#i am collecting left arm tattoos that remind me not to kill myself

[bitehat]

planning my second tattoo

#gotta see what my bf thinks #as my voice of reason #the lyrics 'dont die or dry up' on my left inner arm #maybe my wrist #i am collecting left arm tattoos that remind me not to kill myself #because if i were to slit my wrists it would be my left one #my comet tattoo was just the first #it was a reminder that i put a lot of work into my life and i want to see it through!!! #but i could always add more to it

[drabbles-mc]

Pick Up The Pieces

Opie Wintson x F!Reader

Request by Anon: Opie being gutted when he finds out Lyla doesn't want more kids, cheats on her with his best friend who actually turns up preggo. I feel like it could be a angst, smut, fluff combo. Idk thank you!

Warnings: language, angst, cheating, unprotected sex, vaginal fingering, pregnancy, (this really really has it all my friends)

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: While it is usually against my moral code to inflict pain on my lumberjack husband, I got pretty into this. I hope this is what you had in mind! xo

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You heard the knock at the door and you instantly became confused. It was late on a Friday night and your place wasn’t exactly known for being a party spot. Case in point, you were bundled up in a fluffy bathrobe with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of wine while watching He’s Just Not That Into You for the millionth time. You tightened the belt of your robe as you stood up and made your way to the door.

Looking through the peephole, you see Opie standing on the other side of your door. It was too dark to get a good look at his expression, but if he was showing up by himself on a Friday night you had to assume that he wasn’t in the best of shape.

Unlocking the door, you opened it and greeted him with a soft smile, “Hey, Ope.”

He didn’t even have it in him to muster a smile, “Hey. Sorry to just show up like this.”

You shook your head as you gestured for him to come inside, “No need to apologize. My door is always open for you,” you shut and locked it once he came inside, “What’s going on?”

Opie towered over everyone, yourself included, but he looked so small as he stood in the middle of your living room. His head hung low, his shoulders slumped, and you could see the defeated look on his face. You stepped in and hugged him, pressing yourself tight against his chest. His arms looped tight around you and rested the side of his head against yours. You felt his chest rise and fall slowly as he took one deep breath after another, trying to keep it together.

“You can talk to me, you know,” you stayed leaning against him, “Did something happen?”

There were a million different things that it could be. The club had been a mess lately, you knew that things with him and Lyla had been rocky, and then there was the hot mess express that was his family. There were a lot of different things to choose from, you just wondered what had him in such a hurt place.

“Shit with Lyla,” he mumbled against your hair.

You sighed quietly, disappointed but not surprised. You had no problem with Lyla—she seemed like a sweet woman. She was a good friend to the club and she was good with her kid and Opie’s. But you always had the feeling that Opie was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with her. He wanted things to work but he also wanted her to change, which wasn’t fair to either of them.

“What happened?”

“She doesn’t want kids. Never bothered to fuckin’ mention it,” he shook his head, “Lied about being on birth control.”

You couldn’t hide your surprise. Usually, women who hooked up with the guys lied about being on birth control meaning they said they were on it when they weren’t, not the other way around. But it really shouldn’t have surprised Opie, especially given Lyla’s line of work.

“I’m sorry,” you told him.

He shook his head, “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. You told me from the jump that it wasn’t going to work.”

You pulled back from him, “That’s not what I said. I said it was going to take some work.”

His laugh was hollow, “Right.”

You let your arms drop back to your sides, “Take your boots off, stay awhile. I’m only like twenty minutes into my movie if you wanna join me.”

He looked at the screen and instantly knew what you were watching, which he hated admitting, “You never get tired of this one, huh?”

You shook your head, “Nope,” you walked to the kitchen and grabbed a second wine glass, “I don’t have any beer. Wine alright?”

He chuckled and nodded, “I’ll take whatever you got.”

You walked back over to the couch and sat down next to him, handing over the glass as you did. He picked the bottle up off the coffee table and poured himself a generous glass, immediately taking a long drink out of it. You were so used to seeing Opie with either a beer bottle or a shot glass in his hand that it was a bit of an amusing switch-up to see him sipping on Moscato.

“You wanna talk about it?” you’d been friends with Opie long enough to know that sometimes he just needed to brood about things for a bit before having a discussion about them. You still always offered the option, though.

He shook his head, “No.”

“Wanna watch Justin Long get his world turned upside down with me?”

He chuckled, nodding, ���Sure.”

You leaned onto his side as you pulled your feet up underneath you. It had been a while since the two of you had gotten to spend some quality one-on-one time with each other. You wished that it hadn’t been brought on by him being so upset, but nonetheless you were glad that he still considered you someone that he could lean on.

“Thank you,” he said after a few minutes of silence, draping his arm around your shoulders.

You nodded, “Of course. Listen, I have movie night here with myself every Friday night. You’re always invited.”

He chuckled, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

You felt him press you tighter against his side, “I really am sorry, Opie.”

He sighed, “It is what it is. Just gotta…pick up the pieces I guess.”

You turned and looked up at him, and despite the fact that he sounded calm and collected, you could see it in his eyes how hurt he was. He’d always been a family man. In your eyes, he was a family man who got put in the wrong life, but there was nothing to do about that now. He was being forced to juggle it and figure it all out. Learning was tough.

“You’ll figure it out,” you nodded as you reassuringly rested your hand on his chest, “You always do.”

Behind the tears and underneath the sadness, you could see something else in his eyes. You ignored it, not wanting to make a bad situation worse. You pulled away, clearing your throat as you poured yourself another glass of wine. You offered the bottle to him, and he gladly accepted it and refilled his glass.

You found yourself curled comfortably against his side again, pretending not to notice that his hand had slid down to rest dangerously low on your hip. You could feel the slight pressure of his fingertips through the fluff of your robe. You fought to stay focused on the movie but it was difficult when you could feel him staring down at you.

“Something you wanna talk about?” you finally asked.

Despite the look in his eyes, he shook his head, “No.”

“You sure?”

You saw his eyes dart down and look at your lips, and instantly the heat began to rise in your face. You knew that he was just lost and hurting, and that you were just full of liquid confidence, but part of you was telling you that it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If there was anyone you could maintain a friendship with after a hookup, it was Opie, right?

“You’re beautiful.”

You chuckled, trying to pretend that you were less flustered than you really were, “And you’re full of wine.”

He reached out and cupped your chin when you went to turn away, forcing you to look at him, “I mean it,” his hand slid up so that it was resting on your cheek.

You placed your hand over his, “This isn’t what you need right now, Ope,” it killed you to say it but you knew that it was true.

“Please,” it was the most broken you’d heard his voice sound in a while.

That, and the look in his eyes, wiped away what little self-control you had left. You gave him a slight nod and he instantly leaned in, pressing his lips to yours. You’d imagined kissing Opie a thousand times, even if you didn’t want to admit it, but it never went quite like this. It was desperate, like he was trying to fill a void, and you let him try. His hands cupped either side of your face and you reveled in the feeling of the roughness of his hands against the soft skin of your cheeks.

His hands dropped, gripping onto your hips and maneuvering you so that you were straddling his lap. You kept your lips pressed to his as you tore the beanie off his head, letting his hair fall down to his shoulders. You raked your fingers through it as you bit down lightly on his bottom lip, causing him to wrap his arms tighter around you.

He pulled his lips off of yours, letting them slide down to your neck. You tilted your head back to give him better access, a soft moan escaping your lips as he began to untie the belt of your robe. He pushed it down off your shoulders and let it drop to the floor. He drank in the sight of you in nothing but your bra and underwear, hands exploring all of the newly exposed skin that he had access to.

You lifted the bottom hem of his shirt, tossing it off to the side. You gawked at his tattoos, the muscles that flexed throughout his chest and shoulders. You’d seen him without a shirt on countless times, but being able to look and being able to touch were two completely different things. You lightly traced your fingers along the tattoos that covered his skin, but your admiration time was cut short as he pulled you into another needy kiss, reminding you what this was all really about.

His tongue ran along your bottom lip as he pulled your panties to the side, tracing one finger along your folds. You shuddered and moaned into his mouth at the contact, wordlessly begging him for more contact. Your nails dug into his shoulders as he slid his finger into you, moaning at how wet you already were.

You bit down hard on his bottom lip as he slid another finger in to join the first. You hungrily moved against his hand, desperate for any and all contact. His other hand rested on the back of your neck, making sure that your lips stayed attached to his. You could feel the heat radiating off of his body as his grip on you tightened slightly.

You pulled away, hands instantly going to the buckle of his belt. As soon as it was undone Opie lifted his hips off the couch just enough to push his jeans and boxers down below his knees, letting them pool by his ankles on the floor. He gripped back onto your hips and pulled you closer, situating you so that you were right over him. You leaned in and pressed your lips to his as he pushed himself inside you, both of you moaning at the sensation.

Not wasting any time, you began to move your body against his. It was messy, desperate, but the two of you didn’t need anything more than that. His nails dug into your back as you mindlessly tugged at his hair. He swallowed your moans as his nails raked down your back, your hands roughly cupping his face as he did.

How years had gone by without you two ending up in this position until now was beyond you. But as your hips moved against his you knew that you’d dug yourself into a very deep hole that you didn’t know if you would be able to get yourself out of. You didn’t want to go back to how things were before this, regardless of how you ended up getting here in the first place.

Your anxieties were drowned out by the sound of Opie moaning your name, fingertips digging hard into your hips. You cursed under your breath as he bit down on your neck, sucking a dark mark into the skin there.

“Fuck, Opie,” you gasped, “I’m gonna cum.”

He let out a low growl as he gripped harder onto you, hands sliding down do your ass and speeding up your movements. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, the sound of his name filling the house as he fucked you through your orgasm. Your legs trembled beneath you as you blindly grabbed onto his shoulders to support you.

His voice was raspy as he tried and failed to get out at least one coherent sentence, “Fuck, I’m gonna, where…”

“Fuck it,” you pressed your lips hard against his for a moment, “I’m on the pill. Doesn’t matter.”

Moments later you felt him pull you as close as possible as he finished inside you, moaning and biting down hard on your shoulder as he did. He rested his forehead against your shoulder, fighting to catch his breath as he wrapped his arms tight around your middle. You leaned your head against his and lightly carded your fingers through his hair. His chest rose and fell against yours and you soaked up the contact, knowing in the back of your mind that you weren’t going to have it for long.

He stayed the night with you, and it was more of the same. You knew he was just trying not to think about the heartbreak, and you were in no position to turn him away. It was going to make it worse in the morning, but you didn’t care. He wrapped you up and held you against his chest, breathing heavy as he tangled his legs up with yours and slowly started drifting off to sleep.

You woke up the next morning to an empty bed, which shouldn’t have been as surprising or as hurtful as it was. With a heavy sigh you pulled on an old t-shirt and made your way out to the kitchen. You saw a note on the counter next to an already-made pot of coffee. You would be able to recognize Opie’s scratchy handwriting from a mile away.

“Sorry for crashing in and leaving. Thank you for everything. Love you. -Opie”

With a sigh you tacked the note up on the fridge. You knew you should’ve just crumpled it and thrown it out, but you couldn’t. Not yet. With a heavy sigh you went to shower off the events of the previous night in an attempt to get your mind right.

You walked into the clubhouse that night, and the weekly party was already well underway. Everyone was drinking and laughing, and it was a welcome distraction. You couldn’t pretend, though, that you weren’t constantly looking for Opie.

“What brings you here, darlin’?” Jax asked with a smile as he found a spot next to you at the bar.

You leaned into his hug with a smile, “I heard parties can be a good distraction.”

He nodded, smirking when he spotted the dark marks on your neck. He tapped them with the tip of his finger, “Looks like you’ve got a handle on that just fine.”

You laughed, face instantly getting hot, “Something like that.”

“That what you need a distraction from?”

You nodded, not caring to elaborate further, “Opie here tonight?”

Jax looked around the clubhouse as he nodded, “Yea. Got here with Lyla a few minutes ago.”

“What?”

Jax returned his gaze to you, not used to hearing such a bite to your tone, “Um. Yea. You alright?”

You nodded despite the fact that you weren’t anywhere near alright. Your heart felt like it had dropped into your stomach, “I’m fine. I just, I need to step out for some air. You see Opie tell him to come find me?”

Jax nodded but didn’t say anything else as you got off your stool and all but ran for the door. You sat down at the picnic table, running your hands down your face as you fought back the tears. You had assumed that he had ended things with Lyla and that’s how he ended up at your place, but of course not. He was never good at being alone, he wouldn’t put himself in that position if he could help it.

A few minutes later you saw someone take a seat next to you out of the corner of your eye. You didn’t need to look in order to know who it was.

“You didn’t fucking break up with her?” you weren’t expecting to sound so choked up.

“Y/N, I just—”

“Just cheated on your girlfriend with me? And didn’t bother to mention that to me?” you shook your head, “And then I fucking showed up here tonight and…” your bottom lip quivered, “Fuck, Opie.”

“I know.”

“Do you?!” you snapped, “Lyla didn’t deserve that! And I sure as hell didn’t either,” you stood up, pacing back and forth in front of the table, “Y’know what, fuck this. I, I can’t be here.”

He stood up to walk after you, “Y/N, don’t. Come on.”

You were already digging your keys out of your purse, “Don’t give me that. I can’t…I can’t look at you or be around you right now. Figure your shit out, Opie.”

That was the last thing you said to him. It’d been a little over a month since then, and you hadn’t spoken to him or been back to the clubhouse since. You were currently hugging the toilet bowl as you threw up what little was left in your stomach from dinner the night before. On top of the actual nausea, you had an uneasy feeling that you knew exactly what was causing it.

Once you rinsed out your mouth and brushed your teeth, you grabbed the pregnancy tests out of the bag from the pharmacy. It was a long shot but they did always say that even the pill wasn’t 100% effective. Just your luck, you would be in the 1% that could still get pregnant on the pill.

You set the test on the sink counter and set the timer on your phone, your entire body shaking in anticipation as you waited. You didn’t know what you wanted the result to be, really. You’d always wanted kids at some point down the road, with the right person. This just felt so sudden, with so many blank spaces.

The timer went off and with a deep breath, you looked at the test. Clear as day, the little screen said pregnant. For a moment you felt like you were going to throw up all over again. But you managed to keep your composure and take another test just to be sure, and you were rewarded with the same answer. You sighed, running your hands over your face as you tried to figure out what you were going to do.

You took out your phone and texted Opie, “Come over ASAP. We gotta talk”

After a month and a half of not speaking, that was probably an alarming text for him to get. It was effective, though, because within the hour you heard the sound of his motorcycle outside. He let himself in, finding you sitting at the kitchen counter with your head in your hands.

“Got your text. What’s going on?”

Before you got into it, you wanted some answers on a few things first, “How’s Lyla?”

He sighed, thinking that you had called him over just to continue berating him, “Wouldn’t know. Haven’t talked to her in weeks,” he paused, “Broke it off the week after that party.”

You nodded, “Right. Good. You tell her what happened with us?”

He shook his head, “No point. Didn’t want to drag you into all that shit if you weren’t even coming around anymore,” he waited for you to meet his eyes, “What’s this about?”

You sighed, waving for him to come closer. He walked into your kitchen, leaning on the opposite side of the counter from you. Your leg bounced nervously as you tried to put the words together, “I, um, fuck,” you took a deep breath and forced yourself to make eye contact with him, “I’m pregnant.”

His eyes went wide, “What?”

You nodded, “I’m pregnant. Missed my period a couple weeks ago. Took two tests today to be sure.”

“Is it…” he didn’t have to finish the sentence for you to know what he was asking.

You nodded, “Yea. Yours.”

“But I thought you were on the pill?”

Your laugh was hollow as tears appeared in your eyes, “I was. Called my doctor about it and everything. It happens. Not common but it happens,” you shook your head, “I’m not saying you need to be involved or that we need to be together or whatever. I just, I couldn’t not tell you.”

There was a long stretch of silence as he processed what you had just told him. He drummed his fingers on the countertop, “Do you want me to be involved? You want,” he gestured back and forth between the two of you, “this? Us?”

“I’ve been in love with you for years, Ope. I never said anything because you’ve always been in love with someone else. Which was, fine. It was what it was. But when you came over here that night? I almost had a fucking heart attack. And then when I found out that you hadn’t even left Lyla I was fucking…gutted. I felt so dirty and…and used.”

“Y/N, it wasn’t—”

You held your hand up to stop him, “Don’t lie. Not to me, alright? You were a mess and I shouldn’t have let it happen. But I did. That was just as much on me as it was on you. I just never thought that you would do that to Lyla. Or to me.”

“I came here that night because I trust you, because I love you,” he said, his eyes glued to the counter, “You’ve always been…safe. And I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have used you for that. That was fucked up. And I’m sorry. But,” he walked around to the other side of the counter, “if you want to do this, I’m here. For you, for the baby. I’m here.”

“I can’t just pretend…”

He nodded, “I know. And I don’t want you to. I know that I’ve got work to do,” he reached and thumbed the tears off your cheeks, “But that’s work I’m more than willing to do if you’ll let me. I love you.”

You let the words sink in for a moment as you shut your eyes and rested your hand on top of his, “I love you too.”

“And I’m sorry.”

You nodded, opening your eyes to look at him, “I know.”

“But I think we could do this. I really do. If that’s what you want.”

You paused, finally giving a slow nod, “I do. But I just…I need some time to get right with all this.”

He pulled you against his chest, pressing a kiss against the top of your head, “I got all the time in the world for you two.”

#soa #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy imagine #soa imagine #opie winston #opie winston x reader #opie winston x you #opie winston angst #opie winston smut #sons of anarchy fanfiction #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

[notasiren21]

26 for Lukanette WIPs please. :)

26. Party Crasher!Luka

I FUCKED UP AND JUST WROTE IT I GUESS???

Party Crasher

-Lukanette oneshot

“You mean to tell me Agreste ditched you? After all that pleading to let him take you to the party for your successful launch line for next season, he’s ditched you?”

“Kagami, don’t kill him.”

“Fine, remind me why I can’t though? This is such an ass move of his if he’s trying to prove he’s the one for you.”

“Because,” Marinette grits out, faking a toothy smile to a work couple that waves from passing, “I want to castrate and kill him myself.”

Kagami laughs roughly in surprise, “Why the castration?”

“So I can fit his small ass into the tightest pair of skinny jeans we have for our tall teenage girls.” The not so stoic girl sips on her wine, pleased with her friend’s rage. “I told him I haven’t been interested since we were 14, but him thinking I’ll forgive him if I even had a silver of interest in dating him? Fuck him.”

“Or,” Kagami drawls, long nails tapping the stem of her glass as she leans to peer over her friend’s shoulder, “You could fuck him instead?”

Mari gasps in offense, “I am NOT trying for a one night stand, no matter what you guys say.”

“No, you little mouse,” she admonishes, fully heartedly agreeing with the sentiment, “I just mean your big and handsome protective snake is here to save the day.”

Marinette’s mind took a second longer to click the pieces together, trying to make sense of Kagami’s nicknames for her friend group, before her heart thudded and she slowly turned.

There, passing by the models who had walked in Marinette’s designs and batted their false lashes at the rockstar, was Luka Couffaine.

Dressed to the nines in a very punk like and sophisticated way that revealed he very much wanted to impress her and did in fact listen to her fashion advice. Black skinny jeans only he could pull off, high top converse and a white button up with a black vest to overlay it. The cheeky and handsome bastard forgoing the tie to leave one too many buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to reveal his tattoos.

Oh, on the life of his cat Sass was she proud of him.

And maybe drooling just a little?

He approached her, a sly smile working its way to his lips as he eyed her up and down, eyes shining bright at her black low cocktail that she paired with navy blue heels.

So maybe she sometimes used Luka as a whole for inspiration.

He raised a hand, finger wrapping around a loose curled tendril out of an elegantly messy low bun, “I thought it was the models you were supposed to make the stars of the show.”

“Had I known you were gonna show up, I would’ve worn one of my bests here.”

His hand froze, “This isn’t your best? You tease,” he broke out in a grin. His hand moved further, thumbing at the collection of piercings in her ear he accompanied her with to get years ago. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”

“Well, I’m suddenly glad I can only acknowledge this as awkward and not feel it.” Kagami noted into her class. Her phone buzzed, electing a sigh from her as she began turning. “Have fun, my mother decided to remind me why this wine was a good idea to have before she came.”

She watched her friend walk away, her other -her best friend and other half, remained taking her in and stroking the soft spot under her ear he once claimed with a mark-

The one time they admitted their crushes and strong attraction towards the other the night before he left for tour years ago.

It was the only time Luka had indulged himself in his wants and desires, the only time he had asked to and still provided her with an out. And now he still remains far off in her memories, even as he stands in front of her with that look on his face years later.

“How did you,” she swallows when his soft gaze flicks back up to her eyes with his full attention. “How did you get in? It’s a ticket only event.”

He shrugged, turning to offer her an arm and walk around. “I may or may not have seen Adrien’s post about his mom and dad going to a gala event and him going to see his cousin there. Seems like that took precedence I guess.”

Marinette huffed low, “Félix has been in town for three weeks. Adrien and I had lunch with him the other day.”

Luka stilled as a busboy stopped in front of them, offering them glasses of champagne. Luka’s nose twitched, then his lip as he turned away with a polite smile. Marinette shook her head in turn as well.

“You know you don’t have to pass just because of me, right?”

“Hey, we do this ‘young 20 some year olds unable to drink alcohol’ in solidarity together.” He cracked a smile at that, “Soda is my alcohol.”

“Alright, you can be an honorary member of the alcohol intolerance club.” Luka laughed when she hummed gleefully. “Dork.”

“Nerd.”

“So, back on topic, Adrien just really had no excuse then?”

“Ha, no, even his dad stopped by an hour ago to congratulate me and get press photos done to promote the line. All his son did for me was send a text with a sad face attached to his cancellation.”

“... I can kick his ass, you know?”

“I know, I’m just saving for a rainy day.” She laughed, stepping closer to his side and wrapping both arms around his. “So, the ticket, you party crasher.”

“Right, yeah, I may or may not have called your assistant earlier today to swipe it. I took a guess that she held onto it for safe keeping so-,”

“She’s new, I’m not surprised she just gave it up that easily.” She let Luka guide her into a dance. One hand with painted black holding hers to his chest, the other gently tugging to hold his shoulder before he held her waist.

“Oh, that, that explains a lot now.”

“What?”

He flinched, a nervous glint flashing across his features. “I may or may not have lied about who exactly I was since she didn’t know my name-,”

“Doesn’t listen to your music, already told her the sin she was committing.”

“And who I was to you, specifically-,”

Marinette tilted her head back in a laugh, Luka’s arm tightening to brace her weight, “You said you were my husband, didn’t you?”

He flushes at a memory of once getting a creep off her back a year ago by claiming that very title to her.

“Erm, no, I said I was your boyfriend and may have sold it by saying some pet name and swooning over you just a little,” he watched her eyes go wide then soft, a smile twitching to show. He stepped closer, almost pulling her flush to him, “But if that’s what you want, I can go out and get some marriage certificate?”

She flushed, lips parting and a rush of air passing them.

“Maybe call Jagged up and fly us to Vegas? I mean, we’re both looking good right now, you more so.” Her face went a shade or two deeper. She jumped in surprise when he let go of her hand to play with a tendril again on the right side, tilting her face to press a kiss to her left cheek. “God, you’re such a pretty little thing.”

She squeaked.

“What, what was the pet name?”

“Hm?” He lazily met her gaze, a dream like haze filter over them as he moved her body to sway with his. “Oh, that.”

“What was it?”

Baby, babygirl, beautiful, gorgeous- he may have said more than one.

He gave a slow and wicked grin, twirling her out and back into his chest in a swift and stunning movement as he nudged his nose to hers.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He teased, smile spreading wider and radiant as she forgot to breathe for a second.

What. A fucking. Tease.

The need for him to make good on his words and looks hit through her hard and reminded her of their one night together that they both never forgotten. And how much she wished that was every night, as long as it ended up with them curled right around each other and love and happiness coaxing them to sleep instead of stress and loneliness.

He watched her steel her gaze, her jaw tightened. He swallowed when her height, now of five feet thanks to heels, straightened and forced him to pull up. A violent shiver rocked through him when both hands held along the back of his neck, one slipping under the collar of his shirt to scratch along the nape.

“Marinette-,” he choked.

“I’m only asking so I can show my reciprocation.” She leaned closer, kicking her shoes off into some corner and standing on his converse that every elder of theirs had eyed in question during the night. He supported her actions fully, of course. Still stepping them around in dance within a fluid motion. “Not gonna tell me, hun?”

He coughed, loudly and looked away from her to catch his breath. Watching adults cheat on spouses everywhere or everyone else minding their own business to stare at models or the shrimp on the tables.

He almost tripped when she wined in protest, her hand gripping his chin lightly and turning it to face her. His eyes were flickering between admiration, lust and love, growing three shades of deeper blue than was possible.

“C’mon, baby, tell me.”

“Baby?” He stammered out in surprise. Teenage Luka was having a fucking field day with this. “Marinette, I was only joking earlier and-,”

“Were you really though?”

“No,” his response was fast and instant, a wince playing at the corner of his eyes and his button nose scrunching in loss of control.

“Hey handsome,” he preened under the nickname passing her lips, even if close to millions called him the same thing, it paid more effect when it was Marinette calling him it. “Tell me why you came tonight.”

His neck was aching from staring down to meet her eyes now that the heels were gone but he let himself down lower to press his forehead to hers. “Because you deserve better than what he gives you.”

The girl stilled, expecting an awkward or a flirtatious remark. “What?”

The rockstar looked away sheepishly, a little ashamed. “I know you’re considering getting with him, but when I heard he was canceling on you I let my jealousy win out and I just wanted to be there for you.” He bit his lip when he felt her tugging his face back in her direction, choosing to resist the pressure. “You have to believe me when I say I came with no ulterior motives other than protecting you from going stag to your own party tonight.”

“You, you came to protect me?”

He shrugged, another small shiver racking through him when her hands moved along and glided across his neck. “And make sure you had a good night. I even asked your mom what you were wearing tonight just so I could make sure my outfit complimented yours to cheer you up.”

She was silent for a minute or so, and he waited, patiently as ever and guiding her to rest her head against his chest as he swayed them.

Luka, doing all the work. Luka, taking matters into his own hands when someone fails her. Luka, going the extra mile to make sure she has a happy memory.

Fuck giving second chances to other people. Luka is the only one to have shown her he’s the most earning of the concept and notion.

She pulls away, feeling the slight reluctance in his arms on her waist before they drop to his side, “Grab my heels.”

He raises a black brow but complies, turning to find them and hooking his fingers in the backs. He eyes them, used to seeing her shoes laying around the Liberty when she comes over or even at her own place, but he always has to remark that, “You have small feet.”

“You’ve also called them cute,” she huffs, tugging on his hand and pulling him near the entrance.

He follows, like they always do for one another. “Because they are- where are we going?” He stops them as they round an empty corridor, away from the hotel’s event room where the party is still very much happening. The heel of his palm grips tight to archway, pressing against it, the small shoes still dangling in his hold.

“Home, your place or mine. Actually, mine’s closer.”

He laughs brightly, “You can’t ditch your own party for another movie night, Mari.”

The petite girl turns to him, a fierce expression in his eyes that makes him swallow harshly. “No, but I can ditch to celebrate in getting what I really want. For finally getting what I want.”

“The Chinese takeout place is closed this time of ni-,”

“You.”

“What?” Luka wheezes, he blinks stupidly at her. Prettily and stupidly. He straightens, freehand tugging at his collar a little like he needs room to breathe. “Come again?”

“I’m going home. I’m taking you with me. And we’re gonna celebrate that I finally got off my ass and got what I wanted.”

He hums, nervously and a bounce starting in his hand, a shake in one hand, his dark brows furrow, “And you want?”

“You.”

“You- you want,” he sucks in a sharp breath, pain flashing across his features as he clears his throat. “You want me?”

Her eyes soften, a smile showing as she steps closer to him and takes his face into her hands, pulling him down to be eye level with her as he braces his weight on the wall next to them with a hand.

“Yes,” he looks awestruck as she giggles. “I want you... can you let me keep you?”

He laughs nervously, “I’ll fucking sell myself to you if that’s what you really want, fuck.”

She’s smiling, leaning up on tiptoes to alleviate the strain in his neck and pressing a kiss to his lips, muffling the undignified noise of surprise that escapes him. She lets him get used to her for a second, kissing him slowly and purposely as starts to eventually overcome the shock and kiss her back in reverence.

He pulls away suddenly, a guilted expression on his face.

“Wait, wait. What about Adrien?”

“What about him?”

Luka fidgets, a quick glimpse of insecurities and jealousy showing to her before he regains a semblance of control after having his walls knocked down. “He’s been trying to go out with you, win you affections.”

He only knows of the situation, but never presses her to talk about it. It’s natural for it to come up in conversation everyday when he asks her about work knowing the stress of being twenty-two in a high end fashion company could be a bit more than overwhelming. He wanted to be a safe place to her since the beginning.

“There’s nothing about him. I’ve shut him down an handful of times and now it’s just a matter of letting him indulge himself in what he thinks are romantic gestures when me saying no doesn’t cut it. There’s nothing going on between him and I, just his belief that my crush from years ago accounts for something today.”

Luka still looks wary and isn’t touching her, most likely his conscious trying to be the better person between him and Adrien by not going out with the girl his friend is pining after.

Even if said girl is Luka’s legitimate best friend and the very same girl he’s been in love with since he was a kid.

Marinette feels like it’s a dirty tactic as she gets closer to him, trying to gauge where it’s jealousy and where it’s insecurity in regards to Adrien.

She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Luka’s head turns minutely at the attention, tilting less than a centimeter to catch her lips before he catches himself. He struggles when her next kiss falls to his lips and is soft and slow, how he always wants to kiss her.

“Remember our first kiss?” She whispers, wounding arms around his waist and pressing close to him.

He matches her volume, an adoring look winning for a split second, “Of course I remember.”

“Remember our first date?”

“At the ice cream parlor, you wore a pink skirt that kept twirling when you did.” She feels his resolve break a little, his own right to be selfish with her slipping out a little.

His arms slip around her, and he presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “Remember our goodbye at the airport?” His arms tightening around her speak more volumes than his strained, “Yes,” does.

She’s just a little closer to convincing him to stop being so sacrificial with his own wants or needs. She just has to push more.

“Remember waking up in one another’s arms that morning?”

He’s silent for a few seconds, thinking of what he can say in response to that. Wondering how honest to be, “... every day, I think of that morning every day.”

She still hears the clipped apprehension in his voice. That tone she knows so well that’s gonna lead into him giving her advice to rethink this whole decision and talk to him when she’s absolutely sure. How she shouldn’t think on impulse and lunge at what she wants unless she knows she does wanna keep with it.

But, he has to know she always thinks back on moments with him and that she longs to have jumped on impulse if it meant being with him.

Every time he’s showed up with takeout at her place. When he smiles so freely at her. When he bandages her cuts and blisters from working all night long.

When he showed up tonight looking like he had been her dare to begin with. How her heart felt when he admitted to lying to her secretary. The way he looked carrying her high heels that were much too small for his hands but he didn’t care because she asked him to.

How he crashed her own party to make sure she’d have fun tonight.

She’s sure she wants this, him.

All those nicknames they could call each other. All the benefits of dating the other and having a date to everything the other needs to attend. Having her best friend be her boyfriend meaning there’s no holding back from anything.

She’ll cringe about it in the morning, but it’s gotta work to break his long instilled fear of being a bad friend or person. Of being unselfish.

“Do you still remember that night?”

She’s sure he’s stopped breaking by the way his entire body seems to shut down, but then it reboots and he’s shaking against her and can’t seem to breathe correctly, his eyes avoiding hers as he swallows again and looking like he’s willing to risk going into an allergic reaction for the sake of one drink.

“That- that’s not something you forget, Marinette.” His hands are twitching on her waist, grip tightening just a little and a vein is jumping in his arm to do something to prove he remembers alright.

One more push, “Do you still remember how I tasted that night?”

He seizes her waist, lunging to kiss her desperately like he did that night and when he left, a growl passing his lips onto hers. He’s cupping the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair, breathing her in and shaking against her as his resolves breaks completely and the selfish side comes out. The one that’s nowhere near as selfish as the average person, but enough to take in the matter of his own needs and wants. He pulls back, letting her watch his eyes darken, the pupils expanding until the blues are next to near mere ridges of color. He’s watching hers do the same before he nudges her nose and kisses her slowly, more loving and affectionate. His control slipping back into place and resulting in the Luka she so loves regaining the handles of his own mind.

He’s careful in the way he tugs her lip with his teeth, how he coaxes her to let him kiss her fully before pull back and panting against her lips.

“Yes, I remember,” his voice is rough and he has to glance away from her and straighten. She watches him take a few meditative breaths before he looks back at her.

“Does that really help?” She gestures to his chest and mouth, “the breathing?”

He laughs hollowly, “No, not really, but it bought me time to create some distance in this,” he glances around, “Not your apartment place.”

She laughs at the suddenly horrified look that crosses his face, the image of them making out and the threat of almost being caught in public instantly dawning on him. He glares playfully at her.

“You did that all on purpose.”

“Had to, you were just about to give me up for the sake of being a good friend to me and Adrien.” She pauses, a wicked idea forming to prove her point, “Unless, you want Adrien to know what that all is like?”

A dark look crosses Luka’s face; unrestrained bouts of suppressed jealousy, possessiveness and territoriality. “No,” he growls out, eyes squeezing shut and having to clear his throat. “I’d rather not let him know any of that personally.”

“Not even how I taste?”

“Marinette,” he warned, the growl resurfacing. She cooed, wrapping him up in a hug and pressing a kiss to his jaw as an apology. He whined, “It’s not funny when you do that.”

“No, but everything you feel is alright to feel. Don’t hold back for the sake of not being selfish. You can be selfish with me, you’re a reasonable guy and know boundaries.” She sighed, nuzzling further into his warm embrace. “I don’t like Adrien the way he wants me to, and lately, it’s hard to even be his friend. He needs to move on from me. Hell, I’m better friends with Félix now than him.”

“Just hope they don’t switch up on you again.”

She huffed in amusement. “God no, I’d kill them.”

“It’s adorable how how your less than five feet body resorts to violence and death threats.”

“Mm, except you, I’m quite fond of you.” She looks up at him, chin pressed to his chest and smiling when he looks at her softly and presses a kiss to her nose. “This, us, is not an impulse. Just a restrained want I’ve had for awhile.”

“Okay, I understand now.”

She grins cheekily at him, “Or need, if that makes you all possessive hot yet secretly adorable rockstar boyfriend mode again.”

“Boyfriend?” He smiled slowly, radiant as always and heart stopping. “If teenage me could hear you, he’d probably shut down from being overwhelmed.”

“Nineteen year old you certainly didn’t that night,” she mumbles, grinning at the loud bark of laughter that surprises the both of them when Luka throws his head back.

“Yeah, thanks for reminding me what age I lost it at, totally rockstar of me, right?” The blush that’s coating his neck and ears is adorable, a shy smile quirking at her briefly.

“I think it’s sweet, cute even.”

“Yeah, because you’re the one I lost it to.” He deadpanned without conviction. “But, I guess I’ll take being sweet and cute.”

“It’s okay though, I mean, I did the cliché of losing my virginity to someone I was in love with.” Luka does in fact shut down in her embrace hearing that. Hands jittering against her and fingers tapping like he’s trying to speak through notes against her skin.

He takes another minute, before pressing a kiss to her hair. “If this is you confessing your love to me -and believe me, it’s killing me to stop you right now, I’d rather you do it in regards to another topic and not the fact that we were one another’s first time.” He avoids the dangerous smirk aimed his way, or the sharp angle of her cocked, black brow above breathtaking blues. “C’mon, let’s go dance some more and celebrate your success before we leave, maybe find your assistant to introduce me as your boyfriend to.”

She pours at him when he tugs on her hand in the direction of the party. “But-,”

He breathed out shakily, a waning patient look in his eyes and a false smirk aimed at her. “Can I sleep over tonight?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “I’m very close to just following you home at this point, trust me. I don’t care how the night ends, just as long as it’s you and me tonight.”

She’s letting him make them dance again, feeling as the nerves leave his body as he gets them to fall in step with the tempo. He doesn’t care that he has to bend a little ways down to rest his cheek on her hair, not when she’s letting him pull her up against his chest when she typically only reaches the bottom of his rib cage.

They work well together, they fit perfectly together because they’re more than used to the instinctive adapting to one another.

Her hands cup his cheeks, kissing him carefully without reservation and the anxiety, “It was only an impulse at times because I love you and have for awhile.”

Luka deepens the kiss just a little, thankful she’s the type of girlfriend to let him indulge in her as he smiles, “I get it, I’ve had my share of impulsive thoughts for as long as I’ve been in love with you since we were young. I love you, Mari.”

“Enough to crash a party for me, apparently,” she whispered, a little moved by the thought that they were finally together. He thumbed her tears away.

“Enough to kill Adrien or Félix if you ask me to,” he replied in a loving tone, soothing her gasps for air when she broke apart in giggles against his chest in reaction.

He didn’t leave after that night. And he went to every party as her date too.

#miraculous ladybug #luka couffaine #luka x marinette #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous lb #love #marinette dupain cheng x luka couffaine #miraculous luka #mlb luka #lukanette #lukanette wip #WIP #WIP list #WIP list spoilers #WIP list sneak peak #WIP list I FUCKED UP #I JUST WROTE THE THING #Lukanette fanfic #lukanette oneshot

[dontcare77ghj]

Inked

Natasha x reader x Wanda

"You know those cause cancer, right?" Mal asked, entering your office. "And you're gonna stink out your office."

"The window's open." You shrugged, exhaling slowly and sending the smoke out the open window. "And you and I both know, cancer isn't something I'm scared of."

"Yeah, yeah, death licks your boots." Mal rolled her eyes, blowing a strand of blue hair out of her eyes. "Anyway, I'm going on break, Blaine's with a customer, and we've got a walk-in."

"I'll handle it." You promised, putting out your cigarette. "You going to pick up Erin?" You asked the younger girl.

"Yeah, I'm gonna drop her off with a neighbor. May offered and wouldn't let me refuse." She told you.

"Well, here. Get Erin something sweet for me." You said, shoving a twenty into her hands.

"Y/N, I can't." Mal started, trying to give you the money back.

"I insist." You cut her off. "I want to be her favorite aunt." You shrugged, forcing her to curl her fingers around the money. "Go, get your kid, and give her a hug for me."

"Will do, boss." She nodded before leaving.

"Hi, welcome to SkinPolish. How can I help you?" You asked, entering the main room to see the back of a man. He was looking over the walls of the store but turned at your entrance.

"Just so you know, I'm not here to get stabbed a thousand times," Clint told you with a grin.

"I think your day job provides you with enough of that." You joked, wrapping your arms around him. Clint chuckled as he returned your hug, pulling you close. "It's been too long, geezer."

"I know, you've got at least four more tattoos since the last time I saw you, you hoodlum." Clint teased you.

"It's been two years, Clint. Some of us had to change our identities." You reminded him, pulling back. "What are you doing here?"

"I need your help." He told you.

"Blaine, watch the shop." You said without taking your eyes off the man before you.

"You got it, Y/N!"

"Follow me." You told Clint. You led Clint out of the front of the store and into your office. "Clint, I left when SHIELD fell. I handed in my clearance and took off." You said, lighting another cigarette. "I'm not doing any more work for them."

"Don't be like that." Clint groaned, sitting on your desk. 

"First off, get the fuck off my desk. Where are the manners Laura shoved down your throat? And secondly, I can't come back. Fucking HYDRA was running SHIELD for years, and none of us knew. All our information was in their hands. Who knows what they took? I have people I care about, Clint. I can't risk anyone's lives." You told him.

"I'm not asking you to do anything for SHIELD. I'm asking you to help the Avengers." Clint explained.

"Even better, a more public job." You scoffed. "Clint, we're friends. We've been through a lot. I get why you're here, but why the fuck would I risk the people I care about for another mission?"

"Argentina." He said simply.

"That is a dick move, and you know it." You groaned, finishing your smoke.  

"I do know it, but I have to use it. We need your help." Clint said, rising from your desk to stand in front of you. "We need your help, kid. I wouldn't be asking if I had another choice." 

"Fine." You relented after a minute. "When do you need me?"

"Tomorrow," Clint told you. "I'll pick you up." He added before going to leave.

"You don't know where I live." You protested.

"Yeah, I do." Clint corrected you. "I'll see you at nine." He said, and with that, he was gone.

"Fuck me." You sighed, rubbing your hand across your face.

"Remind me why I agreed to this again?" You asked, watching as the Avengers Compound grew closer through the window.

"Because you love me," Clint responded cheekily.

"Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart." You rolled your eyes. "You never even told me what I'm needed for."

"Briefing's in half-hour," Clint told you. "Which gives you enough time to get acquainted with everyone." He added as the car slowed to a stop.

"You know how I feel about crowds of people." 

"It's not a crowd. It's the team and Maria. You're fine, kid, I promise." He said.

"Fine, let's get this over with." You sighed, unclicking your belt.

"Avengers!" Clint called as the two of you moved further into the maze of a building. "I have a surprise for you all!" 

"Is it a unicorn?" A male voice asked as you both entered what looked to be a meeting room.

"Even better. Gentlemen, and Wanda,"

"Smooth Barton." A redhead coughed.

"This is Y/N L/N." Clint continued his introduction. "A specialist in all fields, especially disguise, and the only reason we might do our job today."

"Oh, so I'm doing your work for you again, Barton? Nothing's changed, I see." You commented. 

"Hey! That's not true! Name one time that's ever been true!"

"I can list fifty off the top of my head." You said, raising a brow at him.

"I can add sixty-seven to your list." The redhead piped in. "Natasha Romanoff." She introduced herself.

"Pleasure Agent Romanoff." You smiled. "C'mon Barton, formal introductions, please."

"Yeah, Barton. Introduce us." 

"Y/N, this is Tony, Steve, Bruce, Thor, and Wanda." Clint gestured. "Are you all satisfied?"

"Not particularly, since you still haven't told me what you need my help for." You said, crossing your arms.

"You haven't even told her that. Jesus Barton." Wanda snorted.

"I was getting to that. I was waiting for you all to meet." Clint whined. 

"Well, we're met." You said, taking an empty seat beside Natasha. "C'mon, what am I doing here?"

"There's a gala tonight," Natasha said, handing you a file. "A man named Jayden Reeds is going to be in attendance. Reeds has stock in several large companies, but that's just a front. Reeds actually has ties to HYDRA and deals in human trafficking. From what we've gathered, Reeds kidnaps people who will seemingly not be missed. They're then delivered to HYDRA bases around the world and never heard from again."

"Am I here to kill him? Because I can get behind that." You said, shaking your head.

"Wait till you hear the rest," Clint told you.

"There is a possibility Reeds also has his own collection. He's been spotted with several women who have all disappeared shortly after."

"What's the connection between them?" You asked.

"They're all French brunettes."

"So let me guess, my job is to go undercover tonight and see if he takes the bait. And when he does, I bring him in."

"Bingo Boingo," Tony told you.

"Well, I guess I better find a long sleeve dress. Oh, and maybe a wig."

"You know, if I didn't know better, I would have assumed your accent was real myself," Wanda commented later that night.

The mission had gone as smoothly as could be. Reeds had fallen for your act believing you to be a young French brunette on vacation in America's busiest city.

You hadn't even needed to corner him as he'd followed you into a woman's bathroom with two other men. 

You hadn't given any of them a chance to move or say anything before you had them unconscious on the ground.

Now you were heading home, still decked out in your gala gown, with Natasha, Wanda, Clint, and Tony.

"It's not that good. No matter how much I practice, even my Italian's better than my French." You shrugged.

"Not that good?" Tony snorted, glancing at you in the rearview mirror. "Sweetheart, if I weren't engaged and I met you in Paris, I'd take you back to Hotel Plaza Athenee and show you a time."

"Cute, Starky boy, but you're not my type."

"I'm everyone's type."

"Sorry, hon, but I like women." You told him. "This is my stop." You added as Tony pulled over.

"You live here?" Natasha asked, looking around the neighborhood in distaste. You could understand her aversion to the area. Any one of your neighbors would move in an instant if given the choice.

"Yep." You said, unclicking your belt. "Been here since SHIELD crashed."

"Did SHIELD pay this bad?" Tony questioned you.

"SHIELD pay wasn't great, but it was something. I saved most of it, but a lot of it went to making sure Y/N Smith, the tattoo artist from the wrong side, wasn't connected with Y/N L/N, SHIELD agent." You shrugged. "Didn't see a point in moving after." You added. "This was fun. We should do it again sometime." You said, sliding out and holding the door open.

"We'll give you a call if we need someone to do all the work for us." Clint nodded.

"Great. Come by the shop if you ever want a free tattoo. Clint knows where it is." 

A part of you was sure you wouldn't see any of the team again. They led much more busy lives than you did, and their schedules were forever changing.

So imagine your surprise when Natasha and Wanda entered your shop the next day just to simply chat. And they continued to do so for a week. Sometimes Clint would come, Steve had popped in for a few minutes while on a run, but Natasha and Wanda visited every day. 

On the seventh day, the two came in at one in the afternoon with Tony.

"Hey, Tony. I didn't know you were coming to lunch with us." You said, continuing to lock up the shop. "I'll be ready in a couple minutes."

"Great, but there's been a slight change of plans," Natasha said, watching you closely.

"As long as foods still involved, I won't be too bothered." You shrugged.

"Food is involved. It's just going to take us a while to get to it." Tony cryptically informed you.

"Guys, I'm running on twenty minutes of sleep and caffeine. Please, no cryptics." You sighed, narrowing your eyes at the three.

"Relax, we're not trying to hurt your head." Tony chuckled. "We have something to tell you."

"But first, step this way, away from any possibly hidden weapons," Natasha said, gesturing you forward. "No-one should get a knife to the head because they shocked you."

"Haha." You rolled your eyes, walking forward. "For the record, I did that once. And Clint caught it." You added. "What did you three do?"

"Technically, Tony did it," Wanda said, pointing a thumb at the billionaire.

"Real smooth, Sabrina." Tony scoffed. "Alright, yes, I did this, but I did it out of pure kindness."

"Did what?" 

"I've had all your stuff moved out of your apartment. I've had it moved into a spare room in the Compound," Tony announced. 

"Put it back, Tony." You demanded, crossing your arms. "My things aren't yours to touch."

"You live in a shitty neighborhood." Tony defended himself. "You have eight security systems of your own just to keep yourself safe. You won't find a new place of your own volition, so I found one for you."

"Tony, you moved my things into the Avengers Compound." You sighed. "I'm not an Avenger."

"Yet." Tony cut you off. "You are more than qualified to join the team. The way you helped us the other night, the way you took those men out and got the information quicker than we would have done. You can be an Avenger."

"I'm not risking those closest to me." You shook your head. "I gave up Y/N L/N when I left SHIELD. I have people in my life now, civilian people, who could get hurt because of me."

"Than don't let them," Natasha said. "I've been through your records, know how many people you helped and protected. Protect those you love just as you did all the strangers. You can still lead this life as well as one where you can protect people again."

"At least try temporarily," Wanda suggested. "Give it a month trial period and see if you can remember what it feels like. If it doesn't work out, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. And if it does work, you can join our team. Please." She added, giving you puppy dog eyes.

"Fine. A trial period." You sighed, pushing your hair back. "But no more using those eyes. It's evil, and you know it." You said, pointing at the witch.

"Yes, she does." Natasha smiled, putting her arm around her girlfriend's waist. "C'mon, there's a car waiting to take us back to the Compound."

"Where Tony ordered lunch," Wanda added, putting her hand out to you to take.

"At least he did one thing right." You joked, taking her petite hand.

"Hey!"

You had been staying at the Compound for almost a month. There were four days before the end of your trial period, but you hadn't made your decision yet. 

There was still a part of you that thought it would no longer be safe for the civilians in your life if you joined the team. If you entered the Avengers, you might have to give up this identity and everything and everyone that came with it.

But there was something about being around the team that ignited a spark within you. A spark you long thought had burned out. You longed for adventure, for that adrenaline rush that came with being undercover and the pride you felt at helping someone. 

You were torn between two worlds. Torn between two personalities.

"Jesus Christ, you smell like an ashtray," Natasha complained as she suddenly appeared by your side. You snapped out of your daze just in time to see Natasha take the smoke out of your hand and take a drag for herself.

"Didn't know you smoked." You commented, watching her exhale the smoke slowly.

"I don't. Not anymore." Natasha shook her head. "Just couldn't resist."

"Don't expect me to kiss you until you brush your teeth," Wanda said, skipping into the room and crossing her arms as she stared at the two of you. "I want a tattoo." She announced, staring you dead in the eye.

"Okay. Do you want me to find a parlor for you in the morning? I have a couple friends who owe me a favor or two." You suggested.

"No, I want you to do it," Wanda told you firmly. "As soon as possible if you would." 

"And you're sure about this?" You asked, raising a brow. "You're sure you want a tattoo and that you want me to do it?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"Alright, then. Follow me." You said, leading the two back into the Compound and into your room.

"You have a gun and inks in your room?" Natasha asked, looking your makeshift parlor over.

"Yep. Set it up the night I arrived, gave myself this the next." You said, lifting your shirt to reveal the healing tattoo on your hip.

"Geez, you know most people drink a bottle of scotch to welcome themselves to a new place? Not give themselves a tattoo." Natasha informed you.

"Probably." You nodded, beginning to set up your station. "Okay, Wanda, what did you have in mind?"

"I want the words, 'Ty namnogo bol'she' to wrap around my wrist," Wanda said, tracing around her thin wrist with her finger.

"Alright, I can definitely do that. But you might have to write it down for me. My Russian's not that great." You informed her.

"We'll have to work on that," Natasha said as Wanda began to write it down.

"Alright." You began after Wanda handed you the spelling. "Let's get started."

"I love it." Wanda smiled, watching as you gently wrapped her wrist. "It's perfect." 

"I like to do my best." You grinned, putting the last of the tape down. "Make sure that stays moist. And do not scratch it under any circumstances." You instructed her as you began to shove your equipment away in plastic tubs.

"You need a better system," Natasha commented. "Yours is kind of a mess."

"I'll update my system when I change this room around." You said, looking around the nearly bare room. Everything you owned was in plastic tubs or bags. You hadn't been bothered to unpack yet.

"Does that mean you're planning on staying?" Natasha asked. "Have you made your decision yet? To join the team or not?"

"Not yet. I'm still trying to decide." You sighed, leaning against the wall. "I like not giving a shit. I like waking up in the morning and paying too much for a shitty cup of coffee. I like going to work and being around people who've never had to see the shit we have. I like not having to feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, but I miss it. 

I miss being a part of a team. I liked saving people. I enjoyed going on missions, creating new personas to get what I needed done. I miss being around people who've seen the shit I have. Who know what the weight of the world feels like. 

Now I don't where to go. What I need more in my life." You told them.

"We told you, you don't need to pick one world," Wanda said, standing from her stool. "You can still save people and drink over-priced coffee. You can still be with people who share your trauma and be with those who don't. You don't have to pick one world."

"Can we help your decision along by us asking you out to dinner?" Natasha asked, breaking your pensive silence.

"Excuse me?" You asked, for once being taken aback by another person. "I think I went temporarily deaf there. Can you repeat yourself?"

"Let us take you on a date," Natasha repeated slowly. "We were thinking about dinner and wine and then a night at the opera." She said, causing your nose to scrunch up without thought.

"She's kidding." Wanda giggled. "Actually, we were thinking we get a couple beers, order a pizza, and watch a movie in our room."

"Can I pick the movie?" You asked her.

"With your crappy taste, no." Wanda shook her head.

"Okay, now she's kidding," Natasha said, taking three steps forward to stand beside her girlfriend. "Of course, you can pick the movie."

"And this wouldn't hurt your relationship?" You asked tentatively. "I wouldn't ruin what you already have?"

"You could only add." Wanda smiled.

"So, what do you say? You wanna go on a date with us?" Natasha questioned you.

"I'd love to."

"Go away.” You groaned, rolling away and under the covers into Natasha’s body.

“Wakey, wakey. Up and at ‘em you two.” Wanda ordered, pulling the blankets off the pair of you. 

“Wanda!” 

“Both of you will forgive me when I tell you I have coffee.” Wanda rolled her eyes, sitting on the bed beside you.

“The overpriced kind?”

“What other kind is there?” Wanda asked. “C’mon sit up or no coffee for either of you.”

“Alright, alright, we’re up.” Natasha said, sitting up with you on her chest. “Thank you, sweetheart.” 

“I love you.” You groaned after taking the first sip of your steaming beverage.

“Are you talking to me or the coffee?” 

“Can’t it be both?” You shrugged before grabbing her hand and kissing her palm softly.

“As long as there’s love for me too, it can.” Natasha told you.

“I love you too, Nat.” You promised, kissing her collarbone.

“After today’s meeting, I want you to give me a tattoo.” Natasha announced. “I don’t care where is is, but I want ‘YA zasluzhivayu lyubvi’.” She told you. 

“Alright then. I like this plan.” You smiled, looking up at your girlfriend. “You know I think I’m due for some new ink myself.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you can choose for me.” You shrugged. “I trust you both, always.”

Once, you left SHIELD and it’s lifestyle behind. And then one day Clint Barton walked into your shop and brought you back into it. 

He brought you back to the life you missed and brought you to Natasha and Wanda.

Remember all Taglists are open as are requests. 

Taglist

@rvgrsbrns @smilexcaptainx @hopingforbarnes @starlingelliot @piper-koko-barnes-rogers @jelly-fishy-babie @skeletoresinthebasement @agent-barnes40 @reann-loves-sebstan @skadikh @summergeezburr @buckybarton03 @sunshinepower17 @bindythedemon @natasharomanoffismywife @keenmarvellover @bbybarness @storiesbystarlight @buckybarnesplumwhore @bromieeeomieee @marvelmenarebeautiful @niki-is-a-thing @pauloonig @abyssiniapleasant @beautybyfire @officalmarvelbaby

Natasha Romanoff Taglist

@natasha-danvers @5aftermidnight @ohfuckno

All women Taglist

@imnotasuperhero

#natasha romanoff #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff x reader

[spoiler1001]

Nightmares and Reunions PT.2

Alice froze and got quiet.

“How long after you left did you have him?” V asked finally, trying to read her.

To break eye contact, she turned her back on him.

“Alice who was the father.” V didn’t know what he was hoping for. Would he be jealous? Why would he be jealous? Her prolonged silence drew on him.

“I don’t know.”

Her words struck him, and it stung. He knew that Dante was charming and it wouldn’t be too out of the world of possibilities, but Alice never even suggested- v stopped himself from that train of thought. He had no claim over her and she did get out from time to time. What she did was none of his concern, regardless of how he felt about her keeping secrets.

She collected herself. “This isn’t about me. Fortuna was supposed to be safe.” Alice snapped, but all the venom was drained from her voice.

“It was. I was tracking Yamato. I had no idea about Nero until I was outside of the house.” V nodded, knowing he was not helping his case. “But there was a lot of demonic blood in him, that arm should have grown back. Why didn’t it?”

“He has no idea. He believes he is as human as humans come.” Alice admitted. "And magic tends to be self-actualizing."

“Meaning, he’s human in all but blood.” V hissed through his teeth.

“So are you.” Alice reminded him. V ignored that jab.

“Nero should know.” V pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t need your judgmental ass telling me what to do with him.” Alice turned to face him again, spinning so quickly that her coat fanned out.

“You’re right.”

This shocked Alice. She raised one eyebrow and V could see by how the muscle in her cheek flexed, her jaw dropped an inch.

“I have no right to say anything about how you live your life.” V stood up, leaning heavily on his cane. “But I am happy to see you again.”

“I figured you would have hunted me down after your business with the tower was over,” Alice admitted with gritted teeth. Her hair seemed to reflect the light of the rising sun from behind her.

“I was told you fell in an ambush. I went to see for myself, there was a lot of blood.” V took a step towards her.

Alice pulled down her scarf, exposing her mouth and a vicious scar. It was deep and the skin was fibrous. It did not heal like most wounds did and it was not wrapped with care.

V’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened. Even the familiars quieted. V rushed to be in front of her.

“That explains the blood.” V ran his fingers over the scar. It went from under the corner of her lip to under her ear. He could feel her pulse. It stopped right over an artery.

“I barely got out with my life, but it was close.” She took a step back. V's fingers twitched as she slipped through them. The air felt almost icy in her absence.

“Wait!” V almost yelled. Alice stopped. Her attention was focused on V. “Stay. Please." His voice was soft.

"We have proven multiple times that staying leaves to bad decisions." Alice softened her eyes. V was very aware of how pathetic he looked, especially compared to what he looked like at full capacity.

“We’ve also proven that despite my egotism and grandiose, wisdom isn’t my strong suit.” V looked at Alice and blinked.

Alice looked away and took a deep breath, mumbling curses. “Someone has to keep an eye on you. Might as well be me.”

She finally took a seat on the ground. There were distant and not so distant sounds of Mercenaries running around shooting demons like they had a chance of winning. Maybe they would kill some today but they wouldn’t survive the whole tree ordeal.

“Why didn’t you come to me before leaving,” V asked. The soft nature of his voice somehow projecting louder than the gunshots outside.

“Did you forget what you were like?” Alice responded.

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” V answered back. “Maybe I’m being nostalgic in my old age.”

“Alright, I’ll humor this train of thought; let’s say I did come to you. I was covered in blood, barely able to stand, let alone walk.” She slipped off the coat. Her shirt was nothing more than a gym top, exposing her stomach and black tattoos of feathered wings wrapped around herself and crossing above her belly button. They did not look new but she didn’t have those before she left. V looked away, hiding his blush with his hand.

Alice laughed. “If the sight of my skin makes you that flustered, I could see why you reacted when I showed off that amulet.”

“I was unnecessarily cruel to you.” V tapped his fingers along his cane. V’s eyes brightened with thought as an idea popped into his mind. “Is that why you didn’t-”

“V I’m gonna cut you off right there and make something abundantly clear: I was never scared of you. No matter how many times you flashed your teeth or went all demonic in your temper tantrums. I. Never. Feared. You.” Alice’s tone of voice pulled V’s attention and almost compelled him to make eye contact. “I ran because I thought I was going to die. I did not want to do that at your doorstep. Then things got complicated.”

“Nero.”

“I had to leave him in Fortuna. I was hunted by demons. His blood-”

“It would have been the key to hell gift wrapped for all to see.”

Alice nodded. “I regret not raising him. It’s my biggest regret in life. He was safe.”

“Until me.”

“Until you. If he was told about his lineage, he would have been vulnerable to even more.” Alice ran her hands over her ponytail.

“Difficult balance to strike.”

“And it’s all collapsing.” Alice sighed.

“He’ll find out before this is all over.” V mused.

“Oh absolutely.” Alice nodded.

“The fallout is going to be explosive.”

“Yup.”

V laughed despite himself.

“I’m glad you’re so thoroughly amused,” Alice responded dryly.

“Why is it that family is such a messy thing?” V sat down next to Alice, resting his head on her shoulder.

“It wouldn’t be family otherwise.” Alice smiled bitterly. V ran his fingers over the coat in Alice’s hands. His metal ring made a zipping noise as he touched it. The material smelled faintly of fire and smoke. It was soft, silky. It didn’t have a tear or strand out of place.

“Where did you get this?” V asked, his voice soft. Alice was incredibly warm, comfortably so.

Alice was quiet for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “There was an attack at a funeral I was attending. When the dust settled, it was the only thing unscathed.” Her voice was more rumble than vocalizations, soothing V and easing the stress in his mind.

#dmc vergil #dmc v #dmc alice #devil may cry #devil may cry fanfiction

[misssunflowersandsangria]

Clover

Happy @yamanaka-week ! I love everyone’s submissions so far!  I kind of combined two different prompts but I’m still late.  Forgive me!  This one explores Inoichi and his wife’s relationship which I took a ton of creative liberties with because I can and there’s very little information about them.  Hope you enjoy it!

Prompt: Flowers and Legacy 

Flower Inspiration: The flower symbol of this clan is the bush clover which symbolizes a "positive love".

Summary:  Inoichi wasn’t expecting to meet her during his shift at the flower store.  She was beautiful, sweet, and fascinating.  It wasn’t easy for him to express himself but he found that flowers were always the answer.  

*

**

Clover

Inoichi sighed, staring at the people that passed by the window. He’d rather be out there enjoying the sunshine or on a mission.  Caring for the store was part of his responsibilities though. 

He’d already helped a few people that morning including Shikaku. He was buying a bouquet for some unnamed troublesome woman. To which he’d teased his teammate relentlessly. 

Despite how he might complain about working at the store there were some perks and he provided an important service to the Leaf. He couldn’t count the number of confused and flustered men that he helped that came in. Who were looking to either impress or to appease someone. The comfort he offered when arranging flowers for memorials was immeasurable. Or the hope he shared when people stopped by before their visit to the hospital. Whatever the occasion or reason, flowers were always the answer and he was happy to provide them. 

Still, days like this were long and boring.

The bell rang jarring him from a quick nap. He looked up, seeing a beautiful, unfamiliar face. She had chestnut brown hair styled perfectly at the top of her head. Her clothes were clearly expensive from the intricate embroidery to the gold buttons. Her eyes though were soft, warm, and brown. Glittering in excitement at seeing the various arrangements. 

He felt a bit self-conscious in his store apron but put on his best grin. 

“May I help you?”

She shot up surprised at his voice.  “Oh, yes.  I need to order an arrangement to be picked up in a few days.” 

“Sure, I can help with that.  Anything in particular?”

She looked around avoiding his gaze.  “It’s for my um future in-laws.”

He was a little disappointed by the revelation but continued to collect a few stems. “You don’t seem too excited.”

“No, that’s not it. They’re a wonderful family. My fiancé just isn’t who I thought I’d end up with. But I guess arranged marriages are like that.” She sighed gently touching a rosebud. 

“Have you met him before?”

“A few times, he’s a family friend but there’s no attraction there. We’re better as friends. He knows it too but family responsibility wins out .”  She knew that it was wrong to complain. She could have been forced to marry some horrible, unknown man but it still wasn’t what she wanted from marriage. Her family was part of high society and wealthy.  This was just how things were done in their world. A simple life with a man she loved was all she really wanted though. 

Inoichi hated the disappointment clear on her face. As an attempt to distract her he broke off the flower from a stem to place it casually behind her ear. Her skin flushed at the soft touch. 

“Help me pick out a few flowers. I’ve found that being around them helps clear the mind.” 

They spent the afternoon together as he asked more about her past and future plans. He taught her about the different flowers and their meanings. She was sweet and attentive. He was charming and knowledgeable. 

Inoichi found her to be fascinating and beautiful.  Her company was welcomed and wanted.  As the afternoon shifted towards evening he hated the idea of saying goodbye.  

“What’s this?”  She asked, seeing the small flower he held out to her.  

“It’s my clan’s flower. A purple bush clover. They stand for optimistic love.”

He placed the small blossom in her hand but held onto her fingers.  “Stay positive perhaps you’ll find that love you’re looking for.” She blushed brightly at the gentle gesture, taking the delicate flower in her hand. 

“Perhaps I will.  Will you be here tomorrow? My family will be here for a few days. It would be nice to have someone show me around.”  Even she was surprised by the request. She would have to make up a story to her mother but it was worth it to see the handsome man again. 

“I’d like that.”

—

“Are you sure you want to do this? Her parents and the clan will probably kill you.”  Choza was surprised by the late-night,  last-minute request from his friend and teammate.  He and Shikaku were sure that Inoichi lost his mind.  

Inoichi just nodded as he packed his things. “Never been more sure of anything.” 

Choza couldn’t argue with that logic. “Alright then, InoShikaCho live and die together. Let’s go get your bride.” 

They made their way to the rendezvous point. There they found Shikaku standing there, on guard and ready.  Inoichi needed his team there. Not only to be witnesses for the wedding but also because he needed people he could trust to back him up. He was relieved to see that Shikaku had been able to sneak his fiance out of her room without anyone noticing. 

Inoichi smiled brightly seeing the dazzling eyes of his future bride turn to him.  Excitement and relief on her face. She ran towards him and he happily scooped her up. 

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”  She muttered against his chest. Her heart was beating wildly and she never felt more alive.  The small purple bush clover that he’d given her was tucked carefully into her skirt.  

Marrying someone that you just met was incredibly crazy and reckless. Still, he knew that they were meant for each other.  Playing it safe was never his style anyway. 

“Get ready, you’re about to do one more. Still want to marry me?” When his striking eyes met hers she knew her decision was the right one. She kissed him sure and steady. Knowing in her heart that this is what she wanted.

“More than anything.” 

—

“Was grandma and grandpa mad?”  Ino asked with wide eyes. She’d asked her father about how he and her mother met. She wasn’t expecting this but it was terribly romantic. Like the fairy tales, he would read to her. 

“Furious. Thankfully though the man that your mama was going to marry had run off to be with the person he loved. So in the end it worked out and we were lucky enough to have you.” 

Her eyes began to flutter close as she fell asleep in her father’s arms. “Think I’ll ever fall in love one day?” 

“I guarantee it my little blossom. He’ll make the flowers bloom for you.”

Ino sighed wistfully thinking about her parents' love story. It was part of the reason that she kept working at the store. Convinced that one day the love of her life might come in and sweep her off her feet. 

“Sai?”  She looked up confused hearing the welcoming bell ring. 

He greeted her warmly with what she hoped was a genuine smile on his face.  

“Hello Ino, I have an odd request if you don’t mind.”  She was intrigued by what it could possibly be. 

“Sure, of course.”

“Would you mind if I painted in here ever so often? I’ll find a corner and keep to myself so I don’t disturb you or your customers.”  She considered the request carefully. Sai was unlike anyone else in the village. He was quiet, blunt, and reserved. But handsome, talented, and when he wanted to be charming. When he called her Beautiful it always left her a flustered mess. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t interested in him. 

“I'd enjoy that actually. It would be nice to have some company. It can get boring here.” 

“Thank you Beautiful. I’ll start tomorrow if you don’t mind?” 

She hated the grin that crossed her face at her nickname.  “I look forward to it.” 

--

“You’re supposed to be painting.”  Ino teased the pale man who just returned it with a handsome grin.

“And you’re supposed to be watching the store.”  He reminded her before placing a kiss on her forehead. 

Ino grinned and kissed him one last time before hopping off the counter and settled into his arms.  

After daily visits and numerous conversations about flowers, life, and everything in between Sai had become a fixture of her day.  Her worst days were usually when he was off on missions and she had to be there alone.   She’d stare wistfully at his paintings that she’d hung around the shop just to make it feel like he was there. 

Ino found herself falling in love with him while the flowers bloomed around them.  It really wasn’t her fault. Yamanakas fell hard and fast. 

“I really do love this store,”  Sai mumbled into her hair. 

“I do too. A lot of pretty magical things have happened here.” 

—

Inojin sighed annoyed. His parents were still annoyingly in love and it didn’t matter that they were all at the flower shop. In public, at their place of business. If his father wanted a kiss from his wife he did just that. 

“Ahem, am I the only one done with counting the inventory I was in charge of.”  The couple laughed at being scolded by their son.

Ino just smiled and embarrassingly kissed her son on the cheek. “Sorry Jin, great work kid. You’re free to go.”

“Really?” 

“Yes, your father and I will take your shift for the afternoon. Go hang out with your friends.” He didn’t need any more of an explanation and bolted out the door. 

Ino grinned feeling Sai’s arms wrap around her. “Want  to go make out in the back like we used to?”  She could feel his smirk against her skin. He lightly kissed the outline of the purple bush clover tattoo hidden under her shirt.  

Ino giggled as she turned the store’s sign to close. “Why do you think I sent him away?” 

Perhaps the Yamanaka store wasn’t the legacy her father left her to protect.  Rather it was the stories, hope, and love that flowered and blossomed in those four walls.

*

**

Flowering (Yamanaka Week 2021 Collection)

--

So I know Ino’s mom doesn’t come up almost at all but from what I gathered looking at her and the episode she was in it was easy to see her being in some elite family.  Especially one where arranged marriages are common.  And so this story was born.  It’s kind of nice when there’s no canon material because you can write anything you want and no one can tell you it didn’t happen that way.  Also if you look up whats the actual meaning of the Japanese bush clover it actually stands for melancholy or unrequited love.  So I kind of like the spin Papa Yamanaka had for it.   Anyways forgive me for being late.  Have you ever had too many ideas that you kind of just sit there and not do anything?  Well, that.  Thanks my lovely blossoms.  I love you all!

#yamanaka week #yamanaka week 2021 #flower #legacy #yamanaka inoichi #inos mom #saiino #inosai #i love and miss inoichi #we were robbed friends #robbed #the yamanakas deserve way more love #whats it called when it can be canon compliant but also isn't #also again sorry for being late #i probably will be again #there's so many ideas #but then theres so many ideas #this was self indulgent #af #sunflowerstalks #sangriaslips

[angrylizardjacket]

Run to Paradise {Nikki Sixx} Part 31

31. told you not to worry (but maybe that’s a lie)

Summary: lola starts taking her job seriously, but its hard to be mostly sober around the band now.

Warnings: angsty as shit, blink and you'll miss it sensuality but no smut, and happy pride, that's not a warning, that's just a little note!

ragtag bunch of misfits: @starlalove @toofasttofallinlove @xrosegoldwolfx @obsessivesky @lovehelpmewrite @marvelismylifffe @lilytalebi @glitterdreamsz @freddiessmallnipples @crazysaladchopshop @dramatique-moi @calspixie @aryssav @catsoo12 @sweetshutter @silvertonguedserpent @shamelessobsessions @lavenderbones22 @keepcalm-and-beyou @scarecrowmax @nicholeh7 @unknownoblivion @sighsophiia @fruitinthebottom @misscharlottelee @local-troubled-writer  @redlipscrystalskies14 @kaitieskidmore1 @the-specific-oceans

{ MASTERLIST }

Touring is a new and special kind of hell now that she's actually trying to be good at her job and not sleep with most of the band.

It was actually rather nice to reconnect with them in a way she hadn't been able to, with Vince and Tommy and even Mick; for all she'd been around them, the tour was the first time she could convincingly call them good friends. Now more than ever was she fulfilling her role as the band's assistant, and more importantly, as their wrangler.

"Nikki needs to be onstage in three minutes!" Doc shouts through the door of his dressing room, and Lola calls back that he'll be there, despite the fact that he's busy hurling into the toilet, and she's holding back his hair.

And of course, he'll be there, on time, puke free for the most part, and Lola's taking the first song to breathe for the first time since getting to the venue. And she finds one of Nikki's syringes in his bag, and takes the edge off before she has to be side-of-stage herself.

She makes a point of spending time with Tommy, and more often than not, she's the one handcuffing him to the bed at the end of the night; unfortunately it's at Doc's insistence, after Tommy goes out of control in the early hours before dawn.

Tommy, who will absolutely not remember this the next morning, fixes Lola with a blurry, vaguely lustful stare as she affixes his wrist to the bedpost.

"This feels familiar," he laughs, blind drunk, giving the handcuff a rattle for good measure.

Behave, Lola reminds herself, and she steps off of the bed as he makes grabby hands at her.

"Stay, Lols, please stay," he whines, and Lola swallows hard, smiling despite how her heart was beginning to ache under the effects of his puppy-dog eyes, "I've missed you." And that hurts like a physical ache.

"You're engaged," she reminds him gently, and Tommy's pleading gaze immediately turns blissfully fond as he remembers Heather waiting for him back home.

"I'm engaged," he repeats back, almost dreamily, "I think this one's gonna stick." He tells Lola with as much earnestness as he can manage. Lola's smile starts to crack.

"I'm happy for you, drummer boy," she tells him gently, patting his shin, and Tommy sighs happily.

"You won't tell her about the- the groupies, right? The girls backstage?" He asks, suddenly worried, and Lola sighs deeply. "They- Heather's so perfect, Lols, she's so sweet, and so fucking hot." He all but groans, shifting his hips in a drunken, horny stupor, "if I could have her backstage after every show, I would, I would in a heartbeat, Lols, I just- I don't, and I'm weak, you know I'm so weak." He whines, and Lola has to remind herself that his happiness is what was most important, that she's being selfish for feeling hurt. She tries to smile a little wider.

"You and Nikki," Tommy starts, but his expression falls, and it's like he sees her again, sees how hard she's trying, "you guys," his voice is so gentle, "we were so lucky." He muses, and she's not quite sure if he even realised his mistake, "having each other all the time? So lucky." He says with a faint, surprisingly warm smile.

Lola can't help herself.

"We were so lucky." She agrees, and it's all she can do to leave.

As a stark contrast, Vince hates being sober, especially with the rest of the band practically black out drunk from the moment they wake up, but with Lola at the very least not drinking, they take to partying together rather frequently. But Lola watches with growing concern as Vince grows bored with the hard-partying lifestyle the longer he goes without a drink.

"It's killing me," Vince admits. He's got Lola in his lap at a party, more to keep himself from hitting on any other women, because it appears she and Sharise have conspired together to try and keep him faithful. It works, sort of, he still fucks a lot, but he's got it down to about one girl per city, and he definitely doesn't fuck Lola.

"What? Your dick? Dude yout hard-on is skewering my thigh," Lola tells him with a grimace.

"No," Vince flushes, shifting his hips a little, while Lola clenched her teeth and reminded herself to behave. Why did she wear a damn skirt? "I'm fucking tired of being treated like a damn kid; can't fuck when I want, can't drink, not even allowed anu fuckin' dope. Prison was more fun than this." Lola gives him a curious look, but he's quick to backtrack on that particular statement.

"Call Sharise."

"We always finish too late, I don't wanna keep waking her up after midnight," Vince muses gloomily. His grip around Lola's midsection tightens and he presses his lips to her shoulder. "What if I get you off, for old time's sake?"

Lola sighed, shifting so she face mostly facing Vince.

"You know it won't make you happy, lover boy," Lola's fingers were gentle on his cheek, and Vince leaned into her touch, expression forlorn as he sighed and nodded.

"This isn't fun anymore," Vince admitted, "I fucking hate being away from Skylar, I'm missing all the big moments in her life, and instead I get to watch everyone else having the time of their lives." Lola hugs him, holds him close enough to press his face into her boobs, perhaps as some sort of consolation.

"You can still leave," he tells Lola, reaching up to trace the tattoo of the drumsticks on her collarbones, "you should run while you can, get out before it kills you." Lola laughs but he doesn't understand why, just continues, "after all the shit you've been through, I wouldn't blame you. Leave us in the care of Doc, collect your last paycheck, and disappear forever."

Lola just gives him a sad smile and cards her fingers through his hair.

"Vinny, I don't have anywhere else to go." It's said with a sad smile, and air of finality, and Vince plants a kiss on her cheek before gently urging her to stand up. He goes and tries to call Skylar, and Lola finds Nikki and drags him to a bathroom, shakes him down for a syringe full of heroin she knows she has. And he kisses her, sloppy and slurred, and Lola holds him close so her hands don't shake.

Nikki is easy, Nikki is familiar, Nikki she knows better than she knows herself, can read him as easily as breathing. He moves and she moves in sync, their whole life an unspoken duet.

"You told me not to kill myself over Tommy," Lola and Mick are the only ones awake in the back of the tour bus at eleven in the morning; Lola's sipping a coffee, riding the high of shooting up right before they'd left the last hotel, and Mick's reading a newspaper. "Did you ever think that he wouldn't be the one to kill me?"

"He didn't," Mick reminds her pointedly, and Lola casts a nervous glance to the bunks at the back of the bus, but no-one made a move towards waking up. Mick looks up from his paper to follow her gaze, before he looks back at her.

"You never worried about me and Nikki?"

"No point," Mick huffed, looking back at his paper. This was not the answer she'd been expecting, and it takes a long moment for her to order her thoughts. By the time she had, however, Mick had already lowered his paper, anticipating her next question, "if you wanted to kill yourself over Nikki fuckin' Sixx, there's no person on Heaven or Earth who could talk you out of it." He tells her flatly, "I wasn't about to waste my time on you co-dependent sociopaths."

And perhaps she wants to be offended, but the more she ponders on the sentiment, the more she finds comfort in it, can't help but bring it to Nikki.

The night, though it's almost six am, is warm and humid, and after a hard night of partying, they fall into bed together, like so many nights before. Something about Mick's words plays on her mind, and maybe it's that she's not quite sure where she ends and Nikki begins in this heat, but she doesn't want to let him go.

"Mick said something weird to me the other day," Lola starts, her head on his chest as she's catching her breath, and she feels Nikki's laughter as it rumbles through his chest, his arm around her, sweat sticking them and their hotel's bedsheets together in the afterglow.

"Everything Mick says is weird," Nikki snorts, "the guy's an alien." His idle hand draws an indistinct patterns on the sheet over her thigh.

"Do you think we're codependent?"

"Yeah."

"And don't you think that's... bad or something?" Lola tries, but Nikki just hums noncommittally.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Lo," Nikki tells her, voice shooting for something other than blunt, but not quite hitting the mark, "you're all I really know," he admits after a moment, voice softening, tone far away, as if there's something else on his mind, "and I know I could live without you, just like you could live without me, but I don't want to." He swallowed hard.

"I don't either." Lola says with a small smile, but when she looks to Nikki, he's gazing at the roof.

"I didn't realise I'd have to learn to live without shit I thought I needed, you know?" He says, and Lola's expression falls. Nikki looks back at her, as if realizing what he's said, and licks his lips, hesitating. Sensing his sudden nervousness, wraps herself around him, hugs him so he doesn't have to look her in the eyes, and squeezes her eyes shut tightly as she feels him breathe a sigh of relief. "I didn't mean you." Nikki says, his arms around her, warm and solid, his lips gentle against the shell of her ear as she kisses his shoulder gently.

"I didn't think you did," she says, with the faintest air of amusement, and Nikki huffs a quiet laugh. Neither lets go.

"Did you write Starry Eyes for me?" She murmurs against his skin, and Nikki holds her just a little tighter. She feels him nod.

"Wrote a lot of things for you," he trails his fingertips down her back gently, and Lola feels herself all but melting under his touch. Up and down, gentle as a feather, they lay, wrapped up in each other, in silence, until Nikki's hand stills, palm warm and flat against the small of her back.

"Tommy asked me to be his best man," he says, voice surprisingly raw, and Lola stays still as a statue.

"Congratulations," is all she can manage, a pit in her stomach at the very mention of Tommy's upcoming wedding.

"I couldn't say no," but it sounds like he wanted to, and Lola slowly sits up, straddling Nikki, her hand on his bare chest as she searches his face for what he's trying to tell her. Instead, Nikki reaches up, his hand coming to rest on her ribs right over her heart, "I think I get it. Being with Nicole was never about the drugs, was it?"

Lola's mouth opens in a surprised, quietly hurt oh, and her hand moves to join his.

"I don't -" but the words won't come out, and Nikki gives her this strange little half-smile.

"Am I an ass if I say that I hate Heather?" Nikki asks, and Lola's shock melts a little as she starts to realize exactly what Nikki's saying.

"She makes Tommy happy," she tells him, like she's told herself a thousand times before, wearing a sad smile.

"So do you," Nikki tells her, and Lola's heart starts to ache in a way that's all too familiar, "so do we." Nikki says quietly, unable to look her in the eyes. "How the fuck did you do this twice? How do you just say 'they're happier without me' and be okay with it?" His lip curls into a snarl and he gently pushes Lola off of him, maneuvering himself to the side of the bed, hunching in on himself. There's tears beginning to sting Lola's eyes, but Nikki's voice is raw, is bitter as he asks, "does it always fucking hurt?"

"I don't want to lie to you-" Lola tries, but Nikki turns, snaps at her.

"I don't care! How the fuck can you watch them together and not want to yell at him that he's throwing away -?" Nikki's mouth snaps shut, and the fury in his eyes dies down, too afraid to voice his thoughts. Like approaching a wild animal, Lola slowly makes her way over to him, wrapping him up in her arms, letting him rest his forehead against her shoulder.

"I didn't even know I was... was allowed to love him like this," the words spill from him, messy, angry, and Lola's silent, curled over him like a shield from the outside world, tears dripping from her eyelashes, "didn't even realise I did, but Heather just thinks she can, can what? Fucking take him? From us?" His grip on Lola is tight, his nails digging into her skin when all he can focus on is his own anger, but after a moment of silence, he feels the way Lola's shaking, and he comes back to reality, "Lo?"

"It always hurt," Lola whispers through her tears, "Nikki, it always fucking hurts."

#nikki sixx #Tommy Lee #Vince Neil #nikki sixx imagine #tommy lee imagine #vince neil imagine #nikki sixx x oc #tommy lee x oc #the dirt #the dirt imagine #motley crue #nikki x tommy x oc #motley crue imagine #the angry lizard writes

[rustbeltjessie]

Diary of an Emotional Masochist, Chapter One: Dignity and Shame

I am an emotional masochist. I’m the kind of person, who, when I’m already going through a bout of nostalgic melancholy, will decide to read old journal entries or look through old photographs. The kind of person who, when it’s three a.m. and I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about what loves have come and gone (to borrow a phrase from Edna St. Vincent Millay), will get up and Google search those loves. I am the kind of woman who, when I’m already sad, will listen to an album that devastates me. I have a long list of albums that it’s almost too painful to listen to, albums that remind me of such specific times in my life that listening to them takes me right back to where I was then. A different person would purge their record collection and iTunes library of such albums, but, like I said – I am an emotional masochist. On lonesome evenings, after a couple glasses of whiskey, nothing sounds better to me than spinning one of those records (or queueing up one of those playlists). This is one of those lonesome-whiskey evenings, so won’t you join me in indulging? We’re listening to Crooked Fingers’ Dignity and Shame.

From the first sparse, haunting notes of “Islero,” I am transported back in time to the summer of 2005. God, that summer. That terrible, wonderful summer. I’d fucked up my life the year before, and I thought that would be the summer I’d fix it, except all I did was fuck it up even more. God, that summer. That March, I moved away from Chicago after living there for five years. I planned on moving to Milwaukee come autumn, to start fresh in a fresh town. In the meantime, I moved back in with my parents. I wasn’t home, much. Nights, after work, I went to one of the two bars in Kenosha where all my sad drunk hoodlum friends hung out. On days off, I walked in the woods – the heat was relentless, and the canopy of trees offered cool green comfort. Or I drove to Chicago to see shows and drink with my friends and try to remember why I’d left; drove to Milwaukee to scope out neighborhoods, sit for hours at the Hi-Fi Cafe, go record and dress shopping. On one of my record shopping expeditions, I bought Dignity and Shame. It was on the Staff Recommendations shelf, and I liked the cover art, so I took it home with me – and it was serendipity, it was exactly the album I needed at the time.

As soon as I got home, I set it spinning on my turntable, and the first track – “Islero” – gave me goosebumps. The second track – “Weary Arms” – made me cry. It had sad cellos and a lonesome cowboy guitar, and Eric Bachmann’s voice was a raspy baritone: Beware of strangers knocking at your door. Old lovers, too. Don’t think for one second they’ve forgotten you. Oh, oh, oh. By the time the final, hidden track played, I’d melted into a puddle of tears and goosebumps on my bedroom floor. The album destroyed me, and it spooked me because so many of the stories sounded like things right out of my life, both from that year and six or so years before it. It was like Eric Bachmann had read my diary and set it to music. I wanted to write him a letter and say: “Get out of my head, god damn it! Get out of my aching heart.” It’s impossible for me to write about Dignity and Shame, or about the summer of 2005, without descending into hyperbole, sentimental poetry, and melodrama. My God, that summer was hyperbole, sentimental poetry, and melodrama. I was still young enough that it was acceptable to feel things that intensely, acceptable to talk about a sunrise over Lake Michigan by saying things like: “When the light shot through the horizon in streaks of peach and gold, it was the most god damn beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” Dear diary, listen to me.

My “Weary Arms” wrapped tight around so many lovers, that summer – four of them, plus a handful of brief flings. Later that year, I lamented that I hadn’t had as many wild love affairs as I’d had in years past, which, yes, says something unflattering about me. And Eric Bachmann sang: You have many enemies, for reasons no one’s certain of.

One night, while I sat at one of the bars and waited for my friends to arrive, a girl approached me. I didn’t know her, but she knew me. She sat down across from me and lambasted me for sleeping with a guy she’d been dating at the time…two years before. She called me a slut, and some worse things. I wanted to buy her a drink, to appease her. I couldn’t understand why she hated me so much. When I slept with that guy, I had no idea he had a girlfriend. So many enemies, so many lovers, but could a jaded girl like me heed an uptempo “Call To Love?” In that song, Eric took the role of a particular one of my lovers, and said: Won’t you hear my heart? I’m transmitting a call to love. On a night when the moon was orange-red and luminous, that lover said: “The moon is the color of your hair.” Another night: “You were born in the wrong era, Jess.” And, though I was a sucker for sentimental poetry, my guard was up. Lara Meyerratken answered for me: Don’t need my heart kicked ‘round the block no more. You may be smooth-talking, daddy, but I’ve heard it all before. I traded gossip with the “Twilight Creeps.” In this sweet-sad song with the bright piano and the shimmering backup vocals, I was both the singer and the sung about. I could have sung it to one of my lovers, should have said to her: Flower, don’t dig so deep so you don’t go anywhere. But the words were also about me: You say someday you’re gonna float away. Take yourself some kind of holiday. I often told my sad drunk hoodlum friends, the twilight creeps, that I needed to get the hell out of town. “If I could just get gone for more than a few days, go somewhere more than a few hours away…there ain’t no use in trying to make me stay.”

My lovers all wanted to make me stay. The flower-girl, I’ll call her Valerie. The one who spoke poetic words to me, I’ll call him Jack. And there was Lon, and Carmine. In different ways, for different reasons, they each wanted me to choose them over all the rest. Even a few of the week-long flings and one-night stands, older punk guys or younger hippie girls, said things to me like: “How did I get so lucky as to meet a girl like you?” Or: “So, are you my girlfriend now?” And when I said no, they called me a heartbreaker. A “Destroyer.” It’s a woebegone cowboy of a tune. Doleful drums, piano that tinkles like ice cubes in a bar glass, and a lap steel guitar – which, as far as I’m concerned, is the aural equivalent of an anti-hero walking off into the sunset. The song is all about how the singer is going to make someone his, and then he’s going to leave them behind. When they called me heartbreaker, I wanted to sing it: Lay down, just let it come, and resign your heart, today, to get blown away. “Valerie,” well, that’s why I’m referring to that lover as Valerie. Much like me, she was a punk rock girl turned heroine of a Tom Waits song (heroine of a Crooked Fingers song). She had thriftstore dresses and jailhouse tattoos and self-inflicted scars. “Valerie,” the song, has a sanguine strut, is a besotted love song, and I thought of Valerie, the girl: Red roses, silk, you in your sleek summer dress. You were light, revelation, oh, I love you the best. But she and I kept our love unspoken. We both had other romantic complications, and only touched each other on long hot nights after too many bottles of wine and too many pills. “Sleep All Summer” was my song for Jack, the young ex-goth whose mouth was pink and pouty like he’d been sucking on a strawberry popsicle. Our love was either all the good songs and kissing ’til our lips were raw, or it was screaming matches and hangover headaches. What bliss is this, and then he’d get attention-starved and whiny, and I’d burn hot and cold and say nasty things, and we’d say: “This is it, we’re through.” But – There ain’t no way we’re gonna find another, the way we sleep all summer. Why won’t you fall back in love with me? And we’d run into each other at the bar, and faster than our friends could say I told you so we’d be tangled up in the backseat of his car or rolling around by the lake, and the whole thing would start all over again. He’d play the martyr, and I’d say: I would change for you, but babe, that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be a better man.

And “Coldways” kill cool lovers. Lon was a folk singer from the north woods. He’d been one of my best friends for years already, and when we started dating I was so tired of complicated, fiery relationships that I mistook comfort for True Love. My heart still hurts when I think of how I hurt him. He wanted me to marry him and I just wanted to be drunk and in love, to listen to “Coldways”’s thrumming, swelling sound. To sing along: Come out, come on, tonight the city’s alive. “Wrecking Ball” has a jaunty, punchdrunk piano, and the piano had been drinking, but so had I. God, I drank so much that summer. On the rare night I spent at home, I holed up in my room, wrote long, sad, tales of people in the legend of my life, and drank blackberry brandy mixed with Sprite. Something like that would taste over-sweet to me now, make me shudder, but maybe the same part of me that craved sentimental poetry also thirsted for sugary drinks. And most nights, I wasn’t at home. Most nights, I changed clothes in my car after work. I swapped my reeking-of-pizza button down shirt and black slacks for one of my vintage dresses. A mint green confection, or a pink and white sundress. Something from the ‘50s, blue with red and white polka dots, or a slinky black number that a ‘30s jazz singer would have worn. And I sat at one of two bars, drank whiskey and Coke, or brandy old-fashioneds, or gin and tonics all night long. I waited for my friends to arrive, and I drank and smoked and entertained myself with one of the items I always had in my bag – a book of poetry by Dorothy Parker or Edna St. Vincent Millay, a deck of Alice In Wonderland tarot cards. And sometimes, someone would find me intriguing. I swear, I wasn’t a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but… I was a redhead in a retro dress (usually with a strand of fake pearls, too) sitting in a dive bar, smoking pastel-colored cigarettes, reading sonnets and tarot cards. Christ. Often, someone found me intriguing, chatted me up, and I wound up with yet another lover. I was a destroyer, destroying myself with booze and love. I was a wrecking ball. Eric Bachmann, accompanied by that barroom piano, sang: And you laughed and you danced, and it let you feel fine for a while. Hanging out with the kids who you knew soon would fall out of style.

I’ve left two songs out, dear diary. I did it on purpose, because they are the two that hurt the most. They are also the two that heal the most. The kind of songs that make me weep, then tell me to dry my tears. “You Must Build A Fire,” oh, it is one of the saddest songs. It begins with only two guitars (a finger-picked lead and that god damn lap steel again), and Eric’s voice is so plaintive, sounds like it’s about to crack, and he sings: Oh, gracious love, you were so kind to me. You only broke my heart, let my arms and legs stay strong. So I could swim upon the open sea, searching for another love. Floating along aimlessly. I haven’t told you about Carmine, yet. Carmine was a musician who looked like a magician from an old-time carnival. The year before, he’d ruined me in a worse way than any other lover ever had. (As a friend put it, he was one of the ones who fucked me up so bad I was pretty much ruined for anyone else.) He ruined me, but I let him back into my life. That summer, we got together. It was supposed to be closure, but of course it just opened everything up again. He said: “I want to be with you. I want to try again.” I said: “Okay, yes, let’s start over. I want to be with you.” He said: “Only if you break things off with all your other lovers. I want to be your only.” The nerve, giving me an ultimatum like that when he was even more of a notorious libertine than I was. And the song sang: I had someone, a love I thought was true. But sometimes you just get tired, and you must try not to die. And give your love, though no one may receive. You must build a giant fire, for the whole wide world to see. It sounded like that whole heartbroken, hot summer. Oh, where are you, love?

The title track, “Dignity and Shame,” is a piano ballad that told me: To be sure, there ain’t no cure. There could be no one to save you. It is the track I return to over and over, more than any other track on the album. Though my life has calmed down a lot in the decade since that summer, sometimes – that feeling comes, you’ve been here once before. That wicked feeling you don’t want to feel no more. And then, Eric Bachmann (get out my head, god damn it!) sings: You’re not the same as the day that you came. You can choose dignity, or shame.

I choose dignity. I carry my broken heart like a torch in the night. Little keeper of light, burning deep, burning bright in the dark.

[originally appeared in Witchsong in October 2015]

#jessie lynn mcmains #my writing #music #memoir #crooked fingers #dignity and shame #2015 #2005 #love #lovers #heartbreak #panic attacks #drugs #alcohol #lyrics #this is still one of my favorite pieces of music writing i've ever written #and since witchsong has gone dark i thought i'd share it here

[speedybooksandcreativeheaven]

CEO Troubles Series

Chapter 7

Summary: Back in the demon world, James the eldest demon was told to use his mark to find his soulmate, but he soon discovers that his mate is human and wants nothing to do with him. He is also in charge of a large toy company that was previously run by Mr. Anderson the warlock that brought his brothers to freedom. Now 1 year later, James took the position as Mika is now his VP. Will Kayla accept her fate or will she fight?

Chapter summary: Tony finally meets the one who gave him demon powers as he teaches him how to use his new gifts. Back in the Anderson household, Mika, Kayla and the brothers are all confused as to see another mark on her. As they try to figure out what is going on they might be a little bit too late.

Word Count: 1,840

Tony's POV

“Ugh, what the hell happened to me?” I groaned in the quiet room as I slowly stand up from the floor and take in my surroundings.

I see that my living room is destroyed with large black demon markings all over the walls. As I get closer towards these marks, I see that they are burned and smell like rubber. I shudder as I remember how I got here in the first place. I made my way towards the bathroom as I wanted to take some painkillers for my massive headache. I walked into the bathroom as I take a double look at myself in the mirror as I couldn’t believe what I turned into.

I saw that my once white hair turn brown as my eyes have a ginger tint. I look towards my body as I see my apricot pointed horns on my head. I see some dark orange lines all over my body that made their way down to my legs. I look down as I saw hooves. Did I have hooves!? I screamed as the current memories flooded back reminding myself what I have done.  

“I made a deal with a demon to destroy James Anderson. I am a demon-human hybrid with the powers of seduction and rage.”

Again, as I spoke aloud as I heard no response I only saw my reflection. Before I could make another sound It heard like something was burning in the living room. I quickly ran towards the noise to see the burned pentagram glowing along with the demon markings on the wall. I glance around the room to see no active fire, but the room smelt like burned wood. I make my way towards it only to be pushed back towards the wall. There was a loud thud as all of my family pictures fell off creating a crashing sound that echoed around the small room. I saw a large built man in front of me, with black hair, fur and hooves. Before I could cower in fear the creature spoke.

“Earth to stupid. It’s me. The demon you made your deal with. Now, lets get introductions out of the way.”

He cleared his throat before speaking again, “I’m the Demon Lord, the king of hell! I have given you the powers to stop my son, Reastreo, from leaving and coming to this chaos of freedom.”

“You mean James right?” I questioned the lord as he rolled his eyes back, clearly annoyed at my question.

“Yes! That’s his true name! The name that I gave him! They must have ‘human’ names now.” He mumbled the last part as he glared towards me.

“Why did he leave?” I asked again, but I got shot down with an evil glare.

“That’s not part of our deal!” He gave me a cocky grin as he ignored my question, “You wanted to gain the power to win Kayla back and take your rightful place as the new CEO of Anderson Toys.”

I nodded but looked down at my demon form, “How will this, help me?”

“Come with me,” he formed another portal that he walked in backwards. I silently followed as we ended up in a dark alley way behind a seedy nightclub.

I looked down to see my human form with my white hair but my same coloured eyes. I looked puzzled at the demon, but I saw that he wore human clothes that was jeans with boots that showcased his slick black hair and his abs were clearly noticeable that barred his large black lineage marks.

“Sorry, it’s not everyday when I see a demon with abs and no shirt.” I snickered as he caught on that I was starting.

“You fool! Back in the Demon World we are shirtless, baring their lineage colours on their body’s is a sign of power and pride! As I am in the human world for the time being I wear this.” He looked at his outfit, “Now, to explain how this works.”

“You were given the main powers of seduction, rage, and manipulation. These will be your three keys to get what you want most in life. You can seduce any man or women to get them to do anything that they deeply desire. With manipulation you can be able to smooth talk to anyone to get your way. You also get my rage and you are able to collect Kayla’s energy through this mark that I bared to you. You are also stronger, faster, and clever than before as a demon.”

I rolled up my sleeve to see a sliver crown with demon symbols of revenge. It flickered in the light as it looked like a tattoo.

“Just one more thing,” he exclaimed, “If you can’t destroy Reastreo in two weeks your soul and body will be mine. I will bring you back to the demon world for you to pay for fucking me over! Don’t make me wrong, human pig!”

He then disappeared into darkness as I am left alone back in my bedroom.

‘So, I have two weeks to get Kayla, my dream job and to kill James for taking it away from me.’

I walked towards the broken glass as I lifted up a photo of my parents, “Don’t worry, I’ll make you proud of me. No matter the cost.”

I burnt the photo in my hands causing ashes to form. Before it hit the floor I snapped my fingers and the ashes blew into the air. I decided to pay James and Kayla a visit since I wanted to explore my new demon side.  

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE ANDERSON HOUSEHOLD…

It’s been a couple of minutes since Mika expelled the old mark we are all looking at the new mark confused; I saw Kayla back away on the couch clearly scared. The silence broke when Mika cleared her throat in the large room.

“James,” Mika started as she looked worried, “Could you lift up your sleeve, to see if you have the same mark?”

I nodded but as I lifted up my jacket sleeve to show my bare arm, I noticed that it was gone. Mika eyes widened as well as mine.

“But, if you’re not the one who marked you.. Who did?”

I could sense that something was wrong. I tried to shake off that feeling as we were trying to figure out what was going on. In the corner of my eye I saw Kayla jump off the couch and screamed in pain as we all turned our heads towards her to see shaking while in front of a mirror while we all gathered around her.  

“What the hell happened! Mika! I have another mark, I thought that you removed the one on James!” her brown eyes were in tears as she growled at the new mark on her soft skin. Mika’s greens eyes cast downward as she didn’t have an explanation as to what was going on.  I slowly approached her as she turned to the mirror in shame. I could feel her shallow breathing as I turned her around to comfort her as she leaned in my chest.

“Can I see the new mark?” I questioned, “James,” she looked at me with a sad smile as she took her right arm. It was almost the same as my mark like before, but it was a sliver crown that was circled around demon symbols of revenge.

I start to think about all of people that could have marked my flower. My mind was blank as I looked around the room to see my brothers and Mika considering who would do such a thing but to no avail. As I held Kayla in my arms I felt like something was burning. She pulls away from me as she grips her marked arm to see the mark glowing and letting off steam. Before I could calm her down we all looked towards the ground to see the familiar pentagram, under Kayla’s feet.

“James?” her voice was scared as she looked towards me. My eyes widen as I scream towards her as she is falling into the darkness.

“Don’t you worry, my flower! I will find you! I will always find you!” My frantic body spring into action as I tried to grab her. My strong hand found hers, but a strong force pulled her down further into the darkness. I wanted to jump inside to save her, but Mika pulled me back with her dainty hands on the back of my shirt. I face here with her green eyes full of worry.

“What the hell!” I start to rage as I can feel my golden markings slowly come onto my body as I was slipping away from the human form, “Why did you pull me back!” I roared.

I see her straighten her stance as she marches towards me. Everyone in the house remained silent as all of the attention in the room was on these two.

“James!” I hear her start as she is able to block out my demon magic, “If you went in that portal than you and Kayla would have been trapped in the darkness! I know you want to save her but at what cost will be enough for you Reastreo!”

As soon as I heard my true name I appeared right before her as all of my anger was gone. I was more relaxed as I remembered that Mika is not my enemy here. She wants to save Kayla just as much as I do. I felt my magic slowly disappear as she touches my arm where the previous mark was.

“See James,” she coos at me, “I am not your enemy here. We are going to bring Kayla back. I have a plan.” I perked up as soon as she said plan.

“Since you have marked her before you can still smell her energy even after I removed your mark. Despite everything that happens you are her soulmate James.” She walks up towards me as she touches my forearm where the mark was, “You were able to sense her in pain before she got the new mark and even now,” she slowly rubs her fingers to see some golden dust, “You knew that she was going to be harmed and yet you were going to risk your life for her.”

I smile down at her as I nodded to answer her statements. I look at my previous mark, knowing that I never meant to hurt Kayla like I did.

“What’s the plan Mika?” My voice becomes dangerous as I clutched my fists so tight my hands appeared to be white.

#seduce me the otome x reader #orgininal female character #demon Mark AU #James Anderson #james x reader #Raestrao #Mika Anderson #James Incubus #orgininal male character

[freedomartspress]

Three Poems — Tongo Eisen Martin

Kick Drum Only

All street life to a certain extent starts fair

Sometimes with a spiritual memory even

Predawn soul-clap/ your father dying even

Maybe I’ve pushed the city too far

My sensitivities to landfill districting and minstrel whistles/

White supremacist graffiti on westbound rail guards 

-all overcome and reauthored

The garbage is growing voices

Condensed Marxism 

modal gangsterism for a warrior-depressive

Underpass in my pocket

because I am a deity

or decent bid on the Panther name 

revolutionary violence that chose its own protagonists 

or muted stage of genius

A merciful Marxism        

Disquieted home life 

Or metaphor for relaxing next to a person 

Who is relaxing next to a gun

I stare at my father for a few seconds 

Then return to my upbringing

Return to the souls of Ohio Black folks

Revolution is damn near pagan at this point

You know what the clown wants? The respect of the ant. 

Wants a pen cap full of bullets

Wants to see their ancestors in broad daylight

I am not tired of these rooms; just tired of the world that give them a relativity 

My only change of clothes prosecuted

The government has finally learned how to write poems

shoot-outs that briefly align…

that make up a parable

white bodies are paid well, I posit

do white men actually even have leaders?

all white people are white men

white men will only ever be metaphors

all I do is practice, Lord

A rat pictures a river

Can almost taste the racial divide

Can almost roll a family member’s head into a city hall legislative chamber

Knows who in this good book will fly

I have decided not to talk out of anger ever again, Lord

Met my wife at the same time I met new audience members for our pain

We passed each other cigarettes and watched cops win

A city gone uniquely linear

Harlem of the West due a true universe 

 “I will always remember you in fancy clothes,” my wife said 

so here I sit… twisting in silk ideation

  My rifle made of tar

My targets made of an honest language

This San Francisco poetry is how God knows that it is me whining 

Writing among the lesser-respected wolves

Lesser-observed militarization

Dixie-less prison bookkeeping/I mean the California gray-coats are coming 

lynch mob gossip and bourgeois debt collection

I mean, it’s tempting to change professions mid-poem

in a Chicago briefing, a white sergeant saying, “blank slate for all of us after this Black organizer is dead.”

standard academics toasting two-buck wine at the tank parade

bay of nothing, Lord

  nuclear cobblestones, gunline athleticism  

and the last of the inherited asthma

children given white dolls to play with and fear

facial expressions borrowed from rich people’s shoe strings

I can hear hate

And teach hate

And call tools by people names

And name people dead to themselves

no one getting naturalized except federal agents soon 

carving the equator into throats soon

I’m sorry to make you relive all of this, Lord

pre-dawn monarchy 

friends putting up politician posters then snorting the remainder of the paste

minstrel scripts shoveled into the walls by their elders

my children sharpening quarters on the city’s edge

For these audiences

I project myself into a ghost like state

For these gangsters, I do the same

every now and then, we take a nervous look east

Sleep becomes Christ

Sleep starts growing a racial identity

do you ever spiral, Lord?

has the gang-age betrayed us?

be patient with my poems, Lord

So much pain

there is a point to crime… 

There has to be if race traitors come with it

 Lord, is that my revolver in your hand?

Better presidents than these have yawned at cages

Have called us holy slaves

Filled the school libraries with cop documentaries

Baby, I don’t have money for food

I have no present moment at all

/

I Do Not Know the Spelling of Money

I go to the railroad tracks

And follow them to the station of my enemies

A cobalt-toothed man pitches pennies at my mugshot negative

All over the united states, there are

Toddlers in the rock

I see why everyone out here got in the big cosmic basket

And why blood agreements mean a lot

And why I get shot back at

I understand the psycho-spiritual refusal to write white history or take the glass freeway

White skin tattooed on my right forearm 

Ricochet sewage near where I collapsed 

into a rat-infested manhood

My new existence as living graffiti 

In the kitchen with

a lot of gun cylinders to hack up

House of God in part

No cops in part

My body brings down the Christmas 

The new bullets pray over blankets made from old bullets

Pray over the 28th hour’s next beauty mark

Extrajudicial confederate statue restoration 

the waist band before the next protest poster 

By the way,

Time is not an illusion, your honor

I will return in a few whirlwinds

I will save your desk for last

You are witty, your honor

You’re moving money again, your honor

It is only raining one thing: non-white cops

And prison guard shadows 

Reminding me of

Spoiled milk floating on an oil spill

A neighborhood making a lot of fuss over its demise

A new lake for a Black Panther Party

Malcom X’s ballroom jacket slung over my son’s shoulders

Pharmacy doors mid-slide

         The figment of village

                     a noon noose to a new white preacher

Wiretaps in the discount kitchen tile

-All in an abstract painting of a president

Bought slavers some time, didn’t it?

The tantric screeches of military bolts and Election-Tuesday cars

A cold-blooded study in leg irons

Leg irons in tornado shelters

Leg irons inside your body

  Proof that some white people have actually fondled nooses

That sundown couples 

made their vows of love over   

opaque peach plastic

and bolt action audiences     

Man, the Medgar Evers-second is definitely my favorite law of science

Fondled news clippings and primitive Methodists 

My arm changes imperialisms 

Simple policing vs. Structural frenzies

Elementary school script vs. Even whiter white spectrums

Artless bleeding and

the challenge of watching civilians think

     “terrible rituals they have around the corner. They let their elders beg for public mercy…beg for settler polity”

“I am going to go ahead and sharpen these kids’ heads into arrows myself and see how much gravy spills out of family crests.”

Modern fans of war

    What with their t-shirt poems

    And t-shirt guilt

And me, having on the cheapest pair of shoes on the bus, 

I have no choice but to read the city walls for signs of my life

                                                                                     /

The Chicago Prairie Fire

First, I must apologize to the souls of the house

I am wearing the cheek bones of the mask only

Pill bottle, my name is yours

Name tagged on the side of a factory of wrists

Teeth of the mask now

Back of the head of the mask now 

        New phase of anti-anthropomorphism fending for real faces

Stuck with one of those cultures that believes I chose this family

I am not creative

Just the silliest of the revolutionaries

My blood drying on 

   my only jacket

just as God got playful

the police state’s psychic middlemen

Evangelizing for the creation of an un-masses 

An un-Medgar

Blood of a lamb less racialized

or awesome prison sentence

Good God

Elder-abuse hired for the low

dog eat genius

Right angle made between a point

On a Louisiana plantation

And 5-year old’s rubber ball 

3 feet high and falling

like a deportee plane 

to complete my interpretation 

(of garden variety genocide) 

I am small talk

about loving your enemies

A little more realistically

About paper tigers 

And also gold…

I need my left hand back 

I broke my neck on the piano keys

Found paradise in a fistfight

Maybe I should check into the Cuba line

Watching the universe’s last metronomes

some call Black Jacobins

Just wait…

These religions will start resigning in a decade or two

Some colorfully 

Some transactional-ly

In a cotton gothic society

Class betrayal gone glassless/ I mean ironically/ my window started fogging over too 

Wondering which Haiti will get me through this winter

Which poem houses souls

Which socialist breakthroughs

Breakthroughs like ten steps back

Then finally stillness

Stillness

Then stillness among families

a John Brown biography takes a bow

I’m up next to introduce Prosser to Monk

I remember childhood

Remember the word “Childhood” being a beginning 

Scribbling on an amazing grace 

I rented this body from some circumference of slavery

Remember being kicked out of the Midwest

Strange fruit theater

Lithium and circuses

Likeminded stomachs 

The ruling class blessing their blank checks with levy foam…

                            with opioid tea 

Sentient dollar bills yelling to each other pocket to pocket

Cello stands in the precinct for accompanying counterrevolutionaries 

My mother raised me with a simple pain

A poet loses his mind, you know, like the room has weather

Or first-girlfriend gravity

Police-knock gravity 

Mind-game gravity

Or revolution languishing behind 

The sugar in my good friend’s mind

“The difference between me and you

Is that the madness

Wants me forever”

A pair of apartments

Defining both my family

And political composure

Books behind my back

Bail money paved into the streets

Playing:

Euphoria

Euphoria

Cliché

Bracing for the medicine’s recoil

Sharing a dirty deli sandwich with my friends

Black Jacobins

Underground topography

Or grandmother’s hands

Psychology of the mask now

Teeth of the mask again

—

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems, Someone’s Dead Already was nominated for a California Book Award.

[forever-more-never-again]

In My Dreams (Scene Twelve/Fifteen)

Word Count: 1696

Pairing: Slow burn Dean Winchester X Reader

Summary: What happens when you wake up in the Supernatural Universe? And also happen to have a crush on one Dean Winchester! Will you make it back to your normal college life? Slow burn romance. Angsty Fluff.

Scene One / Scene Two / Scene Three / Scene Four / Scene Five / Scene Six / Scene Seven / Scene Eight  / Scene Nine / Scene Ten / Scene Eleven

Masterlist

Tears crowded my vision as I raced through the streets. The sunshine pounding on my skin, seagulls voicing the cries that were in my throat.

How did Serena, the supposed mermaid, know about how hard being in this place was for me? How hard I was trying to remember? How hard it was to decipher between the realities?

How I was starting to think that the normal, college, family loved [Y/n] was just a dream I had one night.

“[Y/n]?” My name brought my attention back to the present. The present being me running straight into a broad chest and nearly falling on my face.

Strong arms held me up, preventing my face from becoming intimate with the hard concrete.

“[Y/n], where is Sam? What’s going on? Are...are you crying?”

Oh that voice. That strangely sober voice.

I looked up into the sparkling emerald eyes and drew a deep breath. Taking a chance, not thinking things through, my thoughts a jumbled mess, my emotions haywire, I leaned up and captured his rough lips with mine.

Dragging out a ragged gasp, his lips parted and I took advantage of it.

Slipping my arms up around his shoulders, digging my fingers into his scalp, threading short brown locks through my fingers.

I was lost.

And then I wash shoved away.

“[Y/n]? What the hell!?” Dean looked pissed. Wiping a hand over his mouth, as if to rub away the evidence of the kiss.

I felt it pierce my heart.

I laughed, watery and ragged, “Sorry. I just...got emotional.”

The loud familari sound of Baby broke up whatever Dean was going to say next and Then the car pulled up next to us.

I finally took a moment to look at my surroundings and realized I had run almost all the way across town. The motel was only a block away.

Looking up at Dean as he walked over to Baby, where Sam was frantically climbing out of the driver’s seat, I saw he was still sober, and was probably on his way to the Motel when I had run into him. Literally.

“[Y/n]! Don’t ever run off like that again!” Sam engulfed me in a giant warm hug, lifting my feet off the ground.

Grunting, I beat lightly against his back, “Let me down you giant. I’m okay.”

Once back on solid land, I rubbed away the stray tears on my face and shot a smile up at Sam. He didn’t change his disappointed father look.

Shrugging it off, I turned and continued walking to the motel.

“Wait, Where are you going?” Sam called after me.

I waved a hand back to him, “I’m going to walk to the motel the rest of the way, meet you there.”

And that was just what I did.

Of course the boys beat me, having driven in Baby.

So when I walked into the room, it was to Sam sitting on one bed looking over at Dean, and Dean leaning against the counter in the kitchenette staring at the floor.

“Alright, you’re back. So, want to explain what happened?” Dean spoke, not with his usual gusto, not even with bitterness.

And I shuffled at the awkwardness in the room.

Sam sighed and moved so that he was looking at me, “I’d like to know what happened as well. Serena said something concerning and you freaked out.”

I collapsed into one of the chairs at the small table, the three of us forming some sort of triangle from where we were respectively standing or sitting in the room.

Dragging a hand down my tired face, I leaned in the chair to stare at the ceiling, “It just struck a nerve with me. That she could tell that I was struggling with being here. That my memories are becoming more warped and dream like. Along with what you said earlier,” The legs of the chair clanked loudly as they dropped back onto all four as I looked over at Sam, raising an eyebrow so that he knew I was talking about the conversation in the motel and Baby after Dean left, “It just became too much at once. I felt trapped, so I ran.”

When I glanced sideways, I saw Dean looking over at me with concern. His arms that were once crossed over his chest, hanging down at his sides, one foot forward like he had debated walking over to me but stopped.

“You haven’t mentioned your memories since last night. You haven’t started a notebook yet?” Sam asked, concern dripping from his voice.

I shook my head, sighing, “I...I woke up this morning and felt like it had been a dream. I didn’t...I don’t want to forget. But I think…” I stopped to take a breath, and standing, I looked over at Dean, who swiftly looked away with a frown, “I think I need to talk with Dean for a moment. If that’s okay Sam.”

Sam stood and walked past me, Squeezing my shoulder, “That’s fine. I’m going to head back to city hall and talk to Serena more and see if she knows how to kill these Kin members of hers.”

Accepting that, I waited until the rumble of Baby’s engine faded.

The silence in the motel room was stifling, and I knew I was the one who should break it, But I was scared.

Looking over at Dean, his stance was closed off. And it hurt.

“Dean...I.” I didn’t know what to say. I knew what I had to, what I wanted to, but I couldn’t put it into words.

Dean scoffed, “Surprised to see me sober? After all, I’m a character you’ve watched a hundred times, you probably know me better than I know myself.” The derision in his tone, the way he spoke, it sparked an anger within me.

I walked right up to him and poked him in the chest, causing him to startle and his eyes widen and look at me, “What I said earlier today was wrong! I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I’m...I’m struggling but to take it out on you when you’ve been nothing but kind and understanding was wrong.”

I swallowed the rock building in my throat, threatening to cause me to cry again.

Dean stared, wide eyed at me, before slowly leaning in, a hand came up and cupped my cheek and I sighed, leaning into it.

“You are very real. And I am real. And we’re both here. Right now. And I think I want to choose happiness over worry and stress and anger at the situation I am in. And I’m happy with you, Dean. You make me happy. So I’m done worrying. I’m done thinking about actors and cheating and the implications of this decision. I want to be happy with you. So I guess….what I’m asking is, can we start over?”

I had closed my eyes halfway through my rant. Now, as the silence dragged on, I peaked open one eye.

Dean’s hand was warm on my cheek, but the look on his face made him look frozen.

Then with a shake of his head, I was once again lost as he kissed me.

His other hand snaked around and tightened around my waist, lifting me up.

Spinning around, he dropped me so that I was sitting on the counter. He moved closer, never once breaking apart from the kiss, to stand between my legs.

I breathed in his scent. The whiskey and wood and the smell made me moan in delight.

Any thoughts, or worries I had faded away. [Y/n] from one reality and [Y/n] from supernatural reality blended together until there was just [Y/n], the girl in Dean Winchester’s arms.

Time faded. Minutes, seconds, hours. It didn’t matter.

Warm hands slid up underneath my shirt. A dark chuckle and lips broke apart for a moment to whisper in my ear, making me shudder, “Are you wearing my clothes?”

I didn’t answer verbally. Instead, I gripped the bottom of the shirt and with a twist of my arms, It was gone. Lost somewhere in the motel room.

Another chuckle, “I could get used to this.”

I growled low in my throat, “Less talking.” Before surging up to capture his lips once more.

Dean’s hands slid once more around me, lifting me up against him as he walked towards the bed.

But before we reached it, there was the sound of wind rushing and then- “Dean! [Y/n]! I have found a way home!”

And suddenly I was on the floor, “Ow! What the hell Cas!?” I screamed, pain radiating from my posterior.

Dean wore a similar angry look as he offered a hand to me and then whirled to protect my half naked body from Cas.

“What the hell man!? Ever heard of knocking? Walking through the door like a normal person?”

Cas tilted his head, his look ever so calm and collected, “I am not a normal person. I’m an angel.”

Dean shook his head as I let out a giggle.

At that Dean turned to smile at me, and then whisper in my ear, the hot breath causing a drop of heat to rush to my core, “As much as I enjoy you being undressed, I think you should put on a shirt for now. We’ll finish what you started later.”

I could feel the heat change course and head to my cheeks as I crossed my arms over my chest and ran to Dean’s duffel to dig out a shirt.

Once decent, I looked to where Cas still stood with Dean staring at him. The men both silent.

“So Cas, what was it you said when you phased in the room?”

Despite the head tilt and scrunched eyebrows meaning Cas didn’t fully understand my question, he answered it, “I found a way for you to get back to your reality. The tattoo and how you worried it would be transferred reminded me of a friend and I just got back from his place to let you know. You can go home soon.”

My whole body froze.

What?

FOREVER Taglist:

@sxph-t @mialeelavellan @rainydaysrnevergrey @platonic-plots @sociallyawkwardcircus-freak-hi @ayyidkeither @queenbbarnes @mythixmagic @chas-z @thefridgeismybestie @strangersstranger @princess-evans-addict

In My Dreams Series Taglist:

@jadepc @stevieboyharrington @clarinette07 @topthis808 @wolfkg @heythereamigodude @100kindsofblake @animegirlgeeky

#dean winchester #dean x reader #dean x reader imagine #dean winchester x you #Angsty Dean #Sam Winchester #castiel #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural tv show #reader insert #tag list #please give credit #please give feedback #rose writes #enjoy

[magic713m]

Between the Sky and a Hard Place Ch. 4

Percy searched around the halls for Luke, carrying a few photos. Ever since Chris had vanished, searching for the labyrinth, Luke had sent others to find out his fate, while he and Percy were setting up and preparing for war at Othrys. When Percy received the photos from Luke's spies, he went to look for Luke in his room, but it was empty, along with the training room, the library, and other rooms Luke had frequented, lately.

Percy finally found Luke, staring outside a window in some random guest room. Luke made no indication whatsoever that he was aware of Percy.

"Luke?"

The young man turned his head to his friend, "Sorry, Perc. Just thinking."

"What'cha looking at?" Percy asked, stepping into the chamber.

Luke moved out of the way and Percy looked out the window. He had a good view of the San Francisco layout, but Percy knew what he held Luke's attention the moment he saw the tree bearing golden fruit, and guarded by the multi-headed dragon, Ladon.

"It's so bizarre," Luke said, "After my quest, I swore never to lay eyes on that accursed thing again. And now it's my next door neighbor."

"Right. Your first quest," Percy recalled.

"First and only. And a total failure. I almost died, trying to get that stupid apple."

"What was even the point?"

"My father said it was to prove myself a hero. But I knew. It was just some twisted game to see if his son could pull off a feat, like the great Hercules."

Percy heard the bitterness in his voice, as Luke subconsciously touched the scar on his eye briefly. He knew it was a touchy subject for Luke, and he really understood his frustration.

"I'm not even sure you'd even consider it a real quest," Luke continued, "It was such a trivial task. My father had to issue it, instead of the oracle."

"Didn't you have any companions to go with you?"

"No one that I'd trust to help. The only people I'd have trusted enough was a girl I thought too young for me to see perish. The other was a friend who was too busy being a tree, herself," Luke answered.

"You think they could've helped?"

"Honestly, in hindsight, I am glad I was alone. I barely escaped from the quest alive, and if they had been there, I…I don't want to think about the possibility that they died just for an insignificant apple."

Percy nodded, looking back at the tree. It was just another reminder of why they still fight. So no one would have to go through what Luke did at a god's whim.

"So, what was it you wanted to show me?" Luke said, snapping Percy out of his thoughts, seeing Luke looking at the photos in Percy's hand.

"Right, well, these photos were taken by one of the lookouts in San Francisco. I think you should see this."

Percy placed the photos down on the desk and Luke looked at them. They were a picture of a man, who seemed unimpressive. But then Luke looked at one of the man from his left side, catching a glimpse of a tattoo on his neck.

"This is incredible," Luke said, "We wanted a way to control the labyrinth, and now we found our navigator."

"So what are we going to do once we find and navigate the labyrinth? Are we going to attack Olympus?"

"Unfortunately, Olympus has always been disconnected to it. But it can go other places, such as camp. Right pass the barrier. We could get information from our spies much more easily."

"And that's it, right?" Percy asked, sounding concerned.

Luke paused and looked up, seeing the worried Percy.

"Look, I'm not going to lie to you. Some people do think that this discovery could help us create a front line for a battle."

"No," Percy firmly stated.

"Percy, just listen-"

"No Luke. I am not even going to entertain the idea that we are attacking camp."

"The titans might disagree on that. Demigods are the strongest weapons of the gods and if we-"

"Are you kidding me!" Percy said, "I joined you because we're being used by the gods. All of us. And I stayed because we are trying to save the others. And now you want to attack them. Kill them!"

"It's not so simple-"

"Then how's this for simple?" Percy said, "If you decide to attack camp, I'm gone. I won't help you murder them for these monsters. Most are just kids, needing a safe place to be home. It was our home at one point, and I won't be a part of destroying it."

Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose, inhaling. He stayed like that for a few moments, before looking at Percy.

"Yes. You're right. I just want this war to be over. Thanks for keeping my head on straight."

"Anytime," Percy softly said, before looking back at the photos, "Now, what about him?"

"We should keep our distance, for now. If he does know the maze, he could easily slip into it when we aren't looking and we might never hear from him again."

"Sure. So approach with caution."

"Exactly."

After arriving in the freezing ski town, the questers needed to find a way to get further west. They were fortunate enough to have Apollo's help getting them so far, but now they needed a new ride.

However, none of this was on Nico's mind, as he was trying to block a blow from Thalia's spear. She swung it again and Nico once more tried to block it, but Thalia quickly pushed him down onto the ground and kept him down at spear-point.

"Dead," she said, pulling away her weapon.

"C'mon Thalia, aren't you being a little hard on him?" Grover asked.

"He needs to be ready," Thalia answered, "I need him to be prepared for anything."

"Hey, I was a big help with the lion," Nico pointed out.

"Yeah, you just needed to pretend to be lunch until your lucky powers kicked in," she said sarcastically, "Blind chance is not the best skill to have in a fight. Now, if you could summon that weapon, like you did before, then I'd feel safer."

Nico had tried to summon the weapon again on their trip a few times, with no luck.

"I think I've got the picture-"

"No, you don't," Thalia said, in aggravation, "This isn't your card game. This is your life now. One mistake, one screw up, and you and your companions are dead. Those demigods you saw, they are the enemy. We will most likely have to fight them, even kill them, or they will kill us. Do you understand?"

"What about the other kid, Percy?" Nico asked, "He saved my life. He-"

"He's a traitor," Thalia said, causing Grover to flinch, "He is no better than the monsters he works for."

"Um, Thalia, I wouldn't go that far," Grover said, meekly, "He saved me, and he did help Nico and Bianca. Maybe we can talk to him."

"He had plenty of chances to surrender. Next time I see him, he won't get away," she said, firmly.

Grover lowered his head, and walked off.

"Will he be alright?"

Thalia's expression softened.

"Grover told me he and Percy have or had an empathetic connection over the summer. He's too close to him," Thalia explained, "I think we've trained enough for now. Why don't you try and help Grover find a way out of this town."

Nico talked with Grover and began helping him collect acorns to prepare a tracking spell, when he saw someone step up in front of him. He looked up and saw his big sister looking down at him.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked.

"You can do whatever you want. You made that perfectly clear," Nico said turning back from her as he continued his search.

"Nico, you need to understand, I needed to do this. I couldn't constantly watch over you."

"You saw an opportunity to ditch me and you took it. I get it," he said, his voice displaying annoyance.

"Look, we just found out we were demigods. I had enough responsibility when it was just us without the monsters. Then we were attacked and I was offered the chance to be free of it."

"Free of me, you mean. That's what family is, something you just abandon the first chance you get."

"It wasn't like I left you on the side of the road and drove off. You were going to camp, where you would be with kids just like you. You'd be living the life like you always wished in Mythomagic. You were taking this whole news so well, and I was just terrified."

"Well, you got your freedom. You no longer have to be my big sister so I hope you're happy. I don't care how you try to rationalize it, you just-"

Suddenly, Nico and Bianca felt a warm spring breeze pass by them. The sudden shift of winter to warm air startled them and they saw Grover stand before collapsing. The group gathered around Grover as Bianca tried to wake him. Nico saw Thalia arm her spear.

"Be ready," she commanded Nico, "We have to go."

The questers moved to the edge of town, supporting Grover, before two skeletons appeared. Thalia activated her bracelet, producing a shield to block the bullets from the skeletons' handguns. Bianca and Zoe armed their bows as Bianca commanded them to back away. But Nico felt something was wrong. Just then, two more skeletons appeared behind them, surrounding the group.

Grover was sprouting words, like a crazy satyr. Something about the Wild.

"We're going to have to fight them. One for each of us," Thalia said to the group, before looking at Nico, "I guess we'll see if you're ready."

The group charged at their individual opponents. Nico charged, using his natural agility to prevent the skeleton from shooting him, as Thalia advised during training. He struck the skeleton with his dagger and cut off his arm and it dissolved in the ground. Nico went for another strike, but something slammed into him from behind, knocking him off his feet.

He looked up to see one of the demigods from the museum standing over him, his bruised face glaring down at Nico. Behind him were three more demigods and he knew their chances went from slim to abysmal.

"Go, take care of the others. We only need Thalia," he commanded.

"James," the blond demigod said, "Jackson said he wanted them all alive and unharmed."

"And the General said their lives didn't matter. I think I'll take my chances with Jackson."

"But-"

"Do as you're ordered, Samson," James said in a dark tone.

One of the other demigods placed their hand on Samson's shoulder and guided him away to the other fighters.

The others went to fight their opponents, and soon Thalia and Zoe were fighting off three demigods and one skeleton, while Bianca was fighting two skeletons, leaving Nico fighting against James and a one-armed skeleton.

"It was you at the meeting," James said, "You left a little beauty mark. Let me return the favor."

Nico quickly got up and prepared to fight. He easily pushed back the skeleton, but James was no push over. I one swift motion, James was able to slash Nico's back. Nico knew he was done for…if not for the Nemean Lion jacket. He felt the impact of the sword, but he was completely unharmed.

Despite his advantage, Nico began to back up to the group as he began to feel the ground shake beneath. He heard movement in the trees and knew something was coming. One skeleton was on the ground in pieces, but was quickly pulling itself back together. Nico tried to warn the others, but could only watch in shock as one skeleton lunged at Bianca. But she pulled out a hunting knife and plunged it into the skeleton's chest, causing him to burst into flames and turn to dust, similar to the arm Nico cut off from the other skeleton.

"How did you do that?" Zoe asked.

"I don't know," Bianca answered, "Lucky stab?"

"Well keep at it."

The other skeletons began to back off as Bianca prepared for another attack, but the other demigods were not as scared.

"Give it up," James said, "You're finished."

He looked like he was about to say something else, or maybe just attack, but he was interrupted by a loud roar as the trees behind him shook and a huge pig appeared from the trees.

"A Gift," Grover said.

The questers scattered as the boar charged, sending some of the foes flying through the air, behind the tree line. James shouted in anger and tried to attack the giant swine, but he was quickly tossed away as well.

The boar continued to squeal and rampage as the questers tried to stay out of its way.

"If this is a gift, can we return it?" Nico asked.

"How it this a blessing?" Bianca added.

The wild boar was rampaging all over the field, trying to run any of the questers down. Thalia brought up Aegis, hoping to scare it and it seemed to work, since now the boar's fear and rage was focused on her and Nico, who was unfortunate to be next to her.

The two ran from the boar and the boar began to gain ground on them. Nico berated himself for not training harder. Maybe if he had tried, he could do more with his powers. He had a very sudden, and pretty risky idea. He abruptly stopped and Thalia soon slowed down to look back to him.

"Nico, what in Hades are you doing?"

Nico turned to the boar and he remembered the feeling he had when he fought the lion. It's jaws lowering, trying to end him. And suddenly a weapon in his hands. He tried to remember that power that flowed through him. He kneeled and placed his hand on the ground. He tried to focus as the boar got closer.

The ground around the area began to shake, but the boar kept charging right at Nico. Until a fissure began to open in the ground and the boar tripped and fell into it with the snow piling on top. Nico looked to see it still moving around, though it appeared to be stuck in the fissure.

Grover, Zoe, and Bianca joined them as Nico kept his eye on the creature. He knew it would get out soon. The hole wasn't so deep.

"This is a blessing," Zoe said.

"How?" Thalia asked.

"This," Grover said, motioning to the animal, "is our ride west."

#percy jackson #dark percy #luke castellan #Nico di Angelo #Grover underwood #thalia grace #zoe nightshade #pjo #The Titan's Curse

[airbookworm]

Dating Advice

~with Rohan and older!Jinora~

 Jinora

Jinora walked the halls of the family’s living quarters quietly. The air around her was quiet and calm, though there was a touch of panic and worry. Probably Rohan, preparing for his first date. Ever since he had let slip a few days ago about the date, Ikki and Meelo had been pestering him nonstop for details. Tonight though, Pema had put those two on kitchen duty, so as to give Rohan time to collect himself. Their wise mother had sent Jinora to check on the baby of the family, make sure he was ready and didn’t need anything, like a snack, before he left. While Jinora had teased Rohan a little about finally having a date, she had left most of the work to the two troublemakers, knowing how irritating it was to have the other two on someone’s case about a first date. Lucky her, she didn’t have another sibling to really just be there for her to talk to, so she figured she could play that role for Rohan, if only a little.

As she approached the closed door to Rohan’s room, she slowed, sensing how tense the air was. ‘He must be nervous…’ she thought, raising her hand and knocking quietly on his door.

 Rohan

Rohan had spent all day preparing and after being teased he was really nervous about how he would say something stupid or mess up. He set on the bed his undone hair falling into his face as he would never cut it until the day he got his arrows. His soft eyes stayed glued to the floor as he twirled his thumbs around each others still wearing the loose robes from airbending training. He had gotten a shower and thrown on loose robes tied b y a sash that draped over his shoulder. He had earlier asked his father for help but could not bring himself to put on the formal long robes and cape. the studied the necklace with the airbending carving Tenzin had given him but ran his fingers over it. He sunk into his thoughts before giving a distant sigh. He felt the current in the air in his room shift even if he could not see the door and simply spoke in his usual low voice

“What if she doesn’t like me for me. What if she only likes me because my father is a councilman and my grandfather was the avatar. I dont know if she truly even knows me I mean she knows me but does she really like Rohan.”

He said before standing and looking out the window then back to the formal robes and giving a sigh of frustration.

 Jinora

Jinora smiled, a bit sadly, at Rohan’s thoughts. He had enough problems, trying to earn his tattoos and become a master, without having to worry about a relationship with a girl. She leaned against the wall by his door, not opening it, and took a deep breath. She guessed he knew she was there, so she had no problem speaking to him, even if it was through a closed door. She knew he didn’t like appearing weak. If he didn’t sense her, than it was his own fault- she did knock and let her presence be sensed.

“She’ll like you, Rohan, don’t worry too much about it. You’re a nice kid, and as long as you don’t lose your temper, I think it will be hard for her to find something to dislike about you,” she said calmly, smiling a bit now. Poor kid really was nervous. She crossed her arms, making herself comfortable against the wall before speaking again.

“As for her knowing you, this would be a great opportunity to find out. Think of it as less of a date, and more of a chance to learn about a person who could become a good friend. It’s all baby steps, little brother.”

 Rohan

Rohan frowned as he looked to her as she spoke and held out the robes “these are a lot of layers to wear I will look like I am filling in for dad at the council meeting” he said with narrowing eyes before he lowered the garments and sighed

“I have a friend his name is kin he is a earthbender but…He has had sex and he says the monks are weird because it is not a..uhhhhhhhh first thought when we meet a woman.”

he said shifting his eyes

“If she asks me I will turn her down and basically this is not my first small Date but the girl was all I want to sleep with you”

he said looking to her

“I asked her why and her reply was because I am rare, an airbender.”

he said with a frown

“I paid the bill and left”

he finished as he took a breath before turning away

“I don’t really think I have to wait for marriage but I want a spiritual connection”

He finished before realizing what he was saying

“I am sorry if I am bothering you, but I tried to talk to father he was all”

he went mono toned and stood straight lifting a finger

“Sex is not all that great you should have a spiritual connection with her then it is perfect, blah, blah, blah”

he rolled his eyes before continuing

 ”The monks do not share their temples with the world the world has to be invited into your heart”

he said with a laugh lowering his finger and walking behind a changing door and changing his robes before after a few moments he walked out

“This stuff is heavy”

he commented before gripping the wooden necklace and placing it over his head pulling his still messy hair from under it and turning showing his sister sarcastically

“How do I look”

 Jinora

Jinora blinked, staring at Rohan for a second. Had they really just gone from being nervous for a date to talking about sex in the last three seconds? They had all gotten the sex talk from their parents. At least, her and Ikki had gotten it from both parents. Pema had explained things when they started their monthly bleedings and then Tenzin had told them about the sanctity of sex a few months later. As for Meelo and Rohan, she guessed they had gotten the talk from just their father, around the age of 11 or 12.

She chuckled at Rohan’s imitation if their father- it was pretty accurate, and she had been told those same things. “Dad has a point though, even if he doesn’t always explain exactly what he means to say,” she said as he changed.

Her eyebrows rose as he showed her the robes. “You don’t look like yourself, and you don’t look like a teenager getting ready for a date.” She paused, moving across the room and picking up a hairbrush before sitting sideways on the bed. She patted the spot next to her, inviting him to sit down so she could brush his hair.

“Let Kin think what he wants to think, it’s his life. The monks and acolytes simply have a different way of thinking, and sex does not make it to the top of the list. As for that girl…” She paused again, thinking how to word her thoughts as she worked a knot out of his hair before continueing. “Well, let’s say I’m happy you didn’t sleep with her, and didn’t flip on her. It wasn’t polite of her to say any of that. Sex is a big thing, both spiritualy and pshysically, and it’s important who you share with it. You don’t have to wait until you’re married to do it, but it should be with someone you true. you know what I mean?”

 Rohan

Rohan set in front of her listening a she combed his hair and actually enjoyed the attention.

“Don’t take this wrong or weird or anything but I want my wife to be just like you and mother caring and sweet and well holds natural beauty no makeup. I want to wake up and not be shit-faced scared of her. I want a cute smile and good heart and unconditional love and devotion”

He said softly as he leaned into her brush enjoying the soft strokes and care she gave before a question popped into his head.

“Really now, so tell me Jinora, how are you so good at this conversation you speak as a mind of experience not a mind of curiosity” 

he said narrowing his eyes as he pictured literally trying to kill any man who dared to touch his sister.

 Jinora

Jinora nearly choked on the words she had been about to say, hearing Rohan’s question. She really did not want to discuss her sex life, especially with her youngest sibling. Still, she wouldn’t lie to him, not completely, anyways.

“Rohan, I’m twenty-five. Do you honestly think I don’t have some experience with guys and sex? Besides, we’re discussing you, not me, in this conversation.” She said, smoothly deflecting the topic. For the time being, at least.

She smiled at the compliment he had given her, and their mother, though. “Has anyone ever told any of the tales on how people find their partners?” She asked, running the brush through his hair a few more times before stopping and smoothing it with her hands. “Some people say that girls will find a guy that reminds them of their father, and boys will find a girl that reminds them of their mother. So it makes sense you’d want the person you marry to be like Mom, and by extent me. Trust me though, you’ll want her to be different in her own way. Now, go change into something less formal, but still nice. And clean.”

She patted his shoulder and got off the bed herself, placing the brush on his dresser and grabbing a hairband for him to use.

 Rohan

he growled hearing her words and rage surged through him before he stood and jerked the hair tie from her hands

“Well he had better be good to my sister”

He said in defeat before changing into more formal robes they were all yellow tied with a red sash but he kept on the necklace his father had given him to wear. Even if he did not have his arrows the necklace gave him the recognition of a airbending master and elder.

He smiled in the mirror as he simply walked out giving the tie to his sister and setting in front of her. He ground his teeth still angry as he set in silence thinking about how different things were now that they were grown. He took a breath and looked out the window.

 Jinora

She should’ve expected him to blow up like that, but she’d let it pass for now. He was stressing for his date, that was all. she nodded as he went to change again, sitting back down on the bed.

“He is, don’t worry. And I can take care of him myself, if he ever isn’t. But thank you for your concern, Rohan,” she said, smiling softly as he sat back down in front of her. She finger-combed his hair to fix it up a bit after his outfit change, before gathering it up and tying it into a ponytail.

Once done, she patted his head lightly, and stood, moving towards the door a bit. “Anything else you need or want to talk about? Mom was wondering if you wanted a snack before you left.” she stated, looking back at him. He looked nice in those robes, and it was somehow fitting for a date.

#repost from archive #airbendingprodigyrohan #older!jinora #threads #thread: complete

[kitashiwrites]

Acquiescence - An ACOWAR Lucien Fic

Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas Characters: Lucien, Cassian, Azriel, Mor, Amren, Feyre, brief cameo of Rhys POV: Lucien Rating: T Word Count: 3490 Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11653326/

Summary: End of Chapter 13 - beginning of Chapter 14 of ACOWAR from Lucien’s POV.

Lucien arrives in the Night Court with Feyre, but what did he and the Inner Circle do while Feyre and Rhys were reuniting?

-------

I had never seen Eris look so fearful in all of my life. Feyre’s words rang through icy tundra of Winter, the swirling tattoo I’d thought gone now stark against the pale skin of her other hand.

I am High Lady of the Night Court. That was what she had said to him. I would have been lying if I said I was not as surprised as the brothers I barely knew, who had hesitated when they no longer had the upper hand. I was being carried by Azriel, the Shadowsinger I had seen near death in Hybern weeks ago, and we were ignoring each other—and the awkward situation of him having to carry me—with great efficiency. But I was too grateful to not be running and had too much to think about to really let it bother me. Feyre was being carried by the Illyrian Commander that had his wings shredded, but judging from how Cassian now flew ahead of us, he was healed and back to normal. I heard a peal of laughter—could see Feyre throw her arms around his neck, see her joy and relief. On the other hand, I wasn't sure where they were taking us, or if I would be thrown in a cell and tortured upon arrival. Feyre didn't seem worried, and though I tried to let that calm my nerves, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wouldn't go away. Azriel flew slower for whatever reason, though it was clear he was no less capable than his fellow Illyrian, and we had fallen behind the others. “Thank you.” The Shadowsinger’s quiet voice startled me.

“For what?”

“Bringing our Lady home.”

Before I could say anything else, we banked suddenly. The border of the Winter Court loomed ahead, where it and the neutral, lawless land that divided Prythian in half was easily the best thing I had seen since we had left the Spring Court. I could see a blonde woman that I recognized from our confrontation in Hybern standing on the neutral side. The Morrigan’s expression was stoic and she watched us carefully. We had barely touched down before she practically grabbed Feyre from Cassian, enveloping her in a hug that would have been bone crushing were she still human. It was moments like this that reminded me that Feyre was no longer the Fae hating huntress that had killed Andras—she return the hug with just as much enthusiasm. The leathers she wore matched the Illyrians behind me, making her a devastating blend of deadly beauty. She had been the one to singlehandedly take out our sentries when Feyre had been taken away all those months ago, and I had no doubt that she would be a force to be reckoned with in a fight. I began to wonder if I would have been safer left on the tundra.

When she finally released Feyre, her gaze drifted to me gravely, as though she were determining whether I was a threat or perhaps a potential prisoner.

“He fought against Eris and the other two,” Cassian said breaking the silence. An explanation for my unexpected presence.

She tensed and swallowed hard. “Eris,” she blurted out, the tension in her voice thick and at odds with the image she portrayed. “Did you—”

“He remains alive,” Azriel answered. “So do the others.” I could see shadows curling at the clawed tip of his massive wings, a dark and deep seated rage made manifest. I knew that something had happened with Eris and the Night Court centuries ago, but I had never found out the details. From the looks on their faces, it involved the two Illyrians and the woman before me, and knowing Eris's personality, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. Morrigan tossed her mass of golden hair over her shoulder, her face a perfect mask.

“Then let's go home.” Home. To the Night Court. It suddenly occurred to me that in my single minded quest to find and save my mate, I’d never fully thought through exactly where I had been following Feyre to, or what fate could possibly await me as a member of the Spring Court once we arrived.

“Which one?” Feyre asked carefully. The woman turned towards me and gave me a stare that made me feel like she was looking at my soul instead of me. It was not a comforting feeling.

“The town house,” she said to her after a long moment, as if I had passed some sort of test. “You have someone waiting there for you.”

~~

Morrigan winnowed all five of us at once—a testament to the depth of her power, though she panted from the exertion. When she had said a town house, I imagined it would be somewhere under that northern mountain that I knew held the inspiration for Amarantha's cursed court.

But it looked so… normal. A dining room and sitting room filled with plush furniture overlooking a little front yard and a city street. Stairs and a hallway that led to somewhere that looked like a kitchen. And a shut front door that had light shining through the window, making colors dance on the rugs at our feet.

This was supposed to be the Night Court—the Court of Nightmares—and instead of darkness… instead of agonizing screams and wickedness…

“There are children laughing in the streets,” I said, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice as I looked at the people before me. I hadn't heard children laughing so carefreely since—

Jesminda. Since those days before everything went to hell and I sought sanctuary in Spring.

A small woman with short black hair and unearthly silver eyes emerged from the sitting room at that moment, her expression bored and even a little grumpy. “That they do so at all after Hybern’s attack is a testament to how hard the people of Velaris have worked to rebuild.” She turned to Feyre and bowed her head. “I see you brought home a new pet,” she said as she looked at me, her nose crinkling in distaste.

Amren. The Second of the Night Court. I bowed deeply to her, trying to curb my fear at being in the presence of the woman who was a story told to Autumn Court children to make them behave. I heard someone—likely Cassian—make an amused grunt, but I didn't care.

“Already trained, I see,” she said. I straightened and could see a hint of a smile on her face.

“Amren, this is Lucien… Vanserra,” Feyre said by way of introduction. I stiffened. I’d never told her that name, and I wondered how she suddenly knew it.

“I don't use my family’s name,” I clarified with another bow of my head. “Lucien will do.”

Amren gave me harder look, specifically at my metal eye. “Clever work,” she said appreciatively before turning to Feyre as though I wasn't there. I wasn't complaining. “Looks like someone clawed you up, girl.” There wasn't an ounce of deference in her voice, and Feyre didn't seem to expect it.

“What is this place?” I found myself asking before Feyre could answer her. Everyone looked at me.

“Home,” Feyre answered after a long moment. “This is—my home.”

Home. This bright, comfortable looking house. Not a palace, or even a manor like Tamlin.

“This is Velaris,” she explained. “The City of Starlight.”

The city that the mortal queens had given the name of to Hybern. The one absent from all recorded maps and memory. I left of my own free will. Feyre's letter to Tamlin had read. I am cared for and safe. I am grateful for all that you did for me, all that you gave. Please don’t come looking for me. I’m not coming back.

She had told us. If this was where she had been when she sent it, I wouldn't have come back to the Spring Court willingly either.

I swallowed hard. “And you are High Lady of the Night Court.” The title sounded foreign on my tongue.

“Indeed she is,” a familiar voice drawled. Feyre froze at the sound, the look in her eyes one of cautious hope. The others in the room, even Amren, smiled as she turned towards the doorway where Rhys leaned nonchalantly, wearing that irritating half smirk he always did and his ever present black attire. He didn't give any of us so much as a second glance—didn't question why Tamlin’s emissary was in his territory. But as he looked at Feyre, I saw that smile fade into concern and joy and something else I couldn't name.

Feyre let out a broken noise and fell to her knees, her hands covering her face. Before anyone could take a step in her direction, Rhys was on the floor in front of her, knees touching. Gently, he pulled her hands away from her face.

“My love,” he murmured and kissed her, clearly not caring that they had an audience. Feyre seemed to share the sentiment as she slid her hands into his hair, melting into him, her eyes closed and completely uninterested in the world around her. I wanted to look away, but couldn't. Rhys scooped her up smoothly as they broke apart. Never taking his eyes off of her, nor she him, he said, “Go find somewhere else to be for awhile.” Without waiting for an answer, the two of them winnowed out of sight, leaving me in the hands of the four people who regularly did the bidding of the only High Lord who could compare to my father in cruelty. Before I could say anything, Morrigan pulled me towards her and nodded to the others before winnowing us out of the house.

~~

We appeared in a cluttered looking apartment that looked like a windstorm had gone through it. Papers were strewn and stacked everywhere, some under an egg shaped ruby and others under collections of mugs that had a dried rust colored substance I didn't want to think about. And the jewelry. The bed alone qualified as a dragon’s treasure hoard, and as Amren took a seat amongst the gold and jewels, I could see her resembling one.

“I can't believe Rhys kicked us out to fuck Feyre,” Cassian laughed, taking a seat on a stool at the counter. He leaned on his forearms with a lazy smile. “He didn't waste any time.”

“What did you expect? They have a new mating bond and they've been separated for over a month,” Azriel reasoned.

“Honestly, I'm surprised he lasted that long,” Amren said bluntly, studying a brooch with a disinterested eye.

Morrigan threw her curls over her shoulder and sat down on a plush chair, her lips curled in amusement. “Or that he was courteous enough to tell us to leave.”

“How are you all okay with this?” I asked incredulously.

They all turned to me in unison, as if they just realized that there was another person—an intruder really—in their midst.

Morrigan raised an eyebrow. “Okay with what?”

“Leaving Feyre with Rhys after all she's been through.”

“There is no one else we would leave her with,” Cassian said, his tone matter of fact. He gestured to Azriel. “As our brother, I would trust Rhys with my life. As her mate, Feyre would—”

“A mating bond doesn't make you a perfect match,” I argued. “Rhys hasn't done anything to prove himself worthy of Feyre. He can control—”

“Those are some bold words for someone with such a small and narrow view, Lucien Vanserra. And you were the Spring Court’s emissary?” Cassian commented from his seat. His barely veiled mocking made me cringe almost as much as my family's name did. I hadn't heard it this much in such a short period of time in centuries.

But I couldn't stop myself from asking, “What reason would I have to believe any different?”

“Rhys would never do anything to intentionally harm Feyre,” Mor replied, her voice betraying nothing. “He’s not Tamlin.”

He absolutely wasn't. For all that Tamlin didn't listen, he could never be worse than that bastard. Tamlin didn't dress get Feyre drunk and up in gauze and cobwebs to dance in his lap. He didn't let anything happen to her—

Except he had. He had gotten her drunk on faerie wine at the Summer Solstice. He sent her away with no explanation when he could have saved us all by accepting she loved him. He hadn't stopped her from coming back and getting trapped Under the Mountain. He didn't do anything when she was beaten and tormented before him. Tamlin had beaten me at Amarantha’s orders. He let Rhys take Feyre on their wedding day and then sold the Spring Court out to Hybern to get her back.

I swallowed hard. “Tamlin didn't try to—”

“He didn't have to try,” Azriel interrupted, his voice quiet but powerful. “There are many ways to harm someone—to control them. You don't have to be a daemati to utterly destroy them.”

“It certainly doesn't hurt though,” I snapped back.

Before I could so much as blink, I was slammed up against the wall, the telltale edge of a very sharp blade angled against my throat. I dared to look and found the cold, wrathful gaze of the Shadowsinger staring at me, and knew I’d finally pushed my luck too far.

“Let’s get something straight, Vanserra,” Cassian said coldly. He stood up from his stool and crossed his arms. “The only reason you are alive right now is because of Feyre. We could have left you on the ice with your pathetic brothers, but instead of being grateful you were spared, you insult our High Lord and High Lady—the very reasons you are currently not rotting in a dungeon in the Hewn City.”

“I didn't insult Feyre.” Despite everything, she’d been one of the few I could trust. I couldn't say that of Tamlin anymore. Not after watching him wield his whip against an innocent sentry at that harpy Ianthe’s command, as though she were the High Lady of Spring.

“You’re not helping yourself,” he growled.

“You weren't Under the Mountain,” I bit out. “None of you were. You didn't see what he did to her there.” The memory of Rhys holding Feyre’s waist, her drunk on faerie wine and dancing between his legs as he laughed with Amarantha's cohorts flashed through my head. If anything, he was no better than Tamlin, but certainly had the capacity to be worse.

“No,” Morrigan said calmly, “we weren't. Rhys ensured we were kept out. But I know what happened. There is no one in this city who is not aware of the sacrifices our High Lord made for their safety.”

“Do you though? Did he tell you the things he did? Or what he put Feyre through? How about what he was to Amarantha?” I knew I was treading on dangerous ground, but I couldn't find it in myself to care. If they were going to kill me eventually anyway, I could at least anger them enough to make it quick. Judging from the cold, calculated anger in Azriel’s eyes, I knew I'd have to hope for Cassian.

“I know the sacrifices he made to ensure their safety, and yours and Tamlin's as well,” Morrigan replied evenly.

“He didn't do anything for our safety,” I snapped.

“You have no idea the sacrifices Rhys made, the things he did, when eyes weren't on him. He was willing to do anything to get her and those she loved out of there alive, even if she hated him as a result. That includes you and Tamlin.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you let your High Lord neglect her until she was so broken that we almost couldn't bring her back.”

“I—” My defense died in my throat.

“Feyre has made enough sacrifices. I think we both can agree with that?” She looked at me expectantly, and I nodded as much as the knife would allow. “She is perfectly matched to Rhys in that respect,” Morrigan continued. “Neither of them will let anyone help if they think it will put someone they love in danger.” While I knew she wasn't wrong, there was still the reason I had followed Feyre all this way.

“Then where is my mate?” I asked, my bravado gone. All I felt was bone deep weariness. “Is… is Elain safe?” I wouldn't believe anything until I saw her. Until I saw that Jurian had lied—that she was unharmed.

“Let’s get one thing straight, fox-boy,” Cassian answered. “You are only here because of Feyre's good will. Demanding answers from us, especially after insulting our High Lord, will get you nowhere. For whatever reason, Feyre chose to take you along, but that doesn't mean that you are immediately welcome here.”

“She saved me,” I said softly. “From Ianthe and Hybern. I do not let my debts go unpaid. And after—” I swallowed hard. “After what happened in Hybern, I needed to see my mate.”

A silence filled the room, and when I looked up, I could see an understanding in their eyes. As if they knew. But they couldn't know, and their looks of pity only made everything worse.

“Let me ask you something, Lucien,” Morrigan said quietly. “If Elain had been taken by Beron, what would you have done? Would you have let her be used as leverage against you?”

“Never,” I growled without hesitation. “I would have ripped him and anyone else who got in my way apart with my bare hands.”

“And if you thought she didn't want you, would you do it anyway?” she pressed. “If you thought she was in danger?”

“Whether we are matched or not, I would want to see for myself she is okay. I would make sure she was safe.” I didn't understand where she was going with this, but from her triumphant smile, I apparently had said what she wanted. They all exchanged glances, and I felt Azriel's knife leave my throat. I let out a sigh of relief.

“If only you could have understood that earlier for Rhys and Feyre’s sake,” Cassian said finally. “If she allows you to see her sister and Elain wants to see you, we won't stop her. But if you put so much as one toe out of line…” He glanced at Azriel, who gave an almost imperceptible nod, still palming his dagger. “We may not be in the Hewn City, but we still have ways of making you suffer. And we will make good on that threat.” The Shadowsinger gave me a look that promised endless torment, and I didn't doubt for a second he would follow through and enjoy it.

“Elain is my mate,” I reiterated softly. “I would never hurt her.”

“If you are about finished threatening our new pet, how about letting him wash the dirt and blood off?” Amren said suddenly, her voice cutting through the room, reminding everyone of her presence. I turned to see those silver eyes fixated on me. “As much as I enjoy the latter, it's of no use to me dried.”

I barely suppressed my shudder and she smirked. “There is a basin over there,” she said, jerking her head towards the simple sink. “It will have to suffice until you can get properly cleaned up.”

“Well, I suggest he hurry,” Morrigan interjected, “It seems our Lord and Lady have decided to leave the welcome home marathon for another time. We can go back now, and you can discuss your requests with them.” I nodded and walked over to the small basin, catching sight of my reflection in the mirror. I looked like absolute hell. My hair was in knots and snarls, and I was splattered with what I was sure was more than just my blood and a layer of grime and dirt. I washed off the worst of it from my hands and face as the others waited for me. The water felt good against my skin, and I couldn't wait until I could be properly clean again. I did my best to ignore the voice in my head that suggested that I’d be thrown in a cell before I got that chance.

“I wonder if the townhouse will still be standing,” Cassian said innocently as I dried my hands and face, though when I turned to look at him, his grin gave him away. “Rhys is lucky that the cabin is in the middle of nowhere. That avalanche he caused when they first mated—” Mor elbowed him hard in the ribs, effectively shutting him up, but his unabashed grin made it clear he wasn't the least bit sorry. I scowled at him, but he didn't spare me another glance as we winnowed back, and I waited to see what the eddies of the Cauldron had in store for me.

#Acquiescence #Lucien #Cassian #Azriel #Morrigan #acowar fanfiction #Amren #Feyre #Inner Circle #Not going to lie #this fic was mostly an excuse to have Lucien and the Inner Circle interact #hopefully you find it as fun as I did writing it #ACOWAR Chapter 13-14

[mfmagazine]

Taxidermy Couture

Article by Lauren Weigle

Photo by Rebecca Schmidt

Taxidermy Couture was definitely a must-have for me once I came across it.  Its art mixed with Goth mixed with glamour mixed with vintage mixed with...well, everything!  The point is that the collections are hot and almost entirely made up of one-of-a-kind pieces.  So, if you see something you like you better snatch it up fast as it may be gone tomorrow.  On the other hand, no one else will have the same gorgeous and unique accessory as you will, which makes each piece even more special.

Let’s talk about the Latin phrase “memento mori” and what it means in terms of Taxidermy Couture.

Memento mori means "Remember you must one day die". It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, to remind people of their own mortality and the punishment they will receive if they transgress the rules of their religion. A phrase that has had a tradition in art that dates back to antiquity. I always say my work is "Memento mori inspired" because I personally am not trying to remind people or their punishment when they die. In fact, I'm not one for religion at all. I was raised Catholic and was forced to go to church every Sunday until I left home at 17, but the silver lining was being able to spend an hour every week staring at beautiful art, art that still inspires me to this day… obviously. As far as the connection between memento mori and Taxidermy Couture... well, my use of animal skulls, teeth, and bones would make anyone think about death.

Pretty intense, just like the name of your label.  How did you come up with the brand’s name?

Originally I called my line "Morbid beauty", but it just didn't feel right; it felt very "Goth" to me. Yes, a large amount of my work has a Gothic feel, and I love that. However, I don't want to pigeon-hole myself into a set aesthetic. Some days I'm super vamp, some days I'm a modern hippie, and other days I'm something I don't have a term for. I am, however, extremely into high fashion and art so I felt "Taxidermy Couture" simply described the work much more, and will continue to do so no matter what direction I go in the future.

Tell me about the woman behind the company, Marya.

That's a hard one! As of [December] I am now Marya, the wife. I am happier than I have ever been before in my entire life! We went to Vegas with 10 friends and had the best time! Other than that it changes all the time. I try to dip my toe in anything and everything that interests me.

Speaking of interests, I want to hear all about your musical alter ego!  Spill it!

Valium Valentine, my pop culture alter ego! She was born a year ago and sadly we only got 3 songs done.  You can find them on Myspace. We (my husband and I) LOVE all kinds of music and wanted to just play. However, once it got started I kind of took over and so we decided it was my baby. I want to make a few more songs before she dies... But, we have another secret band we have been working on, so it can be hard to put your mind in two completely different creative places at the same time. My husband and I will always make music, no matter who hears it. Its funny talking about "my music" when I have some close friends in legit bands, they actually make a living making music and touring. If I ever had the chance to go on tour as a performer I'd jump on it.

Do you think your love of music ever inspires some of your pieces for Taxidermy Couture?

How could it not!? I name pieces after songs or bands all the time. I do a series of multi-chain necklaces with my signature mink tooth lockets and other "vampire inspired" charms, no two are the same, but they all share the name "Vampire Weekend". Aside from that, I think the music world has a huge part to play in fashion. I can't help but be influenced by music; it sets a mood. Bands I loved growing up are probably why I started getting tattoos and wore chucks, so yes, music inspires many a Taxidermy Couture piece.

You also style and cut hair.  Is there anything you don’t do?!

Well, when I was really young I want to be a fashion designer. I'd draw pictures of clothes all day. My mom was a super punk rock chic, purple and green hair, made all her clothes, made jewelry out of scrap metal she'd find on the street, etc. Since the age of 11 she'd ask me to cut her hair. I won't lie. I had a natural knack for it. By age 14 I could do a perfect bob. So, when I turned 18 and had been living on my own for almost a year, I decided I needed to figure out what career path to go in. Hair just made the most sense, and I loved it. Not to mention, Cosmetology school was a hell of a lot less money than college, and I grew up really poor so the thought of debt was scary. I've worked in so many salons over the past ten years. My favorite was Ultra Salon in Manhattan, NY.  I worked there for four years before calling it quits and crossing over to freelance. I did the hair for two Rapture music videos a few years back. As of now I turned our dining room into a mini-salon. I really love working for myself from home, I'm not a conventional person.

Conventional is way overrated.  So, Marya, why is it exactly that you are drawn to things like teeth and animal skulls?

I am very drawn to teeth. They are just so cool and creepy. I have a tooth wearing a crown tattooed on my left arm. I use a lot of bone vertebrae from various animals; they have the most amazing shapes! It seems wrong not making jewelry out of them. But my original inspiration really comes from a necklace I own. Long story short, my long lost father who I met when I was 23; we were both living in NYC and this amazing thing happened and suddenly I had the coolest father ever! Well, for my birthday he gave me this to-die-for Pade Vavra Diamond and shark tooth necklace. He knew I loved shark teeth and diamonds so, boom! Two years ago I made my first rabbit foot/shark tooth necklace for my husband. We had just started dating and he flipped out over it. That's really why I started making jewelry to sell to the public. He's an independent buyer for a clothing store in our neighborhood, so he convinced me I was talented enough to sell my work. A few months later, my Etsy store was up and running. But, I suppose I have a soft spot for things not the norm because of my mother and her friends, a bunch of young artists from Boston. I even got to be in a small independent film called "black hearts bleed red" directed by Jeri Cane Rossi. The bazaar and “oh so talented” artist Joe Coleman was also in this movie. If you aren't familiar with his work you really should Google him. I wish I had the talent this man has! All the little "weird" things about my childhood just stuck I suppose.

How are you able to take these things that, to some, can be considered dark or dismal, but create such beautiful jewelry from them?

It's all your frame of mind, to some it’s creepy and they will never be into it, no matter how pretty it is. But, to me there is nothing dark or dismal about letting these animals live on through art. I don't think any part of the animal should be wasted. Animals give us the gift of food and warmth. To me the bones and teeth are just as precious and should be respected and admired. No animals are killed for the sake of my art. All parts are from animals that have died from natural causes, or have been killed for the meat. I do eat meat, so I can't be a hypocrite.  I only use vintage fur (usually from damaged fur coats from the 1980's or older) because once I found out how they actually skin the animals alive, I couldn't morally buy new fur. I have very high standards for the materials I use, which is a HUGE part of the work that goes into these pieces. How do I make them beautiful? I don't really know... I just play with it until it becomes what it should be.

Tell me more about some of your one-of-a-kind pieces.

The majority of what I make is one-of-a-kind. And, even the pieces I can replicate aren't identical. To me, teeth and bones are like snowflakes. Because of my high standards of how the animal has died I can't place an order for X amount of jawbones at a time, so I work with what I have, when I have it. I do however do a series of animal skull necklaces that are all OOAK. No two are identical because if you are going to spend over $100 on a necklace, you don't want your best friend to buy the exact same one, right? These are special pieces to keep forever and cherish. Chains like Forever 21 make me sad, mass-produced crap that everyone has and falls apart. Not to mention, the poor children working over 8 hours a day for next to no money just so we Americans can be cheap and selfish, but that's another topic for another interview at another time.  

Well then let’s stick to things like some of your vintage-inspired pieces.  Can you tell me a little about those as well?

Well, I use a lot of vintage pieces and up-cycle them. That's another reason why most of my work is one-of-a-kind. I use a mix of new and old charms and chains. Because of my background growing up with my mother I have always thrift-shopped and had fun finding little hidden treasures at flea markets and vintage shops. It may even be in my blood. After meeting my father, I found out he originally started his long career of owning retail stores with a vintage store. I must admit that lately I've been VERY focused on my Taxidermy Couture, but now that my wedding is over I have more free time and I am planning on coming out with new vintage-inspired, non-taxidermy work soon. It all depends on my inspiration. I can't force my work or it will show, and not in a good way. Any art I make is an organic experience.

Ooh, I can’t wait for more vintage pieces!  My absolute favorites are the Vintage up-cycled Chanel earrings and the Mortality charm necklace, but it’s out of stock.  Any come-backs on the horizon for those items on your site that have already sold out?

I've had a soft spot for Chanel since I was about 20. I have enjoyed collecting Chanel earrings since then. I hate clip-on earrings so any vintage pair I can up-cycle into posts, I will. It’s funny you mention the Mortality charm necklace because one of my best friends Katy aka Kickball bought it a few months back, so I got to see her wearing it again at our wedding. She fell in love (her words) with it when we did a La Sera for Taxidermy Couture photo shoot. Luckily for me she used them as her press release photos. La Sera is her solo project. She's more known for her band "Vivian Girls". And again, that is a one-of-a-kind. Ninety percent of the materials used for that necklace were vintage parts.

I’m so jealous!  Any new ideas in the works for more killer necklaces or earrings?

I won't know until I make them, sorry. However, I am lucky that a collector in the mid-west (they are retired and go for nature excursions constantly) has decided they want to "clean out there closet" so to speak, so I have a large number of vertebrae, skulls, and wolf teeth coming in any day now!

I noticed you don’t have any bracelets or watches yet.  Ever think about including some pieces along those lines in future collections?

I've actually done a few pocket watch necklaces, all OOAK and all sold before I could even get them up on my site. I do gallery and trade shows and other events where I sell my work. I also sell my jewelry at Shotwell in Union Square, San Francisco (my current home) and at Modern Eden gallery in North Beach, SF. So, not everything makes it in my own online store. As far as bracelets, it’s funny. I've made a few, but I never really think to make more because I'm not much of a bracelet person myself. I have this thin gold wire I wear every day. Come to think of it, I might be on my third year of wearing it without ever taking it off. How funny! I never really thought about it.

So, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing, what do you think you would be?  A taxidermist?

Definitely not. I am actually squeamish. I don't think I could do any of the dirty work. If there is something I want to do, I'll try it out. However, I do love decorating. I could see myself in interior design. My husband and I love doing theme rooms in our house! We can't wait to own our own home one day and go crazy! Right now I'm starting some business classes. We want to move back to NYC and open our own small Brooklyn boutique. I'll continue to make jewelry of course, but we will fill the store up with any awesome artists’ work we can get our hands on. We're hoping this will happen within the next two years. More than half my online sales are from NYC, so that's a good sign.

[ffdfsvdsvsdv]

Three Poems — Tongo

Kick Drum Only

All street life to a certain extent starts fair

Sometimes with a spiritual memory even

Predawn soul-clap/ your father dying even

Maybe I’ve pushed the city too far

My sensitivities to landfill districting and minstrel whistles/

White supremacist graffiti on westbound rail guards 

-all overcome and reauthored

The garbage is growing voices

Condensed Marxism 

modal gangsterism for a warrior-depressive

Underpass in my pocket

because I am a deity

or decent bid on the Panther name 

revolutionary violence that chose its own protagonists 

or muted stage of genius

A merciful Marxism        

Disquieted home life 

Or metaphor for relaxing next to a person 

Who is relaxing next to a gun

I stare at my father for a few seconds 

Then return to my upbringing

Return to the souls of Ohio Black folks

Revolution is damn near pagan at this point

You know what the clown wants? The respect of the ant. 

Wants a pen cap full of bullets

Wants to see their ancestors in broad daylight

I am not tired of these rooms; just tired of the world that give them a relativity 

My only change of clothes prosecuted

The government has finally learned how to write poems

shoot-outs that briefly align…

that make up a parable

white bodies are paid well, I posit

do white men actually even have leaders?

all white people are white men

white men will only ever be metaphors

all I do is practice, Lord

A rat pictures a river

Can almost taste the racial divide

Can almost roll a family member’s head into a city hall legislative chamber

Knows who in this good book will fly

I have decided not to talk out of anger ever again, Lord

Met my wife at the same time I met new audience members for our pain

We passed each other cigarettes and watched cops win

A city gone uniquely linear

Harlem of the West due a true universe 

 “I will always remember you in fancy clothes,” my wife said 

so here I sit… twisting in silk ideation

  My rifle made of tar

My targets made of an honest language

This San Francisco poetry is how God knows that it is me whining 

Writing among the lesser-respected wolves

Lesser-observed militarization

Dixie-less prison bookkeeping/I mean the California gray-coats are coming 

lynch mob gossip and bourgeois debt collection

I mean, it’s tempting to change professions mid-poem

in a Chicago briefing, a white sergeant saying, “blank slate for all of us after this Black organizer is dead.”

standard academics toasting two-buck wine at the tank parade

bay of nothing, Lord

  nuclear cobblestones, gunline athleticism  

and the last of the inherited asthma

children given white dolls to play with and fear

facial expressions borrowed from rich people’s shoe strings

I can hear hate

And teach hate

And call tools by people names

And name people dead to themselves

no one getting naturalized except federal agents soon 

carving the equator into throats soon

I’m sorry to make you relive all of this, Lord

pre-dawn monarchy 

friends putting up politician posters then snorting the remainder of the paste

minstrel scripts shoveled into the walls by their elders

my children sharpening quarters on the city’s edge

For these audiences

I project myself into a ghost like state

For these gangsters, I do the same

every now and then, we take a nervous look east

Sleep becomes Christ

Sleep starts growing a racial identity

do you ever spiral, Lord?

has the gang-age betrayed us?

be patient with my poems, Lord

So much pain

there is a point to crime… 

There has to be if race traitors come with it

 Lord, is that my revolver in your hand?

Better presidents than these have yawned at cages

Have called us holy slaves

Filled the school libraries with cop documentaries

Baby, I don’t have money for food

I have no present moment at all

/

I Do Not Know the Spelling of Money

I go to the railroad tracks

And follow them to the station of my enemies

A cobalt-toothed man pitches pennies at my mugshot negative

All over the united states, there are

Toddlers in the rock

I see why everyone out here got in the big cosmic basket

And why blood agreements mean a lot

And why I get shot back at

I understand the psycho-spiritual refusal to write white history or take the glass freeway

White skin tattooed on my right forearm 

Ricochet sewage near where I collapsed 

into a rat-infested manhood

My new existence as living graffiti 

In the kitchen with

a lot of gun cylinders to hack up

House of God in part

No cops in part

My body brings down the Christmas 

The new bullets pray over blankets made from old bullets

Pray over the 28th hour’s next beauty mark

Extrajudicial confederate statue restoration 

the waist band before the next protest poster 

By the way,

Time is not an illusion, your honor

I will return in a few whirlwinds

I will save your desk for last

You are witty, your honor

You’re moving money again, your honor

It is only raining one thing: non-white cops

And prison guard shadows 

Reminding me of

Spoiled milk floating on an oil spill

A neighborhood making a lot of fuss over its demise

A new lake for a Black Panther Party

Malcom X’s ballroom jacket slung over my son’s shoulders

Pharmacy doors mid-slide

         The figment of village

                     a noon noose to a new white preacher

Wiretaps in the discount kitchen tile

-All in an abstract painting of a president

Bought slavers some time, didn’t it?

The tantric screeches of military bolts and Election-Tuesday cars

A cold-blooded study in leg irons

Leg irons in tornado shelters

Leg irons inside your body

  Proof that some white people have actually fondled nooses

That sundown couples 

made their vows of love over   

opaque peach plastic

and bolt action audiences     

Man, the Medgar Evers-second is definitely my favorite law of science

Fondled news clippings and primitive Methodists 

My arm changes imperialisms 

Simple policing vs. Structural frenzies

Elementary school script vs. Even whiter white spectrums

Artless bleeding and

the challenge of watching civilians think

     “terrible rituals they have around the corner. They let their elders beg for public mercy…beg for settler polity”

“I am going to go ahead and sharpen these kids’ heads into arrows myself and see how much gravy spills out of family crests.”

Modern fans of war

    What with their t-shirt poems

    And t-shirt guilt

And me, having on the cheapest pair of shoes on the bus, 

I have no choice but to read the city walls for signs of my life

                                                                                     /

The Chicago Prairie Fire

First, I must apologize to the souls of the house

I am wearing the cheek bones of the mask only

Pill bottle, my name is yours

Name tagged on the side of a factory of wrists

Teeth of the mask now

Back of the head of the mask now 

        New phase of anti-anthropomorphism fending for real faces

Stuck with one of those cultures that believes I chose this family

I am not creative

Just the silliest of the revolutionaries

My blood drying on 

   my only jacket

just as God got playful

the police state’s psychic middlemen

Evangelizing for the creation of an un-masses 

An un-Medgar

Blood of a lamb less racialized

or awesome prison sentence

Good God

Elder-abuse hired for the low

dog eat genius

Right angle made between a point

On a Louisiana plantation

And 5-year old’s rubber ball 

3 feet high and falling

like a deportee plane 

to complete my interpretation 

(of garden variety genocide) 

I am small talk

about loving your enemies

A little more realistically

About paper tigers 

And also gold…

I need my left hand back 

I broke my neck on the piano keys

Found paradise in a fistfight

Maybe I should check into the Cuba line

Watching the universe’s last metronomes

some call Black Jacobins

Just wait…

These religions will start resigning in a decade or two

Some colorfully 

Some transactional-ly

In a cotton gothic society

Class betrayal gone glassless/ I mean ironically/ my window started fogging over too 

Wondering which Haiti will get me through this winter

Which poem houses souls

Which socialist breakthroughs

Breakthroughs like ten steps back

Then finally stillness

Stillness

Then stillness among families

a John Brown biography takes a bow

I’m up next to introduce Prosser to Monk

I remember childhood

Remember the word “Childhood” being a beginning 

Scribbling on an amazing grace 

I rented this body from some circumference of slavery

Remember being kicked out of the Midwest

Strange fruit theater

Lithium and circuses

Likeminded stomachs 

The ruling class blessing their blank checks with levy foam…

                            with opioid tea 

Sentient dollar bills yelling to each other pocket to pocket

Cello stands in the precinct for accompanying counterrevolutionaries 

My mother raised me with a simple pain

A poet loses his mind, you know, like the room has weather

Or first-girlfriend gravity

Police-knock gravity 

Mind-game gravity

Or revolution languishing behind 

The sugar in my good friend’s mind

“The difference between me and you

Is that the madness

Wants me forever”

A pair of apartments

Defining both my family

And political composure

Books behind my back

Bail money paved into the streets

Playing:

Euphoria

Euphoria

Cliché

Bracing for the medicine’s recoil

Sharing a dirty deli sandwich with my friends

Black Jacobins

Underground topography

Or grandmother’s hands

Psychology of the mask now

Teeth of the mask again

—

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems, Someone’s Dead Already was nominated for a California Book Award.