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danielfuckingricciardo · 1 year

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Rise Like A Phoenix - Chapter Seven

Pairing - Jenson Button x Reader + Charles Leclerc x Reader + Daniel Ricciardo x Reader

Word Count - 2504

Content Warning - Swearing, alcohol, gambling, sexual references

Synopsis - When a German agent goes missing investigating a diplomat’s disappearance, you are asked to take the case as your old adversary is revealed to be the one to blame. However, you soon find out that you will not be working alone, and will have to complete your mission with the help of agent Charles Leclerc.

Author’s Note - This one’s probably my favourite! No spoilers for the content ahead but we get to meet some new people!! Sorry for uploading this one later than normal, thanks to my queue fucking up I had to delete the post and forgot to re-schedule it. Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter Seven - Vodka Martini, Dirty

Your reluctance to leave Svetlana with the valet meant that you were extremely late by the time the two of you had entered the casino.

“Bathrooms now” You whisper in Charles’ ear, before pulling him towards the corridor of toilet blocks.

Each bathroom was individual, containing a toilet, a sink, a plush cotton hand towel, and a velvet chair. You drag Charles into the third room and lock the door behind you.

“I know we were interrupted earlier, but shouldn’t we find Fortescue first” Charles says, and you chuckle.

“Charles, for fucks sake, I’m not trying to have sex with you. I need to give you an earpiece so we can communicate with George. He has the floor plans, access to the security cameras, he’s going to help us find out the identity of our mystery man and hopefully get us in with Fortescue.” You say, passing Charles the earpiece. It was small, small enough to fit inside your ear so that people would never even be able to tell that you were wearing an ear piece at all. He slides it into his ear, and you do the same with yours.

“Testing, one two, one two, George can you hear me?” You say

“Loud and clear.” George responds, “So, Charles, there are casino chips in the box under the sink, you need to insert yourself into the game with Fortescue, when the croupier deals the next hand, take the empty seat beside him and strike up conversation. See if you can find out anything at all about what he’s up to.”

“Wait, I’m going in alone?” Charles says as he grabs the box of chips and slides the contents into his pocket.

“Fortescue knows me, and he knows who I work for, but he doesn’t know you. I’ll be sitting by the bar, and listening in. I’ll tell you what to say and do. And George will be keeping an eye out too.” You say, giving him a reassuring smile.

“What about Polina?” Charles asks.

“So far, we have no reason to suspect that she actually knows you. And even if she does, it’s likely that she wouldn’t want to mention the fact she knows you, as she would need to expose her identity to do so.” George says, and you nod in agreement.

“Okay, let’s go.” Charles says, opening the door, allowing you to pass through first before following you out into the corridor.

The two of you split as you reach the main floor of the casino, with you heading left towards the bar, and Charles heading right to circle the room, his eyes firmly fixed on Fortescue’s blackjack table.

You take a seat at the bar and the bartender walks over.

“What can I get you, Madame?” He asks.

“Vodka martini. Dirty.” You respond, sliding a single casino chip over the bar towards him.

“Of course, Madame.” He responds, and he disappears across the bar to prepare your drink.

“A martini? Very James Bond.” Charles says to you, and you have to stifle a chuckle.

“Oh, fuck off.” You respond, and you hear George laugh in response.

“Fortescue and Sukharnikova are at the table, but there’s no sign of our mystery man.” Charles says, and you sigh.

“George, check the CCTV, see where he went.” You say, taking a sip of the drink the bartender had just passed you.

“On it. He was there five minutes ago, he got up and…” George stops talking, and you turn as a man takes a seat beside you.

“Vodka martini. Dirty.” He says to the bartender in that familiar Australian accent, before turning to you and pressing his lips against your ear, “But you already know I like it dirty, better than most, (y/n)”

“Oh fuck, not you again.” You say, before taking the olive from your drink and popping it into your mouth.

“That’s no way to greet your sensational former partner and lover, now is it.” The man says, and you scoff.

“What the hell are you doing with Fortescue? You know who he is, what he did, what he continues to do, so why?” You whisper yell at him.

“What, who is it?” Charles says.

“That would be Daniel Ricciardo, Australian Intelligence.” George says.

“I wouldn’t exactly use the words Daniel Ricciardo and Intelligence in the same sentence.” You say, downing the rest of your drink, and oh boy were you going to need it.

“That’s rude, and for your information, I’m very clever. Is that George in your ear? I always liked George, tell him I said hi.” Daniel says, and you roll your eyes.

“George, Daniel said hi.” You say, your voice as flat and emotionless as possible.

“Oh, tell him I said hello back.” George says.

“I’m not fucking Facebook! George, hack into Daniel’s earpiece and add him to our network.” You say.

“Doing it now… and… welcome Daniel.”

“Russell George! Long time no see, or hear!” Daniel exclaims, and you groan.

“Can you just answer my question now, what the fuck are you doing here, aside from making my life a nightmare once again?” You say.

“I’m undercover, that’s why I’m with Fortescue. It was an accident really, we were after Polina Sukharnikova after we intercepted an encrypted message to a bloke we’ve been monitoring for a while. Webber sent me to infiltrate her organisation and find out what I could, and that’s how I ended up essentially becoming Fortescue’s right-hand man.” Daniel says.

“Well, we’re here now, so Australian below-average-intelligence can stand down.” You say, and Charles and George both chuckle.

“Wait, have the Australians been operating here without our knowledge?” Charles asks.

“It wouldn’t be much of a secret undercover operation if we went around telling everyone, would it?” Daniel says sarcastically.

“That’s a fair point, but still, there are sanctions for this kind of thing, protocols to follow.” Charles says.

“Do I seem like the sorta guy who follows protocol? Anyway, (y/n), who’s the new guy, he sounds hot, he has that whole French accent thing going on, which I know for a fact you like, should I be jealous?” Daniel teases, poking you in the shoulder.

“I’m not French, I’m Monegasque.” Charles grumbles.

“If you’re a local, then what the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you guys like forbidden from entering your own casino?” Daniel asks, and Charles sighs.

“No, we’re not allowed to gamble, but I’m a fucking spy, mate, I can go wherever I want. How do you know so much about us anyway?” Charles says in an exasperated tone.

“I’ve been living here for like a month, and besides, you think I’m stupid enough not to do my research? Don’t believe everything (y/n) tells you. I’m actually a fucking genius.” Daniel responds with a laugh.

“Alright, fuck, whatever. (Y/n), did you really go out with this guy?” Charles can’t help but ask.

“Sadly, yes, now can we all just focus on the mission rather than discussing my personal life? Thank you.” You say, louder than you intended. You take a quick glance around the bar, and upon realising it was empty, take a sigh of relief.

“Okay, Charles, the croupier is about to deal a new hand, this is your chance. Take the seat next to Fortescue.” George says, and Charles hums a quick yes.

“I have eyes on Charles via the security cameras, I’ll keep you updated (y/n), and you should now be able to hear exactly what Charles is hearing.” George says, and with the click of a few buttons, that voice you had come to dread begins to play in your ear.

“I’m a natural born winner darling, that’s how it’s done.” Fortescue says, his cockiness dripping from every word.

You take a quick glance over as Charles takes his seat at the table, signalling for the croupier to deal him in.

“Minimum bet is fifteen thousand, good luck gentlemen.” The croupier says, and Charles slides two chips from his pocket into the betting box.

The croupier deals Charles his first card and he lifts it gently, taking a quick glance, cautious of any prying eyes. It’s a jack of spades, a good start for any hand.

Charles looks over at Fortescue, who offers him a nod of his head as he checks his own card. He returns the gesture, not wanting to seem rude or come across as suspicious.

The croupier flips his own card, a three of diamonds, not a good start to any game, before continuing around the table, passing Charles his second card.

Charles bites his lip as he flips the card over to see the ace of spades. He had made 21 in two cards, and would most likely be walking away from the table with thirty thousand euros. He looks up, to notice that Fortescue was staring at him intently, glancing down to Charles’ hands and then back up to his face, not even looking at the card he had just been dealt.

A final flip of a five of diamonds for the croupier signals Charles’ win, and upon being offered another card, he declines it, sliding his two cards beneath his chips.

“Someone’s feeling rather confident.” Fortescue says, gesturing for the Croupier to hand him another card. He checks it and grimaces.

“Fuck!” He shouts, slamming his three cards to the table, a three of clubs, a ten of hearts and the ten of diamonds.

“Bust, sir.” The croupier says, before sliding Fortescue’s chips and cards over to his side of the table. “And you sir.” He says, flipping Charles’ cards over to reveal his win. “Natural 21, congratulations, sir.”

Charles takes the chips from the croupier and slides them into his jacket pocket.

“Nice one Charles!” You say, and he struggles to suppress a smile.

“Well done, sir. Forgive me, but, I haven’t seen you around here before. I’m Edmund Fortescue, and this is Polly.” Fortescue says, extending his hand for Charles to shake.

Charles takes Fortescue’s hand and shakes it firmly. “Leclerc, Charles Leclerc.” He responds, and he hears a chuckle from you down his earpiece.

“Now who’s trying to be James Bond.” You comment, earning a laugh from Daniel and George.

“Well, Mr. Leclerc, are you good for another round? Let’s see if it was simply beginner’s luck, hm?” Fortescue asks, and Charles nods.

“Let’s see, indeed.” Charles says, sliding the chips he had just won into the betting box.

“Why don’t we make this one more interesting? I like to live dangerously.” Fortescue says, his eyebrow raised. He slides fifty thousand euros worth of chips into his betting box.

“You know, this is just like that scene in Austin Powers.” Daniel says, before tossing the olive from his martini in his mouth. You nudge him, and shush him as he chuckles to himself.

“Why not.” Charles responds, taking two more chips from his pocket and placing them on top of the others.

“Fifty thousand is the wager from both gentlemen.” The croupier says as he expertly shuffles the cards, dealing to each of the men before dealing his own card.

“So, Charles, you seem rather young to be wasting your evenings in a casino.” Fortescue says as he checks his card.

“I enjoy the rush that comes with card games. The wins make me happy, and the losses keep me humble. But what about you, why are you and your companion spending your time at the tables?” Charles asks, looking down at his card, the king of hearts.

“Polly is my business partner as well as my partner in life.” Fortescue says, gesturing at Polina who gives Charles a seductive smile and a wink. “Much like you, the wins please us, but I can’t say the same about the losses.”

“It’s a shame then.” Charles responds.

“How so?”

“You’re going to need a pretty good hand to beat that.” Charles says, gesturing to the croupier’s two queens laying face up on the table.

“What can I say, I was simply born to succeed.” Fortescue says smugly, flipping his own cards to reveal two jacks.

“Even” The croupier grumbles, sliding the four chips back towards Fortescue and folding his cards back into the pack.

“Success and winning are two different things, Mr. Fortescue.” Charles responds, before flipping his own cards - the king of hearts and the ace of hearts.

“Natural 21, well done again, sir.” The croupier responds, sliding €100.000 worth of chips in his direction.

“You are an interesting fellow, Mr. Leclerc, might I ask what business you are in?” Fortescue says, turning in his seat to face Charles.

“Great, Charles, see what you can get him to tell you.” George says in his ear, and he mentally nods.

“I work in a number of different fields, I mainly go wherever I can see profit. Much like tonight, I have enjoyed great success in following my nose.” Charles says, and Fortescue nods, an impressed look on his face.

“A good sense for profit is necessary in making a fortune it’s true, but, like tonight, I wonder how much of your money came from sheer luck.” He says, taking the glass of whiskey from Polina’s hand and downing it in one.

“Don’t all businessmen rely on luck to make their millions? We all take our chances, and the only difference between men like us and men living on the streets is that in our case, our risks were successful.”

“You’re smart, Mr. Leclerc, Charles, if I may.” Fortescue says, and Charles nods his head. “Charles, you’re smart, you understand how the world works, and for someone of your age, I commend you greatly for learning the truth so soon. I wish I had been more like you in my youth.”

“No matter what age we are, we can all find success if we accept that truth and use it to our own advantage.” Charles says, and Fortescue raises his empty glass in agreement.

“You know, I could use a man like you. A young man, a visionary. Someone who can not only see the future, but take his place within it. I’ll leave you my card, I’m holding a soirée for other such visionaries at my penthouse apartment tomorrow, and would be delighted if you would attend.” Fortescue says, smiling as he holds out his card for Charles to take. He takes the card and places it in his inner jacket pocket.

“Thank you, I would be honoured to attend, Mr. Fortescue.” Charles says, returning the gesture of a small smile. He glances over at Polina, whose hand was now resting on Fortescue’s shoulder, her eyes narrowed as she examines Charles’ face and bites her bottom lip.

“We should be going now, come Polly, we have a dinner reservation.” Fortescue says, “Till tomorrow night, Charles.” He stands from the table, and takes Polina’s arm in his own. They take a few steps away from the table, before he stops and turns to Charles, “Oh, and please do call me Edmund.”

Next Chapter

#Rise like a phoenix f1 #jenson button x reader #Jenson button x you #F1 x reader #f1 x you #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo x you

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lacontroller1991 · 3 years

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Mr. and Mrs. Flag (Rick Flag x Fem!Reader)

Requested by @myownworldsstuff : Rick Flag and Reader where they are married with Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibes

@h-hxgirl @artemis-cr0ck

Author's Note: I think the title is very fitting 😁

Warnings: Mention of child loss, mentions of abortion, language

The smell of homemade spaghetti entered Rick’s nostrils as he walked through the threshold into his shared home with you, his wife. Hearing the door open, you quickly wiped your palms on your apron before rushing to greet him.

“Hey baby, how was work?” You asked as he set down a briefcase before pulling you into his embrace, placing a gentle kiss on your lips.

“Work’s work, I had clients all the way up my ass today, bitching about how their stocks are plummeting,” he replied as you hummed, giving him a smile before pulling away. You knew he wasn’t a stock marketer. You knew he worked with some of the world’s most dangerous criminals. In any case, you were there to gather any intel you managed to scrape up for the CIA. What you didn’t expect was to slowly love him along the way. The CIA had warned you not to do what you did, saying that he was just a mission, but to you he became more than that. He became your best friend. He became your lover.

“Well, dinner is ready. Your favorite,” you whispered against his ear as you tugged against his blazer.

“You know me so well.”

You two ate in silence aside from the occasional slurp of noodles and guzzle of wine.

“So, how was your day?” He asked as you twirled the stem of your wine glass between your thumb and index finger, desperately wanting to tell him about how your day really was. As far as he knew, or so you thought, you were a kindergarten teacher at the local school.

“It was alright, I had 5 kids not wanting to take a nap, and 3 of them being rowdy as always. Even though I teach kids, I still don’t want one,” you mentioned as he let out a small chuckle before silence cascaded over the room. Your eyes locked with his as he cleared his throat.

“Listen, sweetheart, I got something to tell you.”

“No, I do too,” you replied, hands fidgeting underneath the table. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but this was Rick you were telling. Someone you actually care for. You both paused for a moment, urging the other to speak; however, that was put on hold as you saw something glisten in the moonlight out of the corner of your eye before noticing that it was quiet. Too quiet, you thought to yourself before a rain of bullets ripped through the window. Falling to the floor, you glanced over to Rick who too, looked over to you.

“I’m a secret agent.”

“I do special ops,” you both said at the same time, his news not new to you, but yours was to him.

“For how long?” He asked loudly, army crawling to a secret stash of guns as you copied his movements, reaching for your own.

“15 years,” you stated, loading some guns and grabbing a couple of knives as he cocked some guns.

“Shit. You’ve been lying to me this whole time?”

“Rick, you have been too, this is not the time and place for this conversation. There’s a secret door in the kitchen that will lead to the sewer, we can make it out of here,” you mentioned as he glared at you with mistrust in his eyes before giving in and nodding. Crawling your way to the secret door, you quickly stood up and shot your gun in the general vicinity of the advancing adversaries before you went down the stairs into the small basement with Rick following you. Turning to open the lid, you were stopped as a body was pressed against you and a gun to your temple. Staring into his hazel eyes, you noticed slight flecks of green and brown that you had come to love.

“How can I trust you?” He seethed as you didn’t try to fight back.

“Rick, if I was here to kill you, I would’ve. I’m an agent, yes, but I wasn’t assigned to kill you. Please, let’s just get to safety before we go into this,” you begged as he nodded, opening the lid to the sewer before jumping in, trying to not gag at the stench. Turning on the flashlight, you and Rick made your way through the tunnels before you found the exit you designated for something like this. Climbing up the ladder, you looked behind you to make sure he was following you, and when you saw he was, you opened the hatch and climbed out into the crisp autumn night. Climbing out after you, he looked at you, feelings confused as to what to do with you.

“You got a safe house?” He asked as you nodded, starting to walk the way of the house before he grabbed your arm and shook his head.

“It might be safer if we went to Belle Reve.”

“Show me the way.”

----------

Stepping out of the shower, you wringed out your hair with a towel as you made your way into the small room with an office attached to it.

“So this is where you sleep on the nights you can’t come home,” you quipped as he shot you a glare, cleaning the water off of his guns.

“Home,” he scoffed, clicking the barrel back into place, “what a joke.” Sighing, you took a seat next to him, flinching as he moved away from you.

“That’s what it is for me,” you tried to reason as he glared at you again, trying to remain stoic and not heartbroken that the love of his life is secretly an undercover agent.

“What am I to you?” His voice hoarse from the yelling and then the silent treatment. Placing a small hand on his shoulder, you were surprised when he didn’t move to remove it.

“My husband.”

“No, what am I to you? A target? A mission? Decoy?”

“Mission,” you muttered meekly as he ran a hand over his face before you continued, “4 years ago, the CIA debriefed me on you. West Point Grad. Special Ops officer. Leader of Task Force X. The latter being what they were concerned with. They wanted me to gather whatever I could on your team and report back to them. And for the first year, I did. I went through all of your records on your computers and then some, but what they didn’t count on was that…,” you hesitated for a moment, twirling your thumbs as he waited for you to continue, “...what I didn’t count on was that I would fall in love with you. Yes, you were my mission, but what I feel for you is real. Hell, those assholes who were shooting at us were probably after me,” you finished as you took a breath, feeling his calculating eyes scope you out, trying to tell if what you were saying was real or not.

“Why would they be shooting at you,” came out his gruff question as you turned your head to focus on him.

“Probably found out the information I supplied was falsified. The first year of information was all correct, but once I realized that I did, in fact, love you and was not clouded by hormones, I stopped providing correct information.”

“Why would you be clouded by hormones?”

“I was pregnant,” you whispered, moving to clutch your stomach where the baby died inside of you.

“What?” Rick asked, scooting closer to you, not sure if he heard you correctly.

“I was pregnant with your kid. The CIA found out and terminated the pregnancy,” admitting the horrors of what the agency did to you brought up memories of the procedure. Your eyes filled with tears as you remembered the intense pain that accompanied the loss of your child.

“Shit, baby,” Rick whispered, finally letting his guard down and believing you as he watched the way your eyes glossed over. I know that look all too well, he thought before pulling you into his arms and running his hand through your hair as you broke down. Tears poured down your face as he gently shushed you, slightly rocking his body with yours.

“I’m sorry, Rick. I really am. I really do love you, you have to believe me,” you begged through sobs as he paused for a second, realizing that he didn’t care about your past and your initial mission and that all he cared about in that moment was his wife in his arms.

“It’s alright baby, I understand. We’ll make this work,” he whispered against the top of your head, rubbing circles into your back. After a while, he had moved you and him up against the bed so that you were lying against his chest as his arms wrapped themselves around you.

“Rick,” you called out from his chest. Moving to look down at you, he brushed a strand of wet hair from your face.

“Yeah baby?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” kissing the top of your head, he rubbed your back again as he listened to your breathing become quiet and unnoticeable. Noting that you had fallen asleep, he took the opportunity to shut his eyes and let his mind carry him into a dull slumber.

Author’s Note: AHHH Hope you enjoy!!!

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mmmmalo · 3 years

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For anyone still under the impression that June Egbert is just a product of the Toblerone wishes with no particular relevance to Homestuck proper, here's an argument to the contrary: that June (or whatever you like to call her) was already here, woven into John's relationship with the idea of Dad.

Act 1 has a certain preoccupation with the ideal forms of things, John having multiple instances of saying X isn't a REAL X unless it has this or that characteristic. "A fire BELONGS in a fireplace, categorically." One of those outbursts touches upon masculinity, with John saying a gentleman without a monocle is a piss-poor excuse for such. Along such a paradigm, you might gather that something like John saying the beaglepuss sucks as a disguise or trying (and failing) to integrate Dad's pipe into the façade communicates that John is kind of grasping at this ideal of masculinity exemplified by Dad and getting frustrated that he can't seem to measure up to it (or that masculinity feels "fake" on him).

This sort of dynamic is more blatant with Dave, who talks openly about how he isn't a "hero", not really, measuring himself against the impossible standards set by his Bro. But as much was already implicit in Act 1.

Later it gets established that John has some kind of fear of heights: the first ogres appear after John experiences vertigo from almost falling off the stairs, and again after getting launched by the pogo hammer. (Just as Karkat suspected he was given a planet covered in his own blood as a form of harassment, Sburb placed John's house on that needle plateau because of this fear of heights; the game generally manifests adversaries in response to fear). The phobia becomes relevant to Dad stuff after the ogre fight is over, when John is hesitating to jump down into Dad's room: it isn't just that John's nervous about entering the room for the first time, the descent itself makes John anxious. Furthermore, this juxtaposition serves to establish that the fear of heights and anxieties around Dad are related somehow, if not outright synonymous. The two are associated again at the beginning of Act 5 Act 2, when dream!John tries to jump over a canyon to reach Dad, but awakens mid-leap. The formal reason John awakens is Vriska of course, but if we ignore her we're left with John approaching Dad and immediately experiencing vertigo. (The name "June" comes from Vriska contacting John shortly after this dream, incidentally)

This comes up again when John finds Dad's wallet and gets overwhelmed by the prospect of Manhood and the responsibilities it entails -- next thing you know John is flying around in Dad's car, having fun... and after the scene is interrupted by Seek the Highblood, we return to find John crashing the car (another fall from the sky!) and talking with Vriska about dread surrounding societal expectations, and the possibility of rejecting them to pursue something different for yourself. John came into the scene worried (if quietly) about the expectations surrounding manhood, so the Vriska conversation serves to makes those kind of concerns more vivid.

The car crash is itself kind of a metaphor for that conversation's trajectory... in Act 6 we see something analogous play out among the Dersites who have gotten into dapper-wear: one Dersite sits on a hat, panics about ruining it, and then begins to wonder if perhaps a crumpled hat could have a value of its own, aesthetically. (Dirk expresses this sort of counter-assessment more bombastically: "...the next best thing. By which you mean, the vastly superior thing.") Dad Crocker swoops in to condemn the crumpled hat, but the Dersite's tentative revaluation of an apparent failure mode is something the scene shares with Vriska, who initially regards her ambivalence towards murder as a symptom of personal failure, unbefitting her caste. John enters that conversation with a crumpled car, and from context we can guess John's revaluation concerns "failing" to be a man in the way Dad is, and how maybe that doesn't need to be considered a failure.

As laid out so far, I guess none of this quite necessitates trans-Egbert, since people can come at "anxiety and reservations at the prospect of embodying masculine ideals" from a number of angles... but there are other considerations which make me think wrestling with self-deprecating thoughts like "I'm a failed man" are maybe comorbid with a budding sense of being a girl, in Egbert's case.

Foremost, I think it helps to recognize that Dad's car can function as a symbol of John's body. To sketch a case for that:

1a. Death often means transformation: the trolls die in questcocoons to reach the godtiers, suggesting that death stands between the caterpillar and the butterfly, their too solid flesh dissolved into a goo.

1b. A command in Act 1 implores John to "retrieve arms from MAGIC CHEST". John complies twofold: we see some fake arms retrieved from the toy chest, held up by John's real arms which have been "retrieved" from John's ostensibly armless torso.

2. This dual usage of chest is deployed in part 3 of Openbound, in service of building a dysphoria metaphor (among other things). The segment reintroduces us to Fiduspawn, a game in which one creature hatches from another, a host creature, killing the host in the process (fans of the Alien films may recognize this as derivative of the "chestburster", fans of Homestuck may recognize this as analogous to godtiering). Damara (who Rufioh refers to as "doll") becomes the host plush, who is accused of locking away Rufioh's "happy thought" (Tinkerbull) in her "chest". Rufioh's beef with Damara serves to illustrate an adversarial relationship with one's own body, the ways in which the body itself seems to function as a barrier to some happiness. The carnal imprisonment of euphoria (the "happy thought") represents dysphoria. The conversation between Kanaya and Porrim which follows has analogous content and offers a potential resolution to such a conflict, with Kanaya coming to distinguish her body from the reproductive duties assigned to her body by her caste's place in society, and knowing that she is not "bound" to the Matriorb by any will but her own...

3. But the paradigm of Fiduspawn reminds us that the act of actually ripping the happy thought out of your chest has suicidal overtones, when taken literally. And Aradiabot notwithstanding, the inner ghosts the kids give up are often green: Dirkbot tears out his uranium heart and explodes, Rose peels pink bricks off the green core of an island and wonders aloud if her existence is a mistake, and (returning to our main topic!) John tries to retrieve the green package from Dad's car. The retrieval of the box comes to represents the birth of the self from its shell, the now broken body, a gesture which overlaps with the pursuit of death.

So we can infer that Dad is akin to Damara here, having locked the desired object (the box, the "happy thought") within a container that we can identify with John's own body. Thus Vriska's talk of perhaps rejecting her assigned role in society proceeds naturally from the wreckage of Dad's car: insofar as the car functions as an emblem of the masculine expectations imposed upon John, the car's wreckage suggests the possibility of liberation from those expectations, liberation from your own body. John is "sick to death of cake" -- cake is a Life symbol imposed by Dad, in visceral excess, accumulating as every birthday marches John towards Manhood. The possibility of living as a girl does not seem to have occurred to John yet, life and masculinity seem inextricable and absolute. The first time John sees Dad's car totaled (after Rose drops it), the symbol of self-as-corpse is surrounded by yellow bands of caution tape. The Authority Regulator who placed the tape will later declare himself to be THE LAW, and we should take his word for it: the scene's function is to declare that the crumpled car, the "dead" and therefore feminized body, is forbidden to John. No surprise then that as John marches to her death, in defiance of the Law's prohibition, she-whose-name-does-not-yet-suit-her is met with impressions of several maps that actually align with their territories: troll movies whose titles are their contents in full, a rocket encoded by the sound PCHOOOOO. John wants that for herself, I think. And as @lscholar once pointed out, it’s worth noting that John's pursuit of this unity (this pursuit of "death") is interrupted by Dave, who in saving John's life repeatedly emphasizes their status as "bros" -- masculinity being, again, inextricable from life within John’s symbol system.

...and that's the short of it. A more detailed account might get into the association of Vriska and other blue girls with the feminized corpse, or read into Equius self-consciously roleplaying as a cat girl between John’s joyride and crash, or perhaps try to apply this car-body framework to the appearances of Dad's car in the Epilogues. And I haven’t even touched upon clowns...but I'll call it here for now.

#homestuck commentary #john #i might do a follow up going into life metaphysics and how jade ties into things

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throwawayfish · 4 years

Text

𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐱 𝐊𝐨𝐨𝐤!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

summary: some things are worth the worry for. in this case, it’s someone.

warnings: angst, brief alcohol use, sexual innuendos, language, bit of steam and fluff in the end

a/n: would you look at that, another jj fic. request some for other characters if you’d like. hope you like this :)

comment on my main masterlist if you want to be added to my taglist! ♡

the muted rouge dress hugged your physique. staring straight into the mirror, dread reflected clearly in your eyes. as much as midsummers became a yearly part of your life, it seemed as though you felt more trapped than free.

it’s been four months since you’ve been secretly spending time with the pogues, when they invited you to sit with them when you got stood up by a random touron at the wreck, you knew you’ve found real and honest friends rather than trying to keep up with the kooks who just wants to do is make their daddies proud.

the clicking of your heels echoed through the marble floors that surrounded your estate. going down to be met by your parents and the cameron boy who have always been on your tail.

“you ready, princess?” the nickname he called you made you grimace, as you only accept that title if one certain pogue addressed it. nonetheless, you nodded “let’s get going then.”

the venue was crowded, full of socialites feeding their egos by talking about their wealths. but you can’t help but let your mind wander to the sound of waves nearby. how a vast unexplored area can be so daunting yet is still the one that can provide the quietude you seek, much like your friends from the cut.

you were sitting at the bar area of the country club, ditched by the boy who swore that he would accompany you, you didn’t really mind as he told that to your parents and not you. plus, you didn’t have to deal with his conceited self.

a commotion from the other side of the locale made you stand up, standing further on your tip toes as the heels you were wearing doesn’t seem to do much help. you spot him downing an alcoholic drink mr. dunleavy had while being escorted by security, jj maybank, the boy you had feelings for since the first time you held eye contact with him.

you have quite a difficult history with him. you were enemies who always flirted with each other every time you had the chance, acting like you guys were in a relationship but never came to terms with it. fear taking over every time you try to go down that path. yet you kept playing the game, not finding the urge to stop yourself from the contingency of getting hurt.

“let go of him!” you hear your brunette friend shout “you can’t just boot him.” she continued and you shifted your gaze to rafe who was standing on the side smiling “really.” he said before bring the wine glass to his lips, obviously enjoying the scene that was unfolding. right there you knew that he had something to do with what’s happening as they were meant to be longtime adversaries .

“i invited him here, i’m a member of this club!” she said through her parents’ protests. the public disturbance continued as you watched the blonde push the guard, shouting invites to his friends who strided towards him and john b away from all the kooks.

you watched in awe, the sight warming your heart. but as he finished spinning kiara off her feet, his azure eyes met yours. stopping from rejoicing, he didn’t rip his gaze from you, practically entreating you to join them as he motioned his head to their direction.

your eyes stung as your breathing hitched, your heart and mind begging you to run to his arms but your legs seemed to be stuck on quicksand as you can’t even take a step forward. everyone went back to their activities, but the ruckus remained inside you.

his shoulders dropped, it was a small gesture that almost turned you into dust. he sighed and looked down, nodding in defeat as he turned around not bothering to wait for your answer but assuming from your stillness.

he was gone after a moment, you didn’t even realize you were holding your breath as you let out a huge huff when you recovered. steadying yourself by the help of a wooden pillar beside you.

you ran past the sea of kooks, attempting to find your parents, arriving to see them chatting with probable business partners “mom, dad.” you called from beside them, your mom raisng her hand to stop you from speaking any further “mom, dad!” you spoke louder this time, making them turn their heads on you after excusing themselves to their companions.

“y/n, dear, we’re in the middle of a small meeting here.” your mom politely said with wide eyes and a harsh undertone in her voice “i know, i’m sorry about that...” you apologized directly to their associates before continuing “can i go home? i’m not feeling very well.” you lied

“no, darling.” she simply answered “if you’re not feeling well you should rest on one of the couches inside. we’ll go home together in a few.” your father added and without waiting for your reply went back to talking with their fellow kooks.

rolling your eyes, you stomped your way inside, knowing you can’t argue as it will only result to being grounded for a week. you slumped yourself on the couch, groaning as you saw you realize that your phone is dead.

waiting for an additional two hours bore the living soul out of you, not until a voice startled you from behind “i see you failed to hang out with those pogues.” you turned to see rafe making his way to sit beside you “what are you even talking about?” you looked in another direction.

“don’t even deny it, y/n. i saw your little moment with the street rat awhile ago.” you frowned from the description he used, well aware of who he’s talking about “shut the fuck up, rafe. just go get drunk and fuck topper or kelce. i won’t snitch.” you replied. he laughed which made you face him with an annoyed expression.

“getting defensive of maybank now huh?” he mocked. without another word you briskly stood up when you spot your dad motion for you to come, signalling that your going home.

“hey, y/n!” you hear rafe call, without turning around you stopped and waited for him to continue. chills ran along your spine as his last words that meant to be an insult sparked something inside of you.

“hope you don’t sneak out tonight to meet those garbage, but don’t worry...i won’t snitch.”

you swiftly stripped off your dress, finally being able to breathe freely from the lack of tightness around your waist. changing into some shorts and a gray long sleeved shirt you might have stolen from him. you carefully opened your window and stepped out. putting a book on the windowsill to avoid it being locked before pulling the glass down.

climbing down the tree that was fortunately near enough to just step over, you fast walked to your car once your feet planted on the ground. the odds were in your favour that night, as your parents were already heavily sleeping from all the alcohol and business talk they consumed during the event, making it easier for you to not worry about the car making such a loud noise.

the drive to the cut was lengthy, but freeing. the sky dark like a bottle of ink and zeus playing around with his bolt. you carelessly opened the screen door that lead to the front porch. the only people you arrive to were kie and pope across from each other seeming to be contemplating some things.

“where’s jj and john b?” their heads shot up to you as you asked, pope sitting up from his laying position “john b’s at the hospital.” he answered “what?!” “yeah. he fell from the bird’s nest. topper supposedly shoved him. we just arrived to him laying on the ground when we heard sarah calling for help.” kie added

though questions about sarah and worry for john b was inside you, the missing presence of the blonde fogged your mind “and jj?” you asked through quiet yet heavy pants “he left the hospital before us. we don’t know where he went.”

without another word you entered the house, looking around the room and grabbing kie’s surfboard when you noticed his was nowhere to be found, hurry evident in your actions “woah woah woah! what the hell?!” pope followed you as you made your way out “y/n, we’ve had enough accidents for the night, we don’t need any more!!” kie objected, referring to the surfboard you were holding “that’s why im going!”

you ran as fast as you can towards the water, more lighting being drawn to the sky by the minute “jj!” you called out, eyes scanning all of the area “JJ!” you shouted louder. as you reached the area near the rocks, you panicked, assuming the worst.

placing the board on the freezing water, not caring if the the only clothes you have got wet. you began paddling towards the jagged rock formation, duck diving to fight the force of the waves. the fabric clung to your skin becoming heavier, raindrops making it harder to see where you’re heading.

when you were only a few feet away from the danger zone, you plunged into the water, the saltiness entering your throat, pins and needles pricking the walls of your lungs as your board flipped upside down.

once you resurfaced, getting support from you board, you opened your eyes to meet his ocean-like ones, but brighter than the colour of the one you were currently submerged in.

you got back up, paddling towards him and doing the same thing. once he reemerged, his laugh sent a warm feeling to your shivering body, relaxation taking over you, but was immediately replaced by rage “what the fuck?!” you shouted and pushed him again, giving you a head start to come back to shore.

“hey! wait up!” you didn’t listen, continuing to leave the deep end. you propped the surfboard under your arm and started to make your way back to the chateau. a grip on your shoulder stopped and turned you around. he stared at you, studying you facial expression when he stepped forward to wipe the tears that you didn’t notice we’re falling down your icy cheeks.

you put the board down and pushed him away, covering your face with your hands. once again he went near you, engulfing you in a hug “surfing the surge alone, are you kidding me?!” you scolded and he just tightened his embrace. you returned the gesture, relaxing your face on the crook of his neck and steadying your breathing.

“you don’t need to worry, princess. you’re talking to the best sufer in the land.” he teased and you pulled away “it’s not funny, jj! why’d you think that was okay?” your lips quivered, a sob threatening to escape.

“i knew you’d come.” he replied, the confusion on your face made him continue “i saw how troubled you were awhile ago when i asked you to join us. i understand that you just make that sort of decision, but i tried taking the risk. you proved me right awhile ago...” he paused and brushed his thumbs against each side of your cheeks, the rest of his hands placed under your jaw.

“...but you always manage to come through and prove me wrong.” he continued and you closed the gap between you. wrapping your arms around his neck. the coldness of the air was replaced by warmth and dispursed throughout their bodies. the kiss was urgent, your heart pounding in your chest as your knees got weaker. he roamed his hands from your jaw to your waist, squeezing it before going further down to the back of your thighs. you wrapped your legs around him as he carefully sat down the fine sand, you straddling his waist.

you could only focus on how his chapped lips felt against your soft ones, opposite yet perfectly danced with each other. it wasn’t clear if you imagined this moment so much that it came to life, but the feeling of his body against yours was all that mattered.

his hair being tugged by your hands made him pull away briefly, giving you the chance to gasp for some air before opening your eyes halfway to sneak a peek before coming back to feel his lips once more. heat rose to your stomach and before things escalated, you pull away.

he held the back of your head slightly, but you resisted. you kept the closeness between the both of you while you stated straight at him “don’t ever do that again. i can’t lose you.” you said and pulled him into an embrace.

“and why is that, princess?” he teased and you didn’t hesitate to speak the truth “i love you.”

the smile that painted his face looked as if he won the lottery. he planted butterfly kisses all over your face then stopped and studied your features.

“i love you too.” with that his lips connected with yours again, this time more passionate and full of emotion. hidden feelings surfacing from being buried too many times.

“promise you won’t surf a surge alone again?” you asked once you pulled away “why not?!” he whined “you’ll drown! what else do you think would happen?” you replief and he smirked

“princess, you know there’s only one place that i could drown in and i have yet to explore it.” he looked down, your eyes widened realizing your position and slapped his shoulder as he laughed hysterically “JJ!!”

this was pretty fun to write tbh. part three for the series i’m working on coming soon! ♡

@rae131415 @bibliophilewednesday @drewsephsmiles @sexualparkour @spilledtee @obx-snippets @maybebanks @glux64 @drewswannabegirl @pink-meringues @softtfordrew @prejudic3 @spencereidbasis @omgitzbillie

#jj maybank #jj maybank fic #jj maybank fluff #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank obx #outerbanks #kiara carrera #pope heyward #rafe cameron #jj x reader #obx #john b routledge #sarah cameron

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stevenbasic · 4 years

Photo

I couldn’t believe my life had come to this, waiting in my car as evening began to settle over Far Horizons Medical Associates, watching for Melissa to pull out of the parking lot. We had just walked out together, after what turned out to be a long day of patients for me and...whatever it is she does...for her. A catch-up day, for sure, after a week away from work. Our chat, as we had locked up the office and both headed out to our cars, was idle and friendly. She was headed to the gym, and asked what I’d be doing tonight. I lied, of course, telling her my wife, Sheryl, had a nice dinner planned. Maybe we’d catch up on the series we’d been watching.

But here I was, watching Melissa finally pull out of the lot and disappear into traffic in her white beemer. Only then did I think it safe to turn off my car, grab my bag, surreptitiously hurry back to the building, and sneak back inside. I felt so foolish...

My practice, I guess I should explain, occupied the biggest of three decent-sized office suites on the ground floor of our building. Well, I say “our”, but it was really Sheryl’s. She had bought it as an investment property, years ago, and rented the space back to the practice. One of the other two suites had been a physical therapy office, but was now recently vacant. Sheryl hadn’t, as far as I knew, been looking actively for new tenants. The third set of offices was currently a financial advisory group; they’d been there a while.

Above the first floor, there were some smaller spaces Sheryl also rented out for little private offices. There was a patent attorney, a coin trader and a couple CPA’s, but most of them had recently been vacant, too. There was also one space that she’d converted to a basic little studio apartment that was, as of just last night, no longer vacant. It was now, in fact, where I was heading.

Furtively, I entered the main foyer space of the building through the glass doors from outside, hoping beyond hope that I hadn’t been seen. While the now-locked entrance to FHMA was directly on my right, those to the other two suites on the opposite wall, I headed to an unmarked door in the far corner, which led to a stark, cement stairway, which went up to the second floor hallway, a utilitarian passage which itself led me to…

...home.

I struggled a bit with the key but finally got the door opened, switched on the fluorescent overhead light, and sighed. I was greeted with several small stacks of boxes, an old couch, and the silence of bare white walls. At least it smelled okay.

The fight, last night, was a bad one. I’d known, driving home from the airport, that Sheryl would be waiting for me at home. I realized, of course, even when I was down south at the conference with Melissa, that a full week away was too much. The extra few days at the end to relax was irresponsible, escapist, just a chance to avoid the problems I had up here in my real life - the tensions at home, in my marriage. The loss of respect I’d been feeling at work. I knew in the end it was just going to make them all worse, exacerbating the already festering issues. Now it was coming to a head…

...and the photos didn’t help.

Sheryl had, I immediately saw as I had stepped in the front door, a manilla folder full of them. Possibly two, in fact.

“Hi honey,” she said plainly, as I struggled my bag into the living room, dropping it in the arched doorway, “welcome back.”

Full-page photographs, mostly of Melissa posed in various bikinis, lay strewn across our coffee table, spilled from the folder labeled “phone”, in black sharpie. I recognized them all: the white bikini, the burgundy, the rainbow. There were also a few more photos, Melissa in a beach dress, Melissa laughing, a selfie of the two of us together. I recognized those too. I recognized all these pictures, of course, because I had taken them.

“Hey uh...what’s all this..?” I asked, dumbly, as my heart began to race. Oh my god, what had she done?? I knew - now, at least - that whatever pictures I took with my phone automatically got shared with Sheryl, that she could see them. I’d kicked myself for my naivete multiple times upside-down and sideways since she’d explained that to me, having seen all the damning modeling pics I’d taken for Melissa at the beach last Wednesday. This was obviously a folder full of them. What was in the other?

“I don’t know, honey. Why don’t you tell me..?” Sheryl answered.

I, of course, was totally awkward, inept and hapless in my defense. How does one explain hundreds of bikini shots of one’s Uber-buxom Office Manager on one’s phone to one’s wife? Or the photo Melissa took of me, with lipstick on my forehead? How does one argue one’s point when one’s opponent is a high-powered corporate attorney who has prepared her case and stacked her deck against one? One does it...poorly.

I tried, I really did, to assuage Sheryl, to convince her that nothing happened during our trip, between me and Melissa. Nothing did!! Really!! But I knew my heart was not in it, and - if I was being honest - throughout the last two months since I’d hired Melissa I’d been effectively unfaithful to Sheryl, at least in spirit. I did my best, though, to plead my case and she watched me do it, sitting there on the couch in what she’d call her “warrior princess” look. Hair, clothes and makeup she’d use when she knew her adversary was a male easily swayed by such an appearance...one such as myself. Sheryl was a beautiful woman, and she knew it. She knew the warpaint, the big fluffy blond hair and the tight dress showing off her healthy implants would give her power in this exchange, tip the scales even further in her favor.

But her coup-de-grace was the pictures. She had printed them, of course, to humiliate me. Nice and big, glossy, they were certainly all that, for sure. But, of course, they’d also be pretty useful to her in court, since she’d have to expect I’d delete them from my phone...which I’d done (after saving them al elsewherel…) Nonetheless, here was her proof.

She had let me talk, and then she went on her tirade. It actually started calmly enough.

“Do you realize how weak you look, how pathetic,” she began, coolly, “spending your time with her? This...girl?”

“M-Melissa’s n-not just a ‘girl’...” I retorted, beginning to defend myself, trying to match Sheryl’s composure, but feeling the heat in my face already and hearing the stumble in my speech, “this was for work, she’s an employee, our office manager, a...a…”

“A what? A G-cup?” she snapped

she’s actually an H-cup…I thought to myself, in a silent flush of shame.

Sheryl knew, of course, my history, my weakness for the young and buxom. It had nearly ended our marriage in the past, several times. “At first, when you first hired her, I was more disappointed in you than angry,” she continued, regaining her poise, “knowing why you’d done it, that you were basically helpless. I was disappointed that you, after all these years, were still so weak-willed and stupid. I do suppose it's no picnic having that huge penis of yours. It’s honestly the only outstanding thing about you, but it must be a burden. It sort of overwhelms your brain, doesn’t it? Make you make these stupid decisions?”

This was so humiliating. “Sheryl, c’mon..”

“No, really,” she said, calmly, “Sometimes I think I shouldn't blame you for being a slave to that...thing. You’re just a man, and your erection is the biggest part about you. But you’re also my husband. You made a commitment, and I’ve worked so hard on this marriage. So, yes, back then, when you hired her, I was disappointed...but I wasn’t angry.”

Oh my god I felt like a child being scolded, but in my disgrace I held my tongue.

“But now,” she continued, the heat beginning to build in her voice, “seeing all those pictures, seeing her tits all over you phone, seeing the two of you together, now I’m angry…”

“Sh-Sheryl, listen, I-“ I tried, stepping towards where she sat.

“Is that really what you want?” she asked, voice breaking for the first time, “To be with someone like her? Someone young and dumb? It is, isn’t it? You like that she’s big and young and dumb, that she’s soft and pretty and that she adores you...”

I stepped in again. “n-no, honey, wait…”

“Don’t ‘honey’ me…” she bit, “not after you hired not just her, but a whole harem of them. Because that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Building yourself a harem of young, dumb, soft pretty things?”

“Sheryl, pleas-“

“Be quiet,” she commanded, suddenly standing up from the couch.

I gasped, and visibly took a step back. She was surprisingly, impressively tall in her office stilettos, and I couldn't hide my shock. If she noticed, she said nothing, just narrowed her eyes for a moment and pressed on. “You should just go be with your big-boobie office manager, your new little bunnies, if that’s what you want. Let them take you and coddle you, tell you it's all okay. Let them kiss away all the boo-boos you got from your big, mean wife.”

She took a step towards me; I took a step back. A smile curled on her face as she watched my reaction.

“Oh, yes. Don't think I don't know,” she continued, her voice chilling again, “don't think that I don't know what you did with Rina, your secret little fantasies. I know what you like, they all know what you like. Rina told them at the office four years ago and it’s going to follow you for the rest of your life.”

Sheryl stepped right up to me; we were eye-to-eye. wh-what the…?? She watched the shivers run through me as I realized I was not just dealing with someone who could intellectually and emotionally dwarf me, but someone who could also possibly physically harm me as well.

“Sheryl, h-hold on…wh-what Rina and I did, it-“

Her smile frightened me, and her voice changed. “Awwwww,” she cooed, in baby-talk, her eyes flashing as she took to releasing the years of pent-up resentment, “All that baby-play, what you did with Rina, is that what you want, sweetie-pie?”

Suddenly unable to face her, I turned away, stepped away. I felt her following behind.

“You miss it, hmm? You want it again, right, baby?” she persisted, hammering away at me from behind in that babydoll voice, “But now you want ‘Melissssy’ to be your mommy now, don’t you?? Yes...yes you do!”

“Sheryl, s-stop..!”

“Oh, I'm sorry..! Is that emasculating??” she chided, “Am I emasculating you? Telling you that I know, that everybody knows, that what you really want is to be an infant?? That you may look like a big strong man - or, whatever you are, these days - but inside you’re nothing but a child. A toddler. A little needy baby that just wants its mommy.”

“Oh my god Sheryl, n-no, please…”

From behind she took my shoulder and, forcefully, spun me around to face her. “You look at me,” she ordered, “Look at me when I’m talking to you, you understand?”

Meekly, I nodded. “y-y-yes…” I answered. .

She sneered at me. “Jesus. Face it, honey, you’re an infant already,” she told me, her eyes boring into mine as my gaze dropped; she allowed it, as I was looking at her chest. “Think about it: women own your business, women own your house, women organize and keep your little practice running,” she said, laying bare all my deepest truths, opening the wound that has festered for years. All I could do was stand there and take it, eyes cast downward. “Women figure out what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to wear. And you love it, how we infantilize you, you don’t fight it at all,” she continued, “You all do, you men, these days. You love it. It’s everywhere. Men are becoming like little babies, more helpless every day, while women are working harder, becoming their big, competent mommies, taking care of everything, letting you cling to us just to make it through life. It’s happening, you’ve seen it...”

She looked at me, pausing in her diatribe, and considered. She had me sufficiently cowed, obsequiously speechless; her voice dropped.

“But you...you...you’ve been this way all along. That’s what makes you different,” she said, half-cryptic, “That’s why they want you.”

“wh-what do you m-mean?“ I asked, a strange fear gripping me, a primal instinct, making me find my tongue and raise my eyes to her.

She pressed on like she didn’t hear me.

“In some ways I guess I can't blame you,” she continued, “You're a beta male, surrounded by alpha females...”

Oh my god, this? Sheryl, too??

“...Me, Melissa, all the rest, all of us alphas,” she stated, as if it was plain as day, “It’s the hierarchy of mankind...or in your case womankind. There's no way you can avoid it.”

“wh-where is this coming from??” I suddenly blurted, the fear and confusion in me bubbling up finally in a defensive yawp, “Is this from those meetings you’ve been going to? I don’t know if I want you going to them any more..!”

holy shit what did I just say..???

“WHAT?!?” she screamed, her hands suddenly on my chest, pushing me with surprising force backwards. I stumbled, my knees catching the overstuffed chair behind me. I fell backwards into it, and sat frozen, stunned, gaping up at her in shock and fright. My heart raced.

She looked down at me, eyes wide. She seemed, for the moment, surprised herself, that she was capable of what she just did...and at how easy it was.

She took a step towards me; I recoiled below as she seethed.

“Y’know what I wish? Hm?!?” she glared down at me, imperiously, over her nose and full chest as her anger flashed again, “I hope that someday, someday soon...I hope you get exactly what you want. I hope you get a woman that really emasculates you. That just dwarfs you, with all that she is. A woman that makes you feel tiny, like the weak little man you really are.”

I watched as the anger of the last seven years all came to bear above me, in her, as she began to rage.

“Oh god!” she cried, “I hope someday you get what you really want! I hope you get crushed between the tits of a huge, strong woman!! I hope you get shrunk to the size of a tiny little bug by her, I do, and I hope I get to watch!”

Jesus christ what is she saying?!? Where did she get this?!? And why - oh god no - am I getting..? I can’t let her see...

In her fury, she continued, her fists balled. “Oh god I’d like to see that, I'd like to see you squashed,” she spit, “I'd crush you myself, if I could. I'd crush you under my big, high heel.”

I moaned, a pitiful wail. She looked at me, aghast.

“Oh god this is turning you on right now, isn’t it?!?” she fumed, suddenly incredulous, “Me yelling at you? Me humiliating you??” She leaned over, brought her face so close to mine. I backed away, retreating the inches I could. Her fists still balled, she all but snarled: “Do you get aroused when a strong woman gets angry at you?” She watched me trembling, and dropped her voice as she began to speak more slowly. “Oh my god you do. You get off on being...belittled,” she said, “Being made to feel small by the anger of a woman. And you love that, you love feeling small, don’t you..?”

She considered me, thought for a moment, ignoring the near-wordless denials I was trying to form. “Well, then, let me help you out, if you want to feel small,” she said and then, without another word, she grabbed me through my pants,

“Sh-Sheryl, no..!” I sobbed, weakly moving to grab her wrist. She slapped me away, her hand now forcefully half-encircling my turgid girth through my khakis.

She squeezed, then she unleashed.

“Would it make you feel small if I told you I have more than fifty times the money that you do?? Hm?” she sneered, inches from my face, pressing my outsized cock down into my thigh, feeling it harden with her anger, under her abuse, “That with my new jobs I made more last week than you made in a year. You didn’t know that, did you?? No - I do all our banking, I do all our finances. You wouldn’t know. You let me take care of everything. I own this house, I own the practice.” She squeezed my shaft, roughly, making me spasm, my whole body tense towards her. “You’ve been basically nothing but an employee of mine these past thirteen years. An employee that I let live under my roof, eat my food…”

Insistently, she began to stroke my cock through my pants, slowly, with a strong grip and commanding authority. “How does it feel to be a kept man, hm?” she asked, watching my eyes flutter helplessly in the newly lit blaze of arousal to which she had me held, mercilessly working me now, “I know you. You like people to think that I stay with you because you’re a rich doctor, that you’re a successful man. But it’s really quite the opposite, isn’t it? You stay with me because you’d be nothing without me. I own your house, I own your car. I’m your fucking boss. You have barely anything in savings and what you do have I would totally consume with our pre-nup”

My voice began to bubble up, to tremble. “w-w-why…?” was all I could manage, not even knowing what I was asking.

”Why? Why do I stay with you?!? Oh my god I ask myself that all the time, all these years, through all the affairs and the mistakes and the absolute pitiful way you run your life.” My question, my audacity to speak, had only caused her to redouble her efforts; she squeezed me again, pumped me harder. “Why do I stay with you?? I don’t know- maybe because I loved you, once? Maybe because I felt, somehow, that someday you’d change? Or maybe because...maybe because I started to like it. Maybe I started to like the feeling of making more than my husband, of watching him get smaller and smaller to me, inside our home, as I grew bigger and bigger outside it, wealthier and wealthier, more and more successful as he slowly turned into this...this...this little worm, writhing under me, clinging to me. God!!!” she exclaimed, suddenly rising up a bit, putting her free hand on my shoulder, “Do you see what you’ve done to me?!? What you’ve made me become?!?”

Whether on purpose or not, she’d positioned her upper body right in front of my face, forcing me to stare at her chest as she worked my cock. I can see her bra, she’s swelling out of it, modest implants under taut flesh. Implants she got for me, years ago. So she could...do this, more easily. And it worked, it fucking worked…

I groaned again. I was already so close...so close to...to coming...oh god no, not in…not in my pants...p-please Sheryl...

“But, yes. Part of me liked the idea of owning you,” she mused, allowing me to just gape at her cleavage, knowing I was close, “Of having you as a kept man. But now...now...it’s done. I’ve decided - I don’t want to keep you any more. They can have you...”

She reached behind herself, grabbed something off the coffee table, her left hand never leaving my lap.

She held it right in front of me, right before my eyes, a picture...

“They can have you…”

With a grunt, a lurch that buckled me forward in my seat, I came under her hand, I came in my pants, I came in the most shameful way I could imagine. I came in my pants under my wife’s strong hand as she kicked me out of the house and gave me to Melissa’s tits

“Unh, unh, unh…” I whined, allowing myself only the briefest of moments to ogle the photo, and then casting my eyes down, clamping them shut in my vileness. My cock, so huge, bucked and jerked in the hips of my khakis, soaking them - I felt that already, its hot brine, gooping onto my thigh, making a mess.

“There you go,” Sheryl said, her hand still squeezing my firm spongy shaft, “get it all out…”

I groaned, I groaned as I felt Sheryl move, putting down the photo so she could support me with her right hand to my shoulder. Otherwise, I would have folded forward, right into her

She squeezed me, she milked me, she urged and pulled everything she could from my cock, into my pants, and as my eyes began to open I saw the spectacle, the shameful stain darkening my pant-leg, nearly the entire thing from mid-thigh down to my knee.

”a-are you divorcing me?” I peeped, finally, the first words I could manage as my climax faded, my cock pulsing weakly now. My meekly resigned question sounded fully like a demission, obsequious surrender to whatever she wanted.

“No, I’m not divorcing you,” she replied, with austere plainness, “The world would eat you alive, and I’m not ready for that yet.” She watched the monstrosity of my erection fading, under her hand. “But I am kicking you out of my house.”

Where will I go??? I thought, with passive acceptance, even as the last pulses of climax had yet to fade. Images of sleeping in my car, soaked in my own filth, crept through my skull.

As if reading my mind (omigod can they all do that??) Sheryl spoke up. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to be homeless,” she said, still tenderly massaging the now softening mush of my spent manhood, squishing it wetly into my leg, “But...you do need to be put in your place. So, I have a place for you. It’s perfect. Nice and small.”

The apartment, at the office, hers, she explained, as I watched her left hand tend to my afterspasms. I’d live there, I’d live in the little apartment she kept as a side thought, a pittance of her charity. I knew I really had no other option, and hung my head. It proved how dependent I was on her; I’d have a place to live only on account of her good graces. It was just something else she could lord over me, show me how small I was.

“Now, get up. Get up,” she instructed, finally peeling her hand off me, leaving me sticky and foul as she sat back, “Get up and leave. I’ve packed your bags, your things. They're all there already.” She stood, over me, seeing me still trembling from my trauma. “Just go, here’s a key-“ she said, fishing into her top and pulling a key from her bra.

“Sh-Sheryl…?”

Dismissively, she tossed it at me. “Go lose yourself in her tits for all I care.” It bounced off my chest, slid down onto the chair.

Clumsily, I floundered at finding the key in the cushion, as all the while Sheryl straightened her skirt, smoothed her hair. “n-no, I’m going to show you,” I began, finally gathering the key, finally starting to stand, rising wobbly to my feet, “I’m n-not that weak. I’m going to prove myself to you...”

”Sure you will,” she said, not even looking at me at this point, “now get out.”

“Sheryl, c’mon…”

“Get. Out.” Her eyes were on me again, cold and hard. She pointed at the door.

At the end, the end of my time in my home of seven years, I was walking towards the front door when my wife said one last thing to me. “Wait…” she said, causing me to pause, look back.

“Turn around…” she said, regarding me with new, discriminating eyes, “...are you shorter?”

==============

Thanks to TopographicSociety and tumblr reader nycslave for inspirations

#Growing Into the Job

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casmoments · 3 years

Text

Marriage of Convenience; part 4

Prompt: “Arranged Marriage” - Certain factions of heaven are on your tail, the consequence of your death a trigger to greater destruction. In order to protect your life and others, you agree to an old custom that prevents any heavenly agent from harming you. The basic ritual? You have to marry an angel. Fourth part in a series.

Reader Gender: female Word Count: 4800 Warnings: not very rough sex, but if you’re sensitive to it, then warning. also some forward action in an empty but public place

part one ; part two ; part three

You awoke to Castiel kissing your temple. He was dressed and seemingly rushing. You blinked your eyes open, looked at him confusedly.

“Cas?” you murmured. “What’s—” Your question was interrupted by a yawn but he seemed to understand, brushing some of your hair back.

“You should sleep,” he said, inclining his head. “One of my allies is summoning my presence to heaven. I should see what’s disturbing them.” You groaned, shifting beneath the covers. You realized you wore a large t-shirt though you had not fallen asleep in that—you had not fallen asleep in anything. You looked down at yourself and he followed your gaze, smiling gently. “It was difficult to pry myself from your side,” he said, “I hope you don’t mind.”

“’s fine,” you grumbled, lifting a hand to touch the side of his face. “Will you be back soon?” He turned his head and kissed your palm, looking down at you with sincere affection.

“I will try,” he said.

He was gone shortly after that, kissing you again before he departed. You rolled over and fell into sleep, hoping he would return by dawn. It did not happen. You awoke to an empty bed and sighed to yourself, nonetheless rising and dressing for the day. You met the Winchesters in the kitchen. They appeared to be packing some provisions for the road.

“Got another case?” you asked, making for the fridge. Sam looked at you a bit funny and Dean had a moment of amusement, but you were still a bit groggy and didn’t heed it.

“Yup,” Dean eventually answered, tossing Sam an apple. Sam caught it, his eyes on a newspaper. He bit down while determinedly skimming an article. “Sounds like there might be a vamp nest couple states over. We’ll be gone a few days. You gonna be okay?” Dean asked that every time, though his question held gravity because this was their first expedition after your marriage. You could venture outside now and they all knew you would. Though you admitted that despite knowing you were now protected, it was a daunting idea, especially with everyone so far away from you.

“I’ll be fine,” you said. You decided to do some research before committing to any journey. For now you just smiled, grabbing some food out of the fridge and returning to the table. “You guys be safe, though, you hear?” You always replied with such a comment and that eased Dean. He ruffled your hair.

Not long after that, the Winchesters were gone and you sat alone in the library. Sam had provided you with a text outlining your marriage. You skimmed through it and verified your thoughts. You mostly wondered what force actually prevented heavenly agents from harming you because it surely wasn’t an honour system. But it seemed to involve the celestial consummation on your wedding night. You had some of his grace inside of you, all but melded into your soul, and it served as some kind of shield. It protected you as well as him. If something happened to him, his grace somehow taken, angels attempting to break the accord by rendering him human, it would still be partially locked inside you. Your contract would always stand; he would always be an angel and you would always be part of him.

Bound for eternity, you thought. Once the prophet and angel had joined, it was everlasting. Not even heaven could undo it. Some of Castiel’s stronger abilities had waned but he was irrefutably angelic. Thanks to this, he would perpetually remain so, regardless of his enemy’s attempts to dismantle him.

You waited in the bunker for a while, uncertain of when to expect Castiel’s return. His visits were once rare but you supposed that would change. Your stomach knotted in anticipation.

Otherwise idle, you daydreamed for a moment, one of your oldest fantasies playing in your mind. The first time it occurred, you could not meet his eye for weeks. You were always careful to never utter his name aloud lest you be heard by someone. Even when you were alone, you kept it all inside your head. He could suddenly materialize and hear you and that would have horrified poor, infatuated you.

But you had no such worry anymore, wanting nothing more than for him to appear while you murmured his name. You slouched in your seat and closed your eyes. His name fell from your lips with a gentle sigh, reflective, wistful, gentle. Your daydream floated absently though your mind, dream-Castiel sitting across from you, his eyes wandering your form. You innocently skipped around him, dressed in a skirt which lifted suggestively when you stretched or bent over. He would admire each swivel of your hips and dip of your body, watching and watching until it was too much. He would stand and approach you, eyes blazing with predatory intent. A wildly confused question would fall from your lips—“Castiel, what are you doing?”—but he would just press you against the table, his front aligned to your backside, hard ridge of his cock straining through his pants. His arms would cage you, his hands beside yours on the table.

“You know what I’m doing,” is all the reply he would offer, and your oh-so scandalized self would gasp as he hoisted your skirt, flipping it above your waist.

“Oh, Castiel,” dream-you always murmured, an utterance in actuality this time. But you were still alone, even as your thoughts played themselves out. Castiel would yank your underwear down, desperate and impatient, and he would part your legs, grip your hips, undo his pants and fill you with one solid thrust. He would be unrelenting and you would gasp, groan, writhe in pleasure. And when he had finished, he would lower your skirt, pocket your panties, and straighten you. He would hold you tight against him, your back to his front, and his hand would curve around your throat and hold just tight enough to lock you in place. He would turn your head and kiss you, nip at your bottom lip.

“You know whose you are,” he would say, and his mouth would find that spot between neck and shoulder to brand.

You touched that mark now, recalling it still existed. You blushed when you remembered the looks Sam and Dean had thrown you that morning. They made a little more sense now. Still, you didn’t have it in you to be embarrassed, not while thoughts of your husband danced around your head, his mark on display, his touch like a phantom presence across your skin and—

—and waiting for him was going to drive you mad, you realized. You had only been married a couple days but you supposed heavenly wars did not care about interrupting your honeymoon period. At any rate, you couldn’t just sit around in the bunker waiting for him. Making use of your newfound freedom, you pulled on shoes and a coat and took a walk. You were a bit jumpy but your greatest adversary proved to be a squirrel. After your walk, you decided to eat out. By the time you finally returned to the bunker, it was getting late, and still no sign of Castiel. You couldn’t hold it against him; the things he did were important. You idled around the bunker for a bit, watched some television, then fell asleep listening to music.

You hoped to wake the following morning to Castiel in your bed, but no such luck. You spent another day out, chatting on the phone with Sam for a bit. The day was not very exciting but you enjoyed yourself, hopping a bus into the city and spending some time just experiencing the things you had missed for the past several months. You returned home with some dinner, ate while listening to the radio, then turned in shortly after that.

This regime continued for three more days. You wondered how you could ever go weeks without seeing Castiel, then supposed the answer was obvious; there was never a promise of intimacy until now. All the same, you had your independence, but damnit if you weren’t already going through withdrawal.

Though you tried to wait, you couldn’t help but fall onto your bed with your hand between your legs, attempting to recreate every glorious sensation he had shared with you. It was a pale comparison but satisfied some tension.

“Castiel,” you murmured, picturing his return. He would be absolutely mad with desire, taking you right up against the door. He would utter stories of the past few days, how he had thought of you, wanted you, needed you like you needed him. You gasped, moaned, whimpered, throwing your head back and bucking your hips as you came. Then you just lay there, panting, staring up at the ceiling and bracing yourself for another day. You dressed then stood in front of your sparse closet, frowning.

Because you had been in the bunker for so long, and because your move had been quite spontaneous, you didn’t actually own many clothes. You would lounge in the same grungy ensembles for days at a time, your few appropriate outfits saved for when the boys accompanied you somewhere. Now that you could come and go as you pleased, you realized you would need a bit more clothing. Grabbing the emergency credit card Dean had given you, you left the bunker and made for the city, hitting up a department store.

You hummed to yourself, content, ever anticipating Castiel’s return. You refused to call the knots in your stomach anything but anticipation. Nerves implied he was in danger. You knew he could be but you tried not to think of it, attempted to be optimistic.

A kind employee helped you with your shopping, taking some outfits to the dressing room for you to try on. You browsed for a few more ensembles when something caught the corner of your eye. Hmm.

You wandered over to the lingerie section. You owned a few nice articles, purchased for yourself and your own sense of sexiness. But lingerie was expensive and you never really went out of your way to obtain it. But you looked over a few pieces now, pictured yourself wearing them, pictured Castiel if he returned to find you lazing in some of the more provocative numbers.

“Can I try some of these on?” you asked the employee, not wanting to purchase something that turned out to be unflattering.

“Some of them, yes,” the lady said. “Some you can’t. Hygiene reasons, of course.”

“Of course,” you said, fiddling with the silky material of a push-up bra. “Could you, um, show me which are okay to… I’d like to try…” Apparently marriage had not totally cured your blushes. The lady took pity, smiled kindly.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll help you. This way.”

You picked a few pieces and she took them to the dressing room, adding them to your other articles. You returned to the clothing section, browsing one last time before your dressing room retreat. The store was quite empty. It was a decent establishment but you supposed this wasn’t a popular hour for shopping. You were halfway to the dressing room, mind wandering absently when a hand landed on your arm. You thought it was the lady and politely turned around.

“Castiel!” You all but launched yourself at him, arms thrown around his shoulders and face plastered to his chest. He chuckled, smoothing a hand down your hair, the other wrapping around you. “Ugh, you’ve been gone for days…” You pouted, tipping your head back to look at him.

“I apologize,” he said, blue eyes swimming with promise and sincerity. Your heart beat faster but you swore something rippled deeper, right in the core of your being, and you wondered if it was the reunion of his grace inside you. The culmination of everything just increased your heart rate, your smile bright, his glance affectionate. He leaned down and kissed you, not half so desperately as you would have liked but you supposed this was a public place. He pulled back and looked around, squinting a bit. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I wanted to do some shopping,” you said. “I needed some new clothes.”

“I see.” He looked down at you again, a certain look flashing in his gaze. “Are you finished?”

You bit your bottom lip, unable to refuse the action, smiling a little bit. His eyes dropped to your mouth and you freed your lip, locking your hands behind his neck.

“Why?” you asked, boldly teasing. He looked at you dryly, humouring your feigned innocence.

“I have been securing some levels of heaven for days,” he said, hands on your hips, drawing you close, “though I seemed to endure weeks because of distracting prayers.” You looked at him with legitimate confusion, tipping your head. He leaned down towards you, chastely kissing your cheek. It looked like an innocent action, and no one else knew that he leaned towards your ear to whisper lowly, “When you utter my name with such yearning, wife, you open your thoughts to a channel of communication.”

Your fantasies from the past few days all flittered through your head. You couldn’t help but blush, thinking of the images you had unwittingly sent Castiel. You had heaped your own sexual frustration on top of his, not to mention accidentally sharing ideas you could not openly admit. He lifted a hand to your face, thumb stroking your pink cheek. You were two seconds away from forgetting about the clothes, allowing him to zap you back to the bunker and just have his damn way with you… when you remembered a couple of the pieces hanging up in that cubicle.

“I’m almost done here,” you said, sliding your hands down his chest, fidgeting with the lapels of his coat. “I just want to try a few things on. Will you stay while I do that or do you have somewhere to be?” He placed a hand over yours, held it to his chest and looked at you fondly.

“I’d like to keep your company,” he said, then seemed to surrender a thought. “Will this take very long?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, shaking your head. He smiled.

“No,” you said, “I don’t think so. Come on.” You pulled out of his embrace, took his hand in yours. You smiled up at him while weaving through racks of clothes, eventually turning your gaze ahead. Your cheeks were still warm, alight with a faint blush, and you doubted it would recede—not with what you were planning. The employee was leaving the dressing room area just as you entered. She offered her assistance should it be necessary and then retreated.

“She was very kind,” Castiel said absently, looking around. The dressing rooms were tucked inside a nook, a row of cubicles with floor-lengths doors, white and wooden and slatted closed. There was a rack of clothes to be returned outside and three full-length mirrors, framed around each other to pose and admire your own form. There were two armchairs and a bench, though the room was empty of all people.

“Just sit there,” you said, gesturing to an armchair in front of your cubicle. “I just have a couple things I want to try on.” He nodded, seating himself in a chair, sitting rather stiff before awkwardly leaning back, not succeeding in finding much comfort. You just giggled, stepping into the cubicle and closing the door. You looked at yourself in the mirror inside, pulled a face before shaking your head. Right, you said. Gotta do this properly.

You changed into pants and a shirt first, stepped out to look at yourself in the mirrors. You had a decent idea of the ensemble with the one cubicle mirror, but there was a science to your presentation and you would not screw it up.

“Nice, huh?” you asked, looking at Castiel. He nodded. He seemed to have found a comfortable position, leaning slightly to one side. He propped his head against his fist, his other arm draped over the back of the chair. You swallowed, looking away from him. You still weren’t too sure why that position was so attractive but damn, was it ever. Get it together, you told yourself, returning to the cubicle. This is your sexy parade, not his, damnit.

You changed into a summer dress, loose and flowy, cutting off just above the knee. You had picked it up in recollection of your library fantasy, and now that he knew about it you wondered if it would affect him. You stepped out of the cubicle, smoothing the material over your hips, and you felt his eyes follow you as you approached the mirror.

“This is pretty, I think,” you said, turning a bit, giving him a decent view of your backside, the dip of the dress. You looked at him over your shoulder. “What do you think?”

His eyes were a bit low, sweeping up your legs before meeting your gaze. Despite the inherent flirtation, his words were spoken kindly.

“You look… very beautiful,” he said, head lifting off his fist for a moment. You smiled, looked at yourself in the mirrors before retreating. “Are there many more?” he asked. You looked back at him, slowly closing your cubicle door.

“Almost there,” you said, watching as he pressed his temple to his fist again. How he could be adorable and sexy at once, you weren’t sure. You closed the cubicle door and locked it, turning to look at your next piece. You carefully undressed, taking your time to don each article. You kept an ear on the space outside make sure no one else wandered into the dressing room. It sounded pretty empty out there, though.

You looked at yourself in the mirror once dressed. It wasn’t too brazen, lacy black panties that slung low at your hips, a black bra which pushed up your breasts, full cups but lacy like the underwear. You snapped one of the straps against your skin, smiling as you looked at yourself. You weren’t going to lie, the lingerie thing really worked wonders.

You opened and the door stepped out, fighting a blush as you went over to the mirror. You did not look at him directly but you saw Castiel was immediately affected. His arm dropped from its perch, his head following you very deliberately. You looked at him, expression innocent as ever.

“What do you think?” you asked. He didn’t seem to know where to look, gaze flicking over your body before he looked up at you. He said nothing but tipped his head, looking at you with a sort of scrutiny—he totally knew what you were doing and that heated glance set a fire in your core. “Not this one, then?” you asked, snapping the waistband of the underwear against your hip. His eyes fell to the motion before he met your gaze again. His pupils had dilated noticeably, blue pierced with black. “Right. Better try again then,” you said, returning to your cubicle without further ado.

The really skimpy bits couldn’t be tried on in-store, only purchased, so you couldn’t torment him beyond any brink. But your second ensemble pushed a decent boundary. The underwear was thin, almost see-through, the bra strapless and cups small, just covering you enough to stay on. A sheer material draped over your middle, leaving little to the imagination. You turned in front of the mirror, smiled to yourself, and stepped out again.

He was sitting straight this time, arms on the armrests, staring at your door. He watched as you passed him, stepping up to the mirrors once more.

“So?” you asked, looking at him. You gathered your hair and lifted it onto your head, arms stretching, exposing a little more skin. You turned your hips this way and that, faced him with your eyebrows lifted. He was breathing very evenly, like it required effort to keep that rhythm, and his gaze was fixated low on your body. You watched him wet his lips as his eyes moved up. Then he looked at you as one solitary word tumbled from his lips, gravelly and hot and dark.

“Fuck.”

That sound hit you right between the legs, fires melting to wet heat and you figured you would have to buy this underwear pretty soon if you didn’t get them off…

He stood when you reached the cubicle, though, and suddenly you were rushed inside. You stumbled backward, hitting the mirror, and he closed the door behind himself. Your heart raced, breath catching, the look in his eyes hungry and determined. You lowered your gaze, not missing that hard bulge in his trousers. Looking up again, you pressed yourself against the mirror and gasped as he approached.

“We can’t do this here,” you said quickly, swallowing. He stopped inches from your face, leaning over you, his wild eyes not straying anywhere else. “And I can’t bring this with me. I haven’t paid for it.”

“Then you should take it off,” he said. His hands were on you before you could blink, unhooking the clasp at the front of the bra. It gave way, floating to the floor around you. His hands were rough and quick, exactly how you fantasized, and you were pretty sure prayer was not intended for such usage but blessed be accidental prayers. He shoved at the material on your hips, crouching as he pulled it down your thighs and past your knees. You stepped out of it and he stood again, leaving you completely naked under his roving stare.

“Castiel…” you murmured, his gaze lifting to meet yours. A hand lifted towards your face, thumb running over your lips.

“You do enjoy my name, don’t you, wife?” he asked.

“And you enjoy calling me wife, don’t you, husband?” you returned, lips moving over his thumb as you spoke. His other hand slid over your shoulder, moving into your hair and gripping the back of your head. You made a low noise as he tugged lightly, tipping your head back, exposing the line of your throat. Your chest thrust forward as your back curved. You breathed hard, murmuring nonsensical sounds as he dragged his thumb over your lips, down your chin, fingers splaying over your collarbone and freezing there while his gaze wandered lower.

“You are irresistibly beautiful,” he said. “This might be why heaven first outlawed our engagement to your kind.” You shuddered as his fingers wandered lower, slipping between your breasts, down your stomach, his grip on your hair tightening. “You’re a welcome distraction,” he said, hand moving aside, down your thigh. “Though lesser beings would struggle to let you leave their beds.” You made a wanting noise, his hand sliding to your inner thigh, running upwards but pulling away at the last second.

“So I haven’t beaten down your resolve yet?” you asked. His wandering gaze lifted again, dark, focussed. You licked your lips, fingers curling against the mirror behind you.

“We’ll see,” he said. “For now, I want my wife.”

You yelped as he flipped you around, the moment whirling to dizzying heights as the scene shifted around you. A wooden door was suddenly in front of you. It took a moment to realize, but you were back in your bedroom at the bunker. Your hands were flattened to the door, one of his hands on your hip and the other undoing his pants. You moaned, a helpless, shaking, desperate sound, realizing this was a combination of two fantasies you sent him.

You were bent over, hands braced on the door, hair falling over your bare shoulders. His hand moved between your legs, one of his feet nudging yours. You groaned, head dropping forward as you spread your legs as per his silent request. You bit your lip as his hand teased at your wet heat, fingers deftly pressing upward.

“Take me, please,” you murmured, pressing back against his hand. A week ago, you could never imagine yourself in such a position, so open and unabashed, but you were completely undone and wanting of one thing. You tried to press back against him again but he removed his hand, both of them sliding over your backside, moving onto your hips.

“Take you,” he repeated. “That is very different from making love, isn’t it?”

Your response was a vague grunting noise, then you felt the head of his cock between your thighs. You thrust back, only pausing when his hand moved between you, guiding him to your entrance.

“You’ll have what you want,” he said, easing inside of you. You moaned, the feel of him inside you again perfect. “If I had ever known you were so eager,” he said with a grunt, pulling back a bit to thrust forward again, “I would have taken you much sooner… thrown you against the nearest space and fucked you until you trembled to think of me.” You moaned, thudding your hands against the door as he started guiding your hips, sliding them over his cock with each intense thrust. “But I would not rewrite our story.” After a few more thrusts, he pulled out and straightened you, hand lightly circling your throat as in your fantasy. He held you against him and you realized he had zapped his clothes away at some point—some very recent point, because you could feel the brush of material before this. You all but melted against him, head landing on his shoulder, his fingers soft on your neck. He kissed the side of your face, slow, warm. “I take far too much pleasure in being your husband.”

“I love being your wife,” you said, words scarcely spoken before he sat on the bed. He kept your back pressed to his chest but helped you onto him, your legs spread over him, straddling his thighs as he entered you. You sunk onto his cock, tipping your head back so his temple pressed to yours.

“Then I would say I have succeeding in taking you,” he said, all but bouncing you in his lap. You panted, reaching back to touch a hand to his face. His breath hit your neck in short, hot bursts, his hands sliding down to your thighs, moving you over him. His thrusts only slowed when his hand moved towards you, fingers prying, circling your clit as he moved inside you. Your sounds turned frantic, delving to one moan as you came apart, clenching around him. He pounded up into you, low noises rolling past his lips as you squeezed his cock inside you. Your faint convulsions finally ceased, just as he finished. You slumped against him, a small, weak noise still threaded into every pant.

“Y/N,” he said, kissing your cheek, brushing your hair back. “Are you all right?”

“All right,” you repeated, “I’m more than all right.” He laughed at that, a short but pleased sound, his arms wrapping around your waist. You reached back for him, groaning as he lifted you up and onto your feet. You stumbled for a second, then found yourself back in his arms. He laid back on the bed, not high enough to reach the pillows, but centred quite surely. He held you against him, your head tucked under his chin, fingers on his shoulders. “I missed you,” you said after a moment. He kissed the top of your head.

“I did as well,” he said. “I find it very difficult to be apart from you, even more than before.” He looked down at you then and you looked up, curious. He smiled gently. “Have you enjoyed your freedom?” he asked. You smiled back.

“Yeah,” you said. “But it’s nice when I get to share it with you.”

“I look forward to sharing days with you,” he said, brushing his fingers over your cheek, leaning down and kissing you. You remained there for a while, languidly kissing, unwinding from the passion before. After a while you leaned back, arching your back a bit as you stretched.

“Come on,” you said, slowly sitting up. He followed, looking at you curiously. “I do want to buy some more clothes eventually,” you said, “though I think you shouldn’t accompany me.” He sort of grinned at that, his fingers idly stroking over your thigh. “But that’s not where I’m headed. After all this, I think,” you smiled to yourself, batting your eyelashes, “that I need a shower.”

He looked like he had a comment but then paused, considering it. He looked at you again and you lifted your eyebrows, tipping your head.

“Are you coming?” you asked, offering your hand. He looked at it and then met your gaze, smiling.

He placed his hand in yours.

part five

castiel x reader masterpost

#castiel x reader #castiel x y/n #castiel imagine #casreader #castiel

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kittymaverick · 5 years

Text

MCF Moths to a Flame commentary part 2...

I really heavily underestimated how much jumping I was gonna do watching the gameplay alone... So, Eipex, good job on making me scared for the MD’s life... MD: LEMME OUT. If this weren’t so entertaining, I would honestly be screaming the same still...

1. Pazu: I remember these people Who doesn’t? MD: I wish I don’t! 2. Oh, THEY MOVED THE ENTIRE DOOR HERE??? MD: ...Okay, next time, I’m not just bringing a lighter. I’m bringing lighter, and gasoline, and kerosene, and napalm, AND A TONNE OF TNT JUST TO BE SURE NOTHING OF THAT MANOR EVER SURVIVES AGAIN. 3. MD: this room, it’s like all the Ravenhearst cases in one-- I’m gonna go pass out in the corner. Eipex, when I asked for Ravenhearst, I don’t think I meant like... give the MD a full room of it... Or maybe I did... MD: I knew this case was bad before we started whyyyyyyyyy did I come whyyyyyyyyyyy *sobbing* 4. There’s even a shrine-- wait, why does Gwen’s nest have... eggs... MD, which one of the twins was it that survived? MD: Um, let me check your posts... Okay, apparently, it was Charlotte. ...Are we absolutely, 100%ly, without any doubt whatsoever, certainty beyond all reasonable speculations that Gwen LEGIT DIED WHEN ALISTAIR STABBED HER? MD: ...Look, I checked her body, OKAY? RANSACKED IT EVEN. THE DALIMARS DON’T EXACTLY STAY DEAD THOUGH IF YOU HAVEN’T EXACTLY NOTICED. (Meanwhile, probably elsewhere in this museum, maybe... Dalimars: The Master Detective sure likes arguing with themselves nowadays... they’re never going to get to the end of this game at this rate...) 5. MD: I probably shouldn’t go into a fireplace that just showed up, but... I’m too curious-- Oh, good to know you’re just like a cat like me! Which life are you on now? MD: ...Considering Ankou gave me the feather, negative 2? 6. Complex puzzles actually seem doable and logical this time! Though it is hella creepy. 7. “All the cases are too easy! I’m gonna look into some of the Master Detective cases next. Maybe there’ll be a challenge in there.“ MD: I’m second hand embarrassed about this man’s ego. And other than the security breach your agency has, can I say... Your cases don’t so much have challenges in them as so much as loose ends that never tie up... MD: Look, I REALLY try with the fire, okay??? 8. Shoot all the evil ducks. If you shoot a wrong one, you’ll have to start again! MD: THIS IS THE NEW WHACK-A-TROLL I SWEAR. Pazu: I got this. *100% it* MD: See, in the hands of a good player, I still got it. ...First, how dare you diss me. Second, You do realize your adversary now know your shooting skills, right? MD: Shut up and let me have my small victories will you? 9. Hm, Raven badge, crystal badge... wonder if the last one is going to be death badge.... MD: If the Dalimars and that Scottish guy teamed up, I’m as good as dead... 10. ...is that... is that? MD: ...ISIS??? PLEASE LET US KEEP HER AS A PET. MD: Wait, HOW DID YOU GET CAUGHT? YOU’RE BASICALLY A GHOST CAT. Isis: *innocent kitty eyes* 11. Gargoyle chest with... Madame Fate’s Crystal Ball. MD: Please tell me that’s not the real thing because if it is, I’m breaking it right here and now. I think the pieces are under lock and key because they have Charles’ soul fragments in them right now, right? MD: EXACTLY MY POINT. 12. Video guy assumes you’re a guy. MD: I’m glad as least one part of my identity has been kept secret more than anything else... (Note: MD’s voice acting in this game suggests they are feminine) 13. And the final badge is revealed to be... the cog badge? Wha? (Even Pazu is confused lol.) ((I also just realized, we’re still in the Beta segment of the videos...I’m gonna cry in act 2 and 3, aren’t I?)) 14. MD: Should I be scared or honored that someone made rooms out of my old cases? Do you really want me to answer the obvious? MD: ...Okay, VERY SCARED. FREAKED OUT SCARED. ...BUT THEN YOU KEEP ON DOING THOSE PUZZLES. MD: I CAN’T HELP IT OKAY IT’S MY OCCUPATIONAL HABIT AT THIS POINT. 15. Cheating with weights on the hammer, MD? MD: Look, I walk around a lot solving cases, but that doesn’t exactly leave me time to work out, okay? 16. Oh, so MAC... was constructed by this guy-- MD: ARE YOU SAYING MY BADGE LITERALLY BETRAYED ME??? Well... MD: I CAN’T BELIEVE IT I CAN’T EVEN TRUST MY BADGE IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE. WHERE IS THE NEAREST CLIFF I’M GONNA YEET MYSELF OFF OF IT. (...I did say they were gonna give us a companion cube just to take it away, didn’t I?...) 17. MD, considering how well you know the queen... um, why didn’t you check before coming here whether it was fake or not? MD: ... Well? MD: Look, UK’s going through Brexit right now okay, I don’t think she wants to be disturbed when her country is in a crisis. 18. Okay, past the spire staircases! And behind door number three is-- OH NO. MD: OH THANK GOD THEY ARE ALIVE. NO THAT’S NOT GOOD WE HAVE HOSTAGES. REPEAT WE HAVE HOSTAGES! 19. Chloe: Thanks for freeing me-- MD: Okay, can I first say, how could you fall for this? Um, pot calling the kettle black here? MD: ...OKAY OKAY I’LL RESCUE YOU THREE THEN WE’LL REEVALUATE OUR METHODS, TOGETHER. Aiden: Make that Archivist pay for what he did to us! Blake: ...No pressure? MD: *sobbing* 20. MD: OKAY I GOT EVERYTHING, AND THIS IS... an apprentice badge? Archivist: Yo. Wassup? *Springs trap* MD: I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT WE KNEW IT WE KNEW IT WE KNEW IT Other detectives: Um, oops, sorry? Archivist: Really, though, how could you fall for that? And you call yourself a Master-- MD: I AM GOING TO GET OUT OF HERE AND HURT YOU SO BAD YOU WILL WISH YOU WERE DUMBER. Archivist: Um... that wasn’t... on the script-- Me and MD: SHUT UP WE HAVE A LOT OF FRUSTRATIONS AND PARANOIA BUILT UP OVER THE YEARS TO VENT OKAY. MD: And YOU just happen to be on the receiving end of it. Archivist: *drops trap several stories down* MD: DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-- [Here endith the Beta section!] 21. Hey, we awake? MD: Yeah... awake, ish. OW. Need, to, break, out, somehow. How convenient this guy left sharp objects in the cabinet here for us to use... MD: ...How did the glass not break from the fall? ...Hey, I’m supposed to be playing captain obvious here, not you! MD: Oh right, sorry. Anyway, to vandalism! 22. Archivist: You’re sloppy, aren’t you? MD: Says the guy who left sharp objects for me to break out of here with. Probably because he WANTS you to break out. Archivist: Remember Broken Hours, detective? Tick tock-- MD: I can’t believe I preferred the Dalimars as the villains. Me neither. At least they had some competence in their madness, minus Victor. 23. Blake: Take this Detective! Quick, I’m almost out of time-- OKAY WE ACTUALLY HAVE A HOSTAGE SITUATION HURRY UP! MD: If we take back the incompetence comment, will you give us more time? Archivist: No, of course not. MD: I thought so, you incompetent bastard. Archivist: You little...! Um, PUZZLES AND LIVES TO SAVE PLEASE??? 24. MD: Solving books puzzles gives me more books? Really now, that’s real creative-- Um... is that what I think it is? MD: It’s... It’s nitroglycerin. I’m... I’m so moved. Finally someone understands me. *sobs* Might I remind you this guy has your colleagues HOSTAGE??? 25. There are literally so many references to past games that I’m like overwhelmed with joy. MD: And I’m overwhelmed with HORROR. 26. Pazu: He’s going to get squashed. THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING. MD: Nah, he’s gonna be fine. I hope. I wish. I mean, I usually turn out fine, right? Right??? ...I’m starting to think your agency is so broke because of all the health bills you guys need to get reimbursed afterwards. 27. Archivist: You fall into my traps again and again-- Let’s be honest, that’s just an MD thing, okay? The rest of the MCF crew-- well, actually... Okay, you know what MD, the Archivist is kind of right here. It’s like you guys are literally DRAWN to traps. MD: I’m sorry for being a bad role model and starting the trend? 28. Huh, this room, looks REALLY familiar. MD: I GET IT. THIS GUY, HE’S A COPYCAT. LITERALLY NONE OF HIS THINGS ORIGINATE FROM HIM. HE’S BEEN STEALING THEM FROM EVERYWHERE AND FRANKENSTEINING THEM TOGETHER. It’s almost kind of impressive in a very disturbing way... 29. MD: Oh hey, Parker, coming with? ...I think the reason why you didn’t get a partner for this mission now is because... they all got kidnapped. MD: Yeah, I’m starting to see that now. We REALLY need better security... 30. MD: Found the center of the mechanism! Now to stop it-- WAIT, THINK, THIS IS A TRAP? MD: Gosh I hate that I have to do that for everything now... 31. Pazu: what is this obsession with badges? Someone clearly didn’t get one and is salty. MD: Gods, all four of us agents are going to need new badges after this, aren’t we. Oh gods that’s gonna come out of our pay too, I’m sure... Speaking of badges, look! You get an agent badge! MD: Can’t believe I’m saying this but I really, really, really, much prefer solving the case involving STAIN as well as about the Hope Diamond to get my qualifications than this... massive puzzle tower... Wasn’t Huntsville how you got start on the whole MD path to begin with? And solving the Hope Diamond got the queen asking you to go to Ravenhearst? MD: ...*sighs* yes, this is a trip down memory lane in the worst way possible, I swear... 32. Um, someone’s calling. You gonna pick up? MD: You know, the least you could do is fix broken things after bringing them over, Archivist? Archivist: But if I did that, where’s the SURPRISE? MD: The last group of people that tried to surprise me got their asses kicked, you know. 33. MD: Draining people of their mind force, huh? I believe the Dalimars have officially been outranked on delusions of grandeur. If this note doesn’t scream trap, I don’t know WHAT does. MD: Honestly, considering how dumbly I fall into traps... I’ll like to see the guy try to drain my brain and see what he gets out of it. 34. Is that... THE PATH TO RAVENHEARST MANOR REPLICATED INDOORS? MD: I’m both impressed, and also feeling Charles’ jealousy emitting from whereever he is sealed. Let’s just hope this guy doesn’t propose at the end too. You have all of our blessings to defenestrate him if he does. 35. Awwww he didn’t have time to finish the rest of the manor. Only got up to the gate. MD: It’s like watching someone give up half way on their ambitious project. HEY GUY, AT LEAST ALISTER AND CHARLES FINISHED THEIR PROJECTS. DID YOU? Archivist: Did they build traps like these? *Trap Chloe* MD: ....You are rising up my shit list with record speed and that doesn’t happen often. ALSO CHLOE SERIOUSLY! 36. Archivist: Too bad for your companion, she paid the price. MD: ...I KNEW I should have kept some of that nitroglycerin! Oh hey look he even has a cable car ride for you! Don’t think we’ve seen that since Return or Escape from Ravenhearst? Archivist: If you want to get to the end of the ride, take a seat, NOW. MD: Oh I’ll seat, but only because I WANT TO. Also, your chair aren’t even replicas. 37. MD: Okay the box now... let’s open it-- Oh come ON! IT’S WHACK-A-TROLL!!!!!!! 8D MD: *Smash emergency exit button* Now ladies and gentlemen, please exit the ride into the next insane area. We hope you’ve enjoy the trip BECAUSE I SURE HAVE NOT-- Really? AN AMUSEMENT PARK NEXT? You did say you weren’t having fun... 38. Aiden: HEEEEEELP! MD: ...as much as I feel sorry for the old guy, I’m also glad I’m not the one stuck in that rocket ride... 40. Oh hey, it’s whack-a... detective. AND IT’S MORE FRUSTRATING THAN WHACK-A-TROLL. REALLY EIPEX? REALLY??? MD: ...Can’t believe this, but now, I miss Whack-a-troll. 41. Archivist: Can’t believe you made it this far without realizing I was one of the missing people? MD: ... Actually... Me: That makes sense, like, I was expecting it, honestly. There WERE four missing posters and we only found three. I was wondering WHEN that was going to come up. MD: See, some of the players don’t go through 19 cases and NOT develop SOME sense of paranoia that you’re going to be betrayed. 42. Archivist: Why don’t you step through the door to claim your prize? Me: How about, no? MD: No here as well. Aiden: Also no here. LET ME GO THROUGH INSTEAD! Archivist: WAIT NO THAT’S NOT HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO GO-- Me: ...Aaaand we’re out of the illusion. I KNEW IT! WHEN EVERYTHING WENT MISTY I KNEW SOMETHING WENT WRONG! MD: Okay, instead of celebrating you seeing this coming HOW ABOUT YOU GET ME OUT OF THIS CONTRAPTION THANK YOU. 43. Hey, you got your badge back. MD: I know. And it’s stabby. MD: I KNOW. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? MD: IT’S VANDALISM TIME! 44. Chloe: Hello? Anyone there? Blake: Um, same here? Aiden: AHA! Knew there was something fishy. MD: Okay, since we’re all awake, let’s do what we Master Detectives are great at doing. MDs: solving freakishly complicated puzzle panels. *sighs collectively* 45. Archivist: TOO MUCH BRAIN POWER! NOOOOO *Poofs* MD: THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR PLAYING GAMES WITH US-- Um, who, is, that? Basically everyone who remembers the sole survivor of the Dalimars: CHARLOTTE! [To be continue!]

#Mystery Case Files #Moths to a Flame #Big Fish Games

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helenarlett-rex · 5 years

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Want to use an eldritch horror in your D&D game? Why not Cthylla?

So like I’ve mentioned in my previous posts on this topic, eldritch horrors are a common part of D&D. One of the three pacts given for Warlocks right there in the Player’s Handbook is all about dealing with eldritch horrors... But there don’t seem to be many, or any... eldritch horrors listed in the Monster Manuel for you to actually use. This leaves you having to resort to homebrew but who to homebrew is the question? Naturally most people just jump right to Cthulhu but come on... You don’t want to be like everyone else, do you? Where’s the variety? How about this...? Instead of Cthulhu, have you considered Cthylla?

Cthylla, also known as The Kraken or The Secret One, is the youngest offspring of Cthulhu and his mate, Idh-yaa. Cthylla, like her parents, is a Great Old One. She came from the star Xoth, but now dwells on Earth in Yhe, where she is guarded by Cthulhu's minions. Namely, a great number of Deep Ones and Yuggya.

Cthylla has the appearance of a gigantic, red-bodied, black-ringed, and six-eyed octopus with small wings. Like her father, she is able to alter her body-proportions at will, such as by enlarging her wings to enable her to fly, or give herself a killer beach bod... don’t look at me like that... she could if she wanted to... In fact she has actually been seen to have given herself a humanoid form on at least one occasion. So who’s to say it couldn’t happen?

While she normally has eight arms like any octopus, she can extrude or retract additional ones at will and has been known to sport as many as twelve arms at a time. Each arm is equipped with dozens of razor-sharp claws, each about five inches in length. Picture trying to fight a giant octopus but instead of suction cups, each of its tentacles are lined with claws in their place. That’s not really something I personally would want to fight...

Cthylla may be the youngest of Cthulhu‘s children, and probably considered the least powerful, but she is by no means the least important. If anything, Cthylla is the most important of Cthulhu‘s children. This is because poor Cthylla is little more than an insurance policy for her father. You see, Cthulhu, in his great power, has foreseen that one day in the distant future he will be destroyed. And when that happens, Cthylla is destined to mate with Cthulhu‘s half-brother, Hastur, and give birth to Cthulhu once more.

This makes Cthylla critical to Cthulhu‘s plans. Insuring that she stays alive is the only thing that insures Cthulhu himself will be reborn after his death. This is why she is known as The Secret One. She’s so important that the members of Cthulhu‘s cult will go to any means necessary to insure her existence remains a secret, hiding all information about the goddess. Even going as far as defacing the Columns of Geph in order to remove any reference to her.

Should any harm towards Cthylla even be so much as attempted, Cthulhu himself will take action, unleashing the full fury of his wrath against those who would harm his daughter.

But Cthylla herself is not invulnerable, which is probably why she is so fiercely protected. In fiction we have seen that she can be wounded. She was wounded by a subterranean atomic bomb. She was also captured by simple researchers once who mistook her for a rare species of octopus and tried to breed her.

Cthylla has two other names she is known by. One of those is The Kraken. To which you may be asking, do you mean... The Kraken? Like, the monster in the Monster Manuel? Release The Kraken! That Kraken?

Yeah, that’s what I mean... And if you aren’t convinced, the other name she is known by is Scylla. As in the sea monster spoken of in Greek Mythology. We already know Cthylla can alter her shape, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise if she goes around looking like other horrible sea monsters, especially considering she is supposed to be keeping her identity a secret.

So how would you use Cthylla in your game? As a patron for a Pact of the Great Old One warlock I would play her up as being very grumpy but also extremely willing to act as a patron and lend her power. Remember, she’s Cthulhu‘s youngest child and still rather physically weak. In Great Old One terms, she’s pretty much still a teenager. A teenager who is a Goddess but isn’t worshiped by anyone because her father’s worshipers have covered up her existence and removed her name and likeness from her own temples. In addition to that she’s essentially been grounded for life, placed under heavy guard, and told that her only purpose is to one day have sex with her uncle and give birth to her own father. You show me one teenager who is going to be okay with any of that...

Cthylla is going to be an extremely grumpy and ill tempered girl. But that would also make her very eager to lend her power to any warlock who actually manages to find out about her and go to her for a pact. Name me one reason she wouldn’t be thrilled to actually have followers who recognize her for who she is after centuries of being forgotten and kept a secret... Depending on what kind of game you are running, you may even want to play Cthylla as rebellious, ordering her warlock to work against her father’s plans. I mean, if I was an all powerful octopus goddess who had been locked in my room under heavy guard and told I couldn’t come out until I gave birth to my own father I’d probably be like, fuck you Dad! I’m going to give all my power to this warlock here and order him to kill my uncle so there is no possible way for him to impregnate me with you!

Just a thought...

But if you did want to go for that angle it would make for a rather interesting character. You could actually play Cthylla as an ally to the party instead of an adversary or some great cosmic being who is just indifferent to their existence the way most eldritch beings are. Or if that’s not your cup of tea, you could always make her completely onboard with her father’s plans and just play her as an evil cosmic monster happy to play her part in the destruction of humanity.

As for using Cthylla in combat, you don’t actually have to do all that much work to homebrew her. Most of the work is already done for you. Remember how I said one of her other names is The Kraken? I would actually just take the Kraken from the Monster Manuel and use it for Cthylla‘s stats. It’s already a CR 23 monster, which is about right for Cthylla. Although I would add a few things to it just to make it a little more on point.

The Build

As I said, start with Kraken base stats.

Next, change the monster type from Gargantuan monstrosity (titan), chaotic evil to Gargantuan aberration (great old one), chaotic neutral, unless of course you don’t plan to play her as the rebellious type, in which case you can keep the chaotic evil alignment.

Step 2, add a fly speed of fly 80 ft. (hover). She does have those wings after all...

Step 3, bump up her Dex to 22 (+6).

Step 4, Give her Damage Resistance to all spell attacks and all attacks from magical weapons. After all... if an atomic bomb only left her wounded, then she should be able to shrug off spells like Fireball.

Step 5, change her languages to Deep Speech; telepathy 300 ft.

Step 6, add darkvision 120 ft.

Step 7, add Innate Spellcasting. Cthylla’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 24; spell attack +16). She can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: dispel magic, dream, 3/day: suggestion, feeblemind,

Step 8, add Frightful Presence. Each creature of Cthylla’s choice that is within 120 feet of her and aware of her must succeed on a DC 24 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to Cthylla’s Frightful Presence for the next minute.

Step 9, add Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Cthylla fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead.

Step 10, add Change Shape. Cthylla magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating no higher than its own, or back into it’s true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (Cthylla’s choice). In a new form, Cthylla retains her alignment, hit points, Hit Dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, Legendary Resistance, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.

Step 11, remove Lightning Storm.

And that should sufficiently turn your Kraken into Cthylla. And just so you can see what it all looks like when it’s finished so you don’t have to spend the time writing it all down yourself, here it is...

Cthylla

Gargantuan aberration (great old one), chaotic neutral

Armor Class 18 (natural armor) Hit Points 427 (27d20+189) Speed 20 ft., swim 60 ft., fly 80 ft. (hover)

STR 30 (+10) DEX 22 (+6) CON 25 (+7) INT 22 (+6) WIS 18 (+4) CHA 20 (+5)

Saving Throws Str +18, Dex +15, Con +15, Int +14, Wis +12 Damage Resistances All spell attacks, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from magical weapons. Damage Immunities lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons. Condition Immunities frightened, paralyzed Senses darkvision 120 ft., truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 14 Languages Deep Speech; telepathy 300 ft. Challenge 25 (50,000 XP)

Amphibious. Cthylla can breath air and water.

Freedom of Movement. Cthylla ignores difficult terrain, and magical effects can’t reduce her her speed or cause her to be restrained. She can spend 5 feet of movement to escape from nonmagical restraints or being grappled.

Siege Monster. Cthylla deals double damage to objects and structures.

Frightful Presence. Each creature of Cthylla’s choice that is within 120 feet of her and aware of her must succeed on a DC 24 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to Cthylla’s Frightful Presence for the next minute.

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Cthylla fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead.

Change Shape. Cthylla magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating no higher than its own, or back into it’s true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (Cthylla’s choice). In a new form, Cthylla retains her alignment, hit points, Hit Dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, Legendary Resistance, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.

Innate Spellcasting. Cthylla’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 24; spell attack +16). She can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: dispel magic, dream, 3/day: suggestion, feeblemind,

Actions

Multiattack. Cthylla makes three tentacle attacks, each of which she can replace with one use of Fling.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +18 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 23 (3d8 +10) piercing damage. If the target is a large or small creature grappled by Cthylla, that creature is swallowed, and the grapple ends. While swallowed, the creature is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside Cthylla, and it takes 42 (12d6) acid damage at the start of each of Cthylla’s turns. If Cthylla takes 50 or more damage on a single turn from a creature inside her, Cthylla must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10 feet of Cthylla. If Cthylla dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse using 15 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +18 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (3d6 +10) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. Cthylla has 12 tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.

Fling. One large or smaller object held or creature grappled by Cthylla is thrown up to 60 feet in a random direction and knocked prone. If a thrown target strikes a solid surface, the target takes 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it was thrown. If a target is thrown at another creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity Saving throw or take the same damage and be knocked prone.

Legendary Actions

Cthylla can take three Legendary Actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. Cthylla regains spent legendary actions at the start of her turn.

Tentacle Attack or Fling. Cthylla makes one tentacle attack or uses her fling.

Bite (Costs 2 Actions). Cthylla makes one bite attack.

Ink Cloud (Costs 3 actions). While underwater, Cthylla expels an ink cloud in a 60-foot radius. The cloud spreads around corners, and that area is heavily obscured to creatures other than Cthylla. Each creature other than Cthylla that ends its turn there must succeed on a DC 23 Constitution saving throw, taking 16 (3d10) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A strong current disperses the cloud, which otherwise disappears at the end of Cthylla’s next turn.

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talk-quirky-to-me · 5 years

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Who Cared? (AO3)

@kiridekuweek2k19 Day-let’s-pretend-I’m-not-late-3: AU | Red Poppy | Ain’t No Sunshine (Bill Withers)

–––––––

“One of these days I’ll arrest you, man, you know that?”

“No you won’t,” Midoriya chuckled sheepishly, pacing around the small room of what seemed to be a garage, stuffy with old air and the smell of paint. “Someone else might. That hothead partner of yours. What’s his name, Ka-something? Kacchan?”

Eijirou snorted despite himself.

“Please call him that to his face. I will literally pay you money.”

“Who knew getting money was that easy!” Midoriya laughed. “Maybe I wouldn’t have had the need to kidnap police officers if that were the case.”

“For the second time this month,” Eijirou reminded him. The man sighed dramatically, leaning against a dirty wall.

“Detail, detail. You focus too much on the little stuff, Kirishima-kun.”

“I don’t know about you, but at the precinct we don’t really consider repeated kidnapping offenses the little stuff. Or that whole robbery thing you have going on.”

“You rob a bank twice, and people make such a big deal about it,” Midoriya pouted. “Let it be known that the second time I didn’t even do it for my own sake!”

“You can tell that to the judge,” Kirishima deadpanned, twisting his hand where it was tied to the other behind the chair. The man didn’t even use handcuffs – there was something to be said about underestimating your adversaries. “As well as that acrobat partner of yours when we catch her.”

“She’s not an acrobat!” Midoriya giggled. “She’s just ridiculously lucky when it comes to not falling from great heights.”

“And running from police,” Eijirou added. “Unlike you. You, on the other hands, practically run into our arms.”

“And yet I’m still walking free,” the man grinned, pushing himself away from the wall and making his way towards a table to retrieve a notebook. “I think the police likes me, Kirishima-san.”

“We most certainly do not.”

For a moment the garage was quiet as Midoriya picked up a pen from the table and began scribbling something down. Kirishima wrapped his fingers around the ropes, tugging on them gently to test for the easiest way to get them off.

“Has Shigaraki been trouble lately?” the man asked suddenly, looking up at him. Eijirou almost twitched, then frowned a little.

“What’s your business with Shigaraki?” he demanded. “I didn’t quite take you for the type to hang out with murderers.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Midoriya shrugged lightly. “Murderers are the one who like to hang out with me though. He’s concocting one of those grand schemes of his, y’know? Tried to approach me about it around three times now.”

Kirishima frowned deeper. Truth be told, Shigaraki Tomura and his self-proclaimed League of Villains (just how dramatic can you get with the naming?) haven’t actually been trouble in recent months, but if anything, that should have aroused more suspicion than when they were, seemingly, on every corner. Not that he was about to tell Midoriya any of it.

“And?” he said instead, pulling at one end of the rope as sharply as he could without making it obvious. Midoriya shrugged.

“And what? I didn’t agree, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t work with creeps.”

“I would certainly hope so,” Kirishima rolled his eyes. The knot loosened, ever so slightly, and he clenched his fists, trying to get them free. “My respect for Shigaraki is non-existent, so I suggest you don’t stoop to his level.”

“Aw, was that a roundabout way to say you respect me?” Midoriya smiled delightedly, making another note in his book. Kirishima really needed to lay his hands on that book at one point – the man was known for keeping meticulous notes on everything, including, perhaps, many criminals that have so far evaded the law. “I respect you too, Kirishima-san.”

“I’m the officer of the law,” Eijirou told him, wriggling his left hand free and twitching only slightly at the friction burns all over his hand. “You’re supposed to respect me.”

“So are your colleagues, yet I can’t say I have all that much respect for that tiny purple-haired freak.”

“Well,” Eijirou sputtered, because alright, he wasn’t really wrong there, “Mineta’s an exception. We’re not really sure how he got the job.”

Midoriya snickered and flipped back a few pages, adding a couple of words to what already looked like an entire essay of analysis. Kirishima moved his feet experimentally – that rope would be harder to get rid of.

“Anyways, the hell do you want from me, dude?” he asked. Keep his attention on your face, he’ll be less inclined to notice the rest of it. “Just to ask if Shigaraki’s been on our radar?”

“Partly,” Midoriya shrugged. “I’m not surprised he’s laying low though – he’s planning for something grandiose. But apart from that, is it too hard to imagine I just missed your company, officer?”

Eijirou sputtered again.

“You know, when normal people miss someone, they don’t really kidnap them!” he exclaimed. At least the leg ropes weren’t as tight as they could have been – a minute or two of wriggling, and he could probably get rid of them. “People tend to, like, hang out after work or something – and not in freaky garages while tied to a chair!”

“You officers don’t ever really get off work though, do you?” Midoriya shrugged. “One of your colleagues sees me around on the streets and bye-bye freedom, hello prison bars.”

“Are you gonna try to tell me you don’t deserve that?” Eijirou raised one eyebrow. “Two bank robberies. At least five cases of kidnapping.”

“I’ve never hurt a fly!” the man exclaimed dramatically, dropping his notebook back on the table. “Hey, remember Overhaul? Don’t pretend I didn’t help you there!”

“The law is not only for people who cause physical injuries,” Kirishima reminded him. “Also, just because you happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge–“

“–and decided to share that knowledge with you!”

“–Doesn’t make you any less of a criminal,” Eijirou finished, rolling his eyes. “You’d need way more points for cooperating with authorities to get you out of the shit you got yourself into, dude.”

“Hey, I told you to look out for Shigaraki just now!” Midoriya complained, turning away to return the pen to the pen holder. “Doesn’t that count?”

Kirishima counted to three, then bolted to his feet.

The ropes around his legs fell to the floor, as did the one he was clutching in his hands, and Midoriya spun around, but too late to stop him: Eijirou lunged for his own gun in one of the corners of the garage and pointed it at the man.

Midoriya sighed tiredly, leaning back against the desk and raising his arms in the air.

“And here I was, thinking we’re having a normal conversation,” he huffed. “Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard for getting out, by the way – the ropes were hardly secure.”

“I noticed,” Eijirou said, retreating back towards the door in small steps, careful not to trip over anything. “It’s like you don’t care about being arrested, man.”

“I told you already – you’re not going to arrest me. Are you?”

Eijirou sighed, deeply, and found the door handle with one of his palms, the gun still pointed at Midoriya. (The garage door wasn’t even locked, for god’s sake!)

No, he wasn’t. But it was a nice thought.

“Just because you are occasionally a useful source of information,” he told him.

“And because you like me.”

“And because I– What the hell?! No I don’t!”

“Do too,” Midoriya laughed delightedly, letting his hands drop back down to his sides. “Tell Kacchan I said hi.”

Kirishima slammed the door closed behind him and put his gun back in its holster.

Goddamnit.

***

“Hey, officer, you off work yet?”

Kirishima froze in his tracks. He just got down the front stairs of the precincts, still in uniform, still with a pair of handcuffs clipped to his waist and a gun a reach of a hand away. They were in the middle of a city, in broad afternoon daylight, and did he mention in front of a literal police station?

He turned around, very slowly, and sighed.

Midoriya Izuku approached him, a bounce in his step and a cap over his mop of green hair which did very little to hide his identity for anyone who has ever spent longer than a few minutes studying him. He was grinning, even wider than he usually did, and there was a bag slung over his shoulder, half unzipped to expose a few notebooks and a knife.

“I thought we don’t ever really get off work?” Kirishima raised his eyebrows.

Midoriya giggled.

“Well, after official working hours is the best I can do, isn’t it?” he shrugged. “Look at me, doing what normal people do. You wanna go hang out?”

Now, Kirishima has had his fair share of bad ideas in his life. He followed through on far too many of them to be reassuring, too. But this? This was definitely up there in the top five.

“Why not,” he sighed in resignation. “Just let me pop in home for a minute to change.”

“Great,” Midoriya beamed, and Eijirou suddenly thought that maybe taking him to his apartment building is an even worse idea. “So, anyways, about Shigaraki...”

But then again – who cared?

#bnha #boku no hero academia #kirideku #mha #my hero academia #kiridekuweek2k19 #izuku midoriya #kirishima eijirou #my writing

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marshmallow-phd · 6 years

Text

Prey in the Knight

A/N: So, I’m turning this into a series, possibly one for each member (help!). I do too much, but I can’t help it.

Genre: Vampire AU

Pairing: Kris x Reader

Warning: mentions of blood, murder

Summary: A sadistic vampire has chosen you as his next target. Kris had vowed to hunt him down for revenge. With you now caught in the middle, Kris will use you to get to him, but after centuries of being alone, will something be reignited in his cold, dead heart?

Tao I Kris I Yixing I Luhan I Minseok I Jongdae I Jongin

He liked being alone. No tearful goodbyes, no hurtful attachments. He was free to come and go as he pleased, no one to tie him down. Sure, after three hundred years, he had connections all over the world, but they were just acquaintances, people to just help him get through life when he needed a little extra help.

Like Luhan.

It still amused him how that little pretty boy decided to become a public worker, spending most of his days down in a basement under harsh florescent lighting that highlighted his pale, undead skin, surrounded by rotting flesh. If humans couldn’t stand the smell, imagine how a vampire felt.

But today was one of those days were Luhan’s position came in handy.

Kris needed information. He’d caught the scent of an old adversary - one he’d lost track of decades ago - right here in his own territory. A ruthless vampire who needed to be put down. If anyone in the city were to know about a rise in vampire-on-human attacks, Luhan would be the one to contact.

The precinct was busy, loud and overcrowded with people begging not to be locked up, when he arrived. No one paid him any attention as he strolled down the hallway and to the elevator, pressing the button to call it. While waiting for its arrival, the sound of tears caught his attention. Looking around, he found you, sitting at one of the detectives’ desks with a police standard jacket around your shoulders.

You weren’t wailing or sobbing hysterically. Just sitting there with a blank face as tears rolled down your red cheeks. Occasionally, you sniffed, creating the soft noise that caught Kris’s attention in the first place. No one seemed to be paying vulnerable little you any mind. It was depressing.

Shaking his head, he turned back when the elevator dinged at him and hit the button for the basement with just a little too much force.

Luhan was busy writing something down on a clipboard when he arrived. He didn’t even look up to acknowledge his old friend even though he certainly heard his steps from the hallway, maybe even from the floor above.

“I’ve actually been expecting you to arrive sooner or later,” the coroner chuckled, finally looking up.

Kris leaned against an empty slab, his hands in the pockets of his designer coat. Not that he actually needed one. He just liked how it looked.

“Well, you are basically psychic,” he teased.

“No. Just intuitive.” Luhan walked over to the wall that housed the newly arrived corpses and pulled out a drawer as Kris joined him. On the cold slab was a young woman, maybe in her early to mid-twenties. Pretty except for the thick red slash that tore up her throat. “I haven’t done the autopsy yet. I was waiting for you to arrive. Although, to be honest, I don’t really need to do one.”

Kris frowned thoughtfully. “Was it him?”

“That’s my guess.” Luhan gently pushed the woman’s hair away from her neck, showing off the side where the cut was deepest and brutally applied. “I found two puncture wounds hidden beneath the cut. Obviously vampire. This isn’t an unusual way for vampires to cover their tracks but–” he stopped.

“But what?” Kris urged.

Luhan sighed. “Did you see the girl crying upstairs? Pretty? Sitting at the detective’s desk?” Kris nodded. “This is the second person connected to her that’s died. In this exact way. And both bodies were left around like they were meant to be found.”

Kris’s eyes flashed red. The sudden changed didn’t scared Luhan like it might have with any human. He’d fully expected this to happen.

“It is him,” Kris growled. “This time, I’ll get him. And I’ll rip his throat out.”

Luhan pushed the drawer back into its holding cell, closing the door on the poor girl. “Do it soon. Before he kills someone else.”

With a hard nod, Kris turned on his heels, stalking back to the elevator to start his hunt.

“I’ll send you the target’s information!” Luhan called out after him. The taller vampire simply threw up his hand in acknowledgment.

You were waiting for the breakdown. For the moment where what you had found down in the laundry room of your apartment building to truly hit you. But the breakdown didn’t come. Tears rolled down your face, but you didn’t really cry. And that’s all you wanted to do right now.

After what seemed like an hour, the detective finally came back with a cup of tea, handing it to you.

“Thank you,” you whispered.

The detective nodded. “Now, (y/n), tell me about Jisoo and what might have happened.”

You took a sip of the bitter tea and shrugged. “I don’t really know what happened. Jisoo and I were close. We were around the same age–”

“You’re her neighbor, correct?” he interrupted.

You nodded. “Yes. For the past two years. Every Friday night after work, we’d go down to the laundry room. Hardly anyone else uses it at that time since they’re all out. We’d just talk about life, our jobs, family while doing our laundry. I was late getting off today so when she didn’t answer her door, I figured she already went down. When I got there, she was… she was–” your throat constricted at the memory.

Jisoo, lying on the dirty concrete of the basement laundry room. Bright red blood gathered around her head like a sick halo from a cathedral portrait. Her eyes were open, staring up at nothing. She looked like she’d just been thrown down to the ground, whoever attacked her not caring about the aftermath.

You shook your head, not able to voice the images to life.

“That’s okay,” the detective said soothingly, rubbing your arm as a means of comfort. “Did Jisoo have any enemies that you know about? Anyone who didn’t like her?”

Again, you shook your head. “No. She tried to be friendly with everyone.”

“Did she complain about anyone ever?”

“No.” You sighed, “No one, but Ryan from work. But he’s just a perv.”

That peaked the detective’s interest. “Did he try advances on Jisoo? Is that what made her uncomfortable?”

“N-no,” you stuttered. “He just shares a bit too much about his personal life. I met him once, when we went out. Even drunk, he never tried anything on Jisoo.”

That disappointed him. “Alright. I’ll get one of the patrol officers to take you home. Here’s my card, in case you think of anything else.”

To your relief, the officer who drove you back to your apartment didn’t say anything, just letting the occasional radio message break the silence. He saw you all the way up to your door on the fifth level. Jisoo’s own door across the hall had crime scene tape to stop anyone from entering in case they needed to gather more evidence or clues.

You thanked the officer and went inside.

Just do your normal routine, you told yourself. And so you did. You changed into your pajamas, washed your face, brushed your teeth, and climbed into bed. But it was there in the dark, with the sound of the city attacking your window, that it hit you. Finally, with your face hidden in your knees, you were able to sob at the loss of your friend.

Two weeks had gone by since that terrible night and you were sure you were losing it. Maybe you should see a therapist.

You can’t afford a therapist.

Well, maybe you should just get a new job.

But you loved the bookstore, so living in constant paranoia was your only option. It was probably only your imagination, anyway. Your very active imagination.

In the corner of your eye as you walked down the street to your job or the grocery store, you would see a looming shadow. By the time you turned to get a better look, it’d be gone. There were times where you just felt like you were being watched. But no one was ever around.

Today, though, you were a bit more relaxed once you arrived at the small bookshop you called your second home. Your mother often complained that you could do better, but you were the assistant manager and with Bruce about to retire within the next year or so, you were next in line to be in charge. Why try to start over somewhere else?

A few customers milled about the store, but you deemed it safe to leave the register. The pile of returns and donations was getting high and you knew that Dani would never get all of them put away by herself. Grabbing a good number of books, you started wandering about the store, finding the rightful places for the novels.

Being surrounded by the pages of other people’s stories made you feel better. More comfortable. The smell of old books took you back to leafing through your grandfather’s personal library. He never threw away a good book and it drove your grandmother crazy.

Finding the ‘Gs’, you started to put the book on top away until you recognized the binding. It was the last book that Mr. Kim - your favorite regular customer - had purchased before he passed. You weren’t sure of the details, but someone said he had fallen down the stairs and hit his head. It was a terrible way for him to go. He’d been so sweet, coming in two or three times a week, sharing stories of his younger days with you. You had liked to think of him as another grandparent you could turn to.

Releasing a heavy sigh, you put the book away and searched for the next one. Naturally, its proper place was on the highest shelf, just out of your reach. You looked around, but the only ladder in the shop was currently being used by Dani, who was like a living elf with her small stature. Being the stubborn person you were, you just decided that you would get it up there yourself. You stretched your legs, reached out your arm as far as it could go, and were on the very tips of your toes, but you still couldn’t reach it.

A large hand appeared from nowhere, taking the book from you and placing it on the shelf. Gasping in surprise, you whirled around to face the stranger, nearly toppling over the remaining books in your hands.

“Whoa, there,” the stranger chuckled, steadying the pile. His long fingers were just barely touching yours. They were abnormally cold, but you brushed it off to poor circulation.

“Th-thank you.” Oh, great. You had stuttered and now you could feel your cheeks getting warm. But you couldn’t help it. The stranger was handsome, tall, and there was very little room between the two of you due to the closeness of the shelves.

“You’re welcome,” he smiled. Of course, it was a dazzling smile. He bowed his head politely. “I’m Kris.”

“(y/n),” you bowed back. Clearing your throat, you asked, “Is there anything I can help you find?”

“Yeah, I was looking for your supernatural selection.” There was a shimmer in his eyes that gave you the impression that he was silently laughing to himself.

“Of course,” you motioned with your head. “Follow me.” You led him to the back where his desired taste was stored. “Just let me know if you need anything else.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

Trying hold your smile down to a friendly level, you nodded back and scurried out of there.

You really wanted to see him again. He was attractive and polite. And tall guys were your weakness. But he didn’t buy anything and by the end of the week, he hadn’t returned to the store.

Sundays were your main day off, so you did what you’d always done and went down to your favorite little coffee café with your newest book in hand. Taking a window seat near the door, you ordered a tea and sat back in the chair, cracking open the book.

You used to love mysteries, the thrill of trying to figure out who killed the victim and why as the main character tried not to be next. But ever since Jisoo, they just gave you nightmares of finding her body. So, instead, you’d turned to classic romances, like Jane Austen. You knew it was cliché, but you hadn’t read them before and they were giving you a comfortable place to run to.

So lost in the world of Austen, you didn’t notice the leg nearing your table until it was too late. The leg jostled the table enough to spill your now lukewarm tea.

“I’m so sorry!” The other patron was already cleaning up the liquid with a handful of napkins.

“It’s alright.” You put your book down in your lap and you jaw dropped when you saw who it was that had run into your table. “Kris?”

His eyes lit up when he recognized you. “(Y/n)! Wow, this is embarrassing.” Once the table was dry, he threw away the napkins and picked up the now empty cup. “Let me by you a new one.”

“Oh, no, that-” You were too late. He was already at the counter, ordering you another drink.

When he came back, he set down your tea before sitting in the chair across from you and taking a sip of his own coffee. “So, is it your day off?”

You nodded, bookmarking your place and setting the novel aside. “Uh-huh. I like this place, so I tend to come here every time I don’t work.”

“It’s a nice little café,” he agreed. “So, how long have you worked at the shop?”

And just like that, you were telling Kris basically your life story. He told you a few vague details about himself here and there when you asked, but he always turned the conversation back to you. Typically, you preferred to be left alone when you were reading, but you couldn’t be mad at this interruption.

Kris was funny, often making both you and himself laugh. You liked the sound of it; the way his deep chuckles mixed with your own obnoxious giggles. He was smart, too, often randomly dropping facts that you hadn’t known before. He seemed to like surprising you and throwing you off guard.

After a few hours, you had to leave, but before you could stand up, he grabbed your hand.

“Can I take you out to dinner tomorrow night?” he asked.

With your face heating up, you nodded, giving him your number. He said he would call you with a time and so he’d know where to pick you up. You could hardly wait.

Kris knew this was creepy. No one had to point it out to him. But he still couldn’t will himself to move.

When you’d left the café he’d followed you, just to make sure you made it home safe. He’d been following you for a while now, trying to see if he could catch Taejo on your trail while keeping an eye on you. That sadistic vampire always liked playing with his targeted victims, killing people around them until they realized that they were next. But he never showed. And Luhan confirmed that the only person who connected your neighbor and that old man – Kim something – was you.

So, Kris had to take things to the next level. He knew that their hatred for each other was strong, so if he made his presence known, maybe Taejo would slip up or confront him. That’s what dinner tomorrow was about.

At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

He hadn’t meant to enjoy talking to you so much. It’d been nearly two hundred and fifty years since he allowed himself close to a human. To have a conversation with meaning with a human. And there you were, fascinating him with every little reaction, every little subtle movement. It was irritating him.

And yet, here he was, sitting on your fire escape and watching you sleep. He hadn’t moved much since you arrived home and settled down in your room. Even when you left to go take a shower and get ready for bed. Now you were fast asleep in an over-sized sweater and a pair of very tempting shorts.

Kris let out a low hiss at the thought, knocking his head against the glass. Dumb idea.

The sudden noise pulled you from your sleep, making your eyes snap open. Kris crouched down, cursing for the first time his too-long body as he tried to stay hidden and out of view of the window. He could hear your erratic heartbeat as you approached the window, only calming down when you found nothing. You settled back down on the bed and he decided it was time to leave.

He had a feeling he was going to be in big trouble if he didn’t watch himself.

You were on cloud nine. You’d been there for over a month since you went out to dinner with Kris and you felt like nothing could bring you down.

That first dinner with Kris was the most romantic date you’d ever had. He reserved a private balcony overlooking the skyline at one of the most in-demand restaurants in the city. You had a perfect view of the stars in the candlelight dinner. The two of you talked then entire time, never having a moment of awkwardness.

Kris was a perfect gentleman the entire night. Maybe a little too perfect of a gentleman. He didn’t kissed you goodnight and that worried you, making you think he didn’t have the same feeling about the date that you did. But that worry went away when he showed up at the bookstore the next day, just to see you.

And that’s how it’d been for a while now. He’d take you out or he’d come over to your place. At least three times a week, he’d come to the store to talk to you and keep you company. From the way he treated you to the little facets of his personality, he was everything you ever wanted. But he still hadn’t kissed you. And you just weren’t brave enough to take that step. You didn’t want to scare him away if he just wasn’t ready yet. But his lack of action was planting little seeds of doubt in your mind.

You were lost in this thought as the two of you walked hand in hand down the street to your apartment. Kris felt the sudden change in your mood.

“(Y/n)?”

You kept staring straight ahead. “Hm?”

He stopped your steps with a slight tug on your hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Embarrassed but not sure why, you just shrugged. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

The frown and creased forehead told you that he didn’t believe you, but he continued down the street, still holding tight to your hand. It was silence all the way to your door, even as you put the key in your lock to let yourself in. Getting a sudden sense of courage, you whirled on him.

“Do you even like me?”

His eyes widened. “What? Of course I like you, (y/n). That’s why I’ve been spending time with you.”

Your voice came out barely above a whisper as you stared down at the ground. “But that’s all you do.”

He sighed, his breath ruffling the hair against your forehead. Cautious fingers caressed both sides of your face before tilting your head up to him. A small, playful smile sat teasingly on his lips.

“You’re really cute when you’re pouting,” he told you softly.

As you opened your mouth to retaliate, he took his chance and brought his lips to yours.

He started off tender, as if he were scared you might break or run away. Kissing him back, you showed him that you weren’t going anywhere. You wrapped your arms around his neck, bring him closer to you. He trailed his fingers down your sides at an agonizingly slow pace, as if memorizing every curve. They didn’t stop at your hips like you’d expected, instead continuing down to your thighs before lifted you up and pinning you against the door.

Kris pulled away, looking up at you. “This is why I haven’t kissed you yet. I knew once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.”

You smirked, cradling his jaw with your palms. “Who asked you to?”

He shook his head at your challenge, diving in again and kissing you with more ferocity this time. It amazed you how he was able to keep at it while unlocking your door and carrying you inside gracefully.

Once again, you were caught between Kris and your door, now inside your apartment. You pulled away just for a second to get another lungful of air when something caught your eye. Wiggling out of Kris’s embrace and reaching out, you flipped on your light switch and screamed.

Written in thick red letters on your wall were the words “YOU’RE NEXT”.

Kris hid your face in his chest and pulled you out of the apartment while dialing nine-one-one. The authorities were there soon after. You were shaking in the hallway as they sent people in to search your home. Kris answered all questions for you and confirmed the two of you never made it past your front door. Words were going in your ears, but your mind wasn’t making sense of any of them, except one: blood.

A detective arrived at the scene, quickly speaking to one of the officers before approaching you.

“Miss (l/n)? This girl was found dead just a few hours ago. Do you know her?” She held out a picture to you. With an unstable hand, you took it and gasped.

Your knees gave out from under you and only Kris’s grip around your waist kept you from crumbling to the floor. The sobs made it impossible to answer.

“It’s her coworker, Dani,” Kris answered for you.

The detective nodded. “Is there somewhere you can stay tonight, Miss (l/n)? Where you’ll be safe?”

“She’ll stay with me,” Kris declared. Those four words made you feel so relieved you able to catch your breath and calm down just enough to speak again. You wanted away from here.

You whispered, “Can we go?”

The detective nodded and she turned away to her comrades.

You hardly paid attention as Kris drove you to his place. It was a fancy high-rise apartment building, but you couldn’t find it in you to be impressed.

Kris was patient with you as the two of you slowly made it to his home. He ushered you inside, not stopping until you reached his bedroom. Still in the dark, he handed you a T-shirt.

“You can change into that, then we’ll go to bed.” He disappeared into the bathroom after giving you a soft kiss on your forehead, closing the door behind him.

It took you a moment to function again. The effort it took just to undress and put on Kris’s shirt exhausted you. The shirt itself was big on you, stopping just above mid-thigh. Before you might have been a little embarrassed. At this point, you couldn’t find it in you to care. In automatic mode, you slipped into his bed, settling underneath the covers. Kris came out just a few seconds later, smiling just a little bit at you.

He, too, had changed. Now he was in an old shirt with the sleeves cut off and pajama pants. Sitting down on the bed, he took your hand in his.

“It’ll be all right,” he promised.

You squeezed his hand. “You’ll stay with me, right?”

He seemed shocked at your request, but he gave in, slipping under the covers with you. “Of course.”

You wasted no time scooting in closer to him, letting him hold you as you managed to fall asleep peacefully.

When you woke up the next morning, Kris was gone. A small note left on the nightstand told you that he had to check up on something at work and would be home soon. You were a bit depressed that he wasn’t there, but all you could do was shrug it off and get out of bed.

Sitting down on the couch, you turned the TV on to the news. After the weather, the anchor turned serious. A picture of Dani appeared next to her on the screen.

“Twenty-five-year-old Dani Marcum was found brutally murdered last night in her home. The police are now suspecting that it could be linked to two other deaths: the murder of Jang Jisoo and Kim Kiwon.”

Your jaw dropped at that last name. You thought the death of Mr. Kim had been an accident, now they were calling it murder?

“All three bodies were found drained completely of blood. However, the amount found at the crime scenes was not enough for authorities to say that they simply bleed out where they were found. They are not sure where the rest of the blood as gone. The only theory is that killer drained the victims and took the blood with him, possibly as a sick souven–”

The TV shut off and Kris tossed the remote aside before joining you on the couch.

“(Y/n),” he whispered.

“Why me?” you screeched, turning to him with tears in your eyes. “Everyone around me is dying and now I’m next. Why is this happening to me?”

The answer you expected was that he didn’t know. The answer you were prepared to hear was that things like this happened and you couldn’t explain it. But that’s not what you received.

Kris took both your hands in his, eyebrows pulled tightly together as he searched for words. “(Y/n), what I’m about to tell you is going to sound crazy, but I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

You swallowed thickly, fearful of he was about to say, but nodding anyway.

“Okay. Good.” He scooted closer to you, meeting your eyes. “(Y/n), there is a world you don’t know about. A world you think is fictional, but is actually real. A world of supernatural creatures.”

You froze. Then you got mad.

Jumping to your feet, you started yelling. “Are you serious?! Three different people close to me were killed! And you’re going to tell me it was because vampires and werewolves are real!”

Before you could blink, Kris was in front of you, his hand over your mouth. That was impossible.

“Please, don’t yell,” he begged between gritted teeth. “I’m serious, (y/n). They’re real. Look.” He opened his mouth to reveal his two canine teeth had grown impossibly long. They shrank back again to a normal, uninteresting size. “We are real. That vampire that killed those people is after you. His name is Taejo. That’s why I’m telling you this.” Hesitantly, he removed his hand.

“W-why is he after me?” You still had trouble processing all of this, but what else could you do? The proof was right there in front of you.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “That’s just what he does. It’s his sick little game he likes to play. He finds a target, someone he thinks he can play with. Then kills those around them quickly before going after who he really wants. Those people die slowly and painfully.” He ran a hand through his hair, letting out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been trying to find him, catch him before he can kill again, but he’s too fast. He’s older than me and more powerful. When I discovered you were his target, I knew I could finally do something.”

You lit up at that last comment. “You’ve been… trying to protect me?”

Kris flinched, looking down at you guiltily. “I… can’t honestly say that. (Y/n), I’ve been wanting to kill Taejo for the past two centuries. Back then, he killed the woman I loved before I could turn her, to protect her. Now I’m going to kill him before he can get to you. He just hasn’t shown his face yet.”

Your own face fell. “So, I was just bait?” You let out a humorless laugh. Of course you were. Why else would he just fall into your life after such a tragic event? Anger surged up side you, ready to boil over. “I can’t believe you!”

Kris took a step towards you, his hand reaching out. “(Y/n), it wasn’t like that. I mean, it may have started out that way, but now I–”

Smacking it away, you retreated. “NO! Don’t you dare try to justify what you’ve done! You played with me to get revenge! And I was stupid enough to fall for it. To fall for you! I actually was going to – ugh! I can’t even believe how stupid I’ve been!” The tears were falling now and you were frustrated with how much crying you’d done in the past month. “Just stay away from me! I hate you!”

Without thinking about it, you ran out the front door. The fact that the supernaturally gifted vampire didn’t come after you only solidified the fact that he really didn’t care about you.

Taking the stairs, you kept going until you were outside. That’s when reality hit you. You were still in Kris’s shirt and your underwear.

“Shit!” The staircase had turned out to be the emergency exit, leading out to an alleyway. Which was now locked from the inside. “Great.”

Where the hell were you supposed to go? You didn’t have your phone or wallet and your apartment was currently a crime scene.

“Well, I must say, I never pictured you looking so… delicious.”

You whirled around to find the sickly sweet voice that had called out to you. It belonged to an older man with sandy blond hair and almost sheet white skin. He was wearing ordinary clothes, like anyone else in their thirties might, but something inside you said he wasn’t normal.

“Hello, dear.”

Scared, you took a step back. Too fast for a human, the man appeared in front of you, grabbing both of your arms and pinning you to the wall. He smiled sadistically.

“You and I are going to have a lot of fun.” He knocked your head against the wall, taking away your consciousness.

You woke up hanging from a wall by your wrists. The warehouse was crumbling apart around you; windows broken in and covered by rotting wood, holes in the ceiling created by rust. The only things that seemed to be sturdy were the chains secured around your wrists that left you dangling against the cinder block wall.

“Oh, goody. You’re awake.”

The man from earlier appeared in front of you, raking his finger down your cheek.

“Kris should have known this would happen sooner or later.” He leaned close to your ear. “I always get my prey.”

You gasped. “Y-you’re Taejo?”

The psycho grinned when he pulled back. “At your service, my dear. I take it Kris ended up confessing to you?”

“Why me?!” you screamed, ignoring his own inquiry.

Taejo simply shrugged. “You happened to pass by and smell… so enticing. Your fear right now makes it even more mouthwatering.”

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe so,” he cackled. “But it’s fun. And Kris thought he could protect you from me.”

“He wasn’t trying to protect me.” You couldn’t stop yourself from correcting him. “I was just bait so he could get to you.”

Taejo shook his head. “Oh, dearie, how wrong you are. Sure, at first he simply wanted me to see him, thinking I might slip up since I hate him so much. But I’ve seen the way he looks at you, how he’d watch you as you slept, perched outside your window like a silent knight. He looks at you just as he looked at her. Which is going to make killing you even more fun.”

You couldn’t believe it. No, you wouldn’t. He was just messing with your head, playing his sick game. That’s what it had to be.

But as Taejo took a step towards you, he was suddenly pinned to the ground. Kris had his neck in his hands.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?” Kris hissed, his canines extended, sharp and dangerous.

Taejo laughed. “I was counting on it.” With a slam, he pinned Kris to the wall next you, their positions now switched. “I wanted you here, to watch me rip her apart like I did the last one. To make you suffer before I kill you once and for all. Or maybe I’ll keep you around as a pet.”

Kris let out a monstrous roar that shook you to the core. Filled with rage, he channeled it to throw Taejo across the room. From there they were engaged in a battle too quick for your human eyes to see anything beyond blurs. All you could do was wait and see who would come out on top. Snarls and hisses echoed throughout the warehouse as they crashed into old crates, crumbling them into sawdust.

Then the fighting stopped. Kris had Taejo’s head in his hands with a leg wrapped around his torso to keep him steady. Taejo clawed at Kris’s arms, but the scratches healed as quickly as they were formed.

“Just do it,” Taejo hissed.

“Gladly.”

Crying out, Kris yanked on Taejo’s head, ripping it from the rest of his body as it went limp. He threw the head away and immediately came to check on you, breaking the chains around your wrists and setting you free. With no energy left in your body, Kris caught you before you could tumble to the ground. Sitting down, he cradled you in his arms, cupping your jaw in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, placing a kiss on your forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

You blinked up at him, confused. Was Taejo right? “Why are you sorry? You got want you wanted.”

“But I almost lost you,” he countered.

“Why would that matter?” You struggled to sit up so your lungs could get more air. Kris helped you, but refused to let you leave his lap.

“Because I love you.”

Your jaw dropped at the bold statement, but he held a finger to your lips, stopping you from interrupting.

“Yes, at first, I just wanted to catch Taejo, but you, you silly human with your blushing cheeks and beautiful laughter, made me fall in love with you. I’ll understand if you hate me and I’ll let you go if that’s what you want, but please know that it’s the truth. Besides, Taejo’s gone, why would I lie about loving you?”

You couldn’t argue with that. He got what he wanted, which was Taejo dead. You were safe again, so why would it matter if you hated him or not if he truly didn’t care?

Smiling just a little bit, you leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “I think I love you, too.”

“Then I’m yours,” he replied. “Forever.”

#exo #exo fanfiction #exo vampire au #exo vampire!au #exo reader #kris wu x reader #wu yifan #kris wu #exo supernatural au #exo series

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arcticdementor · 5 years

Link

Thirty years ago, having tapped out of a Ph.D. program, I moved to Los Angeles (long story) and got hired at the top boys’ school in the city, which would soon become co-educational. For the first four years, I taught English. Best job I’ve ever had. For the next three, I was a college counselor. Worst job I’ve ever had.

…

I did not come from a religious family, but we had a god, and the god was art, specifically literature. Taking a job teaching “Ozymandias” to a new generation was, for me, the equivalent of taking religious orders.

And so when a job opened in the college-counseling office, I should not have taken it. My god was art, not the SAT. In my excitement at this apparent promotion, I did not pause to consider that my beliefs about the new work at hand made me, at best, a heretic. I honestly believed—still believe—that hundreds of very good colleges in the country have reasonable admissions requirements; that if you’ve put in your best effort, a B is a good grade; and that expecting adolescents to do five hours of homework on top of meeting time-consuming athletic demands is, in all but exceptional cases, child abuse. Most of all, I believed that if you had money for college and a good high-school education under your belt, you were on third base headed for home plate with the ball soaring high over the bleachers.

I did not know—even after four years at the institution—that the school’s impressive matriculation list was not the simple by-product of excellent teaching, but was in fact the end result of parental campaigns undertaken with the same level of whimsy with which the Japanese Navy bombed Pearl Harbor.

…

The new job meant that I had signed myself up to be locked in a small office, appointment after appointment, with hugely powerful parents and their mortified children as I delivered news so grimly received that I began to think of myself less as an administrator than as an oncologist. Along the way they said such crass things, such rude things, such greedy things, and such borderline-racist things that I began to hate them. They, in turn, began to hate me. A college counselor at an elite prep school is supposed to be a combination of cheerleader, concierge, and talent agent, radically on the side of each case and applying steady pressure on the dream college to make it happen. At the very least, the counselor is not supposed to be an adversary.

I just about got an ulcer sitting in that office listening to rich people complaining bitterly about an “unfair” or a “rigged” system. Sometimes they would say things so outlandish that I would just stare at them, trying to beam into their mind the question, Can you hear yourself? That so many of them were (literal) limousine liberals lent the meetings an element of radical chic. They were down for the revolution, but there was no way their kid was going to settle for Lehigh.

Some of the parents—especially, in those days, the fathers—were such powerful professionals, and I (as you recall) was so poor, obscure, plain, and little that it was as if they were cracking open a cream puff with a panzer. This was before crying in the office was a thing, so I had to just sit there and take it. Then the admissions letters arrived from the colleges. If the kid got in, it was because he was a genius; if he didn’t, it was because I screwed up. When a venture capitalist and his ageless wife storm into your boss’s office to get you fired because you failed to get their daughter (conscientious, but no atom splitter) into the prestigious school they wanted, you can really start to question whether it’s worth the 36K.

Sometimes, in anger and frustration, the parents would blame me for the poor return on investment they were getting on their years of tuition payments. At that point, I was living in a rent-controlled apartment and paying $198 a month on a Civic with manual windows. I was in no position to evaluate their financial strategies. Worst of all, the helpless kid would be sitting right there, shrinking into the couch cushions as his parents all but said that his entire secondary education had been a giant waste of money. The parents would simmer down a bit, and the four of us would stew in misery. Nobody wanted to hear me read “Ozymandias.”

…

During those three years before the mast, I saw no evidence of any of the criminal activity that the current scandal has delivered. But I absolutely saw the raw materials that William Rick Singer would use to create his scam. The system, even 25 years ago, was full of holes.

…

And it was through these broken saloon doors—the great power conferred on coaches, untimed testing, and the ease with which an application can be crammed with false information—that Singer pushed unqualified students into colleges they wanted to attend. He told the parents to get their kids diagnosed with learning disabilities, and then arranged for them to take the test alone in a room with a fake proctor—someone who was so skilled at taking these tests that he could (either by correcting the student’s test before submitting it or by simply taking the thing himself) arrive at whatever score the client requested. (“I own two schools,” Singer told a client about the testing sites, one in West Hollywood and the other in Houston, where his fake proctors could do their work.) He allowed coaches to monetize any extra spots on their recruitment lists by selling them to his clients. And he offered a service that he called “cleaning up” the transcript, which involved, at the very least, having his employees take online courses in the kids’ name and then adding those A’s to their record.

All this malfeasance has led to the creation of a 200-page affidavit, and a bevy of other court documents, that can best be described as a kind of posthumous Tom Wolfe novella, one with a wide cast of very rich people behaving in such despicable ways that it makes The Bonfire of the Vanities look like The Pilgrim’s Progress. If you have not read the affidavit, and if you’re in the mood for a novel of manners of the kind not attempted since the passing of the master, I recommend that you and your book club put it on the list for immediate consumption.

…

Ever since the scandal became public, two opinions have been widely expressed. The first is that the schemes it revealed are not much different from the long-standing admissions preference for big donors, and the second is that these admissions gained on fraudulent grounds have harmed underprivileged students. These aren’t quite right. As off-putting as most of us find the role that big-ticket fundraising plays in elite-college admissions, those monies go toward programs and facilities that will benefit a wide number of students—new dormitories, new libraries, enriched financial-aid funds are often the result of rich parents being tapped for gifts at admissions time. But the Singer scheme benefits no one at all except the individual students, and the people their parents paid off.

The argument that the scheme hurt disadvantaged applicants—or even just non-rich applicants who needed financial aid to attend these stratospherically expensive colleges—isn’t right either. Elite colleges pay deep attention to the issue of enrollment management; the more elite the institution, the more likely it is to be racially and socioeconomically diverse. This is in part because attaining this kind of diversity has become a foundational goal of most admissions offices, and also because the elite colleges have the money to make it happen. In 2017, Harvard announced with great fanfare that it had enrolled its first class in which white students were in the minority.

…

In the recent past—the past in which this generation of parents grew up—a white student from a professional-class or wealthy family who attended either a private high school or a public one in a prosperous school district was all but assured admission at a “good” college. It wasn’t necessarily going to be Harvard or Yale, but it certainly might be Bowdoin or Northwestern. That was the way the system worked. But today, there’s a squeeze on those kids. The very strong but not spectacular white student from a good high school is now trying to gain access to an ever-shrinking pool of available spots at the top places. He’s not the inherently attractive prospect he once was.

#the atlantic #caitlin flanagan #college admissions #admissions scandal #iron law of oligarchy #there's always an elite #the elite is always mostly hereditary #read the whole thing

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rauliskafan · 6 years

Text

Magic in Manhattan

Would you like a little Rafael Barba x Reader by way of “Tristan and Isolde?” Read on for more (for lt-sammi-matthews Twist on the Myth Challenge). Enjoy!!!

“You’re going to put the screws to him, right?”

Mark spoke out of the corner of his mouth as the pair of you sat at the defense table, listening to the man whose sole mission in life was to take your client down for fostering a campus rife with harassment complaints. While the idea of the latter turned your stomach, Mark swore up and down that it was a setup, that he was collateral damage in a world gone mad. You wanted to believe him. He had never been anything but generous as your mentor. The fact that he occasionally flirted was beside the point.

The fact that you wanted to beat ADA Rafael Barba at his own game had everything to do with the matter and more.

As soon as the well-dressed man with the emerald eyes rested his closing argument, he sent a smirk your way. You resented it. Did he think that you were being played? Or that you weren’t up to the challenge?

You would do your best to prove him wrong on both counts..

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, good morning. The prosecution took up the better part of an hour essentially repeating the same point. Surprised he didn’t throw an interpretative dance into the mix.”

That got some giggles out the jury, and you took the moment of laughter to deliver your own smirk to the ADA. He sat stone-faced but just curled his long fingers around a gold pen. Good. You wanted to get under his skin from the start.

“I will not be nearly as long-winded,” you continued. “My client, Dr. Mark Brower has served Hudson University’s Criminal Justice Department honorably for the last seven years. He certainly respects the gravity of these accusations. He would be the first to tell you that he applauds any woman with the strength to come forward after an assault.”

You caught a glimpse of Barba leaning forward in his chair. He had to wonder where you were going with this.

“But make no mistake,” you continued. “There are such things as baseless claims in our current climate, and three students in a span of seven years does not a predator make. I would argue it makes up a select student body who simply could not hack the coursework, and now here we are.”

Hearing the murmurs from the gallery mingled with two jurors who nodded at your logic set your mind more and more at ease. And Barba looked ready to sport a glove of ink, his pen about to explode in his palm.

“I’m sure the ADA is prepared to jump through a lot of hoops to convince you otherwise. But we have our own evidence. And when we reach the conclusion of this case, I have faith that you fine people will make the right decision. Thank you.”

Feeling supremely pleased with yourself, you sauntered back to the defense table, your eyes locking with Mr. Barba’s. Perhaps he wanted to wield his pen as a different kind of a weapon. No matter. Those possible sentiments mirrored yours exactly, and by the end of this trial, you would wipe that smug look off his face for good and all.

“Fancy meeting the likes of you here.”

Looking up from your legal briefs, you cringed at the sight of Barba polluting your favorite watering hole. Wasn’t he the Forlini’s type, his lips forever pressed to that holier-than-thou lieutenant’s ass?

“I trust you’re not following me, Mr. Barba,” you challenged as he hovered close to your place at the bar.

“After trying to track your dizzying line of questioning for the better part of the afternoon?” he shot back. “Thank you, no. I’m in the market for a reprieve.”

“And yet, here you are.”

As the bar was jam-packed on a Friday night, the man wearing pinstripes had one of two choices: retreat or assume the seat at your side. It did not surprise you when he opted for the latter, a feeble attempt to mark his territory and make your night a misery.

Two could play at that game.

“What are you working on?” he asked as he sipped a glass of scotch on the rocks.

“In what world do you think I would share my strategy with you?” you inquired in a blistering tone, taking care to shield your notes with your forearm.

“Certainly not this one,” he reasoned. “I thought maybe you were prepping for your next client.”

“My next client?” you asked, suddenly and slightly confused.

“That’s right,” he said, letting you hang in suspense as he took another drink. “Who’s next? Going to try to get Madoff a retrial? Or perhaps you prefer educators who take advantage. Absolutely no shortage of those these days.”

Seething where you sat, working overtime to let the insult wash over you and drip to the floor littered with peanut shells and pretzel dust, you polished off your bourbon and signaled to Bree, the distracted girl behind the bar who kept checking her phone, for another.

“And you are so sure that my client is guilty,” you spat. “Because you’ve never head of someone lying to get a leg up.”

“Of course I have,” he admitted as he downed the rest of his drink. “It happens. I’d ask if you made the same move with Brower---”

“Careful, counselor,” you warned as the door to the bar opened, bringing in a double date and an early autumn breeze.

“I was only going to say that you’ve made your marks based on merit. I would never deny that.”

He finished his drink and also ordered a refill. You stared at him carefully, considering how you should take the compliment and whether or not there was something sinister lurking beneath its surface.

“You would just accuse me of selling out my entire gender to get my name on the front page,” you finally said, not willing to give so much as an inch. Now his silence spoke volumes, and you turned away with a sneer.

“Hey!” you called out to Bree who was deep in conversation with one quarter of the double date. “Some service here, please?”

Bree started forward when her boss, a burly man with tattoos, intervened.

“Come on, Bree,” he muttered. “Got to move faster on a Friday.”

With that, he quickly picked up two shots of what looked like tequila and set one glass before you, one next to Barba.

“On the house,” the tattooed man said. “We’ll get you your right refills in just a moment.”

Needing a drink of something, anything, now, you lifted the shot glass to your lips and drank the contents in one swallow.

Strange. It tasted far sweeter than you expected. Barely any trace of alcohol. If you didn’t know any better, you would swear it was honey seasoned with… seasoned with what? Herbs? Was it laced with something? You just made out Bree’s eyes go wide and started to speak when Barba chuckled.

“That supposed to intimidate me or something?” he asked. “You mixing your drinks? Better study your adversaries a little more closely.”

Before you could offer anything in the way of a warning, he followed your lead and consumed the shot. Almost instantaneously, you saw his puzzled eyes, his lips lengthening into a straight line as his brow furrowed. He had to taste it, too. Had to wonder what was wrong with the beverage. Feeling the need to ask him as much, you met his eyes.

The world stopped moving. All the sounds in the room retired like children being called away from a summer night so they could get some much-needed sleep. The light in the bar stayed dim. Except for the place where Barba sat. There you saw a glow emanating from the man. Had it always been there? Why had you never noticed it before?

“Barba…”

Your own voice sounded different. Softer. At the very least, it was a tone that you had never used with him. When he tried to speak, only a sigh hit the air, sweet and gentle. Like a pie left cooling on a windowsill and promising even more thrills once one bit into the crust to savor the juices of the fruits so artfully buried within.

“I… I don’t know…”

He said nothing else. Simply took your hand in his. That same hand that might have crushed a pen with one squeeze let its fingers lace with yours. So soft. Setting your skin on fire and yet there was no burn.

“I don’t know either,” you murmured as you stretched towards him

And his kiss claimed yours, your flavors blending as you solved the mystery of your heart’s hidden desires by way of his mouth.

“What the hell, Bree?”

“Jerry, I can explain.”

“Did you dose them with something?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be for them.”

“So you admit it?”

“It was for my friends. Well, for their dates.”

“Why? You trying to set them up or something?”

“No! It was to make them fall in love!”

Bree and the bartender continued bickering back and forth. Some sense of sound returned when they ushered you from the bar to a backroom.

But Barba’s moans still bested any other voices.

“God, why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Answering his question with another kiss, you sat beside him on a battered couch. With your arms about his neck, you ran your eager hands across his back, under his blazer. You could feel his muscles straining through his vest, his shirt. He grazed his fingers over your legs and tenderly reached under your skirt. Sliding closer, sighing as he stroked your thighs, you dragged your lips towards his ear.

“Time… wasted,” you managed as you nibbled his lobe. “Looking at you in court every day… it was torture.”

Drawing you nearer, he guided you to his lap. One hand stayed on your leg as he began to unbutton your blouse, your breasts anxious for his touch when Jerry cleared his throat and Bree rushed forward.

“Guys,” she started. “Sorry. I… this was a mistake.”

“Hardly,” Barba argued before gazing into your eyes again. “I was fated to come here tonight. To fall in love.”

“Oh, Rafael!” you sighed, pushing him to his back, desperate to have him wearing much less when Bree furiously clapped her hands and stamped her foot.

“It was a love potion!” she shrieked.

“And it’s in her eyes,” Barba said as he caressed your face, and you leaned your cheek into his palm.

“You say the sweetest things,” you said, needing to kiss him again when Jerry groaned.

“Before I fire you, Bree, please tell me that there’s an antidote.”

“Not really,” she said. “I mean… I mean we could try to separate them or something.”

“Not on your life.”

Easing away from you ever so slightly, Barba rose and helped you to stand on wobbly legs. But as long as you could lean against him…

“She stays with me always,” he said. “Isn’t that right, querida?”

Your weak knees knocked together at the word, and you had no other choice but to cling to him, squealing as he lifted you into his arms. Jerry and Bree stood stunned as Barba brought you out the city street that seemed paved with even more flowers.

And you kissed him so hard that he had to sink to the curb even as his embrace stayed tight.

“What?” he asked as he nuzzled your nose.

“Querida?” you asked.

“Term of endearment. Do you not like it? I can change it if---”

“I love it,” you said. “I want to call you so many things.”

“Like what?” he asked, kissing you again as if he needed your breath to stay alive.

“Mine,” you murmured. “Always. Forever.”

He nodded, and you started to drift deeper into the pavement as a taxi pulled up.

“You crazy kids okay?” the bearded cabbie asked. “Somewhere you need to go?”

Once again, Barba helped you to your feet. You were more than ready to offer your place for this night, for the weekend and longer, when Barba stopped short and fashioned a smirk that made you blush.

“What are you thinking?” you asked.

“What you said. Making you mine. Forever.”

“Are you serious?”

You were still giddy and barely able to walk from the feel of Barba inside you for nearly two nights straight. But despite your ardor, there was still a job to do. And you stood together before the bench as you smiled into his eyes.

“Forgive me… forgive us your honor,” you started. “But it has to be a conflict of interest for me to go up against my husband in court.”

Barba laughed and kissed your lips, your mussed hair. The flight to Vegas took no time at all in the space of his arms. Once arrived, you found the first chapel available and spoke vows with an Elvis impersonator as your witness. When the officiant deemed that you were indeed man and wife, he tossed chips in the air. But you had no desire to make your way to the tables. Better to linger with him in a bed adorned with Lucky Sevens and savor so many sensations as the arid sun set and rose and left the room once more. You wanted his hands everywhere, kept him by your side throughout bubble baths and the few stolen moments to eat. Beyond that, you held him until he looked to his phone with a heavy sigh.

It’s almost Monday.

Let’s not go back.

Just to recuse ourselves. And then I’m taking my bride home.

Which led you to the courtroom. Just holding his hand was so much less than what you needed from his fingers, but the judge ultimately rolled her eyes. She warned of consequences for both of you. No matter. Soon enough you were back in the fresh air, on the courthouse steps, and in Barba’s arms.

“How do I love you so much?” he murmured into your hair.

“I know. Was it the drink?”

“No way. I always thought you were amazing.”

“Did you?”

“Smart as you are? How could I not.”

Weak in the knees all over again, ready to hail a cab and get back to the nearest bed, your wish was cut short by the harsh sound of a familiar voice.

“What the hell, you bitch?”

Mark stood only a few feet away, glaring with his hands in his pockets as Barba eased you behind his back.

“Don’t talk to my wife that way,” he cautioned.

“Your wife? In one weekend?”

“Mark, please,” you said. “Just find another attorney.”

“I want you.”

“I’m spoken for.”

Once again, the world came to a halt, Barba glowing as your mouth met his. His kiss tasted sweeter still, and you were more than ready to take your leave when Mark lunged forward.

“Do you think I would let you do this?” he barked.

“Hey, let her---!”

“You’re not like those other sluts. They were asking for it. You played hard to get. What else do I have to do to make you mine?”

Seeing him clearly as if for the first time, you shuddered but still summoned the strength to push him away, to nearly send him stumbling back.

“So it’s all true,” you said. “Mark, you need a lot more help than what I can give you.”

“I paid for you to stand by me.”

“Then you can have your money back,” you reasoned, any ire in your soul calming as Barba touched the small of your back. “I got a better offer in every way, shape, and form.”

Still strange how it happened. A part of you had desired him the second you saw him walk by in a three-piece suit. Now you only wanted him out of the pinstripes once more and started to kiss him…

“I’ll sue the both of you for damages!”

Mark screeched as he plowed forward. Barba pushed you out of the way and stood to ward Mark off when they both tumbled down a few steps. You screeched, your hands on your mouth as you thought of his head hitting a sharp edge, his beautiful mind stilling his beautiful heart.

“Rafael!”

Seeing no blood in is hair, you raced forward and clasped his hand.

“Baby?” you whispered.

His green eyes sparkled, the one breath he managed to exhale sweeter than ever as his finger reached for your hair.

“Querida…”

Hearing him speak soothed your heart, and you were ready to help him up when you saw the gold pen that had stayed so long in tact dislodged from his pocket…

…and sticking out of his chest.

“Uh… Mrs. Barba?”

You sat with his bloodied blazer in your hands, listening carefully to the doctor’s words. Lost a lot of blood. Critical but stable. Think he’s going to pull through.

Now the world moved. You heard his mother weep tears of joy and saw his colleagues, the lieutenant you had disparaged in particular, smile at the news. Your husband. Your most beautiful love going to come back to you in one piece. You hugged the doctor as you cried happily and asked to see him.

“Of course. Right this way.

Finding him pale under thin sheets, you set his coat aside and sat beside him.

“Hey. You’re going to be alright. You better be, Mr. Barba. You don’t get to barrel your way into my heart and leave me in the lurch.”

Not that you fully understood how it had even happened. Had Bree said something about a love potion? But that was the stuff of fairy tales. This was real, more real than any other moment or man that you had ever---

“Hello,” he said in a weak voice. You barely took in the sight of his troubled expression when you hugged him gently, your kisses threading through his hair

“Don’t you dare go scaring me like that again,” you whispered as you finally met his eyes and stroked his clammy cheek. His eyes grew more and more quizzical until he took your hand…

…and lowered it to one side.

“So… so it wasn’t all a dream then?” he began.

“What Mark did? I’m so sorry, baby. That was very real.”

“No. No I mean… us.”

“Us?” you echoed. “Well… yeah. We… we fell in love. We got married. Don’t you remember?”

You showed him the cheap band of gold that was now your most cherished piece of jewelry and watched his face appear to put the puzzle pieces together.

“I… remember,” he finally said. “We… we took a drink. And then…”

“Magic,” you insisted, your throat starting to tighten. Maybe it was a spell of some sort, but you didn’t care. It seemed so right. He said… he showed you that he felt the same way.

So what---?

“I think…”

“Yes?”

“I think it wore off.”

And your heart that had been so full shattered, the bits of glass seeming to swim through your body, bringing pain to more places than you could count.

“No,” you said. “You’re just… maybe it’s the anesthesia or something. Plus you lost a lot of blood.”

“I get that,” he admitted. “But I don’t… it doesn’t feel the same. You don’t… look the same. I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. But---”

“Save it.”

Finding it a struggle to stand with your broken heart, you removed the ring and started to leave the room. Suddenly feeling more like your old self, you turned on your heel to stare him down.

“Was it a trick?” you accused. “To make me throw the case? Look like a fool in front of the judge?”

“Think we’re both in that boat,” he murmured, his face seeming so sad. But now you were seeing him as was before, as he had always been.

“So maybe it was just about getting me into bed,” you hissed.

“No, I---”

“Save it, Mr. Barba,” you barked. “I’m having this sham of a marriage annulled ASAP. And do not call me again.”

Maybe it was his hurtful words or your dose of flowers having run its course, but now the spell ceased for you, too.

You sat solemnly in your office, trying to make sense of the past few days. As you were still his wife, word had reached you that Barba was to be released from the hospital. Not that you had any plans to see him. Toying with the notion of abandoning Manhattan altogether, you glanced up at the sound of a soft knock on your door.

“Hi.”

He still seemed pale, but he was up and about. While you did not wish the man dead, you stood with every intention of ushering him out when he held up one hand.

“Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

Nodding, you glanced at your watch and crossed your arms over your chest.

“Come to rub salt in my wounds?” you asked.

“Nothing like that,” he said. “I… I should’ve called you.”

“I wouldn’t have answered.”

“I figured. So I… I actually called the girl from the bar.”

Lowering your arms, you watched him reach into his pocket. He held a vial of the same liquid from that fateful night.

“No,” you quickly said.

“No?” he echoed.

Even as you were tempted to see him shining again, to feel his touch, to look into his eyes and feel only love springing forth from his green orbs…

“It won’t work,” you said. “It’ll only fade away again, and I… I can’t go through that…”

Breaking down, you avoided his intended embrace and sat behind your desk. Barba grimaced as he dropped to one knee, still dangling the vial between his long fingers.

“You’re right,” he said. “But what if I told you that there’s another way?”

“What other way?” you asked, reaching for a tissue to dab your eyes.

“Maybe it was… I don’t know,” he started. “Witchcraft or whatever. But that weekend with you was the happiest two and a half days of my life.”

“You’re just trying to be nice,” you muttered.

“When have you ever know me to do that?” he asked, his smirk back in full force as you relaxed some in your chair.

“Point taken.”

“And see… see the thing is…”

Finally setting the vial aside, he reached for you hand. It felt oddly familiar and yet somehow altogether different. But you did not relinquish his hold.

“When I talked to Bree, she said that she’s never seen it work that fast. She couldn’t quite figure it out. But she… she surmised that it meant that there already had to be some feeling in my heart for you.”

“For me?” you asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. The way you spoke to me at the bar.”

“I wouldn’t spar like that with just anyone,” he confessed. “Only someone I couldn’t help but admire. Respect. Because you’re smart. And strong. And…”

His voice trailed off as he popped the cap off the vial and promptly poured the contents into your waste paper basket before reaching for your face.

“So I say let’s give it another try,” he said. “Without it. I would have taken it again for you. But maybe… maybe we don’t even need it. Let’s give forever a chance on our own terms.”

His eyes were wide and hopeful as he tightened his grip. Of course you had always felt the same way about him. There were just too many complications to contend with.

“I… I think that’s what hurt the most,” you admitted as a fresh stream of tears trailed down your cheeks.

“What’s that?” he asked, wiping the wetness away.

“Losing you… when I… when I had wanted you for so long.”

You felt your lips mirror his smile, and he leaned in for a chaste kiss. Maybe he didn’t taste quite as sweet, but there was still a kind of magic in his mouth.

“So?” he asked as he rested his brow against yours. “What do you think?”

“I… well… I guess we are already married,” you admitted.

“Elvis said you were a beautiful bride,” he teased, causing you to laugh.

“But we need to take this slowly,” you said. “Like really get to know each other.”

“You mean out of bed,” he said with a chuckle.

“Something like that.”

“Well…”

Standing slowly, he offered his arm.

“Can I take you out for a cup of coffee?”

You waited for only a second before rising to accept his touch. Would you have ever come to this place without Bree’s brew? No way of knowing. And maybe it was better to see him clearly, to explore the possibilities over which potions had no power.

“I’d like that,” you said. Leaning closer to his side, you stepped back towards what you had lost, what you had never known…

“I like you,” he whispered, as he pecked your cheek.

And somehow his simple schoolboy words were the most enchanting incantation that you had ever heard.

#raúl esparza #rafael barba #rafael barba x reader #law & order svu #svu fanfiction #twistonthemythchallenge

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writesandramblings · 6 years

Text

The Captain’s Secret - p.95

“Maybe I’m Amazed”

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 94 - Let Me Give You My Life 96 - Nowhere and Everywhere >>

The familiar metallic sheen of the transporter rang in Lorca's ears as the blisteringly white light stabbed daggers in his eyes that for once he barely registered against the overwhelming, boulder-like pressure in his chest. The shift of particles around him turned the sensation of physical contact into emptiness as the transporter safety protocols isolated him from the rest of the beam-out and deposited him alongside two other forms, all of them in various states of collapse, but his was the one that slumped over with a gurgle onto the surface of the transporter pad, a bloom of red spreading out around him to the rhythm of his slowing heartbeat.

A moment later, O'Malley's arms were around him, a human compress struggling to contain the gaping hole in Lorca's chest. Lorca tried to speak, make one last dig at O'Malley's expense, but he no longer had the strength for it and managed only a weak, wet, rasping groan.

O'Malley's only thought was of his promise to Lalana as he shouted at the startled, curly-haired transporter technician: "One-one transport, Lab 26! Now!" To his credit, the technician defaulted to executing the order without question.

This time, as the white light rose and fell again, the sensation of O'Malley's arms remained constant. One-one transport; slang for transport without positional or biological filtering.

In the confusion, the tech had sent along for the journey the third form on the transporter pad: the hulking mass of Einar Larsson's dead body, still synced to the emergency transponder on O'Malley's wrist.

"Computer! Override door locks, authorization O'Malley Delta-Niner-7-5-2-gray!"

Both doors opened, exposing the contents of the lab directly to the ship for the first time since Discovery's launch.

They were all there: Mischkelovitz, Lalana, Groves. "Help! Help me!" yelled O'Malley, holding on to Lorca as tightly as he could. Lorca groaned faintly. His eyes were losing focus and his limbs felt like lead. Darkness was encircling him. It somehow felt like going home all over again.

Lalana propelled herself across the full five meters between them in two giant, bounding strides, landing directly beside them, and thrust her tail into the hole in Lorca's chest. A moment later, Lorca inhaled a wet, sucking breath. The darkness faded to the edges of his vision as some flow of blood and oxygen returned.

"Do not worry, Gabriel," she said. "I have you, and so does Macarius."

Lorca stared at Lalana, horrified. It felt like the boulder on his chest had doubled in weight and become a pulsing fist, gripping him and squeezing him somehow from the inside out, each pulse a mixture of agony and relief as it made possible his continued respiration and circulation. He was alive though, and breathing, and conscious.

"You need—you need to say goodbye," O'Malley blurted at Lalana, scrunching his nose as tears dripped down his cheeks.

"I would rather say hello," said Lalana as Groves and Mischkelovitz arrived.

Groves did a double-take at the sight of Lalana's tail embedded in Lorca's chest. "Sickbay," Groves started, but Mischkelovitz cut him off. She saw the tears on O'Malley's face and they confirmed everything she had suspected because she was supposed to be the one who cried, not him.

"No!" she shouted, staring wild-eyed at the grisly scene. She finally knew what the message was. Equally, she could see that while O'Malley had not been motivated by any sort of medical expertise, he had accidentally given Lorca his best chance at survival.

Null time, the particle map, the spore field, the temporal remnant, the integrity of history, Lalana, monsters. The only question left was whether it was too late. Words came rushing out of her at an almost unintelligible speed: "I know what to do! The pattern! I can see it! There are two Discoveries!"

As usual, no one but Mischkelovitz had any idea what she was talking about. This did not deter her. Her hands began to flap with excitement. "Inside, now!"

"Can we move him?" asked Groves doubtfully, not just because moving Lorca seemed preposterous. Groves had the glimmer of an idea what Mischkelovitz was on about, and if he was right, it was potentially disastrous for them all.

"If Macarius continues to hold on very tightly, then yes," said Lalana.

"I won't let go," said O'Malley. He couldn't bear the thought.

"Hold on," rasped Lorca, "what—"

Groves took Lorca's legs. "On three."

A sharp jolt of pain shot through Lorca, strong enough to release a strangled, gasping half-scream from his lungs. Mischkelovitz ran ahead, shutting the doors as they passed through them, and as the second door closed, she frantically shouted, "Computer! Omega Tau protocol, authorization Mischkelovitz-9-5-8-5-1!"

It was unclear what that meant, but the computer responded, "Omega Tau protocol active, duration fifty-three hours and seventeen minutes. Field integrity at ninety-eight percent. Power reserves at ninety-nine percent."

As O'Malley lacked both height and strength to lift Lorca onto Mischkelovitz's workbench, they proceeded through the lab to Lalana's quarters and put Lorca on the couch. It took all of Lorca's strength to remain conscious during the move. Mischkelovitz did not continue with them the whole way; she lingered in the lab, gathering up supplies.

Once he was on the couch, O'Malley behind him and Lalana at his side, Lorca said, "This is not my kind of threesome." Lalana started clicking her tongue. O'Malley winced and suppressed a groan of annoyance.

"You should let him die just for that," declared Groves.

"Shut up, John!" said O'Malley. "And if you're not going to help, get out." That was invitation enough for Groves to leave. The sight of Lalana's tail in Lorca's chest was deeply unnerving.

An eerie silence fell, broken only by the faint rasps of Lorca's shallow breaths. Lalana and O'Malley were both keeping as still as possible, each concerned too much movement would disrupt the other's role in keeping Lorca alive. Lorca could feel dark exhaustion closing in again. He struggled to keep his eyes open. "I think this is it," he said.

"I'm sorry," said O'Malley, and though Lorca could not see the tears on O'Malley's face, he could hear the anguish in his voice.

"Kill Georgiou. Make sure Michael—tell her—"

O'Malley bit back a sob. Still, at the end of it all, Lorca was more concerned with Michael Burnham than anything else. It was a sickness none of them could cure—a terminal illness that had brought Lorca to this very moment and was killing him right in front of their eyes.

Lalana had more leeway to move than O'Malley. She stretched up slightly and tilted her head at Lorca. "Tell her yourself. I will not let you die."

Lorca smiled faintly. "I don't think fate cares what you want."

She looked at him, her eyes immense, and said, "Hayliel was my heartbeat, and now I am yours. You think this is fate, but it is not. Now that I know there is time travel, I know that it was not fate that I met Hayliel, it was someone's will."

"Then that person wants me dead," Lorca exhaled, closing his eyes.

"No," said Lalana, "she does not."

"That's right," said O'Malley, hopeful again, "Melly doesn't want you dead! She sent a message back through time to save you!"

Lalana tapped her fingers together, amazed at how oblivious humans could be. She decided not to correct them. Let them think this was their story. Lorca was always happiest thinking that.

Mischkelovitz came back in, her arms laden with medical tools. She deposited them unceremoniously upon the coffee table and left again, returning next pulling a crate Lorca recognized from the hidden storage room at Memory Alpha. She adjusted the environmental controls to a lower temperature.

"Okay," she announced, seemingly to herself, and began scanning Lorca's wound. Lalana's biological camouflage field was a potent adversary when it came to scanners, but in her months of studying the lului, Mischkelovitz had devised a few tricks. By narrowing the scanner focus and targeting it at the particle level, she could scan around Lalana with enough accuracy to construct a composite image featuring a void where Lalana's cells were. Null data, in this case, was still data. She brought up a holographic display of the wound as the computer assembled the image. The way Lalana's cells were intentionally wrapped around Lorca's anatomy was very similar to how Mischkelovitz designed her implants. She could work with this.

Lorca swallowed as the image formed in the air. "Got any painkillers in your bag, doc?" Mischkelovitz ignored him. Lorca sighed slightly. "Lorca to sickbay."

"Unable to comply. Communications have been disabled."

O'Malley frowned. "Computer, enable communications."

"Unable to comply. Omega Tau protocol is active."

"Disable 'Omega Tau protocol,'" growled Lorca.

"Unable to comply."

Lorca tried an override authorization code. It did not work, Saru had already disabled Lorca's command subroutines. O'Malley tried next with the same result. While they attempted to bargain with the computer and invoke emergency protocols, Mischkelovitz stood transfixed on the image unfolding in front of her, oblivious to their efforts. Finally, O'Malley asked, "Melly?" No answer.

"Imaging complete," said the computer.

"Surgery time," declared Mischkelovitz. She started selecting instruments from the pile on the table.

There was a chorus of objections, none of which Mischkelovitz registered. Only when she turned towards Lorca with tools in hand did she realize everyone was trying to talk to her. She pressed a finger to the implant behind her ear and external sound flooded back to her. (This was the price of her implants being repaired. She now had the freedom to cut them out at a moment's notice whenever she wanted, and apparently had decided to exercise that freedom to the fullest.)

"He needs painkillers!" O'Malley shouted at her.

"We don't have any," Mischkelovitz replied.

Lalana's words were much kinder. "Then please go get some. I can maintain this position for as long as is necessary."

"I can't," said Mischkelovitz. "I need to focus, so I'm turning my implants off."

"Wait!" went O'Malley. "You can't operate without anesthetic!"

"Of course I can. I have all the tools I need."

In her mind, there was no distinction between can and should. Lorca was reminded of the official report on the Edison incident. When we found them, he was screaming, the statement from the leader of the rescue team read. He was bisected. Lower half crushed. Left arm, too. His head was split open. (This was the crucial line that had been repeated incorrectly as a severed head.) She had hooked him up to some sort of makeshift recycler to circulate blood, bypassing most of the body while she worked on the brain. We tried to get her to explain what she was doing. She wouldn't answer us. When we pulled her off him, she attacked and we had to sedate her. He didn't stop screaming until we shut off the recycler.

Perhaps Mischkelovitz and Petrellovitz weren't so different after all.

The coroner's addendum provided further details: Subject was a male, aged thirty-three, with extensive biomedical implants throughout the body to compensate for deficiencies in organ function. Many of these implants were damaged irreparably by blunt force trauma to the lower body while others were surgically harvested shortly prior to death. According to field report, these implants were used as components for a primitive life support device. A single cause of death cannot be determined. Subject was kept in a semi-alive state by external intervention with the brain marginally functional after the rest of the body entered a state of total termination. Brain death followed several hours after all other bodily functions ceased. Evidence was present of an attempt to reconstruct the damaged portion of the subject's brain on a sub-cellular level. Owing to the damage and loss of neural tissue at the site of injury and the limitations of current medical technology, it is unlikely this enterprise could have succeeded. Primary cause of death was damage to the body consistent with crushing by a large, heavy object and termination of organ functions both natural and artificial. Secondary cause of death was lack of oxygen to the brain due to disconnection from natural and artificial circulatory systems following an unsuccessful neurosurgery attempt. No trace of sedatives or anesthetics were found in the subject's system.

It was the sort of report O'Malley's division might have doctored in some way to mitigate the horrors of it, except because Mischkelovitz was not in a position of command and had acted independently, her actions were not deemed reflective of Starfleet as a whole and the report had never come to the secret branch of Investigative Services. Instead it was filed in official archives and promptly discovered by a journalist seeking to document the tragedies of the Binary Stars. The sensationalized details were then disseminated across the Federation, prompting outrage, accelerating the timetable of Mischkelovitz's medical review, and elevating that review into a full trial.

O'Malley had not read that report because he could not bring himself to know the full truth of Milosz Mischkelovitz's last moments, but he had heard the sensationalized whispers, much as he tried to avoid them. "Melly, that's—"

"Turn him over," she said, and flicked her implants off.

This was easier said than done. After a minute, Mischkelovitz got up, went to the door, and ordered Groves inside, commanding him to assist. With her implants off, she was oblivious to Groves' objections and simply waited for him to comply.

"I don't want any part of this!" Groves said. "He's a mass murderer. And—and he's supposed to be dead." The look he gave Lorca felt a lot like the one that had been on Michael Burnham's face in the throne room. It hurt less on Groves' face, but it was still a painful reminder of Burnham's inability to extend Lorca any empathy.

"Please, John," said O'Malley. Groves hesitated.

"If not for Macarius, then will you do it for me?" asked Lalana.

Lorca could see Groves considering, but he was still not convinced. Lorca fixed Groves with a steady gaze and grunted out, "You think you're—better than me? Prove it."

Groves bit his lower lip and sucked at it, still hesitating, but Lorca knew he had him because while Groves talked a good game about moral relativism, deep down, Groves was a good man struggling to contextualize what that meant in a world where people did terrible things for the most altruistic of reasons. Not this world, not Lorca's universe, but the one Groves had been born and survived to adulthood in. The world where his attempt to address the injustice of his sister Faiza's death had resulted in the destruction of his family and suicide of his father.

"And get that bottle of moonshine."

This time, O'Malley did not object to Lorca's dipping into the stash, but Lalana did. "Sparingly," she implored him. "The alcohol disrupts my cells' ability to communicate."

They removed the Terran armor, cut away the fabric of the uniform underneath, and rolled Lorca over. The shift in position drew out another muffled scream. Then Mischkelovitz went to work. She was not gentle. Her movements were sharp pinpricks and she succeeded in something most agony booths could not: after several minutes of excruciating pain, Lorca passed out.

Ninety minutes into the procedure, Lalana trilled softly in concern. Groves was lying on the ground on the other side of the coffee table, reading. It took him a moment to register the sound of the trill over the incessant muttering of Mischkelovitz's ongoing dialogue with herself as she narrated her surgical progress in jumbled, malformed snippets of English and qoryan, but when he did, he recognized it as a sound of mild alarm. "What?" he asked, sounding bored.

"He is losing too much blood," said Lalana. The alcohol was interfering with her ability to bridge Lorca's wound, creating a leaky plug, and as Mischkelovitz worked to repair the wound and periodically interrupted Lalana's cellular engagement with Lorca's tissue, more blood was seeping out. The brown fabric of the couch cushions was soaked black with the stuff and a stain of deep burgundy had spread onto the carpet below.

Behind Lorca, his arms stiff and numb, O'Malley's black Terran uniform showed the evidence of blood loss much less, but he could feel the drips between the fabric and his skin, which he had optimistically hoped was his own sweat despite the temperature in Lalana's quarters having dropped several degrees. O'Malley shifted his hand so it was in Mischkelovitz's way and refused to move it until she turned her implants back on. "Huh," she noted as sound returned, "he isn't screaming."

"He passed out hours ago!" said O'Malley, wildly overestimating because it felt like time had slowed to a crawl. Though Mischkelovitz's prodding elicited a steady stream of low, uncomfortable sounds, Lorca had fallen largely silent, none of his responses for the past hour approaching any level of meaningful consciousness.

"He is losing blood, Emellia. At this rate he will only last another two hours. This will not be enough time. Please bring some blood from the medical bay."

"I can't," said Mischkelovitz.

Groves sat up and stared across the table in shock. "Did you not tell them!?" He looked at Lalana and O'Malley, neither of whom seemed to have the faintest clue. "We're in null time!"

"I am aware, I noticed the particle change," said Lalana, who did have a clue even if her face was incapable of showing it, but there was a fact she was missing.

"Not the whole ship, just the lab," clarified Groves. The lack of communications, the command lockout, Mischkelovitz's refusal to provide basic medicines—none of it was obstinance on her part. They were cut off from these provisions.

"You must turn it off," said Lalana, her tone a strangely somber drone.

Mischkelovitz shook her head. "There's no time."

Taken at face value, the statement made no sense. "Don't we have fifty hours?" asked O'Malley, remembering the computer's announcement.

"In here, yes. Not out there!"

Groves rolled his eyes. "It's not a light switch, Mac. Once it's off we can't turn it back on."

O'Malley was even more confused than before. His face twisted thoughtfully. With so many things going on he did not understand, he decided to focus on the one thing he did know how to fix. "Give him my blood," he said.

Groves shook his head. "You realize you're doing it again. Anton, Roberts, Erreran. How do you never learn? Do you just not have any self-esteem? Come on! Not a single one of these jerks deserves this. Least of all this one."

"Shut up, John," hissed O'Malley through his teeth.

"Make me," said Groves, but got up and left the room. O'Malley was free to make his own bad decisions. It did not mean Groves had to stay and watch. A moment later, a repetitive thumping sound started up. Groves was bouncing his basketball against the wall in angry frustration.

"He's wrong," said Mischkelovitz as she set up the transfusion between O'Malley and Lorca.

"About what?" asked Lalana.

"Nobody deserves anything," said Mischkelovitz. "It's not about the recipient, it's about the person who gives, right?" She looked at O'Malley for confirmation.

He managed a weak smile. "That's right."

"That's why I'd do anything for you." That was the truth she had realized when Stamets and Tilly came to the lab: Lorca was never the one she was trying to save, he was merely the byproduct.

The infusion of blood began filtering into Lorca's system. As his pressure increased, it had the additional consequence of rousing him once more to this unfathomably awful nightmare when almost any other nightmare seemed preferable. He thrashed weakly as he came to with his face pressed against O'Malley's shoulder and O'Malley's arms tightened to keep him still. Lorca still felt the awful pressure of the pulse in his chest, but now it had been joined by the sensation of hundreds of needles digging into his back and a deep itch that, even if he had the strength to scratch it, would have been impossible to reach within the recesses of his own ribcage.

"Remain calm, Gabriel," Lalana said in soothing consolation. Lorca grunted an assent, followed by a guttural growl of discomfort as Mischkelovitz jammed what felt like a cattle prod against his spine. (It was only the needle of her microscopic tissue synthesizer brushing against an exposed nerve.) Lalana knocked her knuckles together in distress and tried to offer some distraction. "Macarius is giving you his blood. It is very unusual, like water."

Another sharp growl rumbled in Lorca's chest. "Rh-null," he gritted out through clenched teeth. He had looked it up after their conversation all those many weeks ago, wondering what made O'Malley's blood so special his wife felt compelled to marry him for it, and the answer had been right there in the biological data, a minor statistical quirk. He even remembered the statistic: "One in... hundred and fifty million."

"That's right," said O'Malley. "Practically an interspecies donor. D'you know, they used to call it golden blood? Most sought after in the world until they developed synthetic. Now it's only a prize to Misellians."

All of these were facts Lorca knew. It took considerable effort to reply, but he still tried. "And here I—didn't—get you—ghh!"

"Top stalking," said Mischkelovitz crossly.

Lalana tried to quell her hand-tapping, but she was having trouble managing it. It was taking most of her focus to deal with the wound. "How about a story. Macarius, will you tell us one?" O'Malley could not think of one.

"Your wife," breathed Lorca, a quiet enough exhalation that Mischkelovitz did not comment on it.

"Yes, tell us about Aeree."

"Where to begin," said O'Malley, but of course he began at the beginning. A diplomatic mission gone awry, the death of Aeree's mate by Federation representatives trying to protect themselves from a species whose bloodthirst had caused endless strife in that region of space. The struggle to reconcile the rights of an advanced, autonomous species whose evolution demanded they take something other races had no wish to give. The negotiations were at a standstill until O'Malley turned up to investigate the death and freely offered his own blood to the new leader of the Misellian delegation. "They called it a blood payment, and since I'd paid... Misellian tradition..."

O'Malley's head rolled to the side and his arms went slack. Mischkelovitz said his name, reached over, and pinched him. He sluggishly woke back up in a state of confusion. "I'm awake! What?"

Mischkelovitz was finished with Lorca's back. They rolled him over, freeing O'Malley in the process. Lorca had to do most of the movement himself; O'Malley was already reeling from his own blood loss. O'Malley apologized several times for this deficiency and attempted to resume storytelling, but after a few minutes of drifting in and out of coherency, not really managing to say anything that led anywhere, he gave up and mumbled more apologies.

The only certainty was that, while Lorca could have used more blood, O'Malley was already past what constituted a safe donation level and could contribute no more. Mischkelovitz removed the line linking them together. "I'm hungry," muttered O'Malley, getting to his feet. He made it two steps and then half-fell, half-laid down on the carpeted ground and closed his eyes with a soft mumble.

Mischkelovitz did not look up from her work. Lalana peered over at O'Malley's prone form. "Emellia, perhaps you should check on Macarius."

"It doesn't matter," said Mischkelovitz. "If I'm right, it doesn't matter."

Lalana tilted her head. "And if you are wrong?"

It was an innocent question intended only to ensure O'Malley was being looked after, but it triggered a chain of thought in Mischkelovitz that so disturbed her she stopped what she was doing, pushed away from the couch, and rolled back against the coffee table with her knees to her chin. Her jaw trembled. "If I'm wrong, then... then..." She began to cry. "Then it was all for nothing."

Lorca could have glared daggers at Lalana. "Come on, Mischka," he said, air hissing in his throat. It was a struggle to breathe and he could manage only a few words at a time. "Back to work. That's an order."

"But how am I fonna gix—fonna—fonna—fix—" She was crumbling at the worst possible moment.

"You must focus on what is in front of you," advised Lalana, which was both a fortune cookie-level aphorism and a literal truth under the circumstances. "You have made excellent progress and we are more than halfway done. I am confident you can complete this task."

"C'mere," said Lorca, opening his hand to try and entice Mischkelovitz to return. "You said... monsters gotta stick... together."

Mischkelovitz looked up. "Really? When did I say that?"

The way she said it sounded entirely rhetorical, so naturally Lalana took the question at face value and answered, "In your message from the future."

Mischkelovitz smacked herself in the face with the palm of her hand repeatedly. It was the only way she could express her frustration at the fact neither Lalana nor Lorca seemed to understand what she was saying. "You—idiots—there are two Discoveries!"

She had said that before, at the beginning of this venture.

"What does this have to do with the other Discovery?" asked Lalana.

"Because you can't change history!" she wailed.

At the mention of history, Lorca realized Mischkelovitz was not talking about the ISS Discovery captained by his universe's Sylvia Tilly. She was talking about the version of herself that had instigated the timeline changes. The remnant, Allan called it. "Mischka," he rasped at her. "You did something impossible. Sent a message back in time to save me."

Mischkelovitz shook her head and wiped at her tears. "That's not why I did it."

"Course it is," said Lorca, managing a desperate smile. It hurt to talk, a lot, but he had to get her back on task. "Other you—said so."

"Did you watch the whole message, then?" asked Lalana, thinking this was a part of the message she had not heard because Allan had only played the first part.

The recording was still in Lorca's pocket along with Allan's tooth. Before Lorca could raise any objection, Lalana plucked the little silver disc from Lorca's pants pocket with two fingers.

Mischkelovitz gasped. Her excitement momentarily stemmed the flow of tears and she scrambled forward and snatched the disc from Lalana. "How does it work?"

"Wait—"

"You flick so it spins up in the air."

"Like this?" asked Mischkelovitz. She got it on the first try.

A perfect hologram of an older Mischkelovitz appeared in front of them. "Hello, Lan. It's me, Melly."

The message began to play. Lorca was helpless to stop it. He could only listen in horror as the elder Mischkelovitz asked a favor from John Allan, talked about how they had to keep history the same while making tiny changes to it, talked about her actions ending her own existence, and declared herself unable to save anyone. Then she outlined the two changes she wanted to make, which he knew entailed the Triton encountering Lalana and a batch of spores contaminated with chronitons triggering the first null time incident, but the specifics of her instructions turned out to be exceedingly odd, because she told Allan to find Captain Chaudhuri and "induce a state of Mischka in the winter" and then "put bells and whistles in the broken pots that time the lights went out." No wonder Allan had not played that part of the message back on the Charon. These seemed to be coded missives only he would understand.

Nowhere in this little message did she say anything about saving Lorca's life. If anything, she seemed to be expressly counseling against it by insisting on the integrity of the timeline and history.

Mischkelovitz watched the message all the way through to the end and then played it again.

"Mischka—" tried Lorca, prepared to bargain for his life.

"Shh!" After the message finished playing for the second time, Mischkelovitz whirled on Lorca and Lalana with half-crazed eyes and exclaimed, "It's perfect! I wonder how many iterations it went through? I didn't even get the important part of the message and I still figured it out!"

"What is the important part?" asked Lalana.

"I can't save anyone!"

The delight in her eyes as she looked at Lorca with this revelation was bone-chilling. They were halfway through a surgery that felt like being ripped open, torn into tiny little pieces, and having the pieces melted back together and hammered into place. His life depended on her finishing the job or Lalana keeping her tail in the wound until someone else turned up who would. Assuming Mischkelovitz did not interpret her future self's words as a command to murder him to preserve history.

Seeing the fear on Lorca's face, Mischkelovitz laughed gaily. "Don't you see? I can't save anyone! I can't save anyone!" Her laughter overcame her. After a solid minute of hysterics, she wheezed and gasped and returned to a state approaching normalcy.

"Mischka," Lorca tried again, voice hopeful and enticing, because surely, after everything he had given her, she felt he was someone worth saving. "Hear me out. I'm sure we can... reach an understanding."

Mischkelovitz grinned. "Don't you see, captain? In our universe, you're no one. Literally!" Now her tears were happy, glistening in the low light like starlight on her eyelids. "Captain no one!"

Lalana caught the pun because it was exactly the sort of dual-layered, overly literal phrasing she herself frequently employed. Her hands spun with pleasure. "Captain Lorca always loves the stars, no matter who he is and where he is from, because when he was a child, his mother told him the sky was an ocean, just like in his favorite—"

"Bedtime story," breathed Lorca, eyes wide. A week ago, he had suggested Lalana tell Mischkelovitz a story and Lalana had asked him what story she should tell. Your favorite. A story about a dead man who had gone to the stars in search of adventure because of a captain called Nemo—a name that, in Latin, meant "no one."

Mischkelovitz was saying that the words "I can't save anyone" meant "I can save no one," and in her mind at least, those two words described him.

Her mind being the crucial element here. Either this was the greatest instance of talking on two levels in all of creation or she was twisting every detail of the message to mean what she wanted it to. So long as her agenda remained saving him, he didn't care which.

"Genius," he said, smirking in satisfaction.

"That is exceptionally clever," said Lalana. (Unlike Lorca, she accepted Mischkelovitz's assertion as to the true meaning of the message.)

"The important thing is, you have to be no one, or else everything she did—" Mischkelovitz stopped, her face twisting into a question. "He—he gave you the message?"

Allan had not given it to Lorca so much as had it pried from his cold, dead hands. The way Mischkelovitz phrased it could only mean one thing.

No one had told her Allan was dead.

Lorca didn't miss a beat. "He wanted you to have it," he rasped. "Told me to bring it to you." Lalana knew this was a lie and forced herself to remain still to avoid betraying anything through hand cues.

The lie on Lorca's face would have been painfully obvious to almost anyone else, but Mischkelovitz, with her limited social experience, failed to detect it. Instead, she visibly brightened. Of course Allan wanted her to have the message! Groves was wrong, Allan was a genius. By giving her the message when and how he had, he ensured she received it at just the right moment to capitalize on its contents without exposing himself. He had probably figured out qoryan by listening to it, too. "There are... There are two Discoveries. And—and I can save both of you! I can save both of you!" She grabbed the tissue regenerator and dove back to work with such gusto, Lorca yelled at the sudden wave of pain.

"Emellia, be careful!" chided Lalana. Lorca mumbled a demand for more alcohol. This time, Lalana provided it to him without comment and Mischkelovitz resumed her work.

Little by little, Lalana's tail emerged from the wound, covered in patches of brown discoloration. Whole sections of filaments lay limp and unresponsive. "The alcohol and your immune system," Lalana explained. If he were a better man, Lorca might have apologized for the effects the alcohol was having on her cells, but he felt no remorse. That precious bottle was the closest thing to medicine he had under the circumstances. He did, at least, refrain from any further drinking until her tail was out completely. Then he took a celebratory swig, even though his head was already reeling and the alcohol was only making him even weaker given the state of his blood.

The important thing was the wound was sealed. The odyssey was over and he was alive. Lorca closed his eyes and inhaled as deeply as he could manage, feeling an aching tightness in his chest in response. Beside him, Lalana pruned away unsalvageable cells from her tail, sloughing off patches of cellular material that melted into puddles of oily sludge on the glassy surface of the coffee table.

While Lorca and Lalana's post-operative states could be described as restful—and O'Malley's enduring state of unconsciousness was entirely so—Mischkelovitz became a flurry of activity. She sifted through the contents of the Memory Alpha crate. "Particle charge, particle charge," she muttered to herself, and went to unhook one of the larger exterior wall panels.

Lalana's reaction was violent and immediate. She trilled in alarm and slapped her tail over her eyes. "It is too bright!" Lorca tilted his head up and saw rows of glowing blue tubes running through the wall. Mycelium spores, frozen in place, not drifting around the way they did during jumps. He had missed the discussion on what the Omega Tau protocol was, but he figured it out easily enough from the evidence in front of him.

To his Terran eyes, the gentle glow of the chroniton-laden spores seemed unremarkable. To Lalana, it was like looking directly at a supernova, a hundred thousand times brighter than the halo of particles that lingered on time travelers and a million times worse than the faint haze that characterized her previous null time experiences. For once, her ability to see more than humans was not an advantage. It was akin to the sharp pain Lorca had struggled with in the overly-bright universe of Discovery's origin. Her fur writhed in discomfort as she trilled, "I cannot!" and jumped lengthwise across the couch, huddling in the shelter of the far side of the couch a moment before making a run for the door and fleeing to the forward section of the lab.

"What the hell are you up to," groaned Lorca, voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm setting up a mycelial transport," Mischkelovitz said, connecting a set of cables to the spore tubes in the wall and running them over to the coffee table.

Suddenly the differences between Mischkelovitz and Petrellovitz seemed entirely superficial. Lorca's eyes widened and he rolled upright with a grimace, gripping the arm of the couch tightly for support. His voice was firm, brimming with anger. "No." He tried to grab her arm and crashed down against the arm of the couch, head spinning. Mischkelovitz jumped back in surprise.

"Stay still! I need you alive for this," she exclaimed.

"Then stop trying to kill me!" he barked, wincing as the angry shout triggered the sensation of being punched in the chest.

After so many months of Lorca's coddling, Mischkelovitz was taken aback by the visage of his wrath. He felt so dark and sharp it terrified her. She tightened her grip on the cables. Some instinct told her his mask had slipped and this was a piece of his true face. It was as if he was holding a knife just below the surface of the water and all she could see was the reflection of the sky until a ripple came along and showed her the glint of the blade hidden below.

She stood, clinging to the cables and trembling, but her fear was accompanied by something else far more potent: pity for the poor, scared, angry refugee from another universe who did not understand what she was doing or why. The pity won out as she asked him softly, "What happened to you?"

Of all the things she could possibly feel for him, pity was by far the worst. Lorca looked away, sneering at the indignity. She was supposed to be the pitiful one, the broken thing, the wounded bird who needed his help. Except the bird had mended and was now soaring high above him, looking down and seeing him for what he truly was: a wingless, earthbound creature whose lot it was to live and die in the mud.

"Can I tell you a story?" she asked. Lorca did not respond. Mischkelovitz sat down on the ground next to O'Malley. "Once upon a time," she said, which was not how this story began, but was a good way to begin a story, "there was a girl named Margot who lived on the planet Venus where it always rains, every day and all day long. It rained so much that none of the children on Venus had ever seen the sun except for Margot. She was born on Earth and she remembered it from when she was young, but when she tried to tell everyone about it, they laughed at her, nobody believed her. Every seven years, the magnetosphere of Venus would align in such a way that the rains stopped and the sun would come out for a single hour..."

Some details were perhaps misremembered and a few specifics invented on the spot, but it was spiritually a faithful retelling of All Summer in a Day. As Mischkelovitz recounted the ostracization and confinement of Margot by the other children, who locked her in a closet and forgot about her while they marveled in the single hour of the sun, it felt like it was Mischkelovitz's story as much as it was Margot's.

In Mischkelovitz's version, the end of the story was this:

"They opened the door and let her out, but they didn't look at her and she didn't look at them. So deep was their betrayal, she cried as much as the rain. But because it was raining, no one could see her tears." Neither of them was certain whether this was a happy ending, least of all Mischkelovitz.

Lorca sighed. It was a nice enough little story, but nothing had changed. "You're not beamin' me anywhere with those spores."

"Obviously not, they're quantum-locked. You're not—you're not the target, captain, you're the template."

An eyebrow raised. "Come again?"

Something in Mischkelovitz came alive. Her eyes went wide with excitement and she broke into an exuberant smile. "There are two Discoveries. The same particles exist in both quantum realities, in a state of... let's call it entangled flux. I'm going to use the atoms in this universe to trigger a reaction in the other. Because they're the same atoms, so they share a resonance. Now, the spores on this side are locked in a null time field, but the spores on the other side aren't." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece from a puzzle—one of the pieces missing from the puzzle in the mess hall. "Every particle in the universe fits together in a single configuration at any given point in time. Because the spores permeate into every corner of reality, they're like the table supporting all the pieces of the puzzle."

Recalling O'Malley's warning about the reactor, Lorca decided to look into the issue of the mycelial network before the table in Mischkelovitz's analogy collapsed and dumped all the pieces of reality into a jumble on the floor. For a moment, he even entertained the idea this was a problem he and Burnham could tackle together. Then the grim memory of her betrayal returned and the expression on his face shifted to a look of sour disgust that would have gotten him executed at one of Georgiou's banquets.

"The spores also have the ability to rearrange the puzzle pieces. They lift one piece up and swap it with another." She moved the puzzle piece through the air in a hopping motion. "That's mycelial transport. That's why we switched places with the other Discovery when we jumped. It switched our puzzle piece with theirs. But this isn't about transferring matter between universes, this is about translating information—telling the mycelial network in one quantum state that it should adjust its configuration to match our state. In other words, triggering a remote mycelial transport via induced atomic synchronicity. The spores just need the pattern of what they're going to be transporting. That's you. You're the pattern. This is how I save you."

She looked so beautiful in that moment, full of hope, and Lorca could see the same light O'Malley did. The only thing he did not see was why any of it was necessary. He smiled at her benevolently. "You already saved me."

Mischkelovitz's hair bobbed around her ears as she shook her head. There were tears forming again, sad and happy at the same time. "No, I didn't. It was all her, the other me. She saw Margot was crying and found a way to slip a key under the door in secret so the other children wouldn't see—but the person she gave the key to wasn't her Margot, he was mine. She did all this to save my Margot, to create a timeline where Margot didn't cry. But it turns out, I can save her Margot, too. I can make it so Margot never has to cry in any timeline."

Lorca lost the thread of her logic somewhere in the middle and squinted in thought. She was saying he was Margot? Scratching his chin, Lorca glanced at the motionless spores in the wall. They weren't exactly hurting for time. "How long is this gonna take exactly?"

"Just trust me," said Mischkelovitz. "I've seen the sun."

She worked quickly, hooking together various components, hopping over O'Malley's body as she moved between the couch and the wall. Lorca leaned back against the couch and watched her, a hand resting over the gash in his chest. It was a relief to feel the rise and fall of his own chest.

Apropos of nothing, Mischkelovitz suddenly asked, "Are you right or left-handed?"

"Right, mostly," he answered. She picked up a dermal probe and jammed it through the fabric of his shirt and into the flesh of his right shoulder, below the collarbone. He yelped in annoyed discomfort as the metal prongs bit into his skin. She really had zero bedside manner. "The hell!"

"In case the electromagnetic field doesn't extend the whole way," she explained. "There might not be enough power to translate you all the way down to your feet, but this should increase the likelihood the other you gets his dominant hand." She returned to assembling some sort of particle ray on the coffee table.

That was a cheery thought. Lorca tried to decide if he cared whether some other version of himself had all his appendages. He didn't, but he cared a lot about keeping all his appendages in this universe. He tried again to put an end to this folly. "Are you sure you know what you're doing? That message you sent wasn't very clear."

"Nonsense, it was as clear as could be. It had to be secret enough no one else would understand what it said."

"So why not just send the message to yourself in qoryan? Make sure there were no misunderstandings." The implication being her entire course of action right now was one massive, massive misunderstanding.

"Because no one would deliver a message they didn't know the contents of. Computer, protocol status."

"Field integrity at seventy-six percent. Power reserves at ninety-one percent."

She picked up the particle ray from the table and set it up pointing at the spores in the wall. "Peroute rower fruh—reroute power from storage modules A, B, and D to conduit 9-5-3-3-B." The computer reported compliance. Mischkelovitz turned the ray on. A beam of yellow energy shot out towards the wall. It was bright enough that Lorca looked away.

She returned to the couch and sat down next to Lorca with her chin on her knees, hugging her arms around her legs. He finally saw a flicker of doubt in her face.

"You gonna tell me what that is?" he asked.

"One of Lieutenant Commander Kumar's ideas."

Lorca frowned. As he recalled, all of Kumar's null time ideas had been shot down by the rest of the scientists in the room as being dangerously bad. "Not the one that causes the... cascade?"

She nodded.

Maybe Mischkelovitz had seen the sun, but staring directly at the sun could blind you. "You don't have to do this," he said.

"You want to know a secret? It was a trick. Everyone thought we could finish each other's sentences like we had one brain. How stupid is that? We were feeding each other lines through our implants. I should've told Mally and Rove after Losz died, but I didn't. I didn't want to share that with anyone else. It was our secret. Then I found out there was another me, and I thought maybe... But she poisoned Einar. What kind of person does that?"

"The kind of person who can't cry," offered Lorca.

She understood then what he'd meant back when he said this version of her was best, tears and all, and she smiled. He had given her so many gifts—kindnesses to manipulate her—and she appreciated his admiration for her tears most of all. "The other me can cry. That's why she did all this, because she didn't want anyone else to have to cry. That's the sort of person I want to be two people with."

She fell quiet. They watched the particle ray striking the spores. The spores were shifting in color from blue to green. Lorca supposed it was too late to stop whatever she was doing.

"Gabriel?"

He glanced over at her. She was no longer watching the spores transition in color. She was looking down at O'Malley.

"Call me Melly and tell me you love me."

Lorca hesitated. They were just words, but he did not want her getting the wrong idea.

"Please?"

He managed. "I love you, Melly."

She smiled, tears forming in her eyes, as they always did. "Just as much!" she said. "Will you tell Mally that when he wakes up? 'Just as much!'"

It suddenly struck Lorca that she was not asking him to call her Melly because she loved him. She wanted to hear it said aloud one more time. "Why..." He took a breath. "Why can't you tell him?"

"Because I have to send me a message. The right message in order to make sure this works again. I'm the only one who can."

"Mischka," Lorca said in stern admonition. She was clearly leaving something out.

"My whole life, nobody has ever really understood what I was saying except Mischka. The other me understands what I'm saying, and she lost him, too. That means there's no one who understands her, either. But I do. So I'll transfer my neural parge chattern into my implant and synchronize it with hers."

Though Lorca was unclear what this process actually entailed, he understood the most crucial part. "That's suicide."

"No, it isn't," she said, "because I'll still be alive over there. It'll be more like Ash Tyler, when he had the pattern of another person in his head."

She had that in reverse. Voq was the physical person, Tyler was the neural pattern. Tyler was in a very real sense dead and had been for months and months.

Lorca looked down at O'Malley's unmoving form. Whatever O'Malley's connection to Lorca, it completely paled in comparison to what he felt for his sister. Lorca had to stop Mischkelovitz. "Listen to me. Whatever is in that other universe, it's not worth sacrificing anyone in this one." Some part of him still did not think there was another universe, despite her assertions. "Use yourself as a template, like you're doing with me."

The tears rolled down her cheeks. "But that would just create me as I am. I don't want that. I want to be two people again. Maybe this way I can be. Not me and Mischka, but me and myself."

"You are two people," he tried with a smile of encouragement, though he knew it was not true. "Melly and Mally."

"I love Mally, but he doesn't think like I do. He never has. He can't."

Lorca knew how much this would hurt O'Malley. He knew because it would hurt at least as much as losing Michael had hurt for him. "You're going to destroy him."

Mischkelovitz wiped her arm across her face and smiled at Lorca. "If I don't do this, it'll destroy him. At least this way, you can fix him. You can fix anyone. You're even better at it than I am."

It took all the strength he could muster to raise his arm and brush the tears on her cheek and then his hand fell right back down. "Some things can't be fixed," he said.

"Anything can be fixed if you have enough time!"

And if you don't have enough time, look to space. Lorca stared at her, vaguely despondent. Mischkelovitz had manifested Michael's words in a very real way. "Don't do this. It's insane, and that's saying a lot coming from me." He was, despite everything, trying to make a joke in the middle of all this.

Mischkelovitz brightened. "It is insane. That's the definition of love!" She smirked in quiet laughter and kicked her legs out, swinging them down and bouncing her feet on the side of the couch.

"I'm not gonna take care of your brother for you," Lorca warned her.

"He'll take care of you," she replied in kind. "Computer, disengage power modules A, B, and D."

The particle beam turned off. "Power reserves at twenty-three percent," reported the computer.

All the spores visible in the wall were green now. Mischkelovitz picked up a transmitter from the mess of objects on the table, connecting one end of it to the implant behind her right ear and the other to the line running between the couch and the wall. They were both hooked into the line now.

Lorca gave up. There was nothing he could say to convince her. She was twisting everything to fit what she wanted it to mean, just like she had the contents of the future message.

"There is one last thing," said Mischkelovitz. "Something I've always wanted to do. May I?" She held up her right hand. He had no idea what she intended.

She reached out, pressed her hand lightly against his forehead, then dragged her hand down across his face, sort of smearing her fingers and the top of her palm across his features. Lorca's face scrunched in confusion and Mischkelovitz began to laugh hysterically.

"That was—that was—that was amazing!" she laughed, almost falling over. He realized she had done the sort of thing babies do when seeing adult faces up close for the first time. She was, right to the end, utterly childish. "I'll see you on the other side." She took a handheld trigger from the table and turned to look at O'Malley one last time. Her brother remained oblivious to her, but she told him, "And I'll see you, too. Computer, end Omega Tau protocol on a fifteen second countdown. Authorization Mischkelovitz-9-5-8-5-1."

The countdown began. "My only regret," said Mischkelovitz, "is that I didn't get to tell Lan how much I love him. I think he loves me, too."

Talk about out of left field. "He does," said Lorca, because there was no other conceivable reason Allan would have done any of it.

"When you see him, give him this," she said, even though it was definitely going to be an impossible request. She leaned forward and kissed Lorca.

Their lips were still touching as her thumb pressed down on the trigger. There was a tiny pop. The computer's countdown ended a half second later.

One moment Mischkelovitz was there and the next she was gone. She slumped forward onto Lorca's chest, her eyes unfocusing and breath hissing out from her mouth. For the first time, her pupils were even as they stared lifelessly up at him, dilated to the fullest extent possible. Lorca tried to shout for Lalana and Groves but did not have the lung capacity.

He remembered a thought from watching her on the monitors so many months ago. There was something beautiful in the brokenness. That had not gone away. If anything, she was even more beautiful now.

Part 96

#fanfiction #fanfic #Star Trek Discovery #Star Trek #Mirror Lorca #Captain Lorca lives

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neuxue · 6 years

Text

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 25

The apocalypse? In your lifetime? (It’s more common than you might think! Click here to find out why)

Er. I mean. I return, featuring Sheriam and Egwene.

Chapter 25: In Darkness

That title, the Black Ajah chapter icon, and the first word is ‘Sheriam’. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Things were going quite well for once.

Uh huh. Sure. You really should know better than to say things like that. Or even think them. Especially when you’re a secondary-at-best character in epic fantasy and have very probably sold your soul. There’s tempting fate, and then there’s flinging yourself off a thousand-foot cliff in the form of a goldfish.

Confirmation, in case any was needed, that Halima/Aran’gar was the one from that brief scene of Sheriam being punished.

Well, so long as Egwene was away, that tent was functionally Sheriam’s for all but sleeping. After all, an Amyrlin’s Keeper was expected to look after her affairs.

Sheriam smiled again.

If she had a moustache, she’d be twirling it right now.

Pain would come again. There was always agony and punishment involved in the service she gave.

Not sure I’d put that on the recruitment posters – I’m still partial to ‘Immorality for Immortality’ myself – but points for honesty.

But she had learned to take the times of peace and cherish them.

Oh, the irony. Swear yourself to a force of chaos and destruction and only then learn the value of peace. That is bitter.

At times, she wished she’d kept her mouth closed, not asked questions. But she had, and here she was.

Now who does that sound like? Hmmm…

And, separately, I want a story sometime where asking questions isn’t punished. Not that it doesn’t make for good stories when they are – seeking out truth need not necessarily be painless, and it’s certainly not unrealistic to have negative consequences of digging too far, or asking the wrong questions of the wrong people – but it also seems to be one of those story elements that so often goes unquestioned (if you’ll pardon the slight pun). As someone who comes from a scientific background, where the entire purpose is to ask questions of the world and see any answer at all as a reward, I’d like to see someone at some point take a different angle on this trope. Mostly just because I think it’d be interesting, and as a reader I’d be curious to see how that kind of premise would work, and what would result from it. One for the wishlist…

Not infrequently she wished she’d chosen the Brown

NOW WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE? HMMM.

and hidden herself away in a library somewhere, never to see others.

I mean sure, that’s one way of being Brown, but.

There was no use wondering about what could have happened.

NOW. WHO. DOES. THAT. SOUND. LIKE?

She wasn’t so naïve as to feel guilty about the things she’d done. Every sister in the White Tower tried to get ahead; that’s what life was about! There wasn’t an Aes Sedai who wouldn’t stab her sisters in the back if she thought it would give her advantage. Sheriam’s friends were just a little more…practiced at it.

Hey, I’m not judging; as a Slytherin I can appreciate some honest, pragmatic, amoral ambition.

But why had the end of days had to come now of all times?

But I am laughing. If you’re going to sell your soul, you’d better read the fine print and make absolutely sure the deal is worth it, even when the price is called in in full. Sheriam seems to be more of a realist than some, but not quite realistic enough. Area Woman Never Expected To Actually Pay Her Mortgage.

And there’s the actual confirmation of Black Ajah. So…what does it say about the Aes Sedai that at one point, both women claiming the title of Keeper were Black Ajah?

It’s ‘blood and ashes’ or ‘blood and bloody ashes’ never has it been just ‘bloody ashes’ yes this is a nitpick no I shouldn’t care yes I care anyway because of Who I Am As A Person.

Sheriam opened her eyes to find a jet-black figure standing above her cot; slivers of moonlight passing through the fluttering tent flaps were just enough to outline the figure’s form. It was clothed in an unnatural darkness, ribbons of black cloth fluttering behind it, the face obscured by a deep blackness.

#aesthetic but why do I get the sudden feeling we’re in a 2006 music video?

Also, Halima had never come in such a…dramatic way.

Embrace the emo, Sheriam. Just go with it. Don’t question. Only ‘90s children will understand, etc.

(I feel like I should be posting this on myspace or something. How did we end up here? I have no idea and I’m so sorry).

“Egwene al’Vere. She must be deposed.”

Good fucking luck. That girl has as much ambition as all of you and she serves a Righteous Cause. You may as well just give up now. Accept it. Write a song about it and move on.

(Look I don’t even know. It’s been a while, okay?)

“It was by orders from one of the Chosen that I helped raise her as Amyrlin in the first place!”

“Yes, but we’ve done a companywide reorg and sometimes that just means reversing every single thing anyone has accomplished in the last six months; also she doesn’t work here anymore so I’m your boss now.”

“Yes, but she has proven to have been a…poor choice.”

That’s one way of putting it. It’s almost too bad you didn’t try to recruit her; that would have been hilarious.

Sheriam hesitated. Her first instinct was to lie or hedge—this seemed like information she could hold over the figure. But lying to one of the Chosen? A poor choice.

(Somewhere in a distant universe, Marisa Coulter is laughing at you).

But that’s the value of having legend and 3000 years on your side; The Forsaken may be only human but so much has been built up around their names and image that most don’t even dare to challenge them. Useful, that.

Stealing the ter’angreal could be a nuisance for Egwene, though. Not an insurmountable one, because this is Egwene al’Vere we’re talking about, but more and more things are drawing to a point where it all has to come to a head soon. Egwene imprisoned having forced Elaida’s hand, the sisters in the Tower just starting to listen to her, the rebels growing less and less certain of Egwene’s return, some beginning to talk about moving someone else into her tent, Lelaine setting herself up to be the next Amyrlin, and now Sheriam about to try preventing the dream-meetings. Something has to happen and soon to break the deadlock and prevent a slide back into inertia.

Oh, speak of the Amyrlin and she doth appear. Hi Egwene.

Her two days of imprisonment had not been pleasant, but she would suffer them with dignity. Even if they locked her away in a tiny room with a door that wouldn’t let in light. Even if they refused to let her change from the bloodied novice dress. Even if they beat her each day for how she had treated Elaida.

Because that worked out so well for you last time, Elaida. Anyway, at least now I know who to call next time I need to move house; Elaida’s very good at boxing things up.

Of course, as with everything else about the theme-and-variation of the parallels between Rand and Egwene, this is presented in an entirely different tone and through a very different lens than Rand’s imprisonment. I know I talk about this a lot but it’s because playing with the possibilities narrative symmetry offers is one of my favourite things, and this is such a well-done example over such a long stretch of series now; give two different characters situations or arc elements or paths that on the very surface are similar, and use these to highlight all the variations. It’s like controlling your variables; you can take two similar characters and throw them at entirely different problems, or you can take similar problems and throw them at two very different characters. You can also just write two completely different stories without the thread of similarity but this way feels so much more satisfying. It gives a unifying theme or undercurrent to two characters who spend almost the entire series thus far diverging. Same yet opposite; allies yet adversaries; Dragon and Amyrlin, saidin and saidar, Rand and Egwene.

Egwene was surprised she had visitors, but Seaine wasn’t the only one who had come to her. Several had been Sitters. Curious.

The tipping point approacheth. And so her imprisonment carries with it the note of rising, of moving towards something victorious, whereas Rand’s carried little more than a sense of spiralling impending disaster. A victory in the end, sort of, but.

Egwene may find it surprising that Sitters are visiting her, but she’s also no doubt been more effective in fighting her war than she perhaps thought. Also, rumours have a tendency to spike curiosity when something this dramatic happens; the Amyrlin losing her shit and lashing out at a novice who then stands there calm and bleeding and lectures her, and then is locked away out of sight? It’s as if Elaida wanted to draw everyone’s attention to Egwene. (Or no, it’s like Elaida wanted to do exactly the opposite of that, because Elaida has a talent for accomplishing the opposite of what she wants. A Talent, even).

Seaine at least seems to be on Egwene’s side, and I doubt she’s the only one.

“Proving that accusation is difficult by Tower standards,” Seaine said. “And so I suspect that she will not try to prove it in trial—”

Couldn’t they use the Oath Rod in trials to verify claims like the one Elaida is trying to make – that she expelled Egwene from the Tower before beating her, for being a Darkfriend? Even if Elaida genuinely believed the Darkfriend accusation, she’d struggle to state the rest outright because that’s…not what happened. Also the other Sitters who were there could go under Oath (literally) and testify as to what happened. Seems like a pretty damn effective tool in a trial…

Also, if she’s not going to try to prove in trial something she’s using as a justification for her actions, what the hell is she going to do? Hello yes I would like to speak to the Aes Sedai’s legal adviser…

“partially because doing so would require her to let you speak for yourself, and I suspect that she’ll want to keep you hidden.”

How To Make A Martyr (in 8 Easy Steps) by Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan

“But if she can’t prove I’m a Darkfriend and she couldn’t stop this from going to trial…”

“It is not an offence worthy of deposing her,” Seaine said. “The maximum punishment is a formal censure from the Hall and penance for a month. She would retain the shawl.”

But would lose a great deal of credibility, Egwene thought.

That would require her having credibility to begin with…

But now I’m still stuck on the notion of the Oath Rod being involved in trials. Mostly because it seems like a perfect solution at first glance and then has the potential to be absolutely terrible depending on how those involved chose to use it, how skilled those questioning or testifying are at either bending the truth or forcing a desired narrative using nothing but true confessions put together into exactly the story they want told, thus forcing someone to condemn themselves with their own words…

Anyway.

I like Seaine still; she’s a Tower Aes Sedai, secluded and not particularly revolutionary, but she’s also very…honest, I suppose. She even seems to have a degree of humility, and deals more in facts and evidence than in ambition and denial.

Things are getting worse, the Pattern is still trying its hand at interior design by randomly moving rooms in the Tower and all things considered should probably not quit its day job.

“You have to bring these things up, Seaine,” Egwene said softly. “Keep reminding the sisters that the Dark One stirs and that the Last Battle approaches. Keep their attention on working together, not dividing.”

It’s not just Sheriam who is less than thrilled with the fact that this is happening during her lifetime. You see that sort of thing with evil characters fairly regularly—it’s the Faustian story, or variations thereof; characters who sell their soul or commit themselves to an evil cause because of the perks (power, immortality, a great healthcare package…) and don’t really expect it to be called due in quite the way it is—but I don’t think it applies solely to villains.

People who actually want to or are willing to be heroes, to give their life and maybe their death to a cause, to face the ultimate crisis point of something they’ve committed to, are rare. It’s one thing to commit yourself to something in peacetime, or to commit to something when it’s an abstract or low-level issue. It’s another thing to realise that the tipping point or catastrophe will come in your lifetime, or is happening right now. It’s why we tell stories about heroes; they’re extraordinary. It doesn’t mean ‘ordinary’ people are lazy or not really committed or cowardly; it just means we’re human. How many people, faced with Achilles’s choice (to die a hero and be remembered forever, or to live a long and peaceful life and die forgotten) would choose the ‘heroic’ path? Some, certainly. Most? Probably not.

We’re human; we’re not good at dealing with The Actual End Of The World, and we’re very good at denial when it comes to potential large-scale all-out disaster. A character can swear away their soul and never really expect that the Forces of Evil will actually call upon them to fight in the last battle, and a character can commit themselves to the cause of good or Light and never expect to actually have to stand in that final catastrophe. And I feel like if I take this much further I’m going to end up solidly in current events so I’ll just…stop there. The point is, this sense of ‘oh shit you mean this is actually happening now and I’m a part of it? I didn’t mean to sign up for this take it away’ doesn’t belong solely to villains.

So it’s a nice place to put this particular conversation, right after we see Sheriam thinking in explicit terms that she never really wanted to be a part of this, seems fitting and nicely balancing.

“You must work hard, Seaine,” Egwene said, rising as the Reds approached. “Do what I cannot. Ask the other sto do so as well.” […] “The Last Battle comes, Seaine. Remember.”

Also, Egwene is one of those people absolutely willing to be a hero in the ‘give your life to a cause’ sense. She was not chosen; she chose. And she continues to choose this path, even as it becomes difficult, even as it is painful, even as it seems too much. It’s why she’s such an effective rallying point; she has committed absolutely to the cause they are all sworn to, and she faces the impending apocalypse with determination and dignity and grace, and doesn’t try to turn away or deny it. It makes her a source of inspiration to those who are more…human about facing this reality and their upcoming role in it. Which I supposes you could argue is part of what heroes are for.

(In case you can’t tell, another thing I’m generally fascinated by is the entire notion and spectrum and variants of Heroes and Villains and the ways in which they exist and interact with their stories and worlds).

Even if Elaida was punished, what would be done with Egwene? Elaida would try to have her executed. And she still hand grounds, as Egwene had—by the White Tower’s definition—impersonated the Amyrlin Seat.

I must stay firm, Egwene told herself in the darkness. I warmed this pot myself, and now I must boil in it, if that is what will protect the Tower. They knew she continued to resist. That was all she could give them.

And she will give them everything she can, willingly. She is not having to pay the dues on a debt she never thought would be called in; she is not being dragged into a fate she has no choice but to accept. That’s not her story. She is the one who faces what is coming with eyes open, even when it turns out to be bigger and more difficult and worse and more painful than she expected. She understands what might be…I hesitate to even say ‘asked of her’ because that’s the point, isn’t it; she looks at the situation and she simply asks this of herself, because that is the only way to win.

It is part of why I’m still relatively certain she will not survive this series. I don’t think Elaida will execute her, but I do think she will give her life for the world. Because she’s one of those who would not choose to die needlessly, but could do so willingly and thus powerfully.

Next (TGS ch 26) Previous (TGS ch 24)

#I have been informed that I have ~130 chapters left #and I am DETERMINED to finish this year so uh #wheel of time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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annelyseadairs · 7 years

Text

Je Pense Á Toi (a Vincent x MC one-shot)

Warnings: some language and heavily implied sexual content (it’s made pretty clear but it’s not graphic or anything)

ALSO NOTE: this fic is written in second-person and MC is female-coded.

Y/N: what you named your MC Y/L/N: what you picked as your MC’s last name (this also gives you the opportunity to self-insert the fuck outta this)

The weather is colder than usual when you wake up. But that’s hardly the biggest anomaly so far in your day, because as you wrap the bedsheets tighter around yourself, you realize that these are not your sheets, and this is not your bed, and the reason it’s so cold is that the air conditioning is on high, a luxury you have some trouble affording in your own apartment.

Then again, you’re not in your apartment. You knew that from the moment you felt the silk sheets and smelled the cologne. You groan, because how on earth could you forget where you are?!

“Good morning, ma cherie,” comes Vincent’s voice from somewhere close by. Not right next to you, as you’d expected (perhaps even hoped), but across the room. You open your eyes and turn to see him fixing his tie in the mirror of his vanity, his ever-present smirk a little more mischievous than usual. Which is quite an achievement, if you think about it. You remember last night, when the smile was completely gone for just a moment just to come back tenfold when he realized what you were doing.

“Morning,” you say, blushing at the memory. “What are you all dressed up for?”

“I have business to attend to.”

You push yourself up on your elbows, searching around the room for your clothes – not that you’re embarrassed, it’s just that your bra isn’t doing much in terms of protection against the cold. “Trying to take over Paris again?”

“Something like that.” He turns his smile on you. “Dinner tonight?“

The answer is yes, of course, but you’re not willing to give that up just yet. Not before you understand what exactly led to the events of last night.

“Hang on,” you say instead. “Aren’t we gonna talk about…you know…”

His confident expression wavers for a moment, almost too fast for you to catch. He recovers quickly. “Talk about it?” he chuckles. “You initiated it, Ms. y/l/n, or do you not…remember? That good, was I?”

You roll your eyes. “I change my mind. Just leave.”

He laughs again, a low, deep noise that – you won’t lie to yourself – is kind of hot. He crosses the room to pick up a suspiciously familiar piece of cloth from an armchair in the corner, and then again to hand it to you. You give him an incredulous look. “You appeared to be searching for it.”

You take the dress from him, unable to stop yourself from thinking about it slipping to the floor just hours ago. You were still holding a glass of wine at that point. You still can’t believe Vincent freaking Karm actually unzipped the back of your dress, his hands lingering on your back, your waist, your shoulders…

“We can talk about it, if you’d like,” Vincent says when he sees the look on your face (and, god, what a look that must be). “Over dinner?”

“Dinner sounds good.”

For a moment there is a look of relief on his face, as if he expected you to reject him, but it’s gone before you’re even sure it’s there, replaced by the same confident smirk. He touches your shoulder lightly. “Fantastic,” he says as his hand slowly slides down your bare arm until it’s resting on top of your hand. “I’ll have someone pick you up at eight o’clock, sharp.” He slides his hand under yours, lifting both up to his lips to place a gentle kiss on your knuckles. “Mademoiselle.”

With that he lets go of your hand (and it takes a great amount of effort on your part to keep it from dropping uselessly in your lap) and leaves.

You sit in his bed for a long while – perhaps longer than you were welcome to. Before you go to dinner, before you sleep with him again (as you inevitably will. Honestly, it will be a miracle if you manage to even get through dinner before you bed him), you need to think. You certainly don’t regret what’s happened, that’s for sure. There has always been tension between the two of you. At some point during your endeavors it became of a sexual kind. No, more than that. Seducing him in the sewers was what sparked the sexual aspect, but there was something else. You’re not sure how or when it started or even when you noticed it, but for a long time now there’s been something else between you and Vincent. Some other unspoken thing that’s always felt more concrete than sex or adversary.

It’s respect.

Even those you love deeply do not always respect you; it’s one of the sad truths of the world. But Vincent Karm does. He doesn’t have to say it or prove it in any way, because from the first time you met at the opera years ago, he’s thoroughly respected you. Your mind, your emotions, your decisions. Being a conventionally attractive woman in your field of work has its perks – people think you less threatening, allowing you to get the answers you need faster than others would – but it also comes with many, many disadvantages. One of which is lack of respect.

So…respect and sexual tension, you find yourself thinking. And maybe something else. That’s all well and good, but is it enough bases for a relationship? You sigh, annoyed at yourself, and get up to put your clothes back on. There is no “relationship” here, y/n, and there doesn’t need to be. What’s wrong with casual sex?!

But you can’t help it. When he kissed your hand, his gaze holding yours as he brushed his soft lips against your knuckles…you wanted more. You’ve wanted more for a long time now. *

When you’re dropped off at the restaurant Vincent’s picked, you sincerely hope he’s paying, because this place charges half your salary for parking (thank god you don’t have a car). A man in a fancy red suit takes your name and immediately seats you at an empty table in a dimly-lit portion of the restaurant. You take note of the candles in the middle of the table, giving off a reddish-pink glow. There are two of them, one on either side of an elegant vase containing a single red rose.

You’re trying to figure out whether the cliche romantic setting is Vincent’s doing or just the restaurant when a shadow falls over the table. You look up to see Vincent standing there, studying you with a smile.

“Good evening, Vincent,” you say. “Lovely venue you’ve picked out.”

“Thank you,” he pauses. “…for coming, as well as the compliment.” He takes his seat across from you. He’s wearing the same suit from this morning, but the tie is new.

“Shall we start with some wine?” Vincent asks, opening up a menu and pretending to study it when really, all his attention is on you. You’re tempted to do the same, but the satisfaction of glaring at him until he sighs and sets the menu back down is far too great to pass up. So that’s exactly what you do, and he reacts accordingly, dropping the act and leaning towards you across the table. “Well, I’m listening.”

You search for the right words. Oh god, you should’ve drafted an outline or something! How is interviewing a suspect in murder easier than telling Vincent…whatever it is you were hoping to tell him?

“I didn’t see Esteban this morning,” you say at last. Vincent cocks an eyebrow.

“I had Eugene take him on a walk.”

“You…don’t walk your own dog?”

“Not always. Did you really come all the way here to discuss my dog?”

“No,” you say, a bit forcefully. “I came all the way here to discuss the fact that we had sex, Vincent! I thought that was pretty obvious!”

A look of amusement crosses Vincent’s face. And maybe a bit of an embarrassed one, but you might be projecting on that front. “Alright,” Vincent says. “Let’s discuss…that.” He pauses. “Do you regret it?”

You frown. “No, of course not. Why would I regret it?”

“I always assumed sleeping with me would require you to compromise all your morals.”

“Well…yeah, so did I. But turns out that’s not the case. Not since you helped me catch Kat’s killer, anyway.”

Vincent laughs. “Why, thank you. Now,” and he pointedly picks the menu again. “Wine?”

You nod. A waiter comes and takes “Mr. Karm and his date”’s drink order. Neither of you jump at the chance to correct him on his assumption that you’re a couple. Things are looking up. You’re both quiet until the waiter comes back with your drinks and takes your dinner order. You let Vincent order for you, having never been to this particular restaurant before. When you’re alone once again, Vincent smiles at you. “What are you thinking, Ms. y/l/n?”

“I’m trying to figure you out.”

“Well, keep trying,” he only sounds half-teasing.

“I mean your intentions.”

He winks. Another moment passes in silence.

“I was thinking…” you start; Vincent doesn’t move, but his eyes focus on you ever so subtly. “What happened last night felt a little overdue.”

“I agree. But things have always been hectic whenever we’ve met, haven’t they? Ancient riddles, the Knights, a murder…”

“Yeah, we need to get the hell out of Paris.”

Vincent pauses. His eyes narrow a little, as if he’s a little boy who’s not sure whether he’s gotten away with pulling a prank. “We,” he says, and you find yourself blushing.

“Oh, shut up!” If you weren’t at a five-star restaurant, you would throw a napkin at him.

“I must say, I knew of your feelings for me, but I never suspected them to run that deep.”

“As I was saying,” you push on pointedly. “Whatever there is between us has been there a long time. And I don’t know what it is, but I would like to explore it.”

You take a deep breath, waiting for his reply, hoping he won’t respond in riddles or mere innuendos like he always does. Hoping you won’t lose each other’s respect. Vincent doesn’t look surprised, exactly, just…disbelieving. Like he can believe what he’s hearing, but not that you meant it.

“What are you saying?” You’re sure you hear his voice waver a little.

“I’m asking whether this is a date.”

Several other moments pass. Neither of you speak or move. You’re locked in the intense, unbelieving gaze of Vincent’s eyes that’s only broken when the waiter returns with your meals. You shake your head free of the pressure that was building up in those minutes, ready to dig in and forget about the whole thing, when you hear Vincent’s trademark “I know your deepest darkest secrets” chuckle.

“Even if I didn’t have feelings for you, dear y/n,” he is saying. “It would be quite rude to sleep with you and leave you confused about the nature of our relationship, don’t you think? Besides, I owe you a bottle of wine, if nothing else - you barely had a drop last night! But to answer your question…this is indeed a date. You intrigue me. I am not often intrigued so. I would like to see how we can benefit each other in a less professional context.”

Suddenly, you can’t take it anymore.

“I need you to stop.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“For just five minutes, drop the act and be honest!”

“I’m always honest-”

“I’m not talking about your words, Vincent, I’m talking about the meaning behind them. Stop trying to be this suave Bond villain for five goddamn minutes and tell me what you’re really thinking!”

He doesn’t move or say anything for a moment, considering your words. The glass in his hand is shaking ever so slightly. He puts it down and takes a deep breath.

“As the lady wishes…” he leans so far over the table that he’s almost standing, and whatever words are spoken will have no other witnesses. It makes sense, for a man who’s built an empire on his image of unfaltering confidence and dubious ethicality, to be paranoid about people’s perception when he is about to show vulnerability.

And it is vulnerability you see etched onto his face when he swallows hard and begins, “I drugged Marion with the Essence when she disagreed with my plan.”

“I know,” you say, and he simply nods.

“What I saw in her eyes that day – that…that complete and utter devotion…that admiration no words can describe…the true essence of love itself? That is what I feel every time I think about you, y/n.”

With that, he sits back and folds his hands neatly on his lap, turning his face into an unreadable tableaux once more.

For a moment, you don’t know how to feel. Sure, you felt there was something real about the way he felt about you, but true love? Vincent Karm? In love? With you? You need a minute to let it sink in.

When it does sink in, it’s like a weight’s been lifted off your chest. You stand up abruptly, reaching for your purse. “Let’s get out of here.”

He doesn’t protest or ask questions. Without a word, without finishing your food, and without paying for the fancy meal you just (almost) had, the two of you walk out, past the busy street, and onto a less crowded sidewalk. You hope Eugene will take care of all those loose ends before you can get into trouble for them.

“I…” Vincent starts, but then stops and clears his throat. Seeing your bare arms in the cool night air, he takes off his coat and drapes it around your shoulders. “I take it you feel…similarly?”

You wrap the coat tightly around you, even though you’re not that cold. It smells like him. “Well, I probably wouldn’t have been as poetic about confessing my undying love, but, yeah.” And just to drive the point home, you grab his hand and entwine your fingers with his.

“I’m glad to hear that…” Vincent says, his voice small. He gives your hand a squeeze.

You walk hand-in-hand to your apartment. You linger at the door, teasing Vincent with a goodbye-peck-on-the-cheek before inviting him upstairs. You see a new smile when you do. It’s a warmer smile, and there is still a little disbelief on his face. Something tells you he’s looked at you like this before. You were probably just never looking at the right time. * Later, you lie in bed with Vincent’s arm around you and his hand in your hair. His breath is warm against your neck when he speaks, his words slurring with exhaustion.

“We need to get the hell out of Paris before another flood ruins this moment.”

“We,” you say teasingly.

“Yes, we,” he kisses your neck, making your giggle. “You…me…and Esteban.”

“And the cat.”

“And the cat, of course.”

“And Eugene.”

“Yes, I think we should bring Eugene along as well.” He laughs into your neck. “At this rate, it would probably be easier to just stay.”

“Yeah, there’s always trouble here. The city is needs us.”

Vincent makes a noise in agreement and pulls you closer to him. You fall asleep with a smile on your face.

#city of love: paris #vincent x mc #vincent karm #my stuff #my colp stuff #:) this is long and terrible and i'm sorry i made everybody wait so long for it :)))

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