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hepaidattention · 3 years

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pipe cleaner

where Lydia and Stiles live six hours away from each other their first year in college and hate it and also Scott needs help with the pack, but they make it work - they always do. oh also its their meetaversary.

warning: occasional cursing because I can’t believe impulsive Stiles Stilinski didn’t use fuck on a regular basis

Lydia lied across her bed, head rested on her pillow, ankles crossed, and hands folded and placed perfectly on her stomach. She was waiting, patiently she might add. She let out a long sigh as she observed her ceiling. She wished it was those god ugly popcorn ceilings just for the entertainment of deciding shapes out of the little bumps - she used to do that in Stiles' room, all those times they’d say they were studying but it always turned into his long rants about his next hunch or scheme. Sometimes, when he got too stressed, she would pull him on the bed with her and tell him to tell her the first shape he saw. It was almost always something silly, or sarcastic, but it grounded him - it helped him when he was on the verge of a panic attack as well. One time she asked him what they looked like to her and he laughed a little. She asked him what it was and he said, "They kinda remind me of all the moles taking over my face."

She looked at him, getting a perfect view of the most prominent ones. She loved his freckles and moles, they made his face so unique. Then he said, "One of these suckers will be the death of me, just you wait. I'll spend years surviving werewolves and werecoyotes and murder spree sacrifices and nogistune possessions, all to die from mole cancer at the sour age of 60."

"Don't say that," Lydia felt a twinge in her chest from the thought.

"What, why?" He turned his head to face hers, laughing still about it.

"Because I don't want to think of a world like that," she bit her bottom lip, then twisted her neck back to face the ceiling. "A world where you're dead." is what she wanted to say, but instead she finished with, “I can’t handle anymore death.”

Stiles’ mouth was gaped open - he was looking at her like he’d just seen the sun for the first time. She recognized it as ‘Lydia actually cares about me’ face, because he made it a lot when she ever said anything nice to him. He closed his mouth, finally, then he grabbed her hand, giving it a light squeeze before letting go. With that he whispered, "Well thankfully you don't have to. Can't get rid of me that easily, now can you?"

Lydia found tears running down the side of her face and into her perfectly curled hair. They were bittersweet tears - loving the memories of the happy past, but missing them so severely it brought a deep pain in her chest. She wiped the tears from the memory and looked at her phone. 8:35. She sighed again, her fingers now tapping less patiently and more impatiently on her abdomen. 5 minutes late was on time for Stiles, but it didn't keep her from worrying.

God she missed him. She thought back to the first day she actually acknowledged Stiles Stilinski. She was on her bed at home, not here in this dorm, and yes she always knew who he was - it was almost impossible not to know the sheriff's son. The Stilinski the teachers always yelled at, the trouble maker goofball all the lacrosse players made fun of behind his back. She met Stiles in 3rd grade, with his over worn Power Rangers shirt as he stared at her across class all day. However, in her room was the first day she learned his name. Like really learned it; at least cared to remember it. She was high on whatever drugs she took for her anxiety and all she remembered was a sweet Stiles coming to check on her. He was the only one who ever checked on her. The only one (other than Allison obviously) out of the entire school to come and make sure she was okay.

Now she was lying on her bed, waiting for him to call her on the phone, wishing she could just see his mole-covered face in person for the first time in these excruciating months. She wanted to hug him; kiss him; hold his hand.

She let out a loud sigh and picked up her phone, checking the time again. 8 minutes late. It was 8 minutes Lydia, calm down. Stiles hardly ever even remembered what day it was, his concept of time was always off. She laid it back down on the bed and stared back at the ceiling. 2 more minutes passed and she sat up, bringing her phone with her. Maybe she should just call him. It was his turn tonight, but he could've fallen asleep. His sleep schedule had been ridiculous lately, his internship keeping him up at strange hours of the day and night.

She pulled up his contact and started to press the green little phone button when Incoming Call appeared on her screen. It was an unknown number. She answered anyway, falling back into the bed as she said, "Hello?" She said it with mystery, wondering if assuming it was Stiles was too hopeful.

"Uh yes hi," Stiles said on the other side of the phone. He sounded weird, like he was trying to make his voice deeper. "I'd like to order a pizza,"

She smiled to herself, deciding to play along, "Sorry sir, you have the wrong number. This is a supernatural crisis hotline, are you experiencing anything supernaturally distressing at the present?"

She could hear him chuckle to himself, practically hear the smile curving up mouth: "That depends on what you define as supernaturally distressing."

"Hm, well," she flipped on her side, her arm propping up her head, "Are you being haunted?"

"Mmm, by hunger, yes,"

She shook her head, even though he couldn't see her. "Sorry, hunger doesn't qualify as a supernatural occurrence. Have you been bitten by a supernatural being or perhaps burst into flames without explanation?"

"God no," he paused, then, "but I might do that exploding thing if I can't order a pizza."

She might explode if she can't see him. "Well, if that happens then feel free to give us a call back." She missed his face. She wished he had facetimed her. "Why did you call me anyway? You usually FaceTime,"

"God, pizza places say the weirdest things sometimes. If you wanted to ask me out then all you had to do was ask."

"Stiles, I'm serious," she whined, "what happened to your phone?"

He sighed, but it wasn't an aggravated kind, it was just his normal restless sigh that said "no one ever enjoys fun like I do." "I…." He hung on the "I" like he was thinking of a lie, "left it at home after leaving in a rush,"

She glanced at the clock and frowned. "Where were you going in such a rush? It's almost 9 at night?"

"Well I had to catch an early train so I could pick up my pizza," before Lydia could figure out what that meant he said, "then I changed my mind on the train - you know there's just something about train stations that give me the heebie jeebies. Can't quite put my finger on it."

"Hm, maybe it's the 3 months of purgatory imprisonment thing," she was smirking to herself now, wondering why she ever went along with his ridiculous jokes. "Erased from existence can really put a number on a person."

"Nah, that's not it," she knew he was smiling. There was something about how his voice got higher when he was smiling, when he was truly, wholly happy. "I mean 3 months? 3 months is nothing."

She could tell he was walking now. It sounded like he was entering a building of some sort, she could hear every breath he walked like it was an incline. "Is that so?"

"Yeah I mean, now a year? A year is a long time. Even longer would be something like, you know, 10 years or so.. That's something to really put a number on a person...or say, a banshee."

She bit her bottom lip, hoping he'd remembered. "A banshee huh? Sounds kinda supernatural to me, maybe you should try this hotline I know about."

"Depends on your definition of what a hotline is." He took a big step, almost like a leap.

"Well, there's a phone line,"

"Right, yeah, implied by the line part, right."

"And the person on the other end of that line is really hot."

"Hm," another leap. What was he doing? "Sounds dirty." Then she could have sworn she heard an elevator door ding open.

Her brows furrowed, "Stiles, you never told me who's phone this is,"

"Oh, this? It's the pizza guys."

Lydia sat up then, her expression purely puzzled now. "The pizza guys?"

"Well yeah, how else was I supposed to call you?"

Stiles Stilinski had officially lost his mind, she decided. "Stiles, you could have just waited to call me until you got back home. You didn't need to steal some guy's phone,"

He cracked up laughing, "Who said anything about stealing? You hear that? She thought I stole your phone haha …. Dude I'm gonna give it back relax, okay? Geesh, just take a deep breath or something buddy," She heard some voice on the other end, it was muffled but she assumed it was the pizza guy.

"Stiles…" She dragged out his name just like she always did when he had a huge scheme cooked up but was still in the works of sharing it. "What are you up to?"

"Why would you think I'm up to something?”

She huffed, irritated, "Because you're always up to something."

"Valid point - oh oh right here right here, yeah yeah yeah," she listened carefully, hoping to be given any clue of where the hell her boyfriend was. Then Stiles abruptly said. "Gotta go Lyds, I have a pizza to deliver,"

She was so so so so confused. "To who? Stiles Stilinski, what are you up to?"

"Okay love you bye!"

He hung up on her. She didn't even get to say it back. He knew how much she hated it when he hung up before she could say it back. She was angry now. She silently screamed and was seconds from throwing her phone on the pillow when a knock resonated through her dorm door. Lydia checked the clock again. It was minutes from 9, why was anyone at her door?

Lydia angrily got up from her seat, the fact that Stiles didn't even really mention their anniversary was making her fume. She marched to the door and slung it open, fully ready to see one of the annoying freshmen from down the hall ask for toilet paper again (as if their RA couldn’t help with that)..

However, it wasn't some freshman. Instead, it was a pizza delivery man. He looked so annoyed, and his expression had nothing on it but disdain. Lydia poked her head out the door, looking both ways to see if Stiles was anywhere - but he was nowhere to be seen. The pizza guy opened the box and it was her favorite kind of dessert pizza - a chocolate drizzle spelling out "happy meetaversary - love Stiles"

She was still annoyed, but touched. The guy handed her the pizza, mumbled something about already being paid, and walked away. She noticed his cell phone in his back pocket - she was truly so confused. She closed the door, staring at the pizza in her hand - what was he up to? His couldn't just be it - it was Stiles. He loved to go out of his way to-

"You're gonna share that right?"

Lydia about leaped out of her body and ascended into the heavens. It was a miracle the pizza was still in her hands as she fell back into the door, her heart pounding hard, and her eyes staring straight at Stiles lying across her bed. His ankles were crossed, (shoes off because he was smart), his arms were folded behind his head as if he'd been there all day.

"Stiles," she was holding her chest, her heart racing. "What. The. Hell." She looked at his goofy grin and his stupid plaid shirt and dear god, she realized just how much she missed him. He got up from the bed, looking apologetic. However, instead of apologizing, he said sheepishly, "I couldn't wait for Christmas break?" He was scratching the back of his neck and his smile was crooked and without another thought she sat the pizza down on her desk and dove straight in to kiss him.

He pulled back after a minute to talk, because that was something he could never stop doing: “I’m guessing pizza was better than flowers? I almost got flowers but I just didn’t feel like flowers was the way to go, you know? Flowers are safe, predictable, but pizza-”

“Stiles,”

He clamped his lips closed, a smile sneaking behind his adorable lips, “Shut up?”

“No, actually,” she laughed, brushing the side of his cheek with her thumb. She had missed every single part of this man. “I was just going to say thank you.”

“Yeah?” his voice almost squeaked. It was one of her favorite things, when his voice went up just slightly as if she still made him nervous. “‘Cause I just spent six hours in a car hoping to god you would actually like this kind of surprise.”

She just hugged him then, so tight she wouldn’t be surprised if air was hard for him. Through his shirt she mumbled, “The only kind of surprise I would ever be okay with is you.”

“I bet you say that to all the guys,” he teased her, hugging her back almost just as tight. “Happy meetaversary, Lyds.”

She didn’t let go. Letting go might mean he’d have to go back home, one day, somewhere down the road. “Happy meetaversary, Stiles. I can’t believe I’ve known you for eleven years.”

He kissed the top of her head, not wanting to let go either: “I guess we can say that my ten year plan was fool proof.”

She looked up then, her lips pursed as she looked up at her goofy smiling boyfriend, “Are you saying you started your 10 year plan in the 3rd grade?”

“Well, I mean then it was like a week's worth of a plan,” he stretched out his mouth, making that expression that showed all his teeth like he was in distress. It always made her smile. He always made her smile. “It was revised to a more realistic game plan.”

“Well,” she pulled back just slightly, her hands resting on his hips, “What’s the game plan now?”

“Uhhh,” Stiles ran a hand over his face and stretched an eyebrow, “well I mean, I … I’m already dating you, so ... nothing?”

Lydia rolled her eyes at him, wagging her head as she said, “No you dummy, the game plan for the weekend?”

“Oh! Right, of course, game plan for the weekend,” he pulled away from her, making her arms feel suddenly cold without his embrace. He grabbed the pizza and came back in front of her, his eyebrows wiggling up and down his forehead. “That is a surprise. For right now, desert.”

She hated surprises, she really did, but she really meant it when she said that if Stiles was involved - she could love absolutely anything. She tiptoed up and pecked a kiss on his cheek, her face beaming as she said, “You’re the best,”

He shook his head, standing his ground, “Nope, I’m not gonna tell you - not this time.”

She grabbed the pizza from him and shrugged, “Okay,” she opened the pizza box as Stiles looked at her like she was a different person entirely. “As long as the day’s with you, I don’t care what we do.”

He raised one brow up his forehead, “Not one care?”

“Nope,”

“Not even the slightest flicker of concern? Not even a tingle of wanting control?”

“Stiles,” she pulled out the piece that said “love Stiles” on it, readying herself to eat, “you planned out a ten year scheme to date me as a 3rd grader and succeeded. Clearly, I have no room to doubt your superior game planning abilities.”

“Right,” he stood there, watching her closely. She smiled at him and sat down at her bed so she could eat. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, “Right.”

“You wanna tell me don’t you?”

He landed beside her on the bed, making her bounce up a little as he said, “Please can I tell you? You’re gonna love it and I can’t wait to see your face when I tell you how mind-blowingly perfect this game plan really is-”

“Stiles,”

“Hm?” he licked his top lip, his leg propping up his arm as he looked at her with the utmost attention. “Oh right, shut up -” he gave her a thumbs up, “you got it.”

“If I wanted you to shut up I would do this,” she kissed him firmly on the lips, then pulled back quicker than either would have liked. She was making a point right now though, they could do more kissing after she ate her food.

“Then what -” he blinked like he was trying to drag himself back to earth, “what were you gonna say?”

“I just missed you,” she combed a gentle hand through his once gelled hair, her fingers tracing his freckles shaped like constellations - her own, made up, better than the original ones.

Stiles gave her that look that just made her knees weak every time. It was the same look he gave her when she first kissed him that day in the locker room. The same look he gave her when he saved her from Eichen House. The same look he gave her on homecoming, or in the hospital later that week, or every single time she was in the hospital and he came to see her before anyone else. The same look he gave her every single day - it was this look of pure bewilderment - as if he didn’t know how he deserved this - that rooted from sincere, unwavering love. He whispered, “I just missed you too,” so sweetly, so softly, and then kissed her again. And again. And again.

Sooner or later they ate their pizza, and they watched a movie, and Lydia just had to remind herself over and over and over again that the distance wasn’t forever. He was here with her now, and that’s what mattered. Besides, she’d graduate in a year (perks of coming in as a junior) - there’s no telling where life would take her then. Preferably, it would be much closer to Stiles, who still had a few more years in school and training before he could officially join the FBI force. She wouldn’t mind living in Washington, DC - there were some good mathematician positions available through government jobs she could easily get while working on her Masters.

A loud bang hit the wall and both Stiles and Lydia jumped, the sound of guys cheering following quickly after it. He shook his head as he pulled her closer in, “I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you choose to stay in the dorms,”

Lydia smiled and shrugged into him, “There’s something about the loud chaos of it all… I don’t know, it reminds me of home.”

He scoffed, then said, “Speaking of home…” he sighed, Lydia afraid to know where that was going. “Scott called me.”

“What’d he say?” The love interests were fighting on screen now, Lydia half paying attention as she waited for Stiles to answer.

“He was inviting us all over for Christmas dinner.”

Lydia sat up a little to look at him, “Why do you make that sound like it’s the next apocalypse?”

“Uh, hello, Lydia ... have you had Scott’s mom’s food? It tastes like a werewolf’s regurgitated food, okay? Like the food the mom bird gives to it’s little chicks, but the very last bit that has a little stomach bile attached to it.”

Lydia scrunched up her face and stuck out a tongue, “Okay, okay, I get the picture,” the relief in her overcame her muscles, her joints again. She didn’t even realize how tense just the name Scott makes her sometimes. Not in a bad way, but just out of worry for her friends. Scott chose to stay close to Beacon Hills, which resulted in him being there more often than not with his newbee werewolves. He traveled a lot, however, his current werewolf adventures brought him all the way to Florida a couple months back. She was always worried for him - she may be across the country right now, but he was still her alpha, her pack leader, her friend. “We’ll just make sure to bring our own food, too, then.” Stiles was quiet, staring at the sheets, so she said, “And what else did he say?”

“Hm?” he snapped out of his daze, “What’d you mean?”

Lydia turned herself around in his arms so she could look up at him, his sleepy face blinking. She said, “You’re acting weird, he had to have said something else.”

“I- I don’t know, not really, it was just…” he sighed, unconsciously starting to rub circles on her back. “I could just tell in his voice, you know? It's Scott, I can always tell when something’s not right … and something wasn’t right.”

Lydia frowned, “Do you think he’s in trouble?”

“Not imminent trouble no,” he huffed out a short breath, “but I think there’s a lot more going on Scott’s plate than just Christmas plans. I don’t know … I asked him about it but he just shrugged it off, said it was a new pack member drama or some kind of bullshit like that. I know he’s been having trouble with hunters again.”

“He’ll be okay, Stiles,” she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed, “It’s Scott. He’s always okay. If he needs us, he'll let us know."

"Your banshee senses aren't tingling or anything right? No feeling of impending doom or scary dreams about supernatural werewolf deaths?"

She rocked her head no as her chin rested on his chest, "If they were you'd be the first to know." Stiles seemed to ease up at that, his body relaxing under her, his eyes softening as he gazed down. Then she said, "You have to learn to relax, Stiles. You can't keep living in DC terrified that all your friends are dying - we're not in Beacon Hills anymore,"

His brows furrowed, "I don't do that...do I?"

"Stiles. You called me three times last week while I was in class just to make sure I made it to class okay,"

He bit into his top lip and sucked in, "Okay, you make a good point. But can you really blame me? Lyds, we lived in constant fear for our lives for so long ... sometimes I wake up terrified no one remembers me anymore - or that I've forgotten someone very important and I'll never know who it was - or that one day I'll just forget you and -"

"Stiles," she gently placed a hand on his cheek, giving him a smile that told him everything was going to be okay, "you're not gonna forget me. No ones going to forget anyone, okay? The riders tried that on us and they failed, because no one could ever forget Stiles Stilinski."

He gave her a half smile, tears pricking his eyes, "My mom did."

It was silent. Lydia wasn't sure how to respond to that. She searched for the right words to assure him that his mom never really forgot him, when Lydia's phone started ringing. She pulled it from her nightstand and felt a short moment of panic. The name on the screen was Scott. He never called her out of the blue, especially not on a Friday night at 11pm.

She tried to look neutral as she said, "Hey Scott," Stiles sat up at the name, his muscle tensing all over again. She listened, then said, "Yeah he's right here. He forgot his phone back at home." Lydia smiled at Stiles and said to him, "Scott’s been trying to call you. He got worried that something happened."

He laughed, the coincidence uncanny. He fell back into the bed and put out a hand for the phone. Lydia handed it to him and he said, "Hey mom, sorry I didn't text you,"

"Stiles oh my god, how are you even with Lydia? Don't guys live like six hours away from each other?"

"I have a three day weekend, mom, it wasn't that big of a deal. I promise I'll get my homework done."

He heard him sigh, "If I had thought you'd be with Lydia I would have called her hours ago. I was afraid to call or text her and get her all worried if you were just the dumb ass that didn't charge his phone."

"No, I'm just the dumbass who left my phone six hours away. What's up? You sound freaked,"

He was silent for a minute, causing both Lydia and Stiles stress, then he said, "I'm in Massachusetts,"

Stiles rose up from his lounging position to give Lydia a look. He turned the phone on speaker and said, "You're here? What the hell are you doing across the country? Is the national Werewolf Con here or something?"

"That's a long story, but these hunters, man, they never stop, they …” his breath rattled in his chest. Stiles was pretty sure he heard Peter’s voice in the background, another unrecognizable one farther away. “I need you guys' help."

Lydia nodded, not even questioning it. Stiles responded, "Anything you need buddy, we'll be there."

Scott took a moment to respond, then, "I'll text Lydia the location. Meet us there in an hour." Without even a goodbye, Scott hung up.

Lydia took back her phone and looked at Stiles with wide eyes. "Told you he'd call us if he needed us," she sighed, “I wasn't expecting that to happen so soon, but what can I say - I am psychic after all,”

Stiles didn’t hear her. He was sitting there, staring at the bed in trance-like thought. Lydia was afraid what he was letting his mind wander to, but then he looked up and gave her a genuine smile. He was ready to jump off the bed when he said, “I’m sure it’ll be a long ride there - I’ll drive.”

She grabbed his hand, just to get him to look back at her. He did, and she asked, “Are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” he gave a little shrug to readjust his flannel on his shoulders, “I get to see my best friend. I mean c’mon, I haven’t seen Scott in months.” She gave him a look that screamed ‘I’m not an idiot’ and so he said, “Dire circumstances aside, I’d call it a win.”

She could sense the fear he was carrying and she felt a rush of deja vu - all the times in Beacon Hills, Stiles at her side, panicking on the inside but always jokes on the outside. Maybe it was being a banshee, maybe it was the emotional tether that was only strengthened when Stiles had to go under for his dad - but she always knew how he was feeling. She could sense it, practically feel it herself. When Stiles was possessed by the nogitsune - that was the most emotionally painful experience she had dealt with in a very long time. She could feel every bit of his pain, every bit of his fear, his panic, his sadness. However, it was Stiles, and he liked to pretend his problems didn’t exist. She nodded, accepting he wasn’t going to break, and said, “Okay, let’s go then.”

He had his keys in his hands already, spinning them around his index finger and catching it in his palm. He started to say something when he gasped, looking at the pizza box. “Wait,” he put out a hand to stop her, as if she was moving (which she wasn’t). “Oh my god, I completely forgot,”

Lydia looked at the empty pizza box and said, “Forgot what?”

He was digging his pants pocket, his tongue sticking out in the corner of his mouth when he said, “This,” He pulled out a faded pink pipe cleaner in the shape of a ring and a plastic rhinestone sloppily glued to the stem; it looked over 10 years old. Stiles had a goofy grin on his face as he said, “Happy meetaversary.”

Lydia took the small little arts and craft in her hands. It looked so familiar, but she had no idea how. “What… where did you get this?”

“When I moved out from my room I went through an old keepsake box. My dad made me keep one every school year, but I never went through them until moving out. In my 3rd grade keepsake box I found this - I made it for you in arts and crafts one day, probably one of the first days we really met. I remember I brought it to you and asked you to be my girlfriend,” he scratched the back of his neck and chuckled, “you laughed in my face and I guess I kept it in hopes that one day you’d accept it.”

Lydia was looking at the ring with teary eyes, “Stiles,” she looked up at him, “thank you.”

He gave her a silly wink, then shrugged it off by saying, “It’s not like I spent any money on it, Lyds, I just found it in an old box-”

Lydia pulled him down by his shirt and kissed him. He was shocked at first, but quickly melted into the kiss. He wrapped his arms around her waist, Lydia raveling her arms around his neck. After a long moment she pulled back for breath, her forehead pressed against his. “I meant thank you for never giving up. You never gave up on us, even after years of me rejecting you and treating you so horribly - you never gave up.”

“How could I ever give up on Lydia Martin?” he shrugged bashfully, “I knew you were my soulmate the day I met you. Nothing else compares to that.”

She pecked another kiss on his mouth and said, “I love you, Stiles Stilinski.”

He grinned, those very words from Lydia always putting a smile to his face. “I love you back, Lydia Martin - always will.”

She dove in for a hug then, squeezing him like he might disappear again if she let go. Stiles was holding her tight, too, face in her hair, when he glanced at the clock on her nightstand; “Ah fuck,” he reluctantly pulled back, “we gotta go,”

She nodded, looking at the time herself. She went to grab her jacket as she asked, “You think this will become a regular thing now that all of this hunter stuff is resurfacing? Scott calling us in when he needs us at late hours of the night?”

Stiles, hands on his hips, flannel flipped back behind his hands, said, “I wouldn’t expect it any other way.”

She kissed him on the cheek and grabbed his hand, “Well, c’mon then, we have an alpha to save.” He grabbed his jacket from the bed as Lydia dragged him out of the dorm room, door closing behind them.

And Stiles drove them to the location Scott shared, and they parked his jeep out at the park, and they got out simultaneously to see Scott and Peter bloody and battered with two other presumably werewolves with fear in their eyes - and Stiles and Lydia knew, this was a first of many late nights with the pack.

#stydia fic #stydia fanfic #teen wolf fic #Stydia #stiles x lydia #teen wolf #i just feel like there's not enough about them after the show #the thought of stiles traveling 6 hours every weekend to see her #his poor jeep going through the worst of times just so he can see Lydia #and okay their meetaversary is important to me #like they have known each other since the 3rd freakin grade #which means if they're 19 to 20 they've known each other for 10 to 11 years #sure lydia ignored him for a lot of that #but thats so freakin precious to me #anyway so this is my way too long than needed fic of them being cute together and missing each other and Scott needing them #its also a bit of the beginning of what later seems to become a more regular thing in s6 finale #when everyone meets up with them and Stiles and Lydia come out of the jeep like this wasn't their first rodeo #my fic #my stories #my stydia fics

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love-and-monsters · 3 years

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Sauriosapien

M sairosapien X F human, 6,429 words.

This story does not have a reader-insert because I wanted to focus a little bit more on some characters that I came up with. This involves an established relationship, some fluff, and four tiny velociraptors. Enjoy!

The sun was blazing hot in the sky, so much so that it was uncomfortably warm even in the shade. A heavy mugginess hung in the air, so much so that Grace felt like she was inhaling through a damp rag. Sweat soaked through her loose ranger clothes. Even with her sleeves and pant legs rolled up, she was still overly warm. Fortunately, the trees were closely clustered enough that the sun only peeped through in tiny patches, dappling a few small areas of the ground.

Despite being so hot that she barely wanted to move, her tiny pack of velociraptors was running around like their tails were on fire. Rococo was perched in one of the trees, chattering furiously at Boho, who had her head stuck under the roots of one of the larger trees. Minimalism was hunched behind Grace’s legs while Maximalism oscillated between chattering at her and trying to snatch one of the tiny amphibians crawling through the damp undergrowth.

“C’mon babies!” Grace called, her voice higher pitched. “We got hunting to do!” She lifted her clicker and pressed the button a few times.

Rococo hopped out of the tree and skidded to a stop in front of Grace. Boho was right behind her. Maximalism fell into line next, chittering eagerly until Minimalism crept up next to him. Grace cooed to them. “Good, good! Okay, here. Sniff this.”

She crouched until she was on their level and held out a chunk of eggshells. Rococo’s nose was there in a second, snuffling intently. The other three were less enthusiastic, but Grace made sure they all got a good sniff before she stood back up. “Okay, babies! Go hunting!”

She clicked the pointer three times in rapid succession. Rococo placed her nose to the ground. A moment later, she gave a triumphant croak and took off into the trees. Boho and Maximalism fanned out on either side of her, with Minimalism bringing up the rear.

Grace ran after them. Despite only being the size of cats, the raptors were fast. Only the rustling in the undergrowth ahead of her let her know where her pack was. They called back and forth, little piping noises that blended with the usual cacophony of the forest.

Running was easy for Grace. Her body settled into an easy rhythm, burning with exertion, but not agonizingly so. She kept up a steady pace, keeping her raptors just in her sight. They worked best when she wasn’t crowding them.

After about fifteen minutes, Boho sent up a hooting signal. The rest of the raptors peeled off, following her lead. Grace followed them, slowing her pace as she approached so she didn’t trample over anything important.

Her raptors were chittering excitedly when she came upon them. Between the four of them, barely concealed in the branches, there was a nest of off-white eggs. Grace crouched next to it, voice hushed. “Okay, come back, babies. Yes, yes, good job.” Treats were passed out to the whole team, with a special helping going to Boho. She chittered and preened, giving the rest of the raptors superior looks. Grace laughed. Their little competitions inspired them to work harder, and Boho and Rococo had a particular rivalry.

Treats dished out, Grace reached into one of her back pockets and pulled out a notebook. She jotted down her rough coordinates, the size of the nest, and the number of eggs. Donning gloves, she prodded and poked at the eggs, rotating them and checking for unusual shell weakness, cracks, or any other signs of disease. Satisfied, she returned the eggs to the nest and carefully covered them once more. She walked over to one of the nearby trees and scored the bark before applying a sandy substance made from a mixture of crushed insects. The bitter, acrid smell was sharp enough to make Grace shy away, but it wouldn’t bother the mother of the nest and it would let her raptor pack know they had already visited that area.

The nearby undergrowth rustled. Grace drew up stiff, her raptors circling around her. Rococo sniffed at the air, head twitching back and forth. Then she dropped out of her alert posture and chirped reassuringly to the others. The rest of the raptors relaxed and Grace followed their lead. They would only be this relaxed around someone they knew. So, the person coming through the trees must be-

A flash of green and pink darted out from between the trees and skidded to a stop. He stood just as upright as a human, but he balanced on large, bird-like talons. His tail swung behind him, acting as a counterbalance. A massive hot pink crest of feathers covered the last quarter of his tail and crowned his head. Fangs glinted as his mouth stretched into a smile.

“Gracie.” There was a slight rasp in his voice, a noise that traced deliciously through Grace’s head and sent tingles along the back of her neck. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Howdy,” Grace said, tilting her hat back. “You could have just waited for me to head back to town. I’m kind of working right now.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than Rococo charged their visitor. The rest of the pack followed her, working their small, feathered wings to propel their jumps so they could attach themselves to his chest. He staggered under the unexpected weight and sank to the ground, lifting his tail awkwardly to prevent his crest from getting dirtied.

“Seems like these guys want a break,” he said. Minimalism chittered wildly from her position on his lap while Boho buried her face into his head crest. Rococo, perched on his shoulder, made an attempt to corral her subordinates that was cut off when Maximalism started snapping at her tail feathers.

“Seems more like someone’s being a distraction,” Grace said. She gave a sharp whistle. Rococo, Maximalism, and Minimalism snapped to attention and formed their line in front of her. Boho kept her face pressed into his crest until Rococo rounded back and drove her into position.

He carefully got back to his feet, brushing dirt off his clothes. “I’m surprised you’re working,” he said. There was something deliberately airy and casual in his voice. Too casual. Grace paused, taking her attention off her raptors.

“Why are you surprised?” she asked carefully. She tried to rack her brain. Was she forgetting something?

“Oh,” he sighed, scanning the trees around him. “It’s nothing major. Only that you told me last week you were going to take a day off so we could actually spend some time together.”

Ah. Shit. Grace felt her face go hot with shame. Oops. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to- I totally forgot what day it was!” She considered blaming it on her unfamiliarity with the Sauriosapien calendar, but that wouldn’t have been true- even with the standard human calendar, she was always mixing up dates and forgetting things.

He frowned. His crest was pulled tight against his head, feathers tucked in to display his irritation. That was far worse than the aggressive puff he showed off when he was really and truly pissed; this was more akin to someone saying ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.’

“Look, I really am sorry. Uh, hold on. Let me take these guys back home and get a little washed up, and maybe change into some nicer clothes and I’ll be right there.”

He shook his head. “Don’t bother. You’re already out here and in the middle of work, and these guys are already all wound up.” He gestured to Boho, who was practically twitching with the effort of staying still and in line. “I was just coming to make sure nothing happened to you.”

Grace felt her shoulders droop. “Oh. Thanks for that.” Her eyes were stinging slightly with humiliation and anger at herself. “I’m sorry you came out all this way. Maybe we can go out tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I took off work today.” Irritation was thick in his voice again. Grace slumped her shoulders. He worked in a particularly popular boutique and getting specific days off was always difficult for him.

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to go home? I can always do this tomorrow. I’ll just let everyone out in the yard and they’ll run themselves out,” she said.

He gave a snort, his lips twitching into a half-smile. “You remember what happened the last time they were in the yard for more than an hour without supervision.”

Grace grimaced. As many times as she reinforced the fence and made it taller, the raptors found a new way to get out. The last time, Rococo and Boho had managed to dig underneath until the chicken wire had come loose and had squirmed free. Everyone but a very lonely Minimalism had been gone by the time Grace made it back, and she’d spent much of the night tramping through the forest looking for them. “Then they can go in the coop. They’ll destroy it, but I can clean it up later.”

“That’s not fair to them,” he said, and despite the situation, Grace felt her heart surge with affection. Even pissed off, even if it would benefit him not to, he cared for her raptors. “You’ve already wound them up for work. Just let them continue.”

“Are you really sure?” Grace asked. He waved a hand at her dismissively.

“I’m sure.” He gave her a smile, though it was clearly tense and tinged with sadness. “I know you have a lot of difficulty with remembering dates and things that aren’t on your schedule, but… well, I really would like to spend time with you more often than a couple evening every week. And it’s frustrating when you don’t remember these kinds of things.”

“I know. I’m really sorry. It’s not that it’s not important to me. It is! It’s just… if things aren’t part of my schedule and I don’t have reminders, then I tend to forget them.” She pulled her hat off and ran her fingers through her hair. “You know I missed my own birthday a couple years ago?”

He looked at her a little blankly. “Er… that’s important?”

Right, egg-laying people didn’t think about birthdays the same way. “Uh. It’s like forgetting your hatching day, I guess, but birthdays have more cultural significance to us.” He nodded slowly, though he didn’t seem to understand. “Days just kind of all blur together for me. Time is a flat circle and a total scam and I don’t know dates very well and I’m sorry. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

He stared, but his lips were quirking like he was trying to hold back a smile. “We’ll have to work on this in the future. I just came out to make sure that you were all right.” He turned, waving a four-fingered hand over his shoulder. “I’ll see you when you’re home from work.”

“Velly, wait!” He paused, looking over his shoulder. Grace swept her had back up onto her head and offered him an apologetic smile. “I, uh. I feel bad that you came all the way out here for nothing. Why don’t you stay a little bit?”

Vel paused. “You’re working.”

“I know. But I mean, the pack knows you pretty well. You probably won’t be much of a distraction for them.”

He tried to give her a serious look, but his lips were twitching again. “I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to be on a date during the work day either.”

“No one will find out. We’re in the middle of the park. You just need to head back before I go to the ranger’s center. And it’s not like you didn’t already sneak in.”

He laughed. “Well. Yes. That’s true.” His crest fluffed up, his tail swinging back and forth. “Are you going to have to take me in?”

“Hey, if you give me any trouble, I might have to cuff you,” Grace said with a grin. She didn’t miss the little shiver that moved through Vel’s crest. “Maybe I’ll just restrain you and leave you in the woods for anyone to find…”

Rococo, apparently irritated at being ignored, took that moment to nip at Grace’s boot.

“Okay, okay! Come on, let go.” She shook her boot and the raptor detached. Rococo trotted back to the others, but Grace could tell her patience wasn’t going to hold for much longer. “Like I was saying,” she continued, turning back to Vel, “I can’t trust you to leave on your own, so I guess you’re going to just have to come with me. No trying to escape or anything.”

Vel grinned. “No, ma’am.”

Grace turned back to her raptors and clicked her clicker. They all skittered back into formation, looking up at her expectantly. “All right. We found one. Go get another one!” She clicked the clicker rapidly and the raptors took a moment to snuffle at the ground before plunging into the trees. Grace took off after them, Vel following her.

The raptors pulled ahead again, stunningly fast for such little animals. Grace followed at a small distance, careful not to go at much more than a jog. She was fast, for a human, but she couldn’t maintain the speed for very long. As long as she could trace their path through the trees and hear their calls back and forth, she could track them.

The bigger concern was Vel. He was already starting to lag, even after only a minute or so of running. He was not as well-trained as Grace, nor as fit, and no sauriosapien was as good of an endurance runner as a human. He might be able to outrun her in a sprint, but the further they went, the less likely that was.

Vel looked to be on the verge of collapse by the time the raptors called out again and came to a halt at another next. Grace, slightly winded, leaned on the nearby tree. Vel hunched over, making wheezing noises like his lungs were going to come out of his mouth.

“You good?” Grace said. He gave her a thumbs-up, then sagged all the way to the ground.

“I can see why they like humans to do this job,” he said. He rested one of his hands on his chest as he panted. “I think my heart’s going to explode out of my chest.”

“Hey, humans may be better at endurance running in general, but a sauriosapien could do this job,” Grace said as she bent down to uncover the nest. “Don’t throw your whole species under the bus because you’re really out of shape.”

Maximalism had found the nest, and he was crowing over the others, holding his second treat in his mouth like a prize. Minimalism crawled up next to him, chittering anxiously until he allowed her to take a tiny nibble of the treat, then he gulped it down. Grace waved them off, checking the size and integrity of the nest.

Vel, having recovered slightly, rolled onto his side to watch her. “What exactly are you doing with that nest?”

“I told you about this the other night,” Grace said, not looking up from the nest. Vel pushed himself up into a sitting position, shifting his robes around him.

“Yeah, but I had a hard time figuring it out. I’m better when I can actually see what you’re doing.” He crept closer, though he paused a short distance away, like he was concerned that his presence would disturb the nest.

“There’s a few species of microraptors whose nests have been damaged recently. There’s some kind of disease that’s been going around and causing all sorts of problems with the shells.” She covered the nest back up and scent-marked it. “I’ve been trying to tag the number of nests there are and making sure the eggs are in good shape. If we find any nests where the eggs look weak, we’ll tag them and collect the eggs. Hopefully we’ll be able to raise them until they can hatch and be returned to the wild.”

“Oh,” Vel said. He crept a little closer. “How’s this nest doing?”

“All good. I haven’t actually seen too many bad eggs in the past couple of days I’ve been doing this. Hopefully that means that the disease hasn’t been spreading too much.” She gestured to the raptors and clicked at them. They circled up around her. “And we’re keeping our eyes peeled for any rat dens we find. If we locate those, we-”

Minimalism let out a loud peep and darted out of the circle. She plunged her narrow muzzle into a nearby bush, snapping wildly. There was a squeak, some thrashing, and Minimalism withdrew her head. A rat dangled from her jaws.

“Oh, good girl!” Grace got down on one knee. Minimalism ran over, giving up the rat in favor of another treat. “Yes, you’re a good girl! You’ve done very well!” She carefully placed the rat into a plastic bag and eased that into her pack.

“What do you do with the rats?” Vel asked. He looked mostly recovered from his mad dash, his crest perking up once more.

“Send them to a lab. They usually run some tests on them, try to do a blood panel and figure out if they’ve got any diseases they’re spreading. There’s been some concerns that the rats are actually spreading the disease that’s causing the nest weaknesses.” Grace got back to her feet, her knees cracking loudly. “Ugh, I’m like an old woman.”

“And yet, you’re still more fit than me,” Vel said. He clambered to his feet and shook his robes free of leaf litter and debris from lying on the ground. “Do we have to run again?”

Grace laughed. “I’ll see if I can slow these guys down, so we can give you a break.” She clicked at the raptors a few times. “All right, slow, babies.” Rococo chirped in confirmation, then turned and chittered at the other raptors. Satisfied her message had been conveyed, she took off, the others fanning out behind her. Grace straightened back up. “Come on.”

This time, they went at a light jog. It barely winded Grace, but Vel still struggled to keep up. At least this time, he wasn’t wheezing so alarmingly when he breathed, so Grace didn’t have to be constantly worried he was going to collapse.

Vel was at least able to keep up as they tracked down and assessed the nests. The frequent breaks they took while Grace examined the eggs seemed to be helping him keep up, but by the middle of the day, he was definitely flagging. Even Grace, with her much better stamina and training, was starting to feel the beginnings of exhaustion.

“We’ll take a break,” she said, signaling the raptors. They were starting to look fatigued as well, mouths hanging open as they panted and their feathers drawn tight against their body in an effort to calm them down. “I need to eat lunch anyway.”

Vel collapsed next to her as she spread out a mat and set down her packed lunch. “Here. I brought some dried meat with me.” She offered him a package wrapped in paper. He opened it and pulled out a jerky strip.

“Thanks.” She knew it wasn’t his favorite, but he ate it without complaint.

“I don’t have much for you,” she said, digging through the pack. “I know running around all afternoon must be making you hungry. Er, I might have a few hard-boiled eggs.”

“I don’t want to take your lunch,” Vel said as he snapped down another strip of meat. “You need to eat more than I do.”

Humans, thanks to their endothermy, needed to eat much more frequently than sauriosapiens- at least three meals a day, nearly two thousand calories, compared to the typical two-meal, thousand calorie diets of the sauriosapiens. The sauriosapiens were only selectively endothermic, with their bodies heating up with exercise and cooling down when they were inactive or sleeping. That meant their bodies could manage with far fewer calories, though after running around for a while, there was quite a large loss of energy.

“Missing one meal won’t kill me. I’ll be fine.” Grace pulled out a couple of hard-boiled eggs. They were large enough to fill her palm, much larger than the chicken eggs she’d been used to at home. She passed one to Vel, who hesitated for a moment before cracking the shell with his claws.

“Thank you.” He took a bite out of the white, eyes drifting half-shut as he tasted the rich fattiness of the yolk. A lot of food in sauriosapien culture was fixated on fattiness and oils. It was an easy way to get calorie-rich food, considering that they couldn’t taste sugar and were fairly carnivorous. Grace hadn’t eaten much in the way of refined sugar since she’d arrived, only managing to scrounge a few pieces of fruit that she grew herself. She took a piece of dried fruit from her bad and chewed idly on it.

The raptors gathered together, chittering and playing with each other. Grace watched as they tumbled around, hopping over each other, nipping at tails, and generally enjoying themselves. She could see Vel giggling at them out of the corner of her eye.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said. Vel licked some egg yolk off his finger as he turned toward her.

“Well, we were supposed to have a date today,” he said. There was a slightly sarcastic edge to his voice. Grace ducked her head, a flush of shame touching her cheeks.

“I really am sorry about that. I’ll make it up to you,” she promised.

“I knew what I was getting into then I started dating you,” Vel said. “Remember when there was a holiday in the middle of the week and you tried to go into work anyway?”

Grace pulled her hat down over her head to hide her face. “Ugh. Please don’t remind me.”

Vel laughed into his hand. “You were messed up for the rest of the week. Kept thinking you had days off when you didn’t… and the raptors were confused too! Poor Rococo, she started yelling at you, trying to get you to go out and then you started to think maybe she was right and not you…”

Grace swatted his shoulder. “Keep teasing me and I’ll make good on my threat to tie you up.”

“Will you?” Vel asked, his voice dropping into a lower register. Grace pressed a finger to his forehead and pushed him back, causing him to break into another fit of soft giggles.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the trees and fell across Vel’s face. His green scales gleamed under the sun, glossy as ocean-smoothed glass. Grace took a moment to just take in his face. His teeth gleamed, sharp as knives, but somehow also attractive. His eyes were glistening, beautiful gold. Grace swore that when the sunlight struck them, they illuminated like a chunk of pyrite. His feathered crest twitched and flared. The motion of the feathers was always fascinating, the way they ruffled in response to his emotions. Touching them was always a wonderful experience. Feeling their slight motions against her fingers was grounding, the reassuring contact of another living being that trusted her completely.

Vel was attractive, by both human and sauriosapien standards. The human standards would be satisfied by his reasonably tall stature with smooth, lithe muscles, his flowing grace, and his fine-boned face. The sauriosapien standards were satisfied by the bright green of his scales and the brilliant pink of his head and tail crests. Not only were they an incredibly vibrant pink, but they were thick and full and expressive. Grace had seen the interested looks of other sauriosapiens when they walked through town together. Whether or not they approved of his relationship with her, she wasn’t sure. She could observe their attraction to Vel with a sort of clinical detachment, but when it came to how people viewed her, she had no idea.

“Are you still hungry?” Vel asked. She looked down. His head had migrated onto her lap somehow, and the side of his face was pressed against her middle. “I can hear your stomach growling.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I know a place-” She trailed off. Huh. Maybe she could really make up for screwing up their date.

“You know a place?” Vel prompted, lifting his head. She turned her attention back to him and scratched along his crest in that just-right spot. He made a trilling noise and went nearly limp.

“Never mind. We need to get moving.” She carefully tucked any wrappers and containers back into her bag and swung it up onto her shoulders. Vel got to his feet, shaking some leaf litter from his clothes. They were in typical sauriosapien style, which meant they looked a little like a fancy hospital gown to Grace’s eyes. They were essentially robes that clipped together in the back, which gave ample space for their tail. She’d seen a few sauriosapiens try to put on human clothes before, which was always amusing. The head holes were never big enough to accommodates their stiff crests, and the pants were just a complete disaster, what with their digitigrade legs and tails.

On the other hand, humans who wore sauriosapien clothes, along with the inherent indignity of the outfits nearly always being too big, tended to have their asses hanging out through the tail hole, so it went both ways.

They started through the forest once more, this time with Grace reigning her raptors in close. A series of whistles and click signals kept them close by, though she couldn’t prevent them from running ahead at least a little bit. They jumped in and out of the undergrowth, scaling the trees on occasion and snapping at insects that settled nearby.

“Are we still looking for nests?” Vel asked. Despite the slowed pace, he was still panting a little. Going to slow was nearly maddening for Grace, but she slowed down a hair more.

“We’re going to put a pause on that for now,” she said. “There’s somewhere I want to check out first.”

“Oh,” Vel said. He fell silent, devoting most of his energy to walking. Grace focused her attention on watching the raptors jump around. Rococo snapped a bright flower from a nearby bush and bolted back to her, chittering furiously.

“Thank you,” Grace said. Rococo relinquished the flower when Grace offered her a treat in return and immediately bolted back to the others, chirping with excitement. Within moments, the other raptors were gathering up flowers and offering them to Grace. Her arms filled with the sweet-smelling blooms, the raptors chittering and hopping up and down around her.

“All right, all right, that’s enough,” Grace said. She waved her hand at them, dismissing them. They plunged back into the undergrowth to find some other game to play.

“Did you train them to do that?” Vel asked, looking at the flowers with amusement.

“No, they kind of trained themselves,” Grace said. “They know that performing certain behaviors will get them treats. If one of them sees another getting a treat for something, they’ll all repeat it until I stop giving treats. They know that when I make the cut of signal, though, no more treats are coming and they need to stop. I don’t want them completely stripping the forest of flowers to get treats.” She gathered the flowers in her arms into a bouquet. “Here.”

Vel blinked as she thrust the flowers into his arms. They were a cacophony of bright colors that complimented his brilliant pink crest. “Oh,” he said. He wasn’t able to blush, thanks to his scales, but his tail whipped back and forth so fast it knocked down a sapling. His crest flared, feathers spreading into a brightly colored crown. “Thank you.” He adjusted them to sit in the crook of his elbow. “I’ve never gotten flowers before.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe. You’ve got a lot of admirers, you know.” Not only was he handsome, but his shy, slightly submissive personality was considered the height of masculinity to sauriosapiens. Sure, males were typically expected to make the first move in relationships, performing display behaviors with their feathers and showing off for any females they were interested in, but Vel would have had enough admirers that one of them would have taken it upon themselves to ask him out.

“I don’t know about a lot,” Vel said, his crest twitching with embarrassment. “And we don’t really give flowers as gifts. Carved bones or teeth are more likely. But I know flowers are more important to humans.” He removed one of the flowers with the longest stems and turned to tuck it into Grace’s hair. His claws were sharp enough that any touch against Grace’s thin human skin was dangerous, but she’d never felt any sort of threat from him. He didn’t even cut a hair as he slid the flower into place behind her ear.

“Really important is an exaggeration. But it’s a common gift.” She carefully adjusted the flower so it wouldn’t fall out. “Here, let me.” She plucked another flower from the bouquet, picking a pale yellow one that would offset the hot pink nicely, and tucked it into his crest. He made a soft rumbling noise in his chest as her fingers trailed along the edge of his crest.

There was an irritated chirping at her feet. Grace looked down to see Rococo and Maximalism peering up at her. Boho and Minimalism were only slightly further back, also staring. Their impatient gazes made Grace realize that she and Vel had simply been staring into each other’s eyes, not moving at all.

“We should keep going,” she said. She waved her hand to the raptors. They took off into the trees. “Come on.” Without thinking, she linked her fingers through his and pulled him along after her.

Vel struggled to keep up with her still, so she was very much dragging him through the undergrowth. He clutched her hand with both of his as he panted. “Uh. Hah… Could… Gracie, could we please slow down a little?”

She slowed her steps just a bit and he stumbled into her, letting his body weight fall onto her. She bore it with only a little effort. He was almost exactly her height, but all sauriosapiens were light-boned and limber, so he weighed less than he appeared to. “Do you want me to carry you?” she teased, thought she knew he would say no. It was probably for the best. She could have lifted him for a while, but it was awkward carrying something the same size as her and she couldn’t carry something even only three-quarters of her body weight for a long time.

“No. You just gotta stop moving so fast. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.” Vel lay a hand over his chest as he straightened up. Once he’d managed to regain his breath, he glanced around the forest in curiosity. “Where are we?”

The trees were thicker around them, their canopies clustered close together so their leaves blocked most of the sun. The humidity of the forest was thicker, but the lack of sunlight added a little coolness to the air. Without as much sun reaching the forest floor, the undergrowth had mostly cleared. The raptors hopped around the enormous tree roots, even darting under a few particularly enormous ones that bulged up from the ground.

“We’re closer to the middle of the forest. Come this way.” Grace picked her way over a few of the larger roots. Vel followed, his hand still gripping at hers. The ground grew damp under their feet the further they went. Vel managed it a lot better than Grace did- his feet were broader, allowing him to balance well on the spongey ground. A couple of times, his grip on Grace’s arm saved her from falling face-first into the muck.

Grace picked her way over the crest of a small hill and stopped. “Okay. We’re here.”

Vel peeked over her shoulder and his breath caught. The raptors, chittering with delight, hopped down along the sloping ground in front of them until they hit the waterfront.

In the middle of a circle of trees, covered with tangled green vines, there was a crystalline spring of water. Lily-like flowers dotted the surface, adding splashes of bright color in the green.

“Oh!” Vel said. His crest flared and his tail whipped back and forth. Grace couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face. “Oh, it’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen this place before. I didn’t even know it was here.”

“Technically, we’re not supposed to be here. It’s in the restricted section of the park, because of these.” Grace crouched down and pointed toward a particularly thick patch of lilies. Under the plants there was a tiny, darting crowd of fish.

“Because of fish?” Vel said, crouching next to her. The fish were small, barely longer than the first two joints of his finger, and mostly tail. They had mostly dull coloration, except for a brilliant red splash on their backs. He reached his finger toward the water, like he was about to stroke them, then pulled back with a cautious look at Grace.

“I wouldn’t touch them,” she said. “They’re sensitive little things. And they’re not actually fish. They’re the tadpole stage of a kind of amphibian.”

“Like a frog?” Vel said.

“Sort of. A little more like salamanders, actually. They’re about this big, only as long as your hand, and they’re pretty similar in coloration to these little guys. Mostly greenish-brown, with a big splash of red on their backs. They’re pretty uncommon in the area, though. Most of the time, they lay their eggs in the rainy season, when a lot of temporary puddles form. When they fully metamorphosize, they find a damp spot and bury underground until the next rainy season, when they can find a mate and lay their eggs.” Grace indicated the circumference of the pond. “This spot’s the only place where you can consistently find them. It’s fed from an underground spring, so it’s here year-round. Every year, you can find a few tadpoles here. We use it to keep an eye on the population.”

“How come no one’s allowed to know about it?” Vel asked.

“Uh, the tadpoles get hunted a lot. See the red spot on their backs? That secretes a kind of hallucinogenic substance. It’s deadly to sauriosapiens, and to most other species here, but to mammals, it acts more like a slightly milder form of acid.” Vel gave her a bewildered look. “Uh, it’s like a euphoria-inducing drug that can give you really nice hallucinations. Humans like it a lot. There’s a big underground market for it, so smugglers try to catch the tadpoles every year. But because the nests move every year, they need to look for them. We’ve done a pretty good job so far at keeping this spot safe- as long as they can’t find a regular spot to pull the tadpoles from, their hunting shouldn’t put too much of a strain on the population.”

Vel nodded. “It’s a shame. It’s beautiful here.”

Grace nodded. “It’s one of the prettier locations. If you stay here for a while, you can usually see some animals come through to drink.” She let her hands hang at her side, pinky finger just barely brushing against Vel’s. “Thank you, by the way.”

He glanced at her. “For what?” “For forgiving me. For coming along with me on my work day. For being understanding. For letting me speak about the tadpoles. I don’t often get to discuss these things with other people.”

“Oh. You don’t need to thank me for that. I like listening to you speak. You have a very soothing voice.” Vel was quiet for a second. “Oh, and you’re welcome.”

Grace hummed and threaded her free hand through his crest. His eyes drifted shut. He leaned back against her. A soft rumble sounded through his chest, almost like a purr. Grace felt her eyes closing as well. It was beautifully warm, and if she shifted a little and dangled her feet in the water, it added a cool, soothing element. Vel shifted a little to wrap his arms around her.

And then about twelve pounds of velociraptor cannonballed itself into Grace’s stomach.

She jerked, limbs flailing involuntarily. Vel’s head, previously resting on her shoulder, shot up. The soft dirt at the edge of the pond crumbled under their sudden movements and gave way. Vel barely had time to shriek before he slid sideways into the water.

Grace, sitting on a better-structured patch of dirt, didn’t slip, but was soaked anyway by Vel’s panicked flailing. It calmed within a moment when he realized the pond was only about five feet deep and he could stand pretty easily. He shook his head, spraying water from his crest.

“Ow,” Grace said. Boho, the raptor who had launched into her stomach, blinked innocently. The three other raptors watched with the wide eyed interest of children whose sibling had just broken a prized possession.

Vel spat out a mouthful of water. “Are you all right?”

“Nothing I haven’t been through before,” Grace said, fixing Boho with her sternest stare. Boho’s crest drooped and she crept off of Grace’s lap like a scolded puppy. “Are you all right?”

“Wet,” Vel said. He braced his arms on the bank and heaved himself up. “But not harmed.” He shook himself off like a wet dog. The water cleared fairly easily from his scaly skin, but his crest and tail were saturated, as was his outfit. Grace’s clothes were similarly soaked.

“I was going to suggest that we headed back,” Grace said, “but I suppose it makes more sense to wait here until we dry off.”

Vel smiled, sharp teeth glinting. “Maybe we should get out of these wet clothes, first? It might help them dry quicker.”

Grace lifted an eyebrow, but she couldn’t help a tiny laugh. “I suppose.” She smiled at him as he stood and started to undo the straps of his clothes. “I love you.”

Vel paused in his undressing to kiss her forehead. “I love you, too.” His grin widened and became wicked. “Now strip.”

#exophilia #exophilia writing #lizard folk #sauriosapien #monster boyfriend #monster lover #dinosaur #OCxOC #fluff #established relationship

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digitalworldbound · 3 years

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takari w.i.p

hi! it’s been forever, i know, but i’ve just graduated college! i’ve been loosely working on a short takari fic centered around the language of flowers and such. i feel like hikari loves flowers and takeru loves giving them to her? it will have six little parts, but i only have the first two half-way finished. anyways, here is a snippet (pls be gentle, i haven’t edited it yet):

Five Times Takeru gave Hikari Flowers, and the One Time she Returned the Favor

The Beginning

“You know, Takeru,” his mother began one day, a hot summer breeze floating through the window. Their new apartment was bare, her voice bouncing off the empty walls. Takeru, legs dangling off of the kitchen counter, trailed his eyes on his mother as she meticulously arranged flowers into the perfect formation. “Every woman loves flowers.”

The blond nodded, pretending to understand. Though he was a bright boy, there were many concepts he had yet to wrap his mind around. If only Yamato were here, Takeru thought.

Sensing her son’s disinterest, Takeru’s mother tried another approach. “Flowers have their own language.” Her fingers diligently arranged the blossoms, hesitating only to admire her son’s wide eyes/

“What do you mean, mommy? How can they talk if they don’t have mouths?” Takeru hopped down from his perch, cautiously approaching his mother’s newest bouquet. While a daisy was become victim to the young boy’s scrutinizing gaze, Nancy laughed. For a boy of only six, Takeru was very serious. “No, baby, they don’t have mouths.” Her giggles continued at her son’s disbelieving stare. “The different flowers have meanings, sweetheart.”

Takeru hesitated, eyeing the stem in between his fingers warily. “What about this one, then?” The once pristine white petals had dropped with the boy’s investigation. Nancy crouched beside Takeru, gingerly taking the blossom from his grasp. “Well, my love, daisies symbolize hope.”

Daisies – Innocence, Hope

Peonies – Bashful, Happiness

Lilacs – Joy of Youth

Wood logs crackled underneath a flame, the glow illuminating the dirty faces of children. Takeru had hoped that finding the eighth Chosen would put the rest of the group at east but going home had caused more problems than he had thought. Yamato was upset, confused, and alone. Meanwhile, Takeru was sat between Taichi and Koushiro, enjoying the hum of the digital crickets. Across from him was Sora, arm wrapped around a shivering Hikari. Gatomon set several feet away, diligently cleaning meat from fish bones.

The campfire chatter had dwindled into the faint snores of their Digimon partners, the air seeming heavy without his brother’s smooth harmonica music. Koushiro and Taichi huddled around a laptop screen, discussing things in a series of whispers. Takeru stood up, stirring Patamon from his slumber. Picking his partner up in his arms, Takeru made his way towards the girls.

A breeze whistled through a field of flowers as Hikari gazed curiously at the boy with the green hat.

“Hi!” he said cheerfully, his toothy grin putting the younger girl at ease. “My name is Takeru. What’s yours?” A warmth spread to his cheeks. He already knew her name, hearing her brother scream for her during the battle with Myotismon, but that wasn’t the same as her telling him herself. His mother always told him that first impressions were the only impression a person gets. It was embarrassing to think that they had only known each other for two minutes before he burst into tears.

“I’m Hikari,” she answered simply, her dark eyes reflecting the dancing flames. He stood beside her, arranging Patamon comfortably on the ground once more. A chilled breeze danced through the trees, stray flower petals dancing around their small group.

Hikari’s shoulders were tense, dark shadows emphasizing her eyes. Though she had only been with them for a day, she had witnessed the group at the absolute best and terrifying worst. Her entire body had been overtaken by a mysterious entity; her brother attacked by his best friend. Yet, her cheeks lacked any tear-tracks.

“You’re really brave, you know?” Takeru looked earnestly in her eyes. There would be no way he could stand in the face of an evil vampire, composed and fierce as she was. Knees tucked close to her chest, Hikari looked small in the firelight. Dirt streaked her face, her hair knotted from her semi-possessed state. Her shoulders shrugged as if she didn’t believe him. “Well,” he continued “When I first came to the Digital World, all I did was cry. I was scared of everything. Even with Puppetmon, I was shaking like a leaf.” From the ground, Patamon nodded solemnly.

Fire crackled, bright ashes decorating the air like miniature fireworks. A voice, barely above the volume of a whisper, floated through his ears. “Why did you cry? Was it that terrible?” Hikari’s eyes remained focused on the campfire, but her body leaned in his direction.

“It wasn’t terrible at all! It was fun when we were all together; I think I was confused. My brother was with me for the first time in forever, but he was so angry. Then, monsters started attacking us and everything just got all jumbled. You didn’t even have time to prepare for any of this, but you had to fight the worst monster yet. You didn’t even cry! You’re like a Power Ranger or something.”

Hikari giggled, her eyes settling on Takeru’s face for a second. Flower petals had woven themselves through her knotted strands, giving Sora plenty to fret over. With the older girl focused on tidying up their newest member and Patamon snoring lightly, Takeru let his gaze wander to the stretch of land beside them. The field of flowers was untouched, stems standing proudly. Careful not to disturb his sleeping partner, Takeru made his way towards the blossoms. It had felt like an eternity had passed since he talked to his mother about the language of flowers, but he did his best to recall.

Waist deep in a field of fresh blooms, Takeru gathered the prettiest ones. Hikari’s eyes had followed his form, but he did not divert his attention. If his mother was right, all girls loved flowers, and he was sure Hikari would be no different. The flowers smelled sweet, their scent tousling his blond locks.

Though only a few minutes passed, the fire was low by the time he returned. Koushiro had tucked himself into a sleeping bag, laptop secured underneath his arm. Sora busied herself with cleaning up their mess. Fish bones and various twigs were tossed into the pit, the fire dancing in response. Taichi perched himself underneath a nearby tree, Agumon sitting faithfully beside him. Looking around, he found Hikari not far from her brother.

Hair combed, she looked almost peaceful as she stroked her partner’s fur. Gatomon had curled herself in Hikari’s lap, purring lightly as she slept. Takeru did his best to approach quietly, but as soon as he set foot into camp, Patamon raced towards him.

“Takeru, I thought v you were gone forever!”. In a flurry of orange wings, Takeru’s partner rested lightly on his hat. “Don’t be silly, Patamon! I would never leave you.”

“Why do you have all those flowers, Takeru?” Patamon’s voiced echoed in the quiet of the night. Hikari glanced up, giving them a brief smile before her amber eyes focused on his makeshift bouquet. A flush of heat settled into Takeru’s cheeks. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

Hikari gazed up at him, eyebrows raised quizzically. With the confidence of an eight-year-old boy, Takeru thrusted the myriad of flowers towards her. “Surprise!” His grin was wide, toothy and disarming.

First the first time since he met her, Hikari smiled. For a fleeting moment, she was glowing. “They’re beautiful.” Though soft spoken, Takeru knew the words were genuine. The sparkle in her eyes told him more than her words ever could: his mother had been right.

Rubbing his sticky palms on him shorts, the blond plopped himself down beside his new friend. Hikari ran her fingers through the peonies, taking a moment to sniff the lilac. A stray daisy landed on the toe of Takeru’s sneaker.

“Hey, Hikari,” he began, leaning over to pick up the blossom, “did you know that flowers have their own language?”

Her amber eyes tore themselves from her gift, lashes fluttering in confusion. “What do you mean?” Hikari’s voice was stronger than before, the corner of her lips twitching in an almost-smile. Patamon sleepily curled up in his partner’s lap. The embers reflected in his wide, blue eyes. “Well, let me tell you what my mommy told me.”

Violets – Loyalty, Devotion, Faithfulness

Takeru could feel the table groan under the weight of his fist. He had been so careless! If he had only let Hikari go through the gate first, then-

“Takeru! Stop! Punching the desk won’t help bring Hikari back!” Daisuke’s breath was hot on his face, his presence far too close for comfort. It was too much, Daisuke was too much. It happened in a blur. Takeru’s fist tangled themselves in the fabric of Daisuke’s shirt, shoving him into a nearby chair. Metal screeched against the linoleum floor.

“You don’t know that! You don’t know her!” Takeru screamed. From somewhere beside him, Takeru barely registered Miyako’s gasp of fear. Iori cowered behind her, burying his face in the older girl’s dress. He was too angry to care. Hikari was alone in one of the most volatile parts of Digital World because of his negligence. Because of their negligence. All of them were to blame, yet the others didn’t seem perturbed.

Daisuke, body crumpled on the ground, gaped at Takeru from his huddle on the floor. His cinnamon hair was tousled, eyes rimmed in red. Maybe the blond had been too harsh on his friend. The beast of rage that seemingly possessed his body quieted. Guilt seeped into his stomach, forcing bile into his throat. Takeru’s hands tugged at his hair, a loud groan escaping his lips.

Miyako crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s nobody’s fault Hikari is lost. You need to quit punching your friends, Takeru. If Daisuke is indisposed, it will be harder to get her back.” Iori nodded in agreement, the tension too thick for him to speak. Takeru’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Miyako was right. The only way to ensure Hikari’s safety was if the boys work together,

A truce had to be called. Arm outstretched, the goggle-headed boy warily eyed Takeru’s hand before he finally accepted. Daisuke straightened his clothes, brushing off invisible dirt. “You know,” he began slowly, his eyes trailed on his sneakers, “I may not know Hikari as well as you do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about her.” Takeru raised his arm, trying not to feel offended when Daisuke flinched. He rested his palm on the band of goggles, earning a smile that rivaled the brightness of the sun. “So, we have an understanding?”

With his hair tousled and eyes bright, Daisuke reminded Takeru of Taichi. The knots in his stomach seemed to unravel. “Of course.”

The walk back to Hikari’s apartment was silent, the crickets singing their sweet lullaby. Daisuke parted ways early on, Chibimon’s growling stomach becoming impossible to ignore. Takeru found his eyes trailed to the girl’s frail figure, anxious that she would find some other way to disappear on him.

Rescuing her had been simpler than either boy had thought. It had only taken minutes for their Digimon to break into the dome, swooping down like the awkward, preteen heroes they were. Hikari was unharmed, her smile nearly blinding Takeru from his perch on Pegasusmon. It seemed that she was able to care for herself, finding a reliable hiding spot until Miyako messaged her with their plan. All too soon, the three Chosen were gathered in a heap of limbs on the floor of the computer lab, exhausted after another adventure.

His lingering gaze must have been more obvious than he thought. No sooner than they had reached the bottom of her apartment complex, Hikari halted. “Takeru, you need to relax. I’m okay,” she insisted. She gestured to herself as if to say ‘Look at me! I’m all in one piece!’ The streetlights cast shadows underneath her eyes. Gatomon stirred in her partner’s arm, her fretful sleep causing Hikari’s eyebrows to knit together.

“It doesn’t change the fact that I should have been there.” Bitterness dripped from his words. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end as the brunette gazed at him. Takeru felt as if he were eight-years-old again, promising their leader that he would do everything in his power to protect Hikari. What would Taichi say when he found out he failed?

Lost in his thoughts, the blond startled as Hikari’s hand ghosted over his shoulder. “None of us should have been there, Takeru. I’m grateful that it was me instead of the others. Miyako is so rash, she would have gotten herself hurt. Daisuke would have done something reckless, and Iori would have frozen if there was any confrontation.”

In the dim glow of the streetlight, Takeru’s eyes found hers. She was right and he knew it. If any of them could handle being stranded in another world, it would be Hikari. Emotions clouded his gaze, the color shifting to a stormy gray. “I’ll make it up to you.” His voice was so resolute and firm that it left Hikari wondering just when the boy with the green hat had gotten so strong.

He started up the stairs, giving the brunette no choice but to follow. His steps only slowed when the pair reached the Yagami’s door. The front door was worn from a childhood well-lived, the nameplate crooked in the most endearing way. A small flowerbox sat just outside their kitchen windows and without much thought Takeru plucked one of the purple stems. Hikari raised an eyebrow at his antics, but any response died in her throat when she realized how close he was.

His breath fanned her face, ruffling the strands of hair that pulled themselves loose from her barrette. A corner of Takeru’s lip curled up into a smirk, tucked the end of the flower behind Hikari’s pink-tinged ear.

“Goodnight, Hikari. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He was gone before Hikari could reply, her mouth open in shock. What was that about?

#takari #wip #digimon #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami

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yandere-daydreams · 3 years

Text

Title: Domination.

A commission for the very lovely @evaesis.

Word Count: 4k.

Pairing: Yandere!Dabi/OC (& Slight Yandere!Overhaul/OC).

TW: Non-Con, Dub-Con, A/B/O Dynamics, Oral Sex (M. Receiving), Kidnapping, Imprisonment, Slight Exhibitionism, Non-Consensual Touching, Mind Break, Physical Abuse, Slight Stockholm Syndrome, and Possessive Mindsets.

There was someone in Kit’s apartment.

She knew there was. She knew there was, she’d known since the moment she found her deadbolt undone, a new scratch next to the lock, the interior of her flat just a little too quiet not to be suspicious. She should’ve been used to it, now, considering her quirk, how it heightened her senses, how often it seemed to attract fans a little more proactive than most, but she still found it difficult to fight that familiar paranoia, the feeling that something was wrong, even if evidence was sparse. She tried to ignore it as she pushed open her front door, but it was difficult to suppress. It was always difficult, for—

“Are you ignoring me, Bluu?”

Her anxiety spiked, but dropped just as quickly. Right.

She’d managed to forget about the phone in her hand, Aizawa still loitering on the other end.

She took a second to sigh before she moved it back to her ear, already hitting herself for letting such minor details get under her skin. “Trying to,” She countered, stepping through the threshold, dropping her bag on the nearest table before bothering to grope for a light switch. “You were talking about tomorrow’s stake-out? C’mon, I’m dying to hear how two Pro-Heroes will somehow, against all odds, spend eight hours staring at an empty storefront.”

There was a hum, a breath of a laugh, but Aizawa was just as stern as ever when he went on. “Don’t change the topic. If something’s wrong, I can—”

“You can go home and relax.” Her lights flickered on, and Kit’s nerves eased. Her furniture wasn’t toppled over, her windows weren’t broken, and nothing was out of place, even if her ears were still pressed to her scalp, her tails flicking anxiously behind her. “I’m a big girl, alright? If anything’s wrong, I can handle it.” Aizawa hummed skeptically, and Kit groaned, making her exasperation clear, as she went on. “Goodnight. Make sure you’re ready to be this helpful tomorrow, Mr. Alpha.”

“Make sure you’re still alive, tomorrow,” He retorted, trying and failing to hide the fondness in his voice. “Keep yourself safe. I don’t work with corpses.”

He hung up before she had the chance to respond, leaving Kit in frustrated, giddy silence. Tossing her phone on to the closest table, Kit tried to take her own advice. She’d just gotten off of patrol. She was on high-alert, she was exgausted, and she was projecting that onto the place she wanted to feel safe the most – her apartment. She wanted to feel safe, but she didn’t want to let herself. She just wanted one more fight, a few more minutes of adrenaline, and if she couldn’t find one, her irrational instincts were content to make one.

And then, she caught it. A hint of smoke, something similar to burnt sugar. Caramelized past the point of sweetness, but still pleasant enough to cover up the rot, just underneath it.

An arm wrapped around her waist, a chest slotted itself against her back, and Kit grit her teeth, fighting the urge to kick herself for not listening to her irrational instincts sooner.

“Talking to an alpha behind my back, dollface?” The voice was rough, low and raspy, at the same time, and Kit recognized it instantly – Dabi, a member of the League of Villains, a familiar face from the other side of battle fields and walls of fire that always seemed to be just a little too far for Kit to fight, beat, and arrest, before he could cause any more carnage. Anger shot through her, bright and blinding, but the feeling dimmed into numb, logical terror as a scarred hand rose, wrapping around her neck, his palm just hot enough to remind her of his quirk, of the damage it could do in seconds, if she gave him a reason to use it. “Try anything, and the whole fucking building goes up.” His tone was still light, teetering on the line between careless and calculated, but Kit knew better than to test him. If Dabi made a threat, she knew he’d be good for it. She’d already given him plenty of chances to prove that, unfortunately. “I just need to help my friend with somethin’, sweetheart. Nobody has to get hurt.”

She could’ve fought back. She wanted to fight back. Dabi wasn’t good with close-ranger combat, but she was, and she could’ve fought and won, if she tried to.

But, as soon as she caught a stroke of red in her peripheral, as soon as she heard that sigh, she knew she couldn’t. Not if Keigo was here.

Not when she knew he’d sooner slit her throat than let her interfere with whatever plan the Hero Commission had arranged for him.

In his defense, he seemed hesitant. His expression was grim as he stepped into Kit’s line of sight, his wings folded against his back and his mouth set into a small frown. She only got a moment to glare, though, before Dabi drove his heel into the back of her knee, shoving Kit to the ground and grabbing her wrists, forcing them against the small of her back while she growled, baring her teeth to both of the men that surrounded her. She wouldn’t fight back. She wouldn’t blow his cover, but that didn’t mean she had to be nice about it. “Bastards,” She spat, Dabi’s hand already slipping under her shorts, his intentions becoming more unignorable with every passing second. “Don’t touch me. What the fuck do you think you’re—”

“Don’t take this personally.” At least Keigo fit the part, just as cold and just as villainous as his more sincere counterpart. “It was Dabi’s call. I would’ve gone with a civilian, if it was up to me.”

“Our initiation.” It was a purr, this time, punctuated by a chuckle as nimble fingers found her panties, tracing the shape of her slit through the thin fabric. Despite herself, her breath hitched as his thumb caught on her clit, pushing a slow, deep circle into the vulnerable bundle of nerves. “You should feel honored. Another villain would’ve been easier, and there’s gotta be a hundred different sidekicks easier to track down than you, but I figured if our golden boy wants to prove he can get his hands dirty…” There was a pause, another laugh, this one muffled by the dip of her shoulder. “Might as well let him have a taste of my favorite little Hero before I take her home, right?”

An initiation. That was what he claimed this was for – Keigo’s initiation, but Dabi didn’t seem in a rush to pull away. He took his time, pushing open-mouthed kisses into the side of her neck, nipping at all the tiny, sensitive spots that made her eyes clench shut, her body jerk under the oh-so-generous attention of an alpha. She didn’t want him to touch her. She didn’t want him anywhere near her, but her body did, and that was enough to spur Dabi forward, a deep chuckle falling from his lips as his gaze shifted, rising to Keigo, still kneeling stiffly in front of her. “Didn’t take you for the shy type, rookie. Get down here, before I start to think you’re havin’ second thoughts.”

Keigo rolled his eyes, but his hesitation was playful, at best, a show put on for Kit’s sake rather than his own. “I’m not trying to ruin your fun.” His tone was light, but the way he moved was stiff, clinical, his fingertips barely brushing against her waist as Dabi pulled back, giving her just enough distance to let Keigo take the lead. Keigo didn’t argue, only taking his place, his lips ghosting over the edge of her jaw. “I’m sorry,” He whispered, just quietly enough to let Dabi believe it was some idle threat. “I’ll make it quick, I promise.”

At least she didn’t have to lie. Her lines were the same, regardless of his role. “Go fuck yourself.”

If nothing else, Keigo tried to keep his word. It was a small mercy, how little he used his hands, how swiftly his feathers cut through her shorts and her panties, and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to be grateful, not when she still felt so exposed under Dabi’s prying eyes, not when it just gave him more skin to touch, more to burn. She didn’t need to be prepped. There was already slick coating the inside of her thighs, heat pooling at her core, her omega instincts reacting to the alphas’ pheromones before she could will herself not to, but Dabi must’ve been feeling nice. Whether or not she needed it, Dabi still took the time force two fingers through her tight entrance, the sudden intrusion drawing out a pitiful whimper that only seemed to make Dabi’s grin widen further. It was too intense, for something so thoughtless. He didn’t set a pace, didn’t try to find a rhythm, just curling his digits, spreading them apart, aiming for whatever made Kit grit her teeth and bow her head and keen, loudly, needily, despite how hard she fought not to. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. It was…

It felt good, and she hated him for it.

By time he pulled away, she was bent over, squirming in his hold and panting, trying desperately to ignore the hum Dabi let out as he popped his fingers into his mouth, all sick contentment, all satisfied pride. There was a squeeze to her wrists as he acknowledged Keigo, barely offering a nod before shoving her into his chest, finally letting him take the lead. “Get it over with, pretty boy.” It was an order, not a request. If Kit was in a more sympathetic mood, she might’ve felt bad for him. “Before I get tired of watching you sulk.”

Keigo didn’t force her to watch. With her hair strung around his fist, his nails dug into her scalp, he forced her face into the crook of his neck, keeping Kit on her knees as fabric rustled and the tip of his cock bumped against her pussy. “I’ll be gentle,” He muttered, and Kit had to wonder why she couldn’t bring herself to believe him.

Then, he thrusted into her, not bothering to pause until he bottomed out, and Kit had her answer.

Dabi hadn’t been kidding, when he said he’d bring her home.

She tried to pretend he had been, sometimes, to close her eyes and pretend she was anywhere except the damp, dank cellar of whatever warehouse she’d been sedated and trapped inside of, but it was difficult. The quirk-cancelling collar around her neck was too heavy to be ignored, pressing against the base of her throat with an uncomfortable chill, and she couldn’t seem to get used to the way the chain attached to it rattled every time she tried to move. The concrete made it difficult, too, scraping against her knees, threatening to draw blood whenever she tried to shift, whenever Dabi’s grip tightened around her tether and he saw fit to drag her in one direction or another. He was good, at that. He knew how to keep his eyes on her, even if her gaze could hardly be called adoring.

“C’mon, baby.” His voice did little to endear her any further, a smug simper already tugging at the corner of his lips as his free hand dropped to the base of her ears. He was sitting on her cot, the only piece of furniture in that god-forsaken basement beyond a few forgotten crates and boxes she couldn’t bring herself to open, leaving Kit to sit between his legs. He’d been kind enough to edge his jeans down, his shirt discarded completely, his cock half-hard and already on display. He wasn’t feeling patient enough to force Kit to do it herself today, obviously. “I’m on a schedule, ‘ere. I’d love to play around, but I’m afraid I’m gonna need my omega to do her job, today.”

He said it like she had a choice, like his fingers weren’t already tangled in her hair, jerking her towards him until the flushed tip of his cock was pressed against her cheek, pre leaking onto her cheek as his palm grew warmer, just hot enough to be searing. Kit got the message quickly. If there was any silver lining to being with Dabi, it had to be that. He didn’t bother pretending he was any less depraved than he’d already proved himself to be.

She tried to get it over with as quickly as she could. Relaxing her throat, Kit closed her eyes and let Dabi thrust into her mouth, playing with the idea of giving her time to adjust before dragging her forward, only stopping when her nose met his pelvis and Kit gagged, her chest heaving as she tried to blink away the tears welling in her eyes. If Dabi cared, he didn’t try to show it. With an airy groan, Dabi guided her into a rhythm that fell between unhurried and uncaring, between self-sacrificing and selfish, slow enough to be agonizing but consistent enough to keep Kit on-edge, unprepared despite how predictable he was starting to become. Still, she tried to get used to it. To let the tension in her shoulders dissolve, to ignore his bitter, musky taste, to—

“She can still bite, y’know.”

To let Keigo ruin it, just when she’d gotten good at disassociating.

Dabi didn’t pause, but he lifted his head, eyeing the man leaning against the far wall, watching carefully. She supposed she should’ve been thankful for Keigo’s lasting heroism, his persistence when it came to making sure Dabi didn’t leave damage beyond burns and bruises, and yet, it was hard not to hate him for it, too. Just the raspy chuckle Dabi let out was enough to irritate her, enough to spur her loathing for the cause, rather than the source. “I’ll take the risk,” Dabi replied, only making the idea more tempting. “Wouldn’t be that bad, if she tried. ‘d give me an excuse to—fuck, give me an excuse to teach my omega some manners.”

There was a pause, a second filled with Kit’s heavy breaths and Dabi’s quiet swears. “She’s not yours.”

Without warning, she was shoved back, forcefully separated from Dabi with an audible pop. Kit moved to speak, but she didn’t get the chance to, not before his hand was clamped around her chin, his forefinger and his thumb digging into her cheeks as he stared down at her, a smirk painting itself across his lips after a long, careful second. Blatant, unconcealed, unashamed. Like he’d already forgotten Keigo was just across the room. Like he’d never cared at all, as long as Kit was still kneeling at his feet.

As long as she was still powerless, compared to him.

“Not yet.”

At least Keigo had the courtesy to leave, this time.

To be fair, he’d done his best to stick around. He’d perched himself on a storage crate as Dabi left his first bitemark on Kit’s neck, sat on the stairwell as he pried her legs apart and made Kit cum on his tongue, lingered in the doorway when Dabi brought in his first set of ‘toys’, but today, he’d chosen to make himself sparse. It felt like a betrayal, in a way, one greater and more hurtful than the faux sacrifice that’d gotten her into this. Like he’d left her. Like he’d pushed her into a lion’s den, promised to rescue her after a few bites, then pulled up the rope behind him. But, at the same time, she was relieved. Anyone would be. She had to be.

It would only make it more painful if Keigo had stayed to watch the beast tear her apart.

Her head was fuzzy. Her mouth tasted like dust and her tongue felt like cotton, and her whole body seemed to throb. It was probably the exhaustion, the poor sleep and the dehydration and the lack of sunlight, and the fact that she hadn’t so much as seen her suppressants in more than a month didn’t help. It was all she could do to keep her arms crossed under her head, her back arched in a way that wouldn’t break her spine as Dabi pounded into her, his hands on her hips and his cock abusing her poor, drooling cunt. This was the first time he’d fucked her, really fucked her, and it showed, his satisfaction oozing out in his pheromones, his wild grin, the way he couldn’t seem to think about doing anything but bucking into her faster, deeper, harder.

She was used to it, or she should’ve been, at least. He usually focused on his own pleasure, Kit’s needs serving as something unnecessary enough to be completely forgotten, but it would’ve been impossible not to react as he rutted into her pussy, it would’ve been impossible not to squirm and whine and go tense, if only because she knew there was no way out of his iron-clad grip. She did make a half-hearted attempt, clawing at the sheets and struggling, but Dabi put a stop to her futile attempts to fight back with a single hand, pressing the heel of his palm into the base of her spine and letting his skin smolder. Instantly, she went still, but the heat remained, lingering as Dabi chuckled. “C’mon, baby, you’re still gonna try that?” There was a pause, a thrust sharper than the rest. It felt like he was trying to fuck her cervix rather than her pussy, honestly. “Haven’t I been a good alpha? Tell the truth, now.”

He wasn’t a good alpha. He wasn’t a good anything, but her tongue felt heavy, her brain too hot to think, and for whatever reason, she couldn’t bring herself to say that. Still, she tried. She didn’t know if she’d be able to forgive herself, if she didn’t. “I don’t have a… You aren’t my—”

Another flare, another warning. This time, Kit screamed, and she could feel Dabi’s cock twitch inside of her. “I’m your alpha.” It was a growl, deep and throaty and overwhelming. He wasn’t asking. It wasn’t a choice. “I’m your alpha. You belong to me. You’re my omega. Say it.”

She didn’t want to. She didn’t believe it. She knew what an alpha was supposed to be, what her alpha was supposed to be, and he wasn’t it, he couldn’t be, even if he made an effort. He wasn’t nurturing, he wasn’t caring, he wasn’t even nice, not to her, not when he didn’t have a reason to be. She didn’t want him as her alpha. She didn’t want to be his omega. She didn’t want him any where near her.

But, she didn’t want to be in pain, either. She wanted him to stop.

And for just a second, she was willing to do whatever she could to make him stop, even if it meant giving in.

It was a moment of weakness, little more than a gasping breath that could’ve been mistaken for something coherent. She didn’t even realize she was talking, not until her mouth was open, words stumbling out before she could choke them back. “I’m you’re omega!” It was a short, desperate cry, but Dabi didn’t seem to mind. Not if she took the nails digging into her hips as a sign of encouragement. “Please, I’m—You’re my alpha! Please stop, I can’t—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish, not before Dabi bottomed out, filling her cunt with something thick and hot as her entire body went rigid, a bolt of pure electricity that shot for her core to her brain, lulling her into a depleted, fatigued state, something more mindless and more tolerable than what she’d almost gotten used to. She didn’t even flinch back as Dabi leaned down, his lips barely brushing against the harsh, blackened bruises he’d left littered across her skin. She just didn’t have the energy to. She just couldn’t remember why she’d wanted to so badly.

Dabi wasn’t her alpha. She knew that. He wasn’t.

But, she was starting to think it’d be easier, if she pretended he was.

Or, it might’ve been easier, rather.

As it turns out, she wouldn’t be with him long enough to find out.

It’d been a trade. She thought it was, at least – it was hard to tell from the position she’d been in, her face buried in Dabi’s chest, her arms draped over his shoulders, clinging to him the way he liked to be clung to whenever he took her to one of the League’s meetings. She tried not to listen. She really, really tried not to, as the air filled with dust, as she heard someone scream, as even Dabi reacted, holding her just a little tighter while Shigaraki muttered and snarled and bargained, holding her until a man she’d never seen before lifted her out of Dabi’s lap entirely, snapping his fingers once before leaving with her in-tow, cradled in his arms like a damsel in distress. Like a doll, helpless and breakable, freshly bought off a less deserving owner.

He was wearing a mask, an elongated beak that contrasted harshly with his pale skin. A memory resurfaced, dull and distant, the idea of face and a case she hadn’t taken up – something small, non-violent, money laundering or drug trafficking or all of the many things Kit had never taken an interest in. She pushed it away without a second thought. Kit tried not to think about things like that, anymore. It really never ended well, when she did.

She must’ve been staring, but he didn’t see mad when he finally glanced in her direction. She couldn’t tell if he was smiling, but she thought he might’ve been, beneath the mask. It was enough to give her the confidence to speak, even if her voice still shook. “Are… are you my new alpha?”

“No,” He said, his tone calmer than Dabi’s had ever been. Not kinder, but less needlessly cruel. “But, I’m going to be. We just have to clean you up first, get you to a condition more…” His eyes dropped to the bruises circling her neck, to the dented metal collar at the base of her throat. To the letters burnt into her skin, just barely peaking out from underneath her oversized shirt. “A condition more fitting of my omega.”

Kit fell silent, at that. She didn’t bother arguing. She couldn’t seem to remember why she would.

It wasn’t like this alpha could possibly be worse than her last.

‘She’s alive. With Overhaul. If Dabi’s tantrum was anything to go by, he plans on keeping her.’

Aizawa got Keigo’s message a few minutes after midnight, in the dead center of that night’s patrol. He hadn’t been expecting it, honestly. Keigo’s updates were infrequent, rare, more of an obligation than a courtesy, a hint at security in exchange for Aizawa’s promise not to do anything… impulsive, despite his stand-offish reputation. He’d almost lost his temper once, the day after Kit was taken and Keigo privately confirmed that she was with the League, but it would’ve been a waste of energy, back then, it would’ve been a waste of time. He couldn’t do anything, not on his own, not when Keigo was so intent on earning the League’s trust before taking any action to oppose them. Not when Kit was already in so much danger before he had a chance to interfere, before he had the chance to do something half-baked and make the situation infinitely, irreversibly worse.

Not when he’d already thrown away his chance to prevent this entirely, all because he’d convinced himself she’d hate him for doing what had to be done, when she insisted on being so reckless.

But, that didn’t matter. He couldn’t keep beating himself up. He had a better way to spend his time, now. He had better things to do than just worry.

Kit wasn’t with the League anymore, after all. Keigo’s position wasn’t a factor, and Overhaul was much more predictable than Dabi.

It was time to take his omega back, whether or not she still wanted to come.

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erosofthepen · 3 years

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Hi hun! I'm doing just fine, sorry I worried you for a second there. I was just out taking a walk with my Mom and it got me thinking about an idea for some headcanons, if you'd be fine with writing them. Which Characters from Lotr and the Hobbit wouldn't mind a s/o who's constantly messy? I know that I LOVE going outside and getting covered in mud and paint and getting wet in the rain and everything. And maybe their s/o is a gardener or works on a farm, some sort of outdoorsy or travel job, so they’re always messy like that? Who do you think would be fine with that, and how would they deal with it? Thanks so much, sorry if that seems like a weird request! Hope you’re doing well hun!

Hi! This wasn’t a weird request at all! Hope you’re doing well also, and thank you for the ask!

Lord of the Rings

Aragorn:

Definitely would not mind at all. He is a Ranger, after all (a ranger who hasn’t properly washed in hair in decades). Pretty chill with it all, like “oh, you don’t mind getting messy either? cool.” He enjoys having someone go out in the pouring rain to hunt/forage with him, because (being raised by elves and all) no one else really would do that before. Also could totally see him having a foot race in a mud pitch with his s/o, because that would be hilarious.

Legolas:

Probably will find it interesting. Like. Legolas doesn’t get dirty. He smells like roses for Mahal’s sake! But when his s/o comes home, paint all over their face and clothes, mud staining their shoes, and grass stains on their pants/skirts/legs? He finds it absolutely adorable. “You’re truly one with nature, Meleth nîn”. Might get a bit annoyed after pulling out 5 leaves, 3 twigs, 2 burrs, and... he’s not sure what that last thing was but it might have been an animal... out of your hair. Probably will feel the need to give you a good wash then.

Samwise:

This hobbit spends so much time gardening he would be happy to find a kindred soul. Gardening outside with him would be so much fun, and you’ll both come in afterwards with dirt under your fingernails and on your faces. He’ll think you look gorgeous, and will probably put some flowers in your hair because “it just looks nice”. Very cute and wholesome.

The Hobbit

Fili:

The Golden Prince might draw the line at some things. “honestly, you’re worse than my brother-- wait... how did you get grass stains on the inside of your clothes?!?” But overall, Fili wouldn’t mind too much. I think he’d really like it when you’re all hot and sweaty (maybe after sparring with him) and finds it really attractive actually. however, he will most definitely corner you with a bottle of shampoo/conditioner if your hair gets too unruly. “AMRALIME I CANT EVEN TELL THE BRAIDS APART FROM KNOTS, IM WASHING YOUR HAIR WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT”

Bofur:

Kisses and Coal Dust. Sorry, that sounded so much better in my head than it did once I wrote it down. ANyways, Bofur is a miner and wouldn’t even bat an eye. It’s as normal as night and day to him, and honestly, he’s relieved. If his s/o was super clean and tidy, he’d be worried about how he looked, but with you, he doesn’t feel like he has to be devoid of his usual mess.

Tauriel:

She finds it hot. Like, really hot. Damn. She’s used to Thranduil and his 3 hour hair and skin routine, and now here comes this person with messy hair, messy clothes, and the most amazing smile she’s ever seen. I just have this image of her jumping into giant Mirkwood leaf piles with her s/o, and then going to climb trees and look at the stars. Tauriel with a messy s/o would be so perfect.

Kili:

Will be the one getting you covered in mud. Dragging you out into the rain behind him and jumping into puddles and mud, before starting a mud fight. Also, any type of craft/activity with this dwarf will end up with the two of you getting covered in either dirt, flour, leaves, an unidentified sticky substance, or all four. However, with Kili, he’ll always clean you and him up afterward, so you can cuddle together while smelling nice.

#aragorn #kili #tauriel #legolas #samwise #fili #bofur #messy s/o #ask #hobbit asks #lotr asks #the hobbit #lotr #claraofthepen

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heli0s-writes · 4 years

Text

III. Paralysis*

Summary: “I’m sorry,” you sob, locked around Bucky’s bicep, his forearm, fingers digging into the smooth obsidian plates, fisting the fabric of his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” As if he were Natasha—as if you could stop both her death and his mangling, or at least hold her the way you are holding him now.

A/N: 9.8k words. OOF.

Warnings: Language, robots v. monsters violence, Big Time angst and comfort, smutty bits (dry-humping, thigh riding).

Trinity Epoch Masterpost

He leaves around sunset. Hair combed neatly to the side and freshly shaven, Steve’s dashing in a fitted suit and tie.

In the middle of passing around a basketball, Erik Killmonger, in all his subtlety, whistles, “Looking fresh, white boy!”

Steve smirks, smoothing the front of his jacket, “This monkey suit? I’d rather be in circuitry.”

He’s been laying low since Siegehook, since Bucky’s arm, and since you. But now the story’s changed and he’s gotta get his narrative straight— he’s introducing a new character, changing the players, and guiding the spotlight exactly where it needs to go.

Jimmy Fallon— Kimmel? One of the Jimmies personally flew into Hong Kong for a special taping of his late-night show. Orion racked up eleven kills; it’s another record and the people want what they want.

Fury called the three you of into his office after the network reached out for the umpteenth time. He strategized shrewdly to have Steve on this particular broadcast because it’s not as serious as a news report and not as wordy as an interview. Too many things can go wrong in both: cross-examinations, misquoting, scrutiny after the fact.

Steve works best in front of a live audience. He’ll sit down tonight—broad and tall—smile at the camera and the host, make a few charming quips, and then he’ll let the world know.

James has been hurt. The next breach will overlap his recovery time—don’t worry, everybody, fortunately, there’s a pilot available to step in and fill his place until he’s fully healed. And yes, he’ll be back soon, both in the Jaeger and on the show— I know you miss him, he’s even more popular than me, huh? Broody and quiet, right, ladies? He’s a hit!

Then he’ll laugh and field some questions about his new partner—but keep it vague for both yours and Bucky’s sake.

It didn’t need to be said. You didn’t want to be named, Steve didn’t want to make any assumptions for the future, and Bucky didn’t want to know if anyone thought he couldn’t pilot anymore.

Erik passes and you catch, sidestepping Thor and shooting over his figure which is no easy feat considering his massive height and the way Steve is staring you down. You don’t have to be hooked up to his brain to know what he’s wondering.

Since the trial run, you’ve been feeling the after-effects of the drift in oscillating waves. Sometimes you catch yourself standing ramrod straight, physically feeling heavier, knowing it’s him.

You okay? We talked about this. Yes, you are. No, you aren’t. It’s complicated. He’s fixes his tie the same time you spot a wrinkle. After-effects.

Erik jumps for a rebound when you miss the next basket, getting it knocked away by Thor’s enormous hand. Steve’s already gone when you look back, but Erik is passing again, and your next shot sinks through the net.

“That’s fuckin’ right!” He knocks his elbow into yours proudly, pushing sleeves over elbows until you can see the patterns of scarification up his arms. Feet back and forth on the scuffed concrete with distracted rhythm, you dribble, thoughts still on Steve.

“Hey,” a voice calls over the sound of the slamming ball. Barnes toes the edge of the makeshift court. A jacket is tucked under his arm, baseball cap atop his dark head. “Come on, it’s Friday night and you’re thinking too much. I wanna show you a place.”

He leads with confidence, directing the taxi in practiced Cantonese picked up over the last two years. Then, once disembarked, he peeks back every few minutes on the street to check if you’re still following. Your gait is awkward—steps firm, but lopsided. All off kilter and wound up like a spring.

It’s okay. In Bucky’s experience, food always helps. He’s taking you to his favorite restaurant—hole-in-the-wall Sichuan. He hollers over his shoulder, "You better be prepared for spice!”

Red lacquered doors open with a tinkering sound, a tiny overhead bell signaling new arrivals. A hostess steers through a path of similarly varnished tables and decorated chairs when Bucky asks for a quiet corner. Fish tanks of koi gleam green and blue. Chandelier scatters gold and white diamond shapes on a ceiling painted like a cloudy sky.

Hot tea first, and he sips carefully, gaze moving up to the T.V. behind your back when you’re busy flipping through the menu. A few more minutes pass of your furrowed brow sinking deeper and Bucky’s hand slides quickly across the tablecloth, nudging the booklet from your clutch.

“I got this.” And relief washes over your entire body like rain.

The appearance of entrees breaks your trance. Mai Gai, Char Siu Bao, Dan Dan noodles, and eggplant in garlic sauce—you’re trying to tell him it’s too much, wondering when he even ordered, but he ignores you. Not his fault you spaced out, he says, catch, and a napkin flies directly into your chest.

It makes you laugh, and Bucky secretly wants to tell you that it wouldn’t kill you to do it more often. Why the hell not, anyway? He’s tired of being upset about something that was largely inevitable. He knew the risk of death when they signed up to be Rangers so on the bright side, at least it’s his arm and not his head. At least it’s his arm and not his co-pilot’s. You’ve proven to be more than capable and proven to be someone he can trust with Steve’s life.

If Bucky had any doubts about whether or not that damned Rogers determination would see them through—they’ve been dispelled now.

The drift was sound. When Steve stepped out from the loading dock, he was lighter like half his weight had been sloughed off. When you followed, helmet pulled from your face, Bucky could see where it landed. Your hips, your shoulders, your jaw, all defiant—even if temporarily—coming down from the high of the handshake. Squared and strong, you looked at Bucky and certainty gleamed from your eyes.

You are Orion’s new pilot. He’s gotta give it up. It could be worse.

Bucky’s fingers shift as he unsnaps chopsticks and grabs spoons, the plates on his left clicking quietly, flexing his pointer when it sticks. Sometimes the prosthetic is a little glitchy because nothing’s perfect, but Stark and Shuri are constantly making updates. They use technology from the spinal clamp to connect his synapses, running tests on its reaction time, sensitivity, and functionality. He can feel pressure, but not pain, and wouldn’t it be nice if it applied elsewhere, too?

He passes your utensils over, wrapped loosely in a napkin. It could be worse.

“Hey Barnes,” you call earnestly, running your fingers over an embossed floral pattern on the paper, “Thanks.”

He’s not looking at you yet, firmly on a mission for soy sauce and chili oil. He makes a well of it in a ceramic dish and stirs with a chopstick, moving it to the center of the table, finding distraction in small tasks.

“...Barnes?”

“It’s Bucky,” he says finally, flicking his eyes to your hopeful face, “You can call me Bucky, alright? Usually that’s just for Steve, but you’ve been in his head—know me now, I guess. So you might as well. Hold your horses—I’ll serve you.”

Speechless, you put your hands in your lap and observe him scoop food, the syllables of his offered nickname tapping like a metronome over your curious tongue.

Bucky, you consider, watching the way he moves. Bucky, with his long hair pulled back and out of his cap. Bucky, his soft and worn hoodie, boots drumming gently against the table leg, eyes discreetly glazed over because he doesn’t think you notice the change in his mood.

Bucky, who made you laugh in the Jaeger hangar—even if he did threaten your life upon the first meeting. Who could have let you rot from boredom and worry, but instead took you into Hong Kong to his favorite restaurant without being asked to. Who could hate you—truly, truly hate you—for taking half his life from him, but instead is piling a mound of fragrant jasmine rice on your plate.

“What?”

“Bucky. I like it. It sounds nice.”

A clipped noise of displeasure, “Okay. Don’t fuckin’ wear it out.”

“Bucky...?” You murmur, sly. “Bu-cky. Buck-y.” The tips of his ears swell pink as you continue, emphatically pressing your lips together, letting your jaw hang open, pronouncing with precision. A bite of a steamed bun and you lick the edge of your mouth, “Bucky…hm…”

He sputters.

“Would you stop? Jesus, you’re annoying just like him— no fucking wonder— the two of you. Just fuckin’ darling.” His words are all run together with how fast his frustrated tongue moves, a healthy flush over his cheeks, spoon clinking on his plate.

It’s cute. Stoic, serious, James—Bucky Barnes– just a boy who can’t take a bit of flirting without lighting up like a candle. It’s fun. You like him, Bucky Barnes.

An unexpected ache overtakes you and suddenly Bucky looks more familiar than he ever has. Something excruciating about the soft crinkles of his brow, the way his generous lips draw back to reveal a sliver of his teeth.

He’s Bucky wiping the sweat from his collar in a dirty alleyway, jeans torn at the knees, bruises budding along his knuckles as he yanks up a troublesome blonde friend. Bucky, young and determined, helping Steve into bed every time he got sick.

Bucky, hovering pallid and broken in the drift, hurt and afraid but you felt his resolute strength in Steve’s head even as he howled in agony. Far off and shuffling in transparent layers until he was little more than a specter, but he was there.

His eyes lift again, raising to point you toward the T.V.

“There’s our boy.”

Our boy. And it keeps hurting.

You twist your torso as Steve steps out from backstage, waving and smiling, impeccably poised. He shakes Jimmy’s hand— silently mouthing thank you and hey because the cheering and yelling is too loud to hear him anyway. You try to stop thinking about Bucky anywhere but corporeal and whole across the tablecloth.

“Hey, Jimmy, how are ya?”

“Good—good, Steve. It’s so great to have you on the show again! Wow, you look great! Specimen.”

Steve chuckles modestly, tucking his chin to his chest, “Thanks, you do too.”

“Alright, no need to flatter me, we’re already in love with you, okay?”

You grin the same time Steve does, but whereas he continues to joke and enthrall two hundred people, you grow restless. Bucky refills your tea and drops a crumble of yellow rock sugar in.

“Relax,” he mutters, “It’s fine. He’s good at this. Eat your food.”

And you know this; you know him. Steve’s good when the questions get too personal and when there’s gaps in the conversation—when the cheering interrupts him or when his jaw ticks before he morphs it into a smile.

He’s good when he breaks the news to a hushed audience, gone eerily quiet like they’ve stepped on consecrated ground. Steve gives them those big blue eyes and the room immediately bursts into applause. Some people are crying. The host is shocked into wordlessness.

You feel relieved, getting what you pleaded for. No cameras. No questions. No pressure. The truth is aired, and Bucky seems pleased, too. You’re about to turn around, offer your full attention, thankful for his company, but then something else happens.

Jimmy blinks his stupor away from the blow of Steve’s confession. He takes a sip from his mug and after a short exchange of, thank you for your transparency, it must have been hard— wow I didn’t think you’d drop a bomb like that on us tonight! I thought I was the one with the ace up my sleeve— ha!

He points off-stage and says, “After that, I think you deserve a nice surprise, Steve. Ready?”

Tall, gorgeous, lightly curled hair cascading down her back—the surprise is a woman. She steps easily in heels, an off-the-shoulder red dress hugging tight to her body. Stunning. She waves to the audience and they go wild.

Steve shoots up to meet her for a kiss in front of the host desk, shaking his head in disbelief, tangling his fingers in her silky hair. There’s cheering again and the crying keeps on.

“Oh my god— Jimmy! You sly devil!” He’s overjoyed. “Baby— how’d you—I thought you were working.”

“I can always make an exception for my favorite guy.” She showcases perfectly white teeth and the high apples of her rosy cheeks.

It’s Ophelia Reyez, Steve’s model-turned-actress girlfriend of approximately six months. Her recent appearance on the Victoria Secret fashion show blew up the internet and her last Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover sold out in every gas station you went into.

Their first meeting was at a charity event—raising awareness about pollution in the Pacific, discouraging scavengers from harvesting Kaiju parts after battles. A picture of them standing two feet away made its way through social media the next morning her PR team made contact before noon.

So of course, it was decided; it’s a beneficially mutual relationship, after all. Doesn’t matter if he hates it or not—people don’t want to know that pilots live in a metal box and play basketball on Friday nights. They want to see Rangers in a role— monogamous relationships with beautiful people, white picket fence (or gated community) future in the making, and eventually plump-faced babies in strollers.

Steve’s now back in his seat, shifted so Ophelia is sitting in his lap, turned to the side. His hands are locked around her slender waist—an incredibly believable display of public affection. She kisses his cheek, leans her head on his shoulder, beaming brightly. If you were anybody else, you’d believe it; you have before.

“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” you whisper in both awe and annoyance.

“Feeling it, huh?” Bucky speaks plainly around a bite of eggplant when he notices your jaw. That habitual and microscopic signal he’s grown to spot a mile away means Steve’s irritated and pissed off, and now it means that you are, too.

“Yeah,” you admit, shaking your head. You turn back to him, thoroughly bothered, having had enough of the performance.

“Uh-huh. Everyone’s a Fly—even her.”

You sigh at the label. Jaeger Flies, is what he’s saying. Ranger groupies. Derisive titles— and maybe deserved— for men and women who are attracted to pilots solely because they’re pilots. They want the opportunity to be famous or the privilege of being elite.

Even her, Ophelia Reyes. She’ll forever look at Steve Rogers as the Ranger.

Natasha always lamented—usually as she took her earrings off after a date, heels slipping off her pale feet—about another civilian man who worshipped her, and how that would be a dream for most people, to be so adored, so revered, but you always felt her sorrow in the drift mourning a love she couldn’t have.

She wanted the white picket fence. The normal life, normal husband, normal family. Her clean break from the past where monsters could no longer chase her in Decima and nightmares could no longer chase her at night. Behind closed doors, she was all torn open at the seams. And you’d wordlessly tell her shut up because she had a family with you. You loved her too, wasn’t that worth something?

She’d spiral and spiral and nothing was ever enough.

Your stomach twists and it keeps hurting.

Bucky pays for dinner. He asks as he pops a mint into his mouth, “Up for dessert?”

“God, Buck.” You groan, and Bucky takes a second to run that through his head again. God, Buck. Another thing like Steve.

“C’mon, I wanna show you another place,” he says thoughtfully, “Hold on to your hat, punk.”

A lighthearted swat to your back and then he’s shoving the ballcap hanging from his chair on your head.

The streets are lit with all sorts of colors as you follow him through the market, peering at vendors showcasing an abundance of food and miscellaneous items. You keep telling him you’re too full and can’t eat another fucking bite, but he only commands you to walk it off. The crispiest egg waffles are somewhere down this way, and even though he can’t remember the intersection, it should be close.

Between steps and dodging passerby’s, he relates his own experiences of brief PR relationships. A Russian woman one time, and a Greek woman another time. Cross-cultural because it made the PPDC look good—and it was all about looking good. He loathed it, of course, but he’d bite down a couple of months before their representatives would release those asinine joint statements about “conscious uncoupling” – schedules too busy, still have love for each other in their hearts, though.

“Couldn’t tell you those girls’ middle names. We’d get together just long enough for some media circulation—dates where we’d pretend to be offended when pictures leaked on TMZ.”

“Well,” you muse over a vision of Bucky leaned back on Steve’s mattress, returned late and bored of another paparazzi encounter swarming him in the lobby of some hotel. You know it like a dream—his ankles crossed, shoes shucked off, cracking his neck. Fuckin’ wild, Stevie. This girl. My knees ain’t what they used to be.

“Least you got your dick plenty wet, didn’t ya?”

He makes a noise like an engine backfiring—offended like you’ve pawned off his prized possessions or something.

“Jesus—you’re an ass.” He slams the bill of the cap down until it hits you in the nose. Another huff, more cursing, and then he’s saying fuck you before speeding off alone.

You chase cheerily, finding his chestnut head peeking over the crowd with ease because he’s tall and hard to lose in Hong Kong. A few more blocks down with him looking back surreptitiously to make sure you’re not lost, and Bucky ends up being the one who is actually lost.

“Shit. Can’t find the stand,” he grumbles, “Don’t give me that face. These are way better than the ones we passed earlier—fucking all soft in the middle—fresh pandan leaf, alright? You don’t get it.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” you laugh, feeling your cheeks grow tired from the way they’ve been lifted all night.

A stifled, hot breeze of urban downtown mixes with a chilly gust of wind, carrying Bucky’s petulance away though the throng. Blinking, you look around, craning your neck and shuffle to the curb. Stalls with hanging lanterns. Carts lined with pickled mango. Vendors grilling skewers of pork and cleaving roast duck into chunks.

You suddenly dart from him across the busy road and barely avoid a rickshaw balancing two enormous baskets of finger bananas. When you return, you hold up matching green popsicles. One gets shoved into his mouth, other one into yours. Pandan, like he wanted.

“Hey, it’s not bad,” you give it another taste. Lingering coconut, a little bit leafy, but not unpleasant. “Oh shit—cold!”

Bucky licks his lips, stinging red from the ice. You shudder loudly as brainfreeze hits, another chatter of your teeth following when a gust of wind whips through. He shrugs his jacket from his shoulders.

He calls you a dumbass after an embarrassing story about the time you skinny-dipped in a pond near The Icebox in the middle of winter. A handsome man, your eager libido, and a handle of whiskey had been involved. You giggle about being bed-ridden for half a week afterwards, but you got his number and a few good nights in his bed.

“Guess you’re not as boring as I thought.”

You whistle, “Sweetheart, I got stories that’ll put some hair on your chest.”

Bucky smacks you on the shoulder. “Ass.”

The Shatterdome comes into view much later.

What would have normally been a three-hour excursion, at most, has unintentionally into six and you’re nowhere close to tired—not quite ready for it to end. Bucky is bright with energy, too.

The past hours have been dedicated to recalling old tales. One led to another, threads pulled from the most insignificant of mentions—your old Boston Terrier’s underbite; Bucky accidentally knocking Steve’s bottom lip into his own braces in sixth grade and it swelled up so big he could hardly talk; Natasha, unable to pronounce fucking aluminum out of all the damn words in the world; you, unable to pronounce facetious; and then Bucky, trying his own hand at it and realizing he can’t either.

“Fa—fa-shish-shush? Fascist—tus? Factitious… Ah, shit.”

“Buck,” you gasp through another fit, “Bucky—you have to shut up. Oh—Oh my god—my face hurts.”

“Christ, who fucking made this word up?” He turns the corner toward the living quarters, shaking his head. Just you and him between the rooms and his steps slow at the advent of an inbound goodnight.

Bravely, now that you’re in more secluded space, you offer, “I can tell you more... if you want. Anything. It’s only fair.”

“Yeah,” he says, going quiet and careful. “If you want to.”

So, you take a deep breath, bookended by a nervous grin because other than Steve, the only person who knows anything about you outside a confidential manila folder is dead.

“Well, it might surprise you, since I’m just so goddamn talented—"

“Oh, here we fuckin’ go.”

“Kidding. I wasn’t good at anything,” you elbow him before fishing out your key. “Other than getting into trouble.” Clicks of the cylinder and your vault door squeaks open. “Lots of fighting—I was a small kid. Had nothing but the clothes on my back and just the biggest chip on my shoulder.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

Yeah. It’s funny. Steve’s alleyway fisticuffs might as well have been your own. You tell him as soon as the PPDC started recruiting again, you were in line. Their standards were confusingly specific and the tests they ran didn’t make any sense, but you passed and landed in Kodiak Island under the austere care of Stacker Pentecost.

Flipping the light on, you invite him inside. “I’d been in and out of foster homes. Barely had a high school degree. Got into… bad work. You know— what do homeless young adults with questionable moral codes do when their 9-5 isn’t paying the bills?” It’s desperate joke to break up the tension but he doesn’t take the bait.

“I’m not judging.”

You plop down on the edge of your table— a spotty metal thing pilfered from a vacated room. He takes the single seat in front of you, moving a dusty glass of water toward the wall, expression only showing attentiveness.

“Well, anyway…” you pause, “I was in the Bay Area after Trespasser— you know, scavenging. But, well, it changes your perspective a little when you’re sneaking through government tape at 3 in morning, stepping over flowers and memorabilia for all the deaths to crouch over a monster’s fucking toenail.”

“Hell,” a sardonic and self-deprecating grin, “I might have been a degenerate street urchin, but someone’s family got taken from them and here I was—monetizing their tragedy.”

Arching your back for more comfort, you splay your left leg over the surface, “Pentecost always said if I was lucky enough, I’d suffer brain damage or radiation poisoning, but might as well die in a Jaeger than in a ditch like I figured I always would. Son of a bitch had my number.”

Bucky’s lips are pursed lightly, eyes are tracing the path of your laces through bent hooks when you wriggle your boot back and forth. He spreads his hand over your ankle, keeping you still.

You swallow when he squeezes.

“Uh— I met Nat at Kodiak.” Bucky is warm. You oscillate between ignoring him and focusing on him, clinging to his hold instead of chasing the thought of Natasha too much. “We were… very similar. Childhood, um, troubles and all that.” You give him a pointed look and he makes a small noise of understanding with no intention to press for details, “She became my best friend. She was the first person I had. My only family.”

A nod of mock irritation and he says, “Yeah. Steve was always a part of mine. Sometimes they say they like him more than me. Can’t blame ‘em.”

“It’s the charm. They make it seem effortless, huh?”

“Fucker can’t take a bad picture to save his life.”

You laugh. “A smile like the goddamn sun!”

“One look into those stupid blue eyes and you’re a goner.”

“Criminally pretty.”

“Hah!” Bucky snorts, “Pretty enough for all of us.”

The floodlight on the wall casts darkness in the shape of your head over his shoulder. Lines of wayward hair caress his neck, tapered strands resting on his collarbones, chestnut glowing orange. His irises stipple forest green when it touches the light, smile nostalgic and lovely.

“Don’t be stupid,” you look at him for another minute longer, “You’re pretty, too, Buck.”

A raise of his brow. Bucky’s mouth opens and closes a few times vacantly. “Thanks,” he mutters finally. Then, bashfully, “So are you.”

Then, a cautious murmur of your name that you almost miss, and he’s peering up at you, deliberately soft. Bucky’s thumb knead small circles over the stitching of your jeans.

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

You loved her, didn’t you?

The years sweep through, passing over your face in a range of rapid-fire emotions. Bucky watches them change like shadows of a bonfire. Delight, amusement, longing. Anger, despair, grief. Deep and unforgiving because she was your whole world—all you had— and she left too soon.

You inhale and it sounds like a sniffle— exhale, and it sounds like a sob. No going back now; you did promise him anything.

You loved her, didn’t you?

Of course you loved her. Natasha-fucking-goddamn-Romanoff. Yeah, of course you did.

You loved her like a sister. You loved her like a lover. You loved her in reflexive ways, like mother’s intuition, finding your motivation in the need to protect her even though she hardly ever needed protection. You loved her like precious gems. You loved her like she was made from your own rib. You loved her enough to love unreciprocated.

“Well, you spend years living with someone, in their brain, learning everything about them— every decision in and out of their control that led them up to who they ended up being. Their—all their impulses and all the things they think about themselves. How—how they hate themselves sometimes.”

You’d always said you were the stupid one. Too stupid to reflect on the past and too stupid to let it burden your conscience the way she’d let hers. A running gag whenever her hand jammed putting on a lipstick she’d worn a million times and you’d finally have to do it for her.

Cheer up, Nat. You’re too pretty to cry. You’d line her lips, pat in rouge delicately, encouragingly. And then you’d shut up because there was nothing you could tell her. A million reassurances rolled off her back because they only made her feel worse. She clung onto your care like another weapon in her chest because she couldn’t return it even though you told her you wanted nothing from her but happiness. Jesus Christ, Nat, I thought I was the stupid one.

“When you know someone like that, it’s easy, isn’t it? You see them exactly for who they are and suddenly there’s no longer the concept of good or bad. What else could I do but love her? Especially when she thought so little of her damn self—tried everything to be someone else but—Jesus, if you only knew how radiant she was—”

You shut your eyes. “A smile… like the goddamn sun. Ah, fuck—"

And now you’re crying. You haven’t cried about Natasha in almost half a year because it’s something you track like the entrance bay’s war clock. Five months. Ten days. Zero again.

You’re choking back too many words and you don’t even know why you said all of that. You start apologizing, rattling out more, too much again, desperately like a prayer, pitch escalating higher and higher. “She deserved everything. A life that was completely—solely—hers. A life that made her happy— and why— why her?”

Why not me?

Bucky hears it in the silence. Watches it descend like a funeral shroud, weighing you down until you look as heavy as Steve on his worst days—when he stares at Bucky’s arm, like Bucky can’t see, can’t feel him there. And he knows Steve is thinking, why not me?

Bucky rises to his feet, stepping next to your uselessly dangling leg, resting his left hand on your shoulder and you grasp him, clutching achingly tight, torn to bits. And it’s too much all at once.

“I’m sorry,” you sob, locked around his bicep, then his forearm, fingers digging into the smooth obsidian plates, fisting the fabric of his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” As if he were Natasha—as if you could stop both her death and his mangling, or at least hold her the way you are holding him now.

You’re smashed into little pieces, barely keeping your head above water, holding it all in, and no one recognized how you were drowning the entire time.

Solemnly, curiously, he feels like he’s seeing you for the first time but not quite, remnants of familiarity sparks in him—the filmy plastic layer of an old photograph pressing down to reveal something he once knew and finally knows again.

You make helpless noises, staring numbly ahead, tears rolling out like marbles to drop into your lap.

Bucky shakes his head, “I’m fine,” he whispers gently—frustrated—brow furrowed, his fingers rubbing the salt from your chin, “Quit your blubberin’.” He tilts your face up to the light, watching you take a shuddering breath, exhausted from unearthing buried skeletons.

It's wet when he kisses you, supple flesh chapped around the edges from anxious gnawing, swollen hot from weeping. It’s soft and quick, and then he pulls away.

“St—sorry,” he says, mouth pressing into a thin line, lips drawn in and tentatively licked. “Sorry, I don’t know… I don’t know why I did that. I shouldn’t have.”

Your eyes are sad—big and vulnerable, inflamed red, confused, worried, something else weaving through the damp gaze. Your strong, small fingers are still tight on him, and even though Bucky pulled away and apologized, he rushes forward again.

His free hand curls around your neck, supporting your head. Lips part and close, pressing firmly, expertly, naturally. It feels like he’s kissed you before and missed it— like a kiss he’s been waiting on for a long time.

Banging on your door jerks him away. You careen off the tabletop, smooth the back of your hair, wipe your face and the vault creaks open.

“Marshal,” Bucky greets.

“Rangers…” Fury’s steps are suspicious, phone in his hand aglow. “I thought we had a plan.”

Your heart is beating too fast, the press of Bucky’s plush lips still warm, the scent of his skin still near. You sense it like an imprint, feel it like a brand. The room spins with an onslaught of possible scenarios—all horrendously unclear.

“Care to explain this to me?” The marshal turns his phone toward you, the lit screen displaying a photo of a dark street, illuminated by red and yellow lanterns. A thick crowd is spread around stalls of fruit and knick-knacks.

The headline reads James Barnes Spotted in Hong Kong with Mystery Woman, and the two of you are circled inside a red ring. You’re teetering off the curb of the sidewalk next to a sewer grate. It’s grainy and distorted, but Bucky’s striking features are clear.

“And this one?”

Bucky’s cap on your head, popsicle sticks between your teeth and his.

Steve Rogers on Jimmy! Jimmy Barnes on a Date!

James Barnes Officially Over Penelope Mercouri.

James Barnes’ Injury?

Fury tucks his device back into his coat. “Not that I care what you get up to on your spare time, but we had a tale to tell. It’s hard pushing an agenda when you’re pushing the wrong way.”

“We just got dinner,” you stutter, an upsurge of guilt rising. The speculation, the kiss, the gut-wrenching reflex that feels like a crime. Fury’s calculating now, looking from you to Bucky, assessing the situation with some pity because you truly look pitiful.

“What you got is PR on cleanup. Potts has been trawling Twitter for the last 20 minutes. For someone who doesn’t want to be in the public eye, you’re making a lot of noise.” He points to Bucky’s jacket still over your shoulders.

You tear it off. “It’s not—”

“Oh no—I won’t be losing sleep any over it.” The marshal’s single eye blinks calmly, “She can spin the story, but you become responsible for this.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, Ranger, that the spotlight is on you now. And there is nowhere to run.”

And if you didn’t think it could get any worse, footfalls down the hallway reach your ears in a pattern that you recognize immediately. Here he is, stepping into your room like it’s his own, suit jacket over his forearm, shirt halfway untucked and tie pulled loose. His lips drawn together and unreadable.

But you read it: Steve’s seen the pictures, too.

And goddamn, if you didn’t think it could get any worse— the earsplitting alarm announcing sudden movement in the breach startles you all.

“Orion Bravo, report to Bay 08, Level B. Codename Polidori. Category 2 Kaiju.” Shuri’s reedy voice is collected but critical. The thin screen next to your bed blinks on primary colors, wavy lines of activity rising and falling, counting down until emergence. Three hours.

Banner streams down the hall. The ruckus drowns him out.

Fury’s dark skin is ochre beneath the lights, “Category II,” he says, “Should be achievable. Odinsons will be on standby, guarding the Miracle Mile. Maximoffs on the coastline. They’ll come to you if necessary. Shelve your personal troubles, Rangers, we’ll continue this conversation later.”

Circuitry. Battle armor. Helmet beneath your arm. Muscle memory cuts down the time to seven minutes until you’re set to board, but you need more. Just a few—you have to tell him—better now than later—better from your mouth than from the drift. So, you blurt, “Bucky kissed me.”

Steve turns.

“We kissed. It—it’s nothing. I just needed to tell you before we get in. Didn’t want to seem like I’m hiding anything—I’m not.” It sounds so stupid, like a child admitting fault for breaking a window with a too-hard throw. It sounds like betrayal.

His helmet is gripped tightly in the crook of his elbow. Steve’s chin juts out incrementally, chewing on the inside of his lip, the air around him gone stagnant until he makes a noise both like a scoff and a hum.

“Sure. Fine. I get it—you’re lonely.” It’s worse than any response you expected to receive. “You know what I mean.”

It must be a testament to the depth of your connection now— you knowing him, him knowing you in all the ways that can make an argument escalate into atomic warfare. Precision strikes and then the two of you walking Ground Zero in its aftermath.

“Wait—you think I’m lonely?” You block his way out, furious. “What the fuck does that— have you met yourself? Girlfriends who will never see you for who you are. Ophelia Reyez? Katherine Lau?”

Orion Bravo. Report to the loading platform.

“I know exactly what I’m doing—do you? I spent all evening on T.V. for you--”

“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, Mister Martyr in front of a drooling audience telling white lies and screwing a Victoria’s Secret Angel in some penthouse suite— such sacrifices you’ve made in my honor.”

Orion Bravo. Report to the loading platform.

“What the fuck have you done lately?” Steve snaps, “Other than try to fuck my co-pilot?”

His words hit like a kick in the goddamn teeth. You slam your helmet into his chest and the polycarbonate shells knock together violently.

“I’m your fucking co-pilot,” you snarl, “You wanted me.”

Steve steadies himself, twisting until he’s snarling at you down the bridge of his nose, “Enough. We’re being hailed, I’m not breaking this record because of you, and not for a Category II. Get your shit together.”

You grind your molars when he pushes you aside, stumbling on shaking legs. Your brain feels gnarled—misshapen and bent up in sharp, jagged points—and as much as you want to stomp his goddamn face in, he’s right: you can’t feel this way. You can’t. It’s your first drop in two years with the best pilot by your side—and you’re responsible for his life. The last one proved disastrous, and you cannot risk that again.

Your suit feels heavier with each step. When you climb in after Steve, the rig feels more obstinate. Your head, chest, heart are all swollen with turmoil and hot rage.

He’s next to you, breathing deeply. You mimic, shelving personal troubles like the marshal commanded.

Out of alignment, the automated voice of the system calls, and you push it back further, grabbing the entire shelf and hurling it into the depths. Steve sends you an incisive look. A blame. You take a breath, another, and another. Fuck!

“Orion.” The heads-up display spotlights Bucky’s face in the control room, emotionless. “Focus.”

You inhale one more time, seeking reassurance in his unwavering gaze—necessary peace in the silhouette of his phantom left arm. Bucky. Steve. Natasha. You. There can be no more loss. You cannot let it happen again.

Levels stabilizing.

To your right, Steve makes a noise like he’s shaking something off.

Neural Handshake complete.

Bucky stands behind the glass, watching aircrafts lower their hooks. A nod of his dark head is the last thing you see before Orion is lifted from the hangar.

There would be a fucking storm.

You’ve always hated fighting in the rain because Kaiju are enormous, slippery, alien amphibians, and Orion’s left fist slides off more times than you’d like. This one’s much smaller than Orion, which allows it the slight advantage of speed, slicing through the water like a shark, corkscrewing for an extra boost of velocity before emerging with a splash from behind.

A miss when you and Steve weave away, hazarding a minor scratch to the right shoulder before Orion’s shield knocks it back.

Despite the vexing evening and the simmering hurt in the pit of your chest, the drift is steady. So, you take it for what it is, cast the rust off your bones, and the two of you do some fucking damage on this thing.

Banner named it Polidori, after the writer credited with inventing the vampire genre. K-Science sonars detected protruding fangs and petal flaps folded on its back like vestigial wings. So, Polidori, he shrugged, it’s cute.

You discover with swift horror that the flaps are neither vestigial nor cute when Polidori pulls one sliver of leathery skin free with a splat. An atrocious shriek rings over the storm as it struggles with its own body, then another shriek and the left pillar continues to stretch, knobby blunt end of its shoulder blade shooting high, ripping itself full of gaping holes in its endeavor.

Banner was more accurate than he realized.

“Orion!” Shuri’s voice is sharp, “Bring it down! Do not let it into the air! Use your cannon!”

You’re frozen stuck, eyes squeezed shut at the sight of stretched membrane. A terrified whimper and a puncture of nauseating memory nicks at Steve’s concentration.

No! Levels spike on the HUD screen. Fuck! Steve is caught in the undertow and the rig jams beneath both your feet.

“Orion! You’re out of alignment! Orion!”

She’s here.

Natasha’s bright hair is unfurling all around you. There’s deafening splintering when the incisors of her killer punctures through Decima’s chest and both her legs. Metal grinds against metal, the sound searing itself into your eardrums—your brain—your heart. Wings are beating—wild flaps of rubbery sails against the downpour—muffling screams from Decima’s cockpit.

It’s as real and cruel as the last time you saw it.

Bi Fang, like the bird from Chinese mythology, beaked and blessed with flight to make up for its one leg. Bi Fang the Kaiju was legless, and Natasha was convinced Decima could take it. You had no reason to think otherwise; five previous kills cultivated your confidence. You had her by your side, after all. Two orphans with something to prove, proving it again and again.

Wings and fangs? No legs? Six is an auspicious number. The smirk on her lips blooms fiercely. You’re laughing when Decima hovers above the water. Alright, Tasha. Six drops.

A tremendous splash and you touch ground.

She grins. Six kills.

Polidori has one limb fully flexed, fragmenting pixels bending into the shape of Bi Fang. Natasha is bending, too, lowering her center of gravity. Her elbows are against her ribs, fists set. This is gonna hurt. Come to–

Come to me! To me!

He’s stepping in ink. In water. And then metal is beneath Steve’s feet. There are flashes of rain, lightning, and he recognizes her dead center of the storm.

Natasha Romanoff, vibrant and joyful through the glass of her helmet. You, next to her, reciprocal smile on your face stuck in hysteria, tears streaming down your cheeks in wide stripes. Steve’s hand is reaching but going nowhere. Echoes overlap of crying and shouting. Yours. Hers. His.

Come to me!

He yells again, but you’ve chased the rabbit too far.

Come to me!

He’s trying his hardest, stretching himself like ropes to bridge the fissure. He feels your fear, your hurt, and for a flash, it eats him whole, spits him out a twisted-up way and his brain screams for Bucky.

Bucky is doing the same through the control room, reaching his will out to Steve, praying their connection still holds despite their distance. He’s yelling for you, too.

“Steve! Get the hell out of it! Steve, you need to get her!”

The ripping of his red left arm loops three times in quick succession before Steve can temper it down. Bucky is howling, crying, sobbing. Steve is breathless, stuck, rattled, steeling his entire body to witness the amputation for another inescapable replay until your frozen body smears across his blurry field of vision.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Bright whites burst behind his eyelids. Flares of panicked emotion. Bucky. Natasha. Him. You. An endless rippling chain of trauma lashing Orion open.

“Come on— Steve! It’s moving! Steve!”

“Buck! I’m— I’m okay! Just— need a second.” Steve scrambles for his sanity, latching on, knowing Bucky’s well— alive and not hurt. Shuri begins urging him to get up faster. Polidori’s moving slow, but it is moving, and it needs to be put down now. She’s calling for the Odinsons—Colossus, be prepared to walk-

The metal under Steve’s feet slides away. Water returns, ink flowering behind it—molasses and murky. His steps are unsteady, chest heaving as he advances through a field of speckled glimmers like fireflies at dusk. Each flicker reflects an agonized shard of your distorted face.

A flit of your voice rushes behind his head. Steve whips around and tries to catch it but no such luck.

Again, to the right, then gone each time he spins. It builds and builds until he feels half-deaf, frantically invoking your name into the ether where it becomes lost in dissonance. Butterfly-winged iridescence scatter and plummet, shrieking, shrieking, shrieking.

Then, nothing.

He finds you crumpled over on Anchorage’s shore.

Decima reaches sand as a crackling mess of Jaeger parts, chest piece ripped clean off the right side. You clamber out of the rig, hugging Natasha’s mutilated corpse. Your drivesuit is split open down to the hip, the glass of your helmet fractured and splattered with blood from your nose– still dripping.

He shakes his head, attempting to free himself of your scarred clutch. You had been hooked into the rawest fear—linked up when she died— gored and broken with half your brain believing it is also dead. Chills race up his spine and breaks him out in a cold sweat. He feels strangled to his very soul.

Then, seizures take you—the casualties of solo piloting—the neural damage come to collect. Nobody know how many miles you steered Decima alone and truthfully, it should have killed you.

Your eyes roll up to the sky, body convulsing before slamming into the ground like a rag doll, shaky fingers still reaching for your co-pilot. Steve shudders quietly, flinching with each impact. A final wail and everything slackens to a dull vibration. You quiver on the sand, howling and crying for Nat.

Polidori’s right wing casts itself loose, jaw opening wide. Steve’s on a time limit; there are only a few grains left in the hourglass. He croaks your name.

A second of recognition triggers from behind the curtain and it’s miraculously enough for you to see him. It’s enough.

He begs. He begs on his goddamn knees, crawling to you.

Look at me, only at me. Come back to me, please. Please. Please.

Steve gathers you in his arms, both of you trembling and afraid. Your suit heals itself, pieces stitching back together, blood little by little disappearing from your nose. Natasha shimmers away.

He presses the glass of your helmets together. He needs to get closer.

Steve? S-Ste-Steve—Steve?

You’re still crying. You’re breaking his heart.

Yes. I’m here.

St-Steve, what d-d-do I do?

You’ve got me now. I’m here with you. You understand?

He can see you struggling to escape, consciousness clawing with nails and teeth to return to the present.

Yeah. Y-Yes.

We have to move.

Steve—Steve—everything hurts.

Just for now. Just for a little bit—but I’ll make it better, I promise. Nothing’s gonna hurt you again. Will you hold on to me? Do you trust me?

Y-yes… Yes, yes. I trust you.

The rig lurches back to life beneath his feet. Jittery and creaking with strain, Orion rocks forward with a rumble. The drift stirs once more, noise giving way to silence.

Steve’s vision clears. You’re back in the present, precariously grounding your strength inside his guidance. You raise an unsteady left arm. He powers it up. Energy surges through the cockpit, tremors running up your side as it charges. Your hand splays. Steve’s palm takes aim.

Activating plasma cannon.

The beam pierces Polidori’s shoulder and its roar chases a simultaneous thunderclap.

A crack of lightning flushes the sky purple. Orion’s right arm lifts high above its head and slams back down, the glowing hot edge of its shield cleaving through Polidori’s skull.

Bucky’s grip on the control room’s railing feels like it could warp metal. Wilson is on his right, other pilots in a row next to him. All is silent.

Through the relay of Orion’s camera, Polidori’s writhes one final time. A death throe—pathetic trilling drowned by rising water, falling into deep darkness. Overhead, Kaiju clean-up advances, jet engines rumbling behind an ashy horizon. Orion’s shield retreats to its side with a wet, sloppy sound. The handshake pulled through. Steve got to you.

Abruptly, the room vibrates with the shouting of about fifty voices. Sam is banging on the railing, strong fists rocking the entire length of it, roaring with glee. The others are even wilder— shoving each other in triumph.

Bucky tunes it out, waiting for quieter confirmation. He can hear the both of you despite the racket. Steve’s steady pants, cut with throaty relief—this one, Bucky’s familiar with. Your small, weak sobs strangled with tears—this one, he’s quickly learned, but knows now in his bones.

“Twelve drops,” you announce hoarsely. Raw. “B-Buck?”

He grins, dazed comfort rushing over, your voice chasing the torture away.

“Twelve kills, sweetheart,” Bucky says, “You did it.”

The raucous celebration in the Shatterdome simmers down around four, sunrise just a couple hours behind the horizon. Unruliness had broken out, triggering a party that lasted from the time Orion got picked up ‘til now, and still there’s chatter in the common room.

It’s normal; Anchorage celebrated too after most kills—as long as no one died.

You’re freshly showered and changed, barefoot as you patter it back to your room. Voices from other beds are lowered as you pass—friends taking banter back to private spaces, couples pressed up against each other. All standard-issue revelry to commemorate the endurance of life.

It’s how these things go. Violence on a massive scale, humanity threatened with extinction—the people closest to death feel it the most. When routine becomes monotony, it’s good once in a while to be stimulated again.

Damn near two thousand people in close quarters—Rangers in perfect form, friendships assembled on the foundation of sharing an exceptionally singular purpose. Even Pentecost in all his grave formalities couldn’t ward off human nature. Plenty of pilots hooked up with each other and other staff in Anchorage and no one cared as long as it didn’t muck anything up on the job. At least the marshal could control that; mishandle your personal relationships and you’d be off the docket for your next drop.

Sex is biology. Desire is human.

It’s hard for you to feel human this morning. Exhausted by the fight and the prior evening—awake now for over 24 hours, you broke away from the commons as soon as you arrived, spending an hour simply breathing in the steam, the habit achingly comforting. Your chest still feels tight, heart bloated with invasive flashbacks.

You used to decompress with Natasha. A few drinks, tales from the cockpit, shadowboxing and putting on a show, glad to be in the company of friends— to be back safely with each other. Then you’d scatter with the crowd, meet her in the showers, and help her wash her hair in silence. Nothing but the trickle of shampoo down the drain.

She’d cry, sometimes. Catharsis, mostly. Curled up in your arms, the both of you cozy in pajamas on the floor. Then off to bed where she’d climb under your sheets, falling sleep with her head on your shoulder, your fingers in her hair.

A love unspoken. A home in the shape of a twin-sized bottom bunk. Cramped and narrow. Too brief.

You sigh. Everything hurts.

A few rooms away from yours, Steve’s door is open just enough for a line of orange to escape. You know he’s there, waiting patiently as he has been. You went near catatonic on the way back, lying down in the cockpit, no longer needing to be hooked up. You shed the armor, holed yourself into the corner of Orion’s hull, and said nothing when he sat by your side.

Walking in front of the light, he places himself in the entrance way until he’s looking at you. His face is a gentle blue shadow, resplendent halo glorious behind his head. He’s dressed in soft pants and a t-shirt damp at the collar. A droplet of water runs down his neck.

It emerges like an orchestral arrangement. Leisurely notes creep into your ears—a tune you’ve always known. Plucks of strings, escalating windchimes. It echoes, the trails on his skin, his measured breath, his percussive voice layering and pleating until there are dozens of him.

Look at me. Come to me. I need you.

You feel it all at once. A knotted, chaotic tempest. Hesitation. Confusion. Ache. Bucky. Him. You. Your eyes lock with his. A mistake and a revelation.

Steve holds out a steady hand. You take a step, terrified, pulled into his overwhelming atmosphere like magnets, your bodies humming a secret frequency, purring for each other.

The drift opened everything up, but the battle tore it all out. The both of you are laid bare, everything else fallen away.

Nothing’s gonna hurt you again. You’ve got me now, you understand?

You reach the shadow he casts, eclipsed entirely by his bulk. Steve threads his fingers between yours and with a tug, you surrender your worries to him.

He’s kissing you before the door is entirely shut and latched. He fumbles for the locks, wraps his arms around your waist. A click and a clatter. He moans into your mouth.

You exhale from deep inside your chest. He inhales like it’s all the oxygen he needs.

Your hands move to one place, his hands to another. Before your bodies can savor it, the both of you have roamed on, reading each other’s minds, knowing what’s next.

More. More. More.

It’s impatient and fast and Steve picks you up with ease. You forget yourself, forget the world outside the room, outside the three-by-three tile area of where he’s got you lifted, legs wrapped tight around his hips. Fingers dive into the back of your pants, squeezing, up your shirt, pawing at your breasts.

His groans blow heat onto your neck. You arch away, giving him more skin to brand kisses onto. He nips at your throat, light, then again, rough. His voice is raw and thick, husky little clouds making their home on your body.

Gentle sucking on your bottom lip follow each kiss. He takes you to bed, dropping himself onto the mattress, you on top of him. He’s been in your head; he knows what you like. Knows where you want him. Your voice is getting higher, sounds quick and shallow.

Steve guides you with one hand on your hip and the other beneath your thigh, soft pajama bottoms pressing against his. He groans each time you rock forward, needy for more contact against his groin.

You’ve been in his head, too. He likes feeling hands in his hair, so you grip his flaxen strands. He likes hearing, so you make a little more noise. He likes seeing his partner helpless because of him, losing all control, falling apart for him.

So you do.

Pleasure rushes from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, his name burning in your throat. It’s an incredible shock and you’re spellbound, enraptured by him drinking in the parting of your swollen lips. Quickly, he places you on his thigh, enormous and strong, needing a better position to see— to feel you on him. Hungry attention, eager eyes, pleading like a mother tongue.

“Keep coming for me. Just like this— don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

The shamelessness of it—your underwear soaked to your pants. The fever of it—his body like a fire, low, husky begging just from watching lighting up your spine. It’s extraordinary adrenaline— the heightened and profound connection of knowing one another in every way—as if you were made for each other.

Animal instinct liberated from human sentience. Desire pursuing release. Two bodies colliding and igniting.

You can’t stop the next cresting wave, crying out again.

Steve pushes you on his leg repeatedly, back and forth, solid and firm between your thighs even as you shudder and whimper, telling him it’s too much— you’re too sensitive. He kisses your neck, jaw, chin, cheek. He doesn’t stop moving.

“Hold on to me.”

A bead of sweat collects on the dip of your cupid’s bow. He looks at how sweetly your skin shimmers as you shiver, how your pupils are blown wide, how you look so perfect to him. He presses his forehead to yours, looks into your eyes like the way he did in the drift.

You reach for him and rub in quick strokes, fumbling when he rocks you back, gripping when he rocks you forward. Parted lips hover, “One more time for me—ah, please,” he begs, “Before I do.”

But he’s too late and too heated. Steve makes a mess of his sleeping pants, taken over the edge by how you feel without hardly feeling you at all. He buries a groan into your shoulder, riding it out with indelicate thrusts into your palm.

“Oh,” he murmurs, “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”

He’s blush pink and beautiful when he remembers himself again, rubbing his cheek against yours. He knows what you’re thinking— the realization in the comedown, the leaching fear of what could have been a mistake. But it isn’t, and Steve remains faithful to your body.

“Stay. I’m sorry—for hurting you. I’ll make it better.” Velvet kisses to your lips and you shake your head, apologies no longer necessary.

A whisper of his name like it’s the most radiant word. You cling to him, kissing him, answering only to him.

In the afternoon when Steve is still sleeping, you retreat to your room. You pause at the sight of Bucky already on your bed, caught in the bleary focus of his gaze. With lashes soaked wet, his throat constricts around a forceful swallow.

“Hey,” he says, voice breaking on the syllable. He pats the space next to him and you come sit, turning your knees until they knock into his.

“Bucky…”

He laughs like you’ve told a joke, like the sound of his own name is a funny thing escaping your mouth. “Hoped I could catch you last night, before—” he laughs again. “—Before bed. Just wanted to—I guess I don’t know what I wanted to do.”

The hurt resurfaces. You find him through the rose-dappled lenses of Steve’s eyes. Those warm summers with two boys running wild, effortlessly devoted to each other. Your heart swells like you’re there, gazing at russet locks flying in the wind. Years and years between them—Bucky’s smile, lopsided and carefree. Steve’s gaze, illuminating Bucky in every memory.

“Bucky,” you say again, so wonderfully soft, he thinks, even as his chest feels stretched to bursting. “You love him.”

He places his temple on your shoulder, face hidden by the long strands of his hair.

“You’ve been in his head. He’s easy to love.”

“Yes,” you agree, touching his bangs, pushing them over his ear, streaking four affectionate lines through, “He is.”

“So are you.”

Bucky turns into your palm, smiling openly, like the truth is the simplest thing in the world.

#steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #stucky x reader #steve rogers x reader x bucky barnes #pacific rim #marvel #reader insert #fanfiction

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caretaker-au · 4 years

Text

Kindness & Justice: Backstory

The two adolescent girls huddled around a small campfire in the twilight, trying to finish their dinner before nightfall. The tall cook poured the remains of pancake batter into the cast iron pan, mentally crossing her fingers that this one wouldn’t stick as bad as the previous one did.

“This is the last one,” the cook said, “You want it?”

“No, that one is all yours,” her friend answered between mouthfuls. She didn’t have a fork, so she had rolled up the pancake like a burrito. At some point, her black cowboy hat had fallen off her head and hung against her back by the drawstring. It was her latest attempt at bringing Western wear back into vogue. “I shouldn’t have teased you for packing all that kitchen stuff. This turned out way better than I expected.”

“Worth it?” the cook asked with a grin.

“Worth it,” the shorter girl smiled. She finished off her food and stretched, moving her hat so she could lay down by the fire. The pink-streaked clouds floated overhead. It was warm enough that the fire was a little bit uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem right to lay anywhere else.

“So…” the cowgirl ventured, “You ready to talk about what happened with your folks?”

“Ugh, not really,” she answered, prodding at the batter with the spatula, “But, after working so hard to cheer me up, I suppose you’ve earned the right to know... Mom and Dad cornered me about their suspicions, and I told them the truth about us. Well, not about us, exactly, I left you out of it. I told them about me.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t take it too well.”

“I mean, they took it about as well as expected. Shouting, some crying, the whole works. Kept saying it was their fault, but that didn’t stop them from blaming me anyway.” The cook glanced at her friend, and saw her scowling. “It really wasn’t that bad though,” she added, “I mean, it could have been a lot worse, I’m pretty lucky, when you think about it.”

“Are you kidding me?” she sat up, her face incredulous, “Your parents are the lucky ones for having a daughter like you! They don’t deserve you, and you don’t deserve to be treated like a mistake. The unfairness of it all, it just--” she clenched the fabric of her skirt, stumbling over her words, “Once we get back to the city, I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t…” the tall girl said, her voice falling low, “I know it’s not your style, but I want you to try to be nice to them.” The cowgirl rolled her eyes, so she continued with a bit of forced smile, “Not for them but for me, okay?”

The short friend sighed, “Okay, for you. Is that thing done cooking yet?”

In response, the cook jerked the pan, masterfully flipping the pancake over. One side was a perfect golden brown. “Just a little bit longer now.”

The cowgirl sat up, surveying the campsite. The two of them had never been camping before, and the hike had been much harder than either of them had anticipated. It didn’t help that they had over-packed and had to cut their climb a bit short as a result. Nonetheless, the clear warm night and birds chirping in the trees made the escape feel almost as magical as the girls had hoped for. A quiet sanctuary where no people would be around: well, most likely no people, that is.

“Hey, speaking of miserable family members,” the short girl ventured, “Did I ever tell you about the skeleton in my family’s closet?”

“This better not be one of your weird scary horror stories.”

“It sure is!” she answered. The cowgirl jumped to her feet, clearing her voice in preparation for the tale, “Listen to this: when my grandpa was a little kid, his brother tried to murder him.”

“How very ‘Cain and Abel’,” the cook smirked, “You can’t just start there. Start at the beginning of the story. What lead up to it?”

“That’s just it, no one really knows. Everyone says he just snapped and went crazy when the two of them were home alone. Grandpa was just happily playing video games at the time, so maybe his brother wanted a turn.”

“That… doesn’t seem like a very compelling motive,” the cook said, checking the underside of her pancake, “Are you sure your grandpa’s not exaggerating?”

“It’s the truth!” the cowgirl insisted, “His brother attacked him and cracked his head against the coffee table. They found gramps in a puddle of blood in the living room, and he had to be rushed to the hospital and got six stitches! But I still haven’t gotten to the best part.” The girl paused for dramatic effect.

“Best or worst?” the cook lifted the whole pancake with her spatula and tested a small bite on the edge. It was still too hot to eat.

“The best part is…” the cowgirl swept her arm towards the dimly lit forest around them, “His brother fled to this very mountain. And he was never found again.”

“What?” the girl dropped her pancake on the ground. She quickly snapped it up and set it back in the pan. Dirt and ash was stuck to it.

“Five second rule,” the cowgirl murmured.

“Did you just say your grandpa--”

“Great uncle.”

“--your great uncle ran away to this mountain and died?”

“Disappeared. Maybe he still roams this mountain, searching for more innocent children to send to their graves…” The short girl’s voice was dramatic, but her eyes were dancing with mischief.

“Are you kidding me, that’s so creepy! And to think coming here was your idea! Was this all a set up to scare me?” The cook crossed her arms, but her friend just laughed.

“No, no! To be honest, I didn’t realize this particular trail was a part of The Mount Ebott until we were on our way.”

“A likely story,” the cook murmured as she nibbled the edge of her pancake.

“It’ll be fine, really. Oh, I know--I have something to protect you from any undead uncles. Check this out!” the cowgirl skipped towards their yellow tent and unzipped her backpack that was laying in front of it. She withdrew a long leather holster, with a revolver already tucked inside it.

The tall girl’s jaw dropped open, “You brought your dad’s gun?!”

“Maybe,” she giggled, strapping the holster around her waist, “It will be my gun in a few years, I’m just borrowing it a little early.”

“Do you even know how to use one of those things?”

“Yeah, yeah, I shoot it every year on my birthday. Family tradition.” the gunslinger drew her weapon, pointing it out towards the woods.

“Don’t--”

“It’s okay, it’s not loaded,” she said, popping open the cylinder, “The ammo’s in my bag.”

The cook shook her head, “And I thought my family was crazy.”

The cowgirl spun the gun around her finger and holstered the weapon with practiced flourish. She spoke with an exaggerated drawl, “Don’t worry, darlin’, this lone ranger will defend you from any murderin’ spectral horrors.”

“Stop it! You’re awful!” the cook laughed, before taking another bite of her food. It wasn’t as dirty as she thought, and she swallowed a few more bites before stuffing the rest in her mouth.

“You hear that?” the lone ranger put a hand to her ear, “It won’t be safe for long, we best be getting to bed before the devil finds us.”

“Oh please, that’s enough, Calamity Jane.”

“I prefer the name--”

She was cut off by the sharp crack of a snapped branch. The gunslinger stilled, turning in the direction of the noise, “What was that?”

The tall girl huffed in response, “I said cut it out--" but the cowgirl shushed her, scanning the dense foliage around them. Her heart caught in her throat as she saw a pair of eyes glinting from their firelight. A huge creature, larger than a man, was standing on two legs and peering into the camp from about two hundred feet away.

"There's--" the gunslinger's voice strained to form the words, "There's a bear."

The cook froze. She reached for her cast iron pan and held it with both hands. "What do we do?" she whispered.

The cowgirl shook her head. There weren't supposed to be bears in this area. According to her research, none had been seen for over a decade, which is why she hadn't bothered to look up how to defend against one. The bear dropped down to all fours, and they could hear it begin to huff and snarl.

"Get ready to run," she hissed. The cook stood, and the shorter girl eyed her backpack that held her ammunition. It was sitting at the foot of the tent, but she would have to go toward the monster to retrieve it. The bag was only fifteen feet away but it might as well have been fifteen miles.

The two didn’t have a chance to decide when to act. With a roar, the bear lunged forward, crashing through the foliage as it charged. The cook shrieked, fleeing the camp, but the cowgirl did the opposite, sprinting towards her bag. She had almost reached it when the tent surged forward, collapsing on top of her in a wave of nylon and snapped metal supports. The gunslinger fell to her back and she pushed the tangle of tent away from her face, only to see the bear looming over her, separated only by the crushed tent. The girl shielded her face with her arms and braced herself for what was to come.

“Get away from her!” her friend screamed. She had returned, and had taken to bludgeoning the bear’s hindquarters with her pan. The bear twisted around and swiped a clawed paw towards her, but the cook jumped back, turning heel to run again. With a snarl, the bear released the cowgirl and chased its assailant. The gunslinger kicked the tangled tent off her legs and before she realized it she was chasing the bear, screaming obscenities and death threats. The cook was fast, but the bear was faster, and she lost sight of them both as they crested a small hill outside the camp.

A blood curdling shriek filled the tree tops, followed by silence.

The gunslinger tore up the slope and hesitated when she reached the apex. Her friend was nowhere in sight, but the bear had already changed directions, loping back towards her. Her fingers reached for her gun, but she reminded herself it was still empty, and willed herself to retreat. The rapid thumping of the bear’s steps told her she wouldn’t make it to the camp before it caught up with her.

Overhead, the large branch of a cedar bowed over her. Leaping, the girl grabbed it and hoisted herself onto the branch before scrambling up the next. The bear was under the tree in an instant, stretching to full height to swipe at her. Its claw caught her foot, nearly yanking her out of the tree, but only managed to knock off her boot. The girl continued to climb, and the bear snapped off the lower branches, pushing against the trunk. The tree shuddered and flexed under the weight.

With one arm wrapped tight around a branch, the cowgirl pulled off her remaining boot and tossed it down. It bounced off the bear’s shoulder, who gave it a glance before turning its attention back to the girl. She whispered a prayer before unholstering her weapon, and threw the revolver at the monster. The gun crashed against the bear’s muzzle with an audible whack, and the bear pulled back from the tree, shaking its head. She held her breath as the bear paced around the tree before leaving in the direction of the camp. The dense canopy obstructed her view of it, but the tell tale sounds of the creature ripping through bags and crunching through supplies told her all she needed to know.

The girl settled onto the upper branches of the tree and wrapped her arms around the trunk. Against the odds, she was safe but trapped. Without a loaded gun, leaving the tree wasn’t a risk she could afford to take. To make matters worse, the last rays of twilight were fading away, cloaking the woods in frigid darkness. Her flashlight, phone, and ammunition were all at the camp, hidden under the destroyed tent. There was nothing she could do but wait it out.

***

Two hours elapsed before the bear left the camp. Another 30 minutes went by before the gunslinger felt safe enough to crawl down from the tree. Her fingers and toes were frozen and her legs ached as she collected her gun and put her boots back on. However, she didn’t have the luxury to pity herself. Through the dark, she crept back to where the campfire once was and strained her eyes in the dim moonlight for the remains of the tent. It had been dragged a good distance away, destroyed beyond use. She was relieved to find her backpack still twisted up inside, and rifled through the contents. She flicked on her flashlight and put it in the crook of her neck as she loaded her gun. Only six bullets, just enough to show it off to her friend.

If only she had loaded it earlier, then that monster would have got what it deserved.

The lone ranger returned to the camp and cast her flashlight across the ransacked carnage. Clothes and supplies were strewn throughout the foliage, and all that remained of the food were shredded cans and crushed boxes. Even the cooking utensils had been mutilated with gnaw marks. Rage boiled inside her.

The forest looked very dizzyingly similar at night, and she found herself walking in circles, ending up back at the camp again and again. Finally, she accurately identified the hill she had last seen her friend and was surprised to discover a steep drop of about twenty feet not far from it, jagged granite boulders resting at the base. There she found her first lead. A conspicuous dark splatter against the white rocks: blood.

The small girl shouted her friend’s name, but there was no response. She climbed down the steep surface of the cliff side at a much slower pace than her friend would have been afforded. The blood was no longer fresh, but she could see the direction it led before the ground cover became more soil than stone. She followed the trail.

The ferns and ivy lashed across her torn stockings, but she continued forward, right hand hovering over her weapon. She stopped at the entrance of a cave yawning out of the mountainside. It looked both parts refuge and trap. Didn’t bears live in caves?

She called out her friend’s name again, but was answered only with a faint echo. At least it was better than the growl of bears. She shined her light across the back of the cave and could see the tunnel curved, making it impossible to see how deep it was. As she traced the floor with the light, something sparkled. The gunslinger ventured forward and pinched it between her fingers: a hair pin, with a small crystal embedded at the end. The last time she had seen it was in her friend’s hair. She had been here.

The cowgirl huffed out a shuddering sigh, and she couldn’t tell if it was from relief or a renewed sense of dread. If her friend had been here, where was she now?

The child took a deep breath and stepped deeper into the cave.

kindness and justice: backstory // end

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#undertale #undertale au #bravery #the caretaker of the ruins #main comic #justice #apron kid #back story #story summary #unfortunately i had to read a lot of bear attack stories as research for this #these kids literally do everything wrong when it comes to facing a bear #amazing that they lived long enough for chara to finish them off

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officialleotolstoy · 3 years

Text

Oh Dolokhov/Hélène Brainrot We’re Really In It Now, aka Dolokhov/Hélène playlist annotations!

I stole several songs from a playlist my friends have and I’m not gonna put those on this list, I won’t pretend I came up with those

The ship playlists (since they aren’t for canon couples) are very much based on my headcanons. We don’t get to see them interact literally ever so I’ve just extrapolated what I can. Several of these songs are at least alluding to sex, I don’t really think they actually slept together for various reasons I can enumerate if someone asks, but it’s more about the vibes of the song.

Casual Affair - Panic! At The Disco

It’s literally in the title. Bestie how much more explanation do you need? I don’t even like this song but it’s got the right energy

Those Nights - Bastille

“Aren’t we all just looking for a little bit of hope these days? Looking for somebody you can wake up with?”

Being drawn to each other because of mutual loneliness is a Thing in my interpretation of their relationship, and this hits the nail on the head.

But It’s Better If You Do - Panic! At The Disco

“Praying for love and paying in naïveté”

Again, mutual loneliness and desperation for anything resembling love. Also the “isn’t this exactly where you like me” bit fits because they won’t admit to liking each other outside of their weird intimate moments.

Hurricane - Panic! At The Disco

“Drop our anchors in a storm”

The circumstances of their lives arent super fun at the moment so they find refuge in each other but in a very weird kind of unhealthy way! “We are a hurricane” sort of alludes to knowing that you’re causing problems/your relationship isn’t great.

Almost (Sweet Music) - Hozier

“I’m almost me again, she’s almost you”

It’s about not really being In Love but kind of convincing yourself you are because it makes you feel better in the circumstances. I don’t think either of them were fully into their relationship for various reasons. Not as in they didn’t want the other, more that they were both too aware it would never work for long.

Hall & Oates - Satchmode

“I want to be in love again, with you”

This one’s about wanting the idea of love and companionship more than you actually like the other person, which I feel like kind of fits. This song is framed as one person in love with the other and one hesitating, but i think this works for both of them to hesitate.

Feel Something - Jaymes Young

“Touch me, someone, I’m too young to feel so numb”

The I have tried like six times and I can’t word why I think this song works. I don’t even like it, I skip it every time, but I think it’s got something to do with loneliness and desperation for love driving them to look for it in places they wouldn’t normally? Who knows. Send me an ask if u do.

Another Place - Bastille

“Don’t make promises to me that you’re gonna break”

They could never actually be together for SO many reasons and I think they’re both pretty aware of that. They have no desire to pretend that their relationship is anything other than what it is (“we only ever wanted one thing from this”).

When You Were Young - The Killers

“You sit there in your heartache, waiting on some beautiful boy to save you”

I do not think Hélène expected Dolokhkov to save her from anything except maybe monotony and loneliness, but this song slaps and if I can stretch the lyrics to work, I will

broken - lovelytheband

“I could be lonely with you”

Almost every song on here (including this one) is just. We’re messed up and I know we won’t really find love in each other but we might find solace for a while and be less lonely so uhhhhh wanna kiss me or what

Bleed Magic - I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

“You stand up, stand up, before I drag you down”

They are NOT good for each other! Toxic relationships uwu

Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood

I believe in bi4bi Hélène/Dolokhov

Enemy Fire - Bea Miller

“Sweet words from a serpent’s tongue”

This song is kinda complicated and parts of it don’t fit but the energy of “everything sucks including you but at least we can hide from the suckiness together” is sorta there. Originally I just added it for the soldier vibes because I was testing out songs but I realized i can fit some of the lyrics so on the playlist it goes

Angel of the Small Death and the Codeine Scene - Hozier

“Her sweetened breath and her tongue so mean”

They are horrible and cold to each other as a love language. This song is essentially just “Wow my evil scary gf is so hot” and you’re right Fyodor. She is.

Shut Up and Dance - WALK THE MOON

I won’t lie this one’s mostly a joke, I just think the vibes of telling someone to shut up as (maybe because) you’re falling in love with them is Dolokhov/Hélène energy. Ignore all the parts about wanting to be with her forever and her being his destiny that is not why I added it.

Lone Ranger - Rachel Platten

“I’m just gonna leave, ‘cause baby I’m a lone ranger”

I do not think Dolokhov was intending to stay with her forever at all. Very rude of him. However, she probably also knew it wouldn’t last forever, she’s not stupid.

House of Memories - Panic! At The Disco

“Promise me a place in your house of memories”

This is very much post-duel, their relationship has fizzled out but it was pretty important (do I mean emotionally or to the plot? I’ll never tell) and deserves to be remembered.

American Beauty/American Psycho - Fall Out Boy

“I’m the best worst thing that hasn’t happened to you yet”

SO MANY of these lyrics are so good for them like. Hélène’s beautiful Dolokhov’s a psycho... “you take the full truth and you pour some out” can you imagine them being open and honest with each other? Yeah, me neither. “We were pity sex” They were just sad and lonely! That was what allowed anything to happen at all in my head (not sex but bear with me it’s not my fault those are the lyrics). “All those dirty thoughts of me, they were never yours to keep” because Hélène is married to someone else, they really have no right to think of each other that way.

Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne

“He wasn’t good enough for her”

UNIRONICALLY THIS SONG. Hélène’s complaints about Dolokhov staying with them are just the quoted lyric. “They had a problem with his baggy clothes” yeah Dolokhov’s not as rich and bougie and the rest of them and he’s certainly rough around the edges. And then the skater boy ending with a successful music career vs Dolokhov ending with a successful military career and a great reputation and both the women in the songs having sad endings...I’m not wrong.

Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet - Fall Out Boy

“Does your husband know the way that the sunshine gleams from your wedding band?”

The affair vibes. The AFFAIR VIBES. And the concept of “I will never end up like him [the husband]/ behind my back I already am” in reference to using Hélène and deciding he hates her right after deciding she’s hot...okay! I see you kinning Pierre, Dolokhov. You ARE being just like her husband :/

You Give Love A Bad Name - Bon Jovi

“Shot through the heart and you’re to blame”

This is just Dolokhov’s massive I Hate Women monologue condensed. Stop blaming beautiful women for YOUR attraction to them maybe 🔫

Death Valley - Fall Out Boy

“Don’t take love off the table yet”

This is not a table sex joke this is not a table sex joke this is not a table sex joke this is n-

I didnt add it for that reason it was about a vibe but then. I realized. Now the original reason doesn’t even matter.

Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner - Fall Out Boy

“I’ll be your best kept secret and your biggest mistake”

Tell me the quoted lyric does not SCREAM Hélène/Dolokhov. You can’t. Also “I’ll weigh you down I’ll watch you choke/You look so good in blue” really captures hatred as a love language.

This is Love - Air Traffic Controller

Ok I stole this from my friends’ playlist but I did want to explain it because it’s not JUST Dolokhov and Hélène in my mind. The whole jealous fool second verse gives me Pierre around the duel energy as well

Bad Boy - Cascada

“Be my weekend lover but don’t be my friend”

Bernie Sanders voice I am once again asking you to hear me out about the unironic meme songs on my War and Peace character playlists. It’s got the refusal to admit that she actually likes hanging out with him down. The line “after some time you just pushed me aside” referring to Dolokhov teasing Pierre about their affair because he got bored. “I dont need you in my life again”...YEAH I’m fairly sure they dont interact in canon again after that.

Hayloft - Mother Mother

“My daddy’s got a gun”

This song started playing on accident once when I was listening to this playlist and I was like huh. It fits though. The gun thing is twofold: 1) Though he is not her father, Pierre does have a gun in the duel and 2) I think Vassily would happily shoot Dolokhov for his relationships with Vassily’s kids. It’s also just the general forbidden love vibes mixed with the violence vibes.

affection - BETWEEN FRIENDS

“I’m looking for affection in all the wrong places and we’ll keep falling on each other to fill the empty spaces”

Have I been clear enough about my thesis that their relationship is based in mutual loneliness? Also, I like the acknowledgment that this is in fact the wrong place. I think they’re both very aware of that.

Walk Away - Franz Ferdinand

“Yes I’m cold but not as cold as you are”

This song is for them post-duel. Especially the “I cannot stand to see those eyes as apologies may rise/I must be strong, stay an unbeliever” because 1) I hear the word eyes, I think of Dolokhov and 2) I think she’s too smart to believe any apology he would give her, she knows he doesn’t really mean it. The song kinda reads as someone trying to convince themselves they’re happy that the relationship is over, which I think is definitely what happens for both of them.

Van Horn - Saint Motel

“Tell me do you hate me? Or do you wanna date me?”

Obsessed with the dynamic of “I like you but that’s embarrassing for both of us I’m gonna act like I hate you instead”

#war and peace #helene kuragina #fedya dolokhov #my post #w&p playlists #helenkhov #is that their ship name??? idk #someone tell me what it is ill owe u my life

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anotheronechicagobog · 4 years

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Volomag and Vodka Part 6 Facetime

written by @anotheronechicagobog

warnings: swearing, mensions of xenophobia, COVID-19, quarantine

For Jay the worst part about quarantine wasn’t being locked up with Will, it was being away from Hailey. Intelligence had heard from her just as it was starting to get bad, that because New York was a hot spot, Hailey wasn’t going to be returning to Chicago for a while. This spiralled him into a mood, he was pouting all the time, looking at Hailey’s desk longingly, glaring at the temp. Jay had been staring out of the window, looking like a kicked puppy, and Kim was done. “Okay, that’s it!” Everyone in the bullpen turned to her, confused as she whipped out her phone and started facetime someone.

“Hi Kim, how’s-”

“Jay’s moping. Fix him.” Was all she said before tossing her phone to Jay. “Jay?”

He straightened his shoulders and his expression softened out the creases made by his constant frowning. “Don’t listen to Kim, I haven’t been-”

“Yes he has.” No one in Intelligence even had to look up, each and every one of them completely over his kicked puppy routine.

Hailey quirked her eyebrow at him in the teasing manner he loved so much. “Okay, so maybe I miss you a bit.”

He was met with a chorus of scoffs and eye rolls. “... Or a lot. It’s just not the same without you here, and you were supposed to come home a week ago. I know that it because of the pandemic and all...”

“Don’t worry, Jay I miss you a lot too.”

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

“Do you know a guy who goes by ‘OA’ from your Ranger days?”

“Yeah, we weren’t in the same regiment but we were in specialized training together. Why?”

“He’s the guy I’m partnered with. He’s nice, but he’s not you, so I didn’t really want to talk about him. But today we were talking at lunch, and I guess I’ve been pretty standoffish with him, so he thought that talking about himself first would help, and I guess it did. He told me that he was a Ranger and I asked if he knew you and he remembered you vaguely too.”

“What regiment was he in?”

“27th.”

“Zidan?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, yeah, I remember him, he was skilled, focused, but he got a lot of shit because his family’s middle eastern, I can’t remember the region or country, but I don’t know if I was ever told. I didn’t ask. He was there for the same reason we all were, and I had respect for him we just didn’t work together much. So he’s your new partner?”

“Temporary partner.” Jay took a relaxing breath. Knowing that she meant it, she was going to come back.

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

“So you talked to OA.” Jay felt a little guilty, but not much. He’d called some people, who called some people, who were able to give him OA’s contact info, and then he gave OA a call. It was nice to catch up but Jay was honest with the reason he called. OA had chuckled, “don’t worry Halstead, I’ve got your girl’s back.” Jay hadn’t corrected him, he was just relieved to put a face and name to who was working with Hailey. OA had teased him a bit, but overall just nodded at the worry in his voice and said “don’t worry, man. She’ll make it back to you safe and sound. She’s a great cop. She was a little rough around the edges when she got here, weighed down by something, but she’s evolved in such a short period of time. I’d vouch for her. I even heard my boss wanted to offer her a spot,” Jay sucked in a breath as his body went numb and started to sweat, “doubt she’ll take it though. She misses Chicago, her friends, and her family. She misses you.”

“Yeah, well, I needed to make sure that he knew what would happen if he didn’t keep you safe.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“I did have to do that, just not for you. For me. The world has gotten a heck of a lot more dangerous pretty damn fast, I needed him to know that you have to come home to me- us. That you’re needed here.”

“Okay.”

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

“Tell him to stop yelling at officer River.” Is the only greeting she gets from a visibly cross Voight before the phone is straight-up thrown at her partner. “Hey there troublemaker.”

“He’s exaggerating, Hails.”

“I’m sure he is.” The sarcasm dripping off her lips was practically visible. It took Jay a moment to realize that he’d been staring at them and wondering how they’d feel against his or if he brushed his thumb across them, he shook his head before looking into her concerned, soulful eyes.

“How are you doing?”

“Pretty good actually, I mean I still miss you and everyone else like crazy, but because of the pandemic we were able to get a lot more intel on some of the perps we were after and less resistance because so many people in their circles are getting sick. We’ve even been able to make a bunch of high-profile arrests.”

“That’s great, but, uh, you’re not having too much fun in NYC are you?”

“Not even remotely. I can’t wait to get home to you.” His heart skipped a beat and then began to ache for her more. “Seriously, as proud as I am with my accomplishments at the FBI while I’ve been here, I’m really starting to resent this city. I just want to be home. With you.”

“I feel exactly the same way, I promise.”

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

“Upton, something’s wrong with Jay.”

“What do you mean?” Hailey looked terrified, the last time something was wrong with him he ended up getting kidnapped and shot. “Someone facetimed him earlier, and at first we all thought it was you... But then his face just changed, it became cold, unreadable. He answered the call in the break room, but he shut the door and the blinds. Ever since he’s been walking around like a zombie.”

“Pass him the phone.”

“Hey Upton.”

*Okay, he called me Upton, not a good start.* “What’s up, Jay?”

“Did you know that Erin was working in the same building as you?”

“I haven’t seen her at all, but I’d have to imagine that she at least works in the vicinity of the headquarters.”

“Well, she’s seen you. And, uh, apparently, she was going to talk to you but then your phone rang, it was last week when Adam-”

“Bought the wrong kind of chocolate for Kim, yeah, that was actually pretty funny. Sorry, continue.”

“Well, she uh, she stuck around and just eavesdropped on the whole call. It didn’t sit well with her apparently, because she called me this morning. She was I don’t know- unhappy? Pissed? But it was all just really weird, because of how she and I left things, and she said that she’s going to be keeping an eye on you. And not in a ‘hey your friend is visiting my city? Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on ‘em, don’t worry’ way. It was in a ‘I don’t trust this girl around my boyfriend’ kinda way. And I know that she’s fluent in Voight, so she’ll figure out pretty damn quick why you’re there, if she hasn’t already, and I’m just really worried for you.”

“That’s not all you’re worried about. I can tell. Spill it, Jay. You know you can talk to me.”

“She was acting like I cheated on her. And she said she still loves me, and I’m just upset she thought it was okay to talk to me like that, about that. I know I made some pretty big mistakes in our relationship, and I know that at least half of the fault falls on me, but it just made me feel dirty, and angry.”

Hailey’s face had softened, and honestly, it just made Jay’s day a thousand times better. “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but my time at the FBI has come to an end, and I’ll be getting on a plane to Chicago tomorrow afternoon. I mean, I’ll still have to self-quarantine when I get back for fourteen days, but at least I’ll be home.”

“... So what you’re saying is I won’t be able to see you in person for another two weeks?”

“Sorry, Jay.”

“Damn, just when I think my luck has changed.”

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

“I feel bad.”

“Don’t. Vanessa is fine, she’s been a good buffer between Atwater and Jordan, and Vinessa likes having another girl around. Plus there’s the whole Vinessa, Vanessa thing. They’ve been having fun.”

“I still feel bad.”

“Do we need to call her and ask her if she’s mad at you?”

“... No, she’d just yell at me for feeling guilty over nothing.”

“See? Nothing to feel bad about. How are you holding up?”

“I am bored out of my miiiiiiiinnnnnnd.” She groaned and fell back against her couch, pouting at Jay. He smiled softly, giving her a sympathetic and sad look. He knew how bad she felt, he wanted to see her too. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and just hold her.

“I’ve been taking the time to learn how to cook. Mostly with my grandmother’s cookbook, but I found some recipes online, maybe I could drop off some food for you.”

“What does Will say about your cooking?” She was smiling, knowing Will’s opinion on Jay’s cooking.

“Hey, hey, hey now, this conversation isn’t about him.” Jay was laughing, Will’s rants about his previously shitty cooking were widely known among their social circle. “I have gotten much better, I promise. I, uh, I’ve been learning some recipes that I really think you’ll like.”

“I look forward to it Jay, I really do.”

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

Hailey’s quarantine was almost over, and Jay was buzzing on the edge of his seat. Before work he’d dropped by with a bag filled with numerous containers of food. Most of it was old traditional Irish food, but he’d tried his hand at a few Greek recipes, hoping to impress Hailey. So when her bubbly face popped up on his screen, he jumped up and took the video call to the breakroom. “Hi Hails-”

“I love you,” his heart actually skipped a beat and his nerve endings heated up “so much right now. This food is AMAZING. And you made Greek food. Keftethes, Souvlaki, Spanikopita, and Baklava. This was so sweet, you didn’t have to do this for me.”

“It, uh, it wasn’t anything special. Really.”

“Thank you Jay. And, I meant it. I love you, Jay.”

“I love you too, Hailey. More than you know.”

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

BONUS

“Guys, guys-”

“What is it, Ruzek. I know that we’re all starved for something to do since the commissioner put us all on grunt work after our suspension, but you need to stop just running into the room like you have news, man.”

“Yeah, what is it this time, the vending machines got refilled?”

“Upstead has sailed, they’re a thing! I just heard them talking! Oh, come on, guys. Atwater, you believe me right? Rojas? Voight?” They shook their heads, wondering if Ruzek had finally snapped after all the pressure they’d been under because of their suspension and involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Hey, hey, everyone, I just heard Hailey and Jay talking about how they love each other over the phone!”

“Finally!”

“Hallelujah!”

“I’ll get their HR forms started.”

“Oh come on, you believe Kim and not me?”

#One Chicago #Chicago PD #fbi #OA Zidan #hailey upton #jay halstead #hailey x jay #jay halstead x hailey upton #upstead #upstead fic #Adam Ruzek #kevin atwater #trudy platt #hank voight #vanessa rojas #kevin atwater x vanessa rojas #kim burgess

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writingpuddle · 4 years

Text

“Don’t you ever get lonely?” Nicky asked, digging in his pack for a chocolate bar. To their left, the cliff dropped away precipitously, sheer granite cliffs like sentinels at the end of the world.

Neil stared at Nicky. “No,” he said.

“What, never?”

Neil looked out across the sweeping vista of mountains before them. A speck that could have been a hawk or a raven or a sparrow spun against the sky, too small and distant to judge. He’d stood in the middle of busy cities; he’d gone to school with hundreds; he’d even tried out for a track and field team once. He’d been surrounded by people, and he had been so ferociously lonely it had been like a knife in his chest.

“No,” he said, because he didn’t know how to explain—didn’t even want to, really. He’d felt more alone back in the so-called real world than he’d ever felt in the wilderness, miles from any other person. When there was no one around, there was no one to miss.

~~~The Long-Distance Hiker AU (A Bullet Point Fic)~~~

So after Neil’s mom died he kinda of ghosted around for a while and eventually ended up in a small hiking town in California

He met a bunch of thru hikers and figured, hey, my dad probably won’t find me if I’ve fucked off into the wilderness

So he starts hiking

And pretty soon he realizes it’s the best thing he could imagine

He spends all summer in the mountains and when winter rolls around he finds a temporary job in a skiing town working in a second hand gear shop

He’s an ultralighter in the most accidental sense possible

His gear is weird and cobbled together and his shoes are held together with dental floss

He sleeps under a tarp with a down blanket and a thin foam mat and he’ll eat the same shit day in day out without even registering it while he covers frankly obscene distances every single day

It basically gives Kevin an ulcer

Kevin’s an ultralighter, but in the stuck up, rich bitch way; his gear is probably worth thousands of dollars and he’ll lecture anyone who listens about ripstop nylon and is super snobby and elitist about who is a so-called “real” thru hiker (hint: anyone who doesn’t do it his way isn’t a real thru hiker)

(don’t worry he’ll get smacked around a little by people like Dan and stop being such a little bitch about it but he grew up rich so even though it might’ve been shit living with Riko he really doesn’t always take into consideration the context of how much fucking money gear costs when he’s preaching about ultralighting)

(yes I’m taking out my dislike for pretentious rich ultralighters on him, okay, but the difference is he’ll have character growth versus the people I met are probably still being preachy and self-important to this day)

Andrew’s like the exact opposite

His pack weighs like seventy pounds and he’ll pull a six-inch knife (a gross misuse of smart gear weight management) at anyone who comments

He has a completely contained single person tent that’s big enough to sit up in and a four-inch inflatable mattress

His sleeping bag is rated to like -20 even when he’s hiking in the summer

Nicky swears he once saw him pull a full-sized chocolate cake out of his backpack three days down the trail and everyone says that’s stupid and made up but secretly think its totally true

Andrew likes to hike alone but somehow he’s never more than a day away from Aaron and Nicky and when he keeps showing up near them it gets harder and harder to pretend like he doesn’t actually care about them

Nobody says anything, obviously, but Nicky gets a little teary when he starts to notice the pattern

It was Nicky’s idea; in this universe Erik got him into hiking when he was in Germany so he got the cousins into it as a bonding exercise and then it turned out it was the best family activity they had ever found

This is several years after they graduated and they’ve scrounged together enough time and money to hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Now the upperclassmen:

So Stephanie Walker is a trail angel: one of those people who lives near a long trail and provides snacks and rides and somewhere to stay and basically helps out anyone who comes by with whatever’s going on; she’s pulled a lot of people out of frankly dangerous situations and she’s not afraid of anything the trail has to offer

So Renee finds herself and her faith while living this life of meeting new hikers every day and it’s almost inevitable that she starts to hike and find solace in the wilderness

Allison is one of those Wild types: she’s done some hiking (much to her parents’ chagrin) but she’s never done a thru trail or even much overnighting before, but she’s ready to throw herself into it and doesn’t care how dirty she gets

She totally carries a tiny spa package though

The other women are very skeptical because they take pride in being free from societies expectations and make up and shaving but they come around after Allison pulls it out one time when they’re seven days into a ten day section and gives them face masks and they all have a little pedicure pampering session (so, so needed when your feet are being beaten and bruised by hard terrain all day)

She has a lot of new, expensive gear and is super touchy about people trying to help her (because a beautiful woman absolutely gets people trying to “help” all the time and it’s infuriating and condescending) but she learns to accept help from her closest friends

She was showing off near the beginning of the trail drinking with a bunch of guys and probably got too sloshed trying to act tough (alcohol hits you waaaay harder at high elevations dude, if you’re not expecting it you can get Fucked Up really fast)

It’s Seth who realizes things are getting out of control and pulls her out before the guys can do anything shitty which is how their friendship and eventually their relationship gets started

They piss everyone off with their constant breaking up and getting back together on the trail, sometimes hiking together for days and then splitting up and going to hike with other people but they find a lot of healing out there in the woods

Seth’s mom is totally dismissive and condescending of his hiking, she thinks it’s a stupid waste of time, but she thinks everything he does is a stupid waste of time so at least when he’s out there without cell service he has an excuse to not respond to her

Now Dan

Dan’s trailer trash, right

She’s got no fucking cash but she has this dream in her head to hike the PCT and she’s going to fucking well do it

Her gear is probably most similar to Neil’s except where his is a mess of weird priorities and held together by spit and twine

Hers is meticulously planned

It’s cheap, some of it’s over forty years old, but it’s hers

It’s probably the only stuff in the world that’s actually hers

She accumulated it over about four years, hitting all the second-hand gear events, saving up every penny, packing and repacking and writing everything out in great detail until David Wymack got wind of her plans at a gear event

He’s one of those guys who hiked the PCT thirty years ago back before anyone knew what it was except instead of feeling superior about that it means he knows exactly how much impact experiencing the wilderness can have for disenfranchised people

He approaches Dan and offers to sponsor her hike

She’s resistant at first; she planned this hike, she got all the stuff together, she was going to do it without anyone’s help

But he comes back and says he just wants her to write about her experiences and publish it on his website

He’ll pay her for the work, of course

And she wavers and finally caves because this will move her plans up by about two years if she can make money while she’s hiking instead of having to hoard up enough cash to take six whole months off

Her blog posts are a huge hit

She doesn’t preach about how the mountains saved her, or get too metaphorical about hiking or anything like that

She just talks about the real, raw experience of hiking

The friendships, the trials, the triumphs

The infuriating people whose mental image of the hiking community doesn’t include poor black girls who grew up in a trailer park, who say she’s an inspiration like they actually mean something else

She talks about the days that she flies up the mountains and the days that she can barely drag herself out of her tent and the day she realizes that Allison and Renee, these women she thought could not be more different from her, are the best friends she’s ever had in the world

And she’s takes fucking amazing pictures

She’s also very determined not to have a trail romance

That’s stupid and cliché

Look that guy Matt might be hot but she’s not interested

He’s clearly working through some stuff and she’s not here to be some guys savior or whatever

So Matt then

His mom helped him get sober a couple years ago and he’s been struggling with it ever since

She got him into hiking as an outlet and a healthy hobby and he took to it like a fish to water

He’s got legs for days and he doesn’t mind carrying a heavy pack, he can hike for hours without stopping

(The fact that he’s faster than her pisses Dan off a bit, but sometimes you gotta accept that you’ve got short legs and just hike your own hike, there aren’t any prizes for speed)

He relapsed again a couple months before his hike started and he and Randy weren’t even sure if he was going to be able to do it but he’s damned well going to try

So anyway

Pretty much everyone is trying to actually hike the PCT except Neil

He drives everyone bonkers

His motivation isn’t really about the trail so much as staying out in the wilderness where there are no gangsters to murder you

So he just does whatever he wants and keeps showing up at random points

He’s technically got one of the thru hiker permits but he frequently goes off on side trails not on the PCT and ends up hiding out in the woods so rangers won’t find him

He’ll just hitchhike straight through boring sections or anywhere that you pass through too many towns where he’d rather not be remembered

He keeps coming back to the PCT but it’s more like it’s a rough guideline of where to go than an actual route he’s taking

He’s got his natural colouring back because who’s dying their hair or wearing fucking contacts on the trail?

But also

Who would ever associate a runaway mafia kid with a guy with overgrown hair and a stained t-shirt who’s sitting serenely on a mountain pass in a photo on David Wymack’s website?

Nobody

That’s right kids, Nathan doesn’t have a role in this one because he doesn’t find Neil

Maybe he gets killed in a shoot out or something and some other gangster steps up and takes over, and in the shuffle Neil’s just kinda forgotten

Maybe he finds out months later and he just stares at the computer in shock because he should have known, shouldn’t he? He should have felt it when his father died

He should have realized that he was free

That happens later though

Who fucking cares what Riko’s doing honestly

Kevin has somehow attached himself to Andrew and is driving him up the wall with advice to improve his hiking/base weight/distance/etc and he sees this guy (Neil) who regularly covers like thirty or forty miles a day (obscene!) and is like YES this guy is my people!

Except when he starts talking to Neil he realizes he’s this total weirdo who doesn’t even have a cook set he just eats cold food (a common enough thing among ultralighters, but not like this. Oh god, not like this)

Neil’s just sitting there gnawing on a pack of uncooked ramen like a fucking animal

And he’s not! Even! Hiking! Properly!

You’ll never finish the trail if you hike like this!

Neil just gives him a blank look

He’s got no interest on getting on some “verified” list of people who hiked the PCT, he just likes hiking

Andrew likes him

I mean obviously he despises him what the hell is with that janky ass setup but also he’s so unconventional and unapologetic how could Andrew not be into that?

They’re the kind of people who give wilderness rescue personnel grey hair, but for completely opposite reasons

Neil keeps running into them because even though he covers so much ground every day, his meandering route means he doesn’t actually move down the trail very fast

They’ll be like wait weren’t you like a week ahead of us and he’s like oh yeah I heard about this cool waterfall and took a sixty mile side trail to visit it and nearly ran into a momma bear with two cubs, it was awesome

And they all start to grow on him, and each other, almost accidentally

Look none of them are out there romanticizing the trail as some kind of magical place where the problems of the real world disappear and the people are somehow more pure and true or whatever

People are people and they bring their issues wherever they go

But there is a paring down

When your daily concerns are just mileage and shoes and food and weather, a lot of other stuff fades into the background

And well the truth is a lot of people are on those trails to work through stuff

And they find each other

Gradually, without even really noticing

They team up in June, groups of three or four with crampons and ice axes to get over the Sierra’s.

Neil was planning to just do side hikes and wait for the snow to melt—he isn’t so reckless he wants to go over the ice alone, but Kevin insists he join them and for the first time he hikes in a group with Kevin and the cousins all together.

It’s weird

He’s not used to people talking to him when he’s hiking and he frequently doesn’t respond and it’s not because he’s being rude he’s just so focussed on what he’s doing and what’s around him that he literally doesn’t hear them

And then

Nicky slips

It’s not his fault, they did nearly everything right (Kevin may be a pretentious ass, but he does know his shit) but sometimes shit just happens for no reason

And they’re at the edge of the ice sheet so Nicky’s just untying himself from the rope that links them together, he’s not even moving, and the snow beneath him shifts and he doesn’t even have time to scream before he’s hurtling down the snow below the trail towards the cliff at the bottom of the ice sheet

Neil doesn’t even hesitate

He dives after him, ice axe in one hand like a fucking gladiator and gets his arm wrapped around Nicky’s waist

He slams the ice axe into the snow and it drags behind them, and it looks like it’s not going to catch, and the edge is getting closer and closer—

Until the axe catches something, and Nicky and Neil lurch to a halt, clinging to each other, hanging off of Neil’s one arm and the axe.

Neil looks up and sees Andrew, Aaron and Kevin in various places on the slope above them, their axes dug in and long gouge marks in the snow beneath their heels, strung together by a ropeline that’s still attached to Neil’s waist

That rope is probably the only thing that slowed them down enough that Neil could stop them without ripping his arm clean off

It’s hardly a by-the-book rescue, and in fact it was pretty stupid, but they’re okay, they’re okay, that’s all that matters

That night they light a fire down by a lake and Nicky cries on Aaron’s shoulder and Andrew keeps clenching his fists because he’s never felt so helpless in his life and it was Neil that jumped, not him

He knows that he was at the far end of the line and he would’ve made it worse if he had, but doing nothing while Neil risked his life to save Nicky

They don’t really talk about it

But you kind of can’t help being friends after that

And even after they’re out of the high mountains and back on solid trails Neil keeps tabs on them

And Nicky befriends the others and without even meaning to they start to develop a sort of loose trail family vibe

They’re not hiking together all the time like some of the groups they meet, but they check on each other all the time and wait up in resupply villages and bond over firepits and shitty hot chocolate mixes and swap tips on how to keep the butt-chafing at bay

Neil sticks to the outskirts, mostly, but he starts to open up a little, in fits and spurts, tiny non-specific things that wouldn’t even register to most people but that this particular group knows means more than that

He’s slowing down, too, sometimes hiking entire days with people and covering half his usual distance even when there’s no cliffs or glaciers threatening him

He likes hiking with Andrew the most, though

Because neither of them are big talkers when they’re hiking and Andrew’s pack might be absurdly heavy but he’s got legs the size of tree trunks and endurance to match, so he might not be fast but he can outwalk half the people on the trail by sheer relentlessness

They both like to camp up high, near treeline (so Neil can set up his tarp) and in the places that it’s legal they’ll start a small fire and Andrew will loan Neil his pot so he can actually cook his fucking ramen for once and sometimes they’ll watch the Milky Way rise and share secrets under the open sky, not looking at each other so they don’t break the illusion, and sometimes they won’t say anything at all but it’s okay, because they’re saying nothing together.

It’s nice

It’s maybe more than nice

The summer draws to a close and Neil is starting to realize that he doesn’t want it to

He never wants the hiking season to end but this time it’s different

This summer has been perfect

And he knows deep in his bones that once they leave the trail things will change

The others have lives to return to, and Neil…

The trail is all he has

And if he’s barely hiking alone at all these days, well, who’s going to call him out on it?

The others like having him around because he stops them from getting too fixated on the Trail to see the trail

He still takes side trips but now sometimes people will come along and he’ll stand at the base of a canyon staring up at the glossy white walls and Dan will snap a photo for her blog and smile, because the PCT is just a line on a map, but the hike is all of them; together

He’s hiking with Andrew in September when a storm hits, this time vicious

Neil huddles under his tarp in resignation

Storms suck, he always gets wet, no matter how much he lowers the tarp, but he’s used to it; he just waits it out

But it’s just getting worse

Hail lashing at the tarp and pummelling the ground and maybe for once he regrets camping so high up

And Andrew has to shout to be heard but finally Neil realizes he’s offering to let Neil come into his tent

You’re going fucking freeze, just get in here

Neil goes

It’s weird

It’s instantly weird

The tent is not built for two people, so they’re both sitting cross legged with their heads ducked to not press against the roof

The storms probably not going to let up soon, Andrew says

Yeah, Neil says.

Andrew sighs

Lie down, he says, and Neil does, and Andrew lies down next to him, shoulder to shoulder

It barely works, only because neither of them are very big people

Neil’s pack is outside wrapped in his tarp and all he has is his damp down blanket but he’s not cold anymore, not with Andrew bundled up in his ridiculous sleeping bag right next to him

The storm rages for nearly two days and what passes between them in that tent, nobody knows

If they’re barely ever seen apart after it, well. You only see people so often on the trail. It could easily be a coincidence

And if Neil doesn’t even set his tarp up on rainy nights anymore, well. They never camp near other people anyway, so who’s to know?

In early October the snow blows in, blocking the route to the finish.

They drift around a resupply village for almost two weeks, waiting for the trail to reopen, but finally even Kevin accepts that it isn’t going to

After all of that, none of them are going to finish the trail

It’s a disappointment—of course it is. For most of them, the end of their trip is now a nondescript exit into a village, no fanfare, no closure; they didn’t even know they were done for days

Still, it’s not so bad

They’re all together

Allison suggests Vegas, but they all laugh it down; they wouldn’t even know how right now, bearded and hairy and ravenous as they are

They go to South Carolina instead

It’s not really even discussed that they’ll stay together, they just all go; Allison hosts them at her resort and they laugh at the incongruous weirdness of seeing each other in real clothes, and it’s different, but it’s also okay

They stay for another two weeks, and they don’t hike another fucking inch

We should try the Continental Divide Trail sometime, Dan says

Her blog is so popular now that she’s got sponsorships from more than just Wymack waiting for her

She could make a career out of hiking and blogging and doing gear reviews and it’s a dream she’d never even realized she wanted until she had it

And if she accidentally fucked up and ended up with a hot trail boyfriend? Well, nobody’s perfect

And he has a great butt

(she has photos of it on her blog, from when they jumped into a glacier lake naked back in August)

Everyone is jealous

How about that trek in Iceland? Matt suggests

Or the whats-it-called in New Zealand, Allison says

Oh, I bet there’s some good ones in Europe! Nicky says. You guys can all meet Erik!

And it’s going to be different, but it’s not going away, and Neil feels calm in a way he never has at the end of a hiking season before

Eventually everyone has to start making plans to return to their lives, and jobs, and Neil sneaks out to the back of the house to sit in crisp fall air and watch leaves spiral down out of the trees

Andrew follows him

They sit together, watching the moon rise over the hills, and when Andrew asks Neil to come home, Neil says yes

#me? coping with my inability to go hiking by writing headcanons? its more likely than you think!#aftg headcanons #aftg au #andreil #bulletpoint fic #my writing #hiker au #gratuitous descriptions of hiker life #found family #this is like 3.5k idk man #this is very self indulgent lol

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antigonick · 4 years

Text

Charge.

CONTEXT : I’m not saying 90% of my life is spent babbling about Fallen Hero but you really should check it out. DISCLAIMER : Not much is mine except for a few shot-in-the-dark head-canons, and everything else belongs to Malin Rydén. WHAT TO EXPECT : Erratic punctuation & coarse language. Mild spoilers. Everybody is halfwitted and loves thinking in italics. Also, I was going to be a cool cat and limit myself to a little bit of fighting, a little bit of thinking, but then BAM this got chargestepped and sappy and out of hands real fast. I have no excuse.

2010.

First the fist collides with your jaw then you grin.

Duck turn kick (miss) kick (hit) and shift. Shark skin is rough like sandpaper and wet and unyielding, but you track the soft and the weak: eyes squinting in the heat and the supple maw you might be able to break and the snout curved like an arrowhead and that human body, ready to bleed, ready to sizzle, following you between the cars. High up, the press is circling vulture-like; from your little dotted audience you feel the smiles and the gasps and the screams and the sighs skittering in your veins like water boiling.

It’s been going on a while and you’re hot (more than usual, that is), you ache, the taste of blood goes straight to your head. Shit that’s good. Tap hiss tap dance your heels on the asphalt and in the huge windows of the building from the corner of your eye you can see you. Behind the sweltering quivering heat of summer. Facing the ugly misshapen silhouette of Sharkinator.

You. You in cobalt blue.

You, turn duck kick (hit) slide punch (miss) run! stop dodge laugh.

‘Come on, Jaws, show some teeth!’ you taunt and won’t that make a great headline?

In the glass windows the waltz is dizzying, you spy; and Sharkinator snaps at you and you keep eyeing those gills that slice his huge head where it meets his shoulders; because why are they here, because it’s not like they’re any use, it’s not like he’s breathing underwater, so what does he do with those, and you think, what if, what if I spark these up a little?

The fish-man is stewing, whack tap and thump goes his knee against your stomach, a strangled chuckle (from you) and a snarl (from him):

’Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Marshal!’

Uh-oh, nice, so we’re really doing this, hm, we’re going for teeth puns? But you can’t hear your own laughter—you keep eyeing those gills—because the crackling breaks and swells in your ears—you flex your fingers (already itching) (what if, what if I spark these up a little?) and you’re ready when he lunges—parry spin and

CONNECT.

You’re not ready, though. For what happens next.

You’re not ready for the water.

You don’t get it, you don’t see it, you can’t see it, you don’t think that’s even possible, what in the actual fuck? Fine, fine, keep moving, can’t stop won’t stop, no, wait, it floods you like a dirty leak floods a crumbling basement; cold and murky and popping until something cracks, something breaks, something short-circuits in your head (are your eyes closed?) or in your back and you would laugh, you would, but there’s a moment there when you can’t feel your legs and the whiplash is enough to make you gag in sheer fucking horror.

Though you don’t. You don’t know where you are. Your head is swimming. (Get it? Swimming?)

Fall (on your knees) groan moan

(Is it crackling and bubbling you hear?)

dodge roll (yes) exhale and stand up stanD UP STAND—

‘—UP, STAND UP you fucking idiot!’

‘What… Una?’

‘Sure, yeah, say my name in public why don’t you, and next time maybe tag my phone number on a building while you’re at it?’

‘I mean, I don’t have your…’

‘Shut up and move!’

You glimpse the prone writhing body of Sharkinator but she’s going fast and the sirens howl and with an arm across her shoulders you turn, veer, ugh, you hit a wall or four, stumble, huff, and under your weight she’s seething; you can hear her sharp little muffled voice through the crepitating haze, you just couldn’t wait to show-off you absolute dumbass, you just couldn’t, ready to fry right there on the sidewalk, I can’t believe this shit and also do you think my life-purpose is to save your ass?

It’s a fine ass, you want to say, but your lips feel numb and your shoulder hits the fire escape with a clang (where are you?) and the glare of the day is needling at your brain so you let your head fall a little, on her smooth masked head, just a second, Una, can’t stop won’t stop you know me, just a second and then we—

‘Oh fuck no Ricardo, don’t you dare—’

You definitely dared.

You wake up propped against the brown backrest of your own sofa, eyelids orange, yellow, white, and burning. You can feel her, gloves off, fiddling with your ports. The almost silence, just her breathing and the clinking of metal against metal, a screwdriver? Then, the tentative stirring humming of power under your flesh. The golden smell of coffee somewhere, somewhere close. You flex your hand and she slaps it impatiently, sighs, moves (creak) and comes back. Suddenly there’s a soft, damp, cool cloth against your cheek, hmmm, yes, though—wait—

‘What the hell?!’ you recoil up the backrest, face stinging, ‘is that bleach?’

‘Boo-hoo, don’t be such a baby, you’re too old for that,’ she tosses the soaked towel on the armrest (that’ll stain), smirking her bunny teeth smirk with a glee that’s nothing short of vicious.

Mask rolled up to the tip of her nose, she flops down on the coffee table one knee up and closes her small white hand scarred and rough around your smiling winking face—well, not yours, but the one printed on the Charge™ mug.

‘You’re merciless.’

‘Narcissistic much?’ she comments, tipping the mug.

Here you are, lovingly painted, with tapered waist and rich blue suit and stylised thunderbolts around your head like some kind of storm-born saint.

‘It was… a gift.’

‘From yourself to yourself? I don’t care, I’m keeping it.’

‘Want to build a little Ricardo altar in your room?’

‘I will throttle you in your sleep.’

‘Please don’t wait for me to sleep.’

She might win at elbowing you in the face, but she can’t win at banter, so she snorts and huffs and shrugs, then walks away. You hear her swear low in the kitchen. You wonder if she blushes; her suit comes up to her chin and the mask comes down to her nose and the large turquoise ovals hide her eyes but she has freckles on her hands and a pale mouth that speak of light hair and sunburns. Not that it matters, but the suspense is killing you, right? It’s been killing you for years and it itches like a scab, this not-knowing, this not-seeing, this inch-by-inch, this one wall you can’t skirt jump wreck.

The cold bottle of beer falls in your lap and she sits back on her chipmunk perch one knee up. She snaps her fingers at you.

‘Just put the towel on your face, idiot, you’re still bleeding.’

You open the bottle and the cold brew hits your throat just right, bubbles and fresh bitterness like a jolt to the mind. You still feel hazy and lukewarm, you need hot-wiring.

‘That’s not how human medical care works, you know.’

You think she glares, can’t be sure with those turquoise fly eyes, but she gives you the finger too so there’s a fair chance.

‘Fine, yeah, but also, I’m not your fucking nurse.’

‘You are merciless.’

‘I am. And heartless. That’s my secret. That’s why I keep the mask on.’

‘Robot?’

‘Android. Come to wreak havoc on humanity and take the Rangers out, one by one,’ she deadpans.

Is she fucking with you?

Of course—still, your heart throbs in delight and your blood bubbles and something drops low in your stomach like jumping from a cliff (no no no don’t think about that) and you can see it in your mind, Una, teeth bared, knuckles white, eyes afire (blue eyes brown eyes grey eyes?), the scheming first, then the bite, the kill; she’s got the guts and the moves and the rabid wrathful kick. She could do it. Well: she could try.

You can, you can see it, the bite the kill—the kiss of death.

Better not say that crap in front of Chen. He already thinks she’s a double-agent on the loose and you have to weave in and out of this conversation like an eel, laughing brightly, saying come on, come on man, she’s too soft, you’ve seen her coo at dogs when she thinks nobody’s looking.

You swallow the beer and throw her a brilliant smile and lean all the way, arm outstretched to the fruit basket behind her but she thinks you’re—oh—she slides to the side with a sharp jerk; innocently you grab an apricot though you almost laugh when she hisses.

‘Oh yes, the remake would be legendary,’ you purr, mostly to see if she’ll rip your eyes out. ‘You. Me. Los Diablos 2019. I can see it. Babe Runner.’

‘I can’t believe someone made you Marshal. Who the fuck did you bribe?’

‘Don’t be mean, you’re the babe in this scenario.’

You sink into the sofa, stretched out and muscles sore, and when you bite into the apricot with a smile the flesh splits on your tongue like a burst of sunlight.

She stares.

She gets up.

She rolls down her mask.

She does blush, doesn’t she?

Looks like you’ve won this round.

‘I’m leaving and you should get some sleep,’ she snaps cradling that mug empty of coffee and full of you. Her mouth is set and her gait is harsh despite your chuckle, but when she walks close there’s a second, a second soft and warm when her naked fingers skim your forehead petal-like but you’re an idiot so you reach to grasp her hand and she punishes you by smacking your head instead.

2021.

First the static sizzles against your eardrum and then you grin.

‘You’re in,’ says Deadeye and nothing else since.

The place’s been on your list for years, but this time it’s going to work, this time you’ve put a wire in its gut, this time you’ve heard it plainly from Manolo himself—she wants to meet them at the Cellar Bar. Hollow Ground. A face for the systemic chaos.

It’s been days but every time you tune in you get this shiver this quiver the urge to pace the urge to laugh the urge to dance no that’s not it—the urge to strike. You’ve turned off your own microphone so that you can tap tap tap throw the ball against the wall, twack whoosh open the beer bottle, click click click shake the painkiller box, crack hmm make your back pop. Better to keep your distance anyway, technology doesn’t like you much. You turn and turn in the little room, you open the dirty glass door and you crouch on the rickety balcony with the long-ranging binoculars, you fiddle and check the monitor and throw your hearing as far as it can go, which is much further than it once could, strain and strain and you write down the names, the places, you hedge your bets, you come at night, you doze and bite your arm, you sigh and stretch and skip, pins and needles under your skin and ants swarming inside your skull, and then

Then, one day.

You catch it.

‘They’ll be here tomorrow night, her and Nocturne. Make sure everything is ready. Dampeners on.’

‘Seriously? Candlelit dinner with a telepath? Didn’t even know those were still a thing.’

Fuck yes fuck yes. You throw the ball hard against the stone floor and watch the current twitching between your fingers nervous and restless like your brain. You wait a while. You need sleep, you need gear, you dig the heels of your crackling hands against your eyelids and the pain simmers low like a headache. Shit that’s good.

Turn on your heel grab your bag breathe in get out.

Parkfield at night is full of scumbags with impeccable taste in shirts and suits, and if you ever get your fists on one you’ll have to ask them for their tailor’s number. You can’t compete today, wearing a hoodie stolen from Chen, but still you glimpse you in the shop windows, shoulders stooped, hands hidden, head hung low, and you smirk slow in the shadows. Tonight you see her. Tonight you see Hollow Ground. Tonight the veil falls the light comes the hunt starts or—whatever else they say when an epiphany hits you in the face with a baseball bat.

You press your index to your ear and stop not far from the Cellar Bar, too close for comfort, close enough to get that small delighted shudder of adrenaline along your spine. And then you wait.

You’ve gotten better at that.

Wait listen track.

Grind your teeth shut your mouth bide your time.

You get your money's worth tonight: wait listen track and

hold your breath—hold… hold… hold on.

The voice you hear buries itself in that soft place beneath your ribs where a blade comes to kill.

‘I'm here for a meeting. I was told to wait at the downstairs bar,’ says the sharp little unmuffled voice.

Really you shouldn’t you shouldn’t be surprised but fuck, tonight? and all the same your blood rushes and pounds and you catch your gasp right before it burns your mouth and sssssssss hums a tremor from your bones to your flesh.

To Deadeye, but in your ear, Una asks:

’Aren’t you coming?’

You almost laugh. Dirty talking on the job now, are we?

Tempting really, but first you have to checkmate that filthy little liar and also, fuck, make sure she doesn’t get herself killed, and also, fuck again, make sure she doesn’t get herself hollow-grounded, and also, fuck! Shit, shit, shit. What the hell are you doing? What the hell is she doing? Where the fuck are you going? You sizzling crackling flashing and the audio goes dead and your mind races and splits like lightning.

Can’t wait can’t stop won’t stop.

It takes everything you have not to break into a run, but then again you couldn’t get inside even if you wanted to, and you tell yourself, she knows what she’s doing, you’ve seen it, Chen’s seen it, you’ve exchanged glances—the querulous stance, the fading bruises, the hard muscle under those ridiculous layers. Seen it felt it.

You find the grimy back alley and you grit your teeth. The one-way back door is condemned by a huge dumpster. You raise your gaze to the darkened windows, to the flickering streets and all those strangers who couldn’t care less about what you’re doing, hidden that you are by hood and night. Fuck this. Turn rush push. The dumpster whines on its wheels but yields to your hand and releases the door (just in case) and you dance back as fast as you’ve come; turn the corner, and now torture, walk the street once, twice, thrice, tap tap taping your fingers against your thigh.

Two hours days centuries minutes.

Two three four ten twenty.

You walk further and further to cover you tracks. In the shadows you lay your forehead against a coarse wall for a second. Twist, go back. Weave through the streets. Could use a drink, could use a jump, could use a fall. Could use a fight. Could fight Una. You think of that mask all those years ago, that mask rolled to the tip of her nose, and the grave (shit no), and all the masks that came and went, and all the masks that you both still have to peel off, you think of that mirror helmet of… hers? Of course it’s hers. Well, at least you can see yourself in it, and she knows how much you like that.

Suddenly you jolt and you hear, you hear it: the running steps, the scrape of the metal back door, the low swearing, the faraway shouts and the racing on the asphalt and then she hits you square in the chest like the bullet she is.

You exhale a groan and steady her with a hand but she jerks away and she’s ready to split but then her eyes register you and for a second you see it like you saw it in that coffeeshop when she came back from the dead, the deer in the headlights, the panic flaring, the dark twist of her mouth ready to bite.

So what can you do? Smile, sigh. Laugh.

‘Fancy seeing you here, lover.’

She’s breathing fast and blinks, fists clenched. She must be really upset, ‘cause you wouldn’t have survived that nickname otherwise. You take her in; the hair mussed, the throat working, the shitty flannel shirt on a large t-shirt. Did she meet and greet the queen of down below dressed like a depressed teenager? Fuck she’s an idiot and irresistible. She’s on the balls of her feet and she’ll punch you soon but you see the soft and the weak, her arm slightly bent, her cut lip, the surprise that you could use to take her out. Then suddenly she barks (attack first think later):

‘I’m working, Ricardo. Are you following me?’

Is she? Is she working? Working for the bane of your damn existence? Tonight the teasing doesn’t flow easy.

‘Working. You’re working.’

‘Working, yeah.’

She’s fucking with you but that’s only fair; after all, you are fucking with her.

‘Shit,’ you say, duly concerned. ‘That boss of yours is running you into the ground.’

She pauses, eyes fixed on yours, warm and dark and wavering. She’s not gonna fall for it. She’s not. She oh, she is. Sharply she turns her head and she sinks all at once, hook and sinker she swallows the lie, ravenous ravenous for half-truths she is.

‘Yeah, she’s a jerk. Listen, I have to go.’

‘Aren’t you going to slap me goodbye?’

‘You’re as disturbed as you are ridiculous.’

‘Whatever you want me to be,’ you tease, but your heart is in your throat.

She snorts and sidesteps you (get it?), ready to disappear, but when she walks close there’s a second, a second soft and warm when your thumb comes and wipes the blood off her mouth, and she’s an idiot so she reaches to grasp your hand and rewards you by kissing your palm instead.

#AS PROMISED #fallen hero #charge #about fallen hero #notebooks #can't re-read this or I will curse myself for the Romance of it all

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kbear3201 · 3 years

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Sims 4 Legacy Challenge

I fell in love with Lilsimsie’s Not So Berry Challenge, this challenge was inspired by it but I made sure to make it different. Gen 10 Is the closest this gets to her challenge but it is still different. Originally I was going to assign colors but ended up deciding against it which you may notice with some of the traits. I like to give my sims one negative trait to make things more realistic and fun for myself. Some Sims have more of a loose story so any story tellers can tell their story as they please.

I admit I’m still playtesting this challenge, if I find things that need changes I will come back and fix them, if you play please help me find anything that’s ether too hard or makes no sense.

I have a few bonus Sims, some of which are not yet listed as I haven’t completed them.

I don’t have a set of challenge rules as I want people to play this as they wish, whether you make it a rags to riches or just play with the challenge itself.

Now for the Challenge:

Gen 1: Passionate Painter

You have a fiery love.. For art! Art has always caught your eye more than people ever have, and you’re honestly fine with that. Painting is your passion! You can really express your emotion with it, but some people will never understand. No one would suspect, but you’re a health nut.

Traits: Hot Headed, Self-Assured, Art Lover.

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Challenge Goals:

Complete your aspiration

Reach level 10 of the painting skill

Reach level 10 of the Painter career

Keep all of your first paintings (small classic, medium classic, large classic, etc.)

First date must be at museum

Only eat healthy foods

Make at least one of each painting

Have two kids

Gen 2: Friendly Baker

Food can be art too, and it's also yummy. You are a people person, and your favorite way of making friends is through treats and parties! Treats brings people together and tastes so good while doing so. You love treats, maybe a little too much. People are surprised you love sweets so much when your founder was such a healthy eater.

Traits: Glutton, Outgoing, Self-Assured

Aspiration: Friend to the world

Challenge Goals:

Complete your aspiration

Reach level 10 of Baking skill

Keep your Founder’s first ever painting

Make at least one of each item in the baking list

Have at least 5 friends, including your forever best friend from childhood

Have a penpal

Be good friends with your sibling

Have more than 1 kid

Gen 3: Master Chef

Growing up you had all the treats you could ask for, but there's so much more to food!

Traits: Foodie, Perfectionist, Outgoing

Aspiration: Master Chef

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of Cooking and Gourmet Cooking skills

Complete Aspiration

Inherit Founder's first painting

Make at least one of each item both the Cooking and Gourmet Cooking list

Don't let anyone else cook or get quick meals

Only make cake for someone's birthday

Gen 4: Classical Genius

Your parent's comfort has always lied in food, but for you, it's music. The Violin has always had such a pretty sound that seems to calm your soul and speak to you. It's history is so fun and it's become your passion. From a little girl you've played a violin and over the years have grown in love with it.

Traits: Music Lover, Perfectionist, Creative

Aspiration:

Challenge Goals

Reach level 10 of Violin skill

Only listen to classical music

Inherit founder's first painting

Have 50,000 simoleons in savings at once

Be an adult before having kids

Have all of your children reach A student as child and teen

Have 1-3 kids

Gen 5: Rising Star

Your parent is all for the violin, but singing and playing the guitar is so much more fun. You love writing music after writing a love song for your first lover and after that you find it's your passion. You start publishing your songs and earn a following, landing you a spotlight and a voice in the world.

Traits: Creative, Ambitious, Clumsy

Aspiration:

Challenge goals

Reach level 10 of singing career

Reach level 10 of guitar before you reach adult

Inherit founder's first painting

Have two partners before ether being with your forever Sim or deciding to stay single

Don't get married

Have 1 "oopsie" child, can be any of your lover's (or someone else’s)

OPTIONAL

If you have get famous, reach at least 4 stars of fame

Gen 6: Humble Farmer

For two generations your family has been tainted with riches and that's how you grew up. But you start to realize as a young adult that money is nothing but a distraction, true riches come from land and hard work. You move away with your parent's blessing and almost nothing to start a farm you can be proud of.

Traits: Outdoor Lover, Vegan, Clumsy

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of the Gardening Career

Move out as a young adult with only 20,000 simoleons and get the biggest lot available

Complete your aspiration

Inherit founder’s first painting

Don't get a Job

Only sell your crops (and crafts if you pick one up)

Have at least two crops for each season (if your crop can grow in more than one season it counts as one for all the seasons)

Have at least 3 kids, helping hands make lighter loads

Gen 7: Romantic Adventurer

Growing up on the farm, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. Adventure calls your name and you’re ready to answer. As a child you enjoy finding time capsules and frogs and exploring all types of mysteries. As a teen you find your neighborhood’s hidden world and as an adult you explore every inch of the Jungle. Beyond that, you dream of finding someone to take on these adventures.

Traits: Outdoor Lover, Jealous, Romantic

Aspiration: Jungle Explorer

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 or Archeology and Selvadorian culture skills

Complete Jungle Explorer Aspiration

From childhood, find frogs and collect time capsules

As a teen, find your neighborhood’s hidden world (Sylvan Glade for Willow Creek, Forgotten Grotto in Oasis Springs, Cave of Soulani, etc) If your neighborhood doesn't have a hidden world you may pick a hidden world of your choosing (leave Sixam for gen 10)

Inherit founder’s first painting

Explore the entire Jungle in your lifetime

Marry your third partner

Marry as an adult

Have at least one family adventure

Take your kids to the beach every weekend

Gen 8: Ocean Protector

The beach has always held a special place in your heart, it was the one place your parents brought you that really made you feel like you were a part of a family. Your parents never noticed your depression since teenhood and it sticks with you through your entire life. When it’s almost your young adult birthday, you run away to Sulani and find your beloved beach is in danger of nasty pollution.

Traits: Outdoor Lover, Gloomy, Child of the Island

Aspiration: Beach Living

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of Fitness skill ONLY THROUGH SWIMMING

Reach level 10 of Conservationist career Environmental Manager Branch

Complete Beach Living Aspiration

Inherit founder’s first painting

Have a best friend that lives in Sulani

When you’re about to age into a young adult, move to your best friend’s house

As a young adult, move into your own lot in Sulani

Invest lots of your time with your family, maybe even too much

Find suitors for all your children

Gen 9: Marine Biologist

Growing up on the beach, you love it as much as your parent does. But while they work towards saving it, you want to work towards learning about the creatures you’re saving. You love your parent but they never give you space and when you talk to them about it they’re very dismissive. You become very dependent on your parent.

Traits: Child of the Ocean, Gloomy, Genius

Aspiration: Angling Ace

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of the fishing and Parenting skills

Reach level 10 of the Conservationist career Marine Biologist

Complete Angling Ace Aspiration

Inherit founder’s first painting

Don’t move out of your childhood home until your parent dies

Marry your suitor and have 2 kids with them

After your parent’s death, devorce your suitor

Remarry a Sim with the Good trait and have at least one kid with them

Support all your children’s choices

Gen 10: Space Explorer

Your Parent has always supported all your dreams, you were always close with them and loved the stories of all the crazy creatures that live within the Sim world, but what about elsewhere? You look to the stars and dream of what could be out there, maybe you should be the one to find out. Your a funny Sim who enjoys making your friends and family laugh, which makes space life a little less tedious

Traits: Genius, Bookworm, Goofball

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of Handiness and Rocket Science Skills

Reach level 10 of Astronaut career Space Ranger Branch

Complete Nerd Brain Aspiration

Inherit founder’s first painting

Have a close relationship with your parent

Build a rocket

Visit Planet Sixam

Marry as an Adult

Marry a co-worker

OPTIONAL

Meet an Alien (If you want to add occults to your story

BONUS SIMS

Gen 11: Unflirty Romance

While your parents heads were in the stars, yours was always in the books. You find it fascinating that someone can take your mind into whatever world they want to and you dream of sharing your own ideas with the world. You write Romance which some find strange due to you not being one for romance, what can you say? It’s so much easier in the books.

Traits: Bookworm, Creative, Unflirty

Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of Writing and Logic Skills

Reach level 10 or Writer career Author Branch

Complete Bestselling Author aspiration

Inherit founder’s first painting

Self Publish books until you reach level 6 of Writer career

Write 1 book for each child and gift it to them

Besides your children’s books, only write romance novels

Marry your best friend

OPTIONAL:

If you have Get Famous reach at least 3 stars of fame

Gen 12: Dr. Unflirty

Can you find love if it’s scary? Your Parent always wrote about romance but never displayed it for you. You want to find happiness with someone but will that be possible? You refuse to give up but dogs are so much easier! You love them and dream of caring for them as a vet. However, one little accident proves to make this harder than you originally thought.

Traits: Unflirty, Good, Dog Lover

Aspiration: Soulmate

Challenge Goals:

Reach level 10 of Charisma, Veterinarian, and Photography skills

Reach level 5 of Pet Trainer skills

Reach level 3 of any part time job before adult

Inherit founder’s first painting

Wait until you’ve raised the money to move out of your parents house

Make extra cash selling your pictures

As an Adult quit your babysitting job and become a vet

Have one child as a young adult (teen if you have the mods for it) this is your only child

#Sims #Sims4 #legacy #legacy challenge #challenge

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chaniters · 4 years

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Intervention, part two.

An Argent-Ortega fic, Soft is sometimes the best Sidestep. The title is a callback to an earlier fic that has nothing to do with this, and titles are just hard for me tonight.

Cyrus decides to let the two rangers visit his evil lair, and nobody knows what to expect, him least of all.

WARNING, there are slight implications that might be spoilerous for the Alpha, so don’t read if you want to stay clear of those!!!

Enjoy!

________________________________________

“So… this is it” you state with little energy.

“I KNEW IT! I knew it was a sewer base!” Argent states as she walks through the security gate you installed.

“We know. This is the fifth time you say it” You answer as she moves past you.

“You didn’t even take anything out of the box?” Ortega asks appalled looking at the towers of piled state-of-the-art technological priceless junk you’ve been stealing from the biggest companies in town, all of them still in their original packaging.

“This is… quite the collection” Argent says looking at them with her special sight.

“I don’t really need any of that”

“You… are a hoarder. I can’t believe you’re living like this again” he adds

“Again?” Argent asks.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve caught him living in a sewer ruin”

“I KNEW IT! You’re a mole-person!”

“Yeah, that’s what Anathema used to say...” you say tiredly. Shit. Why is this all so familiar?

“Cyrus, I can’t let you…”

“No!” you interrupt because you know where this is going. He’s pulled the same exact shit, using Argent to get him here “I’m staying here. This isn’t back then. This is now. I’m not going to stay with you or in your guest room or whatever. You know how dangerous this is, and we both know I won’t be safer in with you. You won’t be safer with me, you know that. I’m a criminal now”

“But you can’t…-”

“I said no,” you say looking at him, completely resolute.

“I just…,” he says looking between you and Argent “... Mierda. Fine. Ok, I get it” he says. “But I don’t like it. You’re not well Cyrus, you shouldn’t be alone.”

“What’s new with that? Besides, you’re here now, right?”

He groans, moving past piles of boxes that force you all to move sideways.

“Do you even have any open space in here?” he asks, trying not to sound too passive-aggressive, and failing.

“Yeah I do, further along... I wasn’t thinking of showing it to anyone, ok?” you say embarrassed. Why are you embarrassed? “This is a villain’s lair and not a fancy home, I’m a fugitive from literally everyone, what did you expect?.”

“Well, you know, since you’ve been stealing so much, I thought that maybe you would have sold some of this shit…”

“I can’t take chances getting all of these in the market! You know what happens to criminals who act like big spenders, it’s a basic mistake. And you know I don’t care about cash, I just need to be in the news.”

“I don’t mean cash, I mean living space,” he says struggling to move past the narrow passage filled with boxes of neuro-chip parts from all the best brands in modding tech. “Sorry. I don’t generally get a guided tour trough evil lairs”

“It’s not an EVIL lair…” you say defensively.

“I think I’ll just shut up for a moment”

Eventually, you all come out of the forest of boxes into the remaining open space on the old station. The old ticket booths have been turned into storage for your suit’s parts, a number of weapons and a few computers. The adjacent security office is where you’re now assembling the skin regenerator. Ortega’s eyes lock up on your board, were your plans used to be. You removed everything before he got here, and he clearly notices.

“It’s not dirty as the rest of the tunnels,” Argent says running a silver finger trough the surfaces.

“Well, I did take some stuff out of the box… I’ve got about a dozen Loombas sweeping the floors every two days.”

“So THAT’s why you were stealing cleaning supplies…” Ortega ponders as he moves on.

“I’ve got… a sort of… living room?” you say nervously fiddling with the key of the old control room and administrative offices. This is so wrong, this place looks like a hoarder’s junkyard and you knew it. Why didn’t you just meet them someplace else? There’s plenty of locations to have secret meetings… but no. You had to let Ortega and Argent invite themselves into your secret base. You finally match the correct key with the lock, opening the door.

“So… uh… here it is,” you say motioning them into the old subway control-room that you refurbished into a living-room, hoping it will get better reception than your hoarder sea of unopened tech junk boxes.

Sofa, TV set, mini bar, some magazines, and a perpetually running air conditioning device keeps it cool and dry. It doesn’t look too bad, right? You even have a few posters here.

Shit.

You rush to stand just in front of the Ranger’s old calendar, open on Ortega’s issue, the one where he’s wearing the least. You turn to face them hoping Ortega didn’t see it… Double shit.

He didn’t, but it’s somehow worse now, because Argent certainly did, in full colored detail. The resulting hyena laughter makes you die a little inside, as you blush beyond the red spectrum.

“What is it?” Ortega asks, perplexed.

“Nothing!” you say removing the cursed thing and rolling it into a tube keeping it behind your back. “It’s nothing!” He gives you that suspicious look… You can’t read his thoughts but he must be thinking it’s some part of your masterplan… ugh. You should probably burn it before he sees it. Argent’s mocking smile is relentless as she walks past you...

“Oh it’s certainly not just ‘nothing’” Argent says taking the thing off your hands while you were distracted. “This… is everything!”

“No! Give it back!” you let out hopelessly

“Hey, I want to see it too!” she says keeping it a few inches above your reach. Shitshitshit. That’s what you get for being made too short. The farm ruins your life yet again.

The two of them gang up and move you out of the way… Ortega’s smugness as Argent shows him is so strong you have to look down to avoid his gaze.

“You realize, of course, now I’m going to have to kill you,” you say trying to muster your villainous voice.

“Come here you little freak!” Ortega says pulling you into a hug that you don’t even try to dodge because what’s even the point now that he knows just how bad you had it all along. That thing is old, from before your capture, and he can obviously tell you had to look for it.

Sinking into his arms it with no shields, there is kissing, laughter and ruffling your hair and everything he knows infuriates you, with Argent just watching amusedly.

This is a new low…

He finally released the hug, keeping just an arm wrapped around your shoulder, and Argent approaches to readjusts your wrinkled shirt. “Relax Cyrus! We’re just messing with you”

You almost lift a hand to stop her, but there is something soothing in the gesture, in having both of them so close… so warm.

You can’t read Ortega’s thoughts but you can certainly feel hers. She thinks the two of you look cute, especially with the height difference, him looking so protective over you. It makes you feel small but in a new -good- way for a change. She’s the one that’s too cute, worrying about your clothes. You should probably tell her that at some point.

“I’m used to being messed with. Just … not this way”

“Not used to people going through your stuff huh?” she says handing you your calendar back as a peace offering “Really good picture by the way…” she adds to Ortega with an unexpectedly mischievous smile. The one she used to make you lose your grip on reality when you took that mask off.

“Thanks,” you both say, you because you’re getting the calendar back, him because he’s falling into her world.

“I’m not used to having stuff period”

“I can tell from what you did with all your stolen tech,” Ortega says rubbing your shoulder before pointing at the calendar. “Must say this is a real confidence booster… you know, I didn’t know if you were into me at all back in the day, it was always making out and you running, and then kissing… You always left me clueless. Good to know I still have it”

“You always had it,” you say with a nervous laugh without thinking…. which leads into him smiling back, and a kiss, and Argent rubbing your back gently because she *wants* this go further between you and...and it’s getting warm, too fucking warm, and you just can’t…

“Sooo do you want a drink maybe? I have a few things” you say untangling yourself from them in the gentlest -but swiftest- way possible.

Ortega lets out a soft chuckle. “See? It’s always like that Angie. One wrong step and you lose him”

“It wasn’t ALWAYS like that,” you say bringing beer and a carbonated sugary drink that you know Argent will like because that’s a perk of telepathy, knowing everything that people want and choosing what to give them.

For instance, you know she wants you, but this soda’s all she’s going to get right now. You brought them here to discuss serious matters, this isn’t a date or anything like that...

“Ooooh. So you didn’t escape him at some point? He finally got you, Cyrus?”

Why in the hell do you even have a mouth, you wonder. Why must you repeatedly shoot yourself in the foot? Are you doing this on purpose?

“You bet I did!” he snorts, making you tremble as you serve the drinks. You’ve never been so embarrassed without knowing why in your life. “I got him, and then I went and got him again, and he didn’t run away, I can tell you that”

“Wow,” she says with renewed interest. The thoughts in her head are undecipherable but too hot to handle. “...wait, so you told him about the tattoos already?”

“No, I turned off the lights, ok?” you interject quickly before Ortega can answer that.” … and can we… please not talk about it like that?” ” you plead wondering if this is the moment you die.

“What do you mea… oh shit, am I making you feel uncomfortable?” he says, now with true concern.

“YES. VERY!”

“I didn’t mean to… I’m not bottom shaming you or anything…”

“There’s nothing wrong with bottoming Cyrus” Argent adds quickly. Oh, she’s now picturing, with a vivid imagination. That’s just great… just what you needed...

“I know, but… I just don’t like people speaking about me like... that,” you say, realizing too late that you’re being too honest.

Argent gives you a puzzled look, Ortega’s expression shifting as he realizes what you meant.

“Hey! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything like that Cyrus, you know that right?”

“... yes,” you let out. “Yes, I do,” you add, to his relief. “This is just… all new to me. Talking about… sex.”

“Well I’ll be more careful from now on” he states looking directly into your eyes, Argent’s mind’s catching up, realizing there’s a story to be told there. She will ask later. Perhaps you’ll answer when she does.

“It’s just … It was so great. And I couldn’t tell anyone up to this moment.?” he says looking at Argent. “Do you know how many years I had been waiting for that? Back then I almost had to break my back again just to get your name. And then you died… and you came back… and you finally agreed to come to my place and It happened… and It … It was everything”

“You can’t mean that,” you say looking away. “You’ve slept with plenty of people better than me”

“That’s not true Cyrus. I only really loved you”

This is too much… you can’t deal with this shit… you flee into Argent’s thoughts but Ortega’s words have turned them so soft that you feel like you’re sliding down a cascade of melted butter, her sharks falling freely not knowing what the fuck’s going on.

Shit. Abort, abort!

You return swiftly, back to the space behind your eyes, having to deal with your stupid emotions. This is so unfair...

“Ooooohhhh you two are in love? That’s so sweet” Argent says with a voice so soft and tiny that it can’t possibly belong to her. No. It definitely belongs to some girl 10 years younger that’s reading a romance book in secret with a flashlight under her bed’s covers… wait... was that a memory of hers?!

Ortega doesn’t answer, he just smiles, knowing he’s pulled your strings far beyond the snapping point by now. He’s been winning these small battles for years and now he’s won the war.

You want to punch him… kiss him… flee…

But Argent decides for you, kissing him instead before you can say anything else… and then she literally leaves you speechless, with a long kiss on your lips.

“You know… I do have… a … bedroom too… ” you say, almost breathless, as she finally parts.

_______________some time later____________________

“Must say I wasn’t even sure you owned a bed,” Ortega says, his hand softly rubbing Argent’s silver fingers above you, as you lay in between them.

“This is the coziest sewer lair I’ve ever been invited too” Argent adds.

“Subway lair” you correct her absently still trying to process what just happened. What you all just did… And the way they didn’t judge you when you cried…

And now you’re just here, having this calm chat while they roast you about your terrible lair. You could probably get used to this. Probably.

“You know, I would like to be able to do this, the way it’s supposed to be felt” Argent comments. “If only SOMEONE would finally complete that regenerator…That would be so great”

“Is this your strategy to get me to work harder? Sex as a weapon?” you ask, being more calm and smooth about it than you ever thought you could be.

“Well, I tried claws so I figured I could go for something new for a change. Is it working?”

“So very much” you confess with a broken voice, kissing their joined hands. “I’ll get it done… and… I just want to add… I fucking love you two” you let out, the final barriers being swept away, leaving you deep into the uncharted, very dangerous territory of openness about feelings, emotions, and all that awful stuff.

_______________________________________

My fanfiction: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Rydén. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

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