#and then his whole body jerks like a delayed attempt to get up. someone get this guy a good hearty update something aint right 😭

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spite in Misery - ao3

(rather silly AU of Delight in Misery, only even more petty and passive aggressive, and also slightly more JC/LWJ)

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

“What do you want?” Jiang Cheng asked.

“Sanctuary,” Lan Wangji said, prim and proper as he always was, the perfect untouchable iceberg as always, except maybe for the small child he was holding. “For me and my son.”

“Wait, you fuck?”

Wait, that wasn’t the right question.

“Why do you need sanctuary here?” Jiang Cheng asked, utterly bemused. “There isn’t a single place in the cultivation world you wouldn’t be welcomed –”

Except here.

“– and anyway, your brother, his sworn brothers, and your sect would demolish anyone who even thought about hurting you. Who in the world could you need sanctuary from?”

“My brother,” Lan Wangji said. “His sworn brothers, and my sect.”

Jiang Cheng stared at him.

Lan Wangji stared right back at him.

And then he collapsed.

“No,” Jiang Cheng said to the unconscious or possibly dead body currently lying across the threshold of the Lotus Pier and the small feverish-looking child in barely better state splayed out beside it. “I refuse to take responsibility for this!”

-

“You will not say anything about the room I have chosen to house you in,” Jiang Cheng said. “You will not complain about the food, the amenities, or make any requests whatsoever. Do you hear me?”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said.

Jiang Cheng ought to have expected as much.

“And don’t think this means I’m going to like you or anything,” Jiang Cheng added self-righteously.

“I despise you with every drop of blood in my body,” Lan Wangji said.

“…so noted,” Jiang Cheng said.

After a moment, he added, “I don’t care!” and stormed out.

After yet another moment, he came right back into the room where he’d put Lan Wangji – it was just a convenient room, not specifically Wei Wuxian’s room, and if putting Lan Wangji in there meant he could delay having to clean out all the personal possessions left in there and actually repurpose it, that was his business and no one else’s – and said, “Why do you hate me, exactly?”

“Do you care?” Lan Wangji asked. He was examining the small cot Jiang Cheng had set up to put the still-unconscious and therefore nameless child on.

“Obviously,” Jiang Cheng said. “Or I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said.

Jiang Cheng waited a few moments, moments that grew longer and longer, and finally he realized – “You’re not planning on telling me?”

“I despise you,” Lan Wangji reminded him.

“Oh, you – you…!” Jiang Cheng ground his teeth together. “I’m the one giving you sanctuary, remember?”

“I came to you because you were the only one powerful enough to accomplish the task and spiteful enough to do it. I did not come here to owe you any favors.”

“Well, you’re going to owe me one anyway,” Jiang Cheng said, scowling at him. “You – you – ugh. Forget it!”

He stormed back out.

And then he realized he hadn’t actually brought the medicine that he’d intended to bring to Lan Wangji, so he had to go in and drop it off, but then he was finally able to storm away properly.

-

“I was under the belief we had agreed it would be best for us to see each other as little as possible,” Lan Wangji said, his voice even icier than usual – which was saying something.

“That’s right,” Jiang Cheng agreed, eying him warily. “I’m only here personally to drop off your medicine because it means fewer people know that you’re here.”

He’d thought that he would need to bring in a doctor for Lan Wangji’s injuries, but it turned out to be whip marks from a discipline whip and Jiang Cheng – well. Jiang Cheng knew everything there was to know about injuries like that.

Sure, he’d had to take A-Yuan to a doctor, he didn’t know shit about pediatric illnesses, but that was fine, it didn’t give the whole game away. Jiang Cheng was able to pass him off as some random sad orphan he’d taken pity on, which wasn’t far from what he suspected to be the truth.

“In that case,” and Lan Wangji’s voice was even colder, which how, “why do you live next door?”

“This was the only room available,” Jiang Cheng lied.

Lan Wangji glared death at him.

“Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m giving you sanctuary, aren’t I?” Jiang Cheng scowled. “Anyway, I told you that you weren’t allowed to complain about the room.”

Lan Wangji did not appear impressed.

“How’d you know I was next door, anyway?”

“You have nightmares.”

…right.

“I’ll invest in better soundproofing, then,” Jiang Cheng said haughtily. He wasn’t ashamed of having nightmares. After the life he’d lived, it was only to be expected.

“I don’t want to be around you at all,” Lan Wangji clarified.

“Too bad.”

“I don’t want you spending time with A-Yuan.”

Oh, so that was the real issue here. Well, in that case, the answer was still – “Too bad.”

“He’s my son.”

“He’s in my house,” Jiang Cheng said. “In my sect, in my lands, in my part of the cultivation world, which is the only reason you came here rather than literally anywhere else, remember? Because I’m a territorial bastard with a paranoid streak that won’t let anyone come look for you in here without hovering over their backs like a shadow, making it impossible for them to actually find you – sound familiar?”

Lan Wangji’s face twitched. “I did not say that.”

“You thought it,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Wangji’s silence proved he was right. “Anyway, I don’t care if you don’t like me spending time with A-Yuan. He’s one of the only people who can make Jin Ling laugh.”

“He wants to be his big brother,” Lan Wangji said. He sounded like he had swallowed glass.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng said, not understanding. “Good for him?”

Brothers didn’t have to be biological, he thought, and that old pain tore through his heart the way it always did when he thought about Wei Wuxian.

“Worthless,” Lan Wangji said, glaring at him, and Jiang Cheng almost agreed with that assessment of himself – thoughts of Wei Wuxian usually had that effect – except of course it was Lan Wangji saying it, so naturally he had to disagree.

It was oddly reaffirming, actually. He might beat himself up as being worthless, useless and pathetic, a broken shell of a man who couldn’t keep a single member of his family alive, who had nothing and lived for nothing and existed purely for the sake of his sect and Jin Ling –

But the second Lan Wangji said that he was worthless, Lan Wangji who was wrong about everything, Jiang Cheng was immediately convinced that he was the best thing that had ever been invented.

Wait, was this how Wei Wuxian used to feel all the time?

No wonder he was always tormenting Lan Wangji.

-

“I brought you some books on physical rehabilitation,” Jiang Cheng announced. “No, don’t thank me - the sooner you’re better, the sooner you can leave.”

“It will not be too soon,” Lan Wangji said.

Personally, Jiang Cheng didn’t think Lan Wangji was going to be leaving for at least another year, maybe a few more years, not with that many strikes of the discipline whip to heal and his disordered qi to straighten out, but it was nice for both of them to see a destination at the end of the road in which they didn’t have to see each other all the time. Either way, he agreed, so he wasn’t going to ruin the rare moment of complete harmony by being persnickety.

“You should knock before entering,” Lan Wangji added, prissy as always.

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He probably should have, yes, but he always had the ‘it’s my house’ thing to fall back on. This was the Lotus Pier where the rules of the Lan sect didn’t apply, and as far as he was concerned, that was reason enough to ignore etiquette. Anyway, Lan Wangji was here alone and healing just the way he’d been doing the past few months, what exactly was he going to be doing that Jiang Cheng might walk in on –

“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said when Lan Wangji attempted, with dignity, to extract his hands from inside his clothing, which was unfortunately not something he could do subtly. “Were you trying to jerk off?”

Lan Wangji looked mutinous.

“…were you failing to jerk off?”

Lan Wangji now looked like he wanted to rip Jiang Cheng limb from limb, even though it ought to have been clear enough that Jiang Cheng would only think to ask the question because he’d had a similar issue for a while there. The time after his family had died had been brutal, and he couldn’t even use getting off as a shortcut to fall asleep because every time he tried he couldn’t keep it up; it’d been awful. He’d been terrified that he’d broken his own dick somehow, which led to worries that he wouldn’t be able to have kids in the future and thereby fail his parents and ancestors in a brand new and yet unexplored way, which led to even more panic and even less sleeping. It hadn’t been until someone (he suspected Nie Mingjue, bizarrely enough) shoved a medical treatise about trauma reactions under his door that he’d realized it was a fairly normal aftereffect and managed to calm down a little.

Nie Mingjue had also given him so much work to do that Jiang Cheng hadn’t had time to even think about that sort of thing until nearly half a year later, at which point everything was working again and he’d completely forgotten it was even an issue until halfway into the afterglow.

Good man, that Nie Mingjue.

“If it’s a symptom, you need to tell me these things,” Jiang Cheng said, taking far too much wretched enjoyment out of the whole thing. He’d give Lan Wangji the trauma book, of course – he still had it – but he had to get his wins in where he could against the perfect iceberg, cheap shots or no. “As your current attending doctor, I’m responsible for your care –”

“It is unwanted but necessary. It is simply something that I must endure,” Lan Wangji said grimly, and Jiang Cheng raised his eyebrows.

The book had covered that, too, although that hadn’t been his problem, personally.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “You keep getting hard, is that it? And then retraumatizing yourself when you try to jerk off, which means you can’t satisfy the need, which means you can’t solve the getting hard all the time problem, which in turn affects your cultivation and so your healing…yeah, I see the issue. You should probably get someone else to do it for you if you get really desperate.”

“I see no one but you,” Lan Wangji said through gritted teeth.

A problem, Jiang Cheng admitted.

Still mostly Lan Wangji’s problem, though.

“Well,” he said with the smarmiest smirk he could manage, “as your attending doctor –”

Lan Wanjgji threw a book at his head.

-

“What are you planning on doing once you’re better?” Jiang Cheng wondered.

“Why are you talking to me?” Lan Wangji replied.

“Oh come on,” Jiang Cheng said. “How can you say such a thing after taking advantage of me? I let you into my home –”

“You will not be able to rely upon that fact forever.”

“I will be able to rely on that fact for eternity,” Jiang Cheng disagreed. “I let you into my home, I hid you away from the world – which isn’t actually as easy as I make it look, just so you know! Your brother is practically scouring the earth –”

Lan Wangji looked like he’d bitten into something extremely sour.

“I’m sorry, did you think he was not going to do that? And recruit his sworn brothers to help him?” Jiang Cheng asked. “I thought the whole point of this was – well –”

“It was.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I do not enjoy hearing of it.”

“Listen, if you’re going to decide to torture someone by turning your back on them and disappearing without a word, you should at least have the guts to own it.”

“You speak from experience, I take it.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Did you somehow forget everything that happened back then with Wei Wuxian?”

“…you were the one who turned your back on Wei Ying.”

Jiang Cheng laughed disbelievingly. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he jeered. “Because I was so well-known for my backbone when it came to Wei Wuxian. I definitely was the one to come up with the idea to throw him out of my sect and cut ties, yeah, definitely, that’s completely what happened. I mean, obviously, I always got my way when dealing with him, every time, that’s how it always was between us. He had nothing to do with it.”

Lan Wangji was glaring at him. “Not then,” he said, each word cutting like a sword. “The Nightless City.”

“You mean the time he arrogantly and completely without warning started a fight that got my sister killed and then murdered three thousand people, including some of the very few family members and friends I had left?”

Lan Wangji was silent.

“You do mean that time,” Jiang Cheng said, marveling. “Are you insane? Even if I wanted to, if I took his side then, I’d have had no claim later on to grab him as a prisoner before anyone else did. The Jin would have executed him for sure! And slowly!”

“The Burial Mounds –”

“He imploded in front of my face!” Jiang Cheng shouted. “I had to see – when he – he died! He was – he did – you don’t even know – no, you know what, I’m not talking about this. Not with you of all people; you hated him.”

Lan Wangji’s hands were fists. “I did not.”

“No? You did a good job of acting like you did,” Jiang Cheng sneered. “Always talking about how you wanted to drag him back to Gusu just because it would make you feel better –”

“Better than leaving him.”

“I did what he wanted! And yes, fine, maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I should’ve ignored what he wanted, maybe I should’ve dragged him back to the Lotus Pier and locked him in a little room for the rest of his life the way everyone knows your dad did to your mom – ”

Lan Wangji flinched.

In fairness, Jiang Cheng was exaggerating about everyone knowing. He only knew about it because he’d heard his mother spit it out at his father during one of their nastier fights, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to have known about it, either.

“– but stupid me, I thought he’d be happier being free and alone than stuck with someone he clearly didn’t want to be around him anymore! But what do I know? Maybe I should ask you, you selfish bastard. You’re the one in his position this time, you’re the one who’s doing the turning away – I bet you don’t even know what it’s like to be the one that’s not wanted.”

Lan Wangji stared down at his hands as Jiang Cheng jumped up to his feet, Zidian crackling to life in his hand despite himself, persisting even though he tried to suppress it.

“I’m going to go hunt down some demonic cultivators,” he said, trying in vain to keep his temper even a little bit and knowing it was a lost cause. “And then I’m going to bring them back here and make them scream somewhere you can hear it. You can chew on that with some glass for all I care!”

-

“You handled that last one well,” Lan Wangji said. It sounded like someone was pulling teeth from his head.

“You’re sick,” Jiang Cheng announced. “I will go get some fever medicine at once. Are you experiencing any other symptoms in addition to hallucinations? Or should I be checking for signs of possession instead?”

Lan Wangji was back to glaring at him.

“I don’t know what drove that sudden spurt of niceness and I don’t care to know,” Jiang Cheng informed him. “I don’t need your approval.”

Lan Wangji ignored him. That was more customary.

Also unfortunate, because Jiang Cheng managed to get less than half a shichen of work done before coming back into Lan Wangji’s room (not Wei Wuxian’s room) and saying, “Okay, what exactly did I do?”

Lan Wangji looked at him sidelong.

“Seriously,” Jiang Cheng said. “What did I do that was so impressive that even you approved of it?”

“The demonic cultivator. The last one.”

Jiang Cheng frowned, thinking about it. “The – stupid one, you mean?”

Lan Wangji stared at him, and then looked at the ceiling, long-suffering. “The one from Yunping.”

“The stupid one,” Jiang Cheng confirmed, and then he was ranting again because he couldn’t seem to stop ranting about it. “I can’t believe the idiot got into demonic cultivation as a way to make money! That’s just – it’s just – if I ever figure out who paid him, I’m going to rearrange their guts with my sword. Lousy rotten opportunistic…!” He coughed, realizing he’d gotten started again when he’d promised Jiang Meimei that he’d stop. It apparently got old after the sixth repetition. “Anyway, what’s so notable about that?”

“You accepted him as an outer disciple of your own sect.”

“Well, yeah. What else was I going to do with him? He’s clearly got some talent for cultivation if he figured out demonic cultivation without dying. It’d be a waste to send him back to be a fisherman or a dockworker or something.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“I’m not going to kill someone who got into demonic cultivation as a way to raise funds to get medicine for his sick mother,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “The idiot’s on tomb-sweeping duty for the next year to make up for having manipulated corpses the way he did, that’s punishment enough. It’s not at all comparable to the usual sort of amateur demonic cultivator, the ones that summon corpses to torment former lovers or murder business partners or that sort of thing – those are the ones I use as an example to warn everyone else. What’s the big deal?”

Lan Wangji said nothing.

“Fine, keep your secrets. Can you watch Jin Ling today? I have a – uh – important meeting.”

“Another woman that you have no intention of actually marrying?”

“Shut up and mind your own business.”

-

“No, but seriously,” Jiang Cheng said. “What are you going to do once you’re better?”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Lan Wangji said, his voice muffled on account of his face being firmly in his hands. “Go away.”

“Listen, we’re still neighbors, we still need to talk. There’s no point in being suddenly shy about it just because you’re still in the acceptance phase of grief in connection with the whole me helping you with getting off business –”

“Never speak of it.”

Jiang Cheng sniggered. He wouldn’t have pegged the Lan sect as having uncontrolled libidos, much less Lan Wangji, but apparently the situation had gotten truly dire. Anyway, really, getting mockery rights was totally worth an arm work-out and having to put up with Lan Wangji, the latter of which he had to do anyway.

“You really are taking advantage of me now, though! My poor virtue –”

Lan Wangji looked at him through his fingers. “You don’t have any virtue.”

“Really?” Jiang Cheng asked, suddenly curious. “I strike you as someone with a lot of experience –”

“I meant morally.”

“Oh. Hey!”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes. “Pathetic.”

“Not as pathetic as someone who won’t answer a straight question,” Jiang Cheng said. “What’s your plan for after you’re healed? Are you going back to the Lan sect? Or start traveling as a rogue cultivator?”

“Why do you care?” Lan Wangji asked.

“I can care!”

“But you don’t. Not about my affairs.”

Jiang Cheng had to admit this was correct. “Fine,” he said. “I need a name.”

Lan Wangji frowned at him.

“For A-Yuan,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s been a year. The kid’s as healthy as he’s ever going to be, and he’s old enough for me to shove him in with the rest of the younger generation now that we’re starting lessons back up – cultivation, swordsmanship, shooting, etiquette, all the usual. But I can’t register him in the class without a surname, and I need to know if that surname’s going to be Lan or if you plan on changing it to something else.”

Lan Wangji was frowning at him.

“I know, I know, you’re in hiding,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s fine, it won’t give you away even if you do pick ‘Lan’. I can register him as a Yunmeng Lan instead of a Gusu Lan, the surname’s common enough that no one will suspect anything unless you make him start wearing a forehead ribbon, which I don’t think you lot do at this age yet anyway. But if you’re planning on continuing to hide from your family after you get better, you’re going to need to do something about all of that.”

Lan Wangji looked sour.

“Anyway, long story short, that’s it. Your plans, I need to know them.”

Lan Wangji looked even more sour.

“Well? What is it?”

“We will return to the Lan sect,” Lan Wangji said.

“Not that hard, was it,” Jiang Cheng said. “I knew you were just throwing a temper tantrum.”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes.

After a moment, he said, “What do we do about Jin Ling?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do we do about Jin Ling’?” Jiang Cheng asked suspiciously. “I had to fight half of Lanling Jin for the right to raise him here, we’re not doing anything about Jin Ling – anyway, who’s ‘we’? He’s my nephew!”

“A-Yuan sees him as a little brother.”

This was true.

“They will not want to part.”

…also true.

“Moreover,” and here Lan Wangji looked especially sour, “I believe A-Yuan has taken you as something of a – second parent.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Jiang Cheng said. “He’s a cute kid. Anyway, don’t take it so personally. Kids just do that, they adopt any adult in the vicinity as their own. I mean, certainly Jin Ling thinks of you as…wait. Wait. Are we co-parenting?!”

“Mm. Took you long enough to notice.”

-

It had been a bad day, a bad week, and a bad month, and Jiang Cheng’s temper, never good, was on the verge of imploding, so naturally that was when he completely lost all self-control he might have had and marched over to Lan Wangji’s room to blurt out, “Why do you hate me?”

Lan Wangji’s hands stilled over his guqin.

“I know why I hate you, even putting aside the fact that you’re a jackass with the emotional capacity of a brick,” Jiang Cheng said. “But I really have no idea what I did to you to make you hate me.”

There were so many options, after all. He was a cruel, vicious, and bitter man – he was a terrible parent, unlikable as a friend, barely sufficient as a sect leader, and such a failure at connecting socially with anyone that he’d been blacklisted as a marriage prospect despite being handsome, young, rich, and powerful. There were so many reasons to hate him.

But he didn’t know which one was the one that made Lan Wangji look at him with disdain, even if he thought that perhaps there was slightly less of that these days than there had been before.

“I hate you because you abandoned Wei Ying when he needed you,” Lan Wangji said. “He was your brother, and you left him behind – more than that, you led the charge against him, resulting in his death.”

…that was a good reason.

Jiang Cheng wouldn’t mind being hated for that reason, actually. It was a nice change from all those people who congratulated him for having done the right thing: all those smug sect leaders that comforted him for having raised a white-eyed wolf in the family, the ones that said his actions showed that he had a good backbone and a righteous bearing, the ones that had the gall to send him gifts of congratulation on the anniversary of Wei Wuxian’s death to thank him for his contribution to the cultivation world when all he wanted was to be left alone to mourn…

“That’s fine,” he croaked. “Okay. Yes. That’s – fine.”

“Why do you hate me?” Lan Wangji asked in turn. “You said you knew.”

“Oh, that,” Jiang Cheng said. “Same reason.”

Lan Wangji stared.

Jiang Cheng shrugged. “I mean, I know you were always harsh on him when we were together at your uncle’s lectures, which was completely fair given how much he was always bothering you. But he really did try sincerely to help you when we were all the Wen sect’s camp, and in the cave with the Xuanwu – but after, in the war, when he showed up with his demonic cultivation, you suddenly turned on him even though he was just doing it to help. You kept telling him he had to stop, even though you knew he was doing so much for the war effort, and you wanted to take him back to Gusu to do who-knows-what to him…you even snatched him away during the battle of the Nightless City! I saw you. I was so afraid you were going to kill him, I completely lost my head. I looked for you everywhere – I really don’t know how he was lucky enough to get away from you that time.”

Lan Wangji stared at him.

“And then you didn’t even bother to show up to the siege of the Burial Mounds in person,” Jiang Cheng added, feeling bitter. “After I heard from the Lan sect that he escaped from you, I briefly thought that you’d changed your mind and let him go. I was counting on you to be at the Burial Mounds to support me in claiming him as a Jiang sect prisoner – I had Chifeng-zun signed on, if reluctantly, and with you leading the Lan I could’ve made a decent argument. But then you didn’t show, either you or your brother; instead you sent your uncle, and of course there wasn’t even any point in asking him, was there?”

“…I didn’t know,” Lan Wangji said. His voice sounded strangely hoarse. “I wasn’t informed. It was shortly after…”

He nodded at his own shoulder, meaning the disaster on his back. Jiang Cheng hadn’t asked how it happened – he really wanted to know, as in really, really, really wanted to know, but even he was aware that actually asking would be unbearably rude. Still, he was surprised by the timing of it. How had Lan Wangji managed to end up in the hands of his enemies then? Who had even been left to do it to him?

“Yeah, well,” Jiang Cheng said, shaking his head to try to kick away his curiosity the way he would something clinging to his foot. “You were still a bastard to him when he needed you, so I hate you.”

He frowned.

“Also, you hate me,” he said. “So I hated you back just for that. Though I guess, since your reason for hating me is valid, maybe I should stop hating you back for that?”

He considered it.

“No,” he decided. “You’re too annoying not to hate.”

“The same for you,” Lan Wangji said after an unusual hesitation.

Jiang Cheng nodded and, feeling oddly relieved at not having found a new basis for self-hatred, departs.

-

“So once you’ve reestablished yourself at the Cloud Recesses, we’ll exchange extended visits on a regular basis so the kids can see each other,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Wangji nodded. “A minimum of three weeks per season, whether in the Lotus Pier or Cloud Recesses, and preferably double that.”

“Agreed.”

“In the meantime, you’ll work on getting the trade agreement we hammered out through your brother and sect elders as recompense for the time you spent here.”

“Mm.”

“An agreement whose source you will be disclosing very carefully because the Venerated Triad will not hesitate to murder me if they figure out without adequate warning it was me that was housing you for all this time.”

Lan Wangji said nothing and promised nothing.

Bastard.

Still, after nearly three years, Jiang Cheng was pretty used to it.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng said. “Is there anything I’ve left out?”

“Joint night-hunts.”

“Right, right, we’ll make a point of regularly going on joint night-hunts – wait, why are we doing that? You don’t need me to watch your back now that you’re fully healed.”

Lan Wangji’s gaze wandered.

“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said. “So we can keep having hate-sex on the regular?”

“…mm.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? It’s not like I’m doing anything else – or anyone else. Blacklisted, remember?”

“Unsurprising,” Lan Wangji said, like the bastard he was.

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, whatever. The set-up works, doesn’t it? I’m blacklisted, you’re apparently eternally pining for Wei Wuxian of all people – your taste is the worst – so who’s going to call us out on it? Go on, get out of here already. I’ll see you next month.”

-

“Well,” Jiang Cheng said, looking between the newly resurrected Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, abruptly made of an issue he had hitherto not considered based on Lan Wangji’s screaming body language. “This is. Uh. Awkward?”

#mdzs #jiang cheng #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #spite in misery #delight in misery #sometimes you get a silly idea #and then you write it

[hualianff]

Vampire/Human AU

(Slight NSFW, angst)

Thinking about vampire HC who owns a vampire-friendly bar with humans who apply as donors to supply fresh blood for vampires willing to pay the expensive prices. When a human with beautiful amber eyes, soft facial features, and blood that smells absolutely delectable, walks in, every vampire whips their heads towards the door. The human approaches one of the staff, YY, to inquire about becoming a donor. HC watches as the enticing morsel follows YY into a room to finalize his application.

Right after the human leaves thirty minutes later–YY probably having said it would take a few days to find him a match–HC pulls YY aside, demanding to have a look over the papers the new donor filled out. After a quick scan, HC shoves the papers back to YY with a click of his tongue,

“No need to find him a match. He’s mine.”

A human whose blood smells heavenly, who has never been bitten or even nipped by a vampire. HC wants to corrupt him. Ruin him.

The next night, HC has the human, XL, meet him in his personal feeding room. There’s a luxurious velvet couch to the side, a pristine glass table with fancy wine and glasses, and a king-sized bed with crimson silk laid upon the mattress.

HC, like most vampires, typically feeds while stimulating their donors. This can be done with something as simple as kissing or full-on intercourse. Not only does this relax the human’s nerves so they won’t tense up before being bitten, but the toxins injected into their system after being bitten feels incredibly euphoric, serving as a kind of aphrodisiac. Many humans donate their blood in this way for the sole reason of attaining this heightened sense of pleasure.

But as soon as XL enters the room in front of HC, his mind freezes as he sees the bed.

“I’m a virgin,” he blurts out, wide eyes panicked as he looks at the vampire. HC raises his eyebrow, unperturbed.

“We can work with that.”

XL gulps.

“I’ve also never kissed anyone.”

HC runs a tongue along his sharp fangs.

“Do you want to change that?” The vampire asks, walking up behind the human, pressing his chest against XL’s back. HC hears XL’s heart rate pick up at the proposition. It’s an unspoken yes, though XL also imperceptibly nods his head. He does not see HC’s lips spread into a vicious grin. However, XL does feel lips brush against the shell of his ear, sending shivers down his spine.

“Use your words, precious. Do you want to be kissed? Want to be touched, experience pleasure beyond comprehension?” HC murmurs, skimming his lips across XL’s nape. “I can fuck you too. Push into your little body as I sink my fangs into your neck. I’d place them right here-“ HC taps XL’s jugular, the human jerking to the side with a gasp. “-oh? So sensitive. All the better. I can make you feel so good.”

XL’s breath quickens, ever so slightly leaning back into HC’s tall frame. HC leans forward to catch a glimpse of those doe eyes regarding him with caution. Oh, how he wants to eat this human alive. HC turns XL around by his shoulders. He lowers his head to bump foreheads with XL, forcing the human to look into his red-tinged eyes.

“Is that a yes?”

XL blinks those doe eyes once, then twice.

“Yes.”

HC brings his hand up to brush a hair away from the human’s head.

“Wonderful.”

***

XL is at the point in his life when he lost everything. He chose to pursue a career outside of his parents’ embroidery business despite being expected to take over the shop after college. Abandoning college altogether, XL went off on his own to chase his dream to become a singer.

A few years later, where XL was provinces away from home, XL’s parents’ business had gone under, devastating them as they could no longer pay for their medical bills. Upon hearing the news, XL rushed back home to take care of them. It seemed they had kept their declining health conditions under wraps. They were too prideful to admit their weakening physical states; they also did not want to guilt XL into giving up on his ambitions to take care of them.

XL’s parents lasted one year before passing away, his father first due to prostate cancer, his mother one month later after succumbing to exhaustion and grief. XL lost their home along with the shop merely a week later, unable to pay off the debt. His parents had used up their savings for their medical expenses and XL had been scraping by as a musician for years. Additionally, there was no one he could confide in. He had lost contact with his friends as he moved from city to city, busking on streets, attempting to catch the attention of music labels.

XL was utterly alone. There were days when not even music could bring an ounce of comfort. However, music was the thing that kept him sane between the various side jobs he managed to pick up to keep him off the streets.

As if the fates decided XL had had enough bad luck for a lifetime, a CEO of a fairly well-known label offered him a business card after a busking session. It was JW of Capital Records who gave XL hope of achieving his dream. XL spent most of his late 20s under the label, training and practicing and producing. He had the chance to record a couple of singles and one mini-album–which he didn’t get to participate much in the production side–but other than that, XL didn’t make it far. He was tremendously overworked and yet, still discarded to the side.

Wondering why he wasn’t provided the opportunities other artists received to further their careers, XL scheduled a one-on-one meeting with the CEO to ask what he was lacking. JW had insisted he could give XL more opportunities if XL could offer something more than just his serene vocals and pretty face.

The unspoken suggestion that XL offer up his body pierced his heart with yet another stake. Overwhelming disappointment and betrayal crashed into XL, but perhaps he should have known better that the whole situation was too good to be true. XL vehemently rejected this idea, angering JW who eventually tore XL down to the point of a medical emergency that allowed him to leave the agency without repercussions.

At age thirty-two, XL was left with no family, mental and physical trauma, and a dying will. Ironically enough, the song lyrics he’d written after experiencing so much loss were the closest thing to making music he’d gotten. But in the end, XL still felt like a failure.

Now in Xi’an, XL was left with limited options to earn money for rent. He already worked two part-time jobs in addition to writing music—though even time set aside for this has dwindled.

One night, as XL was walking home after closing up the convenience store, he saw the neon lights of the sign “Ghost City.” He’s heard many things about this club and is no stranger to the existence of nonhuman creatures roaming amongst human society. After hours of research, XL decided to apply to become a blood donor. It’s not like he had a better option that paid more anyway.

XL’s hope to somehow redeem his past actions has all but fizzled out. He doesn’t expect a vampire like HC to care about his comfort or consent when feeding, though HC still prioritizes these things for some reason.

XL has never looked at his body and thought about the best ways to pleasure himself. HC shows him how. HC caresses and kisses XL like he’s worth being handled with care; HC also invades XL’s body as a threat to break it, broadcasting a vampire’s strength, speed, and endurance in the bedroom.

XL can go as far as to say he even looks forward to his time with HC. In between a busy work life and dealing with people who would rather look the other way than give him the time of day, XL’s mind and body steadily weaken.

It starts with memory loss, where XL can’t clearly remember the conversations he’d had the day before. One of the reasons this develops is because he goes through many days without having anyone to tell about his day. It’s like the life XL lives is so insignificant, nothing about it is worth remembering.

Then, it’s the lack of eating. Most of XL’s money goes towards rent, essentials, and groceries. But he’s not a great cook. And he’s already drained by the time he gets home after working both jobs and visiting Ghost City. XL’s stress doesn’t help, adding to the fatigue that gradually shuts his body down.

While HC might not be able to taste a difference in XL’s blood, he does notice how frail the human moves around. How delayed XL responds, more so than he should be–even as a human. XL has scheduled more visits: three times a week this time. However, his words become less. He stops telling the little stories that brought a small smile to his face. XL doesn’t even mention the songs he’s been working on lately.

HC forces himself to ask about them after an especially rough coupling.

“How’s the songwriting going, darling?” HC asks quietly. He props his elbow upon his pillow, resting his cheek on his hand as he intently observes the human struggling to catch his breath, eyelids fluttering.

“I haven’t written anything new,” XL breathily answers. HC purses his lips. He ducks down to affectionately tongue at the skin his fangs pierced.

“No? In how long?” HC asks. XL sighs heavily.

“Maybe three weeks.”

HC doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s not one to console anybody. No one had afforded him that luxury, and naturally, he did not grant anyone else his concern. The silence that follows is unbearable.

***

The next time XL visits, he’s the one to initiate their first kiss. HC growls happily against his human’s lips, pinning him against the closed door of his private room. XL moans obscenely as HC languidly licks into his mouth. His arms desperately wrap around HC’s neck to bring him closer.

“Someone’s eager,” HC says with a chuckle as he pulls back. XL instantly attaches his lips to the vampire’s jaw, peppering light kisses along the pale skin. HC can’t help but think he’s taught his little human well. XL hums while trailing his lips back to HC’s, capturing them in a kiss that’s the sweetest one yet.

HC should’ve noticed how unstable XL’s legs seemed, how dreadful the bags under his eyes looked before indulging in their bedroom activities. He should’ve kept track all along of how thin XL is, how much more skin and bone he had become. HC is certainly not one to intrude on someone else’s life and scrutinize all their choices. But he should’ve said something sooner.

Maybe then, XL’s heart wouldn’t have stuttered so violently, or completely stopped beating for five counts.

HC watches in horror as XL’s eyes roll into the back of his head. His human’s body goes limp in his arms, collapsing into HC’s chest. When XL’s heart beat starts up again, it’s very weak. There’s a noticeable abnormality in its rhythm.

HC quickly gathers XL in his arms and speeds to the bed. He sits back against the pillow, placing XL to recline against his front. HC hooks his arms around XL’s middle from behind, anxiously listening to XL’s irregular heartbeat that seems like it takes all of his human’s energy to pump. Luckily, XL awakens a few minutes later. He registers a cold embrace and warm puffs of breath lingering near his ear.

“Did I pass out?” XL wheezes out, unconsciously melting into the body behind him.

“Yes,” HC says tightly. “Your heartbeat is uneven. Something is wrong.”

XL can’t tell if he’s imagining it but that sounded like worry in the vampire’s tone.

“Oh.”

HC inhales sharply.

“You just fainted, Xie Lian. Hell, your heart just stopped for a few seconds, and all you have to say is ‘oh?’” HC grinds out.

So he is upset. XL swallows thickly, not wanting to escalate things and further upset the vampire.

“It’s okay,” XL says. “I’m okay-“

“No. You’re not,” HC interrupts.

XL takes a deep breath, wincing slightly as HC tightens his arms around his hips. He’s more sensitive than normal, XL realizes. Before XL can defend himself further, HC grasps XL’s chin and turns his head to face the vampire.

“You’re hiding something from me,” he states. He hears XL’s heart speed up. “There’s no use in lying. I can tell you’ve grown weaker since you first came.”

“Well, I have been donating my blood to a certain vampire for a few months now. I’m bound to be a bit weak in my legs,” XL replies as a matter of factly. He means to poke fun at the situation rather than acknowledge the severity of it. HC knows this because he’s done it numerous times himself. But when XL does it, it makes HC’s blood boil.

“Are you saying I am causing this- this deterioration in your health?” HC asks tensely. XL lets out a gasp, whirling around in HC’s arms, immediately backpedaling.

“No! No, not at all.”

HC’s eyes assess his human who trembles slightly in his arms. He cradles XL in between his legs, hands shifting XL further up his body so he can rest his head on HC’s chest. HC gently pets XL’s hair, an action that was uncharacteristic of him months ago, before XL had walked through the entrance of his bar.

XL gently smiles in an attempt to placate the vampire.

HC’s eyes flash a frightening scarlet.

“I don’t believe you.”

XL’s face crumples.

“It’s true! I’ve just been really busy is all. Work has been hectic and- and-“ gone is the innocence that HC once saw in XL’s doe eyes, instead replaced by stress and utter brokenness that alarms the vampire to no end. A voice in the back of HC’s head snarls that those emotions had always been behind XL’s eyes; they were simply better hidden, and HC had been too lust-driven to notice.

XL continues his rambling, frantically shaking his head. “-I took some extra shifts because I needed the money to pay for some water damage that flooded half my apartment. I’m fine—truly.“

If HC had a beating heart, it would have dropped down to his stomach at the sudden realization. His fingers dig into the paper-thin skin of XL’s hips, then trace up the bony knobs of his spine.

“You’re not eating right.”

“Wait- S-san Lang-“

The nickname HC had asked XL to call him is hurdled back into his face like a stone aimed to shatter. It sounds like a cry for help.

“And you’re not getting enough sleep,” HC concludes with a disapproving frown. His eyes now glow a deep crimson, matching the silken sheets that HC ensures are in perfect condition every time XL visits.

“Fuck, XIE LIAN, you know you need proper nutrition and rest to recover from each night you spend with me!” HC is nearly shouting now, voice wavering out of his control. Who knew another creature could make him feel so strongly?

“I-I am!”

“I SAID NOT TO LIE TO ME. I CAN TELL WHEN YOU’RE NOT BEING HONEST,” HC explodes, spatting those words with a poison that he often uses with uncooperative subordinates, but never directed at XL before.

Tears glisten in XL’s eyes as he’s cornered with no way out, no relief from the building pressure that suffocates him. Right now, after everything XL has been through, this seems to be his tipping point. He never expected HC to care this much. Or perhaps HC is just concerned his reliable supply of blood is flaking out on him, just when he’s had a feasible taste.

XL is sure HC has plenty of other donors to feed on. It’s not like XL is particularly special in that way. Frankly speaking, XL had time and time again asked the universe to give him one last sign that his life mattered in some capacity. But if he couldn’t see the value in his own life, who else could?

XL scrambles off from HC’s lap, allowing himself to speak with the deep-seated spite that has grown in his heart like an untamable weed.

“THERE’S NO NEED TO GET SO WORKED UP OVER MY HEALTH!! I’LL BE GONE SOON ANYWAY! THE DOCTOR GAVE ME THREE MORE MONTHS,” XL screams, having to catch his breath after exerting so much power into his voice. “So there. You have my answer. I’m not lying this time. Just one a couple more months and then- then you won’t have to deal with my shit anymore, okay?”

HC can’t move. He can’t speak either. The shock taking over his system renders his mind and body completely useless. He can only stare blankly at XL whose tears now cascade down his cheeks.  

No, this cannot be happening-

XL’s whimpers pull HC out of his head. The human hugs his own frail body, shivering from a coldness that does not exist in the room.

How did HC let it get so bad?

“I’m sick, San Lang. Very, very sick. Not just physically,” XL whispers defeatedly, letting out a small hiccup.

HC doesn’t hesitate to surge forward to throw his arms around XL, hugging him once more. It’s a habit now—to hold XL whenever he could. Now, HC wonders how many more times he would get this chance before it was inevitably the last.

“Xie Lian…”

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I-I just can’t eat. Sometimes from stress, other times I completely forget. And I want to rest, but I end up laying in bed awake for hours a-and my mind just won’t let me sleep-”

For the first time in over a decade, there is someone else to hear XL’s agonized wails.

“Please believe me, San Lang. Please."

#tgcf #heaven official's blessing #tian guan ci fu #hualian #hualian au #cerdrabbles #xie lian #hua cheng #human xie lian #vampire hua cheng #sorry it's rushed

[licuadora-nasir]

Hello ! Do you write for queer reader ? If so, may you please write a Lance x Male reader, where they were long time best friends before (TO) Lance loves reader but as the last dragon he thinks it’s his duty to continue the legacy so never aknowledges his feelings wich leads him to be quite depressed, until Erika-I-stick-my-nose-everywhere find out somehow and build a plan with others to confront both about it ?

Thank you !

Hey there! Thank u for your ask, I loved the prompt! And I'm sorry for the delay, my relative is still hospitalized but he's better😊.

Also, of course I write queer, I'm part of the community and even though Eldarya doesn't have queer options regarding the MC I think it's interesting to treat other possibilities.

This one's structure was a bit different from the one I normally use. My amazing beta @rina-nanashiro and I have come to the conclusion that would be better to use the first person singular and the omniscient narrator to correctly portrait each character thoughts.

For this one, let's say that the plot is settled not long before Lance becomes the chief of the obsidian guard and Erika arrived 4 years earlier.

Also, whether the MC is human, faerie or faelian is up to you. I didn't dwell on any physical descriptions or mention his race.

To conclude, my ask box is closing soon. So if¡ anyone wants to request something, you have a couple of days to think about it.

Lance and a male MC have problems confessing their feelings and Erika meddles in under the cut

I carefully settled the dumbbells in the fresh grass, brushing away the light film of sweat, which covered my forehead, with the back of my hand.

Almost every day was a sunny one in the City of Eel. I have been told once that the shield surrounding the Head Quarters repelled rain and other natural phenomena, and I was delighted to enjoy the warm sunbeams, though as the day drew on, training in hot weather wasn't very pleasant.

A group of females crossed the gardens and threw a glance toward my bare, glimmering chest, sweat sliding down my pectorals and abs. One of them blushed while the other winked at me. The flustered one dragged her friend away while she couldn't help her giggling.

I was used to the attention. Such things would usually happen whether I was training shirtless and why not saying it, showing off a bit.

But those females’ attention... wasn't the one I was longing for.

As if my thinking was some kind of magnet, the object of my thoughts suddenly appeared in the Central Pavilion. I gulped and clumsily tried to fix my hair, using the fingers to comb the lost strands while Lance was engrossed in a conversation with Erika, laughing by his side.

"Hey, you" The girl gave me a sincere smile while Lance grabbed the nearest towel and threw it at my sweaty face not before smiling too. Jerk.

"Thank you, Lance.” I rolled my eyes seeking to restraint the smile of my own.

"Why are you training at this hour? It's too hot," asked Erika.

"The correct question would be why you are training and showing off at this hour." The dragon winked at me not before running his eyes over my bare chest.

I gulped for a second time and focused on the dumbbells on the ground, ignoring the warmth that settled in my chest and threatened to go down to my inner thigh. Yeah, it was indeed hot there.

"Well, it may be too hot for you both, but I enjoy the warmth." And while Erika simply didn't favour it, Lance was naturally more comfortable in cooler places. Disadvantages of being an ice dragon, I supposed. When the man opened up to the guardian and revealed his true nature, I was speechless.

It was a well-kept secret that not many knew and that such a closed-up person as Lance decided to give me that reliance meant the world for me. He didn't only trust me but wanted to show himself as he was. As the powerful and endangered being that he was. Keeping that secret all their lives made the twins wary of everyone, afraid of their reactions. But what I saw didn't frighten me. It made me want to know Lance more and unravel the person that hid behind that dense layer of steel and smugness.

"Oh come on, just admit it! You want to get tanned since summer is close!" Well, maybe that was another reason why I was training at this hour, but there was no way Erika was get away with it, so I hurled my towel, full of sweat, into my friend's face which made her grimace in disgust and Lance chortle.

"By the way, where's Valkyon? I need someone to back me up since apparently, you two have decided to bully me today." Valkyon had told Erika about his new nature as well. Before starting to hang out with the brothers, I didn't know much about the woman apart from her faelian condition, but we quickly befriended each other after spending time with the twins and meeting in several missions.

"He's been assigned to organize the armour's stock, so don't expect to hear from him in the next two hours," replied the brother.

Suddenly, a female elf popped next to us, most likely an acquaintance of the dragon. Her pink stare found Lance's, and she smiled sweetly at him as she spoke up

"The Obsidian Chief would like to meet with you. He's looking forward to discussing your promotion if you don't have any relevant matters at hand right now.”

"Yes, of course, just give me a moment." Lance turned to face me. "I came by to ask you if you're available after lunch. I've found some cool techniques in one of the books I'm reading and I thought you might be interested in learning them."

My chest tightened at the words, and after taking a deep breath I answered.

"Of course, I would love to." Lance parted from us undertaking to meet us at lunch with the rest. Normally, we would have lunch with Valkyon, Ezarel and Nevra, and sometimes Miiko, Yhkar and even Kero would join.

I sighed thinking about my last training with the Obsidian-Chief-to-be.

Lance was situated behind me, a firm hand holding my hip while the other grabbed my arm in a defensive position.

"You are doing it wrong. If anyone sees you with a posture like that one they'll mistake you for a novice lost on the battlefield. Let me teach you how to do it.”

I was painfully aware of my friend's figure pressed against my back. The warmth was sinking into my body, and I tried to think about pure things instead of embarrassing himself, but it was so difficult to focus on something else when his breath skimmed my ear and my butt was pressed against his-

"Hey."

"HEY."

"SNAP OUT OF IT, SCATTERBRAINED!" Erika brought me back from my memories with a hard slap to my head.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT, VIOLENT MAD WOMAN?!" Geez, Erika could be really aggressive at times.

"I want to know what's going on with you" The young woman was directly looking at me with a clear stare. The kind of stare that made her violet eyes shine brighter. "And before you answer 'I don't know what you're talking about Erika, I'm perfectly fine' please, don't take me for a fool."

"I don't think you're a fool."

"I know something is going on with Lance. Every time he turns his back, you stare at him with that painful-but-loving look on your face and you sigh like he has taken your breath with him."

"I think you're a busybody."

"Come on, talk to me." I attempted to go away, but she grabbed my wrist. "I'm your friend. You know you can trust me."

"There's nothing to talk about. And nothing is going on with Lance either."

"Is it because you're both males? You know no one would-"

"It's not that!" I broke free from her grasp and finally addressed her. "I don't give a fuck if someone came insulting me or spitting shit on me or whatever. It just... It's Lance, we aren't talking about anyone." The problem wasn’t just that we were both males. It was far more complicated than that.

"And that means...?"

"It means he's a dragon. It means that apart from Valkyon, his race is extinct. He's born in a different league, and he shouldn't be with a male. He shouldn't be with me." I lost count of the times I wished Lance had been born as a female, or me, for that matter.

"You don't even know what he wants."

"I know what he deserves."

(But Erika didn't agree with him. Lance deserved someone that cared about him and not some random female that could give him offspring. And the guardian loved him. Deeply. She knew the second he met him he had a crush on Lance, and she could bet the dragon noticed as well. Come on, even Valkyon was aware of the guardian's feelings for his brother.

The one who didn't seem to realize Lance attempts to hit on him was the guardian. He was so dyed-in-the-wool that he didn't even consider the possibility that Lance could be interested in him as well. But she couldn't blame him: Lance himself was a mess of feelings.

The guardian wasn't wrong: Lance truly thought it was his duty to continue the legacy of his race, but he was conflicted between what he thought he had to do and what he desired, what meant taking one step towards his friend just to take two back. They were more and more miserable as each day passed and Erika couldn't stand seeing her loved ones like that.

What if they couldn't have offspring? Should they sacrifice their happiness just because they couldn't have kids? They love each other. They cared about each other. That should be enough.

But there was no use trying to convince them otherwise, so she did what she knew best: stick her nose into someone else's problems.

She conceived a plan to confront them: In three days, she would go on a mission. But at the last minute, she would remember that she had to deliver an urgent letter to Lance that he had to read immediately and she could ask the guardian to deliver it.

That way, when Lance opened the letter in front of the guardian, instead of coming across with an important document, he would find a text that said something of the sort "Actually, this whole thing was an excuse. I wanted to confess my feelings for you even if I didn't know how."

Yes, he would definitely kill her, but she wasn't going to sit in silence and watch how his possibilities of going out with Lance were decreasing each day, right? There were a lot of girls going after the twins, therefore if the guardian didn't hurry... Another one would do it.)

One morning, after I had accompanied Erika to the boat to wish her good luck in her mission and say goodbye, she let out an astonished gasp. "Oh no! I can't believe I forgot! Please, can you take this to Lance? It's something urgent, so tell him to open it the moment you give it to him!"

"I... Yes of course, do you know where he might be?"

After being told that at this hour he would probably be on the edge of the forest, I wasted no time and hurried up. Erika was a competent girl, but it wasn't a surprise that she sometimes forgot things like that. She could be hardworking and a mess with legs, but that made her more adorable.

I spotted the two brothers taking a stroll and conversating about something probably irrelevant since Valkyon seemed to be mocking his big brother. They were inseparable. Wherever Lance or Valkyon went, the other would tag along. It was truly heartwarming seeing how much they cared for and loved each other.

"Lance! Erika forgot to give you this." Both dragons instantaneously turned their heads to look at me, eyes clear and ready to listen to whatever I had to say. It was kind of funny to watch how seriously they take their roles. "She said that it was important and you should open it immediately."

When Lance opened the envelope, Valkyon took a step closer to his brother but after reading the first words, he squeezed his twin's shoulder and departed not saying a word.

When we were finally alone, Lance looked up to face me and muttered. "You finally came to talk about your feelings for me?"

Those eyes were clear as ice, and even though there was no trace of mockery, a heavyweight settled in my stomach. My...feelings for him? What the hell he was talking about?

I didn’t even say anything. I just gave the envelope that I had been tasked with and that was been all. At the sight of my confused mien, the dragon tended me to the letter.

I slowly took it, not leaving his eyes for a moment, and when he read I... My hands ripped it apart and tossed it somewhere in the woods without caring where it landed and hissed. "This was that busybody's doing!”

‘I wanted to discuss my feelings with you,’ she wrote.

I couldn't believe Erika had done that. It wasn't her affair and she had no right to meddle in someone else's business. How would she feel if I did that to her?

“Just... Look I'm sorry I can no-" The blood under my face was boiling, my whole body was boiling in shame and panic. I couldn't face him right now, I had to get the hell out of there.

I didn’t make it far before Lance gave me a firm grip on my wrist and said "Please, let's talk. This was my fault. I should have talked to you earlier, explain myself to you before anyone stuck their nose into this."

"What are we going to talk about, Lance?" I confronted him praying this new growing determination would not abandon me. "Do you want to talk about how you can't be with a male? How we are not meant to each other?"

"You know that's not true."

"Isn’t it?" I frowned and let a sad chuckle slip my lips. What a bastard. "You can't be with me, Lance. You deserve and want someone who can give you a family, that will bring you children, and I can't do that."

The dragon didn't so much talk. He couldn't say the proper words because I wasn't mistaken.

"There you have it." My voice cracked at the first word and I could have sworn something broke inside him as well seeing the gaze he gave me. "You may want me, but I'm not enough for you." Tears ran freely down my face like raindrops of a cold, cloudy day in winter. "Find a good mate, Lance. You have many admirers, so I don't think you'll have much trouble."

Lance couldn't stand it. He had never been a coward and that wouldn't be the first day he would start being one. He gently brought his hands to each side of his friend's arms and held him there. Firm but gently, he gripped him making sure he wouldn't go anywhere until he finished what the guardian deserved to hear.

"Look at me, please." Those eyes that were always full of love were hurt and sorrowful. He took a deep breath and let out his thoughts.

"I do not want you, I love you. You can not imagine how much I care about you and what your presence in my life means to me." His hands were slightly shaking. "You are right. I think that as a dragon, I must continue our legacy, but I have been unfair to you. I couldn't make up my mind, and I have hurt you."

The guardian started sobbing and one of the dragon's hands met his face to wipe his tears.

"You know, I've talked about this with Valkyon several times and I've realised my brother is right. I dese- We deserve to be happy. Together. Whether I can or cannot have offspring doesn't matter, it shouldn't be a duty and I shouldn't force that on you."

The guardian sobbed harder and embraced his beloved, feeling his hand on the head, the other arm gently stroking his back. Lance couldn't restrain a few silent tears of his own at the sight of the male whom he loved him as much as was loved by.

They will make it work, Lance could assure.

Do you have any requests? Feel free to stop by my ask box! But first, please read this.

#my writing #eldarya #eldarya ane #eldarya to #eldarya the origins #eldarya a new era #lance #ashkore #eldarya lance #eldarya ashkore #erika #eldarya erika #eldarya fic lance #eldarya fic #valkyon #eldarya valkyon #eldarya writing #request #eldarya request #eldarya lance and valkyon

[suddencolds]

Bad Timing | Genshin Impact

During Windblume festival, Diluc ends up hosting in an event in a venue that’s suitably decorated. Unfortunately, he just happens to be allergic to the flowers.

(This might be the most self-indulgent allergy fic I’ve ever written, haha. DIluc snzfic + pollen allergies + company from someone... unexpected.)

—

It starts as a miscommunication.

It’s harmless enough. Donna, whom Diluc vaguely remembers seeing outside of the flower shop just adjacent to Angels Share, makes an arrangement with Charles to decorate the Dawn Winery. An act of gratitude, or something along those lines—just in time for Windblume Festival.

At least, that’s how Charles tells him about it, just as Diluc is about to leave from his shift the night before the party.

“Decorations?” he asks. “I see. I will have to give her my thanks. Did she speak to Adelinde about it?”

Charles ponders this, taking his place behind the counter. “I’m not sure,” he says. “She says she hopes it’s to your liking, though.”

It’s all Diluc can do to nod. Decorations for Windblume usually mean one thing, but there’s a reason why the tavern is scarcely decorated, and it’s not that he doesn’t have the means to decorate. The tavern’s current undecorated state—with the exception of pressed-dry flowers or flowerless vines strung around the second floor railings—is meant to accommodate… well.

He doubt Donna knows, because he’s never had a reason to bring it up in conversation. As far as truths go, it’s somewhat embarrassing. For now, he can only hope that her act of kindness isn’t as extensive as he thinks.

— 

It’s an oversight, for sure, but it’s not until he steps foot into the main hall of the winery, two hours before the event’s inception that he realizes the extent of it.

The winery is crowded with flowers. There are snapdragons and cecilias strung up around the balconies, windwheel asters in neatly arranged bouquets on every available table, dandelions and wolfhooks cresting the fireplace. Vines of ivy and windwheel aster blossoms are woven around the staircase railings.

Instinctively, he raises a hand to cover his nose and mouth, as if to shield himself from it all. There’s a telltale itch already settling in his nose.

It’s a beautiful sight. But Diluc is very, very allergic.

He flings every window open—surely the air from outside must be an improvement—and bolts out of the building as soon as he can. Just from a few minutes of occupying the winery, he’s already congested, and his eyes are brimming with allergic tears.

The event—a celebration of the anniversary of the Dawn Winery’s founding, that happens to align closely with Windblume every year—is going to last for five hours. Moreover, there will be esteemed guests present, with which he’ll have to discuss business matters, which means that he has to be present.

Diluc shuts his eyes. Seasonal allergies are not anything that will cause him lasting harm, he’s sure… except, perhaps, to his professionalism. The winery has been in a financially good place these past few years, which means there’s barely any pressure on him to prove his own competence. His presence is more for show than for anything else. This should be fine. A five hour celebration, and then he’ll be out of here. He can ask the maids to deal with taking down the decorations later.

—

He arrives early, stands as far from the floral decorations as he can—it’s difficult; they’re everywhere—to make sure everything is in place. Despite his efforts, the winery is practically a flower garden, thanks to Donna’s well-intentioned arrangements. It’s not long before he’s sniffling again.

His eyes are starting to water, too. He wipes them gingerly on the cuff of his sleeve, sniffles, and nods his acknowledgement to the guests that are starting to file in.

“Sir Ragnvindr,” someone he recognizes as a business associate says to him, holding a flute of champagne. “How are you on this fine evening?”

How does he look? Diluc sniffles again. “I’m well,” he says, rather curtly.

“Mondstadt’s Windblume Festival is certainly a sight,” the associate is saying. “I’m glad I stopped by town at such an opportune moment.”

Diluc can’t think of anything he’d want to do less, right now, than entertain someone’s small talk. “It is one of Mondstadt’s most… hiIh!— most esteemed annual traditions… hiih-!” Damn it. Not now.

The itch in his nose is back. Luckily, the associate either doesn’t notice his predicament or doesn’t find it worth commenting on.

“Is that so? Tell me more about it.”

Diluc sniffles again. Anything to keep his nose from openly running. “I’m... sure… hiIIH-!” Barbatos, he needs to sneeze. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation right now. “...There are many people here more qualified to recount Mondstadt’s hiIhh-!… history… snf!… than I am.”

The associate raises an eyebrow, cocking his head. “Have you not lived here all your life? The previous owner of the Winery was Crepus Ragnvindr. I was under the impression that he was—”

“My father,” Diluc confirms, before he’s ducking away to stifle a sneeze, almost perfectly contained, into his wrist.

“hiIH’NGxt!” He gasps, sniffling, and presses his wrist closer to his face for the second. “hh…. hiiIH’NDGxt!”

It’s two sneezes, but they’re barely relieving. He raises his head, blinking. “Excuse me. Your assumptions are correct, though I…” he makes the mistake of rubbing his nose—something about the gesture just makes him need to sneeze. “hiIH… it’s been awhile since I’ve, snf, had the chance to properly celebrate, and longer still since… hIIh-!... since I’ve heard the history.”

“That’s strange,” the associate says. “You have lived in Mondstadt your whole life, yet you don’t know it’s history? Then again, I heard that you left for a few years, so maybe you feel no attachment to it.” It’s a thinly-veiled insult, but Diluc is too distracted to address it. He wants nothing more than to sneeze freely, but he’s sure that it would be loud, and it’d draw more attention than he wants right now. For now, he settles for raising a hand to—

“hiIH’DGXxt!” God, his eyes are watering, and the sneeze—though stifled—is forceful enough to jerk him forward, his shoulders shuddering.

The associate cringes. “It is a shame that you are spending the festival unwell.”

“I’m fine,” Diluc says, “Just… snf, just… hih!… HIih’GGKXt-shiu! ngh...” He needs to get out of here. Stifling offers virtually no relief at all, and he’s not going to stop sneezing anytime soon, from the looks of it.

He sighs, rubs his nose on the back of his hand, tells himself he can handle a few extra decorations. “Sorry. Did you, snf, have business matters to discuss?”

The associate’s expression hardens. “As you know, we have been ordering from the winery for a couple months now. I regret to inform you that there have been a few—”

Diluc blinks quickly. He can already feel his breath wavering—the start of another long, embarrassingly desperate buildup, probably.

“—troublesome incidents, specifically regarding the delivery of the wine. The delivery vehicles have been delayed on a handful of occasions—”

“hiIH! snf… hIIiih…”

His nose is tickling with such ferocity it’s almost torturous. He needs to get outside. His allergies are tolerable out in town in the open air, as long as he walks quickly enough and avoids all of the more festive installments. But here, in an enclosed space so thoroughly decorated, in a living room with mediocre circulation at best, surrounded by more flowers than he’s ever seen in his life…

“—just last week, the delivery cart was stopped by an assembly of hilichurl archers that destroyed nearly half the stock. Three weeks before that, the carriage caught the notice of one of Liyue’s Ruin Guards. I expect you are aware of these incidents?”

Diluc clears his throat. “I am. An excess of wine was sent back—hiiH! … in both cases, snf!- as soon as word of these setbacks… hIIH... reached the winery, snf.” The congestion is starting to settle in his voice, dulling his consonants. “You yourself… HIIh-! verified that the shipments m-made… hIIH-! it back to you… HIIIh!”

Sevens above. He doesn’t want to sneeze again, in front of someone who’s looking at him with a combination of disgust and condescension. But he knows, by now, that the most he can do is delay the inevitable.

“Ah,” the man waves a hand dismissively. “We did get the wine eventually. But it was still delayed, you see. Quite—”

—Diluc gasps sharply. “HIIIih-!”

“—an unprofessional experience, to say the least.”

His shoulders tense, as he jerks forward again, catching a barely restrained sneeze between the pinch of his fingers. “hihH'GXNt...! snf, hIIH… HIIH’NGDTtsh!” His body shudders with the release; he can feel the pressure of the sneeze settle behind his eyes, along with a dull ache—he’s going to give himself a headache if he keeps this up. “hiih-!... hiihHH…” This would be less humiliating if he could just sneeze and be done with it. Instead he finds himself caught in buildups that go nowhere, with a tickle in his nose that refuses to abate. “HIIIH… hIH’GZSchhh! snf… hhH-!”

Barely a breath in, his breath is already hitching again. He ducks into his sleeve, cringing, just in time for—

“hh… hiiH!... hh... HIIH’GXnT—shEw!!” The failed attempt at stifling is strangely relieving, all things considered, and he exhales shakily, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

“Sir Ragnvindr,” The associate says pointedly. “I’m sure you can see where the problem lies. Delays are not exactly conducive to business.”

Diluc bites back an irritated retort. Delivery to Liyue from Mondstadt is bound to have its complications, given the concentration of enemies outside of the two cities; he’s sure this associate is aware of that, too. He has no control over whether the deliveries get interrupted, and he’s pretty sure it’s the associate’s fault for not putting the orders in in advance.

“What… snf… would you suggest, then?”

The associate smiles. “Given our longstanding role as customers, I believe monetary compensation would only be fair.”

Diluc sighs, scrubs at his eyes with one hand. “You can bring it up with Elzer. He is usually the one to handle these sorts of things,” Diluc says. “In the future, though, to save both of us the trouble, it would be best if you would... snf!... take care to place your orders in advance.”

The man stares back at him, his lip curling. “I beg your pardon?”

“The roads between here and Liyue are dangerous. I cannot always guarantee a safe delivery,” The tickle in his nose is back, relentless. If he’s going to sneeze again, the last thing he wants is to do it in front of this associate. Instead, he turns on his heels, sniffling. “Excuse me.”

He just about bolts from the room, past the floral decorations and up the staircase. The second floor is darker, lit only by the ceiling chandelier. He all but slumps against the wall. His nose is still itching, and he raises a gloved hand as his vision goes watery and indistinct—

“hiIIH’IISCH’iiuu! Hh… hDDt’TTZCSh’u!”

He doesn’t have time to wonder if anyone’s heard. Suddenly he’s gasping again, fumbling for a handkerchief, pulling up one sleeve so he can wipe his nose on the back of his wrist when he doesn’t find one. “Hiih… hiIIIH… snf-!”

The tickle falters just as suddenly, leaving him on the precipice of a sneeze, suspended in ticklish wait. He rubs his nose again, in hopes that the pressure on the bridge of his nose will be just irritating enough to coax out a sneeze, but...

It leaves him panting, his eyes still shut as he stands there, his breath still shaky with anticipation.

“hiIIH…! snf…” Nothing, still. “HIIIh...”

He rubs his nose again, hard, on the back of his wrist. Maybe if he could just sneeze—give his body relief in the fit it so clearly wants—it will solve his predicament for the next fifteen minutes, at least.

He just has to find somewhere quiet.

He rounds the corner on the second floor, stumbles through the door at the end of the hall out onto the balcony. The fresh air is immediately relieving, and he sucks in a long breath, leaning forward on the balcony railing. With the exception of some of the Dawn Winery staff, no one’s outside, and he doubts any of the guests will have reasons to spend enough time on the second floor to find the door that leads here. He figures it’s as good a place as he’ll find, for the time being.

The itch in his nose still burns, almost intense enough to make him shiver. Cecilias are wound around one of the balcony’s wooden rungs—he wonders, momentarily, if it’d be worth it to—

The door behind him swings open. He startles.

“Oh,” someone says from behind him. “...sir Diluc.”

It’s Rosaria, from the church. He doesn’t know much about her—he can probably count the number of words they’ve exchanged on one hand. She’s at the Angel’s Share every Thursday with Kaeya, downing drinks faster he thinks could possibly be healthy—though she must know her limits, given that she never seems to get as drunk as some of the knights do. Now, she eyes him warily.

There’s a windwheel aster clipped to the lapel of her shirt.

“Didn’t expect you to see you here,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Aren’t you like, the most important person here?”

“Something like that,” he says.

“Then I suspect there’s a reason why you’re hiding out here.”

He doesn’t answer. How can he? “Ah, well, it’s fine,” she says, sounding unbothered. “Whatever reason you have, it doesn’t really matter to me. Hope you don’t mind if I smoke.”

He sniffles, turning away to wipe his nose on his wrist. “I… don’t.”

“Okay. I figured you’d be happier if I did it outside, anyways.” She steps into place next to him, digs through her pockets for a cigarette. “Think you could light it?”

He lowers his hand and turns to face her. Before he has a chance to light it, though, something about the proximity of the flower on her shirt is just enough to set him off — the next breath he takes leaves him gasping, his eyes watering immediately as he ducks violently into his elbow.

“hiIH… nGKTt!”

He’s not even close to done. “hiIH… hiiihH…. HH-!! snf-! hHiih’NDGXtT!”

“Bless you,” she says. “Are you sick?”

“Your… shirt…” is all he manages to gasp out, before he’s pressing his elbow tighter to his face, muffling another sneeze into the fabric of his sleeve—

“hiIH’IIIGXTtt… HIIiH-! Hiih… HIIH’IISsch’iu! Excuse me... HIih’GGKXt!!...”

“Oh,” she says, sounding like he’s just let him in on a secret. “You’re allergic.”

“Unfortunately,” he admits, feeling his face grow hot.

“You should’ve said.” She unclips the windwheel aster from her shirt, gives it half a look, and flicks it over the edge of the balcony.

“Wait,” Diluc says, his eyebrows furrowing. “I didn’t mean to… hiIIh-! snf... imply you should get rid of it.”

Rosaria smiles unreadably. “I wasn’t wearing it by choice. A friend coerced me to. Is it just windwheel asters that set you off?”

“It’s… hiiiiH… it’s just about everything… hiIH’ITTSChh! hiIH… NGKTT-shiiu!” It’s getting harder and harder to stifle, but it’s already embarrassing enough to sneeze in front of her in the first place.

“Everything, huh? Sounds awfully inconvenient.”

He lights her cigarette with his vision. “Thanks,” she says, and immediately pulls it in to take an appreciative drag. “Kind of suffocating to be inside with so many businessmen for so long, if you ask me.”

He sniffles harder, rubbing his nose on the cup of his sleeve.“I… snf…! I’m not going to be stopping anytime soon. You should probably… hiih... find somewhere else to smoke… hiiH... hiih’GKTT-!”  

“You know,” Rosaria says, after a beat. “You’d be done sneezing sooner if you didn’t hold them back like that.”

If Diluc wasn’t blushing before, he’s sure he must be blushing now. It’s embarrassing to hear her address his sneezing in such a straightforward manner—he’s starting to see why she gets on so well with Kaeya.

“I’m fine, thanks… hiih… hiiH’NGXT’Sshh! HIIH’GKTT-! ugh...” Maybe she has a point—the stifling is starting to make his head hurt, and he hunches forward, still sniffling, to lean more heavily on the railing.

She shrugs. “Okay. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t mind. Why’d you decorate the winery like that, anyway? It seems awfully… masochistic.”

“A misunderstanding. Donna’s doing, though… hiiiH!... it would have been ungrateful if I had taken the decorations down... hiiih... hiIH’GkkT!!” — caught neatly in the palm of his hand. “hIih… hiIIH… nGSSCHh! snf…”

“Sevens, Diluc. Drop the formalities and let yourself sneeze. I’m getting a headache just listening to you.”

He frowns, lifts his hand from his face, only to clamp it back on when he realizes what a mess he’s made out of himself, his skin prickling with embarrassment. “If you’re certain...”

She scoffs, taking another drag of the cigarette. “Trust me. I couldn’t care less.” Usually, smoke doesn’t bother him—his pyro vision would be significantly more inconvenient if it did—but now, with his nose so sensitive, it’s exactly the last push he needs to send him over the edge.

“hIIH.. HIIH…” He blinks through teary eyes, his grip tightening against the railing. “HiiH… iHH'GZCHh-iiu! Hihh… hhD’TTschH’iu! snf.. hiIH... HIHH'iischHiew!”

The relief from letting himself sneeze is immediate and almost dizzying. He gasps again, taking a step back from the balcony. The next sneeze snaps him forward at the waist.

“hiIH’ISCHhiuu! hiIih… GKKTT-’SHiuu!” Rosaria disappears back into the manor, so quietly he almost doesn’t hear her leave, but he’s too out of it to properly react. “Hiih… hiIh… HIIH’ISCCHh’yuu!” He sniffles against his wrist, his shoulders just about slumping with the relief, before they’re tensing again just a few seconds later. “hiih… hiiih.. hiiIH’NGTTT-SHIu! Hiih… HiiH’IIIISCCHh’iuu!”

He groans, sniffling, resisting the urge to bury his head in his hands—it seems like an appealing enough option, if not for the fact that he’s been covering with one of them. The door behind him opens again.

“Thought you might need this,” Rosaria says, and hands him a handkerchief. He takes it gratefully. It’s only after he’s blown his nose into it—quietly—that he trusts himself to speak.

“Thank you,” he says. “I’ll find a time to give it back when it’s clean... snf.”

She blinks at him, her eyebrows furrowing as she looks him over. “Geez, you look awful. I’ll ask Kaeya to stop by later so he and I can take down the decorations for you.”

It’s surprisingly sweet. “You don’t have to,” Diluc says, wincing at the congestion in his voice. “I can get it... dealt with… hiih’IISSSH’iuu!”

“Your maids can, you mean. Still, it will be faster if we help out... your bedroom’s on the second floor, isn’t it?”

When he nods, she shrugs, leaning back casually against the doorframe. “Even more reason to get it cleaned up faster, then. Would it kill you to accept some help for once in your life?”

Diluc sniffles, folding the handkerchief neatly. “I suppose not. I... appreciate it, then.”

She smiles at him. “It’s the least I can do. I’ve been leeching off your free alcohol this whole afternoon, so we can call it even.”

#sneeze fic #snzfic #snz fic #sneeze kink #snz #gen/shin im/pact #i wrote the first 1.7k of this in 1 day -> told myself it was too indulgent and shouldn't see the light of day -> left it for 2 weeks #sucked it up and finished it today #so here we go. my first allergy fic on this blog #(maybe my first allergy fic ever..?) #so it was new for me... please forgive me if it doesn't rly work #my fic

[discoscoob]

Your Judgement | Loki x Female Reader

Loki (Marvel) x Doctor Who

Loki loses control in more ways than one and secrets are revealed, leaving you with a decision to make.

Part Two | Part Four | Chapter Index

Words: 6.6k

Warnings: angst, threats, blood and injury (this makes it sound a lot worse than it actually is)

Read on AO3

Loki despised feeling out of control. Everyone had always told him how to behave, what to say, what to do, who to be and he thought he had finally escaped all that, he had found the power that he had always sought after, he finally felt a sense of ownership over himself and it was so quickly snatched from him right under his nose in the worst possible way.

 Sure it was suffocating on Asgard and yes he was being influenced by the mind stone on Midgard but he had never lost control quite like this before. Every movement he made wasn’t his own, his limbs moved with an invisible force, even the words coming out of his mouth weren’t his. He had been turned into a living and breathing puppet, to be used as a vessel to preserve the life of a deranged mortal who refused to die. 

 He was humiliated, how could he let a weak, insignificant Midgardian possess his body? He was a God and a supreme sorcerer, she should be no match for him but he struggled to force her out, she stubbornly clung on tight.

 The pressure in his head was intense, due to the fact his brain was being compressed to make room for Cassandra’s consciousness. For someone like Loki, who always preferred fighting with his mind over his fist, shaking someone out of his head should’ve been child’s play but the compression on his own mind was making it weaker which made him more vulnerable to her control.

 “I’m getting jealous ex vibes. I swear to God, Doctor, if my niece got possessed because you’ve got a jealous ex.” Donna warned the Doctor who looked like he was about to choke on his own saliva.

 “Her?” The Doctor screeched.

 “You should be so lucky.” Cassandra made Loki glare at the Doctor.

 “Let him go, Cassandra.” The Doctor ordered the consciousness possessing Loki.

 Cassandra made Loki pout. “And why would I do that? I finally found the secret to immortality.”

 “The psychograft you used is banned on every civilised planet, including this one, what you’re doing is illegal. All I need to do is take you into the city and hand you over to the authorities.” The Doctor warned.

 The force inside Loki’s mind made him laugh wickedly. “Oh Doctor, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

 “Why not?”

 “You can’t hand me over without handing Loki over too.” Cassandra explained before she suddenly gasped as if finding out a secret. “Oh, he really doesn’t want that.”

 Suddenly Loki’s body jerked, as one would when you hit the emergency breaks and he quickly slapped his palm against the wall to steady himself as his breath came out in heavy pants.

 “Get out of my head!” Loki growled, he held his eyes shut tightly which caused his eyelids to crinkle as he clenched his teeth and brought the tips of his fingers up to his temple. He strained as he tried to maintain in control of his own mind, while Cassandra fought to regain dominance.

 “Loki? Listen to my voice. You can fight her. Hold on.” The Doctor encouraged Loki who let out a frustrated cry as he attempted to force Cassandra out of his head.

 You could see the pale golden mist slowly surround him like a halo as he continued to strain, you could see how much it was exhausting him, his already compressed mind was being pushed to its limits. 

 “That’s it, Loki, you’ve almost got her out.” The Doctor continued to encourage him, as he was really starting to struggle.

 Before he could completely expel Cassandra, Loki’s mind succumbed to the fatigue of using powers while being compressed and failed him as the gold essence sunk back into his skin and he collapsed to the floor. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he panted from the exhaustion.

 “That was a very foolish thing of you to do, Loki.” Cassandra addressed the God using his own voice which sounded tired from the strain of trying to force her out. “Don’t forget, I’m inside your head. I can see everything. There are things in here that I am sure you wouldn’t want your new friends learning about, so I’d advise you to behave.” 

 The Doctor, Donna and you, glanced at each other wordlessly, as the atmosphere instantly changed. Cassandra knew she had caught everyone’s attention as she flicked Loki’s hair out of his face and watched you all through his eyes as she forced the corners of his lips to lift into a wicked smirk.

 “What do you mean?” The Doctor took the bait, and Cassandra made Loki’s smile widen in twisted delight.

 Your chest tightened with anxiety as you worried about what Loki was hiding. You weren’t daft, you were fully aware that within the two days you had spent within the company of the God, it wasn’t enough time to properly know him and it definitely wasn’t enough time to trust him. However you couldn’t deny the fact that you had developed an attachment to him and the prospect of that potentially being cut short left a feeling of despair that was difficult to ignore. 

 “Let’s just say, the God of Mischief has been up to a lot of mischief.” Cassandra made Loki chuckle at her own joke as she forced him to climb back up onto both his feet. 

 Without warning the laughter abruptly cut short and with an unexpected jerk, Loki regained control. This time he moved without hesitation or delay as both his palms filled with glowing balls of green smoke and with a loud growl that caused you to startle, the light from his palms turned into an aurora which flowed halfway across your bedroom. The golden mist evaporated from his skin more rapidly this time, as it chased after the green light. You watched on, completely captivated as the gold and green swirled together and began to intertwine. Your focus was torn away when you heard Loki collapse to the floor, completely drained after focusing all his energy on removing Cassandra from his mind while using his magic at the same time.

 “Doctor.” You heard Donna whisper and you looked up at the pair to find your auntie rapidly tapping the Time Lord on his upper arm to get his attention, while she stared across your room, the Doctor’s eyes widened when he saw what she was looking at and you looked over to see what had grabbed their attention.

 “How clever!” A figure identical to Loki, spoke with wonder as it patted itself down to check it was a solid form. “I suppose this solves all our problems.”

 “Oh this isn’t a solution,” original Loki spoke with a heavy sigh as he was still trying to catch his breath and you turned your attention back to him. “You think I would let you remain in my form forever?”

 “Well, there are worse people to spend eternity with.” Cassandra, who you realised was in control of the Loki clone, shrugged.

 “I’d throw you into the nearest burning sun before I let you stay by my side for the rest of eternity.” Loki threatened his possessed clone, his tone harsh and abrupt. “You’re an insignificant and wretched mortal who has deluded herself with the notion that she is worthy of immortality but you are nothing but a worthless creature. You don’t even have your own form to sustain you and so you live off others, like a pathetic parasite, and if you think I will allow your revolting existence seek life support through my Godly form for a whole day, much less an eternity, you’re sorely mistaken.” 

 Loki had stalked towards his carbon copy, as he spoke his monologue with such a threatening force that it had even sent shivers down your spine, despite the fact that it wasn’t even directed towards you. 

 “You best pray that the Doctor doesn’t send the both of us away, because as soon as you’re alone with me no one will be there to protect you, and since you have been inside my mind, I am sure you are fully aware of the things I am capable of doing to you.” Loki finished, once he was stood mere inches in front of his double, who was now visibly cowering away from him. 

 The light of your bedroom reflected off the moisture which had built on the waterline of the duplicates eyes, as they stared into the Gods face with pure terror. 

 The cruel things Loki had said and the intimidating manner of which he had delivered them in, struck fear through your chest. His voice had dripped with pure threat and menace, even the tone he had used when you first met him and he had trapped you against that secluded wall, paled in comparison to the one he had just used towards Cassandra. 

 Loki had unleashed a side of himself that you had yet to see, or even knew existed, and you would be lying if the things he had called Cassandra didn’t sting, of course he could’ve been speaking to her as an individual but what if he held these views towards all mortals, were you merely viewed as ‘worthless creatures’ by the immortal God?

 “Loki, that’s enough.” The Doctor had sternly told him and you weren’t sure if you imagined it but could have sworn that you saw regret flash in Loki’s eyes as soon as he turned and saw you, the Doctor and Donna all staring at him. It seemed your presence had slipped his mind while he had succumbed to his more sinister side and now he was realising you had all just witnessed it first hand, on top of Cassandra revealing that he was hiding secrets which he didn’t want any of you to discover.

 Loki opened his mouth to try and say something but nothing came out, eventually he gave up and let his lips form a thin line as his head tilted downwards to avoid all your eyes.

 Silence laid heavily over the room as no one wanted to be the first one to break it, what could anyone possibly say after that? After a short period of time you heard footsteps softly tap against the floor and you looked up and saw Loki lower himself into your armchair. He rested his elbow upon the armrest and cradled his chin in his hand, covering his face from the nose down with his fingers as they anxiously rubbed over his lips. It appeared as though he had a million thoughts racing through his mind, you couldn’t help but wonder what they were.

 “I think, I would like to leave now.” Cassandra eventually announced.

 The Doctor had explained to her that he could take her into the city where they would provide her with a skintank for her consciousness to live in and she was more than happy to go anywhere the Doctor took her as long as it was away from Loki.

 “I thought you of all people, Doctor, would be careful with the kind of people you let travel with you.” You heard her quietly comment, as she made her way out of your bedroom, the Doctor paused under the doorway and looked at Loki, while he considered what Cassandra had said before he silently turned and followed her to the control room.

 “Are you coming?” Donna looked at you, ready to follow behind the Doctor. 

 You had noticed the way the Doctor looked at Loki and you realised he was considering whether or not he should allow him to stay on the TARDIS, before you turned your attention back to Loki, observing the way he seemed lost in his own world. 

 The way he had lost his temper had startled you, however you didn’t believe his reaction towards Cassandra was unwarranted. You knew exactly what it felt like to have her inside your mind, controlling your body like a puppet. It felt violating. You weren’t sure whether or not his threats toward her were empty, you were sure that was something you didn’t want to find out, but either way Loki hadn’t actually laid a single finger on her, so it seemed as though his tactic was just to frighten her. It may have not been the most conventional approach but it had worked and as a result the Doctor was now taking her to the city.

 “I think I’ll stay here.” You decided.

 Donna didn’t say anything but she glanced over to Loki, who was still slumped in your armchair, his gaze unmoving from the floor, and you understood that she was nervous to leave you alone with him.

 “I’ll be fine.” You assured her, despite the fact that you couldn’t say for certain that you would be, but you wanted to try and talk with Loki. You knew that there was a lot that the Doctor would want to discuss with him after he returned from the city and if you could talk with Loki beforehand, one to one, maybe you could help him.

 “If you’re sure...” Donna sighed, clearly not happy about leaving you alone with Loki but she knew that you were an adult and responsible for your own choices and she respected that. After leaving a kiss on your temple, she reluctantly made her way out your room. Pausing under your doorway she looked between you and Loki with a sigh and you could see the worry all over her face but you gave her a reassuring smile, which she returned, before she finally disappeared down the corridor to join the Doctor.

 You weren’t even sure if Loki was aware of his surroundings anymore as he had hardly moved an inch since he collapsed into that seat. He didn’t even seem to notice that it was only you and him left in your room as you cautiously made your way towards him. Once you were stood around a meter in front of him you stopped and he still hadn’t registered your presence, if he had, he wasn’t acknowledging it.

 “Loki?” You softly spoke.

 The God slightly jumped as his gaze caught yours, he looked startled before his eyes bounced around the room and then finally rested back on you.

 “Where is everyone?” He asked, his voice small, it was the softest you had ever heard him speak, you almost couldn’t hear him.

 “The Doctor and Donna have left to take Cassandra into the city.” You gently explained.

 “They left you alone with me?” Loki looked at you with disbelief and you looked down for a moment, realising Loki was more scared of himself right now than you were of him.

 “Loki, we need to talk.” You stated, your tone was still gentle but you tried to sound stern to make him realise you weren’t offering him a choice.

 “What is there to discuss? As soon as the Doctor returns he will hand me over to the TVA and I will be erased from existence.” Loki dismissed your proposal to talk.

 “You don’t know that.” You tried to reason, this time you crouched down, so you were balanced on the balls of your feet and you could talk to Loki from a more equal level. “I don’t know what the Doctor will decide to do when he returns but if you talk to me and explain everything, I might be able to persuade the Doctor to trust my judgment.”

 Loki seemed to consider it this time as he glanced at you, a frown formed over his face and his dark brows shadowed his eyes, which appeared to be filled with sorrow. He finally broke his eye contact with you to look down at his hands as he fidgeted with them between his spread legs.

 “Okay.” Loki agreed.

 You drew your lips together and looked around as you considered what you could address first and it was hard to ignore the one thought that was dominating your mind.

 “The things you called Cassandra... is that how you view all mortals... is that your view of me?” You asked Loki, now you were the one avoiding his gaze as you rubbed your eyebrows with embarrassment and kept your eyes on the floor.

 Due to the fact you weren’t looking at him, you missed the way Loki had instantly looked at you with eyes full of remorse, he hadn’t even realised that you might have connected his words towards Cassandra to yourself after he had addressed her as a mortal. His jaw was slack as he didn’t even know where to begin telling you how wrong you were and how you had singlehandedly gave him the power he needed to feel in control for the first time in his life.

 “Gods no!” Loki rushed to answer, mindful of the fact that if he allowed the silence to settle too long after you finished your question, it might have seemed like a confirmation that that was truly what he believed you were. 

 When you continued to avoid looking at him, Loki sighed as he pulled his palm down his face. He slid himself off of the armchair to make your heights more equal as he sank to the floor and sat with crossed legs, before he continued, determined to rectify your belief of how he perceived you. 

 “Listen to me, you hold so much power. You have done more for me in two days than anyone else has in my thousand years of existence and you don’t even realise it. I think what... daunts me the most about you all learning the things which Cassandra had mentioned I wouldn’t want you finding out, isn’t that the Doctor might end up taking me back to the TVA. It’s the fact that you will see me as everyone else does, validating that they were right about me all along, and when you inevitably do, it will strip me of the control I have felt over myself these last few days, because you were the one who bestowed it upon me. Someone who holds that much power could never be a worthless creature.” Loki confessed and you furrowed your brows as you lifted your head to look up at him, processing what he was telling you because it was a lot to take in, you weren’t even sure you understood what he meant. How could you have been the one who gave him his sense of control over himself, what had you even done?

 “How... how did I do that?” You asked in disbelief. 

 “Everyone I have ever known in my life has always decided who I was before even getting to know me, but you had no preconceived notions about me when we met. For the first time I had control over who I could be and who someone could see me as, you gave me that control.” He explained to you.

 “Loki, that sounds like manipulation.” You realised with alarm. “You can’t just control which parts of yourself you decide to let someone see and expect their perception of you to be an accurate one.”

 The God paused, seemingly taken aback as if he was realising this for the first time and once it sunk in he looked genuinely ashamed.

 “You can control who you are, but you can’t control how people see you and how people see you, doesn’t control who you are. Does that make sense?” You tried to explain to Loki, who was staring at nothing in particular as he attempted to grasp what you were telling him. 

 “But if everyone shares a certain view of me, how could that not possibly be who I truly am?” Loki argued.

 You paused for a moment, as you pondered over his question.

 “Do you believe this view people have of you to be true?” You asked Loki.

 He shrugged after he allowed himself to think about it for a moment.

 “Do you want it to be?” You asked instead.

 This time Loki didn’t need any time to think about his answer as he immediately shook his head.

 “Then, that must not be who you truly are, if it is not who you want to be.” You concluded.

 Loki looked at you with hopeful eyes before they fell to his lap as he thought about what you said.

 “I think you should tell me what it is that Cassandra said you didn’t want us learning about you.” You decided. You didn’t promise Loki that it wouldn’t change how you viewed him, that would be unwise since you had no idea what he was about to tell you, but whatever it was, you would allow him the opportunity to explain himself so that maybe you could understand.

 Loki swallowed nervously as his eyes fell to his hands and he focused on picking at some loose skin near the side of his nail. You observed him closely and you were astounded by how a powerful God could appear so vulnerable and so... human. When you saw his brows pull together with frustration as he was unable to figure out where to begin, you gently put your hand on his knee and gave him a small smile of encouragement.

 “I killed my father.” Loki finally confessed, just straight to the point as if he were ripping off a band-aid, “my biological father.” He added, to clarify. 

 Loki hadn’t delivered his confession with much emotion, however his chest and shoulders did fall ever so slightly, as if a weight was being lifted off of him. 

 As soon as the words fell from his lips, you retracted your hand from his knee and Loki lifted his eyes to watch your reaction, apart from breaking physical contact you tried to not react, keeping your expression as neutral as possible.

 “Why?” You eventually asked, sticking with your decision to let him explain.

 “To prove my loyalty to Odin – my adoptive father, and to Asgard.” Loki explained, before elaborating. “Laufey, my biological father, was the King of Jotunheim and an enemy of Asgard. The realms were on the brink of war after my brother, Thor, lead an attack on Jotunheim, as a result, Odin banished him to Midgard as punishment. During the attack, I had discovered my true heritage as a frost giant while fighting by my brothers side. When I confronted Odin about it, he told me he had found me abandoned in a temple on Jotunheim, during one of his attacks and he took me with the plan to use me to unite the two kingdoms and form an alliance. Suddenly everything made sense, why he had always favoured Thor, how could a frost giant ever be worthy? Much less the King of Jotunheim’s unwanted, bastard son.” Loki’s voice dripped with disgust and you saw moisture gather in his eyes but he quickly blinked it away before continuing. “After I confronted him, Odin collapsed and fell into Odinsleep. With Thor banished and the King in a deep sleep, Asgard was vulnerable. I knew it was my chance to show Odin that, despite my Jotun heritage, I could be just as worthy as my brother. So I tricked Laufey into believing I had betrayed my adoptive father by luring him to Asgard with the belief he could assassinate the King as he slept, but I killed him as he was about to plunge his spear into Odin’s chest.”

 Loki hadn’t planned to share so much, especially to someone he had only known for two days, but he found that with each word that poured out of his mouth, he felt lighter and before he knew it he couldn’t stop. 

 Except for sometimes his mother, he had never really known the privilege of being listened to. He didn’t know how you were going to react to what he told you but you had listened and he hadn’t realised how much he truly needed that until now.

 You were stunned to silence by everything you had just heard Loki tell you. What flooded your heart with so much sorrow that it weighed heavy in your chest, was the way Loki had spoken about himself being unworthy and unwanted, you had decided in that moment that you couldn’t let him be kicked off the TARDIS and abandoned again. After learning about the kind of example Odin set his two sons, you thought Loki’s actions were hardly surprising and despite what Loki had said about Odin favouring Thor, you couldn’t help but think about the fact that Odin had punished Thor for leading an attack on Jotunheim, when he himself had done the same. Instead of holding himself accountable and teaching his sons to not make the same mistakes he had, he let them follow in his footsteps and then punished them for doing so. He raised Loki to see his own father as an enemy and he kept the truth from him, and you imagined that he probably never would’ve told Loki about his true heritage had he not discovered it for himself.  

 You struggled to gather together the words which felt right to say in the moment, wondering what words of wisdom, which you had collected over your 20-something years, would be worth something to the centuries old God. Despite not knowing what Loki might have needed to hear, you knew of something that he needed, and that was a place to belong.

 “I’m going to talk to the Doctor as soon as he comes back and I’ll make sure you get to stay.” You promised him, as you once again returned your hand to his knee and offered him a reassuring smile. 

 Loki’s brows pulled together and his lips fell slightly apart, as he stared at your hand before his eyes travelled up your arm and connected with yours. He studied your expression carefully, trying to find any hints of fear, disgust or doubt. Being the God of lies, he could sense when people were lying or trying to deceive him, but you looked at him with nothing but sincerity. 

 Loki’s eyes dropped to your hand again and he was conflicted. He was in a state of disbelief over the fact that you still wanted to support him after everything he confessed, however you failed to realise that there was still one secret remaining to be divulged. You had assumed he revealed everything, he could have easily gone along with it and increased his chances of maintaining his place on the TARDIS. He would be lying if he said that wasn’t tempting, deceiving people was second nature to him, however when he looked back into your eyes and saw how much compassion they held towards him, compassion he was certain he didn’t deserve, he couldn’t find it in his heart to deceive you.

 Unlike almost everyone else in his life, you had shown him an unlimited amount of kindness and understanding. Most times when he tricked, double crossed or misled people, he believed they deserved it but to do that to you would just be cruel and it was not a level of cruelty which Loki possessed. 

 So, reluctantly Loki took a gentle hold of your wrist and removed your hand from his knee and returned it to your side.

 “I can’t let you promise me that.” Loki rejected you.

 “You’re right, I shouldn’t promise something which is beyond my control but–“ You misinterpreted what he meant.

 “No,” Loki quickly cut you off, “I can’t let you because there’s still one more thing I haven’t told you and I think once I do, you will change your mind.” Loki explained. 

 You remained silent, though you felt anxious about what he might confess, you were also struck by the fact he chose honesty. If he wanted to, he could have easily played along, let you believe he had confessed everything and secure his place on the TARDIS, yet he put it in jeopardy just to ensure that you weren’t misguided and you couldn’t help but admire that. You believed it was a testament to his character which you decided you wouldn’t let go unnoticed, while you nervously waited for him to reveal his final secret.

 “After everything that happened, Odin rejected me and I fell into the hands of a mad titan. I was without purpose, he used that to his advantage and I didn’t need much convincing to join his cause. He desired to posses more power than even the mightiest of Gods, with the use of all six infinity stones. He provided me with an army and instructions to deliver him the tesseract and in return he granted me access to the mind stone. It influenced my feelings and increased my desire for power and need to prove my worthiness, and so I used the army to attack New York city, in an attempt to take over Midgard and rule it as my own.” Loki confessed. 

 You should’ve been horrified, part of you definitely was, but it was heavily diluted by your confusion.

 “I... I don’t remember any of this ever happening.” You admitted, you were very certain that you would recall a God invading one of the most famous cities in the world with an army.

 “It hasn’t happened for you yet.” Loki explained.

 “Time is confusing.” You nervously laughed before you fell silent as you let what Loki told you really sink in. 

 He had attacked earth and attempted to rule over the human race. The way he spoke about it, implied that he didn’t succeed and surely if he was the King of Midgard he wouldn’t be sat on the floor opposite you right now.

 “What stopped you?” 

 “My brother and the avengers. They captured me but I got hold of the tesseract and used it to escape, I didn’t get very far before the TVA found me.”

 You had no idea who the avengers were but you assumed they were some sort of military organisation who were able to defeat Loki and his army, you imagined having the help of Loki’s brother on their side would’ve been a massive help. You considered the fact that when Loki spoke about being captured by them, he didn’t sound upset or angry about it, almost as if he didn’t really care that much about his plans for world domination. You recalled what he had said about the mind stone and how it had influenced his feelings and desires and you wondered how much it was responsible for his actions on Earth.

 “Do you think you would’ve still done it without the mind stone?” You asked him, because you considered this to be very important in judging whether or not you would advocate for his place on the TARDIS. If he believed he wouldn’t have done it without the influence of the mind stone, then his actions weren’t completely his own and therefore you wouldn’t expect him to take total blame for them.

 “No,” Loki furrowed his brows. “but I am a God, I should have not been so easily influenced.”

 “Loki, you might be a God, but you’re still a complicated and complex living being. You’re allowed to be vulnerable at times, you’re allowed to have flaws and make mistakes, you’re allowed to feel emotions and they will get the better of you and control you sometimes, it happens to all of us. Being a God doesn’t make you immune to it.” You told him, realising that Loki had a lot of work to do when it came to accepting his vulnerability.

 Loki remained silent, but it did at least seem like he was considering what you told him as he had a contemplative look on his face. Deciding to leave him in peace to think about it, you pushed yourself off the floor and began to make your way towards your door, but the broken glass, which Donna had dropped earlier, caught your attention.

 You crouched down to start cleaning it up, the bottom of the glass was still some what in tact which allowed you to gather all the broken shards inside it. As you were dropping one of the last pieces into the base of the glass, the broken side of the base pierced the palm of your hand.

 “Shit!” You cried under your breath as you quickly retracted your hand and cradled it close to your chest with your other. Blood was pooling in your palm and began running in singular drips down the side of your arm.

 Loki gasped your name and rushed over to you as soon as he noticed you were injured. Once he reached you, he lowered himself to his knees and held out his hands beside yours, but he didn’t touch you yet.

 “May I?” Loki politely asked for permission to look upon the damage caused to your hand.

 Reluctantly, you granted him access as you placed the balled up fist of your injured hand into his waiting palm. You hissed as he gently prised your fingers open and he mumbled a quick apology as he finally examined your wound.

 “Come on.” Loki encouraged you to your feet, with one of his hands under your elbow and his other still gently cradling your hand.

 You silently allowed him to move you, your eyes focused on him with wonder as he guided you into the en suite of your bedroom.

 Once he sat you down on the closed lid of the toilet, he left your side to run a fresh flannel under the faucet. Your eyes didn’t leave him once, as you watched every move he made. After wringing out the excess water of the flannel, he returned to your side and started tenderly cleaning up your cut. With all the blood cleaned away, Loki could properly inspect your wound.

 “It’s not too deep, I used to inflict much harsher wounds on my brother when we were children, a bandage should do.” Loki casually commented as if it were nothing, when he noticed your alarmed face he simply laughed.

 “Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle and he gave me his fair share in return. We’re much more resilient than mortals, it was the equivalent of human children pushing or kicking one another.” He assured you, as he opened the cupboard below the sink and searched for a first aid box.

 Your alarmed expression relaxed into a some what fond smile upon learning young Loki wasn’t actually inflicting grievous injuries upon his brother, as you imagined the siblings play fighting as children.

 “Are you close to your brother?” You asked Loki, as he returned to your side with a bandage and started wrapping your hand. For a few moments, silence fell between you and you began to think he wasn’t going to answer.

 “We used to be,” Loki finally answered, avoiding your eyes as he focused on bandaging your hand. “I admired him a lot, I still do, but I fear I have irreparably ruined our relationship.” 

 “I’m sure that’s not true.” You carefully argued.

 “I tried to kill his father.” Loki reminded you and your lips fell shut defeatedly.

 “If he is immortal, he will have plenty time to get over it.” You lightheartedly added, trying to avoid the tone of the conversation becoming too serious.

 “Maybe in 5,000 years or so.” Loki estimated as he tied off your bandage, you inspected his work while he tidied away the first aid supplies back into the cupboard.

 “I haven’t changed my mind.” You admitted to him while his back was turned to you. 

 Loki immediately paused his actions after hearing you, you caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink and watched as his expression filled with disbelief before he glanced at you from over his shoulder.

 “About... me?” He hesitantly checked, certain he had misinterpreted what you meant.

 You simply nodded and Loki looked downwards as a shy ever so slight smile curved on the corner of his lips.

  ***

  “So technically it’s New New New New New New New New New new New New York.” You heard the laughter of your auntie and the Doctor as the entered the TARDIS, and you made your way around the console.

 The Doctor stopped when you caught his eye and said your name, surprised to find you waiting in the control room, while Donna smiled at you from beside him.

 “I have to talk to you about Loki.” You told the Doctor.

 Donna’s smile instantly and was replaced with worry as her eyes dropped to your bandaged hand.

 “Did he hurt you?” She fretted, as she stepped towards you.

 “No,” You immediately assured her, glancing at your injured hand. “No, I cut myself on the glass you dropped.” 

 Donna looked down with guilt as she realised your injury was caused by her accident.

 “I think we should let him stay.” You immediately returned to your original point, deciding there was no need to dance around it.

 The Doctor sighed your name, as it seemed like he was about to disagree while Donna looked at you as if you had grown a second head.

 “Please, you can trust my judgment.” You gave your auntie your best puppy dog eyes and she tilted her head in contemplation before looking towards the Doctor, who seemed to be considering it as well.

 “What do you think?” The Doctor turned to Donna, “if you’re not comfortable with it...”

 Your auntie sighed in defeat after giving it some consideration.

 “Your judgement better be good.” She pointed her finger at you, and you smiled. 

 “It is, I promise!” At least, you hoped it was.

  ***

  Just like the night before, there came a knock on your door just as you were about to climb into bed and just like the night before, you were greeted by the sight of Loki when you opened the door.

 “Is this going to become a nightly occurrence?” You joked.

 “If you would like it to.” Loki played along.

 “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” 

 Loki’s features dropped into a more serious expression and he took in a deep breath.

 “I realised that earlier I never got the chance to apologise.” Loki began, his hands were held behind his back, hidden from your view, so you couldn’t see the way he nervously played with them.

 “Apologise?” You questioned with a slight tilt of your head, wondering what he felt the need to be sorry for.

 “I know how violating it felt to have Cassandra inside your mind–“

 “That wasn’t your fault.” You cut him off before he could finish.

 “No, I know, but I kissed you,” Loki’s eyes were trained on the floor as he spoke and your mouth fell in the shape of an ‘o’ as you realised that is what he came here to apologise for. “And you weren’t in control–“

 “You weren’t to know,” you quickly reassured him, as heat rose to your own face as you both acknowledged what happened between you. “She kissed you first, you don’t have to apologise.”

 “Even so, I would like to,” Loki finally lifted his gaze to look at you, “I’m sorry, if you felt uncomfortable or...”

 You couldn’t admit it, but uncomfortable is not a word you would use to describe how kissing Loki had made you feel. Once the pressure had began to slip from your mind and your lips were still attached to his, you felt a wave of pleasure flush through your stomach while goosebumps rose on your skin leaving a tingling sensation in their wake. 

 You pulled yourself back from the memory as you nodded and offered Loki a smile and accepted the apology which he felt he owed you, while you tried hard to push your desire for the kiss you shared to be repeated, to the back of your mind where you hoped it would soon be forgotten. 

#loki #loki (marvel) #doctor who #loki x reader #loki x female reader #loki x you #loki imagine #10th doctor #tenth doctor #donna noble #tom hiddleston

[forasecondtherewedwon]

In the Arms of the Anus

Fandom: Spider-Man, Thor Pairing: Roger Harrington/Grandmaster Rating: T Word Count: 8883

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @spiderman-homecomeme!!!

Summary: While people all over the world are finding their soulmates, Roger Harrington can barely find time to grab a sandwich. Clumsy, anxious, and stagnating in a mediocre marriage, it's a miracle that he still believes in love.

Today's the day the universe rewards that belief.

Three things about Roger Harrington: he’d just tripped on the sidewalk, he worried daily that he was developing a bald spot, and, at the age of 36, he felt he still believed in love as strongly as did the little girl in his building who’d made all the residents Valentine’s Day cards the year before.

The cards—which Roger had found endearing while his wife had been baffled to the point of annoyance—had been wedged into everyone’s mailbox sometime on the afternoon of last May 19th, and maybe that was why he thought of them today, exactly a year later.

It was helpful, he found, to consider love in markers of time passing, or just numbers. The anniversary of those Valentine’s cards would always be 271 days early, leap year or not. Roger had been married twice, longer the second time. He had zero children, and that was alright with him because he wasn’t totally sure that he did want kids and, anyway, he was too profoundly stressed about the welfare of the teenagers he taught at Midtown to comfortably imagine himself as a fulltime parent.

His wife was cool. Significantly cooler than he was. She drove out of the city to hike every other weekend (he had never joined her and hoped to never be called upon for woodsy companionship), had once performed an emergency tracheotomy on a friend at a dinner party, and had a tattoo on her hip that predated their relationship, which made it consequently, eternally, enigmatic, no matter how many times she told the objectively trite story of its acquisition. Also, she was a casual shoplifter, which made him very, very nervous in a way that he found difficult to differentiate from how he felt when he was turned on.

He was the kind of person who consistently forgot to take his glasses off before stepping into the shower. She was the kind of person who would run into and recognize a famous race car driver at Whole Foods (that had happened) or fake her own death (that had not happened—knock on wood!). Essentially, what and who his second wife was was the natural successor to his first wife (the reckless young bride to his insomniac young groom), who had in turn been the natural successor to the only other romantic encounter of his life worth mentioning: a kiss on the cheek at a birthday party on the day the Berlin Wall fell. Roger had been seven.

So his romantic history was speckled and, in two out of three cases, spoke a little too loudly of a need for legally-recognized codependence. So he didn’t feel like a man anyone would ever get a tattoo in honour of. So his wife had been a little unkind in the long pause before her negative when he’d asked her if she thought he was getting a bald spot. Roger still felt that love was going to happen for him. Hopefully sustained in his current marriage, but if not, there was always what Julius Dell had taken to (highly unscientifically) calling the Love Wave.

If Roger decided to be really delusional, he could pretend that the Love Wave was to blame for his stumble over uneven concrete on his way to grab lunch. That he was finally feeling its cosmic tug. Not that he would be the last to sense it—the inexplicable force that had lately begun guiding people the world over to their new partners—but every day that he didn’t, he feared his wife would feel it first and go careening out of their life together in a Thelma and Louise-style launch that somehow left her intact and him feeling like he’d plummeted to his death at the bottom of a canyon. Sometimes, when he thought about it, he imagined feeling that impulse to go to this destined soulmate and pictured it leading him home. Not in some metaphorical way, but literally home, to the apartment he shared with his wife, to find her arriving at the same time, the two of them matched up, the universe endorsing their marriage.

The reality was that he was a man with clumsy feet (and knees and elbows) who’d forgotten to pack himself a lunch and had just enough self-awareness (though probably not dignity) not to believe that eating in the cafeteria with his students was something he would be able to socially recover from.

He thought about a poorly-cut-out pink heart glued to a fold of red craft paper. He went to buy a sandwich.

At the deli, Roger waited in line and didn’t so much allow his mind to wander—like a dog off-leash in a dog park—as feel his mind jerk insistently away—like a dog on-leash, trying to snap a dropped slice of pizza off the sidewalk. He was violently not present as his thoughts migrated from Valentine’s Day cards to lesson plans to the anxiety he always felt over the fact of never seeming to have enough power to go with the tremendous sense of responsibility he felt for all situations in which he was even remotely involved. He would have, should have, continued to shuffle vacantly forward in line, except that the man ahead of him grumbled something that drew his focus.

What he grumbled was: “Even the Sorcerer Supreme should be able to spare a minute to decide what kind of sandwich he wants.”

Now, Roger Harrington was a man of science, but he was also a man who had previously enjoyed a close friendship with the Hulk (and if anyone challenged him on specific parameters within that assertion, Roger knew that he would cry). Aliens swarmed the sky like clouds of bees. There were compilation videos of Spider-Man nearly getting hit by city buses that could’ve been designed expressly to see how hard Roger could flinch. For a clumsy man with the unathletic, knock-kneed gait of Pippi Longstocking, Roger did his best to roll with the supernatural punches. Hey, this was how science worked too: just because there wasn’t a precedent yet didn’t mean there never would be. Just because he couldn’t explain something didn’t mean no one could. Sorcerers? Alright. There could be sorcerers.

“Sorcerers?” Roger blurted to the man, overeager to expel the word.

All other words had fled to the back of his mind, twitching in an agitated cluster, leaving just the one to be snatched frantically from the surface. Like fishing. (Roger had never been fishing. One of his greatest fears was having a live fish somehow jump into his shoe and stepping on it by accident.)

“Uhhh,” the man droned. He looked uneasy. If Roger knew how to make his eyes a little less wide in situations like these, he would’ve done it.

“No, yeah, sorcerers, sure,” Roger swiftly backpedaled. “I’m a teacher.”

As if being a teacher equaled knowledge of sorcerers. As if that were a normal unit of the high school curriculum. Roger’s understanding of sorcerers began and ended with Mickey Mouse in a blue wizard’s hat. He wondered if that was sort of the standard look.

The man did not appear reassured. Roger thrust his hand forward.

“Roger Harrington, Midtown Tech.”

Face still wary, his deli companion shook hands.

“Wong.”

“So, this sorcerer of yours didn’t pick a sandwich?” The line shuffled forward and, now in reach of the long glass case of food, Roger attempted to lean his elbow casually against it, misjudged the distance, and jerked back upright again before he could fall over.

“No… You heard that part too?”

“If I could hear the part about the sorcerer, why wouldn’t I be able to hear the rest?”

“I think most people would’ve been so fixated on the sorcerer thing that they wouldn’t really absorb the part about the sandwich.”

“Just got sandwiches on the brain, I guess,” Roger said.

God, if Wong knew a sorcerer, odds were that he was a sorcerer too. (Roger based this on being a teacher with almost exclusively teacher friends and acquaintances.) He was making it sound like he cared more about sandwiches, he knew he was. He stared silently at Wong for a few painful seconds and wondered if the man could tell that he had worked for a sandwich shop as a teenager—the role of wearing a full-body sandwich costume and standing on the sidewalk, trying to attract people into the shop.

But Wong surprised him by nodding.

“You could get one of everything,” Roger heard himself suggest.

He was not typically one to make suggestions, but rather one to panic when other people did and he was in the position of having to choose between them. He could never decide on a restaurant for he and his wife’s now few-and-far-between date nights, or provide straightforward feedback when she asked for his opinion on her clothing choices… which movie they should see… what they should buy for her friend’s sister’s housewarming gift...

Oh god, she was probably going to fake her own death and his biggest anxiety was knowing that someone would ask him to choose the casket!

“I have like…” Wong jingled his pockets and extracted a fistful of coins that, when he opened his hand, Roger saw belonged to several different currencies. “…six bucks.”

Like a mirror with a delay, Roger patted his own pockets to locate his wallet. He flipped it open to reveal something promising and terrifying: he’d forgotten to return the school credit card after the last field trip he’d chaperoned. He shouldn’t, but… sorcerer.

“I think this’ll cover it,” Roger said. “It’s for emergency expenses.”

“Like lunch?” Wong asked doubtfully.

“I could be very hungry.”

“They sell seventeen different types of sandwiches here.”

“I could be very, very hungry.”

Wong shrugged in evident acquiescence and Roger marvelled that it was so simple for him to accept this act of generosity. Roger couldn’t recall the last time someone had been as generous towards him. Wait, yes he could. The Valentine’s Day card. Well, handing over a credit card that wasn’t technically his didn’t exactly equate to presenting his ticket at the Love Wave gates (not that there were such things—not that he’d know), but he was hoping to trade this generosity up for a different magical experience in the near future.

When they reached the front of the line for service, Roger ordered a total of eighteen sandwiches. (And received an undisguised groan of complaint from the people still in line behind himself and Wong.) While they waited, Roger buzzed like the posterchild for over-caffeination, doing his best not to let his excitement translate into erratic movements.

Of course, once the sandwiches were presented and paid for, it only made sense for Roger to help Wong carry them all. His own ham-and-Swiss was stuffed into one of the three bags and they were all bulging, threatening to spill. If one of them ripped on Wong’s journey back to wherever he had to take them, who would be there to gather the sandwiches into their arms so that Wong wouldn’t have to leave them on the ground? Roger was clearly the best (only) person for the job.

And if they talked on the way? That would be natural. If Wong stared at him with abrupt, unyielding suspicion the instant Roger attempted to negotiate a visit with this ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ in exchange for buying his lunch? Yeah. Yeah that suspicion would be fair.

“Not for my sake!” Roger defended as Wong blinked back at him. “For the kids!”

“The Sorcerer Supreme isn’t a birthday party magician.”

“No, I would never imply that! These are bright kids. They’d be there to learn, respectfully. They’ve had their own traumatic encounter with Spider-Man already so there wouldn’t be any clambering to meet another person with superhuman powers!”

“What did Spider-Man do to traumatize them?”

Wong looked interested now, in an entertained sort of way. Meanwhile, Roger was having a flashback of his life flashing before his eyes inside the Washington Monument.

“Actually, he saved us,” Roger explained. “That’s not the point. It would be purely educational. You and the Sorcerer Supreme would call the shots. As long as it wasn’t anything dangerous.”

“Dangerous? We would never put children at risk!”

Roger was about to clarify that he hadn’t meant to imply that they would when he realized Wong seemed to be taking this as a reason to prove himself, or to make the other sorcerer prove what he’d just said.

“I would hope not,” Roger said carefully, “because not all of the children I’ve taken on field trips have come back alive and that haunts me.”

“Well, what haunts me is everything I’ve seen and learned from in order to become someone who could now guarantee a safe field trip environment.”

“Well, that would be great.”

“Well, good,” Wong concluded.

Roger looked down at the bag he was holding as he dug out his sandwich. His wrist twisted and he caught the time on his watch. Oh wow, oh no, his lunch break was almost over.

“Ok, deal,” he said quickly. “We’ll come by next Tuesday!”

“I’ll be out here to let you in!” Wong agreed with a parting wave.

Roger took off running in the direction of Midtown and when that got too awful, he wheezed like an asthmatic and waited at the closest bus stop.

—

Roger had expected Principal Morita to say there was no room in their budget for this trip. That they were nearing the end of the school year, that parents and guardians would be reluctant to sign another form for an excursion that Roger could only give a vague, stammering explanation of. At the very least, he’d anticipated the journey via school bus in lurching, stop-and-start traffic to take so long that the kids would revolt; Flash Thompson would lead the complaints that they could’ve walked to their destination faster than the ride took and Roger would feel the primal horror of a confrontation with a self-possessed teenager who wielded the kind of peer influence Roger could only have dreamed of when he’d been Flash’s age.

But no.

Highly improbably (Roger didn’t like to consider it miraculous), things went smoothly. The trip cleared the budget assessment on zero notice because, besides renting the single bus to transport the students, their outing didn’t actually have any costs. Permission slips came back signed. Traffic was light. And dear, dear Flash—who usually gave Roger so much anxiety—slapped the hand Roger raised to shield his eyes from the sun as his students disembarked from the bus, rewarding him with a surprise high-five for getting them out of the classroom on a Tuesday afternoon. It almost knocked Roger’s glasses off.

They were ushered inside by Wong, who was now laying the mystical solemnity on pretty thick. He certainly wasn’t talking about sandwiches or complaining about the Supreme Sorcerer under his breath.

Before Roger could feel too good about himself though, he realized he’d had time to run through his headcount of the students three times without interruption. Normally, something would happen partway through his first count and he’d be uneasy for the rest of the day, sure that one of the kids had fallen down a manhole or been stampeded by a dog-walker’s unruly canine swarm. The universe shoved teenagers into the path of bike couriers with one hand and paired up soulmates with the other. That was just how things went! However, inside this house (or, no, Sanctum, Wong had called it), the air was still and quiet.

“Do you think he’s gonna make himself appear out of thin air?” Roger heard Ned ask at a whisper. “Or out of a wardrobe, or a trapdoor, or one of those boxes people get in to get sawed in half?”

“Those are cheap tricks,” Wong said loudly. He stared unsympathetically at Roger’s motley group, hand closed around his opposite wrist to maintain a serious pose. “The man you’ll be meeting shortly has capabilities that far outstrip those of the kind of magician-for-hire you’d find in a phonebook.”

From behind him, Roger heard Peter ask Ned what a phonebook was.

“What kind of capabilities then?” Flash demanded.

Roger sighed and was turning to reprimand his student when Wong said, “Like this!”

The man faked a sneeze of horrific volume and range, doubling over and cupping his hand around his mouth and nose. When he straightened up and presented his open palm, there was a raspberry sitting in it.

Roger closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself and his teaching career played on a fast-forwarded film reel behind his lids. The Sorcerer Supreme was a no-show; all Roger had accomplished was taking the kids to a weird building to witness a man pretend to sneeze out a raspberry. Midtown Tech was going to fire him. His wife would recognize his unemployment as a reason to leave him. Depressingly, Roger was thinking about how that would almost be a relief—an end to his incessant worrying that they were really kind of a mismatch—and he was thinking it while he blankly watched Wong eat the raspberry he’d just feigned dislodging from his nasal cavity.

He was really unprepared for a different man to come sweeping down the stairs, motion with his hand, and have a red sheet come whizzing down after him to settle itself on his shoulders. Roger blinked. He heard the mixed noises of fright and appreciation from his students.

Then Flash piped up with, “That’s just a trick. It’s wires or something.”

Roger backed into the cluster of his charges and, without taking his eyes off the obvious Magical Guy in front of him, reached over and placed his hand across Flash’s mouth.

Unfortunately, his censorship seemed to be too late. The Sorcerer’s narrowed eyes zoned in on Flash.

“Oh yeah? How ’bout this? Is this just a trick?”

Fingers splayed, the man moved his hands in a precise, practiced way and a window opened up in the middle of the room. No, not a window, but Roger was having a tough time wrapping his head around it. What this non-window showed was something that wasn’t the room, that wasn’t a view of the street, that wasn’t anyplace in New York, if he had to guess.

“You can’t just do it like that,” Wong said wearily. Roger felt himself and his students look from one of the men to the other as though watching a tennis match. “There should be a little more finesse.”

“Look,” the Sorcerer told him. “You don’t get to spring this on me and then expect me to ham it up for the kids. This isn’t a David Blaine show.”

“Maybe you should watch one. You might learn something about showmanship.”

“So, it’s fake, right?” Flash checked.

Dammit, Roger had dropped his hand, distracted as he tried to make out what he was seeing through what he was becoming increasingly comfortable with calling a ‘magic portal’ in his thoughts. He scrambled to take hold of Flash’s shoulder—yanking him back would be bad, but dealing with the fallout of him pissing off somebody who could make magic portals would be much worse—but Flash dodged him, swaggering forward to inspect the Sorcerer’s work.

“What is it? Mirrors? Greenscreen? You buy your tech from Stark?”

“Stark?” the Sorcerer spat out derisively.

Overcome with the terrible feeling that he was about to find out what it looked like when a wizard put a curse on a child, Roger sprang forward. As he did, three things happened: the Sorcerer rotated his wrist slightly, the scene on the other side of the portal changed, and Flash turned to the side.

Without a student to grab onto and pull to safety, Roger’s momentum sent him hurtling through the gateway currently connecting Midtown to parts unknown.

Of all the times to trip, he thought.

—

The world was bright and fast and bad. Actually, Roger was almost positive that what he was seeing wasn’t the world at all, but he couldn’t put a name to where he was any more than he could think of better adjectives to describe it. Unless the Sorcerer Supreme owned a magical slip ’n’ slide that operated at speeds designed to train prospective astronauts for space travel, Roger was no longer in his building.

The colour of the tunnel of light surrounding him turned from something like the intestinal track of a unicorn who ate lightning and nebulas to a dangerous, broiling red. Roger kept waiting for his skin to bubble, his face to melt off. Maybe he was the fabled frog in the pot of boiling water and had failed to notice the heat steadily increasing. Because he didn’t feel hot. He couldn’t tell whether or not he felt cold either and before he could work it out, he finally landed.

It was rough.

He curled his arms up around his head, protecting his face. He hit and tumbled, hit and tumbled, banging his shins and elbows, setting off a series of metallic clangs and thwumps like his body was playing drums made of the contents of somebody’s recycling bin. Roger could see—once, shaking, he was able to lower his arms and open his eyes—that his imagination hadn’t been far from the mark: he was lying in a heap of trash.

Trembling like a baby deer, he got to his feet and assessed his surroundings. There were piles everywhere. Piles of stuff. Roger could identify some of the battered objects, but most were utterly alien to him. This was like the time he’d found his wife’s sex toys all over again.

“Hello?” he called out, because he seemed to be alone. “Hel—”

His throat closed off abruptly when he swiveled in place and noticed the sky. His mouth fell open. Was that what he had just come through? That furious-looking, billowing, volcanic, enormous… disturbance? Weather pattern? Entrance to hell, if hell were a mountain of trash?

Oh man. Where was Spider-Man this time? Roger didn’t know which would come first, but if something distinctly reassuring didn’t happen in the next 30 seconds, he was going to either burst into tears or pee his pants. His cool wife was going to be so bummed to have to declare him dead instead of faking her own death. And his students would be traumatized, having just witnessed their teacher disappear before their eyes. He spent a frantic 17 of his 30 seconds wondering if this were Jumanji and he’d started a game without realizing it; being sucked into a board game was another of his greatest fears, ever since he’d watched the chilling horror film Jumanji in his teens.

“Hello?” Roger croaked a final time.

Some other scientist—a Tony Stark type—would thrive in this scenario, Roger knew. They would scavenge the surrounding mounds of metal, collecting and assembling pieces into some sort of technology that would either get them home or enable communication with a rescue team. Would there be a rescue team for Roger Harrington? Would anyone even try to get him back?

The cry/pee conundrum was looking more like cry with each passing second until suddenly, amongst the broken things Roger was aggrieved to consider the lone sentinels of his demise, some kind of spacecraft touched down. Based on his recent luck, whoever was at the helm was likely here to kill him, but he immediately elected to throw himself on their mercy, whether that meant rescue or just a swifter snuffing out of his life than he would otherwise experience on this sad island of garbage as he died from dehydration, starvation, and exposure to that infernal gateway in the sky.

He mouthed the word “help” more than said it as he staggered forward on legs he could hardly feel. A door in the side of the spacecraft slid smoothly open and party music blared out. Roger flinched back as though he had not heard the sounds of civilization in years.

A woman exited the craft. She wore an expression about as kind as the murderous upside-down mushroom cloud in the sky and when their eyes met, she barked, “Back!”

Roger executed an awkward reverse lunge, pleading hands raised. Ok, now that his time had come, he didn’t want a quick death. Put out of his misery? No, he would learn to live with his misery, the way he’d learned to live with his college roommates, or his wife’s collection of handmade bowls! With food and water to sustain him, he was suddenly confident that he could be successfully miserable for years if this intimidating woman would just leave him to his own pathetic devices.

But then, like a visitation from a tan, eye-liner-wearing angel of indeterminate age, a man in gold robes emerged from the vessel. He beamed like he had always been beaming, and always would be.

Just like that, Roger Harrington got it. He got what Hot Chocolate meant when they sang that they believed in miracles. He got the meaning of Kylie Jenner’s year of realizing stuff. He got why a child would send out Valentine’s Day cards in May and why his wife was so dedicated to her hiking group and why he was here.

“Now, what did I say about that before we left?” the angel seemed to be asking his companion, though he’d locked his eyes on Roger. “Did I say to harass our visitor or did I say to be nice?”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Roger, which he felt more than saw; it was possible that he was crying after all. Tears of joy.

“Harass,” she answered flatly.

The angel chuckled.

“You know, I do like having you around. Before you, I said to myself, ‘Next time, get an enforcer with a sense of humour.’” He sighed as his laughter dwindled. “But you can, uh, skedaddle back onto the ship now. That’ll be all.”

“What if you want to melt him?” she queried.

That was enough to tear Roger’s gaze away from the man and send it zipping nervously to the threatening almost-smile the woman was now directing his way. He’d preferred the murder face.

“Melt him!” the angel said, in a tone that implied her suggestion had been ridiculous. (Roger relaxed. A little.) “Topaz, don’t you realize who this is? Don’t you know?”

She shrugged.

“Trash.”

“No, he’s not trash! Do you think I would’ve left the Grand Arena to retrieve a new gladiator by hand? All those Scrappers don’t do my bidding just so I can dig through the garbage looking for fresh challengers for my champion! I wouldn’t even assign Scrapper 142 this task, and you know she’s my favourite!”

When the woman only grumbled, the man pressed, “You have an unbelievable poker face. Do you really not know why I flew all the way out here for this guy?”

“I’m his soulmate,” Roger blurted, because that was the one thing he did know.

He had no idea what a Scrapper was, or whether the man in front of him was more or less important than the ‘champion’ he’d mentioned, or how his homicidal sidekick planned to melt Roger, but he understood what was happening here. Forget the Love Wave—what had come for him had yanked him violently across solar systems, maybe galaxies. He’d been sucked under by the Love Riptide.

The angel pointed at him and proudly proclaimed, “Correctamundo!”

Then he strode forward and folded Roger into a hug. Roger thought this must be what it was like to be a piece of antique furniture, tenderly wrapped in gold leaf.

“I’m the Grandmaster,” he said.

“Roger Harrington,” Roger offered, feeling that his life was entirely surreal as he cautiously returned the hug.

“As soon as I felt you land on my humble little planet here, I came looking. My orgy guests were disappointed, naturally, but I had to put my interests first. What was I, elected? If they wanted a leader who would pretend to care about everyone equally, they should have organized themselves into a viable political party capable of rivalling my dictatorship, am I right?” He drew back slightly and laughed. “You should see your face! I’m kidding. I would’ve had anyone involved in such a thing put to death. Don’t you worry, Hairball.”

Roger cleared his throat. He’d learned so much in the last few sentences alone. Death. Dictator. Orgy. Any one of those things was a lot to confront and yet… he was calmed by the Grandmaster’s presence. He was alive and unmelted. He’d managed to find his soulmate—a man he’d been almost certain to never meet as things stood with Earth’s individually-impressive but cosmically-insignificant progress with space travel. At long last, the universe had smiled on Roger Harrington.

“Just Roger is good,” he said. If last names ever came up again, he would tactfully correct his soulmate, but with a name like ‘the Grandmaster,’ he doubted they ever would.

“Roger. Anything you say.” Gripping Roger’s shoulders, the Grandmaster leaned in and planted a sound kiss on his forehead with a loud, “Mmmwah!”

He asked Roger if he would like to go aboard his ship, apologizing that it wasn’t the one where he’d just been having the orgy and appearing to check Roger’s face for disappointment. Roger didn’t know what the Grandmaster saw in his expression, but he knew it wasn’t that.

Inside the spaceship, Roger looked around with huge eyes. He hadn’t felt this kind of wonder in a room jammed with so much beyond his understanding since the first time his mom had taken him to the New York Hall of Science as a kid. Everything was bright and white and immaculately clean, and Roger could concentrate on all of it because the Grandmaster had Topaz drop the volume of his party playlist until it was just a low pulse of background noise. Seemingly amused by his awe, the Grandmaster allowed him a peek at the controls before gently herding him into a chamber with seating arranged for socializing. A pneumatic hiss sealed them safely inside and away from the woman’s scowl.

“I really just wanna sit here and, uh, just look atcha, but that look on your face tells me you’ve got about a million questions.”

The Grandmaster settled back into the bench seating, resting his long arms along the top of the seat. Across from him, Roger fidgeted, experiencing sensory overload. Soulmate. Spaceship. Alien planet. He found it hard to decide what to ask first. Was that even polite? Was the Grandmaster just saying that Roger could ask questions when he really wanted Roger to say or do something else? There was an awfully flirtatious look in his eye, the likes of which Roger hadn’t seen directed towards himself in several years.

“What is this place?” Roger asked before he could stop himself. “Where am I?”

“Oh! This is Sakaar! Are you saying you didn’t come here on purpose? I figured you weren’t aiming for a pile of trash, but you really didn’t know where you were going at all?”

Roger shook his head so hard that he had to nudge his slipping glasses back up his nose.

“It was an accident. I fell through a wizard’s—uh, I mean, a sorcerer’s—magic portal. That kind of clumsiness must sound pretty farfetched to someone who’s so obviously…” Roger motioned spastically towards his soulmate, the dictator, with both hands. “…in control of their life.”

The Grandmaster laughed, transparently pleased and preening.

“Oh, Roger, you flatter me.”

He stretched out his leg to playfully tap his shoe (gold) against Roger’s (plain, brown, frayed shoelace). Roger jumped, giddy from an alteration in sea level, possibly, plus life-changing events.

“But it really isn’t so uncommon for people, beings, things… to end up here without meaning to,” the Grandmaster went on. “A lot of junk passes through the Anus. Not that you’re junk, obviously.”

With a winning smile, Roger’s soulmate leaned forward and patted him on the knee. He was a touchy-feely guy, it seemed, and it made Roger cognizant of how very lonely he’d been in his marriage, in the last year especially. How skittish around strangers, how unaffectionate with his friends. This was what he needed, and the universe had understood that.

It took his brain a few seconds to catch up with what his soulmate had said, distracted by the comfort he was taking in his easy warmth.

“The Anus?” Roger asked in a choked voice.

“The Devil’s Anus, to be exact. That enormous, horrifying wormhole out there in the sky!” the Grandmaster explained, gleeful. “Best I can guess, it acts as a funnel for accidental travelers, like yourself. And boy, are we ever grateful for that thing. I’ve never had to post any ‘Help Wanted’ flyers, I’ll tell ya that. We need more people serving drinks? Boom. More entertainers? Boom. More lubricators for the orgies? Boom, the Anus provides, baby.”

Roger didn’t inquire what the duties of a person with the job title ‘orgy lubricator’ entailed; it seemed sleazily self-explanatory. He just nodded.

“And now,” his perfect, golden match continued, “the portal brings me my soulmate. I love that thing. It’s really somethin’, huh?”

“It’s really something,” Roger agreed. “Really, really something.”

“You’re looking just a little stunned there, Rodge. Can I offer you something to eat? A drink? I promise, I’m usually a much better host. I feel like I’m positively, uh, bumbling right now.” He beamed.

This man was so many things at once—possibly too many—but bumbling was so far from being one of them that Roger actually laughed weaky in his state of happy, semi-delirium. He accepted the cold glass that was pressed into his hand, the brush of the Grandmaster’s warm palm across his forehead. He had moved to sit right next to Roger.

“You can get used to this place at your own pace, within reason.” His soulmate chuckled. “Heck, we can stay right here a day or two. My plans are cancelled, and when I stop, the world stops. That’s how it is, being the Grandmaster, and that’s how it’s gonna be for you too. You can give all your worries a big, wet kiss goodbye, my love. You’re living a life of luxury now. A court of sycophants, fights to the death in the evening, orgies on a lazy afternoon. I’m talkin’ a life of pure class—”

“Class!”

“Yeah, baby, that’s what I said.” The Grandmaster was wearing a languid smile as he traced the back of his fingers along Roger’s jaw.

But Roger was suddenly too alert to be lulled by welcome caresses and delicious, exotic beverages.

“I was teaching a class before I fell through the portal,” he said. “I’m a teacher. My students are probably terrified. Some of them might be messed up for life after watching me disappear right in front of them. What have I done…”

“So you gave them a cool story to tell their friends! You don’t need to think about that anymore. Now that you’re living here—”

“I can’t live here!” Roger said, seizing the Grandmaster’s hands in his as he tried desperately to explain. “I have responsibilities as an educator! Jesus Christ, I’m married!”

“Roger. Rodge. Rodge. Hey,” his soulmate said, finally disrupting Roger’s spiral of panic. “That’s all in the past. Do you know how many creatures from just, uh, every darn corner of the universe I’ve made slaughter each other for my entertainment? Thousands, Roger, ok? Thousands. And it’s taught me oodles about life. What I’ve learned is that love is the only thing that matters. What all of those poor bastards scream for in the end is their mom, their partner, their best friend. Now, that doesn’t help them, but it helps us. It helps us understand that we’ve done it—we’ve achieved the one thing in our lives that was worth a damn to achieve. I’m not gonna, gonna now be parted from you, sweetheart. You are the point of me.”

Roger felt himself growing teary at the speech. Yes, this had been a whirlwind—they’d met no more than 15 minutes ago—but he was feeling something just as deep as the love the Grandmaster described. It was a fantasy in the best way, the life his soulmate pictured for them (most of it… maybe not the part about slaughter). But it was a fantasy in the worst way too, something so impossible that Roger felt sick for getting as attached to this man as he already had.

“I can’t,” he said softly. He let his head hang down, solaced when the Grandmaster guided it onto his shoulder and wrapped a protective arm around him.

“Can’t you? For me? Roger, if I put you on a ship and send you back through the Anus, we may never meet again.”

Roger squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to be selfish, but there were people he couldn’t leave in the lurch. People who maybe didn’t care about him in a way that was equal to how he cared about them, but that was how any kind of relationship was, apart from soulmates. There were imbalances. He knew he might not be the most brilliant scientist, the most inspirational teacher, the husband a woman would prefer over the outdoorsy hunk in her hiking group, but he knew who he was: he was someone who couldn’t just walk away.

“We’ll be together again,” Roger said, clutching the Grandmaster’s robes. “After.”

Though he didn’t yet know what ‘after’ would mean.

—

It wasn’t as unexpected as it could have been—Roger had always had a feeling he’d die on a school bus.

The difference between his fears and reality was that he wasn’t departing this world in a fiery crash or zooming out of control between the steel trusses and into the East River. There was confusion, there was chaos, there were screams and the violent honking of horns, but there were elements he couldn’t have predicted. Primarily, the giant alien spacecraft hovering over the city. The ship immediately moved into first place of the most ominous rings in his life (he and his wife were not in a good place). Since its sighting, things had quickly spiraled out of control. Julius had radioed Roger from the other bus of students they were chaperoning to MoMA to report that Ned Leeds had ‘flipped his shit’ and Peter Parker was currently missing. Roger had nearly passed out. The only thing that had kept him conscious was his jittery concern for the rest of his students.

At Midtown Tech, they had drills for almost every eventuality. As of 2012, hostile outer space invasion was actually part of their repertoire, but it had always been assumed they would be at school when it happened, not out on a field trip. The most Roger had been able to think to do was get the kids to a secure location. Which meant getting the buses to a secure location. But the buses were on the bridge, and all over the bridge drivers were panicking, mindlessly stomping on the gas and attempting to swerve around the rest of the vehicles. Above the blood rushing in his ears, he’d heard crash after crash, until their bus was hemmed in and, through the smoking, crumpled hoods of their fellow commuters, the alien ship hung stationary in the sky. Disturbingly tranquil as New York City went to pieces to the tune of apocalyptic dissonance just below.

In the end, the spaceship hadn’t stayed put, but Roger had. The lanes around them were crowded with smashed cars. Glass from shattered windshields glittered on the pavement. Still, more vehicles surged forward as drivers attempted to use the bridge to flee the city; this wasn’t NYC’s first alien rodeo. He hadn’t attempted to force any of his students to remain on the bus—they were some of the smartest and the best of their generation, and he trusted their survival instincts far more than his own—but he did direct the ones who fled to first climb up onto the roof of the bus instead of dropping directly down onto the street and risking injury. Yes, he worried about minor cuts and bruises. Even now.

He thought that Flash was staying with him, and was touched. But then he realized Flash was just gripping his shoulder for leverage as he jumped and grabbed for the emergency roof hatch with his free hand. Roger knew the boy was somewhat neglected by his parents, and so, for the first time, he was happy go hear ‘Hotline Bling.’ It was Flash’s ringtone and it played incessantly as his phone rang and rang until the song, and the sound of Flash running, faded into the distance. Somebody wanted to see that he was safe. Somebody cared about him.

Alone, Roger hunkered down between the seats, knees bent in front of him. He scraped one hand anxiously through his hair and gripped his phone in the other.

He should call his wife. He knew he should. Only, he was afraid that she either wouldn’t pick up or she’d answer and be with the guy from her hiking group. Roger wasn’t even upset; he was glad she had someone, if this was it.

Ever since he’d returned from Sakaar, he’d been different, he was aware that he had. In the past, his wife had been largely responsible for the sundering of their marriage, but Roger knew that he was now pulling away too. It had begun inside him—the tear. He wanted to be with two people for two different reasons. In two places, on two worlds. Commitment clashed with longing. Logical rightness fought emotional rightness. He’d been weak, persuading himself daily to tough it out with his wife (even as he slept on the couch every night because lying beside her made him unhappy), when, for once in his damn life, he wanted to be fulfilled. Somewhere out in the stars, there was a man with blue eyeliner and an entire planet at his capricious command and he was the person for Roger.

If only, he thought, picturing the face he shouldn’t have been able to recall so clearly for the brevity of their encounter months ago. Roger shut his eyes to better remember the Grandmaster, and so he wouldn’t have to see his phone clatter to the bus’s dirty floor when the hand that held it turned to dust.

—

As with his life on regular, non-apocalypse days, not much happened to Roger. Despite his paralyzing breakdown on a school bus, he wasn’t among the billions scattered to the wind like sentient dandruff. He picked himself up and went home. Sure, he was shivering almost out of his skin from the shock, but he didn’t collapse into wracking, snotty sobs until he was safely in his living room, listening to his neighbours’ wails through the condo’s walls.

Roger’s wife wasn’t there, didn’t answer when he called her, and, three weeks later, still hadn’t made contact. It took another two months to hold her wake; the funeral business was booming. Never had so many words been spoken over so many vacant graves. Some members of his wife’s hiking group attended, some had even helped him select the right music and flowers beforehand. They knew her preferences. It felt surreal to be burying a person he couldn’t prove—in any meaningful way—that he’d really known.

With a queasy sense of being very lucky, he accepted that, apart from his marital status, his life hadn’t been upended. His windows weren’t broken, his car wasn’t stolen, the few family members he was out of touch with anyway had also survived. He went back to work before anybody called him in. There weren’t any students at first, just the echo of Roger’s clumsy footsteps tripping over the rug in the staffroom, half-solved equations on the whiteboards in the math classrooms, and the unholy stench of unwashed pinnies when he poked his head into the gym storage room to see if Coach Wilson was around. One day, Roger tipped back in the chair at the front of his own empty classroom and spotted a gigantic cobweb in the corner of the ceiling. It made him think of Spider-Man. He guessed that guy was gone too.

The most important thing for keeping sane was establishing a regimen. Work was a big part of that, but Roger also traveled daily into Manhattan to visit the Sorcerer’s place. It became a kind of pilgrimage. Early on, Wong would come out to say hello, but it was eventually less about commiseration and more of a perfunctory thing. Roger knew (assumed, hoped) that if the Sorcerer ever did return, Wong would let him know and welcome him inside. And then… a portal? And then the Grandmaster? He tried not to think about it too hard. Yearning took up a lot of energy and, when his students began to come back to school in distressingly low numbers, Roger needed to reserve that energy for teaching.

Everything was the same, every day, until it wasn’t.

For a reason he couldn’t rationally explain, Roger knocked on the Sorcerer’s door. While he was waiting—just a few seconds, he planned—a man materialized on the sidewalk right next to him. He tottered and Roger reflexively said, “Whoa!” and grabbed his shoulder to keep him on his feet. Before Roger could hypothesize or ask the man any questions, a teenage girl returned to existence a few feet away. Then a woman holding a toddler tightly in her arms. A little boy. A man with a dog. A bicycle-less bike cop, still wearing his helmet. Releasing the man, Roger spun and pounded against the door with his fist.

Still, no one answered.

Fighting the urge to show up at Midtown Tech, Roger made himself stay put, right there on the Sorcerer’s doorstep.

He waited a long time. As the sun set, New York City rose around him. He watched people hugging, running home down the middle of the street. He fielded unfinished questions as the newly returned began to ask him what had happened, what time it was, what year, before jogging away, more purposeful with every step they took. Roger’s foot began to bounce on the sidewalk and his clammy hands twisted fretfully. It was still another 12 hours before the door opened.

Roger fell backwards into Wong’s shins, delirious from the sickening seesaw between urgency and exhaustion. Everywhere, people were reconnecting. He scrambled to his feet because he wanted to be one of them.

“Is he here?” Roger demanded.

Wong narrowed his eyes slightly, holding the door so it couldn’t be pushed open further.

“Might I remind you that it’s me you’ve been seeing here the last five years.”

“Yeah,” Roger agreed, trying to see past.

“I thought we had developed a rapport.”

Finally, Roger met Wong’s eyes, his own pleading.

“No, yes, you’re right, we have,” he babbled.

“We’re friends.”

“Yes, of course, we are friends. Definitely.”

“So when is my birthday?”

Roger’s mouth hung open as he searched his brain for a piece of information he knew wasn’t in there. A few seconds later, Wong turned mirthful.

“Did you spend the Blip hiding under a rock where there are no jokes? Come inside. We just got back.”

None of the thousands of times he’d come to the door mattered—Roger hadn’t been inside the Sanctum since that first time. He hoped the Sorcerer remembered him.

When he saw the man, Roger’s steps stuttered. The Sorcerer appeared grim and wiped out. He was dirty and he looked older, though Wong whispered to Roger that the Sorcerer had been among the Snapped. Roger understood that, for something to go right and bring everyone back to life, something else had gone wrong. He could dwell on that and awkwardly bow his way back out of there, or he could convince himself that things had gone wrong for him too, and that he’d like them to be righted. He remembered that his soulmate was a dictator and tried to channel that sense of entitlement.

“What do you know about the Anus?”

The Sorcerer blinked.

“What.” The word came out perfectly flat.

“The Anus.”

“I wasn’t that kind of doctor.”

Roger strode eagerly towards him, hands gesturing before his words caught up.

“When I was here about, um, five and a half years ago, I fell through your magic portal—”

The Sorcerer snapped his fingers in recognition and turned to Wong.

“Oh, that’s who this is. I always wondered what happened to that guy.” He looked at Roger again. “How did you get back to Earth?”

Roger hadn’t been prepared to answer this question, just make his demands, and he began to explain what had happened to him, all out of order. The words ‘orgy ship’ had barely left his mouth when the Sorcerer was waving him into silence. His expression told Roger he was sorry he’d asked.

“So you went through the portal…” he prompted instead.

“That’s right! And for a while, I was just falling. I don’t know where I was.”

The Sorcerer stroked his chin.

“The connection must’ve been unstable. I know—one of your students distracted me.”

“That’d be Flash,” Roger said.

“Jesus. This is why I prefer not to be a field trip destination. Normally, the portal would allow you to pass cleanly through one place and into another.”

“And instead he passed cleanly through the Anus,” Wong summarized.

“…Yeah.”

Roger glanced from one man to the other.

“So,” he said, “could you do it again?”

The Sorcerer stared at him.

“The short answer is no. The long answer is also no, but it contains a great deal of vernacular to do with the Mystic Arts, so I’ll save us both some time.”

The last time Roger had defended his intellect and qualifications had been years ago, and he was out of practice. Anyway, he didn’t want a lengthy debate.

“Can’t you just open a portal and shove me through?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a lot going on today. I’ve only entertained you this long because you and Wong seem to be friends. I’m not just going to mess around to humour you.”

“What if you had to do it?” Roger asked quickly, beginning to feel desperate and preparing to metaphorically jam one of his clumsy feet into the closing window of opportunity.

“Uh, let me think about that,” the Sorcerer droned disinterestedly. “No.”

“What if I attacked you and you opened a portal in self-defence?”

The Sorcerer squinted at him in disbelief and befuddlement.

“What?”

But Roger was already gracelessly throwing his weight into a wild, uncoordinated punch.

For once, he didn’t think critically of himself; he told himself that the Sorcerer’s portal sparked up between them because he was intimidated by Roger’s tenacity. And that it didn’t show a clear destination because the Sorcerer’s reaction speed was no match for Roger using the element of surprise. And that he dove purposely through the portal—on a mission for love and science and the unknown—instead of tumbling into it sideways because the momentum of his unpracticed punch had gotten the better of his balance. It didn’t matter. His feet went out from under him and he was on his way.

Roger had forgotten how intense the trip was, but he completely recalled the rough landing, bouncing down through a stack of the universe’s lost garbage. He shut his eyes to the whooshing and the brightness and braced himself (probably too early, but he didn’t think he could be too careful on this reckless endeavor).

He felt his body hit open air and gasped as he fell, trying to keep his limbs tucked in. The hat he’d been wearing was torn from his head. Didn’t matter; it wouldn’t have offered much protection anyway. At any moment, his poor elbows and knees would be battered by space junk. Between his velocity and his fear of the coming impact, Roger could hardly breathe.

Music. A familiar voice singing, It’s my soulmate! made his eyes fly open. Right in time to land on his back. Whatever was beneath Roger was soft, but he’d still had the wind knocked out of him and was struggling to fill his lungs. His eyes clamped shut as he began to cough.

“I have no idea how you survived that thing twice, but I sure am glad I caught ya.”

Finally sucking in a stronger breath, Roger opened his eyes and looked up. His glasses were askew. Above him was the opening in the ceiling of a hovering spacecraft, but closer than that, leaning over him, was the face of the Grandmaster. He was beaming.

“Any trouble with the Anus?” he asked.

Roger grabbed for the hand his soulmate had rested on his shoulder and moved it to his chest, right over his heart.

“The asshole who got me here will probably be thrilled to never see me again, but the Anus treated me just fine.”

“Ha!” the Grandmaster barked. His free hand lovingly patted Roger’s windblown hair back into place. “Welcome home.”

#my writing #MCU #spider-man #thor: ragnarok #Roger Harrington #En Dwi Gast (the Grandmaster) #their ship name is Mr. Master and they're what G deserves on her birthday

[sunshinejins]

if i was dying on my knees (you’d be the one to rescue me)

chapter 2!  she’s here, she’s long, she’s very delayed, but she’s here.  you can also read this fic on ao3 under the username joylight if you want!  i’d almost suggest it as the formatting is probably a lot better lmao.

here’s the link to chapter 1

without further ado!

When Julie wakes up the next morning, she feels slightly as though she’s broken out from the surface of a very warm but turbulent lake.  After her impromptu performance yesterday where oh my God she sang again, she had been dragged from the bar by her friends.  Guitar Player had chased after her for a moment, before supposedly clocking the look on Flynn’s face and backing off.  Her best friend had been quiet the whole drive back, and Allison, besides complimenting Julie calmly on her performance, had also remained silent.  Allison’s silence was normal; Flynn’s was not.  It was only when Allison rolled to a stop at Julie’s house, Flynn was supposed to sleep over, that Flynn broke the quiet.

“Actually, Allison, could you take me home?” Julie’s head whipped around so fast that she would have fallen if she was standing.

“You’re going home?”

“Yeah, I am.” Flynn’s tone was set and Allison simply pressed her lips together and pointedly looked out the window.  Julie shook her head.

“Why?”

“Well you clearly didn’t need me to sing again, so I’m assuming you don’t need me to sleepover either.” Julie’s mouth fell open in shock.

“Flynn, it’s not like that.  They needed me-”

“Oh so when three random hot guys you’ve never met need you, you find your voice, but when your best friend begs you for six months to sing again, you can’t do it?  I see how it is, Jules.” Julie couldn’t find any words to counter that, seeing as she hadn’t processed that she had sung again, so Flynn glared pointedly at the door.

“Could you please get out so Allison can take me home?”  Allison had shot Julie a sympathetic look but offered no advice, and Julie had managed to stumble from the car with her head still spinning in shock.  She had managed to get up to bed without her dad or Carlos giving her any issues, but before she could really process what had happened, the adrenaline drained from her body and she had fallen asleep.

Now, laying in bed, she allowed herself a moment to put together the pieces.

She had sang again for the first time in six months.

She had sang again for the first time in six months with three random strangers.

She had sang again for the first time in six months with three random strangers in front of an entire barful of people.

Flynn was incredibly mad that she had done the above things.

And she had a shift at the coffee shop in forty minutes and it took thirty to drive there.

As she pulled on her work uniform and tugged a comb through a few pieces of her hair, Julie tried to feel something other than shock.  Nothing came to mind.  Maybe if she had just sang again, she would have been able to process it.  But Flynn was mad at her too.  That alone scrambled her brains.

Her dad simply waved as he saw her tear from the house and into her car.  The radio blared for a moment and Julie hesitated.  All the times before when music had started playing, she’d been quick to turn it off.  Now, she hovered her finger over the off button on the radio for a second before letting it play.  Another baby step, even smaller than the one she’d accidentally taken last night, but important nevertheless.

She stumbled into work two minutes before she was supposed to clock in.  Allison was already there, expertly pulling shots of espresso and looking ultimately way too put together.  She offered Julie a calm smile.

“Hi, Jules.”

“Clock in.  Gotta.  Almost… late,” Julie’s heaving breaths.  Her normal parking space was filled and she ended up parking a good ten minute sprint away.  And Julie is not a sprinter.  She manages to swipe her card on time, locates her apron, and joins Allison at the espresso machine with her heart still pounding against her ribs.  Allison’s hands move quickly enough as she assembles a line of mobile ordered lattes, and Julie takes the second of reprieve from the lack of customers in the shop to catch her breath.

Allison tucks the drinks into a carrier, and finally turns to Julie with the same calculating look she had given last night right after Julie had said the guys needed her.

“So.”

“Soooo…” Julie runs her fingers over the touchscreen of the till.  Allison raises an eyebrow.

“You sang.”

“I did.”

“With total strangers.” “Yep.”

“I’m really quite fucking proud of you,” Julie’s eyes widen as Allison finally breaks eye contact and begins filling the whipped cream canister.  

“You’re proud of me?” Julie’s voice squeaks and Allison sends her a smirk.

“Obviously.  You finally let that killer voice out of its cage for the first time in months and you had fun.  And you’re okay.  That’s all that matters to me.”

“How did I do that though?” Julie asks, though she doubts Allison will have an answer.  She doesn’t even know.  What she does know is that when she hit the high note at the end of the song, it felt like her lungs had finally opened up again after a long time crushed under her grief and it had felt better than good.  It had felt amazing.  Allison sets the whipped cream down and shrugs.

“I’m not sure, Jules.  Maybe you were just ready.  Didn’t you say those guys needed help?”

“Yeah, I guess their rhythm guitarist bailed on them last minute,” Julie chews her lip, remembering the dejected looks on the faces of her impromptu band.  She hadn’t even gotten to ask them if she had butchered the song or not.

“Then it sounds to me like your mama bear instincts kicked in a bit.  That, and I’m pretty sure you were into the guitar player.” Julie’s head shoots up.

“What!  I don’t even know his name!  I was helping for purely unselfish reasons.”  Allison raises an eyebrow.

“You’re telling me that you didn’t even notice his biceps?  Or that smile?”  Julie would normally begrudgingly admit that yes, Guitar Player was ridiculously cute.  But her mind had wandered yet again to her best friend, and she felt the familiar tug of sadness at her chest.

“Flynn hasn’t texted me back.”  Allison’s teasing expression falls solemn and Julie almost wished that everything had been a giant dream. She missed her, and it had barely been 24 hours.  The last time they’d had a fight, Flynn had tried to egg her room.  Julie didn’t even want to know what would happen this time.

Allison hasn’t given any advice, which means Flynn ranted to her the whole drive home and she’s either being very respectful or is sparing Julie the specifics.  Either way, it makes her slump against the register and attempt to forget her issues as milk froths and keyboards clack around her.

Her shift passes in a blur, the post-lunch rush nearly overwhelming the small shop.  Allison leaves an hour before Julie, and as she does, she lays a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Just go see her.  I’m sure she won’t be as mad if you explain your thought process.” Julie desperately wants to scream that she didn’t have one, but Allison is already gone and there’s a stressed college student in front of her looking for six shots of espresso.  As she pulls the shots, she mulls over the previous night in her mind.

She knows inherently that the reason she was able to perform was because someone needed her.  Someone needed help.  That was different than people wanting her to sing so she could get back to normal.  She also knows she sang because it was a song which had nothing to do with her mother, whereas the songs she sang for class or the songs Flynn tried to get her to belt out at karaoke had all been songs her mother knew and loved.  It was a complicated mix of reasons, but Julie needed to sort them out before she went to Flynn.  Otherwise, the eggs were gonna come out again.

By the time she closed up the shop with hands still faintly smelling like espresso and sweet cream, Julie had basically given in to the fact that she was never going to figure out how to apologize to Flynn and that there was going to be an omelette frying on her windowsill for the next few days.  Then, as she was tucking the keys into her purse, she heard the tell-tale rumble of her best friend clearing her throat.  Julie’s head shot up and it was indeed Flynn, arms crossed, and bejewelled sneaker tapping a beat into the sidewalk.

“Flynn!”

“You’ve got two minutes to explain.  I’m about to be towed,” Flynn jerks her head towards her car which is, naturally, parked in a drop off zone for Uber drivers.  Julie nods quickly, trying to order all her thoughts from during her shift into orderly lines in her head.  She needs to mention the “someone needing her” thing, and the “song her mother never knew” thing too.  

All that comes tumbling out of her mouth is: “I’m sorry.” Flynn sighs.

“I know that, Jules.  But you still haven’t explained why you did it.  Why you sang with a bunch of random strangers!”

“I told you, they needed me!”

“Yes!  You said that!  But how is that any different from me needing you?”

“Because!” Julie runs her hands down her face in frustration as she tries to compose herself, “You needed me to sing because you needed me to feel better.  You needed me to go back to normal and grieve and whatever.  These guys just needed a fourth singer.  You should have seen them.  The guitar player was almost crying.” Flynn remains silent for a moment and Julie takes the silence as an excuse to guide her to a bench beside the coffee shop.  The silence continues to hang over them for a moment, and Julie is shocked when Flynn finally turns to her and there are tears rimming her eyes.

“Did you feel like I was forcing you to sing?  Did I push you?” Julie’s heart thaws.

“I mean, yes.  A bit.  And I completely understood why.  But I just couldn’t sing unless I was ready, and for a bit it felt like you didn’t understand that.”

“Of course I get that, Jules!  I’m sorry!” Flynn opens her arms for a hug and Julie tumbles into them without hesitation, inhaling the scent of vanilla that still clings to Flynn’s skin from her job at a bakery near the pier.

“I forgive you, don’t worry.  I just hope you can forgive me too.” “Obviously.  I know how you are with the “need to help everyone who needs it” thing.” Julie shoves her but her heart soars when Flynn tumbles into giggles.

“I still don’t really know how I did it,” Julie admits, tracing her toe on the concrete.  Flynn frowns slightly.

“Do you think it was a one time thing?”

“Maybe?” Julie winces a bit at the thought of taking a step back again.  Even though she knows healing isn’t linear, she’d really like to get over this specific part of grief a little faster.  She couldn’t ignore how good it felt to belt out the penultimate lyrics of a random band’s song either.  Flynn wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes.

“Whatever it was, I support you 100%.  And those guys were super cute!”

“You’re a lesbian, Flynn.”

“I still know eye candy when I see it.” Julie bursts out laughing.

“Okay, maybe they were cute!  But I’ll probably never see them again.”

She thinks.

The rest of the week goes by a lot easier knowing Flynn is no longer mad at her.  When she comes to work the next day and regales Allison with the tales of how her and Flynn patched things up, Julie pretends not to notice the private smirk that overtakes Allison’s face as she mentions how Flynn showed up at work.  Julie even manages an A+ on an essay the day after, and finally makes a venti half-caf skinny peppermint mocha with no screw ups at work.  She listens to music again normally, and joyfully hugs her dad when he notices.

Life’s pretty normal, until of course it’s not again.

Their coffee shop hosts open mic nights a lot, and when Julie started working she requested to be scheduled away from them.  When her weekly schedule comes out displaying a shift during the three hour long open mic and her heart rate doesn’t immediately rise, she’s pretty excited.  She even manages to shock Allison when her friend offers to switch shifts with her and Julie heartily declines.

“Look at you go,” Allison flicks her towel at Julie, “That open mic really did something to you, huh?”

“Yeah!” Julie smiles as she restocks the caramel sauce, “I actually feel like I can be around music again.”

“I still think it was Grinny McBiceps that did a number on you, not the music.” Julie tosses a bottle of sauce at Allison which she readily catches with a surprisingly loud laugh.

“I’m just saying, Julie-”

“So that’s your name!” Both girls freeze and turn to see none other than Grinny Mc- no! Guitar Player and his band all gathered at the counter with their jaws open.  Allison recovers first and arranges her face back into the cool expression she uses with customers.  Julie can’t exactly manage it, because even though she’s spent the last week denying how cute these boys are, the hint of abs poking through Guitar Player’s cutoff are scrambling her brain.

“So the girl Luke can’t shut up about now has a name,” Drum Player says dryly, shoving Guitar Pl- Luke in the shoulder to break him from the trance he’s apparently entered along with Julie.  Bass Player leans forward excitedly.

“We’ve been looking for you since the open mic!”

“You found me,” Julie’s voice feels dry.  Luke grins at her and she feels her stomach swoop as he does.

“Where did you end up?  We wanted to ask you if you wanted to jam with us again,” Luke says, leaning against the counter.  Julie’s brain whirrs as she processes this, and luckily Allison steps in.

“I had an emergency.  Had to take her out of there.”

“What sort of emergency?” Bass Player asks, leaning forward with a smirk and a wink.  Allison raises an eyebrow.

“Forgot to take my birth control.” Bass Player chokes on air and Drum Player bursts out laughing.  Luke doesn’t seem phased and turns back to Julie.

“So do you wanna?  Jam with us again?  We’re signing up for the open mic here.” Julie tries to shrug noncommittally.

“I dunno.  I’m pretty busy.” Luke deflates, but Drum Player steps in.

“No pressure, obviously.  Just if you end up wanting to play with us again, you can.  You completely elevated our sound.  I’m Alex, by the way.”

“Reggie,” Bass Player adds, though he still seems shaken by Allison’s words.

Julie smiles at them.  Luke seems to recover some of his energy at her smile and pulls out a piece of paper from God-knows-where and a pen and scribbles something on it.

“This is my number.  Seriously, call me at any time if you wanna play again.  We’re totally into it.  Even into having you in the band if you want.”

“Dude, stop being so intense the second you see a cute girl,” Reggie groans.  Both Luke and Julie blush and it’s at this point that Allison fully steps in.

“I appreciate the business transaction that just occurred, but this is a coffee shop and not a corporate mixer.  Can I get you anything to drink?”  The boys chorus their orders and Julie turns to make them as Allison fends off Reggie’s renewed advances with a sigh.  They leave the shop with a loud “goodbye” and Julie slumps against the counter when they leave.  Allison evaluates her with a steady gaze.

“Are you going to play with them again?”

“No clue.” Julie pushes her hands into her face and groans.  Allison pats her back.

“Think about it.  They seemed nice.”

“Even Reggie?” If Julie hadn’t been mistaken, a hint of flush appears on the apples of Allison’s cheeks.

“Even Reggie.  Now get up.  You’ve got another hour left of your shift and Caleb told me I’m too nice to you.”

“Still very weird to me that you call your dad, Caleb.”

“Adoptive father,” Allison corrects and turns away before Julie can prod more as usual.  She takes another second to compose herself and stow Luke’s number deeper in her pocket before turning to the stack of green tea lemonade she has to make and burying her nose in her work.

It’s later, when she’s sitting alone in her room massaging her sore feet and looking at the keyboard in her room, that Julie truly considers Luke’s offer.  It’s not that she doesn’t think playing music with them again will be fun; she does.  But there’s something holding her back, and she’s pretty sure it’s the four sheets of piano music laying on her keyboard.

It’s a huge step.  A massive, giant, life-changing step.  One her mother would want her to take.  Does she want to?  Julie pulls out her phone and texts Flynn, who’s in the middle of sending her opinions on episode six Outer Banks.

from: julie molina is a star

what would you say if i told you i was considering playing music with those ute guys again?  slash maybe joining their band?

from: double trouble

i would say your pacing deeply confuses me.

but i am proud.

and very supportive.

Julie smiles, and sets her phone to the side and stands.  Her keyboard sits in front of her, no longer mocking, but encouraging.  She lifts the sheets of paper and spreads them on the stand.  “Wake Up.”  Her mother’s last gift to her.  The last thing she needs to do before she can play music again, for real.

Julie’s pretty much fucking terrified.

But she still presses the keys.

Here's one thing I want you to know

You got someplace to go

Life's a test, yes, but you go toe-to-toe

You don't give up, no, you grow

#my writing #juke #juke fanfiction #julie molina #julie molina x luke patterson #luke patterson #julie molina fanfiction #luke patterson fanfiction #julie and the phantoms #julie and the phantoms fanfiction #jatp #jatp fanfiction #jatp fanfic #many other tags lmao #seriously pls read this on ao3 i need validation

[beckzorz]

caduto dalle nuvole (one-shot)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!Reader Words: 5012 Summary: A detour on a mission leads to destruction, and a discovery. Warnings: Canon-typical violence and gore. A/N: Happy Secret Seba, Paige @sebastiansloserclub​​!!!! It was a pleasure to write for you! Thank you to @jobean12-blog​​ for beta reading <3 The title, “caduto dalle nuvole,” is an Italian idiom that means literally “fallen from the clouds” and figuratively “taken aback.” Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy xoxo

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Any questions?”

You close the mission briefing and tuck the file under your arm as you stand, just barely controlling the tic in your jaw. “None, Captain.”

“Good.” His relief is palpable. “The jet leaves in ninety minutes. Good luck, agent.”

—

“I’ll be back,” Antonio says, and then he slams the barn door shut.

You gape. A key scrapes against a lock. Your heart stops for a horrible moment, and then you bolt forward.

“Hey!”

You slam into the door, body and door shaking from the impact. A chain rattles on the other side, and a car engine starts to purr.

“Hey!” you scream.

The car drives off, grinding against the gravel drive. You bang your fists against the door, rage clouding your vision, filling your veins.

Behind you, your partner lets out a breath and a thump. You turn, blinking away the red in your vision, and stare.

Bucky Barnes is sitting on a pile of hay, hands clasped between his spread thighs and his expression sardonic.

“Well,” he says. “That went well.”

You whirl back to the door, teeth clenched. You can’t manage a reply, not when it was his idea to hitchhike instead of taking the bus. Your own mother had hitchhiked across Europe in the seventies, but it’s not the seventies anymore. It’s decades later, and now… now you’ve been kidnapped. Kidnapped!

“We’re literally locked in a barn,” you snap. “And you just want to sit there?!”

Bucky sighs. “Look, this guy clearly has something up his sleeve. I did some research in the back seat while you were being sociable. SHIELD’s made a note of this guy before. Our mission isn’t so urgent that we can’t delay a day to figure out what his deal is.”

You lean your shoulder against the door and gape at him. “What, you think Steve will just say, ‘Sure, Buck, that’s totally fine! It’s not like I specifically tasked you to find these dangerous terrorists or anything?’”

“Uh, that’s what he said, yeah.” Bucky shifts on the haypile and holds up his phone. “I texted him to check.”

“Typical,” you mutter. You turn back to the door, the start of a headache pricking at your temples. You crouch down and peer through the crack of the barn door, looking for the chain.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks. His voice seems small in the open barn.

You don’t answer. What’s the point? Surely it’s obvious. Why else would you be studying the way out except to break out? To enjoy the view?

Besides, it’s not like he ever tells you anything. If you hadn’t asked, would he have even mentioned he’d spoken with Steve?

He’s never told you anything he hasn’t needed to.

You stare at the chain through the gap in the door. It’s afternoon outside—if you rattle the door, you can see the sun glinting off the shifting links. Something to look at while you consider why your frustration is tinged with dejection.

When you’d first joined—when you were recruited, you’d had so much hope in Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier, stolen and used and come back to himself? It was your own story, if decades out of sync. Sam Wilson, bless him, even encouraged you to strike up a friendship with him. Sam, the only one who knew your whole story. Steve probably does by now too, but still. Sam was the first to know. He was the one who got out you. Got you free.

Of course, all the attempts you made to befriend Bucky fell flat. He was—and still is—polite, but unfathomably distant. Anyway, why would he bother opening up to you? He has Sam, Steve… Even Natasha, the only other person you might have felt comfortable talking to. He doesn’t like talking about his past, Steve once said. Try Natasha. But if you talked to her, she’d tell him everything.

And you don’t want to be talked about.

Not like that. Not by them.

You force yourself to your feet and step back. The hinges on the door are bolted in place—no easy removal there. Maybe a tool kit…?

The barn is dim, hazy. The sunlight streaming in from the small windows slants down in clouded beams, turning the hay-littered dirt floor into a mosaic of light and dark. And Bucky is all in shadow on his yellow throne. He’s barely moved since you last looked his way. Just sitting, and watching you.

“Did you see a toolbox anywhere?” you ask.

Bucky turns his head left, then right. “Nope.” He props his elbow on his knee and rests his chin in the palm of his hand. “Whatcha thinking?”

You prowl the perimeter, looking in every built-in shelf and drawer. “Unbolt the door hinges. Neither of us’d fit through the windows, and—wait a second.” You whirl to face him, quivering with relief. “Forget that. You can just force the door open!”

“Are you kidding?” Bucky asks. He holds up his left hand—it looks like a regular hand for the mission, but under the smokescreen is that same vibranium, that same strength. “Do you really wanna advertise that the Winter Soldier is in Italy? Right now? While we’re on an undercover mission?”

“Um, regular people break through doors all the time, Barnes.” You dash over and try to pull him to his feet.

He doesn’t budge.

“Seriously?!” You drop his heavy arm, muscles tight and hands quivering. “Are you just going to sit there? And do nothing?”

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, I am. And as mission lead, that’s the call I’ve made. So sit down and chill, firecracker.”

Your fists curl into balls and you stalk away.

Firecracker.

A nickname, one you’ve despised since the first time Natasha sang it out over the comms on a mission last month. Firecracker, of all things! Like you’re no more than a party trick. An object. Not even an animal. Not even something powerful. Firecrackers are all about a lot of noise, not power. And you…

You slow as you reach the door. The wood is rough as you slide your palms across it and press your forehead across the gap. Outside, it’s still bright. Still afternoon. Inside, it feels like a nightmare.

You haven’t been locked in anywhere on a mission since… since…

For a long time.

You don’t like it. You close your eyes, breathe in—the air in the barn is stale, but if you squish your nose enough, you can get a hint of freshness from outside. The door scrapes your cheeks as you settle yourself.

It’s okay. You’ll be okay. You’ll be—

A hand on your shoulder: you spin, catch their wrist, and stop short when you realize it’s only Bucky.

“You okay?” he asks. Is that pity in his voice?

“Of course I’m fine!”

His skin is hot to the touch; he and Steve have always run warm, but it’s a strange feeling to be touching him like this. It’s not part of training, not part of a fight…

You drop his hand and sidle out from between him and the door. Your hands are still trembling. You straighten them out until your bones ache, fingers flexed and muscles straining. Even your jaw is trembling.

“You’re not,” Bucky says flatly. “What do you need?”

A hollow laugh escapes you. You lean against a pillow and slide down until you’re sitting on the floor. “To not be in here! What the hell do you think? That I’m thrilled to be locked in somewhere I’m more liable to disintegrate than not?”

“What do you…”

Bucky trails off. You don’t bother looking up at him. God knows what he thinks of you.

But it’s one thing to be in hiding. It’s another thing to be locked up. God, how can he bear it? After everything, how can he—how can you—how could you ever—

“Hey.”

Your head jerks up, your eyes wide. Bucky is kneeling a few feet away, his hands clasped between his knees. They both look like human hands; a smokescreen disguises his left. It’s a good disguise, but it looks wrong on him all the same. He—it’s not him, it’s not…

“Look at me, firecracker,” Bucky murmurs. Your eyes snap to his; your eyebrows draw low.

“Don’t call me that,” you hiss. “I’m not some toy.”

He blinks. “It’s a nickname. A term of endearment, not ridicule. Hell, Sam calls me Tin Man. Does that make me brainless?”

“Sam’s your friend!”

Bucky’s mouth drops open and his blue eyes round as saucers. “Wha—”

He stops mid-word. He cocks his head to the side. You open your mouth, but he holds up a hand, silencing whatever you’d been about to say.

His sudden silence, the way he’s listening—is someone coming?

You give Bucky a look, and he nods. You both let out a breath and stand silently. Whatever you’d been talking about, it has to wait. Right now, you’re done arguing.

Right now, you’re a team.

Tires screech outside; you look to Bucky for confirmation. He holds up three fingers.

Three vehicles.

How many people in them?

And why, why are they here? Did they recognize Bucky? He’s not immediately recognizable out of uniform, at least to the untrained eye—but are these trained eyes? Was Bucky’s face the only reason you got picked up on the side of the road? This kind of mishap has happened before…

Car doors open, footsteps crunch in gravel, and you flex your fingers and reach for that spot of warmth hidden in your chest. It reaches out, settles around your bones, through your veins until your fingernails glow. Bucky glances down, his lips quirk up, and then his eyes settle on yours. His pupils are wide with adrenaline, and he’s looking at you so intently your breath catches in your throat. Your fingertips are white-hot now, casting an eerie light from below.

He looks all the more terrible and wonderful for it.

“Ready?” he murmurs.

Your focus rams back into place. It’s just your mission lead, just Bucky. And there’s bigger fish to fry right now than the dark sky in his eyes.

“Ready.”

Bucky tilts his head towards the fused hinges on one side of the door. You press your hands against the top one, and the rusty metal begins to glow. Red drops of molten iron slide down catch on the wood, which begins to smoke. Licks of fire sprout from the jamb, and you hop back, shaking out the sparks from your fingertips.

Bucky maneuvers ahead of you and kicks the door open, wood splintering at the bottom, his left arm up. Twin shouts of surprise, two quick gunshots, and the door shudders from the impact.

“Get the other one!” Bucky snaps, pulling the bust-open door back into place as shouting begins in earnest.

You dash to the other door. Bullets pepper the door, but the wood is thick enough to contain them—for now. Something niggles at the back of your mind, but you push it away. Of course something’s wrong. But now’s the time to act, not think.

The second hinge disintegrates faster; the longer you go, the hotter you get. This is the longest you’ve ever lasted like this on a mission—usually you have guns, tools, equipment… Today you have only yourself.

Sparks fly, settling on your pants, little spots starting to burn away. The glow in your fingertips spreads down to your second knuckle, third knuckle…

Bucky pushes the two doors forward together, driving them forward like a shield wall against the god-knows-how-many people approaching. You stick close, scooping up a handful of gravel and shaping it in your palms. Gunshots ring out, striking the padlocked chain, the doors, the dirt at your feet.

“Get that damn thing on!” someone shouts.

A colossal hum groans into life, flooding your ears as you lose all sense of feeling. Bucky cries out, digs in his heels as he left arm shoots forward, but you’re a million miles away as the doors fall away from you and clatter to the ground. Dust clouds in the air as you realize that the molten rocks in your hands have dripped through your fingers, burning your shoes away. You step back, hands shaking, suddenly cold as the warmth in your chest fizzles out.

Then you run.

Gravel bites into your bare feet and makes way for tough grass. But there’s rocks here too, hidden ones, and within seconds you stumble, a sharp rock tearing a gash in the pad of your foot. Still you run, eyes burning more than your hands had been, ice settling fresh in your veins as footsteps pound behind you, harsh breathing that isn’t yours whistling in your ears.

A grunt, and someone’s hand brushes your arm. You gasp, air slicing against your screaming lungs, and pump your legs harder, harder—

“Augh!”

A hand catches your elbow, yanking your shoulder, yanking your whole body to the side as you keep going, heartbeat frantic, brain screaming, eyes barely seeing except to realize that this is the first you’ve seen again, and it’s just like you remembered, oh god, oh god; you pull your arm against the tight grip, but there’s no breaking free, the grip is too strong. You manage to get a few steps farther, dragging your assailant with you, but he digs in his heels.

Like Bucky dug in his heels.

Your eyes swivel in your head back to the barn, back to where Bucky is still fighting against some machine aimed at him, making waves in the air as it pulls at his left arm. Even from a distance, you can see he’s confused despite his bared teeth and furor. He glances your way, and the fresh strangeness in his expression takes you off-guard.

The other one who’d been chasing you grabs you, catching your other hand.

“Gotcha,” he grunts, breathless and gleeful.

You can’t take your eyes from Bucky. He’s looking at you more now. The tears pricking at your eyes make it impossible to read what he’s thinking, but you know.

The first one knees you in the gut; you fall to your knees, eyes watering afresh and nausea tickling the back of your mouth.

You know what Bucky is thinking. You’re just a firecracker. You’re useless. You’re a party trick—

You surge back to your feet, hand curling into a fist as you drive your knuckles into the first one’s neck. They choke, eyes blown wide and hand instinctively dropping from your elbow to clutch their throat. You swing your other arm, ready to drive it into their gut, but the second one catches your wrist, twisting your arm up behind you. You scream in pain—your pulled shoulder is useless now—and make to get out of their hold, but you’re caught, and someone else has come along now, and they kick you facedown into the grass. Still you persist, wriggling and kicking and trying to force yourself to your feet, to your knees, onto your back—to anything other than in the grass, blades prickling against your cheeks and mouth and nose.

God knows how, but you manage to twist over and drive your foot into someone’s crotch. They squeal and hobble back, and you grit your teeth through the pain and push yourself up before someone drives a foot into your stomach again, slamming you back onto the ground.

“Stay down!”

It’s the second man, the one who’d pulled your shoulder. He steps heavy on your chest until your bones creak, and you scream from the pressure, the pain.

“Stop, you idiot!”

You freeze. Your scream dies in your throat. The man lifts his foot away, and even through your tears you can see his scowl.

That voice—

No. No.

No.

You curl your fingers into the grass. It’s alive in your hands. Something alive, that thinks no ill of you, that wants nothing from you, something green and alive and you are not going to let them take you again.

With a cry, you push yourself up and launch yourself at the man who’d held you down. Your punch to his jaw sends him reeling. There’s nothing left of the warmth from in the barn in your chest, but you reach for it anyway, desperate, as you dash towards the man whose voice you never want to hear again.

He’s holding a gun, pointed loosely at you, his suit clean as ever and his hair as short. His eyebrows are raised, as if he’s surprised, but you don’t care, you don’t care, all you want is to break is neck and never let him speak another word as long as he—

Crack.

White-hot pain lances through your hip as he shoots, but you keep going until you’re on top of him and he’s in the dirt and your hands are around his neck and you’re squeezing and then your hands are on empty air as that idiot pulls you off.

You stumble a few feet away. There’s no warmth for you to pull at, but sparks shoot intermittently from your fingers as you snarl, blood pulsing at your hip. The idiot has a cattle prod in his hands, and he’s thrusting it at you, the buzz sending shocks through you long before it touches you.

The boss, on his knees, lurches forward towards the two of you, his eyes comically wide.

“Don’t—”

The cattle prod hits you.

White.

All you can see is white.

White fire burns in your veins, under your skin, burning searing screaming—

—

White fire flares out from where you’re caught between a bunch of the goons. Something explodes. For a moment, the whole area is flooded with white, turning the world into static. Bucky’s heart stutters—he can’t see you, where are you, what have they done to you?

A wave of heat hits him with such intensity that he shouts, his arms automatically flinging up as protection. The world goes white; something clatters nearby.

Arms? Arms?

Yes, both arms. What happened to the electromagnet? Was it the heat?

Whatever it was, he’s free. He lurches towards where the electromagnet had been, teeth gritted against the pain of the heat in the air. He can hear frightened breathing, swearing—fuck fuck fuck fuck fu—and he pounces, landing awkwardly on someone’s shoulder, but not so awkwardly that he doesn’t knock them unconscious before they can land a single blow. He stumbles off of them, ears cocked for any other noises, any other sounds, but all he hears are footsteps running haphazardly away.

They’ll get found, eventually. Right now, he can’t leave. Not without knowing what’s happened to you.

Bucky’s vision clears slowly. It’s still uncomfortably hot—sweat beads on his forehead, on his neck—but there’s a slow breeze. There’s a column of smoke to his right, where you’d run off to, and he slowly moves in that direction as he blinks away the whiteness from his eyes.

Every step forward, the heat intensifies. There’s no more grass, just dirt, with black smoke spiraling up from the bare ground. Sweat drips down the hollow of his back, catches in his eyebrows—he shakes his head, teeth bared, and forces himself forward.

What the hell happened?

Had they come for him, or you? Why would they have come for you? Whatever he thinks of you personally, your powers have never seemed that extraordinary to him. Your work at the barn, turning wrought-iron hinges into molten metal in seconds—that’s the most impressive thing he’s seen out of you to date.

Whatever had happened, the white fire and the horrible heat and the whole world gone white—that can’t have been you. But you can’t be burned, can you? Whatever it was, it can’t have hurt you.

Could it have?

He breaks into a run, squinting. A shadow on the ground catches his eye.

Bucky freezes in his tracks.

A corpse, burnt nearly to the bone. Red-hot metal pools under its pelvis—a belt buckle? A gun? No, that’s the gun there, with the extra charring on the ground. Is that what had exploded earlier? Must be.

Bucky’s mind fast-tracks past the corpse. If this is what had happened to someone else…

He steps over a charred, skeletal foot, his heart in his throat as he squints against the hot smoky air.

If that’s what happened to someone else, how could you have survived?

Bucky’s eyes water more than ever as he walks faster. “No no no,” he mutters. “That’s not…”

Another charred corpse, this one truly burnt to the bone, tendons just barely holding it together. Tears track down Bucky’s cheeks as his eyes run from the long foot up the leg, over the hipbones—

A bare foot is caught in the ribcage. A skull cradled against a bare hip, scraps of charring fabric caught in the sockets. One hand, full and alive and covered in soot, flung across your belly.

Bucky falls to his knees and crawls forward until a tear falls onto your sooty skin. Your face is turned away from him. His hands quiver as he reaches for you—for the first time, he realizes the smokescreen has died—and touches your shoulder, the back of your hand. You’re still, too still, and your skin is cold to the touch. He can hear your heartbeat, but it’s faint as a whisper and slower than molasses. There’s no sound of breathing.

“Breathe, dammit,” he mouths.

He nudges you, presses down on the hand over your belly, trying to force some movement in your lungs.

Nothing.

He takes your face in his hands; they’re shaking more than ever. He turns your head towards him, crying outright now.

“Please,” he breathes. He shifts his knees until he can bend his face inches from yours. If he has to get you to breathe by giving you breath himself, by god he’ll do it, he’ll do it a hundred times, a million, because you can’t be dead here on the ground, you can’t be, he won’t let you.

Bucky sucks in a breath, the smoky air stinging his lungs, but before he can pinch your nose shut, you shift, groan, and turn your head just enough so he can see your lips parting and a tear tracking down your cheek.

Relief washes over him like a tidal wave. For a moment, all he can do is close his eyes and press his forehead to yours. Your skin is still cold, but you’re not dead. You’re not dead. You’re alive. You’re alive, and you’re going to be okay. He’ll make damn sure of it.

One last shaky breath, and Bucky sits up on his heels. He shucks off his coat, tucks it around you, and hoists you into his arms. The skull rolls to the ground. He has to work the ribcage away from your foot with his own hand, but then he’s taking you away, back to the burning barn, away from… He glances back. It looks like a bomb has gone off. It looks…

It looks…

It looks like something he’s seen before.

Bucky’s steps slow as he stares down at the top of your head.

He’s seen this before.

The white blast. The scorched earth. The charred corpses.

He’s seen it in South Africa, in China, in Ukraine, in Venezuela. Terrorism attacks, with tenuous links aside from the identical carnage.

Monthly attacks that ended… the same month you joined the team.

It’s only habit that keeps him walking now. Force of habit, and how cold your skin is, and something past thought that has his throat clogged with horror. But he can’t drop you, no matter what conclusions his brain is coming to now.

The air is clearer here. The barn is on fire now, whether from your handiwork earlier or… or just now, he couldn’t say. But the breeze is blowing the smoke away. One of the three cars is missing—some of them must have fled, but someone will find them. Someone.

There’s an SUV with open doors. Bucky settles you in the passenger seat, careful to tuck his jacket around you properly as your head lolls. When you come to, there will be enough to explain.

There has to be an explanation.

There has to be.

Bucky pulls out his phone. Sam’s on speed-dial.

Sam’s voice, when he answers, is answer enough.

—

It’s cold.

The air is warm, but you’re cold, so cold. Like your heart is ice. You squeeze your closed eyes shut further and reach for that spot of warmth in your chest.

It’s not there.

You whimper, try again.

Nothing.

You’ve wrung yourself dry.

How—

Your faces twitches as you try to remember. All you remember is white, the static of whiteness.

Whiteness…

Your eyes pop open as you suck in a harsh, smoky breath, every muscle taut and shaking as you stare at the burning barn through—through a windshield? You’re in a car? Your heart pounds out of your chest. Did they put you in a car to take you away?

The door to your right is open; you lurch out of your seat and land on your bare knees in the gravel, one hand clutching the open door for support. You stagger to your feet. There’s no warmth in your chest and no strength in your bones, but you force yourself away, away, away—

A hand touches you, and you scream, flailing blindly until your wrist is caught.

“Hey hey hey, careful,” a soft voice says. Another hand settles on your waist, the hand on your wrist shifts until it’s holding yours, and it’s then that your eyes refocus on—

Bucky.

His eyes are wide, fixed on your face. You blink. His face is sooty, but there are clear tracks running down his cheeks. Was he—was he crying?

“You okay?” he asks.

His voice is still soft, still gentle. His eyes are still fixed on your face.

Whiteness…

“I—I don’t know,” you stammer. You put your free hand on Bucky’s arm, head swimming. The gravel bites into your feet, and you wince.

Your shoes must have burned away. Your shoes, and—

A strangled breath escapes your throat as you realize. Your shoes burned away, your shoes and your clothes. You’re wearing Bucky’s jacket, but it falls only just past your hips.

God, what did he see? You stare at him again, only more confused than before. What happened?

Whiteness.

You clap a hand over your mouth, eyes wide.

You remember it all now, as starkly as if it was happening all over again. The run, the struggle, the gunshot, the cattle prod.

The whiteness.

“Did I—did—what—”

“It’s okay,” Bucky whispers. He gently wraps an arm around you and tucks you against his chest. “You’re okay. Sam is coming.”

Your hands wind into Bucky’s shirt, tugging it tight. You stare down at your bare feet as tears roll down your cheeks. Your left foot stings; are you bleeding? You shift your foot; yes, there’s blood on the gravel where you’d been standing. Your hip is less painful than you’d’ve expected, and you flex a muscle there experimentally. Something pulls at your skin—had Bucky patched you up? He must have.

Bucky.

What does he know?

“What…” You swallow. “What happened?”

“They set you off,” Bucky says.

You let out a slow breath. So he knows. You disentangle yourself from his hold and limp to the car; Bucky helps you along, and back up into the passenger seat. “Oh.” You turn away and look at the bottom of your foot, wincing. Yes, still bleeding.

“‘Oh?’” Bucky repeats incredulously.

You turn back to him, eyebrows raised. Bucky’s hands are wide open at his sides, as though he’s struggling to keep them from curling into fists.

“Why did no one tell me about this?” His voice is low, tinged with frustration. “Why didn’t I know?”

“Only Sam knows. Knew,” you correct. “He’s the one—”

“Who got you out,” Bucky finishes. He leans against the car, boxing you in. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I have told you?” you ask, voice flat.

Bucky stares, mouth open, argument flashing in his eyes. You lean your head back and close your eyes. You’re still groggy and cold and tired, and there’s no way out with Bucky standing so close. All you can do is answer him.

“Forget why, when?” you continue weakly. “We’ve never been particularly friendly.”

“I can’t help being shy, can I?” Bucky snaps.

“Yes you can.” Your chin drops a little; your eyes are still closed. “I did my best, to try and make friends with you. I thought… it’d be good for me. Have someone who knows what I went through.”

“I didn’t know,” he says. He’s not snapping now. He’s quiet, almost plaintive. “I wish I had. I wish Sam had told me. I wish…” He trails off, sighs.

You peek open an eye. Bucky leans on his arm against the open car door jamb, eyes closed, face downcast. He looks… he looks like he’s more weighted down than you are.

A little warmth flares in your chest. You can’t tell if it’s real or just a hope.

You reach out and put a hand on his face. His skin is warm to the touch, as it always is. Bucky’s eyes pop open and he looks at you, his lips parted and his eyes wide and blue.

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “And I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair not to tell you. Not… not when we were supposed to have each other’s backs.”

“I’ve got your back no matter what,” Bucky declares, and the warmth in your chest coils and warms you straight down to your fingertips.

There aren’t words for what you’re feeling. All you can do is crane your neck and press a kiss to his sooty cheek and wrap your arms around his neck and kiss his cheek again.

Bucky shudders in your hold, and it’s all you can do not to cry as he wraps an arm gently around you.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “And I’m not letting go.”

#hbc secret seba #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes x y/n #winter soldier imagine #becca writes

[starkerism]

Title: Kiss Me

Summary: Five times Peter and Tony almost kiss and one time they did.

First Time | Second Time | Third Time | Fourth Time | Fifth Time | Final

The next few weeks around the compound leaves Peter feeling strung out and exhausted.

It felt like every time Tony enters the room, every molecule in Peter’s body bursts into flames. He’s hyper-focused on everything; Tony’s breathing, his movements, his voice. Each sound sends a new wave of fire coursing through his body and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t tear his eyes away from his mentor.

In a room full of superheroes with the ability to catch onto microexpressions, Peter could’ve stood on the nearest table and screamed about the situation and it’d be less obvious.

But if anyone notices, they say nothing. Mr Stark says nothing – in fact, not only does he say nothing, he refuses to acknowledge Peter’s presence all together. No greeting, no friendly pat on the back, no smiles. Just glances that seem to stick just a little too long. And the really, really sick thing is that it just makes Peter want more.

They’re all spread across the lounge, drinks in their hands, a gentle hum of music playing in the background. It’s a rare day where no one was on any life-threatening missions, no one was brooding. Despite Peter’s awareness of Tony throughout the whole night, he felt comfortable. At home. With family.

Peter watches as Tony spreads an arm across the back of the sofa, his forearm brushing against Steve’s shoulders as he lets out a laugh. His legs stretch out in front of him, jeans pulling tight across his thighs. Peter’s mouth goes dry and he chugs back the rest of his beer, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth to catch the rogue drops. This action brings Tony’s attention to him and even though he’s nodding in agreement to something Steve says, his eyes are trailing across Peter’s body.

God, Peter curses inwardly and his body moves on its own accord, legs spreading, head tilting back, mouth parting. Mr Stark’s eyes darken and whatever Steve’s saying is forgotten. The sounds in the room around them fade out, replaced with a buzzing in Peter’s head, the room blurring around everything but Tony.

A hand on his shoulder jerks him out of his stupor and he immediately straightens up, splashing a small drop of beer onto his leg in the process. He looks up at Nat, who’s watching him carefully, head tilted to the side. Instead of acknowledging her, he glances back over to Mr Stark, who’s gone back to talking to Steve like nothing had happened.

“He’s twice your age, you know,” Nat says quietly, propping herself onto the arm of Peter’s chair. Panic shoots through Peter, straight down his spine and then back up again, right into his chest.

“I-I don’t know what you mean,” Peter stammers and even he doesn’t believe his own voice. Nat snorts softly, sipping the martini in her hand.

“Remind me to sign you up for lessons in lying, Parker. Pretty sure it’s superhero 101.”

Peter swallows, a hard lump appearing in his throat. His eyes flicker around the room, making sure everyone is occupied enough to not pay attention to their conversation. He leans closer to her and drops his voice to a whisper.

“Is it that obvious?”  

Nat smiles gently at him, taking a sip of her drink to delay the time before she answers, pondering how to reply.  

“I want to say no, just to save you the crushing embarrassment, but that would be cruel,” She smirks at the look of horror on Peter’s face. She smacks his chest with the back of his hand. “Hey, if it’s any consolation, Tony’s not being as discreet as he thinks he is either.”

Peter’s gaze snaps straight to her, mouth falling open slightly, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“Jesus, Parker, you’re supposed to have super-spidey senses. You telling me don’t know bedroom eyes when you see them? I’m perfectly human but even I can pick up on that.” Nat tips back the rest of the martini into her mouth and taps her nails against the empty glass. She’s watching Tony carefully and Peter follows her gaze. He’s still talking to Steve, but sends the occasional suspicious glance their way. “Listen,” Nat says, standing up, “He’s a piece of work. Pepper got out of there before he dragged her under. But this – whatever this is – that you two have going on, you better be sure you know what it is you want, because I’m pretty sure Tony won’t be able to handle having his heart ripped out again.”

And then she leaves, and Peter’s left wondering whether she’d just told him to stay away for his own good, or whether she’d just given her stamp of approval wrapped up in a ‘hurt him and I’ll hurt you’ warning.

-

Peter has to get out of there. As the evening goes on, Mr Stark strips one layer off and leaves himself in just a tank and baggy sweatpants that keep sliding down, and Peter can’t take it. He ducks into a nearby storage room, a single dim light sending an orange glow across the wooden shelves stocked with wine, bottles of beer and spirits. He rips off his jumper, leaving him in a too-baggy t-shirt that slips off of his shoulder when he grinds his palms into his eyes.

He can’t take it. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s never really had strong feelings towards someone, or because of how everything in his body had been amplified after the spider bite, but every little action Tony takes is driving him crazy.

A finger across his lips, a brush of his hand against his own thigh, a flash of a smile, a look through half-lidded eyes, arms stretching above his head and showing a patch of skin just above the waistband of his sweatpants.  

It’s too much and Peter’s groin aches. His chest hurts, his lips are dry and twitching, waiting.  

He’s trying to cool himself, his head pounding and throat scratchy and dry. The alcohol hasn’t helped – it’s sent his body into a hot overdrive, limp and pliant. The cold of his palms against his eyes is soothing and he keeps them there, head tipped back against the wall and chest heaving. He doesn’t even hear the door open over the sounds of his distress.

“Pete?”

His breath catches in his throat and his hands snap back to his side, attempting to right himself. He can’t though; Tony’s here, he’s at the door, in the dark, and Peter breathes in, takes in the lingering smell of alcohol and aftershave coating the air between them. His breathing comes out heavier, his skin prickles down his back, and then Tony’s in front of him, hands grasping his shoulders.

“Snap out of it, hey, Pete, come on.” Tony shakes him gently and it knocks Peter out of his trance just enough. Peter grabs Tony by the arms and flips them round quickly, a small grunt forced out of Tony’s mouth when his back collides with the wall.

Peter dives forwards, pressing his forehead into the side of Tony’s neck. It’s warm, soft, smells delicious.

“What—” Mr Stark starts, words trapped in his throat when Peter’s lips press hard against his pulse. Peter can feel the shiver that runs through him. “Pete—”

“Please,” Peter croaks against the skin underneath Mr Stark’s ear. “I—I messed up, I know, back in the lab,” Peter rolls his head onto Tony’s shoulder and brings his hands down from Tony’s shoulders to grasp at his hands. He presses them gently against the wall and feels Tony’s breath hitch. “But I can’t—I want—” Peter moves his head from Mr Stark’s shoulders, cheek brushing against stubble, until their mouths are so close Peter can feel when Tony stops breathing. He brushes their lips together, fingers tightening in their place around Tony’s wrists, still pressing them firmly against the wall.  

“Fuck, kid, you—” Tony tilts his head back against the wall, breaking their not-kiss, to let out a breath. “You’re really putting me through hell. I’m not really one for self-control, but god—“ He cuts himself off with a groan when Peter leans forwards to bite at his earlobe. There’s a few beats of silence, their heavy breaths creating a muted bubble around them.

“My skin feels like it’s gonna burst whenever you’re in the room,” Peter admits, whispering brokenly into Tony’s neck. “I can’t stop thinking about kissing you, doing… things to you. I don’t know if it’s the spider bite but everything is so intense and it almost hurts, Mr Stark, I just need to…” He trails off to press their foreheads together and neither of them are looking anywhere but each others mouths. It goes quiet and Peter’s scared, he’s absolutely fucking petrified, because he’s going to take the kiss even if Tony doesn’t want it—

But Tony stretches his head forwards and closes the gap between them. He presses his lips hard into Peter’s, forehead creasing, and Peter’s soaring.

The fire flares up, and everything in Peter’s mind focuses on that one point of contact. They’re still, just their lips pushed together, but then Tony tilts his head to the side, nose nudging across Peter’s, and opens his mouth and Peter loses it.

His hands leave Tony’s wrists to snap to his head, fingers burying themselves into Tony’s hair to deepen the kiss, prising Tony’s lips open with his own and slipping his tongue inside. Tony’s moan reverberates through Peter’s mouth, down to his chest, then to his toes, and then Peter’s being flipped over himself. Tony crowds in closer, pushing him tightly against the wall, hands finding the base of Peter’s neck and the back of his head. Tony’s taking it now, mouth sliding easily across Peter’s, and Peter whimpers, legs going weak.  

They part to take a breath, Tony’s tongue leaving a trail of glistening saliva across Peter’s bottom lip, and they stand in the dim light, panting into each others mouths, hands gripping different parts of their bodies.

“This is a real bad idea,” Mr Stark whispers and the feel of his breath across Peter’s sensitive mouth sends a shiver down his spine. The burning need in Peter has sizzled into a simmer now that he’d felt it, tasted Tony’s lips on his. He brought his hand round from the back of Tony’s head to his cheek, eyes flitting between both of Tony’s. He’d felt it, and he was never going to let it go now.

“Didn’t feel like it,” Peter replies and he grins when Mr Stark lets out a huff of laughter in response. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Miss Romanoff gave us her blessing.”

Mr Stark looks less shocked then he should. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, subtlety isn’t my strongest suit.” His fingers find the back of Peter’s hair and he tugs a little, eyes darkening when Peter lets out a tiny gasp.

“Or self-restraint, apparently.”

Tony’s eyes dart back  down to Peter’s mouth and he leans forwards, closing the distance to press a surprisingly tender kiss to Peter’s mouth. When he pulls away, he’s taking in Peter’s face like it’s the last time he’ll see it.

“If we do this, it’s for the long haul,” Tony whispers, voice trembling slightly. Peter’s heart thuds, hard, at the confession. Peter thinks maybe he should take a second, to think it through, wonder about the future. But he doesn’t. He leans forwards, the space between them shrinking until their lips are pressed together again. One, two, three kisses.

It’s a promise.  

A knock at the door makes them jump apart, Peter’s heart beating a million miles a second.  

“If you guys don’t mind, I’d rather you took it somewhere away from the beers,” Sam’s voice calls out from the other side of the wood. Heat rushes to Peter’s face and he shares an uneasy smile with Tony, who doesn’t even look embarrassed, more surprised.

“Guess even the dumbasses could see what was going on,” Tony says into the silence, and Peter snorts. Tony reaches down between them and grabs Peter’s hand, firm and warm. Grounding. He reaches across to the shelf and takes down an extra pack of beers. “Definitely leaving here with a lot more than I thought I would.”  

Peter surprises himself – and Tony – when he surges forwards and takes Tony’s lips again, the bottles on the shelf rattling when Tony’s back pushes against it. He takes, and takes, and takes, mouth pulling back and diving back in against Tony’s, hands brushing down Tony’s chest, his arms, his waist, his ass—

Peter pulls back, breathing heavily, and Tony’s staring at him with that same look; the one that makes Peter feel like he’s alight.  

“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” Peter says through panted breaths. Tony laughs and pushes himself up off of the shelf.

“Yeah, we’re gonna need to keep you doing that to a minimum or I’m pretty sure we’ll christen every surface of this tower within a week.”

The implications of that sentence makes Peter flush, but he nods in agreement and takes Tony’s hand, surprised at his own boldness. Tony entwines their fingers together and nods towards the door.

“Best go face the music,” He says, heading towards the door. Peter doesn’t hear it. He’s looking down at their hands, small slender fingers against rough, thick ones, and he feels good. It feels good.

Five kisses, Peter thinks, staring at Tony’s face as he pulls open the door to the storage room. He trails his eyes down his face, past his stubble, down his neck, his chest, back to their hands. A small smile twitches around his lips. And more.

#starker #tony x peter #mine: fics #i can't remember who i had to tag for this #and it's like 4 months late lmao #and im seriously out of practice writing fics #but here ya go!!! #pls tell me if there's any errors

[imaginaryelle]

Update!

From the summary:

Wei Wuxian lives. The siege fails.

Thirteen years later, Lan Wangji wakes in a body that is not his own.

From the chapter:

Someone says Lan Wangji’s title on the other side of the room, and he’s searching the crowd before he thinks to hide the reaction. There is a storyteller settled against the far wall with a lute at her side, and some of the crowd of patrons have rearranged themselves around her. She speaks of the Xuanwu of Slaughter, of two young cultivators trapped together with a monster that might devour them whole.

The mood at his table has shifted. Jin Rulan looks to Wen Sizhui.

“Should we say something?” he asks. “If Dajiu comes back soon ...”

“He’d hate it more if he knew we did,” Wen Sizhui decides. “I think he gave up after that poem in Tanzhou.”

Or read it under the cut!

The inn is small, the rooms limited and the dining room cramped, and their party are not the only guests. Their entrance is greeted with a breathless, waiting silence that breaks into cheers and toasts with Wen Sizhui’s report of a successful hunt. Lan Wangji is not quite able to stop the flinch that shocks through his frame at the noise, but it’s possible no one notices in the push to clear them a table and ensure they are fed with the best the innkeeper has to offer. After days with only birds and bats and the sound of his own footsteps for company the crowded press of living beings so close together, talking and laughing and yelling and eating, is even more of an assault on his senses than it might usually be.

Lan Wangji sits, and eats, and does his best to focus only on that instead of the noise, or the burning pain of re-opened wounds in his hand, or the aching weakness in his limbs. It is enough to taste freshly cooked greens and tofu and drink properly steeped tea and let his thoughts settle, as much as he can. Wen Sizhui is an attentive host, and his companions are inquisitive—a quality Lan Wangji should perhaps have expected to find in Wei Ying’s disciples. They are so inquisitive, in fact, that Liu Weixin can’t seem to stop himself asking questions even after repeated admonishments. Where is Liang Feihong from? Has he ever encountered something like tonight's prey before?

“The Lan sect don’t speak during meals,” Wen Sizhui reminds him before Lan Wangji is forced to answer. “Remember Lan Jingyi? And Lan Shufen?”

“Jingyi-xiong talks during meals,” Jin Rulan says. Then he seems to realize what he’s said and turns guilt-filled eyes to Lan Wangji. “Only sometimes,” he promises, as if Lan Wangji might dole out retroactive punishments, as if he might ever again be in a position to do so. “Hardly ever, really.”

“When did you leave the Lan sect?” Liu Weixin asks, and then, when Zhou Xiuying hits him, “What, what? I left my sect, you left your sect, is it so impossible a question?”

“I did not just leave the He Sect,” Zhou Xiuyang retorts. “I got married. It’s not the same, and you know it. Or is your head really so full of holes you can't remember the simplest things?”

Liu Weixin rubs his shoulder and scowls at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Who was supposed to be guarding the final lure?” she asks as she picks up her soup bowl. “Shouldn’t you be apologizing to Liang-gongzi for making trouble he had to clean up instead of pestering him with questions?”

“Shouldn’t you be with Dajiu,” Jin Rulan adds, “laying those extra corpses to rest?”

“I was—I was clearing the streets, there was this old woman—” Liu Weixin looks around the table for sympathy and settles on Wen Sizhui. “Shixiong!”

Wen Sizhui sighs and sets down his chopsticks. “If Wei-zongzhu thought you should be helping he would have said so. But you should apologize to Liang-gongzi.” He does not look away as Liu Weixin frowns and squirms, and something in his bearing reminds Lan Wangji of Wen Qing, staring Wei Ying down at the Mass Graves what must be over a decade ago now.

His stomach twists. Perhaps he should refrain from eating too heavily after days of only rice to sustain himself.

Liu Weixin bows somewhat stiffly. “I apologize, Liang-gongzi, for contributing to your troubles.”

Lan Wangji nods acknowledgment. He can’t offer absolution, and the things he doesn’t know about Wei Ying, or his sect, or the whole of the cultivation world, are threatening to crowd proper thoughts out of his head.

Someone says his title on the other side of the room, and he’s searching the crowd before he thinks to hide the reaction. There is a storyteller settled against the far wall with a lute at her side, and some of the crowd of patrons have rearranged themselves around her. She speaks of the Xuanwu of Slaughter, of two young cultivators trapped together with a monster that might devour them whole.

The mood at his table has shifted. Jin Rulan looks to Wen Sizhui.

“Should we say something?” he asks. “If Dajiu comes back soon ...”

“He’d hate it more if he knew we did,” Wen Sizhui decides. “I think he gave up after that poem in Tanzhou.”

Lan Wangji remembers, quite suddenly, the snarl on Wei Ying’s face as he’d pushed him away, the ring of get out, get away echoing through the cave Lan Wangji had chosen for shelter in his attempt to heal Wei Ying’s injuries after the battle at Nightless City.

“Excuse me.” He jerks to his feet. Wen Sizhui quickly stands beside him.

“Let me get the innkeeper,” he says. “I reserved a room for you.”

Lan Wangji hesitates, then nods assent. Solitude would be welcome, and he does not have coin or standing to procure his own accommodations.

He makes it safely up the stairs and into a small, sparsely appointed room before he lets himself absorb the thought: Wei Ying may not want to recognize him. May not remember him with any fondness. May reject the connections of both the soul bond and their former acquaintance. Certainly their history should not have inspired him to expect anything else. It was only ever his own hope, his own quiet longing running up against the walls and traps Wei Ying built around himself; Who do you think you are, and I’ve heard more than enough of these words that you say and He won’t be staying.

The reminder is unwelcome, but if Wei Ying objects to stories of their shared past to such an extent that his disciples know of it, it is not knowledge he can ignore. And yet, Wei Ying is still the only person he can ask about the curse he bears, and Jin Guangyao. His brother—no. Even if he was certain of Lan Xichen’s reception, Lan Wangji knows he would only spend the time wishing to be at Wei Ying’s side, in whatever manner Wei Ying allows.

Perhaps he can delay the revelation long enough to discover more—more of Wei Ying’s disposition, and more of the curse’s nature. Perhaps recognition would require more than proximity. Perhaps Wei Ying is not accustomed to the tug of the bond in himself after more than a decade of Lan Wangji’s absence.

Perhaps.

Peace of mind is difficult to achieve. After an hour the innkeeper’s staff offer him a bath they insist is included in the price the Wei cultivators already paid, and a clean, if worn, set of yi, trousers and overobe to wear while his own clothes are being laundered, a service he is assured has also already been covered. He gets a vague impression that the staff is relieved by the simple fabrics he wears, compared to Jin Rulan’s layers.

Hot water, soap--the opportunity to truly wash--and familiar incense do much to make his worries less overwhelming, even if doubt still plagues his thoughts . He is not sure how long he’s been sitting, meditating and trying to come to a decision--will revealing his identity cost more than he wishes to pay? Will delay only complicate his path?--when Wen Sizhui knocks at the door.

“Sorry to disturb you, Liang-gongzi, but Wei-zongzhu says he’s ready to hear your questions now, unless you wish to wait for the morning.”

Lan Wangji is tired. It is nearly nine. But he cannot bring himself to refuse Wei Ying even this most indirect of requests.

He straightens his borrowed clothes and ties up his still-damp hair. Wei Ying’s room is only a few doors away, and Wen Sizhui excuses himself as soon as Lan Wangji is inside.

Wei Ying has been drinking. Is still drinking, if the jar in his hand is any indication. He offers a cup and Lan Wangji shakes his head.

Wei Ying sighs, but seems unsurprised. He pours tea instead. Lan Wangji takes the cup carefully. He does not let their fingers touch.

The tea is lightly roasted and perfectly hot. A Yunmeng blend that stirs up memories of war camps; of nights when Wei Ying’s smile was as sharp as any sword in the dark.

“Sorry you had to be in the middle of that, earlier.” Wei Ying is not smiling now. He looks—disappointed. The curve of his lips hooking softly down.

Lan Wangji takes another sip of his tea, still hot enough to scald the roof of his mouth. It’s safer than speaking, or letting his hands sit empty.

Wei Ying’s face twists into something part smile, part grimace. “Right. Nevermind. You said you had questions?”

Lan Wangji hesitates. If he reveals too much, Wei Ying will ask more questions, and he’s not confident in his ability to directly lie.

“My spiritual power has been damaged,” he says. “And I have been cursed.”

Wei Ying’s eyebrows rise and knit together in an incredulous expression.

“And you thought I’d be more help than Zewu-jun?”

Lan Wangji swallows. This is, perhaps, somewhat unbelievable.

“I found these.” He retrieves the talismans and notes from the qiankun pouch and sets them on the table. Two of the talismans are standard fire talismans, but the others are nothing Lan Wangji recognized. Wei Ying’s incredulity shifts to surprise, then concern. He touches two fingers to the most complicated one—the one Lan Wangji thinks is most likely the same as the one thrown in his face when he escaped his cell.

“This would certainly damage your spiritual power,” Wei Ying says. “I’ve never seen …” he reaches for the notes, sorting through them quickly. “I don’t know what these are,” he says holding a page up against the candlelight. “Encoded, obviously, but it’s not one I know. Where did you say you got them?”

“There is a complex three days north of here, surrounded by a protective ward.”

Wei Ying frowns. He sets down his wine and holds the notes in one hand and the talisman in the other and stands.

“Three days north,” he muses as he walks to the window and examines both in moonlight. “Near Moling?”

Lan Wangji watches him pace from one window to the other, and waits. He doesn’t even know for certain where this village is, though it now seems likely the large working he’d sensed to the south is Cloud Recesses, if the Lan Sect ventures here for night hunts.

Wei Ying doesn’t seem perturbed by his lack of response. “And you said you were cursed?” he returns to the table and sets both talisman and notes down carefully. “Is there a mark?”

Lan Wangji unwinds his makeshift bandages slowly. Wei Ying winces at the cut across his palm, and sucks a breath through his teeth when the darkening cut on his wrist is revealed. His hands hover over Lan Wangji’s arm for a moment before he pulls back.

“I’ll be right back.” He stands again and goes to the door. It’s only as he closes it behind him that Lan Wangji realizes there is a ward on the room, and he has been sealed inside.

Wei Ying is not gone long. Lan Wangji can hear the muffled sound of another door opening, and then a quiet conversation that he can’t make out the words of. Then Wei Ying returns, a qiankun pouch held in one hand. The ward springs back into place as soon as the door closes. Lan Wangji watches Wei Ying place a seal over it with a feeling like icicles dropping through his middle. There can be no mistaking that the intent is to keep him here.

Here, with Wei Ying and no one else. Is this curse so terrible that treating it endangers more than just the bearer?

Wei Ying places a talisman in each corner of the room and over each window, to ward off spirits, and then rejoins him at the table.

“The list of curses that require blood is long,” he says. He draws small pots and packets out of the qiankun pouch and sets them on the table. Healing ointments Lan Wangji can recognize by scent, and spiritual teas, clearly labeled. “The list of marks that look like that is only slightly shorter. So.” Wei Ying smiles, all teeth and no mirth. “Why don’t you tell me more about how you got it.”

“I—don’t know,” Lan Wangji tries. It’s true enough. But Wei Ying’s expression darkens.

“You know something,” he says. “Or you would have gone with Zewu-jun, rather than asking a stranger who happens to have a reputation for knowing things no upstanding cultivator should.”

Lan Wangji frowns. His brother is practiced in avoiding curses, and in treating the most common sort, but the Lan Clan has never cultivated a deep knowledge of their workings, and this particular curse is not one he encountered in any book in the library. Wei Ying’s knowledge of arrays and talismans was more at the forefront of his mind than curses.

“There was an array,” he says. Wei Ying cocks his head to the side and makes a considering sort of sound. Then he fetches a brush, and paper, and a small bottle of ink.

“Show me,” he says, and watches closely as Lan Wangji draws it to the best of his memory.

“Stop,” he barks when it’s halfway finished. He pulls the paper away without waiting for a response, looking from it to Lan Wangji with increasing concern in his face.

“This isn’t—this can’t be—” he surges to his feet. His fingers around Chenqing are white-knuckled. “What are you? What do you want?” In the time it takes Lan Wangji to set down the writing brush, Wei Ying has circled the table and put himself between Lan Wangji and the door.

When Lan Wangji turns a talisman hits him in the chest. Spirit banishment. Useless against a human opponent. He pulls it off his robes. Wei Ying is looking at him like he’s a monster that crawled out of the dark.

He shifts to his knees, and Wei Ying backs up a step. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“You know what I’m asking. This—” Wei Ying waves the drawing, “doesn’t happen by accident. Who are you?”

“Lan Wangji.” There is no point in hiding it, not if Wei Ying already thinks he might be a malevolent spirit. But Wei Ying’s expression only grows fiercer.

“Try again,” he growls. “Hanguang-jun is not—” he presses his lips tight together, cutting off the end of that statement. Lan Wangji cannot read his expression as he takes three long breaths. His grip on Chenqing has not slackened. “Prove it,” he rasps, something hungry in his voice. “Tell me something no one else could ever know.”

Lan Wangji’s mind is suddenly bare of relevant memories. He takes a few breaths, closes his eyes. Tries to think of something he never told even his brother. Opens them.

“In Yunmeng, in spring, you threw flowers as I passed and invited me to drink with you and the dead women you had surrounded yourself with.”

Wei Ying’s eyes widen. Lan Wangji watches the movement of his throat as he swallows.

“Lots of people saw that,” he says. “That’s not proof.”

It’s true. In Yunmeng they’d had an audience. Lan Wangji tries again. More private. More detailed.

“At Dusk Creek Mountain you tried to treat my wounds before your own, and used my headband to bind my leg, and offered me your clothes for warmth, and when I—when I insulted you, you left me alone for three days, before we tried to kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter. You said, after, that you hadn’t thought you’d survive, and you asked to lay your head in my lap.”

Wei Ying’s lips part. He may be about to speak, but Lan Wangji’s memories are flowing quickly now, and he doesn’t want to stop.

“On Phoenix Mountain,” he says, holding Wei Ying’s sleeve tightly in his fist and unsure when he moved to take it, “During the Jin Sect’s nighthunt I—”

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying’s fingers close around his wrist, and the soul bond surges between them.

on to part 6

#wangxian #wangxian fic #mdzs fic #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #turnabout verse #canon divergence #alex writes

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [998]

“You wouldn’t understand, Krem. You haven’t a single romantic bone in your body.” Ellana’s entire body radiates with nervous energy as she paces up and down the floor of the mail room, biting her nail as she waits for the staff member she sent off to come back. “It’s why you can land the date but the date singular. I do love you though.”

“I feel like I’ve been slapped and hugged at the same time.” Krem sighs, checking his watch. The Chief told him to stall by taking her off base or something, but at this rate the problem won’t be keeping Ellana away from her house it’ll be getting her there.

Maxwell makes another attempt at snagging Ellana as she passes him to try and hold her still and calm her down, but she once again eludes him.

Lucky for the three of them the mail room is empty right now. The only other person watching this is the other mail room attendant who’s busy with something on their computer, or very good at faking being busy. If it’s the first one then they’ve got the right mindset for the Inquisition: work through the crazy and fit work in whenever possible. And if it’s the latter, they’re in the wrong job position because they have the mindset of someone working in the field: don’t draw attention to yourself.

“Look,” Max says, “It’s going to be fine. Why don’t we drive out and get some nice flowers, or a cake? I’m s sure he’ll understand if you don’t have anything for him. You two didn’t make plans or anything right? And it’s not as though you didn’t get him anything at all. It’s just a little delayed.”

“Or lost,” Ellana sinks her teeth into her knuckles before she turns to the counter. She braces her hands on it and pushes, leaning as far over the edge as she can to peer around the corner where the other attendant went before letting herself drop back onto the floor and resume her pacing.

The other attendant continues on working or pretending to work like a champ.

“You’d have to be crazy to lose something with the Inquisition’s mailing address on it. I’m pretty sure our parcels and letters are handled by the most nervous, hyper-vigilante postal carriers the entire world has to offer.” Max sighs. “I’m sure it’s just delayed. You ordered it from Rivain right? That’s a pretty long transit time. Lots of customs to pass through.”

“It shipped out two months ago, Max. That’s plenty of time. Even allowing for inclement weather issues or other delays. Two months, Max. It takes us two weeks to get something from Antiva.”

“And you’re sure that your tracking number works?”

“Do you think I’ve never ordered something online before? Of course it works. I’ve been checking it almost every hour for the past month and a half. I’ve called the shipping company. I’ve called the store I bought it from. I’m pretty sure they know my number on sight by now.” Ellana curses under her breath. “I should’ve just flown to Rivain and bought it in person. That’s on me, I guess. I thought I could be cheap about it.”

“You choosing not to fly to another country to buy the Iron Bull an anniversary present isn’t you being cheap, it’s you being normal like anyone else in the world.” Max’s words fall upon deaf ears as Ellana resumes pacing.

“You’re making a big deal out of this,” Krem says. “You know the chief. He’s not going to get fussy over something like that.”

“Again. You wouldn’t understand.” Ellana glances at him before turning her gaze back towards the front of the mail room. “He’s a romantic. He’s got something planned. We never said anything but I can feel it. He has something planned. It’s probably something very nice, very sentimental, and perfectly orchestrated down to the very last millisecond. If I show up with store bought flowers and cake it looks terrible. It looks like I’m negligent. It looks like I don’t care as much as he does.”

“You’re thinking way too into this.”

She’s right. But Krem isn’t supposed to just tell her that and tip her off to the whole thing.

“I’m thinking a perfect amount into this.” Ellana stops pacing and looks up at the two of them. “You know, you can go. You don’t have to stay here with me.”

“Ah, but what kind of friend would I be if I let you have this mental break down alone in a mail room?” Max replies instantly. “It’s not like I have anything else I have to do. And I did sort of invite myself to tag along with you when you were on your way here. I’ll feel terrible if I just left now because things got…out of sorts.”

The man should’ve been a lawyer or something. Krem gives him credit, he’s a smooth operator and all that. No wonder he’s working for all three departments at once.

“Well after hearing that from Trevelyan how am I supposed to bounce?” Krem shrugs. “Leave my boss’ wife alone in a mail room to have an anxiety attack on her anniversary? Consider me fired.”

Ellana smiles at them both, anxiety breaking away to show sincere thanks. “You two are wonderful friends.”

And then her shoulders hunch again and she returns to her pacing.

The door to the room opens and everyone turns, but it’s just a soldier. Probably off of their patrol duty or something.

Ellana’s returns to her pacing, but politely keeps it contained to one side of the mail room.

Krem goes to check his phone for any updates from the chief.

Max quickly elbows him. “Are those marching orders?”

Krem’s head jerks up and he sees that the soldier, does indeed, carry the familiar sealed envelope that mean some kind of marching order.

“Fuck, I hope that’s for me,” Krem says. He’s never said that and meant it before.

“Oh let it be mine,” Max whispers as the soldier nervously attempts to approach Ellana. “Oh fuck me running. They gave her marching orders on her anniversary. Someone’s head is going to roll.”

#heartsfic #gather your party and venture forth

[izukult]

this is the end {chapter one}

summary / you look so different, peter thinks, under certain circumstances as you share your old song with the world. the chapter in which the first video is released.

warnings / the word fuck is used like 483748 times. violence! mentions of drinking! not edited writing lmao

word count / 2,043

notes / aight so this is another set up chapter and it’s pretty redundant i’m sorry but YES we boutta get into it soon. masterlist? nope.

fly me to the moon

let me play among the stars

let me see what spring is like on jupiter and mars.

peter held your hand above your head as he spun you away from him, chuckling as you stumbled over your own feet. you grinned as you looked at your shoes, trying to work out the steps as best as you could.

in other words, hold my hand

in other words, baby kiss me.

he pulled you towards him again and let his palms rest on the small of your back. “and i thought i was bad at dancing.” his voice was quiet and his breath was hot on your ear in comparison to the cold air outside. you laughed, glaring playfully at him.

“fuck off, parker. i’m sorry if i’m not used to waltzing on the rooftops.” you looked past him, towards the skyline of new york, and then you met his soft eyes again.

fill my heart with song

and let me sing forever more

you are all i long for

all i worship, and adore

“ah, so you haven’t mastered the spiderman dancing technique then?” you rolled your eyes, but placed your head on his shoulder as he swayed you lightly. “i’m glad we did this,” his words were sincere and you could feel the grin that was radiating off of him.

“me too,” the fabric of his suit jacket wasn’t the most comfortable, but with the heat coming off of him mixed with the smell of his cologne and, well, him himself, you felt yourself sinking into complete relaxation.

if you squinted hard enough, you could probably see the lights coming from your school’s prom. if you tried, you could probably feel the kick from the spiked punch or the movement of the awful dj; but instead you centered on the feeling of peters hands and the sound of your playlist coming from his shitty phone speaker. just two teenagers, dancing on the top of a building, living within themselves.

in other words, please be true

in other words, i love you

you hit the ground again, eyes almost rolling back. your hands took the brunt of the fall, and a harsh cough scratched the back of your throat. bile filled your mouth as you let your head fall to the back of your hands.

you clenched your eyes shut but you were yanked back to your feet before you had the chance to even try to gain composure. the room spun around you— whether that was from the blood loss, concussion, or the lack of food you couldn’t tell— and your head felt heavier than it ever had.

you were pathetic. you didn’t technically know how long you’d been there but you guessed it couldn’t have been more than thirteen days (except with how often you passed out and the fact you never saw a calendar, or the sun, you couldn’t tell), and you already felt your body completely giving in. only, give or take, thirteen days and you wanted to completely give up. you wanted to sink to your knees and then a little farther and not feel yourself come back up. you wanted to punch one of those motherfuckers in the face and have their next strike to you be the final one. you wanted to lift one of your hands up to flip them off before they finally caved and snapped your fucking neck. but, you knew you couldn’t let in. you knew that there were things you had to stay alive for.

you turned your head to the man holding you and offered him a sharp but weak grin.

“wow, what’s someone with such a pretty face doing down here?” you laughed at your sentence before you were cut off by the masked man yanking on your hair. “betcha never imagined the queen being such an annoying bitch, yeah?” your nose was crooked, eyes bloodshot and face covered in bruises.

you were fucked. literally and figuratively and everything bad that could come with that sentence. the environment was bad, the people were awful, but missing your home was probably the worst.

whenever you could, you thought about peter. you thought about how you were certain may would be trying to calm him down every day, or how he would crack a small smile whenever ned gave him a weak attempt to make him feel better. you thought about the way his shampoo smells, or how his fingers felt when they’d trace your arm.

he was your escape from this place, as well as your need to escape.

you closed your eyes as another wave of pain crashed over you, two more of your captors coming over to hold you down (which wasn’t really necessary, you were fucking tired) as the original man left a beating on your skin. fuck, it was going to be a long death.

——————————

peter rolled the skin of his bottom lip between his teeth, shaky hands going to grip at his thighs. he took in a harsh breath and his eyes darted along the papers in front of him. “fuck, fuck, fuck!” a strangled sob came from him and he shook his head, standing up quickly. his legs wanted to give out from under him but he held his own as he let tears fall to the ground below him; he grabbed his glass of water, almost bringing it to his lips for a drink before he threw it at the wall, not flinching as it shattered.

he’d been like this since he found out you were missing. actually, he’d been like this since he got the familiar feeling in his gut as he waited for you to text him back in the middle of your conversation about the show ‘quantum leap’, but by the time he’d taken action to try to find you, you were already gone.

he gripped his hair, tugging on it. if you were there, you’d tell him to be careful of ripping it out. if you were there, you’d hold his hand and tell him it was going to be okay. if you were there he wouldn’t be in this mess. and then he was screaming, his head in his hands and his heart rate erratic.

he sniffled, wiping the tears off his face with the palm of his hand before walking out of the room, leaving the glass on the floor. he ignored the look on may’s face (but he knew what it was- concern, pity, empathy) and went out the front door, leaving it open.

he was shaky, out of it, off his game; he hadn’t been patrolling recently and he was sure if he wasn’t all about stopping crime, he would be drinking. his eyes were bloodshot, an after effect of crying and constantly staring at anything that could help him find you, and he was just a complete mess. he didn’t know where he was walking, and he was scanning everything he passed to see if it had a connection to you.

he jumped a little at his ringtone, pulling his phone to answer a call. ned’s smiling face was on his screen and for some reason it brought tears to his eyes again.

“yeah, man?” he sounded broken. he waited for ned to comment about having a movie night or tell him an anecdote of something crazy that had happened at school today.

“turn on the news.” ned sounded almost as shaky as him and peter stopped in his tracks.

“uh, not near a tv right now, buddy.” he had already turned on his heel and was running as quickly as he could back to his apartment, but ned didn’t need to know that.

“get to one. god, man, it’s-” ned cut off, clearing his throat. “i’ll let you see it yourself.” it had to be about you, that was clear, but there were a lot of different possibilities. before he could think about them, though, he was running up the stairs, tripping over his own feet, pushing past people, the whole nine yards before he stumbled into his living room to see a crying may.

he looked at the tv and there you were. his phone fell from his hands onto the floor, and he took a slow step closer.

“i was- i was just watching the cooking channel and this came on.” that must’ve meant it wasn’t just the news then, that was showing this. peter swallowed but his mouth was so dry it felt like he was choking- or maybe he was choking, he couldn’t tell- and his eyes never left the screen.

you looked tired. not tired like when you and peter would stay up late talking, not tired like when you would be up doing homework until three am, but you looked fucking exhausted. you were covered in a series of bruises, cuts littering your features. you were surrounded by a series of men of different statures, all wearing masks. the one closest to you on your right grabbed the bottom of your chin, gripping tightly before you jerked your head away from him.

the man shook his head. “oh, sweetie,” he shoved you onto your knees and you glared up at him, wincing at the harsh contact. “when will you learn to behave?” you rolled your eyes before you smiled.

“go fuck yourself.” the smile that graced your lips shifted to a scowl. the sound of the slap would’ve been enough to make peter kill, but instead all he could do was watch. the man leaned down next to you and said something peter couldn’t hear, but he felt his blood boiling. he shouldn’t be that close to you. he shouldn’t be touching you. you shouldn’t be there. peter didn’t know what he said, but he could tell the effect it had on you.

you were trying not to cry- he knew that, he could tell at the way your eyebrows furrowed just slightly and your right eye twitched barely enough for him to notice and peter made a promise he was going to fucking end the man who was making you cry and he was going to fucking find anyone who ever put a hand on you and he was going to make sure they never-

“peter,” his name sounded like honey on your tongue. and then he was sobbing and he was on his knees, mirroring you, and he was staring at the screen waiting for you to say something else and he hoped to god someone was tracking the location you were streaming from and he should’ve tried it himself but he was too busy staring at you. your response was delayed and you flinched as the jazz of a familiar song came over your ears. the song was prominent in both of your eyes, and, peter could tell, it showed they had watched you two for a long time and they knew exactly who he was. peter didn’t miss a beat when your first tear fell as sinatra’s voice made its entry.

“god, fuck,” your tears were pooling now and you looked so fucking scared and peter hated that. he promised to keep you safe and now all he could do was stare at you through the screen like a blubbering idiot. “peter, baby,” the man next to you squeezed your shoulder, nails visibly digging into the skin at the petname.

in other words

“i need you to let me go.” the world took a pause at that, peter was sure of it. the axis had gone off of its tilt just slightly, and the whole rotation had been completely destroyed.

please be true

“no,” he knew you couldn’t hear him, that he was pleading to a screen that you wouldn’t say what he knew you were going to. “no, please don’t.” but you didn’t listen.

in other words

“because if you don’t, that will be the hardest part about this.”

i love you.

and then you were gone. mays cooking show was back on and peter was scrambling for a remote, desperately trying to get you back to where he could see you. but, just like the past couple of weeks, he couldn’t bring you back.

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tag list: @sarahalkhalifaa @lilsxtan @honeymarvel @spider-manffh

#peter parker #spiderman #tom holland x reader #tom holland #peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #peter parker smut #spiderman x reader #tom holland angst #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #far from home #spiderman far from home #spiderman homecoming #spiderman angst #tom holland fluff

[vesuviannights]

2 + 6 + 44, Asra and Muriel with a female mc? I haven't been able to find any really good threeways with asraa and Muriel and HOLY SHIT your drabbles are amazing so if someone is going to make it work it's you!

Hello!! I’ve decided it’s Poly Week. I will only exclusively be writing poly requests. Have fun, and don’t forget to send me an invite to your funeral.

Asra/You/Muriel. Female/afab reader. Lemon.

You return home from a long day, expecting Muriel and Asra to already be asleep. What you find instead is that they are waiting for you, Asra on his knees, stroking himself while Muriel makes the most delicious noises that awaken your own arousal and pull you in.

Prompts: “Prove it, then” and “Yeah? Gonna look into my pretty eyes when you come?” from this post. (I couldn’t make the third one work sorry!!)

**

You step into the doorway of the bedroom to find them by the bed, Asra on his knees before Muriel, sucking him off with slurps and groans and movements that are in no way graceful or apologetic.

Muriel’s hair is tied back from the day’s work, but it’s falling in pieces all over his face, into his dazed eyes as they flutter open and closed from the sensation. His bottom lip is between his teeth as he leans back on his hands and gently thrusts up into Asra’s mouth.

You watch from the door way, throat dry, suddenly too hot for the layers you had donned for the winters evening. Shrugging off your cloak, your scarf, you place your hand on your abdomen and begin to move it downward, unable to wrench your eyes from the scene before you.

You watch as Asra reaches up to cup Muriel’s sack, rolling it between his lithe fingers, and Muriel’s response is to thrust—suddenly, a little violent—up into Asra’s mouth. Asra pulls back with a gasp before he can choke. Muriel manages to sputter out an apology but it’s clear he isn’t really paying attention to much else except what is occurring to his stiff, damp cock.

The sheets beneath him are bunched in his fists. He is keening and moaning and grunting, egging Asra’s every whim and movement on. Asra has himself in his hand, stroking himself with long, taunting movements. You can spot the bead of pre-cum at his tip, and lick your lips as you imagine the taste of it. It is this, more than anything, that finally sees a whimper escape from your throat before you can swallow it back.

Muriel hears you first, body jerking at the sudden noise, but as his eyes settle on you the tension leaves his body almost as quickly as it appeared, and his eyes darken several shades at the sight of you touching yourself beneath your trousers, your hand moving your arousal round, fingertips circling your clit.

He growls and thrusts into Asra’s mouth, and this time the magician takes all of him. You can see the bulge of Muriel in his throat, and he holds it there while stroking himself until he has to pull back for air with a gasp. His lips close back around Muriel’s tip, swollen and red, before pulling off with a soft pop.

Asra turns his gaze to you, arousal and mischief dancing in his eyes.

“You were meant to be back much earlier,” he murmurs, his voice a little throatier than normal.

“I—” You swallow a moan. You’re still playing with yourself, can’t seem to stop, even though Asra has stopped all of his own movements on both himself and Muriel. “There were customers. And paperwork. And Julian doing something dramatic in the square.”

Muriel snorts. “Of course he was.”

Asra stands and walks to you, ignoring the indignant and impatient growl from Muriel at being left high and dry. He cups the back of your head, kisses you with all of his usual intensity, coupled with the taste of Muriel that he is now sharing with you. His hand joins yours between your legs, edging you on as you slip two fingers into your aching hole.

“Poor Muriel has been suffering this whole time,” Asra tells you.

“You’ve been waiting for me?”

“Always. Come over, my love.”

Asra pulls your hand out of your trousers, ignoring your protests as much as he ignored Muriel, and pulls you back over to the bed.

You lean forward and kiss Muriel in greeting, tongue sweeping into his mouth. He sucks gently on it, just the way he knows you like, and your knees buckle underneath the weight of you.

He catches you against his chest, murmuring his delight at your response, and slowly lets you slide down his body until you are on your knees beside Asra, Muriel’s cock bobbing impatiently between the two of you.

“Is Asra going to let you come?” You ask him, all innocence.

“I was waiting for you,” Muriel answers evenly, not taking your bait. “I can come whenever I want.”

“Oh? Whenever you want?”

“Whenever I want.”

“Prove it, then.”

You take the head of him between your lips, suckling gently, humming so that the vibrations travel through onto him. When you feel him twitch, when you hear him attempt and fail to stutter out your name, you know it’s time to push on and take more of him.

Asra settles down beside you, legs wide, one elbow propped up on the bed so he can watch you as he strokes himself with lazy movements. He is smiling, murmuring his encouragement, telling you both how wonderful you look.

“More—more, please—” Muriel growls, begs, through clenched teeth. “I need to be deeper, I want to feel you all around me.”

You can never take Muriel’s full length into your mouth. He’s a little too big, and you’re not as practised as Asra in that area, but you always try, because you know he loves the feel of being so deep inside of you, the sight of his length bulging in your throat as you struggle to hold it there, and it’s something he doesn’t get very often.

You hollow out your cheeks and relax your throat, taking him in until you can no longer breathe, but it’s still not the whole of him. You hold him there as he strokes your hair with shaking hands, while he grunts to you his praise of how good it feels. Asra shudders beside the two of you, and you look over to him with your watering eyes.

Muriel wants the attention though, that look, and he takes your face between his palms and pulls you off his cock to tilt your gaze up to him. He curses at the sight of you, breathing heavy, strings of saliva still connecting your lips to his swollen head.

“I love to see you like this,” he tells you, thrusting gently into your hands as you take him once more, cupping his sack, pulling his cock with firm strokes. “Pretty eyes all wet for me, gasping for breath. I—” He grunts, has to pause to tighten his jaw. “I love it when you try to take my cock so deep.”

“Yeah?” You grin up at him as you draw his torture out, thumb sweeping over his tip. His cock twitches in your hand, and he groans in response, his entire body trembling from the anticipation. “Will you look into my pretty eyes when you come?”

He nods, the movement jerking and barely-there, like an afterthought to everything else. You part your lips to present your tongue to him, the head of his cock resting there as you stroke and cup and pull until he finally erupts with a growl, fists bunched in the sheets behind him as he comes all over your tongue in white-hot spurts.

You moan in approval at the salty taste of him, the heat that shoots through your body as some of his seed misses your waiting, greedy little tongue and hits your chin and your cheek. You close your mouth to swallow and lick your lips, savouring the taste.

The action is barely complete before Asra digs his hand into your hair and turns you toward him, kissing you with a merciless, delving tongue that sweeps up Muriel’s taste as he groans and rocks against your thigh, his own orgasm tearing through him.

He comes all over his hand, and yours as you reach forward to help him along, and in the heat of it all—the sounds of their groans, their praise, the sight of their flushed faces—you barely even care that you didn’t even manage to take care of yourself, that the walls of your pussy are still fluttering and begging for something to fill them, something to milk dry.

Asra finally pulls back from kissing you to leave a single kiss on the tip of your nose. His thumb swipes along your bottom lip and the corner of your mouth, wiping away the spots of Muriel’s seed that you hadn’t caught with your greedy tongue.

“I like it when you come home late,” Asra tells you.

Muriel shifts, falling back onto the bed to stare at the ceiling. “I don’t.”

“Maybe while Asra is teaching you dirty talk,” you say, curling your hands around his knees as you look him over. “He can teach you a little about delayed gratification.”

Muriel moves his mouth in a way that looks like he is silently mocking you, but the smile that curves one side of his lips after tells his true feelings.

Asra has already stood to move off, and a few moments later you hear the sound of running water in the bathroom. Your body, without the haze of lust and the sight of Asra fucking Muriel with his perfect, pink lips, seems to remember your day. The length of it, the tiresome bother of the people, the late hour.

So, instead of following after Asra to clean up and prepare for bed like you know you should, you crawl up the length of the bed to stretch out beside Muriel. He murmurs his approval, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as he takes you up in one arm and pulls you into his chest.

The two of you fall asleep like that, Muriel’s fingertips tracing your spine through the fabric of your shirt, the sounds of Asra’s shower pattering like a soft rainstorm in the background.

#the arcana #muriel #asra #asra/you/muriel #afab reader #female reader #writing #smutty drabble game #lemon