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prettyinpwn-blog · 1 year

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Less Than He Seems - Part One: Honest Grays

“I guess I was like him that way, getting lost in fables because they hid prickly things. Fables meant that he hadn’t been hard on Stanley for no reason all these years. Fables meant he was good, just trying his best while coping with the scars that he hid under long-sleeves and tall-necked shirts, and that all of what he’d said in the past to Stanley had been good for toughening him up. He could pull Stanley up from the muck and scream at him enough to get him running before the rounds hit, and just maybe he’d survive.

But this time was the last Stanley didn’t lie and say that he did it, or that he meant to do it. He just refused to tell the truth. But father didn’t like neither yes or no’s, neither pleases or thank you’s, or clamp-fisted refusals to nod. War had enemies and allies. Bad and good. The betweens required pausing to think before you pulled the trigger.”

A collection of short stories from Ford’s POV about different periods of time in his life.

View the other entries here: (None Yet)

Less Than He Seems - Part One: Honest Grays

My life at that point wasn’t the comic I’d wished it’d been. It resembled one in superficial ways, perhaps; most of my memories from childhood are still panels formed from the occasional glance up from a book, bracketed between tall pauses of white and black.

But that was where the similarities between me and real heroes ended. They could make use of their mutations and minds to save the world, but I could only use mine to help me hide from it, and sometimes leave for another.

Even so, an extra finger on each hand was useful for holding thick books. And intelligence was great for making up fables to hide prickly truths.

It was a clouding June dusk, and I must have been twelve or maybe thirteen, getting lost in a worn copy of Fahrenheit 451, anxiety and far too many jelly beans and cake souring my gut as I pictured all those books burning.

The first comic panel glance up of that night of my life was mom sitting in her usual spot by the front window, a halo of cigarette smoke around her head, long cherry fingernails clothespinning the Eight of Swords from one of her many Tarot decks. A neon sign of a blue eye blinked open behind her on the window.

The next panel was her sighing. Another was her midnight eyes glancing between the card and my father, though I didn’t know if that was because he was loud enough that her customer on the phone could have heard his yelling, or that she wondered if - for once in her life - her reading had been accurate.

The neon eye blinked shut.

“Tell me how much it cost, Stanley.”

“Pa, I didn’t mean-”

“How much!?”

I always flinched when that deep voice boomed. It was the thunder that severed the border between the calm and the storm. And it meant that rain and strikes were coming. The rain always came for me. The lightning always swung for Stanley.

A sigh. “Six dollars and eighteen cents, Pa.”

“Good. You think about that long and hard. Think about it the next time you get smart and try to ruin your brother’s birthday.”

Ma sighed again for the fifth time in ten minutes. I let out the sigh I’d been holding for a minute and twenty seconds. Weary clouds on a map trying in vain to blow a sea monster away.

“But you know I didn’t break it. Right, Pa?”

“You have a good night, too, Sue. Yep. Mm-hmm. Bye-bye.” A phone clanked onto its receiver. The Eight of Swords was returned to the deck. Mom turned to Dad. “Fil, mind keepin’ it quiet when I’m on the phone?”

Dad crossed his yellow plaid suited arms, stiff as always. That was when I fell back into the black and white crawlspace of Fahrenheit 451. My chest even felt like I was wedged tight between floors and splinters and nails. I wanted to speak up. To mutter a protest and fight to break my way out of the shadows and off the shelf, useless trophy that I was.

But one glance at my father and I knew I couldn’t. I stayed fake and golden and dusty that night, a perfect blend with the living room wallpaper, and I’ve hated myself for it ever since.

“Why do you always blame me for everything?” Stanley told the truth at last.

“Stanley, sweetheart-”

“Caryn, let me handle this.”

“I. Didn’t. Do it.”

“Then who the hell did!?”

“I don’t know!”

The storm had come. Rain swelled in my own eyes, and I could see a yellow length of lightning getting ready to strike. I should have said something. But I was a good son. A perfect son. I never did anything wrong, did I?

Had I done something wrong that night? I couldn’t have. No, even after all these years, memories blur like my eyes did, and I can’t tell between myself and my brother when I look in that mirror; when things are that smeared by reflections of regret. I couldn’t tell that I did it. That I was the one who dropped the present and broke it.

Stanley couldn’t tell, either. He never did. Dad never believed him when he told the truth. That’s why he became the best liar I’ve ever known. Dad wanted lies, because they affirmed his own truths.

I guess I was like him that way, getting lost in fables because they hid prickly things. Fables meant that he hadn’t been hard on Stanley for no reason all these years. Fables meant he was good, just trying his best while coping with the scars that he hid under long-sleeves and tall-necked shirts, and that all of what he’d said in the past to Stanley had been good for toughening him up. He could pull Stanley up from the muck and scream at him enough to get him running before the rounds hit, and just maybe he’d survive.

When the lightning was over and done with, my brother ran into our room, hand on his red cheek and eyes as brown and wet as my own, hidden under a shag of dark hair. As always, Ma went to Dad and chided him, and as always, he apologized to her and said he’d work on forgiving him, the sobs at the end of the hallway forgotten because the storm was over, and keening murmur was so quiet compared to thunder, and that’s all that mattered.

The neon eye blinked open. Then it blinked shut again. I peered up from the black and white of Fahrenheit 451 fully for the first time since the yelling began.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said finally.

“Don’t you ever apologize for what Stanley does, Ford. He makes his own mistakes, and he can own up to ‘em. I’m just sorry your present got wrecked like that. That damn knucklehead is always costing us what we don’t have to spare.”

That night, I went to bed without dinner, claiming my stomach was still too full from cake and jelly beans. But really all I wanted was to be with Stanley and get lost in our own fable. Books were great, but adventures shared were better. That’s when the comic book panels of my life became movies unending with no black and white brackets between.

My memories of Stanley and I alone were always in full, unashamed color, our dark wavy hair of the same shade growing from one head to another without end or boundaries as we drew together side by side, our freckles twinned constellations, and our eyes glossed with infinite reflections of understanding.

I found him under Fort Stan that night. He sat in the blood hued shadows of that plaid blanket tent, a sage military helmet tamping down his hair, a Daisy BB rifle clutched in his arms. If Dad could have seen him, he might have been impressed.

“Permission to enter the fort?”

A sniffle. A tighter grip on the rifle. “I guess.”

I settled down cross-legged next to him. He did his best to keep his eyes under that helmet, but on occasion he let the rifle go to wipe them with his hands, arms coming back slick and betraying him each time.

“I wish I was tough,” he said at last. “Maybe then Pa wouldn’t get so mad at me.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the toughest guy I know.” It was as true then as it ever was later, even if it hurt my chest to say it. “Remember Crampelter?”

Stanley gave a little bit of a smile and a shrug.

“I’m just saying, if you hadn’t slugged him right in his fat chin, he never would have stopped teasing us.”

“Someday, I’m gonna be tough enough to punch away every jerk who messes with you, Ford. I just don’t get it. Why do they make fun of your hands so much? It’s stupider than… I don’t know!”

“Stupider than Crampelter?”

“Nothin’s stupider than Crampelter. Maybe that’s why he picks on you? He knows you’re better than him. You and I’ll be off goin’ to the moon or that place with all the gold you talk about all the time-”

“El Dorado?”

“Yeah, and he’ll be stuck here, suckin’ barnacles off the dock like the bottom feeder he is.”

We talked about the moon for a long while. Then about whether or not aliens from the moon would be good or bad (we decided on somewhere in between). By the end of our debate, his helmet was off and the rifle was put down. He looked like Stanley again, including the bruise on his cheek.

The real full moon was up high in our window by the time I decided to ask silent questions, a storm threatening to hide its light that we were drawing with crayons by.

I reached over to touch his bruise. He slapped my hand off.

“What?”

“It’ll go away.”

“You can’t just pretend it’s not there now, though.”

“Ford, don’t worry. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It might as well be.”

“No!”

I flinched. There was the thunder again, an echo of the first. He furrowed his brows and frowned at my reaction. Always a reflection, I frowned back. I set my crayon down, got up, and left Fort Stan. He might as well have pushed me physically out, though I knew Stanley would never have laid a hand on me.

“What are you steamin’ about?”

I made the mistake of not hiding in a book at that point. I should have just gone up to my top bunk, cracked open Fahrenheit 451 again, and let it take me into that world where I couldn’t say stupid things like I always did. But instead I took the book and threw it at the tent, where Stanley was still hiding.

“You have to stop lying!”

“What the…” Stanley crawled from the tent and picked it up. “Sixer, this is your favorite. Why would you toss this around like that?”

Rage. My own thunder. “I broke it!”

“S’not like you burned it-”

“Not the book. Don’t you get it, Stanley?” I’d hated how pitiful I’d sounded at that point, voice warbling, threatening to cry again. Weak. I was no hero. I was a liar. “Dad should have punished me! I broke the present. I picked it up and I dropped it like an idiot.”

“So what?”

“Why didn’t you tell Dad that I did it? Why can’t you just stop lying to him?”

“I didn’t lie. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours, either.”

I didn’t remember much after these words that night, other than the feel of my twin brother taking me into his arms, smelling of birthday cake and ocean and sweat, our silver hair tangling without boundaries into one as I reciprocated.

It was not a hug. It was a desperate clinging to one another, salty water spraying against us as we rocked alone together away from the lightning and storm, braving sea monsters, roaring back at the thunder with voices we’d finally learned were not our father’s, but our own, then drifting to calm ports we would have never known if not for each other.

“I promised I’d always protect you, remember?” Stanley said at last.

And then the rain came again. I was never good at stopping the rain. But that was fine, because rain blurred things together. It melted all black and white into honest grays.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fanfiction #stanford pines #stanley pines #less than he seems #tw: childhood abuse #daddy issues ahoy yoooooo #but also some healing #ah stanford did break the present but do i mean a gift or do i mean time-wise?#hmm which scenes are little stans and which are adult stans?#and when am I talking about ford versus their dad hmm HMmmHMM?#wink wink symbolism #also the trophy part's hilarious because I forgot that Bill kinda turned Ford into one once and well it works even more now

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sweet-as-an-angel · 3 months

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Things Simon Loves About You

Warnings: Fluff <3, Cosy Headcanons, Simon Being a Hypothetical Animal Crossing Enthusiast, Jealous! Simon :3, Simon Being the Best Boyfriend, Spoilers for Simon’s Backstory, No Pronouns Used For Reader Except ‘You’.

He’s secretly enamoured with the way you’ll gently pluck a fallen eyelash from his face and tell him to make a wish on it. The first time it happened, you had to explain to him what this odd ritual meant, what it entailed. You shushed him before he tried to make his wish out loud, telling him with haste that it won’t come true if he told you what it was. When he blew the eyelash from your fingertip, all he could do was look at you and think: ‘but it already came true’.

Though it initially worried him, he loves that you go to sleep late — especially when he finds you zonked out on the sofa, TV on, remnants of your midnight snack escapade scattered across the coffee table. It means he has an excuse to pick you up and bring you to bed, holding you close to him all the while. Most nights, he just stares at you, watching you, wondering how he got so lucky to even have someone exist in the same house with, never mind you.

Nobody likes arguments — especially Simon. Having grown up in an abusive household, they were commonplace in some form or another. But, when he argues with you, he knows that it can easily be fixed. Especially if it’s over something minimal like laundry or cleaning — it gives him the excuse to seek you out and utilise his ultimate love languages: gift-giving and physical touch. Sure, he’ll give you a quiet, verbal apology, too, but his efforts shine through in the way he opens himself up to you, pulling you into a warm hug and not letting you go for as long as you’ll let him.

He loves the nicknames you give him: especially the funny ones. You’ve called him Semen Demon before now — completely unprompted. He couldn’t help but give a deep chuckle, saying “What are you like,” before turning back to what he was doing. This worked a competition between the two of you to see who could create the most cursed nickname for the other.

It’s still going on ‘til this day.

He lives for the inside jokes the two of you have, like a dialect only you know. It makes him feel like he’s truly part of something… normal. Sure, he has the 141, by they are bound in the blood of their profession, not by the sanctity of love. Not the kind of love you two have. He loves it even more when everyone else looks confused when you mark a reference onto you two understand; it makes him feel like you’re talking to him and only him. For the first time, he feels like someone sees him.

He loves when you listen to his music suggestions. It makes him feel like his opinion matters — like what he says matters.

He loves the music you listen to, too. Not even because he likes the songs themselves, but because he knows, somewhere between their instruments and vocals, you have found enjoyment, like a coveted treasure. And that's what brings him enjoyment when listening to them.

Simon’s always been a light sleeper. A trick he learned in childhood. So when you prod him awake to spill your thoughts to him, he’s immediately all ears. And he loves everything you say, no matter how banal or nonsensical. Even when you tell him your worries, his heart swells with the fact that you trust him enough with your perils. That you think, even for a second, that maybe he can fix them.

And he would. Before time can catch him, he’ll do whatever it takes to ease your worries, to destroy them.

He loves that he gets to show you off to the 141 — like a child with an arts and crafts project. He’s a secretive man, but he won’t hesitate to make light of the fact that his partner is absolutely stunning, intelligent, hilarious, loyal, understanding—

You see where this is going.

He even loves how jealous they all look when they see you wearing one of his shirts in all your unfiltered glory, wishing them a good night while you bid Simon his own – a special one. A kiss. Just on the forehead. But a kiss all the same.

He’s dazed for the rest of the evening, trying to hurry his friends uut the door so he can come to bed and see you.

Lazy morning cuddles !!!!!

He’s recently gotten into video games because of you, too.

Secretly a big fan of Animal Crossing. He absolutely would have been one of those people to try and buy Raymond from anyone willing to sell him back in 2020 .

Likes any games that are life simulators. Simple ones — free of life’s stresses.

Loves Harvest Moon. And the Sims (Sims 2 is his favourite).

Although, when he found out you can romance other characters, he felt a bit bad because he felt like it would be cheating on you. Until he found out that you were already leading many a double life on those same games. The moment he found out you’d been romancing a collection of pixels and shapes, he picked you up, slung you over his shoulder and dragged you to the bedroom to “Teach you a lesson.”

All in all, domestic life with you is better than anything Simon could have hoped for. So long as you’re with him, he’s living a life he’s only ever dreamt of. And so help the person who tries to wake him.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Masterlist [Continued] Masterpost Modern Warfare AI Masterlist

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#simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley #simon riley x reader #mw2 #mw2 x reader #ghost mw2 #ghost #ghost cod #mw2 ghost #cod #cod modern warfare #cod ghost #cod x reader #ghost x reader #mw2 ghost x reader #ghost x you

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bonefall · 4 months

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BB!Nightcloud

Nightcloud Woobification Army ASSEMBLE.

There's actually very little canon information on Nightcloud outside of how her ex-mate deflects blame onto her, which she is notoriously demonized for. So for Better Bones, I've cooked up a backstory from scratch! I feel this character deserves to exist outside of her romantic relationship, y'know?

Make sure to check the BB!WindClan Family Tree if you recognize any of the repurposed Missing Kits!

Clanmew Name: Oogarhai (The period of time where the sun has set + fat cloud) Official nickname: Nico (NIghtClOud), Oogi (OOGarhaI)

Alignment: WindClan

Relationships: Ex-mate - Crowfeather Child - Breezepelt Family (all deceased) - Hillrunner (Mi), Downwind (aunt, bio-mother), Tawnyfur (sister), Crowfur (grandparent) Mentor - Addersong

Nightcloud is a controversial warrior of WindClan, and also among its largest, strongest cats. She continuously finds herself tangled up in nearly every massive conflict since the day they arrived at the lake, with only some of these events being things she ever had a choice to be involved in.

Though she yearns for a more peaceful life, her violent, stressful childhood following the WindClan Massacre carved deep distrust of outsiders into her bones. It lead her to the lowest point in her life, fighting for Mudclaw during the WindClan Civil War. The following years of distrust, Crowfeather's mistreatment, and the abuse towards her son, Breezepelt, made much of Nightcloud's life lonely and stressful.

In spite of that, she absolutely adores her son and stands by his side no matter what. After the secret that Crowfeather sired kits with a ThunderClan Cleric is revealed and he is banished for a few moons for dramatic, codebreaking behavior at the reveal, a "spell" that he cast over WindClan begins to lift. In his absence, Nightcloud is able to truly begin fixing her reputation.

Though Breezepelt still has a way to fall as a new POV in BB!AVoS, where his treatment as a Dark Forest trainee drives him to join Darktail's cult, Nightcloud's life begins to turn around after her mateship with Crowfeather crumbles. After participating in a secret plan to rescue her boy and several Kin members under the command of her future leader and son-in-law, Harespring, she is solidified as one of the most powerful fighters in the entire Clan and occupies a lofty position as one of its most reliable brawlers.

She's also developing a friendship with Willowclaw about it, which is neat.

Glossary

Upbringing

WindClan Civil War

Mateship & Abuse

Breezepelt and BB!AVoS

Trivia and Misc

Upbringing

The Mothermouth Moorland War came to a cruel and bloody quietus at the claws of Brokenstar's ShadowClan, ending a three-generation long conflict with an event called the WindClan Massacre. Along with the rest of their Clan, a pair of twins was forced into exile; Downwind and Hillrunner.

They looked out for each other, and ferociously protected the tattered Clan while living in the Tangle of Thunderpaths. It was hard, but they had each other and that was enough.

After Bluestar's champion, Fireheart, fetched WindClan to bring them home, Downwind soon gave birth to her first litter. A pair of sisters; one of them practically a little copy of her mother... and the other one who looked hilariously nothing like anyone in their family. The twin girls were named Nightkit, and Tawnykit.

They'd barely settled in before Nightstar and Crookedstar turned on them, attacking to try and drive them out AGAIN. If it wasn't for Bluestar and her reinforcements, ThunderClan's charity, they might have succeeded.

But this time, Downwind refused to run. Hillrunner saw her twin, limp, red, and ragged outside the nursery. The kits were too young to remember her, or to understand the significance of their new Mi's anguished cries that night. They came so far together, only for Hillrunner to lose her other half in the place where things were supposed to get better.

NOTE: On adopting the kits, Hillrunner is then considered their "Mi," a primary parent in Clan culture. Her biological relation as the aunt is superseded.

Nightkit and Tawnykit only knew Hillrunner as their Mi. They only know that Downwind was identical to her-- except for a scar across Hiller's nose.

Hillrunner was notoriously short tempered, paranoid, and easily offended. She shouldn't have been raising kits alone, but what choice did she have?

She was CONVINCED that she'd failed Downwind that day, and that something could have been done to avoid the WindClan Massacre. So she was dedicated to making sure her own kits were better prepared.

They knew the whole territory by heart by their 6th moon, and even major abandoned tunnels below the moor

Most apprentices don't learn how to differentiate individual warriors out of scent marks until a moon or two into training. Night and Tawny knew it before they became 'paws.

Ever trying to ask a question, or tell Hillrunner that they didn't want to do something, was "backtalk;" argue too much and she would hit them with a punishment.

Punishments, "lessons," were usually strenuous physical tasks, like doing laps, moving large objects, or being made to carry a stone in the mouth for hours.

The sort of thing, in hindsight, was probably meant to be a sort of "cover"... the Clan thought the 'Lessons' were harsh but 'understandable'. No one would step in.

If Hillrunner was angry though, she would also just straightup smack them. She was less creative when she was in a mood.

As an adult, Nightcloud will tell you how messed up it used to be... but sometimes she preferred when Hillrunner was moody. If she got hit, the creative "lesson" wouldn't be applied to Tawnykit too.

Because Nightkit got in trouble more often than Tawnykit, there was a sort of sour resentment between them, mixed in with the unbreakable sense of solidarity.

Tawnykit: "You got US in trouble. But no one else in the world knows what we're going through. I love you. I'm going to take this out on you when we're alone. I can't believe you did this to me, I can't believe our Mi did this to us. Can't you try harder?? We did nothing wrong. Why am I paying for YOUR mistakes?"

Hillrunner says she, "Just wants you to be safe. ShadowClan won't hit you with their claws sheathed! This is what real life is like! If you'd just LISTEN to me you'd know this is for your own good!"

The little family was "close," in the way that mice tied together at the tail are close, even as they desperately pull at the knot and gnaw at each other's flesh.

Hillrunner convinced them the world was terrifying, that they couldn't entirely rely on their clanmates, and the most important thing in life is Gan, blood-family.

"The ONLY ones who will turn out for you, who you can rely on, who will be there until the end, is your family. The only way you'll lose us is if you're not strong enough, and I'll make you strong. I promised. You'll see!"

When she finally became Nightpaw, Hillrunner continued to try and have control over her... but the new mentor, Addersong, would not be bullied. And he would not let his apprentice get pushed around either.

He taught Nightpaw that now that she was an apprentice, she was free to make her own choices.

If she needed him around when she confronted Hillrunner, he would be there.

And if she needed to be the one to do that alone, he would support that too.

But on one condition; he would never tolerate someone speaking down to his apprentice in front of him. THAT is a matter of his pride. Capiche?

That was a term she could handle.

She had always known that she didn't want to be like Hillrunner, and that one day she'd be free of all the torment she was put through, but Addersong was the one who showed her the way out. Protected her when others didn't.

It gave her a sense of newfound confidence, and freedom. Like maybe the world WASN'T so terrible after all. And maybe... there's people out here who are kinder and more loving than she was ever allowed to believe.

And then, Hillrunner died in a TigerClan attack

And she began to wonder if it was HER fault when Tawnyfur fell to BloodClan

And suddenly Addersong's lessons felt far away. And maybe that was a good thing.

Hillrunner tried to teach her that family, KIN, was the most important thing in the world, and Nightcloud began to reject that. And now they are all dead.

She didn't appreciate them enough while they were alive. And now they are gone.

So... she pushed Addersong away. He figured she needed space to mourn.

WindClan Civil War

While Addersong was composing Tiger's In A Heap with his buddies and others were baking Tiger-shaped tunnelbuddies to welcome relations with BloodClan, Nightcloud was joining the group that was critical of the decision.

Especially when Snapper and Leo-- sorry. They call themselves Snappaw and Brushpaw. When those two joined the Clan. Ex-BloodClan traders. Not to mention Pigeonflight's... charge, also acquired from BloodClan

Nightcloud felt like she was the only one who remembered that they fought BloodClan. That Clan cats died in that battle.

Until she found others, echoing the same feelings she did, and more.

Mudclaw was the most legitimate member of the group, organizing this group of cats with "concerns."

Those "concerns" started having weight when things began to sour in the Moor. The poisoning, the Mothermouth's collapse and the death of Barkface and his apprentice, Blackfur... eventually a warrior, Runningbrook, was SHOT by a human as if she was a grouse.

Someone called the two apprentices "jinxes," pointing out the bad luck they'd brought to them, and it stuck.

But Tallstar did nothing. Didn't listen to the concerns, and insisted that Snapper and L-- Snappaw and Brushpaw, that they were part of the Clan now.

Eventually they were all forced out of their home, and sent on a journey following Crowfoot and the other Chosen cats to a new land. Tallstar just continued to look weaker and weaker.

All around Nightcloud (and the cats who would eventually become the Rebels), the Journey was uniting the Clans in a way that was never seen before. Apprentices were trying out ancient recipes that had been untouched for generations. Warriors from WindClan were helping to carry kits from ShadowClan.

It was terrifying. It felt WRONG. It filled her with a sense of deep dread and unease. No one was enforcing the boundaries that made the four groups into Clans.

When they arrived at the lake, what would HAPPEN there? Would there even BE a WindClan? Or would they just get lured into forming the new TigerClan?

Through all of this... Mudclaw seemed strong, and sure of what needed to happen next. He was certainly more of a leader than the feeble Tallstar, who had allowed the jinxes to follow along on the Great Journey.

So when Tallstar was allegedly on his deathbed, and mysteriously swapped his deputy to Onewhisker, Nightcloud was one of the very first to call foul play.

It felt like an awful betrayal, to know that Firestar, one of the FEW cats outside of WindClan that Hillrunner spoke fondly of, could be trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

But just LOOK at the other witness-- Brambleclaw. Son of Tigerstar. This was a PLOT, and Onewhisker should be ashamed of himself!

Mudclaw jumped at the opportunity Nightcloud presented.

But... the newly honored Crowfeather came forth too, to calm the tension.

"Brambleclaw is a LOT of things and untrustworthy isn't one of them," Yet, he put up a smokey-black paw when his friend's eyes lit up, "But a change in deputy? To Onewhisker, of all cats?"

Onewhisker: "no offense, right? ...right?"

"So if no one here is lying, then Tallstar's brain fell out on the way here and I'm not going on ANOTHER journey to look for it. Mudclaw is the rightful leader of WindClan."

His endorsement of Mudclaw sent the Clan reeling. His own mother, Ashfoot, came forth to argue against her son, and his aunt Morningflower pointed out that Mudclaw was his mentor.

OF COURSE the two jinxes also argued in favor of Onewhisker. Leo had even joined in the first place because he wanted to be with him.

The compromise that the Clans reached, at ThunderClan's treacherous suggestion, was that they would wait until StarClan could sort the matter out and confirm the rightful leader.

But of COURSE ThunderClan felt like they could wait for StarClan. THEY had two Clerics, Leafstripe and Cinderpelt.

In the meanwhile, the Clan started to split in two. Those who were backing the feeble Onewhisker, and those who were supporting the powerful, charismatic Mudclaw.

Nightcloud refused to allow her Clan to fall into the claws of ThunderClan's ambition. WindClan could not be allowed to be seen as WEAK. Weakness invites invasions. Invasion invites death.

Not everyone that joined Mudclaw's side of the rebellion believed that ThunderClan was lying. Crowfeather believed it was the truth. Mudclaw himself did as well, though he didn't discourage beliefs that benefited him.

Nightcloud absolutely did believe that ThunderClan lied. And that cats outside of the Clan can't be trusted.

...and then.

Mudclaw started working with non-WindClan cats, namely Hawkfrost. The rebels were joined by reinforcements, given quiet support and aid, handed the knowledge that they would have extra backup if things got violent.

At first, Nightcloud was one of the most vehemently opposed to them.

At first.

But... Hawkfrost has some good points about all of the Clans needing to be strong and independent.

And he's right, that; "ThunderClan's plotting won't stop with one Clan. Tigerstar came from ThunderClan, after all."

And, if things go wrong... they will need the extra claws. They couldn't fight against the remainers alone.

"Hold on, who says we'll be fighting anything?"

Wide, innocent blue eyes, "You can't believe that ThunderClan will just let the word of StarClan shine through, can you?"

He's... reasonable. He's right.

So, in the BLINK of an eye, she and Crowfeather were surrounded by Thistle Law supporters. OPEN ones.

And Mudclaw himself didn't seem to mind all that much.

For Nightcloud, it was too late to have doubts, especially when Hawkfrost's lie made such perfect sense. When the Moonpool was discovered by that THUNDERCLAN Cleric, Leafstripe, Honored by the new name Leafpool, that was the last push she needed to ride into battle with Mudclaw.

ThunderClan had to be stopped at ALL COSTS before they installed a fake, sniveling little mouse to do all of their bidding. If Onewhisker had to die to prevent it?

Then... so be it.

They created a plan. Onewhisker was organizing WindClan to carry out a Muirburn, a carefully controlled fire to return the territory to heathland.

They would sabotage it, and throw him into the same fire meant to cleanse their new home. It would be symbolic, practically religious in its righteousness.

But CROWFEATHER betrayed them. Bolted to his friends in ThunderClan, that daughter-of-Firestar and the Tigerkin liar.

During the battle, Nightcloud leapt on Leo and went for a ferocious bite to the back of the neck. She was ripped off by another warrior just in time, taking a chunk of his scruff with her.

It gave him a permanent, gnarly scar. A reminder to Nightcloud of how close she came to killing him, and how much she hated such a kindhearted tom.

The tide of battle turned as the ThunderClan reinforcements came behind Crowfeather. In that instant, it was as if StarClan had torn open the sky, and the heavens were bleeding rain upon the burning moor.

Nightcloud fled along with the other rebels, and bore witness to StarClan's smiting of the false idol.

With a clap of lightning, a tree from the Gathering Island toppled down, crushing Mudclaw beneath it.

She stopped running, staring in breathless awe. The rain washed away the mud and the ash that clung to her pelt, and for the first time in moons, she felt like her mind was clear.

It was like, for a brief moment, the song of fear and anger behind her eyes forgot the lyrics, leaving her with cold reality.

"What have I DONE?"

That sabotaged Muirburn was one of the most short-sighted, cruel, evil things she can imagine any cat taking part in... but at first, her regret was just in the amount of destruction it had caused, not in the ideology she'd fought to defend.

The heinous act had caused the peat below the moor to catch on fire, and WindClan was playing Whack-A-Mole with the various little blazes that kept popping up in the area; and THAT was what initially made her regret her role in the Civil War.

But... she had to work next to Snapstorm and Brushblaze, just like any other Clanmates. Pigeonflight's daughter had also come into her own, Cranberrysplash. And ThunderClan continued to send aid to help with the reckless disaster she'd been part of.

She still grappled with a strong, immediate distrust of strangers... but it was tempered by the sobering realization she had while watching Mudclaw die.

And the shame, knowing that she'd been taking out her grief of losing Tawnyfur and Hillrunner on all these innocent cats.

Onewhisker's lenience... was mercy. All along.

She tried to punish herself for ever criticizing her new leader for "weakness." WindClan needed all the paws it could get to fight the fires and continue to feed the Clan, and Onestar was the cat who understood that.

He showed unfathomable kindness and wisdom by giving her and the other rebels no punishment.

She vowed to atone for it. She would not waste her second chance.

Nightcloud had been so busy trying to make up for what she'd done, fighting fires, building dens, and carefully rotating hunts to manage the prey populations that she barely registered that she didn't see much of Crowfeather after the night of the Muirburn.

While WindClan was gossiping, she was largely left out of the loop for being distrusted at the time.

When he came back, they started spending a lot of time together.

Mateship & Abuse

She liked Crowfeather. They'd been in each other's orbit since the Civil War, and she admired his judgement at nearly every turn. Mudclaw seemed like a good choice for a lot of people, but Crowfeather had seen when his true colors started to show. He made a truly heroic choice at the end. So when he expressed interest in her, it felt like she was going to be his next good call.

Nightcloud had so, so much to prove.

In spite of his absence, Crowfeather was a hero to the Clan. The warrior blessed by StarClan to bring them to their new home, a land of a thousand more stars, he who betrayed the traitors.

And in spite of that. He had a loneliness. He requested a name to honor the cat of another Clan, a lover he had lost on his mission

He is loud, passionate, and yet there seemed to be a niche in his heart he wanted to fill.

So... she wanted to be his missing piece, in service of the great love that binds a Clan together. To help him.

To prove she could mean something to someone, and be trusted in turn by a Clan that, rightfully, looked at her with suspicion.

but she didn't LOVE him so much as she RESPECTED him.

and he never saw her as much more than an in-Clan replacement for Leafpool, especially while he was secretly reeling from her dumping him and cancelling their elopement plans.

It didn't really strike her that they were mutually using each other; Crowfeather to affirm his loyalty to the Clan, and Nightcloud to prove she could love and be loved.

And neither of them were even accomplishing that. But, there's a difference between them.

While Nightcloud was trying, GOD she was trying... Crowfeather quickly grew frustrated that she was a person, and not just the perfect image of the "true love" that Feathertail and Leafpool would have given to him

So he started FINDING things to criticize about her. Reasons that he could use to justify why it's not HIS fault he's not happy, but hers.

She's clingy. She's too cold. She's less attractive when she's carrying their child. She's too demanding when she tells him to help out with the kit.

NOTHING she did was right, and meanwhile, even when Breezekit was young, Crowfeather was an awful Ba.

Depending on his mood, he was either too rough or too distant, a dichotomy he used to describe as Nightcloud being unable to make up her mind. Does she want him to help, or does she want space??

Problem is, you can't be fair with unfair people. When Crowfeather would say ANY of this, she would try to take his words in good faith

And Breezekit's formative moons were spent watching his mother twist herself in knots, trying to avoid whatever his father was complaining about that week.

But it NEVER satisfied him. It never COULD.

and worst of all...

Whenever she DID fight back, dragged down into explosive arguments after biting her tongue again and again, Crowfeather would ALWAYS bring up Feathertail. She's dead, and so Nightcloud could never defeat this ideal, NONEXISTENT image of this nearly perfect hypothetical lover that he could have had.

Crow: "And YOU don't even care. You CUT me, Nightcloud! I am being flayed and left to DIE from infection, and you don't even care."

Night: "Of course i care, I'm here aren't i?? Feathertail loved you, but I do too! And I'M in YOUR Clan, in case you haven't NOTICED."

Crow: "Oh you love me do you? I don't think you do. There's a reason I loved Feathertail enough to be so tempted away from my Clan, but YOU'RE such an awful person that YOU happily did ARSON."

Night: "I... I wasn't-"

Crow: "Wasn't trying to betray your Clan? Wasn't trying to make me feel like some kind of animal?? What WERE you trying to do, then?"

Night: "I've ALWAYS tried to make up for what I did, I was trying to-"

Crow: "To WHAT? To hurt me? Like you always do? All I wanted was you to see that I'm-"

Night: "Can you cut it out?! I wanted-"

Crow: "STOP Interrupting me, this is exactly what I mean! Feathertail NEVER made me feel this way, she would let me finish and listen to everything I have to say before trying to jump in. WHAT have I done wrong exactly? What IS it this time?? Hm???"

Night: "I-- Crowfeather I'm trying! I didn't mean to make you feel that way, and I'm not trying to fight. I just don't know what you want from me, I'm-"

Crow: "I say it over and over and over!! Are you stupid? I should have been with a rabbit, at LEAST it would have given me faster children!"

Night: "Can you stop being a CHILD for a minute and TELL me what you want me to do? In simple terms? Or is that just too much?"

Crow: "Fine. But im not going to repeat myself again. I don't deserve this, you're lucky I'm gracious."

When Breezekit became Breezepaw, Nightcloud had lost patience with this treatment. She still tried to be gentle with Crowfeather, but he was starting to force her into making a choice; Was she going to protect her son? Or was she going to keep endlessly trying to appease her husband?

In her head... SHE might "deserve" it. She knows she's "difficult." And that a lot of the things Crowfeather says about her are "true"

And if she's lonely, she "brought it on herself" by doing awful things. That's why she tries so hard to atone for them.

But Breezepaw is her BABY, and Crowfeather makes him feel like a little brat. Yells at him, finds reasons to pick on him, gives him the cold shoulder when he's done wrong...

At first, it looked like overprotectiveness, because she was often shoving herself between Breezepaw and his father, never backing up Crowfeather when he was punishing their son, and "downplaying" her son's rude behavior.

In reality, those were the actions of someone who was trying to prevent arguments from turning into abuse.

Those were things HILLRUNNER used to do with her, though at the time, she didn't realize that Crowfeather was in the same positions that her Mi had once been in

In fact, she continued to grapple with the deep feelings of shame, that she might be like Hillrunner when she was trying so hard to be different.

But the truth remained, that she recognized the same patterns that she was forced to be hyperaware of, and was trying to stop them before they escalated.

It took MANY years, well into Breezepelt's adulthood, AND well into her divorce, before she realized that.

Protecting her son was as reflexive as a hunting crouch. It was just something she did.

Unfortunately, Crowfeather was the one with power in this situation. And his immense sway was palpable. If he vented to a Clanmate about how hard it was to have a mate who undermines him and a son who defied him, they'd believe him.

So, Breezepelt started getting written off as "a problem kid" by the adults.

What changed... was Hollyleaf's reveal at that fateful Gathering.

She had been desperately trying to "atone" for what she'd done for years, guilty and shameful that she'd been complicit in an attack that had gotten cats killed and set the peat on fire. She kept proving herself, over and over, as Crowfeather held his love for an outsider up over her head.

And then she finds out he was HIDING this from her, ALL THIS TIME. There'd been ANOTHER MOLLY from another Clan she was being compared to.

Unlike canon; Crowfeather knew. He didn't need to be told. Hollyleaf looks just like his father Deadfoot. Lionblaze has his tail tip. Jayfeather is a miserable git.

They were born 2 months after Leafpool left him, choosing her Clan and her CLERIC FRIEND over HIM. He isn't stupid.

Emotions ran high and, right in front of his wife, at a PUBLIC GATHERING, he made another love confession to Leafpool. That she never should have abided her vow because she belonged with HIM.

Leafpool was fucking mortified. On top of her life crumbling as the secret was revealed, she was undergoing the cat equivalent of being cornered in a public space as an unwanted ex begs you to acknowledge your LOVE.

Leafpool is completely and utterly out of love for Crowfeather, not a SINGLE flicker of it left in her heart, but NIGHTCLOUD felt like Leafpool's tears were because she missed Crowfeather soooo much.

And after YEARS of being compared to FEATHERTAIL, only to find out she was being contrasted to LEAFPOOL all along??

And that Crowfeather really WOULD just break the code for any OTHER lover? Even "a treacherous, vow-breaking, abominable little [cat meow censor] FROM ANOTHER CLAN?"

AND A CLERIC?????

YEARS of trying to unlearn bigotry, keeping lessons about unity kept close in spite of the growing tensions between the Clans, having an open mind towards the people she'd unfairly judged, trying to atone for following Mudclaw... What's the point??

She was humiliated, embarrassed, scandalized. For moons she'd tried to appease him, and then he goes after HER SON, and then DOES THIS.

But something was different.

Onestar had enough of Crowfeather and his shenanigans.

By making a fool of himself at that Gathering, he made a fool of the WHOLE Clan.

Not only did he sire kittens with a Cleric, in a half-clan relationship, vanishing for a week to go on a holiday as the Clan was fighting peat fires, but he didn't even have the decency to NOT TELL AN ENTIRE GATHERING THAT HE DOESN'T REGRET IT.

Onestar snapped.

CrowFEATHER is an Honor Title. CrowFOOT was in respect to his deceased father, Deadfoot.

These names are both too honorable.

And even a DISHONOR Title is too good for this sort of behavior.

If he cannot behave like a Clan cat, then he WILL NOT BE ONE.

For one moon, Crow, no suffix, just Crow, would live on his own in total exile.

It was such a scandal that Nightcloud was horrified. The whole Clan had turned to look to her, see what she would do, desperate to know how she was reacting and what she would do next.

But... their tune changed.

They weren't looking at her like Crowfeather's ungrateful mate. They were curious about her judgement.

CrowFEATHER had convinced so many people that Nightcloud had been the problem, with his immense sway and influence.

But what he did was shocking and abhorrent to WindClan. Now he is just Crow, a rogue on the border.

And Nightcloud is as reliable as she always has been.

What really causes Crowfeather to begin to change here in BB, is that when he comes back... nearly everyone has been better off without him.

After a moon, Crow came back thinking that Nightcloud would snarl at him, or they'd fight, or she'd weep, or... something negative.

But instead, she greeted him. Cordially. Casually. With the tiniest little lilt to her tone that you only hear when you're forced to welcome someone you dislike.

For the rest of BB!OotS, they were together but... distantly. If it wasn't totally over, it was visibly dying.

They had a few more fights, public spats, but now that the Clan didn't seem to have Crowfeather's back...

He started to lose his nerve, and she stopped feeling terrible for things that happened long ago.

Now WindClan was following Nightcloud's lead on Crowfeather. When she was gracious, so were they. When she was pushed to snapping, they saw him like the unreasonable one.

But, honestly? That attention made Nightcloud uncomfortable.

She disliked the sway she now seemed to have over her ex-mate's reputation. She hated him and everything he did, especially in the few times that he would STILL try to deflect blame onto her, but... wielding that kind of social sway, after being an outsider for so long, it felt heavy and toxic in her belly.

Between OotS and AVoS, she realized that she's not like him. He reveled in the spotlight and influence he had over the Clan as a result of his power, adored attention and drama and being able to command it. Crowfeather would complain that life was so unfair, but he ENJOYED how the rules were applied so loosely to him, and how well he was treated because of the pain he'd gone through.

She doesn't.

In fact, she even resents the finicky opinions of her Clanmates. That earning their respect, in the end, was something she had absolutely no control over. She'd gone through so much for so long and so very few cats had ever had her back, and to be vindicated now of all times?

It was sour. Not comforting.

If she made any mistakes during OoTS, it was enabling Breezepelt's growing xenophobia in the midst of her own pain and frustration. She didn't KNOW that he was being recruited by the Dark Forest. If she did, she would have done something to try and stop him.

Breezepelt and AVoS

The worst part of it all was that none of this newfound reputation carried over to her opinions about her son. Breezepelt continued to be hated and distrusted because of his role in the Battle of the True Eclipse (BOTTE), where the Dark Forest killed so many warriors. He'd fought until the end of the night.

Of course she was disappointed in him. Of course she knew he'd done something awful. But she had too, so many years ago.

The fact he had also been a victim of Crowfeather's slander was disregarded in the eyes of WindClan, and for his role in the fight, Onestar gave him and his complicit friends Dishonor Titles.

Breezepelt became Dodderheart-- a reference to a parasitic type of bush, native to heathland, which strangle and kill the flowers. Harespring didn't get off without one. Darkseeker had sought his biological father in the Dark Forest, Mudclaw, and then the BOTTE had killed his Mi and biological uncle, Torear.

Nightcloud tried to encourage her son to follow Darkseeker's lead in seeking atonement, but he had decided that this meant; "My own mother had taken HIS side, that damn traitor who threw me under the boar so that he could save his own reputation, distancing himself from THE REST OF US so that he can climb the ranks! WELL!"

When The Kin arrived at the lake, lead by the mysterious Darktail, Nightcloud was powerless as the pied piper called forth cats of many Clans.

He appealed to everyone who felt alienated. Every HalfClan cat still dealing with stigma, every young warrior frustrated by the dogged separation of the Clans... and, especially, to all of the Dark Forest trainees who still lived.

It was a trap, and Breezepelt was drawn to it.

As the situation got worse and worse, Nightcloud could only watch from afar as Onestar responded with furious embargoes, aggression, and fury towards any type of contact with Darktail's cats.

Along with Brushblaze and Harespring, now deputy and having shed his Dishonor Title, she plotted ways to undermine Onestar's strict orders and try to reach her son.

And.... Crowfeather, too.

To her surprise, he wanted to help.

The irony was overwhelming. Yes Breezepelt, or Dodderheart, damn Onestar's pernicious name, YES he had been making his own choices for a long time, but Crowfeather knew full well who had set him on this path.

In spite of how he'd try to deflect the blame for seasons on seasons.

Hedgehogs took flight that day, because his response was, "You think I don't know that? ...that's why I'm here."

Someone else might have wanted to shove that back in his face, drink in every drop of smugness they'd earned, tell Harespring to kick him from the help efforts for causing so much pain in the first place..

...But Nightcloud isn't like that someone else.

Breezepelt was what mattered to her. Anyone who was going to help was another alibi, another mouth to carry herbs, another set of claws to fight by their side.

...is that what working with others really means, at its core?

Maybe it's not love that truly binds us, but a sense of duty. The commitments we make to each other, and the honor to keep them.

She loves her son. And by extension, she loves Heathertail and Harespring who love him.

But her Clanmates... she doesn't love them. Or Crowfeather.

And Crowfeather wasn't here out of love for her. Maybe not even love for Breezepelt as a person. He was here for honor. Repentence. To right a wrong.

Whatever reason he was here; it still meant he was HERE. To help.

In that moment, she thinks back to the words of Hillrunner. That only blood-family would ever turn out for you, and strength was what allowed you to keep them.

Looking over to Brushblaze, thinking to her Clanmates, she finally had the wisdom to see the words for what they were

It was the scared, broken philosophy of a molly who had lost everything a hundred times over, clinging to something that made sense, trying to scare her kits into never leaving her side.

Nightcloud was truly unlike her. Surrounded by allies of all kinds, united in their goal to rescue her son and other Kin captives and victims.

She was entitled to her reasonable distrust, but not held back by it. She never would forgive Crowfeather, but they could work together. For Breezepelt.

Hillrunner wasn't completely wrong about strength. It was an asset.

But so is faith.

After they'd brought Breezepelt home along with many others, bedraggled and shaken by their experiences, Nightcloud was absolutely shocked by how graciously Onestar seemed to be towards them.

She didn't question it at the time, but when Onestar spent his final life stealing a plan Breezepelt admitted was his own, to sacrifice himself drowning Darktail, it suddenly made sense.

After Harestar took power, she had cemented herself as one of his favorite warriors. A powerful, loyal brawler, who was willing to do anything under his command. Breezepelt had accepted at this point that he was never going to have a position of power due to his past; and that was okay.

She spent a lot of time with the grandkits Breezepelt eventually had with his mates, Harestar and Heathertail. For the first time in a long time, she's finally at peace with the family she's acquired.

Trivia and Misc

I'm tempted to swap Crowfeather and Nightcloud as deputy. I feel like Nightcloud makes a very interesting one.

At the same time though, I do like the drama of Crowstar and Squirrelstar as opposing leaders, so I'm still unsure.

For some reason whenever I think of Nightcloud, I think of ABBA songs lmao. Thank You For The Music, or maybe Knowing Me Knowing You.

As you can see, I split up Crowfeather's Trial and shuffled it around. I feel like for most of OotS, Nightcloud and Crowfeather are doing nothing but arguing and the development feels incredibly rushed because it's all in an SE, so I've pushed a major event back.

They also never actually describe their verbal arguments; so I'm using them to make my take on Crowfeather more clear. He's emotionally abusive.

Something that I often feel isn't done enough is abusers who are popular, and also funny. How devastating it feels for someone you love to mock you in public, and then a bunch of people laugh because "you deserve it."

Or just see you as the aggressor by default

Knowing you can't do shit about it because they're just more loved than you. Their word vs yours.

(especially when paired with trauma that makes you forget major details so you can't even recall any examples in the moment, so you just get painted as clingy and whiny)

All that said, there's a ton of abusive cats in BB, most of them never improve or get better, but Crowfeather will.

And from Nightcloud's perspective, that's a good thing. And I want to capture that deeply bittersweet feeling.

She's happy he's not so terrible anymore... but god, it doesn't undo any of the AWFUL things he did and said to her.

Anyway, I really want to fit Nightcloud's buddy Pickle in somehow, but I'm still working it out. Pickle was such a cute character

Hillrunner and Downwind are repurposed Missing Kits! WindClan is ridiculously tiny so I had to stretch it pretty thin.

I don't see a ton of Nightcloud origin stories, so the one I figured made the most sense was picking up on the observation others have made about her "coddling" behavior

In-canon, because Crowfeather is abusive to his kid, it suddenly implies that a major reason why Nightcloud is so protective of Breezepaw in arguments is because she's trying to prevent it from escalating into abuse.

Eventually I'd like to build out some more friends, and expand on her budding friendship with Brushblaze. Not to mention Willowclaw.

Maybe I should repurpose Crowfeather's Trial into an SE about Nightcloud... Nightcloud's Thaw, maybe. Something about a change that's a long time coming, so I can show her new backstory and how she reacts to all the changes in WindClan towards her reputation.

And that's Nightcloud! I think she deserves an AU where she gets to be a more fleshed out supporting character, as a treat <3

#Tw abuse #Tw child abuse #BB!Nightcloud #Better Bones AU #Character Summary #Tw abusive relationship

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carmillascrusade · 2 months

Text

Jealousy, Jealousy | Larissa Weems x f!reader

Summary: Larissa misinterprets an interaction between you and Morticia, only to reject you when you ask her to the Rave’N. She comes to regret it but can you find it within yourself to face her after such a recent heartbreak?

Young!Larissa AU.

Word count: 2,311

A/N: Hurt/no comfort. Something quick I wrote on the bus so please excuse any mistakes as this has not been proofread.

Nevermore’s air buzzed with uncontrollably excitement. The Rave’n was fast approaching, with only a few hours left to prepare. Perhaps you had left it too late. What if somebody else had already asked Larissa? What is she said no to you?

Snapping fingers and waving hands brought you out of your thoughts. Morticia stood in front of you, smiling at the dazed look in your eyes. “You’re going to be alright, you know.” She stated, kindness beaming from her eyes. A stark contrast from her usual blank, if not bored, facade.

“What if she says no?” You huffed. “Or what if somebody else has already asked her? What if I mess it up so terribly that she doesn’t want to speak to me ever again?”

You brought your nails to your mouth, chewing the skin roughly until it bled- an awful habit you had picked up in childhood. Morticia pulled your hands away from your mouth gently and pushed them down so that you couldn’t abuse your skin any longer. Her hands cupped your face, forcing yo to look into her eyes as you fretted.

“Practise your speech on me. That way you can make it perfect, so nothing will go wrong.”

“Are you sure? It’s really embarrassing.” You murmured , cheeks tinted red at the thought of showing Morticia just how much you loved Larissa through the words you were about to speak.

“Of course I am sure.” She beamed, stepping back and gesturing for you to begin.

You gaped at her for a moment, willing yourself to muster just enough courage to perform your Rave’N proposal to her. You exhaled slowly, subtly picking at your cuticle so that Morticia wouldn’t notice. “Okay,” you spoke, ever so quietly. “I’m ready.”

“Yeah?”

A shaky nod of approval was given, your eyes flickering to every possible spot in the room; desperately trying to find something to settle on in hopes it would make this interaction less awkward than it already was. Every single word in the English vocabulary seemed to dissipate into thin air as you tried to call upon them. Your love for Larissa so overwhelming that mere words wouldn’t do it justice.

Morticia stared at you as you squeaked out a “Will you go to the Rave’N with me… please?”

She barked out in laughter, loud and boisterous as she processed your pathetic attempt of asking a girl out. Her obnoxious laughing the only sound in the room as you narrowed your eyes at her, your glare only causing her to laugh even more. Not impressed in the slightest, you stood with your arms crossed, an ‘are you being serious right now?’ expression painting your face.

It felt like you were waiting years before her laughter subdued into quiet giggles, a chocked ‘I’m sorry’ escaping her as she looked over at your disgruntled form. “Is that all you got? Good lord, you may as well have thrown yourself down to her feet and begged her for her attention.

“Yeah, laugh it up Morticia. It’s hilarious, truly. ” You spat, seething silently, lamenting at your inability to express your emotions in speech properly.

Morticia took pity on you and ceased her amusement for the time being. She reached out for you, rubbing her hands up and down your arms in an attempt of comfort. “You know, maybe you should just get her a box of chocolates and some pretty flowers. Every girl loves flowers.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” You smiled slightly, ideas whiting in your head as you thought of the perfect flower combination to gift Larissa.

Larissa stood on the opposite side of the door, just out of view from you and Morticia. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but the conversation you were sharing with Morticia piqued her interest.

She stood, crestfallen, as she overheard you asking Morticia to the dance. Her hand reached up to cover her mouth as tears blurred her vision, the last thing heard from the room being Morticia’s cruel laugh. How could she be so stupid? To think that you, or anybody, would look at her instead of Morticia. Why was she subject to this awful fate of existing only in Morticia’s shadow? It wasn’t fair.

Larissa took herself to her room, mascara ruined by tears, eyes puffy and red. Accepting the fact that she would never be better than Morticia, she took herself to her bed she laid there for a moment, simply staring at the ceiling as her whole world crumbled around her. Your carefully crafted memories tainted by the lick of flames, charring them a sulky black.

She wouldn’t let this get the best of her. No. She would go to the Rave’N regardless of whether you wanted her or not.

She would make you as insignificant to her as she was to you.

Pressing eyes and curled lips followed you as you made your way through the centre. Head hung low and feet which you pressed onward to the flower shop, the townsfolk had always had abysmal views on outcasts and today was no different. Children stopped playing, their faces stricken with fear as you passed, parents glaring in contempt. You knew it would all be worth it however as you thought back on Larissa. No feat would be too difficult to pass as long as you were doing it with her in mind.

You walked up to the desk and patiently waited for the cashier to come back; flowers already paid for and ordered in advance, all that was left to do was pick them up. Your fingers drummed nervously against the countertop, weary of the suspicious glances being thrown your way.

The cashier was nice enough, though, as she handed you your bouquet. You smiled and thanked her softly before making your way to the chocolatier down the street. Larissa had a terrible sweet tooth; whether she liked to admit it or not.

Your trip, albeit short, was something you were glad to get out of the way. The townsfolk would never be welcoming to an outcast like you and, unfortunately, it was just something you had to take with a pinch of salt. Larissa was worth the risk.

By the time you had arrived back at Nevermore the busting day to day life had lulled to a stop. Scurrying along to Larissa’s room, wanting to catch her before she would undoubtedly be asleep, you skilfully avoided the teachers on walk around duty, meandering your way up the wide staircases and through the narrow corridors until you reached her door.

Your breathing was irregular as you stood outside Larissa’s door. Whether that was from the minimal exercise you did to get here or the nerves overtaking your body, you weren’t sure. Larissa would be awake at this time. Wouldn’t she?

You muttered a quick ‘You can do this’ to yourself before taking the plunge and knocking in the door. You jumped slightly as the door was forcibly swung upon. If you weren’t in love with Larissa already, you certainly would be after seeing her in nothing but her silk slip.

Words evaded you as you gaped at her like a fish. How could somebody look so beautiful in nightwear? Her curvy figure was only accentuated by the lilac slip she had on, drawing your eyes to her hips. Heat creeped up your neck as you shamefully ogled her.

“Can I help you?” She drawled in the bored tone she used when speaking to people she didn’t like very much.

Her tone snapped you out of your, very inappropriate, appreciation of her in all her glory. “Oh, yes. You can actually.”

Perfectly manicured nails tapped against the door impatiently, the cherry red a striking contrast to the burnt umber of the doorframe. Had you done something to upset her?

“Well?”

Yes. You definitely had.

“I bought these, for you.” You muttered, avoiding all eye contact as you did so.

“Why?” She questioned with a furrow brow as she observed you from where she stood.

“Well. I was sort of hoping that you’d like to go to the Rave’N… with me?”

You shifted from side to side, anxious under Larissa’s unusually stone cold glare. A soft pitter-patter rang out in the silence, the ceiling not yet fixed and still leaking. Larissa barked out a laugh, startling you in the process.

“Do you think I’m a fool?” She snarled, jabbing you in the chest with her pointer finger.

“No?”

“It’s pathetic really. You coming to my door, begging for my affections.”

“What? Larissa, where is this coming from?” You were beyond confused and hurt at the way she was rejecting you. Why couldn’t she just say no?

“Listen here. I will not subject myself to the torture of being a rebound. So, no. I will not got to the Rave’N with you.”

And with that she slammed the door in your face. You were stunned to say the least. What did she mean rebound? What had you done to warrant such cruelty?

A small, barely audible, defeated sigh sounded out in the corridor. The bouquet drooping miserably as it hung loosely in your hands. Morticia would be asleep by now so you couldn’t even go to her for comfort.

Dejected and heartbroken, you headed back to your dorm. Stumbling into things as you went, vision blurred by the tears you refused to let fall.

Obnoxiously loud music shook the foundations of the academy, letting you know that the Rave’N was in full swing. Your outfit sat forgotten in the wardrobe. There was no point in going if you couldn’t go with the person you wanted.

Morticia had came by before, asking you about how it went, so she knew you would not be present tonight. Instead, you had chosen to snuggle up in bed and read; desperately trying to get Larissa’s brutal rejection as far out of your mind as you could.

Larissa has gone all out with her outfit. She wanted to show you what you were missing, that she was far better than Morticia and you were a fool not to see it. Only she hadn’t seen you yet and she’d been here half an hour already.

Her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she surveyed the room. Had you already left with somebody? Raven black hair caught her eye. Morticia. Surely she would know where you were.

Sidling up beside Morticia, Larissa smiled at her, saccharine sweet as she asked about your whereabouts. Morticia gave her a sarcastically friendly grin in return before answering her.

“What’s it got to do with you?”

Larissa stuttered a little. Slightly taken aback at Morticia’s subtle aggressiveness towards her. “Well, I- I would just like to know.”

“You don’t get to know where she is.” Morticia sneered back.

“And why is that?” Larissa was beginning to get defensive. She could ask about you if she wanted to. What has it got to do with everybody else?

“What did you say to her?”

“What?”

“Look,” Morticia sighed. “You have every right to reject people but she wouldn’t even let me in her room. So, I’ll ask again, what did you say that has her refusing to come here?”

“She’s not here… because of me?” Larissa questioned quietly.

“Why else wouldn’t she be here?” Morticia was getting snappy with her and Larissa knew she had done something wrong.

“I don’t know.”

“Let me spell it out for you. She wanted to come to the Rave’N with you, and only you, but you rejected her so she isn’t here.”

“What?” Larissa’s smile faltered ever so slightly before she managed to school her features.

Her world came to a stop as she mulled Morticia’s words over. Continuously rolling them around her head. Again and again. Over and over.

Her vision swirled as the room spun around her, Morticia reduced to nothing but a blur. She felt sick. Swiftly turning on her heel and fleeing the dance, Larissa set out to find you, intent on fixing her mistakes before it was too late.

It wasn’t too late… was it?

You were in your room, hidden under a mountain of blankets and pillows in a pitiful attempt to drown your sorrows. Reading had failed- your mind being too preoccupied to truly focus on the words of the page. A sharp knock, brief and to the point, made you peak your head above your fortress. Who would be knocking on your door instead of going to the dance? You sighed as you left the comfortable embrace of your duvet and braved the chill night air of your room.

“Morticia,” you shouted. “I’ve already told you I’m not going to-“

“Hello.”

She stood in your doorway; her flushed face a rosy red, her breathing slightly irregular and her normally pristine hair tousled. You went to shut the door, not wanting to deal with the emotions you had failed to bury under your pile of blankets right now. Her foot stopped the door from closing and she forced herself inside your room, carefully as to not damage the goods in her hands.

“Wait! Please, just listen to me.” She begged.

“Why should I?” Were you being petty? Yes. But she deserved it.

“I bought these for you.” She whispered, extending her lithe arms towards you. “I know that they’re your favourite.”

You sighed agitatedly as you tossed up the idea of letting her in or shutting the door in her face. Although it would bring you great satisfaction to leave get stranded on the hallway, you knew the feeling would only be momentary. After a silence that stretched for hours, you finally decided that you couldn’t see her right now and shut the door in her face.

Leaving a stunned and heartbroken Larissa on the other side; much how she had left you earlier the same evening.

#wednesday 2022 #larissa weems #larissa x reader #larissa weems x reader #larissa weems x you #gwendoline christie

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overtail · 1 month

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hi!! can i req a toph x fem!reader with “you came….”, “you called.” (is it also fine if r is a firebender?) thank youu!! :))

OMG THIS IS MY FIRST REQUEST YOU DONT KNOW HOW EXCITED I AM???

I'd love to do that for you! hehe

Sorry if there are typos i was on a road trip 😔

...

"you came.." "you called."

Toph x Fem!Reader

⛰️🔥

Summary: After Toph's childhood best friend is banished from Gaoling along with her family, she finds out that all she needed to do was ask her to come back to her.

Trigger Warning: Implied Abuse, smooching

Reader Info: Female intended, Firebender, Lesbian,

Extra: Toph is aged up to 16! The story of Avatar takes longer in this AU

...

The letters were the only thing Toph had of her. She was the only person outside of her family that bothered to learn how to write braille, so it had more meaning that anyone else realized.

(Y/N) was the type of person you could never let go. She was kind, considerate, and still had the ability to be playful and hilarious. She never minded that Toph was blind, and supported her through all of the things she wanted to accomplish -- like being the blind bandit. She was like a fire, burning the passion in Toph's heart.

Toph met (Y/N) in school, before Toph was homeschooled. They were both seven, and the whole class was practicing their writing. Toph sat there quietly, listening to the snickers of her taunting classmates.

"We're going to practice our letters."

The teacher's voice was old, and Toph could sense that she didn't want to deal with the rowdy kids. A boy giggled beside her, before Toph heard the shuffling of his clothes, raising his hand.

"How is she supposed to write?"

The boy pointed to Toph, and the class laughed. Toph frowned, crossing her arms and scrunching her eyes closed. She felt her face become hot with embarrassment.

"Oh shut up Ying!"

A girl said aggressively, scoffing at the boy's remark.

Toph heard stomping growing louder and louder, until Ying was shoved roughly against the wooden floors of the classroom. Small gasps were heard from around, causing Toph to smile slightly.

"Ms (L/N)!"

The teacher yelled, running over to check up or Ying.

The boy held the back of his head, tears rolling down his chubby cheeks. (Y/N) frowned, crossing her small arms and looking at the roof.

"Do not push people!"

(Y/N) groaned, crouching down so she was eye level with Toph.

She heard (Y/N)'s feet pivoting on the floor, causing her to turn her head in the direction of the noise.

"Don't worry -- i won't let them bully you."

Toph stopped writing her after her parents told her to, 'not write that evil girl'. It was only eight months after their family was sent away from Gaoling, but it felt like an eternity to Toph.

Toph didn't think she was evil.

The day was so unexpected, so sudden. Toph was the only person in the village that knew about (Y/N)"s family and their origin, who they were.

Two generations before (Y/N), her family arrived in Gaoling as refugees from the fire nation. Her grandfather, an ex-general, was sent away for treason. He took his people with him, ending up in Toph's village after a year of travel.

(Y/N) was born a firebender. Her family always encouraged her to hide the power, to act as a non-bender. It was easy, at first, since she had no one to teach her -- until Toph.

Even though Toph wasn't a firebender, she still told (Y/N) fighting tactics to be a bender from her classes. In secret, (Y/N) would practice. She would practice long and hard because she thought she might need it someday.

That was her demise.

"When's your next match?"

(Y/N) asked in the darkness of the cave, a small fire blooming from her palm. Toph thought for a moment, her fighting stand loosening. (Y/N) tossed the flame between her palm, the warm light reflecting on her face.

They were both ten years old. Toph was the youngest fighter in the secret earthbending matches, and (Y/N) attended all of them. She was the Blind Bandit's biggest fan.

"Tomorrow evening, i think."

(Y/N) hummed, leaning back on the rock she was sitting on. She winced as her left arm grazed against the rock, still raw from her injury.

"How does it feel?"

Toph asked, causing (Y/N) to look up.

"What?"

"The burn, how bad does it hurt?"

(Y/N) let out a small, 'oh', before looking down to her arm. It was bandaged up with a white cloth gauze, hiding the evidence of her parents anger.

She shrugged, flipping her arm over to inspect the bandages.

"I mean, it's fine. Doesn't hurt as bad as it did when mom got mad."

Toph nodded solemnly, huffing out an exasperated breath.

"You should really tell someone, y'know."

She was only greeted with a groan, knowing that meant no.

"I can't -- they'll wonder how she burnt me. It's kind of hard to lie when it's the shape of a handprint.."

(Y/N) laughed weakly, leaning back carefully so to not bump the scar. She sighed, closing her eyes and dropping the flame.

Toph dropped the rock she was levitating in front of her, hitting the ground with a 'thump!'. She turned her feet, walking over to where (Y/N) laid.

"You don't need to comfort me."

(Y/N) didn't need to open her eyes to see what Toph was doing. She would lay next to her, hold (Y/N) close. There was always something between them, something unidentifiable, something that normal friends didn't have.

They never really recognized this 'feeling', only letting it happen. Even if they did like eachother, their family would approve.

But they don't.

Right?

"Oh come on, you know you need it."

Toph crawled onto the flat boulder scrambling over to where (Y/N) was. She reached her hand over her torso, wrapping her hand around (Y/N)'s waist.

Even though she said she didn't want it, (Y/N) leaned in. Toph was significantly smaller than her, but she still placed her forehead on her collar.

"See. Toph is always right."

(Y/N) scoffed, roller her eyes under her eyelids. She sighed, thinking about what to say next.

Her face was horribly hot, and she was actually thankful that Toph was blind for once. Despite her 'luck', Toph could still hear her heart beating at a surprisingly fast speed.

"Hey, why's your hear-"

"Wanna hear about a new trick i learned?!"

(Y/N) quickly interrupted Toph, wanting to avoid the question. She removed herself from Toph's grasp, scooting off the boulder. She stood up, dusting off her uniform and clearing her throat.

Toph shifted, sitting fully. She felt a stab in het heart, confused as to why (Y/N) was so sudden to leave.

"Sure..?"

(Y/N) shifted awkwardly, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"Okay so.."

As she described the move to Toph, rolling a ball of fire from the top of her hands across her arms and over her shoulders, making its way to her other hand, a rumbling feeling settled in Toph's stomach

She tried to listen to (Y/N), but every few seconds she swore she heard footsteps echo in the floor.

"Hey (Y/N)-"

"See, you gotta move your hair so you don't catch fire."

Toph was now sure that the sounds were footsteps. Her stomach sank.

"(Y/N) hold on-"

(Y/N) was too focused on trying to not catch fire to listen to Toph's worried plea. Toph stood up, walking quickly over to the firebender.

"Wait, stop for a moment-"

"Ms. Beifong?"

Oh spirits.

Toph turned to the voice, her face going pale. She grew sick at the voice, recognizing as one of her bodyguards.

(Y/N) let the fire fade out, also looking at the bodyguard. He looked at (Y/N), stepping back.

He looked back to Toph, beckoning her over to him.

"Ms. Beifong, step away from her."

Toph shook her head quickly, running a few steps forward to the bodyguard.

"Listen, shes-"

"She's a firebender!"

The bodyguard grasped Toph's wrists, shoving her behind him. She almost fell back out of the entrance of the cave, but caught herself.

She reached out, shooting up. a wall of rock from the floor in front of the bodyguard. He stopped in his tracks, turning around to look at Toph.

(Y/N) cowered, breaking a sweat. She was caught.

...

Toph sat on a log around the campfire, holding five pieces of paper in her thin hands.

She rubbed her thumb over the bumpy text, sighing softly.

A week ago, while the Gaang was stopping off in Ba Sing Se for a quick bite, Toph had an idea. It had been four years since she left her family behind, but this whole time, she never wrote a letter to (Y/N).

She thought it'd be stupid -- surely she wouldn't even remember who Toph was. There was a possibility that she also left her family, or, the worst outcome, she hated Toph for never speaking to her.

Toph had injured her ankle after hopping off Appa earlier that day, and Katara said that she should stay at camp instead of going out to find food with the rest of her friends. She was, of course, very angry by this, but it was four vs. one.

So, she listened to the crackling of the fire, petting a sleeping Momo softly and reading the letters. It was her guilty pleasure.

As she read the last letter she ever received from (Y/N), she heard a stick break in the woods. Both her and Momo looked up, ears perking at the noise.

Toph jumped up, limping over to where Aang left his staff. Momo chirped behind her hopping over to her hurt ankle and holding onto it.

"Momo, shut up."

She hissed, grabbing the wooden staff. Toph turned her head to hear all of her surroundings, trying to find where the noise came from.

Ruffling of leaves to her left.

She turned and limped towards the campfire, going around it and facing a cluster of trees.

"I can hear you! Give up."

She yelled, getting into a fighting stance. She hissed, her hurt ankle not used to the pressure.

The crunching of leaves turned into soft footsteps, growing louder and louder until Toph swung the staff in front of her.

Then it came to a sudden stop.

A hand had caught it in its motion, stopping before Toph could hit the perpetrator. She let out a few curses, taking a step back.

She reached her hand out, lifting a few rocks to the side of the figure. Before she could launch the rocks at them, a cold palm graced their cheek.

She stopped in her tracks, startled by the feeling.

"What the-"

"Toph."

She swatted the hand from her face, surprised at the fact they knew her name.

"Who are you?"

"Toph."

And then she realized.

She opened her eyes wide, a small gasp choking out of her throat. The voice was deeper than she remembered, more mature and aged. Toph tilted her head, trying to process what was really going on.

Toph reached up, touching the tips of her fingers to their cheekbone. She slid it down her cheek, touching her jawline and holding the knob of her chin. Her fingers graced her soft lips, touching the tip of her nose and sliding up to run her fingers though the taller's hair.

She felt a sob in her throat, realizing who it was. Everything felt so familiar all of a sudden, like she was a little kid playing in the sun again.

"(Y/N)."

It was one word, just a simple utter of a name, but it held so much meaning to both of them. Toph hadn't said that name since she was eleven, not even bothering to speak of her to anyone.

She launched forward, bringing (Y/N) in for a tight hug. She was much taller now, towering over Toph's small figure. Her hair was longer, and she had the body of a woman -- not like the ten year old Toph remembered.

"Y-You got my letter?"

Toph felt so weird talking so weakly like this, but life felt so simple with (Y/N) there.

"Yeah, I did."

Toph could sense the smile through her words, only hugging (Y/N) tighter. She hugged back, holding the back of Toph's head with her hand. Her other landed on Toph's waist, bringing the shorter against her.

When sending the letter, she asked (Y/N) to come to Ba Sing Se. Toph never believed that she would actually come, let alone find her way miles out from the kingdom to find her.

"You came.."

(Y/N) pushed Toph back gently, looking down at the girl below. She smiled kindly, leaning down.

"You called."

Before Toph could think, (Y/N)'s lips grazed hers, a soft kiss planted on her lips. She pulled back too quickly, and Toph already missed the contact. She grabbed (Y/N)'s face, bringing her back down and kissing her again.

...

BONUS!!

"Who the hell is that?"

Sokka said, looking to Toph and (Y/N) as they laid cuddled up in her tent. The morning sun peeked behind Sokka and Katara as they looked curiously.

"I have.. no idea."

#avatar the last airbender #fandom #fanfic #fluff #katara #sokka #aang #toph #toph x reader #toph beifong

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bonny-kookoo · 9 months

Text

Jungkook

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 [Part 1]

How come someone like him seems to be the only one who care about someone like you, when you both couldn't be anymore different?

Tags/Warnings: Non-Idol Jungkook, Dog Hybrid!Reader, former criminal!Jungkook, mentions of past neglect/abuse, reader has some pretty bad psychological problems (OCD, Anxiety, Selective mutism, hints at an eating disorder), hypersomnia, old to recovery, hurt and lots of comfort, angst, Jungkook has some problems with aggression and swears a lot, more TBA in future chapters

Length: ~2k words

There is no taglist for this fic.

A/N: You can have early access to this and other selected fics on my Patreon!

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Jungkook has always been a bit of a troublemaker.

The world isn't too kind to soft hearts, and growing up, he quickly got a taste of what reality is like past his, back then, rosy tinted glasses. Having to grow up fast, no one cares much if you're exhausted by the speed of time at any point. You're supposed to earn good money, work well and a lot, be something at a young age other than a simple kid. There's no time for childhood nowadays, and he hates it, feels as if it's all a sick joke.

Kids want to be grown up's, while he as an adult just wants to be a kid again.

But even so, he also knows that the way of making room for his aggression by being violent, vandalizing and committing other petty crimes isn't right either. He's not stupid- he's just at a breaking point. Nothing makes him happy anymore, and it's tiring. Other people are happy, so why can't he be?

The social work at the hybrid care center had been a last resort from the court to get him to change- and he knows that he really got away with a slap on the wrist for the very last time- considering the fact that he broke someone's bones in an act of personal revenge, he's aware that someone else might've not gotten such a gentle verdict.

He's glad, no question- but now he's just more lost than ever.

Does he even want to be a part of a society that's clearly fucked up? After all, just one look at you reminds him why he's even gotten so angry in the first place. You're a part of a new sub-species of humans, something you couldn't control and neither ever asked for. It's a fact that you can't change and yet everyone treats you and other hybrids like lesser beings. People advocate online for hybrids rights just to then indulge in shopping sprees, buying clothes and makeup cheaply produced by or tested on exactly those hybrids they're saying they want to save. Humanity already had problems seeing members of their own species as humans. It's hilarious to him that they created such a thing such as hybrids thinking it could go well.

But humans have always been like this.

"You've got a stalker." Hana, the social worker snickers a little, making Jungkook sigh in annoyance. Not at you, but at her- however, she's not wrong.

He is being stalked.

And while anybody else would be freaking out about it, he's not- he's more or less just confused, because all the workers seem to be just as caught off guard as he himself is. Didn't they say you've been here for four years already? Surely he's not the only one who'd tried to befriend you, right?

Apparently he is, because your behavior seems to be new to everyone, even experienced staff and other permanent hybrids in the facility raising their eyebrows at your actions.

Now, you're not stalking him in a creepy way, let's get that put aside here first and foremost. You never get close to him at all actually. But you seem to expect him to eat his lunch with you at this point, and you're always somewhere in the background wherever he works. It's like long-distance-clinginess in a way, as weird as it sounds. Following his every move, while trying to stay undetected.

It made him dig up a bit more about you.

He kind of wishes he didn't.

Because the images he'd seen made him genuinely nauseous, ruining his appetite for the rest of the day, the sight of your 'cage' in your old home and your physical condition when you were found enough to stay in the back of his head for days. And it makes your tiny little efforts to cling onto him even more heartbreaking, in a way, because he isn't even particularly kind or anything. He's just acting normal.

And maybe that's what you need.

"Hey." he kicks your socked foot with his boot, not looking at you directly because he knows that makes you nervous. Eye contact seems to scare the living shit out of you, and he can't help but feel like he doesn't even want to know why exactly that is. "You've been rotting inside the entire week." he says, and you shrug. He's noticed that too. While you don't talk, it's not like you don't communicate like he's been told. In fact, you're quite the chatterbox if any of the workers would make any effort to interpret even just the basics of body language, but he just assumes they're all too busy with the other hybrids.

He can't even be mad at them. The care center is horribly understaffed.

"No, none of that." he makes a disagreeing sound in his throat. "Go get your shoes or something. You can stalk me outside, get some fucking sunlight and fresh air." he mumbles, and thoroughly expects you to just stay seated with no reaction. But you slowly get up and dig out your shoes from a very corner. They're dusty, he notices. How long has it been since someone took you outside?

Fuck, he can feel himself getting angry again.

It's unfair how you're just left to rot away in this place, even if it's better than living homeless on the streets as a stray. It's not life you're living here. You're just existing, waiting for the end to come. He makes a mental note to maybe buy you new shoes. Cheap ones, so you don't feel bad. But these gray and torn sneakers won't do.

Outside, he helps staff with heavy lifting and other work that requires muscle- something he enjoys. Taking off his sweater due to the heat, he's quick to notice you in the shade of the trees, sitting on a stone away from the other hybrids. "It's been a long time since she's been outside on her own accord." hana says in an almost melancholic way. "I wish we had more time for her. But there's always gonna be the one's that get left behind."

Jungkook doesnt answer. All he wants to do is swear anyways.

Out of the corner of his eyes he can see how you're slowly taking interest in the things around you; cars driving past the yard gates, people walking, bustling city just a few meters away from you. Your ears twist and turn to catch all the sounds, but you don't seem anxious. He wonders what you're thinking. "I'll get your food, don't worry. You can take a break outside with her, it's a somewhat special occasion after all." Hana smiles, before walking inside with the other hybrids, leaving Jungkook and you almost alone apart from some staff who continue to clean the yard through their breaks.

"You like car rides?" Jungkook wonders, sitting down on the blanket someone had laid out for you a little earlier. He wipes his slightly dirty hands on his pants without much care, before looking around. "I fall asleep if I'm not the one driving." he shrugs, earning a poke from you finger to gain his attention. You motion to him, then to a car. He chuckles a little. "Yeah I've got a car. And a license too, don't worry. I do follow the law sometimes." He jokes, and while there's no obvious reaction, he does spot the corners of your lips twitch.

It's a start.

You still only eat your bland hybrid pellets, not having swayed from that at all, though he did notice how you seem interested in certain snacks he brings for himself sometimes. "Hm?" he holds a small piece of cheese towards you, and for the first time, you seem to think about it.

Will he be mad if you eat it? Will staff be mad if they realize you've taken it? What if other hybrids notice?

Jungkook clicks his tongue, putting the little piece he'd broken off on top of your bowl of dry pellets, before continuing to eat himself, giving you some room to breathe by not focusing touch on what you might do.

And suddenly, the next moment his eyes find your bowl, the piece of cheese is gone. But what he also notices is your shoulders shaking a little.

"Fuck, are you crying?" he panics a little, and yes, there's small tears running down your cheeks. He takes the fabric of his own shirt he's wearing to clumsily wipe them off, earning a sound he realizes is a giggle of all things out of you. "Oh fuck you, I thought I did something wrong!" he laughs a bit relieved now, watching the way your lips curl into a smile.

You don't look at him, and that's fine- he's glad he's already made such huge progress with you.

"Come on now, ditch that shit and have some of mine today. Except if you're gonna have a mental breakdown over it or something, they're gonna behead me if they notice you're crying 'cause of me and I really need this job." he jokes, making you shake your head. You don't eat immediately, but rather take what he offers- the situation ending in Jungkook basically feeding you scraps of his lunch. Not too much at once as to not upset your stomach or anything- but it's a start.

It makes him think.

He can't adopt you since he's got a criminal record, so that's off the table. He can't even foster you because he doesn't have any training in hybrid care. But maybe, just maybe, he's got a little big trick up his sleeve- a favor from a friend that owes him big time. He knows it's yet again not quite legal what he's thinking of, but there's many people who own hybrids 'around the corner'- someone else written on paper than who there actually living with. It's not illegal- but also not quite the way it was intended.

However, all he knows is that he needs to get you out of here. So when he goes back home that day, he cleans out his apartment in a way he's not done in years. He needs to change himself to maybe have a chance in court. Prove that he's changed. Prove that with you at his side, he won't ever step out of legal boundaries again.

And suddenly, while he's busy boiling a kettle of water, an idea sparks in his head.

Yes, he thinks to himself. That might just work.

But just as he turns off the stove and grabs his keys for his car to drive over to his friend's apartment to talk to him about his plans, he realizes he's missing something.

Where's his sweater?

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #hybrid imagine #jeon jungkook x reader #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook imagine #bts jeon jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook imagines #hybrid jungkook imagine #jungkook imagines #bts jungkook imagine

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besttropeveershowdown · 2 months

Text

The Worst Trope Ever Showdown: Round 1, Side B

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

An upbeat, quirky young woman whose love gives the brooding male hero a new lease on life.

Propaganda:

No a quirky girl with weird interests will not fix your life sir

Hilariously Abusive Childhood

When Abusive Parents are Played for Laughs.

No propaganda was submitted.

#the worst trope ever showdown #wtes polls #anti tropeaganda #hilariously abusive childhood #manic pixie dream girl #tw abuse

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ivystoryweaver · 7 months

Text

Moon Boys Celebrate Your Birthday HC's

Based on this ask by @soulsforsales: How do you think the moon boys would treat you on your birthday???

Oh my goodness 🎂🎈🎉 Ok.

*angst warning, but mostly fluff

MARC

Birthdays are hard for Marc. So, so hard. They were when he felt most alone, forgotten and unseen.

It’s when he missed Randall so much he felt physically sick.

It’s when his mom refused to acknowledge her living son.

It’s when his dad made a feasible effort but ended up defending his abuser anyway.

So they’re difficult for Marc. But it’s your birthday. It’s you. And you would never.

Marc is going to overcompensate.

He had half-assed Home birthdays with no friends and a homemade cake. Those can be great if done well, but you’re worth more.

He’s going to make a reservation at an impressive restaurant the night before your birthday. It will be unique, intimate, romantic. Candlelight, soft music, delicious food and drinks.

You will have his undivided attention and be his only priority.

The fact that you are in the world is something he cherishes.

Intense eye contact will melt you into a puddle. He’ll keep reaching across the table for your hand.

He’ll pull out your chair and guide you along with his hand on the small of your back. Everyone will know you are his and this is a special day for you.

You barely make it out of the restaurant, just a touch blissfully tipsy, when his lips crash into yours

JAKE

^idk why I keep seeing this Drive guy as Jake lol

Jake will be celebrating, probably on the weekend closest to your birthday, maybe the night after.

There will be singing, in more than one language.

There will probably be dancing even if it’s just a quick couple of Salsa steps around the kitchen.

He cooks for you, making a huge mess. But it's yummy.

He wants you to smile and laugh. He wants to make you feel as amazing as you always make him feel.

He tried to decorate your cake, but it's hilariously bizarre. The two of you try to fix it and get into a frosting war.

It gets on the tip of your nose and cheek. Jake swipes it away and submits his thumb to your lips for cleaning.

You hold his gaze, dragging your tongue across the pad of his thumb before sucking it into your mouth.

Then you get the rest of your birthday present. For the rest of the night.

STEVEN

Steven doesn’t quite remember a lot of birthdays - not childhood ones anyway.

Memories are either absent, confusing, or completely a false shadow of what really happened to them.

He has to sort out his feelings about birthdays.

But again, this isn’t his birthday, it’s yours.

He’s waiting for you when you wake up. “Happy birthday, love.” He wants you to know right away that he’s remembered.

He gazes into your eyes and traces your lips with his fingertips.

"Steven," you whisper as he brushes his lips over yours.

You're late to work because of him.

He's done little things for you: your lunch is prepared, your favorite tea or coffee is in your favorite mug.

Your favorite sweater is clean and warmed in the dryer. He wraps you up in it before you leave.

When you get to work, there are flowers delivered, with a card. He is a classic romantic after all.

When you arrive home, he is positively giddy. He’s planned a scavenger hunt for you. It’s full of mischief and riddles.

You follow the clues, watching Steven's gorgeous brown eyes sparkle with excitement as his soft voice lovingly encourages you from clue to clue.

You finally get to the end and discover your present. Steven's taking you away on a trip.

Of course Marc and Jake will show up too.

The boys end up saying "Happy Birthweek" after a couple years of this. You’re worth a lot of celebrating.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

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#moon knight #steven grant #marc spector #jake lockley #marc spector x reader #steven grant x reader #jake lockley x reader #moon knight headcanons #moon boys #tw food #tw drinking

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roachleakage · 1 year

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It's been my observation that when a lot of people think of cults, they imagine something temporary. A founder starts something, people join up, a few decades to by, the founder dies, the group falls apart.

In practice, this is often not the case. Cults can survive the death of their leaders, and depending on the circumstances, can even be made (at least temporarily) stronger for it. They often last long enough to form splinter groups, sometimes with new members of the community stepping up to take the leader's place, sometimes not. And then those groups can last another few decades before splintering off again, restarting the cycle and keeping the horrors alive for another generation. Sometimes they don't need to splinter, because they've picked up enough momentum to be self-perpetuating, a successive series of replacement leaders keeping the momentum going.

Cults can go back centuries. And this is something that is so, so important for people to understand, because often when they hear that you were the victim of cult abuse they assume that you were inducted into it - and of course, that does happen and is no less horrible, but it's a markedly different experience from being raised in it from the time of your birth.

Being taught nothing, nothing, outside of what the cult teaches and the bare minimum needed to survive.

Internalizing, as a child with no independent access to information, the message that you need the cult and would be irrevocably doomed without it.

The horrifying trauma, when you finally discover (if you finally discover) that it's all bunk, of realizing that your entire life up to this point has been built on a lie. The years you spent being miserable, being terrified, doing your best not to fall from the cult's graces, were all for nothing. Wondering what you could have been and done during that time, and knowing that it was stolen from you and you will never get it back.

Literally not knowing anyone outside the cult, and having to find your own way despite the fact that your parents deliberately never taught you how. Having to completely rebuild yourself as a person, because who you were before this point was a creature built to serve, not to think or make choices or grow in new directions. Having to accept that a world you were taught to fear and despise is the only place where you really belong, and adjust to living in it and not shrinking fearfully from every stranger who crosses your path.

And when you try to talk about what happened to you, no one understands. They can only imagine a childhood like their own, born and raised with the freedom to choose, and they act as if you somehow chose, as if the people who indoctrinated you presented your infantile self with two equally well-argued possibilities and then simply urged you to pick one in specific. They see the cult from the outside, and of course it's ridiculous, of course it's horrible, why would anyone willingly submit to that?

No one does. Cults don't run on willing converts, they run on deception and coercion. Imagine that all that started before you were old enough to walk, and was the only life you knew for the first twenty years. I didn't choose to be a cult member, my mom quite literally picked it out for me.

I did get out, eventually. It wasn't a matter of being smart enough; it was a combination of luck, unmonitored Internet access, and some of the very traits my parents drilled into me backfiring on them hilariously. Not everyone is as lucky as I was. Not everyone has the means and the incentive to find their way out. My parents were born into the cult and they will die in it.

That might be what hurts the worst - losing the people who were my whole world as a child, because they're too afraid to consider that they might have been wrong.

#cults #cult abuse #ex cult #cult survivor #trauma #religious abuse

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kneelingshadowsalome · 1 year

Text

Man-Sized 5/9 Rebound Effect

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!OC

Tags: Explicit content, +18 audiences only. Smut, romantic angst, fluff. An unapologetic LOVE STORY. Sexual tension, mutual pining, banter, flirting, developing relationship, strangers to lovers. Simon Riley has a dark past (partly inspired by Modern Warfare 2: Ghost comics).

CW/TW: References to PTSD, depression, past torture and abuse in later chapters.

Summary: A uni student who pole dances at a strip club to pay her rent encounters a mysterious giant of a soldier seemingly incapable of falling in love.

He left after that.

And what was more, he left without saying goodbye, he just sneaked out in the morning and left her with a bunch of money on the table. At some level, it made her feel like a prostitute, even when she knew that was not what Simon had meant.

She didn’t harass him for leaving like a thief in the night because the man had obviously freaked out. It would do no good at this point to try and have a therapy session about it. But what she did comment on was the money roll he had left her with.

She wasn't bitter, only bereft. She had thought Simon would stay at least a few nights if he was on leave. Truth be told, she had thought he'd stay for a week like he used to when he came to watch her at the club. But he was running away from guilt, not her; protecting her by pulling back the potential threat that was him. As soon as she realized he only did what a soldier would do, all confusion left her. It was admirable, but she feared it also meant that the silk gloves were back on.

You forgot something on the table.

A gift. Don't take it the wrong way.

If you say so.

Thank you.

Anytime.

The gratitude came mainly from remembering her manners. But it got under her skin, so much so that she felt like there was more to this than just Simon wanting to help her out or play the provider.

In a furious decision of not submitting to the role of someone who just waited for their man to come home from work or war, she tried to concentrate on her studies. But the next time she visited the library, she walked straight to the psychology shelf and loaned books about PTSD and war-related trauma.

She read about the major symptoms of torture victims, the PTSD treatment for combat veterans, she read how to screen for impulse and control issues. Whatever had happened during Simon's career as a soldier had left more than just scars. Combined with a traumatic childhood, it was a marvel he was doing as well as he was. If she were to continue down this path with him, she would have to take it slow.

Slow and steady would win the race. Creating an atmosphere of safety would win the poker game. Again, she could hear the alarm bells ringing but did nothing about it.

Simon had left but wasn’t wholly unavailable this time. He wasn’t working in the field and had more time for her. He even called, and not just once, but nearly every night. For the first few times, it was only a brief session, just an exchange of how are you’s and how’s it been’s. It was a change and a welcome change at that. The calls soon turned into hour-long marathons.

He shared more details about his life in the base of the unnamed military organization he was working for and revealed that he was the commanding officer of his team. The person she had taken for a shady ladies man and a simple soldier turned out to be a warm-hearted, level-headed leader who was fiercely protective of his subordinates.

The way he and his team found humour, even in the most grim situations, was hilarious, and she spent most of the calls laughing with tears in her eyes. Simon seemed especially vexed with a certain Scottish teammate who was the exact opposite of him: extroverted, silly, and cheerful. So lovably childish that it was clear that Simon was more like a father figure than a superior officer to this man. And it was also clear that he wasn’t actually vexed at all: he loved this particular person, who was codenamed after being good at "cleaning", more than anyone.

"What do they call you? Skeletor?"

"Very funny."

"Why is your alias a secret but Soap’s isn’t?"

He finally told her, and another door into his soul opened. It was labeled with one simple word.

"Ghost."

And of course it would be something memorable and ominous.

"What’s the story behind that one?"

There was a short silence on the other end.

"I was buried alive once but came back."

At her end, the silence was much longer, much more palpable. It sounded like a stupid joke, but she knew better. The men she had previously dated were definitely not in the same league as Simon.

This was fucking crazy. She tried to sound casual as she made a quip about another horrible trauma this man had suffered.

"So you’re the Kill Bill Bride instead of 007."

"I used the jawbone of the dead man I was buried with to get out."

Jesus Christ on a motherfucking surfboard.

"Oh, or a MacGyver."

There was a husky laugh at that, but she was fucking horrified.

That stuff followed her even to her dreams. In them, he was the undertaker, and she had to get out of a coffin by using a skull he gave her. Another test… not assigned by Simon, but by Ghost and those eyes that wanted her dead.

In other dreams, she was there with him in the field, invisible to everyone but him, helping him find a way through bombarded buildings like Ariadne escorting Theseus in a labyrinth. She liked those dreams more because in them, Simon needed her and not the other way around.

He seemed hellbent on his protocol of not updating her on where he was, what he was doing, and when they would be able to see each other again. She kept her apartment always tidy in case he would stop by, she put on makeup, even when she went to grab something from the store. Her eyes roamed the campus in search of a tall man dressed in black, and the smell of cigarette smoke made her stomach pinch with excitement. If Simon was even half as into her as she was into him, he would have serious trouble concentrating on his work.

She was tired of being the one always waiting for him. In that department, slow and steady started to feel like an absolute torment. Appearing calm and collected, playing hard to get had worked for a while, but what would happen if she went all in and made him want and wait? What if there was a hidden jackpot in being a tease?

She sent him photos in various states of nudity, cuteness and temptation: when she was chilling on her bed, or about to walk on the stage, once even when she was at school — always with the enticing words Wish you were here or Thinking of you. It was raunchier than the first time, highly uncharacteristic of her, and so much fun that she didn't even have to fake a smile in those photos. It was a pure attempt to seduce him.

And it worked: after only a few days of sending such pictures, Simon came back. As always, there was no warning, unless the radio silence after the fourth photo could be considered a warning that a storm was coming.

She was at the club, and her gaze had turned inwards when Simon had walked into her life. She didn’t choose a guy from the audience anymore. She only danced for herself and him, wherever he was.

She noticed him only in the middle of her show and started smiling, something she never did while on the pole, at least not here. The second she saw him in that familiar setting with a scotch in front of him and those eyes burning, the whole world shifted. Had he taken a day or two off just to come here and make her pay for her little come-hithering? The rest of the dance was energetic and wild, and that beaming smile gave her a roar of applause she had never experienced before. The whistles followed her even to the bar as she went straight to his table and all but radiated delight.

"I've forgotten how bloody good you are on that thing," he said with a thicker voice than usual.

"Nice to see you too, honey."

He looked at her with a full-blown smirk then and was, all in all, completely different from the guarded stranger she had first met at this very same place.

"I've been promoted to honey?"

"Don't take this new position lightly."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He downed that scotch, and she went to get her things, and when they walked to her apartment, he took her in a gentlemanly arm-in-arm escort. It felt good, the kind of possessive that said he was committed, that they were in a relationship. An established couple.

But as soon as the front door of her home was closed, the gentleman turned into a ravenous mercenary who pinned her against the wall, much in the same way he had done nearly three months ago. The shared kiss was starved and desperate, and she had no trouble whatsoever getting wet for him anymore.

"You're the most infuriating man I have ever met, did you know that?"

They were both panting at that point, and she was feeling high and wild, especially when Simon seemed suddenly more serious than ever.

"I'll take that as another promotion."

"Of course you will," she whispered out of breath as he devoured her neck and pressed her even more fervently against the wall of her hallway. Her heart was racing, and she had never, ever had a feeling that a man could merely lift her skirt and pull her panties aside and slip inside with no effort. Right now, she did, and right now, she would go mad if he wouldn’t do it.

"Ya missed me?"

"Every day."

The whispers were like long-held secrets finally uttered out into the open air. The lights were off, the city was sleeping, her ghost was here, and she wasn’t afraid at all. She was ready for everything, to conquer the whole world with him.

"How about you?"

"I'll show you just how much," he answered and suddenly detached from her, then grabbed her by the shoulder to spin her around and pin her against the wall again. It was a rough treatment that briefly reminded her of The Incident… But she was so drunk on him that even that didn’t spoil this moment that only felt good and right.

"This too much for you?" A slight trepidation in his voice told her that they were both walking on the brink of something new, but his cautiousness only made her feel more sure about letting him do whatever he wanted before they set the world aflame together. The silk gloves and normal dudes could go to hell; she wanted bare, calloused skin and a revenant, she yearned for the shared suffering that was only a kin to passion.

"No."

That steel of muscle kept her in place as the other hand went under her skirt. The garment was loose enough again and made the plundering far too easy. And of course he commented on it.

"I like the skirts you wear."

The arm from her back disappeared, only to descend down her back and grab hold of the lifted clothing. There was a soft rustle and a poignant click, and then her underwear was stretched away from her skin.

"They're convenient."

She didn’t feel the blade as it cut the fabric, but she could feel the sudden snap as the soft material yielded under a sharp edge. The rest of the ruined clothing was torn down from between her legs, and he didn’t even put the knife away, didn’t fold it with another precise flick and tuck it back to wherever it had been hidden.

He drove it to the wall. Next to her face, not close, but close enough for her to draw a panicked gasp. It wasn’t a classic stiletto or a pocket knife; it was sturdy and tactical, something she would never even have guessed was foldable. The silk gloves were nowhere to be seen, and she was overjoyed about it.

"You know what's infuriating?" The next thing she heard was a zipper opening as he got himself out of his jeans, then pressed his whole body against her.

"Watchin' all those fucking blokes drool after you in that joint."

It was that kinky talk again, but something told her there was more than a few months worth of frustration here too, gushing out like a flash flood. The thickness was guided to her opening in an almost blunderous manner, but he wasn't a brute. He only seemed to be in a hurry to get inside her and chuckled when he found her completely ready for him.

"Makes me wanna shoot everyone." And then he did push inside, with one measured but steady thrust, letting out a shaky sigh as he did it. She was watching the blade jutting out from the wall and didn’t give a single fuck what her landlord would say about the dent left on his property. Her ghost slid in and out of her, finally content. Tender, but thoroughly passionate, like he had missed her far more than mere words could express. He didn’t need his hands to keep her steady anymore; his chest did all that, but a hand found its way to her hair and pulled gently, lovingly, as he nuzzled close to whisper in her ear.

"Would ya like that?"

She tightened around him — she didn’t know whether it was his voice or his words that made her so unhinged. But another huff of silent laughter hit her at the response she gave him without uttering a single word.

"Yeah… That's wha' I thought."

His other hand reached for her thigh, slid down under the knee, and lifted, granting him better access to hit even deeper, and she finally moaned. She could almost hear the good girl talk, even when it never came. He didn’t have time for that, for there were more important matters at hand.

The longing of entire months came undone, and the knife on the wall was evidence enough that Simon was very much dedicated. Somehow that ferocious gesture was a vow, a whole pledge from the man who didn’t fuck anyone else after all. And if that didn’t make her wet, then nothing would.

"Dripping all over me here…" He stated the obvious as he continued the pillage she surrendered to — gladly and with an orgasm that came almost without a warning as the mercenary drove deep and grunted his desperation on her skin. She had to bolt her lips tight to not whisper something stupid that would only ruin the moment that was her first experience of a quickie, first experience of a fierce, intense rutting perfectly capable of having a godly amount of affection in it.

She broke against that wall and knew that she was lost: lost in Simon, in Ghost, or whoever he was. From this day forward, he would be forever inside her. Even if and when he pulled out, she would never get him out again.

Simon was a full package, and she had to accept all of it rather than try and fix him. If he would leave her only with his ghost, she would be forever bound in that frozen state of the engraving, the woman who dropped everything for the sake of sulking and only remembered beauty and meaning from a distant past. It was better to take the risk and die one way or another with this man.

"Simon," she sighed, whispered, because she was afraid that the three words that must not be said would come out if she wasn't careful. His hand found hers and entwined their fingers together, a surprisingly gentle lapse in the middle of a rough fuck.

"You're the one who's infuriating," he grunted. It was his way of telling her that he was nearing the point of loving too, and her only answer was another broken sigh as she came down from the overwhelming realization and the stunning, sinful orgasm that felt more like a love confession.

She was being pressed into pieces between that hard wall and an even harder chest, spread open for his taking, but it only felt safe to be trapped there like this. She was crying inwards by the time he came inside her while having all the earmarks of emotional turmoil as well. The controlled, rigid manners were gone, and he didn’t pull out for a good long time, only panted together with her against that wall that she paid rent for, which had a knife on it, a knife he had probably used to end human lives. How could the same man kill someone one day and bring someone back to life the next?

The desperate clutch that had curled both their hands into a fist loosened its hold, and the chest that had heaved her up pulled away just enough for her to catch some air. He pulled out reluctantly, and the seed gushed forth, making a magnificent mess. A gentle hand ran down her back, another released her leg just to slide up her hip like she was the most precious work of art a bloodied man like him had ever looted. She reached a hand behind his neck to tell him that she was his if he wanted her.

"Love," she whispered the most important one of those three words, and he lowered his head to rest on her shoulder. His was a heavy weight to carry, but she didn’t feel like she was Atlas holding the world. This burden was something she shouldered with joy.

---

The next morning was laced with drowsy tenderness and lazy lovemaking, and she couldn’t hold the question in any longer.

"Simon… are we in a situationship or a relationship?"

"You tell me."

She turned in the loose hold of his arms and admired how comfortable he looked under the mundane, flower-patterned linens. Simon still couldn’t be described as someone joyous or carefree, but he did appear calmer than ever. She liked to think that at least some of it was her influence.

"I like you. I like this."

"Yeah... You're okay, I guess," he muttered with a sleepy smile. She laughed and got up with the intention of making some coffee. And tea.

He soon followed in her trail, and the mood in her apartment was heavenly. He sat on her couch with nothing but his boxers and t-shirt on, the sunlight got in, and the coffee machine made cozy sounds and filled the air with the smell she loved. Simon didn’t even go outside for a smoke: it looked like he was in no hurry at all to get anywhere from that little piece of furniture.

She knew that love was a drug. Would Simon find it amusing if she told him he was the only drug she was on? If she confessed that she was an addict who never wanted to go to rehab...

"Why do you wanna be with me of all people?"

She had already asked the question once before, but today, she was feeling unusually confident. Some of his cockiness was contagious, and something had shifted last night, some fragile power, and she felt wild and optimistic again.

"You're a hot school girl."

"Simon…"

"You remind me of… I dunno. Something from back home."

Again, she didn't quite know what to make of him. Did he mean that he liked the girl from next door look? Was she a nice holiday from his exciting, death-defying work, a small slice of wholesome dullness? It wouldn’t bother her if she was. But something in that remark screeched in her head like nails on a blackboard.

"Something from back home? Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

The sunlight didn’t only fill the room with light; it exposed dust and long-forgotten clutter.

"Tell me about your childhood in Manchester."

"No thanks."

Her confidence this morning was more than enough to move whole mountains and seas. She wanted to know, even if it would hurt to know. If this was supposed to last, she needed to know.

"Was your father a beater?"

"Yeah, and a serial cheater."

He didn’t run away; he didn’t escape this conversation in any way. She had braced herself for resistance, but she was met with none, which caused her to mentally tumble all over the place that was Simon’s past.

And suddenly, she didn't like where this was going. Even if she was the one who had dragged them on this path.

"Only with paid women, though," Simon continued without any filter on.

Hold on…

That didn't sound right.

"Could you please tell me what I remind you of from back home.”

He finally stirred, a torturer who realized he was the one being questioned.

"Sarah…"

"I remind you of a hooker and you're trying to save me?"

"That's not… No."

She saw in his eyes that it was a blatant yes. At least for some part. The jealousy, the offering of money… All made perfect sense now. She felt like a project, not a love interest. She was a nut to be cracked, even if he did it gently and with a tenderness that left her writhing with pleasure. The need to set some things straight suddenly chose to override everything else.

"I’m a dancer, not a sex worker. And just for the record, I've had like three men before you. Plus the relative who abused me when I was… almost of age."

She never said "as a child" because that sounded too fucked up. She had been 16, so it wasn't the same as 6. It fucking wasn't.

She immediately got an excellent reminder of why she didn't share this stuff with people; because that pity stare was even worse than the fact that shit like that had happened. It reduced her back to a helpless victim.

"I don't want your money," she declared.

"Got it."

She turned, feeling guilty and idiotic for having ruined the most beautiful morning they could ever have had. The coffee was ready, but she felt like throwing up. She put the kettle on — would he want milk and sugar with his tea? Perhaps another slice of trauma dump served with it?

Whatever happened to slow and steady, to creating that calm atmosphere…

She hadn’t meant to share that. It simply flew out of her mouth. Not because she wanted pity, but because she wanted him to know that in some way, there were things that needed to be saved, ruins that needed to be haunted by different ghosts…

And hadn't he been her project as well?

She wanted more than this, more than tests and strategies and projects. Raw, naked flesh was what she wanted, not a treatment plan. He had disarmed her last night, and apparently, it was time for the final surrender. She waited for the bullet of mercy, but it never came.

She heard him rise and walk behind her, then felt Simon place his hands on her shoulders. He was here amidst her ruins, and her eyes stung, even after all these years.

"Are we gonna have a pity party?" She squeezed the ear of her favourite Don’t make me use my art historian voice mug. She wondered why the hell she had voiced anything at all.

"No."

"I don't want your money."

"You already said that."

The hands wouldn’t draw away, they stayed and felt soothing. At least as comforting as her snug little home and the familiar smell of coffee in the morning. The nausea had left her shaky, but he held her, just with his hands, making it known that he was here and wouldn’t leave her with her shattered self.

"I only want you," she finally said to the coffee machine and the empty mug and waited for a second or two to see if that warmth would leave her.

It didn't. If anything, the sun seemed to shine on whole new parts of her.

"You have me."

She felt bold enough to finally turn, and he immediately closed her into a hug and pressed her against his chest.

He breathed more life into her, day by day. All the goodness in the world returned, the water reached a boiling point in the kettle, and an exceptionally loud magpie made a racket outside.

"Ok," she whispered and let herself soften against his warmth.

Simon wasn’t a phantom or a cold, emotionless soldier. He was a man and very much alive. There was coffee and tea, and even if they strangled each other occasionally with ghosts that weren’t invited, it wasn’t enough to choke the mass of beautiful things that came from having found something as pure as this.

"You have me too," she announced in his shirt.

"I was hoping you would say that."

#ghost x oc #simon riley x oc #ghost smut #simon riley smut #ghost fanfiction #simon riley fanfic #mw2 smut #cod smut #simon ghost riley x female oc #ghost x female oc #simon riley x female oc

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