had no choice. He had to accept whatever punishment Gabriel deemed necessary. He bowed his head. “I do.”

“Then bring forth your wings.”

He jerked his head back up. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Your wings, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said with calm patience, “bring them out. Now.”

Bewildered and cautious, Aziraphale hesitantly released his wings. He felt Sandalphon step back to avoid a face full of feathers. Aziraphale sighed as his two sets of wings sprouted from his back. His wings had been hidden inside his vessel since he had been sent to the Garden of Eden. Despite the reason for it, it felt nice to feel the full weight of his wings again.

Gabriel smiled toothily. “Knell, Aziraphale.”

Before he was finished speaking, Aziraphale was pushed to his knees. He let out a cry as his knees made contact with the unforgiving ground. He glared at Uriel and Michael, who still had a firm hold of his arms from where they had shoved him to the ground. They hadn’t even given him time to get down on his knees himself. Hewas beginning to believe that his punishment was going to be anything but normal.

“Clamp his wings.”

Four points of white-hot pain radiated from the joints of each of his wings. Aziraphale looked over his shoulder to see that Sandalphon had placed a large spiked clamp through each of his wing joints and was tying those clamps to rings that had sprouted up from the dais. He pulled at his wings in reflex and cried out in pain as the spikes dug deeper into his flesh. Uriel and Michael were still holding fast to his arms. He could not move.

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale gasped, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice and failing. The usual punishment for an angel disobeying orders was flogging. He knew this, but this wasn’t usually how they went about it. “Brother, what is this?”

Gabriel pulled a large knife made of celestial steel from within his robes. Aziraphale’s heart beat impossibly faster as he glanced from the blade to Gabriel’s impassive face. Surely not…

“Aziraphale, Cherubim, Guardian of the Eastern Gate and Angel of the Flaming Sword,” Gabriel proclaimed. “For your failure to protect the Tree of Knowledge and for your direct part in causing the Fall of Man, you are hereby being demoted.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Demoted? Gabriel, what does that mean?”

Gabriel smiled at him once again, this time filled with pity. “It means, Aziraphale, that you will no longer be a cherub. It means,” he said, turning the celestial blade so that it shone fully in the light, “that you’ll no longer need two sets of wings.”

A wave of horror washed over Aziraphale. Uriel and Michael held his arms even tighter, but it made no difference, he was numb. He couldn’t move even if he wanted. He looked helplessly up into Gabriel’s eyes.

“Gabriel, please,” he rasped. “Please, Brother. Surely there is another way.”

Gabriel glanced away and then knelt in front of Aziraphale. Aziraphale flinched as Gabriel raised his hand to cup his cheek gently. His thumb slowly wiped at Aziraphale’s tears. “Aziraphale,” he said gently, “this is a mercy.”

Hands gripped one of his wings and pulled. Aziraphale began to truly struggle. No angel-- not even Morningstar-- had ever been pinioned before. Just the thought of it was enough to make an angel’s blood run cold.

“No! No, please!” Aziraphale shouted, trying to escape the bruising grip on his arms. If only he could reason with Gabriel this could stop. His wing was pulled even tighter and he cried out from the strain. “Gabriel, please! This is madness! You can’t do this, please!”

The first cut was agonizingly slow. Aziraphale screamed. Gabriel sawed at the joint connecting Aziraphale’s wing to his back. Someone-- Sandalphon-- pulled at his wing, tearing away the tendons missed by the knife. The pain was uncontrollable. It rushed through both his mortal vessel and his true ethereal being like a flood.

A sharp crack sounded throughout the unnaturally quiet arena followed by a dull thud as a wing was thrown on the ground. Aziraphale saw the white feathers stained golden with his blood. He would have collapsed if not for Uriel and Michael holding him up. The pain was less sharp now that Gabriel wasn’t actively sawing at his wing, but the ache of his wings burned through him. Aziraphale tried to blink his eyes clear of tears. Sandalphon grabbed his other wing before he had time to recover and the knife fell to work again.

This time Aziraphale was ready for it. He closed his eyes against the pain, trying to stifle his screams. His throat felt raw, whimpers tearing through it like glass. Gabriel was quicker with the second wing. He had found the rhythm needed to saw effortlessly through his wing joint. That or Azirapahle had briefly lost consciousness. The next thing he knew, Michael and Uriel were pulling him up from his knees to make him stand. His eyes fixed on his two wings bleeding golden before him.

His legs refused to work from shock or blood loss or perhaps, he thought deliriously, from the deep aching grief that filled his chest that his brothers and sisters would do such a thing. With a scoff of disgust, Michael and Uriel gripped his arms to cruelly suspend him between them.

“Behold!” Gabriel shouted with a sweeping gesture back towards Aziraphale. “Aziraphale, Principality of Earth!”

#good omens bingo 2021 #good omens fic #good omens #tw//blood #tw//bodily harm #aziraphale #gabriel #michael #uriel #sandalphon #my writing #long post

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queenbirbs · 4 years

Text

the way home | Ch. 4 | Edward x MC

Pairing: Edward Mortemer x MC

Word count: 2,308

Warnings: language, violence, violence against women

Read from the beginning or continue on Read on AO3

Tag list: @writinghereandthere | @not-sewell

------

By the next week, they’ve sailed across most of the northern Caribbean.

Their crew hits a couple merchant ships and capsizes a few galleons. Captain Delaney is pleased when they manage to sink a frigate off the coast of New Providence, having some long-standing feud with the Royal Navy. Elena considers them to be kindred spirits in that regard. Attacking a royal vessel outright, though, paints a proverbial target on their back.

They anchor inside a cove on St. Fisher, a hole-in-the-wall port among the long string of islands in the Bahamas. Delaney sends the crew off in a jolly boat to retrieve supplies before trying for Cuba to hide out amongst the Spanish.

“He’s a moron for attacking them on their own turf,” Robert grumbles as they make their way through the town’s pastel-colored buildings.

Elena, too busy scanning the shoppers in the market, hums her agreement. The stall up ahead sells gaudy-looking trinkets that catch the sunlight as they swing in the ocean breeze. She wishes she could send one to her sister, somehow.

The cannonfire comes with no warning.

Discordant blasts echo across the port again and again and again with not a single pause. Thick, billowing clouds of smoke rise over the palm trees, darkening the blue sky. While everyone rushes deeper into town, Elena and Robert race towards the cove, slicing through the flora and fauna that block their path. Seconds before they reach the flat stretch of sand, he seizes her elbow and covers her mouth, just in time to muffle her cry at the scene before them.

Little Death is keeled over, resting on its starboard side as flames consume what remains above the waterline. Delaney is nowhere to be found. The crew who made it to shore in time lay sprawled across the beach. The whites of their skulls gleam amongst the blood and brain matter coating the sand around them, each shot execution-style.

“Their jolly boat’s missin’!” a navy officer calls out. “Search the island!”

“Shit. Fuck. Shit.”

“C’mon,” Robert growls as he swings her around and guides her back up their makeshift path. “We may not know this island, but--”

At the sound of men pushing down the path from town, he picks her up and bodily moves her into the forest’s thick foliage.

“What the hell are you--”

“Shut up!” he hisses, shoving her down into the cover of wide-leafed bush. “Stay here.”

“What’s your plan then, to offer yourself up on a platter?!” Elena grabs his coat and holds tight, preventing him from moving off. “That’s the stupidest--”

“I can distract them, give you enough time to circle back and find a better place to hide. They’ll shove off with me, then another ship’ll come by soon and need an extra hand.”

The sound of a pistol being cocked interrupts their hushed argument. In their crouched position, they both glance up to see swatches of dark blue uniforms peeking through the trees ahead.

“Come on out, now, the both of ye!” one of the sailors taunts.

Robert’s expression shutters as he rises to his feet and steps out onto the path.

“If it isn’t Robert Cutter himself!” the officer crows. “Performed quite the disappearing act on us a few years back. Looks like fate caught up with you, though, hmm?”

“Looks like,” he mocks. Two of the lackeys grab hold of each arm; he bites back a grunt when the officer punches him in the stomach.

“And where’s yer lady friend?” one of the sailors asks. “Come on out, miss. Don’t be shy!”

Realizing that staying hidden is a hopeless tactic, Elena makes her way out of cover. Three of the men whistle at her, while the officer leers at her with something akin to delight.

“I shoulda known the two of you would be mixed-up in this. Sinking a crown vessel, that’s child’s play for you two. Murdering a governor and an admiral is more yer style, idn’t it?”

As one of the sailors strips her of her weapons, Elena glares at the officer. Though she can’t recall his name, he’s one of the men who stormed the beach while defending the Admiral.

“We’re innocent of both those crimes,” she says. “Though I don’t expect you’ll believe me.”

His shoulders shake with a sardonic chuckle.

“No, I’m afraid not. Yer a pirate -- you only know how to do two things with that mouth of yers. The first is lying and the second is su--”

Elena grabs him by the shoulder and headbutts him. The officer caterwauls and clutches his nose. Blood trickles down his chin and drips onto his uniform in fat, red splotches. She hides her wince as Robert laughs long and hard, ignoring the sailors’ orders to shut up. “You bitch! I saw you make off with the Admiral. You dragged him inside that temple and sacrificed him to Satan himself!”

“She’s a witch?” one of the sailors asks.

“I thought she were a pirate,” another mutters.

“I’m not a witch,” Elena scoffs. “And, for the last time, I didn’t kill your admiral.”

“I don’t care what you are!” The officer yanks a handkerchief from his coat and dabs it against his nose. “Right now, yer a means to an end. We’ve heard all about the bounty on yer head. We’ll use you to draw Mortemer out. Besides, what’s better than catching one pirate?”

“Two pirates!” one of the sailors cackles.

“Well, technically,” Robert says, “you’ve already got two of us here--”

“Oh, shut up, Cutter!” the officer spits. “Take them down to the beach, men.”

The bickering around her fades to an annoying buzz as she trudges along the path. If they do manage to get word to Edward, she knows there’s no force that will stop him from coming after her. That he would be walking straight into a trap would cross his mind, and then he would do it anyway. Elena can’t fault him for it, because she would do the same. And, if it weren’t for the high probability of being executed, she would go along with it. But she doesn’t want their long-awaited reunion to be side-by-side at the gallows.

She comes to a sudden stop. The caravan of men behind her scowl and curse.

“What’re you doin’? Keep movin’!”

She digs her boots into the sand, lurching when the sailor beside her shoves her hard. Turning to catch Robert’s eye, she snatches the sailor’s pistol from his holster and takes aim.

“Run.”

Robert yanks free as she fires. The sailor shouts and grabs his bleeding arm, falling back when the other two come rushing forward. She twirls the pistol in her grip and smacks it upside another’s head, using the momentum to shove him into the bushes. The third man tackles her from the side and they crash down onto the sand. Struggling for control, Elena manages to work her leg underneath his massive form and lands a solid kick between his legs. The officer rushes over just as the man rolls off, clutching his injured pride.

“Restrain her, you fucking--” he cuts off his own order with a sharp cry. He collapses onto his ass, clutching his leg as blood soaks his white breeches. “She-- she shot me! Get that pistol from her, you idiots!”

A massive weight crushes her from behind and shoves her down onto her stomach. The sailor she shot slams his fist into her side, knocking the wind out of her. Elena gasps for air, choking on bits of sand. He plucks the pistol from her loosened grip with ease.

“Hold her down,” the officer demands. “She’ll be less trouble if she’s unconscious.”

Fear pounds through her chest when the sailor’s hand seizes a chunk of her hair and yanks her up. The last thing she sees is the pistol coming down.

Underneath him, her body goes limp. He waits a few more seconds before pulling a length of rope from his pocket. After tying her up with a decent-enough knot, he sits up to assess his arm and check on his crew.

“Oi,” he grumbles as he glances down the path, “where’d Cutter go?”

------

The brig’s interior becomes a familiar sight by the second day.

That’s how long Elena thinks she’s been down here. The solitary porthole above her head is caked with too much filth to let any proper light in. So, she calculates the hours by the sorry excuses for meals that they bring her. A few crumbs of hardtack and bits of dried mystery meat make up most of her diet.

Waking up on a cell floor with her hands and feet bound wasn’t an enjoyable moment. If she could rate it, she’d give it a solid zero out of ten. Especially when that immediate rush of panic ebbed to allow a fresh wave to roll over her: she was being carted along to be killed.

The one plus side of her new accomodations, though, is the cold wall of the hull. It’s as good as any cold compress against her injured body. What she wouldn’t give for one of those ibuprofens she stowed away in her duffel bag -- the bag that’s buried on the outskirts of town on Santo Domingo.

She hopes that Robert was able to escape. She hopes that he was able to get word to Edward not to come after her. She hopes that when Edward inevitably ignores the warning and comes anyway, she manages to intercept him herself. What’s that old saying about if wishes were horses?

Footsteps on the stairs tear Elena from her woolgathering. The slow, measured pace of them tells her who it is before he shows his face.

“How’s the leg?” she asks when the officer steps in front of her cell door.

Officer Horowitz levels a grimace at her, his lips turning inward with disgust. He drops the wooden plate in his hand and kicks it underneath the door with his good leg; the meager contents spill across the dirty planks. Elena glances down at her dinner and back up at him. “I’m giving your presentation a one out of five stars on Yelp.”

“That nonsense yer spouting has gotten old,” he spats. “It’s a good thing, then, that we’re about to anchor. You and yer pirate captain’ll be dancin’ in the gallows soon enough.”

She bites back that daunting feeling of failure and settles back against the wall with a shrug.

“Sounds like I don’t have much time, then. I guess I should come clean with my sins and all that.”

“I haven’t the slightest interest in hearing about yer--”

“Really?” She tilts her head and studies him. “You don’t want to know what I did with the Admiral?”

Horowitz bristles at the name, but shakes his head.

“I don’t want to hear the gristly details of yer sick, ritualistic--”

“For the last time,” Elena says with a dramatic sigh, “I didn’t kill him. I opened up a hole in the universe, and I put him in it.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“It’s not, really. It was as easy as tying your shoe. If you know how to do that, of course. I don’t like to presume.”

Crossing his arms across his chest, he scoffs.

“Then where is he?”

“I sent him to his worst nightmare: a place with no one to listen to him. There’s this remote island in the south Atlantic Ocean, about twelve-hundred miles from Argentina. Sorta like The Cask of Amontillado -- which you’ll sadly never get to read, it’s a great story -- but on forty square miles of uninhabited land. And without chaining him up or burning him alive.”

“You marooned him,” he surmises.

“Marooning him implies that I gave him some food and a gun. But I didn’t. The island won’t be discovered until 1767. The Spanish explorers name it Isla de Aislamiento -- that means ‘Isolation Island.’ Upon arrival, they’ll find the oddest thing: a human skeleton, wearing what appears to be a British naval uniform and a few medals.”

“I don’t believe a word you say.” Clenching his hands along the cell door, he sneers at her. “Yer a filthy, goddamned liar. How are you to know the future?”

“I read about it.”

Which is the truth, but Elena knows how little that will matter. After teaming up with Robert upon her first arrival back to her time, she found herself curious about Admiral Cochrane’s fate. After coming across a man with an identical rank and surname, she worried that she’d made a mistake and sent him farther into the future, that maybe he’d managed to escape and make something of himself. But the portrait of the other Admiral Cochrane, famed for losing the Battle of New Orleans, resembled nothing of the man she’d dealt with.

Eventually, one of Robert’s many contacts sent her the diary entry of a Spanish explorer that detailed their unusual discovery. They left the corpse where it lay and pilfered the medals to melt down and mash into coins. The entry was as good as any death certificate.

Judging by the look of disgust on his face, Horowitz doesn’t seem to find her explanation all that funny.

“I knew you were a witch the first time I saw you. No matter how you spin it, I know that you killed the Admiral. Watching you two hang will be the highlight of my year.”

He spits at her through the door and turns to go. Elena waits for the sound of his uneven footfalls to fade before she slumps back against the wall. Despite the heavy weight on her shoulders, she can’t help the small sliver of joy at knowing Edward is near. Horowitz had all but confirmed it, with his gleeful chatter about them hanging together.

She just has to make sure that part doesn’t come to pass.

------

References:

A few Uncharted ones, but they’re all very minuscule. Think of them like the hidden pictures puzzles in those Highlight Magazines they always had in waiting rooms when you were a kid.

#distant shores #edward x mc #edward mortemer #distant shores fic #choices #Kaila writes things #f: the way home

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lavieenprose · 4 years

Text

on being ill

“On Being Ill” isn’t just making a case for illness as a literary subject, but for the brute, bare fact of the body itself. By insisting we acknowledge that we sweat and crave and itch all day (“all day, all night”), Woolf reminds us we have the right to speak about these things—to make them lyric and epic—and that we should seek a language that honors them. The man who suffers a migraine, she writes, is “forced to coin words himself, taking his pain in one hand and a lump of pure sound in the other.” What does it sound like, this strange, unholy language of nerves and excretions? How do we articulate the kind of pain that refuses language? We throw up our hands, or we hurl our charts: one through ten, bad to worse, from the smiley face to its wretched, frowning cousin.

Woolf’s argument may have been more urgent in her time than in ours—we have more records of the “daily drama of the body” now than we did then—but when I first read her battle cry, her call to arms (not just arms but legs and teeth and bones), it felt like encountering a long-lost relative: the banner I’d never known I’d always been fighting under: Bodies matter—we can’t escape them—they’re full of stories—how do we tell them? Her argument might have the urgency of a battle cry but it’s also vulnerable; it’s posing questions; it’s got mess and nerve—it’s leaking some strange fluid from beneath its garments, hard to tell in the twilight, maybe pus or tears or blood. Even her syntax feels bodily—full of curves and joints and twists, shifting and stretching the skin of her sentences.

People have often told me my own writing seems to be all about bodies. A woman from a writing workshop once suggested I call my collection of stories Body Issues. (I didn’t have a collection of stories: If I did, I wouldn’t have called it that.) But I’ve never wanted to write about “the body,” by which I mean I’ve never set out with that explicit intention; I’ve only ever wanted to write about what it feels like to be alive, and it turns out being alive is always about being in a body. We’re never not in bodies: that’s just our fate and our assignment. (In her beautiful memoir The Two Kinds of Decay, Sarah Manguso writes that she despises “the body” whenever it describes anything but a corpse, and I love that, though I use the phrase constantly anyway.) To my mind, the more aggressive choice is writing that isn’t physical; this insistence carries the burden of intentional absence.

All that said, I’ve always felt a certain shame about the ways my writing keeps coming back to bodies, which is why I loved finding Woolf. My shame felt such relief at the prospect of her company. My first novel was all about addiction and eating disorders and sex, and there was food everywhere, some of it gone rotten. I used the word “sweat” too many times (my editor told me); there were too many fluids (my editor told me) and far too many bruises (my editor told me) and even worse, too many of these bruises were “plum-colored”—for this last one (my editor told me), we would both get mocked, if we didn’t get rid of some of these plum-colored bruises right away. A certain shame hung over the whole narrative, like a faint body odor I couldn’t smell because it was mine: There was too much body, and this too-much-body risked banality and melodrama at once. I’ve always wondered if this shame about writing about the body is connected to the shame of quasi-autobiographical writing, that sense of failing to imagine beyond one’s own experience. Is writing about bodily experience somehow the extreme form of this failure, the ultimate solipsism? You haven’t even gotten beyond your own nerve endings; it’s no accident they call it navel gazing.

I often think of an old painting I once saw that shows an injured body pointing at its own open wounds. The most graceful victim, of course, is the one who doesn’t need to point at his holes or ask for sympathy—who doesn’t take up the lump of pure sound, who just keeps quiet. The way I imagine being scolded goes something like this: There’s something selfish about talking about bodies too much if the bodily experience fueling everything is your own.

I often think, also, of a cross-country race I ran in 10th grade: I tripped on a slab of concrete sticking up from the dirt, about a hundred meters after the start, when the pack was still dense; and I was trampled by the horde of 15-year-old girls running behind me. It was pretty minor, as tramplings go. But still, it was a trampling. I got up to run the next three miles of the race but I was shaken up and bleeding. I wasn’t running well at all—nothing close to what I’d need to do to place well for our team.

When I reached my coach, who was calling out our one-mile splits, she said something to the effect of “Why are you running so slow?”—only perhaps not so delicately phrased. I remember the awkward way I tried to point at my own wounds without slowing my (turtle) pace; and I remember how badly I wanted her to see the streaks of dirt-clotted blood; I almost stumbled again in my urgent need to show her the proof of my stumbling.

That memory has become the vessel for a certain kind of shame—the shame of pointing too overtly at what hurts, jamming the laser-pointer of language at some wound and then expecting it to yield wisdom or explanation. My coach didn’t want the epic or lyric account of my damaged body, she just wanted me to keep running, and hopefully pick up the pace.

I’m still haunted by the specter of myself in this moment—a mute form pointing, bleeding. A few years after that race I spent a couple months actually mute: I’d gotten jaw surgery and they’d wired my jaw shut to help it heal. During those months I wrote quite frequently but it was mainly practical, because I couldn’t talk. I requested things by scribbling them in a little notebook: vicodin, please; okay ensure (my mom was always foisting Ensure on me), but are there any cans of dark chocolate left? HATE butter pecan. I asked for sheets draped over the mirrors, so I wouldn’t see my swollen face; I asked for the pair of scissors that I was supposed to keep on-hand in case I vomited and needed to cut the wires between my teeth.

Eventually I started writing poems about those quiet weeks, and the surgery before them, the days in the hospital. The poems were full of IV lines and numbness and feeling returning after numbness like water oozing back into crab holes in damp sand (“crackling lines of hurt,” I wrote). I imagined myself the bard of swelling; I wanted to write toothache lyrics for swelling—to evoke the chronic panic of its deforming sculptural practice: it shapes you into something like you, but not you. I wanted to bring that aching knowledge to my nonexistent reading public.

I turned the poems into a series and then I turned them in to my undergraduate writing workshop. The series was called “Waiting Room,” meaning the waiting room before surgery but also the injury afterward as a waiting room—get it?—the aftermath as the cramped little chamber where you wait to get better; where you have to keep waiting even once it seems like you should already be there.

I wasn’t satisfied with the poems. Pain was hard to describe. I encountered Elaine Scarry’s famous formulation—“pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it”—which recognized but did not solve the problem. My workshop wasn’t satisfied with the poems either. Everyone wanted to know: What were they about? I thought it was pretty fucking self-evident, but no, it was a different problem: My classmates got that these poems were about pain and injury—maybe in a dental office?—but what were they really about? My workshop was thinking everything must be a metaphor for something else: the cut lines on raw gums, the self-quieting sparkle of anesthesia. But in truth, nothing was a metaphor for anything. It was more or less this happened, and it hurt. There was nothing below the surface.

At the time I took this as a verdict of poverty and lack—which is why I loved finding Woolf, so many years later, who seemed to be saying, the surface of the body isn’t poverty; it isn’t lack. She rose from the dead for the express purpose of silencing that workshop, or at least arguing against the notion that there had to be something besides bodies for these poems to matter. She was saying the surface is poetry; bodies are poetry; or poetry can be made of what these bodies need and crave and bleed and feel.

I felt her summoning an army, everyone I’d ever read whose language does some justice to the way our bodies are, the ways they betray us or bind us together: Walt Whitman’s greed to catalogue the physical forms of his countrymen, William Faulkner’s fixation on muddy drawers and the waft of honeysuckle; Marcel Merleau-Ponty’s insistence on the body as an “eloquent relic of existence.”

Woolf writes: “It is not only a new language that we need, more primitive, more sensual, more obscene, but a new hierarchy of the passions; love must be deposed in favour of a temperature of 104; jealousy give place to the pangs of sciatica.” I can see the way these marching orders have infected my own prose—even this piece, with its twisting, bodily contortions—and the way they’ve helped me claim a dialect I’d been afraid was junk, a ledger of the body’s travails, not the “Waiting Room” poems (which weren’t really that great) but the notebooks I kept when my jaw was wired silent, full of their banal complaints and requests: Vicodin, please. Where are the vomit scissors? These are daily dramas of the body, charged with force and longing; the record Woolf never found, the words that pain and pure sound made.

#Leslie Jamison #virginia woolf #being ill

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littlefreya · 4 years

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The Way to Hell - Part 4

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it or parts of the source material and claiming it as your own*

Summary: Post Mi6 - August manages to escape with his face intact and just won himself the title of being the most dangerous man on earth. With every agent in the world on the hunt for him, life became a living hell, but that’s okay because hell is where he reigns.

Too bad for the woman who’ll stand in his way.

Pairing: August Walker x OFC (Ingvild)

Word count: 6K

Warnings: Explicit Smut, dark themes, male/female masturbation, bodily fluids, mentions of sexual encounters, dirty words, sexual threats. It’s August, he’s the baddest of bad boys!

A/N: Soooooo this chapter was fun to write, I hope you guys like it :)! Thanks @agniavateira for being my editor and my emotional support!

Title: Memento Mori

Funny, he’s never seen someone drown in icy water before. With her injury and massive blood loss, the struggle doesn’t last longer than a minute. This is beyond her natural survival instincts, gradually her muscles give up, running stiff as the blood in her veins chills.

August stares with rapt. Not once did the Valkyrie scream for help, or even begged him to save her.

Truth be told, it kinda pisses him off as much as he finds it admirable.

‘Such a strong-willed girl. Would be a shame to rid the world of her so soon.’

“Whatever,” he mutters and carefully steps toward the crack in the ice. His hands hoist the body up before she sinks below the surface. With water in her lungs and her muscles rigid, she’s impossibly heavier.

A red path of blood tarnishes the ice as he drags her body toward the edge of the lake. There is no urgency in his behaviour, relaxed he kneels to stare at the lifeless woman and wonders if in her hubris this is how she believed this day will end.

Her skin is pale blue, lips dark purple. Drained out of wit and life, those delicate Scandinavian features look like something out of a fairytale and he muses whether a kiss will wake her up.

It won’t make any difference to the world if she’s dead or alive, it certainly won’t make any to August Walker.

His digits stroke her frozen cheek, sensing the skin is stretched over the hardened muscles. He tilts her head up and presses at the hollows of her cheeks to force her lips open. For some reason, he thinks of a different dead girl, though they are nothing alike.

Planting his mouth over hers, he breathes oxygen into her lungs. Her chest rises, filling with the air he breathes into her. He repeats the process four times and then begins compressing her heart, watching her corpse lie peacefully on the snow.

Never in his years of service had he needed to perform CPR on another person. It’s not as melodramatic as shown in the bullshit movies he’s seen; no one’s shouting “C’mon girl! Breathe!!!” and hits her chest in despair. The owls and bats that chant between the large trees and the wolves howling at the moon from a distance couldn’t care less if Ingvild, whatever her-last-name-is lives or dies.

On the contrary, they’ll be thrilled to eat her eyes out.

He pauses on his attempt to resuscitate her and watches as no change appears in her face. His hands rest in the air, hovering above her for less than a second, considering if to give her another chance. He leans to capture her mouth again when Ingvild suddenly twitches, gagging as water seeps through her mouth and nose like some decorative fountain.

August observes quietly. Her eyes are shut, her body is only reacting instinctively, coughing out the water in her lungs. He nudges her to the side, draining the water out until she stops coughing and lays unconscious on the ground.

He moves his ear closer, listening to her soft breaths. He wonders how long will she survive in such a condition, suffering from hypothermia and massive blood loss. Letting her drown might have been a favour, he might have just granted her a cruller death.

Blackness surrounds her, chaining her to the ground. An excruciating pain blossoms in her lungs, as if someone placed a massive weight that smothers her while her throat and her nose sear with pain. The rest of her body feels numb, someone might as well leave her limbless.

The image in front of her appears blurry as she attempts to open her eyes and hang on to the tendrils of reality, uncertain when and where she is and what happened at all. Was life just a dream?

Or was it a nightmare?

‘Liam?’

No voice is produced from her lips, she is not even sure they’re moving.

The face that greets her is certainly not Liam. It’s the man who granted her this agonizing death. He looks at her with silent curiosity, not saying a word as her glassy eyes become more and more vibrant.

Her hands suddenly reach to his throat, clutching him with all the energy left in her traumatized body. As battered as she is, he still has to use force to peel her claws off of him. She struggles, grunting and hissing, her nails leave bleeding scratches over his cheek.

“Remember you are only alive for as long as I permit it.” August speaks to her calmly, impressed by her stubborn will to kill him even when she’s hanging by the last thread of her pathetic life.

The struggle takes no longer than a few seconds as her eyes roll back and she falls to the ground, unconscious again.

August collects her in his arms and rises, carrying her through the woods. “Better this way, princess,” he whispers to the sleeping beauty in his arms. The temperature of the water has slowed the bleeding, causing the blood vessels to clot and reduce the pace of her heartbeat. It benefits in keeping her alive, but it’s also slowly killing her.

He returns to the bed and breakfast to be greeted by the receptionist who stares at him, baffled.

“Too much to drink,” he explains, offering her a charming smile as he continues marching toward his room with the unconscious girl in his arms.

~*~

“Fucking mess,” he mutters as he enters the room and shuts the door behind him with his leg. That stab wound may be bleeding slower now, he hasn’t ruptured any viable organs. However, the gash in her flesh is large and still needs to be dressed.

He drags her to the bath and puts her on her feet, letting her limp body lean onto his while he unzips her suit and boots, stripping her to her undergarments. A crescent-like slit gushes blood at the side of her abdomen.

August places her in the empty bathtub before grabbing the first aid kit he bought at the hunters’ shop. Being a wanted man now, he had to be prepared for everything.

It was nearly him tonight that needed that first aid kit.

The scent of alcohol fills the room as he pours it onto her open wound. He waits for a response from her, maybe a twitch from the excruciating pain, yet Ingvild is so far gone she doesn’t react whatsoever. His finger presses to the tendon in her neck, only to make sure he is not taking care of a dead girl.

A faint pulse is there; her heart still beats. Yet her body is as cold as ice, and he knows that if he won’t take care of her soon her systems will begin to shut down one organ after the other. He sews her wound shut quickly, making unfashionable stitches across the wound.

“Sorry love, no more bikini for you.” he mocks the sleeping girl. “Although porn sites must be filled with scar-porn, so you’re good.”

After stitching her up and dressing the wound, he carries her back to the bedroom and lays her on the bed. Her skin is shivering, frozen and pale as death itself. She has hypothermia and needs to have her body temperature stabilized before every one of her major organs will go into failure.

“Not how I pictured us getting into bed naked,” August jokes without humour while beginning to peel off his clothes until he is completely bare. He towers over her trembling form and watches how helpless she appears. His hands run down her spine, reaching to find the hooks of her bra. It takes no effort to unclasp the flimsy soaked fabric and discard it on the floor. Next, he coldly and methodically slips her underwear off.

He takes no pleasure in stripping an unconscious woman who can’t defend herself or struggle, yet he cannot resist observing what’s laid right in front of his eyes.

The sight is indeed pleasing.

‘Hate me later, princess. I am just a man.’

August climbs onto the bed and lies in front of her. He pulls her toward the warmth of his body until her forehead is pressed against his chest and every inch of her skin is covered by his own. With a clenched jaw, he holds her close.

In his arms she trembles, teeth chattering, while her heartbeat is feeble and can be hardly felt against his chest.

He thinks of nothing while holding the cold, half-dead girl against him.

Nothing at all.

Not the memory of another dead girl.

~*~

Ingvild scratches a scab on her knee, watching the other girls as they play without her. They stick their tongue at her and call her a freak. She doesn’t cry, only sniffles gently while her small fingers pry at the itchy skin.

“Ingvild,” Sister Marja walks toward her, making a sour face as she sees the girl. She never liked her either. “Someone is here to pick you up, finally.”

Little Ingvild jumps from the dirty log she is sitting on, brushing her skirt and arranging her braided pigtails before joining Sister Marja. ‘That uptight crone, all she needs is a good fuck.’

The sister hurries toward the orphanage while Ingvild runs after to keep up. Her heels echo on the floor through the arched hallway of the facility.

A man waits for them in the office of the Mother Superior, Yet another crone who looks like she never had a good fuck. But there is a smile on her face, making her loose skin become all creases and wrinkles like a dried rotten potato.

Ingvild looks at the man who stands with his hands behind his back. His hair is black with few threads of silver. She is uncertain if he is smiling or not; the expression on his face is of a person who’s trying to appear pleasant but in a very contained way.

“Ingvild, this is Liam.” Mother Superior speaks in her terrible heavy smoker voice. “He is your new adoptive father.”

~*~

Warm light strokes her face, forcing her eyes to blink open slowly. A basic function that suddenly feels oddly painful. Her eyelids are too heavy as if she never opened her eyes before in her life. The scenery around her is still too vague; she doesn’t recognize the room at all, wondering if she is in another dream.

A word in her own language blurts out of her mouth as she tries to sit up, accompanied by a small groan. Everything feels out of place as if her limbs have been misplaced and her internal organs exploded inside her body. Pain begins to course through her body, starting with the muscle of her right forearm which now feels extremely strained.

“Ah…” she grunts out, tugging at her arm which is in an odd position.. But for some reason, her arm won’t budge. It’s tied to the bedpost above her head by a tight rope.

‘This is hilarious. Like watching a dog wake up from anaesthesia.’

“Hva?” she asks in her mother’s tongue. “What?”

She gives the bind a few good moments of struggling before giving up. It’s when the heavy blanket that covers her slightly descends from her chest. She realizes she’s been completely stripped of her clothes.

Panicked, she hugs the cover to her chest with her free hand. Her eyes were looking around with slight anxiety while she continues to pull her right hand in an attempt to free herself.

The scent of coffee tickles at her nose, alerting her that she is not alone.

August appears in front of her with a red cup of coffee in his hand. He wears that familiar arrogant look with a hint of a smile, so vicious and cold it makes her feel she wasn’t only stripped off her clothes but of her skin and muscles as well.

Would have been better if I was stripped and bound to the devil’s bed.

He takes the wooden chair, dragging it on the floor which makes her cringe at the screeching sound. Fragments of the night before begin to fill the gaps in her memory. She tied him to this chair.

Placing it in front of her, he sits down, legs spread widely with confidence she can only describe to herself as irritating as fuck.

She hugs the cover tightly to her chest, her legs curling toward her torso to shelter herself which suddenly inflicts an excruciating pain in her lower abdomen making her moan involuntarily . Peeking beneath the thick blanket, she finds the large bandage on her torso, stained with a few drops of brownish-red blood.

“Good morning, love, we’ve had quite the night.”

More shards of memory begin to cut through her mind. Like remembering an event that happened so long ago, it almost feels like a dream. Her mind fights to make sense, to grasp at the fuller image. She recalls gasping through the woods at night with weak limbs and a hand full of blood. Then a shot that ripped through the night. Bats were flying everywhere and then her body was cold for some reason.

No, she was freezing.

Like a videotape that’s cut off and glitches in the middle, her memory stops there. Making her stare at the Scandinavian pattern on the blanket as if she will find any answers there.

“Who is Liam?” August asks, taking a long sip from his coffee. There is much amusement in seeing her cowering before him looking so helpless right now. Stripped, unarmed, and bound to his bed after he took her life and gave it back.

He licks his lips at her which only makes the alarmed look on her face become more distinguished.

“You’ve undressed me?” she asks, finding out her voice is aching and hoarse, as if something seared her throat. “And tied me to the bed?”

August’s teeth are exposed to her as his smile widens. She makes a note of two sharp fangs, it makes him look like a vampire. “Perceptive, aren’t we? Wasn’t for any personal interest, you were in hypothermia.”

He gives a small pause, his eyes travelling across her covered body, unable to deny how nice it was to wake up with a naked woman in his arms. “Not that I didn’t enjoy having your tits pressed to me for an entire night.”

Even as lost as she is, she can’t help but roll her eyes at him and groan with hatred.

‘If anyone in Icarus hears of this, I’m done for.’

Was the stinging pain in her chest failure or sepsis? Either way, it stung. This was far from how she imagined this mission going along. Ending up as a captive of psychotic target, tied to his bed as a future sex slave or heaven knows what.

‘How the fuck did I end up here? Like this? Why?’

August watches as she frowns with deep concentration, forcefully trying to evoke some memory of all the lost hours from last night. He wonders if she knows he killed her. He’d very much like to remind her of that, of how she was at his mercy and the only reason she’s alive right now is because he allowed it.

‘And still she tried to kill me right after I gave her back her life. What a woman.’

“Who is Liam? And please don’t make me ask again, given the poor situation you’re at right now, princess.”

More echoes begin to float in her mind. It’s the look of superiority on his face, the piercing gaze that threatens to cut right through her.

“You tried to kill me!”

“No. I have killed you,” he corrects her.

“You were dead for at least 5 or 7 minutes.”

She stares at him completely bemused, her eyes seeking answers on the lines of his chiselled face. There is no remorse, no care, no mercy in it. She doesn’t even bother to look for affection, whatever that looks like. He is as cold as Helheim.

“But you saved me. Why?”

His jaw clenches, the muscles in his face straining as he remembers that idiotic idea he had last night, that mistake that’s now lying naked on his bed. For a man who plans ahead, he hasn’t thought this one through, not even for a second.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I only need you for intel. One wrong move and I’d be glad to put you back to the bottom of that lake.”

“You know who sent me, CIA, Erica Sloane.” She shrugs, staring at him oddly.

He leans forward in his chair looking deeper into her eyes, trying to invoke fear in her. Yet she remains stoic, only her eyes glaring at him like two icicles.

“How did you know I was here? Who else knows?”

“I’m a good tracker,” she answers, doing her best attempt to shrug her shoulders with one hand latched above her head. “And you are not as smart as you think you are, August Walker.”

August offers her a dangerous stare, crossing his arms around the wooden backseat while his feet push from the ground to lean closer to her. He doesn’t like to be challenged, especially not by silly little girls.

“Why is that?”

A small smile spreads on her face. “From all the vehicles you could have taken, you stole my bike.”

A hiss of disbelief leaves his nose but the answer doesn’t please him. He leans back on his chair until it lands forcefully on the ground, making a loud thud through the moderate silence in the room. His hand reaches toward her, grabbing her jaw and cupping it crudely.

“No, how did you know I was in Norway?”

She clenches her jaw, trying to escape his touch but his grip becomes firmer, his fingertips painting red marks on her sickly pale skin. “Answer me.”

“I didn’t-”

“Bullshit.” he challenges her, now closer to her face than she would have ever wanted. His hot breath is a breeze on her skin. Her natural instinct to learn details kicks in, forcing her to pay attention to every freckle s on his nose, his bottom lip, and the lines and small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

‘So much anger’, she analyzes. He is not even furious yet it seems he keeps so much bottled up.

‘Does he ever get tired?’

“I didn’t know,” she finally answers, both sincerity and scorn in her voice. Then, a small provoking smirk appears on her lips. “It was destiny that brought you to me.”

He snorts, shaking his head at her with disbelief, recalling their little flirtatious run-in 2 days ago. His eyes observe her while a smug smirk spreads across his face. He allows his gaze to travel further down her neck and her chest, attempting to peer beneath the blanket to get a reminder of what was pressed to his body the night before.

“Telling you the truth, August Walker, would have killed you then in the ladies room,” she provokes, aware of the fact that he’s staring at her chest even though she keeps it covered.

“Oh?” he returns his gaze back to her, a single finger now takes a hold of her chin, tilting her head up violently. “How would you have done that? I’m intrigued.”

Ingvild licks her lips, drawing attention to her mouth. It’s seduction that she offers but with that same cold, now vicious smile.

“Slicing your throat, while you’re were washing your stupid hair below the tap. I’d then shove a tampon up your ass and send a photo to everyone in Icarus and to Sloane so they can have a good laugh.”

‘My phone, shit.’

The mobile device is traceable, if Liam hasn’t heard from her in a few days he could find her. But now August has it, with the rest of the stuff he confiscated from her. She looks around, trying to find where he placed her items.

August interrupts her inspection, his hand wrapping around her sore throat with a menacing gaze. “Don’t give me any ideas, princess. I’m not the one tied up and naked here.”

“I need to go to the girls’ room,”

She ignores his threat, remaining calm despite the hand that can easily snap her neck.

He looks at her dumbfounded, clenching his jaw once more. “What?”

“I need to go…”

“I heard you.” he frowns, letting go of her throat forcefully and then shoving the chair back, making it screech against the wooden floor while pacing the room, irritated.

‘Great, now I’m a fucking babysitter?’

He begins to regret ever saving her pathetic little life. What is there to gain anyway? A guy named Liam? Whoever that is to her. She mumbled that name in her dreams when her body was struggling to fight for survival.

August finds the bathrobe in the shower room and throws it on the bed next to her, before hovering above her chest to cut her bindings with the same knife he used to stab her last night.

She tries to remain as relaxed and brave as she can, wanting him to think she is not intimidated by him and what she believes to be his empty threats. But every time he makes sudden movements. the intimidation shows in her beautiful grey eyes. Her body flinches and squirms helplessly.

If only she knew how aroused it made him, she’d be terrified.

“Try anything and I’ll unstitch you and let you bleed to death.”

Her wrist burns, the narrow rope has chafed her skin so badly there are deep purple marks on her flesh. She rubs it gently, trying to soothe the pain before grabbing the white cotton robe and staring at August with hatred.

He stares back at her while playing with the knife between his large hands. He slides a finger carefully on the edge of the sharp blade, making a harsh statement. No, he is not going to turn around.

Rolling her eyes she hides beneath the cover, pulling the bathrobe beneath and wearing it quickly, the relief of having something other than a blanket covering her feels almost astonishing.

At last, she throws the heavy blanket away and kicks her legs out of bed while wearing his oversized bathrobe. August remains silent, his eyes fixed upon her while the knife is pressed between his teeth.

Trying anything like killing him or escaping is far from realistic as she finds her legs hardly able to hold her own weight. The hardwood floor beneath her feet feels soft and mushy, if someone would have told her she’s stepping onto marshmallows she might have believed them.

She only manages to make two feeble steps before black spots appear in her sight and she falls forward with a pained grunt. She never makes it to the ground. Odd, she hasn’t noticed how big and strong he is when wrestling him on the floor. It seems that August has doubled in size.

“Who was it that didn’t love you, August?” she provokes coldly, grunting as she tries to lift her torso from his elbow. “Was it your mother? Or your dad?”

Silence and indifference is his answer to her query, with only a muscle that twitches in his cheek. He observes quietly as her hands grasp his biceps desperately and pathetically, trying to stabilize herself. It must make her hate him even more right now, to need him as much as she does.

He recalls how much he hated himself when he needed someone.

“Both then…” she answers, slightly panting.

“Did anyone ever loved you at all? Ingvild?” he taunts her back while helping her get to the toilet. He notices how her eyes look around while they move through the room, looking for her things, no doubt. She is smart, he’ll give her that, she is cunning and calculated even in her weakest moment.

But he’ll always be a step ahead.

“More than they loved you, I am sure.”

He lets her into the small room and shuts the door, leaning against it and patiently waits with his arms crossed. The sudden silence and her short absence begin to cloud his thoughts. It’s almost as if he’s dreaming awake, seeing her again, her hair falling from her decaying scalp like leaves falling from a tree.

‘Not more than you.’

The crude vibration of his phone snaps him back into reality. A message from one of the apostles, stating nothing but a location and an hour. He smirks to himself, glad to be soon away from this freezing hell. Now the question left is, what he should do with the little problem he created for himself?

Snap her little neck? Strangle her to death? Make it intimate, she deserves as much. He can already see his body hovering on top of hers, his hands wrapped around her, tight like a lover’s embrace. The robe opens as she struggles, exposing much of her naked flesh.

The thought makes him hum with delight but once again he is interrupted. This time it’s by her face that stares at him, blank of emotion, with eyes like two empty crystals. She leans against the door frame, her face tilted up to meet his gaze. “I need to shower. I smell like you.”

He wonders at all why he should fulfil her request. She’s a prisoner, not a guest, and far from being someone, he’d care for. His eyes run up and down her body and finally at the cold unreadable expression on her face.

“Whatever.”

The bathroom is rather large, surrounded by cream-coloured marble tiles that adorn both the walls and the flooring. There is a large, fancy bathtub in the middle of the room, one that is made to look old and classy with golden taps. An additional shower is placed at the other side of the room, surrounded by a thin wall of glass.

The bath looks so tempting, her eyes fixate upon it, fantasizing about slipping into a warm bubble bath with one of those pink and purple bath bombs.

August notices her fascination and snorts, edging her toward the shower instead. “You should’ve taken my offer back then, princess. Be thankful that I am allowing you the luxury of showering at all.”

For all, he cares she can die of infection, who knows what bacteria these lake water she bled into had.

“I’d take the shower over-sharing anything with you,” she spits back, her hand grasping the golden handle of the glass door. August remains facing, leaning against the marble tile with ease while sucking on his bottom lip with anticipation.

“Aren’t you going to at least turn away?” she asks naively, crooking her eyebrow up, bewildered by the large man who’s standing there with sheer confidence on his face, not bothering to give her an inch of privacy.

“No,” he smirks cockily, licking that small freckle on his lips. “You tried to kill me, I don’t trust you. But don’t worry, won’t be anything I haven’t seen before, princess.” he shrugs and tilts his head. His eyes gesture at the robe as he awaits for her to slip it off her body.

Ingvild chews the inside of her cheek with the fury that courses through her veins. He seeks to humiliate her even more, to show her again how little power she has.

But men are fools, a woman has more power over a man, especially when she is naked. She doesn’t mind what he sees and if he likes it or not anyway. Also, nervousness is not in her spectrum of emotions.

The white cotton robe falls off her body, landing at her feet with a soft thud. There she is standing completely bare before the man who tried to murdered her and who for some sick, twisted, megalomaniac reason nurtured her back to life.

Unlike last night, he has the freedom to linger on what stands in his sight. Milky white skin, stretched taut over an apt figure. Athletic; formed by years of whatever combat training she has endured. There are no scars on her body save for the new one he gave her which is hidden behind gauze. The thought of letting her survive just so she can curse him every time she sees the hideous crescent scar is quite the temptation.

He further inspects her body, imagining cupping her small breasts in his large hands, they will not fill his palms completely, but it will suffice. He was always more into women’s behind and the rounded shape of her tight ass is indeed pleasing.

“As I said, nothing I haven’t seen before,” he speaks out, letting his gaze travel back to meet her face again.

She hisses through her nose, rolling her eyes as she walks inside the translucent room and turns the stream of the water to wash over her body.

The heat of the water immediately makes her groan loudly with pleasure; it echoes through the entire room. Her body is far more battered than she even realized, it feels as almost as if she is being redeemed, baptized, or whatever other religious allegories she could think of.

She leans against the wall for support with both her palms flat against the surface. Her back arches and she lets her head tilt back with her eyes tightly shut. The damp hair sticks to her spine, while she lets the droplets of water slide between her perky breasts and down her torso.

Sweet moans escape between her lips with every second, accompanying the water that soothe her aching muscles.

August can feel the fabric of his trousers tightening as blood stirs through the veins of his cock. She squirms beneath the stream, moving so sensually while making these “fuck me” noises all too clear. It’s meant to tease and provoke him. He is tempted to march in there and fuck the living hell out of her.

Fucking her to death, now that one I haven’t tried before.

“Enjoying the show?” she asks, turning to face him while the water trickles down her back. She can see the hardness in his groin, growing larger and larger with every second she stands there wet and naked.

“I am, actually,” he answers, not bothering to hide his desire.

She turns to face the shower tap, one hand plastered to the wall while the other leisurely runs down her chest. Smooth and slick, she allows it to circle her breast, making sure August can see how her finger brushes the hardening peachy nipple before descending along her flat torso.

His breath becomes rigid, his eyes furiously focusing on how she praises her own body. Her lids are half-hooded, hazy with lust and her mouth is reddening and slight swelling as she bites into her plush lips with delight. He dares, taking a step closer, allowing himself to have a better view of the show.

It is for him after all, is it not?

Tender and slow like honey, she lets her fingers creep between her thighs. In her mind, she fancies larger hands taking control over her body. A man’s hands, hands that are rough and callous, counter to how she is built, yet they caress her gently, working their way up between her inner thighs and spreading her open.

A feverish moan escapes her tightened lips as her fingers rub against her clit. She opens her eyes with her head thrown to the side. Giving August a lustful stare, cruel and full of snide she begins working herself with sensual strokes. She can feel her own wetness, thick and oily against her delicate fingers.

August’s nostrils flare, the bulge in his groin now enormous and aching for release.

Does she think she is torturing him? Does she even know men?

He inches closer toward the shower, close enough until so his hand can touch the glass which is now covered with tiny droplets of water and a thin layer of steam. His hand falls toward the zipper of his trousers, letting it sink before reaching out to pull his erect cock.

There is a smitten look upon her face, and an unpleasant chill runs through her spine as if she is intimidated by the sheer sight of him. Obviously, he is very much aware of how impossibly large he is. She gathers he is used to the look she is giving him, knowing exactly what’s going through her mind.

“Why are you stopping then, princess?” he asks with a cocky smile, his large hand wraps around the base of his hard cock, immediately beginning to stroke while eliciting deep, low groans.

Ingvild finds it surprisingly arousing, unable to help herself but stare at how his fingers engulf the fleshy shaft, feeling herself throb at the sight of the thick bulging veins and the ridges that run across his erection. When she started this little game it was in order to abuse him. But now, there is a certain desperation in her spiteful urge.

Looking at him as if driven to insanity, she lets her fingers massage her mound with increasing force, hard yet slow while her thumb traces the engorged nub. With every intent to let him see what he cannot take, she leans against the wall and parts her legs wide for him, letting him see her pink cunt and how her fingers play and tease while her other hand moves to squeeze her breast.

Her mind escapes into fantasies again, to urge the tingling sensation that burns between her thighs. Betrayed by lust, it’s him that she sees, holding her down as he did the night before, only that instead of trying to kill her he tears off her panties and splits her flesh open with his enormous cock.

The yelp that escapes her mouth is barely human, the image triggering something dark and unfamiliar and despite its wrongness now all she can think of is him.

August, on the other hand, is anything but inclined to indulge this. Pumping his cock urgently, he imagines pounding the little valkyrie against the wall, his grunts so low and loud he is certain the neighbours renting the room nearby can hear.

‘Have you ever fucked an undead girl? Imagine how sweet that wet little cunt must be after coming back to life… milking around you as if you are her saviour, your cock a gift sent from heaven…’

‘Or hell.’

Leaning his forehead against the glass, his breath leaves a veil of steam against the surface while he glances at Ingvild climbing toward her climax.

“Fuck!” She shudders, trying to fight the burning image of him in her mind, but these forbidden fantasies continue to assail her; all the different ways he could take her, exploit and humiliate her. How his body would feel atop of hers while he holds her down and hammer her into the floor.

Her battle wanes, heat spills between her legs as she falls into dark euphoria.

Seeing her arch against the tiles, naked and showered by ecstasy, his control finally snaps. August slams a hand against the glass, spourting white ribbons of cum all over the surface.

‘Oh to see her die and then burst with life…’

They stand in front of one another, both with heaving chests and frowning faces.

Finally, she turns the stream off and opens the glass door while August tucks himself back in. Apparent sweat covers his forehead while his chest is still heaving. She crouches to grab the robe, wearing it again while moving next to him with a teasing look on her face.

Although her legs feel feeble, the adrenaline made the blood kickstart her body again, her heart pumping with excitement as life returned to her system. She pushes past August scornfully, letting him follow her as she walks out of the bathroom.

He grabs her elbow, shooting her a warning glare. “Where do you think you are going?”

She tries to fight him but his grip is fierce and she is too weak.

“You are still a prisoner here,” he warns her and begins to lead her back to the bedroom and toward the bed while grabbing more rope on the way. He notices once again how she desperately seeks her personal belongings, gun, and phone.

“Don’t bother, angel, it’s all in the bottom of the lake.”

______________________________________________

Disclaimer: I don’t own Mission Impossible or August Walker

#Henry Cavill #August Walker #August Walker Fanfic #August Walker Fic #August Walker x ofc #Henry Cavill x ofc #Henry Cavill fanfiction #mission impossible fallout #mi6

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antihero-writings · 4 years

Text

The Things He Left Unsaid--Pandora Hearts Fic for Phmonth Tragedy Trio Week, Day 4: Breath (full fic!)

Title: The Things He Left Unsaid

Synopsis: But he kept it all inside his head/ What he saw he left unsaid/ And though he wanted to/ He couldn't talk to you/ He couldn't find the way/ But he would always say/ If I could tell her/ Tell her everything I see/ If I could tell her/ How she's everything to me/ But we're a million worlds apart/ And I don't know how I would even start. Oswald has never been much for words, but he does care about Lacie…Does he ever tell his sister how much he loves her?

Notes: This was written for @Phmonth19 Tragedy Trio Week, Prompt 4: Breath, as well as the song "If I Could Tell Her" from Dear Evan Hansen. And I hope you guys enjoy it too!! Let me know what you think!! This one goes out to @song-of-amethyst/Maisunadokei1856, who loves Oswald and the Tragedy Trio in general, and deserves more great fics for them, as well as for helping me come up with ideas for this fic, and to @gemini-in-tauro who loves Dear Evan Hansen and Pandora Hearts!! Please go check out their fics!!

Fic:

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Oh, just that he thinks you’re…wonderful.”

Lacie’s eyes lidded. “This is still my brother we’re talking about?”

Jack laughed a little. “Definitely.”

“Remind me again, how long have you known him?”

“Fine, don’t believe me.” He hugged his knees, “But I’m pretty good at reading people. He’s just…not so much with the words,” he said in a deep voice, imitating the one they were talking about. “But I can tell he really cares about you.”

Lacie looked at the ground, those red eyes flickering. “How can you tell?”

“Well…” Jack looked up into the sky, thinking. “Your smile.” He turned to her, as if appraising that smile…which was not currently present on her face.

“What about my smile?”

“It’s sort of…” he traced patterns in the ground, “subtle, and perfect, and real.”

She scoffed. “What does this have to do with my brother?”

“See, I’ve only been around that smile for a little while, but your brother, well …he’s been around it his whole life. I have trouble believing anyone could be around that smile so long and not fall in love with it.”

“Riight…”

“Let’s see…whenever you get bored you escape your tower to watch the stars, dragging innocent boys into your schemes,” they both smirked, “and make up lyrics to his songs…What’s not to love about that?”

That coerced a smile onto her face. He noticed it, and sat up, continuing.

“He told me about your cooking for him. Like that time you made him a birthday cake.”

“So what?”

“He said it…” he swallowed like he didn’t want to say anything negative about her, “tasted horrible.”

“And?”

“He still ate it, didn’t he?”

She turned to the stream, considering it. “What else? What else did ‘my brother’ notice about me?”

“Well… if nothing else, there’s one I know he notices:” He pushed his hair back behind his ear as a breeze brushed by. “the way you sing and dance. You know, without reserve…like the rest of the world isn’t there.”

“Are you sure these aren’t all things a certain Vessalius boy thinks about me?”

His face split into a grin. “Quite the mystery isn’t it?”

She shoved his shoulder, knocking him, laughing, down into the grass.

“Alright so maybe I can’t know all that.” He sat back up. “But he does love you. I just…don’t think he knows how to tell you.” He paused. “You two are worlds apart, really. He, never straying from the rules. You, the unchanging free spirit.” he looked at her, then at the ground, like he wasn’t supposed to speak the words aloud. “But he does love you.”

She watched an ant crawling in the grass.

“Or maybe he notices when you two are talking about him behind his back!” they started as the object of their discussion spoke.

“O-Oswald!” Jack stood up, brushing himself off. “W-we were just talking about…”

His eyes lidded at him, then he turned to Lacie, who smiled sweetly, finishing Jack’s attempt at a lie with a too-overt truth.

“How much you looove me.”

He rolled his eyes.

*****

To say sleep eluded him wouldn’t have done the scene justice. Instead of resting quietly on his eyelids, sleep pummeled Oswald, tossed and turned him over like dough, sent him to the ground beside his bed, until finally the restlessness of his mind spilled out as tears on his face.

“Nii-sama?”

The little boy hugged his knees, hiding his face.

Lacie’s tiny feet pattered over to him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.”

He hugged his knees tighter.

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid anyways,” he muttered.

She sat down next to him, pulling a blanket from his upturned bed around both their shoulders.

“You’re right, it probably is.”

He glared at her, revealing his tear-stained cheeks.

“But it’s keeping you up…so it can’t be completely stupid.”

He turned his head to the side, looking away, wiping his nose.

“It’s the ceremony tomorrow, isn’t it?” She cocked her head further to the side, trying to make him see her.

He didn’t reply.

“What are you scared of? …Is it the creepy door? It’s really not that scary once you go in!”

“No…And Master told you not to go in there without permission.”

“You don’t want to have a big ugly bird inside you?” she continued as if she hasn’t heard him.

“No it’s not that…It’s just…”

“You don’t want to drink its blood?”

“No…Ugh…That’s not…”

Lacie cocked her head to the side, at last listening patiently.

At her patience, Oswald turned towards her. “Master Glen keeps talking about how I’m gonna be his next bodily vessel, and I’m honored but…what does that mean?”

She blinked, as if to say What do you mean ‘what does that mean’?

“Well…When he starts putting these ‘Chains’ inside me…when I become Glen…Am I…Am I…Am I gonna stop being… me?” he squeaked, like saying the words allowed made them scarier.

Lacie paused a moment, putting a finger to her chin as if contemplating it, then simply said, “You think too much, Nii-sama.”

He folded his arms and looked away.

“I can’t pretend I understand half of what Glen talks about—”

“Master Glen.”

“—so I don’t really have an answer but…what’s the use worrying about it?”

He slowly turned towards her.

“If you don’t want to be his next ‘bodily vessel’—whatever that means—then why don’t you say something? Do something? Try to change it?”

“No…I-I…do…I mean, at least, I know I should…it’s just…”

“Then why spend time making yourself miserable thinking about what could go wrong? If and when that happens, you’ll be older, right? You’ll understand. You don’t need to keep yourself up thinking about it now.”

“But—”

She put her finger on his lips, then took his face and turned it towards her to tell him she wasn’t finished. “And you’ll always have me. Even if you become some creep, or monster, I’ll still be me. And I’ll be there to punch you if you do.”

A smile crept up onto his face. He rubbed his nose.

That was the first time he felt like he could breathe the whole night.

“You promise?”

She smiled, holding up a fist. “Oh, believe me, I will.”

That smile. More irrefutable than any argument. Like she refused to let the sadness reach her. Just that smile was enough. Enough to push the darkness away, if only for a moment.

She pulled him into a hug, and they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders.

He wanted to tell her. To tell her how much that smile meant to him. How grateful he was that she had cheered him up. How grateful he was to have her. How much it meant to hear that she wasn’t going anywhere, and she’d make sure he wasn’t going anywhere either. How much hope she gave him.

He took a deep breath.

He wanted to use it to say ‘I love you, Lacie.’

Instead he let it out.

*****

Lacie had always been atrocious in the kitchen.

Not just that she didn’t know how to cook, bake, or otherwise hold a whisk. She decimated the space. Even the simplest of recipes would end with the counters covered in sauce, batter, frosting, or other undisclosed semi-liquids; the bowls stacked around the room like she’d been trying to create a tower with them; spoons, spatulas, knives, and other utensils strewn about like they’d gotten lost on the way to the drawers. And that was nothing to say of the chef herself; her advancements in the field left her face and dress covered in ingredients. The servants always played rock-paper-scissors over who would have to clean her dresses after these endeavors (aprons, apparently, were too restricting… and her dress would get covered somehow, even if she wore them).

But it was Oswald’s birthday.

And she would be damned if she wasn’t going to bake him a cake.

The moment they learned of her plot, the servants, and any other people who didn’t want to end up in the splash zone, sectioned off the area as if it were a crime scene.

There was one, however, who didn’t mind insane situations, in fact quite enjoyed running straight into the daydreams of deranged little girls, and never missed a date with madness.

A few of the servants raised a finger as he walked by, as if to warn him, but thought better of it.

Glen opened the door, ducking as a spatula landed centimeters from his head, without a change in expression.

“This stupid batter won’t listen to me!” the little girl slammed her fists on the counter as another spoon clattered to the ground.

He chuckled. “Well, what exactly have you be telling it? Maybe if you stopped insulting it and actually had a decent conversation it’d be more prone to listen to you.”

She scowled at him.

He strolled over to her, throwing a “Let’s see what kind of mess we’re dealing with here,” over his shoulder as he observed the mangled batter. He dipped his finger in and tasted the concoction from which getting salmonella was the least of his worries. “Have you tried adding sugar? It always helps spruce things up.”

“Hmm,” Lacie grunted, pattering over to the opposite counter, stretching for the sugar container against the back wall. She glared at him when reached over and grabbed it with ease, dropping it in her hands, as if she wanted to do this all on her own.

“Now what?”

“Well, I’d suggest you add it in and mix it, but that’s just me.”

She proceeded to add it in in handfuls without measuring.

“This might help,” he slid a measuring cup over to her.

She used it…just not in the intended way; she didn’t pay attention to all those pesky little lines.

“Can we add chocolate?” she asked when she had sufficiently smothered the batter in sugar.

“Sure, add whatever you want,” he sang, grinning as she found the cocoa powder and, once again, paid no regard for rules or recipes.

They proceeded to spend at least another hour like this, with Glen giving her vague instruction, Lacie pouting as she followed it with her own flair.

In the end two chocolate covered gremlins stared down at their droopy, half-frosted baby and grinned…for very different reasons.

Glen went to retrieve Oswald, and once they finished dinner, they sang to him, presenting the monstrosity (which, if it was remotely edible, was only due to Glen’s suggestions).

Oswald stared at the slowly wilting gift like it was an insurmountable mountain he’d just been asked to climb.

He had some experience with Lacie’s kitchen adventures. One time she tried to feed him something she called “The Lacie special” but he was sure was a frog she accidently set fire to (…needless to say he did not finish). Another time she’d actually tried to make him a decent meal, and forced himself to eat enough of it that he spent the night puking it up. And now, apparently, he was supposed to eat this…thing in front of him.

Glen cut him a too-large piece and slid it over to him with a grin, and the air of an executioner serving a criminal his doom.

Oswald swallowed, digging his fork in with determination, then brought it to his mouth, preparing himself for the assault that was about to happen.

It wasn’t…good. Too sweet and too bitter at the same time, and the texture all wrong.

But it also wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“What do you think, Nii-sama?”

He wanted to tell her the truth.

“Mmm hmm” he grunted, trying to sound satisfied.

She beamed proudly. “Good!” she pushed the plate closer to him. “There’s plenty more where that came from!”

Oswald looked to Glen for mercy, only to find he was trying to stifle his laughter.

He continued to shovel bites into his mouth, hoping this wouldn’t be the end of him.

He wanted to make up some excuse, wanted someone to rescue him.

But that would erase the smile from her face.

He wanted to tell her, regardless of how it actually tasted, how happy it made him that she would do this for him. He wanted to tell her how much it meant to him that she spent the day making this for him. He wanted to tell her that every birthday is happy as long as she’s in it.

He swallowed, taking a deep breath.

He wanted to say ‘I love you’.

Instead he kept eating the cake.

*****

When Oswald arrived at the top of the tower, his sister was nowhere to be found.

This wasn’t exactly a rarity. Lacie wasn’t the kind of person who liked to sit in towers quietly, talking to the birds and dreaming of a world out there. She went out and grabbed everything off the world’s shelves herself.

He picked up a few stray socks and ribbons—(he always found himself cleaning up her messes)—and stepped up to the window to close the curtains for evening.

…There she was, sprawled out on the grass outside.

He banged his head against the windowframe.

He knew well she was plagued by countless whims and impulses, and unburdened by a sense of discipline over them…still, why she would be out at this hour exactly was beyond him.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” He asked when her impulses had dragged him outside too.

“Shouldn’t you be?” she smirked.

He looked away, folding his arms, daring not to say you’re the reason I’m out here.

She patted the grass next to her as if she’s saved him a seat at the opera.

He rolled his eyes, but sat down all the same.

“What exactly are we doing out here?”

“What does it look like? Stargazing.”

His folded his arms, incensed there was a reasonable explanation for all this.

“What rhymes with ‘purple’?” she asked after a moment.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“The color.”

“I know what you meant… I’m just having a difficult time connecting stargazing to rhymes with purple.”

“They’re not connected, dummy.”

She pushed him down into the grass, making sure he didn’t miss her favorite show.

“I’m making up lyrics to one of your songs.”

“Oh.” His eyes widened at both her actions and her responses, then he paused, staring up into the pockmarked sky, admiring the view, thinking. “…I don’t think there are any rhymes for purple.”

“There must be…” she rested her head on his chest, staring up at the stars herself, “Maybe they just haven’t been invented.” She traced patterns on the back of his hand.

“You’d like to invent a word for one of my songs?”

“Maybe. Why? Are you against ‘shmurple’ being a word in one of your songs?”

“I’m not for it.”

She laughed. “Fine, I’ll pick a boring, real word.”

He carded his free hand through her hair, trying not to smile.

This was… nice.

He wanted to tell her off for escaping her tower, especially at this hour, but she had a way of pulling people into her antics, even her law-abiding brother at times.

Now, laying out in the grass, golden lights keeping watch over them, their breath carried away by the breeze…he thought he might like to stay.

He wanted to tell her that. How grateful he was for moments like this. That he wished this star-struck moment could last forever. Just him and his little sister hiding away from the rest of the world. Just Oswald and Lacie, no ill omens, no Baskervilles, no trials nor Juries, nor cursed titles and the responsibilities that came with them.

He took a deep breath.

He wanted to use it to say ‘I love you.’

Instead he let the stars have their moment.

*****

Another area in which Lacie had little to no expertise was, ironically, needlework. Plenty of girls in this day and age were prone to sitting on the couch quietly and embroidering, crocheting, sewing up a dress, knitting scarves, and other various projects that required needle and thread.

As established, Lacie, first of all, was not the type of girl who sat quietly on couches in general. She’d always been a rather squirmy child, preferring to go outside and play tag to sitting inside and reading, so the activity didn’t fit her personality in the first place.

Second of all the details had always frustrated her—too fiddly to keep her attention. All those tiny stitches, every one needed to be perfect, or it would throw off the balance of the whole ensemble…She liked when things were imperfect.

But she had to maintain appearances, and when she ripped her dress on one of her many adventures, it was her job to sew it back up again without anyone knowing.

‘Without anyone knowing’ being the key issue here.

“What’s that?” Oswald asked at one of the many parties hosted by the Baskervilles.

“Don’t be rude, Nii-sama! Just because you don’t think she’s pretty doesn’t mean she’s a thing!”

He tugged at the helter-skelter sewing job on her dress.

“Hey! What business do you have grabbing a lady’s dress!” she whisper-shouted—(though a few people still heard, and stared their direction, inching away)—in mock outrage.

He glanced out at the people, then returned to the object of discord, running his fingers along the haphazard stitching. “What happened?”

“If you must know…” she explained, knowing he had every idea what actually happened, “I was sitting in my tower, like a good girl, and suddenly this bird flew in and ripped it.”

Oswald’s eyes lidded.

“Terrible isn’t it?”

He grabbed her arm, pulling her through the crowd.

“First grabbing my dress, then my arm?! My, sir! You’re very forward.”

He rolled his eyes, bringing her to one of the servant’s rooms.

“Take that off.”

“Excuse me?!” she folded her arms over her chest.

“You can’t go walking around at a party in a ripped dress.” He rummaged in one of the drawers, picking out a needle and the correct color of thread. “It reflects poorly on Baskerville name.”

She puffed out her cheeks, like she didn’t really care about said name. “Fine.”

She slipped off her dress with barely a regard for modesty, revealing the petticoat underneath, dropping it unceremoniously into his outstretched hand.

He set it down on the desk, threading the needle and finding the blemish.

Always a source of embarrassment, his personality, on the other hand, always calm and calculated, following the rules and hating messes and imperfection, lent itself quite well to the delicate art of needlework.

Lacie stepped up to the window—(…where anyone could see her…)—observing the courtyard and any guests meandering through it.

As Oswald took a closer look at her inexpert attempt, he realized that she hadn’t simply poorly executed the patch…she had actually tried to create a little design. It looked to be a crude outline of a rabbit. He tried not to smile upon seeing it, proceeding to undo her efforts and begin his own.

Lacie wandered about the room, picking up objects, putting them down, making jokes about the paintings, before standing quietly and watching over his shoulder. He easily dragged the needle through the fabric, and there was a mesmerizing quality to the ease with which he could accomplish perfectly what was an impossible undertaking for her.

“My, Nii-sama,” she rested her arms on his head, “if I didn’t know better I’d think you were an old lady.”

He paused, eyes flickering to her resentfully, before resuming.

Once he finished, he held up the freshly repaired dress to examine it.

“Try to be more careful next time, alright?” he advised as he held it out for her, staring intently at her, “We wouldn’t want anymore birds swooping in and ripping it again, now would we?”

“Anything for you, Nii-sama!” she smiled too-sweetly and kissed his cheek, throwing it back on and rushing back into the soiree.

He stared after her.

Always so reckless, so quick to follow her desires—and not instruction—without regard for the consequences. Whether it be rushing off on some self-appointed quest, back into the party, making improper jokes, or creating a little design instead of just fixing what she’d broken. Barely a warning, a ‘please,’ or ‘thank you’ along the way.

Still, he reasoned as he put the supplies away, even though it annoyed him at times, he admired her.

He never did anything without calculating the risks first, and always followed directions, sometimes too closely. He did things by the book, without flourishes. To speak of birds…he was the bird that stayed in the cage like he was supposed to. She was the one who picked the lock and broke out into the sky, and drew pictures in the clouds with her wings. …Sometimes he wished he had the guts to fly with her.

He wanted to tell her how he appreciated her at least attempting to fix what she’d broken…he wanted to tell her how cute the little bunny she made was.

Instead of reprimanding her…sometimes he wanted to say ‘Thank you. Thank you for the adventures, and the jokes, and the whimsy, and the messes. I don’t get enough of that.’

He didn’t really want to tell her not to go on adventures…he wanted to tell her to take him with her next time.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that. Couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t tell her.

He could, at least, tell her he loved her.

But when he returned to her side, he merely listened to her conversations--(now a perfect representation of a Baskerville lady...at least in appearance. She may or may not have proceeded to speak with the guests about numerous risqué things...)

*****

Oswald’s fingers darted from note to note on the piano like a bird, carried free by the notes, the melody coming from his soul rather than his body.

He wasn’t the only bird here; with every flourish of the keys came another twirl from the woman beside him, lyrics spilling from her soul too, as if she wasn’t tied to the ground.

His eyes flicked from the keys, to the music, to her.

This was…beautiful. The song. Her lyrics. Her dance. This moment.

She was beautiful like this.

He never understood how she could dance and sing so freely, like it was just her and the music. If he ever tried to dance he tripped into something (more than likely another dancer), or else didn’t look very elegant. Whenever he sang he cared too much who heard him, who was watching, and if it sounded good, to get any true assessment of his abilities. Besides, he didn’t have the mind for lyrics. Words got all tangled up in his brain. Notes were simple, planned, and didn’t have all these meanings that could ram into each other, tie themselves up in knots, and get lost in translation. With notes he just had to put one after the other.

Yet from the first step she took, her whole life was a dance. So when she truly danced, it was something that transcended her own life; she was in another world, completely unaware of those around her, or even her own body…she was the song now.

The music closed off with an enchanting crescendo, the notes growing faster, her voice raising higher, until the song ended, and suddenly there was silence.

Slowly his fingers came to rest above the keys.

She walked up to him, smiling and panting for breath, leaning on the piano.

“That was wonderful Nii-sama, wasn’t it?”

He wanted to say Yes. Yes, it was wonderful, I loved your lyrics—(could do without the ‘shmurple’)—and your dance. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked when she’s dancing, how wonderful her voice was, and how much he liked the lyrics she gave his song.

He wanted to ask her how she could dance like that, like the rest of the world wasn’t there, and she was alone in the room with the song. Like she was the song. He wanted to ask her what she saw, heard, felt in the music that he didn’t, how, why she looked so free when she was dancing. What the beautiful messes and imperfections were beneath the calculations.

He wanted to say you were wonderful.

“How do you…do that?” he asked at least.

“Do what?”

“…Dance like that.”

“What’s that saying?” she put a finger to her chin, “‘Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die’?”

His eyes widened.

Instead of noticing his shock, she smiled, continuing. “Something like that.”

His gaze, dropped, along with the bottom out of his stomach.

And his thoughts changed direction. Now he wanted to say he was sorry, that she shouldn’t have to die. He wanted to bang on Glen’s door and demand that she live, that he not have to kill her—Lacie, his little sister, who he loved. He should be the one to protect her from all things that dared hurt her. He wanted to say that that’s no good reason to dance so beautifully, that she should dance for tomorrow, not just today.

“I’m starving!” She took his hand and pulled him up. “Let’s get something to eat! Maybe some meat?”

He liked her alive. He liked the songs, and the dances, and their meals, and conversations, and adventures. All that would end when she died. He wanted to tell her just how much he wanted her to stay alive.

And that night, when sleep bullied him like it did all those years ago, he wanted to run to her room, to weep on her shoulder and say how much he was dreading the ceremony, how much he wished she didn’t have to die, how he didn’t want to kill her, that he was going to fight it after all. He wanted to beg her to take him off on one of her adventures, so they both stay alive…stay the Oswald and Lacie they were all those years ago, beneath the stars.

He wanted to say ‘I love you.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘I love you so much.’ ‘Don’t leave me here alone.’ ‘Punch me in the face, I’ve become a monster, just don’t sit quietly and let it happen.’

‘I love you, Lacie.’

But he stayed in bed.

*****

It was a lovely ceremony. Everyone thought so. Everything went flawlessly, each cue followed without a single hiccup.

The Baskervilles bowed profusely to him, and spoke of how honored they were to have such a decisive and devoted leader. Levi—(Levi now, not Master Glen anymore)—had commended him for an impeccable performance—

(it wasn’t a performance was it? They all treated like it was some glorious show, but this was real. This was…this was blood and death and—)

There had been no tears when she died. This was not sad. This was not loss. This was justice. This was virtuous, and noble, and proper, and right. Everyone had told him so since they were children. That’s all her death was, a period at the end of a sentence. The signing of a contract.

(A contract selling his soul.)

And he almost believed them. From the very beginning this whole becoming Glen thing was a great honor, a golden opportunity, and the margin for error, for what if they’re, what if this is, wrong? was a small black spot in the corner on an otherwise spotless painting. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t dare let that spot consume this immaculate image, made by people who knew better than him.

Everything perfect. In its place. No hiccups. No spots. No broken rules, or uncalculated errors.

No messes.

That’s all she was to them. A mess Glen made, that he needed to clean up.

Glen slipped into his quarters after the dinner, after shaking hands with all the friends and strangers who had come to watch, congratulating him for earning such a privilege as the name ‘Glen.’

Glen did not retire early, did not tell them it wasn’t the honor they thought it was, did not show anything was amiss. For nothing was.

That day he was some sort of machine, an automaton sent and meant to follow others’ bidding, and he did so without a slip. He was built to be the master of the Baskervilles, and carry on their name properly, programmed to eradicate every distortion against this design, especially those anomalies created by him. If he made a single mistake, it meant something was wrong with his code, with the calculations he was made of. Glen held himself high, and breathed easy, guiltless and free.

However, when he arrived in his bedroom he did not hang his cloak up neatly in the wardrobe. He did not pour himself a nightcap and slip into his nightclothes, before sliding into bed and sleeping soundly, knowing he’d received a great reward, and done his job well, as he was programmed to.

Nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong with what he’d done. Nothing was wrong with him.

Glen was, as he should be, the picture of the Baskervilles. Glen had done everything right, and was marked with a name that said he would continue to do so…if not, the chains holding the world together might just fall apart.

Oswald hadn’t taken a single breath that day.

Try as he might to deny it, there was still something human left in Oswald.

When he clicked the door shut behind him, he stayed there a moment. He pulled off his red cloak, jacket, and cravat slowly, and threw them it onto a chair with a certain violence, tossing off his socks and not caring where they landed, before leaning his head back against the grain of the door.

Now, now that he was alone, out of the reach of those who programmed him, allowed to be flesh and blood, allowed to breathe again… every breath he should have been taking that day slammed into his lungs at once, tumbling one after another, punching, dragging their nails along the back of his throat as they climbed onto his tongue, then fell from his lips like blood.

He was not metal and mandates. Not here. Here he was…so very alive.

Oswald was becoming painfully aware of just how alive he was.

How many breaths had he taken in the last minute? Five? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? Stolen from the atmosphere. Stolen from…

Had he had this many breaths before? Had his life been composed of this much air? Every second, every minute, every hour. Every day, every week, every year. A chain of breaths, each one a reminder he was still alive, he was still him.

All he needed was one. All he would have ever needed to use was one.

One to speak her name.

One to tell her. To tell her how much she meant to him.

One breath

“You sin is…”

Two breaths.

“That you were born with these eyes of ill omen…”

Three.

“…and that you are a threat to the peace of the Abyss.”

Inhale

Your sin is…

Exhale.

Your very existence.

He put his face in his hand, his hair leaking between the cracks in his fingers.

All he needed was one.

But he could have used more. He could have taken five to say a sentence. Thirty to say a paragraph. He could have taken a couple hundred to make a speech or two. He had enough to spare. He could steal that many before getting caught.

Instead, they tuned his tongue into a weapon…and he let them.

All he needed was one. One to tell her.

To tell this girl that her smile was, at times, the only thing that kept him going. To tell this girl how much he appreciated how she spent her time baking for him, and sewing bunnies into her dresses. How much he loved those moments when he sat with this girl and watched the stars. How much he loved the lyrics she gave to his songs. How much he loved watching her run from her cage, and fate, and dance like she’d die tomorrow.

To tell this girl that her very existence was much more than a gift, rather at times the only thing that kept him alive, kept him sane, kept him him.

All he needed was one breath.

And he used his breath to tell her that her existence was a crime. To follow his program, the script set for him. Instead he chained this girl, wild and free, to the ground, and the ceiling. He used his breath to her to steal hers away.

In all those years he could have paid a single breath to make his thoughts reach her.

Right now he’d pay all of them.

He slid down the door till he was sitting on the ground.

“Say something. Do Something.”

He could have fought this. Long ago. He could have done something. Back then he could have said he didn’t want to be Glen after all. He could have run from the house with her and never come back. He could have run away all those years ago.

He could have run away yesterday.

Today he could have done something. He could have not stood before that door, and drank that blood. He could have said “I won’t be Glen. I’d rather she lived.” He could have stood up, the Jabberwocky’s blood in his veins, and said “No, no I won’t do it. I won’t kill her. I’m Glen now, and now I say she lives.”

And even if he had kicked and screamed, and lost all the same… he could have told her. Told her how much he cared. He would have at least had that.

It seemed so simple.

Thank you.

Thank you for your smile. You never knew how wonderful it could make someone feel.

Thank you for the cake. I hated the taste, but I loved the look on your face.

Thank you for the starlit evenings, and the lyrics I couldn’t come up with.

Thank you for the whimsy, and the adventures, and the messes.

Thank you for the music, and dances.

Thank you for…existing.

It wasn’t that hard to say.

So why had the words died every time they rose to the surface? Why had he let those breaths out instead of taming them into words?

“I love you.”

Three little words. One breath. Half a breath. Why had they seemed so big and unconquerable, and hard to get out all those years?

And he realized, that breath catching in his throat, that today, here, now, now that she was in the Abyss, now that she was gone, now that he’d never be able to say those things to her—

He had said the words aloud.

All those years, thinking and waiting and wondering, them simmering beneath the surface, never able to reach the air.

Now he had spoken them without even taking a second to consider them, the breath, the words, falling from his lips without him knowing, calculating, or thinking.

And once they spilled out, they started to simmer and burn on his tongue, they started to bubble, like all those breaths hitting him at once; all those years of silence, crying out;

“I love you.” He whispered into his fingers, like the words were the discordant notes to a broken music box, “I love you. I love you. I love you…Lacie…”

And with her name, the name of the girl with red eyes and an untamable heart, he felt something burn in his own eyes.

This wasn’t just some girl. This was Lacie. The one who sat with her brother and comforted him when he was sad, who joked with her brother, and dragged him outside, and made a beautiful mess of things. Not a child of ill omen. Not a distortion to be eradicated. Not a mess herself. This was his sister, who he loved.

It always felt like they were in different dimensions, but now they really were worlds apart, divided by time and space and—

This was his sister. Who didn’t deserve to die.

Glen was an impeccable leader. Glen didn’t hesitate to kill that which posed a threat. Glen wasn’t sad. Glen did what needed to be done, and it didn’t matter who she was.

But Oswald felt the drops against his skin, his hands unable to dam up the stream, the image of his sister hanging from the ceiling, and his own voice putting her there burning in his memory.

All Oswald wanted was to hear his sister’s feet patter up to him. All he wanted was to see his sister smile again. All he wanted was to eat his sister’s horrible cakes again. All he wanted was to sit and watch the stars with his sister, and come up with rhymes for words that have none. All he wanted was to clean up his sister’s messy room, and fix her ripped dresses. All he wanted was to be able to tell his sister off for running off on some adventure. All he wanted was to hear his sister sing, watch her dance, again. All he wanted was to feel his sister’s hands on his head, and her breathe into his hair sweet words about how she loved the world that hated her.

How she loved the brother that killed her.

He tried to let out this breath, but it would only come out in pieces, letters, words, now, always the same ones, the words, unsaid, that would forever haunt his lips;

“I love you, Lacie.”

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myherorp · 4 years

Photo

THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on general studies student, jeon mingyu.

get to know them !

faceclaim: han jisung

name: jeon mingyu

gender & pronouns: cismale, he/him

age: 19

year group: third

department: general

reputation: mingyu gets along well with his peers and does all his projects on time. he’s by no means a teacher’s pet, but he thinks there’s no harm in staying on their good side. despite this, he’s sort of a classic class clown, still he keeps everyone at an arms’ length. he wants to befriend everyone but he doesn’t let anyone truly befriend him, in a sense.

the quirk!

quirk name: undead

quirk description: essentially, mingyu’s body is dead, safe for the fact that his senses still work. he won’t die if he doesn’t eat or sleep.

abilities:

he can survive fatal injuries, retrieve severed limbs and regenerate his body if damaged.

he can leave his body in the form of spirit, too.

there is a significant increase in his physical strength, but it in no way compares to quirks centered around physical strength.

in other words, his body is only directly influenced by his own brain. for example, even if his own arm is broken, his brain can force the body to continue using it.

weaknesses:

like a curse, he can still feel pain. despite not needing to eat or sleep, he can go hungry and he isn’t prone to being lethargic.

his body does begin to decay, he needs to constantly strive for physical contact to extract a sort of life-force to prevent this. day-to-day contact suffices (for example, bumping someone’s shoulder in the bus), usually.

when leaving his body as a spirit, he can only do so for 15 minutes. if he stays outside his body for too long, his body will rot faster.

he isn’t immortal. a shot to his brain is insta-kill, another would be to keep his spirit away from his body for as long as possible.

he doesn’t have a heartbeat. his brain is the only organ of his that still functions ‘normally’.

mutation: his body can physically decay.

the history !

triggers: child abuse, murder

mingyu needed a hero of his own.

as a child, he thought they were amazing—adorning their eye-catching costumes, circling the premises as if their life depended on it, rescuing whoever it was no matter what. going back in time, he recalled instances where he wanted to wear those same capes, desired nothing more than to help those in need to the best of his abilities. heroes would be showered with praise, loved to the ends of the earth for their services.

if they were within vicinity, everything would be alright, it seemed. they will save you, keep you safe—that was their duty, the reason they exist.

they didn’t become heroes for nothing, after all. surely, he’ll encounter his own special hero one day, just like the ones he had seen on television. maybe, he’d be one of them one day, if the world allowed him to be. that was the dream, to have a hero take his hand and lead him out of the dark and into the light.

but for now, he had to focus on surviving until tomorrow.

“mingyu!” he could hear his father call, making him wince. no matter how many times he hears it, he could never get used to the sound of his father’s drunken slurs, the stomps that echoed throughout their small apartment. it didn’t take long for his father to reach him, there was nowhere mingyu could run. his father’s legs were longer than his, he couldn’t outrun him either way.

no, all he could do was take whatever his father was throwing at him and wait for his saving grace.

ii.

mingyu wondered what it was that made others worth saving, how long he had to wait for his dark days to end, how much he had to endure before someone, anyone, will hold out their hand to him.

he wasn’t sure when the first time happened. his arm bent backwards, elbow seemingly crushed. it happened before his father’s eyes—his bones rearranging themselves, popping his arm back into place, all he knew was that it hurt. his throat ached from screaming, voice thinning as he slowly lost it. for once, his father only stood there, watching as everything unfolded.

“so you aren’t a quirkless bastard after all,” was his only remark. his father didn’t say any more, wordlessly continuing what he was doing instead. the more mingyu’s body tried to fix itself, the harder his father went. and for his father, who was a hero of the old days, renowned for his physical strength, it was easy to go on as long as he wanted to.

mingyu stopped eating. he stopped drinking. he stopped breathing. his heart stopped beating. he felt like he was bleeding, but he couldn’t taste the iron.

mingyu died that day. no one came to save him.

iii.

reincarnation, the rebirth of a soul. the rebirth of the aspect of an individual that persists after bodily death—whether it be consciousness, mind, the soul, or some other entity—in one or more successive existences.

it took mingyu’s vessel to die for him to realise that he needed to save himself.

what came from a dead body that continues to push itself past is limits, is that his strength was no longer measured by normal means. mingyu needed years to realise that he could fight back, that his father was all brittled bones and his own could no longer stay shattered. he only struggled for 20 minutes, before he managed to escape his father’s clutches, running out of the house. his ankles were twisted, ribs broken, swaying as he walked. he eventually stumbled upon a hero, concern laced on their face.

his father, proud and stubborn, refused to lose. even to another hero, one he seemed to recognise. but his father’s only practice for the past few years was beating up his own son senseless, he wasn’t prepared to face a hero who made headlines.

instead, his father chose death—coward that he was.

but it seemed even cowards had more worth than he did, because the next thing he knew, the same hero who he thought brought him out of the dark told him that mingyu couldn’t speak of this to anyone. “your father was a hero to many, if word got out that he was actually like this… he was my friend, an inspiration to other heroes. he saved many people during disasters that you can’t possibly comprehend, life-changing events that you thankfully didn’t have to experience. you understand, don’t you?”

that was when he realised, his father had been one of those heroes he had seen so often on television, the same ones mingyu idolised ever since he laid his eyes on them. even though his body could no longer function that way, his stomach churned, a lump forming on his throat.

mingyu laughed, throat tight, but he nodded all the same.

“yeah.”

he’ll never become his father.

iv.

time continues to flow. the world moved on, and mingyu had to as well.

staying in an orphanage for so long, mingyu thought it was about time he give up on getting adopted. life had other plans, however. suddenly, he was no longer mingyu—he was jeon mingyu, the adopted son of two loving parents who wanted nothing more than the best for him. his parents pushed him to strive for the best, and that meant yueng-ung academy.

life seemed better then, the years that lead up to this point felt like a blur, a fever dream that he’d be happy to forget.

but it was impossible to, when mingyu passed a boy who looked just as frail as he was, bruises littered all over his body, the same fear he had seen on the mirror too many times evident in the boy’s eyes.

heroes have their plates full, they say. all their attention were on the inevitable attack of villains, preventing doomsday, natural disasters that will undoubtedly claim many lives. in that case, someone has to look out for the little guys, right?

donning a self-designed costume, helping out those that can’t reach out to heroes who seem too far away—he can do that much. no one else wanted to.

he didn’t want to be a hero, he just doesn’t want anyone else to have to wait as long as he did.

the personality !

mingyu tends to keep to himself. he is anxious when it comes to interacting with others, especially those he isn’t familiar with. in groups, he’s usually the mood-maker to make up for the fact that when conversing with people on his own, he’s rather quiet. his social battery runs out pretty quick, so after throwing out jokes and making people laugh, you can find him on his own listening to music or doing something else in his lonesome. in truth, he craves close connections, he doesn’t know how to go about keeping them.

he may come across as immature and brash at first, mostly because he wasn’t taught proper etiquette, coming from a dysfunctional home life. he also has a lot of pent up emotions buried within. he hasn’t figured out a healthy way to release them yet; outbursts are to be expected, although they come rarely. having a body that can basically act as a punching bag, there are times when he might not be able to understand other people’s pain, both emotionally and physically.

despite his bad experience with heroes, he holds no grudges against the heroes themselves, but the system. he wouldn’t, by any means, hold a prejudice against someone simply for being a hero. this, however, may apply to villains as well. he doesn’t see any sides, he doesn’t accept that everything is so black and white. as a vigilante, he is ruthless and doesn’t hold back. this is the only way he knows, so far, for how to release some of his anger. he doesn’t try to take a life, and so far there has been no need to. but if push comes to shove, he isn’t sure he’ll keep his clean record.

#myheroaccepted #myherofollow #child abuse tw #murder tw

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grandtheftstarship · 5 years

Text

Way Out There (Leonard McCoy x Reader) [Songfic]

A/n: So this started off really small for the song and then it ended up going nearly 1000 words on after the song ends... oops. You don’t really need to listen, the lyrics just relate to the idea of the fic and are written in, but Lord Huron is a bop and I really recommend it :) If you want to play the song, start the music at the bolded sentence.

Summary: [y/n] finds out that the Enterprise crashed on Altimid and rushes to save Leonard, her boyfriend.

Word Count: 2226 Warnings: none :) Posted: Tumblr, Wattpad Requested: no

Link to Way out there by Lord Huron.

U.S.S Enterprise Missing.

The headline mocked you, grinning evilly from the page. Your eyes brimmed with tears, one person on your mind.

Leonard.

He was on the damn ship, and if you weren't recovering from Andorian Fever you would be too. Your chest tightened with grief at first, then loneliness then anger.

You readjusted your heading, now walking briskly towards Starfleet headquarters instead of the local Starfleet medical center. You knew Commodore Paris personally, she was a family friend, so hopefully, you could get in quickly and easily.

"Lieutenant {y/f/n] to see Commodore Paris," you told the receptionist, rapping your fingernails on the marble countertop.

"She's in a briefing, but they will be on break in a few minutes," she nodded at you, returning to her computer.

You thanked her and paced lightly in the adjacent waiting room. Five agonizing minutes later, the Commodore and several other Starfleet officials left the room, heading for the small cafe across the street. You rushed to her side, greeting her quickly.

"Do you have any information regarding the Enterprise?" you asked hastily. "Do you know who attacked them?"

"Nothing yet," she replied. "Do you have someone out there?"

You sighed looking down. "Yes. My boyfriend, Doctor Leonard McCoy."

"I see," she patted your shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," you returned, fire burning in your eyes. "Commodore, I'm requesting a ship to go after them."

"Are you crazy?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "I'm not letting anyone out there until we can confirm a safe way through the nebula."

"But Ma'am-"

"No, [y/n]," she said firmly. "Your request is denied. It's not safe."

The commanding officers returning to the briefing room caught her attention.

"I have to go now," sympathy softened her face. "I'm sorry."

She removed her hand and walked back towards the open door. You looked on after her, the heavy feeling of defeat settling in your chest.

Then a crazy idea hit you. An idea so insane, it fell into Jim Kirk crazy. And it could 100% get you fired.

I'm a long way from the land that I left

I've been running through life and cruising toward death

If you think that I'm scared you've got me wrong

If you don't know my name, you'll know it now

I belong bodily to the earth

I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first

There are many more flames when mine is gone

They will build me no shrines and sing me no songs

Upon leaving the now empty waiting room, you made your way hastily towards the shipyard. You knew that there were a few small scout ships that were manned by one pilot. Filled with a newfound determination, you knew you would do anything to save your boyfriend. You swiped your keycard at the entrance. It was late and you didn't have much time before officers working there noticed a stray engineer attempting a case of "Grand Theft Starship". You tiptoed on board one of the survey vessels, shutting the door and getting straight to it.

I'm a long way from the one that I love

I've been tending old flames, lamenting what was

Drifting in a land time forgot

If you think that I've changed, you know me not

I belong bodily to the earth

I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first

I been unraveling since my birth

Gonna wander out there and see what I'm worth

Find me way out there

There's no road that will lead us back

When you follow the strange trails

They will take you who knows where

If I found a way to stay with you tonight

It would only make me late, for a date I can't escape

The vessel hummed to life, panic spiking through your core. You worked quickly, getting systems online like there was no tomorrow. As you engaged the thrusters, you began hearing the confused shouts of Starfleet officers trying to get you to land. Once you finally left the atmosphere, you cursed Bones and his stupid job. Rescuing his ass was so going to get you fired, and when you found him you were going to give him a piece of your mind. You were able to reprogram the maneuvering capabilities of the small vessel so you could get through the nebula unscathed. At warp three, you carried on.

Navigating through the nebula was one of the hardest things you had ever done. You managed to get through with only small damage to the hull, but your victory was short-lived. You eased the craft out of the cloud, jaw hitting the floor.

Find me way out there

There's no road that will lead us back

When you follow the strange trails

They will take you who knows where

If I found a way to stay with you tonight

It would only make me late, for a date I can't escape

Two nessels were floating aimlessly in front of you, the destroyed body of the ship not far from them. Tears brimmed your eyes as the saucer was nowhere to be found. You were distracted from your astonishment by the small beep of your sensor.

You couldn't believe your eyes. Your scan of the planet below showed you three groups of life forms. One was large, seventy-five to one-hundred or so life signs, while the other two were much smaller. You decided on landing near the group of four, praying the small dots on the screen were your friends and crewmembers.

"Keptin!" Chekov shouted, scrambling over the rocks towards Jim, Scotty, and Jaylah. "There's a scout ship heading straight for us."

He slowed down to catch his breath, having caught the captain's attention. "It's federation, sir."

"Are you sure?" he asked, moving towards Chekov and his tricorder.

"Yes sir," he replied, pointing to the small figure on his tricorder. "I am picking up Starfleet frequencies."

The low hum of your thrusters and the low crackle of you entering the atmosphere drew the group's attention from the small device. You maneuvered the stout vessel to a bare plot of land not far from them, landing softly on the patch of rock. Jim led his miniature crew towards your stolen ship, all anxiously waiting for the metal hatch to open and reveal who was behind the sudden change in dynamics.

The door thudded open whilst you finished shutting down the power to save the small amount of fuel you had left in case you needed it. You nearly threw yourself out of your chair when you finished, anxious to see who was outside.

"[y/f/n]?" Chekov gasped, rushing to the front of the small pack. "Боже мой, это действительно ты!" (Oh my god, it's really you!)

He rushed forward, nearly tripping on loose stones, and tackled you in a hug. Pavel was your best friend, besides Bones of course.

"How are you doing? How did you get here? Are you okay- are you still sick? You should be recovering-"

"Slow down!" you laughed, nudging his shoulder slightly. "I'll explain everything, but you have some things to tell me too, mister."

"Okay, so here's what went down," he began, already waving his arms around enthusiastically. "Basically, I was expertly navigating through this nebula when these teeny little ships caught my attention-"

You smiled at the captain, waving slightly as Pavel babbled on about the attack while leading you across the jagged terrain.

"That would explain the torn up ship floating about up there," you nodded towards the sky. "Thank god this planet is class M. I can't even think about how horribly worse this could have gone if you had crashed on a planet full of toxic gas or something."

"It is already quite a terrible situation," he followed your eyes up into the wispy clouds. They reminded you of those on Earth. "I mean, the attackers took all the crew members that managed to get into their Kelvin Pods. If I had used mine any earlier, I would have been taken as well."

You shuddered at the thought.

"Who are you?" an unknown voice spat from behind you, the hostility dripping from the spoken words catching you off guard.

"This right here is [y/f/n] [y/l/n]," Scotty clapped you on the shoulder. "The best assistant chief engineer one could ask for."

"Aw, shucks," you punched him lightly on the shoulder. "I try."

"[y/n], this is Jaylah," Scotty gestured to the white-faced alien, looking a little ruffled. You waved.

"Is this another one of your mates?" she asked, a little less harshly. Scotty nodded.

"You betcha."

By now, your little group had reached Jaylah's house. They explained to you how it got there, how Jaylah found it, and why nobody else had stumbled across it.

You brushed your fingers over the ancient technology. "Wow."

"There's not even a sickbay?"

Jim shook his head. "Nope. Bones would be pissed."

You giggled. "Speaking of, where is he?"

You knew instantly something was wrong.

"Jim," panic rose in your chest. "Where is he?"

He avoided your eyes.

"H-He's fine, right?"

"We don't know where Bones or Spock are," Jim said finally. "They were in the turbolift when the saucer was separated."

"We will find him, [y/n/n]," Chekov patted you on the shoulder. "Somehow, one way or another, we will find him."

You, Chekov, and Scotty worked for the next several hours to reprogram the transporter modules to allow a person to be beamed aboard.

"Done!" you called from underneath the transporter pad, a low hum of electricity proving your statement.

"Ура!"(Hooray!) Pavel cheered.

"Well done, lass," Scotty congratulated you as he helped pull you out.

"It was nothing," you replied, brushing yourself off. "I mean, you guys helped too."

Pavel interjected before Scotty could respond. "Hold on, I'm reading some... life signs?"

You and Scotty hurried to the panel he was looking at, and sure enough, two life signs blinked back at you.

"Beam them," Scotty muttered.

You turned to him. "What?"

"We can beam them here!"

"But what if they're hostile?" Chekov asked, fear flashing through his eyes.

"Then we'll... beam them back?"

"Wait, there are more coming!" you pointed back to the screen.

"What if they're crew members?"

"That wouldn't make sense, lad!"

When the two of them started arguing, more signs of life began appearing.

"What the hell," you murmured, locking on to one of the signals. The transport sounded a bit more static-y than you were used to but as you and the boys turned towards the pad, a familiar face greeted you.

"Lieutenant [y/l/n]?"

"Spock?"

Before you could hug him (even if he protested), he hobbled off the pad as urgently as he could.

"You must beam the doctor out of there."

Without missing a beat, you thrust yourself back at the panel and locked on.

Once the strange noise faded, you felt your stomach drop in relief.

"It feels like my innards have been to a barn dance," Leonard said, looking a bit green.

"These old transporters were mainly used for cargo, but a bit of maintenance did the trick," Scotty explained, slapping him on the shoulder. "Sorry, we had to beam you one at a time, to avoid being... misplaced."

"I couldn't imagine a worse scenario," Bones looked around the room before letting his eyes fall on your worried-slash-relieved complexion.

Your legs moved on their own accord, propelling you into Leonard's waiting arms. He held you so tight you weren't sure how much longer you could breathe.

Suddenly, he pushed you out of his arms, brows furrowed in a grimace.

"What the hell, [y/n], you're supposed to be recovering!"

His face melted back into worry and he pulled you back into his embrace.

"I'm so happy to see you, love."

You giggled. "I'm so happy you're safe."

He then, more gently this time, released you from the hug and grabbed your hands.

"I'm still mad at you for trekking all the way to this goddamn planet," he scolded, wearing worried and frustrated expressions simultaneously. "Thank god you weren't on the ship or I'm pretty sure I would have died from a damn heart attack."

"I'm fine, you big silly," you reassured him. "But, I'm pretty sure Spock isn't."

His face paled. "Shit."

He placed a quick, chaste kiss on your lips before rushing off to treat his patient.

You smiled sweetly as he rushed off, simply ecstatic he was alive and well.

#star trek #star trek imagines #star trek songfic #star trek x reader #star trek reader inserts #bones mccoy #leonard bones mccoy #leonard bones mccoy x reader #bones mccoy x reader #leonard mccoy x reader #lord huron #I LOVE LORD HURON SO MUCHH #leonard mccoy reader inserts #leonard mccoy aos #leonard mccoy aos x reader

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