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kiatheinsomniac · 1 year

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──── 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒 ˊˎ -

☾ ⋆ ﾟ𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 / 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: a commission from @tired-lime who was absolutely lovely to work with! Thank you very much! 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: Ratonhnhaké:ton | Connor Kenway x Reader 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 7.4k 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: none

You did your best to keep your eyes on the chemise you were darning. It wasn’t one you wore outside of bed as your outfits consisted more of trousers than long skirts, much more suitable to the life that your godfather had raised you into, the same life that your father had led. Achilles was the closest thing to a father that you had considering that yours was killed by a Templar back when the Colonial Brotherhood was wiped out a generation ago. You had a few fuzzy memories of your father: him reading fairy tales to you before you went to sleep, one summer afternoon where you showered him with a handful of daisies that you’d picked. That was all. You had been born outside of wedlock, your mother dying shortly after your birth but your father had stepped up right until the day he was murdered and it was for his kindness that you accepted Achilles’ invitation to join the Brotherhood.

As much as you loved Achilles and you had been happy when it was just the two of you in Davenport Manor, Ratonhnhaké:ton’s arrival made you realise how much you craved having someone your own age around. He was a quiet but kind-hearted boy who wanted to right the wrong that had been committed against his home at the hands of the Templars. The two of you had that much in common.

You’d been trying to get him to talk to you more but he was so distant and a part of you didn’t blame him after what he’d been through. The most you had actually seen him talk was in his persistence to get Achilles to train him (you had put in a few persuasive words on the boy’s behalf too, though he still didn’t know it). For the first few months, you had allowed him his space despite your excitement at having someone new around. He was mourning a great loss and it wouldn’t be fair for you to intrude on that space. You would often hear him wake from nightmares where he would shout, cry out or groan but you thought that it would be overstepping a line to enter his room in order to check up on him. Instead, you would offer him silent comforts in the morning when helping to prepare breakfast (something you had always done for Achilles as his knee would hassle him when walking around too much, so it was no extra effort to prepare food for Ratonhnhaké:ton on certain mornings). You would give him an extra dash of honey in his tea or you’d go out to the greenhouse for a handful of blueberries to put in his porridge with an extra pinch of cinnamon. Silent little treats to remind him that even though terrible things had happened to him, he still deserved comforts and nice things.

Now, though, he was stripped down to just his undershirt as he chopped wood not too far from the porch where you were perched on the swing, darning your nightdress. Ratonhnhaké:ton was a tall young man, easily towering over both you and Achilles, and the contours of his body were only becoming more defined as the two of you trained together. His sleeves were pushed up over his forearms and your eyes quickly fell down to where you had pricked your finger with the needle in your distracted state. You could have cursed the little slither of metal but found that you could do no such thing when it very well could be what stopped you from being caught staring at your new ally and housemate.

A bead of blood pooled at your fingertip and you smeared it between your finger and thumb before discarding it on the dark fabric of your trousers which would not be ruined by the small stain. When your eyes flickered back up to Ratonhnhaké:ton at the new silence, the pause of the axe coming down hard on the large blocks of wood, it was to see him tying back his dark hair that was becoming bothersome, getting in his way. Your gaze fell straight back down to the chemise in your lap when his dark eyes roved upwards to where you were on the porch.

Enough time had passed for you to no longer be intruding on his mourning, surely? But he was so reserved that you had little idea how to get closer to him, how to glide through this wall of what seemed to be distrust which he had built around himself. You’d already cooked enough meals for him, eaten them together at the dining table, had trained with him, what more could you do without being too forward? You pondered your thoughts as you continued to pull at the needle and thread. Foraging or hunting together, perhaps? Though, hunting seemed to be quite a solitary activity for him so perhaps just foraging or maybe even gardening? You could relate it to the cooking so perhaps that was a smooth enough transition? Yes, you decided, this evening you would invite him to go foraging with you.

It was early autumn, that time of year when the trees were just starting to turn and it was foggy and nippy in the mornings but warm by the time the sun was setting over the horizon and there were plenty of herbs and all sorts of mushrooms to be found. The two of you could spend the day foraging and chatting and hopefully the time spent together would help you to better understand him, to better figure out how to overcome these walls he had built around himself.

You brought the chemise up to your mouth in order to break the thread off with your teeth and you held it up to inspect your work in the light. Deeming that you were finished, you stood up to head back inside. You lingered just outside the door for a moment as you watched Ratonhnhaké:ton continue to chop the firewood. He paused when he realised that he had an audience and you gave him a shy wave to which he responded with a gentle smile and soft dip of his head.

The little interaction made each of your steps feel lighter when you made your way back indoors.

‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊

That night, as you and Connor were washing the dishes in the tub, scrubbing the plates clean and drying them off to be put away, you approached him with your idea.

“So…” You began as you took a handful of cleaned and dried cutlery to put away in the drawer, “I was thinking of going foraging tomorrow, maybe making a mushroom soup? You haven’t really seen the homestead at this time of year so I thought I could show you some of the best places to find things?” You suggested as you came to sit back down opposite him. You watched as he slowed right down from where he had been using a cloth to try up one of the bowls, considering your offer. It was in that tense moment of unsurety to his answer that you realised how much you would really be hurt should he turn you down. When you had planned this out, you figured that it would be a nothing-gained-nothing-lost sort of situation but now that you watched as he decided whether or not to spend the day with you, you realised how much rejection would hurt.

“That sounds like a good idea. What time will we leave?” Your shoulders relaxed a little upon hearing his agreement and the warm water crept up your wrists as you searched around blindly for anything else that might have been forgotten about at the bottom of the tub.

“Ten?” You suggested, “That way we can have breakfast and prepare a lunch before going too.” Slowly, he nodded his head once.

“Maybe we could bring some herbs back to grow in the greenhouse too?” He added and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to quell what would have otherwise been a beaming smile. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Not only did he want to forage with you but he wanted to garden with you too when the both of you returned.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.” You agreed. The two of you stood and you went to put away the rest of the dishes while he hefted up the tub to pour the water to the ground outside.

“Thank you, Ratohnhaké:ton.” You said when he returned. You had always hated emptying out the water by yourself as it would often slosh around and splash onto your clothing. He seemed to have an easier time with it.

“Thank you.” He returned.

“Oh, I’ve always been used to doing the dishes anyway. Achilles would help me when I was really little but if I can spare him-”

“No, no, I meant for using my name.” You paused for a moment as you realised that you never really called him Connor the way that Achilles did. He had introduced himself as Ratonhnhaké:ton before your godfather and mentor gave him another name and you supposed that it just had the chance to stick before Connor did.

You simply shrugged, was it really so much of a big deal to use his real name?

“You introduced yourself like that so I suppose I’ve never really considered you to be Connor…” You didn’t miss the small smile on his lips and it made your heart leap for a moment.

“Still, it means a lot…” You had more chores to do and so you made your way outside to feed the horses. When you made your way back inside, you found Achilles in the living room, resting in an armchair with a book in his hands.

“Where did Ratonhnhaké:ton go?” You asked as you looked around a little before grabbing your book from the shelf and taking your own seat in order to continue where you had left off.

“The basement, training.” He replied simply, only sparing you one glance from his book. That wasn’t unusual for Connor. He had a thirst for revenge and he knew that he had to prepare himself in order to realise it. “I fear that ambition will kill that boy…”

“Is that why you didn’t want to take him in?” You asked and the older man let out a sigh and he closed his book, keeping his thumb between the pages to assure he didn’t lose his place.

“The days of this brotherhood were cut short years ago when Shay tore up all my students like they were weeds in the ground.” He began, “I taught you what I did so that you could protect yourself if anyone ever came after us again but I never wanted you to become an Assassin, I owed that much to your father-”

“But you know that I’m older now and that’s not your choice to make, don’t you?” You asked. Achilles let out a pensive hum and rubbed the fingers of his free hand together before propping his elbow up on the armrest so that he could lean his head on his palm.

“I do. And I knew that when his boy came along with his plot of revenge against the Templars that you’d be roped into it too-”

“But isn’t it my revenge as much as it is his?” You countered and your godfather sighed. The two of you had skirted around this subject many times but it seemed that it had been coming up more and more often since Ratonhnhaké:ton arrived.

“The man who killed your father…” Achilles let out a deep sigh, “Well you know this story, child: you know that he was an Assassin, that he turned on us, that he worked with the Templars to wipe us out and then vanished. I won’t see you get yourself killed chasing down his whole order just to get to him.”

“But you’ll let Ratonhnhaké:ton do the same chasing down Charles Lee?” You contradicted.

“Connor-” Achilles paused when he realised just how sharply his tone had come out, his voice softening from then on, “-isn’t my goddaughter.”

“Achilles, I’m not going to be in this manor forever and I’m going to have to make my own decisions in life.”

“And what decisions are you going to make when you’re dead, hm? Because you got killed for the sake of revenge but who’s going to be left to avenge you?” You went silent for a moment, knowing he’d say that and yet you were stumped for a moment.

“If I pass up this opportunity while Ratonhnhaké:ton’s here to fight by my side, will I ever get this chance again? He’s going to kill Templars looking for Lee and what if, in that process, he kills everyone who might lead me to Cormac?” You countered. Achilles went silent and you hoped it was because he realised that he wouldn’t be able to change your mind.

“You finish training first. I won’t allow you to leave a moment sooner.” You gave a slight nod of your head as your eyes turned back down to your book, huffing out a little sigh.

“Seems fair enough to me…”

The following morning, you had already had a quick wash, had dressed and braided your hair back and out of the way and you were preparing lunch for the day while Ratonhnhaké:ton was making breakfast for the two of you. You didn’t go out of your way to make anything too fancy: just some sandwiches each with some dried meat and an apple on the side, something lightweight for your bags. Meanwhile, Ratonhnhaké:ton was preparing your usual breakfast of porridge and honey with some tea.

“Is there anything in particular that you’re hoping to find?” Connor asked as the two of you ate, sitting opposite each other at the dining table. Your thoughtful hum was silenced by the sip that you took from your sweetened tea.

“Chicken of the woods? Hopefully some oyster mushrooms too, they tend to be quite plentiful and I know quite a few recipes that include them.” You replied as your spoon scraped around the bottom of your bowl, getting the last of your food out. It was nice to have a warm breakfast before heading out into the cold morning air.

The two of you cleaned up after yourself as to not give Achilles anything to worry about and then threw on some coats to go outside with. You knew that you’d just end up carrying it back with how the day was bound to get warmer as it progressed but, still, you were not willing to freeze for a few hours just to spare yourself from having to carry the coat later on.

The two of you were already past the line of trees and following a trodden-down trail when you finally decided to speak, the sound of your voice joining in with the wind and birds singing through the treetops around you.

“So, uh, I suppose I never really asked but how do you find the homestead? Do you feel at home here or…?” Having this conversation so long after he had come to live with you and your godfather made it sink in a little more just how distant Ratonhnhaké:ton could be.

“Originally, I think I just saw it as temporary, a means to an end…” Your heart fell a little at discovering he did not feel as at home in the manor as you did, “But Achillies has kept his word and you’ve been more than welcoming.” He replied and it immediately lifted your spirits. You had been putting in the effort to make him feel welcomed and you were glad that it had taken effect. “And I’ve come to realise that I’ll need a place to be able to come back to and I don’t think I’d want it to be anywhere but here.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” You replied as you slowed your pace a little in order to walk beside him instead of a few paces ahead of him, “But we should get off the path now and get looking. I assume you know what sort of stuff to look out for in terms of the mushrooms: fallen logs or branches, rotting wood.” He gave a quick nod of his head, his braid swinging a little and the two of you split up to begin combing through the area, though not wandering too far from one another.

Connor was the first to find something: some fennel. He took a portion of the plant from the ground, preserving the roots and wrapping the soil-covered base in a cloth before putting it into his bag. You found a few white mushrooms, hoping for them to be horse mushrooms but cutting into the cap quickly revealed them to be yellow stainers and so you dropped your sample and let the others be, not wishing to poison anyone in the manor with such a toxic fungus.

Though, you didn’t give up hope and between light chit-chat with your companion, lifting rotting branches, scanning fallen logs and keeping an eye on tree trunks, you had quite a bit to show for half a day’s work by the time you and Connor had removed your coats to sit upon while you ate lunch in a little clearing. The first few autumn leaves fell around you while the sun filtered through the gap in the trees that you were seated on the edge of.

You took out a little knife to begin slicing into your apple before Connor’s large palm reached out to rest upon your knee. Confused, your gaze flickered up to him to find that he was holding a single finger to his plump lips. He very slowly withdrew and reached for the bow that had been set beside him, knocking an arrow before – with such liquid and steady movement – he cautiously rose to his knees, pulling back the string.

You followed where the arrow was pointed and noticed a rabbit grazing at the other end of the clearing, seemingly unaware of the presence of the two of you. Had you blinked, you would have missed when the arrow flew and Ratonhnhaké:ton quickly got to his feet to make sure he hadn’t missed his mark. Setting your apple and knife down on your coat, you followed him and found that his aim had been true. He took out a cord from his pocket and tied it around the creature’s feet, turning to you with a proud smile that you couldn’t help but share in.

“I have a recipe I’d like to try if you don’t mind letting me cook tonight?” He asked and you grew even more enthusiastic.

“Of course!” You replied as the two of you returned to where you had been sitting in order to finish your lunches. As you returned to your cross-legged position, you couldn’t help but reflect on how his hand had been so warm upon your knee, bronzen skin against your clothing, large palm splaying over you. It filled you with a sort of warmth and you stole a glance at him for a fraction of a second before you decided against looking at him with such thoughts in your head. You quelled the urge to bite on your lower lip by pushing a slice of apple past your teeth and chewing on that instead. Was this more than just a desire for friendship? You hadn’t had many friends to really know what it felt like to want to pursue someone platonically so badly but what if your feelings were more than that?

You decided to not lose yourself in such a train of thought lest you accidentally slice your finger on the knife that you were using to cut up your apple. You still had most of the day to spend with Connor and you didn’t want it to be spent pondering such a big question, you’d much rather you be able to enjoy his company free of the burden of such possibilities.

Once you’d both finished eating, you reviewed what you had already managed to find and you slung your coat over the top of your messenger bag so that you would have no need to carry it while you walked around. The two of you would now begin to loop back around to the manor, returning from a different direction than the one you had left in, seeing what you could find along the way. You eyed up the rabbit that Connor carried over his shoulder as you walked just a few paces behind him before you skipped forwards a little, just enough that you would be able to fall into sync with him.

“Can you teach me how to hunt like that? I’ve been using a bow for a really long time but I don’t know the first thing about where to aim at an animal, how to not spook it, what to do with it after, all the technical stuff, you know?” You asked, “And you seem brilliant at it.” The request had genuinely been made out of a want to learn the skill, knowing it would prove to be beyond valuable as you walked through life, but you realised the other implication to your words the moment they left your mouth. Asking Ratonhnhaké:ton to teach you how to hunt would mean spending more time with him too. You supposed that his answer would reflect greatly on whether or not he was enjoying this day spent with you.

“Of course.” He replied, “I do have one condition, though.”

“Whatever you want.”

“You’ll teach me how to use the rope dart. I know Achillies has taught you but he refuses to teach me just yet, I’m not entirely sure why.” He replied.

“He used to train lots of people a while back; my father was one of them.” You explained, “He’s just a very methodical man, he spent decades teaching people at a particular pace, in a particular way and if it worked for so long, I’m sure he just doesn’t see the need to change things or speed up the process.” You shrugged.

“Achilles trained your father?” Connor highlighted and you nodded your head with a hum, “They were really close and he gave my father an opportunity to make something of himself, then later on the means to support me. It’s why he was made my godfather – the old man won’t ever admit it but he’s a really nurturing person and I think that my dad saw that in him too.”

“What was your father like?” Your companion asked.

“I didn’t really know him, I can’t remember him all that well because he was killed by a Templar when I was young. I know that he read me stories and took me out to play though. I can just faintly remember his smile too.” You had come to terms with his death a long time ago but for some reason it filled you with that deep sadness that would rarely weigh heavily on your chest when you thought about him, about his injustice. “Yours?” You asked, wanting to change the subject.

“I never knew him.” Connor replied and you bit the inside of your cheek for asking such a question at all. “My mother was a wonderful woman though. She was intelligent and her will was as strong as her body. So many of us looked up to her and I… She deserves to be here still. Lee deserves to pay for taking that from her, from me.”

“She sounds incredible.” You replied, “I didn’t know my mother, she died when I was just a baby.” A very silence fell over the two of you, punctuated by wind and birdsong, as you reflected on your pasts, on each other’s pasts. You had both lacked one parent, had lost the other to an untimely death at the hands of another. And in the present, you both had a desire for revenge. “Oh wow, look!” You pointed through the trees with one hand as the other grabbed his arm to stop him from walking ahead, pointing to a thick growth of brambles that were covered in plump, ripe blackberries.

That evening, you were spared your typical duty of cooking dinner and you weren’t entirely sure whether Ratonhnhaké:ton’s rabbit stew really was that incredible or whether it just tasted better because it was cooking for you and not by you. It gave you time to draw yourself a bath while he cooked and as you towel-dried your hair, you gazed out of your window to the greenhouse that you and Connor had gone to after your day of foraging in order to plant the herbs you had found. You smiled fondly as you recalled the way his hands had cupped around yours once while helping you to pot the plant. He had been so tender with pruning different plants there and it filled you with a sort of warmth to see a young man as broad and looming as Ratonhnhaké:ton be so tender. You’d trained with him, had seen his strength, had listened to his story of injustice, fire and blood; and yet he was still so gentle. You snapped yourself out of your daydream to fold up the towel and brush your damp hair. You threw on a robe so as to not feel the chill that would often dance through the old manor at night and made your way downstairs to read with Achillies as you usually did, grabbing your book from the nightstand.

However, on your way down there, you passed the secret entrance to the basement and, instead, followed the sound of a training dummy being beaten where you then found Connor in the middle of the room, wooden stick in his hand as he attacked the dummy from all sorts of directions. You sat down on a nearby seat silently and he acknowledged your presence with a nod of his head and a slight smile before continuing with what he was doing. You opened your book to the page where you had left off and began to read, the two of you sharing the basement while both of you did your own thing.

“About hunting…” He began once he deemed he was done for the evening and you had already read through multiple chapters, “How about two days from now?” He suggested. You liked that he seemed eager to get out with you again, that he was the one to chase this up and not you.

“Yeah, that sounds perfect.” You answered as you slid your bookmark back between the pages.

“And you’ll teach me how to use the rope dart?” You set the book down on the table and picked up one of said weapons from where it had been wrapped around itself and hung on the wall. Pulling on the knot to loosen it, you took the dart in hand and swung it around once before thrusting it forward. It flew through the air and straight into the dummy’s chest, allowing you to yank it forwards and push it off your dart by kicking the dummy away as it threatened to crash into your body.

“Of course.” You replied and couldn’t help but grin at the awed smile on Ratonhnhaké:ton’s face, the little glitter in his eyes at your surprise demonstration, “And I’ll teach you to do more than just that too.” You made your way upstairs to check on Achilles.

Two days passed and it was early morning. You were checking over everything in your pack with a list and pencil in hand, making sure that you had everything for the journey. Achilles had assured you that he would be alright without the two of you for two days but you still made extra food for him just in case. Sure, he wasn’t quite the vulnerable old man that you made him out to be in your mind but, for a very long time, Achilles was the only person you had and so you supposed you had developed a habit of being a little too nurturing sometimes, wanting to do your part to make sure that nothing bad happened to him too.

Either way, you would be spending the next two days out camping with Connor while he taught you how to hunt. He said that it would be best if you took more than just the day like when you had gone foraging together so that you were more likely to come back with a good haul. You were dressed warm, knowing the nights would be cold and you could just carry the extra layers in your bag during the day. Checking almost everything off your list, you threw on a coat and slung your bag over your back, making your way downstairs.

You followed the route down to the basement to retrieve a bow and quiver full of arrows as well as a few rope darts which you stashed away in your bag and hoped your godfather wouldn’t realise were missing. You made your way to the porch where you found Achilles sitting in the swing-chair that you had been in around a week ago, darning your chemise and watching Ratonhnhaké:ton chop wood.

“You’re sure you’ll be alright?” You asked. You’d never really been away from Achilles and the thought of any old person being lonely broke your heart a little.

“Young lady, I was here a long time before you were and I can assure you I’ll be perfectly fine all by myself; especially with enough food to feed a family of four that you’ve left me with.” He added and you bit back a smile at his sassiness. And he had the nerve to ask where you got it from sometimes.

“Alright then. We’ll be back in a few days.” You placed your hand on his shoulder and stooped down to press a kiss to his temple and he returned the gesture by taking your hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll see you in a few days, child.” He said as you turned to go and meet Connor where he was waiting for you down the path. You jogged to catch up to him, unaware of the smile on your face.

The two of you struck up conversation about what sort of game you were expecting to come across, how far you would travel before taking breaks or setting up camp, all little conversation pieces related to why you were out in the first place but what you really wanted was to talk about him. You still craved to get past the walls he put up around himself, to find out who he was at his core and you could only hope that you’d be able to do that on this trip. Since inviting him to forage with you, you’d both been spending more time together outside of training: cooking, cleaning, gardening, reading, sewing, carving, tending to the horses. Even if you weren’t talking to each other, you were spending time around one another and a part of you was optimistic that Ratonhnhaké:ton wanted to let you in as much as you wanted to be let in by him. Only time would tell, you supposed.

Connor was a good teacher, you would come to find. Within the first few hours of your trip, he had already given you a great many tips on how to better aim your bow and how to draw your arrows stealthily enough as to not spook your prey. You were currently aiming at a pinecone on a low tree branch – Ratonhnhaké:ton having emphasised the importance of practising on small targets considering you would have to have very precise aim when shooting a live creature – and he was standing behind you, raising your elbow and bending your aiming arm enough for the string to not hit your arm upon release.

You found yourself mildly trembling at how close he was, how the heat of his body was warming your back, his breath puffling out against your cheek as he pressed it to yours in order to get a better look at how you were aiming. His hand covered yours to silently coax you to draw the string right back to your other cheek and you did your utmost to stop your body from quivering.

Did he see this as no different to the closeness when you would train and spar together? Because it felt so different to you somehow, so much more intimate. He was making it difficult to concentrate but was that really such a bad thing? If you missed all that would happen would be him sharing in this closeness once more as he corrected your posture or aim, unknowingly feeding into the well of delight that was bubbling in your chest.

You let the arrow fly.

It just barely missed the target and you pouted, knowing that you would have been able to hit it if not for your gorgeous distraction.

“That’s ok.” He reassured you in that gentle honey-like tone of his as he handed you another arrow. “Try again.” He withdrew from you entirely and while you were disappointed at it, you also found that it became much easier to concentrate.

The pinecone was knocked from the tree.

You had stopped for lunch and you proudly had a rabbit hanging from your bag, its feet tied together in the way that Connor had taught you. You’d packed a little something for your first day in case you hadn’t caught anything that you could cook. Truthfully, you had spooked off two rabbits before managing to shoot this one and you hadn’t exactly aimed as perfectly as your tutor but Connor had been quick to put the poor creature down, assuring that he would also teach you how to do that for yourself.

With your bag propped up against a nearby tree and some lunch in your belly, you had taken out two rope darts for you and Ratonhnhaké:ton to practise with. The moves almost seemed to come to him naturally and you wondered for a moment if this is the sort of life your father had led: the camaraderie of training with and teaching fellow Assassins, knowing that these skills would one day be used to act out justice, to defend the world from the tyranny of the ideologies in the Templar Order. You may well be fighting for your life side-by-side with this man in the not-so-distant future and you were sure that there is no one else in the world you could possibly want to have more than him in that situation. After a few more hours of training, you continued on to hunt some more before you would begin to set up camp for the night.

These plans were ruined, however, when the wind picked up. Dark, threatening clouds rolled in from the horizon as the two of you followed a path by the lake where you had stopped after some fruitless hunting to teach Connor how to make fish hooks the way you did. He had decided that it was better to get moving than to fish upon seeing the clouds and he was right as you were now squinting against a downpour of rain, blinking your lashes to try and keep the water out of your eyes.

The two of you had decided to head to higher ground and you trudged on a few paces behind him as he led the way to a spot he had found before when out hunting. You weren’t particularly happy about your wet clothes and sodden, muddy boots but you knew all would be well once Connor led you to shelter and you could get a fire going.

As you tilted your head up just slightly in order to see if there was a single break in the clouds that had turned your nice day with Connor upside down, you lost your footing and your arms flung out in preparation to catch yourself only, you fell straight down.

You were now up to your waist in mud, having fallen into a hole of sorts.

“Wait!” You called out to Ratonhnhaké:ton, trying to get yourself out but beginning to panic when you realised that it only made you sink deeper. “Ratonhnhaké:ton!” Your voice now came out in a desperate cry and he turned around, eyes widening when he didn’t see you before his head tilted down to where you were only waist-above the ground.

“Hey, hey,” He was quickly kneeling down by your side, grabbing your arm to try and calm you but you were still hurriedly trying to get out, “calm down, it’ll be worse if you panic.” He was right, you knew, but it didn’t dissolve the fear that was bubbling within you. “Y/n.” He spoke your name as his other hand cupped your face, making you meet his brown eyes. They seemed to reach straight into your soul and you continued to pant in ragged, shaky breaths but were no longer flailing about to get out. “I’m going to get you out, ok? Let me take off your bag.” You moved your arms to assist him but kept the rest of your body as still as possible as he set the extra weight aside and got to his feet, careful that he didn’t fall in with you as he bent down to grab you under your arms. “Grab on when I lift you. On three: one… two… three!” He pulled you from the mud and you were rather surprised that you didn’t lose either or both of your shoes in the process as he set you back upon steady ground. You were absolutely soaked and covered in mud, trembling from the cold as the rain beat down against your back.

Without a word being said, Connor threw your bag onto his back and took your hand in his as he hurried up your pace, leading you up an up-hill path. You were glad for the security that he provided in holding your hand, reassuring you that he would not allow you to fall again as he led you into a sheltered and dry cave. You got to work on starting a fire while he set up the tent, thunder clapping in the distance as you were momentarily lit up by a crack of lightning. You were glad to be out of the storm, shivering in your ruined clothes as you huddled by the fire. Your hand felt warm though and somehow, something as simple as Ratonhnhaké:ton taking your hand managed to make this situation much less worse than it really was. When he was finished, he joined you by the fire and frowned at the state you were in. He wished he had taken your hand earlier as you walked through the downpour of rain, he could have stopped you from now being a mud-soaked, trembling mess.

“I should… get these off…” You murmured, knowing you would only freeze and make a mess of your bedroll in your muddy clothes but also not wanting to make Ratonhnhaké:ton uncomfortable by being in such a state of undress around him. He was a very reserved young man, this you already knew, and you didn’t want to scare him away.

“Right.” He replied, hesitating for a moment before turning around to give you some privacy. You wouldn’t be able to wash your clothes so you would just have to let the fire make the mud dry and you could redress in the morning. Unfortunately, your trip would have to be cut short as you didn’t take a change of clothes into account considering the two of you were supposed to be returning to the homestead the morning following tomorrow night. You didn’t have many clothes and dirtying both sets would only mean having to wash your clothing in summer attire outdoors or in your nightdress which certainly wasn’t going to happen.

You removed your boots first, undressing everything from your waist down and then covering yourself in your blanket, laying down on your bedroll under the shelter of the tent as you basked in the warmth of the fire, your skin aching with the cold.

“Ok, I’m decent.” You said to let Connor know he could look and he faced you once more. You passed the hours in idle chit-chat about how you would need to change your plans and return early, about the time he went out in a thunderstorm as a child and was pranked by a friend whose laughter he claimed to always hear in thunder. You reminisced about the autumn sun shining through the fiery-coloured leaves and the splash of colour from the evergreens of the forest. The two of you eventually ended up counting the time between lightning strikes as though you were both children.

However, through all this, Ratonhnhaké:ton didn’t fail to miss the chatter of your teeth or how you were still shivering. He had added more wood to the fire but it had only had very little effect on you.

“You’re still cold…” He spoke up after a while and you were silent for a while, not wanting to be a bother. You felt that he had already done so much for you and you had silently been cursing yourself for falling into that hole in the first place. Perhaps your hunting trip wouldn’t have to be cut short if only you had looked where you were going, especially in such terrible weather. Moreover, the last thing you wanted was to make him uncomfortable or upset in any way and risk losing any progress you had made in trying to get closer to him.

“Yeah…” You admitted quietly despite your tumult of thoughts.

“Can I…?” His words died on his tongue, losing the courage to vocalise his intentions before he was getting closer to you, stepping over your body carefully to join you in the tent and laying on his own bedroll. Your breath caught in your throat for a moment when he shuffled closer to you and one strong arm wrapped over your body, pulling you back against him. Wanting to respect your modesty, he didn’t get under the blanket but he was warm enough that you could feel his warmth seep through the material and you couldn’t help but press your body to his.

He seemed tense for a while and you contemplated telling him that he didn’t have to do this, even if a selfish part of you wished to never leave this little pocket of heaven that he had led you into with the warmth and gentleness of this embrace. However, he shifted enough to slide his other arm beneath your head and then set his chin atop your head as he watched the flames of the fire dance, relaxing at being in a more comfortable position in which he wasn’t crushing his own arm. The two of you laid there in silence for a while until you mustered up the courage to turn over, burying your face in his chest and slinging an arm over his side before wrapping the arm beneath you around your own waist, reaching for his hand and feeling him hesitantly lace his fingers with yours, then giving you a confident squeeze when your firmer hold confirmed that you did want to hold his hand.

“I like this a lot…” You murmured against him and you felt him let out a content sigh as he buried his face in your hair, taking in your scent (which was mostly that of rain after the earlier ordeal).

“So do I…” He replied, his voice rumbling lowly in his chest and you wondered when your legs had tangled with his between the layers of blankets.

“I like you a lot too…” Your sleepy murmur came out and if you were more awake, more aware, you would not have had the courage to admit such a thing. You just barely felt his lips brush your hairline when he spoke next:

“So do I…”

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#connor kenway x reader #connor kenway #ratonhnhaké:ton x reader #ratonhnhaké:ton #assassins creed fanfiction #assassins creed fanfic #assassins creed #assassins creed x reader #assassins creed III #assassins creed III x reader

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marsdeathdefiances · 1 year

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Hi, could you answer 26, 30, 34 and 37. Thank you!

Thanks for the ask!

26: How do they comfort each other? Patroclus can comfort Achilles just by giving him a hug, but of course he likes to do more than that and really put his time and attention on Achilles to really make sure he’s okay. Cause sure a hug can help in the moment, but it’s more of a bandaid on a bullet wound. So he’ll hug him and if they’re at home he’ll take him either to the couch or their bedroom for some cuddles. If they’re out in public they’ll find somewhere private and give him some cuddles there. Then he’ll play a bit with Achilles’ hair and gently coax him into talking to him about anything (Achilles sometimes struggles to talk about the problem directly but Pat has learned that just simple conversation can help distract him a bit). Achilles is able to comfort Patroclus by giving him some space but offering him one of his favorite drinks (like tea or something) and just reminding him that he’s there for him. Pat likes to be able to just…think about it for a bit before getting more direct comfort. Once he’s ready for more direct comfort/help he’ll seek out Achilles and they’ll talk about it and cuddle for a bit. Sometimes though he won’t talk about it and again they’ll just chat about mundane things like what to have for dinner, or something funny that Antilochus had said, things like that.

30: What is their favorite place to kiss the other? (Cheek, hand, closed eyelid, neck, nose, etc.) Achilles is absolutely weak for kissing Pat on the nose and watching him scrunch it up and laugh afterwards, it makes his heart melt every time. Achilles has freckles on his face and Pat loves kissing over them gently and tracing them with his fingers, it makes Achilles giggle every time and Pat always falls in love all over again.

34: Do they give each other nicknames? Oh gods yeah they do. They hardly ever refer to each other by their actual names tbh. Patroclus calls Achilles ‘my lion’ (that kind of started as a joke about how Achilles’ hair is absolutely wild in the mornings and looks like a lion’s mane but it ended up becoming an affectionate pet name) ‘babe’ ‘dear’ ‘darling’ ‘love’ and when he’s sleepy (or drunk) it’s ‘chilles’ or ‘illes’ (and ofc ‘Pelides!’ When Achilles is in trouble/doing something he’s not supposed to do). Patroclus is (obviously) ‘Pat’ ‘Patty’ ‘Patty-cakes’ (Pat hates that one but Achilles thinks it’s hysterical) ‘my dove’ ‘dear’ ‘skops’ ‘love’ ‘babe/baby’ ‘sweetheart’

37: What do they like the least about each other? Achilles has the tendency to leave his dirty dishes about (not all the time but frequently enough that it gets on Pat’s nerves) and Pat finds himself always being the one to pick them up and take them to the sink and all that. He would pull the ‘I’m not gonna do it anymore, good luck when we get bugs’ stunt but he doesn’t want bugs or anything like that so he handles it himself. Achilles is really irked by Patroclus’ tendency to hate himself and always speak bad about himself and just have like no faith in himself at all. He tries to stop it and remind Pat about how great and wonderful he is but it doesn’t really help and it just hurts him to hear Pat always talking about how horrible he thinks he is.

#thanks for the ask!#ask meme #tsoa patrochilles #dorian speaks

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greatwise · 10 months

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Why Aziraphale chose Heaven over Crowley: An Essay

TLDR: Crowley broke Aziraphale’s heart before Aziraphale broke Crowley’s. He was so upset he got lost in the moment and made the wrong decision.

Aziraphale accepted the offer from Metatron because he knows that his ethics would be pure and that anything he would do to restore Heaven would be for the greater good - for every being in the universe. It was never as simple as choosing between Crowley or Heaven.

The archangels are corrupted with racism and classism - sure Aziraphale is too, but he is one of the only angels (now barr Gabriel) who has first hand experience with demons and what they can be, which is a far cry from the rest of them. That’s why he would be a perfect candidate for Supreme Archangel. He has seen heaven at its best, and at its worse, simply by knowing Crowley.

When Aziraphale is sat with Metatron, he suggests Michael as Supreme Archangel because he doesn’t see himself really as a part of Heaven’s politics anymore, as long as he is able to live the simple life that he has had since the they stopped Armageddon. And then Metatron suggests him. And he’s so taken aback because he never expected to be a backbencher in Heaven again, let alone third-in-command. So when he says he doesn’t want to go back to Heaven, it’s because he never expected to be invited. But he still holds the commandments of Heaven in high regard, and let’s be honest, we all have something that we do because an authority figure said so when you were a kid that you still hold onto. So he is still tied to Heaven, like a human priest.

All things considered, however, he could never have imagined to have been handed Supreme Archangel. By God’s second in command no less. He’s so unsure of the choice until Metatron mentions Crowley.

His Achilles Heel.

When Metatron suggests Aziraphale could have Crowley by his side - someone he KNOWS believes and trusts in him, someone that has been a comfort for the last 6000, and could be there to comfort him into unknown territory - everything makes sense. And the one person he loves the most could be as happy as he was before the beginning, a happiness that he possibly helped to end? How can he resist?

Aziraphale knows all he wants to do is restore tranquility in Heaven in the most peaceful way possible, no corruption, no funny business with Hell. He has just had the most incredible, tight-knit, romantic four years of his existence with the being who adores him most. What is there to loose?

Everything, actually.

When he faces Crowley and Crowley says “tell me you said no”, it isn’t a betrayal to Aziraphale. It’s the one person he though trusted, respected and supported him the most shattering his confidence in a heartbeat. He feels he lost Crowley.

Then the situation gets out of control and he struggles to pick up the pieces throughout their argument because he was prepared for it to go pear shaped. Their romantic confession and first kiss (?) with Crowley ended up being fuelled by pain and heartbreak when he had been imagining it for at least the last 80 years as something out of a Jane Austen novel.

When Metatron returns, we see Aziraphale try to make a last ditch effort to get out of the situation all together - saying he can’t leave the bookshop. But Metatron, whatever game he is playing, obviously has a plan. He tries to interrupt and stop himself but the pain that Crowley doesn’t believe in him stops him from being able to rationalise their arguement. And right in front of him is The Metatron, capital T, capital M, saying that he is worthy.

Alexa, play You’re Loosing Me by Taylor Swift.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow

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italoniponic · 2 years

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Fairy Hands | Jack Howl

Synopsis: After the ending of the day’s rehearsal for the Fairy Gala, Jack was already feeling his feet screaming for help but, as always, he wouldn’t say a thing and try to endure the pain the best he could to not worry you. But you noticed it… and you had an idea.

Jack Howl x gender neutral reader / fluff / hurt and comfort / establish relationship / use of “you” pronouns / slightly self-indulgent bc it’s my birthday~

Word count: 3,4k / Warning: This is not meant to be k*nky. If you think so, I’ll bonk you in the head with Jack’s heels

Notes: Okay so, this idea was born after the reveal of the full Fairy Gala2 sprites and I loved Jack’s outfit until I saw the rest of it… the top parts? Good, decent, very Jack-ish. The pants? The heels? Atrocious but that’s just my opinion, who cares right? So I got into this spiral of picturing the fact that Jack never wore this type of thing and as someone who wears heels sometimes, yeah the lack of practice is an enemy :) and I never asked nobody to massage my pained tired feet so, I wanted to imagine making Jack feel better. This also turned more deep in feelings matter, the good old hurt/comfort thing that I love doing with Jack. He fits so well with this trope!! I said once in another fic for him but if you don’t have ideas for Jack, first think of hurt/comfort. It’s a solid start!

And for a title-context: to say that someone has “magic hands”, means that this person is very skilled with their hands. In Brazil, we say “oh, you have ‘fairy hands’ (or hands of a fairy)”. Shoutout to @lovetals who first heard of this idea <3

And for last but not least, happy birthday to me~

Fairy Hands

Jack always had the ability and patience to endure everything.

Being the eldest of three brothers, he sometimes had to act as a “father” for the younger ones. As a tall guy, everyone asked him to pick up things that were out of reach — or too tall on the shelf. As a strong young man, he impressed students with how much weight he carried. For his newest friends, he needed to be mature and rational and know how to stop them from getting into trouble.

But even Achilles had his heel. Well, an analogy not very welcome at that time, was what you thought.

You still hadn’t quite understood what the fairies wanted with the school — always the NRC, always — and the weather was so chaotic outside that you didn’t even know how to get from place to place without getting a heat shock. But seeing the boys training a fashion show for the fairies, it was obvious that long days lay ahead.

And Jack might not survive until there because of the heel they forced him to wear.

It was a silver high-heeled shoe with a somewhat simple design. Strings braided the boy’s ankles like gladiator sandals. A strong heel to support a tall, muscular figure, like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders.

But as much as Jack tried all the time to stay steady and not miss the steps or the choreography once again, you could see the suffering on the surface of his eyes.

The posture he was forced to have so as not to destabilize himself, the care at every step so as not to fall. The weight of hardships is often shaped from person to person. Some can handle almost anything, others almost nothing. Some people may face an iceberg, but they can’t face a piano.

“Come on, Jack,” Vil clapped his hands. “High heels never killed anyone.”

You checked the clock, bitterly. Luckily it was almost time to leave because another fifteen minutes and maybe that statistic would actually change.

It was painful to watch that rehearsal. Silver nearly falling asleep while walking, Ortho’s gears needing oil because of the sudden humidity, and Jack feeling like an elephant walking a tightrope. At one point, when he walked back, you needed to run to hold him so as not to fall into a false step.

Jack sighed to himself, tired. Suddenly he looked back and exclaimed. “Silver-senpai!”

The Diasomnia senior woke up just in time before crashing head-on into a mirror on the opposite side of the room. By the great seven, Silver was one point away from developing sleepwalking.

“Thank you, Jack,” he smiled back at the freshman gratefully and then yawned.

You looked at the heel of Silver’s low boots, small and humble. Why didn’t they choose something like that for Jack? He didn’t need to get taller than he already was.

But that discussion could wait. You led Jack to a bench near the wall going as comfortably slow as possible because the pain of wearing that shoe was equated with the desire to take it off. He couldn’t force himself too much. Still, Jack’s ears were attentive to everything.

Maybe it was a Big Brother Syndrome or the result of spending too much time with Ace and Deuce, but Jack paid close attention to everything and cared about his peers even when he should care more about himself. In fact, from what you could see, even in the opportunities to be selfish, he eventually would put the needs of others first.

When you needed him most to face Leona and Azul. That day, that moment, that exact second. Always. Only fair that you want to take care of Jack.

You finally got to sit on the bench. Jack almost melted there, body and mind allowing himself a single second of vulnerability — and that was all that lasted. Pulling himself together, he crossed his legs and took off his high heels.

You were then taken aback by the state of Jack’s foot up close. Taking the shoe from his hands — suppressing a protective urge to aggressively throw it far away from your beloved boyfriend — and setting it aside, you knelt on the ground to analyze that poor, exhausted foot.

“Huh... are you alright?,” Jack asked awkwardly.

You made that same expression when you analyzed strange plants in potions class — these too exotic for the world you used to live in.

But before your eyes was something not strange, but heartbreaking. And agonizing to your own feet. Marks from the high heel’s laces stood out around Jack’s ankles, leaving his skin slightly red and irritated with skin rash. No wonder it was hurting more than it should.

Because, usually, wearing high heels hurts those who aren’t used to it and gets worse when it isn’t properly shod.

“You can’t tighten the shoelace so much or your skin will get irritated like that,” you advised him, looking at his foot from all possible angles. “Looks like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

Jack ended up not asking what the hell Thanksgiving was — maybe he would do it later. At that moment, the information about your world that you sometimes let slip could make him curious another time. He took off the other shoe, frustrated. In addition to suffering an entire afternoon, the blame mainly came from him.

Not that he could know what to do! Give a vacuum cleaner to a cat and maybe the animal will do a better job — though the Ramshackle Ghosts gave a full account of how bad an idea it was.

“I was afraid that if it were too loose, I would fall,” Jack explained, and then sighed. “I'll... try again tomorrow.…”

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“No…,” you lightly touched his foot, and he stifled a groan. “…very much…”

Who was he fooling? Or rather, who did you think you were talking to? Jack Howl wouldn’t admit when he wanted to carry your groceries just to help you, obviously he wouldn't be any different with his own pain. Poor thing.

No, maybe it wasn’t the right way to look at the situation.

You knew Jack was already feeling bad about tying his shoe in the worst way possible, pitying him would only make him feel worse. And that’s not what you wanted. You were determined to do something to help. That’s why Crowley called you a Beast Tamer!

You looked around. Ace had already fled from there centuries ago, Silver was led by a talkative and animated Rook back to Diasomnia and little Ortho commented with Vil and Crewel on the fabulous mechanisms created by his older brother. They were far away enough to not listen or see about what was going on with you two.

It would be easier to convince Jack that way.

“If you want, I can do a massage,” you dropped this sentence on the air.

Because of his tiredness, Jack took a good minute to understand your words and you knew the exact moment of it because his eyes widened in size, distracting you a little because of the golden glow — maybe a little scared — of that beautiful gaze. Jack’s first words were actually small breaths of air before he spoke very quietly:

“M-massage? On my feet?”

“Why would I do it on someone else’s feet?,” you took a deep breath after retorting, not wanting to be rude beyond the limit.

“B-but... but…”

It's something couples do! Jack wanted to scream but there were still people in the room.

And in a way, there wasn’t much reason for such a scandal. You were a couple after all. But it seemed too soon. Jack was used to seeing more established couples — read: married — doing this type of thing.

How many times has he seen his mother offer his father a foot massage when he came home tired from work? Or the other way around: his father doing the same thing when his mother was exhausted and in the times when she was pregnant with each of their three children?

It was such a simple and intimate thing in a way. There was a certain degree of trust put into this action, a sense of comfort that only the person who loves you too much can offer.

Maybe it’s not something restricted to couples only, but it’s the only thing Jack could think of.

He wouldn’t go so far as to massage Leona’s feet and even for Ruggie — another veteran he greatly admired — the most he would do was to look after exfoliating soaps and other things that should manage to help foot stay soft and healthy. And how about you? Jack held his own face, trying to control himself.

He needed focus.

“I promise not to make it weird,” you said suddenly, drawing his attention. Your hands were raised in a sign of promise. “And if you get bothered, just say so. I let go of your foot faster than a hot potato.”

You both looked at his feet at the same time and you regretted making that comparison.

“O-okay... just a little,” Jack said and you nodded happily.

You tried to get up from there as calmly as possible, but you were so glad that you managed to convince your stubborn boyfriend to get help — and it was so obvious. You darted around the room in search of a towel, some cream, and Jack’s normal uniform to already have it on hand.

He watched you in the distance, moving his foot in small circles despite the difficulty. He thought it would alleviate the pain but he could hear something cracking along the way.

Maybe that was one of the reasons he never saw Mrs. Howl wear high-heels at all, just sneakers. She was already tall enough compared to other women and didn’t need to overtake her husband’s already tower height. And those shoes can be awful when they want to be.

“Where is the Prefect going this time?,” Vil asked as he approached.

“Ah…,” Jack swallowed hard, not knowing if he should answer or lie. Damn, were his ears down? They certainly were. Why wasn’t the day over yet?

“Lock the door when you get out, okay? Whatever you're gonna do. Practice, in fact, makes perfection.”

Jack smacked himself on the forehead for misinterpreting that for a brief second — rehearsal practice! — but Vil didn’t seem to notice. He gave the keys to the room and said goodbye to his friend, rubbing his own arms a little as he opened the door and received some cold air. The temperature was still chaotic.

Finally you two were alone. You suddenly appeared with a bunch of things in your arms and after organizing everything, you sat down and used your knee as a temporary support to put Jack’s foot. You looked like a shoe store clerk or someone about to propose.

What was more embarrassing to imagine?

“You ready?,” you asked and Jack sighed a “yes”.

He closed his eyes, tense and bracing himself mentally for whatever reaction he would have — you swallowed a comment about you just massaging him, not squeezing a pimple. But after the first touch, Jack gradually relaxed.

You first passed a cream with a light touch of coconut scent. Because of the strange room temperature, the cream felt warm, and you wrapped his foot with all care, massaging it up and down. You could feel all of Jack’s tension, his body felt harder than a rock.

He was exhausted. A little regretful but still certain that he would do his best to help with the mission. Squeezing that restless foot, you wondered if people didn’t expect too much from him sometimes. They asked too much too often.

You just wanted Jack to relax from time to time. When all this fuss gets over, you’re sure to do something fun and quiet together! You would make it happen!

“Hey!,” Jack's exclamation scared you for a second.

It wasn’t for nothing, you just squeezed the middle of his foot a little too tight.

“Sorry! I got carried away for a moment,” you said, pushing your hands away quickly.

“Alright, just... pay more attention, okay?”

Jack refused to look directly at you, but all he did was swap his left foot for his right. That made you a little more cheerful. It was a small token of his confidence, no big deal — but it meant everything to you.

The process from before was repeated and you tried to be as attentive as possible this time. The dance hall was in complete silence. There was only some kind of a paced movement of something hitting in the air. For a minute, you were distracted by Jack’s flapping tail, but with a clearing of his throat, you turned your gaze back to what you were doing.

He didn’t want to say that his feet were hurting more than usual. Running and exercising always produced a tired body, but as time went on, Jack got used to the pain and made it a mere unfortunate nuisance that was easy to pull to the back of his mind.

That foot pain, though? As a child, Jack and Vil once found a book of morbid tales and one of them was of a lady who wore beautiful bright red iron shoes and danced to her death — or something, he erased that memory over the years to get close to red sneakers again.

But it was how he was feeling at the time.

Jack wanted to simply put the blame entirely and solely on his lack of ability to wear those shoes, but it was much more than that — although that was still one of the reasons. He was frustrated with a lot of things.

They had an important mission, Leona and the whole school were counting on them to resolve the situation. Part of Jack shared Ace’s complaints about the fairies making such a mess unnecessarily, though he didn’t verbalize any of it. He wanted to make everything work out and be able to fulfill the goal.

But Jack didn’t intend to do anything like this again.

Truth be told, there was no way anyone could be good at everything. He was doing his best, but would it be enough? Could he meet the expectations of others? Even if he wasn’t made for that kind of thing? At least, he didn’t have to worry about what you thought.

This was obvious from the way you so patiently held and massaged his foot as if it were a piece of expensive tapestry that you were carefully folding and smoothing, pulling out all imperfections, relieving stress from the fabric. Jack only knew this because it was the way his mother advised him to keep a good bed with comfortable sheets.

Staring at you from that high point, the uncomfortable feeling of standing still doing nothing and the comfort of receiving a lovely care act were fighting like angry wolves in his heart, wrapped in the silvery glow of the Moon and the thin blouse he wore.

Jack wondered how you were able to do things like that with him.

Your touch was gentle and pleasant, charged with a sweetness you didn’t share with anyone else. At least not the way he received it. If you gave sugar to your friends, Jack received the most tightly sealed and expensive honey, with a spoon chosen especially for him. Did you really love him that much?

Did you find him enough, even though he was still incomplete and immature at times? In what you circled his heel, what were your thoughts? Jack could only watch you and torture himself with the doubts he didn’t have the courage to express.

Slowly, he ended up distracting himself bit by bit from the pain. It was still there, but your presence alone took that alert away from his nerves. Jack knew he would walk again the next day thanks to you and he felt extremely grateful. He would find a way to compensate you later for all that.

As you were finishing massaging him, you noticed Jack start to pull the flowers out of his hair, the two bracelets and the necklace he had around his neck. It made you smile.

“Are you feeling better?”

“A little,” Jack answered when he pulled the last plant out of his hair, the largest with white “petals”. It was too stiff to be an actual flower in all honesty. “I think I can already walk to my dorm, at least.”

“Oh, okay. Just when I was getting it right…,” you sighed. “Can we do this more often? I m-mean, I don't want you to bruise your feet for anything! Of course not! But...!”

“Yes.”

It took you a moment to absorb that response.

“Are you serious?!,” your voice ended up sounding loud in the empty room.

“Not all the time but, I think, yeah, it's okay.”

Jack looked away from you to the echeveria elegans — the “Mexican snowball”, a succulent — in one of his hands, the free one going automatically behind the back of his neck. He just hoped you were excited and distracted enough not to notice how flustered he was.

“Yay!,” you ended up putting your hands on your cheeks. “Um. “

There was a solid minute of silence. Jack stared at you as you took a little sniff, smelling sweat and cream mingle on your face and reaching your sense of smell. A strange feeling, to say the least.

“I… I really shouldn't have done that.”

Jack couldn’t stand it and laughed a little.

“Finally a normal reaction.”

“H-how dare you! I have normal reactions!”

“No, you don’t. You? Where? When?,” he gave another light laugh and you saw his smile increase, to the point that you could see his extremely white fangs glowing.

If Jack knew how much that smile played with your heart, he would also be as embarrassed as you were. But you wouldn’t say anything. Not when Jack smiled at you like that, making the Sun marvel at the golden glow of his gaze and the Moon envy him for his silvery, gentle light.

Jack didn’t need to be a flower to be admired. He had his own kind of beauty, something that you would nurture to stay in your memory until the very end of your days.

Because you got distracted for that brief moment, Jack ended up leaving the echeveria on top of your hair. While he picked up his normal shoes, you touched the little white succulent and held it carefully in front of you.

“I think that ends today then,” you suddenly commented.

“Thank goodness,” Jack tapped his foot one last time to adjust his shoe, and then quickly turned to you, a little desperate. “I'm not talking about this moment! It’s this day in general! That... that whole thing! Not you!”

“I know, don't worry. It's just, I'm gonna have to go back to Ramshackle, you go back to Savanaclaw, and... it's always lonely coming back.”

“I will accompany you there.”

“No, that's not it. In fact, you don't even have to do it today! I don't want to abuse you just because your feet got better.”

Jack gave you a small smile and stroked the top of your head, putting a little pressure — light, gentle — on you to bend down a little and not see how much he looked at you sweetly. If he had the courage and the necessary romantic streak, he would have picked up one of his hair-flowers and proposed to you right there. It was how much he loved you from the bottom of his heart.

“You don't have to worry about that. I’ve already promised that if I need it, I’ll call you again. Thanks for the, um, massage,” he gulped but just for a second. “You have fairy hands.”

At this, Jack relieved the grip on his hand and as he walked, it passed over your head in a stroke so fine as to be elegant. You stared at his back as he continued, resistant.

It was time for your heart to beat again and Jack to call your name for you to go out together — or he would leave you alone there, it was your second choice. You laughed and as you followed him, you closed the door. Feelings forever in bloom.

Special Notes: Ik it’s explained already about the “Mexican snowball” flower/succulent but I want to make a disclaimer that this is the most similar plant I found to name the one Jack is wearing in his card, so I’m not 100% sure about it but it serves the purposes of this story. Another curious fact is that, in portuguese, this plant is called “stone rose”.

#twisted wonderland #jack howl #jack howl x reader #twst x reader #gender neutral reader #twst scenarios #twst imagines #twst fanfic #fluff #hurt and comfort #cherry's writing #cherry's mumbling about twst

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smallraindrops-blog · 2 years

Note

Okay this is probably gonna be an incredibly angsty thought but how would you think Achilles and Patroclus would’ve reacted if Y/N was the one who took Achilles’s armor and fought in his place instead of Patroclus…

Broken Spear

Word count: 1.6

Warnings: Reader’s death, grief, war, death, ANON BREAKING MY HEART, no beta, no comfort, DEAD DOVE

Notes:

……

Well, I hope you are happy anon.

I can't say my usual ‘enjoy!’ Because all there is suffering. *cries* gonna post some fluff later.

Please heed the warnings.

(Childhood)

You kicked a small pebble, then took another step forward so you could kick it again. When it landed on the side, it had cracked a little and you saw sparkles in the center. You picked it up with a frown. It didn’t look like any gemstones that you have seen on the adults but it was still very pretty.

“Lad. Come here.” Achilles ordered. You looked up and saw the smile he had on his face, his hair bright in the sunlight.

“Okay, Father.” You said, picking up the pebble. You tucked in your pouch as you walked over to him. You planned on showing Patroclus the rock later when he returned from the markets.

You paused when you saw the spear in his hand and pointed at it. “Pa said that is a ‘do not touch’ thing.”

Achilles blinked down at you then he laughed. “For you, not for me. Do you want to see something?”

You glanced at the spear tip, the metal gleaming and sharp. It wasn’t the first time you stared at it, even when you knew your parents weren’t looking, you would brush a finger against the cool metal.

“Yeah.” You said quietly with a grin. Achilles smirked, and took some steps back. He pointed toward a target, a beaten up tree on the opposite side of the courtyard. Marked with holes and slashes, it was a miracle it was still alive. There was a red painted dot in the center

“Watch this.” Achilles said and lifted the spear up easily. You gasped at the sight, your eyes going wide. He looked just like those heroes in the stories, bright and golden and strong.

Achilles pulled the spear back then without a moment of hesitation, he threw it. The spear flew into the air, the metal glinting in sunlight as it curved then it hit the tree with a loud crack. It remained in the bark, right in the center of the dot. You ran over to it to be sure and even tried to yank it out but it stayed stuck.

“You did it!” You told him delighted, getting another laugh out of him as he joined you. He batted your hands away, “Remember what your pa said.” And effortlessly yanked it out.

You gasped.

You wanted to do that, to be that strong. To be like your father.

You wrapped your arms around his leg, staring up at him. You got a surprise glance from Achilles.

“Teach me!” You demanded, “I want to do that.”

“Ah, lad. Your pa wouldn’t be very happy with me.” Achilles said carefully. You frowned, “We've been doing my training forever now.”

It had actually only been months since you started but to your young mind, that was close enough. Achilles placed a hand on his hip, his face thoughtful and you tried to make your face sad as you could.

Achilles sighed loudly and you grinned.

“Tell you what. Go get your wooden spear for us practice throwing and maybe, just maybe I will let you try mine.” He said but you took off before he finished talking.

“And don’t tell your pa!” He called out.

(Final year of the Trojan war.)

“The wall!” A warrior screamed in the distance, “They are getting over the goddamn wall!”

You swore as you ran, your spear in your hand. You could see the trails of the smoke from the burning ships. Ajax was dead, that you were sure of and more and more the warriors were falling as the walls weakened under the Trojan’s attack.

You should be out there fighting alongside them but it wasn't you they needed, it was your father and he was still refusing. Even with Patroclus, breathless and desperate, begging him to.

You could still hear the pained sob Patroclus gave as he realized that Achilles wouldn’t help.

Damn your Father. Damn him.

You pushed into their tent, ready to personally drag your father out and make him fight. You panted for air as your eyes swept the tent, only to realize that it was empty. You snarled, teeth bared then a gleam caught your eye.

You took a sharp breath, staring at the golden helmet. Next to the helmet was the rest of the armor. Bright and golden. Your father’s spear, the same one he trained you with, rested next to it.

It was like it was calling to you.

For a moment, you weren’t a man in a mist of chaos and death. You were a young boy, with his father’s smiling face next to his as he showed you how to aim with his hands on your elbow and shoulders.

You swallowed as you picked up his helmet, an horrible but possible plan forming in your mind.

You were Achilles' son, you spent years training under him. You learned how to become a warrior and a leader under him. You knew how he sounded on the battlefield, knew exactly how he threw his spears.

You were Achilles’ son but for now, you could be him. The vision that belonged to a young boy, the golden hero of your faded childhood memories.

You could be the man you thought he was.

(Achilles’ pov)

Patroclus still wouldn’t look at him. His dark eyes on the battlefield, trying to find a hint of their son was.

“He will return, beloved.” Achilles placed his hands on Patroclus’ shoulders and felt a pang of relief when Patroclus didn’t push him away. He watched the battle, and hated that he couldn’t find his own spear.

He had that since he was a child, he should be able to find it. Yet it eluded him just as their son did.

Achilles sighed, he trained their lad to the best of his ability and saw him fight dozens of battles. Achilles knew he would return them, and will give him the lecture of a lifetime. More for Patroclus’s sake than any true anger.

Then Patroclus will smile again and they will be okay again. They will all be safe and happy.

Achilles heard a loud gasp from Patroclus, and blinked. He saw the same thing, people fighting for a body. A leader or prince must have fallen and Achilles shook his head in pity. He gave Patroclus’ shoulders a squeeze, “It’s okay. It isn’t our son.”

Patroclus finally looked at him. His beautiful face twisted in fear and his dark eyes stared into Achilles'. “Promise me.”

Achilles wrapped his arms around his beloved, holding him tight.

“I promise.”

Eventually the battle subsided, the trojans had been pushed back. The sky was darkening to a gentle twilight.

Groups of warriors were coming back, and Achilles frowned when he saw Odysseus’s face. He was staring at Achilles like one would stare at a rabid beast.

Menelaus was carrying someone in his arms, a body covered by a bloody shroud. There was a lock of familiar hair that had slipped out.

They walked closer to Achilles and Patroclus. Achilles frowned, not understanding even as numbness was growing in him. He heard a broken sound from Patroclus, deep and soft as if something had wounded him from the inside.

Patroclus met them halfway, just as Menelaus put the body down on the grass. “No-nonono-“

Patroclus fell to his knees by the body but Achilles stayed where he was. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breath even as darkness closed in on him.

Patroclus’ hands shook as he pulled the shroud away.

There was a moment of silence, the colorful dusk frozen in time as the world stopped moving.

Patroclus screamed.

The sound buried itself into Achilles’ moral soul, carving itself into his very being and all he could was scream in return.

Hector.

Achilles screamed, his voice louder than of all the battlefield, marked golden by the blood of a god.

He screamed again as he caught up to Hector, and the man held up his hand. The same hand that took his son away, the same hand that had broken Patroclus.

Hector was begging even as he crawled away in the mud.

“My family-“ Hector tried but Achilles laughed, harsh and cold in the warm summer air.

“You killed my son.” Achilles snarled, pulling the spear back. “You killed my family. You killed me. I will not spare you. There are no pacts between lions and men. ”

For a moment, he felt his son’s small arms around his knee, his bright and determined eyes staring up at him and Achilles sobbed as the spear flew through the air, golden and bright, and into Hector’s neck.

Achilles dragged the body into the tent with him, even as the others called him back. Even as his bloody footsteps marked a path, only to be smeared by Hector’s limp corpse.

The sound of dragging made Patroclus’ head turn, his dark hair dirty and limp around his face. His arms still holding the body of their son, now cleaned of blood. Y/N almost looked like he was peacefully asleep. If it wasn't for how still he was.

Achilles stared at Patroclus.

Patroclus stared down at the body of Hector.

“It is done.”

The words were heavy in the air.

Patroclus closed his beautiful, dark eyes and looked away. With trembling legs, Achilles walked toward and kneeled next to them.

Achilles reached for their son with a single hand carefully and slowly as if expecting Patroclus to shove him away. But Patroclus didn’t.

Even now, Patroclus allowed him this small mercy.

Achilles sobbed at the softness of his son’s hair, running his fingers along the curves of his son’s cheek. He yanked the helmet off and pressed a kiss against his son’s forehead.

Yet his son didn’t wake. Patroclus wouldn’t look at him. Hector’s body was just as still, yet no comfort came.

Achilles weeped.

#Wake from this dreaming

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hurricanes-art · 3 years

Note

i am interested in your hades au, would you mind giving some details about it? 👁 it looks really interesting

[This AU is from these drawings!]

*cracks knuckles* Ok! I actually got enough sleep last night so I'm finally feeling up to explaining this au lmao

Also I hope that by “some details” you meant “way way too many” because I am nothing if not long winded. Also @hades-hellsite asked for context too, here you go

The central premise is that, after he dies, Achilles manages to make an arrangement with Hades that allows both him and Patroclus to stay in Elysium together. He's not employed to work at the house and he never becomes Zagreus's combat trainer.

Hades makes a few attempts to find Zagreus a different teacher among the shades of great warriors, but being skilled does not make someone able to teach. And being able to teach one way doesn't mean someone will be good for every student. When Zagreus doesn't learn well with the few mentors Hades tries, which he barely gives a chance to breathe anyway, he's quick to decide that he must have no martial ability and declares Zagreus a failure in that as he has about so many things.

This has two major effects on Zagreus before his escape attempts begin. One, without any chance to actually grow into aptitude in combat, he's left without anything substantial to put his energy into and, more importantly, he's left without anything he feels good at and that gives value to his efforts. Two is that, in Achilles' absence, very few people in the house give him any care and support untwisted by the politics of the house and the judgment of his father. There is Orpheus, kind to him before Hades locks him away for refusing to sing, Hypnos, willing to put the house to sleep so he can find the truth though jumbled up in his own problems, and Nyx.

Nyx is the only one to aid Zagreus when he decides to try to escape. She contacts Olympus and weaves careful lies to win their support and blesses his departure. She's also the only one who believes that Zagreus has the slightest chance of escaping. Already in canon, most everyone tells him there no way he'll make it out, but here, it's so much worse. He doesn't know how to fight, his initial attempts are pitiful and his progress negligible, and near everyone lashes out at him to get back in line and stop making things worse.

He doesn't even have the Infernal Arms. Achilles is the one who brings them to him in canon; here Zagreus takes a simple bronze sword from one of the house's many displays of weapons from wars long past. He thanks the Fates that the Styx restores it the same way it does his body when he dies because he nicks and dulls the edges every time.

Despite all the disadvantages, Zagreus throws himself into escaping with unshakable determination, bone deep stubbornness. He picks up his sword and will figure out how to use it himself. Experience will be his teacher. He dies over and over and he watches his enemies and learns how they move and how he must react, mimicking their attacks for his own use and adjusting and adjusting after each failure. And contrary to Hades' adamant belief, Zagreus is very intelligent and learns brilliantly when allowed to and he grows stronger and stronger.

There's no teacher more savage than experience in something like this, though. The pursuit is agonizing and the cost is enormous and adjusting to this ceaseless violence feels impossible.

Much of my interest in this idea is how the added strain on his circumstances and relationships affects Zagreus and his mental state. At his best, Zag looks a lot like he does in canon, with his laurels unfurled and vibrant, and his feet glowing hot, but he rarely feels his best here. His laurel leaves curl in dry and crisp, muted like the leaves of autumn. Flakes of ash and soot build up over his legs and encase more and more as he suffers. So deep is his feeling of failure and being trapped that it affects him physically.

Not always, though. His flames respond to his emotions, burn brighter in his passion. Enthusiasm, love, fervor, bliss, anger set him glowing.

After a brutally drawn out span of time, Zagreus meets Achilles and Patroclus in Elysium and tbh, the rest of my interest is really in how the altered circumstances change the evolution of their relationships with each other. The pair of warriors were never separated for an extended time and Achilles is less downtrodden and resigned and Patroclus is less bitter and abrasive when Zagreus stumbles upon them.

They don't fight him, which Zagreus counts among his greatest blessings, although Achilles still seems to have an interest. It makes him twitchy and he jumps when Achilles finally lifts his spear and swings it around in his third time in their little glade only to bump the flat of the blade against elbow and tell him to keep it in more towards his body. Zagreus blinks rapidly at him before adjusting his arm.

Achilles helps him here and there, tips and tricks and valuable advice, but he never gives anything near the thorough instruction he did in canon. On one hand, he doesn't need to. Zagreus is a self made fighter and it leaves him with weaknesses but it is also a powerful thing. He is unpredictable and incredibly adaptable and he only continues to improve.

On the other hand, there's no room for it. Achilles is gentle with his guidance, but Zagreus is rubbed raw by all the fighting he's done and all that still depends on it. He doesn't want to always focus on the weapon in his hands. Patroclus notices and curbs Achilles' input when it exceeds its bounds. He sits aside and observers carefully when they spar. Zagreus doesn't need another's direction which is fine by him, who's lost all desire for combat. He gives his aid through his assortment of trinkets that carry Zagreus further to the surface.

Zagreus barely knows what to do with himself in the face of their care. He's so unaccustomed to such generous and genuine support, interest devoid of expectation or blame. As familiarity between the three of them grows, their interactions grow warmer, more tender and comfortable. Their care lays on a foundation, not a hinge, and Zagreus grapples with understanding that he really can lean on it. It all leaves him so uncertain yet so desperate because he wants more than anything to have joy and conversation and company with others where he doesn't shoulder heavy guilt from unspoken accusations over his escaping the house and to have a place he feels he belongs without being an intrusion.

He does at first believe he's intruding, though. Intruding on their time together in the peace of Elysium. It takes them time to convince him that they value his presence immeasurably. The opportunity to stay together in the Underworld has been invaluable for Achilles and Patroclus, but the peace of Elysium is a deceptive thing. It wears away and prickles at them, pressing down in odd warping ways. Patroclus is beyond pleased to have the war behind him and that it can never force him to fight again, and despite Achilles retaining an interest in competition and combat, he does feel the same way. Having a cause though, something to believe in and worth devoting their efforts towards... They didn't realize how deeply they missed it until Zagreus. It is revitalizing. They thrive in his genuine, boundless kindness and long to support him.

The drawings of Orpheus arguing with Hades and Zagreus fighting with Nyx is from one of my plot point ideas. Later down the line, together, Hades, Persephone, and Nyx agree to forbid Zagreus from seeing Achilles and Patroclus at Nyx's behest. Similarly to how she talks about Dusa in canon, she sees mortal shades as beneath his station and that it's highly unbecoming for the prince to be consorting with them. Zagreus fights against the idea ferociously and is only smothered by the threat that, if he seeks them out anyway, Hades will void Achilles' agreement and have Patroclus moved to the proper plane of the Underworld.

It crushes Zagreus. He loves them and cares about them so much and being torn apart from them is a wound that cuts so deep. But even more than that, what breaks him open most, is the fact that it came from someone he cared for and trusted most. Nyx was the one person in the House he could depend on most and this betrayal at her hand is devastating. And for such a worthless reason as propriety and godly vanity. It's not her place to force those upon him. It hurts Zagreus to the core.

Orpheus is the only one willing to stick up for him in this, deeply empathetic to the grief of being separated from loved ones and well acquainted with the fact that such punishments will only damage, never correct. After all, his stint of punishment in Erebus didn't revive his desire to sing, it was Zagreus's dedication and vibrancy that did that. One of the many invaluable gifts Zagreus gave him, including reuniting him with Eurydice, making him happier than he'd been since her death. Orpheus can't keep biting his tongue when all these gods refuse to see any of this.

It all comes to a head dramatically and painfully and I've thought of a few variations on how it would play out. I'll leave it for now though, I might draw it or write it later >:3c Also this got really long lol. Hopefully the idea is at least somewhat interesting!

And here, have the lines from these two drawings because I like the way they look

#hades game #hades supergiant #zagreus #achilles #patroclus #nyx #orpheus #god of ash au #which is a tag i might not use again lol #my art #my writing #i guess #this is so long please forgive me #i had one thought of achilles not working at the house and it drove me to madness #apparently

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ray-ray-writings · 3 years

Text

Visiting Hemlock-Dream

This is a Dream x gn!reader in the dreamsmp! Small thing, hemlock is another type of poison. It is actually the poison that the Greek philosopher Socrates was forced to consume after he was found guilty in his trail.

Masterlist here

This is a part two to Sweet as Cyanide (here), so if you haven’t read that yet you can check it out . Don’t worry. I’ll wait…..

All good? Okay here we go!

Y/N is finally able to visit Dream in prison.

Y/N’s POV

“Are you sure about this? You know no one would blame you if you never wanted to see him again,” Niki questioned, a soft hand resting on my shoulder. I had to force myself not to roll my eyes and scoff. Instead, I settled for a fake shy smile and a small head nod, “I know Nik. But I really want to see him. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help it,” I explained, hoping desperately she would leave it at that. Niki gave me a pitiful smile as she nodded, giving my arm a tight squeeze. “I know what you mean… I’ll be right here when you get out,” She assured, wrapping her arms around me in a quick hug before taking a few steps back. “Thanks Niki. I’ll see you in a bit,” I claimed softly before turning toward the prison. I took a deep breath before making my way to the entrance.

I let out a deep breath as I reached up and pressed the button, letting Sam know I was there. A noise sounded letting me know I could enter and pass through the grid. I was greeted by Sam at his desk. “Hey Y/N” Sam greeted me, holding a stack of papers. “Hey Sam,” I greeted back, my eyes scanning around the place. “This looks really nice,” I complimented the warden on his build. “Thank you!” He beamed, handing the papers he held to me. “These are just waiver you need to sign. They basically say that you release the prison from all responsibility if you get hurt and that that responsibility falls on the prisoner you are visiting.” He explained, handing me a pen. I hummed and quickly scanned the documents before signing them.

Sam quickly took them and tucked them away in his desk before standing up and moving out from behind the desk. “Alright. We’re good to move on.” I followed him out of the room and into a room full of chests. “Please put all your things in this chest here,” He asked, motioning to a chest near the door. I gave him a nod before quickly emptying my inventory. Once I was done, I turned and proved to Sam that there was nothing left on my person. Sam gave me a smile and a nod before we moved on once more.

My excitement grew as we walked down the path I had only been down once before. My hands seemed to shake at the sight of the lava wall that hid my boyfriend from my view. “Hey, if you’re too nervous to do this, you can turn back around. You don’t have to see him,” Sam comforted, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. He was taking my excitement as nerves… good. I took a deep breath and gave him a shy smile, “I’m okay Sam, really. I want to see him,” I assured the tall man. “Okay… Do you want me to stay here with you or go back to the cams?” Sam questioned, still unsure if he should leave me alone with ‘the monster’. “You can go watch on the cams. I’ll be fine, even if something were to happen you could be back here in a flash,” I claimed with a small smile.

Sam gave me a small nod, “Alright, here you go.” Sam reached over to the wall and pressed the button that controlled the lava. Slowly, the lava stopped falling, revealing my love. I felt my breath catch in my throat at the sight of the blonde boy that had my whole heart. The iron bars fell allowing me free access to Dream. Sam gave me a pat on the back before he disappeared out the door.

I wasted no more time and ran to Dream. A smile, a real smile, formed on his face as I raced toward him. Our bodies crashed together with the swift motion, my arms wrapping around his neck, his around my waist. I squeezed him tightly as I buried my face in his neck. I couldn’t help the tears that fell from my eyes and onto his skin. “I missed you so much bub,” I cried into his neck. “Shhh, love,” he murmured, rubbing one hand up and down my back, holding me close.

“I missed you too. I’ve been so lonely here. I’ve missed your sweet words, your gorgeous face. I miss waking up next to you every morning. I love you so much,” he muttered into my ear, pressing a kiss to my temple. His words shocked me a bit. Yes, I love Dream and he loves me, but he almost never acted like this. “I’ve missed everything about you. I miss your kisses and cuddles. I miss the way you’d threaten everyone for even looking at me in the wrong way. I’ve missed going to sleep next to you, cuddling and waking up the same way. I love you so much too,” I muttered back.

Dream pulled away slightly, just enough to face me before crashing his lips into mine. My eyes fluttered closed as I completely melted into the kiss and into my boyfriend. I missed my love so much. I missed feeling his lips on mine. His gentle touches, his sweet smiles, his manipulation of everyone around us. He’s mine and I am his, no matter what and no matter where.

Dream was the one to pull away from our kiss. “God I’ve missed that,” He announced, grinning from ear to ear. I couldn’t help but giggle and return the grin, “I’ve missed that too.” Dream slowly unwrapped himself from me, but quickly reached out and took my hand. He walked me over to his bed. He let go of my hand before sitting down on his bed, resting his back against the wall. I raised my eyebrow at his actions but he simply patted his lap telling me to sit down. I giggled and rolled my eyes at the action, but obeyed. I quickly moved my legs so that there was one on either side of his thighs and I sat on his lap. Once again, my arms moved to wrap around his neck and his came to wrap around my voice.

“So,” Dream began once we got settled, “How’s it going out in the free world?” Dream asked, teasingly. I could tell that he was both asking about the server, but was also making a joke about the fact everyone thought that I was now ‘free’ from his control. “It’s all fine, I guess. You were right. Everyone began coddling me the second that prison door slammed behind me. I’ve been staying with Niki because they think going back to our house is too painful for me,” I informed Dream, who simply scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“The more important thing though,” I started, lowering my voice a lot as to not have it picked up by the cameras, “I can’t get a hold of Technoblade. No one has seen him, or at least not that they’re telling me. I went to his house and he wasn’t there, I went to Phil’s house and he said he hadn't seen him. But I’ll keep looking. I’m going to get you out of here.” I promised my boyfriend quietly. Dream’s brow furrowed, “That’s really odd. Especially since Philza hasn’t seen him… He must remember he owes me that favorite. But you have my full trust, love. I know you’ll make me proud.”

My heart swelled at his words. It was so comforting to hear that. Even though weeks ago, he promised me it wasn’t my fault he was here, I could help but still feel guilty about it. Especially because I had to pretend that I was happy he was gone. I didn’t respond with words, instead leaning forward and pressing my face into the side of his neck and pressing a small kiss there. “I love you.” “I love you too.”

The rest of the time we spent together was in that position. I told him about all the new structures that were being built around the server. I told him about how everyone was working together but there was definitely still some tension. Dream didn’t seem surprised at that at all. Dream told me about his days at the prison. He had a small clock gifted to his by Sam. He admitted to me that he would sometimes throw his clock out of his cell into the lava so Sam would come in and bring him a new one, allowing Dream to have some form of human contact. He got three meals a day, but he claimed none have ever been good as my cooking, that made me blush. Dream spent most of his day thinking about me and the things he would be doing if he wasn’t locked up. He kept a little journal in order to keep himself sane.

In a much quieter tone, Dream also told me of the little things he’s noticed about the prison. How the lava always takes a few seconds before it begins its descent. Dream told me he knew that the redstone sometimes would misfire and Sam would have to take the time to fix it. Sometimes it only took a few minutes but there were also times he’d be gone for many hours. Dream also spoke of where he thinks the elder guardian that causes mining fatigue was being held. I listened very carefully to what he was telling me. Sam is an excellent builder, even better engineer, but nobody was perfect and it sounds like to me that Dream was slowly but surely finding Pandora’s Achilles heel.

It felt so good to be in Dream’s arms again though, even in this circumstance. In the many years we’ve been dating, I’ve never been away from Dream for that long before and it was really hard. Which explains why I was so excited for this visit… But alas, all good things must come to an end.

“Times up Y/N…” Sam called softly from the platform behind us. I looked over my shoulder and gave the man a nod in acknowledgement. I turned back to Dream, leaned forward and pressed a swift kiss to his lips. “Goodbye my love,” I whispered to the blonde man, tears threatening to fall again from my eyes. A smile appeared on his lips, “Goodbye love,” He returned at the same level. I slowly got off of my boyfriend and walked away from Dream. Once I was out of the cell, I turned back around to face Dream, who had also stood up from his bed “I’ll be back soon,” I promised the blonde boy who remained in his cell. A small chuckle left his lips as the iron bars enclosed him once more, “I’ll be here.”

With that, I took a few more steps back to stand next to Sam. I gave my boyfriend a small wave as Sam pressed the button to make the lava begin pouring from the ceiling. I could see Dream's sad smile as he waved back at me and then he was gone.

“You okay?” Sam asked gently, a hand resting on my shoulder. “Yeah,” I sniffed, reaching up and wiping at my eyes, “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Thank you for letting me see him,” I thanked, changing the topic. Sam gave me a soft look as he nodded, “Of course. You’re always welcome to come back. I can even show you around to other rooms if you ever want.” I nodded at his words. “That sounds really cool. I’d love to see them. I’d love to see this whole place,” I told him as cooly as I could. The one thing I could not do right now was raise suspicion. “When we get back to the front desk we can set a time and date!” He offered cheerfully. Once again I nodded, this time a bright smile beaming across my face. “I’d like that.

I couldn’t help but mentally chuckle at the situation though. I don’t know why after all this time everyone still thinks I’m just so sweet and innocent. Sam offering to show me around like a father would show his child around his work place on bring your kid to work day simply confirmed that thought even more. Little does he know how hard it’s going to bite him in the butt. I’m going to get my boyfriend out of this Pandora’s Vault…. If it’s the last thing I do.

There you go! I hope you enjoyed! If so, be sure to leave a like! Maybe even reply or a reblog?

#mcyt #mcyt imagine #mcyt one shot #mcyt x reader #dream #dreamwastaken #dream imagine #dream one shot #dreamwastaken imagine #dream x reader #dreamsmp #dream smp #dreamsmp imagine #dream smp imagine #ray writings #ray ray writings #ray-ray-writings #visiting hemlock #requested

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andromedasstarship · 3 years

Text

in the stars - chapter 3

photo credit - unknown

pairing - aaron hotchner x reader

warnings - canon-typical criminal minds violence, stalking, depictions of murder/violence, angst, verbal fighting, drinking, unhealthy coping mechanisms, smoking (cigarettes)

summary - “If you’re upset over how I ended our relationship, that is completely separate from the dealings of the case and I expect you to be able to conduct yourself appropriately.” Aaron said and you thought this was what ‘seeing red’ meant

a/n - hi besties! im so sorry this update took so long! i really wanted to make it perfect and was struggling with putting this together. to make it up this chapter is a whopping 5.9k words so uh enjoy lol!

masterlist // series masterlist // read it on ao3

chapter 2 // chapter 4

-----

You had to physically stop yourself- gripping the desk chair beside you so hard your knuckles turned white- from following Aaron out the office door and demanding he make sense of the whole good cop- ha!- bad cop show he’d been putting on since the two of you had been horribly reunited outside of the police station.

This had been the second instance of him implying or accusing you of somehow worsening the case. And he hadn’t even been in LA for over 24hrs. It wasn’t fair, you thought, angrily grumbling to yourself about all the different ways you’d love to give him a piece of your mind. If he’d been a regular man, that you’d never met before, you probably wouldn’t consider his current behavior to be so- out of pocket? disgraceful? insulting?- offensive. You knew he had a reputation for being...,a hardass on the job, but that didn’t mean he had to go overboard in his treatment towards you. Maybe he wasn’t going overboard, maybe this was just how he treated every- you weren’t sure exactly how to define yourself in the case- witness? Maybe this is just what his team expected in terms of his behavior towards people he didn’t know.

But he did know you, he knew you quite well. He knew you well enough to know you’d never purposely attempt to slow the case down. Even without his fancy profiler skills, you were certain Aaron Hotchner knew every little thing about you. Or at least he used to.

And while Aaron may know everything there was to know about you, you were beginning to doubt if you actually knew anything about him. As expected, over the past two months the case had been taking an extreme toll on you; constantly looking over your shoulder and worrying that someone was lurking behind every corner. What made it worse, was that it was yet another situation that required you to keep a secret. You ‘had’ the officers at the station and your agent, but besides them you were dealing with this completely on your own. Making the situation about yourself felt wrong, but you couldn’t even begin to explain how hurt you felt at Aaron's accusations that you were somehow more part of the problem than you were a victim. Yes, you hadn’t gone up to him and explicitly told him how badly you were hurting, but it’s not like it took a genius- or a profiler- to reach that conclusion themselves.

It hurt, to have someone whose validation you had once- still did- crave so much, suddenly act as if you were a ‘bad guy’. Maybe you were being dramatic, you thought. Maybe you were overreacting and reading far too deep into such short interactions. On the other hand, you reasoned that it was perfectly acceptable to have feelings. Before you could delve deeper into that mental tirade, a sharp knock on the doorframe grabbed your attention. Looking up, you saw JJ leaning halfway into the room.

“Sorry,” you said, awkwardly letting go of the chair, “I uh, got caught up with uh, just you know, thoughts about the case!” Smooth. You tried to put a cheery tone in your voice. You tried to subtly study her reaction as you walked over to her and it was clear she wasn’t exactly buying into your sudden happy attitude. She didn’t press you though, something you were grateful for. Instead she just moved out of the doorframe, letting you join her in the hallway.

“The rest of the team has split up already, would you like to start in the basement?” JJ asked. You had only spoken to her a couple times, briefly at that, but you already found great comfort in her presence; you could see why she held the position, her ability to comfort and connect with others was unbeatable. Definitely need to send JJ a case of wine as a gift.

You nodded dumbly, joining her in the hallway and taking her down towards your basement. Internally, you guessed the little ‘tour’ would only take an hour tops, considering all the little spiels you’d have to give about each room.

You felt a bit like when you went through airport security or when a police car was on a road you were driving on. That sinking feeling that somehow you were going to get in trouble even though you knew you didn’t have anything to hide. Damn Aaron. His apparent lowly opinion of you was definitely messing with your head. Oh well.

As you lead JJ towards the basement, you could vaguely hear the other agents throughout the house. A door opening here or the sound of papers rustling over there. You hadn’t exactly asked how they would be able to tell if something was missing or out of place. But honestly? You didn’t really care what the team did in your house, as long as they figured out how the unsub had gotten in there.

You’d already come to terms with the fact that the unsub had managed to steal your clothes and jewelry, but you just couldn’t shake the fact that he had gotten into your house. Part of you secretly wished he had pick-pocketed you on a busy street or was stealing stuff off a film set instead. It would’ve been equally as bad and creepy and horrifying, but it would’ve been worth still feeling safe in your own house.

Smacking the lightswitch on the wall behind you, the entire basement became illuminated. “So,” you started, really drawing out the word, “this is the basement. It’s technically one big open floor, but well,” you gestured lazily with your hand, “you can see it’s kinda still split up. There’s a movie room behind those doors right there.”

JJ stepped ahead of you, walking towards the high windows in the basement. You watched as she ran her fingers along the window edges, carefully going over each one. “Do these open?” She asked, turning back to look at you.

You quickly shook your head. “They’re mostly just for, like, decoration purposes.” You responded, giving a slight shrug. “I um, I’m not down here much unless I’m having people over. And those stairs we came down are the only way to get in here.” You added, thinking that’d probably be helpful.

JJ gave you that nice smile again and started towards the movie room. “I’m just gonna look in here real quick and then we can go back upstairs, okay?”

You stood awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs, rolling back and forth from your heels to your tippy toes, awkwardly playing with your hands in front of yourself. You knew her movie room scan wouldn’t take wrong, there were zero windows in there and no other point of entry besides the door she had walked through.

Just as you expected, JJ came back out no longer than five minutes later. Once she got closer to you, you turned slowly on your heel and started back up the stairs. “We can start upstairs and then meet the rest of your team on the main level?” You offered.

“Lead the way.”

“There’s um, two ways to get upstairs. There’s that main staircase you saw in the foyer and also there’s a ‘servants stair’ in the back,” you said, making air quotes with your fingers at the ‘servants stair’ part, “I have people that work in the house sometimes, but it’s not an actual designated staircase for anyone.” You explained, unsure of why you were feeling so anxious.

“Why don’t we go up using the second set of stairs? Since I’ve already seen the main set.” JJ said.

You nodded dumbly again, and walked in the direction of the back stairs. Once upstairs, you gave the same room spiel to JJ about six times. This is ‘x’ room, yep those windows can open, nope no one regularly comes into this room, yes the balcony doors do lock from the inside.

Just as you thought earlier, the little tour took just a couple minutes under an hour. You and JJ were standing in your kitchen, both of you leaning against opposite countertops. According to JJ the whole team had agreed to meet up in your kitchen once they were done with their scans, so it seemed that you two were the first to finish. Also expected.

You were lucky you hadn’t run into Aaron the entire time. At times you could vaguely hear his voice coming from another room and all that did was pull on your heartstrings and remind you of when the two of you were together. Aside from the sadness factor, you still weren’t sure you could trust yourself to not yell at him as soon as you saw him again.

“That’s funny.” JJ said amusedly-more to herself than to you-, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“What is?” You asked. She had moved from her spot by the countertops, to standing in front of your liquor wall, staring up at a bottle you couldn’t quite recognize from your position.

“Oh, just Agent Hotchner? Out there,” she said, gesturing broadly out to where the rest of the team might be, “he loves this brand of scotch. We joke sometimes that he’d pick it over us if he was given the choice. But apparently it’s super difficult to get. He started getting lucky a few years ago and found a way to buy it, but recently I guess that luck ran out and he hasn’t been able to find it anymore.”

Your eyes went wide at that. Yes. That scotch was super difficult to get and it was ridiculously expensive. And yes, Aaron loved the stuff. The two of you used to constantly argue over money. He hated that you were always the one paying for everything and had created a ‘rule’ that you weren’t allowed to buy him any gifts. Of course, you managed to find a way around that rule and found that this specific scotch was his gift achilles heel. So, you used to send him a steady supply while also keeping a bottle at your place for the rare occasions he was over.

“Oh?” You squeaked.

“Yeah, it’s super rare or something. They only make so many batches a year don’t they?” JJ asked, turning back to look at you.

You quickly pulled your emotions in when she turned towards you, just giving her your third dumb nod of the day. “Yep, super hard to get. Super super hard. I uh, got as a gift once, I don’t even like the stuff.”

“You should tell Hotch. I bet he’d pay pretty well for it.” She said with a laugh, shaking her head. Definitely will not be doing that.

----

Upstairs, Rossi and Hotch were looking through your upstairs office. While your downstairs office was more work based- you stored scripts and had meetings down there, etc.-, your upstairs office was used for your more ‘personal’ work tasks.

“If the unsub is taking her clothes, we might have better success scoping out her closet. See the potential entry and exit points from her room that the unsub must be taking.” Rossi proposed.

Hotch nodded at that, putting down the stack of fan mail he’d been flipping through, trying to find any repeats or ‘creepy’ letters. He made a mental note to have Reid come and read through the piles of other mail you had neatly stacked around the room.

Your attention to fanmail had been one of the things that had quickened the process of him falling in love with you. He had had his doubts in the beginning of you relationship- he had stereotyped you for sure-, your age and status giving him somewhat valid concerns that you’d be insanely disconnected from the normal world. You’d proved him wrong in many ways since the beginning, but one of those ways had been the many days you’d call him from this room, reading through every single letter you were sent and always making sure to send a small note back.

“Good idea, let’s go.” Hotch said. He walked out of office and didn’t think twice, his body automatically walking towards the room a few doors down from your bedroom. You didn’t keep your closet in your bedroom, you had actually put a little couch and sitting room in your bedroom closet space. Instead you’d taken an entire guest room and converted it into a full dressing room/closet that was a better fit for your needs.

As Hotch went straight into the room, he missed the narrow look Rossi was giving him from the doorframe. It only took a couple minutes, but eventually Hotch looked up, cocking an eyebrow at Rossi. “Are you going to come in?” He questioned.

“You knew her closet wasn’t in her room.” Rossi noted, amusement clear in his voice.

Hotch’s face paled, before he steeled his emotions back over. “I saw the clothes while walking past earlier and made the deduction.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she Aaron?” Rossi teased, clearly finding a lot of enjoyment in this conversation.

“Dave,” Hotch groaned, running a hand over his face, “just, not now okay?” He asked, the desperation clear in his voice.

Rossi certainly didn’t have the entire story figured out, but he wasn’t dumb either, he could piece things together. As much as he’d love to keep busting Hotch over this, there was something about how gentle he had been with you in the conference room and his current clear discomfort that persuaded Rossi otherwise. Rossi grinned at Hotch and raised his hands in mock surrender.

“So, we know the unsub doesn’t have to necessarily be quiet, her room is at least what, 3-”

“Four and across the hall.” Hotch huffed out, not looking up to meet Rossi’s eyes.

“Four and across the hall away. So he doesn’t need to sneak past her if he’s coming in at night...”

----

Back in the kitchen, you turned your head at the sound of the back patio doors opening, showing Morgan and Spencer. Guess they’d be the second pair done with their house tour.

Just as you were about to open your mouth and offer the two of them something to drink, you noticed the rather grim expressions on both their faces. Upon better inspection, you saw Spencer was tightly gripping on to a dirty journal.

“What’s that?” You asked curiously, trying to get a better look at it.

“I found this uh, journal out by the edge of your property line. I think it may belong to the unsub.” Reid responded, giving you a tight lipped look.

It was terribly cliche, but you couldn’t help but gasp at that. Your eyes going wide and your mouth hanging open.

“I flipped through it, there’s nothing that clearly identifies him, but it seems like he was keeping track of your comings and goings. As well as keeping a list of the things he took from your house, we can cross check that list with-”

“Can I look at it?” You interjected, a morbid curiosity consuming your mind.

Reid gave an unsure glance at the two other agents in the room. “I think it’d be better for the rest of the team and I to look through the journal first, and make sure there’s nothing uh...upsetting in it.”

----

With the new revelations that the unsub had managed to break into your home multiple times, the team decided it would be best for at least one of them to be with you at the house at all times; during the day they would assign a plainclothes officer to discreetly sit watch. It was comical, the way they decided on the watch and then promptly assigned Aaron the first shift of the night.

You wondered why he agreed to it, knowing he could’ve easily pulled a seniority boss card and taken himself out of any and all future watch shifts as well. He probably didn’t want you to get closer with any of his agents, should you accidentally say something a bit too personal. He also probably assumed that with the late hour of the night, you’d immediately be going to bed or at least locking yourself away in your room for the rest of the night.

The team had stayed hours after their first walkthroughs of the house, the new list and notes from the unsub giving you all a better idea of what to look for. You had gone through the list of clothes and jewelry in front of the team, giving them a base description of what you assumed the unsub had meant, whether or not you had considered it missing and where you thought you’d last seen it in the house.

Unfortunately, whatever Aaron had been banking on wouldn’t be happening. You hadn’t been able to shake the sinking feeling that your house was no longer a home anymore. It was painfully cheesy, but you knew that trying to sleep would be futile. Nor did you really feel like being ‘alone’ in your room. That didn’t mean you were going to strike up a conversation with Aaron or ask him to play a board game or something, but you wouldn’t be shutting away from the rest of the night.

After the team left, you had gone upstairs and changed into a more comfortable outfit for the evening; just your trusty sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt. You were now walking back down the stairs and towards your kitchen; you grasped a lighter and your emergency cigarette pack in one hand. As you made your way into the kitchen, you could feel Aarons eyes on you from wherever he was seated in the living room. You pointedly ignored him, instead setting the pack and lighter down, freeing your hands so you could mix yourself your favorite drink.

Once your drink was prepped, you balanced all your things in your hands and made your way back through the living room and out the grand French doors that lead to your backyard. You walked over to one of your lounge chairs that overlooked the pool and had a beautiful view of the sky and bright lights of the city. You turned on one of your favorite playlists and made yourself comfy in the chair, lighting up one of the cigarettes.

With the first inhale, you felt your body relax. It was a horrible habit- you knew that-, but if there was ever a time to stress smoke, you reasoned it was probably now. Over the sound of your music, you faintly heard one of the doors open again, but you didn’t bother turning around.

“I thought you quit.” Aaron said, quite literally coming out of the shadows. Even though you didn’t turn to look at him, you could perfectly imagine him in your mind; probably leaning up against one of the legs of the cabana, arms tightly crossed and a deep scowl on his face.

“I did.” You replied plainly, blowing a steady stream of smoke out of your mouth. Using your free hand you picked your glass back off the chair side table, twirling it slowly. As you took a long sip, you could hear Aaron walk closer, not quite coming into view yet.

“Drinking and abusing substances in response to a traumatic situation is widely frowned upon.

“Thank you Surgeon General,” you said, rolling your eyes before adding, “no offense Agent, but right now, I don’t really think it matters.” You didn’t even bother attempting to argue that you were on your first drink and first smoke.

“It matters, when my team will be counting on you tomorrow. The expectation is that you’ll be a useful and legitimate resource.” Aaron said, voice tight.

“Do you really think I’m dumb enough to actually believe, that you believe that a single drink is going to render me useless?” You asked, finally turning your head so you could give him a pointed look. When he didn’t answer you rolled your eyes again, turning back away from him. “It doesn’t matter, Agent, I’m unavailable to be a resource tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, unavailable?” Aaron asked. He finally walked into view, sitting down on the chair next to you. He positioned his legs over the edge facing you, resting his elbows off his knees.

“What do you mean unavailable?” You said mockingly- the alcohol in your system and stress of the day emboldening your behavior. You paused for a moment to take another drag from your cigarette; Aaron didn’t miss the way you turned your head further from him during your exhale. “You have your job Agent, I have mine.”

“There is a dangerous free man out there with a special interest in you. He’s not only managed to break into your house but is also murdering surrogate women in place of you,” he said, voice growing louder as he went, “and you think you should go to a film set? How immature and irresponsible are-”

“Stop doing that!” You cut him off, snapping your head to face him. For a brief moment, you were taken aback by how close he’d been sitting. “Stop painting me to be some dumb self centered girl. This is the fourth time today.” You said, staring him hard in the face, neither of your breaking eye contact. He always looked so good with a beard- stop that.

“I’m trying to do my job and protect you,” he paused, eyes scanning your face, “I couldn’t handle anything happening to you.” In that moment, his voice was so painfully honest and it almost made you want to agree to do whatever dumb rules he had for you.

Almost.

Instead, you swung your legs to the side of the chair opposite to him, standing up in a quick blur of motion. “Stop doing that too!” You exclaimed, running your free hand over your face. You took a long drag from your cigarette, placing one hand on your hip. Aaron was giving you a genuinely confused look and you just wanted to wipe it off in one big swipe. “Stop doing some weird little bait and switch between acting like I’m a diva and then trying to end it with some vaguely little sweet comment.”

“You actually think I don’t care about your safety?” Aaron asked, the faintest bit of hurt in his voice. He stood up as well before continuing. “You think this isn’t a difficult case for me?”

“You do not get to do that!” You said angrily, pointing a free finger out at him. “You are not allowed to try and make yourself a victim in this story while you simultaneously make me part of the problem. How the hell can you see yourself as even remotely ‘good’ when you left the way you did?” There it was. Maybe it was immature, dragging the breakup into the argument, but the days’ tension- not to mention the months of bottled up emotions- was finally snapping inside of you.

“If you’re upset over how I ended our relationship, that is completely separate from the dealings of the case and I expect you to be able to conduct yourself appropriately.” Aaron said and you thought that this must be what ‘seeing red’ meant.

“Do you treat all your witnesses like this?” You were full on yelling now, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. “Is this your version of appropriate conduct, Agent Hotchner? You’ve proven to be nothing but incompetent! You can’t even see two inches past your own fucking face to consider this from my perspective!”

Your words had their intended effect. Aaron’s face fell for the briefs of moments before years of bottling his own emotions took back over. You had to give him some credit for keeping it, outwardly, more together than you were. “I won't fight with you over something as trivial as this. You’ll report to the station in the morning with the rest of the team.” He ordered, voice dangerously low.

“I have to work!” You exclaimed, putting heavy emphasis on each word.

“Going to work isn’t safe. Do you understand that? Your stalker is well acquainted with your schedule, you need to step away from what’s expected of you. It’s dangerous-”

“Oh my god,” you groaned, shaking your head, “are you even listening to yourself? Your job is dangerous every single day, hell you didn’t even step away when the job was dangerous specifically to you! How am I supposed to take advice you can’t even follow?” At the end of your sentence, you angrily stubbed out your cigarette in the ashtray, leaving the butt in the tray.

“This isn’t about me.” Aaron snapped, voice loudest it’d been all night. “I’m trying to keep you safe. What part of that don’t you understand?” He asked, giving you a tough look. You found yourself at a loss for words and he took your silence as an opening to continue. “I can’t stand to see you get hurt.”

“Are you finally understanding how exhausting it was to love you!” You blurted out, the words catching even you by surprise. You forcibly blinked back the tears forming your eyes. “That this, is how I felt each time you were called away on a case?”

Aaron was equally as shocked, his mouth opening in vain a few times as he searched for the proper response. “I made sure you were properly aware of the risks and demands of my job before we started our relationship.” Bad answer.

“And I never complained,” you replied, a defeated tone creeping into your voice, “not once, did I?”

“If you’re going to accuse me of hypocrisy, you should recognize it in yourself. You were equally if not more in demand than I was.”

“I thought you liked that I was so ‘in demand’!” You said, the frustration growing again. “What was it you always said? You liked not having to worry about me alone at home, waiting up for you.”

“You’re coming to the station tomorrow Y/N. Final order.” Aaron repeated, completely ignoring your last statement.

“You know what,” you said, the fight in your voice gone, “I don’t have to put up with this and your lame attempts at trying to be a good guy. I’m not having this conversation anymore.” You quickly leaned over to swipe your cigarette pack and glass of the little table.

“Are you actually going to run away from this?” He asked, almost as if he was trying to bait you back into the argument.

You scoffed loudly, staring him dead in the eyes. “You did.”

You angrily walked around him, nearly stomping the entire way to the door. As you were halfway into the house you paused for a moment, not even slightly turning your head back towards him. “Blankets are still in the same spot in the living room.” You said, slamming the door behind you as soon the sentence left your lips.

-----

The next morning, promptly at 8am, an email from your agent was sent to Aaron. It was incredibly petty and inherently personal, but to an outsider it was nothing out of the ordinary for someone of your status. Aaron was near furious, as expected, but even in his stubbornness he could see you had the high ground. Long story short, the email plainly stated vaguely threatened that if your work schedule were to become an issue for the team, you could easily send a ‘spokesperson’ from your team to deal with any and all future communications. Y/N 2, Aaron Hotchner 0.

Back at your house, you were having a lovely morning. The victory tasted sweet in your mouth as you got yourself ready for the long day. Sometime around 4:00AM Reid had switched out with Aaron and the two of you were currently in your kitchen; Reid sitting at one of your countertop stools while you stood over the stove. After being angrily informed by Aaron that you wouldn’t be required to come into the station with Reid, you decided to make a simple breakfast for the two of you. Reid had wanted to leave sooner, but he was also under orders to not leave you alone until you were safely in your own car and on your way.

You weren’t sure how he felt, but you thought you and Reid got along quite well. He was the closest in age to you and even though he didn’t really seem to understand any of the little jokes or references you made, there was still some level of mutual understanding there. It didn’t hurt that he was quite easy on the eyes as well, of course he wasn’t Aaron by any means- stop that!

Over breakfast, you spent the entire time answering Reid’s many questions about various actors and actresses he was a fan of. Lucky boy, you thought; as all the people he mentioned were quite nice even when the camera was off. What was it that people said about never meeting your hero?

He graciously offered to do all the clean up, as you had cooked, which gave you a bit of extra time to make sure you were ready to go. When you both were ready and Reid had confirmed the plainclothes officer was positioned on your street, he helped you to your car.

With one hand on the top of your car, just as you were about to sit down, you stopped and turned to Reid. “I enjoyed breakfast, would you please tell Agent Hotchner how sorry I am that my schedule’s gotten in the way?” You asked, giving him your sweetest smile. It was another petty move and Aaron was sure to see right through it; the team had amazing skills at reading people, you knew that, but you were an equally talented actress. “I’ll make sure to let you guys know when I’ll be back at home tonight.” You added, before sliding into your car. Reid closed the door gently behind you, waving from the outside of your garage as you pulled out and drove off.

-----

Case wise, the next two days were quiet. You had won the ‘going to work battle’ by a longshot and happily went about your scheduled days. Aaron hadn’t taken another watch shift since the argument, something you were grateful for. It wasn’t until the fourth day, that the case started to pick up again.

“Agent Hotchner?” A young officer stepped into the conference room, holding out a thick manila envelope. “This was just dropped off at the front desk, addressed to you.” That certainly captured the entire team’s attention; every head turning, as if off on a swivel, to face the officer.

“Who dropped it off?” Hotch demanded. ‘Who dropped it off?” He repeated, an added aggression in his voice.

“Some kid! Some kid dropped it at the front and left before anyone could get a word out!” The officer said hurriedly, raising one of his hands up in a meek surrender.

Hotch stepped up to the officer, easily snatching the envelope out of his hands. “Assure that my technical analyst has access to your entire security feed. Now.” He ordered, not giving the officer as a second glance. “Morgan, call Garcia and make sure she accesses those tapes and identifies the kid immediately.”

Hotch went back to standing in front of the long table in the middle of the room, setting the envelope down in front of him. “Gloves, I need-” A pair were placed in his outstretched hand by Reid before he could finish. “I don’t want anyone touching anything that comes out of here without gloves, understood?” He said, not looking at anyone in particular. His focus, completely drawn to the angry penmanship that spelled out his name. After quickly pulling his gloves all the way on, Hotch grabbed the envelope again, internally shoving down his emotions before ripping off the top edge in one clean pull. Nothing could have prepared him for the way the envelope was overflowing with hundreds of photos of you. He tilted the envelope and they all came falling out, covering the table in front of him. Reid mentally estimated there were over five hundred photos of you- some seemed to be cut, some looked to have writing and designs on them- and there were even a few slips of paper thrown in the mix.

“Hotch, Garcia managed to grab the plate from what the kid drove off in. She's running it-” Morgan said, his sentence running off as he took in the table full of photos. “Holy shit.” He said quietly, making his way closer to the table as well.

Hotch reached down, picking up the closest photo to him. There you were, standing on a boardwalk with your hand blocking the sun from your eyes. You looked beautiful- stop that. As Hotch further studied the photo, he picked up a second one, taking another good look. It struck Hotch and the team then, the majority of the photos were grossly intimate; as if the unsub had taken them by himself. Hotch’s stomach twisted when his eyes fell on a photo that looked like you were posing for it, throwing a big smile and peace sign up at the camera.

“Did Garcia get any hits on any scorned lovers?” Emily asked, holding up a photo of you and a man. The face and body of the man had been aggressively scratched over and cut up, but Aaron had a sinking feeling it was of him.

“Yea, I got another potential ex photo right here.” Reid said, holding up another picture. In this one you had clearly been looking up at someone, but the photo had been crudely cut up to exclude whoever it was.

Morgan held up one of the slips of papers, giving it a confused look. “You lost Aaron?” He said, reading off the paper. “What’s the reasoning for singling out Hotch rather than someone closer to her age like Reid” He questioned, not expecting anyone to answer.

“I got one of Hotch’s face scribbled over. He must’ve gotten the photo online.” Emily added, holding up a professional headshot of Hotch. “Is anyone seeing photos of the rest of us? The unsub could see all of us as interfering with his connection to Y/N.”

Hotch’s stomach was twisted in all different directions. He knew the moment of truth was coming and was internally cursing himself for not coming clean sooner. But that paled in comparison to the sickness he felt over the unsub clearly being someone who had such personal access to you. He was certain that some of these photos dates back years. The idea that whoever was doing this had been so close to you, for so long, could’ve brought him to his knees.

“Hotch…” JJ said, her voice accusatory. She looked up at him, face a mix of confusion and a hint of betrayal. She held up another photo and the entire team went quiet. This photo was clearly taken at a distance, but there you were looking lovingly up at a man who was certainly Hotch.

Hotch had one hand clenched tightly on the edge of the table, taking a deep breath before he looked up at his agents staring expectantly at him.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you all,” Hotch started, running his free hand over his face, “I met Y/N five years ago and we were together for three, until I ended things.” He was sure someone had audibly gasped at that. “I know you all may have various concerns over my proximity to the case and are valid in any anger you may feel towards me. But right now, I need to go call Y/N and make sure she’s safe.”

Hotch didn’t give anyone a chance to reply, instead whipping out his phone and near running out the door. Leaving a team of confused and shocked agents in his wake.

-----

a/n - of course, thank you all for reading. it means the world to me! also just the quickest of shoutouts to @kylorendrip and @ssahoodrathotchner who both constantly put up with my writing complaints and all the random ideas i bounce around their dms on the daily.

taglist - @mac99martin @iwaizumiee @kylorendrip @hqtchner @lieswithoutfairytales @ssahoodrathotchner @midsummernightdream @weasleylovers @evans-dejong @itsmytimetoodream @yoshigguk @28cnn @cuddlyklaus @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @yallgotkik @sunflowersandotherthings @alexrodriguez1269

no permission is given to copy or republish my writing on any other platform or account. if you see this story outside of my blog or my ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own nor claim to own criminal minds or any of the character involved in it.

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #hotchner #aaron hotchner x you #hotchner x reader #hotchner x you #hotch #aaron hotchner/you #aaron hotcher/reader #'stori writes #in the stars #aaron hotchner fanfiction

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raith-way · 3 years

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stories i would write if i had 12% more inspiration [1/?]

Fandom: Twilight Series

Main Original Character: Antonia “Toni” Swan

Side Original Characters: Alana Santos, Gabriel Lassiter, Sara Castle

Main Pairings: Toni Swan/Jasper Hale & Bella Swan/Edward Cullen

Side Pairings: Carlisle Cullen/Charlie Swan, Esme Cullen/Tanya Denali, Alice Cullen/Rosalie Hale, Emmett Cullen/Gabriel Lassiter, Jacob Black/Alana Santos, Sam Uley/Leah Clearwater, Paul Lahote/Sara Castle

Summary: Having her younger sister living at home is a dream come true for Toni, even if things do start to get a little stranger in her small sleepy town. She keeps running into Doctor Cullen’s kids, Bella is having nightmares and wakes up speaking riddles, and Toni isn’t a fool. She finally gets Jasper Hale into direct sunlight and has all of her theories proven as his skin changes right before her eyes. Where the sun touches his skin, unhindered by clouds or shade, there’s tendrils of smoke starting to curl through the air. Her sister’s nightmares aren’t just nightmares. This is real. Vampires are real, and everything is going to change.

Part I – Viridian this battleground is deadly but you wear blood well for one so gentle.

Bella returns to Forks, and Toni befriends Jasper Hale. Things are going great, until Bella starts having nightmares and insisting that something horrible is coming for them. Something monstrous. Balancing Bella’s warnings with her every day life gets a little tricky, but having a new friend to talk to about mundane everyday things helps. Until she starts to really listen to what her younger sister is saying. The first time she sees Jasper start to burn in the sun, just small wisps of smoke, she faints. Luckily, vampires have quick reflexes and he saves her from cracking her skull right there behind the diner while on her lunch break. Before she can fully process that Bella is apparently psychic and that Jasper is an actual vampire, there’s a ballgame like Bella dating a vampire is completely normal and then her sister is running away from home. When Toni chases after her sister, who is being chased by a real-life myth, she gets there too late to help her sister and just in time to see the destruction. Vampires save her sister’s life, but that doesn’t mean she has to like all of them. As far as she’s concerned, they’re all on thin fucking ice.

Part II – Amaranthine and this was always your nature to give light in the dark

Toni greets the summer with forgiveness in her heart, and she rekindles her friendship with Jasper. She also still insists on calling him kid, as a petty punishment for stealing off with her sister in the middle of the night. On the night of Bella’s birthday celebration disaster, she tries to comfort Jasper and then tries not to take it too personally when he rebuffs her. The next day, when he stops by the house to tell her that his whole family is leaving, she takes it very personally. That anger is put on the back burner as she searches for her sister, and she’s beyond relieved when Sam comes out of the woods with Bella in his arms. Even if her old friend won’t speak to her or even look her in the eye. With the Cullens gone, Bella’s nightmares reach new heights. This time, Toni listens to every riddled warning. Makes notes to be afraid of the color red and to not be afraid of the moonlight. Thankfully, Bella spending time with Jacob seems to help some. Jacob is the kind of solid support that her sister needs, a normal friend, until he turns out to be a werewolf. Sam and Leah, her high school friends who just stopped talking to her one day, are werewolves. There’s also a guy that keeps coming into the diner and asking after the Cullen family, which puts Toni’s teeth on edge. Then Bella takes off, again, and Toni’s world becomes red. Like the hair that flashes across her vision, the mark on the side of her throat, the matching punctures circling her dad’s wrist, the scarf wound around diner guy’s neck, the shining pendant of one of Bella’s classmates. Suddenly, it seems like no one in their sleepy little town is entirely human. Bella returns, saving one nightmare and walking into another one.

Part III – Titian to shatter when needed

Toni is no longer human, neither is her dad. With a little bit of magic and tragedy, their changing process was halted. Dhampir is what she is now, not quite human and not quite vampire, and she doesn’t have much time to adjust. Her poor dad is still trying to reconcile the whole vampire thing, with Doctor Cullen’s help, and Toni spends most of her time with Jasper while trying to understand what she’s become. Diner guy has become Gabriel and is always around, but she doesn’t care if they’re the same species because he still sets her teeth on edge. (She’s also avoiding her sister, who wants to be a vampire because she’s seen herself as a vampire for years before she ever realized her nightmares were actually visions. Toni doesn’t want to be around for Edward’s brooding when he discovers that Bella doesn’t want to be a vampire for him. Bella wants to be a vampire for Bella, which means talking her out of changing is going to be impossible.) On top of the changes, there’s an army being built and Bella is convinced that there’s going to be a fight. Toni believes her sister, she knows better than to doubt her at this point, and things get even stranger. The vampires and werewolves start working together, Sam and Leah actually start talking to her again, and her (hopefully human) best friend returns to Forks to take over her family’s funeral home. The witch that saved her life won’t glance her way, which gets awkward considering how much time teenaged Alana spends around Jacob and the wolves. Also, Jasper fought in the Civil War? She almost decks him when he mentions being in the south at the time, with plans to claim she was just testing her strength, when he tells her about joining the Union and sneaking into the south to help others escape. The history lessons are fun, almost as fun as punching werewolves in the face, but the fun doesn’t last. The fight arrives, Bella’s nightmares becoming reality once more, and her sister is still so frighteningly fragile. So human. Even Toni and Charlie are practically human next to newborn vampires, but they join the fight anyway. Anything to keep Bella safe, now that they can. The fight ends in their favor, but the fight wasn’t so black-and-white. One vampire is spared, a girl younger than even Bella, and Toni and Charlie are tasked with getting Bree to safety before the Volturi can arrive. They manage their escape, they win the day, and Toni still has to listen to Bella scream at night about the monsters coming to rip them apart.

Part IV – Sable they say that the biggest stars burn brightly and die quickly.

Bella gets engaged, and Toni takes the plunge and kisses Jasper. She’d resisted during all of their tense moments, when they were pressed close and a movie would have had them bridge the gap, and waits until a quiet moment. It’s just the two of them, talking like they always do, and she kisses him like it’s something she’s done a hundred times before. In that moment, the pain of having vampire venom halted in her veins feels almost worth it. To have this moment with her best friend. Bella gets married, Toni gets to laugh at Jacob pulling at his best-man tux, and Jasper makes it look like she knows how to dance. (If she accidentally walks into a room to see her dad crying and the good doctor tenderly wiping his tears away, it’s a secret that she’ll keep for eternity.) While her sister enjoys her honeymoon, Toni gets to learn what makes Jasper laugh and what gets him to say her name in that way that makes her knees feel like jelly. Life is finally peaceful in their quiet sleepy town, until Bella walks into the Cullen’s house with a very visible baby bump a few weeks later. Toni stays by her sister’s side, mainly to attempt to get her to change the awful baby names that she picked out, and she watches as all their alliances start to fall apart. Witches don’t trust the unknown. Werewolves don’t trust the unknown. Vampires don’t trust the unknown. The only problem is, Bella’s baby isn’t an unknown. Alice can’t see the baby, but Bella can and Toni trusts Bella. One night, Bella wakes up laughing and tells Toni that everything is going to be perfect. The baby is going to be healthy, and Bella is going to be what she was always meant to be. Again, Bella is right. Things look dire for a while, her dad can’t go more than half an hour without a panic attack, and then there’s Nessie. (Toni refuses to say the entire name. It’s either Ren or Nessie.) Bella wakes up, and their family is whole. While the others marvel at her sister’s control, Toni isn’t surprised at all. Because this is who Bella was born to be. They get moments of bliss before the nightmares start again, Bella doesn’t need sleep to suffer through nightmares, and the Volturi come for them. For Nessie. Alice. Edward. Jasper. It’s a fight, it’s always a fight, and Toni doesn’t back down. She meets other vampires, what she thinks of as real vampires with their blood red eyes, and snaps her teeth at the ones who think she’s lesser for only being half of what they are. (She believes her human half is what makes her special.) Her only solace is with Jasper, and then the fight comes. Watching lines of black cross the white snow frightens her, but Toni stands her ground next to her family and she fights. They fight, and they win.

Part V – Mazarine achilles was the sun but baby, you were always a supernova

They get to see Nessie grow up, to see their family expand, and Toni is so happy that she feels like she could burst with it. Even Jasper smiles most days, and they start their life together. He shows her all the places she dreamed of seeing and never believed would be possible, and they frequently meet up with other members of their family. Edward and Bella, in France, traveling with Nessie and Bree. Jacob and Alana, in Spain, after the kids have enjoyed their own extended honeymoon. Sam and Leah and Paul and Sara, back in Forks, keeping the quiet town safe. Esme and Tanya and Garrett and Kate, under the beautifully dark Alaskan sky. Alice and Rosalie and Emmett and Gabriel in London, laughing in the streets. Carlisle and Charlie, in Brazil, where Toni and her dad can stay in the sunlight all day long without the fear of burning. Years pass, beautiful memories and beautiful moments, and Toni cherishes Jasper’s every sigh and laugh. When Bella finds her, with tears in her glowing golden eyes, Toni knows that this is it. Bella has dreamed of the monsters that would come for them since they were little girls. They’d glimpsed the monsters, and that had been a mistake. The monsters had seen them in return, knew what to expect and had time to plan, and Toni takes her sister’s hands and promises her that this time will be different. This time, they’ll kill them all and show them what real monsters can do.

Forever Taglist: @jinxsflame @hughstheforcelou @uno-reverse-reversed @hiddenqveendom @asirensrage @ocfairygodmother @jewelswrites-ish

#fandom: twilight #oc: toni swan #fic: caught off guard #ch: jasper hale #jasper hale x ofc #jasper hale x oc #clearly a lot of thought has gone into this #it’s thoroughly planned out #it haunts me #i’m hoping posting this will purge the thoughts #so i guess #meet toni swan #my disaster child

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supercasey · 4 years

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So I've been playing The Hades Game like fucking mad for the last few weeks, and although I'm not very far in it (at least, I don’t think I am; I’ve only beat Hades once!), I'm absolutely in love with it! Anyways, a certain idea has been kicking around in my head for awhile now, so I thought I'd share it with y'all; feel free to tell me what you think of it! (Warning: spoilers for when you beat Hades the first time!)

Anyways, I've already seen a really cool AU post for if Demeter raised Zagreus on the surface by herself (which you can find HERE; please check it out, the outfit for Zag alone is an amazing concept, and I love the artwork!!!) but I keep thinking about an AU where, after Zagreus dies at birth, Persephone runs away and takes his wrapped up body with her.

On the surface, she reconnects/reunites with her mother Demeter, and with her aid, the two of them manage to resurrect the newborn baby, though now he has more white in his hair than anything else. After that, Persephone sends Hades a letter to tell him that Zagreus is alive and well (because she actually has some fucking class), before proceeding to raise Zagreus on the surface with her mother, far away from the entrance to hell. The Olympians also help her out a bit, but mostly they just help by hiding Zagreus when it’s necessary.

(The rest is under a cut ‘cus this got a bit long, sorry!)

Years pass in relative peace, until Zagreus is about as old as he is in-game (I think he’s around 20-25ish???) and is living well, working with his mom and grandma to take care of their gardens and live peacefully away from mankind; he especially loves tending to the animals and guiding lost mortals to safety. However, one day while foraging for fruit in the deepest corners of his mother’s signature garden, Zagreus happens across a strange man in long robes, who introduces himself as Thanatos.

The two men get along swimmingly from minute one, and after agreeing to meet with each other again soon, they leave and tell their families/friends all about the experience, having no clue who they are to each other. After all, Thanatos was told growing up that his lord’s first wife died giving birth to their first and only child, who was a stillborn, and Zagreus thinks his father died of disease (his mom didn’t have to heart to tell him anything bad about his dad). Needless to say, they’re gonna be in for quite the shock soon.

Cue Hades losing his shit and calling on Thanatos, Megaera, and Achilles to go find his progeny and bring him home; he gives them special permission to leave the Underworld without any resistance, trusting Than to lead the way back to Zagreus. Achilles is less than thrilled to be performing such a morally grey task for his master, but Meg and Than are eager to prove themselves, so he begrudgingly agrees to help, even if it hurts his conscience to do so.

Persephone and Demeter also freak the hell out on their end, scared shitless by the fact that Death incarnate has just met their son/grandson, and they’re worried that he plans on coming back again soon. Demeter suggests sending Zagreus to live with the Olympians until this all blows over, but Persephone disagrees, wanting her son to stay nearby in case he grows ill (it’s implied that she’s a bit overprotective of him, mostly because she’s afraid of him dying again; this also means she refuses to let him know that he’s in any danger, believing it would only make things worse for him in the long-run). Frustrated but understanding her daughter’s pain all too well, Demeter at least convinces her to call on the Olympians for aid, which Persephone agrees to do.

The gods promise to help of course, but... well, they're low-key lying; they wanna see how this plays out first.

After several days of traveling through hell (literally), the “let’s kidnap Zagreus” gang makes it to the surface, and they immediately head to Persephone’s garden. All this time, Zagreus has no idea that he’s being targeted, so he goes about his chores as usual, only to run into Than again, and hey, he brought some more friends for him to meet! Zagreus is friendly with all of them, being raised to be very polite by his guardians, and while he’s busy chatting with Than and Achilles, he doesn’t notice Meg sneaking behind him. Just as Zagreus is rattling on about how the animals have been faring this summer, Meg stabs Zagreus in the back with a blade coated in Hades’s blood, cursing him to belong to the Underworld again.

With Zagreus now unconscious from a sedative that was mixed with the blood, the trio hurry off with him back to the Underworld, but not without Persephone seeing what they’ve done to her son. Horrified, she begins to sob, and winter arrives in the mortal world without so much as a fall season in-between this and the summertime.

When Zagreus comes to, he finds himself in a bedroom similar to the one he has in the game, but it’s much cleaner and has less objects of personal value to him. Hades is standing at the foot of his bed when he wakes up, and very calmly, Hades tells Zagreus that he’s his father, and that from now on, Zagreus will be living in the Underworld with him and his people, where he so obviously belongs. It’s a shame his mother can’t be here, of course, but they just need to wait awhile, that’s all; surely she’ll come to her senses and return home soon, now that her husband and son are here.

Zagreus jumps out of bed and faces his father as soon as he’s done monologuing, ready to tell him off for what he’s done, but to his shock, Hades hugs him as soon as he’s on his feet, and admits that he’s waited for this day for a long, long time. He asks his son to please just accept that this is his home now, and despite still being a bit surprised (and subtly hugging Hades back because Longing), Zagreus tells him straight up that he can’t, that he has to get home, especially with winter coming in a few months!

Dejected but not overly surprised, Hades simply nods in acceptance, but he still warns Zagreus that it’s no use trying to fight it; he’s stuck here, now and forever, so he may as well get comfortable and try getting along with him, because no one’s going anywhere anytime soon. Zagreus is horrified, but he nods nonetheless, unsure of what to say or do just yet.

Later that night, as Zagreus is struggling to sleep in this new, unfamiliar place, Achilles comes to him and apologizes about what’s happened, and although he can’t magically fix everything for him, he tells Zagreus that it actually is supposedly possible to escape; it’s just that no one’s ever done it before. Driven by his desire for freedom and the thought of reuniting with his mother, Zagreus tells Achilles that he’s going to find a way out, no matter the cost. Achilles congratulates him on his tenacity, but warns him that it won’t be easy. Still, he’s willing to help Zagreus as much as he can.

From then on, I imagine the game playing out very differently from the original, with a rather frazzled and scared Zagreus trying to get home to his mom and grandma, but with none of his training from Achilles in this AU, he has to rely on something his mother taught him; his connection with earth and all it’s inhabitants. Or, in his case, his connection with the spirits of animals (a cross of his dad and mom’s powers). That’s right, I’m making The Hades Game into a fucking Pokemon-ripoff, but still with some rouge-like elements mixed in (mostly with Zagreus not keeping his animals after runs).

Having royally fucked up in not stepping in sooner to protect Zagreus, the gods end up helping him out by sending down animals associated with them for the young god to tame for a run (I’ll come up with them later). They usually offer a selection to choose from, and from there Zagreus can build up a team and use it to try and escape the Underworld.

To replace weapons, I like to think he’d have “signature” animals that can help him out for any of his runs, specifically ones from Achilles, Poseidon, Zeus, Demeter (once he reaches the surface at least once), and eventually even Hades gives him one if they bond together enough ((yes, it’s Cerberus... kinda; it’s a puppy version of him, otherwise he’d be OP as fuck)). Zagreus’s signature animals can all be given names, and they keep certain skills that they pick up through enough experience battling in the Underworld for Zagreus.

As for story-line stuff, Zagreus ends up in a very fish out of water situation as he tries to get to know everyone in Hades’s house (he’s still our kindhearted Zag, after all, and he knows most of them aren’t to blame, not even really Than!) while also focusing on his goal to get home to his mom. Hades ends up being a lot nicer to him in this AU, perhaps overly so, as he’s trying to make his son like him more in order to make up for lost time (and fill the hole in his heart that Zag’s initial death as an infant and Persephone leaving with him created). It’s part of the reason he’s even letting Zagreus try to escape; he wants him to learn that it won’t work on his own terms (and maybe also scare the kid so bad that he comes running to him for comfort afterwards).

Also, I should really note that Zagreus is 100% a sweet country farm boy in this AU, and he has no idea what the fuck is going on with pretty much anything in the Underworld, much to everyone’s astonishment. For example:

Meg: Gods, it must be weird getting used to everything down here, huh? Sick of stepping in bat shit yet? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it, and Dusa’s pretty good about cleaning it up to begin with. Zagreus: I mean, I guess? It’s not that different from chicken shit tbh. Meg: What the fuck is a chicken???

After that... yeah, I dunno. I’ll try playing Hades some more, see if I think up anything else that could be interesting, but for now, I hope at least someone ends up liking this dumb AU (if not, I’ll still like it... might even try my hand at drawing for it a bit tbh). Again, please check out the person who’s post/art I linked earlier in the post, ‘cus their art is really awesome and inspired me to include Demeter more in this AU!

#supercasey ramblings #hades game #zagreus #zagreus hades #thanatos #hades #persephone #demeter #megaera #achilles #hades farmboy au #i dunno what else to fucking call it #thanzag #if ya squint

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taizi · 4 years

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it’s a better place since you came along

the adventure zone taako & angus mcdonald 7k words

read on ao3

“So, you must be here about the job,” the old man goes on. “To tell you the truth, I’d just about given up on finding a decent nanny. When can you start?”

Taako stares at him. There’s an alarm klaxon blaring in the back of his brain, along with a shrill inner voice advising him to “abort, motherfucker, abort!”

***

In which Taako answers a general “help wanted” ad that actually changes his entire stupid life.

There’s a baby crying somewhere.

Taako, left waiting in the foyer by a harried maid, has nothing else to do but tap a foot, twist one of the rings on one of his fingers, and count the long seconds that the plaintive wail continues to echo through the cavernous house.

Listen, he may not be a very good dude, just in general, and for a healthy plethora of reasons—but there’s a prickling sense of unease growing in the pit of his stomach, as one minute passes into two, and the sounds of distress go unheeded.

What in the fresh fuck, he thinks, when another member of the house staff drifts through the room without any sense of urgency. If he knew shit about magic beyond a few travel-handy tricks and the occasional intuitive transmutation, he’d assume this was some sort of elaborate illusion. Maybe a sort of test played on unsuspecting hopefuls who came to answer the help-wanted ad.

Unfortunately for Taako, he remembers all-too well what it feels like to be an unwanted child, outcast and always alone. As it turns out, he has a very particular Achilles’ heel and he’s not overly thrilled to discover it.

“Well, I didn’t need the job that bad,” he tells himself, as he gets up to single-mindedly fail this stupid test. And nevermind that he kind of really did.

‘Confidence is key’ and ‘fake it till you make it’ are two mantras that Taako could live and die by, so it’s with long, unchecked strides that he crosses the grand foyer and chases the miserable cries up some stairs, down a long corridor, and finally into an out-of-the-way bedchamber at what must have been the back of the house.

The cries stutter when the door clicks open, and Taako gets a glimpse of a tiny round face peering at him through the bars of an ancient-looking crib. The sudden appearance of this strange elf in his nursery seems to have surprised the little human, but not for long. After about two seconds, he screws his face up and screams with renewed vindication.

Taako winces, his sensitive ears twitching back at the onslaught. This is way above his paygrade, but he used to babysit younger kids in the caravans while their parents were busy or drunk, in exchange for a hot meal or a few coins. He’s not totally out of his depth here.

“Hey, little man,” he says by way of hello. “Trying to bring the roof down, huh? No, I dig that. I wasn’t gonna say anything, but this house of yours is ugly as hell.”

Taako doesn’t raise his voice, because what the hell would be the point? There’s no way he’s winning that contest of wills, and nobody wants some lunatic shouting at them when they’re this fucking distraught, anyway. He just crosses his arms on the side of the crib and leans down to get a good look at the kid.

The baby’s face is tacky and snotty, dusky skin flushed darker with exertion, curly hair a tangled mop. But he’s a cute little guy despite himself, probably a year old or thereabouts, not that Taako is in any way a decent judge of that sort of thing. As Taako talks to him in a conversational tone, his awful, heaving sobs peter out.

The tearful gulps are better. The way he lifts pudgy arms up to be held, not so much.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Taako says, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I’m not even supposed to be in here. You have no idea how culturally insensitive people are when it comes to elves and babies. Your mama walks in and sees me holding you, and then she’s calling the guard, and I’m getting hauled off for attempting to spirit her little heir away, and we both perpetuate an archaic myth that all elves are equally capable of and greedy for voluntary childcare. Let me just say—from personal experience—that is not the fuckin' case.”

But he reaches a hand into the crib and lets the little human clutch at it. Tiny, clumsy fingers wrap around Taako’s much bigger ones and hold tight. The baby’s eyes are wide and curious now, soaking up Taako’s every word without a damn clue what any of them mean.

Taako almost forgot he knew how to do this. It’s been months since Glamour Springs, since Sazed ditched him on the road. Taako’s been living a half-life, made up of odd jobs and never staying for too long in any one place, and for all that it’s absurdly one-sided, this is the longest conversation he’s had since then, too.

“One of us is pretty fucking pathetic,” he confides. “And it’s not the screamy baby.”

“Ah, this is where you’ve gone,” a voice from the doorway says.

Taako jumps in alarm, and looks around in time to watch a man step into the nursery. He bears a striking resemblance to the baby in the crib, though he’s graying at the temples and his face is lined with too much age for him to be an immediate parent. Grandparent, probably. Distinguished, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than the entire cumulative worth of everything Taako currently owns, leaning heavily on a walking cane.

He doesn’t look as though he’s about to ring the alarm, but Taako is still a little keyed up. Given the way he’s been living, the feeling of getting caught, even for a moment, activates his fight or flight response.

“Sorry,” Taako says lamely. “I heard him crying.”

“I don’t doubt it. His parents, my daughter and her husband, died recently. An accident on the road,” the man says. There’s some sorrow there, but it’s pushed back and away. Compartmentalized. “He came to live with me, but the transition hasn’t been an easy one. It seems as though all he’s done is cry.”

Taako doesn’t melt even slightly for the poor kid, because he’s made of sterner stuff than that. But he does let him hold onto his hand for a little while longer. It’s not hurting anything.

“So, you must be here about the job,” the old man goes on. “To tell you the truth, I’d just about given up on finding a decent nanny. When can you start?”

Taako stares at him. There’s an alarm klaxon blaring in the back of his brain, along with a shrill inner voice advising him to “abort, motherfucker, abort!”

It wasn’t a nanny ad. It was just a ‘general help wanted in exchange for room and board’ type of deal. He wouldn’t have shown up to take the job in the first place if it had specified providing 1) cooking, 2) companionship, or 3) childcare, and that’s for damn sure. He believes in playing to his strengths, and while vapid charm is certainly one of them, being personable and likable for any extended period of time is not.

And Taako absolutely doesn’t know what to think of this old rich guy who seems to be operating under the illusion that thirty seconds is plenty of time to get enough of a read on some rando to then trust your child to them. For real, and from the bottom of Taako's heart, what the fuck?

He’s only been acquainted with this particular child for about five minutes, but his ears go back and his hackles go up at the idea of someone just walking in off the street to take charge of him.

Maybe there’s some crucial insanity element to parenthood that Taako just isn’t fucking picking up. Maybe total and complete willingness to just ditch your kid at a moment’s notice is part of the package. Sure would explain a few things about Taako’s childhood.

But… this old manor house is clearly in the middle of nowhere. Two hours from the nearest settlement, where the job posting was hiding beneath other flyers on the board in the square. Taako wandered the woods all afternoon and almost gave up finding the place before the chimney smoke tipped him off.

It’s remote. Safe. And, at a glance, more comfortable than any of the inns and caravans Taako has lived out of since his auntie died.

He’s not qualified for this position, but since when has that ever stopped him? It’s not like he went to culinary school, either, and for awhile he was one of the most famous chefs on the continent. A baby can't be that much work.

Fake it till you make it, he thinks, and then faces the old man with a smile.

“Hell, I’m already here. Might as well start now.”

Aside from Taako, there are three other members of staff on the books, and none of them are full-time. The maids come in every other day to do the cleaning and the laundry and bring in groceries, that sort of thing. The groundskeeper only works the weekends.

They like Mr McDonald well enough, the girls confide in Taako over tea on his first night there, and the pay isn’t bad, but he’s forgetful. Doesn’t think to eat until he feels hunger pains, that sort of thing. Don’t be surprised if you get paid twice some weeks, or not at all others.

“He’s just not interested in running a household, I think,” the older of the two imparts, ancient at seventeen for all the weariness in her eyes. “I’m glad he finally found someone to take care of the baby. I felt bad about him crying all the time.”

Baby Angus had seemed to surprise both teens by being agreeable and downright adorable, perfectly content to be tucked into the crook of Taako’s arm and soothed to sleep by the rumble of his voice.

Did any of you try, like, holding him? Taako wants to ask acidly. Seems a little fucked up that Taako, of all people, is more on top of this than anyone else. But the maids are little more than kids themselves, and it seems as though grandpa isn’t completely with it.

About a month after Taako first wandered in, grandpa proves it.

“It was before Angus was born,” Mr McDonald says, digging through the many drawers in his study, looking for some expensive rich person thing he’d acquired at auction four years ago. There’s an empty crystal tumbler sitting on the liquor cabinet, next to a half-empty decanter of whiskey. “We went to Goldcliff for a charity fundraiser. Marquis proposed to my daughter that night. You remember, Taako?”

Taako, halfheartedly poking through stuff on the desk while Angus chews on the end of his braid, replies, “Sure do, homie. Hell of a party.”

He finds a photo in a stack of letters and pauses. Two humans are pictured with their arms around each other, handsome smiles on their faces for the camera, a baby cradled tenderly between them.

At the bottom, in looping handwriting, someone wrote ‘Marquis, Angela, and Angus.’ There’s a little heart drawn under the names with such care that it, in itself, is something of a revelation.

Angus’ parents wouldn’t have let him cry himself sick in a faraway room. They wouldn’t have let some stranger be holding him now. They abandoned him, but not on purpose. Not the same way Taako’s family did.

This kid was loved. He’s due love. And all he has is an absent grandpa and a shitty elf looking after him.

“Check it out, Ango,” Taako says quietly, holding the photo up so the baby can see, carefully out of reach of those sticky fingers. “Your genes are killer. You’re gonna outshine the whole damn world.”

He pockets the photo with a sleight of hand he perfected at ten years old, and then guts some ugly painting in the service hallway in the name of repurposing the frame, and then he and Angus stage a tactical retreat.

The nursery was too depressing, just in general, so one of Taako’s first acts as nanny was to move all the baby stuff in with his. He had his pick of any of the second floor bedchambers, and he chose one overlooking the overgrown gardens, with a pretty bay window that it only took like two hours and a handful of stubborn Prestidigitations to scrub clean.

He enlarges the photo, slides it into the frame, transmutes it to look like a more professional job, and then sets it in place of pride on one of the empty shelves.

“Gang’s all here,” he says. He bounces Angus a few times, eliciting a toothy smile from the kid.

Lordy, Taako thinks, she’d be laughing her ass off if she could see me right now.

The thought comes out of absolutely nowhere and disappears just as quickly, sliding right out of his mind like water through a sieve. Then Angus makes a sudden dive to grab one of the charms hanging off the brim of Taako’s hat, and he has more immediate things to worry about.

Living in a house is weird. Having the run of the place is even weirder.

Taako is certainly not the type to sign up for extra responsibility, and he’d be the first to say as much to literally anyone who asked. Keeping himself alive has always been trouble enough, and now he has a whole ass extra person he’s in charge of, too.

But as time drags on, he realizes he’s been pretty solidly assimilated.

When McDonald forgets to give Catherine the grocery allowance before he fucks off on one of his bi-monthly business trips to Neverwinter, Taako forks over his own gold without feeling the sting of it too badly. He practically writes his own checks around here, anyway. He can make up the difference whenever.

When crotchety old Boniface came in from the gardens looking for an answer about the freshly broken fountain, he bypasses McDonald’s closed office door entirely to demand guidance out of Taako instead. Taako is in the library, laying on his stomach to supervise Angus’ painstaking and artistic destruction of a probably priceless but unfortunately racist oral history Taako found on one of the shelves, and gives Boniface the go-ahead to gut the old eyesore.

“If it dies, it dies,” Taako says plainly, passing Angus a new red crayon. Boniface, pleased that he’s allowed to demolish something, makes it a point to ask Taako about these things first from then on.

When Ezra shows up in Taako’s suite one morning with tearful eyes and an ugly burn from the temperamental furnace in the basement, neither of them stop to question why she ran all the way up here. They’re both reasonably intelligent people, after all, and Taako is quick to cast a nonverbal Helping Hand. He doesn’t need to overthink it. The burned skin on Ezra’s arm is shiny and red, but repaired.

The girl surges forward to hug him, visibly rethinks it, and then changes course and scoops Angus up for a hug and a noisy kiss on the cheek instead. Angus shrieks in bald delight, and Taako finds himself smiling.

So, yeah. It’s weird, the whole thing is weird, but he wouldn’t say it’s bad.

McDonald is a kind but largely absent presence in their lives. When he’s home, he’s shut up in his study. Angus hardly seems to recognize the man anymore, only watching him with solemn brown eyes from the comforting circle of Taako’s arms. It doesn’t really sit well with Taako—he didn’t take this job to upstage any relatives or be a replacement parent—but he’s already nanny to a precocious two-year-old, he can’t also be nanny to a seventy-something-year-old retired scholar. If McDonald wants to be a part of Angus’ life, that’s on him. It can’t possibly fall on Taako’s shoulders.

“And even if it did, I have a bad back,” Taako informs Angus. “You’ll have to do the heavy-lifting for me, sweetpea. How’s that sound?”

“Okay, Taako,” Angus says gravely. If there’s a tiny part of Taako that’s fucking delighted every time this tiny miracle says his name, he squashes it down good and hard and no one is the wiser.

It feels a little bit like nothing exists outside this spacious manor house. The extensive grounds might as well be a magic barrier between Taako and the rest of the world. It won’t last—nothing good ever does—but for now he allows himself to pretend that it will.

Taako and his little shadow swing into the kitchen around noon one day to find Catherine in tears.

This is so far from the norm that Taako actually draws up short in the doorway. Angus toddles right into the back of his leg, loses his balance, and plops down hard on his padded bottom.

“What’s this all about, darling?” Taako asks warily.

Catherine is sharp in all the places Ezra is soft, and while it makes her much easier to understand—a girl after Taako’s own black, shriveled heart—it also makes her approximately one million times more difficult to comfort, as likely to bite at a helping hand as accept one.

At the first sign of her vicious temper, he’s gonna grab his kid and bail. There’s fruit and bread in the larder that’ll see them through to dinner, and if not, he's not above bribing Ezra to run interference.

But Catherine just lifts her head out of her hands and says, “I burnt the stupid soup!”

Taako blinks. He stands still so Angus can use one of his legs as leverage to pull himself back upright, and cups the back of the boy's head in silent praise when he manages it on his own.

“Okay,” Taako says slowly. He can piece this shit together. “The soup is burnt. And you’re cheesed about it because…you feel really strongly about soup.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she snaps, but it’s without any real heat. “I just. I can’t get anything right today.”

Ah. Okay. So it’s one of those.

He hesitates for a moment, and then leans down to scoop Angus up and balances him on a hip. Angus knows not to toddle into the kitchen unsupervised, and rarely gets to toddle in at all when there’s cookery going on.

Taako himself rarely goes in. It feels too much like tempting fate. But his feet carry him forward, and he leans over the pot of thick and creamy chicken and dumplings, and right away he can smell the problem. It caught on the bottom of the pot and scorched.

He’s never worked in this kitchen—and he never will—but he remembers the steps. It’s mise en place. He reaches into the spice cabinet and withdraws a small tin shaker.

“Cinnamon,” he says at length, offering the tin to Catherine.

She stares at him, losing some of her steel for a moment. “Really?”

“Really,” Taako says, and firmly steps back. The six-second exchange has left him feeling tense and sick, his appetite fully and completely fucking out of the picture.

Angus is a perceptive little monster, and settles more heavily into Taako’s arms. He heaves a very pointed sigh, something he started doing to communicate that he’s feeling particularly safe and content. It makes Taako’s chest hurt in a much different way than impending panic attacks tend to, and he presses a kiss to the kid’s curly head.

“Thanks, angel,” he says.

“You’re welcome.”

“Holy shit, Taako,” Catherine says, looking up from the soup with awe in her eyes. As he watches, she tries another spoonful, and then she actually laughs out loud. “It worked!”

He finds himself searching her face for—sickness. Shortness of breath. Something.

It’s stupid. The people he killed in Glamour Springs didn’t show signs of death for days.

“I didn’t know you cooked,” Catherine goes on. “Could you teach me?”

“I don’t,” Taako blurts. It comes out sharper than he meant for it to, sudden and a little bit too loud. Catherine’s smile tapers. Angus lifts his head off Taako’s shoulder. Breathe, idiot, Taako tells himself. Be a fucking person for two seconds. “Cook, I mean. I don’t cook. Or, uh, teach. I’m kind of useless. Pretty, though.”

He flips his hair. It makes Angus giggle, but Catherine isn’t an easily-amused toddler, and she’s not buying it.

Her eyes are sharp, and seem to peel through layers of Taako’s bullshit like a knife. And then she scoffs, and mimics his hair flip with her wrist even though her hair is only about two inches long, and the tension drains out of the room like someone pulled a plug in the floor.

“You’ve been teaching Mango to read,” she says dryly. “And Elvish. And magic. But okay, Mr I Don’t Teach.”

“He’s my fucking protege. That shit’s different!”

“Shit!” Angus agrees cheerfully.

“Whatever. Now that I know you’re secretly a fountain of knowledge, I’m dragging you in here the next time I fuck up a recipe.” She studies him for a moment, and adds, “You don’t have to cook, Teach. If it bothers you. I just…I need help sometimes.

Taako feels himself relenting. This house is turning him into a fucking pushover.

“I know, Cat,” he sighs. “Try to find one person who doesn’t.”

“Alright, little man,” Taako says, tugging Angus’ collar straight. “What are the rules?”

“Hold your hand, don’t talk to strangers, aim for the eyes if I can reach them, knees if I can’t,” his boy recites gravely.

Next to him, Ezra stifles a snort of laughter. Boniface, waiting by the loaded carriage, looks reluctantly amused. Catherine says, “Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to give you a kid?”

“Uh, your boss,” Taako says without looking at her. He stands up from his crouch as the front door closes, and they all turn as McDonald comes down the steps to join them in the crumbly courtyard.

“Are we ready, boys?” he asks with a smile. “Neverwinter is waiting.”

Honestly, Taako has been sick with dread over this trip for the past two weeks, but he wouldn’t know how to go about explaining that. And he sure as hell isn’t sending Angus off alone with his absent-minded grandfather. The kid probably wouldn’t make it home.

It’s not as though Taako has been sequestered in the manor house for the last five years. He’s ambled into the settlement with the girls now and then, has gone farther up the road to buy from caravans for Candlenights gifts, has let himself be bullied, cajoled, blackmailed and bribed into helping Boniface lug imported plants home from the train station.

But this is fucking Neverwinter. The Jewel of the North.

“Taako? You okay?” Angus says from somewhere near his elbow.

“Just dreading three hours on the road playing I, Spy with you, boychik,” he lies smoothly. “Go pet the horses so we can get that out of the way.”

Angus looks mulish for a moment, but he does insist on petting the carthorses before they take the carriage literally anywhere, so he lifts his head and crosses the courtyard with great dignity. Taako watches sharply until Boniface rolls his eyes so hard Taako can practically hear it and hefts Agnus up in one huge arm to better reach the giant creatures without running the risk of getting fucking trampled.

“I’m making the salmon at home tonight,” Catherine says abruptly, a non-sequitur that takes Taako by surprise. “If I don’t fuck it up, I’m gonna cook it here, too. So don’t be late, Teach.”

“I’ll a hundred percent eat your share if you’re late,” Ezra adds. Her smile looks a little strained.

Taako has not been subtle. He’s been freaking out right out loud where anybody could see it. Get it together, asshole, he coaches himself helpfully.

“Cat,” he says earnestly, “your salmon is literally the only thing I have to live for.”

She groans and pushes him away from her. Angus has finished with the horses and returns to Taako at a run, even though they’re all going to be walking back across the courtyard to the carriage in like one minute anyway.

McDonald is handing out a few last minute instructions. They’re mostly things that have already been taken care of, errands that have already been run, the ushe. The girls nod along politely, but there’s a level of uncertainty lingering above them like a cloud. They look as nervous about Taako leaving as Taako feels.

Now, Taako is many things—an elf, a failed chef, a murderer, a dime-store wizard, and one lucky nanny—but he is not some mercurial fairy tale creature. He’s not going to vanish from their lives the second they lose sight of him. He could if he wanted to, and he will if he has to, but he doesn’t want to. For now, he doesn’t have to.

So he lifts a hand and says, “Back soon.”

But for some reason, it fucking hurts.

The trip is about everything he expected it would be: long and boring. Angus gets bored with I, Spy within about ten minutes, the interior of the carriage is a little too tight to practice his cantrips, and Boniface seems to be aiming for the roughest parts of the road on purpose. Taako tries reading aloud from one of the Caleb Cleveland books, but McDonald keeps interrupting every time they get to the good, mysterious parts, so Angus and Taako trade a loaded glance and wordlessly agree to save it for later.

Still, it’s not awful. Angus at six years old is bright-eyed and relentlessly clever. He wants to be a detective like Caleb, and has taken to solving little mysteries around the manor house, like who left the jam out on the counter (Taako, and what are you going to do about it, pumpkin?) and who tracked the mud inside the undercroft (Boniface, obviously, that’s where all the booze is, and he literally works in mud all day. You didn’t have to put on your detective cap for that one).

Needless to say, Taako would burn the whole world down for this kid.

With no choice but to spend time in his grandson’s company, Taako can see Angus’ innate charm going to work on McDonald. There’s something wistful in the old man’s eyes, affectionate and more than a little bittersweet. He stops interrupting as Angus starts to describe his latest case in great detail—the mystery of the missing tarts!

The tarts are wrapped up and waiting in Taako’s bag for when they inevitably get snacky during the trip, but he's not going to tell. He kinda wants to see how far the kid takes this one.

By the time they board the train, Angus is tuckered out. The excitement of a trip so far from home is wearing off after hours in a carriage, and Taako ends up carrying him into their sleeper car and putting him to bed in one of the bunks.

McDonald takes a seat at the small table and watches without commentary as Taako extracts the boy’s hat and glasses and wand without waking him, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders. And then, out of habit more than anything else, he murmurs the only Elven blessing he remembers, quite literally ‘sweet dreams.’ He remembers Auntie saying it to him, and…someone else, maybe? He remembers that it always made him feel loved to hear it.

“Hiring you was the best thing I could have done for him,” McDonald says suddenly.

Taako turns with a trademark smile on his face, only as charming as it needs to be. “Hiring me was the best thing you ever did, period.”

His boss smiles back, but there’s an edge to it that Taako can’t translate. This is the most present and aware he’s looked in the last five years. Taako isn’t sure he’s ever had this much of McDonald’s attention.

“There’s another reason I wanted to take the two of you with me this week,” he says.

It’s ominous as fuck, and as the train lurches into motion, pulling away from the station, Taako realizes that he’s effectively trapped here, in a way he never was at the manor house. Some of his thoughts must show on his face, because McDonald’s smile warms a bit, and he gestures at the other chair.

“It’s a good thing, son. No need to be nervous.”

Taako sits in an irreverent collapsing of limbs to prove that he isn’t nervous, actually. McDonald pulls a bunch of papers out of his briefcase and sets them on the table. They look official as fuck. McDonald’s signature at the bottom draws Taako’s eye—huh, so that’s his first name. After this long, it would have felt a little awkward to ask. Beneath that is the signature and seal of a notary.

“What am I looking at here, Charlie?”

McDonald’s lips twitch. He probably cottoned onto the name thing.

“Well, this isn’t an easy conversation to have, and I probably could have picked a better time for it, but.” He glances over Taako’s shoulder at where Angus is sleeping. “It’s probably better if the boy doesn’t overhear until it’s sorted.”

“I hear ya. That little bugbear is all up in everyone’s business all the time,” Taako says proudly. “Just the worst.”

“He’s amazing,” McDonald says. That sorrow swims into his eyes now, an ancient, ruinous thing. “He reminds me of my daughter every time I look at him.” Oh. “It’s been…hard to look at him sometimes.” Oh.

Taako carefully reevaluates his opinion of Angus’ absent grandfather. Not too much, because the dude still should have been around, but, you know. Some.

Taako tries to imagine losing somebody, how much it must hurt. He tries to imagine looking like somebody, a family resemblance, a belonging at face-value. He’s never experienced either, but there’s still a bitter pit in his throat, a feeling like if he swallows too hard he’ll start to cry. So he sits very still instead.

“But still, he’s my only grandson, and I want him to be taken care of when I’m gone,” the man goes on. “I’m getting on in years, and I probably don’t have much longer left—oh, Taako. It’s alright.”

Taako is certain he didn’t move. He’s still doing the sitting-very-still thing. Then he realizes his ears betrayed him, pressed back flat against his head. Goddamn things.

“No, it’s uh. Taako’s good, don’t. Just.”

It’s the human age thing. He doesn’t want to think about it. He waves McDonald on, a tight rolling gesture. They really need to power through the rest of this conversation while Taako still has enough self-control left to not do something really embarrassing in front of his boss, like have a whole emotion.

McDonald takes pity. Thank fuck.

“It’s normal to want to get your ducks in a row,” he says. “I’m not planning on kicking the bucket any time soon.”

“Alright, let’s organize these ducks,” Taako says with unwarranted enthusiasm. He’s trying to trick himself into it. “Fucking ducks, am I right?”

“Angus is my heir. When he’s of age, he’ll get the estate and everything that goes with it, as well as his parents’ properties,” McDonald says, once again reminding Taako that he’s a rich old fuck. Istus. “But that’s still more than a decade away. If something should happen to me, I don’t want him to end up a ward of the state.”

Taako blinks. In the back of his mind, he realizes that he has become one of those elves that would one-thousand-percent kidnap a human baby if it came down to it. Leave Agnes in an orphanage? His Agnes? It would literally have never occurred to him.

“Custody cases can be so long-winded. The easiest way to circumvent the whole mess would be to adopt you into the family,” McDonald says, super nonchalant about flipping the world upside down. “That way Angus has an immediate next of kin that no one would question.”

He looks up when Taako doesn’t say anything and frowns at whatever Taako’s face must look like.

“You don’t have to use the surname if you don’t want to. It’s mostly just for the sake of paperwork.”

“I can’t,” Taako blurts.

“Of course. I wouldn’t insist that you change your family name if it’s important to you—”

“Not—not that, who gives a fuck about my family name,” Taako says too loudly. Angus shifts around for a second, like he might wake up, and Taako snaps his mouth closed so hard it hurts his teeth. In a whisper, because it’s all he can manage without giving into the urge to scream, Taako forces out, “I—I’m—I can’t.”

In the nightmare scenarios that still sometimes plague him in the middle of the night, when everyone else is asleep and he’s alone with the voice in his brain that fucking hates him, the choices always boiled down to either leaving Angus behind or taking him on the run. Both choices were fucking awful for a myriad of different reasons, and left Taako pacing his room tirelessly trying to think his way out of an unsolvable problem.

The idea that he could become a legal part of Angus’ family as simply as signing a piece of paper is so far-fetched and ridiculous that he can’t wrap his mind around it.

But bringing all his shit into Angus’ life? Signing up for this only to get snatched away the second the paperwork goes through and the militia finally finds him? Leaving his dirty laundry all over the front yard like the worst fucking house guest imaginable, and then peacing out to spend the rest of his long-ass fucking elf life in jail, while Angus was left to just…deal with that?

He couldn’t. He can’t. Every single option is bad. He shouldn’t have stayed. He should have known he would fall in love with that baby on day one. It’s really fucking stupid that he stayed.

“—aako. Taako.”

Taako jerks his head up. His ears are twitching and his hands are shaking and McDonald has probably been saying his name for awhile.

The man’s eyes are bright and steely. They look exactly like Angus’ do sometimes, when he wakes Taako up from a miserable meditation, when it’s just the two of them in a huge house surrounded by a crumbling garden.

“Tell me,” the man says sternly.

At a fucking complete loss, Taako just…does.

When he’s finished, McDonald looks at him really hard for what feels like a long time. Then he pulls a pair of reading glasses out of an inner pocket of his coat, poises the business end of a fountain pen against a fresh sheet of paper, and starts asking questions.

It’s a business-like, no-nonsense exchange. Taako is wiped out, emotionally he is the equivalent of a damp rag wrung out to dry, and he has no wherewithal left to lie or deny or deflect.

When they’re done, McDonald has filled three notebook pages of blocky handwriting, and Taako is swaying in his seat. He watches somewhat vacantly as McDonald nods to himself and rummages in his briefcase for a stone of farspeech.

“We won’t reach Neverwinter until morning. Get some sleep,” he says, and his voice is kindly again, the way it was before. Taako stares at him. “And don’t tell me elves don’t need it, please. I wasn’t born yesterday, and you nap twice as much as my grandson ever did.”

Well, it would be nice to get one last unnecessary snooze in as a free man, Taako supposes, and he doesn’t hesitate to climb into Angus’ bunk. It’s a familiar ritual. The kid squirms to accommodate him without fully waking. Taako tucks an arm around him and buries his nose in that riot of curly hair.

He hears McDonald say, “You’re not much more than a kid yourself, are you?” but that might have just been part of a dream.

He hears someone else say, “That can’t be broken or lost or taken away, it’s always going to be so important,” but Taako thinks that, whoever that was, they were very clearly wrong.

Taako wakes up to a six-year-old’s warm brown eyes. They’re crinkled at the corners in an urchin sort of way, and it’s the only tell Taako needs. His kid has been up to some mischief.

“Grandpa said you were tired and I should let you sleep,” Angus reports cheerfully. “He also said that there was a nice lady selling flowers a few cars down, and I ought to go buy a few!”

Ah. Taako glances down at the ruin of his hair. It looks like about a hundred snowberry blossoms were worked into the thick flaxen braid. It’s going to be an absolute pain to brush out later. He’ll probably find bits of plant in his hair for days. He loves it.

He risks a glance in McDonald’s direction.

The man looks amused by their whole general existence, which is fair. He also doesn't look like he's about to summon the guard to have Taako hauled into the brig, which is a fucking relief and a half.

“The world changed while you were asleep,” he says significantly. “Would you like to sign the papers now or with your pardon?”

Angus says, all in one breath, “You should sign the papers first! Grandpa says then you’ll be my family! I mean, you already are, so I’m not sure what the point is, but it must be important. Look at how official they are!”

Taako feels about four cups of coffee behind this conversation. He scoots off the bed, spilling into one of the chairs at the table, and folds his hands.

“Charlie. Buddy.”

“I stepped out for two minutes,” McDonald says defensively, “and I thought he was asleep!”

“That’s the oldest trick in the book,” Taako mutters. His heart is doing something really complicated and largely unnecessary, fucking backflipping in his chest, at Angus’ thoughtless ‘you already are.’ Like it was a given. What the fuck. “Can you go back to, uh—the world changing? A pardon? What’s up with that?”

“An old friend of mine is a cleric,” he says pushing a steaming cup in Taako’s direction. “Level nine, or thereabouts. She owed me a favor from when we were in school together, when I—well, that’s not important. What is important is that she was happy to cast Discern Location to find your old stage manager.”

Taako fumbles the cup, almost drops it. He sets it down hard.

“What the fuck? No, hold that thought. Angus, I love you. Get lost.”

He’s really banking on the kid being more stir-crazy than curious, and sure enough, Angus hops right off the bunk and sprints for the door.

“Okay, I’ll be in the dining car! You’re not s’posed to take food back with you, but I’m gonna see how many pastries I can fit in my pockets so you won’t be hungry when you sign the papers that make you my family! Love you, bye!”

“A three-hour carriage ride followed by six hours on a train was the worst fucking idea,” Taako says severely. “He’s gonna be on eleven when we roll up to Neverwinter. They might not let us in.”

“He’s just excited,” the old man says, with the tranquility of someone who isn’t going to have to child-wrangle all day long. “I told him I had good news for you.”

Taako is fidgeting, turning the cup of coffee around and around in his hands. It’s leaving a ring of condensation on the table.

“You found Sazed?” he asks, and hates how small his voice sounds.

“We did.”

“He probably hates me,” Taako mutters. “I ruined his life.”

McDonald takes the cup from him and sets it down on the other side of the table with a firm clunk.

“Pardon my language, but you didn’t ruin crud.” Taako mouths ‘crud’ in bewilderment, but McDonald isn’t finished. “I was suspicious of your story when you described the way those people died. Those aren’t the typical symptoms of deadly nightshade, and I’d never heard of a transmutation spell failing in that way before. So I looked into it. Or, I should say, I had a few friends look into it.”

“Are you in a cult?” Taako asks. He can’t help it. He’s one part genuinely curious and two parts hardwired to deflect any time someone tricks him into having a serious conversation. “We frown on cults in this family. Mysterious shadow organizations are never a good thing, no matter what greater-good shit they’re peddling.”

“I’m very rich and belong to very elite social circles,” McDonald says dryly. He’s unmoved by Taako’s general everything. “This whole thing took about three calls. I wish you would have told me about this five years ago, but I do understand why you didn’t.”

Taako doesn’t have a cup to fuck around with anymore. He stopped wearing jewelry when Angus was a baby and literally everything smaller than an apple was a choking hazard, and he never really got into the habit of it again, so he doesn’t have rings to twist around his fingers, either. He wrings his hands instead.

“If it wasn’t the elderberries,” he chokes out, and doesn’t make it any farther.

“It was arsenic,” McDonald says. His voice is kind again, but not so much so that it’s painful to hear. “Sazed was questioned within a Zone of Truth. He admitted to—okay,” he cuts himself off, putting a hand on Taako’s shoulder. “We’re done talking about it for now. Just take it easy.”

Taako doesn’t uncurl from his chair until the door rattles open and Angus’ voice fills the room. He’s found a dozen things to talk about in the ten minutes he’s been gone, and is very proud of himself for all the contraband pastries he managed to make off with. There’s a cheese danish wrapped very carefully in a napkin, only slightly squished, that he presents to Taako with a showy flourish that he really only could have picked up from too much time around one particular idiot.

Taako accepts the danish, and then hauls Angus up onto his lap, and then says, “Charlie, baby. Pass me that fancy pen.”

For the first time in almost eight years, Taako is cooking for an audience again. His hands are shaking, but as long as everyone else is politely pretending like they don’t notice, he can do himself the same favor.

I fed those people their death, but it wasn’t on me, he recites inwardly for the seven millionth time, a nervous mantra. My magic was good. My cooking was good. I was good. It wasn’t on me.

He looks up from the counter where all his tools are laid out and his ingredients are arranged. Ezra is bouncing in her seat, Boniface is lingering in the doorway like he doesn’t care but he also isn’t leaving, and Catherine’s eyes are wide and moonlike and younger than Taako has ever seen them. Angus has place of pride, a seat on the counter by the sink with the best view in the house.

“Okay,” he says. “What are the rules, pumpkin?”

“No swiping ingredients, no magic in the kitchen, and no taste-testing until you say it’s okay,” Angus rattles off promptly. “Autographs at the end of the show are three gold apiece, photos are ten, and the overall experience is absolutely priceless.”

Over the sweet sound of the rest of his audience groaning at him, Taako goes on blithely, “And what are we cooking today?”

“Macarons!”

“And who’s your dude?” Taako asks, pointing a whisk at him. Angus giggles, and Taako’s hands aren’t shaking anymore.

In a month, Angus is going off to a summer camp out past Rockport. It’s Caleb Cleveland-themed, and the whole thing sounds extremely nerdy and book-cluby, and Angus is desperately excited. He’s also desperately nervous about being away from his family for three whole weeks but he’s trying to keep that on the down-low. He’s very grown up at nearly ten years old.

Taako can respect that. He also bought the kid a stone of farspeech, because actually fuck that.

And while Angus is off having his first away-from-home adventure—since the girls think that Taako’s just going to be useless and mopey the whole time, and Boniface already threatened to bury him in a flowerbed the first time he whines about literally anything—Taako is going to go do something cool, too. There’s always some interesting jobs posted on Craig's List up in Neverwinter. He’ll be able to find something to occupy his time.

But for now, he’s gonna make some goddamn desserts.

“Come on, Ango,” Taako wheedles, “who’s your dude?”

“You, papa.”

I’m good, Taako reminds himself. He looks at his kid, who only deserves the best this piece of shit world has to offer, and thinks, I can be good.

#the adventure zone #taz balance #taako taaco #angus mcdonald #taz fic #my writing #better place #ladies i dunno but i gotta work in like 3 hours and i wrote this instead of sleeping

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thegoodgayshit · 3 years

Link

Luz’s mother really doesn’t want to send Luz to camp. She knows once she leaves, there is no going back. But Luz has a knack for getting into trouble, and one day she stumbles into the same type of people her mother would have preferred she avoided. After helping Luz dissolve her high school bully into dust, Eda and Lilith know right away that this kid is just like them - a child of the gods. So Luz hops on a Pegasus and heads to Camp Half-blood, where she embarks on a dangerous quest that makes her both friends and enemies... and she might even save Olympus along the way.

Chapter Twenty-Three: I Find Out that Death Tastes like Rotting Chicken

Luz had no choice, she had to use her phone and call them a cab. Unless they wanted to just keep walking until they were inevitably cornered by some night monster looking to grab exhausted demigods off the street.

The second she’d reached in her backpack and turned on her phone, she’d gotten a handful of texts from her Mami. Deciding to ignore them for now and look later, she ordered the cab to pick them up at the public library a couple of blocks down the road. When it’d arrived, Luz had quietly told the cabbie to take them to Leadville before climbing in the backseat next to Amity while Gus sat in the front.

It was a horribly silent three-hour ride.

The cabbie was playing some of his music in the front, which was a nice distraction for Luz since she couldn’t stop nervously looking over at Amity. The daughter of Aphrodite was staring out the window, and Luz couldn’t see her face, but she could see the subtle shaking of her shoulders. Luz didn’t know if she was crying or desperately trying not to.

She wanted to reach out with her hand, to touch Amity’s shoulder and offer some kind of comfort, but the girl had purposefully turned away from her, and Luz was already starting to feel incredibly guilty for what happened. She had been the one to start the fight and escalate things to the point where they’d exploded.

She’d done it again. Just like her Mami said, she’d retaliated, and hurt Amity in the process.

So, she just swallowed, turning her head back down to look anywhere but at her. She felt a soft hand on her knee, and when she looked over, she saw Willow watching her with kind eyes.

Luz swallowed, trying to keep her lip from quivering. Willow gave her the tiniest smile and squeezed her knee again, and Luz watched her eyes flicker back over between her and Amity. Something in Luz’s head clicked, and with courage she didn’t have before she reached over and gently rested her hand on top of Amity’s.

She jumped, clearly not expecting it. Luz waited, watching to see if she would pull away, but instead, she just leaned into the touch, linking their fingers together. She finally looked over at Luz, her gold eyes watery and red. Luz’s guilt flooded right back up in her chest, and she opened her mouth to apologize, but Amity just shook her head.

“Don’t, Luz.” She whispered, and it was so quiet, if Luz hadn’t been leaning into her she would have missed it. “It’s not your fault.”

“Maybe,” Luz tried, but it didn’t sound reassuring. “It’s not not my fault though.”

Amity’s face tightened, looking at Luz with an expression she couldn’t read. Luz thought that maybe she was going to pull away, but instead, she just leaned in, resting her head on Luz’s shoulder tightening her grip on her hand.

Luz was pretty sure her heart skipped a couple of beats. She really hadn’t been expecting that or when Amity turned her head so her lips were right next to her ear.

“Nobody’s ever stood up for me like that before,” she whispered softly, “not even Edric or Emira. Thank you.”

“I’ll always stand up for you, Amity,” Luz responded, tilting her head so it rested against the top of Amity’s own. “Thanks for… you know. Not letting your mother kill me.”

Luz had never been so happy to hear Amity giggle in her entire life. At least she hadn’t totally screwed up everything between them.

By the time they’d arrived in Leadville, it was well after midnight. They had the cabbie drop them in the little town square, and they paid him with almost all of their cash. They snuck around to a little mountain forest just outside the main town where they wouldn’t be spotted and Gus reached into his bag and popped out the tent in a can.

“I can take the first watch,” Amity offered, as all four of them got comfortable. Luz frowned, her stomach twisting uncomfortably.

“Are you sure?” Luz asked, frowning. “I don’t mind taking the first watch if you want to sleep.”

Amity smiled softly, shaking her head. “It’s okay, Luz. I’m not tired.”

Luz didn’t want to argue with her, so she just shrugged. “Alright, wake me up when you are and we can switch.”

Amity nodded, before stepping out of the tent with her backpack, zipping it shut behind her. Gus had already collapsed into his sleeping bag and was snoring softly, and Willow was just about to tuck herself in when she turned to Luz with a smile.

“Try not to worry about her. Amity’s tough. Just focus on getting sleep. We have one gods forsaken hike tomorrow.”

Luz nodded, still feeling uneasy, but she settled herself into the sleeping bag. It took her a little while to fall asleep, her mind still whirling as she thought about everything that had happened that day.

Eventually, she did manage to fall asleep, but the dreams that came made her wish she’d just stayed awake.

She was back in that mountain again, standing behind Hestia’s cage, hiding behind a crate of supplies. She was only able to catch a glimpse of the shimmering portal, and the flame on top of it before she turned to the Hestia. The goddess was looking a lot more worse for wear than when she’d seen her last. She was kneeling in the cage, struggling for breath. Her face was drenched in sweat, pale, and her eyes that she’d remembered being the color of dying coals were much darker. Like they were about to be extinguished.

Hestia must have seen her coming, because she looked up, and for just a moment there was a relieved expression on her face. She almost smiled, but then there was a crashing noise coming from across the room, and Hestia quickly put a finger to her lips. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there was a voice that seemed to echo around in her skull.

“Hide.”

Luz ducked around another crate, pressing her body against it as she heard another crashing noise, followed by a grunting of pain.

“Again!” The voice said, deep and booming, so loud Luz winced.

“What is the point of this, Achilles?” Said another voice, and Luz's stomach dropped before she slowly felt anger rising up in her chest. It was Theseus.

“You know what we’re doing!” The booming voice snapped back, and there was another sound of a slashing blade running across the side of the mountain wall. “We have forty-eight hours before the portal absorbs her for good, and we begin our assault on Olympus. Do you think the gods take your pathetic skills seriously? Do you think you’ll be able to strike down your father with a swing that weak?”

“He is not my father!” Theseus growled, and Luz’s heart began racing in her chest. Forty-eight hours? That’s all the time they had left to stop them? “Besides, we won’t need to be strong when we begin our assault. We’ll have the numbers on our side when every fallen demigod in Asphodel marches through that portal with us. I’d like to see the sea god try and kill five hundred of his sons all at once.”

Achilles made a bellowing sound of anger, and Luz heard his sword clang against the floor.

“Don’t forget that we would be marching right now if you hadn’t screwed up in Kansas. Every time those demigods step closer to Mount Pelion, the more power she gets. If you’d actually done your job-”

“How is that my fault?” Theseus retorted furiously, “I’m not the one who had the love goddesses brat in their grasp and let them slip away-”

“Enough.”

The voice was so low, it sent chills up Luz’s spine. The temperature around her felt colder like she was suddenly running through a snowstorm. Belos.

Achilles and Theseus got quiet. Luz heard the clinking of footsteps on the cold rocky floor.

“It is pointless to squabble when out time is almost here,” Belos continued, and Luz held her breath as Belos walked right past her, thankfully not seeing her behind the crate. “In two days’ time, the portal will be open for good, and nothing, not even those little demigods will be able to stop us. So, quiet yourselves. Find Orpheus, and be prepared to stop them before they find us.”

There was a quiet shuffling of feet before Theseus spoke up.

“But… Emperor Belos… what about the centaurs-”

“I’m sorry,” Belos interrupted, his tone going dangerous. Theseus quieted immediately. “Was I at all unclear in my orders?”

Theseus swallowed. “No, Emperor Belos.”

“Then why are you still standing here?”

There was a shuffling again, a lot quicker than before, and then Theseus and Achilles were exiting the mountain. Luz peered over the crate, watching them leave, and saw that the exit was not far from the inside cave. There were two pillars Theseus and Achilles passed on their way out both bronze, one in the shape of a sword, and the other in a shield.

Luz ducked back under the crate when Belos suddenly moved, taking slow steps towards the cage Hestia was trapped in. Luz peaked back out over the crate, cautious as she remembered the last time he’d caught her eavesdropping.

Belos was dressed exactly as he had been last time, down to the gold mask and the white cloak. As he walked up to the cage, he slammed his staff into the ground, and it echoed across the cave. Dark mist started swirling around the room, blocking whatever Luz could see of the cage. When the mist came up into her nose and mouth, Luz had to hold back a loud and panicked cough.

It smelled… well… the only way Luz could describe it was that it smelled like liquid death. Rotting meat and sulphury smog. As Luz fought to cover her nose and mouth with her hand, her tongue could taste the metallic tang of blood, like she’d bit the inside of her cheek.

It was horrible. Luz's body screamed for air, but her brain was screaming at her to run, get away from the smog, and never show her face here again.

Hestia got a full blast of the mist, and double over into a cough. Belos clicked his tongue, leaning down on his staff to look at her.

“Why must you let yourself suffer like this,” he cooed, his tone riddled with faux sympathy. “Your demigods aren’t going to save you. The portal will open, even if I have to pry the last of your hearth from you myself. It would be so much less painful for you to just give in.”

Hestia lifted her head, glaring at him. But she was gritting her teeth like the act itself was painful.

“Those half-bloods would be more receptive to your wishes if you didn’t treat them like toys.”

Belos slammed his staff into the floor, and Luz flinched. Hestia stared at him unblinkingly.

“You’d be wise not to test me, goddess,” Belos said, and despite the obvious anger in his narrowed neon eyes, his voice was steady and cool. “I have no quarrel making this as painful for you as you can.”

Hestia turned her head, locking eyes with Luz. “I know you don’t. And I don’t care. They’re coming for me whether you like it or not.”

Belos’ grip on his staff tightened, and he slammed it into the ground again. With a trembling fury, the mist moved like a wave, crashing over Luz and drowning her in the disgusting smell and taste until she snapped awake.

She sat up quickly, her whole body shaking and her forehead covered in a thin layer of sweat. Luz gripped the sleeping bag tightly, closing her eyes and willing the racing of her heart to calm down. She was safe, and in the tent away from danger.

But why could she still smell and taste nothing but death?

“Luz? Are you alright?”

She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder, and after a moment of breathing, she finally opened her eyes. Amity was kneeling next to her, watching her with a worried expression. Luz swallowed, reaching up to touch the hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah… I… I think I’m alright. I think I’m going full vegetarian though. Do I smell like rotting chicken?”

Amity’s expression softened, and she removed her hand to sit cross-legged next to Luz. “You had another dream, didn’t you?”

Luz nodded and told Amity what had happened. When she finished, Amity’s gaze hardened.

“That was Death Mist,” Amity said when she’d finished. She reached across the room and handed Luz a bottle of nectar. “Have a sip of this, it will clear your nose and mouth.”

The second Luz sipped it, she sighed. All the terrible smells and tastes were immediately covered up by the sensations of her Mami’s soup.

“Thanks,” Luz said appreciatively, taking her first deep breath since she'd woken up. Amity shrugged her shoulders.

“Don’t mention it. Death Mist is… not something anybody should ever experience. Hecate campers use it primarily for self-defense. But it was outlawed at camp during capture the flag. It… it can be pretty traumatic.”

“Have you experienced it before?” Luz asked, and Amity’s face twisted, her eyes looking down at the floor of the tent.

“My mother used it on me once.”

Luz wanted to smack herself. What a stupid question. “Amity, I’m sorry-”

“It’s fine,” she replied quickly, “I just… I know what it’s like. I can’t believe he’s been using it on Hestia. Too much of it can drive a person a little crazy.”

“She didn’t look good,” Luz said quietly, thinking of how much worse she looked than the last time Luz saw her. “And if we only have two days to get her out of that cage before the portal opens permanently…”

“We need to hurry,” Amity finished for her. “It will take every bit of Hestia’s power to open a gate like that. If they open it before we get there… she’s gone.”

“I wasted so much time after the prom,” Luz muttered, mentally cursing herself. “We could have been there by now.”

“And what, fight Belos high on that helium bomb?” Amity said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “How well do you actually think that would have gone? You had three cracked ribs.”

“That’s true,” Luz said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. “I just feel terrible for Hestia. I haven’t dreamed about her or Belos since the bus ride to Denver. Things are just getting worse.”

“That’s usually how quests go,” Amity said quietly, fiddling with her fingers. A thought popped into Luz’s head, and she turned to face Amity. She watched her cheeks darken as they were almost nose to nose, but Luz didn’t let that distract her.

“You had been having dreams too. Is that why you wanted to take the first watch last night?”

All the color that was in Amity’s face drained. Luz knew she had her answer.

“Amity, you need to sleep,” Luz started, but Amity cut her off.

‘I know, I know I do,” she said quickly, running her hands nervously across the tops of her thighs. “It’s just… my dreams aren’t like yours, Luz.”

Luz tilted her head curiously. “What do you mean?”

“My dreams don’t take me to the mountain,” Amity started, and she looked so pale and nervous that Luz leaned forward and took her hand comfortingly. “They take me to the portal.”

Luz’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. Amity looked like she was going to panic, so she just sat there quietly, holding Amity’s hand while she kept going.

“I always see Belos standing in front of me. He’s… he’s laughing. I’m… I don’t know where I am. The ground is black stones that look like ashes, and the air is so hot it hurts to breathe in. He’s always taunting me. Telling me I was the weakest link… that I…” her voice cracked, shaking her head, unable to go on. Luz squeezed her hand comfortingly.

“That sounds terrible,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure how she could help Amity feel better. She couldn’t even shake her own dreams, never mind the nightmare Amity had to deal with.

“I do sleep,” Amity continued, looking back up at Luz with a little smile. But Luz could see how it didn’t meet her eyes in the slightest bit. It was another act Amity was putting on to try and be brave. “If I sleep in hour intervals, I don’t dream. I’ve been doing that since the last time I dreamed after you were injured.”

Amity scoffed, rolling her eyes. “My dreams were always worse at my parents’ house.”

Luz tried to ignore the guilt bubbling back up in her stomach. Despite Amity telling her not to worry about it, she couldn’t help but think that all she’d done for Amity in the time they’d been friends is making her life more difficult than it already had been.

“I… I know you probably don’t want to talk about it,” Luz started, biting her lip. “But I meant what I said back at your parent's house. If you ever needed to talk, I’m here.”

Amity was quiet for a second, scanning Luz’s face with her eyes. Eventually, she smiled. “I know you are. Thank you, Luz.” Her eyes widened, and a new smile, a genuine one this time, had set on her face.

“Oh, by the way, I forgot to give this back to you!”

Amity reached into her backpack, pulling out Luz’s copy of the fifth “The Good Witch Azura”. When she handed it to Luz, her eyes widened.

“No way! You finished it already?”

Amity laughed. “Yeah, I finished it last night. You were still asleep, and I had some time to catch up.”

“So… what did you think?” Luz asked, leaning forward and grabbing Amity’s wrist in excitement. The daughter of Aphrodite flushed, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.

“It was… fine.”

Luz noticed a little piece of paper sticking out of the book, and when she pulled it she could help but eye Amity teasingly.

“So fine you drew yourself with Malingale the Mysterious Soothslayer?” She said, pulling out the drawing. It was crude and done on lined paper, but it was so cute and well thought out Luz couldn’t help but chuckle even as Amity’s face darkened, and she ripped it out of Luz’s hand and shredded it between her fingers.

“Amity!” Luz gasped out between laughs. “Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t mean for that to be in there,” she muttered in embarrassment, and Luz shook her head.

“It was cute! I didn’t know you liked to draw.”

Amity’s face, if possible, turned even redder. “I… I mean I wouldn’t say that. It’s not like I was trying to make it look good or anything….”

“Well, I liked it!” Luz said, breaking out into a wide grin. “Maybe when we’re back at camp we can draw together or start that Azura book club. Spend time together like normal teenagers instead of running around killing monsters.”

A strange look passed over Amity’s face, but Luz was too excited about the idea of hanging out with Amity in a non-monster-fighting enviroment she didn’t even notice it.

“I’d like that,” Amity eventually said, tilting her head with a smile. “It’s a date.”

Luz went from smiling to feeling like her brain was short-circuiting in a matter of seconds. A date? Like a date, date? Did Amity want to go on a date with her?

Did Luz just unknowingly ask Amity out on a date?

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, saying something super-intelligent like “uhhh” before Willow and Gus walk into the tent, carrying a variety of snacks in their arms.

“We grabbed some food with the last of the money for the hike,” Gus said, dropping them rather dramatically on the floor. “Are you guys ready to get going? It’s almost eight.”

“Yep!” Amity replied, getting to her feet and slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll go do a quick scout and find out what trail we're supposed to take. You three good to close camp while I’m gone?”

“Sure thing,” Willow nodded, packing her portion of snacks into her backpack.

When Amity left, Luz tried to busy herself. She knew time was of the essence, but she just couldn’t shake the previous conversation she’d had with Amity. She felt like she had whiplash, starting the whole thing smelling death and ending with Amity agreeing to go out with her.

“Hey! Earth to Luz?” Luz felt a push in her shoulder and turned her head to see Gus blinking at her in confusion. “You’re zoning out there. Is everything okay?”

Luz had no idea how to reply to that. Now that she was all packed, she really just needed some air.

Maybe a sense of familiarity before she went hiking to her possible death.

“I’m alright,” Luz said, reaching in her backpack to pull out her phone. “Do you guys think it’d be okay if I texted my Mami before the hike? I just… don’t know if I’ll have another chance.”

Gus and Willow seemed to catch the implications of what she was saying, and they glanced at each other for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah, sure,” Gus said with a shrug. “As long as you turn it off when you’re done, monsters shouldn’t be able to track us.”

Luz was already pushing her way out of the tent. “Thanks, guys. I’ll be right back.”

As she walked through the trees to a spot closer to town, she turned on her phone and was relieved to see she had a signal. She flipped to her messages, seeing the string of texts that were under the photo she’d sent her Mami before the prom.

Look at you!!! You look so dashing.

Where did you get a suit that nice? It’s probably worth more than everything in your room combined.

And your date!!! You look so cute together. She looks like a lovely girl.

I have to hear all about these friends when you come home.

It’s so nice to hear that you’re having a wonderful time. You look so happy, mija.

Luz read the messages and then reread them. Then she read them again. She felt horrible lying to her Mami. The quest was by no means a “wonderful time”, but what was she going to say to her?

How would she just text her Mami, “oh, by the way, I’m on a quest to save Olympus and have almost been killed by monsters several times?” She would have a heart attack.

Sometimes, it was better to keep the people you loved in the dark.

But then, she read the messages again, and something inside her changed. Her Mami had just been pointing out what she saw after all. She knew Luz was a demigod, and she knew that her friends probably were too. Her Mami had never wanted to send Luz to camp because she knew it was dangerous. There was a decent chance her Mami knew more than she was letting on. Luz had always been a terrible liar, after all.

And some things she said weren’t an exaggeration from the truth. Luz loved that suit. She cared deeply about Willow and Gus, and Amity… well Amity was her date to the prom, and maybe after that too. She really was lovely.

Luz was going to gush to her Mami all about her new friends when she got home, and even if the quest wasn’t the easiest thing to deal with, Luz was in a way having more fun with her new friends than she would be alone in Manhattan.

Thank you, Mami. Amity’s mom Aphrodite had the clothes made for us. Talk about godly treatment. I will tell you all about them. Especially Amity. She really is the best.

I have something I have to do for camp, so I don’t know when I’m going to be able to message you again. But I promise I’m being as safe as I can, and my friends are with me, so I’ll be just fine. I am happy, Mami. Te querio.

Luz sent the messages, and then turned off her phone, sticking it in the bottom of her backpack. Now that she had some time to think, she’d realized things in her life really had changed for the better.

Now it was time to begin those final steps, and stop Belos for good. And for the first time in her life, she wasn’t alone.

#the owl house #lumity #luz x amity #Percy Jackson AU #shelby speaks

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naerysthelonesome · 3 years

Text

Time spent together

Part 4:

Let’s take a brief dive into Lit’s mind, shall we?

Lit drops the stack of books onto his bedside table, and goes off to freshen up. When he gets back, he’s wearing soft grey sweats, not that that matters. He immediately heads to the books, and begins to rifle through them, ultimately settling on one about Daphne and Apollo.

He had been quite surprised when his Apollo had picked it, since they had both been avoiding topics about either of their namesakes. He hadn’t thought too much about it then, but now, in the quiet of his dorm room, he wondered if maybe Apollo had picked the book on purpose.

The myth of Daphne and Apollo was popularly known for being one about unrequited love, and Lit couldn’t help but wonder if Apollo was trying to send him a message by asking him to read it. Then he blushed really hard at himself and shook his head. There was no way the other boy had THAT big of a crush on him.

Sure, they’d been flirting, but then again, Apollo flirted with everybody. The way he smiled at him, or looked at him with that funny look in his eyes, or the way that his hand had lingered on his shoulder just a little longer than it should have, meant absolutely nothing. Right?

Lit moved to the bed, and positioned himself comfortably against the wall. He opened the book, and read for about five minutes, before closing it again and staring into the distance. He just couldn’t stop thinking about Apollo. It hadn’t been this bad before, but now that they’d been assigned this damned project together, it’d gotten worse.

He’d developed a small crush on the guy the first time he’d seen him. But then again, who wouldn’t? Apollo was beautiful. But then the blond bastard had decided to be nice as well and help him figure his way around campus, and the crush had… grown.

Lit had freaked out when he heard Ms. Meyers call out their names. He hadn’t known how he would handle it, but… Apollo was actually quite fun to be around. He was easy to talk to and never boring. They even worked well together, which should have been a good thing, but somehow just made things worse.

The two days Lit had spent trying to read Apollo’s copy of The Song of Achilles, had mostly been used to try and figure out what parts of the book Apollo might have loved. As if that would get him closer to really understanding the workings of his crush’s mind. Lit hadn’t felt that pathetic in a long time.

And now here he was, trying to read yet another one of Apollo’s books, still unable to get his dazzling smile out of his head. Gah! Maybe he should just go to sleep. It wasn’t like he was going to get any work done anyway.

He placed the book carefully atop the table, and settled into bed. He closed his eyes and hummed, waiting for sleep to consume him. But it refused to come. Instead, he was reminded of the day he’d just had.

He remembered the silly banter, the talk of books. He remembered telling Apollo about his obsession with Enid Blyton, and cringed hard. He’d never told anyone about that. What on earth had Apollo done to him? He remembered the sunlight spilling in through the window, and making Apollo look like the God he was named for. He remembered the damned couple making out at the rickety bookshelf, and briefly wishing it was them instead.

He dozed off a little later, having given in to such pleasant thoughts, but was soon woken up by his roommate entering the room. Leo Valdez was always jittery and loud, but even more so when he was drunk. He crashed into his desk, giggled something about Calypso’s soft hair, and fell onto the bed with his shoes still on. Exactly 13 seconds later, he was snoring. Lit contemplated taking them off and maybe giving him a blanket, but then decided against it because his own bed was too comfortable to leave.

Now that he was awake, he found it even harder to fall back asleep. He groaned tiredly and picked up his phone, only to see an email from Apollo. His heart sped up in his chest for, according to Lit, no discernable reason. To his immediate and enormous disappointment, it was simply about their project. Apollo had sent a long list of books, and a short summary about what parts of each of them to reference in the paper.

Skimming through that list, Lit belatedly and confusedly saw that most of them had something to do with unrequited love. This obviously cast him into more of a frenzy, thinking about why Apollo could possibly have picked such topics.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the implications, even as he set out to finally begin writing their paper. He hoped to the high heavens it didn’t show in his writing.

Lit wanted nothing more than to just talk to Apollo about all of this, but knew that when morning came he wouldn’t have to guts to. He even considered sending the other boy a risky text, because his sleep-deprived mind seemed to think it was a good idea.

He, however, fell asleep before he could get to his phone, right there beside the sheaf of papers, dreaming of books, a boy, and a confession.

#litpollo #litpollo fanfic #lityerses #apollo #toa apollo #trials of apollo #modern day au #let me be weak let me sleep #riordanverse

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doubleshotofsomething · 4 years

Text

Needy

[ This is my submission for @sourpatchkidsandacokecan ‘s Little Darlin’ Mystery AU challenge. It is a three part soulmate au, inspired by the song Needy by Ariana Grande.]

What happens when you meet the one you had been looking for your entire life, only to find you’re not what they were hoping for?

Summary: You try to move on. You really do. But life just won’t let you.

Pairings: Bucky x Reader, Thor x Reader, Sam x Reader[Purely platonic]

Prompt: soulmate au. song prompt

Warnings: mentions of smut (nothing really major, unless you use a microscope), tiny mentions of abuse(microscopic), panic attack mentions, fluff maybe? for like a second?, angst(i think im getting good at that but probably not), Bucky is an idiot, everyone is an idiot here folks. Proceed with caution.

Prologue

Part One: [I admit I’m a little messed up]

“—dizzy yet?” You looked up at Sam, his soft eyes assessing you. “Nauseous?”

You shook your head, lowering your eyes back to the drip attached to your left arm. He was the only one in the room with you. He was always the only in the room with you, willing to wait until you were well enough to leave. Willing to keep you company.

A part of you was thankful, the thought of being alone in the Bruce’s Lab was daunting. Not even the scientist himself was willing to be there throughout the entire process, unless it was absolutely necessary. Or maybe the thought of being alone with you was what kept him from staying every time.

You frowned at the thought, the likeliness of it was unsettling. You didn’t even see Steve as much, anymore.

“You know what would be funny—” Sam grinned, still leaning against the door as he had been for the past hour. “—if he died halfway through the transfusion.”

That would be funny. And you would have genuinely laughed, loud and unapologetic, if swallowing your own spit didn’t still seem like a challenge whenever your soulmate was around, if breathing didn’t seem so impossible. If you heart didn’t have that overwhelming ache that won’t seem to go away anymore.

You would have laughed, honestly, but nothing seemed funnier that your predicament anymore.

“Don’t give him any ideas,” you offer him a genuine smile, “he’d do that just to have the upper hand.”

Just to spite me, you thought bitterly.

Sam chuckled, shoving hands into his jean pockets as he wandered further into the room. He hated the situation just as much as you did, you knew that because he voiced it every time he had to pick you up. But he couldn’t do anything except offer his presence, keep you company until Bruce was done getting whatever he needed from you.

This time, just like the past last two times, he needed your blood.

As it turns out, your soulmate decided to be hero, as if he wasn’t already one, and used his body as a shield to protect his wife from sniper shot. He could have moved her out of the way, if he’s fast enough to get in the way then he’s fast enough to get her out of the way. But he’s an asshole.

He’s an asshole that could have just let her get shot at – she was wearing a bulletproof vest anywhere – but he didn’t, because he probably gets paid to make your life a living hell.

The previous time you had a tube attached to you, he had pushed Tony out of the way and ended up with a poisoned dart attached to his neck. Tony was in his iron man suit, so the dart would have just bounced off. But your mate is an asshole that got himself poisoned, so you had to be pulled out of your best friend’s wedding for a blood transfusion that ended up poisoning you.

Bruce claimed that the poison shouldn’t have been able to enter your bloodstream, that the antibodies in your system were strong enough to fight and render it harmless, that the injection he had given prior was supposed to make it impossible for the toxin to survive. You and Sam called bullshit, hydra base poison was hydra base poison and nothing to keep it from not being toxic, but that didn’t prevent you from being hospitalised for two weeks.

Because your soulmate is an asshole.

“They haven’t come back for more blood—” you frowned as you tried to look passed the lab doors, finding no movement outside of the glass. “—do you think he’s awake?”

Sam frowned at that, turning to face you fully.

You couldn’t feel him anymore, you haven’t been able to since the vows, and you hated yourself for finding some sort of comfort in that. In the fact that he, too, couldn’t feel you anymore.

Sam knew that. One look at the bruising around your neck and he knew that the ties that bind had been damaged for good. Which is why he hated this, more than he could ever put into words. He hated that they all ignored the signs, that they put you in danger, and still made you save his life every time.

“I hope so,” he said, his brown eyes gentle as they continued to watch you. “Because, honestly, you’re starting to look anaemic.”

At that, you grinned at him. “I was wondering why the room was starting to move.”

“Y/N—”

“It’s a joke, Wilson.” You chuckled, shaking your head as you finally removed the drip from your arm, having done so enough times to know what you need to do. “I think that’s enough blood for now, anyway.”

It wasn’t a joke. The room had been moving since you stepped into the Tower, but they needed blood and the thought of declining didn’t sit well with you. It continued to move as you made your way to the lab, your feet taking you there on instinct, as if going to the lab was as routine as going to bed. Even now, as your heart rate had finally calm down and Sam’s presence had eased your anxious stomach, it still moved at the thought of the idiot you’d let get under skin.

Assholes and idiots were truly your Achilles’ heel.

He was awake.

You found out an hour later, after Bruce had cleared you and Sam had successfully convinced you to stay the night. You were too dizzy to be trusted on your own, and you couldn’t find it in yourself to force Sam to take you back home. So, you gave in.

He was still recovering, too weak to leave his bed. A part of you silently hoped he remained that way for the rest of the night, while a part of Sam vocally hoped he didn’t make it through the night.

Everyone else laughed and took that as a joke.

You laughed because you knew it wasn’t.

Sam stayed in the living room with everyone else, while you chose to go to your designated room for the night. You had accepted a little while back that this - whatever friendship you were trying to form with the group - would never work. It would never - could never, be genuine.

You wanted a soulmate, your soulmate, and they wanted a peaceful living environment. Resentment made for a terrible working environment and your presence brought about a truck load of it. So, naturally, they couldn't side with you even if they wanted to.

You hadn't noticed at first, the shift in the room whenever you were around. You just assumed it was the result of your nerves, or their unfamiliarity with you. So, you tried to ease the tension, to make it bearable for everyone involved. They had dealt with people trying to dismantle them, turn them against each other, and you just needed them to understand that that wasn't who you were.

Then, as the trips to the lab became more frequent, and Sam remained the only constant, you realised what the problem really was - you.

It didn't matter how good of a person you thought you were. Or needed them to know you were. Bucky would marry Wanda, and they would do nothing to help you stop that.

Bruce entertained your small talk because he was just nice, not because he was your friend.

Steve remained by your side only when necessary, only after your fights with Bucky, as if to ensure that you wouldn't lash out. As if you were that kind of person.

Natasha and Clint, in the brief moments that you had shared with them, were polite but always quick to leave the room. According to Sam, your entire situation was scary to them.

Tony only ever greeted in, only ever in passing. You were almost certain that you had talked more with Jarvis, than you had with him.

Sam was the only one that actually bothered with you, which was a problem for the team. Bucky didn't trust him to have his back anymore - not when he would side with you at any chance he got - and that made it impossible to send them both into field together. You tried to avoid him, he was an Avenger before he was your anything, figuring that you were doing the both of you a favour.

Rather drift apart than lose his friendship in the worst way, you figured.

But he was persistent. And patient. And had terribly good taste in music, and a great humour. And you were lonely and weak, and in desperate need of a friend.

So, you stopped ignoring his call as much as before. Stopped ignoring him every time he showed up at your place. You stopped denying yourself his consistency and started accepting that he wasn't terrible company for someone who hated labs.

You knew where you stood with everyone, at least you no longer had to force things.

"You're not even gonna say bye?"

Blue eyes stared back at you, trapping you in his gaze as your hand remained frozen over the car door handle.

He shouldn't be awake. You were quiet. You had woken up an hour earlier than usual to avoid bumping into any one of them, but clearly you weren't quiet enough for the super soldier to not hear you.

Bucky shrugs, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. "Figured you'd stay for breakfast, at least."

He says that so casually, so naturally, as if this was okay. As if what you two had - could have had, should have had - didn't fall apart at his hands. As if the marks on your neck would disappear within a couple of weeks, as if this was normal.

"I have things to do." Is your quiet response, neutral, as if your heart isn't beating painfully against your chest.

He frowns, taking a step forward, a step that has your eyes widening slightly at his movement.

"It's four a.m.," he states, eyebrows furrowing and face churning with a hint of disappointment. Disappointment with you, always you. "Calm down, doll, I can feel your heartbeat from here."

It's your turn to frown. He shouldn't be able to feel you, not anymore. Not after he chose her.

He seems to think that too, because he shrugs and lets out a sigh. "It's kinda hard to stay on bed rest when your anxiety is stronger than that coffee you drink."

You don't respond. You never do lately, and he understands that, knows that it's his fault. But you had moved to a different place, gotten a new number, changed workplaces, and he had to find all that out the hard way. With changed locks that his key no longer unlocks, sympathetic looks from the receptionist when she tells him that you quit over a month ago, and a different voice in the voicemails everytime he calls your old number. Despite both of your histories, you were still bonded to each other and you could at least talk to him.

You hate that he's doing this, to you, again. That he pushes you away, tells you he loves another woman, but still wants you to dance to the tune he's playing. You hate yourself even more for being too weak for this, too much for him.

His hair was still tousled and messy, his shirt wrinkled, and you hated seeing this part of him. Because this is the part that she gets, the part that should have been yours. The part of him that isn't fights and holes in walls and panic attacks in the middle of a shower.

This is the part that didn't have demons and freightcar and rusted and shattered glass every time you opened your mouth. This is the part that you don't get to have, because he could never give it to you, because Hydra was good, so damn good at making Winter Soldiers that the Soldat could never really leave Bucky.

Not while you're still alive.

"Breakfast?" he asks, after a moment of watching you. "Steve and I could drive you to work afterwards, I'm sure you still have some of your formal clothes here."

You shake your head at him, not able to find the words. Because this isn't how you pictured your relationship with your mate would be.

But this was the card you were dealt.

"Lunch?"

You frown.

"Come on, doll--" he runs his fingers - flesh, because metal is only ever reserved for you - through his hair, "--I'm trying to make up for everything."

"I have to go." You insist and get into your car before he can drag the conversation out, talk you into staying, into giving him parts of yourself he could never give back.

You leave and he lets you, for once. His chest heavy with the weight of your emotions, an ache for something he could never understand.

He couldn't be what you wanted, as much as he wishes he could. But he still wanted you to be happy. He'd give anything for you to be happy - almost anything.

Weren't you tired of being lonely?

You should have known who he was.

Who else could still stand after being hit by a car, at the speed you were driving?

But your vision was bleary, your stomach was cramping, and you weren't sure if your periods were early or if you were about to have another episode.

You should have known who he was. Who else could have been his height, had his strength and still asked if you were okay?

You don't usually cry when you first meet someone. But you cried when you met him.

You had rushed out of your car as soon as your actions registered in your head, practically stumbled your way to him, and wheezed as you fell on your knees in front of him.

"Are you alright?' His voice is deep, way too deep, as deep as the pit in your stomach it seemed.

You continued to wheeze, eyes wide with trepidation, struggling to find the strength to repeat his words to him.

You were having a panic attack; you were sure of it. You had left Bucky on an uncomfortable note and spent the entire day driving around in circles, avoiding your apartment. Scared that he had put a tracker, that he was following, that he would be waiting for you inside, vaguely aware that that line of thought wouldn't do you any good. Especially on your day off.

"Dead!" Is the first word that comes out of your mouth as your eyes frantically scan over him. "So dead! Oh, my, god--"

"Uh--"

"Gonna be attached to a tube in a prison cell--" your crawled closer to him, frantically feeling at him in search of any broken bones. "--I can't do prison. I couldn't-- I can't-- I'm not--oh, my, god!"

You couldn't calm down, not even as he assured you that he was fine, that he had survived far worse than a little bump.

Your car was dented where it had hit him, but he still got up without any difficulty. He helped you up as you gaped at him, still in shock and still rambling about things that neither of you understood.

He parked your car for you, took out your grocery bags - you didn't need to buy any of the things in them, but you were stalling so you bought whatever you thought you needed - and carried your things up the staircase with you.

You were still shaking and rambling and terrified. He took your keys and unlocked your door for you, letting you go in first.

You should have been terrified of him, he was a complete stranger and he could overpower you. He could do with you as he pleased.

But he told you a story about his brother pretending to be a snake when they were kids, and how his best friend would be proud to know that she wasn't the only one that could knock him off his feet.

Then he told you about his pet rabbit while extending his hand mid-air, caught an umbrella that flew in through the door and smiled at you.

Blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he watched you watch him, waiting.

You should have known who he was. What other human looked like him?

"Holy shit--" You cry again, harder than before, than earlier, because you hit an Avenger with your car and now, they knew where you lived.

Thor's smile disappeared slowly, then all at once. His eyebrows furrowed as he watched you back away from, his chest tightened when you started rambling about nearly killing him, and he was holding you before he even realised he had crossed the room.

He had been on Earth long enough to know that midgardian women had a habit of crying out of nowhere or for the oddest of reasons. They cried when they were happy, and sad, and angry, and holding them seemed to work every time.

So, he held you as you cried in the middle of your doorway, with the door wide open. He held you as you wheezed so hard, you passed out. Then he set you gently on your couch and waited for you to wake, to make sure you were alright.

You woke up to a dry throat, swollen eyes, a headache and the god of Thunder hovering over you, staring.

His smiles as you groan, eyes lighting up as you attempt to sit on your couch.

You used to have a couch big enough to fit two, comfortable enough for two to cuddle, because you were preparing for two. You sold that couch when you moved, you sold everything when you moved, and replaced it with furniture for one - and the annoyingly comfortable armchair for Sam, because why not.

You narrow your eyes at Thor, which entices his smile to widen as he leans back and sits upright on your coffee table.

"I made you something to eat." He's grinning proudly, and the cynic in you is almost certain that whatever it is, it's probably poisoned.

He made you cereal. He must have made it a while ago as well because it's swollen and soggy from the milk it absorbed, and it looks like it had been left out in the open the entire time. It probably has been.

You look between him and the bowl, then narrow your eyes at him further.

"Did you eat that?" You ask, your voice sounding croaky and disgusting to your ears.

He shakes his head, frowning at the bowl. "The milk smelled curiously funny. Is it flavoured?"

"It's rotten." You forgot to get milk while you were shopping, you also forgot to throw away the carton that was in the fridge.

"Thought as much." He hums, setting the bowl back on the floor. "Midgard does have peculiar things, so I just assumed this was another one of it."

You blink at him, his eyes startlingly warm, too warm for him to be an Avenger.

"Midgard is what we call Earth," he continues, taking your silence for confusion. "We, as in Asgardians."

You know. You had been to the Tower enough times to know.

He watches you, sky blue scanning over your frame, and you suppress the urge to shudder. You're hugging the thin blanket that had been thrown over you, assumingly by him, feet still stretched out on the couch as you subconsciously attempt to sink further into it.

His eyes fall at the cotton on your arm, an expression that you can't quite read cross his face.

He must have been so used to people welcoming him with open arms, that he didn't think this situation was odd.

"You know--" he scratches at his stubble, eyes still glued to your arm, "--the last time I got hit by a car, I ended up in a hospital and woke up to eat pop tarts."

You blame the headache. You're hearing things and seeing Avengers in your apartment because of the headache. Plus, you were low on blood at the moment, so it must be that as well.

"Are you--" you pause to swallow, suddenly aware of how achingly dry your throat is. He seems to notice and is handing you a bottle of water before you can finish.

You frown, sure that he poisoned it as well, but still drink the water because there are worse ways to go -- and you survived poisoned once, maybe you could again. Best two out of two.

You let out a relieved sigh, the water cool as it trickles down your chin and soothes your throat. You're about to use the back of your hand to wipe at the water, but his hand presses a napkin to you before you can even lift it.

"I'm not sick," you tell him, and he shushes you as he continues dabbing at your chin. "I can do that myself."

"I witnessed you drop your key three times in a row before I intervened, so I seriously doubt it."

He stayed until he was certain that you would be alright on your own.

He stayed until you were half-asleep on the couch and practically kicked him out.

Then he stayed the night when he had accidently walked in while you were in the middle of another panic attack.

He stayed until you started meeting each other during your lunchbreaks, at a cafe a few blocks from your work.

He stayed, with your hand in his hair and on his cheek, with his lips on yours and his arms around you.

He stayed, with his body on yours, connected in ways only lovers know. With his heat surrounding you, between you, within you. Chest to chest, lips to lips, he stayed.

He stayed, in your home, and then you woke up one morning to find him everywhere all at once. The toothbrush next to yours, shirts mixed up with his, beer next to the juice. He was in the warmth waiting for you on the couch and in your bed everyday - you, no longer shocked but expecting to find it every time.

He stayed, filling in the gaps, fixing the showerhead and the creak of your door and that window that wouldn't budge.

He stayed until you couldn't remember why you had cereal for dinner, while you waited for the food you ordered.

He stayed until he answered the door, and Bucky stood on the other side of it.

He stayed, until he didn't.

You should have known who he was. Who else could build you up and break you back down like an Avenger?

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A/N: I stared at the word prologue so long, i dont think im spelling it right

121 notes · View notes

ray-ray-writings · 3 years

Note

Okay I’ve been recently getting super into Karl’s streams because I just adore his puppy energy but, hear me out here.

Reader and Karl are friends right? And she goes and hangs out with him a lot and eventually one Saturday she convinces her BF, Techno, to come with her. He follows, mostly cause he’s bored and she’s persistent, they get to Karl’s place, Reader knowing instantly what to do gets up near Karl, grabs something Techno can’t see from where he’s standing, spins and belts out a song for Karl’s Karaoke. (The song playing in my ears right now is Talk Too Much)

Cue Technos surprise as he hears his s/o sing for the first time, grinning like a maniac. Reader tries to get him into it but he refuses until he watches Karl and Reader do a duet together (they’re best friends your honor) cause no one else would duet with him and he just gets up very bored my, lumbers over and snatches the microphone from Karl and does some soft deep number. Nothing energetic it’s gotta be deep and soft. (First thought is resting on Achilles Come Down)

After the singular song he doesn’t get up to sing again and you think he’s hated the whole experience but next Saturday you find him by the door ready to go with a bag in his hand. It isn’t til halfway through the time when he does his weird standing up, snatching the microphone from whoever was singing, setting it back in its stand and grabbing his bag before Reader realizes he brought a fuckin violin. Tommy or maybe Ghostbur get jazzed because “I REMEMBER WHEN MY BROTHER PLAYED THAT” and just-

GOOD SHIT!!!

With love- 🌻

Holy shit 🌻 you have my entire heart. This is so amazing. So so poggers. (Also, this is the only post for tonight! Hope you enjoy!!)

So yes, you and Karl are best friends and you two hang out a lot. But as more and more things happen on the SMP, you find yourselves spending less and less time together, which makes you sad. So as a compromise, you two decide that the two of you would hang out every Saturday night. No exceptions, no excuses, Saturday is for Y/N and Karl. And it works very well with you guys, sometimes you have dinner and talk or you play games and yes sometimes even karaoke. Even when you and Techno got together and he, Sapnap, and Quackity got together, you two never missed a Saturday. Sometimes though, Sapnap and Quackity tag along which is just fine with you. And if you could convince Techno (you never could but just in case haha), Karl would be fine with that. But everytime you ask Techno, he says no, he doesn’t want to intrude and he doesn’t really want to do some of the things you two do.

But that all changes on fateful Saturday. Techno had been gone for a majority of the week and had only gotten home in the early afternoon of the Saturday. You two had been cuddled up in bed, just cuddling, kissing, and catching up because you’d missed each other so much all week. But it gets to be that time and you try to leave your bed, but Techno has an iron grip on you. “Tech, babe, I’ve got to go” you whisper, pressing a few kisses to his face before landing one on his lips and smiling at him. Techno only pouts at you, “No you don’t. I just got home. You could stay here with me.” he grumbles, attempting to pull you closer to him, but you don’t let him. “I know baby, but you know Saturdays are spent with Karl… If you want you can come with, Sapnap and Quackity will be there so it won’t be awkward. We can have a fun time. My best friend and his s/os and me and my s/o. It will be fun, come on baby,” you murmur, running your hair through his pink locks causing him to sigh. He pretends to think for a moment before giving you a nod. You smile at him before easily weaseling your way out of his grip, pulling him with you. He steadies himself on his feet as you reach up and press a kiss to his lips before bouncing out of the room. “Come on baby, we’re going to be late.”

The two of you leave the house and make your way to Karl’s house. You throw open the front door without second thought, “Karl! We’re here!” There’s a bit of noise from further in the house before Karl calls back, “We’re??” you can’t help but laugh as you shut the door behind you and Techno before pulling Techno arm along with you as you move to where Karl’s voice was coming from. You make your way into the living room and find Karl hunched over what you know to be the karaoke machine and Sapnap and Quackity curled up together on the couch. “Yeah, we’re” you answer from the doorway causing all three men’s gazes to snap to you two. A huge smile grazes Karl's face at the sight of you two, Quackity gets a little nervous but is quickly comforted by Sapnap’s smile and a quick kiss. “Hey Techno! It’s great to see you!” Karl, ever the charmer and the kind heart, greets your boyfriend. Your boyfriend gives the man a small wave, “Hey Karl… Sapnap………….. Quackity.” The other two give the pink headed man a small smile and wave before turning their attention back to Karl. You pull Techno around the side of the couch and usher him to sit down and before you can sit next to him, Karl has grabbed your arm and pulled you to the machine. “Karl, I wanted to sit and relax with Techno for a moment,” you complain to your best friend. Karl just grins at you and shoves a microphone in your hand as music begins to play. You roll your eyes at how well your best friend knows you and he moves to sit next to his fiances. With all eyes on you, you decide to have fun. You belt out the lyrics and dance around just having fun. (This is the song! Talk Too Much by COIN!). Every once in a while one of the fiances would let out a cheer, edging you on. Techno though would just be staring at you with wide eyes, he had never heard you sing before, well maybe once but never this carefree.

The four of them clap in excitement after you finish and then bound over to the couch. Once again, you move to sit next to Techno, but are instead this time pulled down onto his lap with your back pressing against his chest and burying his face into the place where your neck meets your shoulder. “I didn’t know you could sing like that” he murmurs into the skin. You can’t help but melt a little bit as you relax further into him. “It’s just something we do for fun sometimes.” you murmur in response, your eyes watching as Karl stands up and picks out a song for himself to sing. “It was nice” That was the last words before Karl began his own song.

The two of you watched as each of the fiances sang their own solo. “Do you want to sing something?” You murmur, leaning back and turning your head slightly to talk to your boyfriend. Techno let out a huff and tightened his arms around you for a moment, “No” he answers simply as Sapnap and Quackity step up to the mic. The three of you watch Sap and Quack do a very cheesy duet together causing you and Karl to laugh loudly and Techno to hide his chuckles in your shoulder. When the two were done, they were pouting. “Hey! Stop laughing at us!” “Yeah we sang a very serious duet together” And when neither of you stop laughing Sapnap and Quackity plop down on the couch and fold in to each other, “Fine, see if either of us sing a duet with you Karl” Sapnap juts out, poking his tongue as his fiance. Karl immediately stops laughing and begins to beg his lovers to sing with him, but the two don’t budge. So Karl does the next best thing he can think to do. He turns to you with a wide pout on his lips and puppy dog eyes, and who are you to say no to your puppy dog eyed best friend? You let out a sigh before carefully removing yourself from Techno’s arms, despite the grumbles of protest, and join your best friend by the machine to sing a duet with him. Karl wouldn’t let you see what he picked but as soon as the music began, you almost lost it. Of course he would pick this song. It is not only about two “best friends” it is definitely bound to make his two fiances just a bit jealous. (It is the Bro Duet haha. Find it here)

The two of you goofed around and sang your hearts out, changing every “no homo” to “no hetero” Karl sang the first part and you sang the second. Throughout the song, Sap and Quack, although amused, were admittedly a little jealous, that should be them up there singing about how much they love each other. Techno on the other end of the couch was a little confused and a little jealous. He couldn’t help but wonder to himself if this had actually happened. Had you and Karl one time gone to the beach and you had to give Karl CPR? Had you gone to an amusement park and started choking on a turkey leg and Karl gave you the hymlick? Had the two of you fallen in love with each other? What the hell was happening? Toward the end of the song, Techno found himself standing up from the couch and walking toward you two. It surprised you, because Techno had literally told you he did not want to sing. But here he was, grabbing the microphone from you… in the middle of a song no less. Karl and you stopped singing as you stared at Techno who now held the microphone close to his chest. Almost as if reading his mind, you took a step forward and gently cupped his face, “It didn’t actually happen Techno. It’s just a song.” You comfort your boyfriend. Techno’s shoulders did a big relax at your words. “Sorry” he grumbles out, “Didn’t mean to interrupt your song.” You can only give him a warm smile at that. “It’s okay lover. Do you want to sing something now?” And to your surprise, Techno walks over to the machine and begins looking through the song choices. So you and Karl share a look before making your way back to the couch and sitting down. Karl was immediately engulfed in a huge hug by his fiance’s while you curled into the still warm spot that was Techno’s. Soft cello music rang from the machine as Techno awkwardly stood in front of you four, his eyes dancing around the room. Techno took a deep breath before his beautiful bass voice rings out into the room. His voice completely encaptures the four of you sitting on the couch and not even Quackity is making a single noise. Techno sings a beautiful rendition of Achilles Come Down, it quite literally brings tears to your eyes. But once he’s done and the song is over, Techno sets his microphone down and immediately walks over to the couch and sits down next to you, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you close to him. You try to tell him how good it was, but he kisses you to stop you. Later that night when you two go home, you try once again to tell him how amazed and impressed you were at his song, but he brushes your compliments off and kisses you again before cuddling you to sleep. And so, you figure he absolutely hated it and never wanted to do anything like it again.

So the next Saturday, you know is another karaoke night and this time Karl had invited the whole SMP to come. You were fine with it and you knew not everyone would show up. So when it was time to go, you looked everywhere in the house for Techno so that you could tell him goodbye but you could not find him. You were about to just leave when you hear your name being called from the front door. You rush to the door and find Techno standing there with a bag in his hand. “There you are. Are you ready to go?” Deciding not to question it, you give your boyfriend a smile and a nod before the two of you head out for Karl’s. When you arrive, there are quite a few people there, but not it’s definitely not everyone. You quickly find Karl and greet him with hugs before helping him get completely set up for the night. Techno hovers around you two, not really helping but not wanting to go around and socialize. Eventually he spots Philza and leaves your side briefly to greet his father.

Finally everything is set up and ready to go. So Karl calls out to everyone to please take their seats, it’s go time. I would like to say that you go first and sing another fun and upbeat song to get everyone hyped. (I do not have one in mind for this time) But it’s great and a total banger, we stan. So then when you’re done, everyone claps politely and Karl moves to take your place. So you bound over to Techno and sit on his lap. One after another, people went up and chose a song and sang their heart out. You don’t expect Techno to get up and sing. You thought he hated it last time so why would he do it again? But he surprises you, of course haha. But after listening to Quackity screech out a song that you honestly cannot tell what it was because of how much he was joking around and not actually trying his best to sing, Techno had had enough. He carefully moves you off of him, grabs his bag, and moves to the front of the room, snatching the mic out of Quackity’s hand. “Hey! I wasn’t done singing!” Quackity protests, reaching for the mic again. “I was done listening… we are all done listening” Techno shoots back. Quackity glances around the room, lets out a sigh, before shuffling over to his fiances and curling into their arms. Techno very quickly turns off the music and a sigh of relief sweeps over Karl’s living room, which makes you snicker behind your hand. You’re surprised when Techno doesn’t pick another song from the machine, but instead he opens his bag and pulls out a violin. You haven’t seen him play that violin in so long and it melts your heart to see him pull it out and bring it up to his chin. You watch in awe as he brings his bow to the strings and begins to play so beautifully. “Oh I remember when my brother played the violin! He was always so good at it! We used to play together all the time. He on violin, me on guitar… It was amazing,” you hear Ghostbur exclaim from somewhere else in the room. And he’s right, it is amazing. It’s even more amazing when Techno opens his mouth and lets his beautiful bass voice ring out into the room. It’s really truly an amazing thing to see. Techno not only playing the violin, but also singing. The room is dead silent and all attention is on Techno as he sings about his time as king, as the Blood God. Please find the violin cover here and the song he’s singing here. Song is Fallen Kingdom…. Yes that fallen kingdom hahahah).

When he’s done, the room is so silent you could hear a pin drop. Techno glances around the room in a panic and you can see his face flushes. You know the voices are going crazy, trying to convince him that he just fucked up and everyone hated it and hated him. So you slowly stand from your seat and begin clapping. Heads snap to you as you clap. Philza quickly joins you, standing up and clapping. Slowly everyone joins you, and then everyone at once. Techno gets a standing ovation from the crowd. This makes his blush even harder and he quickly takes the violin off his shoulder and puts it back into the bag. You don’t let him get off the makeshift stage though, you quickly walk up to him, grab his now empty hands causing him to freeze and look at you. You just simply leaned up and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “That was amazing Techno” you mumble against him. He hums in response, kissing you back. “Oh it was nothing” he murmurs back. After a few more moments, the two of you pull apart and you give him a small smile, “sing a duet with me?” you ask him as the applause dies down. Techno looks hesitant, but one quick glance around the room at the encouraging smiles, he decides one more song couldn’t hurt. He lets you pick out the song and his heart almost melts at the choice. (Here is the song. It is Come What May from moulin rouge). Your voices meld so well together and it doesn’t leave a single dry eye in the house. Again, once you’re finished the room is roaring with applause. Literally everyone is crying. Like it’s so obvious you two love each other and that you two mean the words you’re singing in the song. You two end the song with another very passionate kiss as everyone claps so hard they’re all sure their palms will be red and sore the next morning. You and Techno pull apart and you have matching grins on your faces as you set down your mics and move back to the couch to cuddle again. It takes a hot minute for anyone to step up to the machine, not wanting to follow that amazing performance, but slowly Karaoke night gets back on track. Neither of you two get up to sing again though. You’re just content to sit in your boyfriend’s lap and he’s just content to hold you. As you snuggle into him, Techno thinks over the past two Saturdays and he decides quietly to himself that maybe spending Saturdays with you and the fiances wouldn’t be so bad… I mean he actually had fun. He deserves to have a bit of fun every once in a while.

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