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sassycassie-s-writing · 3 years

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Diplomatic Daemati Part 2

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): A Court of Thorns and Roses Series/Rhysand

Rating: PG/K+

Original Idea: @itscheybaby recommended doing more parts for this series and I had more ideas so we’re going for it. Part 1 Here

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) At 2,310 words this isn’t quite as long as the first one, but given I wrote 1,200 words per one shot for years, I’m apparently doing better lol

^^^^^

The week between the High Lords’ meeting and my first visit to the Night Court passed quickly. My soldier training was temporarily halted in lieu of diplomatic training. As well as Thesan giving me the rundown of what was known about the reclusive Night Court.

The day arrived for my departure, and I realized I didn’t know how I was supposed to get there. I could fly—but that would involve crossing the Day Court territory and would take more than all day. Hours longer than I could afford without angering Rhysand. Rhys, I guess. I didn’t have enough power to winnow, either, but I doubted Thesan would know where to drop me off; if he could even take me at all.

I mused over breakfast how I was supposed to get there when a crack of thunder almost made me drop my toast.

High Lord Rhysand stood in the mess hall otherwise empty of any legion soldiers besides officers, posture relaxed, hands in his pockets, tendrils of night wafting off of him. “Good morning, emissary,” he greeted casually. My fellow officers stared. “Ready to go?”

“Allow me to grab my bag,” I said, rising from my bench. He waved me off. Dismissive, casually aloof. I went to my officer’s quarters, grabbed my bag, and went back to the mess hall. Rhys held a hand out for me. “I’ve never winnowed before.” My trepidation made him smirk as I reached out and took his hand.

His grin was feline. “I’ll be gentle then.”

I doubted that, but didn’t dare say so out loud.

Winnowing was darkness and wind buffeting me from all sides. Pulling me apart and slamming me back together simultaneously. I clenched Rhys’ hand so tight my knuckles blanched.

Then it stopped. “Welcome to the Night Court,” Rhys remarked.

We were standing in a beautiful palace of moonstone. It reminded me of the sunstone of Thesan’s palace, but different—grand in a simple but elegant way. I found I liked the aesthetics of it better.

Rhys let go of my hand.

“Being daemati,” he began without preamble as I stared at the palace perched atop a mountain peak, “is about more than just reading the current thoughts of those around you. It’s not just speaking mind-to-mind or taking control of someone entirely.” He strode down the open-air hall to a glass table and sat. I took the seat opposite him at his indication and set down my bag.

“Being daemati,” he continued, “is having everything they are laid bare before you. Every memory, every secret, every muscle, under your control. You can alter their memories, stop their blood from flowing, shatter their minds to turn them into a living ghost. It’s a gift not to be taken lightly.” He lounged on his chair without a care in the world, but his eyes burned as he stared at me. “You understand?”

I nodded. “I understand.”

The High Lord seemed satisfied by my response. “Good. Then let’s get you settled in and then we can properly begin your training. Daemati lessons in the morning, diplomacy in the afternoon. You’ll be here for a week, and then you will return home for the time being. High Lord Thesan will be in touch discussing when you will return. When you’re alone in the Dawn Court, I suggest you practice what we work on here.”

I nodded again.

Rhys stood, I followed. He strode back the way we came down the hall.

“You’re allowed to fly, too, by the way, while you’re here. But please do not go farther than this peak and the ones adjacent. All the mountains in this range look the same and I do not have time to find you or send out a search party if you get lost.”

Reasonable. “Of course.”

“Thank you. Shall we get started?”

We made it to the back of the hall, where a large wall of marble with doors inset in it was waiting. I followed Rhys through one, down a flight of stairs, and into a beautiful guest bedroom. I stared around at the room, jaw gaping. “This… is not what I expected. No offense,” I said.

An amused smile appeared on his face. “No screaming, no torture chambers, no blatant debauchery?” he asked.

My ears and neck burned in shame. “Well… the Night Court has a… harsh reputation,” I admitted.

“It’s not an unwarranted one. But the wicked members of my court reside elsewhere. Deep beneath this mountain, actually. They’re not allowed up here. And you will not be interacting with them. Your business with me has nothing to do with them. So, you won’t be subjected to the worst the Night Court has to offer.”

“Thank the Mother,” I breathed. My wings drooped a bit with relief. Rhys smirked, crossing his arms across his ribs and leaning against the doorframe.

“Go ahead and unpack, if you wish. Then meet me upstairs in the hall.”

“Okay,” I said. Rhys slipped out of the guest room. I set my small leather rucksack next to the armoire. I hadn’t brought much in the way of clothing. A few semi-formal outfits, my ceremonial uniform, some sleep clothes, and that was pretty much it. There wasn’t much to unpack, so I didn’t bother. Just stared around the incredible room—including the pool-sized bathtub that allowed water to flow into thin air off the side of the mountain.

When I’d stared my fill, I went back upstairs to the open-air hall. Rhys was lounging in that chair at the table again. He must have known I was there, but he didn’t turn to acknowledge me.

I hadn’t made it halfway when claws slammed into my shields. Dark ones. Powerful ones. My shield held strong, but I felt it strain. I grunted.

“Huh,” Rhys mused. “For a self-taught daemati, you’ve got a pretty good shield.”

“Thank you,” I said, walking forward to retake my seat across from him.

His power slammed into my shields again, before I could reach him. Much stronger this time. My shield shattered before I could reinforce it.

Those claws dug into my mind. I wondered if they hurt non-daemati. They made me stagger, landing on one knee and definitely bruising my kneecap. Push me out, Rhys’ voice said in my head, so loud and so overwhelming that I put my hands over my ears in a futile attempt to block it out. Shove me out!

“How?” I demanded. Tears welled up in my eyes. The claws twisted—and the tears drained. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink. Everything was under Rhysand’s control.

He stood from the table and strode over to me. I couldn’t move my eyes to track his progress. His boots appeared in my line of sight and he crouched in front of me. A claw twisted and my eyes looked up to meet his. Out of my control.

“Shove me out of your head,” he said. Calm. Collected. Controlled.

How?! I pleaded internally. Everything was so dark—overshadowed by such immense power… it must have dwarfed even the other High Lords’ reserves…

Shove. Me. Out.

Darkness. His power was darkness.

I was a Peregryn soldier of the Dawn Court.

In my head, I clamped down my surging panic and released my own power. The streaks of dawn broke over his shroud. I sent each shaft of light to his claws. Pushing them out of my head, building my shield behind them. More rays of the rising sun pierced the clouds of night. With a final push, I hurled those claws away from me, slamming my shield back into place and reinforcing it. Once. Twice.

Control of my own body flooded back to me. I slumped, face-first, to the moonstone floor. Panting. Sweaty.

I heard a soft thud. Rhysand sat on the ground. “Not bad,” he remarked. “The light. Not a choice I would have thought of from you. I’m impressed—and, bear in mind, that’s not a compliment I give easily.”

Chest heaving, I pushed up to meet his eyes. He was sitting with his ankles crossed, long legs stretched out before him, arms braced on the floor behind him in an easy-going posture. “You don’t believe in starting slow, do you?” The demand came out as more of an exhausted plea—which I hated. I wasn’t weak. I was a soldier—an officer—not some downy fledgling. I was just new to this level of skill.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t taught slowly. Besides, I had no intention of doing you any harm. There was no real danger. But teaching you the most important skills right off the bat will give you greater advantages if you ever come across another daemati.”

My breathing finally slowed. I wiped my sweat off on my sleeve. My wings were still trembling. I flapped them half-heartedly to ease out the tension. Rhys’ eyes followed them.

“What… what did you see?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You said—” I cleared my throat. “You said every memory is laid bare before you, when you’re in someone else’s mind. What did you see?”

“I didn’t. This is a training exercise. Despite what the other courts are led to believe, I’m not heartless. I understand that as an officer in Thesan’s aerial legion, you probably know a few secrets of the court.”

I scoffed. “Bold of you to assume High Lord Thesan trusts me that much. Did you see me at the meeting last week? At the far end of his left-hand side? The lowest rank?”

“He trusts you enough to defend his life in a room full of the most powerful men in Prythian,” Rhysand pointed out.

My expression dropped. I’d never thought about it like that.

Rhysand laughed. “Did that just occur to you?”

I didn’t reply. Just pushed myself to my feet. I fluffed my feathers with a shake of my shoulders and shook my hands through my hair in an attempt to fix it up a little. Rhys stood in one smooth motion.

“Can we sit for the next part? That trip hurt my knee.” I gestured to the bruise forming on the bottom of my kneecap, exposed under the hem of my trousers.

“Sure.”

I preceded him to the table and sat down. The chair—I hadn’t paid it any mind before, due to being used to it in a Peregryn legion—but the chair was built to accommodate wings. I looked back at it, and then faced the front again. Rhysand sat opposite me. I pointed to the chair. “This is made for wings,” I said.

He nodded. “I have Illyrians in my lands, remember? Two of them are my closest counsel,” he said.

“I remember. I guess I just never considered… that you’d have chairs made for them here. Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Making assumptions. About this place. About your court in general. It’s rude.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. Assumptions and expectations are how we survive and prepare for the worst to do so.” He shrugged.

“You really didn’t look at any of my memories?”

“No. I will respect the terms of our business.”

“Thank you.”

“I will ask, too, that you do the same. When we get to that point in your training.”

“Of course,” I said. I definitely didn’t want to see what was inside his head. The wickedness of the Night Court’s reputation… any atrocities he’d caused or committed… I didn’t want details.

He inclined his head to me. “Thank you.” He looked out to the mountains surrounding us. “We may not get to that this week, though. We’ll see.”

I nodded.

“The next bit of your training we can discuss before demonstrating. They’re the two biggest rules of being daemati. The first is: if you delve into someone’s mind, keep your exit open so a fellow daemati doesn’t leave their shields down and slam them shut behind you, trapping you in their mind. You become their slave. No control over anything. Unable to get out.”

My wings shuddered as a chill went down my spine. Rhysand smirked slightly.

“Second rule: be prepared to see things you might not like and definitely don’t want to see. Unpleasant memories. Evidence of your father having an affair. Lives are messy and complicated. It’s part of being daemati.”

I nodded. “I know that part already,” I said.

The smile turned from amused to an understanding purse of the lips. “I know you do. Based on what you said at the meeting.”

His claws lashed at my shields again. They glinted harmlessly off. My reinforcements held. Rhysand nodded in approval. “Not bad.”

“The third rule, I’m guessing, is always be prepared for your mind to be attacked at any moment.”

“That’s optional, but yes.”

“So, if I may ask, my lord, what was with the droning at the meeting?”

“I sensed another daemati in the room. Magic brushing my shield, passing through the room against everyone else’s. I just couldn’t pinpoint who. So I sent out a wave to test who it was. You resisted for a long time, actually. Longer than I would have imagined. Then you screamed. Which startled me, actually. I didn’t know it was you, at first. But during the mingling afterward, I saw you alone. Everyone else was talking, but you were shaking. Your wings were trembling. I took a guess. Figured I’d wipe the encounter from your mind if I turned out to be wrong.” He smirked. “But I wasn’t.” There was the arrogance I recognized. I rolled my eyes. He chuckled. “Sorry. That was probably unpleasant.”

“Understatement,” I muttered.

Another laugh. Then he went quiet. “Shall we move on to the next demonstration? About leaving the way out open?”

I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “Yes. Let’s move on.”

#Diplomatic Daemati #Part 2 #Diplomatic Daemati Part 2 #Rhysand #Rhysand Imagine #Rhysand FanFiction #ACOTAR #ACOTAR Imagine #ACOTAR FanFiction

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smaidjor · 3 years

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i know they're losing (Chapter 1)

hi mothers and fuckers of the jury, this fic is a hot mess but so am I, please appreciate it. Also, obligatory disclaimer this is about the characters not the people, all that important stuff.

Some important notes:

1. You will probably hate Scott just a little at points. He has chronic dumb bitch syndrome and there's a whole lot of bullshit going on in his life that you don't see in this fic because it's not his pov. That being said, he's still a bit of a jerk.

2. This has a lot of lord of the rings lore. A LOT. You may be kinda confused if you're not a lord of the rings fan. It's fine, Jimmy's confused too, and all of it will be explained at some point.

3. The chapter titles are from the Last Goodbye from the Hobbit films. The general title is from I Bet on Losing Dogs by Mitski.

4. General content warnings: there is a little blood, and a little violence, and a lot of mentioned death and morbid jokes. If you don't do well with themes involving death this fic is probably not for you. There is also possibly going to be referenced emotional abuse and generally unhealthy ways to raise children, though that will be talked about much further down the line. I will also put specific cws at the start of each chapter, don't worry!

5. The alternate title for this was '10k words of flower husbands being sad'. You have been warned.

Title: i know they're losing

Chapter Title: under clouds, beneath the stars

Current Total Wordcount: 3740

Content Warning: referenced/past character death, very frank discussion of death.

Snippet:

Scott whirls to face him, robes spinning behind him. “I’m fading, alright? I’m dying, now leave me alone!”

Jimmy feels like he’s been smacked in the face, the words hitting him with all the force of a well-thrown trident. Dying? “You- what- but elves don’t die, right?”

“We do. From poison, from swords, from arrows through the throat-” Jimmy’s hands fly to the scar on his neck, the one that matches Scott’s own- “from grief.”

AO3 Link

Actual fic under the cut

Scott’s hands are cold. That’s the first sign, the chill that’s uncharacteristic of an elf.

Scott’s chest hurts. That’s the second sign, the bone-deep ache he can’t seem to quell.

Scott is weaker than normal, and that’s the third sign, the one that confirms what’s happening beyond a shadow of a doubt. He’s fading, Scott thinks as he leans against a wall, trying to stop his head from spinning. He can’t say he’s surprised, not after all he’s been through; in fact, he’s more astonished it took so long to start.

In another world, it happens like this:

Scott’s hands are cold, and Shubble notices as he shows her around the nether. It’s worrying, a bit, how icy his skin is even in the boiling dimension, but Scott’s empire has always been cold, hasn’t it?

Katherine notices how long it’s been since Scott visited her, one of his few allies, and she worries, a bit. But Scott has always been distant, hasn’t he?

No one notices or worries enough to go check on him, and Scott fades away to nothing, cold and alone in his icy empire.

What actually happens is this:

Katherine has gotten word of the demon that haunts the server, and amongst all her worry, one of her thoughts is ‘has anyone checked on Scott?’. The answer is no, and next time she has a free day, she sets out for Rivendell. It’s not a long trip, not with elytra, anyways, and soon she’s at the doors to his keep.

“I need to see Lord Smajor,” she tells the guards.

“He’s not taking visitors right now.” is the response she gets.

“It’s a vital matter to the safety of both our kingdoms.”

They let her in.

Katherine spends far too long looking around the elegantly decorated downstairs and storage area before she realizes he must be up the spiral staircase in the corner of the room. She’s never been upstairs in Scott’s house before, which makes her a little nervous, but… this is an urgent matter, so she presses on into what turns out to be a very pretty bedroom. Decorated with bookshelves aplenty and gorgeous lanterns, it practically screams Scott.

The man (elf?) himself is harder to spot. At first, Katherine’s worried he isn’t there at all, but eventually she realizes that he’s still in bed despite the fact that it’s a quarter to one, only his pale face sticking out from under the covers.

“Scott?” She asks, cautious. “Lord Smajor?”

He blinks at her tiredly. “Hi, Katherine.”

“I came to talk to you about some empires stuff, but, I mean, if this is a bad time, I can come back later…?”

“No, no, stay.” He waves at the sole chair in the room, which is near-enough to the bed. “I can muster the energy for a meeting, just don’t ask me to get up.”

Katherine takes the seat hesitantly. “I came to talk about the corruption on the server, but- are you okay? Are you sick?”

Scott laughs, a little bitter. “In a way, yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take my hand.”

She obeys, confused, and finds that Scott’s hands are like ice despite the warmth of the room.

“Elves don’t get sick like mortals do,” Scott says. “Nor do we die of old age. But we get...heartsickness, you might call it. We call it fading in our tongue- the cold hands are a symptom of that. Our souls are fragile, and the grief of the mortal plane can be overwhelming. If an elf is too struck by it, they fade away and die.”

She gasps a little.

“It usually happens to old elves, world-weary,” Scott continues. “Those who are tired of existence. But any elf who has experienced enough grief is at risk.”

It takes Katherine a moment to process everything, and once she does, she stares at him in horror. “You’re- fading? But doesn’t it usually happen to old elves? Wait, are you old?”

“I’m fifty-five.”

“Is that old?”

That gets a laugh out of him. “Fifty is the elven equivalent of eighteen for humans, the age of maturity.”

“Oh.” She struggles for words for a moment, settling on “How can you be so calm if you’re dying?”

“I’m tired, Katherine. The world tore me away from the people I loved, and..I’m tired of fighting it.”

Try as she might, there’s nothing she can say to that. “Is there a way to reverse fading- to fix it?”

Something pained and raw flashes through his eyes. “Technically, yes. If an elf recovers enough emotionally, it’s reversible. But whatever caused them to fade the first time can- and often does- cause it again.”

Katherine nods seriously, absorbing the information. “We’ll just have to reverse it, then.”

“That’s sweet, Katherine, but I’m dying.”

“No,” she tells him firmly. “You’re not going to die. Now come on, you can show me your empire while I fill you in on what’s happening on the rest of the continent.”

Scott stares at her for a long moment, but eventually he takes her outstretched hand. “Alright.” His hand is frozen cold in hers. “We can try.”

Katherine lets him lead her around Rivendell, pointing out the sights. He’s done an impressive job decorating, like her, and an even more impressive job at uniting the elves and building an empire from the ground up. The people of Rivendell are weary and battle-scarred, for the most part, elves who have seen too much, but the children are bright and happy, and the cyan and gold banners wave proudly in the wind.

As they walk, she also tells Scott about the demon, Xornoth. “The demon’s already visited a lot of people, I think. Gem and Shubble for sure, and Fwhip and Sausage. That’s not even mentioning the corruption that’s been spreading.”

Scott nods. “There’s corruption in Rivendell too. Likely Xornoth’s work. And given that Jimmy still has Vilya- well, I haven’t been able to do much.”

“Vilya?”

“A ring of power. My inheritance from the Noldor.”

“Why does Jimmy have it?”

He doesn’t answer that one.

Katherine leaves feeling unsettled, with more questions than answers. She has new resolve, though, and a new goal: keep Scott from fading. He’s a good friend, though they don’t know each other that well yet, but more than that, he’s a powerful ally. And Katherine can’t afford to lose allies. So while they’re both rulers and busy in their own right, she promises to visit and drag him outside at least once a week.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Scott jokes, but his laugh is weak.

Katherine vows to hold herself to it.

The plan works for three entire weeks before Katherine has a week that’s so busy there’s no way she can find the time for a trip to Rivendell. Worse than that, because Scott is so isolated, he has almost no other friends, and many of Katherine’s allies are busy too. She’s a little short of options, to be honest, which is how she finds herself on Jimmy Solidarity’s doorstep that Sunday afternoon.

“Hello?” Jimmy asks as the door swings open. Katherine can see why Lizzie calls him the sweet swamp boy- his confused head tilt is frankly adorable.

“Hi! I know we don’t talk much, but I could use a favor,” she says.

“What can I do for you?”

“I need you to visit Scott.”

Jimmy looks beyond startled. “What- I mean, he doesn’t even like me! I couldn’t possibly.”

“Please?” She wheedles. “I promised him a visitor every week, but I have meetings all week this time.”

He shakes his head, hesitantly at first and then stronger. “No, Katherine. He’d just throw me right out again. I’m his enemy, for goodness sake!”

“If he hates you so much, why do you have his ring?”

Katherine knows she’s won, watching emotions flit across his face too quickly to catch. Grief is what he settles on, and she feels a little bit bad for the ring comment when his voice comes out wobbly.

“I guess I should return that, huh? Alright, I’ll go.”

“Sorry,” she says.

Jimmy brushes it off, saying there’s no need to worry, but he fiddles with the ring on his finger all the more. It’s on his left ring finger, Katherine notes. She wonders if that truly means what it implies.

“I’ll visit him tomorrow,” Jimmy says.

“I’ll hold you to that!”

Jimmy isn’t sure why he agreed to this at all, to be honest. Scott may have given him this ring in another world, another lifetime, but that doesn’t mean Scott doesn’t hate him in this one. What other explanation is there for how all his gifts have been rejected, how cold the elf is? Jimmy would be surprised that Scott’s never tried to take his ring back if it wasn’t for how thoroughly Scott avoids him nowadays. Getting the ring back would require talking to Jimmy, something Scott has made it very clear that he doesn’t want to do. Jimmy doesn’t have another use for it, and try as he might to forget flower fields and warm hands in his, he can’t bear to throw it away. So it’s remained on his hand all this time, a painful reminder of someone who used to love him.

Jimmy tries to avoid looking at it as much as possible, every glimpse bringing back the memory of Scott gently sliding it onto his hand, a faint blush dusting his cheeks and a smile on his lips. Even the faint shimmers in the blue gem remind him of how the starlight seemed to get caught in Scott’s hair when they were out at night. The ring had been one of their most valuable possessions on 3rd Life, the rare silver band and elegant forging more than proof of that. Now, though, the ring has to be one of the least valuable things Jimmy owns; on 3rd Life, they were humble folk in little hobbit holes, their most expensive possessions being their diamond armor and swords, but here, they’re kings and lords. Scott probably has a thousand treasures more valuable in his elven empire, so Jimmy’s not sure why he’s bothering to trek all the way across the world just to return this one.

Then again, it’s not really about the ring, and never has been. It’s about the way starlight used to shine in Scott’s eyes when he smiled, his rare, soft grin that was reserved just for Jimmy, how he gave Jimmy the most valuable thing either of them owned. It’s closure, in a way, giving it back. He won’t have any debt to Scott once this ring is returned, and they can both move on like Scott so clearly wants to.

Shaking off those thoughts, Jimmy slows to a stop in front of Scott’s house. It’s grand, nothing like his old hobbit hole, but still so clearly Scott in the decoration and color schemes. Jimmy would know who built it even if he hadn’t known Scott lived in these mountains.

“I’m here to visit Scott,” he says to the guard stationed outside.

They raise an eyebrow, presumably at the familiar way he refers to Scott. “On formal business or personal?”

“Personal? Sort of? I mean, I don’t have any diplomatic reason for being here.” Truth be told, he has no reason to be here at all, really, but...the ring.

“Then Lord Smajor cannot see you.”

Jimmy grits his teeth, suddenly furious at this whole ordeal. “Then tell Lord Smajor that I need to return his ring.”

“May I see it?”

He sticks his hand out obligingly, and the guard examines the ring, surprise blooming across their face. “I did not realize my Lord had lent you Vilya! My apologies, Lord Codfather, I see the alliance between our kingdoms is stronger than I had assumed. You may pass.”

Vilya? “Thank you, gentle, uh, gentleperson!”

The guard dips their head slightly as he walks by, a gesture of respect that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. He shakes off the strangeness of the interaction, though, pushing open the door to Scott’s house.

The inside is beautiful, exactly the kind of decor Scott loves...and empty. There’s no one in the spacious kitchen, the storage room, or anywhere else for that matter. Jimmy’s seconds from giving up and going home when he realizes that there are stairs up to the balcony above. That’s where he goes, finding himself in Scott’s bedroom.

Which is awkward, to say the least. It’s not like they never slept in the same room when they were married, but now that there’s this awkward, painful distance between them, Jimmy feels like he’s intruding. What’s worse is, Scott’s still in bed, laying on his side with his face tilted away from Jimmy’s awkward entrance.

“Hello, Jimmy.”

Jimmy half-jumps, not expecting that. “How’d you know it was me?”

Scott rolls over to face him, and Jimmy notes that his face is too pale for it to be natural or healthy. “Do you think I could ever forget the sound of your footsteps?” He goes on before Jimmy can answer. “What are you doing here?”

“Katherine asked me to visit, I’m not sure why, but...here I am. Say, why is she visiting every week?”

Scott’s laugh is bitter. “Katherine thinks she can save me.”

“Save you from what?” Jimmy asks, concerned despite himself.

His (ex?)husband doesn’t reply.

“Save you from what?” Jimmy presses, and gets no answer yet again.

Instead, Scott sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You should go.” He stands, and immediately stumbles, Jimmy rushing to steady him on instinct. Scott’s hands are like ice when he grips Jimmy’s arm to regain his balance, taking several deep breaths, and Jimmy’s instantly struck by how wrong that feels. Scott’s hands were always warm, even on the coldest nights in 3rd life. Some elven thing, probably, that Scott didn’t want to talk about or have time to explain to a silly human like Jimmy.

“Scott, what is going on?”

The elf brushes him off again, heading for the stairs, but the regal effect is ruined by how hard he has to grip the railing.

“Scott, seriously! Answer me, are you okay? What’s happening?”

Scott whirls to face him, robes spinning behind him. “I’m fading, alright? I’m dying, now leave me alone!”

Jimmy feels like he’s been smacked in the face, the words hitting him with all the force of a well-thrown trident. Dying? “You- what- but elves don’t die, right?”

“We do. From poison, from swords, from arrows through the throat-” Jimmy’s hands fly to the scar on his neck, the one that matches Scott’s own- “from grief.” Scott turns back to the stairs. “Come on. If you’re not going to leave, I might as well show you around.”

Jimmy follows, reluctantly, trying to think of something to say that isn’t incoherent sputtering with a bit of ‘why do you hate me now’ added in. “You can’t just drop something like that on a man, you know!”

“You did ask, to be fair.”

Why oh why is he so stupid around Scott? “I guess so, but- but still, dude.”

Scott pushes open the side door, holding it for Jimmy. “Here.”

Jimmy nods and slips through the door. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They start along the path, Scott walking far too quickly for Jimmy’s comfort given how terrible the elf’s balance is currently. He nearly has to jog to keep up, irritatingly, but at least they aren’t snapping at each other for a few precious moments.

Of course, Jimmy has to go and ruin that. “So, uh..are we going to talk about 3rd life?” He has to hear it from Scott’s own lips that he remembers, that it affected him even half as much as it’s affected Jimmy.

“No.”

“Why not? We need to talk about it some time-”

“I said no .”

“It’s literally killing you to not talk about it!”

Scott freezes, face going icy calm in the way Jimmy knows means he’s actually upset. The elf’s hands grip the fabric of his robes tight, his back going rigid. This is a bad idea, Jimmy knows.

He’s in too deep to back out now, though, the pent-up hurt of the past few months all coming out in a rush. “Tell me I’m wrong, Scott! I dare you, tell me I’m wrong! Tell me you never cared about me, tell me you didn’t bother to bury me, tell me it didn’t hurt even a little when I died! Tell me I was just stupid little Jimmy, a toy for an elf who’d live far beyond my lifespan! Tell me whatever, just tell me the truth! ”

Scott breathes out slowly, fury gradually building on his face. “Fine. You want to know what happened after you died? You want to hear about me screaming until my throat went raw? You want to know that I kissed your face and sobbed and begged you to wake up, over and over until I couldn’t speak at all? You want to live with the knowledge that Grian had to physically pull me away from your body? Is that what you want to hear, Jimmy ?”

Jimmy’s name on Scott’s lips punches all the remaining air out of him, sounding so wrong in that angry, bitter tone. Beneath all the rage, Scott sounds wrecked , and the fight leaves Jimmy’s body abruptly. “No,” he says softly. “That’s not what I want to hear, not at all. I’d rather you be happy than love me.”

Silence follows those words, only the faint sound of a waterfall in the distance there to break it.

“I buried you on the hill above our houses,” Scott says finally. “I planted a poppy over your grave.”

“Oh.”

“Grian came over the next day. I didn’t want to see anyone who wasn’t you, but I let him in because I had to. He helped me do the straps on my armor and asked me if he could do anything else to make things easier. I told him to bury me next to you.”

Jimmy swallows hard. “Did he?”

“How would I know?” Scott’s tone softens, just a little. “Grian was honorable enough, though, loyal to his allies. I like to think he did.”

“He was a good guy,” Jimmy agrees. “A little bit bloodthirsty, I guess, but good. I don’t suppose he survived any better than the rest of us, though maybe being bloodthirsty helped.”

“Maybe.”

“Can I- can I ask you why you hate me so much now? I mean, if you mourned me in third life and all.”

Scott turns away again, starting down the path a second time. He’s not looking at Jimmy when he says “I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” It’s a shock, honestly, given that this is the first time the two of them have really spoken since the beginning of empires. “But you burned the pufferfish-”

“I didn’t. I kept it.” Scott still won’t look at him. “I never hated you. I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

“Then why do you keep avoiding me?”

“I’ve been kind of busy dying,” Scott says dryly, and Jimmy doesn’t even realize it’s a joke until he looks over at Scott’s wry little grin.

“Scott! That’s not funny!” He scolds, aghast.

“It was a little funny.”

“No!”

Scott must hear the genuine distress in Jimmy’s voice because he drops the act. “Jimmy, I’m an elf. I won’t live far beyond you, but only because I’ll fade without you.”

“So your solution is to isolate yourself and fade now?” Jimmy demands.

“It does sound stupid when you put it like that, doesn’t it? But I lost you once, and I don’t think I could bear it again.”

Jimmy wants to argue, wants to fight him on this, but there’s nothing he can say. Instead, he puts a hand on Scott’s arm to stop him walking any further. Scott turns to look at him, seemingly startled, and Jimmy throws his arms around the elf.

Scott stiffens before slowly relaxing, arms coming up to wrap around Jimmy in return. It’s not as natural a gesture as it used to be, but it’s warm, gentle in a way Jimmy thought he’d never get again. It reminds him of the soft, starry-eyed boy who put flowers in his hair and laughed at him over a cake. Scott will never be that soft again and Jimmy will never be unscarred, but they’re here. They’re alive, that has to count for something.

Scott pulls back, his expression so achingly tender and heartbroken all at once. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.” His voice is raw, a little shaky. “I can’t. Not again.”

“But-”

He’s cut off by Scott shaking his head. “Losing you will destroy me. We dared to love, and now all we can do now is lessen the pain when it all comes crashing down.”

Jimmy’s in too much shock to speak, the ache in his heart returning tenfold as Scott turns back towards the house.

“Goodbye, Jimmy.” He sweeps away, elegant as ever, but stumbles and nearly falls as he reaches the door. Jimmy’s not there to catch him.

Jimmy stumbles home in a daze. It's somewhat of a miracle that no mob manages to kill him, honestly. To be so close to a resolution, to have the person he wanted most right there in his arms, and then to have all that ripped away- he can’t think of anything that could have hurt more. Even his deaths were less painful than this- at least an arrow through the throat is quicker than feeling like your heart is being ripped out through your ribs, Jimmy thinks, a little bitter. He throws Scott’s stupid ring in a pool in the swamp, watching as it sinks to the bottom of the shallow water with hardly a bubble.

Wait.

The ring.

It’s significant, somehow, according to a Rivendell guard, and more than that, it’s an excuse to see Scott again. One last chance to change his mind about the stupid plan that’s literally killing him.

Jimmy dives in without thinking, scrabbling around until his fingers close around the smooth stone and thin band. When he pulls it out, the gem glitters in the starlight even under the layers of dirt, and it looks like something special. It looks like hope.

#scott smajor #jimmy solidarity #flower husbands #uhh #empires smp #i wont tag 3rd life since its only referenced #my writing

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moral-turpitudes · 3 years

Text

College Headcanons: Modern!Peaky Blinders Edition

Part 1 | Part 2

A/N: This came to me in a dream. Enjoy.

Thomas Shelby:

Double Major: Political Science and Business Management (bc he likes to work himself to death) Minor: Military Sciences/ROTC

Likes debating and trying to outsmart the professor.

Often seen on campus with bloody knuckles from rocking someone’s jaw.

Would 100% punch a motherfucker for being mean to someone he cares about.

Doesn’t need to be in a fraternity to be known around campus, just don’t mess with him and you’ll be fine.

All the girls whisper as he walks by but he don’t give a fuck cuz he has to go to his lectures.

He’s on time for every class and pulls out his pocket watch if the professor is more than 5 minutes late. If the professor can’t bother showing up then he dips out.

Almost got suspended for one too many fist fights.

Has a “thing” for the barista at the campus Starbucks. He learned after frequent visits, that her name was Grace and that she liked black coffee just like him.

Mysterious and moody af. No one knows if they’ve ever seen him smile, except when chatting up Grace.

Tries his best to study, but ends up getting dragged into his siblings shenanigans or into his head about the family business.

Keeps to himself for the most part, except for having a few close friends.

Hates technology so he uses a typewriter and prefers receiving letters/mail over emails.

Can’t figure out how to use Grace the baristas phone when typing in his number and tells her to write it down instead.

Often tells her to meet him after her shift. 😏

Professors hate him because of his reliance on paper. Totes not eco-friendly but he doesn’t care. Tommy always gets his way.

Grace always gives him a cookie for free cuz she knows he forgets to eat.

Always seen smoking or sneaking drinks of whiskey in a flask, even at 7am lectures.

Binge drinks on weekends with his bros, and drunk calls barista Grace when he has maybe 3 working brain cells left for the night. On other weekends when he’s coherent, he meets with Polly and tries to discuss business plans since their dad dipped out like a bitch.

To make matters worse, after dating for a while, Grace just leaves him. He thinks his aunt Polly may have been too hard on her, but he didn’t know until later that she lied when she said she didn’t know about the business. But barista bitch knew everything, and was gonna expose them to her higher-ups in the criminal justice department before long.

Arthur Shelby:

Major: Agriculture Minor: Military Science/ROTC

Graduated just barely.

Ended up in some trouble with his peeps in the military science department, probs for cussing someone out.

Angry, loud, and emotional af.

Loved drinking with John and his frat boy friends.

No one messed with him if they valued their life.

Started one too many fights and got suspended for reals. Almost beat a man to death but we don’t talk about that.

He gets stressed really easily so in his free time he draws horses.

When he gets real mad he takes it to the campus boxing ring and punches to his hearts content.

On his way back to his dorm one night he saw a girl who was in his agriculture class. She was cute and also in a “Christian” ministry group on campus. He decided to chat her up when she was preaching, just to see what it was about.

They later dated but then she cheated around with a fellow churchy man and just went off the rails. When he found out it wasn’t pretty.

Her friends and pastor most likely shamed her cuz she be ✨sinning✨. Therefore not helping her mental state.

Her name was Linda. Never trust a Linda.

Everyone tried to console Arthur but only boxing and drinking at Johns frat house did the trick.

Tommy often had to run to his dorm in the middle of the night to talk him out his mental breakdowns. College is hard.

In the end, he was glad he did agriculture even if his crazy ex would constantly stare at him during lectures, probably plotting his demise.

Some days he’d take out his frustrations by chopping wood and helping out on the farm where he worked and studied most days.

But you bet your ass fuckin’ Linda showed up to his dorm one time though with a gun and tried to shoot him, but she didn’t know his brothers and aunt were there too. Polly may have shot her in the arm tho. But when the campus PD showed up shit really went down.

We don’t know where Linda is now, but that’s probs for the best.

John Shelby:

Major: Music (idk I felt like he’s a musical boi) Minor: Military Science/ROTC

He’s a frat boy through and through. He drops it low on the dance floor and is known to dive onto beer pong tables.

Constantly going to parties and hooking up with sorority girls, that is until he meets a girl named Esme who’d been dragged to the party by her friends.

Suddenly he ain’t no hoe no more, he’s head over boots in love with her and she loves him too.

They be sneaking around in various buildings, often having to make a run for it to escape security.

He’d play her songs after hard training days with his military buds cuz it helps him calm down.

He’s not as violent as his older brothers, but he’ll fuck a person up if needed.

His fraternity is the second most important thing to him besides his girl. He loves the energy of the fraternity, the partying, and acting a whole fool with his friends, but Esme has him whipped.

His studies are struggling though cuz he loves to get turnt. He hates the studying aspect of college.

Always getting his brothers into trouble.

Snorts coke off Esme’s tits on occasion at the frat parties. It’s a wild time.

Has the mouth of a sailor but a heart of gold.

Talks of kids with Esme after dating for a year. Can’t afford a ring yet tho, but their bud Jeremiah marries them anyway on a whim.

After Arthur and the Grace fiasco ensues, he drops out of college because Esme falls pregnant. In the end, she ends up getting the chickens and wild cottage!core house she’d always wanted. They both decide to raise their kids there, living their best lives until Tommy drags them into more family matters later on.

Ada Shelby:

Major: English Minor: Gender & Women’s Studies

Always seen in the most stylish clothes.

She’s quiet most times but can be very knowledgeable on various subjects.

She’s constantly going off on her older brothers and trying to smack some sense into them.

Feels like something is off with the barista Tommy’s been seeing, but it’s not her problem.

Can 100% find her chilling in the back of Starbucks reading old novels or writing literature reviews.

When she’s not there, she’s holed up in the library where she works part time, studying and practicing for debates.

10/10 would fuck in the library cuz she knows all the best secret places to go to. 😏

Organizes meetings with different campus associations and demands equality for students.

Spends her free time surfing the net for clothes or keeping an eye out for a potential new bae.

Is probably the best at studying. She earns the best grades let’s be honest.

Will not hesitate to call a bitch out. She may not throw hands but she’ll throw words that can cut you like a knife.

Works for the campus paper, spilling all the tea on campus life. Her brothers often reluctantly agree to be her mock interview subjects for a range of assignments.

She breaks necks when walking around campus, everyone moves out of their way for her.

She’s a bad bitch.

Finn Shelby:

Major: Photography Minor: English

He hates how violent his brothers are but would 10/10 back them up if needed.

Often asks Ada for advice on studying and girls.

Doesn’t like the frat boy scene like John, but goes to the parties anyways with his best friends Isiah and Bonnie.

He’s a freshman and you can tell. He still has a glimmer of life in his eyes and a pep in his step as he walks around campus.

When he’s not taking pictures for class, he’s taking pictures of his girlfriend.

She’s his muse even when doing the simplest of things like sitting in a chair or reading one of his English books.

Each week he’d surprise her with a picture he took when she wasn’t looking, telling her how beautiful she is.

He may not look strong, but after many nights at the boxing ring with Arthur, he knew how to throw a punch.

He almost flunked his studies a couple times, getting too caught up in partying or being with his girl, but Ada and his Aunt Polly set him straight.

Voted by his family as most likely to not get arrested or suspended from college.

He’d have deep conversations with his friends, often confusing them because it was just that deep.

In his spare time he’d go boxing with Arthur or would try to help Tommy with his essays, but Tommy would get frustrated and tell him to fuck off within the first 10 minutes.

Polly Gray:

Profession: Business Management Professor Side Job: Managing the blinder business with Tommy

When she’s not teaching class, she’s managing the blinder business that was left to her and Tommy to tackle. This also means covering up any suspicions that arise on campus. She has her hands full.

She’s Tommy’s only shred of common sense some days when he gets too stressed out from his 10,000 majors and minors, or wants to plan to overthrow the university.

Will not hesitate to slap someone, preferably her unruly nephews.

Anyone can lie to her but the truth always falls through the cracks, and when she finds out, you’d pray you faced the devil instead.

In her spare time she reads tea leaves and prays for the corrupt souls of her son and his cousins. She really just begs to god that they can come together for once to get the business in line, but even that may be asking too much.

Knows a snake when she sees one. *cough* *cough* Grace the barista.

She’s the first one to tell someone I told ya so, especially her students when they flunk her tests because they decided to get drunk the night before.

When she’s not yelling at her nephews or grading papers, she can be seen at the local bar chatting up coworkers and old flames, hoping to find “the one” eventually. She ends up having a “thing” for the quirky Philosophy professor though. He’s kind of shady cuz she finds out he’s in a similar business on the side, but it only makes her like him more. She craves the danger.

They later end up in a whirlwind romance similar to John and Esme, and everyone loves that for them.

She can also be seen with her head in her hands when trying to persuade Tommy to use technology.

“What is copy and paste Pol? Can’t I just write it down? What’s up with all these gadgets aye?”

“If you want your hand to fall off and to make me lose my mind, then yes, write it down. Grading is bloody hard enough as it is, let alone grading your papers. You’re just like your father ya know, always doing things the hard way.”

Tells Gina off when she gets the chance just like she did Grace. She didn’t shoot her like Linda though, she just hurt some feelings.

May have aided in Grace’s “sudden” departure…maybe…just a little bit.

Secretly ships Tommy with a woman named Lizzie who had been her assistant at her office. She knew she could trust her more, at least.

Despite her harshness, she’s just trying to keep her family from completely fucking up their lives.

Michael Gray:

Major: Accounting Minor: Business Management

Like Tommy, he doesn’t get the hype of fraternities so he just hangs out with his cousins or his small circle of friends, they aren’t saints though.

His mom, Polly is his business management professor. She always calls on him and gives him a hard time when he spaces out in class.

Is often seen around campus with a few friends or his girlfriend Gina who he met in business class. They’re sickening and it was like a whirlwind romance tbh.

He usually finds himself cleaning up his cousin’s messes when it comes to fighting, but if he has to throw some punches he will.

He’s not as impulsive when it comes to matters of business, but where matters of the heart are concerned that’s another story.

When the blinders and Polly were all at her house for dinner one night he announced he was going to marry Gina. Arthur and John laughed and Tommy smirked slightly, still butt-hurt after his Grace left him for little-to-no reason. Ada grinned and bared the news whilst Polly nearly smacked him on the head.

People didn’t dare mess with him, and that went for all his cousins as well.

He spent a majority of his days in class crunching numbers, and most his nights out with the boys getting drunk or fuckin’ with Gina.

Because his mom held him accountable, his grades rivaled Ada’s causing them to get into some friendly competition at times.

He’s cunning like Tommy though. He got into many a screaming match with the older blinder after trying to take over his position in the family business. It ended in some black eyes and Polly smacking both of them with her newspaper. He knew better than to mess with the devil himself.

Despite the tensions between the cousins at times, he’s always the one they go to when they can’t figure out their math homework, and he’d always have to meet one of them in the library at 3 am to smuggle in some cocaine and a drink to keep them studying.

#katies headcanons #thomas shelby #arthur shelby #john shelby #ada shelby #finn shelby #polly gray #michael gray #peaky blinders headcanons #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders #can y’all tell I’m obsessed with the dark academia aesthetic lately?

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digital-corruption · 3 years

Text

My partner has been nosy since I kicked him off tumblr (he was cramping my style and trying to take credit). So the other day he was asking what I was writing, "Are they doing something sexy?"

"No, they're going shopping for their apartment," I beamed.

"Oh God, if she's anything like you, that's going to go on for like 20 chapters!"

"I kept it to 1!!!"

Just so we're all clear.

Haunted by the Past Part 37

The sun had just set when we, in our usual facemasks, walked up to Cleo outside our new flat.

“Hey, so I haven’t told Mrs. Gardner anything about you, but if she does find out, well she and her wife were big hippies in their day. Protesting governments is what they did best. So I know they’ll be sympathetic to your cause,” Cleo smiled. “Honestly, you won’t find more open-minded landlords.”

“Thanks Cleo,” I smiled.

Cleo led us into the small apartment building and up to the third floor. I heard a door open on the bottom floor and looked down to see an older woman looking up at me. She waved and I waved back.

“What did you tell her?” I asked quietly.

“Uh, that my friend is looking for a place in Duskwood? Was I meant to come up with something more elaborate?” Cleo looked at me confused.

I laughed, “No, that’s ok. Lilly’s story was getting out of hand.”

Cleo handed me the keys and I opened the door to our new apartment. It was a small two bedroom, one bathroom flat with a small kitchen and open plan living space. It was such a nice, simple layout.

Normal people would check out the master bedroom first. Jake went to check his would be “office". The apartment was empty though except for basic appliances.

“We need furniture,” I sighed.

Cleo checked her phone, “There’s still time before the discount furniture shop closes. They've got a big sale on at the moment.”

“We can’t exactly go shopping like normal people,” I pointed out.

“Well he can’t, but you could probably get away with wearing a hat and if I go with you, no one will think twice about it,” Cleo offered.

I looked back at Jake for his opinion. He sighed, “We do need furniture if we’re living here for any length of time. It'll still be cheaper than the cabin overall. Just don’t go crazy.”

“I’m just going to get the basic necessities,” I promised.

“I'll drive you and stay in the car,” I now understood that to be Jake code for ‘I’m going to hack into the CCTV and make sure you’re safe. When you’re done, I’m going to wipe the evidence just to be safe.’

“Ok, great! This is going to be fun!” Cleo smiled. “I’ll send you the address and meet you there!” Cleo waved and went for the door.

Jake gave me a concerned look, “Do I need to tell you to be careful? You’re not an average citizen anymore.”

“Hey, this is what we’re aiming for, isn’t it? For me to be able to move around in public as Maeve, to do things you can’t do? I need to practice and Cleo will be with me,” I reassured him.

Cleo was standing by her car when we drove up. Jake parked at the back of the lot and then handed me a wad of cash.

“This is a lot, Jake,” I frowned.

“I want to make sure you have enough and don’t forget, I need a sizable desk,” he smiled.

“Yes, yes, I’ll get you the best money can buy. I'll skip the bed if I have to,” I teased.

“Nuh-uh, your priorities are desk and bed. Nothing else matters,” he frowned.

I laughed, “I might even splurge and get you a chair.”

“Desk, chair, bed,” Jake adjusted his list.

“Hang on, is that the order of priority?” I questioned. He winked at me. “What if I can’t afford the bed?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“You'll just have to sleep on my lap,” he teased. “Cleo’s waiting, you better go.”

I frowned, “I want to kiss you before I go, but that doesn’t work with masks.”

“Why not?” he leant over and pressed his lips against mine through the masks.

I smiled at his attempt, “I’ll be quick.”

“Don’t be too quick that you look suspicious,” Jake warned. “Act natural.”

I nodded, then exited the car. I adjusted my cap then walked over to Cleo.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yes, let’s do this,” I smiled.

Thankfully the store was fairly busy so it was easy to move around without too much notice. I went to the bed section first and found a relatively cheap queen sized wooden frame.

“You need to test the mattress out,” Cleo pointed out.

“That feels weird,” I looked around.

“I think it’s weirder if you don’t,” Cleo laughed.

“Fine,” I laid down on the display mattress and saw a camera looking straight at me. I blushed then winked at it.

“What are you-" Cleo began, but was interrupted by my phone beeping. “Is he watching us?”

“Of course he's watching us,” I said rolling off the bed. I checked my phone and sure enough I got a ‘Hi ;)’.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Cleo looked at me puzzled.

“When you've had your life threatened multiple times, no. It’s reassuring,” I went to another mattress and laid down on it. “You know, I really suck at shopping for mattresses.”

Cleo came over and sat down on the mattress next to me, “This one’s not bad. It’s a spring, but you’re not looking for longevity.”

“True. All right, good enough for me,” I declared. I took photos of the model numbers, then continued onwards to the home office section.

“Really, do you need a desk?” Cleo questioned.

“If I don’t purchase the bestest desk in the world, I’m going to have one very unhappy camper,” I laughed.

“Ugh, what does he even want?” Cleo walked around the display desks.

“I'd say functionality above appearances. Like that one,” I pointed to a simple white desk with a broad surface and an open bottom. There'd be plenty of space for the dozens of monitors he'd accrue.

“It doesn’t have any drawers,” Cleo commented.

“He doesn’t need drawers, he needs easy access to the back,” I took a photo and sent it to Jake.

Jake: That one is good. :)

“Hmm,” Cleo looked at me with a smile.

“What?” I looked back at her confused.

“You know his preferences already. It’s cute,” she laughed.

I blushed, “I just had a considerable amount of time watching him work and seeing him set-up and pack down his workstations. It’s just things I notice.”

“Ok, well he needs a chair, right?” Cleo went and sat down in one of the large pleather ones.

“Well, it just needs to have good support for sitting in for long periods of time,” I explained. “Probably not too bulky, but something with a high back.”

I proceeded to go from chair to chair, but I couldn’t decide. My phone beeped.

Jake: Just get the chair on the far right.

MC: Thank you!

“All right, now can we move onto more serious furniture?” Cleo asked impatiently.

“What? That was the essentials,” I replied.

“No way! You need a dining table for romantic dinners, a couch to snuggle on and somewhere to place your TV for your late night movies,” she smiled.

“I think you have the wrong couple,” I laughed.

“No, don’t kid yourself. Every couple needs those,” she insisted.

I counted up the purchase total in my head so far. “Well, we could probably afford a 4-person dining set and a two seater sofa. But considering I still need to purchase bedding, towels, kitchenware, cutlery, plates ... that’s cutting us a bit slim. Definitely not enough for a TV.”

“Ok, fine, we’ll get you a TV later. You'll have to find some other way of entertaining yourselves on the sofa,” she winked at me. I rolled my eyes.

In the living area, I kind of just went for the cheapest sofa that felt ok to sit in. As far as the dining set, I didn’t even bother trying the chairs out. I just chose the simplest wooden 4-person set.

I went up to the counter with my selections. A man slightly older than us came up to the counter.

“Hi, sorry, are you being helped?” he asked. “It’s been a crazy day.”

“Ah, no, it’s ok. I know what I want,” I replied.

“A woman that knows what she wants! Great to hear,” he winked at me.

Please don’t do that, I thought to myself, I can hear Jake’s thoughts from here.

I gave him the model numbers of the pieces I wanted to order. “And I’d like them to be delivered tomorrow.”

“Ooh, you’re past the order cut-off for delivery for tomorrow,” he sucked his teeth. “I’ll have to speak to my manager and see if we can make an exception for you beautiful ladies.” He smiled then walked off.

Oh God, please don’t let the CCTV pick up sound as well. Can Jake lip read? I hope not.

“Jake better put a ring on you,” Cleo laughed. “You’re wearing a facemask and a cap and you’re still being hit on!”

“I never have been hit on this much in my life!” I insisted.

“Really? Is this happening often?” Cleo looked at me puzzled.

“Yes, every interaction I’ve had with a male since I’ve been with Jake,” I shook my head in despair. “It drives him mad! I don’t get it, I never used to get a second glance before.”

“Ok, Phil doesn’t count, you understand? He will hit on every female between the ages of 18 and 30,” she put a hand on my shoulder.

“I get hit on even when I go inside to pay for fuel at a gas station! The last time it was a truck driver standing behind me in the line. I couldn’t shake him off! When I walked out, Jake was right at the door waiting for me. He was so pissed at him, Cleo,” I explained.

“I didn’t really know you before, but you do seem more confident. People are attracted to confident women,” Cleo smiled.

“Well ladies, you’re in luck, we can squeeze you in for delivery tomorrow afternoon!” the salesperson returned with a giant grin on his face. “I’ll need your name, address and phone number. To confirm delivery of course, but if you want to meet up for drinks, you can write your number down on this other piece of paper.”

“Yeah, I’m sure her boyfriend would love that,” Cleo stepped in for me.

“Oh, damn. Ok give me an honest opinion, too much?” he asked.

“Waaay too much,” Cleo and I laughed.

#duskwood #duskwood jake #duskwood jake x mc #duskwood jake x player #duskwood fanfiction #Haunted by the Past

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secret-time-is-here · 3 years

Text

An Error's Journey

Chapter 30

Previous - First - Next

(I have a lot of easter eggs and random details I threw in this chapter ;] mostly with numbers-)

Slowly his vision returned, and for a moment he struggled to remember anything-then memories of the past and present flooded in. The memories of Death, his songbird, and of Papyrus… also that of before his “data recoverage” researching new buildings to move into for his work, something much better than the pitiful cramped townhouse turned office. Although, it had been all he could afford at the time, so he had to make it work. Yet, with so many new clients, Core was certainly right to come up with the backstory of needing a new office-even now watching over his shoulder.

Slowly, he leaned his tense body up-his jaw sore from awkwardly half laying on the surface of his workspace. The cup of coffee he had been drinking long since cold… just how long had he been out? His phone began to ring-classical music soothing his still waking mind-and he answered:

“Hey, ‘Mare.”

“Finally! Where have you been?! It’s been days!” His skull felt like it was splintering from the volume, even if Nightmare’s concerns were valid.

“Not a good time, Nightmare...” He drawled, groaning as a headache began to set in-and so did his hunger.

“...something happened, did it not?”

“Whatever makes ya say that-” Error rolled his eyelights, cleaning up his workspace and opening up his computer and unlocking it.

“You never use my full name- you also never miss a call and don’t return it.” Nightmare explained with a sigh, seeming to have calmed some. If his computer was right, nearly a week had passed, his inbox was full with mail from clients and reminders to pay rent-and even a few messages.

The first seemed to be from Core, the second from Ink, and surprisingly-the third from Dream. “...Did you have a recovery?”

“Yeah… I’ll… I’ll come home soon, ‘kay?”

“You said that a week ago-”

“Well, I didn’t exactly get to finish that stuff I started a week ago, did I?” Error reminded, shutting down his computer, “ugh… there wasn’t much that happened in my memories, just Frisk being a lil’ shit and finding every way to fuck with me they could.”

“That’s still heavy on your mental health, Ru...”

“I know- I know- ...still not good with all this good health shit.” Error paused, and thinking over things, made his way out of his office and locked the door to his townhouse, talking as he went. “How about this: I’ll come home now and ya can feed an’ spoil me all ya want, but tomorrow I get ta go finish my work for however long I need. Sounds good?”

“Better than nothing… I’ll see you shortly, glitch.”

“Ya too, Octopus.”

-----

The gang had been ecstatic to have him back, Horror cooking as much as he could while Killer and Dust wrapped him up in as many blankets as they could-per Nightmare’s request. Cross was the one to keep him company, talking to him about his new developments with learning code. It felt like ages ago he began teaching the other about code, and already knowing a little made it all the easier. Cross had made leaps in learning it, and because of him, the gang’s hideout had more than just Nightmare’s enchantments to keep them safe.

Nightmare had been the one to keep him in his blanket prison and slowly feed the other, making sure that Error was full and very well physically taken care of again before dragging him off and away from the gang. The dark guardian had forced him into a shower as soon as he could, and then pulled the other to rest and cuddle for the night, stealing away the negativity that seemed to grow with every data recovery.

Nightmare didn’t press for details.

Error didn’t tell him about Reaper.

The morning came, and with their agreement, he left to continue his work-although to his credit, he did stay for breakfast. He didn’t have the soul to say no to Horror, or Cross.

It wasn’t long until he was in the back of his office again, and with a quick change of clothes again-and a few changes to his code-he wandered out of his apartment over to the Star Council building. The building was nearly as old as he is, the bricks painted over many a time to give the appearance of something new. Something that was with the times and that everyone could trust.

Walking in as if he wasn’t the God of Destruction and didn’t have his picture posted on the walls next to Nightmare as a #1 criminal, he made his way over to the desk and asked to speak with Core-thankfully with no difficulty.

“Of course, Mr.Mode, Core has been expecting you.” The secretary had answered, “Core’s office is on the Top Floor, they’re in a meeting right now, so if you can wait in their office that would be great.”

“No problem. Is there a specific room or…?”

“Oh! Apologies, it’s room 1510, there should be a nameplate on it as well.”

“Thanks, have a nice day.” Error parted, heading straight to the top, and surprisingly, a certain someone joined him.

“Oh, hello, Mr.Mode.” Dream’s voice softly greeted as he walked in the elevator, “Are you going to the top too?”

“Hello to you too, and yes, I am.” The doors closed, “Late to Core’s meeting?”

“Oh, no. I did not even know they had a meeting right now, I am heading up to my office to get some more protection around Omega… There have been some people worrying about the safety of Omega.” Dream was decent at lying, but it did help that he knew who exactly those “people” were.

“Safety? Haha, you call Omega safe ?”

“That I do… If not trade a secret, may we have a trade of information? I am sure you were unaware of at least one thing I listed.”

“Hmm, I dunno, I’m pretty sure I knew all of what ya listed. Isn’t it written down in a book ‘bout ya in the back of the forbidden area of the grand Omega Library...? Written by an old professor at the local college?” Dream’s expression paled with shock, “Not so safe, is it?”

“Well it is Omega, it's probably the safest place around! At least from war criminals.” Error shrugged, the elevator began to tick down. “Omega still has crime on the inside like anywhere else, so… maybe try and keep the streets safe and then check up on the barriers?”

“You offer such a different viewpoint… I think I will look into that-oh! Did you get my email?”

“I got it, but haven’t gotten a chance to look at it yet, why not talk about it now? Still a ways to the top.”

“True,” Dream nodded, “My battle outfit had been ripped up in our last dispute… and so has my scarf...” Dream’s hand reached for his bare neck, his scarf gone for once. “I was wondering if you could make a new outfit for me, and mend my scarf? For a fair price of course.”

“A battle outfit…?” He hummed, and the elevator dinged, only a few floors left until the top “I’d need to do some research… and talk to you about the kind of outfit you’d like… but that should be more than possible.” He smiled softly, and Dream returned it.

“Oh, thank you! Please be careful with my scarf-it’s irreplaceable.” The elevator dinged, and the speaker came on, saying top floor, the two walked off, “Here,” Dream pulled out a card, “Let’s trade numbers, and organize a date to talk about this more later since I think you have somewhere to get to.”

“That I do, and I promise to take great care of it when it reaches me.” Error handed off his business card, as did Dream, “See ya later pretty boy!” Error called, walking away. Chuckling as he heard Dream stop in his tracks and pause, before continuing again. Error almost wishes he caught the yellow blush on the other's cheeks.

Honestly, Error had been expecting there to just be Core’s office on the top floor, granted the top floor still was rather small. It seemed as if there were only 4 offices-one for Core and another for each of the Star Sans’, then a few meeting rooms, a staff lounge, and a large patio outside that overlooked Omega City. Making his way down the halls-and barely paying attention to the numbers on the doors, he made it to the end of the hall.

On one side was room 1510, the other was room 1509. The other side seemed to have the meeting room he had heard about, he could feel several souls in there, far too many he knew and still many he didn’t. He could feel the warmth of Hearts’ soul, the power of Blue’s, the familiarity of Cobalts, the protectiveness of Mercy’s, and yet he couldn’t feel others, some seemed to be barely holding onto their souls… another seemed to have misplaced theirs.

He was tempted to open a window and peer into the room, but Core was far too keen, he could practically hear the other chastising him.

He chose the office.

He was thankful that it didn’t take long for Core to meet with him. Core had walked in quietly, shutting the door and snapping their fingers as Error’s false body fizzled away.

“I’d much rather we speak true face to face, God of Destruction.” Core explained, climbing into their chair and situating themself, “Enjoy your time with Death?”

“When I was away from Frisk...” He sneered, “I’m not here ta talk ‘bout memories, Core.”

“Very well then, decided on where to move your shop?”

“Over to Saphhire avenue, across from the Grand Omega Library.” Core’s eyes turned sorrowful for a moment, before lighting up again.

“Wise choice, not only next to our library but the university-and plenty of cafes.”

“Cafes?” Error questioned

“Tick tock, Error.”

“Got it, I’ll find out later.”

“That you will, I’ll get started on the paperwork, and I’ll send you everything you’ll need to sign later.” Core jumped out of their seat and snapped their fingers again, Error’s false appearance coming back, “You may want to head on your way...”

“Thanks, Core… anything I need to know before I leave?”

“No, everything is as it should be right now… I’ll let you know if I need to steer you away from the utter destruction of all of us again.” Core smiled, and Error had to take a moment to remind himself of Core’s oddness.

It was hardly a step out of the door that he got a call from his work phone, or in other words-Lapse’s phone.

“Heya Lapse! I just found this cool coffee place! Wanna come with me to check it out?” Miss an opportunity to mess with Ink? Never.

“Sure, I’m at the council building right now, should we meet up there or-?”

“Haha! Funny chances huh-? I’m in my office right now! Come on down-Room 1504.” And with that, Ink seemingly hung up.

Shaking his skull, Error made his way back through the short hallways and peeked his head into Ink’s office, which unsurprisingly was a mess.

Ink was looking far more casual than normal, scarf actually gone for once and a highly decorated satchel rested across his chest, his vials resting over the bag. The Creator was wearing a baggy tie-dye sweater with a black turtle-neck underneath, green tights adorning his legs, and slip on's for once covering his feet.

“Sorry ‘bout the mess Lapse! But as a fellow artist of sorts-I think you get it.” Ink shrugged, “Just trying to find Broomy Jr.-it’s a little hard to carry Broomy around in Omega...”

Yes, Broomy. Ink’s main weapon of choice. Error has had the misfortune of meeting Broomy and even Broomy Jr. many times. “Oh come on-I know I had something to help me find you!”

“Here, maybe ya won’t lose ‘em next time, fuckin’ idiot...”

Error couldn’t grasp the memory, but it did remind him… he reached out and felt his magic in the room-one source from the Tome he could clearly see the shape of through Ink’s satchel and another source from a decent-sized paintbrush that barely stuck out a pile of mess. Making his way over, he carefully pulled the brush from its confines, a long braided chain of blue string falling from the end cuff, a bracelet woven with small rocks and pebbles was connected to the chain.

“Oh! Broomy Jr.! You found them!”

“...No problem.” Error tried to shake off the memory but he simply couldn’t, the words replaying in his mind.

-----

“Well it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Ccino called to him, “I was about to close up for the day, wanna hang out upstairs?” Error only nodded, “...Error?”

“Multiverse hasn’t been kind...”

“...Extreme Cocoa, got it.” That earned a hearty chuckle from Error, “Go on up there, I’ll join you in a second.”

“Thanks, Ccins,” Error murmured, teleporting to the second floor of Ccino’s place, finding his place between his friend’s plush couch cushions.

He must’ve blacked out again because he was gently tapped awake and carefully handed his mug of cocoa.

“...Come on, let’s get you inside-make some drinking chocolate?”

“Hot chocolate sounds nice...”

“Ru?”

Error’s skull snapped over to Ccino, “The multiverse really has done a number on you to be like this...” Error only nodded, “...when you’re done with that, wanna learn how to make coffee drinks? To take your mind off things?”

“...That’d be nice, thanks, Ccino.”

All characters belong to their respective creators

I still don't know how I busted out chapters 27-30 in a day but here we are.

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girlpornparadise · 3 years

Text

Out and About (pt3)

Pairing: Horacio Carrillo/f!Reader (Narcos)

Word Count: ~2400

Warning: I write smut people.

You can read Part 1: At Your Doorstep and Part 2: Atop the Office. It’ll make a lot more sense that way.

Gif @el-cheung

Having missed breakfast for the second day in a row, you sit at your desk downing cup after cup of tea.

Javier passes your desk and stops. He notices the jacket that usually lives on the back of your chair buttoned up, carefully hiding the barely work appropriate sundress underneath. He smirks. "Fun night?"

He's seen the walk of shame, done the walk of shame many times before. He knows.

You can't help but smile to yourself as you remember Horacio's lips brushing against yours.

Javi catches your wistful movements and decides not to pry further. As he walks away you giggle to yourself.

You look around surreptitiously and reach into your purse. You take out the note, and run your eyes across it once more, a sacred text that feels even more religious each time you see "ángel" written on the page. You may not have wings, but it feels like your heart does, and they're making it soar.

You want to tell everyone, scream it from the rooftops as it were, but you know what you're doing, though not forbidden in writing, is certainly taboo.

You're privy to important information and don't want anyone to think you're influenced by him in any way. He also has a reputation to maintain of being above reproach. No, this will have to remain quiet.

In your haste you hadn't made any concrete plans, but felt brighter about the future. This wasn't a quick fling, you weren't a mere plaything. You were his ángel.

The day would have been painfully slow if you weren't so distracted by infatuation. You gaze dreamily at nothing between writing reports. You hum to yourself as you tap at the letters. You sigh contentedly each time you return to your desk and see the note peeking out of your purse.

Finally, mid afternoon just as you're starting to get a little sleepy, something worth noting happens. Your phone rings and the voice you've been swimming in the recollection of filters through.

"This is Colonel Carrillo calling from Search Bloc. Thank you for bringing by the reports yesterday on such short notice."

"Certainly sir." You reply, emphasizing and raising your eyebrows with the word sir.

"I'll need you to bring the day's reports again. There's some vital information I'm waiting on. Make sure you bring any reports containing the word "ángel" as they are very important to my case."

You smile at his cheekiness. At the embassy all of your calls are recorded so an open conversation is out of the question, but the use of his word, your word makes your heart jump.

"I'll bring those by as soon as they're completed. Is there anything else you need?"

"No, that will be all, thank you."

He hangs up abruptly, not to be rude, but to avoid any suspicion. You would have stayed on the line like a "No, you hang up!" teenager, so it's for the best.

You squeal internally to yourself about having another date night, and start leafing through the take out menus in your desk drawer to decide what "files" would be best tonight.

You decide on a little place that does burgers that you've eaten at too many times alone.

As the clock ticks down the final minutes of the day, somehow impossibly slowly, you start to gather your things, being sure to safely tuck away the note to leave it unblemished. You make sure you have your badge with you for tonight's delivery as well as your keys.

You grab your purse and walk home with an unusual spring in your step. You're glad to get through the door and into your sanctuary. You can finally get out of that dress and you hop in the shower. Though you'd been enjoying the subtle scent of him on you all day, it's a relief to be clean and refreshed.

You put on your next best sundress and a light application of makeup and prepare to pick up the "files" that will no doubt smell of beef and French fries.

You gather your purse and keys and head for the door when there's a knock. You peer through the peephole and instead of a green uniform, you're met by the sight of a cornflower blue button up and a pair of khakis.

You'd expected to have a few more minutes to mentally prepare for your date, but his spontaneity makes you smile. When you open the door, you're grinning at him.

"I thought that maybe sitting at a table full of files instead of a desk full of actual files would be a better way to spend the evening."

He clearly has something in mind, and you see no reason to object. "Lead the way."

The restaurant is further afield than you normally venture, but you know it's to prevent prying eyes from your combined world from seeing you together.

You laugh when you arrive. It's a burger joint, a touch nicer than the one you had in mind. Great minds think alike you suppose.

"What's so funny?" He asks, worried maybe he made the wrong choice in restaurants.

"I've just been craving a good burger all afternoon."

"Then maybe I'm psychic." He laughs.

The meal is exactly what you wanted, and admittedly a better burger than you had planned. The conversation is more animated than previously, maybe because you're out in public at a reasonable time of day. There's still plenty of work talk, but you get to know a little more about him too. Talking about himself, he understandably plays it close to the (tac) vest. He's in a position where knowing too much about him could leave him vulnerable to the lowest of the low. But he wants to open up to you, and gives you a general rundown of his family, his childhood and the hobbies he wished he had time for. You reciprocate in turn and feel like this is blossoming into a relationship and not just a physical force of nature.

That force of nature returns as he reaches across the table to hold your hand and you feel the electricity run through you. You blush ever so slightly as your eyes meet his in a slow, longing sort of way. You notice his chest rise and fall subtly beneath his shirt and can tell he has the same conclusion to the evening in mind as you do.

He pays the entire bill despite your gentle protest and you thank him for the meal. You walk back to his Jeep and pick your way back to his place. He can't help but smile to himself as you hum along to the radio despite clearly not knowing the song very well.

From the outside, his home is modest and neatly maintained and you wonder how he finds the time. You picture him mowing the lawn, though he probably hires someone else to do it. The thought makes you smile nonetheless.

As he ushers you in, a little quickly to avoid prying neighbours, you take in the interior. It's beige like his pants and sparsely furnished and decorated. Typical of a busy military man you suppose. He offers you a seat on the couch and disappears into the kitchen. He returns with a whiskey tumbler full of presumably whiskey, and a second one with what you find out to be vodka soda after a sip.

"Cheers."

You clink glasses.

The alcohol slowly disappears as the natural light outside dims and the streetlights come on. The conversation has slowed and a peaceful quiet descends on the home.

"Can I get you another?" He's practically whispering at this point.

"No, I'm fine thanks." You say, your eyes lidded from the alcohol and the general mood.

He rests his hand on your knee and leans in closer.

Your breathing quickens in anticipation of his next move.

He subtly moistens his lips and leans in even closer. He kisses you softly on the cheek, lingering against you for a long moment. You raise your hand to rest on his opposite shoulder. When he pulls back, he gazes deep into your eyes, searching them for emotion. In them he sees desire. Not desperate and firey, but needing him to return the comfort and compassion you afforded him that first night together. In his eyes you see his desire as well, a desire to please, a desire to mirror you so that you can act as one.

He keeps his movements slow, deliberate but not teasing. He moves his hand from your knee to brush at your blushing cheek and can feel the heat radiating off of you. It is you who leans in next and plants a kiss on his slightly open lips. Your tongues find each other and intertwine, dancing to a slow rhythm as your breathing slows to match his. As the song you both feel but neither can hear ends, he pulls back from you. Your hands migrate to his collar and trace it down to the top button of his shirt. You unbutton it carefully working your way down his torso over his abdomen, to untuck it from his pants. While you work to remove his shirt, his hands sneak up past the hem of your dress to caress your outer thighs. Your hands drag up his undershirt over every inch of muscular stomach and chest back to his shoulders where your hands sneak beneath the opening of his shirt. You coax it off of his shoulders and his arms fall to his sides, allowing you to rub down his biceps and to remove the shirt entirely. It is discarded on the floor as an encumbrance to your intimacy.

He hands return to seeking your softest skin beneath your dress, and your breathing trembles as he passes over the sensitive skin that craves his touch.

He works his way upward, over the panties covering your hips, and along the sides of your waist. As he reaches your bra covered ribs, you raise your arms to accommodate him pulling the dress over your head.

You reciprocate by running your hands under the hem of his undershirt, again taking your time to let your fingers map each muscle as you raise it to his chest and as he raises his arms, over his head. It joins his shirt on the floor.

He regards you, taking in your curves, the soft flush of your skin from the alcohol and the desire. You take in his firm body, your eyes dragging along each hard edge that defines his physique.

Your eyes return to each other's and all you can hear are your breaths mingling in the heavy air.

"Hermosa" he whispers.

As your lips open and shut as you try to find a response, he silences your uncertainty with another kiss. While your lips press firmly to their counterparts, he releases your bra. You let him remove it and throw it on the growing heap of clothing on the floor.

His hand cups your breast and he swipes his thumb across your nipple, it hardens at his touch and you gasp. He massages your breast while leaning into you, over you, using his mass to coax you downwards until you're laying back on the couch lengthwise.

While you watch him stand and remove his belt, pants and boxers, you pull down your panties and toss them aside. You are both now fully nude and your combined lust mounts as he all but dives on top of you.

You spread your legs to allow him access to your center and he positions himself to align with your body. Leaning on his elbows, he holds your face so he captures your full attention. His thumbs smooth the hair back over your temples as he watches you. You scrunch your eyes together as he enters your body and you whimper as his length slowly fills you.

You grasp at his back and your knees bend upwards to grip at his sides, while he rhythmically draws in and out of you. You rock your hips to his pace and he studies your ever changing expression. Little gasps and whimpers escape you as he presses into your pleasure, and you hear his breath crack softly as he feels your walls tremble around him.

As your breathing quickens and you gasp for air, he increases his pace. He kisses your face lightly.

"Oh god." You say in a voice you don't control.

He takes that as his cue to press into you harder, each thrust more deliberate than the last. Your legs begin to tremble and he can see your face begin to tense and slacken in ecstasy.

"Oh god." Your exclamation louder this time.

For an instant, your whole body tenses and you cry out as waves of pleasure radiate from your core. Every part of you then relaxes for an instant while the thrusts continue.

You can tell he's close, and you bear down to aid his release. His cry is broken as his few final thrusts press at your center. He spills his cum into you and you smile, knowing you caused such a pleasurable act.

He collapses on top of you and his weight grounds you to the reality of him. That despite the floating, swimming sensation you are feeling, you are in his home and he is at home within you.

A few moments pass and he pulls away, leaving you dripping with his cum. For a second he admires his work, and silently excuses himself to get something to clean up with.

The warm washcloth beneath his strong, gentle hands is almost more intimate than what just occurred, showing a regard for your comfort and wellbeing. He takes you by the hands and lifts you off the couch, and pulls you into a deep satisfying kiss.

"Come to bed ángel." He says leading you up the stairs to his room.

You collapse into his bed and he comes back from his bathroom with a glass of water. You sip it gladly, and placing it on the nightstand lay your head against the pillow. He tucks in next to you and smooths a stray hair away from your forehead, which he then kisses.

You both lay back and let the quiet night lull you to sleep.

#horacio carrillo #horacio carrillo x reader #horacio carrillo x you #colonel carrillo #smut #fic #softie

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karlnapity · 3 years

Text

God Bless This Perfect Shitstorm:

Chapter 1: It’s not a problem if I never get caught.

(tws: alcoholism/addiction, serious self-deprecation)

Schlatt hadn’t realized how fucking boring being sober was.

And hell, it’s not like he can even call it sober yet. It hasn’t even been twelve hours, and damn, he can still feel the alcohol in his veins, the last few drops making their way painstakingly out of his system.

It had been a bit of a snap decision, a promise to Quackity when he’d been the furthest thing from even trying to be sober, but damn, Quackity had decided to hold him to it.

He’d practically busted down the door, waking Schlatt from what might be the last good sleep he gets for a while, if the jittery feeling is anything to go by, and had told him, “This is the day.”

Fuck, man, he hadn’t even remembered making the promise.

But it’s boring. The only thing getting him up in the morning is a sip, or a shot if he’s feeling like making particularly bad decisions. Depending on the strength of the liquor, that can get him through the first hour or two, or at least until the end of the first meeting. Then lunch, plenty more booze, and if he’s lucky he’s completely wasted by afternoon. Fucking obviously he can’t pass out until at least the end of the day, but sure, no harm in being a bit out of it for the last few hours. The cabinet can handle whatever the fuck.

Not much time for being bored in the middle of that, but what the hell is he supposed to do now?

Quackity’s dragging him to Niki's bakery. he’d been horrified to hear Schlatt didn’t eat breakfast, though Schlatt doesn’t really get the big deal of it all.

His head’s pounding already, a hangover that would usually be remedied by now. He’d forgotten how stupidly fucking painful they were.

(It could be solved real easily.)

Quackity’s chattering about something or other, so thrilled about the coming day, but Schlatt’s not fooled, doesn’t miss the way Quackity’s so obviously trying to distract him from the way he’s already gritting his teeth.

Niki’s surprised to see them, but she’s courteous enough as Quackity oohs and aahs even as he comes here every fucking day.

Schlatt lets him pick. His stomach’s already roiling anyways, rebelling against the lack of liquor and at the smells of baking bread. He feels sick.

He doesn’t say anything. It’s a bit of a bitch move to feel so shit already, and as much as he thinks this is a stupid fucking idea, he’s not gonna ruin Quackity’s fun.

They leave, Quackity calling a goodbye over his shoulder and Schlatt trying to resist the urge to throw up in the flowers, and make their way to the White House.

(He wouldn’t feel this sick if he just had a little. Just a little.)

They’re early, hours earlier than Schlatt usually arrives, and they’re the first. Quackity grins and invites him to sit on one of the chairs. He wonders whether he can sneak away, and inwardly chides himself on it. No pussy shit today, no hiding away and taking a shot or two, even as his heart soars at the mere fucking thought.

He sits.

“How’re you feeling so far?” Quackity asks, taking a bite of his pastry, and Schlatt cringes at the genuine concern on his face. “Not looking too good.”

Schlatt waves his hand. “I’ll be fine. Just gotta soldier through.”

Quackity’s face pinches. “Tell me the truth, ok? I know you’re all about this cold turkey thing, but let me know how you’re feeling. We gotta make sure nothing serious happens.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” He resists the urge to snap at him, and instead grabs a pastry and takes a firm bite.

At this point he’s usually tipsy at the very least. He’s a lot worse at conversation than he thought, and Quackity doesn’t seem quite sure what to think either. He can’t quite sit still, bouncing his leg idly and pulling at the tie around his neck.

(This would be a lot fucking easier if he was drunk.)

The others start to pile in soon enough. Fundy’s first, obviously trying to hide his surprise that Schlatt’s in the common area and not already holed away in his office already.

(There’s a cabinet in his office calling his name.)

Tubbo’s next, taking a pastry with a grin and sitting beside them. He makes easy conversation with Quackity, and Schlatt tips his head back on the couch and lets himself relax for a minute.

It doesn’t last long, the pounding and the jitters and the fact he still can’t stay still wreaking havoc on his body. He feels like he can’t quite think straight, things not right, not the way they’re supposed to be.

“Schlatt?” that’s Quackity. He sits up and the whole room spins, and goddamn does he feel like throwing up. He steadies himself, and his eyes focus on the man in front of him.

Quackity raises his eyebrows. “you ok?”

Tubbo is staring at him with wide eyes. He wants to yell at him to take a fucking picture. He doesn’t. He really wants to.

He shakes his head. “Yeah, fine. What, am I not allowed to relax?”

He wants to tell Quackity he’ll get a wrinkle between his eyebrows if he doesn’t stop frowning. Is he still fucking drunk?

Tubbo leaves not soon after. He has no fucking clue what the two of them were talking about.

(If he was drunk he wouldn’t care.)

“Alright, big guy,” Quackity says, the nickname he usually only uses when Schlatt’s so out of it he can’t even move. “What’s for today?”

He has the sudden, distinct urge that he wants to cry, which is odd, because he can’t remember when that last was. He hates this.

He puts his head in his hands, and the couch dips as Quackity sits next to him, rests a hand on his shoulder. He wants to pull away, he doesn’t like to be touched, but he’s so fucking exhausted he doesn’t.

He’s not quite bored anymore.

“Want to go to your office?” Quackity asks quietly, and it’s probably because he wants him out of the public eye, because Schlatt prizes his privacy and Quackity knows that.

But he can see it. he can see it, because he has a real nice bourbon in there and wine he doesn’t drink because it doesn’t get him there fast enough and vodka he’s been meaning to finish and some whiskey he bought just because it was fucking expensive even if it tastes like shit, and he wants it so fucking badly, he doesn’t care what it is, he just wants to stop feeling this way and his entire body fucking craves it and he feels like he’s dying.

His hands are shaking so badly, and he’s pretty sure Quackity’s calling his name but he can’t focus on anything except how badly he just wants it all.

He doesn’t want to be sober anymore, he really, really doesn’t. This was a stupid idea, and Quackity’s a fucking asshole to even suggest it, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it, and he can’t, so what’s even the fucking point.

"Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, let’s do the office.”

Quackity, or someone, removed the stock he had on display, and even in the main cabinet, but they didn’t check everywhere.

Addicts are fucking smart, and they should’ve known to look elsewhere. It’s something he learned back when he was still doing the pill shit, but he’s kept it with him.

His hands are shaking so badly it’s hard to pick up much of anything, and he’s reached the fucking disgusting sweating part of it. He’s only reached this stage a few times before, when he was so fucking poor he couldn’t even afford cheap vodka, and it brings up a few memories he really, really doesn’t want to remember.

But he’s got a small bottle of whiskey hidden behind a few books, and it has never, ever looked so appealing, even if it’s the cheap shit.

It’s gone in only a few minutes.

Quackity’s gonna be fucking pissed, they all are, but he genuinely could not give a shit. They shouldn’t have left him alone if they didn’t want this.

It’s their fault.

Quackity’s more than pissed. Schlatt had just barely gotten to sleep again, head down on his desk like most nights these days, and he wakes up to the sound of glass shattering.

“Are you fucking serious?” Quackity’s yelling, and he’s pretty sure he can hear the sound of Tubbo trying to placate him, but he’s not sure.

The whiskey wasn’t enough. What time is it? He’s usually passing out at this point. His head hurts.

“Oh, good, he’s awake,” Quackity exclaims, storming into the room. “Finally awake, asshole? What the fuck? I thought you were on board.”

Schlatt resists the urge to put his head back on the desk. “Can you keep your voice down?”

Quackity’s face contorts in a grimace. “I don’t know why I even fucking try. You’re impossible.”

“There’s no point.” Schlatt waves a hand, spinning a bit in his chair. “There was no fucking way it was gonna work. You just gotta accept the facts.”

Tubbo frowns. “You hardly tried, though.”

“I fucking tried,” He sneers, putting a hand on the desk, hard. “You realize how much I fucking drink in a day? That bottle you just threw out? That’s fucking breakfast. Don’t tell me I wasn’t trying. You don’t know how it works, you don’t know how hard it is, how much it hurts.”

For the second time that day, he feels tears prick his eyes, and this time he can’t stop it.

He was always an angry crier.

Quackity crumples like a doll into one of the chairs, puts his head in his hands in a similar fashion to Schlatt, earlier.

“I’m sorry,” he says into his hands. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I get it. Maybe not with alcohol, but you know how I used to be. I know how it is for people not to be understanding, and I’m sorry I put you in that situation.

I’m genuinely trying to help, Schlatt. I care about you. I know how long you’ve been dealing with this, and I want to do what I can. But you have to talk to me. If you’d told me there was shit in here, I could've taken it out. If you need to reduce in increments, that’s fine, I can help you moderate as best I can. but you’ve got to help me help you.”

Tubbo nods. “Me too. Just tell us what you need, ok?”

Schlatt’s lip quivers. He’s never been good with this.

(And he’s too sober for this. He can’t laugh it off.)

“Tomorrow,” he says. “We try again then.”

They grin.

#personal #mcyt #jschlatt #quackity #tubbo #dream smp #dsmp #fundy #l'manberg #l'manburg #l'manhole #lmanburg #lmanberg #schlatt #manburg

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floral-and-fine · 4 years

Text

Heaven Bent part 2

Daryl Dixon x female reader

Part 1

Summary: The reader finds Sophia lost in the woods, too bad neither of them have any sense of direction.

A/n: Thanks for the support on part 1! Daryl is probably the hardest character I've ever written for. I've got a lot of ideas for this fic, just hoping I stay motivated. Thanks @ewokiee for all the help especially when I’m stuck!

You groaned, rolling over to your side and snuggling further into the covers. This had to be the softest bed in the world, with fluffy plush pillows stuffed with down feathers under your head and a thick warm blanket draped over your body. You wanted nothing more than to stay here and never leave. God, this was a million times better than cold nights sleeping on the ground, this bed was heaven, absolute heaven.

However, how you got here though was still a bit foggy, the last thing you could remember was an angel with a horse coming to save you and Sophia. Maybe this truly was heaven you thought to yourself. Either way, you were better off here than you were in that forest.

You peeked an eye open as you heard the door creak. An old man with white hair stepped into the room. There was an air of wisdom and sensibility about him.

“God?” You whispered, sitting up slightly.

The man gave you a skeptical look. “You must still be delirious,” he mused. “I’m Hershel, and this is my home.”

You nodded, taking a better look around. The room was decorated nicely, a typical farmhouse interior with white trim around the doorframe and windows. Definitely a nice place though.

He walked over to the side of the bed and looked you over. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” you answered, stretching your arms above your head.

“Good,” Hershel muttered. “When you first got here you weren’t making a lick of sense. You and that girl were in those woods for at least a week.”

“How is she?”

“She’s going to be alright. She just needs to rest,” he explained. “Most people had given up hope on finding her, my guess is she would’ve died without your help.”

You nodded, satisfied knowing Sophia was going to be okay.“That reminds me,” you started. “Where’d my angel go?”

Hershel quirked an eyebrow. “Angel?” He repeated.

“Yeah, I was saved by an angel,” you explained, trying to remember what he looked like exactly. You recalled his wings and halo, and that he didn't quite act like an angel should.

Hershel stifled a laugh, “That man is a lot of things, but I doubt he’s any kind of angel.”

“I know, but he’s an angel to me,” You looked down fiddling with the blanket on your lap, “I’d like to thank him now that I’m thinking more clearly… I can’t remember if I did when he found us.”

Hershel nodded, “If I see him, I’ll send him this way. Trish will be bringing up something for you to eat and some clean clothes.”

“Thank you,” you smiled, your eyes meeting his before he left the room.

…

In long strides, Daryl headed towards the RV, wanting to check in real quick on Sophia and Carol.

The look on everyone’s face when he returned with her and a stranger ranged from genuine surprise to shock.

Carol ran as fast as she could, meeting him at the edge of the woods. Immediately she crumbled to her knees, crying, as Daryl placed Sophie in her arms, muttering thank you over and over again.

Other than Daryl, it seemed like no one else believed that Sophia was still alive out there, and most of them had given up on finding her too.

Daryl thought back to you, back to the way you smiled at him while you were delirious, it was an image he couldn’t get out of his head. He couldn’t remember a time anyone else ever looked at him like that.

Just as the RV was in sight, Daryl could overhear voices coming from the woods nearby. Carefully, he wandered over, curious as to who was being so secretive.

Even with their voices hushed, it didn’t take Daryl long to identify who was talking. He frowned to himself listening closer, it was Rick and Shane, and from the sound of it, they were fighting over something.

“So what? We’re supposed to take in every stray we meet?” Shane argued.

“She helped one of our own,” Rick reasoned, stepping forward. “Sophia is alive because of her. We owe it to this woman.”

“We aren’t living in that kind of world anymore,” Shane insisted, gritting his teeth.

“Take a look around you,” Rick hissed. “We’re here right now because of the decency of others, we aren’t those kinds of people, we aren’t animals, we aren’t just gonna abandon her.”

Daryl huffed as Shane tried to pull that same bullshit like he did over the search for Sophia. All that survival of the fittest crap. If that really were the case, their group would only consist of him, Rick, and Shane.

“Daryl should’ve left her in those woods,” Shane spat. “We can’t afford to have another mouth to worry about.”

Daryl clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles turning white. Shane was really starting to show his true colors, a part of Daryl was beginning to think the group would be better off without that asshole.

Rick shook his head, he couldn’t believe Shane would even suggest telling that woman she had to go, to send her back out there on her own. And now this? Did he really think so little about the lives of others?

“I don’t know what your problem is, but all that shit about numbers or math or whatever ain’t right, she’s a person, a good person… She stays. End of story.”

Rick stared Shane down, making his point crystal clear. He knew the rest of the group would agree with him if it came to the point of getting the others involved. Rick had no idea what was going on inside Shane’s head, but it was sending him red flags.

Finally, Shane scoffed and stomped away, obviously still pissed off.

Sighing, Rick ran a hand over his face, he was going to need to keep a closer eye on Shane. This wasn’t the first time he’s made Rick worry. Shane was acting unpredictably lately, and some of his behavior was off the rails, there was no telling what he might do next.

Daryl started walking back the way he came, for a hot second there it seemed like things might have gotten ugly, in which he would’ve stepped in and backed Rick up.

…

You took another big bite of the apple Trish had brought up, moaning as you savored the taste, it felt like ages since you had fresh produce.

“You can take a shower in there,” Trish explained gesturing to the attached bathroom. She sat some clean clothes on the dresser for you. “Tried to find you some things in your size, hope they fit alright.”

Your eyes widened as you processed what she just said… you could take a shower? You almost wanted to celebrate over the news. Honestly, ever since waking up it felt like you had won some kind of lottery or a free vacation. You thanked her as she left the room.

The moment she was gone, you scurried out of the bed, stripping out of the dingy clothing you had been wearing for the last week. You could only imagine how terrible you smelled, surprised anyone welcomed you into such a nice home.

Turning on the faucet to the tub, you practically squealed when the water started heating up. Carefully, you removed your jewelry, setting it all down on the sink.

You couldn’t even describe the sound you made as you stepped in under the showerhead. It was a strange mix between a sigh, a laugh, and a moan.

A week’s worth of grime and dirt rinsed off your body and down the drain. You scrubbed every inch of yourself, wanting to make sure you took full advantage of this chance. Who knows if you’d be fortunate enough to meet anyone else with a working shower on your travels.

For a few extra minutes, you just stood under the running water, enjoying every second of warm water before finally getting out of the shower.

…

“Ah, there you are,” Hershel said as Daryl approached the house. The old man was sitting in a chair on the porch, keeping an eye on Rick’s group. “Our new guest was asking for you.”

Daryl narrowed his eyes, unsure what you’d want from him.

"She seems to think she and that little girl have a guardian angel looking out for them," Hershel chuckled.

Daryl scowled. "Don't know what you're talkin' 'bout," he grumbled, climbing up the steps of the porch.

Being inside the farm house made Daryl feel uncomfortable like he was too dirty or something. All his life he couldn’t remember being welcomed into a house this nice looking.

Careful not to touch anything, he started going up the stairs. He didn’t even dare to touch the white banister, worried that he was tracking in dirt on his boots.

He knocked on the door and stuffed his hands back into pockets.

“Come in,” you called, still drying your hair. You were grinning like an idiot when Daryl stepped in. “There’s my angel!” You announced.

"Will you knock it off with all that angel crap?" Daryl demanded trying his best to be intimidating and tough.

You giggled, setting the towel down, and approached him. Your eyes and smile were the same, the exact same as they had been the first time you had mistaken him for an angel. He’d never admit it out loud, but he liked it, the way that you saw him.

“Why? As far as I’m concerned you’re heaven sent. Without you, me and Sophia would’ve died out there.”

Daryl turned his head away, rubbing the back of his neck, he’d be damned if he allowed you to catch him blushing.

“Anyways, I asked for you, cause I wanted to say thank you,” you explained, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder, right before giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks,” you murmured.

Daryl scoffed, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. “It was nothin’.”

You shook your head, “it wasn’t nothing.”

His piercing eyes met yours and your heart practically stopped. Just as you were about to lean forward again, Daryl cleared his throat, “you oughta put on a shirt, before going out there.”

You laughed, grabbing the white tee off the dresser, you were too distracted by Daryl to realize you were only wearing pants and a bra.

He rolled his eyes and left the room closing the door behind him. As you were pulling the shirt over your head you could hear him slowly descending the stairs muttering something to himself.

…

“You mean it?” You asked Rick flabbergasted, worried you didn’t hear him right. “Are you really saying I can stay with you all?”

“I am,” Rick nodded. “As far as I’m concerned you're one of us.”

With an excited shriek, you slung your arms around his neck in a quick hug. “Thank you!”

Rick laughed and patted your back.

You were ecstatic, when he asked to speak with alone and had pulled you to the side away from everyone, you assumed he was going to tell you that you had to go. But instead you received the best news imaginable for your situation.

As you pulled away from Rick, you felt someone watching you, it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand.

Looking around you saw a man with a buzzed haircut who was stalking off, he hadn’t spoken a word to you or bothered to introduce himself, but you heard the others refer to him as Shane. His body language was very aggressive, he was definitely pissed about something.

Once he was out of sight, you rubbed your arms up and down getting rid of the goosebumps that had appeared and made a mental note to avoid that man as much as possible. Whoever he was, he was giving off some serious bad vibes and nothing good was going to come of it.

“Did he tell you!?” An excited voice screeched, snapping you out of your stupor. Two thin arms wrapped around your middle, hugging you tightly.

You laughed, “he did!”

“So that means you’re staying with us, right?” Sophia asked, practically squeezing the life out of you.

“Yep.”

Looking up from Sophia, you saw her mother standing nearby, a soft smile on her face as she watched the two of you.

You gave her a small wave, before returning Sophia’s hug.

…

You settled into a routine with the group rather quickly, helping out with whatever you could from laundry to going on runs with Glenn. They were all friendly people for the most part with the exception of Shane.

Anytime the man was around, it put you on edge even with the others around. It seemed pretty apparent that he didn’t like you much, he’d seem perfectly fine until he noticed that you were nearby. All you could hope for was that he wouldn’t try to persuade Rick to force you to leave.

You were humming a random song to yourself while hanging laundry on the clothesline. It was a good day for it, plenty of sunshine and even a nice breeze, these clothes would dry in no time.

Reaching down into the wicker basket, you pulled out a white t-shirt, as you were pinning it to the line someone grabbed your forearm.

You gasped, where the hell did Shane come from?

“Shane,” you stuttered, wrenching your arm out of his grasp. “You scared me.”

He looked down at you, his eyes full of hatred towards you. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

You furrowed your brow, “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb,” He snapped, shaking his head. “Not everyone is capable of surviving this… you’re weak…”

You shrunk back, worried that whatever you did or tried next would only set him off.

He took another step forward, “I’ll be damned if I let you risk it for the rest of us.”

Daryl's eyes narrowed as he came out of the woods. His grip on his crossbow tightening. Your body language alone was enough for him to notice that you were uncomfortable.

“Hey!” Daryl shouted. “Thought you wanted me to teach you how to skin an animal.” He held up the rabbits he just caught.

You blinked in surprise, looking at Daryl, his expression was practically murderous as he stared at Shane, who immediately backed off, taking a few steps away from you.

“Well I ain’t got all day,” Daryl complained, gesturing for you to come with him.

Finally, it dawned on you what he was doing.

“R-Right,” you squeaked, quickly shuffling away and over to Daryl. You kept your head down, still feeling Shane’s eyes on you.

“C’mon,” Daryl said, gently placing a hand on your upper back and guiding you back towards the RV.

“Thanks, Angel,” you murmured, once you believed you were far away enough that Shane couldn’t hear you.

“Don’t mention it,” he muttered, turning around and giving Shane a dirty look. The next time that asshole decides to corner you like that, Daryl was going to beat the shit out of him.

Tags: @xaestheticalien @twdeadfanfic @amaroho

#daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon imagine #daryl x you #twd fanfic #twd #twd fanfiction #the walking dead fanfic

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ceealaina · 3 years

Text

Title: Who Do You Want Me to Be? Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card: TSB - 4008 IHB - 2007 Link: AO3 Square Filled: TSB A1 - Tony Stark/James Rhodes IHB G3 - Guilt Ship: IronHusbands Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Friends to Lovers, Pining, Pre-Iron Man 1 Summary: It's the early 90s and Rhodey's just returned stateside with a shiny new promotion. So of course Tony turns up like a one-man USO troupe to help him celebrate. And all of a sudden Rhodey's seeing Tony in a whole new light. Word Count: 7908

Rhodey sighed and rolled his neck, trying to stave off the headache he could feel building in his skull as he listened to the hold music. After he’d come back from Kuwait there had been medals, and ceremonies, and promotions, and now he was halfway through his extended leave. He’d been excited about having three straight weeks off when they’d first offered it to him, but his family had only been able to get time off for about a week, leaving him to entertain himself for the rest of the time. Some of his Air Force buddies were here too, and the hotel they’d been put up in was really nice, and he wasn’t… not having fun, exactly. But he’d been feeling antsy and unsettled and maybe a little lonely -- especially when all his friends had brought their girlfriends along to stay.

The hold music clicked off then and a moment later there was a soft, feminine voice on the line. “Stark Industries, Tony Stark’s office. How may I direct your call?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes a little -- not at her, just at the idea of his dumbass former roommate having a personal assistant. “I’m calling for Tony, please.” (Obviously, he resisted the urge to add. Why else would he be calling Tony Stark’s office.)

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid Mr. Stane has asked that all Mr. Stark’s calls be held today. May I take a message?”

“Oh, uh…” Rhodey fought back a sigh. “It’s Captain Rhodes, calling for Tony please.”

“Oh, of course!” she said, her tone changing. “I’ll put you right through. And if I may, congratulations on your promotion, Captain.”

“Thanks,” Rhodey told her genuinely, grinning despite himself as he imagined Tony going around telling everybody in the office, down to his damn secretary. The hold music came back on but it was just a few seconds before it clicked off again.

“Hey handsome,” Tony’s voice drawled down the line. “How’s your leave going? Partying it up? Knock anyone up yet??”

“Jesus,” Rhodey muttered, laughing a little as he flopped back on his bed and scrubbed a hand over his hair. “You never stop, do you?”

“Don’t lie, you love it.”

Maybe it was Rhodey’s imagination, or maybe he was projecting, but he thought Tony sounded tired.

“Yeah, I do,” he agreed, unable to keep back a little sigh at the admission.

“Hey, you alright?” Tony’s tone was teasing. “You’re sounding awfully maudlin for somehow who just got about a metric shit ton of commendations from the Air Force.”

Rhodey huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m good,” he promised, scratching at his chin; he’d skipped shaving the last few days. And then, because he’d had just enough beer with dinner to keep him honest, “It feels weird celebrating without you here, man.”

“Hey, you know I’d be there if I could, right?” Tony sounded agonized, and Rhodey felt his stomach sour with guilt. Tony’s parents had barely died a year ago, and he had a ton on his plate. Rhodey should have been checking in on him more, not making him feel guilty for not dropping everything to fly across the country and keep Rhodey company. “I’m really sorry.” Tony gave a little laugh but it sounded forced and even more exhausted than before. “I’d much, much rather be there, believe me. This is… Well it’s just that there are these deadlines looming, and Obie’s been really pushing me to come up with the next great thing, and since my parents--,” He choked on the word, cleared his throat, tried again. “Since dad died the board’s been on my ass, and everyone’s got ideas about what I should be doing and saying and how I should be behaving. I just couldn’t get away.”

“Hey, no, come on.” Rhodey shook his head, even though Tony couldn’t see him. The other man still sounded pained, like he was letting Rhodey down and it killed him, and Rhodey was gonna shut that idea down fast. “It’s totally fine, Tones, I promise. I miss you, but I can still survive without you, you twerp.”

Tony snorted. “You sure about that?”

“I’ll get by. And hey, when things settle down I’m sure I can get a couple days off. We’ll live it up like it’s 1985.”

“So… Cheap beer and terrible videos?”

“You know it baby.”

“Yeah, alright.” Tony hummed. “I miss that,” he admitted quietly. “No stakes. And I miss you too, Honeybear.”

“Obviously,” Rhodey told him. “I’m a goddamn gift, Stark.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony told him. And then his voice shifted, obviously talking to someone. “Yeah, I know. No, I didn’t forget Obie, I just had something come up. I’ll be right there, I promise… Just let me finish this call.”

There was a long moment of silence, long enough that Rhodey wondered if Obie hadn’t let it go, if Tony had had to hang up on him.

“Sorry,” Tony finally said, just as Rhodey was wondering if he should hang up too. He sounded completely deflated, all traces of good mood evaporated. “Board meeting. Guess I better go.”

“Man, I thought CEO meant you’d have more freedom,” Rhodey teased, trying to make Tony a little brighter. But there was no trace of humour in Tony’s voice when he replied.

“Yeah. Me too.” There was a shuffling of papers. “Shit, okay, I really better go. Obie’s gonna be pissed if he has to come back to get me again. Have, like, an entire bottle of champagne for me, yeah?”

Rhodey smiled despite himself. “Sure, Tones,” he agreed. “Don’t work too hard.”

The line was dead before he finished the words.

***

Despite everything, Rhodey woke up feeling better the next morning; talking to Tony always seemed to have that effect, even if he was a chaotic disaster child. He was still lonely -- especially after watching Mikey literally feeding his girlfriend waffles at brunch the next morning -- but it felt more tolerable after that.

And then, just as a group of them were making plans to do something for the afternoon, he heard a low whistle from behind him. “Hey sailors,” an extremely familiar voice drawled. “Enjoying your leave?”

Rhodey whipped around so fast it was a miracle he didn’t injure himself, watching as Tony sauntered into the room, wearing his sunglasses inside like a complete asshole. “I know you know it's the Air Force, you absolute jackass,” he told him, grinning wide.

Tony just shrugged, his smile just as bright, and Rhodey got up to give him a huge hug -- no delicate ‘bro’ hugs for them. He could feel Tony sink into it the way he always did when he got a proper hug and Rhodey squeezed him a little tighter, letting go just before it got weird.

“What are you doing here, man? I thought you were in LA.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Dude, I’ve got like a fleet of private jets. What’s the point of being CEO if I don’t get to fly them at my whim.”

Rhodey just gave him a pointed look and Tony shrugged again.

“I don’t know, you sounded bummed on the phone, and I don’t trust the US of Army to be showing you boys a proper good time, so I snuck out.”

“Again, it’s Air Force, and you know that.” Rhodey was still grinning. “It’s good to see you, Tones.” He cleared his throat then, realizing he’d been staring at Tony, and steered him towards his friends. “Come on, come meet everyone.”

Tony, of course, immediately charmed everyone, making the rounds and introducing himself and laughing like they were all old friends before pulling up a chair at the table and stealing the rest of Rhodey’s waffles like he couldn’t afford his own. It felt nice, right, the way things were supposed to be. He was maybe a little worried about the sudden decision to just take off, but it wasn’t like Tony’s relationship to spontaneity was a new one. It was probably his version of sticking it to the man, or just his best friend being his normal over-the-top self when it came to showing his affection for their friendship.

Or maybe, Rhodey reconsidered when he saw the activities Tony had booked for them, he was working out his 'I'm-as-good-as-Captain-America-right-Dad?' issues.

“Jesus man,” he said, laughing as he read over a copy of itinerary that Tony’d had his secretary print out and fucking laminate for everyone. “You’ve got helicopter tours of the city on here. What are you, the one-man USO girl troupe?”

Tony just looked over from where he’d been writing down the contact info for some exclusive wedding venue for Matt’s fiancée. “That’s for later, baby,” he purred with a ridiculous, lascivious wink that had Rhodey busting out laughing. The whole thing was insane and over-the-top and ninety million percent Tony, and everyone seemed onboard so Rhodey figured, why not?

And the day was a blast. Overdone it might have been, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a great time. Tony had won everyone over in about five seconds flat, and the more ridiculous his antics the more they seemed to like him -- not that Rhodey was surprised, since that described their entire relationship. And he loved having Tony there with him, hadn’t even realized just how much he’d missed having him by his side.

Tony had, apparently, planned some big dinner and party for them all at the hotel, so after a packed day everyone had gone back to their rooms to rest and get ready. Rhodey had had just enough time to dump his wallet and keys and strip off his shirt before there was a knock on his door. He wasn’t even surprised when he opened it and found Tony on the other side, leaning coquettishly against the frame. Rhodey snorted but didn’t acknowledge his positioning further, just left the door open and turned back into the room. He could practically hear Tony pouting at his lack of response, but he followed him in anyway, flinging himself across Rhodey’s bed.

“Hey handsome,” he purred, dragging his eyes up and down Rhodey’s bare chest.

“You’re hopeless,” Rhodey told him, throwing his t-shirt at Tony’s face.

“Wow,” Tony mumbled, words muffled from underneath the fabric. “Rude.”

Rhodey laughed, grabbing a dress shirt from the closest. “Hey,” he said, sitting on the side of the bed and smacking Tony’s leg. “How’re you doing, man? Like really. Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you even doing here? You okay?”

“Huh?” Tony pulled the shirt off his face, giving Rhodey a borderline-manic smile. “Fine, great, excellent.” He sat up fluttering his eyelashes at Rhodey. “Why do you ask?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes at him. “Don’t do that, Tones. Come on.”

Tony shrugged, suddenly fascinated by an invisible stray thread on his pants. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, like he was five. He looked back up at Rhodey, his eyes suddenly tired. “I’m running the company. It’s busy.”

“Busy,” Rhodey replied dryly.

Tony rolled his eyes at him. “There’s… It’s a lot. And Obie’s, I don’t know… Different, I guess, when I’m the CEO, and… I don’t know. It’s weird not having you around, and you know me, I don’t think things through so I just figured, why not? And now I’m here.”

“Mmm,” Rhodey considered this a moment and then turned to Tony with a bright grin. “Are you saying I’m your happy place, Stark?”

“You know it, Honeybear,” Tony retorted, and he was obviously going for dry and sarcastic, but there was something a little too sincere in his voice, a shy little smile unwillingly teasing across his lips.

“Hey, it’s okay, baby,” Rhodey told him. “I’ll be your happy place. I make you feel all warm and safe and squishy inside, that’s totally fine with me, man. I’m very comfortable in my masculinity.”

“You’re very stupid, is what you are,” Tony retorted, but that little smile had turned into a full-fledged grin, and the stress lines around his eyes were fading a little.

Rhodey flicked Tony’s nipple, just for the strangled wheezing noise he made and the way he clapped his hand to his chest, staring at Rhodes like he had some kind of virtue to protect. “Takes one to know one,” Rhodey informed him childishly before sobering a little. “Seriously, Tones, don’t overdo it though, alright?”

Tony blinked back at him innocently. “Overdo it? Me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s your middle name or whatever. I mean it, though. You need a break, take it. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but this is a lot. We’ll survive without a round of helicopter paintball or whatever you have planned next.” He rolled his eyes at the look on Tony's face. “No, that’s not a suggestion.”

Tony pouted a little before he relented. “Rhodey, honey, I promise, this is a break for me. I’m having a blast.”

“Yeah, alright.” Rhodey smacked his leg. “Come on then, Captain Overdo It. Somebody said something about a party downstairs. You wanna borrow my shower? Maybe a fresh shirt? You stink, dude.”

“I don’t stink,” Tony scoffed. “I’ll have you know my cologne is imported, and very expensive.” He made a show of sniffling his own armpit and then wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, okay, maybe I’ll grab a quick shower,” he said before suddenly sitting upright so fast he nearly gave Rhodey whiplash. “Oh, no wait, I just remembered! I, uh… Left something in my room. I’ll shower there. Meet you downstairs?”

He was gone before Rhodey could actually give him an answer, leaving him shaking his head as the door fell shut behind him. “Whatever, weirdo.”

***

Rhodey occupied himself with his Air Force buddies, drinking and shooting the shit while he waited for whatever crazy surprise Tony had cooked up now. He was upstairs long enough that Rhodey was just considering going up to make sure he hadn’t gotten trapped in the shower curtain or something when Mikey’s jaw dropped, eyes going wide. “Oh my god,” he muttered as the room erupted into jeers and catcalls.

Rhodey spun around and nearly fell off his stool as Tony sauntered into the room in a vintage Captain America USO girl costume, complete with halter top, red and white flared miniskirt, and a pair of ridiculous starry blue heels. “Oh my god,” Rhodey echoed, completely able to look away.

Tony stopped a few feet away and cocked his hip, the heels and the angle making his ass even more gorgeous than usual. “Hey sailor,” he purred with a ridiculous, over-the-top wink, and Rhodey couldn’t even find it in himself to remind Tony once again that they were Air Force, not Navy. Tony just smirked at him. “Told you I was going to show you boys a good time.” He stilled then, waiting for some kind of a reaction, and there was the slightest bit of hesitation creeping into his smile.

“Jesus Christ,” Rhodey finally managed, shaking his head and laughing, and Tony relaxed again. “You are an absolute idiot.”

Tony shrugged. “That’s not what the shareholders say,” he answered, and without skipping a beat he closed the distance between them and plopped himself in Rhodey’s lap, sitting sideways and stealing Rhodey’s beer.

“Yeah, sure, help yourself,” Rhodey grumbled, signalling the laughing waitress for another. He let his hand settle on Tony’s leg since there wasn’t much room anywhere else, especially now that Tony had gotten past his skinny twink phase. The fabric was a little stiff beneath his fingers, and he peered more closely at Tony’s costume. “Wait, is this an actual USO costume?”

Tony shrugged, unphased as he stole Jake’s fries. “Dad had some weird shit in his Captain America collection. ‘S mine now.” He shot Rhodey a bright smile over his shoulder as he popped another fry in his mouth, winking at him in the process.

“Jesus,” Rhodey muttered. He shifted his legs a little, the left one starting to go to sleep. “You’re fucking heavy, man. Is there something wrong with the chairs?”

Tony just squirmed his ass a little harder on Rhodey’s thighs. “Well, you know. You’re the only one here without a girlfriend, so I figured I’d step in.”

“Just helpin’ out, huh?” Rhodey asked dryly.

“Exactly.” Tony agreed. “Just helping out.”

Rhodey shrugged and resigned himself to spending the evening like this, shifting into a slightly more comfortable position and then pinching Tony’s side hard for good measure. He yelped, loudly, and Rhodey cracked up, nearly dumping Tony on the floor in the process. He looked up a second later in time to catch the end of a look shared between Mikey and Jake and frowned a little. “What?”

“Nothing!” Mikey said quickly, Jake holding up his hands innocently. “Just, you know… This explains so much.”

“Explains what?” Rhodey asked suspiciously.

“Well, I mean… You’re very…” He trailed off, looking for the right word, and Jake snickered.

“Uptight?” he offered.

“And this explains that,” Mikey said.

Rhodey blinked back at them, not following, and Jake gestured toward Tony, distracted with talking to somebody else.

“You left all your stupid at home.”

Immediately Tony whipped around to face them. “You calling me stupid?” he asked, face lighting up. “Awesome.”

“You are stupid,” Rhodey told him.

“Awww. Love you too, Honeybear.”

The thing was, Rhodey was so used to Tony being Tony that he didn’t even give his behaviour a second thought. The constant flirting, the sexual innuendos, the way he strutted around in those ridiculous heels like he wore them every day, arching his back in ways that seemed strategically designed to draw Rhodey’s eyes to his ass… It was all the same Tony he’d known every day since he met him. And sure, as the night went on and the booze flowed his eyes drifted to Tony’s ass even without Tony’s doing everything he could to draw attention to it, but that was nothing new either. It was just… How they were.

Tony was back in his lap again, his weight oddly comforting. Rhodey hadn’t even noticed his hand snaking around Tony’s waist until it was suddenly vibrating beneath him.

“What the hell?” Rhodey yelped, voice way too high. He snatched his hand back like something had bit him and Tony nearly laughed himself sick.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, pulling out a monster of a cell phone. He wiggled the ringing device. “Top of the line,” he told him before he glanced down at the caller id and his face fell a little. Rhodey felt his heart clench sympathetically as Tony blew out a deep sigh. “It’s Obie,” he said. “I, uh… I should take this.” He gave Rhodey a smile, but even in his half drunk state, Rhodey could tell it was a little forced. “Back in a flash.”

With Tony gone, Rhodey leaned back and let the voices and music and laughter and general sounds of the party wash over him as he sipped at his beer. He was vaguely aware of Jake wandering off too, and Mikey sliding over to the seat beside him, and he grinned when Mikey clapped him on the shoulder.

“Having a good time?”

“Uh, yeah,” Mikey agreed, gazing around at the light show and DJ that Tony had brought in from somewhere. “This is insane.”

Rhodey shrugged, vaguely aware that he was grinning. “That’s Tony.”

“Yeah…” Mikey glanced around and shifted a little closer. “Hey, Captain?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m not asking, and you’re not telling, but please god, kiss your boyfriend he explodes.” He grinned then, and while Rhodey was left blinking back at him, he gave him a wink and wandered off after Jake.

“No,” Rhodey said weakly, even though Mikey was far enough away that he never would have heard him even without the noise of the party. “He’s… I’m… We’re not…”

But the thing was, why weren’t they? If he was really, truly honest with himself, in the way that only came with a bit of a buzz, there’d always been something there, an extra side to their friendship that they’d never quite touched on. The flirting, the grand gestures… They’d been dancing around each other for years, really, and apparently hadn’t even been that subtle about it.

Abruptly, Rhodey shoved his chair back from the table he was sitting at, looking around the room for Tony. He had no idea what he was going to do or say to him, but now that it had been pointed out, he couldn’t stand another second of letting this hang over them without doing something about it.

There was no sign of Tony in the bar, probably still on the phone, but Rhodey noticed a promising looking side door, half propped open. Slipping through found him in a concrete back hallway of the hotel where, more importantly, he could hear Tony’s voice bouncing off the walls. He followed the sound, and found him around a corner further down the hall. He was still on the phone with Obie, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and a pinched, tired look on his face that Rhodey didn’t like at all. He didn’t appear to have heard Rhodey, though through some trick of acoustics Rhodey could hear Obie’s voice filtering through the tinny speakers of the phone, demanding to know when Tony was going to be back from his distraction of a vacation.

Rhodey wasn’t wasted by any means, but he was just drunk enough for it to seem like a good idea to step forward and take the phone out of Tony’s hand. Tony’s eyes snapped open, and Rhodey had the brief thought that they really were gorgeous, even when looking confused, before he held the phone up to his own ear.

“Hey Obadiah?” he said down the line, not even stumbling over the name as he cut off whatever the other man was saying. “Fuck off.”

Tony’s eyes went even wider as Rhodey punched the off button. “Rhodey… What?” His tongue flicked out against his lower lip, a nervous tic that he’d had for years, but Rhodey’s eyes focused on his lips with the motion.

Rather than speaking, he let his arm drop to his side and stepped forward, closing the distance between them. His other hand came up, curling around the back of Tony’s neck, and Tony inhaled sharply, lips parting. Rhodey couldn’t resist then, leaning in to kiss him.

It was soft and sweet at first; he’d meant it to just be soft and sweet. But then Tony made a soft noise, his hands curling in Rhodey’s shirt, and without quite meaning to Rhodey deepened the kiss. The phone dropped to the floor with a loud clatter as he pushed Tony up against the wall, having just enough presence of mind to cradle his head so it didn’t smash into the concrete. His other hand dropped to Tony’s thigh and he moaned softly into his mouth at the brush of bare skin beneath the fabric of the short skirt, pressing his own thick thigh up between Tony’s legs.

And then the press of Tony’s hands against his chest changed and he was shoving instead, enough force behind it that Rhodey staggered backwards. His balance was off and when he regained his footing Tony was staring at him, a slightly shaking hand clapped over his mouth. Rhodey couldn’t quite find the words to ask what was going on and Tony regained his composure, drawing in a deep breath before he lowered his hand again.

“What the fuck are you doing, Rhodes?” he asked, and his voice was low and cold but there was hurt in his expression, not anger.

“I mean…” Rhodey shrugged helplessly because he’d thought it was kind of obvious, but that didn’t seem to make Tony feel better, hiding his face as he stooped to pick up his phone.

“I’m not your drunk, pity, gay experiment, Rhodey,” he said quietly, before turning and striding off down the long corridor.

Rhodey sighed, and thumped his head against the wall.

His first instinct was to take off after Tony, to try and explain what he’d been thinking. But while he wasn’t drunk drunk, he clearly wasn’t sober enough to not be a total moron, and the truth was that he hadn’t been thinking, he’d just… Wanted. So instead of going after Tony, or going back to the party, he wandered through the confusing back halls until he found an exit, slipping outside into the night air.

It was cold out, but it was refreshing after the sweltering heat of the party and Rhodey’s head felt clearer almost as soon as he was outside. Still, he wandered around for a while, trying to get his thoughts together before he ambushed Tony again. Suddenly kissing him after years of supposedly being straight probably hadn’t been the best way to handle this.

He was shivering in his shirtsleeves by the time he made it back into the lobby. The party still seemed to be going strong, but he ignored it in favour of the elevators, heading up to Tony’s room on the top floor -- penthouse, of course. He drew a deep breath before knocking, and there was a long moment of silence on the other side of the door, long enough that he was worried Tony was going to ignore him entirely, before his voice finally filtered through the thick wooden door.

“It’s open.”

Rhodey let himself in, locking the door behind him, and followed the faint sounds of splashing water to the bathroom. He found Tony stretched out in the bathtub, up to his neck in a thick layer of bubbles. He was focused intently on the faucet, although his eyes flicked briefly over to Rhodey at his appearance. Not wanting to corner him, Rhodey leaned against the bathroom door frame, hands in his pockets.

“Rich guy like you leaving your hotel room unlocked while you’re in the tub? Doesn’t seem like the safest idea.”

Tony just shrugged, still not meeting his eyes, and flicked at some bubbles. “Think I’m safe. They’re supposed to have pretty good security here. Although I guess they’re letting just anyone up here now,” he added, the words void of their usual snark. Rhodey sighed.

“Hey, so, I’m an idiot.”

Tony snorted.

“First of all, are you okay? Second of all, I think I’m missing something here. Third of all, why are you hanging out in this whirlpool. You have something approaching Olympic-sized at home, I know you do.”

Tony finally looked over at him then. His hair was soft and curling from the steam and he shoved a stray strand impatiently out of his eye. “Well, you’re definitely missing something. But I guess I like this tub because it’s here.”

“Right. That makes sense.”

“... Where you are.”

“Oh.” Rhodey felt his stomach swoop. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Tony let his eyes cut away again. “Guess we’re both idiots, huh?”

Rhodey huffed out a laugh. Tony’s cheeks were flushed, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just because of the heat of the water. “So all of this was…?”

“For you? Yep,” Tony confirmed dryly. “You know how I am with self control.”

“So why’d you run away when I kissed you, then?”

Tony looked over at him with an arched eyebrow. “Because you were drunk.”

“Not that drunk.”

“And I didn’t want you to regret it when you sobered up,” Tony continued, ignoring Rhodey’s interruption. “And… And… Maybe I was panicking a little. Like sure, I guess I did all this to show you I liked you but then I started thinking what if you only like me because I did all this? I wanna bang you like a screen door in a hurricane, but I never expected you to know about it, you know?”

Rhodey couldn’t help it, he started to laugh, and Tony groaned, burying his face in his wet hands, soap suds dripping down his arms.

“You wanna bang me like a screen door in a hurricane, huh?”

Tony groaned louder. “Shut up,” he grumbled, words muffled by his hands.

Rhodey ignored him, moving across the room to sit on the side of the tub and pull Tony’s hands away from his face. “That all you wanna do?” he asked softly.

Tony blinked up at him with those ridiculously wide, beautiful eyes before he shook his head. “No,” he admitted hoarsely. “I want to take you out to nice dinners, and galas, and watch movies like we used to but with cuddling and making out and… I want to be the one you come home to when you’re on leave, I want to be your home and… And…” He faltered, trailing off, and shrugged. “I want it all.”

Rhodey grinned down at him. “Definitely both idiots,” he agreed. “Because I want all of that, too. I just didn’t realize how much until now.”

Tony’s breath caught and he shifted a little closer. “Yeah?” he asked, licking his lower lip. “You promise you’re not drunk?”

Rhodey planted a hand over his chest. “I swear it.”

“Good,” Tony breathed and then his wet hands were fisting in Rhodey’s dress shirt, yanking him in for a rough kiss. Rhodey yelped against his mouth as he nearly lost his balance, felt Tony’s lips curl into a smile against his before they found their rhythm, the kiss even better than the one in the hallway downstairs.

“Shit,” Rhodey breathed when they pulled back again, lips brushing against Tony’s with the motion. Tony laughed softly in return.

“Shit,” he agreed. “Is this even real?” he added, sounding absolutely delighted by the fact. Rhodey immediately reached up to pinch him hard in the arm, and Tony cried out, swatting at him in return. “What the fuck, Rhodes?”

“You asked!” Rhodey said, grinning, and got a faceful of water splashed in his face for his trouble. He had to splash Tony back in turn and the two of them ended up splashing and smacking at each other until Rhodey did lose his balance, slipping into the tub with his legs still hooked over the side. Tony nearly drowned himself, he was laughing so hard, slipping under the water and sloshing it all up over the side and onto the bathroom floor. “Stop laughing,” Rhodey grumbled, although he was laughing too. He smacked Tony’s leg under the water as he bumped up against him.

“Sorry,” Tony said, not sounding it at all. His eyes were sparkling as he pulled himself upright a little, leaning into Rhodey’s shoulder. “Guess we should get you out of those wet clothes, honey,” he added, barely getting the words out before he was snorting with laughter again, draping himself across Rhodey.

“You’re hopeless,” Rhodey told him, snaking his arm around Tony’s waist. “Don’t know what I see in you.”

“Too late,” Tony told him. “You already said you like me. Can’t take it back now.” He stilled then, suddenly very interested in the button on Rhodey’s cuff. “Uhh, you do, right? Like me, I mean? I mean, I know you’re my best friend but… This isn’t just a sex thing for you, right?”

“Tony…” Rhodey just shook his head. “You're hopeless,” he repeated, waiting for Tony to look up at him again. “It’s not just a sex thing,” he promised. “I like you, Tony. I really like you. Even more than as my best friend. I might actually be a little bit in love with you, I just haven’t had enough time to process it yet, but…” He trailed off, pretending to consider. “Yep, I’m definitely at least a little bit in love with you.”

Tony’s eyes were shining, and he cleared his throat. “I’m maybe a little in love with you too, Honeybear.”

Rhodey gazed at him a few minutes longer, his own throat feeling a little thick before he patted Tony’s leg again. “Well, if we’re all on the same page then I think that demands a celebration party.”

Tony’s nose wrinkled. “You want to go back downstairs?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of room service? Pizza, champagne, movies on TV… I think I was promised cuddles and making out?”

Tony gave him a slow, sweet smile, leaning forward to kiss him again. “Yeah,” he said, grinning against Rhodey’s lips. “That sounds perfect.”

It was a little longer before they managed to extricate themselves from the cooling water of the tub, and get dried off and dressed -- since naked cuddling seemed a little weird, when they hadn’t done anything more than kiss. Rhodey borrowed some sweats while Tony ordered the room service, which meant they ended up with the most expensive champagne the hotel had on offer.

By the time Tony was pouring a second glass for them, Rhodey was feeling loose and bubbly, partly from the champagne but mostly just from how right everything felt. They hadn’t done anything, were just sitting side by side, watching Lethal Weapon like any number of nights at MIT, but it still felt like he’d found something he hadn't even known he was missing. So when Tony passed him the refilled glass, he set it on the nightstand instead, turning back to Tony and curling a hand around his neck, drawing him in for a slow kiss.

“Oh.” Tony hummed happily against his lips, squirming closer as he kissed him back, and when they pulled apart again that flush was back on his cheeks, along with a pleased smile. “Hey.”

Rhodey snorted, kissed him again. “Hey.”

Stretched out and reclining against the pillows as they were, it wasn’t long before they shifted lower, until they were lying on their sides, facing each other. Their kissing picked up, less exploring and more intent, and Rhodey was hyper aware of everything about Tony, the way he was panting into his mouth, the soft, needy little whines that occasionally slipped past his lips, the way his ankle was rubbing between Rhodey’s own, a poor replica of what he really wanted. Tony’s ratty old t-shirt had rucked up and Rhodey’s free hand had settled on his hip, stroking over the warm skin until Tony was shivering against him.

Tony pulled back suddenly, his hair even more fluffed up and falling into his eyes. Rhodey couldn’t resist brushing it out of his face and Tony’s nose wrinkled, like he thought he could hide how pleased he was by the action.

“You’re such a sap,” he whispered, leaning in to suck at Rhodey’s lower lip. It was Rhodey’s turn to shiver, doubly so when Tony slid a hand up under his t-shirt and dragged short nails down his chest. Tony smirked and moved closer until they were pressed together head to toe. Rhodey could feel him hot and hard against his hip, and Tony moaned when the sensation had him twitching against Tony’s tip in turn. “Are we, um…” His voice was hoarse and he gave Rhodey a crooked grin. “Are we doing this?”

“Are we doing this?” Rhodey repeated, laughing when Tony groaned and ducked his head against his neck. “Is that the famous Stark charm you’re always bragging about? Christ, how do you ever get laid?”

“I hate you,” Tony grumbled, but Rhodey could feel him shaking with laughter against him. He took advantage of Tony being distracted to roll them, easily flipping Tony onto his back so he could straddle his waist and lean over him. Tony stopped laughing, staring up at him with wide, soft eyes, and swallowed hard.

Rhodey grinned, grinding down against Tony a little and grinning at the near-gasp that slipped past his lips at the sensation. “So what do you want to do?”

Tony groaned and his hands slipped down, clutching and squeezing at Rhodey’s sides. “Christ, Rhodes,” he grumbled. “You’re gonna fucking melt my brain here. I want… I want…” Suddenly his mouth dropped open, expression changing into one of disbelief. “Oh, fuck me.”

“I mean, that was what I was getting at,” Rhodey teased, laughing when Tony swatted at his shoulder blade. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, come on. What’s wrong? You’re in a hotel room with a gorgeous man between your thighs. What more could you want?”

“Lube,” Tony muttered, sounding distraught, and Rhodey blinked.

“What?”

“I don’t have any lube,” Tony whined, his cheeks flushed again. Rhodey had never seen him blush this much in his life, and he was kind of enjoying it. This may have been an unfortunate turn, but he couldn’t help laughing anyway.

“Are you sure you’re really Tony Stark? Aren’t you some kind of self-proclaimed sex god?”

Tony huffed and squirmed. “It’s not… I didn’t… I had some, but then I… I came here to see you, asshole. I wasn’t planning to hook up.”

“I’m sorry, didn’t I just see you in a vintage USO costume with the express intent of hooking up with me?”

“I didn’t expect that to work!” Tony wailed, burying his face in his hands. “Please hand me a pillow. I need to smother myself.”

“Hey, no, come on.” Since Tony was still hiding his face, Rhodey ducked down to kiss over his neck, tonguing at a tendon that had Tony moaning. “I’m sure we can figure out something to do instead.”

“Yeah?” Tony asked, voice coming out breathy. His hand moved to scratch over the back of Rhodey’s head, and his hips rocked up against him. “You want me to put the skirt back on?”

Rhodey laughed into his skin. “Maybe later,” he hummed, lifting his head again to give Tony a wink. “Besides, it was the heels that really did it for me. Your ass is incredible, man.”

“Finally,” Tony huffed. “You know how many squats I’ve been doing, waiting for you to notice?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Of course you have,” he muttered, kissing him again. Tony melted against him -- so easy -- and Rhodey took advantage to wrangle his arm between their bodies, cupping Tony’s cock through his pants. He was hot and thick even under the fabric and Tony moaned at the touch, legs falling a little further open.

“Christ,” he gasped. “Little warning.”

“Aww. Where’s the fun in that?” Rhodey asked, squeezing and then stroking up his length with his thumb.

“Fuck,” Tony choked out. “You’re a goddamn menace.” He squirmed and wriggled underneath Rhodey, hauling on his t-shirt. “Come on, I wanna see you.”

Rhodey grinned and sat back on Tony’s thighs, pulling his t-shirt off over his head. Tony made a soft, pleased, humming sound at the sight, eyes fixated somewhere around Rhodey pecs before dragging over to his biceps, and Rhodey preened at his obvious appreciation. He waited a moment before arching an eyebrow at Tony. “You gonna reciprocate there, hot shot?” he asked, flicking Tony’s nipple again. Tony made the same, hilarious sound, but this time it was followed by his eyelashes fluttering and a low moan, his hips arching up.

“Every time,” he muttered, sounding breathless. His eyes were heavy lidded and he grinned up at Rhodey from under thick eyelashes. “Every time you do that it goes right to my cock, jackass.”

Rhodey felt his cock twitch at the thought, at the idea of Tony, trying to hide how affected he was. He pulled Tony up off the mattress to kiss him again, wrestling with his shirt in the process. It took a few tries but he got it off, letting Tony fall back against the mattress again before following him down. Tony whined when their bare chests pressed together, wriggling around until he could get a leg on either side of Rhodey’s, grinding up against his hip.

“Shit, Rhodey,” he gasped. “You’re killing me. I’m gonna lose it here.”

“Yeah?” Rhodey ground down against him, doing his best to ignore the way his own cock was throbbing in his pants in favour of teasing Tony. “You that close already?”

Tony shrugged, utterly shameless. “You’re hitting all my buttons here, Honeybear. And, you know… I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Fantasies come true. You…” His eyes fluttered again when Rhodey rubbed over his nipple. “You know how it is.”

“Mmm,” Rhodey hummed, groaning softly when Tony’s fingers scraped over a sensitive spot on his hip. “Yeah, I do.”

He kissed Tony again and wriggled his hand further down between them, shifting and pressing at the waistband of Tony’s sweats until they were sliding down over his hips, his cock popping free. Rhodey rocked back on his elbows far enough to get a look at him. He’d never really thought about men like this before, but Tony was gorgeous.

“What?” he asked, teasing him instead of saying it outloud. “No thong?”

Tony was panting, but he still managed to give Rhodey a smirk. “Maybe next time. Let’s see how good you are first.”

Rhodey narrowed his eyes and then he was curling his hand around Tony’s cock, turning whatever he’d been going to say next into a low whine. Tony rocked his hips up into Rhodey’s grip, and his hands moved to grip tightly at his biceps, hard enough that Rhodey was pretty sure he’d have little fingerprint bruises left behind. The thought turned him on more than he expected and he squeezed around Tony’s cock again, rocking down against him. There was precome beading at the tip and Rhodey dragged his thumb through it, using it to slick Tony up more and filing away the noise he made at the touch for future reference.

“Christ,” he groaned, out of breath himself now as he buried his face in Tony’s shoulder, teasing his skin with his teeth. Tony groaned. “You’re so fucking hot.”

“Could… Say the same to you,” Tony gasped, fingers squeezing harder at his arms. “Fucking come on, Rhodes.”

Rhodey pried his spare hand away from where he’d been clutching Tony’s side, reaching down to shove lopsidedly at the waist of his own pants. Tony picked up on what Rhodey was doing, sliding his hands down over his ass until they’d gotten his sweats pushed down too. He pulled his hand away briefly, ignoring Tony’s petulant whine at the loss, and spit in his hand, curling his hand around both their cocks, pressing them tight together. Tony gave a full body shudder at the feeling, one hand gripping hard at Rhodey’s ass, the other scrabbling over the back of his neck. Rhodey could feel him twitch against him, the feeling almost setting him off, and he closed his fist a little tighter, jerking them off hard and fast. He’d thought it might be a little weird, being with a guy -- he’d never touched a dick that wasn’t his own before. But it wasn’t weird at all, it was just… Tony. They’d always done their best to help each other feel good. This was just taking that to another level.

And it felt really good.

Tony’s body was hot against his, wound tight as he arched into Rhodey’s grip. They’d given up kissing, panting against each other’s mouth as everything spiralled higher, and Tony was making occasional little high-pitched whines that made Rhodey want to lay him out, pin him down and take his time exploring his entire body, finding every little spot that made him make that sound again.

Later, though. For all his teasing of Tony, he wasn’t going to last that much longer himself. He could feel his balls drawing up tight, Tony’s thighs tensing on either side of his hips. He moved his free hand back to Tony’s chest, more of a rough drag than the sensual slide he’d been going for, but Tony didn’t seem to mind when he pinched his nipple again, making him cry out.

“Come on, baby,” Rhodey panted against his lips. “Wanna see you come.”

Tony moaned loudly and then his back was arching, mouth falling open as he spilled over their cocks. One of his hands moved to close over Rhodey’s, squeezing tight around the two of them, and Rhodey nearly choked as he came too, the force of it taking him by surprise.

It was a long moment before he felt like he could breathe again, before he became aware of Tony panting and cursing softly beneath him. Pushing himself up on shaking arms, Rhodey pulled back far enough to collapse on his back beside Tony, sprawled out and panting. He wasn’t even surprised when Tony immediately squirmed around to cuddle up against him, head pillowed under his shoulder. Grinning, Rhodey let his arm curl around Tony, running his fingers absently over his skin.

“Shit,” Tony muttered, turning his head to place an absent kiss on Rhodey’s pec. “That was fucking…”

He trailed off, apparently out of words for the first time, and Rhodey snorted. “Technically, I haven’t fucked you yet.”

Tony made a pained noise. “Do you think there’s a 24-hour pharmacy around here somewhere?” he asked, moving like he was going to sit up, though he settled right back in when Rhodey’s hand closed over his arm.

“Jesus, Tones. Give me a chance to catch my breath, huh?”

“What, are you old?” Tony teased, though he seemed happy enough to just stay there, snuggling. They’d never turned the TV off, and whatever movie was on now was a comforting buzz in the background.

“Yup,” Rhodey agreed. “So ancient. Anyway, I think I’ve got a better idea.”

Tony shifted a little more, turning enough that he could see Rhodey’s face. “Yeah? What’s that?”

Rhodey cleared his throat, feeling absurdly nervous despite everything they’d just done. “You’re going back to California tomorrow, right?”

Tony sighed, long and tired. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“Well, I’ve got another week’s vacation left…”

He trailed off, leaving it hanging, but Tony knew exactly where he was going, pushing himself up on his elbow to grin down at him. “Yeah? Really? You wanna come with me?”

“I mean, if you’ll have me…”

“If I’ll have you, he says,” Tony was still beaming, even as he rolled his eyes, then put on his best affected ‘East Coast Wealthy’ accent. “Yes, Captain Rhodes, I would love to have you join me at the California home for the next week.” Then he waggled his eyebrows at him. “You’re on vacation? You can be my kept man.”

“I’m regretting this already.”

Tony ignored that, flopping back down onto the pillow. “I’ll get you a silk robe, you can spend your days lounging around, making yourself pretty, sunbathing in the nude… Have dinner waiting for me when I get home from the office.”

He was giggling now, and Rhodey smacked him without looking, catching him somewhere around his stomach. “I ain’t cooking for you, man.”

“That’s fine!” Tony assured him, rolling up onto his side to flutter his eyelashes. “We can order in. I am very rich. Just as long as you’re in your best heels and pearls.” He gave Rhodey a ridiculous, over-the-top wink. “Other clothing is optional.”

He looked ridiculous, and so absolutely pleased with himself, and Rhodey couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to realize he was in love with the man.

But he hadn’t gone this long without knowing that if he encouraged Tony he’d never stopped, so instead of telling him how in love with him he was, Rhodey shoved him onto his back again and kissed him until he stopped giggling.

(In retrospect, that probably didn’t have quite the dissuading effect he was going for, but Rhodey couldn’t find it in him to mind all that much.)

@tonystarkbingo @ironhusbandsbingo

#tonystarkbingomarkiv #tsbmiv #ironhusbands #tony stark #james rhodes #ironhusbandsbingo #friends to lovers #getting together #fluff and smut #light angst #pining #fic #my fic

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sahbibabe · 4 years

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Hello! Hope you're having a wonderful day. I have a request, if that's okay with you. Can I have a soulmate AU 1#? The one about the craving? With Rufus? I was thinking, Rufus with a poor soulmate who craves the expensive foods he eats but doesn't have the money to buy them and sometimes doesn't even know what she's craving because it probably doesn't exist where she lives. I'm sorry if it's too detailed. It's okay if you don't want to do it. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Here you go! I hope you enjoy! Tell me if you liked it and if not, what I can improve on! Thanks for requesting, hon! ♡

THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED, you were sitting in Seventh Heaven and trying to ignore the excited chatter and boisterous energy around you. You had just ordered what would be your meal for the night and the next morning─it was all you could afford, given your meager salary as a scrap collector. Tifa had given you a hefty discount, since you helped her out a lot by finding spare parts and fitting them to the building when she needed it, but you sometimes suspected it was out of pity.

Your dinner─a plate consisting of two pork chops, rice, and a small salad─had cost you twenty gil. In the eyes of some, that was cheap, practically a penny out of their pockets; but for you, that was half your salary gone, and you rationed out the rest through cheaply packaged ramen that ran for one gil at the market. You weren't very healthy as a result, but Tifa did her best to meet at least some of your body's nutritional requirements with what you could afford to buy. She had even slipped you a free slice of pie and a beer, said it was on her for helping out with watching Marlene, and disappeared before you could argue.

When you couldn't afford even ramen, you bought food replacement tablets. They were cheaper than even those packets of noodles, could be gotten anywhere, and worked well enough to keep your appetite low as long as you didn't burn off too many calories working. Compared to you, Tifa and her group were well off, and they bought more food than they could handle. They didn't even box the rest up; Tifa would, though, and stow it away for later for them. It made you angry, and a little jealous.

So when you had gotten the barest sip of your beer and tasted the most exquisite flavors you had ever been privy to in your entire life, you felt your mind go white trying to catch up with it. You had never tasted this before, whatever it was─it was strong, and tasted like pizza smelled, but it was… off, more potent.

Your sister, before she married and moved topside, had told you about this; that people, when they were a certain age, tasted what their soulmate was eating. She also had said sometimes people have threads, others have telepathic thoughts, and even names on their arms. There was no real rhyme or reason to it, she told you, but it helped narrow down the selection pool to general salaries. Whatever that meant.

The taste still lingering in your mouth, you looked down at your pork chops in disappointment, knowing you would not get the same satisfaction out of your food. You ate with a mechanical slowness, forcing yourself to appreciate what you got and to savor it. The beer and pie was only a little satisfying, mostly to your sweet tooth, but as you were walking to the bar to pay Tifa, the taste changed. Your soulmate was taking dessert, it seemed, because all you could taste was the cloying sweetness of strawberries and sugar, something tart or somewhat bitter.

Your stomach felt very, very empty.

You paid Tifa and she rung up your receipt.

"How was the pie?" She asked, her eyes bright. Keen on conversation. "Did you like it? You were pretty slow tonight."

"I'm sorry." You took the receipt from her and stuffed it down your bra with a sigh, too lazy to flip open the button lapel at your breast. "I just got my first… soulmate taste thing. Whatever you call it. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, to be honest."

"Really?" Tifa motioned for you to sit down. Clearly you weren't going anywhere until she got all of the details out of you, haven't experienced it herself yet. "Tell me all about it and I won't get offended."

"I'll take that," you laughed. Your stomach clenched uncomfortably, tasting the delicious dessert your soulmate was having but confused when nothing came down. "I don't know about the main course, but the dessert had fresh strawberries… I remember those from when my mom would steal them from up topside. Sugar. Something bitter, but with its own sweetness. I've only ever eaten ramen and your food my whole life so I can't say what it was."

You hadn't noticed that Cloud had taken a seat one over from you until he spoke.

"That sounds like the Soireé up top." When you blinked at the long absent merc with confusion, he elaborated grudgingly,"A lot of Shinra execs would eat it. It's a dessert. Strawberries and blueberries. I overheard a conversation about it. Sounds like what you were describing."

"Oh, so they must have money, then, to eat topside," Tifa gasped. "I wonder who it could be!"

"I don't know." You shrugged and rubbed your stomach, grimacing at the twang of pain. "Well, I'll head on home now. Thanks for the pie, Tifa. Just call if you need anything."

"Sure thing, [Name]! Get home safe."

For the next five years, you suffered with your soulmate's eating habits, and over time, you got good at determining when they ate. Their favorite food seemed to be some kind of soup that had very little flavor, but their palette was large and vast. They ate three times a day, ate a snack inbetween, or drank some gods awful concoction of chocolate and bitter powder that you couldn't stand and took days to get out of your mouth.

In those five years, you had gone from lowly scrap collector to the illustrious Madame M's secretary and student. She boarded you and fed you extremely better food than you had ever eaten before, supplied you with a far more generous salary because she liked you and treated you like a daughter, and even helped you get healthy and into physical shape.

You could massage someone's hand like nobody's business, or even do the poor man's massage, but what you really specialized in was a unique method of acupuncture that stimulated relaxation and blood flow. Madame M had deemed you successful enough to take your own clients, but refused to let you take hers; you had to gather your own.

So topside you went, clothed in traditional garb as she had told you, with your hair pinned up and decorated with jewels from Madame M's prized collection. She had given them to you with a proud smile, along with some rather serious looking adoption papers that would allow her to become your official mother. Even at twenty-nine years old you had cried like a baby and hugged her. She didn't even tut like she normally would and hug you back.

But as soon as you were topside, you couldn't resist it.

You tracked down the restaurant that sold the Soireé.

When Rufus woke up tasting strawberries and blueberries in his mouth, he sat ramrod straight in his chair. At his feet, Darkstar whined and nudged his knee, but he ignored it and focused more intently on the flavors playing on his tongue.

It was the unique taste of a Soireé.

Over the years, he had tasted many things, things that he had looked up and found belonged to the slummers, then the middle class elite, or the oriental flavors of Wall Market cuisines. None of it had ever come close to touching the foods that he ate or the indulgences he found himself to favor, but this was the first time he had ever tasted something so expensive from his soulmate.

A slummer no more, it seemed.

He raised an eyebrow and hit a number on a rotary phone his father insisted on keeping. "Tseng."

"Yes, Mister President?"

"Find out who's eating a Soireé at Vallei Astra."

Tseng was very, very quiet for a few moments. He wisely didn't question it. "Yes sir. I'll be back with you in a moment."

She sat on the back patio facing a genuine ray of sunshine. The manager had escorted him to her with a sickly smile, sweating bullets, and mumbled under his breath the entire time while he did. Rufus had quickly made him leave once he got sight of his target.

She wore the oriental styles of the Wall Market; a black kimono, a dark purple obi, and brilliant red and white cranes and dragonflies sewn into it with a careful hand. A very expensive piece of silk indeed. She wore true jewels in her hair, a far cry from a slummer's jewelry, and from behind, wore her hair in a high bun with some strands left to dangle around her shoulders.

He had seen Madame M once, when she answered a personal call for his father. She had left the building in a rage, but he had heard her yelling at him when the massage had been finished. Her obi har been untied when she left. Rufus could only assume his father had been attempting to make her his mistress.

This girl, her student, was bound to be a spitfire.

He straightened his tie and stepped outside. A pair of cool, calm [color] eyes turned and regarded him, a plucked eyebrow raised, as if asking who dared to interrupt her dessert. Even sitting, she looked down her nose at him.

Oh, yes, he would enjoy every part of this… Starting with those eyes.

#final fantasy #final fantasy 7 remake #soulmate au #soulmate #rufus shinra x reader #rufus shinra

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jadekitty777 · 3 years

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On Your Six, Chapter 1

Okay first of all, did we all coincide the Taiqrow Week with Father’s Day... accidentally? Because that’s secretly genius.

Secondly, whoops we’re also meshing with Qrowin week - hope y’all are okay to share!

Finally, let’s get down to business. Hi y’all, hope you haven’t missed me too much. Hopefully I can make up for my silence with this absolute beast of a fanfic. This is going to be a single, interconnected story matching the prompts of the entire week. I hope those of you who choose to read it, will enjoy it!

Day 1: Tattoos for @taiqrowweek

Rating: T for this chapter, M for overrall

Words: 2.3k

Summary: Qrow was what most of society would call a small-town criminal. But to those oppressed, he hoped only to be a healer. In an effort to make a change in the world, he moves from kingdom to kingdom, searching for branded omegas in need. His goal? To turn the derogatory words the reformatories forced them to bear on their skin into works of art.

Then one day, his past catches up to him in the form of Taiyang, his former best friend, with a brand of his own stained onto his skin and a plea for help in his eyes. Qrow has no choice but to answer, even if it means he’d have to face his mistakes once and for all.

[An ABO-style universe in a modern-day style Remnant. No Grimm, because people are the real monsters in this one]

Ao3 Link: On Your Marks

The day Taiyang walked into his shop, before even a single word was spoken, he knew.

It wasn’t from any particular mannerism. Everyone’s body language was different. A chattering mouth. Averted eyes. A tapping foot. A drooped posture. In the short time Qrow had been doing this, he’d learned no single action could encapsulate the variety in which people expressed their shame.

Yet, not a single one could escape the stench. It was a foul thing. Sharp and smokey, like a tire fire on a junkyard, it lacquered over an omega’s scent so completely that it was near impossible to catch a whiff of the true smell that was originally there.

Even now, as Qrow inspected the damage upon his former friend’s bare back, mere inches away from the man’s scent glands, he couldn’t pick out a hint of the sunflowers and fresh soil that was Tai. Nothing left except the reek of burnt rubber and dishonor.

He didn’t call attention to it, just like he didn’t call attention to the shake in his friend’s shoulders as he placed a hand over the first mark. “This is extensive.”

“I know. But, I didn’t know who else to turn to.” Even as he turned his head to look at him, Tai hunched over a bit, and the brand seared across his shoulder blades stretched with the movement. “You’ll help me, right?”

Qrow’s eyes flitted between watery eyes and stained skin where the word SLUT, all in caps like some mockery of a grand declaration, taunted his every decision since their falling out and left the taste of bile on his tongue.

“Of course.” He promised.

It was widely thought that it was a farmer that first came up with branding back during the Early Modern period. Having been “inspired” by the tagging of the cattle which kept them in order, the alpha decided to do the same to omegas, ascertained the same outcome would follow. The practice was later adopted by prisons and other corrective facilities. Back then, it was merely a way of keeping track of those who had been in and out of the system by searing the skin with an iron that had the center’s insignia on it.

Advancements to the printing press and mail systems did away with that particular need, but while the jails abolished the practice, reformatories did not, releasing studies that claimed the procedure resulted in more ‘proper’ and ‘desired’ behaviors in omegas and were absolutely critical to full rehabilitation. Despite newer evidence showing these original claims were likely falsified simply for convenience and often actually had a devastating effect on an omega’s psyche, the three-century long old policy had yet to be abolished from the system.

The most the outcries had done the past few decades was change the method on which the ‘brand’ was applied. Instead of an iron, it was done with a tattoo needle and instead of an insignia, it became a single word that was like a permanent reminder of what landed the omega in the facility to begin with. The stench was caused by the use of the chemically enhanced ink that made it impossible for laser technology to fully remove.

In short, if an omega wanted the mark gone, their only choice was to cut out their own skin. Most, like his mother, accidentally killed themselves trying.

Which led to where Qrow was today, trying to shake things up in the only way he knew how. So, he jumped off society’s grid, took up a needle and his drawing skills, and turned the marks into works of art. More importantly, he gave the omegas who came to his door a way to recover and take back their lives.

He just never thought Tai would be one of them.

Once he’d taken the pictures he needed and Tai’s shirt was back on, things were relaxed enough he could brew some tea. As he handed the other man his cup, Qrow finally asked, “So, how’d you find me?”

“Wasn’t that hard.” He replied, fingers wrapping around the porcelain. “The omegas back at the reformatory would whisper before bed. It didn’t take me long to figure out they were talking about you.”

Qrow froze, trying to hide his trepidation. “Oh? They say my name?”

Tai snorted. “Not your name, but a name.” His expression turned cheeky. “Don’t worry though. Only someone who knows Harbinger used to be your Relics & Wyverns character could put the pieces together.”

“Ah, can it!” He barked as a flush worked its way up his neck. Still, tension drained from him. While there were no laws that specifically stated what an omega was required to do with their mark after their rehabilitation was complete, if he was caught tampering with it for them, he knew the courts could claim he was willfully interfering with a person’s emotional stability. Might even get him on a few counts of practicing mental health care without a license too.

Still, he didn’t particularly want to be sent to the slammer, which was why he worked so hard to keep to the underground. Never told anyone his name. Moved often. Kept minimal contact with clients. Whatever it took to make sure only the people who needed to find him could.

“I’m glad that you’re doing alright for yourself.” Tai said, giving a cursory glance to the shoddy working space that doubled as his apartment. Beyond his tattoo kit, he rarely took much with him when he relocated. Sometimes he got lucky on the accommodations and the place would already be partially furnished, other times he had to make do with what he could afford from the nearest thrift store.

This place was one of those latter times. He had a mattress on the torn up box spring with a chipped nightstand beside it, a circular, rickey table with two chairs for the dining room, a fairly barren kitchen area, and a slightly beat-up leather recliner for the clients.

It wasn’t hard to see Tai was really reaching as he said, “Your place is… nice?”

It was Qrow’s turn to snort. “At least be honest and tell me I live in a shithole.”

“I was not going to – okay, yeah it is kind of a shithole. But, you’re eating okay and everything, right?”

What an omega. “Yes mom, I’m getting my three squares a day and I’m even brushing my teeth before bed.” He lent back, the plastic chair creaking underneath as he did so. “But you didn’t exactly come here to critique my living conditions. Think there’s a lot more important stuff to talk about, don’t you?”

Suddenly, the tea was much more interesting than his face. “Yeah. Right. Um, guess there’s a lot to catch you up on, huh? You don’t even know about-”

“Whoa, hold up a sec.” He quickly interrupted. “Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t ask for any of my clients’ stories unless they feel like sharing. Some do, some don’t. But my help doesn’t come with any strings attached.” He met his gaze, stressing the next part carefully, “Even if they’re friends, okay?”

Tai still seemed to hesitate. “But, don’t you want to know about Yang?”

Of course, he did. He had about a thousand and one questions whirling through his head. But that didn’t matter right now. “You ready to talk about her?”

For the second time that day, tears shimmered in Tai’s eyes. He looked away quickly, saying nothing.

Yeah. He figured as much.

“Then no.” Qrow cleared his throat some. “Besides, I’m still a total disaster when it comes to handling people when they cry.”

That one, at least, earned him a weak chuckle.

“Some things never change?” Tai said with a sniff, rubbing the corner of his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“If it ain’t broke…” He shrugged. “Anyways, what I meant was, how do you want to change up that lil’ blemish a’yours?”

“I, uh, I don’t know. What do you normally do?”

“Turn it into a single design. But, I’ve never had to work on one so large before. That thing’s taking up about half of your back. Still doable, just… more difficult.” It was easy to busy his designs enough the word got lost under all the rest. Working on a scale of this size though, there weren’t many things he could think of that would both look nice and cover up the word. “Not to mention, we’ll have to take a lot of breaks, so your skin can heal.”

“How long do you think it would take?”

“Well, with three weeks between each session and the scale and details… probably nine to twelve months?”

Tai’s face fell. “Oh.”

“Something wrong?”

“Oh, no I mean…” He sighed. “I was just, kind of hoping it would be done before October, is all. Before the kids come home.”

Kids?!

As in plural?!

Qrow had to bite his tongue to physically stop himself from breaking his own rule. Took a deep, steadying breath.

Okay. That was six months away. There was no way. Unless…

“Well, we could make it four separate designs. One for each letter. That way I could work on one side and then the other while it’s healing. If we meet every week, should be doable. Gonna be some long hours under the needle for you though.”

Tai lit up just like the sun he was named after. “I can handle it. I’ll do anything. Oh-! We could even make it four dragons, couldn’t we?”

Qrow barked out a laugh. “I mean yeah, if that’s what you want. Give me your scroll deets. I’ll work up some designs over the next few days and send them to you.” As he pulled out his device to input the information, he added, “We gotta work out a schedule too. What days are RO?”

“She visits on Tuesdays and Saturdays right now. It’ll go down to once a week pretty soon. I’m also TA-ing at Sanctum Middle, so weekdays are pretty full.”

It was all par for the course. Even after doing time at the reformatory, omegas still had to have frequent visits from their rehabilitation officer, to make sure they were keeping a steady job and homelife. That meant good evaluations from his superiors and a living space that looked like not even a speck of dust had had a chance to touch down. This was especially important for omegas like Tai, who would have to fight for every top mark he got. If he failed to, the RO would claim he was still unfit to raise his own children and keep them in the fostering system.

Qrow knew that was the reason for the six-month time limit. He had no doubt that once Tai was out of parole and had his pups back, he’d be hightailing it out of the kingdom. But for the RO to still be visiting at that frequency… “Did you come looking for me right after you got out?”

“I-” The tea had become interesting again. And cold. “Yeah. I knew you were working out of Mistral, and Atlas allows for transfers to Argus.”

At this rate, his tongue was probably going to have indents from his incisors. Once he knew he wasn’t going to start prying or, worse yet, shouting at Tai - because really how stupid could he be?! – he opened his mouth and said, “So, Sundays then?”

For the first time in nearly six years, Tai smiled at him. “Sounds perfect.”

For the next few days, Qrow did nothing but draw. Whether it was with a buzzing needle or a pencil, his hand was rarely empty. Even as he downed his morning coffee or spun his suppertime noodles onto his fork, his other hand was moving over a sheet of paper, his muse on overdrive as he tried to pick out the perfect designs for each letter. By nightfall, he was sending at least half a dozen pages full of sketches to Tai, then checking his phone every five minutes as he impatiently anticipated his reply.

It didn’t actually matter where they started, because once they decided on which letter was going first, Qrow’s focus would narrow to the second one over. The tricky thing was, Tai had always been the type who was simple to please – well before a reformatory could ever drill that lesson into him. Even when they were young, whether it was a question of what game they wanted to play or what food they wanted to eat, Tai would almost always just grin and say ‘whatever you want’. Which meant, every sketch was perfect and Qrow had to work twice as hard to actually find something he truly fell in love with.

He knew he finally struck gold for S when Tai figured out how to use the circling tool on his scroll and sent the shot back with an exuberantly loud ‘THIS ONE’, followed by a horrendous amount of exclamation points.

Qrow had never felt prouder.

It was a small effort to resketch the piece in full and line it. Adding color was more challenging, as he had to balance what looked nice with the limitations of his inks. But leaving it without was absolutely not an option. Not for someone who used to decorate his walls with paintings of tropical beaches and autumn-locked forests and had had a Crayola box spectrum of begonias sitting on his windowsill in his childhood room. Tai was a man who radiated a rainbow both in his life and in his heart. To try to dull that by leaving him in nothing but blacks and grays was a crime Qrow wasn’t willing to commit.

Besides, the design wouldn’t translate well without it.

So, he kept working at it until he knew it was just right. When the omega’s excitement only seemed to grow, he knew his labor was over.

#qrow branwen #taiyang xiao long #Taiqrow #taiqrowweek #rwby #fanfiction #Chase Firekitten's Tale

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kyleoreillysknee · 4 years

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Blue Tinted World

Part 1/?

Pairing: Orange Cassidy x Ophelia “Lia” Freeman

Word Count: 2036

Warnings: ABO, hints of emotional baggage, Orange holds a baby

Tag Squad: @snarkandsarcasmftw @adampage @cowboyshit @unabashedwrestlefics @cabotcoves @rampagewriting @goodnaito (bolded means you got a cameo in here)

A/N: Special shout out to Aj who encouraged the shit out of me.

Spiraling had such a deceptive name. It sounded like fun. Like something exciting. Carefree. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t spiraling. She couldn’t be spiraling. She was running late.

Snatching her finger away from tracing the kaleidoscope of blues etched into her forearm she gave the contents of the baby bag one last look over before taking her keys off the counter. Lia exhaled sharply before leaving her apartment, dropping a gentle kiss to the newborn strapped to her chest as she locked the door. This was going to be an awkward conversation with Charlie.

Once she got to the arena, she kept her eyes down to avoid all the strange looks and double takes. It was like no one had seen a baby before. Not wanting to let the tension fester, she followed her nose and found Charlie inspecting some rigging and jotting notes on a clipboard. She didn't have to wait long and watched his shoulders tense before he shifted to sniff at the air a few times. The broad smile on his face stuck awkwardly as he turned and dropped his gaze to the baby blowing drool bubbles against her collarbone. She could only shrug.

“So. Immaculate conception?” Charlie tried, folding his arms across his chest.

“Nephew. Godson, actually.” Lia mumbled, fighting against the nervous tick of reaching over to her forearm. Silent recognition crossed over her manager's features before he gave a small nod.

“I … can’t afford to miss any more work.” Especially now was left unsaid but lingered in the air between them. After a beat she felt a giant hand roughly pat her head and when she looked up Charlie had a soft smile on his face.

“Obviously no climbing the racking, but there’s still a shit ton that needs to get done. Glad to have you back.” Charlie pulled out his phone and she felt a buzz in her pocket, “Sent you Ash’s number. Her and Viv run a daycare, reach out and see if they can take him in.”

Lia’s breath caught in her throat and a rush of heat burned her eyes but she set her mouth in a flat line to push it back, “I- thank you.”

Charlie crouched down to meet her eyes, “I’m here if you need anything, alright?”

With a sniff, she nodded and managed to try at a smile. It was pathetic but this new life didn’t come with a manual or anything so of course the first time anyone offered the bare minimum of help it struck her raw heart.

“What’s his name?” Without her realizing, Charlie had taken the baby bag from her and she naturally fell into step beside him as they walked to the lighting area.

“Sam. Short for Samson.” Lia finally felt like she could breathe and she knew it was Charlie letting out some of his alpha pheromones. Sometimes having a giant overprotective softie for a boss was a good thing. The baby currently trying to snuggle deeper into her skin was probably triggering some deep rooted omega thing in her too but she didn’t want to dwell on that.

After Charlie made sure she was situated comfortably in the booth, he went back to doing his rounds and barking and whoever needed barking to get the show running. Lia let out a happy sigh as she hovered her hands over the switches and dimmers for a second, settling back into the familiar for the first time in what felt like forever. Grabbing the walkie, she announced the start of testing and received a string of cheers of her name from the rest of the tech crew.

Letting the cycles start, Lia sat back and absently rubbed along Sam’s back through the harness as she scanned the program for tonight. Sam let out a gurgle as she felt a slight tickle of air against her shoulder, causing her to flinch as aqua blue sunglasses crept into her periphery. That pure shot of fear caused every muscle in her to tense but she still had the sense to not shout, not wanting to disturb Sam.

Orange immediately went ramrod straight, his hand shooting up to pinch his nostrils closed. Stumbling backwards, he leaned against a nearby barricade and waited until they both had their bearings. Lia almost felt bad, knowing that he just got a metric ton dose of pure omega pheromones slammed into him but he could’ve at least knocked or made any noise. It didn’t help that he was a void of scent, which led to many instances of him suddenly appearing beside her and nearly getting punched.

“For fucks sake, Orange.” Lia sighed, pushing a clump of hair out of her face as she turned to look at him. He gave his head a shake before sinking his hands into his pockets and giving her a shrug. It was the closest thing to an apology she ever seemed to get from him so she accepted it as her body slumped in her chair now devoid of any adrenaline.

“Cool baby.” He mumbled as if he was complimenting her getting new shoes or a haircut.

Lia just stared at him, trying to figure out where he was looking at behind his sunglasses but all she got was her own bewildered expression mirrored back at her, “thanks?”

His head snapped to the side and she could hear a faint low rumble come from him that only confused her more. Is he growling? Lia didn't need to follow his gaze to know that the Inner Circle sans Jericho prowling around the equipment. The heavy cloud of cologne and spicy unrestrained alpha scent was heavy in the air. She had started expecting Orange to show up in places he wasn't supposed to but the Inner Circle pack only came here for one reason: to annoy the shit out of her. Sammy deemed it that she owed him a date because she looked at him once after he nearly knocked her over while vlogging and now she couldn't go a day without having to reject him. She could feel a headache forming and sighed as Sammy finally saw her and they all thundered over.

"Heard your sweet little voice over the radio- ew." Sammy grimaced at the sight of Sam which had her seeing red. She felt a warmth draw closer as Orange placed a hand on the back of her chair and stood beside her.

Hager had to elbow Sammy before he could recover and he was soon flashing his giant toothy smile, "if you just agreed to be my princess you wouldn't have to babysit. I'd take care of you."

"I'm not babysitting. He's my nephew." She snapped, letting her anger pulsate off her in sour waves. Orange tilted his head slightly and Lia realized that what she said wasn't much of an explanation. But it was the truth. He was her nephew and she was his … aunt? Guardian? Mom?

"It's complicated." She whispered, mainly for Orange's benefit. She didn't give a shit what the Inner Circle thought. He gave a barely perceptible nod before shifting his attention back to the now fuming Sammy. Clearly he didn't like the spotlight being moved from him a few centimeters.

"What are you doing here?" Sammy sneered and Hager stood straighter and cracked his knuckles in a display of dominance. Lia felt a slight shake from Orange's hand as her shoulder brushed against it as they both struggled to not burst out laughing at the pathetic peacocking.

"Chilling." Orange muttered simply as he couldn't help himself and made a show of copying Hager. Lia finally couldn't contain it and let out a giggle that she had to slap a hand over her mouth to stifle. Prompting Orange to break and snort as the corner of his mouth twitched into a small grin.

The Inner Circle just stared at them as if they both grew an extra head before Sammy got tired and dismissed them with a wave of his hand and left. Hager frowned at them before plodding after Sammy and Ortiz had to pull Santana away from trying very hard to get a peek at Sam. Now alone again, Lia smiled up at Orange who was trying to rub away his grin and settle back into his perpetually cool stance.

"Thanks," she said softly, realizing that whole scenario would've played out very differently without him here.

"Wasn't for free," as he spoke he flopped into the chair beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth emanating from him but they were not actually touching.

Lia simply raised an eyebrow at him that morphed into genuine surprise as he took off his sunglasses and placed them on the table. When he looked back at her she swore he was a little sheepish.

"Can I hold the cool baby?"

There was such an earnest gleam in his eyes that it took her breath away. They were so blue. It had to be an omega thing that was making her heart race. Any man showing a bit of interest in children and that whole caregiver bullshit. Right?

"Sorry. Stupid question." He mumbled, eyes downcast as he reached for his sunglasses.

"No!" Lia blurted out, suddenly very unhappy at the idea of not seeing his full face. That thought did not at all make any heat rush up to the tips of her ears, "sorry. It's ok. I just … not used to seeing your eyes. Or something."

His head perked up as she carefully moved to unstrap Sam from her. All that understated confidence melted off him as she stood and gently slid the harness away revealing a snuggly swaddled bundle of baby blue dinosaur print. If she wasn't so taken with staring at Sam's face she would've noticed the slight tremor in Orange's hands as he moved them to his lap. As she stood, she hesitated for a moment and Orange just silently watched as a myriad of emotions flitted across her face for split seconds each. Remembering herself, she found a small smile and shifted to place Sam in his perfectly positioned waiting hands.

The expression became genuine as she watched Orange expertly adjust so that Sam was securely nestled in the crook of his elbow. His motions oddly practiced until he started using his other hand to trace absently along Sam's back.

"Hey cool baby," he muttered softly, head bowing to let Sam take up his entire vision. She wrestled down the urge to coo at the sight, instead wrapping her arms around herself feeling a bit of a chill in the arena.

"Sam," Lia softly provided, only now recognizing that she was still standing and moved to sit. Nudging her chair a little closer, their knees ended up touching but neither made a move away. She relished in the contact, letting his warmth seep into her as she draped herself across her chair arm. All those sleepless stressful nights finally catching up to her now that she was allowed a moment to not be vigilant.

"Hey cool baby Sam," Orange corrected, utterly captivated. Peeking over at Lia, he watched her struggle against her eyelids and shifted so that she could see Sam better resulting in their shoulders almost touching. A distantly familiar ache settled in his chest as her head rested against his bicep after she finally lost against her exhaustion. He ignored the eruption of itch that took over his forearm, specifically the swirl of vibrant blues that covered his inner arm hidden beneath his guard.

Charlie later found them all asleep in the booth 30 minutes before recording. Orange with his cheek resting against the top of Lia's head as Sam mouthed at the tip of his finger was the first to wake. Lia was roused by the rumble he let out for a moment before catching himself. He tried to play it off as a yawn but Charlie flashed him a knowing look that he ignored. In under a minute Orange had placed Sam back in Lia's arms and was sauntering out of the equipment area with a lackadaisical flick of his wrist to push his sunglasses back in place.

#My writing #orange cassidy fic #orange cassidy x ofc #orange cassidy #aew imagine #aew fanfiction #aew imagines #orange cassidy imagine

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rottenprincessshura100 · 3 years

Text

First chapter of Fanfic.

I’m reposting this in case people haven’t read it. This is the first chapter of the fanfic I’ve been working on for years. It started off as just a conversation in my head. What would Mephisto be like in a job interview? If a person met him for the first time, how strange would it be? He’s cunning, manipulative, and of course obviously a demon. Bits and pieces of me are evident in this chapter, i have a background in contemporary arts as does my OC character. (I started off writing what I know.) I thought back to that time when I finished grad school, was completely broke and couch surfing. What time a job would I have done for basic groceries? Pretty much anything.

Anyway...here it is. Feel free to pick apart the writing style. I’m trying to improve and get better at it. ;)

CHAPTER 1

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

Well, I hope today's interview will go well.

My student loan papers sat on my kitchen table with ominous foreboding. It was time to pay up.

I won't allow this new job to define my life, and it would be good enough, just for now. Plus, I'd get a chance to spend more time in my studio making art. I just had to impress the academy director during today's interview, and I'd be able to afford some decent groceries in two weeks. That's right, Evie, think positive!

So, what should I wear to this silly thing?

It's a private religious school; that means I should dress as professionally as possible.

I have two suits to my name, so I guess I'll wear a black jacket and a red blouse. Or is the red shirt too much? Yeah, I look like a cocktail waitress.

Back to the closet I go.

Okay, how about the wine-coloured blouse and black jacket? Sensible pants and a pair of heels. Fine.

My hair is a bit harder to work with; it's pinkish-brown. I'm an artist, so I tend to be riskier in my appearance. Today though, I have to clean up—no wild eye-makeup. I need to look like an ordinary boring temp worker that can file paperwork. I pull my hair back into a severe bun, like a schoolmarm or a librarian. Yep, now I look like a vodka aunt in a cheap suit. Effective.

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I drove along the busy narrow streets through True Cross Acadamy town. The school was a place for the well-to-do, and I'm almost embarrassed to park my junky car on the grounds.

Much to my mortification, the car backfired, drawing numerous stares from the crowds of uniform-clad students, practically bursting from every building.

Poor-ass artist alert! Here I am!

I slunk down into the seat, hoping the sun's reflection on the windshield washed out the crimson stain quickly spreading across my pale, freckled face.

After speaking with a guard at the main gate (located at the far end of an ancient drawbridge), he instructed me to drive up a long winding road to the highest point. This so-called town was, in reality, a walled city, consisting of tightly layered buildings in an array of architectural styles, all flawlessly intermixed. It was the oddest urban planning I'd ever seen, either designed by a crazy man or an absolute genius. From my own experience, I find the line between the two decidedly thin in most circumstances.

People from the mainland would often joke that True Cross City would never be completed but renovated in an endless loop. The rumours stated that the school's wealthy director never allowed the construction cranes to cease because it was merely bad luck to stay idle.

I continued my drive through the school campus to the mountain's apex—my job interview scheduled at the golden manor house of Sir Johann Faust on the 5th. The director himself would see me in his private office.

I swallowed back a slight wave of apprehension. I hope this guy isn't some sort of pervert. He most assuredly was eccentric. That I could handle.

I pulled up in front of Faust Palace, and just like the rest of the town, it's unusual. As I parked and exited my car, I'm in the shadow of tall golden spires shining like twin suns. The rest of the building reminds me of a cross between an ancient Greek temple, an art deco apartment and a mythical Arabian kingdom. I wiped my sweaty palms on the sides of my black dress pants, my demeanour full of apprehension.

Yeah, I don't belong here. I've got a bad feeling about this.

At that point, I decided to leave. Yet, I watched with foreboding as a pair of security guards materialized from the shadows and closed the elaborate golden gate, trapping me within the compound. Shit!

I made my way over the interlocking marble slabs to the ornately carved wooden front door with a heavy sigh. Before I'm able to raise my hand to knock, it quickly opens. A short older gentleman greeted me with a nod.

"Miss Evelynn Smith?" He inquired.

"Uh...yes. I'm here for the interview?"

"I am Belial, the keeper of the house. Please follow me; Director Faust will meet with you shortly."

The butler escorted me up a seemingly endless hallway. It was odd that an inconsequential temp worker, like myself, was being given the grand tour.

White marble pillars accented the grand structure, with furniture from various periods arranged throughout the abode in mini tableaus. It seemed more like a museum than someone's house. How very strange!

There were many rooms with identical doors; this place was more like a goddamn labyrinth than a manor house! I hope I can find my way out of here after this interview was over!

I tried to get a feel for my potential boss. Being an artist, I, of course, took in the paintings that hung salon-style from every square inch of walls. There seemed to be an abundance of demons and death themes. How morbid.

Stefan Lochner, The Last Judgment, Vincent Van Gogh, Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette. But wait? Aren't these all part of museum collections? I'm confused. Are they copies?

Just as the creepy dark artworks start to grate on my nerves, I round the corner into the next hallway and find myself engrossed within a pop art nightmare; wall-to-wall pink Takashi Murakami paintings hung in tandem with Jeff Koons, Made in Heaven.

Jesus! Who the hell was this guy? He's adorned his house in pink flowers and porn stars! Surely the students didn't walk into this hall?

As if on cue, the butler regarded me sheepishly. "Pupils are not permitted in Director Faust's residence. He only grants top members of the Vatican access to his private quarters."

I attempted to hold back my laughter. "So, this is a private religious school ran by the Vatican no-less, and we have trashy kink splashed all over the walls. I gotta say, I'm intrigued."

"The master has a dark sense of humour."

"Understatement of the century."

"This is the master's office," The butler ushered me quickly into a large room. "Please, take a seat. He is running a bit late from a previous meeting."

I turned back toward Belial, but he's long gone. I'm all alone in an empty room.

The office is quite different from the hall and decorated in deep mahogany wood, decidedly masculine. The desk is large and ominous; that is, it would have been if it weren't for the strange little collection of toys and knick-knacks carefully arranged next to the computer. I picked up a pink porcelain rabbit in the palm of my hand and raised an amused eyebrow.

"I'd ask that you do not touch the things on my desk."

Crap!

I hastily placed the toy back on the wooden tabletop and jumped to my feet. A tall, impossibly slender man strolled confidently into the room to greet me. He wore a crisp white suit and a long heavy cape. I shook his purple-gloved hand firmly. As I stared up into his face, I furrowed my brows in confusion.

What the actual fuck?

"Please, take a seat, Ms. Evelynn Smith." He bit his lip and snickered. "Or do you prefer...Eve..."

"Uh...Eve's fine." I replied with hesitation as I slowly eased into the yellow and blue jacquard chair.

I should look away, but I can't. Mr. Faust's hair is an impossible shade of violet purple with platinum highlights that shimmer just at the crown, he has pointed ears, and his teeth are small sharp fangs. He's dressed up like he just got back from Comicon.

Also, what's with that curly plume at the top of his head? Is it some sort of fascinator? Is it a feathered hair ornament? I don't get it.

"Okay, Eve, spill it. What's on your mind?" He rested his chin on his gloved hand and smiled knowingly. "Do I have horns growing out of my head or something?"

"It's just....uh...a great costume." I stammered. " Those ears look so real."

He seemed taken aback for a brief second. "Oh, yes! I'm an Otaku. I've had quite a few physical modifications, and it will all make sense in time."

I nodded slowly. What the hell does that even mean?

"Getting back to your resume...Eve." He finally pulled out my paperwork from a nearby folder. "So, you possess a minor in classics, a minor in philosophy and a master's degree in contemporary art. How intriguing."

"Pardon?"

"This job is for an assistant to the Vatican. Your degree is all about a personal quest for knowledge, not exactly chock-full of practical skills." He crossed his long legs and leaned back in his chair. "Your parents must have been completely disappointed, wasting all of that money. An arts degree instead of a doctor? If there was a wizard school, would you have signed up for that?"

"I paid for my education through scholarships."

He smiled smugly and read a few more pages. "So contemporary art, hmmm? Tell me how you make your artwork. What's the methodology behind it?"

"Well...I tend to work under the idea that the world is in a state of flux. Time isn't static, and we live in a non-linear narrative. I open my mind to thoughts of the impossible, the idea that they might indeed be probable under different subjective conditions. I try to allow play, chance, and chaos into the things that I build. Often by allowing more variables into a composition, we can get closer to the truth of our existence and find a deeper meaning."

He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on his desktop.

"I will be candid with you, Eve. I saw some of your work in a gallery in Northern Cross a few months ago. I greatly enjoyed it. You have a very open mind, which is the biggest necessity for this particular position."

"I just noticed your art collection." I countered. "It's not every day that one walks into a room of wall to wall vintage Cicconlina."

"You know your porn stars, I see?" He laughed with a merry twinkle.

"I know my art history."

"Oh...." He razzed. "Distinction made!"

"Director Faust, about this job....."

"Please. Call me, Mephisto." He gushed. "Faust is an old legal family name."

"Mephisto? Really?" I stare at him in confusion. "Your last name is Faust, and you call yourself Mephisto? Am I...?" I stammered. "... Am I walking into Dante's Inferno here?"

"You dare mock my name." He challenged. "Yet, your parents named you after Eve. The woman who was the downfall of man."

Who the hell does he think he is; Literally, devil's advocate?

"Eve decided that knowledge was more important than a paradise of ignorance. I firmly believe that a woman needs to know what she's getting herself into, Mephisto."

"I wholeheartedly agree." His large green eyes narrowed. Mephisto's attention now seemed quite dangerous, almost transfixed to my face. "Knowledge is so critical. It's the most important thing to you. Isn't it?"

"I would say so," I answer slowly. "Without knowledge, life is a waste."

"Eve, do you believe in the paranormal?" He changed the subject abruptly.

"I honestly haven't got the answer to that question."

"Oh, I think you do." He pressed. "You can see quite a few unexplainable things. Am I correct?"

How did he know?

It was like he could see right through me. I've seen weird shit my entire life, but you just don't talk about that sort of awkward nonsense. People would think I was crazy. My experiences had been terrifying, and I suffered alone in silence.

"Eve, what if I told you this job would answer all of your deepest questions? Questions that you cannot answer through traditional science and reason."

"I'd say you were full of shit."

"So says the artist!"

"Touche."

"Getting back to the idea of wizard school, I wasn't ribbing you entirely for fun. This academy is a training facility for exorcists. We use very non-traditional methods for ridding the world of darkness. If you choose to take this job, you will need to suspend your current notions of reality for a modified one."

"You mean I will believe in ghosts, goblins and demonic possession?"

"That's a fundamental understanding, yes. This job will explain the workings of the universe to you. Give you access to the vast knowledge that no other humans are privy to. There is one caveat; however, once you sign a very aggressive contract. You cannot tell anyone about the true nature of our work. Not family or friends, the Vatican takes security extremely seriously."

I started to get cold feet; this is a lot to consider. Am I cut out for the responsibility? This entire meeting was getting stranger by the minute. The job sounded downright ludicrous; the premise piqued my interest, but how could I believe in such nonsense? Plus, the more time I spent with Mephisto, the less human he appeared. Did his pupils just dilate like a cat!?

"You know what's funny?" He stated coyly, his fingers toying with an ornament on his desk. "You voyage into my office and instantly take note of my strange appearance. Most people don't possess the ability to see me for what I truly am. I tell you my legal name is Faust, and my current name is Mephisto. I have artwork depicting demons throughout my lavish abode. Eve, you're intelligent enough to connect all of these dots, and your mind has already solved the puzzle. Yet, your human conditioning tells you to disbelieve the apparent truth sitting directly in front of you."

"The truth?" I stammered.

"I'm a demon, my dear."

I take in his admission with a shocked and irritated face. This guy is a bonafide nutjob.

"I think I've heard just about enough of this Mephisto; this degree of wackiness is far beyond me. I think I'm the wrong person for this position." I stood and prepared to take my leave; only I can't. I'm unable to move a muscle. What the hell is happening? My eyes grow wide with panic.

Mephisto slowly removes his gloves and rests his chin on a black-clawed hand.

"I see. I'll have to prove it to you then. Fair enough, let's give you a little taste, shall we?"

He snapped his fingers, and I'm suddenly surrounded by a hoard of disgusting gremlins, clawing at my ankles with oozing toothy gullets. I saw the same terrifying creatures as a child, invading my daydreams, hiding in the dark shadows when I was alone. I'm so frightened; I can hear the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my ears. It was my worst nightmare brought back to life, these creatures as real and substantial as the floor under my feet. As the horror of the reality became almost too much to bear, suddenly, he was there. Mephisto expelled the creatures one by one into poofs of purple smoke with a simple flick of a finger. I fall back, no longer able to stand, and he catches me quickly. I'm still shaking from the shock as he carefully sits me back into my chair.

"Those creatures have followed you your entire life. As you have gotten older, you've noticed them less, but they were still slowly feeding off your energy. They are quite volatile." He sat demurely on the edge of his desk, swinging his legs playfully. "They won't bother you now though, I've exorcized them from your presence. You see, this is what we do here. We help humans battle the unsavoury monsters from Gehenna."

I sit dumbfounded, rendered speechless with bewilderment. Mephisto continues with our one-sided conversation, unconcerned like this was completely normal. "...The pay for this position is quite handsome for an artist. It's also part-time, which will allow you to continue to work in your studio. You will report here five days a week, from 9 am-2 pm. You will receive correspondence from the Vatican, and you will keep me informed of all inbound information. You will also book and coordinate exorcists for special ops and daily assignments. My butler Belial will train you appropriately."

"Mephisto...I'm..."

"Terrified and disconcerted?" He grinned. "Happens every time I make a new hire."

"I don't think I can't handle all of this."

"Do you think I pick my employees out of thin air? You wouldn't be here if I didn't find you entirely capable. I've researched you extensively. You long for knowledge, and I will provide all of the deepest desires in your quest. All you simply need to do now is agree." He presented me with a contract.

"I don't know," I whispered nervously. "Can I think it over?"

"I haven't the time." He responded with a hint of a smile. "I am a very busy person, you see. It's now or never, my dear."

My rational mind screams for me to jump out of that chair and run from the building. Yet, my desires kept me staring in a trance at the contract. Mephisto presented me with an old-fashioned quill pen. I grasped it with my shaking hand and stared at the bottom line.

"Oh...we need some ink to seal the deal. How silly of me to forget something so important." He took out a silver hatpin from a glass decanter and poked the end of his finger. A river of blood ran along his impossibly pale skin and dripped from the end of his glistening black claw. As it flowed freely into a bronze dish on his desk, I stared in dismay. I can't believe what I'm seeing! Mephisto then gently took my hand and poked the end of my finger. A tiny drop of my blood intermixes with his.

"What the fuck," I whispered hoarsely. "No...I'm not signing this. No way!"

"You will sign." His eyes bore into mine, and I'm once again drawn physically to the contract. I dipped the quill as if hypnotized and slowly write my name.

"Excellent!" He seemed pleased with himself. Meanwhile, I'm totally in a daze and fall back into my chair, suffering from strange exhaustion. Did I just sign a contract in blood?

I stood shakily, preparing to leave.

"Eve, I will see you back here tomorrow morning, bright and early." Mephisto rambled on with a sing-song voice. "Here is some research about me. It will teach you the basics of demons and how to work with them."

Belial is now instantly at the office door, he handed me a stack of books, and I find myself escorted from the building.

I jumped into my car and locked the doors. As I put the car into drive, the transmission lurches forward. The books flutter open on the car seat; the top hardcover was a book about Ancient Demon Classification, followed by a copy of Faust and Dr. Seus, Green Eggs and Ham.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

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Here’s the link to the rest. ;)

https://www.wattpad.com/711456559-the-interview-a-blue-exorcist-fanfic-the-interview

#fanfic #mephisto pheles #blue exorcist #posting my own content because there is none and I'm sad.

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seokiloquy · 4 years

Text

Headline Pt 1- Kuroo Tetsurou

AU: Parent

FEM!Reader

Word Count: 2.3K

Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3

“Long time girlfriend of Tokyo volleyball player, Tetsurou Kuroo, left their apartment early in the morning with a bag. Is it splitsville for them?”

You rolled your eyes, laughing slightly as you read the article headline. The “early morning” was for your early meeting and your bag was filled with books that you were returning to the library, books that you wanted to throw at the person who wrote that.

This must have been the fifth article that you read this week about yourself and at first, you were annoyed or angry, but after a second, you always found it kind of funny. Where did these people get their ideas for stories? Did they just put them into a random prompt generator?

The only thing that you knew for certain was that someone was outside of your apartment taking photos which is a little unsettling. You’d have to remind Kuroo later, maybe see if the two of you could get a little extra security.

This was your home and you weren’t going to let them take that away from you.

When you started dating Kuroo, you knew that he was a volleyball player for the Tokyo team, but you didn’t expect for people to be invested in the player’s lives or who they were dating. You didn’t mind though, being with Kuroo was all that you could ask for, and if you had to live with people knowing who you are, then it was worth it.

Your head turned as you heard Kuroo coming through the front door. “Did you hear? We’re heading for splitsville. I want the apartment. You can have everything else.”

Kuroo laughed and sat beside you on the couch, picking up your legs and placing them on his lap. “I thought that we broke up 5 months ago? And I want the apartment.”

“Nope,” you smiled, “Apparently my bookbag holds all of my possessions and I’m leaving you. Why would I leave if I get the apartment? They should really think about that before they post these things. Maybe they should be more cautious of you leaving the apartment.”

Kuroo patted your legs. “Please, I couldn’t fit anything in one backpack. You’ve seen all my stuff.” He gestured around the room where all of his trinkets were littered around, and then looked back at you, grabbing your hand. “You okay?”

You lead your head to the side, resting on a pillow. “Yeah. Are you? How was practise?”

“Tiring. My arms feel like they are going to fall off.”

“Too bad,” You sighed, “I like your arms.”

Kuroo laughed. “But I get the day off tomorrow so we could do anything tonight?”

“Like going out to eat? I already put food in the oven.”

Kuroo shook his head and leaned over to kiss you. “Something more along these lines.”

You laughed kissing him back. “The food’s going to burn.”

“We’ll get take out.”

You have been throwing up for the past week. Your throat felt raw every morning after breakfast and your morning ended with you on the bathroom floor and calling in sick to work.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Kuroo asked, putting on his shoes.

You slipped your feet into your own and stood up, keys in hand to lock the door behind the two of you. “You’re already driving me there. I’ll be fine, Kuroo, I’ve been to the doctor’s office before alone and you went with me last week when they drew my blood”

“But you don’t like going alone, even if I just sit in the waiting room” Kuroo frowned, opening the door. “And lucky I did because needles terrify you. You know my hand still hurts from how hard you squeezed it, like, I really thought it would be broken when you let go.”

You laughed. “I think you would know if your hand was broken. As long as needles aren’t involved then I’ll be okay.”

“Fine, but if you need me then call me. I’ll always come.”

You didn’t have to sit in the waiting room for long, but you were nervous. You’ve never been called back when you had blood tested. Usually, they would send you a message from their service system to let you know that things were fine, but somehow you just knew things weren’t fine this time.

You sat in the doctor's office for a bit though. You were too nervous to look at your phone because you already felt it buzz a couple of times and you knew that it was Kuroo asking how things were, so you looked around the room and read the posters on the walls.

There was a particularly interesting one about the policies of the office that you didn’t know and one about the effects of food poisoning, which seemed kind of random, but you read it anyways. You were throwing up a lot, so maybe you had food poisoning and it was really bad that you needed medication or something, but the poster told you that food poisoning only lasted a day or two, so that wasn’t it.

“Ms.(L/N)?”

You tore your eyes from the poster and to your doctor. “Yes? I’m dying right?”

Your doctor laughed and sat down behind his desk, placing a white box on it. “No, uhh, quite the opposite really.”

“What’s the opposite?”

“Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” Your doctor said, smiling brightly at you brightly. He tapped on the white box in front of him. “These are prenatal vitamins that should last a week or so, but if you want more of them you’ll have to go to a pharmacist.”

You laughed. “I’m not pregnant.”

The doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ms. (L/N)...you are.”

“Oh…”

“Are you okay?”

You sat up straighter in your chair and smiled, looking down at your stomach. “Yes? I think. I mean, I always wanted to have kids…”

“Do you need the front desk to call someone for you?” Your doctor suggested. You knew that he was alluding to Kuroo because he was the person you’re usually with and he probably assumed that Kuroo was the father.

“No, it’s okay,” you stood up. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

You went home and baked two dozen cookies. Kuroo called you a stress baker, but never opposed it because it meant that your apartment always smelt like sweets. Apartment. It would be a house soon wouldn’t it? You and Kuroo could afford a house and you’ve always wanted a house when you had kids.

“I smell cookies!” Kuroo announced as he walked through the door. He kicked off his shoes, placing his bag near the door and walked over to the kitchen counter where a fresh batch of cookies sat. He grabbed one and took a bit. “They’re good, but you only bake when you’re stressed. How was the doctor?”

You turned to him, but continued to mix your brownie mix. “It was good. Nothing bad. And I bake regularly too! These are happy cookies.”

“And what are you happy about?” He asked, taking another cookie.

“I’m pregnant.”

You didn’t look up as you said it because you didn’t know where Kuroo would stand. You’ve been dating for five years and the topic never really came up, but last year he said something about having a family together. It’s only now that you thought that it could’ve been a joke.

“Is it mine?”

You shot up at that. He didn’t look too thrilled, which made you want to throw up the cookies that you ate before he came. “You think I’m cheating on you?”

He shook his head. “No! It’s just.... You’re pregnant.”

“I am. That’s what the doctor told me.”

“What are you going to do with….it?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “What am I going to do? Don’t you mean we? It takes two people to make a human.”

Kuroo stood up, an unreadable look on his face.

Your shoulders sank. “You don’t want kids.”

“I do,” he said quickly. “I just don’t want them now.”

You blinked. “Not now? It’s not like I can postpone it or something.”

It was silent for a bit after that. You were looking at Kuroo, but he was looking at the ground. You were really scared in the moment. It was like time had stopped on you but you were still running.

You were frozen.

Kuroo started walking to the door. “I have a practice game tomorrow. You...You can have the apartment.”

You walked out from behind the counter. “What? Are you breaking up with me? Kuroo?”

He grabbed his gym bag and shoes and said, “You can have the apartment.”

Then he left.

Kuroo hasn’t gone back to the apartment to get his stuff yet. He’s been meaning to though. It’s only been a couple of days since his fight with you and he’s been couch hopping. He’s been keeping an eye on the media too, since you told him that there were people stalking the apartment, he made it a point to check it every once in a while to see if you were caught leaving the apartment.

You weren’t.

“Kuroo! I need to talk with you,” his coach said.

They lost their game and even though no one said it, everyone on his team could tell that he was off. He would miss easy set ups, spiked out of the lines and most of his serves hit the net. During the second set of the match, his coach gave him an odd look and switched him out, but Kuroo couldn’t even bring himself to care. He barely watched the rest of the game, his eyes glued to the floor and his mind thinking about you.

“Yes?” He said, bringing the towel up to his forehead.

“What’s going on? You’ve been off lately.”

“I, uhh…” Kuroo said. He and his teammates were close enough to talk about their personal leaves in the locker rooms every now and then, but their coach never asked nor seemed to care. Kuroo was worried about his answer. He didn’t want to lie, in fact he wanted to tell someone, he didn’t mention it to his friends, who let him stay on their couches, but what if telling his coach meant that he would be benched for the rest of the season?

He already lost you and he didn’t think he could take any more losses.

“You probably don’t want to tell me,” his coach started, before Kuroo could decide whether to lie or not. “But what you’re going through affects this team, which affects me. The truth, please. I won’t judge.”

But people always do.

“My girlfriend,” Kuroo said in a low voice. Practice was still going on and the sound of volleyballs smacking the floor drowned out their voices, but this wasn’t something that Kuroo wanted other people to know. “She’s pregnant and I broke up with her? Kind of? I left after she told me.”

The coach’s face hardened. He was definitely judging, but Kuroo didn’t mind, he deserved the judgement.

“Is that something you want?” His coach let out slowly. “A kid?”

“At this moment, I don’t know?” Kuroo said, leaning against the wall of the gym. “I’ve always wanted a future with her and a future like that, one where we would get married and all the things that come after that happened, I see kids. In our future, I see kids. I think I was scared…I didn’t think that we would just skip all those steps.”

His coach sighed. “Kuroo, I’ve had four kids and each time is scarier than the first. It’s terrifying to bring someone into the world, but it’s one of the most amazing things too. What you’re feeling now, your girlfriend is probably just, maybe even more scared than that. Breaking up with her and leaving as soon as she told you? That might be a side effect of you being scared, but it doesn’t mean it was right, it doesn’t mean you leave her alone when she’s scared. You love her right?”

Kuroo nodded. “But what if I got back and she doesn’t want me anymore?”

“Then you offer what you can,” his coach said, patting him on the shoulder, “and you accept the consequences for your actions.”

Kuroo rubbed his eyes. “Can I be excused from the rest of practise?”

His coach gave him a sad smile. “In my mind, you’re already out the door.”

Kuroo was breathless as he climbed the stairs to the apartment. He was still in his volleyball clothes with his keys clutched in his hand.

“(Y/N)?!”

The apartment was the same as he left it, the cookies were still on the table and the kitchen light on.

“(Y/N)! I’m really sorry. I want this kid. I want to spend the rest of my life with you if you’ll let me. I’m so sorry. (Y/N)?”

No one answered back.

He rounded the corner and went to your bedroom. All of his stuff was still there, but your side of the room was empty.

Your clothes gone. Your books gone. Your pillow gone.

“(Y/N)?”

Kuroo slowly backed out of the room. Numbly, his footsteps brought him back to the kitchen and saw a piece of paper on the counter that he had overlooked.

You can have the apartment.

As requested! There will be a second part too… I’ve never read something like this before...so I hope it’s okay.

To the requester: I changed the ending just a tad bit...I hope you’re okay with that!!!

I hope you enjoyed!! - Kiwi

Posted: 03/07/2020

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